THE TAKING OF NORTH HALL

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V O L 4 ISS20 OCTOBER

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2015

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IT HAPPENED FIRST IN SB

IN 1968, 12 BLACK STUDENT ACTIVISTS STORM THE UCSB COMPUTER CENTER, TAKE THE MAINFRAME HOSTAGE, AND CHANGE A UNIVERSITY FOREVER (P.7)

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Content

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L anny’s Take – As Lanny Ebenstein explains, the SBCC Board made the correct call by not extending the lease agreement with Kaplan International language school

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The Bi-weekly Capitalist – Jeff Harding is up in arms, given the recent mass shooting at the Oregon city college, about protecting school campuses

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The Fortnight – King George’s minions continue their mischief. Art and culture are like aspirin during times like these.

State Street Scribe – Once upon a time, as Jeff Wing chronicles, 12 young black men schooled a great university. It went something like this. eer Guy – Zach Rosen has a burning question that’s burning a hole in what’s B left of his pocket: Why doesn’t anyone mention the “burn” – the hard work required amid sunny, windy conditions – at Burning Man?

Up Close – Big men and women on canvas: Jacquelyn de Longe takes a walk through September’s Art Walk in the Funk Zone

The Local – It’s time to learn 5 Things about Conway Family Wines; Finley the puppy rules Animal House; Obsessed with Sk8Swing; get WaterWise about irrigation; Adam Duritz; and an assortment of additional people, places, and items

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Man About Town – Mark Léisuré laughs it up with comic Chris Hardwick about the SB Laugh Out Loud Festival and his October show at the Arlington

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SY Valley Snapshot – Eva Van Prooyen fills her fall calendar with Real Men Cook, and Wine and Chili Festival; her Top Faves include Treats Women’s Boutique; Golden Globes Farmstand, Wine and Swine, tarantulas, and Day in the Country.

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Behind The Vine – Hana-Lee Sedgwick ventures to the Santa Rita Hills, where Bill and Cindy Wenzlau oversee their eponymous vineyards

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Lannys take

by Lanny Ebenstein

Lanny Ebenstein is p.resident of the California Center for Public Policy

SBCC Board Makes Right Call on Kaplan

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he issue of international students at Santa Barbara City College has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Indeed, much of the opposition to 2014’s Measure S – which was for a $288 million bond at SBCC – revolved around the issue of international students on campus.

To be sure, I reject the premise on which this opposition is based. It is a great asset to local students that they have international and out-of-state students in their classes. This past year, I have had the opportunity to interact with several out-ofarea students at SBCC and they have been terrific.

The question, accordingly, is not whether there should be out-of-area students at City College, but how many. To this end, the Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees made the right decision in voting not to extend the current lease agreement with Kaplan International language school when it expires in 2017. These students add the least to the learning experience of local students who attend the college.

There are more than 600 Kaplan International language students who participate in its program in Santa Barbara during any given year, and slightly more than 200 at a time. These students have utilized approximately five classrooms at SBCC. The rental income that Kaplan provides to SBCC is not inconsiderable – almost $600,000 per year. Even after expenses, the net annual income to the college is likely in the range of $500,000. That’s not chicken feed, and is no doubt why trustees Peter Haslund and Craig Nielsen voted to renew the Kaplan lease.

But the board majority – comprising Marsha Croninger, Marty Blum, Marianne Kugler, and Veronica Gallardo – saw things otherwise, and voted to let the Kaplan lease expire at the end of its current term. (Trustee Jonathan Abboud had suffered a minor accident and was not present.)

Santa Barbara City College is a great school, and it is one of Santa Barbara’s defining educational institutions. It is, indeed, almost unparalleled to have four institutions the caliber of UCSB, Santa Barbara City College, Westmont College,

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and the Music Academy of the West all located in one community the size of the south coast. About one in four residents of the south coast is a student at SBCC or UCSB right now.

Accordingly, for SBCC not to renew the Kaplan lease was appropriate, though this is an issue that this writer, personally, struggled with and which a number of the members of the board of trustees had mixed feelings about. Trustee Blum provided the crucial fourth vote not to renew the Kaplan lease.

SBCC president Lori Gaskin merits commendation for presenting this issue to the board in a manner that allowed the board to make the final decision on this issue. There was not a strong recommendation from the administration one way or another. Under Dr. Gaskin’s leadership, Santa Barbara City College is currently undergoing a review of facilities with an eye toward another possible bond election in November 2018.

Not having Kaplan on campus will undoubtedly influence any future bond election. Moreover, as a result of “swing space” construction issues on campus (where do you put students when new buildings are being built?), there also was merit to discontinuing the Kaplan lease. The classrooms that Kaplan uses, though not used by SBCC now, will be utilized if there is construction of new buildings on campus.

To be clear, Santa Barbara City College is overwhelmingly a local institution.

A larger percentage of local young people attend SBCC during high school and upon graduation than perhaps is the case in any other community college in the United States. Local nay-sayers, who have attempted to argue that SBCC primarily serves students from outside the area, are simply wrong on the facts.

Moreover, SBCC is required by state law to accept students from anywhere in California (as local students can attend community college anywhere in the state). The proportion of out-of-state and international students at the college is approximately eight to nine percent.

In short, though facing a difficult decision with important arguments on both sides, the SBCC Board of Trustees made the right call in voting not to renew Kaplan International’s lease. Although this decision will cost the college money in the short run, it will free up space in the intermediate term that will result in lower expenditures for swing space in the future and reduce the perception that the college caters mostly or predominantly to students from outside of the local area and California.

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Bi-Weekly Capitalist

by Jeff Harding

Jeff Harding is a real estate investor and a writer on economics and finance. He is the former publisher of the Daily Capitalist, a popular economics blog. He is also an adjunct professor at SBCC.

We Need To Protect Our Campuses

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he Umpqua City College mass shooting murders is another tragedy in a long line of tragic school executions.

Mass murder is familiar to us in Santa Barbara. While Isla Vista is not on campus, it is an extension of UCSB, and last year Elliot Rogers’s rampage took six lives and wounded 13 before he shot himself. In 2001, David Attias used his car as a murder weapon in I.V.to take four lives and leave one wounded. While not a school incident, in 2006 former postal worker Jennifer San Marco shot and killed seven people and then took her own life.

Lest you think school shootings aren’t a serious problem in America, let me show you some shocking statistics: As you can see, this problem isn’t going away: it’s getting worse. We know that school shootings are not occurring in a vacuum; it is a microcosm of mass killings in the U.S. The trend of mass shootings are increasing and schools, especially college campuses, are a frequent target.

It is difficult to have a reasonable discussion about campus safety, because it tends to deteriorate into a discussion about gun control, with one side yelling “ban them” and the other yelling “Right to bear arms.”

This article is not about gun control but about protecting our students and schools. We talk and talk about preventing gun violence after each tragic event, but nothing ever happens. That is why we need to act now to protect our schools, instead of waiting around for gun reform.

It is not that school administrators haven’t thought about this. After the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 when 32 students were killed and 17 wounded by a disturbed student gunman, colleges began to reappraise their security protocols. Increasingly, the aversion to guns on campus is being replaced by

armed campus security officers.

Since the Umpqua murders, I have discussed this issue with a lot of people.

As a teacher at SBCC, I probably have a greater interest in this issue than most folks, but I think all students and their parents are paying closer attention to campus security now. In addition to my research, I also have the expertise of a relative who was the chief of police (retired) at a University of California campus. She ran a police force of 20 officers.

The truth is that we probably cannot completely prevent shootings on campus. But, we can reduce the danger and the number of casualties with good procedures and protocols.

What do you do when shots are fired?

1. Call 911, yes, but what about campus security? We need a “panic button” on cell phones that autodials campus security. This app should be on every student’s and faculty/staff member’s cell phone. When an event occurs, you shouldn’t have to think about how to get help; just press the icon. Don’t rely on Siri.

2. Most colleges such as SBCC now have a warning system, whereby students who sign up can receive a text message within minutes from campus security.

The problem is that many students and faculty fail to sign up to the service.

Since almost everyone has a cell phone, this should be a mandatory requirement for all students, faculty, and staff.

3. All classrooms should be able to be locked from the inside. SBCC has switched to electronic locks throughout the campus. Campus security can lock all doors from their terminal, and doors can be manually locked from the inside.

4. There must be an armed officer on campus. While SBCC doesn’t have an armed campus police force, the college is presently making arrangements with the Santa Barbara Police Department to

have an armed officer on campus during business hours. Is one enough?

5. What about armed officers in grade schools? This is a difficult subject. First, many schools can’t afford a full-time armed police officer on campus, yet such an officer could save lives. The fact is that most shooting incidents are over in minutes, and the quicker an armed officer can respond the likelihood of saving more lives increases.

I have heard the argument many times that teachers should not be armed because they don’t have the training to respond in an emergency. I think it can be done. Volunteers from teachers and staff who have had military training are eligible candidates. With the right training in emergency procedures and gun safety, with background and psychological checks (such as for police officers), and with annual re-certification, armed teachers might be able to save lives, perhaps many lives. Weapons won’t be carried but can be safely stored in classrooms with biometric gun safes that only the authorized teacher could access. Remember, this discussion is about saving lives, not gun control.

6. Each campus needs to perform regular safety exercises every semester.

Remember fire drills in grade school?

Some part of each semester needs to be devoted to campus safety. Students rarely take advantage of available resources, and they need to be trained and retrained on the protocols for emergencies like shootings. This is not a waste of time.

7. Part of these exercises need to be about recognizing aberrant behavior.

Most of the shooters are young,

disturbed men who exhibit strange behaviors and students need to do more than avoid them. While students are encouraged to report such behavior to campus authorities, in recent shooting events this was not done even though the behaviors were obvious. More training can hopefully lead to more interventions and save lives.

8. Campus websites need to have obvious links to safety protocol materials. In the dozen community college websites that I searched, getting to this material was difficult.

Put the link right up front and don’t make us drill down to find this stuff.

SBCC has a link right on the Home Page (bottom) for emergencies, and you don’t have to scroll down to find it. Westmont also did a good job of putting the emergency link up front.

UCSB doesn’t do this, and it doesn’t even have an obvious link to campus police – and when I finally found it, I couldn’t find any information on a shooter situation. There is a campus website for emergencies but that required a separate search, because there is no link to it from the main site.

After checking out other colleges, I believe I am fortunate to be teaching at SBCC. They have thought-out protocols for campus shootings and other emergencies. While I think there are areas for improvement, they are at the forefront of this issue. Other schools should emulate them.

I want our campuses to be safe. If you think you can completely ban guns in America, good luck to you. In the meanwhile, let’s do what it takes to protect our students.

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STATE STREET SCRIBE

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Tidy North Hall commemorative plaque belies the craziness of that day

by Jeff Wing

Jeff is a journalist, raconteur, autodidact, and polysyllable enthusiast. A long-time resident of SB, he takes great delight in chronicling the lesser known facets of this gaudy jewel by the sea. Jeff can be reached at jeffwingg@gmail.com

Black Like UCSB: The Taking of North Hall in 1968

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t 6 am on an otherwise dull Monday morning in 1968, a group of 12 black students strolled without ceremony into UCSB’s Computer Center in North Hall, and proceeded to make history by barricading themselves inside. They did it the old-fashioned way, with stacked chairs and heavy furniture pushed against locked doors, with chains run through push bars.

First, though, they’d had to clear the building. They’d surprised a handful of computer techs there and politely asked them to leave, to which the understandably uptight Guardians of the Nascent Age of Intel replied, “Uh, yeah, right!”

One imagines the scene with wonder.

The contrasting haircuts alone signified a coming tectonic shift in the zeitgeist.

But the horn-rimmed and outnumbered Spartans were hesitant to abandon

their million-dollar baby to the black activists. UCSB’s vaunted IBM 360/65 Mainframe was the pride of modern computing, a research machine that also was the keeper of student records and other invaluable data without which the campus would cease to function. The burnished, buttonfestooned beast featured a sweeping 1MB of memory, and in photographs looks like an enormously complicated washing machine. Never mind that UCSB computing was associated with the storied ARPANET, forerunner of today’s internet, whose DNA does indeed trace straight back to UCSB. The computer scientists were, in the later words of reputed student ringleader, today’s Murad Rahman, “absolutely astounded by what was going on. They must have thought it was something out of a comic book.”

Later accounts described the black

student activists as comparatively polite and accommodating, even as they bounced on the balls of their feet and tried to hurry things along. But the black students did make one thing clear: any attempt to forcibly dislodge them would result in a broken computer. In a markedly postmodern threat, one of the students reportedly issued these words of caution.

“Look, leave us alone and we’ll leave the computer alone. We have your mechanical brain. Give us justice.” One official report typed up in the immediate wake of the takeover describes “…some of the students crouched in front of the computers armed with heavy hammers and large wrenches…”

The threat cast a chill on the proceedings.

UCSB’s Chancellor

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Cheadle, whose previously elusive attention was the object of the students’ ire, briefly considered having the black students ejected by force. In his later written record of the day, Cheadle explained the humane calculus that informed his decision to hear the black students out. ”The first option was to… persuade the occupants to leave the building peaceably. The second was to clear the building by force, an option involving predictable and unwelcome consequences. First, the substantial destruction of computer equipment valued at approximately two million dollars… second, personal injury.”

Yes, the occupiers knew their audience. ...continued p.16

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by Zach Rosen

The Burn of Burning Man Each year, the Enclave hosts the Playastani Ball-2

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verybody wants to talk about the party. The drugs. The nudity. What doesn’t get mentioned is the strife.

The work. The Burn of Burning Man. Despite the hardships faced each year, why do 70,000 people feel the need to travel to the middle of the Nevada desert in the heart of the summer?

As I sit in my Santa Barbara studio writing this, I ask myself this very question. Despite the conditions I faced, why I am I already planning for next year’s Burn? It’s a question I asked myself the whole time I was there. The answer is hard to put words, as I sit here freshly showered, the dust out of my hair and the cracks and cuts in my hands starting to heal. The electric fan blowing on my face and keeping me cool during the current heat wave. There is a click and then darkness as a rolling blackout comes through my neighborhood, shutting off the power to my studio.

Rustling around my unpacked bags, I feel the strap of my headlamp and turn it on. Burning Man will teach you lessons. The biggest one: be prepared.

From Sunrise to Sunrise

This was my second year at Burning Man. Once again, I stayed with the Santa Barbara-based camp, Enclave, located at the main boulevard called the Esplanade, where many of the major theme camps are located. While some of these camps will begin installing their infrastructure weeks before the festival, most theme camps begin building the week before Burning Man, including the Enclave.

My schedule did not allow me to come out for Build Week, so I was going to show up after the camp had been built.

Another camp mate was in a similar situation, and we drove up together.

The gates for Burning Man opened up on Sunday, but we left Monday morning

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at 11 am. We were showing up late to the party but were set on getting there as quickly as possible. We stopped off at the Reno Super Walmart and stocked up on water and whatever other odds and ends we needed. This stop has become traditional for Burners, and Walmart fills their walls with sun screen, tents, bicycles, and other necessities. Another lesson I learned last year was to bring Tecate and a lot of it. Session ales, wheat beers, sours, there are a lot of styles that can be considered refreshing, though nothing dusts the Playa off like an ice cold Mexican lager. I made sure to stock up on 30-packs in Reno. That being said, I did bring a few hand-selected bottles of beer to be opened when the moment seemed right.

We arrived at the Enclave about 4 am, taking us about two hours to get through the gate and to our camp (this is actually a pretty short entrance time). Grabbing our head lamps, we walked around and oriented ourselves with the camp. The major feature of the Enclave this year was a 30-foot metal spire. At the top sat a large ball made from scrap metal and fitted with a propane line, so that it could be lit on fire (of course). Our camp also had a public lounge, bar, kitchen, private lounge, and camping areas. The theme camp is second to our main attraction: the Pyro Bar. This magnificent art car is an old logging truck that has been converted into a roving bar with pyro technics, a DJ booth, an upstairs lounge, and a crane that can be fitted with a swing or an aerial dancer. We walked around the camp, marveling at what had been built by our peers.

As we sipped on Tecates, excited to finally be at Burning Man, the reality of the situation started to sink in. At first it was a comment about the Pyro Bar. “Oh man, it’s only Tuesday. Why is it that dusty already?” Then we started to notice the tables, the car ports, the everywhere was covered by a thick layer of white dust.

This is expected at the end of Burning Man, not the beginning. We grabbed more beers and went for a stroll, visiting the Man and checking out various art pieces along the way. We returned to camp in time for sunrise. Beams of orange sun light cut through the vast blue skies

of this white, dusty valley. The sunrises at Black Rock City are famous. As our camp mates began to wake we started to get the whole story. The entire camp had been built during whiteout dust storms.

This year was a hard build, and not just for our camp. Art pieces remained unfinished. Theme camps were missing key features. The dust storms had taken their toll. I would spend the next week speaking with people from other camps, learning about the hardships they faced during their camp builds.

That Tuesday was a blur as we got ready for the Enclave’s annual party, the Playastani Ball. We prepared several traditional cocktails and a couple of our own concoctions, including the crowd favorite, a high-proof white rum with rosemary and lemonade. Our group of makeshift mixologists served deep into the am, making sure to “ID” everyone.

This is not a joke. The sheriffs run sting operations on the major camps to ensure that there is no underage serving of alcohol. Even if you can tell the person is high on some illegal substance, you better ID them before serving them a drink. At one time while I was serving, I had three sheriff SUVs parked across the Esplanade and pointed at the bar.

Through the darkness, I could barely see the sheriffs’ outlines in the trucks, their elbows raised as they stared at me through night-vision binoculars. My actions were being watched.

Our own party winding down, a camp mate and I walked to one of the close-by sound camps. These theme camps are known for their $100,000+ sound systems whose thumping can be heard throughout the city at all times of day. Before heading over, I made sure to grab my bottle of Orval. One of the legendary Trappist ales seemed like a fitting way to end my first day at Burning Man. Bone-dry with a bracing bitter hop quality and the funkiness of brettanomyces, a wild microorganism, this beer was able to refresh my tired mind and cut through the brazen bass.

We made our way back to camp and headed to the lounge on top of the Pyro Bar to watch the sunrise. It started to shine over the expanse of the desert. I pulled my jacket closer to me and fell asleep to the sound of the wind lapping at the fabric shade coverings above me.

In the Elements

In classical philosophy, the world consisted of four elements: water, earth, wind, and fire. At Burning Man, you need to keep all of these elements in harmony if you plan on making it.

Burning Man offers a unique opportunity for mad tinkerers and whimsical minds to showcase how they can master these elements with their creations.

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Strike

Strike (breakdown) is always a difficult moment. Everyone is exhausted and no one feels like spending two days cleaning up after the collective party. We packed up and left Black Rock on Tuesday morning.

We drove toward Reno, civilization on the horizon. A couple went riding by on their motorcycle with a fake skeleton wearing a fluorescent purple wig strapped to the back. Tunes blared from a large speaker as the skeleton’s toothy grin smiled back at us without a care in the world. We laughed lightheartedly and then lost sight of them. Moments later, we saw a cloud of smoke rising. We got over the hill to see the motorcycle in flames. No one was hurt, but the skeleton flashed us a flaming grin from the smoke as we drove by. Be prepared. One moment you can be smiling and cruising to your own tune, the next moment your world can be set ablaze.

There are a lot of different ways to Burn.

No one has the same experience. The extreme conditions mean that you have to listen to your body and your mind.

You have to remind yourself to drink water, to eat, to rest. There are infinite possibilities on the Playa, which means that you are left to discover yourself.

Some people want to experiment in the Orgy Dome. Others just want to dance in the Roller Disco. Burning Man offers an open platform for people to explore themselves and others.

Relationships will be discovered. Some will be destroyed by the abrasiveness of the Playa. From a surfer bro yelling at us about cocaine to a boisterous L.A. comedian who really couldn’t take the hint that we had no interest in hearing

her comedy set (or seeing her nether regions), I guarantee you that you are going to meet people there that you do not like. But for each of these undesirable interactions, there are twice as many beautiful moments. Some of them you will share with old friends and some will be with a complete stranger.

People get animate about how “transformational” Burning Man can be, but it is important to remember that it is not for everyone. Even in the comfort of an RV, you will be faced with harsh weather conditions and unpleasant situations. It can break a person’s spirit. People left early this year, unable to handle the weather and rough moments of Burning Man. For some, the strife only fans the fire of their heart.

These are the Burners of Burning Man. So once again, I find myself asking, who is this group of people and what are they trying to Burn out there in the summer sun of the Nevada desert? This year I met artists, engineers, performers, creative types of every imaginable possibility.

While their callings may not be similar, they were all of the same mind. It is not just some big party. There is some form of pain that everyone out there seems to be trying to get rid of and a love for something they are trying to find.

And these people will push themselves through the extreme in search for it.

What are they trying to Burn? In the end, I think we go out there trying to Burn ourselves. Making ashes of the parts of ourselves that we don’t like and bringing light to the parts that we do. We go out there seeking an answer to some internal question, burning ourselves away until there is nothing left but our bare bones and a smile, grinning at the world through the ash and flames.

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At Burning Man, there is obviously a large focus on fire. From fire spinning to pyro sculptures, there are flames everywhere. At night, you walk through endless parties surrounded on all sides by fireballs, flashing lights, and thumping bass. At one moment, I even found myself on a platform shooting a flamethrower above crowds of dancing people. Of all the objects burned there, the Man and the Temple are the biggest and most celebrated.

The Man is burned on Saturday and

lives as the memories and words the Temple contains go up in flames.

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Burn the Man

is the largest celebration during the festival. Art cars line up around the man and fire off their pyrotechnics. At the height of the burn, a massive fireworks show is launched from the base of the Man. I wanted to accompany the experience with a bottle of Ninkasi Ground Control, an imperial stout with hazelnuts, star anise, and cocoa nibs, that was fermented using yeast that had been sent to space and back. I sipped on in awe, lost in an enthralling conversation that was accented by powerful flavors of chocolate liqueur and roasted hazelnuts.

As the night wore on, we headed back and stayed warm by the camp fire. I refreshed my mind and palate with the honey and apple notes of the effervescent Delirium Argentum, a special 25th anniversary version of Delirium Tremens.

While the Man burn is the wild party, the Temple burn happens the following day (Sunday) and is a more serene scene.

The Temple this year was shaped like a nautilus. People entered a vast opening and walked through its spiraling wooden walls. As you traveled deeper into the Temple, the corridor got smaller and the walls got closer until you exited through a small door that led to an interior courtyard. The open walls let wind blow through, and sounds from outside resonated throughout the interior of the Temple. Together this made for an overwhelming sensory experience, and on my first visit I even had trouble walking to the end of the Temple.

The Temple is sacred space. During the festival, thousands of people visit there and use the area to release any pain or emotions they are going through.

People stand inside, crying to themselves about some internal pain they’re feeling.

Groups come and mourn lost friends.

Victims write messages or bring effigies of their abusers. The words on the Temple walls are not easy to read and will shake you to your emotional core.

It is a humbling experience to read the messages people have left and the pain they have endured. Knowing all of those words are there and then watching them go up in flames is a powerful feeling and an important part of the process of “Burning.”

The Temple burn was my favorite experience last year, and this time I had brought a special bottle for the moment, a test batch of absinthe that Cutler Artisan Spirits and myself have been working on (more on that in an upcoming column). I sat up on the Pyro Bar lounge, sipping out of the unlabeled bottle. Its elegant flavors and soft anise notes complemented the hushed atmosphere and gentle crackle of the flames. The Temple burn is a time of internal reflection. Thousands of people watched on quietly, looking at their own

9

• Burlesque • Masquerade •

Car ports are the workhorses of Burning Man camp infrastructure and are a reliable way to keep the dust (somewhat) out. Burning Man is located in a valley of the Nevada desert called Black Rock City. The earth there is made of gypsum, basically plaster. The dust is extremely fine and is small enough to get through fabric and other protective coverings. Gypsum will quickly dry out your skin. You are more than welcome to skip and dance at Burning Man. You just don’t do it barefooted. A plaster dust bowl also means that no one is allowed to put water on the ground. Camps are equipped with gray water collection systems and evaporators to process all waste water streams.

Our own camp had running water in the kitchen and an evaporator pond with a shower powered by an exercise bike. Both of which had major leaks.

Several times we had to move the equipment, dig up the moist clay and spread it around the Playa, drying it out before breaking it up and returning it to the hole we had made. The Burning Man authorities will give your camp a red flag (which is not good) if they see that you have had a major water leak or been digging into the Playa. Leave no trace. Another lesson of Burning Man. Lighting the camp spire was one of the most entertaining processes I saw on the Playa. The spire ball had a propane line but not a starter, so it had to be lit manually.

This was done using one of our camp mate’s creations. He had put a lifeguard chair on top of an electric wheelchair base so that he could ride around the Playa, sitting under a beach umbrella and misting people with a pressurized water tank. To light the spire, we had a small propane torch strapped onto the end of a 40-foot pole made out of carbon fiber pipe used for wind surfing. He would sit in the lifeguard chair, acting as a pivot point and directing the pole, as a group of us held the end, lifting the pole with a rope. With our camp mate in a piñata costume and the others in their own Playa garb, the whole process looked like some twisted form of Gulliver’s Travels as we jousted this metal giant trying to set it alight.

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W W W. S A N TA B A R B A R A S E N T I N E L .CO M

OCTOBER 10 - 24

by Jeff Wing

Tell us all about your art opening, performance, dance party, book signing, sale of something we can’t live without, or event of any other kind by emailing fortnight@santabarbarasentinel.com. If our readers can go to it, look at it, eat it, or buy it, we want to know about it and will consider it for inclusion here.

Special consideration will be given to interesting, exploratory, unfamiliar, and unusual items. We give calendar preference to those who take the time to submit a picture along with their listing.

The Sadness of King George

H

o hum. Another school shooting, or as presidential aspirant Jeb Bush explains; “Look, stuff happens.” The Second Amendment is a funny thing; funny as in too frequently tragic. It was written, as was much of the front end of the national charter, as a direct response to what the Founders were angrily fleeing. The 1st through 8th amendments are so particular to the screwed experience of living under a bad king, you can almost imagine the guys glaring at King George’s portrait as they wrote the stuff. The second Amendment raises the middle finger to the kicking in of doors in the wee hours by the King’s Men, a freewheeling gang of Royal Court Thugs who had broad and spirit-breaking powers over the King’s subjects. Funny thing – now whenever a 2nd Amendment Citizen-Soldier with a screw loose enters a classroom or movie theater or church and starts shooting, you lose your Liberty and shortly thereafter your life. Once you’ve been ventilated with lead, the Pursuit of Happiness is pretty much beyond you, too.

Whatever you think of the NRA as a lobbying juggernaut, you know this is not what they stand for. Here’s hoping the living, breathing instrument of the Constitution may yet be retooled to address this sad morphing of an honorable intention, and that enough NRA outliers can be found to help get that ball rolling. On to the planet’s bright side. Art, music, movies, thrills. We are alive. Let’s act like that means something.

Come in, Have a Seat, and Check Out These Beethoven Mits

S

urely, there are few things as stirring as the expert manhandling of ivories in the warm, beating heart of your hometown public library.

This Saturday, or likely TODAY if you just picked up the Sentinel on its first Saturday in the newsstands, UCSB keyboard kingpin (professor) David Berkowitz will be squeezing Beethoven’s 33 Variations on a Theme of Diabelli, Op. 120 out of a baby grand. It seems a hotshot Viennese publisher named Anton Diabelli came up with the publicity stunt for his publishing house by distributing his self-impressed waltz to 50 composers in the area, asking each for a variation. Our pal Ludwig took up the challenge and naturally blurted out 33 variations all by his lonesome; a gang of reportedly stupefying pieces that showcase Ludwig’s keyboard technique and harmonic invention.

Paul Berkowitz, head of the keyboard program at your local UC, will massage these things right out of the soundbox before your unbelieving eyes and ears.

And it won’t cost you a penny.

Saturday, October 10, 3 pm, Your Public Library’s Faulkner Gallery – 40 E. Anapamu Embrace the Shiny Purple Pod, People And speaking of eggplant, the reason it goes by that name (despite being in

its mature form a bulbous purple lump from another galaxy), is that when the eggplant is but a wee little sprout only dreaming of frightening children around the dinner table, it does briefly have the fleeting appearance of a tiny egg hanging from a green lampshade. All rather unnerving, but there you have it.

On Sunday October 11 from 2 to 3 pm, The Kitchen at the SB Public Market will be a flurry of eggplant-centric activity as Baba Ganoush, Braised Eggplant with onion and tomato (oh, my G*d) and a little something called Dukkah-roasted eggplant with sweet peppers and chickpeas, are prepared for your edification and handed around. $20 gets you in and includes a bottle of Il Fustino Oil. Sign up at www. ilfustino.com, or call 845-3521.

Sunday October 11, 2-3 pm in The Kitchen at the SB Public Market, corner of Chapala and Victoria For Adults Who Have Lost a Partner You and your very best friend share everything for years, laugh your asses off together, weep openly together, hold each other through all the difficult crap life slings at you, celebrate the sunshine, burn toast. You’re two open books with intermingled pages. One day, like a light going out, that all ends. Makes no sense.

It’s probably not supposed to. But there

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Friday

October 16 at 8 pm ■ Alsarah & the Nubatones share your E. African Retro-Pop Nostalgia at UCSB’s MCC is a way to prime the heart pump again.

Hospice of Santa Barbara says, COME ON UP! They’re hosting a get-together up there on APS “for adults who have lost a spouse or partner”. Yeah, they’re calling it a support group. The beige clinical language masks the larger truth; your new friends are up there, hanging out amid the large happy trees and ocean views and waiting for you to show up. They know the deal, they’re neckdeep in it, too. They didn’t think anyone else was sunk this deep. Hey, neither did you. You were both wrong. You maybe feel like you want to be alone to mull and remember, mull and remember. All day and night? Put your shoes on, pal.

Let’s head up the hill! Naturally, space is limited. Loss and continuance is a steady state! If you want be a part of this group, complete registration before the first session begins. For more information, please call the intake coordinator at (805) 563-8820, ext. 110. No drop-ins please…2nd and 4th Mondays of the month; 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month. Call for times. Remember what Scarlett O’Hara says at the end of Gone with the Wind. Location: Hospice of Santa Barbara, 2050 Alameda Padre

Sunday

October 11 at 2-3 pm ■ Fear Not! It is but Braised Eggplant at your SB Public Market for their day of Eggplant-centric activity.

Serra, Suite #100 And speaking of loss, a bachelor’s degree these days presents a serious, soul-searching dilemma, because the dough you’ll borrow and blow getting that International Studies sheepskin could just as easily (more easily, actually) buy you a fleet of yachts. Aggregate student loan debt is passing the trilliondollar mark, and for all that pricey education, all the degrees being sold like hotcakes, most people still use a possessive apostrophe when simply forming a plural. Hey, Mr. 4 years in college; the plural of DVD isn’t “DVD’s”. Aaaagghhh!! In short, many are now questioning what college is worth. Graduates are launching into the work force owing thousands of dollars in student loans, and your average book store pays in books and self-respect; and after about six months only in books (results may vary). Author Nick Marinoff’s bestseller explains in detail how to earn a bachelor’s degree without going into debt. Wednesday, October 14, at 6 pm at the Carpinteria Library, 5141 Carpinteria Ave. in Carp. Education is precious, but it shouldn’t necessarily replace food in the post-college years.

Of course, you could always go the postbaccalaureate route and start a band!

That what honored guests Alsarah & The Nubatones did, and they’ll be filling the thrillingly intimate performance space of UCSB’s Multicultural Center on. This Evening of East African RetroPop comes courtesy of a group that has been praised by The Guardian as “… [a] powerful voice and eclectic mix of north and east African tunes, as well as Arabic sounds and traditions.” Alsarah’s Sudanese musical canon will have you swirling and trancing in no time, as the songs vibrate the space with stories and celebrations of forward motion in the light of displacement. Come hang out for a night of music from the next New World. Tix are $5 for UCSB students/ children under 12 and $15 for general

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Saturday

October 10 at 3 pm ■ Paul Berkowitz will flip your wig with pure Beethoven mojo At the Faulkner! admission. Open to everyone. This cultural popsicle is brought to you, as always, by the Thrill on the Hill, your local university’s Multicultural Center, right on the moonlit, oceanfront lagoon that dominates South Campus. Dig it.

They’ve got it all going on; and so, then, do you. Friday, October 16, at 8 pm – UCSB’s Multicultural Center.

Classical Mosh Pit to Take Over Granada Stage At the other end of the sonic spectrum, you’ve got The Santa

Barbara Center for the Performing Arts, the Santa Barbara Symphony, State Street Ballet, the Santa Barbara Choral Society mixing it up onstage, not in a rumble, but in an electrifying mash-up of their magics (magics is the plural of magic, duh), together in an ecstatic cataclysm of lushly melodic, multi-tiered mayhem. There will be Beethoven, Bernstein, and a little rapturous something called Carmina Burana. Here I’ll turn over the mic to Santa Barbara Symphony’s David Pratt… David? C’mon..c’mon out, it’s okay. Here, take… no... yes you can, yes you can do this, just take the mic – WHOA! “I think it’s poignant that we open the new season with a partnership that exemplifies what organizations can do when they work together,” says the suddenly animated Pratt in a mad rush.

Pratt!! GIVE ME BACK THAT MIC!!

Oh no, he’s taking another deep breath!!

“Carmina Burana brings together the State Street Ballet, Santa Barbara Choral Society, and Santa Barbara Center for Performing Arts and the Symphony as a true partnership. The groups are sharing both the costs and revenues for this production. And before we even started the first rehearsal, we had raised the funds to cover our production costs, which is a remarkable result and reflects

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the essence of a successful partnership.”

This ostentatious production is said to realize Carmina Burana composer Carl Orff’s dream of merging voice, music, and dance into one exalting whole. The staging of this thing is reported to be wild and big. Carmina Burana at the Granada Theatre on Saturday, October 17, at 8 pm and Sunday, October 18 at 3 pm. Ticket prices range from $28 to $133 and are available through The Granada Theatre’s Box Office. For additional details, visit the Granada website at granadasb.org (because the press release on this thing is like a short Dickens novel) or call the box office at (805) 899-2222.

Another Fortnight, another…uh… fortnight. What was I going to say? Oh, yeah! Watch the Santa Barbara Sentinel’s Facebook page for ongoing event announcements, local hoo-ha, and a chance to make your own point with all the loquacious aplomb your fancy PhD confers, as you respond giddily to our masterful social media content and pictures of bugs and cars and stuff. And thanks for reading. It’s all we ask. Drop us a line or scribble a little something on FB. We’re a family, by gosh. A family! (closes eyes and gestures you in. You back slowly away instead). Group hug, y’all. Y’all?

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W W W. S A N TA B A R B A R A S E N T I N E L .CO M

UPCLOSE

by jacquelyn De Longe

Taking a closer look at the people, places, and things that make Santa Barbara so unique. This freelance writer’s credits include newspapers, magazines, and copywriting. When Jacquelyn is not writing, practicing Pilates or yoga, you can find her chasing her two kids and dogs around Santa Barbara. Contact Jacquelyn at www. delongewrites.com

TAKING A TRIP IN THE FUNK ZONE

H

eading down to the Funk Zone is always a guaranteed good time.

With ample food, tasting rooms, bars and local artisans, there is something to explore every few store fronts. At the recent September’s Art Walk (which occurs roughly every two months), I took the opportunity to check out what’s new hanging on the walls of some of Santa Barbara’s feature galleries in this eclectic hip pocket by the sea.

My first stop was at the newest gallery in the Funk Zone, the polished and pristine GraySpace Gallery, situated halfway down the once industrial Gray Avenue. This crisp modernist box is a striking contrast to its graffiti-laden neighbor Gone Gallery (unexpectedly closed the evening of my excursion). Owner and one of the three featured contemporary abstract artists, Charlene Broudy, put together the bright and playfully themed 3 Melodies exhibition in this new space.

Vibrant colors puddle together atop

Gallerie Silo director Chantal Wunderlich and exhibiting artist Michael Armour

Carolyn Fox’s Balancing Act

the surface of Broudy’s perfectly lit paintings, created on medium-scale panels and canvases. These brushstroke-free abstractions, show her masterful talent as

a colorist by blending unthinkable color combinations into visually pleasing images, similar to an aerial view of the Earth from the atmosphere.

Accompanying Broudy is artist Carolyn Fox, also in the exhibition, who blends bright hues on her medium-size canvases using a roller technique to create wide and loose lines of color. Her abstracted linear elements evoke ideas of landscape and reflect her interest in contrast and movement.

The third note in GraySpace’s show is by local artist Richard Meier, whose small square canvases scape, smear, and drip complimentary and primary colors. Like little brightly wrapped presents these painting reveal new layers of interest as you look past each surface of paint and collage.

This charming drawing Midnight Rider by Michael Armour is featured at his studio gallery, Gallerie Silo

After taking in the bright show, I headed to the corner of Yananoli Street, for the Arts Fund annual Feast Your Eyes exhibition, a charity raising show featuring more than 200 Santa Barbara artists. In the packed gallery, the artworks climbed up the walls high overhead, showcasing the variety of talent in our beach community. The hundreds of identically sized canvases hung in salon style fashion creating a dizzying effect and overwhelmingly wrapped around the gallery’s every wall, as if smothering any safe place for the eyes to rest. It is a lot to take in all at once, but the small scale of the work eases the intensity of the show.

Crossing the street, I passed the winesipping crowd at Pali wines and headed to the second-floor photography gallery, Wall Space, where I bumped into fellow

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Crista Dix’s keen eye keep things interesting at Wall Space Gallery in the Funk Zone

Chinese New Year by Michael Armour was one of a dozen featured paper works at his Gallerie Silo

Artist Carolyn Fox by one of her larger multi-panel Roller Paintings at GraySpace Gallery Arts Fund director Brad Knack hosted their annual Feast Your Eyes exhibition

Sentinel writer and creative director, Megan Waldrep, and her friend Melissa Esposito, who both were as curious about the show as I was.

Owner Crista Dix co-curated a beautiful exhibition of three Korean artists all focused on similar themes of cultural and emotional landscape, with the past and present being represented simultaneously. I was taken but the seemingly peaceful images of a vibrant, grassy knoll with a compositionally balanced tree. The quality of the sky has a cloudy, almost ghost-like feel to it and the tree blossoms with life. Artist Won-Chul Lee captures these Korean Burial Mounds and the spontaneously growing trees at their base at night with long-exposure photography, highlighting the full cycle of human life.

Across from the peaceful yet haunted burial mound, images are Jeonglok Lee’s Nabi series, light-hearted whimsical images which attempt to capture spirit in the form of the butterfly.

Like a breeze of good luck or a positive premonition, these skillfully imposed butterflies flutter throughout the city making the everyday magical.

Vibrant colors puddle together in Softscape by Charlene Broudy

seemingly five stories tall, stands at the end of the street. The tiny window, useless for

a

for lease

much more than note passing, is open and cheerful voices float out and welcome you in. Inside the slim studio exhibition space of Gallerie Silo is a smartly hung show of works on paper by artist Michael Armour.

There is a breeziness with his drawings that make them easily to approach and easy to appreciate. Working with charcoal, pencil, pastel, and inks, he gives us insight to his process and artistic growth with these journal images.

Although my evening was spent on the narrow axis of Yananoli Street and Gray Avenue, I had the experience of traveling from the populous and scattered minds of Santa Barbara artists to the calming other realm photographs of East Asia, from a psychedelic world of color to the innocence play of a simple sketch. With most gallery’s keeping their shows up for the next few weeks, this is definitely a trip worth taking.

� 2 2 2 w. pueblo st.

free standing “cl a ss a” medic al /off ice bldg .

The long-exposure night image, Startlight Gyeongju 8, was created by Won-Chul Lee and is featured at Wall Space Gallery

Sungseok Ahn’s photography grounds the exhibition with a focus on the blending of history and present day. Black-andwhite photographs of the past are projected in front of the actually locations and rephotographed with this binary layering of time.

After the stunning and heady exhibition at Wall Space, I squeezed in one last stop before calling it a night. I head down Gray Avenue once more, but this time in the opposite direction from where I started my evening. An odd lone, narrow structure,

Artist and owner Charlene Broudy is pleased to join the other Funk Zone galleries in giving visitors a rich and varied experience for the Art Walk

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with Mark Léisuré

Mark spends much of his time wandering Santa Barbara and environs, enjoying the simple things that come his way.

A show here, a benefit there, he is generally out and about and typically has a good time. He says that he writes “when he feels the urge” and doesn’t want his identity known for fear of an experience that is “less than authentic.” So he remains at large, roaming the town, having fun. Be warned.

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For Comedians, Festival is No Joke

T

he second annual Santa Barbara Laugh Out Loud Festival got underway earlier during this first weekend of our fortnight, but don’t worry. There are still plenty of opportunities to yuck it up with some of the bigger names coming to town spanning generations of comedy, from Chris Hardwick – whose universe covers podcasts, cable TV, and a burgeoning Internet industry as well as stand-up – to septuagenarian funnyman Cheech Marin, who scored hit comedy albums before Hardwick was born.

Your Man About Town caught up with the man who is everywhere – that would be Hardwick – for a recent phoner to advance his festival-closing set on Saturday, October 17, at the Arlington, with Andy Daly and Eric Schwartz (a.k.a. Smooth-E) opening.

Chris Hardwick laughs it up October 17 at the Arlington

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A. Well yeah, it was, because I was in grade school and there wasn’t anything about it that was acceptable the way it is now. There was just a small group of us who were essentially socially ostracized.

We didn’t have the Internet at the time to connect with other large groups of

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like-minded individuals. The only way we were able to do that was through the occasional comic book convention or a game hobby store in town. I wouldn’t change it. I’m still glad I was into the stuff I wasn’t into. But the early ‘80s wasn’t a great time to be a nerd.

Did you ever think it would become such a cottage industry with so many avenues?

No. I didn’t have some devious plan to exploit the culture. It was just that I’d been working in TV for a long time and doing a lot of stuff I didn’t really care about. So I decided to pursue only the things that were of interest to me. My feeling was that even if I was able to just barely make a living, the important thing was being happy, not chasing money, or what people perceive as success. If you’re able to do the things that make you happy, that’s the ultimate success. The way it built out was more fun in a Sin City sort of way. Just building resources and seeing how far with could expand, almost a game-ification of work.

Your TV career goes way back to Singled Out with Jenny McCarthy on MTV in the early 1990s. Was that as fun as it looked?

Oh, yeah. Of course. Well, it was fun and not fun. I can’t think of a job that would have been better to have right out of college. But not so much fun in the sense of being surrounded by a bunch of screaming fraternity and sorority people – that wasn’t really my crowd. But I managed to entertain myself. Looking back, it was an amazing experience to be a part of. Most people don’t remember it anymore. People say they’ve been watching me since back in the “old days” on G4, which I started in 2007.

I don’t think they realize I had a whole career a decade before then.

And there have been so many different directions since then. Do you have a favorite?

Stand-up is still my favorite thing to do. Everything provides a different enjoyment. Podcasts let me really connect to someone one-on-one. Midnight’s amazing because it’s really just a show where you make fun of the Internet with my favorite stand-ups. Talking Dead’s fun because that show is just pure-fan perspective – and I’m a fan. I’ve have some of the most amazing encounters with people I’m a fan of at Comic-Con. Even The Nerdist, building out the company has been really fun because it’s exciting to figure out how to innovate when there is so much shifting in the way people are consuming entertainment. It’s all challenging, but it’s worth it.

Stand-up. Don’t all of them want who goes backwards from already having TV

shows to doing stand-up in clubs?

I was doing stand-up before anything else, while I was still in college. I just started working at MTV right out of college, so I kept putting off launching into a stand-up career. When I was done in 1998,that’s when I started stand-up.

It was what I always wanted to do, my whole life. In addition to collectibles, and horror/fantasy/sci-fi stuff and computers and video games, I also had every comedy album ever. I just got the TV job first.

Hold on – now I’ve got to ask: what are the top three comedy albums of all time?

Steve Martin’s Wild & Crazy Guy. I mean, Jesus, just three? There’s just too many. Bill Hicks’s Rant in E-Minor is amazing. Brian Regan has so many. I’ll tell you who I like, some ideas of where I was then. Richard Pyror Live on the Sunset Strip, George Carlin Carnegie Hall, The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart. I really loved Emo Phillips.

Chris Rock’s Bring the Pain. Patton Oswalt is great. Jim Gaffigan amazing.

Okay, Okay. I believe you. So I know that for so many people, stand-up comedy can be a form of self-torture. Why do you love it?

It is a weird thing to do, but it’s not always painful. Maybe in the beginning, but once you understand how it works and do it a ton, you have a tool set you can use. You get sensitive to an audience and where they’re at, and what you can do to make things work in real time.

It’s an amazing skill set to have and very empowering. And I still think it’s incredibly fun. You get an immediate reaction, and it focuses you to be really engaged. I do Q&A in the show a lot of times just for fun. Comedy is important to our culture. It helps us process the horrible things in the world and keeps us from going crazy. As a comedian, you’re sort of a minister of this piecemeal comedy church.

You’ve always been a bit ahead of the treads, with blogs, Twitter, podcasts. How do you balance them all?

Everything requires a different mode, which I think I need because I’d have trouble sitting at one job day in and day out. It’s very much in line with how my brain works. It’s not an accident that I have the career. I designed it this way.

Shift things around. There are limits to a human being’s energy, but I’m trying to cram as many things in there as I can.

It’s about splintering my personality into the appropriate platform to reach each audience. You wouldn’t t do the same type of comedy on Periscope that you do on Snapchat or Twitter, because you can’t just scoop it out in one place anymore.

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W W W. S A N TA B A R B A R A S E N T I N E L .CO M

...continued from p.7 UCSB’s First Black History Week, February 1968

North Hall breezeway bears testimony to the takeover and the sea change it oversaw – and to the teacher and students involved

UCSB: A History of Silence

UCSB is today a world-renowned research university, consistently ranked at or near the top of many of those cryptic “World’s Best Universities” lists that celebrate both academic firepower and actual contribution to human culture. UCSB’s campus has an almost unseemly number of clustered Nobel Laureates. You can easily spot them because they go everywhere with their medals on. There are but a handful of globally respected Institutions of Higher Learning whose topographical largesse allows the student to come in from the breakers and minutes later take a seat in a lecture hall, where a medal-wearing Nobel Laureate is dispensing arcane, graduate-level brain food. Seriously.

But UCSB wasn’t always the enlightened bastion of liberal munificence it is today. The 12 black students who took North Hall and the Computer Center on the morning of October 14, 1968 (namely Jim Johnson, Maurice Rainey, Arnold Ellis, Tom Crenshaw, Dalton Nezy,

Ernest Sherman, Booker Banks, Mike Harris, Vallejo Kennedy, Stan Lee, Don Pearson, and Randy Stewart) were all members of the freshly minted Black Student Union, which had itself evolved from an earlier black student organization begun in 1967, called Harambee (Swahili for “Let’s Pull Together”). Both these groups had been formed as a reflexive bulwark against what the few black students on UCSB’s campus found to be an institutionalized racism.

This wasn’t the ugly, hothouse racism of hooded, spelling-challenged Master Race morons on horseback setting crosses alight on people’s front lawns, beating and murdering with impunity.

This was the quieter, happy-go-lucky racism whose infected perpetrators aren’t always aware they’re carriers of the illness: white college kids in blackface strolling down the street at UCSB’s 1966 Homecoming Parade in white top hat and tails and waving giddily at the camera, or taking up shoe polish and a fiddle to affect a bracing, good-

North Hall is briefly rechristened with a much more interesting name

humored antebellum jig. As recently as a couple years ago, a yoga studio in town hosted a “ghetto fabulous class” replete with inner-city garb and costume bling.

N.W.A. they called it: Namaste with Attitude. Yes, even the Enlightened stumble. These people, of course, don’t regard themselves as racist and surely wouldn’t self-identify as members of a Master Race. But racism isn’t always a belief system. It’s not always about what you’re feeling. Sometimes it’s just about what you’re doing. UCSB had a problem.

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The proximal cause of the takeover of North Hall’s computer center that year was rising frustration with the rumored passive-aggressive racism of UCSB’s deified athletic director Jack “Cactus” Curtice, whose unrivaled record of UCSB football wins, unconquerable passing game, and central role in

UCSB’s football program achieving NCAA Division I status made him a living bronze statue around which the campus establishment gathered and covertly knelt. Complaints lodged against Coach Curtice by the black athletes in his charge fell on deaf ears, or elicited vague promises of investigation that never came to pass. The complaints described a litany of slights that aggregated to something less than the strutting racism that could be called out by school authorities, but which made the experience of the black athlete at UCSB feel like something less than the thrill of victory.

One typical grievance was that of an athlete who was tired of being served his meals after the white athletes on his team had eaten. Black athletes’ luggage would be lost on trips away, black athletes would be refused service in hotels with no recourse and no backup from coach Curtice. Black athletes complained of

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...continued p.28

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Was your business or income affected by the recent oil spill?

We remain committed to doing the right thing.

Plains All American Pipeline deeply regrets if this accidental release has had an impact on you or your business.

Plains is committed to making the appropriate financial reparations for any verified damages or losses directly caused by the spill Doing the right thing means ensuring every individual and business that have been affected by the unfortunate accident have the opportunity to file a claim for losses related to the incident.

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• Commercial fishermen and related businesses.

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• Individuals and businesses whose property was damaged or destroyed.

• Those who have homes or boats on affected beaches.

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Hey, Good Lookin’

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I

a r a b r a Adam Santa B Duritz Obsessed With:

STOKED ON A SWING

is the Rain King

t’s been great to hear from you.

Every email enlightens us on the multi-talents of this fair city, so please keep them coming! Case in point, check out our continued obsession with Sk8Swing (a skateboard swing – does it get any cooler?), try to replicate a Dave’s Dog in Quick Bites (but definitely sink your teeth into the original), Ah Juice puts the “smooth” in smoothie in Raising the Bar, Robitailles Candies does sugar right in Sweet Spot, an interview with Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows in Q&A, and see what the Conway kids are up to in 5 Things.

Holla if you hear me: megan@ santabarbarasentinel.com.

We want to show you off.

ONTHESPOT:

THE ART OF SMELLING GOOD

L

A

s a kid, my swing set never looked this cool. Local company Sk8Swing has built the sickest swing we ever did see. Part skateboard, part swing, all part awesome, kids (and adults) can rock this baby till the cows come home. Want one? SB residents get free same-day delivery. Muy bueno.

ocal artisans such as Santa Barbara Soaps just pull at our heartstrings, and these handmade sea salt soaps will have you saying, “Ah...” no doubt. We are suckers for the Plum Good, Butterfly Beach, and Sunshine flavors, but pick your favorite – and as Santa Barbara Soaps says, “Have as much fun getting clean as you did getting dirty.”

Sk8Swing Instagram: @sk8swing www.sk8swing.com

Santa Barbara Soaps at Plum Goods 909 State Street, Santa Barbara Instagram @SantaBarbaraSoaps www.santabarbarasoaps.com

PANINO soups + salads + sandwiches p a n i n o re s t a u r a n t s. c o m

Open for Lunch Daily Los Olivos (805) 688 9304

Santa Barbara (805) 963 3700

Goleta (805) 683 3670

Solvang (805) 688 0608

Montecito (805) 565 0137

Santa Ynez (805) 688 0213

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SYVSNAPSHOT

by Eva Van Prooyen Keeping a finger on the pulse of the Santa Ynez Valley: what to eat, where to go, who to meet, and what to drink. Pretty much everything and anything situated between the Santa Ynez and San Rafael Mountains that could tickle one’s interest.

Food Festivals of Fall

Real Men Cook

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ventually, the vines will turn shades of crimson, orange, and mustard, but until then, autumn in Santa Ynez Valley is marked by the wine harvest, the change in light that hits the mountains in the late afternoon, and a true bounty of food festival fun. Celebration of Harvest weekend brings in a trove of food and wine events, and next up is an annual fundraiser for Arts Outreach.

The 23rd Real Men Cook on Saturday, October 17, held at Monty and Pat Roberts’s Flag is Up Farms in Solvang is an incredible value at $65 per person.

There will definitely be some grilling, searing, and game day foods, but do not mistake this event as a showcase of “food for dudes”: 50 talented amateur male chefs rally to flaunt their favorite recipes, which in past years have included the likes of southern fried alligator, whiskey and sweet salmon, and “Killer Brownies.”

The event raises funds for a local arts education nonprofit. Programs include elementary school classroom workshops and ongoing art curriculum led by artistsin-residence, summertime arts and drama programs, after-school workshops, elder arts entertainment, the Applause Young Artists program, and Valley Glee.

Complimenting the culinary creations, 30 Central Coast wineries and breweries will pour their wines and beers for guests to eat and drink as much as they want until it all runs out. Competition categories include hot and cold appetizers, entrees, salads, breads, desserts, and more.

Professional executive chefs judge this friendly competition, selecting a favorite in each of food category. Judges for this year include Budi Kazali of the Ballard Inn, chef Maili Halme, and chef Susan Beckmen. There will also be a “People’s Choice” award for the chef with the tastiest dish.

Live entertainment provided by local rock cover band, LiveWire; there will also be a selection of items available in a silent auction. For more information and tickets, call 688-9533 or visit www.artsoutreach.com.

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Chowda’!

It’s on again!!

The 6th Annual

Santa Barbara Chowder Fest 17 Top Chowders compete for best on the coast!

Plus: Craft Beers Local Wines Live Band, Huge Raffle and More!

Sunday,

October 18 1pm – 4pm

At Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort

Wine and Chili Festival

T

hen on Sunday, October 25, Buellton hosts its third annual Wine and Chili Festival at the Flying Flags RV Resort. Festival-goers can sample wines from over 20 wineries, and some of the Valley’s best chefs, and restaurants, compete to take home prizes for the best Red Chili, Chile Verde, and Homemade Salsa in Santa Ynez Valley.

People’s Choice award categories let tasters decide who has the best in the selections of Chilies, Salsa, Booth Showmanship, and best red and white wines. Tickets includes a souvenir wine glass; unlimited wine and chili tasting; entertainment, bocce ball, horse shoes, table tennis, mega-sized beer pong, and cornhole.

Firestone Walker Brewery and Figueroa Mountain Brewery will also be on site, and beer samples are included with a ticket purchase.

There are tickets available for guests under 21 who want to sample some chili and ...continued p.26

Participants include: Three Pickles Boathouse Enterprise Fish Co. S.B. Fish Market Mac’s Fish and Chips Crocodile Restaurant Chase Restaurant

Breakwater Restaurant Fork & Finch Scarlett Begonia Jalama Beach Grill Outpost at the Goodland Hotel Deux Bakery

Whole Foods Market Shellfish House Rodney’s at the Double Tree Inn Ojai Jelly Four Seasons Biltmore Max’s – and more!

And Generously Sponsored by: MAGAZINE

Santa Barbara County Bar Association Myers Law Group Cappello and Noel, LLP Bartlett, Pringle & Wolf Ehlers and Fairbanks, PC Bill and Susan Wagner Deckers Community West Bank Montecito Bank and Trust

Alan and Carol Blakeboro Ghitterman, Ghitterman, and Feld, LLP Reicker, Pfau, Pyle and McRoy, LLP Village Properties Joe Palucci Andrade Law Office Ambrecht & Associates Woosley & Porter

Amberger & Chamberlain Social Security Law Janean Acevedo Daniels Foley, Bezek, Behle & Curtis, LLP The Egenolf Group, LLP Griffith & Thornburgh, LLP CBIZ MHM, P.C. Law Office of Moises Vazquez Anticouni & Associates

A Benefit for

For tickets and additional info, go to:

www.santabarbarachowderfest.com

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Local LIBATIONS 2012 DEEP SEA PINOT NOIR

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his wine is perfect for cuddling by the fire. The Deep Sea Pinot Noir is an elegant and vibrant wine from the exceptional 2012 vintage. Ruby red in color, it shows classic flavors of ripe cherry, rose petal, and earthy spice.

French Oak barrels add soft tannins and texture while toasted vanilla aromatics complement the rich fruit flavors.

BONUS: Mention the Sentinel and get 50 percent off this bottle!

Deep Sea Tasting Room

217 Stearns Wharf, Suite G, Santa Barbara Mon, Tues, Wed, Sun: noon to 8 pm Thurs, Fri, Sat: noon to 9 pm (805) 618-1185 Instagram: @DeepSeaWine conwayfamilywines.com

SPECIAL RECIPES FROM TALENTED CHEFS IN SB

QUICK BITES W

e’ve been salivating over Dave’s Dogs Instagram for months. Finally, we bit into the savory goodness, which exceeded our expectations and then some. On Monday’s in October, snag one for yourself in The Kitchen of the Santa Barbara Public Market. He also does catering and for the lucky peeps in Goleta, a location is coming to the corner of Hollister and Magnolia Avenue. Woof.

SANTA BARBARA STYLE HOT DOG Ingredients: 100% beef hot dog (*substitute veggie, turkey, or soy dog) Hot dog bun Mayonnaise Mustard Ketchup

Bacon Cilantro Avocado Onion Tomatoes Cacique crème sauce

Directions:

Heat grill to medium and grill until the dog is heated through, turning frequently. Cook bacon strips until crisp. Grill onions until Dave’s Dogs golden brown. Add bun to the grill to toast. Add mayonnaise to toasted 132 South Milpas Street bun. Place hot dog in the bun and add bacon strips. Build by adding Mon- Sat: 5 pm to midnight • Closed Sun grilled onions, fresh diced tomatoes, drizzle ketchup and mustard, add (805) 895-2802 • www.facebook.com/davesdogs805 avocado slices, and fresh cilantro. Top with crème sauce. Chow down.

Raising the Bar

STRAWBERRY NUT SMOOTHIE Please note all ingredients are organic.

Ingredients: 1 cup frozen strawberries 1 frozen banana 1 1/4 cup homemade

FAVORITE SPIRIT FREE COCKTAILS

A

h Juice is a happy experience. Owners Deb Monroe and Alfred Pomerleau greet patrons by name, take the time to enlighten customers on the locally sourced, seasonal, and 100-percent organic ingredients, and bring “sustainable” to a whole new level (hello, compost waste bins and glassware to go).

Open for wholesome breakfasts and lunches, you gotta try their smoothies – they are hard to beat.

WATERWISE

IRRIGATION STATION

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est your irrigation system by manually turning it on every month to look for leaks, runoff, and waste, and fix as needed. If you have a gardener, make sure he or she adjusts your watering schedule as the weather changes and checks monthly for leaks and runoff.

WaterWise City of Santa Barbara 630 Garden Street, Santa Barbara (805) 564-5460 • SantaBarbaraCA.gov/WaterWise

cashew milk 4 dates 6 raw almonds 1-2 tbsp hemp seed

Directions:

Blend all ingredients until super-smooth. Top with a sprinkle of hemp seed. Sip and feel your inner self rejoice.

Ah Juice 432 East Haley Street, Santa Barbara • (805) 698-1162 Instagram: @AscendingHealthJuice • ahjuice.com

SweetSpot:

THE

TURTLE TIME

R

obitaille’s, the biggest candy retailer in Santa Barbara County, has been turning out sweets for more than 40 years.

The white, milk, and dark chocolate turtles (with pecans and caramel) are house-made and packaged on site. You can even take a peek into the kitchen to see where the magic happens. Now, that’s authentic.

Robitaille’s Fine Candies 900 Linden Avenue, Carpintera Mon-Sat: 10 am to 5:30 pm • Sun: 10 am - 3 pm (805) 684-9340 • www.robitaillescandies.com

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Behind the Vine

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Animal House

by Hana-Lee Sedgwick

Hana-Lee Sedgwick is a digital advertising executive by day and wine consultant and blogger by night. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, she fell in love with the world of wine while living in San Francisco after college. Hana-Lee loves to help people learn about and appreciate wine, putting her Sommelier certification to good use. When not trying new wines or traveling, she can be found practicing yoga, cooking, entertaining, and enjoying time with friends and family. For more information and wine tips, visit her blog, Wander & Wine, at wanderandwine.com.

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FINLEY THE ADORABLE

SANTA RITA VINES SHINE AT WENZLAU

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his is not a stuffed animal.

This is real life. Meet Finley, a five-month-old goldendoodle puppy.

He “works” at Keeping Interiors, a design firm where his owner, Christine Mallard, is employed.

As you can imagine, he can’t go far without people yelling out the window, “That is the cutest dog I have ever seen!” Need more Finley cuteness in your life? No prob! Follow his adventures on Instagram at @ Finley.The.Goldendoodle.

Bill and Cindy Wenzlau overlooking their Santa Rita Hills vineyards

W

ho in their right minds would pay for 100 acres of rugged land with only 12 ½ acres of vines? That would be Bill and Cindy Wenzlau!

It’s the question they often ask themselves with a chuckle (it’s even on their website) when they think about the risks they took when starting their winery, Wenzlau Vineyards. Luckily for them, it’s a business decision that is proving to work out in their favor.

Within those 12½ acres, they are growing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and the resulting wines are exceptional examples of what’s possible from the Santa Rita Hills.

Bill and Cindy had been interested in wine for many years, enjoying road trips to Santa Barbara’s wine country and traveling to wine regions like Burgundy, before the two considered owning their own label. As Bill started to get involved with winemaking on the side and Cindy became a more avid gardener, they toyed with the idea of getting into viticulture.

It wasn’t until their son, Tommy, pursued an interest in wine and received his sommelier certification that they really started thinking more seriously about owning their own vineyards. Soon, Bill and son found themselves venturing up and down the coast hunting for the perfect property. In 2011, they finally found a cool, foggy location with young vines on the western edge of the Santa Rita Hills, and Wenzlau Vineyards was born.

Sandwiched between Mount Carmel and Sea Smoke Vineyards, Wenzlau is located off the beaten path among steep hillsides next to the Santa Ynez River.

Just seven miles from the ocean, the

Wenzlau produces elegant Pinot Noir & Chardonnay

To see your pet in ANIMAL HOUSE/Pet of the Week, email a photo, name of pet and owners, and some fun facts to megan@santabarbarasentinel.com

location is proving to be quite enviable, and the wines are the proof. All the grapes for Wenzlau come from their organically farmed estate vineyards, and winemaker Justin Willett (of Tyler Winery) takes a restrained approach to winemaking, letting the fruit really shine. Production is around 1,500 cases.

I was able to pay a visit to Wenzlau Vineyards to check out the varied topography of the beautiful property, then taste through a few of the 2012 and 2013 wines with our gracious host Cindy. Both vintages of the Chardonnay have fresh acidity and balance, with lively notes of apricot, citrus, and brioche. Just superb wines.

The 2012 Estate Pinot Noir is incredibly silky and elegant, while the 2013 has brighter acidity and more red-fruit on the palate. All of the wines have a refreshing backbone of minerality and a real sense of place, reminiscent of classic Burgundian wines but with distinct Santa Rita Hills characteristics. As they would say in France: fantastique!

Be sure to look out for their new releases. You can find their wines at local restaurants such as The Lark and Tydes at the Four Seasons, and at fine restaurants throughout L.A. Cheers!

PlantingRoots

by Frederique Lavoipierre Director of Education at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

MAD FOR MATILIJA POPPIES

M

atilija poppies (a.k.a. fried egg plant) not only have the largest flower of any California native plant, they also have the largest flower of any poppy species in the world. The 8-foot-tall plants are smothered in crepe-paper white flowers with a central boss of pollen-laden yellow stamens.

The flowers are a favorite of honey bees, native bees, other beneficial insects, as well as people because they are magnificent cut flowers. While they are well-adapted to our wild lands, they can be a challenge to grow in gardens.

The most reliable way to establish new plantings is to plant in the fall – the best time to plant any California native plants, as they are able to establish root systems during our mild, wet winter. They bloom profusely in the spring but given a bit of summer water, they bloom intermittently all summer.

Santa Barbara Botanic Garden 1212 Mission Canyon Road, Santa Barbara, CA, 93105, (805) 682-4726 www.sbbg.org

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POINT VIEW

SPONSORED BY:

© Larry Mills

A

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If you want the best advice on camera gear, visit your only local camera shop in downtown Santa Barbara, where they match most online prices.

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Local

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PLANB by Briana Westmacott

When Briana isn’t lecturing for her writing courses at UCSB and SBCC, she contributes to The Santa Barbara Skinny, Wake & Wander and Flutter Magazine. Along with her passion for writing and all things Santa Barbara, much of her time is spent multitasking through her days as a mother, wife, sister, want-to-be chef and travel junky.

Writing is an outlet that ensures mental stability... usually.

THE GOOD WIFE

T

here are times in a marriage when you need to suck it up and do things that you know will make your partner happy. For me, this took place on a Tuesday evening when the kids and I painted signs that read “Go Daddy!” and “Hit a home run Dudek!” We headed down to Elings Park to watch one of my husband’s weekly softball games.

As much as I would rather be settled into my couch with a good book, the bleacher seats we going to have to suffice. I did take note that we happened to be the only fans there to cheer on the Dudek team. I’m sure that I am not the sole good wife, but on this particular evening it appeared this way.

I was thinking that I had a couple of hours of uneventful clapping and rahrahing ahead of me, when suddenly there was a twist.

HEY, BATTA BATTA BATTA! It began with some aggressive words being exchanged over on the thirdbase line. I could see the expression on my husband’s face and I knew (after 20 years, it’s quite easy to read) that a confrontation was underway. Honestly, I was intrigued. It isn’t common for these softball games to get heated. Our team was down by three, and the opponents were clearly years younger (decades in some cases) than many of the guys on our team.

Then the jeering began to escalate.

Really, it was just one guy on the other team who took over the commotion.

To give you a good picture of this guy, he proudly sported a jersey with the number 69. Enough said.

“Who plays old man softball, anyways?” number 69 squawked, which confused me a bit since apparently he was playing in this league.

“Why don’t you stop playing bocce ball, old men?” he bellowed, and this

led me to wonder just where this young man had been educated, if at all.

His comments only continued to grow more vulgar, and at one point I considered the fact that I may need to pack up my kids and leave should a fullon team brawl ensue. But the tension had me on the edge of my seat, and so I stayed and attempted to earmuff the children as the profanities continued to fly out of 69’s mouth.

This was getting good. I justified sticking around by utilizing the teachable moments with my kids to talk about sportsmanship, but mostly I stuck around because I wanted to see Dudek beat the crap out of these cocky, young jerks.

We were down by three, and the boorish banter continued from the opposing team as we entered the final inning. Our guys definitely weren’t hitting well, though 69’s loud mouth was working against him. I could see it on the faces of our team. The mindless commentary and age bashing was only fueling the fire. And then the final inning unfolded.

BRINGING IT HOME I did have my doubts; down by three does not make for an easy comeback.

But 69’s surly comments kept pushing Dudek to gain momentum.

With the bases loaded, the opposing team’s pitcher was crumbling under the pressure. My husband got a hit. (Or was it an error? Doesn’t matter, he got on base and brought one guy home. Bravo, babe!) Then we were down by two and the bases were loaded. There were two outs.

This was our last chance, and up to bat came Andy. Andy happens to have played ball in the minor leagues; it was safe to say Andy was a good option for a grand slam. He swings. It connects.

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Runners run. And as the winning run comes sliding into home, the young catcher dropped the ball, and Dudek won.

There was a great deal of cursing and toddler-like foot stamping from 69.

I couldn’t help but smile as I told my children to, “Cover up your ears girls, because the boy just lost.”

This game demonstrated some clear distinctions between men and boys. (I’m sorry, 69, you have a lot of growing up to do.) I’m not saying that all 20-year-old guys are assholes, but there is a cockiness that accompanies a 20-something guy and this was apparent on that field. Age enables a sense of dignity coupled with reverence and patience. (I might also add that having a wife helps with these things, too.) Dudek is composed of men who, on any given Tuesday night, will demonstrate that they know how to behave honorably on the field.

The wives are lucky to have these Dudek men as role models for our children. Through the tornado of insults and profanities that swirled around the field that evening, our guys never lost their cool.

So go fill up your water bottles (with water or wine), wives, and get out there to cheer for our men. It really is quite fun.

BRIANA’S BEST BET

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his fall, I signed my youngest daughter, Lila, up for Fall Ball with the Goleta Valley Girls Softball Association (GVGSA). She had expressed a lot of interest in the sport, possibly because my husband has been tossing the ball to her in the yard for months. Jules Hastings is the lead coach for the U8 Fall Ball league, and Lila loves all the techniques and skills that Jules is teaching the girls. Check out all that GVGSA has to offer at: www.gvgsa.com

The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

Hort & Hops 3 Friday Happy Hours, 5-6:30

10/23 Gardening the Plant Community Way

10/30 Garden Insects: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

11/13 An Abundance of Spring Flowers

Discover the secrets to gardening successfully with California native plants while enjoying local beers with chips and salsa. Talk begins at 5:30. Sign up for one class or all three.

October is planting season! The Garden’s Fall Native Plant Sale continues through 11/1.

Register www.sbbg.org/hhs15

424 N. Quarantina Santa Barbara, CA

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1212 Mission Canyon Road • Santa Barbara, CA 93105 • www.sbbg.org

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5 ThingsYouDidn’tKnowAbout: the

TOM, JOHN, AND GILLIAN CONWAY OF CONWAY FAMILY WINES

Q&A

T

here’s no doubt about it: Tom, John, and Gillian Conway know how to crush it. Grapes, that is, and so much more. They make up three of five of the Conway kids of Conway Family Wines. You may also know them through their tasting venue – Deep Sea Tasting Room – on Stearns Wharf. When they aren’t brewing beers at home (read: Mexican-style Lagers, Pilsners, Scotch Ales, and Holiday Porters) or scuba diving, you can find them pouring the family namesake above the waters of the Pacific.

1. We are all certified Sommeliers.

2. We are in a ukulele band called Rockus Bacchus that has never and will never perform in public.

WITH

ADAM DURITZ OF COUNTING CROWS

T

he voice of Adam Duritz has led Counting Crows to sell 20 million records worldwide over a 20-year span.

Adam and guitarist David Bryson formed the band in Berkeley in 1991 and as their San Francisco fan base grew, so did their members. Now seven in total, download the band’s newest album, Somewhere Under Wonderland to get the goods.

Adam takes five with us to catch up:

3. Gillian co-owns Santa Barbara Dog Jog, a dog-walking business in SB. 4. Our guilty pleasure is Slim Jims. We got them every year in our Christmas stockings growing up.

5. Our dad is from England so we are obsessed with all things British – especially tea, The Beatles, fish and chips, British racing cars, Winston Churchill, and Sunday Roasts.

Conway Family Wines and Deep Sea Tasting Room 217 Stearns Wharf, Suite G, Santa Barbara Mon, Tues, Wed, Sun: noon to 8 pm • Thurs, Fri, Sat: noon to 9 pm (805) 618-1185 • Instagram: @DeepSeaWine • conwayfamilywines.com

Sublime Spaces

by Andy Wood

CHILLIN’ AT CHASE PALM PARK

C

hase Palm Park has it all: A carousel from 1916 built by the Allan Herschell Company ($2 a ride), a beautiful creek (remnant of the wetlands that once covered the whole beachfront), an outdoor music pavilion, a shipwreck-themed playground (complete with a surfacing whale and a conch-shell light house), an open lawn, seating areas, and fountains.

Across Cabrillo Boulevard, Frisbee, soccer, and dancing are regular activities on the open lawn.

Next to that, the Chase Palm Park Center can seat 100 people for any event, and a little farther down the walking/running/biking path that runs along the beach is Skater’s Point.

Chase Palm Park 323 East Cabrillo Boulevard, Santa Barbara (805) 897-1983

Q. What song(s) do you guys like to play?

A. For the last four or five years, we’ve really been obsessed with songs off (the album) This Desert Life. The whole band has been into playing them. This year, “Goodnight Elizabeth” is coming back (into rotation), and we’re playing it a lot and it’s been great.

Is there an overall favorite song you personally like to perform live?

Not really. It changes all the time. I will say I never get tired of playing “Long December”.

It never seems to move out of the set and I don’t mind that. I’m not sure if it’s my favorite song or anything, but I never get tired of playing it.

What is your best memory from making your most recent album, Somewhere Under Wonderland?

I don’t really know. Making albums is hard.

It’s not necessarily something you look back on thinking it was fun. It’s really difficult, but it’s very satisfying.

“Palisades Park” is a great (song on the album). I was really happy with the songs we had written up until then, but as soon as we wrote “Palisades Park”... it’s really special to me. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written.

Counting Crows’ latest album, Somewhere Under Wonderland, is available on iTunes, Amazon, and all major music retail websites.

IHeart SB

Local

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BY Elizabeth Rose

Adults Only

For

223 Anacapa St. Santa Barbara 805-963-9922

SANTA BARBARA: MELROSE PLACE BY THE SEA

W

usually me and a bunch of dudes. More girl power is always welcome. I introduce myself and we chat for a moment.

“Hi, I’m Elizabeth. Who do you shoot for?”

“Hey, I’m Ida. I shoot for a company in L.A. I’m from Venice Beach.”

“Sweet! Welcome to the pit!”

“Thanks! Who do you shoot for?”

“A local paper called the Sentinel.

You’d love it.”

“That’s awesome! I’d love to keep in touch. I’m trying to build a network around here. Mind if I Facebook you?”

“Sure, no problem.”

The lights dim and Death Cab takes the stage.

“Cool! I’ll get your info when we get out of here.”

I give her the thumbs up.

Three songs later, we’re escorted from the front of the stage to collect our gear.

My new friend Ida gets my name to send a friend request. “I found you!,” she says, all excited. I grab my phone to accept. “1 mutual friend,” it says. Yep. Him. Out of all the freakin’ people in the freakin’ world. She looks up from her phone, “You know Charlie?! That’s crazy! We’ve known each other for a long time.” (Emphasis on “long”.) She goes on for a minute before I interrupt.

“Well, ironically, he’s my date tonight.”

She pauses and her mouth drops open.

“Wait? Charlie’s here? That’s so great!

He’s going to die when he sees me!”

I nod with a squinty-eyed, plastered smile. “Yeah, what a small world...”

Writer’s note: Come to find out, they were never together. She had only dated one of his friends a million years ago. This was a weak moment of acting like total, insecure girl. A moment I am not proud of. Giant eye-roll ensues.

#Lederbeersen

Late Nights at CnC are Back - Oktoberfest-style!

Join us for our Beer Garden Late Night Friday, October 16th from 6-10pm featuring a German and Oktoberfest beer flight and German-inspired bites from the Heat Truck

Corks n’ Crowns Tasting Room and Wine Shop

32 Anacapa Street in the heart of Santa Barbara's Funk Zone Hours: Monday-Sunday 11am-7pm

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r e t a i l e r s

I Heart SB is a social experiment in dating and relationships through stories shared with and experienced by a thirty-something living in the Greater Santa Barbara area. All stories herein are based on actual events. Some names, places, and timelines have been altered to preserve anonymity and, most of all, for your reading enjoyment. Submit stories (maximum 700 words) to letters@santabarbarasentinel.com.

hen you date someone from Santa Barbara (and I mean, really from Santa Barbara), you’ve got to prepare yourself to face your partner’s former relationships at any given moment. (Especially, if said person has a reputation of women throwing themselves at his feet.)

The concept of “six degrees of separation” shrinks down to about one or two in our town, and it can be a test to your annoyance threshold (and giant eyerolls may ensue). The question will arise: “Can you handle it?” The past is the past for a reason, you have to remind yourself, but it doesn’t make a mental picture of your current beau being intimate with another lady go away so easily.

For example, I took a special someone to the Death Cab for Cutie show at the Santa Barbara Bowl. Understanding this town is basically the large version of the TV show Cheers (where everybody knows your name and then some), I was ready for whatever and whoever came our way. Imagine my surprise when not one person came around as we made our way through the Bowl. Awkward moments avoided. Sweet. I gave myself the what-am-I-so-worried-about head shake and made way to the seats.

From time to time, I get the privilege of taking pictures along with the professional photographers and, for this show, I had the magic ticket. As the concert was about to start, I bid farewell to my date, grabbed my photo pass, and headed to the “pit.”

The pit is pretty awesome. You see the familiar faces of your photog friends, and after a couple of hey-how’s-it-goings, you gear up. As I was toying with the camera (ISO, anyone?), I notice a new face. A cute blonde girl about my age, which is a nice surprise considering the pit is

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have a good time (minors must be accompanied by an adult). Children under 12 are free.

SB Sentinel readers coming from Santa Barbara can jump on Figueroa Mountain’s Brew Bus for round-trip bus fare of $25. Pickup will be at Figueroa Mountain Brewery in Santa Barbara (137 Anacapa St.) at 10:15 am.

Eva’s Top Faves:

My personal picks, best bets, hot tips, save the dates, and things not to miss!

Get Suited Up!

Y

ou’re gonna need a swimsuit. With El Niño on its way and the heat of summer still in full effect, now is the time to suit up either way and arrive in style for an unusual fall. Treats Women’s Boutique in downtown Solvang is known for simple, classic, sophisticated styling with seasonal eye catchers. Prices are in the middle to highend ranges, and right now there is a 40 percent off sale on all of their stylish swimsuits.

When: Open Monday through Saturday 10:30 am to 5 pm and Sunday 11 am to 4 pm Where: 1603 Copenhagen Drive, Solvang Info: www.treatsclothing.com, (805) 686-4358

Paint at Golden Globes Farmstand

P

aint in the garden, sip hand-crafted cocktails, and munch on farm-fresh goodies made or paired with GG olive oils. The stress-free environment will inspire your creative spirit while ringing in the harvest season. Learn how to make fresh food fast and get the real dirt on food issues, such as organics and GMOs. The day begins with a tasting and tour of the gardens, and then make your way to the easels, where a trained artist will walk you through the entire painting process step-by-step. No previous painting experience necessary.

When: Sunday, October 24, at 10:30 am to 1 pm Where: 2450 Alamo Pintado Road in Los Olivos Cost: $65 per painter – includes a tasting of hand-crafted cocktails, farm-fresh goodies, olive oil tasting, and all supplies necessary to create your masterpiece Info: GypsyStudiosArt.com/events/

Wine and Swine in the Vines

I

n its third year, Fess Parker Winery invites guest out onto their winery terrace to celebrate the 2015 grape harvest, meet their winemaker, enjoy a pinot noir barrel tasting, taste through a selection of single-vineyard and clonal pinot noirs, and raise a glass of Champagne for a toast to a successful season.

A pastured pig raised in the Santa Rita Hills specifically for this event by local farmer Jake O. Francis will be slow-cooked on a rotisserie and served family-style along with freshly prepared seasonal side dishes. Make your reservations soon, as this event will sell out.

When: Saturday, October 24, from 6 to 8:30 pm Where: Fess Parker Winery, 6200 Foxen Canyon Road Cost: 125 per person/$75 for Wine Club Members Info: Reservations can be made with Elena by phone at (800) 841-1104, or by email at elena@fessparker.com

Eight Legs with Fangs!

I

t’s tarantula time! Every year during the late summer and early fall (just in time for Halloween), tarantulas can be found crossing the warm valley roads, golf courses, and hiking trails during their mating season.

They are nocturnal hunters that prey on insects, snakes, and lizards, and right now, large numbers of these arachnid males are out looking for their females. The males roam the warm valley floor while the females are hunkered down in burrows. They are stunning to see, and while they are not considered to be dangerous, it is not a good idea to pick them up – as they can bite hard and have a mild venom. Best places for sightings are on Refugio Road, Woodstock Road, and Ballard Canyon Road.

35th Annual Day in the Country

R

ain or shine, Los Olivos will roll out the family fun for its annual event, inviting everyone to enjoy country living the way it used to be in simpler times. 5K run/ walk, pancake breakfast, parade through town, silent auction, more than 100 arts and crafts booths, vintage tractor and antique car display, food booths and food trucks, a wine-tasting booth, and good old, down-home sweet fun for all.

When: Saturday, October 17, starting at 10 am Where: All along Grand Avenue in Los Olivos Cost: Free Info: www.losolivosca.com

10 COMMUNITY LEADERS, 6 JUDGES & $45,000 IN CASH PRIZES ...ALL ON 1 POWERFUL NIGHT

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OCTOBER 15, 2015

ROTUNDA • 6PM - 9PM 6601 HOLLISTER AVENUE, GOLETA

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SALMON SALVATION

The Andersen’s Danish Bakery & Restaurant

W

e know Andersen’s kills it when it comes to baked goods, and their lunch and dinner items are no exception. Try a traditional Danish-style, openfaced Smoked Scottish Salmon sandwich. Lightly smoked salmon with creamy Danish Havarti cheese, capers, onions, and a special dill sauce built on chef’s toast is making our mouths water just thinking about it.

Brother in Arms. North Hall occupiers speak truth to power.

Friend of the occupiers Cynthia George spells it out for the crowd.

being called “boys.” In early October of that year, the BSU had issued a petition signed by 22 black athletes accusing the athletic department of racism, charges that were quickly dismissed by the Intercollegiate Athletic Commission, frustrating the campus black population further. UCSB’s athletic program fleetingly became the actionable nexus of a subsurface campus racism that was a nagging, unsung feature of everyday life for black students there. By the time of the occupation of North Hall’s computer center, the 40 or so black students on campus (out of a total student population at that time of around 13,000) had futilely gathered the signatures of 4,000 sympathizers who agreed that something was amiss, and that UCSB as a campus was maybe due for a change.

It Was Not a Very Good Year 1968 was a “year of change,” as is said euphemistically by those who have never been shot at or beaten up or chased across the quad by a phalanx of upset National Guardsmen. The conflagrations that year were large and small, characterized both by the fiery, deafening explosions of the watershed Battle of Khe Sanh In Viet Nam (which SITE DRAINAGE/WATERPROOFING 50 + YEARS EXPERIENCE - LOCAL 35+ YEARS

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would see American troops ditch a besieged base for the first time in that war), and the brief lethal whisper of a .30-06 Springfield bullet crossing a parking lot to break a minister’s jaw on the Lorraine Hotel balcony in Memphis.

In the wake of Dr. King’s death, a visibly broken Bobby Kennedy calmed a surging, anguished crowd of hundreds in downtown Indianapolis with an extemporaneous speech and plea for unity that is now considered a classic of unrehearsed truth-telling. The crowd dispersed peacefully, and two months later Robert Kennedy was shot in the head while speaking at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. In May of that year radicalized French students swarmed through the streets of Paris in a spasm of disgust with capitalism and the established order, in time bringing that country to the brink of collapse, and the Tlatelolco massacre would see the Mexican army gun down 300 gathered student protestors. The year 1968 had the character of a denouement, an almost stage-written wrapping up of a decade that would see the global Establishment take a flurry of finalizing body blows and be laid to rest ringside, supine in its grey flannel suit.

Wild-Eyed Radicals Read Out Their Wholly Unreasonable Demands Within hours of “seizing” North Hall (as nearly every newspaper that day described the event, though the students had actually just breezed in and rousted those inside), the black student occupiers of the Computer Center issued their demands in

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classic revolutionary style: from high windows above a gathering crowd of onlookers, through megaphones. As the hours passed and word got out that some actual revolutionary drama was afoot on UCSB’s sun struck campus (or as the October 17, 1968 edition of UC Irvine’s student paper put it: “Santa Barbara? The campus of parties and keggers and TGIF’s? The campus where more students learn surfing than calculus, where more money is spent on booze than books?

Yes, friends, demonstrations have spread to that academic playground by the sea…”), a crowd of onlookers naturally began to gather around North Hall, skeptical and restive at first, then grudgingly supportive, and finally offering themselves as a massed 1,000-strong bodyguard for the black activists should the state make good on its threat to send in forces to enter the building and bring the thing to a conclusion. There was one instance of disaffection as an apparent faculty member in the mid-afternoon couldn’t take the standoff any longer, and with an unsuccessful rallying cry of “C’mon!” forced his lonely way into the building, his righteous fever quickly

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doused by a black undergrad with a fire extinguisher.

The occupiers had eight demands whose sum expression was the desire for increased minority enrollment at UCSB, an end to institutional and academic racism on campus, and the expansion of minority-based studies in UCSB’s curriculum. A year later, UCSB’s Black Studies Department would spread its fledgling wings and take off on a journey that has to date been characterized by constant change and interdisciplinary outgrowth. Chancellor Cheadle, who had so successfully dodged the black students’ athletic concerns in the months-long run-up to the occupation of North Hall, capitulated so completely in the end, it stunned everyone.

Once the activists had secured the beleaguered Chancellor’s accession to their revolutionary demands, making campus history and setting paradigmchanging institutions in motion – they more timidly asked for one more favor.

Could they please not be disciplined for this little dustup? Cheadle agreed, offering them a collective “suspended suspension,” a whimsical little disciplinary flourish that was the equivalent of the dad-like “It’s okay this time, but one more of these and you’re grounded!”

This further incensed critics of the blacks’ brazen law-breaking and Cheadle’s enabling. The Chancellor’s acquiescence would royally piss off then-Governor Reagan, whose battles with UC Berkeley and Clark Kerr (whose namesake building is coincidentally right next to North Hall on the UCSB campus) would soon enough prompt the governor to angrily invent tuition (heard of it?) and begin ...continued p.30

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A KEEPSAKE FOR OUR SAKE

Solidarity soon enough replaced confusion as surrounding throng joined the occupiers in spirit

the country-clubbing of university education. But Cheadle didn’t completely stand down. He did refuse one of the group’s demands – that of the firing of odious but indispensable athletic director Jack “Cactus” Curtice.

Agreeing to reasonably mitigate the academic hegemony of Eurocentrism on the college campus is one thing. But you simply don’t screw with a successful passing game. I mean, c’mon.

A

fter a 20-year search for quality tin ornaments found in Mexico, Leslie Person took matters into her own hands. The Santa Barbara Mission (seen here) was the first product of Alessaro Designs, a tin ornament and greeting card company right here in SB. Pick up your favorites at Plum Goods, Porch, Pierre Lafond, Letter Perfect, Chaucer’s, Santa Barbara Company, the Natural History Museum, Honey Paper, or the Mission.

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The Fruits of Determined Activism

Dr. Jeffrey Stewart, chair of UCSB’s Black Studies Department, is about eight feet tall and has the shambling gate of the “beloved outlier professor” who is always crossing swords with admin in those ‘60s movies about life-changing educators and the stiffs who run them down. Not to put too fine a point on it, but when he speaks, it is with the easy, laconic manner of a guy with all the time in the world; as he talks, his eyes fix you with a scholarly glare. In 2012, black students on campus again drew up a series of demands for the chancellor (Dr. Henry Yang this time), with the result that Stewart was asked to oversee an installation at North Hall that today commemorates the events of that October day in 1968. He refers to North Hall as “sacred space.”

“The idea was to create something so that black visiting students could see that they had a presence and were making a real contribution here.”

Chancellor Yang asked Dr. Stewart to work with admin and students to make it happen. His team was comprised of director of UCSB’s Art, Design & Architecture Museum (ADA) Bruce Robertson, ADA exhibition designer Mehmet Dogu, and UCSB Facilities kingpin Mark Fisher; together they helped make the students’ dream a reality. Former executive vice chancellor Gene Lucas was a booster of the project and even authorized Dr. Stewart’s course in Curatorial Methods

Alessaro Designs

Rebel alliance makes a relaxed appearance at the window while electronic hostage sweats it out in the Computer Center

that would train the determined students in the mounting of an exhibit of this kind. Dr. Lucas’ successor, EVC David Marshall, likewise supported the installation.

With the help of Stewart’s team, the students put the thing together, and it is a sterling example of the power of the image. The series of larger-than-life photo panels that line the breezeway of North Hall are eye-opening. One panel shows the excited black students draping the handwritten “Malcolm X Hall” out the second story window, while another features the inevitable black and white child looking at each other with that bewildered “What the hell is the problem?” expression that for ages has caused shame-faced adults to look at the floor.

“The research shows that right after the takeover, you begin immediately to get more courses in the black experience, in sociology, in history, in English, in education,” Stewart explains. “Later, Chancellor Cheadle authorized a feasibility study and the Black Studies department was announced in ’69.” (For the record, the Black Studies department had its budget slashed by $10K in the ‘70s, another story.) Dr. Stewart continues, “Immediately after the North Hall takeover, there were courses offered in

the urban experience, black literature – suddenly you had the option of taking courses in black culture. Right away.”

The atmosphere engendered by the episode opened conversations that led to UCSB’s Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, the Department of Asian-American Studies (the first such department in the U.S. to offer a Bachelor of Arts degree in AsianAmerican Studies), the Department of Feminist Studies – a culturally and politically varied menu of mindopening disciplinary departments that may also be considered the fruit of the North Hall occupation. Could the young occupiers of October 14 1968 really have foreseen the cultureopening shock wave their passion play would set in motion? What if things had gone the other way, if Chancellor Cheadle has called in the troops?

Ringleader and head event planner of the takeover, Murad Rahman, answers this way: “We were highly aware of the risks and possible consequences of our actions if we failed to carry out our mission with skill and precision.

We did not want to make mistakes or jeopardize the success of the operation.

The consequences of failure would have been disastrous for coming after us as well as African Americans in general.” As for Cheadle...

“Personally,” Mr. Rahman says today, “I was astounded by his graciousness and willingness to negotiate with a bunch of what he probably considered to be wild and crazy misfits who didn’t belong on his pristine campus. I will remember him as a man for whom I will always hold the highest level of honor and respect. He could have ordered us to be forcibly removed from

the building, which was in fact our expectation. The chancellor took the high ground, which I believe was the most vexatious but prudent decision he could have made. May God and history reward him for that.” The Establishment, in the form of Vernon Cheadle and the finally sympathetic crowds who gathered, seem to have seen a glimpse of the light that day.

“To me, that’s part of what ’68 is about,” Dr. Stewart says. “In ’68 they did have, you know, black power, black students; it’s not just about black subjectivity, though, it’s about an intersubjectivity. Look at the page of El Gaucho where they cover the North Hall takeover. That page also has a piece about ‘Berkeley going on strike against grapes’ – then over in the corner, Eugene McCarthy coming to campus on an anti-Vietnam War mission. All these things were in conversation with each other.”

The North Hall breezeway installation tells the tale of a group of ‘60s students taking over a university building at a time when boldness was the default and young people would leverage any opportunity to right a wrong. Truth and beauty aren’t phony ideals. Even cinderblock can be made new.

Dr. Stewart has another thought about the role of the commemorative North Hall installation. “I always was interested in the aesthetics of this thing, as well as the history,” he says, then breaks into laughter. “And that space looks a lot better than it did before!”

But were Rahman and his activist pals really prepared to wreck the storied mainframe computer that day?

A gee-whiz reporter wants to know.

Mr. Rahman’s answer is brief.

“What do you think?!”

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CINEMA SCOPE

by James Luksic A longtime writer, editor and film critic, James has worked

nationwide for several websites and publications – including the Dayton Daily News, Key West Citizen, Topeka Capital-Journal and Santa Ynez Valley Journal. California is his eighth state. When he isn’t watching movies or sports around the Central Coast, you can find James writing and reading while he enjoys coffee and bacon, or Coke and pizza.

Coming on Strong

T

here isn’t much to add – given its omnipresent promotions – about the imminent “James Bond 007” installment Spectre, slated to be served before Thanksgiving. Let’s skip ahead to Christmas, when David O. Russell brings Joy to the world, materializing as Jennifer Lawrence, reunited with their Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle mates Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro.

Regardless, my glad tidings will be aimed toward The Revanant, the latest from Birdman virtuoso Alejandro Iñarritu, which boasts the year’s most pulsating trailer and spotlights a pair of personal favorites – Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy – striving for survival within a swath of 1800s wilderness.

All that isn’t to say October should be discounted. Three of this month’s overlooked offerings have merits: The Intern, co-starring that busybody De Niro, employed as the eponymous assistant to Anne Hathaway’s online fashion expert (the actress ostensibly flips the script on The Devil Wears Prada), proves fertile ground for the veteran actor’s unforced manner – but also for writer-director Nancy Meyers, who keeps it nimble and gratifying. Grandma, despite its title, is less hospitable while affording Lily Tomlin ample space for her well-known wit and Sam Elliott’s rustic charm; less convincing is the rocky relationship between our comedic heroine and Judy Greer (almost 40 years younger).

The cream of the small crop is Pawn Sacrifice, captivating for a biopic and 1970s history lesson involving chess legend Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire); though its script doesn’t delve sufficiently into the American icon’s fragile and fractured psyche, co-stars Liev Schreiber and Peter Sarsgaard (equally valuable in concurrent Black Mass) make masterful amends, while Edward Zwick oversees the sweeping story with necessary finesse.

A trio of newer films all make the grade:

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exudes charisma as his lover and complementary foil; and Ben Kingsley aids as the strict mentor.

Although prone to excess, Robert Zemeckis at the helm assures fleshed-out characters and a sufficient backlog to the hero’s childhood. The climactic, daredevil stunt is legitimately eyepopping in its 3D glory.

Greatest Hit, Man

B

efore its opening scene, viewers are informed Sicario means “hitman,” though it doesn’t quite prepare us for the movie’s gruesome initial sequence (setting: Arizona) that features an underused FBI agent (excellent Emily Blunt).

Enter a federal official (flawlessly cast Josh Brolin) and a rogue gunman (Benicio del Toro, returning to Traffic turf ) with their eyes and bullets focused on volatile Juarez and one of its criminal kingpins.

Blunt and Brolin each strikes a balance of vitality and earnestness; del Toro subtly simmers as the mysterious ramrod. In the director’s chair, Denis Villeneuve has come a long way, literally from Cosmos and also Prisoners, this time crafting his most accomplished work and 2015’s best in the bargain. Sicario harbors a gritty, palpable essence – similar to that which made the likes of Mystic River and Out of the Furnace so potent – stemming from the Southwest’s back alleys. I was hard-pressed to spot any misstep or false note, from the cinematography and reverberating sounds to the bristling score.

What’s more, there’s a poignant (not mawkish) subplot concerning a Mexican cop and his young son that proves the story has heart to supplement its bubbling blood.

Rocket Man

T

he Martian isn’t the first time Matt Damon has been rescued amid unbelievable conditions: if he wasn’t going to be left behind in Saving Private Ryan’s warzone, then woe betide any rocket scientist who’s unwilling to liberate our hero from the titular Red Planet. Left for dead after a devastating sandstorm, the stranded botanist uses elbow grease, solar panels, and human waste to grow food. Such painstaking details, albeit required to a degree, don’t always make for riveting cinema – but Damon keeps us tuned in. The man’s crew, more in limbo than lost in space, includes Jessica Chastain in a dutiful role that’s wrong for her radiance; back on Earth, Jeff Daniels as NASA’s leader, plays it straight and, ironically, dumbed-down by reiterating “Mark Watney is dead.”

(Right. Got it.)

Director Ridley Scott, no stranger to this galaxy thanks to Alien (still his magnum opus in my mind) follows many conventions of the sci-fi form. Most obstacles and performers appear air-tight, with the exception of a quirky astro-analyst who surfaces halfway through – and inexplicably has all the answers, when not falling in a puddle of his own spilt coffee; in that instance, NASA comrades may as well hold cue cards that read “Comic Relief.”

Walking on Wire

T

he Walk follows the high-wire act of real-life Frenchman Philippe Petit, whose juggling and street “artiste” career around Paris soared all the way to New York City, where he attempted to walk a tightrope between the Twin Towers circa 1974.

American actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt voices an impressive French accent, while exuding the agility and temperament for such a challenging role; Charlotte Le Bon

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