March 2023

LETTERS EDITOR'S NOTE

Desperately seeking the latest issue of the RN&R

During a recent visit to a local pub, I asked a waitress if the place is still a distribution point for the Reno News & Review. She said yes, but she didn’t know where they were. After a brief search, she discovered our rack in a hallway, next to the men’s room door. That’s how it’s been in the months following the arrival of COVID-19. Many shops and stores, fearing transmission of the virus, got rid of racks and self-serve counters. While many businesses welcomed our publication back into their buildings last year (thank you!), some venues have had a hard time finding a prominent place for them.

In the nearly 30 years this newspaper has been published, I regularly picked it up at restaurants, markets and coffee shops. Red news boxes were on many street corners, and businesses often had a rack near their entrances.

Not anymore. Even when I’m at a place that’s on our list of more than 700 Northern Nevada distribution points, and even though we’re distributing 25,000 copies each month, I sometimes have to hunt for the RN&R. The racks or stacks of papers are often placed in a back corner or submerged beneath a pile of pamphlets or real estate guides.

If you are reading this, you are among the eagle-eyed folks who found this edition. That’s not always easy, so I’m asking a favor: Please thank business owners for helping us get our news and arts coverage in front of readers. And let friends and family members know where the RN&R can be found.

Our staff works hard to get a fresh print newspaper out every month, and we want as many people as possible to get some of our ink on their fingers. You might have to look a bit harder for us post-pandemic, but you’ll be glad you did.

—FRANK X. MULLEN frankm@renonr.com

Tenants need more time in ‘no-cause’ evictions

For 10 years, I lived next door to my landlord in a makeshift duplex arrangement. Not once did I ever have a party or a dinner guest, for that matter.

About seven years ago, I went to coffee around the corner; upon my return, I noticed something taped on my front door. It was a (no-cause) eviction notice (RN&R, February 2023), legal in Reno. I had 30 days to be gone. After 10 years of living next to one another, he chose to evict me rather than have a beer on the patio and express his desire to go another direction.

Thirty days? Really? A tight rental market, and I’m supposed to relocate within 30 days? It’s ridiculous. The law should allow for 60 to 90 days to relocate when getting (a nocause) eviction notice. A landlord shouldn’t have to give a reason, just a reasonable time period to get a new home located, and money together required at the new place. I was lucky I had local family to help me deal with the inconvenience I was facing. I wrote two state legislators about my plight, and not a single comment from either of them.

Steve Garman Reno

Mailing address: 31855 Date Palm Drive, No. 3-263, Cathedral City, CA 92234 775-324-4440 • RenoNR.com

Publisher/Executive Editor

Jimmy Boegle

Editor

Frank X. Mullen

Photo Editor David Robert

Cover and Feature Design

Dennis Wodzisz

Contributors

Alicia Barber, Matthew Berrey, Matt Bieker, Maude Ballinger, Lucy Birmingham, Cheree Boteler, Owen Bryant, Brad Bynum, Max Cannon, Bob Grimm, Michael Grimm, Janice Hoke, Matt Jones, Matt King, Lynn Lazaro, Sheila Leslie, Michael Moberly, Maggie Nichols, Steve Noel, Dan Perkins, Jessica Santina, John L. Smith, Todd South, Kris Vagner, Robert Victor, Madison Wanco, Katelyn Welsh, Matt Westfield

The Reno News & Review print edition is published monthly. All content is ©2023 and may not be published or reprinted in any form without the written permission of the publisher. The RN&R is available free of charge throughout Northern Nevada, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $5 by calling 775-324-4440. The RN&R may be distributed only authorized distributors.

The RN&R is a proud member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, the Nevada Press Association, and the Local Independent Online News Publishers.

Help Nevada tenants, not Tesla

The article (about the tenants evicted in Carson City) needs to be sent to the governor’s office, and to the Nevada Governor’s Office for Economic Development, who are both pushing for more tax abatements for Tesla and Elon Musk.

With a planned expansion of the Tesla plant and an additional 3,000-plus workers, the concept of any affordable housing anywhere in Northern Nevada will be gone. To give more tax breaks to an established company that is worth in excess of $1 billion is wrong. The taxes that should be paid could help to increase affordable housing, take care of roads (which will fall apart with the governor’s plan to suspend the gas tax), etc. Nevada has never taken care of those who need help; the article and the conditions these people were forced to live in is a prime example. Kudos to the judge for not putting up with the landlord’s crap, but a $500 fine? Seriously, let’s make these slime landlords pay for being slime.

C.F. Carson City

An adjective reveals a lot about a writer

I read Dr. John Scire’s commentary on the proposed lithium mine (RN&R, February 2023)

with interest. However, his need to disparage those who oppose the mine with “so-called environmentalists” was unnecessary and weakened his position.

Maureen Jones Reno

Plant-based options go back to 1970s, at least

I’m glad Taylor Harker wrote that Nom was “one of the first” vegan restaurants in Reno (RN&R, February 2023). I recall fondly Golden Temple of Conscious Cookery at Virginia and Center streets (now Thai Chili?) in the 1970s, and later, a spin-off restaurant, The Blue Heron, at Virginia and Vassar streets (now India Kabab and Curry?). Both featured superb Sikh-influenced cuisine.

Brian Adams Reno

Reno’s downtown is no place to live

No surprise people aren’t interested in living in downtown Reno (RN&R, February 2023). If the rents were low, it might be worth the risks. But premium prices are a deal breaker.

Karen Schmitz Reno

GUEST COMMENT BY BEN INESS

Nevadans must live in a world where housing needs come first

Do we live in a world where housing is valued; tenants are protected; and the unhoused community is properly supported? We would, under the principle of “housing first.” That means housing is a primary need, and everything else is secondary.

Recently, the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s webinar “A World Without Housing First” examined how much is at stake if anti-housing-first legislation is enacted, how it would impact people experiencing homeless ness and housing instability, and what things were like before housing first was adopted.

But the bitter truth is that Nevadans already live in that world. We have the nation’s worst affordable housing shortage, and our laws are some of the most landlord-friendly in the country.

In December, Washoe County’s sheriff backed an ordinance aimed at further criminalizing the unsheltered community for engaging in life-sustaining activities. Local leaders are slow to embrace cost-effective, evidence-based best practices to support the unhoused, or are quick to shirk responsibility and point a finger at others rather than creating stable neighborhoods. Our governor barely acknowledged Nevada’s ongoing housing crisis in his State of the State address. Landlords continue to hold dominion over tenants with the ability to both “raise the roof” on rent and swiftly evict renters. In Nevada, it’s clear that housing needs come last.

Housing first is both a strategy and a philosophy. For service providers, it is a focused approach that (quickly) prioritizes permanent housing for those experiencing homelessness. For advocates, it is the value that housing is

a fundamental human right, something essential that is to be supported, provided and protected. Both groups share the belief that housing is the foundation from which everything is built in order for people to thrive.

The sad reality, however, is that for far too many people, especially the powers that be, housing is seen as a commodity, something to invest in, speculate in and profit from. This creates an untenable, unsustainable environment in which working Nevadans continue to struggle to get by.

Forging a world where housing is first starts by shifting the power from the hands of landlords and speculative investors into the hands of tenants. Simply put: It’s putting people over profits so that all Nevadans (and everyone) can flourish. Housing-first policies mean putting our communities first, centering on their needs and experiences, and building tenant power. In the long run, it would mean tenants have explicit rights elucidated in a “Renters Bill of Rights”—in such a way that landlords won’t look at working families as a means to make a quick buck.

Housing is at the heart of any family’s ability to thrive and succeed. With housing-first policies, we can all live without making families must choose between food and/or life-saving medicines, or keeping a roof over their heads.

The Nevada Legislature has the ability to start making this a reality, by ending summary evictions, addressing rising costs and tackling predatory application fees. The Nevada Housing Justice Alliance will be fighting for housing first throughout the legislative session. You can join our fight at www.nvhousingjustice.org.

STREETALK

What woman has been an influence or inspiration in your life?

Asked at Sundance Books, 121 California Ave., Reno

Kassie Mastro

Sustainable home cleaner

BY DAVID ROBERT

Madeleine Albright. I thought that her story was really moving. She had Czech parents who fled the Nazi occupation. She was raised Catholic and later found out about her Jewish roots. That’s what made her go into human rights. She has influenced my interest in human rights. I feel that this country and other countries aren’t respecting human rights, and people are slipping through the cracks. Not enough is being done for them.

Little Dove Headrick

Food farmer

Tasha Tudor. She was a writer and illustrator of children’s books and lived completely self-sufficient. She had long braids, and she grew linen to weave her own clothes, and for food, too. She was a powerful woman and lived by her own means, and not through straightforward capitalism. Her inspiration to me is to live without having to drive and being able to grow my own food.

Foxx Reason

Musician

Rose Taylor Goldfield. She’s a coach, author and teacher at Wisdom Sun in San Francisco. She is a mother and a spiritual director. She has influenced me greatly in life. She has inspired me by teaching me yoga and a connection to Vajrayana Buddhism. She has helped me connect to the natural world in a deep, profound way.

Chelsi Torres Artist

Wangari Muta Maathai was a Kenyan social, environmental and political activist, and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She was a revolutionary farmer and horticulturist. She was unapologetically herself and didn’t let the system get in her way from what she knew was right. I sought out my degree in agriculture because of her, and she has influenced my volunteerism in the community.

Tarin

Paul Barista

Lana Del Rey. Her songs are about being a woman in the modern world. Her songs are especially about being preyed upon by older men. When you’re young, (attention from older men) seems almost romantic, but when you get older, you realize that you were a victim of the predator. Her music isn’t about young love; it’s more about being a victim.

Ben Iness is the coalition coordinator for the Nevada Housing Justice Alliance.

| BY SHEILA LESLIE

Will the Legislature help with mental-health challenges?

During the run-up to opening day at the 2023 Legislature on Feb. 6, Gov. Joe Lombardo and legislative leaders sparred about criminal-justice reform, the protection of reproductive rights, the correct level of education funding—and how best to spend Nevada’s budget surplus to address crumbling prisons, highways and other capital improvements while saving an appropriate amount of money in the state’s “Rainy Day” fund.

One key issue receiving far less attention was the reform of Nevada’s mental health care system, although Lombardo did announce the expansion of forensic services in Southern Nevada, including expensive new facilities. The emphasis on forensic needs is no surprise; as a former Clark County sheriff, Lombardo understands the mental-health pipeline into our state’s jails and prison system very well. Hopefully, the forensic focus will be more on effective treatment and supportive care rather than endless competency evaluations which churn offenders through the system, spitting them out with little more than a bus ticket.

Lombardo also plans to expand Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) throughout the state to increase

capacity for outpatient treatment. While the enhanced Medicaid rate is welcomed by the community-based organizations willing to become CCBHCs, it’s not enough to develop the extensive supportive services needed by individuals with severe mental illness to lead safe, productive lives.

Nevada desperately needs a more comprehensive and creative approach to mental health care reform, especially for those who are treatment-resistant and prefer to live on the street with their personal demons than in crowded noisy shelters where they are preyed upon, or in poorly run group homes where living conditions aren’t much better than the river. The best way to assist them is a combination of regulated subsidized housing and community teams to provide comprehensive care 24/7, through evidence-based models like Assertive Community Treatment, which includes medical and mental health care along with intensive case management.

In Washoe County, Judge Cynthia Lu oversees the Assisted Outpatient Treatment program designed to reduce incarceration and involuntary hospitalizations by providing housing, treatment and medications, and intensive case management to those who are historically non-

compliant with treatment. The program works, but only with sufficient housing resources and well-trained, well-compensated staff—two com ponents the program struggles to provide.

could help address the housing problem, howev er. The Clark Regional Behavioral Health Board has submitted Senate Bill 68 to build affordable housing for Nevadans with behavioral-health concerns, the chronically homeless and those with other disabilities; it would be funded by a small increase in the real property transfer tax. The tax is collected when a property is sold, although a recent investigation by the Review-Journal worth of sales involving casinos, malls and other properties close to the Strip avoided the tax, thanks to legal loopholes exploited by savvy corporations with good lawyers. If the Legisla ture tightened the law, millions of dollars would be generated for low-income housing, education and the state’s general fund.

gambling palaces, however, making the passage of SB 68 imperative. Taxpayers will save money in jail costs and hospitalizations, and many low-income Nevadans living with disabilities

and mental-health challenges will be able to

Tesla once and for all that Nevada’s kids matter

| BY JIMMY BOEGLE

Changes, additions, returns and more!

On Jan. 6, 2000, the Reno News & Review introduced the logo you now know and love, with a cover featuring an extreme close-up of Don Carano. I remember this well … because I was the person who did the corresponding story, a Q&A with the late, great founder of the Eldorado.

Ever since, our covers have more or less had the same format: The logo—with a red background, white letters and a black ampersand—was at the top left, with some sort of teaser next to it. The look of the teaser, the location of the date and a few other small details have changed over the years, but the basic structure and look have been the same for 23 years.

Starting this month, however, we’re mixing things up a bit, to give the cover more of a modern feel.

The logo is the same—I can’t see that ever changing, at least as long as I have anything to do with this newspaper—but it’s now centered at the top. The teaser is gone. While red will still be the dominant logo color most months, it won’t necessarily always be the dominant logo color.

This is just one of the changes we’ve

brought to the RN&R in recent months; the others all involve the addition, or the return, of various features:

• Columnist Sheila Leslie has returned to our pages. (Yeah, you probably already noticed that, since her column is on the page to the left.) She wrote her Left Foot Forward column in these pages from late 2012 through March 2020, when, well, the RN&R went away for a bit. The Reno Gazette-Journal was smart enough to pick up the column by the former legislator, nonprofit leader and activist … and then dumb enough to let her (and most of the rest of their columnists) go during their latest round of cuts and hacks. We’re elated to have her column back (where it belongs!).

• If you turn this page, you’ll find our new On Nevada Business column. It debuted last month and is being spearheaded by Matt Westfield, entrepreneur-in-residence and adjunct

professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, College of Business and its Ozmen Center for Entrepreneurship. It will focus on the cool things going on locally regarding business startups, small-business opportunities, the local economy, and more. Fun fact: Back in 2005, Matt was featured in an RN&R story … about Ultimate Frisbee!

• Head to our food section, and you’ll find our new-ish Taste of the Town column—featuring a roundup of local food and restaurant news, lovingly compiled by Maude Ballinger, the mastermind of Fork Me Reno (www. forkmereno.com). (I say “new-ish,” because Jonathan L. Wright wrote Taste of the Town during our online-only phase, before he moved on to Las Vegas.) Welcome, Maude!

All of this great new content, I must point out, costs the RN&R money. Writers need to be paid; pages need to be added to the paper;

etc. If you flip through these 32 pages, you’ll notice there’s a lot more news than ads.

That’s where you, our dear readers, come in: We need your support.

If you own a business, consider advertising with us. Not only will you be helping us; you’ll be bringing customers in the door. We’re distributing 25,000 copies of the paper each month, and virtually all of them are being picked up—even if some businesses have made the copies harder to find, as Frank mentions in his Editor’s Note this month. (And, hey, if you want your business to become a distribution stop, let us know!) We also have a fantastic website that gets tens of thousands of readers each month, and newsletter with 13,000 subscribers.

If you don’t own a business, but you have a buck or three to spare, consider becoming an RN&R financial supporter. Head to RenoNR. com, or just drop me a line, to learn more.

Our goal is to make 2023 one of the best years in the RN&R’s history. With your help, we can make that happen.

My email address is jimmyb@renonr. com; send me a note if you have questions or thoughts—and, as always, thanks for reading.

| BY MEHMET TOSUN

How UNR’s Ozmen Center facilitates entrepreneurship

This month, we’re going to expound on the entrepreneurial-ecosystem overview from last month. My colleague, friend and fellow world-traveler Dr. Mehmet Tosun, the director of the Ozmen Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Nevada, Reno, College of Business, will delve into how the Ozmen Center and its rich startup programs add to the Nevada economy. Please understand that when a student or faculty member starts a business in Nevada, they almost always stay in Nevada. That is a really big deal! —Matt

Westfield

Thanks to the Reno News & Review and Matt Westfield for running a column related to entrepreneurship in our community. This is a great idea, and I’m sure this column will help the business community in months and years to come.

I’d like to build on what Matt said last month by bringing attention to a specific group in our ecosystem—the Ozmen Center for Entrepreneurship. The Ozmen Center was founded in 2014 after a generous donation from Eren and Fatih Ozmen, the owners of the Sierra Nevada Corporation. As successful entrepreneurs and alumni of our university, the Ozmens understand the importance of support-

ing entrepreneurship in a university environment. Since the Ozmen Center’s inception, we’ve had a cadre of individuals who’ve provided great leadership—Chris Howard, Kylie Rowe, Liset Puentes and, more recently, Dick Bartholet and Matt Westfield. They’ve all made an impact and brought the center to where it is today. Of course, let’s not forget Dean Greg Mosier (with his broader vision for the College of Business), administrative staff in the dean’s office, and many faculty and students who have played a considerable role in the center’s success.

Our center’s vision is to help students and faculty in our university and Northern Nevada community with entrepreneurial capacity-building and startup ideation. As we note on our website, we provide “an idea space that facilitates entrepreneurship.” We engage our community in different ways. Students and faculty can approach us for help with their business ideas. While we are located in the College of Business, we serve all students and faculty in the university.

We have an important teaching mission. The College of Business offers a minor and an MBA with an emphasis in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is one of the most popular minors among business students. It is also very popular with non-business majors. About 18 nonbusiness

majors in the university have students who minor in entrepreneurship. Ozmen Center faculty and staff help with this mission by teaching classes, advising students and providing mentorship.

How do we help student entrepreneurs beyond classroom teaching? We make good use of student competitions. I am sure many people know about the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition that started in 2012. After more than 10 years, it’s clear that Sontag has been a signature program, not just for the Ozmen Center, but also for the entire university community. There is always an impressive group of entrepreneurs who help the program as judges in different stages of the competition.

In 2021, we started a new program called LaunchNevada, which was designed to help students prepare for the Sontag competition. Those students who participate in LaunchNevada submit a basic business plan and receive feedback from us, with a $500 award. The program also includes networking events with inspirational talks by successful entrepreneurs in our community, information about entrepreneurship resources in the university, student presentations and social mixers. This program has already become popular among students from different colleges and backgrounds.

Students can also learn a great deal by attending our Creating a Business Workshop Series. Not only can students attend these workshops for free; they can also find video recordings of past workshops on our website. The community can view these for free, too!

We are thinking globally in the Ozmen Center. Our center has been expanding “internationally” in recent years. In addition to my role as the Ozmen Center director, I am also the director of the International Business Programs in our college. As we have expanded our college’s portfolio of international partners around the world, we have also connected the Ozmen Center to similar entrepreneurship centers in other countries. That’s brought the benefit of interacting with faculty, students and entrepreneurs from those countries, and learning from different ecosystems. We have

built particularly strong connections with our partners, SGH Warsaw School of Economics in Poland, and Koc University in Istanbul. We have many ongoing international projects in the college, some of which include entrepreneurship-related collaborations. We involve our faculty and students in our international activities as much as possible, including study-abroad trips. We also work with our college and the Northern Nevada International Center to host the Mandela Washington Fellows, who visit our campus from a variety of African countries. Many of the fellows are also entrepreneurs.

We have many more initiatives and events planned in the future. One I would like to mention in particular is the International Women’s Entrepreneurship Symposium (IWES). After a hiatus due to pandemic, we are bringing it back this year, with symposium events scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, March 7 and 8. This year’s IWES will include a leadership seminar by Laura Jackson, music director and conductor of the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra, and four inspirational speakers.

In a recent workforce-development study I worked on jointly with Prof. Tom Harris, from the University Center for Economic Development, and a team of researchers, we prepared a list of all the workforce assets, including those related to entrepreneurship—giving us an asset map for entrepreneurship in Nevada. Our entrepreneurial-asset categories include university entrepreneurship programs, research centers and labs, technology parks, business incubators, accelerator programs, venture capital, angel investors, commercial banks, chambers of commerce, and a variety of government agencies, economic development support groups and philanthropic organizations. Universities play a big role in this workforce asset map—and entrepreneurship is critical to future workforce. That makes our Ozmen Center an integral part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the workforce development in our university and community.

Feel free to contact me at tosun@unr.edu.

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UPFRONT Court rules BLM broke law in approving lithium mine

A federal judge in Reno has ruled that the Bureau of Land Management violated U.S. environmental law when it approved Lithium Nevada’s plan to bury 1,300 acres of public lands under waste rock.

Judge Miranda Du in February ordered the BLM to determine whether the company had valid existing rights under the 1872 Mining Law to occupy the waste-dump lands. She ruled that the BLM violated the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act by assuming mining claim rights without evidence—a fundamental part of the case brought by environmental-justice and conservation groups, ranchers and Nevada Indigenous tribes.

The mining company said it can remedy the permit problem and get the $1.6 billion project back on track. The proposed open-pit mine is located 53 miles northeast of Winnemucca.

Under a federal law passed in 1872, mining companies are given wide latitude to extract minerals from federal lands and have been considered exempt from some environmental-assessment requirements. But a federal court’s decision in an unrelated case in 2022, found that mining companies do not necessarily have the right to use federal land not containing valuable minerals.

The federal agency and the mining corporation now have to prove that the lands to be buried contain valuable minerals. Judge Du denied other plaintiffs’ claims that the company and BLM failed to conduct proper environmental investigations or do the required consultation with tribes.

Spokesmen for the environmental justice/conservation groups said their lawyers are analyzing the court’s decision and may appeal the court’s rejections of their other claims.

“We don’t know yet what the next steps will be, but we know we won’t stop fighting this destructive mine,” said Greta Anderson, deputy director of Western Watersheds Project. “We need to find truly just and sustainable solutions for the climate crisis and not (solve it) by digging ourselves deeper into the biodiversity crisis.”

—Frank X. Mullen

Extinction of a historic herd

BLM traps three generations of a famous Carson Valley mustang band

Federal agents lured 18 wild horses into traps in the Carson Valley during the first two months of this year, sparking outrage among wild-horse advocates who have documented generations of that free-roaming historic herd and regularly treated the mares with a birth-control drug.

“The Bureau of Land Management took away three generations in one trailer, which is just killing us,” said Mary Cioffi, president of the Pine Nut Wild Horse Advocates. “They pretty much eliminated that entire

historic family line that has been in the Carson Valley for generations. There’s a daughter and a son left on the range.”

She said those family members and other mustangs chased the agency’s trailer as it left the Fish Springs area. One stallion, Bodie, the band’s “lieutenant,” avoided capture but came back to the trapping site for days, “galloping around and wailing,” Cioffi said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

The mustangs will be branded and the stallions gelded. The advocates have asked that

Noel, a mare, on left, snuggles with her foal, Smokey, in the Fish Springs area. Both were among the five horses trapped in January. Thirteen other members of the herd were captured in February. Photo/ John Humphrey

the mustangs be kept together and sent, at their expense, to a private wild- horse “sanctuary” pasture.

BLM officials said the traps were set because they received “multiple” complaints about horses on roads and on private property in the Fish Springs area. The agency has said the area can support up to 26 wild horses. Activists estimate there are 79 mustangs in the Fish Springs area; the BLM says there are about 90 wild horses there.

The captured horses have been named and have been internet celebrities for years, with more than 63,000 followers on the Pine Nut Horses Facebook page alone. The wild-horse advocates have closely documented the equines’ lives. Most of the mustangs have been photographed from the time they were foaled, and their familial relationships are well known.

Wild-horse advocates are frustrated that the BLM has devoted so much money and effort to remove mustangs from the small area. Agency officials said the law requires them to do so in response to citizen complaints and that the roaming animals present a danger to motorists and residents.

Range managers have said the mustangs are undernourished this winter—but advocates dispute that claim, which they say is contradicted by their photos of the horses.

The advocacy group has treated the Fish Springs mares with PZP, a birth-control drug delivered with a dart that can be effective for several years. The group also works with property owners to find ways to keep the animals off private property, including paying for fencing and educating people not to feed the horses. The advocates also have offered to pay for fencing and cattle guards along roadways, but they say BLM officials told them there’s no precedent for allowing private groups to build fences on federal land.

Brady Owens, acting field manager at the BLM, said the agency put a horse trap on private property in January after the landowner complained. Five horses—a stallion named Blaze and his mare, Bunny; a mare, Noel, and her two colts, Bolt and Smokey—were trapped on Jan. 28. The agency in February set up another trap on public land and lured 13 other herd members into it on Feb. 15.

Cioffi said that for days, BLM workers spread hay on the snow-covered ground as they walked toward the trap—a portable corral—and the horses followed the trail of food.

Eleven BLM agents converged on the trap to load the horses for their trip to the agency’s Palomino Valley temporary holding center. Cioffi and other advocates complained that the BLM has targeted the high-profile horses for removal, rather than working with the volunteers who try to keep the mustangs away from private property and roads.

“God forbid a government agency work with the community for a private solution,” said Camille Bently, one of the largest landowners in Northern Nevada. “I’m just so sick of it all. The BLM is criminal, (and) always has been, I think.”

John Humphrey, a wildlife photographer who has been documenting the Fish Springs band for 13 years and has seen the strong familial bonds they share over four generations, said the mustangs are victims of “a people problem.” Some well-meaning residents,

wrongly believing the horses are starving in the snowy weather, put out hay or apples, luring the animals onto private land and closer to roadways, he said. “Then other people complain, and the BLM comes in and does its job.”

Humphrey said the problem is exacerbated by the BLM, which falsely claims the herds are starving. “The food that people put out rewards the horses for going into neighborhoods,” he said.

As of Feb. 17, the agency was keeping horse traps in the area, and more mustangs may be captured. The advocates said there is little they can do to keep the remaining Fish Springs horses free on the range.

“We’re in a tailspin,” Cioffi said. “We’ve been trying to contact legislators, but that’s not going very well. I think people have become complacent. They think the horses will be removed, and there’s nothing they can do about it. The BLM has all the power.”

1 Rotate and Inspect Tires

If the tread is worn down, you are going to see diminished performance, stopping distances will be longer on slippery roads, ice and snow.

2 Fix Tire Pressure Each 10 degree drop in outside temperature can mean a one-pound loss in air pressure.

3 Test the Battery Engines are more difficult to start in cold weather.

4 Change Oil Lighter weight oil is as important to starting an engine in cold weather as is a strong battery

5 Add Proper Coolant Test the protection level to prevent freezing.

6 Check Belts and Hoses

Cold temps weaken these items — hoses can become brittle and fail.

7 Inspect AWD or 4WD

Both systems offer improved snow traction and require maintenance.

8 Inspect Brakes The car’s brakes need to be in top operating condition.

9 Change Wiper Blades

Snow, slush and salt can quickly build up on the windshield, blinding a driver if the wiper blades are worn out.

10 Top off Fluids Carry a gallon of windshield fluid so you can quickly refill the container under the hood.

Bodie, the stallion on the right, chases after a BLM trailer taking away 13 members of his family herd in Fish Springs on Feb. 15.

Photo/Mary Cioffi

Tracking cats (named Bob)

Truckee Meadows residents often are surprised to see the stealthy predators

No one had to tell Jim Gaver that the shorttailed critter he and his wife, Lynne, saw in their backyard near Red Hawk Golf and Resort wasn’t a medium-size dog or a very large house cat.

The couple recently moved to Wingfield Springs from Santa Clarita, Calif., where their yard was a frequent gathering spot for the mammal zoologists call Lynx rufus When the Gavers called out to the visitor that sunny day, they thought of its more common moniker: Bob.

“This (bobcat) was standoffish, but turned around when we called out to him—just enough time for us to get a picture of his face,” Jim Gaver said. Then he was gone.

Although bobcats are nocturnal, they are sometimes seen in daylight, prowling creek beds, yards, ballfields, gardens and streets across the Truckee Meadows. When residents unexpectedly come upon them, the encounters often spawn questions: Do they attack people? Are my children or grandchildren in danger? Will they try to get into

a house? Will they eat my pets? Is it safe to approach them? Why aren’t they in the wilderness, where they belong?

Raquel Martinez, an urban wildlife coordinator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife, has answers. Bobcats were here long before humans, she noted, and are found throughout Nevada, in meadows and forests, and across the high desert and Sierra Nevada. In the Truckee Meadows, the cats feast on a buffet of rabbits, rodents, ground birds and other small game.

“They prefer wild food, but they are tempted by backyard chickens,” Martinez said.

Experts say there haven’t been many documented issues of bobcats going after pets. There have been accounts of bobcats preying on small dogs (less than 30 pounds), although researchers question the validity of some of those often anecdotal reports. Experts do agree that people aren’t on the wild cats’ menu. Even so, Martinez noted, it’s not a good idea to approach bobcats. (They don’t respond to “here, kitty, kitty.”)

“There has never been a human/bobcat fatality on record (in Nevada),” she said.

Still, Martinez said it’s important that people keep their distance from bobcats and make sure pets are on a leash. In addition, residents should be mindful of what they attract to their backyards: Birdfeeders are a boon to birds, but also attract rabbits and rodents, the cats’ primary prey.

Known for their stubby “bobbed” tails, the felines weigh from 11 to 30 pounds and range in color from tan to grayish brown. Their spotted and stripped fur acts as camouflage. The tips of their tails are black; their ears are tufted; and fur frames their faces, making the cats appear to have sideburns.

During the last three years, a researcher at Truckee Meadows Community College has been using electronic tracking devices and automatic-game cameras to get a glimpse of the secret life of bobcats that prowl within the city.

“We prefer to call them suburban, not urban, (bobcats),” said Meeghan Gray, professor and chair of the Biology and Community Health Science Department at Truckee Meadows Community College.

Gray and three students placed 16 game cameras throughout Northwest and Southwest Reno, including in the Somersett and Caughlin Ranch areas. The team gathers evidence to better understand bobcats’ movements and diet. The cameras are all at or near private homes, where some residents already have their own snapshots of the stealthy creatures, taken by security or doorbell cameras.

“Part of the reason we even started this project was that bobcats were showing up on Ring doorbells,” Gray said. “… I think a lot of people are surprised to see a bobcat. They’re used to seeing maybe a coyote, right? Or a racoon. But a bobcat? Wow, that’s crazy. They have been here the whole time, but we are just noticing them more now.”

Gray’s research project also includes one

GPS-collared female cat—the first tracked in Nevada—that they have been keeping tabs on for almost a year. That cat stays close to home, she said, “with all her GPS points in northwest suburban Reno. She is a full suburbanite. ... She loves it there.”

The cat gave birth to three kittens last year, Gray said, but her mate hasn’t been sighted. “The guys don’t hang around; it appears the females don’t want them to, either,” Gray said.

She suspects that the outlying areas of Reno provide easy prey for the felines. In some places—including Lemmon Valley and Sun Valley—the cats also have raided chicken coops.

Most of the photos captured by Gray’s game cameras were shot at night, when bobcats are hunting. Some residents, including Giovanni Gerrard of Northwest Reno, have spied them just after dawn or at dusk. One day in January, just before sunset, Gerrard was startled by an unexpected visitor.

“I was getting out of my car, and it jumped out from underneath a pine tree, near our front porch,” he said. “I thought, at first, it was a dog. But then I realized it was a bobcat.”

He saw the cat again a month later, just after sunrise. “It was walking across the street from our house,” he said.

Reports of bobcat sightings are common fodder for users of the Nextdoor social-media site. In east Spanish Springs, a couple named Robert and Laura remembered reports of a couple of bobcats milling around their neighborhood last year. And in Wingfield Springs this fall, a poster named Margie spotted one walking along the outside of her fence.

Such sightings can make pet owners nervous, but Gray said her research hasn’t turned up any evidence that the predators are stalking dogs or cats. When a pet vanishes, she noted, the owner may assume the culprit was a bobcat—but such cases haven’t been confirmed, at least in Nevada.

“I think (bobcats preying on pets) is one of the biggest misconceptions about bobcats, and it’s nice to hear other (researchers) are finding the same thing,” Gray said.

A bobcat visits Jim and Lynne Gaver’s backyard in Wingfield Springs. Photo/Jim Gaver

A bobcat in Northwest Reno, captured by a camera set up by Meeghan Gray’s research group.

Haters hating

A pride flag flew at a Reno church for five days; someone stole it and left a threat behind

If the Rev. Scott Trevithick could speak to the person who stole the pride flag from the lawn of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in downtown Reno and left a threatening sign, he would begin by listening.

“I would want to understand what they were thinking, and I would want to hear (about) the anxiety or the fear behind some of the connections that they seem to make,” Trevithick said. “What is their problem with the pride flag, and what is the difficulty of displaying it next to a cross? Why does this (flag) seem to threaten you or cause you anxiety or fear?”

On the last Saturday in January, the church’s cleaning crew arrived to discover that the LGBTQ+ pride flag that had been

HistoricRenoPreservationSociety

flying in front of the church for five days had been stolen, and a hand-printed sign—saying, “Keep your rag away from the cross or else. American flag only”—had been left in its place.

“I would want to have a conversation with whoever did that,” Trevithick said. “If I said anything, it would be about God. The God who we know in Jesus is a God of love, and that’s what folks from Good Shepherd and I as pastor want to affirm.”

The pride flag flew as a symbol of the church celebrating its mission as a “Reconciling in Christ” congregation, which is open and affirming of those who are LGBTQ+ and everyone else who enters its doors.

“This is a place where you are welcome to celebrate and grieve, to rejoice and recover,”

Trevithick said. “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”

The rainbow flag flies at the church on other occasions, including during the annual Northern Nevada Pride celebration. The church also has hosted annual prayer services to remember the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., in 2016. The Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd is among the more than 20 churches, synagogues and fellowships that belong to NiCE, the Nevada Interfaith Coalition for Equality and Inclusion.

The Rev. Sean Savoy, the founder and director of NiCE, said the vandalism at the church is a reminder that hate is part of our community, whether residents see it or not. “People often live in their own bubbles and may feel

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like everyone is as welcoming and affirming (to LGBTQ+ people) as they are, but hate is out there, and it’s gotten worse in our current political climate.”

Savoy said it’s not enough for people to lament such incidents. “Stand up for friends who need help,” he said. “Don’t remain silent when you hear hate speech. … Do we believe in having a city that is welcoming and affirming? If we do, we shouldn’t tolerate such things.”

Trevithick said the special service went on as planned the day after the flag was stolen. The incident, he said, underlines the importance of welcoming all people into God’s house and following Christ’s example of love.

“We’re repairing the staff,” Trevithick said. “The pride flag will be flying again.”

The pride flag was stolen from Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd and replaced with this hand-written sign.

Planets and Bright Stars in Evening Mid-Twilight

For March, 2023

This sky chart is drawn for latitude 40 degrees north, but may be used in continental U.S. and southern Canada.

March skies

The month brings spring, Ramadan and daylight saving time

March opens with a spectacular pairing of the two brightest planets at dusk, Venus and Jupiter

They appear closest to each other, just a half-degree apart—about the apparent width of the moon’s disk—on Wednesday, March 1. They’re still 11-12° above the western horizon at nightfall, as twilight ends, nearly an hour and a half after sunset. If mountains don’t block your view, you’ll catch the brilliant pair in a dark sky—a truly impressive sight!

Celebrate spring 2023 by observing the changing positions of the moon and four evening planets against the background of the zodiac constellations.

The gibbous moon, about three-quarters full on March 1, is in the constellation Gemini, 90 degrees east of the planet pair that evening. Note the “Twin” stars Pollux and Castor, 4.5° apart, about 10-11° east of the moon on

March 1. Mars, of magnitude +0.4 in Taurus, is about 22-23° west of the moon, or one-quarter of the way from the moon back toward the VenusJupiter pair. Taurus includes some beautiful star fields for binoculars: Aldebaran and the Hyades cluster, making a V-shaped pattern representing the head of the Bull; and the compact Pleiades, or Seven Sisters star cluster. Just 4.5° from Mars on March 1—same as the separation between Pollux and Castor—is the 1.7-magnitude star Elnath, marking the tip of the Bull’s northern horn.

Watch nightly for changes of the moon and planets. The moon, in a more distant part of its orbit in early March, is moving at a somewhat leisurely pace of 12° per day, compared to its average rate of 13.2°. .

On the evening of Thursday, March 2, the moon will pass within 2° south of Pollux, while the Venus-Jupiter pair will be separated by 1°. On each successive evening, Jupiter appears lower, with Venus a little higher.

March’s evening sky chart. Illustration/Robert D. Miller

By Friday evening, March 3, Venus and Jupiter are 2° apart, and the moon is in Cancer, the Crab, 13-16° below the bright Twin stars of Gemini. Look for the star Regulus, heart of Leo, the Lion, in the eastern sky, 24° below the moon. Do you notice any change in the separation between Mars and the star marking the tip of the horn of Taurus? They’re now within 4° apart, a little closer than the Pollux-Castor pair.

On Saturday, March 4, at dusk, the bright planets are nearly 3° apart, and the moon has moved closer to Regulus. On March 5, VenusJupiter are nearly 4° apart, and the moon, now 98 percent full, passes just 4° to the north of Regulus.

On March 6, you can still catch the moon rising a little north of east shortly before sunset— but this is the last day you can do so. As the sky darkens, look for Regulus within 13° to the upper right of the moon. Venus and Jupiter are nearly 5° apart in the west. The moon is full overnight, reaching opposition to the sun at 4:40 a.m. on Tuesday, March 7.

On March 7 at dusk, Venus and Jupiter are nearly 6° apart. The moon, technically past full, rises in twilight, not long after sunset. You can start following the waning moon in the morning sky.

On March 8 at dusk, Venus-Jupiter are nearly 7° apart, and the gap between them continues to widen by nearly an additional degree daily. On this and the next two evenings, Mars and Elnath appear just 3.1° apart, their least separation.

While you’re out watching the evening planets, be sure to check out the collection of bright seasonal stars. Beginning in the southern sky with blue-white Sirius, at magnitude -1.4 the brightest—but not as bright as Venus or Jupiter—go in clockwise order around the large oval, sometimes called the Winter Ellipse: Sirius, Procyon, Pollux and Castor, Capella, Aldebaran, Rigel (Orion’s foot) and back to Sirius.

Betelgeuse (Orion’s shoulder) and Mars are inside the oval. Orion’s three-star belt, midway between Rigel and Betelgeuse, points toward Sirius in one direction, and toward Aldebaran and the Pleiades in the other. Note the triangle of three reddish objects—Mars, Betelgeuse and Aldebaran.

We’ll come back to the evening sky when the moon returns on March 22. Keep track of Jupiter until then, because it will come in handy to locate the thin returning lunar crescent, and a few days later, the innermost planet, Mercury, emerging from the far side of the sun.

After the switch to daylight saving time on Sunday, March 12, you won’t have to get up so early to see a dark predawn sky. Use the morning twilight chart in the online version of this article about an hour before sunrise to find these six

ROBERT VICTOR

bright stars: the Summer Triangle of Vega, Altair, and Deneb well up in the east; reddish Antares, heart of the Scorpion, in the south; and golden Arcturus, high in the southwest, with blue-white Spica, spike of grain in the hand of Virgo, below. Watch the waning moon pass above Spica on March 10, and hopscotch from west of Antares to east of it on March 13-14. By March 18, Saturn emerges very low in the eastsoutheast, 17-18° to the lower left of a 14 percent crescent moon. On Sunday, March 19, the old, 7 percent crescent moon appears 2° to the lower right of 0.9-magnitude Saturn.

On Monday, March 20, as the sun passes from south to north of the equator at 2:24 p.m., spring begins in Earth’s northern hemisphere.

By March 22, three weeks have elapsed since the close pairing of Venus and Jupiter on March 1. Look in the west about 30-40 minutes after sunset for the thin, 3 percent crescent moon, within 18° to the lower right of Venus. Jupiter will be 2-3° to the lower right of the moon. Tonight’s crescent moon marks the beginning of the month of Ramadan for followers of Islam: One month of daily fasting from sunrise to sunset begins on Thursday. Continue to track departing Jupiter, because in a few days, it will help you locate emerging Mercury.

Follow the moon daily at dusk, and watch for these events: On March 23, the moon is 5° below Venus; it’s 7° above Venus on March 24. On March 25, the moon is within 2° south of Pleiades. On March 26, the moon is 9° north of Aldebaran and 17-18° west of Mars; Mars has crossed from Taurus into Gemini.

On March 27, Mercury (magnitude -1.4) passes 1.3° north (to the right) of Jupiter. Look for the pair 25° to the lower right of Venus. Mars is within 6° to the upper left of the moon, now a fat crescent, 41 percent full. On March 28, Mars is within 7° to the lower right of the first quarter moon, which is half full and 90 degrees, or one quarter-circle east of the sun. Jupiter, now 2° to the lower left of Mercury, appears lower each evening and will soon disappear into the sun’s glare. Mercury appears a little higher each night, until April 11, when it reaches its best position in the evening sky for this year.

On March 29, the moon is 3-5° from the Twin stars, Pollux and Castor. At nightfall, using binoculars, try for sixth-magnitude Uranus, 1.5° to the upper left of Venus. On March 30, the moon, 69 percent full, is 9-13° east of the Twins. Illustrations of many of the events described here appear on the March 2023 Sky Calendar. Subscription info and a sample issue are available at www.abramsplanetarium.org/skycalendar.

Robert Victor originated the Abrams Planetarium monthly Sky Calendar in October 1968 and still produces issues occasionally. He enjoys being outdoors sharing the wonders of the night sky.

Stereographic Projection Map by Robert D. Miller

Deneb

In-city respites

Rattlesnake Mountain and Huffaker Hills offer approachable and beautiful trails

The Biggest Little City is surrounded by miles of trails and acres of public land for us to explore—and then there are Huffaker Hills and Rattlesnake Mountain, which are surrounded by the city!

Even if you’ve somehow never known its name, you’ve almost certainly seen Rattlesnake Mountain. It rises strikingly into the sky near McCarran Boulevard and Longley Lane. With Rattlesnake Mountain’s primo location right in the city, the views from the

top can be stunning—and it’s an approachable hike for most people.

You won’t find any flashy signs—or any signs at all—telling you where to turn to get to the trailhead; the entrance is via an unlabeled road called Alexander Lake Road on Google maps. You’ll have to be heading east on McCarran to make the right turn up this road; there’s no opportunity to turn left, because it’s too close to the intersection with Longley. A brown sign proclaiming you’re on your way to the South

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Truckee Meadows Water Reclamation Facility is the one sign you’ll find that you’re heading in the right direction.

As you follow the road up the side of the mountain, you may feel like you’re heading out of town. As you wind up and around, in less than a mile, you’ll see the sign for the Huffaker Hills Trailhead at the entrance to its small parking lot. You can’t miss the sign; after this point, the road becomes a private road for the water reclamation facility.

Part of the Washoe County Regional Parks and Open Space system, this easily accessible trailhead has a few minor facilities: A handful of covered picnic tables stand adjacent to the parking area, and a portable restroom or two is often available in the summer (though they were removed during the COVID-19 crisis, with no estimated replacement date as of this writing). A map of the trails system stands off to one side, orienting you with the mosaic of paths crisscrossing the hills before you.

Exploring these trails, you’ll discover views in many directions. Reno spreads out below— unless you’re on the side overlooking the wetlands and neighborhoods of Hidden Valley. Small valleys you may never have known existed suddenly become visible, filled with native plants and wildlife.

Several signs point out some of the most iconic flora and fauna, such as spring flowers and year-round wildlife. A visit around sunset may include sightings of people-shy jackrabbits and sounds of distant coyotes. Wild horses can

often be spotted from above Hidden Valley— and even the view overlooking the water-reclamation facility is interesting to discover.

On the opposite side of Alexander Lake Road is the unmarked entrance to Rattlesnake Mountain. Though there is no signage, it’s easy to see the trails splitting and converging on their way to the top of the mountain. This side is a particularly popular spot for people to walk dogs on a nice day.

Getting to the top of Rattlesnake is doable for people at most skill levels, and it doesn’t take a terribly long time. The top of the mountain is often bathed in cool breezes and offers a great vantage point to watch planes taking off from the airport. You may even spy your house, depending on where you live!

Neither Huffaker Hills nor Rattlesnake Mountain offer any trees for shade along your route. This makes it a very hot hike on a summer day, but one of the quickest routes to melt after a snowfall. Though it can get muddy, plenty of rocks keep most of the trails in the area walkable—as long as you’re OK with getting some mud on your shoes.

The sun hits these slopes early and lingers late, making it a great option for sunrise and sunset hikes, as the exposed trail is easy to see and follow. With so many options to create your own hike length and difficulty, it’s also a family-friendly spot and an easy place to visit over and over again, as you can choose a slightly different route or direction each time.

This approachability and the proximity to town make Huffaker Hills and Rattlesnake Mountain perfect for a quick stop just about any time of day. Whether you’re looking to break up a tedious commute home in rush-hour traffic, or enjoy a quick jaunt after lunch, these county-managed lands offer a close respite from the city.

A view of Slide Mountain from the Huffaker Hills. Photo/Maggie Nichols

"Big Bucket O’ Tunes" (a collection of some 4000+ tunes he curated from 2014-’22), old & current ID’s & Blurbs, and outtakes from his morning show on 'The X' in the ’90’s.

Bruce Van Dyke’s only on: jiveradio.org/bvd

More than 50 activity groups!

If a wormhole in time

vacuumed up everyday objects used by people during the last 150 years and deposited them, willy-nilly, inside a two-story house in Reno, the result would be Reno Antiques.

Carpentry tools, frying pans, cooking utensils, hand-cranked meat grinders and piles of iron wrenches that may have been last used to repair a Model T Ford vie for space on the first floor. Stacks of casino ashtrays, poker chips, decades-old Reno souvenirs, novelty liquor bottles, books and other random items are crammed on shelves and stacked atop vintage furniture. A phalanx of kerosene lanterns is in tight formation on top of an oak dresser. A ceramic bourbon bottle—in the guise of a grizzled Nevada prospector—presides over a rack of military tunics. Beer signs, plaques, vintage photos and paintings share space on the walls.

Everywhere, in every room, the detritus of the past is displayed inside Reno’s last free-

standing antique store.

Reno Antiques is the domain of Doug Schuster, 73, who has been buying, selling and trading (mostly) American artifacts for a halfcentury. His business weathered the changing tastes of antique collectors, multiple economic recessions and the rise of internet auctions. He continues to hunt for common objects and unlikely treasures at estate auctions, flea markets, garage sales—and among the objects brought by sellers who visit his shop at 677 S. Wells Ave.

It’s all about the connections, past and present, person to person.

“It’s been fun,” Schuster said. “The people are the main thing for me rather than the stuff. Whether they are homeless people or multimillionaires, I learn from every one of them. … I’ve got lots of regular customers, and people from all over the country—all over the world—have stopped in here. I’ve become friends with some of them.”

The items Schuster buys may stay in the shop for a long time or be purchased within days of arrival. Things pile up fast.

“It’s a mess,” he said. “I’ve got the buying part down; I need to work on the selling part. … I keep saying, ‘I’ll clean this place up. Someday, you’ll come in here, and this (front) counter will be clean.’”

A customer, who has known Schuster for a long time, laughed. “Bullshit,” he said. On various days in February, a steady stream of folks dropped by the shop. Some came to see what has arrived since their last visit. Others came to hunt for specific items or just to browse in a space brimming with curiosities, surprises and, most importantly, memories.

Stephanie Baumgardner of Reno, a regular customer, looked at boxes of old kitchen products and tableware. “I see so much stuff I remember from childhood,” she said. “The antiques bring back those memories for me.”

Baumgardner buys “yard stuff, household stuff or whatever clicks. … This is one of the best antiques shops ever,” she said, as she walked the narrow spaces among the piles of Schuster’s inventory, waiting for connections. “The item has to talk to me. I just look around and wait for something to pop out. I could really get stuck in here. I have to talk myself into leaving. All this stuff has meaning; they all have stories, even if you don’t know what those are.”

She said she prefers the eclectic cacophony of Reno Antiques to the neat, shiny feel of antique malls. “In here, you know that things have been used, and

everything has had experiences,” she said. “It’s all history. It’s all amazing. I think I could write a book about the stuff in here.”

People make connections that wind through time and space.

“Some people collect specific things, but a lot of the people who come in are looking to recapture something they remember or wanted from their childhoods,” Schuster said. “They’ll say, ‘I always wanted one of these,’ or, ‘My grandma had this exact vase.’ It’s about nostalgia and childhood dreams.”

of being a soldier. In 1966, at age 17, he joined the Marines. He arrived in Vietnam as an infantry machine gunner, a job whose life expectancy in combat was measured in minutes. He beat those odds and saw the horrible reality of war.

He returned to civilian life in 1970 and got married two years later. In 1974, he got a job as a furniture refinisher in Mound House. Schuster sanded and stained dressers, highboys

As a boy, Schuster dreamed

Doug Schuster, who opened his antique shop in Reno in 1975, in his store at 677 S. Wells Ave.

Photo by David Robert

and tables; he reupholstered sofas and chairs and learned the values of the pieces.

“I always liked the old stuff,” Schuster said. “I’d buy something and then sell it before the rent came due. We were raising two boys. It helped feed my family.”

In 1975, he opened Reno Antiques at 501 S. Wells Ave.; he moved to the current location in 1977. In the early days, he was open for business seven days a week and offered a 24hour buying service. That came in handy in a town where people moving across the country stopped for a night and tried their luck in casinos. Sometimes they went bust and had to sell things for travel money.

“I’d often see them twice,” he said. “Once for the jewelry and then, when they lost the money they got for that, they’d call me again to take a look at the stuff in the U-Haul.”

In the 1970s and 1980s, Schuster traveled regularly, making the rounds of antique stores, flea markets, estate sales and thrift stores across the U.S. “I’d even drive down country roads and knock on doors and ask if they had any antiques they wanted to sell,” he said.

Over the decades, though, a lot of his inventory also has come in through the front door.

“Great things have come in here over the years,” Schuster said. “From a 15th-century armor to a meteorite to a Ben Franklin newspaper page. Every week, there’s something cool that comes in the door, and that stuff usually goes right out again.”

The business has changed a lot in 50 years. “The baby boomers’ parents died off, and the boomers are scaling down, de-cluttering. Younger people don’t have the interest in the 100-year-old antiques. When generations die, markets also die. But it has been a good living for a lot of years.”

Each item for sale has a tag or sticker. Prices range from a few dollars for household items to more than $1,000 for rarer objects, like the large bronze Pony Express plaque offered for $1,275. “I always paid as much as I could to

get (pieces he wanted) in the door,” he said. Schuster prices things to make a little profit on each, he said. “I depend on the volume of sales and treating people fairly,” he said. “I never mean to make a killing on anybody.”

Schuster, like all antique dealers, has occasionally paid too much for an item. When that happens, he gets what he can out of the piece rather than hanging on to it in the hopes it will appreciate. “I want to get it out of here fast,” he said. “I’ve bought something for $100, realized I’d made a mistake, and sold it to the next person coming through the door for $40. The faster you cover that mistake and get that money rolling again is what’s important. I’ve seen people sit on things waiting for them to be worth more to recoup what they paid for it. Every one of them goes broke.”

“Some people collect specific things, but a lot of the people who come in are looking to recapture something they remember or wanted from their childhoods. They’ll say, ‘I always wanted one of these,’ or, ‘my grandma had this exact vase.’ It’s about nostalgia and childhood dreams.”

turn of the 20th century, as well as some neon beer signs. The shop’s inventory, Vic Fabbri said, “changes all the time. We come in about once every few weeks. You won’t find a nicer guy than Doug.”

Schuster said a steady stream of locals and tourists visits the shop on the three days a week it’s open. “Spouses come in when their husbands or wives are gambling. We get famous people sometimes; Kid Rock came in twice. You never know what you are going to find in this mess. It’s not in any order; it’s just what comes through the door.”

— Doug Schuster owner of Reno Antiques

He keeps track of what various antique and vintage pieces are selling for and the trends in collectables. The age of an object doesn’t mean much on its own.

“Just because it’s old, that doesn’t mean it’s valuable,” he said. Rarity, condition and market demand always come into play. One cast-iron frying pan might be worth $25, but a Griswold #13 skillet can command more than $8,000. Oak furniture was popular (and expensive) for decades, but that market cratered years ago. Even so, some vintage pieces are still in demand.

Customers Vic and Sharon Fabbri of Reno, for example, are fans of mission-style furniture. Their purchases have included an oak mission-style desk and a walnut dresser from the

There is no list or catalogue. Schuster’s inventory is filed in his head. His system is simple: He remembers where he put things down. As other antique stores closed, and antique malls have moved around the Truckee Meadows as properties were sold and rents skyrocketed, Reno Antiques has stayed put.

“If I didn’t own the place, I probably would be out of business by now,” Schuster said. “The rent in Reno is so high; it stops people from opening. You have to sell a lot of stuff just to make rent.”

The shop is a barometer of economic trends, he said.

“In a business like this, where you buy and sell and trade, you’re on the front lines of the economy,” he said. “You know what’s going on. Back in the day, I’d get a lot of workingclass people in here who had some extra money and would buy things they remembered from their childhood. You don’t see that as much anymore. They don’t have that disposable income; it’s pretty sad.”

His business was once a 24/7 effort, but these days, Reno Antiques is open from Thursday to Saturday. Schuster, who has had three heart attacks and two strokes, said he may retire when his shop turns 50 in two years. But he’s planned to call it quits before—and nothing came of it.

“I believe if you’re working, it’s good for the mind, and the body will follow the mind,” he said.

If he closed the shop, Schuster said, “I’d miss the people. But I’ve had fun here. … I didn’t get rich, but I made a living—and a lot of friends.”

Decades ago, roadside antique shops dotted Northern Nevada’s landscape, from Reno’s north valleys south to Douglas County.

Many baby boomers and their parents collected everything from Victorian furniture to European figurines; from toys to casino memorabilia. Antique buffs prowled local shops in search of treasures and items missing from their collections. But as those generations aged, their offspring had less interest in the 100-year-old artifacts. Economic recessions also took a bite out of peoples’ disposable incomes and tanked the value of many collectables.

Then came the Web, which allowed collectors and antique enthusiasts to shop anywhere in the world without leaving their homes. Prices of some collectables came down when objects thought to be extremely rare were suddenly common online. Tastes changed; store rents skyrocketed. Stand-alone antique stores faded away.

Yet the business remains viable. Many brick and mortar shops became online stores. When rents soared, others leased space in antique malls. Boutique shops specialize in vintage clothing and retro items. Younger people may not want to collect oak furniture or 1950s Formica tables, but because of their beauty and sturdy construction, many would rather use those pieces in their homes than furniture made from laminated particle board. People buy art deco items and 1960s kitchen ware not for display, but to be used.

“The internet changed the antique business forever, but it isn’t going anywhere,” said Mark Scott, a retired antique dealer from Douglas County. “It’s changed, and you have to bob and weave to make money, but the (demand for antiques) is still there.”

National trends are favorable: a recent survey by Homes & Gardens indicates Americans’ interest in antique stores rose 50% in 2021, while the number of antique auctions increased 80%.

In the Truckee Meadows, antique collectors and browsers who prefer hands-on shopping over surfing internet auctions have many brick-and-mortar businesses from which to choose.

Antique, vintage and retro

The Nest, a boutique at 201 Keystone Ave. in Reno, has found its niche in the antique and collectables market by specializing in vintage items that are about 25-30 years old, as well as “retro” pieces—classic styles made modern.

Gregory Belle Jr., The Nest’s manager, said his customers are all about style. Patrons come in looking for vintage clothing, including old denim, cardigans and Victorian-style gunnysack dresses.

“Bell bottoms are always in style,” he noted. “And people like cardigans, from sweaters to sweater vests.”

CorningWare, Pyrex, old Tupperware and living room and kitchen furniture also are popular items.

“This stuff was made really well,” Belle said, referring to a kitchen table made in the 1960s. “No plastic went into this. It looks as good now as the day it was made.”

Other vintage items find new life: Apple or milk crates become book cases; cigar boxes can be used to store art supplies, jewelry or other small items; vintage clothing can be worn right off the rack.

“It’s about style,” Belle said. “Fashion and function.”

Junkee Clothing Exchange, at 960 S. Virginia St., specializes in vintage clothing and costumes, but also has a 15,000 square-foot antiques section called Chasing Yesterday that features repurposed furniture, collectibles, gifts, dolls, jewelry and decades-old antiques.

Tanner’s Marketplace hosts antique shows at the RenoSparks Convention Center five times a year; they attract local dealers and vendors and customers from all over the West. The next Tanner’s Marketplace is scheduled for May 20-21.

Randy Hallahan’s R&H Novelty and Antiques, at 1403 S. Arlington Ave. in Reno, specializes in antique slot machines from the 1920s to the 1960s. He also deals in antique gumball and vending machines, jukeboxes, player pianos and clocks.

A new antiques mall is slated for what was formerly an adult bookstore at 1052 S. Virginia St. It will be the third antique mall in the Truckee Meadows.

Treasures in the malls

Phillip Grundhauser, who owns Somewhere in Time antique mall at 1313 S. Virginia St. in Reno, became interested in antiques as a boy, when he accompanied his mom to flea markets. He began by collecting American coins and matchbooks, and started dealing in antiques online—mostly toy trucks and World War II military items—about 20 years ago. Ten years ago, he bucked an industry trend by opening a brick-and-mortar antique mall that now boasts 15 vendors.

“The internet changed the business; there’s not much you can’t find online,” Grundhauser said. “But there’s still life left for stores. People still want to look, feel and touch, especially when it comes to antiques and collectables, and you can’t be sure of what you are getting online. And people still want that antique-store atmosphere. We greet you, help you, and we know about what we’re selling. We don’t have quite everything in the mall, but darn near.”

Then there’s that sense of discovery that can only come from browsing among hundreds of items.

“It’s a hunt; there’s always that possibility of finding an unexpected treasure,” Grundhauser said. “When people come in to browse, very few walk out empty-handed. There’s so much here that something catches their eye and gives them another idea.”

The browsers often are folks from the baby boomer

generation, he said. Younger patrons sometimes come in looking for items they remember from their childhoods, he said, but a lot of times, “they want to find something they think is cool. They are looking to save things from the dump.”

Their mindset, Grundhauser said, is centered on repurposing, recycling and reusing old items. “They get into the retro stuff and make it into something else. I see a lot of that. They will say, ‘That’s really cool-looking,’ rather than commenting on the age of the items.”

Although the market for antique furniture is a ghost of what it was 30 years ago, the wooden pieces remain popular, albeit for much lower prices. “People buy the old stuff because it’s well built, beautiful, and it’s been around for a while— not necessarily because it was made in England in 1854,” Grundhauser said.

The antiques and vintage items at Somewhere in Time don’t need repairs, he said, and customers aren’t looking for an investment. “Now it’s more about using it than waiting for appreciation,” he said. “Our shop makes sure everything in working order, fixed up and ready to go. They don’t want to fix it or rewire it; (they want) to plug it in as is.”

‘Loch Ness Monster’ of gaming antiques

In December 2021, Sharon Nickson and her and her husband, Boyd Cox, opened Antiques and Treasures ROCK Antique Mall at 540 S. Rock Blvd. in Sparks. They had operated the antique mall in the old Parker’s Western Wear building in downtown Reno until the building was sold.

The shop, which is open every day except Christmas and Thanksgiving, specializes in fine art and jewelry and has an extensive section devoted to World War II military items and books. The mall’s 15 vendors offer all kinds of other vintage pieces and collectables for sale, from casino-related memorabilia, to clocks, china, Victorian-era furniture, swords, postage stamps, comic books and vinyl records.

Nickson said people who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s often are interested in the things they loved in childhood, “like Star Wars or Pokémon items, Garbage Pail Kids or the old Nintendos (or) PlayStations and the old games that go to them. … We don’t have a dealer for those right now, but that’s one of the hottest things going on in the market.”

Barbie dolls; high-end sterling silver and gold estate jewelry; and knives and swords also move off the shelves fast, she said, and locals love casino-related memorabilia. The highest-priced item in the mall is the antique equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster, she said, something that everyone has heard about but no one ever sees—a rigged roulette wheel from the 1930s that used electromagnets to cheat players.

“I know what I paid for it, and I know it’s been appraised at $250,000,” Nickson said. “It’s one of a kind, but it comes down to what someone will pay for it, not what someone else says it’s worth.”

The antique business has taken a beating during the last couple of decades, but it isn’t about to go extinct, she said. And the dealers who remain help each other.

“We send each other customers all the time,” Nickson said. “If someone is looking for old tools or other rustic stuff, we’ll send them to Doug (Schuster) at Reno Antiques. For other things, we’ll send them to Junkee’s Clothing Exchange, Somewhere in Time or The Nest.

“If we don’t have what they are looking for, we’re going to try to find it. Whether they are looking for school lunch boxes or vintage clothing or whatever, we’ll help you. We want our customers to be happy.”

History on canvas

The Portrait Society of Reno captures the local people’s visages—and personalities

For more than 70 years, the artists of the Portrait Society of Reno have captured the visages—and the personalities—of hundreds of Northern Nevadans who have sat in their studios.

Most society members have been women, so it’s fitting that the Portrait Society’s current show at the Sparks Museum and Cultural Center honors the women’s suffrage movement, while at the same time spotlighting three local artists who are pivotal in the success of the group.

The exhibit, Passage of Women’s Suffrage of 1920, in the museum’s upper gallery, runs through April 29. The show was originally

planned for 2020 but was postponed because of COVID-19 restrictions.

The subjects of the portraits are local men and women. Some are well-known movers and shakers; others never got their names in a news story. All have sat, trying to remain motionless, as Portrait Society members captured the sitter on canvas using paint, pencils or charcoal.

“We all paint the same person, but we each see a different personality,” said Kay Genasci, the society’s president.

At the opening for the show in February, artist Roianne Hart displayed her portraits of Reno

Renate Neumann, one of three artists honored by the Portrait Society of Reno, with her caregiver, Connie Carew, at the event on Feb. 4. Neumann’s paintings are in the background. Photo/David Robert

lawyer Margo Piscevich, fellow painter Eileen Fuller and journalist Lenita Powers.

Hart tries to capture the portrait under the skin. She has painted people throughout her life, but she didn’t focus on portraits until she joined the society, she said. She finds it challenging to not only make her paintings look like the subject, but also “to capture the essence and feeling” of who they are.

“(Piscevich) is so stunning, a handsome woman, so assertive, powerful, confident,” Hart said.

As for Powers: “I like her smile. I think she smiles without even knowing it.”

Influential women artists recognized

Honored at the kick-off event for the show were longtime Portrait Society of Reno members Marilyn Melton, Renate Neumann and Joan Shonnard. Ray Freeman of Carson City remembered how Neumann was “so encouraging to get me involved” when he joined the group in 2005.

The three women were fast friends, said Ann Carpenter, daughter of the late Joan Shonnard. Her mother loved the camaraderie of the eight to 10 members who would meet for lunch after the sessions.

“She loved painting people and painted a portrait a week religiously,” Carpenter said.

Other painters credit the society for helping to expand their talents.

“I learned so much from the group by looking at the other portraits,” said Heather Reynolds, who joined two years ago after moving to the area from San Jose, Calif. “It is such a supportive, friendly group.”

Mimi Sanchez of Reno has been painting since she was 15 years old, but still finds it a challenge to create a complete portrait in less than three hours during the posing session. Sanchez used pencils in her early work, before progressing through pastels, oils and acrylics. “With watercolor, you must move quickly,” she said. “It is so exciting.”

To streamline the process and give her portraits an “upbeat” feel, she doesn’t use black paint and minimizes wrinkles. The water wash and the colors flow quickly to create a fluid portrait. “I try to capture the person as beautiful,” she said.

Her portrait of Marshall Fey—who wrote books about his grandfather, Charles Fey, the inventor of the slot machine—shows “what a sweet man he is. I so enjoyed him.”

A 20-year career in typesetting and graphic design led Beverly Finley of Golden Valley to the portrait group after she took up painting in a small community in Idaho.

In a portrait of friend’s child backlit by a golden sun, “I enhanced the ‘halo’ of light,” Finley said. “She is definitely a bright shining star.”

Painting from photos and from life Freeman, who serves as the Portrait Society of America’s Northern Nevada ambassador, said he prefers painting live models rather than using photographs. “A photo doesn’t give true colors or skin tones,” he said. “I like to start with life.”

He is a retired police officer who began his art career as a police forensic artist. After he does a portrait in a three-hour session, he continues to work, adding layers of watercolors to give the finished piece a dense and complex texture.

In a landscape, a tree could be any tree, Hart noted, but people are different. As a result, he usually needs six to nine more hours to properly capture the likeness of a particular individual, he said.

He and other artists often enhance portraits with background additions. A bass in the background of a musician defines her interests, for example.

“Portraits are my favorite,” said Marilyn Melton, one of the three veteran local artists honored in the show. “I’ve been painting ever since I could pick up a crayon. I always knew I was an artist.”

Being successful at portraying a person on canvas is satisfying, Melton said. “Every person is unique and interesting and different from everyone else—and you know when you’ve got it (the personality),” she said.

Women’s history preserved

The Portrait Society of Reno invited the Nevada Women’s History Project to participate in the show by providing women’s biographies. Genasci painted the portrait of NWHP founder Jean Ford which was displayed at the opening event for the show in February.

“Our work supports each other’s,” said Patti Bernard, the history project’s past chairwoman. “Both groups preserve current and past history of Nevada. The Portrait Society preserves history through portraiture, and we research and write biographies of individuals.”

The Portrait Society of Reno’s exhibit Passage of Women’s Suffrage of 1920 will be on display through Saturday, April 29, at the Sparks Museum and Cultural Center, 814 Victorian Ave., in Sparks. Admission is free, and some portraits are available for purchase. The Portrait Society meets Wednesdays at Nevada Fine Arts, 1301 S. Virginia St. For more information about the Portrait Society, call Kay Genasci at 775-359-2465.

Finding the funny

Reno offers numerous showcases for new standup comics

Famous comedians like Kevin Hart and Chelsea Handler get their names spelled out in lights on casino-showroom marquees— but they didn’t start there.

Who knows? One of the future Harts or Handlers may be found at one of the area’s small clubs, improv workshops or openmic nights—all part of Reno’s thriving and close-knit community of up-and-coming comedians. In those smaller venues, would-be comedians conquer flop sweat and hecklers to develop the original material and smooth delivery needed to make a run at the Big Time.

Reno Tahoe Comedy

Reno Tahoe Comedy, founded by Wayne Wright, is an anchor of the Truckee Meadows comedy scene.

“I love comedy,” Wright said. “People can come and take themselves out of their everyday existence by coming to a show.”

Although Wright doesn’t perform himself, he knows what it takes for comics to connect with an audience. “It’s all about stage presence,” he said. “It’s amazing what comedians can do; you’re one person on a stage, trying to make people laugh.”

Reno Tahoe Comedy curates shows at various venues, including South 40 and The Theatre. The events feature a lineup of both local comedians and outside headliners, often from the Bay Area or Los Angeles. Wright is open to giving new comics a chance to perform.

“Sometimes they do really well—and sometimes they take a while and need more practice,” he said.

Some standup clubs avoid giving relatively

inexperienced comedians a chance to perform during a weekend show, but Wright believes there is no better way to learn than to perform alongside veteran comedians. Unlike open-mic events, which typically have a crowd made up of other comedians, weekend shows offer a newbie a chance to perform for a general audience.

Wright has been at the helm of Reno Tahoe Comedy for 12 years and also manages comedy shows at the Crystal Bay Casino at Lake Tahoe. He is working to open up other Reno venues for comedy shows. His theory is that there can never been enough opportunities for local comic talent to evolve—and that folks should seek out more opportunities to spend an evening laughing.

Reno Improv

Improv is short for improvisation, a form of live theater in which performers create scenes and characters on the spot, usually based on a premise—or even just a word—suggested by an audience member. Improv is the live-or-die gladiator pit for comics; quick wit, creativity and an ability to think on one’s feet are the basic requirements.

Reno Improv offers classes and workshops for comics and aspiring comics at all levels of experience. Friday and Saturday nights, the venue, at 695 Willow St., hosts shows that are open to the public, where some of the workshop participants perform unscripted theater. Anything goes in these spontaneous sessions, which are one-of-a-kind, in-the-moment experiences that will never be repeated.

At a recent show, the performers were divided into two groups of five performers, each given 30 minutes onstage. In the first segment, an audience member yelled, “Fantasy!”—and the lights then went off and on. One performer began acting as a witch, casting a spell to protect another castmate from future demons. The premise took off from there, as the five comics played off each other to guide the storyline— and find the funny.

Comedians I talked to said improvisation has not only helped improve their acts and stage presence, but has also had a transformative impact on their lives. Through participating in improv, they said, they have enhanced their communication skills and developed key abilities such as creative problem-solving, decision-making and lateral thinking.

The Laugh Factory

Reno is a sought-after market for budding comedians, according to Dave Mencarelli, manager of the Laugh Factory in the Silver Legacy

Resort Casino.

“You’re not fighting for five minutes of stage time like you are in bigger markets, like L.A.,” said Mencarelli, who himself is a standup comic.

Reno-based comedian Sammy Solorio can confirm that statement. Solorio launched his comedy career eight years ago and has since taken his show on the road to major cities including New York and Las Vegas. Since then, he said, Reno’s comedy scene has expanded and improved. Solorio got his start by helping with the production of Reno Tahoe Comedy shows, and gradually moved up the ranks to become a performer in his own right.

“I started to see what worked and what didn’t from watching comedians perform over and over again,” he said. “It took me two years to eventually ask to give it a shot.”

The Dead Panda

Reno offers fledgling comics varied opportunities to try out new material and hone their acts. Dead Panda Comedy, for example, hosts weekly open mics on Wednesdays at The Arch Society in Midtown, and Sundays at the Blind Onion on Victorian Avenue in Sparks. They also put on larger showcases on the second Saturday of each month, featuring a lineup of local and out-of-town comedians. Tickets prices start as low as $7.25, and the shows often sell out. Dead Panda also hosts a YouTube channel of recent open mic performances.

Luke Westberg and Michael Graham, the duo behind Dead Panda, welcome first-time performers. On a recent Wednesday night event, the audience was packed with aspiring comedians and a supportive fan base. About 15 comedians took the stage for four-minute sets. The audience was encouraging to the comics and provided constructive feedback to each performer.

The takeaway: Members of Reno’s comedy community support each other. They know it takes courage to get into the spotlight, and that evolving an act is a process of experimentation and taking chances. It’s possible that a comic genius like Robin Williams killed the first time he performed in a comedy club, but he was an exception. An open mic is an invitation that once accepted, may result in cheers—or jeers.

“You’re going to bomb, and it’s going to suck,” Westberg said. “But each time, it gets less and less scary.”

Looking for local laughter? Open mics:

• Coffee N’ Comics, 940 W. Moana Lane, Tuesday from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

• The Arch Society, 960 S. Virginia St., Wednesday at 7 p.m.

• Blind Onion, 834 Victorian Ave., No. 5077, Sunday at 7 p.m.

• The Office, 248 W. First St., Tuesday at 9 p.m.

Wayne Wright, founder of Reno Tahoe Comedy. Photo/David Robert

Not the usual song and dance

UNR’s production of ‘Cabaret’ challenges audiences with its in-your-face intensity

“I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking,” wrote author Christopher Isherwood on the first page of his novel Goodbye to Berlin, on which the musical Cabaret was based.

The world it recorded was bleak and chaotic. It’s this world that the University of Nevada, Reno’s Department of Theatre and Dance and Department of Music aim to capture in their upcoming production of Cabaret.

As explained by director Yassi Jahanmir, assistant professor of theater history, literature and theory, this production is far from the slickly produced, iconic Fosse film version of 1972. Rather, this version is closer to Isherwood’s original semi-autobiographical work—a gritty, unabashed look at the politics of hate.

Amid the backdrop of Berlin during the Nazis’ rise to power, Cabaret tells the story of Isherwood’s alter ego, Clifford Bradshaw (played by Nick Farro), a bisexual American expat who has arrived in Berlin to savor its hedonistic Jazz Age way of life. He happens upon the seedy Kit Kat Klub, where his neighbor, notorious flirt Sally Bowles (Jasmine Johnson), performs. While the two embark on a doomed romance, all around them is chaos, as the Nazis slowly intrude on their freedoms.

Considering the constraints of a budget-strapped school-theater program, Jahanmir opted for a DIY-style production that’s raw, unfiltered—and literally dark.

“Both the art and the politics were very brazen in this era, so we really wanted to capture that sort of brazenness with this do-it-yourself vibe,” she said. “We also have

no technical director at UNR, so we’re doing all of our own lights, and we’ve been very creative with the different ways that we use lighting.”

The result is a black-box theater that feels as if it might be a bombed-out, prewar wreck of a building in the 1930s. Floor lights create a stark, seamy atmosphere, giving faces a harsh appearance and casting eerie shadows on the walls and ceiling. Sets incorporate recycled cast-offs, evoking an atmosphere of deprivation. The audience is frequently plunged into darkness, with off-kilter lighting mirroring the unsettling nature of the show’s themes.

The intimacy of the theater leaves room for little else—including a band. Musical director Aren Long says Jahanmir’s vision meant taking songs originally meant for a full jazz band and orchestra, and reducing them to music played by himself and Alex Breckenridge—on piano, violin and percussion—with occasional accompaniment by actors on clarinet, ukelele or brass instruments. The show’s most beloved tunes (such as “Money,” “Wilkommen” and “Maybe This Time”) will still be recognizable … but different.

“I’d kind of equate it to a cover version, with different instrumentations and some surprises here and there,” Long said.

Nate Hodges, a longtime dancer and part of the faculty, is the show’s choreographer. Hodges says that the technical challenges really became opportunities.

“The portable lighting creates a stronger sense of mood and that gritty, stark quality of the cabaret. I started thinking about ways to incorporate portable lights into the dances,” he said. “In ‘Money,’ for example, the dancers hold tap lights that turn on and off. We have Christmas

lights that Lucas (Moir, who plays the Emcee) wraps himself in for another number. And we’ll have candles in some others. So it’s about being intentional with the lighting so that it becomes part of the universe we’re trying to create.”

Hodges’ innovative choreography is also decidedly un-Fosse-like, merging ’20s and ’30s-era jazz dance with more-contemporary movement.

“Our club is much grittier, much less stylized and more rooted in the darkness of what was coming,” he said.

The confines of the set mean that, at times, actors might feel too close for comfort, enhancing the disturbing nature of the setting and capturing the feeling of being encroached upon. Guests at cabaret tables should expect to have the occasional actor touch a shoulder or step into their personal space, lending it an immersive quality.

In fact, intimacy has become a focal point of the show—so much so that Adi Cabral, an assistant professor of voice and movement, is providing intimacy coaching to ensure actors’ comfort and feelings of safety onstage, as well as helping with dialect coaching and fight choreography.

Johnson, a recent graduate of the UNR theater program and an experienced singer, is excited to

sink her teeth into the role of Sally Bowles. She appreciates the way Jahanmir has leaned into the story’s darker elements.

“I don’t want to just do theater for entertainment’s sake,” she said. “I find that boring. I love to have something to bite into, that makes you feel something, whether it’s weird or disturbed or sad. So it was exciting to come into this creative team, with this vision.”

Moir, a sophomore and longtime dancer, is also embracing a multitude of styles in his role as the Emcee. “I learned all my lines monotone, so I could come into the rehearsal space and just practice different inflections and see what worked best,” he said. “… Yassi and Nate and Aren have given me so much freedom to be able to play.”

Moir emphasizes that not only will every performance will be unique, which adds to its appeal, but that it’s a story everyone should hear.

“It’s so important, and so applicable to today and the problems we still face,” he said. “It’s just a really beautiful, powerful story.”

Cabaret, a production of the UNR School of the Arts, will be performed at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday; and 2:30 p.m., Sunday, through Sunday, March 5, at the Redfield Studio Theatre in the Church Fine Arts building. Tickets are $18, with discounts. For tickets or more information, visit www.unr.edu/theatre-dance.

The cast of the UNR School of the Arts production of Cabaret. Photo/David Robert

LANEY LOU & THE BIRD DOGS

MARCH 11

SPRING FILM SERIES

MARCH 17, 24 & 31 AMÉLIE LOST IN TRANSLATION LA LA LAND

Murder most funky

EILEN JEWELL

APRIL 15

Free for Members • Non-Members $5 FREE IN-THE-PARK CONCERT FREE IN-THE-PARK CONCERT

PAUL THORN

JUNE 17

Rogue Worx’s new mystery cabaret, ‘Hush,’ blends Victorian glamour with cheeky humor

It started with the wigs—big, white, Victorian-era, Marie Antoinette wigs. They were part of an aesthetic that had been rattling around in the mind of Rogue Worx producer Sarah Sperber last year.

On the heels of the company’s long-running hit show from 2022, #MILLENNIAL, with its ’90s emphasis and contemporary snark, Sperber had in mind an entirely different look and feel—something darker and more twisted, even Tim Burton-ish. Where to set such a spectacle? Why, a Virginia City brothel, of course!

The result was Hush, currently running every Friday at Reno’s The Theatre. This immersive mystery cabaret weaves a tale of murder and mayhem through dreamy dance numbers, burlesque, powerful vocals, lavish costumes, acrobatics and comedy. Though it was originally slated for only three performances in February, tickets began selling so quickly that the company extended it through March.

As the story opens, we meet the ladies of the House of Hush and their frequent client, Denver Slick (played by Tony Deal); the tangled web of relationships they keep is revealed. Suddenly, Denver is shot. Who’s the killer, and why?

Solving the murder, I’d argue, is nearly an afterthought. Though the show is billed as an “immersive murder mystery,” don’t come in expecting to wear your crime-solving cap. Rather, this show is all about spectacle, sensuality and flat-out silliness. This PG-13 show’s immersive quality comes from Fancy’s rapport with the audience as she hams it up, making attendees part of the show (though I won’t spoil it by revealing how).

Though darker and slightly more subversive than Rogue Worx’s last show, Hush maintains the company’s trademark elegance, outlandish humor, stunning costumes, impressive choreography and cirque-style performances. Plenty of thrills are sprinkled in—including gravity-defying leaps, sound and light effects, and more.

CHURCHILL ARTS COUN CIL

Members $17 • Non-Members $20 • Youth & Students $10 Box O ce, Art Bar & Galleries Open at 6 PM  • Performances at 7 PM

Oats Park Art Center • 151 East Park Street, Fallon, Nev. For tickets & info call 775-423-1440 or visit churchillarts.org

Our emcee, Fancy, the madame of the House of Hush (played by drag artist Aspen Meadows), guides us as we meet each suspect one by one, in a cabaret-style revue of lip sync, dance, acrobatics and comedy numbers, leading us toward our killer. Vignettes are interspersed with sepia-toned videos, shot in a Virginia City saloon, in which local burlesque performer John Wade narrates the mystery of Denver Slick’s murder.

Sperber kicks off the show with a powerhouse vocal number; her music selections for the show quickly get the crowd butt-dancing in their seats. Choreography by Sierra Taylor Cline, Meredith Calderas Precit and Dyon Powers showcases athleticism, aerial feats, gymnastics and tumbling. Yet the style is also fanciful and lush, with some whimsy and elements of burlesque conveyed in dance numbers performed by Sperber, Cline, Precit, Deal and Powers, along with Meghan Cooper, Shannise Mora and Sophia Billharz.

Overall, it’s a hilarious night out that’s pure entertainment from start to finish.

Rogue Worx’s production of Hush takes place at 8 p.m., Fridays, through March 31, at The Theatre, 505 Keystone Ave., in Reno. Ticket are $30 to $75. For tickets or more information, visit www.rogueworx.net/hush.

The cast of Rogue Work’s Hush.

Photo/David Robert

ART OF THE STATE

| BY JAEDYN YOUNG

[Your byline here.]

A visual timeline

Photographer Emily Najera shows her ‘archive of Reno’ in her exhibit ‘In This Place’

“I have to photograph. I do it all the time,” Emily Najera said. “I’ll wake up, and I’ll say the light is right. And then I’ll go.”

Najera, an artist originally from metro Detroit, has been this way ever since her mother bought her first camera for her when she was 13.

Early in her teens, Najera started photographing architecture. In high school and college, she became interested in documenting gentrification. She was inspired by photographers like Berenice Abbott, who photographed the shifting landscape of New York in the 1930s, and Walker Evans, who photographed storefronts during the Great Depression.

“It’s mainly photographers who are photographing the everyday landscape, and they’re really looking for beauty in the

everyday,” Najera said. “(It’s) the places that we just tend to drive past, and maybe we don’t even visually engage with that often, but those are the types of places that I find inspiring.”

When Najera was in graduate school at the University of Nevada, Reno, photography Prof. Peter Goin was her mentor. She said his black-and-white photographs of San Francisco architecture inspired her and kept her thinking about gentrification.

“Just watching the evolution of the places, and really thinking about the people who have interacted within those places over time, is what attracts me to those types of environments,” Najera said. “And then the thought that they could disappear and be gone forever. … Once they are gone, the only evidence exists in people’s memories and then through the photographs of those places.”

Najera has photographed gentrification in cities like Reno and Grand Rapids, Mich., always aiming to capture the everyday places before they change.

“I really, truly, photograph them for myself,” she said. “… I just want to document them, because I know that they’re changing.”

In addition to her art practice, Najera has done freelance photo work for The New York Times, NPR and ProPublica. She’s photographed a wide range of subjects, including gentrification, portraits and more.

“You have to be a really good listener when you’re photographing people for these stories, and be really willing to collaborate, too, because you’re working with so many people,” Najera said. “But you also have to stay true to yourself and your vision, which I think is so important to me, anyway.”

Najera’s upcoming exhibition, In This Place, which will be on display at the Oats Park Art Center in Fallon, includes more than a decade’s worth of Reno architecture photos—images of houses, small businesses, storefronts and hotels in downtown and Midtown. Taken together, these images clearly portray the push and pull between historic preservation and economic expansion.

“I just want them to see this visual timeline over the past decade,” Najera said. “I’m tracking time through my photographs, and that’s really what the exhibition is about. … It’s looking at this timeline of Reno, a timeline of places, and how they’ve changed, how some of them have stayed the same, how some of them are completely gone. And it just really gives you an archive of place … an archive of Reno.”

Najera explained that the goal with this “archive of Reno” is to give people a feeling of a sense of place.

“It’s an ongoing project,” she said. “I don’t really ever see it ending. It’s kind of who I am. My art is truly about my love of Reno. … And I hope when people look at my photographs, they can feel how connected I am to the places I photograph.”

Emily Najera’s exhibition In This Place—Photographs of Reno will be on view from Saturday, March 11, through Saturday, June 17, at the Oats Park Art Center, 151 E. Park St., in Fallon. A reception and artist talk are scheduled for 5 to 7 p.m., Saturday, May 6. For more information, visit www.churchillarts.org. See more of Najera’s work at www.emilynajera.com.

This article was produced by Double Scoop, Nevada’s visual arts publication. Read more at www.doublescoop.art.

The Reno News & Review is looking to expand its paid freelance writing team! We are looking for:

• News freelancers

• Feature writers

• Cannabis writer

• Beer columnist

If you have the knowledge, the desire, and the ability to write and report, email a resume, clips/writing samples and anything else you would like to share to jimmyb@renonr.com

A 2019 photo by Emily Najera (cropped).

Purple and painful

Skip ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ and watch ‘Cunk on Earth’ instead

The Marvel franchise spins its wheels with Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, a bland-looking, boringly plotted waste of time.

After futzing around in the Multiverse, Marvel is now focusing on the Quantum Realm, where a bunch of uninteresting new characters run around in goofy-ass sets, and everything is slightly purple. When I think of this movie, two things come to mind: grayish purple, and actors in shitty makeup.

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is dealing with losing five years hanging out in the Quantum Realm during “the blip.” He’s now returned to Earth, where he is writing memoirs and trying to get along with his daughter, Cassie, now played by Kathryn Newton. A mess-up with a beacon contraption Kathryn invented results in them being zapped into the Quantum Realm, along with Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), Hope (Evangeline Lilly) and a very upset Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer). Janet just spent decades in the realm, and she’s not happy about returning.

After a sequence reminiscent of Honey I Shrunk the Kids, they find themselves hang-

ing around in what amounts to a big Star Wars Cantina, but without the charm and effective humor. Many attempts at creating captivating, memorable creatures fall flat.

The villain comes in the form of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who was exiled to the Quantum Realm after traipsing around the Multiverse and going kill-crazy. We learn through flashbacks that Janet has a bit of history with Kang; they have both gone a little mad over the years, and who can blame them? Anybody forced to hang out in this annoyingly unoriginal realm would be bored out of their minds. I know I was in bad mental shape after just two hours.

I am not the first, and won’t be the last, to compare the look and feel of this film to Robert Rodriguez’s lousy Sharkboy and Lava Girl There is a villain, MODOK, that is well known to Marvel fans, and the visual realization is … let’s just say it’s a little disappointing.

The film looks surprisingly cheap and pasted together for something with an alleged $200 million price tag. It reminds me a little of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, a 2007 trilogy closer that spoiled the good will of the first two installments in favor of bad humor mixed with an overloaded dark plot.

While her character is part of the title, Lilly doesn’t get much substantive screentime. Actually, nobody really gets what can be described

as substantive moments in this dreck, but Lilly is pretty much a background player. Newton is more of a co-star with Rudd in this; they could be fun in a film that didn’t completely suck balls.

Bill Murray shows up as some past acquaintance of Janet’s who enjoys eating squid-like creatures while they are alive. He gets one obnoxious dinner-table scene—and that’s it. Murray is pretty much a one-scene-and-done actor in these types of films. This isn’t the first time he barley showed up for something starring Paul Rudd; there’s also that useless cameo in Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Rudd has always been fun in his many Marvel appearances, but this time, his shtick grows a little tired. Watching and hearing him trying to make his line reads credible is difficult. He’s a likable actor, so it’s no fun watching him squirm in the muck.

Majors hams it up as Kang to no avail. He has played the role before in a better vehicle (Loki), and considering how well this film is doing at the box office, he will probably continue playing the role for some time to come.

This film is the start of a new Marvel “phase.” After another film or two like this, a full, wipe-the-slate-clean restart will be in order.

I readily admit that I am not aware of every good thing that is released on Netflix.

I got a note from the publisher basically commanding me to watch Cunk on Earth, saying that if I didn’t, I was

some kind of idiot. Actually, he pretty much calls me an idiot every day, regardless of what I am watching. He’s just so mean. (Publisher: Bob lies … I only send monthly reminders that he is an idiot.)

Now, I usually don’t take the publisher’s recommendations to heart, because he’s always pushing me toward shit like the latest ScoobyDoo movies or 80 for Brady. (Publisher: Bob lies, again, although I do encourage him to watch the Madea movies. They are so intellectually stimulating and life-enriching!) However, the publisher was on point for this one: Cunk on Earth is the funniest TV show I’ve seen in a long while.

A mockumentary of sorts, in the great tradition of Borat and This Is Spinal Tap, it features fictional journalist Philomena Cunk (the dryer-than-desert-sand Diane Morgan) as she trots the globe exploring human history. The five-episode series covers everything from Jesus to the Cold War—and, holy hell, is it ever funny. Diane Morgan is my new comedy hero.

Besides her hilarious on-camera narrations, Cunk conducts interviews with real historians who may or may not be in on the joke. (Some appear more in the know than others.) The episodes also contain hilarious running jokes that won’t get spoiled here, fake commercials out of nowhere, and an endless stream of blinkand-you-will-miss-them gags.

Cunk is not the type of show you have on in the background while you are doing laundry. Sit down; stay calm; and just watch. It seems a bit dense at first, but once it clicks with your brain, I assure you, you will be laughing nonstop. Here’s to hoping Cunk/Morgan will be exploring human history for many years to come.

Cunk on Earth is now streaming on Netflix.

Kathryn Newton and Paul Rudd in AntMan and The Wasp: Quantumania

Diane Morgan in Cunk on Earth.

A matter of balance

Chef Daniel Muller takes the reins at Liberty Food and Wine Exchange

Chef Daniel Muller, the new executive chef at Liberty Food and Wine Exchange, wants to carry on the original mission of founding chef Mark Estee—using as many locally sourced goods as possible to deliver bold and creative flavors—while bringing his own flair to the restaurant,

As many chefs/cooks do, Muller started as a dishwasher. Around the age of 17, he began cooking on the line at an Italian restaurant in Connecticut. As he pursued a business degree in Burlington, Vt., he continued cooking the entire time. He then attended culinary school at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, R.I., graduating in 2001.

Muller has worked in the South, the Midwest and California, where he had the opportunity to fine-tune his French cuisine under Joel Guillon at the Argent Hotel in San Francisco. Muller then found himself in Lake Tahoe, where he managed several

restaurants for about 12 years. From there, he moved to the Sierra Valley and ran a small steakhouse. His girlfriend lived in Reno—and he eventually decided to make the move to be closer to her.

“When I first got to Reno, I worked for a casino for a couple months,” Muller said. “However, I had my résumé on Indeed, hoping for other opportunities. Luckily for me, the culinary director for Reno Local Food Group reached out and, after a couple of interviews and a chat with Mark Estee, they gave me the keys to the castle.

“I feel very fortunate to have been offered this job. When they handed me the keys, I was ecstatic. I love the team and am excited to continue growing it.”

Muller has been developing new pizzas and pasta dishes, as well as some additional appetizers to balance out the menu—and he loves seafood, so expect more of that, too. The main poultry, fish and steak entrees aren’t printed on

| BY CHEREE BOTELER

TASTE OF THE TOWN TASTE OF THE TOWN

Happenings

the regular menu, because Muller decides these weekly, and changes them out every three to four days.

He and his team have also brought back Estee’s pork platter, which includes pork belly with Calabrian honey; in-house smoked ribs with house-made barbecue sauce; Calabrese sausage with homemade mustard (served with pickles made in partnership with Nevada Brining Company); crispy mortadella with spicy mustard; and a pork loin with a demi glaze.

“Chef Daniel and the team are doing a wonderful job,” Estee said. “It’s great to have a mix of fine dining with pizza and pastas. This is the best menu balance we’ve had.”

Liberty Food and Wine Exchange includes a full USDA butcher shop that Muller oversees, as well as a pastry and baking department led by Liberty’s executive pastry chef; they work together to create delicious desserts for their guests, as well as special desserts for frequent wine and whiskey dinners.

“Our butcher shop makes about 12 different kinds of sausage, including our Bolognese and meatballs. You name it, we make it,” Muller said. “We bring in whole hogs every month and work exclusively with Borda Ranch for the lamb for our Thursday-night lamb specials. We make our pasta fresh here both for Liberty and for the other Reno Local Food Group restaurants. We have about five or six different pastas that we make at a time, and it’s really a highlight of this restaurant. It’s a very demanding job. There are a lot of components that I have to oversee—and I love it.”

As the executive chef, he is able to dip his fingers into each aspect of the dining experience; running the kitchen is his favorite, so he works on the line at least four or five days a week.

Muller specializes in French infusion, but he was taught in an Italian kitchen—so he ensures that his style has balance between cultures. His favorite dish on the current menu is the black spaghetti with seafood. He said he also enjoys creating the pairings of meat (from their butcher shop, of course) and cheeses for Liberty’s charcuterie boards.

“I figured out early in life that I love to cook, and I’m so lucky to have the opportunity to do this every day,” Muller said. “One of my mottos is to cook with layers of flavor. I want to make sure that people get different layers of flavor delivered to their palate when visiting Liberty.”

Get ready for a St. Patrick’s Day to remember at Shanty Dolan’s, as it celebrates its one-year anniversary. Starting at noon on Friday, March 17, at 211 Keystone Ave., in Reno, enjoy drink specials, bites from the Nola Sliders food truck, and music including Irish fiddlers, DJs and a performance by Moondog Matinee. While the main bash will be on Friday, the party continues all weekend long, so watch Shanty Dolan’s social media for details; www.instagram.com/ shantydolans. … Prefer to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day at home? Butcher Boy is making up batches of their renowned corned beef, with a flat-iron option for $7.98 per pound, and classic brisket for $6.98. Get it at 530 W. Plumb Lane, in Reno; butcherboyreno. com. … Butter + Salt, the original catering company by the Perenn Bakery and Claio Rotisserie teams, will be taking on a limited number of small private events in 2023. The company paused catering operations in 2020 to focus on the brick and mortar locations. Inquiries can be directed to hello@ perennbakery.com. … Mark your calendars for Reno Food and Drink Week, taking place June 5-16. Learn more at hungryinreno.com/2023rfdw.

Openings and transitions

Voodoo Brewing Co. has opened at 550 W. Plumb Lane. It’s billed as a “European beer hall,” and guests can enjoy flights of Voodoo’s brews alongside a bountiful list of cocktails and local options, as well as classic beer-hall food like pizza, wings, burgers and sandwiches. While the company originated in Pennsylvania, a slew of locations are independently owned and operated, including the one here in Reno; www.voodoobrewery.com. … Franco Baking Co., at 1525 Glendale Ave., in Sparks, has been acquired by Marybeth and Colin Smith, the team behind Roundabout Catering and Smith and River. The business will continue as usual—with the potential for an artisan line of baked goods in the future; francobakingco.com. … Carson City’s The Fox Brewery and Pub will be taking over the Huntsman Brewing location (formerly Silver Peak Brewery and Restaurant) at 124 Wonder St. in Reno’s Midtown, with an anticipated summer opening. Watch www. facebook.com/FoxBrewpub for updates.

Liberty Food and Wine Exchange is located at 100 N. Sierra St., in Reno. For more information, visit www.libertyfoodandwine.com.

Siam Thai Cuisine has replaced Lanna Thai Cafe at 4786 Caughlin Parkway, Suite 303, in Reno. The location is now owned by Natchaya Saengsri, who has owned Siam Thai Cuisine in Truckee since 2013. While the menu will be slightly different, regulars will be able to order most of the classics alongside new additions; siamthaireno.com.

—Maude Ballinger

Chef Daniel Muller prepares the black spaghetti with seafood. Photo/Dave Robert

Ski wine

A little place with a lot of history is a perfect preor post-slopes stop on the Mount Rose Highway

In case you have been hibernating and didn’t know … Reno and the Tahoe basin have received a huge amount of snow this winter. While many of us see it snowing in the mountains and think about the water it brings all summer, many of you scream, “Powder day!”; take the day off; and head to the slopes.

The skiing has been fantastic this year— but before you head up the mountain, you’ll want to make sure you have all of your gear, like skis, boots, googles, gloves, a helmet and wine.

Yes, wine. Don’t judge me; you pack your essentials, and I will pack mine. I am sure you spent a lot of time picking your perfect

ski gear—checking reviews, asking experts and quizzing friends—but how did you pick your wine?

Two iconic ski destinations for Reno skiers since the 1930s are Sky Tavern and Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe. As you drive up and back down the Mount Rose Highway on the way to or from either of these destinations, you will pass the perfect place to find your ski-wine adviser—the Lodge Bar and Patio.

The location of the Lodge, located in the Galena Forest, has had a long and storied past. According to the Lodge’s website, it first opened as the Galena Forest Inn in 1983. In 2005, it became Sierra Solitaire, and then the Lodge at Galena, until 2013. Its current and foreseeable

future is being guided by manager, barista, music director and bartender Carly Southern.

I asked Southern what her customers were looking for in wine after a day on the slopes.

“Well, some of our customers love our glühwein,” she said. “Glühwein is a German mulled wine that we prepare here, and it is fantastic after a day on the slopes.”

I find that to be great advice; a warm mulled wine is going to, obviously, warm you up. Glühwein literally translates to “glow wine” due to the way it makes you feel.

So, what else?

“I would suggest a nice cabernet, of which we have a couple, or a zinfandel,” Southern said. “The reason why is I find that they’re

Carly Southern shows off some of Lodge Bar and Patio’s food offerings.

Photo/David Robert

warming. You know, they’re fruity and heavier. So after we’ve been exercising, it’s a warm-youup wine.”

There is nothing like lots of white snow to bring out big, red wines. I drink big reds all year long, but they are especially wonderful on a cold, blustery day. However, Southern said some of her customers prefer white wines.

“We have a really nice New Zealand sauvignon blanc that is also wonderful after skiing, just in a different way,” she said. “It is like a sunny-porch or sitting-on-the-patio wine.”

As you may guess from the restaurant’s full name, the Lodge has a really nice patio that will be a perfect place to have a drink as the days get longer and warmer.

At the Lodge, you will find a family-friendly atmosphere where you can have an espresso or cappuccino on your way to the slopes; on the way home, you can get beer, an espresso martini, or—of course—wine with pizza and a charcuterie platter, all while enjoying some live music.

I recently spent an evening at the Lodge. I ordered a pizza and grabbed a seat at the bar. It was a perfect spot to people-watch as singles, couples and families stopped in. I sipped Spanish wine and sang some of my favorite standards along with local musical performers Susan and Peter; they added the perfect ambiance to the evening.

Whether you are a skier or, like me, you prefer to watch the snow fall and drink wine instead, check out the Lodge—and let Carly Southern be your ski-wine adviser for the long ski season we have left.

The Lodge Bar and Patio is located at 17025 Mount Rose Highway. For more information, call 775-507-7049, or visit www. thelodgereno.com.

LIQUID CONVERSATIONS

| BY MICHAEL MOBERLY

[Your byline here.]

Celtic coffee

An Irish coffee tour of midtown

There are many holidays when drinking is encouraged—but there is only one drinking holiday, and that’s St Patrick’s Day. It’s a day when you can honestly say to your boss, “I need to leave early to drink.”

While there are many appropriate drinks for St. Paddy’s Day, none is more beloved than the Irish coffee. The history of the Irish coffee dates back to the 1940s and County Clare, Ireland, when chef Joe Sheridan would serve damp, cold guests a coffee mixed with whiskey and sugar, and topped with cream, as they waited to board large seaplanes. That air-travel tradition continued, and in 1945, Sheridan’s Food Pub opened at the Shannon Airport, where they are still serving Irish coffees today. This Irish airport staple enchanted a travel writer from the San Francisco Chronicle; he convinced the owners of the Buena Vista Café to re-create the Emerald Isle tipple; and the rest is history.

Reno has always needed the Irish coffee; the fact that we are a 24-hour bar town keeps the expectation high that you can enjoy well-crafted Irish coffee at pretty much any bar in the city. But I wanted to know who had the best in (Mid)town, so I asked my best friend and non-bartender, Kalah O’Rear, to join me on a quest to evaluate some of Reno’s best Irish coffees.

Corrigan’s Lost Highway (1526 S. Wells Ave.): I love this bar; very few places feel like old Reno anymore, and Corrigan’s is a haven for those looking for a safe, clean dive bar. We started at Corrigan’s because I wanted to start somewhere without pretension—and that’s exactly what we got. Their Irish coffee features Jameson Irish Whiskey, a bar spoon of brown sugar, Magpie coffee

and heavy whipping cream, with fresh nutmeg grated on top; it’s served in a tulip picon glass. While we’d find this same combination of ingredients at four of the six stops, Corrigan’s has more of a classic Reno feel than the others. More whiskey-forward and strong, the Corrigan’s Irish coffee had a lighter brewed coffee and a kick to the chest that said, “Top of the mornin’ to you.” If you are looking for that classic Wells Avenue Irish coffee, Corrigan’s is the place for you.

40 Mile Saloon (1495 S. Virginia St.): For the uninitiated, 40 Mile is the adult equivalent of your favorite childhood clubhouse fort. A friendly face, an inside joke and a playful nature make 40 Mile feel warm and welcoming. Their Irish coffee tasted just like that—warm and welcoming. While the ingredients were the same as those at Corrigan’s, the attention to detail made this version a show-stopper. The ice-cold cream floated perfectly on top of expertly brewed Magpie coffee, and the sugar-to-whiskey combination was balanced with aplomb. Of all the Irish coffees we tasted, 40 Mile’s was the most picturesque and well-executed—day drunks notwithstanding.

Chapel Tavern (1099 S. Virginia St.): Most Irish coffees highlight one of the four elements of the drink: coffee, whiskey, cream and sugar. Chapel’s Irish coffee was a celebration of the whiskey, with all things prepared to accentuate the flavors of Jameson. At this stop, we realized that the first three stops had all featured not only Jameson, but also Magpie Coffee Roasters, which at this point should be named the Official Reno Irish Coffee Coffee by the city. Chapel Tavern brews their coffee with the intention of adding whiskey, which is a testament to the selection of the whiskey they lovingly curate. Their Irish coffee was bright

and almost citrus-forward, using the coffee to bring out the bright and light flavors of the Jameson. If you are a whiskey lover, this is the Irish coffee for you.

The Hideout Lounge (240 Park St.): We live in a golden age of cocktails, where people are re-examining classic cocktails with new context and techniques. The Hideout’s Irish coffee is exactly that—an Irish coffee re-examined. They start with cold-brewed coffee, cinnamon brown sugar syrup, and Jameson Irish Whiskey—and hit it with an espresso steam wand to heat it. Then they delicately add cinnamon brown sugar cream to give you a thoughtful and precise flavor bomb. The Hideout Irish coffee is their best-selling cocktail; unlike the other Irish coffees we tasted, it can be served cold, which I love. It is not your father’s Irish coffee, but why does it have to be? A great drink can grow from a classic and become just as beloved.

Ceol Irish Pub (410 California Ave.): While a classic had inspired our previous stop, nothing is more classic than the Irish coffee at Ceol. At their new location on California Street, Ceol has made their new pub feel like it has been there for 100 years. Their Irish coffee was the only one served in a traditional Irish coffee glass— and the only one not to feature Jameson. Their coffee was bold and robust, the brown sugar delicate. I don’t often use the term “perfect” to describe drinks, but the cream they use at Ceol is perfect, and they know it—because they keep the recipe secret, and won’t even give it to bar-industry dorks like me. If you are looking for as close to the 1945 recipe as possible, look no further than Ceol.

Reno Public House (33 St. Lawrence Ave.): We finished our tour at Reno Public House, which brought our tour full circle, back to the ingredients found at Corrigan’s, 40 Mile and Chapel. Public House’s use of these tools resulted in a balanced and drinkable cocktail, a blend of all the ideas we had tasted throughout the day. The busy bar hummed as we realized that each Irish coffee told the story of each bar in a way not many drinks do: If you are a dive bar, your drink will have a bit more kick; if you are a whiskey library, your drink will showcase the whiskey; and in the case of Public House, your drink will be a perfect middle ground of many inspired ideas. Like the bar, their Irish coffee is like a pair of your favorite boots, perfect for any occasion.

While we did not hit every bar in Reno that makes Irish coffee, we did get a snapshot sampling of our town’s fabulous bars and their versions of this classic drink. So get your friends together; put your walking shoes on; and stroll through whiskey, cream, coffee and sugar. You will not be disappointed.

The Reno News & Review is looking to expand its paid freelance writing team! We are looking for:

• News freelancers

• Feature writers

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If you have the knowledge, the desire, and the ability to write and report, email a resume, clips/writing samples and anything else you would like to share to jimmyb@renonr.com

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Shawn Trudell makes an Irish coffee at 40 Mile Saloon. Photo/David Robert

Think Free!

Kickin’ up dust

| BY MATT BIEKER

Quotes

Reno country-rockers Tripp Whitney and the Free Labor want you to know: There ain’t nuthin’ badda than a cowboy from Nevada.

That’s the title track of their debut album Cowboy From Nevada, released last November—but also the group’s entire ethos.

“Everything about my life is hard and work, and I think that breeds humility when you do it long enough,” said Whitney, whose given name is Derek McAdow. “I own a house, and I’m just a car-washer. You know what I mean? But I did it through integrity and hard work. To me, that’s Nevada—and I love Nevada.”

Whitney is the band’s frontman and guitarist, and the “Free Labor” is mostly bassist Jerry Spikula, his longtime friend, producer and writing partner. As teenagers at Douglas High School in Gardnerville, the pair joined a rock band led by an older student whom Whitney credits for teaching him to write songs. Music soon became integral to both of their lives.

Whitney went on to tour the world in a Pantera tribute band, and Spikula left school early to assume the life of a working musician, backing big names and playing as a studio musician; he even once auditioned for Metallica.

“I went to music school in Hollywood, and I lived in my truck and starved and slept in slaughterhouses,” Whitney said. “I finished that year of school and came back. With (Spikula), we played in a Top 40 band and an original band, but he was busy working. And I chose to go a different route.”

Whitney stuck to harder, louder genres in his youth, founding hardcore and metal bands in Reno like Buried and Slap Grama. Meanwhile, Spikula’s wheelhouse grew to include whatever was required of his studio

work, although his projects with Whitney, like Rock Animal Cookbook, hewed closer to the rock sound they both knew.

Spikula’s expertise in recording led him to open Abbey West Recording studio in his home in 2013 before moving to a larger space a few years ago.

“It was still at my house, but it was built very small,” Spikula said. “I got this place in 2018 here—it’s like a real actual place. I built it, and (Tripp) helped me, along with a couple other people.”

Whitney often came to Spikula for him to help record and produce his other projects over the years, including his initial concept songs in 2019. Spikula had worked with country artists before, but to Whitney, whose favorite band is KISS, his turn to country music came as a revelation—and as it so often does, it all started with a girl.

“I was trying to write (a song) for this girl, and then she stomped my heart into the ground before I could finish it,” Whitney said. “She played country music, and my guard was down, basically. I just started listening to this music—and then, all of a sudden, I understood it.”

Heartbreak, Whitney said, alongside his life experiences as a single father and small-business owner helped him relate to country-music motifs like celebrating hard work, self-determination and emotional vulnerability, all in ways he hadn’t considered before—musically speaking.

At Abbey West, Spikula directed everything from Whitney’s vocal delivery to his arrangements, while enlisting drummer Bryan Jenkins, strings player Buddy Emmer, backing vocalist Todd Baumgartner and more than a half-dozen other studio musicians to flesh out the album.

“It’s a really ego-free environment,” Whitney said. “I give him the vibe; he’s the personality. ‘So how’s he gonna make this thing start and

end? How are we gonna keep you wanting to listen to it?’ That’s what he’s great at. … He can take some of my guitar out and say, ‘We don’t want this lick here,’ and then that song gets finished.”

Added Spikula: “And he’s so quick with writing this stuff. I’m like, ‘We need this,’ and then there’s the verse.”

As the pandemic raged over the next three years, Whitney and Spikula honed their sound and laid out “a career’s worth” of tracks in the Abbey West studio. They sent Cowboy From Nevada to be mastered by Richard Dodd, whose past clients include Freddie Mercury, Jason Aldean and Robert Plant.

Cowboy’s tracks run the gamut of country sounds, with boot-scootin’ outlaw jams like “Country Boys Get Down,” twangy upbeat ballads like “Cowgirl Lovin’ on My Mind” and swampy anthems like “Trucks Tattoos and Trailer Parks.” While the latter is a self-aware stereotype sendup, the album mostly avoids the pitfalls critics lob at “mainstream” country, like too polished, too predictable, not country enough, etc. In moments when a Nashville millionaire might, for example, dispense a canned hard-rock breakdown, Whitney and the gang lean into raspy pedal steel slides or folksy banjo blues.

But it’s the eponymous “There Ain’t Nuthin’ Badda Than a Cowboy From Nevada” that provides the hook—a catchy song and slogan that defines the band’s whole identity.

“I think Nevada needs some pride,” Whitney said. “I guess you could say it’s our gimmick, but we believe in it sincerely.”

Added Spikula: “And no one else is doing this. There’s always some guy around here who wrote some sort of tune about something in Nevada. You know, whatever; it’s OK. Most of (our) songs will mention something, or some of them will be all about Nevada.”

With the album out on various streaming platforms and self-funded physical CDs, the band’s stated goal—to spread Nevada’s country reputation far and wide—may be working. Tripp Whitney and the Free Labor currently has more than 13,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and Whitney alluded to some initial talks with a record label. Their immediate goals remain practical, though, with Spikula hoping to attract some outside management to arrange tours, and Whitney focused on getting their music on curated Spotify playlists to expand the online reach.

As for bigger aspirations: They want to headline the Reno Rodeo.

“Where are you, Rodeo?” Asked Whitney. “This is your song.”

Learn more at trippwhitney.com.

The last one showering shouldn’t be left in the cold! GO TANKLESS.

Nevada’s a big state—and Tripp Whitney and the Free Labor want to make it country

Tripp Whitney and Jerry Spikula. Photo/David Robert

Post-pandemic post-punk

The members of Protomartyr, coming to the Holland Project, are grateful to still be touring

Post-punk band Protomartyr was nearly wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If we couldn’t go back touring, we wouldn’t have been making any money off of this,” said vocalist Joe Casey during a recent phone interview. “We make very little money off this band, so to make even less would have not been feasible. The band would’ve ended.”

Thankfully, shorter-form touring became possible just in time, as the entertainment industry slowly built its way back to how things were pre-pandemic. Now, Protomartyr is on its longest run yet, including a stop at the Holland Project on Saturday, March 25.

The band is touring in support of 2020 release Ultimate Success Today. Finally being able to do a full tour cycle for a nearly 3-year-old album has been nothing short of “weird,” Casey said.

“It was late 2021 when we went out for the first time, over a year after it came out,” Casey said. “It was weird, because we started touring right in the window between lots of people getting sick with COVID, so that was, like, a victory. … We were lucky to get away scot-free on that little tour. Each tour has kind of been like that, where they get a little bit longer, but it’s always in the back of your head, like, ‘OK, this is gonna come back and get us.’

“It’s great to be back on the road and be able to play some of the songs from the album, because I think we were all pretty proud of it, and we just didn’t feel like it got a fair shake.”

Casey said the shorter tours were like being able to “dip your toe back in the pool.”

“If we would have done a month-long, coastto-coast tour, we probably would have all got COVID. It would have been taxing after more than a year of just sitting on your ass, going and doing that,” he said. “We’d be like, ‘Why are we doing this? This is killing us!’ These little two-, three-week tours are bite-size, so you don’t choke on it. … I do feel like we’ve had our sea legs back, and that’s great.”

Ultimate Success Today featured some notable collaborators, and the first tour for the album featured help from Kelley Deal, lead guitarist of the Breeders.

“If we’re working on a new song, I like playing it in a live setting, because it helps me figure out a good cadence to sing it in,” Casey said. “You get a good gauge of whether it’s dead on arrival or not. … With Ultimate Success Today, we had a lot of different collaborators, and there’s no way we were going to re-create some of the jazz musicians and what they brought to the songs. A benefit was Kelley Deal being like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ll go on tour with you guys; I like touring.’ That changed the songs immensely with her additions. She’s not going to be able to

go out on this tour, because—unfortunately for us, but fortunately for her—the Breeders have some shows. When you can’t re-create the songs exactly how they are recorded, you just hope that you can inject them with some energy that maybe will carry over to a live setting.

“We always end up playing the song slightly faster. I don’t know if that’s because we’re bad at our job, or we just want to add some energy to it.”

Protomartyr’s approach to songwriting has changed as the band members have aged—and become more realistic about their live-show capabilities.

“I’m sure Greg (Ahee), our guitar player, often thinks about what can be done in a live setting, and he kind of keeps his ambitions locked up a little bit, because he can probably picture, like, ‘Oh, it’d be great to have a string section here, or 55 guitar overdubs,’” Casey said. “I think every person like Greg who composes songs probably has that desire, but he keeps it (to himself) and is like, ‘I’ve got to make sure that we can do it live.’ The band in general has gotten very good at figuring out what I can and cannot do. They can write songs to what I can sing. … I’ve tried to simplify my writing style a little bit, and not make it so wordy all the time, because I have to remember all those damn words, and that’s no good.”

The band has enjoyed pulling from their back catalog on the recent tours.

“I always like songs from our first album (2012’s No Passion All Technique), just because the older I get, and the longer we’re a band, the more impressed I am that we were able to throw those together with such little talent,” said Casey. “I’m impressed with the songwriting and all that, because I don’t remember doing it, and I don’t remember it being very good at the time—but some of them hold up. One I always like singing is ‘3 Swallows’ from the first record, because that one came effortlessly out of me at the time, and I was pretty surprised. Some of them I appreciate, but I do not ever want to sing again.”

The pandemic caused Casey to experience a lot of existential feelings about the band—and he is trying to shake off those feelings.

“I’ve always tried to maintain that the future is not given, and to be appreciative of your current state,” Casey said. “When this band started, I was the old guy at 35 or 36, and now 10 years later, the other band members have finally caught up to that age. I remember it seemed very odd to be in a band when I was that old. I thought I was old then; now I definitely am. You realize that you’re lucky to be here. You’re lucky to be able to play places like Reno and have people actually show up. There’ve been many times where I’ve been at a bar to grab a drink, and a band is playing to nobody … and you feel really bad for them. That could easily have been us, or be us in the future, so we have to appreciate what we’ve got going on, and that gives me hope for the future.”

This tour will be one of the last outings in support of Ultimate Success Today. Moving forward, the band intends to shake things up.

“After five records, you want to be able to not be stuck; you want the future to be wide open,” Casey said. “... Getting back together in the room and working on new stuff, it felt good. Sometimes it can feel bad, and you feel like you’re trying to force it. The minute you’re like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to write a Protomartyr-esque song,’ then you’re fucked. We’re getting through that and leaving the future open to whatever we sound like after this—and we’re lucky to be back together and enjoying each other’s company and playing together. … To get back touring and recording again was not a given, but I’m glad it’s there.”

Protomartyr will perform with DEFEM and Spitting Image at 7 p.m., Saturday, March 25, at the Holland Project, 140 Vesta St., in Reno. Advance tickets are $18. For more information, call 775-448-6500, or visit hollandreno.org.

Protomartyr. Photo/Trevor Naud

Peace by piece

A pandemic lull gave Reno’s Asphalt Socialites new music and renewed momentum

To paraphrase Shakespeare: Some people seek greatness, while others have it thrust upon them. For Ken Zimmerman, “it” was a bass guitar.

“I’d never played an instrument before, and I walked in on my friends just kind of jamming around, and then I remember Robb looked at me and said, ‘Hey, Ken, guess what? You’re playing bass,’” said Zimmerman.

It’s now been more than 10 years since Robb Russo, frontman of electro alt-rockers Asphalt Socialites, gave Zimmerman that bass; the two are now the only founding members remaining after a litany of life and lineup changes.

In 2020, the band started releasing their first new music since 2014 EP Forever and Whatever, as a series of singles. What started as a pandemic recording project, though, has helped the band rethink engaging with a music indus-

try—and a fanbase—that’s changed drastically in the last decade.

“Now we’re a lot more hands-on, I think, with everything going on, with every part of it, from promotion to everything,” Russo said.

Asphalt Socialites got their start playing local shows and touring around the West Coast in the early 2010s. The name was Zimmerman’s idea; it came from their habit of unwinding with a few beers in their rehearsal space’s parking lot after band practice.

“They hated it at first,” said Zimmerman. “We had a whole list of names, and that got put on the back burner.”

Russo and the other members eventually came around, and the name “Asphalt Socialites” became symbolic of the diametric qualities of their sound: ethereal yet relatable, electronic and organic, big enough to fill a stadium but intimate enough for solo listening.

“The name was very jet-set and working-class at the same time,” said Russo. “(We’re) not looking to be pigeonholed by making our album cover the Reno Arch. I’m proud to be from Reno—we both are—but we’re trying to reach out to the rest of the world from where we are. And that means touring outside.”

They leaned into their jet-setting ways for the production of Forever and Whatever, traveling to Chicago to record with the late Bjorn Thorsrud, a University of Nevada, Reno, alum who produced extensively for the Smashing Pumpkins. The production process took two long years, with Thorsrud and the band occasionally seeing each other in person, but mostly collaborating as much as possible through phone calls or video chats—a process they found as educational as it was tedious.

“It was so expensive to fly to Chicago … anytime we had ideas,” said Zimmerman. “We were sitting there trying to listen and say, ‘You know that part; it’s two minutes and 41 seconds in, right before the bridge,’ or something like that.’ It’s too hard to say what we want.”

Both Russo and Zimmerman list ’80s poprock icons like The Cure and Depeche Mode as big influences; shoegaze’s electronic strings also leave their footprint on the sound. Contemporary listeners might also hear comparisons to fellow Nevada natives The Killers, whom Russo once opened for in a previous band, or Cold Play. Russo and Zimmerman credit Thorsrud for much of the album’s cavernous drums, synth-laden swells and stadium-rock vibes—but they admit they felt a little lost on what to do after they got the album back.

“He was killing it on the production end and everything,” Russo said. “… (It) was about us having to figure out how to promote it. And we

didn’t do a great job when we first started.”

The band toured over the next couple of years, building momentum and finding occasional mainstream success, like getting their track “6 Degrees” licensed as the theme song to a popular reality-TV web series. Several amicable lineup changes slowed their progress, though; Russo said it felt like taking one step forward and two steps back.

The pandemic forced the band into a period of introspection as venues everywhere closed, and they decided to produce a series of new singles with resources closer to home. They added their new guitarist, Ian Tipton, and engaged Rick Spagnola at Dogwater Studios in Reno.

“He knows our sound, and we kind of know what he’s capable of and what he likes to do,” Zimmerman said. “It’s almost like an artist with a brush on canvas. I take a paintbrush, and I can do a stick figure—and that’s about it. But over time, we’re working with him, and we’re able to get what we hear in our heads and get it out into the single.”

Asphalt Socialites have released six singles since 2020, a workflow that has given them the freedom to experiment with their sound and community outreach—leading to levels of success that surprised even them. A stripped-down love ballad called “The One,” for example, features departures from the band’s stadium-wave sounds, with Zimmerman on lead vocals and Russo on acoustic guitar.

“Ken had this great idea for marketing the song,” Russo said. “All those little photos (on the cover image) are of couples, all walks of life. Ken’s like, ‘If you’re a fan of our band, do you have a significant other that you love very much? Who’s your one?’”

Added Zimmerman: “Since we released it, everyone started listening to it, and it triggered the algorithm on Spotify, and it ended up getting on an actual Spotify playlist. Next thing you know, we have, like, 300,000 plays.”

Focusing on individual digital releases has given Asphalt Socialites a wider audience while meshing well with their limited free time. Both Russo and Zimmerman have full-time jobs and family commitments, and while they’ve never considered calling the band quits, their recent success has reinvigorated their devotion to their 13-year-old project.

“It’s just being able to have that big picture in our minds, too, that whatever we’re going through, the difficulty of this, it’s not the end there,” said Russo.

They’re currently working on booking their first live performances since the pandemic and will be opening for Strangelove: The Depeche Mode Experience at the Ranch House in Sparks on Saturday, April 15.

For more information, visit asphaltsocialites.com.

Ken Zimmerman, Ian Tipton and Robb Russo are Asphalt Socialites. Photo/ David Robert

“Where Is the Library?”—read-y or not.

By

Matt Jones

Across 1. “Will you allow me to demonstrate?”

5. Rainbow fish

10. Comedian Miranda

14. Multivitamin additive

15. “Explain, please?”

16. Latin for “you love”

17. Feat in a twoon-two wrestling match?

19. Traveled by bus or bike

20. What a welcome sight relieves, idiomatically

21. “The old-fashioned way” to make money, per a classic ad

23. Mag. positions

24. Billy Ray or Miley Ray (that is her full name)

25. Long March leader

27. “Air mail” or “63 cents,” for instance?

33. Magnum follower

35. “Ya know?”

36. Little Women character

37. Type of code or colony

38. News story

42. Repetitive 44. Bird that a “de-extinction” company is trying to bring back

45. Fake info leading to a wrong (but funny) location?

49. ___ Brands (KFC owner)

50. Accumulate

51. What you can’t stand to have?

53. “Big” WWI cannon

55. Short personal stories?

60. Cinderella Man antagonist Max

61. Nickname for a gangster with bags under his eyes?

63. Neighborhood

64. Window features

65. Poker throw-in

66. Highway entrance

67. Lock of hair

68. Word that can follow both words of each long answer

BY MATT JONES

THE LUCKY 13

Tye Sussmann

Vocalist/guitarist for Antapex

Antapex is metal to the max! Thanks to infusions of death metal, hardcore and more throughout Antapex’s head-banging discography, it’s tough not to rock out to the band. Guitarist and vocalist Tye Sussmann is the founder of the band.

What was the first concert you attended?

Bullet for My Valentine, Escape the Fate and Black Tide at the Knitting Factory in Reno, in 2010. I had been listening to metal for several years before that, but I had no idea what I was in for. Actual fistfights broke out right next to me. It was wild.

What was the first album you owned?

Linkin Park, Meteora, one of the few records that was given to me as a teenager that really helped shape the music I would soon grow to love. It remains one of my favorite records to this day. Chester Bennington is still my favorite vocalist.

What bands are you listening to right now?

Shadow of Intent, Lorna Shore, Mental Cruelty, Trivium, Killswitch Engage and Amon Amarth—all of which were big influences on me while writing the first Antapex record. I can’t get enough of these guys.

venue would be Goldfield in Roseville. A truly classy venue.

What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head?

“To know I am at fault. I bite my tongue and hang my head in shame. But I know from one look in your eyes. All along you deceived me,” Currents, “The Death We Seek.”

What band or artist changed your life? How? Bullet for My Valentine, hands down. I got a lot of flak for it, but they are the reason I even picked up a guitar. I had my first guitar for two years that sat in a case before I had the courage to play it. I was inspired to do some covers by them, and I taught myself how to play thanks to them. I got to meet them and thank them for having such a massive impact on me.

Down

1. Medium range speakers, slangily

2. Buck’s ending

3. Ump’s statement

4. Asleep, usually

5. Pronoun chosen as the American Dialect Society’s latest Word of the Decade

6. Flower in a dozen

7. Nocturnal flyers

8. Stadium chant, sometimes

9. Big volume

10. Senate Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015

11. King of gods, in Egyptian myth

12. The “R” in “pi R squared”

13. Malaria fly

18. Decreased

22. German for “eight”

25. Type of mentality 26. Koko, e.g.

28. Not live, so to speak

29. Make changes to 30. Secondary course of study

31. Babble on 32. Lots (of)

34. It helps keep your heel from falling out of your heel

39. Small keyboard

40. Scholastic URL ender

41. Tattoo of the ancient mariner?

43. Still-alive member of CSNY

45. Name after Abdul-

46. 1998 Masters and British Open winner Mark

47. Name before Abdul48. Scheduling spot 52. Cult classic Britcom with the theme song “This Wheel’s On Fire” 54. Planner abbr. 55. Dermatology case 56. Tiny Tim’s strings, for short 57. ___ of the D’Urbervilles

58. Bi- times four 59. Hide-and-go-___ 62. Rower’s need

© 2023 Matt Jones

Find the answers in the “About” section at RenoNR.com!

What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get? I’m pretty set in my ways when it comes to music that I listen to. I listen to metal 98% of the time; the other 2% is hard rock, punk rock and some pop. Trending bands like Ghost or Sleep Token don’t resonate with me. It’s just not my thing. I’m about the riffs and the BPMs.

What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live? I would love to see 2008 Linkin Park live. It would be a dream to catch those first few records live. I’m sad that I never had that chance.

What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure? Elton John, except I’m not feeling guilty. I’m a huge fan of his!

What’s your favorite music venue?

My favorite local venue would be Alturas Bar’s Cellar Stage. It’s such a great place to get your bearings as a new musician and a wonderful place to experience all the talent that is available here in the Reno metal scene. Dennis, Patty and John are all super-accommodating. Check them out if you haven’t already! My favorite non-local

You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking? I would ask 1986 Metallica what kept them going after the Cliff Burton tragedy. Hearing it straight from them would be daunting, I’d imagine.

What song would you like played at your funeral?

At the risk of sounding vain, one of my own: Antapex, “Blacker Than Black.” The track is quite literally the farewell note from me about my own mortality, and is for anyone thinking they may feel alone in suffering through depression. That is something I will always be passionate and understanding about. It sums up what I experience mentally every day, and I find that the lyrics say it all, in hindsight.

Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time?

Right now, it’s Lorna Shore, Immortal, an absolutely brilliant record from top to bottom. I never thought I would have enjoyed it as much as I did when I first listened to it.

What song should everyone listen to right now? Check out Enterprise Earth, “They Have No Honor.” What a tune.

Photo/ Steve Wolfgang

DAVID ROBERT

Shaving for a cause

Are you ready for St. Baldrick’s Day? At 6 p.m., Friday, March 17, the Northern Nevada Children’s Cancer Foundation will hold its 18th Annual Shave for the Brave event at the Reno Ballroom, 401 N. Center St. The St. Baldrick’s Day event happens each year around St. Patrick’s Day, in conjunction with the national St. Baldrick’s Foundation. “Shavees” collect pledges; barbers shave the shavees’ heads at the event; the proceeds go toward childhood cancer research. The NNCCF says it has raised more than $3.3 million, with more than 4,000 heads shaved, during these events since 2006. Learn more www. nvchildrenscancer.org. We interviewed NNCCF events manager Jessica Lee via email; here is an edited version of her answers.

What is the history of the Northern Nevada Children’s Cancer foundation?

The Angel Kiss Foundation was founded in 2000, in memory of a 5-year-old boy named Jarryd who passed away from leukemia. The Keaton Raphael Memorial, Reno, office was founded in 2004 in memory of a 5-year-old boy named Keaton who passed away from neuroblastoma. These two foundations worked side-by-side to help families battling childhood cancer. They joined forces to create the NNCCF in 2009, which expanded their reach and services to help more local children.

What does the Northern Nevada Children’s Cancer Foundation do?

It is our mission to enhance the quality of life for children with cancer and their families by providing financial assistance and compassionate-support programs, while advocating for increased research funds and raising public awareness. We provide services to all of Northern Nevada, from Tonopah north. It is the only nonprofit in the region solely dedicated to childhood cancer. Each year, we help approximately 135 children. All programs and services are provided at no cost to the families, and there is not an income requirement to receive services. Northern Nevada families are encouraged to apply for assistance if the person is 25 or younger, has a confirmed cancer diagnosis, and is a resident of Northern Nevada.

What is St. Baldrick’s Day?

The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a volunteer- and donor-powered charity commit-

ted to supporting research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long and healthy lives. Here’s how it started, according to the St. Baldrick’s website: “Tim Kenny issues a challenge to colleagues John Bender and Enda McDonnell: How will you give back in return for your own good fortune in business?

Enda’s thick head of hair gives John the big idea—shave their heads for donations to raise funds for kids with cancer. The first St. Baldrick’s event took place at the former Jim Brady’s Bar and Restaurant in New York City. What began as a challenge between three friends on March 17, 2000, has grown into the world’s largest volunteer-powered fundraising opportunity benefiting childhood cancer research.”

What are some Reno St. Baldrick’s stories? We have had people dye their hair green for St. Patrick’s Day just for fun to shave their head. We have amazing people come out for this event, year after year, including Team Kylee’s Wish, who will be participating for their 16th year. They have shaved a total of 827 heads and have raised more than $685,000 for childhood cancer research. The entire family has shaved 35 times. Inspired by Kylee’s wish that no other child would have to suffer from cancer, her father, Kehl; her mother, Julie; and her siblings, Kehli and Kasey, have been leading a team in her memory for 16 years.

Are there any requirements or rules? What happens to the hair?

At St. Baldrick’s head-shaving events, shavees raise money for childhood cancer research by pledging to shave their heads in support of cancer patients, who often lose their hair during treatment. We don’t collect hair donations, but volunteers are welcome to shave their heads at St. Baldrick’s events and donate their hair to another organization. The barber will cut the hair into many small ponytails; then we will provide a baggy to secure the hair, as well as information on different organizations they can donate to. It’s a great way to help two charities at once!

Jessica Lee, Northern Nevada Children’s Cancer Foundation events manager