s-2018-08-02

California housing costs

create harsh reality for refugees

By Matt Levin

08

twin tunneLs’ exPLosive risk

Sacramento’S newS & entertainment weekly

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saCraMento’s sLaM Poet soCiety

Volume 30, iSSue 16

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thurSday, auGuSt 2, 2018

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2 | SN&R | 08.02.18

EditoR’S NotE

auguSt 02, 2018 | Vol. 30, iSSuE 16

18 27

22 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 Managing Editor Mozes Zarate Staff Reporter Scott Thomas Anderson Copy Editor Steph Rodriguez Calendar Editor Maxfield Morris Contributing Editor Rachel Leibrock Contributors Daniel Barnes, Ngaio Bealum, Alastair Bland, Brad Branan, Rob Brezsny, Skye Cabrera, Aaron Carnes, Jim Carnes, Maia Paras Evrigenis, Joey Garcia, Kate Gonzales, Becky Grunewald, Howard Hardee, Ashley Hayes-Stone, Jeff Hudson, Rebecca Huval, Jim Lane, Ken Magri, Michael Mott, James Raia,

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Advertising Manager Michael Gelbman Sales & Production Coordinator Victoria Smedley Senior Advertising Consultants Rosemarie Messina, Kelsi White

Advertising Consultants Taleish Daniels, Mark Kates, Michael Nero, Julie Scheff

Director of First Impressions/Sweetdeals Coordinator Skyler Morris Distribution Director Greg Erwin Distribution Assistant Lob Dunnica Distribution Drivers Mansour Aghdam, Beatriz Aguirre, Rosemarie Beseler, Kimberly Bordenkircher, Daniel Bowen, Heather Brinkley, Kathleen Caesar,

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33 Mike Cleary, Tom Downing, Marty Fetterley, Chris Fong, Ron Forsberg, Joanna Kelly Hopkins, Julian Lang, Calvin Maxwell, Devon McMindes, Greg Meyers, Lloyd Rongley, Lolu Sholotan, Viv Tiqui

N&R Publications Editor Michelle Carl N&R Publications Associate Editor Laura Hillen N&R Publications Writers Anne Stokes, Rodney Orosco

Marketing & Publications Consultants Steve Caruso, Joseph Engle, Elizabeth Morabito, Traci Hukill, Celeste Worden

President/CEO Jeff vonKaenel Director of Nuts & Bolts Deborah Redmond Director of People & Culture David Stogner Nuts & Bolts Ninja Norma Huerta Project Coordinator Natasha vonKaenel Director of Dollars & Sense Debbie Mantoan Payroll/AP Wizard Miranda Hansen Accounts Receivable Specialist Analie Foland Developer John Bisignano System Support Specialist Kalin Jenkins

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STREETALK LETTERS NEwS GREENLiGhT FEATuRE SToRy ARTS & CuLTuRE

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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.

Last love letter When I arrived in Sacramento 13 months ago, I immediately fell in love with the city. Everyone told me I had arrived at a good time, and it did seem Sacramento was experiencing a renaissance.

Still, everywhere I looked I saw signs that many of my neighbors were not in on the joy ride. My wife and I learned firsthand that rents were spiking, and I heard from readers and colleagues how this caused real pain to longtime locals.

I was excited about my opportunity as the editor of this newspaper, to document the energy that was breathing new life into this great old city—and to confront its problems.

I am pleased to have been able to steward SN&R for the past year.

It’s been an honor to further its 28-year legacy as a progressive voice.

And yet I have come to understand that this position is not a good match at this time. This will be my last note in this space. There may be some other position in the News & Review organization that’s a better fit. You’ll be among the first to know.

The newspaper, of course, remains in good hands with its editorial staff as the management team looks for a new chief.

I’m grateful that this job brought me and my wife to Sacramento, a place that feels more and more like home. I’m looking forward to exploring it in new ways in the months and years to come.

—ERIC JOhNSON e r ic j@ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

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.

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Circulation of SN&R is verified by the Circulation Verification Council.

SN&R is a member of Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce, CNPA, AAN and AWN.

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“I gUeSS what alwayS occUrS to me IS, where doeS the money come from?”

asked at the MidtoWn FarMers Market:

Should the U.S. have universal basic income?

Maurice White

rich sobr ato

food server

I can see it from both sides.

I can see definitely how that can help a lot of people out, especially people that are either going to school or trying to get full-time … As long as they’re using that money for, I feel like, necessities. Bills, food, stuff like that, I think that’s cool.

district coordinator for West Point Admissions

I don’t think that’s generally a good idea.

Because once you start handing out free money to people, they won’t want to come off of that. They’ll stay at that basic level.

haile y PalMer

hadle y GroW

barista

general contractor

I’ve heard various little snips from NPR or something. I guess what always occurs to me is, where does the money come from? I’m sure there are great economic minds that can sort this out, but it’s beyond me. I’m a general contractor, looking for work every day and probably will for the next 15 years ...

I think it’s a good idea for helping people, but I think a lot of people who actually work hard for their money would find it very difficult to help provide for those who don’t have their job.

daWna keiser

toM Ward

homemaker

retired

No. Because God says he enables a man to prosper and gain wealth. And so, when you choose ... Well you help your children choose, and they make better choices in their life.

I’m not sure. I haven’t seen the pros and cons. Although when I went to school so many years ago, graduate school, that was a big thing.

There [were] proposals for guaranteed annual income … Generally speaking, it’s very intriguing. I think there’s something to it.

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Obvious evils and other problems

Get off the sidewalk Re: “Is Uber evil?” by Eric Johnson (Feature, July 26): These motorized bikes look fun and I plan to try one, but they should be in the street with all the other motorized vehicles. I think the City Council should ban all bikes on sidewalks. We’re investing a lot of money in bike lanes by closing some lanes and moving parking into traffic. Now that the city has moved parking to the middle of the street, offering motorists the opportunity to get hit by a car getting out of their car on one side, and hit by a Jump bike on the bike path side, it’s time to think about pedestrians. On the sidewalk are aged people, pregnant moms, moms with little kids, shoppers, skaters, homeless people, dogs on leashes, etc. If the point of all this fiddling with traffic is to accommodate bikes so as to lower carbon footprints, how about first considering the safety of people doing the most for low carbon, those who actually leave footprints?

Derek Link Sacramento via sactoletters@newsreview.com

Re: “Is Uber evil?” by Eric Johnson (Feature, July 26): Setting aside the obvious evil of a company that dumps virtually all costs of doing business onto employees illegally misclassified as independent contractors, thus robbing them of the right to organize for better working conditions, the Jump bike situation presents a valuable case study in how not to run a city.

In exchange for about $15,000 per year (from a company worth $50-$70 billion), Sacramento gave Uber free rein over our public infrastructure. No public input was solicited, no alternatives were offered and I’ve yet to find an individual or business that knew anything about the giant metal bike racks now blocking sidewalks and parking spaces all over town.

Would we allow Walmart to install 900 vending machines on

public sidewalks without so much as a heads up? Apparently so.

Mitch Steiger Sacramento via sactoletters@newsreview.com

Near, dear and endangered Re: “A dark development” by Scott Thomas Anderson (Feature, July 19): I liked your article on the Folsom Ranch project. This open space area off Scott Road has been near and dear to my heart. As a local who grew up here and a photographer, it has been one of my favorite locations, enjoying the bucolic nature of the oak savannas found here. It will be sad to see this area get plowed under for more sprawl and congestion.

Stephen FiScher gold river

Thumbs down Re: “Review: Sicario: Day of the Soldado” by Jim Lane (Film, July 5): Your movie critic … thinks he can write. Tries to impress with an uncommon vocabulary. Lame. Just write normally. This isn’t Honors English at UC Berkeley. I just saw Sicario: Day of the Soldado. Great movie with twists, turns, action and deception. Your critic thumbs downed it. What an idiot.

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The bridge over Steamboat Slough lies just south of Courtland, one of the towns most threatened by the proposed twin tunnels.

Photo by Scott thomaS anderSon

Fire down below State records reveal nearly 30 gas wells in the path of the proposed Delta tunnels

by Scott thomaS anderSon

Seventeen bodies were hauled out of the tunnel, some charred by fire, others choked in soot.

The men killed that day in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Sylmar in 1971 were burrowing through the earth on behalf of the Metropolitan Water District, a public utility district servicing Anaheim, Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Fernando. The workers under the agency’s direction 8 | SN&R | 08.02.18

accidentally hit a pocket of gas. The ensuing fireball was something they never saw coming.

Now, with Metropolitan Water District being the major player funding Gov. Jerry Brown’s embattled vision of two parallel tunnels cutting 30 miles underground, planning documents reveal the mammoth undertaking will include tunneling and drilling through a region of the Delta packed with

sc o tta @ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

underground gas wells. That’s left people living on the estuary’s islands worried about a repeat of that deadly day in Sylmar.

“It’s so blatantly clear that this is a threat to the people of the Delta,” said Barbara Daly of North Delta CARES, a nonprofit advocating for residents from Freeport to Isleton. “Each of our little legacy towns has a volunteer fire department, and they’ll be put right on

the front lines if there’s an explosion or catastrophe.”

If Delta homeowners want to raise that fear in court—adding to the myriad of lawsuits already pending against the tunnels—they might not get that chance. That’s because a Southern California congressman keeps trying to insert an unprecedented ban on lawsuits against the twin tunnels project into the latest federal appropriations bill in Washington, D.C.

Money talkS on gaS wellS danger CARES invoked Sylmar’s tunneling tragedy this month while challenging the Metropolitan Water District’s vote to commit $11 billion in funding to the tunnels.

The controversially named California WaterFix project is aimed at diverting huge volumes of fresh water from the Sacramento River Delta to Central Valley farmers and Southern

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California water customers, mainly to benefit multimillion-dollar agribusinesses, critics say.

While experts have long feuded over whether the tunnels will cause ecological collapse or habitat restoration, CARES and a number of scientific experts are arguing that Brown’s administration and allied utility districts have paid virtually no attention to the peril of digging so near the gas wells.

CARES recently provided the Metropolitan Water District’s board of directors with an updated map from the California Department of Conservation that documents at least 27 known gas wells directly in the path of the WaterFix’s 40-foot, 35-mile-long tunnels.

In an effort to assuage concerns, Metropolitan Water District section manager John Bednarski offered written testimony to the California State Water Resources Control Board in mid-July that argued the gas wells aren’t a danger.

“Although it is true there are gas fields located in areas in the Delta, the tunnels themselves will be passing approximately 1,000 to 2,000 feet above the active and inactive gas fields,” Bednarski wrote.

“Geotechnical data collected shows no indication that there is actually gas deposits at the depth that the CA WaterFix tunnels will be constructed at, 100 to 150-feet below ground surface.”

Yet Bednarski’s report does allude to the unknown variables that are troubling both Delta residents and independent scientists.

“The current tunnel alignments avoid all active gas wells. The location of the abandoned wells, some of which were abandoned many decades ago, is less obvious,” Bednarski wrote. “Some abandoned wells show up on historical photos of the Delta, some do not.”

Bednarski wrote that the California Department of Water Resources will handle that challenge by conducting “specialized studies” down the road, though he never elaborated on the nature of those studies.

iNdepeNdeNt experts express alarm Experts who don’t work under the Brown administration have multiple concerns about tunneling around the gas wells.

Dr. Robert Pyke, a geotechnical engineer who’s studied the Delta for years and previously worked as a consultant

on Chevron drilling projects, says that The Department of Water Resources residents who live near the path of the did not respond to these criticisms of its tunnels have a legitimate reason to worry.

EIR data by independent experts.

“I think it’s a real issue,” Pyke said secret plaN to of the gas wells. “Whenever you have natural gas deposits, even though they remove Judicial have something in the ground that’s oversight holding them in place, usually cap rock, there’s always leakage. There can be Given how fiercely the science around gas in the shallow sediment; and with the tunnels is debated, Delta communia project like these tunnels, you have ties were stunned last month when equipment that can generate a spark.”

Republican congressman Ken Calvert Pyke also sees a secondary danger of Corona added a rider to the Interior, that comes with disturbing gas fields, Environmental and Related Agencies one he says is illustrated by an accident Act that would effectively ban lawsuits that happened on McDonald Island in the against and judicial oversight of Delta in 1982. In that incident, the operaWaterFix. One person who thinks the tion of an underground gas field rider could have broader impliis believed to have led to cations for environmental “Each the reforming of local protection in California fault lines, which is Mark Pruner, a of our little then caused a levee Delta-based attorney collapse, flooding who’s specialized legacy towns … the island. in land use litiga[will] be put right McDonald tion for 34 years.

Island happens “It’s very on the front lines if to be one slough unusual,” Pruner away from where there’s an explosion or said. “This rider is the twin tunnels not clarifying the catastrophe.” will be burrowing, law, it’s saying the and the PG&E gas judiciary is frozen out Barbara Daly plant on it was expeNorth Delta CARES entirely of executing riencing mysterious gas its constitutional duty—so leaks just two years ago. that makes it different.”

Pyke says that despite the state’s Pruner added, “One possibility is assurances, there are established risk that it could set a precedent for cutting factors that simply aren’t being considout judicial review on other land use ered by Metropolitan and the Department concerns.” of Water Resources.

But Calvert told SN&R that there’s “Any time you’re operating a gas nothing alarming about his move to field, or even just the withdrawal of gas, finally get the tunnels to break ground. it will cause resettlement in the ground,” “Few infrastructure projects in the Pyke explained. “The bigger problem history of our nation have gone through is the Department of Water Resources as much scrutiny as the California Water doesn’t even have the basic geological Fix,” Calvert wrote in an email. “All of and geotechnical data to write a proper the project’s stakeholders have had a environmental impact report—they plethora of opportunities to express their don’t have the basic data to even make thoughts and concerns. … And now we decisions.” must move forward with the project.”

Deirdre Des Jardins, an expert on For Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, execucomputer modeling who’s previously tive director of Restore the Delta, that’s worked for NASA and Los Alamos a preposterous claim to make about a National Labs, has raised similar project that only has 10 percent of its concerns, both about the danger of the gas design completed and hasn’t been issued wells and about DWR’s handling of the the majority of its permits. tunnels’ environmental impact report.

“They’re just trying to rewrite the Josef Tootle, another geotechnical rules without any regard for peoples’ engineer, testified at recent state hearings civil rights or the constitutional rights of that WaterFix’s underground design work Californians,” she said, “or the rights of is not environmentally sound. any Americans for that matter.” Ω

In a ruling with far-reaching consequences for First Amendment defenders, a California appeals court ruled against the sacramento News & review’s attempts to recoup more than $100,000 in legal costs spent on a successful court defense of public records laws.

The case was a hot potato for the administration of former Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson—or maybe more of a hide-the-ball situation. A few years ago, K.J. was involved in a hostile takeover of the National Conference of Black Mayors and using city employees on the non-city mission. In 2015, then-SN&R columnist Cosmo Garvin petitioned city hall with a request under the California Public Records Act for communications between Johnson and city staff related to NCBM, including emails sent through specially set-up Gmail accounts tagged with “OMKJ,” for “Office of Mayor Kevin Johnson.”

Johnson, acting as the former president of NCBM, which he had recently shoved into bankruptcy proceedings as part of his plan to launch a competing black mayors’ association, sued his own city and Chico Community Publishing Inc., which owns SN&R and two other alt-weeklies, to keep the emails from becoming public.

K.J.’s plan didn’t work. SN&R prevailed in the years-long legal battle, receiving 120 of the 158 emails in question. SN&R then asked for the money it was forced to spend defending the California Public Records Act. But on July 25, a three-judge appellate court dismissed each of sN&r’s arguments in a densely technical 19-page decision.

Caitlin Vogus of The Reporters Committee, which submitted an amicus brief in support of the newspaper’s reimbursement request, says the ruling could disincentivize journalists, nonprofits and members of the public from requesting public records if they think can be sued simply for asking, and then have to pay out of pocket to defend themselves with no hope of recouping their expenses if they successfully defend the public’s right to know.

“So we think the ruling is significant,” Vogus said. “It wasn’t the result we wanted, but we live to fight another day, I guess.”

If the newspaper wants to appeal this decision, the only avenue left is the california supreme court. (Raheem F. Hosseini)

vice mayor blues Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg antagonized activists and freespeech proponents last week after the city considered temporarily banning people from council meetings if deemed unruly.

Steinberg, who’s been arguing with public speakers from the dais, was notably absent for the backlash that ensued against his fellow council members on July 24. Steinberg’s no-show left Vice Mayor Steve Hansen to bear the brunt of angry protests, even as he resisted calls—at least for a time—from Councilwoman Angelique Ashby to cut the meeting short.

Hansen pulled the decorum policy from the agenda after telling The Sacramento Bee that it was too vaguely worded. The measure would have allowed council members to ban people from City Hall for up to 90 days if they found their words abusive or threatening.

Steinberg’s office said he was on a long-planned vacation on the East Coast. That didn’t stop Sacramentans from packing the chambers to express concerns about the measure being proposed in the first place.

“You’ve proposed rules about kicking out your community members because they’re exercising their First Amendment rights,” said Elizabeth Kim, president of the National Lawyers Guild’s Sacramento chapter. “I understand that local politics is not easy. I understand that these meetings are not pleasant; sometimes we’re impolite, but it comes from a place of pain.” (Scott Thomas Anderson)

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pumping out hundreds of thousands of gallons a day, we’re not getting the rain and the water necessary to replenish that.”

Those questions aren’t being answered by representatives of Nestlé or the city of Sacramento.

The Nestlé Waters North America bottling plant in South Sac sources its liquid product from Sacramento rivers and groundwater wells.

Photo by StePh RodRiguez

Nestlé’s secret water deal Bottled water company and city won’t divulge how much water and money the two are exchanging

by Steph RodRiguez

A company that makes its money by bottling city water and selling it back to Sacramento residents won’t say how much liquid it’s pumping from local rivers and groundwater wells—and neither will the city.

Nestlé Pure Life is one of the five most profitable brands in the country when it comes to selling bottled water, an industry that collectively made $18.5 billion in revenue in 2017, according to a report by the Beverage Marketing Corporation. Locally, Nestlé mines its liquid product from Sacramento rivers and groundwater wells whose rights are controlled by the city. This has been controversial in the past.

s t e p h r@ne w s re v i e w . c o m l

Nestlé operates a bottling plant in South Sacramento, which was shut down by protesters one day in 2014, during the peak of California’s drought. The company and its local plant have mostly stayed under the radar since then, but questions remain about their city-aided business model.

“I’ve got several major concerns with this. One, they’re attempting to privatize water, which is a life-sustaining necessity and that’s pretty scary right now. There’s also the fact that California’s in a major drought,” said James Lee “Faygo” Clark, an activist with the Crunch Nestlé alliance.

“We’ve had one decent year of rain since this drought started and that’s not enough to refill our aquifers. So as they’re

A spokesperson from the city’s Department of Utilities, which charges Nestlé for its local water usage, declined to reveal how much of the city’s water the corporation is tapping. The department spokesperson, Ellen Martin, said Nestlé’s water usage data “is considered confidential—and the city would decline to disclose that information.”

Nestlé also declined to say how much water it purchased from the city last year.

Instead, company spokesperson Alix Dunn responded with an email that said Nestlé’s water purchase “was in line with previous years.”

Dunn’s email noted that the company recently certified all five of its bottled water factories in California, including the plant in South Sac, with the Alliance for Water Stewardship. The global organization says on its website that it “promotes responsible use of freshwater that is socially and economically sustainable.”

Corporate members of AWS include Coca-Cola, General Mills and McDonald’s, along with nonprofits such as the Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund.

Martin explained that Nestlé primarily takes its water from the city’s Fairbairn Water Treatment Plant. When that plant goes offline during the winter season for maintenance and repairs and due to low water demand, Nestlé can receive a mix of surface- and groundwater from the Sacramento River Water Treatment Plant and wells in North Sacramento, she added in an email.

“The City’s water distribution pipelines are all interconnected so depending on the demand and what production facilities and/ or wells are online—that would determine the source of water at the Nestlé point of service,” she wrote.

But not every jurisdiction is a satisfied Nestlé partner. State water officials recently dealt the company a blow by determining Nestlé improperly drew hundreds of millions of gallons of water from a creek in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Following a 20-month investigation, regulators with the State Water Resources Control Board found that Nestlé was drawing water two-and-a-half miles from where it was allowed and at a higher elevation

than its water rights permitted, which are for the base of the mountains near Strawberry Canyon. Nestlé claims water rights dating back to 1865, but its permit to siphon water from Strawberry Creek expired more than 30 years ago, state regulators found.

According to a joint media release from the Center for Biological Diversity and other nonprofits, Nestlé continued to divert between 32 and 162 million gallons of water annually from a creek it no longer had rights to. That had quite the impact, said Ileene Anderson, a biologist and public lands deserts director for the Center for Biological Diversity.

“With our ongoing drought and the diversion of water that Nestlé has been doing, Strawberry Creek started to not have perennial flows and there were stretches of the creek that were dry, and so this is a real challenge for any aquatic species,” Anderson said. “Nestlé needs to leave enough water so that the creek actually flows and provides habitat for these species in our national forests.”

Nestlé says it’s currently reviewing the new terms and conditions from the U.S. Forest Service to renew its permit for Strawberry Creek. Anderson says the new federal rules allow for minimum flows now, but aren’t strong enough.

“I’m not sure that’s going to be adequate to sustain wildlife that’s barely hanging by a thread in Strawberry Creek,” she said.

As for how much Nestlé pays the city of Sacramento in water, wastewater and drainage fees, Martin would only say that the company is charged the same rate as any local water-service customer. The current volumetric rate is $1.3261 per 100 cubic feet of water (about 750 gallons), Martin said, slightly higher than the “just under $1” rate of 2014.

Charging a major water user such as Nestlé the same rate as Sacramento residents frustrates local activists like Clark, who pointed out that a majority of the city’s public drinking fountains, especially near the K Street corridor, languish in disrepair as homelessness increases and another heat wave wallops those outside.

“I think access to water is an international human right. I think any governmental body has a duty to care for its citizens, especially its most downtrodden,” Clark said. “Providing access to water for people who would otherwise not have that access should be a no-brainer. Yes, that is the city’s responsibility.” Ω

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Fall of the high-flyer Sacramento’s wrestling family makes moves to honor Virgil Flynn III, who died in July

by Mozes zarate

m o z e s z @ne w s re v i ew.c o m

Virgil Flynn III didn’t use a fancy ring name. Put aside that the indie-pro wrestler’s birth title sounded royal by itself; it was no Undertaker or Ultimate Warrior. Inside the ring, Flynn was Flynn, a tiny but formidable acrobat who smashed into his opponents like an airborne freight truck and grinned with electricity.

Outside, he was still Flynn, offering the same genuine smile to his students, his friends and a tight-knit family of underground wrestlers spanning the country, who are now mourning his death across social media, in the Bay Area and in Sacramento.

“You would swear he was The Rock or something,” said his wife Kathi Flynn.

The 33-year-old died on July 18 from what’s speculated as a seizure, possibly related to a knee injury he sustained in his last match. Flynn put on Sacramento wrestling shows under his Virgil Flynn III Productions, owned and taught at one of the area’s only WWE-style wrestling schools under the same name, and battled in the indie-pro circuit for underground promoters including Oakland’s HOODSLAM. News of his death sent a ripple of grief across the indie-pro wrestling community. Dozens of comments flooded the VFIII Productions Facebook page. Elsewhere on social media, friends high and low paid respect to a Sacramento leader, who dreamed of traveling and working for World Wrestling Entertainment, which he once auditioned for, and running a wrestling school, which he did.

“We will have to raincheck it in heaven my good brother,” wrote Brian Cage, a former WWE star from Sac, noting that they had scheduled to work together soon. “I know God will be watching over your loved ones.”

Flynn’s cause of death is still pending, Kathi said. According to her, he was hanging out with friends that day. Around 3:15 p.m., they found him in the house having a seizure. He had a second one on the drive to the hospital. They called the ambulance, and paramedics performed CPR. Flynn arrived at the hospital and was pronounced dead at 4:06 p.m.

Flynn suffered a non-wrestling-related concussion months before, but it’s also possible that his

Virgil Flynn III

injured knee may have buckled, causing him to hit the floor hard and maybe triggering the seizure, Kathi said. That, or both happened at once.

Flynn tore multiple ligaments in his knee during a Best of the West Ignition match in May. According to a YouTube video of the three-way bout, Flynn performed a moonsault from the top rope, crashing into his opponents, Chris Bey and Sheik Khan Abadi. They landed on his leg, and Flynn curled up immediately in pain. Initially, he still tried to pin his opponent, but instead crawled out of the ring to leave the match.

While memorial services are being arranged for August 7, a GoFundMe page is gaining traction.

The Virgil Flynn III Family Fund raised $4,330 as of Tuesday morning. The proceeds go toward Flynn’s family: Kathi, their 12-year-old daughter Victoria and 4-year-old son Virgil IV. Last week, a group of about seven wrestlers vowed to continue the school and the production company. In that group is Mike Hayashi, a HOODSLAM wrestler and Flynn’s best friend.

“We decided that his dream wasn’t going to die,” Hayashi said. “We’re all banding together to do the work of this one man.”

Hayashi and Flynn got their start together at the Supreme Pro Wrestling School, when they were teens. Immediately, his passion and potential were obvious.

“On the day he walked into the school, I became the second best high-flyer,” Hayashi said. Flynn’s signature moves were the cannonball and the 450 splash.

Kathi and Hayashi remember a guy who would talk wrestling shop for hours, who stayed as late as his students wanted for training, who was in love with the sport.

“We all joke around that I was his second marriage,” Kathi said. “He married wrestling first.” Ω a wrestling tribute show for virgil Flynn iii will be held on august 4. Show starts at 7 p.m. tickets are $20-$42. all proceeds for tickets and merchandise benefit the Flynn family. the colonial theatre, 3522 Stockton boulevard. For tickets, visit eventbrite.com.

TURN UP

THE VOLUME

The waste warriors

ON YOUR NIGHT WITH BURLESQUE

by jeff vonkaenel

j e ffv @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

There are 16 letters in the word This came to an end this year, when environmentalist, but historically, the China cut off nearly all imports of most utilized letters have been N and O. American waste products. There are a No to coal mining. No to urban sprawl. few other countries that initially agreed No to gas-spewing cars. And now, there to take more of our waste, but they is even more to say “no” to with our also are coming to the same decision: orange-haired president and his scienceThat the money made being America’s hating officials. dumping ground is not worth the enviLast week, however, I attended ronmental costs. a convention of the granddaddy of The questions posed at the CRRA nonprofit recycling associations, conference: “What now? What should the California Resource Recovery we do with our paper, plastic and elecAssociation. At its 42nd annual conventronic waste products?” tion, held last week in Oakland, the The very people who, on a daily group’s approximately 600 members basis, are responsible for our state’s 32 discussed rebooting the California million tons of trash are the ones now environmental movement to say, trying to answer this question.

“Yes.” Yes to building Spending three days with facilities to handle our the CRRA people at their It was organic food waste, yes conference, I developed to California recycling a great appreciation inspiring to its own plastic instead for them and for what hang out with of sending it overseas, they do. They are environmental yes to revamping and practical, smart people rethinking virtually all who, unlike me, did warriors who want products that currently not fall asleep during to say, “Yes.” go into the waste stream. their chemistry classes.

And yes to reusing many And while they do not products. receive the public support and The CRRA members have admiration that they so definitely made a commitment to both sustainabildeserve, they do have the satisfaction of ity and to zero waste. This association knowing that if they don’t do their job, includes the government officials who we would notice. run the municipal waste management The conference attendees displayed systems, the state recycling organizaa can-do attitude. They knew that we are tions, the garbage companies, the landfill facing a crisis. It would be easy to blame operators as well as many industry the Chinese. It would be easy to give consultants. These are the waste warriors up on recycling and just put our waste who have the near impossible task of into the landfills. But instead, they see dealing with the 32 million tons of waste this huge challenge as an opportunity that we generate each year in California. to focus on reducing our waste, reusing Until early this year, much of more products and finding ways to California’s recycling efforts consisted of recycle products in a way that protects gathering up waste products, separating the environment. the electronic and metal waste, the paper There will be greater costs. There waste and the plastic waste and then will be opposition from corporate sending it overseas, primarily to China. interests that benefit from the status China shipped us products and then we quo. But it was inspiring to hang out would send their ships back, filled with with environmental warriors who our waste. Then China and other Asian want to say, “Yes.” Ω countries would recycle these waste products, but in doing so they poisoned Jeff vonKaenel is the president, CEO and majority their environment. They polluted their owner of the News & Review. air, water and land.

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war& rent Fleeing

by Matt levin

CalMatters

Crippling

California housing costs create harsh reality for refugees 14 | SN&R | 08.02.18

K

hisrow Jan has $800 in the bank.

Rent is $1,850, and was due four days ago. He’s late with his payment—again.

While Jan gets ready for work— driving an Uber in San Francisco for the next 12 hours—his 4-yearold daughter Shukula barricades the front door of their two-bedroom apartment in Antioch, a far-flung Bay Area suburb east of Oakland.

refugee resettlement agencies working in California are rethinking their strategies for relocating clients—and whether the state is a good fit for some refugees in the first place.

“I heard a lot about California out there in Afghanistan,” says Jan, who embedded with American soldiers from the Bay Area and other parts of the state. “They were saying California is nice. But trust me, I didn’t know anything about the rent and all these bills.”

Off the bat tlegrOund, intO a hOusing crisis California has long been a landing spot for refugees like Jan. Waves of Vietnamese, Iranian, Central American and other immigrants have resettled here over the past few decades, escaping persecution and turmoil in their home countries.

More than 700,000 refugees have come to California since the mid 1970s, including more than 30,000 in the last five years, according to state statistics.

That history is partly why so many Californians pride themselves on their welcoming attitude toward newcomers displaced from their native countries.

When refugee arrivals dipped dramatically last year under new Trump administration

policies, the state’s progressive political leadership repeatedly branded California as the refugee-friendly antidote to Trump, challenging the president’s actions to reduce refugee admissions and passing a “California Welcomes Refugees” legislative package last year.

But a warm welcome only goes so far.

“This is a really hard place to come, just because of the cost of living, especially the cost of housing,” says Avi Rose, executive director of Jewish Family and Community Services East Bay, the nonprofit that assisted Jan. Most refugee resettlement agencies no longer place families in San Francisco because of the city’s high housing costs.

In San Diego, long a leading destination for refugees, one resettlement agency was accused of placing families in apartments

that did not have enough sleeping space and advising refugees to lie to landlords about the number of people in their family.

Last year, Jewish Family and Community Services East Bay resettled 183 refugees in the Bay Area, the vast majority coming from Afghanistan. Rose says his agency is moving more and more of those clients inland, away from pricier coastal cities.

That may mean cheaper rents, but it also means refugees may be farther from communities that share their language and culture.

“Fleeing war & crippling rent” continued on page 17

“If I [had to] do it over, I wouldn’t come to California.”

KhisrOw Jan refugee from afghanistan

“I need to work. Need to make some money,” Jan, 34, playfully tells his daughter.

“No, you cannot,” replies Shukula, an impish smile spreading across her face.

“Look buddy,” says Jan. “I got to go, get some money, and buy you a dress.”

That satisfies Shukula. She and the rest of Jan’s family—9-year-old Sameera, 5-year-old Mirwais and 9-month-old Wais, carried by his mother—follow Jan out to his car. He’ll be back at 2 or 3 a.m., long after his kids have fallen asleep.

When Jan and his family fled Afghanistan in 2015, he knew adjusting to a new life in California wasn’t going to be easy. His wife speaks very little English, and even after working as an interpreter with U.S. troops, his job prospects were limited.

But he never dreamed California was going to be this expensive.

The state’s skyrocketing housing costs have created a harsh new reality for refugees on the ground, many of whom are going to extraordinary lengths just to afford rent. The cost of living has increased so much in recent years that

Khisrow Jan, a refugee from Afghanistan, lives in a cramped apartment in Antioch with his wife and their four children. He drives an Uber more than 70 hours a week to make ends meet.

Jan plays with children Wais, Shukula and Mirwais (left to right).

Photos by Robbie shoRt

08.02.18 | SN&R | 15

building a

HealtHy S a c r a m e n t o

Students work to restore driver’s ed courses

by Edgar SanchEz

Jamazenya Akens is a bright young person, en route to adulthood. Yet, despite her confidence in the future, she feels stuck in the slow lane of life.

She will be graduating from Hiram Johnson High School next June and would like to see driver’s ed courses offered to students.

Driver’s education courses haven’t been offered at the school since 2008. Although not required for post-secondary education, Akens believes this course would offer important real-world skills students need.

“I haven’t learned to drive, and it’s frustrating trying to get places by bus,” said Akens, 17, who plans to join the Air Force. “Public transportation is unreliable ... It’s hard for me to go out.”

In June, she and 24 other members of Hiram Johnson’s Law Academy — which promotes criminal justice careers — shined a spotlight on the students’ desire to restore Driver’s Ed, so teen drivers will be safer.

This spring, one of the academy’s instructors was Windy Ly of Pro-Youth and Families, a nonprofit that encourages youth advocacy.

She told the students about the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP), a nonprofit that empowers community members to decide how to spend public monies. Ly, who had been trained to facilitate participatory budgeting, decided to have the students create their own mock PBP.

The question became: Should Hiram Johnson designate funds to correct campus problems, and if so, which ones?

First, they identified problems. Then, they surveyed 243 fellow students about their campus concerns.

Back at the academy, 11 potential projects were narrowed down to five. They included: • Install new wrestling mats in Hiram Johnson’s gym;

• Replace the school’s aging water fountains; and • Restore Driver’s Education, through a partnership with a private driving school and without Hiram Johnson hiring any new faculty.

“I haven’t learned to drIve, and It’s frustratIng tryIng to get places by bus.”

Jamazenya akens hiram Johnson high School student

One part of the proposal would have 30 students complete a rules-of-the road online course at Hiram Johnson this fall, at a cost of $20 per pupil, before obtaining driving permits and going behind the wheel. The students suggested that Hiram Johnson pay those fees, totaling $600.

Windy Ly of Pro-Youth and Families and Jamazenya Akens, a student at Hiram Johnson High recently collaborated on a participatory budgeting exercise which identified restoring the school’s driver’s education class as a major concern for students. Photo by Edgar Sanchez

In early June, 94 students, school employees and community members attended a Participatory Budget Expo to hear summaries of each potential project. Afterwards, guests voted for their favorites. More than 50 percent supported Driver’s Ed as Hiram Johnson’s top need.

Although the plan is nonbinding and wasn’t formally presented to the district, Ly said that School Principal Garrett Kirkland has enthusiastically supported giving students a voice in school expenditures. PBP and ProYouth and Families are supported by The California Endowment.

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“Fleeing war & crippling rent” continued from page 15

“It’s particularly a problem with women, because the women are home usually with the kids,” says Rose. “They’re more likely to be isolated, less likely to be picking up English.

It’s hard anyway, but it’s harder if you’re isolated geographically.”

That’s part of the reason Jan stays in the Bay Area, despite the high price tag. His brother lives close by, and there are other Afghan families in his apartment complex.

That makes things easier on his wife, who doesn’t speak English very well and does not have a driver’s license.

“If I [had to] do it over, I wouldn’t come to California,” says Jan. “Over here, it’s too much rent. But I’m used to it now, I can’t move.”

Urinating in a bottle to save money; little government sUpport It’s the Fourth of July, and Jan is dressed for the occasion. He has a polo shirt with a small American flag embroidered on the chest.

His Uber’s patriotism is less subtle.

It has a bald eagle decal on the top of the windshield. Another decal with the motto of one of the military units Jan worked with in Afghanistan is tacked on the back.

Beneath his car seat is a large plastic bottle. Jan doesn’t have much time for bathroom breaks during his Uber rides. It’s especially difficult to find a free restroom in San Francisco, where restaurants and gas stations typically only allow access to paying customers because of the city’s large homeless population.

So Jan will often pee in the bottle, typically in the backseat of his car, which has tinted windows.

Even though he worked with American troops and says he saw live combat, Jan is not eligible for veterans’ benefits. Neither are any of the other roughly 10,000 holders of “special immigrant visas” in California, a program designed for Iraqis and Afghans who worked with the U.S. military.

It is frequently not safe for natives who worked with American forces to remain in their home country.

Special immigrant visa-holders and other refugees don’t get much in the way of government support. The federal government provides a little more than $1,000 in one-time cash assistance for each refugee family member, regardless of where that family is resettling.

So an Afghan family resettling in California gets the same amount per person as another family that relocates in Idaho or Texas, which have significantly cheaper costs of living. That cash assistance is supposed to pay for a security deposit and three months of rent.

Refugees are also eligible for safety net programs like food stamps, welfare and free health insurance for the poor. Jan’s family is on Medi-Cal, the state’s low-income health insurance program. He says the family

used to be on food stamps, but in the month his eligibility was recertified, his income exceeded the program’s limit.

Nonprofit resettlement agencies provide important support in the way of English classes, locating refugee-friendly landlords and helping navigate school and government bureaucracies. But they typically don’t provide much in the way of direct cash assistance.

“Housing is a crisis for everyone in California frankly—seniors, veterans, folks who are disabled,” says Kevin McCarty, the Democratic state legislator from Sacramento who says the federal refugee benefits are probably insufficient. “But it’s especially hard when these refugee families are trying to make a go of it in their first few months here.”

McCarty has led the charge in the state Legislature to provide more state government support for refugees.

Last year, his “California Welcomes Refugees” legislative package included additional funding for school districts with high refugee populations and automatic in-state tuition at state community colleges.

But the package contained no help for housing. A housing resource guide produced

The state’s progressive political leadership repeatedly branded California as the refugee-friendly antidote to Trump ... but a warm welcome only goes so far.

Jan’s youngest child, Wais, sleeps in a crib near his parents’ bed.

by the state’s Refugee Programs Bureau suggests new arrivals explore single-room occupancy and shelter housing.

“There are so many people in California hurting for housing, I think we need to work on housing for everybody,” says McCarty. “I don’t see in the immediate future additional dollars for housing allotment for refugees.”

Happy to be oUt of danger, bUt a toUgH road aHead Jan admits that every now and then, he’ll wonder whether he made the right decision to leave Afghanistan.

It was never safe for him and his family.

But after working with American troops for five years, he landed a pretty good job with a private security company in his homeland, where he could work from home a good amount. He had a large house, much larger than the two-bedroom, one-bathroom place in Antioch.

But then he thinks about the real reason he says he decided to leave Afghanistan—what happened to his newborn daughter.

When Jan’s 1-month-old daughter started having trouble breathing, Jan and his wife took her to a public hospital in Kabul. Jan soon became convinced his daughter was receiving poor treatment because the hospital staff knew he had worked with American forces.

“I would say to the doctor, ‘Can you please tell me what’s going on with her?’” says Jan. “And he was like ‘Oh, she will be good, no problem.’ And then he would just walk away from me.”

Jan said he had to bribe nurses to give his daughter medical care. After 20 days in the hospital, he got a call from his wife.

His daughter had passed away.

“As soon as I saw that I was like, ‘I’m not staying in this country anymore.’”

As he drives his Uber around San Francisco on July 4, he picks up two passengers by the ferry terminal. They’re Iranian refugees who recently moved to Texas, fleeing religious persecution.

They’re here on vacation, and start chatting in Farsi with Jan, one of the four languages he speaks. In English, they answer questions about how cheap the cost of living is in San Antonio. Jan says it’s not the first time he’s picked up fellow refugees vacationing from out of state.

Later that weekend, he decides not to take another day off the rest of the month.

He can’t afford another $150 penalty for paying his rent late. Ω

This story is part of The California Dream project, a statewide nonprofit media collaboration focused on issues of economic opportunity, quality-of-life and the future of the California Dream. Partner organizations include CALmatters, Capital Public Radio, KPBS, KPCC and KQED, with support provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the James Irvine Foundation. Share your California dream. On Twitter, use the hashtag #CADream.

08.02.18 | SN&R | 17

Back row, left to right: Marques Davison (aka Sho Nuff), David Loret de Mola (AndYes) and Marvin Xia. Front row: Jeanette Sem (J-Rowe), Ike Torres and Jenny Davison.

I

ke Torres stood on Luna’s modest stage, hand up in a Shakespearean pose. “I am money, hear me cha-ching,” he projects. It’s the fourth time in his poem, and by now the audience has joined in.

For this one, “Money On Shrooms,” he personified cash as a way to examine its overwhelming influence on every aspect of our lives, coloring it with humor and dark truths.

“I got folks breaking their backs ’n’ shit,” he chanted.

“Strippers shake, shake, shaking their ass ’n’ shit.” Apart from joining Torres for that one refrain, the crowd was silent and hanging on every word. When he finished, they erupted with applause.

The judges at this poetry slam score him a near, but not quite perfect 30. Torres was one of a handful of slam poets that night on the third Friday at Luna’s Cafe & Juice Bar. Now on its fourth year, the night is officially known as The Sac Unified Poetry Slam. By the way: The judges are randomly selected audience members, and they change every month.

s u o i r a l i H

Other poets included CharRon Smith, who delivered a funny poem about awkwardly trying to ask a girl out; David Loret de Mola (aka AndYes) talked about being fat and unabashed in “Pretty Thoughts (To Those Who Hate)”; and Jeanette Sem (aka J-Rowe) kills that night with “Woman”: “Tell ’em to be woman is to cross legs with grace while baring the burdens of life.”

After the standard three rounds, the judges add up all the scores and declare Sem the winner. But it’s all friendly. Later, Loret de Mola congratulates her on Facebook.

“I got beat on my birthday by one of my favorite poets—in Sacramento or otherwise—and I couldn’t be happier!” He wrote.

And for Sem, it had never been about winning.

“Slam has been a selfactualization process, finding my voice,” she said. “It’s just been about speaking my truth and hoping that my truth resonates with somebody else, and they can say, ‘Oh shit, I feel that too.’”

Most of the poets onstage weren’t competitors per se.

They’re actually part of the Sac Unified Slam Team. (Though, anyone can sign up for The

fow ler pho tos by nic ole

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18 | SN&R | 08.02.18

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David Loret de Mola (aka AndYes).

“It’s just been about

speaking my truth and hoping that my truth resonates with somebody else ...”

Jeanette Sem (aka J-rowe) poet, Sac Unified Poetry Slam

Sac Unified Poetry Slam, and several non-team members did that night.) The team has been working hard to build up something special, and on August 13-18 this year, it’ll pay off when they compete in the National Poetry Slam in Chicago.

The grand prize is $2,000. The last time a Sacramento team went was in 2015, and before that, a decade earlier.

“Everybody was looking for a breath of fresh air and saying, ‘Hey, Sacramento has a different breed of poets,’” said Marques Davison (aka

Sho Nuff), on the reaction to Sac’s team during the 2015 competition. “We have actors, improv actors, writers. We have different ethnicities that are different than your Bay Area-type folks. So, we thought it would be great to really showcase that.”

The team includes Loret de Mola, Sem, Marques and Khaya Osborne (aka Khalyspo). Torres is the team’s coach, and alternates include Smith, Jenny Davison, Michael Stephenson, Stacy Gee and Marvin Xia.

Dr. Angela Alforque performs at the Sac Unified Poetry Slam.

Stolen sandwiches Their roots go back to a Sac City College class taught by Dr. Angela Alforque. When Alforque left some years ago, students Jenny and Marques asked if they could utilize her methods to make it a group. They started holding workshops with other creatives, and the two ran an open-mic for a few years (not at Luna’s).

Torres had been involved with Sacramento slam poetry for many years as well, including in Alforque’s class.

Eventually, Jenny, Marques, Torres and Loret de Mola joined forces.

With Jenny as coach, the original team competed in the 2015 National Poetry Slam in

Oakland, where they missed qualifying for the final round by a fraction of a point.

In the past few years, they’ve been recalibrating. And now having re-emerged with some new poets in the mix, they’re excited to compete again.

The art of slam poetry has grown in national popularity in the last decade— particularly in the past few years—in part from viral slam videos on YouTube.

With its rise, it’s gone from a virtually lawless artform to developing rules and to some degree, tropes. One of those, Osborne said, is for people to focus on their trauma as creative fodder, something Torres, as a coach, doesn’t explicitly encourage teammates to do unless it’s what they are inclined to do to authentically express themselves.

“You are expected to get up there and tell your deepest, darkest secrets and make people cry, and make sure everybody in the room is left stunned by your horrible life,” Osborne said of the mainstream slam poetry culture. “There’s not enough space for people to be their true, authentic selves, even in the light.”

Obsorne pointed to Smith’s awkwardly-asking-a-girl-out piece. (“The audience eats it up every time. It’s hilarious.”)

“Sometimes it’s going to be gritty, sometimes it’s going to be sad,” Loret de Mola said. “Sometimes it’s going to be about office life and someone stealing your sandwich from the fridge. Amazing poem.

I will defend that poem every day of the week.” He was referring to another Smith poem, called “The Office.”

Every team member is rooted in other disciplines, including acting, improv

comedy, burlesque and music, which helped give each their unique voice, and not a specific “Sacramento style.”

Slam poetry has also grown in Sac, developing alongside other spoken art-forms, open-mics like Mahogany Urban Poetry Series, guerrilla performance spaces like ZFG Promotion’s The Intersection, a-capella hip-hop rooms including Sol Collective and a vibrant comedy scene with plenty of spaces for new talent to try everything.

“When I was growing up here, there was nothing like this,” Gee said. “There wasn’t open-mics that I knew about.”

As slam poetry and the Luna’s monthly event grows, the team hopes to make this an annual thing. At the same time, they see what they do as something more than slam poetry. It’s providing a launchpad for other artforms.

“This is the ground level where you can hone your craft,” said Torres, “It’s a school for artists to branch out and start their own thing one day. They can activate their own spaces [from] which all the foundation of is love, respect for the craft, expression, identifying who you are in this world and how you function within this world among other human beings.” Ω

The Sac Unified PoeTry Slam Team are raiSing money To aTTend The naTional comPeTiTion in aUgUST. Their goal iS $5,000. To SUPPorT Their efforTS, viSiT gofUndme aT gofUndme.com/SacSlam2018.

08.02.18 | SN&R | 19

SporT

photo courtesy of the california state library

Sactown swatters The City of Trees has a strong baseball history, a new California Museum exhibit shows

By GRaham WomaCk

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In the landmark 1966 oral history, The Glory of Their Times, baseball Hall-of-Famer Harry Hooper talks about agreeing to his first contract with the Boston Red Sox in 1908 at an unnamed bar at 8th and J streets in Sacramento. Hooper, who famously recommended in 1918 that teammate Babe Ruth convert from pitcher to position player, played minor league ball in town and worked for the Western Pacific Railroad.

It’s uncertain if the building where Hooper agreed to his Red Sox contract still exists or has been lost, like so much of Sacramento’s baseball history. But an exhibit that opened July 29 at the California Museum, California at Bat: America’s Pastime in the Golden State, offers some artifacts from Hooper and other baseball greats with connections to Sacramento.

There’s Willie Mays, who appeared in the final exhibition game at Edmonds Field, shortly before the former home for the Sacramento Solons, at the corner of Riverside Boulevard and Broadway, was torn down in 1964. A Gemco store was built there, where a Target now stands. A uniform Mays wore for the San Francisco Giants the following season, when he hit 52 home runs, is in the exhibit.

There’s also a monogrammed 1936 New York Yankees uniform from Joe DiMaggio, who played games at Edmonds Field while a young Pacific Coast League (PCL) prospect with the San Francisco Seals.

Meanwhile, Hooper’s represented in the exhibit with a 1912 Red Sox sweater that its owner, Stephen Wong, says has never been publicly displayed.

“He’s one of the greatest outfielders in the history of the game,” Wong told SN&R. “In fact, Babe Ruth

The entrance to Edmonds Field, home of the Pacific Coast League’s Sacramento Solons until 1960, at the intersection of Broadway and Riverside.

actually attested to that, that he’d never seen a better outfielder, in his playing days, than Harry Hooper.”

The exhibit features more than 200 baseball artifacts, photos and other relics of the game. Wong, a Hong Kong-based investment banker who grew up in the Bay Area, loaned approximately 80 items from his personal collection for the exhibit.

“Being a California native, it felt very important to me personally, from an emotional standpoint, to contribute,” Wong said.

Another 60 items, roughly, come from the private collection of Alan O’Connor, a prolific local baseball author and member of the local Dusty Baker chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research.

Many items connected to local greats come courtesy of O’Connor. These include a bat from Earl Sheely, who made a name for himself as a hitter in the majors during the 1920s. Sheely later became a popular Solons’ manager, per O’Connor’s book, Gold on the Diamond: Sacramento’s Great Baseball Players, 1886 to 1976.

Some of the connections in the exhibit to local history are subtle. Brenna Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the museum, noted that the father of baseball legend Ted Williams—who’s in the exhibit as well with a 1950 Red Sox uniform—moved to town to take a job as a prison inspector.

Amanda Meeker, executive director for the museum, said she learned through putting the exhibit together that Sacramento had a far stronger baseball history than she’d realized. This included the city being one of the first sites where a game of “town ball,” a forerunner to baseball, was played, in 1851. Meeker also noted that the PCL sent many players to the majors.

“Even though we’re small, we’ve been scrappy,” Meeker said.

Wong said he’s been accumulating his collection for more than 30 years, primarily through auctions and purchases from private collections. While he’s loaned his collection to museums in other cities over the years, he’s pleased to see it come to Sacramento.

“I think it’s actually a perfect place to have this exhibition,” Wong said. “Because, being the capital of the state and having a rich history with baseball, and the fact that so many renowned players have roots in California, part of me just says, ‘Why wasn’t this ever done earlier?’” Ω california at bat: america’s pastime in the Golden state, runs through December 30 at the california Museum, 1020 o street.

illuStration by Sarah hanSel

Nice Italian noodles bolognese pasta, adamo’s kitchen

Good luck balancing the Greek Avo Toast in one hand: kalamata olives, tomatoes, cucumbers and feta cheese make this one filling, but precarious.

Inside Adamo’s, a server calls out to take a seat anywhere. In a blue T-shirt, jean shorts and tennis shoes, she zips around the casual Italian spot that shares a block with a tattoo parlor and a laundromat.

After ordering the bolognese pasta ($16), I wonder if it’s Elliott Smith I hear behind the chatter. Sure is. The bolognese arrives: a beautiful mound of thick pappardelle covered with enough meaty sauce to spoon onto the garlic bread.

Featuring Alameda’s Niman Ranch beef, this filling dish is pure comfort food. Plus they won’t judge if you eat it with white wine. 2107 P Street; (916) 440-9611; adamoskitchen.com.

—kate gonzales

photo by rebecca huval

The best thing since what?

Toasted 1424 14th Street, (916) 389-0484 Good for: a quick bite when no one’s watching Notable dishes: Greek avo toast, Salmon lox toast

$$$

California fusion, downtown

Toast has become a fetish of our times.

The $4 variety just about set off the class wars in San Francisco in the 2010s, with many diners railing at the expense of a slice of bread that, when bought in bulk, costs roughly 20 cents. If you were to believe clickbait media, avocado toast represents every reason why millennials can’t save enough money to buy homes. Recently, restaurant critic Besha Rodell claimed that the green-spread-on-bread originated in Melbourne, Australia—only to have writer John Birdsall find an early recipe for avocado toast in a 1920s edition of the Covina Argus newspaper from San Gabriel, Calif.

All this to say that toast is very culturally important to California. And it’s significant that business owner Nubia Murillo has opened up one of the first restaurants dedicated to the niche food category in Sacramento.

This spring, Murillo opened Toasted steps from the Capitol, adjacent to her preexisting, popular juice business, Cap City Squeeze. Then, the Yelpers started yelping. Tracy R. wrote, “Millineals [sic], Rejoice!! If you’re looking for extra AF toast, this is THE SPOT!!!”

Tracy is onto something. The toast at Toasted is indeed extra AF. The walk-up, 200-square-foot restaurant serves combos with an average, mode and median of seven ingredients. There’s the Chunky Monkey ($7) with 1. honey-wheat toast, 2. peanut butter, 3. bananas, 4. chocolate

by Rebecca Huval

chips, 5. coconut flakes, 6. cinnamon, 7. honey. The Pear-fect Date Toast ($7) makes a pun on 1. whole-grain bread, 2. almond butter, 3. sliced pear, 4. chopped dates, 5. gorgonzola cheese, 6. honey, 7. cinnamon.

There’s no getting around it—seven is a lot of ingredients to balance in your hands. Granted, the build-your-own section of the menu allows patrons to mix-and-match their choice of locally baked Bella Bru toast, spreads, toppings, seasonings and extras.

To eat a full lunch, I opted for the savory toasts. The Southwest Chipotle Toast ($7) proved to be a slip ’n’ slide of slick chipotle pesto on whole-wheat bread. The sauce sent a chunk of sliced avocados and tomatoes sailing from my grip onto the table. The components were delicious, with a drizzle of Sriracha and a dusting of cotija cheese and cilantro that brought the Southwestern notes together. But it felt like the ingredients were in the wrong order or out of proportion—too much sauce, not enough substance.

The Salmon Lox Toast ($9), though, was filling and structurally sound. On French bread, cream-cheese gluedtogether arugula, tomatoes and purple onions. Atop it all, a thin slice of salmon blanketed the toast. The fish tasted fresh, and a speckling of sea salt and pepper brought out its briny essence.

Better still was the Greek Avo Toast ($8), which finally made use of the grippy powers of avocado mash to highlight the sweet-and-sour contrast of cherry tomatoes and Kalamata olives. Feta cheese brought in a nutty complement to the mild mash.

Now, if only there were a way to grasp ingredients on bread, maybe even using … two slices? Until we discover that wild invention, there’s always California-bred, millennial-endorsed, perennially misunderstood toast. Ω

A saison snack bier de roots, Urban roots & brewing Urban Roots & Brewing, located on a quiet downtown street in the Southside Park neighborhood, has earned rave reviews since opening—and for good reason.

Co-founded by hops experts Rob Archie (Pangaea Bier Cafe) and Peter Hoey (Sacramento Brewing Company), the barbecue/beer joint is cavernous yet welcoming, hip yet family-friendly. Oh, and the beer is damn good.

Try the Bier de Roots (or any other petit saison that happens to be on the ever-changing menu; $6 for a pint).

With its light, floral finish, this is a low-octane brew that pairs nicely with the brewery’s crave-worthy cheese grits. Trust us, it makes for the perfect anytime snack.

1322 V Street, urbanrootsbrewing.com.

—rachel leibrock

The V WoRd

Flock of wild tamales The Wild Rooster Bistro is a breath of fresh air. Vegan fresh air. It’s an unpretentious, neighborhood Mexican-food eatery in old Fair Oaks with a flock of decorative ceramic roosters inside and a view of a park with roaming feral chickens outside. The menu has vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options clearly marked, and there are many, thanks to one of the restaurant’s three co-owners, Lorena Van Rein. After being vegetarian for years, she went vegan, because “the dairy was making me sick.” She’s been vegan for six-and-a-half years now, and uses vegan cheese, soy chorizo, tofu scramble and sour cream (store-bought but souped-up) in their tamales, sopes, enchiladas, huevos rancheros, chilaquiles, grilled cheese sandwiches and vegan ceviche. Wild Rooster, at 7984 California Avenue in Fair Oaks, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. Van Rein said there’s no chicken broth or lard used to make the beans and rice, and the kitchen uses separate pots to cook the vegan dishes, so vegans can breathe easy.

—shoka

08.02.18

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Eat. Drink.

Be Merry.

Repeat.

IllustratIon by Mark stIvers

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In late June, I stood ankle-deep in Eagle Lake as a 16-year-old boy with cerebral palsy grabbed my wrists. As part of my week of volunteering at Camp ReCreation, I had gone with this camper to the lake because he loves the water and doesn’t get to swim much at home.

With our arms linked, I backpedaled quickly, towing him through the water as he yanked himself forward and looked up at me with a full smile that made my life feel momentarily complete.

Throughout our week together, I helped bathe this young man and change his clothes. I helped him navigate the bumpy brick paths that criss-cross the campground.

I ensured that he was well-fed and well-rested so we could swim on a windless, sunny afternoon, high in the mountains of Northern California. I don’t have children, but I imagine the appeal of parenthood is adjacent to the feelings I felt that week.

I have gone to Camp ReCreation for seven years. Secluded from civilization, it’s a week-long utopia where people with disabilities get to

do whatever they love most, and a bunch of young volunteers help them accomplish that goal.

At camp, the tradeoff for the pure joy of helping others thrive is that it’s an exhausting amount of work fueled only by mass-produced meals made from the fringe offerings of the McDonald’s and Sysco corporations.

For a snobby gourmet like me, this is a major sacrifice. So when the president of the camp proposed that some long-time returning volunteers go out to eat at Canon East Sacramento, I heartily agreed.

After a bus ride which included a wheelchair lift that wouldn’t work, vomit sprayed onto a first-year volunteer’s lap and a “no-flush” toilet, we made it back in Sacramento. A couple hours later, our party arrived at Canon, where, in the private dining room, I had the greatest feast of my life.

Chicken drumsticks in an urfa chili sauce. Cucumber salad with rich burrata. Raw yellowtail with harissa pesto. Smoky, tender hamachi collar.

Lamb pavé served with mint yogurt and housemade flatbread. Crispy tots covered in mole madre. Fennel salad with peaches so flavorful they

were “electric,” as described by our enthusiastic waiter, who orchestrated our meal seamlessly and never made an errant suggestion.

Each bite justified the inclusion of every perfectly prepared ingredient on the plate. After finishing off with some espresso, toffee and strawberry paté, I didn’t just feel full; I felt replenished.

Each year at camp, I lose roughly five pounds, my voice goes hoarse and my hair gets so greasy it looks gelled. But all the effort is worth it because, for that week, I see the direct positive impact of my efforts on others and feel like I’m doing exactly what I should be doing with my life. I hope the staff at Canon feels the same about what they do at their restaurant.

In his prayer, St. Francis said, “For it is in giving that we receive.” But it is also in receiving with gratitude that we give—because it’s a wonderful gift to be thanked for performing the work you love to do. Ω to volunteer or donate to Camp reCreation, go to camprecreation.org. Canon is open for dinner tue-thu 4-10pm; Fri 4-11pm, and sat 5:30-11pm. brunch is served sat-sun 10am-2pm.

Reviews

now playing

3

Beehive

Last chance

by Jeff Hudson

This jukebox musical at the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival is a tribute to songs made famous by girl groups in the early 1960s. It’s sweet and sunny, and the frothy music is enjoyable. But it doesn’t have a plot, or characters, so it’s closer to a lounge act than a play, which will disappoint some (though not all) theatergoers. Beehive alternates with Macbeth. Thu, Fri, Sat,

Sun, 7:30pm. Through 8/26. $30-$99. Sand Harbor in

Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park; 1-800-74-SHOWS; laketahoeshakespeare. com. J.H.

3

Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins, umbrella and magical bag in hand, comes to the Fair Oaks Theatre Festival in a cheery musical based on the books of P.L. Travers and the Walt Disney film. This is the festival’s first full season

The san francisco Mime Troupe is bringing seeing Red: A Time-Traveling Musical to the area beginning August 17.

August is the month when the summer theater festivals wrap up their runs, and the so-called “regular” theater companies start fielding end-of-summer shows.

Lucky for you, SN&R’s your guide to this period of ends and starts all around.

This week, through August 5, will be your last chance to see the Davis Shakespeare Festival’s two shows. The historical drama Mary Stuart plays Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. The screwball farce On the 20th Century plays Thursday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m; shakespearedavis.org; (530) 802-0998.

This is also the final weekend for the Fair Oaks Theatre Festival’s outdoor production of Mary Poppins, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m.; fairoakstheatrefestival.com; (916) 966-3683.

Broadway at Music Circus wraps up with two more shows (staged indoors at Sacramento’s Wells Fargo Pavilion) during August. The ABBA-based jukebox musical Mamma Mia! runs August 7-12, conveniently timed to coincide with the release of the film Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. And Little Shop of Horrors, a musical comedy with a huge man-eating plant, closes out the Music Circus summer season on August 21-26; broadwaysacramento.com; (916) 557-1999.

The Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival likewise continues into late August, with outdoor productions of the Shakespeare tragedy Macbeth and the 1960s girl-group jukebox musical Beehive alternating in repertory Tuesdays through Sundays at 7:30 p.m. at Sand Harbor, Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park, through August 26; laketahoeshakespeare.com; (800) 74-SHOWS. Main Street Theatre Works (in Jackson’s outdoor Kennedy Mine Amphitheatre) stages the Jeff Daniels comedy Escanaba in Da Moonlight (set in a hunting lodge on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula) August 10-September 8; www.mstw.org.

PHOTO COURTESy OF MIkE MELNyk

Ballet lovers will want to check out Capital Dance Project’s fourth annual summer show Behind the Barre, which includes dancers from the Sacramento Ballet, at Sacramento’s Crest Theatre on Friday, August 10 and Saturday, August 11 at 7:30 p.m.; capitaldanceproject.org.

And the San Francisco Mime Troupe, famous for their raucous musicals featuring barbed political satire, makes their annual summer tour through this area, with performances on Friday, August 17 at 7:30 p.m. at the Miner’s Foundry in Nevada City; Saturday, August 18 at 7 p.m. in Community Park in Davis; and Sunday August 19 at 5 p.m. in Sacramento’s Southside Park Bandshell, featuring Seeing Red: A Time-Traveling Musical; sfmt.org.

August openings by “regular” theater companies (not summer festivals) include: Green Valley Theatre: The Black Rider!, a musical fable featuring music composed by Tom Waits, performed at Sacramento’s Westminster Presbyterian Church. August 3-25; greenvalleytheatre.com.

Woodland Opera House: Shrek—The Musical, based on the animated film. August 3-26; woodlandoperahouse.org.

B Street Theatre: We’re Gonna Be OK, about two families building a shared bomb shelter during the Cold War), August 7-September 9; bstreettheatre.org.

Big Idea Theatre: Bootycandy, a kaleidoscope of satirical sketches about growing up gay and black.

August 10-September 8; bigideatheatre.org.

Capital Stage: The Wolves, about nine teammates on a girls’ indoor soccer team. August 29-September 30; capstage.org.

Harris Center at Folsom Lake College hosts a touring production of The Greatest Love of All, a jukebox musical/Whitney Houston tribute. September 4-5; harriscenter.net. Ω

1 FOUL

without its late guiding light Bob Irvin, and his sly humor and wicked wit are missing in this very straight approach to a standard musical comedy.

Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park; 1-800-74-SHOWS; laketahoeshakespeare. com. J.H.

5

Fri-Sun 8pm. Through 8/5 (No show on 7/29); $15-$18 Fri-Sat, $12 Sun; Veteran’s

Mary Stuart

This taut historical drama (by F. Schiller, not the Bard) depicts two queens contending for the crown in Shakespeare’s time … and Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots both know only one can survive.

Excellent performances by professionals Sharon Rietkerk and Jamie Jones make this show worth the drive to see. Thu, Fri, Sat,

Memorial Amphitheatre, 7997 California Ave. in Fair Oaks; (916) 966-3693; fairoakstheatrefestival. com. J.C.

5

Macbeth

Lake Tahoe Shakespeare’s handsome production of this bloody Shakespeare tragedy, staged outdoors at night with a large professional cast, is the leanest, meanest and most traditional interpretation we’ve seen in years.

Excellent performances

by Lynn Robert Berg in the title role and Erin Partin as Lady Macbeth.

Macbeth alternates with Beehive. Thu, Fri, Sat,

Sun, performance times vary; Through 8/4; $30-$15; Davis Shakespeare Festival at Veterans Memorial Theatre, 203 E. 14th Street in Davis; (530) 802-0998; shakespearedavis.org. J.H.

Short reviews by Jeff Hudson and Jim Carnes.

Sun, 7:30pm. Through 8/26. $30-$99. Sand Harbor in

2

3

4

FAIR

GOOD

WELL-DONE

5 SUBLIME– DON’T MISS

PHOTO COURTESy OF GREEN VALLEy THEATRE COMPANy

If you’re into Tom Waits, he wrote the songs and lyrics to this musical.

Bull’s-eye Shake together the compelling collaborative cocktail of Beat Poet William S. Burroughs, eccentric singer/songwriter Tom Waits and creative theater director Robert Wilson.

Add the classic German deal-with-the-devil folktale Der Freischütz to the mixture, and you get the avant-garde musical The Black Rider, now being staged by Green Valley Theatre Company at the Westminster Presbyterian Church.

Simple tale of a nerdy clerk in love with forester’s daughter who must prove his marksmanship before dad will approve of the marriage. Westiminster is a temporary location for Green Valley while they work on their new permanent theater space in West Sacramento. Fri 8pm, Sat 8pm, Sun 7pm. Through 8/25; $18; Westminster Presbyterian Church Hall, 1300 N Street; greenvalleytheatre.com.

—Patti RobeRts

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fiLm CLiPS

No marvel

by JiM Lane

For this they appeal to Jade Wilson (Kristen Bell), the filmmaking genius behind all the superhero movies. She tells them, essentially, to run along now; she only makes movies about “real” superheroes.

So the Titans decide that what they need is There’s probably not much point in writing a review an arch-nemesis. Enter Slade (Will Arnett), who of Teen Titans Go! to the Movies; the audience it’s launches his campaign of arch-villainy while all the aimed at either hasn’t learned to read yet or doesn’t “real” superheroes are attending the premiere of the read movie reviews anyway. And the truth is, the latest Batman movie. Only the Titans (who weren’t movie isn’t terrible; it’s bright and shiny enough to invited) are wise to him, so they’re galvanized into keep toddlers from getting restless, and it has enough action. self-referential in-jokes to amuse their older siblings That’s as far as I want to go into the story and parents. because the truth is—and I swallow For the record, the Teen Titans are a deeply as I say it—there are actually quintet of adolescents from the DC Comic some pretty clever twists and turns Universe, a sort of Cub Scout version along the way in Michael Jelenic of the Justice League consisting of I couldn’t help and Aaron Horvath’s script.

Robin the Boy Wonder (voiced noticing some (Horvath also directed, with

by Scott Menville), apparently no suspicious similarities Peter Rida Michail.) I couldn’t longer needed by Batman (Jimmy help noticing some suspicious Kimmel); Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), between the plot similarities between the plot able to transform into any animal; of this movie and of this movie and Incredibles Cyborg (Khary Payton), a halfIncredibles 2.

2—which, given the difference human weapons arsenal; Raven (Tara in production time between the Strong), who can open convenient two, may not be a coincidence. But portals in space and time; and Starfire never mind; Teen Titans is the lesser (Hynden Walch), whose cutesy-princess movie and a relatively trivial time-killer, but persona masks an ability to shoot UV rays from her it’s enjoyable enough. eyes and fly faster than the speed of light.

Less amusing, perhaps, is that Mom and Dad Despite their wide range of talents, the Titans can’t just shelled out an average of eight bucks a head get respect. This is partly because they’re “only” teen(not counting popcorn, candy and Cokes) to see a age sidekicks, and partly because they haven’t done piece of animation that makes The Flintstones look anything really heroic yet; for example, when they like Fantasia. Which, before long, they could have get sidetracked into a rap song while trying to fight a Ω gigantic villain named Balloon Man (Greg Davies), the seen on TV for free. grown-up Justice League has to intervene. But mainly it’s because, as Superman reminds them (in the voice of Nicolas Cage, getting to play the role at last), they haven’t had their own movie. So Teen Titans Go! to the Movies becomes a movie about the Teen Titans trying to get a movie made about the Teen Titans.

Poor Fair Good Very excellent

Beast Boy, Robin and Cyborg never miss a chance to dance before destruction.

1 2 3 4 5 Good

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Blindspotting

5

Eighth Grade

2

The Equalizer 2

First-timer Carlos Lopez Estrada directs this energetic but wildly uneven film from a script by longtime friends and Oakland natives Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs. Casal and Diggs also star as longtime friends and Oakland natives Collin and Miles, the former a white, motormouthed hothead, the latter an African-American ex-felon entering the final days of his probation. Collin’s situation complicates when he witnesses a police officer shoot a fleeing black man in the back, but despite the powerful relevance of the premise, Blindspotting rarely pauses the wacky hijinks, overwrought dream sequences and toothless jabs at Oakland hipsters long enough to allow the protagonist to reflect on the racially-motivated murder that he and no one else witnessed. The film has passion and energy to burn, and Diggs seems like a star in the making (Casal, not so much), but scenes like the one where Collin improvises the “battle rap that fixes everything for some reason” feel more contrived than cathartic. D.B.

3

Teen Titans Go! to the Movies

3

A teenage girl (Elsie Fisher) faces her last week of middle school. It’s as simple as that, but writer-director Bo Burnham, making his first feature, never puts a foot wrong. His script has the sublime, often excruciating ring of truth, and he draws spot-on performances all around. (For once, all these teenagers actually look like they’re under 25.) Elsie Fisher is an absolute revelation, playing a sweet, sensitive girl who makes friendly, upbeat online videos (which we sense nobody ever watches), then slouches through real life wishing someone would be her friend. She’s nothing less than brilliant, and you read it here first: She’d damn well better get an Oscar nomination for it. Right behind her (in every sense), and almost as good, is Josh Hamilton as her loving, supportive, but often clueless father. J.L.

Ex-government operative and part-time vigilante Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) sets out to avenge the murder of his former CIA boss (Melissa Leo).

Washington and director Antoine Fuqua return for the sequel, and it’s a good thing: Washington’s implacable charisma and Fuqua’s robust command of pace and style are desperately needed because writer Robert Wenk is back too, and he’s flat out of ideas. What started out as a modernday Have Gun, Will Travel becomes a mere revenge fantasy with a villain who’s obvious from the start and not a moment of real suspense. The hero solves two murders in Brussels from his apartment in Boston, then he tells the bad guys he’s going to kill them, and then he does. Along the way he rescues a child abducted to Turkey by her father and maims a gang of rapists. What a guy. J.L.

3

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again

Here we go again indeed. Everybody’s back, with new faces including Cher as Amanda Seyfried’s absentee grandmother and Andy Garcia as the manager of the hotel she’s building on that Greek island. Meryl Streep’s character has died and appears only in a ghostly cameo. In flashbacks, Lily James plays her younger self, with Jessica Keenan Wynn and Alexa Davies as younger Christine Baranski and Julie Walters (all good matches). Never mind the story, the ABBA songs are the point, and they’re as irresistible as ever, well-delivered with clever transitions and spirited choreography to cover the fact that songs are shoehorned in where they don’t always fit. As with Mamma Mia 1, the best number is under the closing credits, but this time people will stay to see it: a full-cast curtain call to “Super Trouper.” J.L.

by DanieL BaRneS & JiM Lane

4

Mission Impossible—Fallout

2

Skyscraper

4

Sorry to Bother You

4

Three Identical Strangers

This year’s summer release schedule is crammed with limp, sad, flavorless, nobody-asked-for-this-shit sequels. There are now two The Equalizer movies, three Hotel Transvylvania movies and four The Purge movies. Any new hope for a Star Wars comeback fades further away with each passing release. Marvel movies remain as insipidly anonymous as ever, no matter the director. The Harry Potter extended universe is running on the fumes coming off Johnny Depp’s mustache. Ben Affleck is Batman. All of this is to say that while Mission: Impossible has become arguably the best and certainly the most reliable blockbuster movie franchise in circulation, it certainly doesn’t have a lot of competition for the titles. Still, that’s not a knock against Christopher McQuarrie’s vigorously entertaining Fallout, the sixth movie starring Tom Cruise as indestructible superspy Ethan Hunt. It’s as polished, precision-tuned and effective a piece of filmmaking as you’re likely to see all year long. D.B.

A retired FBI agent, now a security consultant (Dwayne Johnson), is consulting on a 240-floor Hong Kong building when terrorists set fire to it. Oh, and his wife (Neve Campbell) and kids are trapped inside. Oh yeah, and one more thing: He has a prosthetic leg. Director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s script is ridiculous and unbelievable, a wannabe Towering Die Hard Inferno. CGI stunts are constant, outlandish and hilarious. When are people like Thurber going to realize that this doesn’t cut it?

Genuine excitement comes from real people (whether stars or stunt doubles) really doing things; without that, junk movies like this are just photo-realistic Wile E. Coyote cartoons.

Johnson’s charisma lifts things a notch or two above the bottom of the barrel, but he’s not a magician—and he can’t really fly. J.L.

A rookie telemarketer in an alternatereality Oakland (Lakeith Stanfield) finds success by employing his “white voice” (supplied by David Cross)—which admits him to the upper reaches of his sweatshop company, where he sinks over his head in the sinister plans of a mad-genius corporate billionaire (Armie Hammer). Rapper Boots Riley, making his feature writing/directing debut, pulls out all the stops in a pro-union, anti-corporate gonzo fantasmagoria that becomes wilder by the minute. It’s a crazy ride, and not every joke scores a mordant bullseye. But Riley is an original voice, and not as undisciplined as he seems; his movie begins in gritty, flippant realism, then pulls us along step-by-step until it becomes a paranoid fantasy so feverish that it plays almost as a parody of paranoid fantasies. J.L

In 1980, teenager Robert Shafran arrived for his first day at a small community college in upstate New York, where people he had never met warmly greeted him as “Eddy.” It turned out that Eddy Galland was a former student at the school, and that the similarities between Robert and Eddy went deeper than their identical faces, voices and builds—they were twin brothers separated at birth and adopted out of the Louise Wise Agency by different Jewish families. When New York resident David Kellman read that already astonishing story in the pages of Newsday, he saw two doppelgangers who shared his birthday and adoption agency and realized that he was the third sibling. Thus, the separated twins turned into separated triplets, with the brothers eventually becoming tabloid sensations and pre-viral celebrities. If their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain’t heard nothing yet. D.B.

Your Downtown Service Shop

Country music’s funny man?

Brad Paisley straddles the line between ha-ha’s and yee-haws

by Rachel Mayfield

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FIRE UP THE GRILL

AUTHENTIC ARMENIAN GRILL

Photo courtesy of Ben enos

“He loved the bit, and he definitely let me know he wanted it in the special,” Winfield recalls.

“It was funny because he thought I made the joke right there on the spot when he first saw it. I just told him I did.”

When it comes to humor in Paisley’s music, look for his more playful tunes; “The Cigar Song” is a compelling fable about a con artist with a penchant for, well, cigars; “Online,” a plucky, upbeat bluegrass tune that pokes fun at fake internet personas; and “I’m Ba-dum strum.

Still a Guy,” wherein Paisley conflates plucking your eyebrows and practicing basic skincare with forfeiting your masculinity and “lining up to get neutered.”

For nearly two decades, Brad Paisley’s won praise Generally speaking, the icon’s vast catalog from critics and country fans for his sharp wit and ranges from delightfully clever to, at times, headlighthearted songwriting approach. scratchingly heteronormative.

He’s known most as a country star—with 11 He’s provided plenty of fodder to seasoned studio albums, numerous chart-topping hits and three satirists, too. When his 2013 song “Accidental Grammys tucked neatly under his buckle—but a Racist” made headlines for its lyrical clunkiness and well-established music career hasn’t kept the West failed attempt to tackle the nuance of American race Virginia native from exploring other avenues: a book relations, shows like Saturday Night Live and The of fishing stories, a self-starring stint on the CMT’s Colbert Report quickly took a whirl at lampooning Nashville, lots of celebrity judging and … South the Paisley and LL Cool J duet. For reference, Park?

Paisley sings about not wanting to be Paisley did sing alongside Cartman in a judged for wearing a Confederate 2012 episode, and that’s just the tip of flag T-shirt, while LL Cool J his comedy endeavors. He’s hosted raps: “If you don’t judge my “He loved the shows at the Nashville Comedy gold chains / I’ll forget the Festival, and last year, he bit, and [Brad] iron chains.” The general released his own Netflix special, consensus among comedians Brad Paisley’s Comedy Rodeo, definitely let me know and critics alike was that a night of six comics that this song should have never he wanted it in the included Sacramento’s Mike E. been written.

Winfield. special.”

Despite past debacles “Many of his fans would call and split debates on his him hilarious,” said Winfield, Mike E. Winfield comedic sensibility, Paisley our comedy-and-Paisley expert. comedian is most in his element when “Backstage, he’s a fun guy, and you singing earnestly about the simple can tell he’s intrigued by the science of pleasures of steering a mud-spattered comedy.” truck, the hardships of the working class or In Comedy Rodeo, Winfield dissects the the soul-crushing despair of a broken relationship. guitar-slinger’s hit “I’m Gonna Miss Her.” The “There’s a lot of sides to his music,” Winfield song centers around Paisley’s choice to spend the explains, “so if you’re a fan of country music, there’s day fishing, rather than salvaging his deteriorating something in there for everyone.” Ω relationship with a woman. Winfield explores the same hypothetical in his own relationship, and the Paisley will be performing on friday, August 3 at thunder Valley casino. consequences (her reaction is less-than-enthusiastic).

From Paisley’s on-set reaction, he seems to have a tickets are $64.95-$199.95. show starts at 7pm. rachel steele opens. for show info visit thundervalleyresort.com. good sense of humor.

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for the week of august 02

by maxfield morris

PosT eVenTs onLine FoR FRee aT newsreview.com/sacramento

MUSIC THURSDAY, 8/2 conceRT in THe PaRkWaY: See what the deal is about this whole “Concert in the Wherever” trend. 6pm, no cover. Camp Pollock, 1501 Northgate Blvd.

TaJMo: Taj Mahal and Keb Mo are playing it like it’s hot. 7:30pm, $69-$179. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

FRIDAY, 8/3 BRaD PaisLeY: The Paisley man has got a thing or two to say, on and off the guitar. Check out the event highlight on page 25. 7pm, $64.95-$199.95. Thunder Valley Casino, 1200 Athens Ave. in Lincoln.

THe WHiTe BUFFaLo: Jake Smith’s alternative country persona comes to the stage. 7:30pm, $22-$25. Goldfield Trading Post, 1630 J St.

04

saT

Get your brake lights fixed, for free.

SATURDAY, 8/4 Dennis DeYoUnG: Touring 40 years after The Grand Illusion was released. 7:30pm, $40-

$85. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

Free brake light repairs AfricAn MArketPlAce, 11AM, no cover For some people, the thin, metal filament in a brake light bulb means a lot. It can spell the difference between Take acTion a routine trip to the grocery store and a traffic stop, which can lead to bad situations, to put it lightly.

NorCal Resist is hosting this completely free event to replace anyone’s broken brake lights. They’ve held it at locations

RakiM: See event highlight on page 27. 9pm, $27.50-$32.50. Harlow’s, 2708 J St.

soUL FesT 2018: Featuring the Whispers,

Midnight Star and more. 5:30pm, $45.95$159.95. Thunder Valley Casino Resort, 1200 Athens Ave. in Lincoln.

around Sacramento several times, with the goal of limiting negative interactions with law enforcement. A burnt-out brake light is dangerous—and while bulb replacement may only seem like treating a symptom of a system that oppresses the powerless, it’s still a powerful precaution and a quiet kind of impactful activism. 2251 Florin Road, facebook.com/norcalresist.

ToM RiGneY: With Flambeau. 7pm, $30. Sofia Tsakopoulos Center for the Arts, 2700 Capitol Ave.

ToPoGRaF: This EP release show also features Fashionista Boyfriend and the Y Axes. 7pm, $10. Momo Sacramento, 2708 J St.

Zoso: The Led Zeppelin cover band imitates the sounds of ’70s Zep. 7pm, $18. Ace Of Spades, 1417 R St.

SUNDAY, 8/5 iaMsU!: With HBK Skip, Marty Grimes and

TickeT WinDoW ALICE COOPER A Paranormal Evening With Alice Cooper promises to be shockingly rocking. 8/15, 8:30pm, $70-$85, on sale now. Jackson Rancheria Casino Resort in Jackson, tickets.vendini.com.

LADY ANTEbELLUM Help meet your country show quota at this tour with Darius Rucker and Russell Dickerson.

8/17, 7pm, 34.25-$109, on sale now. Toyota Amphitheatre in Wheatland, concerts1. livenation.com.

DAVID bYRNE Touring his optimistic

new solo album, it gets a little weird at times. 8/21, 8pm, $79-$500, on sale now.

Community Center Theatre, tickets.com.

PUNCH bROTHERS The Brothers are

touring their newest album, All Ashore.

8/21, 7pm, $12.50-$179, on sale now. Mondavi Center in Davis, tickets.mondaviarts.org.

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Derek Luh. 7pm, $27. Ace Of Spades, 1417 R St.

Get stubs in advance, you hooligan!

SAM SMITH The English crooner with

a voice like a fresh loaf of bread is hitting the DOCO with Beth Ditto. 8/24, 7pm, $35-$99.50, on sale now. Golden 1 Center, ticketmaster.com.

KID ROCK

Sometimes you want to hear good music from talented folks. Anyway, here’s Kid Rock. 8/24, 6:30pm, $39.50$129.50, on sale now.. Toyota Amphitheater in Wheatland, concerts1.livenation.com.

SMASHING PUMPKINS UMPKINS Metric joins the ’90s alt-rock semi-stars on the Shiny and

Stay with me, Sam.

MiseRaBLe: With Death Bells, Fearing and Oh So Bright tour. 8/28, 7pm, $32.56$128.56, on sale now. Golden 1 Center, ticketmaster.com.

J. COLE You don’t even have to

leave town to see J. Cole perform, apparently. 9/4, 7:30pm, $64.95apparently $309, on sale now now. Golden 1 Center, ticketmaster.com.

JERRY LEE LEWIS

Goodness gracious, great balls of Jerry Lee Lewis Lewis! 8/31, 7pm,

$42.95-$99.95, on sale now. now

Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, ticketmaster.com.

FOO FIGHTERS Dave

Grohl and the rest will be makin’ music. 9/12, 7:30pm, $82$364, on sale now. SAP Center in San Jose, ticketmaster.com.

Ex-Heir. 8pm, $10-$12. Blue Lamp, 1400 Alhambra Blvd.

TUESDAY, 8/7 LeMURia: With Katie Ellen and DUSK. 7pm, $12$14. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

WoMen & aLLies MUsic niGHT: Take part in this free-form jam session in a comfortable, friendly, safe space for women to express themselves through music. 7pm, no cover. Library of MusicLandria, 2181 6th Ave.

WEDNESDAY, 8/8 GiRaFFes? GiRaFFes!: With Surrounded By Giants, Mylets, Find Yourself and Rex Means King. 6:30pm, $12-$15. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

Mania: It’s Beatles tribute band

season. 6:30pm, no cover. Folsom Palladio, 410 Palladio Parkway in Folsom.

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

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 Maxfield Morris at snrcalendar@newsreview.com.

TeenaGe DiRTBaG: A ’90s house party at the Pr’ub (a shorthand way of writing Press Club). 9pm, no cover. The Press Club, 2030 P St.

YURiDia: Listen to this talented Mexican

singer who specializes in pop and R&B. 7pm, $44.50. Ace Of Spades, 1417 R St.

FESTIVALS SATURDAY, 8/4 a kinG & His PRincess: Fathers and daughters, this is a dance just for you: There’s a fashion show, dinner and games.

Fun fact: I once ran a photo booth at a father-daughter dance. It was pretty OK, I guess. They had cake pops. 4pm, $25$40. AT&T Auditorium, 2700 Watt Ave.

DaYDReaM FesTiVaL: This festival is a two-day affair, featuring music from Destroy Boys, the Shivas and more, as well as food from local “foodists.” It should be a heck of a time with a heck of a lot of art. 2pm, $15$40. Latino Center of Art and Culture, 2700 Front St.

sacRaMenTo aFRican MaRkeTPLace: Spend till you bend at this event featuring a cornucopia of sellers. 12pm, no cover. Sojourner Truth Museum, 2251 Florin Road.

SUNDAY, 8/5 DaYDReaM FesTiVaL: Day two of the festival highlighted above on 8/4. Continue to enjoy music by local artists. 2pm, $15-$40. Latino Center of Art and Culture, 2700 Front St.

TUESDAY, 8/7 ¡PacHanGa! naTionaL niGHT oUT: This festival celebrates the Franklin Boulevard neighborhood with bouncy houses, piñatas and free food. 5pm, no cover. La Esperanza Bakery & Store, 5044 Franklin Blvd.

FOOD & DRINK SATURDAY, 8/4 MiDToWn FaRMeRs MaRkeT: There’s a Midtown farmers market, yes! Drop by to buy some beets, or whatever’s in season right now.

Stone fruits? Tomatoes? Who knows. 8am, no cover. Midtown Farmers Market, 20th Street between J and K.

oFF To THe Races FooD & Wine TasTinG: If you like food and you like drinks, there’s a good chance you also like the instant classic AMC show, Breaking Bad. What a good show. You might also like this event, with food and wine pairings you can vote on to pick the best. 6pm, $40-$50. California Automobile Museum, 2200 Front St.

SUNDAY, 8/5 eL DoRaDo HiLLs FaRMeRs MaRkeT: A farmers market is a market for farmers to sell their produce to consumers. Come buy one carrot—or more! 8am, no cover. El Dorado

Rakim Harlows, 8pm, $27.50-$32.50

When old school hip-hop meets the modern age, it’s basically a listener’s dream: With a Music beat-backed track dropped in Luke Cage, it’s time for a fat dose of Rakim. He dropped PHOtO COurtESy OF FLOWIzM, CC By 2.0 the mic 10 years ago, and it fell like an ex-plumber’s wrench—but with an album in the works and a reunion on the books, he’s not going back to the bench. Get down to Harlow’s as soon as you’re able, because this rap maestro is about to bring it to the table. 2708 J Street, harlows.com.

tuESday, 8/7 AuGusT WiNE sOciAL: As the saying goes: “Don’t cry over spilled wine, but also don’t look gift wine in the mouth.” In that spirit, come and sample a local winery’s wines and have a good meal. 11:30am, $26. Casa Garden, 2760 Sutterville Road.

FILM MONday, 8/6 TOP GuN: Kenny Loggins’ song Danger Zone stars as the iconic melody in this ’80s romp around the sky. Does the U.S. have an enormous military budget? Will Tom Cruise’s team win at beach volleyball? These questions and more will be answered in the re-run of the classic flick about jets and stuff. 7pm, $9. The Tower Theatre, 2508 Land Park Drive.

WEdNESday, 8/8 sPiRiTED AWAY: Finally, the Studio Ghibli Festival is getting to the good stuff. Come and see the hauntingly exquisite work of animation that is Spirited Away. 7pm, $10.50. The Tower Theatre, 2508 Land Park Drive.

COMEdy BLAcKTOP cOMEDY: Rocklin Comedy Jam. Sacramento comedy regular Parker Newman and Eerie Diamond perform at the Rocklin-est comedy show in Rocklin! Through 8/4. $15-$0. 3101 Sunset Blvd., Suite 6A in Rocklin.

LAuGHs uNLiMiTED cOMEDY cLuB: The Love Jones Best Love Poem Competition.

Award-winning poet Terry Moore hosts this competition to find the best love poem. Thursday 8/2, 8:30pm. $10. Ngaio Bealum featuring Aaron Woodall. See some quick wit and hot jokes. Comedy! Through 8/5. $10. 1207 Front St.

PuNcH LiNE:There Goes the Neighborhood.

It’s not entirely clear, but it appears that this show will have local comics talk about gentrifying neighborhoods. Through 8/5. $16. 2100 Arden Way, Suite 225.

sAcRAMENTO cOMEDY sPOT: Squad Patrol.

Take in a sketch comedy show that is, according to the squad, “similar to Saturday Night Live and Key and Peele.”

See if it holds up to that standard for yourself! 8:pm. Through 8/3. $8. 1050 20th St., Suite 130.

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BAcKYARD BROADWAY THEATRE: Rent (Off, off, off Broadway). This free showing of the show about rent is all about giving theater opportunities to those who typically don’t get them, both performers and audience. saturday 8/4, 7:30pm. Backyard Broadway Theatre, location emailed after registration.

cHAuTAuQuA PLAYHOusE: The Mysterious Affair at Styles. One of Agatha Christie’s first novels hits the stage. Like many Christie novels, there is a murder. Will it be solved by the end of the play? Yes. Through 8/19. $20. 5325 Engle Road, #110 in Carmichael.

Music ciRcus AT THE WELLs FARGO PAViLiON: Mamma Mia! See the musical made up of ABBA songs, which some people absolutely love. Through 8/12. call for cover. 1419 H St.

TEATRO EsPEJO: Summer One-Act Festival.

Take in a series of one-act plays this month that explore the theme of historically oppressed and marginalized peoples. Through 8/19. $8-$12. 1723 25th St.

THE iNTERsEcTiON: Street Corner Invitational Slam. Come see the Sacramento slam poets headed to Chicago to compete head-to-head with other word-wizards and mot-maestros. Monday 8/6, 7:30pm. No cover. 35th and Broadway.

WOODLAND OPERA HOusE: Shrek the Musical.

See this adaptation of a movie that’s an adaptation of a book. Hopefully someone makes a documentary about the process of staging this version of the musical. 7:30pm.

Through 8/4. $25. 340 Second St. in Woodland.

WYATT PAViLiON: The Twelve Huntsmen.

Twelve huntsmen each have a story to tell to the Grimm brothers—12 stories? It sounds like kind of a lot when you put it that way. Through 8/12. $10-$12. Corner of Arboretum Drive & Old Davis Road in Davis.

cALENDAR LisTiNGs cONTiNuED ON PAGE 28

08.02.18 | SN&R | 27

see more evenTs anD submiT your own aT newSreview.com/Sacramento/calendar

CaLenDar LisTinGs ConTinueD From PaGe 27

art ParKinG GaraGe: River Crossing Pop-Up. See what the city of West Sacramento has planned for the River Crossing art project. There will be a temporary mural unveiling and all kinds of food and vendors.

Most kinds, anyway. Probably no horse meat. saturday 8/4, 11am. No cover. 422 C St. in West Sacramento

wesT saCramenTo CommuniTy CenTer: Life Gives You Lemons. Lemons are a girl’s best friend, but they’re also a good artistic muse. See the still-life and landscape paintings that pay homage to the venerable citrus fruit. Through 8/28. no cover. 1075 West Capitol Ave. in West Sacramento.

muSeumS CaLiFornia auTomobiLe museum: Story Time at The California Automobile Museum.

You can hear a story anywhere, so why not hear it around a bunch of antique cars? Professional storyteller Delta Pick Mello will be reading Motor Miles by John Burningham. saturday 8/4, noon. no cover. 2200 Front St.

CroCKer arT museum: Collection of Contemporary Ceramics. If you’ve got a love of ceramics, you’ve got a new favorite museum exhibit. See the elegance; taste the artistry. Through 8/5. $10-$12. 216 O St.

BooKS Saturday, 8/4 raisins in miLK: David Covin shares his latest novel, one about a girl named Ruth-Ann Weathering who was born in Florida in 1900. 2pm, no cover. Underground Books, 2814 35th St.

SPortS & outdoorS tHurSday, 8/2 HisToriCaL saCramenTo Cruise: Learn about the Sacramento River while on the Sacramento River—it’s like learning math in a calculator factory! 12pm, $20. Hornblower, 1206 Front St.

Saturday, 8/4 THe DuCK DasH 2018: See event highlight

below. 5pm, $15-$500. Raging Waters, 1600 Exposition Blvd.

lGBtQ tHurSday, 8/2 DraG Queen binGo beneFiTinG PFLaG: It’s drag queen bingo! It benefits the organization Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays, and offers tickets to Mamma Mia! and more as prizes! 7pm, $15. Mango’s Sacramento, 1930 K St.

wedneSday, 8/8 THe oTHer miC: This open-mic is designed to give a soapbox to folks who don’t have lots of spaces for that. It’s an inclusive night with priority sign-ups for queer and trans folks, women and people of color. 7pm, no cover. Lavendar Library, 1414 21st St.

taKe action tHurSday, 8/2 reaCH ouT; sPeaK uP: An evening of open conversation about suicide and suicide prevention. Come and lend a caring ear and open arms. 6:30pm, no cover. Uptown Studios, 2415 23rd St.

Saturday, 8/4 Free braKe LiGHT rePairs: See event highlight on page 26. 11am, no cover. African Marketplace, 2251 Florin Road.

Saturday, 8/4

The Duck Dash Raging WateRs, 2pm, $15-$500

As the largest water-park-hosted charity rubber duck race in the Sacramento area, the Duck Dash FesTivaLs is a unique event. At 5 p.m., thousands of floating yellow ducks will bob and duck, vying for first place as they amble down a man-made river.

Each duck adoption comes with entry to Raging Waters, and proceeds benefit UC Davis Children’s Hospital and the Sutter Children’s Center. So run, don’t waddle, to the Duck Dash. 1600 Exposition Boulevard, theduckdash.com.

PHoto courteSy oF tHe ducK daSH

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submIt your calendar lIstIngs for free at newsrevIew.com/sacramento/calendar Badlands

2003 k sT., (916) 448-8790

THursDay 8/2

frIDay 8/3

saTurDay 8/4

suNDay 8/5

mONDay-WeDNesDay 8/6-8/8

Poprockz 90s Night, 7pm, call for cover

Fierce Fridays, 7pm, call for cover

Spectacular Saturdays, 7pm, call for cover

B.P.M. & Sunday Funday Remixed, 4pm, call for cover

Karaoke Night, 9pm, T, call for cover; Trapicana, 10pm, W, call for cover

Working Man Blues Band, 9:30pm, call for cover

Smith and Tegio, 9:30pm, call for cover

SambaDá, 8pm, call for cover

J Diggs, Kelly Cole, Da’unda’dogg and more, 9pm, $10-$15

Summer's Over Showcase, 1pm, $10-$12

Boots on the Boardwalk, 8pm, $6

In Angles, Floral, the Seafloor Cinema and Leaph, 7:30pm, T, $10

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

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

Geeks Who Drink, 8:30pm, W, no cover

BaR 101

101 maIN sT., rOsevIlle, (916) 774-0505

Blue lamp

1400 alHambra blvD., (916) 455-3400

The Body, Lingua Ignota, Reptoid and Protofrustration, 8pm, $10-$12

The BoaRdwalk

9426 GreeNbaCk lN., OraNGevale, (916) 358-9116

CapiTol GaRaGe

1500 k sT., (916) 444-3633

CResT TheaTRe PHOTO COurTesy Of Jay blakesberG

tajmo

1013 k sT., (916) 476-3356

Taj Mahal, Keb and Alicia Michilli, 7:30pm, Pink Floyd: The Wall, 7:30pm, $7.50$69-$179. $9.50

FaCes

Faces Karaoke, 9pm, call for cover

Absolut Fridays, 9pm, call for cover

FaTheR paddY’s iRish puBliC house

Andrew Little, 6pm, call for cover

Cuttin the Cord, 7pm, call for cover

Mike Blanchard and the Californios, 7pm, call for cover

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

Kevin & Allyson Seconds, 9pm, $5

Spacewalker, Temple Kirk, Killer Couture and Finley, 9pm, $5

Tooth and Leap Year, 10pm, call for cover

Paul Gordon, 4:30pm, no cover

2000 k sT., (916) 448-7798

with Alicia Michilli 7:30pm Thursday, $69-$179 Crest Theatre Blues

435 maIN sT., WOODlaND, (530) 668-1044

Fox & Goose

1001 r sT., (916) 443-8825

The Golden BeaR

2326 k sT., (916) 441-2242

GoldField TRadinG posT 1630 J sT., (916) 476-5076

Hellbound Glory, 8pm, $5-$10

halFTime BaR & GRill

5681 lONeTree blvD., rOCklIN, (916) 626-3600

River Whyless, 7:30pm, M, $15-$18

Aaron Gayden Band, 9pm, call for cover

Let’s Get Quizzical, 7pm, T, no cover; Bingo, 7pm, W, $10

hiGhwaTeR

Highwater Friday Nights with Joseph One, 10pm, $5

HOF Saturdays, 9pm, $5

The Trivia Factory, 7pm, M, no cover; Geeks Who Drink, 6pm, T, no cover

Emo Nite, 9pm, $12-$15

Katastro, Two Peace, Tyrone's Jacket and Aloha Radio, 7pm, $13-$15

1517 21sT sT.

Foo Tube, 7pm, $5

kupRos

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

luna’s CaFe & JuiCe BaR 1414 16TH sT., (916) 737-5770

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Harris Rudman, Nate Curry, DJ Hotspot, Brian Lentz and More, 7pm, $10-$40

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For more cannabis news, deals & updates visit capitalcannabisguide.com

Me thinks you’re poor see Ask 420

33

The Mynt dispensary thrives in the shadows of Reno’s downtown casinos.

Photo by Ken Magri

hello, neighbors In Oregon and Nevada, buying cannabis is about the ‘little differences’

By Ken Magri

When i visit dispensaries in oregon or Nevada, that quote from Pulp Fiction comes to mind.

“It’s the little differences,” John Travolta’s character says, describing Europe. “They got the same shit over there that we have over here. It’s just that there, it’s a little different.”

On a recent vacation, a friend and I visited several dispensaries in Oregon and Nevada. While California fine-tunes its emergency cannabis regulations, our neighbors are ahead of us on adult-use sales. Since legalization passed in both states they’ve made adjustments, resulting in smoother operations and higher tax revenues.

Now, can California learn from Oregon and Nevada?

Some of the differences are obvious. At Eugene’s Sweet Tree Farms dispensary, for example, we noticed 30

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there was no security guard nor waiting area. As we strolled into a spacious showroom, we approached the counter and peered into the glass cases.

“This is the medical counter, guys,” the budtender told us. “The recreational side is over there.”

Oregon changed its retail laws last year. After first separating medical and recreational cannabis, dispensaries can now sell both—and most do.

“We’re from California. Where are your security guards?” I asked the budtender. He laughed, but didn’t know.

The security differences are the result of each state’s various legal requirements. While California regulations are specific, mandating door locks and guards, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission only asks dispensaries to offer “a security plan” that can be approved.

“You’re selling half-gram vape cartridges for $45? That’s expensive,” I said. “Look over here, my friend,” our budtender answered.

“Here is a pure distillate cartridge and it tastes great, for $30.”

I bought the cheaper cartridge and a three-pack of Rogue River Valley half-gram pre-rolls.

“Is my California medical ID good here?” I asked. The budtender said no, but pointed out that the price difference for the joints was only $2.

Oregon’s medical cards cost $200 annually—twice California’s rate.

MJ the AphrodisiAc? see GoAtkidd

37

Many patients can’t use enough cannabis to justify the expense. As such, some have let their prescriptions lapse and switch over to recreational cannabis for the savings. As in California, medical marijuana status here increasingly means less and medical-only dispensaries are quickly vanishing.

Pulling out of Eugene I asked my friend, “Did that budtender ever ask for our driver’s licenses?” “No,” he said. “My surprise was that we were not ID’d.”

Oregon and Nevada only require proof that customers are at least 21, and that’s never a problem for babyboomers like us.

Oregon kept micro-businesses in mind when finalizing its laws.

Retail license fees top-off at $4,700, compared to California’s fees, which range between $5,000-$72,000. The lower threshold enables small businesses to join the green rush, like Canna Royal dispensary in Veneta.

We stopped for concentrates and, once again, found no security guard, no waiting room and nobody who wanted to see an identification.

Nevada went legal with retail sales in July of 2017, six months earlier than expected. Reports came in quickly about inventory issues and long lines of curious customers.

“Those stories were mostly mediadriven,” said Emma, our budtender at The Dispensary NV in Reno.

She explained that their store remained fully stocked during that crucial start by coordinating distribution with sister stores in southern Nevada.

The long lines, however, were an issue throughout the state a year ago.

Then, we flashed our California prescriptions and went straight in after filling out a form.

This year, recreational customers

Whether Oregon has the best cannabis or not, it certainly offers the best prices.

“hello, neiGhbors” continued on pAGe 33

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08.02.18 | SN&R | 31

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32 | SN&R | 08.02.18

By comparison, both of our neighbor states have lower cannabis taxes. Oregon set its rate at 17 percent, allowing local walked straight past us at Silver State governments to add another 3 percent, for a Relief in Sparks, while we filled out medimaximum of 20 percent, with no state sales cal forms. Time-consuming, but it saved us tax. It collected $73 million in its first year. from Nevada’s 8.25 percent sales tax. With Nevada cultivators pay 15 percent on their senior and first-time discounts added on, wholesale products, and retail customers we saved even more. pay an additional 10 percent tax, for a total Nestled in the shadow of Harrah’s Hotel of 25 percent. & Casino, tourists frequent downtown Federal law prohibits cannabis from Reno’s Mynt Cannabis dispensary more being transported across state lines, so than any other dispensary, and the prices when purchasing in Oregon, you are buying reflect that. Our budtender Jovan didn’t Oregon weed. Even if a box of pre-rolls in apologize for the $50 cost on a half-gram Nevada is called “California Finest,” the of Virtue LV’s Snake Eyes. He just said we small print reminds you it was “manufacwouldn’t be disappointed. tured in Nevada.”

Dispensaries in Reno, Sparks and Naturally, we were curious about Carson City display smartly appointed quality from one state to the other. The interiors, and the budtenders know their three Rogue River joints we bought were products. All product labels list potency, surprisingly good. The half-gram size was terpenes, the harvest date, the test date, the more convenient and the quality made us packaging date, a lot number and your own go back and buy more. The distillate vape name. cartridge didn’t taste that great, however.

It can seem a little overwhelming, The concentrate purchased in Veneta was but it’s proven effective. Cannabis sales strong and stoney. With a sweet flavor generated more than $50 million in tax and the perfect texture for crumbling over revenues for the state in its first fiscal a pipe bowl, it was our best buy at $34 a year. gram. Whether Oregon has the best canna“Our first year of adultbis or not, it certainly offers the best use sales has gone very prices. smoothly,” said What do our neighbors In Stephanie Klapstein admire about us? Oregon of the Nevada California’s wants to host legal Department of on-site consumpfirst six months of Taxation. “We tion events like attribute much of legalization, it collected Sacramento’s recent our success … to High Times Cannabis fewer taxes than the fact that our Cup. A bill working medical program predicted, despite its way through the already had in legislature would allow whopping tax place solid, wellthe OLCC to authorize written regulations rates. them. Nevada already that we were able to allows big events, but many build on.” want to find a daily-use option for In California’s first six tourists. A new ordinance written by Las months of legalization, it collected fewer Vegas Councilman Bob Coffin would allow taxes than predicted, despite whopping tax commercial cannabis lounges inside city rates. High license fees and over-regulation limits, but hasn’t passed yet. kept small businesses out. Mandated labAfter our vacation, my friend and I testing forced the liquidation of untested concluded that Oregon is more convenient products at bargain prices. That caused a lull with better prices, and Nevada has more in dispensary traffic, followed by shortages thoughtfully designed dispensaries. Each and a statewide spike in prices. state’s little differences made for a better California starts with a grower’s tax of buying experience. Still, due to its sheer $9.25 per ounce, as well as a 15 percent abundance, California continues to sell the excise tax. After that, local governments finest cannabis— while offering far more add their own cannabis taxes in varying choices. amounts. Now, add state and city sales If the Golden State ever learns to taxes, and the total tax passed along to combine our neighbors’ best practices customers is often over 50 percent of the with the quality of Cali-grown pot, our purchase price. Bills to lower the excise tax dispensaries will become the gold standard have been introduced but are struggling in by which others are measured. Ω the legislature. “hello, neighbors” continued from page 30

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Couch rock I’m curious: Would you classify weed as an aphrodisiac? I think I know the answer, but conversely, do you feel it contributes to sexual dysfunction?

—Natty Nice

This is the first I have ever heard of weed being the cause of sexual dysfunction. Most folks say that cannabis makes sex a little more or even a lot more fun. Hell, you can find cannabis-infused lubes in your local dispensary (Velvet Swing is my favorite one, BTW). Studies show that folks who smoke weed every day have more sex than folks who don’t smoke weed at all, so I would say that while whiskey dick is real, weed dick is not. However, some studies show that dudes who smoke a lot of weed may experience difficulties in reaching orgasm; while they have no problems getting it up, they can have problems getting it off. But I’m guessing that for some of y’all, being able to last a little longer is most likely a bonus. If you are dating a stoner that can’t or won’t give it to you on the regular, it may be time to have a talk. After all, why would you want couch lock when you could make the couch rock?

I got a question: Does eating vaped weed get you high because it’s already been decarbed?

—BeN

What? Are you just eating your leftover weed? Even if the cops aren’t knocking on the door? Weirdo.

I mean, weed that has been vaped does still have some THC left, but probably not enough to get you high if you ate it. You would have to eat a

W e’r e O P e N

lot of it. Like a whole lot of it. Like so much you would probably get sick before you got high. You would be better served by making a cannabisinfused butter oil rather than just chomping a handful of buds. Good luck.

Have you ever heard of people making cannabutter from stems, or should I just do the whole flower?

I’ve never done it, and I’ve heard some friends say they do one or the other.

What should I do?

—twiggy

Why in the world would you make butter with sticks and stems if you have weed in your vicinity? Sticks and stems do contain THC, but in very, very small amounts. You would need all the stems from a whole tree just to create a decent butter. Plus, you have to break the stems down into very small pieces, and it’s a giant pain in the grass. If you really want to find something to do with your leftover sticks and whatnot, you can use them in an alcohol based tincture (soak them in a vat full of grain alcohol like Everclear for a few weeks) or use them in your stovetop smoker to make a nice weed-smoked duck breast.

The smoke won’t really add any THC to the duck, but you will get a nice hint of Trainwreck of whatever strain you use. Have fun. Eat well. Ω

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If the situation were reversed, would you want your girlfriend to lie by omission, that is to withhold her act of spying on your text messages? It’s possible that telling her what you know about her and her ex might spark a breakup. But not telling her means secrets persist between the two of you.

So while she’s secretly seeking solace from her ex, you are secretly witnessing their emotional affair. As long as she turns to him for insight and comfort, it will be difficult to heal the rift in your connection to her.

Her ex gives her something she doesn’t get from you. She gets to be right. Would it be possible for her to be right in your disagreements and for you to also be right? In other words, find a way to talk together about problems without making one of you wrong. It’s an easy first step in shifting the energy of your arguments away from conflict and toward a healthy and loving resolution. Ω

She wants to be financially compensated for parenting her son, a task she completed decades ago.

My girlfriend and I hit a rough spot.

We argue constantly but want to stay together, or that’s what I thought. Last night, I happened to read text messages between her and her ex. She told him all about our fights. He takes her side, and makes me out to be an ass. In the text, she said she missed him. How do I talk to her about this without her knowing that I saw the text messages?

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Who are you in the story of a conflict: victim, rescuer or persecutor? Why not become a creator, challenger or coach instead?

Write, email or leave a message for Joey at the News & Review. Give your name, telephone number (for verification purposes only) and question—all correspondence will be kept strictly confidential.

Write Joey, 1124 Del Paso Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 95815; call (916) 498-1234, ext. 1360; or email askjoey@newsreview.com.

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My husband received an unexpected inheritance from his estranged father, and my mother-in-law is demanding he use it to financially support her. She divorced my husband’s father 30 years ago but is guilt-tripping my husband because she was a single mother. We have three children in private school, a mortgage we can barely afford and a van that’s on its last legs. When we received notice of the inheritance, my husband and I felt lighthearted like back when we were first married. She’s stressing him out.

I’ve been silent, feeling like this is my husband’s decision, but I’m fuming. Advice?

Find your voice and use it. If you and your husband have made financial decisions jointly, why change now? To think that the money belongs solely to your husband is to focus on the past, not the present. Have you noticed that your mother-in-law shares your preference for looking backward? She wants to be financially compensated for parenting her son, a task she completed decades ago. If you and your husband keep body, mind and spirit in the present moment, it’s easier to arrive at a smart decision about the inheritance.

One solution is to divvy up the funds as needed for your family—six months or more of emergency savings, mortgage refinance, new vehicle, college funds for the kids, a vacation—and then set aside a one-time-only monetary gift for your mother-in-law. It’s unlikely that she will be pleased, but making her happy is not your job. Your work is to ease the tension around the inheritance so you and your man can feel lighthearted and carefree again.

Go ahead. Ask her.

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How do you keep an idiot in suspense?

42 | SN&R | 08.02.18

Free will astrology

by Faith Lewis

by ROb bRezsny

For the week oF August 2, 2018 ARIES (March 21-April 19): I predict that August

will be a Golden Age for you. That’s mostly very good. Golden opportunities will arise, and you’ll come into possession of lead that can be transmuted into gold. But it’s also important to be prudent about your dealings with gold. Consider the fable of the golden goose. The bird’s owner grew impatient because it laid one gold egg per day; he slaughtered his prize animal to get all the gold immediately. That didn’t work out.

Consider the fact that to the ancient Aztecs, the word teocuitlatl referred to gold, even though its translation was “excrement of the gods.”

Moral of the story: If handled with care and integrity, gold can be a blessing.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus socialite

Stephen Tennant (1906-1987) was such an interesting luminary that three major novelists created fictional characters modeled after him. As a boy, he was asked what he’d like to be when he grew up, he replied, “I want to be a great beauty.” I’d love to hear those words spill out of your mouth, Taurus. What? You say you’re already all grown up? I doubt it. In my opinion, you’ve still got a lot of stretching and expansion and transformation to accomplish during the coming decades. I hope you can find it in your wild heart to proclaim, “When I grow up, I want to be a great beauty.” (P.S. Your ability to become increasingly beautiful will be at a peak during the next 14 months.)

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “Manage with bread

and butter until God sends the honey,” advises a Moroccan proverb. Let’s analyze how this advice might apply to you. First thing I want to know is, have you been managing well with bread and butter? Have you refrained from whining about your simple provisions, resting content and grateful? If you haven’t, I doubt that any honey will arrive. But if you have been celebrating your modest gifts, feeling free of greed and displeasure, then I expect at least some honey will show up soon.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Don’t worry your

beautiful head about praying to the gods of luck and fate. Your job is to propitiate the gods of fluid discipline and hard but smart work. To win the favor of these divine helpers, act on the assumption that you now have the power and the right to ask for more of their assistance than you have before. Proceed with the understanding that they are willing to provide you with the stamina, persistence and attention to detail you will need to accomplish your next breakthrough.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Sometimes, I feel the past

and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.”

A character named Julia says that in Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited. I bring it to your attention as an inspiring irritant to get you motivated. I hope it will mobilize you to rise up and refuse to allow your past and your future to press so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present. It’s a favorable time for you to fully claim the glory of being right here, right now.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I’m not an ascetic who

believes all our valuable lessons emerge from suffering. Nor am I a pop-nihilist who sneers at pretty flowers, smiling children and sunny days.

On the contrary: I’m devoted to the hypothesis that life is usually at least 51 percent wonderful.

But I dance the rain dance when there’s an emotional drought in my personal life, and I dance the pain dance when it’s time to deal with difficulties I’ve ignored. How about you, Virgo?

I suspect that now is one of those times when you need to have compassionate heart-toheart conversations with your fears, struggles and aches.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Do you absolutely need

orchids, sweet elixirs, sensual massages, nine hours of sleep per night and a steady stream of soulful conversations? Not really. In the coming days, life will be a good ride for you even if you fail to procure those indulgences. But here are

further questions and answers: Do you deserve the orchids, elixirs and the rest? My answer is yes, definitely. Would the arrival of these delights spur you to come up with imaginative solutions to your riddles? I’m pretty sure it would. So I conclude this horoscope by recommending that you do indeed arrange to revel in your equivalent of the delights I named.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Don’t try to steer

the river,” writes Deepak Chopra. Most of the time, I agree with that idea. It’s arrogant to think that we have the power to control the forces of nature or the flow of destiny or the song of creation. Our goal should be to get an intuitive read on the miracle of life, and adapt ourselves ingeniously to its ever-shifting patterns. But wait! Set aside everything I just said. An exception to the usual rule has arrived. Sometimes, when your personal power is extra flexible and robust—like now—you may indeed be able to steer the river a bit.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Dear Astrologer: Recently I’ve been weirdly obsessed with wondering how to increase my levels of generosity and compassion. Not just because I know it’s the right thing to do, but also because I know it will make me healthy and honest and unflappable. Do you have any sage advice?— Ambitious Sagittarius.” Dear Ambitious: I’ve noticed that many Sagittarians are feeling an unprecedented curiosity about how to enhance their lives by boosting the benevolence they express. Here’s a tip from astrologer Chani Nicholas: “Source your sense of self from your integrity in every interaction.”

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Time does not

necessarily heal all wounds. If you wait around passively, hoping that the mere passage of months will magically fix your twists and smooth out your tweaks, you’re shirking your responsibility. The truth is, you need to be fully engaged in the process. You’ve got to feel deeply and think hard about how to diminish your pain, and then take practical action when your wisdom shows you what will actually work. Now is an excellent time to upgrade your commitment to this sacred quest.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The questions you’ve been asking aren’t bad or wrong. But they’re not exactly relevant or helpful, either. That’s why the answers you’ve been receiving aren’t of maximum use. Try these questions instead.

1. What experience or information would you need to heal your divided sense of loyalty? 2.

How can you attract an influence that would motivate you to make changes you can’t quite accomplish under your own power? 3. Can you ignore or even dismiss the 95 percent of your fear that’s imaginary so you’ll be able to focus on the 5 percent that’s truly worth meditating on? 4. If I assured you that you have the intelligence to beautify an ugly part of your world, how would you begin?

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A scuffle you’ve been waging turns out to be the wrong scuffle. It has distracted you from giving your full attention to a more winnable and worthwhile tussle. My advice? Don’t waste energy feeling remorse about the energy you’ve wasted. In fact, be grateful for the training you’ve received. The skills you’ve been honing while wrestling with the misleading complication will serve you well when you switch your focus to the more important issue. So are you ready to shift gears?

Start mobilizing your crusade to engage with the more winnable and worthwhile tussle.

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 realastrology.com.

A director’s friend

Before lights, camera, action, the first thing Sacramento directors call for is sally Forcier. For the last 19 years, Forcier has been an active casting director, helping to find talent for local commercials, game shows and feature-length films. SN&R sat down with Forcier to discuss Sacramento’s unique theater and cinema culture, her recent casting projects with films Notorious Nick and Ballbuster, and she even lends some sound advice for aspiring talent.

what does the casting process typically look like from beginning to end?

Typically? That’s the key word right there!

The production company or ad agency knows what their needs are for principle actors or extras and provide me with the list. So I’ll put a casting call out, and that is first and foremost for our registered talent.

Those who register with us get first dibs because then we have our database with their profile and headshot. And then when needed, we go to social media. Sometimes I’ll even have coverage from news stations when it’s a bigger project.

At that point, the actors come in for speaking parts and audition for that. The director and producers get the final cut of our chosen talent, whoever fits the role, and they tell us who they want to call back or, more often, [it’s] a direct booking. For the extras, we cast directly off of the breakdown that they provide [for] age, gender and ethnicity.

Do you work with actors and actresses from all over or mostly local talent?

All over, especially in the last year-and-a-half because I’ve been co-producing and just wrapped my third feature film and one [Screen Actors Guild] short. So those projects I would cast some from [Los Angeles].

But my passion is local talent, so I always try to fill that role first. For a local casting, like mom-and-pop local commercials, they’re 100 percent from the Sacramento area.

tell me a little bit about your recent projects Notorious Nick and Ballbuster.

Notorious Nick was such a great experience because it’s a beautiful story about a boy against all obstacles overcoming being a lefthand amputee, pursuing his dream in [mixed martial arts] and becoming a champion. We went from an inspirational, dramatic movie to an over-the-top, raunchy, hard-R comedy.

Being the first movie to film at the Golden 1 Center, having legends like Grant Napear and Jerry Reynolds be cast members in our

PHOTO © MARC kALLwEIT

movie, a stunt that pulled a stunt guy all the way up to the ceiling—there were so many moments that stand out from Ballbuster. It was supper funny and silly, and it was fun making a comedy because you were laughing every single day.

when scarlett Johansson was cast as the transgender lead in the upcoming film rub & tug, it sparked a discussion about how appropriate it is for actors and actresses to be cast in roles where they haven’t experienced the plights of the character. what are your thoughts?

You know, they’re professional actors. I don’t know the story, but the lead has to carry the entire film. So much is riding on the lead actors. My opinion is that it’s about putting somebody super talented in there.

And, of course, it’s about marketing and how many butts she’s going to get in seats because of her name, but when you look at the quality of the acting, that’s what carries the film. You can have the best director, cinematographers, amazing location and have $26 million in this film, yet have a real transgender person who isn’t a good actor, but yet has lived this experience, then you’re going to fail.

what is unique about theater and film in sacramento?

Sacramento film and theater have grown so much in the last four or five years because it is a tight industry. The community here is very passionate about their craft, and that helps me in my job when a production

shoots here because I have viable options instead of hiring everybody from San Francisco.

the release of Lady Bird in December of last year seemed to have sparked a lot of pride in sacramento’s theater and cinema culture. what are your thoughts on the film and the effect it had here?

I’m very proud of Greta Gerwig and what she did with that. She put Sacramento on the map because she gave Sacramento a lot of love, as if it’s the hero, and she did not have to do that to make that film. It had a huge impact on the film community. It’s not like we didn’t have a community before then, but what it’s done is made everybody so much more aware. They just passed a vote for getting a full-time film commissioner in Sacramento, which has been needed for 20 years. It’s epic for our film community.

what advice do you have for aspiring actors and actresses?

Never stop learning. People have to remember what comes first. When people stop training, they stop growing. Even your most seasoned actors still work with a coach. I worked with Elizabeth Röhm on both Notorious Nick and Ballbuster and it was great watching her take the script and call her coach. And this woman has done Joy. She was in American Hustle, NCIS, Law & Order. She’s incredibly talented, but she always calls her coach and they go through scene by scene. Ω

08.02.18 | sN&r | 43