Aug. 28, 2014

Letters............................ 3 Opinion/Streetalk............ 5 Sheila.Leslie.................... 6 Brendan.Trainor.............. 7 News.............................. 8 Green............................ 11 Feature......................... 12 Arts&Culture................ 18 Art.of.the.State............. 21

Foodfinds..................... 22 Film.............................. 24 Musicbeat.....................26 Nightclubs/Casinos........27 This.Week..................... 31 Advice.Goddess........... 32 Free.Will.Astrology....... 34 15.Minutes.....................35 Bruce.Van.Dyke............35

Hard core See Let Freedom Ring, page 7.

Playing the race card at school See News, page 8.

people in

small houses See Arts&Culture, page 18.

it’s sort of like reno See Film, page 24.

RENo’s NEws & ENtERtaiNmENt wEEkly

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VolumE 20, issuE 28

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auGust 28–sEPtEmBER 3, 2014

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RN&R

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AUGUST 28, 2014

Send letters to renoletters@newsreview.com

My 15 minutes

Yes on Question 3

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Pretty much the usual week here at the world headquarters of the Reno News & Review. My face is still half-paralyzed from the Bell’s Palsy (a weird little irritation caused basically by a virus causing a pinched nerve on the left side of my face).

First, there was that guy on Friday who threatened on Facebook to catch up to me on the street. That’s the kind of stuff that’ll get your day started on an adrenalized measure. I was half-tempted to send a screen grab to his superiors up at the community college, but you know, I’m hardly a tattletale.

There was the Gawker. com story, http://gawker.com/ what-ive-learned-from-twoyears-collecting-data-onpoli-1625472836.

It’s pretty cool. The last time I was working for a national publication, Time magazine, the internet was barely exploding.

More like a Ladyfinger than a Cherry Bomb.

But this Gawker thing. Hits on our Fatal Encounters website skyrocketed. People keep calling me for interviews. I don’t even know half the people I’m talking to, but I’ve always had an open-door policy, so when Jim Bohannon or Majority Report or Jake Tapper wants to hear my lamebrain meanderings, well, it’s a pretty deep receptacle.

The funniest thing is this: Fifty-two years old, nobody ever asked me to be on CNN before, and suddenly half my face is paralyzed. It’s like a country song—except I guess that would be on Fox News.

At any rate, this issue is the fourth installment of Fatal Encounters. It’s actually my favorite because I learned so much doing it. This process of moving from one topic area to another, like a newspaper version of The Wire, has accomplished everything I’d hoped it would. It’s not that I’m that smart, I’ve spent many years proving that point, but it doesn’t take too many smarts to see a train careening out of control down a track.

I believe that inappropriate and unreliable funding of public schools is like a social cancer. Cultures that don’t value the importance of education are most at risk. The signs and symptoms first appear in grossly overcrowded classrooms that lack basic materials and receive minimal support. The effects are so devastating, it must begin to spread. Soon the entire school staff is debilitated by its attempts to bandage the wounds. The principal is forced into emergency and reactive management.

With no time for proactive planning or improved systems, the school’s condition continues to deteriorate.

The cancer starts to metastasize beyond the schools.

The symptoms are felt by upper-management. The signs are outdated textbooks, students sitting on floors, classrooms with broken heating and air conditioning units, computers that don’t work and growing complaints from angry parents.

Eventually, even the best school superintendents get the blame. Even the most well-meaning school boards feel compelled to micro-manage and become hypercritical, to the point that shocking legal mistakes are made. These mistakes distract from the cause at hand and deplete already minor funds.

The chaos that started in the classrooms is now systemic. At this point, the state’s school performance statistics rank at the bottom in all categories. Its leaders who long ago refused to act are now totally incapable. If the state’s future workforce and its ability to attract new business are to survive, voters must take matters into our own hands, with an initiative.

Fortunately, a new and ingenious cure has been found. It’s a small 2 percent tax on Nevada’s largest business’s imposed on their taxable margin. It includes enough deductions to protect the state’s truly struggling enterprises, while at the same time preventing its wealthiest

—D. Brian Burghart

brianb@ ne wsreview . com

OPINION

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NEWS

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GREEN

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Our Mission To publish great newspapers that are successful and enduring. To create a quality work environment that encourages people to grow professionally while respecting personal welfare. To have a positive impact on our communities and make them better places to live.

FEATURE STORY

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ARTS&CULTURE

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Re “The EPA gets it right, for once” (Let Freedom Ring, Aug. 14): Excellent! Finally someone, namely Brendan Trainor, nails down exactly what the EPA is doing!

James Jerard Raleigh North Las Vegas

Hand over the heart Re “Corporations are people, just like us” (Left Foot Forward, July 10): I have no problem whatsoever with granting a corporation all of the rights granted to any other person, including the right to its own religious views. I ask only one thing—that the corporation show up in court, raise its hand, and orally accept the standard oath/affirmation—just like any other person.

After doing so it must then be given the opportunity to orally present a statement and to orally respond to questions from the lawyers representing both sides of the issue. It may not send in its place a lawyer, an employee, an officer, a stockholder, a bondholder, or any other “representative.” If a corporation fails to appear and testify in person, it will forfeit the case at issue—just like any other person.

Robert Leavitt Sun Valley

No problem

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FOODFINDS

Real impacts from the proposed Education Initiative. Would you feel a tax which forced you to borrow money to pay the taxes was fair, because you did not have enough take home pay? In many businesses, “gross income” and “cash flow” are vastly different, and borrowing would be necessary. There is no current federal or state tax which is so egregious. Would you think it fair if you were taxed, even if you had little or no take home pay?

The Education Initiative does! If your take home pay was $2,000 per month, would you think that a tax

Creative Director Priscilla Garcia Art Director Hayley Doshay Junior Art Director Brian Breneman Production Coordinator Skyler Smith Design Melissa Bernard, Brad Coates, Kyle Shine Advertising Consultants Joseph “Joey” Davis, Gina Odegard, Bev Savage Senior Classified Advertising Consultant Olla Ubay Office Manager/Ad Coordinator Karen Brooke Executive Assistant/Operations Coordinator Nanette Harker

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Distribution Director Greg Erwin Distribution Manager Anthony Clarke Distribution Drivers Sandra Chhina, Vicky Jewell, Joe Medeiros, Ron Neill, Clayton Porter, Christian Shearer, Marty Troye, Warren Tucker, Gary White, Joseph White, Margaret Underwood General Manager/Publisher John D. Murphy President/CEO Jeff vonKaenel Chief Operations Officer Deborah Redmond Human Resource Manager Tanja Poley Business Manager Grant Rosenquist

NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS

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THIS WEEK

of $1,000 per month was unjust?

Would this have a negative impact on your ability to care for your family?

The Education Initiative asks this of some businesses. Businesses will cut expenses, raise prices, reduce jobs, and reduce future pay increases because of this tax. Businesses looking to relocate to Nevada will look elsewhere. Every Nevada citizen will pay more for all goods and services.

There is no guarantee the tax revenue will increase school budgets! The Education Initiative is a poorly thought out, damaging tax! Vote NO on the Education Initiative!

Lex Adams Stateline

Destroying theater Re “Pawn stars” (Art of the State, Aug. 21): Whenever I sit to read one of these theater “reviews,” I ask myself, “How does someone who clearly has no interest in theater review it?” Jessica Santina often seems to have made up her mind to hate the production before she even steps foot into the building.

Also, recounting the events of the play and giving away plot points is not reviewing. It shows lack of research, it’s sloppy and damaging to the entire theater community.

Ashley James Reno

Sly-ed into retirement?

Education Initiative is bad

Re “Happy birthday, Chief Mieras” (Editorial, Aug. 7): Good editorial. It was a media rush to judgment, and the board was unfairly crucified as incompetent.

The recent court filings by both indicate there was more to the story.

Thanks for keeping us honest.

George Myers Sparks

Editor/Publisher D. Brian Burghart News Editor Dennis Myers Arts Editor Brad Bynum Calendar Editor Kelley Lang Staff writer Sage Leehey Contributors Amy Alkon, Woody Barlettani, Bob Grimm, Ashley Hennefer, Sheila Leslie, Eric Marks, Dave Preston, Jessica Santina, Todd South, Brendan Trainor, Bruce Van Dyke, Allison Young

ART OF THE STATE

Bulls-eye

corporations from evading any and all taxes, including those who allow themselves to be bought by foreign companies to hide profits. This cure was first tried in Texas. The results have been spectacular! With a culture that values the education of its children and the political courage to force fair taxes, this politically conservative state’s ability to attract new business is the envy of a nation.

Of course, like most treatments, there are side effects. The symptoms are inflicted by the forces that initially helped to cause and now perpetuate the disease. The signs are the misinformation and boldface lies that spring from deep pockets and reach out to a culture easily manipulated by frightening tales of doom and those who can’t afford to report or politically represent the facts or the truth. This November, Nevada’s citizens will be fortunate enough to order such a cure. By voting Yes on Question 3, its voters will prescribe a measure that provides the appropriate and reliable funding an ailing school system and a desperate state needs. All we must do now is choose between big corporation profits and the education of our children and future. Vote Yes on Question 3, The Education Initiative for the future of our state and our schools.

Doug Smithson Reno

Re “Act your age” (Film, Aug. 21): Thanks for yet another timely warning Bob, although anyone who goes to a Stallone movies gets what they deserve. Decades ago, when Boris Karloff was in the twilight of his career, he appeared in a number of execrable “horror” flicks and Time Magazine opined, “Sometimes it’s sad to see an aging actor attempting to ‘eek’ out a living when he should be hanging up his spurs”... or words to that effect. The eek part cracked me up. If I was smart enough, I’d come up with a similar crack for Mr. Stallone. But I’m not. Work on it.

Steve Waclo Carson City

Business Nicole Jackson, Tami Sandoval Sweetdeals Coordinator Alicia Brimhall Nuts & Bolts Ninja Christina Wukmir Lead Technology Synthesist Jonathan Schultz Senior Support Tech Joe Kakacek Developer John Bisignano System Support Specialist Kalinn Jenkins 405 Marsh Ave., Third Floor Reno, NV 89509 Phone (775) 324-4440 Fax (775) 324-4572 Classified Fax (916) 498-7940 Mail Classifieds to classifieds@newsreview.com

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MISCELLANY

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Web site www.newsreview.com Printed by Paradise Post The RN&R is printed using recycled newsprint whenever available.

Editorial Policies Opinions expressed in the RN&R are those of the authors and not of Chico Community Publishing, Inc. Contact the editor for permission to reprint articles, cartoons or other portions of the paper. The RN&R is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts. All letters received become the property of the publisher. We reserve the right to print letters in condensed form.

Cover and feature story design: Brian Breneman Cover Illustration: Jonathan Buck

AUGUST 28, 2014

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RN&R

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AUGUST 28, 2014

by Dennis Myers

ThiS ModeRn WoRld

by tom tomorrow

What’s your favorite special event?

Asked at Sparks Post Office, 750 Fourth St. Trudy Hayes Retiree

Oh, gosh—Hot August Nights, because it goes back to the old days. I like the ’50s, the ’60s, the old cars—I used to own one.

Lamcrne Kozlowski Retiree

I don’t like the special events in the area.

I don’t like all the people, I don’t like the crowds. … I hate to say that because I know they bring a lot of money into the economy, but I just avoid them like the plague. … I teach classes downtown, and you have to go way around to get anyplace. I’m an old Sparks girl. I’ve been here a long time. I live about a block and a half away, and I really like the peace and quiet.

Rod Pray Tree trimmer

Hard work, poor news If the contretemps over Washoe Schools Superintendent Pedro Martinez has done nothing else, it has gotten area television stations back to covering the school board.

Until recent events, it was a rare school board meeting when television cameras were present. And when something sexy did get them into the board meeting room, they were starting from zero. By missing all those other meetings, they brought no body of knowledge or institutional memory to the story of the day.

The television stations will be covering the school board when there is conflict, but otherwise it will be a rare occasion when they show up. Part of the reason for this is that television hates BOPSAT stories, stories that feature a “bunch of people sitting around talking.” They say they cover legislatures or city councils or school board by going out and showing how the actions of those bodies affect real people. But because they don’t put in the time at the meetings, the “real people” pieces are routinely inaccurate.

This will surprise readers, but this is not the fault of television reporters, not, at least, in this market.

There was a time when the television stations here had three newscasts (5:30, 6:30 and 11) and enough staffers to handle the workload. Their ownership had a more local orientation and considerable respect for the mission of news.

Today, there is a newscast every time we turn around. Unfortunately, the current absentee owners have not even come close to increasing the staffing levels according to the demands made by those increased newscasts. Over those same decades, the population of the Truckee Meadows grew by leaps and bounds 123 percent from 1980 to 2010). So the existing workers OPINION

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NEWS

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FEATURE STORY

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ARTS&CULTURE

Street Vibrations. I like the motorcycles, the music, all the people coming to town, the motorcycles.

were loaded down with more and more work, and the newscasts became more and more shallow. News beats were discontinued because covering them responsibly would have eaten up too much time. Live shots on pedestrian, banal stories filled time but provided little information compared to thoughtfully produced, well crafted taped and packaged reports. As the size of the staffs effectively shrank with growing population and increased duties, journalists had to produce numerous versions of the same stories for different newscasts, slicing the material thinner and thinner for each newscast.

And as recession-driven cuts reduced the actual numbers of staffers, the stations found ways to cover stories without actual reporters or photographers. How many times have we seen short, barebones “reports” read by studio anchors with computer generated maps to show locations as the only video?

Six months from now, things will be back to normal at the school board and on other beats around the valley. Each story will be covered like a traffic accident—today’s information, no background or depth, no familiarity with the real issues. The journalists will probably be different, since the workload grinds up so many and drives them to find other markets or careers.

And whatever sexy story pulls a reporter and photographer into the school board meeting, those journalists once again will probably have to come up to speed on who those people sitting around the table are, and learn the issue before them then and there instead of bringing any level of knowledge into the room with them.

It’s a problem caused elsewhere, so don’t blame the locals. That’s the level of responsibility to the public today’s television station owners feel. Ω |

ART OF THE STATE

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FOODFINDS

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FILM

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MUSICBEAT

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NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS

Vivian Albitre Commercial mail loader

Oh, I think it’s Hot August Nights. It’s the nostalgia of my dad having his car, and I would do Hot August Nights with him for years until he passed away.

Jesse Raev Shipping worker

The Rib Cook-Off—excellent food, the festivities. I mean, the atmosphere, it’s great.

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THIS WEEK

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MISCELLANY

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AUGUST 28, 2014

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5

There’s blame to go around Education “reformers” desperately need someone to blame.

According to Nevada’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Dale Erquiaga, “The truth is even worse than the statistics would have you believe.”

Erquiaga gave an interview to the by Las Vegas Review-Journal citing the Sheila Leslie National Assessment of Educational Progress report tracking results of annual exams given at fourth and eighth grades. Just a third of Nevada’s fourth-grade students are rated adequate in math and only 27 percent of them are reading at grade level.

Erquiaga responded, “We’re not being honest in our historic reporting of where we are, and we’re certainly not being prepared or ready for where we’re going.” He then cited the finding that almost one-half of Nevada’s high school graduates must take remedial classes in college as evidence of poor academic performance. Just 30 percent of Nevadans hold a college degree but in five years, it’s estimated that up to 65 percent of our jobs will require post-high school education.

Fair enough. But then Erquiaga jumps to the wrong conclusion, joining the chorus of education reformers who are convinced bad teachers and principals are solely to blame for our education woes. His solution? Punish them into better performance.

Erquiaga talks of “consequences” for falling short of educational goals, but no one has ever been able to explain to me how punishing lowperforming schools by withholding money will improve education.

Shouldn’t we be looking more closely at the reasons behind the poor performance which are likely linked to poverty, lack of school readiness, overcrowded classrooms, and tired and frustrated teachers? Why not add more tutors, reading and visual therapy programs, lower class sizes, afterschool and summer programs, literacy for parents, extended school days and other services offered at so-called “zoom schools” that are already showing incredible results?

Surely Erquiaga sees the obvious and understands what must be done.

But predictably for someone who works for a “no new taxes” governor, he buys wholesale into the “reform movement” whose primary success has been to distract us from what’s really needed: more funding. Erquiaga promises that additional money for education approved in the 2015 legislative session will “come with repercussions for schools that spend and don’t show success,” an implicit threat that is unlikely to motivate a single teacher to volunteer to move to an underperforming school.

Celebrity reformer Michelle Rhee, who was consulted by Gov. Brian Sandoval and invited to his first State of the State speech as a prominent guest in 2011, plans to step down from her position as CEO of StudentsFirst soon. She leaves a shrinking organization, failing to produce the vaunted $1 billion she promised to raise for candidates who believe in her style of corporate education reform, seen in many circles as virulently anti-union.

Rhee’s reforms haven’t yet produced the promised results in

Nevada. The new teacher evaluation system she pushed, approved by the 2011 Legislature, has yet to be implemented three years later.

StudentsFirst recently pulled out of five states, but remains active in Nevada where its PAC made its largest contributions during this year’s election cycle. Two Democratic Senators, Moises Denis and Justin Jones, received the maximum contribution of $10,000 each while Republican Sens. Ben Kieckhefer and Michael Roberson raked in $10,000 and $9,000 respectively.

The reformers are determined to press on. Elaine Wynn, the current president of Nevada’s state school board, told the Review-Journal, “This is not easy work. This isn’t for the fainthearted. We lose generations of kids as we fuss around with it.”

Let me offer a small piece of advice then: stop fussing. Fund every school as if it were a zoom school, value our teachers instead of threatening them, and show them the respect a professional deserves. Then stand back as Nevada’s students soar. Ω

Here’s Erquiaga’s column from the RJ: http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/ education/educationreality-worse-numbers-show

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AUGUST 28, 2014

Common Coretastrophy The question from the audience to Virginia Walden-Ford, at an Aug. 1 Nevada Policy Research Institute luncheon where the Friedman Foundation board member and school choice activist was speaking, was direct.

Do you support Common Core?

The answer was just as direct. “No. by Brendan I do not want children from central Trainor Arkansas to have to take the same tests as children from Chicago do.”

Walden-Ford’s response summed up the grassroots reaction to Common Core nicely. National testing standards is losing to a real fear that those standards, instead of being uplifting, will disadvantage local students and favor students in another location.

At the luncheon, a woman rose to defend Common Core. She argued for standardized testing. But the women I was with were shaking their heads in disagreement. They all identified as very conservative, saying they only stay in the Republican Party so they can vote in the primaries. They see voting for very conservative candidates

OPINION

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NEWS

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GREEN

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FEATURE STORY

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ARTS&CULTURE

in the Republican primary, even if they lose in the more moderate general, as their only real voice in the party. They are not happy with Republicans who support Common Core. The woman defending Common Core suggested they get organized and talk to their representatives. But they just shook their heads again: “They never listen to us.”

If the opposition to Common Core, the Obama administration’s offspring of George Bush’s No Child Left Behind, were confined to the most conservative of Nevada parents it might be dismissed. But there is a coalition of left and right that is galvanizing around opposition to Common Core. When President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan tied federal stimulus money disguised as Race to the Top prize money to Common Core standardized testing results, that drew a line in the sand. Teacher’s unions accept almost any money except when it holds its members accountable for student outcomes.

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FOODFINDS

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FILM

Now the teachers unions oppose Common Core.

Common Core started out as a state governors’ initiative and in 2010, when the first test results came out, no one was objecting very much. Now, just four years later, Common Core is on the ropes. When the Obama administration turned it from a Governors’ Initiative to a Department of Education program, Republican opposition went up immediately.

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, who has national ambitions, turned from supporter to opponent.

Nevada’s Superintendent of Education, Dale Erquiaga (R), still stubbornly supports Common Core.

What we may be seeing is growing opposition to the public education establishment. Public school reform fatigue is setting in. The object of school reform is always more school reform, without much results while spending enormous amounts of money. Americans may be feeling that just as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars cost the nation

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MUSICBEAT

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NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS

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enormously with little results, the increased spending on education has become another expensive rabbit hole that has produced no measurable results. Local control of education is built into the American psyche and all these reforms seem very abstract and out of touch with Johnny and Jill’s actual needs.

Even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has called for a moratorium on holding teachers accountable for test results. While Bill Gates is becoming like a geeky homegrown George Soros for the billion dollars he spent on education over the last few years, the real reason to oppose Common Core is that it is just another example of why the underlying premise of public education is a bad model in the first place. Universal, free, compulsory public education will always be riddled with the same problems all bureaucracies suffer from: Lack of competition and market-based innovation. Ω

THIS WEEK

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MISCELLANY

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AUGUST 28, 2014

If not public education, then what? http:// private-schools. yoexpert.com/privateschools-general/ what-are-the-bestalternatives-to-public-education-16173. html

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RN&R

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Photo/Dennis Myers

Washoe Schools Superintendent Pedro Martinez chatted at the Harrah’s Auto Collection after holding one of the school district’s “brown bag lunch” meetings.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one WalletHub, which calls itself the “social network for your wallet,” has ranked Nevada near the bottom in the nation in education.

Because it is oriented to personal finance, WalletHub monitors quality of life factors that can affect success and from time to time releases lists like “Best and Worst Cities for First-Time Home Buyers.” In this case, it monitored factors like math and reading scores, percent of children who repeat grades. It also assesses safety factors in schools such as number of reported bullying incidents.

In a ranking of school systems, Nevada placed 47 among the 50 states and D.C., the same ranking it had last year. The only states placing lower on the list than Nevada are Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi—states that frequently share the bottom of national rankings with Nevada—plus D.C. In the school safety ranking, Nevada did better, placing 36.

WalletHub also said there is evidence of a correlation between the money states spent on schools and financial success: “[S] tates that invest more dollars in education benefit not only their residents but also their economies. The Economic Policy Institute, or EPI, reported that income is higher in states where the workforce is well educated and hence more productive. With higher incomes, workers in turn can contribute more in taxes to beef up state budgets over the long run.”

Sounds more like Nevada Scientists at the University of California, Davis, reported last week that the state of California has allocated five times as much water as the state actually has. “[W]ater-rights allocations exceed the state’s actual surface water supply by about 300 million acre-feet, enough to fill Lake Tahoe about 2.5 times,” according to a Davis statement. Contributing to the problem, the scientists said, are a complicated, backlogged allocation system, retroactive applications, inaccurate reporting and deliberate overestimates by applicants.

Fire sale Congressional leaders of political parties are expected to serve as fire hydrants for political dogs of all kinds. Nevada’s U.S. Sen. Harry Reid serves that purpose in ways that reference things he never did (“Where’s Harry?” RN&R, Aug. 21) as well as things he actually has done.

The website of the Republican National Committee (RNC), under the headline “Want Keystone? Fire Reid,” ran a long polemic blaming Reid for problems in getting the Keystone XL oil pipeline constructed. The XL is a supplement to the already existing Keystone pipeline between Canada and the U.S. Gulf Coast.

President Obama supports the XL, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has raised concerns about the adequacy of the environmental impact statement, and the New York Times published reports on legal authorities who questioned the impartiality of analysis of the project. Reid has disagreed with Obama and has voted against the project in some cases and the GOP faults him for not bringing legislation to circumvent legal processes to a vote.

“Firing” Reid is a meme the RNC has been trying to promote lately on various issues and while he has not addressed the XL in this context, his campaign committee has turned it into a couple of fund-raising letters under his name: “The GOP wants to fire me. At least, that’s what they’re saying in their latest robocall attack. It’s not surprising. I’ve exposed their backers—Charles and David Koch—for funneling money to buy our democracy. I keep badgering them to take action on real issues like raising the minimum wage and protecting women’s access to contraception. Now they’re calling up people and attacking me for trying to do something good for the middle class?

I can live with that. But I can’t fight against it without your help.”

—Dennis Myers

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AUGUST 28, 2014

Was it race?

A suspicion lingers Since the dispute over Washoe County Schools Superintendent Pedro Martinez began, Latino leaders have been prominent in by support of him and of a school board Dennis Myers member, Estela Gutierrez.

Martinez was put on paid leave by the Washoe County School Board in a closed meeting after he refused to participate in a contractual dispute over his accounting credentials and because the school board members were taken aback by his allegedly unprofessional demeanor when he was

“I cannot tell you that race is not a factor.”

Maria Sheehan truckee Meadows Community College president confronted by the accusation about his credentials. It happened in the absence of school board member Gutierrez, who had not attended the meeting. No agenda item had informed the public such a thing was coming.

After the superintendent was put on leave, the Latino Leaders Roundtable quickly organized a forum for Pedro Martinez and school board member Gutierrez to speak at.

Latino leaders like Theresa Navarro and Leslie Mix have been prominent in calls for school board recall.

Reader comments on some websites dwell on the ethnicity of the superintendent.

Does all this mean that the controversy is about race?

“I cannot tell you that race is not a factor, if even from the standpoint of ethnic or cultural awareness, the necessity of having an individual so uniquely qualified to handle this growing, very challenging population,” said Truckee Meadows Community College president Maria Sheehan on Nevada Newsmakers on Aug. 4, who had spoken against the suspension of the superintendent. “The Latino population in fact is growing in our country, and we have a superintendent that knows from the inside how to be successful. Don’t we want to pass that on to our children? Aren’t we proud of having that? And so just that level of insensitivity of the need to address the kinds of challenges of this growing population, if just only from that level—.”

Sheehan’s comments could not be overlooked, and program host Sam Shad gingerly tiptoed into trying to determine what she was saying.

Shad: “OK, you realize you’ve made a very powerful statement here today, that you’re essentially accusing the board of racism.”

Sheehan: “I am not doing that.”

Shad asked her to elaborate.

Sheehan: “Let’s be careful, let’s be careful about the semantics. In terms of insensitivity of the necessity of having a leader address the issue, that’s what I’m saying. Now, these board members are in a very difficult

position, and I did say that in my statement [at a public meeting], and I was careful to be respectful of them in my statement. But what we need now is resolution, not a deeper divide, not accusations of racism but a need to come together.”

Shad: “So in a way—and I’m not trying to put you in bad light here— but it’s almost like reverse racism to say that, you know, you need to have somebody of Hispanic ethnicity … as the superintendent of this school district. That doesn’t seem to add up to me.”

Sheehan: “No, and I’m not saying that. I’m saying that at this point in time, we have a uniquely qualified individual to handle some extreme challenges. Now, that could come from someone else that had that sensitivity. But today we’re in a place where we have someone, a leader, that can address challenges and move us forward.”

It’s a tricky needle to thread, and a program like Shad’s where a newsmaker can be heard for more than a soundbite helps bring outshadings in a nuanced stance like Sheehan’s, as television news reports do not. But how many people will hear that interview?

What most local residents know is that Latino leaders are in the forefront of the recall effort, and that sends a powerful message, a message those leaders have not sought to dampen.

Does the fact that two of the players in the dispute—Martinez and Gutierrez—are Latino, in and of itself, mean that the race was a factor in the suspension of Martinez?

Where is the evidence of racism beyond the fact the two are Latino?

In other disputes of this sort, there is normally something more than mere ethnicity on the part of the players that fuels it. For instance, on Aug. 30, 2001, Southern Nevada Community College administrator Mike Meyer resigned after saying of the wife of a state legislator, “She’s a nigger, and niggers are never on time.”

That statement was unambiguous.

But there have been no reported antiLatino comments or actions on the part of the members of the Washoe school board, three of whom participated in hiring Martinez. School board chair Barbara Clark said she has never heard anyone on the board say anything racist, nor has she done so herself.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

Navarro said she believes race was a factor in the Martinez suspension, but also said she is unable to put her finger on any specific showing of it.

She said she has been involved in working with the school district and

has gotten a sense from some district staffers that there are members of the board who have a race problem, but was not able to cite anything concrete.

“I can’t pinpoint it for you,” she said. “I can only say it’s that feeling from some of the staff members, some of the people there. I haven’t heard any of the trustees [board members] say anything racist.”

But she remains convinced that race was a factor in the dispute.

“He [Martinez] is very popular with people in our community,” she said. “He has made changes for a lot of our kids.”

Clark said, “I was on the board that appointed Estela Gutierrez when Leslie [Porter] died. I was on the board that appointed Pedro Martinez as superintendent.”

She said the board obtained diversity funding from the legislature for a second person in the school district diversity office. It has ridden herd on “the cultural competency part of our mission”—making sure that everything from textbooks to the materials on classroom walls reflect the children who see them.

In addition, she said, the board has tried to address poverty among children, both of color and white, by increasing breakfast-in-the-classroom programs and free lunches.

She said she personally made sure that the public was given a chance to address redistricting when school board districts were redrawn after the last census (“The District’s districts,” RN&R, Sept. 1, 2011).

“And our actions and our words have reflected that belief system that

8JOOFST .JMMJPO

every family and every child is valued.

Not everybody believes that but this board believes it.”

Probably the most outspoken person on the role of race in the controversy is longtime civil rights activist Andrew Barbano, an NAACP officer who wrote in his Sparks Tribune column on July 31, “[School board member] Howard Rosenberg, who has fought discrimination all his life, stormed out of Tuesday’s board meeting in righteous rage. The suspended superintendent has uttered not one word to calm the waters.

Playing the race card pays. Whenever former Reno City Manager Charles McNeely was getting well-deserved heat or wanted a raise, he would recruit local African Americans to show up at Reno City Hall. In all my years as a member, I never saw McNeely attend an NAACP meeting.

I can understand opportunists playing the race card.”

Subsequently, Barbano sent a letter to Martinez, with a copy to Gov. Brian Sandoval: “Mr. Martinez, only you and the governor are in position to dampen this smoldering tinder. There is no evidence of ethnic or racial bias on [the part] of the school board.

Playing the race card can be toxic.

Will you issue a statement that racial/ ethnic bias are not part of the current situation between you and the board of trustees and that such unfounded allegations have no place in this discussion?”

So far, Martinez has not spoken on the topic. Gutierrez has done so, however, telling a July 26 meeting, “This not a racial thing.” Ω

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At last week’s all-class reunion at Reno High School, some members of the class of 1965 tried to pick themselves out of a group class photo displayed in the RHS alumni building. All-class reunions are held every three years.

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Principal Tammie Stockton stands under one of the new solar arrays—and pick up areas—at her school.

Savings from the sun New solar array at local Montessori school A new 210-kilowatt solar array made of 780 panels at High Desert Montessori Charter School’s Silverada Boulevard building is expected to cut the building’s power bills in half. by Sage Leehey The solar panels create covered parking for employees and parents and also cover part of their playground, allowing for students to eat at outdoor s age l@ tables in the shade. The array was installed by local nonprofit Black Rock news review.c om Solar and was funded through an NV Energy rebate of $700,000 plus $44,000 from the school. Principal Tammie Stockton said she’s excited for more students to be exposed to solar panels and green living on a daily basis.

“This is what we promote as a school and as a community,” Stockton said. “And so the students see it firsthand. They see it in action. We’re not just talking about it. We’re actually doing it.”

Prior to the construction of the 210-kilowatt array, the school already had an 80-kilowatt array at their Oravada Street building. The savings they saw from these panels were part of the motivation to build the new array.

Stockton said solar energy just becomes a fact of life for her students and has already seen that displayed in research projects sixth graders complete.

Many of the projects revolve around green living and sustainability, and she believes these panels contribute to students’ interest in those topics.

“I’m sure, as time goes on, students are going to be going home to their families and asking why they don’t have solar panels on their homes,” For more information Stockton said. “It just makes sense. We live here in Northern Nevada. We about high Desert get so much sunshine throughout the year. Why aren’t we doing this here? I Montessori Charter hope that’s the kind of conversations that my students are having when they School, visit www. hdmsreno.com. go back to their families and back to their communities.”

While construction was going on, the school also had some necessary property improvements—new asphalt, fencing, striping, etc.—that was paid for with a $100,000 loan. Stockton said the energy bill savings from the solar panels will make it easy for the school to make their loan payments and start redirecting funds to other projects around the school, like an organic garden at their Silverada Boulevard building. They currently have two hoop houses at the Oravada Street building as well. Students are also developing their own ideas that could later become reality, like rooftop gardening and a bee farm.

“In a Montessori School, we really want the ideas to come from the students and so [the organic garden] has been a conversation for a couple of years now at our school as far as what would it look like, who would be involved, how would that type of project take off,” Stockton said.

The location for the garden has already been planned out and will be easily accessible to the middle schoolers, who will be doing most of the work on it. At this time, it’s just a portion of the parking lot that doesn’t have new asphalt on it, but Stockton says they hope to have it up and running soon.

The school uses some of the vegetables grown in the hoophouses in its lunch program and culinary program so students can see the whole cycle of seed to table, but Stockton has high hopes for the future of the garden.

“Our goal—one day—is to have a sustainable lunch program that we take care off all parts of it,” Stockton said. “And the students would be heavily involved in that, in the preparation, in the shopping, in the gardening that goes along with that, the serving, all of that. … It will probably take us a while to get there, but that is a goal for us to have that program be sustainable just within our school.” Ω OPINION

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THIS IS THE FOURTH INSTALLMENT IN OUR YEARLONG PROJECT LOOKING AT THE ISSUE OF FATAL ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN LAW ENFORCEMENT AND PEOPLE.

12 | RN&R |

AUGUST 28, 2014

arren Wilson, the Ferguson Police Officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, the unarmed African-American teenager in the St. Louis, Missouri, suburb has received a ration of hate from around the country.

And he may be the only person in the country who knows whether it’s deserved. It’s certainly not as black and white as it was presented in the early rush of reportage.

ABC News reported this exchange on Aug. 19 from an anonymous friend of Brown’s: “The whole situation is a tragedy for both Michael Brown and his family, and Darren and his family,” Brown’s pal said. “Both of their lives are ruined. I can tell he’s struggling. I can tell this is really hard on him. He’s been very careful about who he talks to, so he hasn’t spoken much about the situation.”

Reno Deputy Police Chief Byron “Mac” Venzon suffered similarly after killing a person in the line of duty, though he didn’t have the hate of 50 million people to compound it.

“I was working in undercover capacity, and we had information that a subject, a recent prison release, was up here stalking and trying to lure away a young girl that he had communication with in the past,” he said. “He had become involved in a shooting with a California agency on the way here. We learned of his whereabouts, set up a surveillance, and once we knew he was there, we set up kind of a perimeter. He came out, presented a weapon at me—from me to you away from one another [about four feet]—he presented a weapon to me and then I had to shoot him, and he died.”

It was as clean a killing of a known criminal as we ever hear about—cop faced with a gun kills the guy who’s wielding it to protect himself and others. And yet, there is no amount of training that can prepare an officer for the psychological and social repercussions, and Venzon ought to know, having worked as a staff officer at the police training academy and 16 to 17 years in a variety of law enforcement assignments.

“You know you go through a whirlwind of emotions, and as much as you try to prepare for that, until you are there, I know that you can’t,” he said. “Your safety was very, very tenuous at that time, right? So you start to do this whole flashback of ‘I have a kid, what about this? What about that? What will it do to my family?’ And then you start to realize that, ‘Wow, this person put me in a position where I had to do something that I didn’t relish the idea of doing.’

It wasn’t something I set out to do. I think you could talk to every officer in this department, and they will tell you that their preference is that every incident ends peacefully, and you know it’s tough—tough at home, it’s tough on my family. You always worry about civil litigation after that, and there is nothing you can do to stem off the civil litigation that comes from that, so you sit around two years and one day waiting for the civil litigation to come.

“It’s a lot of emotion you go through, and it takes some time, and I think what you find out is that you don’t know how you are going to react, and you don’t know how long it is going to take you to get over it.

“My first day back on the street I encountered another guy with a gun,” he said. “My first day back from

admin leave, and I encounter another guy with a gun, and boy, that’s something. Emotions right back through the roof.”

He says he’s over the experience now, but there was an unexpected catch in his voice when he said so.

“The way it has been described to me, when you can talk about it and not feel the emotion, then you know you worked your way past it,” he said.

“And so there was some offers of, you know, help with the counselor, and I took up some of those. Those were fantastic, and so it took me about probably six months before I could sit and discuss it with you and not feel emotional about the whole thing.”

Sentiments like those are echoed across the nation by officers who’ve had to face that fatal moment. But it’s hard to get some to talk about it—that blue wall that people talk about, that police belief that non-police simply can’t understand what they go through.

Still, there’s a commonly understood phrase to describe what happens to an officer who kills in the line of duty: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD. And in Northern Nevada, there are people to help. While primarily a sports psychologist, Dr. Dean Hinitz has helped out on officer-involved

writ ten BY d.BrIan BurGHart illustr ations BY JonatHan BucK design BY BrIan BrEnEMan

How Fata l encounters aFFec t oFFicers Forced to k ill in tHe line oF dut y killings for years. He’s a former member of the Nevada Board of Psychological Examiners and was chief of psychology at West Hills Hospital. In his private practice, he specializes in life change issues, like anxiety and depression, and relationship concerns. Dr. William Danton is the former associate chief of staff for mental health at the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System and is a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. While his focus is in many ways still about veterans, the emotional challenges suffered by officers who’ve had to kill people in the line of duty are similar to that of soldiers, and he’s helped out with many officer-involved deaths.

Reno Police Chief Steve Pitts also mentioned Trial Science, but Dr. Dan Dugan declined an interview, saying he doesn’t discuss clinical issues with the media.

IsolatIon, IntrusIon and dIsassocIatIon Dr. Hinitz sits comfortably in his intimate office on treelined Humboldt Street in Midtown. He looks a little like a police officer, with carefully cut hair, fit physique, and the somber, OPINION

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steady gaze of someone who’s thinking carefully about the words that are being said. He’s got road rash on one forearm from what looks like a mountain bike crash. There’s a gentle ticking of a clock that both modulates and propels the conversation forward.

The topic is anything but gentle, though.

“It’s a rocking event, and I don’t mean that in a cool way. I mean that in terms of ‘really rocks the boat’,” he said. “The sequelae [emotional consequences] have been profound for the individuals that I’ve worked with almost to a man, which is the profundity of taking a human life, the unexpected jolt of how hard it is and the meaning of it when oftentimes they’ve not known ahead of time the sorts of things that it was going to bring up.”

Even for those who are experienced and trained, there is something about taking a human life that is more than just “real,” but a psychological sea change that can shake an officer to his or her core.

“I’ve known very few who could have been prepared for what happened, and they were all trained,” Hinitz said. “The two cardinal features are sort of an alternation between sort of hyper-arousal and intrusion where thoughts of it and

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ART OF THE STATE

You know You go through a w hirlw ind o f em o t io n s, a nd a s much a s You t rY to prepa re f o r t h at, u n t i l Y o u a r e t h e r e , i k n o w t h at Y o u c a n ’ t.

BYron “Mac” VEnzon

rEno dEPutY PolIcE cHIEf

memories of it and cycling through it repeatedly alternate with distancing and disassociation. It sounds like these competing forces of ‘You’ve got to work this through,’ and ‘You’ve got to metabolize this,’ against ‘You’ve got to get away from this nightmare’.”

Hinitz said there are basically three stages in the healing, although he’d be quick to say that to narrow it down this far tends to diminish the complexity of individual reactions.

The first stage is distancing, kind of a psychological numbing that follows closely after the event. It makes the moment hard to remember clearly, a sort of pain reaction.

“The second stage is the stage where you—if you’re going to be

seem to think as a rewarded vacation.

But a moment’s thought about how people suffering with PTSD act, and there’s no question that a logical person does not want that officer on the street with a gun.

“I think it’s one of the most sensible policies there is because either somebody’s going to be prone to threat immediately after until they’ve worked it through or if they’re going to be prone to avoidance, over-avoidance in situations where they would need to be more reactive right away. ... And despite people’s appearance and despite the bravado sometimes of the role, I’ve never seen

involved in recovery process—where it’s a stage of narrative. So you’ve got hyper arousal [which is a high mental alert stage], you’ve got intrusion and numbing followed by some form of remembrance and mourning, which is, ‘I’ve got to get the sequence right.’

There’s no shortcut. It’s got to be metabolized.”

Third stage is reconnection. “‘I’m going to come back from this new person that I am, not new and improved, but new because I’m changed, and I’m going to relate to my wife, this community and who I’ve become.’”

Hinitz talks about the importance of that time off, the paid administrative leave that people on the outside

“PolIcE PsYcHoloGY” continued on page 15

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“poLice psYcHoLoGY”

Head wounds

there’s almost a pariah effect, I think, when somebody’s on admin leave. A lot of guys have complained to me that their usual friends and one that didn’t review and go, “Did this have to cohorts kind of leave them alone during that happen? Was this OK? Was this necessary?” So period of time.” it has to be examined at a level of meaning. …

The key during the times immediately And the repetition, the review and the emotional following a fatal encounter is a concerted effort involvement is letting the brain sort of prepare on the part of the individual, police administraand get ready for future events that could occur. tion, families and friends, to get the individual And without that processing, as we said, you either have over-avoidance or over-involvement.” past the traumatic incident. And that’s where guys like Hinitz and Danton come in. Danton But the utility of the time off is possibly the says his strategy varies with the individual. He one area in which Dr. Hinitz and Dr. Danton first looks at what skills and tools they have slightly diverged in opinion. There must be when they walk in the door. How do they typisome kind of acceptable medium, because time cally handle stress? off tends to isolate the officer when he most “Part of it is remapping the idea of avoidneeds his support system, his fellow officers. ance and exposure,” he said. “In anxiety reactions, there are three components: There Misconceptions is an uncomfortable body sensation of some and adjustMents kind, there is an avoidance of trying not to feel that uncomfortable sensation, and there is what “I think in police work, one misconception is I call ‘anticipatory incompetence.’ The person that people that get into that have a value system anticipates they won’t be able to deal with it, that’s kind of assertive, directing and authoritarand they’ll go crazy or fall apart or have a heart ian, and they like the authority and so forth,” attack or something.” said Dr. Danton.

Psychiatrists and psychologists have a Danton’s office is more collegiate than specific and arcane language they use, like intimate. It looks sort of like you’d expect from most practitioners of specialized activities. Dr. somebody high up in a university’s administraDanton is particularly adept at using a word and tion, except it’s in one of those labyrinthine then bringing it down to us hobbyists. complexes that would make a well-adjusted “Almost all therapies for anxiety-related person pull out his or her eyebrows. disorders are at the bottom line exposure theraHis office, again, is calming, but large pies. You want to have enough for a small group the person be exposed session. Danton himself and not have that [nega“I’Ve kNOWN VeRY Fe W is also academic, dressed tive] reaction. EMDR, more casually than the Eye Movement W H O C O ul D H AV e B e e N business-casual with a Desensitization and rumpled, nonthreatening, Reprocessing, is a kind p R e p A R e D F O R W H AT friendly feel. He’s a of therapy that has the sincere helper, passing person re-imagine the H A pp eNeD, A ND T He Y along emails of related traumatic event and information after the what kind of unconW e R e A l l T R A I N e D ,” interview concludes. structive cognitions “The primary value did they have about the system of a lot of cops event at the time like, dean Hinitz going into police work psYcHoLoGist ‘Oh, I was an idiot. I is being a member of a did the wrong thing.’ team,” he said. “And so And then they’ll have one of the things that the person re-imagine happens when you’re the scene, and then involved in a shooting you’re reconnecting event, use of deadly force, them with the event and is you get put on adminhaving them come up istrative leave, and you with something more get your gun and your positive like, “I can badge taken away, and handle this. I did the you get separated from the right thing.” Something team. That’s not always a like that. So you’re remapgood thing, and a lot of cops ping. You’re creating a new will say that separates you map.” from your support group. Some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy of these guys don’t go home and is also used. It relies on the idea that talk—many of them don’t go home and talk it’s not the event that causes the problem. It’s the to their families—about what they do. So it’s a meaning of the event for the person. The person very isolating kind of event and sometimes that must remap it in a way that’s more productive makes the PTSD worse because you don’t have for them, that helps them feel healthier about the anybody to share it with.” event. Group therapy can be effective in seeing So sometimes, that paid vacation can exacerthat other people have been through the same bate the problem. thing and have coped with it and are OK with it.

“Sometimes it does,” Danton said. “Think Part of the problem with this is simply coming about the primary value system with being up with a group of police in any region who’ve one of and belonging to a team. … You’ve got killed somebody. somebody who’s involved in use of lethal force, Educating families is another crucial task: and they go home. Their family doesn’t really understand what’s going on, and the people who “poLice psYcHoLoGY” would understand, they’re isolated from. And From page 13

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‘Freeze!’ They didn’t even wait two seconds. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. He had 22 bullet holes in him.”

“We had a boarder living with us at that time, and she said, ‘You need to take care of your mom,’” reminisced the 60-could-pass-for-50 psychologist Ing. “And I just switched channels from any kind of processing to taking care of my mom, which was the beginning of a lifelong pattern of co-dependent, rescuing women—damsels in distress—and resulting in my first marriage.

In some weird parallel universe, there’s a Venn diagram waiting to be made.

In it, you’d have three circles: psychologists, people who work with police, and family members of people killed by police.

In that dark spot where all the circles overlap—family members of people killed by police who work with police— there would be one name: Steven Ing of Reno.

Ing is a marriage and family therapist, who, almost as a primary job, works with sex offenders who for one reason or another are involved in the Nevada prison system. He believes they can be rehabilitated, an unorthodox view.

But maybe growing up as the child of a notorious Reno thug, Jimmy Ing, you’d have to believe anyone can be rehabilitated—at least until they are killed by police.

Ing would certainly have a unique perspective on the effects on families of people killed by law enforcement. He’s singular in many ways. He’s a financial success after a childhood where he’d lie in bed, screaming with a pillow over his head while his father beat his mother. His father was bad, bad. He was reputed to have beaten a man almost to death and then finishing the job by putting him in a metal barrel, pouring oil over him and setting him on fire.

Ing said that he didn’t even begin processing the 1966 or ‘67 police “execution” until he was 19. According to the cuddly Mustang Ranch brothel owner Joe Conforte, writing in his book, Breaks, Brains & Balls, law enforcement set Jimmy Ing up at a West Fourth Street motel. “There must have been at least 20 cops waiting with shotguns.

As soon as Jimmy comes out,

continued on page 17

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by d. Brian Burghart brianb@newsreview.com

Steven Ing

“I’m able to trust Sharon [his wife] today, but when I was 20, the irrational thought in my head, the belief was, ‘I’m all I’ve got to count on,’ because there’s some dramatic shift in a guy’s thinking [when cops kill his father].

I was raised in that school generation where they always talked about Officer Friendly and how you could trust the police and all of that, and they have the good guys beat the bad guys. [The killing is] a total flip flop of your paradigm, and I remember when I was in my teens, I think I was 18, a high school teacher was under investigation, and the DA asked me to come by his office to be interviewed because I knew something about it, and I took a friend because I wasn’t sure I was going to live. That’s |

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how it affected me. I really had this irrational fear of death because the police had killed my dad and it was this sense of ‘Well, then, nowhere is safe because if you can’t trust the police then really, nothing is real.’”

Ing says that maturity is usually a function of time and experience, but acting quiet and controlled doesn’t ensure maturity. He said that at 12 or 13 he felt “super mature,” but at 30, he realized he was no more mature than when he was 13. So the psychological effects of his father’s killing included stunted emotional growth, paranoia, dysfunctional marital choices, inability to trust others, and difficulty in forming cooperative partnerships with people for any reason.

“I’m not going to say every bad thing in my life is a result of my father’s getting shot, but it is true I believe that everything in my life is related to every other thing, and most all of these bad things do have some sort of root in my father’s death and the way he died,” Ing said. “Janet Reno said that domestic violence is the root of all crime in America, and I think it really makes sense because there’s that complete and utter violation of boundaries with the people who supposedly you love and care for the most, and if I love and care for my family, and I can hit them, why would I not hit somebody else, right?

“And the police killing your dad is a similar sort of violation of those boundaries. I have the honor of working with a lot of law enforcement today, and I really admire and respect those guys who do what they do, but I am also very aware of how human they are and that they too have their issues.”

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Photo courtesy stafford family

House of pain

“They said, ‘No, ma’am They said, ‘Since he’s not we can’t do that.’ And they with us—his stuff is in were assholes, they were Washington—we don’t rude. They were obnoxious know what we’re going to and they’re telling us, ‘We have to do. You’re going know he’s sick. We know. to have to bring him down We know.’ And they’re— here.’ Aimee’s like, ‘Do they’re looking at you like you understand he’s not you’re just ... ‘His role in going to come? Can’t we Iraq, we know. We know.’ do something to bring him “And I’m like, ‘Well, in there?’ And they told if you know, please don’t her, ‘No.’’’ hurt him.’ So just as we It was not long before got the cigarette, gave it to Crook got a call from Kenny Stafford was upset the one officer, the other her best friend, Aimee’s about the murder of his officer gives it to another, mother, “Kenny’s got a brother. Kenny was killed by police on July 11, 2013. and they open fired on gun.” The desperate Crook him. rushed down to Wedekind “He never got the Road, but the police cigarette.” stopped her at the barriShe believes he was cade. Only she and Aimee never a threat to anyone: “Not even to himself. Not could talk Kenny out of his PTSD fugues, and the even himself. He never fired the gun once. They cops wouldn’t let her through. Frantic, she drove shot 22 rounds at him and hit him, was it 15, 16, all the way around Clear Acre to McCarran then all 15 times. Head shots, too.” the way down to El Rancho and then came back “Seven, to be exact,” adds Aimee. around to the other end of the blockade. Again, the Few outside this close-knit family would police would not let her approach her son. question police putting down a mentally ill man But then the Washoe County sheriff’s with a gun. Anniversaries and birthdays have helicopter arrived, worsening his PTSD state with come and gone. Kenny Stafford would have memories of Iraq, Crook surmised. The helicopter turned 29 on August 17. Ryan Connelly was was setting him off. killed more than two years ago. Kenny’s wife and “I knew that was going to be bad,” she said. mother-in-law believe the police have a suspect “Well, he turned and asked for a cigarette. So one in Ryan’s murder, but they also believe the cops of the cops says, ‘He wants a cigarette.’ And I’m are doing little. While they wait for some kind of thinking, ‘OK, good, good, good.’ I said, ‘See that closure, the women spend their time on Facebook, little thing that he was talking on? Give me your posting photos of their lost men, promoting their microphone. Just let me talk to him. He’ll listen to me. He’ll snap out of it. He’ll know that he’s not Justice for Ryan and Justice for Kenny pages, and wondering just how much pain one family is in Iraq.’ He’ll go, ‘What the fuck—what’s mom supposed to take. doing in Iraq?’ He’s going to understand. He’s going to know.

— D. Brian Burghart brianb@ newsreview.com

we came up here to Reno for my brother’s year anniversary, and he was OK until the night of the anniversary of my brother’s murder.”

It’s a close-knit family, various races and combinations, but when somebody says brother or son, they’re not necessarily talking by blood.

They’re just all so close they naturally call themselves by those names that are usually reserved for people who came from a single womb.

“Ryan [Connelly] was killed July 7th, 2012,” said the family matriarch Deana Crook. “He was murdered, and Kenny was very upset about the killer still running loose. He was angry about that.

He was angry that they weren’t doing anything. He was very angry about all that.”

Connelly was killed in what has been theorized as a case of mistaken identity by a gangmember.

The killer remains at large. Over the four days after the anniversary of his brother’s death, Kenny Stafford kept disappearing, so many times Aimee couldn’t count them. She was frantic, not knowing where he was. She only knew he was disturbed.

“He started asking around for a gun,” said Crook. “He asked my son—his brother—was asking him, ‘Hey can you get me a gun?’ And my older son said, ‘No. What do you need a gun for?’ And he said, ‘For protection.’”

Even after a year, it’s hard to sit with these women in the small apartment off Wedekind Road, as they discuss their twin Aimee Stafford, left, and Deana Crook sit in the family room with Ryan Connelly’s ashes in a football-shaped urn between tragedies. Ryan’s ashes rest in a footballthem. shaped urn on the end table between them.

His photo perches upon it.

“I went over to check on Aimee that morning, the day he was killed,” said Crook.

Kenny didn’t even want medical attention. His “I went over there, and I said, ‘Is everything petite and pretty wife had to pester the 6-foot-3 OK?’ She says, ‘No, he’s acting strange. I don’t soldier until he finally consented to see a doctor. know what’s wrong with him. I’m worried. I’m “They said he was depressed and put him on worried. I’m worried.’ They called the VA to see medication for that, and then they were doing what they can do. ‘Can you get him some help?’ some other things for PTSD,” she said. “And then Kenny Stafford came back from Iraq a changed man. He was never to heal, though, as he was killed by police on July 11, 2013.

The once social and gregarious man that Aimee Stafford met in ninth grade was withdrawn, didn’t want to hang out with friends. The caring, funny and strong warrior didn’t want to listen to music—he used to like everything but country— didn’t want to read his favorite fiction by the likes of Stephen King and Dean Koontz, didn’t want to watch sports; the joy seemed drained from his life.

“He was trying to adjust back into civilization, and I figured he had saw and done some things over there that are probably hard to get past, so I just wrote it off as that,” said his widow, Aimee.

“But then when we got transferred to Fort Lewis, Washington, that’s when he started losing a lot of weight. He couldn’t sleep. He wouldn’t eat. He would get agitated a lot, and he lost 65 pounds in six months.”

“poLiCe psYCHoLoGY” FROM page 15

For some families, their husband or wife was a hero, and they’re the one that handles all the stress. And now the hero is messed up, and they’re wanting support. It is, as Danton said, a role reversal.

“So then the police officer is uncomfortable in a non-traditional role,” he said. “They’re not the protector of the family now; they’re somebody who is in need of protection from the family. You got kids, how do you go to take your kid to soccer, and you got all these people running around and doing stuff, how can you feel safe? What do you do?

How do you protect your kid in that situation?”

Both doctors said that the cliched movie stereotypes of police drug addiction or alcoholism, domestic OPINION

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abuse or divorce are not more prevalent after one of these events.

Cops have high divorce rates without having to kill someone. In fact, in these really overwhelming events, they tend more toward shielding their spouse and children, which is why family counseling is so important. It’s really all about healing the PTSD.

FEATURE STORY

“The policy is part of that, and I think also really understanding PTSD and how do you deal with cops involved in these things because people I have seen would have liked a much higher level of support. A lot of cops, interestingly enough, involved in these situations, they’re really good guys. They feel sometimes betrayed

by the administration and so forth.

They don’t like hypocrisy. They’re really black and white thinkers sometimes about those kind of things. And that’s hard on them.

“We could do better. We could show them our support and not that kind of support of ‘Let’s all lock arms and not let reporters know what’s

going on with the situation.’ But support like ‘You’ve been through a trauma, and you still belong to this group, to this team, and if you made the right calls on this, we’ll support you on them. If you didn’t, we’ll try to understand that, but you still have to pay the consequences for it’.”

After the news crews and the National Guard leave that little suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, the Ferguson Police Department is going to have to deal with these issues.

Whether Darren Wilson turns out to be a courageous warrior caught up in a circumstance beyond his own making, or the racist murderer that so many have made him out to be, the entire U.S. is going to have to deal with these issues. Ω

T H E R E ’ S A L M O S T A P A R I A H E F F E C T, I T H I N K , W H E N S O M EB O DY ’ S O N A D MIN L E AV E . A LO T O F G u Y S H A V E C O M P L A I N E D T O M E T H AT THEIR uSuAL FRIENDS AND COHORTS, KIND O F L E AV E T H E M A LO N E .

WiLLiaM DanTon psYCHoLoGisT

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D

rive to Nicholette Codding’s childhood home, and you’ll weave through an especially tony part of Caughlin Ranch. Houses here are impeccable without being

cookie-cutter, and every spongy green lawn is just asking to coddle some bare feet. The trees are stately, the ponds look real, and there’s nary a clunker in any driveway.

Building a ‘tiny house’ is no small feat

BY GEORGIA FISHER • PHOTOS BY ERIC MARKS

Close quarters is a dream that can be had.

A black Mercedes is parked outside Codding’s place. It’s not hers.

Neither is the big house, actually. But the tiny house—the one right in front, on top of a flatbed trailer —is very much her own.

You can’t miss it. Not here.

The 160-square-foot abode is a work in progress the fine-arts photographer shares with her long-term boyfriend, Mitchell Mast, and it’s only parked at the parental-units’ place because it’s under construction. Soon the couple will haul it to the right patch of farmland, a to-be-determined spot where they can earn their keep by working outside. There they hope to grow food, install solar panels, find a supportive community, and send the material world packing.

This is no flight of fancy.

“This is our life savings,” Codding, 30, explained. And it was hard-earned.

She and Mast, 31, whose master’s degree and background are in behavioral science, spent years working in the service industry. Before leaving Portland, where they lived most recently, the pair also found landscaping odd jobs, occasionally with creative parameters and handsome compensation. Other times, “we drove around with a lawn mower” looking for work, Codding said with a chuckle.

They believe a house that’s microscopic by most standards is the ticket to a clean, untethered life—one with no mortgage, fewer work hours, and scant room for waste or overconsumption.

Permitting is murky. As far as the county knows, the couple has a 20-foot-utlity trailer, carrying a haul that happens to look exactly like a wee house. Thankfully, it’s materializing in the small area between Caughlin and Juniper Hills—a sliver that lacks the covenants, conditions and restrictions of those neighborhoods.

“We’re in the freedom zone,” Mast said. “It’s absolutely a legal gray area, but for us it’s an important one, because the permits are absolutely crippling.”

A tiny tour

First is their “great room with a little ‘g’,” as Codding called it, which abuts an ingenious bookshelf/pantry/sliding 18 | RN&R |

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wall that’s also part of the kitchen.

Next is a bathroom with charming tin wall panels and a perfect little sea of retro tile.

Hardwood and natural light abound, and a sleeping loft top off most of the space.

Every last building material is natural and nontoxic, and any DIY feel is absent, despite the builders being newbies to construction work.

The fruit of their labor seems solid and sound, with no creaks, odd gaps or cheap fixes.

It’s just enough space for the couple and their dogs, Bailey Roo and Cooper Dean.

Codding’s art will stay, as will a few essentials, but not much more.

“We have so many experiential ties to things,” she said, “but one thing we realized is that you don’t have to have the thing to have the memory.

Instead of identifying those memories through things and through commercial objects, you can know they live inside of you, and they are a part of who you are.”

But back to the bathroom, namely the composting toilet. It’s not half as bad as it sounds, Mast said, and “there’s absolutely no smell.”

Brave souls.

A movAble movement

Micro homes aren’t surprising anyone in cities like Portland, where the “tiny” community is, funny enough, growing quite large. Press, TV shows and films are catching on, too. (An Australian filmmaker’s forthcoming documentary, Small is Beautiful, will include Codding and Mast.)

“More people are becoming disillusioned with having a big house, and having to figure all that out,” Mast said. “Millennials coming out of university and being saddled with a large amount of debt, and not having that same dream of working all week long just to be able to afford the house that they don’t really get to spend a lot of time in.”

In turn, “tiny house” has come to mean more than a given person’s opinion of relative size.

Blueprints are online, and you can even buy a pre-made model from the popular Tumbleweed company for around $60,000 (which amounts

to a fortune Maybe it per square amounts to a foot, mind new beginning. you). Building “People seminars and who need to workshops are wipe the slate taking hold, too. clean in their Mitchell Mast and And tiny-house lives are typiNicholette Codding blogs—written cally drawn to peek out the window by “tiny housers,” smaller spaces,” of their tiny home. naturally—are all says Rae. “You have over the web. Codding to purge yourself of all and Mast even have those things you’ve been one of their own, at www. carrying around your whole ourtinyhome.us. life—good, bad or ugly.”

No one’s taking credit for the idea Codding and Mast echo her of living in small quarters, of course, words. And they’re infinitely grateful or they shouldn’t be. for their support network, from the “It’s something that’s very oldfriends and mentors who helped them world,” Mast pointed out. “People get started to Codding’s parents, have been living in very small dwellDeborah and James Morgan, who’ve ings for hundreds if not thousands of been kind enough to put them up in years.” exchange for repair work around the Shoot, Abraham Lincoln grew up (bigger) house. Carpentry, which in a one-room log cabin. they’ve picked up along the way, is a “For centuries and centuries,” skill they hope to pass on to others. says real-estate developer Kelly Rae, who’s half of Haberae Homes No deta i l spa r e d company, “tiny houses have been around. They’ve just come to the From plumbing and heating, ventilaforefront [again], and a lot of it was tion and air conditioning to finish-out, due to the economic downturn, when the intricacies of a miniature building people lost everything, and they were can so mimic those in larger homes like—excuse my language—‘fuck.’” that they’ve even become part of the She paused for emphasis, then curriculum at Reno’s Academy for drew another breath.

Career Education High School.

“We need to change our lives!

The charter school, which emphaWe’ve lost everything. We don’t have sizes construction and engineering, is any money. We need to downsize.” requiring students to work collaboraStyle matters, Rae added, because tively on three Tumbleweed houses without beauty “a tiny space is just a this year. Two will be sold upon rat hole. But if you make it cute and completion (and yep, they’ve already modern with beautiful aesthetics, you had inquiries). can have a two-burner hotplate and “The kids are really getting a lot of a convection oven and a sink, and be experience in terms of problem-solvecstatic.” ing,” said principal Bob DeRuse. A So what about people in mobile forgivable error—a slightly miscalcuhomes and RVs? Aren’t they “tiny lated angle, say—could visually blend housers,” too? into a big house, but in a miniature “They’re putting a hell of a lot one, the flaw gets compounded. more storage in those travel trailers But the beauty of a small space is than the hipsters are putting in their hard to miss, too. tiny houses,” Rae said. “People have “They’re very cool,” says been doing this since forever out of DeRuse. “It’s hard to wrap your economic necessity, and they got a brain around it, but when you do, bad rap as ‘trailer-park trash.’ They’ve [you realize] most people could live lived just fine in small spaces, in a house like this.” Ω and nobody’s interviewing them.

Nobody’s intrigued by how they live.” For more information, visit www.ourtinyhome.us.

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Photo/Brad Bynum

Robot seriously

Darren "d6" Barnes and Cory Elliott share a love for robots.

Cory Elliott and Darren “d6” Barnes Here’s a fun fact: the word “robot” is derived from a Czech word meaning “slave.” Czech by playwright Karel Čapek used the term in his Brad Bynum 1920 play Rossum’s Universal Robots to describe synthetic humanoid servants. Ever bradb@ newsre view.c om since then, robots have sparked the imaginations of writers, artists and musicians of all stripes. In film especially, many of the most iconic images in its history feature robots: Maria in Metropolis, Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still, and even Optimus Prime in those terrible Transformers movies. robotronia vs.

But arguably the best and most iconic of Intruder alert! is on all movie robots are R2-D2 and C-3PO in display at the holland Star Wars. micro Gallery in the Cory Elliott was 8 years old when the Bibo Coffee Co., 945 first Star Wars movie came out in 1977, and record St., through Sept. 19. the movie made a huge impression on him.

“It completely blew my mind,” he said recently. “I was a sheltered latchkey kid who didn’t know anything about science fiction, didn’t know anything about having my mind blown, and that movie just wiped us all out.”

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Elliott and Darren “d6” Barnes have been collaborating on various art projects for nearly 25 years. Their exhibition Robotronia vs. Intruder Alert! is on display at the Holland Micro Gallery in the Bibo Coffee Co. on Record Street through Sept. 19. It’s a small survey of their robot-themed collaborations dating back to 1990.

A highlight of the exhibition is a group of paintings by Elliott, spray painted stencils on faux wood panels.

Each panel features four or five different handcut stencil paintings of different colors layered on top of each other, and each depicts a Star Wars droid. The marquee names, R2-D2 and C-3PO, are there, but so is the assassin robot IG-88, the imperial probe droid that discovered the rebel base on Hoth, and others.

Elliott said he was inspired by highprofile artists, like Banksy and Shepard Fairey, who often use stencils and spray paint, but that he has never been a street artist or graffiti writer because he’s a “rule follower.”

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“But I really love that culture,” he said.

“I love seeing the graffiti trains.”

The exhibition also includes sheet metal robot heads designed by Barnes, and many other robot images, some of it taken from Intruder Alert zines that the two artists have created together intermittently over the years. Barnes and Elliot have also created large robot puppets and are closely associated with the local “celebrity robot” Hotshot Few Thousand (“Interview with the robot,” RN&R feature story, July 11, 2013).

“What we saw growing up primarily were what you would call dumb robots— single task robots—'I’m going to weld.

That’s what I’m going to do.'” said Barnes.

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“And then slowly it’s like they’re multitasking.

But they’re doing three things maybe. But they’re alluding to taking over humanity.”

What’s the lasting appeal of robots?

“It’s kind of a nostalgia thing for me,” said Barnes.

“I’ve always liked the big, clunking, laborious, totally useless [robots].”

He said he also sees robots as a sort of gateway to many other science fiction possibilities: flying cars and Jetsons-style robot maids. Human beings’ use of tools, and our close relationship with them, is one of the things that perhaps define us as different from other animals, and robots are the ultimate expression of that.

According to Elliott, robots can inspire many fantastical thoughts: “Our fantasy would be, ‘I’m afraid to die. I don’t want to die! If I was a robot, I could be repaired and fixed and upgraded and moved forward.’”

The artists say that’s a better immortality fantasy than magical vampires. Ω

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PlumpJack Café 1920 Squaw Valley Road, Squaw Valley, California, (530)583-1578 or (855)701-0122 A wanderlust to discover a new and intriguing menu took me to the iconic Squaw Valley. by Dave Preston Executive chef Ben “Wyatt” Dufresne has exceptional credentials, double degrees in biology and environmental studies. After interning with an organic vegetable farm, he spent a year developing his cooking skills in restaurants in Colorado and Vermont.

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22 | RN&R |

AUGUST 28, 2014

An enthusiastic skier, he moved to Tahoe in 2002 as sous chef at PlumpJack. After cooking at West Shore Cafe and LuLou’s Restaurant, in 2010, he came back to PlumpJack as the executive chef. His team includes sous chefs Shawn Arney and Jack Connell.

Maître d’ Jeff Pinkham and his staff provide impeccable service. The handcrafted cocktail menu ($10-$12) with several of the trendy quaffs was inviting, but the mixologist, Jake Spero, pointed me toward the PlumpJack Aperitif ($12): Averno Amara (a classic digestif Sicilian herb liquor—citric, sweet, thick and has a gently herbal bitterness), Carpano Antica vermouth (sweet red vermouth made with white wine), rare wine Verdelho Madeira (its bouquet exudes

orange zest and buttery shortbread), and a lemon twist.

It’s an astute menu with two courses. First, starters ($12-$19) like white gazpacho ($16), and I had the diver scallop “BLT” ($19) with crispy pancetta, tatsoi (a green with a sweet aroma) atop heirloom tomatoes, and drizzled with Balsamic and a roasted red pepper sauce. The mollusks were silver dollar sized and about an inch thick. They were rich and elegant with a myriad of flavors from savory to a lightly sweet-tart and textures. And those fresh tomatoes were delicious.

The second course ($25-$46) includes the likes of Mt. Lassen trout ($35), Creekstone Ranch ribeye ($46), and my choice, the Ellensburg lamb chop “Nicoise” ($44). This Pacific Coast grass fed lamb was cooked medium rare and seared in a broiler and then finished on a grill using Almond wood, perfectly moist with a nutty, sweet flavor. Red potatoes were nicely seasoned, par boiled and finished in the oven. Haricot Verts (French green beans) sautéed in butter with simple seasoning added the finishing touches to the dish.

There’s an uptown wine list with just north of 500 varietals covering the world and a very proper set of California wines with impressive offerings.

With my scallops, I went with the Bodgas Slaya Verdejo 2012 ($9).

This Spanish wine offered aromas of peach, banana, apple, pear, lemon and tropical fruit. It’s a firm white with lively acidity and a lush mouth-feel.

A red with the lamb was more of a challenge since I found two that would work—so, why not? I did both.

First was a Skinner Grenache 2012 ($11) from the El Dorado foothills in northern California. It had an elegant and supple mouth-feel, but is light in color and structured on the palate.

And then I had a Villa del Cigliano “Brusco”($9), a brilliant Italian Sangiovese from the cellars of Antinori. It sports flavors of berries, overlaid with hints of licorice and spicy notes from oak aging.

Desserts ($8-$15) are another level of palate joy. Mine, a chai crème brulée with Blueberry compote ($8) from pastry chef Jon Howard, was nirvana. The Olympic rings still greet you when you enter the valley. It’s a home of champions, and the team at PlumpJack Café has embraced that legacy victorious on every plate. Ω

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There is an “I” in team!

Join us to find out more when The Reno Tahoe Express Network hosts the 10th Annual

Carol Scofield

American Business Women's Day

Wednesday, September 24th 11AM-1PM

Unoriginal sin Sin City: A Dame to Kill For When it comes to writer-director Robert Rodriguez, 2005, the year he delivered the first Sin City, feels like a million years ago.

Rodriguez was reaching the apex of his creative strengths, making good movies for relatively small budgets and doing much of the work himself. Sin City was a true groundbreaker, preceded by films like Once Upon by a Time in Mexico, the first three Spy Kids Bob Grimm movies, of which two were really good, and my personal favorite, From Dusk Till Dawn. b g ri m m @ ne w s re v i e w . c o m Since Sin City, a whole lot of people have been making good-looking, technological breakthrough films on reasonable budgets.

Rodriguez, in the meantime, has been losing steam, with misfires like The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl 3-D, Shorts, the fourth and truly awful Spy Kids film and Machete Kills. He did good work with his Grindhouse segment, Planet Terror, and the first Machete, but the bad has far outweighed the good.

2

Atlantis Casino Resort Spa • 3800 S. Virginia St., Reno

International speaker, healthcare professional and award-winning talk show host Carol Scofield will share her experiences as a team member, both personally and professionally!

Carol will identify unique characters who traditionally show up on a team. Using facts and fun, she will give you tips, tools and techniques to thrive in a team environment and become a star as a team member.

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Now comes the long-in-development Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, with Rodriguez returning to the well of his biggest movie and coming up with something that represents nothing in the way of advancement. It’s a batch of shorts based on the musings of Frank Miller, and not one of them offers anything better than what the original film provided.

It’s a mostly tedious, worthless film from a director who seems to be running out of original ideas.

Much of the cast returns, including Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis, even though their characters died in the first movie. In the case of Rourke, his Marv segments are prequels, based on graphic novels that took place before his character got the electric chair. As for Willis … think The Sixth Sense.

Jessica Alba returns to dance provocatively but keep her clothes on as stripper Nancy, and Powers Boothe is back as the evil Senator Roark. Dennis Haysbert replaces the late Michael Clarke Duncan, and Josh Brolin steps in for Clive Owen as Dwight. Also new to the cast are Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Johnny and Eva Green as Ava. It’s a whole lot of people driving around a lot in a black and white film doing those deliberately paced, film noir voiceovers. What was once visually breathtaking has become visually blah—sort of like Mel Gibson—and none of the stories that comprise A Dame to Kill For merit interest. The film plays like a batch of outtakes from the first movie slapped together and put on display nearly a decade later.

It’s also the second time this year that Eva Green has given a spectacular, villainous performance in a film adapted from a Miller graphic novel that totally sucks around her (the first one being 300: Rise of an Empire).

Green is the only reason to see this movie, her Ava being far more terrifying than Boothe’s deranged senator.

Gordon-Levitt seems out of place in this film, like he’s way too cool and popular to be hanging around the set of such a sub-par undertaking.

It’s sort of like when Bill Murray lent his voice to the Garfield movies, or Tom Hanks took a paycheck for The Da Vinci Code. It just feels wrong. Gordon-Levitt was in the running for Guardians of the Galaxy and Godzilla, and he winds up in this? The Gordon-Levitt agent firings must commence.

For the first time in a long time, Rodriguez doesn’t have any films in major states of development for the future. Perhaps this is a good thing. He’s better than the majority of the last decade has shown, and he’s certainly better than Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Hell, The Expendables 3 is better than Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. That’s a bad state of affairs for any filmmaker. Ω

5

Boyhood

A lot can go wrong when you film a movie on and off for more than 12 years with the cast aging naturally. Cast members could die, the director could lose his drive and quit, etc.

Writer-director Richard Linklater’s cinematic undertaking doesn’t have the ring of experimental or stunt filmmaking about it. It’s just a great looking, terrifically acted, tremendously moving film. It’s an amazing thing to see young Mason (Ellar Coltrane, who we first see set to the joyous strains of Coldplay’s “Yellow” on the soundtrack) go from a wide-eyed 5-year-old boy staring at the sky to an 18-year-old college student dealing with girls and big life decisions. It’s equally fascinating to watch Ethan Hawke, playing Mason’s father, go from Training Day Hawke to The Purge Hawke in the course of three hours. We also see Linklater’s daughter Lorelei playing Samantha, Mason’s sister, and Patricia Arquette as Mom, putting in her best performance since she graced the screen as Alabama in True Romance.

All of the performers go through beautiful and awkward stages, aging before our eyes without the aid of special effects makeup. This is a movie that will only be made once. Nobody will ever pull anything like this off again. Linklater has made a permanent, monumental mark on cinematic history.

2

The Expendables 3

Sylvester Stallone and his admittedly awesome band of old crows take some major missteps in this one, an unfortunate leap backward for the aging action star franchise. For No. 3, Stallone and company jettison the smarmy Bruce Willis in favor of the growly Harrison Ford, and this is a cool change. It also adds Wesley Snipes as Doctor Death, Antonio Banderas as fast-talking comic relief and, most notably, Mel Gibson playing himself (translation: The World’s Biggest Asshole). Stallone and director Patrick Hughes should’ve stopped right there as far as casting, and given the group—which also includes Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren and many others—a decent script to go by. This is a sufficient enough cast for any action movie, so get cracking with the pyrotechnics and focus in on a story that makes sense. Instead, and probably because the production could only afford the big guys for a minimal amount of shooting time, the script has Stallone’s Barney Ross putting the old guys on ice after the first 30 minutes in favor of a new, mostly younger crew. Most of the new crew is, in short, completely uninteresting and lacking the charisma of their older counterparts. Too much screen time is given to the likes of mixed martial arts superstar Ronda Rousey, who can most certainly kick the shit out of most men but can’t act for squat.

2

The Giver

In a post-apocalyptic society, humans are being drugged into a state where they feel no emotion, are completely submissive and see no colors. When they hit their late teens, they are assigned their job for the rest of their life.

Everybody’s equal, there is no war, all aspects of life are predestined. Lois Lowry’s novel had an interesting premise, but Phillip Noyce’s film simply feels and looks wrong. For starters, it comes off as a rip-off of Pleasantville, with the film slowly changing from black and white to color, while elements of the dystopian society come off like a dated Disney ride. As for the casting, it’s good to see the likes of Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep on hand in pivotal roles, but the young leads (Brenton Thwaites and Odeya Rush) seem like they are overreaching. Taylor Swift shows up for a couple of minutes in a cameo, a cameo that is being marketed as a starring role and is mighty misleading for her fan base. Bridges is at least interesting as an old wise man storing all memories of past societies in his head. He’s tasked with passing his memories on to young Jonas (Thwaites), as if that isn’t going to cause some sort of problem. Noyce gives us some pretty pictures and a halfway decent cast, and basically doesn’t know what to do with it.

5

Guardians of the Galaxy

This is a goofy, dazzling, often hilarious convergence of inspired nuttiness. You’ll probably hear comparisons to the original Star Wars, The Fifth Element and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, and all of those comparisons would be plausible. It’s a blessedly new and crazy direction for the Marvel universe, and director James Gunn (Super, Slither) has taken a huge step towards the A-list. Also taking a giant leap toward the upper echelon of Hollywood royalty is Chris Pratt, who mixes great charm,

OPINION

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rugged action hero bravado and premium comic timing as Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord.

After a prologue that shows the Earthly origins of his character, Pratt sets the tone for the movie during the opening credits, grooving to his cassette-playing Sony Walkman on an alien planet and using squirrelly little critters as stand-in microphones. After unknowingly stealing a relic that could have the power to take down the entire universe, Quill finds himself in serious trouble. Events lead to his joining forces with a genetically enhanced Raccoon named Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper), a gigantic tree person thing named Groot (voice of Vin Diesel), an angry, muscle-bound alien named Drax (Dave Bautista) and an ass-kicking green woman named Gamora (Zoe Saldana). Together, they become the Guardians of the Galaxy, an unlikely troupe of mischievous outcasts that plays like the Avengers meets the Marx Brothers. The cast, buoyed by a spirited script co-written by Gunn, keeps things zippy and always funny. Visually, the movie is a tremendous feat of special and makeup effects.

Out of this world entertainment…

1

Let’s Be Cops

A couple of 30-something buddies (Jake Johnson, Damon Wayans, Jr.), bored with their humdrum lives, dress up as cops for a masquerade party and discover that things are pretty cool when people think you are the law.

So they take the masquerade beyond the party and start chasing criminals and busting perps.

Wayans, Jr., is the spitting image of his dad in every way, and it feels like this is a movie starring his dad after he’s time traveled from the past into the present for the shoot. Johnson, who has been making a name for himself in smart indie comedies (Safety Not Guaranteed, Drinking Buddies) tries to go big time with this vehicle, and fails miserably. The premise is insulting—not to mention a little dangerous—and it’s delivered with stale humor and bad performances all around. Director and co-writer Luke Greenfield (The Girl Next Door) has a made a movie more ugly than funny, and makes Johnson and Wayans, Jr., two funny guys, look like amateurs.

3

Lucy

What starts out as a potentially great movie winds up being a merely good one in the end. Scarlett Johansson stars as the title character, an American living in Taiwan who gets mixed up with the wrong people and winds up not only a drug mule, but a drug mule with a highly experimental drug placed inside her lower stomach. When the drugs start to leak, Lucy winds up using her brain to full capacity, not only resulting in her ability to control her body but also the forces around her. Luc Besson directs with his usual visual competence, and Johansson is great in the title role. The problem keeping the film from greatness is that it feels as if it’s going to some great place, and then suddenly ends at 89 minutes. Granted, it’s a good 89 minutes, but I was left feeling a bit unfulfilled. Morgan Freeman shows up as a scientist who knows a lot about brains, while Min-sik Choi (the original Oldboy) plays a true bastard of a bad guy. Surely, the premise is total bullshit, but the resultant mayhem is fun bullshit at that. I just wish Besson had a more complete story to tell.

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2

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Legions of Michael Bay haters have been jumping all over this Turtles reboot before it even hit the screen. It’s actually not a Michael Bay film; he only served as producer on this one.

Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans, Battle Los Angeles) is the director here, and he’s put something together that is far more coherent than the latest Bay-helmed Transformers movie.

This is not to say that the movie is any good, because it actually isn’t, but it is markedly better than most of Bay’s output. Megan Fox plays April, a wannabe reporter who stumbles upon a vigilante force protecting Manhattan from an evil terrorist group. The vigilantes turn out to be the infamous turtles. The turtles, the result of scientific experiments, were raised in the sewers by a rat, and now they are ready to rise above the street surface and kick some ass. The film has some good moments, and the turtles eat some pizza and get some laughs. Fox is a bit of a bore in the central human role, Will Arnett is virtually wasted as her cameraman, and I’m sick and tired of William Fichtner playing bad guys. The special effects are OK, but the story offers nothing special. A sequel is already being prepared. A director with a better sense of wonder, and a better sense of humor, could do the franchise well.

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SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK® ~ 40th ANNIVERSARY Vaud & the Villains 90 Auto Center Dr.

WindSync The Wailin’ Jennys The Intergalactic Nemesis

www.unr.edu/pas | (775) 784-4278 |

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American band Dusty Miles and the Cryin’ Shame Every band hates describing its own genre.

Musicians perceive the nuance in their own work to a degree that, by Fil Corbitt for them, ruins broad-stroke genre descriptors, which inevitably leads to five-genre-plus-mood declaration, e.g. indie pop-industrial crust folk.

No matter how ridiculous that sounds to everybody else, most musicians are guilty of insisting that music transcends lowly, limiting genre titles. And when you look at bands individually, it does become hard to force them into a one-sizefits-all explanation.

Sitting at the Great Basin Brewery in Sparks after a recent show was rained out, the members of Dusty Miles and the Cryin’ Shame said they’re not strangers to this situation.

Photo/Eric Marks

All around the table: Dusty Miles, Eric Peterson, Katie Schadegg and Chris "Rock’n" Rodgers of the band Dusty Miles and the Cryin' Shame.

For more information, visit www.reverb nation.com/dustymiles andthecryinshame.

26 | RN&R |

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Some might cast them under the broad “traditional Americana” umbrella, but there are dozens of corners under that umbrella that they constantly bounce among. And hell, the answer even depends on which band member you ask.

“Strict rockabilly people get mad we aren’t playing traditional covers,” said Dusty Miles, the band’s frontman and songwriter.

“But punks are bored when we play the slower ones.”

He listed a few names but ultimately lands in the alt-country neighborhood. Upright bassist Chris Rodgers soon showed up covered in Vaseline after crashing his motorcycle and said the band leans more toward rockabilly. Drummer Danny Horton arrived to comments about his newly shaved head, which he attributed to a gas stove accident, and said without hesitation, “I think we’re kind of cow punk.”

Guitarist Eric Peterson and fiddle player Katie Schadegg seem to agree with all three answers.

“It’s definitely different than traditional country,” said Schadegg as the server brought out some deep-fried pickles. Schadegg started playing violin classically, then joined a country band in Chicago. Though a difficult transition at first, she said it was basically just figuring out the formula.

“This band doesn’t have that,” she laughs.

At first listen, the Cryin’ Shame seems lucky enough to fall within a well-defined group of genres.

However, the band members say that actually leads to more stress.

Traditionalists are upset that what they’re doing is desecrating the pre-defined genres, and the maverick types are upset that they aren’t desecrating it loudly enough.

The conversation eventually leads to an agreed-upon conclusion among the band members—genre should not dictate what you play. Play what’s fun and what’s comfortable and the descriptor follows as a way to broadly classify the band members’ tastes.

“Sure, it’s important in a way, because it helps for marketing a band,” Miles said. “But it’s more important to just play what comes natural and let other people decide if they like it or not.”

The band recently played a Hot August Nights event at the Peppermill which they say was a decent allegory for these points.

They were asked more than once to play standard covers—one man yelled “Walk the Line” over and over between songs. Occasionally they oblige, but, for the most part, they continued playing originals or would jump into an obscure cover by a similar artist.

Aside from the periodical episode of a rowdy audience member’s drunken insistence, playing the gambit of traditional Americana can be a huge perk. It broadens the band’s appeal to a multi-generational crowd that a by-the-books group might not reach.

“I mean, we play traditional-style music because it’s relatable,” Miles said. "It’s not a cryptic puzzle. It’s a straightforward representation of the human experience. … Oh, and I love playing ballads. And punk … I mean, why would anyone want to play just one kind of music?” Ω

THURSDAY 8/288/28 THURSDAY

FRIDAY 8/298/29 FRIDAY

SATURDAY 8/308/30 SATURDAY

125 125 W. Third St., St., (775)(775) 323-5005 W. Third 323-5005

Blues jam w/Blue Haven, Blues jam w/Blue Haven, 9:30pm, no cover 9:30pm, no cover

Whiskey Haulers, 9:30pm, no cover Whiskey Haulers, 9:30pm, no cover

Mustache Kitty, 9pm, no cover Mustache Kitty, 9pm, no cover

5 STAR SALOON 5 STAR SALOON

Karaoke, 10pm, no cover Karaoke, 10pm, no cover

DJ Boogi, 10pm, no cover before 10pm, DJ Boogi, 10pm, no cover before 10pm, DJ Boogi, 10pm, no cover before 10pm, DJ Boogi, 10pm, no cover before 10pm, $5 after $5 after $5 after $5 after

3RD STREET 3RD STREET

132 132 WestWest St., St., (775)(775) 329-2878 329-2878

SUNDAY 8/318/31 SUNDAY

DG Kicks, 9pm, Tu, no cover DG Kicks, 9pm, Tu, no cover Open Mic w/Steve Elegant, 7pm, Tu, no cover Open Mic w/Steve Elegant, 7pm, Tu, no cover Karaoke, 10pm, Tu, W, no cover Karaoke, 10pm, Tu, W, no cover

BAR-M-BAR BAR-M-BAR

Monday Night Open Mic, Monday Night Open Mic, 8pm, M, no cover 8pm, M, no cover

816 816 Highway 40 West, Verdi; (775)(775) 351-3206 Highway 40 West, Verdi; 351-3206

CARGO AT AT WHITNEY PEAK HOTEL CARGO WHITNEY PEAK HOTEL

Old Dominion, 8pm, $5 Old Dominion, 8pm, $5

CEOL IRISH PUB CEOL IRISH PUB

Neil O’Kane, 9pm, no cover Neil O’Kane, 9pm, no cover

255255 N. Virginia St., St., (775)(775) 398-5400 N. Virginia 398-5400 538538 S. Virginia St., St., (775)(775) 329-5558 S. Virginia 329-5558

CHAPEL TAVERN CHAPEL TAVERN

10991099 S. Virginia St., St., (775)(775) 324-2244 S. Virginia 324-2244

Sonic Mass w/DJ Tigerbunny, Sonic Mass w/DJ Tigerbunny, 7pm, no cover 7pm, no cover

Good Friday with rotating DJs, Good Friday with rotating DJs, 10pm, no cover 10pm, no cover

COMMA COFFEE COMMA COFFEE

312 312 S. Carson St., St., Carson City;City; (775)(775) 883-2662 S. Carson Carson 883-2662

COTTONWOOD RESTAURANT & BAR Szlachetka, 6pm, no cover COTTONWOOD RESTAURANT & BARMattMatt Szlachetka, 6pm, no cover 10142 RueRue Hilltop, Truckee; (530) 587-5711 10142 Hilltop, Truckee; (530) 587-5711

Sheldon Felich and Friends, Sheldon Felich and Friends, 6pm, no cover 6pm, no cover

DAVIDSON’S DISTILLERY DAVIDSON’S DISTILLERY

Anarchy Lace, 9:30pm, no cover Anarchy Lace, 9:30pm, no cover

275 275 E. Fourth St., St., (775)(775) 324-1917 E. Fourth 324-1917

EL EL CORTEZ LOUNGE CORTEZ LOUNGE

235 235 W. Second St., St., (775)(775) 324-4255 W. Second 324-4255

Dead Winter Carpenters, 7pm, no cover Trey Stone Band, 7pm, no cover Dead Winter Carpenters, 7pm, no cover Trey Stone Band, 7pm, no cover

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Blues Monsters, 7pm, no cover Blues Monsters, 7pm, no cover

DJ and karaoke, 9pm, no cover DJ and karaoke, 9pm, no cover

11001100 E. Plumb Ln.,Ln., (775)(775) 828-7665 E. Plumb 828-7665

HELLFIRE SALOON HELLFIRE SALOON

Karaoke w/Nitesong Productions, 9pm, Tu, Karaoke w/Nitesong Productions, 9pm, Tu, The Mighty Surf Lords, 2pm, no cover The Mighty Surf Lords, 2pm, no cover Open Mic/Ladies Night, 8:30pm, W, no cover Open Mic/Ladies Night, 8:30pm, W, no cover

Kanekoa, 7pm, no cover Kanekoa, 7pm, no cover

HIMMEL HAUS HIMMEL HAUS

Matthew Szlachetka, 1pm, M, no cover Matthew Szlachetka, 1pm, M, no cover

Spoken Views Speak Easy, 8pm, $5 Spoken Views Speak Easy, 8pm, $5

Aug. 28,28, 7 p.m.

Aug. 7 p.m.

Great Basin Brewing Co.Co. Great Basin Brewing 846846 Victorian Ave. Victorian Ave. Sparks Sparks 355-7711 355-7711

Comedy Comedy 3rd3rd Street, 125125 W. Third St.,St., 323-5005: Street, W. Third 323-5005: Comedy NightNight & Improv w/Patrick Shillito, Comedy & Improv w/Patrick Shillito, W, 9pm, no cover W, 9pm, no cover

Catch a Rising Star, Silver Legacy, 407407 N. N. Catch a Rising Star, Silver Legacy, Virginia St.,St., 329-4777: Jill Bryan, Virginia 329-4777: Jill Bryan, Th, Su, 7:30pm, $15.95; F, 7:30pm, 10pm, Th, Su, 7:30pm, $15.95; F, 7:30pm, 10pm, $15.95; Sa, 7:30pm, 10pm, $17.95; $15.95; Sa, 7:30pm, 10pm, $17.95; Dante and Rebekah, Tu-W, 7:30pm, $15.95 Dante and Rebekah, Tu-W, 7:30pm, $15.95 TheThe Improv at Harveys Cabaret, Harveys Improv at Harveys Cabaret, Harveys LakeLake Tahoe, Stateline, (800) 553-1022: Tahoe, Stateline, (800) 553-1022: DonDon McMillan, Nick Hoff, Th, Th-F, Su, 9pm, McMillan, Nick Hoff, Th, Th-F, Su, 9pm, $25;$25; Sa, 8pm, 10pm, $30,$30, Sa, 8pm, 10pm, Will Will Durst, DavidDavid Gee,Gee, W, 9pm, $25$25 Durst, W, 9pm,

Open mic, 7pm, no cover Open mic, 7pm, no cover

Open Mic Night, 9pm, M, no cover Open Mic Night, 9pm, M, no cover Trivia Night, 9pm, W, no cover Trivia Night, 9pm, W, no cover

38193819 Saddle Rd.,Rd., South LakeLake Tahoe; (530)(530) 314-7665 Saddle South Tahoe; 314-7665

Dead DeadWinter Winter Carpenters Carpenters

CW and Mr. Spoons, noon, M, no cover CW and Mr. Spoons, noon, M, no cover

Goin Country, 8pm, W, no cover Goin Country, 8pm, W, no cover

98259825 S. Virginia St., St., (775)(775) 622-8878 S. Virginia 622-8878

140 140 Vesta St., St., (775)(775) 742-1858 Vesta 742-1858

9below0, 9:30pm, no cover 9below0, 9:30pm, no cover

Traditional Irish Tune Session, Traditional Irish Tune Session, 7pm, Tu, no cover 7pm, Tu, no cover

CZ and Bon Vivants, 7pm, no cover CZ and Bon Vivants, 7pm, no cover

10580 N. McCarran Blvd., (775)(775) 746-2228 10580 N. McCarran Blvd., 746-2228

THETHE HOLLAND PROJECT HOLLAND PROJECT

PoPst shsh owoswonline ost s onlinb eyby rere gisgte ri is tenrigna tat Mark Castro Band, 9pm, no cover g Mark Castro Band, 9pm, no cover www.n wwwew srevev .new iew ie.c wo /r/r .cm eneon. oDeadsr om . Dealin e is d th lin ee e is Frid th bebfo Fray iday re efore pupbulic atiaotino. blic n.

Live flamenco guitar music, Live flamenco guitar music, 5:30pm, no cover 5:30pm, no cover

170 170 S. Virginia St., St., (775)(775) 322-1800 S. Virginia 322-1800 846846 Victorian Ave.,Ave., Sparks; (775)(775) 355-7711 Victorian Sparks; 355-7711

The Dan Band, 10pm, $20-$25 The Dan Band, 10pm, $20-$25

Karaoke w/Lisa Lisa, 9pm, M, W, no cover Karaoke w/Lisa Lisa, 9pm, M, W, no cover Karaoke with Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover Karaoke with Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover Karaoke with Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover Karaoke with Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover Karaoke with Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover Karaoke with Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover Karaoke with Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover Karaoke with Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover Karaoke w/Miss Sophie, 9pm, Tu, no cover Karaoke w/Miss Sophie, 9pm, Tu, no cover

FUEGO FUEGO

GREAT BASIN BREWING CO.CO. GREAT BASIN BREWING

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 9/1-9/3 MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 9/1-9/3

Reno-Tahoe Comedy at Pioneer Reno-Tahoe Comedy at Pioneer Underground, 100100 S. Virginia St.,St., Underground, S. Virginia 686-6600: AngelAngel Salazar, F-Sa,F-Sa, 8:30pm, 686-6600: Salazar, 8:30pm, $12-$15; Justin Rivera, Sa, 4pm; $12-$15; Justin Rivera, Sa, 4pm; Su, Su, 1:30pm, 6:30pm, $9-$14 1:30pm, 6:30pm, $9-$14

Teewrecks and Friends, 7:30pm, $5 Teewrecks and Friends, 7:30pm, $5

OPINION OF OF THETHE STATE 28, 28,20142014 | | RN&R RN&R | | 27 OPINION | | NEWS NEWS | | GREEN GREEN | | FEATURE FEATURESTORY STORY | | ARTS&CULTURE ARTS&CULTURE | | IN ROTATION IN ROTATION | | ARTART STATE | | FOODFINDS FOODFINDS | | FILMFILM | | MUSICBEAT MUSICBEAT | | NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS | | THISTHISWEEK WEEK | | MISCELLANY MISCELLANY | | AUGUST AUGUST 27

JAVA JUNGLE JAVA JUNGLE 246 W. First St., (775) 329-4484

THURSDAY 8/28 THURSDAY 8/28

FRIDAY 8/29 FRIDAY 8/29

SATURDAY 8/30 SATURDAY 8/30

Erika Paul, 6pm, no cover Erika Paul, 6pm, no cover

First Take featuring Rick Metz, First Take featuring Rick Metz, 6pm, no cover 6pm, no cover

Bill Davis, 6pm, no cover Bill Davis, 6pm, no cover

SUNDAY 8/31 SUNDAY 8/31

246 W. First St., (775) 329-4484

JAZZ, A LOUISIANA KITCHEN JAZZ, A LOUISIANA KITCHEN 1180 Scheels Dr., Sparks; (775) 657-8659

1180 Scheels Dr., Sparks; (775) 657-8659

JUB JUB’S THIRST PARLOR JUB JUB’S THIRST PARLOR 71 S. Wells Ave., (775) 384-1652

2) Blazin Mics!, 10pm, M, no cover 2) Blazin Mics!, 10pm, M, no cover

71 S. Wells Ave., (775) 384-1652 1) Showroom 2) Main Bar 1) Showroom 2) Main Bar

DJ DJ Dan Dan

KNITTING FACTORY CONCERT HOUSE KNITTING FACTORY CONCERT HOUSE 211 N. Virginia St., (775) 323-5648

Sept. 1, 10 p.m.

Sept. 1,Sierra 10 p.m.

Grand Resort Grand 2500 E. Sierra SecondResort St. 2500 E. Second St. 789-2000 789-2000

211 N. Virginia St., (775) 323-5648

MOODY’S BISTRO BAR & BEATS MOODY’S BISTRO BAR & BEATS 10007 Bridge St., Truckee; (530) 587-8688

Martha Simon and the Man Fellas, Martha Simon and the Man Fellas, 8:30pm, no cover 8:30pm, no cover

PADDY & IRENE’S IRISH PUB PADDY & IRENE’S IRISH PUB 906-A Victorian Ave., Sparks; (775) 358-5484

Acoustic Wonderland, 8pm, no cover Acoustic Wonderland, 8pm, no cover

POLO LOUNGE POLO LOUNGE 1559 S. Virginia St., (775) 322-8864

Steve Starr, 8pm, no cover Steve Starr, 8pm, no cover

10007 Bridge St., Truckee; (530) 587-8688

906-A Victorian Ave., Sparks; (775) 358-5484 1559 S. Virginia St., (775) 322-8864

RED DOG SALOON RED DOG SALOON 76 N. C St., Virginia City; (775) 847-7474 1483 E. Fourth St., (775) 622-9424

Comedy Night with DJ Sandhu featuring Comedy Night 8:30pm, with DJ Sandhu featuring Drake Nelson, $6 Drake Nelson, 8:30pm, $6

Nipsey Hussle, 7pm, $25 Nipsey Hussle, 7pm, $25

Mark Sexton Trio, 8:30pm, no cover Mark Sexton Trio, 8:30pm, no cover

Chuck Hughes Trio, 8:30pm, no cover Chuck Hughes Trio, 8:30pm, no cover

Gemini, 9pm, no cover Gemini, 9pm, no cover

Gemini, 9pm, no cover Gemini, 9pm, no cover

Corky Bennett, 8pm, W, no cover Corky Bennett, 8pm, W, no cover

Karaoke, 8pm, no cover Karaoke, 8pm, no cover

Live jazz, 7:30pm, W, no cover Live jazz, 7:30pm, W, no cover

924 S. Wells Ave., (775) 323-4142

SE7EN TEAHOUSE/BAR SE7EN TEAHOUSE/BAR 148 West St., (775) 284-3363

Sept. 3, 8 p.m.

Sept. 3, 8Factory p.m.

Knitting Knitting Factory 211 N. Virginia St. 211 N. Virginia St. 323-5648 323-5648

148 West St., (775) 284-3363

Bluegrass/Americana Open Bluegrass/Americana Open Performance Jam, 7pm, no cover Performance Jam, 7pm, no cover

SIDELINES BAR & NIGHTCLUB SIDELINES BAR & NIGHTCLUB 1237 Baring Blvd., Sparks; (775) 355-1030

Karaoke, 8pm, M, Tuesday Jam and Open Karaoke, 8pm, M, Tuesday JamTu,and Mic w/Davis Nothere, 8:30pm, noOpen cover Mic w/Davis Nothere, 8:30pm, Tu, no cover

1237 Baring Blvd., Sparks; (775) 355-1030

ST. JAMES INFIRMARY ST. JAMES INFIRMARY 445 California Ave., (775) 657-8484

Dance party, 9pm, no cover Dance party, 9pm, no cover

Tuesday Night Trivia, 8pm, Tu, no cover Tuesday Night Trivia, 8pm, Tu, no cover

VASSAR LOUNGE VASSAR LOUNGE 1545 Vassar St., (775) 348-7197

Karaoke w/Rock N’J Entertainment, Karaoke w/Rock N’J Entertainment, 8pm, no cover 8pm, no cover

Koolwater Karaoke, 7pm, W, no cover Koolwater Karaoke, 7pm, W, no cover

445 California Ave., (775) 657-8484 1545 Vassar St., (775) 348-7197

WILDFLOWER VILLAGE WILDFLOWER VILLAGE 4395 W. Fourth St., (775) 747-8848

The Writer’s Block Open Mic, The Writer’s Block Open Mic, 6:30pm, no cover 6:30pm, no cover

Reno Music Project Open Mic, Reno Music Project Open Mic, 6:30pm, no cover 6:30pm, no cover

WILD RIVER GRILLE WILD RIVER GRILLE 17 S. Virginia St., (775) 284-7455

Tany Jane, 6:30pm, no cover Tany Jane, 6:30pm, no cover

Milton Merlos, 6:30pm, no cover Milton Merlos, 6:30pm, no cover

4395 W. Fourth St., (775) 747-8848 17 S. Virginia St., (775) 284-7455

10

Open Mic Night, 7pm, M, W, no cover Open Mic Night, 7pm, M, W, no cover Hip Hop Open Mic, 10pm, W, no cover Hip Hop Open Mic, 10pm, W, no cover

RYAN’S SALOON RYAN’S SALOON 924 S. Wells Ave., (775) 323-4142

The The Head Head and and The The Heart Heart

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The Head and the Heart, San Fermin, The Head and the Heart, San Fermin, 8pm, W, $25-$55 8pm, W, $25-$55

Lonesome Wayne Trio, 1pm, no cover Lonesome Wayne 1pm, no cover Deep Groove, 5pm,Trio, no cover Deep Groove, 5pm, no cover

Tin Can String Band, 7pm, no cover Tin Can String Band, 7pm, no cover

76 N. C St., Virginia City; (775) 847-7474

RUBEN’S CANTINA RUBEN’S CANTINA 1483 E. Fourth St., (775) 622-9424

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 9/1-9/3 MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 9/1-9/3

Outspoken: Open Mic Night, Outspoken: Open Mic Night, 7pm, M, no cover 7pm, M, no cover

Wildflower Comedy Power Hour Wildflower ComedyTu, Power Hour Open Mic, 8:30pm, no cover Open Mic, 8:30pm, Tu, no cover Tany Jane, 6:30pm, no cover Tany Jane, 6:30pm, no cover

Colin Ross, 2pm, no cover Colin Paul Ross,Carlson, 2pm, no6:30pm, cover no cover Erika Erika Paul Carlson, 6:30pm, no cover

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Relive the memories and the great music from the ‘70s!

A spot on tribute that features 20 of ABBA’s greatest... “Dancing Dancing Queen”, “Mamma Mia!”, “Fernando”, “Take A Chance On Me” and MORE. If you loved the movie and the play, you will love ABBACADABRA!

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AUGUST 28, 2014 AUGUST 28, 2014

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%ODFN$QG:KLWH%DOO19 RUJ 2U E\ 3KRQH (775) 771-8523 NORTHERN NEVADA

HOPES Your partner in health

ATLANTIS CASINO RESORT SPA 3800ATLANTIS S. Virginia St.,CASINO (775) 825-4700 RESORT SPA 1) Grand 2) Cabaret 3800 Ballroom S. VirginiaStage St., (775) 825-4700 1) Grand Ballroom Stage 2) Cabaret

CARSON VALLEY INN 1627CARSON Hwy. 395, Minden; (775)INN 782-9711 VALLEY

THURSDAY 8/28 THURSDAY 8/28

FRIDAY 8/29 FRIDAY 8/29

SATURDAY 8/30 SATURDAY 8/30

SUNDAY 8/31 SUNDAY 8/31

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 9/1-9/3 MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 9/1-9/3

2) Atomika, 8pm, no cover 2) Atomika, 8pm, no cover

2) Atomika, 4pm, Palmore Brothers, 10pm, no cover 4pm, Palmore Brothers, 2) Atomika, 10pm, no cover

2) Atomika, 4pm, Palmore Brothers, 10pm, no cover 4pm, Palmore Brothers, 2) Atomika, 10pm, no cover

2) Palmore Brothers, 8pm, no cover 2) Palmore Brothers, 8pm, no cover

2) Escalade, 8pm, M, Tu, W, no cover 2) Escalade, 8pm, M, Tu, W, no cover

2) Stew Stewart, 8pm, no cover 2) Stew Stewart, 8pm, no cover

2) Stew Stewart, 8pm, no cover 2) Stew Stewart, 8pm, no cover

1) Miner, 10pm, no cover 1) Miner, 10pm, no cover

1) Mustache Harbor, 9pm, $12-$15 2) Multipleks, Daytnxa, cover 1) Mustache Harbor,11pm, 9pm,no $12-$15 2) Multipleks, Daytnxa, 11pm, no cover

1) Spectra, 7pm, $25.95+ 2) Audioboxx, no cover 7pm, $25.95+ 1) Spectra,10:30pm, 2) Audioboxx, 10:30pm, no cover

1) Spectra, 7pm, $25.95+ 2) Audioboxx, no cover 7pm, $25.95+ 1) Spectra,10:30pm, 4) Jamie Rollins, 10pm, no cover 2) Audioboxx, 10:30pm, no cover 4) Jamie Rollins, 10pm, no cover

1) Spectra, 7pm, 9:30pm, $25.95+ 2) Audioboxx, no cover 1) Spectra,10:30pm, 7pm, 9:30pm, $25.95+ 4) Jamie Rollins, 10pm, no cover 2) Audioboxx, 10:30pm, no cover 4) Jamie Rollins, 10pm, no cover

2) Locals Night w/DJ 2Wice, 10pm, no cover w/local 2) Locals Night w/DJID, 2Wice, $15 10pm, after midnight no cover w/local ID, $15 after midnight

2) Lex Nightclub Saturdays w/DJ Enfo, 1) Survivor, 9pm, $15-$35 10pm, $15-$30 2) Lex Nightclub Saturdays w/DJ Enfo, 2) Lex Nightclub9pm, Fridays w/DJ Rick Gee, 1) Survivor, $15-$35 3) County Social Saturdays w/DJ Jamie 10pm, $15-$30 10pm, $15-$30 2) Lex Nightclub Fridays w/DJ Rick Gee,G, 10pm, no cover 3) County Social Saturdays w/DJ Jamie 10pm, $15-$30 G, 10pm, no cover

3) Big Red, 10pm, no cover 3) Big Red, 10pm, no cover

3) Arty the Party, 10pm, no cover 3) Arty the Party, 10pm, no cover

2) Stew Stewart, 8pm, no cover

2) Stew Stewart, 8pm, no cover 1) Valley Cabaret Lounge 3) TJ’s Corral 1627Ballroom Hwy. 395,2) Minden; (775) 782-9711 1) Valley Ballroom 2) Cabaret Lounge 3) TJ’s Corral

CRYSTAL BAY CLUB 14 Hwy. 28, Crystal Bay;CLUB (775) 833-6333 CRYSTAL BAY

1) Crown Room Red Room 14 Hwy. 28, 2) Crystal Bay; (775) 833-6333 1) Crown Room 2) Red Room

ELDORADO RESORT CASINO 345 ELDORADO N. Virginia St., (775) 786-5700 RESORT CASINO 1) Showroom 2) Brew 345 N. Virginia St.,Brothers (775) 786-5700 3) BuBinga Live 4)2)Stadium Bar 1) Showroom Brew Brothers 3) BuBinga Live 4) Stadium Bar

GRAND SIERRA RESORT 2500GRAND E. SecondSIERRA St., (775) 789-2000 RESORT

1) Grand Lex (775) Nightclub 2500 Theater E. Second2) St., 789-2000 3) Sports Book 4) Cantina The Beach 1) Grand Theater 2) Lex5)Nightclub 6) Summit Pavilion 3) Sports Book 4) Cantina 5) The Beach 6) Summit Pavilion

HARRAH’S LAKE TAHOE 15 Hwy. 50, Stateline; (775) TAHOE 588-6611 HARRAH’S LAKE

1) South Shore 2) Peek Center Stage 15 Hwy. 50, Room Stateline; (775)3)588-6611 1) South Shore Room 2) Peek 3) Center Stage

HARRAH’S RENO 219 HARRAH’S N. Center St., (775) 788-2900 RENO

1) Broadway Showstoppers, 8pm,1) $33.40-$42.40 Broadway Showstoppers, 1) Sammy’s Showroom 2) The Zone 219 N. Center St., (775) 788-2900 8pm, $33.40-$42.40 3) Sapphire Lounge 4) Plaza2)5)The Convention 1) Sammy’s Showroom Zone Center

3) Sapphire Lounge 4) Plaza 5) Convention Center

HARVEYS LAKE TAHOE 18 Hwy. 50, Stateline; (775)TAHOE 588-6611 HARVEYS LAKE

1) Outdoor 2) Cabo (775) Wabo 588-6611 Cantina Lounge 18 Hwy.Arena 50, Stateline; 1) Outdoor Arena 2) Cabo Wabo Cantina Lounge

JOHN ASCUAGA’S NUGGET 1100JOHN Nugget Ave., Sparks; (775) 356-3300 ASCUAGA’S NUGGET

3) DJ/dancing, 5pm, no cover Joshua Paige, 7pm,5pm, no cover 3) DJ/dancing, no cover 1) Celebrity Showroom 2) Rose Ballroom 3) Gilley’s 1100 Nugget Ave., Sparks; (775) 356-3300 Joshua Paige, 7pm, no cover

1) Celebrity Showroom 2) Rose Ballroom 3) Gilley’s

PEPPERMILL RESORT SPA CASINO 2707PEPPERMILL S. Virginia St., (775) 826-2121SPA CASINO2) Drinking with Clowns, 7pm, no cover RESORT 1) Tuscany 2) Terrace Lounge 3) Edge 2707 S.Ballroom Virginia St., (775) 826-2121 1) Tuscany Ballroom 2) Terrace Lounge 3) Edge

2) Drinking with Clowns, 7pm, no cover

SANDS REGENCY CASINO HOTEL 345 SANDS N. Arlington Ave., (775) 348-2200 REGENCY CASINO HOTEL

2) Jonathan Barton, 6pm, Tu, W, no cover 2)M, Jonathan Barton, 6pm, M, Tu, W, no cover

David Gray David Aug. 29, 8Gray p.m.

1) Spectra, 7pm, $25.95+ 2) Audioboxx, no cover 7pm, $25.95+ 1) Spectra,10:30pm, 2) Audioboxx, 10:30pm, no cover

1) Spectra, 7pm Tu, W, $25.95+ 2) Live Band Karaoke, M, DJ Chris 1) Spectra , 7pm Tu,10pm, W, $25.95+ English, 10pm, Left of Centre, W,DJ Chris 2) Live BandTu,Karaoke, 10pm, M, 10:30pm, no10pm, coverTu, Left of Centre, W, English, 10:30pm, no cover 2) DJ Dan, 10pm, M, $10, Rob Garza, 10pm, Tu, Dan, $10, Sabo 10pm, 2) DJ 10pm,&M,Subdocta, $10, Rob Garza, W, $10 6) Thievery Corporation, 10pm, Tu, $10, Sabo & Subdocta, 10pm, Mark 8pm, Tu, $40 W,Farina, $10 6) Dirtwire, Thievery Corporation, Mark Farina, Dirtwire, 8pm, Tu, $40

1) Broadway Showstoppers, 8pm, 1) $33.40-$42.40 Broadway Showstoppers, 2) DJ/dancing, 10pm, no cover 8pm, $33.40-$42.40 3) Rock River, 8pm,10pm, no cover 2) DJ/dancing, no cover 3) Rock River, 8pm, no cover

2) DJ Rick Gee, DJ SN1, 10pm, $20 3) Arty the Party, 10pm, no cover 3) Arty Party, no cover 2) DJthe Rick Gee,10pm, DJ SN1, 10pm, $20 3) Arty the Party, 10pm, no cover 3) Arty the Party, 10pm, no cover 1) Broadway Showstoppers, 1) Broadway Showstoppers, 8pm, 2) DJ/dancing, 1) $33.40-$42.40 Broadway Showstoppers , 8pm, Broadway Showstoppers, 1) $33.40-$42.40 10pm, no $33.40-$42.40 cover 3) Rock River, 8pm, 8pm, 2) DJ/dancing, 3) Rock 8pm, no cover 8pm,River, $33.40-$42.40 no cover R-Boogie, 8pm, no 8pm, cover 10pm, 4) noDJ cover 3) Rock River, 3) Rock River, 8pm, no cover no cover 4) DJ R-Boogie, 8pm, no cover

1) An Evening with the Eagles, 7:30pm, 1) An$99.50-$255.50 Evening with the Eagles, 7:30pm, $99.50-$255.50

1) An Evening with the Eagles, 7:30pm, 1) An$99.50-$255.50 Evening with the Eagles, 7:30pm, $99.50-$255.50

3) DJ/dancing, 5pm, 11pm, no cover Joshua Paige, 7pm,5pm, no cover 3) DJ/dancing, 11pm, no cover Joshua Paige, 7pm, no cover

3) DJ/dancing, 5pm, 11pm, no cover Joshua Paige, 7pm,5pm, no cover 3) DJ/dancing, 11pm, no cover Joshua Paige, 7pm, no cover

3) DJ/dancing, 5pm, Bikini Bull Riding Competition, 9pm, 5pm, no cover 3) DJ/dancing, Bikini Bull Riding Competition, 9pm, no cover

2) Drinking with Clowns, 8pm, no cover 2) Drinking with Clowns, 8pm, no cover 2) Kyle Williams, 6pm, no cover 3) Fixx Fridays,with 7:30pm, $10 8pm, after no 8pmcover 3) Varsity Blue,with 10pm, $20 8pm, no cover 2) Drinking Clowns, 2) Drinking Clowns, 2) Kyle Williams, 6pm, no cover 3) Fixx Fridays, 7:30pm, $10 after 8pm 3) Varsity Blue, 10pm, $20

2) Kyle Williams, 6pm, M, Tu, W, no cover 2) Kyle Williams, 6pm, M, Tu, W, no cover

OPINION | OPINION

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NEWS | NEWS

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GREEN | GREEN

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FEATURE STORY | FEATURE STORY

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ARTS&CULTURE | ARTS&CULTURE

IN ROTATION | IN ROTATION

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ART OF THE STATE | ART OF THE STATE

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FOODFINDS | FOODFINDS

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FILM | FILM

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MUSICBEAT | MUSICBEAT

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NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS | NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS

Hangar 10603Kat, Stead Stead, 677-7088:Bar, Karaoke Sa, Blvd., 9pm, no cover 677-7088: Karaoke no cover Murphy’s Law Irish Pub,Kat, 180Sa,W.9pm, Peckham Murphy’s Law 823-9977: Irish Pub,Steve 180 Starr W. Peckham Lane, Ste. 1070, Lane, F,Ste. 1070, Karaoke, 9pm, no 823-9977: cover Steve Starr Karaoke, F, 9pm, coverC St., Ponderosa Saloon, 106noSouth

3) Locals Night, 5pm, M, Classic Rock Night, 5pm, Tu,Night, Toughest 3) Locals 5pm, Cowboy M, Classic Rock Competition, W, no cover Night, 5pm,9pm, Tu, Toughest Cowboy Competition, 9pm, W, no cover

2) Bonzai Thursdays w/DJ Trivia, 8pm, coverThursdays w/DJ Trivia, 2)no Bonzai of Aura, 8pm, no cover 1) Grand Rum325-7401 Bullions Island Bar 3) University 407 N.Exposition Virginia Hall St., 2) (775) 9pm, no cover of Aura, 3) University 3) Aura UltraExposition Lounge 4)Hall Silver Baron Lounge 1) Grand 2) Rum Bullions Island Bar 9pm, no cover 3) Aura Ultra Lounge 4) Silver Baron Lounge

SILVER LEGACY 407 SILVER N. VirginiaLEGACY St., (775) 325-7401

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THIS WEEK | THIS WEEK

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MISCELLANY | MISCELLANY

Karaoke Karaoke Elbow Room Bar, 2002 Victorian Ave., Sparks, Elbow Room Victorian Ave., Sparks, 359-3526: Th, Bar, 7pm, 2002 no cover 7pm,Blvd., no cover Hangar359-3526: Bar, 10603Th,Stead Stead,

1) Broadway Showstoppers, 8pm, W, $33.40-$42.40 Broadway Showstoppers, 1) M, 8pm, M, W, $33.40-$42.40

1) The Boogie Daddies, 8pm, no cover 1) The Boogie Daddies, 8pm, no cover 1) The Boogie Daddies, 8pm, no cover 1) The Boogie Daddies, 8pm, no cover 1) David Gray, 8pm, $49.50-$69.50 1) Engelbert Humperdinck, 8pm, $55.502) Recovery Sundays, 10pm, no cover 2) Gong Show Karaoke, 8pm, Tu, 2) Big Bad Boogie Rock,$49.50-$69.50 9pm, no cover $79.50 2) Big BadHumperdinck, Boogie Rock,8pm, 9pm,$55.501) David Gray, 8pm, 1) Engelbert 3) Industry Night,Sundays, 9pm, no10pm, cover no cover Country-Rock Bingo w/Jeff Gregg, 2) Recovery 2) Gong Show Karaoke, 8pm, Tu, 3) Fashion Friday, 9pm,Rock, no cover Saturdays, 2) Big Bad Boogie 9pm, no cover no cover $79.503)2)Seduction Big Bad Boogie Rock,9pm, 9pm,$5 4) Rebekah Chase, 8pm, no cover 9pm, W, no cover Bingo w/Jeff Gregg, 3) Industry Night, 9pm, no cover Country-Rock 4) Rebekah Chase, 8pm, nono cover 4) Rebekah 8pm, noSaturdays, cover 9pm, $5 3) Fashion Friday, 9pm, cover no coverChase, 3) Seduction 4) Rebekah Chase, 8pm, no cover 9pm, W, no cover 4) Rebekah Chase, 8pm, no cover 4) Rebekah Chase, 8pm, no cover

1) 3rd LoungeAve., 2) Poolside 345Street N. Arlington (775) 348-2200 1) 3rd Street Lounge 2) Poolside

Aug.Legacy 29, 8 p.m.

Silver Legacy 407Silver N. Virginia St. 407 N. Virginia St. 325-7401 325-7401

Ponderosa South C St., Virginia City, Saloon, 847-7210:106 Steel Rockin’ Virginia City, 847-7210: Steel Rockin’ Karaoke, F, 7:30pm, no cover 7:30pm, no cover Spiro’sKaraoke, Sports F,Bar & Grille, 1475 E. Prater

Spiro’s Bar & Grille, 1475 Way, Ste.Sports 103, Sparks, 356-6000: F-Sa,E. Prater Ste. 103, Sparks, 356-6000: F-Sa, 9pm,Way, no cover 9pm, no cover West Second Street Bar, 118 W. Second St., West Second 384-7976: Daily,Street 8pm, noBar, cover118 W. Second St., 384-7976: Daily, 8pm, no cover

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

!

Itʼs happen ing in ACTIVITIES

FOOD TRUCK DRIVE-IN

Food Truck Drive-In comes to Victorian Square on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of each month through October. 5PM to 9PM. Twenty-four rib cookers from across the nation will compete Enjoy the finest in mobile cuisine including Hawaiian fusion, for prizes and the title of the “Best in the West” at John desserts, hot dogs, pulled pork nachos and much more! After Ascuaga’s Nugget’s 26th annual cook-off. W-Su through 9/1. dinner, head to Saint Mary’s Ampitheater for a free movie at Opens 8/27, free admission. Victorian Square, Victorian Ave. 8PM. Our next movie (September 13) is Princess and the Frog. Victorian Square, Victorian Ave, free.

PERENNIALS Presented by Mark Mercier. Learn the keys to a beautiful CLICKETS KNITTING GROUP garden bed using perennials that give you an ever-changing This class is for knitters of all ages and levels. Yarn and look to your garden. Sa, 8/30, 11AM & 1PM, free, but needles are available. First and Third Su of every month, a donation of a can of food for the local food bank is 1:30-3PM, free. Spanish Springs Library, 7100A Pyramid Lake appreciated. Rail City Garden Center, 1720 Brierley Way Highway, Spanish Springs (775) 424-1800 (775) 355-1551

BEST IN THE WEST NUGGET RIB COOK-OFF

FALL BULB PLANTING

Presented by Mark Mercier. Now is the time to plant bulbs for spring color. Selection, ideas and protection will be discussed.

Please RSVP. Sa, 9/6, 11AM & 1PM, free, but a donation of a can of food for the local food bank is appreciated. Rail City Garden Center, 1720 Brierley Way (775) 355-155

PERFORMANCE AND MUSIC JOSHUA PAIGE

W, 8/27, 7PM, Th, 8/28, 7PM, F, 8/29, 7PM and Sa, 8/30, 7PM, no cover. John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

DEAD WINTER CARPENTERS

SCHEELS RUNNING CLUB

Run with expert pacers and enjoy running in a group Tu, 6:30PM through 12/9, free. Scheels, 1200 Scheels Dr. (775) 331-2700

Th, 8/28, 7PM, no cover. Great Basin Brewing Co. 846 Victorian Ave. (775) 355-7711

CROCHET CONNECTION

F, 8/29, 7PM, no cover. Great Basin Brewing Co. 846 Victorian Ave. (775) 355-7711

Learn to crochet or share tips with other crochet enthusiasts.

Th, 4-5:45PM, free. Spanish Springs Library, 7100A Pyramid Lake Highway. (775) 424-1800

FOUR SEASONS BOOK CLUB

TREY STONE BAND BLUES MONSTERS

Sa, 8/30, 7PM, no cover. Great Basin Brewing Co. 846 Victorian Ave. (775) 355-7711

BIKINI BULL RIDING

DJ and Bikini Bull Riding Competition. Su, 5 & 9PM through 12/28, no cover. John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

LOCALS NIGHT

Locals Night, DJ. M, 5PM through 12/29, no cover. John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

LIVE MONDAYS WITH TANY JANE

Open mic night every Monday at 8PM, hosted by Tany Jane.

M, 8PM, no cover. Sidelines Bar & Nightclub, 1237 Baring Blvd. (775) 355-1030

CLASSIC ROCK NIGHT

LADIES NIGHT & TOUGHEST COWBOY

ERIKA PAUL

Enjoy Louisiana-style food and the soulful, breathtaking jazz sounds of Erika Paul on keyboards and vocals. Th, 6PM, no cover. Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen, 1180 Scheels Dr. (775) 657-8659

A SINGERS-SONGWRITERS SHOWCASE

MATT SZLACHETKA

LIVE MUSIC & LATE NIGHT DJ

AUGUST 28, 2014

Live music with late-night DJ. Sa, 5PM-2AM & 7PM-midnight through 12/27, no cover.

John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

Every Monday Night!!! M, 8PM. Sidelines Bar & Nightclub, 1237 Baring Blvd. (775) 355-1030

KARAOKE WITH BOBBY DEE

Ladies Night w/live music and Toughest Cowboy Competition. Tu, 8PM, no cover. Morelli’s G Street Saloon, 2285 G St. DJ breaks until midnight. W, 7 & 9PM through 12/31, no cover. (775) 355-8281 John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

CONVERSATION CAFE

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LIVE MUSIC & LATE NIGHT DJ

KARAOKE COMES TO SIDELINES

W, 8PM, no cover. Sidelines Bar & Nightclub, 1237 Baring Blvd. (775) 355-1030

Su, 8/31, 7PM, no cover. Great Basin Brewing Co. 846 Victorian Ave. (775) 355-7711

RN&R

Sa, 6PM, no cover. Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen, 1180 Scheels Dr. (775) 657-8659

KARAOKE

Bring yourself, your instrument and your song. We look forward to hearing and seeing you there! Th, 8PM through 12/18, no cover. Paddy & Irene’s Irish Pub, 906-A Victorian Ave. (775) 358-5484

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BILL DAVIS

OPEN JAM WITH TAZER & FRIENDS

KANEKOA

30

Vocal and instrumental jazz from “The Great American Songbook”, performed by First Take featuring Rick (SAX) Metz. Fridays, 6PM, no cover. Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen, 1180 Scheels Dr. (775) 657-8659

Classic rock night with DJ. Tu, 5PM through 12/30, no cover.

John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

The book club meets the first Saturday of each month. Call to find out each month’s book title. First Sa of every month, 1-2PM, free. Sparks Library, 1125 12th St. (775) 352-3200

The drop-in conversation program meets on the first Saturday M, 9/1, 1PM, no cover. Great Basin Brewing Co. of each month, 2-4PM, free. Sparks Library, 846 Victorian Ave. (775) 355-7711 1125 12th St. (775) 352-3200

LIVE JAZZ

Live music with late-night DJ. F, 5PM-2AM & 7-11PM through 12/26, no cover. John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

KARAOKE

Th-Sa, 9PM, no cover. Bottom’s Up Saloon, 1923 Prater Way (775) 359-3677

For a complete listing of this week’s events, visit newsreview.com/reno

Labor Day Fireworks Extravaganza Late summer is usually the best time to dip into the turquoise blue water of Lake Tahoe. The water isn’t icy cold from spring runoff, and the sun seems less intense than, say, in mid-July. But even if you don’t spend a day at one of the lake’s beaches, there will be plenty of things to do during the three-day weekend, as restaurants, shops and hotel-casinos prepare for an influx of holiday travelers. One of the most anticipated events takes place after dark during the annual pyrotechnic show over the South Shore of Lake Tahoe. The free show gets started at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 31, and can be viewed from Nevada Beach, Timber Cove Marina, Bijou Community Park, Tallac Historic Site, Edgewood Tahoe and Lakeview Commons/El Dorado Beach. For details, visit www.tahoesouth.com.

—Kelley Lang

2014 Tahoe Geotourism Expo

Fallon Cantaloupe Festival The 29th annual end-of-summer festival celebrates Fallon’s agricultural heritage and its history as a grower of the Hearts of Gold cantaloupe, which was popular during the 1920s and 1930s. Visitors can expect to see this melon and other produce for sale, as well as live entertainment, mud volleyball, contests, the Junior Rodeo and other attractions. The event begins on Friday, Aug. 29, and ends on Sunday, Aug. 31, at the Churchill County Fairgrounds, 325 Sheckler Road, Fallon. Gates are open from 7 p.m. to midnight on Friday and 9:30 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and military personnel, $3 for kids ages 3-12 and free for kids under 3. Visit http://falloncantaloupefestival.com.

OPINION

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NEWS

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GREEN

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FEATURE STORY

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The Great Depressurization Chamber

Sustainable Tahoe hosts this expo which demonstrates stewardship tourism by featuring Geotourism Adventure Tracks or “GeoTracks.” A few of the GeoTracks offered include yoga, birding, mountain biking, kayaking, a Tahoe photo tour, art and theater walk, history hikes, among other activities. Other highlights include a “Luka'lelup,” a Washoe tribe gathering of culture, heritage and demonstration of ancestral skills on Saturday, Aug. 30, at Sand Harbor State Park. The Tahoe Mountain Show will also take place that night at Sand Harbor. The Geotourism Expo takes place on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 30-31, at various locations ranging from Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake. Event prices range from free to $65. Call 846-1715 or visit www.tahoeexpo.com.

ARTS&CULTURE

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ART OF THE STATE

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FOODFINDS

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FILM

Burners are invited to wash off the playa dust and chill by the poolside at the postBurning Man retreat featuring three days of dance parties at Lex Nightclub and The Beach at the Grand Sierra Resort, 2500 E. Second St. Electronica collective Thievery Corporation, along with Mark Farina and Dirtwire featuring David Satori of Beats Antique, headline the whole shebang on Tuesday, Sept. 2. The show starts at 8 p.m. at the Summit Pavilion inside the GSR. Tickets for this show are $40.

Various DJs will perform sets throughout the day at The Beach and into the night at Lex Nightclub. The cover charge is $10 to enter Lex. Call 789-2000 or visit http://freshbakin.com.

2014 Annual Alpen Wine Festival The annual festival benefits Can Do Multiple Sclerosis, a national nonprofit organization that provides lifestyle empowerment programs for people with multiple sclerosis.

The $40 ticket purchase includes a commemorative crystal wine glass, a variety of wine tastings featuring more than 40 vineyards, live music and access to the silent auction. The event begins at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 31, at The Village at Squaw Valley USA, 1750 Village East Road, Olympic Valley, California. Call (970) 926-1290 or visit www.mscando.org/alpen. |

MUSICBEAT

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NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS

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THIS WEEK

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MISCELLANY

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AUGUST 28, 2014

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ART

BLAST BIGGEST LITTLE ART SHOW TODAY

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McKinley Arts & Culture Center Sept 6th & 7th 10am-5pm Artist Reception

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MP3’s a crowd I’ve been dating a girl for two months, and I go back and forth from thinking the relationship has legs to wanting to end it. I just had a birthday, and she got me a new iPod Touch with my name engraved on the back. I told her it was too extravagant, but she insisted I keep it. For some reason, I now want to break up with her even more, but I feel guilty about ending it after she got me this pricey gift.

Desperation is always so sexy—like Abraham Lincoln in a lime-green mankini.

There is a natural order to things. The tennis ball does not chase the dog. (Imagine how freaked your dog would be if it did.) It also tends to go over poorly when women overtly pursue men. Males evolved to be the chasers of our species, and most other species—to do the wooing and gift giving. Females evolved to be the choosier sex, to give men the squint-eye and wait for them to prove they are “providers.” When a woman turns the tables and does the wooing, like by giving a man an expensive present right out of the gate, the man tends to suspect there’s something wrong with her. If he wasn’t already ambivalent, he’ll likely get ambivalent. Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Give a man you just started dating an iPod and you’ll be fishing for a new boyfriend.

32 | RN&R |

AUGUST 28, 2014

What you need to figure out is whether your “lemme outta here” feelings are about her or the fact that she got you what may seem like an iShackle.

“Hey, honey…here’s the present you’d get if we had a serious relationship—so now give me the serious relationship.” Give this a week or two and consider whether her gift was desperation-driven or whether she maybe just got into shopping mode and, oops, went a little wild at the mall.

If you decide that your initial reaction—wanting out—is where you really stand, don’t be delayed by the price of the gift. The right time to break up is as soon as you know it’s over. If you decide to stay with her, you might gently confide that what works best for you in a relationship is taking things slowly. We long for what’s slightly out of reach, not what’s hanging all over us raining small appliances: “I know you like music, so I’m giving you an iPod.” Your impulse: “And I know you like shoes, so I’m giving you the boot.” Ω

Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave., No. 280, Santa Monica,CA 90405, or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com).

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by rob brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the coming

THINK FREE.

weeks, it will be important for you to bestow blessings and disseminate gifts and dole out helpful feedback. Maybe you already do a pretty good job at all that, but I urge you to go even further. Through acts of will and surges of compassion, you can and should raise your levels of generosity. Why? Your allies and loved ones need more from you than usual. They have pressing issues that you have special power to address. Moreover, boosting your largesse will heal a little glitch in your mental health. It’s just what the soul doctor ordered.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The Icelandic

word hoppípolla means “jumping into puddles.” I’d love to make that one of your themes in the coming weeks. It would be in sweet accordance with the astrological omens. You are overdue for an extended reign of freelance play ... for a time of high amusement mixed with deep fun and a wandering imagination. See if you can arrange to not only leap into the mud, but also roll down a hill and kiss the sky and sing hymns to the sun. For extra credit, consider adding the Bantu term mbuki-mvuki to your repertoire.

It refers to the act of stripping off your clothes and dancing with crazy joy.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): During the

course of its life, an oyster may change genders numerous times. Back and forth it goes, from male to female and vice versa, always ready to switch. I’m nominating this ambisexual creature to be your power animal in the coming weeks. There has rarely been a better time than now to experiment with the pleasures of gender fluidity. I invite you to tap into the increased resilience and sexy wisdom that could come by expanding your sense of identity in this way.

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34 | RN&R |

AUGUST 28, 2014

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CANCER (June 21-July 22): I’m getting

the sense that in the coming days you will be more casual and nonchalant than usual.

More jaunty and unflappable. You may not be outright irresponsible, but neither will you be hyperfocused on being ultra responsible. I suspect you may even opt not to be buttoned and zippered all the way to the top. It’s also possible you will be willing to let a sly secret or two slip out, and allow one of your interesting eccentricities to shine. I think this is mostly fine. My only advice is to tilt in the direction of being carefree rather than careless.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In his novel Les

Miserables, French author Victor Hugo chose to write a convoluted sentence that was 823 words long. American novelist William Faulkner outdid him, though. In his book Absalom, Absalom!, he crafted a single rambling, labyrinthine sentence crammed with 1,287 words. These people should not be your role models in the coming weeks, Leo. To keep rolling in the direction of your best possible destiny, you should be concise and precise. Straightforward simplicity will work better for you than meandering complexity. There’s no need to rush, though. Take your time. Trust the rhythm that keeps you poised and purposeful.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): As you know,

real confidence has no bluster or bombast.

It’s not rooted in a desire to seem better than everyone else, and it’s not driven by a fear of appearing weak. Real confidence settles in when you have a clear vision of exactly what you need to do. Real confidence blooms as you wield the skills and power you have built through your hard work and discipline. And as I think you already sense, Virgo, the time has come for you to claim a generous new share of real confidence. You are ready to be a bolder and crisper version of yourself.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): As I understand

your situation, Libra, you have played by the rules, you have been sincere and wellmeaning, you have pressed for a solution that was fair and just. But that hasn’t been enough. So now, as long as you stay committed to creating a righteous outcome, you are authorized to invoke this declaration, originally uttered by the ancient Roman poet Virgil: “If I am unable to make the gods above relent, I shall move hell.” Here’s an alternate translation of the original Latin text: “If heaven I cannot bend, then hell I will stir.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Start every

day off with a smile and get it over with,” said the misanthropic comedian W.C. Fields. I know it’s weird to hear those words coming from a professional optimist like me, but just this once I recommend that you follow Fields’ advice. In the near future, you should be as serious and sober and unamusable as you have ever been. You’ve got demanding work to attend to, knotty riddles to solve, complex situations to untangle. So frown strong, Scorpio. Keep an extra sour expression plastered on your face. Smiling would only distract you from the dogged effort you must summon. Unless, of course, you know for a fact that you actually get smarter and more creative when you laugh a lot. In which case, ignore everything I said. Instead, be a juggernaut of cheerful problem solving.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972) was a renowned African-American gospel singer who lent her talents to the civil-rights movement.

Martin Luther King Jr. often called on her to be an opening act for his speeches. She was there on the podium with him on August 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C., when he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In fact, it was her influence that prompted him to depart from his prepared notes and improvise the stirring climax. “Tell them about the dream, Martin,” she politely heckled. And he did just that. Who’s your equivalent of Mahalia Jackson, Sagittarius? Whose spur would you welcome? Who might interrupt you at just the right time? Seek out influences that will push you to reach higher.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): When

Europeans first explored the New World, ships captained by Italians led the way. But none of them sailed Italian ships or represented Italian cities. Cristoforo Colombo (today known as Christopher Columbus) was funded by the government of Spain, Giovanni de Verrazzano by France and Giovanni Caboto (now known as John Cabot)

by England. I see a lesson here for you, Capricorn. To flourish in the coming months, you don’t necessarily need to be supported or sponsored by what you imagine are your natural allies. You may get further by seeking the help of sources that are not the obvious choices.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Walter

Kaufmann had a major role in clarifying the meaning and importance of Friedrich Nietzsche. His English translations of the German philosopher’s books are benchmarks, as are his analyses of the man’s ideas. And yet Kaufmann was not a cheerleader. He regarded Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra as brilliant and triumphant, but also verbose and melodramatic: a “profusion of sapphires in the mud.” I love that phrase, Aquarius, and maybe you will, too, as you navigate your way through the coming weeks. Don’t just automatically avoid the mud, because that’s probably where you will find the sapphires.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I’m not toler-

ant of greed. Acquisitiveness bothers me.

Insatiableness disgusts me. I am all in favor of people having passionate yearnings, but am repelled when their passionate yearnings spill over into egomaniacal avarice. As you can imagine, then, I don’t counsel anyone to be piggishly self-indulgent. Never ever.

Having said that, though, I advise you to be zealous in asking for what you want in the coming weeks. It will be surprisingly healing for both you and your loved ones if you become aggressive in identifying what you need and then going after it. I’m confident, in fact, that it’s the wisest thing for you to do.

Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes and daily text message horoscopes. The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at (877) 873-4888 or (900) 950-7700.

by Dennis Myers PHOTO/DENNIS MYERS

Wine guy Danny Hopper A few days ago there was a wine tasting at the campus greenhouses on Valley Road, the latest in a long series. Why there and not some chi-chi location? The wines cannot be taken off campus. It’s an interesting tale of how the University of Nevada, Reno, is helping develop a wine industry in a desert state, told by biochemist Danny Hopper.

Explain the tastings.

We’ve been doing tastings for, I think, about four years. The tastings started in our winery. And the tables we used would actually be our steel fermentation tanks that we would just flip upside down and have people sit around those. The current licensing that we have at the university is an experimental winery license, and that allows us to make wine in the winery but the wine can only be used for organoleptic, tasting purposes.

So we can’t just sell any of the wine that we’re making. It has to stay on campus, and we use it for taste testing only. One of the many goals of the vineyard aside from the research is to first of all see what varieties grow well here in Reno. So we’ve more or less accomplished that through just a small survey. But there’s hundreds and hundreds of different types of grapevines out there.

We’ve only grown 13 here but we have a good idea of what grows well. Another goal was then to make the wines from those grapes and taste them and determine what grapes grow well here and then what wines can be made well here. And that was sort of why we started the tastings.

Why do you also do off-campus tastings of commercial wines?

How nice it is to be the only guy sitting in the exit row of this flight! Savoring the rare luxury of leg room, I cross my right gam and rest it on my left knee. Since I’m wearing shorts, I can’t help but instantly notice the scarlet constellation on my right calf.

A constellation of bites, little circular red bites, made by the dangerously stealthy and perpetually hungry nosee-ums of Belize. During the four hour flight to LAX, I have plenty of time to actually count the stars in this itchy formation (one possible name for my calfy constellation—Calamina).

55. Little sumbitches apparently found your correspondent to have excellent taste! But in the end, I must conclude that this mild discomfort is a small price to pay for my introduction to this extremely pleasant Central American country.

Belize, as in puh-leeze or puhlease, depending on your preference, is a small gem facing the Caribbean.

Or Caribbean. Here are some tidbits OPINION

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If a barber or a dry cleaner asked you why a public university is growing grapes and making wines, what would you say?

It’s basically like a class, for the lecture that we’re doing and then for the wines, cheese, crackers and the waters and things like that. They’re not huge money raisers for us but we like to educate people on wine, wine making, growing the grapes and things like that. So the tastings are a great platform for that because they bring a lot of people in. One of the biggest benefits of the wine tasting was the formation of the non profit group Nevada Vines and Wines. There is a group of people who were regulars to the wine tasting. We kept always talking about this is something that northern Nevada could do, this is something that Nevada should do. So through that, a non profit group was started that I’m a part of just by a group of people who came to the tastings. ... The goal of Nevada Vines and Wines is to promote the wine industry in Nevada. We also have a relationship with the university, and that’s how those grapes are being planted out on the Main Station Farm. … So through Nevada Vines and Wines we have all these goals of

Heaven in our hemisphere

The wine making is actually sort of a side project. I’m getting my PhD in biochemistry and we’re doing a ton of different research in biochemistry. We have multiple projects going on. Personally, my project is I’m investigating drought—how drought affects wine grapes. Wine grapes is a $162 billion economic impact in the United States. One of the major threats to the wine industry is drought. Here in the lab, my researches focus on investigating the drought response of different grape vine cultivars [plants created by selective breeding]. We have cultivars that are very drought-tolerant, and then we have some that are very drought-susceptible and I’ve been trying to find the gene, the protein, the hormones that are leading to those differences in drought tolerance that can then be further used in the future to better understand the drought response and also to develop more drought-resistant plants. Ω

∫y Bruce Van Dye

I discovered during my week in this happy place, tidbits of positivity that intrigue those of you with passports and a desire to visit new places. I can’t think of another country that is easier for us norte americanos to deal with (well, OK, Canada). The official language, remarkably enough for a country surrounded by Guatemala and Mexico, is English. How charming.

The currency is the Belizean dollar, but our bucks are gladly accepted, at the rate of 2 of theirs for one of ours.

And the water is absolutely off the charts crazy awesome perfect.

To illustrate the point, consider the harbor of San Pedro, the main city of Ambergris Caye, the big island off the coast of Belize where most gringos seem to congregate. Usually, the water of harbors and ports is pretty darn dirty. That’s just the way they are. You wouldn’t ever swim in those waters, much less snorkel in them.

But as we pulled into the dock at San Pedro, I was flabbergasted to see

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establishing a wine industry here in Nevada.

When I say establish, I mean to help further establish because there already are four commercial wineries in the state of Nevada. … A lot of the things that we want to do at Nevada Vines and Wines, we always kept coming back to, “Well, we can’t because of current laws in Washoe and Clark counties.” I’m sure you’re aware that in Nevada there’s a law in Nevada that any county over 100,000 [population], you can’t have a commercial winery. So finally myself and three other people were sort of tired of that so we decided to form the Nevada Wine Coalition, to help change the law. We hired a marketing firm to help us lobby.

Davidson’s Distillery Celebrates 10 years with

that these waters were completely clear. Not just swimmable, but snorkelable. There were needlefish on the top. Minnows all over. And then a two-foot wide sting ray glided by. Nice!

Of course, the majority of visitors come to Belize for exactly that—the water. Protected by the second largest barrier reef on our fabulous planet (only the Great Barrier Reef of Australia is larger), the waters of Belize are idyllic—clear, warm, and often dazzling. The bottom line is simply that the place is a tropical paradise in our own hemisphere, one that doesn’t seem to be riddled with cartels. Christmas in Belize? Hmmm.

I just have to remember one thing next time I visit—don’t skimp on the bug spray. Those gnats like us gringos just as much as tavern keepers and trinket peddlers. Ω |

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AUGUST 28, 2014

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8/25/14 4:15 PM