S 2014 12 24

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Sacramento’S newS & entertainment weekly

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Volume 26, iSSue 36

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Sacramento News 10-23-14.indd 1

9/30/14 10:39 AM

December 24, 2014 | Vol. 26, issue 36

Parks rule!

A thought crossed my mind this past Saturday afternoon, while speeding at nearly 26 miles-per-hour down a hill on the American River Bike Trail: “Wow. It’s been only days since those storms, and the trail is in top shape, clear of dangerous debris—which could kill a guy like me, especially at this clip.”

But it’s no magic that the bike trail, from Discovery Park all the way to Folsom, consistently is in excellent riding condition. This is the work of the county rangers and the parks departments.

Remember “hella storm”? Yeah, it was hella underwhelming. But on the bike trail, there were major issues: flooding, fallen trees, mud and leaves (which can cause even a pro cyclist to fishtail and crash).

Yet rangers were out there in trucks during the heart of the wind and downpour, keeping an eye on the trail and the parkway. I saw their cars perched atop the levies. And, as soon as the storm ended, rangers were out moving trees and shoveling mud. Impressive.

I’m a rookie cyclist. This past August, I purchased a road bike.

And now, along with 5 million other annual visitors, I’m a major advocate for the enjoyment and preservation of American River Parkway and bike trail.

What’s more fun than flying from Midtown to Goethe Bridge on a weekday before work? Or clearing your mind and pushing your legs to the limit while taking in the twists and turns and shaded tree groves between Ancil Hoffman Park and Sunrise Boulevard?

If you haven’t already, get on two wheels and try out the parkway trail sometime in 2015. It’s a life-changer.

And thank you, parkway workers.

You definitely rule.

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Creative Director Priscilla Garcia Art Director Hayley Doshay Junior Art Director Brian Breneman Production Coordinator Skyler Smith Designers Melissa Bernard, Brad Coates, Kyle Shine Contributing Photographers Lisa Baetz, Steven Chea, Evan Duran, Wes Davis, Luke Fitz, Taras Garcia, Bobby Mull, Shoka, Darin Smith, Lauran Worthy

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.

Chief Marketing Officer Rick Brown Advertising Manager Corey Gerhard Senior Advertising Consultants Rosemarie Messina, Joy Webber Advertising Consultants Joseph Barcelon, Meghan Bingen, Lee Craft, Teri Gorman, Dusty Hamilton, Dave Nettles, Matt Richter, Lee Roberts, John Saltnes, Julie Sherry, Kelsi White Senior Inside Sales Consultant Olla Ubay Ad Services Specialist Jovi Radtke Director of Et Cetera Will Niespodzinski Custom Publications Editor Michelle Carl

Co-editors Rachel Leibrock, Nick Miller Staff Writers Janelle Bitker, Raheem F. Hosseini Assistant Editor Anthony Siino Entertainment Editor Jonathan Mendick Editorial Coordinator Becca Costello Contributing Editor Cosmo Garvin Editor-at-large Melinda Welsh Contributors Ngaio Bealum, Daniel Barnes, Rob Brezsny, Jim Carnes, Cody Drabble, Deena Drewis, Joey Garcia, Blake Gillespie, Becky Grunewald, Lovelle Harris, Jeff Hudson, Jim Lane, Garrett McCord, Kel Munger, Kate Paloy, Jessica

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“I tell people to listen, be in the moment, but I’m always checking my phone.”

Asked at the MARRS Building:

When don’t you practice what you preach?

Richard Chadwick

Zac Van Someren

LaDessa Samuel

banker

pharmacy tech

I would say as a banker, it’s important to save money for a rainy day, for retirement. My job is to tell people how to save money in mutual funds, IRA accounts, fixed annuities and so forth.

But I myself don’t put that much away. In turn, I could be a hypocrite in that way.

artist

I tell people to take care of themselves, go to the doctor, get your checkups, mammograms, all that stuff.

I tell people to do it, but I put it off. I don’t like going to the doctor. My husband died last year, so I’m nervous about hospitals. I have a good doctor, but I just don’t go.

JR De Guzman

Kate Whittlake

stand-up comic

Don’t speed, but I’ve got so many speeding tickets.

It’s because my car is red, so the cops notice it right away. I was thinking about painting it myself, but I don’t want to be one of those artists with a janky, self-painted car. You’ve got to spend good money to paint a car.

Vince Vicari

student

I tell people to listen, be in the moment, but I’m always checking my phone.

It’s the modern disease.

I check it so much, it’s bad.

I know I’m always doing it. My ex-girlfriend would say I did it a lot. I would be texting or looking at Facebook, when we’re having a conversation, but she did it too.

pop singer

I give lots of relationship advice that I don’t take.

I tell my friends to be healthy after someone hurts you, move on and be done with them. But I still talk to my ex, stuff like that. ...

You know answering that booty call is a bad choice for you, emotionally.

Nobody is confused about the situation.

I guess it would be self-control in terms of consuming the things I like. I overconsume cookies. My go-to is any cookie at Goodie Tuchews.

They are the perfect size. ... Two and you feel satisfied. I know what time they come out warm.

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VA P E

Shocking That’s the best word to describe the feeling one gets from spending much time at all on Fatal Encounters, the website that Reno News & Review editor D. Brian Burghart founded to aggregate information about incidents in which police killed citizens.

Shocking, because he found it necessary to do so in the first place. You’d think that, in this government data-crazy age, someone—the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the various state police agencies, even local law enforcement—would be keeping track of how many people are killed by police.

And shocking because police killings are typically treated as local matters, which means that the larger pattern doesn’t become visible until, all at once, it does.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the Ferguson protesters. By bringThis ought to make ing Michael Brown’s death to the national consciousness, we have us terribly, terribly become just a little bit less willing angry. And that to slide over the news reports of people killed by police with a anger must be passing thought of, “Oh, yeah, I channeled to change. guess that happens.”

But the aftermath of that particular police killing—because it brought issues of race, injustice, militarized police departments and the lack of police accountability to the forefront—has done us the favor of asking us to look, and look closely, at what is happening in our name.

Law-enforcement officers need to defend themselves. They have a dangerous job, and we understand that. But it’s become apparent—not just in the case of Michael Brown, but also those of Eric Garner and John Crawford and Tamir Rice—that there are some deepseated problems with police use of force that don’t seem to be limited to one geographic area.

And, as anyone who’s seen the video of a local sheriff’s deputy beating a man with a flashlight in Carmichael earlier this month, these questions of use of force are relevant for us, too.

For too long, we’ve allowed ourselves to think that people who are killed or harmed by police must have done something wrong. But does anyone really think that mental illness, or shoplifting, or car theft, or outstanding warrants on burglaries, or—for crying out Visit Fatal Encounters, loud—selling loose cigarettes on the street demands an RN&R editor D. Brian immediately executed death sentence?

Burghart’s website, That Burghart’s database contains mostly men— at www.fatal black men in population centers and mentally ill men encounters.org. in less-populated areas—should also be shocking, since Check out SN&R’s interview with this highlights ongoing social problems of discriminaBurghart here: tion and disenfranchisement. tinyurl.com/fatal We know that 14 California law-enforcement encountersSNR. officers lost their lives in the line of duty in 2014. We value and respect their service, and do not seek in any way to demean the loss of their lives.

But it’s also shocking that Burghart’s database includes 128 people killed by police in California in 2014.

This ought to make us terribly, terribly angry. And that anger must be channeled to change.

We need, at the very least, a statewide registry of injuries and deaths associated with law-enforcement encounters. We also need a local citizen review board, empowered to investigate the use of force by local lawenforcement agencies.

These changes are necessary, because the current lack of transparency? It’s not just shocking. It’s obscene. Ω

YOU NEED HEALTH INSURANCE!

Midtown change is great Re “Welcome to Midtown” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature Story, December 18): Really? Another anxious article about Midtown’s changing character?

The opposite of gentrification is slumification. Creating appealing residential opportunities for higher-income people is smart and desirable. Better to have affluent folks as neighbors in the central city than have them driving in and bringing their suburban road rage. Rather than anxiety, letter of the week we should be impatient to transform Sacramento’s excessive surface parking and vacant lots into homes, parks, schools and community gardens. Real urbanism is inclusive, even for those who might earn more than we do.

Paul Dorn

S a c ra m e nt o

Better than Bay Area

Finding the health insurance plan that works for you can be difficult and stressful, but we’re here to help FOR FREE. We serve close to 350 people (like you) every week. Whether it’s Covered California or Medi-Cal, we’ll find what works best for you.

Great editorial. The Sacramento City Teacher’s Association continues to choose confrontation over collaboration. Savings on benefits would increase money on the table for salaries. I am a community member that values the profession of teaching and believes that they are underpaid, but lawsuits and conformation undermine our mutual goals. This union reflects poorly on the profession. If the union was not a closed shop, I wonder if teachers would choose to be represented by them.

Beverly E. Lamb Sacramento

Re “Welcome to Midtown” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature Story, December 18): One thing you can be sure of in life is change. Midtown will change, and so it’s a question of whether it will be for the better, and often this is in the eye of the beholder.

Personally, I am among those who would like to see more density to create a vibrant city and to better utilize our resources, i.e. not pave over the rest of California. Midtown will likely get more expensive to live in because it will be seen as more and more desirable. To my mind, this is preferable to being cheap because of undesirability.

Still, as compared to the Bay Area, it will probably always be a relative online buzz bargain.

Frank Bruno On whether MidtOwn will be Sacramento the new rOSeville:

I live in Midtown and I LOVE that it’s locallyowned businesses instead of chains.

Torture never ‘works’ Re “Torture is never patriotic” (SN&R Editorial, December 18): I am becoming increasingly frustrated by editorials that hedge their condemnation of torture with the claim that it is ineffective, and your editorial seems to put you in this category. We need to be clear that torture is morally indefensible whether it “works” or not. The United States of America I believe in does not torture people.

Tim Foley Sacramento

Karen Campbell

via Facebook Lived in midtown most my life. 10 years ago I couldn’t go jogging without almost getting abducted.

It’s much safer now...and my home’s value has increased substantially just in the last 4 years due to this “gentrification”.

Email your letters to sactoletters@ newsreview.com.

S Online Buzz contributions are not edited for grammar, spelling or clarity.

Nicole Schiestel

via Facebook Relax guys, SNR is just hell bent on trying to convince everyone that “The Man” is taking over Sacramento. Yawn. Same articles different titles.

Boo, teachers union Re “Teachers’ Association should reconsider unfair labor practices claim” by Jeff vonKaenel (SN&R Greenlight, December 18):

Shawn Kahan

@SacNewsReview

Facebook.com/ SacNewsReview

via Facebook Hell no! I hate suburbia.

@SacNewsReview

Nick Griffin

via Facebook

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by SN&R staff

SCORE KEEPER Sacramento’s winners and losers—with arbitrary points

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Sant Baljit Singh

on the inner light and the inner sound Free introductory class given by a regional speaker followed by optional free vegetarian lunch and discussion

Hate in Roseville

Bad for you, naturally

Scorekeeper was stunned that white honor students at Oakmont High School threw cotton balls all over the lawn of a fellow black classmate earlier this year. Scorekeeper was even more appalled that said students didn’t view the act as racist. They said the cotton-ball incident was an innocent joke, even though it was clearly part of a longstanding debate over the acceptability of using the N-word.

Which is just crazy, because using that word is never acceptable. What is wrong with these “honor” kids?!

Carl’s Jr. is launching a new “all-natural burger” this week.

Except that it’s not all natural— just the meat, OK. This grassfed meat, though, still might be processed, as the Food and Drug Administration definition of “natural” doesn’t preclude that. And the burger is 860 calories, and 95 percent of your daily saturated fat, according to the Fooducate blog. So, basically, it’s the latest fad in unhealthy natural foods!

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hyselfas Soul Foundation

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Copyright © 2013 Know Thyself as Soul Foundation, International

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Last Thursday, President Barack Obama inked the

Let it

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Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013, which means now that the Department of Justice will have to document and keep track of all officer-involved fatal encounters.

+ 2,014 Straw, dog Big ups to the hipster taking Pabst Blue Ribbon sipping to a whole new level of cool. Scorekeeper witnessed this last week at a popular Midtown spot and, as one commenter Tweeted, it’s a smart move: Helps the PBR bypass the taste buds.

+ 12

Breathe this Let’s give it up for those pro-police activists wearing “I Can Breathe” T-shirts. And by give it up, we mean fly a middle finger right in their faces.

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Big ups to local law enforcement: Last Friday night at 2 a.m. near E and 10th streets, a subject yelled at cops saying that he wanted to commit “suicideby-cop.” These are dangerous situations for police—yet, according to the police log, the officer safely contacted the man and transported him to a local hospital. Nice work!

+ 916

Men at work How many arena jobs actually go to city   of Sacramento residents? “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!� That was the No. 1 (and No. 2, and No. 3) justification for the city of Sacramento’s $300 million-plus subsidy for a new Kings arena. We were explicitly promised jobs for Sacramento residents and businesses.

How’s that going so far? “Great!� according to the Kings and arena builder Turner Construction, who gave a PowerPoint aRViN G presentation on arena jobs to the city O SM CO by council last week. cosmog@ newsrev iew.c om The real answer is, “We have no idea� where those jobs are actually going.

About $303 million in contracts have been awarded, representing 85 percent of the biddable work. About 81 percent went to “local� businesses. The goal was 60 percent.

In terms of actual jobs, only 45 percent so far have gone to “local� workers.

Of course, it’s early yet. The city’s arena project manager, Desmond Parrington, notes that only 4 percent of the actual labor has been done.

But what does “local� mean? Those jobs and contracts may have gone to firms and workers anywhere in Sacramento, Yolo, San Joaquin, El Dorado, Placer, Yuba or Sutter counties.

Wouldn’t it be good to know how many of those jobs went Sacramento city residents— the folks who are footing the bill for the arena?

No one at the city seems to be asking. Bites was told that’s because “the city is not a party� to any of the labor agreements. Ridiculous.

The city is footing the bill for this arena. We should know how many jobs, jobs, jobs are directly benefiting Sacramento, and how many are going to Roseville, Rocklin and Yuba City residents.

After some prodding, Parrington said the city will eventually get the information, sometime before the next arena-jobs report to the council. “We’ve asked for it. I think we’ll get it before March.�

The city council last week also pushed through a mid-decade redistricting plan, redrawing the boundaries of Councilman Jay Schenirer’s District 5 so that it again includes the UC Davis Med Center. The vote was timed to coincide with the fact that neighboring District 6, which includes some of the areas most affected by the switch, currently has no representative on the city council.

Bites asked Oak Park activist Michael Boyd, who was livid about the 2011 redistricting battle that put the Med Center in District 6, “was it right for the council to move district lines with the District 6 council seat vacant?� “While I would have been more comfortable with a full council, the vote makes it clear the final outcome would have been unaffected� by the presence of a District 6 representative, Boyd replied in an email.

Then he wrote, quite passionately, about the BEFORE

 

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wrong he believes was done to Oak Park during the last redistricting.

Bites is tempted to say something like “two wrongs don’t make a right.â€? But aside from being clichĂŠ, there’s really no comparison here. The 2011 redistricting fight happened with the full city council, as part of a public process with lots of opportunities for neighborhood groups and their representatives to duke it out.

What happened last week was something much more underhanded. The council should have at least have waited for the District 6 election this spring. Not one city resident— in Oak Park, Elmhurst or anywhere else— would have been any worse off. Instead, the council majority (with Steven Hansen and Jeff Harris dissenting) went out of their way to screw the residents of District 6. Point made.

Sacramento’s Best Since 1940

)UDQNOLQ %OYG ‡ www.gunthersicecream.com

Sacramento Vedanta Reading Group Every Friday 7:00 - 8:30 pm ¡ Free admission Sacramento Yoga Center @ Sierra 2 Community Center, Room 6 2791 24th Street, Sacramento The whole world is your own. — Sri Sarada Devi Parking in back

The city is footing the bill for this arena.

We should know how many jobs, jobs, jobs are directly benefiting Sacramento.

For more information please see www.SacVRG.org

The Sacramento League of Women Voters and local government watchdog group Eye on Sacramento last week officially launched their campaign for comprehensive ethics reform at City Hall. They favor an independent redistricting commission, an ethics commission with enforcement power, and stronger laws on transparency and open government. They also want an open process with any reforms fully vetted by the public.

Eye on Sacramento’s Craig Powell said there may even be opportunities for citizens to participate in the drafting of the new laws.

That sounds superboring and kind of awesome at the same time. The first public forum will be held in February, and the groups think they can get these reforms on the ballot in June 2016.

It’s not clear how this affects Mayor Kevin Johnson’s “ad hoc� city council committee on good governance. The ad hoc committee of four council members does not allow the public to attend any of their meetings, nor does it make public any of its minutes or meeting notes.

When asked about the citizen effort by radio station KFBK last week, the mayor’s deputy secretary of irony, Ben Sosenko, remarked, “We welcome the input of special interest organizations, even those that are not accountable to voters like elected officials are.� Ί

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Media ignores peaceful black protests, focuses on violence in Northern California streets and elsewhere At about 9 p.m. on the first Saturday of December, shoppers at a Trader Joe’s in Berkeley heard by a crash, then another and another, as white Will Butler men in black masks shattered store windows with hammers and crowbars.

The scene was plastered all over national news. And yet that same morning, an entirely black coalition had stood in broad daylight in front of a Trader Joe’s three miles away.

Their protest was peaceful, purposeful and organized—but to news media, it might as well have happened on the dark side of the moon.

There was also Black Brunch in Rockridge, a sight to be seen. Diners enjoying brunch at various restaurants when, out of nowhere, dozens of black people started pouring in. One by one, they filled each restaurant, hovering over tables, taking up space. Then, after bringing each restaurant to a standstill, they began to read from a long list of names. “Michael Brown: 18 years old. Eric Garner: 43 years old. Tamir Rice: 12 years old. Akai Gurley: 28 years old.

Victor White III: 22 years old,” the protesters chanted, listing off the names of black men, women and children who were all recent victims in police, state or vigilante slayings.

They followed each name with a Nigerian ashe, an amen to each lost soul. After five minutes, the procession turned and filed out, singing the song that had interrupted the St. Louis Opera in October: “Whose Side Are You On?” The hashtag #BlackBrunch was celebrated on social media, but did not make the news.

The images of protests across the Bay Area that dominated conversations and flickered across CNN last week were more violent and hectic: trash fires, tear-gas attacks, freeways shut down, Amtrak trains literally halted.

A white undercover California Highway Patrol officer became world famous when he decided to pull out his handgun and point it directly into the lens of a photojournalist covering a protest in downtown Oakland.

Now, many say that because of white rage, black healing is being denied the spotlight.

Zachary Murray, a 25-year-old Baltimore native, watched protesters swarm his Oakland neighborhood after the non-indictment of Darren Wilson in late November, yelling slogans like “No Justice, No Peace, No

Racist Police” and “Black Lives Matter.”

But the demonstrators also fanned out and broke into splinter groups that committed arson, vandalized property and antagonized police.

Meanwhile, white people held the bullhorns. In this intimidating environment, Murray said, it was hard not to “just stand around feeling foolish after a while.”

This is what sent Black Brunch into its planning stages. “We were dissatisfied with the fact that three out of the four protesters there were white,” Murray said, “We wanted to create a safe space and a different type of response to support the healing of black folks.”

Organizers say Black Brunch is not about grabbing the public by the throat, but instead nurturing solidarity from within. It was about taking the pain and suffering of so many wrongful deaths and airing them out, in the light of day, in plain view of those who can easily avert their gaze. It was about reclaiming a space and demanding that black voices cease to be ignored.

And undeniably, it was about staying safe.

“I’m of the belief that there is most definitely a place for property destruction—for raging and all that,” said Wild Tigers, another Black Brunch organizer, graduate student and longtime activist.

“But the reality is that, as black people, it’s very different for us to be out there on the streets smashing windows at Starbucks.

Because, if I do that, I could get a bullet.

PHOTO BY BERT JOHNSON

BEATS

Good battle Sacramento City Council is on holiday break, but when it returns on January 6, the topics of the day will be sunshine and ethics.

In November, on the heels of Measure L’s loss, the mayor appointed a committee to explore and recommend policy for an ethics committee, budget analyst, redistricting commission and a neighborhood advisory committee.

Next month, this committee will report back with a smorgasbord of ideas and issues, including thoughts on registering lobbyists, online portals for tracking mayor and council spending, finally funding the long-approved Office of the Independent Budget Analyst, establishing an application process for an independent redistricting commission in 2019 or sooner and more.

If that seems like a lot on the plate, it is. And it’s also complicated by the fact that Eye on Sacramento and the League of Women Voters also aim to put a measure on the June 2016 ballot with its own good government and ethics provisions (see Bites page 9).

It’s fair to say that the good-government battle is just beginning. (Nick Miller)

The hottest toddy Organizers at the Millions March in Oakland earlier this month made sure white protesters didn’t take over the event.

For white people out there, doing that is a privilege.”

This is a difficult question: How can black people, the truly affected parties in this movement, raise their voices against police violence without instantly becoming another casualty on a long list of names?

And yet, over the past weeks, with or without support from the media, black activists have quietly taken the reins.

The Black Brunch event was not an isolated incident, but part of an ongoing effort that not only seeks to promote a black perspective, but also to renovate the emotional infrastructure of a population under siege.

Some participants at Black Brunch also work with the BlackOut Collective, an Oakland-based “technical assistance group” that helped orchestrate the West Oakland BART shutdown during the shopping rush on Black Friday.

In the past weeks, protests in Berkeley and Oakland increased the numbers of black participants, though they are sometimes ignored and sometimes hampered by the media.

At the same time, they’ve become more creative. Last Thursday, nearly a thousand students from Berkeley High, B Tech Academy and REALM

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Charter School, under the banner of the Black Student Union, overtook the UC Berkeley campus in the middle of the afternoon. The Saturday after, UC Berkeley’s Black Student Union—who previously staged a four-and-a-half hour occupation of the campus cafe—also marched down College Avenue to join up with the Millions March protest in Oakland.

“It’s very different for us to be out there on the streets smashing windows at Starbucks.

Because, if I do that, I could get a bullet.”

Wild Tigers activist At the Millions March, where an estimated 5,000 people turned up, proceedings were carefully managed, helmed by Black Brunch and the BlackOut Collective. When the march began, white demonstrators were asked to hang back and allow for its black

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participants to move through the crowd to the front. Then, once the protesters arrived at the steps of the Alameda County Superior Courthouse, the entire space was reserved for nonwhite speakers, including Oscar Grant’s mother.

In Sacramento, more than 75 protesters marched through Midtown and downtown, writing messages in chalk on sidewalks and chanting for justice.

And on Monday, December 15, protesters of different ethnicities chained themselves to Oakland police headquarters in downtown for a little more than 4 hours and 28 minutes—the length of time Michael Brown’s body was left lying in the streets of Ferguson.

The event ended in arrests—like so many others—but was defined by a calm and focused purpose.

All last week, residents of the East Bay went to bed with helicopters soaring overhead and sirens blaring.

Activists say it has been a galvanizing moment, and there’s no shortage of riveting images: of police batons; riot gear and zip-ties; students marching through gridlocked traffic on the interstate; and flares, smoke grenades and firearms lighting up the night sky. Ω

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The annual Golden Bear Hot Toddy Competition is a fun yet serious competition for local bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts. This year’s event, held earlier this month at the popular Midtown bar, featured steaming concoctions from bartenders at Goldfield Trading Post, Hook & Ladder and more.

This year’s winner, however, was last year’s Midtown Cocktail Week champion: Josh Hunt of The Waterboy. (It’s worth noting that this writer was a judge in the competition. It’s also worth noting that Hook & Ladder’s “12 Days of Hot Toddy,” where the restaurant features a different toddy Not this year’s winning hot toddy, but we’ll recipe for a dozen days, finishes drink it, anyway. up this week. Hurry!) (N.M.)

Sheriffs in Rancho Last week, after a midnight soul search, the Rancho Cordova City Council begrudgingly agreed to continue contracting police services from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department through at least 2017.

Actual terms still need to be worked out, but the city lost some negotiating leverage when Citrus Heights bowed out of contention earlier this year.

As a Monday, December 15, meeting bled into Tuesday morning, Rancho Cordova City Manager Brian S. Nakamura told council members he wasn’t sure why the other jurisdiction pulled out, but that its tentative proposal “showed some economic benefit to the city in terms of the number of staffing [it] would receive.”

According to Vice Mayor David Sander, concerns about the current sheriff’s department arrangement had to do with the approximately $250,000 cost per officer for salary and benefits, the size and quality of the officer pool being assigned to Rancho Cordova and the level of community engagement.

“I don’t think we do a very good job of that,” he said of the latter.

Most of the 69-odd officers in Rancho Cordova are assigned from one of the two jails the sheriff’s department operates, said police chief Michael Goold, himself a sheriff’s employee. Roughly 100 sheriff’s employees are set to retire by June, he added, which would likely bring in younger officers at a cost savings.

(Raheem F. Hosseini)

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Sheriff Scott Jones slammed President Barack Obama in an odd, politically motivated, head-scratching YouTube diatribe last month.

Sacramento Grinches of the Year ’Tis the season to call out locals whose hearts were just a few sizes too small in 2014

by Cosmo Garvin cosmo g @ n e wsr e vi e w.c o m • Raheem F. Hosseini ra h eem h @ n e w s re v ie w . co m • Nick Miller n ick a m @ n e w s re v ie w . co m

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I llu s t ra t io n s by Brian Taylor

Honorable Mentions:

Say it ain’t so, Shirley It’s frankly heartbreaking to have Sacramento City Clerk Shirley Concolino make an appearance in our annual rogue roundup. It’s tempting to give Judge Timothy Frawley the Grinch for blocking a public vote on the city’s massive subsidy for a new Kings arena. But blaming Frawley would be taking the easy way out. It was Concolino who officially refused those citizen initiative petitions, and disenfranchised tens of thousands of Sacramento residents who wanted a vote.

Remember, the idea that citizens should have a vote on public financing of arenas and stadiums was a longstanding policy, adopted by the city council in 1996. We can’t even call Concolino a Grinch, because she and her staff are almost always total pros. But she definitely Grinched that one. (C.G.)

Welcome to SN&R’s fifth annual Grinches of the Year awards. Yes, we know it’s the holidays, which means we’re supposed to be sitting by fires in plaid, flannel threads while sipping hot toddies and reading stories about magic trains and parents who can’t hear bells.

But we’re SN&R. And for us, the end of the year is to call out Sacramentans whose hearts were just a few sizes too small. You know, the public officials, corporations, local celebrities and basketball teams who deserve coal in their stockings on Thursday.

And so, our 2014 Grinches. Muah ha ha.

Sacramento’s Grinch of the Year

Turns out popular Fox40 personality Sabrina Rodriguez is (allegedly) a big-time shoplifter. Coal for you!

Cue the slow clap for Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones. This was the year the county’s top lawman concealed his department’s use of warrantless cellphone surveillance technology, known as Stingray; helped lobby a bogus case against Proposition 47; struggled to comply with state laws regarding the detention of undocumented immigrants; and used the tragic deaths of two officers to burnish his political rep on YouTube while trashing the president’s immigration policy. Just one of those would have merited Jones one of SN&R’s annual Grinch awards.

Taken together, they earn him top-dog honors—and a tongue-in-cheek poem. On this list, it’s bad to be king:

The Not-So-Great Scott

by Raheem F. Hosseini

Sheriff Scott Jones Knows down in his bones He’s the right man for the job, Don’t you fret or sob.

“If Justice works blind, Then so shall I! I entertain no new thoughts That my pension hasn’t bought.

“Which job,” you ask, “The badge or the mask?”

No questions, News 10.

Jones won’t answer them.

“Vote for me. Do what I say.

We’ll all be much happier that way.”

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Trains have transported dangerous stuff, including volatile Bakken crude oil, for years. That’s not why oil refiners such as Valero Refining Company get a Grinch award this year. The company announced a plan to increase the amount of Bakken crude that would be traveling through local neighborhoods like Roseville, Midtown, West Sacramento and Davis on the way to Vallejo. The new number would be about 100 car trains per day.

That’s a lot of dangerous, potentially explosive crude, were the unfortunate derailment of a train to occur. |

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Grinches on a train

“Grinches”

“My name is Scott Jones And I live in the zone.

My message almost done, Do support my congressional run.

“And immigrants are A-OK. But let’s lock them away.

Obama has it wrong, Our walls must be strong.

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Former Fox40 morning-show reporter and anchor Sabrina Rodriguez was living large until that May morning when her (now ex-) fiancé allegedly blew up their south Sacramento home. He was allegedly manufacturing “dabs,” or what’s known at police headquarters as concentrated marijuana. The May 6 incident also sparked a domino effect of bad mojo, including Rodriguez and her ex Nicholas Gray’s arrest for shoplifting.

Rodriguez was such a nice, young woman on TV. Caring, smart. But then an arrest report detailed a month-long history of theft and braggadocio. Let’s revisit: Ex-fiancé crows in a text to Rodriguez that it was so “easy” to snatch $640 in purses from the Vacaville BCBG outlet in March 2013. Rodriguez texts back: “Awesome. I love when a plan comes together.”

Now we know Rodriguez was as phony as a Louis Vuitton knockoff. (N.M.)

“The law is a tool That my hand will rule.

A hammer, in fact, To beat progress back.

That’s why he spies our phones, Or so says Scott Jones: “Stingray protects us all!

Its secrecy shouldn’t gall!

Fox-y Grinch

“The paradigm mustn’t shift ‘Twould cause a great rift.

Fill my jails to the brim.

Compassion is the sin.

A badge made of tin, As is his grin; The rules don’t apply To one of the good guys.

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“Call me Great Scott.

The bad guys can rot!

There is evil, there is good, Now fetch me my hood!

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Special Guest

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“Grinches” C O n T i n U e D F R O M pAG e

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But the bigger worry is that the National Transportation Safety Board says the tanks used to transport this oil need to be upgraded. The board also says they should probably take safer routes, ones not through populated or environmentally sensitive areas, and that local responders and companies need to have better action plans in place—you know, in case the worst-case scenario happens.

Communities are fighting back against these train shipments. But even more are going through Sacramento neighborhoods as you read this, according to Union Pacific.

And let’s not forget a UP train (thankfully full of corn and not explosive oil) derailed into the Feather River Canyon just weeks ago. (N.M.)

Doh-O-U

Here’s how: When developers build major projects like sports stadiums or arenas in cities such as San Diego or Los Angeles, there are typically things called “community benefits agreements.” These CBAs happen because major development often impacts existing businesses and residents. CBAs ensure that there will be things like affordable housing, fair-wage jobs, interest-free loans and subsidies for people displaced.

Cities leaders and mayors often push for theses CBAs. When they built the Staples Center, home to the L.A. Lakers and the Clippers, the CBA with the developer included $1 million for parks-and-rec improvements, local-hiring requirements, a 20-percent affordable-housing requirement and a lot more.

Here in Sacramento, not so much. This past May, Mayor Kevin Johnson and the Kings sidestepped a group

This is what democracy looks like Eligible voters in California and Sacramento County excavated their way to new low-bottom records this year—twice. This past June, a measly 18.4 percent of eligible state voters and 21.3 percent of those in Sacramento County participated in the statewide primary—both historic lows. We dropped the bar yet again a few months later during the November 4 general election, when only 30.9 percent of eligible California voters and 34.4 percent of Sacramento County ones dragged themselves to the polls. In other nations, voting is seen as a privilege. Here, it’s like writing thank-you cards or using turn signals. We all know we should do it, but, on the other hand, to hell with other people. (RFH)

Let’s give it up one last time for the leadership at the city of Sacramento’s Department of Utilities!

To recap: For years, city officials put off installing water meters at homes, despite a state law and, recently, a drought. When the DOU finally got around to doing the install, they approved a plan that cost hundreds-of-millions of dollars more than most cities subject to the state’s meter mandate. DOU leaders also rejected a city audit questioning this plan.

Anyway, the plan was approved unanimously by council. Construction crews began tearing up streets and sidewalks in neighborhoods a couple of years ago. Turns out they’ve been, in many cases, replacing water mains and pipes that just might be in perfectly good condition. It’s crazy—yet all the while the DOU has defended the project to SN&R. But this year, investigative reporter Joe Rubin exposed the plan’s folly, which led the city manager to put a halt on the big install this past November. (See “Flushing money”

by Joe Rubin, SN&R Feature Story, November 13.) Now, the city says it’s rethinking whether it’s wise to spend hundreds of millions on work that probably is unnecessary.

In the meantime, SN&R has serious concerns about the DOU, its management doctrine and why such a flawed and wasteful plan was approved in the first place. The city’s response to those concerns: “We are moving on.” That’s how city spokesperson Linda Tucker explained the DOU’s refusal to come clean.

The DOU also decided this year to withhold information from the public about how much water is used by bottlers like Nestlé and Coca Cola—apparently at the request of commercial water users. All this secrecy and waste are pretty hard to swallow. (C.G.)

The riots in Ferguson, Mo., this year weren’t just about profound problems in our criminal-justice system. It took years of racial and economic segregation to lay the groundwork for Ferguson.

The development patterns are pretty familiar if you look around Sacramento. In fact, housing segregation is a major factor in any number of social ills—from gang crime to failing schools.

A few years ago, Sacramento County embarked on an ambitious effort to fight economic segregation by requiring affordable housing to be included in new development areas. It didn’t last. This year the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors—having received their marching orders from the developers whose campaign cash keeps them in office—abandoned the inclusionary housing strategy.

Honestly, they never really gave it a chance to work in the first place. So we’ll keep building tony new suburbs and keep segregating low-income families into ghettos.

What could possibly go wrong? (C.G.)

Back in May, the Kings and the mayor posterized downtown’s longstanding residents and small businesses.

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pushing for a small CBA and instead launched their own group, called Sacramento First, to create the appearance of giving a damn. This new group didn’t include any impacted groups but instead welcomed in pro-arena city officials, Kings reps and lawyers, the mayor’s chief of staff and even the arena’s architects.

Basically, it was a way for the Kings and the mayor to make it look like they were doing something for those adversely impacted by the arena. But all they gave them was coal. (N.M.)

Oh what fun it is to ride?

They’re dreaming of white suburbs

All they want for Christmas is a community-benefits agreement

Uber’s political games and shady dealings were very Grinchy in 2014.

Brutal assaults on passengers, threats to journalists and bribing politicians. These are some of the reasons Uber is on our naughty list this year. Our own Mayor Kevin Johnson took Uber money, then used his position to work against laws that would regulate rideshare companies. At the same time, Sacramento is tightening rules on local taxi drivers, including new tests and new requirements to speak English and follow a dress code. All things Uber drivers are exempt from, because they’re taxi-industry “disruptors,” not taxi drivers. (But really, they are taxi drivers.)

Speaking of disruption, how about when Uber quadrupled rates in downtown Sydney after an armed gunman barricaded himself in a cafe with a bunch of hostages. Uber calls this “surge pricing.” Which is exactly what Krampus would say. (C.G.)

‘L’ is for the way you … lose It’s been nearly two months since Measure L bombed at the ballot box. So long that, in fact, we can hardly remember which incarnation it was of K.J.’s strong-mayor proposal.

Anyway, why is Measure L on our list? Waste.

All those campaign donations, more than a million dollars, spent on what? The only silver lining is that Measure L’s defeat united a progressive front against corporate powers that be. Maybe there’s good in the strong Grinch after all? (N.M.)

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UC Grinch Get this: The Regents of the University of California put raising student tuition in the crosshairs this year.

Again. And despite strong, vocal objection from Gov. Jerry Brown.

There was a battle. Brown pressed hard. Students banged and protested and raised hell. And yet the Regents voted to bump tuition by at least 5 percent each year over the next five years. Higher education at California’s premier universities was already out of reach for so many residents. Now … good luck. (N.M.)

The un-fairer sex From popular entertainment to higher education, there was no escaping ugly acts of men behaving savagely. Over the summer, the anonymous d-bags of GamerGate drew attention to the misogynistic underbelly of video game culture.

Then, National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell marred America’s biggest sport with his cowardly response to Ray Rice’s caught-on-camera domestic brutality. In November, Rolling Stone’s (flawed) coverage of an alleged pattern of rape within the University of Virginia’s fraternity system renewed calls to stop ignoring campus sexual assaults. Outside the U.S., April brought the appalling mass abduction of hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls by the militant Islamist group, Boko Haram. Reports circulated in November from Kenya of male attacks on women who dared wear mini-skirts. Recently, a terrorist group that’s against female education massacred hundreds of Pakistani schoolchildren.

And then there was Bill Cosby. TV’s favorite dad was toppled by allegations that he drugged and sexually assaulted numerous women, retroactively tarnishing the childhoods of an entire generation of ’80s kids. To men everywhere: It’s time to burn those Cosby sweaters—and grow up. (RFH) Ω

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We are the best!

by Daniel barnes anD Jim lane

&

Y N I H S foXcatcher

muppets most WanteD

W E N NINGS

N I BEG

interstellar

sn&r film critics Daniel barnes and Jim lane look back on 2014’s best films

recent article article for for the the pop pop culture culture inin aa recent

unDer the sKin 16 | SN&R | 12.24.14

website Grantland, film columnist Mark Harris decried the brand-name franchising of Hollywood blockbusters, calling the ever-increasing glut of sequels, prequels, side-quels, remakes, premakes, and assorted satellite films “the end.” Harris estimated that as many as 150 sequels and franchise installments could be released over the next four years, including such seemingly unthinkable propositions as Now You See Me 2, Kung Fu Panda 3, Beverly Hills Cop 4, Ice Age 11, and Madagascar 162 (some figures have been estimated). At the 2014 domestic box office, 13 of the 14 highest-grossing films were sequels or established “brand name” products, and the only one that wasn’t (Big Hero 6) had the most misleading title since Leonard, Part 6. Undeniably, these are bleak times for cinema purists (they always are), but is it really the end? Only two sequels were deemed good enough to make our very different year-end lists (although we are willing to watch

as many Snowpiercer prequels as Joon-ho Bong wants to make), so perhaps the end of film is just a new beginning.

Inspired inscrutability for the win Distinctive voices, unique visions and innovative approaches to storytelling abound in my favorite films of 2014. I have siphoned my favorite documentaries into a separate list in a selfish attempt to shoehorn more wonderful movies into this roundup.

As Joanna Newsom’s phantasmic Sortilege says in Inherent Vice, “Does it ever end? Of course it does.

It did.” The year is ending, but the films live forever.

1. Under the Skin: No surprise here—Jonathan Glazer’s hypnotic film about a beautiful alien (Scarlett Johansson) who seduces and harvests Scottish males haunted me all year long. Under the Skin will always be remembered for its mesmerizing music and visuals, but

snoWpiercer

Kick 2014 to the curb See NIGHT&DAY

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Witch Room’s final hurrah See EIGHT GIGS

Steve Carell, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo.

10. The Grand Budapest Hotel: The most intricately detailed Russian nesting doll that Wes Anderson has created yet, but also his most grounded film in over a decade.

a second viewing helped clarify the character-building craft at work in a seemingly random narrative, especially the way that Johansson’s alien subtly shifts from heedless predator into self-aware prey.

2. Inherent Vice: Inspired inscrutability. With a permed and permastoned Joaquin Phoenix mumbling his way through a post-Manson world of dopers, cop actors, drug-dealing dentists, undercover saxophone players and pussy-eater specials, Paul Thomas Anderson has made his daffiest movie to date. So why does the ending pack such a melancholy wallop, and why does it cling to me like a case of the “little kid blues”?

3. Listen Up Philip: With the neophyte novelist Philip Lewis Friedman (Jason Schwartzman, turning the ambition of Max Fischer into airborne self-loathing), a miserable narcissist driven to new levels of anhedonia and boorish behavior by his extremely minor notability, writerdirector Alex Ross Perry has created a neurotic asshole for the ages.

4. Boyhood: So much has been made about the narrative “experiment” of Richard Linklater’s soulful, smallscale epic (i.e. the long-form shooting schedule that followed lead actor Ellar Coltrane from kindergartener to college student), that the film’s most miraculous achievement has gone largely unnoticed: All stitched together, it’s one of the most seamless, consistent and tightly paced films of the year.

5. Mr. Turner: This beautifully composed biopic covers the last couple of decades in the life of 19th-century British painter J.M.W. Turner, but it is also writer-director Mike Leigh’s most personal statement on his own life and art. As Turner, long-time Leigh veteran Timothy Spall is a stomping, shouting, groaning, growling, grunting tour de force.

6. Stranger by the Lake: Alain Guiraudie’s French-language erotic thriller, set entirely on a sun-dappled beach for gay cruisers, plays like Hitchcock distilled into his purest form.

7. We Are the Best!: Lukas Moodysson’s story of middle-school rebels who start a punk band in early1980s Stockholm is a pure blast of feminist fun.

8. Snowpiercer: In a time of increasingly diminished expectations, Joon-Ho Bong proved that it’s possible to create an intelligent blockbuster, but only if Harvey Weinstein doesn’t kill it first.

9. Foxcatcher: Director Bennett Miller crafts a claustrophobic thriller of slowly mounting dread, and gets intensely physical performances from BEFORE

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Top five documenTaries

It takes a village, people See ASK JOEY

plunge into the twisting labyrinth of a deranged mind since Black Swan—and honestly, better and more unsettling than that. Michael Keaton gave the performance of his life—the rest of which he’ll probably spend trying to convince people he’s not really like that.

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He’s got game See 15 MINUTES

1980s, the ’60s, and finally the ’30s for its main story. It was stylish and delightful throughout, with a wonderful comic turn by Ralph Fiennes as the hotel’s punctilious, resourceful concierge.

5. Interstellar: Director Christopher Nolan (co-writing with

With Snowpiercer,

1. Visitors 2. The Overnighters 3. Happy Valley 4. Mistaken for Strangers 5. Rich Hill

Joon-Ho Bong proved that it’s possible to create an

BesT acTor 1. Joaquin Phoenix, Inherent Vice 2. Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel 3. Timothy Spall, Mr. Turner 4. Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler 5. Jason Schwartzman, Listen Up Philip

BesT acTress 1. Scarlett Johansson, Under the Skin and Lucy 2. Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl 3. Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night and The Immigrant 4. Tilda Swinton, Only Lovers Left Alive 5. Luminita Gheorghiu, Child’s Pose

BesT supporTing acTor 1. Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher 2. Josh Brolin, Inherent Vice 3. Jonathan Pryce, Listen Up Philip 4. Gene Jones, The Sacrament 5. Nat Wolff, Palo Alto

BesT supporTing acTress 1. Katherine Waterston, Inherent Vice 2. Patricia Arquette, Boyhood 3. Mia Wasikowska, Only Lovers Left Alive 4. Elizabeth Moss, Listen Up Philip 5. Tilda Swinton, Snowpiercer -D.B.

The Muppets aren’t a joke, OK?

intelligent blockbuster, but only if Harvey Weinstein doesn’t kill it first.

2. Chef: A tour de force for writer-director-star Jon Favreau, this was a feel-good-buddy-road-trip from Florida to California as Favreau’s character, a gourmet chef out of work, reignites his culinary genius and bonds with his son (Emjay Anthony) while crossing the country in a food truck, cooking as they go. Like all good food-centric movies, it made you hungry.

3. Gone Girl: Director David Fincher’s adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel was the movie equivalent of a compulsive summer read. Rosamund Pike gave a star-making performance as the missing wife of Ben Affleck (also in top form), and the tantalizing twists kept viewers spellbound as they slowly learned that neither husband nor wife were exactly what they seemed. We learned a little too slowly, perhaps—Fincher’s movies could often stand to lose 20 minutes or so—but that’s a quibble.

4. The Grand Budapest Hotel: Wes Anderson’s valentine to the lost elegance of a fictitious Mittel-European luxury hotel was typically quirky, leaping in flashbacks from the present to the

his brother Jonathan) gave us a mind-and-time-bending trip through a wormhole to explore the galaxy. It was a truly epic vision of the future, doubly welcome after a welter of bleak prognostications ranging from The Road to The Hunger Games.

Nolan’s love-conquers-time trope may have been a bit too mundane and Wizard of Oz-ish, but his visual sweep carried the day, especially on the IMAX screen.

6. The Judge: Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall headed a strong supporting cast (Vincent D’Onofrio, Vera Farmiga, Billy Bob Thornton, Dax Shepard, Ken Howard) with a sharp script by Nick Schenk, Bill Dubuque and director David Dobkin.

It added up to a complex look at legal

ethics and family baggage, as son Downey defends his estranged father Duvall, on trial for murder. It felt like a good adaptation of a fine novel.

7. Locke: What might have seemed merely a bravura stunt—one man (Tom Hardy) driving through the night talking on the phone, with the camera never leaving the car—proved to be a riveting character study of a man in crisis, throwing away his life while doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons. Hardy was brilliant, his intensity matched by a supporting cast who appear only as voices on his car phone.

8. Muppets Most Wanted: Don’t laugh. Musical comedy, that quintessentially American art form, has become an all-but-lost art. With a riot of groan-and-guffaw jokes, lively direction by James Bobin, clever songs by Bret McKenzie, and the customary parade of guest stars, this movie kept the flame alive. “Pure fun” I called it back in March, and that’s what it was.

9. Pride: Director Matthew Warchus and writer Stephen Beresford, recounting the unlikely alliance of gay activists and striking British coal miners in the 1980s, turned out the kind of movie that gives lefty agitprop a good name, without a trace of sour this-is-good-for-you righteousness. It was a joyous celebration of solidarity that sent you out grinning from ear to ear.

10. The Trip to Italy: Two Guys Bummin’ Around Italy Talkin’ might have made a better title, but with the guys played by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon (as fictional versions of themselves), the talk was hilarious and the bummin’ was great fun.

Supposedly written by director Michael Winterbottom, the movie felt almost completely (and brilliantly) improvised.

—J.L.

As of this writing, these are my top 10 movies of the year—of course, major releases are still coming out, and there could well be one or two I’d mention, if only I’d seen them.

Anyhow, with that caveat, in alphabetical order: 1. Birdman: Alejandro González Iñárritu’s tale of a washed-up movie star’s drive to recapture lost glory was the best and most unsettling

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WEEKLy PICKS

Many Happy Returns Through December 31 In recent years, more people have become aware of how spectacular the artwork of adults with ART developmental disabilities can be if given a chance. Sacramento’s Developmental Disabilities Service Organization has been instrumental in this locally. This show is a retrospective of 35 years of art. Free, hours vary at Verge Center for the Arts, 625 S Street; www.vergeart.com.

—Aaron Carnes

The Sound of Music Singalong FriDay, December 26 The Sound of Music starring Julie Andrews debuted in theaters in 1965 and returns to the Crocker Art Museum for two family-friendly showings featuring audience participation. Cheer for Maria, boo and SINGALONG hiss at Herr Zeller, dress in costume, win a prize, and sing along with songs that have become American standards. $6-$12, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. at the Crocker Art Museum, 216 O Street; www.crockerartmuseum.org.

—Trina Drotar

Kwanzaa 2014 FriDay, December 26 This event’s Kwanzaa festivities include a Karamu, traditionally a feast on the sixth day of Kwanzaa— which in this case is a potluck open to the public.

Organizers will collect clothing for homeless shelters, to be distributed on Martin KWANZAA Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

Free, 6 p.m. at the Brickhouse Gallery, 2837 36th Street, www.facebook.com/thebrickhousegallery.

—Aaron Carnes

Shark Attack!

FriDay, December 26, Through SunDay, December 28

It

seems like two of the most popular New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day traditions, are as follows: Going to a party and drinking champagne (and then starting the next 12 months with a bad hangover), and then making resolutions to lose weight (and then completely forgetting them by the time Sacramento Bacon Fest rolls around). In some ways it seems excessive that a party is thrown in honor of the simple turning of a page on a calendar; after all, it’s just another year. Nevertheless, Sacramento’s going all out with parties, celebrations and even yoga. Here’s a quick rundown of some New Year’srelated events happening this year: Obviously, there’s a lot of New Year’s Eve clubbing. TBD Fest is throwing a huge, highly anticipated block party called TBDNYE (www.tbdnye.com) with performances

by A-Trak, Gigamesh, Oliver, Sister Crayon and more.

Venerable dance night Lipstick returns for a party at Old Ironsides featuring Sunmonks and deejays Shaun Slaughter, Roger Carpio and Adam Jay (www.theoldironsides.com). And District 30 (www.district30sacramento.com) is hosting a

party billed as “an evening of sensory fulfillment,” featuring a DJ from Reno who goes by the moniker Well Groomed.

In other annual happenings, the Sacramento Convention & Visitors Bureau is putting on what it’s calling the 15th Annual New Year’s Eve Sky Spectacular (http://nyesacramento.com) in the Old Sacramento area.

It features kids’ stuff like face painting and games, live music from Superlicious and the Madison Hudson Band and fireworks shows at 9 p.m. and midnight.

Then there’s the stuff for those looking to get a jump on building a better body: New Year’s Eve yoga at Zuda Yoga (www.zudayoga.com) and Ahmbiance (www.graceyoga.com); and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day walks with the Sacramento Walking Sticks (www.SacramentoWalkingSticks.org).

There are also plenty of local cover bands playing at local hotels, so Google those if that’s your jam. And for more live music options, see Eight Gigs, page 30, and Nightbeat, page 32.

—Jonathan Mendick

If Shark Week taught us anything, it’s that people love sharks. And why not? They are fascinating creatures. The Discovery Museum wants to teach ELASMOBRANCHII people all about a special prehistoric shark species called megalodon. The megalodons died out 2.6 million years ago, and judging by their fossils, they were one of the most ferocious creatures to ever exist. $6-$8, 12:30 p.m. daily at the Discovery Museum, 3615 Auburn Boulevard; www.thediscovery.org.

—Jonathan Mendick

Lego Block Party SaTurDay, December 27 Of all the name-brand toys that have had the most staying power, Lego tops the list. For children who wish to engage with others without having to GAMES share their own Lego stashes from Christmas, this is the place to be.

Parents can walk around and catch up on their reading while the children are entertained by stacks and stacks of Lego and Duplo pieces. Free, 10 a.m. at Franklin Community Library, 10055 Franklin High Road in Elk Grove; www.saclibrary.org/locations/ franklin.

—Eddie Jorgensen BEFORE

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Beyond the stars SN&R’s food reviewers dish on some of their favorite things—and a few unfortunate ones—that happened in the 2014 Sacto scene

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We came, we ate, we judged. We wrote reviews and we awarded stars. Some Sacramento-area eateries received many kudos, others less. One day this by Ann Martin Rolke, summer, we got together as a team and each Garrett McCord sampled a dozen cookies for SN&R’s annual and Best Of Sacramento issue. Yes, it was rough to Jonathan Mendick bear that responsibility, but in the end, someone has to ensure that Sacramentans don’t eat chalky or overly salty cookies.

If you read our reviews this past year, you’d know that we do like to eat lots of different things: Bread from Village Bakery, a freekehtopped kale salad from Mother and a chef’s selection of sushi from Yui Marlu were among our best bites. In fact, we’re always dining out, and our reviews alone don’t tell the whole story of everything we ate and loved in 2014. Here, we reminisce about some of our favorites of the year—and some of our biggest regrets.

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Still hungry?

Search SN&R’s “Dining Directory” to find local restaurants by name or by type of food.

Sushi, Mexican, Indian, Italian—discover it all in the “Dining” section at www.news review.com.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. In the “best” department was the arrival of Puur Chocolat on the sweets scene.

Seriously, get the milk-chocolate caramel crunch “crack bar” immediately.

Muchas gracias to Lola’s Lounge for upping the culinary cred of Elk Grove with their farmfresh take on Spanish-culture cuisines. I never knew I could love bacalao—dried, salted cod reconstituted with oil and mashed potato.

Local spirits were high with the one-year anniversary of Bike Dog Brewing Company and its bourbon milk stout. Gold River Distillery was the first alcohol distillery to open in Sacramento since Prohibition, producing Wheel House gin. And Corti Brothers debuted a 7-year-old wine-enhanced “Exquisite Whiskey” that’s cost-effective and unique.

The first Specialty Coffee Week in October was a buzzing success, especially because Robert Masullo put his pastry prowess on display with three breakfast pop-ups.

In the “worst” department was the absurd number of restaurants that saw openings delayed multiple times by city bureaucracy.

Bacon & Butter, Federalist and South were among those that lost money and business due to inefficient city regulations.

We also saw the sad closing of The Cultured & the Cured, a wonderful cheese and charcuterie shop in East Sacramento.

The departure of Chef Pajo Bruich to San Francisco is clearly that city’s gain and our short-sighted loss. We couldn’t manage to keep him here, but his boundless talent is now finding new appreciation.

Looking forward to 2015: I can’t wait for Empress!

—AMR

Finer fare “Best,” obviously, is a subjective term and as a reviewer it’s one I both adore and fear, but lo, certain things in the culinary scene stood out for me in 2014.

Gin drinkers take note of the name Darjeeling Gin. I discovered this gin when a friend invited me to California Distilled Spirits, Ed Arnold’s new distillery in Auburn. This gin gets its name from its delicate infusion of Darjeeling tea, and the result is smooth and delicate.

I’ve also become addicted to the pickles at Preservation & Co. whose dilly beans now garnish my nightly gin martini.

I’m willingly giving myself diabetes at The Parlor Ice Cream Puffs, a devilish place that stuffs excellent ice cream into doughnuts. The ice cream flavors such as Earl Grey and sea salt caramel are terribly addicting.

Sugar cane seems to be the next trendy ingredient at the farmers markets. Affordable, easy to use and a bit exotic, it’s an easy way to enliven your cocktail bar or skewer shrimp that’s meant for the grill.

Chando’s Tacos got love from Nate Silver’s America’s Best Burrito bracket—even if in reality the tacos are way more amazing than the burritos.

This year, the Sacramento Kings Food Program announced that Michael Tuohy will lead the new arena’s culinary future. As someone who previously didn’t give a sod about basketball, this development certainly gets me excited.

Pastry tends to get the shaft in this town, so let’s take the time to give a shout out to Jane Anderson at Ella Dining Room & Bar. Her artistry, palate and deft skill leave me to assume she’s shed the mortal coil of pastry chef and ascended to pastry wizard.

Lastly, I’ve been camping out at Sampino’s Towne Foods. It’s not new, but I insist you all rediscover it. Food is priced well and outstanding.

A recent hot pastrami with aioli floated me off of my seat with delight.

—G.M.

Best buys For me, it was the year of peasant food. Fine, I’ll just admit it: It’s more like I’m always on the lookout for good cheap eats, because it’s just too darn expensive to always eat like a snooty foodie.

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Hello, men. How would you feel if some dude placed a tight band around your scrotum? He’d leave it there until the blood supply ran so low that your testes die and fall off—and no, silly goose, you don’t get any pain medication. This isn’t the script to Saw XVIII, just a description of a standard method of castrating sheep.

There is a similar practice done to amputate lamb tails, too, called docking—that’s right, sheep have long tails—and both are removed usually without anesthesia.

According to sheep specialist Susan Schoenian at the University of Maryland’s Western Maryland Research & Education Center, “Scientists are in agreement that all methods of docking and castration cause pain and distress to the lamb.” Does that mean you’ll feel a crushing pressure on your scrotum every time you bite into a piece of lamb or decide to buy a wool sweater? Hmm. I wonder.

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Whatever the case, one of my favorite discoveries this year was the tasty but inexpensive KP International food court.

There were many cheap and delicious pizzas eaten at Il Pizzaiolo, which opened this year in Rocklin—and also placed in the top 10 in SN&R’s pizza issue (see: “The pizza issue,”

by Janelle Bitker and Nick Miller, Feature Story, December 4).

Chando’s Tacos got love from Nate Silver’s America’s Best Burrito bracket, which was a huge deal—even if in reality the tacos are way more amazing than the burritos.

In booze news, Oak Park Brewery launched in November with a full menu of gastropub fare in addition to its much-anticipated beers. Red Rabbit bartender Ian Young, in partnership with Dutch & Dewey Distillery, is in the process of creating a new line of jenever. And Block Butcher Bar is trying to turn us all into whiskey snobs by stocking the best selection in town, including some crazy-expensive but worldrenowned Pappy Van Winkle selections.

However, I’ll probably always remember 2014 as the year Sactown stepped up its doughnut game. Even though Midtown favorite Doughbot closed (sad for many vegans, especially), a bunch of other Asian-owned doughnut places in the burbs—such as Baker’s Donuts, Sweet Dozen and The Parlor Ice Cream Puffs— stepped it up with cronuts (overhyped, in my opinion) and ice-cream doughnuts (underhyped, in my opinion).

Lastly, a handful of new Asian dessert places serving shaved ice (Vampire Penguin, Snowbee Tea Station, the Tapioca Express on the corner of Stockton Boulevard and Florin Road) and boba (Cool Tea Bar, Elk Grove’s Moo Moo) helped me indulge my sweet tooth more than ever in 2014.

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Downtown Blackbird Kitchen & Beer Gallery

Where to eat?

Here are a few recent reviews and regional recommendations by Janelle Bitker, 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 seafoodinspired dinner menu. A burger served with house pickles, seven-day house-cured 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.

Midtown Block Butcher Bar This place serves the holy trinity of European cuisine: meat, cheese and alcoholic beverages. Most of its boards and plates are balanced using three basic tastes: salty (meats and cheeses), sweet (honey and jam) and sour (pickles and vinegar). The charcuterie boards impress visually and on the tongue. A recent selection included shaved almonds, neat piles of meat,

mustard, pickled cauliflower and beets, served with small slices of bread. The ’nduja sandwich is startlingly spicy and salty, with rich melted cheese and ground meat spread between pressed slices of bread. Or try the pressed serrano ham, manchego cheese, arugula and salsa sandwich—it’s like a cross between a cubano, a breakfast panini and a torta. Elsewhere on the menu there are fine cocktails, an intimidating whiskey list, and a small but diverse selection of beer and wine.

European. 1050 20th St., (916) 476-6306. Dinner for one: $10-$20. HHHH J.M.

Capital Dime Restaurant With a new chef and menu, this Midtown eatery has transformed into a farm-to-forkthemed place for smart bar bites and appealing sandwiches and salads. Try the bacon lollipops, perhaps the tastiest little creations ever put on a stick.

Here, salty rib bacon is slathered with melted brown sugar and whispers of cayenne and cinnamon more hushed than the juiciest of rumors. Sweetpotato pierogis are tasty, puffy packets of potato drizzled with sour cream and shredded-duck confit. A duck burger with fig jam and plenty of crispy onions makes for a gamy change of pace, but the rib bacon whiskey burger—with crunchy lumps of house-made pickle, cheddar and a landslide of crispy fried onions—just might be the best burger in town. American.

1801 L St., Suite 50; (916) 443-1010. Dinner for one: $15-$25. HHHH G.M.

Join us for

Goldfield Trading Post This new eatery rustles up much nicer chow than your usual cowboy fare with a menu that features dishes with names like Grandma’s Meat Loaf. Grandma knows how to make some meat loaf, that’s for sure: slabs of beef ground with bacon are glazed with a sweet sauce, served atop the cheesiest mashed potatoes this side of Wisconsin. The Gold Panner’s Pork Chop was flat-out fantastic, oozing juicy flavor from its fire-kissed crust. House-made cinnamon applesauce for dunking was a perfect accompaniment. Any good country bar worth its salt pork has chili on the menu, and Goldfield is no exception. It’s made with chunks of tender chicken rather than ground beef, with plenty of nuggets of gold corn and black beans to boot. American. 1630 J St., (916) 476-5076. Dinner for one: $5-$10. HHH1/2 AMR

Harry’s Cafe It can be difficult to decide what to order here— there’s one menu for breakfast, and another with general Chinese and Vietnamese meals.

Oh, and the breakfast menu has a subcategory for “Asian Breakfast,” featuring Hawaiian favorites such as Spam and loco moco (rice topped with hamburger patties, eggs and gravy).

Whatever the option, portions here are huge, especially the heaping plateful of fried rice, which has a playful texture.

Recommended from the Chinese food menu: Stir-fried green beans, hot and sour soup, beef chow fun in black bean sauce and ginger beef that’s piping

hot, tangy, spicy and slightly salty. A nice way to heat up the belly on a cold night. Or, try ginger beef over rice. Asian.

2026 16th St., (916) 448-0088.

Dinner for one: $10-$15.

HHH1/2 J.M.

Izakaya Daikoku Izakayas are to Japan what pubs are to England: a place to grab a cheap drink and some easy grub. The purveyors behind I.D. hope to bring this Eastern swagger to Sacramento with a menu that’s rich in options. Agedashi tofu is the big hit here: deep-fried cubes of delicately soft tofu served with a soy dashi broth form squishy pillows of flavor.

The hamachi collar is also recommended. Served with lemon and ponzu, it’s a boastful dish that exemplifies simplicity. The okonomiyaki is the biggest pull— it’s a traditional Japanese pizza made of cabbage and savory pancake batter. Each is buried under mayo, katsu sauce, and bonito flakes resulting in a rich, greasy mess that leaves you feeling heavy but guarantees you’ll sober up quickly. Japanese.

1900 S St.; (916) 662-7337. Dinner for one: $15-$20. HHH G.M.

East Sacramento Fahrenheit 250 BBQ This barbecue joint ups the ante with attentive table service and high-end ingredients. Chef Jacob Carriker serves Southern staples such as pulled pork, brisket and ribs, plus the very California addition of smoked tri-tip. There’s also chicken and

trout—all smoked in a 7-foot hand-forged steel behemoth.

The pulled-pork sandwich is moist, smoky and falling apart with tenderness. The halfchicken is a bit dry, but benefits from a shot of sauce. The tri-tip is well-smoked, but not as good as the brisket, although it still makes for a very nice addition to the Market salad, with baby greens, grilled zucchini and onions, and cornbread croutons. Barbecue. 7042 Folsom Blvd., (916) 476-4508. Dinner for one: $10-$15. HHHH AMR

Land Park/ Curtis Park Boba Cafe For starters, try the scallion pancake; it’s salty, crunchy on the outside and chewy inside. Or, order the pan-fried beef bun, which with its doughy, crunchy wrapping strangely resembled the texture of a Taco Bell Crunchwrap, only smaller, with a much richer flavor. Also worth sampling: pork dumplings served as a firm dough wrapping filled with a rich pork broth and a small ball of meat.

The “Taiwan Style Stewed Pork Over Rice,” a red-braised pork, is a tender, deep-red colored pork marinated in earthy aromatic spices and copious amounts of soy sauce.

Paired with an egg and a heaping pile of rice, it’s one of the most comforting rice plates in Sacramento. Chinese.

5131 Freeport Blvd., (916) 455-1687. Dinner for one: $5-$15. HHHH J.M

Pangaea Bier Cafe Just as European wines are made to be enjoyed with food rather than sipped alone, the current tsunami of European-style microbreweries feature drinks often best quaffed alongside a well-crafted meal. Pangaea Bier Cafe recently stepped up its food game to satisfy that need with a revamped menu that includes an ever-changing rotation of seasonal, slightly upscale pub food. Try the Buffalo wings: They’re deeply flavorful fried morsels with a thick glaze. The mac ’n’ cheese is creamy, with a bit of beer in the sauce and a crunchy topping of herb-flecked breadcrumbs. The sliders are gorgeous little mouthfuls with Tillamook cheddar and housemade pickles. The main-course cheeseburger, one of the best we’ve had in ages, is made from a custom blend of brisket and chuck. This is a juicy patty that holds together, yet bursts with flavor. The locally made brioche bun bears up well, and the house pickles and cheddar simply gild the lily. American.

2743 Franklin Blvd., (916) 454-4942. Dinner for one: $10-$15. HHH1/2 AMR

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

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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. The sushi rolls here are Western style—aka 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.

Natomas

the veggies, a light boost of piquant flavor from a “pepper plant sauce,” and won’t leave you feeling overly stuffed after eating it. American.

8928 Sunset Ave. in Fair Oaks, (916) 241-9365. Dinner for one: $10-$20. HHHH J.M.

The Waffle Experience Hold your forks—these aren’t your mom’s buttermilk beauties full of syrup.

They’re traditional Belgian liège waffles, which are closer to bread than pastry. Open for breakfast and lunch, the menu offers choices that include breakfast creations and dishes labeled “Two Hands Required”—i.e., waffle sandwiches. All are packed with flavor. The “Eggcellent” consists of applewood bacon, fontina, egg, arugula, and sun-dried tomato aioli sandwiched between fennel seed waffles. It’s messy, but worth the extra napkins.

American. 4391 Gateway Park Blvd., Suite 650 in Natomas; (916) 285-0562. Dinner for one: $10-$15. HHH AMR

Danielle’s Crêperie This eatery, which specializes in French and American, serves a ton of breakfast and lunch options (pancakes, waffles, omelets, quiches, crepes, sandwiches) and diners can order them at any time of day. A chocolate crepe is huge and could make for an entire (sugary) meal itself. A Nutella filling option would also be nice.

Savory crepes are a good option; try the Crab and Spinach Crêpe.

With crab meat, spinach, garlic and a cheesy French Mornay sauce, this is rich haute cuisine at a bargain price. French and American. 3535 Fair Oaks Blvd., (916) 972-1911. Dinner for one: $10-$20. HHH1⁄2. J.M.

Arden/ Carmichael Dad’s Kitchen The cooking at this Guy Fieri-approved joint is consistent and at times technically terrific. Try the Dad’s Burger (lettuce, red onion, tomato, Aleppo chili aioli, and a beef patty encrusted with blue cheese and bacon). With a firm and chewy bun and a sauce with kick, it’s one of Sac’s best burgers. Or get the Hot Blonde. It’s like a subtle, healthier version of a club sandwich, with organic chicken, avocado, spinach, cucumber, roasted onion and Swiss cheese—all set between sourdough bread and grilled on a panini press. It boasts a crunchy texture from all

Field House American Sports Pub Launched by the same team that raised Shady Lady Saloon, this spot brings a bit more culinary hope to an often forgotten part of Sacramento. The whiskey burger is a mighty sammich of perfection with smoked Gouda cheese and bacon that serve as excellent counterpoints to the achingly sweet maple-bourbon glazed red onions. Fries-slashchips arrived pencil-thin and fiercely crispy. If you visit for brunch, don’t miss the signature bloody mary: a 32-ounce bloody mary that doesn’t skimp on the horseradish. It’s served with skewers of beet-pickled

IllustratIon by Mark stIvers

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.

egg, sausage and bacon, tiger prawn, pickled veggies, and the most amazing slider. American.

1310 Fulton Ave., (916) 487-1045.

Dinner for one: $15-$25.

HHHH G.M.

Elk Grove Lola’s Lounge The dishes here bring together Latin American favorites with modern presentations.

There are Spanish tapas, for example, including bacalao, a buttery mash of potatoes and salt cod served in a mortar with toast and Spanish olive oil.

Argentinean-styled empanadas are exquisitely flaky and crisp, encasing juicy shredded beef and chopped hard-boiled egg. A garnish of cilantro puree adds the perfect balance of fresh herb. Lola’s Plato de Quesos makes for one of the most interesting cheese plates in the area. It includes Catalan mató, a fresh cheese similar to ricotta, served with honey and a crisp cracker. Blue cabrales and aged castellano sheep’s cheese garnished with spicy mustard, green olives and sweet apple complete the line-up. Elsewhere on the menu, a generous portion of cubed raw tuna is gorgeously presented with fried rice crackers dusted with chile and Szechuan pepper. Eaten with a smear of aioli and a sprinkle of “caviar” from finger limes, it’s a menu standout. Latin American.

9085 Elk Grove Blvd. in Elk Grove; (916) 685-5652. Dinner for one: $10-$15. HHH1⁄2 AMR

The Asian Chipotle?

Viet Ha Vietnamese & Chinese Cuisine has been serving up consistently amazing Vietnamese and Chinese food for decades on Florin Road—long before the area was designated as Sacramento’s Little Saigon. For years, it’s been my go-to spot for a bowl of Vietnamese bún: grilled meat, egg rolls, fresh herbs and a variety of greens on top of rice noodles. Last month, relatives of the owners of the original place opened a fast, casual restaurant called Viet Ha Noodles & Grill at 2417 Broadway, Suite A2. It has a near perfect rating on Yelp and appears to serve customizable Chipotle-style lunches: Pick a style (noodle box, rice box or banh mi sandwich), pick a protein (beef, chicken, pork or shrimp) and then choose garnishes and dressing. I haven’t had the time to grab a bowl yet, but the word from a few trusted SN&R colleagues is that the food’s great.

—Jonathan Mendick

Grand Opening No Cover Charge Fine Dining with Chef Anderson Live entertainment with Lee Diamond & Jazmin along with other Guest Entertainers 6:30pm • 1107 FRONT ST. • 916.862.5923 WWW.CLUBDORO.COM

916.498.1388 1804 J STREET | SACRAMENTO BEFORE

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BUILDING A

HEALTHY S A C R A M E N T O

Bringing Green to Urban Spaces

BY L I N DA D U B O I S

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acramento’s city codes have made running a functional urban farm difficult. For example: structures such as greenhouses have been limited by building code regulations.

Small animals like chickens, ducks, rabbits and fish have not been allowed in certain areas.

Larger animals like goats, pigs and sheep have been prohibited, even in spaces large enough to accommodate them. Sales of produce grown in community gardens have been restricted or banned.

president and CEO of Ubuntu Green.

But this could soon change.

The other reason is many urban communities in the Sacramento region are littered with spaces and lots that have sat vacant for months or years, Mason says.

The Sacramento Urban Agriculture Coalition has been working with city officials and attorneys to craft a new Urban Agriculture Ordinance that will make it easier for individuals to start and run small urban farms and sell the food on-site to neighbors.

About a year and a half ago when the city was starting to update its general plan, officials sought help in revising the City’s urban agriculture policies from Soil Born Farm’s Urban Agriculture & Education Project and the nonprofit Ubuntu Green, a Building Healthy Communities grant recipient committed to promoting healthy, sustainable and equitable communities through advocacy, education, community development and empowerment.

They, in turn, sought input from other organizations, including sustainable agriculture groups, developers, neighborhood associations, community garden boosters and more. The result was the Sacramento Urban Agriculture Coalition.

Supporting urban farming is important for two main reasons, says Charles Mason, founder,

“It’s important on a personal level for people to have additional access to healthy food, particularly in those communities where there are food deserts and there just aren’t enough healthy foods accessible to them,” Mason says.

Urban residents need not only the ability to grow food, but also the ability to easily buy it, and, for the farmers, to easily sell it to help provide for their families, Mason adds.

where dumping and vagrancy and crime happens,” Mason says.

More plants growing also helps the environment, he notes.

“You can’t have codes that make it cost prohibitive or regulatory barriers that make it difficult for people to start these projects,” he adds.

Next on the agenda is stepping up efforts to work for a similar ordinance with Sacramento County.

He says he hopes both the city and the county ordinances can be fi nalized within the next year, and then the coalition can continue to work on other objectives.

BUILDING HEALTHY COMMUNITIES In 2010, The California Endowment launched a 10-year, $1 billion plan to improve the health of 14 challenged communities across the state. Over the 10 years, residents, community-based organizations and public institutions will work together to address the socioeconomic and environmental challenges contributing to the poor health of their communities.

Charles Mason founded the nonprofit Ubuntu Green to promote urban agriculture, like this urban community garden.

“IT’S IMPORTANT ON A PERSONAL LEVEL FOR PEOPLE TO HAVE ADDITIONAL ACCESS TO HEALTHY FOOD, PARTICULARLY IN THOSE COMMUNITIES WHERE THERE ARE FOOD DESERTS.” Charles Mason Founder, president and CEO of Ubuntu Green

“It’s critical to provide alternatives like urban agriculture to bring those eyesores in the community into something that’s a community asset — instead of continuing to be places that are a drain on the community,

Your ZIP code shouldn’t predict how long you’ll live – but it does. Staying healthy requires much more than doctors and diets. Every day, our surroundings and activities affect how long – and how well – we’ll live.

Health Happens in Neighborhoods. Health Happens in Schools.

Health Happens with Prevention.

PAID WITH A GRANT FROM THE CALIFORNIA ENDOWMENT 24

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www.SacBHC.org

A year of reviews 4

It’s a Wonderful Life

An SN&R reviewer gives kudos to some of the best stage productions of 2014 Our choice for best all-around season from a professional theater company is Capital Stage, for The Real Thing, Good People, Maple & Vine, Tribes and by Kel Munger Anna Karenina. These are all classic examples of what happens when an artistic aesthetic with a strong contemporary bent meets traditionally top-notch production values—and you throw in some great acting. Oh, and a special thanks for the new décor in the patio room. We love the piano water fountain.

Photo by Yuri Tajiri

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New Helvetia Theatre gets kudos for Passion—Sondheim is hard, and they made it look easy—and for Connor Mickiewicz’s excellent turn in Song From an Unmade Bed. Along with those kudos, though, we’d like to put in a request for longer runs. Give us enough time to get there, please!

Green Valley Theatre Company gets the nod for community musical theater done edgy in a small but comfy space. A New Brain gave us a much-overlooked gem that features a frog on a scooter; their production of The Wild Party would give anyone a lost weekend; and The Light in the Piazza was breathtaking. They shouldn’t be a secret, so pass the word.

Sacramento’s oldest Latino theater company keeps the drama in their politics and does it well. They get a nod for Enslaved, about trafficking of impoverished Mexican women who are promised a new life in the U.S., then forced into sex work.

It’s agitprop, but it’s good agitprop, and Teatro Espejo does it like nobody else.

Meanwhile, Sacramento’s newest Latino theater company, Teatro Nagual, translated Julia Alvarez’s wonderful novel about the Marisol sisters’ opposition to dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic into the wonderful In the Time of the Butterflies— excellent work.

At B Street, highlights were a very bookish Provenance and an extremely funny Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.

Sacramento Theater Company’s Kate: The Unexamined Life of Katharine Hepburn gets kudos for an original script by Rick Foster and amazing work by Janis Stevens as the star. These two know how a one-hander ought to be done.

Then there was the ultimate in trimmed down: a four-handed Hamlet produced by Theater Galatea. The adaptation by P. Joshua Laskey was the sort of theatrical tour de force that reminds us why we love a live performance, and it’s also the sort of experiment we’d like to encourage.

At California Stage, Ray Tatar continues to keep things on point, “celebrating” the centenary of World War I with a masterful—if very long—production of Journey’s End, which served as a reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Also noteworthy at Cal Stage were the revival of Rick Foster’s one-woman show, Love, Isadora, and a delightfully mad production of Marat/Sade (long form title: The Persecution and Assassination of JeanPaul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade). Not only was it strangely funny, tragic and political; it also featured a cameo by Tatar himself. Ω

STORY

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Santaland Diaries

Capital Stage puts the comedy first in this production of David Sedaris’ NPR essay about his time as an elf in a Macy’s Santaland, adapted for the stage by Joe Mantello. As “Crumpet,” Aaron Wilkin is hilarious, even when deadpanning, and director Peter Mohrmann keeps things moving at a manic pace.

With a gasp-inducing set designed by Jonathan Williams, this holiday show goes for more spice and less sugar than most.

W 7pm, F 8pm, Sa 2pm & 8pm, Su 2pm. Through 12/27. $30-$40.

Capital Stage, 2215 J St.; (916) 476-3116; www.capstage.org. K.M.

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Snow White and Rose Red

1

Playwright Dave Pierni takes the lesser known Grimm fairy tale of Snow White and her sister Rose Red and throws back the curtain to reveal sisterly spats and sibling rivalries. Actually, he doesn’t throw back the curtain. Rather, he opens up a traveling theater troupe’s gypsy wagon in this adaptation that is a story-within-a-story, capturing the familial fights of a theater family putting on a production of Snow White and Rose Red. So it’s battling sisters portraying battling sisters—realistic pettiness and meanness splattered between tragic, dramatic and, thankfully, lots of comedic moments. Sa, Su 1pm & 4pm. Through 12/28. $15-20.

B Street Theatre’s Family Series Stage, 2711 B St.; (916) 443-5300; www.bstreettheatre.org. P.R.

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FOUL

2 FAIR

3 GOOD

4 WELL-DONE

5

Spinning Into Light

While it’s not the best of B Street’s original holiday productions, this musical tale of four people in a Southern mill town in the 1950s features Americana- and bluegrassinflected music from Noah Agruss and book and lyrics by director Buck Busfield. Greg Alexander is outstanding as the millhand quietly in love with a local divorcee.

SUBLIME–DON’T MISS

Tu 6:30pm, W 2pm & 6:30pm, F 8pm, Sa 2pm & 9pm, Su 2pm. Through 1/4. $23-$35. B Street Theatre, 2711 B St.; (916) 443-5300; www.bstreettheatre.org. K.M.

Short reviews by Kel Munger and Patti Roberts.

Photo courtesy of Davis Musical Theatre Company

For best all-around community-theater season, we’d vote for Big Idea Theatre for When the Rain Stops, The Language Archive, The Submission (so good it got a special production at Capital Stage!), Inventing Van Gogh, The Exit Interview, and, yes, The Jungle Book. Even when doing a children’s story, this is a community theater that pulls out all the stops. In terms of the best value for your theater dollar, Big Idea is still the smartest buy in town.

Celebration Arts hit some high points in the usual places—August Wilson’s Jitney and Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver—but they also knocked our socks off with a poetic production of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

In addition to being one of our favorite shows of 2014, this press photo for Big Idea Theatre’s The Exit Interview was also one of the best we saw this year.

In Sacramento Theatre Company’s current musical staging of this dark tale of a desperate man, it’s the very talented Jerry Lee’s portrayal of George Bailey that saves the day, and this production.

This little-known 1998 musical adaptation of the well-known and much-embraced movie isn’t produced too often, mostly because it’s not a particularly strong show—too many songs, and not enough memorable ones. But with good staging and a charismatic lead with an exceptional voice, it’s a nice addition to the local holiday shows this year. W, F 7pm; Sa 2pm & 7pm; Su 2pm. Through 12/28. $20-$40. Sacramento Theatre Company Main Stage, 1419 H St.; (916) 443-6722; www.sactheatre.org. P.R.

Way before twerking was invented, a popular dance song was Cole Porter’s “Heaven Hop.”

Party like it’s 1929 Ever since watching the 2011 Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris (in which the main character steps into a Peugeot Type 176 car and time travels to 1920s Paris), I’ve often wondered what a 1920s nightclub would really be like. In my mind (and in the film) Cole Porter is certainly there providing the soundtrack for the evening, with jazz standards like “Let’s Misbehave,” “I Get a Kick Out of You” and “Anything Goes.” These three songs are just part of the soundtrack for Davis Musical Theatre Company’s New Year’s Eve production of the Porter-scored Anything Goes. But instead of a Peugeot, the plot in this play involves an ocean liner, aboard which the magic happens (romances, disaster, etc.). Tickets for this special preview include a buffet dinner from Ludy’s Main Street BBQ & Catering, champagne and dancing. Anything Goes, 8 p.m.

Wednesday, December 31; $50; Jean Henderson Performing Arts Center, 607 Pena Drive in Davis; www.dmtc.org.

—Jonathan Mendick

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SWINGIN’ PARTY NEW YEAR’S EVE

STARTING AT 9PM NO COVER CHAMPAGNE TOAST

Code comfort The Imitation Game Just as I half expected, no sooner do I turn in my top 10 movies of 2014 than I see one that definitely would have made the list (See “Bleak times and by Jim Lane shiny new beginnings,” page 16). The Imitation Game is a taut, psychologically complex drama about a side of World War II that remained a closely held government secret for decades after the war ended. It’s excellent drama and reasonably good history.

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ÝŘ˚ǣǼŸNjs ŸŘĶɴʳ ŗŸ _ŸȖEĶs _ÞǣOŸȖŘǼǣʳ ǢŸŎs sɮOĶȖǣÞŸŘǣ ƼƼĶɴʳ rɮƼÞNjsǣ ^sO ˢˠʰ ˡ˟ˠˣʳ

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ˠ˧ˢˢ ËŸɠs ɚsʰ Ǣ ONj ŎsŘǼŸ ɠɠɠʳsɮŸǼÞOƼĶ ŘǼǣĶǼ_ʳOŸŎ 26 | SN&R | 12.24.14

Good

4 Very Good

5 excellent

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, the mathematical genius whose team of cryptographers broke Nazi Germany’s Enigma code, which up to then had been considered unbreakable. Hitler’s government continued to consider it unbreakable and used it throughout the war; the British were so good at disguising the true source of their intelligence intercepts that the Nazis never suspected that, in a sense, Winston Churchill was reading Adolf Hitler’s mail.

Cumberbatch’s masterful performance dominates the movie, inevitably evoking his updated version of Holmes in the BBC series Sherlock. But where his Sherlock is smooth and lofty, his Turing is lofty with rough, jagged edges that keep rubbing people the wrong way.

For example, his superiors—the exasperated naval Commander Denniston (Charles Dance, in an amusing turn, alternately blasé and sputtering); and Stewart Menzies of MI6 (Mark Strong), who harbors a sneaking suspicion that Turing just might be as brilliant as he says he is. Then there are Turing’s teammates—chess master Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode) and math whizzes John Cairncross (Allen Leech) and Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard). They all find Turing’s odd personality abrasive—at one point Alexander huffs, “To pull off this eccentric genius bit, one really has to be a genius.” The only one who doesn’t bridle at Turing’s tactlessness is the only woman on the team, Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), with whom Turing forms a friendship that surprises them both. In real life, as in the movie, Turing impulsively proposed marriage to Clarke, then

broke the engagement, admitting to her that he was homosexual.

The script by Graham Moore (from Andrew Hodges’ biography of Turing) streamlines Turing’s story—eliminating a lengthy visit to America in 1942, for example. The script also seems to conflate Turing’s wartime codebreaking a bit with his postwar work on early first-generation computers. Still, Turing’s prodigious contribution in both areas is undeniable, and Moore is well within the acceptable bounds of dramatic license.

A little more problematic is the structure of Moore’s script, a complicated jumble of flashbacks and flash-forwards from 1952 (when a burglary in his home led to Turing’s being prosecuted for “gross indecency” under British anti-gay laws of the time), to the war years, and to Turing’s adolescence in the 1920s, when his budding love for schoolmate Christopher Morcom (Jack Bannon) ended sadly with Morcom’s death from tuberculosis. The structure gets a little awkward at times—early scenes have to be date-stamped to help us get our bearings—but director Morten Tyldum (a Norwegian making his English-language debut) smooths the transitions into an expression of Turing’s own complexity.

In Tyldum and Moore’s telling, the loss of Morcom heightened Turing’s sense of isolation and his inability to play well with others.

Benedict Cumberbatch’s masterful performance dominates the movie, inevitably evoking his updated version of Holmes in the BBC series Sherlock.

Put that way, it sounds almost facile, but it doesn’t play that way, largely thanks to the King’s Speech-style gloss that Tyldum and Moore provide (along with cinematographer Óscar Faura and production designer Maria Djurkovic), to the expert supporting performances—and most of all to Cumberbatch’s virtuoso portrayal of Turing himself.

And just in passing, I want to mention young Alex Lawther, who plays Turing at age 16. It’s an extraordinarily subtle and poignant turn that enriches Cumberbatch’s own performance, the way Hugh O’Conor did for Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot, or Noah Taylor for Geoffrey Rush in Shine. Cumberbatch will surely reap kudos— maybe even awards—for The Imitation Game, and he deserves them. But here’s hoping he has the grace to share the credit. Ω

by daniel barnes & JiM lane Big Hero 6

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2 5 0 8 L A N D PA R K D R I V E L A N D PA R K & B R O A D WAY F R E E PA R K I N G A D J A C E N T T O T H E AT R E

A Marvel comic book reconfigured to look and sound like an animated McDonald’s commercial, Big Hero 6 is still the most tolerable film to be released under the Marvel banner in years, even if the superhero origin story stuff is the least interesting piece. The film takes place in the futuristic, East-West hybrid city of San Fransokyo, and the story follows a 13 year-old computer prodigy named Hiro Hamada, who forms a bond with an inflatable robot after his brother’s death. Despite a chaotic narrative that bloats the running time to nearly two hours, Big Hero 6 is colorful and fast-paced entertainment, easily watchable and easily forgotten, like a shiny new toy that isn’t much fun to play with. It is preceded by the 6-minute Feast, an enchanting Disney short that offers all of the warmth and soul that Big Hero 6 lacks. D.B.

5

The Gambler

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Late in this third and final chapter of Peter Jackson’s horribly bloated adaptation of The Hobbit, Orlando Bloom’s familiar elven warrior is assured, “Legolas, your mother loved you … very much.” Instantly, I backtracked—had the issue of Legolas’ mother come up in either of the previous forgettable chapters of The Hobbit? Even if it had, why bring it up now? Just an extra flourish of cheap sentiment to pad out a film built entirely around a battle with nebulous stakes that we could care less about? Or another pathetic attempt to encode The Hobbit into Jackson’s cinematic Lord of the Rings cycle? (“Oh, so that’s why Legolas was always portrayed as a happygo-lucky, adventure-loving cipher without any mommy issues—they were already resolved!”)

Nothing else to talk about in this long and dismal cartoon, except that I’m reasonably certain there were more than five armies. D.B.

5

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The Homesman

When we think of the “revisionist Western” genre, the implication is usually one of Peckinpah-esque ultraviolence or Dead Man artiness. Tommy Lee Jones’ unexpectedly devastating The Homesman, while hardly lacking for flashes of brutal violence or moments of equally brutal introspection, takes a slightly different approach. It is a film about the western landscape as a psychological nightmare, and in its deepest and darkest moments, The Homesman questions how insanity should be defined in a world as savage and lonely as the one it depicts. However, this is also a full entertainment,

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FOXCATCHER BiRDMAN “A TRIUMPH.” - Peter Debruge, VARIETY

“BEAUTIFULLY ACTED.” - Manohla Dargis, NEW YORK TIMES

Celebrity, personal reflections and ... jail.

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James Toback is often considered an insufferable figure, both onscreen and off, but he deserves credit for a few things—he knows the world of gambling, he knows the world of academia and he knows about recklessly inappropriate behavior. Toback built an entire career rehashing and rearranging and reliving those themes, but his aesthetic was never more purely expressed than in his screenplay for Karel Reisz’s 1974 film The Gambler. This tin-eared contemporary remake was scripted

by William Monahan (The Departed) and directed

by Englishman Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), and there’s very little evidence that either of them know much about gambling, academia, self-destruction or even the NCAA Basketball rules regarding which team gets possession after a made basket. Wyatt gets nice character work from Jessica Lange and John Goodman, but Mark Wahlberg is badly miscast as the titular nihilist. D.B.

2

- Andrew O'Hehir, SALON.COM

Foxcatcher

Steve Carell stars in Bennett Miller’s compelling Foxcatcher as the real-life billionaire John DuPont, heir to a legendary American fortune and a paranoid schizophrenic who murdered wrestling champion/ coach Dave Schultz in 1996. At first glance, Carell looks like a “stunt” choice for the part of DuPont, but it is inspired casting by Miller (Capote, Moneyball). With his awkward compulsion to be both father and brother, benefactor and lover, boss and buddy, DuPont has a lot in common with Carell’s heretofore most iconic role—Dunder Mifflin regional manager Michael Scott on TV’s The Office. While this is the darkest and bleakest role that Carell has ever played, he uses his comedy-honed physical and vocal chops (and generous amounts of makeup) to disappear into the role of the pale and paunchy DuPont. Miller and cinematographer Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty) abet Carell by giving Foxcatcher the teeming, sweat lodge claustrophobia of a wrestling room. D.B.

2

“MOVING, ENGAGING AND DEEPLY SINCERE.”

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Top Five

A standup-comic-turned-movie-star-in-dopey-comedies (Chris Rock, who also wrote and directed) submits to a ride-along interview with a reporter (Rosario Dawson) to publicize his latest movie, an attempt at a serious drama about the 1791 Haitian Revolution. This raunchy, witty, smart and cheerfully profane comedy just may turn out to be Rock’s Annie Hall. Not that it’s as good as Woody Allen’s 1977 breakthrough—not quite—but in the sense that Rock shows, as Allen did back then, unexpected depth and perception about celebrity and personal relations to go along with his edgy comedy riffs.

His conversations with Dawson crackle with intelligence and sexual chemistry, and a parade of guest artists—some playing characters, others as themselves—is folded into the mix with a minimum of awkwardness. J.L.

filled with rich and moving performances, bawdy humor, powerful visuals and a genuine empathy for the forgotten heroes of history. Jones, who adapted the Glendon Swarthout novel along with screenwriters Kieran Fitzgerald and Wesley A. Oliver and also gives a great performance here, only leads the viewer down comforting alleys in order to ambush them with ugly truths. D.B.

2

Into the Woods

In this Disney-fied adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Tony-winning musical, a selection of Grimm Brothers characters that includes Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Prince Charming and Cinderella come together in an attempt to reverse a witch’s curse. The Sondheim music is still utterly appalling, but at least it’s unmemorable, a monotonous series of tuneless and barely differentiated refrains masquerading as musical numbers (only one sequence—the princely preen-off “Agony”— sticks out). However, the appeal of Into the Woods was always the surprisingly dark book, and while James Lapine adapted his own stage material for the screen, he guts the second act, and the finished product plays like an attempt to make a movie of Shrek the Musical without buying the rights. A strong cast of theater vets and movie stars with passable voices do their best, but director Rob Marshall has the insipidly literal sensibility of a born hack. D.B.

2

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

Museum guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) and his exhibit pals—Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt, Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan as cowboy and Roman figurines, etc.—fly off to the British Museum to restore the magic Egyptian tablet that gives them life. The 2006 original and its 2009 sequel were amusing trifles; this time the goings-on are still trifling but less amusing.

Director Shawn Levy and a new team of writers (David Guion, Michael Handelman and Mark Friedman) fail to find a new hook, falling back on more and bigger visual effects. The movie’s not bad, but three times really is one too many. On the plus side, there’s a clever chase set in an M.C. Escher print and a hilarious cameo from Hugh Jackman (as himself)—plus the bittersweet sight of farewell turns from Robin Williams and Mickey Rooney. J.L.

3

The Theory of Everything

Jake Kasdan’s 2007 genre parody Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story so effectively skewered the hoary tropes of movie biopics, any film employing them with a straight face risks looking ridiculous. Cliches are not mandatory for the genre—films as diverse as Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There and Mike Leigh’s upcoming Mr.

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Turner have tossed aside biopic crutches while still landing emotional and intellectual impacts.

But James Marsh’s straight-faced biopic The Theory of Everything is engineered for maximum awards season appeal, and so it crams in as many those conventions as it possibly can.

The film might be unwatchable if not for the excellent performances from Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne as Jane and Stephen Hawking.

Redmayne especially does bravura work—he becomes Stephen Hawking, body and soul—but The Theory of Everything doesn’t have the imagination or ambition to be anything more than his showpiece. D.B.

2

Unbroken

Directed by Angelina Jolie and adapted from the Laura Hillenbrand nonfiction bestseller about Olympic-athlete-turnedWorld War II-prisoner-of-war Louis Zamperini, Unbroken is a contemptible and unrewarding film, a depersonalized catalog of beautifully photographed torture and suffering. Even still, the most damning criticism I can levy against Unbroken is that despite boasting a script by Joel and Ethan Coen (with co-writing credits for fellow script doctor legends Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson), there is nothing remotely Coen-esque about this movie (wit and intelligence are most sorely missed). It goes on like that—Jolie assembles a fabulous group of collaborators, including composer Alexandre Desplat (The Grand Budapest Hotel), the Coen Brothers’ house cinematographer Roger Deakins, editor William Goldenberg (Zero Dark Thirty), and rising star Jack O’Connell (Starred Up and the upcoming ’71) as Zamperini, but their collective harmonies are soulless and contrived, and Jolie makes for an indifferent conductor. D.B.

3

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SACRAMENTO NEWS & REVIEW

Wild

Director Jean-Marc Vallee follows up last year’s Oscar fave Dallas Buyers Club with another blatant awards grubber in Wild, based on the memoir by Cheryl Strayed. Reese Witherspoon plays Strayed, who in 1995 hiked over 1,000 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail, exorcising the demons that occupied the space left by her mother’s untimely death. Much like Dallas Buyers Club, Wild is a mix of unguarded rawness and mawkish calculation, equal parts honest inspiration and mercenary ambition.

Witherspoon is very good, not just deglamorized but immersed, and Laura Dern is every bit her equal as Strayed’s mother (another “dream Mom” role for Dern to match her turn earlier this year in The Fault in Our Stars). The editing, cinematography, sound design, nonlinear Nick Hornby script and PCT scenery are all exquisite, so perhaps the entire project is just a little too Hike, Pray, Love for this particular critic’s taste. D.B.

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AFTER

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27

PLAY LOUD. LATE.

High notes, and low ones, too SN&R music writers on 2014’s best sounds, greatest shows and venue RIPs

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If Charles Dickens were a modern music reviewer he’d have a literary field day with 2014’s musical highs and lows. Locally there were amazing albums and performances but also real losses to the music community in the way of shuttered clubs. SN&R’s music writers, however, are an optimistic lot, finding solid gold even in a troublesome year for venues, all while calling upon local music lovers to step it up in 2015.

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the shit out of their show here. Belew was great, but bass player Julie Slick was the absolute truth.

4. Old school hip-hop on tour: KRS-One was dope, Rakim was smooth and Slick Rick da Ruler was just OK (his deejay was phenomenal, however). I would have liked to have seen some locals open more of the shows, though.

5. Music at LowBrau: I love seeing a band there because no real stage equals a party among the people. Also, great chicken schnitzel sandwich.

—Ngaio Bealum

Dreams realized, loss and a plea 1. TBD Fest: Obvious, but it needs to be said regardless. A super legit, three-day music festival that I could actually bike to? A dream come true.

2. Witch Room: My job gets so much harder once Witch Room closes at the end of the month.

We lost many venues this year, but nowhere else had such consistently intriguing shows for less than 10 bucks. Thanks for allowing me to pair nerd rap with sangria.

3. YOLO: With the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, Sophia’s Thai Kitchen and Third Space Art Collective—plus events by KDVS and the Davis Live Music Collective— there were tons of great happenings across the causeway all year. Faves included Caetano Veloso, Jolie Holland, Childbirth and Mother Falcon.

4. Hip-hop at the Crocker: In July, a posse of young local rappers lit up the Crocker Art Museum for a special hip-hop-themed Art Mix party. Such spirit, such camaraderie, such honesty, in such a glorious setting.

5. Radiohead tribute: Ditto above comments, but this time about a massive collaboration between local musicians for the second annual Radiohead Tribute Show at Marilyn’s On K. Sadly, James Cavern said he’s burnt out on organizing the thing. Other participants, consider this my official plea to continue the tradition. Please?

—Janelle Bitker

Electronic duo Justice came all the way from France to play TBD Fest in West Sacramento.

Suck it up, Sacramento 1. One door closes, another door opens: Assembly, gone (or is it? I hear some locals are negotiating). Luigi’s Fun Garden? The Witch Room? Gone, daddy, gone. Marilyn’s on K is no more, although the rumor that someone is going to put a “barcade” in that spot fills me with nerdish glee. I blame you guys for not going to more shows, although K Street is kinda weird for locals, and the Witch Room was in a tough location. Suck it up. Support live performance venues.

2. Surfy-licious: Los Straitjackets came to Harlow’s and absolutely smashed it.

3. Power prog-rock: Watching Adrian Belew (ex-Frank Zappa, King Crimson, League of Crafty Guitarists) and his power trio prog-rock

Fix the ordinances, ditch the apathy 1. Goodbye, Witch Room: Witch Room arrived with the ambition to strip away the pretensions of Bows & Arrows, paint it black and bother with only beer, wine and good entertainment at a low cost. It might have succeeded were it not for cutthroat competitors and city ordinances that are as big a bane to live music as local apathy. I’ll miss that booth-view of the stage.

2. For-ev-er: West Sacramento mayor Chris Cabaldon declared October 5 “Captured Tracks Day,” in honor of the five bands from the Brooklyn indie label that played TBD Fest. It smelled of a “these kids gave me pot for the first

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time in six years, I’m sooooo high right now” declaration, and now it’s a real holiday in Yolo County forever.

3. I enjoyed two local rock albums this year: G. Green’s Area Codes and Darlingchemicalia’s Spun In White. The end.

4. Figure it out already: Sacramento still has no idea what to make of Stevie Nader and Young Aundee, it seems. I’ll just keep praising Nader’s Grit and Young Aundee’s Caveat Emptor until that changes.

5. Enough said: Dre-T’s Sacramentality is album of the year.

—Blake Gillespie

Get out, get up front, gimme more 1. Get out, get up front: This year I made an effort to attend more live shows and was rewarded with gut-check sets from locals such as Vasas, the Four Eyes, Soft Science and Knock Knock, as well as touring bands such as Peggy Sue, Dick Diver and Allo Darlin’.

2. No, really, get out: Unfortunately, the loss of Witch Room, as well as Assembly, Luigi’s and Marilyn’s means there are now fewer places to break a sweat with your favorite artist. Let’s all support the ones still trying, OK? 3. We got this: Speaking of which, the latest inauguration of the TBD Fest was proof that Sac can represent. So many good acts— the War on Drugs, Blondie, Diiv, Kurt Vile, et. al—and so many people getting dusty down in it. Gimme more.

4. Uh-huh, this: One of the best moments in 2014 music came from the oft-snarly New Pornographers singer after Playboy posted a tweet about Neko Case “breaking the mold of what women in the music industry should be.”

Case’s pitch-perfect response: “Am I? IM NOT A FUCKING ‘WOMAN IN MUSIC’, IM A FUCKING MUSICIAN IN MUSIC!” Amen.

5. Obsessive-compulsive listening: Many great albums this year, but ones I returned to repeatedly arrived via Courtney Barnett, Cayetana, Kevin Morby, Benjamin Booker, Azealia Banks, June Gloom, Diiv, Peggy Sue, Angel Olsen, Jessica Lee Mayfield, Jake Bugg, Allo Darlin’, Dick Diver, Jen Cloher and FKA Twigs.

—Rachel Leibrock

James Franco’s eyes 1. The Dirty Heads, The Sound of Change: This month marks 35 years since the Clash’s London Calling proved non-Jamaicans can blend reggae with punk, rock and pop in a way that doesn’t completely suck. Today, a bunch of American bands are still exploring the musical branches connecting reggae, hip-hop, pop and rock. This record and the ones that follow accomplished this. The highlight on this one is “Franco Eyed,” a new euphemism for “getting high” (named after James Franco’s perpetually glossy eyes, apparently).

2. Rebelution, Count Me In: Rebelution is probably the biggest name in the Cali reggaerock game right now. The strongest track on this, the band’s fourth full-length, is the classic roots-reggae anti-love song “Counterfeit Love,” BEFORE

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NEWS

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which boasts solid songwriting and a sweet saxophone solo.

3. Matisyahu, Akeda: Matisyahu’s second album since shaving his Hasidic Jew beard, this one’s still quite religious, and named after a Torah passage about the binding of Isaac.

The album features an enormity of interesting textures, taking the listener through pop-rock, reggae-rap, old-school instrumentals with ancient instruments, prayer chanting and more.

4. Cisco Adler, Coastin’: Cisco Adler probably got his laid-back vibe from growing up in Hawaii. Now a Los Angeles resident, he crafts mellow, uplifting reggae-rock, mostly with acoustic guitars, catchy choruses and unabashed pop sensibilities.

5. Snoop Lion, Reincarnated: Technically this album was released in 2013, but it took everyone a year to figure out the album wasn’t just a gimmick, and it spent hella time on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart this year. It’s also ceaselessly entertaining to listen to Snoop reggae-rap about cantaloupe, pineapple and mango.

FRIDAY 12/26 - SUNDAY 12/28 FROM THE OFFICE AND LOGO TV’S THE STRAIGHT OUT REPORT!

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ON STAGE AT THE

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Greatness is within

F E AT U R E

DOUG LOVES MOVIES

Saturday, January 24 • 8:00 pm • $20

—Jonathan Mendick

1. Greatness comes to Sac: While some people like to complain about major-label acts not coming around frequently, they often neglect the greats that stopped off in our cozy bars in 2014. To list a few of the incredible metal bands to grace our city: Ghoul, Yob, Atriarch, EYEHATEGOD (multiple times), Down, Wayfarer, The Body and Iron Reagan.

Both times Tony Foresta, singer for Iron Reagan and Municipal Waste, played Sac in 2014, he couldn’t shut up about how much he loved our city and its moshing idiots. We love you too, Tony.

2. But true greatness is within: It wasn’t just outsiders making us look good. Local promoters have consistently busted their asses to keep our scene chugging and bands keep putting out honest, groundbreaking music to feed the machine. This is the first year that I really started going to shows in Sac, and my reward was getting to see new acts like Church and Cross Class strengthen our city’s doom and hardcore scenes, respectively. I’ve been especially grateful to catch Plague Widow, Battle Hag, Black Majik Acid, RAD and Valiant Steed this year. A few of my favorite releases from local bands in 2014 include the shredding, gonzo devastation of the new XTom HanX release, Posers from Space, the atmospheric skull-crushing beauty of The Funeral Mountains by (waning) and the incredible blackened grind of Killgasm’s A Stab in the Heart of Christ. There are so many bands I’m leaving out, and clearly I’ve focused on a narrow (but thriving) scene. Many thanks to every local band, venue operator and organizer out there for a fantastic year. Let’s make 2015 even more neck-wrecking.

3. The Messiah is here: I had no idea who D’Angelo is. I was painfully ignorant. But then Black Messiah dropped and now I’m very happy to be a Johnny-come-lately. Listen to it.

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STORY

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26THURS

27SAT

27SAT

28SUN

The Funky Sixteens

Sac Go Home Fest

Fulkerson & Clarke

Cherry Red

Harlow’s Restaurant & Nightclub, 9 p.m., $10

Witch Room, 3 p.m., no cover

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, etc. But that week after, before you ring in the New Year and the house is FUNK ROCK quiet and no one really expects you to get anything done: kind of better, right? Kick off that blissful week of few obligations with a night of funk rock ’n’ roll brought to you by local supergroup the Funky Sixteens. Featuring former members of 2Me and Cuesta Drive— and special guests the City of Trees Brass Band (pictured) and Dennis Austin—the night will also feature the Diva Kings and Out of Place. Unfortunately, eggnog will still be an unsuitable beverage for the next 11 months.

2708 J Street, www.harlows.com.

—Deena Drewis

Shine, 8 p.m., $5

By now, you must know that Witch Room is closing up for good this month. Sac Go Home Fest is a two-day attempt to say goodbye, featuring 21 local bands and other creative attractions. It’s a rad lineup, with lots of indie rock, punk, experimental and electronic from both beloved regulars and bands you’ve probably never heard of, playing until late at night. Highlights include Dog Party (pictured), Musical Charis, So Much Light, Pregnant, Cove, Pets, the Kelps, Art Lessing and the Flower Vato, Honyock and Lite Brite. Pop in and out—it’s free and FESTIVAL all ages—but do help clean out the beer fridge. And then maybe buy the fridge. 1815 19th Street, www.witchroomsac.com.

Blue Lamp, 8 p.m., $10

Part of the charm of Fulkerson & Clarke used to be how incomplete their music was. As just a duo, everything fell on their shoulders: Catlin Clarke played guitar, Fred Fulkerson played bass, both of them sang lead vocals and their voices contrasted in the biggest AMERICANA way possible. Without anything extra in the mix, their talent shined through (they met at Sacramento State University in 2006 studying music, after all). The band currently resides in Hollywood, and recently added drums and keys to the mix—rounding out the original jazz, pop, blues, folk and soul influences with a little rock as well. 1400 E Street, www.facebook.com/FulkersonandClarke.

—Aaron Carnes

As far as rap monikers go, local emcee Cherry Red’s seems pretty spot on. It references her most striking feature, her bright red hair, which is literally the color of cherries. Before calling Sacramento home, she used to rap in Florida. She comes to us fully formed, with some serious clubbanging beats, and a strong, confident flow. She raps a lot about partying (“Where the Party at?” and “Party With Me,” the latter featuring Century Got Bars), though HIP-HOP she does get serious every once in a while and talk about her difficult past, and all the obstacles she’s had to overcome to get where she is now. 1400 Alhambra Boulevard, www.twitter.com/CherryRed003.

—Janelle Bitker

Every Day

We Have the

FRI Dec 26 9PM $10

SAT Dec 27 9PM $12

Happy Hour

SUN Dec 28 8PM FREE

Drink Specials • No Cover Wed:

Closed for Christmas Eve

Thur:

Closed for Christmas Day

Fri:

Pailer & Fratis

Sat: Sun: Tues:

5:30 – 7:30 PM

TUES Dec 30 8PM $5

Blues

Blues Jam

4 – 7 PM

The Nibblers

Solsa Front the Band

Dippin’ Sauce

NEW YEAR’S EVE BASH!

44 3 - 2797 www.torchclub.net

(Across from Memorial Auditorium)

30 | SN&R |

Champagne Toast & Party Favors at Midnight

12.24.14

CELEBRATING 80 YEARS

ANT BEE

SAME FAMILY SINCE 1934

SAT DEC 27

BLEND OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC // $5

5:30 – 7:30 PM

Btwn I & J Downtown Sac

E V E R Y F R I & S AT 9 P M

FRI DEC 26

CALIFORNIA GROOVE

Chris Twomey

904 15th St.

LIVE ENTERTAINMENT ACOUSTIC // $5

Johnny Guitar Knox 5:30 – 7:30 PM

—Aaron Carnes

Jellybread Ideateam 9pm • $25

FRI JAN 2

ROCK OF AGES

ROCKIN’ HITS FROM THE 60’S, 70’S AND 80’S // $5

SAT JAN 3

EVERY WED 9PM • FREE

WITH SANDRA DOLORES SIGN UPS 8:30PM • 9PM SHOW

OPEN MIC

FRI • 12/26 9PM • $5

LIGHTS & SIRENS, LEIGH GUEST, SWAHILI PASSION, PARIE WOOD

SAT • 12/27 9PM • $7

RIOT MAKER, A MILE TILL DAWN, HEAT OF DAMAGE

LIPSTICK INDIE ROCK &

ROCK // $5

NEW YEARS EVE

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28SUN

31WED

31WED

31WED

Anuhea

Lovefool

Mumbo Gumbo

Tom Rigney & Flambeau

Harlow’s Restaurant & Nightclub, 9 p.m., $20-$25 Hawaii native Anuhea Jenkins has an easygoing folky-pop manner similar to Jack Johnson. But unlike Johnson and surferturned-singer Tristan Prettyman, Anuhea doesn’t chase that beachy vibe so much as foment slinky modern R&B with reggae undercurrents. Her charisma and sultry selfpossession recalls Aaliyah, and it’s easy to imagine the right producer making her sexybut-approachable style a crossover chart sensation. The 29-year-old singer’s put out two studio albums and last year released a live R&B/REGGAE disc, Butterflies, showcasing a far funkier backing band than on her recordings. She’s presently collaborating with guest artists on an upcoming album planned for a release next year. 2708 J Street, www.anuheajams.com.

Harlow’s Restaurant & Nightclub, 9 p.m., $20 To the great disappointment of many (and by many, I mostly mean me), Lovefool is not a cover band that exclusively plays hits POP from the Cardigans—or rather, it’s not a band that plays “Lovefool,” their one hit made famous by Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet—over and over again. That being said, the Bay Area band plays a ton of other stuff: the Ramones, Madonna, the Beastie Boys, Aaliyah, Phoenix. Bands like this were invented for nights of heavy inebriation and no-onewill-remember-it dancing, and what’s more fitting for New Year’s? (FYI, if you want to hear “Lovefool,” it’s played on request.

You know what to do.) 2708 J Street, http://lovefoollive.com.

Davis Odd Fellows Hall, 9 p.m., $40

Palms Playhouse, 9:30 p.m., $35

Mumbo Gumbo’s a wondrous stew of different genres. While many bands claim they can’t be pigeonholed into one style, this band proves the task impossible. With dance, cajun, blues, folk, rock and Afro-Cuban ditties, the band has proven itself adept at playing everything well. Propelled by singers and guitarists Chris Webster and Tracy Walton, tethered in by the able rhythm section of drummer Rick Lotter and Lynn Michael Palmer, and aided by the AMERICANA handy work of guitarist Jon Wood, accordionist Steve Stizzo, and saxophonist Reggy Marks, the band fires on multiple cylinders. Tickets to this New Year’s Eve show include gumbo, cornbread and a champagne toast. 415 2nd Street in Davis, www.mumbogumbo.com.

—Deena Drewis

This calendar year had its ups and downs much like any other year. For those wishing to kick this year to the curb and get their dancin’ feet moving, look no further: Tom Rigney, one of Northern California’s most ZYDECO talented fiddle and violin players, will be gracing the hallowed Palms Playhouse stage to effectively usher in 2015. If you’re a fan of cajun or zydeco music and like your musical menu on the spicy side, this is one New Year’s event that aims to please. Be prepared: This group knows how to engage audiences and keeps ’em moving for hours on end. 13 Main Street in Winters, www.tomrigney.com.

—Eddie Jorgensen

—Eddie Jorgensen

—Chris Parker

2708 J Street Sacramento, CA 916.441.4693 www.harlows.com COMING SOON

- December 25 -

ARDEN PARK ROOTS

- Decemer 28 -

ANUHEA

Zugh

- December 31 -

NYE WITH LOVEFOOL

8pm • $20

8:30pm • $10 - December 26 -

THE FUNKY SIXTEENS

City of Trees Brass Band, The Diva Kings, Out of Place 8pm • $10

- December 27 -

BRODI NICHOLAS

- January 3 -

KEVIN RUSSELL’S CREAM OF CLAPTON

The Bay Area’s Finest Party Band Lovefoollive.com For VIP Accomodations call 916-441-4693 Doors Open at 9pm

7pm • $12 adv

Chris Ruiz, Sizzle (All Ages) 5:30pm • $8

- January 3 -

KAREGA BAILEY & MARK NOXX

- December 27 -

BAHAMADIA Georgia Anne Muldrow, Dudley Perkins

10pm • $15 adv

9pm • $20 adv

BEFORE

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NEWS

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F E AT U R E

STORY

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

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AFTER

1/04 J. Sirus 1/05 Brother’s Keeper 1/09 Midge Ure (of Ultravox) 1/09 KRS-One 1/15 Al Kooper 1/16 Joy and Madness 1/17 Whitey Morgan 1/21 Eric Bellinger 1/22 Portland Cello Project 1/23 Apple Z 1/24 The Ting Tings 1/28 The New Mastersounds 1/29 Sage Francis 1/30 Will Kimbrough 1/30 Duran Duran Duran 1/31 Super Huey 2/03 The Motet 2/09 Pinkback

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SN&R

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NIGHTBEAT BADLANDS

2003 K St., (916) 448-8790

THURSDAY 12/25

FRIDAY 12/26

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

Fabulous and Gay Fridays, 9pm, call for cover

Saturday Boom, 9pm, call for cover

BRIAN RODGERS, 9:30pm, no cover

ARIEL JEAN, 9:30pm, no cover

Reggae w/ Wokstar and guest deejays, 10pm, $3

DJ Risk One, DJ Burns, DJ BPhree, DJ Cal, 8pm, $10

CHERRY RED, JUKE BOX, B-WILLIS, E$O, Open mic, 8pm M; Evolution w/ DJ Dark SHINTO; 8pm, $10 Star and DJ Davie Xander, 8pm Tu

MIC, 8pm, $10-$20

D WRECK, CHRIS HENRY, CHUCK APRIL, ALEXANDER; 8pm, call for cover

BAR 101

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

BLUE LAMP

1400 Alhambra, (916) 455-3400

SATURDAY 12/27

THE BOARDWALK

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

SUNDAY 12/28 Sin Sunday, 8pm, call for cover

Trivia Night, 6:30pm M; THUNDER COVER, 9:30pm W, call for cover

CENTER FOR THE ARTS

COUNTRY CLUB SALOON

ZUHG, 5pm, no cover

4007 Taylor Rd., Loomis; (916) 652-4007

THE COZMIC CAFÉ

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

Open-mic, 7:30pm, no cover

DISTRICT 30

Open-mic, 7-11pm Tu, no cover BOOTY AND THE BEAST, 8pm, $5

DJ DNA, 9pm, call for cover

1016 K St., (916) 737-5770

DJ Ron Reeser, DJ Elements; 9pm, call for cover

DIVE BAR

DJ Well Groomed, 9pm W, call for cover BRIAN ROGERS, 9pm, no cover

1022 K St., (916) 737-5999

DOUBLE NICKEL SMOKEHOUSE

SOLSA, DJ Ones; 9pm W, $25

3443 Laguna Blvd., Ste. 150, Elk Grove; (916) 226-2900

FACES

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

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

FOX & GOOSE

THE GOLDEN CADILLACS, 8:30pm, $5

MANGO & FOAT, DROP DEAD RED; 9pm, $5

THE GOLDEN BEAR

DJ Crook One, 10pm, call for cover

DJ Whores, 10pm, no cover

GOLDFIELD TRADING POST

CHAD BUSHNELL, 9pm, no cover

BRODIE STEWART BAND, 9pm W, $15

HALFTIME BAR & GRILL

ANT BEE, 9pm-midnight, $5

FUNK ROCKERS, 9pm-1am W, $25-$35

2000 K St., (916) 448-7798

Christmas Karaoke, 9pm-2am, no cover

1001 R St., (916) 443-8825 2326 K St., (916) 441-2252 1603 J St., (916) 476-5076

Ideateam with Jelly Bread 9pm Wednesday, $25.

Torch Club Funk

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

HARLOW’S

ARDEN PARK ROOTS, ZUHG; 9:30pm, $10

Industry Night, 9pm, call for cover

DJ El Conductor, 10pm W, no cover

DAVID HOUSTON & STRING THEORY, RICKY BERGER; 8pm, $6

MIDTOWN BARFLY

That Thing on Friday, EDM, 10pm-2am, $5

Gothic, industrial, EBM, ’80s, synthpop dancing, 9pm-2am, $3-$5

NAKED LOUNGE DOWNTOWN

FRANK JOSEPH G., THE WAY OUT, PUDDLESTOMPER; 8:30pm, $5

ZACH MACLACHLAN, ROBIN REYES, HELD TO HEIGHTS; 8:30pm, $5

Jazz, 8pm M; TREVOR MCCORD, MADI SIPES; 8:30pm W, $5

OLD IRONSIDES

LIGHTS & SIRENS, LEIGH GUEST, SWAHILI PASSION; 9pm, $5

RIOT MAKER, A MILE TILL DAWN, HEAT OF DAMAGE; 9pm, $6

Lipstick w/ SUNMONKS, DJs Shaun Slaughter, Roger Carpio, 9pm W, $10

1414 16th St., (916) 441-3931

ON THE Y

Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

670 Fulton Ave., (916) 487-3731

Nebraska Mondays, M; Open-mic comedy, 8pm Tu; Comedy night, 8pm W, $5 Goth, darkwave, industrial, electronic deejay dancing, 9pm-3am, call for cover

Open-mic comedy, 9pm, no cover

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Swing dance, Tu, $6; TBDNYE Afterparty w/ Oliver and J-Kraken, 10pm W, $10-$20

Karaoke, 9pm Tu, no cover; New Year’s Eve Bash, 10pm W, call for cover TOM RIGNEY & FLAMBEAU, 9:30pm W, $35

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PARLARE EURO LOUNGE

Top 40, Mashups, 9pm, no cover

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DJ Peeti V, 8:30pm-2am W, $40-$50

DJ Club mixes, 10pm, no cover

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Open-mic, 10pm-1am Tu, no cover

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PJ’S ROADHOUSE

THE GOOD SAMARITANS, DJ Zephyr; 8pm W, $7

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DJ Missy Mark, 9pm, no cover

THUNDER COVER, 10pm, call for cover

WONDERBREAD 5, 10pm, call for cover

CHRIS CAIN, 3pm, call for cover

TAKE OUT, 9pm W, call for cover

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

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

Sunday Night Soul Party, 9pm, $5

Northern Soul dance party, 9pm M; New Wave Dance Party, 9pm Tu, no cover

GOLDEN CADILLACS, 9pm, no cover

PETER PETTY, 9pm, no cover

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Hey local bands!

Open-mic, 7:30pm M; Pub Quiz, 7pm Tu; DJ Larry Rodriguez, 9pm W, $10

RED’S BLUES, 8pm, $6

LUNA’S CAFÉ & JUICE BAR

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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.

Kamikaze Karaoke, 9pm-2am M; Latin night, 9pm Tu, $5; DJ Alazzawi, 9pm W

BRODI NICHOLAS, 6:30pm, $8; BAHAMAANUHEA, 9pm, $20-$25 DIA, GEORGIA ANNE MULDROW; 10pm

1111 H St., (916) 443-1927

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.

Dragalicious, 9pm, $5

THE FUNKY SIXTEENS, CITY OF TREES BRASS BAND, THE DIVA KINGS; 9pm, $10

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List your event!

GRAVESHADOW, KOREAN FIRE DRILL, FORNEVER, CLOCKWORK HERO; 7pm ROY ROGERS AND THE DELTA RHYTHM KINGS, 9pm W, $35-$50

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ROSWELL, EDEN VIEW, THE OSTRICH THEORY; 8pm, call for cover

STONEY INN/ROCKIN’ RODEO

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

Country dance party, 8pm, no cover

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

TORCH CLUB

PAILER AND FRATIS, 5:30-7:30pm, no cover; SOLSA, 9pm, $12

DC POWER CO., KYLE ROWLAND; 9pm, $8

Blues jam, 4pm, no cover

Acoustic open-mic, 5:30pm W, no cover; IDEATEAM, JELLY BREAD; 9pm W, $25

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DJ Rigatony, 8pm W, call for cover

All ages, all the time ACE OF SPADES

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Teach kindness, teach compassion, teach love Jake the dog and I are enjoying our afternoon walk when I notice two boys, about 9 or 10 years old, arguing across the street. They have school backpacks and appear to be headed home. One boy, his small face subdued, trudges forward. The other boy walks backward in front of him, muttering viciously. Suddenly he jerks forward and screams into the other boy’s ear: “Nigga!”

by Joey ga rcia The harassed boy stops.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” he a skj oey @ ne wsreview.c om says quietly. “I don’t like it.”

“Nigga! Nigga! Nigga!”

“Stop it,” the boy says. “I Joey don’t want to be talked to that way.” dances to Most adults won’t admit it, but “Uptown Funk” this is the point at which they hurry in her living room. away. But I know that every child is mine. Adults are responsible for chaperoning all children and teens to maturity. We must help every child we meet to navigate a path into a rewarding life. So I cross the street with my dog.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I ask.

If we really want to get beyond conflict and the tragedies that often result from them, it’s simple—we must treat every child as our own.

The boy who was cursing flashes a charming smile. “Nothing,” he says.

It’s obvious to me that life has taught him how easy it is to dismiss adults.

But I’m not like most adults.

“Nothing happening?” I ask. He nods agreeably. “Is it true nothing is going on? I heard you swear at him.”

There’s no anger in me, just curiosity.

“I didn’t swear,” he says.

“Is the N-word a swear word?”

He ponders the question. “Yeah,” he says.

“Did you call him the N-word?”

His swagger droops. “Yeah.”

My gentle inquiry continues. “Did he ask you to stop?”

“Yeah, but that word doesn’t mean anything.” He boosts himself up on his toes.

I smile. He’s a good kid, I think, just one that needs the right kind of attention.

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.

BEFORE

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“That’s not an answer to my question,” I say kindly. “My question is, did he request that you stop?”

“He’s my cousin!”

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

“Yeah, he asked me to stop.” His feet are flat on the sidewalk now.

“Why didn’t you stop? He asked you nicely.”

“I’m just playing.”

“OK, I want you to know that that word is not to be used when you are playing.”

The boy who had tried to earlier defend himself, pipes in: “I don’t like that word. I don’t want to be called that.”

I smile at him. “I understand,” I say. Then I turn back to the boy who had been using the N-word and ask him: “Do you want to be respected?”

He nods. “I want you to be respected,” I say. “I want you to respect others. I want people to know that you know how important you are and that your talent and success is necessary for this world.

So when someone asks you to stop doing something they do not like, stop. Do you understand?”

“Sorry.”

“Thank you, but I want you to apologize to your cousin.”

“I’m sorry,” he says to him.

As I walk away with my dog, something inspires me to turn around. When I do the boy who has been sworn at is looking back at me.

He mouths, “Thank you.”

Dear readers: If we really want to get beyond conflict and the tragedies that often result from them, it’s simple—we must treat every child as our own. Let’s become people capable of calling forth the best of ourselves for others. Let’s lovingly recognize, celebrate and guide children and teens to maturity. Let’s be compassionate participants in the lives of all children who cross our paths. The time is now; we can’t wait. The only way forward is love.Ω

Meditation of the Week “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that,” said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. How do you want to live today, tomorrow and in 2015?

F E AT U R E

STORY

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WHAT’S INSIDE: The 420 37 Quick Hits 44

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Bring in any competitor’s coupon* and we’ll beat it by $5 *That is CA Medical Board Standards Compliant.

Must present competitor’s ad. Some restrictions apply.

OK, so this federal budget thing passed and I am confused.

Is medical marijuana legal or not?

—Paul Ahseewonk Marijuana is still illegal under federal law. However, the new budget contains an amendment written by Dana Rohrabacher, R-Orange County, and Sam Farr, D-Central Coast, that prohibits federal agents from raiding medical cannabis facilities in states that have medical cannabis laws. By the way, 32 states and BEALUM the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing

by NGAIO the use of medical cannabis, so this is kind of a big deal. Not only that, the new budget also strengthens protections for hemp farmers. And, like I mentioned a s k420@ ne wsreview.c om last week, the Department of Justice has said that Native American tribes can grow and sell cannabis on tribal land. All in all, Obama has been a really good president when it comes to marijuana. I didn’t like him all that much in 2011, when it seemed like damn near all the clubs in California were getting raided and shut down, but his policy work since then, and especially during his second term, has been excellent.

The next question is: Can we keep it going? Obama Oklahoma and Nebraska leaves office in 2017. Will can’t force Colorado to the next president still be as willing to support marijuana change its constitution. law reform? The federal laws haven’t changed. Cannabis is still listed as a Schedule 1 drug. The next administration could decide that cannabis legalization is a bad idea and start arresting people and shutting down clubs and businesses all over again. Think of how easy it would be: All of the recreational club owners in Washington and Colorado are registered with their states.

It wouldn’t take much effort by the Drug Enforcement Administration to bust everyone. It is up to cannabis activists and right-thinking individuals to make sure that cannabis law reform keeps moving in the direction of total legalization across the United States.

I heard Nebraska and Oklahoma are suing Colorado over marijuana. What’s the deal?

—Smokie from Muskogee You heard right. Apparently the cops on the Colorado border are getting tired of arresting people for marijuana possession. No one says whether the cops are just randomly pulling over people with Colorado license plates or if they just automatically go after people returning from Colorado.

The cops say they are running out of jail space and money to pay officers for increased overtime due to more court appearances and such.

This is all BS. Their suit doesn’t really stand a chance.

Oklahoma and Nebraska can’t force Colorado to change its constitution. Also, Nebraska should shut its fucking mouth, seeing how the small-ass town of Whiteclay has been selling millions of dollars worth of booze to the denizens of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota for years, despite the tribal ban on alcohol possession and consumption. If Oklahoma and Nebraska had any sense, they would also legalize marijuana. They could then use the money they make to fund actual police work, like stopping rapists and other criminals, instead of arresting tourists. Ω

Ngaio Bealum

is a Sacramento comedian, activist and marijuana expert.

Email him questions at ask420@ newsreview.com.

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Know your dose

hen it comes to cannabis, you probably already know that effects vary. Strains possess different properties, and every individual’s body chemistry interacts uniquely with the organic chemicals.

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New patients especially may feel the edible isn’t working, take another, then find themselves overmedicated.

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Consult your budtender to determine the right amount of the edible you’re trying. He or she will help you gauge the right dose based on your body type and history of medical marijuana usage — whether, for instance, a single 10-milligram gummy candy or onefourth of a 100-milligram chocolate bar is the right starting point for you. Also, since all brands are made differently, your budtender can offer guidance by sharing how other patients have reacted to a particular product.

Be patient

Wait at least 45 minutes before taking a supplemental dose, to give your body ample time to process the product. Some edibles take can effect within 30 minutes, while others can take as long as two hours. Certain brands include an “activation time” on their packaging to give an indication of the period you can expect to wait. Don’t jump the gun: Once you’ve taken too much, you can’t undo it!

Eat something first

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Hell is the

suffering of being unable to love,” wrote novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. Using that definition, I’m happy to announce that you have a good chance of avoiding hell altogether in 2015. If there has been any deficiency in your power to express and bestow love, I think you will correct it. If you have been so intent on getting love that you have been neglectful in giving love, you will switch your focus. I invite you to keep a copy of this horoscope in your wallet for the next 12 months. Regard it as your “Get Out of Hell Free” card.

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

miles long, the Onyx River is the longest body of moving water on the continent of Antarctica. Most of the year it’s ice, though. It actually flows for just two or three months during the summer. Let’s hope that continues to be the case for the foreseeable future. It would be a shame if global warming got so extreme that the Onyx melted permanently. But now let’s talk about your own metaphorical equivalent of the Onyx: a potentially flowing part of your life that is often frozen.

I’d love to see it heat up and thaw. I’d love it to be streaming and surging most of the time. And in 2015, I think that’s a distinct possibility. Consider making the following declaration your battle cry: I am the Flow Master!

are abundant and ubiquitous. Scientists have identified more than 350,000 species, and they are always discovering new ones. In 2011, for example, they conferred official recognition on 3,485 additional types of beetles. I’m seeing a parallel development in your life, Taurus. A common phenomenon that you take for granted harbors mysteries that are worth exploring. Something you regard as quite familiar actually contains interesting features you don’t know about. In 2015, I hope you will open your mind to the novelties and exotica that are hidden in plain sight.

Escoffier (1846-1935) was an influential French chef who defined and standardized the five “mother sauces.” But he wasn’t content to be a star in his own country.

At the age of 44, he began his “conquest of London,” bringing his spectacular dining experience to British restaurants.

He thought it might be hard to sell his new clientele on frogs’ legs, a traditional French dish, so he resorted to trickery.

On the menu, he listed it as “Nymphs of the Dawn.” According to my reading of the omens, this is an example of the hocus-pocus that will be your specialty in 2015. And I suspect you will get away with it every time as long as your intention is not selfish or manipulative, but rather generous and constructive.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.” That quote is attributed to both Russian authors Fyodor Dostoevsky and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Regardless of who said it, I urge you to keep it in mind throughout 2015. Like all of us, you are trapped in an invisible prison: a set of beliefs or conditioned responses or bad habits that limit your freedom to act.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that in the coming months, you are poised to discover the exact nature of your invisible prison, and then escape it.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

When he was 37 years old, actor Jack Nicholson found out that Ethel May, the woman he had always called his mother, was in fact his grandma. Furthermore, his “older sister” June was actually his mom, who had given birth to him when she was 17. His relatives had hidden the truth from him. I suspect that in 2015 you will uncover secrets and missing information that will rival Nicholson’s experience. Although these revelations may initially be confusing or disruptive, in the long run they will heal and liberate you. Welcome them!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): The

entomologist Charles P. Alexander (18891981) devoted much of his professional life to analyzing the insect known as the crane fly. He identified more than 11,000 different species, drew 15,000 illustrations of the creatures and referred to his lab as “Crane Fly Haven.” That’s the kind of single-minded intention I’d love to see you adopt during the first six months of 2015, Cancerian. What I’m imagining is that you will choose a specific, well-defined area within which you will gleefully explore and experiment and improvise. Is there a subject or task or project you would have fun pursuing with that kind of intensity?

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):

“Meupareunia” is an English word that refers to a sexual adventure in which only one of the participants has a good time. I’ll be bold and predict that you will not experience a single instance of meupareunia in 2015. That’s because I expect you’ll be steadily upgrading your levels of empathy and your capacity for receptivity. You will be getting better and better at listening to your intimate allies and reading their emotional signals.

I predict that synergy and symbiosis will be your specialties. Both your desire to please and your skill at giving pleasure will increase, as will your understanding of how many benefits you can reap by being a responsive partner.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In Don DeLillo’s

novel Underworld, Cotter Martin is a young boy living in New York in the 1950s.

The following description is about him.

“In school they tell him sometimes to stop looking out the window. This teacher or that teacher. The answer is not out there, they tell him. And he always wants to say that’s exactly where the answer is.” I propose we regard this passage as one of your themes in 2015, Leo. In other words, be skeptical of any authority who tells you where you should or should not be searching for the answers. Follow your own natural inclination, even if at first it seems to be nothing more than looking out the window.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Be good

and you will be lonesome,” said Mark Twain. Do you agree? I don’t—at least as it applies to your life in 2015. According to my understanding of the long-term astrological omens, you will attract an abundance of love and luck by being good—by expressing generosity, deepening your compassion, cultivating integrity and working for justice and truth and beauty. That doesn’t mean you should be a pushover or doormat. Your resolve to be good must be leavened by a determination to deepen your self-respect. Your eagerness to do the right thing has to include a commitment to raising your levels of self-care.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “It is always

important to know when something has reached its end,” writes Paulo Coelho in his book The Zahir. Use this advice heroically in 2015, Virgo. Wield it to clear away anything that no longer serves you, that weighs you down or holds you back. Prepare the way for the new story that will begin for you around your next birthday.

“Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters,” Coelho says, “it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “On some

nights I still believe,” said rascal journalist Hunter S. Thompson, “that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.” In 2015, I invite you to adopt some of that push-it-tothe-edge attitude for your personal use,

BEFORE

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bRezsny

Libra. Maybe not full-time; maybe not with the same manic intensity that Thompson did. Rather, simply tap into it as needed— whenever you’ve got to up your game or raise your intensity level or rouse the extra energy you need TO ACHIEVE TOTAL, WONDROUS, RESOUNDING VICTORY!!! The coming months will be your time to go all the way, hold nothing back and quest for the best and the most and the highest.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Beetles

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Auguste

PHOTO COURTESY OF ALAIN ANDERSON

by ROb

For the week of December 24, 2014

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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Slam-dunk, yo No basketball move is quite as crowd-pleasing as a slam-dunk. So back-to-back-to-back dunks with flips and rollerblades and other stunts? That’s a slam-dunk, yo! These acrobatic dunking shows have a pretty short history—the Bud Light Daredevils was the first-ever of its kind, born out of the University of Mississippi cheerleading team in the early ’80s. And on-and-off for the past 14 years, Sacramento Kings Dunkers captain Alain Anderson has professionally dunked for the NBA. Basketball fans all over the country have seen his moves—Anderson’s resume includes stints with the Golden State Warriors, the San Antonio Spurs, the Los Angeles Clippers and even the Sacramento Monarchs circa 2008. SN&R grabbed a few minutes on the court with Anderson during pregame warm-ups to talk about stunts, mascots and advising kids to stay in school.

How’d you get your start?

I was a high school basketball player from Houston, Texas. Shortly after high school, I started working with the Rockets as their equipment guy, moving the trampoline and mat. The Rockets mascot said, “I can train you to do this.” And he trained me for a year, and after that I got a job in Oakland as the mascot.

Just one year? What was the training?

Well, I already knew how to handle a basketball. The hardest part for me was learning how to do flips and anything involving gymnastics. It was basically, “Here’s a trampoline and mat and when you flip, tuck your head and pull your feet.” That’s all it was. Do or die. |

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Do you consider yourself an athlete or entertainer?

I say entertainer. Basically because without having a mask on, you can’t have a bad day. When you step out in front of the fans, you gotta smile. Even if you miss, if you’re having a bad day, you have to smile because the fans are watching. If you look down, they’re gonna be down. If you’re not into it, they’re not gonna be into it.

How’s your basketball game these days?

My basketball game is all that. Well, actually, I’m not gonna lie. [Laughs] I got cut all through high school. That’s what made me work so hard to be part of the NBA. I always wanted to play NBA but so many people were so much better than me. When I couldn’t make it as a player, I wanted to make it in some other form. This was my next best bet.

How do you compare the life of a mascot with the life of dunker?

The life of a mascot is more private. Once you put on the suit, no one knows who you are. It’s all about going out, entertaining, going back in your dressing room and you’re done. As a dunker, people recognize you out in the city, they see you walking around the stands and want to stop and take pictures with you. There’s a little more “fame” to it, because people actually know your face. I actually kind of like the privacy of mascoting, but I do love dunking. Definitely.

Hardest dunking move you’ve pulled off?

Oh wow. I mean, there’s a bunch of them.

But the fan favorite—also probably one |

AFTER

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of the most difficult—is a front flip. As I do it, I take my shirt off in mid-air and dunk it. … Of course, I have something on underneath.

I was there for the game when Slamson rollerbladed the ball to you at the trampoline. That was the first time, right?

Yeah, that was all about timing. Jumping over people is something I’ve done for years but Slamson and I had the idea where we wanted something to be moving. So we had him on rollerblades and I timed it perfectly to take the ball right from his hands.

You’re here a few games every month.

Have you ever missed the basket?

It does happen. We try to make it as rare as possible. But if you miss one out of five, it just makes it look that much better when you come back again and make it.

That’s the spirit. When you do miss, can you tell while you’re in the air what went wrong?

Oh yeah. We know if it’s a bad pass, or if we got a bad jump. It’s not gonna go perfect every time. There’s referees, players walking across the court sometimes.

There are so many variables. If we do a 100-percent show, fans don’t realize how hard that is to always make them all. Ω

Learn more about Anderson and his slam-dunking company at www.skydunk.com.

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