Pacific Sun December 11-17 2019

YEAR 57, NO.50 DECEMBER 11-17, 2019

SERVING MARIN COUNTY

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Sheesh Team DOWNTOWN STREETS TEAM HAS CONTRACTS IN NOVATO AND SAN RAFAEL—IT ALSO HAS A HARD-PARTYING CULTURE THAT PROMPTED A STAFF EXODUS AND A LEGAL PROBE P6 OUR LOCAL

Gift Guide INSIDE

Zia MacWilliams is one of a dozen former DST employees who’s speaking out.

Christmas Jug Band P16 California Gold P22 Charlie Brown & LSD P24

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1020 B Street San Rafael, CA 94901 Phone: 415.485.6700 Fax: 415.485.6226 E-Mail: letters@pacificsun.com

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EDITORIAL Interim Editor Daedalus Howell x202 Movie Page Editor Matt Stafford Arts Editor Charlie Swanson News Reporter Will Carruthers CONTRIBUTORS Amy Alkon, Rob Brezsny, Harry Duke, Tanya Henry, James Knight, Howard Rachelson, Alex Randolph, Nikki Silverstein, Richard von Busack COPY EDITOR Mark Fernquest EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Alex T. Randolph ADVERTISING ACCOUNT MANAGERS

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Michael Levenson x312, mlevenson@pacificsun.com Danielle McCoy x311, dmccoy@pacificsun.com Marianne Misz x336, mmisz@pacificsun.com OFFICE MANAGER/LEGALS Liz Alber, legals@pacificsun.com ART AND PRODUCTION

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LUXWine Blowdry & Beauty • Jillie's Bar and Bar ShopMathnasium of San Anselmo

Letters Heroes & Zeroes/Upfront Feature Sundial Music Film Movies Dining Swirl Press Pass Trivia Calendar Classifieds Notices Astrology/Advice

CEO/Executive Editor Dan Pulcrano Publisher Rosemary Olson x315

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Design Director Kara Brown Art Director Tabi Zarrinnaal Production Operations Manager Sean George Graphic Designers Jimmy Arceneaux, Kathy Manlapaz, Jackie Mujica ON THE COVER Design by Tabi Zarrinnaal. Photo by Greg Ramar.

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Letters

Washed Up

The "booming economy" argument used by some to keep the president in office does not pencil, as they say.

For example, if a private company is successful but has a degenerate ape at the top, you replace the ape. And then you watch how much more successful you become with a competent person in charge. Let's give that a try.

Craig J. Corsini San Rafael

Power Brokers

Thank you so much for your coverage of the connection between PG&E and Darius Anderson, one of the local owners of the Press Democrat and founder of Rebuild North Bay. Though these links have gotten brief mention in the local rag, they point to the problems inherent in "local" ownership when power and money are involved—as they usually are.

Another local owner of the PD is Sandy Weill, former CEO and Chairman of Citigroup, and a chief architect of the Great Recession. Weill retired from Citigroup right before the economy collapsed, but his actions were foundational. Three million families lost their homes to foreclosure in 2008 alone, while trillions of dollars in bailout money was put in the pockets of Wall Street and Big Banks. And when the Weills give a tiny fraction of that money back, the Press Democrat makes it front page news and calls it "philanthropy."

Once upon a time, one could get this information into the Press Democrat, but not now that Weill is an owner. One can't even get the editors to respond to inquiries. As we are all finding out, local ownership has some very serious limitations.

Susan C. Lamont

joy

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Heroes &Zeroes

By Nikki Silverstein

A murderer is on the loose in Sausalito. He or she vandalized six young trees on the south side of Johnson Street. They cut down one of the trees and left the remaining five with severe limb damage, which won’t allow the trees to grow and develop a proper canopy. They, too, will need to be felled.

The trees, purchased by neighbors and planted a couple of years ago by the Sausalito Department of Public Works, were part of an effort to create a tree-lined street on Johnson. They had just started to establish a solid root system, but thanks to the killer, the six trees will never reach maturity.

If you have information about the tree killings, contact Officer Nick White of the Sausalito Police Department at 415.289.4170.

Got a Hero or a Zero? Please send submissions to nikki_silverstein@yahoo.com. Toss roses, hurl stones with more Heroes and Zeros at ›› pacificsun.com

Upfront Greg Ramar

When you walk into the Marin County Probation Department lobby, you’ll see the Wall of Change and find personal stories about people turning their lives around while on probation and becoming positive role models for others.

About 200 people attended a ceremony honoring the 13 probationers who made it onto the Wall of Change this year. A committee selected the honorees based on their inspirational success stories.

“I struggled for 10 months unable to find work due to not being able to pass a background check,” said Isadora Fisher, an honoree. “It was a constant reminder of what I had done.”

Today, Fisher, 32, of San Rafael, is gainfully employed, holds a humanities degree from Dominican University and is working to become a licensed esthetician. And, she’s sober.

In addition to Fisher, the honorees this year include Gregory Bentley, Jorge Chab-Carillo, McHenry De Marquis, Ryan Dill, Quincy Engelbrecht, Elsa Glembotzki, Jesus Hernandez, Shawn Kessler, Bermin Mazariegos, James Renshaw, Kiley Townsend and Pierre Tzannis.

Congratulations to all of the honorees for transforming their lives and motivating others to do the same.

Zia MacWilliams left Downtown Streets Team after four years because of what she describes as a toxic culture that promoted heavy drinking and tolerated harassment and gender-based pay discrimination.

One for the Team A toxic work environment, a staff exodus, and ‘a culture of drinking and inappropriate joking’ By Jennifer Wadsworth

H

omeless services provider, Downtown Streets Team, has contracts in Novato, San Rafael and other cities throughout the Bay Area.

Founded in the South Bay, it also has a troublesome hard-partying culture that attendees of a 2014 holiday staff function at its San Jose headquarters says was fully on display.

A young female staffer hired a month prior recalls mingling with colleagues by the receptionist’s desk when Eileen Richardson, the homeless

services provider’s CEO, walked up to join her. “Out of nowhere,” the employee recalls, Richardson asked, “So, you’re a lesbian?”

“We were standing at the front desk chatting, tipsy on wine, and talking about how I liked the job so far,” the newcomer, who requested anonymity to protect future job prospects, later wrote about the encounter. The woman says she laughed at the prying question but answered affirmatively.

Richardson then inquired about her relationship status and physical

preferences before waxing poetic about feminine beauty, the ex-employee says.

“OK, so what’s your type?” she says she asked Richardson, who “suddenly got serious and sultry-eyed, leaned in and said, ‘Well, you are.’”

The night grew “increasingly strange” as guests helped themselves to boxed wine and spiked fruit punch, did keg stands—that is, handstanding on a keg to guzzle as much beer as possible—and took swigs of hard liquor, according to »8 the woman, who says she

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8 Downtown Streets «6

Our revels now are ended: Downtown Streets Team in the holiday spirit.

drank so much that she threw up in the office toilet. All the while, the employee says, an “incredibly drunk” Richardson followed her around and “had her arm around me and kept telling my friends to go ahead and leave.” The staffer says her employer began “brushing my hair back from my face, snuggling her head into my neck” as onlookers shot worried looks at the pair.

Those same concerned co-workers eventually laid her down on the floor in the office of Richardson’s son, Director of Program Operations Chris Richardson, where the employee remembers waking up at one point to see her boss lying beside her “staring lovingly at me.”

One of the colleagues who witnessed the evening’s uncomfortably intimate conclusion “checked in with me often in the next few weeks” over Richardson’s “obvious coming on to me,” the employee says.

Others found humor in the escapade.

“Several other staff joked about Eileen having a crush on me, and there was a rumor that she’d kissed

me,” the employee says. “If she did that night, I don’t recall.”

A couple of months later, the employee says she attended a Super Bowl party at Chris Richardson’s home, at which Eileen invited her to have a beer and view a photo album at her adjacent residence, where she followed her and “kissed me in the doorway of the bathroom.”

‘A Frat House’ As the Bay Area’s homeless population ballooned amid an unprecedented affordability crisis over the past decade, Downtown Streets Team (DST) emerged as one of the most prominent local organizations trying to lift people out of poverty. By 2012 it had received commendations from future San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo, counted Palo Alto’s top cop as a board member and received nearly $400,000—about 40 percent of its budget—from direct government support.

In 2013, the nonprofit expanded into the North Bay, landing contracts with the cities of San Rafael and Novato.

In July 2018, the San Rafael City Council signed a fresh $300,000 contract with DST for services through June 2021.

Behind the do-good mission of employing the unhoused, however, a toxic workplace culture festered for years, according to a dozen former staffers.

In letters prepared by attorneys and echoed in reviews on jobrating platform Glassdoor.com, ex-employees accuse both Eileen, 58, and her son Chris, 33, of sexual harassment, making lewd comments, paying women less than men for similar work and promoting a culture of heavy drinking. Employees have described the workplace as “toxic,” “a frat house,” “full of nepotism and favoritism” and “a joke.” Multiple people compared working at DST to being in an abusive relationship.

Yet reporting misconduct proved difficult because of close friendships between the Richardsons and their strategically appointed board of directors and other managers, including Chief Operating Officer Elfreda Strydom, who until earlier this year fielded all personnel concerns.

In all, more than a dozen former employees interviewed allege harassment, sexual assault and discrimination at DST. Two of those ex-staffers are coming forward publicly with their claims for the first time, comparing the problems at DST with those that prompted the Silicon Valley Community Foundation in 2018 to oust its top fundraiser, Mari Ellen Loijens, amid allegations of emotional abuse, discrimination and sexual impropriety.

“Things got really, really bad,” says 34-year-old Zia MacWilliams, a DST program manager who left the nonprofit in 2017 after four progressively stressful years on the job.

“I honestly believe in the mission and loved working with my clients, but internally it was just out of control.”

Michelle Fox Wiles, 29, says she cut ties with DST for much the same reason.

“There was a really sexually charged environment,” she says.

“One comment that really upset me—and this was right after I started working there in 2012—was when a manager said I got my job because the girl before me was ‘so hot’ that they didn’t want to work with her because she’d be a distraction. Chris said it. So, there was that constant of gender-based

harassment, plus the nonstop drinking.”

Both MacWilliams and Wiles also accuse DST of perpetuating a pay gap that privileged their male counterparts.

After she left DST a little more than two years ago, MacWilliams teamed up with Wiles and nine of their ex-colleagues to pursue legal recourse. The nonprofit Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto (CLSEPA) took the case and offered the DST board a chance to resolve the allegations out of court.

“In some ways, it is unusual for our organization to investigate the workplace culture at a fellow nonprofit,” CLSEPA attorney Scott Hochberg wrote in an October 2017 letter to DST’s governing board.

“What is motivating us to reach a positive outcome in this case is our belief that we as nonprofit staff must embody justice and quality internally before we can reflect it out into the world through our work.”

It took a year and a month before the DST board agreed to hire the Law Offices of Amy Oppenheimer—a firm one CLSEPA attorney described as “well-known in the workers’ rights arena”—to investigate the allegations.

The probe, which commenced in late 2018 and concluded this past July, “substantiated a culture of drinking and inappropriate joking in the workplace,” according to an Aug. 28 letter from CLSEPA lawyer Jennifer Smith to the 11 claimants. “The board seems to be genuinely concerned about the work environment that was described,” she wrote, “although … they believe that things are better now than they were three to five years ago.”

While the board insists that the investigation found no evidence of gender-based pay disparity, Smith said in her letter that trustees expressed a desire to “see changes made.” One of the most significant changes, Smith went on to write, is that DST ramped up its reporting system by allowing employees to complain to the board directly and created a human resources position for the first time in the organization’s 14-year history.

The board also conceded that alcohol “has been an issue,” Smith said, and instituted a “total prohibition.”

Richardson says she never read any of the Glassdoor reviews and is only vaguely aware of the CLSEPA negotiation. But she denies there were ever any problems with »10

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Downtown Streets «8 DST’s work environment. “Those claims,” she says, “were unfounded.”

A Bold Vision A successful venture capitalist who gained global notoriety on the cusp of the 21st century as the CEO of the groundbreaking but controversial music-file-sharing platform Napster, Richardson brought the same changethe-world ethos to the charitable sector. Inspired by volunteering at a local soup kitchen after her son Chris left for college, the inveterate visionary founded Downtown Streets Team in 2005 with the resolve to end homelessness through job training and placement.

Under the DST model, local governments and business associations hire a team of homeless people to clean up streets in exchange for gift cards and case management. On its website, DST says its homeless clients, to date, have cleaned up 4,000 tons of debris from waterways that flow into the San Francisco Bay and 1.9 million cigarette butts. Since its founding, the nonprofit says it has also helped nearly 1,000 clients find jobs with average hourly wages of $14.12 and just about as many secure housing.

DST’s “win-win-win” system of hiring the homeless, cleaning up trash and benefiting the broader community garnered renewed acclaim for the elder Richardson.

Since its inception, DST has blossomed from a cash-strapped experiment in Palo Alto to a burgeoning enterprise spanning a dozen cities in two states with an $8 million annual budget.

Richardson—who makes upward of $200,000 in base pay as president and CEO of DST and an affiliated nonprofit clinic called Peninsula Healthcare Connection—has racked up numerous accolades for her nonprofit work. The San Francisco Chronicle named her a recipient of the Visionary Award earlier this year thanks to nominations from, among other dignitaries, Liccardo and his counterpart in Oakland, Mayor Libby Schaaf. “The honor salutes leaders who strive to make the world a better place and drive social and economic change by employing new, innovative business models and practices,” the Chron wrote about the distinction.

The New York Times gave her a similar honor a year prior. Also in 2018, the League of California Cities and the California State Association

of Counties’ Joint Homeless Task Force recognized DST’s model as a “best practice” for supporting homeless people. In the conference room at DST’s main office, amid commendations from elected officials and chambers of commerce, there’s a shiny blue plaque designating DST as one of the “best nonprofits to work for.”

In a blog post a few years back, Richardson credited her success to running her charitable enterprise the only way she knows how: “like a high-tech startup rather than a social service—action-oriented versus service-oriented.” To that end, she said, “we improvised, tried new ideas and constantly corrected our course.”

That constant course correction may guide the nonprofit’s growth-focused public mission, but sources say that it elided internal mismanagement, which exposed employees to workplace abuses and, at times, put vulnerable clients at risk.

Wine and Dine When one of DST’s original clients reconnected with his estranged daughter, two case managers wanted to celebrate his success by taking them out to dinner at a whitetablecloth restaurant in Mountain View. Since the client had struggled for years with alcohol abuse, the case managers told Richardson they planned to keep it a dry affair.

“By the time I showed up with the client, Richardson already had a bottle of wine at the table and was obviously a few drinks in,” one of the case managers wrote in a play-by-play of the occasion to the DST board a few years later. “We all kind of side-eyed one another. It was super awkward and completely inappropriate.”

The case manager, who asked to withhold her name, added, “The dinner was extremely uncomfortable, as Richardson got more and more intoxicated and continued to give our client alcohol.”

The client abstained, according to the two case managers. But her dinner companions say Richardson drank enough that she began slurring her speech, and one of the staffers present felt the need to drive her home. “On the way out of the restaurant, Eileen asked [the client] if he needed her to buy him a couple of beers at 7/11 to tide him over, and he declined,” the case manager-turnedreluctant chauffeur wrote in »20

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Gift Guide 2019

’Tis the season to spend.

Retail Renaissance

Thinking outside the big box keeps your dollars in the local economy By Daedalus Howell

L

ast November, the Google Calendar app greeted users with a new day of celebration: Black Friday.

The holiday in question appeared courtesy of the app’s setting for “Holidays in the United States” on Nov. 29. It hailed the annual retail bonanza sure to come as well as the implicit suggestion, that in this moment of late capitalism, Thanksgiving is pretty much “Black Friday Eve.” The retail season is upon us, but

that doesn’t mean you have to feed the gaping maw of big box stores and monopolistic online retailers.

When you think outside the big box and support local retailers—and better yet, purveyors of locally-made products—you’re doing wonders for your community and its economy.

According to an infographic released by GO LOCAL Cooperative, which “works to grow the market share of locally-owned businesses,” when you spend $100 at a locallyowned business, $48 remains in the

local economy. Compared to the $13 from big box stores that stay or the whopping zero for non-local online retailers, the advantage of keeping money in the neighborhood, so to speak, is what’s called the local economic multiplier effect. The more dollars retained in a community and re-spent within the local economy results in income growth for local people, increased pay, and more tax revenues returned to local governments—ultimately providing for better standards of living for

those in the community.

Among those raising the retail standards of the community is San Anselmo’s neve & hawk, a downtown ethical, locally-made clothing store curated by Kris Galmarini for the past three years.

The many offerings at neve & hawk include Galmarini’s own localclothing brand, a collection of other, hand-picked local-artisan goods, special books and gifts and now coffee. Galmarini recently opened a cafe in the back of her San Anselmo

If you’re a regular Amazon shopper, here’s some, ahem, prime numbers for you: In 2016, Amazon and its third-party marketplace vendors sold $18.3 billion of retail goods in California. Good business, right? Civic Economics, an organization that provides a data-driven approach to business and community initiatives, tallied the numbers behind the numbers. Apparently, Amazon’s transactions that year resulted in 6,030 displaced shops (or 52.2 million square feet of retail space), 87,338 displaced retail jobs, and up to $742 million in uncollected sales taxes. Local economists might suggest you keep these stats in mind when you considering where to buy that book you plan to put under the tree. There are many bookstores throughout Marin County but by far the most ubiquitous is Copperfield’s Books, with 10 locations in the tri-county area (including relatively recent additions in Novato and Larkspur Landing). copperfieldsbooks.com Likewise, the perennial favorite

Daedalus Howell

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Carryalls by Pennyroyal at In The Making.

Book Passage has a vast inventory and an endless lineup of top-tier author speakers. bookpassage.com A favorite in San Anselmo, of course, is Whyte’s Booksmith, nestled right downtown about a block’s stroll from Imagination Park. Among the popular titles getting gifted this season are The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben and Jane Billinghurst, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, and Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments. Whyte’s Booksmth also offers used preloved titles. facebook.com/whytesbooksmith415 Ditto Town Books, a used bookstore run by the Friends of the San Anselmo Library, which stocks over 1,000 books, DVDs, and CD audio books across genres and boasts a children and teen section as well. townbooks.org

For a more passive but exhilarating aesthetic experience, there’s always the movies. When one thinks of “giving the gift of movies,” however, this often amounts to telling your college student/best friend/ex your Netflix password. You can do better than that. Keep your movie money local by buying a gift card from one of our local theatrical exhibitors. The Smith Rafael Film Center (San Rafael), Cinemark (throughout Marin, including the CinéArts Sequoia), CinemaWest (Fairfax Theater) and The Lark (in Larkspur) all offer premium theatrical experiences—many with wine, beer, and gourmet goodies.

Get a gift card for the cineaste in your life and enjoy the show together (or savor a couple of hours of alone time). rafaelfilm.cafilm. org, cinemark.com, cinemawest. com, larktheater.net.

For those interested in keeping both their spending and the contents of glass county-centric, Jerry Horn of Tiburon Wine has several Marin County bottles on hand.

“Our clientele our “homers,” to an extent—they like to support local

products when they can and then also the small amount of tourists that we see are also kind of interested in a local product,” says Horn, known colloquially as Dr. Champagne, owing to his extensive knowledge of bubbly.

“We have a we have a few Marin County wines that we’re very proud of—one that we're pouring by the glass called Easkoot is a pinot noir from Chileno Valley, which is now included in the Petaluma Gap appellation. It's just absolutely a stunner at $36 a bottle.”

Horn keeps his wine prices affordable and definitely within the “gift zone,” from $25 to about $50 on the outside. Naturally, Dr. Champagne recommends his namesake beverage as a perfect gift.

“The gift that really resonates as far as giving it to people whose tastes may not know very much about is champagne,” he says. Even if your recipient isn’t an outright fan, Horn reminds that a bottle in the refrigerator at-the-ready can be shared with their own holiday guests—it’s a gift that keeps giving. tiburonwine.net

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location, which features selections from the Lady Falcon Coffee Club.

They roast the premium joe in small batches in Oakland and sell it in vintage-styled pink packaging—the perfect gift to caffeinate someone’s Christmas. neveandhawk.com As streaming services like Spotify have gradually replaced the crates and shelves and CDs that once represented our music collections, there are still some music aficionados on our gift lists who prefer their music served not from the cloud but on the record, so to speak. Thanks, in part to Millennials’ fetishizing of analog media and the foresight of retailers like Barry Lazarus of San Rafael’s Red Devil Records who never abandoned the medium, there’s been an appreciable spike in vinyl sales. Music fans of any genre, age, and disposition will undoubtedly find something to spin and enjoy at Lazarus’ Fourth Street location. Recent offerings include “seven inch” records featuring local luminaries like Huery Lewis and the News’ “opaque” vinyl release of its latest endeavor, Plansville, and releases by the Monkees featuring the late great Peter Tork, who lived in Fairfax in the 70s. Red Devil Records also boasts a large, well-curated collection of vintage vinyl selections (and is always in the market to purchase select items from the public).

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Flashback 50 Years Ago THIS

Neighborhood Peace Walks and Educational Rallies will be held throughout Marin this Saturday, Dec. 13. Each of the rallies and walks will conclude with its own program, but a common letter to the President WEEK will be circulated at all of the gatherings. It states: “We are convinced by now, as you must be, Mr. President, that we cannot provide a solution to the Vietnamese people’s conflict, and that our participation in it has been, and is, corrosive to the human spirit of our citizenry. We call upon you to offer this nation the political and moral leadership necessary to end this war now. We are convinced that the great majority of the American people will be grateful for such leadership.”

William Taylor, an investment and insurance broker, and co-chairman of the December 13th peace effort, says, “It is difficult to step out into the open and declare where you stand when the President and a momentary majority of Americans occupy a different position. But, leadership doesn’t belong to the office of the President alone, and the United States needs to discover that a great nation can face her mistakes.” He asks residents of Marin, “Will you provide this leadership?”—Author Unknown, 12/10/69

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Years Ago

THIS WEEK

At the end of World War II, after making the world free for democracy, America figured we could make it pest-free as well. And indeed for a while, armed with our DDT bombs, it looked like we had the bugs on the run. They were dropping, well, like flies.

Eventually, however, it became apparent that total victory was impossible. The bug war took on a dark Vietnam-like aura: Pests disappeared one moment, then reappeared, stronger, more resistant. More sophisticated bug bombs bred more complicated pests. Slowly, of late, it is beginning to dawn on us that here is another war we may not win and that to persist in fighting it is to risk destroying ourselves.

California with its vast agricultural acreage has always led the nation in pesticide use. In 1978, an estimated 300 million pounds of pesticides were sprayed, poured and scattered over the state. Pesticide use in the last ten years has escalated, yet over-all crop losses have remained about the same while new environmental and health hazards keep surfacing.—Linda Xiques, 12/7/79

30 Years Ago THIS

Once upon a time in America, budding Henry Fords were told to build a better mousetrap. Now young entrepreneurs would be better advised to negotiate a licensing agreement with “Teenage WEEK Mutant Ninja Turtles.” In the post-Reagan era, nothing works better in America than a product predicated purely on image. ...But let’s not think that those selling adult products are aiming any higher. From the moment that Calvin Klein slapped his name on the butt of a pair of denim pants…the American public has proved itself willing to waste good money on questionable image. ...There is no reason to believe that America’s love affair with icons, symbols and clones will end any time soon. And this mass mindlessness will result in electoral politics that make the rest of the world question the efficacy of American democracy.—George Frazier, 12/8/89

20 Years Ago THIS

With a blizzard of dot.com advertising creating near whiteout conditions on the TV screen this holiday season, it’s easy to think that the age of cyber-shopping already has taken over the WEEK marketplace. It would be wise, however, to temper that assessment with a healthy dose of caution.

There’s no doubt that Internet commerce is on the upswing, and sales this year are reaching record numbers. But the increasing number of online customers is straining the system... ...Michael Moon is president of Gistics, a think tank based in Larkspur. He says, “What we are seeing on the Web right now is a confluence of different factors.

There are 10 million new users out there, and they don’t really know how it all works yet. So everything is slower. They get to a site, can’t tell how to get around, or shop and then don’t buy. But all that added traffic slows things down.” ...Some day, the Internet probably will turn out to be the shopping bonanza that the bluesky scenarios portray, and Santa can trade in his sleigh for an iMac and a cable modem. But at least for now, cyber-commerce is still in its adolescence. And like many an adolescent, it still has its moody and uncertain side.—Bill Meagher and Peter Seidman, 12/8/99

Sundial

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THE WEEK’S EVENTS: A SELECTIVE GUIDE

ROSS Visionary Art

In the 1930s, Marin County conservationist Caroline Sealy Livermore began her lifelong work of helping to preserve natural locales around the North Bay, including the Marin Art and Garden Center. This week, the center hosts a special exhibit, “Visions for Marin: The Legacy of Caroline Sealy Livermore,” in which the Baywood Artist group displays and sells art depicting many of the locations preserved by Livermore. The show is open to the public, Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 14–15, and opens with a preview sale on Friday, Dec. 13, at MAGC, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Ross.

Friday, 6pm; $25. Sat–Sun, 10am to 4pm; free admission. 415.455.5260.

POINT REYES STATION Classic Carol

No Christmas is complete without a telling of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” In West Marin, community radio station KWMR has turned the story into a local holiday tradition with a cast of local performers presenting a dressed-up and semi-staged reading of the tale that offers merry Victorian-era entertainment, festive food and drinks and community cheer. The benefit performance takes place Saturday, Dec. 14, at Toby’s Feed Barn, 11250 Hwy 1, Point Reyes Station. 4pm. $20; kids are free. kwmr.org.

SAUSALITO Light Up the Water

Town of Sausalito has welcomed the holiday season with a bang for more than three decades. The Sausalito Winterfest opens this weekend with the 32nd annual Lighted Boat Parade & Fireworks display, in which dozens of brightly decorated vessels cruise the shoreline and a dazzling display of fireworks accompanies a dance party. The next morning, the sixth annual Jingle Bell 5K and children’s fun run gets the blood pumping with activity followed by a pancake breakfast hosted by the Sausalito Lions Club. Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 14–15, in and around Gabrielson Park, Anchor St., Sausalito. Sat, 6pm; Sun, 8:30am Costs vary. winterfestsausalito.com.

MILL VALLEY Holiday Jam

For over 20 years, multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter Narada Michael Walden and his foundation have hosted an annual Holiday Jam with new, spirit-lifting productions that herald the season.

This year’s production is titled “Higher Love” and pays tribute to Whitney Houston with Walden and his ensemble performing alongside special guests including Whitney’s half-brother, singer Gary Garland.

The show celebrates the holidays and raise awareness and money for the Foundation’s music education outreach on Saturday, Dec. 14, at Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley. 8pm. $125 and up. 415.383.9600.

Fred Aube

–Charlie Swanson

Stella Heath performs in the Billie Holiday Project in the band’s Rancho Nicasio debut on Saturday, Dec. 14.

See Clubs & Venues, pg 27.

PACI FI C SUN | DECEM B ER 1 1 - 1 7 , 2 0 1 9 | PA CI FI CS U N. COM

16

Kevin Moloney

North Bay institution the Christmas Jug Band makes the season that much brighter.

MUSIC

West Pole Rock Christmas Jug Band debuts new album By Charlie Swanson

M

usician, songwriter and producer Tim Eschliman traces the roots of the Christmas Jug Band back to December, 1977. That’s the date marked on the cassette he holds dear that features a live recording of the ensemble’s earliest holiday gathering, playing on Christmas Eve at the long-gone Old Mill in Mill Valley.

“When we first started doing it, we marketed it as Christmas music for people who hate Christmas music,” Eschliman says. “It’s not Perry Como.”

Of course, the band wasn’t called the Christmas Jug Band back then; they were simply a group of

friendly musicians who gathered on Mondays to drink Wild Turkey and play jug band music.

Yet, the project snowballed from that first holiday performance, and more than 40 years later, the band is still an annual tradition that features Eschliman (Commander Cody, Rhythmtown-Jive), Gregory Leroy “Duke” Dewey (Country Joe & the Fish), Austin deLone (Elvis Costello, Boz Scaggs), Ken “Turtle” Vandermarr (Dan Hicks), Paul Rogers (Those Darn Accordions), Blake Richardson, Ken “Snakebite” Jacobs (Kinky Friedman) and special guests performing original holiday-themed tunes, parodies and

classic songs that all get the raucous, acoustic jug band treatment.

“One of the jokes about the band is, ‘How do you guys stay together so long?’ Well, we have 50 weeks off a year,” Eschliman laughs. “It’s really a band full of band leaders, but for a week or two we can just have fun as a group and drop the need to be the dictator and just enjoy the crowd.”

The Christmas Jug Band’s annual slate of shows this year also acts as an album-release tour for the group’s new album, Live From the West Pole; their first collection of new material released in a decade. The group recorded the entire album last year at Sweetwater Music

Hall, their homebase that Eschliman dubbed the West Pole some years back.

“I just decided we’re going to name Mill Valley ‘The West Pole,’ because it’s the birthplace of this silly thing,” says Eschliman. “No one else has claimed that the West Pole is anywhere, so we’re claiming it .”

The Christmas Jug Band performs on Friday, Dec. 13, at the Big Easy (128 American Alley, Petaluma. 8pm. $15.

707.776.4631) & Sunday and Monday, Dec 15–16, at Sweetwater Music Hall (19 Corte Madera Ave., Mill Valley. Sun, 7pm. $19–$27; Mon, 8pm. $24–$27.

415.388.3850).

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Transform Your Relationship With Life

Voted Best Psychologist

Barbara I. Sharp, Psy.D.

Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis (415) 380-0837 License #PSY12161

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3653 Buchanan St, Suite A San Francisco, CA 94123 w: drbarbarasharp.com

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18

Image courtesy Amazon Studios

Shia LaBeouf plays his own dad in ‘Honey Boy.’

FILM

Chickens, Roosting Daddy issues abound in ‘Honey Boy’ By Richard von Busack

P

lagiarists deserve no quarter, particularly plagiarists who plagiarize their apology for plagiarism. But if we can trust Shia LaBeouf—and experience shows we cannot—his childhood was unusually rough. Honey Boy is a script the actor wrote in recovery.

The buff, sullen LaBeouf-surrogate Otis (Lucas Hedges) languishes poolside, after a spree of violence and drunkenness that flashes before our eyes. The judge gave him a choice of four years in jail or a stint in a Malibu rehab. Under the unflinching eye of Dr. Moreno (Laura San Giacomo), Otis has to

deal with the PTSD he acquired growing up as a child actor.

Once, he was a 12-year-old in an L.A. motel beside the railroad tracks. He shared a room with his hectoring father James (played by LaBeouf himself ) who young Otis paid to be something between a PA and a manager. James was

a motorcycle-riding combat vet and ex-con who did time for a sex offense he was too drunk to recall.

Now he’s posing as a laid-back hippie in friendly-looking oversized eyeglasses. Four years in AA has done nothing for James’ King Kong– sized temper.

He’s particularly pissed off at his son’s success. Otis gets movie-of-the week roles; James never made it bigger than being an Oklahoma rodeo clown with a live-chicken novelty act. He never misses a chance to humiliate his son, to mock his tiny “golf-pencil” penis or to force him into juggling lessons, with pushup-penalties if he drops a ball.

At 33, LaBeouf ’s come a long way. His mature performance in Fury was a far cry from the annoying, plucky-kid acting he did in what seemed like three dozen Transformer movies. This year, he brought credible heft and humor to Peanut Butter Falcon, maybe his best performance yet—he was authentically rural, light and touching.

But as a writer, he wallows.

There’s the question of authenticity: is this memoir or fiction? Was his career as an actor just a blurry arc from being hit by a pie on a kid’s show to doing a ratchet-pull stunt during the filming of some alienattack blockbuster? Didn’t he get something out of his career?

During the course of this therapymovie, James describes his own childhood hell in a monologue at an AA meeting—the kind of scene that feels like a lazy writer’s crutch. In his bad-dad role, LaBeouf lacks the kind of magnetic evil or redeeming black humor that makes you want to watch.

James is the kind of bad joker who insists you laugh at his weird anti-gag about the white flecks in chicken poop. Chickens are symbolic—Otis, like a hen, must cross the road if he plans to get to the other side; ultimately he follows a symbolic yardbird into his father’s dwelling, to confront him at last.

It’s the performance-artist in LaBeouf that makes him take this all too far. His characterization of James is reminiscent of the punishing old man in Harmony Korine’s julien donkey-boy, which made an actor as interesting as Werner Herzog boring.

‘Honey Boy’ is playing in limited release.

By Matthew Stafford

Friday December 13 -Thursday December 19 The Aeronauts (1:41) True tale of a Victorian-era balloonist (Felicity Jones) and meteorologist (Eddie Redmayne) who soared the skies in search of knowledge.

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (1:27) Eye-opening documentary beholds humankind’s overarching reengineering of our planet, from mines and machines to seawalls and quarries.

Black Christmas (1:32) Warm ’n’ cuddly holiday fare about a mad stalker terrorizing comely sorority girls.

Bolshoi Ballet: The Nutcracker (2:30) Moscow’s top terpsichoreans present Tchaikovsky’s holiday must-see in a dazzling production brimming with toy soldiers, colorful costumes and little Marie, of course.

Bombshell (1:58) Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman as Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson, two of the many FOX Newspersons who brought down harasser-in-chief Roger Ailes.

En Brazos de un Asesino (1:41) A ruthless hitman grows a conscience when he takes it on the lam with a drug lord’s frightened mistress.

Cats (1:49) The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical extravaganza hits the big screen with Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift and Ian McKellen as crooning, cavorting felines.

Dark Waters (2:06) A corporate defense attorney takes on an environmental lawsuit against a chemical company that exposes a lengthy history of pollution. Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway star.

Deconstructing The Beatles: Yeah!

Yeah! Yeah! (1:28) Filmed multimedia presentation by musicologist Scott Freiman focuses on 1963, the year the Fab Four rocketed to stardom with hits like “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

Force of Nature: Natalia (1:22) Documentary follows Royal Ballet prima ballerina Natalia Osipova over a busy season of classical and cutting-edge choreography.

42nd Street (2:35) Direct from London’s Theatre Royal it’s the classic Warren-Dubin musical about a down-on-his-heels producer struggling to put on a show in the depths of the Great Depression.

Frankie (1:38) Nine members of an extended European family gather in a Portuguese village for a day of reflection, regret, love and loss.

The Good Liar (1:49) Suave grifter Ian McKellen sets his sights on rich widow Helen Mirren, but one damned thing leads to another…

Gorillaz: Reject False Icons (1:40) Join the British virtual trip-hop band on a threeyear odyssey into the studio and around the world.

Honey Boy (1:34) Shia LeBeouf writes and stars as his own dad in semi-autobiographical story of a young actor's stormy childhood and struggles to reconcile with his father and deal with his mental health.

The Kingmaker (1:40) Insightful portrait of Imelda Marcos, dissembling matriarch of the corrupt Philippine family.

Knives Out (2:10) Writer/director Rian Johnson’s latest is a who-dunit centered

on the death of a patriarch of an eccentric, combative family.

Light Side: A Journey with David Prowse (2:00) Documentary about the actor-bodybuilder most famous for playing Star Wars villain Darth Vader.

Mr. Klein (203) A conscienceless art dealer in Nazi-occupied Paris is plunged into a Kafkaesque nightmare when he’s mistaken for a Jewish refugee.

National Theatre London: Hansard (1:37) Live from South Bank it’s Simon Wood’s scathingly witty day in the life of a ruling-class marriage on the rocks.

National Theatre London: Present Laughter (3:00) Noël Coward’s fun-filled farce about an aging, narcissistic matinee idol is presented direct from the Old Vic in bigscreen high definition.

Pain and Glory (1:53) Pedro Almodóvar drama stars Antonio Banderas as an acclaimed film director reflecting on his past.

Parasite (2:12) Bong Joon Ho’s acclaimed dark dramedy about the symbiotic relationship between two Korean families, one wealthy, the other not so much.

Playmobil: The Movie (1:39) A repressed little girl gets a new lease on life when she enters the fantastical world of Zimdorf figurines.

The Push (1:30) Inspiring documentary follows scientist-athlete Grant Korgan as he literally pushes himself 100 miles to the South Pole despite a paralyzing spinal cord injury.

The Pushouts (1:00) Documentary focuses on the one-in-three black and Latino high school students who don’t graduate and are pushed into low-paying jobs (and worse) instead.

Queen & Slim (2:12) A thriller for our time: A black couple on a first date have to go on the run when they accidentally kill a white cop on social media.

Richard Jewell (2:11) True story of the security guard who discovered a bomb at a public park and found himself vilified by police and public alike; Clint Eastwood directs.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2:22) Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams return for more intergalactic stürm, drang and CGI. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2:35) Hand-drawn Isao Takahata classic retells the famous folktale of a mysterious young princess with a fateful future; James Caan and Mary Steenburgen lend voice.

They Shall Not Grow Old (2:15) Peter Jackson’s acclaimed documentary tells the story of WWI through restored newsreel footage and archival interviews with the soldiers who endured the Great War. The Two Popes (2:05) Dramatic look at Pope Benedict’s 2013 resignation and the ascension of Latin American reformer Pope Francis; Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce star.

The Winter’s Tale (3:10) Kenneth Branagh presents Shakespeare’s timeless tragicomedy of a popular king brought down by jealousy and obsession; Judi Dench costars.

• •

The Aeronauts (PG-13) Rafael: call theater for showtimes Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (NR) Lark: Fri 2; Sun 5:40; Thu 3:30 A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (PG-13) Larkspur Landing: Fri, Mon-Wed 6:50, 9:50; Sat-Sun 12, 2:45, 5:45, 8:45 Northgate: Fri-Wed 10:05, 12:55, 3:45, 6:30, 9:15 Regency: Fri-Sat 11:30, 2:20, 5, 7:50, 10:30; Sun-Wed 11:30, 2:20, 5, 7:50 Rowland: Fri-Wed 11:10, 1:55, 4:45, 7:30, 10:25 Black Christmas (PG-13) Northgate: Fri-Wed 12:15, 245, 5:15, 7:45, 10:15 Lark: Sun 12:55 Regency: Sun 12:25 • Bolshoi Ballet: The Nutcracker (PG) Regency: Thu 7, 8 • Bombshell (R) En Brazos de un Asesino (R) Northgate: Fri-Tue 11:40, 4:50, 10; Wed 11:40, 10 (in Spanish with English subtitles) Northgate: Thu 7, 9:50 • Cats (PG) Dark Waters (PG-13) Regency: Fri-Sat 10:25, 1:20, 4:40, 7:40, 10:40; Sun-Wed 10:25, 1:20, 4:40, 7:40 Rowland: Fri-Sun 3:10, 9:20; Mon-Wed 12:35, 3:40, 6:50, 9:55 Sequoia: Fri 3:45, 6:45, 9:40; Sat 12:50, 3:45, 6:45, 9:40; Sun 12:50, 3:45, 6:45; Mon-Wed 4, 7 Rafael: Sun 6:15 • Deconstructing The Beatles: Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! (NR) Force of Nature: Natalia (NR) Lark: Fri 4; Sun 10; Thu 1:50 Ford v Ferrari (PG-13) Northgate: Fri-Wed 10:20, 1:50, 5:25, 9 Regency: Fri-Sat 12:10, 3:35, 7, 10:25; Sun-Wed 12:10, 3:35, 7 Rowland: FriWed 11:20, 2:45, 6:10, 9:45 Lark: Wed 6:30 • 42nd Street (PG) Larkspur Landing: Tue 7 Regency: Tue 10:40am • Frankie (NR) Frozen II (PG) Larkspur Landing: Fri, Mon-Wed 6:40, 9:20; Sat-Sun 11, 1:40, 4:25, 7:10, 9:55 Northgate: Fri-Wed 10:55, 11:55, 135, 2:50, 4:15, 5:35, 7, 8:25, 9:50 Rowland: Fri-Wed 10:10, 11:40, 12:50, 2:20, 3:50, 5, 6:30, 7:40, 9:10, 10:20 The Good Liar (R) Larkspur Landing: Fri, Mon, Wed 7, 9:45; Sat-Sun 12:45, 3:45, 6:45, 9:45; Tue 9:45 Northgate: Fri-Wed 4:45, 7:40, 10:30 Rafael: Mon 7 • Gorillaz: Reject False Icons (NR) Honey Boy (R) Northgate: Fri-Tue 2:15, 7:30 The Irishman (R) Lark: Fri 10; Sun-Mon 7:30; Wed 2:15 Jojo Rabbit (PG-13) Lark: Sat 10; Mon 5:10 Sequoia: Fri 4:20, 7:15, 9:50; Sat 1:40, 4:20, 7:15, 9:50; Sun 1:40, 4:20, 7:15; Mon-Wed 4:20, 7:15 Regency: Fri-Sat 10:25, 1:10, 4:20, 7:10, 9:55; Sun 5:10, 7:55; • Judy (PG-13) Mon, Wed 10:25, 1:10, 4:20, 7:10; Tue 5, 7:55 Jumanji: The Next Level (PG-13) Fairfax: Fri, Sun-Thu 11:15, 2, 4:45, 7:30; Sat 11:15, 2, 4:45, 7:30, 9:55 Northgate: Fri-Wed 10, 10:50, 1, 2, 5:10, 7:15, 8:20, 10:25; 3D showtime at 4:10 Playhouse: Fri 3:30, 6:30, 9:30; Sat 12:30, 3:30, 6:30, 9:30; Sun 12:30, 3:30, 6:30; Mon-Thu 3:30, 6:30 Rowland: Fri-Sat 10, 11:30, 12:10, 1, 2:30, 4, 6:15, 7, 8:30, 10, 3D showtime at 5:30; Sun 10, 12:10, 1, 2:30, 4, 6:15, 7, 8:30, 10, 3D showtime at 5:30; Mon-Wed 10, 12:10, 1, 2:30, 4, 7, 8:30, 10, 3D showtime at 5:30 Rafael: call theater for showtimes • The Kingmaker (R) Knives Out (PG-13) Larkspur Landing: Fri, Mon-Wed 6:30, 9:35; Sat-Sun 11:45, 3, 6:15, 9:30 Northgate: Fri-Wed 10, 1:05, 4:10, 7:20, 10:25 Regency: Fri-Sat 10:30, 1:30, 4:30, 7:30, 10:30; Sun-Wed 10:30, 1:30, 4:30, 7:30 Rowland: Fri-Sat, Mon-Wed 10:05, 1:10, 4:15, 7:20, 10:25; Sun 1:10, 4:15, 7:20, 10:25 • Light Side: A Journey with David Prowse (NR) Lark: Sat 7:30; Sun 4 Midway (PG-13) Northgate: Fri-Wed 12:25, 3:40, 6:55, 10:10 Rafael: Sat 4:15; Wed 7 • Mr. Klein (PG) Motherless Brooklyn (R) Lark: Sat 9:10; Mon 2:15; Tue 8:30 • National Theatre London: Hansard (R) Lark: Sat 1; Tue 6:30 Lark: Thu 6:30 • National Theatre London: Present Laughter (PG-13) Pain and Glory (NR) Lark: Fri 8:45; Sat 5:15; Tue 4 Regency: Fri-Wed 10:30, 1:40, 4:50, 8 • Parasite (R) Playmobil: The Movie (PG) Northgate: Fri-Wed 11:30, 2:10 Lark: Fri 6:30; Sat 3; Tue 2 • The Push (NR) Rafael: Mon noon (filmmakers in person; free admission) • The Pushouts (NR) Queen & Slim (R) Northgate: Fri-Sun 10:05, 1:15, 4:25, 7:50; Mon-Wed 10:05, 1:15 Northgate: Fri-Wed 12:50, 4, 7:10, 10:20 • Richard Jewell (R) • Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (PG-13) Cinema: Thu 6; 3D showtime at 10 Fairfax: Thu 6, 6:15, 6:30, 7 Northgate: Thu 7, 7:45, 8:30, 10:40, 11:25, midnight; 3D showtimes at 6, 9:40 Playhouse: Thu 6:01, 6:15 Rowland: Thu 6, 6:50, 9:30, 10:25, midnight; 3D showtimes at 7:45, 8:25, 11:15 • The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (PG) Northgate: Mon, Wed 7 They Shall Not Grow Old (R) Northgate: Tue 7; Wed 4, 7 Rafael: call theater for showtimes • The Two Popes (PG-13) Rafael: Sun noon • The Winter’s Tale (NR) We have omitted some of the movie summaries and times for those that have been playing for multiple weeks.

Showtimes can change after we go to press. Please call theater to confirm.

CinéArts Sequoia 25 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley, 388-1190 Century Cinema 41 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera, 924-6506 Fairfax 9 Broadway, Fairfax, 453-5444 Lark 549 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur, 924-5111 Larkspur Landing 500 Larkspur Landing Cir., Larkspur, 461-4849 Northgate 7000 Northgate Dr., San Rafael, 491-1314 Playhouse 40 Main St., Tiburon, 435-1251 Rafael Film Center 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael, 454-1222 Regency 80 Smith Ranch Rd., Terra Linda, 479-6496 Rowland 44 Rowland Way, Novato, 898-3385

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Movies

• New Movies This Week

PAC I F I C SU N | D ECEM BER 11- 17, 2019 | PACIFICSUN.CO M

20 Downtown Streets «10

‘

Behind the do-good mission of employing the unhoused, however, a toxic workplace culture festered for years, according to a dozen former staffers.

’

the same summary. “I had to help Eileen walk to my car. On the way to my car, she accosted two strangers in the middle of their conversation.

It was like she was leaving a concert venue or a New Year’s party; she was far too intoxicated to be the CEO of a company that just left a businessrelated dinner.”

After the case manager got home, she called her co-worker to ask whether she should continue working for a boss who offered booze to a client trying to get sober. “This was the first moment when I really thought there was something deeply wrong with the leadership at DST,” she wrote, “and alcohol continued to be a concerning trend at DST.” Sources admit the drinking seemed fun when they were new hires, but it began to feel inescapable. At holiday parties, it was common for managers and staffers alike to bring sleeping bags so they could crash at the office after drinking enough to pass out.

Erstwhile employees say one highranking director who was known for heavily imbibing while dressed up as Santa Claus at the annual functions made it something of a tradition for attendees to sit in his lap before they could claim a gift from under the Christmas tree.

A photo of a holiday office party in 2015 shows him in his red-andwhite St. Nick finery rubbing an oversized dildo on his face while Eileen Richardson apparently tries not to laugh. Another photo from that same event depicts the Santa cosplayer pouring a bag of white wine straight into the mouth of Chris Richardson, who kneels on the floor with his right fist thrust victoriously in the air.

Like mother, like son.

“Eileen had a history of getting extremely inappropriate at office functions,” one former staffer noted in a written recollection of her fewyear tenure at DST. “Some of these moments were kind of funny, even to me, such as the time she twerked upside down at the office Christmas party. However, similarly to Chris, Eileen did not know when it rein it in.”

Then there were the weekly Costco runs for booze, staff meetings where managers would partake and frequent klatches at Wine Affairs and other restaurants and bars near the office. Richardson didn’t respond to a query about whether the nonprofit footed the bill for any of the alcohol purchases.

“One concern I had with these events was that Chris would often get intoxicated and then offer jobs to various staff members,” said one of the same case managers who complained about the restaurant episode. “I can remember two separate occasions when Chris offered me [an] opportunity in a very drunken state. …I know from talking to other employees that some of them found that it would be a mistake professionally to not go out drinking with Chris, because that’s where conversations about promotions most often happen.”

MacWilliams says she felt the same way about the lushy outings, which included annual trips to Wine Country where “everyone gets belligerently intoxicated.” On the Napa excursion in late August of 2016, she recounts how a manager asked Chris about having sex with a former co-worker. “Did you f*ck her in the ass?” the manager allegedly asked. “Chris laughed and went on to describe their sexual relationship,” MacWilliams says.

One could technically opt out of the management trips, she adds, “but it is pretty well known that you won’t have a chance at a promotion if you don’t participate.”

Moving On In addition to the review spurred

by CLSEPA, an administrative law judge deemed MacWilliams’ claims of discrimination and a hostile work environment as credible. Separately, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing reviewed found them valid enough to grant her the right to sue DST if she so chooses. MacWilliams says she decided against litigation because she hoped CLSEPA’s amicable intervention would usher in meaningful accountability.

But the probe’s conclusion dashed any hope of true reforms, says MacWilliams, who’s now an MBA student at UC Berkeley and senior manager of federal child nutrition programs at Second Harvest Food Bank. Other than a new HR chief, she notes, leadership at DST remains virtually unaffected.

“If the same people are in charge,” she wonders, “is that real change?”

MacWilliams says she’s concerned that Santa Clara County, San Jose, Palo Alto and other public agencies continue to grant DST millions of dollars a year in taxpayer money without demanding more from the nonprofit’s leadership. When she found out that the county was considering a new several-hundredthousand-dollar agreement with DST earlier this year, she reached out to let decision-makers know about her troubling experiences with the organization.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced what it’s like to be afraid to go to work, but it was a constant battle for myself and, I know, other women in the company,” she wrote in an Aug. 11 email to county Office of Supportive Housing Director Ky Le. “I started to believe that I had no value, and that there was nothing wrong with some of the behavior that I described in my statement.”

When she left DST, MacWilliams went on to write, she just wanted to claim unemployment benefits.

Once her former colleagues went to CLSEPA, she said she began to hope “for some sort of justice” and her goals “shifted to a pursuit of

leadership change, compensation for the women who ... did not receive equal compensation for a period, and, ultimately, I wanted an apology.” However, she lamented: “Years later, none of this has happened. Although I have come to peace with this, I truly believe that DST should not have access to public funds until those responsible for irrevocably hurting so many people have been held responsible.”

Le says DST wound up withdrawing its application for the county grant. But Peninsula Healthcare Connection, Richardson’s other nonprofit, recently secured a federal designation that qualifies its clinic in Palo Alto for increased funding.

“This is a huge step in providing quality health care services in the North County to the folks who need it most,” county Supervisor Joe Simitian, who pushed for $250,000 to help the nonprofit gain its new funding status, said in a press release about the recent milestone.

“Frankly, the federal process is confusing as hell—a lot of agencies, acronyms and aggravation. But in plain language, this new status means Downtown Streets Team will have the resources to provide health services for more people.”

DST board chair Owen Byrd— who serves as general counsel for intellectual property litigation researcher firm Lex Machina— disputes CLSEPA’s characterization that the inquiry sustained any alleged impropriety. Oppenheimer conducted “a thorough, comprehensive and professional investigation,” he says, that “unearthed no significant concerns.”

The hiring of an HR manager earlier this year had more to do with “good corporate hygiene,” he adds, than any of the claims leveled against the nonprofit. When asked for written corroboration to affirm as much, however, he refuses to share even a redacted copy or summary of the investigation.

“You can take my word for it as an attorney and executive and as someone who’s dealt with stuff like this for most of my career,” Byrd says. “There’s no way on Earth that this board of directors of a valuable nonprofit in our community would not have addressed concerns that were real. We fulfilled out fiduciary duty under the law.

“And now,” he says, “we move on.” Y

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The REAL Mental Health Initiative at Congregation Rodef Sholom proudly presents:

A Really Good Day with Ayelet Waldman Wednesday, December 18, 7:00 pm

OUR HOLIDAY MEALS ARE PREPARED RIGHT HERE IN THE GOOD EARTH KITCHEN USING ORGANIC INGREDIENTS. TO ORDER A HOLIDAY MEAL, GRAB AN ORDER FORM IN-STORE AT OUR DELI COUNTER OR DOWNLOAD ONE AT GENATURAL.COM.

Ayelet Waldman’s mood storms became intolerably severe; she tried nearly every medication possible; her husband and children were suffering with her.

So she joined the ranks of an underground but increasingly vocal group of scientists and civilians successfully using therapeutic microdoses of LSD. A revealing, courageous, fascinating and funny account of the author’s experiment with microdoses of LSD in an effort to treat a debilitating mood disorder.

AYELET WALDMAN is the author of the novels Red Hook Road, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and Daughter’s Keeper, as well as the essay collection Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace.

Free and open to the public. For tickets, go to REAL.eventbrite.com.

Hosted in the Rodef Sholom Sanctuary, 170 N. San Pedro Rd, San Rafael.

The REAL Mental Health Initiative is supported by the Laszlo N. Tauber Family Foundation. For information: www.rodefsholom.org/real

FAIRFAX � MILL VALLEY

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THE BEST LITTLE REASONS to GIVE to C4DP this HOLIDAY:

photo courtesy California Gold

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22

California Gold is an ‘American pub with pre-Tiki era cocktails.’

DINING

Digging ‘Gold’ New San Rafael spot serves cocktails worth their weight By Tanya Henry

T

he space at 848 B St. has undergone such a massive renovation and redesign that it’s barely recognizable. Ignacio “Notch” Gonzalez, the owner of Top Notch Kustoms, an auto shop where he customizes hot rods, is the designer behind San Rafael’s newest bar.

Critics have dubbed California Gold an “American pub with preTiki era cocktails.”

Gonzalez is known for his overthe-top design at San Francisco’s Smuggler’s Cove and Whitechapel.

And while California Gold is slightly more restrained, it still features plenty of dramatic touches including sumptuous red tufted-

leather booths, a decorative tin ceiling and dark forest green walls.

The space’s original 1906 mahogany bar runs the length of the room—back to where additional seating is available amid low lighting and walls adorned with paintings of clipper ships and old maps. Plenty of dark wood and bronze statues complete the masculine sensibility reminiscent of a gentleman’s study at the turn of the century.

Elevated décor is not the only thing of note here. Owner and manager Isaac Shumway is a Culinary Institute of America graduate and brings two decades of bar and restaurant experience to his new role. He has worked at Tosca Café, Bourbon &

Branch, Alembic and other notable establishments. Likewise, co-owner Rhia Shumway (Isaac’s wife), is the wine director and brings her considerable industry experience from time spent at Saison and Absinthe among others.

There is much to feast the eyes on at California Gold, but it is the beautifully illustrated cocktail list, featuring masterfully executed concoctions, that steals the show here. For tequila lovers, the tasty El Diablo of blanco tequila, fresh ginger, lime, cassis and soda is a must. There are almost 20 specialty cocktails on the bar’s menu; each with a whimsical description and illustration.

Many—like the Nuestra Tropical with sherry, cognac, coconut cream, lime and bitters, and the Banana Cow prepared

with dark rum, Straus milk, grenadine and lime—are undeniably Tiki-inspired.

While the cocktails are center stage, a carefully selected wine and beer list rounds out the offerings.

Reasonably priced craft brews and wines by the glass are also available.

Golden Hour—aka Happy Hour— occurs daily with specific selections priced as low as $7 a glass.

While California Gold utilizes a fair amount of artifice to recreate a time and a place, it is so tastefully designed and the cocktails so good, we are effectively and happily transported to an earlier era of our beloved state.

California Gold, 848 B St., San Rafael.

707.337.6159. californiagoldbar.com

SWIRL

On a Hill A Burgundian bodega lost in the fog

By James Knight

I

f I’d been asked to find a winery called Occidental Wines without a Google Maps assist, I’d have been lost in the hills.

But if I’d been shown a picture of the property’s old ranch house, which has been a Bodega Highway landmark for countless trips to the coast, I’d have put my finger on a map with a slim margin of error. Somewhat southwest of the actual town of Occidental, the vineyards and winery perch on a

Occidental Wines, 14715 Bodega Hwy., Bodega. Tastings by request only. occidentalwines.com.

Celebrate!

THE HOLIDAYS WITH US!

ACCEPTING RESERVATIONS 415.454.8080 901 A STREET SAN R AFAEL • W W W.ILDAVIDE.NET Hours: Sunday 4:00pm–9:00pm • Tuesdays–Saturday 11:30am–10:00pm Dinner Service begins at 4:00pm • We are closed on Mondays

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The fog-shrouded vineyards of Occidental produce distinctive and Burgundian-style Pinot Noir.

hill, about five miles from the Pacific Ocean. Unlike many touted Sonoma Coast vineyards, this site doesn’t escape above the fog.

“No, never,” confirms Catherine Kistler with a laugh, adding that some days, it’d be nice to see a little sun. This gray afternoon in early December isn’t too different from what’s typical in August. But the gloomy conditions suit Pinot Noir just fine, on this 250-acre former sheep ranch that Catherine’s father purchased around 2008. Steve Kistler cofounded Kistler Vineyards, which gained cult status in the ’80s with wine critic Robert Parker’s highscore blessings. “Back in the day, that was all you needed,” Catherine says, “and you were off to the races.”

Sporting a minimalist “shed” aesthetic, in concrete, glass, and wood, Occidental has a pricey and exclusive look, but surprises with a down-to-earth vibe. Steve Kistler sold his stake in the Kistler brand, and in 2017 stepped away to focus on Occidental, with daughter Catherine as his apprentice.

The winemaking regime is meticulous, yet uncomplicated.

They add no yeast, punchdowns are few and far between, and wines simply rest until bottling.

“We’re very hands-on, to be handsoff,” Catherine explains in the bunker-like cellar. The winery hoes vineyards by hand or machine and sprays no Roundup.

The 2017 Bodega Headlands Vineyard Cuvée Elizabeth is savory and spicy—think potpourri, dried berries, black tea and dried orange peel. The 2017 Running Fence Vineyard Cuvée Catherine has a smoky aroma, and a tinge of gravel to weight the plum fruit-leather flavor. The 2017 Occidental Station Vineyard, hailing from the far east, at Occidental Road and Highway 116, is more floral, with whiffs of raspberry pastille and roasted green tea.

These wines, which aren’t yet for sale ($65–$100, by mailing list only), should interest anyone charmed by Pinot Noir’s darkfruited, savory side, expressed without undue tannins, or sweetness. And although the pH is quite low, instead of smacking merely of tangy acidity, a unique taste—which Catherine calls a briny salinity, “Like when the tide goes out”—propels them forward.

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Screenshot of the Charlie Brown Christmas app

The app fail that made Charlie Brown and Linus lose their limbs.

PRESS PASS

It’s Acid, Charlie Brown My ‘Peanuts’ LSD-conspiracy theory By Daedalus Howell

W

hen my son was younger, he was enamored of Charlie Brown and the woebegone world he inhabits.

He liked jazz (courtesy of Vince Guaraldi) and he liked the fact the characters play baseball. The only cultural connective tissue I can

draw between jazz and baseball is Ken Burns and his documentaries, Jazz and Baseball. If the Peanuts characters became Civil War reenactors, the kid would probably grow to believe Ken Burns and Charles Schultz were his real parents. That’s fine—they can pay for his college.

The streaming specials were only the beginning of the retro-digitaltransmedia redeployment of the “round-headed kid” and his cohort.

There’s an app. In fact, the young actor who originated the animated Charlie’s voice does the narration on a repurposing of A Charlie Brown Christmas, that features some

modest interactivity while flawlessly capturing the melancholic vibe of the source material. My kid loved the iOS version until Charlie and Linus’ arms came off.

It was a glitch in the app but imagine trying to explain that to a horrified child. Good grief, indeed. Later, we pored through a “Look and Find” book entitled Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown that takes scenes from A Charlie Brown Christmas with random objects thrown in (a stuffed camel, a maraca, a pipe—basically the decor of the average freshman dorm), which young readers are meant to find. Seeing the kaleidoscopic holiday landscapes of the Peanuts characters’ otherwise humdrum world in static, printed form makes apparent just how psychedelic they were. In fact, the expressions of Linus and Charlie Brown look like the precise moment they realized, “Maybe we shouldn’t have dropped that acid, Charlie Brown.” This also accounts for how Charlie ended up with such a famously crap tree.

He was trippin’ balls. In fact, LSD explains a lot of the Peanuts world— from hallucinatory flashbacks of World War II (featuring trippy rotoscoped footage of D-Day reminiscent of Yellow Submarine) to kite-eating trees and Linus’ Syd Barrett-style burnout fixation on a mythical pumpkin.

Rumor is if you turn down the sound on A Charlie Brown Christmas and play the second side of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon simultaneously, the Brain Damage track comes on just when Charlie Brown takes his totally f ’d-up Christmas tree out into the winter night.

“The lunatic is on the grass” syncs wonderfully with the image of a dazed-and-confused Chuck carrying around his ailing green plant. Naturally, his eyes are big, black pupils when he stops to watch the surreal light display on Snoopy’s doghouse, then bails, disconsolate over his comparatively shabby tree.

That’s when his hippy-ass pals show up, wave their arms around (“You rearrange me ’til I’m sane”) and suddenly the twig Charlie Brown ditched becomes a proper Christmas tree. Evidently, everyone is high. The kids start caroling in time with the backing vocals on the chorus. All true.

Ken Burns is doing a documentary on it. It’s a holiday treat one can cherish every year (for about 8 hours at 500 micrograms). Y

Fireside Dining Sat & Sun Brunch 11–3

25 Wed 12⁄11 • 7pm ⁄ $15–20 • All Ages

Din ner & A Show

Nikki Hill The Gold Souls

The Billie Holiday Project Dec 14

The China Cats Zach Nugent Band

Lowatters 8:00 ⁄ No Cover Dec 13 Fri

Sat

Rancho featuring Stella Heath 8:00 Debut!

Sun 15 CD Release Party #2

Mike Duke Project

Dec

…took a while 7:00

a! “UNCLE” WILLIE K OU T! Aloh CHRISTMAS WEEKEND S OL D Dec 20 8:30, Dec 21 8:30, Dec 22 7:00

Santa & Mrs. Claus 2:00–4:00 Dec 22 Sun

Tim Cain’s “Family Christmas Sing Along” 4:00–5:00

Gospel Christmas Eve Dinner Show

Tue

Dec 24 Sons of the

Soul Revivers

7:00

Celebrate the “High Holidays” Dec 27 with Terry Haggerty & Safety Meeting in the Bar Fri

7:30 ⁄ No Cover

“Year End Beatle Fest” The Sun Kings

Thu 12⁄12 • 7pm ⁄ $17–20 • All Ages

Sun 12⁄15 • 6pm ⁄ $19–27 discount <12, +65 • All Ages

The Christmas Jug Band Family Night Sun 12⁄15 • 7pm ⁄ $24–27 • All Ages

The Christmas Jug Band with Special Guests Fri 12⁄20 • 8pm ⁄ $25–30 • All Ages

Curtis Salgado

Noelle Glory & The Guarantees Sat 12⁄21 • 8pm ⁄ $20–22 • All Ages

A Holiday Hang with La Leche &

Honey feat Lech (of the California Honeydrops) Sun 12⁄22 • 11am ⁄ $15–17 • All Ages The Rock and Roll Playhouse

Motown for Kids Holiday Celebration

Sun 12⁄22 • 6pm ⁄ $27–32 • All Ages A Holiday Tribute to Vince Guaraldi's

A Charlie Brown Christmas

“The Beatles Never Sounded So Good!”

Dec 28 8:30, Dec 29 7:00

Jason Crosby, Magic in the Other

Our Annual New Year’s Eve Party with Dec 31 The Zydeco Flames 9:00

Matt Jaffe & Friends

Tue

Reservations Advised

415.662.2219

On the Town Square, Nicasio www.ranchonicasio.com

FOOD. MUSIC. FUN.

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Lunch & Dinner 7 Days a Week

Mon 12⁄23 • 6:30pm ⁄ FREE • All Ages

6th Annual Holiday Bash

www.sweetwatermusichall.com 19 Corte Madera Ave, Mill Valley Café 388-1700 | Box Office 388-3850

LIVE MUSIC EVERY DAY

WED, DEC 11 > 6:45PM FREE, BAR SHOW, ALL AGES ELECTRIC TUMBLEWEED with

SPECIAL GUEST SCOTT LAW

THU, DEC 12 > 8:30PM THE GRATE ROOM, 16+

ANDREW MARLIN OF MANDOLIN ORANGE FRI, DEC 13 > 7:30PM FREE, BAR SHOW, ALL AGES ZACH NUGENT & FRIENDS feat SCOTT

GUBERMAN, BRIAN RASHAP, GREG ANTON & SPECIAL GUEST SCOTT LAW

SAT, DEC 14 > 12:30PM FREE, BAR SHOW, ALL AGES

STU ALLEN & FRIENDS

SUN, DEC 15 > 12:30PM FREE, BAR SHOW, ALL AGES ACOUSTIC BRUNCH with

JEREMY D’ANTONIO BAND

SUN, DEC 15 > 6:45PM THE GRATE ROOM, 16+

MO’LASSES & SPECIAL GUESTS

MON, DEC 16 > 6:45PM FREE, BAR SHOW, ALL AGES GRATEFUL MONDAY feat STU ALLEN, JORDAN

FEINSTEIN, BRIAN RASHAP, DANNY LUEHRING

TUE, DEC 17 > 6:45PM FREE, BAR SHOW, ALL AGES KOOLERATOR feat BARRY SLESS WED, DEC 18 > 6:45PM FREE, BAR SHOW, ALL AGES

CORDOVAS

100 YACHT CLUB DRIVE, SAN R AFAEL terrapincrossroads.net | 415.524.2773

GIVE THE GIFT OF ORGANIC BEDDING, BATH & APPAREL 11101 State Route One, Point Reyes, CA | Open every day 10–5 415.663.8077 | coyuchi.com

Trivia Café

PACI FI C SUN | DECEM B ER 1 1 - 1 7 , 2 0 1 9 | PA CI FI CS U N. COM

26

By Howard Rachelson

7

1

What are California’s three most populous cities whose names do not begin with S or L (as in Los Angeles or San Diego or San Jose or San Francisco or Sacramento or Long Beach)?

10

2

Born April 21, 1926, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor grew up to be wellknown by what name?

3

Can you name four common types of flowers whose one-word name begins with “C”?

4

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5

Traffic safety was greatly improved when the first one of these showed up in August, 1914, in Cleveland, Ohio. What was it?

6 What is the area of a square whose diagonal is 20 inches long?

7 One of 2019’s favorite movies portrays the bitter rivalry between innovative

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What cold-weather country hosted the 2018 Men’s World Cup of Soccer football tournament, and what hot-weather city is spending $100 billion on infrastructure, a new airport, hotels and stadiums, to host the next, in 2022?

car makers in the 1960s. What’s the exact film title?

Celebrate NYE in Healdsburg at Coyote Sonoma 12/31/19 Live Music from The HOTS BBQ Dinner Drink Ticket Champagne Toast Late Night Snacks

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8 Which one of the five Great Lakes does not border Canada?

9 Those cute little nocturnal mammals known as bats like to sleep in what

position?

10

One of the largest wall tapestries in the world, “Triumph of Peace,” was constructed from 94,000 miles of yarn, the work of 14 artist craftsmen in Belgium and hangs where, in New York?

BONUS QUESTION: What is the only country in the European Union whose official language is written in the Cyrillic alphabet?

Thanks to our readers for another great year. Look for our Trivial Highlights of 2019, in upcoming issues. We’ll be back for more live team contests in 2020. Contact howard1@triviacafe.com for more information and visit triviacafe.com.

Answers on page

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Concerts Andrew Marlin Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter is best known as a member of Mandolin Orange.

Dec 12, 8:30pm. $18. Terrapin Crossroads, 100 Yacht Club Dr, San Rafael, 415.524.2773.

Narada Michael Walden Foundation’s Holiday Jam Twenty-third annual jam is a tribute to Whitney Houston featuring the Foundation Singers and special guests. Dec 14, 8pm. $125 and up. Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley, 415.383.9600.

Clubs & Venues College of Marin James Dunn Theatre Dec 14-15, Bach’s Mass in B Minor with Marin Oratorio. 835 College Ave, Kentfield, 415.485.9385.

First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael Dec 14, 2pm, “Nutcracker & Other Holiday Favorites” with Mill Valley Philharmonic.

1510 Fifth St, San Rafael, 415.383.0930.

HopMonk Novato Dec 13, Lucy Kaplansky. Dec 14, Willie Watson. 224 Vintage Way, Novato, 415.892.6200.

Iron Springs Pub & Brewery Dec 14, 3pm, Marin Bluegrass Sessions. Dec 18, Day Trippers. 765 Center Blvd, Fairfax, 415.485.1005.

Iron Springs Public House Dec 12, Matt Jaffe. 901 Fourth St, San Rafael, 415.457.6258.

Jillie’s Wine Bar & Shop Dec 13, Agents of Change. 906 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, San Anselmo, 415.521.5500.

Mantra Wines Dec 14, Big Tall. Dec 17, 5pm, Howling Coyote Tour. 881 Grant Ave, Novato, 415.892.5151.

Marin Center Showcase Theatre Dec 15, 3pm, Enriching Lives through Music Winter Orchestra Concert. 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael, 415.499.6800.

Marin Center’s Veterans Memorial Auditorium Dec 17, Marin Symphony Holiday Pops.

10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael, 415.473.6800.

Mt Tamalpais United Methodist Church Dec 13, “Nutcracker & Other Holiday Favorites” with Mill Valley Philharmonic.

410 Sycamore Ave, Mill Valley, 415.383.0930.

19 Broadway Nightclub Dec 13, Atta Kid and Secret Sidewalk. Dec 14, Angelo Moore & the Brand New Step with Venus in Scorpio. Dec 15, Born Cool acoustic jazz trio. Dec 18, Adrian West Band.

17 Broadway Blvd, Fairfax, 415.459.1091.

Old Western Saloon Dec 14, Attila Viola & the Bakersfield Boys.

11201 Hwy 1, Pt Reyes Station, 415.663.1661.

Papermill Creek Saloon Dec 12, Elwood. Dec 13, Jenny Kerr. Dec 14, special surprise show. Dec 15, 6pm, Charley Paul and friends. 1 Castro, Forest Knolls, 415.488.9235.

Comedy Tuesday Night Live See standup comedians Mark Maier, Jason Van Glass and Jammin’ Jay Lamont. Dec 17, 8pm. $17-$27. Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley. 415.383.9600.

Dance

Peri’s Silver Dollar Dec 12, Mark’s Jam Sammich. Dec 13, Breakin Bread. Dec 14, Soul Mechanix. Dec 15, Blue Light Cheap Hotel. Dec 18, Santero Way. 29 Broadway, Fairfax, 415.459.9910.

The Belrose Dec 14, 2 and 5:30pm, Dance with Sherry Studio presents The Tapcracker. $12-$30, marinonstage.org. 1415 Fifth Ave, San Rafael.

Rancho Nicasio Dec 13, LoWatters. Dec 14, the Billie Holiday Project featuring Stella Heath. Dec 15, the Mike Duke Project album-release show. 1 Old Rancheria Rd, Nicasio, 415.662.2219.

Knights of Columbus Hall Dec 15, 4pm, Beginning Balboa with Jasmine Worrell Dance. $25. 167 Tunstead Ave, San Anselmo. 415.215.8571.

San Geronimo Community Church Dec 14, Chuck Prophet and Stephanie Finch.

6001 Sir Francis Drake, San Geronimo, 415.488.9318.

Sausalito Seahorse Dec 14, Freddy Clarke & Wobbly World. Dec 15, 4pm, Louie Romero and Mazacote. 305 Harbor View Dr, Sausalito, 415.331.2899.

St Vincent’s Chapel Dec 14,“Holidays in Harmony” with Novato Music Association Chorus. 1 St Vincent’s Dr, San Rafael, novatomusicassociationchorus.org.

Sweetwater Music Hall Dec 12, the China Cats and Zach Nugent Band. Dec 14, 12pm, Shark Alley Hobos.

Dec 15-16, the Christmas Jug Band. 19 Corte Madera Ave, Mill Valley, 415.388.3850.

The Tavern on Fourth Dec 13, Radio Veloso. Dec 14, Steady Eddy & the Shakers. 711 Fourth St, San Rafael, 415.454.4044.

Town Center Corte Madera Dec 14, 1pm, Megan Schoenbohm. Dec 15, 1pm, GroWiser Band. 100 Corte Madera Town Center, Corte Madera, 415.924.2961.

Art Opening Art Works Downtown Dec 13-21, “Small Works Exhibition,” find affordable, quality artwork for the holiday gift-giving season. Reception, Dec 13 at 5pm.

1337 Fourth St, San Rafael. 415.451.8119.

Marin Art & Garden Center Dec 13-15, “Visions for Marin: The Legacy of Caroline Sealy Livermore,” BayWood artists host a tribute show and sale. Reception, Dec 13 at 6pm. 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Ross.

415.455.5260.

Marin Society of Artists Dec 13-21, “The Winter Show,” MSA member artists present works of their many styles, ideas and visions. Reception, Dec 13 at 5pm.

1515 Third St, San Rafael. 415.464.9561.

Seager Gray Gallery Dec 14-Jan 10, “Joe Brubaker: Origins,” the artist specializes in wood sculpture and multi-media works. Reception, Dec 14 at 5:30pm. 108 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley.

415.384.8288.

Marin Center’s Veterans Memorial Auditorium Dec 14-15, 1 and 5pm, Marin Ballet’s Nutcracker. $25-$45. 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. 415.473.6800.

Events Festival of Lights Joyous Chanukah celebration includes arts, crafts, live music, face painting, delicious food and magic. Dec 15, 11:30am. Free. Osher Marin JCC, 200 N San Pedro Rd, San Rafael, 415.444.8000.

Marin Center Pop-Up Holiday Boutique Shop for locally-produced gifts and meet Marin artisans. Dec 12-22. Marin Center Bartolini Gallery, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael, marincounty.org.

Marin Singles Holiday Party Dress to impress and enjoy mixer games and food. Dec 13, 7pm. $10. Bogie’s Too, 1335 Fourth St, San Rafael, thepartyhotline.com.

Menorah Building Workshop The whole family is invited to construct a menorah for the upcoming Chanukah holiday, with treats and more. Dec 15, 10am.

Free. Home Depot, 111 Shoreline Pkwy, San Rafael, 415.458.8675.

Mill Valley LiVE Family event features musical performance

by Megan Schoenbohm and a gift and craftmaking workshop. Dec 15, 10am. $8; kids 3 and under are free. Mill Valley Community Center, 180 Camino Alto, Mill Valley, 415.383.1370.

Sausalito Winterfest Weekend includes Saturday lightedboat parade and fireworks on the water and Sunday Jingle Bell 5K. Dec 14-15.

Gabrielson Park, Anchor St, Sausalito, winterfestsausalito.com.

Food & Drink The Great Latke Cook Off Jewish Women’s Circle presents preChanukah event full of light, laughter and latkes with chef Altie Wolvovsky. Dec 18, 7:30pm. $20. Chabad Jewish Center of Novato, 7430 Redwood Blvd, Suite D, Novato, 415.878.6770.

Yoga & Wine Perfect for beginners and experienced practitioners. Dec 16, 5:30pm. $35. Mantra Wines, 881 Grant Ave, Novato, 415.892.5151.

Lectures Camera Basics Class Get comfortable with the core features of your camera. Dec 13, 11am. $85. The Image Flow, 401 Miller Ave, Ste A, Mill Valley, 415.388.3569.

Learning Unlimited Asian Art Museum in San Francisco docent explores art from the Himalayas in an illustrated lecture. Dec 17, 1pm. $10-$12. Osher Marin JCC, 200 N San Pedro Rd, San Rafael, 415.444.8000.

Readings Bay Model Visitor Center Dec 14, 10am, “Beauty & the Beast: California Wildflowers & Climate Change” with Rob Badger and Nita Winter. 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito 415.332.3871.

Book Passage Dec 11, 7pm, “The Deep Heart” with Dr John J Prendergast. Dec 14, 1pm, “Dancing on the Spider’s Web” with Sasha Paulsen.

Dec 14, 7pm, “Pocket in the Waistcoat” with RC Marlen. Dec 15, 1pm, “The Measure of Ella” with Toni Bird Jones. Dec 15, 4pm, “Onederland: My Childhood with Type 1 Diabetes” with Jamie Kurtzig. 51 Tamal Vista Blvd, Corte Madera 415.927.0960.

Point Reyes Presbyterian Church Dec 14, 3pm, Afternoon of poetry with Ada Limon and Matthew Zapruder.

11445 Shoreline Hwy, Point Reyes Station 415.663.1349.

Studio 333 Dec 12, 7pm, Why There Are Words, six authors from Red Hen Press read on theme of “Last Things.” $10. 333 Caledonia St, Sausalito 415.331.8272.

Theater A Christmas Carol KWMR presents a dressed-up semi-staged reading of the Dickens classic. Dec 14, 4pm. $20. Toby’s Feed Barn, 11250 Hwy 1, Pt Reyes Station, 415.663.1223.

She Loves Me Mountain Play and Ross Valley Players co-production is a delightful musical treat.

Through Dec 22. $25-$40. Barn Theatre, Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Ross, mountainplay.org.

The PACIFIC SUN’s calendar is produced as a service to the community.

If you have an item for the calendar, send it to calendar@bohemian.com, or mail it to: NORTH BAY BOHEMIAN, 847 Fifth St, Santa Rosa CA 95404.

Inclusion of events in the print edition is at the editor’s discretion. Deadline is two weeks prior to desired publication date.

27 PA CI FI C S U N | D ECEM B ER 1 1 - 1 7 , 2 0 19 | PACI FI CSUN.CO M

Calendar

Osteria Divino Dec 12, James Moseley Band. Dec 13, David Jeffries Jazz Fourtet. Dec 15, Parker Grant Trio. Dec 17, Ian McArdle Duo. Dec 18, Jonathan Poretz. 37 Caledonia St, Sausalito, 415.331.9355.

PACI FI C SUN | DECEM B ER 1 1 - 1 7 , 2 0 1 9 | PA CI FI CS U N. COM

28

TO PLACE AN AD: email legals@pacificsun.com. No walk-ins please. All submissions must include a phone number and email. Ad deadline is Thursday at noon to be included in the following Wednesday print edition.

Seminars&Workshops

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT

To include your seminar or workshop, call 415.485.6700

SINGLES GROUP. Single & Dissatisfied? Tired of spending weekends and holidays alone? Join us to explore what’s blocking you from fulfillment in your relationships. Next nine-week Single’s Group starts December 16th. Advance sign-up required. Space limited. Also weekly, Coed (emotional) Intimacy Groups and Women’s Group (all meeting now) and Individual or Couples Sessions. Meets in spacious Victorian in Central San Rafael. For more info, call Renée Owen, LMFT #35255 at 415-453-8117 or email reneeowen@sbcglobal.net or http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/renee-owen-san-rafaelca/183422

Seminars & Workshops CALL TODAY TO ADVERTISE

415.485.6700 Mind&Body HYPNOTHERAPY Thea Donnelly, M.A. Hypnosis, Counseling, All Issues. 25 yrs. experience.

415-459-0449.

Home Services FURNITURE REPAIR FURNITURE DOCTOR Ph/Fax: 415-383-2697

Jim’s Repair Service EXPERT REPAIRS Appliances

Appliances

Plumbing

Plumbing

Electrical

Electrical

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453-8715

48 Woodland Ave., San Anselmo

www.jimsrepair.com

Real Estate HOMES/CONDOS FOR SALE AFFORDABLE MARIN? I can show you 60 homes under $600,000. Call Cindy Halvorson 415-902-2729, BRE #01219375. Christine Champion, BRE# 00829362.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 2019147860.

The following individual(s) are doing business: SANTOS CONSTRUCTION, 249 JOHNSTONE DRIVE, SAN RAFAEL, CA 94903: SANTOS MAZAREIGOS F ROSELI, 249 JOHNSTONE DRIVE, SAN RAFAEL, CA 94903. This business is being conducted by AN INDIVIDUAL. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on NOVEMBER 06, 2019.

(Publication Dates: NOVEMBER 20, 27, DECEMBER 4, 11 of 2019) FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 2019147871.

The following indi-

vidual(s) are doing business: RS HOME IMPROVEMENT LLC, 249 JOHNSTONE DRIVE, SAN RAFAEL, CA 94903: RS HOME IMPROVEMENT LLC, 249 JOHNSTONE DRIVE, SAN RAFAEL, CA 94903. This business is being conducted by A LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on NOVEMBER 07, 2019.

(Publication Dates: NOVEMBER 20, 27, DECEMBER 4, 11 of 2019) FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 2019147949. The following individual(s) are doing business: SATURN RETURNS, SATURN RETURNS TAX PREPARATION, 9 WOMACK CT, NOVATO, CA 94947: JASMINE B CAPERTON, 9 WOMACK CT, NOVATO, CA 94947.

This business is being conducted by AN INDIVIDUAL. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on NOVEMBER 11, 2019.

(Publication Dates: NOVEMBER 27, DECEMBER 4, 11, 18 of 2019) FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 147826. The following individual(s) are doing business: S&R Homes Realty, 2130 LAS GALLINAS AVE, SAN RAFAEL, CA 94903: S&R HOMES INC., 2130 LAS GALLINAS AVE, SAN RAFAEL, CA 94903. This business is being conducted by A CORPORATION. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on OCTOBER 30, 2019.

Trivia answers «26 1 Fresno, Oakland, Bakersfield 2 Queen Elizabeth II 3 Carnation, Chrysanthemum,

Crocus, Cyclamen, Clematis, Clover and others more obscure.

4

In 2018, Russia, and in 2022, Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

5

with red and green lights only, at the corner of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland.

For improved safety, the orange light was introduced in 1920, in

Detroit. Thanks for the question to Michael Vogel from Mill Valley.

6 200 square inches 7 Ford v Ferrari 8 Lake Michigan 9 Hanging upside down 10 Hangs in the Delegates’ lobby of the General Assembly building at the United Nations Building.

BONUS ANSWER: Bulgaria, whose language is Bulgarian, alphabet is Cyrillic.

PublicNotices FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 147884. The following individual(s) are doing business: BUILDERGIRL DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION, BUILDERGIRL PRODUCTS, 34 BRIGHTON BLVD., MILLVALLEY, CA 94941: HUMPHREY DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION., 34 BRIGHTON BLVD., MILLVALLEY, CA 94941. This business is being conducted by A CORPORATION. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on NOVEMBER 08, 2019.

(Publication Dates: NOVEMBER 27, DECEMBER 4, 11, 18 of 2019) FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 147953. The following individual(s) are doing business: FAST SIGNS, BLUE POND SIGNS, DEZIGN WITHAZ, 625 DU BOIS ST. STE C, SAN RAFAEL, CA 94901: GIGABYTE GRAPHICS, INC., 625 DU BOIS ST. STE C, SAN RAFAEL, CA 94901. This business is being conducted by A CORPORATION. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the

County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on NOVEMBER 20, 2019.

(Publication Dates: DECEMBER 4, 11, 18, 25 of 2019) FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 2019147950. The following individual(s) are doing business: MARIN-SONOMA PRODUCE, 1240 HOLM ROAD, SUITE A, PETALUMA, CA 94954: EDB. INC., 11 ARCANGEL CT, FAIRFAX, CA 94930.

This business is being conducted by A CORPORATION. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on NOVEMBER 20, 2019.

(Publication Dates: DECEMBER 4, 11, 18, 25 of 2019) FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 147951. The following individual(s) are doing business: SADHANA THERAPIES, 14 DUTTON COURT, SAUSALITO, CA 94965: SADHANA THERAPIES INC.,14 DUTTON COURT, SAUSALITO, CA 94965. This business is being conducted by A CORPORATION. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on NOVEMBER 20, 2019.

(Publication

Dates: DECEMBER 4, 11, 18, 25 of 2019) FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 147911. The following individual(s) are doing business: ENGEL & VOELKERS FAIRFAX, 44 BOLINAS RD, FAIRFAX, CA 94930: SFRE MARIN.,1408 SECOND ST, NAPA, CA 94559. This business is being conducted by A CORPORATION. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on NOVEMBER 14, 2019.

(Publication Dates: DECEMBER 4, 11, 18, 25 of 2019) FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 147908. The following individual(s) are doing business: ENGEL & VOELKERS SAUSALITO, 539 BRIDGEWAY SUITES A & B, SAUSALITO, CA 94965: SFRE MARIN.,1408 SECOND ST, NAPA, CA 94559.

This business is being conducted by A CORPORATION. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on NOVEMBER 14, 2019.

(Publication Dates: DECEMBER 4, 11, 18, 25 of 2019) FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 147910. The fol-

lowing individual(s) are doing business: ENGEL & VOELKERS SAN ANSELMO, 850 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE BLVD, SAN ANSELMO, CA 94960: SFRE MARIN.,1408 SECOND ST, NAPA, CA 94559. This business is being conducted

by A CORPORATION. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on NOVEMBER 14, 2019.

(Publication Dates: DECEMBER 4, 11, 18, 25 of 2019) FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 147909. The following individual(s) are doing business: ENGEL & VOELKERS MILL VALLEY, 206 E. BLITHEDALE, MILL VALLEY, CA 94941: SFRE MARIN.,1408 SECOND ST, NAPA, CA 94559. This business is being conducted

by A CORPORATION. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on NOVEMBER 14, 2019.

(Publication Dates: DECEMBER 4, 11, 18, 25 of 2019) FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT—File No: 2019147993. The following individual(s) are doing business:TENDEREXPLORATIONS, 4 BEACH DR. SAN RAFAEL, CA 94901: ESTES S MARY,4 BEACH DR.

SAN RAFAEL, CA 94901. This business is being conducted by AN INDIVIDUAL. Registrant will begin transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed herein. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Marin County on DECEMBER 2, 2019.

(Publication Dates: DECEMBER 11, 18, 25 of 2019; JANUARY 1, 2020) OTHER NOTICES NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: MARILYN SUSAN NELSON CASE NO.: PR 1904203. To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of: Marilyn Susan Nelson.

A Petition for~Probate~has been filed by: Kathy Baldwin, in the Superior Court of California, County of Marin. The Petition for Probate requests that: Kathy Baldwin, be appointed as executor of the estate of the decedent. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.)

The independent administration authority will be granted

unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: Date: 1/13/2020, Time: 9:00AM, Dept.: J Room: J, Address of court: 3501 Civic Center Drive, PO Box 4988, San Rafael, CA 94913-4988. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California~Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of theCalifornia~Probate~Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and apprais-

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(Publication Dates: NOVEMEBER 27, DECEMBER 4, 11, 18 of 2019)

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PublicNotices al of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in~Probate~Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for petitioner: John Boudett 42719, P.O. Box 188, San Anselmo, CA 94979 415-456-7522. FILED: November 15, 2019, James M. Kim, Court Executive Officer, MARIN COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT By. Deputy. (Publication Dates: September (NOVEMBER 27 DECEMBER 4, 11 of 2019) NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE AND PROBATE AND FOR LETTERS OF ADMINISTRATION AND AUTHORIZATION TO ADMINISTER UNDER THE INDEPENDENT ADMINSTRATION OF ESTATES ACT: MARY HEROLD CASE NO.: PR-1902810 SECOND AMENDED To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of: Mary Herold. A Petition for~Probate (Second Amended)~requests that: Douglas Herold, be appointed as administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtain-

ing court approval.

Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

Decedent died on 4-252019, a resident of San Rafael, Marin County CA. $260,500 Bond be fixed. The bond will be furnished by an admitted surety insurer or as otherwise provided by law. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: Date: 12/16/2019, Time: 9:00AM, Dept.: J, Address of court: 3501 Civic Center Drive, PO Box 4988, San Rafael, CA 94913-4988. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California~Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice

under section 9052 of theCalifornia~Probate~Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

You may examine the file kept by the court.

If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in~Probate~Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for Petitioner: Piper Hanson, SBN 297035 Crawford & Hanson Law Offices, LLP, 1750 Francisco Blvd.

Pacifica, CA 94044 650-738-0720. FILED: NOVEMBER 22, 2019, James M. Kim, Court Executive Officer, MARIN COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT By: C. Lucchesi.

Deputy. (Publication Dates: November 27, December 4, 11 of 2019) ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME CASE NUMBER: CIV 1904328 SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF MARIN TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS 1. Petitioner (name of each): ROSE MERRY BURILLO, has filed a petition with this court for a decree changing names as follows: Present Name: ROSE MERRY BURILLO to Proposed Name: ROSE MERRY GRANT 2. THE

COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter shall appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted.

Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. if no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing.

NOTICE OF HEARING a. Date: 01/21/2020, Time: 9:00am, Dept: E, Room: E. The address of the court is same as noted above; 3501 Civic Center Drive, San Rafael, CA 94903. 3.a.

A copy of this Order to Show Cause shall be published at least once each week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing on the petition in the Pacific Sun, a newspaper of general circulation, printed in the county of Marin. DATED: NOVEMBER 25, 2019 Andrew E Sweet Judge of the Superior Court James M Kim Court Executive Officer MARIN COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT By E. Anderson, Deputy (December 4, 11, 18, 25 as of 2019).

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: MARILYN S. NELSON CASE NO.: PR 1904203. To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent

creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of: Marilyn Susan Nelson.

A Petition for~Probate~has been filed by: Kathy Baldwin, in the Superior Court of California, County of Marin. The Petition for Probate requests that: Kathy Baldwin, be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval.

Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: Date: 1/13/2020, Time: 9:00AM, Dept.: J Room: J, Address of court: 3501 Civic Center Drive, PO Box 4988, San Rafael, CA 94913-4988. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or

a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California~Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of theCalifornia~Probate~Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

You may examine the file kept by the court.

If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in~Probate~Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for petitioner: John Boudett, P.O. Box 188, San Anselmo, CA 94979 415-456-7522. FILED: November 15, 2019, James M. Kim, Court Executive Officer, MARIN COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT By. Deputy. (Publication Dates: September (DECEMBER 11, 18, 25 of 2019)

By Amy Alkon

Q:

My new roommate is uncomfortable with the cameras in the living room and kitchen. This became an issue for her after I saw a video of her being careless with my furniture and asked her to stop. My last roommate had no problem with the cameras, which I got after my home was broken into. My current roommate knew the deal when she moved in, but now she’s uncomfortable and complains about this constantly. She wants the cameras either removed or turned off when she’s home.—Annoyed

A:

Sure, Socrates said at his trial, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” But this reflected his love of the pursuit of wisdom, not a desire to be under constant surveillance by his roommate.

Consider why your roommate might take issue with living in a two-person police state. Privacy, as explained by legal scholar Alan Westin, involves people’s right to choose what information about themselves gets released to others. Our longing for privacy comes out of our evolved concern for protecting our reputation—others’ perception of the sort of person we are. This became vital when ancestral humans started living cooperatively, improving their chances for survival by sharing food, work and defense against the elements and strangers. Having a rotten reputation could get a person booted from their band and made to go it alone.

Our reputation has a guard dog: shame. Contrary to popular belief, shame is not “unhealthy” or “toxic.” Cross-cultural research by evolutionary psychologist Daniel Sznycer suggests shame is actually a social-status management tool that helps us avoid being downgraded by others. Sznycer and his colleagues explain that the desire to avoid shame motivates us to “conceal damaging information” about ourselves and deters us from behaving in dishonest or unfair ways so we preserve our social standing.

The need to guard our reputation makes us behave differently when we have an audience. Knowing we are on camera removes a measure of freedom from us— freedom to relax and be ourselves. Consider the mealtime version of “Dance like nobody’s watching”: “Eat lunch like a member of the Donner Party.”

Your roommate knew about the cameras before she moved in; but a good deal of social science research finds that we’re bad at predicting how we’ll actually react to things. Also, we can’t just choose to power down the reputation-driven anxiety we feel when we know we’re being watched. Ultimately, it seems fairest to turn the cameras off when she’s home or only have them in the entryways and outside windows. The cameras should be for safety purposes, not so you have indisputable proof that your roommate has been chipping away at your leftover Chinese takeout.

Q:

My neighbors, a lesbian couple, are my best friends. We have keys to each other’s apartments and just walk in and out. I love this, but I don’t want them walking in when I’m with a guy. If I call them to tell them I have plans and it’s just a hookup, I’ll get disapproving looks and lectures about how I won’t be able to handle it, will be miserable, etc. How can I keep them from walking in and from knowing what I’m up to?—Downstairs Neighbor

A:

There are things your friends don’t need to know about you, and “Who wears the Jimmy Carter mask when you’re in bed?” is one of them.

You can hang some item on your doorknob to signal to your neighbors,“Now is not a good time!”(and, of course, let them know this new code). To solve the other part of your problem— unsolicited opinions about your sex life—consider using “strategic ambiguity.”Organizational communications researcher Eric Eisenberg points out that clear communication is not always in our best interest. Sometimes, being purposely vague, leaving room for “multiple interpretations,”is ideal, reducing conflict and preserving relationships.

Basically, you need to pair a clear message about when it’s a bad time to come in with an unclear message about why. This transforms a sign that would’ve meant one particular thing—I’ve ordered in from Tinder Eats—into a sign that could mean any number of things: I’m sick. I’m napping. I’m spread-eagled over a mirror trying to decide whether Martin, my mole, is cancerous.

Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon at 171 Pier Ave. #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or email adviceamy@aol.com. @amyalkon on Twitter. Weekly radio show, blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon

Astrology

For the week of December 11

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Nobody knows

really what they’re doing,” says Aries comedian Conan O’Brien. “And there are two ways to go with that information,” he continues. “One is to be afraid, and the other is to be liberated, and I choose to be liberated by it.” I hope you’ll be inspired by O’Brien’s example in the coming weeks, Aries. I suspect that if you shed your worries about the uncertainty you feel, you’ll trigger an influx of genius. Declaring your relaxed independence from the temptation to be a know-it-all will bless you with expansive new perspectives and freedom to move.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Creativity-

expert Roger von Oech tells us, “Everyone has a ‘risk muscle.’ You keep it in shape by trying new things.

If you don’t, it atrophies. Make a point of using it at least once a day.” Here’s what I’ll add to his advice: If your risk muscle is flabby right now, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to whip it into better shape. Start with small, modest risks and gradually work your way up to bigger and braver ones. And what should you do if your risk muscle is already well-toned? Dream and scheme about embarking on a major, long-term venture that is the robust embodiment of a smart gamble.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Many people engage in laughably feeble attempts to appear witty by being cynical—as if by exuding sardonic irony and sneering pessimism they could prove their mettle as brilliant observers of modern culture.

An example is this lame wisecrack from humorist David Sedaris: “If you’re looking for sympathy you’ll find it between s--- and syphilis in the dictionary.” I bring this to your attention in the hope of coaxing you to avoid indulging in gratuitous pessimism during the coming weeks. For the sake of your good health, it’s important for you to be as open-minded and generous-spirited as possible. And besides that, pessimism will be unwarranted.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “You can shop online and find whatever you’re looking for,” writes pundit Paul Krugman, “but bookstores are where you find what you weren’t looking for.” That’s a good principle to apply in every area of your life. It’s always smart to know exactly what you need and want, but sometimes—like now—it’s important to put yourself in a position to encounter what you need and want but don’t realize that you need and want.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Bachianas Brasileiras is

a nine-part piece of music that blends Brazilian folk music with the compositional style of Johann Sebastian Bach. The poet Anne Sexton relied on it, letting it re-play ceaselessly during her long writing sessions. My painter-friend Robin sometimes follows a similar method with Leonard Cohen’s album Ten New Songs, allowing it to cycle for hours as she works on her latest masterpiece. In accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to select a new theme song or collection of theme songs to inspire your intense efforts in behalf of your labors of love in the coming weeks. It’s a favorable time to explore the generative power of joyous, lyrical obsession.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “I’ve spent my life butting my head against other people’s lack of imagination,” mourned Virgo musician Nick Cave, who’s renowned for his original approach to his craft. I’m bringing this to your attention because I suspect you will be endowed with an extra-fertile imagination in the coming weeks. And I would hate for you to waste time and energy trying to make full use of it in the presence of influences that would resist and discourage you. Therefore, I’ll cheer you on as you seek out people and situations that enhance your freedom to express your imagination in its expansive glory.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): A scholar counted up how often the Bible delivers the command “Fear not!” and “Don’t be afraid!” and similar advice. The number was 145. I don’t think that approach to regulating behavior works very well. To be constantly thinking

By Rob Brezsny

about what you’re not supposed to do and say and think about tends to strengthen and reinforce what you’re not supposed to do and say and think about. I prefer author Elizabeth Gilbert’s strategy. She writes, “I don’t try to kill off my fear. I make all that space for it. Heaps of space. I allow my fear to live and breathe and stretch out its legs comfortably. It seems to me the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back.” That’s the method I recommend for you, Libra—especially in the coming weeks.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Sir Isaac Newton

(1642–1727) was one of history’s most influential scientists and a key contributor to physics, astronomy, mathematics and optics. His mastery of the nuances of human relationships was less developed, however. He had one close friendship with a Swiss mathematician, though he broke it off abruptly after four years. And his biographers agree that he never had sex with another person. What I find most curious, however, is the fact that he refused to even meet the brilliant French philosopher Voltaire, who reached out to him and asked to get together. I trust you won’t do anything like that in the coming weeks, Scorpio. In fact, I urge you to be extra receptive to making new acquaintances, accepting invitations and expanding your circle of influence.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): How did humans figure out that a luxurious fabric could be made from the cocoons of insect larvae? Ancient Chinese sage Confucius told the following story: One day in 2460 B.C., 14-year-old Chinese princess Xi Ling Shi was sitting under a mulberry tree sipping tea. A silk worm’s cocoon fell off a branch and landed in her drink. She was curious, not bothered. She unrolled the delicate structure and got the idea of using the threads to weave a fabric.

The rest is history. I foresee a silk-worm’s-cocoonfalling-in-your-cup-of-tea type of event in your future, Sagittarius. Be alert for it.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “It is the

soul’s duty to be loyal to its own desires,” wrote Capricorn author Rebecca West. “It must abandon itself to its master passion.” That’s a high standard to live up to! But then you Capricorns have substantial potential to do just that: become the champions of devoting practical commitment to righteous causes. With that in mind, I’ll ask you: How are you doing in your work to embody the ideal that Rebecca West articulated? Is your soul loyal to its deepest desires? Has it abandoned itself to its master passion? Take inventory—and make any corrections, if necessary.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I would never try to talk you into downplaying or denying your suffering. I would never try to convince you that the pain you have experienced is mild or tolerable or eminently manageable. Who among us has the wisdom to judge the severity or intractability of anyone else’s afflictions? Not I. But in the coming months, I will ask you to consider the possibility that you have the power—perhaps more than you realize—to diminish your primal aches and angst. I will encourage you to dream of healing yourself in ways that you have previously imagined to be impossible.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “You owe it to

us all to get on with what you're good at,” wrote Piscean poet W. H. Auden. In other words, you have a responsibility to develop your potential and figure out how to offer your best gifts. It’s not just a selfish act for you to fulfill your promise; it’s a generous act of service to your fellow humans. So how are you doing with that assignment, Pisces? According to my analysis, you should be right in the middle of raising your efforts to a higher octave; you should be discovering the key to activating the next phase of your success—which also happens to be the next phase of your ability to bestow blessings on others.

Go to realastrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes and Daily Text Message Horoscopes. Audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1.877.873.4888.

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