into the hills

th e

THE FORTNIGHTP.10 PARADISE LOSTP.20

SB’s hub for Fashion, Art, Food, Libations, and Folks who do it right...

P.27

into the hills

VO L U M E 4 | I S S U E 1 1 | M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

TUCKED INTO THE FAR REACHES OF SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, THE DORÉ FAMILY DELIVERS GRAPE EXPECTATIONS FROM ITS AWARD-WINNING FOXEN WINERY

Page 14

DOUBLE THE PLEASURE P.12 THE CALIFORNIA KID P.5 Santa Ynez celebrates its Wild West roots June 13, the same day Jones Fest rocks their house and backyard

SBWC founder Barnaby Conrad burned through life so eagerly we can still see the contrail. Conference starts Tuesday, June 7

2|

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

3

4|

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

Saturday June 6, 2015 12:00pm3:00pm Our Merchants will be pairing up with a favorite non-profit or charity, providing the public with a chance to meet these import ant organizations and see the wonderful work they do for our community. At the same time many of the merchants will also be showing what they do best. look for specials and samples through out the center.

Rental Housing Mediation

!

Fun for the whole family Balloon Animals Face painting, Bounce houses Captain Jack The Pirate, your favorite Green Tinker Fairy, Macaroni Kid Activity Table, Fire Truck, AMR Ambulance, Sheriffs Cruiser, Wandering Musician Animal Rescue and Adoption Food samples

Content

P.5

S tate Street Scribe – While some of us timidly consider throwing a hat into the ring, Barnaby Conrad threw his everything into the ring, then ran at the bull swinging his Brooks Brothers raincoat like a cape. Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference founder Conrad was not a wallflower, and the literary life is not for sissies.

P.6 P.8 P.10

The Bi-weekly Capitalist – Do oil spills and water mix? And what to make of man versus nature in general? Jeff Harding has questions and answers.

P.11

Beer Guy – Zach Rosen doesn’t believe in summertime blues, but if he did, the cure would be beer-splashed galas such as Surf ‘n’ Suds and Zoo Brew

The Fortnight – Streisand and Redford gently brush aside each other’s perfect, breeze-tossed 70s bangs, Jerry Lewis raises the ire of some f*****g hilarious Womyn on Fire, roaming teen spirits sport otherworldly acne... and so on! Another Fortnight of madness and gladness.

Alan Murray – Like most fine artists, Alan Murray was driven into the world of tattoo art by a 2 ton, 50 foot monster from the Pleistocene. The old story.

P.12

SY Valley Snapshot – Eva Van Prooyen previews the Old Santa Ynez Day gala set for June 13; Jones Fest rocks SY; and Eva’s top picks, including Improv night in Solvang, Bottle Share and Burger Night, 805 Criterium, and more

P.14 P.18

American Girl – Tommie Vaughn traverses the SY Valley roads to Foxen Winery and vineyards, where the Doré family hones its craft one bottle at a time

Man About Town – Mark Léisuré dissects In the Forest of Detroit on Center Stage; Stand in the Sand event May 31; Christmas Revels 2015 Winter Solstice show needs performers; Comedy Hideaway; and Tales from the Tavern at the Maverick

P.19 P.20

Behind The Vine – Hana-Lee Sedgwick catches up with winemaker Bret Urness, an Idaho transplant who created LEVO in 2011

North Side!

Optimists

Goleta!

Library The Friends of the Goleta Valley Library

P.21

Up Close – In the wake of the coastal oil spill, Jacquelyn De Longe rolls up her sleeves and pant legs while interviewing Carla D’Antonio, chair of Environmental Studies at UCSB and Lindsay Johnson of Watershed Resource Center

Cinema Scope – The latest batch of mainstream movies looks awfully familiar: another Poltergeist, Pitch Perfect 2, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 – which is why James Luksic is eternally grateful for Far From the Madding Crowd

P.22 P.24

SB View – Eastside story: one could say Sharon Byrne’s passion for the Eastside is building – namely with Hoffman Architects

Fun, Fun, Fun for the whole family! Enjoy the Party. Help your Community just by attending!

Sponsors

The Goleta Gazette

P.26 P.27

The Driver’s Seat – Randy Lioz looks under the hood of made-to-order Teslas, whose number-one underserved California market is Santa Barbara, where a full Tesla store is slated for Hitchcock Way Hands Full – Mara Peters has a nose for news, especially of the tabloid variety, and doesn’t hesitate to spread the word to her children

The Local – The Local is the newest section in the Sentinel, giving insight into the creative people, places, and products of SB. Perfect go-to when waiting for your matcha latte to brew

Doug Giordani!

P.31

I Heart SB – What’s love got to do with it? Elizabeth Rose stops blushing, lets her hair down, and focuses on “toys” that can spice up your sex life.

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

STATE STREET SCRIBE

5

Renaissance doodle – Barnaby’s Father’s Day note to Jeff

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

A Writer’s Conference on The Barnaby Coast

O

n Father’s Day in 1996, my new son Sammy was a 9-month-old blob with a bright orange tuft of hair atop his perpetually smiling, fat-swaddled little head. My wife and I were over the moon and laughing like fools at our good fortune. Our dear friend Leslee surprised me with the book Matador by Barnaby Conrad, an original 1952 edition, its paper jacket torn and fraying, the pages inside yellowing slightly, but still crisp and fragrant. To my utter amazement, on the first blank page inside Conrad had dashed off a brilliant ball-point pen portrait that he’d titled “The Old Bullfighter for Jeff”. On the opposite page, sometimes called the Half-Title page of a book, he’d written “Best Wishes to Jeff – A GOOD FATHER! – on Father’s Day from Barnaby Conrad June 1996.” I nearly swooned.

By then, I knew what the old fellow was made of.

Barnaby Conrad may have charged through this life like a heavens-rending celestial event, but he was not a guy you would necessarily pick out in a crowd.

Bald, slightly stooped by the time our paths crossed in the mid-90s (he’d seen some action, as I’d later learn), huskily barrel-shaped in these, his autumn years, he was not a singular figure. His flyaway gray fringe always appeared to have been mussed in a sloppy fistfight, the kind that obliges the pugilists to frequently lean against each other in a cooperative grapple while catching precious breath.

I was one of three managers of the Earthling Bookshop at the time and knew Barnaby first as this somewhat weathered-looking, older gentlemanfriend of the bookstore owners, Penny

and Terry Davies (unofficial gatekeepers of the town’s shambling literary scene), and knew him next as a member of the mischievous, smart-ass writer’s salon that frequented the place and could often be found hanging about the store like loitering teenagers, cracking wise around the stone fireplace in the bookshop’s center, occasionally doing readings. Shelley Lowenkopf, Paul Lazarus, Fran Halpern, Walt Hopmans, and the others, they comprised a sort of loose-knit family in the Earthling during that glowing epoch when a bookshop was a building which writers and readers would inhabit like the chummy congregants of a speakeasy. In that time, Barnaby Conrad seemed to be one of the leading lights of the gang that gathered there.

Like a Bull in a Bookshop Born in San Francisco in 1922, just as the spark-throwing Jazz Age was ramping up and Scott Fitzgerald was in early rehearsals for his heart attack, by the age of 19 Conrad’s wanderlust and fascination with bullfighting saw him to Mexico City, where he studied art at the university and, one sunny afternoon, tipsily leaped into a bullring, introduced himself to the surprised crowd with a flourish and, reportedly swirling his raincoat like a cape, charged a thoroughly baffled bull. The impetuous kid from California thus began an unlikely career as an American bullfighter, billing himself, of course, as (wait for it…) “El Nino de California”. ...continued p.7

JOIN NOW AND RECEIVE

$10 SWELL DOLLARS FOR EVERY WORKOUT! S A N TA B A R B A R A AT H L E T I C C L U B 520 CASTILLO STREET (805) 966–6147

C AT H E D R A L O A K S AT H L E T I C C L U B 5 8 0 0 C AT H E D R A L O A K S R O A D (805) 964–7762

WWW.SWELLCLUBS.COM • LIKE US ON FACEBOOK Offer based on an annual membership agreement. Cannot be used in conjunction with other promotional offers. Some restrictions may apply. Expires June 30, 2015.

6|

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

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.

Oil on a Human-Infested Planet

F

orty-six years after the disastrous 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, we again have to clean up after the oil companies who pump it out of the earth. While the spill is small compared to 1969, our coastline is fouled, animals suffer, and people are angry.

Leaders of our prominent environmental groups denounced the spill and called for a total ban on oil production in our county – if not everywhere. Linda Krop, attorney for the Environmental Defense Center, said “We really need to say ‘no’ from now on.” Kathryn Phillips, director of the Sierra Club, said, “This should be a message to every elected official and politician, that we should unhook our dependence on oil.”

If you can hold back your outrage for a moment, I’m going to tell you about another side to oil, one that no one talks about, at least here in Santa Barbara. And it’s something you need to consider before you rush off with protest signs to ban oil. I am going to tell you about the benefits of oil.

If you are a close-minded person, you should stop reading now.

There are costs and benefits to everything we humans do. That is true with fossil fuel, but while we are reminded of the costs, we rarely hear about the benefits – and they are many and profound. The entire argument against fossil fuels is based on costs and ignores the benefits. The truth is that the benefits outweigh the costs.

“It is only thanks to cheap, plentiful, reliable energy that we live in an environment where the water we drink and the food we eat will not make us sick and where we can cope with the often hostile climate of Mother Nature. Energy is what we need to build sturdy homes, to purify water, to produce huge amounts of fresh food, to generate heat and air-conditioning, to irrigate deserts, to dry malariainfested swamps, to build hospitals, and to manufacture pharmaceuticals, among many other things. And those of us who enjoy exploring the rest of nature should never forget that energy is what enables us to explore to our heart’s content, which preindustrial people didn’t have the time, wealth, energy, or technology to do.” – The

Moral Case For Fossil Fuel by Alex Epstein, page 86.

In pre-fossil fuel days, energy sources came from animals, rivers, and wood.

Then, in the 1840s, coal as a fuel source arrived and industry took off.

We call it the Industrial Revolution.

Before you condemn the Industrial Revolution, you need to consider life before it: people died from starvation, disease, and back-breaking toil.

Human longevity was short (about 40 years for the average person). As philosopher Thomas Hobbes put it: life was short, nasty, and brutish.

The Industrial Revolution began the greatest expansion in wealth and well-being in human history.

The cause was capitalism and cheap, reliable, abundant fossil fuel energy.

Contrary to the images you see of the alleged horrors of industry, wealth, and longevity increased dramatically as a result of higher wages, public sanitation, and increased food production.

Think of the implications of the rise of fossil fuels. Vast forests were saved.

Whales and other animal sources of oil were saved. Horses were saved from a short, brutal life. Humans lived longer, healthier lives; a middle class emerged. If you value human life, then you should be grateful for fossil fuels.

And this miracle continues. In the last 30 years capitalism and increased fossil fuel use has enabled billions of people on the planet to escape poverty.

China and India have emerged from dire poverty since they turned more capitalistic, and, as fossil fuel use soared, so did their health, wealth, and longevity.

The fact is that you can’t have the abundance of wealth, health, and wellbeing that we enjoy without a cheap, available, and reliable source of energy – and the only such source comes from fossil fuels. None of the alternative sources of energy can do this.

If you take wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal power, and biomass, fossil fuels still provide 90 percent of our power requirements. We haven’t yet figured out how to make wind and sun cost-effective and scalable into cheap, plentiful, and reliable energy.

It’s pretty obvious that if we wish to maintain our standard of living –

our personal automobiles, our heated and cooled electrified homes, our electronic toys, our industry, our health care, our jobs – we need fossil fuels.

Then there are the costs.

Conventional wisdom is often wrong. Conventional wisdom is a view of an issue that is repeated and made popular by “authorities” and commentators and personalities.

I often cite the example of the run up to the economic depression that hit in 2008. The vast majority of experts got it wrong – things are fine, houses will continue to rise, spend, spend, borrow, borrow.

Health experts told us for years that we must not eat fat, that empty

“Conventional wisdom is a view of an issue that is repeated and made popular by ‘authorities’ and commentators and personalities” carbs were good for us. Eat margarine, bread, tortilla chips, and cheesestuffed pizza, and stay away from fats and red meat. Heart disease rose, cancer rose, diabetes rose. Now it seems the opposite may be true. Who knows?

In our last edition, I wrote about the concept known as Malthusianism, the idea propounded by experts like Paul Ehrlich that overpopulation will cause us to run out of things and cause massive starvation. They were wrong and always will be wrong.

So what is the truth about fossil fuel and climate change? You aren’t an expert climate scientist and neither am I, so how do we know what’s right?

Wikipedia has a nice article on surveys of scientists’ view on climate change, and most climate scientists agree that temperatures have risen in the last 100 years and even more so in the past 15 years. This is pretty much a given based on good, measurable science. The total rise is less than 1.5 degrees – a moderate rise.

But after this, things pretty much fall apart. There are two issues: (1) how much of the rise is caused by human activity (anthropogenic) and (2) are we on a disastrous path? Most scientists say that human activity contributes to some of the rise, but how much is in question. As to the consequences of climate change, scientific opinions are

all over the board.

The problem with the disaster scenario is that its advocates have been saying this for 40 years, and they have been wrong. In the 1970s, the conventional wisdom among climate scientists was that we were heading for global cooling with a possible Ice Age in our future. That didn’t happen.

Experts then predicted that based on the certainty of the data, we would choke on our pollution. They were wrong. EPA stats show the opposite: despite increased use of fossil fuels, air pollution has declined dramatically.

Back in the 1980s, doomsayer “experts” like Bill McKibben and Paul Ehrlich predicted that by now we would be living in conditions resembling Hades, assuming we even survived that long (“England will not exist in the year 2000” – Paul Ehrlich). Yet they are hailed as some of the greatest thinkers of our time.

Not only were they wrong, but they were outrageously wrong; we didn’t get disaster, we got improvement.

I question the conclusions of the doomsayers and you should, too.

That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t continue to research the issue of mancaused global warming. We should.

But we ought to be skeptical of the conventional wisdom. We should be skeptical of faulty computer models that failed to predict the globalcooling phase existing since the late 1990s. We should be skeptical of the same experts who conclude we are headed for disaster.

We should be especially skeptical of those who call for an end to fossil fuels. We should be skeptical of the motives of thought leaders like McKibben and his followers, who believe humans are the planet’s parasites. We should be wary of the authoritarian, anti-capitalistic endsjustify-means solutions they offer to solve a questionable problem. And, we should be skeptical of the ability of our politicians to solve things.

Draconian political solutions will not solve anything and could harm our future well-being.

On the other hand, we should not underestimate the ability of humans acting in a free economy to adapt to change. Solutions will only come from technological change driven by capitalists and entrepreneurs responding to market demand. The problem will be solved and it’s not too late. Until then, we should continue to use fossil fuel to maintain our high standard of living and let others on the planet enjoy the benefits of the abundance that it brings.

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

7

...continued from p.5

Yeah, the California Kid. Barnaby Conrad’s ridiculously cinematic Life on Earth proceeded apace.

He later worked for the U.S. State Department as vice consul in Spain with posts in Seville and in Barcelona, all the while training as a hopeful bullfighter with master toreadors of the period in what spare moments he had. When he wasn’t doing the Tango with a charging, maddened animal the size of a boxcar, Conrad was typing. He’d begun a writing habit (after the fashion of his own idol, testosterone experiment Ernest Hemingway) that soon enough bore fruit in the form of a little-noticed first novel.

His second novel met its mark, though, and the young vice consul’s bullfighting potboiler Matador captured the world’s imagination, and not a little of its cash, selling several million copies and sufficiently enriching its author that Conrad, on returning stateside, was able to plow the book’s proceeds into a San Francisco society bar that quickly became the epoch-defining North Beach grotto for the day’s cocktail-quaffing demigods, an A-list that included Sinatra, Tyrone Power, Marilyn Monroe, Crosby… yeah, that gang. On entering Conrad’s El Matador Club, they would find its proprietor delightedly tickling the ivories in the lushly appointed shadows, or drifting from table to table to lavish genuine and loving attention on the patrons, A-list and otherwise. Conrad blossomed during this period, adding “Beloved Bon Vivant” to his Technicolor CV. By the early 70s, though, the unmediated energy of the City by the Bay began to wear him down. He was a family man by then, and moved the clan to Santa Barbara, where in 1972 he contrived to convince a handful of top-

tier authors to attend and help launch the Santa Barbara Writers Conference (SBWC), Conrad schmoozing each with an unsecured promise of attendance by the others; a pyramid scheme of tactical flattery. It worked, of course.

The conference was off and running, its early Miramar Hotel years reportedly characterized by Olympian tippling (think Irwin Shaw roaring by lamplight in the wee-hours hotel bar) and other varieties of behind-the-scenes bedlam.

Later, the SBWC would mellow.

Inevitably so would Barnaby Conrad.

Having very publicly achieved both apogee and a measure of perigee, Conrad would settle into a period of what looked to this writer like a longsought contentment, a twilight whose elegiac roseate glow yet suggested something of the fires and neon that had so characterized his peripatetic journey to that point. He would reframe himself as a quiet, literary man-about-town, and headmaster of that erstwhile writer’s salon whose unofficial tree house was the Earthling Bookshop.

California Kid, Between the Lines While on a trip to D.C. in the mid-90s to visit my brother and his family, I visited a nearby community center where the residents had been asked to empty their garages for charity. On entering the place, I bee-lined for a nearby table piled high with old books and stacks of magazines, and on scanning the piles of stuff I saw Barnaby Conrad’s face staring up at me from the cover of a dusty magazine. The magazine, Argosy or Real Adventure or some such (I’m sorry to say the name escapes me), had articles by both Barnaby Conrad (on bullfighting) and screen actor-

Publisher/Editor • Tim Buckley | Design/Production • Trent Watanabe Managing Editor • James Luksic | Opinion • sbview.com Columnists Shop Girl • Kateri Wozny | You Have Your Hands Full • Mara Peters Plan B • Briana Westmacott | Food File • Christina Enoch Commercial Corner • Austin Herlihy | The Weekly Capitalist • Jeff Harding Man About Town • Mark Leisure | In The Garden • Randy Arnowitz The Beer Guy • Zach Rosen | The Drivers Seat • Randy Lioz Girl About Town • Julie Bifano | In The Zone • Tommie Vaughn Stylin’ & Profilin’ • Megan Waldrep | Fortnight • Jeff Wing State Street Scribe • Jeff Wing | Holistic Deliberation • Allison Antoinette Up Close • Jacquelyn De Longe | Behind The Vine • Hana-Lee Sedgwick Cinema Scope • James Luksic Advertising/Sales Tanis Nelson • 805.689.0304 • tanis@santabarbarasentinel.com Sue Brooks • 805.455.9116 • sue@santabarbarasentinel.com Judson Bardwell • 619.379.1506 • judson@santabarbarasentinel.com Kim Collins • 805.895.1305 • kim@santabarbarasentinel.com Published by SB Sentinel, LLC PRINTED BY NPCP INC., SANTA BARBARA, CA Santa Barbara Sentinel is compiled every other Friday 133 EAST DE LA GUERRA STREET, #182, Santa Barbara 93101 How to reach us: 805.845.1673 • E-MAIL: tim@santabarbarasentinel.com

seafarer-adventurer Sterling Hayden, and both guys’ faces were on the cover, small, above brief story slugs, Barnaby looking baby-faced and hawk-eyed, his skin cleaving to his neck and jawline as neatly as the velour on a newly upholstered love seat. I bought the mag.

On returning home, I immediately got Conrad’s contact info from Penny Davies and let him know by e-mail that I had, by some truly odd miracle that at this writing still wows me, stumbled upon this totem from his past, and several thousand miles away.

Would he like to have it? He arranged to come into the store some days hence, and when he did come in he seemed to be affecting an almost endearingly inept show of nonchalance. By way of compensating me for my troubles, he almost churlishly, it seemed, tossed onto the counter a copy of his moving and frank recovery memoir, Time Is All We Have. His demeanor helped me realize in a flash then that the whole transaction put him in an indefinably odd position. I produced the magazine without further ceremony, and his face – I remember this very clearly – his face became minutely animated, threw off some sudden light. I knew that whatever he was feeling, I was getting the Reader’s Digest condensed version.

“Well… thank you very much, Jeff. I

thank you.” He was looking down, but I saw that he was not looking down at the magazine but at his own fumbling hands, it seemed. Then he almost sheepishly met my eyes, briefly, without saying anything more. I flushed with gratitude and said some idiotic thing about feeling privileged to reunite he and the magazine. He looked down and mumbled thanks again, we shook hands, and he took the magazine and walked out of the store.

I watched him carefully. The guy had fought bulls and written novels, had talked smack with Frank Sinatra, and seen the world by candlelight. He was now this older guy with a spotted scalp and uncertain shuffle heading for a bookstore exit door; a muleta disguised as a doily. He exited the bookstore and passed into sunlight, hung a right, and walked along State Street, and I watched him walk all along the glass front of the bookshop. I felt oddly like an intruder and continued watching anyway. The California Kid moved slowly. As he walked, he wore an expectant expression, his face inclined, and he began gingerly to leaf through the frail old magazine, his hands trembling.

The Santa Barbara Writers Conference will take place June 7-12. For more information, go to http://www.sbwriters. com.

High Tea Served daily from 2 on festive tiers and includes:

Scone, Slice of Apple Strudel 2 Small Sandwiches, Fresh Fruit A Petite Four, and A Small Cream Pastry Served for two persons or more.

$29.95 per person including your choice of tea: English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Orange Black Tea, Chamomile Chai Tea, Peppermint, Raspberry, Lemon Ginger, Green Tea. We get real English Teas from

The Andersen’s Danish Bakery & Restaurant 1106 State Street (805) 962-5085 AndersensSantaBarbara.com

8|

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

by Zach Rosen

Zookeepers hanging up the different beer ingredients for the gibbons to taste

Festivals, Licenses, and Gibbons – Oh, My The Brewhouse’s Pete Johnson checking out which ingredients the gibbons like

W

ith summer approaching, the festival season is once again upon us. One of the more fun events in our area is Surf ‘n’ Suds, hosted by DEEP Surf magazine. With more than 45 breweries, there is plenty of beer there but what makes it one of the more unique festivals is its surf theme. In addition to food trucks and entertainment, there are local surfboard shapers and plenty of boards on display.

The festival is on Saturday, June 13, from 12:30 to 5:30 pm at the Ventura Harbor. Surf ‘n’ Suds will be expanding into two festivals this year. This is the first year it will be hosted in Ventura, with a second one to be held in Carpinteria, where it has been the past two years, on Saturday, August 15. Although located in Ventura, this fest is easy to get to, with plenty of safe transportation options available. The Amtrak station is nearby, and free rides are being offered by Jump on the School Bus. Tickets are $50 for general entry or $65 for VIP, which gets you in an hour early, and are available at www.surfbeerfest.com.

Zoo Brew

Certainly one of the most popular beer events in the area is Zoo Brew.

Held at our idyllic Santa Barbara Zoo, every year this festival sells out within hours of tickets going on sale. Each year, The Brewhouse likes to bring a special treat for attendees. From Channel Island foxes to gorillas, The Brewhouse has done a different animal-themed beer for the past five Zoo Brews. A few years back, they got the clever idea to try to have the animals pick the beer ingredients. Partnering with the zoo, the brewers present a selection of different ingredients commonly used in beer (and also safe for the animal to eat) to the animals and see which ones they like. They then design a recipe based off of the animal’s choices. That is how it has gone in the past, but this year

things went a little differently for The Brewhouse.

What Type are You?

No matter where you are in the world, to brew professionally you’re going to need to be licensed by the government.

In California, there are three main license types for beer producers: Type 01, Type 23, and Type 75. The Type 01 and Type 23 are the most common and are similar in style, the key difference between the two being the size of the brewery it permits. Breweries producing more than 60,000 barrels (bbls) per year will have a Type 01 and craft brewers under that annual volume will have a Type 23. There are some other differences, but this is the largest dividing factor between the two.

These licenses also allow brewers to self-distribute, meaning that they can sell beer directly to retailers versus having to go through a distributor or wholesaler, and it also allows them to sell beer for “off premises” usage, this includes beer festivals as well as growlers or keg sales to the public from the brewery’s premises.

The Type 75 is a different animal compared to the other two. It allows the establishment to serve beer, wine, and spirits while brewing between 100 to 5,000 barrels of their own beer per year.

A full liquor license can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (as compared to $12,000 for a Type 75), so this license is a much cheaper option if the brewpub wants to have a full bar at their facility.

The tradeoff, though, is that they are not allowed to self-distribute. Historically, they have been allowed to sell growlers and kegs from their brewery directly to the public. For beer festivals, or to sell to other retailers, they must go through a distributor.

This year, the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) threw a curve ball to the Type 75 license

Zach Rosen is a Certified Cicerone® and beer educator living in Santa Barbara. He uses his background in chemical engineering and the arts to seek out abstract expressions of beer and discover how beer pairs with life.

holders, which The Brewhouse happens to be. Without any change to the laws, they have “reinterpreted” the Type 75 license as meaning that no beer brewed at the establishment is ever allowed to leave the facility. This means no growler sales and it also means no beer festivals.

The Type 75 license is the brainchild of the distributors’ and wholesalers’ lobbyists and was originally opposed by the Californian craft brewers, since it allows the distributors to maintain control on wholesale beer transactions.

The Type 75 never caught on the way people thought it would but it still composes roughly 15-20 percent of the permitted breweries in the state.

It remains unseen what political force encouraged this change in policy, but what is known is that it is a huge inconvenience for anyone with a Type 75. To help out their comrades, the boys over at brewLAB partnered up with The Brewhouse to design this year’s animal-themed beer. They each brewed their own batches, and brewLAB will pour theirs at the festival, while The Brewhouse will serve at the brewpub as they cannot have a booth at the festival.

Getting Gibbons into the Beer This year, the two lucky primates chosen for the Zoo Brew beer were the zoo’s white-handed gibbons, Jasmine and Gulliver. The brewers and zookeepers met at the zoo on a sunny day. The Brewhouse’s Pete Johnson brought with him a selection of different ingredients from around the brewery. In the lineup of ingredients were chopped oranges, jasmine, grains of paradise, lemongrass, coconut, coriander, and roasted barley.

The zookeepers brought out the different ingredients in small jars and hung them in the trees for the gibbons to taste.

We stood patiently under the cool of the fluorescent jacarandas, waiting to see which ones the gibbons would go for. Jasmine seemed a little more hungry and adventurous in her tastes. She went for the coconut first and then ventured into the jasmine. After tasting it, she made her way to the other herbs and spices, seeming to like the lemongrass and coriander. Gulliver wasn’t interested in much besides the coconut. He picked up the lemongrass, sniffed it a bit before throwing it on the ground. After things settled down, we made our way out of the zoo, talking about the possible beers that could be made from the gibbons’ choices.

The next week, brewers got together to decide which possible beers would be best and to formulate the recipes.

For Jasmine’s silver fur and more exotic palate, they settled on a witbier (a spiced, Belgian-style wheat beer) brewed with coriander, lemongrass, and jasmine. To match Gulliver’s taste for coconut and his darker coat, the brewers are making a toasted coconut porter.

I recently swung by The Brewhouse to see how the beers were coming along.

The beers were still in the primary fermenters so they were unfinished, but you could start to pick up on some of their characters. The lemongrass was starting to come through in the witbier, and the beer will get a little spicier as it continues to ferment. The dried jasmine will be added later in the secondary fermenter. The coconut porter had a strong toastiness with only a subtle coconut character, though that flavor will come out more with time. Considering Pete’s porters and witbiers are two of my favorite styles he brews there, it’ll be great to taste them.

Even though both breweries are using the same recipes, there will likely be slight differences between them because they have different equipment and conditions. brewLAB will be taking their batch to Zoo Brew and The Brewhouse will serve theirs at the brewpub, with part of the profits from the beer being donated to the SB Zoo. If you were lucky enough to get a Zoo Brew ticket, make sure to try them at both locations and see if you can spot the differences.

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

9

Weekly Happenings in Santa Barbara:

E D N A R G O Y ARR O OPENING LATE JUNE!!

ICATIONS L P P A G IN T P E C NOW AC AGE! L IL V E K A L T S E FO R W REW.COM

KE EMAIL: WESTLA

@FIGMTNB

c i l i ty a F n o i t c u d o r P B u e l l to n t: and Taproom a 93427

uellton, CA B , y a W l ia tr s u 45 Ind 2 ( 8 0 5 ) 6 9 4 -2 2 5

oom r p a T a r a b r a B S anta e at : n o Z k n u F e h t in

, Suite F, 137 Anacapa St. 9 4 -2 2 5 5 6 ) 5 0 8 ( 1 0 1 3 CA 9 Santa Barbara,

m: o o r p a T a i r a M a S ant B Suite ia v ra e tt e B E 0 6 5 93 4 5 4 Santa Maria, CA

FACEBOOK.COM/FMBSB

www.figmtnbrew.com

Los Olivos Taproom:

tado, 2446 Alamo Pin 3 4 41 Los Olivos, CA 9

5/30 SAT: *OMAR VELASCO (6-9PM) 5/31 SUN: 2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY FOR THE SB TAPROOM IN THE FUNK ZONE!! *VENTUCKY STRING BAND (3-6PM) 6/1 MON: INDUSTRY NIGHT STARTS AT 4PM- $4 PINTS & 15% OFF ALL MERCH AND BEER TO GO 6/2 TUES: GAME NIGHT & QUIZ NIGHT IS BACK 7PM!!

6/3 WED: BENEFIT TAPHANDLE DAY: PACIFIC PRIDE FOUNDATION 6/4 THURS: FIRST THURSDAY ART SHOW FEATURING GRAFFITI ARTIST: BRIGGS LEBEAU (6PM) 6/5 FRI: *SPENCER THE GARDNER (6-9PM) / FIRKIN FRIDAY 5PM!!

6/6 SAT: *ONE TWO TREE (6-9PM) 6/7 SUN: SUNDAY FUNDAYS! ($2 OFF ALL BEERTAILS 11-1PM) *STIFF PICKLE (3-6PM) 6/8 MON: INDUSTRY NIGHT STARTS AT 4PM- $4 PINTS & 15% OFF ALL MERCH AND BEER TO GO 6/9 TUES: GAME NIGHT & QUIZ NIGHT IS ON JULY 1ST!!

6/10 WED: BENEFIT TAPHANDLE DAY: PACIFIC PRIDE FOUNDATION 6/11 THURS: THIRSTY THURSDAYS COLLEGE NIGHT! $1 OFF WITH VALID STUDENT ID 6/12 FRI: *HIDDEN CITY BAND (6-9PM) FIRKIN FRIDAY (5PM)!!

6/13 SAT: *SISTER SPEAK (6-9PM) *(LIVE MUSIC)

www.figmtnbrew.com expires 7/13/15

coupon cannot be combined with any other offer coupon can be redeemed at any Figueroa Mountain Brewery Taproom

10 |

theFortnight M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

MAY 30 - JUNE 13

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.

Well, Oil Be Darned

O

n May 19, a pipeline failed out near Gaviota, pouring an estimated 20,000 gallons of “Texas Tea” (as the Beverly Hillbillies theme calls it) into the ocean, fouling the beach, coating the pelicans in a killing basic black, and prompting an angry army of oil-haters to jump into their 4-to-6-cylinder internal combustion buggies and hurry out to lodge their collective complaint about Big Oil, the evil hegemony of Corporate America, and so on. A brigade of snow-shovel-wielding volunteers quickly swarmed the beach in paper suits, scraping the sludge off the sand and into buckets, the plastic buckets themselves inescapably petroleum-based.

We are oil’s enemies and enablers. When we really decide to put the screws to Big Oil, horse sales should spike, but don’t hold your breath. Unless you’re near the ass-end of your new horse. Meanwhile, the world still turns, and in 1,000 years there will be scant evidence any of this ever happened, save for the presence of a Giant Talking Pelican Ruling Elite and the yearly “Dip a Human in Oil” festival they will gaudily oversee with parades and huge floating Buddy Ebsen dirigibles. Now, on to a Fortnight’s mixed bag of ART and LIFE events (the only stuff with actual INTRINSIC value), hand-curated and presented in no particular order, and meeting no particular inclusion criteria but that of being interesting, odd, or heart-rate affecting – like daily life when we play our cards right.

The Way We Were

M

emories may be beautiful. And yet… what’s too painful to remember we simply choose to forget. Were truer words ever sung?

Nope. And who sang them? Only Barbra Freaking Streisand. It was the eponymous theme song for 1973’s Kleenex epic The Way We Were, wherein Streisand and Golden Boy Robert Redford turned a vanity film project into a national occasion for swooning and sighing. Dear hesitant hipsters; from a distance, this movie looks like a ponderous olden-times gasbag, but in fact it’s the story of love being sundered by politics (if you can imagine). This classic 70s movie is beautiful and complex and legendary for a reason.

And the theme song will perforate your duodenum (you may quote me). Add to all this the unlikely fact that the film is being introduced by the great, and until recently elusive, Paul Williams, who has written more epochal songs than any one artist should be allotted.

This evening promises to be strangely radiant. See you there. Monday, June 22, 7 pm, Granada Theatre.

An Evening with Peter Frampton, for G*d’s sake!

In the mid-1970s, Peter Frampton, an excitable 20-something coming off an indeterminate SuperGroup band experience with Humble Pie, wrote a couple songs in about 40 minutes that would change his life, his fortunes, and his Happy. “Show Me the Way” and “Baby I Love Your Way” took over the charts and helped make the nowlegendary Frampton comes Alive album a world-conquering smash, so huge that before long Frampton was locked in his hotel room with a gallon of cognac while endlessly touring, his management cautioning against his joining his band buddies by the pool. Eventually, he

couldn’t write anymore. He crashed big and the public turned on him, not necessarily in that order. In the late 80s (short version) he rose, with some effort, like a fresh-faced Phoenix. Today he is the baby-faced elder statesman of guitar rock and sweet songwriting, and the resurrected sacrificial lamb of a Pop Crucifixion that still holds as a classic teaching moment to rising rock g*ds everywhere. Come share the warmth of the Lobero’s dimly lit house with him.

He is volumes of rock history in a single walking, talking, singing personage.

Seymour Duncan is hosting at the Lobero. Tix aren’t cheap, but this sort of thing doesn’t happen along all that often. Call 963-0761 for the scoop.

Sunday, June 7. Write it down.

We The Folk

These fresh-faced kids from UCLA feature blazing local David Childs on accordion, and they have been doing some nifty conquering. Recently featured on NPR’s AltLatino show, they’ve been playing the clubs in L.A. and are embarking on their second tour of the Golden State. As they describe themselves, their “…sound palate invokes Mexican nightclubs, Irish coasts, Balkan caravans and Israeli rooftops, resulting in a kaleidoscope of folky energy powered by a vibrant Latin drive.” So, yeah. It takes some musicianship and melodic alchemy to make a multiple personality disorder like that work, but these guys are real and their music is lovely and kinetic. We the Folk are singer-songwriter and guitarist David Villafaña, violinist-composer Gabriel Wheaton, accordionist Childs, and upright bass player Sean O’Hara.

Check out their Y-Tubes and stop by SOhO for your dose of Irish Coastal Klezmer. There. Secret’s out. Monday, June 15, 8 pm - SOhO.

Wednesday

June 3, 5:30-7 pm ■ Death Cafe at the Historic adobe building at 11 East Carrillo Street

Teen Paranormal Romance

This is not the name of a band (yet) but the name of an art exhibit upstairs at the Museum of Contemporary Art at Paseo Nuevo – across from the Center Stage Theater at the top of the broad tiled staircase that leads up from Chapala. The exhibit is a visual exploration of the odd, new teen movie genre that is successfully turning death into an occasion for smooching the freefloating ectoplasm that used to be your girlfriend.

These movies begin with a fatal bonecrunching car wreck, and proceed on from there with the puppy-eyes and handholding. This art exhibit explores that somewhat concerning movie trend.

Featured artists are Kathryn Andrews, Ed Atkins, Chris Bradley, Roe Ethridge, Jill Frank, Guyton\Walker, Anna Gray & Ryan Wilson Paulsen, Anna K.E., and Jack Lavender. If your significant other has passed, this might make a nifty date night. June 7 > July 12, Museum of Contemporary Art, Paseo Nuevo Mall, upstairs.

4. Part of the UCSB series Script to Screen, the evening will be comprised of a showing of the Neeson/Frank film, A Walk Among the Tombstones, followed by the screenwriter himself holding forth on the abiding mystery of the cinematic writing process, and taking questions from attendees. The event is sponsored by The Carsey-Wolf Center and the Department of Film and Media Studies at UCSB. This event is free but has limited seating, so a reservation is recommended. Phone Carsey-Wolf Center, (805) 893-4637 – Two-ticket limit. Thursday, June 4, Pollock Theater UCSB Campus. Film showing followed by discussion with writer/director. 7 to 10 pm

Death Cafe Santa Barbara

Much has been written about death over the eons. Like its flower-bedecked first cousin, Love, it inhabits our cultural imagination and at a certain point begins to hover about our every waking moment, like an annoying playground monitor, or that guy in your fifth-grade social studies class who always tried to copy while you were taking your tests.

Unlike Love, however, death can be dispassionately discussed over tea, to the edification and betterment of all present.

That is the idea of the Death Cafe – this is a real meeting of regular people, open to whomever wants to drop in (RSVP below…) and completely informal; a place to meet with like-minded mortals and talk openly about a facet of life that is as inevitable, furtive, and mysterious as a Frank Stallone recording contract. There are said to be 1,000 Death cafés around the world, simply facilitating relaxed conversation about the unmentionable. This is a heartening development. If you fixate too much on the final curtain, you’ll surely miss the better and more nuanced sections of the third act. Right? RSVP: Lynn at cominghomesb@gmail.com or (805) 729-6172. This is not a therapeutic encounter group but a free-ranging discussion. Or as the Death Café folks put it: “At Death cafés, people come together in a relaxed and safe setting to discuss death, drink tea, and eat delicious cake. The more, the merrier!.”

Wednesday June 3, 5:30 pm

Script to Screen: A Walk Among A Rose by any other name would the Tombstones still… be called a rose?

Dear concerned parents who still dream of a child in pre-law or accounting… a UCSB Film Studies alum named Scott Frank wrote the awesome and critically well-regarded films Minority Report, Get Shorty, Out of Sight, and Heaven’s Prisoners, to name but a few, not to mention the film that will be discussed the evening of June

Santa Barbara Rose Society houses a legend. Dan Bifano. If you are Oprah or Streisand, you know Dan by his overarching knowledge of, and artistry with, um…roses. He is the Rose Guy to the Stars, and you knew there had to be one. On June 11, Dan will rock your world with a thorn-free presentation of his award-winning and

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

11

San Marcos HS sings the Birds out attended the event in Palo Alto. In trying to draw the follow spot. Dino of the Trees addition to singing their hearts out on heckled back, and it went on for a

Sunday

June 7 ■ Seymour Duncan hosts Peter Frampton at the Lobero aptly titled program “Landscaping with Roses”, which will lead you down the primrose path, but a good way! Dan has been a member of the American Rose Society for more that 35 years and is a horticulture judge, an arrangement judge and a master rosarian. I’ll close with this rose-sequitur from the Rose Society’s own press: “If you have ever driven past Dan’s property, you have probably stopped to look at the mass plantings of Julia Child in his front yard.” Nuf said? Refreshments & socializing begin at 7 pm. Santa Barbara Rose Society, Thursday, June 11, meeting

Oh, and by the way; the Heritage Spring Festival in Palo Alto on Memorial Day weekend was the place to be if you were (are) a practiced and joy-filled teen warbler who aspires to marvelous expression through song.

And being from San Marcos High School would be the icing on the cake on this occasion. The three San Marcos High School choirs, under the stirring direction of Carolyn Teraoka-Brady, rocked the adjudicators’ worlds at the choral festival in Palo Alto. Each choir – the Girls Chorus, Enchante, and the Madrigals – taking 1st place Gold, and each with scores above 96 (out of a possible 100, you see). Which is to say, the San Marcos High School Choirs “rocked.” This may date me, but I’m picturing the old Maxell audio tape ad featuring a guy in an easy chair having his long hair blown back by sonic purity.

Reader, if you don’t know what audio tape is, I won’t (can’t) explain it here (or anywhere, frankly). This is truly a mega achievement, all due to a dynamic mix of hard work and talent. Or to put it in Biblical terms, these choirs spin and toil. Woo hoo! The excited songbirds also received the Sweepstakes and Outstanding Choral Group award, and a certain Megan Wilson received a long-sought outstanding soloist award.

Seventy-seven San Marcos students

Tattoo You: Alan Murray and the Fine Art of Fine Art

A

tattoo parlor is a mysterious thing to the uninitiated. You sneak a peek inside as you walk quickly by, and what you nervously glimpse in there often looks almost domestic: chairs and a throw rug, and the smiling proprietor leaning over the counter like a chatty village grocer with a feather duster in his apron. A tattoo was once emblematic of shadowy danger, or edge. Bare arms clothed in color once shocked, signified an outlier beyond the reach of polite society. No longer.

Now there is a fair chance that the impeccably coiffed young lady fitting you for your wedding dress will have a stainless steel whatnot pushed fashionably through some part of her head, and ink in places you don’t associate with drawing. Tattoo has been an art form forever, but these days attracts admirers of both fine art and cultural frisson. It’s in that environment that a vanguard of excitably focused artisans is blurring the line between dermis and canvas. Alan Murray is one of these.

“Tattooing has been a long road filled with daily trials, and has opened my eyes to so many aspects of art, and of people.”

Murray’s work combines the whimsy and frankness of illustration with the color depth and textural pop of paints applied with brushes. His work can compel the smile-out-loud response of Chagall, or Lichtenstein; high and low seriousness in the same series of strokes. The evolution of a totally personal style didn’t come easy.

Murray came by his chops the hard way – via Elasmosaurus.

“It wasn’t until the second grade that I first self-identified as an artist. I remember one day, the teacher cut out these big sheets of paper and split the class up into groups of four. Each group was randomly assigned a dinosaur. Our assignment was for each group to draw in crayon their dinosaur. It was a contest. I had my fingers crossed that my group would get to draw, of course, the T-Rex. I couldn’t wait to make this badass-looking beast! But our group got an Elasmosaurus. It’s like an aquatic Sauropod. A swimming ‘long neck’!” Undeterred, the steely secondgrader/future working artist dove in and got his hands dirty. And took his first

Saturday’s event, the group spent time in Monterey and the Great America Theme Park, where the students were able to relax and bond as a group. As director Carolyn Teraoka-Brady put it, “Friday’s day of bonding made us better musicians and singers on Saturday.” Or in the words of breathless junior Zadie Onishuk, “I really enjoyed hearing some new and rephrased advice from the great adjudicators. It was fun to travel and hang out with friends who love music as much as I do.” Well said, Zadie! Indeed, what could be better?

All hail singers and singing, and the San Marcos HS troupe of gifted hollerers.

And all art and all artists, while we’re at it.

F@#% YOU Jerry Lewis!

Comedy Show

These ladies are angry, pissyour-date’s-pants funny, comically pedigreed, and out for Brylcreem!!

Jerry Lewis (Joseph Levitch, Newark, New Jersey) was first a shiny-haired loudmouth with what they called in those days a “record act.” He would get onstage, play records and do wild, overthe-top comic pantomime lip-syncing to the songs. It was going nowhere.

One night he opened for a singing guy named Dean Martin (Dino Crocetti, Steubenville, Ohio), and when Martin started performing, Lewis heckled,

while to the delight of the audience.

A binary star was born. Later, Lewis famously said words to the effect that women couldn’t be funny without demeaning themselves. Welcome to the F@#% YOU Jerry Lewis!

Comedy Show! Three hilarious, out of control, frontier-free-limits-whatlimits members of the fairer sex (sorry) are about to part Lewis’s hair. Again.

And you’re invited. Laurie Kilmartin (Conan and Last Comic Standing), Cathy Ladman (Mad Men, Curb Your Enthusiasm), and Felicia Michaels (Funnies Female Comic Award, I Am Comic documentary) are going to rule the Brasil Arts Café, a truly funky and vibrationally glorious performance space near Victoria and State you have to feel to believe. Come, bathe in the moment. No matter how you feel about Jerry. Saturday, June 6, 8 pm, Brasil Arts Café

Old chums and new, that’s it for this Fortnight. Be safe, do right, don’t let the Eastern-Eyed Click Beetles bite. Finish your broccoli or stay in your seat, don’t run up the walls till you’ve wiped your feet, take note of the loveliness all around, lay your slingshots on the stony ground. Take out the garbage, wax my car. Walk with pride, you’re a superstar largish and unexpectedly fancy jelly jar.

commanding steps into Art Direction.

“I quickly got to work drawing it up, and the other three classmates followed my lead.

I gave one kid a certain blue color and said, “That’s the ocean… fill it in,” another the sky, and so on. When it was done, we had the whole sheet filled with a prehistoric ocean scene and a pretty cool-looking dinosaur, with flippers and teeth and stuff. Our group won. I was actually surprised!” The victory came with a smallish Road-to-Damascus moment, a revelation.

“I remember being disappointed when I saw the squandered T-Rex. It didn’t even fill the canvas… it was like a squiggle on a bottom corner of the huge sheet. So yeah, I guess that was when I first thought, ‘Is no one else taking this seriously?! What’s the deal?’” He laughs. “I guess that’s when I first thought, ‘I’m an artist, now, that’s what I am.’”

Rarer still, Alan Murray is a working artist. These are approximately as rare as folks who’ve been hit by lighting on the 7th tee. His passion is his vocation, and vice versa, and he often travels to clients who insist on the Murray mojo. He’s been at this for years, and as is the case with all happy artists, he’s just getting started. I didn’t want to use the word “journey” in this piece, but what’re you gonna do?

“I’ve come to know many people who have influenced my decision on going down this path. Anyone who has enjoyed seeing something I made, that’s what keeps me doing this.” Still, the Elasmosaurus looms large in Murray’s personal tattoo mythology. Doors are opening, and he’s seriously grateful.

“These opportunities are sacred. I get to put dinosaurs on people now! I can’t squander that.”

12 |

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

SYVSNAPSHOT

by Eva Van Prooyen Keeping a finger on the pulse of the Santa Ynez Val-

ley: 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.

53rd Old Santa Ynez Day

I

f you love a good satisfying slice of Americana the whole family can enjoy, then join the frontier town of Santa Ynez at its Old Wild West roots birthday party during an annual Old Santa Ynez Day celebration Saturday, June 13. In its 53rd year, the tradition hasn’t veered much from the classic schedule, starting with booths opening at 9 am, a parade at 11 am, followed by an afternoon of live music, a talent show, food, games, animals, arts, antiques, crafts, and street vendors stretching down Sagunto Street. Owners of Brent and Jeff’s Flooring and long-time Valley residents Brent and Chris McClurg are this year’s parade grand marshals.

The town’s main thoroughfare will be playfully patrolled by a “volunteer festival sheriff” looking for anyone not wearing one of the ‘sheriff’s badges’ that will be sold as part of the event fundraiser with proceeds going to Santa Ynez Valley Elks charities and Valley school programs. Anyone caught without a badge will be thrown in the jail in the town center, and friends and family will have to post “bail” to get them out. Festival-goers can count on street dancing to the live music by the T-Bone Ramblers, and games will be held on the main stage for kids to enjoy, which will likely include a tortilla toss and watermelon-eating contest.

Free and open to all ages. All booth and parade applications are available online at www.syvelks.com. Cash prizes for parade entry winners. For more information, call 688-3023.

The Music Starts at High Noon

If you’re looking for a crazy little gem of “music-topia,” Jones Fest – dubbed a mini daylong music festival showcasing local and national acts right around the corner from the street fair, the Jones family will be holding their 20th annual music festival, which coincides with Old Santa Ynez Day. This Jones house jubilee has become an annual pilgrimage for musicians and music lovers from all over the country.

The daylong concert takes place at the 115-year-old historic family home located at 1120 Edison Street in the heart of downtown Santa Ynez. The line-up is subject to change but currently boasts the following musicians: Orlando Napier, Omar Orlando Napier will be in Santa Ynez at Jones Fest Velasco, Mondo Boys, Tandemoro, on June 13. “Orlando is a talented dude with a bright Sleeping Chief, Fig Mountain Brew future ahead of him. He’s a true musician.” – Adam Band, Lee Koch, Idea the Artist, Jesse Levine Siebenberg, Paul Cartwright, Jonathan McEuen, Sego, Swimm, and “Special surprise guests.”

Free for all ages and open to the public on Old Santa Ynez Day from noon till 6 pm.

The Jones House is located at 1120 Edison Street in Santa Ynez.

Marsha Kotlyar Representing Exquisite Properties of Montecito & Santa Barbara

BRE #01426886

www.SBFineEstates.com Marsha6@me.com 805.565.4014

Eva’s Top Faves:

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

Giggles, Spoofs, and Fast Thinking

Nestled partially underground in full cozy wine cellar fashion, The Good Life Craft Beer and Wine Cellar in downtown Solvang presents an Improv night every Monday at 7 pm. Lead by host Robert Byrne, join entertainers, neighbors, and fellow imbibers in the endless attempts to make their friends laugh. Cellar owners Alfred and Lisa Mesa serve and pour everything made locally – wine, beer, cheese, and chocolate – from Santa Barbara to Paso Robles. The Good Life is located at 1672 Mission Drive in Solvang. For more information, visit www.thegoodlifecellar. com or call (805) 688-7111.

Bottle Share and Burger Night

Babi’s Beer Emporium hosts a “bottle share” where people buy a bottle of craft beer to share with one another to experience a variety of different suds they may otherwise not try. “It is communal and fun, and people make friends and look forward to it,” says owner Sonja Madjevski. Chef Giorgio Curti of Craft Kitchen makes truffle burgers – a recipe he reports that won him a “best truffle burger title” in a bet against a French chef in culinary school. You can get them truffled or not, and he also make a veggie version with just vegetables.

Every Thursday from 4 to 8 pm at Casa Dumetz and Babi’s Beer Emporium, located at 448 Bell Street in Los Alamos. For more information, call (805) 344-1900.

Fourth Annual 805 Criterium 2015

Explore Lompoc presents the 805 Criterium Weekend June 19, 20, and 21 to benefit the Lompoc Police Foundation. This cycling event features tons of racing and more than $45,000 in cash and prizes. This event takes racers on American Style Crit courses with a variety of challenging and fast courses. (Crits are circuit races under a mile long that are great to watch or race in). Family, race fans, and spectators are invited to watch world-class cycling from three different locations in the Santa Rita Hills wine country. A festival of food and vendors each day, as well as a full schedule of junior racing is scheduled for each day. For more information or to register, visit www.805critweek.com

The Summer Wine Tasting Pass

Attention, wine-tasting warriors! For $40, you sip your way through the boutique wineries of Santa Ynez Valley by arming yourself with a summer wine-tasting pass. Pass holders receive one wine tasting at 15 Santa Ynez Valley Wine Country Association tasting rooms, which calculates out to at least a $150 value. You choose the dates you’d like to taste from now through August 31. No reservations required and no blackout dates. Your pass will expire when you’ve tasted at all 15 rooms, or on August 31 – whichever occurs first. Buy your pass online at www. santaynezwinecountry.com

The Rain in Spain Stays in… Solvang

PCPA presents My Fair Lady at Solvang Festival Theater on June 11 through July 12. Professor Henry Higgins makes a wager he can raise a lowly Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to the status of a high-society debutante in Lerner and Loewe’s hit creation – which is as much a classic play as a classic musical with numbers such as Wouldn’t It Be Lovely?, The Rain In Spain, and I Could Have Danced All Night. This classic musical theater production is appropriate for all ages, though children under five are not admitted. No performances Monday evenings. Tickets: $33-49.50 with discounts for seniors, students, and children. Call (805) 922-8313 for more information or visit www.pcpa.org

QUALITY MEDICARE SUPPLEMENTS We make sure it works for you!

Worried about your current coverage?

Turning 65  Tired of HMOs

For Free Comparison Call Jason Stevens

(805) 683-3636 info@retireeins.com

CA LIC#0773817

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

SolVANG...Come For The aebleskiver‌Stay For The Shopping

TreaTs

comfortable everyday clothing for women 1603 Copenhagen Drive Solvang CA 686.4358 www.treatsclothing.com

Tired of the Santa Barbara Drought Restrictions?

There is still water in Santa Ynez. One of the few properties with a live running creek and pond. Small vineyard with updated three bedroom house with newer kitchen on 1.74 acres. Only $895,000

(805) 688-5717 -- (800) 959-5717 mail@santaynezvalley.com www.santaynezvalley.com 1595 Mission Dr Solvang, CA 93463 BRE #01132470

13

14 |

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

The Caverns light up the night at May Party 2015

OH YEAH, ALL RIGHT...

by Tommie Vaughn Tommie adapted her love of the stage to the love of the

page. As lead singer for the band Wall of Tom, she created This Rock in My Heart and This Roll in My Soul, a fictional book series based loosely on her experiences in the L.A. music scene. Now she’s spending her time checking out and writing about all things Santa Barbara. Reach Tommie at www.TommieV.com or follow her on Twitter at TommieVaughn1.

Lost in the Hills of Foxen Bill, Dick and Jenny appear to be happy campers

T

he adventure had begun. I was absolutely lost somewhere within the northern hills of the Santa Ynez Valley, and must admit being nervous as my family and I drove farther into the Foxen Canyon with little to no direction.

Cell-phone service had stopped working for 15 minutes, so I was sweating as we bumped down the road, our camper in tow bouncing behind us, and closed my eyes while trying to remember the one landmark detail I had been told to look for.

The old white house. No, not the White House, but a monument just the same in the vineyard-studded valley, this vintage whitewashed Victorian home where our turn would follow suit. We would continue up the private road of the Doré families property. We had been invited by Paul Doré, son of Dick Doré, the co-owner and co-founder of Foxen Vineyards, who played host to this lively occasion know to the Foxen family and friends as “May Party,” an annual celebration 41 years strong.

Entering the Foxen’s Den

After we took our turn, climbing higher into the hills, I raised my eyebrows as my husband shook his head, mumbling something like “It’s gotta be up here somewhere.” And just like that, we rounded the corner into a large, flat oak tree studded parcel with campers, tents, and RVs dotted in every direction, surrounding a giant stage that was built into an even larger Savannah oak tree.

String lights hung from nearby trees and long tables with green tablecloths bounded a massive barbecue station that was smoking with rotisserie meats.

People were everywhere, talking and laughing, playing horseshoes as children played Frisbee and dodgeball in an open field. I breathed a sigh of relief as my

kids cheered from the back seat. It was time to relax, meet the family, play some music, and drink excellent wine.

The day went from worried to wonderful in about 30 seconds, as we were greeted by the charismatic Paul Doré and lovely Jenny Williamson Doré, who handles Foxen’s marketing and California/Florida sales and just happens to be the wife of Dick – whose warmth and excitement I instantly loved – as she told me the legacy of this historic property.

Q. Foxen has a strong family lineage, with the land dating back to the 1800s.

Can you tell me a bit about the family history, including Foxen’s namesake William Benjamin Foxen?

A. The winery is named in memory of William Benjamin Foxen, an English sea captain and Dick’s great-great grandfather, who came to Santa Barbara in the early 1800s. In 1837, this Santa Barbara County pioneer purchased the Rancho Tinaquaic, a Mexican land grant that originally totaled nearly 9,000 acres and comprised most of what is now known as Foxen Canyon. Captain Foxen adopted the distinctive “anchor” as his ranch cattle brand, which has become a trademark of the winery.

Benjamin Foxen and his wife, Eduarda Osuna, raised sheep and 14 children on the ranch. In the 1880s, Eduarda and Benjamin’s oldest child, Ramona, married another Englishman, Frederick Wickenden, and built an adobe home, stagecoach stop, and a general store. The old, white wooden Victorian home that still stands today was built around the original two-room adobe structure built

by Ramona and Fredrick Wickenden.

Eduarda’s stepfather was Santa Barbara’s presidio captain and their home was where the San Ysidro Ranch is

more difficult in this historic drought.

Lost in the Hills of Foxen

today. In fact, the family’s original adobe room is preserved by the San Ysidro Ranch today. Because of the influence of Eduarda’s father, Benjamin Foxen was able to purchase the Rancho Tinaquaic and became Santa Barbara’s first Anglo land owner. Foxen used the proceeds from selling his ship to purchase the Mexican land grant property.

Your husband, Dick Doré, and viticulturist Bill Wathen are the founders and the only owners of Foxen Vineyard and Winery. The winery has a land lease with the Doré Family. How did the two meet back in 1985?

You are correct that Dick and Bill made their first wine together in 1985, but they met years before in the late 70s at a party and became friends then. They founded Foxen at the historic Rancho Tinaquaic in northern Santa Barbara County; that has been in Dick’s family since 1837.

It is fitting that Foxen makes its home on the 2,000-acre Rancho Tinaquaic, on which the land remains in Doré family hands, direct descendants of Benjamin Foxen. We welcome visitors at our original tasting “shack” at 7200 Foxen Canyon Road, and our new solarpowered winery at 7600 Foxen Canyon Road that was completed in 2009.

What wines are Foxen’s specialties? And what’s new at the vineyard?

We are best-known for our Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays, but our Syrahs and Bordeaux-style wines are also some of the most highly-acclaimed wines to come out of Santa Barbara County. Our estate Tinaquaic vineyard produces Chardonnay, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, and a bit of Petit Verdot. It is dryfarmed, which is becoming more and

Your friends and family campout May Party has now become legend. How many years has this been going on, and how did it start?

Dick started May Party 41 years ago, and invited a few families to camp and “party.” It has grown over the years, and Dick delights in the fact that three generations of his family enjoy this fete.

Three years ago, Dick turned over the hosting duties to his son, Paul Doré.

Being a part of your campout gave insight about how strong your family ties are, and I loved seeing such strength and community between you all. Does everyone help out around the vineyard as well? I know both yourself and Bill’s wife, Becky Barieau, work hard with the label – what about the rest of the family?

So, only Dick, Bill, me, and Becky run Foxen’s winery and vineyard activities.

Actually, since last year, daughter Kaitlin manages our California sales. Bill was educated as a viticulturist, so he handles all of the farming in addition to being our winemaker. Dick and I divide the sales duties. I handle the marketing and communications, while Dick oversees the business. And Bill’s wife, Becky, is a CPA and the perfect person to be our controller. It’s a partnership that has grown and worked well for 30 years.

Any chance of a new tasting room on the Santa Barbara Wine Trail?

With our two tasting rooms, we have our hands full and have no plans for additional tasting rooms. Sorry!

Okay, so a girl can dream, right? It was about this time that I was distracted by the lively music that had started on stage and lasted into the wee hours, featuring local darlings The Caverns and L.A.’s melodic mastermind Omar Velasco. It was a party to end all parties, with the friendliest family in SY Valley… and you better believe I cannot wait to go back next year – bumpy roads and all.

For more information on Foxen Winery and vineyards, go to www.foxenwinery. com or call (805) 937-4251.

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

Los Olivos...Come For The Wine…Stay For The Shopping

Atmosphere Atelier

Comfortable Luxury for the home

WWW.ATMOSPHEREATELIER.COM

VINTAGE AND NEW ONE OF A KIND DESIGNER CLOTHING Wed - Sat 11 am to 5 pm Fri and Sat to 6 pm Mon - Tue appt. only

2963 Grand Ave. Los Olivos ph: 805.455.1008

wendy foster LOS OLIVOS FINE WOMEN’S APPAREL wendyfoster.com

www.insidesyv.com

2928 SAN MARCOS AVENUE InsIde

the

santa Ynez ValleY MagazIne

LOS OLIVOS

805.686.0110

WInter 2014/15

3

15

16 |

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

408 LOS ROBLES LANE MISSION CANYON | 3bd/2.5ba | $1,795,000 | WEB: 0113909 CHARMING CRAFTSMAN/HIDDEN GEM

MICHELLE COOK

805.570.3183 CalBRE#: 01451543

michelle@michellecook.com michellecook.com

Nestled between San Roque and Mission Canyon on a peaceful cul-de-sac, this beautiful Craftsman home sits under a canopy of trees and solitude. The spacious friendly floor plan offers 3 large bedrooms and 2.5 baths. The large master bedroom is on the first floor and has a wonderful fireplace with French doors that open directly to the back yard and spa. Upstairs you will find 2 additional bedrooms, one with a deck, a bath and ample storage place. The updated kitchen includes a Viking stove and Sub-Zero refrigerator, granite counter tops, a charming island and open concept to the family room. The yard houses an outdoor kitchen, a gazebo and plenty of room for play or entertaining. A terrific location just blocks from the Santa Barbara Mission.

Sotheby’s International Realty and the Sotheby’s International Realty logo are registered (or unregistered) service marks used with permission. Operated by Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Real estate agents affiliated with Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc.

17

18 |

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

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.

Detroit’s Dramatic (and Really Funny) Women

D

ramatic Women founder Ellen K. Anderson’s latest overture to the Motor City, the whimsically titled In the Forest of Detroit, might be the most cuss-filled caper ever to hit the Center Stage, and certainly contains the highest repetitions by women of a certain age uttering a certain four-letter word on a local stage.

It’s also a side-splittingly funny romp that touches on issues of family, neglect, urban decay, TV news, African art and spirituality that comes off like the theater equivalent of a musical ditty.

That’s partially due to the delightfully ditty-like songs from Mommy Tonk, the duo of Stacie Burrows and Shannon Noel (who also jump on the swearing bandwagon with all four feet and vocals – who knew that word could sound so sweet in harmony?). Their songs serve as scene change indicators and sometimes previews, as do the news update reports from a pair of over-the-top TV news readers (representing the real Detroit station WXYZ) who exaggerate every item they report – or worse.

All the main actors also acquit themselves nicely, and it’s a special joy to see local social activist Mickey Flacks, who used to work in theater in Chicago in the 1960s, in a charming role as Grandma Trudy, the matriarch of the whole gang. Despite the company’s name, the short (90-minutes) evening

Wendy Sims-Moten in character from In the Forest of Detroit

at the theater goes a lot heavier on the laughter than it does on the drama.

Stand in the Sand

The merry month of May hasn’t been so merry around these parts the last two springs. The shocking shootings in Isla Vista grabbed the nation’s attention in 2014, and the recent oil spill in Refugio has drawn the interests of environmentalists across the land (there’s an interesting item in The New Yorker online) as the stench-filled oil slick that stretched nine miles down the pristine

beach recalled the infamous 1969 spill – the one that gave rise to the formation of Earth Day – and still the third largest oil spill in U.S. waters after Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez.

It’s the kind of thing that leaves one hopeless. But it’s also a reminder of the price we pay for our continued reliance on fossil fuels. And now that we’ve got the nation’s attention once again, a lot of folks are planning a gathering to protest and further the cause of moving to a 100-percent, clean-energy economy.

Stand in the Sand, which formed as a result of Deep Horizon disaster in 2010 to raise funds and build solidarity to support our Gulf Coast neighbors, is reconvening five years later to organize a community rally and march to support clean energy after our own oil spill. The event begins noon on Sunday, May 31, at De La Guerra Plaza in front of the Santa Barbara City Hall before beginning a march down State Street toward the waterfront and West Beach at 1 pm. Attendees are encouraged to wear yellow – and more importantly, to walk, skateboard, bike, or use “your special powers” to arrive using any means necessary other than fossil fuels.

Lots of nonprofits, other organizations, and local individuals are promoting the event through social media. Latest local celeb to sign on as of this writing was Alan Thicke (@Alan_Thicke on Twitter), who tweeted, “We live here. Seals & pelicans are our friends. Sand should be safe. Regulators, please regulate! www. standinthesand.org #StandInTheSand”

Revels Recruiting

The Christmas Revels 2015 Winter Solstice show, The Treasures of Spain, is looking for singers and dancers. As the title indicates, this year’s communitycentered show features the Spanish, Moorish/Arabic, and Sephardic/Jewish seasonal traditions in music, dance, storytelling, and ritual with a particular focus on the crossroads of Southern Spain. Adults will be seen Monday EARTHQUAKE RETROFITTING

SPECIALIZING IN ROLEX • CARTIER • TAG HEUER 30 YEARS EXTERIENCE • ALL BRANDS

50 + YEARS EXPERIENCE - LOCAL 35+ YEARS

• FLOOR LEVELING • TREE TRIMMING & SCULPTING • FOUNDATION REPLACEMENTS • FOUNDATIONS REPAIRS • EPOXY INJECTION • RETAINING WALLS • FRENCH DRAINS – WATERPROOFING • SITE DRAINAGE SYSTEMS • UNDERPINNINGS – CAISSONS • STRUCTURAL CORRECTION WORK • CONCRETE DRIVEWAYS

805.698.4318

FREE INSPECTION

Division of William J. Dalziel & Assoc., Inc Lic#B414749 – Bonded & Insured visit our site at:

www.williamjdalziel.com billdalziel@yahoo.com

and Tuesday evenings, June 8-9, at El Montecito Presbyterian Church; singers should prepare a simple art song, folk song, or carol to sing a cappella, while dancers will need to follow simple choreography. Kids (currently in third through fifth grades) angling for a spot in the Yuletide Children’s Chorus, will need to sing, move, and just make noise when they’re seen en masse the same Monday afternoon.

Rehearsals begin in September; performances are in mid-December.

For details, call 260-3223 or email adamphillipsmusic@cox.net (adults) or 453-7134/Eglin76@yahoo.com (children).

Un-covering Comedy

Comedy Hideaway is back! After another unintended hiatus, the on-andoff again series featuring TV-certified standups from Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and beyond is once again running weekly shows. The schedule has scaled back to a single night, back on the original Thursdays, and has a new venue at Piano Gastro Lounge (129 E. Anapamu St., across from the Courthouse Sunken Gardens).

Bret Ernst, who has appeared on Showtime, Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show, BET’s One Mic Stand, and his own half-hour Comedy Central Presents special and also had a recurring role on Weeds, headlines on Thursday, June 4, with shows at 7 and 9 pm. Details and tickets at www.SBcomedy.com.

Tales End

The Tales from the Tavern (TFTT) singer-songwriter series at the Maverick Saloon in Santa Ynez is in its off season – but that doesn’t mean founder Ron Colone and staff are resting easy. In addition to preparing the next set of six double-billed concert beginning in the fall, the TFTT gang is combing through its archives in anticipation offering an online subscription to the vast collection of audio and video performances, photographs, interview transcripts, and more from past events. In the meantime, there’s a new DVD, Jeffrey Foucault Live at Tales from the Tavern, which includes his entire 2014 performance woven together with interview footage.

Colone has also published his fifth book, Casting On Dry Land, a collection of columns and essays written between 2007-14 covering a such topics as life, love, health, wealth, energy, power, experience, knowledge, wisdom, learning, mind, money, materialism, spirituality, sports, art, music, food, philosophy, psychology, politics, and... did we leave anything out? Get your copy or more info on the other stuff at www.talesfromthetavern.com.

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

BEHIND THE VINE

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.

Get to Know LEVO

Two of a kind, bottled up and ready to rise

O

ne of the best parts about writing this column is getting to share different people’s journeys in the wine industry… and of course, tasting new wine, but that’s a given! More often than not, I hear stories of people getting hooked and just going for it, making a career out of wine because it’s what they’re passionate about. Case in point for Bret Urness of LEVO wine.

Bret is a young winemaker here in Santa Barbara who originally hails from Idaho, where he got introduced to the wine world while working part-time at a winery in high school. After moving to Santa Barbara for school, he started helping out in the vineyards and found himself more and more interested in wine. Soon, he ventured to Portugal for four months to learn the primitive winemaking styles in the Douro Valley,

LEVO and let live with this bottle of vino

before returning to Santa Barbara to start his own label, LEVO Wines, in 2011.

The name Levo actually means “to rise” in Latin, which Bret likes to equate with rising above the challenges of starting out in this industry, not to

mention the challenges of making wine in general. Focusing on Rhône varietals like Syrah, Grenache, and Viognier, he sources fruit from most of the AVAs in Santa Barbara County to make his nearly 1,200 cases of wine (production has pretty much tripled since his first vintage).

Bret’s goal is to produce “soulful wines that feel like there’s a person behind it all,” while always seeking to showcase different characteristics in the wine rather than being concerned with consistency vintage after vintage. The inspiration for the clever names of the wines – such as White Lightning and Bad Medicine – comes from his daily life, while driving, out in nature, and throwing barbecues with friends. It’s cool that Bret is doing his own thing, creating wines with personality inside and outside of the bottle!

Just in time for summer, Bret recently

added two new wines to the portfolio – a white and a rosé. The 2014 Volts ($28) is made from a blend of Roussanne, Grenache Blanc and Viognier from some of SBC’s best vineyards, and has notes of tropical fruit, vanilla, and citrus. LEVO’s 2014 Ultraviolet Rosé ($22) is a light, summery wine made from mostly Grenache and Grenache Blanc aged in 50 percent neutral French oak and 50 percent stainless steel. Fresh aromas of sea salt and watermelon lead to flavors of juicy strawberries on the palate. This wine calls for sunshine and a beach, for sure!

LEVO’s line up also includes a couple of bold red wines, such as the 2012 Ransom ($36), made with 75 percent Grenache and 25 percent Syrah from Ballard Canyon. The name pays homage to the days after returning from Portugal when Bret was pretty much held ransom by wine – working with it, studying it, and tasting it. Wild berries, vanilla, and mocha dominate the nose, followed by flavors of licorice and blackberry and, after some time in the glass, the wine takes on more earthy characteristics.

One thing is for sure: these wines have fun personalities yet are complex enough to be taken seriously – a true reflection of a hard worker who is clearly enjoying the ride!

A bank you can bank on

How’s that for a novel idea?

All of our customers were once just like you - fed up with their bank always charging more for less. But when they had finally had enough, American Riviera Bank made the transition painless, delivering cutting edge technology, complimentary use of every ATM in the country, freedom from restrictive rules and a level of customer service that other banks only dream of. To us it’s simple smart people want smart banking. Come in and talk to us today about making the smart move. You’ll wish you had done it sooner.

Downtown Br anch

Montecito Br anch

1033 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara PH: 805.965.5942 | FX: 805.965.8523

525 San Ysidro Road, Montecito PH: 805.335.8110 | FX: 805.565.8542

Smart Banking for Smart People AmericanRivieraBank.com

19

20 |

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

UP CLOSE

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

Paradise Lost. Now to Save What’s Left.

I

t was the day after the news broke about the latest Refugio oil spill that I found out. Devastated, I watched the news clips of a tar-stained beach. Only last month, my kids and I were camping with friends at Refugio playing in the water, lounging on the sand – and now it’s sullied, dirtied and blackened.

Honestly, this environmental disaster is heartbreaking and uncomfortably close to home. It leaves me frustrated and feeling powerless. How does something like this happen? What are we doing to change this? What can we do?

These questions sent me searching for answers and solutions on a local level, so I interviewed Carla D’Antonio, chair of Environmental Studies at UCSB with the hopes of finding a way to make a change.

It’s Mulch Madness!

Mulch saves water by reducing evaporation and keeps weeds out.

How to get free mulch: • County residents can load up mulch for free at the South Coast Recycling and Transfer Station, 4430 Calle Real, Santa Barbara • City of Santa Barbara water customers can get mulch delivered to their home or business twice a year for free!

Q. What we can do now?

A. There is not very much that the public can do right now in terms of helping with cleanup, except report oil birds, and try to stay out of the way of the Hazmat crews cleaning up the oil.

However, it is important that the public maintain continued interest, vigilance and pressure on public officials and Plains All American for a fair and open inquiry into why this happened, and to ensure cleanup to the fullest extent possible.

In a broad sense, I believe the public needs to be educated on why spills happen, how pipeline safety can be improved, and why regulations are important in forcing companies to comply with strict standards for safety.

Companies – and the oil sector in particular – tend to fight regulations.

What we are still experiencing from the 1969 oil spill off the coast?

The 1969 spill was a call to action for

Lindsay Johnson, executive director of Explore Ecology at the Watershed Resource Center at Hendry’s Beach

concerned citizens in California and ultimately throughout the USA… The most important positive impact was that it fueled the environmental movement in this area, contributed directly to the creation of our Environmental Studies program (at UCSB) which has now produced more than 6000 graduates and spawned generations of activists, researchers, and educators focused on improving our environment.

What we can expect for years to come?

In comparison to the 1969 spill, this is a relatively small spill. But it does not mean that it isn’t ecologically significant…we are piling up insults to these ecosystems from local to global scales...from constant pollution by plastics, all sorts of chemicals entering from rivers, creeks, storm water, sewage pipes, and more to large-scale changes ...continued p.25

Don’t be afraid to drink pink!

Our rosé flight is back!

Everyone’s favorite refreshing summertime drink at everyone’s favorite watering hole.

Corks n’ Crowns Tasting Room and Wine Shop

Learn more at SantaBarbaraCA.gov/WaterWise

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

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

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.

Caught Looking Ahead

A

ptly enough, Tomorrowland must wait until tomorrow for a review in this corner; too bad, because the fantastical sci-fi venture starring George Clooney has more to offer than a few retreads found here. Instead of making time for sneak-previews of the promising Aloha and San Andreas, this devoted critic chewed on smaller potatoes – yet also enjoyed an old-fashioned drama of the top-shelf variety.

Out of Tune

I

t’s fine and well that Elizabeth Banks chose the pretentious sequel Pitch Perfect 2 to cut her pearly whites as a director, but the amicable actress – who also returns as The Bellas’ on-air color commentator – hasn’t done her filmmaking career any favors. (She ought to redeem herself this summer in Love & Mercy.) Somehow, PP2 has unexplainably been lauded by national critics as a feather in the cap of feminists, in the name of gender equality behind the camera. If that’s the case, why an onslaught of raunchy jokes that are so cheap they’re a dime a dozen? Vaginal references grow old after the initial five minutes, but no one involved – specifically Banks – seems to mind.

Unending gags about the Hispanic participant’s volatile childhood and possible deportation are no tonic. It should come as no surprise the best quips come courtesy of John Michael Higgins as the smarmy play-by-play observer, and Anna Kendrick has her moments while struggling to insult the group’s German rival (“Your sweat smells like cinnamon”), but even some of those fall flat. When the curtain is lowered, we’re left with the strident feedback of a tacky, predictable, rollercoaster of a comedy too self-congratulatory for its own good.

Apparition by Subtraction

A

pointless reshaping of the forgettable 1982 terror tale, Poltergeist proves a mediocre homage that fails to improve upon its forbearer, mainly because of the slavish mindset of replicating it. Indeed, the rehashed premise, about a family moving into a haunted house, is anything but original. Aside from a few marginal scares and one spooky sequence – of the spirits’ dark underworld – it’s difficult to discern where the esteemed Sam Raimi had a hand in the project.

Sam Rockwell and Jared Harris, as the father and reality-TV house “cleaner” respectively, manage to save face in spite of insurmountable circumstances. It’s an exorcist in futility amounting to little more than a fool’s (or ghoul’s) errand.

Road Kills

M

ore enjoyable than expected, Max Max: Fury Road takes about 20 minutes to stop spinning its wheels and shift into gear, after which George Miller’s motley crew transports us to a world of drought and doubt. It’s a tough, thick steak of cinema – its middle portion is essentially a prolonged car chase – but Miller seasons it with panache, subversive surprises, and captivating characters.

Three decades after the previous Mad Max production, this new chapter sputters off the blocks within its rusty, dusty setting in the “Citadel” desert fortress. And a handful of gross-out images don’t exactly help Miller’s cause. The good news is that our titular rebel is embodied by Tom Hardy (having a fine year on the heels of Child 44); the

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

21

bad news is that, similarly to his Bane in pain deviant in The Dark Knight Rises, Hardy gets saddled with a mechanical mask over his mouth, just in case his speech wasn’t already challenging to understand. The threadbare plot: our unlikely hero strives to escape a tyrant who enslaves the Armageddon survivors and hoards all water. When a driver fittingly named Furiosa (Charlize Theron, her eyes resembling a raccoon’s) flees with the dictator’s five wives, she soon forges a pact with Max. The forlorn spouses become a much-needed revelation, as do the elderly ladies from Furiosa’s past; they breath life into the narrative, time and again. What’s more, the employment of a guitar-wielding man (a human hood ornament) and bongoesque drummers tagging along are a perpetual source of pleasure. With John Seale’s exceptional cinematography of jump-cuts and nifty editing, there’s no denying Fury Road’s technical merits. Despite the dearth of dialogue and story, this spectacle is oddly and undeniably engaging.

Period Peace

F

ar From the Madding Crowd, culled from Thomas Hardy’s well-thumbed scholarly classic, chronicles an independent woman known as Bathsheba Everdene (hearing the glorious Carey Mulligan pronounce and disparage her character’s name is priceless) who inherits her uncle’s mansion and prodigious property. In short order, she gets marriage proposals from two men (splendid Matthias Schoenaerts and Michael Sheen), but the dysfunctional love triangle expands into a square with the emergence of a shadowy soldier (Tom Sturridge), who point-blank asks whether she’s been kissed or praised as beautiful: “Not to my face,” she replies.

It’s refined and sophisticated without being stuffy. The trio of suitors aren’t cardboard cutouts but each unique in his own way, and all actors flesh out their players with attentive ease. Director Thomas Vinterberg suitably controls and shapes the romantic entanglements, which come across as palpable, valid, and timeless – not merely those of a bygone era.

Mall Crawl

P

aul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is the type of would-be farce that evokes such shame, I felt the need to ask for a straitjacket at the box office. Kevin James, co-writer and co-producer, reprises his on-screen role as the eponymous security guard and thus should be taken to task for crimes against humanity. He attends a conference in Las Vegas, where his daughter follows along and (yawwwn) gets taken hostage by bad guys stealing a hotel’s paintings.

Describing details about the shallow, contrived subplots would give undue attention to this slapdash, self-conscious, and limply acted disaster. It’s as if Mall Cop 2’s cast and crew – not unlike the handful of viewers – just wanted to get it overwith. As you might imagine, the dumbed-down sequel takes implausibility to such lows, it makes the concurrent Hot Pursuit look like a documentary.

OPEN 7 NIGHTS AT 4PM +

+

BURGERS • GOURMET FLATBREADS • APPETIZERS FULL LIQUOR • SPECIALTY COCKTAILS LOCAL WINES BY THE GLASS

819 ANACAPA STREET HOURS: SUN - FRI FROM 4PM TO CLOSE SAT LUNCH 12PM TO CLOSE WWW.INTERMEZZOSB.COM

22 |

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

Santa Barbara’s Online Magazine, Published Twice Daily

sbview.com

Eastside Story: Innovative Architecture Rolls Forward Inside Silver Shell by Sharon Byrne Matthew and Wally Hofmann

S

mall spaces are very in vogue right now, for a number of reasons. People want to reduce their carbon footprint, shed stuff, downsize, and live simpler lives. TinyHouseBlog.com has a huge following, as does Simple. In crowded coastal cities like ours, where space is at a serious premium, people get quite innovative, even if they don’t have the finances to buy property with stellar views. Savvy entrepreneurs find creative ways to answer their needs, carving out specialty niches for themselves in the process.

Enter Hofmann Architecture. They take the old and decrepit, and make it into something you salivate over.

They take small spaces and transform them into welcoming interiors you can breathe easy in. They reclaim the cast-off flotsam of an earlier era of family travel, and transform it into high-end custom homes that go where you want to go.

Bet you never thought you’d crave an Airstream. You will when you see what Hofmann can craft out of them.

A child of the 70s, I thought Airstreams were a bit of a hokey way for families to travel on the cheap. But those aluminum shells with their distinctive mid-century lines have endured far beyond the nuclear age.

How did Hofmann get into business refurbishing Airstreams? Matthew Hofmann realized that living in a vintage trailer would be a great way to reduce overhead and simplify life. “So, naturally, I went to the place everyone finds their dream – craigslist.”

He bought a 1970s Airstream Trade Wind 25’ and parked it on a piece of property in Santa Barbara overlooking the Pacific Ocean. For the next year, he designed and renovated it with his father, Wally. “Next thing you know, the Airstream was my home,” said Matthew. “That singular experience has changed my life forever.”

Hofmann employs 15 specialized craftsmen and designers in the heart of the building trades sector flourishing here in the Eastside, on Quarantina at Bond. Wally happily took me on a tour.

Hofmann acquires old Airstreams, or a client can bring their own. You sit down with the architect and create plans for what you want. The Airstream is then gutted, though some clients want to keep original fixtures in good condition, juxtaposing old with new. I looked at two taken down to the shell, and one going into demolition and renovation. The original fixtures seem so 70s, designed to provide the basic

Sharon Byrne

Sharon Byrne is executive director for the Milpas Community Association, and currently serves on the Advisory Boards for the Salvation Army Hospitality House and Santa Barbara County Alcohol and Drug Problems.

sbview.com necessities for these ships-on-wheels.

Hofmann renovates these vintage trailers to client specs, turning out stunning and unique architectural achievements.

Wiring, plumbing, fixtures, flooring, windows, bathroom remodels – totally retrofitted and customized. Hofmann will strip out the old nine-gallon hot water tank, for example, and put in a radiant system to heat the water as it passes through, a Swiss

FULL SERVICE MAINTENANCE & REPAIR Established 1978

Join us for some warm Irish hospitality, authentic food and excellent pints.

$10 daily lunch menu featuring over 13 items.

18 E ORTEGA ST., SANTA BARBARA • 11:302:00AM EVERY DAY 805-568-0702 • www.dargans.com •

Muller & Go s s

Locally Owned

IMPORT AUTO REPAIR Specializing In

Mercedes • BMW•Audi Rolls Royce• Mini•VW

962-1613

www.mullerandgoss.com

424 N. Quarantina Santa Barbara, CA

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

23

May is National Better Hearing Health Month

Hearing Services of Santa Barbara

technique. You can get gorgeously tiled bathrooms, modern kitchen appliances, clever built-ins for storage, and more.

Hofmann Airstreams are all given classic female names: Jenny, Susan, et al. They’re lovingly sculpted into something that fuses past with present, old with new, mid-century American dreams of inexpensive family travel with new American dreams of living simple and seeking adventure. Clients arrive with a budget of $100,000 to $350,000, and Hofmann will happily explore options that fit your particular needs and budget.

If you’re in, say, Minnesota, where the climate’s not very friendly, your home

and possessions are your focus, as life there is conducted mainly in an indoor, climate-controlled setting. But there are other places such as here, where the view and surroundings matter more than having the big house with a lot of stuff. One of Hofmann’s ingeniously refurbished Airstreams offers a nice living space, and clients seek them out for this very reason.

For someone like me, always trying to simplify my life and shed possessions, life in one of their specialty Airstreams looks palatable indeed.

Hearing Services is promoting “your better hearing health” $250 off per hearing aid and a free charger For the month of May only...

Call now to schedule your free Hearing Aid Evaluation!

A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau

(805) 967-4200 www.hearingsb.com

5333 Hollister Ave, Ste 207

(in the Goleta Valley Medical Building)

Hofmann Architecture hofarc.com (805) 618-2461 519 N. Quarantina Street, Santa Barbara

Ann Burre,

MA, FAAA Dispensing Audiologist AU1181

Everything you always wanted to know about home energy efficiency Free !

p orksho PLUS w receive tes gradua t bulbs! gh 5 LED li

Interactive Workshop Series for Homeowners

Join fellow homeowners and learn how to make your home more comfortable and energy efficient.

Wednesdays 5:30 – 6:30 pm

Dinner included at each workshop – Santa Barbara Veterans Building Workshop Dates and Topics June 10

Intro to Home Energy Efficiency: learn the basics: how your home uses and loses energy.

June 17

Choosing the Right Energy Improvements for You: small changes you can make yourself, and big changes that can transform your home’s comfort level and energy use.

Overview of emPower Program: learn how emPower can

June 24 help make upgrades easy and more affordable.

July 1

Individual Energy Efficiency Plans/Graduation: design a customized energy efficiency plan for your very own home.

Participants will have access to Kill A Watt meters, and receive one-on-one coaching between sessions with emPower’s Energy Coach!

For more information, go to www.empowersbc.org/events, or to register contact Marisa at (805) 568-3530 Hurry, space is limited!

RSVP: www.empowersbc.org/events This Program is funded by California utility ratepayers and administered by Southern California Gas Company, Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company under the auspices of the California Public Utilities Commission.

24 |

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

THEDRIVER’SSEAT

by Randy Lioz Randy is an automotive enthusiast with more than a decade of experience in the industry. Originally hailing from New York, he came to Santa Barbara by way of Detroit to work for an automotive forecasting company. You can regularly find him at Cars and Coffee with his Porsche 911 or Speedster replica.

Tesla Pops Up

Y

ou’ve seen the signature black ovoid grille and the sweep of its LED headlight signature all over town. At first you wondered what it was, and you asked your car buddy to explain it. Now it’s a common sight around Santa Barbara, and you know that Tesla Motors is the first successful, fully electric vehicle brand in the world.

Still, where do you buy one?

With Tesla’s rapid ascent as the premier brand of EVs, particularly in California, sometimes the retail presence lags a bit behind demand. While you can easily order a Model S online from the company’s website, you’d have to pick it up at the nearest store, which happens to be more than an hour away in Canoga Park, north of L.A. While California is by far the most important market to Tesla, its stores are still relatively tightly clustered around the Bay Area and L.A., with outposts in a few other upscale enclaves like Monterey and Palm Springs. The number-one underserved market for the brand is Santa Barbara.

Which is why this is the location for the first Tesla pop-up store, here until late June, when it heads to its next stop in the Hamptons on Long Island, N.Y. People interested in the brand can experience the car, including a test drive, and see available color, upholstery and wheel options in the design center.

And naturally, they can check out some Tesla-branded accessories, such as chic handbags.

What they can’t do, though, is take one home that day. Every Tesla is still made to order, and the wait is currently about two months. According to Tesla, though, that fits well with their brand.

“We’re here more to educate people

about our cars than to sell them,” says Alexis Georgeson of Tesla communications. In fact, Tesla has made it a big part of their corporate mission to foster the EV ecosystem, even if it sometimes seems to go against their own interests; releasing their patents is a prime example, though it demonstrates that the company understands a strong brand can often be a more powerful competitive advantage than strong proprietary technology.

Tesla’s lineup is currently limited to the Model S sedan, which starts at around $76,000, though federal and state tax incentives can take off up to $10,000 for many buyers. Tesla also shows another $10,000 in savings on its website based on “estimated gas savings over 5 years,” though this math has been criticized as highly variable, and the EPA puts this savings at between $5,000 and $5,500; still, by most accounts Tesla drivers have been very satisfied with the cost-benefit balance of owning or leasing their vehicles.

I’ve driven Teslas before, and every experience has been positive. In my former position as an automotive forecaster, I had the chance to take a short road trip with a Model S, down to Santa Monica, and the need to return it with a reasonably full charge let me try out the company’s Supercharger facility in Oxnard. These chargers can give you a 170-mile top-off in just a half hour, and are strategically placed along travel corridors throughout the country to allow you to go just about anywhere in the lower 48 without fear of running out of juice. In fact, the company’s website map, showing its coverage, has few gaps, including West Texas (where they probably don’t take kindly to

EVs, anyway), nearly the whole state of Arkansas, northern Michigan, and the northern edge of the Great Plains.

There is a decent number of chargers around Santa Barbara, including in parking garages and store lots, with more going up all the time. And Tesla also has seven different “destination charging” spots between Goleta and Carp for use when customers stay at a sponsoring location, mostly high-end hotels such as the Canary and the Biltmore. The Canary says that they’d be happy to allow patrons of Finch & Fork to use their charger if it’s not needed by a hotel guest.

The pop-up store happens to be just across the street from the Canary at 32 West Carrillo Street. When I stopped by, I was able to take out a P85D version of the Model S, the top vehicle in the lineup. When it comes to the S line, it’ll always have a two-digit indicator of the battery size in kWh, this one good for 253 miles of range, while the D indicates it’s a dual-motor model providing allwheel drive. The P is the cherry on top, telling you it’s the Performance model, which can sprint to 60 mph in 3.1 seconds-in “Insane Mode”- faster than a Porsche 911 Turbo.

We took a run up the 101, briefly experiencing the kidney-compressing acceleration of the car, and then headed up the Old San Marcos Pass to see how it handled changes in direction. At more than 4,600 pounds, the Model S is certainly no lightweight (it weighs around the same as a Mercedes S-Class), but its center of gravity is low due to

its heavy batteries arranged in a flat platform along the bottom of the car.

With this setup it has little problem handling tight curves, with just a bit of side-to-side motion in the more challenging sweeps. The torque is always there because of the nature of electric motors, so while you don’t get the same aural pleasure as when winding up a gas engine in the hills, it’s a fun experience nonetheless.

The driving experience is also a bit different because of the regenerative braking setup. While many early EV efforts from established automakers focused on making the transition from gas seamless, Tesla is proud to emphasize what makes it different. So when you take your foot off the gas there is automatic braking, enabling you to drive almost with one pedal. The excellent new BMW i3 I recently drove has a similar setup.

The functions of the car are all wrapped up in the central touch screen, which is intuitive and easy to use in the vein of Apple products – Tesla seems intent on being the Apple of automotive brands – and I only experienced one minor glitch in its function. In the context of most automotive infotainment systems, this is a pretty strong accomplishment.

This vehicle starts at $106,200, but you can get above $130,000 when you fill it with options, like the autopilot function. You can go to their website to see leases and do your personal financial calculation.

And then you can go to the pop-up store to experience the car for yourself. It will be in Santa Barbara until late June, open 11 am to 6 pm on weekdays (except Monday) and 11 to 8 on weekends, and by the end of the summer a full Tesla store is scheduled to open on Hitchcock Way. There are now plenty of electric car options on the market, and with the increases in charging infrastructure, especially in California, owning an EV is a much easier prospect than ever. But there are few brands that have such a fully developed electric ownership experience as Tesla.

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

a

...continued from p.20

for sale

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

25

� �35,366 sf building + gym equip.

2 2 5 1 e . g o n z a l e s r d . | ox n a r d , c a

A student at Monroe Elementary focuses her Flows To The Ocean project on finding solutions to pollution

282 Feet of Frontage on Gonzales Road!

Unique opportunity to purchase a 35,366 SF building complete with equipment currently used by a temporary gym operator, with 9,000 active members on contract.

This premier gym was built from the ground up in 2005 and includes outdoor swimming pool, Jacuzzi, basketball and volleyball courts, outside weight lifting area, juice/ coffee bar, children’s play area, cardio theater, and modern gym equipment inside.

due to fossil fuel burning, including warming and ocean acidification.

From Education to Action

Helpful as Carla’s answers were in explaining what is going on at Refugio Beach, I sought more details about what direct action could be taken. This led me to Hendry’s Beach, where the Watershed Resource Center, a branch of Explore Ecology the local non-profit focused on teaching children and the community about proactive ways to care for our environment, is located. I met with executive director Lindsay Johnson to discuss how, as a parent and responsible adult, one can make a difference.

Q. I’ve passed by this blue building at least a hundred times but have never taken the time to stop in. What is it you do here?

A. The way the Watershed Resource Center works is we are contracted through the county to educate mostly students K-6 elementary age students.

For community public outreach, we do beach cleanups the second Sunday of the month, and open up the building up for the public to come in and explore and ask questions about our local oceans and this beautiful resource we have here.

What is your focus?

Our main focus is emphasizing the connection that what we do here on land has a direct effect in the ocean. We talk about “non-targeted” pollution; litter, pesticides, herbicides, oils dripping from cars. All these run into the ocean.

Every field trip that comes to the center, we take down to the beach for a litter cleanup and we look at what we find; cigarette butts, Styrofoam, and plastic wrappers. In fact, in our Flows To The Ocean program, where we have a yearlong tutorial with local schools, this group of kids recognized countless tiny plastic wrappers they had found in the sand were actually mint wrappers from the local restaurant.

The kids went another step further, writing letters that were so impactful that the restaurant no longer serves

Offered at $10,500,000 (Includes existing FF&E. Bankruptcy sale subject to court confirmation. Powerhouse franchise can be terminated.)

Steve Brown

Austin Herlihy

Chris Parker

805.879.9607

805.879.9633

805.879.9642

BRE 00461986

BRE 01518112

BRE 01887788

Contact Listing Agents or view detailed listing at www.radiusgroup.com Carla D’Antonio, chair of the Environmental Studies Program at UCSB

mints. Then there was another group of fourth graders at Franklin Elementary who were being given plastic disposable water cups for breakfast and lunch (almost 1,000 cups a day). The students took it upon themselves to ask the PTA for funds to purchase reusable drinking cups to run through the dishwasher.

Happily, they got those cups, reducing their waste and proudly made a change for their environment.

How do you think the Refugio disaster will affect what you teach?

For this oil spill, the pipe was on shore and it leaked into a storm drain and out into the ocean, which is exactly what we teach! The Watershed Resource Center reaches over 7,000 kids a year, but the entire Explore Ecology program educates about 26,000 children annually, including their wastereduction program and school gardens.

We always try to keep the focus on what we can do and teach empowerment, that individual choices can make a huge impact.

It is clear after speaking to both D’Antonio and Johnson that education is the key to self-empowerment, which is the key to change. So speak up, get involved, teach the next generation ecological values, and lead by example.

Let’s keep our American Riviera the sparkling jewel of the West Coast.

2 0 5 E . C a r r i l l o s t. s u i t E 1 0 0 | s a n ta B a r B a r a C a 9 3 1 0 1 8 0 5 . 9 6 5 . 5 5 0 0 | r a d i u s g r o u p. C o m

We Are

Community

6/11 Ray Strong: A Citywide Art Show 5:30pm - 7pm FREE TO THE COMMUNITY Join us for a special catered reception and viewing of Ray Strong’s waterfront paintings, exclusive to SBMM. Sponsored by: John C. Woodward & Mimi Michaelis RSVP at sbmm.org or call (805) 962-8404 x115

113 Harbor Way, Ste 190, Santa Barbara, CA 93109 • sbmm.org • (805) 962-8404x115

26 |

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

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

You Have Your Hands Full

by Mara Peters Former editor for the fashion/lifestyle section of the New York

Post, Mara moved to London and worked as a contributing editor for the Daily Mail’s You Magazine, freelancing for Look Magazine, NY Post and the Style Magazine for The Sunday Times. To remain sane during diaper years she writes a mommy blog, You Have Your Hands Full – www.handsfullsb.com.

Surviving a Train Wreck

“Y

ou’ve got to stop talking about news with the kids,” Alpha told me the other day. All I could do was stare back in complete disbelief.

I know his comment won’t seem shocking to most. But I am a tabloid news journalist by trade, a news junkie.

I love to read train-wreck stories – let them clutter my mind, feel the horror of it all. Always have. Always will.

I have talked to my kids about everything under the sun from Bosnia to Ebola. Nazi Germany to the shooter at UCSB. The artist Banksy to Michael Brown. Santa Barbara is a bubble, and they should (and need) to know about the larger world.

But it was the depressed German pilot who crashed an airliner into the Alps that put Alpha over the edge. “You are talking to them about a complete freak of an incident by a very sick

person,” he scolded me. In my view, I was just doing what came naturally, relaying the latest tabloid news. And I was definitely guilty as charged.

“There is so much news out there that is innovative, exciting, and inspiring,” he said after the kids were in bed. “We need to elevate the conversations in our house.” My response (he’d thrown me off my game) was lame: “There is a reason why tech and astronomy don’t sell papers.”

I am the first to say, I don’t take criticism very well. I felt personally attacked. After all, he decided to marry me when I’d come home from work describing the difficult decision we had to make for the day’s front page – “Bouncing Baby Survives 25 Flight Fall” or “Jilted Bride at the Plaza”.

After 15 years of marriage, maybe he was falling out of love with that person? Doesn’t he see I want to have

conversations that are interesting to me and not just discuss four-square on the playground?

I tossed and turned all night. Deep down, I knew there was some truth to his comments. I have been home with these kids for 13 years now, and my filter for the outside world has narrowed. I have less time to sift and have passively let the news headlines grab my attention. I was “twitterizing” the news. While I thought I was educating, I was painting a dark, dim, and depressing world to our kids.

“You’re right,” I said to him a few days later. It was hard for me to say that – I was acknowledging that my own view of the world had not become an altogether good one. “I will make some changes.”

Over the last couple of months, I have tried to switch it up. News is important. Essential, actually. And I still want to be able to discuss important things with the kids. I just need to be more proactive about what we discuss. My role is more editor and less broadcaster of all that is wrong with the world.

I’ve taken the time to become a discriminating reader, poring over the events that captivate my attention such as the conflict in the Middle

East, racial profiling, and changes in monetary policies. Steering clear of the screaming headlines and pictures, I’ve pushed myself to buy the papers and the magazines that had longer more thoughtful pieces. I have stopped reading news online (well almost).

Just this past Thursday, my 7th grader asked me about ISIS and the way they are torturing people. I redirected the conversation to what is happening in Iraq between the Shiites and the Sunnis, and why regions are vulnerable to groups like ISIS. He was all ears; sponging up the information. Thanks to my new policy, he left to middle school sans beheading images in his mind.

Trust me. I’m not having an identity crisis. I have no plans to graduate to The New Yorker just yet. I’ll admit that when I stand in line at Gelson’s, Bruce Jenner’s transition catches my eye. But that’s all it is. A train wreck.

I can rubberneck for a few minutes and then just get on with my life. I’m a recovering news junkie. Just one day, one story at a time.

By the way, something really good is around the corner – the new addition to the Windsor clan. That’s upbeat, innovative, and exciting, right?

E X PE RT I S E Expert advice.

Comprehensive solutions.

Extraordinary results.

Helping to optimize your financial success.

©Richard Schloss

Tax • Audit • Estate Planning • Business Consulting • Cost Segregation • Litigation Support • ERP & CRM Software w w w. b p w. c o m | (805) 963-7811 | Santa Barbara, CA

th e

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

This one’s for you – all of you

a r a b r a B a t n a S

“Hey There” from

Obsessed With:

BEST PLACE FOR COFFEE THAT ISN’T A COFFEE SHOP

in Beautiful Southern California

ou’re busy and we totally get it. With you in mind, we built The Local, a burst of local flavor in the heart of the beloved Sentinel showcasing innovative people, places, and products of the Santa Barbara area. See artists like Meghan Hart in the Artist Spotlight, learn recipes from talented chefs like Leslie Wine in Quick Bites, look through the lens of other locals in Point of View, and discover what we’re smitten with – this time it’s the Whistle Club – in the Obsessed section. Think of us as a virtual high-five to what makes SB so great – the locals. Like what you see or don’t like it at all? Know of someone or something creative, progressive, or just plain amazing? We’re all ears: megan@ santabarbarasentinel.com or hit us up @SantaBarbaraSentinel. We on want to show you off.

ONTHESPOT:

PLUG INTO THE CREATIVES OF SB

S

elf-taught artist Meghan Hart is part of Will Rise Project, an art and charity collaborative right here in SB. You can see her feminine edge meet acrylic setting and stenciled art on display at the on First Thursday, June 4, from 6 to 9 pm.

A

full espresso bar + designers duds = best of both worlds. With beans delivered weekly by Stumptown Coffee Roasters’ L.A. roastery, Whistle Club assures your coffee will be as fresh as your brand-new Zimmermann skirt, Rachel Comey top, and Illesteva shades.

Whistle Club | 819 State Street | 805.965.7782

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

Meghan Hart | Santa Barbara Public Market | willriseproject.com

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

27

28 |

.

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

Local LIBATIONS

by ZACH ROSEN

FIG MOUNTAIN 101

Taste?

W

ith a light flavor of sun-kissed grains, a zesty fruitiness, and hop flavors of spring flowers, this Kölsch-style beer is suitable for wherever you’re situated along the endless warmth of our central Californian coast.

Fig SB Taproom:

137 Anacapa St, #F Santa Barbara, CA 11am-11pm Daily 805-694-2252 www.figmtnbrew.com

Follow Zack on @thebeerguylife

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

QUICK BITES

SPECIAL RECIPES FROM TALENTED CHEFS IN SB

L

eslie Wine of The Accidental Chef shares a tasty treat that makes our bellies rejoice! She uses all-organic and local produce in the kitchen, and her skills can be seen at cooking demos around Santa Barbara (check her website for events). Below is a gluten free, dairy free, and soy-free treat. It’s chocolate, too. Doesn’t get much better than this.

CHOCOLATE CHIA SHOTS Makes four 2-ounce shots Good for breakfast, snack, or dessert

Ingredients

3/4 cup vanilla almond milk 2 Tbsp black chia seeds 2 Tbsp unsweetened cacao powder 1 Tbsp mild runny honey or pure light maple syrup (if milk is unsweetened, add 3/4 tsp more honey or syrup) *add a splash of Bailey’s if you’re feeling frisky

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients 2. Stir frequently for 30 min. to blend & eliminate clumps 3. Cover & chill in refrigerator for 2 hours 4. Stir & pour into shot glasses 5. Take a shot!

For more, all-natural recipes by Leslie visit: www.accidentalchef.net

Raising the Bar FAVORITE BARTENDERS AND SERIOUS COCKTAILS

M

eet Gabriella Reinoso, our new BFF who makes a mean drink. Hailing from NYC proper, she made her way west and behind the bar of The Good Lion – a Hemingway-inspired speakeasy with a knack for crafty cocktails and highly educated and friendly bartenders. All mixings, batchings, and infusions in-house.

Safe to say, it’s our new favorite place. Ask Gabriella for her version of a “French 75”.

You won’t be disappointed.

The Good Lion • 1212 State Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 • Open 4 PM - 1 AM

Your ONE STOP Shop!

Parts • Service • Spas 534 E. Haley (at Salsipuedes)

(805)963-4747

Village Pool Supply THE ULTIMATE IN SPA SALES AND POOL & SPA SERVICE AND REPAIR

“FRENCH 75”

1 1/2 oz. London Dry Gin 1/2 oz. lemon juice 1/2 oz. St. Germain Top with champagne Shake and serve in champagne coupe

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

POINT VIEW

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

29

BY: B ETTINA

NORTON

We can all agree we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and the best part about it is that we all see our town in a different light. Here, we’re highlighting your perspective and unique way of looking at Santa Barbara. Send over a high-resolution photo of your SB view to megan@santabarbarasentinel.com and include a brief description of the image and a little about yourself. Wanderings and observations highly encouraged. What’s your Santa Barbara point-of-view?

TITLE: “Dreams Come True”

S A N TA B A R B A R A S E N T I N E L . C O M

S

itting on five acres of wooded land creates an ideal setting for creativity to soar. We’re inspired just by looking at it. (Sigh...)

This is the point-of-view looking out of photographer Bettina Norton’s studio in Montecito. “I love photographing my friends to show them how beautiful they are. That’s why I got into photography.” When she’s not making her friends feel goddess-like, she loves taking her horse, Frankie, on rides through the mountains or on the beach. (See Frankie, bottom left.)

NAME: Bettina Norton CONTACT: BettinaVanessaNaomi@gmail.com FOLLOW : @bettinavanessa *Image was taken using a Canon Rebel SL1, 55mm lens, purchased from Samy’s Camera on State Street.

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5

simply

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

esistible

The Local’s look at the products, events, services, and more we find irresistible!

SANTA BARBARA’S BEST SPRAY TAN

ALL NATURAL, ORGANIC AND 2 HOUR DEVELOPING TIME

th e

30 |

Q&A

DEREK TRUCKS of

TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND

H

usband and wife Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi lead the Grammy-winning band.

Since 2010, they’ve brought people closer to heaven with Susan’s deep soul sound, Derek’s incendiary slide guitar riffs, and a band of talented musicians to match. The Santa Barbara Bowl will be graced with their presence along with openers Doyle Bramhall II and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings on Sunday, June 7.

Comfy and cool Baja Slip On shoes by SeaVees in Vintage Wash Linen is a nod to beachside footwear of the 1960s.

www.seavees.com

Safari Jewelry

805.403.6056

@beautifulyoumontecito

Derek takes five with The Local, southern accent and all.

African Elephant Hair Bracelets Handcrafted in Precious Metal by Safari Jewelry “Wear the Legend”

Made in Santa Barbara

safarijewelry.com

Handmade watches by Shinola define American luxury through American craftsmanship.

10% off code: MadeInSB

Well you’re in for a treat! You’ll have a view of the ocean when you play the Bowl. It’s beautiful out here.

Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were talking about a band. We know Santa Barbara well!

There’s a few guys in the band that have spent some time there, and we’re excited to come back.

We’re happy to have you. Looking back, what has been your most memorable performance?

It’s been a busy five years so there’s been a few. Getting to play Royal Albert Hall with Mavis Staples was pretty amazing, doing a tour with B.B. King, and the tour with The London Souls and The Black Crowes was some real magic. There’s another 30 I can think of. It’s been a good run so far.

“Zeuf’s Jacket” by Catherin Clark is a sweet spin of Wrangler denim done right.

819 State Street Santa Barbara, CA 93101

fridaynightamateurs.com

Q. What do you think about SB? A. I don’t think I’ve heard that much.

@whistleclub www.whistleclub.com

What advice would you give to your younger self?

(Laughing) I’ve enjoyed most of the mistakes I’ve made quite a lot. I don’t know if I would give myself too much advice. There’s a few corners would warn myself about, but I feel in a lot of ways, those things are good for you. It’s good to get blindsided occasionally.

8 0 5 . 8 4 5 .1 6 7 3 | 1 3 3 E A S T D E L A G U E R R A S T R E E T | N O.1 8 2 | S A N TA B A R B A R A

M AY 3 0 – J U N E 1 3 | 2 0 1 5 |

IHeart SB

by Elizabeth Rose

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.

Sex Shops: the Primal Frontier

W

e go to Home Depot when we want to spruce up the house, why not treat a sex shop as a place to spice up the sex life? The majority of us walk by, maybe try to sneak a peek through the doors, but we generally keep going. For some reason, there’s an “embarrassment factor” in play when it comes to adult stores (myself included), but why should we feel that way?

There are more to these shops than the typical bachelorette-penis-straw situation. You may be surprised to see what advanced technology has brought to the adult product industry. The most inventive product I’ve discovered is the We-Vibe, a vibrator geared toward women that can be activated via remote control or from an app on your phone.

The woman wears it and her partner controls it, bringing a casual day or cocktail party into a private world of your own sexual delight. If your phone can hook-up with your lover’s (similar to a Face Time connection), then you are in the game – a “Hallelujah” to longdistance relationships that yearn to be more hands-on.

On the less invasive side, organic and vegan lubes are available to satisfy even the most health-conscious sexual beings.

One of the best reasons of shopping in a physical store rather than online is the knowledgeable staff who can guide you through any questions you may

have. They’ve been trained, they know the specifics, and they’ve heard it all – which means no judgment or no need to blush too hard when asking about a specific (ahem) vibrator or other sexual accoutrement. If it makes you feel better, even Taylor Swift looks to sex shops for inspiration: her latest video for “Bad Blood” is styled with clothing purchased at an L.A. sex retailer.

As much as we all may feel that we “don’t need help in that department,” the truth is we could all use a little tip (!) or “updates” here and there on how to please our partner – or even ourselves – on a different level. It can be hard (!) to communicate our sexual desires, but as in everything in life honesty and communication are the keys to happiness. Your partner – as do you – needs to understand what you like in the boudoir and experiment your boundaries in order to fully engage in an act of one of the greatest pleasures as a human. Sex can be the most romantic, casual, wild, rough, and sensual activity between two people – and it’s safe to say that we’ve all done it, do it, and plan to do it again.

So, let’s hold our heads high and roll up in the next adult shop we see like we came to do business. In a sense, that’s exactly what we came to do – get down to business. Time to entertain your nightstand with exotic goodies. You and your partner will thank you.

Personals . . .

Looking for some lovin’?

Send your personal inquiries to letters@santabarbarasentinel.com and we’ll hook you up. Literally.

Personal ADs - Commonly Used Abbreviations: W-white, B-black, A-asian, H-hispanic, J-jewish, D-divorced, S-single, W-widowed, NSnon-smoker, ND-non-drinker, NVD-no venereal diseases, ISO-in search of, LTR-long-term relationship, M-male, F-female, SOH-sense of humor, SBN- Santa Barbara native ♥ American Born WM in 40’s seeks Japanese, Chinese, or MidEast Indian Lady, 30-49, Preferably SB area but Valley ok. Shapely, need not be perfect for intimate relationship. Contact beachlivin45@gmail.com ♥ ROMANTIC, SUCCESSFUL doctor seeks nice lady for friendship and discrete fun. lgraham496@gmail.com

♥ Married, professional woman ISO gentleman caller, 30’s, for romantic liaison.

SOH a must. sexytimesb@gmail.com ♥ Me: Mid-thirties; big chested. You: Cute guy with open mind. I like long walks on the beach, the opera, and some light kink. Let’s see what this town has to offer. spicytuna805@gmail.com

r e t a i l e r s

18+ Only

YEARNING FOR

BETTER SEX? COME SEE US! 4135 State St. Santa Barbara 805-967-8282

Adults Only

For

223 Anacapa St. Santa Barbara 805-963-9922

Adult Store

The

405 State St. Santa Barbara 805-965-9363

Shop from your Luxurious phone save 15% Romance Novelties and

Text ‘SBTOYS’ to 24-587 for a 20% discount!

31

Sometimes it’s what we don’t say.

FREDENSBORG FARMHOUSE | SOLVANG | $1,799,000 | WEB: 0621635 | Patricia Castillo 805.570.6593

After two hundred years of meeting the unique needs of high-profile clients around the world, our company has earned a reputation for providing extraordinary service with the utmost discretion. It’s just one of the better parts of Sotheby’s International Realty.

Let us show you.

SANTA BARBARA BROKERAGES MONTECITO - COAST VILLAGE ROAD | MONTECITO - UPPER VILLAGE | SANTA BARBARA STATE STREET | SANTA YNEZ

sothebyshomes.com/santabarbara sothebyshomes.com/santaynez

Sotheby’s International Realty and the Sotheby’s International Realty logo are registered (or unregistered) service marks used with permission. Operated by Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Real estate agents affiliated with Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc.