R 2013 08 29 by News & Review

Letters............................ 3 Opinion/Streetalk............ 5 Sheila.Leslie.................... 6 Chanelle.Bessette........... 7 News.............................. 8 Green............................ 11 Feature......................... 13 Arts&Culture................ 16 Art.of.the.State............. 19

Foodfinds..................... 20 Film.............................. 22 Musicbeat.................... 23 Nightclubs/Casinos....... 24 This.Week.....................27 Advice.Goddess........... 28 Free.Will.Astrology....... 30 15.Minutes..................... 31 Bruce.Van.Dyke............ 31

Cultural exchange? See News, page 8.

All the food unfit to eat? See Green, page 11.

deBt

Whatever happened to Quarters? See arts&Culture, page 16.

The.ReNO.CiTy.COuNCiL.TeLLS.CReDiTORS,.. ‘The.CheCk.iS.NOT.iN.The.MAiL.’

can you keep a secret? See Musicbeat, page 23.

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2 | RN&R | August 29, 2013 V1_100148.3_10x11.5_4c_Ad.indd 1

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Send letters to renoletters@newsreview.com

Burned out

We do

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review. My co-worker threw his back out. The rumor mill had it he did it while twerking. Now, I don’t want to feed the mill so I got verification. The problem is, when this slanderous rumor was first spread, I asked another co-worker the question, “What do you mean, he was twerking?” Here’s the part that bothers me, she thought I meant, “What does twerking mean?” Am I sensitive or did this person suggest I didn’t know what twerking meant because I’m 51 years old? “Mm hmm, just like Miley Cyrus,” she said. I know who Miley Cyrus is. What I didn’t know, was just how she got identified with twerking? Of course, Cyrus’ performance on the MTV Video Music Awards showed up later on Google News. It happened to me twice last week, too. I posted something about looking for photographers going to Burning Man. Suddenly the deluge of advice about Burning Man photo policies, how much time it takes to get to Burning Man, that I could hire a photographer before Burning Man, or that I could pay a photographer to use their images. Come on, I was doing the pelvic thrust when Rocky Horror was still in theaters. Parents used to freak out because Elvis Presley did it. In fact, Ed Sullivan would only show him on network TV from the waist up. That shit’s 60 years old. My dog Alice does it when she sniffs Charlie’s boy-dog parts. And somebody thinks this is new? People need to learn some history so they don’t seem so ignorant. I had crushes on both Nina Blackwood and Martha Quinn. I remember the Boomtown Rats. Burning Man? Open fires were still allowed when I started going to Burning Man. People openly carried and shot guns when I started going to Burning Man. In 1996, I flagged a road for Michael Michael and helped Flynn Mauthe build Helco. I’m acknowledged in the first Burning Man book, for Christ’s sake. I’ve got gut flora that have been to more Burning Man’s than these “Burners.” You want to know why I don’t know what happened on the MTV Video Awards or care to go to Burning Man every year anymore? Think about it. They’re related. And it’s not because I’m new at any of this.

Please support health care for all, though imperfect. We need something that supports all Americans to get some health care that is reasonable, and helps all Americans bear some of the cost burden as well. Women especially benefit. Make health care equitable and available! Tamara Baren Verdi

My way or the highway In response to Lee Gibson of the RTC. We understand the Southeast Connector has been the subject of “rigorous and purposeful planning” for many years, but to date the process has not determined a safe and environmentally appropriate location. If the May 29 meeting at Hidden Valley school is an example of RTC’s community meetings they are nothing to be pleased about. Nearly 300 people, mostly long-time residents, appeared to be somewhat confused regarding the presentation. In fact, being lectured to like 5-year-olds is inappropriate in any circumstance. Not one person in the audience spoke in favor of the road. Having community meetings does not suggest that anyone was there in support. There is no doubt that there will need to be another north/south road sometime in the future—that time is not now and that location is not here. Your account of a detailed analysis is shallow and self-serving. The recession reduced traffic congestion; the argument for creating jobs is reminiscent of the housing boom/bust—providing jobs which are unsustainable. Throwing out the “jobs” carrot when most all will not be new jobs but moving existing employees around is misleading. If built, the SEC will cause the blight of billboards and give rise to new retail centers like quickie markets and gas stations that will help only to collect the gas taxes to profit RTC. It is our understanding that federal law (NEPA) requires one permit for the entire project and does not recognize phasing a project of this size and nature. That seems reasonable in that spending upwards of $65 million on a

Our Mission To publish great newspapers that are successful and enduring. To create a quality work environment that encourages people to grow professionally while respecting personal welfare. To have a positive impact on our communities and make them better places to live.

bridge with the chance of never getting approval on the remainder is ludicrous except for the obvious argument that “who would stop us now that we have this bridge”? The argument regarding violations of the Clean Water Act will, hopefully, be decided by a federal judge. CHM2Hill’s environmental engineer has stated that the plan for the toxic methyl mercury is to scoop it up and bury it under the road. That sort of thinking does not enhance safety or the environment—the first time the road floods—and it will, per your own planners—the road will suffer major damage. The federal government actually should order a proper cleanup of this toxic site. Gibson considers that opponents have misrepresented and distorted the project’s facts and history. It can be argued that RTC has misled the public on this project repeatedly. Consider this quote: “The Southeast Connector is one of the biggest projects ever undertaken by the RTC and is expected to cost approximately $170 million.” Since the actual road cost is closer to $300 million, who is distorting facts? In recent responses in the RG-J, Mr. Gibson has repeatedly referred to citizens’ complaints and legal actions as “misunderstandings.” That is, if we have objections, we just have misunderstood. Lawrence Laskowski Reno

Men of letters Re “The high cost of apathy” (Left Foot Forward, Aug. 15): After reading Sheila Leslie’s plea to Gov. Sandoval for an overhaul of the mental health system in the state of Nevada, I am enclosing a copy of a letter that I sent this week to Senator Reid, Assemblyman David Bobzien and Congressman Mark Amodei: In 2006, I filed my first application for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits (without legal representation) due to multiple mental health disorders and physical impediments. In 2007, that application was denied. I did not appeal the decision at that time due to the severity of my disability and lack

Editor/Publisher D. Brian Burghart News Editor Dennis Myers Arts Editor Brad Bynum Calendar Editor Kelley Lang Editorial Intern Sage Leehey Contributors Amy Alkon, Chanelle Bessette, Megan Berner, Mark Dunagan, Bob Grimm, Ashley Hennefer, Sheila Leslie, Dave Preston, Jessica Santina, K.J. Sullivan, Kris Vagner, Bruce Van Dyke, Allison Young

Creative Director Priscilla Garcia Art Director Hayley Doshay Design Brian Breneman, Vivian Liu, Marianne Mancina, Skyler Smith Advertising Consultants Meg Brown, Gina Odegard, Bev Savage Senior Classified Advertising Consultant Olla Ubay Office/Distribution Manager/ Ad Coordinator Karen Brooke Executive Assistant/Operations Coordinator Nanette Harker

of case management. In 2010, I filed a second application for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits without legal representation due to the same multiple mental health and physical disorders listed in the first application. In 2011, the second application was denied. I then sought out the counsel of Hal Taylor, attorney-at-law in Reno. This legal firm currently represents my interests in the ongoing appeal process. To date, we have requested a reconsideration of the initial denial (which was denied), have been present at a hearing presided over by administrative law judge Eileen Burlison (which was denied) and just last week the request to review the aforementioned denied application was denied by the Appeals Council of the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review in Virginia. What is going on here? Clearly, some impediment is in the way of my rightful acquisition of insurance benefits that I have accrued while I was able-minded and employable. At this time, I can no longer count on financial support from family, I have maxed out the available credit limit on personal credit cards, I am behind on monthly rental payments to my landlord, I have had to accept food assistance from the state. I am scared that I will become one of the mental health statistics roaming homeless on the downtown streets of Reno. The time has come for me to request assistance from your office. I urge you to authorize a congressional inquiry appeal on my behalf. Martin Kearney via email

That’s Socialism! Senator Dean Heller and other Republicans vote in a governmentsupported health care program for themselves, but want to take away the health care from 30 million Americans. John Kuykendall Sparks

Assistant Distribution Manager Ron Neill Distribution Drivers Sandra Chhina, John Miller, Jesse Pike, David Richards, Martin Troye, Warren Tucker, Matthew Veach, Sam White General Manager/Publisher John D. Murphy President/CEO Jeff vonKaenel Chief Operations Officer Deborah Redmond Human Resource Manager Tanja Poley Business Manager Grant Ronsenquist

—D. Brian Burghart

Sugar and spice Re “What are you made of?” (Feature story, Aug. 22): Why is my sibling’s ancestry composition not the same as mine? We have the same parents? Thank you for contacting the 23andMe Team. It is normal for your Ancestry Composition to differ from your full sibling. This is because on average, each of you inherit 50 percent of your DNA from each of your parents. However, the segments that you and your brother inherit are not necessarily the same 50 percent, so you will see differences in your genetics in both health and ancestry results. Marcia B. Cuccaro via email Editor’s note: Our reader asked 23andme.com a question that arose out of our story. The third paragraph is the response from the company.

September mourn On September 11, 2013, we will hold the fourth annual “September 11th Memorial Taps” ceremony at Powning Veterans Memorial Park Across from the Washoe County Court House for the 13th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the United States of America. We invite all Reno and Sparks residents to attend the ceremony at 6:46 a.m. We realize that is very early in the morning, but the purpose is to remember the murdered civilians of that day at the exact times of the attacks. We will have hundreds of buglers nationwide sounding “Taps” at the same moments. We will repeat the sounding of “Taps” at each moment of the following attacks and will add one more sounding of “Taps” for all those men and women in our military that have been killed in subsequent military actions. This ceremony will also honor all the first responders of Reno, Sparks and all of Nevada for the acts of sacrifice that they have committed themselves to in their professions. Fred Speckmann Reno

Business Nicole Jackson, Tami Sandoval Systems Manager Jonathan Schultz Systems Support Specialist Joe Kakacek Web Developer/Support Specialist John Bisignano 708 North Center Street Reno, NV 89501 Phone (775) 324-4440 Fax (775) 324-4572 Classified Fax (916) 498-7940 Mail Classifieds & Talking Personals to N&R Classifieds, Reno Edition, 1015 20th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814 or e-mail classifieds@ newsreview.com

brianb@ ne wsreview . com

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Web site www.newsreview.com Printed by Paradise Post The RN&R is printed using recycled newsprint whenever available. Editorial Policies Opinions expressed in the RN&R are those of the authors and not of Chico Community Publishing, Inc. Contact the editor for permission to reprint articles, cartoons or other portions of the paper. The RN&R is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts. All letters received become the property of the publisher. We reserve the right to print letters in condensed form.

Cover design: Brian Breneman Feature story design: Hayley Doshay

AUGUST 29, 2013

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CIRCUSRENO.COM

by Dennis Myers

ThiS Modern World

by tom tomorrow

Are there campus issues that concern you? Asked at the University of Nevada, Reno Chris Buchanan Freshman

A lot of the construction we have going on right now. It makes me create a lot of detours to get to classes. They waited, kind of, to get it going. I was here last week, and they didn’t really have as much going on as they do now.

Corinne Hasenau Freshman

I get lost a lot. And I’m a little scared to walk at night. We’re in downtown Reno. Reno is not the best neighborhood to walk in at night.

Weston Haynes Junior

Call off the dogs You can sure hear them barking. The dogs of war are furious, frothing at the teeth, trying to bite through the chainlink fence between us and Syria like some rabid monsters. Doesn’t this all feel so familiar, just like the buildup to the second Iraq war? That was the war that distracted the entire planet while our government created the surveillance state, drone murder, and enabled the destruction of the world economy to the benefit of the wealthy and the detriment of the rest of us. How stupid are we? We’ve seen it time and time again: The opposition party—whichever party it happens to be at the time—demands action on the part of the seated administration for some imagined foreign interest. The administration is nearly always loathe to take action, because let’s face it, it’s been a long time since wars were good for the economy. So the balance becomes, “Will I gain more votes by getting in or staying out?” But, the administration will stick a toe in the water, maybe with a surgical strike against a related target, and suddenly the poll numbers go up. Of course they go up, the opposition party likes this particular action, and the supporting party thinks they’re supporting their own best interests by supporting their “team.” Since the administration actually sought the conflict, the second Iraq war was a rare exception to this pattern. Still, on Aug. 20, 2012, President Obama shot his mouth off by answering opposition party complaints, when he said, “We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized,” OPINION

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Food is expensive, really expensive. I just paid $5 for this drink [a 15.2 ounce container of strawberry/banana juice]. I paid $4.75. It’s so expensive to eat on campus, so I usually pack a lunch.

the president said a year ago last week. “That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.” In the year since he made that statement, some media outlets have made the claim that he basically said that if Syria uses chemical weapons against it’s own people, we’ll send our soldiers in. Just read the statement. He didn’t commit to any such action, but now, he’s behaving as though he did—saber-rattling in exactly the way that political opposition mouthpieces have used to claim he’s created a credibility gap. In other words, they say, Obama must take action now, otherwise he’ll be perceived as toothless—and besides, he already said he would. Except he didn’t. Look, police actions don’t make other countries like us. They haven’t for a long time. The idea that we would gain allies by or advance our interests by a strike against Bashar al-Assad is absurd and self-destructive. If we were going in with “liberal” values, such as protecting civilians from a repressive regime, we would have gone in a long time ago. Some 1.5 million people have fled the country due to Syria’s civil war. Some 4 million have been internally displaced. If we cared one bit for those 1 million children displaced by war, we’d be there. Some 100,000 people have been killed by bullets, bombs and disease in this civil war. But less than 500 are killed by gas—we don’t even know who launched the attack—and we’re going to go in? We’re facing another election-driven war. And we the people always seem to lose these wars. Ω

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Farah Vitale Junior

Maybe tuition, the price of tuition going up, and people not being able to afford going here full time. I’ve had financial aid helping me, but not everyone has that.

Gaby Palazzolo Sophomore

Probably this stuff right here—the construction and this stuff. It makes campus not look as good. Othewise, I like everything about this campus and the school.

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The hypocrisy of Harvey’s prosecution My 10-year-old daughter ran across the parking lot breathless with excitement, waving a hundred dollar bill. Our Girl Scout Troop was selling cookies, and she couldn’t wait to tell me that a man gave them the money but didn’t want the cookies. I was by suspicious, of course, and walked Sheila Leslie with her to the cookie station where another mother told me it was true. Harvey Whittemore just wanted to anonymously support the girls, and graciously peeled off a C-note, declining the goods. This was my first exposure to the grand persona of Harvey Whittemore. Fast forward 17 years to a disgraced Whittemore, found guilty of three felonies, awaiting sentencing in September. In those intervening years, I had lots of interaction with Harvey, the famous one-name lobbyist, representing Nevada’s most powerful special interests. As a legislator, I sometimes voted against him, but also gratefully accepted his help in getting my agenda through a cranky and recalcitrant state Senate where term limits hadn’t yet taken effect. The facts of the crime, making excessive campaign contributions to Sen. Harry Reid, are fairly straightforward, leading a reasonable person to the conclusion that Harvey did indeed The RN&R ran this story on March 3, break the law. He clearly influenced 2005, when Harvey family, friends and co-workers to Whittemore was still donate the maximum to Sen. Reid’s at the top of the heap: re-election campaign, and then reimwww.newsreview. com/reno/publicbursed them through “gifts” which power-private-man/ often exceeded the amount donated content?oid=24231. to the campaign. Harvey truly is a generous man. But despite the ugly set of facts, it’s hard to work up any outrage over Harvey’s crime, when corporations and political action committees brazenly do much worse, albeit legally. Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have opened corporate coffers since the Court ruled that campaign contributions are protected free speech, and therefore immune to restrictions, removing any semblance of fairness or transparency from the process. Harvey’s crime was thinking he could go a step further and make straw-man contributions, clearly against the law, calculating his actions would probably go unnoticed by a

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system that does little to regulate itself. He might have succeeded except for a separate lawsuit by his business partners who pointed the FBI in the right direction. A smart lawyer, always looking to problem-solve a solution that satisfied everyone, could easily have hidden his contributions through legal means. Instead, Harvey got too comfortable with his wealth and influence, perhaps thinking no one would notice or care. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Myhre told the Reno Gazette-Journal his office was happy with the convictions, helpfully explaining that “these laws exist to protect the election process from undue influence and provide transparency to the voting public.” Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman told reporters the conviction demonstrates the U.S. Justice Department is determined to prosecute people “who use illegal tricks to corrupt our democratic process. … The cornerstones of our campaign finance laws are contribution limits and transparency, and Mr. Whittemore’s crime was designed to undermine both.” Neither mentioned the corrupting influence of political action committees that don’t have to disclose their donors or corporations that “bundle” their contributions to exceed the limits. These maneuvers are legal, but hardly less corrupting than Harvey’s crime. Ironically, this case may open the way for unlimited contributions by individuals as it is expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Dominic Gentile, Harvey’s lawyer, says the case is far from over. “The U.S. Supreme Court has before it right now the precise issues that were raised by us pretrial, dealing with whether any limits on how much any individual can contribute to a campaign or to a person running for office are unconstitutional.” Yes, Harvey was wrong to break the campaign laws. But his illegal actions pale in comparison with the legal bribery and abuse of the system that goes on all around us every day. Ω

Nevada should accept nuclear waste With recent discussions about a shipment of nuclear waste coming to Nevada from Tennessee, politicians and citizens alike feel the resurgence of mixed feelings about using the state as a nuclear waste repository, particularly in regard to Yucca by Chanelle Bessette Mountain, which seems to be becoming more of a political buzzphrase than a tangible idea. I’ve written before about my support for the development of nuclear energy and nuclear waste storage in Nevada, and I believe the time for further consideration of this highly lucrative and beneficial industry is upon us. Radiation is clearly a concern for Nevada citizens. The ideas of contamination and poisoning rightly strikes fear into the hearts of many. When the earthquakes and tsunami that struck Japan several years ago caused radioactive leaks in its nuclear power plants, the exposure put many lives in danger and made people afraid of what could happen in other countries. However, that kind of exposure is virtually impossible with the kind of waste repository that was being developed for Nevada. Not only is the expansive, isolated Good news, bad news: Chanelle has taken desert a perfectly protected a job at Fortune environment against the elements, magazine, which means solid nuclear waste is packaged RN&R is looking for a in thick ceramic coating and then new conservative columnist. If your stored in layered containers that views are more can’t be exposed by accident. In libertarian than addition, actual storage of the neocon, send three country’s nuclear waste would be sample 600-word relatively minimal given that much columns on local issues to brianb@ nuclear waste can be reprocessed newsreview.com. and repurposed. The large amount of revenue that would funnel into the state as a result of the storage facility could do a lot for Nevada. I’m not suggesting that we sacrifice safety for money, but the truth is that threat of contamination is minimal and maintaining a state nuclear waste repository would do more good than harm. The main reason a discussion at the federal level about nuclear waste storage in Nevada is getting

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so much recent attention is that there is a proposal that the waste will be transported on Las Vegas highways. While Yucca Mountain’s location about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is far enough away from the city that the storage of radioactive materials would be inconsequential to most Nevada residents, there is public concern about the waste passing through metropolitan Las Vegas en route to the facility. People fear accidents and radioactive contamination, which, again, are unlikely. Of course, Las Vegas residents should have a say in what kind of materials are being transported through their home city, but there are far more pros than cons for getting involved with the nuclear industry. Nuclear energy can be the solution to all U.S. energy problems. Going to war for oil or burning toxic fossil fuels that deplete the ozone and increase global warming can be things of the past. While alternative energy like wind, hydropower, solar or electric cars are all viable options for helping to solve the energy crisis, none will be as effective, clean and inexpensive as nuclear power. The only way for nuclear energy to be taken seriously and be widely developed is for there to be a place to put what’s left over. With the issue of radioactive waste so present in the public’s mind, however, this energy source is not given sufficient consideration. I would encourage anyone with doubts about nuclear energy to research the facts. Granted, it’s not a layperson-friendly science, but it’s not acceptable to use the misconceptions about nuclear waste portrayed in Hollywood and in cartoons as a reason not to pursue it. Nuclear energy has been a large part of Nevada’s past, and it’s up to us to make it a part of Nevada’s future. Ω

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DISCOVERING HEALTH CARE CAREERS Operation Health Care Bound is a FREE event for middle school and high school students and their parents. Students will have the opportunity to explore many available health care careers and participate in hands-on demonstrations. Save the date for the 6th annual event and come out and learn about all of the health care careers available to you. First 100 students will receive a free gift bag.

Anticipated Hands-On Learning Experiences • Interaction with local health care professionals • University and community college representatives • CPR awareness courses • Anatomy lab • Educational, scholarship and career guidance • Health and wellness education • Public safety demonstrations • Giveaways • First come ﬁrst serve tours of UNR campus

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SAVE THE DATE 6th Annual Operation Health Care Bound Saturday, September 14, 2013 | 10am-2pm University of Nevada, Reno | Joe Crowley Student Union FREE Event parking

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Photo/Dennis Myers

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid talks about going around the state legislatures to create bi-state gambling markets.

Time to go home A huge pedestal clock has come back to downtown Reno. The clock, built by the Mayer Company of Seattle and the E. Howard Company of Boston, stood in the downtown in front of Ginsburg Jewelers until the 1960s when Park Lane Mall developer Sonner Greenspan obtained ownership and moved it to Park Lane where it was installed and used as a symbol of the mall in advertising. When plans to demolish Park Lane were announced, the clock was donated to the city (“Time for preservation,” RN&R, Feb. 14, 2008). It was one of two pedestal clocks that stood in mid-block on Virginia Street between First and Second streets across the street from each other for decades. The other clock was two-sided and its fate is unknown. The Mayer/Howard clock has four faces. Since the city took ownership, it has been in storage until money could be found to refurbish it. City spokesperson Michelle Anderson said in an email message, “The Cal-Neva Hotel and Casino donated/ offered to pay all the costs associated with the refurbishment, transportation, installation, and insurance necessary” to put the clock back in working order. The clock has been installed on the southeast corner of Virginia and First as part of the concrete plaza where the Mapes Hotel once stood, half a block south—and on the other side of Virginia—from its historic location. Sparks has a similar four-faced pedestal clock in place downtown, but it has been nonfunctional for years. Recently it was moved a few dozen feet south.

Interrupted celebration A demonstration in downtown Reno commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom left some hard feelings. According to complaints filed afterward, the Reno event was permitted for 10 a.m. to noon on Aug. 24 at the federal building at Liberty and Virginia downtown. People arriving early found no noise or maintenance going on, but at 10 a.m., weed whacking and lawn mowing began. Local NAACP president Lonnie Feemster said, “I witnessed the individual who was reckless and rude in his behavior as he threw one of the event signs and banner for the NAACP on the ground and then walked on them. The loud noise made it impossible to talk to him, and he was using a potentially dangerous device within a few inches of people, including young children.” Participant Jake Highton wrote, “In the 45 minutes or so that I was there not one soul came in the building. Then, in what I think was deliberate harassment, the lawn mower roared by us and interrupted the demonstration.”

Maybe the smoke’s getting to them The service counter at the Washoe Air Quality Division began closing half an hour early—that is, at 4:30 p.m.—on Aug. 26. A county release said the early closing was to help office workers use “the last half hour of the day to complete customer service activities and reconcile finances and deposits.”

—Dennis Myers

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Jersey/Nevada nuptials? Two states consider a joint online gambling market Reuters last week reported that gambling executives and state casino regulators are discussing a New Jersey/Nevada by internet gambling compact because Dennis Myers they believe Nevada alone cannot sustain a large enough online market. The news service reported that its supporters want it to happen in 2014, but the Nevada Legislature does not meet again until February 2015. The news shot through the gambling world on websites like Casino.org and PokerNews.com, and even was reported around the world (“Un partage des liquidités entre le Nevada et le New Jersey dès 2014?”; “États-Unis: la perspective d’un partage des liquidités entre Nevada et New Jersey de plus en plus sérieuse”). But very few of the reports advanced the story beyond the Reuters piece.

“That’s something that we would certainly consider, legislatively.” U.S. Sen. Harry Reid senate Democratic leader Nevada gambling regulators are involved but state legislators appear not to be. Asked if the Senate Judiciary Committee he chairs would handle legislation related to such a compact and whether he has been brought into the process, Clark County Sen. Tick Segerblom said, “It would and I haven’t.”

But U.S. Sen. Harry Reid suggested the two state legislatures may not be needed. “Maybe they’ll get some federal legislation to allow them to do that before then,” Reid said. He said he has entertained the notion of compacts for some time. “We’ve always—we have talked for some time now about compacts. … And if we’re able to get something done—and you know, we’ve worked hard to get that done—that’s something that we would certainly consider, legislatively.” Asked if he has been in discussions with casino executives or state regulators, he said, “Oh, with the casino executives, of course, but I haven’t talked to any of the regulators. I personally haven’t. My staff may have, but I haven’t. But I’ve talked to casino executives for years now. Not as much the casino executives as people they’ve hired to represent them.” Three states—Delaware, New Jersey and Nevada—have made online gambling legal and Nevada was first off the mark of having it actually in business, though only those physically present in the state can play. The first legal hand of online poker was dealt on April 30.

Who’s on first? The Reuters story suggested a rapid move to a compact, so much so that one public relations firm put out a

news release headed “Online Poker Agreement Nearing Completion.” While Reuters quoted MGM exec Jim Murren and Nevada gambling regulator Andrew Burnett as being positive on the notion of a bistate compact, New Jersey regulator David Rebuck said, “New Jersey is currently focused on working with its existing casinos to attain successful internet gaming opportunities in this state,” and that he expects “future opportunities for growth and development with other jurisdictions.” That was interpreted by some websites that regularly cover gambling as meaning that New Jersey believes “it is not yet the right time to forge an agreement of that nature,” as Poker News Report put it. Asked if the two states would have to consent to joining a bi-state compact, Reid said, “No, not if we pass a federal law.” Reminded that the two state legislatures had given their consent to the bi-state Lake Tahoe governing compact, Reid said that “would be different,” but was vague on why, other than to repeat that backers of a compact “may not need that in whatever we do here, federally.” In 1967, state legislators from California and Nevada, and California Gov. Ronald Reagan and Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt reached an agreement on a bi-state governing compact for the Lake Tahoe Basin. It was approved by the California Legislature in July 1968 and by the Nevada Legislature in February 1969, before Congress took it up and ratified it later that year. It created the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). After the Reagan/Laxalt compact failed to solve the problem of environmental degradation at the lake, state legislators from both states negotiated reforms that California Gov. Jerry Brown and Nevada Gov. Robert List took to their state legislatures for approval in 1980, after which Congress approved the changes in the compact. Former state senator and TRPA board member Coe Swobe, who worked on creating the original bi-state Lake Tahoe compact, said action by the legislatures was always a part of the process—and so was the participation of local governments because as the state negotiators worked, they discovered local government issues that needed to be dealt with. “An interstate compact is a compact between two states and then approved by Congress,” he said. “You couldn’t do it without the legislatures. … We started out with a partnership [between the states]. And we found

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that planning, zoning, traffic, local matters had to be resolved.” He added, “It seems to me that the legislature must act if you are going to have an enforceable agreement. There are these voluntary compacts in some states, but I don’t know how well they work.” The italics represent emphasis in Swobe’s voice. New Jersey State Sen. Raymond Lesniak, the leading proponent of online gambling in that state, was quoted by CardPlayer.com saying, “Combining our markets would be a good idea. I think we could make it work.” At opposite ends of the state, two major markets—New York City in the northeast and Philadelphia at west central—are perched right on New Jersey’s borders.

The spread Meanwhile, legislation moves forward in other jurisdictions to join the online gambling club. In California, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians near San Bernadino, produced legislation late in the legislative session to legalize online poker. It is sponsored by Sen. Lou Correa, a frequent supporter of tribal gambling. Legislative leaders say it faces an uphill battle so late in the session. In the Bahamas, the Baha Mar Casino & Hotel is agitating for

L A K E

T A H O E

“ The legislature must act if you are going to have an enforceable agreement.” Coe Swobe Former state senator N I G H T C L U B

END SUMMER WITH A BANG

legal online gambling to address an economic downturn. Legislation to address the problems of online gambling, however, is not happening as fast as the spread of such gambling. The ease of access to online gambling presents new dangers to addicted gamblers and programs to meet the challenge are far down on legislative lists of things to do. “The idea of being able to roll out of bed at midnight feeling like playing blackjack—and you can just click on the internet and be able to—is a little scary,” New Jersey Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey assistant director Jeff Beck—himself a recovering addict—told the South Jersey Times. “The idea you can be on drugs and alcohol and not aware of what you’re doing is a little scary.” Nevada, which did not even have a program for addicts until 2003, has cut its funding while approving new ways to gamble.

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Kiki Corbin, Michelle Glenn, John Davidson and Sharon Davidson of Label GMO Nevada launched the Corn and Currency Revolt.

Creamed corn Reno and Las Vegas activists unite against GMOs GMO Free Vegas has recently become part of the non-profit organization Label GMO Nevada/Grassroots Action Network. They will be working together to build the Corn and Currency Revolt. by Sage Leehey The idea for this came from Cesar Chavez’s protest of grapes back in the ’60s. The groups are encouraging people to boycott corn as one part sage l@ of this revolt, and for the “currency” portion, they’re encouraging people newsreview.c om to write letters protesting GMOs to their legislators with a dollar bill attached. The cash is to buy the politicians’ votes because Angie Morelli, one of the main organizers of GMO Free Vegas, said that politicians “only understand money.” “They can ignore petitions. They can ignore form letters,” Morelli says in a Youtube video about the revolt. “But they cannot ignore thousands of dollar bills being sent to their offices.” Morelli believes that tying the protest to one food, one letter and one dollar will make it easier to get more people involved. “We got a little bit of flak from some people that are already not eating corn and GMOs, but this isn’t necessarily meant for them,” Morelli said. “It’s for the people who can’t do much to protest or haven’t yet. We’re trying to get all people to be able to participate, even if it’s at the lowest level of participation.” The Reno group believes that they can take it farther in Reno than just visible kernels of corn and will be encouraging a boycott of all corn in food from the visible kernels to corn tortillas and corn in dog food. to watch a video about the Corn and “[Las Vegas is] a whole different society than we are,” Kiki Corbin, Currency Revolt made director of Label GMO Nevada. “Reno has thousands of people who by GMo Free Vegas, shop at the co-op and at Whole Foods and grow their own gardens. Most visit bit.ly/179hw26. of the organic farmers in the state are up here, so we’re a whole different environment. We’re not a big city like they are.” Both groups have received very few responses from legislators to their letters at this time. The responses they have received have been form letters written to address all letters about GMOs in general. Many of them have received the same letter more than once, so their approach now is to overload these legislators and make them pay attention. “It needs to just be more,” Morelli said. “We thought that if we sent in at least 100 letters, they would start paying attention. ... We’ve sent in over 100 letters—and that’s just from our group—and we’re still getting the same form letter that we were getting before. So we’re going to step it up.” She said that they will have paper ready for people to write their own letters at the next March Against Monsanto on Oct. 12. Las Vegas had a turnout of some 3,000 for the March Against Monsanto in May, and Morelli challenged the city (in the video) to double that number for October’s march. Reno had a turnout of about 350 in May and wants that number to increase significantly for October’s march. “If we can break 1,000 that would be pretty incredible,” Corbin said. “I would be very pleased.” Ω

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Koh turned in a bravura performance, equal parts intelligence, ďŹ ery virtuosity and mischievous smiles.â&#x20AC;? Â&#x201E; ~ The Washington Post, May 2013

Classix One

Jennifer Koh, Violin | Tchaikovsky

The Reno Philharmonic Orchestra with Laura Jackson, Music Director

1* 5Ä&#x152;ĆŤ !,0!) !.ĆŤÄ&#x2030;Ä&#x152;ĆŤÄ&#x201A;Ä&#x20AC;Ä Ä&#x192;ĆŤĆŤÄ&#x2018;ĆŤĆŤÄ&#x2026;Ä?Ä&#x20AC;Ä&#x20AC;ĆŤ ~ and ~

1!/ 5Ä&#x152;ĆŤ !,0!) !.ĆŤÄ Ä&#x20AC;Ä&#x152;ĆŤÄ&#x201A;Ä&#x20AC;Ä Ä&#x192;ĆŤĆŤÄ&#x2018;ĆŤĆŤÄ&#x2C6;Ä?Ä&#x192;Ä&#x20AC;ĆŤ Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts, 100 South Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada

Jennifer Koh, Violin TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto in D major, op. 35 TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op. 64

. $)/ĆŤ $) *%*+ĂťĆŤ +,( * . . $ $)/ )/ĆŤĆŤ $ $) ) * *%* %*+ ĆŤ $ %'+2/'5ĆŤ 2+Ă&#x20AC;8'ĆŤ $ĆŤ !!0$+2!*ĆŤÂ&#x201E; Classix

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The Classix series offers the best in symphonic classics performed by a superb orchestra with world-renowned guest soloists. Each performance in the six-concert series will be a unique and memorable experience. Let us share them with you. Classix One

Classix Three

Classix Five

TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto in D major, op. 35 TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op. 64 Jennifer Koh, Violin

: Heliotrope : Symphony No. 1 in C major, op. 21 Âż7 : Cello Concerto in B minor, op. 104 Zuill Bailey, Cello

: Petrushka (1947) : Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, op. 30 Conrad Tao, Piano

September 8 & 10, 2013

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: Suite from Appalachian Spring : Spirit of the Yellow Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Concerto for Yangqin and Orchestra SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 12, op. 112 â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Year of 1917â&#x20AC;? Reylon Yount, Yangqin

BACH: Concerto for Oboe dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;amore in A major, BWV 1055 : Ancient Airs and Dancesâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Suite II : Symphony No. 4, op. 98 in E minor Neil Tatman, Oboe

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The Classix season begins S September 8th and 10th with violinist Jennifer K Koh and an entire evening of Tchaikovsky. S Subscribe today to reserve your seats for all six C Classix concerts - just choose Sunday or Tuesday. A After Classix One on September 10th, prorated ssubscriptions are available. Learn more about th the beneďŹ ts at www.renophil.com/subscribe.

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Subscriptions and Tickets: Reno Philharmonic Box Office

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12â&#x20AC;&#x192; â&#x20AC;&#x192;|â&#x20AC;&#x192; â&#x20AC;&#x192;RN&R â&#x20AC;&#x192; |â&#x20AC;&#x192; â&#x20AC;&#x192;August 29, 2013

Dennis Myers

DEBT City offiCials bet on the Come

As a going concern, the business produces profit and cash flow to repay a loan without betting on the come. In terms of poker, a come hand is a hand that needs to improve with a draw. Betting on the come simply means that you’re betting on a hand that you don’t yet have. You expect it to materialize when you draw a card. —Accounting, Finance and Presentation for Small Business by R. Blake Hendrix

The Reno City Council was in a 10-minute break. After making a phone call, Councilmember Jenny Brekhus sought out city finance director Robert Chisel and chatted for a few moments. Soon they were laughing. It probably took the edge off the tough questions Brekhus had needed to ask Chisel during the meeting, particularly during agenda item G2, the latest patch on the financing for the Reno railroad trench that had been built at the behest of downtown casinos. One of her questions: “Have you ever seen bond documents like that?” The council at that Aug. 14 meeting was dealing with what amounted to the second re-financing of the bonds for the huge project of lowering the railroad tracks through Reno into a trench, a project launched with some shadowy

maneuvers in 1998 and completed in 2005. Trains now run through the trench, but no one can say when the bonds will be paid off. And that is unfortunate, because at one time, everything was—please excuse this verbiage—right on track. “If you look at the original financing package for the train trench, it was done,” Brekhus said in an interview. “It was set. And they went to the credit markets, and Goldman Sachs, [for] an instrument that kind of takes money out. … It was almost like, you know, you had your house paid for, and they re-fi’d it, basically. That’s what happened with the trench.” She wasn’t describing the original trench bonds, nor was she describing the new trench bonds that were at issue at the August 14 meeting where she questioned Chisel. She was describing a second set of

bonds that created problems that had to be solved with the third set. “And that’s not these [current] bonds here,” she said. “These bonds were to get out of that instrument that was the re-fi.”

Pleasing the downtown For decades, there had been debate in Reno about doing something about the groundlevel railroad tracks. Originally, they ran parallel to—and created—Reno’s main street, Commercial Row. But as the city evolved, Virginia Street became the main street. Instead of running alongside the main street, the tracks now crossed it. For much of the city’s history the railroad was its lifeline, bringing tourists and divorce

“enTrenCHeD DeBTs” continued on page 14

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Reno finance director Robert Chisel listens as Councilmember Jenny Brekhus asks him about the machinations surrounding payment of Reno’s train trench bonds.

“ ENTRENCHED DEBTS” continued from page 13

seekers in an era when there were no coast-to-coast highways. But in more recent decades, they became an aesthetic problem and the new casinos hated them—not enough to pay to do something about it, but enough to pressure city governments to tax residents to pay to do something about it. In 1980, it finally appeared on the ballot. But led by Mayor Barbara Bennett, who said that if the casinos wanted the tracks changed they should pay a substantial portion of the tab, residents voted it down by a landslide. There the matter rested until the late 1990s, when the casinos used a railroad merger to press the urgency of lowering the tracks. Once again the casinos would not pay for it, so officialdom put together a package of sources—a one-eighth sales tax hike, a hotel room tax, a downtown assessment district, city bonds and federal money. The railroad offered $17 million, but mostly in land. And the one-eighth sales tax hike was actually a one-fourth hike—the extra money was part of a deal to bring the Washoe County Commission on board and would be used for flood control. The $119 million in bonds was guaranteed by sales and room taxes. The project was designed to cost $218 million. It ended up costing $265 million. Many residents assumed, apparently naively, that because the voters had turned down the project previously, any revival would go before the voters. That was a particular concern because of how many residents objected not to the project but to how it would be financed. In fact, city and council officials carefully planned how to avoid a public vote. But there was another way for the public to be heard. It was through other lines on the ballot. 14 | RN&R |

AUGUST 29, 2013

“it waS rEallY kiND of a MortgagE or a rE-fi oN thE traiN trENch MoNEYS.” Jenny Brekhus reno city councilmember

The trench project had to be a city/county project and in the November 1998 election, the big issue in county commission races was the casino trench. The incumbent commissioners had cast preliminary votes for the trench, even though it meant communities like Washoe City, Lockwood and Gerlach would end up paying higher taxes for a Reno project. (Three years later, Reno Mayor Jeff Griffin complained in these pages that Reno citizens were paying for county services that they didn’t get. “Reno wants its money back” by Jeff Griffin, RN&R, June 7, 2001). But the incumbent county commissioners put off a final vote until after the election, hoping for some political cover from voters. They didn’t get it. Trench supporters Mike Mouliot and Sue Camp were defeated by Ted Short and Pete Sferrazza, who both opposed the trench unless residents

were given a vote. (A one-eighth cent sales tax in Las Vegas that same month was approved by voters.) In spite of the election results, trench backers raced to use the votes of the two lame duck commissioners before their terms ended to ram the sales tax hike through the Washoe County Commission, and then sell the bonds before courts could stop it. That’s exactly what happened.

ShortSight The trench was an unusual project. Bowling alleys and convention centers are revenue producers. But the city was now planning to pour a whopping $265 million into a project that would produce no revenue but would please the casinos, who reportedly wanted to shield the guests in their hotels from train whistles. It was quite a commitment. In 2006, the city converted the first set of trench bonds to auction rate securities, which Chisel describes as “a long term bond with short term rates. … Short term rates are usually lower interest rates. And so the idea would be to take advantage of those lower rates, and so every 45, 60 days—depending on your auction rate security—the bond would be kind of resold on the open market.” What bothered Brekhus was that she believed that the old council took money out from the second set of bonds as a result of the lower interest rates “to do the sort of projects that the council wanted at that time.” “There was some money taken out, I believe, for some [trench-] related projects,” Chisel said last week. “I think, you know, some artwork, and maybe some other items like that.” He said all spending from those funds had to be related to the trench, though he acknowledged that all kinds of things could fall under trench spending, such as anything within the acreage involved in the trench project.

And the downtown casinos were not finished running up city debt, nor was officialdom at an end of going along with the casinos’ wishes. Having given the casinos the trench, the city then issued $120 millions in bonds to pay for a casino-demanded events center (and to pay off bowling stadium debt) for which the casinos didn’t want to pay. In both the trench and events center project, the city was throwing money at the downtown’s declining casino center, at a time when it was the outlying casinos that were showing dynamism and growth. The second set of bonds resulted in a lawsuit by the city against Goldman Sachs. Chisel said, “And this is the issue we had with the auction rate securities—there really was not a market for [them]. It was a false market. … Goldman was doing it themselves. And so it was creating the impression that there was a market.” It was during this period that the recession began. No state was more damaged by it than Nevada, which had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation. Businesses were closing. For half a century Nevada had been the fastest growing state. Now people were leaving. Retail goods sales plunged, and the sales tax was the means of repaying the bonds. In 2008, there was a third set of bonds issued to replace the previous two. “This issuance refunded the 2006 bonds to a variable rate demand bond issue with credit enhancement and liquidity backing through the LOC,” according to a city memo. “This action was successful in reducing the city’s interest rate exposure associated with auction rate bonds during the collapse of the financial markets.” (Incredibly, during the conversion, the casinos got a tax break—the room tax was dropped as a bond repayment source.) The recession was taking its toll. The sales tax was falling short of debt service on the bonds, a problem that

was entirely predictable at the time the trench project was railroaded through. In 2011, Chisel’s predecessor Jill Olsen said, “Nobody foresaw a recession such as what we experienced” (“We told you so,” RN&R, July 14, 2011). She meant it as an excuse, but it was actually an indictment. There was no excuse for not planning for hard times, given the state’s history since it adopted an unstable tax system 32 years ago. State and local governments have been plagued by budget crises since the 1981 tax shift that moved Nevada to heavy sales tax reliance. Planning the trench without anticipating a recession was reckless. There were certainly officials who knew of the problem. Officials like City Councilmember Pierre Hascheff had experienced recessions in 1981-82 and 1990-91 that sent state and local governments into fiscal tailspins. But County Commissioner Jim Galloway was one of the few officials who tried to publicize the likely risks of future economic downturns. In addition, tribal gambling on a wide scale was expected in California—Reno casinos’ big market—as soon as court challenges were cleared. The shortfall that began with the 2007 recession was entirely foreseeable. But all planning was for endless good times instead of for inevitable bad times. More to the point, taking time to plan might well have delayed the project, which the casinos did not want, or provided time for public pressure on the casinos to pay for it. But while shortsightedness played a role, Brekhus does not blame the problem just on that. She said a functioning, working formula was tampered with. “The fact that the train trench was done on budget and under time was a success,” she said last week. “But there was a subsequent effort to pull more money out of that and that got us not this [third financial] product but the product that was really killing us

in 2008 [the short term securities]. So this is the third generation of financing for the train trench, essentially. And it was really kind of a mortgage or a re-fi on the train trench moneys to use this. So that was not good planning. One might even say that going to the credit markets for an exotic instrument like this on the train trench could be a symptom of our very narrow tax base to do

provider), it would have meant a bond default. The council is very changed. Term limits took hold with considerable force in the last election, and a majority of the council is new. Some members have brought a different approach to city issues. Brekhus, in particular, has a way of asking questions about the way the city has done things in the past. She seemed frustrated by what she had read in the backup materials to item G2, by the answers she was receiving, and by the city’s habit of pushing the date of bond payoff out into the future. “Do we need to do some financial thinking …?” she asked. She wondered why more progress had not been made on paying off the bonds, and Chisel mentioned the collapse of sales tax numbers since the recession began in late 2006 or early 2007. A staff briefing document that was before the councilmembers read, “Though sales tax revenues have been improving, they have not improved to the point that debt service is covered for [the trench bonds].” As for planning for paying off more of the bonds, city bond counsel Kendra Follett pointed out that the legislature keeps municipal governments on a short leash, meaning they cannot respond quickly to events and the legislature meets only every other year: “You’re not in control of that revenue stream.” Seldom has there been a clearer view of

so much debt on the trench and other projects that there seemed no way out. “The revenue is not sufficient to meet the bond payments,” Chisel said last week. “The hope is that—.” He paused. Recovery? “Recovery,” he said. “And I believe there is still that possibility.” Betting on the come.

“ it wAs A fAlse mArket.” Robert Chisel reno finance director

the sort of projects that the council wanted at that time. “So I’m starting to think that maybe the lack of broad revenue sources maybe at some point was a driver to the city to get into financial instruments that they might not have otherwise gotten into. And so that’ll be a historical analysis that some political scientist will look at at some point, but I’m starting to work off of that hunch right now.” Chisel and City Manager Andrew Clinger both came on board after the trench project was already finished, at a time when the city had piled up

AlternAtives At the Aug. 14 meeting the members of the Reno City Council had to approve a letter of credit in order to obtain “forbearance”—a suspension of payments on the bonds until June 1, 2015, to give the city more time, though the meter will still be running on interest all the time the forbearance runs. The term “had to” is the proper one. The city was in a corner and councilmembers had no choice. If they had not approved the letter of credit (a kind of insurance for the credit

the consequences of short, biennial sessions of the Nevada Legislature. As it happened, the city may also no longer be in control of another aspect, either. A condition of the city getting the new letter of credit is that it approach the Legislature for a sales tax hike. It is worded in a circuitous way, but that’s how the agreement the City Council approved reads: “Section 1120 Additional Covenants. The City covenants for the benefit of the Credit Provider that the Finance Director [Chisel] will request an item on the City Council agenda that the City Council request that the State Legislature increase the Sales Tax pledged to repayment of the Bonds … The City covenants for the benefit of the Credit Provider that on a monthly basis commencing August 1, 2013, the Assistant City Manager responsible for oversight of Government Affairs shall consult and provide advice, guidance and feedback to the Credit Provider on legislative strategies aimed at securing additional revenues for the repayment of the Bonds.” The covenant does not say merely “increase taxes.” It specifies “increase the sales tax.” It expresses a preference for a particular type of tax, an odd condition for a New York bank. But that is not the city’s only remedy. It can reinstate the room tax as a source of repayment, and would not need legislative action for that. If it fails to do that, there are other taxes

at the disposal of the Legislature that could be tapped. When the trench project was launched in 1997, Washoe County had the state’s highest sales tax—7 percent—even before it was raised to pay for the trench. Sales taxes are notorious for soaking low income workers. The Nevada Legislature will not meet again until January 2015. The covenant amounts to advance notice that the state’s working poor face another hit from the legislature. As of June 30, the city of Reno’s total debt, not just the trench debt, was $576,545,529. Many of Nevada’s chronic structural flaws came together in the trench financing—its reliance on a single industry, its reliance on sales taxes, a legislature that seldom meets. Brekhus and Chisel both ponder the length of time the bonds could linger on. “I have children, and my kid—I don’t want him paying for it,” Chisel said. Brekhus said she thinks the public needs a better understanding of how much the structural failings have cost taxpayers. “You know, understanding history is so important, and Nevada is the classic boom/bust state economy and so they should be teaching that in every school and every political science class ever, because that cycle is definitely not broken.” Such knowledge would certainly beat betting on the come. Ω

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Barcades make social gaming cool again by Ashley hennefer

photos by Allison young

ideo game culture is in transition—on one hand, it’s the best time to be a gamer, with some of the world’s most innovative technology introduced first through the gaming industry. On the other hand, gaming in public has become a thing of the past, now that arcades and computer cafes have been upstaged by affordable and mobile, technology. For some, this means that the golden era of video games has long since passed. Arcade gaming crested in the mid-to-late ’90s, when the popularity of video game consoles meant that gamers could play in their own homes instead of spending money elsewhere. “Arcades created video games, but as people got console games, that concept of inserting coins for lives didn’t really make sense anymore,” says Andrew Freeman, a Reno native currently studying video game design in Arizona. His expertise is in arcade games, and he cites cooperative games like Metal Slug and Gauntlet Legends as his favorites. “That whole concept wasn’t really relevant anymore when home entertainment systems happened. There’s a reason people don’t play coin-op anymore. That concept is kind of obsolete now.” But those who were nostalgic for arcade games, and who also wanted to socialize and drink with friends, found an opportunity to create an outlet for the gamers who no longer had a place to play collaboratively. From this came the concept of the “barcade,” which is exactly what it sounds like—a bar and an arcade. Popular barcades such as Insert Coin(s) in Las Vegas and EXP Restaurant + Bar in Vancouver show that barcades could be a successful business model

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Pinball wizards drink and play at 1up in Reno.

when marketed to the right audience. Some arcades, like Shorty’s in Seattle, made the transition into restaurants and clubs early on to ensure relevancy in their communities. Barcades have been acknowledged, and embraced, by the gaming industry as a way to preserve an important part of the medium’s history. Nearly every major city in the country has its own version of a barcade. It’s a way to draw in a nightclub crowd alongside the geeks, who can find common ground with the activities offered in one place. And of course, good food, music and booze helps. “I think that this can be a way to get people back to arcades again,” Freeman says. “There was a time that arcades were relevant, then they became not relevant, and now they’re relevant again. I think people were feeling isolated in their homes.” Retro gaming isn’t dead. It just needed a reboot.

Plugged in At night, Reno’s barcade 1up emits a warm glow onto 214 Commercial Row from the lit-up arcade games and pinball machines lining the walls of the bar. The club is also usually populated with people dancing and drinking, depending on the event or drink special. Sometimes people are in costume, during Burning Man or the Super Hero Crawl. Sometimes people are there for video game tournaments or laser light shows. The term “1up” means to “get a life,” taken

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from the 1985 game Super Mario Bros when Mario gains an extra life. It also refers to a player’s score when two people are competing. 1up inhabits the space that used to be Red Martini and later, Wurk, before owners Ray Salaho and Freddy Mehanna, decided to change things up. Inspired by the success of Insert Coin(s), they decided to bring that dynamic to Reno. 1up held a one-year anniversary party on Aug. 24 to celebrate the year since opening last August. “We were just sitting here one day, and looked around and thought we needed to set a new crowd,” says Jason Brown, a gamer himself and the supervisor at 1up. “So far, the community response has been pretty good. People call us and ask us if we have certain games.” The game selection is fairly diverse, featuring standard fare like pinball machines and an air hockey table—“always the most popular game,” says Brown—but also notable choices like the classic fighting franchise Mortal Kombat, first-person shooter Time Crisis, Miss Pac-Man (often hailed as the best Pac-Man game), racers Cruis’n and Hydro Thunder, shoot ’em up Centipede, and maze puzzle Rally-X. The consoles, some of which are around 30 years old, are rented from local companies Tru-Tronics and Starcade Amusement, who also maintain the machines. The club also has classic and modern video game consoles, such as a Nintendo 64 and a PlayStation 3, that are used

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for tournaments. Gaming comes through in other elements of the bar, including a large-scale original Nintendo controller perched above some tables and chairs, Tetris patterns stenciled onto the walls, and a Pac-Man shaped bar in the center of the room. Despite the décor, the bar’s events aren’t always gaming-themed, but they try to incorporate gaming whenever possible. “Sometimes we have themed drinks with game names, or we’ll rename a shot like the Yoshi or Green Lantern,” Brown says. It’s also the one adult-only arcade in the city. According to Classic Arcade Game Locations, a website that tracks arcades nationally, there are 10 local establishments with original arcade machines, many of which are in casinos but are open to people under 21. Some criticisms of local arcades on Yelp and Reddit have noted that arcades tend to attract more men than women. But Freeman thinks that the nightclub element of barcades diversifies that population. 1up’s events tend to draw a mix. “Nowadays women make up about half of the demographic of gamers, so it’s definitely not how it used to be,” he says. “I don’t think a lot of women are nostalgic for those games just because it hasn’t always been a welcoming environment for them. That’s not to say that there haven’t been arcade gamers who are also women, but honestly, women tend to gravitate toward games with better story and graphics.

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... It’s also kind of a hipster thing now for younger gamers to be into those kinds of retro games, so the dynamic is totally different than how it was when I was a kid.”

Friendly comPetition Carlee Rowe, a Truckee Meadows Community College student passionate about arcade games, is pleased that Reno has a place where adults can socialize and also geek out together. She’s been to 1up several times during special events like the Super Hero crawl, and she’s currently bidding on a vintage Donkey Kong machine on eBay. “Arcade games are familiar to people in their 30s,” she says. “I grew up going to my local arcade with my brother when we were kids, and it’s what really got me into gaming. I made so many friends that way.” She also thinks that barcades can help dispel negative notions about gamers. “There’s kind of that stereotype that gamers are antisocial, but it actually started off as a collaborative activity,” she says. “Arcades are proof of that.” Freeman agrees. “It’s nice to have a place where adults can go to play games without a bunch of kids around,” he says. “The people who are nostalgic for those things can relive childhood memories, but it’s a hobby that is best enjoyed with peers.” Ω 1up is at 214 Commercial Row. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/1upBarReno.

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Sketchy guy

Kaleb Temple draws about 200 sketches a month.

Kaleb Temple Kaleb Temple is a doodler. And a prolific doodler at that—in the past couple of years he’s by drawn more than 5,000 sketches. In the Ashley Hennefer past two weeks alone, he’s drawn close to 80 sketches of people he knows, people he’s met online and people he makes up in his head. On average, that’s nearly 200 drawings a month. Some days he doesn’t doodle at all; and some days, he sketches up to 60 portraits. “I’ve always drawn,” says Temple, who’s also a local filmmaker and works Check out Kaleb at the Nevada Museum of Art. “I’ve long temple’s sketches at been drawing just for the heck of it.” www.instagram.com/ Temple draws portraits of people, kaleb_the_doodler. using just pencil on pieces of paper folded into fourths. He calls them “quarter sheet doodles,” and they look kind of like zines. He posts his drawings to an album on his Facebook profile, and a friend encouraged him to start a profile on photography app Instagram to publish his work. His Instagram account, under the screen name kaleb_the_doodler, has nearly 600 followers.

“About 99 percent of the faces I draw are of people I just made up,” he says. He’ll draw portraits on request for free—although “my mom keeps saying I should start charging for it,” he says— and he uses a photograph for reference. Each drawing takes him around 10 to 15 minutes. “It takes me about three or so minutes to go through the photos on their Facebook account,” he says. “I try to put my own spin on the photograph to make a brand new image of them.” He also adds text to every sketch, typically “pessimistic” in nature, which he says is his sense of humor. “I draw the portrait, and come up with a quote to go with it,” says Temple. “It’s usually a word or a phrase that reminds me of the person, or I just make something up.” Alongside a sketch of a woman with curly hair and big eyes, a quote reads, “I wasn’t looking for the thuggish, criminal type, but then Franky walked into my life;” a profile of a man looking out of the corner of his eye is

accompanied with, “All of our money went toward your wasted education.” In this way, Temple’s style is evocative of comic books, a medium he studied while working on his art degree several years ago at the University of Nevada, Reno. “For a while I really wanted to become a comic book artist,” he says. “Sketching like this becomes a lot like story-boarding.” Temple says he’s inspired by strangers, and creates original characters based on combinations of different features.

“I’ll remember a certain unique nose, or an expression, or a specific trait that I later incorporate into a sketch,” he says. On occasion, he’ll also draw celebrities—he was recently commissioned to create a drawing of Jay Z, Daft Punk, Thom Yorke, Ricky Gervais, Ric Flair, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. Most of the requests for portraits are from friends and local acquaintances, but Temple’s heard from people as far as Brazil. He notes that social networking has been a useful— and free—platform for publishing. Instagram’s gallery-like interface functions as an accessible portfolio for artists, and he uses hashtags like #art, #sketch, and #doodle. This helps attract people who are looking for artists on Instagram. “It gets people seeing your art,” he says. “It opens up a whole new world for who becomes your audience.” Ω

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Plant life Great Full Gardens 555 S. Virginia St., 324-2013 Pavarotti observed, “One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are by Dave Preston doing and devote our attention to eating,” and he knew how to eat. This place is in the last unit of that little strip mall just south of the Wild Orchid. Gino and Juli Scala opened five months ago, and they both have an uncompromising commitment to Photo/AlliSon Young

Gino “The Soup Man” and Julie Scala own Great Full Gardens.

For more information, visit www.greatfull gardens.com.

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develop and offer only the highest quality foods with excellent taste profiles. Gino was on the sales/ distribution side of the food business for 27 years, and Juli runs the café at University of Nevada, Reno. It’s got a wholesome, funky feel when you walk in. There are high, exposed ceilings, simple tables and a few booths seating about 85 people. The staff is warm and full of energy. Organic and natural is the goal here. They have their own garden in south Reno, a green house, and they buy wild fish. And there’s gluten free, organic, GMO free and dairy free options, and you’ll find Applewood smoked bacon, turkey, Angus beef, hickory smoked ham and pastas too. Vegan and vegetarian offerings are throughout the menu. Breakfast is served until 11:30 a.m. with prices from $5.99 to $14.99. I went for the “funkytown” Liege waffle ($8.95): sliced warm apples, crumbled blue cheese, cinnamon and local honey. This waffle is made of dough and not batter. It’s firmer and has chunks of pearl sugar bits from Belgium folded into it that melt as the dough rises giving a crispy, caramelized exterior to the waffle. This treatment was created in Belgium in the 1700s, and the savory, creamy

sweet marriage of these ingredients with pure Maple syrup is a delightful taste fantasy. Gino is known as The Soup Guy, and he lives up to his reputation. His approach, starting with raw ingredients and creating something amazing. I tried total tomato and split pea (cup $3.50, bowl $4.50). The flavors screamed at me in perfect taste profile. Then came the wasabi vegetable bowl ($8.99) with wild sockeye salmon, plenty of fresh vegetables and heirloom tomatoes from Gino and Juli’s garden. It was firm and flaky, mild and sumptuous with the wasabi cream sauce atop, the salmon was a perfect complement to this vegetable medley with a simple lemon and olive oil dressing. Really, a vegan Reuben ($10.99)— holy smokes! Soy, wheat and spices replace the meat. But the kraut, Thousand Island and a vegan cheese made the flavor tart and savory—this could fool any pastrami aficionado. The latest features added to the menu are fresh wild-caught fish and shrimp. From Mexico comes wild shrimp served in pasta with white wine, garlic, red onions and shallot ($22.99), Italian through and through, and the wild shrimp holds the flavor of the broth providing total satisfaction for your palate. There’s a Chilean sea bass with a light soy drizzle ($26.99), accompanied by remarkable mashed sweet potatoes and carrots and zucchini that are prepared by blanching and then roasting. This treatment made me enjoy carrots like I haven’t in years. The texture was smooth with a savory freshness rather than the earthy, boiled taste. Simple but enjoyable wine list, all by the glass ($7-$10); beers ($4.50-$5) include a couple gluten free ($4.50) and a ginger beer with slight alcohol ($5). I tried the organic Suprafuta Sangria ($7) with organic blood orange and pomegranate: not too sweet, with lots of fruit in the flavor and in the glass. There’s a lot of passion and feeling in the food and from the people here. In this era of remarkable culinary creativity, simple and fresh can still be the best approach. And as I was reminded, when the world wearies, and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden, and for that, we should be grateful. Ω

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British invasion

The World’s End Director Edgar Wright teams with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for the raucous conclusion to their “Cornetto” trilogy with The World’s End, a twisted homage to male bonding, beer crawls and John Carpenter sci-fi. What makes this movie so much fun is that sense that anything can, and will, happen. Pegg plays Gary King, a relatively by troubled but good-natured man determined Bob Grimm to get his old crew back together and complete a pub crawl in his English homebgrimm@ newsre view.c om town. This gathering would take place 20 years after the gang had failed to make it to the last pub on the infamous crawl, an incident providing King with a nagging sense of unfinished business.

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A good chunk of the film is actually a warm hearted, funny and well written gathering of old friends, told in straightforward fashion. Some of the men from the old gang are fairly happy to see King, while others, like the still recovering Andy (Nick Frost) would prefer he piss off. Still, even the apprehensive Andy joins the crew for what looks to be a taxing crawl drinking 12 pints in 12 clubs. If The World’s End just stayed the course and was a story about arrested adolescence, the dangers of going “back,” and the perils of drinking too much, it would be a pretty great movie. Pegg and Frost actually display solid dramatic chops to go with their comedic instincts. Thankfully, Wright and Pegg (both responsible for the screenplay) have more, much more, in mind. The film takes a crazy turn in a manner akin to the big twist in From Dusk Till Dawn, and suddenly becomes an alien invasion movie. This is prominently mentioned in the film’s ad campaign, so I hope I didn’t ruin your day.

AUGUST 29, 2013

It turns out their hometown has become overrun with blue-blooded robots from another world, robots that are determined to replicate Earthlings and dispose of their bodies (shades of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Carpenter’s The Thing). This sets the stage for awesome man-on-robot fight scenes. With this film, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Wright has proven himself a modern master of cinematic hand-to-hand combat. The choreography is hilarious and nasty. On top of everything, the film works as a scathing satire of the infiltration of technology in our society, and how those damned iPads and smart phones are taking over. Please don’t count my saying this as any indication that I am against advancing technology. I love my gadgets, even if they are swallowing my soul. They’re just so damned cool to play with! In addition to Pegg and Frost, the cast includes Rosamund Pike as Sam, doing a fine job of kicking ass and looking flabbergasted. Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins!) reminds that he is a master comedic actor as an uptight real estate agent who never, ever removes his earphone, even when he’s pub-crawling. Eddie Marsan breaks hearts as Peter, a once-bullied man who is actually distraught when his former bully (Darren Boyd) fails to recognize him. If one were to rank this one in the Cornetto trilogy (named for a brand of ice cream that appears in all three films), this one is just a notch below Shaun of the Dead, yet a little better than Hot Fuzz. All three are solid, funny, smart films that make me wish they were part of a 10 movie series. Many of the summer blockbusters have been big, bloated messes that delivered messy action with little to no thrills. The World’s End makes up for a lot of the summer garbage with its big heart, many laughs and eye-popping visuals. Wright and Pegg remain supremely sick in the head, and we moviegoers benefit from their particular brand of insanity. Ω

Blue Jasmine

There was a time in film history when Woody Allen was consistently making the best movies in the business. His latest, one of many movies he has made in the last 10 years, is that return to form that some of us former Allen fans have been waiting for, thanks in large part to a phenomenal central performance by the sure-to-be-Oscarnominated Cate Blanchett. Blanchett plays Jasmine, the wife of a Bernie Madoff-type financier (Alec Baldwin) who must relocate from New York to San Francisco after she is bankrupted and emotionally destroyed. She gulps martinis, criticizes her helpful sister (Sally Hawkins), and, quite frighteningly, is prone to bouts of talking to herself. Allen finds the dark humor in the story, and employs a supporting cast that includes comedians Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K. and, most astonishingly, Andrew Dice Clay, who, doggone it, delivers one amazing performance as Ginger’s financially destroyed ex-husband, Augie. Above and beyond the humor, Allen makes his film a parable about how some deeds are irredeemable, and some folks are simply doomed. It’s as bittersweet as any movie you will see this, or any, year for that matter. As far as the Allen film canon goes, it’s a top five installment. It’s one of those films where everything pulls together perfectly, with Blanchett at its powerful center.

Elysium

Writer-director Neill Blomkamp follows up his strong feature-directing debut District 9 with another solid sci-fi effort, a film that delivers terrific action in service of a screenplay that takes a few missteps. Matt Damon stars as Max, a future resident of a nearly uninhabitable planet Earth. As he struggles to get by, rich people live the good life on a huge space station. After an accident leaves him full of radiation, he must get to the space station to use one of its healing chambers. Since the rich don’t allow the poor in their digs, Max winds up getting a super robot skeleton grafted to his body in order to provide some forceful incentive to let him in. The movie is equal parts brilliant and stupid, a visual feast that almost loses it in the end due to a hokey finale. It’s still one of the year’s better big blockbusters and proof that Blomkamp is not a one hit wonder. Jodie Foster is on hand as a narrow-minded government type who wants nothing to do with poor people. Sharlto Copley steals all of his scenes, playing against type as an evil killer agent in the service of Foster’s baddie.

Kick Ass 2

And with this, a great movie is followed up by a complete piece of crap. Aaron Taylor-Johnson returns as the title character, a high school student determined to spend his off time as a superhero. You will wish he hadn’t. The same can be said for Chloe Grace Moretz returning as Hit-Girl. Her pint-sized character was a total trip the first time out; now she just looks silly. The plot has something to do with Hit-Girl retiring to become a normal student (her subplot is straight out of Heathers) while Kick-Ass looks for other superhero comrades. He finds them in a group led by Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes. Carrey, who is the best thing in the movie with his few scenes, has disowned this film, citing its extreme violence. I think he wants nothing to do with it because it’s absolutely terrible. All of the style, successful humor and sharp acting is gone, replaced by abrasive performances and failed, stale humor. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, so good in the first movie, is a monstrosity as the film’s villain. I hated watching this, and I hate that it means Kick-Ass has come to an unsuccessful and shameful end at the cinemas.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler

Director Lee Daniels, prominently mentioned in the film’s title after a much publicized lawsuit, delivers a fine emotional wallop with this historical epic very loosely based on the life of Eugene Allen, a butler at the White House for 34 years. Those going to this film for its true historical significance take note: the film contains much fiction. Allen is renamed Cecil (played by Forest Whitaker), and is given a fictional son in order to depict a family conflict regarding the Civil Rights movement. So, this film, which shows the butler interacting with presidents from

Eisenhower (Robin Williams) thru Ronald Reagan (Alan Rickman), is mostly made up. That doesn’t hurt the film’s dramatic significance. It’s an ultimately moving experience. What does damage the film a bit is horrible makeup, especially a goofy fake nose for John Cusack as Richard Nixon. The makeup is sometimes so bad, that the film turns into unintentional comedy when some characters are on screen. Whitaker holds the whole thing together, and Oprah Winfrey, in her first starring role since her excellent turn in Beloved, does strong work as Cecil’s wife. Other stars playing presidents include a relatively makeup-free James Marsden as John F. Kennedy, and an absolutely covered Liev Schreiber as Lyndon B. Johnson.

The Spectacular Now

Miles Teller delivers his breakout performance as Sutter, a partying high school senior that everybody loves but nobody takes seriously, until well-balanced Aimee (Shailene Woodley) comes along. They start a complicated relationship that is ill advised at both ends, but sometimes that’s the best way to start a relationship. Teller is a marvel here, turning Sutter into something far from your average high school screw-up. Woodley, so good in The Descendants, is proving to be one of cinema’s great young actresses. This film is a unique and intelligent take on growing up. This is directed by James Ponsoldt, who piloted last year’s terrific Smashed, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who appears here as Sutter’s sister. Ponsoldt is officially a force to be reckoned with, having made two of the best films of the last two years. Others in the cast include Jennifer Jason Leigh as Sutter’s mom, and Kyle Chandler as his idiot dad. And while he only has a couple of scenes, Bob Odenkirk is terrific as Sutter’s tolerant employer. To read a plot synopsis of this film is to make it seem ordinary. It’s far from ordinary. It’s spectacular.

We’re the Millers

You’re Next

Jason Sudeikis plays a small-time drug dealer who gets in over his head and is forced to smuggle drugs from Mexico by his boss (Ed Helms). Realizing that border agents seem to go easy on families, he hires a fake family to make the trip in an RV. The family includes a wife (a stripper played by Jennifer Aniston), a daughter (a homeless girl played by Emma Roberts) and a son (a hapless neighbor played by Will Poulter). The film has a Vacation movie vibe, especially because Sudeikis is charming in a way that Chevy Chase was for a brief time in his career. Aniston plays a mighty good stripper for sure; she has another calling in case the whole acting thing doesn’t work out. Roberts gets perhaps her best role yet as Casey, delivering some great eye-rolling moments. As for Poulter, he steals scenes nearly every time he speaks, and his encounter with a tarantula is priceless. Sure, the movie gets a little gooey and sentimental by the time it plays out, but we’ve come to like the characters by then so it’s OK. It’s not a grand cinematic effort by any means, but it does provide some good laughs, with a fair share of them being quite shocking.

This one is a little bit better than The Purge, the summer’s other home invasion horror film … but only a little. A rich family goes out to their vacation home in the countryside where they gather for a feast, only to have unseen visitors start picking them off with a crossbow. Those unseen visitors eventually show themselves as dudes wearing various animal masks, and they are a little on the creepy side. But, overall, this feels like standard, worn-out territory made sporadically tolerable by director Adam Wingard’s ability to tender the occasional unique scare. A seasoned mystery/horror watcher will see the big twists coming a mile away. Still, Sharni Vinson is pretty kick-ass as the girlfriend with a surprising ability to survive. The movie is a showcase for her talents in the end. As 2013 horror films go, this one isn’t nearly as fun as The Conjuring, but is markedly better than the snore fest that was The Purge. Apparently, it sat on the shelf for a long time. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if it had just stayed there or gone straight to video.

Fest control The Giant Secret Music Festival The Giant Secret Music Festival will be a daylong celebration of Reno’s music art and culture at Wingfield Park by Austin Wallis on Sept. 14. The lineup features soul singing headliner Allen Stone and local bands like The Novelists, Mark Sexton Band and Whitney Myer. Proceeds from the festival will go to High Sierra Industries, a local non-profit that provides services for people with disabiliPhoto/Allison Young

Chari “Knowledge” Smith, recently voted the region’s best rapper by readers of the RN&R, organized the Giant Secret Music Festival.

ties. The event will also feature art installations, local food trucks, brews and merchandise, as well as Reno’s a Silent Disco powered by Silent Storm. Local musician and organizer of the event Chari “Knowledge” Smith says that Giant Secret will be a unique event. Giant Secret claims to be Reno’s first true indie music festival, and while this is a bold statement to make in a town with festivals like Outsleazed Fest, a punk event, or Speak Your Mind, a hip hop festival—not to mention Artown or half a dozen other events—Smith says that Reno hasn’t seen the likes of Giant Secret just yet. “I know there have been other music festivals here, we are not claiming to be the first ever music festival, but there’s never been one like Giant Secret,” said Smith. “We’re working on creating an atmosphere and experience, something that you would encounter should you go to a city like San Francisco for a music festival. Along with the fantastic music lineup, we are incorporating large scale art installations, food and

the event runs from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. downtown at Wingfield park. tickets are $40 in advance or $45 that day and are available from the performing artists or from http:// giantsecret.com.

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ARTS&CULTURE

interactive activities to help people have a mind blowing experience.” Smith began dreaming of bringing a music festival to Reno after attending major festivals across the west coast. She was inspired by the thousands of people who drive hundreds of miles to a music festival, and started wondering why these people would go so far out of their way to hear music. “It’s the experience you can’t find anywhere else that pulls people to these festivals,” said Smith. She began putting the pieces together to build a festival. In her search for funding, she proposed the idea of the music festival to High Sierra Industries (HSI). HSI offers a wide range of support for people with disabilities in the Truckee Meadows to help them live as independently as possible within the community. At that time they were looking for fundraising options and approved the concept. This gave Smith the funding to go looking for a lineup and put the wheels in motion. “This festival sprung from my love of music and my love of this town,” said Smith. “It’s functioning as a support of the musicians we love, the town we love and of this organization that is an incredible fixture in this community.” So what’s the big secret? “The name Giant Secret is pointing towards the fact that Reno is full of talent and culture that people aren’t aware of,” said Smith. “Reno’s just not on the map yet. The secret is that the culture in Reno is changing. For example, we are creating an art piece that is a 10-foot-tall bird cage that says, ‘The only walls that exist are the ones you create in your mind.’ I think that idea is at the heart of what this music festival is about. It sprung up out of nowhere and will hopefully be successful out of nowhere. The idea that you can take an idea and manifest it into being something awesome, is the secret.” Ω

ART OF THE STATE

FOODFINDS

FILM

MUSICBEAT

NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS

THIS WEEK

MISCELLANY

AUGUST 29, 2013

RN&R

THURSDAY 8/29 1UP

214 W. Commercial Row, (775) 329-9444

3RD STREET

125 W. Third St., (775) 323-5005

FRIDAY 8/30

SATURDAY 8/31

Collective Thursdays, 8pm, no cover

Select Saturday, 10pm, no cover

Blues jam w/Blue Haven, 9:30pm, no cover

Suspect Zero, 9:30pm, no cover

SUNDAY 9/1

Moon Gravy, 8pm, no cover

THE ALLEY

BAR-M-BAR

Freestyle firespinning, 9pm, no cover

816 Highway 40 West, Verdi; (775) 351-3206 Aug. 29, 9 p.m. Jub Jub’s Thirst Parlor 71 S. Wells Ave. 384-1652

CEOL IRISH PUB

Pub Quiz Trivia Night, 8pm, no cover

CHAPEL TAVERN

Sonic Mass w/DJ Tigerbunny, 7pm, no cover

538 S. Virginia St., (775) 329-5558 1099 S. Virginia St., (775) 324-2244

Monday Night Open Mic, 8pm, M, no cover James Wilsey Jr., 9pm, no cover

Good Friday with rotating DJs, 10pm, no cover

COMMA COFFEE

312 S. Carson St., Carson City; (775) 883-2662

COTTONWOOD RESTAURANT & BAR 10142 Rue Hilltop, Truckee; (530) 587-5711

Comedy

275 E. Fourth St., (775) 324-1917

Catch a Rising Star, Silver Legacy, 407 N. Virginia St., 329-4777: RC Smith, Th, Su, 7:30pm, $15.95; F, 7:30pm, 9:30pm, $15.95; Sa, 7:30pm, 9:30pm, $17.95; Stacey Kendro, Tu, W, 7:30pm, $15.95 The Improv at Harveys Cabaret, Harveys Lake Tahoe, Stateline, (800) 553-1022: Willie Barcena, Kat Simmons, Th-F, Su, 9pm, $25; Sa, 8pm, 10pm, $30; Dat Phan, Mike Price, W, 9pm, $25 Reno-Tahoe Comedy at Pioneer Underground, 100 S. Virginia St., 686-6600: Hynopt!c with Dan Kimm, F, 7pm, $13, $16; Jimmy Della Valle, F, 9:30pm; Sa, 7 & 9:30pm, $13, $16

EL CORTEZ LOUNGE

235 W. Second St., (775) 324-4255

GREAT BASIN BREWING CO.

846 Victorian Ave., Sparks; (775) 355-7711

RN&R

| AUGUST 29, 2013

Axton and Company, 6pm, no cover

Post show s online by registering at www.newsr eview.com /reno. Dea dline is the Friday befo re publication .

Thee Orbiters, 9:30pm, no cover

Take Down, 9:30pm, no cover

Karaoke w/Miss Amber, 9pm, no cover

Karaoke w/Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover

Colin Ross, 6:30pm, W, no cover

Mark Diorio, 5:30pm, W, no cover

Open Mic Jam, 9:30pm, M, karaoke, 9:30pm, Tu, open mic, 9:30pm, W, no cover Karaoke w/Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover

Karaoke w/Lisa Lisa, 9pm, M, Tu, no cover Karaoke w/Miss Amber, 9pm, W, no cover

Live flamenco guitar music, 5:30pm, no cover

170 S. Virginia St., (775) 322-1800 Jason King, 7pm, no cover

Trey Stone Band, 7pm, no cover

The Smokin’ Bulldogs, 7pm, no cover

THE GRID BAR & GRILL

Karaoke w/Andrew, 9pm, no cover

8545 N. Lake Blvd., Kings Beach; (530) 546-0300

HANGAR BAR

Karaoke Kat, 9pm, no cover

10603 Stead Blvd., Stead; (775) 677-7088

HARRY’S SPORTS BAR & GRILL

Bass Heavy, 9pm, W, $TBA

Canyon Jam, 8pm, no cover Open mic, 7pm, no cover

1100 E. Plumb Ln., (775) 828-7665

THE HOLLAND PROJECT

Bleached, Televisions, Ian Bigley, 8pm, M, $7

140 Vesta St., (775) 742-1858

JAVA JUNGLE

Java Jungle Sunday Music Showcase, 7pm, no cover

246 W. First St., (775) 329-4484 1180 Scheels Dr., Sparks; (775) 657-8659

Karaoke w/Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover

FUEGO

JAZZ, A LOUISIANA KITCHEN

The Northstar Session, 6pm, no cover

DAVIDSON’S DISTILLERY

3rd Street, 125 W. Third St., 323-5005: Comedy Night & Improv w/Patrick Shillito, W, 9pm, no cover

DG Kicks, 9pm, Tu, no cover Mobb Deep, Alchemist, 8pm, Tu, $22, $25 Wilson, The Greenery, 6:30pm, W, $10

906 Victorian Ave., Sparks; (775) 358-8891

Sit Kitty Sit

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 9/2-9/4 Open Deck Wednesday, 8pm, W, no cover

Erika Paul, 6pm, no cover

First Take featuring Rick (SAX) Metz, 6pm, no cover

Bill Davis, 6pm, no cover

Colorless Blue, 1pm, no cover

THURSDAY 8/29 JUB JUB’S THIRST PARLOR

FRIDAY 8/30

SATURDAY 8/31

SUNDAY 9/1

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 9/2-9/4

Sit Kitty Sit, 9pm, $5

71 S. Wells Ave., (775) 384-1652

Open mic, 9pm, M, no cover

KNUCKLEHEADS BAR & GRILL

Open Mic/College Night, 8pm, Tu, no cover

405 Vine St., (775) 323-6500

THE POINT 3001 W. Fourth St., (775) 322-3001

Karaoke hosted by Gina Jones, 7pm, no cover

Karaoke hosted by Gina Jones, 9pm, no cover

POLO LOUNGE

Bobby G, 8pm, no cover

Gemini w/Johnny Lipka, 9pm, no cover

1559 S. Virginia St., (775) 322-8864

Bleached

RED DOG SALOON

Sept. 2, 8 p.m. The Holland Project 140 Vesta St. 742-1858

Open Mic Night, 7pm, W, no cover

76 N. C St., Virginia City; (775) 847-7474

RED ROCK BAR

Comedy Night hosted by Brandon Lara, 9:30pm, no cover

241 S. Sierra St., (775) 324-2468

RISE NIGHTCLUB

Maximum Volume Thursdays w/DJs Max, Noches de Sabor: Latin Night w/DJ Rise Culture Saturday, Fierce, 11pm, $5-$10; no cover ages 21+ Freddo, 11pm, $5-$10; no cover for locals 10pm, $5-$10

210 N. Sierra St., (775) 786-0833

RUBEN’S CANTINA

Hip Hop Open Mic, 10pm, W, no cover

1483 E. Fourth St., (775) 622-9424

RYAN’S SALOON 924 S. Wells Ave., (775) 323-4142

SIDELINES BAR & NIGHTCLUB 1237 Baring Blvd., Sparks; (775) 355-1030

Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

Live jazz, 7:30pm, W, no cover

Metal Echo, 9pm, no cover

Open mic, 8pm, M, blues jam, 8:30pm, Tu, Beware of Darkness, 8pm, W, no cover

ST. JAMES INFIRMARY

Strange on the Range, 7pm, M, no cover Tuesday Night Trivia, 8pm, Tu, no cover

Dance party, 9pm, no cover

445 California Ave., (775) 657-8484

STREGA BAR

Mobb Deep

Sunday Night Strega Mic, 9pm, no cover

310 S. Arlington Ave., (775) 348-9911

STUDIO ON 4TH

Sept. 3, 8 p.m. The Alley 906 Victorian Ave. Sparks 358-8891

Open Mic Wednesdays, 7pm, W, no cover

432 E. Fourth St., (775) 410-5993

WALDEN’S COFFEEHOUSE

Julie & Aiyana, Love Like Wes, 7pm, no cover

3940 Mayberry Dr., (775) 787-3307

WILD RIVER GRILLE

Tristan Selzler, 6:30pm, no cover

17 S. Virginia St., (775) 284-7455

THE ZEPHYR BAR

Colin Ross, 7pm, no cover

Reno Roller Girls’ Annual Mud Wrestling, 8pm, $5

KristiNikol, 8pm, no cover

1074 S. Virginia St., (775) 348-1723

Milton Merlos, 7pm, no cover

NOW OPEN! COOK OFF!! RIB R B CO OOK OK OFF O FF F !!! WEDS. MON. WEDS W WED DS. AUG AUG 28 AUG. 8–M MO ON. SEP SEPT T2

Mojitos, Beers, Watermelon Fresh h Fruitt Moji Mojit tos, Ch Cheap B eers, Waterm melon Shots, More!!! Shots s, Chris C Payne Dj's Nightly +Much Mo ore!!!

MOBB DEEP

Tuesday, T Tue Tu sday, September 3

The Halve Mecca, W Th W/ T he h eH a Two, Traj Hardie, Mecca alve a, Alchemist, A lch chemis e t Dumfounded Crew

WILSON

Burgers Bangers & Mash Roast Prime Rib & Yorkshire Pudding Shepherd’s Pie Fish & Chips Chocolate Bacon

Wednesday, September 4

The Greenery, American Fangs, The Ongoing Concept, Walk Away Alpha

SWINGIN' UTTERS

Friday, September 6

W/ Old Glory, City Of Vain, The Shames, Infecto Skeletons

DRUM CLINIC W/ KENNY ARNOFF & GREG GOLDEN BAND

Saturday, September 7

W/ Special Guest Brad Lang (Y & T), Paul Holdgate, Kenny Arnoff, Courtney Deaugustine

- happy hour 4-7pm & 10pm-close

HAWAIIAN REGGAE W/ NATTY VIBES

Monday, September 9

W/ The Steppas, Seedless 10 Den C

- Mon & tue LadieS 2 FoR 1 Wine

RAKIM

Thursday, September 12

W/ Traj Hardie, The Halve Two, Mecca, The Dumbfounded Crew

- Saturday 8a CoLd SteeL 9-12 Live

Mobb Deep – September 3 Wilson w/ The Greenery – September 4 Swingin’ Utters – September 6 Natty Vibes – September 9 Rakim – September 12 Dangerous Summer – September 13 Spiral Arms – September 14

neW Menu iteMS CoMing Soon!

GREEN

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(775) 329–1864 | 1864tavern.com MON - THU: 3:00pm – 11:00pm FRI - SAT: 3:00pm – 2:00am SUN: 3:00pm – 11:00pm

(775) 358.8891 906 Victorian Ave, Sparks NV Facebook.TheAlleySparks.com

4050 S. Mc carran Blvd, reno nv 775.737.4440 • www.Spitfirereno.coM NEWS

290 California Ave., Reno 89509

TheAlleySparks.com

Picon Punch | Pimms Cup | Sangria $5

GET PRE-SALE TICKETS NOW:

BReakFaSt, LunCh & dinneR 9aM to cloSe

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JOIN US AT RIB COOK OFF CHEAP BEERS, SEATING, MOJITOS, DRINK SPECIALS AND BEER GIRLS!!!

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IN ROTATION

ART OF THE STATE

FOODFINDS

FILM

| MUSICBEAT

NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS

| THIS WEEK

MISCELLANY

AUGUST 29, 2013

RN&R

ATLANTIS CASINO RESORT SPA 3800 S. Virginia St., (775) 825-4700 1) Grand Ballroom Stage 2) Cabaret

BOOMTOWN CASINO HOTEL

2100 Garson Rd., Verdi; (775) 345-6000 1) Event Center 2) Guitar Bar

THURSDAY 8/29

FRIDAY 8/30

SATURDAY 8/31

SUNDAY 9/1

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 9/2-9/4

2) Atomika, 8pm, no cover

1) Rick Springfield, 9pm, $45, $55 2) Atomika, 4pm, Cook Book, 10pm, no cover

2) Atomika, 4pm, Cook Book, 10pm, no cover

2) Cook Book, 8pm, no cover

2) Escalade, 8pm, M, Tu, W, no cover

2) Desperado, 6pm, no cover

2) Tany Jane, 8:30pm, no cover

1) Molly Hatchet, 7pm, 9pm, $19.99-$59.99 2) Dan Parslow, 5pm, Tany Jane, 8:30pm, no cover

1) Led Zepagain, 10pm, no cover

1) Mustache Harbor, 9pm, $12, $15

1) Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers, The Easy Leaves, 9pm, $15, $18

1) Grease, 7pm, $24.95+ 2) Steele Breeze, 10pm, no cover 4) Live piano, jazz, 4:30pm, no cover

1) Grease, 8pm, $24.95+ 2) Steele Breeze, 10:30pm, no cover 3) Skyy High Fridays, 9pm, $10 4) Live piano, jazz, 4:30pm, no cover

1) Grease, 7pm, 9:30pm, $24.95+ 2) Steele Breeze, 10:30pm, no cover 3) Addiction Saturday, 9pm, $10 4) Live piano, jazz, 4:30pm, no cover

1) Grease, 7pm, $24.95+ 2) Steele Breeze, 10pm, no cover 4) Live piano, jazz, 4:30pm, no cover

1) Grease, 7pm, Tu, W, $24.95+ 2) Live Band Karaoke, 10pm, M, DJ Chris English, 10pm, Tu, no cover 4) Live piano, jazz, 4:30pm, W, no cover

1) ESC4P3, 8:30pm, $24.95

1) Los Tigres Del Norte, 9pm, $35-$100

1) Anne Curtis, Martin Nievera, 7:30pm, $58-$98

1) Big Gigantic, Opiuo, Ill-esha, 9pm, Tu, $26, $30

CRYSTAL BAY CLUB

14 Hwy. 28, Crystal Bay; (775) 833-6333 1) Crown Room 2) Red Room

Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers Sept. 1, 9 p.m. Crystal Bay Club 14 Highway 28 Crystal Bay (775) 833-6333

Karaoke Bottoms Up Saloon, 1923 Prater Way, Sparks, 359-3677: Th-Sa, 9pm, no cover Elbow Room Bar, 2002 Victorian Ave., Sparks, 359-3526: F, Tu, 7pm; Su, 2pm, no cover

ELDORADO HOTEL CASINO

345 N. Virginia St., (775) 786-5700 1) Showroom 2) Brew Brothers 3) BuBinga Lounge 4) Roxy’s Bar & Lounge

GRAND SIERRA RESORT

2500 E. Second St., (775) 789-2000 1) Grand Theater 2) WET Ultra Lounge 3) The Beach 4) Summit Pavilion

HARRAH’S LAKE TAHOE

HARRAH’S RENO

219 N. Center St., (775) 788-2900 1) Sammy’s Showroom 2) The Zone 3) Sapphire Lounge 4) Plaza 5) Convention Center

Celtic Knot Pub, 541 E. Moana Lane, 829-8886: J.P. and Super Fun Entertainment, Th, 8pm, no cover

HARVEYS LAKE TAHOE

Flowing Tide Pub, 465 S. Meadows Pkwy., Ste. 5, 284-7707; 4690 Longley Lane, Ste. 30, (775) 284-7610: Karaoke, Sa, 9pm, no cover Sneakers Bar & Grill, 3923 S. McCarran Blvd., 829-8770: Karaoke w/Mark, Sa, 8:30pm, no cover

JOHN ASCUAGA’S NUGGET

Spiro’s Sports Bar & Grille, 1475 E. Prater Way, Sparks, 356-6000: Music & Karaoke, F, 9pm; Lovely Karaoke, Sa, 9pm, no cover Washoe Club, 112 S. C St., Virginia City, 847-4467: Gothic Productions Karaoke, Sa, Tu, 8pm, no cover

RN&R

| AUGUST 29, 2013

1) The Mavericks, 7:30pm, $46.20 3) DJ SN1, 10pm, $20

15 Hwy. 50, Stateline; (775) 588-6611 1) South Shore Room 2) Casino Center Stage 3) Peek Nightclub 1) The Biggest Little Sideshow, 8pm, $25, $35

1) Brad Paisley, Chris Young, Lee Brice, 6pm, $69.50-$135.50

18 Hwy. 50, Stateline; (775) 588-6611 1) Outdoor Arena 2) Cabo Wabo Cantina Lounge 1100 Nugget Ave., Sparks; (775) 356-3300 1) Showroom 2) Cabaret 3) Orozko 4) Rose Ballroom 5) Trader Dick’s

1) The Biggest Little Sideshow, 8pm, $25, $35 1) The Biggest Little Sideshow, 8pm, $25, $35 1) The Biggest Little Sideshow, 8pm, $25, $35 2) Cheap Lick, 9pm, no cover 2) Cheap Lick, 9pm, no cover 2) Cheap Lick, 9pm, no cover 3) Club Sapphire w/DJ I, 9pm, no cover 3) Club Sapphire w/DJ I, 9pm, no cover

2) Buddy Emmer Band, 9pm, no cover 3) Paul Covarelli, 5:30pm, no cover 5) Namolokama, 6pm, Karaoke Night, 7pm, no cover

2) Buddy Emmer Band, 9pm, no cover 3) Paul Covarelli, 6pm, no cover 5) Namolokama, 6pm, no cover

MONTBLEU RESORT

55 Hwy. 50, Stateline; (800) 648-3353 1) Theatre 2) Opal 3) Blu

SILVER LEGACY

407 N. Virginia St., (775) 325-7401 1) Grand Exposition Hall 2) Rum Bullions Island Bar 3) Aura Ultra Lounge 4) Silver Baron Lounge 5) Drinx Lounge

3) Social Network Night, 9pm, no cover 4) Live music, 6:30pm, no cover

2) Live music/DJ, 9pm, no cover 3) Fashion Friday, 7pm, no cover 4) Live music, 8:30pm, no cover

2) Buddy Emmer Band, 4pm, Country at 2) Buddy Emmer Band, 9pm, no cover the Cabaret w/DJ Jamie G, 9pm, no cover 3) Paul Covarelli, 6pm, no cover 3) Paul Covarelli, 6pm, no cover 5) Namolokama, 6pm, no cover 5) Namolokama, 6pm, no cover

2) Buddy Emmer Band, 4pm, M, W, Country at the Cabaret w/DJ Jamie G, 7pm, W, no cover

3) The Male Room, 8pm, $15

3) Afroman, 10pm, $15, $20

2) Local guest DJs, 10pm, W, no cover

1) Ted Nugent, 8pm, $55.50-$75.50 2) Live music/DJ, 9pm, no cover 3) Seduction Saturdays, 9pm, $5 4) Live music, 8:30pm, no cover

2) Recovery Sundays, 10pm, no cover 3) Midnight Mass, 9pm, no cover 4) Live music, 6:30pm, no cover

2) Gong Show Karaoke, 8pm, Tu, no cover 3) Step This Way (dubstep, house), 8pm, W, no cover

For a complete listing of this week’s events, visit newsreview.com/reno

by Kelley lang

Go jump In the lake

28thisweek

f the weather behaves,

Cove. The race begins at 11 a.m. Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for kids. Brunch is included in the price of admission. on Sunday, Sept. 1, area chefs and restaurants join farmers and growers at the Sample the Sierra farm-to-fork festival celebrating the best food, wine and art in the Sierra nevada region. The festival will be held on Ski run Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe from 1–5 p.m. Visit www.samplethesierra.com for details. You can end the summer with a bang at the Labor Day Weekend Fireworks Extravaganza on Sunday, Sept. 1. The pyrotechnic show begins at 8:30 p.m., and it will be viewable at several sites across the south shore, including nevada Beach, Bijou Community park, Tallac Historic Site, Edgewood-Tahoe and Lakeview Commons/El Dorado Beach. Visit http://tahoesouth.com.

and there isn’t any more smoke from nearby wildfires polluting the air, Lake Tahoe should be the perfect spot to enjoy one last weekend of summer fun. There are plenty of beaches to chose from but if you want to do something besides taking a dip, here are a few options. on Saturday, aug. 31, Lake Tahoe Cruises will host the 21st annual great Lake Tahoe Sternwheeler race between the M.S. Dixie ii and the Tahoe Queen. Boarding for the Tahoe Queen begins at 10 a.m. at the Ski run Maria, 900 Ski run Blvd., South Lake Tahoe, and at 10 a.m. for the M.S. Dixie ii at 760 Highway 50, zephyr

Bu r n i n g M an

DEprE S S urizaTio n CHaMBE r

if you’re a hardcore Burner, you’ve already managed to get a ticket to attend the Most awesome Event of the Year. But if you’ve put it off this long, chances are you aren’t going. However, you may be able to find a ticket via third-party sources. (Be prepared to pay a pretty penny.) For those who are attending this year’s gathering in the Black rock Desert, which kicked off aug. 26, you’ll see and experience amazing and wondrous things. after The Man burns on Saturday, aug. 31, the citizens of Black rock City will take part in that great exodus from the desert starting on Sunday, Sept. 1. after Labor Day, Sept. 2, the once vibrant “city” will start to resemble the dust blowing across the playa. For those who couldn’t make it, there’s always next year. Visit www.burningman.com.

The Man has burned, the crowds have departed from the Black rock Desert, and you’re feeling a little sad the whole thing’s over. Cheer up, little Burner, and head to Fresh Bakin’s Depressurization Chamber event to commiserate with fellow Burning Man attendees. Electronic acts/DJs Big gigantic, opiuo and ill-esha will provide the beats to ease you back into the hum drum of everyday life. The after-Burning Man bash begins at 10 p.m., on Tuesday, Sept. 3, at the grand Theatre inside the grand Sierra resort, 2500 E. Second St. The all-ages show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $26 in advance and $30 on the day of the show. Call 789-2000 or visit http:// freshbakin.com.

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Vir ginia C iT Y’ S C iV i L W a r D a YS a nD La B or D a Y pa r a D E History buffs can spend the weekend watching battle reenactments by the Comstock Civil War reenactors while traveling the V & T railroad this weekend. rides depart at 11:20 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday, aug. 31, and 11:20 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 1. Tickets are $22. The Champagne Battle Train features a nighttime battle in which gunfire and explosions will be more visible. The rides departs at 6 p.m. Tickets are $25. on Monday, Sept. 2, Virginia City will hold its annual Labor Day parade at 12:30 p.m., followed by a Civil War battle reenactment off C Street. Spectators can also see what life was like in a Civil War camp at Miner’s park. The camp is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and 9 a.m. to noon on Monday. Visitors are also invited to view the traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall on display from Thursday, aug. 29, through Monday, Sept. 2, at the Silverland inn & Suites, 100 n. E St. Call 847-7500 or visit www.visitvirginiacitynv.com. |

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When Hurry met Sally I planned a cross-country trip to introduce my girlfriend of five months to my family. She just sprang on me that she wants my family to meet “all of” her, which includes her 9-year-old daughter. My family knows she has a child, and I really enjoy her daughter, but I’m really not ready to introduce both of them. It would suggest that I’m taking on the role of a father, that she’s important to me, that I’m ready to care for her, and that they should accept her as part of my life. I’m OK with their meeting the daughter later if our relationship progresses, but it’s still so new that we haven’t even had our first big argument yet. Is it OK for me to first want to love the woman and decide whether she’s the one? Is it a warning sign that there are already issues regarding her child? It would be clear you were in the wrong place if you’d spent the first date brimming with childloathing: “Kids require a total commitment for 18 years—or maybe 13, if you can get them to run away as teenagers.” But it’s perfectly reasonable to want to be called baby for a while before you commit to having one, and especially one at the soon-to-be-sullen age of 9 who already calls some other guy daddy. Paradoxically, it’s you, the single, childless guy who’s taking the more responsible, parental approach: waiting to see whether the relationship has legs before you start acting like you’re all a family, which could end badly. Kids need stability. Ideally, “Who’s your stepdaddy?” isn’t a question a little girl should have to answer while standing by the revolving door outside the men’s department. Your girlfriend’s apparent attempt to leverage your affection for her into a Very Brady Vacation could be a straight-out power play or a fear-driven test to see whether you’re up to quasi-daddyhood. Think hard about the day-to-day details of being with a woman with a kid, like how her daughter will ultimately come first and how her presence will change the relationship dynamics. You can’t just tie a kid to a parking meter and make it up to her by taking her to pee in somebody’s bushes after lunch. If, for the right woman, the tradeoffs wouldn’t be too much for you, reassure your girlfriend of that, and then lay out the path to a relationship that works for you (more of a get-to-know-you stroll than a get-to-know-you freeway chase). If that timetable doesn’t work for her, well, there’s got to be a door

there somewhere. But the fact that you have selfknowledge and the integrity to be unwilling to rush things suggests that she’d be prudent to see whether there’s something between you—that is, besides an anonymous call to Child Services by someone making serious accusations: adults around her wearing Crocs with socks and not letting her wear makeup like all the other fourth-grade girls.

Wail watching My girlfriend cries quite easily—over being sick, work getting frustrating, or even our evening plans going awry. I feel the crying makes a small problem bigger, as everything becomes all about her emotions and not the problem. I try to comfort her, but when she starts crying, it’s very hard to talk or reach her at all. If you can’t stop the rain, you might just make the best of a bad situation and position your girlfriend over your Slip’N Slide. As for why she’s so often inconsolable, it may be because her tears are, in part, a cry for more attention from you. Holding back on giving it, like those parents who let their babies scream their little lungs out all night long, is exactly what you shouldn’t do, according to “the dependency paradox.” Social psychologist Brooke C. Feeney, who coined the term, found that in a committed relationship, the more a person feels they can count on their partner to be responsive to their calls for comforting and support the more independent that person can be. So, for three weeks, try being much more affectionate and caring—and not just when she’s crying. Maybe even give yourself a quota of three out-of-the-blue shows of affection per day. When she does cry, don’t try to “reach” her, except to hold her in your arms and let her sob into your shirt. Postpone any discussion till the storm subsides, tempting as it is to get right in there all guy-like and solve things—taking her, weeping, to Home Depot and calling over a salesperson: “‘Scuse me, sir … got anything to fix this leak?”

Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave., No. 280, Santa Monica,CA 90405, or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com).

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Peppermill_RNR_EricDlux_4.9x11.5.pdf

8/23/13

9:30 AM

by rob brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): You seem

primed to act like a ram, the astrological creature associated with your sign. I swear you have that look in your eyes: the steely gaze that tells me you’re about to take a very direct approach to smashing the obstacles in your way. I confess that I have not always approved of such behavior. In the past, you have sometimes done more damage to yourself than to the obstruction you’re trying to remove. But this is one time when the head-first approach might work. There is indeed evidence that the job at hand requires a battering ram. What does your intuition tell you?

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “I’m Gonna

Be (500 Miles)” is a raucous love song by the Scottish band the Proclaimers. In the chorus, the singer declares, “I would walk 500 miles / And I would walk 500 more / Just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles / To fall down at your door.” In 2011, a Chinese woman named Ling Hsueh told her boyfriend Liu Peiwen she would marry him if he took the lyrics of this song to heart. In response, lover boy embarked on a 1,000-mile hike to the distant city where she lived. His stunt seemed to have expedited the deepening of their relationship. The two are now wed. In accordance with your current astrological omens, Taurus, I encourage you to consider the possibility of being a romantic fool like Liu Peiwen. What playfully heroic or richly symbolic deed might you be willing to perform for the sake of love?

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “The works

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must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness,” said the painter Joan Miró in describing his artistic process. I recommend a similar approach to you in the coming weeks. Identify what excites you the most and will continue to inspire and energize you for the foreseeable future. Activate the wild parts of your imagination as you dream and scheme about how to get as much of that excitement as you can stand. And then set to work, with methodical self-discipline, to make it all happen.

30 | RN&R |

AUGUST 29, 2013

CANCER (June 21-July 22): My vision of

you in the coming week involves you being more instinctual and natural and primal than usual. I have a picture in my mind of you climbing trees and rolling in the grass and holding bugs in your hands and letting the wind mess up your hair. You’re gazing up at the sky a lot, and you’re doing spontaneous dance moves for no other reason than because it feels good, and you’re serenading the sun and clouds and hills with your favorite songs. I see you eating food with your fingers and touching things you’ve never touched. I hear you speaking wild truths you’ve bottled up for months. As for sex? I think you know what to do.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The Japanese word

senzuri refers to a sexual act of self-love performed by a man. Its literal meaning is “a hundred rubs.” The corresponding term for the female version is shiko shiko manzuri, or “10,000 rubs.” Judging from the astrological omens, I’m guessing that the applicable metaphor for you in the days ahead will be shiko shiko manzuri rather than senzuri. Whatever gender you are, you’ll be wise to slow way down and take your time, not just in pursuit of pleasure, but in pretty much everything you do. The best rewards and biggest blessings will come from being deliberate, gradual, thorough and leisurely.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “A beginning

is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct,” wrote science-fiction author Frank Herbert. I urge you to heed that advice. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you will oversee the germination of several new trends in the coming weeks. Future possibilities will reveal themselves to you. You will be motivated to gather the ingredients and formulate the plans to make sure that those trends and possibilities will actually happen. One of the most critical tasks you can focus on is to ensure that the balances are righteous right from the start.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The online Time

Travel Mart sells products you might find handy in the event that you travel through time. Available items include barbarian repellant, dinosaur eggs, time-travel-sickness pills, a centurion’s helmet, a portable wormhole and a samurai umbrella. I have no financial tie to this store. So when I recommend you consider purchasing something from it or another company with a similar product line, it’s only because I suspect that sometime soon you will be summoned to explore and possibly even alter the past. Be well-prepared to capitalize on the unexpected opportunities. (Here’s the Time Travel Mart: http://826la.org/store.)

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Mystic poets

find the divine presence everywhere. The wind carries God’s love, bestowing tender caresses. The scent of a lily is an intimate message from the Holy Beloved, provoking bliss. Even a bowl of oatmeal contains the essence of the Creator; to eat it is to receive an ecstatic blessing. But those of us who aren’t mystic poets are not necessarily attuned to all this sweetness. We may even refuse to make ourselves receptive to the ceaseless offerings. To the mystic poets, we are like sponges floating in the ocean but trying very hard not to get wet. Don’t do that this week, Scorpio. Be like a sponge floating in the ocean, and allow yourself to get totally soaked.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

James Caan is a well-known actor who has appeared in more than 80 movies, including notables like The Godfather, A Bridge Too Far and Elf. But he has also turned down major roles in a series of blockbusters: Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kramer vs. Kramer, Blade Runner and Apocalypse Now. I present his odd choices as a cautionary tale for you in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t shrink from the challenges that present themselves. Even if you have accomplished a lot already, an invitation to a more complete form of success may be in the offing.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “What

a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real,” says a character in one of Miranda July’s short stories. I’m offering similar advice to you, Capricorn. The “something real” you would get by sacrificing “something wonderful” might seem to be the more practical and useful option, but I don’t think it would be in the long run. Sticking with “something wonderful” will ultimately inspire breakthroughs that boost your ability to meet real-world challenges.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “There is

more truth in our erotic zones, than in the whole of religions and mathematics,” wrote the English artist Austin Osman Spare. I think he was being melodramatic. Who can say for sure whether such an extreme statement is accurate? But I suspect that it’s at least a worthy hypothesis for you to entertain in the coming weeks, Aquarius. The new wisdom you could potentially stir up through an exploration of eros will be extensive and intensive. Your research may proceed more briskly if you have a loving collaborator who enjoys playing, but that’s not an absolute necessity.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “This suspense

is terrible. I hope it will last.” So says a character in Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest. I could envision you speaking those words sometime soon. Plain-old drama could creep in the direction of passionate stimulation. High adventure may beckon, and entertaining stories might erupt. Soon, you could find yourself feeling tingly all over, and that might be so oddly pleasant that you don’t want it to end. With the right attitude— that is, a willingness to steep yourself in the lyrical ambiguity—your soul could feed off the educational suspense for quite a while.

Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes and daily text message horoscopes. The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at (877) 873-4888 or (900) 950-7700.

by Dennis Myers PHOTO/DENNIS MYERS

Running A new book, Ruthless Campaign: A Woman’s Guide to Political Victory, is bylined J D Herman, so Renoites may be forgiven if they do not recognize the author as their former city councilmember Judy Pruett Herman.

What made you write? Because I believe that women who don’t help other women, there’s a special place for them in hell. And what I noticed when I ran for office and when I was in office, that women didn’t help each other. And so I wrote this book to specifically to help young women and women who want to get into politics to show them exactly how and what they have to do.

When I first picked it up, I thought it was going to be humorous, from the art on the outside. But it is a serious book. It’s serious, and there are some humorous areas, but yes, it is serious.

Around here, at least, you’re known as Judy Herman or Judy Pruett Herman. But the byline is J D Herman. Haven’t you surrendered some sales by losing the recognition factor? It could be, but I wasn’t really looking for local sales. If your name is Judy, and you were born in the 1940s, late ’40s, it’s not a

In the last year, I’ve been doing a little bartending at a certain restaurant/bar in downtown Reno. I started out as a pretty piss-poor excuse for a barkeep, and I haven’t improved a whole lot. In fact, I’ve firmly established myself as one of the truly awful bartenders in the Truckee Meadows, awful enough to inspire a customer, after watching me in action for about 10 minutes, to remark, “You must own this place.” I’d like to share some of my secrets that have enabled me to irritate the bejesus out of a few of Reno’s most dedicated barflys.

1. If the drink involves complex ingredients and preparation, try to talk the customer out of it. I’ve developed a handy little facial tic that fires off involuntarily any time I get an order for anything trickier than wine. It’s a quick little flinch that conveys to the customer, “Hey, I’m back here OPINION

NEWS

GREEN

Right. It’s a basic book for women in small- to medium-sized towns and cities for any kind of race. … People giving them money, paying attention to the titans and the people who actually run whatever area they want to work in. Say you’re running for a school board. It takes you ten, twenty thousand dollars. You still have to know who to kowtow to. You have to know who’s really in charge.

What kind of reactions have you gotten so far? Most of my friends are surprised by it, because they thought it would be humor or it would be a get-even book, and it’s neither one. It’s just straightforward, Here’s what happens, here’s what you must do. And to try to help some people to get over that idea that going into politics is just because you want to do the right thing. You have to do a lot more than that.

Bring your own booze Bruce is off this week, so feel free to go to his house and steal stuff. This encore column is from 2000.

It’s a how-to book, basically. It’s not a treatise on political science, it’s just about how to run for office.

serious name. And so that’s why I selected J D. Years ago, I wrote for a shipping company when I was living in New Zealand. And I found that the only way I could be published by the magazine was to put J D Herman, because then they didn’t know I was a woman. So I selected this because over the years I just found that Judy wasn’t the most professional name.

Does it talk about the mental ordeal of running for office? I think there’s a few areas that I talked about that. It’s mostly pretty devastating if you don’t know what to expect. Ω

∫y Bruce Van Dye

trying to daydream and you want some major production!” Whenever someone orders a blended Margarita, for example. I immediately try to talk her into having it on the rocks, implying that only louts who just fell off the pumpkin truck order tequilalaced slurpees. It never works, and I always end up blending the damn Margarita, but at least I’ve started an argument.

tending racket, I have come to value the aid and comfort supplied by a solid bartending guide. I wish I had one. The feeble pamphlet that’s backing me up at our bar is infamous for being stumped at critical times. One night, I got an order for a vodka gimlet. Right off, I knew vodka was gonna be in there, probably a snort of something citrusy, and maybe a splash of something weird. When in doubt, check the book. No gimlet recipe. Unbelievable. I’m convinced we have the only bar guide in town written by an Amish guy.

2. Get involved in conversations at one end of the bar so as to ignore the slobs with empty glasses at the other end. It’s really rude to break off a nice conversation when it’s in midstream. I like chats to have some kind of closure. So, if your glass is empty, spare me the pained look of thirst. I’ll get there in a sec. And please, don’t knock your tumbler over, or some other kind of sophomoric hissy fit. That kind of stuff doesn’t make me move any faster. If anything, it makes me check the pepper spray in my pocket.

4. If somebody asks for a real oddball drink with a silly name, make sure the first words out of your mouth are, “What the hell is that?” I mean, what else can you do when a customer orders a Brain Tumor, Nuts on a Navel or a Gooey Load Blower? Ω

3. Have a useless bartender’s recipe book on hand. As a rookie in the bar-

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