s-2018-12-27

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The Top

under-reporTed sTories of 2018

by paul erg b n e s o r

proj ect

d e r o ns

ce

Sacramento’S newS & entertainment weekly

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Volume 30, iSSue 37

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thurSday, december 27, 2018

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Editor’s notE

dEcEmbEr 27, 2018 | Vol. 30, issuE 37

23 January F ebruary

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Life isn’t always a Hallmark movie True confession: During the holidays, I sometimes binge Hallmark channel Christmas movies.

They are two-hour cable TV versions of greeting cards— heartwarming or sappy, depending on your point of view.

They feature a rotating cast of the same actors. Many of the plots are very similar: Big-city executive visits picture-postcard small town just before Christmas and meets local man or woman. Or the main character returns home and runs into an old flame.

Either way, the couple doesn’t hit it off right away. But as they go to Christmas tree lightings, decorate gingerbread houses and ice skate, they fall for each other. There’s an interrupted first kiss, then a crisis— another suitor, or a great job back in the city. But after the last commercial break, everything is tied up in a neat bow. True love prevails.

Not exactly avant-garde cinema, but the ratings are high enough that 37 new Hallmark Christmas movies will air this holiday season, a record.

The movies give you that warm holiday glow. But they also remind us of all those whose lives aren’t so storybook.

This year, a special mention should go to the families who are trying to recover from the Camp Fire. The North Valley Community Foundation (nvcf.org) is coordinating the relief effort.

Maybe if we get into the holiday spirit, we can create some happy endings in real life.

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IllustratIon by MarIa ratInova

What the bones say Arrest in Placer County murder made with luck, determination and a story told through skeletal remains

by Scott thomaS anderSon sc o tta @ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

The hikers stopped when they saw the skeleton splayed out along the manzanita and scrub brush. It was weather-beaten.

A cervical vertebra was missing from the base of the skull, along with a piece of its sternum and its entire left hand and fingers. But the tattered pants, sweater and bra loosely clinging to the bones left no doubt about what the hikers were staring at.

It was January 27. The hikers were standing in an upper tree line above Forrest Hill Road in Placer County.

Sheriff’s deputies soon moved up the 6

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weedy hillside toward the discovery.

They found no wallet to help identify the remains, no personal items that offered the slightest clue. There was no missing person case that matched. Worse yet, what was left of the body was too degraded to spot signs of trauma and its decomposed organs rendered a toxicology test moot.

The mystery of the remains might have gone unsolved if not for the fact that, of the 120 Placer County sheriff’s deputies who could have been working that shift, one was John Tannarome. The

veteran looked at the stretch of Forrest Hill Road and remembered a bizarre call he’d been dispatched to nearly four months earlier. It was a suspicious person report, but it hadn’t resulted in an arrest. It hadn’t even resulted in deputies finding the person.

Yet, measuring how close the bones were to that area of roadside, Tannarome mentioned the incident to homicide detectives once they arrived. His decision led investigators to probe yet another coincidence—one that would eventually bring them to a tow yard in the woods,

then the Vietnamese consulate, then the doorstep of the man they’d arrest on charges of first-degree murder.

It was pitch black in the remote, empty bluffs east of Auburn.

One thing witnesses remembered about that early morning on October 11, 2017, was that there wasn’t even moonlight over the scattered oaks and firs.

On a rural bend in Forrest Hill Road, miles from the nearest town, a man was trying to push a Toyota Camry off an embankment. It was just after 2 a.m. The man was disheveled, dressed in nightclub attire and drenched in sweat. Inching the car toward a shadowed ledge, the figure was suddenly caught in high-beams from an SUV turning the corner.

Gustavus Youngberg was behind the wheel, driving his wife, mother-in-law and niece back into high country from the airport. But Youngberg wasn’t just any motorist; he was an off-duty Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy. A stranger pushing a car through toward a drop-off was something that caused Youngberg to slow down.

Brown’s Advice To GAvin see news

08

is iT A weTlAnd or noT? see news

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crAzY TrAin “I didn’t want to get too close, but my wife is saying, ‘He might be hurt, he might be hurt, there might be someone in the car, so we have to stop,’” Youngberg testified at a November 28 court hearing.

About the time Youngberg lowered his window, the Camry went over the embankment, vanishing into the predawn veil.

“I say, ‘Hey, are you alright?’”

Youngberg recalled on the witness stand. “He was telling me, ‘Oh, I’m fine.’ Then he referenced, ‘We’re fine.’

My wife said, ‘There’s someone in the car? Are they okay?’ … He kept saying, ‘She’s fine,’ and made it clear he did not want us there.”

Youngberg described for the court how alarm bells went off in his head.

He was hesitant to get out because his family was with him. He also didn’t have phone reception or his gun.

Youngberg decided to drive up the road until he found a spot where he could call the Placer County Sheriff’s Office.

The deputy sent to investigate was Tannarome. He found the Camry crashed into a cattle gate at the bottom of a 40-foot slope. There were no keys in the ignition, nor anyone inside. What the deputy had in front of him was a vehicle dump. He turned the call over to the California Highway Patrol, which dispatched an officer, who examined some items inside the car before having it hauled off to a local tow yard.

Sixteen weeks later, homicide detectives Bryan Mattison and Chris Joyce contacted the CHP wanting to know exactly what its officer had found inside the car.

The frail remains were lifted out of a white body bag and placed into a tank crawling with dermestid beetles. Under the watchful eye of Dr. Ashley Kendall, the insects began slowly eating away the corpse’s dried, remaining flesh.

Kendall is part of a team of forensic anthropologists working at Chico State University’s human identification lab.

In 2013, one of her colleagues helped Roseville police detectives solve a difficult cold case that involved a 19-yearold who was murdered by roving band of train-hoppers. (Read “Blood on the tracks,” Feature, October 5, 2017.)

Kendall and her team are recognized by the FBI as top experts at interpreting skeletal remains. Court filings show Kendall was able to estimate that the

bones belonged to a female of Asian fall 2017. Prosecutors contend Abeyta ancestry between the ages of 18 and 27 started an affair with a young woman he whose body had been decomposing in met at a Roseville bar and began telling the woods for two to five months. friends he wanted a divorce.

The same week that Kendall exam“Tran did not want a divorce and she ined the bones, Mattison and Joyce threatened to turn him over to immigratracked down the abandoned Camry. tion authorities for a sham marriage,” They’d learned from the CHP’s initial Deputy District Attorney Marian Baxley report that a laptop computer, an interwrote in her filings. national passport and a lady’s purse had During Abeyta’s recent evidentiary been inside when the car was hauled hearing, Mattison testified that accordfrom the scene. ing to cellular and GPS data, Abeyta’s At Forrest Hill Towing, phone and Tran’s phone were in an employee told the close proximity to each other detectives that the day on October 11, 2017—the after the car was last time Tran’s phone impounded, a man was ever used and showed up claiming the last time her to be its owner and husband’s friends removed several saw her alive. items.

That was the The car had same morning that been left so long it Youngberg spotted alleged Facebook message was handed over to the man he identified from the suspect local firefighters for as Abeyta pushing his “jaws of life” training. car off the ledge.

Fortunately, the Camry Mattison recounted that, hadn’t been chopped up when after learning from Abeyta’s detectives found it. friends that he’d allegedly made “We could see the passport in the comments about feeling sick from back seat of the car,” Mattison testified, “dragging a body,” he sought a warrant but the laptop and woman’s purse that for the suspect’s Facebook account. In the CHP had logged were nowhere to court, Mattison read a private message be found.

Abeyta allegedly sent a male friend on The passport belonged to Trang December 12, 2017: “You were mean Tran, a 22-year-old Vietnamese national when younger, but not evil. I’m an evil who had attended college in Florida. fuck. I’ve ended someone before.”

Her description was a spot-on match The DA’s office has acknowledged for what Kendall had seen in the the pathologist can’t determine the bones. Mattison and Joyce drove to the exact cause of Tran’s death. Abeyta’s Vietnamese consulate in San Francisco attorney, Brad Whatcott, has said to see if it had the fingerprints associhe does have arguments against the ated with Tran’s passport. Though the prosecution’s case, though he’s saving skeleton was missing its left hand, them for a potential trial. That trial enough skin remained on its right became all but a certainty on November fingers to get a print.

29, when Placer Superior Court Judge There was no longer any doubt about Michael Jones ruled there was enough who the dead woman was. Mattison evidence to proceed with first-degree testified there wasn’t any doubt about murder charges. who owned the abandoned Camry “A trial requires proof beyond a either: 28-year-old Michael Abeyta. reasonable doubt,” Jones explained to Abeyta. “At a preliminary examination, According to filings from the Placer the people need to present evidence County district attorney’s office, a that would lead a magistrate to find that lengthy investigation revealed that there’s sufficient cause that a crime was Abeyta and Tran met in Florida, committed, and that you are the person embarked on a cross-country road who in all likelihood committed that trip together and then stopped in Las crime.”

Vegas to get married. Detectives found The judge then made it clear that, via evidence Tran may have been pregnant, a confluence of unlikely events, that’s but she wasn’t when the couple settled exactly what just happened. Ω into an apartment in Citrus Heights in

“I’ve ended someone before.”

Just days before Jerry’s Brown’s proposed Delta twin tunnels were put on indefinite hold, the outgoing governor’s other legacy project, high-speed rail, came under withering fire from the California State Auditor and members of two legislative committees.

The recent state auditor’s report determined that flawed decision-making and poor contract management by the California High Speed Rail Authority has led to billions in cost overruns.

The project currently only has $12.7 billion of secured funding, though the estimated price tag for its line from Los Angeles to San Francisco is now $77 billion.

On November 29, the state auditor and rail authority leaders appeared before a joint meeting of the Legislative Audit Committee and Assembly Transportation Committee.

Assemblyman Jim Patterson, who represents the Fresno area where the rail authority is currently building tracks, was especially critical of project officials.

“To date we have spent billions of dollars putting up concrete that’s going to run a rump railroad from just outside Madera to just outside of Bakersfield,” Patterson said. “The audit demonstrates that this project is, in fact, collapsing.”

Tom Richard, vice chairman of the rail authority’s board of directors, defended the decision to break ground without having a master plan to acquire land across the state. He said the move brought badly needed jobs to the central valley at the height of the recession.

“We believed the benefits of putting people back to work at a time of high unemployment outweighed the risks of additional costs that might be incurred,” Richard testified.

Patterson had a quick response, saying, “What I hear in that is a defense of what our auditor says is indefensible.” (Scott Thomas Anderson)

uncheckinG The Box John Lindsay didn’t quite leave American River College with a fresh start, but he headed home hopeful.

“If you want something different, you’ve got to do something different,” he said.

The 54-year-old knows what it means to change. He spent about 20 years in and out of prison for crimes stemming from his addiction. As he approaches 12 years of “no chaos and drama” through his sobriety, he said, Lindsay went to ARC for help with his new goal: to have his criminal record cleared or reduced.

Lindsay was one of about 30 people who attended a Saturday morning expungement clinic in early December. Organized by the community college’s legal assistance program, the ongoing clinics match attendees with volunteer attorneys who can walk them through the application process. The clinics are open to students and staff, as well as anyone unconnected to the college with one or more California convictions. They just need to bring a printed copy of their rap sheet, or criminal record.

Asha Wilkerson, a legal assisting professor, believes the expungement clinics at ARC are the only free ongoing clinics in sacramento.

The Voluntary Legal Services Program of Northern California used to host expungement clinics Tuesday through Thursday in Sacramento, but those ended in July. The VLSP website cites changes in funding requirements as the reason for ending the 19-year-old program.

Next month, the Sacramento County public defender’s office will launch expungement clinics for homeless people with criminal records using $222,000 from the Homeless Emergency Aid Program. (Kate Gonzales)

12.27.18 | sN&R | 7

Five tips from Gov. Brown How to govern, according to Jerry Brown

by Ben Christoper

Don’t hold regular press conferences.

Reward loyalty. If you’re a Californian with presidential aspirations, move to New York.

Are you taking notes, Gov-elect Gavin Newsom?

In the final days of his fourth and (presumably) final term as California’s chief executive, Gov. Jerry Brown spoke at the Sacramento Press Club, offering parting, and remarkably candid, tips on how to best govern the Golden State.

The hour-long conversation in the ballroom of the Sacramento Masonic Temple was moderated by Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton and Miriam Pawel, author of the family biography, The Browns of California.

Brown, now 80, drew upon experience gleaned over 16 years as governor, plus job experience as attorney general, secretary of state, mayor of Oakland and a three-time presidential candidate.

Tip No. 1: “Avoid overexposure” Pawel asked Brown if he had learned anything from his father, Pat, who served as the state’s governor between 1959 and 1967.

“One thing I learned was not have an open-ended press conference every week,” the governor said.

The reason: reporters have the nasty habit of calling you out when you contradict yourself. “It’s hard to be consistent in the face of an ever-complex, everunfolding story,” he said.

Sure enough, this was Brown’s firstever visit to the state Capitol’s reporters club since returning to Sacramento as governor in 2011. But when Skelton asked whether the governor planned on commuting the sentences of any of the 739 people on death row in California, 8

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Brown made it clear that he was not there to provide fresh fodder to the reporters in the room.

“If I said something that would give you a story,” he said. “I’m not here to make news, I’m here to enlighten.”

Tip No. 2: Don’t try to make everyone happy Ever since running for governor in 1974 on the promise to introduce an “era of limits,” Brown has cultivated a reputation as willing to buck his party’s big spending tendencies.

Apparently, there is political logic to being a budgetary tightwad. “The idea that you’re going to make people happy and build a lot of support by doing a lot of stuff, frankly, it turns out that there’s a downside,” he said. “The more that you do, the more that people are empowered to demand that you do even more.”

Gov. Jerry Brown Photo courtesy of the governor’s office

raise massive sums of money from people who all want something, and if you give it to them directly you’ll go to jail. But if you don’t give it to them in some form, you won’t be elected to the next office.”

“So you square that circle.”

Tip No. 4: Don’t get distracted by ideological labels Brown was Oakland’s mayor between 1999 and 2007. That stint taught him that just because someone claims to represent a particular viewpoint that you happen to share, that doesn’t Tip No. 3: Do try to make some mean that they have the best people happy idea.

“In As a politician known “People show up to for sprinkling Latin into politics, you city hall and argue for his speeches, Brown paid should take care the stupidest things tribute to the wisdom of in the name of all of your friends.” the phrase quid pro quo. good things,” he said.

“In politics, you Gov. Jerry “Environment, labor, should take care of your Brown historic preservation, friends,” said Brown, noting ethics, police accountability. that both Michael Picker, Everybody’s got a good story.” president of the California Public Utilities Commission, and Rose Bird, Tip No. 5: If you’re running for president, former chief justice of the California don’t do it out of California court system, started out working for his “Nixon paved the way” for Californians various campaigns. running for the White House, he said. “He “Loyalty is important. Keep the moved to New York.” meritocracy within limits.”

With so many early primary states But there are limits on repaying located on the east coast and the daily loyalty, too. “Politics is a difficult news starting three hours earlier, business,” Brown said. “You need to

“proximity is a key issue that works against Californians.”

That could change in 2020. Last year, California legislators voted to bump up the 2020 state primary to March 3.

Brown tackled other topics, all the while honoring his pledge not to say anything too newsworthy.

On the state’s high-speed rail project, he assured Skelton that it will be built.

“I think at our age we shouldn’t be driving,” he said.

On the recent court ruling out of Texas, which declared the entirety of the Affordable Care Act to be unconstitutional, Brown said that he was “not really worried about it,” confident that the ruling will be overturned.

And if it isn’t, there will be electoral hell to pay for the Republicans, he said, allowing Democrats to replace Obamacare with “something even better.”

On his imminent departure from elected office, he said that he will miss the constant activity that comes with the job. “I like sparring with the press, I like raising money, I like attacking my opponents, I like being attacked by my opponents,” he said.

But come January 7, he will be giving that all up and heading up to his ranch in Colusa County, where he said he’ll have to deal with “real rattlesnakes.” Ω

Tim Vendlinski, a retired environmental manager for the EPA, inspects a mound of dirt he says ruined a seasonal wetland in Del Paso Regional Park.

Photo by Scott thomaS anderSon

Parks and wreck?

Experts clash over city’s handling of a disputed wetland near a North Sacramento baseball field

by Scott thomaS anderSon

A war of words between scientific experts is being waged over a North Sacramento park.

On May 23, Rich Muhl, an inspector for the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, arrived at Del Paso Regional Park and surveyed what had until recently been—in his view—a seasonal wetland known as Owl Creek Terrace.

Muhl observed that construction crews under the direction of the city were tearing apart a grassy expanse opposite Harry Renfree Baseball Field and dumping the excess earth straight into the wetland.

Why crews were plowing up a field near Renfree Field is a complicated question.

In 2011, the city closed that area of the park—at 145 acres, one of the largest in this part of Sacramento—due to constant vandalism of its water and electrical installations. Hoping to attract private investment to rehab the field, the city’s

parks department this year used Measure U funding to break ground on a northside parking lot for it—even though Renfree Field already has a sizable parking lot to its south.

Shannon Brown, interim director of the parks department, said there were two reasons for the new construction. “We wanted to provide better ADA access,” Brown said. “And we wanted to make sure there was a certain amount of easy parking secured for the public if [the Sacramento International Baseball Association] had gone forward with its design.”

More on the Sacramento International Baseball Association in a bit.

The water board inspector had a problem with how this second parking lot was being built. Muhl determined crews were dumping fill into a seasonal wetland that supported wildlife and filtered run-off water from Auburn Boulevard before it drained into Arcade Creek. The crews eventually filled the wide, gentle

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

depression with so much dirt that Owl Creek Terrace’s marsh-like qualities vanished.

“Staff observed a degraded wetland adjacent to the fill material,” Muhl wrote in his report. “Staff was concerned that the fill material would impact the wetland feature and mature oak tree.”

Muhl and another water board scientist alerted City Hall and directed it to “investigate and resolve the issue.”

Seven months later, that mound of dirt is still covering Owl Creek Terrace. But who’s to blame is hotly contested.

Dennis Day, a landscape architect for the city, hired the private environmental consulting firm Sycamore to review the water board’s determination. Sycamore surveyed Owl Creek Terrace and gave a thumbs-up to the city’s dirt mound.

“What we have is the finding that it’s not a wetland,” Day told SN&R. “To be one, you need a bowl shape to the terrain,

and there has to be certain soils related to a wetland. There’s none of those characteristics of a wetland at the site.”

But one outside expert strongly disagrees. The reason an inspector from the water board went out to the site is because it received a complaint from Tim Vendlinski, who retired as a manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s wetlands regulatory program.

Vendlinski grew up next to Del Paso Regional Park and argues that the city is serious mishandling its environmental resources.

“When you talk to the city about this area, they say, ‘there’s nothing there,’” Vendlinski said. “Well, it’s been so plundered and mismanaged that the natural aquatic resources don’t have a chance to express themselves; but if it was set aside and rested, you would have a nicely developed little wetland.”

Vendlisnki provided SN&R with an email from an environmental scientist at the water board stating the agency told city officials it disagrees with Sycamore’s findings—and that Owl Creek Terrace is, in fact, a seasonal wetland.

Asked about that, Day said water board officials “haven’t shared that with us.”

The latest dust-up over Owl Creek Terrace followed nearly four years of Vendlinski and other neighborhood residents being at odds with the city over its ill-fated deal with the Sacramento International Baseball Association, or SIBA. In 2014, city officials entered into a memorandum of understanding with SIBA, one that would have turned over roughly 25 acres of Del Paso Regional Park’s rare, low-elevation oak woodlands to developers for conversion into an overflow parking lot for restaurants and a massive $3 million baseball stadium. The City Council approved the agreement through its consent calendar, without a public hearing or competitive bidding process.

Last week, Brown said the deal with SIBA was dead.

“We worked with them for four years, but they just could never meet any of the terms we were looking for,” she noted.

Vendlisnki is skeptical.

“They offered to give away public park land to a developer without any public input at all,” Vendlisnki said. “If the city did want to get rid of this land, in their eyes, then they should be giving it to a land trust or a conservation group.” Ω

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New Year’s Eve Party

All districts on deck Sacramento mayor looks to outflank NIMBYs by drafting entire city into homelessness response

by Dylan SvoboDa

No Place Like Home was born out of Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg is hoping to Proposition 2, approved by voters in November to outflank an old adversary in a bid to expand homeauthorize the state to distribute $2 billion in bonds less shelter capacity—NIMBYs. to counties for the development of permanent Steinberg recently asked his eight City Council supportive housing for those experiencing mental colleagues to identify locations in their districts illness. The bonds would be repaid through the that could accommodate at least 100 shelter beds.

Mental Health Services Act, the 2004 “millionaires The goal is to broaden the response to a growing tax” introduced by then-Assemblyman Steinberg. homelessness crisis rather than burden any one part At the board meeting, Supervisor Don Nottoli of the city. expressed preliminary support for First Step Councilman Larry Carr, who represents South Communities’ tiny home Sacramento, said that’s fair. “No approach, which provides resione district is responsible for dents with sleeping cabins and the homeless crisis,” he said. an on-site community center and “At the same time, we’re all health clinic. First Step execuaffected by it. It’s in all of our tive director Stephen Watters neighborhoods.” said tiny homes offer flexibility.

The eight sites would “If the community wanted include at least three lowto cater to veterans or domestic barrier shelters that Steinberg violence victims only, help and wants to open on city-owned care can be customized for that property by the end of 2019, specific group,” Watters told with possible locations SN&R. “Also, we often think discussed in the coming that the optimal community size months. An overnight survey Homeless encampments are scattered is about 100, but it can be built estimated that countywide along american River Parkway just a quarter-mile from the city’s Railroad Drive for 30 to 50 just as easy.” homelessness rose 30 percent triage shelter.

The city anticipates $7.7 in two years, to more than Photo by Dylan SvoboDa million in state funding follow3,600 people in 2017, with ing its emergency shelter crisis most residing in the city. declaration in November, with most of the money Currently, the city operates just one triage to be spent on shelter, said Emily Halcon, the city’s shelter, which opened a year ago in North homeless services coordinator.

Sacramento and was supposed to close at the end Currently, the mayor’s office is considering of March. On December 18, the council agreed to the “sprung structure” model, which are portable, extend the city’s lease on the shelter on Railroad tent-like structures that can house as many as 200 Drive for a fourth time, this time through April. But that shelter’s capacity will soon be halved to as little people at a time. But Mary Lynne Vellinga, the mayor’s communications director, noted that each as 100 beds. Christie Holderegger, a spokesperson district could accomplish its 100-bed goal through for Volunteers of America, which runs the shelter, scattered-site shelters like the county. said the city ordered the reduction due to financial Finding shelter locations that residents won’t constraints and Steinberg’s 100-bed-per-district call. oppose has proven tricky. Steinberg pulled back Holderegger stressed that guests aren’t being forced on his proposal to open a permanent shelter on to leave; the shelter has just stopped accepting new Evergreen Street near the Royal Oaks light-rail residents. station after North Sacramento Councilman Allen Carr said homeless shelters are typically the Warren and some local residents pushed back. purview of the county, which made its own modest One of those residents is Jane Macauley, who moves this month. Addressing the state’s No Place lives in Woodlake and said she was doubtful that Like Home program requirements, the Board of the other districts would share North Sacramento’s Supervisors on December 12 approved a plan to burden. build on the existing scattered site shelter model, “If you really want to do something, you can which houses folks in small residential shelters, find a place for these shelters,” Macaulay said. “I and to collaborate with the city for at least one don’t see them making this plan happen.” Ω permanent triage shelter.

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A Sex Cream May Replace Popular Sex Pills for Men PAID ADVERTISEMENT

Research shows a new topical may be a highly effective solution for men with failing sex lives; key ingredients activate special sensation pathways right below the skin, enhancing erections and triggering arousal

Daniel Watson Medical News Today BOSTON − The medical community now has a safer and more effective alternative to sex pills, which they can immediately start offering to male patients. It will not require a prescription.

The alternative, called Sensum+®, is an amazing new sex cream that activates a sensation pathway on the penis known as TRPA1.

When applied as directed, it leads to incredible arousal and much more satisfying erections.

It also promotes powerful climaxes and ultimately results in significant improvements in performance.

“Men can expect outstanding sexual improvements with regular use. The penis will become hyper sensitive, making them easily aroused and excitable” explains Dr. Henry Esber, the Boston based scientist who introduced Sensum+® to market.

“And that’s because Sensum+® does what no other sex pill or drug has done before − it stimulates a special sensory pathway right below the skin, which leads to phenomenal sensation.”

Overtime, constant exposure (especially if circumcised) leads to decreased penis sensitivity, which can cause problems with arousal and erection quality. There just isn’t enough feeling to get excited.”

“Diabetes, anti-depressants and normal aging also leads to desensitization, a can make the situation even worse.”

“This is what makes Sensum+® so effective and why the clinical studies and clinical use studies have been so positive.”

MISDIAGNOSIS LEADS TO UNNEEDED PRESCRIPTIONS After years of clinical research and testing, Dr. Esber and his team have discovered an incredible compound that triggers arousal while helping men achieve erections more easily.

This compound isn’t a drug. It’s the active ingredient in Sensum+®.

And according to users, it produces sensational results. Many men report remarkable improvements in sexual performance and overall satisfaction.

They are more sexually active than they’ve been in years with the average Sensum+® user over the age of 50.

Clinical studies show Sensum+®’s key ingredient activates the TRPA1 sensation pathway right below the skin of the penis.

According to research, many men adults and seniors who suffer sexually have lost sensation in their penis due to constant rubbing and exposure and health related issues such as diabetes, hernia surgery, use of some anti-depressants, multiple sclerosis, and other type of illnesses.

This desensitization often makes sex extremely challenging.

Without a 100% feeling in the penis, its next to impossible to

get truly aroused.

Worse, modern day sex drugs have absolutely no effect on sensation and are laden with side effects. They simply stimulate an erection by enhancing blood flow.

It’s why most men are rarely satisfied after taking them and why Sensum+® users are always stocking up on more and couldn’t be happier.

“We knew the science behind Sensum+® was there, but we never expected results like we’re seeing. It’s far exceeded our expectations” said a spokesperson for the company.

A STAGGERING 80% IMPROVEMENT IN SENSITIVITY Researchers have conducted several clinical studies on Sensum+® and the results from the most recent are undoubtedly the most impressive.

A data analysis of three clinical surveys of 370 men showed that an amazing 80% of Sensum+® users experienced dramatic improvements while using the cream and as a result were aroused easier and a phenomenal boost in performance.

Additionally, 77.4% of men also reported much more satisfying climaxes, making sex for both them and their partners nearly 300% more satisfying.

“I have full feeling and sensitivity back in my penis.

Everything feels better. My erections are harder, I’m more easily aroused, I can finally climax again. This stuff honestly works like magic in the bedroom. I couldn’t be happier at 66!” raves one Sensum+® user.

HOW SENSUM+® WORKS Sensum+® is a new sex cream for men that’s to be applied twice a day for the first two weeks then just once every day after.

There are no harmful side effects for either the user or partner. It also does not require a prescription.

The active ingredient is an organic compound known as cinnamaldehyde with a patented combination of sexually rousing extracts.

Research shows that as men get older, they often lose sensitivity to the penis.

Although very subtle, this desensitization can significantly hinder sexual performance and lead to serious problems with becoming aroused and staying/getting hard.

The cinnamaldehyde in Sensum+® is one of the only known ingredients to activate a special sensation pathway on the penis called TRPA1. Once activated, it restores tremendous sensation to the penis, stimulating arousal and powerful erections.

This would explain why so many users are experiencing impressive results so quickly and why the distributors of Sensum+® offer their low cost cream with an amazing guarantee.

NEW SEX CREAM MAY REPLACE POPULAR SEX PILLS: Dr. Henry Esber, scientist and chairman of the board at Innovus Pharma, explains the TRPA1 channel, the secret behind Sensum.

GUARANTEE DISCOUNTED SUPPLY TAKES RISK OFF CONSUMERS A large percentage of men report life changing results with Sensum+®. That’s why it is now being sold with an aboveindustry standard guarantee.

“We can only make this guarantee because we are 100% certain this cream works,” says Esber.

“We want to take risk off the consumers. So besides offering massive discounts, we’re also offering this guarantee, so they don’t have to risk a cent.”

Here’s how it works: Use the cream exactly as directed and you must feel a significant improvement in sexual sensations.

You must be more easily aroused with harder, longer lasting erections and be having the best sex you’ve had in years.

Otherwise, simply return the empty bottles. Then, the company will refund your money immediately.

HOW TO GET SENSUM+® This is the official release of Sensum+®. As such, the company is offering a special discounted supply to any reader who calls within the next 48 hours.

A special hotline number and discounted pricing has been created for all California residents. Discounts will be available starting today at 6:00AM and will automatically be applied to all callers.

Your Toll-Free Hotline number is 1-800-421-1037 and will only be open for the next 48 hours. Only a limited discounted supply of Sensum+® is currently available in your region.

Consumers who miss out on our current product inventory will have to wait until more becomes available and that could take weeks. The company advises not to wait. Call 1-800-421-1037 today.

THESE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT BEEN BY THE U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION. THESE PRODUCTS ARE NOT INTENDED TO DIAGNOSE, TREAT, CURE OR PREVENT ANY DISEASE. RESULTS BASED UPON AVERAGES. MODELS ARE USED IN ALL PHOTOS TO PROTECT PRIVACY. 313427_9.8_x_10.5.indd 12 | SN&R 1| 12.27.18

12/17/18 1:50 PM

Urban sprawl is the real problem To address climate change, elected officials must stand up to land speculators

by Mark DeMpsey

for a few thousand dollars an acre, At the Global Climate Action Summit in then sell it to builders for hundreds of San Francisco in September, California’s thousands of dollars once the land is political leaders reaffirmed their approved for development. The Internal commitment to clean energy and Gov. Revenue Service doesn’t even tax these Jerry Brown announced the state would outrageous profits if the speculators achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. put the money into But they neglected income-producing to focus on walking or property such as malls biking. Developing more and apartments. compact, pedestrianIn Germany, friendly communities however, developers can reduce carbon must sell outlying land emissions, and also free to local governments people from having to at its agricultural land own a car. value, then buy it back Local officials at the development continuing to support land price. All that sprawl and land speculaprofit benefits the tion is not a hopeful public rather than sign, either. Sprawl a small plutocracy encourages longer Mark Dempsey of Orangevale is a of speculators. And commutes, and requires retired technical writer and real estate Germany has nice more highways and agent who served on a Sacramento infrastructure, a solar other infrastructure, County planning advisory council. program that’s ahead which costs twice as of schedule and free tuition even for much to develop in outlying developforeign students at its universities. ments than in compact infill projects.

Sacramento apparently can’t Though the Sacramento region has handle homelessness, but our political 20 years worth of unbuilt infill land, class can produce a subsidy for land local agencies are moving to make speculators at the drop of a hat. Land even more outlying land available for use is the nexus of local political “greenfield” development. In February, malfeasance. In a betrayal of public the Sacramento Local Agency Formation interest, Sacramento County superviCommission voted 4-3 to expand Elk sors Susan Peters and Sue Frost voted Grove’s urban boundary by more than for the Elk Grove expansion as LAFCo 1,000 acres, despite plenty of vacant commissioners. land within the city’s current boundary.

More of these sprawl-producing (Environmental groups have sued to stop developments are cued up for possible the expansion.) approval. The climate effects of sprawl Barbara Leary, a candidate this year are roughly double the pedestrianfor Folsom City Council, said local planning is so dysfunctional that even if friendly, mixed-use alternative.

Believe it or not, the real estate Folsom abandoned its expansion south market actually pays premiums for of U.S. 50, land speculators would be able to get Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods.

But as long as we give speculators or the county to annex the land and get the money that might go into civic their developments approved that way. improvements, we get nearer to the Speculators can purchase (or more precipice of climate disaster. Ω likely option) outlying agricultural land

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pro jec t censored

thefight against n l Rose

by Pau

s w e n e

k a f

beRg

is senberg Paul Ro itor at Random d e r io sen or an News. F Lengths version of d extende ensored, visit C Project sored.org. en tc c je o r p

0 1 p o t

censored

stories

of 2018

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F

ake news is not a new thing.

With the return of its annual list of censored stories in Censored 2019: Fighting the Fake News Invasion, ($18.95, Seven Stories Press), Project Censored’s vivid cover art recalls H.G. Wells’ 1897 book, War of the Worlds.

The situation today may feel as desolate as that vintage art suggests.

“But Censored 2019 is a book about fighting fake news,” editors Andy Lee Roth and Mickey Huff write in the book’s introduction.

They argue that “critical media education—rather than censorship, blacklists, privatized fact-checkers, or legislative bans—is the best weapon for fighting the ongoing fake news invasion.”

The list of censored stories remains central to Project Censored’s mission, which, the editors point out, can be read in two different ways, “as a critique of the shortcomings of U.S. corporate news media for their failure to adequately cover these stories, or as a celebration of independent news media, without which we would remain either uninformed or misinformed about these crucial stories and issues.”

Read on for Project Censored’s 10 most under-reported—and all-too-real— stories of 2018.

Rule of law is thReatened as basic human Rights diminish

According to the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index 2017–2018, a striking worldwide decline in basic human rights has driven an overall decline in the rule of law since October 2016, the month before President Donald Trump’s election.

Fundamental rights—one of eight categories measured—declined in 71 out of 113 nations surveyed. Overall, 34 percent of countries’ scores declined, while just 29 percent improved. The United States ranked 19th, down one from 2016, with declines in checks on government powers and deepening discrimination.

Fundamental rights include absence of discrimination, right to life and security, due process, freedom of expression and religion, right to privacy, freedom of association and labor rights.

“All signs point to a crisis not just for human rights, but for the human rights movement,” Yale professor of history and

“ o pensouRce” secRets sold to highest biddeRs In March 2017, WikiLeaks released Vault 7, a trove of 8,761 leaked confidential CIA files about its global hacking programs, which WikiLeaks described as the “largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.”

It drew significant media attention. But almost no one noticed what George Eliason of OpEdNews pointed out.

“Sure, the CIA has all these tools available,” Eliason wrote “Yes, they are used on the public. The important part is [that] it’s not the CIA that’s using them. That’s the part that needs to frighten you.”

The CIA’s mission prevents it from using the tools, especially on Americans, Eliason explained. “All the tools are unclassified, open-source, and can be used by anyone,” he wrote. “It makes

law Samuel Moyn told The Guardian. “Within many nations, these fundamental rights are falling prey to the backlash against a globalizing economy in which the rich are winning. But human rights movements have not historically set out to name or shame inequality.”

The category on constraints on government powers, which measures the extent to which those who govern are bound by law, saw the second greatest declines (64 countries out of 113 dropped). This is where the U.S. saw the greatest deterioration, World Justice Project said.

The United States also scored poorly on several measurements of discrimination, including in the justice system, and was ranked 78 out of 113 countries.

The four Nordic countries—Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden—remained in the top four. New Zealand, Canada and Australia were the only top 10 countries outside of Europe.

them not exactly usable for secret agent work. That’s what makes it impossible for them to use Vault 7 tools directly.”

Drawing heavily on more than a decade of reporting by Tim Shorrock for Mother Jones and The Nation, Eliason’s OpEdNews series reported on the explosive growth of private contractors in the intelligence community, which allows the CIA and other agencies to gain access to intelligence gathered by methods they’re prohibited from using.

In a 2016 report for The Nation, Shorrock estimated that 80 percent of 58,000 private intelligence contractors worked for the five largest companies. He concluded that “not only has intelligence been privatized to an unimaginable degree, but an unprecedented consolidation of corporate power inside U.S. intelligence has left the country dangerously dependent on a handful of companies for its spying and surveillance needs.”

Eliason reported how private contractors pioneered open-source intelligence by circulating or selling the information they gathered before the agency employing them had reviewed and classified it. Therefore, “no one broke any laws.”

As a result, according to Eliason, “People with no security clearances and radical political agendas have state sized cyber tools at their disposal, [which they can use] for their own political agendas, private business, and personal vendettas.”

the veRy Rich get a whole lot RicheR In November 2017, Credit Suisse released its 8th annual Global Wealth Report, which The Guardian reported on under the headline, “Richest 1% own half the world’s wealth, study finds.”

The wealth share of the world’s richest people increased “from 42.5 percent at the height of the 2008 financial crisis to 50.1 percent in 2017,” The Guardian reported, adding that “the biggest losers … are young people who should not expect to become as rich as their parents.”

Conversely, the number of millionaires has increased by 170 percent, while the number of individuals worth more than $50

million has risen five-fold—making them by far the fastest-growing group of wealth holders, according to the report.

“At the other end of the spectrum, the world’s 3.5 billion poorest adults each have assets of less than $10,000,” The Guardian reported. “Collectively these people, who account for 70 percent of the world’s working age population, account for just 2.7 percent of global wealth.”

“Tremendous concentration of wealth and the extreme poverty that results from it are problems that affect everyone in the world, but wealth inequalities do not receive nearly as much attention as they should in the establishment press,” Project Censored noted. “As Project Censored has previously reported, corporate news consistently covers the world’s billionaires while ignoring millions of humans who live in poverty.”

“the fight against fake news” continued on page 16

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“ the fight against fake news” continued from page 15

big Wireless convinced us cellPhones are safe Are cellphones and other wireless devices really as safe we’ve been led to believe? Don’t bet on it, according to decades of buried research reviewed in a March 2018 investigation for The Nation by Mark Hertsgaard and Mark Dowie.

“The wireless industry not only made the same moral choices that the tobacco and fossil-fuel industries did, it also borrowed from the same public relations playbook those industries pioneered,” Hertsgaard and Dowie reported. “Like their tobacco and fossil-fuel brethren, wireless executives have chosen not to publicize what their own scientists have said about the risks of their products.”

Rather, the industry—in the U.S. as well as in Europe and Asia—has spent untold millions of dollars in the past 25 years to proclaim that science is on its side and that critics are wrong.

Washington Post bans emPloyees’ soci al medi a criticisms On May 1, 2017, The Washington Post introduced a policy prohibiting employees from criticizing its advertisers and business partners.

“The Washington Post prohibits conduct on social media that ‘adversely affects The Post’s customers, advertisers, subscribers, vendors, suppliers or partners,’” Andrew Beaujon reported in The Washingtonian.

“Post management reserves the right to take disciplinary action ‘up to and including termination of employment.’”

Beaujon also cited “A clause that encourages employees to snitch on one another: ‘If you have any 16 | SN&R | 12.27.18

The Nation report comes as several new developments are bringing the issue to light, including a Kaiser Permanente study published in December 2017 that found much higher risks of miscarriage, a study in the October 2017 American Journal of Epidemiology that found increased risk for glioma (a type of brain tumor) and a disclosure by the National Frequency Agency of France that nine out of 10 cellphones exceed government radiation safety limits when tested in the way they are actually used, next to the human body.

As the The Nation reported, George Carlo was a scientist hired by the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association in 1993 to research cellphone safety and allay public fears, heading up the industry-financed Wireless Technology Research project.

But he was fired and publicly attacked by the cellular association in 1999, after uncovering evidence of danger: Carlo sent letters to each of the industry’s chieftains on Oct. 7, 1999, reiterating that the Wireless Technology Research project had found the following: “The risk of rare neuro-epithelial tumors on the outside of the brain was more than doubled…in cell phone users”; there was an apparent “correlation between brain

reason to believe that an employee may be in violation of The Post’s Social Media Policy … you should contact The Post’s Human Resources Department.’”

At the time, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, which represents the Post’s employees, protested the policy and sought removal of the controversial parts in a new labor agreement.

A follow-up report by Whitney Webb for MintPress News highlighted the broader possible censorship effects, as prohibiting social media criticism could spill over into reporting as well.

“Among The Washington Post’s advertisers are corporate giants like GlaxoSmithKline, Bank of America and Koch Industries,” Webb wrote.

“With the new policy, social media posts criticizing GlaxoSmithKline’s habit of making false and misleading claims about its products, inflating prices and withholding crucial drug safety information from the government will no longer be made by Post employees.”

Beyond that, Webb suggested it could protect the CIA, which has a $600 million contract with Amazon Web Services. Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, purchased The Post four months after that contract was signed.

“While criticism of the CIA is not technically prohibited by the new policy, former Post reporters have suggested that making such criticisms could endanger one’s career,” Webb noted.

tumors occurring on the right side of the head and the use of the phone on the right side of the head”; and “the ability of radiation from a phone’s antenna to cause functional genetic damage [was] definitely positive.”

The Kaiser Permanente study involved exposure to magnetic field non-ionizing radiation associated with wireless devices as well as cellphones and found a 2.72 times higher risk of miscarriage for those with higher exposure.

“The wireless industry has ‘war-gamed’ science by playing offense as well as defense, actively sponsoring studies that result in published findings supportive of the industry, while aiming to discredit competing research that raises questions about the safety of cellular devices and other wireless technologies,” Project Censored summarized.

While some local media have covered the findings of a few selected studies, Project Censored notes, “the norm for corporate media is to report the telecom industry line— that is, that evidence linking Wi-Fi and cell phone radiation to health issues, including cancer and other medical problems, is either inconclusive or disputed.”

russi agate: a tWo-headed monster

This entry seems to reflect a well-intentioned effort to critically examine fake news-related issues within a “censored story” framework.

What Project Censored calls attention to is important: “Corporate media coverage of Russiagate has created a two-headed monster of propaganda and censorship. By saturating news coverage with a sensationalized narrative, Russiagate has superseded other important, newsworthy stories.”

RegeneRative agRicultuRe is civilization’s “next stage”

As a frustrated journalist, I heartily concur—but what’s involved is too complex to simply be labeled “propaganda.” On the other hand, the censorship of alternative journalistic voices is a classic, welldefined Project Censored story, which suffers from the attempt to fit both together.

In April 2017, Aaron Maté reported for The Intercept on a quantitative study of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show from Feb. 20 to March 31, 2017, which found that “Russia-focused segments accounted for 53 percent of these broadcasts.” Maté wrote: “Maddow’s Russia coverage has dwarfed the time devoted to other top issues, including Trump’s escalating crackdown on undocumented immigrants (1.3 percent of coverage); Obamacare repeal (3.8 percent); the legal battle over Trump’s Muslim ban (5.6 percent), a surge of anti-GOP activism and town halls since Trump took office (5.8 percent), and Trump administration scandals and stumbles (11 percent).”

But is this propaganda?

At Truthdig, Norman Solomon wrote: “As the cable news network most trusted by Democrats as a liberal beacon, MSNBC plays a special role in fueling rage among progressive-minded viewers toward Russia’s ‘attack on our democracy’ that is somehow deemed more sinister and newsworthy than corporate dominance of American politics (including Democrats), racist voter suppression, gerrymandering and many other U.S. electoral defects all put together.”

Also true. But not so much propaganda as Project Censored’s broader category of “news

abuse,” which includes propaganda and spin, among other forms of “distraction to direct our attention away from what we really need to know.”

To fully grasp what’s involved requires a more complex analysis. On the other hand, the censorship of alternative journalistic voices is far more clear-cut and straightforward.

In a report for Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, Robin Andersen examined Russiagateinspired censorship moves by Twitter, Google and others. A key initial target was RT, the television network formerly known as Russia Today.

“RT’s reporting bears striking similarities to alternative and independent media content, and that is why letting the charges against RT stand unexamined is so dangerous,” Andersen noted.

Beyond RT, the spill-over suppression was dramatic: “Much of the best, most accurate independent reporting is disappearing from Google searches,” Anderson said. “The World Socialist Web Site reported that Google’s new search protocol is restricting access to leading independent, left-wing, progressive, anti-war and democratic rights websites. The estimated declines in traffic generated by Google searches for news sites are striking.”

There were declines for AlterNet.org (63 percent), DemocracyNow.org (36 percent), CounterPunch.org (21 percent), ConsortiumNews. com (47 percent), MediaMatters.org (42 percent) and TheIntercept.com (19 percent), among others.

The world’s agricultural and degraded soils have the capacity to recover 50 to 66 percent of the historic carbon loss to the atmosphere, actually reversing the processes driving global warming, according to a 2004 paper in Science.

A set of practices known as “regenerative agriculture” could play a major role in accomplishing that, while also substantially increasing crop yields, according to information compiled and published by Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association in May 2017.

“For thousands of years we grew food by depleting soil carbon and, in the last hundred or so, the carbon in fossil fuel as well,” agricultural writer Michael Pollan wrote. “But now we know how to grow even more food while at the same time returning carbon and fertility and water to the soil” Cummins, who’s also a founding member of Regeneration International, wrote that regenerative agriculture offers a “world-changing paradigm” that can help solve many of today’s environmental and public health problems.

“We can’t really solve the climate crisis (and the related soil, environmental, and public health crisis) without simultaneously solving the food and farming crisis,” Cummings wrote. “We need to stop putting greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere (by moving to 100 percent renewable energy), but we also need to move away from chemical-intensive, energy-intensive food, factory farming and land use, as soon as possible.”

In addition to global warming, there are profound economic and social justice concerns involved.

“Out-of-touch and out-of-control governments of the world now take our tax money and spend $500 billion ... a year mainly subsidizing 50 million industrial farmers to do the wrong thing,” Cummins wrote. “Meanwhile, 700 million small family farms and herders, comprising the 3 billion people who produce 70 percent of the world’s food on just 25 percent of the world’s acreage, struggle to make ends meet.

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“ the fight against fake news” continued from page 17

Congress sneaks in datasharing law On March 21, House Republicans released an omnibus spending bill. It passed both houses and was signed into law in two days. Attached to the spending provisions that made it urgent “mustpass” legislation was the completely unrelated Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act of 2018, also known as the CLOUD Act.

indigenous Communities help win legal rights for nature In March 2017, the government of New Zealand ended a 140-year dispute with an indigenous Maori tribe by enacting a law that officially recognized the Whanganui River, which the tribe considers its ancestor, as a living entity with rights.

The Guardian reported it as “a world-first,” although the surrounding Te Urewera National Park had been similarly recognized in a 2014 law, and the U.S. Supreme Court came within on vote of potentially recognizing such a right in the 1972 case Sierra Club v. Morton. In addition, the broader idea of “rights of nature”

“The CLOUD Act enables the U.S. government to acquire data across international borders regardless of other nations’ data privacy laws and without the need for warrants,” Project Censored summarized.

It also significantly weakens protections against foreign government actions.

“It was never reviewed or marked up by any committee in either the House or the Senate,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s David Ruiz wrote. “It never received a hearing. ...

It was robbed of a stand-alone floor vote because Congressional leadership decided, behind closed doors, to attach this unvetted, unrelated data bill to the $1.3 trillion government spending bill.”

Congressional leaders failed to listen to citizens’ concerns, Ruiz wrote, with devastating consequences.

“Because of this failure, U.S. and foreign police will have new mechanisms to seize data across the globe. Because of this failure, your private emails, your online chats, your

has been adopted in Ecuador, Bolivia and by some American communities, noted Mihnea Tanasescu, writing for The Conversation.

The tribe’s perspective was explained to The Guardian by its lead negotiator, Gerrard Albert.

“We have fought to find an approximation in law so that all others can understand that from our perspective treating the river as a living entity is the correct way to approach it, as in indivisible whole, instead of the traditional model for the last 100 years of treating it from a perspective of ownership and management,” Albert said.

But that could be just the beginning.

“It is a critical precedent for acknowledging the Rights of Nature in legal systems around the world,” Kayla DeVault reported for YES! Magazine.

Others are advancing this perspective, including Native American tribes trying to protect the Missouri River. DeVault wrote: “In response to the Standing Rock Sioux battle against the Dakota Access pipeline, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin amended its constitution to include the Rights of Nature. This is the first time a

Facebook, Google, Flickr photos, your Snapchat videos, your private lives online, your moments shared digitally between only those you trust, will be open to foreign law enforcement without a warrant and with few restrictions on using and sharing your information, privacy and human rights,” concluded Greene Robyn Greene, who reported for Just Security.

Because of this failure, U.S. laws will be bypassed on U.S. soil. Greene noted that the CLOUD Act negates protections of two interrelated existing laws. It creates an exception to the Stored Communications Act that allows certified foreign governments to request personal data directly from U.S. companies.

“This exception enables those countries to bypass the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty process, which protects human rights by requiring foreign governments to work with the Department of Justice to obtain warrants from U.S. judges before they can access that data for their criminal investigations,” Greene explained.

North American tribe has used a Western legal framework to adopt such laws. Some American municipalities have protected their watersheds against fracking by invoking Rights of Nature.”

The same could be done with a wide range of other environmental justice disputes involving Native American tribes.

Tanasescu described the broader sweep of recent developments in the “rights of nature,” noting that significant problems have resulted from the lack of specific guardianship provisions, which are integral to the Whanganui River law.

“By granting natural entities personhood one by one and assigning them specific guardians, over time New Zealand could drastically change an ossified legal system that still sees oceans, mountains and forests primarily as property, guaranteeing nature its day in court,” Tanasescu concluded.

fBi’s raCi al profiling At the same time that white supremacists were preparing for the “Unite the Right” demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, which resulted in the murder of Heather Heyer in August 2017, the FBI’s counterterrorism division produced an intelligence assessment warning of a very different—though actually nonexistent threat: “black identity extremists.”

The report appeared to be the first time the term had been used to identify a movement, according to Foreign Policy magazine, which broke the story.

“But former government officials and legal experts said no such movement exists, and some expressed concern that the term is part of a politically motivated effort to find an equivalent threat to white supremacists,” Foreign Policy reported.

“The use of terms like ‘black identity extremists’ is part of a longstanding FBI attempt to define a movement where none exists,” said former FBI agent Mike German, who now works for the Brennan Center for Justice. “Basically, it’s black people who scare them.”

“It’s classic Hoover-style labeling with little bit of maliciousness and euphemism wrapped up together,” said William Maxwell, a Washington University professor working on a book about FBI monitoring of black writers.

“There is a long tradition of the FBI targeting black activists and this is not surprising,” Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson told Foreign Policy.

A former Homeland Security official told the magazine that carelessly connecting unrelated groups will make it harder for law enforcement to identify real threats.

“The corporate media [has] covered the FBI report on ‘black identity extremists’ in narrow or misleading ways,” Project Censored noted, citing examples from the New York Times, Fox News and NBC News. “Coverage like this both draws focus away from the active white supremacist movement and feeds the hate and fear on which such a movement thrives.” Ω

12.27.18 | SN&R | 19

By JiM lane and daniel Barnes

Jim’s best:

SN&R’s

roBin hood

The bandit of Sherwood Forest took a horrible beating from this moronic, sub-literate pile of garbage. Among the perpetrators, some careers may recover, while others don’t deserve to.

best

slender Man

and

worst

filmS of 2018

Blindspotting

Written by Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, who also co-starred, this was a gritty, riveting examination of a remarkably wide range of racial, social and economic issues in today’s Oakland. Carlos López Estrada’s direction, sensitive as an exposed nerve, was another plus.

eighth grade

green Book

a

ny year a new Orson Welles movie debuts is a good year

for cinema. No matter the ups and downs of the release schedule, at least the existence of the master director’s unfinished final film The Other Side of the Wind provides 2018 with an undeniable saving grace. Welles is still showing up the Hollywood hacks more than 30 years after his death, and while his restless genius and maverick spirit may feel like a thing of the past, film critics Jim Lane and Daniel Barnes found reasons to feel good about the state of cinema in 2018 ... and then some more reasons to push the panic button.

20 | SN&R | 12.27.18

Lousy horror movies are hardly an endangered species, but few are as inept as this. Writer David Birke, director Sylvain White, and cinematographer Luca Del Puppo all disgraced themselves, while four eager actresses (it would be a kindness not to name them) went down with the ship.

super troopers 2 Blindspotting

An astonishing debut by writer-director Bo Burnham, this was a sublime portrait of a girl timidly inching into the summer before high school.

As Burnham’s sweet, sensitive heroine, Elsie Fisher gave the best performance of any gender, any age all year; it would break the heart of a marble statue.

our critics applaud and denounce this year’s standouts

Jim’s worst:

A 1962 tour of the Jim Crow South by an AfricanAmerican musician and his Italian-American driver provided the factual framework for brilliant performances by Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen.

It might have been painfully predictable, but under Peter Farrelly’s direction, Ali and Mortensen made it something akin to poetry in motion.

Broken Lizard, the worst comedy team since Wheeler and Woolsey 80 years ago, are all pushing (or past) 50, and what once passed for youthful folly now looks like wasted lives. Also wasted was 99 minutes of anyone who sat through their latest turkey.

venoM

Just as Rolls-Royce can turn out a lemon now and then, even Marvel Studios can occasionally produce movies like this. As anti-hero Tom Hardy’s ex-girlfriend, Michelle Williams survived this train wreck with dignity intact. Hardy, writers Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg and Kelly Marcel, and director Ruben Fleischer, not so much. In fact, not at all.

a Wrinkle in tiMe

Everything went wrong in director Ava DuVernay’s rendition of the classic kiddie sci-fi novel, from the casting of three charmless children in the leads to gussying up Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling as campy disco drag queens. Many of 2018’s Razzie Awards are spoken for.

the hate u give

As Blindspotting was an examination of race relations in today’s America, this one showcased a star-making performance by Amandla Stenberg as a teenager pulled back-and-forth between her black neighborhood and her white, upscale school. While offering no easy answers, it still gave a heartening aura of hope.

WidoWs

Three desperate women undertake a risky heist to get out from under the mess left by their deceased husbands. Another towering performance by Viola Davis (matched by Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki), plus turbo-powered direction

by Steve McQueen, made this more than a mere variation on Ocean’s 8.

A Wrinkle in Time

22

PERUVIAN GEM See DISH

FOOD & CULTURAL EXCHANGE See OFF MENU

23

Daniel’s best:

The favouriTe

Burning

An oblong mystery about a South Korean slacker who becomes obsessed with a beautiful but flighty ex-classmate and her wealthy, westernized boyfriend, Lee Chang-dong’s strangely chilly film is powerfully enigmatic and immaculately constructed.

Cold War

Much like the folk songs heard throughout the film, Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski’s romantic tragedy takes a story of heartbreak and horror and transforms it into something beautiful and timeless.

The deaTh of STalin Already the premier political satirist of his era, In the Loop director and Veep creator Armando Iannucci pulls off his

See MUSIC

26

madeline’S madeline

most impressive feat yet, turning the corpse-strewn power struggle that followed Joseph Stalin’s sudden death into a lacerating and disturbingly relevant farce.

Burning

GREAT SHOwS bEFORE NYE

Director Yorgos Lanthimos takes a lean, witty script by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara about conniving women and weak men and imbues it with a pitiless absurdism that is peculiarly Lanthimos-ian. The result feels like a ridiculously opulent cross between Dangerous Liaisons and All About Eve.

firST reformed

Ethan Hawke gives the performance of the year as a tormented priest confronting oblivion in this story of environmental and existential anguish.

Writer-director Paul Schrader blends the raw intimacy of Bresson and the scathing despair of Bergman with his own sensual and spiritual obsessions.

iSle of dogS

Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animated celebration of Japanese culture and cinema is another elaborately embossed masterwork of careful world-building, impeccable craftsmanship and messy emotional payoffs.

Led by a ferocious performance from newcomer Helena Howard, Josephine Decker’s film forces us to determine from moment to moment whether we’re watching a fantasy or a documentary, an acting exercise or an exhibition of mental illness.

mandy

In a far superior alternate universe, Panos Cosmatos’ psychedelic revenge fantasy would play on the most gigantic IMAX screens imaginable, while the latest Marvel releases would get dumped to video-on-demand.

put your

miSSion: impoSSiBle fallouT

band

Human special-effect Tom Cruise plays super-spy Ethan Hunt for the sixth time, and while nothing in Christopher McQuarrie’s Fallout should feel unfamiliar to anyone remotely aware of the Mission: Impossible bag of tropes, it’s still the freshest action movie of 2018.

We have become so spoiled by the greatness of Joaquin Phoenix that barely anyone batted an eye when he gave three excellent lead performances in 2018. The best of the bunch came in Lynne Ramsay’s scarred and fractured story of a violent, demon-plagued veteran who rescues stolen girls.

fifTy ShadeS freed

More snot-nosed nihilism and fangless meta-commentary from Marvel’s “merc with a mouth,” once again played

by Ryan Reynolds as a homicidal rape-joke comedian.

Putrid even by the subterranean standard set by the first two entries in the Fifty Shades franchise, this trilogy-ender had the temerity to end with a “heartwarming” montage of its abusive protagonists.

goTTi

Deadpool 2

friend’s

on the

ballot

you Were never really here

Klutzy filmmaking usually provides some level of schadenfreude fun, but never has ineptitude been less entertaining than in Kevin Connolly’s hopelessly muddled biopic.

free candY

2018 sammies nominee,

teen

Daniel’s worst: deadpool 2

SACRAMENTO MUSIC AWARDS

green Book

The most malodorous awards bait of 2018, Peter Farrelly’s rancid road movie is MAGA for white liberals. Mahershala Ali survives with a shred of dignity intact, but Viggo Mortensen may never recover.

a Wrinkle in Time

Publicist turned director Ava DuVernay had the entire universe rooting for her big-budget adaptation of the Madeleine L’Engle novel, but the result was garish and empty. Ω

nominations 12/13/18 - 1/1/19 voting 1/10/19 - 3/12/19

sammies.com 12.27.18 | SN&R | 21

illusTrATiOn BY MAriA rATinOvA

Simply green with protein houSe Salad, urban rootS brewing & SmokehouSe

Jimmy’s Peruvian Restaurant is a meat-and-potatoes (and rice) haven.

The Lomo Saltado with sauteed beef, tomato and red onion is just one of many authentic and hearty entrées.

Peruvian comforts Jimmy’s Peruvian Restaurant & Catering 3032 Auburn Boulevard; (916) 670-5280 Good for: Hearty after-work meal, casual time with family Notable dishes: Milanesa special, Bistec de lo Pobre

$$$

Peruvian, Sacramento

Growing up, my dinner plate could have potato or rice, but never both. Peruvian food is different. Fries and rice often share the plate, making carb-loving people everywhere rejoice. I heard that Jimmy’s Peruvian Restaurant would satisfy my cravings, so I drove through a sea of liquor stores in search of this hidden gem.

Jimmy’s has historically existed within another restaurant; this one Mexican, offering mostly standard taqueria fare. The décor was sparse, often a sign of good food to come. A tiny note at the bottom of the menu read: “Most of our dishes are cooked with soy sauce.” Another good sign.

We started with an authentic Peruvian appetizer: Causa Rellena. Apparently authored by some vengeful Grandma out to torture her grandchildren, it looked straight out of a ’70s Betty Crocker recipe card. Shaped like a small threelayer cake, chicken salad is sandwiched between two sliced orbs of mashed potato and decorated with a single olive and a sliver of boiled egg. It was hard to get past the dense, grainy texture of cold mashed potato.

Our entrées also fell flat. The Seco de Carne was forktender, but lacked the expected stew-like consistency, causing two lonely beef medallions to float around like islands lost in a lagoon of cilantro sauce. The Lomo Saltado, with freshly sautéed beef, tomato and red onion was hearty, but 22 | SN&R | 12.27.18

PHOTO BY AMY BEE

This salad is simple: robust greens, creamy cilantro dressing, cherry tomatoes, roasted pumpkin seeds and tortilla strips ($12). The latter two ingredients inject all-important textural contrast and crunch.

With any creamy dressing, the line between coated and soaked can be a personal preference, so you may want to request it lightly dressed. But, this salad becomes a truly crave-able full meal—commensurate with the full-meal price-point—with the addition of a generous portion of Urban Root Brewing’s dense, smoked turkey ($4.50). Be warned: URB is deservedly popular and sometimes its turkey sells out, so keep a plan B in mind. It may serve as a good excuse to top your healthy greens with some brisket. 1322 V Street, urbanrootsbrewing.com.

—becky grunewald

Warm like a sweater Sweater weather, bottle & barlow

by Amy Bee

lacked the sparkle I associate with Peruvian dishes. Luckily, the Aguadito de Pollo saved the day with a mega-salty cilantro chicken broth so robust, it’s no wonder Peruvians consider it a hangover cure.

On our next visit things perked up. As soon as the friendly staff (so friendly they never batted an eyelash at my creative Spanish pronunciations) brought us a bountiful plate of the Milanesa Special we knew what was different: the rice. Peruvian rice is sautéed with garlic, oil and salt.

And since meat, potato and rice are the basics for most entrées, how the rice is cooked is pretty important.

Whomever ruled the kitchen this night knew what they were doing. The Milanesa’s breaded chicken breast was pan-fried until crisp. We drizzled some of Jimmy’s neongreen aji verde sauce (jalapeños, cheese, onions, garlic, salt, pepper) on the fries, rice and Milanesa. It was so flavorful, my companion stopped wanting to share.

My favorite entrée Bistec de Lo Pobre (aka poor man’s steak): juicy, well-seasoned flat steak paired with superb rice, the saltiest of fries, the tangiest Salsa Criolla (red onion, ají peppers, cilantro, lime juice), topped with two oily fried eggs and a caramelized, sour-sweet plantain. This was it. The sparkle that is Peruvian food. It’s not a delicate cuisine. It’s unabashedly designed to fill bellies and minds with hazy, carby, satisfying moments of joy.

Change is on the horizon at Jimmy’s. The Mexican restaurant’s owner left and the two restaurants will become one. This move may iron out some of the inconsistencies.

Jimmy’s also plans to expand its menu. Will it add more Peruvian cuisine, or maybe there’s some Mexican/Peruvian blend to come? Peruvian tacos? Lo Pobre burritos? Add some handmade corn tortillas to that Lomo Saltado and you’ll make everyone’s culinary dreams come true. Ω

Hot toddies are perfect for turning in after a long day or combating the cold you might catch this season, but what if you want something a little stronger, a little spicier, a little hotter? Bottle & Barlow’s Sweater Weather ($10) is the perfect consumable sweater for cold weather. It’s a hot cocktail mixed with cinnamon whiskey, rum, rooibos leaves, apple, allspice, salted whipped cream and topped with shaved nutmeg. Spicy and warm, it’s the equivalent of cuddling next to a fire place, wrapped in a fluffy blanket, with a hot cup of apple cider.

To round out the mood, play The Neighbourhood’s “Sweater Weather” while drinking this comforting elixir because you can’t have enough sweater in this weather. 1120 R Street, bottleandbarlow.com —Jeremy winSlow

THE V WOrD

How to live kindly?

Goodbye 2018, hello 2019—and veganism? Interest in vegan food is at a high. Bill Nye—you know, the Science Guy—even said, “Plant-based diets are the future.” So if your new year’s resolution is to not support the industries that inhumanely treat and kill billions of animals each year for human consumption, a vegan lifestyle can be a doorway. But set yourself up for success. You can always quit eating animal products cold turkey (no pun intended, friends), but if that sounds overwhelming, slow it down: Commit to eliminating one animal product from your diet per month for a stable transition. Find support if you need structure, such as Davis-based Vegan Outreach. It offers a 10 Weeks to Vegan program to keep you on track. Or nab Dr. Neal Barnard’s new book, The

Vegan Starter Kit: Everything You Need to Know About PlantBased Eating, which includes recipes that don’t require expensive ingredients. Hello, kinder living!

—Shoka

IllustratIon by Mark stIvers

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bao down

by Mitch BarBer

“I love it. I love it.” This was Marvin Gomez’ response when I asked him how he felt about customers from other cultures partaking in his restaurant’s ethnic cuisine. Marvin runs the Las Palmas Pupusería on Stockton Boulevard with his brother Sal Gomez.

It was an inspiring affirmation from a Sacramentan originally from El Salvador. If the United States is still the melting pot of the world, Sacramento is certainly one of its main ingredients. What better way to propel cultural exchange than by tasting the melted cheese in a savory Salvadoran pupusa?

Dining out in Sacramento characteristically offers the opportunity to immerse oneself in the cultures of other lands. Try the expansive Hong Kong Islander on a busy morning for dim sum. You’ll hear little other than Chinese dialects while enjoying the attention of the welcoming wait staff.

Then there are the YD House restaurants on Folsom and Freeport Boulevards. Its Korean servers are

happy to explain that the perplexing colorful scissors at the table are for cutting kimchi.

Queen Sheba on Broadway takes you to Ethiopia, with a staff excited to lead you through using their injera flatbread as an edible eating utensil with its potato and carrot stew.

Back at Las Palmas, a longtime Salvadoran outpost in South Sac for more than a decade, its most popular fare is, of course, the pupusa. But, the Gomez brothers’ top-seller is the Pupusa Revuelta: beans, cheese and chicharrón (fried pork rind) in a cornmeal tortilla vessel.

Marvin, also from El Salvador, told me that the restaurant features “very home-like” food that he learned to cook from his mom while growing up. On a recent visit, I ordered the Salvadoran Yuca con Chicarrón plate.

It included lightly breaded, deep-fried yuca, a delicious root vegetable that reminded me of Japanese yams and stuck to my ribs like good comfort food should. The dish was surrounded by generous portions of raw radish,

cucumber and lime that provided the counterpoint to the chicharrón, equal parts fried pork fat and succulent carnita-like meat.

Sal described the similarly comforting and Salvadoran Sopa de Gallina (chicken soup): Depending on the day, a leg and thigh or breast and wing are cooked in the soup’s broth, then extracted, deep-fried and served next to the soup. It’s a warm dish for the biting winter.

Despite its Salvadoran roots, Las Palmas also offers Mexican cuisine, a tribute to the restaurant’s cross-cultural M.O. When I ordered beans as a side dish one day, the cashier asked, “Mexican beans or Salvadoran beans?” She pointed out that the primary difference was in the preparation, with pinto or black beans, respectively.

Marvin said he is proud of the restaurant’s status as a cultural hub, with regulars from all over Central America, Mexico, Russia, Spain, the Caribbean and beyond. It’s an edible reflection of Sacramento’s diversity. Ω

PH: (916) 509-9556 7 4 1 9 Laguna B Lv d . # 1 8 0 JourneyToTheDumpling.com

’18

12.27.18 | SN&R | 23

Now playiNg

ReviewS

5

Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley

Set at Christmas time, two years after the end of Pride and Prejudice, this story brings back the Bennet girls for another round of drama and comedy, leading up to a gala Christmas celebration. A delight for Austen fans and non-Austen fans alike. Thu 2pm & 7pm, Fri

Five Willies club m axf i el dm @ n ew s r ev i ew . com

To celebrate the final SN&R issue of 2018, we looked back at the plays that stood out to our stage reviewers. Here are some of the year’s local productions that garnered the coveted five-Willie review:

One Man, Two Guvnors The grand opening of B Street Theatre’s new midtown location took a simple, silly plot with this play, and it proved a perfect welcome for B Street’s new home. Facing the audience before the show, artistic director Buck Busfield thanked everyone for their support, and then explained why he picked an overthe-top “unapologetic farce” to launch the new theater. “I wanted our first show to be fun,” he said, “and to show off our new space and all our veteran cast members.” (Patti Roberts, 2/8)

Macbeth Set in 11th century Scotland, Sacramento Theatre Company’s production of the Shakespeare classic was based on paganism and ancient ritual, with chanting witches and drums to accentuate the feeling onstage. Strong performances by all, particularly William Elsman in the title role, made this an excellent production.

(Bev Sykes, 3/1)

A Raisin in the Sun Celebration Arts chose Lorraine Hansberry’s iconic A Raisin in the Sun to unveil its new theater space at 27th and B Streets. This wonderful, heartfelt production of an African-American family trying to traverse the social and 24 | SN&R | 12.27.18

racial issues of 1950s Chicago still resonates with a talented cast, all under the direction of Celebration Arts founder James Wheatley. (P.R., 3/1)

Hair The show’s young cast members were all eager to be pulled into the collective experience of joy and resistance that swept the country in the late ’60s.

Falcon’s Eye Theatre’s ensemble was intoxicatingly enthusiastic, as were the psychedelic set and dynamic production elements. (P.R., 4/19)

An Ideal Husband Directed by Kevin Adamski and Nina Dramer, this Big Idea Theatre production of Oscar Wilde’s 1895 comedy featured a contemporary bromance between two friends, Lord Robert (Eric Craig) and Lord Arthur Goring (Ian Hopps). A scene late in the first act had a magical give-and-take between the men—the scene was stunning stagecraft.

(Jim Carnes, 5/3)

Marjorie Prime Jordan Harrison’s play is a sci-fi tale wrapped inside a family drama. Janis Stevens brilliantly starred in the title role, with sterling turns by Jamie Jones, Brock D. Vickers and Steven Sean Garland.

Stephanie Gulart, Capital Stage founding artistic director, now producing artistic director of Florida’s American Stage, directed this co-production of the two companies. (J.C., 5/10)

Welcome to the Five Willies club, Sharon Rietkerk and Cristopher Ryan (as Lily Garland and Oscar Jaffe).

Photo courtesy of davis shakesPeare festival

CoMpiled By MAxFieLD MORRiS

8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 2pm & 7pm. Through 12/30; $28-$38; Capital Stage,

2215 J St., (916) 995-5464, capstage.org. B.S.

4

Halftime

You don’t need to be a football fan to appreciate this story of worlds coming apart and the desperate attempts at putting them back together again. B Street has pulled together a very talented cast, with a powerful performance by Rich Hebert, who realistically conveys the hurt, pain and anger that affects his character both mentally and physically. Thu 8pm,

Fri 8pm, Sat 5pm & 9pm, Sun 2pm & 4pm. Through 12/30; $33-$37; B Street Theatre, 2700 Capitol Ave., (916) 443-5300; bstreettheatre.org. P.R.

short reviews by Bev sykes and Patti roberts. see the “on stage” section of the calendar for more live performances.

Photo courtesy of Barry Wisdom

Mary Stuart Mary Stuart arrived as this summer’s bonus, a strong modern mounting of a classic with two powerhouse professionals as leads, Jamie Jones (Queen Elizabeth I), and Sharon Rietkerk (Mary Stuart, aka Mary, Queen of Scots). This critic had been waiting years to see this kind of summer festival launch locally, and Davis Shakespeare Festival made it happen. (Jeff Hudson, 7/5)

On the 20th Century The Davis Shakespeare Festival presented this classic musical by Cy Coleman, with orchestra playing the music of Comden and Green. A first-rate cast, dressed elegantly, cavorted on a beautiful train set designed by Liz Hadden-McGuire, with rotating cars to show the interior rooms. (B.S., 7/12)

B Street alum Danielle Mone Truitt, left, returns with a one-woman show written by Anthony Djuan, right.

One woman, three women

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Celebration Arts presented this second installment of August Wilson’s 10-play “Pittsburgh Cycle.” Steady precision came from actors Kevin Johnson and KT Masala as every character searched for identity as Americans, African-Americans and as free men and women still dealing with racism and discrimination. (J.C., 10/18)

1 2 3 4 5 foul

fair

Good

Well-doNe

suBlime doN’t miss

Sacramento native and actress Danielle Mone Truitt is back in town and ready to perform. Her one-woman show, 3: Black Girl Blues, was conceived by Truitt and written by Anthony Djuan, and it has been performed in Los Angeles a number of times. This staged reading gives the audience a dose of the reflective work about three lifelong friends in their 30s, and their journey through life—and it also gives them waffles and mimosas as part of the New Play Brunch series.

Elizabeth Nunziato will be directing, so come see what’s going on upstairs at the B. Sun 12/30, 11am. $12; B Street Theatre, 2700 Capitol Avenue, bstreettheatre.org.

—Maxfield Morris

fiLm CLiPS

Great expectations

If Beale Street Could Talk Kiki Layne (left) and Stephan James (right) share an intimate moment.

by DanIeL BarneS

James as watery-eyed blank slates. They’re blurry like the lovers in a Terrence Malick movie; If Beale Street Could Talk certainly reaches for a Malick-ian mythic intimacy, while also indulging a similarly self-conscious artiness.

As the story opens, sensitive sculptor Fonny is deteriorating in prison awaiting trial on trumped-up rape charges, and teenage perfume counter girl Tish finds out that she’s pregnant with his baby. The narrative drifts between present-day scenes where Tish and her family struggle to raise money for legal fees and flashback scenes that flesh out Tish and Fonny’s relationship and show the injustices that tore them apart.

Despite the dull leads, the film features a strong supporting performance from Regina King as Tish’s mother, while serial scenestealer Brian Tyree Henry needs only a few minutes to walk away with the film as Danny, an ex-convict still scarred by the horrors of prison. There are some marvelously realized sequences, such as the scene where Tish lays out the different behaviors of black men and white men at the perfume counter, but there is a lot of dead air and downtime in between.

With its auburn-tinged images, gliding camera moves, swooning score, elliptical narrative and tragic romanticism, the film often feels like an African-American In the Mood for Love. At its best, If Beale Street Could Talk is lovely cinematic poetry, but the film is rarely at its best. Ω

1 2 3 4 5 Poor

Fair

Aquaman

5

Mary Poppins Returns

Good

Very Good

excellent

The magical nanny (Emily Blunt, superb) returns to 17 Cherry Tree Lane, where Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw), now grown and widowed with kids of his own (Pixie Davis, Nathanael Saleh, Joel Dawson), is about to lose the family home to foreclosure. Directed

by Rob Marshall, who co-wrote with David Magee and John DeLuca (inspired by P.L. Travers’ stories), this sequel has been 54 years coming—and it’s worth every day of the wait.

Marshall hews close to the original in style and structure, and the charming songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman almost match the brilliance of Robert and Richard Sherman’s original score. Emily Mortimer co-stars as sister Jane, with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, Meryl Streep, Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury in loving support.

Sure to charm all but the most churlish cynic, it is, like Mary Poppins herself, practically perfect in every way. J.L.

3

The Mule

An octogenarian cultivator of daylilies (Clint Eastwood, who also directed) bails out his floundering flower business by running drugs for the Sinaloa Cartel from Mexico to Chicago. Nick Schenk’s script fictionalizes the true story of Leo Sharp, changing his name and adding an estranged ex-wife (Dianne Wiest) and daughter (Eastwood’s real daughter, Alison) to dramatize our hero’s regrets for bridges burned over his long life. As we might expect from an 88-year-old superstar filmmaker with nothing left to prove, the movie has an elegiac, farewell quality to it, and Eastwood moves gingerly through it with an air of leathery frailty. It’s as if Sergio Leone’s Man with No Name has evolved into a sort of tight-lipped, soft-hearted Archie Bunker. And somehow, there’s something strangely comforting in that. J.L.

4

4

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

DC Comics rummages among its second rank of superheroes for Aquaman (Jason Momoa), who has been living in the back pages of bigger stars since the 1940s. The hodgepodge script by five writers (including director James Wan) makes him the offspring of a princess of Atlantis (Nicole Kidman, CGI’d back into her teens) and a lighthouse keeper (Temuera Morrison), becoming a hero-hybrid of King Arthur and Romulus, pulling the Trident from the Stone and vying with his evil halfbrother (Patrick Wilson) for their undersea kingdom. Momoa makes a scruffy, sexy hero (he looks like he should be standing on a road divider with a “Will Swim For Food” sign), and the visual effects crew has a waterlogged field day. It’s campy and miles over the top, but fun in its loopy wouldn’t-it-be-cool-to-breatheunder-water way J.L.

3

Two years ago, with only a 2008 no-budget feature and a few short films to his credit, writer-director Barry Jenkins shepherded a cast of unknowns, a rookie editor and a cinematographer best known for shooting Kevin Smith movies to Oscar glory with Moonlight. A film that was both grounded and mythic, realistic and dreamlike, Moonlight took generalities about the African-American experience involving identity and injustice and made them deeply personal, cathartic and transcendent.

In adapting James Baldwin’s 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk, Jenkins pulls the reverse trick, turning the specifics of early 1970s Harlem back into free-floating generalities about the African-American experience. The lyrical tone and aesthetics remain, but you can feel the weight of expectations pushing down on If Beale Street Could Talk. The crushing need for this follow-up to be on that same level of “significance” as its award-winning forebear seems to constantly breathe down the film’s neck.

The gorgeous Nicholas Britell score that Jenkins slathers across almost every scene of If Beale Street Could Talk offers the perfect summation of why the film both does and doesn’t work—the music is unspeakably beautiful but also slightly suffocating, both perfectly restrained and a bit much. It does a lot of the heavy lifting establishing and sustaining emotion and mood, while the overwritten script offers one stiff monologue after another.

Instead of the incredibly complex, shapeshifting protagonist of Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk gives us Tish and Fonny, soulmate ciphers seemingly defined by their lack of personality. Despite Tish’s omnipresent narration, Tish and Fonny are played by KiKi Layne and Stephan

3

by DanIeL BarneS & JIM Lane

Roma

Alfonso Cuarón writes, directs, produces, co-edits and serves as his own cinematographer on the intimately lavish Roma, a semi-autobiographical labor of love set in the Mexico City of his youth. The story centers on Cleo (first-time actress Yalitza Aparicio), the live-in housekeeper in an upper middle-class household torn apart by infidelity. Most of this black-andwhite film’s leisurely first hour is devoted to carefully laying out the details of Cleo’s world, especially the stark racial, class and gender divides that keep her on the lower rungs of society, but patient viewing leads to powerful emotional payoffs. Cuarón (Gravity; Children of Men) offers another masterclass in bravura camera moves and the seamless integration of CGI, but as ever the film is so precision-tuned and impeccably timed that it feels a little mechanical and bloodless.

That said, Cuarón’s Roma still offers an increasingly rare combination of ambition, imagination, compassion, emotion and execution. D.B.

It sucks that almost every major motion picture these days is a self-aware pastiche and brand nostalgia compilation, but if the only stories that Hollywood can weave anymore are Easter egg baskets, it would be nice if more of them had the energy, artistry, heart and humor of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. This animated feature is directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman, but it feels like the key creative cog is co-screenwriter Phil Lord, who pulled off a similar feat of franchise maintenance with The Lego Movie. The story focuses on Miles Morales, a mixed-race teenager who takes over as Spider-Man following the death of Peter Parker. When a wormhole created by Kingpin brings Miles into contact with a diverse group of alternate universe SpiderPeople, they naturally team up to save the world.

Superhero movies aren’t going away anytime soon, and if Into the Spider-Verse is any indication, maybe they shouldn’t. D.B.

2

Vice

Another smugly contemptuous, aesthetically atrocious, vaguely comedic screed from The Big Short writer-director Adam McKay, this time a tragically overreaching attempt to capture the complexities of snarling Republican supervillain Dick Cheney.

The film covers Cheney’s life from his prepolitical years as a deadbeat drunk through his 2012 heart transplant, jumping around not just in time but in genres, tones and points of view. McKay wants to demonize and humanize Cheney at the same time, and the effect is like simultaneously watching ten different Dick Cheney biopics, all of them tedious. Abetted by stellar makeup, prosthetics and wig work, Christian Bale does a solid impression of Cheney, and the film gets good supporting work from Amy Adams, Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell, but it mostly feels like a 132-minute sketch. For Cheney-related comedy that more adroitly blends anger, absurdity and intelligence, see almost any random Bush II-era episode of The Daily Show. D.B.

3

Vox Lux

Brady Corbet writes and directs this intriguing but overreaching amalgam of showbiz satire, faux-documentary, epic soap opera and beard-stroking commentary about 21st century American society. The story opens in 1999, with Willem Dafoe narrating a documentary about Celeste Montgomery (Raffey Cassidy), a teenage girl who survives a Columbineesque student massacre. Celeste and her sister Eleanor write and perform a song about the tragedy at a televised memorial, bringing them overnight fame and catapulting them into the arms of a music industry sleazebag played by Jude Law. The second half of the film is set in 2017, with an adult Celeste (Natalie Portman, going for it, unfortunately) now a shaky superstar with a teenage daughter (Cassidy again) and a new unspeakable tragedy to deal with. Vox Lux does not lack for complex ideas and lofty aspirations, but the human drama is muddled and the observations on contemporary culture are obvious and exploitative. D.B.

3

Welcome to Marwen

Beaten nearly to death by bar thugs, an artist (Steve Carell) finds therapy in a miniature World War II village he builds in his yard, staging combat fantasies with action-figures, himself as a fly-boy G.I. Joe, his assailants as Nazi soldiers and women in his life as gun-toting Barbie dolls—all of which he carefully photographs. Director Robert Zemeckis (co-writing with Caroline Thompson) turns the true story of Mark Hogancamp (told in the 2010 documentary Marwencol) into a psychodrama caroming from war-movie fantasies where “Cap’n Hogie” exerts cool command, to a cringing reality where Hogancamp struggles to cope.

It’s technically brilliant and very well-acted— especially by Leslie Mann as Hogancamp’s new neighbor and latest crush—but it never quite attains the emotional punch it’s aiming for. J.L.

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Eat. Drink.

Be Merry.

Repeat.

Thank you for voting Kupros!

2018 is not over

’18

Some final local shows before the new year

by Mozes zarate

Old Ironsides

1217 21st St • 916.440.0401 | www.KuprosCrafthouse .com

the

on t

Red Curry w it

& Veggies ofu T h

Best Thai

10 BEERS ON TAP HAPPY HOUR EVERYDAY: 4:30 - 6PM $4 BEERS, WINE & APPETIZERS 1110 T St. Sacramento, CA 95811 | 916-822-4665

for daily $2 Beer Specials

Check

drunken noodle •Midtown•

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Wake up, drunks! City of trees Brass Band’s Holiday Hangover show is thursday.

2502 J St. Sacramento, CA | 916-447-1855 26

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As the Camp Fire recovery effort continues, so does the pairing of philanthropy and great local music.

Old I’s benefit for the people of Paradise packs 11 artists in one night of country, blues and rock.

If you haven’t seen Michael Ray live, he’ll remind you of why the blues are still relevant. The night ends with Drop Dead Red, a Sacto alternative blues-rock troupe led by a room-filling vocal presence in Carly DuHain. Friday, December 28, 6:30pm; $5 donation, sliding scale; 1901 10th Street.

Blue Lamp As you reflect on the past year, ask yourself: “Did I support local music?” In Sacramento, there’s always a live show worthy of your attention, and if we’re measuring by degrees, the answer is “Not enough.”

But before you add “In 2019, I will see City of Trees Brass Band live” to your list of resolutions, there are still some great gigs in this year’s final days, including one by that New Orleans-style jazz tribe.

It’s never too late to enjoy Sacramento music.

Here are some sonic ways to seize the day before the New Year countdown starts:

At the second Black Lives Rap Fest, you can support the fight for racial equality and bob your head. The bill of socially conscious, hardcore lyricists includes Bueno, Y.K., Lil Marvaless, Brrazey and Brannon Picket. Check out the collab track “Pray 4 Me” by Lil Marvaless. She’s a rhyme exterminator who happens to bear the stage name of her mom, a Sac rap legend who guest-starred on 2Pac, Mac Dre and Master P records, to name a few. Proceeds benefit Black Lives Matter Sacramento. Marvel at the nimble words of the next in the lineage. Sunday, December 30, 9pm; $10 donation; 1400 Alhambra Boulevard.

Phono Select Records

Crocker Art Museum

“Carpe diem” is easier to pronounce if you don’t have to spend any money. But this show looks so good, you should be paying for it. Phono Select Records is putting on a free bill that includes the indie-psych pop of Vasas, Trinidad Silva and Art Lessing and the Flower Vato. Listen to Vasas’ 2017 song “Such a Dog” on Bandcamp, and melt your heart away to guitars overdriven to the stars and free-ranging folk-vocals ringing down to Earth.

Saturday, December 29, 6:30pm; No cover. 2475 Fruitridge Road.

The Crocker’s monthly series, Audio Muse, has Sacramento’s standout music-makers complementing walls of mesmerizing art with a live performance. In December, emo pop-rock/electronica is the soundpairing, courtesy of Cemetery Sun, who will play in front of genre-bending digital art from Justin Wood.

Thursday, December 27, 6:30pm; $10-$20; 216 O Street.

Shine

$2 BEEr Daily

Photo courtesy of michelle Gunvordahl

Thai Food & gluten free options

coconut

mozesz@newsreview.com

Let Mastoids’ January 2018 LP Emergence Tremens persuade you to go outside and see them live. It’s alternative rock with an ear for crunched hardcore and punk. Fissure your ear drums to them, then see your doctor, but not before you enjoy pleasing pop-punk from Attack of the Hooligans! and Free Candy that night. Saturday, December 29, 8pm; $8; 1400 E Street, Suite A.

Torch Club; Holy Diver You haven’t seen your brother in a year, and that meant a drunken night across downtown. You could reconsider your immediate past, or look to the future’s promising live music lineup: On 15th Street at the Torch Club, City of Trees Brass Band’s Holiday Hangover show brings the Big Easy’s jazz parade to your sobering ears. No more drinking, brother! It’s Saturday now, which means we can attend another Holiday Hangover show, this time to mellow out to reggae jams from Arden Park Roots at Holy Diver.

Two waters, please. Thursday, December 27, 9pm, $6, 904 15th Street; Saturday, December 29, 7pm, $12, 1517 21st Street. Ω

for the week of december 27

by maxfield morris

online listings will be considered for print. Print listings are edited for space and accuracy. d eadline for print listings is 5 p.m. Wednesday. d eadline for nightLife listings is midnight Sunday.

Send photos and reference materials to calendar editor Maxfield Morris at snrcalendar@newsreview.com.

PosT eveNTs oNLINe For Free aT newsreview. com/sacramento

MuSiC

Project and eRRth. Stop by if you like one or many of these bands. 7pm, $12. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

thurSd Ay, 12/27

THe moTHer HIPs: Two days of the Mother Hips in a row. Tonight they’re joined by the Golden Cadillacs. 9pm, $25-$30. Harlow’s, 2708 J St.

aUDIo mUse: The Crocker is hosting a night to stimulate your auditory senses. Cemetery Sun will be bringing the music, with a mellow, indie sound and a taste for pop music. Justin Wood is providing artwork for the evening: digital creations. 6:30pm, $10$20. Crocker Art Museum, 216 O St.

Too sHorT: Along with a swath of other music makers, DJs and performers, Too Short knows how short life really is—too short.

You might as well make the most of it by going to this show. 7pm, $29. 50-$100. Ace of Spades, 1417 R St.

BUTTe sTroNG CamP FIre BeNeFIT: Bastards of Young, the Polyorchids, Mob Rule and Lightweight are performing this benefit show, featured on page 28. 8pm, donations. The Press Club, 2030 P St.

vasas: This free showing of artists that are loud, experimental, psychedelic and explorers of sound will be a rocking night.

Trinidad Silva and Art Lessing and the Flower Vato flesh the evening out. 6:30pm, no cover. Phono Select Records, 2475 Fruitridge Road.

HeLLBoUND GLorY: The country band led by

moN

Noon Year’s eve

TICKeT wINDow Corb Lund The country singer is on

his No Rest for the West tour. 1/15, 7:30pm, $15, on sale now. Goldfield Trading Post, eventbrite. com.

Ari ShAffir Get some yucks from this prolific comedian, podcaster and host. 1/3-1/5, various times, $23, on sale now. Punch Line Sacramento, concerts1. livenation. com.

MiChAeL neSMith

You remember the Monkees? Well, this former Monkee is walking down your street—the B Street that is! (Now located on Capitol Avenue. ) 1/20, 7pm, $55, on sale now. The Sofia, bstreettheatre. org.

AnnA nALiCk You probably remember her song “Breathe,” and that should be enough to draw you to her At Now tour, a self-produced album. 2/5, 8:30pm,

$30-$80, on sale now. The Sofia, bstreettheatre. org.

benefits Black Lives Matter Sacramento features rappers Y. K. , Brannon Picket, Lil Marvaless and Bueno. 95816 9pm, $10. Blue Lamp, 1400 Alhambra Blvd.

Dead Read, Warren Bishop and many more music groups come together to benefit the people of Paradise, via the Sierra Nevada Brewery fund. Donate for a good cause and good music. 7:30pm, $5. Old Ironsides, 1901 10th St.

Mond Ay, 12/31 KrIZZ KaLIKo: The rapper raised on gospel music from Kansas City is coming through to Holy Diver on the eve of the new year. 7pm, $25. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

Wed neSd Ay, 1/2

is playing in Davis for free. There are 12 pieces in the band—enough to get a pretty good game of pickup football going. 7pm, no cover. John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st St. in Davis.

HeY, CHeLs: Hey, Chels will be bringing their instruments as well as their Doc Martens to play alongside Sad Girlz Club and Slumped.

I say alongside, but they’ll be playing at different times. 8pm, $7-$10. The Press Club, 2030 P St.

maTHew James: The pretty decent Mathew James is from Los Angeles, and his artist bio says he’s been compared to David Bowie, Jim Croce and Bono. Wow! 9pm, $5. Fox & Goose, 1001 R St.

neW yeAr’S eVe

THe moTHer HIPs: The long-running Bay Area band is still making some sweet, soothing music. There will be special guests in the form of the Coffis Brothers. 9pm, $25$30. Harlow’s, 2708 J St.

Mond Ay, 12/31 BLaCK & wHITe New Year’s eve ParTY: The first New Year’s Eve party alphabetically is at a conference center. Music from DJs Magic Mel and Gino will contribute to the noise, food will be available to buy, and KDEE-LP 97. 5 is hosting. 8pm, $50-$450. McClellan Conference Center, 5411 Luce Ave.

roYaLs DIe YoUNG: It’s a very special, very

d ierk S bentLey If you wish you had

a Bentley, but can only afford tickets to Bentley, that’s okay, too. 2/16, 7pm, $39. 75$89. 75, on sale now. Reno Events Center, ticketmaster. com.

Serengeti Frequent Sufjan Stevens

collaborator and talented musician stops through Sacramento. 2/18, 7pm, $10-$15, on sale now. Momo Sacramento, ticketfly. com.

PAniC! At the d iSCo Brendon

Urie, known for his work in Panic! At the Disco, brings that incredible voice to G1C. 2/20, 7pm, $45-$300, on sale now. Golden 1 Center, ticketmaster. com.

MuSe The rock superstars are stopping Amuse, Muse.

BLaCK LIves raP FesT II: This show that

BeNeFIT For ParaDIse: Sons of Man, Drop

DavIs JaZZ NIGHT: The New Harmony Jazz Band

give me liberty or give me k id rock tickets!

the rise of the Four Seasons comes to the Harris Center. 1/22-1/26, various times, $48-$92, on sale now. Harris Center, harriscenter. net.

Sund Ay, 12/30

frid Ay, 12/28

this week. Two shows! 6:30pm, $12-$15. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

There’s live steel drum music from the Pan United Youth Movement, live dancers from the Turn Verein and the Far East Dragon Lion Dance Association, along with motherdaughter poetry team Straight Out Scribes. Whether you want to go to sleep early or squeeze two countdowns into your day, this is your event. 216 O Street, crockerart. org/events.

JerSey boyS The musical detailing

professionally gravel-voiced Leroy Virgil can’t oversell how country they are. 8pm, $8-$10. Goldfield Trading Post, 1630 J St.

CemeTerY sUN: Double plug for Cemetery Sun

CroCker Art MuseuM, 10AM, no Cover There are 100 to 200 different ways to celebrate New Year’s Eve—we feature a couple dozen later New Year’s eve in the calendar— but the Crocker’s is an outlier as a free, family-friendly, purple-themed event.

Wear your violet shades and celebrate art, community and 2019, with a new year countdown 12 whole hours before midnight.

Photo CourteSy of the CroCk er

31

Celebrate life, and the new year, too, at the Crocker Art Museum.

through Sacramento on their Simulation tour. 3/7, 7:30pm, $39. 50-$400, on sale now.

Golden 1 Center, ticketmaster. com.

metal kind of night at the Boardwalk. Royals Die Young will be joined by Hellheart, Faint Silhouette, Nail the Casket and Enter: Villain. 6:30pm, $10. The Boardwalk, 9426 Greenback Lane in Orangevale.

saveD BY THe 90’s: Get a sweet dose of ’90s cover songs from your favorite over-the-top band. But wait—there’s more. Cover Me Badd will also be joining in, playing all originals!

Just kidding, they’re playing covers. 8pm, $18-$20. Ace Of Spades, 1417 R St.

vIBraTIoN: SOL Development and Mino Yanci will be making music. The Development band mixes music with activism, trying to reach hearts, souls and empower people along the way. Mino Yanci is a four-piece jazz group that explore sonically. 8:30pm, $10-$15. The Guild Theater, 2828 35th St.

SAturd Ay, 12/29

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

BoDaCIoUs 80’s NYe ParTY aT THe oLD sUGar mILL: If you’re looking for a NYE party that sounds unbelievably hip, almost comically avant garde and a great one-up to other people’s plans, hit up this party held at a former beet sugar refinery. There will be ’80s and ’90s tunes and vibes, a costume contest that’s a throwback to the 1980s, and plenty of food and drink to purchase. 8pm, $40. Old Sugar Mill, 35265 Willow Ave. in Clarksburg.

CoUNTDowN oN K NYe 2019: District 30 opens its doors for this party, hosted with 102. 5 FM. There are decorations, top hats and more trinkets you’d expect from a New Year’s Eve party, as well as a complimentary and

arDeN ParK rooTs: It’s a holiday show, alright, and that means the AP Roots will be joined

by For the Kids, Brave Coyote, Roots Man

CaLeNDar LIsTINGs CoNTINUeD oN PaGe 28

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

thursday, 12/27

new year’s eve witH y&t, FranK Hannon and tHe sJ sindiCate: The title of this party says it all. This all-ages show is guaranteed heavy. 6pm, $20-$28.50. Ace of Spades, 1417 R St.

butte strong Camp Fire benefit The PreSS Club, 8PM, by donaTion

new years Party: Billed as the biggest party ringing in the new year, it brags some of “California’s hottest artists,” with special guests and apparently up to 1,000 people in attendance. 9:30pm, $15. The Center at 2300, 2300 Sierra Blvd.

noon year’s eve FamiLy FestivaL: It’s time

Many people in Sacramento have folks Photo courtesy oF elmer martinez in their lives who have been affected by the fires in Butte County. This show goes toward those affected, by way of the North Valley Community Foundation. Expect performances from local punk band Bastards of Young, along with indie musicians the Polyorchids, additional punk rockers Mob Rule musiC and pop punk group Lightweight. If you can’t make it to this benefit, there’s also a Paradise benefit show on Friday at Old Ironsides.

2030 P Street, punchandpiefest.com.

vinyl music, and it’s in a penthouse, which is up there with beet factories as far as hip venues go. 9pm, $20-$40. Mixture @ The Elks Tower Penthouse, 921 11th St.

CaLendar ListinGs Continued From PaGe 27 free champagne drink at midnight. 9:30pm, $40-$60. District 30, 1022 K St.

new year’s eve at JaCKrabbit brewery:

draKe’s barn new year’s eve CeLebration: How are you going to celebrate the new year? Hopefully by spending some time in a barn—Drake’s, that is! Come on down (or up) for this riverside party with a great view of Old Sac fireworks, some great music and a free photo booth. 7pm, $10$55. Drake’s: The Barn, 985 Riverfront St. in West Sacramento.

Live music with Jason Weeks is a unique feature of this New Year’s Eve party. What other local brewery can boast that exact band, plus appetizers and beers? 8pm, $30$60. Jackrabbit Brewing Co., 1323 Terminal St. in West Sacramento.

new years eve bLaCKout sKate: Skate away the last few hours of the old year—because you’re worth it. Bring a donation of canned food for a discounted admission. 7pm, $5-$20. Roller King Skating Center, 889 Riverside Ave. in Roseville.

FaCes new year’s eve CeLebration: Spend your NYE with Faces Nightclub. With a buffet included in your entrance fee, you’ll be sure to ring in the new year with a full belly.

Get your dance on as our four-digit year turns into a different four-digit year. 8pm, $35. Faces, 2000 K St.

new year’s eve niGHttime Party: Hey, kids!

This museum dedicated to children is throwing a kids’ New Year’s Eve party. Show up for some dancing, some revelry and more. 9pm, $5-$7.50. Sacramento Children’s Museum, 2701 Prospect Park Drive, Suite 120 in Rancho Cordova.

FiZZ nye Party: Thanks to fire codes, this party, like all of them, has limited tickets— but it has unlimited champagne! Get down to the DOCO to celebrate the end of the year that you learned how to go fly fishing. 9:30pm, $200-$300. Fizz Champagne & Bubbles Bar, 615 David J. Stern Walk.

the whole night with SacYard, with tunes from Home B4 Dark at 6 p.m. and Stillwater Creek at 9 p.m. You can have some food, drink some drinks and do some other fun activities. 6pm, call for cover. SacYard Community Taphouse, 1725 33rd St.

new years eve Party witH riFF raFF: Riff Raff will be hosting the evening. Show up ready to have a good time, and to welcome a new year with new opportunities to invent hugely popular dance moves. 8pm, $15$75. Corner Pocket Sports Bar, 7777 Sunrise Blvd., 1400 in Citrus Heights.

LiPstiCK! new years eve Party: The Ol’ Ironsides is throwing a year-end shindig with Lipstick! So come celebrate the end of 2018, the year where we all learned the value of a high-quality copper pan. 9pm, $10. Old Ironsides, 1901 10th St.

new year’s eve witH Larry rodriGueZ: Fox & Goose will be bumping with the sounds of Larry Rodriguez, and they’re billing the evening as “by far the best year-end dance party in town,” so come put that to the test as you build your evening. 9pm, $15. Fox & Goose, 1001 R St.

miX new years eve 2019: Are you in the Mix? Well, you can be, if you get a ticket. DJ Eddie Edul is making noises, the champagne will be popping and the TV sets will be tuned to the Times Square ball drop. Say adieu to 2018 and bienvenue to 2019. 8pm, $40-$50. Mix Downtown, 1525 L St.

new year’s eve witH wonder bread 5: Cover

miXture PentHouse nye GatHerinG: Are you in the mixture? Well, you can be, if you get a … ticket. Hmm. DJ Karizma and Michael Caccam are making noises, there will be

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Sol Collective—but there are way better sensations to be had here at this event, including music from the Philharmonik, Paul Willis and KARE. As if that’s not enough for you, there will be free pizza—the food of the Gods and the Italians. 7pm, $10-$20. Sol Collective, 2574 21st St.

sPanKy’s eLeCtro swinG soiree new year’s eve: One last option for you to choose from—we highlighted nearly 30—it’s this dance party at the Blue Lamp. DJ Lady Char is the lead entertainment, featuring electro swing music. There’s a photo booth, a balloon drop and more fun New Year’s Eve antics. 9pm, $10-$12. Blue Lamp, 1400 Alhambra Blvd.

nouveau tHanK u, neXt year: Hella Good Company brings you this event at Highwater. Their own description for the party humbly recognizes the challenges of putting on a New Year’s Eve party— which is a good sign in my book. Come spend time with Jon, Dru and Soosh, as well as April Bambao and Nunu. 9pm, $30$50. Highwater, 1910 Q St.

nye masQuerade baLL: Certified swanky by the Calendar Editor’s Guidebook for Parties and Events, this ball brings DJs DM and Chachi to the space. There are eats, an open bar and more. Get fancy and dance. 9pm, $145. Revival at the Sawyer, 500 J St.

oLd saCramento new year’s eve CeLebration: This party runs you through all the bars on 2nd Street, all for one cover charge. There’s obviously going to be music, drinks and dancing, if that’s your thing, and you’ll be poised to witness the fireworks show. 7pm, $30. Old Sacramento, 2nd St.

Festivals saturday, 12/29 20tH anniversary CaLiFornia state CaPitoL KwanZaa: Celebrate Kwanzaa at the California Capitol for the 20th time.

The “first fruits of the harvest” festival helps you lead a thoughtful life, featuring principles for growth and unity. 11:30am, no cover. State Capitol, 10th and L Streets.

snowGLobe musiC FestivaL: Take to the mountains this weekend for a snowy festival. The lineup includes G-Eazy, Above & Beyond, Diplo, Eric Prydz, Rezz, RL Grime and so many more. If you need to get out of the city, get out in a big way at this threeday festival. 2pm, $119-$499. South Lake Tahoe Community Playfields, 1 College Way in South Lake Tahoe.

tHe ParK new year’s eve: DJ Peeti-V is the music master of this party. Like many NYE happenings, it offers a complimentary champagne toast at midnight. Stop by to ring in the new year and its promise of up to 365 breakfasts. 8:30pm, $40-$50. The Park, 1116 15th St.

roseviLLe, Ca FamiLy new years eve: Take to Dave & Buster’s for your early eve celebrations. Food, folks and fun are the name of the game—for everyone, so families, come on down for games and foods. 5pm, $29-$37. Dave & Buster’s at the Fountains of Roseville, 1174 Roseville Parkway in Roseville.

Food & drinK

12.27.18

music from the five is the main draw of this party. Come shake your tail feathers and say goodbye to the year and all it represents. 10pm, $45. Harlow’s, 2708 J St.

Friday, 12/28 monty PytHon and tHe HoLy GraiL: If you’ve never seen the classic Monty Python film in theaters, you’re probably not alone— but you can remedy that at this showing in Auburn. Despite over-quotation, the comedy troupe’s film is an unbeatable marvel. 7pm, $8. Auburn State Theatre, 985 Lincoln Way in Auburn.

rosemary’s baby: Christmas has ended, so it’s time to take in this horror film about a cult, paranoia and Satanism. 7:30pm, $7.50$9.50. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

saturday 12/29 die Hard (on 35 mm FiLm): There’s no holiday season without Bruce Willis taking on some German terrorists. Relive the classic action and comedy movie that will get you absolutely pumped to take on the new year. 7:30pm, $7.50-$9.50. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

comedy bLaCKtoP Comedy: Game Night Improv for Everyone. Come try out some improvisational games—learn as you go, and your first class is free. thursday 12/27, 7pm. no cover. 3101 Sunset Blvd., Suite 6A in Rocklin.

LauGHs unLimited Comedy CLub: Smile Out Loud with Carlos Rodriguez. Featuring Dejan Tyler and Sheno Khal, with your tireless host Curtis Newingham. thursday 12/27, 8pm. $15. Eric Blake. Nick Larson joins Blake for some laughs and chuckles. Through 12/30. $10. 1207 Front St.

PunCH Line: Nikki Glaser. The comedian,

sunday, 12/30 1st annuaL KwanZaa CooKie Contest: See the cookie decorating event highlight below. noon, $25. Sojourner Truth Museum, 2251 Florin Road.

new years eve Party at saCyard!: Spend

LavisH masQuerade baLL: Strap on a mask and get fancy, because it’s time for New Year’s Eve with DJ OTY. It’s a lavish ball, so remember the things you learned in finishing school, as well as how to party. 9pm, $30. Vanguard, 1415 L St.

for the over-eager among us to celebrate the new year early. Check out the event highlight on page 27. 10am, no cover. Crocker Art Museum, 216 O St.

Film

soL LiFe nye: It’s an alcohol-free night at

Friday, 12/30

Kwanzaa Cookie Contest Sojourner TruTh MuSeuM, noon, $25

Do you make a mean Kwanzaa cookie? Come show off your chops in the kitchen by entering this festive contest. It’s the first year of the tradition, and contestants will be judged by their decorations as well as Food & drinK the taste of their creations.

Drop off your dozen cookies before noon for judging, and the public will be allowed in at 1:30 p.m. to purchase some Kwanzaa creations. The winner gets a commissioned portrait, and the top 12 recipes will be featured in a cookbook.

2251 Florin Road, facebook.com/sojoarts.

podcaster, actress and vocal host of television show Not Safe with Nikki Glaser is doing a run at Punch Line. through 12/29. $25. 2018’s Last Laughs. Did you not get enough comedy this year? Well, come try to squeeze a few more jokes into 2018 on its final day. Comedians Kris Tinkle, Carlos Rodriguez, Jimmy Earll, Ta Vi, Saul Trujlllo, Alfonso Portela and Anthony K will be performing. 7:30pm. through 12/31. $23. 2100 Arden Way, Suite 225.

Wednesday, 1/2

One Club Golf Tourney William land Golf Course, 9am, $35

Ready for some fun on the back and only nine of William Land Golf Course?

Join Dad’s Kitchen for this one-club tournament, meaning you play all nine holes with the same golf implement. So long, caddies! But wait, there’s more: A world record SpOrTS & OuTdOOrS attempt is in the cards as well, as the participants of the day will line up and hit the same PHOTO by TOny WebsTer, C.C. by-sa 2.0 golf ball from hole one to nine as fast as possible. Then, it’s back to Dad’s for tacos and awards. 1701 Sutterville Road, eventbrite.com/o/6096687149.

STAB! COMEdY THEATEr: Thursday Open Mic. Like your comedy a little coarse and open to the public? Come see stand-ups do what they hopefully do best. Thursday 12/27, 9pm. $5. 1710 Broadway.

SACrAMENTO COMEdY SpOT: MRI [Masters of Rap Improv]. You like freestyle rap? See if you still like it once it meets improv at this one-of-a-kind show. Saturday 12/29, 8pm. $8. 1050 20th St., Suite 130.

On sTaGe B STrEET THEATrE: New Play Brunch Presents 3 Black Girl Blues. Brunch meets theater in this one-woman show featuring Danielle Mone Truitt. See the highlight on page 24. Sunday 12/30, 11am. $12. Poison Boot w/ guest Rich Hebert. This live podcast explores the situations actors find themselves in when the show goes off with a hitch. Sunday 12/30, 6:30pm. $12. 2700 Capitol Ave.

CALIFOrNIA STAGE COMpLEX: Katie’s Revolutionary Christmas! Witness this original piece by Zachary Coles, a familyfriendly comedy about the holidays. Through 12/30. $20. 1721 25th St.

SACrAMENTO CONVENTION CENTEr COMpLEX: Waitress. Get your daily dose of Sara Bareilles at this Broadway on Tour production set to her original music. It’s a quick little run of a show, so don’t miss it. Through 1/5. $26-$85. 1400 J St.

arT JOHN NATSOuLAS GALLErY: Bryan Yerian.

The California native shares some of his work, characterized by physical works of sculpture and shape and opening on Jan. 2. Three-dimensional art is very engaging. Through 2/2. No cover. 521 1st St. in Davis.

TIM COLLOM GALLErY: Petite Pleasures. If you like your artwork small, you’re in luck. It’s the sixth year of this exhibition, showing many artists’ work on a smaller level. Catch the final day of it Thursday. Through 12/27. No cover. 915 20th St.

MUseUMs

Behind-the-Scenes Tour. Take a trip down memory lane—the state’s collective memory, that is. It’s a free tour of the archives, home to millions of documents and other records. Register in advance online. Thursday 12/27, 10am. No cover. 1020 O St., 4th Floor.

sPOrTs & OUTdOOrs FrIday, 12/28 HOLIdAY rOCK THE YACHT CruISES: Take to the water for a holiday cruise, mixing cocktails and boating—a match made in a match factory. 8pm, $25. Hornblower Old Sacramento, 1206 Front St.

Wednesday, 1/2 dAd’S KITCHEN “ONE-CLuB” GOLF TOurNAMENT: Check out this record-breaking event involving a golf course, one club and some gimmicks, featured above. 9am, $35. William Land Golf Course, 1701 Sutterville Road.

TaKe aCTIOn TUesday, 1/1 1000 BurGEr GIVEAWAY & BLANKET drIVE: Give a new or gently used blanket for Loaves & Fishes, get a cheeseburger, fry and a drink for the first 1,000 donors. DJ Eddie Z will be keeping the tunes flowing all day long. 11am, no cover. Suzie Burger, 2820 P St.

CLasses THUrsday, 12/27 TEEN AFTEr SCHOOL ArT prOGrAM: Send your teen somewhere after school to work on their art, making holiday gifts and seasonal whatnots. 2:45pm, $25-$30. Gather Studio & Marketplace, 8870 Auburn Folsom Road, Suite B in Granite Bay.

FrIday, 12/28 LAdY LETTOS: Take a class to hone your skills in high-heeled shoes—including such skills as walking and dancing. 8:30pm, $10$20. Sierra 2 Center, 2791 24th St.

CALIFOrNIA STATE ArCHIVES: December California State Archives

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THURSDAY 12/27

FRIDAY 12/28

ArmAdillo music

2003 k ST., (916) 448-8790

Poprockz 90s Night, 7pm, call for cover

Trinity The Tuck Presents Local Drag Competition, 8pm, $5-$20

BAr 101

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

Glitter & Gold NYE, 8pm, M, call for cover; Trapicana, 10pm, W, call for cover

#RocDaMic Showcase: 8-Year Anniversary, 9pm, $20

The BoArdwAlk

Royals Die Young, Faint Silhouette, Nail the Casket, 7pm, $10 adv.

cApiTol GArAGe

1500 k ST., (916) 444-3633

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

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

cresT TheATre

Rosemary’s Baby, 7:30pm, $7.50-$9.50

Die Hard (on 35mm film), 7:30pm, $7.50-$9.50

9426 GREENbAck lN., ORANGEvAlE, (916) 358-9116

1013 k ST., (916) 476-3356

8:30pm Thursday and Friday, $25-$30 Harlow’s Indie rock

Spectacular Saturdays, 7pm, call for cover

Blue lAmp

1400 AlHAMbRA blvD., (916) 455-3400

The Mother Hips

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 12/31-1/2

Turnbuckle Blues Band, 9:30pm, no cover

101 MAIN ST., ROSEvIllE, (916) 774-0505

PHOTO cOURTESY OF JAkE blAkESbURG

SUNDAY 12/30

Citizen Snips, 7pm, no cover

207 F ST., DAvIS, (530) 758-8058

BAdlAnds

SATURDAY 12/29

crocker ArT museum

DubblyFe’s 4th Annual Closer, 9pm, call for cover

Open-Mic, 7:30pm, W, no cover Black Lives Rap Fest II, 9pm, $10 donation

Spanky’s Electro-Swing “New Year’s Eve Soiree”, 9pm, M, $10-$12 Mugshot, With Crows, Set Trip, Without Hope, Pacifists, 7pm, W, $10 adv.

NYE Brunch, 9am, T, $9.50; New Year’s Day Brunch, 9am, W, $9.50

2000 k ST., (916) 448-7798

Audio Muse: Cemetery Sun feat. Justin Wood, 6:30pm, $10-$20

FAces

Faces Karaoke, 9pm, call for cover

Absolut Fridays, 9pm, call for cover

Sequin Saturday, 9:30pm, call for cover

FATher pAddY’s irish puBlic house

Ralph Gordon, 6pm, call for cover

Loose Engines, 8pm, call for cover

Moon Cats, 8pm, call for cover

NYE Party w/ One Eyed Reilly, 9pm, M, no cover

Fox & Goose

According to Bazooka, 8pm, no cover

Matthew James Sertich, 9pm, $5

The Roa Brothers, 9pm, $5

NYE with Larry Rodriguez, 9pm, M, $15

Golden 1 cenTer

Lakers vs. Kings, 7pm, $146-$553

2000 k ST., (916) 448-7798 435 MAIN ST., WOODlAND, (530) 668-1044 1001 R ST., (916) 443-8825 500 DAvID J STERN WAlk, (888) 915-4647

GoldField TrAdinG posT

Pool Party, call for time, no cover

NYE Party, 8pm, M, $35 adv.; Noche Latina, 9pm, T, no cover

Trail Blazers vs. Kings, 6pm, T, $27-$234

1630 J ST., (916) 476-5076

Hellbound Glory, I Might Have A Problem, 8pm, $8-$10

hAlFTime BAr & Grill

College Night, 10pm, call for cover

5681 lONETREE blvD., ROcklIN, (916) 626-3600

Noon NYE Family Festival, 10am, M, no cover

NYE Blackout Party, 9pm, M, $15; Cornhole, 6pm, W, no cover

Scoles & Young, call for time and cover

hArlow’s

2708 J ST., (916) 441-4693

The Mother Hips, The Coffis Brothers, 8:30pm, $25-$30

The Mother Hips, The Golden Cadillacs, 8:30pm, $25-$30

NYE with Wonderbread 5, 9pm, M, $45

According to Bazooka

hiGhwATer

The Kentucky Trust Fund, 10pm, $5

Saturday Night’s Alright, 10pm, $5

8pm Thursday, no cover Fox & Goose Americana pop

Nouveau Thank U Next Year w/ Good Company, 9pm, M, $30-$40

holY diVer

Cemetery Sun, Wylma, Centersight, Perfect Score + others, 6:30pm, $12-$15

Arden Park Roots, For The Kids, Brave Coyote + others, 7pm, $12

Tone Gasz & ehSOeLO, Alex Voltz, AR. West and more, 6:30pm, $12

DJ Shaun Slaughter, 9pm, call for cover

Kupros Quiz, 7:30pm, no cover

PHOTO bY SN&R

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

kupros

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

Jenn Rogar, 8pm, no cover

Krizz Kaliko (Strange Music New Year’s Eve Party), 7pm, M, $25

Monday Music Mania!

Get your band on the air.

Voted best dance club in Sacramento

by KCRA A LIST 2016-17-18

12th annual new Years eVe Bash ONLy 10 bucks before 10pm ($15 after)

$1 draft & $3 Jack Daniels 8-9pm • Free late night breakfast • Open till 3am VIP tickets available.

North Forty live music in front bar • Country dancing in back!

live MuSic 12/29

turnbuckle blues band

1/4

todd morgan

1/5

guero

1/11

octomalien

2 STePS FROm DOwNTOwN | 916.402.2407 STONeyINN.COm FOR NIghTLy DRINK SPeCIALS & eVeNTS

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Find out more about this show and how your band can participate by going to thegridfm.com.

Check us out www.thegridfm.com

GET MORE EYES ON YOUR SHOW OR EVENT

1/12

bongo furys

1/18

dylan crawford

calend

ar

c

steve stizzo trio

101 Main Street, roSeville 916-774-0505 · lunch/dinner 7 days a week fri & sat 9:30pm - close 21+

/bar101roseville

SN&R’S ONLINE CALENDAR Log onto www.newsreview.com and visit the calendar section to add your next event, show, fundraiser or exhibit. You’ll have access to nearly 200,000 viewers! it’s just that easy.

a b

1/27

1320 Del paso BlVD in olD north sac

Every Monday in January, GridFM will play your music during our Monday Music Mania!

t!

submit even

www.newsreview.com

Submit yOuR calEndaR liStingS fOR fREE at nEwSREviEw.cOm/SacRamEntO/calEndaR THursday 12/27

frIday 12/28

saTurday 12/29

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

ET: A Funky Homecoming Extravaganza, 7pm, $6

Catalina Edwards, Gillian Underwood & Aviel Haberman, Jenn Rogar, 8pm, $7

oLd ironsides

Americana Dance Party, 5:30pm, no cover

Benefit for Paradise, 6:30pm, $5 min. donation

Honeyspot, The Brodys, 8pm, $10

Lipstick! NYE Party, 9pm, M, call for cover

on tHe Y

Open-Mic Comedy/Karaoke, 8pm, no cover Sactown Playboys Live, 8pm, call for cover

Free Minds Rising, 8pm, call for cover

NYE Dinner & Dancing, 6pm, M, call for cover

Loose Engines (acoustic), Tailgater 44, 4pm, call for cover

First Wednesday Acoustic Jam, 5:30pm, W, no cover

Spazmatics, 10pm, $15

Take Out—NYE Bash, 10pm, M, $25

Saved by the 90’s

Hey, Chels; Sad Girlz Club; Slumped; 8pm, W, $7-$10 (pay-what-you-can)

8pm Friday, $18-$20 Ace of Spades Cover band

Luna’s Cafe & JuiCe Bar 1414 16TH sT., (916) 737-5770

suNday 12/30

momo saCramento

NYE w/ DJ JB, 9pm, M, $15

2708 J sT., (916) 441-4693

1901 10TH sT., (916) 442-3504 670 fulTON ave., (916) 487-3731

PLaCerviLLe PuBLiC House

414 MaIN sT., PlacervIlle, (530) 303-3792

PorCHLigHt Brewing 866 57TH sT., (916) 476-5384

PowerHouse PuB

Power Play, 10pm, $12

614 suTTer sT., fOlsOM, (916) 355-8586

tHe Press CLuB

2030 P sT., (916) 444-7914

MONday-WedNesday 12/31-1/2

Butte Strong: A Camp Fire Benefit Concert, 8pm, call for cover

Pop 40 Dance with DJ Larry, 9pm, $5

Sunday Night Dance Party, 9pm, no cover

sHadY LadY

NYE Party & Burlesque/Variety Show, 8pm, M, $50 tickets, $500 booth

1409 r sT., (916) 231-9121

soCiaL nigHtCLuB

DJ Oasis, no cover before 11pm, $5 list until midnight

Matt Cali, 10pm, no cover before 10:30pm, $5 list until midnight

stoneY’s roCkin rodeo

Hot Country Fridays with James Harkins, 7pm, $5-$10

Island of Black and White, 9pm, $5

Sunday Funday, 9pm, no cover

NYE Party, M, $10 before 10pm, $15 after 10pm; College Night Wed, call for cover

Jeramy Norris and The Dangerous Mood, 9pm, $8

Aki Kumar, 9pm, $8

You Front the Band, 8pm, no cover

Big Sticky Mess, 9pm, M, $25; Michael Ray, 9pm, W, call for cover

1000 k sT., (916) 947-0434 1320 del PasO blvd., (916) 927-6023

tHe torCH CLuB

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

tHunder vaLLeY Casino resort 1200 aTHeNs ave., lINcOlN, (916) 408-7777

City of Trees Brass Band, 9pm, $6 Tower of Power 50th Anniversary Tour, 8pm, $59.95-69.95

PHOTO cOurTesy Of saved by THe 90’s

NYE Party w/ DJ Elements, 9pm, M, $25-$50

Creedence Clearwater Revisited, 8pm & 10:30pm, M, $79.95-$94.95

YoLo Brewing Co.

Skip the Grid NYE Party, 6pm, M, $10

1520 TerMINal sT., (916) 379-7585

all ages, all the time aCe of sPades

1417 r sT., (916) 930-0220

Saved by the 90’s, 8pm, $18-$20

PHono seLeCt reCords

Vasas, Trinidad Silva, Art Lessing, 6:30pm, no cover

1417 r sT., (916) 930-0220

sHine

1400 e sT., (916) 551-1400

Too Short, DJ Eddie Z and others, 7pm, $29.50-$100

The Sacramento Classic Jazz Messengers, 8pm, $10

Free Candy, Mastoids, Attack of the Hooligans!, 8pm, $8

PHOTO cOurTesy Of Pub rOck

Y&T, 6:30pm, M, $28.50-$39.59

One Eyed Reilly New Year’s Eve Show 9pm Monday, no cover Father Paddy’s Irish Pub Celtic folk-rock

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“Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.” -Henry Louis Gates Jr

32 | SN&R | 12.27.18

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

goat on the digital edge See goatkidd

January Fe bruary Ma rch May

August

October No vember De cember

the 12 months of cannabis

illustration by Maria ratinova

A look at the highs—and lows—of California’s first year as a recreational-use state

by Daniel Barnes

year one is in the books. after voters legalized adult-use marijuana in November 2016, California opened legal weed sales on January 1, becoming the country’s sixth recreational-use state.

The rookie year was far from flawless. With legalization came a bong load of new taxes, a mellow-harshing government push-back and a patchwork of ever-evolving regulations that left many people dazed and confused.

“It was a difficult transition into the regulated market, more difficult than I had anticipated,” says Kimberly Cargile, executive director of A Therapeutic Alternative in Midtown Sacramento. As legal weed prepares to enter its second year in California, let’s

relive the highlights and lowlights of an eventful year one.

play ball! (January)

Recreational cannabis sales officially kicked off on January 1, with a handful of shops across the state opening at midnight to celebrate the milestone.

However, with a very liberal medical marijuana program already in place in California for more than two decades, most smokers carried on as though nothing had changed, save for a new 15 percent state excise tax that forced many people to reconsider the black market. Cities including Los Angeles and San Francisco were slow to start recreational sales

See aSk 420

37

April

June July

September

35

emerald cup play-by-play

because local regulations were not approved in time, while roughly 70 percent of local governments still don’t permit cannabis businesses.

Of course, it only a took a few days for then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ruin everyone’s fun. On January 4, he rescinded the Obama-era memorandum which created a policy of non-interference with marijuanafriendly states.

nights of cup (may)

Sacramento hosted its first-ever legal outdoor-use pot event in May when High Times magazine brought the Cannabis Cup concert and vendor showcase to Cal Expo. The event,

which included live performances from Lauryn Hill, Lil Wayne, Ludacris and Rick Ross, was saved from cancellation just days before its scheduled start when the City Council voted 6-2 to grant the necessary permit for on-site consumption and sales. A second Cannabis Cup event scheduled for October was postponed indefinitely, however, partially due to unpaid revenues promised to the city

by High Times. Another reason for the delay was Assembly Bill 2020, a bill signed in September by Gov. Jerry Brown that allows local jurisdictions to approve temporary cannabis event licenses at any venue, instead of only at fairgrounds like Cal Expo. The bill goes into effect on January 1, 2019.

netflix and chill (June)

The media mainstreaming of marijuana consumption continued apace this year, as Cooking on High, a Netflix culinary competition co-hosted by SN&R columnist Ngaio Bealum debuted in June. Otherwise, with the outlaw days long gone and fewer authority figures left to rebel against, 2018 was a weak year for stoner-tainment. The longawaited Super Troopers 2 came out on April 20 to a collective ho-hum, while the formerly fresh Broad City continued its slide into stagnancy. Even a crass commercialist like Chuck Lorre can’t keep a weed-themed show on the air anymore, as Netflix canceled the Kathy Bates-starring Disjointed after two seasons.

test trick (July)

While legal weed sales started on January 1, new packaging, testing and dosage requirements did not go into effect until July 1. After that deadline, only properly tested products could be sold, and untested products had to be destroyed. As stores scurried to sell off their untested goods, customers “the 12 monthS oF cannabiS” continued on page 35

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“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.” -George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

34 | SN&R | 12.27.18

“THE 12 MONTHS OF CANNABIS” CONTINuED FROM pAgE 33

enjoyed a fire sale of marked-down merchandise. However, the skimpily stocked shelves at dispensaries in the following weeks highlighted an insufficient testing lab infrastructure—only 31 were licensed before the deadline, and many were not yet open for business. One in five batches failed to meet the new testing standards, and the lab director at Sequoia Analytical Labs in Sacramento was accused in November of falsifying pesticide test results on more than 700 batches of cannabis.

CORE beliefs (August)

wild with the concept of infusing their alcoholic wares with cannabis, especially the non-psychoactive, anti-inflammatory cannabinoid known as CBD. The inevitable crackdown came first from the federal government, as the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau sent cease-and-desist letters to CBD-beer brewers in May. Next came a state government crackdown, as Gov. Brown signed a bill in October that explicitly prohibited the sale of cannabis cocktails, forcing bartenders at local spots such as R15 to stop selling their popular CBD concoctions.

Ballot hotbox (October)

America’s polite neighbors to the north After months of negotiations, the traded the maple flag for a pot leaf on Sacramento City Council unanimously October 17, becoming the first industrialapproved the creation of the Cannabis ized country in the world to legalize weed Opportunity Reinvestment and Equity at the national level. The green wave kept program in August. An attempt to even cresting on Election Day in America, as the scales for the people most adversely Michigan became the first Midwestern affected by the war on drugs, CORE state to approve recreational marijuana, waives permit fees and while medical marijuana provides advice and assisinitiatives passed in Utah tance to people arrested and Missouri. That put for nonviolent the total number of More red states marijuana crimes recreational-use states who are looking may turn green at 10, while 33 states to start a cannanow allow some in 2020, as medical business. Later form of medical in the year, Gov. marijuana initiatives are marijuana. More Brown signed red states may turn currently advancing to the AB 1793, which green in 2020, as provides for ballot in South Dakota, medical marijuana the automatic initiatives are Mississippi and expungement of currently advancing certain cannabisNebraska. to the ballot in South related criminal Dakota, Mississippi and convictions. AfricanNebraska.

Americans are almost four times more likely to be arrested Special delivery (December) for a marijuana-related offense than Regulators at the California Bureau of white people, yet the multibillion-dollar Cannabis Control proposed that delivery legal weed industry is disproportionately of cannabis products should be allowed controlled by white men. “You’re seeing across the state, even in cities such as in other states where marijuana has been Rocklin and Milpitas that ban cannabis legal that racial disparity in arrest rates businesses. This proposal was immedicontinues, and in some ways, it’s gotten ately condemned by law enforcement worse,” says Mike Vitiello, a McGeorge groups and the League of California Law School professor and co-author of Cities. “I think the long-term effect will an upcoming marijuana law casebook. be to force non-complying communities “We’re not out of that vicious circle yet.” that don’t want to have marijuana to allow it so that they can get a piece of CBDon’t (October) the action,” Vitiello says. “But that seems Let’s pause for a moment to pour a contrary to the original understanding perfectly legal, nonalcoholic, dispensaryabout local government entities having distributed canna-beverage onto the some control over marijuana in their own curb in fond remembrance of the shortcommunities.” Ω lived CBD beer and cocktail craze in California. In the heady early months of legalization, brewers and mixologists ran

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By Ngaio Bealum

as k 420 @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

Festival of green thumbs Hey, so how was the Emerald Cup? —Mai T. Clowdes

Dude. I got to shake hands with Willie Nelson! The cup was hella cool, yet again. The attendance numbers may have a been lower than last year, but the experience was top-notch. (The rainy weather was probably a huge factor, even though the producers did a great job keeping everyone dry, with heated tents and most everything located in a rainresistant space.)

One of the things I really like about the Emerald Cup is that it truly celebrates cannabis.

Sure, there was tons of weed for sale, but there were also lots of people who brought their homegrown.

And it was really good. You know, like when your neighbor has a green thumb, and they let you try one of their exquisite heirloom tomatoes? Or one of your homies is an amateur beer-maker, but a really good one? It was like that. There were so many different homegrown, hybrid strains. People were trading seeds and talking about nematodes, organic fertilizers and Korean natural farming techniques. It was educational and wonderful. In this age of capitalists trying to figure out ways to trademark common cannabis strains such as OG Kush and Trainwreck, and billion-dollar corporations trying to muscle their way into the cannabis market, it did my heart glad to see folks respecting the open-source culture that has long been the hallmark of the cannabis industry. May the hippie spirit and the social justice culture of cannabis never be defeated.

The cup was also a little bittersweet. Yes, there were hundreds of booths selling everything from pre-rolls to feminized seeds. Yes, the entertainment was off the hook.

Hell, Les Claypool sat in with Gogol Bordello! Jay and Silent Bob recorded a podcast! Sound Tribe Sector 9 did their psychedelic EDM-jam band thing, and it was epic. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is always funky, and Rising Appalachia played an incredible set of hillbillyhippie music that was perfect for a rainy Sunday. The vibes were great, the food trucks were expensive yet delicious, and the weed, dabs, edibles, topicals and vapes were cheap and plentiful.

But I couldn’t help but notice that more than a few vendors that had been with the cup since back in the Laytonville days were nowhere to be found. Too many old-school growers and mom-and-pop cultivators have been priced out of this new legalization, either unable to pay the thousands of dollars in permit fees required to go legit, or living in a county that refuses to allow cannabis-based businesses.

It reminds me that we have come a long way, but we have a long way to go. Oh yeah. There was also a competition. Sacramento-based Newell’s Botanicals won “Best Topical” for the third year in a row. Congratulations! Ω

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

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12.27.18 | SN&R | 37

RALEY BLVD.

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by JOEY GARCIA

@AskJoeyGarcia

“What cannot be said above all must not be silenced but written.” - Jacques Derrida

Building a grow room?

Patterns of disruption People with problems seem to make a beeline for me. It’s as if they sense that I’m a good listener. I feel overwhelmed by the people I meet in the community who want me to listen to their problems. I try to be polite, but I don’t want to listen.

Not one of these individuals is trying to change. Some go to therapy or to classes at church and use those situations to talk about their problems without changing anything. How do I avoid being stuck listening to someone go on and on about their problems?

If you feel stuck while listening, you’re not listening. So when someone starts a conversation and you’re not feeling it, speak up: “I’m not available to listen right now. Do you have a therapist, life coach, or spiritual teacher to talk with?”

If the answer is no, offer to introduce them to a free resource you trust (like this column, for instance). The first time you interrupt someone to define your boundary, it will be uncomfortable. You may feel as if you are being rude or mean. The person who has started to share their story of suffering may spiral into anger or hurt. It’s likely she or he has grown accustomed to giving a pain monologue and receiving sympathy in return. If you disrupt the pattern, you might be judged. If you don’t disrupt the pattern, you will be judged. By you.

Every time you listen with the expectation of being perceived as polite, you’re being disrespectful to yourself. It’s also a disservice to the person in pain. That’s right, the storytellers you meet don’t need to change. You do. Listen deeply to yourself, and then be honest with others about how you prefer to connect with them.

Along the way, appreciate your generous heart. People are drawn to it, and that has served you well. The new lesson is that your heart also needs to be protected.

You’ve listened to as many people as you can. Focus now on hearing yourself.

AC & COOLING SOLUTIONS

I want grandchildren. Grandchildren give meaning to life. How do I convince my son and his wife of the importance of having children?

The idea that grandchildren give life meaning is causing your broken heart. If you didn’t rely on something you don’t have to inspire meaning in your life, you would feel empowered to create a meaningful life. Clinging to the belief that the most important people are those who are born through our bodies, or through the bodies of our children, is like believing the world is flat. It roots us in the past. Why not inspire a sense of purpose by contributing to the kind of future you hope will be? Try a new reality: Every child is a (grand)child.

Make it your mantra, a spiritual GPS to guide you toward choices that prove your capacity to love is unlimited. Your son and daughter-in-law will be relieved and the children you care for will help you embrace a new vision of family. Ω

The storytellers you meet don’t need to change.

You do.

My son and his wife are happily married but they don’t want to have children. I am heartbroken. Don’t tell me to adopt.

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MeDItatIoN of tHe Week “Never forget to thank your past years because they enabled you to reach today.

Without the stairs of the past, you cannot arrive at the future,” said Mehmet Murat Ildan. What has humbled, inspired, or transformed you to take the steps necessary to heal our community?

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.

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Free will astrology

by Maxfield Morris

by rob brezsny

ma x fie ld m@ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

For tHe Week oF DeCember 27, 2018 ARIES (March 21-April 19): I suspect that in 2019

you’ll be able to blend a knack for creating more stability with an urge to explore and seek greater freedom. How might this unusual confluence be expressed in practical ways? Maybe you’ll travel to reconnect with your ancestral roots. Or perhaps a faraway ally or influence will help you feel more at home in the world. It’s possible you’ll establish a stronger foundation, which will in turn bolster your courage and inspire you to break free of a limitation. What do you think?

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): On average, a total

eclipse of the sun happens every 18 months.

And how often is a total solar eclipse visible from a specific location on the planet?

Typically, once every 375 years. In 2019, the magic moment will occur on July 2 for people living in Chile and Argentina. But I believe that throughout the coming year, Tauruses all over the world will experience other kinds of rare and wonderful events at a higher rate than usual. Not eclipses, but rather divine interventions, mysterious miracles, catalytic epiphanies, unexpected breakthroughs and amazing graces. Expect more of the marvelous than you’re accustomed to.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “The world’s full of

people who have stopped listening to themselves,” wrote mythologist Joseph Campbell.

It’s imperative that you NOT be one of those folks. 2019 should be the Year of Listening Deeply to Yourself. That means being on high alert for your inner inklings, your unconscious longings and the still, small voice at the heart of your destiny. If you do that, you’ll discover I’m right when I say that you’re smarter than you realize.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Jackson Pollock is

regarded as a pioneer in the technique of drip painting, which involves drizzling and splashing paint on canvases laying on the floor.

It made him famous. But the truth is, Pollock got inspired to pursue what became known as his signature style only after he saw an exhibit by the artist Janet Sobel, who was the real pioneer. I bring this to your attention, because I see 2019 as a year when the Sobel-like aspects of your life will get their due. Overdue appreciation will arrive. Credit you have deserved but haven’t fully garnered will finally come your way. You’ll be acknowledged and recognized in surprising ways.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): As the crow flies, Wyoming

is almost 1,000 miles from the Pacific Ocean and more than 1,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean.

Now here’s a surprise: In the northwest corner of Wyoming, the North Two Ocean Creek divides into two tributaries, one of which ultimately flows to the Pacific and one that reaches the Gulf. So an enterprising fish could conceivably swim from one ocean to the other via this waterway. I propose that we make North Two Ocean Creek your official metaphor for 2019. It will symbolize the turning point you’ll be at in your life; it will remind you that you’ll have the power to launch an epic journey in one of two directions.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I have come to the

conclusion that softening your relationship with perfectionism will be a key assignment in 2019. With this in mind, I offer you observations from wise people who have studied the subject. 1. “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” —Voltaire. 2. “Perfection is a stick with which to beat the possible.” —Rebecca Solnit. 3. Perfectionism is “the haute couture, high-end version of fear.” —Elizabeth Gilbert.

4. “Nothing is less efficient than perfectionism.” —Gilbert. 4. “It’s better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else’s perfectly.” —Gilbert.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The body of the violin

has two f-shaped holes on either side of the strings. They enable the sound that resonates inside the instrument to be projected outwardly. A thousand years ago, the earliest ancestor of the modern violin had round holes.

Later they became half-moons, then c-shaped, and finally evolved into the f-shape. Why the change? Scientific analysis reveals that the modern form allows more air to be pushed out from inside the instrument, thereby producing a more powerful sound. My analysis of your life in 2019 suggests it will be a time to make an upgrade from your metaphorical equivalent of the c-shaped holes to the f-shaped holes. A small shift like that will enable you to generate more power and resonance.

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

singer-songwriter Sia has achieved great success, garnering nine Grammy nominations and amassing a $20 million fortune. Among the superstars for whom she has composed hit tunes are Beyoncé, Rihanna and Flo Rida.

But she has also had failures. Top recording artists including Adele and Shakira have commissioned her to write songs, only to turn down what she created. In 2016, Sia got sweet revenge. She released an album in which she herself sang many of those rejected songs.

It has sold more than two million copies. Do you, too, know what it’s like to have your gifts and skills ignored or unused or rebuffed, Sagittarius? If so, the coming months will be an excellent time to express them for your own benefit, as Sia did.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): A typical fluffy

white cumulus cloud weighs 216,000 pounds. A dark cumulonimbus storm cloud is 106 million pounds, almost 490 times heavier. Why? Because it’s filled with far more water than the white cloud. So which is better, the fluffy cumulus or the stormy cumulonimbus? Neither, of course. We might sometimes prefer the former over the latter because it doesn’t darken the sky as much or cause the inconvenience of rain. But the truth is, the cumulonimbus is a blessing, a substantial source of moisture and a gift to growing things. I mention this because I suspect that for you, 2019 will have more metaphorical resemblances to the cumulonimbus than the cumulus.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): A hundred years

ago, most astronomers thought there was just one galaxy in the universe: our Milky Way. Other models for the structure of the universe were virtually heretical. But in the 1920s, astronomer Edwin Hubble produced research that proved the existence of many more galaxies. Today, the estimate is that there are at least 400 billion. I wonder what currently unimaginable possibilities will be obvious to our ancestors a hundred years from now.

Likewise, I wonder what currently unforeseen truths will be fully available to you by the end of 2019. My guess: more than in any other previous year of your life.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Author Elizabeth

Gilbert offers advice for those who long for a closer relationship with the Supreme Being: “Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.” I’ll expand that approach so it applies to you when you’re in quest of any crucial life-enhancing experience. If you genuinely believe that a particular adventure or relationship or transformation is key to your central purpose, it’s not enough to be mildly enthusiastic about it. You really do need to seek your heart’s desire in the way people with their heads on fire look for water. 2019 will be prime time for you to embody this understanding.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In 1682, Peter

Alexeyevich became co-tsar of Russia. He was ten years old. His 24-year-old half-sister Sophia had a hole cut in the back of his side of the dual throne. That way she could sit behind him, out of sight, and whisper guidance as he discussed political matters with allies. I’d love it if you could wangle a comparable arrangement for yourself in 2019. Are there wise confidants or mentors or helpers from whom you could draw continuous counsel? Seek them out.

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.

Horse driven Homes decorated with bright lights in the Fab 40s in East Sacramento attract many human onlookers every season—but the showy displays also draw in horses, and those horses draw carriages.

Crystal Newborn, 25, is one of the few holiday drivers who isn’t behind the wheel of an automobile.

Instead, she and other carriage drivers lead tours down baubled blocks and sparkling streets.

Newborn’s family founded Top Hand Ranch in the 1970s, and since then, they’ve been providing Sacramento with some serious, literal horsepower. They use about 20 horses that are specially trained to share the pavement with cars.

It’s a full-time job for Newborn, who’s also a full-time student at Sierra College.

Before taking to the Fab 40s, Newborn chatted with SN&R about her experiences with the family business, insider info on the world of horses and what it’s like driving a vehicle that has so many legs.

Where do the horses get their first road experience?

All these horses, you start them out in a team with a horse that’s more comfortable with this. When we do that, it builds their confidence, and once they build their confidence, it kind of settles them in.

If a horse extremely doesn’t like it, if it doesn’t fit for them, we just don’t do it. … We try to find them a job that is more suited to what they like to do and their needs. That’s why it does take so long to train them down here.

Is it the cars, mostly?

Honestly—the biggest thing they find kind of scary is the brew bikes. Just because it’s an odd vehicle. They see trucks, they see cars, that’s usual to them. They don’t see brew bikes; they’re like, “What is this thing?” Which, I mean, most people look at it and go, “What’s that?”

Do some of the horses like doing this?

Oh, they love it. They like having a job to do. They like having a purpose. These guys, especially the ones that work in the Christmas time out here, they like the people and all of that. It’s kind of easygoing for them. And after this, they get to go on vacation for a little bit and enjoy some time off.

Crystal Newborn with Angel, one of the Clydesdale horses that take people through East Sacramento.

PHOTO BY MAXFIELD MORRIS

What does a horse vacation look like?

Just time out in a pasture. Some of them actually don’t like it. The one on the far side here, he does not enjoy time off. He likes to work, to go and do stuff. I’m that same way, too. … Horses have the same kind of personality, just like dogs have a different personality for every one.

Do you drive a carriage?

I drive a wagon, so I drive two horses. … A horse can pull twice its weight on wheels.

And these are some heavy horses.

You’re looking at about, easily, 1,900 pounds or more. Each. And the wagons are made of wood, they’re pretty lightweight. All [the horses] have to do is get them rolling. If they go downhill, there’s brakes, so they don’t have to hold the wagon back with people in it. … You or I could easily pull a wagon.

How does it compare, stress-wise, driving a car to driving a carriage?

For the driver, there’s a lot more stress involved, because you have to be a lot more aware of your surroundings. Just like in a car, you watch for the person next to you, make sure they don’t hit you. Out here, you have to be twice as aware, give yourself way more space than you would in a car.

Do you think of the horses as employees?

No. No. These guys ... I treat them better than I treat myself. Most people think we think of them as employees, but honestly, they’re like my family members. That one over there, we’ve had since she was born. … One of them, I trained him all myself, and he comes out here. I credit a lot of what I’ve learned to them. And yes, we make money with them, however, they get all of it. Because of what we do, they’re able to have things that a lot of horses

wouldn’t have. They have acupuncturists and chiropractors—which you would never think of for a horse—and they have a dentist, they have a vet on-call, at all times, especially this time of year.

Is the future of this business an Uber-style horse app?

I don’t know about that. It’s kind of like an old-school Uber. At least, that’s what people tell me. Maybe. Who knows?

Are horses your favorite animal?

Horses and dogs.

Have you ever thought about dog sled racing?

No, but that looks so cool when people do it.

Similar.

It is kinda along the same lines, I guess!

What are your goals?

I really want to just keep preserving history. The reason I love this company is because there’s so many people that come out here that have never touched a horse before, seen a horse before or anything like that. There’s really amazed by that.

So keeping that, and bringing in something that people in the city haven’t seen before. That’s important to me.

Have you ever consider doing anything else?

I’ve thought about it, and I just—I did trucking for a minute. ... Hauling horses though! I had to have horses involved, somehow. I did that, and I traveled quite a bit. And I loved traveling and everything, but I found that I still had the horse bug, and I had to come back. Ω Get more information about Top Hand Ranch at tophandranch.com.

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