Inlander 01/09/2020

JANUARY 9-15, 2020 | NEAR NATURE, BUT NOT LOST

SCARY SPEEDS

5G IS COMING. WHY SOME ARE FREAKED OUT PAGE 13

ART-INSPIRED FOOD TONY BROWN’S TWO NEW RESTAURANTS PAGE 41

DOWNTOWN BY DESIGN PLANNING FOR SPOKANE OF THE FUTURE PAGE 18

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INSIDE VOL. 27, NO. 13 | COVER PHOTO: HOWARD STODDARD

COMMENT 5 NEWS 13 CULTURE 20 SNOWLANDER 25

FOOD FILM MUSIC EVENTS

41 45 48 52

I SAW YOU GREEN ZONE ADVICE GODDESS BULLETIN BOARD

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TUESDAY ANY LARGE PIZZA

EDITOR’S NOTE

I

hate being wrong. I discovered this about myself long before I got into newspapers. As a nerdy, buck-toothed kid, correcting my own mistakes bordered on a compulsion. Whenever I found out I was wrong — that some fact or benign bit of trivia I had shared with someone wasn’t true — I would make a point of tracking down that person and setting the record straight. I would also ask them if they had repeated the bogus fact to anyone; that was my nightmare scenario — people spreading my error from person to person, citing me as the source, making me wrong not just once, but over and over again.

Often as not, people thought I was being silly, and they were usually right. Back then, my mistakes were pretty inconsequential. But now we live in a SOCIAL MEDIA era where our likes, shares, retweets and regrams have the power to make information viral — spreading news but also misinformation and purposely distorted disinformation. I’ve been thinking about all that again lately, here at the start of a new year and a new decade, with a new election cycle ramping up, and a potential war looming on the horizon.

We need the best information we can get right now, and we all have a responsibility to support that effort in various ways.

For my part, at the Inlander, I can promise this: We’ll work hard to be right every time, and in those moments when we’re wrong, we’ll let you know. And if you think we’ve screwed up, don’t hesitate to tell us so at editor@inlander.com. Of course, we’d love to hear when you think we’ve done something right, too. We’re working for you after all.

— JACOB H. FRIES, Editor

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INLANDER

WA-HAYDEHL937BH ID-RCE-29144

SAILING ON PAGE 49 1227 W. Summit Parkway, Spokane, WA 99201 PHONE: 509-325-0634 EMAIL: info@inlander.com

SPOKANE • EASTERN WASHINGTON • NORTH IDAHO • INLANDER.COM THE INLANDER is a locally owned, independent newspaper founded on Oct. 20, 1993. It’s printed on newsprint that is at least 50 percent recycled; please recycle THE INLANDER after you’re done with it. One copy free per person per week; extra copies are $1 each (call x226). For ADVERTISING information, email advertising@inlander.com. To have a SUBSCRIPTION mailed to you, call x213 ($50 per year). To find one of our more than 1,000 NEWSRACKS where you can pick up a paper free every Thursday, call x226 or email frankd@inlander.com. THE INLANDER is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. All contents of this newspaper are protected by United States copyright law. © 2020, Inland Publications, Inc.

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JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 3

STAND WITH OUR SENATORS

5: Washington Conservation Voters | January Special #2 of 3: ROP: 20 S

PROTECT OUR PUBLIC LANDS

Since 1964, LAND AND WATER CONSERVATION FUND has provided

recreation opportunities and safeguarded natural areas, public lands, water resources, and our cultural heritage for all Americans across all 50 states.

Here in Eastern Washington, this program has preserved some of our most precious natural areas, such as the Little Spokane River and Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge.

Vital funds should be permanenetly preserved for future generations. Our senators are fighting for us, but they need you to stand with them.

Call our SENATORS PATTY MURRAY & MARIA CANTWELL at (202) 224-3121 and tell them you support funding for public lands.

Paid for by Washington Conservation Voters (206) 374 - 0760

4 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

COMMENT STAFF DIRECTORY PHONE: 509-325-0634 Ted S. McGregor Jr. (tedm@inlander.com) PUBLISHER

J. Jeremy McGregor (x224) GENERAL MANAGER

EDITORIAL Jacob H. Fries (x261)

IF YOU WERE ELECTED MAYOR OF SPOKANE, WHAT WOULD YOU FOCUS ON YOUR FIRST MONTHS IN OFFICE? TIMOTHY SATROM

Make sure that the homeless crowd had a safe place to go, because the library is closing for the next year and a half.

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TOD MARSHALL

The mayor ran a divisive campaign, one that targeted very vulnerable citizens. I hope that she changes this approach and that she finds ways to connect people so that multiple perspectives can be brought to solving the most challenging issues of our city, especially poverty and the attendant lack of access for many of our citizens to basic human needs: health care, education, nutrition and culture.

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I would hope to end homelessness here in Spokane, Washington. That would be my number one goal.

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Yes, I do, quite a lot, and I see it every day out of my window.

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Let Free Speech Ring College campuses have become the front lines in the battle over the First Amendment

BY GEORGE NETHERCUTT

W

hen a political opponent speaks, we should listen. Many college campuses offer students and other interested parties an opportunity to listen, but they are often thwarted by those who don’t want them to hear.

Colleges are the best place to exchange and explore ideas, foster opinions to help change another’s mind or persuade another, or to have a deep discussion and develop thoughts about an intellectual principle. An academic environment is not a place for anger or controversy.

In colleges, it’s one idea vs. another idea — perhaps a political opponent can convince one

away from one’s ideas and philosophy. At least open-minded people can respectfully disagree.

But if we’re prevented from even learning from each other because some third party, intolerant of another’s opinion, wants to stop anyone from learning, that destroys the purpose of any college.

Too often, college professors, deans or other radical students are the prime movers behind preventing the learning process from occurring;

SAY WHAT?

DO SOMETHING!

“We have no biological safety testing of genuine 5G radiation.”

HUMAN TRAFFICKING AWARENESS DAY: January is Human Trafficking Awareness month. Join Lutheran Community Services Northwest for light refreshments on the third floor of the library for visual storytelling with the Silhouette Project, art created by foster children who’ve experienced human trafficking, a moment of silence for victims of human trafficking, and acknowledgment of efforts addressing human trafficking in the Inland Northwest.

Tue, Jan. 14 at 4 pm. Free. Downtown Spokane Library (third floor), 906 W. Main Ave. lcsnw.org

Martin Pall, a Washington State University professor emeritus, has raised concerns that 5G frequencies could cause everything from blindness to infertility. He is among those alarmed by the rollout of 5G technology, which is now coming to Spokane. Find that story on page 13.

instead shutting down a person with opposing views, having a speaker’s college invitation revoked or creating such a ruckus that the person with opposing views is unable to speak.

Lately, conservative expressions have been demonstrated against. The University of California at Berkeley recently shut down a conservative speaker, preventing her from sharing even one idea or thought. Liberal, intolerant students objected to her speaking. Some professors may have been involved — it’s happened before. Demonstrations ensued. Not wanting to be injured, attendance dissipated and the conservative’s ideas were not heard.

A blow was therefore struck against intellectual curiosity.

American courts have gotten involved in this issue, too. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Vista Graphics, Inc. v. the Virginia Department of Transportation held that the government, if it displayed government-created brochures at rest stops, was responsible and therefore such brochures constitute government speech, comporting with prior Supreme Court decisions. The rulings invoke an evolving “government speech” doctrine, holding that the government could silence expression and wasn’t obligated to display private brochures it didn’t like. This gives public universities thin cover for barring speech; private schools, meanwhile, can decide for themselves.

Our Constitution, however, in the Bill of Rights promises that everyone in America has the right to express information, ideas and opinions free of government restrictions based on content and subject only to reasonable limitations especially as guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution. Essentially, any American can speak their mind as they see fit (except in such cases as yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, for example).

One humid June day in Washington, D.C., I recall four visiting Future Farmers of America mentioned they had seen a man dressed in a heavy, wool garment, holding a Bible and shouting scripture loudly. The surprised students were told that, no matter how annoying he was, the man was only exercising his rights.

Free speech should always remain free, no matter how uncomfortable it may make us. But a recent Knight Foundation report found students are split on the matter, with 53 percent of those polled favoring the First Amendment guarantee to speak freely and disagree, while 46 percent prefer to promote inclusion on campus to absolute free speech. Fifty-eight percent said free speech should protect hate speech, while 41 percent disagreed.

The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal recently mentioned that George Washington University is being pressured to abandon the mascot name “Colonials,” held since 1926, in favor of a less controversial name, all in the name of political correctness.

Fifty-four percent of the students there favored the name change.

The trustees should hold firm — for free speech.

The First Amendment remains sacrosanct in constitutional history, and free speech, especially on college campuses, should always be protected so that speakers of all kinds can express themselves. n

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J A N U A R Y 1 1 — 1 7, 2 0 0 7 n F R E E

FROM THE VAULT JAN. 11, 2007: We can’t help revisiting this particular issue from our past. On the cover we had Luke Baumgarten, our music editor at the time, posed in zany workout gear to usher in a new era: A full-color Inlander! Life has remained colorful here ever since.

!

GETTING

PHYSICAL WITH LUKE BAUMGARTEN

page16

NOW

The New

IN FULL COLOR

AT THE MAC Norman Rockwell’s America™ © 2019 The National Museum of American Illustration, Newport, RI and the American Illustrators Gallery, NYC.

Norman Rockwell, The Doughboy and His Admirers, 1919, Oil on canvas. © NMAI

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JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 7

COMMENT | NEWSMAKERS

Q&A CHIP OVERSTREET Spiceology’s CEO talks “Greek Freak,” spicy competition and the power of Instagram

BY DANIEL WALTERS

S

pokane-based Spiceology has gone from a Spokane Startup Weekend-winning idea in 2012 to a $5.5 million-a-year company with 45 employees, hocking custom spice blends — with names like “Smoky Honey Habanero” and “Greek Freak” to restaurants and retailers across the world. Last year, the company hired CEO Chip Overstreet to help make the company even bigger.

The Inlander sat down with Overstreet last week to talk about the company’s strategy and recent challenges — like last year’s ceaseand-desist letter from the attorneys of NBA Milwaukee Bucks power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, arguing that their “Greek Freak” seasoning branding clashed with Antetokounmpo’s trademarked nickname.

INLANDER: Tell me about this “Greek Freak” situation.

OVERSTREET: There were a lot of bad actors who were profiting from “Greek Freak” — the basketball player — illegally. They were creating shirts and hats. So the attorneys were just doing a broad sweep of anybody that was using it.

They then basically said, “You know, Giannis has the trademark for ‘Greek Freak,’ therefore you need to stop using it.” We were able to have documented proof showing that we were using the term “Greek Freak” before he even entered the league. We responded very politely and confidently with a letter saying, “We’re pretty sure we’ve got the rights to do this. And in fact, if you’re interested, we’d love to talk with you about co-marketing.”

The irony is we have dozens of professional athletes who are big fans, like Kevin Durant, John Wall. Dwyane Wade, there’s a photo on his daughter’s Instagram, where she’s sitting there and dancing with all of our spices in the background.

I’m curious about your use of influencers and endorsers.

The way we get in front of consumers is primarily through influencers. But they’re not your traditional, just like, you know, “cool mom unpacking a box.” They’re barbecue enthusiasts like Derek Wolf who has close to a million followers. He’ll set up a barbecue over an open flame with Mount Rainier in the background and barbecue up a beautiful steak. So we did custom blends with Derek, like a “Nashville Hot,” a “Maple Bourbon” and a “Garlic Chipotle.” We collaborate in the creation of those and sell them to consumers and chefs.

How do you compete with the huge existing spice businesses?

They’re tired, old behemoths that do things the way they’ve done things for decades. All they focus on is cost-cutting, and shaving cost. You find the words “adequacy” slipping into your business vernacular, like, “Is this garlic ‘adequate’ enough to meet our minimum standards and still be considered garlic?”

Our core constituent is not the shareholder, our core constituent is the chef. The reason we get in the door is our packaging. Every chef is a little bit of OCD. They want their kitchens to be beautiful, they want them organized.

And when they see our “periodic table of flavor” packaging, they love it. Our herbs are green, our chilies are red, our salts are blue.

When you’re in a dinner rush, and you need the basil, you look for the green and you find your “Ba” and you’ve got your product.

The reason they buy is the quality of the product. It’s an execution game. We get in front of a chef and they see and smell and taste our spices relative to what they’ve got. And then they realize that they don’t have to pay more. n

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JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 9

M A R T I N

W O L D S O N

T H E A T E R

A T

T H E

F O X

CALENDAR OF EVENTS Spokane Symphony

Spokane Symphony Pops

Spokane Symphony Masterworks

Saturday, Jan. 11, 8pm | At the Knitting Factory

Saturday, Feb. 1, 8pm

Saturday, Feb. 29, 8pm | Sunday, March 1, 3pm

EL GRAN FESTIVAL DE MUSICA CUBANA

Spokane Symphony Masterworks

THE M SHOW WITH MATEUSZ WOLSKI

Saturday, Jan. 11, 7pm

SPOKANE YOUTH SYMPHONY: 70 YEARS OF EDUCATION

CHERRY POPPIN’ DADDIES

FRENCH MUSIC FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

Saturday, Feb. 8, 8pm Sunday, Feb. 9, 2pm

APPALACHIAN SPRING

WSU SCHOOL OF MUSIC CONCERT

Tuesday, March 3, 7:30pm

MULTICARE: HEART STRINGS ACOUSTIC STORYTELLING CONCERT

Sunday, Jan. 12, 4pm

Spokane Symphony Chamber Soirées

Thursday, March 5, 7:30pm

Fox Presents

Tuesday, Feb. 11, 7:30pm Wednesday, Feb. 12, 7:30pm

Friday, March 6, 8pm

Wednesday, Jan. 15, 7:30pm

Spokane Symphony Pops

Spokane Symphony Masterworks

GONZAGA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA WITH MIDORI

Thursday, Feb. 13, 7:30pm

Saturday, March 7, 8pm

Saturday, Jan. 18, 8pm Sunday, Jan. 19, 3pm

SPOKANE STRING QUARTET WITH SPOKANE KANTOREI CHOIR

Fox Presents

Sunday, Feb. 16, 3pm

Wednesday, March 18, 7:30pm

Spokane Symphony Movies & Music

Spokane Symphony Movies & Music

Friday, Feb. 21, 8pm

Saturday, March 21, 8pm | Sunday, March 22, 3pm

SOIRÉE ON THE STAGE: VALENTINE’S

JAY AND SILENT BOB REBOOT ROADSHOW WITH KEVIN SMITH & JAY MEWES

BEETHOVEN’S 250TH BIRTHDAY

Spokane Symphony Movies & Music

PIXAR IN CONCERT

BACK TO THE FUTURE IN CONCERT

Saturday, Jan. 25, 7pm Sunday, Jan. 26, 3pm

Spokane Symphony at The Knitting Factory

Fox Presents

MUSIC, MAYHEM & MYSTERY

REBOOT ROADSHOW WITH KEVIN SMITH & JAY MEWES

THE M SHOW:

Jan 11 8PM

Spokane Symphony Concertmaster Mateusz Wolski hosts an evening of music and fun with an ensemble of orchestra musicians and special guests, Chris Cook (trumpeter and Spokane’s Poet Laureate) and aerialist John Hernandez.

JAY AND SILENT BOB

Jan 15 8PM

•

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5 0 9 6 2 4 12 0 0

EILEEN IVERS: IRISH FIDDLER

THE ALLMAN BETTS BAND

STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE IN CONCERT

Spokane Symphony Movies & Music

PIXAR IN CONCERT

Jan 25 7PM

Jan 26 3PM

Jay Mewes will join Kevin Smith (director and Silent Bob) for a Q & A session after the film.

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•

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This stunning, multi-media family show features montages of memorable clips from all 14 of Pixar’s films — from the Toy Story trilogy to The Incredibles, Cars, UP, and more, all accompanied by live symphony orchestra.

Presentation licensed by Disney Concerts. © All rights reserved

•

FoxTheaterSpokane.org

COMMENT | FROM READERS

U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers opposes removal of Snake River dams. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

DAMegarding IT! the assessment of the costs and benefits of Lower Snake

R

River dam removals (see “The $375,000 Question,” 1/2/20) by Gov. Inslee: Unfortunately, our Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers is blinded by her religious devotion to agri-business and their willingness to destroy searun salmon in the Snake River System, one of the largest salmon-producing watersheds in the entire Columbia Basin. Inslee is well justified to seek this review at this time since all the dams are in Washington state. She and Rep. Dan Newhouse should commend Inslee for only spending 50 percent of the funds allotted for the review. The report shows how lame and one-sided the excuses are for leaving the dams standing.

All the farmers need to do without the dams is to truck their grain and beans to Pasco and put their produce on barges there instead of the Lewiston-Clarkston area. They have received billions of dollars in other farm subsidies beside these dams; it is time for them to give back to the people of the Pacific Northwest at this critical time for salmon. The irrigation near the lowermost dam’s reservoir also seems trivial compared to our dire need for salmon recovery in the Snake River watershed.

If we keep doing the same thing year after year over decades and it does not recover the runs, then it is time to do something different, and dam removal is the most intelligent alternative.

JAMES BERGDAHL Spokane, Wash.

ANGELS IN THE ER have had the good fortune, or misfortune (depending on how you look

Brian Regan

Wed & Thu, Feb 12 & 13 / 7:30pm Commodores Jan 16 Sawyer Brown Jan 30 Conquest of the Cage-MMA Feb 8 Sara Evans Feb 23 Rodney Carrington Mar 22 Australia’s Thunder From Down Under Mar 27 & 28 Yanni Apr 9 Champions of Magic Apr 11 Charley Pride May 3 Celtic Woman May 16 & 17

I

at it), to have been in three hospital emergency rooms in the last four months for family-related health issues. St. Mary’s in Long Beach, California, Providence and Deaconess in Spokane, Washington. What I found was both disheartening and inspirational. Disheartening, because many patients were there because it was the only access they had to general medical LETTERS care. I found this to be a pathetic Send comments to indictment against our current health editor@inlander.com. care system because it is so costly and ineffective. Inspirational, because the compassion and caring for patients was evident.

At each hospital, I viewed some of the patients to be discourteous and belligerent to the workers. In every case, staff members maintained their composure and compassion in this extremely stressful environment. If you are looking for everyday heroes — and maybe even angels — look no further than the people in your local hospital emergency room. We are all the better for having them to care for us.

877.871.6772 | SPOKANE, WA

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JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 11

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TECHNOLOGY

THE

FUTURE AND THE

FEARS

With 5G comes great potential and great fear as Spokane is among the first to get the new technology

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

T

he newest generation of cellular technology, 5G, is being rolled out across the country, and Spokane is among the very first markets to get a taste of the staggeringly fast speeds.

Just a few 5G devices are available for customers to buy at the moment, meaning few people will truly benefit from the upgrades until more options hit the market later this year.

But as networks compete to get their newest tech out fastest, many consumers are still unclear exactly how the rollout will work and what it may mean for their service, their cybersecurity or even their health.

With small antennas being installed atop utility and light poles to roll out super-high speeds in parts of downtown Spokane, Cliff-Cannon and NorthTown already, here’s an overview of what 5G could mean for the Inland Northwest.

LOW, MIDDLE, HIGH

First, 5G can be delivered on a variety of radio wavelengths, so long as it meets certain speed and service requirements that telecommunications companies have agreed to as 5G standards.

At its fastest, the technology promises to provide download speeds fast

enough to get a feature-length movie to your phone in less than a minute, providing a fiber-speed rival for those who want to cut the cord and drop their traditional internet service providers.

T-Mobile’s nationwide rollout in early December is likely to reach the most customers so far — about 200 million are in range already — because it focuses on a large swath of lowband spectrum in the 600 megahertz (MHz) range, similar to what’s been used for 3G and 4G. That band was purchased at auction from an unused part of the spectrum once set aside for television broadcasting.

The 600 MHz spectrum is far-reaching, requiring far fewer installations of new antennas than other 5G technologies. While the service is certain to be faster than 4G, and will reach rural areas including much of North Idaho and Eastern Washington, this type of 5G on the lowest end of the spectrum won’t deliver the gigabit-per-second speeds envisioned for the millimeter wave spectrums that companies like Verizon are pushing to develop instead.

However, should a merger between T-Mobile and Sprint be approved, that low-band and some mid-band spectrum that could be developed is likely to be much more reliable, says T-Mobile senior communications manager Joel Rushing. ...continued on next page

Small 5G antennas are required every block or so for the fastest speeds with the new technology. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 13

NEWS | TECHNOLOGY

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“The biggest difference as you start to look at this low-band, mid-band and high-band spectrum is that low-band travels a lot farther, like miles from these cell sites,” Rushing says. “It’s great at penetrating inside buildings, whereas the higher spectrum [is] better for denser areas but it travels maybe half a block at most. Even leaves can block the signal or degrade the signal a little bit.”

On T-Mobile’s low-band, customers could see peak speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, but more likely will see an average of about a 20 percent speed improvement over 4G LTE, Rushing says. One added benefit is that some places will see service for the first time, including parts of North Idaho.

“Generally speaking, you’ll see some speed improvements,” Rushing says. “The dollar amount you’d have to put on scaling something just using millimeter wave, it’s almost unfathomable. So definitely we think this is the right approach: Go broad first and we can continue over time to build off the network and see where those gaps are that we can fill with mid-band or millimeter wave.”

But other networks such as Verizon, which rolled out 5G in tiny parts of Spokane and two dozen other cities in late December, are pushing for the massively faster millimeter wave upgrades, which require many new antennas placed closer together to deliver service.

Drivers in Spokane may have noticed the new, small antennas going up on top of existing streetlights and utility poles in some places. Because millimeter waves roughly in the 24-72 gigahertz (GHz) range can’t travel very far and can’t penetrate buildings as easily, they need to be installed on nearly every block to be effective, usually going on existing poles or buildings.

The main benefit is that spectrum’s potential for insanely fast download speeds of multiple gigabits per second, which carriers envision could enable self-driving cars, remote robotic surgery, and augmented reality. For example, imagine holding your phone’s camera over products in the store and instantly getting product information and reviews without searching online manually.

Verizon is also exploring third-party tools to help first responders see where phone users were fractions of a second before a disaster such as an earthquake struck, which could help search and rescue teams find survivors.

5G is also the type of service that could power the “internet of things,” which requires many devices be connected to function in sync.

In Spokane, that could look like the amenities planned for the Central City Line, where stops will have reader boards that are instantly updated with bus times, as well as fare readers and surveillance cameras. Hooking those services up to existing fiber optic cables could cost close to $2 million, which the Spokane Transit Authority discussed at a meeting last spring. At the time, Spokane County Commissioner Al French suggested STA ask about the potential to hook those devices up wirelessly via 5G, asking if that might save money and time.

The new technology seems promising, but the rollout is also raising eyebrows globally as some question just how much we understand it.

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With the fastest 5G requiring many more antennas than ever before and using part of the spectrum not frequently used in the past, some of the main concerns have to do with cybersecurity, privacy and health.

The largest concern raised in communities from the European Union to the Pacific Northwest is whether millimeter waves may harm human health.

For the most part, it does not appear likely the non-ionizing radiation from 5G will cause any harm to human health. That type of radiation has not been proven to cause DNA mutations, although some studies have shown it can cause body temperatures to increase.

Radio frequencies are listed as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organization; that puts them in the same category as things like coffee and aloe vera, but also several fossil fuel-related chemicals, none of which have strong enough

evidence yet for the organization to say for sure that they’re linked to higher rates of cancer.

In a 90-page online book from 2018, Martin Pall, a Washington State University professor emeritus of biochemistry and basic medical sciences, raises concerns about 5G frequencies’ potential to cause everything from blindness to infertility. In it, he compiles information from dozens of studies and questions industry influence on government agencies.

“Putting in tens of millions of 5G antennae without a single biological test of safety has got to be about the stupidest idea anyone has had in the history of the world,” Pall says in the document, which was written partly in response to a 2017 letter from nearly 200 scientists to the EU urging caution with 5G. “We have no biological safety testing of genuine 5G radiation.”

Still, while most scientists will agree it’s possible the science to date could be disproved, it’s also generally agreed that if radio frequencies in the spectrum used for 5G were likely to cause health problems, that would already be evident after decades of television, cellphone and WiFi use.

While the number of cellphone and WiFi users ballooned from nearly nothing in the 1980s to hundreds of millions at present in the United States, cancer rates have essentially remained about the same.

The New York Times reported in 2019 that the basis of some common 5G fears spread on the internet was a 2000 study on WiFi’s negative effects on brain tissue that didn’t take into account the protective barrier that skin provides. The article also notes that Russian Television has been sharing more stories LETTERS on 5G fears going into 2020.

Send comments to Another Times story comeditor@inlander.com. pares the fears to 1980s hysteria over high-voltage power lines being linked with potentially higher rates of leukemia in children.

The initial study that found the connection was later disproved as others could not replicate its findings, but the fear stuck, the Times reports.

Others concerned with the rollout of 5G question its cybersecurity and privacy weaknesses.

The U.S. won’t allow 5G hardware built by the Chinese company Huawei to be installed here, citing concerns the network could send sensitive information back to Chinese government servers, the New Yorker reported last year. Huawei has sued over the ban and denied the uploads would happen.

The same story notes that while the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under the Obama administration had planned to require 5G systems be built with cybersecurity in mind from the start, the agency repealed that requirement under the Trump administration.

Still, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association explains that 5G security will improve upon 4G, including better encryption, device-specific updates, and cloud-based security measures that can carry over even when a device connects to WiFi.

OPTIONS

Cities are limited in what they can do to respond to citizen concerns about the rollout of the new technology. While some have passed ordinances trying to limit the number of antennas that can be installed in residential neighborhoods, the FCC is the authority for deployment.

In response to fears, the Portland City Council passed a resolution last spring demanding the FCC update its 5G research to address concerns that health impacts still aren’t fully understood.

The FCC, meanwhile, has pushed for rapid 5G expansion, limiting the fees cities can charge for applications and restricting the timeline for approving permits and installing new antennas to 60-90 days, requirements that several cities including Seattle have opted to fight in court.

That suit is expected to be heard in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in February. In another case last year, a federal appeals court said the FCC can’t exempt antenna applications from historic preservation and environmental review processes. n samanthaw@inlander.com

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NEWS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Shorted Spokane County officials want the state to cover the costs of locking up its inmates in the local jail

BY JOSH KELETY

S

pokane County officials are trying to get the Washington State Department of Corrections to pay more to house their inmates booked on probation and parole violations in local detention facilities, in part by warning that they wouldn’t book their inmates unless a new agreement was reached.

For now, that’s not going to happen. After months of trying to negotiate a new contract with the Department of Corrections, Spokane County commissioners unanimously approved a one-month interim contract on New Year’s Eve to give time for county and state officials to work out a new arrangement.

Here’s the issue: On any given day, the Spokane County Jail houses around 30 inmates who are booked on Department of Corrections warrants for violating the terms of their probation or parole. And while it costs an estimated $134 per day to house an inmate, under the previous contract, the state only paid the county a daily rate of around $89 per inmate, according to Spokane County Detention Services Director Mike Sparber.

The costs borne by the county are also exacerbated

While it costs the county an estimated $134 per day to hold a Department of Corrections inmate, the state only pays out around $89. because many of these inmates, Sparber says, go through opioid addiction withdrawals while in custody, and often stay in the jail for an extended period of time while local staff manage their withdrawals, adding to the jail’s chronic crowding problems.

“We have a real concern about the well being and the

health of the Department of Corrections offenders who we’re seeing and some of the chronic opioid use that they have,” Sparber tells the Inlander. “A lot of them are ending up in the treatment program, [detox] protocol.”

The one-month extension came after months of trying to renegotiate the contract, county officials say.

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Sparber says he sent three separate letters to state officials since May of last year, and was in ongoing negotiations up until the Friday before the interim contract was approved by the county commissioners.

“We were at the ninth hour and I didn’t want to put anybody at risk and we wanted to ensure that we had time to negotiate the contract and had a deadline to get it negotiated,” says Spokane County Commissioner Mary Kuney. She adds that it’s the county’s intent to have the Department of Corrections cover the full cost of housing their inmates in county facilities.

Janelle Guthrie, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman, says in a statement: “We are grateful for this opportunity to continue efforts to find a solution that addresses the identified challenges and protects community safety.”

As for whether the county would again play hardball and potentially stop booking new Department of Corrections parole and probation violators, it depends on how negotiations over the next month go, Kuney says. If the state is bargaining in “good faith,” she may support extending the contract to give more time for negotiating. If not, Kuney says, she’d support leaving the state hanging.

Sparber says that he received an email from Department of Corrections Secretary Stephen Sinclair on Jan. 2 expressing interest in getting some appointments to discuss a new contract set up “right away.”

“I feel confident that we will get this worked out by the end of the month,” Kuney says. “I want to get it done in one month.”

In the event that the county actually opts to decline to book Department of Correction parole and probation violators, Sparber says that the jail would still accept state offenders who are booked on new charges.

“What we’re talking about are those administrative warrants,” he says. “Those are the ones that we would restrict and not take.” n joshk@inlander.com

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NEWS | DEVELOPMENT

River Park Square helped to halt downtown Spokane’s decline — and decades of downtown plans helped to usher in a renaissance and renewal in the urban core. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Downtown By Design The next big plan for downtown Spokane will take aim at parking lots, street design and maybe even homelessness

BY DANIEL WALTERS

T

he last time the city of Spokane updated its master plan for downtown was back in 2008 — 12 years and two mayors ago. It was before the Kendall Yards development, before the Convention Center expansion, the University District Gateway Bridge, the Davenport Grand Hotel or the Riverfront Park rehab.

In fact, in some ways, it was 2008’s “Fast Forward Spokane” plan that set the course for many of those developments. The downtown plan served as a sort of loose checklist, tasking city planners, the Spokane Transit Authority, the Downtown Spokane Partnership and private developers with a string of common goals. Zoning decisions, street construction, bus line choices and real estate investments in Spokane were all directed by the document.

“I think that if we hadn’t had a plan, we wouldn’t be as far along as we are today,” says Councilwoman Lori Kinnear, whose district includes downtown.

Now, a dozen years later, the city of Spokane is looking to craft the plan’s next chapter: Last year, the city and Downtown Spokane Partnership shelled out $85,000 to a Seattle-based consultant called Framework, tasking them with gathering opinions from the public about the biggest

18 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

challenges facing downtown and what people think the city should do about it. The plan, still being developed, will tackle everything from parking spaces to street design and possibly homelessness.

“This is an opportunity to look at how far we’ve come,” Kinnear says, “and look at a new perspective on what we want the next 10 years downtown to look like.”

THE OLD PLANS

“A downtown without a plan is downtown [Spokane] in, say, the 1980s,” says Downtown Spokane Partnership Vice President Andrew Rolwes. “It really emptied out and became almost exclusively a commercial office-only downtown. Downtown was really closed by about 6 pm every evening. Office workers went home. There was very little in the way of retail and restaurants.”

By the mid-’90s, downtown Spokane was nearly dead. J.C. Penney had already fled, and Nordstrom was flirting with doing the same. Two things helped save the urban core: First, the city struck a deal for a new River Park Square parking garage that, despite the ensuing financial scandal, is credited by many with halting downtown’s decline. Next, in 1999, the city rolled out

its “Plan for a New Downtown,” sketching a vision filled with vibrant retail stores, active downtown housing and pedestrian-friendly streets.

The Fast Forward Spokane plan released in November of 2008 hit similar notes. The city heeded the plan’s call for the development of the Mobius Science Center, another convention center expansion, and connecting the University District to the downtown core.

Other strategies laid out by the 2008 plan were largely abandoned. Main, Sprague and First avenues weren’t converted to two-ways as the plan recommended.

Still other proposals morphed with time: The 2008 plan envisioned an eventual light-rail line on Riverside Avenue and a network of streetcars throughout the city. STA swapped that out for the Central City Line, a 6-mile, high-frequency electric bus route through the heart of downtown.

Other parts of the 2008 plan were hampered by events beyond the city’s control: Two months before the old plan was officially released, the global economic meltdown devastated the housing market — all the dreams of high-rise condos and dense downtown housing had to wait.

Perhaps as a result, some of the downtown plan’s goals remain thoroughly unfulfilled. The 1999 plan called to reduce the number of surface parking lots downtown, to little apparent effect. The 2008 plan did, too. The 2020 plan is expected to once again include a provision calling for fewer surface parking lots and more parking garages.

“It hasn’t happened,” Kinnear says. “We really need to dig in and say it has to happen this time.”

WRITING A NEW PLAN

Framework, the consultant group, has already conducted surveys, held focus groups and put on public meetings to

gather community input. At a workshop in the new Pavilion in October, 55 locals gave their own takes on how they wanted to transform downtown and the surrounding area.

In particular, residents said they wanted better transit options, more walkable connections and safer bike routes. “Fix this intersection!” one resident wrote on a sticky note, attached to the intersection near the Browne’s Addition fire station. “It’s so scary to bike (or walk or drive) through here.”

Other commenters called for everything from broader sidewalks, to more affordable housing, to a public bathroom, to a downtown baseball stadium to a proposal to convert a shuttered railroad tunnel west of downtown into a new attraction: “Huge tourism potential! Haunted tunnel — just add zombies.”

At this point, Framework’s draft list of proposed strategies doesn’t include a zombie tunnel. But it goes further than simply mapping out surface parking lots that could be turned into apartment buildings: Framework proposes creating an arts and theater district, launching a downtown public market and even developing a “historic and cultural trail.”

“Think of Boston and the Freedom Trail, with the little red ribbon that runs by the Old North Church,” says city planner Nathan Gwinn.

The consultants aren’t done gathering feedback. They’ll hold a second public meeting at a yet-to-be-finalized location on Feb. 5, and until Feb. 15, they will be accepting survey answers at spokanedowntownplan.org.

Kinnear and Council President Breean Beggs both say they want to make sure everyone — and not just business or property owners — are included in these discussions.

“All the things that are great happening downtown tend to be for upper-middle and upper-income people,” Beggs says. He wants to make sure that low-income people can afford to park downtown and travel downtown as well.

That means asking questions.

“How are people going to afford to participate downtown?”

Beggs says. “How are we going to do parking, how we are going to transport people downtown, what attractions are we going to have, how much is it going to cost?”

THE HOMELESSNESS QUESTION

One key question this year is new. The word “homelessness” wasn’t mentioned once in the 217 pages of the 2008 downtown plan. Public safety was mentioned only briefly.

But these are different times. Even as the 2017 spike in violent crime downtown subsided, Mayor Nadine Woodward rode her criticism of the climate downtown — arguing businesses were under siege from an alleged explosion of drug addiction, homelessness and crime — to a narrow election victory in November.

When Framework conducted an informal survey of nearly 600 people last fall, two-thirds of the responses listed “homelessness” as one of the top three biggest priorities for the downtown plan update.

“What’s frustrating about it is a lot of the planning process is more about zoning and infrastructure,” Beggs says. And the challenges posed by visible homelessness, he argues, are deeper systemic issues than anything that can be fixed through clever urban design.

“I don’t think the scope of the downtown Spokane plan is to figure out homelesness,” he says.

And yet, the Framework draft of the 2020 updated plan already includes the bullet point, “manage the concentration of homeless services.”

After all, the homelessness debate in Spokane sometimes does deal with design and infrastructure — with fights over where shelters are located, how many public bathrooms are available, and what happens when the city uses basalt rock designs to try to relocate homeless encampments.

“Generally, it’s a little bit outside of the expertise of urban planners to focus on public safety and homelessness, but that won’t preclude it from being discussed,” Rolwes says. “How to manage the concentration of service providers will also be discussed.” n danielw@inlander.com

JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 19

MUSIC

MAKE IT

SPICY

Kiki Valera and friends bring a celebration of Cuban music to Spokane

BY DAN NAILEN

K

iki Valera figured out pretty early in his 54 years that music was going to be his life. After all, he was born into a Cuban family that had been playing and preserving traditional sounds of the island as far back as the 1800s.

That family is known to Cuban music fans as La Familia Valera Miranda, and they are renowned for their expertise in playing a genre called son cubano, a mesmerizing and dance-friendly blend incorporating African and Spanish influences that is particularly prominent in Cuba’s eastern hill country. Son cubano burst into international popularity in the late 1990s, thanks to the band (and documentary film of the same name) Buena Vista Social Club. ...continued on page 22

Kiki Valera (left) brings an all-star Cuban band to Spokane Saturday.

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CULTURE | MUSIC “MAKE IT SPICY,” CONTINUED...

“I was about 6 years old when I was introduced to my first instrument, the tres, by my father, and I learned from my family,” Valera says of delving into an instrument made up of three sets of double strings. “Then I went to the conservatory for classical music and I started to study classical guitar, and after that I discovered the cuatro (a guitar with four sets of double strings).

That was my instrument of choice because of all the possibilities I could get out of the instrument. I’ve been playing cuatro since I was a teenager.”

stations from [the United States], from Jamaica, and I started to be bombarded with jazz — Chick Corea, Wes Montgomery, all those big jazz guys,” Valera says.

“I fell for that instantly. More than anything, I was trying to understand the way they played that music. It was so beautiful to me. It was not my intention to play like them, but in some ways that music has had some influence in my way of playing.”

That’s the nature of music, right? A guy growing up in Cuba, playing a sound that blends Spanish and African rhythms and patterns, incorporates American jazz and other far-flung sounds into something new, while remaining rooted in the mountains of his Cuban home.

“We’re a very musical people. If you go to Cuba, everywhere you go, there’s music. There’s people playing, there’s people singing, dancing.”

By the time he was 15, Valera was touring the world with La Familia Valera Miranda, taking the sounds of son cubano to diehard Cuban music fans and the curious thanks to his expertise navigating its eight strings.

Even as he was learning to love the traditional music of his family, as well as other Cuban styles like mambo, songo and timba, Valera was hungry to learn about sounds beyond Cuba’s borders. He went to what some of us would consider technologically extreme lengths.

“When I was about 17 years old, I built my own short-wave radio and I started to tune in to all those

T

hat sound is captured on Vivencias en Clave Cubano, Valera’s first album since leaving La Familia Valera Miranda and leaving Cuba 17 years ago to live in America. (You can listen on Spotify.) Valera and a group of Cuban all-star musicians will bring the album to life, along with several old traditional Cuban songs, at a show in Spokane Saturday night, an event called El Gran Festival de Musica Cubana at the Fox Theater.

Among those ace musicians joining Valera is vocalist Coco Freeman, a legend in his own right among Cuban audiences thanks to his rich voice and lyrics that vividly bring romance and yearning to the songs — even for those of us who don’t understand the language.

“We met when we were kids,” Valera says of Freeman. “We grew up in the same area, so we were hearing

the same music, living the same lifestyle. We were involved in festivals since we were little boys. When I moved here in 2013, a few months later I WEEKEND found out that Coco C O U N T D OW N had moved here, too, Get the scoop on this to Florida. We started weekend’s events with talking to each other, our newsletter. Sign up at and the idea to do Inlander.com/newsletter. something together was paramount. We started working on this album and we composed the songs together.”

Joining Valera and Freeman at the Spokane show, among others, are world-class pianist Nachito Herrera and trumpeter Luis Manuel Mirabel. Expect to be awed into silence by the band’s musical chops one moment, and on your feet and dancing the next. It’s virtually impossible to stay in your seat when you’re listening to Cuban music.

“We Cubans, we’re a very musical people,” Valera says. “If you go to Cuba, you’ll notice that everywhere you go, there’s music. There’s people playing, there’s people singing, dancing. That is the way we live.

“Music is evolving constantly. The musicians of my generation are exposed to new kinds of music, like jazz or other styles, and my vision is in between the old music and the new music.” n El Gran Festival de Musica Cubano • Sat, Jan. 11 at 7 pm • $35-$125 • all ages • Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox • 1001 W. Sprague • foxtheaterspokane.org • 624-1200

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CULTURE | DIGEST

Wishful Listening

I FOR THE LULZ I’m pretty sure advertising memes for private military “contractors” (read: mercenaries) wasn’t part of the plan for Instagram when the photo-sharing app launched. And yet, here we are. Like most millennials and Gen Z kids, I spent a good chunk of time laugh/ crying at the WWIII memes that dominated the internet this past weekend after all the saber-rattling over Iran.

But the enterprising Instagram account @shooter_jobs has capitalized on the recent surge of anxiety with their own Iran and WWIII memes. Through their advertised posts, I’ve learned that WWIII isn’t just hilarious, it’s also profitable! (QUINN WELSCH)

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

don’t really believe in the teachings of The Secret or the process of self-actualization or that notion of floating an idea into the universe so that it can manifest itself later. But I also realize that it doesn’t hurt to do any of those things, because hey, crazy stuff happens all the time!

As we head into a new year and a new decade, I’m thinking ahead to all the live music that will be headed our way, and keeping my fingers crossed for artists I’d love to see. Some of these are outlandish. Others are totally within the realm of possibility. Consider this a musical vision board.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Surely Bruce would be right at home in a blue-collar, hardscrabble town like Spokane. The Boss didn’t tour at all with his excellent 2019 album Western Stars, and following his successful Broadway residency, maybe he’ll opt for some smaller shows at more intimate venues.

The odds of it happening? Incredibly low. But a guy can dream, can’t he?

THE BUZZ BIN GREEN DAY I know — this pop-punk trio hasn’t had any real edge since the days of Dookie. But if Green Day came through town, I wouldn’t miss hearing all those mid-’90s classics in person, and since they’ve got a new LP coming out this year, maybe it’ll happen.

NOISY MIND Maybe the best parts of the modern ambitious roleplaying video games are the speech-checks, where, if you put enough points into something like intelligence, you’re able to defeat a boss simply by blowing their mind with conversation options. Disco Elysium is an entire game made of these types of speechchecks, with all sorts of different thought categories that bounce around your brain — and even argue with each other. Those categories include “visual calculus” (the ability to reconstruct crime scenes in your mind’s eye), “encyclopedia” (how much you know about random facts) and “electrochemistry” (how much you love doing drugs). (DANIEL WALTERS)

PAW-PULARITY CONTEST Dog sitting service Rover, which operates a large local office, recently released its list of the top dog and cat names in Spokane for 2019. For male dogs: Cooper, Charlie, Tucker, Max and Buddy topped the list.

For female dogs: Bella, Lucy, Luna, Daisy and Sophie. For male cats: Oliver, Leo, Loki, Jack and Dexter. For female cats: Luna, Kitty, Bella, Lola and Nala. To see a rundown of top and trendy pet names for the entire U.S., head to rover.com/blog/ dog-names. (CHEY SCOTT)

MISSY ELLIOTT The legendary rapper and producer hasn’t headlined a tour in nearly a decade, so 2020 seems the ideal time for her to get back on the road again. Hopefully, that tour bus points this way. Following last year’s Iconology EP and collabs with Lizzo and Ariana Grande, Misdemeanor is primed for a full-on comeback.

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST Some noteworthy new music arrives online and in stores Jan. 10. To wit: FIELD MUSIC, Making a New World. Brainy Brit-pop that might remind you of XTC. SELENA GOMEZ, Rare. The popster’s first album in four years.

BEACH SLANG, The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City. This excellent Philly crew has the ramshackle rock charm of the Replacements, and they got Tommy Stinson to guest on their new one.

RIHANNA She may have hinted at dropping that long-awaited new album in 2019, but Rihanna spent most of the year out of the spotlight. It’s totally likely, then, that she’ll finally end that hiatus and release her follow-up to the acclaimed Anti sometime in 2020, and what an ideal time for her to take on her first-ever Spokane gig.

THE STROKES With a new album supposedly on the way, these New York retro-rockers are just enough of a legacy act to appeal to the nostalgia-hungry Spokane market. Are they still good in a live setting? Only one way to find out.

ALANIS MORISSETTE I’ll admit it: Any time one of those massive singles from Jagged Little Pill comes on the radio, I crank it up. The Canadian singer-songwriter is embarking on a summertime tour that actually begins in Western Washington, so it’s totally possible that it’ll swing back around here on a second leg. n

KILLER VOICE Like many who have succumbed to the charms of Killing Eve, I find myself mostly interested in the psychopathic Russian assassin Villanelle, played brilliantly by Jodie Comer. In the second season, now streaming on Hulu, Villanelle has gone from a target of Britain’s intelligence service to hired asset — one with an unhealthy obsession with her former foe/now handler Eve (Sandra Oh). In one scene this season, Comer manages to deftly switch between American, Australian and British accents before returning to her “real” Russian one, all in rapid succession, an impressive trick and one of the small pleasures in a series that manages to juggle laughs with tense bursts of violence. (DAN NAILEN)

JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 23

CULTURE | THEATER

How to use

J.P. O’Shaughnessy (right) plays the “cold-blooded S.O.B.” Joseph Stalin.

KIMBERLY SHARON PHOTO

Cockroach Lips and Chicken Necks A satirical poem proves deadly funny in the new Stage Left production Mandelstam

BY E.J. IANNELLI

T

here are several translations of Osip Mandelstam’s “Stalin Epigram,” a poem that mocked a tyrant who, like all tyrants, could not bear mockery.

One of the more popular among them, a joint effort by Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin, describes “The ten thick worms his fingers/ ... The huge laughing cockroaches on top of his lip/ The glitter of his boot-rims.” This ridiculous yet sinister figure could be found “Ringed with a scum of chicken-necked bosses” who meow and snivel as he “forges decrees in a line like horseshoes/ One for the groin, one for the forehead, temple, eye.”

Joseph Stalin’s epigram would become Mandelstam’s epitaph. In 1934, six months after the poet read it in private gatherings, he was arrested and exiled along with his wife Nadezhda. A short reprieve followed, but Mandelstam was re-arrested in 1938 and shipped to a forced-labor camp. He died by the end of that same year. It would fall to Nadezhda to preserve his work and legacy.

Playwright Don Nigro later took this brief but fraught period of Mandelstam’s

24 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

life and dramatized it for the stage. His play — titled, simply enough, Mandelstam — is starting a run at Stage Left under the direction of Doug Dawson.

“This might only be the fourth time this has ever been produced,” Dawson says.

“I’ve been Facebook-messaging with Don Nigro, and we have a note that he wrote specifically to the Stage Left patrons about this production. He says in his program notes that the first time he heard the story of Mandelstam and everything that had happened, he knew it was going to be a play.”

Nigro’s version clearly takes some creative liberties in the service of entertainment. His Stalin, played here by J.P. O’Shaughnessy, is “the funniest written part in the show, ironically,” Dawson says. He fancies himself an aesthete but has zero appreciation for subtlety or ambiguity.

“There is that veil of humor. But every now and then we can drop it and show what a cold-blooded S.O.B. Stalin was.

There are those moments where J.P. will drop a line and he’s deadly serious and

scary,” says Ben Dyck, who plays the titular role.

“You’re dealing with some pretty heavy stuff, and if it were just all doom and gloom, it might be hard to watch. The comedy helps you to see the absurdity in all of it. Mandelstam wrote a poem about a mustache, and for that he died.”

“It’s one of these shows where you’re laughing out loud, then it gets serious real fast,” Dawson adds.

Trapped between Mandelstam’s friendship and Stalin’s ire is Boris Pasternak, played by Sean Behary. As head of the writer’s union, the Doctor Zhivago author and Nobel laureate is the one who receives late-night telephone calls from Comrade Stalin about Mandelstam. And, yes, that really did happen. In the play, as in real life, Pasternak is forced to walk the delicate tightrope between saving his friend and saving himself.

“There’s a scene in the show where Pasternak calls Stalin in the middle of the night to say, ‘Hey, can you please back off Mandelstam?’ Which was a huge risk for him to take. But the scene starts with Stalin answering the phone and going, ‘Who’s this? Boris? Aren’t you dead? Didn’t we shoot you?’”

Meanwhile, Mandelstam’s wife, whose own persecution almost rivaled her husband’s, tries to find a way to honor his muse without him risking their lives.

“Mandelstam and his wife are pretty aligned in their politics. And, actually, Nadezhda is probably the more outspoken at the outset. But once they realize they have recording devices and people are listening to what they have to say, she’s much better about being careful than he is,” Dyck says.

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“Once he sees the impact it’s having on her, he tries to write a poem praising Stalin, but he can’t do it. The voices won’t let him.”

Phletha Donean Wynn, Dyck’s real-life girlfriend, plays both Mrs. Pasternak (an offstage role) and Nadezhda in Mandelstam.

Given how instrumental Nadezhda was in safeguarding her husband’s poetry when the state sought to eradicate it, hers isn’t just a sidelined spousal character.

Dawson hopes Mandelstam will spark conversation.

“It’s very thought-provoking. Coincidentally, it’s very current. It’s also very funny. And … it’ll expose you to a history that a lot of Americans don’t even know about it. It’s the sort of show that you will be talking about with the people you saw it with for a couple of days afterwards.” n Mandelstam • Jan. 10-26; Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm • $25 • Stage Left Theater • 108 W. Third Ave. • spokanestageleft.org • 838-9727

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MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

THE RED DOG SQUAD You’ll find them carving up the mountain at Lookout Pass

O

ver the years, I have visited dozens of ski resorts around North America.

At almost all of them, there’s a core group of riders who ski together, and they usually have nicknames for their group like the Rat Pack or the Skittles.

One group that has etched a spot in my mind is the Red Dog Squad who ride Lookout Pass. This group of six skiers are some of the most technical skiers I have ever come across. I guess the technical part comes easy when many of them are certified ski instructors.

The Red Dog Squad is the brainchild of Tom Melhuse and Josh Christopherson who came up with the name one summer and eventually went so far as to have patches made.

Red Dog is one of their favorite runs to ski and train on at Lookout Pass.

Melhuse, from Missoula, is the “captain” of the Red Dog Squad and, at 73 years old, Tom still knows how to bend a ski. His power, finesse and technical skiing skills make the young guns green with envy.

BY BOB LEGASA

Husband and wife Josh and Kelli Christopherson come from Hamilton, Montana; Geraldine “Gez” Schneider, a transplant from Scotland, has made Coeur d’Alene her home; Todd Lund, with more than 30 years of instructing, is also from Coeur d’Alene. Last but not least is Lookout Pass marketing director Matt Sawyer.

Most days on the mountain you can either find this elite group skiing Lookout’s infamous powder or instructing. One thing that makes this crew so special is the fact that they’re always honing their ski skills and pushing each other with training exercises to become better ski technicians. This year some of them have stepped away from the instructional teaching aspect to simply enjoy skiing, plain and simple.

Josh, who’s a level three alpine instructor, has 42 years of skiing under his belt. His background from ski racing, moguls and all-mountain skiing made his transition into ski instruction an easy one. ...continued on next page

CONTENTS

CAT SKIING ALASK A GETAWAY MONTANA’S TINY GEM JOHN STIFTER Q&A WINTER EVENTS LAST RUN

30 32 34 36 38 39

COVER ILLUSTRATION

BY TOM STOVER

Tom Melhuse, “captain” of the Red Dog Squad. BOB LEGASA PHOTO

SLOW START

With the latest dump of snow, and more in the forecast, most trails and chair lifts are open at our local mountains. Check their websites for the latest conditions. Despite the relatively late start, operators remain optimistic about the rest of ski and snowboard season.

JANUARY 2020 SNOWLANDER 27

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE “THE RED DOG SQUAD,” CONTINUED...

“I enjoy sharing knowledge and I like the challenge of finding different ways to communicate with different people,” he says. “I love it when you see the lightbulb click on for people and they start having more fun.”

Josh’s wife, Kelli, who moved from Alabama to Montana for school, has only been skiing for 18 years. I guess when you have a “techie” ski technician living under the same roof, it’s pretty easy to improve quickly.

With a sarcastic grin, Gez jokingly refers to Kelli as the rebel: “Kelli is the only one in the squad who has refused to become an instructor. As Josh’s wife, we tried to recruit her for many years to become an instructor, she almost did.

There’s days she whispers, ‘Let’s go play,’ and we’ll head off into the trees to hit the untouched powder.”

For Gez, skiing has been in her blood since a young age. “I first skied in Aviemore, Scotland, at 3 years old for a Christmas vacation,” she says. “Then, as teenagers, we did family ski holidays in France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland.”

Hooked on skiing, Gez wanted to live in a ski town, so at the age of 20, she came to America and started her dream in Park City, Utah, and eventually made her way to Coeur d’Alene in 1997.

It took Gez eight years to go from a Professional Ski Instructors of America level one to a certified level three instructor. It was hard work, she says.

28 SNOWLANDER JANUARY 2020

“It took me three years and four attempts to pass my L3 skiing,” she says. “I passed my teaching and written exam the first time, but my skiing was not good enough on the steeper pitches. It was Josh and Tom who took me under their wing and coached me to finally pass.”

B

The Squad on their home snow at Lookout Pass.

BOB LEGASA PHOTO

oth Matt Sawyer and Todd Lund have been involved in the ski industry for decades.

Matt started off in the industry back in 1983 as a ski instructor in Pennsylvania. Five years later he moved into ski resort marketing, which Matt has been doing for over 30 years and over that span, he earned his

level three certification. Three years ago, Matt made the move from the East Coast to North Idaho to run Lookout’s marketing program.

Todd started skiing on a tiny ski hill near Lake Chelan, which only had three rope tows. Over his life span, he attended the Mission Ridge Ski Academy, raced at the collegiate level and instructed at Mount Bachelor, Big Sky and Lookout Pass.

From all of their backgrounds, it’s easy to see that the Red Dog Squad does not take their skiing lightly. They’re still constantly training and running drills with Josh and Tom being the drivers.

“Tom has over 55 years of experience to share with us from his lifetime of coaching and instructing,” Gez says, “and Josh just loves ‘geeking out’ on body mechanics and cause and effect. We do line drills together, leapfrogging so we can observe one other.

Some days we just go rip on carving skills, some days we focus more on movement drills trying to improve on a skill and then on powder days Josh leads us into the trees or bumps, showing us how it’s really done.”

All of these skiers have the skills to instruct at the mega resorts with the top instructors, but they all like to call Lookout Pass home.

For Josh it’s the down-home feel he remembers as a kid: “It is a nice, small mountain feel which is what I grew up with.

Awesome snow, fun terrain and great people — it makes me feel at home” Now for Gez, it’s more about the people: “I’ve skied a number of places and Lookout is where I call my home mountain.

The snow quality is the best, but it’s the people who have become my family that adds true joy to my life. I look forward every November to being reunited with my winter friends. Our Red Dog Squad is spread out over 250 miles away from each other, living in Idaho and Montana. Lookout Pass is what brings us all together to do what we love to do.” n

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NICKSBOOTS.COM JANUARY 2020 SNOWLANDER 29

CAT SKIING

A TOUCH OF THE

SUPER-

NATURAL A couple of hours north of Spokane is one of the greatest snowcat-riding operations known to humankind BY JOHN GROLLMUS

P

ossibly the single greatest winter outdoor action event ever held was the Red Bull Supernatural snowboarding competition. Maybe, like me, you were glued to a TV set when it first aired after weeks of anticipation from having seen the heart-stopping trailers. Or maybe you didn’t even realize you were watching it but just happened to look up at a screen in some local bar or restaurant in disbelief as you watched some of the world’s greatest snowboard athletes push the limits of freeriding and big air all rolled into one event.

The lines were so steep and the airs so comically huge that you could see on the face of almost every participant at the end of their run that they were glad to have not only competed but also to have simply survived. Supernatural was a competition so unique it wasn’t even really a competition but rather a magnificent bonding event for a world-class band of winter warriors.

The life span of this epic event was far too short-lived, but if you managed to view it, you will always have adrenaline-rushing images burned deep into your cerebral cortex. If you haven’t ever watched it, then stop reading this right now and Google videos of the event so you can really understand what the rest of this article is all about.

You see, the thing is, this event wasn’t held on some far off and hard-to-visit location like the French Alps, it wasn’t held in the beard-deep powder of Japan, and it wasn’t even held on the more reasonably nearby and legendarily steep mountain slopes of Alaska. No, it was held a mere couple of hours north of Spokane at one of the greatest snowcat-riding operations known to humankind, Baldface Lodge. What this means to the Inland Northwest rider is that you too can ride the slopes that formed permanent bonds amongst some of the greatest snowboarders to ever get lost in the white room. The Supernatural event and Baldface Lodge were brought to reality largely through the efforts of one man, a one-time American but now decidedly Canadian visionary and famously bald-headed snowboarder named Jeff Pensiero.

O

ver the past decade or so, I’ve been lucky enough to join Pensiero and his crew every winter for some of the best powder turns of my life accompanied by delicious food, the finest folks you’ll ever meet, and a unique nightlife. Every year in early January, a few of my best friends and I make the trip to the airport in Nelson, British Columbia, where we meet up with a couple dozen or so other like-minded individuals and are greeted by some of the friendly faces from Baldface Lodge. After a short but thorough helicopter-safety briefing, we climb aboard a glorious whirlybird, are whisked high into the air and afforded amazing views of Nelson and the West Arm of Kootenay Lake.

After just a few short minutes of breathtaking scenery, we are gently deposited at the snow-covered wonderland known as Baldface.

Each and every day spent at this wondrous place unfolds like some kind of powder-laden dream sequence. The morning begins with a breakfast spread so appetizing it’s always important to remind yourself that you’re going to be riding all day and it might be wise not to be stuffed to the gills — but if that’s your thing, it’s definitely an option. Once you’re fully fed and caffeinated it’s time to climb aboard one of the mural-adorned snowcats and head into the mountains for a full day of powder slaying.

Run after run with names like Scary Cherry, Cheeky Monkey, Pacific Ocean and Soul Patch provide everything from steep old-growth trees to wide-open bowls with untracked lines just aching to be carved up. Lunch at Baldface is consumed on the cat rides back to the top, so not a wondrous powder-shredding minute is wasted. After a day filled with so many glorious turns you’re almost positive your legs can’t take anymore, your snowcat chariot delivers you mercifully back to the fantastically appointed lodge, and the day’s fun is far from over.

TriStateOutfitters_GearUpAndGo_010920_6H_CPR.pdf Commitment to honkin’ sweet views.

A

Baldface Lodge is located near Nelson, B.C.

W HI T EF IS H M OUN TA IN RES O R T

JOHN GROLLMUS PHOTOS

près ski brings delicious soup and appetizers accompanied by any beverage your heart might desire provided by a staff always rocking the famously ever-present Canadian smile. A few games of pool, pingpong or perhaps even a wood-fired sauna later, it’s time to sit down with friends for a dinner that rivals the best restaurants around the world. Once again feeling fully satiated, you might choose to return to the bar to tell stories of the day, or maybe have your aching muscles soothed with a relaxing massage, or maybe you’ll wisely wander off to bed to be sure you’re well rested for the next powder-stoked day.

Personally, I’m always way too amped up from the day’s epic adventures to call it quits early, but then again I suffer from a severe case of FOMO. Plus, if you stay up late enough, you might get a chance to literally press the lodge’s famous party ONLINE button, which simultaneously turns up the baldface.com music, dims the lights and fires up the disco ball. Just don’t request to hear any Journey songs as their music is strictly forbidden in this particular mountain environment.

It’s almost too good to be true that world-class snow slaying and hospitality like this can be found so close to home. I’d urge you to put a visit to Baldface Lodge on your bucket list right now.

Sure, it’s expensive, sure, you’ve got to take time off of work, sure, your kids might be jealous, but if it’s good enough to create memories of a lifetime for some of the best riders in the world, it’s good enough to make memories of a lifetime for you. If you’re smart or lucky enough to make the trip to Baldface, make sure to tell Jeff I said hello. Just don’t ask him to play “Don’t Stop Believin.’” n

Commitment to character.

In the ‘30s local skiers discovered good skiing on the “big mountain” north of town. Since then we’ve been committed to a life of good times,

great people and deep snow. In Whitefish you’ll find a community true to itself and a deep-rooted lifestyle where character is encouraged.

JANUARY WHITE SALE Get 33% OFF lodging and lift tickets when you stay 3 or more nights and ski 3 or more days in the month of January.* *Terms and restrictions apply. Offer valid for the month of January.

Book online with promo code JWS or by calling 877-SKI-FISH

W H I T E F I S H , M O N TA N A SKIWHITEFISH.COM | 877- SKI- FISH Partially Located on National Forest Lands

Photos © GlacierWorld.com

JANUARY 2020 SNOWLANDER 31

GETAWAY

ON THE DOWN LOW How to do Alaska without totally breaking the bank

A

nyone who skis knows Alaska for its helicopter skiing — the huge classic lines in just about every ski movie. But what most don’t know is that with the right backcountry knowledge, gear, and a little sweat, you too can have an Alaskan adventure without taking out a loan. I’m going to fill you in on a few tips I’ve learned from visiting this skiing mecca year after year.

The first time I skied Alaska was a wild ride. Three close friends and I rented an RV from ABC Motorhome.

They are conveniently located close to the Anchorage Airport. Motorhomes are great because you can keep your trip flexible in case of weather. Our first stop was Alyeska Resort. By showing them our airline tickets on the day we flew in, the resort gave us free day passes — a sweet deal.

We had a fun day of tram laps, skiing the north-face chutes and riding the upper bowls. After an excellent day of skiing, we splurged a little and ate at the incredible Sakura Asian Bistro in the Hotel Alyeska — hands down my favorite sushi joint on the planet. For a great après ski bar, the Sitzmark is the place to be. Before leaving Anchorage, I highly advise loading up with food and beer to save you some cash.

The next day, after too many beers and a fuzzy head, we checked online (alaskasnow.org) to get the forecast for some nearby backcountry touring. Being on the west side of the Chugach in Girdwood, Turnagain Pass and

32 SNOWLANDER JANUARY 2020

BY HOWARD STODDARD

Hatcher Pass are both within a few hours’ drive. The snow stability wasn’t looking good in this area and since we were mobile, we looked into the other side of the Chugach range on Thompson Pass outside of Valdez.

The forecast called for snow with a few bluebird days, so we packed up and headed out for the six-hour drive.

Once on the Glenn Highway, you realize it’s the most beautiful road in the states, with endless white-capped peaks along with the amazing Matanuska Glacier in view right from the road. It was a beautiful stop for lunch so we broke out the barbecue and had some halibut burgers. After a few more hours of driving, we ended up on Thompson Pass. The next day, we woke to snow and all you could see was white. Hearing about road runs you can shuttle, we decided to take a few laps. Waiting out the storm and trying to drink it blue, the clouds finally lifted to expose the beautiful peaks of Thompson Pass.

With endless ski runs right from the RV, we knew this was the place to spend the week. The snow was deep and the views were amazing. Run after run, choking on the Chugach powder, we were in heaven.

After getting to know some locals with snowmachines at base camp, with a little cash, we were able to get a lift and stay up higher to get into some tight chutes. Today you can book a day or a week with Justin Befu at Alaska Snowboard Guides to rent a snow machine with a ski rack to access more of the Chugach. If you know how to ride a sled, it makes for an awesome adventure.

Once you’ve worked up an appetite, Valdez is about a 30-minute drive to grab a shower and some food.

Two places I personally recommend: Fu Kung, because it’s Fu Kung good, and the Fat Mermaid.

Both are excellent and will hit the spot after skiing all day.

Parking in Valdez for the night will give you a chance to check out the local watering holes, usually an entertaining experience.

The next day it cleared and we were back on the pass getting face shots and epic runs. As we were planning on going back to the west side of the Chugach to ski Hatchers Pass, we heard that there would be a good aurora borealis show and we decided to stay.

That night, the lights came out and they danced

HOWARD STODDARD PHOTO

The author rented an RV with three friends (left) to travel the Alaskan highways in search of untouched powder.

all around us as we stayed warm by the bonfire. On the way back to Anchorage, we stopped to check out a classic heli operation, Alaska Rendezvous, with a fun restaurant and bar. The way it was built feels very Alaskan.

A few hours from there, we were able to see the peaks in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, another great spot for a roadside barbecue.

Hours later, we arrived back in the big city and our trip had come to an end.

Sure, it was a little cramped with ski gear, a little stinky, but it was an amazing way to ski and see Alaska. n

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GETAWAY

THIS WAY, GRASSHOPPER Tap the potential at Montana’s Maverick Mountain

T

he winter drive west of Dillon on Montana Highway 278 plays a funny trick on the mind. Save for a few scattered houses and herds of cattle hanging almost motionless on the horizon, there’s a whole lot of wide empty nothing. The signpost for Bannack deepens that sense of isolation, advertising a historic ghost town all but shuttered for the season.

But peel off the highway into southwest Montana’s Grasshopper Valley and you’ll find life aplenty. Here, nestled on an east-facing slope above the tiny town of Polaris, is the friendly winter playground of Maverick Mountain. Ranchers in jeans mingle with devout shredders seeking refuge from the bustling slopes of Bridger and Big Sky. Live music echoes from the bar on the old lodge’s second floor. In one corner, a life-sized wood carving of John Wayne maintains a cowboy’s vigil over a resort that proudly keeps one foot in its mom-and-pop past as the other probes an unwritten future. Oh, and the lift tickets are only $39.

“There’s lots of ski hills out there, and there’s lots of small ski hills,” says Maverick Mountain manager and co-owner Erik Borge. “But this valley is so special. It’s very untapped.”

I first rode Maverick’s long and only chairlift in 2017.

It hadn’t taken long for my clutch of far-flung ski buddies to settle on the area for our third-annual destination ski trip. A co-worker had raved to me about the terrain, and the rental cabins at nearby Elkhorn Hot Springs seemed

34 SNOWLANDER JANUARY 2020

BY ALEX SAKARIASSEN

ideal for a weekend of après beer drinking and barbecuing. So we converged on Polaris from various Western towns, ready to shred.

And shred we did. When we finally reached Maverick’s summit, we had our pick of steep headwalls, rolling blues and narrow treed alleys. Our first descent on Ridge along the southern edge of the mountain was a corduroylover’s paradise, and we slowed just long enough to soak in the view of the East Pioneer Mountains before charging the fall line on Remely.

Later in the day, Ian Nemec pulled a surprise from his backpack: an inflatable T-Rex costume. He tugged the cuffs down over his ski boots, pulled up the zipper and carved his way down the mountain. Outside the lodge, the delighted cries of a group of kids turned to looks of sheer terror as Ian, ginger hair and beard matted with sweat, emerged gasping from below the costume’s massive head.

“Skiing in a forced squat wearing a sleeping bag the wrong way and strapping tupperware to your face instead of goggles,” Ian says of the experience. “9.5/10 would do it again.”

That night we fired up my grill on the cabin’s front porch, threw logs into the fireplace and trekked a few yards up the road to soak our muscles in a hot springs teeming with locals and fellow visitors.

As the next season approached, the call to return to Maverick was unanimous. We rented the same cabin,

Maverick may have only one chairlift, but it calls for many return visits. rode the same lift and chattered through the icy chop on Sleepy Hollow. Mike Gerrity and I had planned to explore the storied backcountry on Maverick’s backside, but sketchy late-season conditions across Montana convinced us to stick to groomers between rounds of craft beer from Dillon’s Beaverhead Brewing Company. We capped off the day with a few to-go pizzas from Polaris’ Grasshopper Inn, and spent a good hour digging our friend John Cribb’s Toyota FJ out of the snow after an ill-fated wrong turn into a snowmobile trailhead.

“It’s a special place for a good group of old friends to just be ourselves, soak a little, play with fire,” John says.

“Oh, and maybe ski.”

Part of the magic of weekending at Maverick is the ability to stitch together your own winter adventure. The Grasshopper Valley is, as Borge says, very untapped.

Borge and his wife, Kristi, have worked hard to unlock some of that potential since they purchased Maverick in 2015. The two were in their late 20s at the time, but have never harbored visions of getting rich or turning the mountain into a big, flashy resort. The changes they’ve brought have been minute, like commissioning a new trail map and bringing a youth ski racing team back to the slopes. Their biggest goal now is to raise funds for a second lift, a goal that hasn’t distracted them from the round-the-clock work required to keep the current lift turning. The Borges view themselves more as caretakers than owners, keenly aware that the mountain is as ingrained in the community’s DNA as baling hay and punching cattle.

Ultimately, this approach allows the tapping to be done by the visitor. Want to ski your buns off in the backcountry, or take a day to snowmobile in the pinechoked Pioneers? Go for it. Want to ski the corduroy, sip a beer and soak in the hot springs? More power to you.

The Grasshopper Valley can be your oyster for a weekend. Just don’t be shy about striking up a conversation or two with the locals. Winter west of Dillon isn’t nearly as unstirring as the drive might imply. n

NM We’re

SO MUCH DEEPER than just THE POWDER VISITSANDPOINT.COM Sandpoint is the kind of place to really find yourself. Of course, there’s plenty of deep powder skiing at Schweitzer Mountain. But when it’s aprés ski time, there is so much more: Amazing entertainment, award-winning breweries and wineries, art galleries, live music and performing arts and outstanding restaurants.

Go deep this winter, to Sandpoint, Idaho.

Visit SANDPOINT thisWINTER Get visitor information at 800-800-2106 www.VisitSandpoint.com

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TATER TOTS OR TACHOS? Q&A with Powder magazine’s former editor-in-chief John Stifter BY NICK PONTAROLO

I

t has been a remarkably odd ski season in the Inland Empire.

We saw tree-toppling snow in early October followed quickly by substantial snow up high. Then the Pineapple Express rolled in, and we were all back to running in shorts and an extended biking season. Finally, in late December, we were back to seeing significant snow accumulation in the forecast. Unfortunately, it was delivered in the form of rain down low and windloading up high.

With substantial avalanche hazards, the backcountry has been limited, finding me at the base of Schweitzer after a day of skiing in near vertigo conditions. With me is John Stifter, one of my favorite ski buddies and ski mentors, and more pertinent to you, the reader, Stifter was a 12-year staffer at Powder, the so-called “skier’s magazine,” including three years as editor-in-chief.

Due to a broken ankle, which has him sidelined from chairlift banter and turns through Headwall, Stifter, who is a Spokane native, has a twisting, turning story of travel, skiing, loss, and a continued positive outlook on life.

With the enticing reward of tater tots and Rainier bottles, he agreed to sit down with me to have a lighthearted talk about the ski industry, his experience through the decades, and how it has changed and changed him.

Let’s set the stage: SNOWLANDER: Chairlifts: Double chair or high-speed triple/quad?

STIFTER: Where do I start? Double chairs. Riblets forever, baby. RIP, Chair Six. Why Chair Six (Schweitzer Mountain Resort’s former North Bowl chair that was replaced this year)?

Double-chair deep talks, man. It is a ride back in time, setting the scene for intimate conversations. Chair 6 was 16 minutes long; you can’t not talk for that long, especially when skiing. It forces you to interact with complete strangers.

As the editor of Powder and devoting almost half your life to that magazine, what is the most significant change you have seen in the ski industry?

Backcountry skiing and the subsequent technology — bindings, boots, beacons, walk mode, outerwear, it’s all different from when I started. I also think that the proliferation of skiing in Japan

by Westerners has shifted destination skiing away from your normal Rocky Mountain resorts.

Apres ski bars; dark and dingy or foam party poolside?

Dark and dingy. Poolside is fun, but really dark and classic is awesome. Two of my favorites are Rafters at Red Mountain and the Sitzmark Club at Alta, Utah. You can’t find more of an authentic buzz after a day of skiing.

Daffy, spread-eagle or 360?

I prefer seeing a perfect daffy, but they are hard to pull off.

If we’re talking about favorite old school airs, then I would have

36 SNOWLANDER JANUARY 2020

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We have known each other our entire lives, and I personally have you to thank for making me a better skier. In your life, who is the person that significantly influenced your ski experience and how?

No one has ever asked me that question. There are so many.

But Andrew Eugster, who is from Spokane and grew up skiing Schweitzer, rocked my world as a youngster when he was boosting Bertha rock in North Bowl in his yellow North Face jacket and on K2 Extremes. He now lives outside Seattle and is a ski rep for Line Skis.

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What was the expectation vs. reality of becoming the editor of Powder?

The reality was that much of the job was managing others, and that is difficult. I thought it would be more travel and autonomy, but I soon realized you’re responsible for everything and have exposure to depressing decisions made by bean counters.

And when you love it so much and take it all too seriously, you spend more time in the office than you ever thought possible.

What is better, tater tots or tachos (tater tot nachos)?

It all comes down to time. Tachos are an exciting feast with friends, with tots rather than chips as the foundation. It requires an adaptable mindset.

Skiing can be a miserably cold and uncomfortable sport. Any advice on how to entice the next generation to ride snow on skis or boards?

Feeling gravity and going downhill on snow is the most fun thing you can do with friends because you’re outside in the mountains and, for the most part, there are no rules. And eventually, no parents, no coaches. You’re free to go anywhere, explore, and then be able to tell silly jokes and chew bubblegum on the chairlift. Plus, skiing is a lifetime activity.

One-piece ski suit or jean skiing?

Jeans. No question.

After leaving Powder, John and his wife took a yearlong road trip exploring the U.S. and then landed back in Spokane. John has gone back to school at Whitworth to become a family and marriage counselor. Once his doctor gives him the green light to ski, we will be back to tater tots, chairlift banter and being outside. I look forward to that day. n

JANUARY 2020 SNOWLANDER 37

WINTER EVENTS JANUARY

SKATE RIBBON COLLEGE NIGHT Show your current student ID to receive free skate rentals with admission ($5.25-$7.25). Students also are entered into a raffle for 49 Degrees North lift tickets and other mountain discounts. Thursdays from 4-9 pm through Feb 27. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.com (625-6600) NIGHT SKIING Mt. Spokane’s night skiing schedule has expanded to four nights a week, every Wednesday through Saturday, from mid-December through midMarch. The mountain’s full-service cafeteria stays open late, and live bands play most Saturday nights. Offered Wed-Sat from 3:30-9 pm, through March 14. $23. Mt. Spokane Ski & Snowboard Park, 29500 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. mtspokane.com (238-2220) FREE ICE SKATING LESSONS Riverfront Park offers weekly ice skating lessons at the Numerica Skate Ribbon, skate rentals included. Registration is available on site and lessons are available on a first-come, first-served basis. (Paid lessons also available; see website for details). Sundays at 11 am through Feb. 23. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.com (625-6600) KANTASY NIGHT TUBING SESSIONS This all-new event in the 2019-20 season offers “rockin’ music” and colorful lights illuminating the tubing hill, with a roaring bonfire and snacks and beverages in Lodge 1. Offered Friday and Saturdays through Jan. 25, with sessions from 4-6 pm or 6-8 pm. $20. Mt. Spokane Ski & Snowboard Park, 29500 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. mtspokane. com (238-2220)

MOONLIGHT SNOWSHOE HIKE Quietly explore the meadows and woods around Mount Spokane. Guides, transportation (departs from Mead Yoke’s, 14202 N. Market St.), headlamps, walking poles and snowshoes all provided. Additional information emailed after registration. Ages 16+.

Offered Jan. 10, Feb. 7 and March 6 from 6-9 pm. $29. Register at spokanerec.org (755-2489) CROSS-COUNTRY SKI LESSONS (49 DEGREES NORTH) Learn to cross-country ski and tour the trails of the 49 Degrees North Nordic Area with the mountain’s certified ski instructors. Ticket includes equipment, trail pass, instruction and transportation (departs from Wandermere Rite Aid, 12420 N. Division St.). Additional information emailed after registration.

Ages 13+. Offered Jan. 11, Jan 19; Feb. 9 and March 8 from 9 am-4 pm. $55.

Register at spokanerec.org (755-2489) LOOKOUT WINTER CARNIVAL Annual activities include the famous “Wife Carrying Contest,” a threelegged race and an egg-carrying contest, along with other festivities. Sat, Jan. 12 at 2 pm. Lookout Pass, I-90 Exit 0 at Mullan. skilookout.com (208-7441301) SKI & SNOWBOARD WAXING WORKSHOP Learn how to choose the best wax for the conditions, and have expert guidance as you clean and wax your personal equipment. Experts recommend waxing your alpine gear every five trips to the mountain. Offered Jan. 14, 22 and 28 from 5:30-7:30 pm. $35/$55; registration required. REI Spokane, 1125 N. Monroe. rei.com/spokane (3289900)

AVALANCHE AWARENESS Whether you ski, snowshoe, snowboard or snowmobile in the backcountry, recognition of avalanche danger is an essential and potentially life-saving skill. This session introduces and explains where and why avalanches occur and provides a basic approach to managing risk in the backcountry.

Learn to access local avalanche bulletins and weather reports, recognize basic signs of avalanche danger, and learn simple ways to help avoid avalanche danger. Thu, Jan. 16 from 6:307:30 pm. Free; registration required.

REI Spokane, 1125 N. Monroe. rei.com/ spokane (328-9900) MLK WEEKEND Head to Sandpoint for the long weekend and enjoy live music in Taps, the Deschutes Brewery Woody Wagon, twilight skiing and the Northern Lights Spectacular and fireworks show on Saturday night. Jan. 18-20. Schweitzer Mountain Resort, 10000 Schweitzer Mountain Rd., Sandpoint, Idaho. schweitzer.com (208-263-9555) NIGHT SKIING AT 49 Night skiing is great for the whole family and a fun way to see the mountain in a different light. Rentals are available at half-day pricing, no lessons are offered. Offered Jan. 18 and Feb. 15 from 4-8 pm. $5 with three cans of food. 49 Degrees North, 3311 Flowery Trail Rd., Chewelah. ski49n.com MT. SPOKANE SNOWSHOE TOUR Learn the basics of snowshoeing during a guided hike on snowshoe trails around Mt. Spokane State Park. Pretrip information is emailed after registration. Includes snowshoes, instruction, walking poles, trail fees, guides and transportation (from Mead Yoke’s,

14202 N. Market St.). Ages 13+. Offered Jan. 18; Feb. 16 and 23; March 1 and 21 from 10 am-2 pm. $29. Register at spokanerec.org (755-2489) BANFF MOUNTAIN FILM FESTIVAL The Banff Mountain Film Festival rolls into Coeur d’Alene with mountain culture, adventure and sport. Fri, Jan. 24 and Sat, Jan. 25 at 7 pm; Sun, Jan. 26 at 6 pm. $20. Schuler Performing Arts Center, 1000 W. Garden Ave., Coeur d’Alene. brownpapertickets.com/ event/4430696 (208-769-7780) MT. SPOKANE BREWFEST The annual brewfest is back, offering beer and cider tasting at multiple locations on the mountain, along with a barbecue, live bands and prizes. Sat, Jan. 25. Mt. Spokane Ski & Snowboard Park, 29500 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. mtspokane.com (238-2220) WINTER TRAILS DAY This national event offers opportunities to try snowshoeing and crosscountry skiing, and to discover the fitness benefits of these easy-to-learn sports. More than 100 events from coast to coast are planned this year to celebrate Winter Trails through the entire month of January. (Details for Schweitzer’s activities TBA.) Sat, Jan. 25.

Schweitzer Mountain Resort, 10000 Schweitzer Mountain Rd., Sandpoint, Idaho. schweitzer.com (208-2639555) CROSS-COUNTRY SKI LESSONS (MT. SPOKANE) Learn the basics of cross-country skiing at Mt. Spokane Selkirk Nordic Area, taught by Spokane Nordic Ski Association certified cross-country ski instructors. Fee includes skis, boots, poles, ski

LADIES’ DAY Spend a special ladies-only Friday this with the best female coaches from the Mt. Spokane Winter Sports School.

Includes three hours of instruction, coffee, lunch, two drink tickets at the apres party and door prizes. Fri, Jan. 10. $69; add lift ticket for $26 and rentals for $22. Mt. Spokane Ski & Snowboard Park, 29500 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. mtspokane.com (238-2220) JACKASS DAY Fifty-two years ago, the mountain debuted as a small ski hill called the Jackass Ski Bowl. Silver continues to celebrate this history by, once a year, offering its original price of $12 lift tickets. Fri, Jan. 10 and Sat, Jan. 11 (Saturday special price for night skiing only, after 3 pm). Silver Mountain Resort, 610 Bunker Ave., Kellogg, Idaho. silvermt.com (866-344-2675)

38 SNOWLANDER JANUARY 2020

area fees, instruction and transportation (departs from Mead Yoke’s, 14202 N. Market St.). Ages 13+. Offered Jan. 25 and 26; Feb. 15, 16, 22 and 23 from 9 am-3 pm. $51-$53. Register at spokanerec.org (755-2489) WINTER ENCAMPMENT AT THE SPOKANE HOUSE Washington State Parks, the Friends of the Spokane House and the Riverside State Park Foundation showcase what the Spokane House fur trade post was like in the 1820s during the winter months. Hear from a Spokane tribal educator, enjoy fiddle music of the era, learn about daily trade post life, and participate in a guided 1-mile snowshoe hike. (RSVP by Jan. 21; limited to 55 people.) Sat, Jan. 25 from 12:30-4 pm. Free; Discover Pass required. The Spokane House, 13501 Nine Mile Rd. friendsofspokanehouse.com LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN BREWFEST Activities include the fourth annual snow bowling contest (2 pm) and plenty of beers to taste and brats to eat. Sun, Jan. 26. Lookout Pass, I-90 Exit 0 at Mullan. skilookout.com (208744-1301)

FEBRUARY

CROSS-COUNTRY SKI + MOONLIGHT DINNER Wander peacefully through the woods on snowshoes and then enjoy a meal of lasagna, salad, bread and more from Greenbluff Fresh Catering.

Cost includes equipment, dinner and guides; some cross-country ski experience is recommended. Sno-Park and Discover Pass required. Ages 18+.

Offered Feb. 8 and March 7 from 6-9 pm. $50. Meet at Mt. Spokane State Park Selkirk Nordic Lodge. Register at spokanerec.org (755-2489) NICE TURNS FREE TRIAL RUN This annual clinic is designed to help existing skiers get out of a rut and improve their skills with personalized coaching with a small group at a similar level, intermediate or above. Feb. 16-17.

Schweitzer Mountain Resort, 10000 Schweitzer Mountain Rd., Sandpoint, Idaho. schweitzer.com (208-263-9555)

Ski Silver Mountain for only $12 on Friday, Jan. 10.

SILVER MOUNTAIN RESORT PHOTO

SOUPER BOWL SPOKANE The 15th annual women’s snowshoe and cross-country ski event supports the Women and Children’s Free Restaurant and Community Kitchen. Activity options include the Sasquatch Search and a poker snowshoe or ski event, along with a 1980s theme, soup and snacks. Take a shuttle bus from Mt. Spokane High School ($10). Sun, Feb. 2 at 8:30 am. Mt. Spokane State Park, Selkirk Lodge. souperbowlspokane.com n

LAST RUN

Skier: Sam Kuch. Photo: Ryan Flett

Hosted by

Lesson No. 1: Pay the passion forward.

PASS IT ON Finding balance in the fall line

I

BY ALEX SAKARIASSEN

watch the elderly gentleman fall twice trying to summit the bunny hill. Both times he had a firm grip on the rope tow, but panic or a slight shift in weight reduced the effort to snowy disaster. With my dad and our fellow patroller Kurt busy coaching other beginners, I set my boots to walk mode and hike to the man’s side.

Helping someone find their balance seems like the least I can do with my holiday visit to Huff Hills in North Dakota.

We introduce ourselves and the man explains through his gray beard that it’s his first time on skis. I walk him through the basics, telling him to make a pizza — the time-tested way of describing a snowplow — and push his knees together to keep weight on his inside edges. He catches on quickly. On his first descent, he begins to make wide, slow turns from one side of the hill to the other. I tap my dad on the shoulder.

“He’s doing it,” I say.

“You must be a good teacher or something,” Dad replies.

If I’m a good teacher, it’s only because I’ve had good teachers, a lineage that originates with my dad. Throughout my childhood he guided me down cat tracks and wide greens, drawing curves in the snow with his ski pole to demonstrate linking my turns. I slowly graduated from snowplows to stem christies to full-on parallel turns, always mindful of keeping my upper body squared to the fall line.

Eventually, though, Dad had to call in the big guns. He shipped me off at age 13 to a weeklong summer ski camp on the slopes of Oregon’s Mount Hood. The instructor ran my group through numerous drills, each focused on a small slice of the bigger skiing pie. I balked when we

were told to remove a ski and descend the glacier one-legged. Everyone fell. But I felt my weight truly for the first time, and began to find a balance point between my ski’s edges.

Years later, my shins throbbed as one of Big Sky Resort’s top instructors, Ursula, shifted my concept of skiing in another direction. The morning lesson was the cherry on top of a ski patrol event at Moonlight Basin otherwise devoted to toboggan training. Up until that day, my brain had focused primarily on lateral movement, the seamless side-to-side transition from one set of edges to the other. Ursula pushed my thinking forward, forcing me into the fronts of my boots. Something clicked, and it clicked again in 2019 when Ben, an instructor at another ski patrol event, told me to shorten my uphill leg.

My stance widened slightly, and the transition between turns took on a fluid new dimension.

Despite this collective of knowledge, I’ve rarely given more than a cursory lesson in skiing basics. The only person I’d count as a true pupil was an ex-girlfriend I once coached down the slopes at Lost Trail Powder Mountain. She was making stem christies on a steep headwall by lunch, and while we haven’t skied together since, she’s told me she continues to shred from time to time.

And that’s really all any teacher wants: to pay the passion forward. I stumble constantly in my life off the slopes, literally and figuratively.

But on skis I always find balance, a centeredness only snow and incline and the smell of pine can foster. When it comes to honoring everything my past teachers gave me, I could help a hundred people perfect their pizzas and it would never be enough. n

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Chef Tony Brown now owns and operates four local restaurants.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

OPENING

From Painting to Plate Fine art and the art of cooking are themes of chef Tony Brown’s new restaurant Eyvind, while the rustic Northwest inspires sister project, Hunt

BY CHEY SCOTT

J

ust shy of two years since word went out, Eyvind has finally arrived.

The new downtown Spokane restaurant from chef Tony Brown was first announced in January 2018, and has been long anticipated ever since by supporters of his existing, menu-swapping eatery, Ruins.

The restaurant’s name (pronounced “eye-vind”) and concept was heavily inspired by the oeuvre of American artist Eyvind Earle, who famously painted ethereal background and concept art for some of Disney’s early animated films like Sleeping Beauty. Dark and moody landscapes in saturated, contrasting colors are a recurring motif in Earle’s work.

“I like the idea of having the name be inspired by an artist, because I think culinary arts, as an art, gets pushed

to the back. A lot of people don’t think of it as an art; it’s just a way to cook and eat food,” Brown, 42, says. “But I can be artistic in plating and flavor profiles in several different ways.

“Eyvind [Earle] was kind of a surrealist painter with lots of vibrant colors that didn’t really go together, but in a painting they do,” Brown continues, “and that’s how I view food — taking different flavors and ingredients and putting them together and making a cohesive dish.”

Take Eyvind’s six-course New Year’s Eve dinner menu, for example, which creatively melded its namesake’s art and owner’s culinary mastery through six dishes named after and inspired by specific Earle paintings.

The “Silent Meadow” consisted of beef, broccolini, a pea puree and roasted garlic in homage to a verdant

green landscape striped with tall, inky black shadows. A dessert of white chocolate, matcha, pistachio and absinthe was plated to represent the shapes and palette of Earle’s “Snow Covered Bonsai.”

Beyond occasional special menus like this, Eyvind offers a modern and seasonal take on what Brown describes as “approachable fine dining.”

“I come from a fine dining background and know it can be a little scary to go into a restaurant where you don’t understand what half the things are, and you don’t know what to wear,” he explains. “Our staff is trained to tell you what everything is. We want people to experience good food, and it’s also cheap-ish. You can get out of here with $30 and that’s with a drink, even.” ...continued on next page

JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 41

FOOD | OPENING

CLOCKWISE: Eyvind’s dining room; the basement bar Hunt; salmon rillette from Hunt’s menu; Hunt co-owners Jed Conklin and Tony Brown; a beet salad with duck prosciutto from Eyvind’s menu.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

“FROM PAINTING TO PLATE,” CONTINUED...

For regular dinner service, diners can expect a onepage menu of shareable appetizers and affordable entrees in the $15 range, along with a few desserts. Lunch fare, which debuted this week, consists of a variety of salads and sandwiches. Menus will be more consistent than at Ruins, which alternates cuisines each month, while highlighting seasonal ingredients and with a broad focus on vegetable-based dishes.

Eyvind’s dining room seats around 50 guests at tables and two bars, including one that looks into the large, open-concept kitchen featuring a vivid, lime green — a color frequently used by Earle — tile backsplash above the stove. Other subtle artist tributes in the space are a soft pink wall behind the bar, teal blue chairs in the dining room, and plans to fill the space with potted houseplants and greenery.

F

or Hunt, the connected basement space below Eyvind, Brown partnered with building owner Jed Conklin to create a warm and rustic space with low, exposed ceilings and custom-built seating using wood salvaged from the upper floors of the 1905-built Bickett Building. In the back of the unexpectedly cavernous space, two rooms can be reserved for larger groups and closed off by a tent-inspired canvas curtain.

Hunt’s distinct menu theme is “elevated campfire food” and features game meats like elk, wild boar, rabbit, quail and trout.

“Downstairs is definitely meat-forward,” Brown notes.

“It’s very rustic and hearty.”

42 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

As with upstairs, most of the entrees at Hunt, including the braised rabbit stroganoff, elk burger and turkey confit with wild onion gravy, are $15 each. Smaller portions and shareable starters range from $4-$10, and include warm chickpeas, wild salmon rillette, elk chili and grilled sausage.

Cocktails at both Eyvind and Hunt are mostly classics or slight variations of them. While Hunt’s drinks revolve around whiskey and gin, Eyvind’s menu highlights vermouth and amaro.

Hunt originally wasn’t part of Brown’s restaurant expansion plans; the two new spots double the number of eateries he now owns and operates in Spokane, including Ruins and Stella’s Cafe. After Conklin pitched his own idea for a camp-themed bar, however, the chef was game.

“I’m a big outdoorsman and lifelong hunter, and the concept [for Hunt] has been floating around in my head for a while,” EYVIND Conklin says. “I’ve 225 W. Riverside (main been a fan of Tony’s for floor) • Open Mon-Thu 11 a long time, and there am-9 pm, Fri 11 am-10 pm, was no one I wanted Sat 5-10 pm • instagram: to do it with other than @_eyvind • 474-1262 Tony, so I said ‘What do you think about HUNT opening up two at the 225 W. Riverside (basement) same time?’ and he said • Open Sun-Thu 4-10 pm, yes.”

Fri-Sat 4 pm-midnight • Redband, a third huntspokane.com • 919-3748

connected space on the main level, named after the Spokane River’s native redband trout, is available for private events with its own bar and catering service from the main kitchen in Eyvind. Brown and Conklin are also equal owners of Redband.

J

oining Brown in the kitchen, bar and front of house are plenty of familiar faces in the local hospitality industry. Serving as Eyvind’s sous chef is Chong Vang, formerly of Inland Pacific Kitchen. The bar team includes Anthony Burgess, Cabby Barnard and Erin Fasbender, with help from Ruins’ bar staff, sisters Crystal and Suzie Bertholic. Brown’s brother Jon Brown is general manager now for all four of his restaurants.

For the foreseeable future, Brown plans to stay busy seeing Eyvind and Hunt settle into a consistent, qualityfocused routine. In the five and a half years since opening Ruins, he reflects that it’s a great time to be a chef in Spokane, contributing to the rapid growth and innovation in regional dining culture.

“I feel like I’m a part of something that is going to expand, and build upon what we’ve done. It’s only a matter of time before it all explodes, whether a year from now or five years from now.”

Brown also says, though, that he’s not interested in opening another restaurant after this.

“That could change, of course — it’s hard work — but I want to get these ones as best as they can be and ride off into the sunset,” he jokes. n cheys@inlander.com

FOOD | OPENING

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

A new German-style festival hall and beer garden opens in downtown Coeur d’Alene

BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

B

en Widmyer wore traditional lederhosen for the opening of Bier Haus Festhalle und Biergarten, the much-anticipated German restaurant on Coeur d’Alene’s Sherman Avenue he opened to emulate the experience of a traditional German beer hall.

Widmyer, a standout football player who first made headlines as a Coeur d’Alene High School student, became familiar with German beer halls while playing American football in Germany, where he was also joined by his brother.

“German beer and the bar is what started it all,” says Widmyer, who owns a local real estate development company and knows well the importance of location. Restaurant ownership and an entrepreneurial spirit also run in the family; Widmyer’s parents own Fort Ground Grill in Coeur d’Alene.

Bier Haus is cozy, with an assortment of wooden seating, exposed wood beams, a bar fabricated to appear old, and simple décor like German flags and mounted antlers. A beer garden is planned for the backside exterior of the restaurant in warmer weather.

The beer list is split between regional GermanBier Haus highlights a wide range of inspired beers and classic German lagers. CARRIE SCOZZARO PHOTO German beers, like Spaten and Hofbrau. Among the local brews, try Post Falls Brewing Co.’s Northern Cross Doppelbock or St. Wilbur Weizen from Bayern, a Missoula-based brewery after which Widmyer patterned Bier Haus. The pub also serves a handful of bottled beer, cider and both red and white wine by the glass and bottle.

The menu features a range of German-inspired foods. Using sausages from Bavarian Meats in Seattle, Bier Haus offers numerous wurst options: traditional pork bratwurst, smoked knackwurst, cheddary kase krainer, currywurst and the herby weisswurst made with veal, pork, and parsley. There’s also a wiener; more of a hotdog than a sausage. Choose two wursts and a side — potato salad, sauerkraut, fries, Bavarian mac and cheese — for $10. Top it with one of six sauces, including spicy brown mustard and curry ketchup.

Bier Haus makes its own red sauerkraut — or choose traditional-style made with white cabbage — and gravy for the jaeger schnitzel ($16). Try the Bavarian Reuben with havarti, sauerkraut and German ham ($11), or share a Bavarian pretzel with housemade beer cheese sauce ($8). n Bier Haus Festhalle und Biergarten • 515 E. Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene • Open Sun-Thu 11 am-8 pm, Fri-Sat 11 am-10 pm • bierhauscda.com • 208-966-4301

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The Longshot Opens in Sandpoint Plus, chef Ian Wingate is opening a new restaurant this spring

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randon Brock is betting on the Longshot, Sandpoint’s newest all-day café and gathering place he created in a former firearms training and retail facility at the busy intersection of Boyer Avenue, Pine Street and Highway 2.

The Longshot offers a full range of eats and drinks, including tea and coffee from local Understory Coffee, and thoughtfully sourced beer, wine, cider and other beverages. Food includes avocado toast ($8.50), paninis ($7-$9) and charcuterie plates ($18-$25).

In a monthslong renovation he chronicled online, Brock drew from a range of inspirations to transform the space, including travel to Australia and Norway. The aesthetic, Brock says, is a mix of midcentury modern, Scandinavian and the kind of eclectic spaces you’d find in more urban settings, like Portland, Seattle and his former home in San Francisco.

“The goal was really to create a bunch of little areas that encouraged real conversation versus head down with a phone or laptop,” says Brock, who graduated from California’s Sonoma State University in 2005, and worked in public relations.

Although Brock spent his early career in technology — Facebook when it was only a few years old and a few more years developing apps — travel made him realize he needed to change careers.

“I ultimately realized that technology wasn’t the truest of fits for me and the things that I found passion in were real experiences and community.” (CARRIE SCOZZARO)

CHEF IAN WINGATE TO OPEN RESTAURANT

After several years in various local kitchens — currently the Wandering Table in Kendall Yards — chef Ian Wingate is gearing up to open his

The Longshot is Sandpoint’s newest cafe hangout.

CARRIE SCOZZARO PHOTO

new locally and sustainably focused restaurant, Outsider. The eatery will be located in a newly revitalized historic building at 908 N. Howard, just north of the Spokane River and Riverfront Park. Wingate estimates opening in the first half of the year.

“Inviting, fresh and innovative food. That’s what you can expect from Outsider,” Wingate tells the Inlander. “With an open kitchen and live fire cooking, we are looking forward to serving breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner.”

Wingate’s goals for the eatery are to source in-season, locally produced ingredients, reduce food waste and the business’s environmental footprint, and to use organic food whenever possible.

While a health scare back in 2012 forced him to close his lauded, former downtown Spokane fine dining spot Moxie, Wingate is also credited for launching the Palm Court Grill, Table 13 and several now-defunct local restaurants in the early 2000s. (CHEY SCOTT)

SURF SHACK RETURNS TO COEUR D’ALENE

It’s been relocated and has changed names and owners a handful of times over the past 15 years, but the gist of Surf Shack’s approach has stayed the same.

“You’re never eating yesterday’s food,” says Jake Latuseck, who bought the burger joint from founder Gary Kender four years ago. “Everything we do cook here is fresh that day.”

Kender called the Southern California-style eatery Longboard Burger in 2004 when he first installed it inside a gas station at the corner of Coeur d’Alene’s Best Avenue and Fourth Street.

Five years later, Kender relocated to Rathdrum, calling it Surf City Burgers. He eventually moved it back near its original spot, changing the name to Surf Shack.

This past summer Latuseck acquired a former Dairy Queen across the street from Surf Shack’s original location, painted the exterior bright yellow and brought the burger spot back home to Coeur d’Alene.

Have a single ($4), double ($5) or triple ($6), a drink ($1-$2) and a side of fresh-cut fries ($2), tater tots ($3) or onion rings ($4). Gussied up single-patty burgers, like the mushroom Swiss or Hawaiian (with pineapple) are just $5. Also try Philly cheesesteaks ($7) or soft-serve ice cream ($2). Service is fast and friendly, and Latuseck is often on hand to greet the growing group of repeat customers by name.

“We always try to give them more than one reason to come back.” (CARRIE SCOZZARO)

1917 opens this week.

LIST

ONE-TAKE WONDERS

1917 is designed to look like a single take. Here are some other films that use similar tricks to great effect

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

S

am Mendes’ 1917, which took Best Picture and Best Director awards at the Golden Globes earlier this week, looks like a standard period piece. But one thing the ads aren’t telling you: It was shot by legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins (Fargo, Blade Runner 2049) and has been designed to resemble a single, unbroken take. Think Birdman, but on the battlefield.

This approach seems fitting for a film about WWI soldiers running straight through enemy combat to deliver an important message, and long takes (either real or digitally altered) have long been used to underscore a ticking-clock narrative. But the long take can also have the opposite effect, drawing our attention to the complicated choreography of the shot rather than pulling us deeper into the story.

Some of the world’s greatest directors have used long takes to up the ante of their drama — Alfred Hitchcock’s stagey Rope (1948), the complex opening scene of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958), the serpentine Steadicam shot through the nightclub kitchen in Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas (1990) — and Mendes seems to have picked up the torch from those masters. Before you see 1917 when it opens this weekend, consider some of these less obvious examples of filmmakers using long takes to make a point.

BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Cinematographer: Robert Elswit Anderson’s epic about the porn industry, from its heights in the 1970s to its dismantling in the ’80s, is full of razor-sharp editing and flashy cinematography that communicates the dangerous excess and cheap thrills of the era. The movie opens with a spectacular crane shot that begins airborne and sweeps through the doors of a nightclub, which not only introduces us to its tangled cast

of troubled characters but underlines their familial bond before the bottom falls out.

coming earthbound again. The fact that it was originally projected in 3D makes it all the more ethereal.

CHILDREN OF MEN (2006)

ONE CUT OF THE DEAD (2017)

Director: Alfonso Cuarón Cinematographer: Emmanuel Lubezki Before winning Oscars for other long-take movies, Cuarón and Lubezki choreographed several harrowing single-shot sequences in this dystopian sci-fi masterpiece about a world’s population that can’t reproduce. Their camera here seems to have a mind of its own, hovering right behind the characters during an intense battle that comes to an unexpected halt, and swirling around the interior of a car as it’s being swarmed by roadside marauders. The fact that it’s all happening in what feels like real time brings the action to a boil. See also: The Dunkirk sequence in Joe Wright’s Atonement (2007), which similarly captures the chaos of combat.

JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (1975)

Director: Chantal Akerman Cinematographer: Babette Mangolte A landmark of foreign cinema, Chantal Akerman’s quotidian study of a French housewife (Delphine Seyrig) has a deceptively simple setup: The camera — often stationary and running for minutes at a time — looks on as she peels potatoes, feeds her teenage son and even entertains gentlemen callers. It might sound like the most arthouse-y arthouse movie that ever arthoused (and you wouldn’t be wrong), but there’s something hypnotic and ultimately otherworldly about Akerman’s approach, drawing us into its protagonist’s routines before upending everything entirely.

LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (2018)

Director: Bi Gan Cinematographer: Yao Hung-i The real showstopper of this unusual neo-noir romance from China is its final hour, which consists of a single unbroken shot. Simulating the stream-ofconsciousness, out-of-body reverie of a dream, it follows its protagonist as he rides a railroad handcart, hops onto a motorized scooter and then glides down a mountainside zipline into a provincial village. Occasionally, the camera floats 100 feet into the air before changing course and be-

Director: Shin’ichirô Ueda Cinematographer: Takeshi Sone Only read this if you haven’t seen this singular horror-comedy from Japan, because it works so much better when you walk into it cold. It begins with a handheld, 37-minute take, as actors filming a zombie TV show in an abandoned nuclear test site are attacked by actual zombies. But then it’s revealed that this whole thing was itself a single-shot TV broadcast, and the movie works backward to show us how the whole thing was done. It’s virtuoso filmmaking that also functions as a tribute to virtuoso filmmaking.

RUSSIAN ARK (2002)

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov Cinematographer: Tilman Büttner In one of the most technically impressive movies ever made, we wander through St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum as various figures from Russian history brush past one another. Shot in one 96-minute take and featuring more than 2,000 actors, the bravura nature of the project not only parallels the vastness of history, but allows different eras to blur together as the camera glides from one room to another. See also: 2015’s Victoria, Sebastian Schipper’s harrowing crime drama, filmed in a single take that runs for a whopping 134 minutes.

WEEKEND (1967)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard Cinematographer: Raoul Coutard As one of the architects of the French New Wave, Godard was always trying to break the conventions of filmmaking, and often self-consciously so. In his bizarre and brutal takedown of bourgeois narcissism, a road-tripping couple conspiring to murder each other is waylaid by a series of increasingly strange detours. When they encounter a traffic jam, Godard shoots it in a tracking shot that goes on and on and on for eight long minutes, and the sheer absurdity of it comes to represent all the problems of society in microcosm. Godard has made entire films that don’t make their point as potently as this single unbroken shot. n

JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 45

TER GIC LAN N THEATER MA TH TH

FILM | SHORTS

FRI, JAN 10 – THU, JAN 16 TICKETS: $9

UNCUT GEMS (135 MIN) FRI-SAT: 8:35 SUN: 6:45 WED-THU: 6:45 A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD (108 MIN) FRI-SAT: 3:45, 6:30 SUN: 2:00, 5:15 MON-THU: 2:00 PARASITE (132 MIN) FRI-SAT: 2:15, 6:00 SUN: 12:30, 4:15 MON-THU: 4:15 HARRIET (125 MIN) FRI-SAT: 1:25 SUN: 11:45(AM) MON-THU: 2:45 JOJO RABBIT (102 MIN) FRI-SAT: 8:45 SUN: 3:00 MON-THU: 5:15 FANTASTIC FUNGI (79 MIN) FRI-SAT: 4:45 SUN-THU: 7:30 25 W Main Ave #125 • MagicLanternOnMain.com

CDA Arts & Culture Alliance presents

5-8 pm Friday, January 10 Friday, February 7 & Friday, March 13 Downtown CDA rings with live music from local musicians!

MUSIC VENUES • Angel Gallery Fine Art • Blackwell Gallery • Clark’s Diamond Jewelers • Crickets Oyster Bar & Grill • The Crown & Thistle • Emerge • Human Rights Ed Institute • Live for Blu • Mix It Up • The Rockford Building • Studio 107 • Taphouse Unchained • Tomlinson Sothebys

SUPPORTING VENUES • Calypsos Coffee Roasters • Coeur d’Alene Fresh • Fire Artisan Pizza • Mix it Up • Pita Pit • Seasons of CDA

OPENING FILMS 1917

Sam Mendes’ WWI epic, which took the Golden Globe for best picture, is made to look like a single unbroken take, with a couple of WWI soldiers sent to deliver a message across enemy lines. (NW) Rated R

JUST MERCY

Inspired by true events, a defense attorney (Michael B. Jordan) takes on the case of a convicted murderer (Jamie Foxx) railroaded by lawyers and attempts to exonerate him. A powerful statement on legal and ra-

MOVIE TIMES on SEARCHABLE

by Time,

by Theater,

or Movie

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

A lovely ode to the power of kindness, with an Esquire journalist learning to live more authentically after writing about none other than Mister Rogers.

Tom Hanks, Hollywood’s nicest man, plays the beloved TV personality. (MJ) Rated PG A mostly toothless but well-acted exposé in the Big Short mold, uncovering the sexual harassment allegations swirling around Fox News and former CEO Roger Ailes. Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie star. (NW) Rated R

CATS

A true boondoggle for the ages, an eyesearing, nightmare-inducing CGI spectacle based on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical about singing, dancing felines.

So inexplicable it’s almost worth seeing.

(NW) Rated PG

FANTASTIC FUNGI

The culinary, medicinal and psychotropic properties of mushrooms are explored and celebrated in this scientific nature documentary. At the Magic Lantern. (NW) Not Rated

FORD V. FERRARI

Every Theater. Every Movie. All in one place.

46 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

cial injustice. (MJ) Rated PG-13

From director James Mangold, a slick dramatization of the relationship be-

CRITICS’ SCORECARD THE INLANDER

LIKE A BOSS

Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne star as cosmetics entrepreneurs who get an investment from a beauty magnate (Salma Hayek), only to have her steal their ideas. (NW) Rated R

UNDERWATER

Alien meets The Abyss meets Sphere in this sci-fi thriller, which finds a crew of deep-sea scientists trapped in their submersible and menaced by slimy creatures. (NW) Rated PG-13

tween the Ford auto designer (Matt Damon) and the pro driver (Christian Bale) who set out to beat Ferrari in the ’66 24 Hours of Le Mans race. (ES) Rated PG-13

FROZEN II

Solid sequel to the Disney juggernaut, with Queen Elsa, Princess Anna and friends venturing into the wintry wilderness to save their kingdom from a mysterious force of the past. There’s no “Let It Go,” but it’s good enough. (NW) Rated PG

THE GRUDGE

The early 2000s J-horror hit gets another American remake and, yes, there are more creaky, stringy-haired ghosts haunting a murder house. Even more pointless and incompetently plotted than its predecessors. (NW) Rated R

HARRIET

The abolitionist Harriet Tubman finally gets a biopic deserving of her legacy, anchored by an electric performance by Cynthia Erivo. Old-fashioned filmmaking of the highest order. At the Magic Lantern. (MJ) Rated PG-13

A HIDDEN LIFE

The true story of a poor Austrian farmer who was punished for defying the Nazis during WWII. As is typical of director Terrence Malick, expect a meditative, free-floating epic. (NW) Rated PG-13

METACRITIC.COM (OUT OF 100)

64

THE GRUDGE

40

JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL

58

JUST MERCY

68

LITTLE WOMEN

91

THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

54

UNCUT GEMS

89 WORTH $10

JOJO RABBIT

In Taika Waititi’s WWII-set satire, a little boy with an imaginary friend who looks just like Hitler befriends the Jewish girl being hidden by his mother. Its juggling tones and bleak subject matter might not work for everyone. (ES) Rated PG-13

LEVEL

NEW YORK VARIETY (LOS ANGELES) TIMES

BOMBSHELL

DON’T MISS IT

NOW PLAYING BOMBSHELL

artsandculturecda.org

Like a Boss

JUMANJI: THE NEXT

Another week, another unnecessary sequel. The teens from the first Jumanji return — with their grandpas this time — and leap back into the video game realm to rescue a missing friend. (MJ) Rated PG-13

KNIVES OUT

Rian Johnson’s all-star whodunit centers on the death of a wealthy patriarch, and the craven relatives that would profit off his demise. As a mystery, it’s merely OK. As an evisceration of the one percent, it’s satisfying. (NW) Rated PG-13

WATCH IT AT HOME

SKIP IT

winning contraption, about a poor South Korean family that insinuates itself into the lives of an upper class clan.

Surprises abound. At the Magic Lantern.

(NW) Rated R

RICHARD JEWELL

Clint Eastwood takes on the FBI and the media in his portrait of the security guard wrongfully accused as the bomber of the ’96 Olympics. Indifferently structured and styled, it aims at big targets and misses. (MJ) Rated R

SPIES IN DISGUISE

In this animated caper, a superstar secret agent (voiced by Will Smith) is accidentally turned into a pigeon and finds it’s the ultimate camouflage. (NW) Rated PG

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

LITTLE WOMEN

The nine-episode saga goes out with a few big bangs and even more whimpers, as Rey and company jet across the galaxy to not only find the origins of her powers but stop Kylo Ren. (NW) Rated PG-13

PARASITE

Adam Sandler is getting raves for his star turn in the Safdie brothers’ nailbiting New York odyssey, a night in the life of a jeweler who makes one harebrained decision after another. (MJ) Rated R n

Louisa May Alcott’s literary classic about four sisters growing up during and after the Civil War gets a brilliant modernist twist courtesy of Greta Gerwig. A film that’s as timeless as it is timely. (MJ) Rated PG Satire, slapstick and secrecy collide in Bong Joon-ho’s twisty, Palme d’Or-

UNCUT GEMS

FILM | REVIEW

Righting Wrongs Based on a powerful true story, Just Mercy examines racial injustice within the American legal system

BY MARYANN JOHANSON

I

honestly don’t know how people like Bryan Stevenson keep up the fight. Just Mercy is the true origin story of a literal social justice warrior, a Harvard-educated lawyer who, in the late 1980s, launched the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, to take on the neediest, most desperate cases. His first client — as depicted here — is Walter McMillian, on death row for a murder he says he did not commit, a contention backed up by ample evidence.

Was a black man, as McMillian is, railroaded by white cops and white prosecutors in the Deep South? And is a black lawyer,

Michael B. Jordan in the fact-based drama Just Mercy. as Stevenson is, going to get racist pushback must walk as a black man, even one with as he tries to keep the state from killing the authority he carries as a lawyer, in this McMillian? You better believe it. awful culture. And here is Jamie Foxx as A few years ago, director Destin Daniel McMillian, unwilling to get his hopes up Cretton gave us the deeply compassionate in the face of the eager, young and naive but never sentimental foster-care drama law-school grad before him. Foxx shoulders Short Term 12. He pulls off a similar feat in the crush of unfairness with a posture that Just Mercy, zooming in with bald factuality might feel regal if it weren’t also inescapon the most outrageous tidbits from the Steable. venson-McMillian collaboration to highlight The power of the movie’s ending just how completely wrecked the notion of sneaks up on you, especially if you think American “justice” is. you’ve gotten inured to these Here is Michael B. sorts of stories. But the long JUST MERCY Jordan, as Stevenson, being slog to justice that Just Mercy is Rated PG-13 strip-searched — an indignity Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton all about… well, it continues that should never be forced Starring Michael B. Jordan, Jamie to be infuriating to see how upon anyone, and certainly corrupt the American system Foxx, Brie Larson not a defense attorney — as of jurisprudence is. People like he enters prison to visit his client. Jordan Bryan Stevenson are doing the hard work is warm and sensitive, as always, with a of righting these wrongs, and deserve to be slow burn of rage necessarily tempered celebrated for it. But it feels like a tiny drop by his acute awareness of the fine line he of water in a rough ocean. n

Come to enjoy the show or come to fall in love

WILL YOU ACCEPT THIS ROSE?

MARCH 8

First Interstate Center for the Arts TICKETSWEST.COM

800.325.SEAT JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 47

ESSAY

Resolutions for

Music Lovers In 2020, be sure to support the people and places that soundtrack our lives

BY BEN SALMON

A

s you may be aware, the decade we just left behind was a challenging one for the folks among us trying to make a living as musicians. Thanks to the growing ubiquity of digital streaming platforms, sales of recorded music — both physical product and MP3s — are plummeting, slowing to a trickle what used to be a reliable revenue stream for most artists.

As a result, musicians have had to adapt, in part by spending more time on tour so they can sell more tickets and T-shirts.

But ask anyone who travels regularly and they’ll tell you that living on the road is no way to make a living, much less to enjoy a healthy home life. And besides, don’t musicians deserve to be compensated for their work? They absolutely do, even if the internet has convinced us that we should have millions of songs available to us at the click of a button.

If you’re reading this, chances are you love music, and you’d be bummed if your favorite artist stopped recording, or your favorite concert venue closed down for good. So in 2020, resolve to support the individuals and businesses that make music happen in meaningful ways. Here are a few suggestions.

DISCOVER A NEW ARTIST

At some point in their life, most people give up on checking out new artists and just stick to old favorites. Don’t let that be you!

There’s an incredible breadth of artists and bands out there making music that may be right up your alley, and thanks to the internet, it’s easier to find them than ever before. That’s one of the positives of digital streaming platforms: Their algorithmpowered playlists and recommendations can be powerful tools for discovery.

IF YOU STREAM SOMETHING FIVE TIMES, BUY IT

Nowhere else in life do we consume without giving something back. You pay the local baker for bread. You pay the local brewery for beer. You even pay Fred Meyer for socks. Why shouldn’t you pay a fair price for that 10-song album that’s already given you hours of enjoyment and promises more to come? It’s a small price to pay to not only support the artist, but to show appreciation for their craft. (But not as small as what Spotify pays per stream.)

Support your local vinyl sellers, like Resurrection Records.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

48 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

MUSIC | R&B

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL RECORD STORES

So you’ve listened to an album several times and decided you want to buy it. You can purchase MP3s, but where’s the romance in that? Instead, consider getting a record player and diving into the vinyl revival. Spokane has a booming record-store scene, including old mainstays 4,000 Holes and Recorded Memories, as well as newer shops like Groove Merchants, Resurrection Records, Go! Records and Total Trash. At each, you’ll find shelves of beautiful, warm-sounding LPs, as well as knowledgeable employees quick to share a recommendation, or just conversation.

DIG IN TO LOCAL MUSIC

Every evening, there are solo acts and bands playing live in Spokane of all different styles — from hip-hop and death metal to synth-pop and folk. To learn more about the local scene, scan the Inlander’s event listings and go see a show. Attend our annual Volume Music Festival, which features lots of local acts. Or point your web browser to bandcamp.com/tag/spokane and marvel at the amount of recordings out there tagged with our town’s name.

SUPPORT LOCAL VENUES

This one is so very simple. If you love seeing live music, you (knowingly or unknowingly) rely on someone in town to set up concerts, known as a promoter. Promoters need venues to put on concerts. And guess what? Both promoters and venues spend money to make concerts happen! Which means they need you to purchase tickets to the concerts to offset their costs. If you don’t do that, they can’t continue to put them on, the concerts will stop and our town will be significantly more boring. So go to the concerts! And…

BUY CONCERT TICKETS IN ADVANCE

The temptation to wait until the day of a show to buy a ticket is strong. Who knows how you might be feeling that day? Or if something better will come along. Or if it’ll snow 6 inches. But the bottom line is that advance sales of tickets help promoters and venues by giving them more revenue earlier, more data for planning and more confidence in the market they’re serving. Buying a ticket in advance is a great way to show these folks you appreciate them.

BUY SOMETHING FROM THE MERCH TABLE

Remember way back at the beginning of this article where we talked about how artists must make their money on the road these days? Well, one way they do that is by selling CDs, LPs, T-shirts and other stuff at the merch table before, during and after the show. So consider stopping by there to see what they have for sale. Better yet, commit yourself to buying one piece of merch at every concert you attend. Even a $1 button helps the artist buy gas and get to the next town, and you’ll have a fun little souvenir for your cool denim jacket.

DON’T WATCH A CONCERT THROUGH YOUR PHONE

Like most of you, I understand the desire to document my experiences. My phone has lots of photos and videos of the shows I’ve seen. But the older I get, the more I recognize that life is not about the documentation: It’s about the experience itself, and nothing bums me out more than when a song ends and I realize I can’t really remember it because I was busy taking pictures. Next time you go to a show, challenge yourself to keep your phone in your pocket and to focus on being fully present in the moment. You’ll be amazed at what a difference it makes. Which leads us to our final suggestion…

JUST LISTEN

So often in our hectic world, music is relegated to background noise. It’s a start-and-stop soundtrack for a go-go lifestyle, or wallpaper while you’re doing other, more pressing things. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In 2020, schedule yourself some time to turn off your screens, slip on some headphones, press play and listen. Just listen. You’ll slow down. You’ll hear new things. You’ll reconnect — with your music, and with yourself. And you’ll be glad you did. n

Sailing On

William King (left) helped found the Commodores in 1968, and he’s still touring.

The Commodores’ William King talks about the early years on the road, basketball with Marvin Gaye and the magic of Motown

BY SEAN McALINDIN

L

egendary R&B group the Commodores began their musical journey jamming in the basement cafeteria of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. It was 1968 and R&B was king.

“We were all freshman there, 17, 18 years old, having a great time,” William King says. “I ran into [Lionel] Richie in a pool room and we started talking. He played saxophone. I played trumpet. We said, ‘Let’s get together and play some music.’”

Covering Top 40 hits by James Brown, the Temptations, the Four Tops and other popular groups of the day, the Commodores played college parties until branching out to Montgomery, Birmingham, Atlanta and the rest of the South and East Coast.

“We formed the group to meet girls and play music,” King says. “We were just having a great time. We’d come back from being on the road just to take exams. I remember having a flashlight in the van coming back from Washington, D.C., so I could study. It was a 14-hour drive, so we had to stop to get batteries for the flashlight. By the time we got there in the morning, the sentences in the exam would be blurred. It was rough, man, I got to tell you.”

Following graduation, King was hired by a digital computer company to write software, but he couldn’t do it. His heart was with the soul music of the Commodores. Opportunity came knocking in 1972 when the band was offered a contract with Motown, leading to national tours with the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder and the Rolling Stones.

“It really was a family,” says King of the fabled Detroit record company. “All those acts were really good together. They’d help each other out. If someone was around the studio, they’d sing background parts. Everybody was just having fun.”

One time when the freshly minted group was scheduled to go into the studio, the executives told them they needed to amscray so Marvin Gaye could finish mixing his new single. Gaye never showed up.

“We were the new kids on the block, but we

were pissed,” King says. “A couple of nights later, we see him and we get him in the corner: five of us, one of him. We started laying into him verbally about taking our studio from us. That’s when Marvin asks, ‘Can we have this discussion on the basketball court?’ All that anger we had we played out on the court, shooting it up at the hoop for hours.”

According to King, the pickup game went on so long the Commodores missed their next studio session, thereby getting schooled by Gaye twice in one week.

“We’d have these deadlines,” King says. “Word would come down: ‘You got three more days,’ when actually there was no way we could finish in three days. The pressure was on. They’d stop the session and read the riot act to us. They were trying to scare us.”

Of course, the Commodores did find success with the title track to their 1974 debut album, “Machine Gun.” They followed it up with a solid decade of hits including “Three Times a Lady,” “Brick House,” “Easy,” “Nightshift” and many more.

“Every album we had back then broke gold,” King says. “We were just on a roll. If we thought it up, it sold.”

Five decades into their gloriously groovy career, the Commodores are sailing onward into legend with King and longtime band members Walter Orange and J.D. Nicholas at the helm. “[Our fans] can expect all the songs they’ve heard on the radio and others,” King says.

“They’re gonna reminisce on those great times they had with their girlfriend or boyfriend in school, in college, growing up. All those moments will come rushing back to them.”

Reflecting with gratitude on his life as an artist, Kings says it’s all about freedom, creativity and sharing your ideas with the world.

“When you are creative, just doing that is a joy,” he says. “When you can actually get it out there, when you get people to look at it or hear it, that’s another explosion that happens inside of you. Then it’s not only good for you, but now other people love it, which sends a charge through you. But if you can get people to actually pay for it, then you can make a living doing what you do and enjoy what you do best in your life. No matter how you look at it, it is an explosion inside of yourself and a love that you wouldn’t change for anything world.” n The Commodores • Thu, Jan. 16 at 7:30 pm • $59-$89 • All ages • Northern Quest Resort & Casino • 100 N. Hayford Rd., Airway Heights • northernquest.com • 481-2100

JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 49

MUSIC | SOUND ADVICE

ROCK BIG HEAD TODD AND THE MONSTERS

F

rom the wilds of Colorado, Big Head Todd and the Monsters built a cult following in the early ’90s with a sound that’s difficult to describe in simple terms: It’s a blend of classic blues, hard-rock and maybe a little grunge, with the occasional jammy freak-out. They’re probably best known for their cover of John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom,” featuring the gravelvoiced blues legend on vocals, and for such alt-rock staples as “Bittersweet,” “Resignation Superman” and “Broken Hearted Savior.”

Looking through BHT’s discography, you’ll notice that they’ve released nearly as many live recordings as studio albums, which serves as a bit of free advice: Don’t miss them in concert.

— NATHAN WEINBENDER Big Head Todd and the Monsters • Tue, Jan. 14 at 7:30 pm • $27-$47 • All ages • Bing Crosby Theater • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • bingcrosbytheater.com • 227-7638

J = THE INLANDER RECOMMENDS THIS SHOW J = ALL AGES SHOW

Thursday, 01/9

A&P’S BAR AND GRILL, Open Mic BERSERK, Vinyl Meltdown BEVERLY’S, Robert Vaughn BOLO’S, Blues Boogie w/Kosta la Vista J BOOTS BAKERY, The Song Project BRIDGE PRESS, Charles Swanson J BUCER’S, Open Jazz Jam THE CORK & TAP, Jonathan Tibbetts CRUISERS, Open Jam Night FIZZIE MULLIGANS, Country Dance J HOUSE OF SOUL, Jazz Thursdays LION’S LAIR, Karaoke w/Donny Duck J LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Horse Feathers, Nick Delffs MOOSE LOUNGE, Last Chance Band MY PLACE, DJ Dave NIGHTHAWK LOUNGE (CDA CASINO), PJ Destiny THE NYC PIANO BAR, Dueling Pianos J THE PIN, Hellbound Glory, Rusty Jackson, Bret Allen, Joey Anderson RIDLER PIANO BAR, Dueling Pianos THE ROCK BAR, Pamela Jean TAPP’D OFF, Karaoke on the Patio YAYA BREWING COMPANY, Jonathan Tibbetts ZOLA, Blake Braley Band

Friday, 01/10

219 LOUNGE, Bright Moments 1210 TAVERN, Wild Card Band A&P’S BAR AND GRILL, DJ Shanner ARBOR CREST, Dan Conrad BEVERLY’S, Robert Vaughn J J THE BIG DIPPER, Whalien, Ghostdivorce, The Colourflies BOOMBOX PIZZA, Karaoke BRIDGE PRESS CELLARS, Heather King Band J BUCER’S COFFEEHOUSE PUB, Brothers from Other Mothers CORBY’S BAR, Karaoke COSMIC COWBOY GRILL, Justin James CRUISERS, Karaoke with Gary

50 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

BLUEGRASS YONDER MOUNTAIN

A

nother Colorado band with a diehard fanbase, the Yonder Mountain String Band mixes the homey charms of bluegrass with the electricity and spontaneity of a rock jam session. Consider how unlikely those disparate genres seem, and you’re pretty close to the distinctive tones that this long-running five-piece conjure up. Go to any Yonder show, and you’re likely to run into folks who have traveled there from miles away, and are seeing them for the dozenth time. It’s all because of that style, which simultaneously stokes the sounds of the past while keeping a foot firmly rooted in the contemporary, pleasing purists as well as those who are still just dabbling.

— NATHAN WEINBENDER Yonder Mountain String Band • Sun, Jan. 12 at 8:30 pm • $25-$35 • 21+ • The Hive • 207 N. First Ave., Sandpoint • beeswaxsystem.com/ thehive CURLEY’S, My Own Worst Enemy THE FISCHIN’ HOLE, Rusty & Chrissy HIDDEN MOTHER, Jason Perry Trio IDAHO POUR AUTHORITY, Mobius Riff THE JACKSON ST., Rock Candy JEREMIAH JOHNSON BREWING CO., John Firshi LEFTBANK WINE BAR, Dallas Kay LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, DJ Rosethrow MARYHILL WINERY, Scott Linklater & Pete Cowger MAX AT MIRABEAU, 3D Band MULLIGAN’S, Truck Mills MY PLACE, DJ Dave NASHVILLE NORTH, Ladies Night NIGHTHAWK LOUNGE (CDA CASINO), JamShack THE NYC PIANO BAR, Dueling Pianos PATIT CREEK CELLARS, Ken Davis PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Cris Lucas J THE PIN, Free Fridays: Hip-Hop RIDLER PIANO BAR, Dueling Pianos

RIVERBANK TAPHOUSE, Nick Grow J SARANAC COMMONS, Kevin Partridge SILVER MOUNTAIN SKI RESORT (NOAH’S), Just Plain Darin STORMIN’ NORMAN’S, DJ Danger THE VIKING, Joey Anderson, The McCues ZOLA, The Cronkites

Saturday, 01/11

219 LOUNGE, Truck Mills Quartet 1210 TAVERN, Black Jack Band J 49 DEGREES NORTH, Dave DeVeau A&P’S BAR AND GRILL, DJ Kevin THE AGING BARREL, Barbi j Band ARBOR CREST, Sara Brown J BABY BAR, Griffey, Old Friends, Skelf BEVERLY’S, Robert Vaughn BLACK DIAMOND, Joey Anderson BRIDGE PRESS CELLARS, Nighshift

J BUCER’S COFFEEHOUSE, Delta G THE BULL HEAD, Whack A Mole & Doghouse Boyz J CALYPSOS COFFEE ROASTERS, Jet Sings Like a Girl ft. Willow Tree J COLBERT TRADING CO., Glenn & Rachael COSMIC COWBOY GRILL, Pat Coast CRUISERS, Dead Demons, Hanford CURLEY’S, My Own Worst Enemy GARLAND PUB, Into the Drift Duo HONEY EATERY, The DIGaddie J HUCKLEBERRY’S, Nick Grow IDAHO POUR AUTHORITY, John Firshi IRON GOAT BREWING, Jason Perry THE JACKSON ST., Karaoke LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, DJ STORME MARYHILL WINERY, Gil Rivas MAX AT MIRABEAU, 3D Band J MOOTSY’S, Enemy Closer, Peru Resh, Factss MULLIGAN’S, Alejandro Vargas

NASHVILLE NORTH, Ladies Night NIGHTHAWK LOUNGE (CDA CASINO), JamShack THE NYC PIANO BAR, Dueling Pianos ONE TREE CIDER HOUSE, Dallas Kay PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Red Blend Trio J THE PIN, New Years Artist Fest w/ Mallory, My Own Affliction & more POST FALLS BREWING, Devon Wade PRIME TYME BAR, Wild Wooly Band RIDLER PIANO BAR, Dueling Pianos SCHWEITZER MOUNTAIN RESORT, B Radicals (at Taps) J SEASONS OF COEUR D’ALENE, Just Plain Darin SILVER MOUNTAIN SKI RESORT (NOAH’S), Son of Brad STORMIN’ NORMAN’S, DJ Danger WESTWOOD BREWING CO., Pamela Benton ZOLA, The Cronkites

Sunday, 01/12

1210 TAVERN, The Jukers CRAVE, DJ Dave DALEY’S CHEAP SHOTS, Blues Jam GARLAND PUB & GRILL, Karaoke J THE HIVE, Yonder Mountain String Band (see facing page) HOGFISH, Open Mic LINGER LONGER LOUNGE, Open Jam LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Shooter Jennings [SOLD OUT] MARYHILL WINERY, Dave McRae THE NYC PIANO BAR, Dueling Pianos O’DOHERTY’S, Traditional Irish Music PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Piano Sunday with Bob Beadling RED ROOM LOUNGE, Jason Perry Trio THE ROXIE, Hillyard Billys

J SOUTH HILL GRILL, Just Plain Darin ZOLA, Glass Honey

Monday, 01/13

THE BULL HEAD, Songsmith Series J CALYPSOS COFFEE, Open Mic COSMIC COWBOY, Echo Elysium CRAVE, DJ Dave EICHARDT’S, Jam with Truck Mills THE NYC PIANO BAR, Dueling Pianos RED ROOM LOUNGE, Open Mic ZOLA, Perfect Mess

Tuesday, 01/14

219 LOUNGE, Karaoke with DJ Pat J J BING CROSBY THEATER, Big Head Todd & The Monsters (see facing page) with JD SIMO

BOOMBOX PIZZA, Karaoke CRAVE, DJ Dave GARLAND PUB & GRILL, Karaoke LITZ’S, Blues Power Happy Hour THE NYC PIANO BAR, Dueling Pianos RAZZLE’S BAR, Open Mic Jam RIDLER PIANO BAR, Country Swing Dancing THE ROXIE, Open Mic/Jam SWEET LOU’S, Ron Greene TAPP’D OFF, Karaoke on the Patio THE VIKING, Nathan Chartrey ZOLA, Desperate 8s

Wednesday, 01/15 219 LOUNGE, Truck Mills J 291 BREWHOUSE, Just Plain Darin BEVERLY’S, Robert Vaughn

BLACK DIAMOND, Miller’s Sun CRAVE, DJ Dave CRUISERS, Open Jam Night GENO’S, Open Mi IRON HORSE (CDA), Open Jam IRON HORSE (VALLEY), Cover 2 Cover THE JACKSON ST., Karaoke LEFTBANK WINE BAR, Carey Brazil LUCKY’S IRISH PUB, DJ D3VIN3 MAD BOMBER BREWING, Open Mic THE NYC PIANO BAR, Dueling Pianos THE PIN, Beatles Tribute Night J RED DRAGON CHINESE, Tommy G RED ROOM LOUNGE, Jam Session RIDLER PIANO BAR, Dueling Pianos STORMIN’ NORMAN’S, Sara Brown ZOLA, Cruxie

MUSIC | VENUES 219 LOUNGE • 219 N. First, Sandpoint • 208-2639934 A&P’S BAR & GRILL • 222 N. First, Sandpoint • 208-263-2313 ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS • 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd. • 927-9463 BABY BAR • 827 W. First Ave. • 847-1234 BARLOWS • 1428 N. Liberty Lake Rd. • 924-1446 BEEROCRACY • 911 W. Garland Ave. BERSERK • 125 S. Stevens • 714-9512 THE BIG DIPPER • 171 S. Washington • 863-8098 BIGFOOT PUB • 9115 N. Division St. • 467-9638 BING CROSBY THEATER • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • 227-7638 BLACK DIAMOND • 9614 E. Sprague • 891-8357 BOLO’S • 116 S. Best Rd. • 891-8995 BOOMERS • 18219 E. Appleway Ave. • 755-7486 BOOTS BAKERY & LOUNGE • 24 W. Main Ave. • 703-7223 BRIDGE PRESS CELLARS • 39 W. Pacific • 838-7815 BUCER’S COFFEEHOUSE PUB • 201 S. Main, Moscow • 208-882-5216 THE BULL HEAD • 10211 S. Electric • 838-9717 CALYPSOS COFFEE & CREAMERY • 116 E. Lakeside Ave., CdA • 208-665-0591 CHECKERBOARD BAR • 1716 E. Sprague Ave. • 535-4007 COEUR D’ALENE CASINO • 37914 S. Nukwalqw Rd., Worley, Idaho • 800-523-2464 COEUR D’ALENE CELLARS • 3890 N. Schreiber Way, CdA • 208-664-2336 COSMIC COWBOY GRILL • 412 W. Haycraft, CdA • 208-277-0000 CRAFTED TAP HOUSE • 523 Sherman Ave., CdA • 208-292-4813 CRAVE• 401 W. Riverside • 321-7480 CRUISERS • 6105 W Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208773-4706 CURLEY’S • 26433 W. Hwy. 53 • 208-773-5816 DALEY’S CHEAP SHOTS • 6412 E. Trent • 535-9309 EICHARDT’S PUB • 212 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-263-4005 FIRST INTERSTATE CENTER FOR THE ARTS • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • 279-7000 FIZZIE MULLIGANS • 331 W. Hastings • 466-5354 FOX THEATER • 1001 W. Sprague • 624-1200 THE HIVE • 207 N. First, Sandpoint • 208-457-2392 HOGFISH • 1920 E. Sherman, CdA • 208-667-1896 HONEY EATERY & SOCIAL CLUB • 317 E. Sherman, CdA • 208-930-1514 HOUSE OF SOUL • 25 E. Lincoln • 598-8783 IRON GOAT BREWING • 1302 W. 2nd • 474-0722 IRON HORSE BAR • 407 E. Sherman Ave., CdA • 208-667-7314 IRON HORSE BAR & GRILL • 11105 E. Sprague Ave., CdA • 509-926-8411 JACKSON ST. BAR & GRILL • 2436 N. Astor St. • 315-8497 JOHN’S ALLEY • 114 E. Sixth St., Moscow • 208883-7662 KNITTING FACTORY • 911 W. Sprague Ave. • 244-3279 LAGUNA CAFÉ • 2013 E. 29th Ave. • 448-0887 THE LANTERN TAP HOUSE • 1004 S. Perry St. • 315-9531 LEFTBANK WINE BAR • 108 N. Washington • 315-8623 LION’S LAIR • 205 W. Riverside • 456-5678 LUCKY YOU LOUNGE • 1801 W. Sunset LUCKY’S IRISH PUB • 408 W. Sprague • 747-2605 MARYHILL WINERY • 1303 W. Summit Pkwy, Ste. 100 • 443-3832 MAX AT MIRABEAU • 1100 N. Sullivan • 924-9000 MICKDUFF’S • 312 N. First Ave., Sandpoint • 208)255-4351 MONARCH MOUNTAIN COFFEE • 208 N 4th Ave, Sandpoint • 208-265-9382 MOOSE LOUNGE • 401 E. Sherman • 208-664-7901 MOOTSY’S • 406 W. Sprague • 838-1570 MULLIGAN’S • 506 Appleway Ave., CdA • 208- 7653200 ext. 310 NASHVILLE NORTH • 6361 W. Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208-457-9128 NORTHERN QUEST RESORT • 100 N. Hayford Rd., Airway Heights • 242-7000 NYNE • 232 W. Sprague Ave. • 474-1621 O’SHAY’S • 313 E. CdA Lake Dr. • 208-667-4666 PACIFIC PIZZA • 2001 W. Pacific • 443-5467 PEND D’OREILLE WINERY • 301 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-265-8545 THE PIN • 412 W. Sprague • 385-1449 POST FALLS BREWING CO. • 112 N. Spokane, Post Falls • 208-773-7301 RAZZLE’S BAR & GRILL • 10325 N. Government Way, Hayden • 208-635-5874 RED ROOM LOUNGE • 521 W. Sprague • 838-7613 REPUBLIC BREWING • 26 Clark Ave. • 775-2700 RIDLER PIANO BAR • 718 W. Riverside • 822-7938 SEASONS OF COEUR D’ALENE • 209 E. Lakeside Ave. • 208-664-8008 THE SHOP • 924 S. Perry St. • 534-1647 SOULFUL SOUPS & SPIRITS • 117 N. Howard St. • 459-1190 SPOKANE ARENA • 720 W. Mallon • 279-7000 STORMIN’ NORMAN’S SHIPFACED SALOON • 12303 E. Trent • 862-4852 ZOLA • 22 W. Main Ave. • 624-2416

JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 51

FILM ASKEW VIEWS

Of the wonders that Kevin Smith’s 1994 indie landmark Clerks introduced to the world, perhaps the most glorious was the duo of Jay and Silent Bob, the stoner pairing who loitered outside the film’s central convenience store. Played by the writer-director and his friend Jason Mewes, the duo popped up in later Smith films like Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma, and eventually starred in their own vehicle Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. They’re back on the big screen and touring around the country with their new feature Jay & Silent Bob Reboot, a meta Hollywood satire filled with self-aware cameos from Smith regulars — Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jason Lee, Joey Lauren Adams and more. This roadshow event will kick off with a screening of the film, followed by a Q&A with Smith and Mewes.

— NATHAN WEINBENDER Jay & Silent Bob Reboot Roadshow with Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes • Wed, Jan. 15 at 7:30 pm • $50 • All ages • Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • foxtheaterspokane.org • 624-1200

52 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

THEATER A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC

THEATER COWARDLY ACTS

An American in Paris • Tue, Jan. 14 and Wed, Jan. 15 at 7:30 pm • $49.50-$89.50 • First Interstate Center for the Arts • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • broadwayspokane.com

Present Laughter • Jan. 10-Feb. 2; Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm • $25 • Spokane Civic Theatre • 1020 N. Howard St. • spokanecivictheatre.com • 325-2507

“Paris” and “romance” are two words forever linked in our popular consciousness, and so it goes with the award-winning An American in Paris, the Broadway musical based on the 1951 film of the same name. Set to a stirring Gershwin soundtrack (“I Got Rhythm,” “S’Wonderful” and the like), the story takes place in the immediate aftermath of World War II, when an American soldier decides to stay in Paris and pursue the life of an artist. He meets a beautiful local shop girl named Lise, who has both a secret and another suitor for her affections. Expect incredible set designs (the Broadway show won a Tony for them), soaring songs and gravity-defying choreography during this limited Spokane run.

— DAN NAILEN

Noël Coward’s Present Laughter is a timeless farce first produced in 1942, and you might recall a production from London’s Old Vic theater recently screened at the Bing. Now you can see the ribald activities of actor Garry Essendine and his coterie of friends, business associates and other hangers-on live in the flesh, thanks to the Spokane Civic’s production in its studio space. The aging matinee idol at the play’s center is a stand-in for Coward himself, and his worlds start colliding in ever more violent and hilarious ways just as he’s preparing to leave on a tour of Africa. Between juggling romantic interests and coming to grips with the fact he’s just turned (gasp!) 40, Essendine makes for a fine target of a night’s laughs.

— DAN NAILEN

GET LISTED!

Submit events online at Inlander.com/getlisted or email relevant details to getlisted@inlander.com. We need the details one week prior to our publication date.

SHE HAS NO MONEY TO LEAVE. BUT PAYS A BIG PRICE TO STAY.

Safe Passage helps survivors of domestic violence find jobs by helping with resumes, interview clothing and other needs. Our goal is to increase safety and to remove the barriers that prevent her from leaving.

COMEDY NAILED IT!

Nicole Byer is one of those performers whose mere presence tends to make everything she’s in a little bit better. You might recognize her from scenestealing guest spots on sitcoms like The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Lady Dynamite, or as the host of the delightful amateur baking show Nailed It! on Netflix, which features nonprofessional chefs attempting (and failing) to replicate elaborate recipes. And then there’s her podcast Why Won’t You Date Me?, in which Byer talks frankly and humorously about sex and relationships with comedians, drag queens and actual therapists. But she started in stand-up, which brings her to Spokane this week, and you can bet she’ll be joking around about her own dating life.

— NATHAN WEINBENDER

If you can help, make a donation at safepassageid.org.

Please, give till it doesn’t hurt.

24-hour hotline: 208.664.9303 24-hour hotline: 208.664.9303 | M-F 8:30am-5pm 850 N 4TH ST, CDA

Nicole Byer • Thu-Fri, Jan. 9-10 at 7:30 pm, Sat, Jan. 11 at 7:30 and 10 pm • $15-$30 • 21+ • Spokane Comedy Club • 315 W. Sprague Ave. • spokanecomedyclub.com • 318-9998

WORDS VAMP CAMP

While Buffy the Vampire Slayer paved the way for many other contemporary blood-sucking franchises to come (True Blood, Twilight, et al.) starting in the late 1990s, the franchise set around vampire-hunting heroines still remains relevant and popular in the third decade of the 21st century. Since its debut, Buffy has spawned a slate of tie-in novels, comics, games and more, and these releases haven’t stopped yet. Take the newest tie-in novel Chosen, by bestselling author Kiersten White, set in the Buffy universe and revolving around a new young monster hunter Nina. Chosen is the second book in White’s dark new “Slayer” series for young adults. Fans can catch her at a reading at Auntie’s with local author Stephanie Oakes.

— CHEY SCOTT Author Kiersten White • Tue, Jan. 14 at 7 pm • Free • Auntie’s Bookstore • 402 W. Main Ave. • auntiesbooks.com • 838-0206

JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 53

everyone has been missing back on your face and ditch the pig you’re with now. We made our house a home together and there should be no reason in hell for another man to be in my place next to you. I made mistakes and you did too. Time to grow up and settle down. Forget the past and look forward to our future. Since the moment I SAW YOU, I knew we were meant to be together. Your beautiful smile, warm caring heart and the love you found for me was everything I’ve been searching for. You are amazing in every aspect. I still love you with all my heart and then some. Your cookies are what really drove me to you, everything else is what made me love you. Baby love.

Time for me to come home. Time to finish what we started. Most of all it’s time to grow up and grow old together.

I SAW YOU TINY TIKI TRYST I saw you at the Tiny Tiki on New Year’s Eve. You had a Suffering Bastard in a grumpy tiki mug and I ordered something with passionfruit just so I could say the word “passion” with a certain tone of voice and suggestive pout. The lighted pufferfish was better than any disco ball or fireworks show. I am thinking I could try on a grass skirt and set fire to your tiki torch next time we meet. When? You will know it’s me when I sign this.... Dinah.

BABY LOVE It was September of 2008 when we first met. The moment I walked into your family’s smoke shop and saw your beautiful smile I knew immediately at that moment you’d be mine someday. You had this smirk on your face everytime I came through the door. I often wondered what was going through that beautiful little head of yours. Your brother had told me to give up because it would never happen. I had to try. Eventually you chased me around until I finally gave in and agreed to go out with you. Going on 11 years later and here we are apart and living completely different lives.

The man you’re with now doesn’t deserve you and you can do so much better. (You had me didn’t you?) I often wonder when I see you, as do others about your happiness and if you have any in your life anymore.

Never a smile or laughter like you use to.

You can tell you painted on the fake look of happiness and excitement when I see you. 10 years together my love, I know all the looks you have and what they mean.

I’m ready to go home. Let me put the smile

YOU SAW ME GREAT XMAS GIFT! Kari, Ian and Brice, LOVE the gift you left on my porch. It meant the WORLD to me and I don’t even know you! There is significance to each flag flown. Ask and I will let you know! lostpanda0925@gmail.com

CHEERS HAPPY NEW YEARS! To the incredibly kind stranger who bought my groceries at the Rosauer’s on New Year’s Eve, thank you for your act of kindness. It made my day and helped show my three children selfless generosity.

THANK YOUR STA DRIVERS! Big shoutout to all the people driving busses over the holidays season. Special shoutout to the bus 4 driver on New Year’s who held the door for me when I was running late. Your patience and work is greatly appreciated!

For everyone who takes public transit, be sure to thank your drivers this year.

SKINNY GIRLS ROCK The oversized trucks parked on either side of our Ford Flex after our breakfast out in Dolly’s parking lot on New Year’s Day presented us with a true dilemma: We could not f*cking get into our car! We each tried unceremoniously to pretzel our bodies in from the passenger side but that was just unsightly, unsuccessful and quite painful. Cheers to the young woman, no bigger than a minute,

who agreed to squeeze into the driver’s seat and back our car out for us. We seriously appreciated your help in what was a ridiculous situation!

FLYING Cheers to the considerate ones who remember to brush ALL the snow off your rigs before taking off on the highway. It’s absolutely wrong to allow snow and ice

“

to fly off YOUR rig into the path of other drivers. It’s hazardous and should be illegal!

Also, when you pass slower/safer drivers please give space and not spray the snow burm all over their windshield! One more thing... If you have a storm drain in front of your home, it IS your responsibility to clear it. People aren’t taught these basic things anymore?!?

BATMAN AT CHURCH Cheers to the kid who wore the Nolan-era Batman mask to Catholic church. You are my hero of the day, reminding me how much God/our higher power/the Universe loves and appreciates us for being our weirdliest weird under any mask, our truest selves expressed, our inner child; the human, being.

JEERS EDUCATE YOURSELF There is more to this world then Spokane. Get out a map and look. Better yet travel We have a lady at work from Germany. A customer asked her what was her accent. She said Spanish being funny. The customer said totally serious. That she had a cool accent and they visited Mexico this summer. Really? We have a guy from Switzerland. A customer

HOME STYLE BREAKFAST, LUNCH & DINNER SERVED 6AM -6PM MON - SUN BREAD BOWL SCRAMBLE

WE PAY FOR: Aluminum Cans & Scrap  Copper  Brass  Radiators

Insulated Copper Wire  Stainless  Gold  Silver  & much more!

EARLY BIRD DINNER 2PM-5PM

STARTING AT

85

$ 99

SEE HOW MUCH WE PAY AT:

www.actionrecycling.com

509-483-4094

* In accordance with WA state law

54 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

911 E Marietta Ave • Spokane WA

South of Foothills Dr. / East of Hamilton

UNLEASHED DOGS IN PUBLIC PARKS The time was 2:45 pm on Jan. 5. A young man in a white SUV was letting his large dog run loose in Friendship Park. I was there to walk

male and female. There are A LOT of you.

I am not sure what has put you into the mental state that you are in, but courtesy to your fellow man means a better life for all of us. Stop cheating, stop lying, stop being rude, stop being selfish, stop being disrespectful and for god’s sake, stop enabling the users, abusers, druggies, losers and a-holes out there. I moved here thinking that this was a kinder place with a sense of community, but Spokane County you have proved me wrong. Not the government of SC, but the people that reside within.

NOT NOW!! Dec. 28, just 3 days after Christmas, I went into a large retail store.

(Target). I was shocked to find Valentine’s Day Cards and merchandise already on display. Checking out, I mentioned this to the clerk and the lady behind me in line. All three of us agreed that this was a bit much and we weren’t ready for another holiday just yet. Marketing moguls have only one purpose and that is to reach into our wallets and squeeze out another fistfull of hard earned cash. This is nothing but an act of boldness and shamelessness on the part of merchandisers! Enough is enough!

MORTGAGE NON-ETHICS Jeers to the local mortgage company that uses the image of

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my small, leashed dog. When I reminded him —politely — that he needed to put his dog on a leash he rudely told me to mind my own business. Apparently he didn’t think that the law pertained to him. I had to pick up my little dog and put her back in the car. No walk for either of us that day. And I wasn’t the only one. Another couple walking their small dog left because of this guy, also. Everyone needs to remember that the leash laws are there for a reason. n

THIS WEEK'S ANSWERS M A P L E

1412 W, 2ND AVE, SPOKANE • 509-474-9214

I N O I L

T A R P S

A M T B E L S L C

M K T S

1. Visit Inlander.com/isawyou by 3 pm Monday. 2. Pick a category (I Saw You, You Saw Me, Cheers or Jeers). 3.

Provide basic info: your name and email (so we know you’re real). 4. To connect via I Saw You, provide a non-identifying email to be included with your submission — like “petals327@yahoo.com,” not “j.smith@comcast.net.”

TOP PRICES • HONEST WEIGHT

JEERS X2 #1 Jeers to all of the political posts that pit one against another. “They” win when the divide and conquer scheme is working, not you, not me, not “they”. #2 Jeers to all of the D-bags in the area both

Bernie Sanders on their flyers. Why would anyone trust you with their mortgage when you don’t even have basic ethics in your advertising?

The lighted pufferfish was better than any disco ball or fireworks show. I am thinking I could try on a grass skirt and set fire to your tiki torch next time we meet. When?

SOUND OFF

Got Scrap? Get Cash  FAST

asked him where that was. He said South America by Chili. They asked if it was tropical there! Come on Spokane people

C A N O E

A N I S E

T I S C U P P U M E C H A O O L Y O L M I L C T I A T E F E E A E M

S K I B U M F I L E C C E

I C A L N E O Y E L L A T H S I P N A G R O O D T A

Q R A C T R I E O T E B I E D P I T C O P

B A B O O N

E R U P T

R E M U S

T S P S

N A M E A S T D T A G E L E G O C U P D I L E A G A N M S G S

NOTE: I Saw You/Cheers & Jeers is for adults 18 or older. The Inlander reserves the right to edit or reject any posting at any time at its sole discretion and assumes no responsibility for the content.

EVENTS | CALENDAR

COMEDY

DUSTIN NICKERSON A Seattle native now suffering in SoCal, Nickerson is an in demand comic on the rise. He’s currently touring the country and was recently featured on Comedy Central’s Hart of the City. 13+ show. Jan. 9, 7:30 pm. $10-$16.

Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com GUFFAW YOURSELF! Open mic comedy night hosted by Casey Strain; Thursdays at 10 pm. Free. Neato Burrito, 827 W. First Ave. (509-847-1234) NICOLE BYER Nicole hosts the baking show “Nailed It” on Netflix and has a sitcom loosely based on her life on Facebook Watch: “Loosely Exactly Nicole.” Jan. 9-11 at 7:30 pm; Jan. 11 at 10 pm. $15+. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com THE RANT The BDT take pet peeves, annoying habits and exasperating events that derail your day and turns them into chortles and laughs. Fridays in January at 7:30 pm. For general audiences. $8. Blue Door Theatre, 815 W. Garland Ave. bluedoortheatre.com (747-7045) STAND-UP COMEDY Live comedy featuring established and up-and-coming local comedians. Fridays at 8 pm. No cover. Red Dragon Chinese, 1406 W. Third Ave. reddragondelivery.com THE SOCIAL HOUR COMEDY SHOWCASE A one-night special event including a tap takeover by Black Label Brewing, featuring Phillip Kopczynski and Tom Meisfjord, hosted by Deece Casillas. Jan. 11, 8 pm. $6.24. Black Diamond, 9614 E. Sprague. blackdiamondspokane.com

THE SOCIAL HOUR COMEDY SHOWCASE Featuring comics from the Northwest and beyond, hosted by Deece Casillas. Sundays, 8-9:30 pm. Free. The Ridler Piano Bar, 718 W. Riverside Ave. socialhourpod.com (509-822-7938) OPEN MIC A free open mic night every Wednesday, starting at 8 pm. Doors open at 7 pm. Free. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com

COMMUNITY

JOB CORPS OPEN HOUSE Students, community members, organizations and potential employers can stop by to grab a cup of coffee and learn about the opportunities Job Corps offers, including costfree residential education and career training for youth ages 16-24 who meet eligibility requirements. Jan. 9 at noon.

Free; RSVP requested. Paulsen Center, 421 W. Riverside Ave. (822-7532) MT. ST. HELENS: CRITICAL MEMORY An exhibit commemorating the 40th anniversary of the eruption on May 18, 1980 of Mount St. Helens, which remains the most destructive volcanic event in U.S. history. Through July; Tue-Sun 10 am-5 pm; third Thursdays until 8 pm. $5-$10.

Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org VOLUNTEER ORIENTATION Attend a volunteer orientation to learn more about joining Spark’s superhero team.

Second Tuesdays, 5:30-7 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. sparkcentral.org (279-0299) 100 YEARS OF WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE Your grandmothers: Where did they

come from and where did they call home in the U.S.? Beyond the basics of genealogy, women’s studies is a field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods in order to place women’s lives and experiences in historical context. Jan. 11, 10:30 am-noon. Free. Hayden Library, 8385 N. Gov’t Way. (208-772-5612) BUILD A LIFE YOU LOVE Molly Kreyssler, certified life coach of Bloom, helps define the vision and path to a new you as part of the library’s “New Year New U” series.

Jan. 11, 1-2 pm. Free. Hillyard Library, 4005 N. Cook St. (444-5300) EMERGENCY HOME PREPAREDNESS COURSE During this three-hour interactive lecture, local expert Vern Page covers how to survive a winter power outage and stay safe during a disaster, whether you live in a home or apartment. Jan. 11, 2:30-5:30 pm. Free. Hillyard Library, 4005 N. Cook St. (444-5300) HANDS-ON WITH THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD We pose a scientific question, you build a tool to collect data to help us discover the answer. Grades K+; kids 8 and under must bring an adult. Jan. 11, 10 am-noon. Free. North Spokane Library, 44 E. Hawthorne. scld.org/events MAGIC THE GATHERING: LEARN TO PLAY Get a free deck and learn the most popular card game in the world during this weekly session, Saturdays, 1-2 pm.

Free. The Comic Book Shop, 4750 N. Division. thecomicbookshop.net (487-4175) PETER AND THE WOLF + STUDENT CHOREOGRAPHY SHOWCASE Spokane Youth Ballet presents the beloved folktale narrated by David Bowie and featuring the familiar score by Prokofiev.

15 MONTH

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Following this short ballet, Academy of Dance students present a lecture/demonstration about how choreographers create ballets, featuring structured improvisation and an example of a studentchoreographed work. Jan. 11, 2-3:30 pm. $7-$15. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague. bingcrosbytheater.com TAKING CARE OF YOUR FAMILY PAPERS & PHOTOGRAPHS Riva Dean, librarian for the Northwest Room, presents a workshop on the storage, handling, display and digitizing of family treasures.

Come with questions and examples. Jan. 11, 10:30-11:30 am. Free. East Side Library, 524 S. Stone St. (509-444-5300) TEDXCOEURDALENE 2020: COMFORTABLY UNCOMFORTABLE A full-day event featuring 15 talks and several live experiences. Leaders from diverse industries and backgrounds speak about their big ideas and solutions for changing our city and the world. Jan. 11, 8:30 am-5 pm. $55. Kroc Center, 1765 W. Golf Course Rd. tedxcda.com (509-991-3774) WILDLIFE SCIENCE SERIES Washington Dept. of Fish & Wildlife biologists take over the Mobius lab one Saturday a month, tackling a different local wildlife topic each time. Upcoming sessions: Jan. 11, Feb. 22, March 7 and April 4, from 10 am-1 pm. Free with admission.

Mobius Science Center, 331 N. Post. bit. ly/35dsU5Q (509-321-7137) MEDICAL LAKE MONDAY EVENING Drop by the library for an engaging, fun time. We might tackle STEM activities and experiments, art projects, games or a mystery activity. Jan. 13, 5:30-7 pm. Free.

Medical Lake Library, 3212 Herb St. scld. org (893-8330)

35 MONTH

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CAN CHRIS ARMITAGE BRING DOWN CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS? A 27-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran is the latest in a long line of left-leaning politicians looking to end Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ tenure in Congress. Jan. 14, 6:30-8:30 pm. Free. Rockwood Retirement Community, 221 E. Rockwood Blvd.

(995-2264) HUMAN TRAFFICKING AWARENESS DAY RECEPTION Join Lutheran Community Services Northwest in honoring Spokane’s survivors of human trafficking, and celebrating our work for health, justice and hope. Jan. 14, 4 pm. Free. Downtown Spokane Library, 906 W. Main Ave. spokanelibrary.org (444-5300) UNACCOMPANIED REFUGEE MINORS INFORMATION NIGHT An information night for anyone interested in becoming a foster family for refugee youth. LCSNW is looking for families who want to provide a caring environment for refugee youth coming to the U.S. Second Tuesday of the month, 5:30-7:30 pm. Free.

Lutheran Community Services, 210 W. Sprague. lcsnw.org (381-4945) INTRODUCTION TO WEB DEVELOPMENT Have you played with WordPress/ Divi, or used drag-and-drop tools like SquareSpace, Wix, or Shopify, but it isn’t looking the way you want? In this twoday workshop, build a one-page portfolio site with pure code (HTML/CSS). Then bridge the gap with what you learned and transfer your coding knowledge to any site, put it in the backend, and make it look the way you want. Register online; for adults. Jan. 15 and 16 from 7-9 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org (279-0299)

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JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 55

CONSUMERS

A Fresh Start OK, maybe not an entirely Dry January

BY WILL MAUPIN

J

anuary has always been a month for new beginnings and self-improvement, and for many it’s a month for sobriety. In recent years the “Dry January” trend has taken off as people around the nation and world commit to spend the entirety of the first month of the year away from alcohol.

The trend has officially become a cultural phenomenon as evidenced by the fact that it’s been commercialized — by a beer company of all things. Heineken offered 31-packs of their non-alcoholic beer for this year’s consumers who couldn’t fully give up beer during their Dry January. ...continued on page 58

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Airway Heights Suite B 509-244-8363 JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 57

GREEN ZONE

“A FRESH START,” CONTINUED...

There are better ways to stay sober, from alcohol, this month than drinking non-alcoholic beer. Since this is the Green Zone section, you already know we’re talking about weed.

If you’re looking to take Dry January to the extreme and avoid all intoxicants, not just alcohol, you might want to turn to CBD for some help. The National Institute on Drug Addiction at the National Institutes of Health reported on a 2018 study that showed CBD can be helpful in the prevention of relapse.

CBD has long been hailed for its calming and anti-anxiety properties, which alone would be helpful for someone turning away from booze this month.

Combine it with a scientific LETTERS study showing that CBD helps Send comments to prevent relapse and you would editor@inlander.com. be foolish not to consider adding CBD supplements to your daily routine. Even if you’re not an alcoholic, giving up booze can be hard. Make it a little easier with CBD. But what if you’re looking to just cut out the booze but not the weed? Don’t worry, you can still drink and get high at the same time.

The days of smelly, stale brownies are long gone thanks to books like Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails & Tonics: The Art of Spirited Drinks and Buzz-Worthy Libations by Warren Bobrow. Amateur mixologists can whip up crazy fancy drinks with cannabis at their home bar while leaving the liquor on the shelf.

If you’re not a master drink-maker, fear not. Cannabis-infused beverages, which are sold at nearly every weed store around, make things easy.

In our Nov. 8, 2018, edition of the Inlander, writer Tuck Clarry and local bartender Chaeliegh Baucom put together a recipe for the “Fore-Twenty.” It’s a simple twist on the classic Arnold Palmer using cannabis-infused Ray’s Lemonade instead of the traditional stuff. The recipe is still up on Inlander.com if you’re interested; just search “Fore-Twenty.” n

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58 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

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JIGSAW PUZZLE SWAP Trade puzzles you’ve completed for a new challenge.

Please only bring puzzles that have all of their pieces. Jan. 15, 1-4 pm. Free.

Medical Lake Library, 3212 Herb St. scld.org/events (509-893-8330) POWER OF NATURE + PLAY A screening of documentary films on the importance of nature and free play for child development and learning. Jan. 15, 6:30-8:30 pm. Free. Moran Prairie Library, 6004 S. Regal St. (893-8340) COLLEGE FINANCIAL PLANNING NIGHT This workshop covers the FAFSA form and other information to understand to maximize financial aid your student is eligible for. Jan. 16, 7 pm. Free. Northwood Middle School, 12908 N. Pittsburg St. (465-7500) HOMEBUYING WORKSHOP Discuss factors to consider when deciding whether to buy or rent, learn how to find the right home for you, what happens between making an offer to buy and “closing” the deal, and what it really means to be a homeowner.

Includes a light meal. Register at stcu. org/workshops. Jan. 16, 6 pm. Free.

Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 E. Front Ave. cdalibrary.org

FILM

HONEYLAND A documentary about the last female bee-hunter in Europe who must save her wild bees when a family of nomadic beekeepers invade her land and threaten her livelihood.

Jan. 9-12; times vary. $5-$8. Panida Theater, 300 N. First Ave. panida.org THURSDAY MATINEE MOVIE CLASSICS: HEARTLAND (1979) KSPS Saturday Night Cinema co-host Shaun Higgins continues his classic movie screenings with the final film of four based on “The Western: Myth, Legend and Reality.” The movie starts as the Wild West has ended but the hardships of homesteading continue. Jan. 9, 1:30 pm. $7. THe MAC, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org MONDAY MOVIES AT THE LANTERN: DREAMCATCHER A vivid portrait of Brenda Myers-Powell, a former prostitute who helps women and young girls break the cycle of sexual abuse and exploitation. Jan. 13, 7-9 pm. $8. Magic Lantern Theatre, 25 W. Main Ave. magiclanternonmain.com (209-2383) DAMMED TO EXTINCTION The documentary takes a hard look at four obsolete dams on the lower Snake River and the impacts they have on orca, salmon and people, as well as the potential benefits of removing them. Jan. 14, 7-8 pm. Free. Magic Lantern Theatre, 25 W. Main Ave. bit.ly/38kcUBi COOKED: SURVIVAL BY ZIP CODE Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand takes audiences from the deadly 1995 Chicago heat disaster deep into one of our nation’s biggest growth industries: Disaster preparedness. Includes a discussion with Greater Spokane Emergency Management. Jan. 15, 5:30-9 pm. By donation. Magic Lantern Theatre, 25 W. Main. (209-2383) JAY & SILENT BOB REBOOT ROADSHOW WITH KEVIN SMITH The New Jersey stoner icons who first hit the screen 25 years ago in Clerks are back.

When Jay and Silent Bob discover that Hollywood is rebooting an old movie based on them, the clueless duo embark on another cross-country mission to stop it all over again. Jan. 15, 7:30-10

pm. $50. Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox, 1001 W. Sprague. foxtheaterspokane.org (624-1200)

FOOD

ASTRONOMY ON TAPS A monthly event combining a love of science and beer. Next up is “Clouds of Creation: Colors of the Cosmos,” with a slideshow and discussion on the properties of beautiful structures across the Milky Way Galaxy. YaYa Brewing is on site with giveaways and beer on tap. 21+.

Jan. 9, 7-8 pm. Free. NorthStar Taps, 1818 Second St. bit.ly/2tnAHAj COOKING WITH CHEF AARON FISH This intimate cooking class with chef Aaron Fish of the Eat Good Group offers entertainment and hands-on learning, covering chef skills while teaching and creating new recipes.

Wine is served. Jan. 9, 6 pm. $50. Jacklin Arts & Cultural Center, 405 N. William St., Post Falls. thejacklincenter.org INSTANT POT COOKING Instant Pot maven Meegan Ware shares basic tips for pressure cooking, how to create at least two recipes and hands out additional recipes that can be prepared and cooked quickly. Jan. 9, 6:30-7:30 pm. Free. Airway Heights Library, 1213 S. Lundstrom St. scld.org/events SCOTCH & CIGARS Select a flight of whiskey, scotch or bourbon paired with a recommended cigar during an event on the outdoor patio. Thursdays, from 6-10 pm. $15-$25. Prohibition Gastropub, 1914 N. Monroe. (474-9040) WINTER CHEER TOUR Join Wander Spokane for a guided walking tour combining aspects from its food, wine and beer tours with a bonus craft cocktail stop. 21+. Offered Jan. 9, 11, 16 and 18 from 2-5:30 pm. $45. Davenport Hotel, 10 S. Post. wanderspokane.com HIGH TEA AT CALYPSOS Featuring high-quality loose leaf teas from Gaiwan Teahouse, with host Diane who’s prepared a five-course high tea. Call to reserve a seat. Jan. 11 at 11 am and 1 pm. $25. Calypsos Coffee Roasters, 116 E. Lakeside Ave. (208-665-0591) SPICEOLOGY SPICE + COCKTAIL DINNER Chef Travis Dickinson and team host Spokane-based Spiceology for a six-course dinner with cocktail pairings by Kristy White. The “feast of five moles” also includes several variations of mole from the culinary team. Jan. 12, 6 pm. $75. Cochinito Taqueria, 10 N. Post. facebook.com/cochinitotaqueria WHOLE FOOD COOKING Join nutritionist Karmen Gregg in this program focused on whole foods, and start the new year with healthy and smart cooking tips and recipes. Jan. 12, 2-3 pm.

Free. To Be Continued: A Spokane Public Library, 4750 N. Division St., Suite 1074. spokanelibrary.org (444-5300) TACO VADO GRAND OPENING Taco Vado is soft launching menu items and drinks for drive-thru takeout service, offering a mix of breakfast and lunch tacos along with coffee, various beverages, and unique baked goods. Jan. 13, 7 am-4 pm. $5-$10. Taco Vado, 1602 N. Ash St. tacovadospokane@gmail.com MODERN, REGIONAL COMFORT FOOD Chef Bob Black prepates and shares recipes for corn velvet soup, roasted beet salad, Idaho potato crusted salmon and berry shortcake.

Jan. 14, 5:30-7:30 pm. $50. Jacklin Arts & Cultural Center, 405 N. William St. thejacklincenter.org (208-457-8950)

JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 59

RELATIONSHIPS

Advice Goddess TALONS SHOW

Women are so mean. I’m the new girl at work, having started my job two weeks ago. Yesterday, I had a date after work, so I wore my date outfit to the office. It wasn’t scandalous, but it was a little sexier than my usual workwear. I was in a bathroom stall, and I overheard two female co-workers talking about me: mean, nasty, catty talk. And really, my outfit was not terribly revealing. Why are women so awful to one another?

—Upset

AMY ALKON

Imagine if there’d been three women in the Garden of Eden — one wearing a fig leaf a little on the small side and two to ostracize her for flirting with the snake.

Welcome to Putdownapalooza! This sort of catty little gossip fest is a female specialty — an underhanded form of aggression against women who dare to commandeer male eyeballs. For women, competition for mates is a beauty contest. (Sorry, but Miss Congeniality doesn’t cut it.) While it’s good to be a good-looking man, for men, appearance just doesn’t matter as much as it does for women. Because women get pregnant and left with mouths to feed, women evolved to prioritize finding a “provider” — a man who’s willing and able to commit resources — over landing some Mr. Adonis. Men know this, having co-evolved with women. They’re more likely to dis each other and also trash each other to the ladies over how much money they make than, say, how tight their pants are.

In short, if you’re an ugly millionaire, it’s best if you’re a man. However, if you’re a hot barista or pizza delivery person, you’ll still get plenty of dates — if you’re a woman. Because men evolved to prioritize physical appearance in mates, women will band together to punish other women for wearing skimpy, revealing clothes or just for being physically attractive. Women seem to recognize that other women do this. Research by social psychologist Jaimie Arona Krems suggests that women tend to dress defensively — wear less revealing clothes and dampen their attractiveness — when they’ll be around other women that they aren’t already friends with.

Prior research (by psychologist Joyce Benenson, among others) finds that girls and women tend to be vicious to newcomers in a way boys and men are not. For women, there generally seem to be “costs from incorporating a female newcomer,” Krems explained to me. The women we already know — “even those we can have some conflict with — may be less competitive with us. At times, their gains can be our gains. And very often, female friends protect one another” — sometimes from other women’s aggression. “In fact, we might even dress a little more revealingly ... when we’re with our female friends than when we’re heading out alone ... perhaps because our friends have our backs.”

As for you, knowing this, when you’re going to be around women you aren’t yet friends with, you might want to take it down a notch in sexy or wait till you’re leaving work to slinky it up. Remember, as Michelle Obama said, “There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish” — for example, hacking into the new office hottie’s LinkedIn and promoting her to “Vice President of Lap Dances.”

LOATHE ACTUALLY

I’m a gay man, and I’ve developed a crush on my best friend, despite his not being my type at all. He’s very confident, and I kind of want to be him. I have many insecurities, and a mutual friend suggested what I really find attractive is how my best friend knows everything about me and accepts me anyway. The more I think about it, the more I suspect our mutual friend is right.

—Wrong Reasons?

Ideally, the process of feeling good about yourself is not modeled on siphoning somebody’s gas.

There’s a key word in “self-acceptance” — a big how-to clue — and it’s “self.”

Self-acceptance involves your embracing your whole self — all of your qualities and characteristics, positive and negative. Psychologist Nathaniel Branden explained, “‘Accepting’ does not necessarily mean ‘liking’” or that there’s no need for improvement.

It means recognizing you’re a package deal, and you can’t have the good stuff about you (like, say, your kindness) without the stuff that needs improvement (like how your housekeeping style is right out of Better Landfills and Dumpsters).

To crank up self-acceptance, recognize that it’s not just a feeling but an action — something you do: deciding to like yourself (and even love yourself) as a human work in progress. When you do the job of accepting yourself, you no longer need to slot somebody in as a romantic partner simply because they don’t find you repellant.

(If the neighbors file a complaint about the noise from your bedroom, it ideally isn’t because you spend hours weeping inconsolably after sex.) n ©2020, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. • Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405 or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com)

60 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

EVENTS | CALENDAR INSTANT POT COOKING Instant Pot maven Meegan Ware shares basic tips for pressure cooking, how to create at least two recipes and hands out additional recipes. Jan. 14, 6-7 pm. Free.

Fairfield Library, 305 E. Main St. scld. org/events (509-893-8320) INTRO TO THE INSTANT POT Learn and share new tips for using this appliance.

Bring your favorite pressure cooker dish and a recipe to share for a potluck. Jan. 15, 6-8:30 pm. $5. Gizmo-Cda, 1000 W. Garden Ave., Hedlund Building, Suite 142. gizmo-cda.org (208-929-4029) WINE WEDNESDAY Stop in for wine tastings and light appetizers every Wednesday from 4:30-6 pm. $25-$140.

The Culinary Stone, 2129 N. Main St. culinarystone.com (208-277-4166) WINE WEDNESDAY DINNER SERIES 2020 marks the 9th year and 15th session of Nectar’s popular dinner series, an educational and delicious way to explore culinary creations from around the world. Wednesdays at 6 pm. $25$140. Nectar Catering and Events, 120 N. Stevens St. nectartastingroom.com LUNCH & LEARN LECTURE SERIES WITH WSU Spokane Public Library, in partnership with WSU College of Medicine and De Leon Foods, presents this ongoing lecture series delivered by WSU students of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology Department. Lunches provided by De Leon Taco and Bar. (First come first served.) Sessions on: Jan. 16, Jan. 30, Feb. 6, Feb. 27, March 5 from noon-1 pm. Free. Hillyard Library, 4005 N. Cook St. (444-5300) UNCLE NEAREST WHISKEY DINNER Watch a short film and hear the story of the great whiskey maker the world never knew. Enjoy a paired whiskey flight and custom cocktails. Jan. 16, 6:30 pm. $54. Honey Eatery & Social Club, 317 Sherman Ave. facebook.com/honeyeateryandsocialclub (208-930-1514) BEST OF ITALY SUPPER CLUB A dinner with five to six courses, including antipasto, soup, salad, stuffed pasta, Involtini di Pollo and dessert, paired with wines from Antinori. Jan. 18, 6:30 pm and Jan. 19, 4:30 pm. $75. Petunias Marketplace, 2010 N. Madison St. petuniasmarket.com (509-328-4257) ENJOY A PLANT-BASED DIET A local nutrition educator covers how a plantbased diet is good for people, animals and the planet. Take home practical tips on healthy diet changes. Jan. 18, 2-3 pm. Free. East Side Library, 524 S. Stone St. (444-5300) MAC & CHEESE FESTIVAL Celebrate this favorite dish with variations by Coeur d’Alene chefs, who compete for the Golden Noodle Award. Attendees enjoy tastings of different cheesy dishes with craft beer pairings. Jan. 18. $10$50. Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. bit.ly/2X7IxZH (208-765-4000)

MUSIC

ELVIS’ BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION CONCERT Award-winning Elvis tribute artist Ben Klein performs for a birthday celebration featuring a variety of hits

by Elvis and cake. Jan. 10, 7 pm. By donation. Prince of Peace, 8441 N. Indian Trail Rd. (465-0779) JAZZ AT THE JACC Michael Jaramillo brings together top jazz musicians for an evening of smooth, straight up jazz.

This month features Melody Harrison singing choice hits from the 20s up to the modern day. Featuring Eugene

Jablonsky, James Schmehl-Drums and Michael Jaramillo-Guitar. Jan. 10, 7 pm. $15. Jacklin Arts & Cultural Center, 405 N. William St. (208-457-8950) EL GRAN FESTIVAL DE MUSICA CUBANA Traditional Cuban music by Kiki Valera, CoCo Freeman, Nachito Herrera, Manuel el Guajirito Mirabal, Pedro Vargas and many more. Jan. 11, 7-9:45 pm. $35-$125. Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox, 1001 W. Sprague. foxtheaterspokane.org (323-768-8685) ENGLISH COUNTRY DANCE The Prestwold Players and caller Mitchell Fry present an English country dance.

Straight out of a Jane Austen novel, this dance is the reserved and elegant ancestor of contra dancing. Jan. 11, 7-10 pm. $8/$10. East Spokane Grange, 1621 N. Park Rd. spokanefolklore.org THE M SHOW BY MATEUSZ WOLSKI The M Show features short selections of classical music, with a twist of pop and rock music, spiced up with comedy bits and entertaining short videos. Jan. 11, 8-9 pm. $24-68. Knitting Factory, 919 W. Sprague. spokanesymphony.org GOLD RUSH TALES A musical performance inspired by stories from the North Idaho gold rush of the 1880s is offered in partnership with Coeur d’Alene Summer Theater and its CST to School program. Jan. 12, 2 pm. Free. Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 E. Front Ave. cdalibrary.org (208-769-2315) IMAGINE JAZZ PRESENTS: THE JEREMY PELT QUINET Imagine Jazz presents the Downbeat poll-winning, internationally renowned trumpet sensation Jeremy Pelt and his New York Jazz Quintet. Jan. 15, 7:30-9:30 pm. $10$25. Holy Names Music Center, 3910 W. Custer Dr. imaginejazz.org (936-0819)

SPORTS & OUTDOORS

LEARN TO SKATE! Lilac City Figure Skating Club coaches offer fun and fitness with programs for skaters of all ages and abilities. Classes offered Wednesdays, 6-7 pm, or Saturdays, 10:30-11:30 am. $99/6 week class, $148/ private lessons, $20/drop in. Eagles IceA-Rena, 6321 N. Addison St. lilaccityfsc. org (599-3974) OPEN CLIMB AT REI SPOKANE Indoor rock climbing is a great way to stay in shape, even when the weather outside is frightful. REI provides certified belay staff, shoes and harnesses. Upcoming sessions: Jan. 12 and March 1 from 1-4 pm. Free. REI, 1125 N. Monroe. rei.com/ spokane (328-9900) TUBE CLINIC A hands-on clinic using your own bike to learn how to replace a tire and/or tube. Bring your bike, toolkit and portable pump kit. Jan. 15, 5 pm and Feb. 26, 5 pm. Free. Wheel Sport North, 9501 N. Newport Hwy. wheelsportbikes.com (509-326-3977)

THEATER

MANDELSTAM Osip Mandelstam was a great Russian poet who was persecuted and sent to Siberia for writing a poem about Stalin’s mustache. Jan. 10-26; Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm. $15$25. Stage Left Theater, 108 W. Third Ave. spokanestageleft.org (838-9727) PRESENT LAUGHTER This play premiered in the early years of WWII just as formerly privileged lives were threatened with fundamental social

change. Jan. 10-Feb. 2; Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm. $15-$25. Spokane Civic Theatre, 1020 N. Howard St. spokanecivictheatre.com (325-2507) AN AMERICAN IN PARIS In post-war Paris, romance is in the air and youthful optimism reigns. Gershwin’s soaring melodies are matched by gravity-defying dance as the world rediscovers the power of love in this breathtaking production. Jan. 14-15 at 7:30 am. $49.50$89.50. First Interstate Center for the Arts, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. broadwayspokane.com (800-325-7328) “FUN HOME” THEATER NIGHT Join North Idaho Pride Alliance for a special evening at Lake City Playhouse to experience this award-winning musical. Jan. 16, 5:30 pm. $0-$25. Lake City Playhouse, 1320 E. Garden Ave. facebook. com/lakecityplayhouse MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 LIVE Join show creator and original host Joel Hodgson and the world’s greatest (and only) movie-riffing robots, Tom Servo, Crow, and Gypsy, as they take you on a roller coaster ride through some of the cheesiest films ever made.

Jan. 16, 7:30-9:30 pm. $39.50-$59.50.

First Interstate Center for the Arts, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. broadwayspokane.com (800-325-7328)

VISUAL ARTS

ANN PORTER: PASSENGERS The paintings, small prints and large-scale hanging silks in this exhibit explore the complex intensity of people’s faces while they wait in airports. Through Jan. 25; Thu 2-6 pm, Fri-Sat 12-8 pm.

Free. Saranac Art Projects, 25 W. Main Ave. saranacartprojects.wordpress.com NORMAN ROCKWELL’S AMERICA A collection of 22 oil paintings, seven charcoal/graphite studies, original posters and all 323 vintage Saturday Evening Post magazine covers spanning six decades. Through Jan. 12; TueSun from 10 am-5 pm; third Thursdays from 10 am-8 pm. $5-$10. The MAC, 2316 W. First. northwestmuseum.org PAREIDOLIA The SFCC Fine Arts Gallery presents this exhibition of nine artists from the Portland, Oregon, area working in a variety of media. Through Feb. 11; open Mon-Fri 8:30 am-3:30 pm in Building 6. Free. SFCC Fine Arts Gallery, 3410 W. Fort George Wright Dr., Bldg. 6. spokanefalls.edu/gallery WAVEFORMS: ON RISING AND FALLING An exhibition of lens-based works

by Joshua Hobson. Opening reception Jan. 15 at noon in the EWU Gallery of Art, in the Art Building on the Cheney campus. Jan. 15-Feb. 20; Mon-Fri 9 am-5 pm. Free. EWU Gallery of Art, 140 Art Building. sites.ewu.edu/artdepartment/archives-ewu-art-gallery/ DANIEL SHIEH: GAZING A 3-minute experience inside a dark room with four or more participants. Before entering, participants put on earplugs and goggles that illuminate their eyes. Inside, they walk around freely in darkness and silence, seeing each other solely as floating pairs of eyes.

Because most characteristics that one would use to categorize a person are subdued (such as eye and skin color), participants aren’t able to determine who they’re looking at, the act of which is often charged with an unequal power dynamic. Jan. 16-18 and Jan. 23-25 by appt. Free. Kolva-Sullivan Gallery, 115 S. Adams. kolva-sullivangallery.com n

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COEUR D ’ ALENE

Full Moon Detox Dip SUN - MON, JANUARY 12 - 13

175

$

*

per person

Experience an ideal balance of relaxation and adventure with overnight Lake Tower accommodations, personalized spa services, a full moon detox dip at the heated Infinity Pool, guided meditation, and more.

The Annual Mac and Cheese Festival has plenty to smile about Forget New Year’s resolutions for the day and embrace your inner comfortseeker at the annual MAC AND CHEESE FESTIVAL, on Saturday, Jan. 18 from noon to 5 pm at more than a dozen downtown locations (cdadowntown. com/mac-cheese-festival).

It’s not just local restaurants, either.

Westwood Brewing from Rathdrum presents elk sausage mac and cheese while Spokane’s Black Diamond will be serving their five-cheese smoked mac in bite-sized waffle cones.

B O O K Y O U R L I V E W E L L R E T R E AT *Based on double occupancy.

Subject to change. Excludes tax and surcharge.

62 INLANDER JANUARY 9, 2020

things to do & places to stay.

Say Cheese!

Throughout downtown Coeur d’Alene, 18 food venues have signed on to provide a super-cheesy experience, ranging from food trucks like Drummin’ Up BBQ’s to Mangia Catering, to local eateries like Rustic, Cricket’s Restaurant & Oyster Bar, Sweet Lou’s, Honey Eatery & Social Club, Bier Haus, Calypso’s Coffee and all the Coeur d’Alene Resort restaurants.

C DA L I V E W E L L . C O M | 8 5 5 . 6 7 2 . 47 3 9

cda4.fun for more events,

Part of the fun is the friendly competition amongst chefs vying for People’s Choice and the Golden Noodle awards, which Paragon Brewing is hoping to repeat again this year with their green chile “Tex Mac.”

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Did we mention this event is really popular? Kids’ tickets (ages 12-andunder, $10) and VIP packages are both sold out, unfortunately. But the Mac Pack (six tastings, all ages, $25) and the Mac & Beer package (ages 21-andolder only; six mac and cheese tastings, eight 4-ounce beer tastings and a commemorative pint glass, $35) are still available. Your culinary adventure starts at the Resort Plaza Shops, where you’ll pick up your tickets, drink tokens and commemorative glass (with Mac & Beer purchase only), as well as a “noodle” to vote for your favorite chef and a map to the other venues.

Extend your eating experience with special offers from the COEUR D’ALENE RESORT (cdaresort.com). Book the DINNER CRUISE featuring an “Around the World” menu (adults, $35, Seniors, $33, ages 6-12, $25, ages 5-and-under, free).

Enjoy the culinary accents of Italy with a mozzarella-rich casserole including pepperoni and roasted peppers.

Mexican culture is highlighted with pork carnitas mac and cheese, while classic American food is highlighted in a third dish with Buffalo chicken wings and blue cheese crumble.

Stay overnight at the resort with one of two FESTIVAL PACKAGES. The standard overnight package includes room accommodations (Jan. 17 or 18) and two tickets while the VIP package also includes unlimited mac and cheese prepared by the resort’s culinary team in the Taphouse Unchained VIP Lounge.

C O E U R

D ’A L E N E

Upcoming Events Jackass Day JANUARY 10

Fifty-two years ago, the ski hill then known as Jackass Ski Bowl opened. You know that beloved resort now as Silver Mountain. Celebrate how it all got started with $12 lift tickets — the original lift ticket price from back in the day. Be sure to stick around for a night skiing celebration and more discounted tickets Sunday night, Jan. 11.

Music Walk JANUARY 10

Downtown Coeur d’Alene rings with live music from our talented, local musician singer/songwriters the second Friday of each month, January through March starting at 5 pm.

Comedy Night at the Inn JANUARY 10-11

Back-to-back comedy nights start the new year right at the Coeur d’Alene Inn. Friday’s show features Greg Beachler and headline Phil Tag, seen on The Tonight Show and Showtime. Saturday’s show starts with Beth Norton with Louis Johnson headlining. Tickets $17.50; doors open at 7 pm, show

Vote for your favorite to win the coveted

18

starts at 8 pm; 21+; Coeur d’Alene Inn.

CDA Full Moon Bike Ride JANUARY 10

Yes, there’s snow in the forecast, but that won’t stop Slate Creek’s monthly Full Moon Bike Ride. So bundle up and join the fun. The pre-party starts at 6

Local Chefs | Gourmet Mac & Cheese Craft Beer | Voting Privileges

pm at Slate Creek and the ride starts at 8 pm and returns back to the brewery in about an hour.

TEDxCoeur d’Alene JANUARY 11

This full-day event will feature 15 talks and several exciting live experiences. Leaders from diverse industries and backgrounds will come together to speak to about their big ideas and solutions for changing the world. Go to cda4.fun. for a complete

12-5 PM

Includes: Includes:

6 Mac & Cheese Tasters

8 Beer Tastings (4oz. ea) 6 Mac & Cheese Tasters Commemorative Glass

VIP MAC DADDY Includes:

Exclusive all access VIP pass All you can eat Mac & Cheese Commemorative Glass

Full Bar Free Parking

schedule.

For more events, things to do & places to stay, go to cda4.fun

FOR A CHEESY WEEKEND

23900

$

COEUR D’ALENE

*

TO BUY TICKETS OR GET MORE INFO GO TO CDADOWNTOWN.COM *All tasters must be consumed on site. To-go boxes prohibited. Must be 21 years or older to purchase Mac & Beer Package and consume alcohol. Tickets available while supplies last. Must purchase package with wristband to taste Mac.*

JANUARY 9, 2020 INLANDER 63