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Mayor Steinberg looks back Six-figure food bloggers

Sacramentoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S newS & entertainment weekly

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Volume 29, iSSue 38

Gourmet prison chefs

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EditoR’S NotE

jaNuaRy 4, 2018 | Vol. 29, iSSuE 38

Crisis hits home

05 07 08 13 14 18 22 26 28 29 37 43 51

33 21 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 Eric Johnson News Editor Raheem F. Hosseini Arts & Culture Editor Rebecca Huval Associate Editor Mozes Zarate Staff Reporter Scott Thomas Anderson Calendar Editor Kate Gonzales Contributors Daniel Barnes, Ngaio Bealum, Alastair Bland, Rob Brezsny, Aaron Carnes, Jim Carnes, Willie Clark, John Flynn, Joey Garcia, Lovelle Harris, Jeff Hudson, Matt Kramer, Jim Lane, Michael Mott, Luis Gael Jimenez, Rachel Leibrock, Kate Paloy, Patti Roberts, Steph Rodriguez, Ann Martin Rolke, Shoka, Bev Sykes

27 Design Manager Christopher Terrazas Creative Director Serene Lusano Art Director Margaret Larkin Designers Kyle Shine, Maria Ratinova Marketing/Publications Designer Sarah Hansel Web Design & Strategy Intern Elisabeth Bayard Arthur Contributing Photographers Karlos Rene Ayala, Letrice Fowler, Shoka Advertising Manager Michael Gelbman Sales Coordinator Victoria Smedley Senior Advertising Consultants Rosemarie Messina, Kelsi White Advertising Consultants Mayra Diaz, Mark Kates , Matt Kjar, Alyssa Morrisey, Michael Nero, Allen Young Sweetdeals Coordinator Hannah Williams Facilities Coordinator/Sales Assistant David Lindsay Director of First Impressions Skyler Morris Distribution Director Greg Erwin Distribution Assistant Rob Dunnica Distribution Drivers Mansour Aghdam, Beatriz Aguirre, Gypsy Andrews, Rosemarie Beseler, Kimberly Bordenkircher, Daniel Bowen, Heather Brinkley, Kathleen Caesar, Mike Cleary, Lydia Comer, Tom Downing, Marty Fetterley, Chris Fong, Ron

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34 Forsberg, Joanna Gonzalez-Brown, Kelly Hopkins, Julian Lang, Lance Medlin, Greg Meyers, Lloyd Rongley, Lolu Sholotan, Viv Tiqui, Eric Umeda, Zang Yang N&R Publications Editor Michelle Carl N&R Associate Editor Laura Hillen N&R Publications Writer Anne Stokes Marketing & Publications Consultants Steve Caruso, Joseph Engle, Elizabeth Morabito, Traci Hukill President/CEO Jeff vonKaenel Director of Nuts & Bolts Deborah Redmond Nuts & Bolts Ninja Leslie Giovanini Executive Coordinator/Publications Media Planner Carlyn Asuncion Director of People & Culture David Stogner Project Coordinator Natasha vonKaenel Director of Dollars & Sense Nicole Jackson Payroll/AP Wizard Miranda Hansen Accounts Receivable Specialist Analie Foland Developer John Bisignano System Support Specialist Kalin Jenkins

STREETALK LETTERS NEwS + BEATs ScoREKEEpER FEATuRE SToRy ARTS & cuLTuRE DiSh FiLm muSic cALENDAR ASK joEy ThE 420 15 miNuTES

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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. 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.

On October 6, one month and two days after moving into a nice old Midtown apartment, I walked up the steps to find a sheet of paper with blaring headlines Scotch-taped to the front door. It was a Notice to Quit the Premises, and claimed that we were two days late with our rent payment. The harshly worded document demanded that we deliver a cashier’s check to an office in Roseville in person by 5 p.m. the following day. I felt a little panicked—we had moved in only a month earlier and liked the place—but I figured it must be a mistake. I thought I recalled signing up for automatic withdrawal when I delivered my first month’s rent. The amount demanded exceeded our rent by $275. I expected it must have included a late penalty, but that seemed excessive. Besides, I figured: We’re new clients; we’ll negotiate; they’ll be reasonable. I went to the bank, had a cashier’s check drawn up for the amount of our rent, withdrew $300 in cash, and drove to Roseville. There, it was explained that the $275 included $150 to pay the person who taped the nasty notice to our door. They would not accept cash—I would need to find a bank in Roseville and get another cashier’s check. I do not believe it would not be unfair for me to share the name of this property management company here and now. But I’m not going to do so, because I’m afraid of retaliation. As Scott Thomas Anderson’s cover story this week shows, many renters in Sacramento are facing ruthless landlords who are forcing them out of their homes. Even those of us fortunate enough to keep a roof over our heads are impacted by the worsening housing crisis. Whether you support rent control, or are pushing for the construction of affordable homes, this piece should be an eye-opener.

—Eric Johnson e r ic j@ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

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“I’m lookIng forWard to my son beIng free from here.”

AskeD in front of sAcrAmento county mAin JAil (corner of i AnD 6th):

What are you optimistic about in 2018?

Al An DonAto attorney

Got a baby due, so I’m excited about that. Our third girl. And we’ve told all of our family and friends, but haven’t told everyone on Facebook or anything yet, so this’ll be quite the way to tell everybody. Hopefully, my wife doesn’t get me in trouble.

melissA Brown court clerk

Personally, I look forward to making positive changes in my life in terms of my health and career; but I’m really not looking forward to another year with Trump as president. I’m not a fan of what he has to say or how he represents America, especially when it comes to how he treats women.

chris cl Ark

montere y montoyA

medical student

mAry fr A zier

unemployed

I’ve got a lot of great things going on, personally. I have a new daughter. She turned eight months today. I’ll be graduating medical school in a few months. That’s pretty much what I have on the horizon.

l AtoriA Bonton

retired

I don’t have anything. I haven’t been thinking about the new year. I still didn’t really grieve 2017 and the things that happened this year. ... Whatever happens in 2018, I hope it goes well.

medical assistant

I was trying to be optimistic with Trump. I thought he was going to get jobs here in the United States ... Everything I’ve been buying here has been made wherever. And I’m thinking, ‘What happened to those jobs we’re supposed to be getting here?’ I don’t think he’s going to do anything about that at all.

I’m looking forward to my son being free from here, at the Sacramento County Main Jail. Free Mizzle! is what I wish for. And a more prosperous 2018, for sure. More than 2017.

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This investigational oral tablet, when combined with diet and exercise, may help manage blood glucose levels in people with T2D. Additionally, the knowledge gained from this study may help other people with T2D in the future. You may be eligible to participate in the SOTACKD3 study if you:

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Story exposed a murderer

v i a s a c t o l e t t e rs @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

Re “Confessions of a killer cop” by Raheem F. Hosseini (Feature, December 14): I am a long-time reader of the News & Review. I have watched you grow as a journalist through the years. Which shows that your publication has had good editors, and a good publisher. But the credit goes to you. And your story on Tennis was the best I have read in your publication. Your writing was very good. You rose to the occasion. Congratulations. And the story made a wonderful and very easy to understand comparison between the feelings of Tennis and his victim’s family. There really is no comparison and you showed that. You did not flinch from showing Tennis for how he really is—a murderer, even though you got a scoop.

luKe wilson

v i a s act ol et t er s @ n ew s r e v i e w . c o m

Wine, nuts and water Re “Bidding in secret” by Scott Thomas Anderson (News, December 28):

Delta water for south Fresno? Since California’s aquifer has been all but sucked dry for wine grapes and nut trees, you bet they need more water. Is another mouthful

•

Oscar for Oldham Re The Darkest Hour Film review by Daniel Barnes (Film, December 14): Movie reviews are subjective. I recently saw The Darkest Hour and I give it an excellent rating with the popcorn flying out of the tub. Gary Oldham as Churchill was Churchill for me and he deserves an Oscar in my opinion. This type of movie is an excellent way to present history. After the movie I went home and looked up related topics on Wikipedia and in my old encyclopedia. tRicia chRistie s a c ra m e nt o v i a s a c t o l e t t e rs @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

Throw ’em out Re “Math and weed butter” by Ngaio Bealum (The 420, November 23): Sacramento’s City Government needs a political enema and the only way that’ll happen is if We are successful in treating the next flare up of Electile Dysfunction. We know the problem. We know what the cure is. We have to be willing to get involved if We want change; We need to stop relying on the phantom known as Someone Else to get their hands dirty and to do the heavy lifting if We can reasonably expect the change that We seek. Remember that if We do nothing, then We should not be surprised when We get nothing. We are our own worst enemy and that insensibility is fueled by complacency and indolence ...Our complacency and Our indolence. That ultimately is why Sacramento’s City Hall is bent by a very amateurish Tammany Hall. Our enemy is just as complacent

and lazy as We are. Let’s give them a surprise this next election and hand them a “parting gift”... the standard-issue EDD pamphlet, “So you’re unemployed.” KiRK Bolas

read more letters online at www.newsreview .com/sacramento.

Corrections

@SacNewsReview

Fa ir oa k s

A “Grinch/Trump Award” writeup in the December 14 issue incorrectly stated that UC President Janet Napolitano was “Dubya’s former Homeland Security secretary.” She served in that position for President Barack Obama.

Facebook.com/ SacNewsReview

@SacNewsReview

The “Sac natives grip the Grammys” write-up in the December 28 issue omitted that the song “Jungle” was a collaborative single between Pitbill and The Stereotypes. Also, The Stereotypes didn’t produce Far East Movement’s “Like a G6,” though they did sign Far East Movement to their production company. SN&R regrets the errors.

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Mayor’s report: Year one In an interview with SN&R’s publisher, Darrel Steinberg says 2017 created a foundation for big, ambitious initiatives by Jeff vonKaenel

Mayor Darrell Steinberg

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

One year ago, as he was about to begin his first term as mayor, Darrel Steinberg sat down with Jeff vonKaenel to talk about his plans. The two sat down again 12 months later, as Sacramento continues to face growing big-city problems while Steinberg pursues ambitious proposals with limited resources. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation. Your thoughts on the first year? It was the beginning of fulfilling a very aggressive agenda, and not the end by any means. I think I said a year ago, [and] I say often: I am very driven towards results. What I call ‘product.’ You can have a lot of opinion and ideology and political philosophy, and that is all good and important, but it is what you actually get done. To me, what we have done this year is taken my campaign promises and why I think people elected me and we have begun to do what I said I would do. If you were going to pick three or four major accomplishments, what would they be? Well, homelessness, No. 1, right? Now, the change is not yet visible—that’s why I call it a foundation. But I have resisted a lot of the important but distracting issues around homelessness. Whether it is the camping ordinance, whether it is the constant back and forth with some of the advocates that come to the City Council. Whether it is, you know, a lot of the political push and pull. I ran saying I would commit myself to building capacity on all of the elements of what it will actually take to reduce homelessness over the medium to long term in Sacramento: assertive outreach, case management, emergency shelter triage, permanent housing, and mental

8 | SN&R | 01.04.18

health and substance abuse resources. And on all five we have made a demonstrable investment and improvement. And none of it was easy. We’re the only city in the state, aside from the city and county of San Francisco, to apply for and get the federal Medicaid grant known as Whole Person Care—$64 million over three years for assertive outreach and case management. Emergency shelter and triage: We didn’t wait for other jurisdictions, we aggressively went out and opened a triage shelter that will get to 200 [capacity] before long. Not a traditional shelter—it is focused on not only getting people out of the elements but also assessing them, hopefully quickly referring them to long-term services. And on mental health and substance abuse, you saw our conversation at the county where it came down to my signature legislative accomplishment. And we were able to form a partnership where they are contributing $44 million; together with our Whole Person Care, it’s $108 million. And then on permanent housing, together we banked almost 2,000 units of discreet housing opportunities for permanent housing. All great beginnings.

All I could really do in year one was fight to put the investments in place to begin changing the arc of the problem. If you don’t take the elements and put real money behind them and then begin implementing them aggressively, you’re never going to get started. So how much of the homeless problem goes back to not building enough homes overall? We have a million people living in the region; to meet housing demand, we need to build about 15,000 units per year, and we’re building 5,000 units. The housing issue in the larger context is a serious challenge to our goals and aspirations in this city. We cannot have a city that is cosmopolitan and exciting—and only for some. I am absolutely committed to that. That is my politics—and it’s a larger issue than Sacramento, as you know.

“I would say our No. 1 challenge in this city is that we lack the capacity to do more than one big thing at a time.”

When I think back to where we were last year at the same time, what it certainly feels to me is that the number of homeless has actually gone up—significantly.

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

Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel, where we get to 15,000 units? Sure I do. And I think it’s going to take some time. And I think we are going to have to be creative along the way. The state of California followed through with something I had actually started as [senate president] pro tem. You know, I got the permanent source bill through the state senate with a two-thirds vote. We’re going to have to at some point, whether it is 2018 or 2020, put forward a systemic and long-term funding source to

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match what the state is doing, because the state effort, while greatly appreciated, in part because of the compromises across the street, is not enough money. We also have to be creative around making it easier and faster for affordable housing projects to get built. We just added 24 new staff to the planning department so we can expedite permitting. I keep going back to the Nicki Mohana project on 19th and J. We have to make it easier to build smaller units. if we have to build 15,000 units per year for the region—so that’s 150,000 units for the decade—what number do you think we can do in the city of Sacramento? I don’t want to commit to a number at this point that isn’t matched with an ability to deliver. But there is no question, if 2017, on the homeless front, was the year of showing a pathway to getting 2,000 people off the street, then 2018 and 2019 are going to be the years that we really focus on housing. It can’t just be the public sector; it has to be the private sector. it seems, when we were talking about this a year ago, what made me excited was your focused approach. and now, a year later i’m thinking—it’s a tidal wave coming. and we’re seeing many people, if the rents hadn’t gone up, if there was housing, they wouldn’t be homeless today. It’s the conundrum, frankly. If you want to get right to the heart of another issue, it’s the conundrum around rent control. Where in the short run, putting a hard cap on rent would be tempting, and actually understandable because it would provide people real relief. But will such a policy make it harder to dramatically increase the supply that is so desperately needed? oK: the second priority you mentioned last year was economic development. I think we are off to a very strong start there as well. We just signed an employment incentive agreement with a Fortune 500 company, Centene, that will guarantee 5,000 jobs in the city of Sacramento—if they choose Sacramento. They haven’t done so yet, but their signing of the employee incentive agreement is a good sign that we’re on our way. We will subsidize up to 1,500 jobs, but they can’t be jobs that are transferred from Rancho Cordova [where Centene currently has offices], and they have to establish a campus or a set up a site in the city of Sacramento. So they could transfer some, but at least 1,500 have to be new jobs.

We are confident, based upon their growth, their strength as a company and what is happening in California with the Affordable Care Act and health care that they are going to remain in Rancho Cordova and build the [new] campus. [The jobs] have to be 125 percent above the average [wage] and 120 percent above the median. as opposed to the amazon warehouse jobs? Right. The hard part of the negotiation was our insistence on setting a wage standard. That was important in terms of the kind of jobs we subsidize. We will pay the subsidy over the course of the years through our city’s innovation fund, but we can always replenish the innovation fund by capturing the increased land value from where they develop. So we want the innovation fund to be a recurring source of ability to attract more high-wage employers.

the state budget in order to secure opportunity for our people, especially kids from our neighborhoods. I think that mindset is growing. But structurally, we still have a small economic development department, we still don’t have a neighborhood-based economic development strategy to speak of. I would say our No. 1 challenge in this city is that we lack the capacity, both on the private side and public side, to do more than one big thing at a time. the things you are talking about are all regional problems. from the outside, you have the biggest ideas. But you also have the smallest budget. the city’s budget is $1 billion; the county’s is $4 billion. Right; that’s part of the frustration with the pace of change. The county chapter [of the homelessness initiative] was a difficult one. And I don’t think I am that popular in some circles over there. But it took a little bit of provocation to try to create an actual partnership. If you’re not ruffling a few feathers, you are probably not trying hard enough. I have done this work long enough to know that it takes a common mission towards implementing all of the elements. And the other thing is: There has been this pervasive sense in this community for a long time that the issues are too hard, and the best you can really do is manage it. And when I said, you know maybe it’s not the brightest political move in the world, but we need to commit to getting 2,000 people off the street in the next three years—and I will hold myself accountable for that number—and that’s kind of unheard of in Sacramento. We all love to cut the ribbon. But as we’ve managed it, the problem has grown worse, and we’re trying to change that.

“There has been this pervasive sense in this community for a long time that the issues are too hard, and the best you can really do is manage it.”

the other thing we talked about last year was youth and developing different options for them—so tell me a little about that. Yes: We launched Thousand Strong. By the end of the year, we will have placed between 400 and 500 kids in a year-round permanent workforce experience. In fact, on Friday [December 15], we [held] a press conference announcing a collaboration with the school district—they are going to place about 80 kids in nonprofit jobs, and together we are going to subsidize the wages to get us to between 400-500 kids in total. So we’re off to a really good start. in terms of challenges, unexpected challenges? It’s always harder to push through to the finish line on any initiative. Homelessness is a great example. The fact that we have put together $108 million is great, but people want to actually see demonstrable difference on the streets. And so I think the challenges are still trying to change the city culture, especially on economic development and growth. This idea, which I think is now more embedded in the city consciousness, that we want to be more than a government town. That we can’t rely on the ups and downs of

We’ll get to the goal, but there will be more than 2,000 more, newly-homeless people by the time we get there. That why I said that in 2018 and 2019 we need to focus on the housing crisis as well. The city of Chicago experimented with giving $1,000 vouchers to low-income continued on page 10

Come February, a vast, three-part mural will greet visitors to the Golden 1 Center with images of butterflies, the cosmos and “thirdworld astro pilots,” courtesy of the Royal Chicano Air Force, an artist and activist collective that’s been championing latino traditions in Sacramento for nearly 50 years. The art was purchased for the arena by City Hall, with support from the county Board of Supervisors. Members of the RCAF say their mural will be brushed in glimmering red, solar flares and deep pearlescents. A bank of lights will accent the metallic paint, creating what the RCAF hopes will be one of the brightest spaces in Sacramento. RCAF artist Stan Padillas said the mural’s symbolism reaches back to the aztec sun calendar, which heralds a sixth sun coming after earthquakes, civil war, plagues and other disasters, thus ushering in a new era for humanity. Beyond its creative statement, Padillas thinks the mural’s roots in the local Latino arts community will send an important message to high school and college students attending graduation ceremonies held at the Golden 1 Center. “We feel like prodigal sons coming home to that new arena, which was an old Mexican barrio torn down underneath there before.” RCAF artist Juan Carrillo said the push to support his group’s mission through a purchase at Golden 1 started with county Supervisor Phil Serna, who supported transferring $300,000 from a tobacco litigation settlement, tourism dollars and community funding to City Hall for that purpose. City leaders then triggered the purchase, while also creating a fund to maintain the piece in perpetuity. Councilman Steve Hansen, who represents the RCAF’s home base at the Washington Community Center, sees the mural as an ideal piece of public art for a downtown area where civil rights giants like Cesar Chavez protested for a better future. (Michael Mott)

trophy cheat In mid-December, a Sacramento County man learned the hard way that you can’t set a hunting record with the Safari Club International if your “trophy” comes from poaching. John Frederick Kautz, 51, recently pleaded guilty to possession of a large, illegally poached male deer—with its 31-inch, five-point antler spread—and falsifying state hunting-tag information. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, a three-month investigation by its law enforcement division revealed that Kautz illegally killed “an usually large” buck on private property in Wilton in December 2016. State wardens said Kautz shot the deer months after the hunting season ended. He then allegedly drove it to Nevada to have its head mounted by a taxidermist while he started the process of seeing if he could get its trophy-sized antlers marked in the Safari Club International’s record book. That hope was thwarted when wardens used search warrants and forensic computer analysis to prove Kautz had been engaged in poaching. Fish and Wildlife officials said in a statement that “the deer’s trophy-sized antlers would have been surely accepted” by the Safari Club had Kautz not been flaunting laws designed to protect wildlife populations and resources. On December 19, Kautz appeared in Sacramento Superior Court and pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors. He was sentenced to two days in county jail, three years of probation, a three-year ban from hunting and a $5,000 fine. Wardens also confiscated his ill-begotten trophy. (Scott Thomas Anderson)

01.04.18 | SN&R | 9

COnTInuED FROM PAgE 9

people who [were confronted with] an unanticipated expense—car breaks down, medical expense, loss of a job, increased rent. And what they demonstrated over time was that, that small investment [averted disasters]. I have asked our Whole Person Care team to look at that. Yes! It can’t just all be about complicated public policy. It needs to be about simple commonsense ways to help people who are in crisis. Obviously, there is tension between the Police Department and the community. When the tape came out showing [Sacramento police Officer] Anthony Figueroa involved in a brutal beating in Del Paso, you came on the air and said, “This is intolerable.” And now he is back on the job. Yeah, that’s what I said. I have expressed my frustration with state law that does not allow the city to be able to explain or even to report anything about what happened and why, and that remains my frustration. I think in the big picture, the relationship between the Police Department and the community, though far from perfect, has improved dramatically since I started a year ago. I think there are a couple of things. I think, No. 1, you have a police chief who is better than anyone could have ever imagined at negotiating that very fine line between being responsive to the community and standing up for the men and women he leads. He has got a very deft touch, and people trust him. And because they trust him, they are willing to give him the time to continue improving these relationships. Just like homelessness, it’s not like we can say, “Ah, its all good, the work is done.” These issues are national in scope. These issues of race beyond policing remain, so the work needs to continue. Implicit bias and all of the other ways to build a different consciousness—not just in our Police Department but beyond where it needs to continue.

of the underground market and tax the cultivation and manufacturing, and the sale and the delivery of recreational marijuana. There is going to be significant revenue. The second thing is, again, you know my political views and values, but in this seat—grow that economy, do everything we can to grow our tax base, and: more jobs. And if we grow the economy, we may be able to expand services. So, have you gotten into the weeds enough about the Trump tax bill, what the impacts will be on the city? I have. I can’t tell you exactly what the impact will be on the city, but it’s not good for California, period. One of the things that’s interesting about it: Much of it sunsets in 2025, including tax cuts for middle-income people. So when we have a new administration, which I hope will happen on January 20, 2021, there will be plenty of time to reverse some of the worst effects of it.

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So people saw the video—and nothing happened. Just like the story we ran [December 14, about former Officer John Tennis], no charges were filed. There was an investigation. And my frustration is that, as the mayor who has to rightfully answer these questions, we are not able to know what went into these decisions. And that’s a state law problem. There needs to be a balance in protecting the privacy and rights [of accused officers] and the public’s right to know about what happened in their community. When I look at the revenue projections of where we’re going—it appears catastrophic. My major takeaway is that we’ve got this gigantic hole because of the pensions and the CalPERS changes. And that, potentially, marijuana tax money can fill that hole so we don’t have to cut social services. There’s some hope in two areas. One is appropriate regulation and taxation of marijuana. We are far ahead of other cities when it comes to getting out there and, you know, its not perfect—but we believe that we can appropriately regulate, address and eliminate some

So then, one of the things we talked about last year was changing the staffing of the Fire Department like other cities have. Because, when I’m looking at the budget for departments that have enough dollars … Well, we talked to the union about it—they don’t like it. What I said was, look, as we approach the longerterm contract, we should discuss all of these things. Let’s discuss them in a transparent way, and let’s have the discussion in public. Because they make the case that you don’t save nearly as much money as the city management has said. Some of them feel that three on an engine or four on an engine are potential public safety risks. And what is the city staff saying the savings will be? Well, I haven’t looked at it in a little while, but it’s in the millions of dollars. Let’s talk about immigration. There are so many issues in politics that are shades of gray. This is not a shade of gray for me. Civil rights is civil rights is civil rights, and immigration is a civil rights issue. I also have strong opinions on how you deal with a bully. You cower, they’ll take more. You stand up, you’ll have a better chance. I said it many times and in many ways: In our city, we’re never going to trade civil rights for money. I said it to the director of ICE, and [Sheriff] Scott Jones. The people in our community and the immigrants in our community know that we are never going to compromise their rights. Another thing I want to talk about is arts. You know there’s an arts renaissance going on. Art Hotel, ArtStreet, the mural festival. All of this, the creative economy grants. We have $7 million of grant applications, [and] we have $500,000. Another capacity issue. We need more capacity to foster more arts and arts education. That’s going to be a very big initiative for me working with schools next year. We want to build a modern city, and arts need to be as much a priority as sports. Ω

A rendering of the planned soccer stadium in the railyards, which is now estimated to cost $250 million.

Pay to play

Photo courtesy of sacramento rePublic fc

Could deferred MLS bid make soccer investors reconsider their ‘no public money’ promise? by Michael Mott

an extended version of this story is available at www. newsreview.com/ sacramento

Sacramento’s push for a major league soccer team is in “extra time,” lead investor Kevin Nagle wrote days before Christmas, after Nashville secured one of two spots Sacramento was hoping to land. Now, uncertainty over the Capitol’s big-net bid is reviving a controversial question in the 916: Will the public be asked to help pay for something its leaders want? Following a cross-coast pitch in which Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg rocked the scarves of home team Republic FC, and former Mayor Kevin Johnson surfaced to attempt a late-game assist, Major League Soccer announced it was awarding one of two coveted slots to the Tennessee city, leaving Cincinatti, Detroit and Sacramento waiting until next year. Despite assurances of a privately bankrolled operation, in Sacramento the primary roadblock is money. Construction on a $250 million soccer stadium in the downtown railyards has halted, Nagle said, because of uncertainty over the MLS bid. On top of that, MLS is requiring a $150 million expansion fee from any city deemed worthy of joining its ranks. The $400 million price tag might

have caused sticker shock for investors straddling the fence, especially with soccer, which some economists aren’t entirely bullish about. At a December 21 press conference outside Sacramento City Hall, Nagle revealed that two top investors had dropped out of the city’s MLS bid pitch— San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York and former Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, who teased her fellow investors by pulling out not once but twice. Nagle struck a resilient tone during the press conference. “We have billionaire opportunities we’re looking at right now,” he said, laying out plans to drum up major and minor investors and community support. Sacramento may be enchanted by soccer, but taxpayers are still split on the city’s decision a few years ago to spend $255 million worth of public money on another pro-sports arena—the Golden 1 Center. Soccer was supposed to be different. This time, only the investors were going to pay up. The fans were only being asked to open their hearts, not their wallets. But with Sacramento’s pro-soccer goal looking less inevitable, is that still the case?

Visiting soul food restaurant Tori’s Place in Del Paso Heights, Steinberg didn’t rule out the possibility of some sort of public financing help. “This will be privately financed. The things we can help with include fees, infrastructure— things like that. We never like to shut doors on anything, but the work is to find some major private equity investors,” Steinberg told SN&R. Local historian William Burg countered that “fee and tax breaks are public subsidies.” For investors considering Sacramento’s proposal, one question is whether a pro-soccer team provides a good return on their investments. One of the big measuring sticks is television viewership. In the United States, soccer trails hockey in fifth place. Roger Noll is a Stanford University professor who specializes in sports economics. In an email, Noll told SN&R that MLS’ rapid expansion is risky, especially if there are any public funding breaks from cities like Sacramento. “This is a huge gamble, similar to the NHL’s decision to expand into the sunbelt,” Noll said of the National Hockey League. “The goal was to secure a national TV market. But the cost was

financially troubled franchises in areas where few are interested in hockey.” Noll says that could happen with soccer, too. “In MLS, several franchises would be in trouble financially without the expansion revenue. But in the long run, this cannot continue forever,” he wrote. “MLS needs a national footprint to become a true major league sport, but I fear it is becoming too large in that the TV money will be insufficient to sustain that many teams.” Dan Rascher, director of UC San Francisco’s sports management program, co-wrote a 2003 study about whether Sacramento could support a pro-soccer stadium in the 240-acre railyards site north of the grid. (The study said yes.) Rascher argued that while team revenue might not justify a $150 million expansion fee, regularly high attendance makes soccer a worthy investment. “Teams are generating revenues that I wouldn’t say justify expansion fees,” Rascher said. “But given the attendance supporting it, it will be a matter of TV viewership catching up.” Republic FC did set attendance records in its first two seasons in the United Soccer League (which is one tier below MLS), finishing second in the league this year, according to the Sacramento Bee. The mayor, for one, is bullish. “This is more than tourism. We have a passionate fan base here. We want to be an MLS city. We’re rallying the community and businesses to support that,” Steinberg said. “We want more things, not less.” At the press conference, Steinberg said Sacramento’s soccer ownership group has several months to sort out its financing predicament, which includes a stadium that costs $70 million more than estimated and will likely only host soccer matches. MLS will now announce its final team in 2018. Will DeBoard, assistant commissioner of the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section high school athletics league, is an MLS fan. But that doesn’t mean he thinks going pro always works out. “No matter how good teams are, people go in the beginning,” DeBoard said of attendance. “Any time you start a new franchise, it’s a gamble.” DeBoard might make it slightly less of a gamble. The former sports writer says he’d drive all the way from Modesto to watch the games if Sacramento wins a pro-soccer franchise next year, something MLS leaders are counting on. Ω

01.04.18

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01.04.18

Learning to teach Sacramento County moves to train more bilingual teachers amid educator shortage by Matt KraMer

that—that’s multilingual and multicultural—you California, like much of the nation, has a really need a group of folks that can do a good teacher shortage. According to the California job for those kids who speak multiple languages,” Teachers Association, the state needs an addiRogers said. tional 100,000 teachers to meet the national averRogers admitted that the $625,000 grant will age in student-to-teacher ratios. In Sacramento, not cover the entire program, nor will it solve the the shortage is particularly noticeable when it multilingual teacher shortage. But he insists it’s a comes to students learning English as a second significant step. language. “We’re hoping to build a pipeline of qualified On that front, a recently announced partnerbilingual teachers,” Rogers said. ship is taking a nascent stab at making headway. That pipeline could run through high school, In November, the Sacramento County where interested students would be groomed to Office of Education announced a partnership become bilingual educators through a program with Sacramento State University and Loyola called The Seal of Biliteracy. The initiative also Marymount University to increase multilingual calls for bilingual workshops and a regional teachers in local school districts. Funded through center where current teachers can get 2019, in part, by a grant from the California trained in languages pertinent to their Department of Education, the initiaclassrooms. Ready to print and tive could go longer depending use resources would also be on its success, said SCOE offered online. spokesman Tim Herrera. But “There’s something The ideas are encouragit isn’t live just yet. ing to Laura Vu, an like 240,000 students “It’s not off the organizer with Hmong ground yet,” Herrera throughout our county—but Innovating Politics—a said. “We had to get the close to 42,000 of our students local grassroots advogrant to start developing cacy group representing are English learners.” the program, and all the Hmong community. the particulars. It’s in Al Rogers Vu said the need for the very early stages. deputy superintendent, Sacramento multilingual teachers is We have enough funding County Office of Education something her organization to train 35 teachers. It’s has been citing for awhile. a start. We’re seeing where According to Vu, South this goes.” Sacramento, North Sacramento, The plan is to provide resources Oak Park and Del Paso Heights have the and training to educators around the greatest need for multilingual educators. state, both before and after credentialing, “When [Sacramento City Unified School though the emphasis is on pre-credential trainDistrict Superintendent] Jorge Aguilar spoke to ing. Ideally, more new teachers would then the community about what he will do to recruit be equipped to serve Sacramento County’s more diverse educators, he shared with us his diverse student body, which includes not only plan … to [create] a possible incentive to [have] native Spanish speakers, but Hmong, Russian, teachers come and work for the school district Vietnamese and Cantonese speakers, said SCOE while their tuition or credential is paid for,” Vu Deputy Superintendent Al Rogers. said. “I think that’s such a practical approach to “There’s a huge demand,” Rogers said. “We creating more bilingual and multilingual educahave a diverse multilingual population. There’s tors. I’m pretty excited to see how that rolls out.” something like 240,000 students throughout So is Rogers, who says county schools are our county—but close to 42,000 of our students facing a challenge all of California is struggling are English learners. That’s a really significant to solve. percentage.” “The big picture is that the whole state is really More than 60 languages are spoken in experiencing a teacher shortage,” he said. “We Sacramento County, Rogers added. know that that’s a problem everywhere.” Ω “The issue of a teacher shortage is bad enough, but when you have a population like

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When the downtown mall shuttered to make way for the Golden 1 Center, Sacramento lost its only movie megaplex for nearly two years. Scorekeeper coped by taking occasional trips out to the suburbs and catching the smaller features at Tower Theatre. But finally, theaters have reopened in the doCo, swapping out the crowded, overused chairs for cushy new recliners with seat warmers that Scorekeeper can personally vouch for.

+2 MediCation Mix-uP A woman who had just given birth vomited then underwent cardiac distress after she had been given nearly double the maximum dosage of the incorrect medication at the Methodist Hospital of Sacramento in 2015, according to the California Department of Public Health. After being diagnosed for a medication meant to facilitate birth, the woman was connected to a bag of a blood-pressure-increasing medication that had been mislabeled by a volunteer in the pharmacy. The error wasn’t caught until the IV had been in for five hours, despite the hospital’s system of double checks, including a barcode scanner that warned nurses twice that the medication was incorrect. Thankfully, the woman survived. And the hospital paid a fine of $47,452, which is likely much more than what it saved by using a volunteer.

-47,452 weeeeeeeeeed! This marks the conclusion of the 50th column that Scorekeeper has written as Scorekeeper. As he edits this on January 1, he, like so many others, has already taken advantage of California’s newly lenient marijuana policy and is about to pop in The Big Lebowski. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading these pithy blurbs. If not, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

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-75 Pensions RestoRed Ever-busy California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced a $125 million settlement with the Royal Bank of Scotland Group for misleading CalPERS and CalSTRS into purchasing mortgage-backed securities that contained poor quality loans, a deception that cost the state millions in pension dollars. The settlement replenishes these funds, but this sort of mortgage-backed security skullduggery partially triggered the last economic collapse. Fines are nice, but we need to start sending white collar grifters to jail.

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snrsweetdeals.newsreview.com 01.04.18 | SN&R | 13

Tens of thousands of Sacramento residents have been forcibly kicked out of their homes. Can rent control stop the displacement? Photo illustration by serene lusano

by Scott Thomas Anderson s c otta @ n e w s r e v i e w .c om

tely. ctive immedia e ff e , s e is m re the p . Your n evicted from removing your belongings orities e e b e v a h u o notice that y e process of , and the auth This serves as to the manager to begin th of the manager is a crime the property. ission ase to Please speak y without perm ble for any damages you c rt e p ro p is th ounta presence on ou will be acc Y . d e ll a c e b l wil

14 | SN&R | 01.04.18

Happy New year—you’re evicted!

“There’s an enormous amount of pressure on tenants to move rather than litigate.”

Cont’d on page 17

Marie Camacho is being evicted from her Oak Park home where she has lived with her young son since he was a toddler. Camacho says she has endured rent increases and poor living conditions during her stay.

arie Camacho walks through a whirl of falling leaves, stopping at the gate of a battered Midtown Victorian. Fliers in one hand, a clipboard in the other, she begins slowly climbing up the house’s creaking wood steps. Behind its faded walls a dog erupts into a mad frenzy. “He’s pretty loud,” Camacho says with a nervous laugh. She keeps heading for the stranger’s door. She’s not turning back. Camacho is one of dozens of volunteers fanning out across the city of Sacramento to bring awareness to a grassroots campaign for rent control. And, in Camacho’s case, she can speak straight from the heart. That’s because the young, disabled mother and her 4-yearold son are currently being evicted from their tiny flat. There’s no evidence Camacho’s been anything but a model tenant; but with rents skyrocketing around the city, she and her son are being cleared out nonetheless. It’s a scenario that’s becoming tragically common. According to court data obtained by SN&R, tens of thousands of local residents have been forcibly evicted in the past three years—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a crisis spurred by Bay Area expatriates and the rise of Silicon Valley “super-commuters”—both of which are turning Sacramento’s dearth of low- and middle-income rentals into

Photo by Karlos rene ayala

Dean PrestOn executive director, tenants together

a big financial opportunity for landlords. Experts agree that a general shortage of local housing units is fueling part of the displacement. But, from the vantage point of housing advocates, another element of what’s forcing people from their neighborhoods is anti-social greed. Some tenants are determined to push back now, before the existing community evaporates. That’s why Camacho, just weeks from possible homelessness, is knocking on strangers’ doors to talk about rent control. “I love getting the word out,” she says. “There are a lot of people who are working to make this better, and letting more people know is how we’re finally going to make a change.”

ExilE from oak Park

Camacho’s son was a toddler when they moved into their small apartment on First Avenue in Oak Park. She says she was struggling to hold down a job at an insurance office due to a documented medical disability. Her problems were soon compounded by water leaking down into her apartment from the ceiling. Lights in her bathroom flickered off for good and several power outlets went dead. “There was no way to give my son a bath in there without a light,” Camacho remembers. “All the water leaking started to create a moldy smell.” Alarmed, Camacho says, she tried get the hazards fixed through the apartment complex’s management company, Reality Round-up. When the company’s online complaint system failed, Camacho started calling its office over and over. Camacho says it ultimately took three months to get the safety issues fixed. “They kept telling me it was because they couldn’t get a hold of the lady upstairs,” Camacho recalls. “But she’s here every day.”

Meanwhile, her rent kept going up—17 percent over twoand-a-half years. Then, this August, Camacho was suddenly served a 60-day notice to vacate. No cause, at least related to Camacho, was cited. She quickly emailed her property manager, emphasizing the hardship an eviction presented because of her disability. While she was waiting for a response, her brother Moses Camacho says he got a pretty clear picture of why the eviction was happening. Marie had run into an issue with Reality Roundup’s online billing system, so Moses stepped in to pay her rent over the phone. Moses says during a phone conversation with a Reality Round-up employee named Jim, he was told that the owner of Camacho’s complex wanted to clear it out, renovate each unit and then charge more money. “He told me the owner wasn’t going to change all of the apartments at once, but rather one by one,” Moses says. “Then he said the owner was going to rent them for a higher price. Maria was paying the lowest amount there, so they were going to start with hers.” Reality Round-up declined to comment for this story, citing client confidentiaity. In October, Camacho was served a second 60-day notice to vacate, which was followed by a December 4 letter from the lawfirm Kimball, Tirey & St. John, representing the owner of the complex. The legal team noted in its message that Camacho’s eviction was happening because the owner wanted to “rehab” the unit. Camacho eventually got a brief extension. As things stand, she and her son need to be out by February 14. “It’s stressful, very stressful,” Camacho admits. “It’s like not being able to breathe, because you don’t know what your next move is going to be.”

01.04.18 | SN&R | 15

My Midtown eviction story An old Victorian with rodents, a request for decent plumbing—and an eviction notice by Blake Gillespie

illustration by Devon Mc Mindes 16 | SN&R | 01.04.18

It was a weekday afternoon in August that I received the notice to vacate. I remember because I was filming the dog chasing a neighborhood cat around a clawfoot bathtub in the backyard. Suddenly, there was a gray-haired man in jeans and a T-shirt walking through the backyard shouting, “Hello? Hello?” He never identified himself. I’d never seen him come by when we needed repairs around the property. For all I knew, he’d been tasked solely as the messenger I’m supposed to feel less inclined to shoot. He handed me an envelope, described its contents and apologized for having to deliver the news. I let him know I wasn’t on the lease, but merely renting a room. I told him this 30-day eviction notice couldn’t be served in any official capacity until my roommate returned from Burning Man. I had no idea if this was true. The house is like many old Victorians in the Mansion Flats neighborhood. Remodeled into a split-level, each of the two floors has three bedrooms, one kitchen and one bath. I’d only moved into the upstairs level in March, but by mid-summer the downstairs occupants had fully vacated after a major rental dispute with the property managers. The house was old and feeling the years. The attic was fully closed off to us, but month after month the critters we heard crawling upstairs seemed to be getting bigger. I’d often see mice darting behind the stove. Once I found two mice stuck in a mixing bowl in the cupboard. Well, one and a half. The live mouse had eaten half of his friend out of desperation. But the rodents were never an issue. The issue was the water. The upstairs faucets, particularly the shower, only trickled hot water and it took 10 minutes to warm up. This meant lukewarm to cold showers, which was mostly fine during the 100-degree Sacramento summers. As a tenant in a city with virtually no renters’ rights, you are brazen if you dare pick a few battles—and by battles I mean requests for basic upgrades to deteriorating utilities. It’s more common to stay off owners’ radars and adjust your definition of

basic needs. My roommate would assure me that we were safe to bring up these fixes, but I doubted that our landlords were the exception. To my knowledge, they were based in San Francisco. I’d already gone through a situation at an apartment complex in Boulevard Park where the tenants requested windows that didn’t allow the winter air to seep in. We were moved out for two weeks and returned to rent increases. We brought up the water. We were told they would send someone out to have it appraised. In the meantime we could use the downstairs shower, which worked fine. There were two problems with this arrangement. In their visits to appraise the plumbing and property, the owners always locked the downstairs backdoor. We’d have to jimmy open a side window and crawl through to regain access. Second, homeless people in the area discovered the downstairs was vacant, which led to a situation of two ladies thinking they had squatter’s rights to the shower. So when my roommate returned from Burning Man the following week, he handled the eviction situation. He informed the property owners that a 60-day notice was required by law. They informed us they were kicking us out to make the renovations we had either requested or suffered without: new plumbing and roofing, addressing our rodent neighbors in the attic and the crawl space. We were told that, rather than have us remain on the premises while these renovations were made, we were being evicted so they could be done in three months instead of six. And that, if we were still interested, maybe we could move back in after the work was done. In my experience, these stories are pretty common for a segment of renters occupying Sacramento’s decaying housing stock. Either tenants stay quiet and live in derelict dwellings, or they speak up and get evicted, or rentgouged to subsidize the renovations that should have been made years ago. Naturally, my roommate and I found new living situations that make returning unlikely. I’m in a six-month lease with no interest in returning to the house in Mansion Flats. And then, like many other Sacramento renters with the rug pulled out from under them, I’ll have to improvise if I want to land on my feet. Ω

Happy New year—you’re evicted!

Cont’d from page 15

Jonah Paul, Marie Camacho and other speakers gave testimony of their personal experiences with rent increases, poor living conditions and evictions at a December 9 tenants town hall at the Fruitridge Community Collaborative in South Sacramento.

photo by serene lusano

Numbers that couNt

How bad are eviction rates in Sacramento? In October, two prominent media outlets ran headlines announcing that, despite the city reportedly experiencing the worst year-to-year rent increase in the nation in 2016, eviction rates remained relatively low in the capital. But those reports— both single-sourced stories that took their premise from findings by ApartmentList.com—were met with near bewilderment by local housing experts and community organizers. Many thought that a web-aggregating survey system like ApartmentList.com simply wasn’t reflecting the reality of what they’ve been seeing on the streets. One person dumbfounded by the headlines was Jonah Paul, who has been knocking on doors across the city as a volunteer for Democratic Socialists of America and the Housing 4 Sacramento Coalition. The stories Paul’s been hearing paint a picture far more dire. He says one tenant he recently spoke with was forced onto the streets by a sudden, 65 percent rent increase. Another man he met had to send his children to live with relatives after a rent hike doomed his living situation. Paul says he even encountered a Sacramento restaurant owner who was suddenly priced out of her commercial space, which fast-tracked her trajectory to winding up a homeless Lyft driver. Hearing these stories made last October’s headlines hard to swallow. “I felt like they didn’t even try to do any independent research,” Paul says of the news outlets. “They didn’t even use more than one source.” Paul adds that, while each struggling Sacramentan he’s met represents an anecdotal story, the frequency of such encounters should alarm everyone. “Short of a very thorough-going approach to strengthening tenants’ rights, stabilizing rents and building more housing that’s accessible at all income levels, there are going to be thousands of more stories like this,” Paul stresses. “The fact that I can go out and meet so many different people in a matter of hours, whose stories have so much in common, it’s very shocking.” SN&R obtained three years of eviction-related court data from Sacramento Superior Court. Specifically, SN&R reviewed the number of unlawful detainer cases, which are filed any time a tenant chooses to legally fight a landlord’s eviction notice. While some unlawful detainer cases may involve home foreclosures, Tenants Together Executive Director Dean Preston says the vast majority are renters who have been served notices to vacate their houses and apartments. According to the records, between January 2015 and October 2017, some 22,519 people in Sacramento County filed unlawful detainer cases. Preston notes that those 22,000-plus people are just a baseline when it comes to actual evictions. “There are two types of displacements the unlawful detainers don’t capture,” Preston explains. “The first is informal evictions, where no paperwork is handed out and nothing is ever filed. A lot of tenants don’t know their rights and will just leave in those situations. The second is when a formal [notice to vacate] is served, which lays out the statutory timeline, and the tenant just moves without filing anything in court.” Preston adds, “The real estate industry tends to not call any of those ‘evictions,’ because no unlawful detainer is filed, but in our view they’re evictions, because they’re displacements.” So how many evictions have actually occurred in Sacramento over the last three years? City and county officials

have no data system or formal method of tracking them beyond law enforcement call logs, which misses the same displacements that unlawful detainer cases miss. “There’s an enormous amount of pressure on tenants to move rather than litigate,” Preston says. “They don’t have the right to counsel, and they know they probably won’t have a lawyer.”

costa what?

Next Thursday, this fight will spill into the halls of the state Capitol. That’s when tenants and housing advocates from across California plan to pack Room 4202 and demand the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee begin repealing a little-known law called the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. California has the highest poverty rate in the nation, when calculated against cost of living factors like rent. Tenant groups just won major victories for getting rent control in the cities of Richmond and Mountain View—inspiring the Sacramento campaign—but as long as Costa-Hawkins stands, the public’s voting power around rent stabilization is limited. Advocates say they can win some local battles, but they can’t win a war. Costa-Hawkins became law under Republican Gov. Pete Wilson on the back of lobbying efforts from the real estate industry. In practical terms, it means when voters pass a ballot initiative for local rent control in any California city, those price limits and protections can only apply to apartments built before 1995. Costa-Hawkins also bars those measures from applying to condominiums and stand-alone rental houses. In 2015, organizations like Tenants Together and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, or ACCE, rallied Richmond voters to approve rent control, despite the California Apartment Association spending a reported $200,000 on ads and political maneuvers to defeat it. Jovana Fajardo, director of ACCE Sacramento, was part of the movement to bring rent control to Richmond. When Sacramento’s campaign for rent control kicked off in March, Fajardo told the crowd that the Richmond miracle was still limited by the existence of Costa-Hawkins. The same is true in Mountain View, which also passed a rentcontrol ordinance, and will be true around California. Even if Sacramento tenants manage to overcome the CAA’s financial firepower and a lack of support from Mayor Darrell Steinberg and the City Council and pass rent-control, CostaHawkins will limit its effects.

In February, Assemblymembers Richard Bloom, Rob Bonta and David Chiu introduced Assembly Bill 1506, a bill amounting to a wholesale repeal of the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. Drama immediately ensued. The California Apartment Association expressed strong opposition, arguing on its website that the repeal would bring “construction of rental housing in California to a halt, exacerbating the state’s housing shortage.” Just two months later, Bloom announced he was shelving AB 1506 as a two-year bill, often a sign that legislation is about to die. The CAA’s senior vice president of public affairs, Debra Carlton, applauded the move in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, stressing that “rent control builds no new housing and that has to be our focus in the Legislature.” Some economists like Robert P. Murphy of the Free Market Institute agree that rent control takes away the financial incentive for investors to build new affordable units, while drawing more people into the renters pool at the same time, further decreasing the supply of affordable units. Yet housing advocates counter that smart rent control ordinances don’t take away an owner’s ability to make a profit; they just lessen the human toll that can be justified against the amount of profit. In recent months, groups with this message, including Tenants Together and the San Francisco AntiDisplacement Coalition, have kept pressure up on the authors of AB 1506 to bring it back. And now it is back, with its first official hearing on January 11. One person who’ll be monitoring the action is Lazaro Cardenas, head of the recently formed Sacramento Tenants Union. The union is a collective of renters actively organizing against local slum conditions, illegal landlord actions and neighborhood displacement from devastating rent hikes. Cardenas says his organization is so new it hasn’t had a chance to take a formal position on repealing Costa-Hawkins, but likely will in the coming months. “Most of our members are very much in favor of a repeal,” Cardenas says. From Cardenas’ vantage point, the rent control campaign in Sacramento and the statewide effort to repeal CostaHawkins are parts of a broader struggle to recognize housing as a human right. “We understand that there needs to be policy decisions,” he says, “but tenants and renters need help right now. They don’t deserve to have bolts and locks put on their doors. They shouldn’t have to live with mold and rot in their apartments. This is about changing the dynamics of the tenant-landlord relationship, and giving the power back to the community.” Ω

01.04.18 | SN&R | 17

Food bloggers find financial success and sprout their own industry by RAchEl lEIbRock ra c h e l l @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

was 2007 and Erin Alderson knew she needed to make a change for better health. Her dad had just suffered a heart attack and as he recovered, Anderson reflected not just on his diet—but everyone else in her family’s, too. They weren’t making nutritious choices, she realized. It was a major awakening. “It was one of those big moments in your life,” she says. “I knew we needed a change.” But Alderson, then in college, didn’t exactly feel at home in the kitchen. “My backstory is not that I grew up with an Italian grandmother in the kitchen,” she says with a laugh. “Cooking was definitely not in my blood—fast food was in my blood.” Alderson found an unlikely solution in blogging. By writing about her experiences and recipes online, she decided that not only could she learn about healthy eating, she could also hold herself publicly accountable. “I used to LiveJournal and stuff like that so it felt like a natural progression,” she says. And so she set about learning not just how to cook creatively with vegetables, legumes and whole grains, but

Photo by shoka

18 | SN&R | 01.04.18

In the kitchen with Sacramento’s Erin Alderson of popular food blog Naturally Ella. Alderson often has up to six meal preparations going at once in her bustling kitchen.

also the ins and outs of food photography, web design and marketing. Readers caught on and now cooking—and blogging—isn’t just in Alderson’s blood. It’s her lifeline. Food blogs make for a huge industry and, arguably, they’ve changed the way we think about food—much less how we buy and eat it. Certainly, Alderson is hardly the only successful (read: profitable) local food blogger. Elise Bauer’s behemoth SimplyRecipes.com might be the region’s most successful example with millions of monthly page views and a 2016 acquisition by Fexy Media, a digital brand company. There are seemingly countless others, too, each emphasizing a particular niche or taste, be it the Seasoned Vegetable’s healthy plant-based focus, Dinner then Dessert’s fun, easy crowd-pleasers and so-called “copycat recipes” or Best Friends For Frosting’s sugary dessert-centric lifestyle brand. Alderson’s site plays up the region’s farm-to-fork abundance. The Sacramento-based blogger’s site Naturally Ella represents a decade’s worth of learning how to cook seasonal plant-based meals. Its success has led to two cookbooks, including 2015’s The Easy Vegetarian, and enough page views (upwards of 500,000 monthly) to make it her primary income thanks to brand partnerships (Bob’s Red Mill, for one) and smartly curated affiliate links to products such as capers, veggie broth and coconut milk. Local CSAs and farmers markets influence her approach. With sections like “explore an ingredient,” “stock a pantry” and “cook with components,” Naturally Ella encourages its readers to focus not on the whole of a recipe, but rather the sum of its tasty parts. “Rarely do I set out and say this is the recipe I want to make, rather I go to the farmers market and the [Sacramento Natural Foods] Co-op and say, ‘What’s looking good at this time?’” Alderson says. “It’s very important to promote what grows around here.” Elaine Lander also mines Sacramento’s fruits and vegetables for inspiration. The Seasoned Vegetable blogger worked alongside Alderson, helping with video and social media before stepping out on her own in January. The need to claim a stake in the blogging world, Lander says, came from a simple desire to connect with others over healthy, plant-based cooking. Lander, who’d always loved cooking, was mostly selftaught. In college, she adopted a vegetarian diet and cooked meals for her co-op. Later, after studying sustainable agriculture, she worked for a nutrition-education nonprofit. But what came relatively easy to her and brought joy, she found through conversations with friends and family, often intimidated others. “They were interested in [healthier eating] but didn’t know where to start,” she says. “They could make a steak and pulled pork, but had no idea how to cook broccoli.” Accordingly, Lander’s blog highlights meal plans and healthy vegetable-centric recipes (she’s no longer exclusively vegetarian) with an emphasis on eating seasonally. It’s a fun job, Landers says, and an all-consuming one— she spends 40-60 hours a week on the site, dividing her time between research, writing for the blog and her newsletter, marketing and social media. Photographing probably takes the biggest chunk of hours—they call it “food porn” for a reason, after all. “We eat with our eyes,” Lander says. “If I could give a serving of my food to everyone who visits the blog, there’s no question people would eat my food—so how do I make it appealing and interesting [online]?” And the actual act of cooking? Oh yeah, that. “Curating content takes a lot of time,” Lander says. “Being in the kitchen is just a subset of what I do.”

SPOTLIGHT PART TWO? See FILM

SCHOOL OF GLOOMY ROCK See MUSIC

Still, even as the blog often keeps her from indulging her passion for cooking, all of those other distractions have paid off. Through word of mouth, targeted searches, marketing and networking, Lander has grown the Seasoned Vegetable’s audience from 5,000 monthly page views this summer to 10,000-15,000. She currently doesn’t run ads but, like Alderson, relies on affiliate links and sponsorships to make money. Specifically, she’s partnered with area wineries—a natural fit given her love for pairing meals with a good glass of the red stuff. Would she consider placing ads on her site? Perhaps someday if her site garners more traffic but, in the meantime, Landers says she likes its “clean” and unobtrusive layout. “I want to be mindful of bombarding people with advertisements just to make a few bucks,” she says. Whatever the income source, food blogs can offer both writers and readers a literal cornucopia of wealth. Their impact on food culture has been, to put it mildly, profound. Both food companies and aspiring online entrepreneurs have

CONTEMPLATE IMPERMANENCE See CALENDAR

sponsorship. Her site, well-loved for its so-called “copycat recipes”—homemade takes on popular restaurant dishes (think Cheesecake Factory, El Pollo Loco, KFC)—may seem like a natural fit for branded content, but Snyder tries to limit deals to things she actually uses. Currently, her lone partnerships are with an herb company and a natural peanut butter brand. “I want to make it seem very organic,” she says. “It’s about trust. The reader will trust me until I give them a reason not to.” For Melissa Johnson, founder of Best Friends for Frosting, it’s also about staying true to one’s values. The Land Park blogger initially launched as a dessertfocused blog in 2011 before rebranding and expanding it into a lifestyle site in 2013. With its millennial pink aesthetic, bubbly entertaining tips and recipes for delights such as “unicorn fondant cupcakes,” BFFF is reminiscent of Reese Witherspoon’s Draper James or Gywneth Paltrow’s Goop— that is if Paltrow finally eschewed all things macrobiotic and OK’d eating sugar. screenshot of naturally ella

“It genuinely didn’t occur to me that bloggers could make money.” Sabrina Snyder Dinner then Dessert

found blogging to be a relatively cheap and easy way to target readers with a ravenous appetite for photogenic recipes, tips and inspiration—they also help gauge (and build) an audience for their more expensive hard-copy cookbook counterparts. And, even as social media sites like Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram threaten to subsume their archaic internet elders, food blogs remain popular. A 2016 report from Social Samosa, an online trends publication, estimates there are at least 40,000 active food blogs with a combined global readership of two billion people. That’s a lot of hungry eyeballs. Dinner Then Dessert gets a profitable slice of that number. With its three million monthly page views, Sabrina Snyder’s site earns enough to employ assistants, including a social media manager. Before she started blogging, Snyder worked as a private chef, and she didn’t realize the online venture could be so profitable. “I had no idea bloggers could make money—I mean, I used ad blockers and I’d look at a site and think ‘Why does she do this?’” Snyder says. “It genuinely didn’t occur to me that bloggers could make money.” That said, Snyder is now savvy about ad placement and

In other words, it’s a branding dream—so much so that Johnson and her husband were able to buy a home with its income and currently employ a considerable staff, including a human resources director. But, Johnson says, she enters every deal with an eye toward honoring her relationship with the site’s 88,000 monthly visitors—and herself. When advertisers for the BDSM-themed film 50 Shades Darker came calling, for example, she had to say no—no matter how tempting the payoff. “It would have been thousands and thousands of dollars,” she says. “But I’m Christian, so I had to go back to why I do this.” Besides, for every ad she turns away, there’s another potential pot of gold waiting. In the coming year, Johnson hopes to land a book deal, launch a podcast and start a series of online classes to show others how to live their best, most profitable online life. What’s one more blogger after all? There’s room for everyone, Johnson says. “There are so many people out there with unique ideas,” she says. “I want to teach them how to do this.” Ω

EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE See ASK JOEY

Bucket full of presents Buckethead entered the stage strapped with a white Les Paul guitar, passing by his seated stage companion, an inflatable man masked like him. Imagine Michael Myers combined with a Ringwraith from The Lord of the Rings, and it sort of captures his look: a lanky ghost made less horrific through a gentle demeanor and his signature top hat, a large KFC bucket. It was Buckethead’s New Year’s show at Ace of Spades, and a thousand people packed the place to marvel at the elusive guitarist. Either that or tickets to the Primus New Year’s show in Oakland were too expensive. Those were the two choices. And this wasn’t a bad choice. Accompanied by a drummer and bassist (plus the blow-up doll), Buckethead played everything: wah-ed funk, shreddy metal and soft-spoken, sad-face instrumental ballads, to name a few. He also occasionally displayed another talent: animatronic moves. Often, he’d play while doing the robot. Being a New Year’s show, there were holiday gimmicks. Dialing something complex on his fretboard, Buckethead used his free hand to pass along party hats and cones, one by one, first receiving a hat from his helper, then singling out an audience member and gently reaching into the crowd. Then another hat, all while he continued to play with his fretting hand. He must have parted with some 20 hats before someone in the audience offered their own KFC bucket to him. He obliged and stacked it on, provoking cheers. I expected something weird to ring in 2018. Nope. Around 11:56 p.m., a stage hand nudged Buckethead mid-song. He and the rest of the band stopped playing and left the stage. Around 30 seconds till, the drummer returned to lead the countdown. It happened. A batch of red and white balloons released onto everyone. Inside Ace of Spades, the year’s first three minutes consisted of people punching balloons to pint-clinking Irish punk coming from the PA. On the bright side, it looked festive! On the downside, it was Flogging Molly. Buckethead returned, playing a riff from the song “My Name Is Mud,” the joke presumably being—Primus. This continued what made the bulk of the show: a series of random songs, covers and guitar solos bridged by the same towering rock interlude. Instrumental “Pure Imagination,” then back to the interlude. Fan favorite tune, then back to it. For like an hour. If it’s supposed to be one song: What the hell? But if it’s understood as a structure for a really unpredictable set, pretty cool! The show ended with Christmas. A stagehand hauled a big bag onstage, and Buckethead pulled random shit from it to toss to the crowd. Concertgoers tussled for the prizes, including board games like Chutes and Ladders, an emergency poncho, a miniature action figure of Batman’s Commissioner Gordon and a box of photo booth props. Even though it was the wrong holiday, I thought this was a creative intermission. It took a whole five minutes. But, once the sack emptied, Buckethead played another 45 seconds or so before disappearing from the stage. It felt off. But perhaps

Often, he’d play while doing the robot.

“off” is the musical giant’s charm? —Mozes zarate mo ze sz@ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

01.04.18 | SN&R | 19

20 | SN&R | 01.04.18

FIRE UP THE GRILL

AUTHENTIC ARMENIAN GRILL everything from grilled lamb to beef dumplings

5925 Birdcage Centre Ln Ste 109 Citrus Heights, CA | 916.9677320

Photo courtesy of sacramento music festival

Musicians toot their own horns in the now-shuttered Sacramento Music Festival.

Sac Music Festival is over After 44 years, this local jazz fest has played its last tune by GreGG WaGer

After 44 years, the Sacramento Music Festival is Then in 2012, a noticeable change occurred calling it quits. when the keyword “jazz” left the title: “Old The news apparently caught most by surprise Sacramento Dixieland Jazz Jubilee” previously when a thank-you note on festival letterhead was suggested something meaningful for Dixieland nonchalantly posted on Facebook December 18. purists. Then, the festival took the liberty of It was a screeching halt to a beloved era with adding rock bands to the lineup. Groups like halcyon years during the 1980s and 1990s. Tower of Power or even ’90s alt-rock bands The closure adds to the recent troubles clearly stretched any original Dixieland of Sacramento arts organizations, concept of the festival beyond including the low attendance and recognition. “You have to temporary hiatus in 2014 of the “Jazz and blues are the basis imagine the scene Sacramento Philharmonic & for so much of our music Opera. today,” Van Horn explains. there with up to 200 RVs Lyle Van Horn—who “So including rock bands and parked for Memorial Day for more than 30 years has other types of music wasn’t weekend.” served on the board of the too far off from what we had Sacramento Traditional Jazz been doing all along.” Lyle Van Horn Society that ran the festiPerhaps he’s right; festivals board member, Sacramento val—confirms that the price of often thrive more from serendipTraditional Jazz Society running things has gone way up. ity than strategy. In that sense, can He offers another tidbit that might anyone really declare it dead once be the missing piece to this puzzle. and for all? “When we lost Cal Expo as a venue “I know the [Owners and] Merchants about ten years ago, things really changed,” he Association of Old Sacramento have been talkrecalled. “You have to imagine the scene there ing about keeping something going that doesn’t with up to 200 RVs parked for Memorial Day involve us,” Van Horn added. “I am not bitter weekend, promoted by RV groupss and people that it doesn’t include us. … We might still do living and sleeping in their vehicles between something on Memorial Day Weekend at different attending concerts.” venues. Who knows?” Even if each attendee wasn’t a DIY bed-andPerhaps a little New Orleans voodoo will help breakfast sleeper, the unique experience created a make the Dixieland thing come back as some sort loyal fan base. of zombie. Ω

01.04.18 | SN&R | 21

illustrAtions by sArAh hAnsel

Fish about-face tOfu And cucuMber pOke bOwl, fish fAce pOke bAr

The bratwurst at Fair Oaks Brew Pub, “with curled ends like an old fish left in the sun.”

Vegetarians and vegans don’t typically get to partake in poke bowls, those trendy, customizable dishes composed of marinated raw fish, various veggies and savory sauces. There is at least one local, animal-friendly choice, however, via Fish Face Poke Bar. With a variety of available sauces (sesame soy, spicy kimchi ponzu, miso mustard), the tofu and cucumber bowl ($8.50-$16.50) is topped with green and white onions, seaweed and sesame seeds. Pick from a wealth of add-on ingredients such as fried garlic ($1) or avocado ($1.50) to craft a fresh, hearty and healthy meal—no fish required. 1104 R Street, Suite 100, or 6241 Fair Oaks Boulevard in Carmichael; www.fishfacepokebar.com.

photo by stephAnie stiAvetti

Pub attempts food menu

—rAchel leibrOck

Wintery wonderbuzz MAple whiskey sOur, prOvenAnce

Fair Oaks Brew Pub

7988 California Avenue; (916) 241-3108 http://fairoaksbrewpub.com Good for: an after-work pint with friends Notable dishes: Caprese salad, pulled pork sliders $$

Fair Oaks Brew Pub, in the Old Fair Oaks Village, is the kind of place I should love. Opened about three years ago, it’s a cute little brick-walled pub with an unpretentious neighborhoody feel. The staff are friendly and the patrons even friendlier. The variety of beers includes an admirable selection of smaller breweries, such as Mother Earth Brew and Six Rivers Brewery. The backdrop was set for it to become my new favorite watering hole; alas, it was not meant to be. I made four visits to the Fair Oaks Brew Pub, hoping it would—nay, begging it to—restore my faith in its food menu. One lunch visit went relatively well. The remaining three dinner visits? Not so much. In the end, I wondered why the owners didn’t ask the lunch cook to take over the night shift and salvage their savory fare. At midday, the pulled pork sliders were good, but languished at room temperature. The one saving grace was the Caprese salad—ultimately the only thing on the menu that I found 100 percent enjoyable—with fresh mozzarella, balsamic vinaigrette and a generous amount of basil. Then, on a dinner visit, the BLT was… average. Not good but not bad, either. It tasted like something Mom might throw together as a last-minute dinner. The pulled pork sandwich was tasty but room temperature and soggy. The Pizza Margherita—while unattractive and looking like something out of a cafeteria—was surprisingly the best 22 | SN&R | 01.04.18

by StePhanie Stiavetti

thing on the table, with a cracker-crisp crust and a generous amount of fresh mozzarella. I finished my food and realized my plate of bratwurst was missing. After 30 minutes passed, the waitress began avoiding eye contact. I finally flagged her down for an awkward conversation: Her: “The cook said he had a problem with the poaching.” Me, confused: “A problem? Like the water wasn’t hot enough?” Her: “Yes.” Me: “…” When my brats finally arrived, it was a sorry sight to behold: two sausages sliced in half lengthwise, each with curled ends like an old fish left in the sun. A puddle of gray sauerkraut pooled to the side. I tried a bite of the bratwurst, which tasted like generic grocery store sausages. The sauerkraut tasted like nothing at all. Subsequent visits were no better. A cheeseburger was covered in so many soggy onions, it fell apart and gave me an upset stomach. But the icing on the cake was when I got my bill and saw an extra charge for the fries I’d received with my burger. When I inquired, my server told me that fries cost 50 cents. While I’m not one to quibble over two quarters, this surprised me because the fries had just appeared with my burger. Why not just raise the price of the burger 50 cents and avoid the awkward billing? My server shrugged and walked away. So, what’s the final word on the Fair Oaks Brew Pub? If you’re looking for a friendly spot to grab a pint, this place is for you. If you’re looking to eat, consider going somewhere else. Ω

What if you’re a cheeseball about getting festive for the holidays, but you hate eggnog? Don’t let that kill your buzz. There are plenty of ways to get your wintery drink on at the newly opened Provenance: apple cider hot toddy, caramel apple mule, peppermint Irish coffee. I opted for the maple whiskey sour ($9), a peppy drink that allows the Maker’s Mark to shine through. Lemon and maple simple syrup are all that’s needed to achieve that delicate balance between bitter, sweet, sour and seasonal.1500 Seventh Street, http://provenancekitchenbar.com.

—rebeccA huvAl

Olive your snacks Olives As if it wasn’t obvious that we’re a Mediterranean climate, olives grow abundantly in Northern California. In the Central Valley, they litter sidewalks and campuses with their oily emanations. Instead of cursing them, pick up some fresh olives and try curing them yourself. You can brine them in salt water or leach out the bitterness using regular changes of fresh water. Olives must cure and ferment before they resemble the fruits you plop in a martini or nibble with cheese. Eat them raw at your own peril—they’re extremely bitter right off the tree.

—Ann MArtin rOlke

IllustratIon by Mark stIvers

Recession-proof Roughly nine years ago, Michael Johnson struggled to make a living as a chef due to the economic downturn. Then he had an idea: taking a wood-fired oven with him to breweries, weddings and farmers markets, where “pizza proved to be recessionproof,” he said. Still going strong, his mobile pizzeria The Pizza Co. will be at Porchlight Brewing Co. (866 57th Street) on January 5 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., serving neoNeapolitan pizzas that have a crispy, raised crust and toppings in a quantity typical of New York City. After all, that’s where Johnson grew up making pizza and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. Ranging from $10 to $12 for a pie the size of a “dinner plate,” Johnson said he always offers pepperoni, prosciutto with pine nuts and a vegan option of pesto with spinach and mushroom—as well as a daily special pizza with seasonal ingredients. www. thepizzacompany.pizza.

—John Flynn

Jail bake by Rebecca Huval

Gourmet graduates: Inmate Cynthia

Hayes donned a white chef’s cap and watched with a satisfied grin as a roomful of prison guests tried her dish: housemade ravioli stuffed with butternut squash puree. She had topped the fresh pasta with decadent brown butter and crunchy, aromatic clusters of fried sage gremolata. This was Hayes’ graduation ceremony. She had elevated her cooking craft in the new Culinary Arts Management program at Folsom Women’s Facility and was part of the first graduating class on December 20. “It taught me a lot of new techniques for cooking,” she said, sitting beside her husband Willie Hayes. “I like making my family happy when I cook. I have seven boys and my husband—you can tell he’s undernourished,” she said as she rubbed his belly. “I’m well-rounded,” Willie joked. “I like that she takes pride in what she does.” The program had launched only six months prior to the graduation day of the 11 inmates. In partnership

with Los Rios Community College District, the classes gave the women college credits with a potentially lasting effect: Recidivism from the Folsom Women’s Facility educational programs is less than 7 percent, according to Charles Pattillo, general manager of the California Prison Industry Authority. Graduate Shellika Jerkins said the program challenged her to learn new skills every day—even though she had previously attended Las Vegas’ Le Cordon Bleu. For today’s cream of broccoli cheddar soup, she prepared a roux by stirring it for 30 minutes. “It changed my perspective a lot,” Jerkins said. “It gave me confidence that I can put something together and it looks like a gourmet meal. I want to own my own restaurant.” Nearby, inmate Shannon Frazier cuddled her 5-month-old grandson for the first time. Carlitos was dressed in a reindeer onesie. As she bounced him, she called the program “awesome.” “I used to eat Hamburger Helper—I just didn’t enjoy cooking,” Frazier said. “Now I know how to

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

make homemade stuffing, pies, soups, so many dishes.” The three-course meal included appetizers like stuffed mushrooms with ground pork. An entree of braised short ribs tasted rich with a molasses flavor and was sprinkled with caramelized onions and kale, all sitting atop a ring of creamy polenta. Dessert was a chocolate mousse with housemade whipped cream and peppermint crumble. Do the inmates normally eat this well? “I don’t eat the cafeteria food,” Hayes said. “I buy in the commissary.” Helen Weiner, currently on parole, attended the event to cheer on her graduating friends—and to sample their upscale cooking, of course. She called the regular cafeteria food “god awful.” “They did such a good job,” Weiner said. “I’m so proud of them. … It’s a good segway for me into what real food is going to taste like again.” Ω

Soup to nuts and curry, too by SHoka It’s a new year, so get some new skills. The Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op Community Learning Center & Cooking School is offering two vegan cooking courses during January. First up is the Vegan Curries class on Monday, January 15. Instructor Shankari Eswaran will guide students in making flavor-rich South Indian vegetable kurma, aloo jeera (that’s potatoes, people!), carrot and beet slaw with five spices and coconut, garlic-spinach dal and masala chai made with almond

milk. Next is the Vegan Soup course on Wednesday, January 17. The class will cover the basics of soup making, plus how to use nuts, beans and potatoes to make creamy and textured bowls. Instructor Meadow Linn has cream of mushroom soup, West African vegetable peanut stew, hummus soup and creamy celery soup on the syllabus. The classes begin at 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., respectively, and cost $45-$55. Purchase tickets at https://sacfood.coop or at the Co-op, 2820 R Street.

01.04.18 | SN&R | 23

You should be You should be

getting it getting it once a week. once a week.

Sacramento’S newS and entertainment weekly. on StandS every thurSday.

if you have a buSineSS and would like to carry the paper for free, call GreG at 916.498.1234, ext. 1317 or email GreGe@newSreview.com

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categories:

categories: creative achievement in

cover Band/triBute Band • Blues support of the music scene • deejay

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HIrING!

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The Post The who’s-more-famous showdown.

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For more INFormatIoN aNd to apply, Go to www.NewsrevIew.com/jobs. 26 | SN&R | 01.04.18

by Daniel Barnes

racist commander-in-chief holds for journalists. For better and sometimes worse, The Post is a After a three-year break following the 2012 release Film About How We Live Today, but one thing it of Lincoln, Steven Spielberg has cranked out three nails about government watchdog journalism at the mature and understated genre films in three years, highest level is that for all the heroic sacrifices of the culminating with his latest release, The Post. The BFG worker bees, it only takes one wealthy queen bee to was an undervalued children’s fantasy, but spy flick stop or start the presses. Bridge of Spies and newspaper movie The Post use their That’s an especially pertinent message, not respective genres to make august, auburn-tinged only in relation to the Jeff Bezos-owned commentaries on American institutions, past Washington Post, but to the alternative and present. Now 71 years old, Spielberg weeklies currently getting dismantled has slipped into his golden years like across the country. While The Post an Old Hollywood studio veteran (his It’s as if Spielberg works too hard to make Graham upcoming Ready Player One looks Spotlight watched seem stumbling and shallow, anything but mature. Time will tell). Streep delivers one of her most and thought it might In making a film about restrained performances. American institutions, Spielberg make a good movie The Post was written by also casts a couple of them in the someday. Josh Singer, the Oscar-winning lead roles of The Post. Frequent co-screenwriter of Tom McCarthy’s Spielberg collaborator Tom Hanks forgettable awards magnet Spotlight. plays Ben Bradlee, no-nonsense editor Both The Post and Spotlight are process of the Washington Post, while Meryl Streep movies about journalists and their groundplays WaPo publisher and D.C. socialite Katherine breaking scoops, and they trace similar issues regardGraham. Set in the pre-Watergate early 1970s, The Post ing the press’ freedoms and responsibilities. It’s as centers on the leak and publication of the Pentagon if Spielberg watched Spotlight and thought it might Papers, the classified documents that proved the governmake a good movie someday. ment lied about the then-raging Vietnam War. Along with Spielberg come some indispensable When former RAND Corporation employee Daniel collaborators, most notably composer John Williams Ellsberg leaked the photocopied material in 1971, he and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. As ever, worked with a reporter from the New York Times, some of Spielberg’s decisions are distracting (casting but the Nixon administration obtained a federal court Bob Odenkirk and David Cross as WaPo colleagues) injunction to stop further publication. Bradlee and the or overbearing (Carrie Coon wringing tears from a Washington Post picked up the ball and published court brief), but most of The Post runs like classiits own series of Pentagon Papers-related articles, Ω although not without significant internal strife; Graham’s cally constructed clockwork. moneyed dinner party pals were among those implicated. In making a film about the Nixon administration’s toxic relationship with the press, Spielberg is obviously making a film about the hostility our current paranoid,

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fiLm CLiPS

Darkest Hour

Gary Oldman blubbers and bellows from under wads of makeup as Winston Churchill in this lifeless biopic by director Joe Wright (Atonement), portraying the embattled British prime minister during the tumultuous weeks between his 1940 appointment and the rescue mission at Dunkirk. Despite his abrasive nature and alcoholsoaked diet, Churchill was a compromise choice intended to unite Britain’s rival political parties against the Nazi threat, although his saber-rattling rhetoric quickly proved divisive. While Oldman chomps on the scenery in a sweat-stained awards grab, much of the action is filtered through his secretary (Lily James), whom Churchill treats with a borderline Weinstein-ian overfamiliarity (bad year to heroize handsy bosses in bathrobes). After Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk and Their Finest, this is the third 2017 release to touch on the Dunkirk evacuation, although Darkest Hour stops short at Churchill’s “we shall fight on the beaches” speech, as if to underline its own pointlessness. D.B.

The Greatest Showman

Hugh Jackman stars as 19th century impresario P.T. Barnum—a fascinating character whose real life and career are of scant interest in the movie as written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon and directed by the unready Michael Gracey. Then again, Barnum made his fortune peddling hoaxes to a gullible public, and he might be amused by how the movie runs the same scam. Jackman’s musical chops are real enough—ditto those of Zac Efron, Zendaya and others—but you can’t make a first-rate musical with third-rate songs, and these (by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, way off their game) are utterly humdrum. Any real dancing is undermined by glitzy CGI; we don’t know what’s real and what’s phony, so we assume it’s all faked. A miscast and unappealing Rebecca Ferguson as soprano Jenny Lind sinks the movie even further. J.L.

I, Tonya

Winston Churchill said that the price of greatness is responsibility, but for cinephiles, the price of great auteurs is homage. For every Paul Thomas Anderson that Martin Scorsese has influenced, there are hundreds of Craig Brewers, middling tracers who vapidly incorporate Scorsese-ian elements devoid of context or impact. Brewer (Million Dollar Arm) takes a crack at Goodfellas-esque multi-narrator storytelling and kinetic style with I, Tonya, an unnecessary biopic about figure skater Tonya Harding. Margot Robbie plays Harding over the course of several decades, and although Robbie is a lock to win the Best Actress Oscar, she only delivers more of the vacuum-sealed charisma that she brought to Suicide Squad (she has screen presence, but not screen substance). I, Tonya works hard to make Harding sympathetic,

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All the Money in the World

Ridley Scott directs this entertaining but uneven true-life drama about the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, a situation that dragged on for months when the teenager’s billionaire grandfather refused to pay his ransom. All the Money in the World is impeccably mounted but dramatically disjointed, a production design triumph with a shortage of substance, and only strong performances keep the film from falling apart. By this point, the onscreen story of All the Money in the World has been overshadowed by the offscreen drama, which saw disgraced actor Kevin Spacey’s scenes as the elder J. Paul Getty hastily reshot with Christopher Plummer. If only Plummer could have also replaced Mark Wahlberg as Fletcher Davis, the ex-CIA agent and Getty employee who oversaw the ransom negotiations. It feels like a functional supporting role got beefed up to attract a star, which only distracts attention from the characters that really matter. D.B.

BY DANIEL BARNES & JIM LANE

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Father Figures

Middle-aged twin brothers (Owen Wilson, Ed Helms) learn from their mother (Glenn Close) that the stories they grew up with about their “late father” were just that—stories; they set out to find their real father. What starts out as a routine, mildly amusing road movie for likable stars grows in the telling, getting better by the minute, and winds up as one of 2017’s more pleasant surprises. Wilson and Helms have terrific (and believably sibling) chemistry; Justin Malen’s script is surprisingly unpredictable and loaded with healthy (if sometimes raunchy) laughs; and the supporting cast (Terry Bradshaw, Ving Rhames, J.K. Simmons, June Squibb, Katt Williams, Christopher Walken) is chock full of talent. Lawrence Sher’s direction may be no more than workmanlike, but at least he stays out of everyone’s way. J.L.

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3349 J ST. • SACRAMENTO • STV-GERMANLANGUAGESCHOOL.ORG especially compared to her abusive husband (Sebastian Stan) and monstrous mother (a costume-y Allison Janney), but I just felt bad for Nancy Kerrigan all over again. D.B.

Pitch Perfect 3

The Bellas reunite for a USO tour. This franchise ran out of steam halfway through the credit crawl on the first movie, and there’s been nothing but garbage-ingarbage-out since then. Director Trish Sie and writers Kay Cannon and Mike White seem determined to see how much non-story, lame dialogue, fuzzy cinematography (Matthew Clark), sloppy editing (Craig Alpert and Colin Patton) and vapid songs they can cram into 93 minutes and still make $100 million. The charms of stars Anna Kendrick and Hailee Steinfeld are hardly powerful enough to carry this junk, especially when they’re teamed with the insufferable Rebel Wilson, who can ruin any movie with 10 minutes of screen time (and take John Lithgow, as her ne’er-do-well father, down with her). “Last call, pitches!” scream the movie’s posters. If only. J.L.

The Shape of Water

Guillermo del Toro directs this beautifully designed but clumsily arranged sci-fi love story about a mute janitor (Sally Hawkins) who falls for a magical creature (a motion-captured Doug Jones). Hawkins’ plucky Eliza pushes a mop at a mysterious research laboratory overseen by a teeth-gnashing sadist (Michael Shannon, of course), but the arrival of a fishlike humanoid from the Amazon sparks something inside her soul. Eliza enlists the help of her kindly co-worker (Octavia Spencer) and her closeted gay neighbor (Richard Jenkins) to free the beast, with Russian spies in pursuit while an unlikely romance blooms. Although set in an unofficially segregated 1960s Baltimore, The Shape of Water drips with Amelie-like whimsy, right down to Alexandre Desplat’s concertina-heavy score. The film has great pieces that rarely fit together, and the binary connections that del Toro

makes between real-life civil rights struggles and merman love are fairly insulting. D.B.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

The galactic civil war goes on, with the Resistance on the run under Gen. Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher, who finished shooting shortly before her death last year) and the Force-savant Rey (Daisy Ridley) seeking to recruit the reclusive Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) back into the struggle. Writerdirector Rian Johnson falters a bit, missing the gee-whiz thrill J.J. Abrams gave The Force Awakens—and where Abrams left us eager for more, Johnson leaves us sated and willing to wait a couple of years for the next episode. Still, there’s plenty of fun to be had, and the series faithful won’t be disappointed. Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Domhnall Gleeson and Andy Serkis round out the returning cast, with some promising new characters in the form of Laura Dern, Benicio del Toro and Kelly Marie Tran. J.L.

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Wonder Wheel

The In 1950s Coney Island, a young woman (Juno Temple) shows up on the doorstep of her estranged father (Jim Belushi) and his second wife (Kate Winslet), fleeing from her mobster ex-husband after turning state’s evidence. Writer/director Woody Allen is near the top of his game in terms of the performances he draws from his cast, especially Temple (someone to watch) and Winslet (never sharper or braver), and including Justin Timberlake as a lifeguard attracted to Temple while having an affair with Winslet. But the acting and Vittorio Storaro’s sun-splashed photography can’t compensate for Allen’s tiresome return to his most distasteful theme: having inconvenient people murdered and getting away with it—Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point and now this. It’s well done, but unpleasant and unsatisfying.. J.L.

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The songs of suffering The Ex-Rippers create a moody mix of gloomy pop rock by AAron CArnes

Photo by Letrice fowLer

No one in the band views the music as sad, but they acknowledge that everyone that they show it to hears it a little differently: from cheery pop to gloomy darkness. “It has a life of its own that isn’t necessarily sad or happy, but a melancholy gray area,” Castillo says. Regardless, its mood hits you immediately. Elorduy typically writes the basic skeleton of the songs, a blend between the dingy rock ’n’ roll essence of The Is anyone happy to be in this photo? Replacements and the washed-out, jangly weirdness of The Cure. He also has a fondness for tribal-like repetition, giving the music a transcendental vibe. “There’s a lot of room for each person to bring Julian Elorduy teaches high school seniors the their own color and characteristic to it,” Elorduy says. “Mysteries of Suffering and Death”—not a song Despite having two EPs (and a third, possibly an title, but an elective class that explores how different LP, in the works) the Ex-Rippers are a relatively new cultures process the end of life. band. Elorduy, Castillo and bassist Dwain Navarro He wasn’t fazed when his students learned he first got together in late 2015. At the time, Navarro was in a band. was a tuba player. “They Google you,” he says. “I very confidentially bullshat my way through But it did surprise him that the school newspaper the first rehearsal,” Navarro says. was considering doing an article on his cassette label, In no time, they enlisted Merriman and a different Obsolete Media. He stumbled on this information fifth member. They originally called themwhen he saw this written on their idea selves the Rippers. Then a band from board. Right next to it was the question: Italy told The Rippers, “It does not “Why are these songs so sad?” please us that you are using this The songs in question are from “Getting this lush, name.” So they changed the his band, the Ex-Rippers, who orchestral name to the Ex-Rippers. After make up a majority of Obsolete a few shows, they recorded awesomeness that I still Media’s catalog. There are some tunes, which were two tapes of Ex-Rippers matelisten to and love—that’s released on the split with rial, along with a split with when it felt real to me.” Boy Romeo in late 2016. Boy Romeo, a side project “Getting this lush, orchesby Ex-Rippers guitarist Gabe Thomas Castillo tral awesomeness that I still Merriman called Trans Destiny drummer, The Ex-Rippers listen to and love—that’s when and a project by local indie group it felt real to me,” Castillo says. Dog Rifle. Elorduy is noticeably excited the The sadness description baffled him more he talks about The Ex-Rippers. most of all. This is the first band that’s he’s felt good enough “I never thought of them as being sad,” Elorduy about, that he’s able to let go of some of his inclinasays. “It comes from serious moments in life, like a tions to control every aspect of the music. In past personal history. It’s just the feeling at the moment. bands, he’s written everyone’s part out for them. Not Often you’re working with a serious subject matter with the Ex-Rippers. and trying to shine light upon it.” “Everyone brings their own thing. We’re on the The Ex-Rippers—the whole band—consider same page more or less, so it works out really well.” Ω whether their music is inherently sad. The five

if you like it, help support it Donate to ’s inDepenDent Journalism FunD:

inDepenDent JournalismFunD .org 28 | SN&R | 01.04.18

members crowd around drummer Thomas Castillo’s cozy living room with a wood-burning fireplace streaming on the TV and Christmas music lightly playing in the background.

check out ex-rippers at 7:30 p.m. wednesday, January 10, at cafe colonial, 3520 Stockton boulevard. tickets are $7. Learn more at www.facebook.com/exrippers.

foR the week of jaNuaRy 4

by Kate gonzales

Online listings will be considered for print. Print listings are edited for space and accuracy. deadline for print listings is 5 p.m. Wednesday. deadline for nightlife listings is midnight Sunday. Send photos and reference materials to Calendar Editor Kate Gonzales at snrcalendar@newsreview.com.

pOSt EVENtS ONliNE FOr FrEE at

www.newsreview.com/sacramento

MariGOlD: With Knockout, Free Candy,

games, costumes and more. 10pm, $25. Knobs & Knockers, 1023 Front St.

Cardboard Houses, Flight Mongoose, Carpool Tunnel. 8pm, $10. The Boardwalk, 9426 Greenback Lane in Orangevale.

GrEat traiN ShOW: The nation’s only coastto-coast model train show, with free workshops and demonstrations and rare items from dealers. 10am, no cover-$10. Cal Expo, 1600 Exposition Blvd.

pEaCh hOuSE BENEFit ShOW: Music by Slater, LaTour, Distractor, Pierce and the Gals, Cowgirl Clue. Art and tarot readings. 6pm, $10-$15 sliding scale. Latino Center of Art and Culture, 2700 Front St.

thu

PHOTO COURTESY OF PlaCERvillE FRiEndS OF TibET

Tibetan monks in Placerville.

Monks return to the foothills DiamonD SpringS Center for Healing, 10 a.m., $10-$20 Donation A new year is a natural time to consider new beginnings, to envision new personal strength and to create Spiritual space for calm and peace in our lives. On January 1, the Tibetan monks of Gaden Sharste Monastery in India began their residency in Placerville—a 14-yearold tradition locally of an ancient Buddhist practice. The two-week visit is centered around the monks’ construction of a sand mandala, an intricate sculpture of colored

sand which they build over the course of 100 hours using traditional tools. Anyone can watch this meditative and symbolic practice during the center’s open hours. The monks will also host talks, ceremonies and workshops during their Placerville stay. As is custom, they will dissolve the mandala on the final day of their stay to represent life’s impermanence. 851 Pleasant Valley Road in Diamond Springs, www.pvilletibet.wordpress.com.

MiNi WritiNG MarathON: Join fellow writers

rENt rOMuS at FiFtY—GOlD liON & OutSOuND BENEFit ShOWCaSE: Saxophonist producer Rent Romus with Tony Passarell. Performing artists include Rent Romus’ Lords of Outland with CJ Borosque, Ray Schaeffer, Philip Everett and Tony Passarell’s Thin Air Orchestra. 8pm, $10-$20 sliding scale. Gold Lion Arts, 2733 Riverside Blvd.

THURSdaY, 1/4 SuN VallEY GuN CluB: With Goon, Alyeska,

Mason Hoffman. 8pm, $7-$10. The Press Club, 2030 P St.

FRidaY, 1/5 DaNNY SECrEtiON: The Moans’ Danny Secret performs solo. With 50 Watt Heavy and Unsteady Heights. 8pm, $5. Fox & Goose, 1001 R St.

EuGENE uGlY: With Anime Aliens, Vinnie

Guidera & The Dead Birds. 8pm, $7. Shine, 1400 E St.

JOY & MaDNESS: With Mojo Green 8pm, $12-$15. Harlow’s, 2708 J St.

JuNKYarD: With the Brodys, Short Trip. 7pm, $12-$15. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

KNOCK KNOCK: Record release show for Knock Knock with Kids on a Crime Spree and A Certain Smile. 6pm, $7-$10 suggested donation. Phono Select Records, 2745 Fruitridge Road.

NO StatiK: With Revolution Bummer, Toy Traps, Killer Couture. Benefit show for Harm Reduction Services. 8pm, $10. The Colony, 3512 Stockton Blvd.

OMB pEEZY liVE!: Sacramento-based hip-hop. 7pm, $20. The Boardwalk, 9426 Greenback Lane in Orangevale.

thE StOrYtEllErS: Birthday show for Colonial complex owner/operator Matt Marrujo. With LaTour, Back Alley Buzzards, The Cheap Bastards Club, At Both Ends 8pm, $7-$10 suggested donation. Cafe Colonial, 3520 Stockton Blvd.

SaTURdaY, 1/6 KEViN & allYSON SECONDS: With Heartless Folk,

Boss’ Daughter, HotBods 8pm, call for cover. Hideaway Bar & Grill, 2565 Franklin Blvd.

lONG BEaCh DuB allStarS: With Riotmaker,

OneLegChuck, Squarefield Massive. 7pm, $21. Ace Of Spades, 1417 R St.

lOOSE ENGiNES: With Watt Ave. Soul Giants

and an early set by Mezcal Aces. 8pm, $8. Shine, 1400 E St.

for three hours of focused writing, broken up with a lunch on your own or with other participants at a nearby restaurant. 10am, no cover. Sylvan Oaks Community Library, 6700 Auburn Blvd. in Citrus Heights.

SaCaNiME WiNtEr 2018: See event description for 1/5. 12:30pm, $20-$50. Sacramento Convention Center, 1400 J St.

SaCraMENtO aFriCaN MarKEtplaCE: Shop

rOEM Baur: Former contestant on The Voice.

for affordable, handmade and natural items like soaps, perfume oils and skincare products, as well as books, jewelry, music and fashion. Noon, no cover. Sojourner Truth Museum: 2251 Florin Road.

9pm, no cover. Sauced BBQ & Spirits, 1028

7th St.

taKiNG FOX hOllOW: With Perfect Score,

Broncin Mello, Tall Trees. 6:30pm, $10-$12. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

SUndaY, 1/7

GrEat traiN ShOW: See event description on 1/6. 10am, no cover-$10. Cal Expo, 1600 Exposition Blvd.

rESt, rEpOSE: With The Home Team, Heat Of Damage, Whitewolf, The Last Titan. 6pm, $10. Cafe Colonial, 3520 Stockton Blvd.

SaCaNiME WiNtEr 2018: See event description

SpiCY hOt DEath Cult: Battle set between Spicy Hot Death Cult and Thrashzilla. With Lucky/ You. 8pm, $5-$10 sliding scale. The Colony, 3512 Stockton Blvd.

for 1/5. 12:30pm, $20-$50. Sacramento Convention Center, 1400 J St.

FOOd & dRinK

MOndaY, 1/8 hEaVY MONDaYS With ChElSEa WOlFE: DJ set with Chelsea Wolfe with special guests Jess Gowrie and Corey Wiegert 9pm, no cover. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

thE OrDEr OF EliJah: With We Were Giants and more. 8pm, $10. Blue Lamp, 1400 Alhambra Blvd.

SaTURdaY, 1/6 paiNt aND Sip: Paint a Paris scene with a drink. 1pm, $30. Taste of Tuscany, 7753 Roseville Road, Suite A.

SUndaY, 1/7 luXurY WEDDiNG ShOW: Envision your

WEdnESdaY, 1/10 MartY Stuart aND hiS FaBulOuS SupErlatiVES: With Deke Dickerson 7:30pm,

$35-$75. Harris Center, 10 College Parkway in Folsom.

wedding day from beginning to end, with a mock ceremony and reception, fashion shows, cake and catering tastings and giveaways. Noon, $15-$20. Tsakopoulos Library Galleria, 828 I St.

MOndaY, 1/8

thE ShE’S: With the Ex-Rippers, Boy Romeo.

Same Girls. 7:30pm, $7-$10. Cafe Colonial, 3520 Stockton Blvd.

traCK 7 CurtiS parK DiNNEr: Beer and a barbecue with brisket, ribs and turkey.

ShWaYZE: With Two Peace, Wasted, Kassette.

MUSiC

snr c a le nd a r @ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

4:30pm, call for cover. Track 7, 3747 W. Pacific

7pm, $15. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

Ave., Suite F.

FESTivalS

FilM

FRidaY, 1/5

THURSdaY, 1/4

SaCaNiME WiNtEr 2018: A family-friendly pop

thE BluES BrOthErS: The 1980 American

culture convention celebrating anime, animation and video games. With artists, autograph sessions with special guests, workshops, a cosplay costume contest and video game tournaments. 12:30pm, $20-$50. Sacramento Convention Center, 1400 J St.

SaTURdaY, 1/6

musical crime comedy starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. 7pm, $8. State Theatre Auburn, 985 Lincoln Way in Auburn.

rEal BOY: A 19-year-old navigates sobriety, adolescence and gender identity. A Q&A with Joe Stevens, a musician featured in the film, will follow the screening. Part of the

DEaD hOOKErS Ball: The Zombie Club’s alternative New Year party with burlesque,

CalENDar liStiNGS CONtiNuED ON paGE 31

01.04.18 | SN&R | 29

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WEDNESDAY, 1/10

The Room screening regal natomas marketplaCe stadium 16, 8 p.m., $12.50

Who’s to say a bad movie can’t inspire a great one? Case in point: The Room. Without the 2003 indie film with its 26 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating, we’d never see James Franco shine as the star in The Disaster Artist, a behindthe-scenes retelling of the production of The Room. Whether you’re FILM an unabashed (and non-ironic) lover of the original film, or just want to see what all the fuss is about, join audiences in more than 500 cities to watch The Room. 3561 Truxel Road, www. fathomevents.com.

ARTHOUSE ON R: Big Show of Small Treasures.

Association display a range of work. Through

A handful of galleries host their annual Small Treasures show. Through 1/8. No cover. 1021 R St.

BEATNIK STUDIOS: Dana & Satterlee’s Intersection at Beatnik Studios. The two longtime artists and friends show individual and collaborative works. Through 1/25. No cover. 723 S St.

FRIDAY, 1/5 CLUELESS: Revisit the superficial side of the 1990s with Alicia Silverstone, Brittany Murphy and Stacey Dash. 7:30pm, $8-$10. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

SATURDAY, 1/6 VIVA LAS VEGAS: A celebration of Elvis’ birthday with one of his most loved films. 7:30pm, $8-$10. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

SUNDAY, 1/7 IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT: The Academy Awardwinning romantic comedy great directed by Frank Capra. 7pm, no cover. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

LITTLE STONES: A film that follows artists who are contributing a stone to the women’s movement through their art. Filmed in Senegal, Kenya, Brazil, Germany, India and the United States. RSVP to info@ncjwsac. org 1pm, no cover. Kashenberg Ostrow Hayward Library and Cultural Center, 2300 Sierra Blvd.

WEDNESDAY, 1/10 THE ROOM: See event highlight above. 8pm, $12.50. Natomas Marketplace 16, 3561 Truxel Road.

COMEDY CSZ SACRAMENTO: ComedySportz—Improv Comedy. Interactive, spontaneous comedy for all ages, with games similar to the hit show, Whose Line Is It, Anyway? Two teams compete for audience applause and points by making up sketches based on audience suggestions. Through 2/17. $10-$14. 2230 Arden Way, Suite B.

LAUGHS UNLIMITED COMEDY CLUB: K-Von. The star of MTV’s hit show Disaster Date performs. Through 1/4. $20-$30. Shaun Jones. Comedian and actor who has worked alongside Sylvester Stallone and Jamie Foxx comes to Sac. Through 1/7. $10. 1207 Front St.

PUNCH LINE: Steve Hofstetter. Comedian and

podcast host. Through 1/6. $20. Comedian Kabir Singh. Winner of the Bay Area Stand Up Comedy Competition who has opened for top comeidans Dave Chappelle and Dane Cook. Through 1/7. $16. There Goes

Anthony Roberts. Tyson, a self-taught artist and muralist based in Sacramento, shows his paintings. Artwork can be purchased inside Shop Old Gold. Opening reception at 6pm Friday, 1/5. No cover. 1104 R St.

MUSEUMS

and affordable pieces for your home or for a gift. Through 1/28. Free. 1115 E St.

AEROSPACE MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA: Take Flight.

EMPIRE’S COMICS VAULT: Jared Konopitski Art

An exhibit about the history and evolution of flight. Through 1/9. $8-$10. 3200 Freedom Park Drive.

Reception. Meet the featured artist, talk about the work and even pick up a new piece. 5pm Saturday, 1/6. Free. 1120 Fulton Ave., Suite K.

CALIFORNIA AUTOMOBILE MUSEUM: Shasta Minis. On display as part of the Car Club Cavalcade. Through 2/4. 2200 Front St.

GALLERY 1855: Solo Exhibition of Cathie

California Fresh Film Series. 6:30pm, $6-$12. Crocker Art Museum, 216 O St.

WAL PUBLIC MARKET: [WAL]Paper by Tyson

E STREET GALLEY: Small Works of Art. Unique

PhOTO COURTESY OF FAThOM EvENTS

CALENDAR LISTINGS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29

1/29. 207 G St. in Davis.

the Neighborhood Comedy Tour. A rotating cast of comics including headliners, touring comedians and up-and-coming locals. Through 1/10. $16. 2100 Arden Way, Suite 225.

SACRAMENTO COMEDY SPOT: Squad Patrol—Best of 2017. Formerly Secret Handshake Society, this fast-paced, sketch comedy show has its Best of 2017 show, with cast and fan favorites. 8pm Friday, 1/5. $8. 1050 20th St, Suite 130.

TOMMY T’S COMEDY CLUB: Comedian Willie Barcena. A favorite of Jay Leno, he’s been on The Tonight Show 12 times. Through 1/7. $20-$30. 12401 Folsom Blvd., Rancho Cordova. tracking.goldstar.com

SACRAMENTO COMMUNITY CENTER THEATER: Something Rotten! See event highlight below. Through 1/7. $25-$102. Shen Yun Performing Arts. 7:30pm, 2pm. Through 1/10. 1301 L Street. seatgeek.com

SACRAMENTO THEATRE: The Musical of Musicals The Musical! A parody paying homage to classic musical theater tropes from across the ages. Through 1/8. 1419 H St.

STANLEY MOSK LIBRARY AND COURTS BUILDING: A Night at the State Library—Forever Muir. Robert Hanna, great-great-grandson of National Parks advocate John Muir, gives the audience a personal look at Muir’s life. 5:30pm Wednesday, 1/10. No cover. 914 Capitol Mall.

Robison. Work by the local mixed-media artist. Through 1/31. No cover. Davis Cemetery District 820 Pole Line Road in Davis.

CALIFORNIA MUSEUM: Beauty and the Beast California Wildflowers and Climate Change. Images by San Francisco Bay Area-based photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter reveal the effects of climate change on a universal symbol of beauty: the wildflower. Through 1/28. $9. 1020 O St.

KENNEDY ART GALLERY: Expose In Photography & Postcards on The Edge. A display of photography and artistic postcards. Through 1/7. Free. 1931 L St.

CALIFORNIA STATE RAILROAD MUSEUM: Off The

PENCE GALLERY: Kurt Fishback—Portraits of

Clock. An exhibit focused on the sports, clubs, teams and competitions that Southern Pacific participated in to pass the time. Through 6/1. $10-$15. 111 I St.

Women Artists. More than 70 California artists photographed in their studios. Through 1/14. No cover. 212 D St. in Davis.

ROBERT T. MATSUI GALLERY AT CITY HALL: In Response. The collaborative work of 16 pairs of local poets and visual artists. Through 1/9. No cover. 915 I St.

SACRAMENTO FINE ARTS CENTER: Animal House.

ON STAGE CHAUTAUQUA PLAYHOUSE: The Regifters. A holiday comedy about a re-gifted item that’s worth more than expected. Through 1/14. $19-$22. 5325 Engle Road in Carmichael.

ART 1810 GALLERY: Corey Bernhardt Solo Art Exhibition. The artist’s first solo show. Opening reception 6pm Friday, 1/5. No cover. 1810 12th St.

UC DAVIS DESIGN MUSEUM, CRUESS HALL: It’s Bugged Insects’ Role in Design. See event highlight on page 32. Through 4/20. No cover. 1 Shields Ave. in Davis.

The 13th edition of this exhibit of animalthemed art will open January 3. Mediums include painting, drawing, photography and sculpture. Through 1/28. No cover. 5330B Gibbons Drive in Carmichael.

THE ARTERY: The CHAA Collective Exhibit. Artists and art educators who are members of the Contemporary Humanitarian Artists

CALENDAR LISTINGS CONTINUED ON PAGE 32

DAVIS MUSICAL THEATRE COMPANY: Monty Python’s Spamalot. Ripped off from the comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail, this show retells the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and features a bevy of beautiful show girls, cows, killer rabbits and French people. Through 1/28. $16-$18. 607 Pena Drive, Suite 10 in Davis.

HARRIS CENTER: Motown The Musical. A story of the American Dream, showing Motown founder Berry Gordy’s journey from featherweight boxer to the heavyweight music mogul who launched the careers of Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Smokey Robinson and many more. 7:30pm. Through 1/5. $49-$89. 10 College Parkway in Folsom.

PAMELA TROKANSKI DANCE WORKSHOP AND PERFORMANCE ART CENTER: Acme Theatre Company’s The White Rose. A story about student Nazi resisters in 1942 Germany. Through 1/21. $10-$12. 2720 Del Rio Place in Davis.

PERFORMING ARTS THEATER AT RANCHO CORDOVA HIGH SCHOOL: Poperetta! Part operetta, part concert and part stand-up performance, Conrad Frank stars as Countess Katya Smirnoff-Skyy. 7:30pm. Through 1/6. $25. 2239 Chase Drive in Rancho Cordova.

ROSEVILLE HIGH SCHOOL PATTI BAKER THEATER: Made for Another World. A story told through visual and performance arts including dance, music, film and design. Through 1/6. No cover. 1 Tiger Way in Roseville.

ThURSDAY, 1/4

Something Rotten! Community Center theater, 8 p.m., $37-$102

Sometimes the greatest innovations come out of competition. And when you’re competing with the Bard, you’d better have something special up your sleeve. This Tony-nominated comedy tells the story of the Bottom brothers (a Shakespeare nod in itself?), a ON STAGE pair of thespians with a problem common to entertainers: trying to get their big break. Set in the late 1500s, the two set off on a new project in competition with Shakespeare, and end up inventing the musical. Show runs through 1/7. 1301 L Street, www.californiamusicaltheatre.com.

PhOTO COURTESY OF jEREMY DANIEl

01.04.18

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see more events and submit your own at newsreview.com/sacramento/calendar

monday, 1/8

calendar listings continued from page 31

all ages tHursday, 1/4 day 9 outer space animals: Kids can learn

every other Thursday NEXT EVENT JAN. 11TH • CASH PRIZES!

GRAND PRIZE TRIP FOR 2 TO 2018 BEER PONG WORLD SERIES IN LAS VEGAS. $20 ENTRY PER TEAM

about the living creatures that have visited outer space and design an experimental animal habitat for a future space journey. 12:30pm, 2pm, $8. Powerhouse Science Center, 3615 Auburn Blvd.

saturday, 1/6 drag Queen story time: Storytime featuring drag queen Mahlae Balenciaga, who will read a children’s book and lead a sing-along. 11am, no cover. Mary L. Stephens Davis Branch Library, 315 E. 14th St. in Davis.

girls softball walK-in registration: Walk-in registration and skills assessment. 10am. South Natomas Community Center, 2921 Truxel Road.

it’s bugged: insects’ role in design exhibit UC Davis Design MUseUM, noon, no Cover

The natural world has always inspired the work of artists and designers. A new exhibit at UC Davis highlights the relationship between insects and design, covering the ways humans take museums aspects of design directly from nature to create beautiful, useful matePHoto courtesy of uc regents rials. The exhibit also illustrates how insects actually help in the manufacturing of such items, as they produce the necessary raw materials. An opening reception will be held 1/11, and visitors can see the exhibit through 4/22. One Shields Avenue in Davis, Design Museum (Cruess Hall, Room 124), design.ucdavis.edu.

Kids fun Zone: Family activities like crafts

916-572-0264

2901 W Capitol Ave, West Sacramento

CHECK US OUT ON YELP!

monday, 1/8 little peeps at tHe sacramento Zoo: Classes designed for children 3 to 5. Includes a mini-lesson, crafts, activities and animal ambassador visits. 9:30am, $30-$35. Sacramento Zoo, 3930 W Land Park Dr.

sPorts & outdoors friday, 1/5 Hot Hula fitness: A complete body workout utilizing Pacific Island dance movements to the sounds of traditional drum beats. 7pm, $10. Sierra 2 Center, 2791 24th St.

saturday, 1/6

if you like it, help support it Donate to ’s inDepenDent Journalism FunD: inDepenDentJournalismFunD.org 32

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01.04.18

lgBtQ

and games. 1pm, no cover. Southgate Plaza, 4542 Florin Road.

river cleanup: Help clear debris from a

high-use river access point. 9am, no cover. Paradise Beach, 5211 Carlson Drive.

ymca open House: Activities include strength training, swim lessons, cycling, rock climbing and yoga. Complimentary fitness classes, healthy snacks, tours and giveaways. 8am, no cover. YMCA of Superior California, 2021 W St.

yoga and mindfulness for girls: A class for girls to explore love, joy and kindness of themselves and others while practicing yoga, breathing and meditation. Snacks and tea provided. 1:30pm, $25. Asha Yoga, 2421 27th St.

sunday, 1/7 detoX to retoX yoga: Kick off the new year with a yoga class presented by yoga instructors from Solfire 1:30pm, $15. Ace Of Spades, 1417 R St.

wednesday, 1/10 mcKinley parK run club: A club for Sac / McKinley Park runners and walkers to meet up, workout together and learn the elements of an efficient run form. 6pm, first workout is free. McKinley Park, 3330 McKinley Blvd.

tHursday, 1/4 drag Queen bingo: Play bingo with hilarious drag queens, while supporting Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus. 7pm, $15. Mango’s, 1930 K St.

saturday, 1/6 winter social sHare your narrative: A safe space to share your narrative. 2pm, no cover. Lavender Library, Archives, and Cultural Exchange, 1414 21st St.

monday, 1/8 Queer leatHer association- KinK class: A monthly kink class covering various topics. 7pm, $5-$20 donation. Public House Theater, 5440 14th Ave.

tuesday, 1/9 api Queer sac meet & greet: A potluck get together, with planning around the Asian/ Pacific Islander Queer Sacramento Coalition Homecoming Conference. Bring a snack and learn how to get involved. 5:30pm, no cover. API Queer Sacramento Coalition, 2124 10th St.

taKe action friday, 1/5 beer & roses leftist Happy Hour: Meet fellow local leftists and labor activists for beers, snacks and conversations about politics, activism, local issues and bad bosses. 7pm, no cover. Streets Pub and Grub, 1804 J St.

saturday, 1/6 wHose streets? our streets! alternatives to police!: Help build up Alternatives to Police by joining a small but steady group of consistent builders in the areas of family support, emergency support, disability justice and copwatch. 6pm, no cover. Sacramento Public Library—Arcade, 2443 Marconi Ave.

sunday, 1/7 community listening session: Join the organizers of the Sacramento Women’s March 2018 for a community-oriented listening session moderated by Kellie Todd. This forum is designed to provide a healing space from which to build an intersectional and inclusive resistance. 3pm, no cover. CLARA, 2420 N St.

monday, 1/8 million masK marcH: ANONYMOUS Million Mask March. A weekly protest in state capitols and city halls in 800 cities. Marches begin at 5pm for rush hour. 5pm, no cover. California State Capitol, 1315 10th St.

sactenants bimontHly meeting: Organize around issues like housing as a human right, lack of rentals and homelessness, gentrification and more. 6pm, no cover. Organize Sacramento, 1714 Broadway.

tuesday, 1/9 HealtHcare committee meeting: Join the fight to create a cheaper, more efficient healthcare system that would provide quality healthcare to everybody. 5:30pm, no cover. Old Soul at the Weatherstone, 812 21st St.

wednesday, 1/10 coloniZation and decoloniZation (part 1): This reading group is the first reading of the new program led by No DAPL Sacramento and hosted by the Washington Neighborhood Center called The Decolonization Project. This meeting will cover the first part of the text, Colonization and Decolonization—A Manual for Indigenous Liberation in the 21st Century, written and illustrated by Gord Hill. The text is free and available online. 6pm, no cover. The Washington Neighborhood Center, 400 16th St.

classes tHursday, 1/4 bitcoin 101: Learn more about digital currencies. Topics covered include: what Bitcoin is, how it works and how you get it.

7pm, $25. Hacker Lab, 4415 Grante Drive in Rocklin.

eXPLORIng natURe USIng aCRYLIC: A series of Thursday classes with teacher Jennifer Keller. Each month, classes will spend three Thursdays working on a landscape, botanical image or animal-themed piece. 10am, $250. University Art, 2601 J St.

HeRBS FOR tHe neW YeaR: Learn the roles medicinal plants can play in increasing your health and well-being in 2018. This talk will introduce a philosophy of herbal medicine, how herbs work and basic remedies. 6pm, no cover. Soil Born Farms, 2140 Chase Drive in Rancho Cordova.

JOB COaCH: Meet one-on-one with a trained job coach who will help you spruce up your resume, build better job searching techniques and prepare you for interviews. Reservation required. 4pm, no cover. Sacramento Public Library, 6700 Auburn Blvd. in Citrus Heights.

MUSHROOMS OF YOLO COUntY anD BeYOnD: Learn about commonly encountered mushrooms in gardens, landscapes and wild areas of northern California. See how they are identified, the countless ways they are essential to life on earth and why they occur in specific areas. 7pm, $5. Yolo Basin Foundation, 45211 Chiles Road in Davis.

FRiday, 1/5 CaLIFORnIa MUSICaL tHeatRe’S DanCe WORKSHOP: A dance workshop led by Con O’Shea-Creal, a cast member from the Broadway tour of Something Rotten! Bring tap shoes and learn original choreography from the show. Class will end with a Q&A session. 4pm, $25-$35. Sierra 2 Center, 2791 24th St.

saTuRday, 1/6 MeaL PReP HanDS-On COOKIng WORKSHOP: Start the new year off with the resolution to eat healthy, homemade food. Get help with meal prep, and leave the class with containers full of healthy proteins, vegetables and side dishes. 9am, $95. Soil

Born Farms American River Ranch, 2140 Chase Drive in Rancho Cordova.

sunday, 1/7 geneaLOgY—IntRODUCtIOn tO eaRLY QUaKeR ReSeaRCH: Quakers kept meticulous records of births, marriages, deaths and more. This presentation will cover the primary records for Quaker ancestors, calendars and record resources. 1pm, no cover. Sacramento Public Library—Central, 828 I St.

mOnday, 1/8 MUSICaL tHeatRe aUDItIOn teCHnIQUe: Join award-winning actor/singer and private coach Nanci Zoppi for an eight-week musical theater course. The group setting will allow concentrated work on pieces in front of a peer group, while receiving direction and guidance from a working professional and accompanist. In addition to the audition prep, students will be coached on song delivery, with an emphasis on effective and human storytelling. 8:30pm, $320. CLARA, 2420 N St., Studio 135.

Wednesday, 1/10 aFteR SCHOOL PROgRaM at SOIL BORn FaRMS: Young women ages 13-18 can engage with the outdoor world and deepen their connection to themselves, their environment, their health and each other. Activities will include: gardening, cooking and eating together. The program will be flexible and adapted to meet the interests and passions of the group. For more information and to register, visit www.soilborn.org or call (916) 363-9685. 3:30pm, $150 for 10 session. Soil Born Farms American River Ranch, 2140 Chase Drive in Rancho Cordova.

CaLIFORnIa aRtS COUnCIL gRantS WORKSHOP: With an increase in state arts funding, learn how to put together an effective application for state arts grants. Registration encouraged. 6pm, no cover. Verge Center for the Arts, 625 S St.

ALL DAY. EVERY DAY.

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DOMESTIC DRAFT BEER

Tuesday, 1/9

Shen Yun Sacramento community center theater, 7:30pm, $80-$200

While countless people worldwide have seen the awe-inspiring visual storytelling of Shen Yun Performing Arts, some consider it a lost treasure. Lost, because its traditional aspects of Chinese culture are viewed as a threat to modern Communist China. This On Stage dance and musical performance brings to life ancient stories of Chinese culture, with athletic classical dance, an orchestra of Eastern and Western musicians, animated backdrops and an uplifting energy. 1301 L Street, www.shenyun.com/sacramento.

Specials only available at William Hill® Sports Bar. SPORTS BAR @

Management reserves all rights.

PHOTO COuRTesy OF sHen yun PeRFORming aRTs

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HardRockCasinoLakeTahoe.com

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PUBLICATION: NEWS REVIEW

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thUrsday 1/4 The acousTic den cafe

10271 Fairway driVE, rosEVillE, (916) 412-8739

Badlands

PopRockz, 9pm, no cover

2003 k st., (916) 448-8790

BaR 101

101 Main st., rosEVillE, (916) 774-0505

Blue lamp

satUrday 1/6

sUnday 1/7

Monday-wEdnEsday 1/8-1/10

While You Were Out, 7pm, $5

Jahari Sai, Tony Galioto, Katie Knipp, 6:30pm, $5 suggested donation

Pocket Change, 1:30pm, no cover

Open-Mic Wednesday, 6:30pm, W, no cover

Fierce Fridays, 7pm, call for cover

Spectacular Saturdays, 8pm, call for cover

Sunday Beer Bust, 4pm, no cover

Trapacana, 10pm, W, no cover

Dylan Crawford, 9:30pm, no cover

Scotty Mac, 9:30pm, no cover

Live Music (TBA), 9:30pm, no cover

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

Revolver (Rage Against the Machine Tribute) and more, 8pm, $12

Cairo Knife Fight, Enso Anima and more, 8pm, $10

The Order of Elijah, We Were Giants, 8pm, M, $10

Sunday Funday, 3pm, call for cover

Noche Latina, 9pm, T, no cover; Purgatory, 9pm, W, no cover

Direct Collapse, Killer Couture and more, The Gatlin (release party), Work Dirty 8pm, call for cover and more, 9pm, call for cover

1400 alhaMbra blVd., (916) 455-3400

The BoaRdwalk

OMB Peezy, 8pm, $20

Marigold, Carpool Tunnel and more, 8pm, $10

capiTol gaRage

Capitol Fridays, 10pm, no cover before 10:30pm

Dinner and a Drag Show, 7:30pm, $5-$25

The cenTeR foR The aRTs

An Evening with the Girtons: Concert and CD release party, 8pm, $12-$15

9426 GrEEnback ln., oranGEValE, (916) 358-9116 1500 k st., (916) 444-3633 314 w. Main st., Grass VallEy, (530) 274-8384

faces

Dragon, 10pm, $10

2000 k st., (916) 448-7798

faTheR paddY’s iRish puBlic house Photo coUrtEsy oF alyson caMUs

Friday 1/5

435 Main st., woodland, (530) 668-1044

Cowgirl Clue

fox & goose

with Slater 6pm Saturday, $10-$15 Latino Center of Art and Culture Pop

golden 1 cenTeR

Irish Jam Session with Stepping Stone, 8pm, no cover

1001 r st., (916) 443-8825

Absolut Fridays, 9pm, no cover

Decades, 7pm, call for cover

Retrospecs, 6pm, no cover

House of Mary, 7pm, no cover

Danny Secretion (solo), 50-Watt Heavy, Unsteady Lights, 9pm, $5

Kally O’Mally and the 8-Tracks, Adam Block, 9pm, $5

All-Vinyl Wednesdays with DJ AAKnuff, 8pm, W, no cover

Denver vs. Sacramento, 7pm, $21-$217

San Antonio vs. Sacramento, 7pm, M, $18-$173

Pop Fiction, 9pm, $10

Let’s Get Quizzical Trivia Game Show, 7pm, T, no cover

Kevin & Allyson Seconds, Heartless Folk and more, 8pm, call for cover

Karaoke, 8pm, M, no cover; Cactus Pete, 8pm, T, no cover; Trivia, 8pm, W, no cover

Joseph One, 11pm, no cover

Heavy Mondays, 10pm, M, no cover; Tussle, 10pm, T, no cover Shwayze, 7pm, W, $15

500 daVid J stErn walk, (888) 915-4647

halfTime BaR & gRill

On the Fly, 9pm, $5

5681 lonEtrEE blVd., rocklin, (916) 626-3600

haRlow’s

Joy & Madness, Mojo Green, 8pm, $12-$15

2708 J st., (916) 441-4693

hideawaY BaR & gRill

2565 Franklin blVd., (916) 455-1331

highwaTeR

’80s New Wave, 10pm, no cover

holY diVeR

Local Showcase Thursdays, 6:30pm, $5

Junkyard and more, 7pm, $12-$15

Taking Fox Hollow, 6:30pm, $10-$12

kupRos

Dylan Crawford, 9:30pm, no cover

Mr. Hooper, 9:30pm, no cover

All the Pretty Songs, 9:30pm, cover

1910 Q st., (916) 706-2465 1517 21st st.

1217 21st st., (916) 440-0401

luna’s cafe & Juice BaR 1414 16th st., (916) 737-5770

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

COMING SOON 1/13 9:30PM $12ADV

JOY & MADNESS

SUZANNE SANTO OF HONEYHONEY

FEAT. MOJO GREEN

MAPACHE

1/12 5:30PM $10

THE SERIOUS CHALLENGE!

THE MOST SERIOUS STAND UP SHOW IN AMERICA FEAT. CAPTAIN COOP, MARS PARKER

1/14 5PM $15ADV

MOD SUN

1/12 9:30PM $10

CALL ME KARIZMA, AUSTIN CAIN (ALL AGES)

KAHALI X ILL ROOT

1/17 5:30PM $25ADV

LAITH AL-SAADI

1/13 5:30PM $8ADV

IRISHPALOOZA

FEAT. WHISKEY AND STITCHES (HEADLINER), ONE EYED REILLY, THE PIKEYS (ALL AGES)

SN&R

(ALL AGES)

01.04.18

Open-Mic Night, 7pm, T, no cover; Ross Hammond, 7:30pm, W, no cover Nebraska Mondays, 7:30pm, M, $10; Open-Mic Comedy, 8pm, T, no cover

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

1/5 8PM $12 ADV

Kupros Quiz, 7:30pm, no cover

01/18 Jocelyn & Chris Arndt 01/19 Dustbowl Revival 01/20 Flesheaters 01/21 Xavier Wulf 01/22 Alex Skolnick Trio 01/23 Mild High Club 01/25 Lee Scratch Perry 01/26 W. Kamau Bell 01/28 Tommy Guerrero meets Mattson 2 01/30 Howard Jones (SOLD OUT) 01/31 Johnny A. 02/01 Dave East 02/03 New Kingston 02/09-10 Tainted Love 02/11 Ghostemane 02/14 Chali 2NA & House of Vibe 02/15 The Main Squeeze 02/16 The Purple Ones 02/17 Loose Ends 02/20 The Blasters 02/23 ALO

2708 J Street www.momosacramento.com

1/4 8PM FREE

DISCOVER THURSDAYS: HAYEZ, DAVID MCKISSICK QUARTET 1/6 10PM $5ADV BACK IN THE DAY – OLD SCHOOL DANCE PARTY 1/10 5:30PM $8

BOURBON & BLUES: STEVE FREUND TRIO (OAKLAND, CA) 1/11 8PM FREE

DISCOVER THURSDAY: THE MINDFUL, IN THE KNOW TRIO 1/13 10PM $10ADV

IDEATEAM

1/14 6:30PM $10

COMEDY BURGER HOSTED BY NGAIO BEALUM SACRAMENTO’S FAVORITE DJS EVERY FRI AT 10PM

For booking inquiries, email Robert@momosacramento.com

sUbmit yoUr calEndar listings for frEE at nEwsrEviEw.com/sacramEnto/calEndar momo sacramento 2708 J ST., (916) 441-4693

THURSDAY 1/4

FRIDAY 1/5

SATURDAY 1/6

SUNDAY 1/7

Hayez, David McKissick, 8pm, no cover

Louie Giovanni, 10pm, $10

Old School Dance Party, 10pm, $10

Steve Freund Trio, 5:30pm, W, $8

old IronsIdes

Heath Williamson, 5:30pm, M, no cover; Karaoke, 9pm, T, no cover

1901 10TH ST., (916) 442-3504

on tHe Y

670 FUlTON AvE., (916) 487-3731

Open-Mic Comedy, 8pm, no cover

Stinkfist (Tool tribute), Decipher, 9pm, call for cover

Live Music TBA, 8pm, call for cover

Open 8-Ball Tournament, 7:30pm, $5 buy-in

PlacervIlle PublIc House PowerHouse Pub

Sock Monkeys, 10pm, $10

614 SUTTER ST., FOlSOM, (916) 355-8586 2030 P ST., (916) 444-7914

Cheeseballs, 10pm, $12

DJ Larry’s Sunday Night Dance Party, 9pm, no cover Squad Patrol—Best of 2017 Show, 8pm, $8

1050 20TH ST., (916) 444-3137

sauced bbQ & sPIrIts 1028 7TH ST., (916) 400-4341 1409 R ST., (916) 231-9121

stoneY’s rockIn rodeo

1320 DEl PASO BlvD., (916) 927-6023

Jeremy Norris, 3pm, $10

Sun Valley Gun Club, Goon and more, 8pm, $7-$10

sacramento comedY sPot

sHadY ladY

Karaoke, 9pm, T, no cover; Jukebox and Movie Night, 6pm, W, no cover The Color Wild, Hi, Mom and more, 8pm, M, $5

414 MAIN ST., PlAcERvIllE, (530) 303-3792

tHe Press club

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 1/8-1/10

Monday Vibes, 9pm, M, no cover; Eighties Night Sacramento, 9pm, W, $5

Anti-Cooperation League, 9pm, $12

Stand-Up 101 Class, 7pm, M, $160; Improv 101 Class, 7pm, T, $125

Roem Baur, 9pm, no cover

Trivia, 7pm, T, no cover; Bingo, 6:30pm, W, no cover

The Poor Man Band, 9pm, no cover

The Crescent Katz, 9pm, no cover

City of Trees Brass Band, 9pm, no cover

Alex Jenkins, 9pm, no cover

Country Thunder Thursdays, 8pm, no cover for 21+, $5 cover for 18-21

Country Dancing and Karaoke, 6pm, call for cover

Hot Country Saturdays, 7pm, $5

Sunday Funday, 9pm, $2-$10 after 10pm

Johnny Mojo Trio, 9pm, $6

Rockin Johnny Burgin, 9pm, $10

JJ Thames, 9pm, $10

PHOTO cOURTESY OF EUgENE UglY

Eugene Ugly

College Wednesdays, 9pm, W, call for cover

swabbIes on tHe rIver

5871 gARDEN HIgHWAY, (916) 920-8088

tHe torcH club

904 15TH ST., (916) 443-2797

Yolo brewInG co.

You Front the Band Karaoke, 8pm, no cover

JT Lawrence Git Down, 8pm, W, no cover

with Vinnie Guidera & The Dead Birds 8pm Friday, $7 Shine Folk/rock

The KMCBand, 6pm, no cover

1520 TERMINAl ST., (916) 379-7585

all ages, all the time ace of sPades

Long Beach Dub Allstars and more, 7pm, $21

1417 R ST., (916) 930-0220

sHIne

Body Rock Presents: Detox to Retox, 1:30pm, $15

Eugene Ugly, Vinnie Guidera & The Dead Birds and more, 8pm, $7

Watt Ave. Soul Giants and more, 8pm, $8

cafe colonIal

Cafe Colonial Benefit with At Both Ends and more, 8pm, $7-$10

Slow Bloom, Enso Anima and more, 7pm, $10

Rest Repose, Home Team and more, 7pm, $10

Bay Area Danger, 8pm, M, $5-$10; The She’s, 8pm, W, call for cover

tHe colonY

No Statik, Revolution Bummer and more, 8pm, $10

He Died, JKKFO and more, 8pm, call for cover

Lucky You, Thrashzilla and more, 8pm, $5-$10

Goolagoon, 8pm, T, call for cover

1400 E ST., (916) 551-1400

Shine Jazz Jam, 8pm, no cover

3520 STOckTON BlvD., (916) 718-7055 3512 STOckTON BlvD., (916) 718-7055

Questionable Trivia, 8pm, T, no cover; Speak Out! Sacramento, 8pm, W, no cover

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Print ads start at $6/wk. (916) 498-1234 ext. 2 Phone hours: M-F 9am-5pm. Deadlines for print: Line ad deadline: Monday 4pm Display ad deadline: Friday 2pm

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Swim for a change I was with this girl who laughed at my off-color jokes, didn’t care that I live with three roommates and was cool having a slice of pizza and a six-pack. I’m 37 years old and work full-time in a creative field that doesn’t pay well. She was the only girl I’ve ever dated who said she didn’t care about money. Then things got dark. She had a boyfriend and I knew she was using me to break up with him. She and I would needle each other, attacking where we knew the other person was weakest and most vulnerable. We got into terrible fights. I knew she wasn’t right for me but couldn’t let go. We stopped seeing each other four years ago. She’s with some rich guy now but I can’t move on. Advice, please.

your life, move on to another. As you do, you will awaken to reality: Your fling with this woman was about the experience and not her. Accept the truth and you will catapult out of the past and into the present capable of planning an amazing future. P.S. Your love life will improve when you date a woman who is emotionally available.

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My homie has a nice grow, but I have noticed some mold on his plants. If his weed gets moldy or something, how harmful is it to smoke? —Chaki the Fun Guy Don’t smoke mold. Ever. Mold and fungus are no bueno. You are just asking for a nasty ass lung infection by smoking moldy weed. Molds and funghi love warm, moist and dark spaces. Guess where you have a warm, moist and dark space? Not there, you perv. I am talking about your lungs. Throw it out and try again. My friend adds far too much fertilizer, and the flavor comes through. Is it possible to fert strong while maintaining the flavor of the strain?

I have a nice little grow out here in the woods. What do you do to keep wildlife and other pests away? Also, can outdoor cats play around your plants? Is it safe?

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Ngaio Bealum is a Sacramento comedian, activist and marijuana expert. Email him questions at ask420@newsreview.com.

text weed to 42828

—Mr. Green Jeans Good fences make good neighbors. And good cannabis. A nice chicken wire fence will keep most four-legged beasts at bay. Deer can be a little tricky (those suckers can jump hella high), but they’ll mostly just nibble a few leaves. As for the other pests, like spider mites and russet mites and the like: Make sure you have good dirt. Good dirt makes for good, strong and healthy plants. Healthy plants are more resistant to pests. Also, beneficial insects like ladybugs might help, but you may If adding more bugs have to bring in some pirate bugs or to your bug-infested similar insects to really grapple with your problem. Check out Nature’s plant doesn’t appeal Control (www.natures to you, you can just control.com) for some good ideas. If spray them. you think you have mites in your dirt, well, I wish you good luck. There are things you can do, though. Mixing in some beneficial nematodes or some diatomaceous earth can help. You might also try some predatory fungus mites like Hypoaspis miles if you like the idea of millions of tiny bugs waging war on the ground beneath your feet. If adding more bugs to your bug-infested plant doesn’t appeal to you, you can just spray them. I have heard good things about the organic pesticide known as AG Plus. You can get some more info here: www.growweedeasy.com. The price of good weed is eternal vigilance. Good luck. As for your cats: It shouldn’t be a big deal. I am a proponent of keeping all pets out of the garden, but it isn’t always possible. Your cat may eat a leaf or two, but it shouldn’t really affect them in a negative way. Maybe spread out some catnip in an area away from the weed to keep them distracted. Ω

—K.O. Curtopia Right? Who wants to taste another person’s fert? That’s gross. FLUSH YOUR PLANTS!!!! Stop giving them fertilizer about one week after they go into flower. Just give them pure water and watch your plants thrive. Problem solved.

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Photo by ken magri

W e’r e O P e N Fo r A

Sacramento’s first recreational cannabis customer Michael Lynch, at right, talks with a budtender at Golden Health and Wellness.

se U t l du

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turning a new leaf Sacramentans stay chill for the first day of recreational cannabis sales by ken magri

he pre-dawn quiet at Golden Health and Wellness was noticeable. One customer, a security guard and a FOX40 news van were the only things in the parking lot at 6:57 a.m. on New Year’s Day. After a few minutes, Michael Lynch walked inside and became the first person to purchase recreational cannabis in Sacramento. ”Well, I was in the area,” Lynch said when asked why he drove down to stand in the dark. “I’m going for a walk with a friend later, and thought I’d stop in.” Golden Health and Wellness was among the first seven Sacramento dispensaries with the city and state permits to allow sales on opening day. “We just got our paperwork back last night,” said manager Trevor Mitzel. Once inside, a TV cameraman angled for better shots while Lynch spoke with a budtender, then purchased $40 worth of flower strains. What did the 52-yearold Lincoln resident think of the legal experience? “I always knew it was going to happen,” said Lynch. “When it did, I thought I might as well be part of history.” By 8:50 a.m. over at River City Phoenix, there were as many reporters as customers. With no dispensaries to cover in San Francisco, Ed Murrieta of the San Francisco Chronicle’s GreenState.com sought quotes among the four people in line. “It’s the

second happiest day of my life,” said one elderly man. Another customer said she was already a medical patient, but just wanted to be part of a celebration.

“I always knew it was going to happen. When it did, I thought I might as well be part of history.” Michael Lynch Recreational cannabis customer

The biggest morning crowd assembled at 9 a.m. at A Therapeutic Alternative. With 10 people inside and a dozen cued-up around the back, TV reporters waited for an actual customer to put on camera. Someone from the line yelled, “I don’t want my photo taken,” so reporters conducted interviews with Richard Miller, A Therapeutic Alternative’s director of education and outreach. The nonchalance of area smokers was somewhat unexpected, but it brought to mind a now popular Joan Didion quote that “anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.” Produced by N&R Publications, a division of News & Review.

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FRee will aStRology

by Jason smith

by Rob bRezsny

FOR ThE WEEk OF JANUARY 4, 2018 ARIES (March 21-April 19): In 2018, your past

will undergo transformation. Your memories will revise and rearrange themselves. Bygone events that seemed complete and definitive will shimmy and shift, requiring new interpretations. The stories you have always told about how you became who you are will have to be edited, perhaps even rewritten. While these overhauls may sometimes be disconcerting, they will ultimately be liberating.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In 2018, people will

be drawn to you even more than usual. Some will want you to be their rock—their steady, stable source of practical truth. Some will ask you to be their tonic—their regular, restorative dose of nononsense. And others will find in you a creative catalyst that helps them get out of their ruts and into their grooves. And what will you receive in return for providing such a stellar service? First, there’ll be many opportunities to deepen and refine your integrity. To wield that much influence means you’ll have to consistently act with high-minded motivations. And secondly, Taurus, you’ll get a steady supply of appreciation that will prove to be useful as well as gratifying.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Influences that

oppose you will fade as 2018 unfolds. People who have been resistant and uncooperative will at least partially disengage. To expedite the diminishing effects of these influences and people, avoid struggling with them. Loosen the grip they have on your imagination. Any time they leak into your field of awareness, turn your attention instead to an influence or person that helps and supports you. Here’s another idea about how to collaborate with the cosmic rhythms to reduce the conflict in your life: Eliminate any unconscious need you might have for the perversely invigorating energy provided by adversaries and bugaboos. Find positive new ways to motivate yourself.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): I predict that in 2018

you will figure out how to get your obsessions to consistently work for your greatest good. You will come to understand what you must do to ensure they never drag you down into manic selfsabotage. The resolute ingenuity you summon to accomplish this heroic feat will change you forever. You will be reborn into a more vibrant version of your life. Passions that in the past have drained and confused you will become efficient sources of fuel for your worthiest dreams.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Just because you have

become accustomed to a certain trouble doesn’t mean you should stop searching for relief from that trouble. Just because a certain pain no longer knocks you into a demoralized daze for days at a time doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Now here’s the good news: In 2018, you can finally track down the practical magic necessary to accomplish a thorough healing of that trouble and pain. Make this the year you find a more ultimate cure.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Have you ever nursed

a yearning to speak Swahili or Chinese or Russian? The coming months will be an excellent time to get that project underway. Do you fantasize about trying exotic cuisines and finding new favorite foods? I invite you to act on that fantasy in 2018. Is there a form of manual labor that would be tonic for your mental and physical health? Life is giving you a go-ahead to do more of it. Is there a handicraft or ball game you’d like to become more skilled at? Get started. Is there a new trick you’d like to learn to do with your mouth or hands? Now’s the time.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Before the fifteenth

century, European nations confined their sailing to the Mediterranean Sea. The ocean was too rough for their fragile, unadaptable ships. But around 1450, the Portuguese developed a new kind of vessel, the caravel. It employed a triangular sail that enabled it to travel against the wind. Soon, exploratory missions ventured into the open sea and down along the coast of West Africa. Eventually, this new technology enabled long westward trips across the Atlantic. I propose that we make the caravel your symbol of power for 2018, Libra. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you will find or create a resource that enables you to

do the metaphorical equivalent of effectively sailing into the wind.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The Aztecs were

originally wanderers. They kept moving from place to place, settling temporarily in areas throughout the land we now call Mexico. An old prophecy told them that they would eventually find a permanent home at a site where they saw an eagle roosting on a cactus as it clutched a snake in its talons. There came a day in the fourteenth century when members of the tribe spied this very scene on an island in the middle of a lake. That’s where they began to build the city that in time was the center of their empire. I bring this to your attention, Scorpio, so it can serve as a metaphor to guide you in 2018. I suspect that you, too, will discover your future power spot—the heart of your domain for years to come.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Not every

minute of every day, but when you have had the time, you’ve been searching for a certain treasure. With patience and persistence, you have narrowed down its whereabouts by collecting clues and following your intuition. Now, at last, you know its exact location. As you arrive, ready to claim it, you tremble with anticipation. But when you peel away the secrets in which it has been wrapped, you see that it’s not exactly what you expected. Your first response is disappointment. Nevertheless, you decide to abide in the presence of the confusing blessing and see what happens. Slowly, incrementally, you become aware of a new possibility: that you’re not quite ready to understand and use the treasure; that you’ll have to grow new capacities before you’ll be ready for it in its fullness.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Soulful beauty

will be a major theme for you in 2018. Or at least it should be. But I suppose it’s possible you’re not very interested in soulful beauty, perhaps even bored by it. Maybe you prefer skin-deep beauty or expensive beauty or glamorous beauty. If you choose to follow predilections like those, you’ll lose out on tremendous opportunities to grow wilder and wiser. But let’s hope you make yourself available for a deeper, more provocative kind of beauty—a beauty that you could become more skilled at detecting as the year unfolds.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Let your freak

flag fly” was an expression that arose from the hippie culture of the 1960s and 1970s. It was a colorful way to say, “Be your most unique and eccentric self; show off your idiosyncrasies with uninhibited pride.” I propose that we revive it for your use in 2018. I suspect the coming months will be a favorable time for you to cultivate your quirks and trust your unusual impulses. You should give yourself maximum freedom to explore pioneering ideas and maverick inclinations. Paradoxically, doing so will lead to stabilizing and enduring improvements in your life.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In accordance

with the astrological omens, I suggest you start compiling a list entitled, “People, Places, Ideas, and Things I Didn’t Realize Until Now That I Could Fall in Love With.” And then keep adding more and more items to this tally during the next ten months. To get the project underway in the proper spirit, you should wander freely and explore jauntily, giving yourself permission to instigate interesting mischief and brush up against deluxe temptations. For best results, open your heart and your eyes as wide as you can. One further clue: Act on the assumption that in 2018 you will be receptive to inspirational influences and life-transforming teachings that you have never before been aware of.

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.

Dating for money Chelsea Smile is just your average everyday intelligent, well-spoken 29 year old woman. She enjoys amateur geology & getting her hands dirty… But she also enjoys getting dolled up and parading her femininity. Pepperdine awarded her a full academic scholarship to study criminal psychology, she owns a bridal coordination company, plus, she’s a peer counselor. And for the right price, she can be yours for as long as you can afford her. Last holiday season, I climbed into bed with Chelsea, a local sugar baby, to cuddle and ask a few questions.

Can you describe how these relationships work? Essentially it’s a service we’re providing to men who might not otherwise be able to get a date that turns heads. In exchange for gifts or donations, they get to walk into a room proudly, knowing the other men are looking at them and wanting to be them.

True or false: someone’s getting naked by the end of the night. False. Sometimes, but not always. That’s where this differs from prostitution. Most men I meet aren’t looking for a purely sexual relationship. They want to be seen by other men with me on their arm because they want the status. It’s about power and ego, not sex. If sex occurs, it happens organically, like it would on any normal date. But it’s certainly not a given.

In a very cynical sense, what you’re describing sounds like many first dates, minus the charade. Maybe, but I think it’s a myth that’s unfair and a little degrading to men to assume they only go on dates with women for sex. A lot of the men I meet want companionship. They want a therapist, a friend, a shoulder to cry on. They want someone to listen to them, to have non-sexual intimacy. They want flirting, and for whatever reason they are unable to find these things by going on traditional dates. A lot of men paying for this type of scenario also don’t have time for traditional dating but still want a woman’s company, her laugh, her feminine opinions.

Sex work is often discussed in the context of human trafficking, but what you’re talking about sounds different. Two adults making a conscious choice to commodify affection. What I do doesn’t belong anywhere near the human trafficking discussion. In fact, you could argue just as convincingly that it’s the men who are victims here, with the woman

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHELSEA SMILE

preying upon their vulnerabilities. I don’t believe that’s the case, but the argument is just as valid.

this industry, both for gay and straight men. Believe me when I say that companionship will always be of high value, meaning for the right price there will always be the right company. I’m blessed with a very comfortable existence. I have a happy life.

Some women will accuse you of undoing years of feminist progress by allowing men to objectify you. To me, those women are the opposite of feminism. They’re hiding their bodies, hiding their femininity, and then attacking women like me who choose to utilize our beauty and sexuality. They’re shunning themselves. I feel like we’re doing more in terms of empowering women than they are. I’m using my intelligence to my advantage. Personally, I like being objectified. I like when somebody is proud to be with me, or is beaming when they introduce me to their friends and co-workers. I don’t mind being a trophy. That’s empowering to me and there’s nothing wrong with it. I certainly don’t feel the need to hide it or apologize for it.

Is that the feeling of empowerment?

Let’s say I take a girl like you out. What’s my bank balance looking like in the morning?

Good boy.

It varies, but it’s not uncommon for men to spend $500 an hour. I’ve gone out with industry executives, been to military galas; They range from doctors to truck drivers. There is no specific type of occupation.

I’m sure we could work something out.

At $500 an hour, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you don’t see a lot of writers. This is true.

Can men do this too? There is actually a huge demand for men in

Yes, absolutely. In fact, I feel empowered going against the common feminist narrative. I’m a strong enough woman to challenge gender-norms, even when they’re norms placed upon me by other women. That, to me, is what it means to be a strong female. What girl doesn’t want to be told they’re pretty, and get dolled-up in a cute dress to go out looking sexy and feeling desired?

You’re asking me that question? Don’t you think?

I think I know enough to shut up here and let you do the talking. At $500 an hour, you’ll have to use your imagination. Do you have an exit strategy? I’d imagine 401k plans for mutually beneficial dynamics are lacking. True, there’s a shelf life for in this job. We have to take the money that we get from these men and reinvest it in ourselves. That could be putting ourselves through school, or starting a business, or networking and investing wisely. ... We have to use what we get to build for our own futures. Ω

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