S 2015 02 19

Works well with homeless and mentally ill people

Is 51% female

by Raheem F. Hosseini

Scrutiny of police is higher than ever.

How does Sacramento law enforcement need to change?

water meters and explosions

Is 15% black, 18% Asian and 30% Latino

PA G E 1 2

will Kings lawsuit cost us $150 million?

PA G E 1 2

millennials’ real-estate hell PA G E 2 1

Sacramento’S newS & entertainment weekly

Loves serving troubled neighborhoods

Will work for less money and benefits

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Volume 26, iSSue 44

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thurSday, february 19, 2015

building a

HealtHy S a c r a m e n t o

Restorative Justice Offers Students a Second Chance by b e at r I c e M . H o g g

W

hen students misbehave, consequences are designed to fit the transgression. But one consequence may do as much harm as good: Suspension from class prevents many students, often those who need it most, from accessing the structure, safety and positive reinforcement found on campus. A cycle of suspensions can leave students vulnerable to dangerous temptations outside of the school environment, jeopardizing their chances of finishing school. Such policies have also been found to disproportionately impact young men of color, making school discipline an issue of social justice.

Stacey Bell, youth development director for the Sacramento City Unified School District, is working to break the suspension cycle and help district educators embrace a restorative justice approach to discipline. Restorative justice focuses on providing offenders the opportunity to repair the actual harm done through an infraction, rather than meting out a standard consequence. Bell says she’s very excited about the changes that a focus on positive school climate and restorative justice can bring to SCUSD. In Fall 2013, a Building Healthy Communities grant from The California Endowment brought together the members of the Restorative Justice Collaborative to implement systemwide changes in disciplinary actions and create a positive environment for students.

The Collaborative includes students, parents, teachers, principals, counselors, school staff and community partners, including representatives from the law enforcement, juvenile justice and social service fields. The group assessed needs, reviewed procedures around

the country and determined what would work for SCUSD, says Bell. The Men’s Leadership Academy, an after-school program primarily for young men of color that received support from The California Endowment, held focus groups and engaged with students at various school sites.

In Spring 2014, the SCUSD Board of Education adopted a “whole child” policy, recognizing the school’s role in developing not only the academic abilities of students, but also their social and emotional wellness. The district aims to help students and adults become proficient in five areas: self-management, self-awareness, responsible decision-making, relationship skills and social awareness. Restorative justice will go hand-in-hand with social and emotional learning, making students aware of and responsible for their actions. Preliminary participation in the program will start over the next six to twelve months.

Bell hopes that creating a positive school climate will drastically reduce suspensions, especially “willful defiance” suspensions.

“This is the area where we see the most disproportionality among students, especially young men of color,” she says.

Bell feels that high standards in behavior and academics can be expected from students if they are highly engaged, have culturally relevant classes and are in a positive environment.

“The development of this policy has brought together the community, parents, students and school administrators,” Bell says. “The level of collaboration and engagement is very exciting … If we can continue that level of engagement, we will be moving in the right direction.”

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.

Stacey Bell, youth development director at Sacramento City unified School district, has been working to develop a new, restorative approach to discipline, in addition to social and emotional learning and positive school climate initiatives. Photo by louise mitchell.

“The level of collaboraTion and engagemenT is very exciTing.”

Stacey Bell, SCUSD youth development director

“This is a paradigm shift in regards to a higher focus on social-emotional learning and restorative practices, hopefully shifting the way that we do things with students and adults,” Bell says. “We will have more focus on equity and the support that students need to be successful. It’s not going to be a quick fix; this is long-term work.”

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.

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23

Merci, Rafik Sacramento lost a great one this past Thursday when popular Cafe Rolle server and this city’s unofficial French ambassador Rafik Rabehi passed away. He was 46.

Rafik, a Frenchman, was born in the small Alps city of Grenoble. He and I met back in 2003 and hung out a lot that summer. I was dating a girl from his hometown and had just moved back to Sacramento after living the Grenobloise life for a couple of years. We bonded over wine and cigarettes, and he’d always nudge me to practice improving my Frenchspeaking skills.

Back then, it was a George W. Bush world in Sacramento. I remember the old Pine Cove bottle shop, which had hung an anti-France banner on its storefront window.

That damn banner pissed me off—but Rafik was able to bring some perspective, and humor, during those mad times.

Grenoble is nearly the same size as Sacramento, tucked away in the shadow of Alpe D’huez and near the Chartreuse national park. That area of France is a jewel, and Rafik was a sort of salesman for all things French during his time here in Sacramento.

His mother, who lives back in France but came to Sacramento during Rafik’s recent illness, can be proud of her son’s endless passion for his home country.

Most people know Rafik because he served them paté, salads and sandwiches at East Sacramento’s Cafe Rolle, one of the city’s most beloved and charming lunch spots.

Rafik also was a popular teacher at The Learning Exchange. His enthusiasm for French culture and travel rubbed off on probably hundreds of Sacramentans. It certainly did on me.

There will be a memorial this week.

Email rafikmemorial@hotmail.com if you would like more information.

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“We need this to not be a drug-selling place.”

Asked at the Watt/Manlove light-rail station:

How would you improve public transit in Sacramento?

Christine Donner

Tina Moore

William J. Lopez

stay-at-home mom

retired

The only thing that concerns me, especially when I am out here at night with my son, is security. Someone followed me on the train and somebody else asked me, “Do you know them?” before the follower left me alone and went their own way. I would rather see more people. Cameras can see somebody get assaulted.

I use the light rail instead of my car because it saves wear and tear on my car and cuts costs. They could make it cheaper and extend it to other areas. We need more stations in the north area. That is the area where there isn’t any rail. It is a good system.

Angela Montez

Taje Jackson

stay-at-home mom

student

It would be best if the dispatchers would actually give you the right directions.

I have called … gotten the completely wrong directions. The people answering should know how hard it is to make connections and how rough it is to miss one. They give you the wrong routes, so they need more knowledge.

Araceli Villegas

homemaker

I use RT. I travel more than two hours a day. Instead of having to pay before we get on the light rail, I think there should be some kind of ticket you can buy in advance. You can’t really trust the system; people could just hop on without buying a ticket. It isn’t fair to those who pay.

I used to own a car but not anymore. Some buses need to be on time more often. The schedules need to be more accurate. I just know there is a certain bus number that takes awhile, sometimes late one half-hour to an hour. ...

It takes me two hours to get to my destination.

stay-at-home mom

We need this to not be a drug-selling place. I use it for my family to go to the doctor and dentist. I don’t have a car. We need more monitoring. [My family] and I never ride it at night.

It is not safe. We use it three or four days a week.

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VOTE NOW! 2015

SACRAMENTO AREA MUSIC AWARDS

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Watchdog with teeth It could be worse. We might have a governor who is forced to resign because of ethical lapses—like our neighbor to the north—or a governor who goes to jail for trying to hold a Senate seat hostage—as was the case in Illinois.

But just because it’s not that bad doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods.

California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, established in 1975 as a result of the Political Reform Act of 1974, has done some fine work of late—despite the recent resignations of the chief enforcement officer and the general counsel. Among recent cases, the FPPC levied heavy fines on out-of-state political operatives who used dark money to influence an Irvine City Council race, and on the manager of the Central Basin Water District Board for accepting gifts from a consultant he’d hired In order to actually on behalf of the agency.

We need that kind of have transparent, enforcement, and can only urge ethical government, that whoever is hired to replace someone needs to outgoing chief of enforcement Gary Winuk—who prosecuted be keeping an eye 350 cases last year—be as zealous on things. as he has been in seeking out those political forces who would abuse the system for their personal wealth and power. He’s done an excellent job, one that we desperately need to have done well, for without the FPPC’s enforcement powers, we have nothing but foxes in the henhouse.

And with that, we turn our attention to local politics.

While the FPPC can extend its reach to local politics—and has, in fact, fined Mayor Kevin Johnson for improper handling of behest payments—a number of major cities have ethics commissions that operate The League of Women Voters and Eye on locally to ensure that elected and appointed officials are Sacramento have operating within the purview of their offices and are scheduled several not playing fast and loose with public money or private community meetings fundraising. to gather public input on potential ethics We need a city ethics commission with subpoena reforms at City Hall. and enforcement power.

All meetings start at Voters and taxpayers need to be assured that there 6:30 p.m. The dates is a watchdog in place, especially when so much of the are: February 26 at Artisan Building city’s money is spent on development that will benefit (1901 Del Paso Blvd.); private interests.

March 12 at South We applaud the League of Women Voters for Natomas Library taking up this task, along with Eye on Sacramento and (2901 Truxel Rd.); March 25 at Robbie the other citizen groups that have expressed an interest, Waters Pocketand City Councilman Steve Hansen, who has already Greenhaven Library spoken up in favor of such a commission.

(7335 Gloria Dr.); Now, we urge our readers to make sure that all the April 8 at North city’s elected officials know we want ethics enforceNatomas Library (4660 Via Ingoglia); ment that counts. It needs investigative and enforceand April 23 at Belle ment powers, and it needs to be funded and staffed Cooledge Library in such a fashion that it is above politicking from any (5600 South Land direction.

Park Dr.).

It’s not enough to say “transparent” a lot. In order to actually have transparent, ethical government, someone needs to be keeping an eye on things—and that someone needs to have the necessary tools to do a good job. We urge its speedy creation, and look forward to its work. Ω

R E P U SLOW RATES. R E P SU

Union bullies Re “The shame game” by Jordan Venema (SN&R News, February 12): Local 46 may be just doing this for a publicity stunt. They sure are getting a lot of attention for it. But it’s backfiring. You don’t claim that a local, successful small business is “taking away the American letter of Dream from the middle class.” Owning a successful small the week business is the American Dream. My mommy friends and I specifically went to Insight this week just to enjoy their coffee and scones and protest the union by spending our money. Local 46 looks like bullies, not union advocates.

Kris Rogers

S a c ra m e nt o

Pro union, upset at Local 46 Re “The shame game” by Jordan Venema (SN&R News, February 12): I support unions. I only ever buy American cars and will buy American-made products whenever possible. I would never cross a picket line, and I don’t ever shop at Wal-Mart. I also think that Local 46’s picketing of Magpie and Insight is a stupid tactic and totally inappropriate.

If you are renting a house or apartment, demand that your landlord only allow union workers to fix problems in “your” apartment and see how that works out. The tenants are not parties to the labor-pay disputes, which may exist between the developers, construction companies and the workers who build the property. The Carpenter’s Union is right in working to protect the wages, working conditions and benefits of their membership, but Magpie, Insight and their patrons aren’t part of the issue.

John S. Smith Sacramento

1-800-TitanUp

Matthew Williams

via facebook How very sad. Local owned businesses and unions are the backbone of communities. They should be working with and supporting one another.

Titan.com Email your letters to sactoletters@ newsreview.com.

Jessica Wilson

via facebook

On hOw an arena LawSuit cOuLd pOtentiaLLy cOSt taxpayerS $150 miLLiOn:

Which is $149.9M more than it would have cost to let us vote on it......

Karen Campbell

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Local 46’s Union reps have their heads up their ass! Unions are good to advance the welfare of who they represent only and care less about anybody else.

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On the LOcaL 46 carpenter’S uniOn’S attemptS tO Shame inSight cOffee rOaSterS and magpie:

Re “Anti-vaxxers vs. reality” by Cosmo Garvin (SN&R Bites, February 5): I am writing to inform Cosmo Garvin that if you choose to opt out of one or more vaccines for your children—chicken pox, for example— California law requires you to sign the opt-out form upon enrolling them in school. It does not mean that you are anti-vaccine. So, Garvin might have considered doing his research before making assumptions and sweeping character judgments about people he knows nothing about.

Yvonne Macias via email

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E C I V R E S L U POWERF

I want to thank you for running the story about emergency rooms doing psychiatric-crisis intake.

As you know, this function was shifted from a dedicated unit to local ERs over five years ago to save money during the economic crisis. I worked at the old unit and can’t imagine this function works well in an ER. We had the ability to keep unstable, and sometimes actively suicidal and combative, psychotic patients for days if need be in order to determine if they were stable enough to go down the hall to the inpatient unit. ERs do not have that luxury.

Dan Fiske Sacramento

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NImBy Award Contest Sacramento News & Review is seeking entries for the first-ever Not In My Back Yard awards contest—the NIMBYs!

Some cynics might say Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) lawsuits, often based

But so what? We believe the time has come not to disparage

on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA),

NIMBY suits as self-serving, time-wasting, frivolous complaints,

have distorted the Legislature’s original intent and

but to celebrate these creative and bold legal assertions,

manipulated our legal system and planning and zoning

courageously brought forward under tenuous environmental

process. Those same cynics might even suggest NIMBY

pretense, without fear or much foundation, simply to stop a

lawsuits have created delays in worthy projects and driven up construction costs in California, negatively impacting many praiseworthy projects, such as lowincome housing and mental health facilities.

worthwhile project dead in its tracks.

It’s time to honor the heroes of NIMBY litigation. Think we’re joking? Think this might be some satirical send-up? How would you ever get such an idea?

THE AWARDS: To honor our NIMBY warriors, we need help from SN&R readers. Who do you think best embodies the “Let’s sue ‘em!” spirit of Not In My Back Yard litigation? Please include a case number (or better yet, bring the whole file!) to validate your entries in the following four special categories: 1. Big Switcheroo: Here’s where the nominee files an environmental lawsuit to win some unrelated concession, which—get this—has absolutely no connection with the environment! Extra points will be awarded for the speed with which the lawsuit is dropped once concession is granted.

2. Lifetime Achievement: This honor will go to the individual who has made a very good living by filing numerous NIMBY lawsuits, all of which coincidentally disappear after a financial agreement has been reached (without anyone admitting any responsibility for anything).

3. Sticky Sandcastle: Here’s an award for the plaintiff who makes an unfathomable legal argument that’s inevitably washed away by the tides of justice, but not before it’s gummed up a project for a year or two and devoured many thousands of dollars in legal fees.

4. Intended Consequence: This award goes to an individual who, amazingly enough, used the NIMBY process to accomplish something that really was in the public interest.

HOW TO NOMINATE: Complete nomination instructions can be found at www.newsreview.com/nimby . The deadline for nominations is Thursday, March 19 at 5 p.m.

WINNERS: The winners will be announced in the April 23 issue of SN&R in an eight-page special publication. It will include short stories about the winning lawsuits, information on the economic impact of NIMBY lawsuits and suggestions for possible reforms. This is a project of the Custom Publications division of the News & Review. The goal is to bring positive attention to the impact of NIMBY lawsuits.

DISCLAIMER: For what it’s worth, we at the News & Review and/or the sponsors of the contest are not and would never imply, suggest, or even hint that NIMBY heroes are doing anything illegal or immoral. The contest’s goal is to demonstrate the opposite—to celebrate wonders of legislative intent and creative environmental litigation in the Golden State.

SpoNSorEd CoNTENT froM THE CuSToM puBLICATIoNS dIvISIoN of NEWS & rEvIEWW

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NIMBY awards Shining a light on ‘Not In My Back Yard’ lawsuits

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Y L N O T H ONE NIG Saturday - February 28, 2015 Doors -7PM - Show 8PM The Crest Theatre, Sacramento Tickets @ VDaySacramento.org All proceeds benefit:

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In this week’s SN&R, we have a full-page ad announcing our NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) contest. NIMBY lawsuits, in many cases, have been used to hijack our planning and zoning processes and have caused delays and cancellations of many worthy projects as well as increased construction costs. The winners of these awards will be described in an eight-page insert in the April 23 issue. We hope to shine a spotlight on the absurdities of the current system, to entertain you and to encourage much-needed reform.

There are several categories of awards including: The Big Switcheroo: These contestants use environL

by Jeff VoNKAeNe mental lawsuits, or the threat of a lawsuit, to attain an j ef f v@ne wsreview.c om unrelated goal. For example, a labor union might threaten to file an environmental lawsuit unless they are given bargaining concessions.

The Lifetime Achievement: These nominees file numerous NIMBY lawsuits. Those they target often find it less expensive to settle than to go through the entire legal process.

The Creative Argument: This award spotlights novel or absurd legal arguments.

Just as Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was a fun book to read and also pointed out the absurdities of the English court, we are hoping that our NIMBY awards issue is Almost every day a fun read while pointing out the in Sacramento, an absurdities of the current system.

And the expensive wackiness attorney, who is paid of the current system cannot as much per hour as a be denied. Almost every day in minimum-wage worker Sacramento, an attorney, who is paid as much per hour as a makes in a week, is minimum-wage worker makes drafting up these absurd in a week, is drafting up these absurd legal arguments. And a legal arguments. similarly highly paid attorney in a different part of town is writing a response. Elsewhere, extensive environmental reports are being prepared to support both sides of the legal argument.

All of this is very expensive. Some developers pay off individuals to avoid these lawsuits. Others simply build the costs into their projects. Unfortunately, this raises the cost of development while not necessarily helping the environment.

For more And even worse, many needed but unpopular projects, such as information about low-income housing, mental hospitals or housing with supporthow to nominate a NIMBY lawsuit, ive services are not built.

While we need an effective system of environmental go to www.news review.com/nimby. protection and smart zoning policy, the current system is being abused. Fortunately, effective reforms are under consideration, which would remove many of these abuses. But there are those who benefit from the current system. And many of them have considerable political muscle, and up until now, have been able to kill reform. That’s why we’ve decided to shine a light on the current system.

This important project is part of this paper’s Custom Jeff vonKaenel is the president, Publications special-advertising division. Former Sacramento CEO and Bee reporter and columnist R.E. Graswich will be researching majority owner of the News & Review the nominations and helping to determine the award winners. If newspapers in you enjoy the absurdities of life, you will have a fun read. We Sacramento, hope our publication will help encourage much-needed reform.

Chico and Reno.

Nominations are now open for the NIMBY awards. For more information about how to nominate a NIMBY, go to www.newsreview.com/nimby. You may have a winner. And by bringing attention to individuals and organizations who file these self-serving lawsuits, we hope Californians will be the winners, too. Ω

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

But, helmet hair?!

Wabo woes

Last week, lawmaker Carol Liu introduced a bill in the state Senate that would fine any bicyclist $25 for not wearing a helmet.

She did not consult with bike advocacy groups on this bill; they’re upset, because helmets discourage bike riding. And, they argue, helmets only mitigate government shortcomings when it comes to safe bike infrastructure. (And helmet hair, of course!)

Sammy Hagar’s theme restaurant in Roseville, the eponymous Sammy’s Island Bar & Grill, shut down again, for the second time in a year, this past Sunday. And this shutdown apparently is for good. Perhaps this will be a redevelopment lesson for the city of Roseville: kitsch doesn’t sell—and please drive 55.

- 25

- 55 illustration by Hayley DosHay

Saturday, Feb. 28th

by SN&R staff

Art thou Here’s something you don’t often hear from Sacramento’s niche arts community when addressing the city council: Thank you. Marie Acosta of La Raza Galeria Posada and local activist George Raya gave elected officials a shout-out for steering $500,000 into an Arts and Culture Fund for orgs with tiny budgets during the council’s midyear budget review last week. The money comes from a property sale and will be distributed by the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission. “For the first time, this council is funding small arts organizations,” Raya said February 10. He then joined Acosta in asking for an extra hundred grand.

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Halfway through its fiscal year, the Sacramento Police Department has burned through $2-million worth of unbudgeted overtime it needs help paying back, city officials heard last week. According to a midyear budget analysis, 18 percent of the 101,000 hours clocked in OT were for restored public-safety programs in the patrol and forensic units. The department will be using money saved through vacant positions to sop up most of this year’s deficit, but may need to help from the city’s bullish Measure U fund beginning in July.

The new Kings regime redeemed themselves by hiring hall-offame caliber coach George Karl last week. Now, the team can win. Period.

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Sacramento plans to automatically delete old emails because it can The city of Sacramento is getting ready to purge several years worth of emails, saying they’re too old to keep around. In the process, the city will be trashing public records that could be critical to future law-enforcement investigators, journalists and citizens trying to better understand how their government does business. And so far, the reasons given for this mass deletion sound pretty dubious. arvin G The city’s current policy is to delete o Sm Co by emails after two years. Same goes for cosmog@ newsrev iew.c om paper documents, with some important exceptions, such as court and property records, official meeting minutes and the like.

State law only says cities “may” destroy these documents after two years. And in the days when everything was done on paper, it made some sense to allow that. But the city certainly doesn’t have to throw records away—especially if there is a cheap and easy way to store them.

And Sacramento City Clerk Shirley Concolino says that, in practice, only some departments have been routinely purging emails. But that’s going to change now, because the city has decided to install new software to automatically delete any emails past their expiration date.

Concolino said she didn’t know how many records will be destroyed or what departments would be affected. It certainly will be thousands of emails, likely more. And there’s no particular date set for flipping the kill switch; Concolino said it would likely be in April or May. But why should the city destroy any emails?

And why now? They are public records, after all. And they are not taking up significant space. Not when you can go into any Target or Wal-Mart store and spend $60 for a wallet-sized hard drive that can store millions of emails.

Concolino says that “it’s not a storage issue. It’s a management issue.” In fact, Concolino says that “if we did this properly, we should be deleting emails within 60 to 90 days.”

But Peter Scheer with the California First Amendment Coalition disagrees, saying it’s not significantly harder to manage 10 or 20 years worth of emails compared to two years.

“We’re talking about digital files that are searchable,” Scheer says.

As for deleting emails after 60 days, the city of Auburn used to have that policy, until Scheer’s group sued, saying the policy violated state law. Auburn’s policy is now two years.

Why keep emails around? Ask reporter Joe Rubin, who investigated Sacramento’s troubled water-meter program for SN&R (see “Flushing money,” SN&R Feature Story; November 13, 2014). Rubin relied on older emails to understand how the city ended up with its very slow, very expensive water-meter installation plan.

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He even found 3-year-old emails providing evidence of a 2012 accident involving a Curtis Park gas line—gas spewed for more than two hours, a potential blast zone was evacuated (see page 12 for more on this). The emails not only provided proof of the incident, they also showed that the top DOU brass knew but failed to disclose when asked about gas-line incidents.

And Rubin points out that city emails were an important part of the evidence that led to prosecution in a bribery scandal in the city’s Department of Utilities in 2008.

Under the city’s new email-elimination practice, all of those records would have been destroyed, long before any investigative reporter or FBI agent could look at them.

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But it’s not just evidence of wrongdoing that needs to be preserved. “There’s a public interest in retaining access to its own history,” Scheer says. An archive like that could be valuable to historians and students of government.

“What is the public interest in destroying them? I don’t see it,” says Craig Powell, with the local government watchdog group Eye on Sacramento. “The only purpose of a purge like this is to deprive the public of those emails.”

And here’s where the logic of the bureaucracy kicks in. Public officials invariably justify withholding public records—in this case destroying them—with some variation of “because we can.” The problem is that’s a completely upside-down and backward interpretation of the California Public Records Act, which says government should make all records available to the public unless there is a damn good reason not to.

And let’s be clear, some in City Hall will certainly see the two-year cutoff as a way to minimize public-records requests from pesky reporters and citizen groups, because they can.

The city’s email-deletion policy hasn’t been reviewed since it was adopted several years ago. There is no pressing need to get rid of any emails now. Not before the case is made to the city council and to the public. Ω

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Bond age Will Kings arena lawsuit against city cost taxpayers $150 million?

Sources inside City Hall say an unsettled arena lawsuit could cost taxpayers big-time bucks. by Here’s the logic: The city needs to sell bonds to Nick Miller finance paying its share of the new Kings arena, which is under construction now near L and Fifth streets. ni ck am@ newsr eview.c om Last May, when city council approved the final arena deal, City Treasurer Russ Fehr estimated that Sacramento would issue bonds at a 6.7 percent interest rate. At the time, Fehr called this number “more than a bit conservative.”

He was right: Interest rates went down since. Fehr says that if the city “went to market today, [the rate] would be 5 percent. This is an incredibly low interestrate market.”

How does that add up to saving Sacramento $150 million? Consider: The annual debt obligation for the arena, as estimated last May, was $21.9 million. But this was based on the 6.7 percent interest rate.

Fehr speculates that if he could issue the bonds today at about 5.25 percent, the annual debt service would be $17 million a year. Over the 30-year life of the bonds, that would save Sacramento nearly $150 million.

The city can’t issue bonds, though, because of an unresolved lawsuit by residents Isaac Gonzalez, James Cathcart and Julian Camacho.

Represented by lawyers Patrick “This lawsuit could Soluri and Jeff Anderson, the case go away tomorrow is set to go to trial in June. It may not be resolved until the summer, or if they admitted the even fall.

Three major bond indices suggest error of their ways.” rates will go up soon. “The projecPatrick Soluri tions now are that rates are going to attorney begin to increase, with most of the pressure on the 1-10 year rate,” Fehr explained to SN&R. He says that Sacramento will pay an extra $2.5 million a year for every percent rates go up.

As this paper has reported, the Soluri-Anderson lawsuit—which is accusing the city of fraud—offered new evidence that Kings ownership pressured city leaders for additional subsidies back in 2013 because they were overpaying for the team.

Soluri told SN&R last week that the city sweetened the deal for the Kings by offering to pay for about $250 million of the arena, plus by giving upward of $200 million more in city assets, including property and land, digital-advertising billboards and parking spaces under the Downtown Plaza.

A longer version of this story appeared on Fraud comes into play, Soluri claims, because Mayor SN&R’s blog, Kevin Johnson and others undervalued the digital Page Burner at billboards and parking spaces, and knowingly misled the http://tinyurl.com/ public. kingslawsuit.

“If [city leaders] had not lied to the public” they would not be in this situation, Soluri said.

The attorney insists that his case will go to trial, and that he can prove city leaders defrauded taxpayers.

He told SN&R that City Hall has not reached out to him to settle the case.

“This lawsuit could go away tomorrow if they admitted the error of their ways,” Soluri said. Ω 12 | SN&R | 02.19.15

Blast zones City fails to disclose gas-line breaks that occurred because of costly water-meter install project The city’s water-meter instillation program has, during the past two-and-a-half years, experienced at least by a half-dozen accidents with severed or damaged Joe Rubin gas lines. The most serious of these incidents created potential “blast zones,” which needed to be evacuated and could have led to explosions in neighborhoods like Little Pocket, Land Park, East Sacramento and Curtis Park.

The Department of Utilities also appears to have withheld information about these incidents, even when details were known at the department’s highest levels.

After two gas-line incidents in Land Park this past fall involving Teichert Construction, SN&R asked the DOU if any other neighborhoods subject to Sacramento’s costly and controversial water-meter install had experienced compromises.

DOU spokeswoman Rhea Serran was specifically asked “if there have been any incidents with gas lines in the Little Pocket area.” Eventually, Serran wrote via email that there were “no gas line hits.”

But a September 12 incident report obtained

by SN&R directly contradicts the DOU. The report, written by a city inspector from the public-works department, details the September 12 event. It states that a crew, while excavating, bent a gas line at 961 Piedmont Drive and immediately notified PG&E. Read a longer PG&E spokeswoman Brandi Ehlers confirmed version of this the event, although she stated that the pipe was story at not badly damaged and that workers triaged it. www.newsreview. com/sacramento. She noted that PG&E views any incidents that compromise gas lines as potentially serious.

Read Joe Rubin’s Serran said this week that she was aware of 2014 investigation into Sacramento’s the Little Pocket incident, but that it was decided costly water-meter not to disclose it because “it was a bent pipe, install at there was no gas leak.” She said that project http://tinyurl.com/ NRWaterMeter. managers and supervisors were in the loop on what was being disclosed.

The DOU also appears to have withheld information about several other gas-line incidents. The most glaring omission was a 2012 event that was known at the highest levels of the department.

SN&R obtained an incident report and emails connected to this accident, which happened in Curtis Park in October of that year and was widely discussed and distributed over email by top DOU brass.

An inspector hired by the city to monitor construction actually witnessed the accident: “As the machine pushed through the soil, a [loud] gush of gas blasted up. The bore machine had hit the gas main,” the inspector wrote in an eightpage report. This report also includes includes photos and details of the incident.

It took a long time to get this situation under control: “gas blew for 2 hours 45 mins which left a large void in the roadway. Many cars and T&S equipment was covered in sand and debris.”

In October 2012, while working on the city’s water-meter install, a crew hit a gas main, which blew gas for nearly three hours. The city Department of Utilities did not disclose this incident to SN&R.

The report describes firefighters showing up on the scene and several homes being evacuated that were determined to be “in a blast zone.”

PG&E’s Ehlers said that this accident was a result of the contractor not following standard safety procedures to expose gas lines before digging.

Former DOU director Dave Brent knew of this incident and, when informed via email that PG&E crews were working into the night, wrote “thank you.” Current DOU director Bill Busath was also in this email loop.

Last October, during an interview with SN&R, Busath said he had no knowledge of any gas-line incidents connected to the watermeter install.

Another Curtis Park incident occurred in January 2013. In that event, homeowner, Shannon McKinney, who was pregnant at the time and had a toddler at home, discovered a leak 48 hours after workers from T&S severed a gas line. The gas line was in her front yard, but gas had built up under her home and she actually detected the powerful smell of gas in her backyard.

Experts say a spark from a water heater or lit match can spur a deadly explosion during these leaks.

PG&E placed the family in a hotel, according to McKinney, because repairs to the gas line lasted until evening.

Photos courtesy of the city of sacramento

BEATS

Another pot shot Activists say a new marijuana bill by a local lawmaker is just blowing smoke.

Democratic Assemblyman Ken Cooley of Rancho Cordova pitched Assembly Bill 266 last week. The bill, backed by cities and police, would give the state the authority to issue conditional marijuana licenses for dispensaries, growers and people who transport cannabis. Local governments would be in charge of issuing final permits—or could still ban medical-cannabis dispensing, as is the case in Sacramento County. The bill would also require lab testing of medical-cannabis quality.

Most medical-marijuana activists oppose the Cooley bill, however.

Dale Gieringer, with the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws, told SN&R last week that Cooley’s bill, which he “vehemently” opposes, is dead-on-arrival with the cannabis movement. “It is not compatible with the path that California is going on toward legalization in 2016,” he said.

Among the provisions, the bill would require marijuana to be transported “with the equivalent of an armored vehicle with two employees,” Gieringer claimed. “It’s treating marijuana like uranium.” (Nick Miller)

Sad streak Five infants died during an 11-day span that ended February 15

City Auditor Jorge Oseguera, who issued a 2011 audit critical of the city’s water-meter program, said, “Transparency around safety issues is obviously important.”

But is the DOU not being forthright about gas-line incidents? “I’d reserve judgment until I learn more,” he said.

City Councilman Steve Hansen, who represents Little Pocket, Land Park and the central city, said he was frustrated that the city was “clearly … not getting good information.”

SN&R asked the city and the DOU to provide information about any gas-line incidents during the water-meter install over the past five years. The DOU provided information about only three incidents (two in Curtis Park from this year and one in East Sacramento in 2013).

This past November, SN&R investigated the

city’s nearly half-billion-dollar water-meter install and questioned whether much of the costly project was necessary.

After that story, City Manager John Shirey said that he would be reviewing the plan. Shirey said the shakeup in the water-meter install was due to the drought, not the story.

Sacramento’s water-meter install dramatically differs from what other California BEFORE

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cities have done. It’s bigger. It’s more expensive. Most of the project actually has to do with infrastructure fixes, rather than the relatively simple process of installing water meters, as mandated by the state.

“As the machine pushed through the soil, a [loud] gush of gas blasted up.

The bore machine had hit the gas main.” from a report on a curtis Park gas-line accident, which the city failed to disclose As part of the original plan, approved in 2005, all backyard water mains in the city were to be abandoned, and 175 miles of roads were slated to be dug up to install new water mains. This work wasn’t slated to be complete until 2025.

Sacramento’s approach necessitates a huge amount of underground drilling and excavation near gas lines. All six gas-line accidents that occurred between 2012 and 2014 appear to be connected to Sacramento’s expansive and expensive plan.

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Sacramento’s water-meter install costs are vastly higher than those in other cities, including nearby Fresno, which already installed a similar number of water meters.

Fresno meters had an actual cost of $694 each. Robert Andersen, who led that city’s water-meter install as deputy director of the utilities department, said there was no cost difference between installing water meters in the front yard versus back.

“When we put the water meters in the back, that meant that the shut-offs were there and the main was relatively in good shape,” Andersen wrote. “The landscape replacement costs would be equal.”

Sacramento’s DOU, however, provided revised cost estimates to Shirey this past December. Its fact sheet contends that the cost of installing water meters in backyards would be a whopping $3,100 each. The same fact sheet puts the cost of front yard water meter installs at $1,350.

The cost differences, according to the DOU, are because of landscaping and complications associated with placing water meters in backyards.

City staff is scheduled to present a revised water-meter plan to council this month. Ω

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in Sacramento County, coroner records show.

The most recent death was reported Sunday night at Methodist Hospital of Sacramento, where a 4-month-old male infant was transported for unknown reasons. Sacramento Police Department logs say a preliminary investigation showed no signs of foul play, which was also the case in two other instances that police responded to.

In at least one case—the death of a 2-month-old male infant on February 5—Sudden Infant Death Syndrome was listed as the preliminary cause by the coroner. In that instance, first responders were called to render medical aid to an infant at a home in the city’s southwest that Thursday morning. Officers performed CPR and the child was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced deceased, logs state.

Coroner Kimberly Gin said SIDS deaths are not uncommon this time of year. Another 1-month-old boy, as well as two girls—a 1-year-old and 3-month old—are also among the deceased.

For the year thus far, seven children age 2 years and under have died in the county. (Raheem F. Hosseini)

Borrowing prom Prom ticket prices notwithstanding, the cost of dressing to impress can prevent some from partaking in one of high school’s quintessential experiences.

Enter the Sacramento Public Library. The library is asking patrons to donate formal wear at the six locations participating in the annual Prom Dress Drive, going on now.

Menswear, jewelry, shoes and other formal wear are also welcome, as is vintage clothing.

Upcoming giveaway events will provide teens ages 13 to 19 an opportunity to try on and take home something special. The price of admission is a school ID. But the drive is about more than lending, said Bridget Bagne, youth services librarian at the Sylvan Oaks branch. It’s about making formal occasions accessible to everyone.

Giveaways start in early March, with a few locations requiring registration. Locations, dates and registration information— as well as information about what to wear (yoga pants) and what not to wear (makeup) when trying on clothing—can be found at www.saclibrary.org/dressdrive. (Brooke Purves)

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PA I D A DV E RT I SE M E N T

Under the Positive Influence Medical marijuana dispensaries give back

by Brittany Wesely

White formed Collective Giving, a combined effort by dispensaries and their patients to improve the community through donations to charitable organizations. In winter 2013, Collective Giving introduced its first donation drive, collecting nearly 4,000 pounds of canned goods for the River City Food Bank. Collective Giving later launched a second drive in the summer of 2014 to gather $4,000 in cash donations for WeCARE! Community-Based Cancer Peer Navigator Program, an effort of the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center to provide support for newly diagnosed patients by trained survivors.

“It’s amazing to see the dispensaries and their patients work together to collect donations for local charities through the Collective Giving program.”

Kelsi White

This winter, Collective Giving kicked off its third campaign to collect donations of hats, mittens and socks for Sacramento Loaves & Fishes to give back to the area’s most vulnerable population, the homeless.

Joan Burke, director of advocacy at Loaves & Fishes, says donations of knit garments makes a big difference for the people who take advantage of the services provided at the organization.

“We get help with diapers, clothes and socks. My daughter, Kaliyah, goes to the Mustard Seed School. They give her clothes, jackets and rain boots,” Holleman says. “[The donations] will really help us because we never know how the season is going to turn out.”

Photo by Anne Stokes

W

hen Kelsi White began working with Sacramento medical marijuana dispensaries to run advertisements in News & Review, she knew that the collectives play a valuable role in the community. After five years of working with the dispensaries, she realized that although the cooperatives made their own individual charitable efforts, perhaps greater good could be done by working together.

Donations from the Collective Giving winter drive benefited the people who receive help at Sacramento Loaves & Fishes. Hasina Holleman and her daughter Kaliyah, 4, say the donations of knit hats, mittens and socks are essential for staying warm this winter.

The efforts of Collective Giving over the last two years have raised awareness, funds and tangible donations for members of the community who find themselves facing overwhelming challenges and have helped them get through difficult times. For White, this is the greatest success of the program.

“It’s amazing to see the dispensaries and their patients work together to collect donations for local charities through the Collective Giving program,” White says. “I’m continually inspired by their efforts and dedication to public outreach and education.”

“Hats and gloves that are donated really make a difference in a person’s life,” Burke says.

“The socks are especially important because most of our guests go everywhere on foot — walking many miles to get a meal or go to a doctor’s office.”

Hasina Holleman knows firsthand what this is like. For her, being a single mother is difficult. But being a homeless, single mother is harder. Holleman and her three daughters utilize many of the services at Loaves & Fishes and she says the donations to the organization allow her family to stay warm this winter.

COLLECTIVES CARING FOR THE COMMUNITY. For more info: www.Collective-Giving.com

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President Barack obama’s communitypolicing strategy comes to sacramento. can it restore public trust in a profession shaken by national events?

by RaheeM F. hosseini

ra h e e m h @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

F

rancine Tournour was riding shotgun with one of law enforcement’s busiest solo acts. Young, hungry and tasked to the Valley Hi-Meadowview neighborhood, this Sacramento city patrolman had become one of the department’s best producers, racking up busts and contraband each nighttime shift. Tournour wanted to see, with her own eyes, how this “Super Cop” did it.

Being no ordinary civilian, this was no ordinary ride-along. A former officer in Oakland and Sacramento, the tall and trim Tournour segued from being police to monitoring them. She runs this city’s Office of Public Safety and Accountability, which tracks civilian complaints against the police and fire departments. It’s essentially a one-woman gig, with Tournour racing to shooting scenes, bending the ear of internal-affairs investigators and, on nights like these, shadowing officers as they interpret what it means to protect and serve.

That mission has rarely occasioned more scrutiny.

The nationwide killings of unarmed civilians and rough treatment of protesters have red-flagged questions about police competence, oversight and militarization. “There is a problem within the police organization,” admits Darryl Forte, the first black police chief of Kansas City, Mo., and an adopter of some of the reforms that Sacramento is considering.

This stormy national debate has gusted law enforcement’s identity crisis straight to the 916. Captivated by events in Ferguson, and following the lead of President Barack Obama, who created a task force on 21st-century policing, Mayor Kevin Johnson has called for a kinder, more diverse force.

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But his pitch is already in peril. Police Chief Sam Somers Jr. recently brought his ideas to improve community relations before the city council—and departed with claw marks in his dress blues, left by vocal residents who demanded fewer cops, not more.

For minority communities that relate to police as oppressors and occupiers, this is hardly new business.

It’s just the latest flashpoint in a weary culture war.

“We are in the middle of one of those defining national moments,” says David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “We are used to saying these are bad people in bad places and that is not right. We are blaming the community for our external failures.”

Back on patrol, Tournour watches Super Cop do what every cop in every U.S. city does: hunt for bad guys.

When he spots a car displaying tinted windows or cranking loud beats, he spins around, hugs the vehicle’s bumper and waits. “They call it ‘pretext stops.’ Basically kicking the hornet’s nest. See what happens,” Tournour explains.

In her estimation, about one out of every five drivers rabbited, prompting a short pursuit and a quality arrest with guns or dope. But in most cases, freaked drivers crawled to their destinations and cautiously parked. In these instances, Super Cop prowled on without explanation.

“Can you imagine if that happened to you three or four times, in your own neighborhood? What would you think of the police?” Tournour says. “But in this cop’s mind, this is good police work. He’s getting guns and drugs off the street.”

So what does it mean to wear the badge in 2015? And what should it mean? SN&R is taking this

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exploration to the streets. Suit up, rookies. Our shift starts now.

Real oveRsight lacking It might not be readily obvious why faith in society’s protectors is crumbling.

After all, there were 29 homicides in the city of Sacramento last year, representing a 41-year low, according to Somers. Taken together with what are known as other Part 1 offenses— anything violent, as well as burglaries, vehicle thefts and larceny—reported crime dropped by almost 15 percent between 2013 and 2014.

But there are caveats, and herein lies the tension between police and the policed.

First, all these numbers are selfreported by law enforcement. And, while it would be difficult to hide a dead body, critics regularly question whether they can trust the figures that agencies feed them, especially when other unknown unknowns—like officer-involved shootings, deaths in custody and use-of-force incidents— aren’t tabulated nationally.

Here’s something that is known: Complaints against the department dropped to 157 in 2013 after rising by about 5 percent, to 207, the previous year. But Tournour acknowledges that responsiveness to those complaints could have something to do with it.

In 2013, the department’s internalaffairs bureau resolved 18.5 percent of the complaints reported to it, according to OPSA, down from 33.8 percent the previous year.

“A lot of complaints are first-time complaints,” Tournour notes, suggesting that disgruntled residents quickly get the message that their issues won’t

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“build a

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be addressed. “There’s a perception that the fox is guarding the henhouse.”

Kansas City chief Forte understands that perception. “We’ve always been arrogant, because you know why? Because there’s nothing you can do to me,” he says of a complaint process that rarely affects an officer’s income or job security.

That attitude feeds into the longstanding cynicism that certain neighborhoods have toward the police, and why there’s little cooperation when crimes do occur. For instance, only 15 percent of gunshot incidents are reported annually, national estimates suggest, while about 65 percent of the homicides in Sacramento County are solved through an arrest. Only about 24 percent of sexual assaults and 12 percent of property crimes are solved through arrest, with both of those crimes being underreported as is.

What makes or breaks those cases, authorities say, is the willingness of people to talk.

“It’s not on the DNA or forensic level,” says police Sgt. Doug Morse, a department spokesman. “A good call is solved because someone saw something. What we really need is a connected community.”

And a community that connects to its police.

Since taking over as Kansas City police chief three years ago, Forte has tried various things to strengthen that bond. The department swapped indiscriminate enforcement sweeps for concentrated patrols where crime is the worst. He’s placed acoustic sensors in a 2.5-square-mile grid to detect the gunfire that residents don’t report.

And he keeps in regular contact with community leaders to listen, he says, not talk.

Last year, Kansas City dropped below 100 homicides for the first time in years.

“We actually wounded and killed unarmed black males since I’ve been chief,” he says. After one such fatality, Forte visited the dead man’s father in the hospital.

“He said, ‘Darryl, I trust you. Because you’re the chief, I know it’s going to be a fair investigation.’ You know what that means?

That means a lot.”

Here in Sacramento, Somers has already implemented geographic policing, and has proposed the gunfire-detecting ShotSpotter technology as well. He’s also called for bias-based training and an upgraded use-offorce simulator that can plunge cadets into a 180-degree virtual reality. He’s pilot-testing body cameras and wants patrol officers to spend two hours every week walking their beats and talking to folks, a throwback to the days when people knew—and were

11 POLICE POLICE

VS. VS. THE POLICED

THE POLICED

How Sacramento's cops match with residents How up Sacramento's cops match up with residents Sources: Sacramento Police Department, U.S. Census Bureau Sources: Sacramento Police Department, U.S. Census Bureau

16 | SN&R | 02.19.15

police have been forced to become the SwiSS army Knife of Social illS—uSed in every Situation, no matter how crude. more likely to trust—their police officers. “I think we need to go back in time a little bit,” Somers told council members last month.

Realizing that there’s little faith in the department’s in-house oversight, Somers also volunteered the department for a national, three-year UCLA study of its enforcement stops and use of force. “We’re very good at measuring crime, but we haven’t done so well when it comes to … our community connections,” he acknowledged.

Hiring a representative force Behind the grinding automated gate of a station house on Franklin Boulevard, Morse

POLICE RESIDENTS POLICE RESIDENTS vs.

82.2% male 48.7% male vs.

82.2% male 48.7% male 17.8% female vs. 51.3% female 17.8% female vs. 51.3% female 75.6% white vs. 45% white 75.6% white vs. 45% white 10.5% Latino vs. 26.9% Latino 10.5% Latino vs. 26.9% Latino 7.7% Asian vs. 18.3% Asian 7.7% Asian vs. 18.3% Asian 4% 14.6% vs.

Black Black 4% 14.6% vs.

Black Black

selects a patrol cruiser from the yard and drops his go-bag in the trunk. North of 30 and roughly 6 feet tall, the recently promoted sergeant isn’t thick-necked like some of the younger officers exiting the gym in shorts and flip-flops. A military veteran who followed his big brother’s career path, he’s been with the department 11 years, handling media requests the last two.

It’s no wonder he’s itching for street duty.

Morse calls patrol the department’s backbone, and it’s true: 41 percent of the department’s staff is tasked to field services. The investigative division, which is responsible for solving crimes, accounts for 16 percent of personnel.

Taken together, it’s a workforce that’s gradually rebuilding.

Sources: California Department of Justice, Sources: California Department of Justice, Sacramento Police Department Sacramento Police Department

perfect cop”

After years of hiring freezes and downsized training academies, a recovering economy has allowed law-enforcement agencies to begin recruiting again. Staffing at the police department has crept up the last three years, with Somers’ latest budget proposal recommending another 6.4 percent bump to 723 sworn officers this coming fiscal year.

His goal to have two officers per every 1,000 residents by 2035 would mean steady hiring increases for the foreseeable future.

That annual $1.4 million line item drew the most contention last month, with critics accusing Somers of using his community-policing platform to slip in a jobs bill.

“We don’t want more money for cops,” said Claire White of the National Lawyers Guild and a contingent of police critics that speaks frequently at city council meetings, including last week’s. “Please let’s not go back down the road of having more cops on the street.”

It may be too late for that, especially with construction of a downtown Kings arena and ancillary development expected to substantially increase the city’s foot traffic.

The department is already getting younger, which matters because newer officers rack up more complaints and use-of-force incidents than their older counterparts, says Tournour.

That’s partly because veterans are more experienced and because younger officers patrol the city’s rougher sectors.

What’s also changed is the agency’s demographics, though not in ways one might expect. Back in 1999, the department was 66 percent male and 69 percent white.

Fourteen years later, in 2013, the department stood 82 percent male and 76 percent white.

That’s right, in “post-racial” Sacramento, which boasts one of the most diverse urban populations, the po-po have only gotten paler and more bro-ish.

Somers has an explanation. “My first comment about diversifying an agency is you have to hire,” he told council members on January 27. “Because the one thing we’re finding is we’re not having problems getting applicants. … It’s about who we’re signing up.”

Tournour says the chief is receptive to feedback on this front. She would like the department to scrap its oral panel, which inadvertently weeds out anyone who doesn’t look or think like the typical cop.

Background checks also need to be re-evaluated, say some officers. One county sheriff’s deputy told SN&R that some of his academy’s most talented graduates didn’t get

2013

2012

HOMICIDE: 34 homicides reported (58.8% clearance rate) RAPE: 95 rapes reported (30.5% clearance rate) ROBBERY: 1,158 robberies reported (29.1% clearance rate) PROPERTY CRIMES: 17,980 property crimes reported (10.7% clearance rate)

2009

HOMICIDE: 33 (75.8%) RAPE: 165 (36.4%) ROBBERY: 1,491 (30.9%) PROPERTY CRIMES: 20,200 (14.5%)

HOMICIDE: 30 (106.7%) RAPE: 179 (39.7%) ROBBERY: 1,606 (30%) PROPERTY CRIMES: 21,001 (13.9%)

Morse cruises east on U Street, passing the pearl-white pavilion of Vizcaya, where a photographer snaps a violet-haired young woman perched on a bannister. This is a moneyed neighborhood, with bushy trees and manicured lawns dashing emerald color at the brickwork estates and caramel townhouses.

Morse parks down the street from the apartments where the caller’s client lives, lowering the chances of being spotted and prompting a confrontation or foot pursuit.

As of February 16, police have confronted at least five despondent subjects across the city this year. On the afternoon of February 3, officers safely evacuated the Northview Drive home of an armed, suicidal subject before convincing him to surrender and be taken to a hospital. Authorities grumble that these peaceful resolutions are rarely covered.

Rather, attention is paid when blood is spilled. Of the four officer-involved shootings that occurred inside the city last year, two were suicides by cop, including a March incident in which a 51-year-old man, reportedly armed with a knife, charged officers aboard a light-rail train pleading to be shot. After Tasers proved ineffective, they did.

2011 HOMICIDE: 36 (80.6%) RAPE: 134 (40.3%) ROBBERY: 1,162 (30.5%) PROPERTY CRIMES: 18,563 (12.6%))

HOMICIDE: 34 (100%) RAPE: 125 (23.2%) ROBBERY: 1,211 (28.6%) PROPERTY CRIMES: 19,967 (10.9%)

2010

Dangerous job, lots of Discretion

2008 HOMICIDE: 49 (89.8%) RAPE: 168 (31%) ROBBERY: 1,761 (24.6%) PROPERTY CRIMES: 22,499 (13.7%)

H I S TO RY O F V I O L E N C E

2 BEFORE

hired because of chintzy infractions from their youth, while less talented cadets scored jobs because of squeaky-clean pasts.

“You don’t want that. You want life experience,” Tournour says. “You don’t want people that think like cops all the time.”

Back on patrol, Morse scans the 8-bit-looking monitor for our first adventure. Dispatch accommodates us with a nearby welfare check.

The caller is the power of attorney for a trust.

His 39-year-old male client threatened to kill himself and others in an email, and may have a history of drug abuse.

A suicide threat with a twist.

One of the worst such calls occurred January 2013, when a frantic mother dialed 911 and asked responders to rescue her suicidal son. When officers finally caught up to the young man near J and 43rd streets, they could only watch as he worked a knife through his throat. Officers zapped him with Tasers, trying to get him to stop, but he was immune. He bled out in front of them.

Tournour says the ghastly scene shook officers to their core.

It’s a pain they often carry inside.

“You can’t ask for help as a cop,” Tournour says of the profession’s stubbornly macho culture. “You’re supposed to be a pillar.”

A six-year look at how many serious crimes are recorded in Sacramento and result in arrest. (Clearance rate can reflect cold-case arrests.)

“BUILD A

PERFECT COP” continued on page 19

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neighbor working on his car around 10:30 a.m.

Deer discreetly asks the question that’s on everyone’s mind. Has the man expressed depressed thoughts? The woman thinks for a moment. “He did just find out he’s going to be a father.”

Sounds like great news, Deer suggests.

Not to the man, the woman replies.

As we leave, Morse and Diaz spy a black Mercedes-Benz SLK 350 parked diagonally in front of the dilapidated building next door. It wasn’t there earlier. Its plates come back registered to the man in question.

Diaz and Morse double back to the main entry as Deer covers the backdoor.

After his shouts go unanswered, Diaz tries the knob. It turns without a fuss.

The exigent circumstances of the call mean they don’t need a warrant to enter.

The two pull their sidearms and cross the threshold.

Diaz enters first, with Morse close behind, placing a palm on his ex-recruiter’s shoulder. Stuffed animals and cardboard boxes litter the floor.

The television is on and a cellphone sits plugged into its charger. On a monitor, Morse glimpses a live feed of the street outside. A plum-sized surveillance camera, mounted to the front-facing window, spied us coming. The two officers see bits of chunky powder on a table. Then they see the gun.

As the two search, a man, 6 feet with graying hair, passes out front. He walks swiftly, but makes direct eye contact. His rubbery face creases into a hard smile.

He waves. Not unusual—nosy neighbors eyeball scenes like this all the time—but it sticks in Deer’s mind. Later, a photo proves it was, in fact, the guy.

At the open trunk of his cruiser, Diaz confirms the .38-caliber revolver is registered to the subject. He places the pistol in a little briefcase with a bum latch. “This was the first legit clear I did” since returning to patrol, he tells Morse. “I’m all jacked up.”

On a slip of paper, Deer jots a “while you were out” note. It explains the visit’s purpose, states the man’s gun was taken for safekeeping and asks him to call.

F E AT U R E

STORY

2014

This story was produced with support from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

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CALLS FOR SERVICE

UNAVAILABLE AVE R AG E R E S P O N S E T I M E

26:24

$

2013

Handling today’s distress call are two veterans, Corporal Pete Diaz and Officer Barbara Deer. They recently attended a seminar on communicating with the mentally ill. Deer found it worthwhile, but wished it provided more tips for de-escalating situations that can turn unpredictable real quick, like the heavily scrutinized police killings last year of psychologically troubled military veterans in Woodland and Lodi. Both fatal encounters were deemed “good shootings.”

That collision between returning soldiers and a profession that heavily recruits veterans is a largely unspoken irony.

Law enforcement is the one profession that can’t make the mentally ill someone else’s problem, Morse explains, even as the recession stripped other community resources. As a result, police have been forced to become the Swiss Army knife of social ills—used in every situation, no matter how crude.

“It’s really, really sad,” Deer says of returning to patrol and rediscovering the fractured individuals, often homeless and rudderless, wandering through downtown. “We’re failing these people.

And we [law enforcement] have limited resources to deal with them.”

One of the proposals Chief Somers skimmed through was a psychiatric emergency response team made up of both cops and mental-health clinicians.

The hybrid squad would respond to psychologically-tinged calls for service.

This is gradually becoming the new normal—a police force that isn’t just about cracking skulls and clearing corners, but the careful toil of restoration. Saving people. Not just from each other, but themselves.

It’s a nice idea, but remains just that for now.

Diaz, Deer and Morse cross the tiled courtyard to a downstairs unit with a glass-fixtured door. Diaz raps loudly with a familiar tune, keeping it light: “Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits.”

The commotion draws a tenant down the stoop, a petite young woman clutching a similarly small Chihuahua.

She explains that she last saw her

Fernando Cruz is not a lucky man.

According to the gang-unit officers at the scene, the 37-year-old allegedly smashed a stolen Cherokee Laredo into the side of an occupied sedan, then motored off before their eyes.

The damaged Jeep got less than a block down Edison Avenue in the Arcade Village neighborhood before the flashing lights of their unmarked police car pulled it up short. The driver braked abruptly outside of a school and made like he was going to run, but reconsidered.

The radio flutters with word that the driver is in custody. But his female passenger is currently in the wind. As Morse eases his cruiser toward a bank of emergency vehicles and an audience that’s gathered in front of an apartment complex, we spot a middle-aged black woman walking back to the scene. Her eyes downcast, she’s got the hood of her blue windbreaker flipped over her head.

Morse wheels into a sinuous turn and gets on the walkie. “Suspect description?” he asks.

A voice responds that the passenger is a Hispanic female. That would seem to rule out our uninterested bystander, but it’s possible to mistake race in the midst of a pursuit. He double-checks.

“Clothing?”

Dark jeans, brown jacket. Not her.

Morse is satisfied. But by this time, the woman has made us. Before Morse can bend the wheel, she beelines to his window.

“Can I help you?” she asks, the faintest hint of exasperation in her voice. “I saw you stop and look at me.”

Morse comes mostly clean, saying he’s helping clear the scene without mentioning the escaped passenger. It’s a brief exchange that ends with the woman flashing a wide smile as Morse tells her to be careful crossing the street.

It’s more than Super Cop would have done.

As dusk falls, leaving the swirling sirens to shoulder the darkness, Morse rolls around a question from hours ago: How do you build the perfect cop?

“It’s not so much what makes the ideal officer,” he finally decides. “It’s what makes the ideal department.” Ω

2012

paler and more bro-Ish.

End of watch

667

2011

the po-po have only gotten

SWORN OFFICERS

2010

dIverse urban populatIons,

2009

whIch boasts one of the most

How many cops on Sacramento's streets—and how they perform

2008

In “post-racIal” sacramento,

LOGISTICS

“‘And please clean up your meth,’” Morse deadpans.

Behind the wheel, he turns serious.

He’s seen how easy it is for mentally troubled individuals to slide into addiction, like frogs slowly boiling to death in gradually warming water. Maybe this will be the reality check the guy needs.

He shifts the cruiser into gear.

AFTER

APPROVED BUDGET

$122 MILLION

653

$

625,784 22:24 $122 MILLION 640

624,918 19:59 $ $125 MILLION 731 623,891 19:35 $ $114 MILLION 712

$

688,110 33:15 $125 MILLION 717

$

708,785 30:52 $128 MILLION

$

804 777,869 37:04 $133 MILLION

Source: Sacramento Police Department

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19

Powerlifter Mark Bell talks superhuman powers, steroids and finding strength in numbers

story and photos by

Jonathan Mendick j o na t h a nm @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

Mark Bell

looks like a comicbook hero: superhuman muscles, well-groomed all-American looks, nice clothes. The image is in full effect on a recent weekday at Bell’s Super Training Gym in West Sacramento as the athlete’s shoulders bulge underneath his CrossFit T-shirt. But instead of working out a plan to defeat bad guys in this particular moment, he instead sits at a desk and speaks gently into a microphone.

Next to him, Bell’s workout (and business) partners Jim McDonald and “Silent” Mike Farr both speak into their own mics. After an hourlong recorded conversation, set to become the next episode of a powerlifting-themed podcast called Mark Bell’s PowerCast, the three move into an adjacent room with hip-hop and punk rock blasting from 6-foot-tall speakers. There they’ll spend the next few hours lifting with a few dozen other trainers.

Here it’s about community, self-betterment and, Bell says, strength.

20 | SN&R | 02.19.15

For those unfamiliar with the sport, powerlifting is different than Olympic weightlifting, the latter which also focuses on speed and form. Powerlifting is also different from bodybuilding in that it’s not strictly about muscle definition. It’s basically all about power—the numbers reached.

Until recently, Bell made it his mission was to make himself as strong a powerlifter as possible, sometimes through whatever means possible. Throughout that journey, he encountered a lot of pain, gain and injuries. He also took steroids. All of those elements, Bell says now, shaped his philosophy on the sport and also transformed his physique into the selfdescribed “jacked and tan” body he sports now.

“It’s … a way of saying … you should be able to push a good amount of weight, but you should also look like you work out,” he says.

…

Like many fictional comic-book heroes, Bell’s physical transformation was preceded by a moment of hopelessness. Back in the late ’80s, he was an overweight, aspiring teenage football player in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., when one day, an older kid grabbed his football at a park and punted it into the nearby woods.

No camera tricks: Mark Bell’s muscles really do look like they’re about to bust through his shirt.

Black history matters See NIGHT&DAY

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Twice as ice See OFF MENU

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Hannibal Buress’ hipster peeve See COOLHUNTING

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Ditch the breakup guilt See ASK JOEY

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SCENE& HEARD HGTV, slumlords and buyers’ despair

“It’s impossible to have a bad workout when you’re in a group of other people that want to see you do well, almost to a fault.”

Mark Bell, powerlifter “I remember just feeling powerless, hopeless basically—like, ‘Even if I want to punch him in the head I’m not going to because it looks like he’ll kick my ass,’” says Bell, now 38.

That’s when Bell decided to start lifting weights. He quickly proved to be a natural. While some of his peers could only bench 85 pounds, he’d bench 185.

His two older brothers Chris and Mike were impressed: Mark was already out-lifting some of their older friends. And so with his brothers’ encouragement, Bell kept lifting. Body fat quickly melted away in favor of muscle. By the time he was 14, he’d started competing.

After high school, Bell continued training and also started wrestling professionally. The career took him to Louisville, Ky., Los Angeles and Japan, but after he married and had a kid, he decided it was time to settle down.

“I was like, ‘It’s time to get my shit together [and] get my life together,’” he said.

By the time Bell and his family had moved to the West Coast in the early 2000s, he’d already spent some time powerlifting under the tutelage of a guy named Louie Simmons, whose gym in Ohio is considered a mecca of powerlifting.

The plan was to settle in Sacramento, open a similar gym, surround himself with some of the best California powerlifters and just get stronger.

By 2005, Bell had opened Body Construction Zone in Woodland. Over the next few years, the gym and its dedicated group of powerlifters moved from Woodland to North Sacramento and then into a place called Midtown Strength & Conditioning. Eventually, it settled in West Sac in November 2014.

“They were primarily people in the area who had already competed in the BEFORE

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past,” says Bell’s partner McDonald.

“They just either trained together at different gyms or in their garages or whatever, but somewhere along the line we made some kind of decision that we were all on the same road together.”

Throughout the 2000s, Bell kept gaining strength, and in his brother Chris’ 2008 documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster*, which examines the use of anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs in sports, the athlete admitted to using steroids to help his performances. Many in the powerlifting community lauded the film—and Mark—for not shying away from the controversial subject.

In one of the film’s final scenes, Bell, on steroids, crushes one of his biggest goals: to bench more than 705 pounds.

“My baby brother is on steroids and we all know it,” narrates Chris. “But look at us. My dad looks like he won the lottery and my mom’s prayers have been answered. There is a clash in America between doing the right thing and being the best. Americans play to win all the time because the very thought of losing is hateful.”

It is, arguably, a controversial take on the subject.

After the film, Bell didn’t stop training.

His personal competitive bests would end up being an 855-pound bench press, a 1,080-pound squat and a 766-pound deadlift. Now, Bell has declined to comment to SN&R about any current steroid use.

But, he admits, he does get asked about them a lot and is ambivalent about recommending them to people.

In a YouTube video posted a few months ago, the powerlifter put it this way: “You guys would be absolutely shocked and surprised at how many people I talk out of it each and every day.

You can perform well with them or you can perform well without them.”

F E AT U R E

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“Silent” Mike Farr deadlifts far more than the average person would ever dream of lifting.

Juiced or not, Bell said he decided to step away from competitive weightlifting after an accident in 2012 made him realize that family life was more important than continuing to compete.

Before a May 2012 match, Bell had successfully squatted 1,100 pounds in practice. But he made the mistake of bulking up to more than 300 pounds right before the competition. During an attempt to squat 1,085, Bell says his body wasn’t prepared for the extra weight he’d just put on, and he tumbled, the 1,000-plus pounds of weight toppling back onto him.

After, he decided, it was time for a shift. A new focus.

So Bell left his competition days behind, having achieved almost all of his competitive goals already. His new goal: “make myself better”—in and out of the gym. In other words: more family time.

Now, he weighs a little under 270 and can still bench press about twice that. But it’s the sense of community he’s fostering that may end up defining his legacy as a powerlifter.

Last November, Bell moved Super Training Gym into a 6,000-foot West Sacramento warehouse. It’s a private gym but free to members; interested powerlifters can also check it out. These days, somewhere between 30 and 50 people train there on a regular basis. It’s also a testing ground of sorts for a powerlifting safety product he invented called the Slingshot, dozens of which are stocked in a back room.

Bell also posts free educational content online, too. In addition to the podcast, there’s SuperTraining.tv, his YouTube channel, as well as a Facebook page and an Instagram account.

The point, Bell says, isn’t just about selling. It’s about teaching others that powerlifting is more than a sport—it’s a lifestyle and a community.

“It’s impossible to have a bad workout when you’re in a group of other people that want to see you do well, almost to a fault,” he says. “The only way you could have a bad workout is if you don’t show up.” Ω

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After a six-month search for an apartment in Midtown I’d reached the end of my renter’s rope. Whether San Franciscans were flooding our sleepy cultural hamlet or if I’d just been out of the market for too long, a novellasized stack of denied applications told me everything I needed to know. Renting sucks, and it was time to buy.

I thought that would be the hard part, just deciding to do it, until I found out that house-buying is exactly as competitive as apartment-renting. It’s a war against time, where “war” means hemorrhaging money instead of blood, attracting bondsmen like starving sharks— though, honestly, my bond guy has proven very reasonable and I’d be happy to make a referral anytime.

It all begins benignly enough with the open-house process. This is how I’ve spent my weekends for months now, cruising up and down tree-lined streets like a property predator, hitting the brakes on my Honda Civic at a glimpse of any “open house” placard set in a front yard, those white balloons beckoning to passersby like a ruse.

On these trips I park the car and step purposefully into the brightness of a stark home that is not my own. Staged furniture stands like a sentinel in every room, goading you to consider where a couch could fit or what would perhaps make a delightful home office.

It is important to not be swept away by the crushing flow of hugely expensive possibilities such as knocking out a few walls and installing sky lights. You must quiet your mind of uncountable HGTV reruns and home improvement Pinterest boards, instead turning your vigilant eagle eye to sagging rooflines and peeling paint suggestive of far deeper damage than even your eagle eye can see. You do not want to be the fool that gets stuck with this place. I know because I’ve made mistakes.

It started with a 100-yearold “charmer” in north Oak Park. After reaching an agreement we set to work arranging for the inspections, and within a week it was determined that the roof, the foundation and everything betwixt were equally doomed. Even the towering oak tree in the backyard would have to go, its roots wrapped around the deteriorating sewer lines like a wrestler in full nelson hold, necessitating specialists and their merciless, “indeterminable” quote for the full price of repair. The house seemed to be standing only by virtue of good weather, the next rain (should there ever be any again) slated to take it down. I walked from the deal and threw my lot in for a handful of other properties, but so far I’ve been shut out.

What is a hapless millennial set on home-ownership to do?

While the siege of slumlords and billionaire investment groups threatens the affordability of our livelihood here, I will not allow their rampage to discourage me. Sacramento is my home, and it is here that my home will be found.

Also, still looking for leads on an enthusiastic real estate agent.

AFTER

What is a hapless millennial set on homeownership to do?

—Julianna Boggs

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Cash Cab’s

Ben Bailey Live COMEDY February 27th Doors at 7pm • Show at 8pm $20 General Admission Tickets Available in the Gift Shop or at colusacasino.com Must be 21+ to attend. Management Reserves All Rights ©2015.

3770 Hwy 45 • Colusa, CA • 530.458.8844 • ColusaCasino.com SATURDAY & SUNDAY

Kick-off the weekend Friday night from 7-9 p.m. at the STAR WINEMAKER RECEPTION An intimate evening Behind the Cellar Doors at Terra’ d’Oro winery.

Meet Amador’s “star” winemakers and the “star” student chefs of American River College’s Culinary Arts Program.

A star-studded menu, specially created

by ARC to pair with Amador’s amazing and diverse varietals.

Don’t miss out… tickets are limited!

AMADORWINE.COM

M A RC H

7 8 2 O 1 5 FROM

11 AM TO 4

PM

BEHINDTHECELLARDO $50 SATURDAY (which includes Sunday admission) | $35 SUNDAY | $10 DESIGNATED DRIVERS Presale tickets available at AMADORWINE.COM until March 3 or during the event for an additional $5 $60 FRIDAY 7 - 9 P.M. STAR WINEMAKER RECEPTION (presale tickets only) 42 PARTICIPATING WINERIES | 35 MILES EAST OF SACRAMENTO | (888) 655-8614

S TA R W I N E M A K E R R E C E P T I O N |

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B A R R E L TA S T I N G

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F O O D PA I R I N G S

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For the week of February 19

E

ven though I’m not black, I’m fairly certain that black history is my history. I and tons of other people literally wouldn’t be here today if the Civil Rights Movement, largely led by black people, didn’t yield landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Loving v. Virginia—which led to my parents’ interracial marriage being legal, and ultimately me being born into a relatively more progressive country than before. In other words, we should all be interested in Black History Month events, not only to learn about how America became what it is today, but also to inspire us to do more for the civil rights of today.

First up this week is the 2014 comedic film Dear White People, about a group of black students struggling to navigate through a predominantly white college. It’ll be screened for free by Unique Programs (http://sacstateunique.com) at Sacramento State University’s Union Ballroom (6000 J Street) at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 19. Local connection: Sacramento singersongwriter Andy Allo is featured on the film’s soundtrack.

On Saturday, February 21, Elk Grove Adult & Community Education (8401 Gerber Road in Elk Grove) hosts Tracing Your African American Roots: A Black History Event. Genealogist Karen Burney will be on hand to help people look for family records and find out more about their ancestors.

The event costs $29, happens from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., and more information can be found at www.egace-egusd-ca.schoolloop.com.

Also on Saturday, the 100 Black Men of Sacramento group (www.100blackmenof sacramento.org) hosts its annual Northern California African American Young Male Conference, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Serna Center (5735 47th Avenue). It will feature various community speakers who will touch on topics such as health care, college, hip-hop, the legal system and more. It’s open to men between the ages of 12 and 21 as well as parents and guardians, and costs $10 at the door.

The Sacramento Area Black Caucus hosts a free Black History Month program from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, February 22, at the Women’s Civic Improvement Center (3555 Third Avenue).

It’ll feature history, youth participation and guest speakers—all under the theme: “Racism and Education Then, Racism and Education Now.” Find out more at www.sacramentoabc.blogspot.com.

For even more Black History Month events, check out www.saclibrary.org/home/events for various events organized by the Sacramento Public Library.

President Lyndon B.

—Jonathan Mendick

Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

WEEKLY PICKS

Margaret Cho

Coastal Carnival

Thursday, February 19, Through sunday, February 21

Friday, February 20, Through saTurday, February 21

Korean-American comedian and longtime anti-racism, anti-bullying and gay-rights advocate Margaret Cho performs five shows this week.

Cho is not only an COMEDY expert at cracking wise, but is part of TLC network’s new talk show, All About Sex, and is a musician and fashion designer as well. Expect Cho to stick to comedy here, prepping for her next special, to be recorded in New York in March. Kate Willett opens. $37.95, 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Punch Line Comedy Club, 2100 Arden Way, www.margaretcho.com.

Local watering hole Dive Bar will get even wetter with an underwater theater event in its aquarium— where folks already regularly spot mermaids swimming while getting a drink on. The Coastal Carnival will feature an underwater MERMAID circus replete with mermaids acts from Dive Bar and Sheroes Entertainment LLC. Folks donning costumes get $3 off drinks. Free, 9:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. nightly at Dive Bar, 1022 K Street; www.divebarsacramento.com.

—Eddie Jorgensen

—Alan Sheckter BEFORE

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Steampunk Emporium and Bazaar saTurday, February 21 Steampunk, the sci-fi subgenre of retro-futuristic, steam-powered- machinery driven stories, isn’t HOBBY just for books and movies anymore—it’s developed into an entire craft and fashion lifestyle. The Steampunk Emporium and Bazaar is a chance for enthusiasts to pick up art, clothes, games, comics and allthings steampunk-themed. For non-steampunkers, there will also be items related to pirates, Dungeon & Dragons and speculative fiction. Free, 11 a.m. at Great Escape Games, 1250 Howe Avenue, Suite 3A; http://sacsteam.org.

‘An Evening with Laura Ling: Journey of Hope’ saTurday, February 21 In 2009, journalist Laura Ling was imprisoned in North Korea and was subsequently released after former president Bill Clinton met with Kim Jong-Il. She went on to co-write the best-selling book Somewhere Inside with sister and journalist Lisa Ling, who was largely responsible LECTURE for the efforts to bring Laura home. Donations from the speaking engagement will go toward the Davis High School Symphony’s trip to Carnegie Hall. Free (donations accepted), 5 p.m. at 315 W. 14th Street in Davis, www.facebook.com/ dsoma.music.

—Aaron Carnes

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Getty Owl Run/Walk sunday, February 22 The fourth annual Getty Owl Foundation’s Run/Walk offers several choices, each beginning and ending at Crocker Park. The 10K run travels to Riverside Boulevard and returns via Miller Park. The 5K travels RUN/WALK just to Miller Park. There’s also a quarter-mile children’s run and a virtual-runner option. Funds raised help promote awareness of spinal muscular atrophy, assist families and aid funding of research programs. $15-$40, 7 a.m. same-day registration at Crocker Park, 211 O Street; http://gettyowl.org.

—Trina L. Drotar

—Deena Drewis |

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IllustratIons by brIan breneMan

Happy gut rut larb gai, thai baSil I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a food rut with Thai Basil. And I really don’t care. I’m very happy in my rut. That rut being Larb Gai ($9). At first glance, it’s a simple salad with tomatoes, onions and lettuce, tossed intriguingly with mint and cilantro. Then you notice the chile, fried shallot and lemongrass rounding it out, offering bitter, hot, sweet and savory flavors. But it’s really all about the dressing—a heavy hand of fish sauce and lime juice slathering the veggies and mighty chunks of shredded chicken. It’s punchy as hell, and not for the meek of mouth. 2431 J Street, www.thaibasilrestaurant.com.

—garrett Mccord

Ease on down the path enlightenMent, teMple coffee

IllustratIon by Mark stIvers

A new cold front

by Janelle bitker

Snow storm: Two rapidly expanding businesses specializing in Taiwanese shaved snow—a cross between shaved ice and ice cream, then loaded with toppings—opened new locations earlier this month.

Vampire Penguin, after quickly launching downtown Sacramento and Davis locations in December 2014, debuted a sleek, spacious spot in Elk Grove (9135 West Stockton Boulevard). Vampire also recently began selling macarons—the delightfully chewy, colorful French cookies made from meringue and pulverized almonds—at all of its locations. Think playful flavors, such as ube, Fruity Pebbles, Thai tea, guava cheese and chocolate-covered bacon.

BEFORE

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Janelleb@newSreview.coM

Meanwhile, Bay Area chain Sno-Crave has crept into Sacramento

with a new tea house near Florin Road (6910 65th Street). The expansive menu includes a wide range of boba teas and desserts: shaved snow, crepes, waffles, brick toast, cheesecake, macarons and—somehow— much, much more. While Sno-Crave’s macarons run more traditional—chocolate, vanilla, coffee, pistachio—the brick toast gets crazy. Start with thick slabs of buttermilk-laden white toast, then pile ice cream, chocolate sauce, Oreos, macarons, strawberries, red bean—really, anything is possible.

On tap: With Sacramento Beer Week often comes a flurry of new breweries

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and taprooms. But what about further down the road?

Davis will get its second brewery, Three Mile Brewing Co., hopefully by October. Better yet, it’s located downtown at 231 G Street.

Head brewer Roy Lester has been homebrewing for more than 20 years, plus a five-year stint at the nowshuttered Brew it Up! Brewery and Grill. He and his six business partners met in the offices of a pharmaceutical company, where most of them work.

“We’ve been dreaming about this for a long time,” said partner Joe Runner. “Davis has always been a spot we’ve felt has room for growth.”

Three Mile will start with classics —an imperial stout, honey blonde ale, brown ale and flagship rye IPA—before expanding into seasonal specials. For those brews, Runner said they’re looking to purchase local raw materials—starting with honey—as a nod to Davis’ agricultural roots.

Aesthetically, Runner predicts the 2,500-square-foot Three Mile will have a cool industrial look—standard these days—with exposed pipes and the like.

“It’s so popular because it’s inexpensive,” he said, laughing. “But we do want to incorporate wood, organic things. … Very simple, but inviting and comfortable.” Ω | A R T S & C U L T U R E

It’s early in the morning and I hate it. The invigorating breeze rolling down Ninth Street and the warm sun on my face mean nothing as I glare from Temple Coffee’s patio. But instead of taking my usual black coffee to assuage the bitterness, I choose the path of Enlightenment. A smooth, yet rich drink made from green tea, honey and steamed soy milk, the floral sweetness of the Enlightenment ($4.65) is soft enough to ease the morning tension. Even the most antisocial java junkies can (and probably should) put down the espresso for this one. 1010 Ninth Street, http://templecoffee.com.

—anthony Siino

Peel for luck Shaddock Perhaps more commonly known as a pomelo, this citrus was first named shaddock after a 17th- century sea captain who brought its seeds from Asia. They look like overgrown grapefruit, with very thick rinds and an interior fruit that’s sweeter but more fibrous. As with other citrus, choose fruits that seem heavy to indicate lots of juice. Shaddocks are particularly popular for Lunar New Year, believed to bring prosperity and good fortune. Fully peel the sections of skin and membrane, and slice them into green salads or use the juice in a celebratory cocktail. Happy New Year!

—ann Martin rolke |

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FREE CHURROS

Visit newsreView.com/sacramento/dining/more to search sn&r’s dining directory to find local restaurants by name or by type of food.

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814 15TH ST., SACRAMENTO (916) 443-2347 MELTINGPOT.COM/SACRAMENTO

26 | SN&R | 02.19.15

Viet Ha Noodles & Grill

experience. There’s also a small cup of chopped peanuts to sprinkle about.

We sampled all the iterations, from pork banh mi to shrimp with rice, and beef on 2417 broadway, suite a2; (916) 391-9888; every starch. The proteins are all good quality www.vietha.us and cooked with care.

Dinner for one: $5 - $10 Viet Ha’s banh mi rolls are just about Good for: quick, tasty and healthful meals perfect, with a bit of crust but plenty of soft Notable dishes: salt-and-pepper wings, pork banh mi interior in the Vietnamese tradition. Our first sandwich with pork was fantastic, sporting bursts of heat from the sliced chile and juicy meat dripping everywhere. The second, with beef, was less successful and had too much added onion, but was better than average It’s a genius idea: Take the “Chipotle concept” nonetheless. and add Vietnamese ingredients. Make everyThe rice noodles are fun, like my favorite thing delicious and quick, and you’ve got a bun in a box, with the best version we tried surefire hit. That’s the obvious draw of Viet topped with a mound of chicken branded with Ha Noodles & Grill. grill marks. Crispy fried shallots on top and Open for a few months on Broadway at the soy dressing added to the craveability of 24th Street, this new location is a spinoff the combo. of the rundown but still-delicious Viet Ha Order shrimp and get eight big pieces, split Vietnamese & Chinese Restaurant in half and grilled. They’re ideal paired with (6534 Florin Road). Fortunately, here the tangy vinaigrette and rice. they’ve upped the décor and reduced Also on offer are three smallthe aura of grimy neglect.

Viet bite items: egg rolls, cheese The Chipotle concept is puffs or salt-and-pepper Ha’s banh thus: Choose a starch— wings. They’re all fried in this case vermicelli mi rolls are in small portions and rice noodles, white rice better for eat-in than or French roll—then just about perfect, takeout. add protein. Diners The thin cigarwith a bit of crust can choose from thinly shaped egg rolls are sliced grilled beef, but plenty of soft tightly wrapped and chicken, pork or butteruber crispy without a interior in the flied shrimp. Everything lot of grease. The real comes with lettuce, bean Vietnamese standout here, though, sprouts, fried shallots, is the wings: five superbly cucumber, peanuts, pickled tradition. fried, meaty chicken pieces carrots and daikon, and cilantro. spiced with pepper and a sprinkle The banh mi option offers additional of chiles. jalapeños, sliced lengthwise and tucked in The cheese puffs are less successful— with the meat. triangles of dough wrapped around herbed The noodle and rice boxes are served cream cheese. I’ve never understood this addiwith either a tangy rice-vinegar vinaigrette tion to Asian restaurants, and Viet Ha’s didn’t or savory/sweet soy sauce. The former is win me over. similar to what you get with bun noodle Beverages include sodas and more bowls. Peanut sauce was available when they authentic products like Malaysian orange first opened, but it’s been taken off the menu, drink and coconut water. There are setups for unfortunately.

Vietnamese coffee behind the counter; ask for Everything arrives packed in a cardboard availability. takeout box, whether you’re eating in at one Given the choice of quick meals in the of the small tables or counter space, or taking Broadway area, Viet Ha stands out for its it all to go. Grab a soda or Asian bevvie in a large portions and relatively healthy offerings. can and prepare for a hearty meal.

Skip the fried bits and you’re getting a lot At only $6.99 for one protein and $8.99 for of vegetables with that starch and meat. At two, diners get a generous amount of noodles such reasonable prices, there’s no excuse for or rice with meat and vegetable sides (or get inhaling those grease-laden stomach bombs one protein with the $5.99 banh mi option). available at nearby establishments. Ω We mixed them all together and doused

HHH

everything with the sauce for a salad-like

FS

Farmers market update

—Jonathan Mendick

THINK FREE.

The weekly Midtown Farmers Market on 20th Street between J and K streets will be closed Saturday, February 28, to prepare for a management change the following week.

Midtown Farmers Market was first launched in 2013 by the Midtown Business Association, and they still own it; but starting Saturday, March 7, it’ll be managed by Unseen Heroes, the people behind cool community events such as GOOD: street food + design market, Art Mix Prom at the Crocker Art Museum, and Gather: Oak Park. Unseen Heroes has internally been calling it “Farmers Market 2.0,” and its organizers are seeking to get more Midtown businesses involved, add more hands-on activities for kids and refine the vendor layout. There are also plans to partner with the California Literacy Center to motivate kids to eat more fruits and veggies, according to a press release. Catch the new Midtown Farmers Market every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Head to www.midtownfarmersmarketsac.com for more information.

Supply-and-demand cake

by Shoka Safeway has vegan chocolate cake in its bakery. Correction: Safeway had vegan chocolate cake.

The V Word contacted multiple area stores from Natomas to El Dorado Hills, and not one had put in another order for the 8-inch Chocolate Midnight Cake, which is too bad, because its existence had vegans high-fiving each other on the Web and social media over the last two months. The chance to purchase a hard-to-attain treat in a mainstream grocer is pretty exciting, even if the cakes aren’t BEFORE

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baked on-site, but are frozen and distributed to the stores. And they cost only nine bucks. One Safeway bakery employee said the cakes weren’t big sellers. A hypothesis: That dessert’s demographic probably doesn’t peruse the generally vegan-unfriendly goods in the bakery. So, sweet-toothed vegans, now you know: Call a local Safeway, press two for the bakery department and demand the vegan cake.

If high-school economics lessons were right, supply will follow.

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presents

ITALIAN OPERA OPENING FEB 20TH

Through Mar 22nd Showtimes: Fri & Sat 8pm, Sun 2pm

Leslie Lewinter-Suskind’s hysterical lampoon Italian Opera roasts the art, the business, and everything in-between.

$20 General, $15 for seniors, military, students & SARTA members, $12 for groups of 6 or more.

Online: www.brownpapertickets.com/1198494

California Stage in the R25 Arts Complex 25th & R St, Midtown • Easy free parking available • 916-451-5822

VOTE NOW!

CALIFORNIA STAGE

FIND OF THE WEEK

Beyond Cosby

All the real kids i’ll Meet You tHere Set in a small town in Northern California, I’ll Meet You There, (Henry Holt & Co., $17.99), a young adult novel by Heather Demetrios, is the story of Skylar, a girl who can’t wait to leave town after graduation.

Book That’s because of the stress of living in near-poverty with an ever-sicker alcoholic mother, but her plans are derailed by her mother’s worsening addiction and the return of good-looking Josh, an Afghanistan war vet who comes home an amputee. He’s suffering in other ways as well, and Demetrios manages to depict the obsessions of kids in their late teens in a way that’s neither dismissive nor overwrought. The emotional roller coaster of life is accurate, but there’s hope for these kids, and that’s enough.

—Kel Munger

Money for something ConCert WindoW

—Peter Donnelly, Australia

COMMUNITY CENTER THEATER

Thursday, March 12

2 pm Matinee & 7:30 pm

1301 L St St, S Sacramento t 916-808-5181 tickets.com & sacramentoconventioncenter.com

28 | SN&R | 02.19.15

SACRAMENTO AREA MUSIC AWARDS

“A meticulously researched recreation g Era” of the Swing

2015

America's Greatest Big Band Show

SPONSORED BY:

Tired of loading up your gear and traveling far distances to play for nobody? There’s now a proper conduit for artists who want to play—and get paid.

Concert Window is a relatively new site that works like this: Viewers browse artists’ shows (with the ability to sample a few minutes for free) and then pay to watch an online gig. Musicians looking to parWeBSite ticipate just need a relatively fast Internet connection, a webcam and a mic. Dress up or down, pick a location to record from and play. Then, upload the show to Concert Window’s server and get paid 70 percent of any profit made. Easy enough. www.concertwindow.com.

—Eddie Jorgensen

From C-Webb’s vault tHe CHris Webber ColleCtion Chris Webber is probably best known as the greatest Sacramento Kings player (of the Sacramento era, at least). He’s also been collecting HiStoRy African-American art and artifacts since ’93. They were once stored in Sacramento Public Library’s Archival Vault and displayed at the Crocker Art Museum, before Webber took them with him in 2010. Even though the pieces no longer reside in Sacramento, they’re still viewable over at the collection’s website. There, find photos, video and a free, downloadable curriculum. Highlights include personal writings by Frederick Douglass and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. www.chriswebber.com/the-collection.

—Jonathan Mendick

Hannibal buress If you haven’t heard of Hannibal Buress, then you’ve likely at least heard of the firestorm revolving around Bill Cosby’s rape allegations. Over the years as numerous women have filed various sexual assault suits against Cosby, few paid attention. At least not until last October when Buress took the Comedy stage in Philadelphia.

“I don’t know what I’m doing by telling you. I guess I want to just at least make it weird for you to watch Cosby Show reruns,” Buress said that night.

Buress’ comments about Cosby’s sordid past made waves in the social media realm and, finally, larger media networks picked the story up from there.

So who is Hannibal Buress? The NYC via Chicago comedian, who will appear at the Crest Theatre on Wednesday, February 25, has made a name for himself in his own right—beyond all that Cosby drama—as a co-host on Adult Swim’s The Eric André Show, and he’s a cast member on Comedy Central’s Broad City. He’s also a former writer for Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, and until recently hosted a weekly comedy night at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn where he gets to lampoons hipsters as self-proclaimed “living proof of mustache humor.”

“There are a lot of dudes in my neighborhood that have handlebar mustaches … but don’t try and have a conversation with me like you don’t have a handlebar mustache,” Buress has railed. “[They] try to talk about regular stuff like music and politics—nah dude, if you got a handlebar mustache all I want to hear you talk about is Slinkys and kazoos and that’s it.”

Got it? 7:30 p.m. $35. 1001 K Street. www.crestsacramento.com.

—Julianna Boggs

Putting the farce in France 5

5 Songs

A Flea in Her Ear Here’s a fun vintage French pairing for Sacramentans, highlighting Paris at the turn of the 20th century: For the main course, a viewing of by Patti Roberts Toulouse-Lautrec and La Vie Moderne: Paris at the Crocker Art Museum—which highlights the City of Light during the years 1880-1910— followed by a light, fluffy, nonsensical dessert of A Flea in Her Ear at the Woodland Opera House, written and set in 1907 Paris.

A Flea in Her Ear is a quintessential French farce, so don’t expect the plot to make any sense, the characters to be believable or the dialogue to ring true. Don’t try and figure out the story of a wife who tries to test her faithful

4

Local comedian and storyteller extraordinaire Jack Gallagher presents his sixth one-man show, this time tapping into his love of music as a muse to memories.

Gallagher lets the audience pick four out of nine preselected songs that are triggers to tales about his childhood, fatherhood and his lifelong comedic career.

Stories range from sweet and melancholic to funny and revealing. T 6:30pm; W 2pm &

War stories He’s back: Frank Condon, who ran the notable River Stage series at Cosumnes River College for years, has a new play that will get two staged readings at California Stage on Saturday, February 28, and Sunday, March 1.

Condon’s shows explore history, political conflict and social issues. His new script, Axis Sally and Her Boys, tells the harrowing story of Mildred Gillars, who became notorious as the subversive, sweet-talking Nazi radio personality Axis Sally.

Condon explained: “It’s about heroism, sacrifice, and treason during WWII and its aftermath. It focuses on real-life Axis Sally, a self-styled all-American girl from the Midwest, who became a New York showgirl … then she went to Europe and became the star of Nazi propaganda radio broadcasts.

“She sometimes graphically told American mothers how their sons were wounded and even died,” Condon said. “During her trial, she was called one of the most morally corrupt characters in American history. The play includes segments of Sally’s postwar trial, and is framed by the stories of Jake and Moe, two GI’s slogging their way through Europe.”

Condon’s River Stage productions in the 1990s and 2000s were also about war, including: The Chicago Conspiracy Trial, recreating the sensational trial of several 1960s political and anti-war activists; Ghost Dance, a play about the trial of a Sioux tribesman following the murder of a U.S. Army officer in the 1890s; and Gunfighter, a play by Tony-winning playwright Mark Medoff about a military trial following a 1991 “friendly fire” incident during the first Iraq War. In the 1980s, prior to coming to Sacramento, Condon partnered with “Doonesbury” cartoonist Garry Trudeau to create Rap Master Ronnie, lampooning President Ronald Reagan. That show was produced in multiple cities.

6:30 pm; Th, F 8pm; Sa 5pm & 9pm;

Su 2pm. Through 3/1. $23-$35.

B Street Theatre, 2711 B St.; (916) 443-5300; www.bstreet theatre.org. P.R.

5

1

Two of Sacramento’s finer actors—Stephen Vargo and Martha Omiyo Kight— star in a deceptively simple tale of two lives intertwined as revealed through a decades-long exchange of correspondence.

The actors sit on stage, a table between them, and read their letters. Their only interaction is the exchange of sometimes rapid-fire responses. F, Sa 8pm.

Through 2/21. $10-$20.

William J. Geery Theater, 2130 L St.; (916) 448-9019, www.brown papertickets.com. J.C.

FOul

2 FAIR

3 GOOd

4

Celebration Arts stages a top-notch production of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s melding of the contemporary African American experience with the pantheon of Yoruba gods. Jenabah Karoma is luminous as Oya, a young athlete whose plans are derailed by her sick mother. Then, she’s torn by the love of the volatile Shango (Tory Scroggins) and the stable and hard-working Ogun (Tariq Elsiddig). Th, F, Sa 8pm; Su 2 pm. Through 3/14. $8-$15.

Celebration Arts, 4469 D St.; (916) 455-2787; www.celebration arts.net. K.M.

4

The intrepid interns at Capital Stage have mounted their own small production of David Mamet’s expletivedrenched portrait of dysfunctional relationships between singles of the ’70s—replete with insults and arguments (some heard in bars, others in bedrooms). The acting’s steadyto-good, and directors Jenna Cedusky and Chloe King handle the scenes deftly. Admission is free, but make a donation— because these interns have earned it. Th, F 10pm; Sa 4pm.

Through 2/21. Free. Capital Stage, 2215 J St.; (916) 995-5464; www.capstage.org. J.H.

WEll-dOnE

5 SuBlIME–dOn’T MISS

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

PHOTO COuRTESy OF FREE FAll STAGE

A Flea in Her Ear; 7:30 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday; $7-$25.

Woodland Opera House, 340 Second Street in Woodland; (530) 666-9617; www.woodland operahouse.org.

Through March 8.

Love Letters

Sexual Perversity in Chicago

In the Red and Brown Water

PHOTO COuRTESy OF WOOdlAnd OPERA HOuSE

husband with a fake lover’s note, a best friend who’s married to a passionate Spaniard dressed as a matador, a cousin with a speech impediment, a hotel that caters to secret rendezvous, and other madcap characters and silly hijinks.

It’s a hopeless and maddening endeavor.

Rather, just give yourself in to the silliness.

That’s what the Woodland Opera House does with good results: presenting the slapstick comedy with a cast of local favorites who bring their A-game with hokey humor, sly mugging, silly antics, slamming doors, double takes and even running amok through the audience.

The main male characters include familiar local stage actors with years of experience: Steve Mackay, Roger McDonald, Gil Sebastian and relative newcomer Gabe Avila. And the women who bring a comedic charm include Analise Langford-Clark and Kirsten Meyers.

This is a cast committed to the goal of entertaining the audience, even if it means tackling a kooky script, crazy antics and a story written in 1907 sans modern cultural sensibilities, and which drags on just a tad bit too long.

But for most of the ride, it’s a hoot and a holler, complete with fun haute couture costumes and a clever Parisian parlor and hotel set. Ω

“Why haven’t you given in to the silliness already?”

5

“Make sure to wear this classy princess crown, Ms. Doolittle.”

Behold, a lady In 1956, Broadway theatergoers were wowed by the delightful musical My Fair Lady, a satire on class and social perception. The musical was then adapted to the big screen in 1964 and has never left the public consciousness.

The inspiration behind the musical was George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play, Pygmalion. In it, phoneticist Henry Higgins, on a bet, agrees to transform lowly flower girl Eliza Doolittle into a hotshot society lady. While Shaw’s play was set in the early 1900s, and My Fair Lady in the ’50s, the very basic idea of classism and sexism it discusses exists today—and the humor is just as pointed as during the productions’ original runs. The nice thing about the play is that it delivers its cutting social commentary in a palatable way. Doolittle is a likeable character with her own ideas about what’s going on, and how she’ll respond. Pygmalion; 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday; $8-$16. Free Fall Stage at the Victory Life Church, 800 Reading Street in Folsom; www.freefallstage.com. Through March 1.

—Jeff Hudson

Axis Sally and Her Boys; 2 p.m. Saturday, February 28, and 5 p.m. Sunday, March 1; $5-$10. California Stage, inside the R25 Arts Center at 1721 25th Street; (916) 451-5822; www.calstage.org.

—Aaron Carnes

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SPRING 2015

Mean girls and boys

DONALD KENDRICK | MUSIC DIRECTOR

EUROPEAN MASTERWORKS

The DUFF Nikki Einfeld

Magnificat (West Coast Premiere) | Cecilia McDowall Great Mass in C Minor | W. A. Mozart Hailed by Gramophone magazine as the new voice of English composers, McDowall’s evocative and poignant “Magnificat” is the perfect prelude to Mozart’s triumphant masterpiece.

Nikki Einfeld, Soprano Marina Boudart Harris, Soprano Ross Hauck, Tenor Daniel Yoder, Bass

Marina Boudart Harris

3

Projected supertitle translation s

Saturday, March 14 at 8:00 p.m.

Do we really need another movie about teenagers and their problems, with high school kids being played by performers who are clearly gaining fast by Jim Lane on 30? Probably not, but when a picture delivers the goods we might as well say so, and The email@ DUFF turns out to be unexpectedly delightful. ne w s re v i e w . c o m DUFF stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend—and from now on I’ll drop the all-caps, if only to keep this review from looking like a government pamphlet. A Duff is the person in any social group of three or more who (without necessarily being actually ugly or fat) is there to

Ross Hauck

7:00 p.m. – Pre-concert talk by Donald Kendrick

Community Center Theater 1301 L Street, Sacramento

Daniel Yoder

Concert Sponsor

CCT BOX OFFICE | 916.808.5181 or TICKETS.COM SACRAMENTOCHORAL.COM

Holden Caulfield would not approve of these.

1 Poor

2 Fair

3 Good

4 Very Good

“The whole world is your own.”

– Sri Sarada Devi (1853–1920) www.sacvrg.org

30 | SN&R | 02.19.15

5 excellent

make the others look good. In the movie, Bianca Piper (Mae Whitman) learns from her next-door neighbor Wesley (Robbie Amell) that she is the Duff to her BFFs Jessica (Skyler Samuels) and Casey (Bianca A. Santos). Jess and Casey are the hotties all the boys are hot for. Bianca, not so much.

This is the first major leap of faith we have make—the idea that Mae Whitman, even by comparison to Samuels and Santos, could pass for a Duff. It’s like in Easy A, where we were expected to believe that there was a high school anywhere in the universe where Emma Stone could possibly go unnoticed. Ah, but you see, Whitman’s Bianca, like Stone’s Olive in Easy A, is smart. And in the universe where movies like this take place, that automatically handicaps her on any scale of attraction. That’s another point that the charitable, in the interest of having a good time at the movies, will agree to overlook.

After that, The DUFF is pretty smooth sailing.

Fans of Kody Keplinger’s novel may disagree. In some circles the book is considered a sort of female The Catcher in the Rye, and Josh A. Cagan’s script certainly softens the hard edges of the book’s Bianca while de-sexualizing her relationship with Wesley. However, for those of us who found the book’s Bianca to be a nasty, full-of-herself little snot, Whitman’s Bianca is much better company.

In Cagan’s script, Bianca agrees to overcome her disgust and antipathy for Wesley and tutor

him in science so he can remain on the football team and preserve his chances for a scholarship.

In return, he’ll coach her out of her Duffiness so she can become “the dateable one.” (“You’ve got the easier job,” he tells her; “I have to reverseDuff you. … For starters, you need to stop dressing like Wreck-It Ralph.”)

It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see where all this is headed. Since in the novel Bianca and Wesley jump almost directly into having grudge-sex, the movie needs to set up an obstacle to that if it expects to preserve its PG-13 rating.

The obstacle comes in the form of Madison (Bella Thorne), Wesley’s on-and-off girlfriend, a new character who seems to have dropped in from a road-company production of Mean Girls.

Madison hates the idea that her ex would end up with a loser like Bianca, and she orders her own Duff, Ashley (Gabriela Fraile), to cyberbully Bianca.

On this point Keplinger’s fans will have good reason to complain. Madison is a poor addition to the mix, and it’s not Thorne’s fault; nobody could make this character real. It’s one of a number of miscalculations in the movie—like the lockerroom scene where Wesley keeps twitching his pecs while talking to Bianca, which only emphasizes that Amell is a long way out of high school.

Or casting Ken Jeong as Bianca’s journalism teacher—nothing against Jeong, but the character is a hopeless cornball gimmick. (Allison Janney as Bianca’s divorced mother is more successful—and funnier.)

What makes The DUFF a pleasant ride is what saves any romantic comedy: the chemistry between the two stars. Whitman and Amell have an easy rapport on screen that probably makes Cagan’s dialogue sound snappier than it really is, and that smooths Ari Sandel’s sometimes jittery direction.

What makes The DUFF a pleasant ride is what saves any romantic comedy: the chemistry between the two stars.

Whitman especially is ready for her close-up, after six seasons on TV’s Parenthood and years of animation voice work as April O’Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Tinker Bell on Disney direct-to-video. With luck, this woman who made her first movie (When a Man Loves a Woman) at age 6 could become a major star.

Even without it, she could keep playing variations on Bianca Piper until she’s 65. Ω

by daniel barnes & JiM lane

4

Black or White

•

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A well-to-do, high-powered attorney (Kevin Costner), driven to alcoholic grief by the death of his wife, must try to pull himself together to fight for custody of his mixed-race granddaughter (Jillian Estell) against the girl’s African-American grandmother (Octavia Spencer). Writer-director Mike Binder, who drew one of Costner’s best performances in The Upside of Anger, does it again here, and for good measure, he does the same for Spencer. Binder plays with our expectations, setting up clichés of race and class, then undercutting them with surprises. The movie gives us adversaries but no real villains; even the little girl’s wastrel, crackhead father (Andre Holland) is allowed a full measure of complex humanity. Anthony Mackie also shines as Spencer’s lawyer brother, who presses her case in court. J.L.

2

Fifty Shades of Grey

“DENSELY PACKED WITH SIGNIFICANCE.”

two days, one night - Joe Morgenstern WALL STREET JOURNAL

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2

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Much as he did with Kickass and X-Men: First Class, writer-director Matthew Vaughn attempts to cram his gleefully sociopathic sensibility into the shape of a genre blockbuster in the entertaining mixed bag Kingsman: The Secret Service. The result is a highly watchable and often disturbingly tonedeaf spy spoof, a film that is deliriously overthe-top and yet not quite fun. At least Colin Firth has some fun sending up his own British upper-crustiness as Harry Hart, a.k.a Galahad, a loyal and extremely well-kempt superspy in a top-secret organization of wealthy tailors (don’t ask). When the time comes to bring a new member on to the team, Harry recruits troubled teen Eggsy (likeable newcomer Taron Egerton) into the competition, which coincides with a plot by Samuel L. Jackson’s lisping evil genius to wipe out the human race. It’s juvenile, but there are enough exploding heads to hold your attention. D.B.

2

Leviathan

In a remote corner of Russia, a small-town handy man (Aleksey Serebryakov) fights the eminent-domain seizure of his property, while his lawyer, an old friend (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) carries on an affair with his wife (Elena Lyadova) and tries to blackmail the town’s corrupt mayor (Roman Madyanov). Written by Oleg Negin and director Andrey Zvyagintsev, the movie has good performances and attractive, crystal-clear photography (by Mikhail Krichman) of the bleakly beautiful countryside. But the flow of the narrative is far too meandering and unfocused to hold the interest for two hours

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and 21 minutes. Zvyagintsev pokes along at a leaden pace, lovingly caressing every scene but never building dramatic momentum, strewing the entire running time with loose ends. Ultimately, the movie doesn’t end, it just stops. J.L.

3

STILL ALICE

A MOST THE IMITATION GAME VIOLENT YEAR

Misery finds company.

4

A Russian immigrant in Chicago (Mila Kunis) learns that she is the genetic reincarnation of a long-dead alien matriarch, and she becomes a pawn in a power struggle among her “children” (Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth, Tuppence Middleton). Written and directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski, this delirious sci-fi epic is instant camp, careening in and out of sheer gibberish, as gaudy and flamboyant as a drag-queen fashion show in a Martian whorehouse. Memo to Wachowskis: If you must load your script with bizarre names and concepts, don’t let your actors mumble and whisper, and don’t drown them out with music and explosions. Performances range from decent (Kunis and Channing Tatum as her protector) to wretched (Redmayne is so lousy he deserves to forfeit his Oscar nomination for The Theory of Everything). J.L.

- Deborah Young, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“SUSPENSEFUL, SHARPLY WRITTEN.” - Claudia Puig, USA TODAY

The E.L. James bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey is famous for bringing BDSM sex into the trash-novel mainstream, but this adaptation from director Sam Taylor-Johnson (Nowhere Boy) is just a sleek and dull piece of lifestyle porn. Taylor-Johnson seems far more interested in fetishizing sports cars and tailored suits than whips and chains, and the vanilla sex scenes quickly become monotonous and familiar, offering the same oblique, candlelit tracking shots of undulating body parts that we’ve been getting for decades.

This isn’t the next Basic Instinct; it’s the next Sliver. Dakota Johnson stars as virginal lipbiter Anastasia Steele, and Jamie Dornan plays the mysterious Christian Grey, a Seattle tech billionaire who entices Anastasia to become his sexual submissive. Both actors are trapped by the rigid banality of their characters, and they fail to manufacture any chemistry—without that heat, this is just a story about a contract negotiation. D.B.

Jupiter Ascending

“CAREER-HIGH PERFORMANCE.”

Two Days, One Night

Academy Award nominee Marion Cotillard gives the best performance of her career in Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s powerful and emotionally devastating Two Days, One Night. The setup is 12 Angry Men meets the world economic crisis—Cotillard plays a working mother whose colleagues vote to have her fired rather than lose their bonuses. Egged on by her husband, she is given the weekend to convince her co-workers to give up the money and take her back, an ego-demolishing task that doesn’t exactly mix well with her copious antidepressant use. As she drags herself from co-worker to co-worker, her misery becomes their misery, and a profound image of working-class dehumanization is drawn. The Dardennes have been producing insightful and bleak slices of lower-class life for over a quarter century, but with its shattering star turn and tighter narrative structure, Two Days, One Night is their most accessible movie yet. D.B.

3

McFarland, USA

A high-school athletic coach (Kevin Costner) loses job after job because of his short fuse, eventually landing in McFarland, Calif., where he hatches a plan to build a crosscountry track team from the farmworker kids at his new school. Based on the true story of Coach Jim White but heavily fictionalized (that business about the short fuse, for example), the movie bears a more-than-passing resemblance to Spare Parts, which came out earlier this year, with running taking the place of robotics but with the same result: Hispanic kids take on privileged teams from tonier, better-funded schools and win the gold (in McFarland’s case, year after year). Clichés are rife in Chris Cleveland, Bettina Gilois and Grant Thompson’s script, but director Niki Caro keeps them under control and draws strong performances all around. J.L.

4

A Most Violent Year

Considering that the film is fairly humorless, the funniest aspect of A Most Violent Year might be that killer title. Yes, the film takes place in 1981 NYC, a pre-Giuliani time of astronomic crime rates, but the title tees up expectations of intensity and catharsis that writer-director J.C. Chandor has no intention of swinging at. Cinematically speaking, Chandor keeps a tight strike zone, and the measured, confident, almost chilly tone that permeates the film is largely responsible for the cold shoulder it received throughout the awards season. A Most Violent Year shares some stylistic and narrative DNA with Scorsese’s Goodfellas, but Chandor’s film inherited little of that 1990 classic’s energetic, eager-to-please temperament. Goodfellas is about a man who “always wanted to be a gangster,” while the mostly righteous A Most Violent Year is about a man who wants to walk, talk and dress like a gangster, without actually being a gangster. D.B.

4

Selma

There is such a powerful convergence of hot-button topics in Ava DuVernay’s Selma, from civil rights to voting laws to police brutality to street protests to government surveillance, that even some of the film’s strongest proponents are positioning the film as a good-for-you, syllabus-ready obligation.

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That’s an affront to the intelligence, cinematic flexibility and emotional satisfaction of this rousing film, which tracks the involvement of Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Oyelowo is fantastic as MLK, a perfect mix of humanity and moral authority, and Carmen Ejogo is fine in the underdeveloped role of Coretta Scott King. Enough famous faces ham it up in bit parts that the film threatens to turn into Ava DuVernay’s Lee Daniels’ The Butler (a snarling Tim Roth as George Wallace is particularly distracting), but Oyelowo keeps it grounded and DuVernay keeps it moving. D.B.

4

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

4

Still Alice

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Nickelodeon TV’s dorky hero (voiced by Tom Kenny) ventures onto dry land (and into something vaguely resembling our universe) in search of a stolen sandwich recipe, the loss of which has brought ruin and devastation to his hometown of Bikini Bottom. The script by Glenn Berger and Jonathan Aibel (the guys behind Kung Fu Panda), from a story by director Paul Tibbitt and series creator Stephen Hillenberg, is wacky cubed, with a nonstop stampede of gags as frantic as those in the Rio and Madagascar franchises—only much, much funnier.

Tibbitt and his crew cleverly blend ink-andpaint animation, CGI and live action, and the result is great fun, slyly calculated to convulse the kiddies and keep their parents alternately chuckling and laughing out loud. Antonio Banderas adds to the fun as the pirate villain. J.L.

A distinguished Columbia University linguistics professor (Julianne Moore) finds herself suddenly forgetting simple words, getting lost on her own campus and suffering other baffling lapses. At the age of 50, she is developing early-onset Alzheimer’s—worse yet, it’s hereditary, and she may have passed it on to her adult children (Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish, Kristen Stewart). Writer-directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (adapting Lisa Genova’s novel) avoid the weepy melodrama of disease-of-the-week TV movies in favor of low-key naturalism, anchored

by Moore’s subtle, textured performance and strong support from her screen family (including Alec Baldwin as her loving but flawed husband). It’s a quietly harrowing portrait of a family losing the woman they know—and a woman losing herself. J.L.

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Walk down the

RED CARPET O S C A R S PA RT Y

That old time rock ’n’ roll Sacramento’s Removed may not be reinventing music, but there’s nothing routine about its sound The members of the Sacramento band Removed aren’t particularly concerned with mapping uncharted ground, sonically speaking. Rather, they just by Aaron Carnes want to hop on stage, have fun and kick out the energetic tunes. In short, this means that although there’s something familiar about the band’s combination of proto-punk, dirty garagerock and angular post-punk rhythms, they play their music with undeniable vibrancy.

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proto-punk structure, but Hawkins gave the rhythm an aggressive push, while Kimmel and Benjamin added a thickness to the guitar sound.

“We’ve gone from having a really good first practice three months ago to the practice we had last week, where we should have been [recording] it,” Kimmel says.

It’s been an admittedly fast trip, one that’s forced the band to make adjustments as musical relationships and goals have evolved.

Chavez, for example, recently left the band, citing personal conflicts.

Now, Removed is figuring out how to chart its future, with the rest of the band contributing songs to the mix.

“We’re just seeing where it goes from here,” Diaz says of the band’s creative progress. “Each one of us pretty much is a songwriter.”

And, while the lyrics and the chords are often dark in theme and nature—regardless of the writer—the band says it considers the entirety of its songs uplifting.

“I like to think I have a big amount of positivity,” Diaz says. “A lot of it’s about dark stuff, about drugs, about losing it, but a lot is about picking it up again—everyone’s happy because we all survived.”

Kimmel agrees. They may not be singing about happiness, but, at the very least, music remains a source of happiness for everyone involved.

Nope, no folk tunes here.

Catch the Removed at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, February 25, at the Press Club, 2030 P Street.

Cover is $8.

More info at www.facebook.com/ removedmusic.

Bassist Kenny Kimmel sees it this way: “We’re not rewriting the rules or anything,” he says. “You hear us, you hear flavors of what you may have heard before, but it’s got its own unique sound.”

The band, which features Mike Diaz on vocals, has been together about four months, but already its musicianship is tight. That’s because individually, each member has played around town for years in bands such as the Backseat Lovers, Shit Howdy, Red Pills, Red Tyger Church, and Standing and Staring.

The recurring musical thread here is a shared passion for raw rock ’n’ roll.

“There’s enough commonality. No one’s going to suddenly branch out and say, ‘Why don’t we play a nice folk song?’ That’s not happening,” says guitarist Lloyd Benjamin.

The group formed when Diaz brought in some songs to play with Benjamin and drummer Garrett Hawkins. Later, they were joined by Kimmel and another singer, Amanda Chavez; Removed played its first gig at the final Witch Room show in December.

The night went really well, its members say, and in the months since they’ve fleshed out another solid batch of songs, with even more material in the works.

Before forming most everyone knew each other just as casual music scene acquaintances.

As a band, however, they experienced immediate chemistry. Diaz established the basic

“ No one’s going to suddenly branch out and say, ‘Why don’t we play a nice folk song?’ That’s not happening.”

Lloyd Benjamin guitarist, Removed “The songs have a heaviness and darkness to them as you’d expect in rock ’n’ roll. Rock ’n’ roll ain’t pretty,” he says. “I just see mostly the joy.”

As for the band’s recent upheaval, that’s also just the nature of rock ’n’ roll, after all.

Diaz, for his part, remains optimistic about the band’s future.

“Sometimes things just fall apart and that’s OK,” he says. “You make amends and adapt and move on and try not to make the same mistakes you made.” Ω

broadcast. The following Monday, his website crashed from the viral aftermath.

Would there be hysteria?

Uncontrollable screaming from the mostly female—ranging from teens to 40-somethings—audience?

It was quite the opposite.

Many in the crowd have been following this artist for a couple of years, with a reverent knowledge of his repertoire. Those fans seemed be actually distancing themselves from the success of “Church,” which was the No. 2 single in the world at the time of the show. Instead, they focused on the deeper cuts, preferring “Jackie and Wilson” to the big hit.

Andrew Hozier-Byrne seemed to be handling things pretty well himself.

The tall, lanky Irishman appeared cheerful and relaxed as he hit the stage, at ease throughout the show. He stuck to the tunes from his 2014 selftitled album and two EPs. In fact, he played every single one of them.

After, the line at the merch table was the longest I’ve ever seen at the club. Safe to say, Hozier will be around a while.

—Paul Piazza

New garage-punk: For those of us who grew up on ’90s ska-punk, Dan Potthast from St. Louis psychoska outfit MU330 is kind of a legend.

And he’s carved out an impressive post-MU330 solo career—last Thursday, he unleashed his new high-octane rock group Sharkanoid at Naked Lounge. It was the fourpiece’s second show ever.

Sharkanoid is a complete 180 from Potthast’s folksy solo material.

Potthast was in full-throttle, garagepunk mode with karate kicks, rock star poses and James Brown body spasms. The fact that he’s a nerdy guy with thick glasses and curly hair didn’t make his act come off as ironic, rather a sign of all the fun he was having on stage.

Local punker Kepi Ghoulie—OK, technically he’s a resident of Santa Rosa now—closed the night with songs from his latest album Kepi Goes Country. The name says it all, and surprisingly, it’s his best record in years. Potthast played a makeshift slide guitar, David Houston pounded on a tambourine, Dog Party’s Lucy Giles took up snare and vocals, and Pets, the show’s opener, jammed on some maracas—a campfire-esque set of fun country tunes.

—Janelle Bitker

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

Beyond church: When Hozier played Ace of Spades last Wednesday, I honestly didn’t know what to expect from the sold-out crowd. Keep in mind, this was just three days after he had been joined by Annie Lennox onstage as he played his smash hit “Take Me to Church” on the February 8 Grammy Awards

BEFORE

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NEWS

—Aaron Carnes

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F E AT U R E

STORY

©2015 SFNTC (1)

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Back to basics: The Dodos’ sixth album, Individ, takes the band back to 2008, with its arguably most successful record Visiter. In between, the San Francisco duo of Meric Long (guitar, vocals) and Logan Kroeber (drums) added members and an electric vibraphone. And Long tended to pick up his electric guitar more than his acoustic. With Individ, Long and Kroeber strip back down to the basics.

Manic, fast acoustic guitar with alternate tuning and inverted chords, and crazy complex drum patterns.

Last Tuesday night, a Harlow’s crowd got to taste the live version for the first time. As in, the Dodos had never played the songs off Individ in front of an audience before. A true treat. And the one-hour set blew by—a striking balance between minimalism and visceral pounding.

A few older gems were played— “Black Night” off No Color, “Paint the Rust” and “The Season” off Visiter—which kept the crowd happy.

Plus, after maybe the shortest wait for an encore ever, Long pulled out “Chickens,” off the Dodos’ 2006 debut Beware of the Maniacs, effectively a tool in showing off his finger-plucking speed.

The night from start to finish was solid, though. Earlier, the Hush Sound’s Greta Morgan performed with her new project Springtime Carnivore—refreshingly straightforward, unfussy indie-pop and rock, without any twee or synth.

Opening the show was Tiaras, the new band with ex-members of Sacramento’s Ganglians. After lining the stage with cans of Pabst, the guys launched into their San Francisco low-fi garage meets new wave powerpop sound. It was as killer live as on the self-titled debut—and the newer stuff, a little less ’80s and a little more complex, promises serious excitement.

Though, with the exception of frontman Ryan Grubbs’ shimmying in a shimmery shirt and tossing of his long blond hair, Tiaras looked pretty stiff.

Or maybe just stoned.

RECYCLE THIS PAPER.

Unfussy, stoned, viral and a little bit country

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2/2/15 9:03 AM

19THURS

20FRI

20FRI

21SAT

ALO

Band of Lovers

Cove

The Hormones

Harlow’s Restaurant & Nightclub, 8 p.m., $20-$25

Shine, 8 p.m., $5

In support of its ninth annual Tour d’Amour, ALO brings its scintillating songs and jams of a thousand grooves back to Sac. ALO is co-fronted by Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz, a smart and skilled guitar prodigy who can deliver an acoustic dirge and frenzied improvisational jam with equal precision, and Jack Johnsonbandmate Zach Gill on lead vocals, keyboards ROCK and ukulele. Rounding out the awesome foursome are renowned bass player Steve Adams and drummer Dave Brogan, old friends who share time with Lebo in several bands. Opening for ALO are the stylish T-Sisters (Erika, Chloe and Rachel Tietjen), whose harmony-heavy folk-Americana stylings are a good reason to be there on time. 2708 J Street, www.alomusic.com.

Naked Lounge, 8:30 p.m., $5

In the instance that Valentine’s Day didn’t bring enough sugar to the table last week, New York folk duo Band of Lovers is coming through town with its super-sweet FOLK love songs. Easy on the eyes and ears, Dave Strumfeld and Sabina Beachdell seem so in love with love that it’ll stop the average, everyday cynic in his or her tracks. If there are people out there for whom the view outside is almost always sunshine and rainbows, these are two of them. Fans of contemporary folk get-ups like Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros and She & Him (which is moody in comparison) will find lots to enjoy. 1400 E Street, www.bandoflovers.net.

—Deena Drewis

Blue Lamp, 9 p.m., $8

Cove is Scott Ferreter’s project, a sometimes-acoustic, sometimes-full-band bastion of brutal honesty, dark thoughts and open-heartedness. Folky, ambient, experimental—these are all possible Cove INDIE sounds, which earned a Sammie nomination this year for the best in local indie rock, the ultimate umbrella term. Legend goes that Cove was conceived in a dream, in which Ferreter was sobbing and singing a song. He woke up with a fully formed song written in his head, and later, he found himself sobbing while playing it.

Dream realized. The eclectic lineup rounds out with Holly L’Babe, Basket House and the Bad Outlets. Bring tissues and sincerity.

1111 H Street, www.covetheband.com.

—Alan Sheckter

A rock-solid case can be made that the Ramones were the greatest punk band of all time. Their fanbase has only gotten bigger as the members have passed away.

Unfortunately, for fans, they’ll never get to see them again. The next best thing is San Francisco’s Hormones, the all-female Ramones tribute band that does spot-on renditions of the Ramones’ energetic, rebellious, funny classics. The members of the Hormones are veteran punk rockers themselves, who’ve been kicking out punk PUNK tunes in one shape or another for decades. Also sharing the bill is Mother Of A Girl (a Violent Femmes tribute band) and Chick Jagger (the female-fronted Rolling Stones tribute group). 1400 Alhambra Boulevard, www.hormonesband.com.

—Janelle Bitker

—Aaron Carnes

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ONLY A $5 COVER GREAT COUNTRY DANCING IN THE BACK KARAOKE UP FRONT DUST OFF YOUR BOOTS AND HEAD TO STONEY’S FOR THIS AMAZING EVENT WEDNESDAYS KNCI COLLEGE NIGHT THURSDAY $2 LIVE BAND NIGHT/OPEN MIC FRIDAYS COUNTRY DJ/KARAOKE SATURDAYS COUNTRY DJ/KARAOKE SUNDAYS COLLEGE NIGHT OPEN2PM-2AM

1320 DEL PASO BLVD

STONEYINN.COM | 916.927.6023

A VERY SPECIAL EVENT...

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SUNDAY 2/22

ON STAGE AT THE

TUESDAY 2/24

STATE THEATRE

WITH MIKE E. WINFIELD AND FRIENDS WEDNESDAY 2/25 DJ SANDHU PRESENTS:

Friday, February 20 • 8:00 pm • $25

VISIT WWW.PUNCHLINESAC.COM FOR INFO!

BRANDED FUNNY COMEDY GOING UP ON A TUESDAY COMEDY JAM HIGHBROW HUMOUR THURSDAY 2/26 - SUNDAY 3/1 FROM LOUIE AND BET’S COMIC VIEW!

GODFREY

MARCELLA ARGUELLO, KEON POLEE THURSDAY 3/5 - SATURDAY 3/7 FROM THE TONIGHT SHOW AND FOX SPORTS 1’S CROWD GOES WILD!

MICHAEL KOSTA

CHRIS STORIN, RED SCOTT THURSDAY 3/12 - SATURDAY 3/14 FROM THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE AND THE CHURCH OF WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW PODCAST!

JOEY “COCO” DIAZ

D’AGOSTINO ZOIDA , DREW PLATT THURSDAY 3/19 - SUNDAY 3/22 FROM MTV2’S GUY CODE AND TBS’ VERY FUNNY NEWS!

JULIAN MCCULLOUGH SEAN KEANE, LYDIA POPOVICH

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER! TWITTER.COM/PUNCHLINESAC • FACEBOOK.COM/PLSAC

WWW.PUNCHLINESAC.COM

CALL CLUB FOR SHOWTIMES: (916) 925-5500

2100 ARDEN WAY • IN THE HOWE ‘BOUT ARDEN SHOPPING CENTER

2 DRINK MINIMUM. 18 & OVER. I.D. REQUIRED.

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE CLUB BOX OFFICE WITH NO SERVICE CHARGE.

Marley’s Ghost

Saturday, February 28 • 7:30 pm • $20 Sunday, March 1 • 3:00 pm • $20 Sweet Can Productions:

New Vaudeville “Sweet Dreams”

Thursday, March 12, 6:30 pm $10 Adults/$5 Kids 17 & Under Traveling Lantern Theatre Company

“Greek Mythology for Kids” Friday, March 13, 7:30 pm $15

“Green Fields of America” With Joe and Paula McHugh

Cinema At The State

All Day, Saturday, March 7

Wild & Scenic Film Festival

6 Films!

Kids Films 10 am - 12 pm $5 for all tickets Afternoon/Evening Sessions 4 pm - 10 pm $18 general/$9 students Note: No films are repeated 985 Lincoln Way, Auburn • 530-885-0156 www. livefromauburn.com

22SUN

24TUES

26THURS

26THURS

Enuff Z’Nuff

Swingle Singers

Mandela95

Susan Graham

The Boardwalk, 6:30 p.m., $15

Harris Center for the Arts, 7 p.m., $19-$39

Enuff Z’Nuff has endured more heartache and misery than one band should ever be allowed. After getting dropped from two major labels—Atco and Arista—the band still forged on and continued HARD ROCK to make great records worthy of any Cheap Trick fan’s collection. Now a trio with bassist and vocalist Chip Z’Nuff being the sole original member (guitarist Derek Frigo, sadly, overdosed in 2004), the band is still delivering the goods.

While their massive hit songs like “Fly High Michelle” and “New Thing” are phenomenal on their own, the band’s catalog teems with many gems worthy of your ears (and eyes).

Paradox Drive, Evolution Eden and Luv Glove open. 9426 Greenback Lane in Orangevale, www.enuffznuff.com.

Memorial Auditorium, 7 p.m., $30

Contrary to what the name might suggest, this is not a band of singers made up of swinging singles. Rather, the Grammywinning seven-piece vocal group—originally formed in Paris in 1962 by the eponymous Ward Swingle—performs a capella renditions of both classic and original material. For instance, they do Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”— only it’s a more PG version called “Swingle A CAPELLA Ladies” (and instead of “I’m up on him / He up on me,” it’s “I’m sweet on him / He’s sweet on me,” among other differences.) The group is touring ahead of the release of its new album Deep End later this year. 10 College Parkway in Folsom, www.theswingles.co.uk.

—Deena Drewis

Moindavi Center, 8 p.m., call for cover

Nelson Mandela fought for freedom, was imprisoned for more than a quarter century, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and was elected president of South Africa less REGGAE than a month after voting for the first time. His legacy will be honored in the second annual Mandela95 concert. Dr. Boatamo Mosupyoe, professor of Pan African Studies and department chair of Ethnic Studies at Sacramento State, will provide the keynote address. She met Mandela twice after leaving South Africa during apartheid—the first time shortly after Mandela’s prison release and again while he was president. Featured on the bill are the Reggae sounds of Xsample and the Atomic Banned (pictured), plus Rocklin’s Jeannette Hawkins.

1515 J Street, www.mandela95concert.com.

—Eddie Jorgensen

You’ll need a cup of coffee and a couple of hours to get through Susan Graham’s resume. This New Mexico native has been featured in countless recital halls from Paris to San Francisco. Not one for taking the less challenging route, she’s sung Barber’s “Vanessa,” Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette,” as well as countless others. Her wonderful and intuitive interpretations of German and American classics have made her a star on OPERA the opera circuit and she continues to headline halls across the globe. One of the many pieces slated for the evening will be Schumann’s “Frauenliebe und Leben,” which will find her challenging her mezzo-soprano voice with great effect.

9399 Old Davis Road in Davis, (530)754-2787, www.susangraham.com.

—Trina L. Drotar

ALLE Y K AT Z PRESENTS

—Eddie Jorgensen

2708 J Street Sacramento, CA 916.441.4693 www.harlows.com 2/19 7PM $20 ADV

2/23 7PM $12 ADV

COMING SOON

COUNTERPUNCH, BOATS!

2/28 Petty Theft (Tom Petty Tribute) 3/1 Mali Music 3/2 David Cook 3/5 The Outlaws and Blackhawk 3/6 Zepparella (Led Zeppelin Tribute) 3/7 Foreverland (MJ Tribute) 3/8 Fashawn 3/10 Hollow Wood 3/11 DJ Premier / Royce Da 5’9 3/12 Country Battle of Bands 3/13 The Dust Bowl Revival (early) 3/13 Drop Dead Red (CD Release) 3/14 Cheryl Wheeler 3/14 ZuhG (CD Release) 3/15 Branches 3/15 Hurray For The Riff Raff 3/16 Trash Talk / Ratking 3/17 Kool Keith 3/18 Kyle Kinane 3/19 Moon Hooch, Scott Pemberton 3/21 Felipe Esparza 3/22 HoneyHoney 3/24 !!! (Chk Chk Chk) 3/26 Tyrone Wells

GUTTERMOUTH

ALO

THE T SISTERS

2/24 6:30PM $15 ADV ALL AGES

TORY LANEZ

2/20-21 8:30PM $15 ADV

TAINTED LOVE

2/27 9:30PM $15

THE PURPLE ONES A 10 PIECE TRIBUTE TO PRINCE

2/22 6PM $25

CRYSTAL BOWERSOX

SAT. FEB. 21 | 6PM

2/28-21 5:30PM $15 ADV

NICHOLAS DAVID

2019 O ST | 916.442.2682 BEFORE

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NIGHTBEAT

THURSDAY 2/19

FRIDAY 2/20

2003 K St., (916) 448-8790

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

Fabulous and Gay Fridays, 9pm, call for cover

BAR 101

Karaoke Night, 7:30pm, no cover

BLUE LAMP

1400 Alhambra, (916) 455-3400

THE BOARDWALK

BADLANDS List your event!

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

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 2/23-2/25 Mad Mondays, 9pm M, call for cover

ISLAND OF BLACK & WHITE, 9:30pm, no XOCHITL, 9:30pm, no cover cover

DYLAN CRAWFORD, 2-5pm, no cover

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

ENABLER, CALL OF THE VOID, XTOMHANX; 8pm, $10

CAGE, SADISTIK, TASK1NE; 8pm, $15-$20

THE HORMONES, MOTHER OF A GIRL, CHICK JAGGER; 9pm, $8

HUSALAH, 8pm, call for cover

Open-mic, M; NATIONAL LINES, 8pm Tu, $7; CHERRY RED, B-WILLIS, 8pm W

9426 Greenback Ln., Orangevale; (916) 988-9247 7pm, $10

THE GARDEN, THE GRANDMOTHERS;

HEAT OF DAMAGE, A MILE TIL DAWN, MDSO, RIOTMAKER; 7pm, $10

WITH WOLVES, PETROGLYPHS, SHORELINES, WRATH OF TIDES; 7pm, $10

ENUFF Z’NUFF, PARADOX DRIVE, EVOLUTION EDEN; 6:30pm, $15

BLAZE YA DEAD HOMIE, BOONDOX, J. TERRIBLE, DEADKIDS; 7pm Tu, $20

CENTER FOR THE ARTS

ALO, T SISTERS; 8pm, $22-$25

SECRET AGENT 23 SKIDOO; 2pm, $12-$14

COUNTRY CLUB SALOON

CAR TUNES, 9pm-1am, call for cover

UNWOUND KICKIN COUNTRY, 9pm-1am, call for cover

THE MCCOY TYLER BAND, MERRY GOLD, MARTY O’REILLY; 8pm, $10

NOTHING LESS, 8pm, no cover

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

314 W. Main St., Grass Valley; (530) 274-8384 4007 Taylor Rd., Loomis; (916) 652-4007

THE COZMIC CAFÉ

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

Open-mic, 7:30pm, no cover

DJs GTA and Alexx Adam, 10pm W, call for cover

DJ Well Groomed, 10pm, call for cover

1016 K St., (916) 737-5770

DIVE BAR

Deuling Pianos, 9pm, no cover

Coastal Carnival Swimming Mermaid Show, 9:30pm and 11:30pm, no cover

Coastal Carnival Swimming Mermaid Show, 9:30pm and 11:30pm, no cover

BROTHERS GOW, THE CHARLEEE TRIO; 9pm, no cover

DUPLX, BLANKO CANYON; 9pm Tu, no cover; BRIAN ROGERS, 9pm W, no cover

FACES

Kamikaze Karaoke, 9pm-2am, no cover

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

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

Dragalicious, 9pm, $5

Kamikaze Karaoke, 9pm M; Latin night, 9pm Tu, $5; DJ Alazzawi, 9pm W, $3

FOX & GOOSE

THE MIKE JUSTIS BAND, 8pm, no cover

MASSIVE DELICIOUS, RGB, STRAWBERRY GIRLS; 9pm, $7

ANTON BARBEAU, JASON MCNIFF; 9pm, $5

G STREET WUNDERBAR

THE BUMPTET, 10pm, no cover

DJ Mouf, 10pm, no cover

TOTAL RECALL, 10pm, no cover

THE GOLDEN BEAR

DJ Shaun Slaughter, 10pm, no cover

DJ Crook One, 10pm, no cover

DJ Luke Brown, 10pm, no cover

1022 K St., (916) 737-5999 2000 K St., (916) 448-7798

Hey local bands!

SUNDAY 2/22 Sin Sunday, 8pm, call for cover

DISTRICT 30

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.

SATURDAY 2/21 Saturday Boom, 9pm, call for cover

1001 R St., (916) 443-8825 228 G St., Davis; (530) 756-9227 2326 K St., (916) 441-2252

GOLDFIELD TRADING POST 1603 J St., (916) 476-5076

MADISON HUDSON, TYLER RICH; 9pm, no cover

HALFTIME BAR & GRILL

HIT PARADE, 9pm-midnight, $5

ROGUE, 9pm-midnight, $5

TAINTED LOVE, 10pm, $15-$18

TAINTED LOVE, 10pm, $15-$18

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

HARLOW’S

ALO, T SISTERS; 8pm, $20-$25

THE HIDEAWAY BAR & GRILL

Trash Rock Thursdays, 9pm, no cover

2708 J St., (916) 441-4693 2565 Franklin Blvd., (916) 455-1331

LUNA’S CAFÉ & JUICE BAR

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

RED’S BLUES, 8pm, $8

CRYSTAL BOWERSOX, 7pm, $25

GUTTERMOUTH, COUNTERPUNCH; 8pm M, $15; TORY LANEZ, 7:30pm Tu, $15-$18

Sunday Sinema, 8pm, no cover

Broadway Beat w/ Roger Carpio, Tim Matranga, 9pm M, no cover Nebraska Mondays, M; Open-mic, 8pm Tu; GLENS OF SMOW, 7pm W, no cover

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SN&R

Gift certificateS to local merchantS for up to 50% off

Shop local and Save

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

Open-mic, 7:30pm M; Pub Quiz, 7pm Tu; Northern Soul and Cornhole, 8pm W

THURSDAY 2/19 MIDTOWN BARFLY

1119 21st St., (916) 549-2779

NAKED LOUNGE DOWNTOWN

FRIDAY 2/20

SATURDAY 2/21

SUNDAY 2/22

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 2/23-2/25

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

Throwdown w/ Louis the Child, Shlump, Tha Fruitbat, 9pm-3am, $7-$15

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

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

1111 H St., (916) 443-1927

FLIGHT MONGOOSE, HEADPOP; 8:30pm, $5

THE BAD OUTLETS, BASKET HOUSE, HOLLY L’BABE, COVE; 8:30pm, $5

TAO JIRIKI, SHOI, SLEEP NO MORE; 8:30pm, $5

Jazz session, 8pm M, no cover

OLD IRONSIDES

Bluegrass open jam, 8pm, no cover

BOULEVARD PARK, MUSICAL CHARIS, ORION WALSH; 9pm, $8

SPIRIT ANIMAL, HIGHWAY 12; 9pm, $5

HEATH WILLIAMSON, 5pm M; Karaoke, 9pm Tu; Open-mic, 9pm W, no cover

ON THE Y

Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

BISPORA, JACK KETCH, PURIFICATION

BY FIRE, ATA; 8pm, $7

Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

PETER CASE, 8pm, $20

RICK ESTRIN & THE NIGHTCATS, 8:30pm, $20 DJ Club mixes, 10pm, no cover

1901 10th St., (916) 442-3504 670 Fulton Ave., (916) 487-3731

THE PALMS PLAYHOUSE

13 Main St., Winters; (530) 795-1825

PARLARE EURO LOUNGE

Top 40, 9pm, no cover

Top 40, Mashups, 9pm, no cover

PISTOL PETE’S

Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

SOME FEAR NONE, 9pm, $5

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

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

PJ’S ROADHOUSE

5461 Mother Lode, Placerville; (530) 626-0336

POWERHOUSE PUB

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

BLACKWATER, 10pm, call for cover

THE PRESS CLUB

2030 P St., (916) 444-7914

SHADY LADY SALOON

HARLEY WHITE JR., 9pm, no cover

1409 R St., (916) 231-9121

STARLITE LOUNGE

1517 21st St., (916) 704-0711

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

STEPHAN HOGAN, CHAD BUSHNELL; 9pm, $2

SWABBIES

5871 Garden Hwy, (916) 920-8088

TORCH CLUB

904 15th St., (916) 443-2797

X TRIO, 5pm, no cover; STEEPWATER BAND, 9pm, $7

Open-mic comedy, 9pm, no cover

Karaoke, 9pm Tu, no cover

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony with Souljah Snoop Loc 7pm Saturday, $25-$100.

Ace of Spades Hip-hop

Karaoke, 9pm Tu, W, no cover

DJ Zephyr and friends, 9pm, no cover

FULL FUNKY GORILLA, BLAQUELISTED, WARM CHARLIE; 9pm, $5

SKID ROSES, 10pm, call for cover

ZUHG, GOOD SAMARITAN; 9pm, $10

DANIEL CASTRO, 3pm, call for cover

ALEX GAMESON, 8pm W, call for cover

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

GRAVESHADOW, AXIOM, EDGE OF PARADISE; 5pm, call for cover

Sunday Night Soul Party, 9pm, $5

Dance party, 9pm M; Open Tables, 8pm Tu; MISS MASSIVE SNOWFLAKE, 8pm W

ARLYN ANDERSON, 9pm, no cover

ELEMENTAL BRASS, 9pm, no cover

PETER PETTY, 9pm, call for cover

CRESCENDO, EVOLVE, SPACEFUNK, 59CRIME; 9pm, call for cover

STONEBERRY, GLUG, EMPIRE OF DIRT; 8pm, call for cover

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

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

URBANFIRE, 6pm, $5

DANIEL RAU, 5pm, call for cover

PAILER AND FRATIS, 5:30pm, no cover; STEVEN ROTH, 9pm, $8

AC MYLES, 9pm, $8

Country dance party, 8pm, no cover

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

Blues jam, 4pm, no cover; You Front the Band Live Karaoke, 8pm, no cover

HANS AND THE HOT MESS, 8pm Tu, $5; Acoustic open-mic, 5:30pm W, no cover

All ages, all the time ACE OF SPADES

1417 R St., (916) 448-3300

MISS MAY I, NORTHLANE, FIT FOR A KING, NIPSEY HUSSLE, 7pm, $27 ERRA, AUGUST BURNS RED; 6pm, $22

SHINE

SALT WIZARD, THE POLYMERS; 8pm, $5

1400 E St., (916) 551-1400

SPANGLER, BAND OF LOVERS, ORANGE MORNING; 8pm, $5

BONE THUGS-N-HARMONY, SOULJAH SNOOP LOC; 7pm, $25-$100 AND THE DEAD BIRDS, ODAME SUCKS, GABRIEL AIELLO; 8pm, call for cover

Open jazz jam, 8pm Tu; Poetry w/ Bill Gainer, 7pm W, call for cover

ACE OF SPADES THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19

AUGUST BURNS RED

MISS MAY I - NORTHLANE, ERRA

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

ALL AGES WELCOME!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9

COAL CHAMBER

FILTERS - COMBICHRIST - AMERICAN HEAD CHARGE TUESDAY, MARCH 10

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20

NIPSEY HUSSLE SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21

BONE THUGSN-HARMONY SOULJAH SNOOP LOC SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28

SPICE1, B LEGIT, RICHIE RICH, CELLY CEL, SAN QUINN, RBL POSSE GUCE - LEE MAJORS - RAPPIN’ 4 TAY -MARVALESS -T-NUTTY - CALI BEAR GANG

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18

IN FLAMES

ALL THAT REMAINS - WOVENWAR

Crystal Bowersox 7pm Sunday, $25.

Harlow’s Folk rock

MOTIONLESS IN WHITE

FOR TODAY - NEW YEARS DAY ICE NINE KILLS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11

FLYLEAF

ADELITAS WAY - FRAMING HANLEY FIT FOR RIVALS - SAGES THURSDAY, MARCH 12

SECONDHAND SERENADE / RYAN CABRERA

RUNAWAY SAINTS - WIND IN SAILS - NICK THOMAS

SUNDAY, MARCH 15

COMMON KINGS RIOTMAKER

COMING

SOON

03/17 03/18 03/21 03/22 03/24 03/27 03/28 03/29 04/02 04/09 04/11 04/12 04/13 04/14 04/15 04/16 04/17 04/19 04/20 04/21 04/23 04/25 05/17

Walk The Moon J Boog Rebel Souljahz The Devil Wears Prada Dan & Shay Adrian Marcel, Ray Dogg & Netta Brielle Chelsea Grin Tierra & Malo IAMSU! Apocalyptica The Maine George Ezra Blue October Antemasque Reverend Horton Heat Lights Sturgill Simpson Royal Blood TechN9ne Enter Shikari Kalin and Myles Parmalee The Waterboys

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT ALL DIMPLE RECORDS LOCATIONS AND ARMADILLO RECORDS, OR PURCHASE BY PHONE @ 916.443.9202 SN&R BEFORE | NEWS | FEATURE STORY | A RT S & C U LT U R E | AFTER | 02.19.15 | |

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BEWARE OF FAKE CHECK SCAMS Fake check scams are clever ploys designed to steal your money.

You can avoid becoming a victim by recognizing how the scam works and understanding your responsiblity for the checks that you deposit in your account.

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This reminder is a public service of the N&R

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Change the lives of others while creating a sustainable future.

1, 6, 9, 18 month programs available. Apply today! www.OneWorldCenter.org 269-591-0518 info@oneworldcenter.org

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Guilt means you think you did a bad, bad thing. It’s your conscience reminding you that you willfully ignored your intuition.

Got a problem?

Write Joey, 1124 Del Paso Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95815; call (916) 498-1234, ext. 3206; or email askjoey@ newsreview.com.

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My boyfriend and I broke up for seven months.

I was devastated when he left. I slept around a lot, trying to ignore the pain of missing him. I’ve never done anything like that before.

Over winter break, he and I ran into each other at a party. All of the old feelings were still there. We talked, hooked up that night and got back together. I was hoping that it would be like it

by Joey ga was between us before and it rcia was, at first. But now I feel so guilty over all the guys I was a s k j o e y @ne w s re v i e w . c o m with while we were broken up.

Should I tell my boyfriend? Or is it better to keep it to myself? I Joey haven’t told anyone about sleeping loves the season around, not even my best friend. of Lent.

Please help me.

I believe wholeheartedly in telling the truth, but, in your case, timing is everything. Let’s get you ready for the day when you and your man talk about the “in-between” (as in “in between the time we broke up and got back together”).

Write, email or leave a message for Joey at the News & Review.

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Begin by unwrapping your feelings. Guilt means you think you did a bad, bad thing. It’s your conscience reminding you that you willfully ignored your intuition. In other words, your intuition messaged your brain and said you would regret those sexcapades. Ah well, we all make bad choices sometimes, right?

Forgive yourself for denying your inner guidance system. Commit to listening and tending to your intuition in the future.

Be kind to yourself, too. You were broken up with your boyfriend when you hooked up with those other men; you didn’t cheat on him. You did cheat on yourself, however. If you want healing, learn how to deal with grief sanely: talk to a psychologist, write in your journal, practice meditation with a teacher or read my book, When Your Heart Breaks, It’s Opening to Love: Healing and Finding Love After a Heartbreak, Affair or Divorce. Engage in activities that invite a deeper selfawareness, not a denial of pain.

P.S. If you haven’t already, please schedule an appointment with your gynecologist.

What is it with guys talking marriage on the first, second or third date?

Whatever happened to hanging out and getting to know each other? Why are they investigating what I’m doing every night and acting like I’m the one? It is such a turnoff.

Some people do put commitment before the conversations that determine compatibility. It’s either a misguided understanding of relationships or an awkward attempt to seduce you. Don’t bother wasting energy on feeling indignant. Tell your date you never talk marriage until after 731 days as a couple. That should keep his head spinning long enough for you to decide whether you’d rather be home alone. And, if a man you’re attracted to talks marriage on the first date, be honest.

Say that marrying a stranger might work on a reality show but it’s not your style in real life.

Beware, ladies! I met a man online whose dating profile stated he was searching for his soul mate. Our profiles were a match so I emailed him. I explained that I was also a psychologist and invited him to coffee. He emailed back saying that he was only interested in friendships, not dates. I asked why he didn’t state that honestly in his profile. He agreed that he should have. Now, he is teaching classes on how to date online. A girlfriend told me that this man was never single but pretended to be single to do “research” online.

What a creep!

It’s possible that this man has changed since the email exchange with you. But if not, be grateful that you escaped the experience of dating a dishonest man. That’s worth celebrating, right? Ω

Meditation of the Week “A happy life must be, to a great extent, a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live,” wrote Bertrand Russell.

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Pipes and organs Hey, I hear the California Legislature is all fired up about marijuana regulations. What have you heard?

—Wanda “Fired up” may be too strong a phrase. Most of the legislation that has been introduced is mostly the same as last year. I don’t think that anything is going to happen on the regulation front for a while.

However, the Medical Cannabis Organ EALUM B Transplant Act (AB 258, introduced by IO A G N by Assemblyman Marc Levine) is an important bill that would allow medical cannabis patients to receive organ transplants. As it stands now, people a sk420 @ n ewsreview.c om have been denied transplants solely because they use medical cannabis. Because marijuana is still listed as a DEA Schedule I drug (no acceptable medical use), many hospitals classify any cannabis use as “substance abuse” and will deny transplants even if a doctor has recommended cannabis as a medicine. More than one person has died after being removed from the transplant list because they used cannabis.

We all need to call our representatives and tell them “Water pipe”? You can to support this bill. I admit I have a personal stake in go ahead and call this issue: My good friend it a bong. Yamileth Bolanos (she helped me start the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance) is a liver transplant recipient and a medical cannabis user. She received a liver transplant 18 years ago, but get this: The same doctor that told her to use marijuana to help alleviate her symptoms also told her that she would be ineligible for the transplant list if (God forbid) she ever needed a new liver. This sort of ridiculousness is what happens when we let politics get in the way of science and common sense. Please write, call and email your representatives and tell them to pass this bill.

Lives depend on it.

I want to get a nice water pipe, but the only place to smoke it would be in my apartment, which isn’t really ideal because I have poor ventilation and I don’t want to give off any smell or leave any residue. Are there any truly effective ways to reduce the smoke produced by a water pipe, or should I just drop the plan entirely? I currently use a pipe with a canvas case and a Smokebuddy for the exhale, which seems to be working fine.

—Antsy “Water pipe”? You can go ahead and call it a bong.

We are all adults and I don’t work at a head shop. You should probably stick with what you have. Bongs create huge clouds of smoke and bong water is stinky. And for those that don’t know: A “Smokebuddy” is a commercially available higher-tech version of the “dryer sheet in the paper-towel tube” trick. It’s a pretty good product, though I don’t understand why all of their advertising features half-naked women. I mean, I do understand, but still. Anyway, I have seen some bongish (water pipeesque?) attachments for home vaporizers on the Internet.

But really, a good, clean pipe is the best way to smoke.

If you want cooler smoke, get a longer pipe. Ω

Ngaio Bealum

is a Sacramento comedian, activist and marijuana expert.

Email him questions at ask420@ newsreview.com.

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by AAROn CARnes

ARIES (March 21-April 19): There are

many different facets to your intelligence, and each matures at a different rate. So for example, your ability to think symbolically may evolve more slowly than your ability to think abstractly. Your wisdom about why humans act the way they do may ripen more rapidly than your insight into your own emotions. In the coming weeks, I expect one particular aspect of your intelligence to be undergoing a growth spurt: your knowledge of what your body needs and how to give it what it needs.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): What is

the proper blend for you these days? Is it something like 51 percent pleasure and 49 percent business? Or would you be wiser to shoot for 49 percent pleasure and 51 percent business? I will leave that decision up to you, Taurus. Whichever way you go, I suggest that you try to interweave business and pleasure as often as possible.

You are in one of those action-packed phases when fun dovetails really well with ambition. I’m guessing that you can make productive connections at parties. I’m betting that you can spice up your social life by taking advantage of what comes to you through your work.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In 1900, the

world’s most renowned mathematicians met at a conference in Paris. There, the German whiz David Hilbert introduced his master list of 23 unsolved mathematical problems. At the time, no one had done such an exhaustive inventory. His well-defined challenge set the agenda for math research throughout the 20th century. Today he’s regarded as an influential visionary. I’d love to see you come up with a list of your own top unsolved problems, Gemini. You now have extra insight about the catalytic projects you will be smart to work on and play with during the coming years.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):

“Spanipelagic” is an adjective scientists use to describe creatures that typically hang out in deep water but float up to the surface on rare occasions. The term is not a perfect metaphorical fit for you, since you come up for air more often than that. But you do go through phases when you’re inclined to linger for a long time in the abyss, enjoying the dark mysteries and fathomless emotions. According to my reading of the astrological omens, that’s what you’ve been doing lately. Any day now, however, I expect you’ll be rising up from the Great Down Below and headed topside for an extended stay.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): When faced with

a big decision, you might say you want to “sleep on it.” In other words, you postpone your final determination until you gather more information and ripen your understanding of the pressing issues.

And that could indeed involve getting a good night’s sleep. What happens in your dreams may reveal nuances you can’t pry loose with your waking consciousness alone. And even if you don’t recall your dreams, your sleeping mind is busy processing and reworking the possibilities. I recommend that you make liberal use of the “sleep on it” approach in the coming weeks, Leo. Revel in the wisdom that wells up in you as you’re lying down in the dark.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In 1962,

Edward Albee published his play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It won numerous awards and is still performed by modern theater groups. Albee says the title came to him as he was having a beer at a bar in New York City. When he went to the restroom, he spied the words “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” scrawled in soap on the mirror. I urge you to be alert for that kind of inspiration in the coming days, Virgo: unexpected, provocative and out of context. You never know when and where you may be furnished with clues about the next plot twist of your life story.

bRezsny

a regular stipend? Keep this story in mind, Libra, as you contemplate the benefits or rewards that might become available to you. Ask for what you really need, not necessarily what the giver initially offers.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): To make

the cocktail known as Sex on the Beach, you mix together cranberry juice, orange juice, pineapple juice, peach schnapps and vodka. There is also an alternative “mocktail” called Safe Sex on the Beach. It has the same fruit juices, but no alcohol.

Given the likelihood that your inner teenager will be playing an important role in your upcoming adventures, Scorpio, I recommend that you favor the Safe-Sexon-the-Beach metaphor rather than the Sex-on-the-Beach approach. At least temporarily, it’s best to show a bit of protective restraint toward the wild and sometimes erratic juvenile energy that’s pushing to be expressed.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

In Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” a lawyer hires a man named Bartleby to work in his office. At first Bartleby is a model employee, carrying out his assignments with dogged skill. But one day everything begins to change. Whenever his boss instructs him to do a specific task, Bartleby says, “I would prefer not to.” As the days go by, he does less and less, until finally he stops altogether. I’d like to propose, Sagittarius, that you take inspiration from his slowdown. Haven’t you done enough for now? Haven’t you been exemplary in your commitment to the daily struggle? Don’t you deserve a break in the action so you can recharge your psychospiritual batteries? I say yes. Maybe you will consider making this your battle cry: “I would prefer not to.”

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “All

life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” That’s what American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson advised. Even if you’re not naturally inclined to see the potential wisdom of that approach, I invite you to play around with it for the next three weeks. You don’t need to do it forever. It doesn’t have to become a permanent fixture in your philosophy. Just for now, experiment with the possibility that trying lots of experiments will lead you not just to new truths, but to new truths that are fun, interesting and useful.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The

art of the French Aquarian painter Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927) appears in prestigious museums. He isn’t as famous as his fellow impressionists Paul Cézanne and Camille Pissarro, but he wielded a big influence on them both. His career developed slowly because he had to work a day job to earn a living. When he was 50 years old, he won a wad of free money in the national lottery, and thereafter devoted himself full-time to painting. I’m not saying you will enjoy a windfall like that anytime soon, Aquarius, but such an event is possible. At the very least, your income could rise. Your odds of experiencing financial luck will increase to the degree that you work to improve the best gifts you have to offer your fellow humans.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “It isn’t

normal to know what we want,” said pioneering psychologist Abraham Maslow.

“It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.” That’s the bad news, Pisces. The good news is that you may be on the verge of rendering that theory irrelevant. In the coming weeks, you will be better primed to discover what you really want than you have been in a long time. I suggest you do a ritual in which you vow to unmask this treasured secret. Write a formal statement in which you declare your intention to achieve full understanding of the reasons you are alive on this planet.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Edward III, a

medieval English king, had a favorite poet: Geoffrey Chaucer. In 1374, the king promised Chaucer a big gift in appreciation for his talents: a gallon of wine every day for the rest of his life. That’s not the endowment I would have wanted if I had been Chaucer. I’d never get any work done if I were quaffing 16 glasses of wine every 24 hours. Couldn’t I instead be provided with

BEFORE

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NEWS

you can call rob brezsny for your expanded Weekly horoscope: (900) 950-7700. $1.99 per minute. Must be 18+. touchtone phone required. Customer service (612) 373-9785. and don’t forget to check out rob’s website at www.realastrology.com.

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F E AT U R E

photo by eVan duran

by ROb

For the week of February 19, 2015

STORY

Main squeeze When Nubia Murillo first had the idea to open Cap City Squeeze, there were hardly any other juice bars in downtown Sacramento. That’s no longer the case, obviously, but Murillo isn’t worried by the competition. Her spot, at a mere 220 square feet, is a place for people to stop in and grab a quick made-to-order juice blend made from fresh fruits and veggies. Even though Cap City Squeeze is about a year old, Murillo’s not new to juicing. She’s been an avid home-juicer for years, while she held down her previous 9-to-5 job. Now she juices full time, and will be celebrating her one-year anniversary on March 10, when she’ll unveil several new juice recipes to customers. We spoke with her about her business, health and her secret guilty-pleasure food.

Everyone’s juicing— what’s your style?

We use a masticating juicer for our leafy greens. It’s a slow juicer. It crushes it and takes all the juice out of it. And there’s the centrifugal juicer. It has blades and it spins fast and it chops up carrots and celery, cucumbers, beets. There’s another method we don’t use, called press, which turns fruit or vegetable into a pulp. You stick it on a bag and then they press it. Then they jar it up. It’s supposed to give it a shelf life for up to three days without losing any nutrients. It’s the newer method of juicing—it’s a trend. For me, my methods, I thought was a quick and easy way for customers to be able to customize their own juice. A lot of customers come in and they don’t like a certain ingredient. With this centrifugal juicer, it’s made to order, so customers are able to pick and choose what they like.

Why a juice bar?

I worked in marketing for a long time for Spanish TV. I always wanted my own business. When I got pregnant, I thought it was the perfect time to quit my job. It’s been good so far. I juiced at home, but I never had time. It takes time to prep. I had to be at work at 8 a.m. I thought it would be a good idea to set up a little shop for people like myself on their way to work. It’s a good location—close to the Capitol. We got a lot of state workers.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

I love pizza. It’s my favorite, cold pizza preferably.

What’s the secret to making a good juice?

The secret is always adding a fruit. I think for every two or three vegetables, one fruit is good, because that’s what’s sweetens it. At the end of the day, yes, it’s good for you. It should taste good as well.

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A RT S & C U LT U R E

What vegetable are people not getting enough of?

Juicing is trendy.

What sets your business apart?

Kale. It’s got a little bit of a bitter taste.

People look at me like, “Kale, eww, no.”

I blend my kale: for example the Green Destroyer, you actually can’t taste the kale because of the pineapple and the freshsqueezed orange juice, but you still get the benefits of having it.

I like the fact that I’m able to customize my juices. If there’s a certain ingredient they don’t like, they can change that, unlike other juice bars, they’re not made to order. They’re made maybe every other day. They’re stored and they’re cooled. They’re just as good for you, but sometimes customers don’t like celery and the juice comes with celery. I think that’s what sets me apart. I like to be able to tell my customers, yes, we can change it for you. Yes, we can add that, and move things around for them and they walk out of here happy.

Do you get any strange or unusual custom orders?

I do all the time. I try to give good advice ’cause I want it to taste good. I want them to walk out of here happy. Sometimes, if they’re really avid juicers, they like to juice all the time, they want just vegetables and greens. I’ll say, it’s not going to taste as good as if you added an apple but I’m happy to make it for you, like maybe kale, spinach and maybe celery. That tastes like chlorophyll. But you know what, they usually walk away happy.

The space you’re working out of is tiny.

How does that factor into your business?

People can see exactly what we’re doing.

I’m working with 220 square feet. It’s really a stop ’n’ go for people that work, and they’re taking a break, walking around the Capitol, trying to get some exercise. A lot of people like to exercise around the Capitol. I have a sign out there that kind of lures them in this way. |

AFTER

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What do your kids think of your job?

Do they drink juice?

I have a stepson that’s 15-and-a-half. He’s a teenager. At that age they think they know everything, but he’s not really into juicing. I hate to say that. My little baby is, though. I bring him home juices all the time, especially when he’s sick. I like to give him a nice dose of vitamin C. I’ll bring him a Green Destroyer. It has spirulina in it. That usually helps him get through the hump.

My teenager, not so much. He’s more into really sugary drinks. I try to enforce it, but he’s a picky eater. There’s just certain things he doesn’t eat. In the long run, when he gets older, I’m sure he’ll grow into it. Ω Visit http://capcitysqueeze.com for more information.

02.19.15

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SN&R

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