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Multiple violations shuttered the Casino Royale card room— until City Hall stacked the deck for gaming interests

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Sacramento’S newS & entertainment weekly

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Volume 28, iSSue 18

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EditoR’S NotE

AUGUSt 18, 2016 | Vol. 28, iSSUE 18

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20 Our Mission: To publish great newspapers that are successful and enduring. To create a quality work environment that encourages employees to grow professionally while respecting personal welfare. To have a positive impact on our communities and make them better places to live. Editor Rachel Leibrock Associate Editor Raheem F. Hosseini Arts & Culture Editor Janelle Bitker Assistant Editor Anthony Siino Editorial Services Coordinator Karlos Rene Ayala Staff Reporter Scott Thomas Anderson Contributors Daniel Barnes, Ngaio Bealum, Alastair Bland, Rob Brezsny, Aaron Carnes, Jim Carnes, Willie Clark, Deena Drewis, Joey Garcia, Cosmo Garvin, Blake Gillespie, Lovelle Harris, Jeff Hudson, Dave Kempa, Jim Lane, Kel Munger, Kate Paloy, Patti Roberts, Ann Martin Rolke, Shoka, Bev Sykes, Graham Womack Editorial Intern Jeremy Winslow

34 Design Manager Lindsay Trop Art Directors Brian Breneman, Margaret Larkin Production Coordinator Skyler Smith Designer Kyle Shine Marketing/Publications Design Manager Serene Lusano Marketing/Publications Designer Sarah Hansel Contributing Photographers Lisa Baetz, Darin Bradford, Kevin Cortopassi, Evan Duran, Luke Fitz, Jon Hermison, Shoka, Lauran Fayne Worthy Director of Sales and Advertising Corey Gerhard Sales Coordinator Joanna Graves Senior Advertising Consultants Rosemarie Messina, Olla Swanson, Joy Webber, Kelsi White Advertising Consultants Angel De La O, Stephanie Johnson, Matt Kjar, Paul McGuinness, Wendy Russell, Manushi Weerasinghe Director of First Impressions David Lindsay Distribution Director Greg Erwin Distribution Services Assistant Larry Schubert Distribution Drivers Mansour Aghdam, Kimberly Bordenkircher, Daniel Bowen, Heather Brinkley, Allen Brown, Mike Cleary, Jack Clifford, Lydia Comer, Rob Dunnica, Chris Fong, Ron Forsberg, Garry Foster, Joanna Gonzalez-Brown, Greg Meyers, Aswad Morland,

63 Kenneth Powell, Gilbert Quilatan, Lloyd Rongley, Lolu Sholotan, Jonathan Taea N&R Publications Editor Michelle Carl N&R Publications Associate Editor Kate Gonzales N&R Publications Writers Anne Stokes Senior N&R Publications Consultant Dave Nettles N&R Publications Consultants Elena Ruiz, Julie Sherry President/CEO Jeff vonKaenel Director of Nuts & Bolts Deborah Redmond Director of People & Culture David Stogner Marketing/Promotions/Facilities Manager Will Niespodzinski Executive Coordinator Jessica Takehara Project Coordinator Natasha vonKaenel Director of Dollars & Sense Nicole Jackson Payroll/AP Wizard Miranda Dargitz Accounts Receivable Specialist Kortnee Angel Sweetdeals Specialist/HR Coordinator Courtney DeShields Nuts & Bolts Ninja Christina Wukmir Interns Holly Gerhard Senior Support Tech Joe Kakacek Developer John Bisignano, Jonathan Schultz System Support Specialist Kalin Jenkins

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STREETALK LETTERS NEwS + beaTS ScoREKEEpER FEATuRE SToRy ARTS&cuLTuRE NighT&dAy diSh + off MeNu STAgE FiLm muSic + SouNd adVice ASK joEy ThE 420 15 miNuTES

coVER dESigN By BRiAN BRENEmAN coVER iLLuSTRATioN By SERENE LuSANo

1124 Del Paso Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 95815 Phone (916) 498-1234 Fax (916) 498-7910 Website www.newsreview.com Got a News Tip? sactonewstips@newsreview.com Calendar Events www.newsreview.com/calendar Want to Advertise? Fax (916) 498-7910 or snradinfo@newsreview.com Classifieds (916) 498-1234, ext. 5 or classifieds@newsreview.com Job Opportunities jobs@newsreview.com Want to Subscribe to SN&R? sactosubs@newsreview.com Editorial Policies: opinions expressed in SN&R are those of the authors and not of chico community Publishing, inc. contact the editor for permissions to reprint articles, cartoons or other portions of the paper. SN&R is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or review materials. email letters to snrletters@newsreview.com. all letters received become the property of the publisher. We reserve the right to print letters in condensed form and to edit them for libel. Advertising Policies: all advertising is subject to the newspaper’s Standards of acceptance. The advertiser and not the newspaper assumes the responsibility for the truthful content of their advertising message.

Houses of history This weekend, news of Casa de Chaos’  possible fate started to spread. For those unfamiliar with it, Casa is  one of three longstanding “punk houses” located along 21st Street between  P and Q streets. It’s been beloved for  decades as a living space, music venue  and safe haven for Midtown’s original  core of punks, weirdos and misfits. I lived a few blocks away in the ’90s,  and remember it well from my college  days. It wasn’t really my scene, yet I  still hold a certain fondness for its endearing jankiness and its commitment  to good music, bad beer and a spirited  sense of bedlam. Now, its future is in question. The landlord recently informed  tenants of plans to demolish all three  houses, following an assessment that  concluded they didn’t meet requirements to be declared a historic  landmark.  I get it. Midtown’s changing. The  chance for profit is huge. Still, these  houses represent decades of Midtown  at its most Midtown—before farm-tofork, nightclubs and the arena. On Wednesday, the Sacramento  Preservation Commission was scheduled to meet at City Hall, with Casa  supporters expected to show up for  public comment. The goal: to contest  the historic assessment evaluation.  For those who couldn’t make the  meeting, there are other ways to  participate. For starters, contact the  City of Sacramento’s preservation  director, Roberta Deering, at   rdeering@cityofsacramento.org by  August 26 to ask the city to   reconsider. This isn’t just a matter of nostalgia;  it’s about preserving this city’s gritty  bones. I’m not against change, but  there should be a balance—a respect  for those who built the foundation.

—Rachel leibRock r a c h e ll@ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

SN&R is printed at bay area News Group on recycled newsprint. circulation of SN&R is verified by the circulation Verification council. SN&R is a member of Sacramento Metro chamber of commerce, cNPa, aaN and aWN.

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4   |   SN&R   |   08.18.16

“I Went there to see the ChrIstIan metal band, stryper.”

Asked outside of dutch Brothers coffee on MAdison And sAn JuAn Avenues:

What was the best concert you saw?

Jo Johnson legal assistant

Bill Medley [of the Righteous Brothers] when he was at the Crest Theatre. It brought back lots of memories of high school. He brought his daughter out and they did the duets; you know his partner [Bobby Hatfield] passed away. It was just wonderful. He was really funny. He would sing and do all of the moves.

dorothy Bl Asy retired

James Brown at the Memorial Auditorium when I was in high school. It was fun and full of energy. He did this thing with the cape, he would go off-stage and then he’d come back on and they would throw another cape on him. The favorite song from the night was “Please, Please, Please.”

scot t Beret te shop owner

We flew up to Seattle and met my brother, his wife and kids. I went there to see the Christian metal band, Stryper. It was about seven years ago. It was a wedding gift from my wife to go with my brother. Stryper still plays like they did back in the’80s. My favorite song was “Soldiers Under Command.”

Ashle y PorrecA bartender

Tesla at the Fox Theatre in Oakland with my dad and my little brother. It was a blast. My dad is my best friend and so is my little brother. We don’t really get to do a lot of things together so it was great. We stayed late. [We had] cocktails before and after.

Mel Anie heil

donovAn konhnert

bakery clerk

artist

I had just graduated and Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Johnny Gill played at what was Arco Arena at the time. It was the early ’80s. My friend got us tickets and we all went. The atmosphere was a lot of fun. People were having a great time and were happy. It was sold out.

Authority Zero came through for Concerts In the Park. I have wanted to see them since I was 5 or 6 years old. I grew up with two older brothers listening to them so it was automatically the coolest thing ever. They were coming through 10 days before my birthday. I had a blast.

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ONLINE BUZZ

Email lEttErs to sactolEttErs@nEwsrEviEw.com.

Oh, OK

Check your privilege Re “Female privilege” by Fred Hayward (SN&R Letters, August 11): Hi, Fred! I went ahead and started that “female privilege”  column you were asking about. I’m certain other readers will be  able to add more to this very, very brief list. After all, there is a  200-word limit. 1.)  I can walk down the street and face unchecked harassment. 2.)  I can have strangers condemn and insult me for legally  breastfeeding my baby in public. 3.)  I can get sent home from school for wearing “provocative  clothing” (shorts).  4.)  I get to have “blood coming out of [my] eyes; blood coming  out of [my] wherever.” 5.)  I can watch as females get significantly underrepresented in  film and television programs. 6.)  I can get paid 78 cents to the male* dollar. That becomes significantly less if I am a Black, Latina, or Native American woman   (64 cents, 54 cents, 58 cents, respectively). (*White male) 7.) I can have people blame me for my own rape.

A. HuertA S acr ame nt o

Re “Female privilege” by Fred Hayward (SN&R Letters, August 11): I am a white, 67-year-old, retired middle-class person and a product of a less-than-middle class upbringing with no privilege, especially when it came to the draft during the Vietnam War. I found Fred’s letter to be spot on. Dennis Johnson Woodland

Out of gas Re “Crocker Village’s stunted growth” by Alastair Bland (SN&R News, August 11): The author states that “Petrovich offered to placate their concerns by relocating the gas station.” A small amount of investigation would show the fact that Petrovich rescinded the offer almost immediately. The author also describes how the

lawsuit states the gas station was a “core piece” of Petrovich’s plan. The Environmental Impact Report, the original PUD, and numerous other documents that are all accessible via the city’s website do not even mention a gas station. Scott Johnson Sacramento

Say thanks Re “Allen Warren’s neighborhood” by Raheem F. Hosseini (SN&R News, August 4): Let’s not forget that Mr. Warren has cracked down on illegal dumping of junk and debris in vacant lots and graffiti. This is major, because as a resident of Del Paso Heights, these things impact our quality of life and add to the negative stigma about our neighborhoods. Thank you, Mr. Warren. Ramona Landeros Sacramento

On the COmmunity Outrage and delayS hOlding up develOpment in CrOCKer village: I’m amazed that I am sympathetic  to a developer’s position. At the  City Council hearing on the gas  station, the denizens of Curtis Park  didn’t offer to give up their cars— they just wanted the gas station in  someone else’s neighborhood.

AliSon BrennAn v ia Fa c e b o o k I live across the street from this  eyesore... It is a couple of people  from a neighborhood that only  holds a handful of folks that oppose  this. Politics and closed door money  exchanges have shut it down.

tony SoFiA v ia Fa c e b o o k

@SacNewsReview

Facebook.com/ SacNewsReview

@SacNewsReview

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

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Multiple violations shuttered the Casino Royale card room—until City Hall stacked the deck for gaming interests BY SCOTT THOMAS ANDERSON

8   |   SN&R   |   08.18.16

scotta@newsreview.com

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BET

Despite Casino Royale’s documented troubles, Sacramento’s city council voted to ease regulations that would allow the card room to reopen in south Sacramento.

On a rainy evening in April, William Blanas sat in the Sacramento City Council chambers waiting to see if elected officials would reshuffle the rules in his favor. Blanas co-owns a troubled gambling hall that has repeatedly run afoul of both state and city regulations. In the last four years, his Casino Royale has flopped a bad hand of documented troubles—from not paying its winners to having its state and city licenses revoked. The card room is also at the center of two ongoing lawsuits, one of which includes an accusation of fraud via Blanas himself. Son of former Sheriff Lou Blanas, William Blanas recently accused his partner, majority owner James Kouretas, of a host of financial improprieties: His own paychecks had been inexplicably shrinking and the business records were being kept from him, his lawsuit claims. Adding to the portrait of a questionable enterprise, state investigators documented that Casino Royale was heavily underfunded most nights, and sometimes even failed to cash out winners. The operation had at that time been shuttered for 17 months. Yet there Blanas was, inside of City Hall, proverbial hat in hand, asking his elected officials to deal in him and his partner once again. Despite everything that had happened between them, Blanas and Kouretas wanted to reopen the card room and move its location for the second time since 2013. As he waited, Blanas’ attorney asked the city council to erode one of the safeguards that held Casino Royale to

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account for its various failures and missteps. And the council did, voting 7-1 in favor of easing its card room regulations across the board, which raises the question: How many times does a swindler get to sit at the table? When it comes to Sacramento’s lucrative but controversial gambling business, it all comes down, predictably, to money. Casino Royale may not have had enough to pay its winners, but the business and its allies had more than enough cash to give to council members who voted in favor of easing restrictions against local gambling halls. Thanks to those elected officials, it’s now even easier to be in the betting business. As for potential negative long-term impacts on residents and neighborhoods, their luck may be running out.

NO 007s At this tABle While Sacramento has four licensed card room operations, Casino Royale is the one the city’s finance department has dealt with regularly since 2012. That’s when the card room approached officials about moving from Auburn Boulevard near the edge of Del Paso Heights into the Red Lion Hotel on Leisure Way in north Sacramento. As reported at the time by SN&R (see “Slot calling” by Raheem F. Hosseini, SN&R News, December 13, 2012), the relocation faced pushback from many Woodlake residents. Yet, with former City Manager Bob

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endangered children Thomas working as their consultant, Casino Royale’s owners convinced officials to sign off on the move. Woodlake homeowners had fears of increased crime and traffic, but that’s not what proved to be the card room’s undoing. According to the lawsuit against Kouretas, Blanas started getting worried about cash flow around September 2013. The suit claims Kouretas undersold Blanas on the expenses of relocation while overselling him on a potential windfall from setting up inside Red Lion. Blanas, the suit states, noticed “a reduction of his partnership distribution of Casino Royale profits”—meaning he was getting paid less. He asked to review the financial records, but alleges that Kouretas evaded his requests for weeks. Blanas eventually announced he’d be showing up at Casino Royale with an auditor approved by the California Gambling Control Commission. Blanas and the inspector arrived the night before Halloween 2013. Blanas recalls in the suit that he and the auditor were met by Kouretas’ sister, Karen Kouretas, who identified herself as “an owner” and then “falsely represented that Casino Royale did not keep the financial records requested by Blanas on the card room’s grounds.” By May 2014, Blanas had served Kouretas with papers accusing him of “fraud, faulty accounting and abdication of fiduciary duties.” An attorney for Kouretas said his client couldn’t comment on pending litigation. Blanas did not respond to interview requests through his attorney from SN&R. Five months later, state investigators turned to Casino Royale. Records from the California Gambling Control Commission indicate that, on October 10 and 11 of 2014, a player at Casino Royale won $60,200. When the gambler attempted to cash in his chips, the card room could only pay him $20,000, and issued him an IOU for the rest. Within five days, the state gambling commission was conducting a probe of Casino Royale. Card rooms, unlike casinos, earn profits by taking a portion of winnings from each hand, or by charging players to sit at the table for a specified time period. In writing a summary of four separate on-site reviews his agency

admitted all of the state investigators’ conducted, Chief Wayne J. Quint Jr. allegations and findings against the of the California Bureau of Gambling card room. Their state license was Control noted the card room “lacked handed back. sufficient available funds to cover its Casino Royale faced no additional chips-in-use, the players’ banks, the penalties beyond the revocation. That’s player-funded jackpots and housenot uncommon, noted Eric Petosky, a funded jackpots.” spokesman for the California Gambling On each visit by his inspectors, Control Commission. Petosky said that Quint added, Casino Royale was when card rooms are underfunded, the underfunded by tens of thousands of moratorium allows the owners time to dollars and was even short $325,215 on make financial decisions. one particular day. “The commissioners Based on these findwant card rooms to ings, the gambling operate legally as control commission defined by statute revoked Casino In October 2014, a player rather than Royale’s state shutter them gaming license at Casino Royale won permanently,” in November $60,200. When the gambler Petosky of that year. attempted to cash in his chips, explained. “In And, after the this case, both casino had been the card room could only pay parties agreed on nonoperational him $20,000. the settlement.” for more than 90 The very same days, Sacramento day, Blanas and officials revoked his attorney appeared the card room’s city before the Sacramento City license in February 2015, Council, urging its members to according to a staff report from the change the rules so that card rooms Sacramento Department of Finance. could be nonoperational for signifiCity rules had previously never cantly longer periods of time without allowed card rooms to keep a license automatically losing a city license. during a long-term closure. Yet Up to that point, the city code Sacramento council members would had dictated that any card room that eventually undo that code. was out of commission for more than all in 90 days would have its city license revoked. In cases when a new permit Just as Casino Royale’s regulatory was requested, that period could be problems overtook it, some city extended, or “tolled,” by the city’s staffers and elected officials appeared finance department for up to six to want to keep it alive and dealing, months. documents show. According to a spokeswoman for During the same period that the department, a representative to Casino Royale’s gaming license was explain the rules of the permit wasn’t suspended by the city, it had also available for comment. submitted a request to Sacramento According to his report to the city officials to relocate yet again, this time council, Sacramento Revenue Manager to Little Saigon Plaza at 6790 Stockton Brad Wasson refused to give Casino Boulevard. The move was prohibited Royale that six-month extension when while its city and state licenses were the state shut it down because he found revoked, so—despite the legal battle other parts of its relocation request between its owners—Casino Royale “incomplete.” officially appealed both revocations. Nonetheless, Blanas’ attorney Ken According to a city staff report, the Bacon told council members on April Finance Department put the issue on 14 that six months wouldn’t be enough hold until Casino Royale moved past time, anyway, for any card room to its problems with California regulators. deal with all of the city’s regulations In April, the state’s gambling for moving. Casino Royale might control commission settled its regain both its licenses, but it could complaint against Casino Royale. According to records from that settleCONTINUED ment, Casino Royale’s ownership ON PAGE 10

Sacramento County officials aren’t fully committed to keeping children alive, relinquishing their share of the responsibility to an overworked, understaffed agency, an influential oversight committee determined in its latest annual report. The Child Protective Systems Oversight Committee unveiled its latest temperature-take on the beleaguered Child Protective Services agency August 9 to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors. Along with carrying over a finding from last year—that too many social workers lack critical thinking skills and don’t ably coordinate with their partners in law enforcement, hospitals and schools—the report opined that the county lacked a sense of urgency for stopping the deaths of children from abuse and neglect. “This community-wide commitment appears lacking in Sacramento County,” the report states. “We recognize that a continued lack of adequate attention and resources means these deaths and critical incidents will continue to happen.” That damning assessment came courtesy of a subcommittee that examined eight incidents from 2015 that each led to a child’s death or near-death. The children ranged in age from 11 weeks to 10 years. In one case, CPS wasn’t alerted when a parent was admitted on a psychiatric hold, leaving her child with the boyfriend who ultimately killed the child. (Raheem F. Hosseini)

Judge not lest ye Be audited After more than five decades of unquestioned existence, a state judicial oversight agency will finally be audited. Members of the California Legislature’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee ordered the inquiry last week into the california commission on Judicial Performance, which has a slow, lenient track record when it comes to uncovering judicial misconduct. “This is a huge first step,” said Tamir Sukkary, an adjunct political science professor at American River and Sierra colleges in Sacramento and a member of a coalition that has been calling for stricter oversight of the CJP. “We really had to work for it.” Just this year, the CJP publicly disciplined Sacramento County Judge Jaime r. roman for abusing his authority on multiple occasions over several years. But that kind of action is rare. Of the 1,245 complaints the commission fielded last year, only two resulted in public admonishments. Another 37 judges were privately admonished or received advisory letters. The average length of time to dispose of a complaint was more than three months. Sukkary is hoping the audit looks into these issues, as well as the panel’s spending habits, strict closed-door policies and general responsiveness to the public. Sukkary worked with an advocacy group called Court Reform LLC that requests more transparency in judicial proceedings, including cameras in the courtroom and electronic document filing. Sukkary believes the group’s months-long calls for a state audit were swept up by a populist outcry in June, when Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky meted out a lenient sentence to convicted rapist Brock turner. “The timing was good for this,” Sukkary said. Both the First Amendment Coalition and Sacramento branch of the NAACP joined Court Reform LLC’s demand for an audit. Its founder, Joe Sweeney, says he was recently ordered to serve 25 days in jail on a contempt finding by a Contra Costa Superior Court judge whom the CJP has disciplined multiple times, Sukkary said. “There’s a possibility, at least, that this could be retaliatory,” Sukkary said. (RFH)

“BAD BET”

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“BAD BET”

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lose its city license again if the permits or public hearings around the Stockton Boulevard move proved time-consuming. Casino Royale was still technically afoul of the very rule Bacon mentioned at that council meeting. A month after Bacon’s comments, city council voted to have the card room’s bid to regain its city license reviewed by an administrative hearing examiner at McGeorge School of Law, who’d brokered a settlement by June for the license to be reinstated. Documents from that ruling don’t reveal the examiner’s reasoning, though Sacramento officials showed their own hand. A draft of the settlement from the City Attorney’s office reads that Sacramento officials were agreeing to give the license back “to preserve the existence of the City’s fourth authorized card room.” The document raises questions about whether it was more important for the city to keep Casino Royale in business than let it fall victim to gambling safeguards. Yet it’s the city council’s actions on April 14 that had to be re-reviewed by the state gambling commission. That’s when the council followed Blanas’ advice to extend the amount of time a card room could be nonoperational without losing its city license from six months to 21 months. In the case of Casino Royale, it was Sacramento’s previous code that triggered the suspension of its city license and would have remained a roadblock to reopening on Stockton Boulevard. Despite the fact that Casino Royale’s minority owner was still actively suing its majority owner for alleged fraud and mismanagement, and that the card room faced another lawsuit from members of the United Auburn Indian Community, claiming it runs illegal gambling—and despite the card room’s history of license revocations—at least one council member acknowledged he was casting his vote to help Casino Royale. During the April 14 meeting, District 2 Councilman Allen Warren said that relaxing the rules would “allow more flexibility as it relates in particular to the Casino Royale case.” Warren may have been holding the prospects for Casino Royale and the region’s other gambling dens closer to the vest than he revealed. 10   |   SN&R   |   08.18.16

Records from Sacramento’s Elections Department document that Warren had already received $2,100 in campaign contributions from Capitol Casino and the owners of Thunder Valley Casino Resort. Within weeks of voting to ease restrictions against gambling halls, Warren received new campaign contributions of $500 from Capitol Casino and $250 directly from Blanas. Warren didn’t return messages for comment. Six other council members voted with Warren, including District 8 Councilman Larry Carr, who said during the hearing he’d toured one of the city’s card rooms and found it to be clean and professional. Three weeks after the vote, Carr also received a $600 campaign contribution from Sacramento’s Capitol Casino. District 1 Councilwoman Angelique Ashby, who also voted to change the rules, received a $2,000 campaign contribution the same month from Communities for California Cardrooms, an organization headed by Clark Rosa, the owner of Capitol Casino. Ashby didn’t respond to SN&R’s request for comment. By June the cards were on the table: Casino Royale was moving forward with its Stockton Boulevard plan in Councilman Eric Guerra’s District 6, though its owner and other gambling interests had given money to Warren’s campaign, whose district Casino Royale first left on Auburn Boulevard.

Understanding the ante It’s 4 a.m., and bettors are hunched over mini arenas of action at Capitol Casino on North 16th Street. Several tables are packed shoulder to shoulder along the edges of the main room, and three more are filled with insomniac luck seekers. The air is filled with the rhythmic jangle of chips contacting before they slide—a faint, everpresent soundtrack, like maracas moving decks along or people betting to the clink of toy rattles. This is the operation Rosa’s been running for years, a clean, well-lit landscape of uniformed security guards, with speakers switching between country music and dance hits of the 1990s.

As Carr and District 3 Councilman Jeff Harris said at the April hearing, there’s no signs of scams or shenanigans from the shadowy ranks of racketeering. Five hours from now, the Limelight Bar, Cafe and Cardroom will open in East Sacramento. Similar to Capitol, the card room’s a tidy joint. Both card rooms have full-time security, but not as much as the Parkwest Casino Lotus, a gaming destination at 6010 Stockton Boulevard. If Casino Royale reopens in south Sacramento, it will give Stockton Boulevard two gambling operations within a mile and a half of one other. For neighbors and law enforcement, that equals twice as many late-night card players walking to their vehicles near the boulevard, and hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting in two caged rooms between the businesses. The concerns go beyond safety, too. Nancy Xiong, an organizer with the South Sacramento grassroots group Hmong Innovating Politics, says she thinks gambling halls and casinos are already harming the large South Asian-American community around Stockton Boulevard. “The casinos really hurt our families,” Xiong said. “They target our elders, many of whom feel isolated, or are already dealing with mental-health issues like PTSD from escaping the war in Vietnam and having the refugee experience. They may see gambling as a way to escape their problems, but often it ends up exacerbating those problems.” Guerra did not respond for comment on the District 6 impacts. And the opportunity for such problems just keeps growing. New changes to Sacramento’s gaming code have upped the number of poker tables that card rooms can have from 15 to 17, and also clarified that the betting limit in the city is $1,000 per bet, rather than per hand—the distinction meaning a single player can work multiple spots on one table. Gambling critics, who may want to revisit these changes with Sacramento’s incoming mayor, Darrell Steinberg, will have to make peace with the $61,000 he’s received from gambling interests, including several thousand from Communities for California Cardrooms.

If Casino Royale reopens in south Sacramento, it will give Stockton Boulevard two gambling operations within a mile and a half of one other. A representative from Steinberg’s office said the mayorelect was out-of-town and unavailable for comment. Meanwhile, card room proponents continue to stress the community benefits of their operations. When Rosa addressed the council in April, he emphasized that Capitol Casino employed 202 people. When the Limelight’s and Lotus’ payrolls were factored in, Rosa continued, card rooms provided more than 500 jobs in the city. Rosa warned such benefits might end if Sacramento’s officials didn’t give card room owners maximum flexibility to compete with California tribes and card rooms in Rancho Cordova and Folsom. “We’re already, in the entire area, the only ones that have a $1,000 limit, when everyone else has no limit,” Rosa testified. Rosa didn’t respond to SN&R’s request for further comment. Each of the council members who voted to change the gaming code offered varying comments about wanting to take the pulse of Sacramento’s four licensed card rooms owners. That included Harris, Guerra and Councilman Jay Schenirer, the three supporting the change who didn’t take money from those very stakeholders after the vote. District 4 Councilman Steve Hansen was the lone voice of dissent back in April. (Mayor Kevin Johnson had already ducked out of the meeting.) Hansen expressed concerns that the council was encouraging gambling, and

doing so simply because business owners like Rosa and Blanas asked them. “We regulate [gambling] directly,” Hansen pointed out. “This notion that instead of making a decision, which is our legislative power, we would delegate that legislative decision to a group of stakeholders … saying, ‘Let’s not make a decision, let’s turn it over to the stakeholders so they can make it for us,’ so we can just take that decision spoon-fed—that doesn’t make any sense to me.” Hansen’s remarks drew a direct response from Ashby. “While I appreciate the civics lesson in what local government does, it’s important to include our stakeholders,” she told Hansen, adding that if council did not change Sacramento’s gaming rules its card rooms might be forced to close. “It’s not going to stop people from gambling, it’s just going to stop them from using our businesses in Sacramento,” Ashby challenged. Before getting out-voted on the alterations, Hansen wondered aloud why every council member using the term stakeholder was referring exclusively to card room owners, rather than addicted gamblers or impacted neighborhoods. “This is simply a process that’s being driven by the very people who benefit most from it, and that’s not a fair process,” Hansen said. Ω

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Attorneys for a mentally troubled man gunned down by police last month say one of the officers who shot him was plagued by his own demons. The veteran officer, identified by the Sacramento Police Department and court documents as John C. Tennis, was one of two police officers who shot Joseph Mann at least 16 times during a July 11 encounter in north Sacramento, according to a federal lawsuit, after police received reports of an armed subject acting erratically. Mann’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court against Tennis, fellow Officer Randy Lozoya, the Sacramento Police Department and the city, and is seeking an unspecified monetary amount in damages as well as an admission of wrongdoing. According to an amended federal complaint filed last week, Tennis was temporarily stripped of his ability to carry a firearm in 2011, when an El Dorado County judge granted his then-wife’s restraining order request based on her allegations of domestic violence and child abuse. SN&R also uncovered two civil complaints against Tennis from earlier in his career, one of which alleged excessive force. Civil-rights attorney John L. Burris revealed the new information during an August 11 press conference outside the federal courthouse in Sacramento. Flanked by his co-counsels and Mann’s family members, Burris insisted the restraining order and a later internal affairs investigation into Tennis’ alleged alcohol abuse made the officer unfit for duty and should have resulted in his termination prior to his confronting Mann that summer morning on a patch of sidewalk between a saloon and tattoo parlor on Del Paso Boulevard. “That’s the tragedy of this,” Burris told reporters. “This officer and the department’s conduct toward him has contributed to the death of this man, and it shouldn’t have happened.” Burris used the press conference to renew his calls for the police department to release any video evidence documenting the events that ended the life of Mann, whose mental state spiraled following the 2011 death of his mother, his family said. So far, one shaky cellphone video recorded by a bystander has surfaced. Covering the two minutes leading up to Mann’s death, it depicts Mann standing in the middle of the street, bending at the waist and karate-chopping the air. Two patrol SUVs face him, their passenger doors open with officers standing behind them and pointing their guns. Mann turns and walks to the sidewalk

r a h e e mh @ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

as the SUVs trail behind. Officers on foot quickly close the distance between them and Mann. The cellphone camera drops as a rapid succession of gunshots ring out. Mann’s family and their attorneys claim the video shows Mann was unarmed at the time of his killing, but it’s difficult to make out from the jittery, distant footage. But the video also doesn’t support the police’s claim that Mann turned aggressively toward officers before they opened fire. “They brutally murdered my brother, and they need to be held accountable,” said Robert Mann, who told SN&R he wanted criminal charges brought against the officers. Burris said he didn’t know if the officers involved in the shooting were outfitted with body cameras. Funding was secured late last year for a pilot program that could provide the department with 400 body cameras, seperate city documents show. Burris and his co-counsels say they are interested in any and all footage, as patrol cars are equipped with dashboard digital recorders and a stopped light-rail train may have also captured some of the incident. Burris said the police department’s intransigence to releasing footage is hurting its credibility. “I’ve turned down cases after I’ve seen the video,” he said. “There’s no reason not to let the family see the video.” A police spokesman previously told SN&R the department’s policy prevented it from releasing video evidence to the public, which includes the relatives of victims of police shootings. But the central revelation from last week’s press conference had to do with Tennis, a 25-year veteran of the department whose dissolved marriage has become a matter of public discourse. During a 2011 divorce proceeding, Tennis faced allegations of violence and child abuse, and was served with a temporary restraining order that prohibited him from possessing a firearm or ammunition, the amended federal complaint states. Tennis only got his gun back after he and his department asked El Dorado Superior Court Judge Kenneth Melikian to grant Tennis an exemption so he could continue his employment as a Sacramento police officer, documents show. “The Sacramento Police Department is unable to re-assign Officer Tennis to another position where a firearm is unnecessary,” a letter signed

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by then-Deputy Chief Sam Somers, the police chief, says in support of Tennis’ request. Burris said Tennis shouldn’t have been allowed back on the force, certainly not with a gun, after being served with a restraining order. “There was a reason the judge [ordered] that he could not have a gun,” Burris said. “He can’t have a gun at home, but he can have one on the street. … That should not happen.” Restraining orders are generally considered in two phases, said John E.B. Myers, a professor at the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law. First, a petitioner requests what’s called an ex-parte temporary restraining order, or TRO. That’s just paperwork in which the judge decides whether the allegations are serious enough to support the initial order until an evidentiary hearing can be held with both sides present. That’s what Tennis received, and the order was ultimately lifted, an attorney for the Mann family confirmed. Rick Braziel, the former Sacramento police chief, who now serves as inspector general over the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, said that most law enforcement agencies, including Sacramento’s, will terminate employees whose restraining orders are upheld on violent grounds. “By John Tennis getting his weapon back, the judge would have had to determine that there was no cause for domestic violence,” Braziel said. “Otherwise, John Tennis would have been fired.” The police department released a lengthy statement following the August 11 press conference, essentially saying it wouldn’t comment on the ongoing lawsuit. Following announcement of the lawsuit, SN&R found two civil cases in which Tennis was named as a co-defendant. Both cases were filed in Sacramento Superior Court, though “He can’t have few other details were available. In 1998, Tennis was one of a gun at home, but seven police officers named as he can have one on the a defendant in a civil complaint street. … That should filed on behalf of 11 plaintiffs, six of whom shared the same last not happen.” name. The circumstances of the John L. Burris case and its resolution were not civil-rights attorney immediately available. Two years later, Tennis was sued again, this time with one other officer. The plaintiff’s attorney in the case, Roosevelt O’Neal Jr., told SN&R he believed the lawsuit accused the officers of using unreasonable force against his client, Lovell Sturgis Brown, a registered sex offender. O’Neal said he could no longer recall the details of the lawsuit, but thought it resolved in a settlement. Like Mann, Brown is African-American. Meanwhile, two years after Tennis’ brush with family court, in 2013, he was in trouble again, this time with the department. According to a document provided by Burris’ law firm, the Sacramento Police Officers Association settled an internal affairs disciplinary case against Tennis with the city, which allowed him to avoid a one-week suspension by attending classes and researching alcoholism. As part of the agreement, Tennis was required to read the books Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement and Who Helps the Helper?, the settlement document states. Ω

An earlier version of this story appeared at www.newsreview.com/sacramento/pageburner.

08.18.16    |   SN&R   |   13

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Harvest change by jeff vonkaenel

After the gold rush petered out and we stopped building railroad cars, Sacramento started seeing itself as less of a city and more of a geographical midpoint between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe. And then came farm-to-fork. We discovered that our geographical midpoint had some of the best soil, a year-round growing season and some of the world’s best produce. And we also have an ever-increasing number of talented individuals who can slice and cook that beloved produce in mouth-watering ways. Yesterday’s gold rush has given way to today’s foodie rush. A rush on specialty food items, a rush on restaurants and a rush on local pride. This foodie rush was the subject of last week’s Sacramento Metro Chamber’s “The State of Agriculture—Growing Our Economy,” featuring Agriculture Policy guru Jim Wiesemeyer, along with a panel of homegrown experts including farmers, professors and government officials. The basic message was, “Happy days are here. Yields are good. Better food is coming. Sales are up, and our national reputation is growing. But the foundation of farm-to-fork is very shaky.” Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a whole region with farmers, government, our universities and the weather working together to grow our agriculture. And here is where we may have problems. We can count on UC Davis to provide the necessary research to make farms more efficient, improve our yields, and reduce our dependency on water and other resources. But after that, things get dicey. First, the weather. While the hot weather that our plants love will certainly continue, water is a problem. We were depleting our groundwater even before the drought. And our population continues to increase— bringing more people who want to drink water and take showers.

je ffv @ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

Then there is the government. While the government is constantly criticized, the idea of getting it out of agricultural policy is absurd. It is like getting the government out of banking. Much of California’s agricultural success comes as a direct result of the government’s water programs and from the crop subsidies in the U.S. Agricultural Act of 2014—a.k.a the Farm Bill. California has the most agricultural and environmental regulations of any state in the country, according to Wiesemeyer. But it is a delicate art creating effective government regulations that protect the environment, protect the workers, while also protecting the farmer’s profits. And the legislative and regulatory process is anything but delicate. It is crude. While the government’s role in farming policy goes back to the days of Thomas Jefferson, Wiesemeyer pointed out that Donald Trump has dramatically increased fears of a government-led agricultural disaster. In his calm, Midwestern voice, Wiesemeyer told us that 60 percent of America’s farmworkers are in the country illegally. Without this labor force, how can farming continue in America? And then there is China. The USDA reports that China is now purchasing 20 billion dollars of United States agricultural products each year. Many experts believe that Trump’s policies would start a trade war with China. This would be frightening. The idea of farm-to-fork seems simple. The farmer grows it and we eat it. But if our Sacramento foodie rush is to continue everyone will need to play their part— farmers, the government, our universities and the weather. It takes a whole region to bring us farm-to-fork. Ω

Jeff vonKaenel is the president, CEO and majority owner of the News & Review.

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The never-ending sTory One writer’s jOurney tO the shetland islands reveals humanity, clarity and peace 16   |   SN&R   |   08.18.16

STORY AND PHOTOS bY SaSha abramSky

Late in the afternoon of the day my parents and I arrived in the Shetland Islands, a pony attacked our rental car.

The Shetland Islands’ natural, rugged beauty, shown here at the isle of Bressay, is preserved, in part, because it’s largely immune to throngs of tourists.

We had stopped to take some photos, on the drive back to our hotel from the epic cliffs of Eshaness, and a group of the hairy little ponies took umbrage at our presence. One, slightly braver than the rest, slowly approached our vehicle, opened its mouth to reveal a row of browning, flat herbivore teeth, and promptly started using those ivories to scratch at the paint of the front door. Unsatisfied with his handiwork, he walked around to my side of the small sedan and, before I could drive off, started chomping, repeatedly, on the door handle. When I told the rental agency, the woman started laughing. She had lived in the Shetlands her whole life and this was the first time she’d heard of a pony biting a car. The Shetland Islands, an archipelago of roughly 100 rocky, YO u ca N wa l k fO R windswept, isles 200-plus miles north H O u RS a N D S E E of mainland Scotland, are the northernmost juST a HaNDful Of part of Great Britain. p EO p l E ; S O m E TI m E S , They’re closer to Norway than to I f YO u ’ R E l u c k Y, N OT Scotland, Viking outposts that became E V E N T H aT H a N D f u l . a part of Scotland just over half a millennium ago, gifted as part of a marriage dowry between Norwegian and Scottish royalty. Many of the houses, especially on smaller islands such as Unst, reached from the main island by a series of small ferries, look Nordic, with steep roofs coming down low to the ground. Many of the place names sound Scandinavian. I had decided to take my parents to the Shetlands to celebrate their upcoming 50th wedding anniversary. My thinking was somewhat along the lines of the disembodied narrator in the old Monty Python TV shows: “And now for something completely different.” We took the train up from London to Aberdeen, whiled away a few hours in a rather bleak station pub and then embarked on a 12-hour overnight ferry from Aberdeen northeast to the little town of Lerwick, perched roughly in the middle of the largest, most populous island in the chain. In the small, windowless cabin, late at night, which the three of us slept in after a three-course dinner in the ship’s restaurant, followed by a sunset walk up on deck, one could sense the strong swell of the ocean rising and falling beneath us. It alternated between being soporific and disconcerting. The Shetlands are, indeed, completely different. They’re as remote as one can get in Western Europe, and, consequently, despite their stunning beauty, as immune from a large influx “THE NEVER-ENDING STORY” of tourists as possible. At any one continued on page 19 time, on the entire archipelago there

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18   |   SN&R   |   08.18.16

“thE nEVEr-Ending Story” continued FRoM page 17

are probably only a couple thousand outsiders. And that’s at high season. You can walk for hours and see just a handful of people; sometimes, if you’re lucky, not even that handful. Even at the small museums, such as the one attached to the beautiful 19th century Sumburgh Head lighthouse, on the southern end of the main island—complete with the original World War II radar station that was designed as an early-warning system against incoming Luftwaffe aircraft on missions to raid Royal Navy vessels in ports off of the Scottish mainland— you’re unlikely to see more than a couple other families. As a result of all of this emptiness, as you experience one wonderful place after the next, you feel like you’ve accidentally stumbled on a treasure chest, something secreted away by generations past that only you now know about. There are stone brochs in the Shetlands, the remains of Neolithic towers and fortresses that are thousands of years old, glimpses into a distant, distant, past. With nobody there to tell you off, you can clamber on these ancient walls and play like children amidst the ruins. There are uninhabited islands, too, such as St. Ninian’s—connected, in summer, to the main island by a narrow “tombolo” sand causeway, cut off in winter by the furious waters—where one can spend a day walking atop the ancient cliffs, and watching the birds soaring on the air currents over the raging waters. One is far up in the north Atlantic here, in waters patrolled by killer whales. The sun, when it shines through gaps in the clouds, stays high until very late in early August, and the sky is huge. The wind hits you hard, unrelentingly, making it feel far colder than it actually is. The slate-gray architecture of Lerwick is austere, self-sufficient, a no-nonsense presence. On the west side of Shetland, a 40-minute drive from the hotel where we stayed for three nights, are the magnificent cliffs of Eshaness, sheer drops from the green, sheep-and-pony populated expanses, into the roiling Atlantic below. Puffins and terns, Arctic skuas, grouse and numerous other rare birds populate the rocks of these cliffs, soaring over the waters looking for food. There are no fences here; no warning signs. If you step wrong, you’d be falling through the void, heading down toward the rocks as fast as the gannet birds do their vertical drops into the water once they spy a vulnerable fish below. And so you walk carefully, aware of your surroundings, aware of the unforgiving power of nature.

The lighthouse at Sumburgh, on the southern end of the main island, still houses its original World War II radar station.

E xp l o r i n g th E S h E tl a n dS i S a m E d itati o n , a S E r i E S o f d E E p b r E ath S t h at bot h d r aw yo u i n to yo u rS E l f a n d h E l p yo u S E E th E wo r l d o u t S i d E .

NothiNg lasts forever There’s something humbling about all of this. The remote, stark beauty. The Viking ruins on bluffs overlooking wild beaches—remains of stone houses and farm walls, community gathering spots, religious centers—amongst which flocks of sheep now wander. The crofters still

living in houses miles from each other. The influences, in place names, of ancient languages and rites now long since vanished from the Earth. This is just one little archipelago, in one small corner of this wondrous world. It is one small part of the human story. And yet, it would take many lifetimes to even begin to familiarize oneself with all of its mysteries.

It’s an antidote to the Twitterverse, of bluster and of exclamation points, of crass boasts and meaningless claims to omniscience. Nobody can know everything about everything, or everything about one country, or one moment in time, or even just one particular problem. And anybody who claims that they are the only person who can tackle the world’s woes singlehandedly is either a fool or a charlatan, a person ignorant of the complexities of life and too blinkered to be curious about all the varying ways of interacting with landscape and culture, with nature and with history. Since, when I’m not travel writing, I spend much of my time writing about politics, the past eight or nine months have, for me, been uniquely discomforting. It’s not just that I don’t like Donald Trump; it’s that I find the Trumpist moment to be uniquely philistine—a world reduced to 140-character clichés and to cartoonlike hyperbole. That so many millions of Americans respond positively to a man who rides roughshod over any notions of complexity and diversity fills me with dread. That so many people flock to a false prophet who prides himself on his ignorance, who delights in his lack of interest in other countries, other cultures and other moments in time makes me want to curl up in a ball and pull the covers over my head. When one travels, one sees the kaleidoscopic patterns of life, configurations continually reimagined. What was life like for those Viking settlers, 1,500 years ago, on the island of Unst? How did those British radar monitors pass the time during World War II when they weren’t looking for incoming enemy planes? What does a crofter see when he surveys his green, damp, windswept land, and his flock of wondering sheep? Exploring the Shetlands is a meditation, a series of deep breaths that both draw you into yourself and help you see the world outside. Away from the hustle and bustle, away from the inanities of the moment, it’s a way of regaining an equilibrium and regrasping a calmer perspective on life. Nothing lasts forever. The Viking ruins, stone remnants set against stone cliffs, are testament to that. Good things fade into the past, as too do bad. Perhaps, eventually, the bad simply become the stuff of myths: stories of ogres and monsters who once upon a time breathed their fiery halitosis on the world they trampled, and who, at long last, were brought low by their own hubris. Ω Sasha Abramsky is a Davis-based writer.

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PHOTO BY DARIN BRADFORD

By KrIs HOOKs

From left: Demetris Washington, Isaiah Williams, Saul McCoy and Brandon Alexander in front of Broadway Coffee.

A freestyle cAnvA cAnvAs nv s nvA How four artists improvised with sudden bursts of inspiration to transform an Oak Park coffee shop

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CommenCe slurping see DrinK me

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TalKing Trump

see CoolHunTing

It was just after midnight on a Tuesday in May, and the corner of Broadway and 32nd Street smelled like wet paint and weed. Local artists Demetris Washington, Brandon Alexander, Isaiah Williams and Saul McCoy stood on the corner watching paint dry, deciding the next step in completing a mural on the walls of Broadway Coffee in Oak Park. Suddenly, Washington, who uses the artist name BAMR, strapped on a respirator mask, picked up a can of spray paint and went to work on the left corner of the building. Minutes later, after completing an outline, he picked up a new can and worked on the details of the character’s coffee-cup head. “I think that’s my favorite part [of the mural], because I literally came up with that the night we started painting,” Washington said weeks after the project was finished. “We didn’t have any ideas for that corner. … The stuff that I actually planned, I didn’t really like as much as that one.” In May, the four artists started collaborating on the mural, two months after a group of Kennedy High School students with the after-school program Target Excellence had started painting another wall of Broadway Coffee as a community service project. The other three artists watched on as Washington turned a maroon-colored wall into the makings of the mural’s first character, which, much like the rest of the art, is vibrant and coffee-related. The sudden burst of inspiration set off a wave, and minutes later the others followed suit, working well into the night, finally wrapping up around 3 a.m. “Once you get somebody’s tempo or speed, it’s kind of like freestyling on a beat or something,” McCoy said of the process. “Once somebody just steps up and hops on, you get their flow, then you ride the joint, then it becomes four different people on the same cypher.” The project started before the artists even met. Williams had already begun working on the mural on the coffee shop’s 32nd Street side with his longtime friend Meleah Campbell and a group of students she mentors with Get Your Hustle On, a college-readiness program run through the nonprofit organization Target Excellence. In March, Broadway Coffee co-owner Jimmy Gayaldo had told Campbell and her Target Excellence colleagues that he was calling around to area schools to get kids to paint the shop. After several of the high schools turned Gayaldo down, Campbell said she could get her students out to do it. Weeks later, a small group of her students from Kennedy High School spent a couple of days laying the foundation for something bigger.

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rural alien planeT vibes see sounD aDviCe

“Most of the kids have never painted before, so it was cool to get them to try something new, especially during their spring break when they’d usually probably just be hanging out,” Campbell said. With help from Williams, the students transformed a once white wall into a mural complete with buildings, trees and a bright orange sun on top of a sky blue with green, red and yellow stripes above. The group also added a large mug spilling coffee out into the city. Fast-forward to May, and the coffee that originally spilled into the city, now flowed in a river into the Sacramento Valley instead. It was one of a few changes that Williams made to the mural’s design.

“ We didn’t really have the full idea completely together before we started painting, we just knew we wanted to start.” Demetris Washington muralist

Later, as a separate project, two local artists GoopMassta and R2Romero replaced the old Broadway Coffee banner that hung above the students’ work with two new painted characters. And in time, Williams says, two more artists will put the finishing touches on the 32nd Street wall. “As an artist, you never know what you’re going to come across as far as canvases. So when somebody hands you a canvas like this … I just saw it as an opportunity to spread the love, you know?” Williams said. In the weeks leading up to the first day of painting, the artists met a few times and came up with options to present to the shop’s co-owner, Charles Bergson.

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THe Color of HisTory

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Sticking to the plan, however, proved to be a bit of an issue. “A lot of the end result was a freestyle,” Washington said, laughing. “We didn’t really have the full idea completely together before we started painting, we just knew we wanted to start.” By noon the second day, the blank maroon canvas was gone. Washington was working on his second character on the top right corner of the building, Alexander was painting on his signature clouds that would ultimately help tie the project together and McCoy was spraying the outline of his character between the shop’s large windows. By day three much of the work on the front of the building was done, save for the little details in Washington’s and McCoy’s characters. The coffee-head character got some new additions—light bulbs floating over its head—and the shop’s white door was painted by GoopMassta to look like ice cubes and coffee splashing on the bottom. Eventually, even the shop’s mailbox was painted over. Throughout the week, Alexander, who goes by the artist name BRNDN ALXNDR, and Washington completed the final side of the building near the adjacent vacant lot. It was painted the same maroon color, with only the “Broadway Coffee” tagging left alone. Alexander’s colorful clouds, Washington’s cartoonish depiction of a mug spilling coffee, and a light-bulbpowered hot-air balloon were added to the mix. The end result has appealed to more than just the artists and the shop’s owners. Feedback from the community has been encouraging, too, Alexander said, with many passersby and customers pointing out the positive impact that four black men painting a mural could bring to Oak Park. Alexander, who grew up in Del Paso Heights, one of Sacramento’s most impoverished neighborhoods, understands the bearing he and his fellow artists have on the community. Growing up in a struggling community like Del Paso Heights or Oak Park, it was unusual for a person of color to get such a chance. “It’s so far-fetched that that’s even possible for somebody from these areas that [residents] can’t believe it,” Alexander said. It’s not just about the opportunity, he added. It’s about the impact. “It’s definitely a necessity, especially for [communities like Del Paso Heights and Oak Park], that people can identify with the artists,” he said. To McCoy, it’s about the influence that the four of them have on the kids in the area—especially a group of school kids who got excited when they saw the mural going up. “That was like the icing on the cake, because, like, we’re big kids anyways. I mean, spray cans are just bigass crayons,” he said. “So to see the kids was just like, ‘Wow.’ It was full circle, because I remember when I was little and seen somebody doing that, I would want to go pick up [a paintbrush].” Ω

Check out the Broadway Coffee mural at 3200 Broadway.

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FOR THe Week OF AUGUST 18

Pet Portrait Workshop thurSday, auguSt 18 Your pooch is your pride and joy, so Rover needs  a portrait on the wall, too. The Professional  Photographers of the  PHOTOGRAPHY Sacramento Valley are hosting a  workshop to help you learn the best practices for  getting man’s best friend’s good side. Plus, puppies! $95-$125, 9 a.m. at James Trapp Photography  Studio, 9 Tananger Court; (916) 741-8727;   http://ppsv.org/workshops.

—Lory giL To say that there are two kinds of  people in the city—those who are  excited about the “sloppily colouredin picture of Piglet” sculpture by  Jeff Koons (that’s shade from the  fancy-art folks at Phaidon, not me)  and those who think it’s an 18-anda-half-foot shiny turd with an  absurd price tag of $8 million—might  be a little reductive. As evidenced by  the smashing success of Art Hotel  earlier this year, the major incidents  in the city’s art scene are only  somewhat dictated by rich people  with questionable taste.  Further proof: This week, the  city becomes the canvas for the  first Sacramento Mural Festival,  which kicks off on Saturday, August  20 and runs through the following  Saturday, August 27. Twelve muralists—some local and some arriving  from as far away as Portugal—will  be painting 12 new murals throughout the city over the course of the

week. Artists include Jake Castro,  the artists behind the mural on the  front of the aforementioned Art  Hotel; renown Los Angeles-based  artists Risk and Drew Merritt;  and Kristin Farr, hailing from San  Francisco, to name a few.  Looky-loos will be encouraged,  and there will also be opportunities  to attend panels and discussions  about the state of the local arts  scene. For the grand finale, ArtJam  is going down on the top of the  parking garage at 21st and L streets  from 7 to 10 p.m. There will be popup art installations, attendees will  create interactive art, and there  will of course be food and drinks.  It’s a fundraiser for local arts education, so know that your $100 ticket (or two tickets for $175) is going  to a good cause. Otherwise, the rest  of the festival is free. Find out more  and buy tickets for ArtJam at   www.sacramentomuralfestival.com.

Bike-In Movie: Jaws Friday, auguSt 19 Bike on down to the Sacramento Hostel this Friday  and check out the Hollywood classic that set  sharks back decades in public approval: Jaws.  Moviegoers can enter a $5 raffle for a  FILM night in the VIP suite or put their rides up  for the Bike Beauty Contest (with prizes). If you’re  hungry, grab a meal from the Roaming Spoon.  Free, 8 p.m. at HI Sacramento Hostel, 925 H Street;  www.sacramentohostel.org.

—davE KEmpa

StocktonCon Saturday, auguSt 20 The 5th Annual StocktonCon will provide myriad  opportunities to be 7 years old again for at least a  couple of hours. Artists, actors, writers  COMICS and lovers of all things sci-fi, video game  and fantasy will abound. If I went, I’d spend the  night in the arena. Is that allowed for an extra fee?  Anyone? $13-$18, 10 a.m. at Stockton Arena, 248 West  Fremont Street in Stockton; http://stocktoncon.com.

—dEEna drEwiS

—EddiE JorgEnSEn

Banana Festival Saturday, auguSt 20 and Sunday, auguSt 21 Bask in the glory of the world’s most popular fruit  this weekend with a 5K fun walk, a Little Mr. and Miss  Banana Pageant and more. Keep in mind the luxury of  this bounty; bananas were under serious threat this  previous winter due to a rampant fungus.  FOOD Long live the Cavendish. $8-$10, 10 a.m. to   7:30 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday  at Shasta Community Park, 7404 Shasta Avenue in   Elk Grove; www.sacbananafestival.com.

—dEEna drEwiS

Sacramento Zombie Walk Saturday, auguSt 20 Sixteen years ago, Sacramento had its very first  Zombie Walk, it was the first Zombie Walk ever,  anywhere. The Carnival of the Dead precceeds the  Zombie Walk. The Zombie Walk starts  FeSTIvAL at 7 p.m.. After, there will a screening  of Army of Darkness. Free, 4 p.m. at Roosevelt Park,  1615 9th Street; http://saczombiewalk.com/. ILLUSTRATION BY SARAH HANSEL

—aaron CarnES

08.18.16    |   SN&R   |   23

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IllustratIons by Holly GerHarD

Pasta flashback tAgLiAteLLe, ObO’ itALiAN tAbLe & bAr The first time I ever went to Ella Dining Room & Bar, I  ordered the pappardelle topped with a poached egg.  Back then, the put-an-egg-on-it idea wasn’t ubiquitous yet. The yolk mixing with fresh pasta and lemony  butter felt like a revelation. Turns out, Nancy Selland’s  dish was debuted at the Kitchen before becoming a  short-term staple at Ella. Now, a simpler—and, at  $10.50, much cheaper—version is available at OBO’,  with crispy shards of prosciutto and eggy tagliatelle.  With all that butter, it is quite rich, but try your best  to save room for a cream puff. 3145 Folsom Boulevard,  http://oboitalian.com.

—JANeLLe bitker

Koreans ferment best rice teA, PeArLS

IllustratIon by Mark stIvers

Tea to door by Janelle Bitker

Caffeine delivery: Tea sommelier Leo Hickman’s Classy Hippie Tea Cafe just switched to “Classy Hippie Tea Co.” No longer is his focus on a retail brick-and-mortar—although he hopes to open a Midtown spot next year—rather, tea delivery. Last week, Classy Hippie launched a membership program. You can get two customized teas—“sommelier blends”—delivered to your door each month for $30 per month, and at other membership tiers, you can potentially sip for free at Classy Hippie’s upcoming cafe inside Capsity (2572 21st Street). Hickman describes it as a similar setup to the Trade, except Classy Hippie will offer a full, members-only lounge starting in September. Nonmembers can go around the corner to Classy Hippie’s new

jan el l e b @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

location (2600 21st Street), which Hickman and business partner Mike Shaldone transformed into a bright and clean tea shop in just one week out of what used to be Buffalo Pizza & Ice Cream’s storage space. Classy Hippie’s other location inside Green Valley Theatre (3823 V Street) will remain open, but the new spot is the flagship and will serve brewed tea to-go once it gets its permits in order. More beer: Rubicon Brewing Co. expanded its production into West Sacramento not too long ago, and it added a taproom (885 Stillwater Road, Suite 100) last week. It’s a small, no-frills space to get your Monkey Knife Fight fix and actually feels a bit like an office, with visible partitions and fluorescent lighting. Still, you can enjoy one of

four beers available on draft, fill up a growler or grab some brew to-go. Capitol idea: Prolific restaurateur Chris Jarosz is working on “farm-toCapitol” cuisine. The Sacramento Bee first reported Jarosz (Broderick Roadhouse, Localis, Saddle Rock) will take over the food service spaces inside the Capitol. Details about the main restaurant, located on the lower level, arrived last week: it will be called Statehouse and it will open in early 2017. According to a press release, the space will be a hub of pizzas and sandwiches made with ingredients sourced from local farms. The chef will be Dan J. Watterson, most recently chef de cuisine of Le Diplomate, a brasserie in Washington, D.C. Bye: Just when SN&R gives Revolution Wines a positive review, largely due to the ambition of its chef Teddy Gibanov, Gibanov decides to bail. He left last week for a gig at the Golden 1 Center. Ω

Pearls is a small, adorable and independent boba  shop, with an emphasis on quality, loose-leaf teas.  With that in mind, the menu is much  much shorter and simpler than your  standard boba tea spot, but  there is one unusual offering: sikhye ($4), a Korean  rice tea. Cooked rice,  spices and water ferment  for 24 hours, resulting in  a sweet, mild tea with light  toasty, malty notes. On the  bottom of your cup, a slurry  of rice sits—potentially mingling with boba for 50 cents extra—and awaits your  active slurping. It’s a fun, refreshing drink on a hot  day. 2264 Fair Oaks Boulevard, www.pearlsboba.com.

—JANeLLe bitker

Drought Shame ALMONDS Yes, they use water to grow, just like every other fruit  and nut plant out there. While they are the secondlargest crop by acreage in California  (ahead of grapes!), they’re well  behind alfalfa and pasture  lands in thirstiness. Since  we grow 100 percent of  the almonds in the United  States, they’re a big boon  to the state economy.  And—oh yeah—they taste  good. Hikers and campers  count on nuts like almonds  for quick energy and high protein. Bakers love them for their beauty on cakes and  pastries. Eat your nuts and stop watering that lawn  instead.

—ANN MArtiN rOLke

08.18.16    |   SN&R   |   25

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in the other flavors. Extra points for a neat idea, though. Unfortunately, the scones ($2.50 each) suffer the fate of most of their kind in the U.S. That is, they’re 1716 L Street, (916) 443-7685 really triangular muffins and not sweetened biscuits. 812 21st Street, (916) 443-6340 The lemon-poppyseed fared better than a version 3434 Broadway, (916) 453-8540 with strawberries, which gummed up the texture. After breakfast, enjoy the free wifi and stick Dinner for one: $6 - $12 Good for: real meals with coffee around for lunch. Try their take on the classic Notable dishes: breakfast sandwich, red pepper hummus Cuban sandwich ($9), with a judiciously-dressed mesclun salad on the side. We enjoyed the moist shredded pork, ham and cheese. It’s griddled flat and has a nice tang from thinly sliced pickles. Eat Diners have been doing it for decades: a cup of it hot, though; it doesn’t taste as well-orchestrated joe with breakfast, lunch or dinner. as it cools. Upscale restaurants seek out local roasters for their Old Soul’s Caesar salad ($7) shows thought in brews, but most coffee houses offer little more than its presentation, with bite-size pieces of romaine and muffins, cookies and scone-like baked goods. Why? good sourdough croutons. The dressing doesn’t overOld Soul Co. has been unique in its marriage of whelm the lettuce and benefits from fresh Parmesan food and coffee ever since its beginning 10 years on top. ago. And about a year-and-a-half ago, owners Tim If you order the grilled cheese ($7.50), be Jordan and Jason Griest brought on executive chef forewarned that it contains sautéed spinach and Charlie Harrison, most recently of Cafe Vinoteca. sliced tomato as well as brie, Swiss and Cheddar Harrison has been tinkering with the menus cheeses. Harrison describes it as “an adult since he started, changing them every version,” but traditionalists may freak month or so. Head baker Jan Perkins at the greens. The cheeses match well joined even more recently. with house focaccia, though, and Old Soul’s There are three locations seem lightened by the vegetables. strength lies in the currently: the original L Street Afternoon coffee goes well alley warehouse, the Weatherstone with their extra-large chocolate simple fact that it coffee house and the 40 Acres chip cookies ($2.50 each), availoffers real food with shop in Oak Park. All serve similar able with or without nuts. They’re their coffee. menus, with special brunch items crunchy, rather than chewy, and featured each weekend. Not only can buttery rich. you find the usual pastries, but also full There’s no separate dinner menu, breakfasts, hot sandwiches, snacky sides but Old Soul’s kitchens stay open through and light salads. the evening. Get beer at the Weatherstone or 40 Though Harrison is introducing new ideas, some Acres locations and pair it with red pepper hummus of Old Soul’s biggest successes have already been ($8). The dip, while silky smooth, seems a bit overaround for a long time, such as the popular breakfast priced with only crostini on the side. sandwich ($6.50). Layers of omelette, hyper-ripe Old Soul’s strength lies in the simple fact that tomato, red onion and cheese make for a large it offers real food with their coffee. Fortunately, mouthful on the housemade English muffin. You most of the food is better than average, with a few can add roasted veggies, bacon or sausage, and it all stand-outs. comes schmeared with avocado for a healthier take Jordan and Griest plan to open three more on the McMuffin. outlets within the next year, including a wine bar in The quiche ($7) changes daily, but we tried one Oak Park and a full-service restaurant on R Street. with roasted pork, chiles and an intriguing addition Hopefully the new locations will offer similar value of nectarines. While the flaky crust held up admiraand quality with the occasional unexpected twist. Ω bly—no easy feat for quiche—the fruit disappeared

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916.3868599 | 5301 Power Inn Rd, Sac, CA 26   |   SN&R   |   08.18.16

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Food truck mayhem A Food Network-style culinary competition has been underway at Sacramento  breweries this summer for the second annual Fantasy Food Truck Showdown.  Presented by Beers in Sac, the tournament has already  seen two rounds of food truck chefs preparing  dishes based on mystery ingredients for hungry, beer-guzzling crowds. An added curveball? The dish must also pair well with a  certain local beer. The finale takes place  from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, August  19 at Yolo Brewing Company (1520  Terminal Street in West Sacramento)  between Cali Love Food Truck, Cecil’s  Taste Food Truck and Voyager World  Cuisine. If you care about the standings,  those trucks beat Dojo Burger, the Pasta  Queen and North Border Tacos. There’s no  cover to enjoy the spectacle, but you must pay  to eat: $25 for five small plates and a beer or $15 for  three small plates and a beer. More at www.beersinsac.com.

—Janelle Bitker

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Moringa in the morning—or whenever By Shoka Is moringa going to be the next kale,  quinoa or acai? The next superfood  that yogis toting burlap bags dump  into green smoothies? Time will tell.  But for now, the South Asian plant,  also known as the drumstick tree, is  known for being extremely nutrientdense and growing prodigiously in  poor, drought-afflicted soil. All parts  of the plant can be eaten; especially pleasant are the leaves as a  caffeine-free tisane. It’s a chocolatey, smoky and toasted-grain flavor.  Moringa is high in protein, calcium,

iron, vitamin C and is an antioxidant  and anti-inflammatory source used  “as medicine … to prevent or treat  over 300 diseases,” according to  the National Institutes of Health.  Kuli Kuli, Organic India and Miracle Tree have moringa in powder form  (for those smoothies, namaste)  and tisanes (Kuli Kuli makes energy  bars and energy shots, too). Pregnant women, however, take note:  It “appears to have the potential  to induce abortions,” according to  Examine.com.

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To prep for its October grand opening, downtown city officials have  scheduled myriad events near the  Golden 1 Arena to build up hype.  One such happening is Sacramento  Sun Fest, a two-day festival that  organizers have billed as “the largest outdoor solar power and energy  festival” in the region. The theme is “Power to the  People”—with the aim to gather  the energy of both the sun and  the people in one space. It takes  place at Cesar Chavez  Festival Plaza where the goal  will be to educate consumers  on topics such as solar power,  sustainability, renewable energy,  cost and environmental impact. To help get the message across,  Sacramento Sun Fest’s roster  features live music from acts such  as Tower of Power tribute band,  Bump City ReUnion Band (pictured;  the band’s name comes from Tower  of Power’s 1972 album, by the way)  and guest speakers such as mayorelect Darrell Steinberg, who will  discuss the connection between  renewable energy resources and  downtown Sacramento. Absorb the sun’s energy via  demonstrations and community  outreach from solar experts and  educational seminars, along with  resource information booths for  any questions. Oh, and food—of  course. $10, children are free;   11 a.m. Saturday, August 20, and  noon Sunday, August 21; 910 I Street;  www.sacsunfest.info.

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Yes, it really is that good. Many of Oprah Winfrey’s  book club picks are longer on sentiment than substance, but in the case of Colson Whitehead’s The  Underground Railroad: A Novel (Doubleday,  book $26.95), the talk show host has given her  followers a brilliant novel from the Toni Morrison of  the next generation. Whitehead, who’s been writing  really good novels for a long time (see his 2010 book  Zone One for the best literary zombie novel ever),  moves into a mash-up of brutal and magical realism in this examination of the seeping wound that  is America’s history with slavery. Cora, a young  enslaved woman, decides to run away—and there  is no doubt about having good cause for it—but in  Whitehead’s reimagining, the Underground Railroad  is a real railroad that is underground. By turns  beautiful and gruesome, Whitehead’s novel is exactly  like our country.

Sacramento Sun FeSt

AT BESTOFSAC.COM

Those looking to stay sane this election season (too  late?) should visit Owen Ellickson’s Twitter account  to browse through the “Trump: The Archives”  series. Each tweet is imagined as a conversation  between the presidential nominee and another GOP  higher-up—typically Paul Ryan or Chris  Website Christie. The dialogue, which read like the  script from an absurdist two-man play, is at once  hilarious and depressing as hell: “RYAN: Your son Eric said some pretty bad stuff  about sexual harassment.  TRUMP: OK. Want me to disavow him? RYAN:  TRUMP: Happy to disown, too.” Ellickson is a writer and producer whose credits include The Office, Superstore and The King of  Queens, but this political “parody” may prove to be  his greatest contribution to society ever.   https://twitter.com/onlxn.

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ReviewS

Now playiNg

4

Antony and Cleopatra

Morals on the high sea by Jeff Hudson

Shakespeare’s play is  as much about the scandalous love affair between Marc  Antony (Ryan Snyder) and  Cleopatra (Imani Mitchell)  as it is about the Roman  Empire after the death  of Julius Caesar. Zachary  Scovel, Michael O’Sullivan  and Steven Campbell are  among standouts in a cast  that delivers perhaps the  most naturally spoken  Shakespearean dialogue  you’re likely to hear. Th, F, Sa 8pm. Through 9/3. $10-$16. Big  Idea Theatre, 1616 Del Paso  Boulevard, (916) 960-3036,  www.bigideatheatre.org. J.C.

3

Al and Homer: The Drone Play

“do you have something for seasickness?”

The Last Lifeboat

4

the Last Lifeboat, 8 p.m. friday and saturday, $12-20 or $54 for a “family Pack,” good for two adults and two children). Main street theatre Works at the kennedy Mine amphitheatre, 1127 North Main street in Jackson. www.mstw.org. through september 10.

For its latest production, Main Street Theatre Works turns to a historical drama. The Last Lifeboat tells the story of J. Bruce Ismay, head of the company that built the Titanic. Ismay was on the ship and when the Titanic struck an iceberg, Ismay opted to take a vacant seat as the last lifeboat. The play depicts Ismay from childhood to old age. Characters include the ruthless investor J.P. Morgan (who wants more high-revenue first class cabins on the ships—something that results in fewer lifeboats) and the scandal-mongering newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. The script, by Luke Yankee, but the show frames Ismay’s moral dilemma quite nicely: no one else was in line when Ismay stepped onto the lifeboat—and if he had remained on deck and gone down with the ship, the gesture would not have saved any of the Titanic’s other passengers. But Ismay was widely vilified, and spent the rest of his life atoning—hounded by reporters, and denounced as a coward, even as he raised money for shipwreck survivors. Actor Eric Craig deftly sketches Ismay as a quiet businessman caught between profit-seeking investors and the deadlines to get the big ship (“the world’s largest floating object”) launched. Another 10 actors play multiple roles as the play gives a kaleidoscopic view of the disaster’s impact over decades. Director Julie Anchor depicts the actual sinking primarily through sound—we see the horrified faces of survivors on the lifeboat as they hear the screams coming across the water as the Titanic disappears beneath the waves. It’s a gripping theatrical moment, even though everyone knows it’s coming. Ω

Photo courtesy of Magic theatre Works

4 A Grand Night for Singing It’s hard to fault the Fair Oaks Theatre Festival production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein songbook musical A Grand Night for Singing. During a recent production there were some sound issues and some errant lighting cues that detracted somewhat from an otherwise exhilarating production. A live band provided fine accompaniment. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II contributed many classic musicals over the decades, including Oklahoma!, Carousel, The King and I, and South Pacific, among many others. This revue includes songs from each of those as well as tunes from such lesser known musicals as Allegro, Me and Juliet, and Pipe Dream. Deane Calvin, so assured on stage, seems to nail it every time. Torch song or ballad or as part of a trio (with Brittni Proffitt and Leah Frazier) performing “I’m Going to Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair,” she is excellent. Jonathan Blum and Zane Boyer, both singularly and together, are outstanding. They possess strong, supple baritones that do justice to everything from “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” to “We Kiss in a Shadow” and “My Little Girl.” There’s humor in the production, too, frequently provided by Joe Hart and Corey Winfield via “Stepsisters’ Lament” from Cinderella, for example. —Jim Carnes

a grand Night for singing, 8 p.m. friday, saturday and sunday. $18. fair oaks theatre festival, Veteran’s Memorial amphitheatre, 7991 california avenue, old fair oaks Village in fair oaks; (916) 966-3686; www.fairoakstheatrefestival.com. through september 18.

Janet Motenko as a  Puck-like clown stands out  in this otherwise uneven  show about two Air Force  pilots with vastly differing  opinions about the drone  program, sitting together  in a building on the Nevada  desert tracking potential  terrorists on the other  side of the world. As the  play progresses, their  individual opinions put each  other—and the world at

1 fouL

large—in grave danger. The  play expose the apathy of  the American people, but  doesn’t pack the punch it  intends. F, Sa 8pm; Su 2pm. Through 8/21. $15-$18. California Stage Theatre, 2509  R Street; (916) 606-5050;  www.ovationstage.com. B.S.

3

Every Brilliant Thing

B Street Theatre  regular David Pierini serves  as storyteller, stand-up  comic (and emcee) of this  one-man show about a  young man’s relationship  with his depressed mother.  He responds by creating a  list of “brilliant things” to  highlight the brighter side  of life. This subject matter  notwithstanding, this is a  frequently funny and (on the  whole) uplifting monologue, with some audience  participation thrown in. Th, F

some fiction, the tragic  life and mysterious death  of the iconic American  author. The production  features a beautiful set,  great costumes, wonderful  puppets, and above all, an  outstanding cast. F, Sa 8pm; Su 7pm. Through 8/28. $18,  Green Valley Theatre,   3823 V Street;  greenvalley  theatre@yahoo.com. B.S.

short reviews by Jim carnes, Bev sykes and Jeff hudson.

8pm; Sa 5pm and 9pm; Su 2pm; Tu 6:30pm; W 2pm and 6:30pm; Through 9/18. $23-$35.

2711 B Street; (916) 443-5300;   www.bstreettheatre.org. J.H.

4

Nevermore

This is the West  Coast premiere  of a daring and unique  musical telling, in fact and

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4

fair

gooD

WeLL-DoNe

5 suBLiMe– DoN’t Miss

Kick off those sunday shoes. Photo courtesy of the WooDLaND oPera house

Tear up the town Only a terrific cast and wonderful dancing could make a hit  out of this rather silly show. But, under the direction of Crissi  Cairns and choreography of Kevin Gruwell, that’s what the  Woodland Opera House has done just that in this take on the  1984 Kevin Bacon classic of the same name. This story of a  small town whose minister has banned all dancing following  a tragic accident that took four lives seems unlikely, as does  the arrival of a lonely teenager who changes the town forever. But add a lively cast, and one can’t help but be charmed.  7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, $7-$25.  Woodland Opera House, 304 Second Street in Woodland, (530)  666-9617, http://www.woodlandoperahouse.org/. Through  September 14.

—bev sykes

08.18.16    |   SN&R   |   31

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Laika CEO and President Travis Knight makes his feature directing debut with Kubo and the Two Strings, an ambitious stop-motion animated fantasy adventure set in ancient Japan. It concerns a would-be storyteller who finds that the wild tales of magic his mostly catatonic mother told him are all true, tragedies wrought by a repressive, “cold, hard, perfect” father figure. This is where it should be noted that Laika is owned by Travis’ father Phil, a co-founder of Nike and one of the richest men in the country. I’m not sure if or how to apply that information, which pretty much sums up everything good but not great about Kubo. It feels like the film could (or should) be a deeply personal work, but it’s also a nonspecific tangle of narrative, cultural and thematic threads, alternating between an alluring mysticism and a pedagogic tendency toward overexplanation. There’s a little too much clutter in the story and not enough urgency, and the whole of Kubo ends up as less satisfying than the sum of its setpieces. But what jaw-dropping setpieces! A skyscrapersized skeleton with swords embedded in its skull; giant underwater eyes that hypnotize their prey; a boat constructed from leaves and driftwood; a temple magically arising from the water. Starting with a thrilling and poetic prologue set on a moonlit, storm-tossed sea, Kubo proceeds to take your breath away every few minutes, even as the film keeps dropping more rules, back stories,

By Daniel BarneS

explanations and stories within stories within stories into the mix. After that excellent prologue, the film establishes Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson) as a small-town minstrel, a good-natured, one-eyed boy who tells his stories through origami figures brought to life by a magical guitar. Back home, Kubo’s mother spins stories of a horrible family legacy involving witches, betrayal, a heroic dead father, a stolen eye and an evil, all-powerful Moon King (Ralph Fiennes, of course), stories that are proven true when Kubo flouts a rule about staying out after dark. On the run from the Moon King and his daughters, Kubo embarks on a quest to retrieve his father’s armor, protected only by a sardonic monkey (Charlize Theron) and a samurai beetle (Matthew McConaughey), both of whom resemble figures from Kubo’s past. For all the mishmash of the plot, Kubo ultimately lands on an easy, one-sentence homily, but no matter the tonal and structural quibbles, the film is recommendable based solely on the number of shots that will live with me forever. Those gorgeous images are rendered with Laika’s usual flawless design and state-of-the-art animation, with the macabre house style and tone left largely intact from Coraline, Paranorman and The Boxtrolls. Kubo doesn’t quite live up to those previous efforts, but it’s still funny and weird and an all-around visual marvel. It’s the fourth Laika film and their fourth good one, making them the most reliable bet in the world of animated features now that Studio Ghibli is shuttered and Pixar is obsessed with sequels. Ω

It’s the fourth Laika film and their fourth good one.

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2

ON GOLDFIELD TRADING POST! Anthropoid

Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan star  as resistance fighters who parachute  into Occupied Czechoslovakia at the height  of World War II with a mission to assassinate  high-ranking Nazi General Reinhard Heydrich in  the underwhelming Anthropoid (coincidentally,  the upcoming HHhH, starring Mia Wasikowska  and Rosamund Pike, covers the exact same  ground). Based on the true story of Operation  Anthropoid, this offering from director and cowriter Sean Ellis (Cashback) dishes out moldy  drama leavened with thrilling action, although  the war scenes unwittingly evoke the waris-hell bloodlust of the Inglourious Basterds  movie-within-a-movie Nation’s Pride more  than anything else. It’s all over the map—the  first half of Anthropoid is almost unbearably  stodgy and polite, and then suddenly everyone’s getting their limbs and faces graphically  blown off. As for the performances, Dornan  proves that his wooden performance in 50  Shades of Grey was no fluke, while the talented  Murphy is trapped without a character. D.B.

3

Indignation

Best known for writing or co-writing  nine of Ang Lee’s films, James Schamus  makes his feature directing debut with this  adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2008 novel. Logan  Lerman stars as Marcus Messner, an intellectual Jewish atheist teenager who avoids the  Korean War by attending a small Ohio college.  Anti-Semitism, sexual repression, communistera paranoia and emotional insecurity swirl  indistinguishable into a tornado of adolescent  angst for Marcus, especially when he gets  involved with a complicated female student  played by Sarah Gadon. Indignation feels like  the work of a writer turned first-time director:  it’s patient and actor-friendly (the centerpiece  scene is an 18 minute-long standoff between  Marcus and the judgmental Dean played by  Tracy Letts) with some novel-like dimensions,  but the emphasis is placed on construction and  texture at the expense of pace, momentum  and visual language. The performances hold it  together, including a scene-stealing turn from  Linda Emond as Marcus’ mother. D.B.

3

Jason Bourne

Fugitive former spy Jason Bourne (Matt  Damon) is still scouring the world for  clues to his true identity. Meanwhile, the CIA,  with nothing else to do and showing a go-everywhere-and-see-everything efficiency that the  agency only has in movies like this, plots to find  and kill him. Director and co-writer (with Christopher Rouse) Paul Greengrass returns after a  four-year hiatus in the Bourne franchise, which  was enough to coax Damon back as well. Following the convoluted story is getting to be more  trouble than it’s worth, but Greengrass holds  our interest with some high-adrenaline action  scenes—including a climactic chase through  Las Vegas that appears to kill bystanders by the  hundreds (though not enough to jeopardize the  PG-13 rating). Alicia Vikander, Tommy Lee Jones  and Vincent Cassel co-star.  J.L.

3

BY DANIEL BARNES & JIM LANE

Nerve

A meek Staten Island teenager (Emma  Roberts) impulsively joins an online  game where players win cash for accepting  dares; as the game progresses, the prizes get  higher and the dares get more and more dangerous. Jessica Sharzer’s script (adapted from  Jeanne Ryan’s novel) grows necessarily more  far-fetched by the minute, eventually climaxing  in a lecture on the dangers of peer pressure  that practically flashes “Author’s Message.”  But directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman  set a lively, suspenseful pace, aided by Madeleine Gavin and Jeff McEvoy’s razor-sharp  editing. The movie’s not-so-secret weapon is  the sympathetic Roberts and her chemistry  with costar Dave Franco as a fellow player.  Emily Meade adds surprising depth to her role  as Roberts’ BFF; other supports are good but  tend to blur together. J.L.

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3

Florence Foster Jenkins

Meryl Streep stars as the notorious socialite and musical dilettante  whose terrible singing made her a legend among the patronizing  cognoscenti of 1940s New York. Streep is as brilliant as ever, and in his more  subdued way, so is Hugh Grant as her devoted companion and manager St.  Clair Bayfield. But the movie tries to have it both ways, inviting us to guffaw  with ridicule, then trying to shame us into admiration. Nicholas Martin’s script  strikes almost as many false notes as Florence ever did (e.g., Earl Wilson was  a nightlife columnist, not a music critic; and Bayfield was a professional actor,  not a hammy amateur). With the aid of director Stephen Frears, Streep rises  above her text and manages to earn the sympathy Martin so clumsily demands  for her. J.L.

4

Pete’s Dragon

The Disney film brand has been mired  in an existential identity crisis of late,  obsessed with sequels and remakes but fixated  on re-examining traditional roles and institutional values. All that self-conscious re-branding leaves little room for old-fashioned Disney  magic, and up until this year, the studio’s spate  of live-action remakes of animated chestnuts  has proved a dry well of pixie dust. That’s  why it’s almost shocking that director and  co-writer David Lowery’s genuinely magical  Pete’s Dragon carries the Disney label. There  is such a purity of vision to this thing, such a  warm storybook vibe, and such a scarcity of  the usual family entertainment pitfalls that it  feels like the film was made in secret. There  was little in Lowery’s previous work (he edited  Upstream Color, produced Listen Up Philip and  directed Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) to suggest  he could summon the Disney magic, but Pete’s  Dragon is his proof. D.B.

2

Sausage Party

3

Suicide Squad

On the shelves of a supermarket, all the  food items—frankfurters, buns, mustard  jars, ketchup bottles, etc.—wait eagerly for  the day they’ll be chosen by some shopper and  transported to the “Great Beyond”—never  suspecting that their true fate is to be chopped,  cooked and eaten. Some of the jokes in the script  are profanely funny (just imagine the double  entendre possibilities of wieners sliding into  buns) and the novelty of a raunchy adults-only  cartoon has a naughty charge. That’s good for  about 15 minutes, then all this food reaches its  sell-by date and grows stale; the characters and  story aren’t engaging enough to fill 89 minutes.  Seth Rogen co-writes and provides a star voice,  with other voices by his usual gang of buddies:  Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Michael  Cera, Bill Hader, etc.  J.L.

even flinches. A screenwriter turned director  who excels at stories of violent group dynamics  (Fury; Sabotage), Ayer probably squeezes the  most disreputable fun into this PG-13 film as he  was allowed. Yet all of the symptoms of the disease are still present: a surplus of origin stories,  supervillains with nebulous motivations, and a  choppy plot forced to serve too many masters.  Suicide Squad spreads so thin that it only makes  time for one layer of character development,  even for the characters we actually come to  care about. There is so much universe-building  and overexplaining that the movie frequently  forgets to have any fun. D.B.

3

War Dogs

In the early days of the Afghanistan  and Iraq wars, two 20-something  slackers, Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill) and David  Packouz (Miles Teller) hustle their way into the  international arms business, making hundredmillion-dollar deals between bong hits and  lines of coke. Todd Phillips’ direction is typically  jerky and unsubtle, but his script (co-written  with Steven Chin and Jason Smilovic, from Guy  Lawson’s Rolling Stone article and subsequent book) follows the facts of Diveroli and  Packouz’s true story fairly closely. And that’s  enough—the mind-boggling chutzpah of these  two sleazeballs (plus Hill and Teller’s strong  performances) keep us watching in fascination.  Packouz (who plays a bit part) comes off as  more sympathetic, suggesting that he cooperated with the filmmakers more than Diveroli  did. J.L.

At this point, even the most die-hard  comic book movie apologists would have  to admit that the superhero genre is stuck in  a rut. The genre demands reinvention, but for  all of the chest-beating swagger and style of  David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, the needle hardly

08.18.16    |   SN&R   |   33

The art of discipline How Felice LaZae went from high kicks to high notes by Taylor Desmangles

Renaissance

Choir Sacramento

Photo BY DEAN ZULICh

Thursday Evenings in Antelope New Singers Welcome

916.320.8423 | ltlovallo@gmail.com

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34   |   SN&R   |   08.18.16

“Coming down here to Southern California, everybody wants to be in entertainment,â€? she says, laughing. “The difference is like, ‘Oh, this can actually be a career versus just a pipe dream.’â€? Using some of the same skills she learned in taekwondo, LaZae became extremely disciplined with her artistry and tested out of high school to fully focus on music. At 15, she enrolled into the music program at American River College to study audio engineering. From there, she connected arms open to love. with the manager of the prestigious Studio at the Palms in Las Vegas. As a production assistant at the multi-million dollar studio, she worked with artists like Prince, Felice LaZae didn’t always create vision boards Michael Jackson and other legendary creatives who depicting a career in music. Before the R&B powerfueled her determination to build her singing career. house dedicated her life to singing, she dreamt of Her bluesy, grassroots sound has taken her around winning an Olympic medal for taekwondo. the world performing, though she is still striving to At just 13 years old, the Sacramento native won reach her standard of success. gold in the U.S. Open taekwondo championships. “What keeps me motivated is thinking I don’t At that point, martial arts was her life and singing want to be an old person and wish I would’ve was just something she enjoyed. LaZae didn’t truly done something,â€? she says. “I want to live without fall in love with singing until she spent a week with regrets. I want to live the life of my dreams.â€? a cousin who only spoke Spanish—being able to Prologue, her debut EP dropping in exchange cultural beats and sounds surpassed any October, involves these same themes language barriers between them. That was of motivation and self-love. The when LaZae realized how she’d leave song “Give It Awayâ€? is a prime her mark on the world. example of what LaZae wants “I want people to listen to my to see in her life and also music and see my journey and recommends to others: pushknow it is OK to be different,â€? ing yourself forward, living she says. “These songs are me your life, not being afraid of and are saying things that I new experiences and being believe about the world. ‌ My open to love. She’ll sing purpose is to empower people.â€? off of Prologue when she Now, LaZae is fully Felice LaZae performs at the Torch Club on immersed in the lifestyle of an Wednesday, August 24, with up-and-coming soul singer and all the goal of making sure everyone of what that includes. From multiple leaves feeling strong, confident and city relocations to channeling past bullying ready to create their best lives. experiences as motivation, she has overcome the “I want to leave a legacy that you can do whatsort of obstacles that discourage most—particularly ever you want to do,â€? she says, smiling. “I want those who, like LaZae, entered the industry without people to listen to my music and see my journey and any connections. Starting in Sacramento, she found know that, no matter what happens, even if you fall, it difficult to see a serious career in music. It wasn’t you can be whatever you want to be.â€? Ί until high school when her family moved to Long Beach that she was able to see her dream become a real possibility.

“My purpose is to empower people.�

Catch Felice LaZae at 9 p.m. Wednesday, August 24, at torch Club, 904 15th Street. the cover is $5. More at www.felicelazae.com.

colonial fest

SouNd advice

DIY wonderland Get out, stay home: Library of MusicLandria founders Buddy Hale and Rachel Freund urged Sacramentans to not leave town last Saturday and instead attend their homegrown art, music and comedy festival Sac Stay Home Fest. According to Hale, more than 400 people attended the all-day free festival, an impressive feat considering its DIY nature. Red Museum looked like a post-apocalyptic bunker for the occasion. One comedian described the inside space as an emptied-out barn with “the world’s most expensive chandelier.” Outside felt like a bazaar on a rural alien planet from the show Firefly. There were vendors selling food, shirts, art and books, with the outdoor stage protected from the sun with a large—and ugly—folded tarp dangling several feet in the air. This festival couldn’t have taken place in any other city than Sacramento. It was a true coming together of the town’s weirder artist types, with a deliberately gritty aesthetic and interesting tidbits shoved into every corner. Most importantly, it was a true community event. When I asked Hale who exactly was behind it, he said that he could name at least 50 people that helped put it together and left it at that. Even the emcee for the evening, Curtis Atkisson, just volunteered shortly before the fest—and he killed it. So much of the festival was about finding little surprises, like a Slip ’N Slide, a box of magazines and art supplies for anyone looking to make collages, and an artist in a Victorian wig offering $5 portraits. I got one and he really evoked my melancholy side. The festival also captured the stranger side of Sacramento’s rock scene. On the more normal end of the spectrum were great bands like Sun Valley Gun Club, Mondo Deco and Dog Rifle. Even Sac Stay Home sound guy Drew Walker’s old band the Happy Medium—playing its first show in five years—and its dynamic psych-rock, gnome-growling vocals and continually shifting prog-chops was practically pop music compared to some of the other acts. My three favorites were the Buk Buk Bigups, a one-man-vintage-suitwearing-band that played short blips of synth-pop followed by long blasts

of atonal noise; Ross Hammond, who provided a mellow, jazzy, experimental guitar backdrop while a random woman took it upon herself to spin neon hula hoops; and Pac and Sleep, the truly spectacular sax-drum duo of Jon Bafus and Randy McKean. They played free jazz at an unrelenting spastic energy level that was so intense, you were dripping with sweat just watching.

aug. 27th - 28th at

—AAron CArnes

Boys are OK sometimes: The new Destroy Boys album, Sorry, Mom, isn’t so self-conscious about dealing with teenage shenanigans. Its nine songs, a folly of frantic garage rock romps, aren’t afraid to tell you about it either. A single overdriven guitar (Vi Mayugba), drums (Ethan Knight) and vocals (Alexia Roditis) make for catchy racket, like in “Junk,” an irritable ode to misplacing your stuff for good, again. Mayugba delivers one pleasantly crunched riff after another to Knight’s breathless drum flurries. Meanwhile, Roditis narrates her diary of an angsty teen girl, her vocal style some parts cheery, some parts depressed and annoyed, but always melodically daring. The whole package can get serious, but it keeps an attitude that’s playful enough to imagine that they pick each other’s noses. And sometimes, the songs are indeed about boys. “I Threw Glass At My Friend’s Eyes And Now I’m On Probation,” is a four-chord punk tune about being ickily smitten with an older guy. “Widow,” a slower alt-rock jam, compares a former squeeze to a creeping spider, and “No Respect” takes a friend to the woodshed over his male entitlement. Struggles with insecurity, apathy and depression form the album’s darker margins. “Put me in the farthest ward, maybe I’ll be a little less bored,” Roditis sings in the final track, “Word Salad.” The songs are ironic and self-aware, but the stories seem more so about coping with and trudging through their experiences, rather than getting all furrow-browed about what life could possibly mean. Growing up never ends after all, and Sorry, Mom is a fun, rocking reflection of those riotous years. —Mozes zArAte

20+ local area bands $10 per day // $15 2-day pass facebook event: colonial fest 2 for line-up & info 916.718.7055 · 3520 stockton blvd sacramento, ca /cafecolonialsacramento

FALL 2016 STRAWBERRY MUSIC FESTIVAL SEPT 1ST – 4TH | WESTSIDE IN TUOLUMNE, CA

THURSDAY: RISKY BISCUITS, ANNE AND PETE SIBLEY, DAVID LUNING, ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

SATURDAY: THE BROTHERS COMATOSE, HOWELL DEVINE, RUTHIE FOSTER, LOS LOBOS

FRIDAY: SHINYRIBS, SHANNON MCNALLY, SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS, THE DEL MCCOURY BAND

SUNDAY: HILLBENDERS, MANDOLIN ORANGE, SESSION AMERICANA, LEFTOVER SALMON

AND MANY MORE! OVER 20 MAIN STAGE ACTS, TOP NOTCH KIDS & TEEN PRO GRAMS, ACTIVITIES FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY, LEGENDARY CAMP JAMS, HOG RANCH RADIO, SHOPPING, COMFORTABLE & SCENIC SETTING FOR CAMPING, FINE FOOD IN FOOD COURT Single-day, evening, & 2-,3- & 4-day camping passes available. Children under 5 are free.

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08.18.16    |   SN&R   |   35

18 T HU

20 SAT

20 SAT

Moon Boots

The New Pornographers

Pets

Nicolas Gutierrez

19 FRI

Shawn Thwaites Rebel Quartet

Midtown BArfly, 9 p.M., $20

CroCker Art MuseuM, 5:30 p.M., $10-$17 What gives Shawn Thwaites Rebel Quartet  its unique, eclectic sound? Is it the weaving  of hip-hop, calypso, Afro-beat, funk and R&B  into contemporary jazz? Well, yes, but it’s  also the steelpan, an underused instrument  with roots in Trinidad and Tobago. Steel  drummer Thwaites is TrinidadianJAZZ American and proudly incorporates  his ancestry into his distinct brand of jazz.  His band is actually quite a bit larger than a  quartet, with drums, piano, bass, trumpet  and saxophone, but his steelpan comes  through as the focal point. 216 O Street,  http://strq.tv.

—JAnelle Bitker

ACe of spAdes, 7 p.M., $25

Weightlessness comes to mind while listening  to the nu-disco originals and remixes by producer Moon Boots. The moniker is apropos.  There’s a futuristic glisten to his production  that suggests dance utopias running counter  to reports on the daily news.  NU-DISco Moon Boots doesn’t trouble his  listeners with too much darkness. It channels  the optimism and pure expression of ’80s  boogie and renders it anew for a modern  bright side. His music focuses on the neon  lights rather than the dark space between  those lasers on the dance floor. His set at  Barfly will be a rare, earthly opportunity for  anti-gravity. 1119 21st Street, http://moon  bootsmusic.com.

—BlAke Gillespie

the hideAwAy BAr & Grill, 9 p.M., $5

OK, pensive hipsters, now let’s get in  formation: the New Pornographers are  swinging by Ace of Spades—a rare visit  from Vancouver’s famed indie  INDIE supergroup. Led by A.C. Newman,  the New Pornographers boasts Dan Bejar,  Kathryn Calder and sometimes (though not  this weekend) alt-country star Neko Case.  Expect plenty from 2014’s Brill Bruisers,  the band’s sixth album since their 1999  inception. From the peppy nostalgia of  “Champions of Red Wine” to the Jenny  Lewis-esque “Another Drug Deal of the  Heart,” the New Pornographers’ latest work  alone is likely worth admission. 1417 R Street,  www.thenewpornographers.com.

Sacramento indie and garage-pop duo  Pets releases Get Turned On on wax this  weekend. Members Derek Fieth (bass and  vocals) and Allison Jones (guitar and vocals)  also released a music video for the fuzzheavy rock ‘n’ roll song “Dead Quick,” and  once again teamed up with award-winning  director Andrew Hooper. Dressed in their  signature black-on-black threads, Fieth and  Jones bring color to the  GARAGE-PoP music video by bustin’ out  some fun dance moves next to a sexy classic car before taking it on a joyride through  a psychedelic dream world. 2565 Franklin  Boulevard, www.facebook.com/petstheband.

—dAve keMpA

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STONEYINN.COM 36   |   SN&R   |   08.18.16

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Julie & the JukeS

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20 SAT

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25 T HU

Bows

BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet

Dowsing

Ballantynes

Sophia’S Thai KiTchen, 9:30 p.m., $5 Berkeley-based electro-pop duo Bows has  quite the origin story: After Kaila McIntyreBader broke both her  ELECTRO-POP elbows (get it?!) in a bicycle  accident, she was forced to temporarily abandon the piano. As she healed, she  explored making music on her computer,  which bandmate Luke Bace eventually  translated into the synth stylings that  make up their very Sylvan-Esso-like sound.  The end results are highly danceable, a little  psychedelic and a lot of fun. Also on the bill  is L.A. pop duo Who Can Sleep and Bace’s  other project, LakeCube. 129 E Street in  Davis, www.facebook.com/bowstheband.

The colony, 7 p.m., $8

harlow’S reSTauranT & nighTclub, 7 p.m., $32.50 - $35 BeauSoleil was a regular at the sadly defunct  Palms Playhouse, so this show comes as a  sweet surprise. This Sunday’s dance party  starts early and ends early. As always, the  band will be led by fiddler and singer Michael  Doucet. Besides being landmark Cajun artists, this group is closing in on 40 years.  Bravo! (And for future reference: No word  whether Palms Playhouse’s former  CAJUN talent buyer Dave Fleming will be  involved with the new owners as the Winters’  venue is pending sale). 2708 J Street,   www.beausoleilmusic.com.

—Deena DrewiS

—eDDie JorgenSen

preSS club, 8 p.m., $10

When Dowsing put out its album Okay earlier  this year, fans speculated that it had outgrown its emo roots. Some want to upgrade  Dowsing’s music genre with a hyphen, like  emo-indie, or emo-punk, while others say  just a plain ol’ indie rebranding  EMO-PUNk suffices. Either way, the band  has put together a solid, guitar-driven collection of songs that also have some deep,  emotive lyrics. Check out the group’s prior  2013 effort, I Don’t Even Care Anymore, a  much slower, sulking affair. A brief hiatus,  and the Chicago four-piece returned with  more energy and diverse influences. 3512  Stockton Boulevard, www.facebook.com/ Dowsingband.

Vancouver six-piece Ballantynes want to get  you dancing. Sure, a lot of bands hope you will  shake your hips when they hit the stage, but  Ballantynes work overtime to inspire some  serious sweat-induced dance moves from  every person that walks into the club. They  exude a ton of energy, and they’ve got it all:  organ, trombone, tambourine and of course,  all the standard rock ‘n’ soul instruR&B ments. Their breed of soul—Northern  Soul, it’s called—is just about the most  upbeat, energetic version of soul music that’s  ever existed. This isn’t Al Green crooning  sweet gospel ballads; this is get-up-on-yourfeet-all-night-long music. 2030 P Street,  www.facebook.com/theballantynes.

—amy bee

—aaron carneS

All Ages Welcome!

1417 R Street, Sacramento, 95814 • www.aceofspadessac.com friday, august 19

TOO SHORT saturday, august 20

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS

friday, sePtember 9 vive 92.1fm Presents:

cAMIlA saturday, sePtember 10

JAKE BUGG

syd artHur

rogue Wave

monday, august 22

DIGITOUR SUMMER 2016

Weston Koury - baby ariel - dylan dauzat - JaKe t. austin - dyllan murray - sammy WilK

tuesday, august 23

RIFF RAFF

trill sammy & dice soHo - dollarbillgates

Wedneday, august 31

MADEINTYO salma slims – mynamePHin - noaH Wood$

saturday, sePtember 17

TROMBONE SHORTY & ORlEANS AVENUE Joy & madness

sunday, sePtember 18

SAINT MOTEl Jr Jr - WeatHers

sunday, sePtember 25

RX BANDITS

COMING

SOON

08/18 08/30 09/16 09/26 09/27 09/28 10/01 10/02 10/05 10/06 10/07 10/09 10/10 10/11 10/14 10/15 10/21 10/23 10/24 10/28 10/29 11/02 11/03 11/04 11/05 11/06 11/09 11/10 11/12 11/15 11/16 11/18

Fitz & The Tantrums Sold Out! Explosions In The Sky Sold Out! Coheed And Cambria Sold Out! Carla Morrison Tech N9ne Echo & The Bunnymen Corey Smith Buckcherry & Hoobastank Drive By Truckers Simple Plan Machine Gun Kelly Devin Townsend Project & Between The Buried & Me Beartooth Eric Hutchinson Steve Vai Halestorm with Lita Ford Opeth Yellowcard Young The Giant Sold Out! Aaron Lewis Bad Religion Sold Out! Attila Post Malone The Wonder Years & Real Friends Colt Ford Crown The Empire Cherub For Today The Dirty Heads Siruis XM’s Faction Presents: Pennywise Queensryche Yelawolf

TickeTs available aT all Dimple RecoRDs locaTions anD www.aceofspaDessac.com 08.18.16    |   SN&R   |   37

THURSDAY 8/18 BADLANDS

2003 K St., (916) 448-8790

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FRIDAY 8/19

BAR 101

Thursday Comedy Open Mic, 7:30pm, call for cover

NA’AN STOP, 9:30pm, call for cover

LITTLE LEMON, 9:30pm, call for cover

BLUE LAMP

GAMBIT, TORCH 1, BLAZIN & LIL EVIL; 7:30pm, $11-$14

BONFIRE, 8pm, $10-$12

HUSALAH, 8pm, $20

BAD OMENS, CONTROL, MECHANISIM; 6:30pm, $12

KINGDOM OF THE GIANTS, COLOSSAL DREAM; 6pm, $12-$14

MATT RAINEY, 5pm, call for cover; TIFFANY LORRAINE, 9pm, call for cover

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THE BOARDWALK

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

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

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Everything Happens dancing and karaoke, 9pm, call for cover

Absolute Fridays dance party, 9pm, $5-$10

Party Time dance party with Sequin Sarudays drag show, 9:30pm, $5-$12

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THE MIKE JUSTIS BAND, 8pm, no cover

TARA VELARDE; 9pm, $5

BANJO BONES AND THE PINE STREET RAMBLERS; 9pm, $5

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BRANDY CLARK, MADISON HUDSON; 7pm, $12-$15

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Punk and glam night with DJ Annimal, 9pm, no cover

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

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AARON SNOOK, DEVIN FARREN, DICK LARSON; 8:30pm, $5

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LOVEFOOL, 9pm, $5

FLEETWOOD MASK, 8pm, $15-$20

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EDM and karaoke, 9pm M, no cover; Latin night, 9pm Tu, $5 Open-mic night, 7:30pm M, no cover; Pub quiz, 7pm Tu, no cover

Trivia night, 7pm Tu; Bingo, 1pm W; Paint night, 6:30pm W, $25 BEAUSOLEIL AVEC MICHAEL DOUCET, 6pm, $32.50-$35

Sac unified poetry slam; 8pm, call for cover

DAVE LYNCH, ADAM BLOCK; 8pm, $5

Nebraska Mondays, 7:30pm M, $10; Open Mic Comedy, 8pm Tu, no cover

MOONBOOTS, 9:30pm, $5-$20

MAOR LEVI, CUE22, AMICUS; 10pm, $5-$20

Salsa Wednesday, 7:30pm W, $5

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DEVON GALLEY AND THE HEAVY HOLD, THE ROAMIES; 8:30pm W, $5

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by JOEY GARCIA

@AskJoeyGarcia

The heart’s risk How would you ask your significant other about certain of his female friends that raise questions in your mind (with legitimate reasons behind those concerns)? Under what circumstances is it best to bring up a concern regarding another female? Is it better not to bring anything up? My boyfriend is friends with girls that he was once had crushes on, but who weren’t interested in him until we got together. It makes me uncomfortable. He says he’s no longer interested in them and that I have nothing to worry about. Do I? If you’re a worrier by nature, then yes, you’ll have something to worry about—if not this scenario, then another situation or person you can’t control. That’s how our worry muscle works. Don’t be offended; I have a worry muscle, too. The trick is not to exercise it often. Worry is a symptom that alerts us to the presence of anxiety. My definition of anxiety: internal energy that we build up as we prepare to tackle a personal problem, but—epic fail—that energy remains unused because instead of taking action, we freeze. So now we have anxious energy in storage that’s ready to attach itself to whatever unfolds in our lives. People say that exercising reduces anxiety. True. When we exercise, the brain is distracted while the body burns through anxiety’s skim layer. But anxiety returns like a boss because nothing really changed beyond that superficial skim. Ever scrape a fingernail across the wax of a pillar candle? You just scraped away the amount of anxiety that exercising removes. The rest of the candle is your remaining storehouse of anxiety. Yikes, is right. You can reduce worry about the other women in your man’s life, by accepting reality: giving your heart to another always involves risk. Yes, always. But it’s a risk worth taking because learning how to love and be loved is our evolutionary work. So

dig beneath anxiety’s foundation with these questions: What are you really afraid of? Losing a relationship you’ve invested in? Being the last to know that your boyfriend’s heart has landed elsewhere? Being alone? Suss it out and be free. The other issue you face is communication. A good time to chat about a topic that creates relationship stress is when you’ve let go of getting your way. So be open to hearing your partner’s perspective without trying to defend your own. If he loves you, he’ll keep his female friends at arm’s length. Or he’ll have a serious convo with them to reaffirm the boundaries needed to protect his relationship with you. If you love him, you will own your insecurity (yes, even if there’s a legit reason you’re uncomfortable). If you love yourself, you will assess this relationship and decide if it’s right for you. Hey, we live in a big ol’ world of people looking for love. There are available men who don’t need to be friends with women they once had a crush on. Of course, those men will have other annoying issues. Let’s call that: New chances to learn and grow. It’s why relationships are a spiritual path. Ω

Worry is a symptom that alerts us to the presence of anxiety.

MeDITaTIon of THe Week “People will stare. Make it  worth their while,” said jeweler  Harry Winston. Let’s give them  something (positive) to talk  about. Ready, set, go!

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

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So did the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency finally make a decision? B.A. “Ted” Breath Meh. They did, but it’s pretty much the same old song, although they did make a small change. In case you missed it: Last week, the DEA decided not to change cannabis’ Schedule I status, meaning that the DEA still considers cannabis to be of no medical use and to be highly addictive, like GHB or heroin. Go figure. I talked about some of the reasons why the DEA probably wouldn’t change their position on pot in the column before this one (see “Overscheduled,” August 11). I had thought they would have tried to stall for a while longer, but they didn’t. Maybe they should have. The new rules still keep cannabis listed as Schedule I, but they have loosened the restrictions on researchers who want to grow marijuana to use in medical studies. Previously, scientists were only allowed to use cannabis from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Now, medical professionals looking to perform clinical trials can go the DEA website (http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drugreg/index.html#regapps), fill out form 225 and hope that they get approval. Good luck! A few cool things have happened though: Many top scientists and politicians have lambasted the DEA’s decision. Dr. Carl Hart, a neuroscientist and associate professor of psychology at Columbia University, had this criticism in a recent Scientific American article: “The inconsistency of Federal laws with these other programs and initiatives, and with the increasing number of studies demonstrating the It medical usefulness of the substance, makes is so nice marijuana’s Schedule I status seem like medical and/or governmental hypocrisy, when politicians undermining people’s’ trust in the relevant finally start federal agencies.” And, he pointed out, listening to their “Recently, DEA commissioner Chuck Rosenberg described the very concept of constituents. medical marijuana as ‘a joke.’ Perhaps it’s also a joke that a law enforcement agency has the final word on a medical issue.” Nice burn, Dr. Hart. He’s not the only one. Here is Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon congressman, giving them heck: “Keeping marijuana at Schedule I continues an outdated, failed approach—leaving patients and marijuana businesses trapped between state and federal laws. ... It’s not right or fair,” he said in a statement. The DEA’s self-serving decision even prompted Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to release a statement on how she would change the law if she were to be elected. “As president, Hillary will build on the important steps announced today by rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule II substance. She will also ensure Colorado, and other states that have enacted marijuana laws, can continue to serve as laboratories of democracy.” It is so nice when politicians finally start listening to their constituents. Let us continue to help the DEA make good decisions by supporting cannabis legalization efforts on a local and national level. Ω Ngaio Bealum is a Sacramento comedian, activist and marijuana expert. Email him questions at ask420@newsreview.com.

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Otherwise, Sky is noticeably discreet and somewhat guarded about her usage, even with people close to her, such as the gentleman she currently dates. “It’s so funny. We were watching ‘Family Feud’ and something came up about marijuana, and I said, ‘What are your thoughts about that?’” Sky’s friend mentioned that he smoked on occasion, and instantly the couple had something in common.

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FRee will aStRology

by Kris HooKs

by rob brezsny

FOR THE WEEK OF AUGUST 18, 2016 ARIES (March 21-April 19): Can you imagine

feeling at home in the world no matter where you are? If you eventually master this art, outer circumstances won’t distort your relationship with yourself. No matter how crazy or chaotic the people around you might be, you will remain rooted in your unshakable sense of purpose; you will respond to any given situation in ways that make you both calm and alert, amused and curious, compassionate for the suffering of others and determined to do what’s best for you. If you think these are goals worth seeking, you can make dramatic progress toward them in the coming weeks.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): As I tried to meditate on your horoscope, my next-door neighbor was wielding a weed-whacker to trim her lawn, and the voices in my head were shouting extra loud. So I decided to drive down to the marsh to get some high-quality silence. When I arrived at the trailhead, I found an older man in ragged clothes leaning against the fence. Nearby was a grocery cart full of what I assumed were all his earthly belongings. “Doing nothing is a very difficult art,” he croaked as I slipped by him, “because you’re never really sure when you are done.” I immediately recognized that his wisdom might be useful to you. You are, after all, in the last few days of your recharging process. It’s still a good idea for you to lie low and be extra calm and vegetate luxuriously. But when should you rise up and leap into action again? Here’s my guess: Get one more dose of intense stillness and silence.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): My readers have a

range of approaches for working with the counsel I offer. Some study the horoscopes for both their sun signs and rising signs, then create do-ityourself blends of the two. Others prefer to wait until the week is over before consulting what I’ve written. They don’t want my oracles to influence their future behavior, but enjoy evaluating their recent past in light of my analysis. Then there are the folks who read all 12 of my horoscopes. They refuse to be hemmed in by just one forecast, and want to be free to explore multiple options. I encourage you to try experiments like these in the coming days. The moment is ripe to cultivate more of your own unique strategies for using and interpreting the information you absorb—both from me and from everyone else you listen to.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Have you been

drinking a lot of liquids? Are you spending extra time soaking in hot baths and swimming in bodies of water that rejuvenate you? Have you been opening your soul to raw truths that dissolve your fixations and to beauty that makes you cry and to love that moves you to sing? I hope you’re reverently attending to these fluidic needs. I hope you’re giving your deepest yearnings free play and your freshest emotions lots of room to unfold. Smart, well-lubricated intimacy is a luxurious necessity, my dear. Stay very, very wet.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In my opinion, you need

to bask in the glorious fury of at least one brainstorm—preferably multiple brainstorms over the course of the next two weeks. What can you do to ensure that happens? How might you generate a flood of new ideas about how to live your life and understand the nature of reality? Here are some suggestions: Read books about creativity. Hang around with original thinkers and sly provocateurs. Insert yourself into situations that will strip you of your boring certainties. And take this vow: “I hereby unleash the primal power of my liberated imagination.”

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): When you were a

child, did you play with imaginary friends? During your adolescence, did you nurture a fantasy relationship with a pretend boyfriend or girlfriend? Since you reached adulthood, have you ever enjoyed consorting with muses or guardian angels or ancestral spirits? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you are in a good position to take full advantage of the subtle opportunities and cryptic invitations that are coming your way. Unexpected sources are poised to provide unlikely inspirations in unprecedented ways.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): When you were born,

you already carried the seeds of gifts you would someday be able to provide—specific influences or teachings or blessings that only you, of all

the people who have ever lived, could offer the world. How are you doing in your quest to fulfill this potential? Here’s what I suspect: Your seeds have been ripening slowly and surely. But in the coming months, they could ripen at a more rapid pace. Whether they actually do or not may depend on your willingness to take on more responsibilities—interesting responsibilities, to be sure—but bigger than you’re used to.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I suspect that you

will soon be culminating a labor of love you’ve been nurturing and refining for many moons. How should you celebrate? Maybe with some champagne and caviar? If you’d like to include bubbly in your revels, a good choice might be 2004 Belle Epoque Rose. Its floral aroma and crispy mouth-feel rouse a sense of jubilation as they synergize the flavors of blood orange, pomegranate and strawberry. As for caviar: Consider the smooth, aromatic, and elegant roe of the albino beluga sturgeon from the unpolluted areas of the Caspian Sea near Iran. But before I finish this oracle, let me also add that a better way to honor your accomplishment might be to take the money you’d spend on champagne and caviar, and instead use it as seed money for your next big project.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Some

species of weeds become even more robust and entrenched as they develop resistances to the pesticides that are designed to eradicate them. This is one example of how fighting a problem can make the problem worse—especially if you attack too furiously or use the wrong weapons. I invite you to consider the possibility that this might be a useful metaphor for you to contemplate in the coming weeks. Your desire to solve a knotty dilemma or shed a bad influence is admirable. Just make sure you choose a strategy that actually works.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to compose an essay on at least one of the following themes: (1) “How I Fed and Fed My Demons Until They Gorged Themselves to Death.” (2) “How I Exploited My Nightmares in Ways That Made Me Smarter and Cuter.” (3) “How I Quietly and Heroically Transformed a Sticky Problem into a Sleek Opportunity.” (4) “How I Helped Myself by Helping Other People.” For extra credit, Capricorn—and to earn the right to trade an unholy duty for a holy one—write about all four subjects.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I suspect that

in the coming months you will be drawn to wandering through the frontiers and exploring the unknown. Experimentation will come naturally. Places and situations you have previously considered to be off-limits may be downright comfortable. In fact, it’s possible that you will have to escape your safety zones in order to fully be yourself. Got all that? Now here’s the kicker. In the coming weeks, everything I just described will be especially apropos for your closest relationships. Are you interested in redefining and reconfiguring the ways that togetherness works for you?

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): If you’re playing the

card game known as bridge, you’re lucky if you are dealt a hand that has no cards of a particular suit. This enables you, right from the beginning, to capture tricks using the trump suit. In other words, the lack of a certain resource gives you a distinct advantage. Let’s apply this metaphor to your immediate future, Pisces. I’m guessing that you will benefit from what may seem to be an inadequacy or deficit. An absence will be a useful asset.

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.

Life outside the lines Akinsanya Kambon says he isn’t  surprised by any of the recent killings of black people by police. The  turmoil between the black community and law enforcement is all too  familiar for the former Marineturned-Black Panther-turned-art  professor, who, in 1968, drew the  controversial Black Panther Coloring  Book that received national attention for its depiction of children  shooting police. SN&R recently  talked with Kambon to discuss the  provocative book, its oft-confusing  history and why its message is still  important nearly 50 years later.

What’s the significance behind the coloring book? What I was doing was trying to—in what’s really a history book—show that all of the bad guys in history are depicted as pigs. Now, it’s called a coloring book, so you can see a pig whichever color you want. It’s not talking about white people, even though there were some Europeans who were involved in slave trade. There were also some Muslims, and there were also some Africans that participated. So however you see the pig, that’s how you color that pig. That’s the reason I called it a coloring book.

There’s a common belief that the coloring book was created by the FBI for Cointelpro, a program aimed to infiltrate and disrupt political organizations. Is that not true? It’s been like that for years because the [Black] Panther Party said that that’s what the FBI did. But that’s not true. I’m telling you that I did it … I’m the only one who knows that is me because I’m the one who drew it.

This essentially changes the book’s known history. I’ve always said it was me who did it. I ain’t never said it wasn’t me. I know that I did the book, and when I did it, it was no problem with the Panther party.

What was going on at the time that made you create it? When I graduated from Sacramento High School, I was semi-illiterate. I could barely read, I read at like a second grade level. I ended up getting drafted into the Marine Corps, and when I got to Vietnam, we used to have these soul sessions, or rap sessions, and we had cats that used to talk about things in history that I never knew. … The things that I experienced in my life is what

PHOTO BY KRIS HOOKS

created that coloring book. I’ve seen how corrupt the police are. I know how they are because I was on their team when I was in the Marine Corps. I was just like a police officer.

my art classes, I’d take a break, go to the cafeteria and sit down and I’d have my drawings with me. The judge rejected it when the lawyers tried to present it.

You left Sacramento after that. Why come back?

Do you think painting and drawing these memories helps your posttraumatic stress disorder? When we first got back [from Vietnam], they told us don’t talk about it—that’s the therapy. Don’t talk about it, try to forget about it, it’ll go away eventually. Then they changed. They said whenever you have something stressful you need to talk about it write about it, draw about it—you need to get it out. I think that it does help, because I get everything out of me through this artwork. … I’m so much in my work, and it’s kind of like a spiritual walk that I’m doing.

Why reprint it after all these years? When you have situations going on in this country where the police are killing black people all over the country just like they used to, I think the book needs to come out again and people need to see it.

The lawyers tried to use the coloring book against you in the Oak Park Four case—the 1970 Black Panthers-involved killing of a police officer. How so? They tried to introduce it into evidence and the only way they could’ve done that, their key witness, Lamont “Buster” Rose, would have had to have seen me draw it. Well, he didn’t see me draw it, because I drew it when I was at city college. When I was in

Well, because there’s a lot of stuff going on up here in Sacramento and Oakland, and there’s a lot of places where people want to talk about this book. They want to talk to me about certain things, and I came up here because this is where I grew up. I know people, and my whole life is here.

You’re making a follow-up book at some point, too, yes? I’m coming out with another one after this, but it’s going to be more in-depth. There won’t be any children, and it’s gonna start with [Pope Nicholas V’s authorization of slavery in Portugal in 1452]. I got a lot the drawings already done. … It’s going to be a lot more comprehensive, because what I’m trying to do is get an understanding of how people can subjugate another people and enslave them.

Will you be adding stuff about the more recent police killings of black people? I thought about doing a lot of the more recent stuff, but, man, they’re just killing too much.

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Learn more about Akinsanya Kambon’s work at http://tinyurl.com/gsnrsb6.

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