S 2014 05 08

Sacramento’S

flashiest candidate see news, page 9

test s u o i t n e nt W il l a c o uters p m o c W y ne a nd shin hool s c s o t n e ram hel p s ac ide? v i d l a t i g e di bridge t h

E 16 G A P R E K T I B

BY JANELLE

tig notaro’S

big ‘C’ see arts&culture, page 22

Creature disComforts see Second Saturday, page 25

Sacramento’S newS & entertainment weekly

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Volume 26, iSSue 03

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thurSday, may 8, 2014

Enjoy Responsibly

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May 8, 2014 | vol. 26, issue 03

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Banned in Roseville Last week, Roseville became the first city to ban SN&R at its libraries.

Here’s what happened: We deliver thousands of papers each week to libraries in the region. We’ve done this for 25 years. They’re important hubs for free information.

Our driver arrived in Roseville, same as every week, but a librarian stopped him: He could no longer distribute papers.

There was no courtesy call about this new policy, which now says that only information approved by the city will be allowed.

A librarian emailed our our distribution manager, Greg Erwin, to explain that there wasn’t enough space for every poster, brochure and newspaper. Erwin snapped a picture of a lobby kiosk. Looked like there was plenty of space on those shelves.

Eventually, Roseville spokesperson Brian Jacobson explained that library staff was spending too much time managing all the posters and pamphlets that the public drops off.

Isn’t that a librarian’s job? To organize information?

Apparently not in Roseville, where free publications such as SN&R, the Woodcreek News, Learning Exchange, UC Davis Extension and others are now banned. I guess Roseville doesn’t want its residents taking higher-ed classes at UCD, or learning how to cook via Exchange courses?

Oh, Roseville: I can sympathize with being overwhelmed. This is a newspaper; we get thousands of emails, letters and press releases each week. It’s a hard job.

Perhaps you might sympathize with our Roseville-based readers, who pick up hundreds of copies of SN&R at your libraries each month? Or at least they used to.

I view this as a First Amendment issue. Libraries should be public strongholds for free access to information, not bastions of censorship and red tape.

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Creative Director Priscilla Garcia Art Director Hayley Doshay Junior Art Director Brian Breneman Designers Serene Lusano, Kyle Shine, Skyler Smith Contributing Photographers Lisa Baetz, Steven Chea, Wes Davis, Ryan Donahue, Taras Garcia, Lovelle Harris, Shoka

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.

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Co-editors Rachel Leibrock, Nick Miller Staff Writers Janelle Bitker, Raheem F. Hosseini Copy Editor Shoka Shafiee Entertainment Editor Jonathan Mendick Editorial Coordinator Becca Costello Contributing Editor Cosmo Garvin Editor-at-large Melinda Welsh Contributors Ngaio Bealum, Daniel Barnes, Rob Brezsny, Cody Drabble, Joey Garcia, Blake Gillespie, Becky Grunewald, Mark Halverson, Jeff Hudson, Jim Lane, Garrett McCord, Kel Munger,

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“Sometimes I take my laptop to the beach.”

Asked at the SactoMoFo 7 food-truck festival downtown:

How do you avoid your boss at work?

Jeanette Trompczynski

Ralph Chavez

Neena Orick

marketing director

administration

I work from home, so it’s very easy to avoid my work. I don’t let it build up, though. I’m fairly diligent, but I do allow myself long, extended breaks, longer than you might get at a normal job. I just extend an eight-hour workday over 12 hours. Sometimes I take my laptop to the beach.

truck driver

I open lots of windows on my computer screen. It looks busy. And then I sit there with my phone in front of me, or have something on a window in the corner.

Nobody bothers me. Our office is very small, pretty low-key. People aren’t really walking around. Thankfully, my boss is very mellow.

I’m in the truck. I’m lucky, I can try to fly under the radar. There’s certain things you can do. If you just do your job, everything works out fine. Don’t make waves or anything that draws attention. You need to be friends with your boss, then things go a little easier.

COMfORT,

Heather Del Carlo

Marcos Najera

limo driver

Andy Vallejo

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I don’t answer the phone.

Just don’t answer it. If I answer the phone, it means I have a run to do.

Sometimes I screen my calls. There’s a limit on how long I feel guilty. He calls a lot all-day long, and sometimes I’m just busy doing my job, so I don’t need to answer right away.

My boss’s office is in Martinez, so it’s very easy to avoid him. I can’t get away with anything because my office is a fishbowl. I do like to “network,” though. I walk around the office. Always carry a piece of paper, folded, with a pen, too.

That looks good.

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There’s never a time where I don’t have something to do. If I don’t do [my work], the boss will know. I’m also new, so I can’t get away with 45-minute coffee breaks.

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Re “Republic fever� (SN&R Scorekeeper, May 1): The Sacramento Kings aren’t the only game in town anymore. When a semipro soccer team can outdraw a barely pro basketball team, you have to wonder how well the Kings will compete with the Republic. Sure, some of the Republic’s fans are not Kings fans, or can’t afford Kings ticket and arena concessions prices. But we should be especially concerned letter of about how much money the Republic will draw away the week from the Kings, the [entertainment and sports center] and downtown parking revenues. I expect attendance at Republic games to continue to bury the Kings attendance, because Republic ticket prices are more reasonable and the whole Republic experience is more Sacramento than the spoiled millionaire Kings players; billionaire franchise owners; and the high-tech, overhyped ESC will ever be.

Jan Bergeron

S a c ra m e nt o

Re “New lows� by Cosmo Garvin (SN&R Bites, May 1): This article is nearsighted and contains incomplete data. Nowhere does it mention the loan that was paid back in full, facilitated by the arena deal and sale of the team. It doesn’t mention anything about the influx of parking revenue that the arena will provide. The city wasn’t making money off Natomas arena parking. Guess who will get the vast majority now? The city. Also, no mention of the sales and transient occupancy tax that will be generated from the arena, attracting big events and entertainment.

The point of using public funds is an investment in the city. The city is a business and, guess what, sometimes a business needs to take on more debt for a few years to be better off in the long run.

Anyone saying this arena is bad for Sacramento needs their head examined.

Timothy E. Peterson Sacramento

David Stern’s leftovers Re “A game changer� by Rachel Leibrock (SN&R Editor’s Note, May 1): I agree with Rachel Leibrock that the NBA rightfully suspended Donald Sterling for life. But the question is, why didn’t David Stern take care of this sooner, instead of handing it off to Adam Silver?

Mark Rodriguez Sacramento

Focus bike improvements on nongrid areas

Email your letters to sactoletters@ newsreview.com.

Re “Biketopia?� by Alastair Bland (SN&R Feature Story, April 17): I was happy to find your recent article on biking in Sacramento.

As a longtime bike/walk/publictransport user, this is important to me. While I’m not part of the “stop your whining� crowd, I will say I really love biking in Midtown. What you have in the grid is options. If one street doesn’t work, the next probably will. In the burbs, we have few options—or sometimes none at all.

I was disappointed that the article focused on “the grid.� I currently live in Tahoe Park and commute to Folsom Boulevard every day, and that feels more dangerous than anything I encountered while living on the grid.

Sixty-fifth Street is a joke, and 59th Street is pretty dangerous.

Folsom as well is crowded and full of impatient drivers making quick right turns. This and other areas are where improvement should be focused, not the grid. The grid is stable, and really quite nice, once you get used to it. Thank you for your time.

David Potts Sacramento

@SacNewsReview

Facebook.com/ SacNewsReview

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Obama and city council

The other guy Why won’t anyone take Jrmar Jefferson’s run for Sacramento County supervisor seriously?

It’s a steamy afternoon at a south Sacramento Panda Express, subbing in as campaign headquarters for an unlikely political by Raheem aspirant.

F. Hosseini Styrofoam boxes slopped with noodles have been shoved aside to make room for a ra h e emh@ laptop, an oversized calculator and bundles newsr evie w.c om of mocked-up campaign materials that Jrmar Jefferson can’t afford to produce.

The new father recently spent his own limited funds printing up 1,000 fliers and posters, then crisscrossed the county’s second district—bordered on the west by the Sacramento River and encompassing Pocket, Greenhaven, Valley Hi and Vineyard neighborhoods—to get his glossy face out there.

Maybe you’ve seen the glamour-shot images of Jefferson, dressed in a fitted blazer and staring out assuredly—some say cockily—beside a message that bears his name and asks for your vote.

That old saying about politics being show business for ugly people? Jefferson lasers a rebuttal: “Well that’s changing right there,” he says, then laughs. “That’s why a few people say I’m flashy.”

Those who have heard of him, anyway.

A last-minute addition to next month’s Sacramento County Board of Supervisors race, Jefferson is used to coming up short when the votes are tallied. The unemployed entertainer’s previous claim to fame is as a one-and-done contestant on reality shows varying from American Idol to America’s Got Talent. Local political soothsayers don’t think much of his chances against school board president Patrick Kennedy, who’s eyeing a stress-free ascension to Supervisor Jimmie Yee’s vacated seat.

Kennedy boasts name recognition, wads of donor cash and endorsements.

Jefferson hasn’t even raised enough money for the county to require financial disclosures.

So why is the 33-year-old political neophyte so confident? “The power is nothing but fog,” Jefferson insists.

Jefferson took a circuitous path to running for county supervisor. Initially, he pulled papers for Sacramento City Council’s District 7 race, and urged his fiancée to run.

When she decided not to, Jefferson considered jumping into that race himself, but didn’t want to dilute the vote from two strong black candidates. “If you know BEFORE

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One-time reality TV contestant Jrmar Jefferson poses beside his campaign poster inside a south Sacramento restaurant.

Despite being heavily outspent, Jefferson believes he can win next month’s election to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors’ second district.

numbers, you don’t run in a race where everybody’s on your same team, if you know what I mean,” he says.

Jefferson flirted with running for a Sacramento Municipal Utility District seat, then someone told him about the board of supervisors, with its broad land-use authority in the unincorporated county and budgetary control over the sheriff’s department, district attorney’s office, probation department and various health and human services agencies, among others.

“I said, ‘Oh my goodness, I never knew about this.’ I thought the mayor was it. The mayor’s not,” he says.

It’d be easy to discount Jefferson for remarks like this. He may be unpolished and new to Sacramento’s political hierarchy, but he’s also quick-witted and a fast study. And he rejects the notion that being a county supervisor is only for the elite. “This ain’t nuclear fusion,” he says. “It’s addition and subtraction.”

And Jefferson knows from arithmetic, pulling numbers out of his head about how many registered voters live in the district, how many voted in the last supervisor race and how many votes he believes he needs to win: 30,000.

Voter awareness typically cools for county races, and in an off year, anything can happen. Kennedy said he’s treating this like any other campaign, even with his opponent’s light resume.“Running for county supervisor with such little experience in [public service] is a little unusual, to say the least,” he said.“But that’s democracy.”

Though Jefferson says Kennedy’s role in closing seven Sacramento city schools last year contributed to his getting into

STORY

the race, it wasn’t the overriding factor.

“What sealed the deal for me was numbers,” he says.

One of 10 children raised by a single mother in Texas, Jefferson only knew his father as a man behind iron bars.

Jefferson’s dad is Delma Banks Jr., who was accused of putting three bullets into a white 16-year-old near Texarkana before stealing the youth’s car. An all-white jury convicted Banks in the 1980 killing based on the accounts of two lead witnesses who later recanted their testimonies, following revelations that they were paid and coached by law enforcement. The U.S. Supreme Court determined there was enough prosecutorial misconduct at work to overturn Banks’ death sentence in 2004, but the Bowie County district attorney’s office decided to retry the case and again seek death. Over his family’s objections, Banks accepted an offered life sentence during the 2012 retrial.

That kind of gripping backstory has made Jefferson great fodder for the reality TV circuit. But it’s also informed his view of the criminal-justice system. “My father, he’s a moneymaking machine for somebody,” he says.

Jefferson is definitely the only local political candidate suggesting a 50 percent reduction in law-enforcement budgets. He wants to take money out of the jails and invest it in public education and vocational programs, though he acknowledges the board doesn’t have discretion over school funding.

“We need to attack poverty,” he says. “That’s the brick that’s crushing everything.”

Jefferson has talked to a representative of Todd Leras’ district attorney campaign

| A R T S & C U L T U R E

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and plans on reaching out to the other two candidates. But his access to the powers that be has been limited. All of his endorsements have come from regular people, which he’s mostly happy about.

During the course of a 90-minute interview, the animated candidate chats up a 50ish black man just off work, a 40ish Latina woman waiting in line and a 60ish Asian woman sitting down to an early dinner. This is the diverse community Jefferson says his opponent ignores and part of the first-timer’s overall strategy.

“I’m doing something that nobody’s expecting,” Jefferson says. “Kennedy’s not coming past the 5, you understand? He’s not coming past the 5. I am. I’m putting those [signs] up.”

Later today, he’ll loop his “campaign mobile” down Pocket Road to Franklin Boulevard and then up to Fruitridge Road to make sure his signs are still up. (He suspects Kennedy supporters of mucking with them.)

Over the next 10 days, the one-man campaign plans to hit up all of Kennedy’s donors. “I’m fitting to go ask the same people, ‘You need to give me some of that money, too!” he laughs.

He’s given himself a May 20 fundraising goal of $50,000. Until he gets there, he’s keeping a low overhead and employing a guerilla-style approach.

“People are beginning to believe,” Jefferson says. “I got a strategy, which is simple: My last two weeks of the election is when my campaign really begins. Two weeks. That’s it. Everything is just a setup.

Ain’t no different than the Super Bowl.”

There are those numbers again. Ω

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A secret swap?

Proponents of Midtown-based Native American cultural center say school district tried to fast-track a backdoor deal to sell public land An empty lot and a long-vacant schoolhouse are the most contentious pieces of real estate in Midtown this week. by Nick Miller The Sacramento City Unified School District owns the property at N and 16th ni c k a m @ streets. On Thursday, May 8, the school board ne w s re v i e w . c o m was scheduled to meet and discuss the sale and transfer of the 1.2 acre property to The Hodgson Company.

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This old schoolhouse is popular lately.

Two developers want to build housing and hotels. Another group wants to build a Native American cultural center. The latter group accused the school board of fast-tracking a secret deal.

Developer John Hodgson hopes to build a $40 million mixed-use project on the site.

Befitting the recent trend of urban infill on 16th Street, it would be called The Jefferson Midtown—named after the old elementary school on the site—and would include housing and retail.

The problem with the May 8 meeting, however, was that it was scheduled to be closed to the public.

That was an issue for the Sacramento Native American Health Center, which also wants to purchase the property at 1619 N Street to build a cultural center.

The group argued that the private meeting was part of a school-board plan to fast-track the Jefferson proposal without public transparency. SNAHC’s Britta Guerrero told SN&R that, until recently, the board was unwilling to hear their proposal and instead appeared to be moving forward with the Jefferson project behind the scenes.

“We just would like our proposal to get equal consideration,” she says she told the district in early April. Guerrero was worried because a similar effort to repurpose the Fremont School for Adults in Midtown into a performance-arts facility was finalized by the district without a public request for proposals.

In a memo to the school district on April 23, an attorney representing SNAHC urged the board to slow down and consider

both plans in a public meeting. “The District has a duty, as do all public agencies, to be good stewards of the public’s capital assets and to promote public transparency.”

SNAHC thinks they have the stronger project. In partnership with Domus Development, the group hopes to redevelop the block as a Native American cultural headquarters, complete with health-care amenities, affordable housing, an events venue and education classrooms. They have the support of Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Congresswoman Doris Matsui, among others.

Currently located on J Street in Midtown, SNAHC wants to buy the former school-board headquarters from the district and says they’re willing to pay fair market value.

After SNAHC’s lawyers accused the school district of streamlining the competing Jefferson bid behind the scenes, the May 8 meeting was canceled and later moved to next Thursday, May 15, when the board will debate all potential options for the property.

But the drama has not subsided.

The district may prefer the Hodgson Company’s plan, if only because Hodgson is in negotiations to purchase a different piece of land near an existing school-district facility. It’s been reported that the school district would like to obtain this land in a swap for the N Street parcel in order to expand.

A Domus spokeswoman told a reporter with the Sacramento Business Journal last week that the Jefferson plan amounted to an illegal gift of public funds, since the properties being swapped are not of equal value.

Hodgson responded in The Sacramento Bee, stating that his company would add to the deal to even out the land swap.

Meanwhile, a third group—led by developer Bay Miry, who’s also building the 16 Powerhouse mixed-use project just south of N Street at P and 16th streets—submitted a pitch to the district last week. Miry’s group wants to lease the land to build a hotel and housing.

Guerrero says she just wants a fair process.

“I don’t want to cause a bunch of drama. We would like the opportunity to gain public support,” she said.

After this week’s meeting was canceled, the district’s interim superintendent, Sara Noguchi, said the board’s goal will be to discuss all options and get the most value for the taxpayers and the students.

“The Board has not yet made any final determination with regards to this issue, nor is there yet a timetable for such a decision,” she told SN&R in a written statement. Ω

Home despot

BEATS

UC Davis’ war against affordable housing leaves families priced out It’s quiet at Orchard Park. Which is strange, because the graduate-student housing community at UC Davis usually by Janelle Bitker is full of strollers, hot-pink bicycles and soccer balls. But the university j a n elleb@ stopped offering new leases this newsre view.c om year, and only 63 of 200 apartments are occupied.

Five years ago, UCD announced plans to close the family-friendly complex this summer, and residents

Online robbery

The legal definition of affordable housing slates rent at less than 30 percent of salary. Graduate students earn less than $1,500 per month as teaching assistants, and single parents would spend 70 percent of their salaries toward rent for the smallest two-bedroom apartment at the new Orchard Park.

Currently, residents put 60 percent toward rent.

PHOTO BY JANELLE BITKER

Save the Parks Now, and a petition on Change.org with more than 500 signatures.

The university says the buildings have plumbing, electrical and roofing issues, plus appliances in need of replacing, dry rot and other problems. According to Galindo, the expense is so high that they’re not worth renovating.

Pells and Ph.D. student Sara Petrosillo are both mothers of two children, and they’ve lived at Solano Park for four years. They said they love its diversity—with a large international student population, their kids have already befriended children from Turkey, Chile and China.

“The university always says they want to support women scholars, yet they’re getting rid of this support system.”

Chantelise Pells Solano Park resident were told they had to move out this July. Students say they assumed Orchard Park would simply be renovated, but officials, after conducting a market study, want to redevelop it with high-end amenities, like a tanning salon.

Rent would also go up. A two-bedroom apartment would start at $1,026. The most expensive three-bedroom apartment would go for $2,165. Currently, Orchard Park residents pay $906 for a two-bedroom.

“They’re calling it affordable, but it’s not,” says Chantelise Pells, a Ph.D. student and resident of nearby affordable housing community Solano Park. “They want to outsource. They want to privatize.

There’s more financial incentive.”

UC Davis has a track record of attempting to eliminate affordable housing. In just the past five years, the Davis Student Cooperative and “the Domes” came under fire. Both were ultimately spared.

UC Davis graduate students say they wouldn’t have selected the university for studies if they’d known it would eliminate some of its affordable-housing offerings.

BEFORE

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Students call this a crisis. Their concerns have led the university to “pause,” says Emily Galindo, UC Davis associate vice chancellor of Student Affairs.

“They raised questions in such a way that we felt we should take a step back and revisit and re-evaluate our initial plans,” she says.

That means Orchard Park might not actually be demolished this summer. Or it will, but perhaps the new apartment complex won’t be managed by a private, third-party developer. Or maybe the exact same plans will move forward. It’s all fluid.

Residents of Orchard Park and sister housing community Solano Park, slated for demolition in 2016, remain skeptical. They want to ensure there’s enough affordable, family-friendly graduate-student housing to go around. Currently, there are no plans to replace Solano Park with apartments at all.

Students started a Facebook page,

F E AT U R E

STORY

“My daughter is growing up differently,” Petrosillo says. “She doesn’t know what it’d be like to have a fenced-in yard without tons of kids around to play with.”

The international students, meanwhile, appreciate fellow students around to help them acclimate. Affordability is also key when international student visas don’t allow them to apply for jobs.

“We wouldn’t choose Davis without this,” says Liz Campuzano, who lives with her graduate-student husband and two children in Solano Park.

If demolition plans continue, Pells predicts the university will lose out on female graduate students who need to balance their domestic and academic lives.

“It’s really inconsistent,” she says. “The university always says they want to support women scholars, yet they’re getting rid of this support system.” Ω

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Selling items over the internet can be a sketchy affair, as yet another person learned Monday in Sacramento.

According to the Sacramento Police Department, the seller of a PlayStation 3 met with someone he believed to be an interested buyer in the south Natomas neighborhood before noon on May 5. And while the party was indeed interested in acquiring the popular gaming console, he wasn’t so interested in paying for it. The suspect talked over the deal from the driver’s seat of a gray or silver minivan, even handing the victim cash at one point to count, said Officer Michele Gigante, a police spokeswoman. But then a second male suspect appeared with a gun and told the victim to drop the cash and leave.

Gigante confirmed that these types of robberies aren’t unusual in the city and advised those who are looking to buy or sell items online to trust their instincts when a price seems too good or a meeting location doesn’t feel right. “Go with your gut,” she said. “You’ll find somebody else.”

Gigante also suggested that people choose public spots to meet, preferably a police department parking lot “swarming with police” during business hours. “Take control of where you meet,” she said. (Raheem F. Hosseini)

University payday Sacramento State University gave faculty and staff a long-awaited raise earlier this year. According to spokeswoman Kim Nava, all employees received a 1.34 percent salary boost, the first since 2007. Raises in recent years were limited to faculty only, with a 2 percent bump to professors in 2008, a 0.45 percent boost in 2010, and a flat $80 increase in 2013.

Last November, voters enacted Proposition 30 to increase education funding statewide and give higher education institutions more budget stability, including an extra $125.1 million for the California State University system. About $10 million of that will be earmarked for increasing course availability through technology. Sacramento State spends about two-thirds of its $115 million budget on academic affairs.

Among the top paid employees, CSU system chancellor Timothy P. White earned more than $426,000 and Sacramento State President Dr. Alexander Gonzalez took home nearly $368,000.

According to the California State Controller’s Office website, Sacramento State employs 5,759 people and pays an average wage of $26,220, not including the cost of healthcare and retirement. The university paid out about $151 million in wages and $49 million in healthcare and retirement in fiscal year 2012. (Cody Drabble)

Park pace Putting on an event at Cesar Chavez Plaza or tapping one of Sacramento’s fire hydrants could get more expensive soon. On Tuesday, the Sacramento City Council was expected to adopt a host of new or modified fees that could pull in $75,000 in extra revenue next fiscal year, which begins July.

In a staff report, the city says the changes are needed to keep pace with cost-of-living increases and wouldn’t provide additional resources.

One of the proposals is to raise the city’s “high demand event venue fee” at Cesar Chavez Plaza and William Land Park to pay for park revitalization. The modified amount would charge between $400 and $2,160 to put on events at those locations, depending on anticipated attendance.

The Parks and Recreation Commission supported the hike at a meeting last month. The city council’s vote occurred after print deadline. (RFH)

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Sacramento’s winners and losers—with arbitrary points

Give it up

On bad terms

Sacramento is awesome.  On May 6, the region’s  official Big Day of Giving to local charities and  nonprofits, the goal of  giving $1 million was  met. And it was met  before 10:30 a.m. Damn,  Sacramento!

As of press deadline, the city of  Sacramento was six days late in  releasing the final Sacramento Kings  arena term sheet. Scorekeeper says  this doesn’t make sense. It’s not like the  arena deal was deadline work. What’s  the hang-up? Maybe there’s something  in the deal that the city or the Kings do  not want the public to see yet ...

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Tough love

SN&R wins

The Sacramento Bee  editorial board  endorsed Councilman  Darrell Fong in his race  for state Assembly—but  took a jab, too, by calling  him an “obstructionist�  for his actions during  the Kings arena debate.  Obstructionist?  Apparently the  Bee views asking  tough questions as  stonewalling. 

Scorekeeper would like to pat some SN&R  writers and designers on the back. First, kudos  to photographer Kyle Monk for his first-place  win at this year’s California Newspaper Publishers Association’s Better Newspapers Contest. Monk  took the top prize for best artistic photo.  Huzzahs to illustrator Jonathan Buck for his  second-place win, too. In the world of words,  hats off to Cosmo Garvin for his second-place  best column award for Bites. And thumbs up to  Raheem F. Hosseini, Dave Kempa and Nick Miller  for sweeping the best investigative reporting  category with first- and second-place prizes.  Good job—now back to work!

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+2,014

Feedback loop Sacramento neighborhood leader to visit White House to discuss open government Last December, the Obama administration issued its second Open Government National Action Plan, promoting its best ideas for encouraging citizen participation and transparency in government.

These include modernizing federal open records laws, increasing access to government data and a commitment to promote greater fiscal transparency at all ArViN levels of government.

by COSMO G The White House also endorsed cosmog@ newsrev iew.c om something called “participatory budgeting,” which Bites has mentioned from time to time. Next week, the White House will convene participatory-budgeting advocates from around the country to figure out how to encourage more local governments to adopt the practice.

The basic idea is simple: Citizens set spending priorities and vote directly on spending decisions. PB is gaining ground in American cities as a way to engage citizens and spread power to groups who feel shut out of fiscal decision-making.

In New York and Chicago, citizens decided on small discretionary budgets within city council districts. Nearby Vallejo was the first place in the United States to use participatory budgeting city-wide.

There, citizen assemblies—which included residents as young as 16 years old—forwarded their ideas to the ballot and last year approved $3 million worth of funding for pothole repairs, street lights, parks, school libraries, school counselors, spaying-and-neutering programs and street cameras. Work has begun on those projects, and residents have submitted hundreds more to be voted on in the fall.

Other California cities are following Vallejo’s lead. In March, a Long Beach city council member piloted a PB project, inviting district residents to vote on allocations.

Sidewalk repair, tree trimming and library repairs won out. And in San Diego, a coalition of labor and community groups is proposing a PB project that would give residents a direct say in funding about $3 million worth of projects in low-income areas of the city.

Former Vallejo city council member Marti Brown was the first one who really explained PB to Bites. She was its champion in that city.

She’s since moved to Sacramento, where she works as executive director of the North Franklin District Business Association. And she’s headed to the White House next week to help spread the PB gospel.

“The whole idea is that you’re trying to engage people who have felt disconnected and disregarded from the process,” Brown told Bites.

Disconnected and disregarded? In Sacramento?

And elsewhere in California. In 2012, California was 48th in the nation in voter participation. “People are understandably cynical. I think we need to find ways to make BEFORE

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our civic processes more engaging,” says Anne Stuhldreher with The California Endowment.

The Endowment has allocated $100,000 to help promote PB projects in the 14 cities targeted in its Building Healthy Communities program.

Sacramento is one of those cities, as are San Diego and Long Beach.

Stuhldreher says building healthy communities includes building a community’s capacity to make its own decisions. “A sense of agency and control over your life is a big predictor of health. The more people can participate in the decisions that affect the quality of their life, the healthier they will be.”

Speaking of ailing democratic institutions, participatory budgeting could be a help to the Sacramento City Unified School District.

“It would give the community an opportunity to talk about what they want, instead of just responding to what district staff proposes,” says Carl Pinkston with the Sacramento Black Parallel School Board. Pinkston is trying to build support for PB to be part of the school district’s 2015-16 budget. A good starting point would be the supplemental funds provided under the state’s new Local Control Funding Formula. The new law includes requirements for greater public input in district spending.

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In 2012, California was 48th in the nation in voter participation.

School funding can be frustratingly complex for average people. And unfortunately the Sacramento City school board has had a bad habit of making some important decisions in secret. What are they chances they’ll want to share more power with citizens?

“I think deep down they want to see more people involved, but they don’t see a way to do it,” says school board candidate Anna Molander, who wants to bring PB to the district, which has suffered from declining enrollment, increased class sizes, layoffs and school closures.

“More than most other districts for miles around, we need people to buy in. We have to use every tool we can to get people to re-energize around this district,” says Molander.

Whether it’s at the city level, school districts or the state, Brown notes, “We have a crisis of trust in government.” The public often doesn’t have good information about budgets, or confidence that public officials are acting in the public interest, rather than the interest of campaign donors.

“There’s a gap between the elected officials and how the public feels about government. I think PB can help bridge that gap. It’s about restoring our faith in each other and in government.” Ω

STORY

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This year is the 100th birthday of the Rotary Club of Sacramento.

I have been a member of Rotary for 10 percent of those 100 years. While the Sacramento club and its sister clubs around the world have made a difference to hundreds of millions of people, this column is about how they have made a difference in my little world.

My major motivation in joining Rotary was networking. I thought the Rotary Club would have members who would be interested in advertising. I also thought I would get some good story ideas. l

by Jeff VonKaene I have definitely learned about some great stories. j e ffv @n e wsr e v ie w.c o m Unfortunately, it hasn’t been the best place to find advertisers. But surprisingly, I’ve found that the fellowship and commitment to giving back to the community have proven to be the most important things I’ve gained from my time in Rotary.

When I first joined Rotary, Most Rotary members I was much younger. And most were smart, funny and, of the Rotary members were men who were older than me. to my surprise, not only They had just recently allowed successful in business, female members to join. Now but successful in life. there’s a significant percentage of women in Rotary.

Most Rotary members were local business owners. Most were smart, funny and, to my surprise, not only successful in business, but also successful in life. While I have no data, my guess is that the percentage of Rotary members with happy long-term marriages, adoring children and committed employees is significantly higher than the norm.

At Rotary, I appreciated that members were recognized Learn more at www.rotary.org. not for how much they had, but rather for how much they For tickets and gave back to the community in time and treasure. The information on Rotary Club of weekly meeting has been, and continues to be for me a Sacramento’s recognition of the things in life that are really important.

100th anniversary And then there is what Rotary does for Sacramento and the celebration visit world. Rotary members regularly volunteer, donate significant http://tinyurl.com/ RotaryGala. amounts of money to local charities and, with other clubs, are making a difference throughout the world. Rotary has been a leader in the worldwide charge to eliminate polio.

My family also saw Rotary’s impact on young people Read Jeff’s around the world when our daughter spent 10 months daughter’s story going to high school in Denmark. She had the experience about Thanksgiving of a lifetime, living with three different Rotary families in Denmark at http://tinyurl.com/ and experiencing in depth a different country and culture, TGinDenmark. which, in turn, gave her a better understanding of our country and culture. You can imagine my appreciation of Rotary when I saw a video of my daughter being recognized as an honorary Viking, and speaking Danish on a Danish televiJeff vonKaenel sion show.

So please join me in saluting the Sacramento Rotary for is the president, CEO and all of their accomplishments over the last century. I believe majority owner of there are still tickets available for the Centennial Gala the News & Review newspapers in (May 17). But even if you can’t attend the celebration, take Sacramento, a moment to appreciate an organization that changes the Chico and Reno. world, starting with its own members. Ω

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Please send me the link to your account. No I love that the website can help me find superresponse without a link. Thank you!” by markets, restaurants and hiking spots when I’m I hate these solicitations for a number of Jonathan out of town. I love that it gives the public a voice reasons. For starters, it floods Yelp with even Mendick and supposedly helps small businesses. I’ve even more fake reviews. Plus, even though this busiused Yelp to find story sources. ness might suck, its Yelp page will probably But nowadays, I’m leaning more toward average four or five stars. Additionally, it creates hating it. an environment that benefits big businesses, As a recent SN&R cover story (“The Yelp not small ones—the more money you have, the factor” by Nick Miller, March 20) pointed out, more positive reviews you can buy. there are plenty of bad things about Yelp: It’s I’ll admit, hating on Yelp feels like a weird created a sense of entitlement among Yelp position to take. After all, I’ve never written a “elites”; many reviews are written by business Yelp review, and I get paid by SN&R to critique owners’ friends; and food. This puts me in an entitled some of the reviews position myself: Millions of aren’t even about the Americans are food insecure, Being a paid businesses, but about but I get to eat and judge critic is the the reviewers’ personal delicious grub for thousands of hang-ups. Then there are pulpit to which readers. It’s a situation I’ve yet all the stories about Yelp to reconcile in my own mind. many Yelpers salespeople allegedly Yet being a paid critic is the extorting businesses to pulpit to which many Yelpers aspire.

An online version purchase ads to erase aspire. Perhaps that’s why I hate of this essay foodies just as much as their can be found at libelous and hateful Yelp reviews. They—and their www.newsreview.com/ reviews. sacramento/ In April, a business owner offered to pay for favorite websites: Yelp, Eater and BuzzFeed— pageburner/blogs. positive Yelp reviews on Sacramento’s Craigslist ruin food and food journalism by exalting Guy site. I’ve seen postings like this before, but Fieri-esque palates and Portland-hipster snobnone as explicitly detailed: “Looking for yelp bery. No stars. Ω users. Need a few reviews for a new business.

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Specialist Michelle Blanton helps a student learn how to use new MacBook Airs at Leataata Floyd Elementary School. Kids are taking a practice version of a controversial new test— next year, the exam will be for real.

It’s a rare moment at Leataata Floyd Elementary School: 30 sixth graders are completely silent.

The kids look like they’re focused on a test. But maybe they’re just mesmerized by the devices that the exam is on: shiny new MacBook Airs. The Sacramento City Unified School District recently deployed more than 6,000 of these laptops to its schools in preparation for a test that the whole country is talking about.

Michelle Blanton is conducting all the exams at Leataata Floyd, and she circles the room slowly. No one seems to have any problems during this practice round. Time is up, and the students take off their headphones, close their MacBooks and file into a separate room for a class meeting. They sit down cross-legged in a big circle and pass around a microphone—which is actually a plastic pink flower taped to a green pen—so everyone has a chance to speak.

Blanton proposes the question of the day: “What did you think of the test?”

“It was better than taking it on paper,” one student says.

“I like that my hands don’t hurt,” another offers.

They make it sound so simple.

Students are taking the test now, through June 6, but it’s been a long, complicated road to get here. It’s all because of the new education standards called Common Core. State legislators recently sprung the test on districts, and now teachers are scrambling to figure out how it works.

But Common Core also speaks to a broader digital divide. Will the test only increase bias toward rich kids with iPads and Internet access at home? Or will this new emphasis on digital technology in schools level the playing field?

Leataata Floyd principal Billy Aydlett sure hopes so. His school serves some of the city’s poorest kids, and he spends budget money BEFORE

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on technology whenever he can. He’s in firm support of Common Core and the computerbased exams.

But Sacramento schools are not created equal. Some of the district’s “priority schools” like Leataata Floyd swim in new tech toys, while others can barely get their hands on computers, let alone tablets and expensive MacBooks.

This divide also remains very real in children’s homes. In pockets of Sacramento, less than 40 percent of households have broadband Internet. That’s a long ways to go to meet the state’s goal of 80 percent by 2015.

“It’s not a genie you can put back in a bottle. Technology is already part of everyday

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life,” Aydlett argues. “Sheltering folks from it is crazy.”

Apparently, so is teaching it.

Digital classrooms anD guinea pigs Today’s K-12 kids are digital natives. They grew up with the Internet. And when they’re grown up and running the world, what will it look like?

Probably totally teched out, which is why teachers are starting kids on iPads and expecting them to know how to type before the third grade.

“It’s amazing,” Aydlett says. “These kids had never lived in a world without a screen that will tell them anything they want to know.”

With Common Core’s new digital tests, schools had to get wiring and hardware—and now all kids who can’t access a computer at home will at least get to in school. But access doesn’t close Sacramento’s digital divide alone.

Digital skills need to be learned, and that means they need to be taught.

Tara Thronson, a self-proclaimed “broadband evangelist,” agrees that digital-literacy training is important—even if kids already have great tech intuition. As a project leader with nonprofit Valley Vision, she’s always trying to get more people connected to the Web. Because the 14 percent of Californians who still don’t use the Internet are going to lag behind.

“You can’t compete in the workforce,” she says. “You can’t even apply for a job at Wal-Mart unless you apply online.”

Here’s the context: In 2010, California and more than 40 states adopted Common Core, a blueprint for what kids ought to know at the

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end of each year. It includes a new assessment, too—out with the bubble-in Standardized Testing and Reporting (a.k.a. STAR) exam, and in with a test-run of a computer-given exam. Suddenly, schools needed a lot of computers.

But the funding didn’t arrive until last fall, when the state allocated $1.25 billion toward Common Core. SCUSD spent $9 million— including some bond money—to prepare, and it’s been a whirlwind ever since.

First, the district had to deal with major network and infrastructure issues. In January, schools received laptops. In February, three specialists were tasked with training teachers across 75 campuses. Most district schools started testing in April.

Ted Wattenberg, one of these newly hired specialists, is supposed to train teachers at 25 schools and deal with any of their tech glitches. He might visit six schools in one day and troubleshoot by email. But is that enough time to get everyone up to speed?

“No, it’s not enough,” he says.

And some things are just beyond his or the district’s control, Wattenberg says. The state releases details and tools on their own timeline. And technology can be unpredictable—sometimes the system might just stop, or a test will vanish. There will be hiccups, which is why this year’s test is a practice test.

So far, students say they’ve seen plenty of glitches and computer crashes. But Sandra Smith and her son, Nick Smith, a fifth grader at Dudley Elementary School, are more exasperated that teachers aren’t properly trained to deliver the test at all.

“teaching to the tech” continued on page 19

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“it’s not utilizing the technology in a transformative way. We’re just replacing a paper-and-pencil test with another paper-and-pencil test on a computer.” alice Mercer

Teacher, on neW Technology in sacraMenTo classrooMs

“Teaching To The Tech” continued from page 17

Leataata Floyd principal Billy Aydlett says access to technology should be an educational right. He thinks the new Common Core test will be a good thing.

“It’s not utilizing the technology in a transformative way,” she says. “We’re just replacing a paper-and-pencil test with another paper-andpencil test on a computer.”

Mercer fears that teachers will use the laptops for assessments and—without a major push from the district—not much else.

She also says there’s a big difference in terms of how richer and poorer students use—or are taught to use—technology. Studies find that poor kids learn whatever the computer tells them, while rich kids tell the computer what to do.

Mercer says the technology rollout and testing has been smooth; most of Bancroft’s teachers use technology often. It’s been smooth at Leataata Floyd, too. As a priority school, it’s staffed with tech-capable teachers—and Blanton, a bonus specialist on staff who took over all the testing reins so other teachers wouldn’t have to worry about it.

Still, it’s also been challenging. “No one has ever done this before,” Blanton says. “We have people teaching us how to do something that they’ve never done in a practical setting.”

Sacramento city chose MacBooks—an average of $1,000 each—while other districts chose Chromebooks—about $300 each —because Macs have a better, more powerful reputation.

That means they should definitely be used all year long, and not just for testing. But it presents yet another finance challenge. Technology doesn’t have a great lifespan—they’ll require updates and software licensing every few years.

Patrick Kennedy, SCUSD president, says it just needs to be “part of doing business.”

“We’re in the 21st century, technology is not a luxury anymore,” he says. “Our kids aren’t college and career ready if they’re not tech savvy. It has to be built into our strategic plan going forward.”

Easier said than done.

with her for a while. He gave up, but he supports the endeavor. After all, tofu is cheaper than red meat, and Leataata’s families have limited food budgets.

Leataata Floyd is located on the edge of downtown in western Land Park. It’s surrounded by public-housing projects—68 acres of sprawling utilitarian buildings. All of the students meet the federal poverty threshold.

So when the district delivered 50 MacBooks to the school, some kids didn’t quite know what to do with them.

Aydlett says they opened them up, and put their hands all over the screen. “They thought it was like a smartphone,” he says. “They had never seen a trackpad before.” But they had access to iPads before. And Smart boards, document cameras, LCD projectors and a computer lab.

Aydlett wants his students to be comfortable with technology before they go to middle school. Leataata students usually go to California Middle School, the same school attended by former students of Crocker-Riverside Elementary School.

“All of those kids have lots of tech exposure because it’s part of their socioeconomic upbringing,” he says. “If our kids haven’t practiced, they’re already behind.”

Crocker-Riverside is just 1.2 miles away from Leataata Floyd, but they feel worlds apart.

In this part of Land Park, parents wait for their kids in BMWs on a block of charming English Tudors with well-manicured lawns. At Leataata, kids pile up in the main office, and Aydlett has to lecture parents for being late, again—even though they live just across the street. More than half of Leataata’s students are black. More than half of Crocker-Riverside’s are white.

For as long as principal Daniel McCord can remember, Crocker-Riverside has performed exceptionally well. The Academic Performance Index measures schools with a target score of 800. Last year, Crocker-Riverside scored an admirable 911.

Without many low-income students, though, Crocker-Riverside has a tight budget. The school can’t afford to purchase new technology, which makes the district’s MacBook delivery exciting. But maybe not

successfully log in to the testing browser, but only five say they feel comfortable doing so.

“I don’t think we’re having any problems that other schools aren’t having,” says principal Lori Aoun. “Half of our teachers are tech savvy and half are less than tech savvy.”

Sutterville isn’t one of the district’s priority schools. Only 45 percent of its students meet the poverty threshold, so the school is 5 percent shy of earning extra federal funding. That makes things difficult for Aoun. If they had more technology, would teachers have been better prepared? Before the MacBooks arrived, classrooms had only a handful of desktops at most.

No computer lab in the library, either.

Aoun hopes for more training from the district. So does Alice Mercer, a sixth-grade teacher at Hubert Bancroft Elementary School and an education blogger at www.mizmercer. edublogs.org. But Mercer is skeptical.

“There’s a lack of coherence with the At a last-minute training session the day Common Core training in general—especially the before Sutterville Elementary School begins technology,” she says. “Where people say they’d testing, Wattenberg demonstrates to 13 teachlike us to be is very far from where we are now.” ers how to sign onto the special browser.

Yes, adding more technology in classrooms “Macs 101” was Wattenberg’s previous session can help bridge the digital divide, but not if Aydlett is one of those principals who seems at Sutterville, but some teachers still have teachers lack the skills to use it. to know all of his students’ names. He walks issues with the trackpad, the pop-up blocker At this point, Mercer hasn’t seen any guidthrough campus half hunched down, picking up and refreshing Web pages. ance from the district for how to incorporate bits of trash along the way. A student knocks “I start tomorrow, and, oh my God, I don’t technology into the classroom year-round, either. on his office door, and they talk about her new know what I’m doing,” one teacher says.

And the local and national focus on the new diet. “I’ve been meaning to bring her vegan continued on page 21 After about an hour, all 13 teachers computer-based test doesn’t help. bacon,” he says. He’s even tried to go vegan B E F O R E | N E W S | F E A T U R E S T O R Y | A R T S & C U L T U R E | A F T E R | 05.08.14 | SN&R “Our teacher didn’t even know how to start a computer,” Nick says.

That’s partially why Sandra opted Nick out of the exam. But they also think the government will mine student data from these tests and that Common Core is a profit scheme for tech companies.

Sandra’s eldest son, Josh Smith, a junior at Center High School, took the test. He found it frustrating more than anything else.

“It’d be a lot easier to just do a penciland-paper test,” he says. “Instead, we were all guinea pigs.”

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Students play with tablets. Technology’s coming to Sacramento classrooms, but in some neighborhoods only 30 percent of residents have Internet access.

“Teaching To The Tech” continued from page 19 that exciting. Its parent-teacher association could afford to purchase some new computers for the school in the past, and its students probably have gadgets at home. McCord assumes as much, anyway—smartphones aren’t allowed at school.

More than 90 percent of the homes in Crocker-Riverside’s neighborhood have highspeed Internet connections. In Leataata’s neighborhood? Fewer than 60 percent. That number is likely lower in the public-housing areas that serve Leataata, where there’s still no Wi-Fi in the community rooms.

“You often assume you can survey parents online, that you can enroll kids online, but you can’t,” Aydlett says. His efforts to increase his students’ digital literacy extends to their parents.

Yet test scores at Leataata have dropped steadily since its influx of technology in 2010, when it became a priority school. On the STAR tests that year, 26.4 percent of its students scored proficiently or advanced in English language and 47 percent scored proficiently or advanced in math. In 2013, those figures fell to 16.6 percent and 22 percent, respectively. Last year, its API score fell by 90 points.

Is the technology just an amusing distraction?

Or detraction?

Blanton doesn’t think so. She says students have been more well-behaved with the digital assessments than the old pencil-paper tests.

“We have lots of behavior problems in general—a lot of work-avoidance behavior—but I haven’t seen any of that,” she says.

Still, there are some modern-day and vocal Luddites around. They say technology doesn’t have a place in schools, and they’re actively fighting the new education standards.

Orlean Koehle, director of the Californians United Against Common Core group, fears that kids will find more ways to cheat online or become addicted to their devices. Lydia Gutierrez, who is running for state superintendent, says phasing out cursive might do terrible things to children neurologically, or at the very least, so much screen time will worsen their ability to communicate. Less extreme advocates, like parent Sandra Smith, understand the value of technology on a more limited scale.

“It needs to be age appropriate,” she says.

“Do 5- or 6-year-olds need computers? They should be doing things that are 3-dimensional.”

“i start tomorrow, and, oh my god, i don’t know what i’m doing.”

SuTTerville elemenTary Teacher

on new compuTer common core TeSTing aT SacramenTo SchoolS BEFORE

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Mercer is convinced technology can do a whole lot of good. In her own classes, she has students build wikis, record their own discussions and collaborate creatively. And even youngsters can find extra motivation in tech and use it to document their own work.

Leataata already uses its iPads, in part, as a motivational tool. The school has an abnormally high truancy rate of 62 percent and a suspension rate of 4.9 percent. But kids might behave if their reward is game time on an iPad. Even if they’re math games.

The district’s vision for Leataata isn’t just about test scores and statistics anyway, says Kennedy.

“When you’re changing a culture, it doesn’t happen overnight,” he says. “I wouldn’t say technology is going to solve every problem at every school, but you certainly want to make it available to the kids who don’t have it.”

It’s true that most Leataata kids don’t have Wi-Fi at home. Some end up coming back to school on weekends, sitting outside and using the district’s connection on a donated laptop.

“I remember going up to a couple kids and they were looking at Google Maps, just learning about the world,” Aydlett says. “It was inspiring.

It points out that access to information—access to technology—should be an educational right.”

The greaT divide It may seem like Sacramento is awash in technology, but it is not. In parts of south Sacramento, Del Paso Heights and North Highlands, only 30 percent of the homes have a broadband connection.

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That’s a very low figure compared to the rest of the state. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, 69 percent of Californians have broadband at home—a ways to go from the state’s goal of 80 percent by 2015. And 90 percent goal by 2020.

Why aren’t people going online? Thronson originally assumed it was the cost. Then she started talking to folks, and then the Pew Research Center confirmed it: The No. 1 reason why adults don’t use the Internet is relevance.

“People don’t understand the importance of it,” Thronson says. “They think, ‘Why should I learn this new technology when it’s so frustrating to learn, and I don’t have any support?’”

In the survey, 34 percent of non-Internet users say they have no need to be online, and 32 percent say the Internet is too difficult to use. Only 19 percent say it’s because it’s too expensive.

Thronson thinks that’s because people are finding low-cost options, like the Comcast Internet Essentials program, which the company recently extended indefinitely. Plans run $9.95 per month, plus a $150 computer voucher for qualifying families. But few have taken advantage of the plan so far. It launched in 2010, and according to Comcast, the program has enrolled approximately 35,000 households—11 percent of 313,000 eligible families. In the Sacramento region, 7,100 families have signed up.

Mobile technology might change things.

According to the Pew Research Center, 56 percent of Americans have a smartphone, and 10 percent have a smartphone but no broadband connection. Among younger adults ages 18 to 30, that figure rises to 15 percent.

“It tells us people understand the importance of it,” Thronson says. “The question is: How do we get them an at-home connection? Because you can’t do everything on your phone.”

Sacramento’s educators notice the trend among students, too. Wattenberg says over the past 10 years, he’s seen more and more kids accessing a smartphone or tablet at home instead of a computer.

But most efforts to address the digital divide are on a small scale, Thronson says, like laptop donations and computer rooms for parents and community members at schools like Leataata.

“They get used more than I ever imagined,” Aydlett says.

Schools are admittedly behind when it comes to Common Core and behind when it comes to technology. But they’re trying to catch up. And with the rapid pace of innovation, Kennedy says they’re taking it one step at a time.

“I don’t think the digital divide will ever be completely closed, because technology changes so frequently and so fast,” he said. “We’re trying to solve the school divide now. Solving the divide at home is a bigger societal problem.” Ω

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Photo by Ruthie Wyatt

by rachel leibrocK

rachell@newsreview.com

LIVE LIVE& LET & LET LIVE LIVE

Tig NoTaro goT The News oN a wedNesday. NiNe days laTer—augusT 3, 2012, To be exacT—The comediaN sTepped oNsTage aT largo iN los aNgeles aNd addressed The crowd.

Tig NoTaro puTs The big ‘C’ iN Comedy aNd sTicKs iT To CaNCer

22 | SN&R | 05.08.14

“Good evening, hello. I have cancer,” she said. Her voice was friendly, conversational. She just as well may have been chatting about the weather instead of dropping an extremely personal bomb.

“Hi, how are you?” she continued. “Is everybody having a good time? I have cancer.”

At first the audience just let out a few nervous chuckles. Eventually, however, it became clear as Notaro ticked off a list of other recent events in her life—hospitalization for a bacterial infection, breaking up with her girlfriend, the sudden death of her mother after a fall—that she wasn’t joking.

She’d had a pretty crap year so far and that

July 25, 2012, diagnosis of stage 2 cancer in both breasts was just the crap cherry on top of the crap sundae.

Then again, Notaro was joking; she was, in fact, just doing that one thing she did best: making others laugh.

“Emotionally and physically I wasn’t in a good place, but I started writing about what I was going through before [the Largo] set,” Notaro explained during a recent phone interview with SN&R. Notaro, who performs Friday, May 9, at Assembly, didn’t think she’d actually use any of that new material in her set. In fact, she says she wasn’t sure she’d ever tell anyone anything—ever—about her diagnosis.

“I was convinced that I was just going to keep it a secret, because I was scared that it meant I would never work again,” she said.

As the set grew nearer, however, Notaro changed her mind. And when she finally faced the Largo crowd and started talking, she says she found the experience extremely therapeutic.

The newness just made it all the more genuine—as if Notaro had just popped by

The Jolt Cola of art See SECOND SATURDAY

25

Word to your mother See NIGHT & DAY

After Notaro’s cancer diagnosis, the comedian says she “was scared that it meant that I would never work again.”

likes of Stephen Wright and Todd Barry without ever actually co-opting their styles.

(Google Notaro’s “No Moleste” set for an idea of just how wickedly minimalistic her jokes are.)

But back to Largo. Louis C.K. was in the audience that night, and the next day the comedian tweeted his admiration: “In 27 years doing this, I’ve seen a handful of truly great, masterful standup sets. One was Tig Notaro last night at Largo.”

Louis C.K. also made the set’s audio available for download on his site and it quickly went viral, bringing Notaro to a much wider audience than her cult status had previously afforded. (The set was also eventually released via iTunes and then as part of Notaro’s 2013 stand-up comedy album, the aptly titled Live).

Born in Jackson, Miss., Notaro grew up in Texas before dropping out of high school and heading west to Denver, where she performed in and managed bands.

Eventually, Notaro turned her attention to comedy, trying her luck at an open-mic.

That first outing, she recalled, was gratifying.

BEFORE

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“I’d followed comedy my whole life— it was something I’d always fantasized about doing, but I never thought about it being a [career] option for me,” she said. “I always considered myself funny, so I tried it, and it felt more right than anything.”

It wasn’t an easy road, however.

Notaro recalled that her second-ever gig was a total disaster—she was literally booed off the stage. And yet she persisted.

“You just kind of hang on to the memory [of what went right before] and hope that you can do it again,” she said.

From there, she steadily built her career, performing stand-up and eventually making her way to TV, appearing regularly on her close friend’s show The Sarah Silverman Program and getting small parts on sitcoms such as The Office and Community. In 2011, she launched Professor Blastoff, a comedy podcast centered on science, philosophy and the humanities, with comedians Kyle Dunnigan and David Huntsberger.

“They’re close friends of mine, and those are the topics that came up so regularly whenever we were together,” Notaro said of the weekly show’s focus. “When we decided to do a podcast, it just seemed to make the most sense, [but] it’s evolved over the years—it’s gotten more personal and we allow ourselves to be sillier even with the heavier and more scientific topics.

It’s more fun now.”

In addition to the podcast and current tour, Notaro keeps busy with myriad projects. She’s a regular writer (and occasional guest) for Inside Amy Schumer on Comedy Central, and she’s also working on her own Showtime comedy special as well as a pair of sitcoms—one that she described as “mainstream” and the other as “more personal.”

To that end, Notaro will get even more intimate with a memoir scheduled for publication in 2015.

“I’ll be writing about the four months that my life fell apart—I bounce around in the telling of the story, to my childhood and [writing about] my mother,” she said.

Although she’s cancer-free and nearly two years out from that particularly horrible stretch, Notaro said writing about what happened remains dual-edged.

“It’s therapeutic but also very hard,” she said. “Mostly I can compartmentalize without being emotional, but when I’m alone and sifting through the heavy moments, it’s surprisingly emotional for me.”

Somehow, it’s easy to imagine that once she’s finished, Notaro will have managed—just as she did with that now legendary Largo set—to once again find that balance between raw, honest, compassionate and subversively funny. Ω

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Skin flick See FILM

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SCENE& HEARD Tap, swipe, eat A French woman asks if I’ve dined at Cafe Plan B before. I say no, and she introduces me to Presto.

Presto is a tablet—a tablet designed specifically for restaurants by the Silicon Valley-based company E la Carte. You can browse the menu, order and pay right at your table, anytime. You can also play games for 99 cents—in case you need another device to distract you from your date.

The French woman says it’s all so much easier this way. The owner later says it was tablets or a cashier— this is a casual cafe, not a restaurant with formal service.

Fair enough. Plan B (1226 20th Street) features a menu that lists classic French cafe fare—soups, salads, sandwiches, mussels. And on Presto, I can look at pictures of the deep-red venison carpaccio, and the delicate tartlet with leeks and anchovies.

The pictures create temptation—temptation that will sit on my table for the rest of the meal.

People eat with their eyes first. Impulse orders ensue. Upselling opportunities are consistent. Faster turnarounds are inevitable. I see your business strategy, Presto.

I order a croque-madame and the French woman brings it over. Thick slices of ham and melty Gruyere sit between thick slices of toasted brioche, with oozing béchamel sauce and fried egg. There This little fella gets an 18 percent tip. is texture, warmth and butter in each bite.

The French woman returns to pick up my plate and I take out my wallet to pay, via Presto. I swipe my card against the tablet, and because this is a business lunch, I request a receipt.

And I wait.

Apparently no one cares for receipts anymore.

After 10 minutes of twiddling my thumbs, I attempt to flag down the French woman or the owner, and I fail.

Multiple times.

I am left to think about everything wrong with the national tablet-dining trend in totally plausible hypotheticals: What if I was indecisive and wanted a human’s recommendation? What if something was wrong with my dish? What if there was a travesty, like if the fried egg was overcooked? What if I dropped my fork?

Would the food runner have noticed any of these things? And why is the automatic tip on Presto 18 percent, when the only human service is said food runner?

Finally, the owner meets my anxious gaze. I ask for the receipt, and he looks embarrassed. Tech can’t quite do it all.

—Janelle Bitker

ja ne lle b @ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

catch tig Notaro on friday, May 9, 7 p.m. at assembly Music hall, 1000 K street. tickets are $20. for more on Notaro’s comedy, check out www.tignation.com.

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Photo courtesy of e la carte

your house to commiserate about her run of bad luck over a beer.

“God never gives you more than you can handle,” she told the audience at one point. “I just keep picturing God going, ‘You know what? I think she can take a little more.’”

And yet one of the set’s most notable qualities was the sense that the comedian wasn’t merely picking at the fresh scabs of her own life, but rather reassuring a group of her closest friends.

“It’s OK. It’s OK. It’s gonna be OK. It might not be OK,” she said, addressing a fan who seemed particularly upset by the revelation.

Looking back, Notaro says she was “trying to find a balance—trying to make it tolerable.”

“I was definitely trying to make [the audience] comfortable, but it was also tongue-in-cheek.”

On the phone, Notaro’s demeanor is thoughtful, quiet and not particularly funny. In other words, it’s the real-life extension of her comedy: Observational, wry and drier than sandpaper, it recalls the

28

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May picks by Shoka

“Red Pears & Bird” by Joanne Tepper, oil on panel.

Classic twist Joanne Tepper paints in the classic still-life style: fruit and other objects on a tabletop, in the center of the image. And her paintings are certainly wellPAINTING executed. But it’s when Tepper deviates from the formula that her works on canvas and panel really shine. Behind a softly lit blushing pomegranate is a view of clouds at sunset, or a bird perched on a rusty-hued pear— a nice twist on the theme.

Deborah Bonuccelli also shows with Tepper at Elliott Fouts Gallery this month.

Where: Elliott Fouts Gallery, 1831 P Street; (916) 736-1429; www.efgallery.com.

Second Saturday reception: May 10, 6-9 p.m.

Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturday through Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Through June 5.

“Earth Bear” by Brandon Stahlman, monoprint, 2014.

Carsick, vomit and repeat

“For Debra” by Livia Stein, mixed media.

Caffeine buzz The brushstrokes are choppy and many. The colors are bold, not shy. Sometimes artists render PAINTING every detail and the lighting ever so precisely to bring their image to life; others paint loosely, giving their static image movement. Livia Stein falls into the latter category, with the staccato brushstrokes and powerful colors giving her paintings a caffeine

buzz. See animal heads atop human bodies in the Oakland-based artist’s show Re-Purposing the Figure at the Red Dot Gallery this month.

Where: Red Dot Gallery, 2231 J Street, Suite 101; www.reddotgalleryonj.com.

Second Saturday reception: May 10, 6-9 p.m.

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Through May 31.

There’s something endearing about an artist who recalls that as a child PRINTS on family road trips, he’d draw until he got carsick, vomit and repeat.

That’s Brandon Stahlman’s story, and Fresh Ink is a collection of monoprints he’ll be showing at Delta Workshop this month.

The Sacramento-based artist incorporates the Japanese style of

B E F O R E | F R O N T L I N E S | F E A T U R E S T O R Y | A R T S & C U L T U R E | A F T E R |

wood-block printing, screen printing and stenciling in his images. As a result, they look both smooth in the gradual gradations of color, and rough in the jagged edges of the woodcuts. Smooth and rough: kind of like the joy of drawing in the car and the wretchedness of retching.

Where: Delta Workshop, 2598 21st Street; (916) 455-1125; http://deltaworkshopsac.com.

Second Saturday reception: May 10, 6-8 p.m.

Hours: Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; and by appointment. Through June 8.

05.08.14 | SN&R | 25

Sacramento Vedanta Reading Group

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The whole world is your own.

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University Art

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9 CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, SACRAMENTO 1519 19th St., (916) 498-9811, www.ccasac.org

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11 ELLIOTT FOUTS GALLERY 1831 P St., (916) 446-1786, www.efgallery.com

12 GALLERY 21TEN 2110 K St., (916) 476-5500, www.gallery2110.com

18 OLD SOUL CO. 1716 L St., (916) 443-7685, www.oldsoulco.com

19 RED DOT GALLERY 2231 J St., Ste. 101; www.reddotgalleryonj.com

20 SACRAMENTO ART COMPLEX 2110 K St., Ste. 4; (916) 476-5500; www.sacramentoartcomplex.com

21 SACRAMENTO GAY & LESBIAN CENTER 1927 L St., (916) 442-0185, http://saccenter.org

22 SHIMO CENTER FOR THE ARTS 2117 28th St., (916) 706-1162, www.shimogallery.com

23 TIM COLLOM GALLERY 915 20th St., (916) 247-8048, www.timcollomgallery.com

24 UNION HALL GALLERY 2126 K St., (916) 448-2452

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BLVD

(916) 443-5721, www.universityart.com

26 THE URBAN HIVE 1931 H St., (916) 585-4483, www.theurbanhive.com

27 VIEWPOINT PHOTOGRAPHIC ART CENTER 2015 J St., (916) 441-2341, www.viewpointgallery.org

28 WKI 2 STUDIO GALLERY 1614 K St., Ste. 2; (916) 955-6986; www.weskosimages.com

35 SMITH GALLERY 1020 11th St.,

II BLUE MOON GALLERY 2353 Albatross Way,

Ste. 100; (916) 446-4444; www.smithgallery.com

(916) 920-2444, www.bluemoongallery sacto.com

36 TEMPLE COFFEE 1010 Ninth St.,

III THE BRICKHOUSE ART GALLERY

(916) 443-4960, www.templecoffee.com

EaSt Sac

(916) 443-5601, www.zanzibartrading.com

30 ARTHOUSE UPSTAIRS 1021 R St., second floor; (916) 672-1098; www.arthouse-sacramento.com

31 ARTISTS’ COLLABORATIVE GALLERY 129 K St., (916) 444-7125, www.artcollab.com

32 CROCKER ART MUSEUM 216 O St., (916)

37 ARCHIVAL FRAMING 3223 Folsom Blvd., 38 CAPITAL PUBLIC RADIO 7055 Folsom Blvd.,

1115 E St., (916) 505-7264

34 LA RAZA GALERíA POSADA 2700 Front St., (916) 446-5133, www.larazagaleriaposada.org

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nEWs

455-1125, www.deltaworkshopsac.com

40 GALLERY 14 3960 60th St.,

41 INKOFF.ME 5534 Elvas Avenue,

IX PATRIS STUDIO AND ART GALLERY

(530) 756-7807, www.daviscemetery.org Ste. 14 in Lodi; (209) 368-5123; www.knowltongallery.com

(916) 456-1058, www.gallery14.net (916) 600-4428, http://inkoff.me

3460 Second Ave., (916) 397-8958, http://artist-patris.com

42 JAYJAY 5520 Elvas Ave.,

(916) 453-2999, www.jayjayart.com

The deTails:

Essays must be 650 words or less. Email essays as a Word document or PDF attachment to collegeessay@newsreview.com, with the subject line “College Essay Contest.” Deadline is Friday, May 9, at 5 p.m.

X RECLAMARE GALLERY & CUSTOM TATTOO 2737 Riverside Blvd., (916) 760-7461, www.reclamareart.com

off map

XI SACRAMENTO TEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY 1616 Del Paso Blvd.,

I BLUE LINE GALLERY 405 Vernon St., Ste. 100 in Roseville; (916) 783-4117; http://bluelinegallery.blogspot.com

F E At U R E

High-school seniors graduating in 2014 are eligible.

Only one entry allowed per student, and you must live in the Sacramento region to apply.

No SN&R employees or relatives may enter.

(916) 572-5123, www.evolvethegallery.com

VIII KNOWLTON GALLERY 115 S. School St.,

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The rules:

VI EVOLVE THE GALLERY 3428 Third Ave.,

VII GALLERY 1855 820 Pole Line Rd. in Davis,

St., (916) 456-4455, www.fegallery.com

(916) 921-1224, www.tempartgallery.com

stoRY

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A Rt s & C U Lt U R E

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:

$2,014 award, plus $750 for second place and $250 for third place.

V DELTA WORKSHOP 2598 21st St., (916)

39 FE GALLERY & IRON ART STUDIO 1100 65th

808-7000, www.crockerartmuseum.org

33 E STREET GALLERY AND STUDIOS

The prizes: First place will receive a

1001 Del Paso Blvd.

(916) 278-8900, www.capradio.org

Downtown/olD Sac

2837 36th St., (916) 457-1240, www.thebrickhousegalleryoakpark.com

IV DEL PASO WORKS BUILDING GALLERIES

(916) 923-6204, www.archivalframe.com

29 ZANZIBAR GALLERY 1731 L St.,

BEFoRE

CONTEST!

KLIN

25 UNIVERSITY ART 2601 J St.,

Second Saturday, May 10th Open 4:30–8:30pm 3431 4th Ave, Sac, 95817

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For the week of May 8

wEEkLY PICkS

Food-Cycle Celebration Thursday, May 8 A close second to Captain Planet in my memory of influential cartoon environmentalists, Recycle Rex, FOOD spokesdinosaur for CalRecycle, popularized the “Recycle, reduce, reuse and close the loop” mantra. This educational festival focuses on composting and maintaining Sacto’s local food cycle and includes a tasting menu from Green Restaurants Alliance Sacramento partners. $25, 5 p.m. at Fremont Park, 1515 Q Street; (916) 346-5154; www.digitalinevitable.net/GRAS.

—Deena Drewis

If your mom is as awesome as mine, you should probably be spoiling her this Mother’s Day. Literally no one would be here without a mother. Mothers teach the world compassion, forgiveness, mercy and pretty much all other virtues—and that’s all just from leading by example.

So, why should they only get treated to a measly brunch once a year? Here’s three pretty cool Mother’s Day-related events to take your mom to—that are all better than brunch.

First, head to the Celebrating Mothers Simply Mad for Tea Party (www.tea14.eventbrite.com) on Thursday, May 8, from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. It’s happening at the Memorial Auditorium (1515 J Street). Tickets are $65, and it’ll feature wine tasting, a silent auction and, of course, tea. Plus, Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully will be crowned Mother of the Year, and the whole thing benefits Saint John’s Program for Real Change (formerly St. John’s Shelter Program for Women and Children).

Then, check out the local portion of the national Listen to Your Mother series of stage productions.

At 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 10, at

Demetri Martin

The Guild Theater (2828 35th Street), more than a dozen local authors will perform live, reading their original works about motherhood. Sacramento is one of 31 different cities participating in the national event. Find out more and read bios of the Sacramento performers at http://listento yourmothershow.com/sacramento. Tickets cost $20 in advance ($25 at the door) and can be purchased at http://ltymsac2014.brownpapertickets.com.

Lastly, on Sunday, May 11, catch a stand-up comedy show by the The Real (Funny) Housewives of Rio Linda (pictured, www.therealfunnyhousewives.com) at the Punch Line Comedy Club (2100 Arden Way, Suite 225). The team of five funny mothers includes Cheryl “The Soccer Mom” Anderson, Kristen Frisk, Stephanie Garcia, Kimmie Kay and Sinderella. The show starts at 7 p.m., tickets cost $15, and it will probably be funny even if you’re not a soccer fan.

Friday, May 9 Demetri Martin is probably best known for being the “Youth Correspondent” on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, and for his show Important Things with Demetri Martin, which ran for two years, also on Comedy Central. Now he’s bringing his versatile comedy act to Sacramento. Expect a little music, COMEDY stand-up and perhaps some of his trademark comedic drawings. $35, 8 p.m. at the Crest Theatre 1013 K Street; (916) 442-5189; www.demetrimartin.com.

—Jonathan Mendick

BerryFest saTurday, May 10, Through sunday, May 11 BerryFest celebrates the strawberry harvest (as well as other berries) with a parade, music, a car show, contests and food. The best part: a no-hands FESTIVAL strawberry-shortcake eating contest. $5-$10, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at the Placer County Fair & Events Center, 800 All America City Boulevard in Roseville; (916) 787-0101; www.feedmeberries.org.

—Jonathan Mendick

East Sac Garden Tour saTurday, May 10, Through sunday, May 11 East Sacramento is the best place to take prim outof-towners any time of year, but the ritzy, charming Fab 40s are especially lovely in GARDENING the springtime, when Sacto’s gorgeous-despite-the-allergens bounty is displayed in full force. The 16th annual tour features seven gardens, and a luncheon and tea party at the Sutter Lawn Tennis Club. $20-$25 for the tour, $15 for the luncheon; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; addresses available upon ticket purchase; http://davidlubingardentour.com.

—Deena Drewis

The Blind Tiger Speakeasy Gala

photo by Rachel Valley

Thursday, May 15

28 | SN&R | 05.08.14

Whatever the reasoning behind the lingering fascination with illegal drinking, the Blind Tiger Speakeasy Gala will feature 1920s-era cars (from the California Automobile Museum), music, dancing and a silent auction, the proceeds of which go toward preserving Sacto’s own old-timey traditions via the Historic Old Sacramento GALA Foundation. $75-$125, 5:30 p.m. at Fat’s Catering & Banquet House, 1015 Front Street; (916) 808-7059; www.historicoldsac.org.

—Deena Drewis

GemFaire.com

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34.95 Adults | $31 Seniors | $16.95 Kids 5-12 | Under 5 Free

Eye Exams available by Sterling VisionCare Optometrist, a CA-licensed Vision Health Care service plan, conveniently located next to Site for Sore Eyes. Site for Sore Eyes does not employ the optometrist nor do they provide eye exams.

BEFORE

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STORY

Site for Sore Eyes • Sacramento News and Review • Job# 007762 • 2C, 4.9” x 5.67” Runs: 3/27 • EGC Group 516.935.4944

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Smoked Salmon & Chilled Seafood Display Freshly Prepared Salads

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500 Leisure Lane | Sacramento, CA (916) 922–2020 ARTS&CULTURE

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M o t h e r ’ S

D a y

Champagne Buffet Brunch

Chill Out on something sweet

SN&R

9:30am to 2:30pm Sunday, May 11 Call for reservations The Perfect Mother’s Day Gift: Your TiMe!

DOCKING ON StaNDS 400 L Street Downtown Sacramento (916) 321-9522 www.FoundationSacramento.com

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Finger-lickin’ good 1st Choice Pizza & Curry 9308 Elk Grove Boulevard, Suite 100 in Elk Grove; (916) 478-4444; www.bestpizzaandcurry.com When I lived in San Francisco, I liked to frequent Zante in the Mission District for Indian pizza. The food there makes for one of those “Why didn’t by Ann Martin Rolke we think of this sooner?” combinations. In Sacramento, some pizzerias serve Indianflavored pizzas, but 1st Choice Pizza & Curry seems to be the only authentic Indian restaurant making it.

Located in a strip mall just east of Old Elk Grove, it’s a surprising mash-up of traditions.

The interior is stark and clean, with more of an American fast-food look than Indian décor. rating: Nevertheless, the Indian food is what to order.

HHH 1st Choice offers American and Indian pizzas on standard pizza dough in five different dinner for one: sizes. The pizza crust is not quite deep-dish, but $10 - $15 relatively thick. We tried the butter chicken, chicken curry and malai paneer versions. All had generous amounts of toppings, with moist chunks of chicken or paneer and vegetables— primarily bell peppers and onions. You can order them mild or hot, although we didn’t find a huge difference in the two spice levels.

There’s also plenty of cheese (even on the H flawEd paneer, which is cheese itself). While the pizzas were intriguing and good, they could be better HH haS momEntS differentiated from one another. Perhaps we should have tried the Mango Tango, which HHH comes with mangoes, pineapple, onions and a appEalinG mango curry sauce.

HHHH (I really want someone to make Indian pizza authoritativE on garlic naan. The naan at 1st Choice is chewy HHHHH and flavorful. With more Indian sauce and less Epic cheese, it could be a standout.)

What really recommends 1st Choice, though, are its other Indian-food options. It has a well-executed selection of chaat and entrees. Chaat (meaning “to lick”) are snacks and small plates often served as street food in India. They’re usually a flavor explosion of ingredients as well.

The samosa chaat, for example, contains two fried pastries filled with spiced potatoes Still hungry? and peas, then smothered in a tomatoey sauce Search Sn&r’s of chickpeas, red onions and cilantro. It’s “dining directory” finger-lickin’ good for sure. to find local The same sauce appears over aloo tikki restaurants by name or by type of food. chaat, which includes two fried potato patties Sushi, mexican, indian, with a filling of spiced peas. Paneer pakora italian—discover it and fish pakora are batter-fried cheese all in the “dining” section at cubes and white fish, respectively, served www.news with sweet-tart tamarind and spicy cilantro review.com. chutneys.

I couldn’t get the butter chicken dish out of my mind. Listed as “makhani” at other restaurants, it’s a satiny sauce of cream, butter and spices bathing chunks of chicken. It’s also a fantastic version of this recipe, which you must eat with plenty of rice and warm naan to soak up every last bit of sauce.

The paneer tikka masala comes with the same sauce, although that isn’t the traditional presentation. Of course, any excuse to eat that sauce would make me happy.

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F E AT U R E

The tandoori chicken was also unusual, in that it is served with a juicy sweet-and-sour tangle of bell peppers and onions. While the chicken is well-spiced and smoky, a few of the pieces were a bit dry. Those that weren’t tasted like an inspired marriage of American barbecue and Indian flavors.

The chana masala is another winner, with chickpeas swimming in a spicy, thick tomatobased sauce. This version is more complex than many I’ve tried. Order it as part of the vegetarian thali, which also includes the paneer tikka masala, raita, rice, salad and kheer. It’s a great deal at $9.99, and a nonvegetarian version is $1 more.

You must eat the butter chicken with plenty of rice and warm naan to soak up every last bit of sauce.

The kheer, or rice pudding, is served cold.

It’s a looser version than most American rice puddings, and adds a refreshing flavor of cardamom to the milk. The rasmalai dessert consists of two cheese-based patties in a similarly fragrant cream. Several other desserts are offered as well.

On both of my visits, the employees were helpful with ordering and very earnest. It’s a fun find that’s worth a trip for adventurous eaters. Ω

Hooves, horns and moms

The Mother’s Day brunch at Animal Place may be the kindest late-breakfast-earlylunch meal you could take your mom to this year—and it’s also an opportunity to show her what a fantastic person you’ve turned out to be. When you take that saint of a woman who gave you life to this farm sanctuary in Grass Valley on Saturday, May 10, you’ll get a chance to meet and connect with all the hooved, horned and feathered brethren who were spared going to the slaughterhouse. “Oh, so sensitive,” Mom will think. And brunch is a totally vegan spread. “So healthconscious!” And there will be a tour of the farm and stories about motherhood at the sanctuary. “How touching!” And you’ll be feeling pretty good at this point, strutting around with your thumbs holding onto your suspenders, when Mummy bops you upside the head. “Humble down, son.” Get tickets ($30-$45) and other pertinent info at http://animalplace.org.

STORY

—Shoka |

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Downtown Blackbird Kitchen & Beer Gallery

Where to eat?

Here are a few recent reviews and regional recommendations by Ann Martin Rolke, Garrett McCord, Jonathan Mendick and Shoka updated regularly.

Check out www.newsreview.com for more dining advice.

Blackbird is back with chefowner Carina Lampkin again at the helm. It’s located in its original space with a similar aesthetic, though with more focus on beer and bar food to better complement the seafood-inspired dinner menu.

A burger served with house pickles, seven-day housecured bacon, cheddar and sweet ’n’ chivey “awesome sauce” make for one of the city’s best burgers, no question.

Chowder fries, however, are nifty in theory— fries covered in bay shrimp, bacon and parsley, then doused with chowder. It’s a play on poutine, but a lack of acid and serious sogginess issues mar it from being a landmark dish. Better yet? Fish tacos featuring fried pollock served with pickled cabbage and chipotle crema. These and a beer will remedy any bad day you’re having. American.

1015 Ninth St., (916) 498-9224.

Dinner for one: $10-$30.

HHH1/2 G.M.

Mother It’s no secret that Mother is a vegetarian-vegan restaurant, but this is not just a place that replaces the meat in a meal. Instead, Mother celebrates an endless array of fresh vegetables and grains.

The chile verde here comprises chunky potatoes, pinto beans and hominy for a “meaty” texture. Try it topped with a

soft-poached egg, and stir the yolk into the zingy chile sauce.

Kale has been done almost to death, but Mother’s version is a take on the Waldorf salad that makes eating your greens easy. Lots of golden raisins, celery, walnuts and balls of apple with a bit of skin attached join dilled yogurt and baby kale. Dessert includes the now-legendary brown-butter and sea-salt cookies. Do yourself a favor and get some.

Vegetarian. 1023 K St., (916) 594-9812. Dinner for one: $10-$15. HHHH1/2 AMR

Midtown The Coconut Midtown The food here travels a path between standard and inventive.

Cream-cheese wontons, for example, aren’t the epitome of culinary Southeast Asian traditions, but damn it if they aren’t delightful. Soft cream cheese and chives in a crispy wrapper and served with a sweet chili sauce? Nothing wrong with that. The chicken larb—a spicy minced-meat salad—is fragrant and intense. Mint, chilies, basil and iceberg lettuce are drenched in a spicy lime dressing punctuated with a heavy hand of fish sauce.

The Coconut has warnings in its menu about which dishes are spicy, but unless you’re a newborn kitten, trembling and mewling, you might not even be aware of the chilies in your food. Thai. 2502 J St., (916) 447-1855. Dinner for one: $10-$15. HHH1/2 G.M.

Hook & Ladder Manufacturing Co. The restaurant, by the same owners as Midtown’s The Golden Bear, sports a firefighting theme (a ladder on the ceiling duct work, shiny silver wallpaper with a rat-and-hydrant motif) and a bar setup that encourages patrons to talk to each other. An interesting wine list includes entries from Spain and Israel; there are also draft cocktails and numerous beers on tap. The brunch menu is heavy on the eggs, prepared in lots of ways. One option is the Croque Madame, a ham-and-Gruyere sandwich usually battered with egg.

This one had a fried egg and béchamel, with a generous smear of mustard inside.

The mountain of potato hash alongside tasted flavorful and not too greasy. The menu also features pizzas and housemade pastas, but one of its highlights includes an excellent smoked-eggplant baba ghanoush, which is smoky and garlicky. The bananas foster bread pudding is equally transcendent. American.

1630 S St., (916) 442-4885.

Dinner for one: $20-$40.

HHH1/2 AMR Thai Basil SN&R readers consistently vote this place among the city’s top Thai restaurants for this paper’s annual Best of Sacramento issue. And for good reason.

The restaurant’s tom yum soup may be one of the best foods served in the City of Trees. It features an incredibly savory broth with layers

of flavor. Likewise, the tom kha gai—a coconut-broth soup—is a veritable panacea against Delta winds. Salads make up a large part of Thai cuisine and should not be overlooked. Larb gai consists of simple shredded chicken over mixed greens, cucumber and tomatoes. Fresh mint and a chili-laden dressing heavy with fish sauce and vigorous squeezes of lime juice pull it all together for an addictive and satisfying lunch. One of Thai Basil’s true highlights is its homemade curry pastes.

These balanced constructions of basil, lemongrass, shallots, chilies, kaffir lime leaves and other ingredients, when roasted, have been known to drive hungry Sacramentans into a berserk craze. Service here is impeccable. Thai Basil has earned its reputation.

Thai. 2431 J St., (916) 442-7690.

Dinner for one: $10-$20.

HHHH G.M.

Tidbit Catering & Gelateria Chef Eric Lee has crafted an eclectic, bargain-friendly menu. Fried calamari are lightly seasoned with a crispy exterior and served with a marinara-ish bland sauce.

A carrot-and-ginger soup possesses a slow burn, and a chicken-lettuce wrap is sophisticated: a modest portion of food of moderate size that’s highlighted with slivers of cucumber and a shaking of vinegar. The frozen bits, however are the real winners.

Gelato and sorbet are both available in astounding offthe-cuff flavors that mostly

draw inspiration from Asian cuisines. A vanilla-and-adzuki-bean gelato tastes sweet and earthy, with a flavor reminiscent to Chinese moon cakes. A nutty soy-based black-sesame-seed gelato is as rustic and charming as your favorite Instagram filter.

American. 1907 Capitol Ave., (916) 442-7369. Dinner for one: $5-$10. HHH1/2 G.M.

Land Park/ Curtis Park Spice Kitchen The menu here has a few tangential dishes like pad thai, but it’s mostly focused on Japanese cuisine, with a side menu of Chinese-American favorites.

Tasty options include the vegetable tempura, lightly fried with slices of Japanese sweet potato and yams. If you want ramen, the hot soup dish these days, try the red tonkotsu version: It’s served with lots of nicely chewy noodles, spinach and the requisite soft-boiled egg.

Spice Kitchen also serves bento boxes in lunch and dinner portions for a good price.

Here, diners get soup, rice, salad and tempura, as well as a meat of choice. Japanese.

1724 Broadway, (916) 492-2250. Dinner for one: $10-$15. HHH AMR

East Sac Instead of cheese-blanketed entrees, diners here can

Now StartiNg at 3pm

Bodhi Bowl This Vietnamese eatery’s menu is all vegetarian and mostly vegan, with plenty

RECYCLE

Happy Hour 50% 0FF $5 select cocktails • $4 wines by the glass ($18 for the bottle) • $3 bottled beers

South Sac

Cielito Lindo Mexican Gastronomy

New

order upscale dishes such as enchiladas de mole: tortillas wrapped around amazingly moist, flavorful chicken, bathed in a housemade mole poblano. The sauce has a million wonderful flavors. The portions here are quite generous. A green salad with fruits and nuts was big enough for a meal, even without the optional meat or seafood topping. The restaurant’s empanaditas de salpicon con papas are little turnovers standing up amid a drizzle of ancho sauce.

The crust features a bit of leavening that makes it both crunchy and fluffy. The filling of beef, potatoes and vegetables tastes well-flavored and a bit spicy. Or try the tacos de arrachera—three soft tortillas enclose marinated strips of meltingly good steak, topped with roasted poblano chilies, lots of fresh cilantro and crema. They’re drippy, but worth every napkin. The menu is meatcentric, but the kitchen is vegetarian friendly as well. The crema de rajas poblanas, fully vegan and similar to a Mexican minestrone, is full of chickpeas, poblanos and onions in a rich broth uniquely flavored with vanilla and epazote. Mexican.

3672 J St., (916) 736-2506.

Dinner for one: $20-$25.

HHHH AMR

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814 15th Street • 916.443.2347 • meltingpot.com 32 | SN&R | 05.08.14

China Buffet

YOU’RE WELCOME, NATURE.

chinabuffetrestaurant.com

Paris Midtown in

Serving Brunch Saturday & Sunday

at

14th & O Street

Springtime in France...

Patio Dining • Dog Friendly • Largest selection of rare cheeses • Authentic French preparation •

Bistro Michel

1501 14th Street bistromichel.com | 916.346.4012

Kansai Ramen & Sushi House This place serves its own take on ramen and sushi, with varying degrees of success. The kakuni ramen, which features three thick slices of braised pork belly in lieu of the house ramen’s thin slices of chashu, boasts a nice, sweet marinade; tender consistency; and copious flavor. Be sure to order noodles al dente, and it’ll make for a good option, even with its run-of-the-mill broth. Or amp it up with the spicy tan tan men, which uses a beefy and seafood-tinted

BURBS

SN&R

only place in town that serves niu rou jian bing (sliced beef rolls)—a specialty of northern China—and the ones at Yang’s hit the spot. This is basically the Chinese version of a burrito: meat (thinly sliced beef marinated in soy sauce) plus veggies (diced green onion, cucumber and cilantro) wrapped in a large, flat carbohydrate crepe. Elsewhere on the menu, Yang’s eponymous noodles are homemade, alkaline and chewy.

Chinese. 5860 Stockton Blvd., (916) 392-9988. Dinner for one: $10-$15. HHHH J.M.

Roma’s Pizza & Pasta This eatery claims to serve “authentic Italian-style” food, but that’s only partially true when it comes to its pizza. That’s because it actually serves two types: one with the kind of thick, doughy crust usually found on an American-styled pizza, and another with a thinner crust, resembling a pie one might actually have in Italy. The thicker crust is chewy, but ultimately lacking in flavor. However, the tomato sauce makes up for the dough with a nice, spicy kick, and Roma’s doesn’t skimp on the toppings. The thin-crust pizza impresses: It’s light and crispy like a cracker and clearly is the superior option.

Italian. 6530 Fair Oaks Blvd. in Carmichael, (916) 488-9800.

Dinner for one: $10-$20.

HHH J.M.

Arden/ Carmichael FreshMed Mediterranean Cuisine This restaurant broadens the definition of “Mediterranean.”

In addition to the usual options—gyros, hummus, falafel, etc.—it also serves dishes from a wide range of cultures. For example, FreshMed offers a $6 Indian and Pakistani lunch buffet.

Selections include stir-fried eggplant; curried chickpeas,

Stirling Bridges Restaurant and Pub This British- and Scottishthemed gastropub offers an adequate beer selection and an extensive menu that goes

Tasty Thai It’s hard to find a better lunch deal than the one offered here: Each one includes rice and a salad with an entree—and costs $11 or less. There are 23 options, plus daily specials. (The dinner menu is similar—only bigger). Choose from four categories—wok, rice and noodles, soup, or curry—and add a protein. The Thai basil, served with green beans, onion, bell pepper and basil in a spicy garlic sauce, is cooked in a wok and has a nice smoky flavor with veggies cooked slightly al dente.

In the rice and noodles category, the pad Thai and the pad see ew both impress, but the latter has just a bit more of that savoriness that make Asian noodle dishes uber-comforting. Service is friendly, even when it’s busy, and nearly every order is big enough for two meals. Expect leftovers. Thai. 2598 Alta Arden Expy., (916) 977-3534. Dinner for one: $10-$20. HHHH J.M.

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beyond standard deep-fried pub fare. Try the Irish onion soup, a French onion-styled soup kicked up with Irish whiskey and Guinness beer. Or order the house-made veggie burger—it’s one of the tastiest black-bean patties around. The most unusual dish on the menu is the Scottish Mafia Pizza. Topped with turkey pastrami, potatoes, cabbage and Swiss cheese, it falls short with its too many flat flavors to actually benefit from their unusual pairing. Thankfully, there’s Tabasco sauce on the table. Pub. 5220 Manzanita Ave. in Carmichael, (916) 331-2337.

Dinner for one: $10-$20.

HHH1/2 J.M.

Instant ramen as we know it—cheap, dried noodles and powdery seasoning—hasn’t really changed much since Momofuku Ando invented it to help feed a World War II-ravaged Japan. But with Sun Noodle’s new ramen kits, you can now make a bowl of restaurant-quality ramen at home. Plus, it’s still relatively instant. Located in the refrigerated section of a store, the kit features fresh, uncooked noodles plus a concentrated tare paste, or soup base. Similar to how restaurants prepare ramen, one must quickly dip the noodles in boiling water for a minute, strain them right away, and put them in a bowl. Then, mix the tare with boiling water, add the noodles and garnish it with toppings. I found the kits at KP International Market (10971 Olson Drive in Rancho Cordova) for $3.50 each—with some flavors on sale for $1.99. Each package consists of two servings, and it’s the best thing since, well, instant ramen.

—Jonathan Mendick

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lentils; and a creamy, spicy and hearty chicken tikka masala. The Mediterranean Nacho and chicken panini are examples of what the restaurant does well: culinary mashups that aren’t derivative, but instead rely heavily on flavor and innovation. The paninis are standouts: The bread is sweet, thicker than one might expect, and pressed nicely on a grill, with char marks on both sides. Mediterranean.

1120 Fulton Ave., Ste. I; (916) 486-1140. Dinner for one: $10-$20. HHH1/2 J.M.

soup base that teems with flavor. The sushi rolls here are Western style—a.k.a. loaded with toppings. Try the Mufasa roll. With crab and avocado on the inside and salmon and sauce outside, it’s particularly tasty, seasoned in sesame oil and baked—a somewhat unusual technique for sushi.

Japanese. 2992 65th St., Ste. 288; (916) 455-0288. Dinner for one: $10-$20. HHH J.M.

IllustratIon by Mark stIvers

of high notes. The Heavenly Noodle is a can’t-go-wrong salad comprising snow-white vermicelli noodles with cooling mint, cucumber slices, houseroasted peanuts and jagged pieces of faux beef. The “beef” actually is slightly sweet, plenty umami and pleasantly inoffensive, as far as fake meat goes.

Nearly everything here has a faux-meat product or tofu element. So, sorry diners with soy allergies—it can’t even be escaped in the papaya salad.

Not an issue? Soldier on with the Hot & Sour soup, a not-too spicy sunset-orange broth that teems with a tomatoey and citrus flavor, chunks of pineapple, semicircles of trumpet mushrooms, cubes of fried tofu and slices of faux crab. Or, try the stir-fried Eight Fold Path.

It features al dente celery, red bell pepper and triangles of the most savory, salty, dense tofu perhaps ever. Vietnamese.

6511 Savings Place, Ste. 100; (916) 428-4160. Dinner for one: $10-$15. HHHH S.

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House music Simon Joyner Living room Show

The mystery of truth Living with a wiLd god Although Barbara Ehrenreich has written in the first person before—Nickel and Dimed, Bright-Sided—it’s BOOK never been this personal. Living With a Wild God: A Nonbeliever’s Search for the Truth About Everything (Grand Central Publishing, $26) is based on a journal she kept as a young teenager, when she had a series of “dissociative” episodes during which language seemed to slip away and she felt the barriers between her sense of self and the world around her disappear. It was, she says, “mystical,” which may strike longtime readers of the openly atheist writer oddly. This book is an attempt to make sense of a very real experience, and it’s both humble and intellectually stimulating. While some may be tempted to see a middle ground emerging here between belief and nonbelief, what comes through most clearly is a demand for honesty without excuses when examining our own experiences.

—Kel Munger

Songs and spokes Spoke-tacuLar at art mix In honor of May Is Bike Month, Crocker Art Museum’s recurring party series Art Mix is cranking out lots of cycling-themed crafty stuff. Who better to curate the show than Bike City, USA’s Davis Live Music Collective?

Headliner Vandella is a soulful rock band from San Francisco with a powerhouse female CULTURE vocalist and a swampy, Southern edge. It blends Motown influences with contemporary indie-rock songwriting. Thursday, May 8, 5-9p.m.; $10, free for members. Crocker Art Museum, 216 O Street; (916) 808-1182; www.crockerartmuseum.org.

—Janelle Bitker

Ride on cheetah: the neLSon vaiLS Story Celebrate May Is Bike Month with a screening of Cheetah: The Nelson Vails Story at the Crest Theatre.

Directed by Stephane Gauger, this 2014 documentary chronicles the journey of the Harlem-born and raised Vails, who in 1984 became the first (and to FILM this day remains the only) African-American to win an Olympic medal in cycling. Vails will be in attendance at the screening, and VIP tickets will include a post-film meet-and-greet with the athlete.

Saturday, May 10, 7 p.m. $25-$75. 1013 K Street; www.thecrest.com.

—Rachel Leibrock

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House shows can be straight-up magic. You’re getting cozy with your friends. You’re not shelling out $8 for shitty beer. And the musician is right there, telling stories and spreading lovely sounds. You could go up and touch them if you really wanted to.

Granted, house shows can also just be big parties, with people being loud and drunk and MUSIC awful. And there just happens to be a live band.

Undertow Music Collective is a game changer, though. The group books legit concerts with big-time artists, in carefully selected fans’ living rooms. Tickets are purchased in advance, and the location is only revealed on said tickets.

Friday, May 9, in El Dorado Hills, Simon Joyner (pictured) and Wooden Wand perform. Wooden Wand is singer-songwriter James Jackson Toth, part of the new weird America movement popularized by Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom.

Joyner is kind of a legend. He’s cited as a pioneer of Nebraska’s music scene and one of Conor Oberst’s major influences. The similarities between their indie-folk sound and structure are clear, though Joyner’s songs feel less mainstream-friendly.

His lyrics are dense, literary and often dissonant. And he’s also modest and reclusive, hardly touring or performing at all for half of his 22-year career. He wanted to be around for his family, but he also doesn’t really enjoy playing at bars and clubs. This tour is more his speed.

“It’s taking house shows seriously—a real venue atmosphere, but in a relaxed living room,” he said.

Fans can expect to hear a lot of brand-new songs, which will be included on a future record. Unlike his most recent album, Ghosts, with a full band and dark noise, his new songs are more stripped-down and acoustic-heavy. Friday, May 9, 8 p.m. in El Dorado Hills, $20, www.undertowtickets.com.

—Janelle Bitker

Unlock the mystery I’m a 44-year-old single mother of two, divorced for three years. I have not had any relationships, no dates, not even a male friend. I miss having someone to rely on and have fun with. I try to dress attractively and keep myself up, but nothing works to attract a man. Am I ever going to find that special person?

It’s a mystery, isn’t it? Many

by Joey ga of us love reading mysteries, rcia but prefer to script out our lives in the hope that the a skj oey @ ne wsreview.c om unknown can be controlled according to our specifications. Or we search our daily interactions to sort out clues that align our experiences with Joey is going back to our expectations. You might be Pushkin’s Bakery for scanning the responses men offer more Meyer lemon during conversations or while pound cake. passing you on the street, and then trying to interpret their interest.

But have you considered why you want to be in an intimate, committed relationship? Yes, JudeoChristian religions tell us that human beings should be paired.

Yes, our society was built on this foundation and fosters some economic advantages for couples.

But none of that guarantees reliability or fun, which is what you say you desire.

Being single is not a disease or dysfunction. You are not lacking something essential to a well-lived life.

I want you to open your mind and heart to the perfection of your life as it is. Allow your spiritual practice to be this: gratitude in every moment for what is good.

You are 44. Celebrate living into midlife. You are divorced. Be joyful that, after the death of your marriage, you still rise each day and thrive. You have two children.

Embody the role of mother, and be glad. You are single and have not dated recently. Humble yourself in the face of loneliness or worry or whatever emotion you marry to the belief that being single means something is wrong. Discover reality instead. Being single is not a disease or dysfunction. You are not lacking something essential to a well-lived life. Being single is an

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.

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adventure, an opportunity, a path of self-discovery. In the process of embracing this solo flight, you will begin to rely on and trust yourself.

That’s when the real fun begins.

I found out that my husband has been hitting on a friend of one of my close friends. When I confronted the woman my husband flirted with, she denied it. But I recently found out she actually encouraged my husband’s attention by texting him several times. I ended the friendship with my good friend and her friend (the woman who was flirting with my husband). Do you think I’m right for kicking them out of my life? How can I trust any friendship after this kind of betrayal?

You kept the flirtatious husband but kicked a good pal to the curb because her friend flirted with your man? Ay yi yi! Focusing only on the two women might be a distraction. I mean, yes, there are people on this planet who will flirt back with a flirt who is in a committed relationship. And, no, those flirtations are not always the prelude to a sexual or emotional affair. Yes, flirtation can be annoying to the partner who is not included in the exchange of sexual energy (that’s what a flirtation is, after all). No, you can’t control your husband’s flirtations by ending every relationship you have with a woman who enjoys verbal foreplay. Yes, you can talk to a therapist and find out whether your husband’s behavior is a red flag. Yes, that therapist can help your husband find out whether his flirtatiousness is an unconscious attempt to shore up some insecurity, or to end his marriage. But have you spoken to your husband? Now is the ideal time for a chat about the state of your union and his need for attention. Ω

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Capital Stage’s Good People starts off in the alley behind a dollar store, where cashier Margaret (Rebecca Dines, in an achingly honest, memorable performance) is getting fired for her chronic lateness. Margaret responds to her manager with a flip, hardened humor that’s both hilarious and reeks of desperation—trademarks of Margaret’s personality that make her character both endearing and infuriating.

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4 Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike B Street Theatre brings company members to the forefront with the regional premiere of Christopher Durang’s Tony Award-winning Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. It’s a very funny and often insightful skewering of family relations, contemporary self-absorption, and the loss of real connections to each other and the world.

As the title suggests, the play features a check off of Chekhov, with shout-outs to works like Uncle Vanya (on which the play is very loosely based), Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull and The Bear.

For literary nerds, this is one laugh after another.

For those who are less familiar with Chekhov’s work, though, there’s still plenty to laugh at—including the disruption by a young man sending text messages during the staged reading of a play.

Greg Alexander (Vanya) and Stephanie McVay (Sonia) bring a quiet desperation to the siblings who stayed behind in the family’s Bucks County, Pa. home to care for their aged parents. Jamie Jones (Masha) is sufficiently self-involved and dramatic as their successful actress sister, who owns the house and is now returning to sell it.

She brings with her a boy toy: the vacuous and beautiful Spike (Jason Kuykendall, in a role that lets him show off his well-toned body), who is easily distracted by Nina (Mary Katherine Cobb), the would-be actress and visiting neighbor. Throw in Cassandra (Tara Sissom), a housekeeper with a bent for both prophecy and voodoo, and things are bound to get a bit crazy.

Directed by Buck Busfield, the play has all the elements of a good satire, but at times seems more concerned with farce than with really skewering the subjects broached. Still, it’s hard not to laugh at the site of Masha, dressed as the Disney version of Snow White, alternately raging, sobbing and flirting. Sometimes absurdity really is enough.

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or overplayed accents or attitudes. Dines shines as a wounded Margaret—so much so that, in a moment when her character breaks down, the audience lets out a collective moan of painful recognition. Special shout-out to the alwayscreative Capital Stage scenic designer Dave Nofsigner for the imaginative set design. Ω

Good People, 7 p.m. Wednesday; 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday; $22-$36. Capital Stage, 2215 J Street; (916) 995-5464; www.capstage.org.

Through June 1.

Margaret’s hopelessness is played out when she returns to her apartment to commiserate her lot in life with Dottie (Linda Montalvo-Carbone), who is both her landlord and the babysitter of Margaret’s disabled adult daughter, and Margaret’s best buddy, Jean (Lori Russo). The three are a hilarious trio of bitter bitchery. They no longer have any social filters or much hope that life will turn a corner, since they’re all stuck in the muck of luck or choices gone bad.

Through a chance meeting and a ballsy, desperate decision, Margaret bursts into the life of old high-school boyfriend and now doctor Mike (James Hiser), who lives miles and a lifetime from his Southie roots. At first, Mike is humored by this blast from the past, but he soon learns that Margaret is an unreliable firecracker ready to blow up his comfortable smug life with unpleasant truths and awkward accusations.

Class distinctions come to an interesting head when Margaret ventures out to his spacious house to find out he’s “all lace-curtains Irish now” with fancy wines and a bourgeois wife (ZZ Moor, reprising her Marin Theatre Company role as Kate).

Director Stephanie Gularte deftly directs this talented cast, careful not to teeter into stereotypes

—Kel Munger

vanya and Sonia and masha and Spike, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday; $23-$35. b Street Theatre, 2711 b Street; (916) 443-5300; www.bstreet theatre.org. Through June 15.

Now Playing

4

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

This early Stephen Sondheim show dates back to 1962. But as a musical farce set in ancient Rome, Forum’s aged better than many shows of its era. As this lively production proves, it’s still a very funny piece. Director Michael Laun piles up overlapping schemes and plot reverses with panache.

A live band (rather than recorded instrumentals) would have been nice, but otherwise, this production clicks on most levels.

W 6:30 pm, Th 12:30pm & 6:30pm, F 8pm, Sa 2pm & 8pm, Su 2pm.

Through 5/18. $12-35. Sacramento Theatre Company at the Wells Fargo Pavilion, 1419 H St.; (916) 443-6722; www.sactheatre.org.

Through May 18. J.H.

5

Hamlet

Trimming Shakespeare’s massive tragedy to slightly less than two hours, 11 roles and four actors successfully brings a wild and immediate energy to it. This adaptation by P. Joshua Laskey, staged by Theater Galatea, features Laskey as Hamlet; Jessica Goldman Laskey, Blair Leatherwood and Kellie Yvonne Raines play everybody else. It’s intense, visceral and engulfing. F, Sa 8pm. Through 5/10. $18. Theater Galatea at the William J. Geery Theatre, 2130 L St.; www.theatergalatea.com. K.M.

4

Inventing Van Gogh

By tracing Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpieces from poor painter to the modern-day multimillion-dollar art-trade business, Inventing Van Gogh

explores the fascinating world of art from the original creation to the eventual appreciation and the ultimate exploitation of the artwork. The three actors portraying the artists are cohesive and intriguing—Brennan Villados as a modern young artist, Brian Watson as Van Gogh and Ed Gyles Jr. as Paul Gauguin—with director Benjamin T. Ismail keeping the ever-changing play’s sentiments in check. Th, F, Sa 8pm. Through 5/17. $10-$16. Big Idea Theatre, 1616 Del Paso Blvd.; (916) 960-3036; www.bigideatheatre.com. P.R.

1 FOUL

4

2

A New Brain

The Green Valley Theatre Company does an outstanding job with this small but hilarious musical from William Finn and James Lapine. A composer (Craig Howard) suffers a brain injury that brings on hallucinations and must undergo a risky surgery to recover. The hallucinations are a riot, including a frog with a bad attitude (Owen Smith) and nurses singing songs like “Poor, Unsuccessful and Fat.” With excellent supporting work from a very talented cast, energetic direction by Jerry Kennedy and a live orchestra directed by Peter Kagstrom, this is a wild ride. F, Sa 8pm; Su 7pm.

Through 5/18. $18. Green Valley Theatre Company, 3823 V St.; (916) 736-2664; www.greenvalley theatre.com. K.M.

Short reviews by Jeff Hudson, Kel Munger and Patti Roberts.

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A behind-thescenes look at SacImpulse rehearsing Orlando: Melinda Parrett, left, and Gail Dartez working on a speech.

It’s a man, it’s a poet, it’s Orlando As founder and artistic director of SacImpulse, Jerry Lee wanted an outlet to produce “highly re-imagined treatments of classic literature,” he told SN&R. Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography, which Lee describes as “a very lyrical fantasia about finding meaning, purpose, and one’s own center” takes place in an ever-changing world. It tells the story of a poet—a man who wakes up one day and has morphed into a woman. The story spans nearly 300 years, from the Elizabethan age to 1928—yet the character ages only 36 years.

Melinda Parrett stars as the title character, while Lee, Kayla Marie Berghoff, Sean Patrick Nill and Eason Donner fill out the cast. Both Lee and Parrett are professional actors working under an Actors’ Equity Association special-appearance agreement for the production, which will have only six performances, beginning Thursday, May 8.

Orlando; 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday; $20. New Helvetia Theatre, 1028 R Street; (916) 749-6039; www.sacimpulse.com. Through May 17.

—Jim Carnes

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Under the Skin

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The idea of an alien creature who visits Earth to teach us something about ourselves is a common one in sci-fi cinema, from the anti-war pleas of The Day by Daniel Barnes the Earth Stood Still to the wide, humane eyes of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. However, few if any films have managed to get the audience to actually identify with the extraterrestrial’s point of view, to literally see the world through the coldly observant eyes of an alien. Under the mysterious and unnerving spell of Jonathan Glazer’s brilliant nightmare Under the Skin, however, humanity feels like the alien species, ripe for study and possibly primed for harvest.

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Under the Skin is lean on dialogue and comforting context, traits that will drive some filmgoers batty.

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38 | SN&R | 05.08.14

Even nature behaves unnaturally in front of Glazer’s lens, and he films the fog-shrouded landscape of Scotland like it was a strange planet. The onslaught of thick Scottish burrs only adds to the film’s unsettling effect, and many of the onscreen performers speak English as though it were a foreign language. A fair number of the cast members in Under the Skin are actually nonactors surreptitiously shot Borat-style by Glazer and his crew, further blurring the boundaries of perception.

Scarlett Johansson stars as an emotionless but blankly curious alien driving through the cities and back roads of Scotland. She spends a lot of her time observing people, especially males, and we soon realize that she is trolling for victims.

Her chilling methods and the aliens’ larger motives on Earth will be discussed by anyone who cares about cinema for the next century or so, but judging by Mica Levi’s discordant score and cinematographer Daniel Landin’s sinister

images, benevolence and knowledge sharing are not parts of the plan.

Wearing a black wig and a fox fur coat that suggests Karen O dressed as the Ruth Gordon character in Harold and Maude, Johansson entices male loners and hitchhikers into her nest.

Once ensnared, she uses an almost supernatural allure to overwhelm her prey. Much like certain predatory plant species, she lures her victims into a hypnotic submission, and Glazer does the same thing to the audience with his camera. He invites us to indulge in the pleasure of ogling Johansson, but at our own peril, making Under the Skin both a stunning example of the male gaze and a devious inversion of it.

Johansson is perfect as the alien seductress, a blithe black widow who gets increasingly weaker the further she explores a budding humanity that is only skin deep. Glazer uses the Maxim Hot 100 mainstay Johansson in much the same way that James Cameron used former Mr. Universe Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator—as both an almost too-perfect metajoke and as a back door to introducing some troubling ideas about dehumanization. Under the Skin makes Johansson’s blinding sex appeal and self-conscious acting style essential to her character.

More than anything, the film is interested in what it means to be human. After the first few victims, Johansson’s alien begins deviating from the plan, and her gaze refocuses, first onto other women and finally back onto herself. Unsettling questions arise about the nature of identity—does Johansson’s alien discover empathy only when she begins to discern between attractive and unattractive surfaces, or when she starts looking past surfaces altogether? Perhaps the film is positing that humanity means having the ability to fall in love with your own skin, even if there is literally nothing underneath.

Glazer’s auteur influences on Under the Skin are legion, including Nicolas Roeg (The Man Who Fell to Earth), Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry), Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey), and early Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), but the result is a true original that defies categorization. Under the Skin is lean on dialogue and comforting context, traits that will drive some filmgoers batty, but more conventional movie options will always exist.

Greatness should be determined not by how easily a film dissolves in your mouth, but by how deeply it infects your mind and how hard it rattles your soul. Under the Skin is a film that I don’t expect to ever leave me—several weeks after my initial viewing, I still shudder at the remembrance of certain images—and that’s the highest praise I can conceive. Ω

by daniel barnes & JiM lane

2

Peter Parker/Spider-Man returns in the person of Andrew Garfield, and he’s as miscast as he was the first time around, again slouching and mumbling like a James Dean wannabe. Four writers are credited, but there’s no real story beyond what’s left over from the previous movie. There’s plenty of CGI action, blasted at us at high velocity, but as so often happens, there’s little weight or sense of real danger. It’s just so much visual noise. As Spidey’s squeeze Gwen Stacy, Emma Stone still has little chemistry with Garfield, but she’s always welcome. Also welcome, and also wasted, are Jamie Foxx, Sally Field, Chris Cooper and Paul Giamatti (the latter apparently being set up to be the next movie’s villain). Fans may convince themselves they’ve gotten their money’s worth, but the movie doesn’t make it easy. J.L.

4

Locally Owned Served with a Smile. *Nitro Coffee (pictured) is available at East Sac location only

This is what fatal radiation looks like.

Bears

Following in the footsteps of Earth, Oceans, African Cats and Chimpanzee, Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey’s Bears is the latest Disneynature documentary released to coincide with Earth Day. The film follows a trying year in the life of Sky, a female brown bear in a protected portion of the Alaskan wilderness, as she tries to lead her two ridiculously adorable plush-doll bear cubs to the salmon run. John C. Reilly narrates with the child-skewing doofiness of a fun uncle, and while the story is a little tacky and forced at times, darn it if my heart didn’t race, sink, leap and break upon the filmmakers’ every cue. Bears has been scrubbed clean of any “discomforting” eco-political messages beyond a generalized celebration of nature’s power and beauty, but it does become a touching ode to the fierceness and determination of single mothers. D.B.

2

3

Brick Mansions

1

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

2

Jude Law grew mutton-chop sideburns and added about 30 pounds of English-ale belly to play the title character in Dom Hemingway, and that slight deglamorization seems to have recharged his batteries. This is easily his best performance in a decade, and it is especially nice to see him resharpen the comic timing that had been blunted by hacks like Guy Ritchie and Nancy Meyers. For a while, this stylish mix of hard-man moxie and mannered British comedy works quite well, thanks to Law’s excellent lead performance and oddball supporting work by Richard E. Grant, Demian Bichir and Jumayn Hunter. Law’s braggadocio-filled Dom is a criminal who “plays by the rules,” an enormous mistake in a world where all of the rules are unwritten and rarely followed. Unfortunately, for a film that begins by soliloquizing its protagonist’s penis, Dom Hemingway ends up surprisingly short on balls. D.B.

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NEWS

From the Rough

A women’s swim coach at Tennessee State University (Taraji P. Henson) gets the chance to coach the men’s golf team, a dream assignment for her—but obstacles include a hostile athletic director (Henry Simmons) who has little confidence in her team of international misfits. The movie is inspired by the career of Catana Starks, but we can only hope that Starks’ real life has not been so riddled with clichés as the script by Mike Critelli and director Pierre Bagley. Every go-for-the-gold sports-movie trope is recycled here, while Bagley’s slack pacing and awkward compositions fail to make golf an interesting spectator sport (an uphill battle anyway). Earnest performances all around (including former Harry Potter nemesis Tom Felton and the late Michael Clark Duncan), but the material defeats them. J.L.

Dom Hemingway

BEFORE

Fading Gigolo

The rancid Fading Gigolo sleazily postulates that the beautiful and lonely female professionals of modern-day New York crave only one thing: 57-year-old John Turturro.

But here’s the joke: there’s no joke, that’s the movie. Turturro plays cash-strapped handyman Fioravante, who is whored out sight unseen to a married but sexually frustrated doctor played

by Sharon Stone, a scene that culminates with Stone literally cursing her husband while she climaxes. Writer-director Turturro begs for comparisons to Woody Allen’s classic New York romances, right down to the casting of Allen as Fioravante’s mentor and aspiring pimp, but he earns them only in that Fading Gigolo seems to exist in an Allen-esque, pre-feminist 1960s fantasia bursting with polymorphous-perverse female neurotics. After going psychotically overthe-top in nearly every role for the last 15 years, Turturro takes a polar opposite approach here, barely registering as a screen presence. D.B.

SHIELD, the agency for which Captain America (Chris Evans) and the other Avengers work, has been subverted by the terrorist organization HYDRA. Col. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is dead, and only the Captain and Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) remain to fight for freedom, aided by Sam Wilson, a.k.a. the Falcon (Anthony Mackie). The movie is a letdown from 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, partly because much of the first supporting cast is gone, partly because director Joe Johnston has been replaced by brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, a lackluster change. Still, it’s diverting enough, and the Russos’ when-in-doubt-start-a-CGI-fight approach will please the fans. Evans is, once again, the best reason to see the movie, and Johansson makes a fun partner-cum-sidekick. J.L.

3

Transcendence

A brilliant scientist (Johnny Depp) is given a fatal dose of radiation by a cabal of anti-technology Luddites. Before he dies, he, his wife (Rebecca Hall) and best friend (Paul Bettany) transfer his personality to an experimental artificial-intelligence computer—with unexpected (if predictable) consequences.

Performances are good—also featured are Morgan Freeman, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy and Cole Hauser—and the movie is consistently interesting, but firsttime writer Jack Paglen and first-time director Wally Pfister have bitten off more than they can chew. The story lumbers and becomes muddled, finally winding down into a bizarre variation on Romeo and Juliet. The ending, which leaves the door wide open for Transcendence 2, is annoying, and not as clever as Paglen and Pfister probably think it is. J.L.

Luc Besson has been such a one-man tidal wave of recycled ideas and sequelized schlock throughout this millennium, it’s amazing that it has taken him this long to remake the 2004 action film District B13. The premise is the same, although Brick Mansions moves the setting from near-future Paris to 2018 Detroit—the ghettos have been walled off from a city run by greedy developers, but a determined cop (Paul Walker, in his last completed role) and a parkour do-gooder (David Belle) team up to bring down a terrorist crime lord (RZA, quite bad). Belle is one of the real-life founders of parkour, and he plays the same role here as in District B13, but all of the stunts are a step slower this time around.

Not that it matters, since the bodycentric action of the original has been largely replaced with boring car chases. D.B.

3

It’s Amazing & Refreshing!

Simply the Tastiest Coffee Ever: It’s Nitro Coffee!

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

1

A Haunted House 2

It’s a sure sign that you’re watching a Wayans joint when the first “joke” about molesting a comatose woman comes during the opening credits. Marlon Wayans co-writes and stars in A Haunted House 2, his second attempt at shadowing the Scary Movie franchise, here ostensibly satirizing both found-footage horror and newfangled creak shows like The Conjuring and Insidious. The humor mostly centers around rape, butchered house pets, rape, and that old chestnut, the differences between white people and black people (hot tip: black men have a great fondness for large butts, whereas white men do not like them as much). Wayans spends most of the movie screaming at inanimate objects (including Jaime Pressly, as his wife), and there is a scene of him sexually violating a wooden doll that is Oscar-worthy work in my hell. D.B.

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F E AT U R E

STORY

3

Noah

The great flood of Genesis gets a typically idiosyncratic retelling from director and co-writer (with Ari Handel) Darren Aronofsky, as Noah (Russell Crowe), his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly) and eldest son Ham (Logan Lerman) prepare for rain, while Noah’s grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) kibitzes from a distance and some rocklike fallen angels called Watchers help build the Ark. Not everything works—those Watchers seem to have beamed in from one of Lerman’s Percy Jackson pictures—but the movie often has the raw energy of a primitive legend handed down from the prehistoric, torch-lit past. Crowe’s Noah is more tortured prophet than white-bearded patriarch; it’s a bold concept, and it works. J.L.

2

DOWNTOWN: EAST SACRAMENTO: 3rd & Q St Mon-Fri 6:30am-4pm

ChocolateFishCoffee.com

Office Space

The Other Woman

In Nick Cassavetes’ imbalanced and unfunny The Other Woman, Cameron Diaz plays a successful lawyer and voracious man-eater who finds out that her “boyfriend” already has an unsuspecting wife (Leslie Mann).

The two women form a weird bond, and after discovering the existence of a second mistress (Kate Upton, mostly acting in slow motion), they bring her into the fold and start to plot their revenge. Diaz and Mann rehash their respective personas at full volume throughout, but the comedic bar is set excessively low (revenge montage set to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” anyone?), and the long leash on Mann’s highstrung idiot shtick is especially unbearable.

Although the script is by first-timer Melissa Stack, The Other Woman is virulently misogynistic (even our female “heroes” refer to Upton’s character as “the boobs”), and the mix of low comedy and trite sisterhood clichés becomes borderline schizophrenic. D.B.

3

m o v i e

&

d i n n e r

“mmmmm....yeah, we’re going to ay.” need you to come in on sund

have you seen my stapler?

The Railway Man

Colin Firth plays Eric Lomax, a former prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, who learns that the soldier who tortured him is still alive and serving as a guide at the Burmese camp where Lomax was held. Lomax decides to confront the man in an attempt to come to terms with his terrible memories. Adapted from Lomax’s autobiography by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Andy Paterson and directed by Jonathan Teplitzky, the movie simplifies the story (eliminating Lomax’s first marriage completely), then jumps back and forth between the 1980s and the war (where Lomax is played by Jeremy Irvine). The movie is rather reticent and uninvolving, but wellacted all around, especially by Irvine. Nicole Kidman is also fine as Lomax’s loving wife, as is Stellan Skarsgård as a lifelong friend who shared Lomax’s captivity. J.L.

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48th & Folsom Blvd 6:30am-5pm Daily

A RT S & C U LT U R E

open for br ch on mother’sun day!

Sunday may 18th 7:30pm | $25

(price includes three course meal + movie) in partnership with

1615 J Street | Sacramento 916.669.5300

tickets available at lucca or brownpapertickets.com |

AFTER

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05.08.14

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SN&R

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39

KaraoKe niGhTly in our FronT bar plus aWesome Food speCials

Stringed migration Violinist Joe Kye draws on a lifetime playing chamber pop to craft gorgeous folk-rock songs

Wednesday may 7 KNCI 18 & over College WedNesdays $2, $3, $4 drINK speCIals

Thursday may 8 chris gardner!

Free BullrIdes, $1 u-Call-It-Wells & pBr

Friday may 9

Since the days of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, America’s musical landscape has been filled with acousticguitar-slinging singer-songwriters. by Aaron Carnes Joe Kye is yet another musician to join those ranks—except for one crucial difference. Unlike thousands before him, Kye actually wields a violin instead of a guitar—and uses the instrument to write gorgeous songs. phoTo by JonaThan MEndiCk

101.9 the WolF preseNts 8pm - 9pm $2 pBr & $3 loNg IslaNds

saTurday may 10 9pm - 10pm $4 JaCK & $3 Coors lIght

sunday may 11 18 & over Free daNCe lessoNs

1320 del paso blvd

stoNeyINN.Com | 916.927.6023

WILLIE BARCENA

MAY 8-11 TH: 7:30/9 FRI: 7:30/9:45 SAT: 7/9:45 SUN: 7:00

Thurs 05/08

sea legs, amalgamaTion briTTany vanessa

DERAY DAVIS

COMEDY CENTRAL MAY 15-18 TH: 7:30 FRI: 7:30/9:45 SAT: 7/9:45 SUN: 7:00

rock // 8Pm // $5

Fri 05/09

ciP aFTerParTy FeaT: bellygunner, rubbidy buPPidy, droP dead red

COMEDY WARRIORS

ROB JONES, BOBBY HENLINE, DARISSE SMITH, JOE KASHNOW & STEVE RICE MAY 22-25 TH:7:30 FRI: 7:30/9:45 SAT: 7/9:45 SUN: 7:00

rock // PoP // 9Pm // $7 ($5 adv)

EARTHQUAKE

saT 05/10

BET’S COMIC VIEW MAY 30-JUNE 2 FRI: 7:30/9:45 SAT: 7/9:45 SUN: 7:00

rhyThm school9Pm // $5 wiTh sPecial guesTs //

sun 05/11

, oPen mic showcase sunday 6-8Pm

MICHAEL MANCINI

comedy 7-9P // TalenT & 8-12am // Free

WORLD’S FUNNIEST COP JUNE 5-8 TH:7:30 FRI: 7:30/9:45 SAT: 7/9:45 SUN: 7:00

mon 05/12

wandering

rock and roll // 8Pm // $5

Tues 05/13

greaTesT sToriesPmever Told

This machine kills stereotypes.

SHERYL UNDERWOOD

FROM “THE TALK” JUNE 13-14 FRI: 7:30/9:45 SAT: 7/9:30/11:45

indie/alT rock // 8:00

wed 05/14

cFr andrian bellue 8Pm // $5 memorial day TribuTe week may 20-25

908 K Street • sac 916.446.4361 wwwMarilynsOnK.com 40 | SN&R | 05.08.14

IAL

C SPE

R1

2 FO

916-608-2233 www.tommyts.com 12401 Folsom Blvd Rancho Cordova CA 95742

Joseph in the Well performs Saturday, May 24, 8 p.m. at Shine, 1400 E Street; $5. Too long to wait?

Check out www.facebook.com/ joekyemusic.

“The violin is such a versatile instrument.

I like to create and experiment with a lot of different textures, sounds and voices,” Kye says.

“With just a few pedals, you can really create a whole different sound.”

Billing himself under the moniker Joseph in the Well, Kye performs both solo and with a full band, playing classic folk-rock tunes spun with elements of chamber pop and an air of sophistication.

In addition to performing, Kye also teaches violin and plays live and in the studio with various local artists, including Musical Charis, Autumn Sky and James Cavern.

His family is originally from Korea and moved to the United States when Kye was 6.

Before hopping into music full time, he taught high-school English and comparative religion in Seattle and San Francisco.

But while Kye says music’s long been a part of his life—he’s played the violin since childhood—he says it wasn’t until he moved to Sacramento in 2013 that he made it his focus.

As immigrants, Kye says his parents dreamed that one day he’d grow up, get a good job and not have to struggle financially—which was the case until he moved to Sacramento, where his sole source of income now comes via his violin

and a supportive wife who works at the UC Davis Medical Center.

“I came out to my parents as an artist. They were mortified, of course,” Kye says of their reaction to his career change.

“My whole life has been pretty much prescribed,” he says. “Every year you finish school, you get a little piece of paper telling you how well you did, what you need to work on.

Music is not like that at all. It’s so unstructured.”

Kye started writing songs years ago, but initially only let a few people actually hear his tunes. Then, while in Seattle, he made his first studio recording. The opportunity came after he was awarded an educational grant to explore an area unrelated to his curriculum. Kye said the school liked his proposal to record an album.

The result was Kye’s debut EP, Plastic Heart. He wrote most of the songs on the acoustic guitar and then added texture with his violin.

Here, the instruments are expertly performed and recorded, creating songs that strike a balance between folk rock’s emotional rawness and classical chamber elegance.

Since then he’s shifted focus from the guitar to the violin. Now he hopes to release another EP next year, comprising material he’s written since Plastic Heart. The new songs, he says, will mark a change in sound.

Kye adds that a lifetime of playing violin has taught him much about music theory, yet he only has limited experience with live performance— something he’d like to change.

“Chords and song structure, you don’t really get that stuff in a classical music education—it’s so focused on respecting the wishes of dead white composers,” Kye says.

As such, the biggest struggle isn’t applying folk-rock songwriting traditions to his violin, it’s accepting the unpredictability of life as a musician.

“ Chords and song structure, you don’t really get that stuff in a classical music education—it’s so focused on respecting the wishes of dead white composers.”

Joe Kye singer-songwriter “As an immigrant, you’re constantly told to look for security and stability and to be the best that you can be, and music unfortunately is not considered a worthwhile endeavor,” Kye says.

“I struggle with feeling guilty about doing something that I love, which is really sad. I’m getting over it, slowly but surely.” Ω

A shot at falling in love So long, Luigi’s: As a teenager, my Saturday nights were spent in one of San Francisco’s many all-ages venues, singing every word to every song, sneaking booze into plastic baggies and sometimes making it backstage.

And feeling really cool about it.

Now I have this job. Writing about music. And there’s no way that would have happened if I wasn’t exposed to a live-music scene as a highly impressionable 15-year-old.

By now, most Sacto showgoers have heard that Luigi’s Slice in Midtown was sold. The owners of Azul Mexican Food and Tequila Bar bought it, and they haven’t returned my calls. “[Losing] music [is] the biggest bummer and heartache for us,” Linda Brida, co-owner of Luigi’s, told SN&R on the worst aspect of selling the business. She doesn’t know if all-ages shows will continue.

Which means there’s a chance.

Which means, if you care about the concept of all-ages venues—giving younglings a shot at falling in love at a rock show and all that—you should go support the place before it closes on May 17.

But if you don’t, I understand.

Because the pizza parlor is not an attractive venue at all. The lighting, the space, the smell of cheese—it’s all awkward. And too often empty, like last Thursday night, despite an excellent lineup of experimental pop acts.

Los Angeles’ Eliza Rickman opened up with an arsenal of toys. Really, she played a toy piano. Plus accordion and a glockenspiel that sounded like fairies. Her songs were like magical storybooks. She wore a Victoriangoth getup, had a creepy doll onstage, and I totally dug it.

Austin-based band Technicolor Hearts played next. Vocalist Naomi Cherie wore a floral halo and glitter eyeshadow, and she struck bows against a xylophone. Then she danced with them, because they were decked out with shiny plastic strands.

She also played a violin, vintage phone and a children’s toy that resembled a salad spinner. It squeaked. Artfully.

The show ended with local trio

Keep your money, cars and womenfolk: The future of the Wu-Tang Clan is still in limbo with Raekwon on strike, accusing the RZA of trying to swindle fans with a mediocre album and delaying the unfinished A Better Tomorrow.

(Which is not to be confused with The Wu—Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, a secret sole-pressing album that will reportedly be protected by an engraved, handcrafted container and sold for millions of dollars.) Through all the drama, its members continue on solo paths, one of which brought GZA to Assembly on Cinco De Mayo.

A recent Rolling Stone infographic posted on the magazine’s website that compared the lexicon of rappers to great literary figures’ listed GZA as the second most well-versed writer—ahead of Herman Melville and behind Aesop Rock. He’s been known as “The Genius” his whole career, but this past Monday night at Assembly he channeled his departed cousin Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “drunken monkey” style of rhyming. Initially he was aloof, stumbling through a few opening songs, and in general, seeming ill-fit for the night ahead. But after disassembling the barricades separating him from the audience, GZA spent the duration of the set among the masses, young and old—in need of a deeper connection to our energy.

He posed for selfies, rhymed directly into filming iPhones, flirted with the ladies, and incited jumping sessions to verses from “Protect Ya Neck,” “I Gotcha Back,” and “Clan In Da Front.”

If we are a generation with a film-first, experience-later mentality, GZA insisted every paying customer get an up-close shot of his performance.

Throughout, he mostly stuck to his classic 1995 solo album, Liquid Swords, which included an always stir-crazy run through “4th Chamber,” featuring Killah Priest as a surprise guest.

Near the end of his set GZA seemed compelled to explain his motives for the night’s populist appeasement, declaring that money, cars, and women don’t matter to him as a musician. He’s only interested in performing from his heart. As the eldest member of the Wu-Tang Clan, he’s still the spiritual head of the New York crew. Whether A Better Tomorrow is the final album or suffers through civil disputes, the spirit of one of the greatest rap groups of all time will always live in its individual performers.

Pregnant performing busy, otherworldly synth. The sound guy dragged

me—and the chair I was sitting in—around in what ended up being a three-person conga line.

Even in that nearly empty room, my 15-year-old self would have been stoked.

—Janelle Bitker

jane lleb@ n ew s r ev i ew . com

—Blake Gillespie

BEFORE

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NEWS

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F E AT U R E

STORY

alley katz presents

live MuSic

may

9th golden cadilacs 10th the dread lullabies 11th vagabond brothers unplugged 2-5pm 16th for sayle 18th vagabond brothers unplugged 2-5pm 23rd island of black & white

saturday, may 17 | 5pm 2019 O st | sacramentO 916.442.2682

101 Main Street, roSeville 916-774-0505 · 9:30pm · 21+ facebook.com/bar101roseville

| A R T S & C U L T U R E

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AFTER

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08THURS

08THIRS

09FRI

09FRI

Rose Windows

Chris Zanardi & the High Beamz

The Horde and the Harem

58 Fury

Witch Room, 8 p.m., $8

Torch Club, 9 p.m., $5

Seattle’s Rose Windows create beautiful, hymnlike stoner music. It’s nostalgic for the ’60s—Black Sabbath, the Doors—but with PSYCH ROCK Turkish and African influences as well. And the band’s sound is as rich, full and textured as you’d expect with eight members. Its debut album, The Sun Dogs—on Sub Pop Records—features some harp, pedal steel guitar, viola and cello. But even the live show gets a little exotic with flute and organ. And with Rose Windows, Sub Pop made new gains.

The venerable independent label is known for its bands like the Shins, Iron and Wine, and Fleet Foxes—awesome musicians, of course, but Rose Windows definitely brings an unexpected, eclectic flair. 1815 19th Street, www.facebook.com/rosewindows.

Luigi’s Fun Garden, 8 p.m., $6

“Be nice, or go home” might sound like something someone’s mom would say, but it’s also the title of the long-awaited album from Sacramento’s Chris Zanardi & the High Beamz. Zanardi (pictured) is always collaborating with fellow musicians, and it’s no surprise that this evening’s lineup will differ from the one on his latest album. Joe Kyle Jr. of the Waybacks will slap the upright bass, Jefferson Bergey will add vocals and guitar, and Erin Cassidy will play on drums.

Zanardi’s electric-, blues- and jazz-guitar BLUES sound adds a twist for a live show that’s always different.

Whatever it sounds like, expect this group to rock this CD-release show. 904 15th Street, http://zportalmusic.com.

—Trina L. Drotar

In their early days, the Horde and the Harem were a collective of prominent Seattle musicians making sweet, sweet indie-folk sounds. Several lineup changes later, the group has really gelled into a solid unit and come into its own. Its songs are FOLK ROCK dripping with emotions yet still whimsical. It’s still folk music, but accented by a driving piano and dipped gently in rock ’n’ roll. The group’s forte is vocal harmony, which is featured throughout, and sounds like Fleetwood Mac at its strongest. When the Horde gets going, they can really rock out, yet there’s always a careful restraint behind the music, keeping it nice and mellow. 1050 20th Street, www.thehordeandtheharemband.com.

Old Ironsides, 9 p.m., $10-$12 After a more than 20-year break from live performances, the hard-rock group 58 Fury returns to melt the faces of Sacramento audiences with stone-cold, unapologetic rock ’n’ roll. The band, sometimes referred to as just “the Furies,” combines its love for comic-book horror and musical influences such as Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and a strangely specific era of Deep Purple (1968 to 1976). Although 58 Fury actuROCK ally formed in ’83—the age of hair metal—the guys openly detest the sounds of bands like Ratt or Quiet Riot.

Shouldn’t everyone? Sil Shoda and Old Cotton Dreary will open the show. 1901 10th Street, www.facebook.com/58furyoriginal.

—Steph Rodriguez

—Aaron Carnes

—Janelle Bitker

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42 | SN&R |

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11SUN

12MON

14WED

15THURS

Stephen Marley

Black Star Riders

Bill Frisell

Devin the Dude

Assembly Music Hall, 6 p.m., $40

Harlow’s Restaurant & Nightclub, 8 p.m., $30-$60

Stephen Marley is the son of late reggae superstar Bob Marley. Although his siblings and half-brothers Ky-Mani, Ziggy, Damian and Julian are also musicians, Stephen can probably recreate his father’s sound most accurately. Clearly, that’s not his goal, though. His debut 2007 album, Mind Control, and his latest, 2011’s Revelation Pt. 1 - The Root of Life, both blended hip-hop, reggae, folk rock, blues and soul. Both won Grammy Awards for Best Reggae Album. His third album, Revelation Pt. 2 - The Fruit of Life, REGGAE will be released this summer.

Judging by the early single, “Thorn or a Rose,” he’ll probably continue his perfect streak of winning a Grammy for every album. 1000 K Street, www.stephen marleymusic.com.

Mondavi Center, 8 p.m., $25-$54

Thin Lizzy’s classic lineup during its heyday included the incredible guitar work of Scott Gorham. For years after leader Phil Lynott’s ROCK death, Gorham honored the name with a formidable cast of rotating characters. The Black Star Riders group features some members of Thin Lizzy’s last incarnation, including Marco Mendoza (Whitesnake, Blue Murder) on bass, Ricky Warwick (the Almighty) on vocals, Damon Johnson on guitar, and drummer Jimmy DeGrasso (Megadeth, Alice Cooper) to round it out. The group is supporting the aptly titled 2013 album, All Hell Breaks Loose, which rocks harder than you’d expect. BSR’s touring with Skid Row and will also be joined by the Bay Area’s SpiralArms. 2708 J Street, www.blackstarriders.com.

—Jonathan Mendick

Ace of Spades, 6:30 p.m., $22

During the last 30 years, guitarist Bill Frisell has recorded groundbreaking work. Known primarily as a jazz guitarist, Frisell’s music has regularly blurred—and in some cases, transcended—genre altogether. His discography (he’s created and participated in 35 studio and live recordings) has ranged from jazz to Americana, folk and blues—and he’s done solo projects and performed with trios, quartets and quintets. Frisell’s most JAZZ recent work is 2013’s Big Sur, an album which was commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival. But for this concert, he will be performing songs from his 2011 record, All We Are Saying, which features instrumental covers of classic John Lennon songs. 9399 Old Davis Road in Davis, www.billfrisell.com.

—Eddie Jorgensen

Houston rapper Devin the Dude may rap laconically, but his flow is on skates. He came up with Scarface’s crew before striking out on his own 16 years ago. His smooth, laid-back delivery is heavily greased with HIP-HOP premium bud and sways gently in an R&B breeze. Indeed, the Dude talks about weed as much as—if not more than—Snoop. Yet while he frequently blazes, he’s subtle and lies in wait, springing slick rhythmic lyrical turns like an Olympic gymnast. He’s one of hip-hop’s middle class: never a chart topper or singles artist, yet a steady performer across his eight recordings.

He’s supporting last year’s sharp One for the Road. 1417 R Street, www.facebook.com/ devinthedude.

—Chris Parker

—Brian Palmer

2708 J street sacramento, Ca 916.441.4693 www.harlows.com - May 8 -

*%33% #//+ DFE;8P D8P () :I<JK K?<8K<I ('(* B JK × J8:I8D<EKF# :8 /1''GD J?FN × 8CC 8><J K@:B<KJ 8M8@C89C< =IFD K@:B<KJ%:FD :?8I>< 9P G?FE< ($/''$)),$))..

BEFORE

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NEWS

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F E AT U R E

STORY

asleep at the wheel The easy Leaves •

parade ofuglylights bunny

7pm • $45

6:30pm • $8 adv

- may 16 -

- May 9 -

tainted love

the dustbowl revival 8pm • $12 adv

9pm • $15 adv

- may 10 -

tycho dusty brown

• 8pm • sold out

- may 12 -

skid row black star riders 7pm • $30 adv

- may 17 -

the curtis mayfield tribute show 5:30pm • $15 adv

- may 19 -

tab benoit

7pm • $25 adv

| A R T S & C U L T U R E

Coming Soon

- may 14 -

|

AFTER

May 20 May 21 May 22 May 23 May 24 May 30 June 3 June 4 June 7 June 12 June 13 June 14 June 14 June 15 June 16 June 25 June 27 June 28 July 5 July 11 July 15 July 16 July 20 July 23 July 25 Aug 7 Aug 12

The Cave Singers William Fitzsimmons / Ben Sollee The Revivalists / The Nibblers J Ras & Soulfited Jeremy Briggs Pimps of Joytime / Jelly Bread Nice Peter Old Man Markley The Tubes Brown Sabbath Hillstomp Prezident Brown Global Guitar Greats Average White Band Robin Zandr of Cheap Trick Southern Culture on the Skids The Brothers Comatose SambaDa / The Nibblers Midnight Players Robert Francis The Infamous Stringdusters Eric Bibb Rakim The Hold Steady Hot Buttered Rum Snarky Puppy Ottmat Liebert

| 05.08.14

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SN&R

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43

NIGHTBEAT

THURSDAY 5/8

FRIDAY 5/9

SATURDAY 5/10

WILL HOGE, MATT GAGE; 7pm, $15

Tig Notaro, 7pm, $20

FINN, SAMU, VALUFA, LUISA, SUPA SAA; STEPHEN MARLEY, SPRAGGA BENZ, 7pm, $15 JO MERSA MARLEY; 6pm, $40

2003 K St., (916) 448-8790

Tipsy Thursdays, Top 40 deejay dancing, 9pm, call for cover

Fabulous and Gay Fridays, 9pm, call for cover

Saturday Boom, 9pm, call for cover

Sin Sunday, 8pm, call for cover

Mad Mondays, 9pm M

BAR 101

Karaoke, 7:30pm, no cover

GOLDEN CADILLACS, 9:30pm, $5

DREAD LULLIBIES, 9:30pm, call for cover

VAGABOND BROTHERS, 2-5pm, no cover

Trivia, 6:30pm M, no cover; Open-mic, 7:30pm W, no cover

SAVAGERY, MR P CHILL, J SMO, MIC JORDAN, MAINTAIN; 8pm, $9

WOLFGANG VEGA, SPIDER GARAGE, CELESTIONS; 8pm, $7

Radio Radio ’80s Dance Night, 8pm, $7

Get Down to the Champion Sound reggae night, 9pm-2am, $3

Acoustic open mic, 8pm M, no cover; Naughty Trivia, 8pm W, no cover

STARBURSTT, FRAIS, MASTER V, SHEYE T & KING BELL; 8pm, call for cover

AUTHORITY ZERO, TORCHES TO TRIGGERS, RIOTMAKER; 8pm, $15-$17

ASSEMBLY MUSIC HALL 1000 K St., (916) 832-4751

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.

BADLANDS

101 Main St., Roseville; (916) 774-0505

BLUE LAMP

1400 Alhambra, (916) 455-3400

THE BOARDWALK

9426 Greenback Ln., Orangevale; (916) 988-9247

CENTER FOR THE ARTS

314 W. Main St., Grass Valley; (530) 274-8384

THE STRAY BIRDS AND RITA HOSKING, 7:30pm, $20-$22

THE COZMIC CAFÉ

Open-mic, 7:30pm, no cover

594 Main St., Placerville; (530) 642-8481

DISTRICT 30

DJs Aviator, BPhree, 530 and Kronyak, 10pm, call for cover

DIVE BAR

Deuling Pianos, 9pm, no cover

2000 K St., (916) 448-7798

Hey local bands!

Community Music Jam, 6:30pm M, no cover

DJs Luigi, Gentlemens Club, Krancento Box and Close Chase Me, 10pm

DJ Billy Lane, 10pm, call for cover

THE PRESSURE LOUNGE, 9pm Tu, no cover

FACES 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.

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 5/12-5/14

THE WEST 7’S, 8pm, call for cover

1016 K St., (916) 737-5770 1022 K St., (916) 737-5999

SUNDAY 5/11

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

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

Dragalicious, 9pm, $5

FOX & GOOSE

STEVE MCLANE, 8pm, no cover

KALLY O’MALLY, GUY JONES, EMILY FROST, BRIANNA LEA PRUETT; 9pm, $5

SALT WIZARD, CALIFORNIA LIONS, DAMAGER; 9pm, $5

THE GOLDEN BEAR

DJ Shaun Slaughter, 10pm, call for cover

DJ Crook One, 10pm, call for cover

DJ Whores, 10pm, no cover

COVER ME BADD, 9pm-midnight, $5

THE FUNK ROCKERS, 9pm-midnight, $5

Trivia night, 7:30-9pm Tu, no cover

TYCHO, 9pm, call for cover

SKID ROW, BLACK STAR RIDERS; 8pm M, $30-$60

1001 R St., (916) 443-8825 2326 K St., (916) 441-2252

HALFTIME BAR & GRILL

5681 Lonetree Blvd., Rocklin; (916) 626-6366

HARLOW’S

ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL, THE EASY LEAVES; 8pm, $45

TAINTED LOVE, 10pm, $15-$18

LUNA’S CAFÉ & JUICE BAR

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

ARE YOU FISH, LIFE IS BLOOD QUARTET, SCOTT COVE, XOCHITL, PABLO; ROSS HAMMOND; 7pm , $10 8:30pm, $5

MARILYN’S ON K

BRITTANY VANESSA, SEA LEGS, AMALGAMATION; 8pm, $5

DROP DEAD RED, RUBBIDY BUPPIDY, BELLYGUNNER; 9pm, $7

MIDTOWN BARFLY

Electronic, house and deep bass deejay dancing, 9pm-2am, call for cover

NAKED LOUNGE DOWNTOWN

OCCUPY THE TREES, GO TEAM, PLOTS; 8:30pm, $5

2708 J St., (916) 441-4693 1414 16th St., (916) 441-3931 908 K St., (916) 446-4361 1119 21st St., (916) 549-2779 1111 H St., (916) 443-1927

CAR CRASH HEARTS, THE SHAFTS, THIS HIATUS, LUMOHS; 8:30pm, $5

Marilyn’s Talent Showcase, 6pm, no cover

WANDERING, 8pm M, $5; Greatest Stories Ever Told, 8pm Tu, no cover

The Drop, house and ’90s hip-hop w/ DJ Jonathan, Funktion, Phreed, 9pm, $3-$5

Goth, darkwave, industrial, electronic deejay dancing, 9pm-3am, call for cover

Swing dancing, 7:30pm Tu, $6; Salsa lessons with Nicole Lazo, 7:30pm W, $5

RYAN DAVIDSON, NOAH NELSON, KEVIN SECONDS; 8:30pm, $5

WAYNE STATIC & OTEP DOPE - SMILE EMPTY SOUL ¨C THIRA - DEAD IN SECONDS

TUESDAY, MAY 20

YG

DJ MUSTARD FRIDAY, MAY 23

MONDAY, MAY 12

DEVILDRIVER / WHITECHAPEL

RIFF RAFF

GRANDTHEFT - DIAMOND DEZ

THURSDAY, MAY 15

BERNER / DEVIN THE DUDE

POT LUCK - COOL NUTZ - J.HORNAY

METALLICA TRIBUTE BAND

Jazz, 8pm M; CHELSEA HUGHES, COLE THOMAS; 8:30pm W, $5

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

ALL AGES WELCOME!

COMING

SOON

SOIL - SUNFLOWER DEAD ¨C CHERNOBOG KOREAN FIRE DRILL

SATURDAY, MAY 10

SATURDAY, MAY 24

EL GRAN SILENCIO BANG DATA

FRIDAY, MAY 30

BLACK FLAG HOR - CINEMA CINEMA KILL THE PRECEDENT

MATINE SHOW E ONLY

05/31 Tech N9ne 06/05 Les Claypool’s Duo De Twang 06/13 Mickey Avalon 06/21 Warren G 07/01 Future 07/12 NWA Resurrection 07/19 Blood on the Dance Floor 07/24 Moonshine Bandits 08/23 Y & T

Tickets available at all Dimple Records Locations, The Beat Records, and Armadillo Records, or purchase by phone @ 916.443.9202 |

SN&R

|

05.08.14

Trivia night, W, call for cover

HARLEY WHITE JR. TRIO, 6:30pm M, $10; Comedy night, 8pm W, $6

HED PE

CHIODOS

ONE

Industry Night, 9pm, call for cover

SATURDAY, MAY 17

THURSDAY, MAY 8

FRIDAY, MAY 16

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

RHYTHM SCHOOL, 9pm, $5

ACE OF SPADES

44

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

THURSDAY 5/8

FRIDAY 5/9

SATURDAY 5/10

OLD IRONSIDES

DANA GUMBINER, WARREN BISHOP; 8pm, no cover

58 FURY, SIL SHODA, OL COTTON DREARY; 9pm, $10-$12

BROKEN, 6 BEERS DEEP, ANOTHER WEEK GONE; 9pm, $5

THE PALMS PLAYHOUSE

ROBIN & LINDA WILLIAMS & THEIR FINE GROUP, 7:30pm, $20

SOURDOUGH SLIM & ROBERT ARMSTRONG, 8pm, $20

ROY ROGERS & THE DELTA RHYTHM KINGS, 8:30pm, $20

DJ Shift, DJ Eddie Edul; 9pm, $15

DJ Peeti V, 9pm-2am, $15

Top 40, Mashups, 9pm, no cover

DJ Club mixes, 10pm, no cover

PINS N STRIKES

DJ Supe, 10pm, $10

INNERSOUL, 9pm, $10

PJ’S ROADHOUSE

ISLAND OF BLACK AND WHITE, 9pm, $5

STELLAR, 9pm, $5

DISCO REVOLUTION, 10pm, call for cover

8 TRACK MASSACRE, 10pm, call for cover

LARA PRICE, 3pm, call for cover

Rock On! live-band karaoke, 8pm Tu, no cover; Open-mic, 8pm W, no cover

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

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

Sunday Night Soul Party, 9pm, $5

ZERO BOYS, 8pm M, $12; BLACK BEAST REVIVAL, 6 BEERS DEEP; 8pm Tu, $6

MISS LONELY HEARTS, 9pm, no cover

GOLDEN CADILLACS, 9pm, no cover

EMILY KOLLARS, 9pm, no cover

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

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

PARLARE EURO LOUNGE

Top 40, 9pm, no cover

1009 10th St., (916) 448-8960

3443 Laguna Blvd., Elk Grove; (916) 226-2625 5461 Mother Lode, Placerville; (530) 626-0336

POWERHOUSE PUB

MICHAEL BECK, 10pm, call for cover

614 Sutter St., Folsom; (916) 355-8586

THE PRESS CLUB

2030 P St., (916) 444-7914

SHADY LADY SALOON

SMOOTH HOUND SMITH, 9pm, no cover

1409 R St., (916) 231-9121

SOPHIA’S THAI KITCHEN

SUNDAY 5/11

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

STARLITE LOUNGE

1517 21st St., (916) 706-0052

MERCEDES AVE, CHRYLAS, WE SLEEP FOREVER; 9pm, call for cover

Shannon McCabes’s birthday bash, 9pm, call for cover

THE OSTRICH THEORY, SCREWLOOSE, A MILE TILL DAWN, FAIR STRUGGLE; 9pm

STONEY INN/ROCKIN’ RODEO

THE CHRIS GARDNER BAND, 9pm, $5-10

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

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

SAVANNAH BLUE, 6pm, $5

RIFF RAFF, SKID ROSES; 2pm, $15

SWABBIES

5871 Garden Hwy, (916) 920-8088

#FILTHY, 9pm Tu, call for cover Country dance party, 8pm, no cover

Comedy open-mic, 8pm M; Bluebird Lounge open-mic, 5pm Tu, no cover

TORCH CLUB

X TRIO, 5pm, no cover; CHRIS ZANARDI, 9pm, $8

PAILER AND FRATIS, 5:30pm; TATTOOED SISTA MONICA, 9pm, $12 LOVE DOGS, THE NICKEL SLOTS; 9pm, $10

Blues jam, 4pm, no cover; KEVIN SELFE, 8pm, $7

BILL MYLAR, 5:30pm Tu; Open-mic, 5:30pm W; KERI CARR BAND, 9pm W, $5

WITCH ROOM

ROSE WINDOWS, THE ANCIENT SONS, SAD NUMBERS; 8pm, $8

HALFPENCE AND HAYPENNY, ANNE ROOS, STEPPING STONE; 8-11pm, $7

NIGHTMARE AIR, ROMAN REMAINS, ALL ABOUT ROCKETS, DER SPAZM; 8pm, $5

MOUNT SALEM, BOG OAK; 8pm M, $6

904 15th St., (916) 443-2797 1815 19th St., www.witchroomsac.com

Authority Zero with Torches to Triggers, Riotmaker and Island of Black & White 8pm Saturday, $15-$17.

The Boardwalk Punk and reggae

Ballroom dancing with Jim Truesdale, 6:30pm W, no cover

FRONTIER RUCKUS, WEST NILE RAMBLERS; 9:30pm, $7-$10

129 E St., Davis; (530) 758-4333

1320 Del Paso Blvd., (916) 927-6023

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 5/12-5/14 Karaoke w/ Sac City Entertainment, 9pm Tu, no cover; Open-mic, 9pm W, no cover

NOBUNNY, OKMONIKS, KEPI GHOULIE; 7pm, call for cover

All ages, all the time ACE OF SPADES

CHIODOS, EMAROSA, HANDS LIKE HOUSES, OUR LAST NIGHT; 6pm, $17

WAYNE STATIC & OTE, DOPE, SMILE EMPTY SOUL, THIRA; 5pm, $18

SHINE

DANIEL ROSENBLOOM QUARTET, INSTA- THE SOFT OFFS, GENA PERALA, GON, GENTLEMAN SURFER; 7:30pm, $10 CLAIRE WRIGHT; 8pm, $5

STEVE KOTAREK, BONEYARD RATTLERS, PROXY MOON; 8pm, $5

1417 R St., (916) 448-3300 1400 E St., (916) 551-1400

TWENTY ONE PILOTS, NONONO, HUNTER HUNTED; 6:30pm, $20

Kally O’Mally with Guy Jones, Emily Frost and Brianna Lea Pruett 9pm Friday, $5.

Fox & Goose Americana

RIFF RAFF, GRANDTHEFT, DIAMOND DEZ, JG; 6:30pm M, $23 Classical Revolution, 8pm M, $5; Open jazz jam, 8pm Tu; Poetry, 7pm W

1000 K Street, Sacramento, CA 95814

FOR TICKETS TO ALL SHOWS VISIT AssemblyMusicHall.com

For Rentals or Private Parties please contact AssemblyMusicHall@gmail.com

FRI MAY 9 @ 7PM

THURS MAY 8 @ 7PM

SAT MAY 10 @ 7PM

SUN MAY 11 @ 6PM

UPCOMING SHOWS

FRI MAY 16 @ 5:30PM BEFORE

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NEWS

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SAT MAY 17 @ 8PM FEATURE STORY

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MAY 22 MAY 23 MAY 24 MAY 25 MAY 30 MAY 31 JUN 6 JUN 7 JUNE 12 JUNE 13 JUN 14 JUN 17 JUNE 20 JUNE 21 JUNE 26 JULY 1 JULY 2 JULY 17

TUES MAY 20 @ 6:30PM

A RT S & C U LT U R E

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AFTER

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ALOHA SUMMER THE GREEN THE UNLIKELY CANDIDATES METALACHI NICKI BLUHM & THE GRAMBLERS AWOKEN SHADOWS DANCE GAVIN DANCE AFTERPARTY SUPERSUCKERS THE LIPSTIXX REVIEW GEOGRAPHER KING BUZZO OF MELVINS DOG FASHION DISCO SLAVES THE SIREN SHOW CULTURA PROFETICA TOUCHE AMORE AXE MURDER BOYZ FOREIGN EXCHANGE

05.08.14

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SN&R

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45

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|

SN&R | 05.08.14

916.380.8252

SHOP LOCAL AND SAVE GIFT CERTIFICATES TO LOCAL RESTAURANTS, RETAIL SHOPS AND BOUTIQUES FOR UP TO 50% OFF Aji Japanese Bistro: $50 for $25 Beach Hut Deli: $10 for $5 Bunz Sports Pub & Grub: $20 for $10 Rire Boutique: $35 for $17.50 Vaping Image: $20 for $10 The Firefly Exchange: $10 for $5 River City Comics & Games: $20 for $10 Capital Dime: $50 for 37.50 Clark’s Corner: $30 for $15 Easy on I: $25 for $12.50 Monsoon Cuisine of India: $20 for $10 Blue Lamp: $20 for $10 Perfecto Lounge: $25 for $12.50

BEFORE

|

NEWS

|

FEATURE

Capital Dime: $50 for $30 Alley Katz: $20 for $20 Kupros Craft House: $25 for $12.50 Ten 22: $25 for $15 The Vapor Spot: $20 for $10 Vapor Room on the Grid: $15 for $7.50 The Melting Pot: $50 for $35

Don’t forget that we have tickets to some of the best shows at Ace of Spades, Assembly and Harlows for up 50% off.

STORY

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A RT S & C U LT U R E

SN&R

W W W. N E W S R E V I E W. C O M

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AFTER

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05.08.14

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SN&R

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47

what’s on your

horizon?

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Truckin’ and tokin’ I really enjoy reading SN&R and your column every time I come to Sacramento. I’m a truck driver and I live down south.

I really enjoy smoking marijuana. I used to when I was younger, but ever since I started truck driving, I’m scared to even take a puff. I know the laws against truck drivers and marijuana are very strict and I could lose my license. I believe I could get my medicalmarijuana card, seeing as I have this really bad leg pain. It’s my nerves, and they told me I need an MRI, BEALUM but would my medical-marijuana card interfere

by NGAIO with my right to keep on trucking? Or would I lose my license?

—Kevin Thanks for your support. You could very well lose your license. California law has no protections for medical-cannabis users. And don’t think you can sue. The California Supreme Court confirmed employer’s rights to fire MMJ users in the’13case Ross v. RagingWire Telecommunications. Sorry, buddy.

One of the problems that employers and law-enforcement agencies have with marijuana is that THC stays in the body even after it has stopped being psychoactive, making it difficult to run tests to determine if someone is impaired. If someone is a regular cannabis user, they could have THC in their system even if they haven’t smoked for a few days. It took a friend of mine a month-and-a-half of not smoking weed to finally test negative for pot.

Washington state’s new cannabis-legalization law contains a “per se DUI” provision. If a person has more than 5 nanograms of weed in their system, they are automatically guilty of a DUI. I’m not sure how enforceable that provision will be. Arizona has a similar law on the books, but that state’s court recently ruled that a It took a friend of person cannot be charged a DUI for simply mine a month-and- with having THC in their body. a-half of not smoking They must show signs of impairment. So, we will see weed to finally test how Washington handles any that may appear. negative for pot. casesLet’s keep talking about the rights of medicalcannabis users. Did you know that medical-cannabis users are routinely denied placement on organ-transplant lists?

Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense to me, either. However, the good folks at Americans for Safe Access are working to get the Medical Marijuana Organ Transplant Act signed into law, but they are having a hard time getting traction.

Do me a favor and head over to www.safeaccessnow.org/ the_medical_marijuana_organ_transplant_act and show your support.

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—Spokane Sam Soon. The Washington State Liquor Control Board has finally published a list of businesses allowed to begin the final approval phases of opening a retail establishment.

Some 334 places will open all over the state. Look for shops by late summer. Woo-hoo!

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2100 Watt Ave, Unit 190 | Sacramento, CA 95825 | Mon–Sat 11am–7pm 2633 Telegraph Ave. 109 | Oakland, CA 94612 | 510-832-5000 | Mon–Sat 10am–5pm recommendations are valid for 1 year for qualifying patients Walk-ins Welcome all day everyday

Your information is 100% private and confidential

F AA FF TT Eyour RR appointment | | 05.08.14 05.08.14 | |at SN&R SN&R FE EA AT TU UR RE E SST TO OR RYY | | AARRTTSS&&CCUULLT TUUR REE website | | to E Visit our book online 24/7

www.sac420Doc.com

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Want to start a medical marijuana business?

Online VideO COurses AVAilAble Anytime • Co-operative, collective, dispensary or delivery service • How to grow cannabis: mike boutin from tV show Weed Country • learn about careers and business in the medical marijuana community from Canna Care attorney William mcPike

Live seminar may 31 & June 1 in roseviLLe

siGn uP online or call todaY! www.420college.org | TOLL FREE 855-420-TALK (8255)

FORUM COOKIE

free gram with purchase of $35 or more

*free gram is house choice. offer expires 5-21-14.

top-shelf outdoor: $ 35 per 1/8th 2416 17th street 916.231.9934 | deltahealthwellness@gmail.com sacramento, ca 95818 | 9am-9pm daily

ANOTHER GREAT REVIEW “I was treated so well here that I am taking time out of my busy schedule to write this review. I really like the medical approach (staff wears scrubs and all the medicine is tested for molds, mildews, pesticides and cannabinoids) They also have other medical services like acupressure, yoga and massage. I really felt like they cared about helping me heal. I am thankful to find this place, being an older person with multiple medical issues. I got a few different medicines for my different issues, one high in THC, one high in CBD and one high in CBN. Each on worked as prescribed and I am very happy with the strains suggested to me. I will be going back. This is my new neighborhood pharmacy!”

FOR MORE REVIEWS AND OUR MENU, VISIT WWW.WEEDMAPS.COM

HWY 50

CONVENIENTLY LOCATED NEAR ALL FREEWAYS!

50

|

6TH ST

5TH ST

I-5

X ST BROADWAY

515 BROADWAY | SACRAMENTO, CA 415.935.8005 | OPEN MON THRU SAT 10AM-7PM

SN&R | 05.08.14

3015 H Street

916.822.4717

Sacramento, CA

NEW HOURS: 9am–9pm everyday

*Doctor’s recommendation & CA I.D. required

BEFORE

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NEWS

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STORY

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CANNABIS EXPERTS FREE GRAM

✂

TOP SHELF $ 10 GRAMS*

✂

now open!

when you bring a friend ($50 min donation)*

WE PROUDLY OFFER:

VAPORIZERS TINCTURES SALVES

HONEY, BUTTER, SODA

THC

1404 28th Street

6666 Fruitridge Road, Unit C Sacramento, CA 95820 916.476.4431 • www.916THC.com

! e e Fr nE frEE*

*of Equal or

E

lEssEr valu

daily spECials

*

hs, gEt o Buy 3 Eight

Corner of 28th & N, Midtown Sac Open 10am-9pm 7 days a week

* Can’t be combined with other offers. One coupon per person, per day. Expires 05/14/14.

open 9:00am to 8:00pm 7 days a week

t1 Buy 3, G e

new patient specials & gifts! welcome back!

monday

Buy any 2 edibles, get the 3rd 50% off

tuEsday

Choose any special

WEdnEsday

/greensolutions420 S

A

C

R

A

M

E

N

T

O

’

S

O

N

L Y

ALL-ORGANIC DISPENSARY

10% off all concentrates (max: 3 grams)

thursday

Buy a top shelf 1/8th, get 50% off our 1/8th of the day

friday

frEE pre-roll with a $35 donation friday facebook trivia day for free meds, too

saturday

Buy 3 grams of Cannabis, get one frEE (of equal or lesser value)

scan the qr Code to score a freebie from two rivers

sunday

Buy three 1/8ths get the fourth frEE

tWo rivErs WEllnEss

315 north 10th strEEt saCramEnto 916.804.8975 tWorivErssaC.Com /tWo_rivErs /tWorivErssaC

opEn 7 days a WEEk 9am – 9pm 52

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SN&R | 05.08.14

10 OFF ANY PURCHASE $40 minimum donation.* FREE GRAM WITH ANY DONATION While supplies last. New patients only. * $

*Expires 5/14/14

AT THE CORNER OF S. WATT & FRUITRIDGE ROAD

HOUSE OF ORGANICS 8848 Fruitridge Rd. Sacramento | Open 7 days, 9am-7pm | 916.381.3769

10 p a S M C A r lg l A N

10 C a ON h p ASh $

$ O

35 C a p ON A ll 1/ 8

35 p a CON AllAteS

$

$

tr N e C ON

thS

C

SAfe ACCeSS 916-254-3287 safe capitol compassion

BEFORE

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NEWS

Norwood

Northgate

Kelton

Main Ave

|

135 Main Avenue • Sacramento CA, 95838 Open Mon thru Sat 10AM–7PM // Closed Sun

F E AT U R E

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THINKE.

FRE

35

CLONES

$

AVAILABLE

HERE!

TOp SHELf 1/8THS

BUY AN 1/8TH, GET A FR EE 1/2 GRAM CONCENTRAT * E!

10 TOp SHELf GrAMS

$

EXP IRE S 05/14/14 . *SE LEC T CHO ICE, ONE PER PAT IEN T, WHI LE SUP PLIE S LAST.

FREE GIFT

FOR NEW PATIENTS

SuNDAy SpEciAL: 4G 1/8THS (one per patient) 25 1/8THS SELEcT STrAiNS | $5 off any of our wax concentrates

$

TiNcTurES, HASH, cApSuLES, kiEf, EDibLES

NEW pATiENT GifTS

SPECIALS & D EALS FOR EVERYO NE!

GOLDEN HEALTH & WELLNESS

4G 1/8THS ON ALL HIGHER TIERS

Fee D

r

W

N S

E

OPEN Mon-Sat 10am to 9pm, Sun 10am to 6pm 54

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Arden Mall

Dr

1220 Blumenfeld Dr, Sacramento I 916.564.1100

Joellis Way

nfe ld

Way

me

Blum

enfe

ld D

r

★

Arden

1030 Joellis Way, Sac Arden Way

160

Blu

Harv

ard

St

A.M.C. A.M

I-80

80

916.646.6340

Monday–Saturday 10am–8pm Sunday 10am–6pm

SIMPLY THE BEST Winner 3 years in a row! ’13

’13

’13

Best Medical Marijuana clinic - Sacramento News and Review Readers’ Poll ’13

’13

FREE 1/8 s a t u R d a y

th

with any $40 min donation

’13

’13

s p E c i a l

closE to Folsom, FaiR oaks & RosEvillE

shingle

springs’

hOTTesT

COlleCTi

Ve

Great selection of quality concentrates

new patient specials!

WILL MATCH ANY LOCAL CLINIC PRICE WITH COPY OF THEIR AD THAT IS CA MEDICAL BOARD STANDARDS COMPLIANT GET APPROVED OR NO CHARGE! 24/7 Verifications! HIPAA Compliant 100% Doctor/Patient Confidentiality

DOWNTOWN SACRAMENTO

2015 Q Street, 95811 • (916) 476-6142 OPEN Monday through Saturday 11am to 6pm • CLOSED SUNDAY valid through 05/22/14

Cannot be combined with other offers. Strain determined by HHWC.

munchiE mondays: top-shElF tuEsdays: waxy wEdnEsdays: hashtag thuRsday: FREE j FRiday: sunday Funday:

buy any 2 edibles get 1 (free of equal or lesser value) all $50 1/8ths capped at $40 buy 3 top-shelf full melt for only $90 all bubble hash is only $15 per gram get a free joint with any $10 minimum donation 4 gram 1/8ths all day

4020 Durock rD, Ste 1 • Shingle SpringS, cA • (916) 757–0980 open monDAy – friDAy 10Am to 8pm • SAturDAy 10Am to 7pm • SunDAy 10Am to 6pm

Get Your Recommendation!

North Of Hwy 50 @ Bradshaw & Folsom Blvd RENEWALS

40 $50

$

Photo ID Available for $15

W/ COUPON EXP. 05/14/14 SNR

NEW PATIENT

Sun 11am-5pm - Physician Evaluations

W/ COUPON EXP. 05/14/14 SNR

- 24/7 Online Verification - Walk-Ins / Appts Routier

Bradshaw

Blvd om s l o F

50

- Cultivators Welcome ’13

CANN-MEDICAL BEFORE

|

NEWS

improve e o t s i n o i s s i Our m ent’s quality of lif our pati

- Mon-Sat 10am-6pm

|

9719A Folsom Blvd. Sacramento, CA 916-822-5690 • www.cannmedical.org

F E AT U R E

STORY

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Text CloudNine to 71441 for a FREE GIFT when you become a member of our collective!

ON a budgeT? We have $5 budget grams and $10 grams that fit every budget!

COme iN aNd see Why Our paTieNTs keep COmiNg baCk:

Friendly knowledgeable staff | Quality Clones | edibles | Cbd, tincture & topical rubs

All your medicinAl cAnnAbis needs in one locAtion!

5711 florin perkins rd | sacramento | 916.387.8605 | 10am–8pm 7 daYs a Week

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MASSAGE THERAPISTS All massage advertisers are required to provide News & Review a current valid business license or somatic establishment permit issued by either the city or county in which they are operating in in order to run a printed advertisement.

Watt Ave

Morse Ave

staff!

new YORK MASSAGe

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9am - 9pm 7 days/week 1601 Fulton Ave #11, Sacramento, CA 95825 916-475-0096

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Gift Certificates available Friendly, Skillful Massage Therapists

Massage Kea

Ethan

★ Cottage Way Arden Way Fulton

80

2548 Cottage Way - Sacramento 916.568.6888 - 10am–10pm daily

Massage Therapy Combination Massage Open Daily 10am - 10:30pm Walk-Ins & Couples Welcome

New Massage Therapist $ OFF w/ ad 5 This is a model

Violet Massage 3260 J St #A Sacramento 95816 (916) 442-1888

56

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2860 Florin road Sacramento 95822 daily 9am-9pm 916.231.9498

El Camino

Flamingo Massage 2264 Fair Oaks Blvd #102 Sacramento 95825 (916) 646-1888

SN&R | 05.08.14

This is a model

Special

35

$

• Thai • Swedish • Showers Available • Walk-ins Welcome

Coupleses 916.448.5315 & eLlcaodmie!

We accept:

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w

1116 24th St

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OpeninG 5 OFITF Grand Asian Spa 1ST VIS

$

Actual CMT Not a model

the

BESgTe! massa

3210 Fulton Ave

916.487.8241 / oPen 9AM-10PM

May Blossom Spa 916.967.8887 | 4408 San Juan Ave. Suite 2 (Same plaza as round Table)

10am-10pm DAILY | Fair Oaks, 95628

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• 7 Days a Week 10am–10pm • Sauna & Shower Available • Free Chinese therapies • Reflexology • Deep Tissue • Swedish

Golden Massage 916.481.3388 4783 Manzanita Ave Carmichael 95608 Orient Massage 916.338.3848 5800 Madison Ave #U2 Sacramento 95841

Open 7 days a week 10AM-11PM

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10am - 10pm daily

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#

• Additional Parking in Rear

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$

one coupon per customer. cannot be combined with any other offers.

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this is a model

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30 min = $30 60 min = $40 (foot & body combo)

OPEN MON–SAT 10-9 • SUN 1-8

THESE ARE MODELS

May Spa

3110 Arden Way • Sacramento, 95825 (on the side of Office Max, facing Morse Ave) 916.333.4463 • 10am–10pm daily

SWEDISH • DEEP TISSUE REFLEXOLOGY • SHOWERS STEAM ROOM • GIFT CERTIFICATES WALK-INS WELCOME

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nOw This is a model HIRInG

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f $5stOvifsit Grand OpeninG asian massaGe 1 Arden Way Office Max

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IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ADVERTISING WITH US, PLEASE CONTACT CLASSIFIEDS AT 916-498-1234 EXT. 1338.

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9aM-9pM Daily $80+ Ann, CMt

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All advertising is subject to the newspaper’s Standards of Acceptance. Further, the News & Review specifically reserves the right to edit, decline or properly classify any ad. Errors will be rectified by re-publication upon notification. The N&R is not responsible for error after the first publication. The N&R assumes no financial liability for errors or omission of copy. In any event, liability shall not exceed the cost of the space occupied by such an error or omission. The advertiser and not the newspaper assumes full responsibility for the truthful content of their advertising message.

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NEWS

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FEATURE

STORY

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WITH PAID ADMISSION, EVERY TUE 9PM - 2AM

VALID AFTER 6PM. NOT VALID WITH OTHER DISCOUNTS OR SPECIALS

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58

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mbers: More Local Nu 666 1.800.700.6

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by COdy dRabble

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Fireworks

displays excite the eyes and lift the spirit.

But the smoke and dust they produce can harm the lungs with residues of heavy metals. The toxic chemicals they release may pollute streams and lakes and even groundwater. So is there any alternative?

Not yet. No one has come up with a more benign variety of fireworks. But if it happens soon, I bet it will be due to the efforts of an enterprising Aries researcher. Your tribe is entering a phase when you will have good ideas about how to make risky fun safer, how to ensure vigorous adventures are healthy and how to maintain constructive relationships with exciting influences.

jazz is a type of music that emerged in the 1950s as a rebellion against jazz conventions. Its meter is fluid and its harmonies unfamiliar, sometimes atonal.

Song structures may be experimental and unpredictable. A key element in free jazz is collective improvisation—riffing done not just by a featured soloist, but by the entire group of musicians playing together. To prepare for your adventures in the coming days, Taurus—which I suspect will have resemblances to free jazz—you might want to listen to music by its pioneers, like Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus and Sun Ra. Whatever you do, don’t fall prey to scapabobididdilywiddilydoobapaphobia, which is the fear of freestyle jazz.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I have

no problem with you listening closely to the voices in your head. Although there might be some weird counsel flowing from some of them, it’s also possible that one of those voices might have sparkling insights to offer. As for the voices that are delivering messages from your lower regions, in the vicinity of your reproductive organs: I’m not opposed to you hearing them out, either. But I hope you will be most attentive and receptive to the voices in your heart. While they are not infallible, they are likely to contain a higher percentage of useful truth than those other two sources.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

Kangaroo rats live in the desert. They’re at home there, having evolved over millennia to thrive in the arid conditions. So well-adapted are they that they can go a very long time without drinking water.

While it’s admirable to have achieved such a high level of accommodation to their environment, I don’t recommend that you do something comparable. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t adjust to some of the harsher aspects of your environment. Now might be a good time to acknowledge this fact and start planning an alternate solution.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Apple

Inc. and Exxon Mobil Corp. are the most valuable companies in America. In third place, worth more than $350 billion, is Google Inc. Back in 1999, when the future Internet giant was less than a year old, Google’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page tried to sell their baby for a mere million dollars. The potential buyer was Excite, an online service that was thriving at the time. But Excite’s CEO turned down the offer, leaving Brin and Page to soldier onward by themselves. Lucky for them, right? Today they’re rich and powerful.

I foresee the possibility of a comparable development in your life, Gemini. An apparent “failure” may, in hindsight, turn out to be the seed of a future success.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

“Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled,” said writer William Blake. I think you will challenge this theory in the coming weeks, Capricorn. Your passions will definitely not be weak. They may even verge on being volcanic. And yet I bet you will manage them fairly well. By that I mean you will express them with grace and power rather than allowing them to overwhelm you and cause a messy ruckus.

You won’t need to tamp them down and bottle them up because you will find a way to be both uninhibited and disciplined as you give them their chance to play.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “You can’t

have your cake and eat it, too” is an English-language proverb. It means that you will no longer have your cake if you eat it all up. The Albanian version of the adage is, “You can’t go for a swim without getting wet.” Hungarians say, “It’s impossible to ride two horses with one butt.”

According to my analysis, Cancerian, you will soon disprove this folk wisdom. You will, in effect, be able to eat your cake and still have it. You will somehow stay dry as you take a dip. You will figure out a way to ride two horses with your one butt.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Would

you please go spend some quality time having non-goal-oriented fun? Can I convince you to lounge around in fantasyland as you empty your beautiful head of all compulsions to prove yourself and meet people’s expectations? Will you listen to me if I suggest that you take off the mask that’s stuck to your face and make funny faces in the mirror? You need a nice long nap, gorgeous. Two or three nice long naps. Bake some damn cookies, even if you’ve never done so. Soak your feet in epsom salts as you binge-watch a TV show that stimulates a thousand emotions. Lie in the grass and stare lovingly at the sky for as long as it takes to recharge your spiritual batteries.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I know this might

come as a shock, Leo, but—are you ready?—you are God! Or at least godlike.

An influx of crazy yet useful magic from the Divine Wow is boosting your personal power way beyond normal levels. There’s so much primal mojo flowing through you that it will be hard if not impossible for you to make mistakes. Don’t fret, though.

Your stint as the Wild Sublime Golden Master of Reality probably won’t last for more than two weeks, three tops. I’m sure that won’t be long enough for you to turn into a raving megalomaniac with 10,000 cult followers.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Dear

Pisceans: Your evil twins have asked me to speak to you on their behalf. They say they want to apologize for the misunderstandings that may have arisen from their innocent desire to show you what you had been missing. Their intent was not at all hostile or subversive. They simply wanted to fill in some gaps in your education.

OK? Next, your evil twins want to humbly request that you no longer refer to them as “Evil Twin,” but instead pick a more affectionate name, like, say “Sweet Mess” or “Tough Lover.” If you promise to treat them with more geniality, they will guarantee not to be so tricky and enigmatic.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In your

imagination, take a trip many years into the future. See yourself as you are now, sitting next to the wise elder you will be then. The two of you are lounging on a beach and gazing at a lake. It’s twilight. A warm breeze feels good. You turn to your older self and say, “Do you have any regrets? Is there anything you wish you had done but did not do?” Your older self tells you what that thing is. (Hear it now.) And you reply, “Tomorrow I will begin working to change all that.”

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): More than a

hundred years ago, the cattle industry pressured the U.S. government to kill off wolves in Yellowstone National Park. By 1926, the wolves had all but vanished. In the following decades, elk herds grew unnaturally big, no longer hunted by their natural predator. The elk decimated

BEFORE

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NEWS

bRezsny

the berry bushes of Yellowstone, eating the wild fruit with such voracity that grizzly bears and many other species went hungry. In 1995, environmentalists and conservationists got clearance to reintroduce wolves to the area. Now the berry bushes are flourishing again. Grizzlies are thriving, as are other mammals that had been deprived. I regard this vignette as an allegory for your life in the coming months, Libra. It’s time to do the equivalent of replenishing the wolf population. Correct the imbalance.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Free

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.

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F E AT U R E

photo courtesy of AlAn tAylor

by ROb

For the week of May 8, 2014

STORY

Rewriting history UC Davis distinguished history professor Alan Taylor has received not one, but two Pulitzer Prizes in arts and letters for his books on early American history. Last month, Taylor won his second for The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832.

Taylor, who previously won in 1996 for William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic, taught history at UC Davis for two decades, focusing primarily on the settlement of the United States-Canadian borderlands frontier, until some unexpected research findings put him on the trail of his latest book, which examines 3,000 slaves from Chesapeake Bay Region who escaped and helped the British in the War of 1812. As Taylor recovered, once again, from the shock of winning, he spoke with SN&R about turning this particular chapter in U.S. history into a movie (hint, hint: calling Ken Burns).

How did you get started?

I was doing research on another book about Canada and [the United States] in the archives in Nova Scotia. I found material on these refugees—escaped slaves who settled in Nova Scotia after the War of 1812. I was fascinated, I wanted to know their story of where they came from and what happened to them.

Is this an overlooked story?

As I got deeper into it, I realized that nobody had written a book about this before. There were a few older articles, but nothing too substantial.

How did you start your research?

In 2010, I found some extraordinary documents in Virginia about slaves escaping their masters. There were records from the state of Virginia’s militia documenting their suppression of escape attempts.

The documents revealed a lot about how African-American slaves lived, and numerous attempts to steal boats and canoes from shore to join British warships in the Atlantic. Then I went to the United States National Archives in College Park, Maryland, where I found 11 boxes of documents from a claims commission that handled compensation for slave masters that owned the escaped African-Americans.

There were pages and pages of depositions where I learned about how and when the slaves made their escape attempts. There were also several letters written after the war by the escaped slaves to their masters telling them why they had to leave.

Coolest character you encountered?

I was drawn to Bartlet Shanklyn, who leads one of the most difficult and resourceful escapes of the war. Bartlet Shanklyn stole |

A RT S & C U LT U R E

not just a canoe or a rowboat, but an entire ferryboat. He helped 17 men, women and children escape. Then, after the war, he writes this amazing letter to his former master to set him straight. Shanklyn was very proud of his blacksmith abilities and proud that he outsmarted his overseer.

Did the British always want to free the slaves?

No. When they started, until about 1813, their goal was not to free the slaves. They wanted to inflict damage on the American economy.

The naval captains had orders from London not to take in more than just a handful of African-American men who could help as pilots and guides. The British government didn’t want to take on the financial responsibility of caring for these African-Americans.

Eventually, the naval commanders took on hundreds of liberated slaves. It posed a real challenge to feed and shelter them. The naval captains came around very quickly, and recruited them as sailors, marines, nurses and laundresses. They also helped tremendously with providing intelligence on the local geography and people.

Where did they resettle?

Most of them went to Nova Scotia, and a large number of them also went to Trinidad and New Brunswick.

Any War of 1812 myths to bust?

The popular misconception is that the War of 1812 was a draw, a war with no consequence.

The reality is a paradox: The standstill is what changes the thinking in the U.S. and Canada about our relationship as neighbors.

Before the war, the U.S. and British thought |

AFTER

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they were incompatible, either one or the other would have to prevail over the other.

The British Empire would have to shatter the United States, or the U.S. would have to conquer Canada and purge the British from the continent. In the wake, there was a burst of nationalism on both sides, which came with new recognition about how we could become better neighbors.

Biggest challenge with this book?

It was a little scary at first, because I previously wrote largely about frontier topics in Canada and the U.S., and I had never written about slavery in this way. There was a steep learning curve in catching up on the great historical scholarship out there. It was a challenge to get in there and do something that people would pay attention to.

Any other fun episodes?

There was one time when Virginia militia men were trying to trap British sailors, so they painted themselves in blackface. The British started to row ashore when the naval captain noticed these supposed slaves had white ankles, and they turned around.

Sounds like it would make a great movie or Ken Burns documentary?

You know, a lot of people have said that so far. I would be delighted if someone in Hollywood or PBS wanted to make a movie out of this, but I wouldn’t know much about that. Ken Burns would have a hard time with this subject, because it’s all pre-photography.

It might require some reenactment. Ω

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