S-2012-03-22 by News & Review

GAMBLING

IN A DIGITAL WORLD see Frontlines, page 8

K.J.’S (WORTHY?)

ADVERSARIES see Bites, page 8

OCCUPY UCD NOTCHES

PROTEST WIN see Frontlines, page 11

JOSH SEEKS GOD

S OIN S J NTO CITIE E M OF A R Y S SAC RANK LED B L THE PATRO UMED RS T E COS FIGHT ME I R C SACRAMENTO’S NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

see Arts&Culture, page 22

SXSW

TOP 10 see Sound Advice, page 37

VOLUME 23, ISSUE 49

THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2012

mondavi center Zakir Hussain and Masters of Percussion THU, MAR 22

ROCK SUGAR

SATURDAY, MARCH 24

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT SATURDAY, MARCH 31

OZOMATLI

SATURDAY, APRIL 7

Circus Oz SAT–SUN, MAR 24–25

LITTLE FEAT

SATURDAY, APRIL 14

LOS LOBOS

SATURDAY, APRIL 21

CHICKENFOOT

FRIDAY, MAY 4 & SATURDAY, MAY 5 TICKETS ON SALE AT TICKETMASTER.COM ONLY!

Tickets available at the Box Office, by calling 1-800-786-8208 or online at SouthShoreRoom.com.

SFJAZZ Collective The Music of Stevie Wonder THU, MAR 29 Young Artists Competition Winners Concert SUN, APR 1 The Elixir of Love Focus on Opera Film Series MON, APR 9 Sherman Alexie Author, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian WED, APR 11 Bettye LaVette FRI, APR 13 Phil Kline’s Zippo Songs: Poems from the Front with Theo Bleckmann SAT–SUN, APR 14–15

See box office for details and age restrictions. Shows subject to change or cancellation. Must be 21 or older to gamble. Know When To Stop Before You Start.® Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-522-4700. ©2012, Caesars License Company, LLC. SNR-032212

2 V2_68803.3_4.93x11.5_4c_Ad.indd | SN&R | 03.22.12 1

3/19/12 3:22 PM

TICKETS AND MORE! MondaviArts.org 866.754.2787 (toll-free)

INSIDE

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

Director of Advertising and Sales Rick Brown Senior Advertising Consultants Rosemarie Messina, Joy Webber Advertising Consultants Rosemary Babich, Josh Burke, Vince Garcia, Dusty Hamilton, April Houser, Cathy Kleckner, Dave Nettles, Kelsi White Inside Advertising Consultant Olla Ubay Ad Services Coordinator Melissa Bernard Events Interns Samantha Leos Operations Manager Will Niespodzinski Project Coordinator Anna Barela Sales Coordinators Shawn Barnum, Rachel Rosin Director of First Impressions Jeff Chinn Distribution Manager Greg Erwin Distribution Services Assistant Larry Schubert Distribution Drivers Mansour Aghdam, Nicholas Babcock, Walt Best, Daniel Bowen, Nina Castro, Jack Clifford, Robert Cvach, Chris Fong, Ron Forsberg, Wayne Hopkins, Brenda Hundley, Wendell Powell, Warren Robertson, Lloyd Rongley, Duane Secco, Jack Thorne, Kaven Umstead

SN&R is printed by The Paradise Post using recycled newsprint whenever available.

MUSIC

47 15 MINUTES

BEFORE

Streetalk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Letter of the Week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Poet’s Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

FRONTLINES

DISH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

Ordinary people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 This Modern World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Guest Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

The Porch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 The V Word. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Dish Listings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Eat It and Reap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Food Stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Born of injustice, inspired by comic-book culture and enabled by social media, hundreds of men and women around the world are performing good deeds in self-styled superhero outfits. And now the superhero phenomenon has come to Sactown. Yes, Bay Area superheroes have extended what they call the “NorCal Protectorate” to include patrols in downtown and Midtown Sacramento. Raheem F. Hosseini fills us in on the costumed crime fighters.

ARTS&CULTURE

This week’s arts feature sells itself: contributor Josh Fernandez writes a letter to God. Also this week: Southern eats at The Porch, and SN&R went to South by Southwest and came back with a top 10 list. Plus: beanies and beards! Are you there God? It’s me, Josh. . . . 22

GREEN DAYS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Editorial Policies Opinions expressed in SN&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. SN&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 and to edit them for libel.

OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

FEATURE STORY

So, you walk into an Internet cafe— but everyone is playing digital gambling games and winning money? It could happen: Sweepstakes-gambling businesses are popping up in underserved neighborhoods throughout Sacramento; Nick Miller and Ngaio Bealum report. Also this week: Cosmo Garvin looks at Mayor Kevin Johnson’s election adversaries in Bites, and Miller reports on Occupy UC Davis’ big win vs. Wall Street. Bites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The new casino? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Beats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 GMO wars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Bank shot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

President/CEO Jeff vonKaenel Chief Operations Officer Deborah Redmond Human Resources Manager Tanja Poley Senior Accountant Kevin Driskill Credit and Collections Manager Renee Briscoe Business Shannon McKenna, Zahida Mehirdel Systems Manager Jonathan Schultz Systems Support Specialist Joe Kakacek Web Developer/Support Specialist John Bisignano Operations Intern Giovanni Sumulong 1124 Del Paso Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 95815 Phone (916) 498-1234 Sales Fax (916) 498-7910 Editorial Fax (916) 498-7920 Website www.newsreview.com

THE 420

COOLHUNTING

Editor Melinda Welsh Managing Editor Nick Miller Senior Staff Writer Cosmo Garvin Arts & Culture Editor Rachel Leibrock Copy Editor Kyle Buis Associate Copy Editor Shoka Shafiee Calendar Editor Jonathan Mendick Editorial Coordinator Kel Munger Special Sections Editor Becca Costello Editorial Interns Valentín Almanza, Jonathan Nathan, Matthew W. Urner Contributors Sasha Abramsky, Gustavo Arellano, Rob Brezsny, Larry Dalton, Josh Fernandez, Joey Garcia, Jeff Hudson, Eddie Jorgensen, Jonathan Kiefer, Jim Lane, Greg Lucas, Ann Martin Rolke, Garrett McCord, John Phillips, Patti Roberts, Steph Rodriguez, Seth Sandronsky, Amy Yannello Design Manager Kate Murphy Art Director Priscilla Garcia Associate Art Director Hayley Doshay Editorial Designer India Curry Design Melissa Arendt, Brennan Collins, Mary Key, Marianne Mancina, Skyler Smith Art Directors-at-large Don Button, Andrea Diaz-Vaughn

VoÒume 23, Issue 49 | March 22, 2012

Greenlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Sustainable sushi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 An Inconvenient Ruth . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Eco-Hit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

NIGHT&DAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 Events Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Million-laugh March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Advertising Policies All advertising is subject to the newspaper’s Standards of Acceptance. The advertiser and not the newspaper assumes full responsibility for the truthful content of their advertising message.

COOLHUNTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 ASK JOEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 STAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 To Be … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 The Best Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Now Playing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

FILM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 Jeff, Who Lives at Home. . . . . . . . . . . 34 Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Check out SN&R’s FREE searchable EVENTS calendar online at www.newsreview.com.

MUSIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 Deer Park Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Sound Advice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Eight Gigs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Nightbeat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

AFTER

Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Adult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Free Will Astrology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 15 Minutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

THE 420

COVER PHOTO BY JOSEPH SCHELL COVER DESIGN BY HAYLEY DOSHAY

INSIDE

CASH FOR YOUR CLOTHES 2101 L Street Sacramento 916.441.3733

NEW FOLSOM STORE NOW OPEN BEFORE

FRONTLINES

6412 Tupelo Drive Citrus Heights 916.725.3733

850 E Bidwell, Folsom (next to Trader Joes) 916.985.3733

B U Y / S E L L / T R A D E C O N T E M P O R A RY FA S H I O N

FEATURE STORY

A RT S & C U LT U R E

AFTER

FREESTYLECLOTHING.COM |

03.22.12

SN&R

THREE STAGES AT FOLSOM LAKE COLLEGE PRESENTS

GREAT BROADWAY SHOWS. UP CLOSE! THE COLOR PURPLE

CATS

SAVION GLOVER

CATS The National Tour FRI 4/6 – SAT 4/7

One of the longest running shows in Broadway history. Winner of seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. FRI: 3:30 pm, 8 pm; SAT: 11 am, 3:30 pm, 8 pm

U O D

TONIGHT!: Savion Glover

The Color Purple The National Tour TUE 4/10–THU 4/12 “Pure heart…a Broadway hit!”

(USA Today). Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker and the film by Steven Spielberg, The Color Purple was nominated for 11 Tony Awards including Best Musical. “Soaring & joyful!” (Time). 7:30 pm

THU 3/22

WILD WOMEN OF SONG

Witness the tap dance brilliance of Glover—Tony Award winner, child prodigy and Broadway star. 7:30 pm

Wild Women of Song FRI 3/30 – SUN 4/1

With elements of storytelling, archival photos and a five-piece jazz band, vocalist Pamela Rose evokes the enduring contributions of women to American music, from Alberta Hunter to Peggy Lee. FRI / SAT: 8 pm; SUN: 2 pm

TICKETS ON SALE

916-608-6888 ThreeStages.net 4 | SN&R | 03.22.12

STREETALK

“My superhero is Bella Abzug.”

Asked on J Street between 17th and 18th streets:

Your superhero and archenemy?

Erika Dunn

Jeanette Trompczynski

student

There have been various Batgirls, but none of them have ever been helpless. They’ve all been capable. They’ve all been intelligent. Even Barbara Gordon—she was injured by Batman’s nemesis. … Lex Luthor is the archenemy. He knows what he wants and goes after it, even if things stop him from reaching his goal.

BEFORE

FRONTLINES

Jackson Harris

clothing designer

recent college graduate

My superhero is Al Gore, because he’s the only one who is really taking the initiative to go toward green energy and really take care of our environment. ... My archenemy is Uncle Sam. He taxes the working class. [The government’s] backwards. ... [It’s] taken a lot of money from our educational system.

FEATURE

My grandmother [is my superhero], because every time anybody in my family is facing any sort of adversity, she’s always there to pick up the pieces. ... The archenemy is Rush Limbaugh. I hate everything he stands for, and I hate the way he uses people and manipulates minds to push his agenda through.

STORY

Taffetta Lassen

Xian Kwong

sales rep

My superhero is Bella Abzug. ... She was one of the legislative arms of the women’s movement. She got herself into Congress so there could be changes made. The archenemy is the forces of ignorance. Part of the subculture in American life since we started as a nation has been that anti-intellectual attitude.

A RT S & C U LT U R E

Bob Wolf

sales rep

firefighter

My superheroes are [the] Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton because they overcame adversity. They never gave up on whatever their crusade or mission was. For an archenemy, all I can think of are the superevils: the Hitlers, the Stalins, the entire Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot.

AFTER

03.22.12

My superhero is the public-safety employee. … When you dial 911, that’s the person you want to see most. … My archenemy is douche bags; people who don’t take the time to understand [that] after 30 years of life-and-death sacrifice, you deserve a wage that allows you to live like a middle-class person.

SN&R

LAKE TAHOE OUTDOOR ARENA AT HARVEYS 2012 SUMMER CONCERT SERIES

CHICAGO THE DOOBIE BROTHERS FRIDAY, JULY 13, 2012 TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY, MARCH 23 AT 10AM Ticketmaster.com or ApeConcerts.com

TotalRewardsTahoe.com

See box ofﬁce for details and age restrictions. Shows subject to change or cancellation. Must be 21 or older to gamble. Know When To Stop Before You Start.® Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-522-4700. ©2012, Caesars License Company, LLC. T1600-12-063

6 | SN&R | 03.22.12

LETTERS

Visit us at www.newsreview.com or email sactoletters @ newsreview.com

NBA business, not city business Re “We did it?” by Cosmo Garvin (SN&R Bites, March 8): Thanks for keeping on top of the upcoming arena boondoggle making its way into the wallets of everyone in Sacramento. I doubt we will ever hear the truth from Mayor Kevin Johnson, the city council, The Sacramento Bee or any local TV news station. It’s already obvious that the numbers are never going to add up. LETTER OF Instead of being honest about it, the disastrous gaps will be filled in THE WEEK with the same kind of deceitful revenue predictions we get from the state Legislature every year. By the time the taxpayers of Sacramento get it together to express their outrage over 50 years of red ink, Johnson and the council members signing off on it will be long gone. None of them will ever be held accountable. It will be a repeat, on a grander scale, of the lousy 20-year garbage-hauling contract the council approved a while back. A new arena is not going to make the Kings a better team, and the Kings are almost never going to be playing in a sold-out venue. So let’s stop pretending that surcharges and profit-sharing are going to pay the bills. Empty seats won’t pay for anything. Future “backfill” will come from higher costs in utility rates, building permits, inspection fees, and anything else city bureaucrats can impose on us to balance their department budgets. That’s going to be the real and hidden cost to everyone for a new arena, whether you go there or not. Currently, city hall can’t keep the parks, pools and libraries open for the kids. But soon the mayor and friends will rubber-stamp a fantasy scenario that will put the city in hock for the next 50 years—all for a bunch of jock millionaires who, more often then not, fail to be winners. If Kings fans want to support them, no matter what, that’s their business. It’s not city business. The millionaires of the NBA should pool their money, finance their new arenas with bank loans, and leave the rest of us out of it.

Ron Lowe Nevada City

Get jobs, money and arena priorities in order Re “Lessons from Stockton” by Jonathan Mendick (SN&R Frontlines, March 8): The Stockton arena is a classic marketing and management mess that was too fast and too soon. That is, it was a good arena at the wrong time. Sacramento has a good chance for a good arena at the right time. First, get 600 companies into the heart of the city. Second, sweep or draft the homeless out of the city’s core. And third, hire people from this area. Jobs equal money equals arena, not the other way around. Good luck. Alan N. Satow Stockton

Daniel McMasters Sacramento

Cold, dark grandchildren Re “You’ll pry his lightbulb from his cold, dark fingers!” (SN&R Letters, March 15): John Ryan’s “lightbulb” letter shows how the self-absorbed impede progress in energy conservation. His indignant assertion to the contrary, what he does is our business, and, for that matter, the business of government which is tasked with providing for the common good. Energy resources are not unlimited, and what we do—and he does—today affects how we all will live in the future, not to mention how our children and grandchildren will live. Katherine Bell Sacramento

Just whistlin’ Davis Re “Keep it short” (SN&R Feature Story, March 8): Great stories in the 2012 Flash Fiction issue! I love the nose flute guy. It gives me ideas at my own house. Lyra Halprin Davis

Employees have a choice Re “Sex and the bishop” by Jeff vonKaenel (SN&R Frontlines, March 8): Regarding Jeff vonKaenel’s proposition, “But think of a woman employee at, say, a Catholic school. She has to pay $600 a BEFORE

FRONTLINES

She likes ’em special Re “Bartender, make mine a special” by Becky Grunewald (SN&R Arts&Culture, March 8): As a nondrinker, I always try to get [bartenders] to make me a mocktail and see how creative—past juice and soda water— they can get.

year on contraceptives—that’s a huge bill for her.” First off, people know in advance before they agree to work for a Catholic institution what the package of benefits includes and does not. They have a choice. Catholic institutions are being given no choice. Employees of Catholic schools, for example, chose to work there over betterpaying public-school jobs because the school is Catholic and the values that they teach. And it’s why parents pay money to send their children there, when public education is free. If the federal government forces Catholic institutions to violate their beliefs, they lose their reason for existing. Maybe that’s what the Obama administration is after.

Catherine McMuncie Sacramento

Keep the heat on cannaphobes

It’s all politics Re “Sex and the bishop” by Jeff vonKaenel (SN&R Frontlines, March 8): Do you know what the contraception brouhaha is about? Republicans are gaming the long-settled birth-control issue in hopes of gaining some political advantage in this election year. Don’t be distracted by the Rush Limbaugh scandal, the Catholic Church or other conversations swirling around. Simply put, Republicans are attacking President Barack Obama’s birth-control policy by backing employers and healthinsurance companies in denying coverage for contraception, which employers object

FEATURE

STORY

Caroline Bigard Sacramento

Thanks, Senator Re “The stigma” by Jeff vonKaenel (SN&R Feature, March 15): Thanks, Senator [Darrell Steinberg], for all the work that you and so many of my fellow clients and myself did to get the MHSA approved. I know that the state house is constantly wanting to raid these |

A RT S & C U LT U R E

Dale Black, RIP Sacramento has lost a beloved citizen. Dale Black, 63, who worked for more than a decade as a salesperson at the SN&R, died Saturday, March 17. Dale had a big heart, a love of life and a robust sense of humor. He was an actor, playwright and director—passionate about his family, his community and his friends. He played Santa every year during the holidays, helped out at the KVIE art auction, modeled for cover art at the SN&R, emceed at the Sacramento Jazz Festival—the list goes on and on. Dale is perhaps described best, in a Facebook post from a friend, as a “joyous, beautiful soul.” He is survived by wife Jean Cress Black, daughter Jennifer and others. There will be a bash to celebrate his life on April 1, at the Crest Theatre (more details to follow).

funds. Please do not allow it. Let’s support a new client voice for California. Henry N. Willey, Jr. Sacramento

Re “Congressional cannaphobia” by David Downs (SN&R The 420, March 1): Please keep publishing articles like this one. It aptly describes the current situation. The politicos we elected in good faith are failing us. There is no reason to vote for the current crop of dunderheads. Please print— in capital letters—the names of these uncaring individuals. I, for one, will remember in November the apathy of our elected officials. Keep up the good work. Someone has to do it.

Ed Thomas Granite Bay

PHOTO COURTESY OF JEAN CRESS BLACK

to on religious and moral grounds. It’s a political thing! It’s Republican religious politics rearing its ugly head again.

Opinions, not hate

Have a great photo? Email it to firstshot@ newsreview.com. Please include your full name and phone number. File size must not exceed 10 MB.

Re “Real haters of Sacramento” by Kel Munger (SN&R Frontlines, March 15): Everybody has the right to be able to express their own opinion. Just because you do not agree with what they say does not mean you have the right to deny their first amendment rights. Most of the bigoted behaviors I have seen have been from the homosexual agenda. Jim Vo Rocklin

POET’S CORNER Dog/Skunk Tanka

AFTER

Dog seeks to be Skunk Collecting all the best smells The richness, the hues Rolling, reveling, moaning In a voice hot with skunk breath. —Kimberly White

Sacramento

03.22.12

SN&R

FRONTLINES Browse the Internet or let it ride with a sweepstakes game? The choice is yours at popular new Internet gaming cafes.

The protest vote Bites has noticed a troubling trend in the races for the Sacramento City Council this year. Call it can’t-we-all-just-get-along syndrome. For example, in the District 4 race (downtown, Midtown, Land Park) Steve Hansen’s slick mailers read, “Working together we can lead Sacramento.” In north Sac’s District 2, candidate by COSMO GARVIN Rob Kerth says, “It’s time to stop pointing fingers of blame and start working together.” In District 6, Mitch Netto, challenger to incumbent council member Kevin McCarty underlines the “with” in his statement: “I’ll work with the Mayor when his agenda helps District 6 or moves the city forward. When it doesn’t, I’ll fight for real solutions, not to score political points.” This all fits the prepackaged narrative, cribbed mostly from The Sacramento Bee editorial page, that city hall is “dysfunctional” because some council members put up a fight about things like redistricting, strong mayor and the arena. Nonsense. Given that the council just voted 7-2 to commit the city to a wildly uncertain plan to build the Sacramento Kings a new arena, given that the city is working hard to keep those hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies for a Kings arena from coming to a public vote, Bites would say we need more fighters on the council, not fewer. We’ll see if the three challengers to Mayor Kevin Johnson have much fight in them. When you’ve got as much money as K.J., everybody else is a fringe candidate. Leonard Padilla is always up for an election. He’s run in every mayoral contest of the last 20 years, save one. He got 6 percent of the vote in 2008, 7.9 percent in 2004, 7 percent in 1996 and 3 percent in 1992. He sat out in 2000 while his daughter, Julie Padilla, showed up the old man, taking nearly 12 percent of the vote in that year’s primary. This time Padilla is hoping to make the race a referendum on the arena deal, and he may be on to something.

Meet your anybody-but-K.J. candidates for Sacramento mayor.

Richard Jones is ... also back. And the newbie is Jonathan Rewers,

chairperson of the Sacramento Parks and Recreation Commission and former city staffer in the city parks and rec department and general services department. He was, at one time, the lead staff on the city’s Sustainability Master Plan, long before the K.J.’s marketing folks cooked up Greenwise. As the city downsized, Rewers found a job at SF Muni, helping with that agency’s capital planning. Rewers suffers bit from the can’t-we-all-just-get-along syndrome, too, though he at least acknowledges the mayor’s bit: “Kevin is a great guy and a great advocate for the city. But he’s built up such a level of rancor that he couldn’t get things done.” Rewers is opposed to the various strong-mayor plans, perhaps not surprising given his years in city service. He’s pro-arena, though he faults the current plan because it lacked real public input. One thing that Bites hopes to hear more about. “I’m going to be talking a lot about what’s ‘uniquely Sacramento,’” said Rewers. “Kevin talks a lot about a world-class city. I don’t disagree with that. But we live in a great city. I’m not trying to take us to a world-class city, but to take care of the needs of our citizens.” Bites was hopeful that a higher-profile candidate like Phil Serna or Deborah Ortiz would jump in and give K.J. a run for his considerable money. That didn’t happen, but would any establishment candidate really speak for the large plurality (and maybe majority) of Sacramentans who are deeply skeptical about this arena deal? Padilla can at least do that. And it’s nice to see someone counter that old “world-class city” con, as Rewers appears to be doing with his “uniquely Sacramento,” tag. Not sure there’s a new mayor in this pair of challengers. But as a protest vote, either will do nicely. Ω

SN&R

03. 22.12

new casino? THE

Local Internet cafe owners say customers love their new ‘sweepstakes’ games. Law enforcement argues its just illegal gambling in a digital world.

There aren’t any flashing lights, bells, sirens or glitzy machines inside Web N More, an Internet cafe on El Camino Boulevard. Just 20 or so by Ngaio Bealum computer stations. But on this Wednesday and afternoon, every single one is in use. A few Nick Miller people even have babies with them. It’s also worth noting that no one is nickam@ newsreview.com using the computers to surf the Web; customers play games that look similar to photos by video slots or Keno. Posters on the wall Ryan Donahue detail the rules, odds of winning and payment schedules. A sign on the door says “Now open until 4 a.m. on Friday and Saturday!” A few weeks ago, a different sign read “No sunflower seeds allowed inside!” Web N More is not a casino. But the Internet cafe is one of many new local businesses that offer gamblinglike games called “sweepstakes”—buy Internet time from a cashier; use that time to play the games on a computer’s Internet browser, and, just like at a Thunder Valley Casino Resort or Cache Creek Casino Resort, possibly win money.

They’re increasingly popular destinations in some of Sacramento’s more neglected neighborhoods. But are they legal? The state’s attorneys general, and even local law enforcement, say no. Earlier this month, city police partnered with the

“We fully stand by what we’re doing. We just want the laws to be out there and known.” Jenn Schaefer manager, Cinnbad’s Department of Justice’s Bureau of Gambling Control to shut down a south Sacramento Internet cafe called Copy Planet, which they say was in violation of three different California penal codes for offering illegal gambling. Authorities seized 30 computers with sweepstakes games on them and also $17,000 in cash.

GMO OMG!

See FRONTLINES

Occupy UCD > Wall Street? See FRONTLINES

Patty’s party pics See YOU ARE HERE

Good sushi, bad sushi See GREEN DAYS

Protesters welcome See EDITORIAL

BEATS

Feuds and fumes Police Sgt. Andrew Pettit told SN&R the March 8 bust was about “putting people in check and letting them know that these types of places are illegal.” But local Internet sweepstakes cafe owners insist that these games aren’t breaking any laws. They argue that they aren’t any different than giveaway contests at a fast-food restaurants such as McDonald’s, where customers are enticed to buy Cokes and a Big Macs with peel-away games or scratchers that boast prizes or even cash. Jenn Schaefer, who’s managed Cinnbad’s Internet cafe and copy shop on Watt Avenue in North Highlands since October 2010, says she’s not trying to hide from the law. “We fully stand by what we’re doing,” she said. “We just want the laws to be out there and known.” She explained how the sweepstakesgaming process works at Cinnbad’s: Customers purchase Internet time and then receive a time card. They can sit down at one of the cafe’s 41 computer stations. Slide the card, go online, browse—or play one of several sweepstakes-style games. One has a gemstone theme, another Hercules or Robin Hood. The games at most local clubs look a lot like digital slot machines you’d find in Reno or South Lake Tahoe. Other sweepstakes are simple, almost like digital versions of California Lottery scratchers. “And customers can win anywhere from 2 cents up to about $1,500,” Schaefer said. Cinnbad’s is open until 2 a.m. every day except Friday and Saturday, when it remains open until 4 a.m. But Schaefer argued that Cinnbad’s does not meet the

state’s three-prong definition of illegal gambling: Does it have a prize? Does it have chance? And does it have consideration? “We lack consideration,” she argued. “There’s no skill here. What they’re purchasing is Internet time, and we use sweepstakes to get people to purchase more Internet time.”

Deputy Jason Ramos conceded that the recent Sacramento city police operation “was really an eye-opener” for his department. “We really have no idea how many of these places might be active in the county.” One of the larger Internet sweepstakessoftware manufacturers, Sweepscoach, which is headquartered in Sacramento, is quick to point out on its website that there are no laws, local or otherwise, that outlaw such gaming practices. Sweepscoach’s website uses the oft-cited McDonald’s analogy to assure potential clients that it’s OK to invest in its products. SN&R put in a call to Sweepscoach, but it went unreturned by deadline. When asked to confirm if they were based out of Sacramento, the man who answered the phone, Kurt, responded, “I’m not commenting on that.”

Screen grab from a computer monitor at Cinnbad’s; the store and other Internet-sweepstakes cafes did not make themselves available to be photographed.

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Certainly, there is money to be made in this business. Sweepscoach claims that business owners can generate about $1,000 per month per computer machine. Web N More hosts about 20 machines. The I-Zone on Madison Avenue has 17, and Cinnbad’s, of course, has more than three dozen. That’s a lot of potential revenue. This possibly explains why sweepstakes cafes also are popping up all over the country. Oakland and other East Bay cities have a handful. San Diego shut down most of its cafes when their popularity began skyrocketing a few years ago. And Florida and Ohio have seen huge growth, and state legislators have grappled with how to best regulate the new digital-world businesses. Attempts to ban them have been unsuccessful, and in Florida the cafes even have formed an organization to lobby on their behalf. Here in Sacramento, however, the only mention of sweepstakes gaming in the county code has to do with bingo halls. Bingo halls aren’t allowed to host such activities, but, of course, these new establishments aren’t bingo halls. They’re Internet cafes. County Sheriff Jason Ramos conceded that the recent Sacramento city police operation “was really an eye-opener” for his department. “We really have no idea how many of these places might be active in the county,” he told SN&R. He says they’re also trying to gain more information about the businesses to see if there is a trend. Meanwhile, Schaefer at Cinnbad’s— which is in the unincorporated county—says she hopes to work with law enforcement. “Basically, we feel like people don’t know what the law is. It’s not exactly commonday law,” she said. “We’re happy to work with the police, we always have been.” The police, meanwhile, might not be so accommodating. Sgt. Pettit says that while he only knows of “five or six” cafes, he says they can be lucrative gambling fronts. “These guys make deposits upward of $100,000 a month,” he said. Plus, the city also receives complaints about the cafes: loitering, underage kids frequenting the establishments, even customers parking in disabled stalls. But the city, like the county, has no official stance on the cafes; a spokesperson said the city is deferring to the police department at this time. Meanwhile, club owners say the cafes should remain open. “Like anything, a lot of our clients probably don’t have access to Internet at home,” explained Web N More’s Schaefer. “So, especially in a down economy, why not?” Ω

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On the heels of a bad-blood blowout between local radio host Don Geronimo and a Sacramento Bee sports editor, are employees at Q and 21st street banned from appearing on KHTK 1140 The Fan’s airwaves? Here’s what happened: For months, Geronimo and longtime Bee editor Tom Couzens feuded. The radio host blasted the editor on his morning show; the Bee editor dug at Geronimo in his print column. Then, a few weeks back, Geronimo claimed that Couzens called up and cussed out his show’s call screener. Twice. Bee editor Couzens initially denied to SN&R making the calls (see “Bee nice,” SN&R Beats, March 1, 2012). But on March 7, he emailed this writer Banned? and others and admitted to dropping F-bombs on the KHTK screener. And now, this week, the rumor mill churned out that The Sacramento Bee would no longer be allowing staff to guest on KHTK’s shows. Bee spokeswoman Pam Dinsmore told SN&R that, while there’s “no real formal policy about not appearing on KHTK,” Bee editors are reviewing its media-appearances policy and trying to be mindful of reporters’ time. She insisted that this policy review has nothing to do with the Geronimo-Couzens feud and is simply a “coincidence.” (Nick Miller)

Resolution 420 Sacramento: a model city for medical marijuana? Perhaps, at least according to Jay Schenirer. The councilman wants to put a resolution in front of city council to proclaim the city as such. His goal would be to kick-start legislation at the Capitol by using this city’s medical-cannabis laws as a guideline. But now, Schenirer is backing down. The concern among some at city hall, including the councilman, and others in the medical-pot community is that a resolution could have unintended consequences. Such as putting Sacramento square in U.S. attorney Benjamin Wagner’s crosshairs. Since October, the federal government has mounted a successful crackdown on medical cannabis, which has lead to the closure of numerous regional dispensaries. “We want to work with all parties and make sure that a resolution is in everyone’s best interest,” explained Schenirer chief of staff Joe Devlin of the change of heart. It’s worth noting, too, that the city’s ordinance currently isn’t all that “model” or exemplary. In fact, the ordinance doesn’t even work: The city attorney suspended permitting of dispensaries last fall due to the federal intervention. Schenirer will make a decision sometime soon whether to pursue the resolution or wait for the California Supreme Court to chime in on a handful of pivotal cannabis-related cases. Most agree that the model ordinance will probably need some major tweaking after the court chimes in. (N.M.)

03. 22.12

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DAILY, NOONDAY CHRISTIAN PRAYER

Looking for a wonderful place to come at 12 noon and have Christian Prayer? THEN YOU FOUND IT!

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GMO wars

7 DAYS A WEEK

Proposed ballot initiative and anti-Monsanto rally puts bioengineered foods in the crosshairs

UNITY MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH | 3308 4th Ave, Sacramento, CA 95817

Art with a Twist

Fortune 500 corporation Monsanto shut down its local operations last week as protesters, holding signs and taking turns on a handheld megaphone, by demanded that genetically modified foods to be Jenn Walker labeled as such—if not banned outright. The Davis rally was in solidarity with a grassroots attempt to shut down Monsanto offices across the globe. Locally, it worked: After catching wind of the planned demonstration, Monsanto employees were directed to avoid work on Friday. And if the two-day rally is any indicator of a greater phenomenon, as activist Pamm Larry suggested, it’s that there’s an increasing awareness in the country about food production and safety. PHOTO BY JENN WALKER

OPEN ART: HATCH THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 6:30 PM

Lorelei Bayne curates an evening of contemporary dance. New dance works from: Dr. Linda Goodrich, Melissa Wynn, Philip Flickinger, Leandro Damasco, Melisa Cervantes, Tung Nguyen, and Lorelei Bayne. This performance is funded in part by the Microgrant Program of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission with support from the City and County of Sacramento.

Two peaceful protesters enjoy natural foods at last week’s Monsanto, anti-GMO protest in Davis.

GONG YEUBIN: SITE 2801 ON VIEW THROUGH APRIL 29

An installation of 200 terracotta warriors, modern troops, and nuclear missiles asks viewers to confront humanity’s past and present.

For tickets and information visit crockerartmuseum.org.

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/crockerart

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At the Capitol: Assembly Bill 88, which would have mandated the labeling of all genetically engineered salmon that enters the state, failed to make it out of appropriations committee this past January.

Larry leads hundreds of volunteers across the state in collecting 800,000 signatures before April 22 to qualify the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act initiative for this fall’s ballot. The measure, if passed, would require that any food containing genetically engineered ingredients have a label indicating that the product was derived from genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. It would also mandate that foods cannot be labeled “natural” if they have been processed in any way (i.e., canned, cooked, frozen, fermented, etc.). “People don’t have time to take a college course on what is and isn’t labeled,” she says. Genetically engineered foods, according to the initiative, are foods in which the genetic makeup has been altered through vitro nucleic acid techniques, cell fusion or hybridization techniques that don’t occur naturally. This includes foods that are genetically engineered to be resistant to pesticides in order to increase crop yields, such as the controversial corn variety created by Dow Chemical that is resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D. While this initiative will not ban genetically engineered foods, it will allow

consumers to make a choice whether or not to buy these foods, Larry says. And, while she did not provide any numbers, she is confident the act will garner enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Meanwhile, a committee called Stop the Costly Food Labeling Initiative has cropped up to oppose the ballot-measure effort. This group is backed by the California Farm Bureau Federation, the California Seed Association, the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association and the Council for Biotechnology Information. The committee says regulation would be costly to the state and that it would put California farmers at a competitive disadvantage. Farmers in other states won’t be held to the same standards, they argue, and this would increase the food prices. The committee cites an analysis released by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office, which estimates that regulation of the measure could cost up to $1 million annually. The LAO further predicts a cost burden for the courts to pursue violations. The committee also emphasizes the fact that the FDA and medical experts have deemed genetically engineered foods safe for consumption. But Dr. Glayol Sahba, volunteer signature gatherer and Sacramento family physician, noted that the American Academy of Environmental Medicine called for a moratorium on genetically modified foods in 2009, concluding that “GM foods pose a serious health risk.” The academy cites several animal studies that have shown health risks related to GMO consumption, including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system. “Transgenic foods have only been around 10 years,” Sahba said. “We need to not expose people [to these foods] when we are not sure of the consequences to people and the environment.” According to a statewide poll conducted by EMC Research in June of last year, 81 percent of California voters said they would support an initiative that required GMO foods to be labeled. The push for GMO labeling is also gaining momentum around the country; as many as 14 states have attempted to pursue similar measures, including Connecticut, Michigan, Oregon, Washington and Vermont. Last week, 55 members of Congress signed off on a bicameral letter to the FDA in support of a petition filed by the Center for Food Safety advocating GMO labeling. Consumers want to see a change in the food system, Larry says, and are demanding transparency. “People are fired up,” she says. “Many of us in the country have felt powerless for a long time, [but] when we unite we can get something done.” Ω

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SELL US YOUR WOMEN’S & MEN’S CLOTHES - CURRENT STYLES Photo: MARLA VERDUGO

NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY - CASH ON THE SPOT - FRIENDLY BUYERS

Bank shot UC Davis student blockade forces closure of U.S. Bank branch, prompting possible legal battle Occupy UC Davis 1, Wall Street 0? After UC Davis student protests against the campus U.S. Bank branch, the fifthby largest commercial bank in the nation has Nick Miller informed the Regents of the University of nickam@ California that it intends to permanently close newsreview.com its UCD branch. This shutdown also means the early termination of a potentially lucrative public-private partnership between the school and the bank—which could prompt lawsuits over who is to blame. In a letter dated March 1, U.S. Bank referred to the Occupy UCD blockade, which took place regularly each day beginning in early January, as “intolerable.” They also argued that the protests “effectively imprisoned” its employees. A UCD spokesperson told SN&R that the Read more SN&R coverage of the university hopes to mediate with U.S. Bank UC Davis-U.S. Bank and possibly save the partnership. But U.S. protests at Bank says the Regents owe them money—poshttp://tinyurl.com/ UCD-USBank. sibly a few million—for defaulting on their contract, which dates back to 2009. University of California lawyers argue the bank is to blame, though, because they are in charge of security for the branch, not UCD. Occupy lawyer fees, it seems.

YOU ARE HERE

Occupy UCD members shared a group hug out front of the currently defunct bank branch on Monday, the first day of finals, and say they’re looking forward to planning a new campus action during the spring quarter. Discussions include the conception of a student-run credit union. Activists first formed their blockade outside the campus’s U.S. Bank branch the second week of winter quarter. These occupiers were upset with what they referred to as the bank’s “underhanded” and exclusive corporate partnership with the university, which included the bank’s logo on student ID cards. They also disliked the fact that U.S. Bank, they say, profits off of student-loan debt. On most days, the bank chose to close its doors in reaction to the protests. In fact, the bank had not opened for business since February 28. Occupiers say they found out with everyone else, this past Friday, that the bank would be closing for good. More than 2,500 students had opened checking accounts at the campus branch. The UCD-U.S. Bank partnership brought in $167,000 for student programs last year, the most since the bank’s arrival in 2009. Ω

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13th Annual

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at the Rice Bowl restaurant in Sacramento

Join us...

in congratulating local area high school students who will be awarded scholarships. The APSEA Foundation is a 501(c)(3) federal exempt charity whose mission is to support and advance the education and cultural heritage of the Asian Pacific Islander community. Tickets are $5000. Proceeds benefit the scholarship fund.

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03.22.12

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by JEFF VONKAENEL

Serna’s committee aims to save children’s lives

When I am having a bad day, I ask myself if my kids are healthy. I feel such relief that my kids are all right that my other problems, such as cash flow, disagreements at work and traffic, all seem small in comparison. I am instantly cheered up. I have known parents who have lost their children, and, frankly, I do not know if I am strong enough to suffer that level of grief. I pray that I will never go through that kind of experience. Unfortunately, this is the very experience that the families of 3,633 Sacramento County children, who died between 1990 and 2009, had to suffer through. These young lives and deaths were studied and documented by the Sacramento County Child Death Review Team, which recently issued a grueling, statistic-heavy report. The report broke down natural and accidental deaths, the parts of town where children are most at risk, the links between drug use and prenatal conditions, and different risk While African-American levels for different racial popchildren represent ulations, to name just a few topics. The report’s conclu12 percent of the sion: Way too many of the local population, they deaths were preventable. Sacramento County represent 22 percent Supervisor Phil Serna would of all child deaths. like to do to something about that. Unlike many politicians who can provide great sound bites but have little understanding of the issues, Serna really does his homework, studying the governmental processes so that he can effectively use his position and power to get things done. He told me that when he ran for supervisor he Find resources didn’t expect to deal with this issue. But as the head for parents at of the Sacramento County First 5 Commission, he has http://tinyurl.com/ an opportunity to make a real difference in reducing First5Resources. children’s deaths. Unlike other governmental agencies, the Sacramento County First 5, which receives its funds from a tobacco settlement, still has money. The state recently failed in an attempt to raid its funds. Now, Serna wants to put those funds to use to make a difference. The report identified a disproportionate number of African-American children who are dying. While African-American children represent only 12 percent of the population, they represent 22 percent of all child deaths. Phil Serna wants to find out why, and more importantly, what we can do about it. He has put together an all-star Sacramento County Blue Ribbon Commission and committed $5 million Jeff vonKaenel is in funding to study and recommend programs aimed the president, CEO and “at reducing the disproportionate number of deaths majority owner among African American infants.” of the News & Review With such a powerful commission, including newspapers in Sacramento, Chico Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and Sierra Health and Reno. Foundation president and CEO Chet Hewitt along with many other distinguished community and healthcare leaders, and with this level of funding, I expect results. They will find a way to reduce the deaths. Ω

GREEN DAYS

AN INCONVENIENT

RUTH

by AUNTIE RUTH

30,000 trees

Sustainable sushi

OK, out there: listen up.

Up and off of your butts now. Why, you ask? You would question your Auntie Ruth? She of the vast journalistic yeehaw? Of all things eco-right and relevant? Well, yeah. Ruthie’s readers are likely blue state, green flag-waving members of the choir, born of a long progressive tradition of American politics: We don’t do anything without contentious finger waggin’ and that’s-not-good-enough-forme-ya-friggin’-moderate machinations. And don’t you forget it.

How to know if you’re eating the good stuff

That said, up and off your butt now: We have to I love sushi. I know I’m not alone, because, let’s face it, there are plenty of sushi restaurants out there. They keep openby Meredith J. ing—and we keep going. Graham I try to be conscious of food, particularly when it comes to meat. I buy meredithg@ newsreview.com local or organic beef and chicken. I never buy farmed fish; when I’m at a restaurant, I ask before ordering salmon whether it is farmed or wild-caught. I’m not sure what it was about sushi, however, that somehow kept it off my radar. Maybe I was simply in denial. I was sitting in a sushi restaurant recently, noshing on my old standby, the sashimi lunch plate. The usual offerings: maguro, sake and hamachi. As I took a break between bites, I let my eyes wander to the list on the wall of specials, among them red snapper. Having just watched End of the Line—the 2007 film about the effects of overfishing—I knew red snapper was on the no-no list. It got me thinking, what am I really eating here? I’m not sure I ever really bothered to ask. I Googled “sustainable sushi” and what I found was a very cool website called, easy enough, Sustainable Sushi (www.sustainablesushi.net). I also got linked to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Green Days is on the Seafood Watch website. Both offer lookout for innovative excellent, user-friendly interfaces for sustainable projects finding out more about popular sushi throughout the items. What I learned was troublesome Sacramento region. Turn us on at at best. Maguro, the fleshy red tuna so often sactonewstips@ newsreview.com. served at sushi establishments, is on the avoid list. Unfortunately, so are hamachi and sake (salmon!). Maguro, it turns out, is yellowfin tuna. It’s caught on long fishing lines with thousands of hooks that, according to Seafood Watch, also end up hooking other marine animals like sea turtles and sharks. Hamachi is a little confusing, as the name is translated as yellowtail on most menus but actually is not yellowtail, according to Sustainable Sushi, a site created and maintained by San Franciscan Casson Trenor, who has led a mass effort to hold restaurants accountable for the fish they offer. Hamachi is actually amberjack; hiramasa is yellowtail amberjack (and a much better option). BEFORE

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plant 30,000 trees here and around Sacramento by April 8. Why? Because the Sacramento Tree Foundation says so, that’s why. It’s their 30th anniversary and, with a little ambitious symbolism tucked under their arm, off they go a’planting. What’s on your to-do list this week that’s as fine a thing as planting a tree? Auntie Ruth was a spoiled kid. Spoiled by trees; backing onto her house were acres and acres of them (she remembers most fondly the bay trees). If she could keep her hands out of the poison oak (leaves are three, let them be), she could spend hours and hours therein, with friends and alone, Lorax that. climbing them, wandering among them. Daydreaming to the sound of the wind pushing them around: It’s a sighing sound, sometimes lonely, sometimes angry. Ruthie was a spoiled kid. If she were still a tyke, Ruthie would be inside, online, up to her elbows in Facebook and what not. To that end, STF has a spiffy website set up to organize the planting of 30,000 trees in a little over a month (the effort began March 7), www.30ktrees.com. There, you’ll find why planting trees is good for you, essential to cleaner air and reducing carbon dioxide, plus a listing the leading tree planters to date (as of this writing, Kerry Wicker has planted seven—you go) and leading tree pledgers (the city of Sacramento will plant 1,000, Putah Creek Council has pledged 750).

Appetite? Check. Greenfriendly fish? Hmm …

“I know no one wants to hear it, but the hamachi that we all love so dearly is a cause for serious concern,” Trenor writes on his site. The vast majority of it is farmed, he explains, and little is known about wild hamachi. “Due to its dependence on wild juveniles, reliance on high-density systems, and continual demand for large quantities of fish for feed, this is an option that is best avoided.”

It got me thinking, what am I really eating here? When I got back to my desk, I Googled “sustainable sushi.” What I learned was troublesome at best. Then there’s the ever-popular sake, or salmon. As SN&R has reported, salmon is wildly overfished and farming operations are sketchy at best. If it’s not wild-caught in Alaska, it’s best to avoid it, says Trenor, as well as one of his employers, Greenpeace, which maintains the seafood “red list” of fish to avoid and a supermarket scorecard based on sustainable practices. Beyond these big three, there are many other sushi options that, sustainably speaking, we would be best to avoid. Among them: Tai, or red snapper. Greenpeace’s “red list” explains: “They are a slow

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growing species that mature late. Many are caught before they have had a chance to reproduce.” Tako, octopus. Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch lists octopus as a species to avoid because of overfishing and declining populations, adding that fishing gear used to catch them is destructive to ocean habitats. Unagi, eel. “About 90 percent of the eel consumed in the United States is produced in farms, mainly in China, Taiwan, and Japan,” Trenor explains. “Unfortunately, eel aquaculture tends to be sloppy and has a number of serious problems.” Do not fear—I know I’ve just loaded you with a lot of bad news. Rest assured, there are good options: Saba, or mackerel; and Shiromaguro, or albacore tuna: So, while that sashimi lunch plate I devoured a few weeks back might have been my last, I do look forward to trying other varieties of sushi that are likely just as tasty but don’t carry with them a hidden price tag. Ω

But really, we need more trees because we need more children in them—climbing them, playing in them, exercising in them, daydreaming in them, almost falling out of them. (There was that day Auntie Ruth should have broken at least an arm and maybe a neck except for a lucky grab of the branch. Trees are real life.) Anyway, 30,000 trees by April 7. Lorax that. Ruthie is, so there. Ω (Come friend Aunt Ruth on Facebook and let’s hang out.)

ECO-HIT Electromagnetic bike lights

If you’re a bike commuter who doesn’t enjoy worrying about battery levels on your bike’s headlights or taillights, check out this relatively new green gadget: the electromagnetic bike light. Electromagnetic lights built by several manufacturers—including Danish company Reelight (www.reelight.com) and German start-up Magnic Light (www.magniclight.com)—don’t require batteries. Instead, they utilize magnets attached to spokes—and even magnetism from the wheels themselves—to draw power into high-efficiency LED bulbs. While the sleek Magnic Light is still fundraising on Kickstarter at the time of writing, Reelight is already producing several products available at various bike retailers and sites like Amazon.com. —Jonathan Mendick

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Make yourself more visible in traffic

03. 22.12

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Ordinary people The former Weathermen have something to teach about protest—and doubt

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In 2008, Sarah Palin, who shoots animals from Dove, who should have called himself Hawk or helicopters, said former Weathermen Bernadine Falcon, said I should smash his car window. But Dohrn and Bill Ayers were terrorists. President I couldn’t, even after the man parked it in a by Barack Obama “palled around” with them, she perfect, secluded spot. Dismayed by my meekPat Lynch ness, Dove said, “Do you think Bernardine a Sacramento-based said. This provoked a flurry of media investigaDohrn would let that fascist get away with spitwriter who has been tion aimed at educating the public about the published in married pair who long ago helped form the ting at her?” Alimentum, Weather Underground. Forty years later, just last month, Dohrn and Main Street Rag No need to educate me. In the old days these Ayers came to the California Stage on R Street and Weber people were heroes. to speak for Haitian sugarcane workers. I sat in Weathermen were the acknowledged nobility the top row. A trim woman with a crown of of our messy, hyperconscious youth movement. curly hair greeted people in the next row down We marched and protested, but they acted with a while musicians with dreadlocks played righteous boldness that at the time made our bongos on stage. I heard the woman say, “We efforts feel puny. After the Kent State killings did our best, but a lot of our dreams didn’t some of us, student radicals, women’s liberahappen.” It was Bernadine Dorhn, now a law tionists, peacenicks, occupied the Sacramento professor—amiable, attentive, smiling; she State University campus. My friend Andy, who didn’t look like a terrorist. When she and had changed his name to Dove for the revoluAyers, a retired educator, took the stage, I saw tion, said wistfully as we walked across the quad the enduring marriage of friends. She was at midnight, “If we were Weathermen, we’d charming, he was patient and warm. They blow something up.” spoke eloquently about Haiti, the Occupy But we weren’t Weathermen. We were movement and “permanent-war capitalism.” ordinary kids, waking to the horror of the Did they regret the violent rhetoric and acts of Vietnam War and the draft, beginning awkthe past? Yes, Ayres said. “In the Weather wardly to understand that if you don’t object Underground, we didn’t admit doubt; we didn’t to evil, you’re complicit in it. Most of us were self-criticize.” Doubt is necessary, he went on, younger than the if we take seriously a “responsibility to live as legendary Dohrn a moral person.” I liked this, and liked that he quoted from a Mary Oliver poem about living We marched and and Ayers; we hadn’t helped write a fully conscious existence: 1. pay attention, 2. protested. After the radical doctrine be astonished, 3. do something. He ended that declared war we have to ask ourselves, what are we Kent State killings on our own coun- saying not seeing? This seems as shrewd and ethical a some of us, student try. But the actions political maxim as any I’ve heard: What are we Weathermen not seeing? radicals, women’s took—bombing They took a few questions. When someone asked about Obama, Dorhn turned away with liberationists, empty buildings N E W S & R E V I E W B U S I N E S S U S E O N LY (with evacuation an exaggerated, comic wince; Ayers said they DESIGNER ISSUE DATE ACCT. EXEC. peacenicks, occupied warnings beforehad known all along that Obama was a “conAL 06.18.09 REM hand), blowing up cession-making moderate.” After other REV. DATE the Sacramento State monuments,FILE NAME questions, some audience members waved their TRINITYCATHEDRAL061809R1 02.19.09 in the air to signal silent approval of the University campus. seemed dramatic USParms (BOLD SELECTION) and OK to me—so answers. Before I could ask their review of the PRICE / ATMOSPHERE / EXPERT / UNIQUE long as nobody got Republican primary debates (which have hurt. Passive resistance had done little to stop thrilled and entertained all winter), the question PLEASE CAREFULLY REVIEW YOUR the war. Maybe a few explosions would jar period ended. I headed to the door. In the ADVERTISEMENT AND VERIFY THE FOLLOWING: people enough to make them pay attention. We (COLUMNS lobby, a Xfriend said, “I peeked in and saw all AD SIZE INCHES) read the Berkeley Barb and Berkeley Tribe and those old hippies waving their arms. What’s SPELLING countless position papers cranked out from on?” NUMBERS &going DATES various Bay Area factions: all lauded Weather “Righteousness,” I said, adding that I CONTACT INFO (PHONE, ADDRESSES, ETC.) people. It was a passionate time. For myAD part, I agreed with about 85 percent of what Dohrn APPEARS AS REQUESTED owned an old Gestetner mimeo and used it to and Ayers said. On the way home, we listened APPROVED BY: disseminate feverish feminist tracts called Hell to a radio call-in show about the cultural war Broth. But I knew I would never hurt anybody. presently waged by conservatives. Armed with When we protested Sacramento’s then-new right-wing religiosity, Rick Santorum and Rush Century Theaters because we heard they paid Limbaugh rail against birth control, liberal female ushers less than males, some people teachers, freethinkers, the separation of church threw dimes and us and told us to go back to and state, gays, women; there’s no room in Russia. (The dimes, we guessed, were for call- their tight, prescriptive morality for doubt, or ing our Moscow contacts.) One man spat at Haitian workers. I’ll throw in with Dohrn and my Equal Pay for Equal Work sign and said I Ayers anytime. Ω was a “punk Commie bitch.” I ignored him.

OPINION

EDITORIAL

THIS MODERN WORLD

BY TOM TOMORROW

Protesters welcome

Common-sense pain treatment Eleven years ago, my life changed dramatically. I was at in the name of cost containment. Cost containthe pinnacle of my 21-year career as an attorney, ment is critical, but these policies go too far and consultant, and chief of staff for members of the often cause patients to go for weeks, months, or California State Assembly and the U.S. House of even years without effective treatment. Representatives. Then, one fateful day, I tripped In 2007, I had another setback after an autoover a large bin that was mistakenly placed in a mobile accident. Fortunately, at that time, I high-traffic area in the office. That incident sought independent treatment, and was placed in began my years-long journey as someone living a chronic pain management program that helped with chronic pain. get my life back on track. Because my injury A small measure of Assembly Bill 369 happened at work, I was relief may be on the way by prevents insurers from required to seek treatment for other Californians in Henry from workers’ compensapain. Assemblyman Jared J. Contreras requiring that patients tion physicians and was Huffman (D-San Rafael) lives and works try and fail on more given medications that has introduced commonin Sacramento failed to alleviate my sense patient-protection than two pain symptoms. I was even told legislation. Assembly Bill medications before that there were no pain369 prevents insurers relief alternatives, and I just allowing the patient from requiring that needed to “live with it.” access to the treatment patients try and fail on Excruciating pain was more than two pain medoriginally prescribed. ications before allowing Have a comment? constant during those Express your views years. I began to suffer the patient access to the in 350 words on from depression, was forced to retire early and treatment originally prescribed. a local topic had no income, and personal relationships began Ultimately, delay or denial policies may of interest. to suffer. Also constant were my battles with my make economic sense to insurers. However, they Send an e-mail to insurer. In California, some insurers refuse to can cause unnecessary pain, depression and ecoeditorial@ newsreview.com. cover doctor-prescribed pain treatments. Instead, nomic loss to Californians like me. patients must try (and fail) on up to five older, Common-sense middle ground must be found to less-effective treatments before the insurer will help California pain patients. Assemblyman cover what the doctor initially prescribed. Huffman’s bill is a good first step. Ω Insurer practices go by names like “step therapy” or “fail-first,” and insurers implement them BEFORE

FRONTLINES

FEATURE

STORY

A RT S & C U LT U R E

The recent student protests at the state Capitol were a welcome indication that students are going to fight to stop the privatization of California’s public colleges and universities. They understand that by cutting $2.7 billion, or 21 percent, from the higher-education budget since 2007, state education leaders have made attending college increasingly difficult for the children of the middle class. It’s also seriously damaged what until recently was the greatest higher-education system in the world. Of the four main categories in the state’s generalfund budget—K-12 education, health and welfare, Higher education is the prisons and higher education—the last has suffered the low-hanging fiscal fruit deepest cuts as a percentage in state budget cuts. of funding. That’s because, for reasons political and/or legal, the others are more difficult to cut. Higher education is the low-hanging fiscal fruit in Sacramento, and those who suffer as a result lack the political wherewithal to do much about it. That’s why it’s important that the business community stand up for higher education. Amid all the grumbling about regulation and taxes, business seems to have forgotten how much it benefits from the state’s “conveyor belts of talent,” as Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has been known to say When it comes to generating well-trained people ready to move the economy forward, no state does it better than California. Recently, the Legislature’s budget analyst issued a report stating that the state’s tax codes are riddled with loopholes, with the largest ones costing the state treasury about $45 billion a year, equal to about half the general fund. If legislators were serious about ending the budgetary dysfunction that has led to the decimation of higher education, they would go to work and unite around tax reform tomorrow. Ω

College Essay Contest 2012 It’s time again to reward local high-school seniors for their writing skills with SN&R’s annual College Essay Contest. Seniors, we want to see your college-application essays, and we’ll award cash prizes to help with school. That’s right, cash. Money. Moola—which quickly becomes oh-so-scarce once the college bills start arriving. We’ll give a $2,012 first prize to the winner, with a $750 second-place award and a $250 third prize. The second- and third-place awards are sponsored by our contest partner, InterWest Insurance Services Inc. We’ll also print the winners in a May issue of SN&R. Rules: This contest is open to high-school seniors graduating in 2012 only. If you’re heading to college but did not write an essay for your application, feel To read last year’s essay free to do so now. Only one entry is allowed per stu- contest winners, see dent, and you must live in the Sacramento region to “‘I’m not crazy’: apply. Essays will be judged anonymously. No SN&R Presenting the winners of SN&R’s 2011 College employees or their relatives may enter. Essay Contest” Include this information with your entry: Your SN&R Feature Story; May 5, 2011; at name; title of essay; your address, email and phone number; high-school attended; college you applied to www.newsreview.com. with this essay; and college you’ll be attending. Deadline: Email a copy of your essay to collegeessay@newsreview.com by 5 p.m. on Friday, April 13. Ω |

AFTER

03.22.12

SN&R

Motor Mouth and his “NorCal Protectorate” squad have expanded from the Bay Area and plan to patrol downtown and Midtown Sacramento at least once a month. Why did he and others like him join the Real Life Super Hero Project? “We’re just tired of watching our world fall apart,” he said.

SN&R

03. 22.12

SACRAMENTO JOINS THE RANKS OF CITIES PATROLLED BY COSTUMED CRIME FIGHTERS TWO DRUNK WOMEN, DRESSED TOO FLIMSILY FOR THE FEBRUARY COLD, SIT SLUMPED AGAINST A MIDTOWN SACRAMENTO OFFICE BUILDING, OBLIVIOUS TO THE WITCHING CHANGE OF SATURDAY INTO SUNDAY. A BARKED QUESTION KNIFES THROUGH THEIR BOW-HEADED STUPOR:

“Excuse me, ladies, do you need help?” “Nah, s’all right,” one of them mumbles into her glowing cellphone. “We’ve got a ride coming.” Then she looks up. “Holy shit, what kind of jacket is that!” she exclaims. It’s no jacket, miss. It’s the bulletproof vest of one Motor Mouth, a 31-year-old masked crime fighter from Oakland—and he’s in town to make you believe in a world with supermen. Maybe you’ve heard of them, this unapologetically eccentric fraternity that has come to be known somewhat facetiously as “real life superheroes,” or RLSH. Maybe you’ve seen them in their homemade duds, sitting across from a smirking anchor at the tail end of a local news broadcast. Maybe you’ve watched them profiled in an HBO documentary or dramatized on a recent episode of NCIS (we missed it, too). Maybe you heard about that retired soldier hired in Brazil to crack down on crime … as Batman. Or maybe you haven’t. “I didn’t even really know about this movement until I got your email,” says Jason Dube, a local comic-book publisher. “Amazing.” “It’s funny. I’m in the eye of the hurricane here,” adds Mark Yeager, an instructor at the Sacramento Art Institute and comic-book creator. “I’m here, plugging away, drawing my stuff, and I’m not even aware they’re out there.” Oh, but they’re not—the superheroes are here. “These guys are average Joes just like me,” Motor Mouth says of his costumed brethren, most of whom won’t reveal their secret identities. “We’re just tired of watching our world fall apart.” Born of injustice, inspired by comic-book culture and enabled by social media, hundreds of men and women (and kids!) around the world are performing good deeds in selfstyled superhero outfits. They attend BEFORE

to the homeless, break up street fights, sabotage polluters and, most of all, combat society’s growing inability to care. “They don’t do this with the hopes that others will put on costumes. They do this with the hopes that they will reject an apathetic existence,” says Peter Tangen, a Hollywood photographer who documents these costumed activists through his website, The Real Life Super Hero Project. Motor Mouth’s NorCal Protectorate squad expects to start walking Sacramento’s downtown beat once a month as the group cements its presence here and in nearby cities like Chico, where teammate Pikey is located. Motor Mouth’s even looking for young and able-bodied locals to join his team of superfriends, one of dozens scattered across the continental United States. “Serious inquiries only,” he stresses, can email him at norcalprotectorate@gmail.com. But let’s back up.

Like so many religions, it started with a book. Sitting in the special-collections department of the Michigan State University library is a slender manifesto credited to an evaporated adventurer named The Night Rider. The 52-page booklet, How to Be a Super-Hero, is the only known remaining copy of its kind; so the only way to get a look at it without heading for the Great Lakes State in the middle of winter is to ask a superhero to send you a PDF file. Though published in 1980, New York’s Zimmer Barnes (actual name) and Minnesota’s Geist tracked down the how-to manual during the current costume boom that began less than a decade ago. It’s a quaint piece of self-publishing, with a handdrawn cover, homemade illustrations and chapters on powers (there are none), costumes (function over fashion) and weapons (nonlethal trick arrows are preferred to firearms). The book has been widely distributed through the superhero community in its current footnoted electronic form, but Barnes and others downplay its influence on today’s costumed activist. However, the book does contain what many believe is the first coinage of the term “real-life superhero,” a misleading and redundant term the media has adopted, likely without knowing its origin.

FRONTLINES

FEATURE

“Cops don’t call themselves ‘realwww.crimereports.com to see what life cops.’ They just call themselves hot spots to hit during our patrol; I ‘cops,’” Barnes points out. “No one gulp and tell myself to give the heroes else does that.” a wide berth during any gangland Besides, Barnes notes, increasconfrontations. ingly preferred terms like The heroes, my photographer “costumed activist” or “extreme “Merle” (don’t ask) and I spend the altruist” could rewrite the history of next two hours navigating the peopled this fledgling movement. streets and ripe alleyways of Midtown “No one before 1938 could be a Sacramento. Our tour disembarks real-life superhero,” Barnes says of from the deserted Sixth Street side the year Action Comics No. of the Westfield 1 came out and introDowntown Plaza and duced the world to makes its way to J the modern superStreet, which we MOTOR MOUTH AND hero archetype. take past a MUTINOUS ANGEL ARE “Joan of Arc curious CONDUCTING THEIR TEAM’S didn’t aspire to crowd in be Superman. front of the FIRST OFFICIAL FOOT PATROL Superman Torch Club. IN SACRAMENTO, AND IT ENDS didn’t Motor UP BEING LIKE THE MARVEL exist yet.” Mouth and COMICS VERSION OF WAITING But rebrand Mutinous the community FOR GODOT—AS IN, NOT Angel perk as “costumed their ears like MUCH HAPPENS. activists,” and sudGerman shepdenly you’re tied in to herds at the clatter of a rich legacy of DIY heroraised voices, but it’s ism that spans centuries, from just the yelps of tipsy bar hopthe 1880s, when a nonracially motipers. We hook left on 16th through the vated militia like the mask-wearing J Street and K Street alley, where Bald Knobbers meted out vigilante some faceless maniac ambushes us. justice in lawless Missouri communiOr so we momentarily think. It ends ties, to the 1970s, when an openly gay up being just a waiter dumping out Pentecostal minister and his team of the trash. “Lavender Panthers” patrolled the “Sorry,” the waiter smiles before streets of San Francisco looking to slipping back through the side trounce gay bashers. Then there’s that entrance. The jumpy adventurers other famous act of costumed giggle at our hair-trigger nerves. activism. Past the bars of R Street, Motor “Maybe it’s logical to say that Mouth pauses briefly to make sure a those who did the Boston Tea Party homeless man folded in the doorway are real-life superheroes, too. And if of McMartin Realty is just sleeping. you say that then, crap, there’s a whole We loop around through the lot more people,” Barnes asserts. “The Lavender District, past Faces and further back you go, the more you Headhunters, where the costumed have to define what a superhero is.” partners look slightly less out of place. We walk around like this until about 1 a.m., and then the superheroes kindly escort us to our car at the parking garage on K and 10th streets. We part ways before the bars When patrolling the wintry streets of let out. Sacramento with a pair of costumed All in all, it’s a much quieter visit crime fighters, it’s important to wear than the team’s recent trip to San Jose, your thickest skin. After all, things where the crime fighters broke up a can get mighty cold hoofing block scrap in which two aggro bros in after Midtown block in search of Tapout apparel slammed a smaller evil—especially if evil is fraternizing man’s head into the cement. Motor with dickish ambivalence. Mouth hopes the next morning’s Motor Mouth and his compatriot, paper doesn’t bring news of a missed Mutinous Angel, are conducting opportunity. their team’s first official foot patrol “When you read about it the next in the capital city, and it ends up day, it’s kind of a shock,” he says. being like the Marvel Comics verBut we’re lucky. Sunday’s police sion of Waiting for Godot—as in, log shows one lone assault occurring not much happens. during our patrol. Police responded, Motor Mouth warns me that’s a arresting the 23-year-old man who possibility during an atypically brief reportedly struck another with a phone conversation before our renbottle at 17th Street and Capitol dezvous. He says he’s been checking Avenue.

STORY

A RT S & C U LT U R E

AFTER

Motor Mouth and Mutinous Angel are a study in contrasts. Motor Mouth is short and barrel-shaped with stout, burly arms. He wears a black neoprene face mask that reveals only his eyes, gray cargo pants and a military-issue bulletproof vest over a short-sleeved hoodie. His costume is assembled from a patchwork of practical sources: the fingerless gloves are vintage, and his bulky kneepads were designed for volleyball hardwood. He buys most of his gear online late at night and is always talking about a new piece of equipment he’s coveting, like forearm bracers or a riot helmet. He recently spotted a slightly used stealth boat the U.S. government was trying to unload for $80,000. “This is why I wish I had funding!” he enthuses. Living up to his name, Motor Mouth chatters tirelessly about any number of subjects, from economic and social ills (“Our politicians don’t give a crap. And police for the most part don’t give a crap. Sometimes you need an extreme weirdo in a mask.”) to operating within the law (“In the state of California, I can legally wear a bulletproof vest in public and shit. And I can legally wear a mask in public as long as I’m not committing a crime, and as long I have not performed any misdemeanors or felonies in my past—and I have not.”), even M-theory (“Who’s to say there isn’t a parallel reality out there somewhere?”). He’s gregarious, excited and resolute: He absolutely loves being a superhero. Mutinous Angel, on the other hand, is quieter. He’s lanky, with the dark, sleepy features of David Blaine, and his costume evokes the subdued flare of a street magician. He has with him a full face mask with purple goggles, but only dons it once, when we skulk down the alley. He says the costume can be more of a hindrance than an edge when walking among people. Depending on whom you ask, costumes protect the wearers from the scrutiny of disapproving employers, inspire the average Joe, strike fear in criminals or simply look really bitching. “I say we’re like the Guardian Angels, just a lot more pretty,” Motor Mouth laughs. “At least a tiny part of it is wish fulfillment,” admits Barnes, who

“SUPERHEROES” continued on page 19

03. 22.12

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>> |

building a

HealtHy Sacramento

training Community leaders

“

for the program. In the six months of training, Mindy built relationships with those training alongside her who also shared her goals for community improvement. Together, they expanded their knowledge about how government functions and how to affect equitable change. “The program was amazing,” said Mindy. “We all have a deeper understanding of equity, and we are all inspired by each other. It has deepened my commitment to making my community better.” Mindy graduated from the program feeling enriched in

the BClI is about supporting and developing leadership that can best serve the community

leadership skills with a focus on understanding the health and equity impacts of government action. BCLI’s goal is to increase representation of diverse communities on boards and commissions in the Sacramento region. “The BCLI is about supporting and developing leadership that can best serve the community,” said Mindy. “A key mechanism is bringing folks together that are equity minded.” Even before attending BCLI, Mindy was already affecting community change with equity in mind. After graduating from UC Davis with a degree in sociology and political science, she began work for the UC Davis Center for Regional Change while finishing up her doctorate. Here, she researches ways to create equitable, sustainable and healthy regional change. For example, Mindy helped with a two-year study of the well-being of local youth and their connection to the overall health of the community. She also serves as President of the Sacramento-Yolo Mutual Housing Association Board. She started as a resident attending council and worked her way up. As a resident of a SMHA property, she feels her role as president empowers others in her community. She tells people “If I can do it, you can do it,” she said. “Residents get to self-govern, but it only works if people are really involved.” The SMHA Board led Mindy to BCLI by nominating her

“

Raising three teenagers as a single mom doesn’t hold Mindy Romero back from finding time for community action. In fact, her children are part of the reason for her activism – Mindy wants to set a good example. She believes that taking an active role in her community is the only way to improve her community, and furthered this commitment with her recent graduation from the Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute (BCLI). BLCI – a program of Sacramento Housing Alliance’s project CORE – identifies and trains community members in

every aspect of her life. The relationships she built continue to support her, and the knowledge she gained helps her in her current job and board appointment. The program even enriched her role as a mom as she seeks to model leadership to her children. She hopes it will also land her a seat on a commission in her community where she can help improve health and education outcomes for vulnerable groups.

ZIP CODE

95219 Life Expectancy

ZIP CODE

92657 Life Expectancy

73 88 <

Your ZIP code shouldn’t predict how long you’ll live – but it does. Staying healthy requires much more than

equitable Policies Benefit everyone The Sacramento Housing Alliance – formed in 1989 to advocate for housing services and amenities for disadvantaged communities – created CORE in 2007. CORE is a coalition of community groups that come together with the help of the California Endowment to create a sustainable, equitable and healthy region. Leadership is a key component of this effort, and CORE develops leaders with its Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute (BCLI) by training members of the communities it serves. The BCLI is the second program of its kind, modeled after the Bay Area non-profit organization Urban Habitat’s BCLI. Training focuses on land use, environment, health, economic development and transportation. Students also learn logistical and proce

doctors and diets. Every day, our surroundings and activities affect how long – and how well – we’ll live.

The BCLI benefits the community by providing community members with the skills needed to effectively advocate and represent themselves. Regional boards and commissions benefit from improved diversity and accountability. The end goal is more equitable policies that benefit everyone.

www.SacBHC.org

www.CalEndow.org/HealthHappensHere

paid with a grant from the california endowment 18 | SN&R | 03.22.12

www.UrbanHabitat.org

Health Happens in Neighborhoods. | Health Happens in Schools. Health Happens with Prevention.

To learn more visit us at

www.calendow.org

“SUPERHEROES”

the off chance that’d grant me an audience with the elusive heroine. continued from page 17 But alas, her pimped-out affections were to no avail. Minerva—named actually favors a nondescript uniform after the Roman goddess of poetry, that draws little to no attention. medicine, wisdom and magic (though The openly gay Barnes doesn’t not, curiously, pearls)—was nothing if wear a mask. He has said the idea of not consistent in her unresponsiveness. a disguise felt to him like just After about my bajillionth request, one another closet. of her NorCal Protectorate teamBut for those who do dress mates told me it wasn’t more extravagantly, going to happen. there’s something “She basically said “really powerful in “THESE GUYS she has no interest in taking on a [SUPERHEROES] ARE participating with totem,” says AVERAGE JOES JUST LIKE your article,” the Matthew J. hero told me off Smith, Ph.D., ME. WE’RE JUST TIRED OF the record. “I’m who teaches WATCHING OUR WORLD sorry, dude.” comic books as FALL APART.” The Minerva of culture at Motor Mouth Pearl persona seems Wittenberg 31-year-old masked crime fighter to have been born University in Ohio. around March or April of “Left to their civilian last year, according to her clothing, they wouldn’t be Facebook page. Her first wall post acknowledged by anyone outside took place just after her inaugural costhe norm.” tumed patrol in Oakland, on Exactly, say Barnes and Tangen. April 11, 2011, around 2 a.m.: People volunteer at soup kitchens and “The rush of last night washed work at homeless shelters every day, over me early today, rather than right they note, yet who pays attention? after,” she gushed. “But we all know “But throw a $5 cape on them or what follows a rush, exhaustion. Ha. spandex or a mask, and they’re on Though I am refreshed now, and CNN,” Barnes deadpans. ready for more outings with Motor Tangen, who served as consulting Mouth and our local protectorate. :) producer on the HBO documentary Good luck to all out there who are Superheroes, puts it another way: “If they weren’t wearing costumes, would making a difference.” Seven months later, the ride you be talking to them?” appeared to be over. Minerva relocated Point taken. from Oakland to Sacramento in early There are all sorts in this turnoverNovember. She moved to the state prone community: active and capital for a new job and a stab at ex-military, teachers, parents, politiindependence, and initially intended to cians, even (gulp) journalists. Motor Mouth is a substitute special-education continue her alter-ego activities. “Looks like they could use the help teacher; he’s engaged to be married, around here too,” she wrote on her has a 4-year-old daughter and says he wall November 10, 2011. has Asperger’s syndrome. Unlike his Then the mysterious woman in the teammate, Mutinous Angel hasn’t told motorcycle jacket, black bandit’s his family or friends about his double mask, pink gloves and candy applelife, partially out of embarrassment. red hair evaporated. Poof. He dreams of going into law enforceThere was an early warning sign. ment, and worries his extracurricular On August 31, 2011, around 2 a.m., activities might be frowned upon by the crime and courts establishment. He Minerva posted the following to her public Facebook wall: recently moved to Tracy after banks “Sometimes I wonder how much foreclosed on his home and isn’t curtime I really have to be Minerva of rently working; he devotes much of Pearl, separately from my civilian his time to conducting driving patrols life. ... How much personal sacrifice through his neighborhood. is enough?” Not all heroes are so resilient. A few minutes later, she replied to her own post: “I may risk my life, but I’m not risking my life, does anyone know what i mean?” Barnes does. A New York transplant who began his career busting up bar fights in Austin, Texas, Barnes has Sacramento’s only known superbeen studying the movement for six hero isn’t returning my Facebook years. He believes there are “hundreds messages. for sure, probably thousands” in the Since October 2011, I’ve been RLSH community, including those too pleading with the crimson-haired embarrassed to self-identify. avenger who calls herself Minerva “So many people are turned off by of Pearl to grant me an interview. the spandex,” he says. I’ve written her multiple times, Milwaukee journalist Tea Krulos, solicited her fellow superheroes to who has followed the RLSH commumake requests on my behalf and even asked my girlfriend to flirt with nity since 2009, pegs the figure one of Minerva’s male teammates on BEFORE

FRONTLINES

FEATURE

somewhere between 300 to 400 costumed adventurers. Most live in the United States, some are in Canada and a few dozen others—like Liberia’s Lion Heart, who donned the mask to educate villagers about boiling water and avoiding sex traffickers, and Mexico’s Supergay, who crusaded for homosexual equality—are scattered around the world. The door is constantly revolving and attrition is rapid. “A lot of people come in for a short period of time and then fade out,” Barnes says. He never even heard of Minerva of Pearl.

A month after that first Sacramento patrol, an unmasked Motor Mouth is ripping down I Street in broad daylight toward the frantic shrieks of a homeless woman. “That’s my card! That’s my card!” the green-jacketed woman cries, jogging and tugging a rickety pushcart behind her. A cop car lazily drifts in the opposite direction, ignoring the drama. Motor Mouth’s partner Black Dawg, approaching slowly from the opposite side of the street, offers a slight shake of the head. Motor Mouth bounds past the woman and is galloping after the accused thief when a homeless man gets the sprinting hero’s attention. He says the woman is chasing her young son, replaying a weird family dispute that has already gotten them tossed out of the Sacramento library. “You saw me stop. I kind of have to take that guy’s word for it,” Motor Mouth explains after the commotion subsides. “You don’t want to be a victim,” offers his partner, crouched and smoking a grape-scented swisher. “Or make someone a victim,” Motor Mouth adds. “We’re not here to start drama. We’re here to peace people out,” the easygoing Black Dawg drawls. Black Dawg, a 41-year-old music promoter with a weedy, salt-flecked goatee, recently returned from Sumatra, Indonesia, where he advocated on behalf of persecuted punk rockers. He met Motor Mouth about a dozen years ago when both were working door security at a Bay Area rock club. Black Dawg is the one who gave Motor Mouth the nickname that became his superhero alias. “He’s the one who called me ‘Jabberjaw,’” Motor Mouth says. “He likes to talk, as you may have noticed,” Black Dawg chuckles. Moments later, we’re standing under the statue of Cesar Chavez in the plaza that bears his name. A few of the park’s denizens ask about the foot chase, and Motor Mouth replies courteously, irrespective of whether our interrogators are homeless, inebriated,

STORY

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Mutinous Angel’s superhero costume evokes a street magician, with full face mask and combat boots. Seen here climbing a building—perhaps not with full spidey powers—Mutinous joined Motor Mouth on a recent patrol of the mean streets of Midtown Sacramento.

“SUPERHEROES” continued on page 21

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! T S E T N O C Y A S S E E G COLLE You drafted them. You revised them. You polished them until they shined like little gems. Now get some payoff from all that hard work. SN&R wants to see your college application essays—and we’ll reward the best with money. That’s right, cash. Semolians. Scratch. The stuff that disappears so quickly when you’re going to college. Fill out the entry form below (photo copies OK), attach it to a copy of your essay, and send it to us by April 15. If you submit via email, make sure to include all that info at the top of the submission.

CA$H FOR GOLD & SILVER! TOP DOLLAR PAID FOR GOLD!

We’ll print the finalists in a May issue of SN&R, and the winners will get a little something to help with all those college expenses. First prize is $2,012. Second prize is $750, and third prize is $250. Second and third prize are being sponsored by InterWest Insurance Services, Inc.

RULES:

This contest is open to seniors graduating in 2012 only. If you’re heading to college but did not write an essay for your application, feel free to do so now. Essays will be judged anonymously. No employees or relatives of employees of SN&R may enter. Only one entry per student, so if you wrote more than one application essay, pick your best.

DEADLINE:

Entries must be received by 5 p.m. on Friday, April 13.

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Include the following information with your entry: NAME: TITLE OF ESSAY: ADDRESS: EMAIL: PHONE NUMBER: HIGH SCHOOL ATTENDED: COLLEGE YOU APPLIED TO WITH THIS ESSAY:

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341 Iron Point Road • Sacramento Across from Folsom Premium Outlets

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COLLEGE YOU’LL BE ATTENDING: Mail entries to: SN&R COLLEGE ESSAY CONTEST | 1124 Del Paso Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 95815 or enter by email at collegeessay@newsreview.com

“SUPERHEROES” continued from page 19

trying to sell us weed, all or none of the above. He snaps his last two bucks out of a Velcro Avengers wallet for a gentleman who says he’s trying to get something to eat. Motor Mouth estimates he’s spent north of $3,000 of his own money in the four years he’s been a superhero on supplies for the homeless. His father, he says, is his biggest benefactor. Unsexy social causes like homeless outreach, gay rights and environmental activism make up the majority of superhero labor, according to Tangen. “Eighty percent of what these people do is homeless outreach, and that’s not what the police do. They’re not solely crime fighters,” Tangen explains. “They’re not crossing the line and breaking the law.” Well, for the most part.

Mouth and Mutinous Angel, he’s been unable to get other costumed heroes to join his cause. “Due to my Phantom Patriot past, it’s understandable that many of them would be very leery to associate with me,” he tells SN&R. I ask Motor Mouth for his take on McCaslin’s armed assault. “His intent was nothing but pure and just,” Motor Mouth says thoughtfully. “He may be a little delusional, but I believe he’s sane.” Thus far, the cops in Sacramento haven’t paid the costumed activists in their midst any mind. I ask Sacramento police Sgt. Andrew Pettit what his department’s reaction would be to a couple of wandering superheroes. “It depends on the time, location and the officer’s personal experience,” Pettit answers, before pointing out: “We just recently had the ‘Evil Clown’ masked robber.”

Prosecutors in Seattle recently dropped assault Barnes says the future of this community rests in charges against Phoenix Jones (a.k.a. 23-year-old the growing proliferation of teams and networks. Benjamin Fodor), who scrapped with some “Teams help people last in this a little young drunks under a parking viaduct last longer,” asserts Barnes, who is the technology October. Motor Mouth’s ex-teammate the Ray advisor for the New York Initiative. Similar juswas arrested during an Occupy Oakland protest tice leagues are scattered across the country. some weeks back, while Motor Mouth himself Snaking up the Western seaboard is Pacific was detained by Oakland police during city riots Protectorate, of which Motor Mouth’s team is a two years ago. sub-entity. Two nonprofits have already sprouted But perhaps the clearest example of heroes and there are plans for more, Barnes says. operating outside the law is the bizarre case of The notion strikes me as counterintuitive, like Richard McCaslin, a former Marine who adopted picturing Superman traveling by Razor scooter. a series of alter egos in the hopes of breaking For such an anti-establishment group of individuinto the stuntman game like his hero, The Human als, doesn’t 501(c)(3) status smack of The Man? Fly. That never happened, but in 2002 McCaslin “There’s a huge risk of that,” Barnes admits. gained a different kind of notoriety as the blue“Instead of all the energies going toward addressfatigued Phantom Avenger. Wearing a rubber ing problems, it goes toward maintaining the skeleton mask and armed to the teeth, McCaslin organization and managing the bureaucracy.” attempted a one-man siege of the Bohemian I, for one, hope these costumed activists Club’s Monte Rio compound in Sonoma County. don’t trade their masks in for designer suits and Instead, McCaslin lost his way in the Blackberries. After all, as professor Smith thicket of redwoods engulfing the and photographer Tangen note, 2,700-acre grove. The next we’ve got enough fake champimorning, he tried to burn ons. Politicians deceive us, THEY MAY NOT BE down the camp’s mess hall celebrities disappoint us, when the cops arrived. ABLE TO OUTRUN SPEEDING sports stars get enough wor“Oddly, he went there ship from themselves and BULLETS OR LEAP TALL during their off season,” our parents can’t even make Motor Mouth tells me. their own marriages work. BUILDINGS IN A SINGLE BOUND, McCaslin did a sixA guy with an airsoft mask AND NOT ALL OF THEM MAY BE year prison stint and just and Batman fixation handrecently completed his ing out bottled water to the CERTIFIABLY SANE, BUT THEY homeless looks pretty damn parole. Last month, McCaslin, now in his late 40s heroic by comparison. GIVE A DAMN. and living in Las Vegas, visited They may not be able to outrun the Bohemian’s headquarters in San speeding bullets or leap tall buildings in Francisco to shoot a YouTube video a single bound, and not all of them may be certireasserting his belief that the private men’s club fiably sane, but they give a damn—with all their is actually a secret society of the rich and powerhearts and without a shred of detached, too-coolful who indulge gross perversions like for-school irony. Hell, that has to be a super necrophilia and human sacrifices. power in itself. McCaslin is flanked in the video by a fully “Here’s the thing about the RLSH commucostumed Motor Mouth and an unmasked nity,” Motor Mouth sums up. “There’s a ton of Mutinous Angel, sporting aviator shades and people who are good-hearted, well-intentioned, concealing the lower half of his face with a sign smart and not crazy. But on the flipside, there are that reads: “The Bohemian Club Murders a bunch of people who have good intentions and Children Every July 23.” stuff, but are batshit insane. You have to be careMcCaslin now takes his anti-Bohemian Club, ful about picking your people. And sometimes anti-sex slave, anti-New World Order message it’s hard.” across the country under the guise of his latest Harder than living in a world without superalter ego, Thoughtcrime. Aside from Motor heroes? I think not. Ω BEFORE

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Live music. Art. Photography. Dance. Sounds like a great mix to us. Rockin’ & Rollin’

March 21 & 23

In-Studio event combining the local music scene with The Sacramento Ballet: 5pm doors open

5:30pm - Reggie Ginn

Solo Indie/Alternative Musician

6:30pm - SacBallet

preview of Modern Masters

8:00pm - The Mach 5

Home grown all stars, covering classic rock over the last 4 decades

THE

MACH REAL ROCK REVUE!

~Plus~ Rock Air: A Tribute to the Sacramento Music Scene by Jay Spooner Photography

Midtown Musicians sketches by Brooke Walker-Knoblich

And more to be announced! All ages welcome

$25 (for the whole shebang, limited seating, on sale now) $5 (music only/standing room/sold at the door night of) At The Sacramento Ballet Studios: 1631 K street.

Tickets also on sale for our popular in-studio performances of

May 11, 12, 18, 19, 24, 25, 26, 27 at The Sacramento Ballet Studios Tickets: $36

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For tickets and more information: www.sacballet.org |

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SN&R

ARTS&CULTURE ARE YOU THERE GOD? It’s me, Josh. One writer’s open letter to the Lord

Josh Fernandez photos by

Shoka

Wiccan Elizabeth Cheryl (left) practices her witchy woman ways on Josh Fernandez—and his burrito (it’s sage, actually).

Josh Fernandez is the Sacramento-based author of Spare Parts and Dismemberment.

ear Lord, I don’t believe in you, but I’m going to try, so let’s get this holy train rolling. The first time I read your book I was baked out of my mind. But you know that already. I lived in a disgusting studio in Boston’s South End with my father. Nineteen-years-old and I couldn’t stop eating Doritos. By the way, those things are so good when you’re stoned. It’s like that cheese does a little ballet dance on your tongue while making sweet, dirty love to your taste buds. Sorry. I remember finding your Bible on the bookshelf, flipping through Matthew. In the matter of an hour, I was engrossed, the whole front part of the book—those thin, little pages— stained in thick, orange cheese dust. I remember zoning out for hours and then suddenly hearing my dad rumbling up the stairs. He blasted through the door, contemplating the smokefilled room, studying me as I lay on the bed, crooked, propped up against the wall with a Bible in my hand. He undid his hair tie, letting his long, gray ponytail fall onto his shoulders. “You’re reading my Bible?” he finally asked, confused. “Uh-huh,” I said, nodding my head. His concerned face gave way to unbridled delight. “Well, then,” he said with his hands up in the air like I’d just discovered a cure for AIDS. “I’m making cookies!” You see, Lord, I don’t know what happened, but you made my dad into a crazy person. A schizophrenic; the kind of guy who loves the 22

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Bible so much that he can’t keep his footing here on Earth. But you picked him, apparently. He says you did, at least, which is why you’re not as great as they say you are. I mean, c’mon, why are your messengers so goddamn annoying? Instead of waiting for an answer, I set out to talk with a bunch of people who might know about religion, people in the community who have more faith than I, which, to be honest, wasn’t hard to find, because I have not a drop of spirituality in this heathen blood. But here’s something weird, Lord: As I write this, my cat is meowing, purring like an old Cadillac. Is that a sign? He’s cute, this cat. That’s one thing you got right, at least.

SATANISM: The devil’s work

First, I talked to your exact opposite: Jim Boots (a.k.a. Evil Jim), a Satanist. I know what you’re thinking: “Damnit, Josh, Satanists make badass music.” And you’re right, they do— Mayhem, Cradle of Filth, Satyricon, Gorgoroth. Classic. Boots also makes great Satanic music in a band called Minenwarfer, so I sat down with him at his house in some forgettable suburb of Sacramento and asked him about the Satanic religion. “It’s more of a philosophy than a religion,” Boots said, his long, black hair shining under the artificial light. A small, metal pentagram necklace on his chest moved slightly up and down with his breath as he spoke. “It’s mainly about following your carnal nature as opposed to reserving yourself. It’s about indulgence,

enjoying the pleasures of the flesh. Everything that Christians tell you to do, such as hold back on things, Satanists would do the exact opposite.” Lord, let me be frank with you: I, too, find your teachings to be confining. To have your whole life bound by the pages of an ancient book is the ultimate buzzkill. And while Satanism—the music, the freedom, the attention to darkness—seems legit, the more I spoke with Boots about his philosophy, the more red flags I began to see, especially when he said this: “We’re not afraid to do what we want.” I’m afraid of everything. It’s true. Motorcycles, women, the nighttime, sharks: all scary as fuck. I’ve always wanted to be the kind of person who walks around, not giving a shit about anything, but the truth is I give a shit about everything. To a crippling degree. If I am to accept a religion (or philosophy), then I need one that will accommodate my cowardice and sensitivity.

CHRISTIANITY:

What would Jesus dare?

So, Lord, I guess you’re happy to know that Satanism is not for me. Defeated, I talked with a Christian: Stuart Canton, a man who seemed much less insane than a lot of other Christians. “I’m flattered to be considered a noncreepy Christian,” Canton said. Baptized in 2007, Canton was late to the Jesus game. He didn’t grow up in a particularly religious household, but eventually

became acquainted with the Christian Reform Church, a group known for its especially bookish approach to theology. I asked him how one has a relationship with Christ. “Throughout the Bible there are a bunch of stories that will reveal different ways. For Jacob, it was an angel wrestling with him. To someone else, it’s a really loud voice,” Canton said. “It’s because he knows us and knows what is going to make the most sense to us.” On one hand, Canton seems to really believe in you, Lord. But on the other, his ideas seem so fragile and surreal. But he did have one concrete suggestion: “God makes a promise that people who are looking for him will find him,” he said. “So I think that someone who is really looking and is asking, maybe they need to say, ‘God, I fucking dare you.’ I think God would be more interested in hearing that than having someone come in and fake it.” So, here goes nothing, Lord: I fucking dare you.

WICCA:

Karma doesn’t have to be a bitch

As you know, Lord, Wicca is a confusing religion. It’s about nature, mostly, but I don’t get it. So I sat down with Elizabeth Cheryl who recently finished writing a novel called The Summerland, about a girl in Massachusetts who finds a spell book and casts herself back to the Salem witch trials.

Comedy on parade See NIGHT&DAY

But do they have grits?

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A beanie— for your beard See COOLHUNTING

On stage at Mira Loma

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We met at a burrito shop in Roseville— counterintuitive, I know, but what can I say? You work in mysterious ways. Anyway, Cheryl—a beautiful blond with blue eyes so crisp they’re almost hard to look at without drooling (good job, by the way)—was very kind and patient while I grilled her about her faith. The one thing I really wanted to know was if Wicca was a dark religion, like a satanic cult. “I think there’s a big misconception,” said the mother of four. “Anything that’s not Christianity or worshipping God is considered [to be] worshipping something dark, which is not the case.” In fact, she informed me that our interview was being conducted on Imbolc, a pagan holiday marking the end of winter and the beginning of spring.

Lord, let me be frank with you: I find your teachings to be confining. To have your whole life bound by the pages of an ancient book is the ultimate buzzkill. Stuart Canton (above) dares Fernandez to find faith in non-creepy Christians.

“There’s nothing dark about Wicca,” she said. “[There’s a] threefold law. Anything you wish for on one person it comes back to you threefold. So if you’re sending positive energy to somebody and blessing them as much as you can, it comes back to you threefold.” Sounds harmless, really. So, here we go: Dear, readers: you are beautiful and kind of intelligent.

I asked him if it was a religion. He said yes and handed me a book called, A New Slant on Life, which he said had all the answers. “Are you thinking about buying it?” he asked. “Sure,” I said. He disappeared around the corner and came back with a middle-aged woman with short, fashionable hair. She greeted herself and took me back to a messy room, cluttered with Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s literature. “Excuse us,” she apologized. “We’re in the process of moving.” Proudly, she showed me a picture of their new digs, right behind the K Street Mall. The modern building boasted large glass windows and lush greenery. It looked expensive. “So you’re going to buy that book?” she asked. I got out my wallet, and she took me back to a private room where I sat while she rang me up and took down my email address. Another middle-aged woman came in and stared at me with watery eyes that seemed to

SCIENTOLOGY: Buy the book

That threefold thing didn’t work. I’m still miserable, and on my day to check out Scientology I was not excited. When I opened the door to the little building on the corner of Eigth and I streets, the guy at the counter—a chubby 20-something with ill-fitting pants— looked surprised to see me. “How did you find out about us?” he asked, his short, curly hair mussed, like he’d just woken up. “Just walked by and was curious,” I said. “Do you know about Scientology?” he asked. “Not really,” I lied. BEFORE

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float around her skull with scary magnetism. Everyone seemed nervous. And insane. On the way out, I looked into an empty room where a man sat perfectly still in an office chair, staring at a blank wall in complete darkness. Lord, if you were real, Scientology wouldn’t exist. Although now they have my credit information, so, uh, just kidding.

BUDDHISM:

Peace, love and stomach rumblings

I confess, when I was younger, I thought Buddhism was a religion for people too lazy for faith. But, to be honest, the older I get, the more intriguing Buddhism becomes for that exact reason. So, I went to the Sacramento Buddhist Meditation Group, held at the B’nai Israel Synagogue, where many white people were waiting around in loose clothing for the meditation to begin. There was something about

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AFTER

SXSW top 10

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sitting in the auditorium of a Jewish synagogue in Land Park with a bunch of Caucasians that didn’t strike me as particularly Buddhist, but I wasn’t going to let my unjustified prejudice lead me astray. When the lights went out, a bell rang, signaling the beginning of meditation. My cellphone also rang, which was a bad start, but I tried to be at peace with my folly. And as soon as I could hear my own breath, I tried as hard as I could to calm down. Which is difficult. Maybe impossible. My mind, no matter what, thought constantly: What is that creaking sound? I wonder how much they pay the Jewish people to rent out this building on Friday nights? Does my breath smell like Cheez-Its? My back and legs exploded in pain. I was pretty sure that I couldn’t take 40 minutes of sitting still, so I tried to plan an escape. My stomach gurgled. I felt a bubble of air rush from my belly to my lower intestines and for the next 30 minutes I focused solely on sealing my ass cheeks shut like a Turkish prison so nothing could escape. Ah, man, Lord, I know you’re thinking: You’re not giving these religions a fair shake. But after all this research, I still don’t find anything to grasp onto. Satanism is too carnal. Christianity too weird. Wiccanism doesn’t make any sense. Scientology seems like a pyramid scheme for abused wives. And Buddhism poses a serious threat to my digestive tract. On the last day of research I was supposed to check out a Unitarian service, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to attend. I still harbor this ill feeling toward faith that started with my father and continues to this day. So instead of sitting in on another voyeuristic festival of divinity, I drove to the Jazzy Cats cat show at Cal Expo. Even though it smelled like ripe testicles in that strange warehouse tucked in the back of the expo center, the room was filled with cats of all breeds and their owners who loved them. There was no doctrine in Cal Expo that day. There was no path. No holy book. Just cats. Well, a gun show, too, which was weird, but mostly there were just cats—hundreds of them—purring, meowing, eating, shitting and hissing. I found a man with a prize-winning feline with fur like a cloud. It looked like Falkor, the luckdragon from The NeverEnding Story. “Can I pet him?” I asked. The man had gentle eyes. “Well,” he said. “Sure. Why not?” The cat purred when I pet him. He rolled his neck and pushed his little head into my hand. Truthfully, Lord, I know this won’t sound good, but it was the most heavenly thing I’d felt in a long time. Best of luck in your recruiting. Godlessly yours, Josh Fernandez

03. 22.12

SN&R

NIGHT&DAY MARCH

has been an extremely funny month for Sacramento, and it’s far from over. Touring comics such as Dana Carvey, Russell Peters and Finesse Mitchell have already performed in town this month. With a ton of comedy events in March still to choose from, here’s an SN&R guide to navigate the sea of touring acts stopping by.

List your event! Post your free online listing (up to 15 months early), and our editors will consider your submission for the printed calendar as well. Print listings are also free, but subject to space limitations. Online, you can include a full description of your event, a photo and a link to your website. Go to www.newsreview. com/calendar and start posting events. Deadline for print listings is 10 days prior to the issue in which you wish the listing to appear.

KEVIN JAMES AND RAY ROMANO These two friends, who happen to be sitcom and movie stars, are hitting the West Coast for a small series of co-headlining shows, and one of the stops is Sacramento. James will then continue on to a national solo tour, while Romano will presumably go back to doing rich-people stuff, like starring in reality shows on The Golf Channel and playing in the World Series of Poker on ESPN. Thursday, March 22, 8 p.m.; $40-$60. Community Center Theater, 1301 L Street; (916) 808-5181; www.sacramentoconventioncenter.com.

ANJELAH JOHNSON Former Oakland Raiders cheerleader turned YouTube star (her clip “Nail Salon” has 26 million views), stand-up comic and actress Anjelah Johnson is probably most famous for her character Bon Qui Qui on MadTV. Don’t miss her first performance at the Sacramento Community Center Theater. Saturday, March 24, 8 p.m., $32.50. Community Center Theater, 1301 L Street; (916) 808-5181; www.anjelah.com.

STEVE WILSON FEATURING SHEA SUGA Steve Wilson is a popular comic from Buffalo, New York. He’s currently a correspondent on HLN’s Showbiz Tonight show, and has been featured on a number of

22THURS DON’T MISS! WOMEN’S FORUM: The

Sacramento Black Chamber of Commerce Foundation will hold its first Women’s Forum to bring businesswomen together to talk, collaborate and learn from one another. Keynote Speaker Alice A. Huffman began her tenure as president of the California NAACP January 2000. Th, 3/22, 9am-3pm. $60-$85. Courtyard by Marriott Midtown, 4422 Y St.; (415) 597-8198.

Special Events THE LIFE OF SACRAMENTO’S FIRST AFRICAN-AMERICAN ATTORNEY: The Center for Sacramento History, in association with the Sacramento History Foundation, will debut an online exhibition and short film that explore the purposeful life of Sacramento’s first AfricanAmerican attorney, Nathaniel Colley. UC Berkeley professor of history Mark Brilliant will also deliver a lecture titled, “The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights Reform in California, 1941-1978.” Th, 3/22, 7pm. $15. Center for Sacramento History, 551 Sequoia Pacific Blvd.; (916) 264-7072.

Wait, there’s more! Looking for something to do? Use SN&R’s free calendar to browse hundreds of events online. Art galleries and musems, family events, education classes, film and literary events, church groups, music, sports, volunteer opportunies—all this and more on our free events calendar at www.newsreview.com. Start planning your week!

SN&R

SOCIAL GAMES, FOOD AND DISCOVERY: Asobuyo is a social movement that aims to inspire all people to incorporate play into their everyday lives. GoBuyo Nights are intimate social events that bring people together through play and discovery. If you’re looking for a social alternative that provides

03. 22.12

more depth and face-to-face interaction, then come and check it out. Registration required. Th, 3/22, 6:30-8:30pm. Free. Registration required. Mondo Bizarro Café, 1827 I St.; (916) 672-2112; www.mvc.eventsbot.com.

Dance SAVION GLOVER: SOLO IN TIME: Three Stages presents a dance prodigy who made his Broadway debut at age 12. Glover will be performing his latest work SoLo in TiME. Standing in profile, he demonstrates agility by flickering between his toes and heels, never blurring movement or sound. Th, 3/22, 7:30pm. $12-$55. Three Stages at Folsom Lake College, 10 College Pkwy. in Folsom; (916) 608-6888; www.threestages.net.

Literary Events THE PACIFIC CREST TRAILSIDE READERS: The two-volume Pacific Crest Trailside Reader pulls together nearly 100 stories from contemporary hiker, writers, historical journals, and classic environmental authors. Editors Rees Hughes and Corey Lewis will read stories from the anthology and share a slideshow of PCT images. Th, 3/22, 7-8:30pm. Free. REI Sacramento, 1790 Expo Pkwy.; (916) 924-8900; www.rei.com/ event/36010/session/45350.

Meetings & Groups HYPNOTHERAPY: Learn to live a calmer and happier life with hypnotherapy by reprogramming your brain’s responses to the stressors in your life. Each session will begin with a progressive relaxation followed by post-hypnotic suggestions designed for maximum transformation and

change. Registration required.

Th, 10-11am through 4/5. $100.

Creative Healing and Arts Center, 2862 Arden Way; (916) 209-0599; www.newemergence hypnotherapy.com.

23FRI

DON’T MISS! SCREENING: PALESTINE BLUES: What is left for

Palestinian farmers who learn that in 24 hours, the Israeli Army will confiscate their lands for the construction of a security wall? Palestine Blues tells the story of a village’s confusion, desperation, resistance, daily victories and wrenching defeats. F, 3/23, 7:30pm. Free. Lavender Library; 1414 21st St.; (916) 492-0558.

Special Events BEST FRIENDS PARTY FOR ANIMAL LOVERS: Enjoy appetizers, drinks, music and friendly people at the Sierra 2 Center’s Best Friends Friday fundraiser. Proceeds benefit the City of Sacramento Animal Shelter and Chako Pit Bull Rescue. The party will be full of animal lovers, but leave your actual animals home for the night. F, 3/23, 5:30-7:30pm. $5. Sierra 2 Center; 2791 24th St.; (916) 452-3005.

CELEBRATION FOR A TOUCH OF UNDERSTANDING: A Touch of Understanding celebrates 15 years of disability awareness training and bullying prevention for more than 50,000 students in Northern California at a ribbon cutting ceremony. An hour-long program will be followed by light

hors d’oeuvres. F, 3/23, 4:30pm. Call for pricing. Greenhills Elementary School, 8200 Greenhills Way in Granite Bay; (916) 791-4146.

SSPCA PET ADOPTION, DOG SHOW & PET FAIR: The event will incude a dog show with awards for cutest dog, best trick and best-dressed dog, as well as a pet fair featuring handmade crafts for pets and unique pet supplies. All proceeds benefit the SSPCA. F, 3/23, 10am-3pm. Free. Sylvan Oaks Library, 6700 Auburn Blvd. in Citrus Heights; (916) 722-3447.

Teens TEEN HAVEN: Middle- and highschool teens are invited to a Teen Haven event that features pizza, soda, contests and prizes, a scavenger hunt, games and a movie. F, 3/23, 6pm. $2. Riverview Community Center, 10700 Ambassador Dr. in Rancho Cordova.

24SAT

DON’T MISS! FIGHT FOR AIR CLIMB: The

American Lung Association in California hosts its third annual Fight for Air Climb to raise funds and awareness in the fight for healthy lungs and healthy air. This event challenges individuals and teams to reach the top of the 423-foot Wells Fargo Center building, the tallest building in Sacramento. Sa, 3/24, 8am. $25. Wells Fargo Center, 400 Capitol Mall; http://action.lungusa.org/ sacramentoclimb.

Special Events CROSSROADS DOLL & TEDDY BEAR SHOW: Give yourself permission to play and rediscover the nostalgia of your youth by attending The Crossroads Doll & Teddy Bear Show. The show will feature on-site doll repairs and informal doll identification. The sales floor has something for everyone, with a wide variety of dolls, teddy bears, supplies, miniatures, clothes and accessories. Sa, 3/24, 9am-3pm. $4-$7. Placer County Fairgrounds, 800 All America City Blvd. in Roseville; (775) 348-7713; www.dolls4all.com.

HOSPICE 101: PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE: At the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Northern California’s meeting, a representative of the Mercy Hospice, will give a speech titled “Hospice 101: Planning For The Future.” The FCA’s objective is protectlng consumer rights, and advocating and educating the public about endof-life planning and payment of funeral services. Sa, 3/24, 2pm. Free. Mercy San Juan Medical Center, 6555 Coyle Ave. in Carmichael; (916) 554-5864.

YOUTH OF TOMORROW SUMMIT: Enjoy chef demonstrations, food tasting, family history and health challenges, entertainment, and separate parent and youth informational sessions. Sa, 3/24, 10:30am-3:30pm. Free. South Natomas Library, 2901 Truxel Rd.; (916) 225-5735.

STATE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY FORUM: Creative Music Services, Northern California’s premier music production and consultation business hosts its first “State of the Music Industry” forum. It will feature focus panels, attendee commentary, networking, filming and documentation. Sa, 3/24, 14pm. Free. Sanctuary Recording

Studios, 1804 Tribute Rd., Ste. 210; (530) 613-9440.

Classes THE ENERGY OF MONEY: This seminar is a full-day experience to provide you with in-depth tools as well as coaching for your financial prosperity. All proceeds will benefit Sacramento Public Library programs. Your tuition covers the seminar, a workbook, a lunch, and a copy of the DVD The Energy of Money. Registration required. Sa, 3/24, 9am-4pm. $85. PocketGreenhaven Library, 7335 Gloria Dr.; (916) 264-2920; www.saclibrary.org.

Sports & Recreation BODYBUILDING COMPETITION: Watch muscular men and women flex it out in front of judges at the California Governor’s Cup bodybuilding competition. Sa, 3/24, 10am & 6:30pm. $30-$50. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.; (916) 442-7378.

SACRED CITY DERBY SEASON OPENER: Don’t miss the 2012 season opener for Sacred City roller derby with two bouts: Sacred Disciples versus Battle Born Derby Demons and Sacred Sacrificers versus Emerald City Roller Girls. Sa, 3/24, 7:30pm. $15-$20. Roller King, 889 Riverside Ave. in Roseville; (916) 783-0918; http://sacred cityderbygirls.com.

Teens DIVERSITY DAY: Sponsored by the National Teen Leadership Program, “Diversity Day: Stop hate before its too late” is a oneday workshop for teens grades 8-12. The keynote speaker brings insight and awareness of cliques, bullying and cultural diversity. The day will consist of highimpact discussions and

breAking bArriers to Beat CanCer

A pAid Advertising publicAtion

UC Davis gains national recognition for comprehensive cancer care by AnnA bArelA

C Davis’ cancer center is one of more than 6,000 cancer centers in the country. What sets UC Davis apart from the rest—the reason it is different and special—is collaboration. Doctors, specialists and research scientists collaborate across departments and disciplines, breaking barriers to bring personalized and leading-edge treatments for each individual patient. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is recognizing this world-class, collaborative care as it bestows upon the cancer program at UC Davis the coveted designation of “comprehensive cancer center.” NCI, the federal government’s principal agency for cancer research, assesses cancer research organizations based on scientific excellence and diversity of research approaches, creating networks to help people find the best care.

“if you come here for care, you’re getting the best care in the world.” A NCI-designated cancer center since 2002, this new designation places UC Davis in an exclusive group of only 41 comprehensive centers in the country. To qualify as comprehensive, UC Davis meets strict criteria set forth by the NCI. “It is the most stringent criteria anywhere in the world,” cancer center director Ralph deVere White said. “What comprehensiveness ultimately means is that a group of people spend their whole life assessing how we can better deal with cancer. Sacramento has one of the world’s best cancer centers here to make every aspect of cancer better for our community and beyond.” Among the criteria is a requirement for broad research programs—and UC Davis continually breaks research barriers to improve cancer care. It boasts 180 research scientists who contribute to a better

understanding of cancer, affecting patients at UC Davis and beyond in the constant search for a cure. Not necessarily one cure for all cancer—cancer is complicated and there are many different kinds—but many cures for many types of cancer. “We’ve done a very good job finding cancers early and treating them early so those people don’t go on to get advanced cancer and die,” deVere White said. “We have done a great job of increasing quality of life and making a better experience.” “Despite this,” he continued, “650,000 Americans died last year from cancer. We are going to have to tackle the more advanced cancers. We are going to have to find new and better treatments.” Every day, research scientists in the basic science spectrum provide a base for understanding how to better treat cancer, down to the DNA. Biomedical technology programs harness the power of technological advances to improve the treatment experience and outcomes for patients. And breakthrough drug therapies are being discovered, with the help of genetically engineered mice, fast enough to pinpoint the perfect drug for individual patients. Research and the individual patient intersect at clinical trials. Here, new treatments are brought to patients as quickly as possible while ensuring safety. The patient becomes part of the research while benefiting from new treatments not available anywhere else. The breakthroughs made at UC Davis benefit patients even beyond its walls. For example, UC Davis leads the Cancer Care Network in which doctors at community hospitals across the state discuss individual cancer cases with UC Davis specialists. Patients benefit from the expertise of all the doctors and all the research behind them. And to ensure no one gets left behind, UC Davis engages in education and outreach, removing the barriers to potentially life-saving cancer care and screening that certain ethnic groups disproportionately lack. UC Davis wants to ensure all groups have equal access to care.

Ralph deVeRe White

According to deVere White, benefits to the greater community don’t stop there. He envisions citywide clinical trials in the future. He also knows that many doctors and scientists train at UC Davis and—after forging new ideas that inspire and challenge seasoned faculty—go on to bring the skills and expertise garnered at UC Davis to other hospitals around the region, the state, the country and even the world.

to good use through continued growth.

“We see ourselves as a resource for the region,” deVere White said. “And if you come here for care, you’re getting the best care in the world.”

In celebration of its new NCI comprehensive designation, the center will soon have a new sign on its building: UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. It will serve as a beacon of hope to the community and beyond knowing they are working tirelessly—sometimes around the clock— breaking barriers to beat cancer.

From the lab to the patient to the greater community, research and informed care at UC Davis covers the broad spectrum expected by NCI for a comprehensive cancer center. And gaining this designation will serve to benefit UC Davis and its patients as NCI awards new infrastructure grants. It also opens doors to new research funding only available to comprehensive cancer centers. With the complexity of research involved in fighting cancer, new funds are desperately needed and will be put

“Our job over the next five years is to make sure that we can show that we have affected the process from all levels of cancer,” deVere White said. “We are adding knowledge. That knowledge will come first to the people of Sacramento then to the region. We can expect to then go out and add to the world’s knowledge to control this disease.”

And even if they don’t cure all cancer tomorrow, their work may cure one person’s cancer today. If you are that person—or your family member is that person—one is enough to make it all worthwhile.

Breaking Barriers to Beat CanCer | March 22, 2012 | cancer.ucdavis.edu | A special advertising supplement to Sacramento News & Review

BeComing your own advoCate by Kendall Fields

Collaborating to cure cancer

by Kendall Fields

Laura Tyrell had always been active and maintained a healthy diet, never imagining that one day she would be diagnosed with cancer. But in October 2000, doctors told her she had breast cancer. “I was in shock because I never thought that was something that would happen to me,” she said. Thinking of her husband and three children who were 18, 15 and 9, Tyrell recalled asking herself, “What will this mean for my family?”

Wolf-Dietrich heyer

he complexities of cancer make basic scientific research valuable on the path to advancing treatments and finding a cure. In order to treat cancer and practice preventive medicine, doctors and scientists must first understand it, said Wolf-Dietrich Heyer, a professor of microbiology and molecular and cellular biology and co-leader of UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Molecular Oncology Program. Together with Hongwu Chen, professor of molecular medicine, Heyer leads a group of 34 researchers in the basic science program at the cancer center. Basic science research benefits patients by providing a base for doctors—and other scientists—to better understand cancer and improve treatments in the future. “The 21st century is the century of biology,” Heyer said, adding that he and his team work to develop ways to apply their knowledge and incorporate biology into cancer treatment. Heyer’s own research focuses on DNA repair and making cancer cells more susceptible to treatment. “Cancer is, in essence, a genetic disease, and the cells accumulate mutations,” Heyer said. “The key is discovering why these mutations are happening.” Several members of the Molecular Oncology Program are studying how DNA is maintained and accurately segregated to daughter cells to prevent mutations. In 2010, Heyer, his colleague Stephen Kowalczykowski, and their teams made a breakthrough in their research when they purified BRCA2, a protein that is a determining factor in breast and ovarian cancers. The teams’ isolation and purification of this large protein allowed them to begin studying how it functions.

“Any kind of drug treatment or intervention requires that you understand the target, so this was a huge leap in that direction,” Heyer said. BRCA2 normally prevents mutations, and patients have significantly greater risks for breast and ovarian cancer when they lose the BRCA2 protein. The deficiency of this protein also determines how patients respond to certain treatments. The teams are continuing their studies and working to understand this important tumor suppressor.

“the 21st century is the century of biology.” According to Heyer, basic science translates into clinical science. The projects in the program are often developed because of work with physicians, who ask basic scientists like himself to find ways to improve treatment or gain a better understanding “from the bench to the bedside … And there are many examples where the work in the clinic sends people back to the bench.” For Heyer, this collaboration and balance between basic science and clinical science are key to the cancer center’s success. Their integration allows people to move ideas forward. “The goal of the cancer center is to provide a focus and bring together a group of people and unite to fight,” Heyer said. The Molecular Oncology Program is an amalgam of scientists with backgrounds ranging from physics to chemistry to biology.

Scientists also get to shadow doctors in the clinic. This “bridging the gap” between basic science and clinical science would not be possible without an infrastructure like the cancer center. And with its new designation as a comprehensive cancer center come new opportunities to grow. A large effort to bring together clinicians and basic scientists is ongoing. Heyer said the aim of this program is to apply all of the techniques and knowledge of his program to the tumors of actual patients in an effort to directly impact patients with positive results. Heyer, who remembers when the cancer center received its first NCI award and became a designated cancer center 10 years ago, is thrilled that it is now being recognized as a comprehensive center. “The designation as a comprehensive cancer center is obviously a recognition that the cancer center is doing it right and that we are on the right track. It puts the cancer center in a select group of centers in the country,” Heyer said. “And what it acknowledges also is the very significant educational efforts that we have.” He credits the success and accomplishments of the center to the leadership of Ralph deVere White and HsingJien Kung, professor of biological chemistry and deputy director of cancer center basic science, and their ability to bring people in and get them intellectually excited by providing them with the right environment and fostering collaboration.

For 11 years following the initial diagnosis, Tyrell, who lives in Roseville, also suffered ovarian and peritoneal cancer. She chose to have a mastectomy to treat the breast cancer and underwent chemotherapy. Chemotherapy frightened her because of the horror stories she had heard from other patients, but she found that she was able to manage the side effects of hair loss and nausea. She credits her tolerable experience to new medical developments and targeted therapies. Cancer made Tyrell realize there are no guarantees in life, and she should value the present. She cherishes every experience with her children. Tyrell also learned to take control of her life and be her own advocate due to her experience with cancer. “You can’t sit back and let it happen to you.” Tyrell said. “For me, that’s how I cope—by being active in patient care and cancer prevention.” For the last six years, Tyrell has volunteered with the Placer Breast Cancer Endowment Fund, a volunteer-driven organization working to raise $1.5 million for UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center in hopes that further developments in treatment and prevention will be made. Currently the organization has raised $800,000. To help, visit www.wethinkpink.org. Tyrell has been in remission for 13 months. “I pray everyday that it continues,” she said.

“There would be no future if [the cancer center] did not exist, no hope for fundamental improvements,” Heyer said.

A special advertising supplement to Sacramento News & Review | cancer.ucdavis.edu | March 22, 2012 | Breaking Barriers to Beat CanCer

advances in technology improve cancer treatments S

urgeons will be able to remove cancerous tumors without damaging surrounding tissue. A person will be able to take a strong cancer drug without side effects. Women at high risk for breast cancer will be screened far more effectively. These are only a few of the potential results of technologies being developed by researchers in the Biomedical Technology Program at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. “Technology can impact cancer patients on many, many different levels,” said Simon Cherry, professor of biomedical engineering and radiology. “We want better technologies to help diagnose cancer earlier, to help us assess the best treatment to give a particular patient, to improve the way that we treat patients and to improve the way we monitor whether or not the treatment is working.” Cherry added, “The goal of our program is to harness scientists at UC Davis who work to develop all kinds of technologies and computational tools, and get them interested in applying them to cancer detection and treatment.” These include scientists in physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science and mathematics. The program aims to link these scientists of various disciplines to the physicians and cancer biologists at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.

One of the most important collaborative technologies is imaging. It’s used to detect cancer at earlier stages, to see where the cancer has spread and to monitor if treatment is working. Two scientists, in UC Davis Health System’s Department of Radiology, John Boone, professor, and Ramsey Badawi, associate professor, have developed a three-dimensional imaging system for detecting and monitoring breast cancer treatment that is far more effective than a standard two-dimensional mammogram. Similar whole-body scanners already exist, but since this machine is built on a much smaller scale for an individual body part, it allows for a much higher definition image.

“We want better technologies to help diagnose cancer earlier.” The prototype is already being used in clinical trials. Other promising research involves intraoperative diagnostics to help surgeons find the margins of tumors during surgery.

by Linda duboiS

When a surgeon is removing a tumor, it’s crucial to get all of the cancer out to prevent recurrence. So, as a precaution, it’s common for the surgeon to take out a “wide margin” of tissue surrounding the tumor. However, sometimes this isn’t desirable, such as in brain surgery. Laura Marcu, professor of biomedical engineering and neurological surgery, leads a team developing an approach with “fluorescence lifetime” imaging that will allow the surgeon to accurately detect the edges of the tumor. Simply put, surgeons would shine laser light on the cancerous region and the tumors and healthy tissue would look different from each other. “This is very important for all tumors,” Marcu said. “But in particular for brain tumors or head and neck tumors because if you remove too much you can impair neurological function and the quality of life of the patient. This way, surgeons can differentiate between diseased cells and normal cells.” Similarly, cancer treatment would be much more effective and produce fewer side effects if drugs could be delivered only to the tumor. Katherine Ferrara, professor of biomedical engineering, leads research on a project that delivers tiny capsules of a drug directly to a tumor, and then zaps the capsules with ultrasound to release the drug. She’s also working on putting molecules on the outside of these particles to help make them stick to the tumor. Another research area involves testing combinations of drugs, which are often used because one drug alone can’t work on all aspects of a tumor. Alex Rezvin, associate professor in biomedical engineering, leads the development of a microfluidics device system, basically tiny wells that spray cancer drugs to test cancer cells with various combinations and amounts of drugs on a massive parallel scale. If combinations can be tested, the success rate soars and risk of side effects plummets. These are only a few of the promising developments emerging from UC Davis Cancer Comprehensive Center’s Biomedical Technology Program. And UC Davis is committed to applying these new developments to improve patient care.

Simon Cherry

“It doesn’t help if we develop some great technology, publish it and then don’t do anything with it,” Cherry said. “Our ultimate goal is to get it out there somehow. Another important part of this program is to get the technology into the hands of the cancer researchers and the clinicians.”

Katherine Ferrara

Creating More CoMfortaBle Care by Linda duboiS

Nausea, hair loss, infertility and chronic pain. Anyone who has had to suffer these or any of the other notorious side effects of chemotherapy will appreciate the work of Katherine Ferrara, professor of biomedical engineering at UC Davis. Among her team’s many research projects are those designed to get powerful cancer drugs to attack cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone. Researchers place the drug in a nano-sized capsule and then zap it with ultrasound to release the drug when reaches the tumor. “I’ve always been interested in people and in medicine,” Ferrara said. Ferrara earned a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy in 1976 from University of Pittsburgh while still a teenager. After working in that field, she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering in 1982 and 1983 from California State University, Sacramento, followed by a doctorate in the same field in 1989 from UC Davis. While working on her doctorate, she was employed with General Electric’s medical division, where she worked on imaging technologies for both cardiovascular disease and cancer. She eventually became a biomedical engineer, following in the footsteps of her father, Ralph Whittaker, one of the first biomedical engineers. Ferrara’s team of about 20 scientists collaborate with approximately 20 other medical professionals in various fields from UC Davis as well as other institutions around the world. Her skills and expertise, along with that of her teammates, result in more effective and comfortable care for patients at UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Breaking Barriers to Beat CanCer | March 22, 2012 | cancer.ucdavis.edu | A special advertising supplement to Sacramento News & Review

new mouse brings breakthrough treatments

by Sukhi k. brar

DaviD R. GanDaRa

ust about everyone knows someone who has been affected by cancer these days. Cancer treatments are known to be harsh on the body, and the effectiveness of any given medication is often hard to predict even by the most skilled oncologists because there are so many different cancers. It is not uncommon for a medicine that worked on one lung cancer patient to have no effect on other lung cancer patients. Finding the right treatment as soon as possible is crucial to survival.

However, the mice develop “mouse cancer, not a human cancer,” explained Gandara.

What if doctors could use all of the known cancer medications on one patient at once to ensure the most effective treatment? Of course, this would be too harsh on a patient’s body to be a viable treatment method. But a new group of doctors and scientists is coming close to finding a way to do something similar.

With these new mice, several treatments can be tested at once without hurting the patient.

UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, Jackson Laboratory (JAX) West and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Center for Advanced Preclinical Research (CAPR) have joined forces to create an advanced system for testing medicines on lung cancers. JAX West is the Sacramento-based arm of the preeminent East Coast mammalian genetics institute, while NCI-CAPR has long supported top cancer research nationally. David R.Gandara is a UC Davis oncologist who serves as the overall director for this ground-breaking collaboration. Before the partnership, testing on mice was one way scientists tried to trace the effectiveness of cancer drugs. Traditional tests involved injecting lab mice with human material such as genes that cause mice to develop cancer. Scientists then ran tests on these mice.

Regular mice cannot be injected with a human cancer cell because their immune systems would kill the cell. Unfortunately, 90 percent of the effective treatments for these mice don’t work on humans. UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center partner JAX has developed a new type of lab mouse with a new capability.

“Instead of ‘mouse cancers,’ the JAX mice can grow human cancer cells in their bodies,” Gandara explained. “These mice have been genetically engineered so that their immune systems do not reject human cancer cells. What we are talking about here is a whole organism that can mimic a person.” Gandara continued, “These mice must live in ventilated mouse caging for providing HEAP filtered air in the laboratory to protect them from exposure to germs and need the help of hundreds of lab personnel dressed in space suit-like uniforms to keep the mice alive. These mice would not be able to survive outside of the laboratory.”

that one patient’s cancer cells can be injected into many different mice, which are then each available for separate testing of a given medicine. Each patient’s cancer is unique, and drugs that worked on someone else may not work on her particular cancer. With these new mice, several treatments can be tested at once without hurting the patient. The process begins when an eligible patient at UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center agrees to participate in the program. Doctors take a sample of the cancer tumor from the patient for testing. These cancer cells are then injected into genetically engineered JAX mice that then grow the patient’s cancer cells in their bodies. “You can treat it all at the same time 10 different ways,” Gandara said. “Then study the genetics, you can see what happens with each different treatment. It gives you the ability to do something you can only do in a mouse, not the patient. We can then manage treatment for one patient, or thousands of patients like her.” Gandara believes this is the future of better treatments for cancer. The program began in 2009 and there are more than 250 patient cancers currently in the mice. About 65 of them are lung cancer.

Patient finds hoPe at UC davis CanCer Center by Sukhi k. brar

Jane Coyne was diagnosed with lung cancer in August 2010 after undergoing a routine body scan. At the time, the cancer was already stage four and had spread to her brain. A nonsmoker, Coyne was shocked. The oncologist at the cancer center near Coyne’s home in San Rafael gave her little hope for survival. He recommended chemotherapy but told her none of his previous patients in her condition had survived. Then a friend of a friend recommended David Gandara at UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center in Sacramento. “Dr. Gandara arranged an emergency meeting with me within two days, and it was a different story when I saw him,” Coyne said. “Dr. Gandara also recommended chemo, but he said they had all kinds of modalities for me. He said they would take a fingerprint of the tumor to target medicine for it. He had a whole plan for me. As soon as he got the test results back, he knew exactly what to give me.” With the right chemotherapy and radiation therapy, Gandara was able to bring Coyne into remission. Although new cancer in her lungs has shown up in a recent retest, Coyne has complete confidence Gandara will continue to help her as he brings her case into his lab to test on JAX mice. “As the tumor progresses in the mice, they will be able to test drugs on those mice instead of me to see how my tumors will respond,” Coyne said. “I just know that when [Gandara] gets all his data back, he will be able to get a plan for me.” Gandara and UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center have given Coyne the best hope for a cure.

“Right now this testing is a pilot study, but it is very exciting,” Gandara said. “We are probably not going to cure cancer per se, but we are going to cure cancer one patient at a time. With individualized or personalized therapy, even finding something for one patient is like hitting a home run.”

What makes these mice so valuable is

A special advertising supplement to Sacramento News & Review | cancer.ucdavis.edu | March 22, 2012 | Breaking Barriers to Beat CanCer

taking aCtion to eliminate disparities by Corrie PelC

Kellie Stevens, a member of the Nevada Paiute tribe, knows all too personally the effects of poor breast cancer screening rates in Native Americans—her aunt passed away from breast cancer just a few years ago. That’s why Stevens decided to take action and make sure other women in her community get screened.

no one left behind

Moon Chen

by Corrie PelC

ancer does not discriminate; anyone can get it. However, not everybody has equal access to cancer prevention. Many ethnic groups experience cultural, historical, linguistic or environmental barriers to potentially life-saving screenings. Missing out on these screenings dramatically increases the likelihood of dying from certain types of cancer. These barriers are called “cancer health disparities,” and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center is working hard to eliminate them. Over the past six years, Marlene von Friederichs-Fitzwater, assistant professor of hematology and oncology and director of the Outreach Research and Education Program at UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been working with Native American women to help eliminate the disparities they face in breast cancer prevention and care. Native American women have the poorest mammography screening rate of any ethnic group. When these women are finally diagnosed, the cancers have progressed further and are less treatable. The result is higher death rates within five years of diagnosis. Von Friederichs-Fitzwater began her work by building relationships with various Native American tribes and tribal leaders to form the UC Davis American Indian Advisory Council—a group of 12 women from different Native American tribes. The council developed the Mother’s Wisdom Breast Health Program, which uses an interactive DVD featuring Native American women talking about breast health and breast cancer. The council piloted the breast health program with 160 Native American women and increased the mammogram screening rate

in this group from 47 percent to 97 percent, which von Friederichs-Fitzwater said was due to the intervention being developed by and for Native American women. “It was their program, introduced to them in talking circles by other Native American women,” she said. “[Women] were shown the DVD first with a discussion and then given a copy to take home. It was hugely effective.”

“ ... potentially, we saved seven lives in the first year because these are women who said they would not have been screened.” That success led to a three-year grant to expand the program to 1,000 Native American women in 25 tribes. Von Friederichs-Fitzwater said that of 292 women enrolled in year one, 7 percent had abnormal breast cancer screenings. “So, potentially, we saved seven lives in the first year because these are women who said they would not have been screened,” she added. Asian Americans also experience disparities when it comes to cancer, said Moon Chen, professor of hematology and oncology, principal investigator for the Asian American Network for Cancer Awareness, Research and Training (AANCART) and associate director for cancer control at

UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. According to Chen, liver cancer in particular affects Asian Americans disproportionately and is typically associated with the hepatitis B virus—the second-largest risk factor for cancer after tobacco. “In Sacramento, we are leading a national effort to figure out the most optimal ways to increase screenings for hepatitis B. Screening for hepatitis B is not a common screening procedure that physicians prescribe, yet this is a very important early detection test that we need to work on,” Chen explained. Chen circulates information about hepatitis B screenings through Vietnameselanguage radio, television and newspapers; through Korean churches that act as a social hub in their communities; and through bilingual, bicultural staff members who make home visits in the Hmong community with cancer-prevention messages. UC Davis researchers are also working to eliminate disparities that both African Americans and Latinos experience with colon cancer. Using laptop computers in doctor’s office waiting rooms, the program delivers education on the importance of colon cancer screenings. Patients who browse the laptop while waiting are more likely to ask for a screening.

Stevens, who works as finance secretary and account clerk for the California Rural Indian Health Board, helped found the UC Davis American Indian Advisory Council in 2005. Through her work on the council, she helps educate women about breast cancer screenings through the Mother’s Wisdom Breast Health Program. Additionally, Stevens designed the American Indian Ribbon of Life, which is a pink eagle feather design, to help raise awareness of breast cancer among Native American women. Stevens said her lineage helps her communicate with other Native American women about the program. “They open up more,” she explained. “They actually tell me some of their own stories of people in their families who had breast cancer, what wasn’t done, and why they think this is an important group that we have.” Stevens said that before sitting on the council and becoming more educated about breast cancer, she would never have thought of having a mammogram. “The way I was raised, my mom never spoke of certain things,” she said. “This is something she would never have spoken to us about, it’s like taboo. It makes me want to go out there and let other people know about it who have never had mammograms either.”

The program was so successful in Sacramento that the National Cancer Institute has implemented it in other parts of the United States. Chen said, “We’re not only doing superb work here, but our superb work is being recognized as something that can address the nation’s cancer burden.”

Breaking Barriers to Beat CanCer | March 22, 2012 | cancer.ucdavis.edu | A special advertising supplement to Sacramento News & Review

sarcoma treatment barriers collapsing

great grandmother is grateful for CliniCal trial

by Murray Shohat

hen Jerrilee Griego found a large lump growing in her right thigh, she had no idea that a new clinical trial at UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center might make her one of the first sarcoma patients to dodge the disease’s well-known ability to threaten life. The trial blends leading-edge radiation and imaging technology with hands-on collaboration among the surgeon, radiation oncologist and pathologist—plus use of a powerful “targeting agent”—to halt or sharply reduce tumor spread. Although rare compared to carcinoma, which causes 10,000 to 20,000 new cancer cases per year in the United States, metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma can be difficult to eradicate, according to Robert Canter, the trial’s lead investigator and assistant professor of surgery at UC Davis. “Sarcoma strikes every age group but hits younger patients, even children, more frequently,” Canter said. “Many types— there are over 50—can be very aggressive, a devastating diagnosis, especially for the young.” A five-year survival rate for the most aggressive sarcomas is only around 50 percent. Thirty years ago, sarcomas growing in an arm or leg were often treated by amputation. Aggressive sarcomas in the neck, head, trunk and abdomen were death sentences because microscopic tumor cells quickly metastasized into life-threatening tumors elsewhere in the body. Although radiation oncology to halt metastasis and surgery to remove the mass have dramatically improved since, the

medical approach was and still is “to do everything possible.” This can be harsh on the patient.

In late 2010, Jerrilee Griego felt a lump in her right thigh. Born with a natural reluctance to complain, Griego waited a few weeks to see a doctor while the lump continued to grow.

“Our new goal is personalized therapy to overcome the barriers we’ve faced,” Canter said. “In our trial, we’ve individualized treatment. Our team approach maximizes outcomes while sparing patients from as much toxicity and overtreatment as possible.” Upon learning about the effects of chemotherapeutic drug Sorafenib, created by pharmaceutical giants Bayer and Onyx to destroy kidney and liver cancers, Canter took notice. Sorafenib tablets are administered orally, and in kidney cancers the drug cuts off a tumor’s blood supply, killing the tumor. Canter sees patients with tumors as large as eight inches in diameter. Would Sorafenib have the same effect on sarcoma cells as it does on kidney tumor cells?

“We are seeing largely dead and shrunken tumors in surgery, thanks to the trial.” “Our clinical trial is answering that question. The preliminary phase’s result is a strong yes,” he said. Patients undergo a multi-week outpatient process involving a daily dose of Sorafenib followed by a few minutes of precisely delivered gamma radiation five days a week. After several weeks of rest to recover from side effects like fatigue and skin rash, the patient undergoes tumor removal surgery.

Griego is your typical poster child for great-grandmoms. Married 57 years, she enjoys her two daughters, two grandchildren and two great grandchildren. She had no prior cancer history before the lump appeared. robert CAnter

“We are seeing largely dead and shrunken tumors in surgery, thanks to the trial,” Canter said. Two adjunctive technologies help tailor each patient’s pre-surgical therapy. First, a leading-edge MRI with dynamic contrast enhancement “allows us to picture the tumor’s blood supply—and changes thereto—in real time,” Canter said. Patients undergo the noninvasive MRI when they first join the trial and several times during and after the trial. Second, radiation oncologist Arta Monjazeb, also an expert in sarcomas, performs daily gamma radiation. Gamma rays eradicate the tumor and other susceptible areas to reduce the risk of any viable cancer cells being left behind following surgery. “We look at the amount of tumor necrosis (cell death) after the patient has had radiation,” Monjazeb said. “Has necrosis been increased by the Sorafenib? Is the radiation working together with the drug? If true, and I believe it’s true, there are two advantages: We stop tumor growth, a big advantage in immediate local control. We may also be able to stop the spread or metastasis of the tumor. This is the bigger, long-term advantage.”

“When I finally went to my doctor, it was pretty large, but it didn’t hurt,” she said. Her doctor immediately referred her to UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center where an MRI and biopsy confirmed soft-tissue sarcoma. Robert Canter, assistant professor of surgery, quickly recruited Griego into a clinical trial. Five times a week for five weeks, Griego and her husband made 80-mile round trips between their home in Diamond Springs and the cancer center. She took a single Sorafenib tablet daily and underwent a short session of gamma radiation therapy Monday through Friday. Therapy ended just before Thanksgiving. Apart from mild soreness, Griego recalled some hair loss as the only other side effect. A month later, Canter operated to remove the tumor. The co-treatment of Sorafenib plus radiation made the tumor easier to remove while reducing chances for spreading. Six days after surgery, Griego returned to her life in Diamond Springs. “I think the cancer is gone,” Griego said without hesitation. Follow up involves an annual MRI plus “a CT scan of my lungs because if the sarcoma metastasizes, it’ll be to the lungs.” Grateful to Canter and the radiation oncologist Arta Monjazeb, Griego said she is not worried.

The phase II trial, due to start soon, will include up to 30 patients and involve other regional cancer centers. “The goal is to validate the efficacy of co-treatment using a tailored combination of Sorafenib, MRI and image-guided gamma radiation to prepare the patient for surgery,” Monjazeb said. For Griego, the treatment came from a dream team of collaborating specialists. She believes she is now cancer-free, something that many more sarcoma patients will soon be able to say as a result of this barriersmashing clinical trial. ArtA MonjAzeb

A special advertising supplement to Sacramento News & Review | cancer.ucdavis.edu | March 22, 2012 | Breaking Barriers to Beat CanCer

The National Cancer Institute’s “Comprehensive Cancer Center” Designation Meaning and significance for UC Davis Health System and Northern California

The NCI’s “comprehensive” designation has a precise meaning. Other cancer centers may describe their services and capabilities as “comprehensive,” but UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center is the only cancer center in Sacramento and all of inland Northern California to have earned the NCI’s “comprehensive” designation – the world’s most prestigious honor in oncology.

UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center provides outstanding care embedded in a culture of discovery. That means our successes in the laboratory, such as personalized treatments designed to target the specific molecular characteristics of tumors, can be delivered to the clinic when patients need them.

The NCI’s comprehensive designation for UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center certifies that patients throughout inland Northern California – including those in Truckee, Marysville, Pleasanton, Lodi and Merced within the UC Davis Cancer Care Network – have access to world-class cancer care close to home. The new designation attests that UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center is breaking barriers to beat cancer through investigator-initiated clinical trials of new therapies, biomedical engineering research, the translation of innovations from the lab to the clinic, scientific partnerships to develop better cancer research models and work to close gaps in cancer outcomes for different populations. The UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center draws on experts at UC Davis and throughout the state – more than half of its 180 members are faculty from such institutions as the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, School of Agriculture, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, and College of Biological Sciences, as well as researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Jackson Laboratory and the California Department of Public Health.

“It’s been eight years since my grim diagnosis. Why am I still here? It’s pretty obvious. The treatments I have been receiving are prolonging my life. At UC Davis Cancer Center, I’ve had access to new drugs coming through the pipeline or just recently approved.” —rollIe SwINgle

The UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center has joined an elite group of other NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers, including Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, M.D. Anderson in Texas and Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York.

UC Davis Medical Center in 2011 was ranked among the top 50 hospitals for cancer in the U.S. by U.S. News and World Report. Also in 2011, among Sacramento Magazine’s 100 Best Doctors, 17 were physicians who treat cancer patients at UC Davis. And in January 2012, PBS Newshour featured UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center to illustrate advances made in the nation’s 40-year war on cancer.

UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center bolsters the region’s economy by providing jobs, fueling research partnerships and entrepreneurship, and attracting leading medical and scientific talent.

Ninety-four cents of every dollar donated to UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center is used to foster excellence in cancer research and cancer care, which benefits patients locally, regionally and nationally.

B r e a k i n g Ba r r i e r s t o B e at c a n c e r UC DavIS CoMpreHeNSIve CaNCer CeNTer 4501 X St. Sacramento, Calif. 95817 | cancer.ucdavis.edu

JIMMIE WALKER

stand-up shows on Comedy Central. Comedienne Shea Shuga opens this series of shows at Old Sacramento’s Laughs Unlimited. Thursday, March 22, 8 p.m.; Friday, March 23, 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, March 24, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; Sunday, March 25, 7 p.m.; $10-$20. Laughs Unlimited, 1207 Front Street; (916) 446-8128; http://stevewilsoninfo.com.

Best known for his catch phrase “Dy-no-mite!” from the sitcom Good Times, Walker was once named Time Magazine’s “Comedian of the Decade.” After success in film and television, he’s returned to his roots, enjoying a career in stand-up comedy. He’ll perform an all-ages series of shows at Tommy T’s. Thursday, March 22, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, March 23, at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.; Saturday, March 24 ,at 7 and 9:30 p.m.; Sunday March, 25 at 7 p.m.; $10-$25. Tommy T’s Comedy & Dinner Theatre, 12401 Folsom Boulevard in Rancho Cordova; (916) 357-5233; www.dynomitejj.com.

FLIPS AND BEANERS COMEDY TOUR WITH RODGER LIZAOLA HEADLINING There are plenty of hilarious Filipino and Latino stand-up comics out there, and the Flips and Beaners Comedy Tour features a rotating cast highlighting some of the best. Headlining this night of comedy is Rodger Lizaola from Gilroy. Thursday, March 29, 8 p.m.; $10. Laughs Unlimited, 1207 Front Street; (916) 446-8128; www.rodgerlizaola.com.

JOHNNY SANCHEZ A comic best known for his time as a former MadTV cast member, Johnny Sanchez has toured with the Latin Kings of Comedy. In addition, he’s great at impressions as was a voice actor in the animated Happy Feet. Friday, March 30, at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.; Saturday, March 31, at 7 and 9:30 p.m.; and Sunday, April 1 at 7 p.m.; $15-$30. Tommy T’s Comedy & Dinner Theatre, 12401 Folsom Boulevard in Rancho Cordova; (916) 357-5233; www.tommyts.com.

MANNY MALDONADO FEATURING JIMMY EARL From Modesto, Manny Maldonado has made a name for himself as a comic by blending oberservational and physical comedy with unique voice acting abilities. Recently, he was invited to talk about racism on a panel for the Dr. Phil show. He headlines three nights of comedy with Jimmy Earl opening. Friday, March 30, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, March 31, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; Sunday, April 1 at 7 p.m.; $10-$20. Laughs Unlimited, 1207 Front Street; (916) 446-8128; www.youtube.com/themannymaldonado.

interactive sessions. Sa, 3/24, 8:30am. $39. Riverview Community Center, 10700 Ambassador Dr. in Rancho Cordova.

Volunteer PLANTING WITH REI AT ALDER GROVE: Join the Sacramento Tree Foundation and REI in increasing the number of trees by 40 in the Alder Grove Housing Community. This is part of an ongoing project to support this community of families transitioning out of homelessness. Sa, 3/24, 9am-noon. Free. Alder Grove Community, 816 Revere St.; (916) 924-8773, ext. 122; http://events.r20.constant contact.com/register/event? oeidk=a07e5jrph8u8597891f&llr= ebcf8qcab.

25SUN

DON’T MISS!

with a bit of swing from 7-7:45 pm. Su, 3/25, 7pm. $10-$13. Roseville Veterans Memorial Hall Auditorium, 110 Park Dr. in Roseville; (916) 485-7600.

GOLDCOUNTRYBRIDE.COM BRIDAL FAIRE: Presented by the Roseville Press-Tribune, Celebrations Party Rental and Morgan Creek Golf, this bridal fair raises money for Brides Against Breast Cancer. Su, 3/25, 11am-3pm. $5. Morgan Creek Golf and Country Club, 8791 Morgan Creek Ln. in Roseville; (916) 786-8746; www.goldcountrybride.com.

NUTRITION FUELS FITNESS EVENT: The event features a 5K and 10K run and a family-fun festival to celebrate National Nutrition Month. The event raises funds to fight childhood obesity and offers activities and information to promote good health for local families. Su, 3/25, 8am. Free. Elk Grove Regional Park, Elk Grove Blvd and Elk GroveFlorin Rd. in Elk Grove.

CAMELLIA SYMPHONY: The Camellia

program for learning bicycle maintenance and repair. As a part of this program designed by the Park Tool Company, you’ll learn crucial bicycle repair techniques in a hands-on environment. Su, 3/25, 10:30am-5:30pm. $85-$105. REI Sacramento, 1790 Expo Pkwy.; (916) 924-8900; www.rei.com/event/37090/ session/46760.

Symphony Orchestra presents a free family concert and an instrument petting zoo. This year, the family concerts will also include a visual art element presented by I Can Do That (formerly Very Special Arts) who will offer a chance for children to create art related to the musical experience. Su, 3/25, 1pm. Free. Sacramento Public Library (Central Branch), 828 I St.; (916) 929-6655; www.camelliasymphony.com.

Special Events DANCE FOR SINGLES: Christian Singles Network is hosting a dance lesson and dance for single adults. The evening features DJ Dale from Allstar Entertainment playing dance music starting at 8pm, and dance teacher Janine Wright teaching the country two-step

For those who don’t know, Neil Hamburger is actually the stand-up persona played by Gregg Turkington. The off-kilter character is notable for his awkwardness, a gigantic comb-over and unscripted banter with the

Kids’ Stuff

PARK TOOL SCHOOL: This is a

5BEFORE

NEIL HAMBURGER FEATURING KEITH LOWELL JENSEN

Meetings & Groups simple to advanced dances from Bulgaria, Israel, Russia, Turkey, Japan and more. Most

FRONTLINES

The ancient Sumerians created the Zodiac, and they used a certain technique that is still visible today. The important question is how they did it—a question this presentation will answer. Su, 3/25, 1-3:30pm. $5-$10. The Galleria Clubhouse, 501 Gibson Dr. in Roseville; (916) 276-1858; www.NCGRSacramento.org.

Sacramento County Historical Society’s 2012 awards dinner and fundraiser features dinner by the Dante Club, a talk by historians Keith Burns and Clarence Caesar about the Zanzibar Club, one of Sacramento’s long-lost West End jazz nightclubs, and a live performance by the Harley White Orchestra. Tu, 3/27, 6-11pm. $40-$50. The Dante Club, 2330 Fair Oaks Blvd.; (916) 443-6265; www.brownpapertickets. com/event/219781.

by Thai pop superstar Parn Thanaporn in Cache Creek’s Club 88. Su, 3/25, 6pm. $20. Cache Creek Casino Resort, 14455 Hwy. 16 in Brooks; (888) 772-2243; www.cachecreek.com.

Special Events

SIMPLY SOUSA: Bring the entire family to this exhilarating concert featuring the Sacramento Symphonic Winds, a 60-piece adult community band conducted by Dr. Les Lehr. The group will play the works of John Philip Sousa and others. Su, 3/25, 2pm. $5-$10. La Sierra Community Center, 5325 Engle Rd. in Carmichael; (916) 489-2576; www.sacwinds.org.

MERCURY AND LOCALLY CAUGHT FISH: Join a presentation on the risks involved when consuming fish caught in the Sierra. With a legacy of well-known mercury pollution in Sierra rivers and streams from historic gold mining, Dr. Carrie Monohan will discuss the Sierra Fund’s survey results and the need to inform citizens of the human health concerns with mercury exposure when eating locally caught fish. Tu, 3/27, 7-8:30pm. Free. Auburn Library, 350 Nevada St. in Auburn; (916) 652-7005; www.motherlode.sierraclub.org/ placer/index.html.

26MON FUN.: Catch an indie-rock concert

Classes

featuring headliner Fun and opener Avalanche City. This concert is sponsored by the University Union Unique

TRUE COLORS CAREER ASSESSMENT: This is a tool to

—Jonathan Mendick

yourself, identify compatible careers and environments, and improve interpersonal communications. Tu, 3/27, 3pm. Free. North Natomas Library, 4660 Via Ingoglia; (916) 264-2920; www.saclibrary.org.

Concerts A MUSICAL GALA FOR SAC STATE FACULTY: Sacramento State’s New Millennium Music series presents the Faculty and Friends Gala. The Sun Quartet will perform the music of Dmitri Shostakovich. They’ll be joined by saxophonist Keith Bohm, pianists John Cozza and Eric Zivian, French-horn player Pete Nowlen and clarinetist Deborah Pittman. Tu, 3/27, 7:30pm. $5-$15. Sacramento State Music Recital Hall, 6000 J St.; (916) 278-5155; www.csus.edu/music.

28WED

Special Events JUST DANCE 3 BATTLE: Join this Just Dance 3 battle, played on the XBox360 video game console using the Kinect. Free to enter, this is an all-ages event. W, 3/28, noon. Free. Sacramento State Student Union, Redwood Room, 6000 J St.; (916) 278-6267.

Classes LIBRARY JOB SEARCH TOOLS: Find out what the library has available to assist you in finding and landing your next job. W, 3/28, 10am. Free. Arcade Community Library, 2443 Marconi Ave.; (916) 264-2920; www.saclibrary.org.

Market, enjoying music by Guitar Mac & Blues Express, buying dinner at an international food fair, drinking from a wine and beer garden, playing in bounce houses, scaling a rock-climbing wall and more. W, 3/28, 4:30-8:30pm. Free. Davis Central Park, 401 C St. in Davis; (530) 756-1695; www.davisfarmersmarket.org.

Sports & Recreation LIGHTWEIGHT BACKPACKING BASICS: Are you a backpacker who wants to lighten your load? At this presentation, an REI backpacking expert will provide excellent tips on lightweight backpacking techniques. Included are tips on shelters, backpacks, food choices and fuel efficiency. W, 3/28, 7-8:30pm. Free. REI Sacramento, 1790 Expo Pkwy. (916) 924-8900; www.rei.com/event/35551/ session/44772.

ONGOING DON’T MISS! CRAFT & SEWING FESTIVAL:

Find a wide variety of sewing, quilting, needle art and craft supply exhibits from many quality companies. Participate in one or more of the many workshops and seminars. Ticket is good for all three days of the show. 3/22-3/24, 10am-5pm. $10. Cal Expo, 1600 Exposition Blvd. Cal Expo; (877) 225-3976; http://quiltcraftsew.com.

Kids’ Stuff PICNIC IN THE PARK CONCERT: Enjoy

help you better understand

Looking for something to do? Use SN&R’s free calendar to browse hundreds of events online. Art galleries and musems, family events, education classes, film and literary events, church groups, music, sports, volunteer opportunies—all this and more on our free events calendar at www.newsreview.com. Start planning your week!

Formerly a rocket scientist and motivational speaker, Shayla Rivera now tours the stand-up comedy circuit and tells jokes for a living. The Puerto Rican comic has been featured on numerous television shows and even starred in her own one-woman play called Rocket Science and Salsa. Thursday, March 29, at 8 p.m.; Friday, March 30, at 8 and 10 p.m.; Saturday, March 31, at 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday, April 1, at 7 p.m..; $13-$19. Punch Line Comedy Club, 2100 Arden Way; (916) 925-8500; www.funnyrocketscientist.com.

A NIGHT AT THE ZANZIBAR:

PARN THANAPORN: Hear a concert

Wait, there’s more!

SHAYLA RIVERA

DON’T MISS!

Concerts

STORY

Known for his regular appearances on late-night talk show Chelsea Lately, Jo Koy is a touring stand-up comedian whose other television credits include The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and Comedy Central Presents. Friday, March 23, at 8 and 10 p.m.; Saturday, March 24, at 7 and 9:15 p.m.; Sunday, March 25, at 7 and 9 p.m.; $30. Punch Line Comedy Club, 2100 Arden Way; (916) 925-8500; www.jokoy.com.

27TUES

THE TOOLS OF WESTERN TRADITION:

FEATURE

JO KOY

Programs. M, 3/26, 7:30pm. $10-$15. Sacramento State University Union Ballroom, 6000 J St.; (916) 278-6997; www.sacstateunique.com.

dances don’t require a partner, are good workouts and mentally stimulating. Su, 7-10pm through 4/29. $25-$35 for 5punch card (students & seniors 10-punch). Davis Art Center Studio E, 1919 F St. in Davis; (530) 758-0863; www.davisfolkdance.org.

Concerts

INTERNATIONAL FOLK DANCE: Learn

audience, drawing comparisons to Andy Kaufman’s character Tony Clifton. Local comic Keith Lowell Jensen and Major Entertainer Mike open the show. Friday, March 30, at 9 p.m.; $15. Sacramento Comedy Spot, 1050 20th Street; (916) 444-3137; www.sacramentocomedyspot.com.

A RT S & C U LT U R E

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DISH

Gringo-wiches See FOOD STUFF

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Cheesy grits, y’all

$99 Tuitio Spe n This we cial ek

exp 3/2 only! 8/12

The Porch

CASINO COLLEGE

1815 K Street, (916) 444-4423, www.theporchsacramento.com

9529 FOLSOM BLVD STE. E SACRAMENTO 95827

by GREG LUCAS

Rating:

★★★ Dinner for one:

$15 - $25

★

FLAWED

★★ HAS MOMENTS

★★★ APPEALING

★★★★ AUTHORITATIVE

★★★★★ EPIC

Still hungry?

Search SN&R’s “Dining Directory” to find local restaurants by name or by type of food. Sushi, Mexican, Indian, Italian— discover it all in the “Dining” section at www.newsreview.com.

Cajun to colonial, brooding to bright, Cuba Libre to low country. Such is the transformation of the long-serving Celestin’s Caribbean Restaurant on K Street in Midtown into its latest incarnation, The Porch. Where Celestin’s interior felt almost cavelike, The Porch is light and white with faux windows looking out over two-dimensional vistas of stately magnolias and verdant weeping willows. The vibe suggests the airy sweep of an antebellum Charleston eatery. Almost a pity the hostess isn’t required to greet guests with a hearty, “Hi, y’all.” One can only envy the extensive, on-site research conducted by chef Jon Clemens and business partners John Lopez and Jerry Mitchell, creators of Capitol Garage. This work required the restaurateurs to bring the food of six or seven sea-fronting countries in southern South Carolina to the drawl-less denizens of Sacramento. Catfish and oysters and crab cakes. Purloo and parsnips. All kissin’ cousins to Creole and Cajun. What their research has yielded is sundry Southern selections such as shrimp and grits, buttermilk fried chicken and green tomatoes. The menu cuts a broader swath than simply the low country: After all, can the BBQ Pork Quesadilla—served with slabs of avocado, a drizzle of sour cream and a spattering of corn and tomato salsa—really be considered a Carolinian creation? The menu has undergone some revision since The Porch opened its doors in midDecember. The no-shortage-of-crab She Crab Soup, with its splash of sherry and a sunburst of roe at its center providing crunchy texture to each spoonful, has given way, most recently, to a creamy broccoli and Swisscheese puree that cries out for a bowl instead of merely a cup. Also in the rotation is sweetpotato bisque that is a welcome replacement for the frogmore stew, which, like the She Crab Soup, comes straight out of the lowcountry playbook. Nevertheless, it seems like the latter concoction should have been more appropriately named “frogless,” since that is about the only green thing seemingly not present in its leafstrewn, reedy depths. In the main, the most enjoyable selections are salads or seafood sandwiches or entrees. Slaw on the barbecue pork sandwich elevates its status, and its pickled vegetables are sweet and tart, adding an additional dimension. The shrimp and grits dish, while laden with cheddar and gravy, is a synergistic mélange—perhaps The Porch’s trademark dish. Also in the running is the purloo, the low country’s version of jambalaya, with andouille, crunchy crawfish appendages, and

the same sautéed bell peppers and onions that also appear in the grits. The sandwiches don’t hold together so well. The shrimp po’ boy quickly becomes a knifeand-fork affair. Pal H.D. Palmer, who has spent some time on the East Coast and knows his soft-shell crab, offers these thoughts on The Porch’s version:

The shrimp po’ boy quickly becomes a knife-and-fork affair.

FRONTLINES

FEATURE

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“The crust of the soft-shell makes the flavor. The problem with [The Porch’s] sandwich is twofold. First, it rapidly becomes a deconstructed soft-shell sandwich due to massive structural failure by the bread. But second, and more important, the longer it bathes in remoulade, the sooner the crust that was there dissipates and becomes more of a papery coating.” Although the mix of flavors in the salad of chicken salad is eye opening, of everything sampled over the past three month, the seafood Cobb grabs the gold. Four boiled egg quarters at the compass points of a mound of mixed greens topped with four, beefy battered shrimps, a frond of dill rising majestically from the summit. Avocado slices draped along the salad’s slopes. The eye-catching presentation almost causes one to overlook the sundried tomatoes, bacon and crabmeat buried within. There is just enough dressing to meld the flavors, but not overpower. The complimentary muffaletta is a classy touch. Overall: Good points trump demerits. Ω

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MIDTOWN’S NEWEST ICO N

THE V WORD The price of eggs Have you ever seen 50,000 of anything at once? How about 50,000 egg-laying hens that were abandoned in their factory farm and left to die? That’s what happened in Turlock in February. Unfortunately, thousands of the chickens were already dead when animalcontrol authorities finally discovered the situation, but Animal Place farmanimal sanctuary was able to rescue more than 4,000 of them, many of which are now available for adoption. And with the recent legalization of keeping backyard chickens in Sacramento County and chicks being sought after as Easter gifts, be a hero instead, and give one of these birds a forever home. Look into it at http://animalplace.org. —Shoka

BEFORE

Job placement assistance

STORY

A RT S & C U LT U R E

URGERS SQUEEZE B GERS U VEGGIE B R NDWICHES A S EAK SQUEEZEST

TU-THUR 11AM -9PM FRI-SAT 11AM-11PM SUNDAY 11AM-6PM CLOSED MONDAYS

1630 K St • Sacramento • 916-492-2499 SN&R | AFTER | 03.22.12 | | 27

DISH Where to eat? Here are a few recent reviews and regional recommendations, updated regularly. Check out www.newsreview.com for more dining advice.

Midtown

Mati’s There’s a reason “Indian Express” was part of Mati’s previous title. A variety of dishes are offered daily in a buffet, but Mom serves instead of diners slopping stuff onto their own plates. Options are fairly straightforward: A small dish at $6.99 with rice and two items, and a large, which has up to four items, at $8.99. Subtract $1 if going vegetarian. There’s five dishes in the daily veg rotation, most of them vegan. Offerings run the gamut from mild to spicy, although the temperature of spicy is well within tolerance, except for the most heat adverse. This is straightup, nicely prepared Indian food without frills. Mom and daughter make it even more appealing. Indian. 1501 16th St.; (916) 341-0532. Dinner for one: $9-$12. ★★★ The Press Bistro There are flashes of Greece, such as the crisscross rows of bare light bulbs over the front patio. Or the summery small plate of stacked watermelon squares with feta and mint. Even Italian vegetarians get cut into the action with mushroom ravioli and its corn, leek and dill triumvirate. Another special is a colorful small plate of pepperonata—slightly-pickled-in-champagne-vinegar

stripes of peppers awash in olive oil. Speaking of olive oil, it’s all that’s needed to accompany the fluffy, light focaccia, whose four rectangles come neatly stacked. Share The Press with someone you love. Mediterranean. 1809 Capitol Ave., (916) 444-2566. Dinner for one: $15-$30. ★★★1⁄2

Sampino’s Towne Foods Sampino’s Towne Foods turns out to be a bright jewel in a drab Alkali Flat strip mall of paycheck cashers and laundromat. It’s everything an Italian deli should be and more, right down to the Louie Prima on the box and the timpano in the refrigerated display case. Several lobbyists, who elect to drive the six to seven blocks from their offices near the capitol, to pick up sandwiches or—in one instance—five meatballs, begin spewing superlatives when asked their views on Sampino’s. Italian Deli. 1607 F St., (916) 441-2372. Dinner for one: $7-$15. ★★★★1⁄2

Tequila Museo Mayahuel On each visit chef Ramiro Alarcón offers a tantalizing taste of what’s to come. One time it’s a tart, fishladen ceviche that’s neither sugary nor syrupy. Another it’s a cup of albondigas soup. For many years, 524 Mexican Restaurant had cornered the market on meatball soup. Mayahuel’s is superior: a thicker, more flavorful broth and generously sized meatballs. Bookending the meal is a complimentary dessert. The free flan is memorable, but spending $5 on mango cheesecake is a Lincoln well-invested. Mayahuel seems to be benefiting from positive word of mouth. Each time is busier than the

LAND PARK’S

GOURMET SANDWICH SPOT

previous visit. Mexican. 1200 K St., (916) 441-7200. Dinner for one: $12-$20. ★★★★

Thir13en From the start—and, lo, these many weeks hence—the situp-take-notice plate remains the pork tonnato sandwich. It’s the Italian peasant spread or sauce made with tonno—tuna—tonnato that empowers this open-face masterwork. Spread on a toasted half baguette, the tonnato is the foundation upon which the pork rests. Above the pork is an awning of mixed greens, with a generous overhang, sprinkled with not enough crispy onions and paperthin slices of pickled fennel. There isn’t space to wax poetic about the

cordon bleu sandwich, the burger, the designer cocktails or the fizzy water from Wales. See for yourself. Very authoritative. American. 1300 H St., (916) 594-7669. Dinner for one: $12-$20. ★★★★

the tower’s components is the payoff just as it is in the salad of beets—wafer-thin enough to be used interchangeably in the carpaccio—with shaved fennel, frisée, a few orange segments and pistachios laced with a stentorian balsamic vinaigrette. Mediterranean. 3839 J St., (916) 448-5699. Dinner for one: $20-$40. ★★★★

East Sac

Formoli’s Bistro Formoli’s is the other half of the restaurant swap on J Street that sent Vanilla Bean Bistro (formerly known as Gonul’s J Street Cafe) to Formoli’s old warren and brought Formoli’s into its current high-ceilinged, spare, dark cranberry space of black tables and chairs just six blocks away. Flavor combinations are a big part of the Formoli playbook, and the blend of

EAT IT AND REAP

Vanilla Bean Bistro Gonul’s J Street Cafe has moved up the street and evolved into the Vanilla Bean Bistro. Its narrow, lowceilinged coziness is consonant with its understated, whatever-theimpulse-inspires alchemy that owner/chef Gonul Blum, has shown over the past eight years. Blum

hails from Turkey. That country’s culinary tradition provides a sturdy foundation, but for her, it serves more as a launching pad. A recurring feature practiced here is the inclusion of fruit—preserved and fresh—in many dishes. And the tabbouleh delivers a roundhousepunch flavor combination. Turkish. 3260-B J St., (916) 457-1155. Dinner for one: $10-$20. ★★★★1⁄2

The Wienery The Wienery is wondrous, metaphysical, even. This 35year-old East Sacramento landmark sells old-fashioned steamed franks—and sausages—to a clientele that cuts across

by GARRETT MCCORD

Edible lawn Sheep aren’t the only ones who can eat your lawn. You can, too. Depending on where you live, and whether or not you fertilize naturally, you can find all kinds of edible plants ready to munch on just outside your door.

Dandelion leaves, of course, are an especially easy one to spot, and they have a nice bitterness to them. I’ve recently learned that the invasive yellow-flowered Oxalis pes-caprae is also edible. Known as sourgrass, Bermuda buttercup or African wood-sorrel, it looks a bit like clover. It’s indigenous to South Africa, but very common in

INDULGE

California. Named for the high value of oxalic acid it contains, oxalis is lemony in flavor. You may hear cautions not to eat a lot of it, so don’t pick a whole yard’s worth. Some Native Americans chewed it to alleviate thirst, though, and it’s used in a traditional South African lamb stew. You might also keep an eye out for wild fennel, with its licoricelike flavor, or mint that has gone native. If you’re unsure how to spot these lovelies, consult a good foraging book or look for a foraging event with Hank Shaw, local author of Hunt, Gather, Cook (www.honest-food.net).

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Pangea Two Brews Cafe Tables, tall and short, are large and communal, fostering that casual camaraderie that should be the goal of any self-respecting brewpub. There’s a fairly extensive menu, including breakfast items. Not to put too fine a point on it: Pangaea’s offerings are not beers that will be found at Save Mart or even Nugget. They are nuanced. Brewed with artisanship. In some cases for hundreds of years. A large number are Belgian. There’s the usual panoply of French dip, hot pastrami, Reuben and so on. Among the signature offerings is The Gobbler. Turkey, natch. Cranberry sauce, natch. Then red onion, several roma tomato slices, a thicket of green leaf and pepper jack cheese, all shoehorned into a big baguette. Brewpub. 2743 Franklin Blvd., (916) 454-4942. Dinner for one: $10-$20. ★★★1⁄2

North Sac

Enotria Restaurant and Wine Bar The longtime eatery’s reworked patio cries out for lazing on an amber autumn afternoon. Enotria is an enophile’s dream. The waiters here speak fluent wine and their knowledge is both capacious and definitive. Enotria promises “Food made for wine made for food,” and it delivers on the pledge. The paella remains Enotria’s signature dish. A recent $32 prix-fixe meal begins with a rectangular plate upon which is served an alternating line of caramelized plantains and campaign-button size pork tenderloins. The accompanying wine is a 2008 white burgundy, Olivier LeFlaive “Les Setilles.” The one-two punch here is, obviously, the food and wine. But the knock-out punch—at least when all cylinders are firing—is the delivery. American. 1431 Del Paso Blvd., (916) 922-6792. Dinner for one: $20-$40. ★★★★1⁄2

South Sac Sabaidee Thai Grille If the menu at Sabaidee Thai Grille is any indication, pumpkin and other squashes play a major role in Laotian cuisine, which, in turn, plays a major role at Sabaideee. Sabaidee— “hello” in Lao—requires fortitude to find. The khalii khapou, listed as “curried crab stew” on the menu, comes from the hometown of the matriarch who is happy to answer questions about the ingredients and volunteers what is apparent after one mouthful: real crab is used. On the appetizer front, the pumpkin wontons are a new enough addition that they’ve yet to

appear on Sabaidee’s website. A word about the freebie salad that accompanies each meal: expect mixed greens, a dash of carrot shreds, cucumber chunks, a quarter of a tomato, a spattering of sesame seeds and what taste like fried shallots. All this with a tamarind emboldened dressing. Now that’s a freebie. Service can be kinda slow and tentative, but certainly part of that is due to the freshness of the fare. Sabaidee isn’t cheap, but it’s a quality meal for the price. Thai/Laotian. 8055 Elk Grove-Florin Rd., (916) 681-8286. Dinner for one: $10-$20. ★★★1⁄2

Avenue, Arigato’s décor seems skewed to a youngish demographic: One wall is lit with changing colors—blue, green, magenta. The miso is somewhat bereft of the tofu and seaweed flotsam and jetsam found in many bowls elsewhere. The poki, with slices of cucumber and onion, is artfully presented and more than lives up to its “three red chili” billing in the menu with an unrelenting assault on the tongue. The chef recommends the Spanish mackerel (aji) over the mackerel for dessert. He’s right, of course. There are beginner’s sushi samplers, bento boxes, udon, teriyaki and sukiyaki options. But Arigato’s chief attraction is raw fish bits. And if that’s what you crave, then this place’s crowds you should brave. Sushi. 1608 Howe Ave., Ste. 5; (916) 920-5930. Dinner for one: $20-$40. ★★★1⁄2

Arden/ Carmichael

Ambience It’s not surprising the folks at Zagat have done a fair amount of hyperventilating over Ambience, the decidedly upscale eatery on Fair Oaks Boulevard. Where else in Carmichael can you find a $222 meal for two—without alcohol? There is coulis and confit and soufflé and brûlée and reductions and stuff that’s sliced wafer thin and, of course, vast white real estate that surrounds the small portions served on the plates. As the meal progresses, the presentation of the food gets better and better, as does the complexity of the offerings. Baked Alaska for dessert is as rich and decadent. It is also the largest item to appear on a plate all evening. Kudos to chef and owner Morgan Song for a truly memorable meal. American. 6440 Fair Oaks Blvd., (916) 489-8464. Dinner for one: $60 and up. ★★★★★

Nagato Sukiyaki Nagato Sukiyaki’s website says its doors opened here 41 years ago. And business is brisk. Perhaps part of the attraction is the menu with sushi rolls priced well-below the mid-to-high teens. Another bright spot is sushi chef and owner Don Kawano, who extolls virtues of simple rolls such as albacore, avocado and jalapeño that are unsullied by myriad sauces. The menu runs the gamut of Japanese cuisine: somen, soba, udon and a variety of generously portioned bento boxes. The warmth of chef Kawano and the familiar feel of a longtime quiet neighborhood fixture are the restaurant’s trump cards. Sushi. 2874 Fulton Ave., (916) 489-8230. Dinner for one: $10-$20. ★★★1⁄2

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Sacramento’s socioeconomic and demographic lines. The menu warns that the Fiesta Dog—refried beans, onions, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and taco sauce—is “surprisingly good.” Who can quarrel with truth in advertising? Even a simple, straightforward creation such as the Ranch Dog, starring— natch—ranch dressing, can engender a “Whoa, tasty!” The sausages—such as the Polish or Tofurky Kielbasa—are grilled as is the bacon-wrapped dog with its not-easily forgettable jalapeño relish. American. 715 56th St., (916) 455-0497. Dinner for one: $10-$20. ★★★★

A mixed bag of groceries According to a diversity index created by USA Today journalists, if you randomly choose any two people in Rancho Cordova, there’s a 69 percent chance they’ll be of different ethnicities. That makes perfect sense if you venture into a Rancho Cordova grocery store called Koreana Plaza (10971 Olson Drive in Rancho Cordova, www.koreanaplaza.com), which caters to three distinct immigrant populations. On a recent trip to the supermarket, customers of Mexican, Korean and Russian ethnicities—among others—shopped side by side. Impressively, a multicultural team of store employees helps customers navigate the store while collectively speaking fluent Spanish, Korean and Russian. With plenty of imported Mexican, Korean and Russian grocery items lining the store shelves, highlights of the supermarket include produce and prepared-foods sections. Customers of any ethnicity can purchase Korean side dishes (like seasonal kimchi), Russian deli items (like fried piroshki), and fresh fruits and veggies (of many varieties, of course). —Jonathan Mendick

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SN&R

COOLHUNTING Put a beard on it

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Beard Beanie With open follicles, many men have embraced the renewed recent facial-hair trend. Illustrated mustaches on drinking glasses, baby pacifiers and jewelry celebrating the unshaven are a dime a dozen (plus tax and shipping), but what about beard gear? Enter the Beard FASHION Beanie. It’s a knit cap with a handmade crocheted beard, replete with handlebar ’stache. The beards come in several colors to match your hair with various styles of hats, all more interesting than the standard ski mask. Custom versions are also available on Beanie maker Tara Duffin’s Etsy page, where you can swoop up your favorite elementary schooler’s first beard, or a long, shaggy one for Grizzly Adams types. http://beard beanie.com, www.etsy.com/shop/taraduff. —Shoka

Colour me impressed DisColouring Book I’ve heard of musicians collaborating via the Internet to make an album, but this is the first time I’ve heard of artists using the medium to create a coloring book. The people behind DisColouring Book use Facebook to find artists all over the world to contribute. Founded in the United Kingdom, the books can be purchased online and shipped anywhere. Inside, there’s an artist list and pages similar to a coloring book, except that each work is done by a different artist and some by multiple artists. To ART participate, order the current edition, collaborate on a piece, scan in the precolored work and, when you’re finished, email it to discolouringbook@gmail.com. If they like it, you’ll be featured in a future edition. If not, then at least you get a coloring book and a free sticker to decorate. The third edition is set for released April 25. www.facebook.com/discolouringbook. —Amanda Branham

How to do just about anything Care to Make Love in That Gross Little Space Between Cars?

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Everyone, it seems, is an expert, doling out well-meaning opinions on what you should do about your job, appearance, home, kids, significant other, health and just about everything else. If you feel just fine about your choices in those categories, maybe it’s time to move BOOK on to more pressing issues. Such as how to murder someone, for example. Or, perhaps, how to look like a stud while eating pink cotton candy. A new book, Care to Make Love in That Gross Little Space Between Cars?, published courtesy of The Believer magazine, examines these tough situations with helpful advice from the likes of Amy Sedaris, Louis C.K., Zach Galifianakis, Rose McGowan and—duh—Wierd Al Yankovic. Seriously, if the “Pretty Fly for a Rabbi” singer can’t answer your burning questions about man caves, then nobody can. —Rachel Leibrock

Chants across the water Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback The self-proclaimed “anti-Beatles” of mid-1960s West Germany were five American ex-GIs who, under the management of two visionary advertising students, changed their surf-rock cover band name from Torquays to the Monks; shaved the crowns of their heads; wore black robes; used an electric banjo as rhythm guitar and embraced distortion and feedback while befuddling the Beat scene its with original primitive, subversive, strange and estranging garage songs. The band broke up a year after its DVD 1966 release of Black Monk Time; in 2009, the music-review website Pitchfork awarded that album a rave 9.2 rating in its Best New Reissues section. Now, Netflix has quietly moved Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback, a DVD chronicling the band’s amazing music and story, from its “saved” list into its ready-to-rent queue circulation. Go get it! —Mark Halverson

SN&R

03.22.12

ASK JOEY Fess up, grow up by JOEY GARCIA

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Got a problem?

Write, email or leave a message for Joey at the News & Review. Give your name, telephone number (for verification purposes only) and question— all correspondence will be kept strictly confidential. Write Joey, 1124 Del Paso Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95815; call (916) 498-1234, ext. 3206; or email askjoey@ newsreview.com.

I was sick of my parents always checking my text messages, so I started reading theirs. When I read my dad’s, I found out he is having an affair. I’m really scared, and I don’t want to be around him anymore. He keeps asking me what is wrong, and lately, my mom is asking, too. Should I tell my mom about the texts? Fess up to both parents, like this: Ask to talk to them at the same time. Invite them to sit together on the living-room couch while you stand and say, “I got really sick of you reading my texts, so I read yours. I am sorry. I realize now that I should not have done it. I hope you will be able to forgive me and trust me again. You both know what is in those text messages, so please talk about it now. Do not put me in the middle of this. I am going to my room.” Then, go to your bedroom or to a friend’s house, and let your parents work it out. Don’t try to spy on them while they talk. You will know if the truth came out.

Your parents have the right to check your text messages. They pay your phone bill and are responsible for guiding your growth into adulthood. If you are too scared to carry out the speech I just suggested, write your parents a letter. Then, using the same idea of calling a meeting, hand them the letter and leave the room. But, try to be brave and use your voice, if you can. Speaking to your parents directly is the more difficult choice. It builds inner strength and resiliency, both essential ingredients for a good life. One last thing: Your parents have the right to check your text messages. They pay your phone bill and are responsible for guiding your growth into adulthood. You have no right or reason to check their messages

BEFORE

FRONTLINES

without explicit spoken permission. Discovering a possible affair does not excuse your action. You did not like your parents’ rule and were retaliating against it and them, right? Now, admit to yourself that you have broken a sacred trust, and don’t do it again. I have a co-worker who is obsessed with celebrities and talks about them as if they are her personal friends. She is always interrupting my workday with random and stupid comments about the Kardashians or some other People magazine regular. I could not care less. I have tried to drop hints that I am not interested. I have tried to head her off before she starts one of her monologues about some celebrity. She never has a clue that I’m not interested. We work in a small office so I can’t really get away from her. Any suggestions? Stop littering your conversations with hints. Instead, be honest. Say, “It’s cool that you are so into this, but I am not the least bit interested in the lives of celebrities.” Then chat about something else or turn back to the work at hand. Not ready to be your true self? Try this: The next time she launches into a story about a celebutant, look into her eyes and touch her lightly on the arm. Then say, “I want to get back to work. I have way too much to do. Sorry!” Then, get back to work. But spend a little time at lunch reflecting about how you interrupt your own focus. Or, whether you disrupt other people’s days with useless texts or tweets (“At Starbucks for a latte”). And, if you refuse to use any of this advice because you fear it will hurt your co-worker’s feelings, reconsider. Have your feelings ever been hurt? Did you get over it? Maybe even learn from the experience? Ω

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Stage movement at Mira Loma To Be … The intricate throne room in Denmark’s palace morphs into being in the little black-box theater; by Claudius the king takes two steps up, puts his Maxwell McKee arms on rests and sits down. It sounds like a big-budget set piece, but everything on this black-box theater stage is created with synchronized human bodies—the bodies of students at Mira Loma High School. SN&R spoke with Mira Loma’s spring production director and theater teacher Doniel Soto—“Mr. Soto” to his students. He’s taught theater at Mira Loma for six years. Before that, he worked extensively with the late Dennis Wilkerson and contributed substantially to the R25 Arts Complex and the creation of the California Stage.

Mira Loma High School students practice plyometrics.

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Please note: ARRIVE EARLY! Seating is first come, first served, except for members of the reviewing press. Theatre is overbooked to ensure a full house. Theatre is not responsible for overbooking. This pass DOES NOT guarantee admission and must be surrendered upon demand. No one will be admitted without a ticket and only reviewing press will be admitted after the screening begins. All federal, state and local regulations apply. A recipient of tickets assumes any and all risks related to use of ticket, and accepts any restrictions required by ticket provider. Warner Bros., Allied-THA, Sac N&R and their affiliates accept no responsibility or liability in connection with any loss or accident incurred in connection with use of a prize. Tickets are the property of Warner Bros. Pictures who reserve the right to refuse, revoke or limit admission at the discretion of an authorized studio and/or theatre representative at any time. Tickets cannot be exchanged, transferred or redeemed for cash, in whole or in part. Violators are subject to prosecution. We are not responsible if, for any reason, winner is unable to use his/her ticket in whole or in part. Not responsible for lost; delayed or misdirected entries. All federal and local taxes are the responsibility of the winner. Void where prohibited by law. NO PHONE CALLS!

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Mira Loma’s current show is To Be ..., an original retelling of Hamlet by a touring troupe of fictional “Buscanian” actors. The narrator, Olzgud (played by Kyle Cox), introduces the troupe. What happens next is a blur as 17 actors scramble onto the stage and create the jaw-dropping chorus. The show takes advantage of plyometrics—a type of explosive physical exercise generally used to improve sports performance—and a healthy dose of creativity, both of which are taught in the advanced drama class and in the spring show’s rehearsal period. Soto teaches his students to use their bodies in character creation, as opposed to creating a character through mental study alone. There are also elements of mindfulness in the practice, as the students are taught to be in the moment rather than thinking about the next action or line. Soto trusts his more advanced students to make decisions on their own, including those about safety. He says there has never been an injury in the line of rehearsal or performance. “You must be absolutely connected to your body to perform well. That’s even if you’re standing still,” Soto said. “The game of acting is not a cerebral game. It’s a game of being. It’s about being on stage—not making crap up.”

Soto has made this cast into a single flowing entity that is full of student knowledge and creativity. Audiences can expect interesting work to come out of Mira Loma’s theater program and from the students after they graduate. Ω To Be …, 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday; $7-$10. The Black Box Theatre at Mira Loma High School, 4000 Edison Avenue; reservations@blackboxtickets.com. Through March 24.

Political wish fulfillment The Best Man

The Best Man is probably Gore Vidal’s best play (some might argue for Visit to a Small Planet), and the Theater One production of it that opened last Friday is done with the best of intentions, if not with the best execution. Sound miscues, awkward pauses and flubbed lines worked against director Bobby Stewart’s earnest cast. A political melodrama, The Best Man was inspired in part by the 1960 John F. KennedyRichard M. Nixon presidential contest, but Vidal makes his two protagonists (one a handsome playboy type but inherently moral and one a shifty, devious dude) members of the same party, each vying for its nomination. It opened on Broadway in 1960, garnering several Tony Award nominations, including Best Play. What is most remarkable is that, 50 years later, little has changed in the political arena. Dirty tricks, mudslinging and sexual innuendo abound. (A Broadway revival of The Best Man is currently in previews and scheduled to open April 1.) Vidal’s script is wordy and witty (a speechwriter who commits a syntactical error is referred to as “anti-semantic”) and sometimes just out of reach of the likable actors. Michael Erwin plays William Russell, the handsome, philandering good guy who seeks his party’s nomination against Hank Coffin’s ruthlessly ambitious Sen. Joseph Cantwell. Each hopes for the endorsement of former President Arthur Hockstader (Bill Willkins, in the meatiest role and strongest performance). Cantwell threatens to release some damaging information about his opponent, but when Russell comes into possession of perhaps more damaging info (a sexual accusation against the self-righteously devout Cantwell), he must decide how far he’s willing to go to win. The wrap-up is appropriate and satisfying—but maybe a little too good for real-world politics. —Jim Carnes

The Best Man, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; $12-$14. Theater One, Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Boulevard; (916) 790-4294; http://uuss.org. Through April 1.

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Matt K. Miller makes the most of a sociopathic husband out to kill his wife for her money in this play that was adapted for one of Alfred Hitchcock’s films. This drawing-room thriller will make you dial “F” for fun. W, Th 12:30pm & 6:30pm; F 8pm; Sa 2pm & 8pm; Su 2pm. Through 3/25. $15-$38. The Sacramento Theatre Company, 1419 H St.; (916) 443-6722; www.sactheathre.org. K.M.

IN ABSENTIA

Absence, anxiety, loss and loneliness are at the heart of Canadian playwright Morris Panych’s latest play, getting its American debut here. An excellent cast—Elisabeth Nunziato, Kurt Johnson, David Pierini, Jamie Jones and Dan Fagan—tackles the wordy and sometimes problematic script with supreme confidence. Tu 6:30pm; W 2pm &

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This hour-long Family Series show is primarily for younger kids. The script is somewhat inchoate, but there are marvelous cameos, including Rick Kleber’s wild scene as a cowboy; children in the theater giggled with delight. There’s also a fine scene on a moving train, an ingenious lowtech illusion. Sa, Su 1pm & 4pm. Through 4/15. $13-$22. B Street Theatre, 2711 B St.; (916) 443-5300; www.bstreettheatre.org. J.H.

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Short reviews by Jim Carnes, Jeff Hudson and Kel Munger Longer reviews of these plays are available online at www.newsreview.com/sacramento/home.

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wE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN Starring tilda Swinton

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JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME Starring JaSon Segel & ed HelmS

Rated R Fri-Sun 12:00 2:45 5:30 8:15 Mon-Thu 5:30 8:15

FILM What’s your sign? Jeff, Who Lives at Home

Opening Fri, Mar 30

THE BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE

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Jay and Mark Duplass are brothers who make movies together. Their credits read “written and directed by,” but their movies don’t seem writby ten so much as earnestly improvised, and they Jim Lane hardly seem directed at all—except for a tendency to quick-zoom in on details every now and then. That optical lurch is like listening to someone who constantly blurts “Ooh! Look!” and grabs your shirt to focus your attention where they want it—a nervous tic that might be annoying if it weren’t for the fact that what they want you to look at really is pretty interesting.

Jeff’s mother Sharon (Susan Sarandon) calls from work. She wants Jeff to go to Home Depot and buy some wood glue to fix a broken shutter in the kitchen; is that asking so much? Sharon seems to spend a third of her life prodding Jeff, a third enabling him and a third sitting in her dreary office cubicle staring at a photo of a woodland waterfall that adorns her barren workspace. But now something new enters the picture: Sharon has a secret admirer, sending her timid, teasing IMs on the office computer system. Despite herself, Sharon is tickled and interested. The third side of the family is Jeff’s brother Pat (Ed Helms), the exact opposite of Jeff. Pat is tense, even jumpy, masking early midlife insecurity behind a blowhard false confidence—the kind of part Helms plays so well. Pat and his wife Linda (Judy Greer) are on the outs over his Treat yourself to gift certificates up to 75% OFF! Visit www.newsreview.com splurging on a new Porsche; she thought they were saving to buy a house. Jeff leaves the house on his mother’s errand, but the name Kevin still rings in his head, and he gets sidetracked on one Kevin after another. Somehow this causes his path to cross Pat’s, just at the moment when Pat begins to suspect Linda is having an affair, and he wants Jeff to spy on her for him. It’s a sign of Pat’s desperation— what kind of spy could Jeff ever make?

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“LAUGH ALL YOU WANT...IT’S A BLAST.” Peter Travers,

I saw the sign. When I opened up my eyes, I saw the sign.

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In Jeff, Who Lives at Home what they want us to look at is Jeff Thompkins (Jason Segel), and their camera focuses on him better than he seems to focus on anything else. Jeff is 30 and living in his mother’s Baton Rouge, Louisiana, basement in a cloud of bong smoke, timidly grasping at ideas about the universe like a dog snapping at soap bubbles floating by. When we first see Jeff he’s speaking into a voice recorder, ruminating on the profundity of M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs (2002), and we think: OMG, this is a guy who thinks about the deep meaning of M. Night Shyamalan movies! Then the camera steps back to show us where Jeff is sitting, and we think: On the toilet! The world is full of signs, Jeff tells his little recorder; we just have to watch for them and know how to read them when they come. The precise meaning of the sign the Duplass brothers have just given us about Jeff is left mercifully unexpressed. Later, Jeff sits slack-jawed on the couch staring at a braying pitchman on TV: “Call now! Pick up that phone and change your life!” At that instant, the phone on the coffee table rings, and we see a foggy “Whoa!” waft across Jeff’s eyes. It’s somebody calling for Kevin, somebody who gets very angry when Kevin isn’t there. Anyone else would see a simple wrong number, but not Jeff. To him there are no wrong numbers, no coincidences. Everything happens for a reason, and somehow this is a sign.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home galumphs along from one episode to the next with a somehow lovable sense of ramshackle inevitability. Meanwhile, Sharon confides to co-worker Carol (Rae Dawn Chong) about her secret admirer, and Carol advises her to follow this new thing in her life to see where it leads. What harm can it do? Jeff, Who Lives at Home galumphs along from one episode to the next with a somehow lovable sense of ramshackle inevitability. Neither Jeff nor Pat (nor, in a less noisy way, Sharon) seem to have any control over their lives, so it’s almost a given that anything they try to do will run out of control (driving Pat’s new car into a tree is only the beginning). All roads, and all Jeff’s vaguely perceived signs, converge in a traffic jam on a bridge out of town for a sweet and extremely satisfying conclusion. Does it strain coincidence to the breaking point? No doubt. But Jeff has been telling us for 83 minutes that there are no coincidences, and even if he is a bong-toking slacker—hey, when you’re right, you’re right. Ω

by JONATHAN KIEFER & JIM LANE

A fast-talking, insincere literary agent (Eddie Murphy) finds a magic tree in his backyard that loses a leaf for every word he says; when the last leaf is gone, he and the tree will both die. How does he know this? It has something to do with a simpering New Age guru (Cliff Curtis), but really, don’t ask—it’s just one of the gaping holes in Steve Koren’s script, which seems to be suffering from some mysterious strain of screenplay blight. The movie is equal parts labored allegory without resonance and forced comedy without laughs. Murphy does what he can but is reduced to flailing and grimacing; his considerable talents don’t extend to making a bad script better, and neither do the far more modest skills of director Brian Robbins. Kerry Washington, Clark Duke and Alison Janney flounder in support. J.L.

Bullhead

Writer-director Michaël R. Roskam’s debut feature, an Oscar nominee, might be the best Beligan cattle-hormone-mafia movie you’ll ever see. That allows some leeway for general imperfections, yes, but who’d have even thought to make a character study like this, and to cast it so perfectly? Matthias Schoenaerts stars as a steroid-addled simpleton whose highly unfortunate childhood needs revisiting when his family beef business gets embroiled with cops, mobsters and an estranged old friend who once let him down (Jeroen Perceval, also very good). Occasional plot holes and unfortunate twitches of bumbling-criminal comic relief can’t keep Schoenaerts down; with Roskam’s help—playing mud-dark scenes of stifled anguish against occasional painterly low-horizon landscapes— he raises bovine dimness and brutality to tragic proportions. A basic analysis of humans, mostly male, behaving like animals, this is a groin-tug of a movie, but not only in the ways you might expect. J.K.

Friends With Kids

Two platonic best friends (Adam Scott and writer-director Jennifer Westfeldt) agree to have a kid together, no strings attached, so they can get “the parent thing” out of the way and continue their separate searches for Ms. and Mr. Right. We know where this is heading, but the beauty of Westfeldt’s script is that the characters are so threedimensional that we want it to go there, and there are a lot of knowing laughs along the way. First-time director Westfeldt, a veteran actress and writer of 2001’s Kissing Jessica Stein, has something like the wit and insight of Woody Allen at his best, and her movie is a bracing antidote to shallow rom-coms like Failure to Launch and Made of Honor. She has a great cast, too (Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Chris O’Dowd), and gives them plenty of good lines. J.L.

The Hunger Games

Adolescents from a dozen districts of some future former America annually are chosen by lottery for a woodsy death match on live TV. Two of them, played by Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, hold our interest. This comes from the first book of Suzanne Collins’ bestselling sci-fi trilogy, and the script, by Collins, Billy Ray and director Gary Ross, has its own battles to fight against pseudo-suspense and other bloating filler. Reportedly inspired by Collins’ experience of flipping channels between war coverage and reality TV, it seems appropriately more mindnumbing than groundbreaking or actively satirical. Peripheral not-quite-characters are played with brightly costumed monotony by Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, Toby Jones, Stanley Tucci, Lenny Kravitz and Donald Sutherland. But Hutcherson commits to his sudsy subplot, and Lawrence anchors it all with enough presence and genuine vulnerability to reward the patient attention of those many people who’ve been waiting in line to watch since before you began reading this. J.K.

•

A Thousand Words

John Carter

A Civil War veteran and gold prospector in 1880s Arizona Territory (Taylor Kitsch) is miraculously transported to the planet Mars, where his superior strength and agility make him a mighty warrior, while his valor, honor and good looks win the heart of a beautiful Martian princess (Lynn Collins). Edgar Rice Burroughs’ seminal 1912 pulp-fiction adventure, after influencing fantasy and

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Two Mexican brothers (Will Ferrell, Diego Luna) struggle to protect their father’s ranch from a ruthless drug kingpin (Gael García Bernal); meanwhile, Ferrell’s dim-bulb Armando finds himself falling for his brother’s voluptuous fiancée (Genesis Rodriguez). Ferrell and his old Saturday Night Live colleagues Andrew Steele (here, the writer) and Matt Piedmont (director) parody—by faithful imitation—the torrid conventions of the telenovelas of Spanishlanguage TV. They try to do what Blazing Saddles did for Westerns—right down to the overwrought title tune sung by a smoldering Christina Aguilera—but an overextended SNL skit is exactly what the movie feels like, with chuckles instead of genuine laughs. Still, the chuckles are plentiful, and everyone is gamely straight-faced about being over the top. J.L. science fiction for 100 years, comes to the screen courtesy of Disney, Pixar and writers Mark Andrews, Michael Chabon and Andrew Stanton (who also directed). The result is great fun, true to the spirit of the original and, with some tweaks and adjustments, reasonably faithful to the letter as well. Burroughs fans everywhere (he still has millions) can rest easy, and hope that Stanton and company can keep the series going. J.L.

Project X

Three high-school losers (Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown) plan a huge parents-out-of-town party to put them on the social map, but things get immediately out of hand, and before the night is over, their neighborhood looks like Baghdad on a bad day. Written by Matt Drake and Michael Bacall and directed by Nima Nourizadeh—and couched once again in the form of found-footage video, a style fast becoming tiresome—the movie seeks to be the ultimate party flick. It certainly pulls out all the stops, with all the sex, booty shots, bare boobs and destruction-without-consequences that a 15-year-old dweeb could possibly want, even though he wouldn’t be old enough to get into this R-rated show on his own. But underneath all the jacked-up mayhem, it’s a lame, laughless, pathetic little comedy. J.L.

Silent House

In a secluded house in the country (with no electricity or cellphone service, natch), a teenage girl (Elizabeth Olsen) and her father (Adam Trese) are terrorized, and the father bludgeoned, by an unseen intruder. Who is this person (or persons), and how can she escape? Writer-directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau (adapting a Uruguayan film by Gustavo Hernández) try an experiment: making their movie in one long real-time unbroken take. The experiment is interesting for about half of the movie’s 85-minute running time, but better they had written a less contrived script, a more believable resolution, and characters (including Eric Sheffer Stevens as the girl’s uncle) who don’t do the usual slasher-victim dumb things. Olsen, kid sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley, pants, whimpers and sobs with some conviction. J.L.

This Means War

Two CIA agents and close buddies (Chris Pine, Tom Hardy) find themselves dating the same woman (Reese Witherspoon) at the same time they’re more or less following the case of an international thief (Til Schweiger) who’s out to avenge their having killed his brother. Timothy Dowling, Simon Kinberg and Marcus Gautesen’s script is a fantasy for stunted adolescent boys masquerading as an action rom-com—too much action, not enough comedy, and no romance at all. Director McG (full name Joseph McGinty Nichol, whose body of work makes Michael Bay look like Woody Allen) manages to waste both Angela Bassett and Rosemary Harris in less-than-nothing roles. For that matter, he wastes Witherspoon

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too; she serves as a beard for Pine and Hardy’s characters; these two spies are obviously in love only with each other. J.L.

Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds

A conscientious, hard-working San Francisco executive (writer-director Tyler Perry), despite the fact that he has a fiancée (Gabrielle Union) and a hot-headed brother (Brian White) who’s making problems for the family business, becomes involved in the problems of a homeless young widow (Thandie Newton) trying to eke out a decent living for herself and her toddler daughter. Auteur Perry is at his slickest, and the movie is smoothly entertaining. Eventually, though, Perry is undone by his own deft clichés, and he doesn’t know when to stop; things dither away in too many climaxes and a welter of tears from all concerned. Perry is a little too subdued (a reaction, perhaps, against the overthe-top Madea, happily absent here) while Newton’s performance careens back and forth between abrasiveness and bathos. J.L.

Wanderlust

Two New Yorkers (Jennifer Aniston, Paul Rudd) lose their apartment and are forced to move in with his brother in Atlanta (Ken Marino, co-writer with director David Wain); on their way south, they stumble across a hippie commune and decide they’d rather live here than with the obnoxious brother and his liquor-addled wife (Michaela Watkins). Be warned: The script is raunchy, profane and studded with producer Judd Apatow’s trademark frontal nudity, but if you leave your prudery at home, you probably won’t see a funnier movie all year. Aniston and Rudd’s comic rapport, sharpened on Friends and 1998’s The Object of My Affection, hasn’t lost its edge, especially when the good lines come as fast and thick as they do here. Great supporting cast, too: Alan Alda, Justin Theroux, Kathryn Hahn, Linda Lavin, etc. J.L.

BEST ACTRESS TILDA SWINTON

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW s EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS SAN FRANCISCO FILM CRITICS s HOUSTON FILM CRITICS ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY s AUSTIN FILM CRITICS ASSN.

MESMERIZING.”

“

BRILLIANTLY MADE.”

“

“ FLAT-OUT

AMAZING.”

+ + + + +”

“

We Need to Talk About Kevin

OK, so if there wasn’t really anything to say, why exactly did We Need to Talk About Kevin? Director Lynne Ramsay’s adaptation (with Rory Kinnear) of Lionel Shriver’s novel contemplates the perpetrator of a high-school massacre. With its emptily evil brat embodied at various ages by Rock Duer, Jasper Newell and Ezra Miller, the nonstory plays out as a mannered retrospective litany of warning signs, cut against his mother’s stoic guilt. Tilda Swinton dignifies this exercise with such skill that for a few moments we even stop asking why she would, but basically it’s just some hyperpretentious horror flick. Complete with self-congratulating music cues, and John C. Reilly as the malefactor’s too-credulous father, Ramsay’s shriveled vision regresses us to the pretentious indie rubbish of the 1990s. It’s an outdated, unexamined pose of nihilism, somehow at once sneering and ingratiating—which, to some tastes, might indeed seem “masterful.” J.K.

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TILDA SWINTON

JOHN C. REILLY

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TATTOO PARLOR

MUSIC Sisters, international Deer Park Avenue powers through pop that makes you wanna dance Sarah and Stephanie Snyder of local power-pop band Deer Park Avenue have been heavily influenced by all corners of the world. Their father by is a church-planting pastor from Southern Brian Palmer California; their mother is from Southern India; and they have lived in New York, Germany, France and Switzerland, and now, Sacramento.

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Who’s Stephanie, who’s Sarah? I hear Stephanie’s the one sitting on the bench—check out their gig this Saturday to be sure.

Deer Park Avenue plays Saturday, March 24, with Overwatch, Ten Days New and Insomnia at The Boardwalk, 9426 Greenback Lane in Orangevale; 8 p.m.; $10-$12; all ages.

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All of that moving around over the years could have been a major drag for some people, but they love it. “We’re constantly on the move, living out of a suitcase,” Sarah said, “but we’re used to it, and we love having the ability to experience the world.” “We’ve been doing it since we were kids,” Stephanie said, “so it’s just the way life is for us.” Sarah (guitars and lead vocals) and Stephanie (drums and background vocals) both started learning their respective instruments early in their youth. The first songs came to them when they were around 12 and 9. One of their cousins, session drummer Gregg Bissonette, actually gave Stephanie her first drum lesson and helped the duo write their first song. “It was only about 30 seconds long, but you have to start somewhere,” Sarah laughed. Fast-forward to today, and the sisters have played their many songs—an engaging brand of power-pop and rock—on multiple continents. At one point, they worked as a cover band playing gigs in Switzerland. More recently, they have played venues such as Hollywood’s Whisky a Go Go and the Hard Rock Cafe in San

Francisco. They have also played at Cal Expo, Luigi’s Fun Garden in Midtown and have appeared on Good Day Sacramento. Their second and most recent EP, Stop & Go, is an eight-song collection reminiscent of the Goo Goo Dolls and U.K. indie-pop rockers the Mars Patrol brand of positivity. Tracks such as “Hey Maria” showcase their upbeat sound and songwriting creativity. The song is about a relationship, but the song isn’t told via the customary one or two perspectives, but from three: the boyfriend, the girlfriend and everyone else. Sarah and Stephanie grew up in an environment where they listened to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as often as church hymns. Today, the sisters enjoy a variety of music—musical scores, Bollywood film soundtracks, Buddy Holly, Foo Fighters. Diversity is key for the band, whether it is old or new, local (the band Telemetry is a favorite of theirs) or foreign (Ravi Shankar). “Music is an international language,” Stephanie said. “It doesn’t matter what language you speak. If it’s a great song that conveys a sense of joy, hope or even sadness, everyone can relate to that. “We hope our music makes people happy, that it adds to their life. If we can make someone happy for one or two minutes, then we’ve done our jobs.”

Their father is a churchplanting pastor from Southern California; their mother is from Southern India; and they have lived in New York, Germany, France and Switzerland. But the ladies also play rock ’n’ roll, so there’s another side to Deer Park Avenue. “Darkness Hides Me” is an aptly titled tune, as the angst-filled lyrics and undercurrent of brooding, boiling frustration mixes well with Sarah’s menacing guitar. But at the same time, it’s fun, particularly the fuzzy guitar on rockers like the anthemic “Over Again.” It’s rock that makes you want to dance yourself silly. Ω

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Mess with Texas My South by Southwest top 10: When I arrived in Austin, I had expectations. I expected to see a lot of drunken debauchery, a mess of good music, a sea of people, corporate whoring, petty fighting, harebrained attempts for attention, shameless promotion. In essence, I expected to see much of what went on during my visit to last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s SXSW. Here are my top 10 moments from 2012â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s festival. 10. Freak-gazing ad nauseam: Besides

seeing naked folks, a few fights, a gentleman wearing his iPad as a necklace with his record label on the screen, and an entourage dancing to choreographed moves and chanting (it worked, I still remember the rapperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name), I mostly just enjoyed reading the stupid shit people have written on their T-shirts. The most common: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fuck you, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m from Texas.â&#x20AC;? 9. Best show of the festival candidate:

The Jealous Sound, Parvlour, the Wedding Present and the Velvetteen put on an excellent show to a small crowd at the Brooklyn Vegan and M for Montreal showcase at Hotel Vegas, and afterward former Knapsack singer Blair Shehan discussed going to school in Davis, attending shows in Sacramento, and how he still talks to drummer Colby Mancasola, not denying the possibility of a future Knapsack reunion. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to hoping. 8. Sacramento bands rock out in Texas: I saw Crossbill Records acts Sea of Bees, Dana Falconberry and Matt

Bauer at Swan Dive; G. Green follow Dan Deacon over at Cheer Up Charlieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s; Ganglians; A Lot Like Birds at the Artery Showcase; Mikey Bâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (formerly of Long Drive Home) M for Montreal showcase and Sean Stoutâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Terroreyes.tv party. I missed World Hood, Chllngr, Tycho, Chelsea Wolfe and Butterscotch Clinton. 7. Meaningless chats with fellow nerds: SXSW is also a music-industry convention with panels and speakers. My highlights this year were â&#x20AC;&#x153;Single and Ready to Mingle,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The United States of Americana,â&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cool Garage Recording Tools and the Crap to Avoid.â&#x20AC;? 6. Free food, free booze, free swag: Besides Rachael Rayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual barbecue, there is a bevy of free grub and swag constantly being held out as bait to get you to see some music. Memorable: a Taco Bell Doritos disaster (so gross, but free is free) at Hype Hotel, the always reliable Canada Blast BBQ, and the Squarespace food truck. 5. Double dipping: One of the more

pleasing moments I had was the opportunity to travel back and forth between the post-rock stylings of This Will Destroy You at Swan Dive and, at the same time via the back door, watch High on Fire throw down metal riffs on the Barbarella patio stage. It was a grand moment for an attention-deficit child such as me.

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4. Witnessing the rise in amazing new electronic artists: Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard not to

notice how quickly electronic acts such as Grimes, Neon Indian and Youth Lagoon. Last year, Grimes had about 50 in the audience. This year, I made two attempts to slip in to see her to no avail. 3. Make me laugh: Festivals need

comedians. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a fact. This year, Mike Birbiglia and the Sklar brothers joined the long list of other must-sees. Though I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have much time to watch, let alone catch his name, another unknown comedian he had me rolling.

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Vetiver moved the audience to nearly dance-party status at the Blue Lamp on Friday, March 9. Not bad for a â&#x20AC;&#x153;folkâ&#x20AC;? band.

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EIGHT GIGS

23FRI 23FRI 23FRI 24SAT Skerik’s Bandalabra

Blazee Get this: an all-ages hip-hop and R&B gig at a church in Midtown with all under-18 performers presented by Jerry Perry. No joke. If that’s not enough to get you up and out the door—the pure inconceivability of such a lineup; underage rap and God and the god of Sacto music scene—then, really, what’s it gonna take? I won’t pretend to know a lick about the up-and-coming talents on the bill, which includes headliner Blazee HIP-HOP (pictured), plus Booda Babyy, Legion5 and Ayye Jordan. But I will remind you that this is an all-ages venue; as the show’s poster reads, no drugs, no alcohol. Have a coconut water, eh? 1723 L Street, www.facebook.com/therefugesacto.

—Nick Miller

Joel the Band

Milagres

Harlow’s, 7 p.m., $10

Sophia’s Thai Kitchen, 9:30 p.m., $6

Harlow’s, 9 p.m., $10

The Refuge, 7 p.m., $7

Seattle-based saxophonist Skerik is a founding member of such madly improvisational, genre-bending groups as Garage a Trois, Critters Buggin’ and the Dead Kenny Gs. His latest collaboration, a JAZZ/WORLD rhythm-driven quest, which also features electric guitarist Andy Coe, upright bassist Evan Flory-Barnes and drummer Dvonne Lewis, is described as “Fela Kuti meeting Steve Reich in rock’s backyard,” a jazz-seasoned melting pot of Afrobeat, minimalism and harmonics experimentation. Bandalabra is touring in support of its debut CD Live at the Royal Room and opens for Sacramento’s the Nibblers. Come to dance. Or to be entranced. 2708 J Street, www.facebook.com/SkeriksBandalabra.

Lots of bands trade in falsettos and reverbdrenched synths these days. Milagres stands out from the pack. Its combination of acoustic and electric instruments, soaring melodies and layered guitars sounds like a natural byproduct of smart songwriting, practice and good old-fashioned talent—not a bunch of guys imitating their idols. The songs are stadium-sized big, but employ sparse instrumentation INDIE ROCK to great effect, with singer Kyle Wilson’s otherworldly lyrics anchoring each tune in a dreamy space somewhere between sleeping and waking. Whether he’s singing high or low, the melodies soar. 129 E Street in Davis, www.milagresmusic.com.

Whether or not you’re a fan of Billy Joel’s music, you can certainly appreciate his body of work and, most importantly, the timeliness of his songs. Joel the Band, led by the immensely talented Kyle Martin, pays homage to the pop singer in more ways than one. From Billy’s TRIBUTE piano antics down to voice inflections, this is one act that demands your attention. Whether you enjoy Joel’s rocking moments or his over-the-top ballads, there is something for everyone. This Joel the Band show starts early, so you can enjoy some dinner, wine, and lighthearted yet well-executed musical fare. Make reservations now. 2708 J Street, www.joeltheband.com.

—Eddie Jorgensen

—Dave Riedel

—Mark Halverson

Reading for Spiritual Wisdom

Recycle this paper

Every Friday except 3rd Fridays 7:00 - 8:30 pm · Free admission Sacramento Yoga Center @ Sierra II Community Center 2791 24th Street, Sacramento Parking in back For more information please see www.maasamiti.org/reading.html

The whole world is your own. — Sri Sarada Devi

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25SUN 26MON 28WED 29THURS One More Last Try

George Clinton Along with James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone, George Clinton is one of the big three of funk. He’s famous for being an innovator and leader of funk collective Parliament Funkadelic, but also for wearing crazy clothes and hairstyles for the last 40 years. Now 70, his most famous release happened decades ago: 1976’s “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker).” But he’s always remained relevant, more recently collaborating with hipFUNK hop artists like Tupac and Ice Cube, and rockers like Red Hot Chili Peppers—not to mention his influence on the ’90s G-funk sound pioneered by Dr. Dre. 1200 Athens Avenue in Lincoln, www.georgeclinton.com.

SFJazz Collective

Tyrone Wells

The Press Club, 8:30 p.m., $5

Thunder Valley Casino Resort, 8 p.m., $48

Mondavi Center, 8 p.m., $13-$49

Marilyn’s on K, 8 p.m., $12

Two punks, one band—One More Last Try, a Sacramento punk-rock gem, features two former members of Puke and Spit: DD Drool and Johnny Downstroke. Between PUNK them, all instrumental bases are covered, with guitar, drums and vocals shining through its Fourplay EP, released in February. Plans for a full-length album are set for this summer along with an EP full of Christmas classics for this winter. If you’re a fan of Guttermouth, Pennywise or even the Vandals, One More Last Try is a band modeled after your own punk-rock heart. Supporting performances this night include the Solicitors and the Porter Project. 2030 P Street, www.facebook.com/onemorelasttry.

—Steph Rodriguez

The SFJazz Collective is an eight-piece allstar band from San Francisco. Each member (drums, bass, piano, vibraphone, trombone, trumpet, alto and tenor saxophone) is virtuosic individually, but they’re even better as a group. Each puts his ego JAZZ/R&B aside and the result is a supergroup like no other. Since forming in 2004, they’ve performed from the catalog of a different jazz great every year. Having played compositions by John Coltrane (2005), Thelonious Monk (2007) and McCoy Tyner (2009), they’ve set their sights on a new direction this year: rearranging songs written by R&B and soul singer Stevie Wonder, and performing original material. 9399 Old Davis Road in Davis, www.sfjazz.org.

Despite having critically acclaimed albums, Tyrone Wells’ label dropped him in 2010 at the exact moment he felt like becoming an independent artist again. Listening to his latest release, Where We Meet, it feels like this serendipitous moment helped lift a great weight off his shoulders. It steers away from Daughtry-like rock that appears on earlier albums, POP ROCK especially harmonious pop rockers like “You’re the One.” Infectious choruses, handclaps and sunny guitars on “Freedom” would fit in well on a Rootdown record. If the album’s insightful lyrics are any indication, Wells finally seems comfortable in his own artistic skin. 908 K Street, www.tyronewells.com.

—Jonathan Mendick

—Brian Palmer

CELEBRATING OUR 20TH ANNIVERSARY ALL YEAR LONG!

REST AURANT AURANT •• BA BA R R COMEDY COMEDY CLUB CLUB •• REST

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fri MAr 23

MARCH 22 & 28

conducting froM the grAve

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THURSDAY 3/22

fAllujAh - soMe rAs - pAint over pictures AwAiting the ApocAlypse - beyond All ends nightMAre in the twilight

SAM BAMM’S COMEDY JAM SPECIAL EVENT, NO PASSES

sAt MAr 24th

FRIDAY 3/23 - SUNDAY 3/25

overwAtch

FROM CHELSEA LATELY!

JO KOY

ten dAys new - deer pArk Avenue - insoMniA

sun MAr 25

WEDNESDAY 3/28

MIKE E. WINFIELD PRESENTS

dAMAge over tiMe - chernobog - legion’s requieM

thu Apr 5th

THURSDAY 3/29 - SUNDAY 4/1

divided AllegiAnce

FROM LATINO COMEDY JAM AND VOTED “FUNNIEST LATINA COMEDIAN!”

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fri Apr 6

REGGIE STEELE, BIG AL GONZALES

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sAt Apr 7

CASEY LEY

rhino bucket

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THE CURRY KINGS OF COMEDY

fri Apr 13th

MeMoriAl concert for

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THURSDAY 4/19

ronnie Montrose

WITH NGAIO BEALUM, THE PRE-FUNK PARTY!

fri Apr 27

hosted by frAnk hAnnon

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;0*2,;: (=(03()3, (; ;/, *3<) )6? 6--0*, >0;/ 56 :,9=0*, */(9., BEFORE

FRONTLINES

FEATURE

STORY

ARTS&CULTURE

AFTER

03. 22.12

S N&R

NIGHTBEAT List your event!

Post your free online listing (up to 15 months early), and our editors will consider your submission for the printed calendar as well. Print listings are also free, but subject to space limitations. Online, you can include a full description of your event, a photo, and a link to your website. Go to www.newsreview.com/calendar and start posting events. Deadline for print listings is 10 days prior to the issue in which you wish the listing to appear.

THURSDAY 3/22

FRIDAY 3/23

SATURDAY 3/24

BLUE LAMP

1400 Alhambra, (916) 455-3400

CRASHED OUT, CITY OF VAIN, SETTING SONS, OLD GLORY; 9pm, $8

PSYCHOSOMATIC, CHEAPSKATE, BEERLORDS, SOLANUM; 9pm-midnight, $5

CASH PROPHETS, MATT W GAGE; 9pm, $8

THE BOARDWALK

RED ROVER, VOICES AND ECHOES,

CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE, FALLU- OVERWATCH, TEN DAYS NEW, DEER JAH, SOMA RAS; 6:30pm, call for cover PARK AVENUE, INSOMNIA; 8pm, $10-$12

9426 Greenback Ln., Orangevale; (916) 988-9247 TRENCH, STREET URCHINZ; 8pm

BOWS AND ARROWS

KEVIN FLORENCE, ALAMEDA, THE LOOM; 8-11pm Tu, $5 Lily Tomlin, 7:30pm, $58

314 W. Main St., Grass Valley; (530) 271-7000 594 Main St., Placerville; (530) 642-8481

Open-mic, 7:30pm, no cover

DISTRICT 30

STARTING SIX, DJ Momentum; 9pm, call for cover

Deejay dancing, 9pm, call for cover

1016 K St., (916) 737-5770

FACES

ELEMENT OF SOUL, ISLAND OF BLACK AND WHITE; 7pm, $10

NEARLY BELOVED, 8pm, $8

Hip-hop and Top 40 Deejay dancing, 9pm, $5-$10

FOX & GOOSE

HONYOCK, WALKING SPANISH; 9pmmidnight, $5

TRAINWRECK REVIVAL, THE DIVA KINGS, DAD’S LPS; 9pm-midnight, $5

G STREET WUNDERBAR

YELLOW JACKET MOTEL, RIVERS & CROWNS; 9:30pm-1:15am, no cover

DJ Smilez, 10pm-1:15am, no cover DJ Whores, 10pm, no cover

2000 K St., (916) 448-7798

Deejay dancing and karaoke, 9pm, $3

228 G St., Davis; (530) 756-9227

Dragalicious, 9pm, $5

Open-mic, 7:30pm M; Pub Quiz, 7pm Tu; STEVE MCLANE, 8pm W, no cover

DJ Shaun Slaughter, 10pm, call for cover

DJ Crook One, 10pm, call for cover

HARLOW’S

MYKAL ROSE, 10pm, $20

THE NIBBLERS, SKERIK’S BANDALABRA; JOEL: THE BAND, 7pm, $10 9pm, $10

WESTERN LIGHTS, 7pm, $12

MASSIVE DELICIOUS, 8pm-1am W, $10; THE LUMINEERS, 8pm Tu, $10

JAVALOUNGE

MOTH, ZAC BAUMAN, JARED LAW; 8pm, $5

EGG, E SQUARED, ALLDAYDRIVE, PRAYING FOR A BETTER PORTLAND; 8pm, $6

KELPS, SPIDER GARAGE; 4pm, $5; INSTAGON, ASTRAL CULT; 8pm, $6

MAD JUDY, CITY MOUSE, THE ABERZOMBIES; 8pm, $5

MERCURY FALLS, THE KNOW HASSLE PROJECT, QUIET SMILE; 8pm W, $6

LUNA’S CAFÉ & JUICE BAR

Joe Montoya’s Poetry Unplugged, 8pm, $2

MRQ, ALYSSA COX; 8pm, $6

SEVEN FLAGS, MYLAR & STARR, KATIE KNIPP; 8pm, $6

Nebraska Mondays, 7:30pm M, $5-$20; Comedy night, 8pm W, $6

MARILYN’S ON K

“Rock On” Live Band Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

WATER TOWER, KERI CARR BAND, MANDOLIN AVENUE; 9:30pm, $5

TRACORUM, ACORN PROJECT; 9:30pm, $7

TYRONE WELLS, JOE BROOKS; 8pm W, $12-$15

NAKED LOUNGE DOWNTOWN

JUSTIN FARREN, MELODY WALKER, TIPPY CANOE; 8:30pm, $5

JENN ROGAR, MIKE FARRELL, TODD MORGAN; 8:30pm, $5

TJ MCNULTY, CARA O’SHEA, BAILEY ZINDEL; 8:30pm, $5

Jazz, 8:30pm M; DALLAS HORSE THIEVES, MOONSHINE MULE; 8:30pm W, $5

OLD IRONSIDES

SECRET ARGYLE, JUDAH EFFINGTON’S MARSH, GREY SPACE; 9pm, $5

THE ROCK DOCTORS, SGT. YORK; 9pm, $5

PETS, KIDS ON A CRIME SPREE, SOFT SCIENCE, JEM & SCOUT; 9pm, $5

STRAPPED FOR CASH, NUANCE; 7:30pm M; Karaoke, Tu; Open-mic, 8:30pm W

THE PALMS PLAYHOUSE

BRITTANY HAAS & LAUREN RIOUX, 8pm, $15

RICK ESTRIN & THE NIGHTCATS, 8:30pm, $20

ANTSY MCCLAIN & THE TRAILER PARK TROUBADOURS, 8pm, $25

THE REFUGEES, 7pm, $20

DJ Peeti V, 9pm, call for cover

Asylum Downtown: Gothic, industrial, EBM dancing, 9pm, call for cover

2708 J St., (916) 441-4693 2416 16th St., (916) 441-3945 1414 16th St., (916) 441-3931 908 K St., (916) 446-4361 1111 H St., (916) 443-1927

1901 10th St., (916) 442-3504 13 Main St., Winters; (530) 795-1825

THE PARK ULTRA LOUNGE 1116 15th St., (916) 442-7222

PISTOL PETE’S

140 Harrison Ave., Auburn; (530) 885-5093

Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

friday, March 23

streetlight fire

Brave season - cat & mouse trio - jilt vs. jonah truly terrifying - living with giants ask for emBla - some seek forgiveness

Saturday, March 24

in theory straight up grizzly - ellipsis

Industry Night, 9pm, call for cover

TRAGICALLY WHITE, 9pm, $5

ACe of spAdes

Karaoke, 9pm W, no cover

1417 R Street, Sacramento, 95814 www.aceofspadessac.com

All Ages Welcome! Saturday, March 31 COMING

AlACer

Before you fall - thea skotia - the sun sets here i, the captain - the kennedy veil - from aurora dead By nightfall - the war within - engraved in armor

Sunday, april 1

eligh+AMp liVe ill effect & 2me

Sunday, March 25

friday, april 6

a skylit drive - stick to your guns my children my Bride - make me famous

cumBia tokeson

for todAy thurSday, March 29

the sAw doCtors

oZoMotli

Sunday, april 8

pAper diAMond minnesota

nickel slots

friday, March 30

purifiCAtion by fire internal decapitation - the human contortion plus special guests

Monday, april 9

AwolnAtion plus special guests

tickets available at all dimple records locations, the Beat records, and armadillo records, or purchase by phone @ 916.443.9202

SN&R

Queer Idol, 9pm M, no cover; Latin night, 9pm Tu, $5; DJ Alazzawi, 9pm W, $3

THE GOLDEN BEAR

2326 K St., (916) 441-2252

Want to be a hot show? Mail photos to Calendar Editor, SN&R, 1124 Del Paso Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95815 or email it to sactocalendar@ newsreview.com. Be sure to include date, time, location and cost of upcoming shows.

SOULFLY, DAMAGE OVER TIME, CHERNOBOG, LEGION’S REQUIEM; 7:30pm

CENTER FOR THE ARTS THE COZMIC CAFÉ

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 3/26-3/28 SOUND & SHAPE, 8pm M, call for cover

Mari Dreamwalker CD listening party, 8pm, no cover

1815 19 St., (916) 822-5668

1001 R St., (916) 443-8825

Hey local bands!

SUNDAY 3/25

03.22.12

SOON

4/7 4/13 4/14 4/18 4/19 4/20 4/21 4/22 4/25 4/28 4/29 5/6 5/7 5/8 5/11 5/16 5/21 5/24 5/25 5/27 5/30 6/2 6/8 6/17 6/19 6/28 7/17 9/5

Beta State Iconoclast Robot Kill The Precedent Childish Gambino Buzzcocks Roach Gigz Cali Swag District Eve 6 Tech N9NE All Shall Parish Hyper Crush Curren$y Imagine Dragons Delta Spirit Andre Nickatina The Supervillains Fear Factory The Real McKenzies Destruction First Blood (HED) Pe & Mushroomhead Yo Gotti Dredge My Darkest Days Mayer Hawthorne Who’s Bad (Michael Jackson Tribute) Reverend Horton Heat Powerman 5000

SATURDAY 3/24

SUNDAY 3/25

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 3/26-3/28

PO’ BOYZ BAR & GRILL

THURSDAY 3/22 Jam with Roharpo, 7pm, no cover

GANGSTA GIRL’S PARTY, 9pm, $10

Blues Jam, 2pm, no cover

Open-mic comedy, 9pm M; Jam with Dave Channell, 7pm Tu; Trivia, 7pm W

POWERHOUSE PUB

CHRIS GARDNER BAND, 9:30pm, call for MOTLEY INC., 10pm, $10 cover

ATOMIC PUNKS, 10pm, $10

THE PRESS CLUB

C-MONEY & THE PLAYERS INC, 8pm, $10

Top 40 Night w/ DJ Larry Rodriguez, 9pm, $5

SHENANIGANS

Comedy Night and DJ Selekta Lou, 9pm, $5

9580 Oak Avenue Pkwy., Folsom; (916) 987-2886 614 Sutter St., Folsom; (916) 355-8586 2030 P St., (916) 444-7914 705 J St., (916) 442-1268

FRIDAY 3/23

Top 40 w/ DJ Rue, 9pm, $5

DJ Alazzawi, DJ Rigatony, 10pm Tu, $3; WHISKEY DAWN, 9:30pm W, $12 PORTER PROJECT; 8:30pm M, $3; GUTWRENCH, MDL, 30.06; 8:30pm W, $5

Sunday Night Soul Party, 9pm, $5

MEN IN BLACK, 9:30pm, $10

SOL COLLECTIVE

TRIBE OF LEVI, MR. QBALL, J POINT THE VET; 8pm, $10-$15

2574 21st St., (916) 832-0916

SOPHIA’S THAI KITCHEN 129 E St., Davis; (530) 758-4333

STONEY INN/ROCKIN RODEO 1320 Del Paso Blvd., (916) 927-6023

JACKSON MICHELSON, 10pm, $10

SWABBIES

5871 Garden Hwy, (916) 920-8088

MILAGRES, 1,2,3, UNICYCLE LOVES YOU; 9:30pm, $6

PREE, THE SOUTERRAIN; 9:30pm, $5

Country dancing, 7:30pm, no cover, $5 after 8pm

JACK WAGON, 8-10pm, call for cover

FLIPPIN’ SKINNIES, 7-10pm, $5

TORCH CLUB

X TRIO, 5pm, no cover; HARLEY WHITE JR., AARON KING; 9pm, $5

PAILER AND FRATIS, 5:30-7:30pm, no cover; KEVIN RUSSELL, 9pm, $8

JOHNNY KNOX, 5pm, no cover; SHANE DWIGHT, 9pm, $12

TOWNHOUSE LOUNGE

Live music and deejay dancing, 9pm, no cover

PERSEPHONE’S BEES, 9pm, $5

Pop Freq w/ DJ XGVNR, 9pm, $5

THE CHRIS GARDNER BAND, 9pm, call for cover

PETE STRINGFELLOW, 9pm, call for cover

904 15th St., (916) 443-2797 1517 21st St., (916) 613-7194

THE WRANGLER

8945 Grant Line Rd., Elk Grove; (916) 714-9911

Microphone Mondays, 6pm M, $1-$2

Country dance party, 8pm, no cover

Comedy open-mic, 8pm M; Barbecue, blues jam, karaoke, Tu, call for cover

Blues jam, 5pm, no cover; BIG EARL AND THE CRYIN’ SHAME, 8pm, $5

ISLAND OF BLACK & WHITE, 9pm Tu, $4; Open-mic, 5:30pm W; CON BRIO, 9pm W

Element of Soul with Island of Black and White 7pm Saturday, $10. Cozmic Café Acoustic rock and reggae

Open-mic, 9pm M, no cover

All ages, all the time ACE OF SPADES

STREETLIGHT FIRE, CAT AND MOUSE, LIVING WITH GIANTS; 6:30pm, $10

1417 R St., (916) 448-3300

CLUB RETRO

1529 Eureka Rd., Roseville; (916) 988-6606

JON ROBERTSON, 7pm, no cover

8711 Sierra College Blvd., Roseville; (916) 771-5726

LUIGI’S SLICE AND FUN GARDEN

DOG PARTY, BLAMMOS, BABS JOHNSON GANG; 8-11:30pm, $6

THE REFUGE

BLAZEE, BOODA BABYY, BLCK STAR, LEGION5; 7-10:30pm, $7

1050 20th St., (916) 552-0317 1723 L St., (916) 764-5598

Readings by Sue Staats, Paul Mann and Elena Mauli Shapiro, 7pm, no cover

1400 E St., (916) 551-1400

ZUHG LIFE STORE

545 Downtown Plaza, Ste. 2090, (916) 822-5185

ThUrSdayS

rocK on live aoKe d Kar ban-roll // KaraoKe // rocK-n 9:30pm // no cover

frI 3/23

Ken burnett er tower wat 9:30pm // $7 SaT 3/24

tracorum

rn project aco 9:30pm // $7 TUES 3/27

c open mic acouSti ShowcaSe // 6pm

SHANNON CURTIS, 8:30-11:30pm, $7

PLAYBOY SCHOOL, SURVIVAL GUIDE, MR. GNOME; 7:30-10:30pm W, $7

BELLYGUNNER, CARLY DUHAIN, JACKSONVEGAS, NAT LEFKOF; 7pm, $5

JAKE KLINE, MATT MCCLEAN; 8pm, $5

Open jazz jam w/ Jason Galbraith, 8pm Tu; Poetry With Legs, 7pm W

BRIEFCASES, SOUTERRAIN, BELL BOYS, RANDOM ABILADEZE; 4pm, no cover

99, 100, MR. ROGERS, STONEBERRY, THE RELEASE; 1pm, no cover

THURSDAY NIGHTS

ccaptainS & cOrOnaS

OpeN BAND JAm featuring

mike’s Lost and Found tyrone wellS H H H H H H H joe brooKS

wEd 3/28

9pm - Close

rocK // pop // Soul // 8pm // $15

Bring you instrument or just come and watch the talent

ticKetS now on Sale For these upcoming shows at www.marilynsonk.com

UPCOMING EVENTS:

3/30 mr. p chill & the trunk oF Funk 3/31 ricky & del

FRI MAR 23 9PM $10 ADV $12 DOOR

THE

NIBBLERS

FRONTLINES

TUE MAR 27 8PM $10

SACCA ROCKS!

LOCAL MUSIC SHOWCASE KICKOFF FEATURING

MASSIVE DELICIOUS, THA DIRT FEELIN, THE ADAM ROTH PROJECT

THUR MAR 29 10PM $30 ADV

GOAPELE

W/ GUESTS SKERIK’S BANDALABRA

SAT MAR 24 7PM $10

JOEL THE BAND “BILLY JOEL TRIBUTE!” SAT MAR 24 10PM

FRI MAR 30 7PM $15

TOM RIGNEY & FLAMBEAU

SAT MAR 31 6PM $8 ADV

LEFT AND LOOSE IN THE LOT

MELISSA CORONA

SUN MAR 25 7PM $12

THUR APR 5 $18 ADV $20 DOOR

“FROM THE MIDNIGHT PLAYERS” SAT MAR 31 10PM $12

HIP SERVICE

FAMILY + TERA MELOS WESTERN LIGHTS fIREHOSE VICTIMS

916 2ND St.•Old SacramentO

908 K Street // 916.446.4361

Open-mic, 6-8pm Tu, no cover

THE LUMINEERS MYKAL ROSE WED MAR 28 7PM

“DVD RELEASE”

www.therivercitySaloon.com

++Free parking aFter 6pm with validation @ 10th & l garage+ BEFORE

ORANGE MORNING, 2pm, no cover

THU MAR 22 10PM $20 ADV REGGAE SUPERSTAR

9pm - Midnight

talent

$3 TallbOy Pbr

FOR TODAY, A SKYLIT DRIVE, STICK TO YOUR GUNS; 5:30pm, $16

JOSIAH JAMES, SHIPWRECK PEDRO, QUIET SCIENCE, BRANDON NEAL; 7pm,

JERICHO COFFEE

THE SHINE CAFÉ

IN THEORY, STRAIGHT UP GRIZZLY, ELIPSIS, TRULY TERRIFYING; 6:30pm, $10

Pets with Kids on a Crime Spree, Soft Science and Jem & Scout 9pm Saturday, $5. Old Ironsides Rock

COMING SOON Apr 6 Apr 6 Apr 7 Apr 8 Apr 12 Apr 14 Apr 15 Apr 16 Apr 17 Apr 19 Apr 19 Apr 20 Apr 20 Apr 21 Apr 25 Apr 26 Apr 27 Apr 28 Apr 29 Apr 30 May 2 May 2 May 3-5

Jeanette Harris Reminisce Mazzy Star Over the Rhine Brokedown in Bakersfield Thomas Dolby Todd Snider Givers Yonder Mountain String Band Grouplove Sizzling Sirens Billy Blackburn Arden Park Roots Midnight Players Midnite Skatalites Tainted Love Aggrolites Anthony Coleman’s Big Band Girl in a Coma Diego’s Umbrella March Fourth Marching Band Sacramento Electronic Music Festival May 23 Clap Your Hands Yeah May 26 B-Side Players May 31 Young Dubliners June 1 Cash’d Out June 19 Asleep at the Wheel Aug 8 Ottmar Liebert

DRESS CODE ENFORCED (JEANS ARE OK) • CALL TO RESERVE DINNER & CLUB TABLES

2708 J Street • Sacramento • 916.441.4693 • www.harlows.com |

BEST

SACRAMENTO

A RT S & C U LT U R E

AFTER

03.22.12

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This year, The California legislaTure paCked a full bowl of marijuana bills

David Downs

impose a state tax, and instead authorizes The oft-maligned gridlock in the local taxes. Imposing a state tax requires a California Legislature may cut both ways two-thirds majority in both houses, which for medical-marijuana patients this year. would be nearly impossible to obtain. Currently five bills under the rotunda Assembly Bill 2365 would require all deal with medical marijuana or adults medical-marijuana patients to get a state using the plant for nonmedical purposes. identification card and register the address Some bills have been praised as positive where they are cultivating marijuana— steps to protect patient rights and civil provisions that activists fear could make liberties. But some argue that proposed new laws might create a creepy state data- it easier for federal agents and prosecutors to target people. base of pot patients, or would jeopardize And Assembly Bill 2365 would amend child-custody battles for cannabis users. state code to require that family courts All the bills face long odds of ever consider a parent’s documented use of becoming law. The big one is San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s prescribed drugs, including medical marijuana, in child-custody proceedings. Assembly Bill 2312, which would reguIn addition, Sen. Mark Leno has late medical marijuana at the state level introduced a bill, Senate Bill 1506, that instead of letting each California city would make the crime of possessing and county take differing approaches to concentrated cannabis—also known as interpreting the law. hashish—a misdemeanor. Currently, hash Ammiano has argued that uniformity possession can either be prosecuted as a and certainty are both needed when it misdemeanor or a felony, and a felony comes to the attorney general’s medicalhash-possession conviction can result in cannabis guidelines. And also that a sentence of 16 months or two or three regulations would prevent the “unlawful years behind bars. growing and diversion of mariPossessing 1 ounce juana to nonmedical use.” or less of cannabis California voters in California is in 1996 approved an infraction medical defenses Assembly Bill 2365 punishable by against prosecua $100 ticket, tion for some would require that family but the state marijuana courts consider a parent’s automatically crimes. In documented use of revokes driver’s 2003, the licenses as well. Legislature prescribed drugs, including Assembly Bill enacted medical marijuana, 2600 would the Medical in child custody prohibit the Marijuana Department of Program, which proceedings. Motor Vehicles from extended medicalrevoking a person’s cannabis defenses to driving privileges for qualified patients who simple possession of 1 ounce or associate in order to grow less when a motor vehicle is involved. and distribute the plant. Since then, All the bills are now headed to about 60 California cities and counties committee, where a key thing to watch have created medical-marijuana-access will be the support or opposition of the ordinances. California District Attorneys Association, However, many other cities and the California Narcotic Officers’ counties—many of whom did not support Association, and the California Police Proposition 215—have banned medicalChiefs Association. The CDAA, which pot growers and distributors. has opposed previous attempts to lessen A.B. 2312 would also create a Board of Medical Marijuana Enforcement within penalties for marijuana crimes, is particularly influential. the California Department of Consumer “It’s very difficult to succeed in authorAffairs. The board would approve or ing a bill of any sort [that is] criminaldeny permits for growing, processing, justice related with the opposition of the testing, transporting, distributing and selling medical cannabis. The board could California District Attorneys Association,” Leno said. “Many legislators are very also suspend, fine, restrict or revoke sensitive to positions they take.” registrations upon a violation of the act As for the CNDA, it has issued a white and develop zoning standards for unincorpaper stating “Marijuana is not medicine,” porated and otherwise nonzoned areas. while the CPCA encourage the prohibiThe bill is very similar to a failed tion of all California dispensaries. ballot initiative called the Medical Marijuana Regulation Control and Taxation Initiative, except that it does not

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by ROB BREZSNY

FOR THE WEEK OF MARCH 22, 2012

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Not bad for a

few weeks’ work, or play, or whatever it is you want to call this tormented, inspired outburst. Would it be too forward of me to suggest that you’ve gone a long way toward outgrowing the dark fairy tale that had been haunting your dreams for so long? And yet, all this may just be a warmup for your next metamorphosis, in which you make an audacious new commitment to becoming what you really want to be when you grow up.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): This week

I’m taking a break from my usual pep talks. I think it’s for the best. If I deliver a kind-hearted kick in the butt, maybe it will encourage you to make a few course corrections, thereby making it unnecessary for fate to get all tricky and funky on you. So here you go, Taurus: 1. The last thing you need is someone to support your flaws and encourage you in your delusions. True friends will offer snappy critiques and crisp advice. 2. Figure out once and for all why you keep doing a certain deed that’s beneath you, then gather the strength and get the help you need to quit it. 3. It’s your duty to stop doing your duty with such a somber demeanor and heavy tread. To keep from sabotaging the good it can accomplish, you’ve got to put more pleasure into it.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The German

word Weltratsel can be translated as “World Riddle.” Coined by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, it refers to questions like “What is the meaning of existence?” and “What is the nature of reality?” According to my reading of the astrological omens, Gemini, you’re now primed to deepen your understanding of the World Riddle. For the next few weeks, you will have an enhanced ability to pry loose useful secrets about some big mysteries. Certain passages in the Book of Life that have always seemed like gobbledygook to you will suddenly make sense. Here’s a bonus: Every time you decipher more of the World Riddle, you will solve another small piece of your Personal Riddle.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “The rea-

sonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” So wrote George Bernard Shaw in his book Man and Superman. From the hints I have gleaned, Cancerian, you are now in an ideal phase to be the sort of unreasonable man or woman who gets life to adapt so as to better serve you and your dreams. Even if it’s true that the emphasis in the past has often been on you bending and shaping yourself to adjust to the circumstances others have wrought, the coming weeks could be different.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In his book Word

Hero, Jay Heinrichs offers us advice about how to deliver pithy messages that really make an impact. Here’s one tip that would be especially useful for you in the coming days: Exaggerate precisely. Heinrichs gives an example from the work of the illustrious raconteur, American author Mark Twain. Twain did not write, “In a single day, New England’s weather changes a billion times.” Rather, he said, “In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.” Be inspired by Twain’s approach in every way you can imagine, Leo. Make things bigger and wilder and more expansive everywhere you go, but do it with exactitude and rigor.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Liminality” is a

term that refers to the betwixt and between state. It’s dawn or dusk, when neither night nor day fully rules. It’s the mood that prevails when a transition is imminent or a threshold beckons. During a rite of passage, liminality is the phase when the initiate has left his or her old way of doing things but has not yet been fully accepted or integrated into the new way. Mystical traditions from all over the world recognize this as a shaky but potent situation—a time and place when uncertainty and ambiguity reign even as exciting possibilities loom. In my estimate, Virgo, you’re now ensconced in liminality.

BEFORE

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The Argentinian

writer Antonio Porchia said there were two kinds of shadows: “some hide, others reveal.” In recent weeks, you’ve been in constant contact with the shadows that hide. But beginning any moment now, you’ll be wandering away from those rather frustrating enigmas and entering into a dynamic relationship with more evocative mysteries: the shadows that reveal. Be alert for the shift so you won’t get caught assuming that the new shadows are just like the old ones.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Every

winter, hordes of ants have overrun my house. At least that was true up until recently. This winter, the pests stayed away, and that has been very good news. I didn’t have to fight them off with poison and handto-hand combat. The bad news? The reason they didn’t invade was because very little rain fell, as it’s supposed to during Northern California winters. The ants weren’t driven above ground by the torrents that usually soak the soil. And so now drought threatens our part of the world. Water shortages may loom. I propose that this scenario is a metaphor for a dilemma you may soon face, Scorpio—except that you will have a choice in the matter: Would you rather deal with a lack of a fundamental resource or else an influence that’s bothersome but ultimately pretty harmless?

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

You’re entering one of the most buoyant phases of your astrological cycle. Your mandate is to be brash and bouncy, frothy and irrepressible. To prepare you, I’ve rounded up some exclamatory declarations by poet Michael McClure. Take them with you as you embark on your catalytic adventures. They’ll help you cultivate the right mood. McClure: “Everything is natural. The light on your fingertips is starlight. Life begins with coiling—molecules and nebulae. Cruelty, selfishness, and vanity are boring. Each self is many selves. Reason is beauty. Light and darkness are arbitrary divisions. Cleanliness is as undefinable and as natural as filth. The physiological body is pure spirit. Monotony is madness. The frontier is both outside and inside. The universe is the messiah. The senses are gods and goddesses. Where the body is—there are all things.”

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You

know those tall, starched white hats that many chefs wear? Traditionally they had 100 pleats, which denoted the number of ways a real professional could cook an egg. I urge you to wear one of those hats in the coming weeks, Capricorn—or whatever the equivalent symbol might be for your specialty. It’s high time for you to express your ingenuity in dealing with what’s simple and familiar ... to be inventive and versatile as you show how much you can accomplish using just the basics.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): As I was

driving my car in San Francisco late one night, I arrived at a traffic signal that confused me. The green light was radiant and steady, but then so was the red light. I came to a complete stop and waited until finally, after about two minutes, the red faded. I suspect you may soon be facing a similar jumble of mixed signals, Aquarius. If that happens, I suggest you do what I did. Don’t keep moving forward; pause and sit still until the message gets crisp and clear.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A woman

named Joan Ginther has won the Texas Lottery four times, collecting more than $20 million. Is she freakishly lucky? Maybe not, according to Nathaniel Rich’s article in the August 2011 issue of Harper’s. He notes that Ginther has a Ph.D. in math from Stanford University, and wonders if she has used her substantial understanding of statistics to game the system. (More here: http://tinyurl.com/LuckAmuck.) Be inspired by her example, Pisces. You now have exceptional power to increase your good fortune through hard work and practical ingenuity.

You can call Rob Brezsny for your Expanded Weekly Horoscope: (900) 950-7700. $1.99 per minute. Must be 18+. Touchtone phone required. Customer service (612) 373-9785. And don’t forget to check out Rob’s website at www.realastrology.com.

FRONTLINES

FEATURE

15 MINUTES

by VIVIENNE

FINCH PHOTO BY MICHAEL DESMOND

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Cultivate healthy habits Anyone can prevent or reverse chronic disease with nine simple diet, exercise and mind-body practices. That’s the premise of Kirk Hamilton’s selfpublished book, Staying Healthy in the

Fast Lane: 9 Simple Steps to Optimal Health. A certified physician’s assistant specializing in nutrition, prevention and integrative medicine, Hamilton drew on 28 years of professional experience to create the plan in his book.

What made you decide to turn your ideas about health into a book? When you’re in medicine, you talk to patients every day. You say the same things over and over and over again. If you practice some basic lifestyle practices, most people would be in better health. ... The basic idea of the book was to put down what [doctors] say in a concise way so people can help themselves avoid doctors. Like the World Health Organization says, if we just had the correct diet, exercise and didn’t smoke, we could prevent 80 percent of heart disease, 80 percent of Type 2 diabetes, 80 percent of stroke, and 40 percent of cancer. … That’s why I decided to write the book.

If someone was too lazy to implement all nine steps detailed in your book, which two or three would you suggest as absolutely essential? The first would be to eat [from] the outside [aisles] of a grocery store—no processed foods. When you walk inside a grocery store, eat on the periphery of the grocery store: fruits and vegetables, lean animal protein. I’d skip dairy products. Eat unprocessed whole grains if you can find them. Skip the junk in the middle of the store. … No. 2 is you’ve got to move your body every day. Walking, biking, hiking. Try and move about a half hour a day. My mindbody one would be to just sit quietly for 15 to 30 minutes every day. [It] doesn’t have to be a perfect meditative practice … because a little meditation will occur. Those are the three.

What sort of incentives actually work to keep people active and healthy? It’s not about the knowledge. It’s about how you incentivize people. I think it should be a national debate, because we have the reverse. Our incentives are to let these [diseases] happen. Either your insurance covers it, or the doctor gets paid for it. … If you get someone feeling well through this lifestyle, then it hooks them. It’s the reward. The reward is to be around for children and grandchildren. … I think the health-care debate should be that staying well is the real health-care reform. We should do everything we can to incentivize that.

STORY

A RT S & C U LT U R E

Do you think the American lifestyle is the unhealthiest of all developed countries? Yes and no. I think we waste money. We’re supposedly 37th, or something like that, on how they judge health care. I know more than 75 percent of our gross national product goes to health care. Japan’s down to 8 percent or so. They’re much healthier than we are. We’re obviously doing something wrong. In a free capitalistic society, you can sell anything, whether a lot of it kills you or not. We reimburse for disease. We let them happen.

Which developed country do you think lives the healthiest? Japan is pretty much there, though as they let the Western lifestyle in, they’re getting [less healthy]. In Okinawa, they have the highest concentration of centenarians in the world. The benefit of their lifestyle is pretty clear: lots of physical labor, good social structure, high plant-based diet, unprocessed foods and fish. Also in Okinawa, they have the highest rates of diabetes and obesity in the younger generations. They have the most per capita fast-food restaurants in Asia. … You see these elders of 112 or so years of age, and [they are] lonely. All of [their] grandchildren and children died. They’re getting our diseases because they’re not living the elders’

AFTER

lifestyle. They’re choosing to live the extreme Western lifestyle.

How do you teach young children to love healthy food and exercise and to stay away from unhealthy foods that are being advertised to them? No. 1: The parents have to live the lifestyle. You have to offer it to the child, and you have to live it. You control what’s in the cupboard, in the refrigerator. But you have to believe in it yourself. I realize it’s hard if you’re a single mother and you have three children and you’re working, but you’ll have to believe in yourself and have it in the house. Kids watch what you do.

What’s one common food you recommend people immediately cut back on? Dairy products—100 percent. I’ve seen more pain and suffering, just symptom-wise. Migraine headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, joint pain—you name a symptom, I’ve seen it. If I had to make one rule, I think everybody should be off it. Ω To learn more about Kirk Hamilton, visit www.prescription2000.com.

03.22.12

SN&R