Boulder Weekly 05.18.2023

THUNDERBOOGIE MAKES A SCENE

P. 16

WHO OWNS THE MOON?

P. 10

COLORADO BACON BONAFIDES

P. 32

BY COLIN WRENN

BRENDZA

Photo by Alyssa Montaño / Rocky Montaño Photography.

COMMENTARY

MAY 18, 2023

Volume 30, Number 39

PUBLISHER: Fran Zankowski

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Cal Winn

EDITORIAL

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Caitlin Rockett

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR: Jezy J. Gray

GENERAL ASSIGNMENT REPORTER: Will Matuska

FOOD EDITOR: John Lehndorff

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Shay Castle, Sage Kelley, Adam Larson, Adam Perry, Katie Rhodes, Dan Savage, Toni Tresca, Colin Wrenn

SALES AND MARKETING

MARKET DEVELOPMENT MANAGER: Kellie Robinson

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CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Erik Wogen

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WRITERS ON THE RANGE

Old bones can be a small town’s movie stars

The prehistoric past can perk up the present. When woolly mammoth bones were found in my hometown in Wisconsin years ago, they became the centerpiece of one of our local museums. Today, they continue to attract visitors and serve as one of the city’s informal symbols.

Unfortunately, the story across much of the fossil-rich West is more abandonment than local fame. During the late 19th century, paleontologists made huge finds in the region, excavating specimens of famed dinosaurs like Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Diplodocus and Allosaurus.

But like many would-be movie stars, the bones ended up leaving their rural sites to find fame in the big cities. Left

behind were holes — literally, in the case of the dinos.

It took time for the West to stake its claim to keeping some fossil finds at home. Countless fossils, for example, have been exhumed in Wyoming since the late 19th century, but the University of Wyoming Geological Museum in Laramie didn’t have a single mount of a Wyoming dinosaur until 1961.

One reason was money. Even today, a town might be located right next to spectacular fossil sites, but limited municipal budgets can make it hard to keep the lights on in a museum. Funding for the collection, curation and study of fossils doesn’t always match up with areas containing many fossils.

BY ADAM LARSON

Yet everyone benefits when at least some fossil finds stay put. In many cases, they are discovered not by paleontologists but by ordinary citizens. In 2006, oil workers in Wyoming happened upon giant white bones, recognized their importance, and called in experts. The bones were part of an enormous, 11,600-year-old Columbian mammoth.

Thankfully, that mammoth is now on public display at the Tate Geological Museum in Casper, Wyoming. The landowners whose property contained the mammoth bones thoughtfully chose to donate them.

Once in local museums, fossil displays give people in the area examples of the bones they might come across,

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COMMENTARY

and a place for them to contact if they find something unusual. When locally found fossils stay local, they also connect people to their prehistoric heritage and encourage them to donate discoveries to local museums.

But there’s more: fossils help the local economy by attracting visitors. Once local museums start drawing a crowd, they can help pay for themselves while also indirectly contributing to schools and roads. According to the national group Americans for the Arts, tourism from museums and other cultural nonprofits generates five dollars in tax revenue for each dollar they receive in government funding.

Thankfully, a lot has changed since the first fossil hunters descended upon the West in search of prehistoric dinosaurs, mammals and more. Fossil fans in the West no longer have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to see incredible discoveries made in their home states.

For example, in Ekalaka, Montana, population 399, the Carter County Museum hosts an annual “Dino Shindig,” which attracts paleontologists from across the country and hundreds of other visitors.

As Carter County Museum director Sabre Moore told the documentary series Prehistoric Road Trip, the Shindig shares groundbreaking science and includes the landowners who made the discoveries possible.

At the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, population 2,725, visitors can see fossils of dinosaurs large and small, tour active dig sites and even take part in the digs themselves.

“I like that we’re a destination for folks coming to Thermopolis,” said Levi Shinkle, collections manager at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center and a Thermopolis native. “We’re a small museum,” he added, “but we’re often in the same conversations as the large museums in urban centers.”

In North Dakota, the North Dakota State Fossil Collection is on a quest, in the words of founder John Hoganson, to put “a fossil exhibit in every town.” The program has helped put up more than two dozen paleontology and geology exhibits across the state, from Pembina, population 512, to Lidgerwood, population 600, to Bowman, population 1,470.

Sharing a home where the dinosaurs once roamed definitely adds to local pride. When the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, obtained a second large Tyrannosaurus rex, they put the second one up on display in the museum as “Montana’s T. rex,” and they loaned the other to the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, where it’s now known as the “Nation’s T. rex.”

Sharing the riches of the West’s past — right here in the West — enriches everyone.

Adam Larson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is a former editor of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center’s newsletter.

This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS

SB23-259 will enable more problem gambling in Colorado

BY CORINNE NEUSTADTER

Colorado’s 74th General Assembly was one the most contentious sessions in recent history. In the midst of debates on local zoning policies and tax refunds, a bill managed to pass in its third reading on the evening of May 6: Senate Bill 23-259, or Extension of Credit for Limited Gambling, passed 33 to 32 in the House of Representatives.

The bill —which still requires the Senate to vote on House amendmens before it can head to the governor’s desk — allows casinos to extend lines of credit of at least $1,000 to gamers. But the consequences for Coloradoans could prove far more dire. It ignores the inherent complexity of addiction, which demands legal boundaries to counter it, instead allowing casinos to operate with impunity.

Keeping gambling recreational depends on going into it with a clear plan. Sticking to a budget and a time limit, playing solely for entertainment and treating winning as a bonus can help players stay within their boundaries. The Prevention Action Alliance recommends never gambling on credit, as it can enable customers to spend beyond their limits without realizing the full obligations of the financial contract they’ve entered into.

SB23-259 requires customers to apply for lines of credit beforehand, denying credit to those with outstanding warrants, unpaid child support debt, unsettled debt to the state or restitution from a state-level criminal case. However, there are no other explicit guidelines for casinos in determining whether a person is creditworthy. There are no limits on who a casino can approve outside the definition of being “creditworthy.” A potentially life-altering debt obligation needs to come with a detailed accounting of

its terms and conditions, including its impacts on a person’s credit score.

Moreover, SB23-259 dictates that customers can take out lines of credit totaling $1,000 or more — nearly half of Colorado’s average monthly rent (and a third in Boulder). Upping the ante will encourage customers to spend more money than they can afford on an activity that is inextricably linked with addiction.

One needn’t look further than Nevada’s gambling regulations to see how casino-offered credit lines — of smaller amounts — can impact people’s lives. Nevada has allowed gambling for over 85 years, but many of its regulations haven’t integrated 21st-century psychology. Nevada has one of the highest rates of gambling addiction in the United States.

Casinos there can offer “casino markers,” or interest-free lines of credit to customers they deem creditworthy.

However, these credit lines must be paid within 30 days, after which the casino can pull funds from the customer’s banking account, since the Nevada state Legislature gave casino markers the legal status of checks. If the account doesn’t have sufficient funds, the customer has five days to send the funds — after which the unpaid debt becomes a criminal case — either a misdemeanor if the debt is under $1,200, or a felony if it’s over $1,200. SB23-259 doesn’t establish criminal penalties for unpaid credit lines, but it does require customers to repay them within 150 days — after which casinos can pursue “all remedies at law to recover unpaid credit” in addition to interest and recovery costs. Since there’s no maximum interest rate outlined in the bill, casinos can charge

OPINION LETTERS

whatever rate they want to customers, depending on how creditworthy they are. Operating without any of the comparatively stringent laws of the banking industry means casinos can effectively operate as loan sharks.

On the heels of Colorado’s nascent sports betting industry, it’s not hard to see how easier access to gambling can enable addiction. There are no regulations dictating how sportsbooks can advertise or entice customers to use their platforms, which has led to the widespread adoption of gamified mobile app betting, with enticing betting offers that can double a wager and keep a user hooked even longer. This design can be especially addictive for young adults raised with technology at their fingertips, which made the University of Colorado Boulder’s recently terminated partnership with sportsbook PointsBet all the more problematic.

Colorado didn’t prioritize treatment for addictive gambling until 2022, when a bill passed the state Legislature to fund a grant program to treat problem gambling. Concurrently, there’s been a 45% increase in calls and a 225% increase in texts to the Problematic Gaming Coalition of Colorado since 2020, yet there’s still only five counselors in the state certified to treat gambling addiction.

So, what will SB23-259 achieve? While its sponsors argued the bill would make gambling easier for wealthy customers who don’t want to carry cash, the truth is more complicated. Consumer-centric safeguards in an industry whose victims tend to suffer in silence have lagged behind the flood of addiction inapp gambling has caused — and SB23-259 only builds on this divisive legacy by empowering casinos and ignoring the guidelines the state’s own coalition on problematic gambling set forth. It’s not clear whether the bill will be

affected by the coalition’s selfexclusion program, either, which allows Coloradoans with a history of addictive gambling to surrender their check-cashing privileges and club memberships at gambling facilities. But given the bill’s recent passage and potential variability among casino credit-granting procedures, it might not be possible to “cut off” pathological gamblers from credit entirely. Of the estimated 128,000 pathological gamblers in Colorado, only 600 have signed up for the selfexclusion list.

Much like the legalization of sports betting, SB-259 will allow gambling companies to extend their influence deeper into their customers’ pockets. This bill might not make gambling instantaneous, like the legalization of sportsbook betting, but its danger lies in making financial realities obscure — much like the accumulation of credit card debt, its intangibility makes it that much easier to accumulate.

At the same time, this law comes on the heels of a record year for American gambling, with more than $549 billion in revenue reported by casinos and mobile gaming apps in 2022. Colorado has shied away from addressing gambling addiction for decades, keeping it under-regulated as the industry has grown. State legislators have a responsibility to protect as many people as possible, especially in an industry that’s shown itself to prey on people’s worst instincts and erode the boundaries between recreation and addiction. Without detailed and enforced laws within the gambling industry, Colorado may bear a greater resemblance to Nevada in the coming years — beholden to an overpowered economic machine that doesn’t just play the game, but makes the rules. The house always wins, even as some go bankrupt.

This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

IMPROVE OUR TRANSPORTATION

I am a junior in high school and live in Boulder County. I, as well as many people I know, want to move back after college, but that won’t be likely if the current trend continues. Living here as a young adult, I will not have enough money to support myself in Boulder, will live in one of the surrounding cities while working in Boulder, and will need a form of transportation into and around Boulder. The major form of transportation into Boulder now is cars, which makes traffic, takes time and creates more greenhouse gasses. A form of transportation that was proposed in 2005 was the commuter rail line from Denver to Boulder to Longmont by RTD. This idea was advanced, and although RTD has collected more than $270 million in taxes for this and other projects, little has been done. The approximate completion date for it has now been pushed back to 2050 and the estimated cost for the project has gone from $66 million to $1.5 billion. Many people I know now love the Boulder area because of how environmentally friendly and clean it is. With the continuous addition of noise, light, and air pollution from the lack of effective public transportation, the Boulder area will cease to be the environmental haven it is seen as today, and I, as well as the kids I know, won’t want to return. We need to accelerate this slow process. Citizens of Boulder, is public transportation growing enough to keep up with the needs of your future family? Please voice your concerns with your elected officials to improve our future transportation grid.

— Imogen Kistner/Boulder

STOP THE ‘LANDLORDIFICATION’ OF BOULDER

I came to Boulder as a bright-eyed freshman in 1964. Fifty-nine years is a long time. Time does fly by. In those years, Boulder and the university have changed exponentially. I recently had a small personal epiphany that CU and the Boulder of my memory and imagination no longer exist. Commerce completely rules the roost. As Kurt Vonnegut put it, “So it goes.” Change is inevitable, but I believe we can influence what that change can be. Such is the essence of democracy. As I see it, the impetus of change here simply boils down to gentrification, the

power of money to dominate property transactions. I live in Martin Acres and we, and other neighborhoods bordering the main campus, feel under siege from the university’s constant expansion. Our current quality of life and community integrity are threatened by the influx of student rentals, “student-ification” if you will. The Council’s proposed changes to occupancy and ADU regulations will only make this worse. We are also inundated by queries and offers to buy from “pop the top” speculators and LLC landlord companies hoping to expand their hold on the neighborhood. Bye, bye singlefamily homes, hello multi-occupancy “landlord-ification.” This is what happens when money becomes a community’s driving force. That this is a Democratic Party policy initiative fronted by Jared Polis is beyond saddening, the lack of imagination staggering. Believing “affordable housing” will result from a libertarian land grab is a Don Quijote quest for fool’s gold. Rents will only come down when landlords reduce them, and that isn’t going to happen. Profit is ever the motive, however, community well-being should never be marginalized. Hard as it may seem these days, there are life considerations and concepts beyond the God almighty dollar.

— Robert Porath/Boulder

TRUMP WANTS TO BE A DICTATOR

The past several years there has been a lot of talk about Donald Trump being a fascist. I’m tempted to use that word against any White capitalist who is also incredibly racist and uses racism to get support from the white working-class. But there are better definitions and part of one of them I think applies to Trump in a very damning way.

According to one source, one aspect of fascism is that the party and the state become one. In 2020 there was an article on the website Politico that exposed an aspect of the MAGA machine which is about doing just that. On April 21 they published an article about the federal workforce and the Office of Personnel Management (the federal government’s Human Resources office for civilians) and the Presidential Personnel Office. About halfway through it said of the then acting Director of the OPM:

“[Mike] Rigas has told colleagues that

he questions the constitutionality of the 1883 Pendleton Act, which codifies using merit to pick government officials, and believes that all executive branch employees should be political appointees, according to a person who has discussed the matter with him. Rigas told POLITICO that he ‘denied ever saying or believing anything resembling that statement.’”

I believe that a lot of Trump supporters do agree with the sentiment Rigas is accused of expressing. As many people have pointed out, Trump believes that if he does something for people, they owe him, and I’m sure that includes federal employees during his presidency.

This should be pretty alarming without anything more, but there’s more evidence in the article and there’s also the fact that you don’t replace the entire federal workforce with political loyalists every four or eight years. If someone wants to do that, they plan to do it permanently and I think this might be some of the best evidence that Trump wants to be a dictator.

— Tom Shelley/Boulder

GUNS AND GOD

As many Americans cower in fear, defiance and boundless ignorance

behind doors, they are finding flimsy excuses to use their Republicaninspired gun purchases on innocent strangers, like those who knock on the wrong door or pull a car into the wrong driveway.

Are Republicans trying to measure up to as much gun violence as the party founder Abraham Lincoln used against his countrymen in the 1860s, only with much less justification? Perhaps today we will see a second Civil War, this time a vigilante war, inspired by gun advertisements like “Clear the crack house,” “Ice the perp,” and “Save the hostage.”

Or perhaps the party of Lincoln is preparing for something even more sinister — absolute rule by the wealthy class and a hand-picked ruler. The more gun violence, the more chaos; the more chaos, the more jettisoning of debate and majority rule.

And who will be the best candidate for dictator in America? The one who talks “Guns and God” without the slightest knowledge of the historical place of either one in this democracy.

I wonder if Republicans can find such an unhinged candidate to support in 2024?

— Kimball Shinkoskey/ Woods Cross, Utah

‘DRASTIC ACTION’

Police Oversight Panel blasts unsupportive Council, stops reviewing complaints after member’s ouster

BY SHAY CASTLE, BOULDER BEAT

Boulder’s Police Oversight Panel (POP) last week enacted a partial work stoppage, even as they were warned by city attorneys that doing so could cost them their seats on the watchdog group. The move was necessary, members argued, to send a message to City Council and prevent resignations in protest of the ouster of panelist Lisa Sweeney-Miran.

“This vilification of one of us was an attempt to intimidate all of us,” said panelist Sam Zhang. “As if we would just robotically continue this oversight in exactly the way that they want, which is apparently not very critical at all. It’s not really a question of whether we suspend the work or not. The work is going to be disrupted no matter what, because of Council.”

Under the terms of the stoppage, the panel will stop reviewing new cases of alleged police misconduct until the ordinance governing the POP’s work can be amended. The panel ultimately voted 8-1 to proceed.

Jason Savela, the lone dissenting vote, said continuing the work was essentially to build community trust in the panel.

“As a public defender, I know there are cases we are not seeing, and we’re not seeing them because people don’t trust that process,” Savela said. “I’m more upset that people who are suffering violence are not even willing to bring their issue to us. I would rather us be available for them to talk to than not be here.”

City attorneys warned panelists that they could be removed for their decision, if a code of conduct complaint is filed and upheld against them. That could be avoided by asking City Council for permission to stop work, Erin Poe said during Wednesday’s meeting.

“As a product of the civil rights movement and many protests, I can’t recall one where we got permission,” said panelist Madelyn Strong Woodley. “Change happened as a result of taking some very drastic actions.”

Here’s a rundown of what this means for police oversight in the city:

WHAT WILL THE PANEL DO DURING THE WORK STOPPAGE?

The POP will not review any new complaints or allegations of misconduct. They will finish out the dozen they’ve already committed to review. No committees will meet, either, except those necessary to work on updating the ordinance that guides the oversight panel’s work. Two members of the POP, to be determined, will serve on that workgroup.

WHAT HAPPENS TO COMPLAINTS AGAINST THE POLICE IN THE MEANTIME?

The Independent Monitor will continue to review cases of alleged misconduct. The monitor can recommend disciplinary actions, as the panel does. Boulder’s temporary monitor is Florence Finkle, who works with Los Angeles-based OIR Group and is a board member for the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement.

Any complaints filed during the work stoppage would “most likely be closed” by the time the POP resumes, Finkle said.

HOW LONG WILL THE STOPPAGE LAST?

As long as it takes to update the ordinance. Farah Muscadin, a consultant hired by the city to help the panel in the absence of a permanent monitor, laid out a possible timeline.

The work will begin this week; a community feedback session on the ordinance is tentatively scheduled for the week of June 19. The workgroup hopes to meet with City Council for an August study session, with first reading of the ordinance in September and a vote and passage the first week of October.

WHO WILL BE IN THE WORKGROUP?

Two members of POP, a representative from the Boulder Police Department, a city attorney, representatives from the Boulder County NAACP branch and El Centro Amistad — the community organizations who had members on POP’s selection committee — and Martha Wilson, a former panelist who began working on ordinance changes after resigning in November.

An attorney not affiliated with the city may join the group as well. POP voted to request that the city pay for outside counsel.

“We’ve requested independent counsel several times,” panel member Hadasa Villalobos said, but those requests have not been honored.

“That hasn’t been a, ‘No, you can’t

do it,’” Leonard clarified. “It’s been a ‘Pick your legal counsel and set your budget.’”’

WHAT PARTS OF THE ORDINANCE MIGHT BE CHANGED?

That will in part be determined by the process. So far, two areas have been specifically called out by current and former panelists and community members: The need for an independent attorney to advise POP, and changes to the language around bias that were the crux of SweeneyMiran’s dismissal.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Although the panel is not asking the city’s permission to stop work, Council may still discuss it. As of yet, it has not been added to the agenda.

If a code of conduct complaint is filed, the Council will have to take action. Complaints must be investigated, either internally or by an outside party.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Poe said. “This is a unique situation ... we’ll see what direction [council members] want to take.”

WINDOWS TO THE COSMOS

BY SAGE KELLEY

Since humanity began twiddling thumbs and contemplating ideas, we’ve questioned where we come from — how it all began.

With leadership from a CU Boulder professor, a NASA program is attempting to answer those questions by peering into the universe’s past from the far side of the moon.

In April, NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program awarded Lunar Resources, a space-industrial company in Houston, a contract for its FarView observatory, a radio-based array on the far side of the moon. Built almost entirely from natural resources found on the moon’s surface, FarView will give scientists a clear look at the beginning of the cosmos and a path forward to moon exploration.

The FarView team’s chief scientist is Jack Burns, a professor in the department of astrophysical and planetary sciences at CU Boulder. For Burns, the forward-moving study and concept is a dream built in the ’70s.

“We’re almost half a century late,”

Burns jokes. “I’ve been championing this for almost 40 years. Now I am no longer the lone voice in the wilderness.”

OPENING NEW WINDOWS

When construction is complete, FarView will use more than 100,000 dipole antennas to create the largest and most-powerful low-frequency telescope ever created. The 77-squaremile apparatus will use radio waves to study the composition, structure and motion of planets, stars and galaxies.

“We’re opening up two new windows to the universe,” Burns says. “One is the window to the electromagnetic spectrum: the last unopened window at low-rating frequencies. We have telescopes and observatories that operate at X-ray, gamma ray and ultraviolet, but at this low-rated frequency, you have to go to the opposite side of the moon in order for it to be radio-quiet.”

There is ever-growing radio pollution on Earth, with lower-frequency devices such as circuit breakers, transformers

and power generators blocking incoming emissions. Receiving and studying low-frequency emissions is impossible as all incoming waves bounce back. The far side of the moon never faces Earth and has no ionosphere — which reflects radio waves — making it the perfect place to study those frequencies.

The second window Burns hopes to open will peer into the time before the formation of the very first star, something impossible before. Because there were no stars, infrared telescopes like the James Webb can’t pick up frequencies from this time. However, hydrogen gas present during the formation of stars gives off low-frequency radio emissions that the FarView array could pick up.

“As humans, we’ve always wondered where we’ve come from. How was the sun formed? How did the Earth form?” Burns says. “Once we can understand how the first stars were formed, we can better understand how the Milky Way formed, and potentially life itself.”

ONE SMALL STEP FOR SPACE TRAVEL

Adding to the excitement of looking into the formation of the universe, the development of the FarView observatory would be a significant step into space travel and, potentially, colonization.

With rovers, NASA will extract aluminum from the moon’s surface using an electrolysis process. Aluminum-plated antennas will be fixed onto the surface of the moon, using only remotely operated robots.

“All of these technologies we’ve developed can be used for other things,” Burns says. “You can build habitats and solar power stations for laboratories and mining facilities. All of this is a stepping stone in the big picture. Exploring the moon and how to live and manufacture on the moon will feed forward to going to Mars later in the century.”

The current study is to further this technology, ensuring it would be feasible before launching the official creation of FarView.

CU Boulder professor leads NASA program to build a moon base to study the origins of the universe — but for some, it raises questions around international space law

But, if scientists like Burns have been fighting for this since the ’70s, why hasn’t it happened?

That’s a matter of interest and finance.

After President Richard Nixon canceled the Apollo program in 1970, interest in moon exploration waned significantly. But now that private sector companies like SpaceX have started diving into the realm, it’s become more affordable and efficient, leading to increased interest in the moon as a stepping stone to more extensive space travel.

“If you would have told me in 1972 that it would have taken 50 years to get back to the moon, I would have never believed it,” Burns says. “Now, the conditions are right, so we can make moon and space exploration sustainable. Companies and other countries are collaborating, making it much easier on U.S. taxpayers.”

“This isn’t science fiction,” he says. “This is real life. This is happening.”

DE FACTO GATEKEEPER

But beyond the pursuit of knowledge is concern around what establishing a presence on the moon’s surface means for geopolitics.

Michelle Hanlon, co-director of the Air and Space Law Program at the University of Mississippi, says a country positioning itself on the moon, even for purely scientific purposes, could be a violation of international space law.

“The issue is [the U.S. is] not the only country that wants to use space resources to build things,” she says. “China isn’t going to take bricks from the Great Wall up to the moon to build their base … And now, with FarView, you are talking about building an actual structure on the moon. That, by definition, is in violation of Article 2 of the Outer Space Treaty. It’s technically claiming territory.”

According to Article 2 of the treaty, which more than 100 countries signed in 1967, “Outer space, including the

Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”

In 2020, in part to bring more clarity to the Outer Space Treaty, NASA introduced the Artemis Accords, a non-binding, multilateral arrangement between world governments participating in the Artemis program, which focuses on returning humans to the moon and expanding space exploration to Mars and beyond. While the Accords are meant to foster cooperation and civility in space exploration, critics say they place too much power in the hands of the United States.

Two Canadian researchers, writing in Science magazine’s Policy Forum, said the Accords, “if accepted by many nations, could enable the U.S. interpretation of international space law to prevail and make the United States — as the licensing nation for most of the world’s space companies — the de facto gatekeeper to the Moon, asteroids, and other celestial bodies.”

Hanlon says claiming territory could build legal tension between nations, and work needs to be done to make laws more clear.

“The problem with space law is that it’s entirely academic,” Hanlon says.

“Many are used to space being these deep-think, what-could-be ideas. But now we’re here.

It’s not hypothetical. This is the transition we are looking at, and it’s very frustrating that people aren’t aware of what’s going on. We need to get it out of academia.”

Moving forward, Hanlon isn’t against the idea of FarView, but says humanity should move forward together.

“We need to do this as a species, not sovereign nations,” she says.

FarView is an early-stage project, going through a two-year design study. If everything goes as planned, the construction could begin as soon as 2030.

NOW YOU KNOW

This week’s news in Boulder County and beyond

BY WILL MATUSKA

BOULDER COUNTY RECEIVES FUNDING FOR HOMELESS SOLUTIONS

Six organizations in the area are receiving $6.5 million dedicated to homeless services.

“It’s a significant investment in homeless response,” says Heidi Grove, Homeless Solutions for Boulder County (HSBC) systems manager.

The funding was made available through the state’s Transformational Homelessness Response Grant Program and House Bill 22-137, which allocated federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act. The goal of the grant program is to “create a future where homelessness is rare and brief when it occurs.”

Boulder County recipients are Boulder County Community Services, Boulder County Housing & Human Services, Boulder Shelter for the Homeless, City of Boulder Housing & Human Services, Mental Health Partners and Mother House, which each received between $585,000 and $2 million in funding.

HSBC works to coordinate with county-wide partners to create a cohesive plan and vision to address homelessness gaps in the area.

Funds will be used to hire more staff, increase bridgehousing capacities, address family homelessness, create a 24/7 facility for people to recuperate from medical challenges and add support for unhoused adults experiencing mental health or substance abuse challenges.

Focus Reentry and HOPE for Longmont, two more organizations part of HSBC, are waiting to hear about being awarded funding in the second round of the grant program.

PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY ENDS

After more than three years, the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) officially ended in Boulder County on May 11, aligning with the federal expiration date.

Boulder County Public Health (BCPH) will transition its focus to “priority settings and environments at high risk for transmission, such as congregate living facilities, jails and shelters.”

“Where we’re at in the next phase of recovery is really rebuilding and taking into account best practices we’ve learned,” says Chris Campbell, emergency manager with BCPH who helped lead the county’s pandemic responses.

Campbell says the disease will continue to live among us, adding it’s important to take steps to reduce risks for people who are immunocompromised in the community by masking or getting tested.

In the past week, there were 21 new hospital admissions due to COVID-19 in Boulder County and 9,455 nationally — the lowest since August 2020 when this data started to be recorded.

“The end of the federal emergency declaration signals a positive shift in our COVID-19 response and reflects an

overall reduction in severe health outcomes nationally,” Dr. Lexi Nolen, interim executive director at BCPH, said in a press release. “Boulder County has been in ‘low transmission’ for several weeks, which is heartening.”

The county is still prepared for outbreaks as it continues to monitor wastewater systems, and can ramp up testing and vaccine distribution if needed, Campbell says.

BCPH will continue to offer free COVID-19 vaccines until the state’s supplies are gone, which is expected to happen this fall. Future access and cost for services like COVID-19 testing or vaccinations may depend on private health insurance, Medicare or Medicaid.

CITY FINDS NO VIOLATION IN COMPLAINT OF COUNCILMEMBER

An investigation report filed on May 12 found no indication that City Councilmember Nicole Speer violated the city’s code of conduct.

The complaint, which was filed by Emily Reynolds on March 17, alleged that Speer testifying in support of House Bill 23-1202 was “outside the boundaries and scope of authority granted to individual Council Members as defined by the city charter and code” and she first needed approval from the Council’s Intergovernmental Affairs Committee (IGA). The bill would have allowed municipalities to authorize overdose prevention centers, but it was postponed indefinitely in late April.

The investigation, which was led by

Dan Vogel, found that because Speer obtained approval from Carl Castillo, the city’s chief policy advisor, the “entire process appears consistent with other instances when city personnel have testified on pending legislation.” Additionally, Vogel found no evidence city personnel need approval from the IGA Committee or the full Council before providing such testimony. Reynolds told Vogel she didn’t write the complaint, but sent it to the city with her name on it from an individual Reynolds declined to identify.

STATE HELPS HOMEOWNERS RESPOND TO WILDFIRES

Gov. Jared Polis signed four bills in the last week to help Coloradans prepare for, prevent and respond to wildfires.

Two bills, HB23-1174 and HB231288, address insurance challenges in the state by minimizing the risk of being underinsured after a natural disaster. Following the Marshall Fire, many survivors faced severe underinsurance — some up to $700,000 (News, “In Limbo,” December 29, 2022).

Democrat Judy Amabile, who sponsored both of these bills, did not respond to an interview requests by press time.

The other two bills help communities rebuild after disasters. HB23-1240 waives sales and use tax on construction materials for communities rebuilding from wildfire, and HB23-1254 ensures rental properties impacted by disaster return to safe conditions for tenants.

People experiencing homelessness on the streets of Denver.

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LIGHTNING CRASHES

Local prog-funk freaks

Thunderboogie are out to cause a scene

BY KATIE RHODES

Lifelong musician and lyricist Jake Downey sat down next to Lauren Tyler at a party two years ago, guitar in hand, working through a bassline that had just popped into his head. He was surprised when she started singing along.

“I told her, ‘I’m going to build a band around your voice,’” Downey remembers.

At this point, the core group that would become Thunderboogie was already writing and playing music together. Downey had left behind his last project, a band called Amphibious Man, when Tyler came into the picture, but it would be another year before she officially joined the group.

“We didn’t want to bring in a singer, especially someone as talented as [Tyler], until we had a band,” Downey says.

After that, the dominoes fell quickly. Pedro Urbina and Bryan Degase joined on guitar, with John “Goody” Goodman on keys. Ryan Wheele had already been drumming with Downey, working on what he describes as “fleshing out a lot of the alchemy” that became Thunderboogie’s “bass-driven progressive drum sound.” In fact, almost all of the current band members had played together at some point. Once Tyler got on board, the circle was complete.

Although there seems to be some debate among members as to what

the band’s actual genre is, Tyler says one common thread is the outfit’s knack for pushing the sonic envelope.

“I call it ‘silly rock,’” Tyler says with a laugh. “It’s basically just all experimental. That’s where you get the unexpected basslines and riffs.”

It’s those unexpected moments that make Thunderboogie a counterintuitive musical experience. Unconventional

hooks slide through alt-rock chords and bass-forward melodies while Lauren’s soulful croon breaks through with depth and mastery. Playing with so many different sounds could have potentially led to an off-kilter, jam-band disaster — instead, the band has turned it into their greatest strength.

“Complication comes with the territory,” Downey says. “It’s about finding a way to string different sounds together in a way that’s complementary and complex.”

‘MY WHOLE GOAL IS TO MESMERIZE’

The members of Thunderboogie agree that while they’re all equal partners in the band, the main vision behind the music is Downey.

“He understands rhythm [and melody] better than anyone I know,” Wheele says. “It’s not academic for him, though. He just knows it intuitively.”

Things started moving forward for the band pretty quickly after a February show this year at Sanitas Brewing Company, which resulted in their first live album. Now Thunderboogie is booked through August, with upcoming shows at The Fox Theatre on May 19 and Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom on June 2.

“Right now things are so fresh and it feels like we have endless space to move into,” Goodman says. “We have this huge backlog of songs Jake’s been

writing for years that we’re working through, putting our own flavor and twist on things. We have a lot of freedom to messy-up these melodies he’s written, which is nice.”

Tyler brings a little something extra to the table as well – Jake may be the mastermind, but she drives the energy on stage with her ecstatic, wide-ranging vocals, singing and dancing at the same time without missing a beat.

“My whole goal is to mesmerize,” she says.

It seems that the whole band, although a motley crew, shares a similar vision for creating a spectacle. See it for yourself over the upcoming months at performing venues on the Front Range, including a string of performances from May 26 through June 4 with the Denver-based Life/Art Dance Ensemble.

“We’ve played to a ton of different kinds of crowds, but our shows have really become something special,” Wheele says. “Friends and strangers coming together to hear us play [and] vibe out with us … it’s a dream. Hopefully it’s just the beginning.”

ON THE BILL: Thunderboogie and The Casino Effect with Curb Surfer. 8 p.m. Friday, May 19, The Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. $18

Thunderboogie performs at The Fox Theatre in Boulder on Friday, May 19. Artwork courtesy the artist.

“Our shows have really become something special,” says Thunderboogie drummer Ryan Wheele. Photo by Alyssa Montaño / Rocky Montaño Photography.

BEGIN AGAIN

Christian Lee Hutson gets started on ‘Quitters’

BY JEZY J. GRAY

Laughter is the first sound cutting through the tape hiss on Quitters, the sophomore offering from L.A.-based singer-songwriter and guitarist Christian Lee Hutson. It comes from session player Harrison Whitford on bass, caught in a giggling fit over the near-dozen false starts to “Strawberry Lemonade,” the record’s breezy and brutal opening ballad. But it doesn’t take long after the chuckling fades for things to turn.

“What a pitiful hill to climb / every night of my evil fucking life,” Hutson sings from the perspective of a partied-out nostalgic, head pressed against a taxi cab’s plexiglass partition after a night of serious drinking. “208 to the end of the line / I swear I’m really done this time.”

You’ll meet similarly desperate characters across the rest of Quitters’ 46-minute runtime: emotionally stunted thirtysomethings in questionable relationships (“Age Difference”), injured ice skaters reckoning with new realities (“Triple Axel”) and a menagerie of other lonely and wounded Angelenos who stitch together the record’s intimate collage-style approach to storytelling. The combined effect is similar to Hutson’s 2020 debut, Beginners; but here in his heartfelt follow-up, a complicated love letter to California, he pushes subtly but surely into new territory.

“It feels like my entire life was writing Beginners,” the 32-year-old says of the fault line between his twin LPs. “It felt more like a mission statement of what I am interested in musically, and just songwriting in general. With Quitters, I wanted to take aspects of all the things we did before and see if there’s still room to move around … to experiment and see if it’s any good.”

Story is still king on Quitters, but part of Hutson’s experimental drive meant finding opportunities to pull away from

the comforting embrace of narrative and into a more impressionistic mode of songwriting. Take the back-half’s moodiest offering, “Black Cat,” which finds Hutson doing his best doubletracked Elliot Smith impression (a mellotron used in-studio by the late music icon appears earlier in the record) while skating across a series of disparate images: a yawning feline, an actor’s thrown roses and a handful of pocket change fished from a public fountain in the stillness of a sundrenched morning.

“I was trying to get out of my own head,” Hutson says. “I can get very formulaic in the way I write, and that was a fun way of just breaking up the formula by not having any rules, and not being precious about it.”

ALONE TOGETHER

Hutson’s approach on Quitters ran counter to the strategy behind his fussed-over debut, whose songs were recorded in a number of different styles and arrangements before becoming the meticulously crafted collection released by indie juggernaut ANTI- Records in the pandemiccrushed summer of 2020. The refresh was spurred in part by the decision to forgo digital recording for analog tape,

which meant exploring the creative possibilities of imperfection.

“I like those moments that remind you that you’re listening to people in a room playing music,” Hutson says. “You can really strangle the life out of a song by going over your mistakes and getting them exactly perfect. Since none of us really knew that much about tape or how to use it well enough to really get proper edits done, they had to stay in. That makes a record feel alive to me.”

This people-in-a-room vision for Quitters is a natural growth point for a career built on creative collusion. In addition to working again with collaborator and indie superstar Phoebe Bridgers — returning in her producer role alongside Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes — the album features contributions from a murderer’s row of musicians and songwriters rounding out Hutson’s extended network of fellow travelers.

“I just really like working with my friends,” says Hutson, who co-wrote songs from Bridgers’ 2020 breakout Punisher, along with the BridgersOberst collab Better Oblivion Community Center and debut from sad-girl supergroup Boygenius. “It’s like the difference between being a solo artist and

being in a band. When you’re a solo artist, it can sometimes feel like you’re on a whole other planet by yourself — so a bad show can feel like an indictment of your entire personhood. When you’re in a band, if you play a bad show, you’re part of a team. No one has to take the full brunt. The victory and failure is distributed evenly.”

But there’s something more fundamental to Hutson’s collaborative spirit than spreading around the glory and gloom of creative life. It’s also an opportunity to color his work with the kind of eye-to-eye authenticity that comes from an honest exchange between peers. And as the artist looks at the map of possibilities spreading out before him in his emergent career, he sees a path best taken together.

“I have a tendency to be very hard on myself and think I need to be perfect when I’m alone. And I’m reminded of how much more fun and interesting it is to not be perfect when I get to work with other people,” he says. “I think it’s easier to make an honest contribution that way.”

ON THE BILL: Christian Lee Hutson and Fenne Lily with Anna Tivel. 8 p.m. Saturday, May 20, Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. $20

Quitters is available now via ANTI- Records.

Christian Lee Hutson brings his warm and wistful brand of acoustic guitar-driven indie rock to Bluebird Theater with Fenne Lily on Saturday, May 20. Photo by Michael Delaney.

VIBRATIONS’

BY TONI TRESCA

Even as times change, the topic of women’s sexual pleasure remains taboo in some circles. That’s why local director Heather Frost wanted to put the subject center stage in Theater Company of Lafayette’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s 2009 work, In The Next Room (Or The Vibrator Play).

“When I was growing up, you didn’t talk about masturbation until you found a close group of girls you could ask all the questions you needed to know the answers to,” Frost says. “This play is incredibly beautiful because it allows us to have these conversations together. I thought women’s ability to talk about their sexualities was improving, but I’ve been disappointed by the number of questions I’ve received about attending the show because of its subject matter.”

Ruhl’s script explores the early history of the vibrator as an instrument for treating “hysteria” in women (and occasionally men) by inducing orgasms. The story set in the 1880s revolves around wealthy, analytical scientist Dr. Givings (Ronan Viard) and his wife, Catherine Givings (Hannah Embree), whose marriage is tested by the invention of his unorthodox new medical treatment.

But this buzzed-about history isn’t simply an invention for the stage. Ruhl cites a number of nonfiction books in her playwright’s notes that she says helped support the historical elements of her work, including The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel P. Maines, AC/ DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War by Tom McNichol, A Social History of Wet Nursing in America: From Breast to Bottle by Janet Golden and Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages by Phyllis Rose.

“Things that seem impossibly strange in the following play are all true — such as the Chattanooga vibrator

[dubbed the “Cadillac of vibrators” in Maines’ 1999 book] — and the vagaries of wet nursing,” Ruhl says. “Things that seem commonplace are all my own invention.”

Frost was recommended the script by local actress Renee Sobering, whom she had directed in Coal Creek Theater of Lousiville’s 2014 production of The Great American Trailer Park Musical. Sobering said Frost would offer the perfect guiding vision for the show, so the director ordered the script and immediately fell in love with its women-focused fusion of heart and humor.

“I mostly do musicals, so every time I had the chance to pitch this show, I would pitch it with a musical, and the musical would get accepted,” Frost says. “However, due to the pandemic, several of the theaters in Boulder County where I usually pitch had already stated they would not be doing musicals until at least 2024, so this one jumped to the top of my list — not only because I love the script, but also because Roe v. Wade was overturned. I believed Ruhl’s examination of women’s treatment in the medical field was important for today’s audience to hear.”

‘IT’S PART OF EVERYONE’S LIFE’

To help the cast contextualize the history of the vibrator, Frost enlisted the assistance of Front Range Community College professor Catlyn Keenan, whose areas of expertise include religion, violence and sexuality studies.

“Using a vibrator would not have been considered sexual because of the way female anatomy was viewed at the time,” Frost says. “It was literally thought of as a release of hysterical energies, and that was sort of the ‘aha’ moment for all the women involved. It was not sexual; rather, these scenes of masturbation were a tactic to help patients be relieved of intense emotions.”

Along with Keenan’s dramaturgical help, the cast also worked with Aynsely Upton, an intimacy coach and actor who plays Dr. Giving’s patient, Sabrina Daldry, who helped establish clear boundaries among the cast and crew.

“We discuss the body in terms of ‘open gates’ and ‘closed gates,’ and each person may have different boundaries,” Upton says. “For example, the front of my chest is closed. We focused on desexualizing the language to be as sensitive to people’s comfort levels as possible. From the beginning of rehearsals, the entire team was on board. Now that we’ve established that

practice, we don’t have to stop to discuss touching each other; we can just be in the moment.”

The majority of Upton’s scenes center on her treatment with Dr. Givings, which she says is the most vulnerable she has ever felt onstage. “Heather helped me get to where I needed to be for those moments to work, but you don’t know how an audience is going to react,” Upton says. “A majority of my nerves were because I didn’t know how this was going to be received, so on opening night, when they all laughed, that was all I needed to know that every decision we made as a team was the right one.”

And while Frost understands people’s initial apprehension about the play, she hopes audiences will put their hangups aside. “It’s sad to me that we still need to have these conversations,” she says. “Women’s sexuality is the same as men’s sexuality; it’s part of everyone’s life. America needs to move beyond its Puritan roots to have an open discussion about women’s emotional, mental and sexual health.”

ON

In

STAGE:

the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) by Sarah Ruhl. Various times through May 20, Mary Miller Library Theater, 300 E. Simpson St., Lafayette. $25

‘GOOD

Theater Company of Lafayette’s ‘Vibrator Play’ has plenty to buzz about

Hannah Embree and Aynsely Upton in Theater Company of Lafayette’s production of In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) Photo by Cristina Twigg.

The cast of In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), running at Mary Miller Library Theater in Lafayette through May 20. Photo by Cristina Twigg.

FROM ‘THE OLD COUNTRY,’ WITH LOVE

Local monthly showcase celebrates ‘music of the diaspora’

BY ADAM PERRY

The sounds filling Denver’s Mercury Café at the end of each month may come from Colorado musicians, but the traditions behind them traveled a long way to get here. That’s the idea driving Festo Festo, a regular showcase of mostly traditional European folk music and dance, connecting local communities whose paths to the Front Range began at scattered points across the globe.

“I think of it as music of the diaspora,” says Denver trumpeter Tung Pham, co-founder of Festo Festo and longtime member of 10-piece brass band Gora Gora Orkestar. “The goal of Festo was to bring communities together: people who are in the Jewish community, people who are in the Balkan community, people who are in the folkdance community, and musicians. We originally thought, ‘Let’s get these groups together [to] share ideas … and dance together.’”

This month’s featured artist is the Boulder Klezmer Consort, whose musical lineage traces back to the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. Festo Festo is usually held on the last Thursday of each month, but since that falls on the Jewish high holiday of Shavuot this time around, the upcoming edition will happen on Tuesday, May 23. But regardless of when they take the stage, bandleader Sheldon Sands — who met Festo Festo coorganizer Eitan Kantor in Boulder a few years ago — says he jumped at the opportunity to take part in the showcase spearheaded by a collaborator he admires.

“We’ve had numerous chances to share a stage — he has an awesome voice, musicality and presence,” Sands says. “I guess you can say we belong to a mutual admiration society.”

Sands first got into Klezmer music — whose name comes from a Yiddish contraction of the Hebrew words kley

says. “While I didn’t grow up on it, all four of my grandparents were born in the late 19th century in the shtetles — the small towns with Jewish populations — of Eastern Europe. This was the music played at weddings and other simchas (happy events). I sometimes feel while performing like we’re embodying the spirit of those times and places, and encouraging, as my ancestors did, the impulse to find joy and laughter in the midst of all life’s challenges, which they certainly had their fair share [of], and we do as well.”

‘THIS IS MY JUDAISM’

Before he became a music teacher for Denver Public Schools and fiddlervocalist for local groups like Upsherin and Hadgaba, Festo Festo co-organiz-

it’s not an Israeli or even simply a Jewish artform, but rather a musical melting pot representing the forced migration of communities across the map.

“This music is very much European, with some influences from places like Turkey,” he says. “I don’t relate to this as Israeli music, and my family isn’t from Israel. I’m excited to learn about where my family is from and not necessarily be playing Israeli music.”

Kantor’s fellow co-organizer Pham, who grew up in Boston, took a different path to the world of traditional European folk music: joining the circus.

“We started to get into Balkan and Klezmer music, and sort of circusmusic fusion. When I moved to Colorado for graduate school, I started my own band and zeroed in on the Balkan and Klezmer idiom for our brass band, and met co-conspirators in Boulder who were so welcoming in the folk-music community,” Pham says. “It’s just what I’ve been doing for a long time now … 14 to 15 years.”

As for your average Festo Festo, which really got going in July of last year, visitors can expect two house bands (Gora and Upsherin) and then the featured act, culminating in a 30-minute jam session involving musicians and dancers that include both the scheduled artists and the audience.

(“instrument”) and zemer (“song”) — as a student at Naropa University in the 1980s. Traditionally featuring instruments like violin, accordion, tuba and hammered dulcimer, he says he found the genre “fun and expressive, also sometimes downright hokey.” But after 20 more years of immersion in various genres of international music, Sands found a passion.

“I get particular joy playing this music and sharing it with our greater community, who regardless of background have been incredibly receptive,” he

er Kantor grew up with traditional music. He remembers being blown away by Itzhak Perlman in the film In the Fiddler’s House as a kid.

“I didn’t take that out much into the non-synagogue world until I was in Hadgaba, when I started to learn that there were both Jews and non-Jews who were excited to dance to this music and learn [it] outside of the synagogue context,” Kantor says. “I was one of those guys.”

One of Kantor’s missions with Klezmer music is to teach people that

“There are a lot of unaffiliated young Jewish people for whom this is one of their main forms of connection to Jewish life and Jewish culture,” Kantor says. “Somebody even said to me, ‘I don’t go to synagogue, so this is my Judaism.’”

Klezmer music is a traditional European folk genre featuring instruments like violin, accordion, tuba and hammered dulcimer. Photo by Alyssa Montaño / Rocky Montaño Photography.

FJALLRAVEN HIKE + YOGA

6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 18, Chautauqua Park, 900 Baseline Road, Boulder. $15 (members), $35 (non-members)

Usher in summer the Boulder way: with a hike up Chautauqua, followed by a little outdoor yoga. Fjallraven, the Swedish outdoor brand whose brick and mortar has become a staple on Pearl Street, hosts the event including yoga and gear discounts, free swag and more.

TOUR DE VICTORY

7 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, May 20, YMCA of Northern Colorado, 2800 Dagny Way, Lafayette. $100

20K, 50K or 100K — riders far and wide are invited to the Tour de Victory, a noncompetitive cycling event with proceeds supporting the Davis Phinney Foundation, whose mission is to improve quality of life for people with Parkinson’s Disease.

17- 21

COLORADO MAHLERFEST

Various times. Wednesday-Sunday, May 17-21, various locations. Free to $48

Celebrate legendary Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer Gustav Mahler at Colorado MahlerFest — a multi-day event complete with chamber performances, classic symphonies, panels and more. Read last week’s BW story on the festival at boulderweekly.com, and check out the full schedule and locations at mahlerfest.org

21

20

THE UPSLOPE GET DOWN

2-10 p.m. Saturday, May 20, Upslope Brewing Company, 1898 S. Flatiron Court, Boulder. Free

Let loose at Upslope this Saturday at their annual Get Down event — a day of music, community and (of course) plenty of craft beer. Rain or shine, Upslope will throw a killer party featuring The Main Squeeze, Shakedown Street, Guerilla Fanfare and more.

20

GO TOPLESS DAY

11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, May 20, Left Hand Brewing, 1265 Boston Ave., Longmont. Free

It’s not what you think: Left Hand Brewing invites you to their Longmont beer garden to enjoy the warm weather and craft brews alongside a top-down Jeep parade — plus kids’ activities, vendors and opportunities to support local hunger advocacy org Food For Thought.

STRAWBERRY FESTIVALVINTAGE & ANTIQUE MARKET

9 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday, May 21, Boulder County Fairgrounds, 9595 Nelson Road, Longmont. $10

Support the St. Vrain Historical Society with “an array of vintage and antique dealers in art, furniture, jewelry, primitives, clothing, collectibles” and more during this weekend’s Strawberry Festival at the BoCo Fairgrounds. What’s old is new again at this annual show that’s been a local staple for more than half a century.

EVENTS

NOTICE TO CREDITORS

Estate of Dan Fraenkel, Deceased

Case No.: 2023PR030229

All persons having claims against the above-named estate are required to present them to the Personal Representative or to the District Court of Boulder County, Colorado on or before September 11, 2023, or said claims may be forever barred.

Rachel Fraenkel, Personal Representative c/o Howard O. Bernstein, P.C. at 1111 Pearl Street, Suite 203 Boulder, Colorado 80302

21

THREE LEAF FARM TOUR

1-2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 21, Three Leaf Farm, 445 S. 112th St., Lafayette. Free

Ever had a nice dinner at Chautauqua Dining Hall? How about a relaxing morning at Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse, or a delectable meal at Zucca Italian Ristorante? If you answered yes, chances are the ingredients came from Three Leaf Farm. Come out for this Sunday tour to see where some of our community’s best farm-to-table products get their start.

21

EARTH SONGS

3 p.m. Sunday, May 21, First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St., Boulder. Free

Join Denver Women’s Chorus in celebrating our earth and sounding the alarm on climate change at Earth Songs. Vocal performances at this eco-conscious event will include songs by Joni Mitchell, Jonathan Larson and more.

22

JAZZ JAM SESSION

7 p.m. Monday, May 22, The Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Boulder. Free

21

AIDS CANDLELIGHT MEMORIAL

6 p.m. Sunday, May 21, First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St., Boulder. Free

Join the International Candlelight Vigil for HIV/AIDS, one of the world’s oldest and largest grassroots campaigns dedicated to spreading awareness of a virus that has claimed too many lives. Sunday’s memorial event features a silent walk through downtown Boulder.

22

IN SOLIDARITY: PRISON PEN PAL WRITING GROUP

5:30-7:30 p.m. Monday, May 22, Equality Center of the Rocky Mountains, 3340 Mitchell Lane, Boulder. Free

Want to support LGBTQ people behind bars? Out Boulder County hosts this prison pen pal writing group at the Equality Center of the Rocky Mountains on Monday to show solidarity with incarcerated members of the community, who are more likely to experience violence amid the “dehumanizing, dangerous and traumatizing” experience of being locked up.

Live jazz and improv go hand in hand, and you can experience the thrill in-person at The Muse Performance Space. Join host Brad Goode as the local musician leads a full-bodied, all-ages jam session at this intimate Boulder venue. 24

WEDNESDAY WALTZ, ETC.

7:30-9:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 24, Avalon Ballroom, 6185 Arapahoe Road, Boulder. $10

Feeling classy? Don’t miss next week’s Wednesday Waltz at Avalon Ballroom, with opportunities for other forms of couples dancing like tango, foxtrot, swing and more.

Please send us your story on what you did that was nice.

We will pick four stories per month and will present a check to each winner for $250.00.

LIVE MUSIC

THURSDAY, MAY 18

STARLIGHT AND PINE.

5 p.m. BOCO Cider, 1501 Lee Hill Drive, Unit 14, Boulder. Free

FUQUA, SHAW, RABIN TRIO.

7 p.m. R Gallery + Wine Bar, 2027 Broadway, Boulder. Free

KENNY LEE YOUNG

5 p.m. The Tap Room Restaurant and Bar, 500 Interlocken Blvd., Broomfield. Free

TRASH PANDA 7 p.m. Marquis Theater, 2009 Larimer St., Denver.

$30

FRIDAY, MAY 19

THUNDERBOOGIE AND THE CASINO EFFECT WITH CURB SURFER. 8 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. $18

Story on p. 16

THE DESERT FURS. 9 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 16th St., Boulder. $10

JENN CLEARY 6 p.m. BOCO Cider, 1501 Lee Hill Drive, Unit 14, Boulder. Free

VIOLET PILOT 6 p.m. Wibby Brewing, 209 Emery St., Longmont. $10

RADIO FREE BASSANDA

7:30 p.m. The Spark, 4847 Pearl St., Suite B4, Boulder. $20

MUNA WITH NOVA TWINS

8 p.m. Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop St., Denver. $40

Story on boulderweekly.com

FRUIT BATS WITH KOLUMBO.

8 p.m. Ogden Theatre, 935 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. $26

BUSINESS CASHMERE WITH REDAMANCY AND MAY BE FERN.

8 p.m. Globe Hall, 4483 Logan St., Denver. $15

ON THE BILL

Don’t miss legendary music artist GZA of Wu-Tang Clan — whose 1995 solo effort Liquid Swords rocked conceptual hip-hop to its core — as he performs the classic in-full at Boulder Theater on Tuesday alongside Denver cult-favorite Ramakhanda. Scan the QR code to read a BW feature on drummer Chree Bagheera ahead of next week’s show. See listing for details

VOODOO LILY 7 p.m. Diner Bar, 160 Main St., Lyons. Free

SATURDAY, MAY 20

CHRISTIAN LEE HUTSON AND FENNE LILY WITH ANNA TIVEL

8 p.m. Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. $20 Story on p. 17

RICO NASTY WITH OMERETTA THE GREAT. 9 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. $30

KINGS OF PRUSSIA. 9 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 16th St., Boulder. $12

ALEX WIRTH.

6 p.m. BOCO Cider, 1501 Lee Hill Drive, Unit 14, Boulder. Free

ANNA CUTLER WITH STURTZ

6 p.m. Oakley Art House, 6610 S. Boulder Road, Boulder. Free

BRENDAN ABERNATHY

8 p.m. Roots Music Project, 4747 Pearl, Suite V3A, Boulder. $12

GBH & D.R.I. WITH MDC, INTENT AND NIIS 7 p.m. Gothic Theatre, 3263 S. Broadway, Englewood. $25

GLOBAL DUB FESTIVAL.

5 p.m. Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre, 18300 W. Alameda Parkway, Morrison. $75

BRICK + MORTAR WITH JHARIAH AND POLLYANNA. 8 p.m. Globe Hall, 4483 Logan St., Denver. $20

MARMAHOG 7 p.m. Diner Bar, 160 Main St., Lyons. Free

SUNDAY, MAY 21

TWISTED PINE + FIRESIDE COLLECTIVE 8 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. $18

JD CORDLE & ELLEN RICE

4 p.m. BOCO Cider, 1501 Lee Hill Drive, Unit 14, Boulder. Free

SCOTT VON 4 p.m. Left Hand Brewing, 1265 Boston Ave., Longmont. Free

ATREYU WITH WITHIN DESTRUCTION, LYLVC AND LOLA BLACK. 6 p.m. Gothic Theatre, 3263 S. Broadway, Englewood. $25

OPIUO. 5:30 p.m. Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre, 18300 W. Alameda Parkway, Morrison. $65

SHANIA TWAIN. 7:30 p.m. Ball Arena, 1000 Chopper Circle, Denver. $100

MONDAY, MAY 22

COLORADO’S BLUEZ CATZ BLUES JAM 7 p.m. The Speakeasy, 301 Main St., Longmont. Free

JAZZ JAM SESSION WITH BRAD GOODE 7 p.m. The Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Boulder. Free

TUESDAY, MAY 23

GZA WITH RAMAKHANDRA. 8 p.m. Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder. $27

BW PICK OF THE WEEK

Y LA BAMBA WITH RITMO CASCABEL 8 p.m. Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. $22.50

FESTO FESTO FEAT. BOULDER KLEZMER CONSORT 7-9:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 23, Mercury Café (Jungle Room), 2199 California St. Denver. $5 Story on p. 23

WEDNESDAY, MAY 24

CHICKEN WIRE EMPIRE. 8:30 p.m. Roots Music Project, 4747 Pearl, Suite V3A, Boulder. $10

ON STAGE

An R&B legend gets her due in Miss Rhythm: The Legend of Ruth Brown, an “intimate cabaret experience” at the Garner Galleria Theatre exploring the life and times of the groundbreaking artist who left an indelible mark on midcentury popular music and transformed Atlantic Records into “the house that Ruth built.” See listing for details.

ON VIEW

Need a little local flavor? You’ll find it at NOW: Colorado Creatives Unleashed, an exhibition of recent works by Centennial State artists at R Gallery + Wine Bar featuring landscape, abstract works, sculpture and more — from the traditional to the avantgarde, and shades in between. (Credit: Sean Gray)

ON THE PAGE

As an immersive journalist, Ted Conover’s work has taken him from guard work at Sing Sing prison in New York, to staying with offgridders in the farreaches of the San Luis Valley — that’s the subject of his latest book, Cheap Land Colorado, which he’ll read from next week at Inkberry Books in Niwot. Scan the QR code to read a BW feature on the author. See listing for further details.

IN THE NEXT ROOM: THE VIBRATOR PLAY. Mary Miller Library Theater, 300 E. Simpson St., Lafayette. Through May 20. $25. Story on p. 19

ROPE Louisville Arts Center, 801 Grant St. Through May 20. $28

SCHMALTZY & PRINCIE: DIARY OF A NOT-SO-GREAT DADDY’S GIRL. Grace Gamm Theater at Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder. May 19-20. $25

NEWSIES The Unitiive Theatre, 800 S. Hover Road, Suite 30, Longmont. May 19-21. $25

LOVE’S LABOR’S WON Dairy Arts Center, Carsen Theater, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder. Through May 21. $25.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC BDT Stage, 5501 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder. Through Aug. 19. $75

MISS RHYTHM: THE LEGEND OF RUTH BROWN Denver Center for the Performing Arts (Garner Galleria Theatre), 1101 13th St. Through Oct. 15. $46 BW PICK OF THE WEEK

MADELIFE PRESENTS: ART FOR HOPE 1421 Pearl St., Boulder. Through May 24. Free

JERRIE HURD: BEYOND THE MALE GAZE BMoCA at Macky, 1595 Pleasant St., Boulder. Through May 26. $2

LASTING IMPRESSIONS

CU Art Museum, 1085 18th St., Boulder. Through June 2023. Free

COLORADO CREATIVES

UNLEASHED R Gallery + Wine Bar, 2027 Broadway, Boulder. Through June 4. Free BW PICK OF THE WEEK

REINVENTING SUPERMOM: SUPPORT, ENCOURAGEMENT AND STRATEGIES FOR NEW MOTHERS WHO FEEL LOST BY KATE KRIPKE

6:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 18, Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl St., Boulder. $5

SATURDAY STORYTIME WITH STORYTIME STAR HEATHER PREUSSER. 11-11:30 a.m. Saturday, May 20, The Wandering Jellyfish Bookshop, 198 Second Ave., Suite 1A, Niwot. Free

ON KEEPING A NOTEBOOK (A WORKSHOP TO DEVELOP A WRITING PRACTICE) 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Monday, May 22, The New Local, 741 Pearl St., Boulder. $55 (Ages 18+, includes all materials)

AUGMENTED ORGANICS:

ELEANOR SABIN, CHERYL COON AND ALEXANDRA CHRISTEN-MUNOZ Firehouse Art Center, 667 Fourth Ave., Longmont. Through June 4. Free

EXPLORATIONS OF RESILIENCE AND RESISTANCE / OUR BACKS HOLD OUR STORIES 4550 Broadway, Suite C-3B2, Boulder. Through June 28. Free (by appointment only)

ONWARD AND UPWARD: SHARK’S INK CU Art Museum, 1085 18th St., Boulder. Through July 2023. Free

BERLIN BY BEA SETTON 6:30-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 23, Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl St., Boulder. $5

CHEAP LAND COLORADO: OFF-GRIDDERS AT AMERICA’S EDGE BY TED CONOVER 7-8 p.m. Wednesday, May 24, Inkberry Books, 7960 Niwot Road, Niwot. Free. BW PICK OF THE WEEK

START MORE THAN YOU CAN FINISH: A CREATIVE PERMISSION SLIP TO UNLEASH YOUR BEST IDEAS BY BECKY BLADES 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 24, Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl St., Boulder. $5

SIN EATER

Paul Schrader is up to his old tricks in ‘Master Gardener’

BY MICHAEL J. CASEY

The man sits alone in his room. His name is Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton) and he is a gardener, but he might as well be Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) or gambler William Tell (Oscar Isaac) or any one of writerdirector Paul Schrader’s “man in a room” protagonists.

Schrader’s latest, Master Gardener, forms the final entry in what many critics consider an unofficial trilogy, the previous entries being 2017’s First Reformed and 2021’s The Card Counter. All three are good (one is great), but the quality

here is not the interest. What makes these movies work — and work well — is how each of them takes philosophical queries of redemption and forgiveness and sets them in the muck and mire of the real world. Watching these movies is one thing, wrestling with them — well, that’s what it’s all about.

And you will wrestle with Master Gardener. The story concerns Narvel, the man in charge of a large Southern plantation’s botanical garden, Gracewood Gardens. Gracewood’s owner, Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver), has a spe-

cial task for Narvel: Maya (Quintessa Swindell), Norma’s biracial niece, has recently lost her mother and is coming to work and live at the plantation, and Norma wants Narvel to prepare Maya for inheriting the estate. Will do, says Narvel, a measured man and a compelling teacher. His compliance is no surprise to Norma. She knows he will do whatever she asks of him. Narvel has a past and Norma is helping him run from it.

“I was raised to hate people who didn’t look like me,” Narvel says. “And I was good at it.” That’s putting it lightly. A reformed white supremacist, Narvel’s skin is a flag for hate, a mark of Cain that’ll never quite wash off. He tells Maya this, and she internalizes it to a point. No one wants their present, let alone their future, to be defined by their past. Still, few can deny that who they once were isn’t a part of who they are.

Master Gardener could be, maybe should be, the most incendiary movie of the summer. But for that to happen, people would need to see it. Schrader, who has been making movies since the early-1970s, has never received the same attention as his contemporaries. And though he has directed a dozen or so astounding films, he is and will always be best known for the scripts he’s penned, particularly the ones directed by Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, even The Last Temptation of Christ). And not without reason — though what Schrader

achieves with his last three movies feels unique to modern cinema. For many filmmakers, questions of faith, forgiveness and redemption are easy allegories trotted out to provide density. Not so with Schrader: He hits these questions head-on and refuses to provide easy outs.

But Master Gardener is far from perfect. There is one scene in particular — let’s call it the “show me your skin” scene — that feels so off it has to represent something more. Then there’s Norma (Desmond, perhaps?): too conveniently one note. The age difference between Narvel and Maya is obvious, but the way Schrader presents the two characters, you almost get the feeling they are stand-ins for their respective generations, with the younger one healing the older by bringing them to clarity. That almost makes sense in theory, but there’s so little theory in Master Gardener that it feels like a stretch.

What isn’t a stretch is Edgerton’s performance — outstanding — and Schrader’s continued exploration of the man in the room and the sins that put him there. There’s an old sentiment that a filmmaker really only makes one long movie throughout their life. That rings true here. Though for many, that familiarity is a crutch. For Schrader, it’s a revelation.

ON SCREEN: Master Gardener opens in limited release on May 19.

Joel Edgerton and Quintessa Swindell in The Master Gardener Photo courtesy Magnolia Pictures.

ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNY

ARIES (MARCH 21-APRIL 19): Aries dramatist Samuel Beckett, winner of the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote 22 plays. The shortest was Breath. It has no dialogue or actors and lasts less than a minute. It begins and ends with a recording of the cry of a newborn baby. In between there are the sounds of someone breathing and variations in the lighting. I recommend you draw inspiration from Breath in the coming weeks, Aries. Be succinct and pithy. Call on the powers of graceful efficiency and no-nonsense effectiveness. Relish the joys of shrewd simplicity.

TAURUS (APRIL 20-MAY 20): In the coming weeks, you Bulls must brook no bullies or bullying. Likewise, you should tolerate no bullshit from people trying to manipulate or fool you. Be a bulwark of integrity as you refuse to lower your standards. Bulk up the self-protective part of your psyche so you will be invincibly immune to careless and insensitive spoilers. Your word of power is BUILD. You will align yourself with cosmic rhythms as you work to create situations that will keep you strong and stable during the next 12 months.

GEMINI (MAY 21-JUNE 20): How much do you believe in your power to become the person you want to be? Ninety percent? Fifty-five? Twenty? Whatever it is, you can increase it in the coming weeks. Life will conspire with you to raise your confidence as you seek new ways to fulfill your soul’s purpose. Surges of grace will come your way as you strive with intense focus to live your most meaningful destiny. To take maximum advantage of this opportunity, I suggest you enjoy extra amounts of quiet, meditative time. Request help from the deepest core of your intelligence.

CANCER (JUNE 21-JULY 22): Early in the 19th century, cultural researchers Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm gathered an array of old folk stories and published a collection of what we now call fairy tales. Because the two brothers wanted to earn money, they edited out some graphic elements of the original narratives. For example, in the Grimms’ revised version, we don’t get the juicy details of the princess fornicating with the frog prince once he has reverted to his handsome human form. In the earlier but not published stories of Rumpelstiltskin, the imp gets so frustrated when he’s tricked by the queen that he rips himself apart. I hope you will do the opposite of the Brothers Grimm in the coming weeks, Cancerian. It’s crucial that you reveal and expose and celebrate raw, unvarnished truths.

LEO (JULY 23-AUG. 22): Is there a job you would love to have as your primary passion, but it’s different from the job you’re doing? Is there a calling you would delight in embracing, but you’re too consumed by the daily routine? Do you have a hobby you’d like to turn into a professional pursuit? If you said even a partial yes to my questions, Leo, here’s good news: In the coming months, you will have an enhanced ability to make these things happen. And now is an excellent time to get underway.

VIRGO (AUG. 23-SEPT. 22): Virgo-born Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) was a versatile virtuoso. He excelled as an essayist, biographer, playwright, editor, poet and lexicographer. How did he get so much done? Here’s one clue. He took his own advice, summed up in the following quote: “It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote. Present opportunities are neglected and attainable good is slighted by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.”

Johnson’s counsel is perfect for you right now, Virgo. Forget about the future and be focused on the present. Dive into the interesting work and play that’s right in front of you.

LIBRA (SEPT. 23-OCT. 22): I would love you to go searching for treasure, and I hope you launch your quest soon. As you gather clues, I will be cheering you on. Before you embark, though, I

want to make sure you are clear about the nature of the treasure you will be looking for. Please envision it in glorious detail. Write down a description of it and keep it with you for the next seven weeks. I also suggest you carry out a fun ritual to formally mark your entry into the treasure-hunting chapter of your life.

SCORPIO (OCT. 23-NOV. 21): In the coming weeks, you’ll be guided by your deep intelligence as you explore and converse with the darkness. You will derive key revelations and helpful signs as you wander around inside the mysteries. Be poised and lucid, dear Scorpio. Trust your ability to sense what’s important and what’s not. Be confident that you can thrive amidst uncertainty as you remain loyal to your core truths. No matter how murky this challenge may seem, it will ultimately be a blessing. You will emerge both smarter and wiser.

SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22-DEC. 21): If you take the Bible’s teachings seriously, you give generously to the poor and you welcome immigrants. You regard the suffering of others as being worthy of your compassionate attention, and you express love not just for people who agree with you and share your cultural traditions, but for everyone. Numerous Biblical verses, including many attributed to Jesus Christ, make it clear that living according to these principles is essential to being a good human. Even if you are not Jewish or Christian, Sagittarius, I recommend this approach to you. Now is an excellent time to hone your generosity of spirit and expand your urge to care for others.

CAPRICORN (DEC. 22-JAN. 19): In 1982, Capricorn actor Ben Kingsley won an Oscar for his role in the film Gandhi. Then his career declined. In an animated movie in 1992, he voiced the role of an immortal frog named F.R.O.7. who worked as a James Bond-like secret agent. It was a critical and financial disaster. But Kingsley’s fortunes rebounded, and he was nominated for Academy Awards in 2002 and 2003. Then his trajectory dipped again. He was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor for four separate films between 2005 and 2008. Now, at age 79, he’s rich and famous and mostly remembered for the great things he has done. I suggest we make him your role model for the coming months. May he inspire you to emphasize your hits and downplay your misses.

AQUARIUS (JAN. 20-FEB. 18): I’m devoted to cultivating the art of relaxation. But I live in a world dominated by stress addicts and frenzied overachievers. Here’s another problem: I aspire to be curious, innocent, and open-minded, but the civilization I’m embedded in highly values know-it-all experts who are very sure they are in command of life’s secrets. One further snag: I’m an ultra-sensitive creator who is nourished by original thinking and original feeling. And yet I constantly encounter formulaic literalists who thrive on clichés. Now here’s the good news: I am a successful person! I do what I love and enjoy an interesting life. Here’s even more good news, Aquarius: In the next 12 months, you will have a knack for creating rhythms that bring you closer than ever to doing what you love and enjoying an interesting life.

PISCES (FEB. 19-MARCH 20): Most of us suffer from at least one absurd, irrational fear. I have a daft fear of heights, even when I’m perfectly safe, and a manic fear of mosquitoes dive-bombing me as I sleep, an event that has only happened four times in my life. My anxiety about running out of money is more rational, though, as is my dread of getting sick. Those worries help motivate me to work hard to earn a living and take superb care of my health. What about you, Pisces? Do you know which of your fears are preposterous and which make at least some sense? The coming weeks will be a favorable time to get a good handle on this question. Ask yourself: “Which of my fears are misdirected or exaggerated, and which are realistic and worthy of my attention?”

SAVAGE LOVE

BY DAN SAVAGE

Dear Readers: We’re rerunning some very early columns while I recover from shoulder surgery. This column is from February 1999 and doesn’t appear in the online archives.

HEY, DAN: I feel dirty. Not dirt that can be wiped away with a Wet Nap, but two-cans-of-Ajax kind of dirty. Alas, no matter how hard I scrub, I can’t get the memory of this man off of me. The urge to grab an SOS pad and scrub my nether regions is almost irresistible. Long story short: I spent the last year ass-over-teakettle for an older man who never made me feel very good about myself.

This is a man who refers to a certain male movie star, whom he met 20 years ago in an acting class, as “Robin.” This is a man who — IN ALL SERIOUSNESS — gives that speech about how he’s a loner, so please don’t fall in love with him. This man questioned every positive step I made in my life, in an attempt to keep me in obsessive crazy love with his rickety frame. I’m furious with myself for letting it go on as long as it did, and for ignoring the broken hip, butterscotch pudding and adult diaper jokes my friends threw at me in an attempt to bring me to my senses.

Do not label me “bitter”— that’s too easy. What I need from you is an answer to a simple question. I know that not even Dan Savage can turn back time. I mean, if Cher can’t, you can’t… but I ask you, Dan, is there any way you can un-sleep with someone?

— Filthy in New York

HEY, FINY: If un-sleeping with this man is your goal, you don’t want time turned back. You want time to pass, and pass quickly. Because it only takes three to four weeks for your skin, your epidermis, to replace itself completely. But for all intents and purposes, a month after this sorry affair ended, the skin covering your body never touched the skin covering his. You never even shook hands.

As for the rest of your body — vaginal canal, esophagus, stomach lining, rectum, and any other organs and orifices that came in contact with his organs or ejaculate — it’ll take more time for the cells comprising those tissues and organs to regenerate and replace themselves. But rest assured: You will, in time, have brand new everythings. The life cycles of various cells range from months to years, but soon enough you’re going to be a whole new woman, FINY, a woman who never touched that creep. So, there’s no need to take an SOS pad to your nether regions, as soon they won’t be the nether regions he touched. They’ll be new and improved nethers. Brain cells, unfortunately, are not regenerated, so you’ll be stuck with the memories forever. You could regard them as having been falsely implanted by an unethical therapist, or, if that’s too passive, you could drink them away. Alcohol kills brain cells, and with a lot of cosmos and a little luck, you may kill the very cells that store the memories of this sorry affair. Be careful, however, that in your efforts to drink away your bad memories you don’t create new, equally regrettable ones.

FOR THE LOVE OF BACON

Boulder author finds a hundred and one ways to celebrate the smoky, spicy, salty, sweet meat candy

BY JOHN LEHNDORFF

Eliza Cross grew up on bacon in Boulder.

“My earliest memory of bacon was my dad cooking it when I was a little girl,” she says. “It’s one of those smells and tastes I’ll never forget, like instant love.”

This was the first inkling that the veteran Colorado author would eventually dive headlong down the bacon rabbit hole.

“Mom made peanut butter, butter and bacon sandwiches on her homebaked whole wheat bread. It’s a strange sandwich, but I loved it,” she says. (Actually, it wasn’t that weird for Colorado. Elvis Presley and his crew famously flew to Denver in the ’70s

simply to eat a Fool’s Gold — a sourdough loaf stuffed with peanut butter, jelly, and a pound of very crisp bacon.)

Cross’ obsession got serious 15 years ago when she wrote 101 Things To Do With Bacon (Gibbs Smith).

“I had wanted to write it for a long time, but my publishers turned it down because bacon is too unhealthy. A couple of years later, they changed their minds,” she says with a chuckle. The book is now in its third printing, and Cross followed it up more recently with a sequel, 101 More Things to Do With Bacon, adding recipes for everything from bacon pecan sticky buns to grilled bacon peanut butter sandwiches.

BENSA: THE CLUB FOR PORK ‘GENIUSES’

In writing the books, Cross discovered she wasn’t alone in her pork belly obsession.

“It was fun to write because people who love bacon are so enthusiastic,” Cross says.

“I thought it would be fun to bring this community together. Almost as a joke I started blogging and created this little society for bacon lovers.”

BENSA is an acronym for Bacon Enthusiasts ‘n’ Swine Aficionados. “It’s a take-off on the group MENSA, the club for super-geniuses,” she says. “We accept bacon lovers at all intelligence levels. You may not be able to get admitted to MENSA, but we will welcome you into BENSA.”

The BENSA website provides a wealth of tested recipes for cream of bacon soup, bacon mac and cheese, bacon fat ginger cookies, bacon onion jam and bacon vodka, the perfect spirit for bloody marys.

“Bacon vodka infused with cooked chopped bacon is kind of amazing, like bacon elixir,” she says. Bacon vodka fits the current mixology trend of using “fat-washed” spirits in cocktails.

COLORADO: THE STATE OF BACON

According to Cross, Colorado’s bacon bona fides are strong, with big events like the Denver Bacon and Beer Classic on May 22 and Keystone Resort’s Bourbon and Bacon Festival June 24 through 25 featuring a baconeating contest, bacon tastings and Camp Bacon for kids.

Local house-smoked bacon is available at places like Blackbelly Market and Arapahoe Meat Co. in Lafayette.

“What I see in Colorado is a movement towards using heritage breeds, supporting sustainable local farming practices, and a bit healthier product using natural ingredients,” Cross says. Asked to name her top, widely available Colorado bacons, Cross objects.

“That’s like picking your favorite child, but I’m a fan of Tender Belly, a well-known Colorado brand, and River Bear, which makes a really nice uncured bacon,” she says. “There’s a good newer producer in Carbondale called Fryingpan Bacon,” she says.

Courtesy: Eliza Cross

A pint of bacon.’ Photo courtesy Eliza Cross.

WHERE TO DINE ON GREAT SWINE

It’s hard to find a local eatery that doesn’t have any bacon on its menu — even if it’s coconut “bacon,” but some restaurants celebrate bacon in the center of the plate. William Oliver’s Publick House in Lafayette offers a “pint of bacon” — multiple bacon strips in a beer glass with maple syrup for dipping. Bacon jam is used as a condiment at the Organic Sandwich Company in Boulder and Louisville.

REFINING YOUR COOKING TECHNIQUE

The BENSA website provides a wealth of information about preparing and serving bacon, but Cross favors one technique for achieving perfect strips.

“If I’m making a batch of bacon, I cover a baking sheet with foil, then a sheet of parchment paper to keep the bacon from sticking,” she says. “I lay the strips out and bake them at 325 degrees until crisp, which varies depending on thickness. I flip them once and the whole process takes about 20 or 30 minutes.”

“I like Bacon Social House because they serve a flight of bacon strips and include a pair of scissors to cut the strips in pieces to share,” Cross says. “For me, that’s just nirvana.”

“We recently took my mom to Le French Café in Boulder and had a wonderful savory crepe filled with mushrooms, Swiss cheese and bacon,” she says. She also praises the “amazing” bacon macaroni and cheese at The Truffle Table in Denver.

The most popular BENSA recipe is bacon candied with brown sugar and maple syrup. “It gets crispy and almost crunchy on the outside,” Cross says.

Tough as it is to believe, Cross insists she’s only scratched the candied, smoked and peppered surface of the international bacon scene. “I still haven’t smoked my own pork belly to make my own bacon,” Cross says.

There is a recipe for using a pellet smoker to craft bacon at home and more information at: bensabaconlovers.com

LOCAL FOOD NEWS: CITY NIXES VOODOO’S PINK

In a quintessential Boulder code-violation moment, the much-anticipated Voodoo Doughnut, 3210 Arapahoe Ave., will open, but not wearing the company’s signature shocking pink. The building was recently repainted in boring, code-complying shades of gray. I was just thinking that Boulder needed another bland commercial building on Arapahoe Avenue. Luckily, heavily glazed maple bacon bars will be served.

WORDS TO CHEW ON

“Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.”

— From A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.

Lehndorff hosts Radio Nibbles on KGNU. Podcasts: news.kgnu.org/category/radio-nibbles

John

Whether the sun is shining or snow is falling, our little corner of Pearl Street is the perfect place to soak up winter in beautiful Boulder! Feast alongside the jellyfish, sink into a lounge or take a seat at one of our lively bars.

Prefer the great outdoors? Our fireside patios are the coziest place to savor those mild winter days.

When your own couch is calling, all of your favorites are available for curbside pickup too.

No matter how you choose to dine don’t miss our ever-evolving specials, delicious seasonal cocktails, and latest rare whiskey!

THE BOMB

— fried balls of dough and octopus covered with teriyaki, mayo and dried bonito flakes — sushi tacos with spicy toro, spicy scallop, unagi and tamago and beef tataki, which sees thin slices of rare beef covered in a citrus-soy dipping sauce. “We’re planning to combine modern and traditional cuisine, adding more creative items into it,” Ivy says. Sweeping changes to the list of rolls are set to begin appearing on the menu throughout the summer. “We’re also planning to have seasonal seafood,” Ivy adds. “Some more additions are rare finds in Colorado, such as oysters, Kanpachi [baby yellowtail], and uni [sea urchins]. We will also later add ramen into the menu because of how many people love it.”

Sushi Hana celebrates 11 years in business with a series of updates

STORY AND PHOTOS BY COLIN WRENN

On any given afternoon, longtime locals can be found strolling into Sushi Hana (1220 Pennsylvania Ave., Boulder) to be warmly greeted by the owners, who everyone knows as Ivy and Larry.

Born Min Yang and Yi Jiang, the husband and wife duo met in New York after both emigrated from South China. Larry grew up in Lanqi, a fishing village near the Taiwan Strait. It was there that he developed what seems to be an inborn sense for assessing quality fish. “He can tell the freshness based on the scales,” says Ivy.

In 2012, the duo moved to Boulder on a whim. “We wanted to open our own small family business,” says Ivy. In May of that year they debuted Sushi Hana at the base of the Hill, complete with a solid chef’s counter and intimate dining room.

Larry had been working in sushi restaurants across New York, where his natural deftness with all things aquatic was married with solid chops. The

opening menu at Hana had all the essential trappings of a fine sushi counter, with well-defined lists of rolls, starters, sashimi, and nigiri bolstered by sake and fish coming from Japan, Alaska and California.

Quickly, Sushi Hana became a university hangout. “Ninety-eight percent of our customers, they are college students,” says Ivy, noting that Hana has sold more than its fair share of California rolls and sake bombs.

In the summer of 2022, Ivy and Larry did a full revamp of the dining room, hoping to make the place a bit more hospitable to families and older patrons. “We wanted to provide a more peaceful environment. I don’t know how many families were scared away by the banging on the table,” says Ivy, referencing the traditional and garish preamble that takes place before sake bombs get chugged.

Ivy and Larry are both jovial hosts, and by no means have

any intention of quieting the celebratory atmosphere that has become a fixture at Sushi Hana. So they’ve been making updates carefully and gradually with a firm sense that a strong drinking culture can coexist alongside increased refinement. “We’ve opened the doors for the residents,” says Ivy.

In the last couple of months, the duo began to introduce a series of Cantonese-style dim sum items including succulent crystal shrimp dumplings and classic cheese wontons with crab and celery.

This comes alongside more traditional Japanese starters including takoyaki

While there’s plenty of creativity to be found across the Hana original rolls — take the Orange Blossom Roll with white tuna, salmon, chives and mandarin oranges — some of the best items on the menu are the most simple. Larry’s knack for picking prime fish comes across best in the nigiri and sashimi. The sushi entrées are affordable and well-stocked, with combos beginning at just $21. The blue fin toro nigiri should be a part of any complete meal. It’s also a great drinking snack that goes nicely with a fine list of cold sakes.

No visit is complete without trying the Ninja Fruit Roll, a dessert roll that combines thinly sliced strawberry, kiwi and mango with bites of crunchy cheesecake all wrapped up in rice and chewy rice masago.

Sushi Hana’s ongoing transformation has situated it nicely in that happy inbetween that has all the excitement of a back-alley sushi dive while still serving food fit for discerning palates. This is now a place where bombs and flights ungrudgingly commingle, with options fit for the penny-pinching student all the way to the lavish gourmand. “We opened the sushi restaurant to make a living in the beginning,” Ivy says. “After 11 years running the business, we are ready for the next level.”

Open-faced hand rolls.

Yi Jiang, known by Sushi Hana guests as Larry.

PEDAL TO THE MEDAL

Boulder Spirits debuts Special Release Series with a San Francisco Double Gold

BY COLIN WRENN

Every spring, the preeminent palates, authors, influencers and experts from across the alcohol world hold a massive blind tasting out West. The San Francisco World Spirits competition sees four days of rigorous, highly controlled tastings, and since 2000 it’s been setting the bar and calling the shots for who is crowned the best of the best.

At this year’s event, which took place April 13 to 15, Boulder Spirits took home a double gold for its 2022 limited release, The Trailhead.

While the imprint Boulder Spirits has only been around since 2018, the business has roots dating back to 2007, when Ted Palmer launched the ginfocused Roundhouse Spirits in a small facility in Longmont. In 2012, current owner Alastair Brogan moved to Colorado from Motherwell, Scotland. By 2014, he came on as a partner and the distillery became Vapor. It was with the launch of the first American Single Malt in 2018 that the spirits were rebranded, though

the production facility maintained its original name and continues to produce white label hooch under that designation.

Medals from all the big ones — including the World Whiskey Awards and the International Wine and Spirits Competition — line the walls of Vapor’s East Boulder tasting room. The team has been winning awards, many of them double gold or platinum, every year since the launch of the first bourbon in 2017.

“Awards like this really do provide a sense of accomplishment,” says Brogan. “The time and effort we’ve put into distilling and aging whiskey for the past eight years is really paying off recently.”

While the Vapor team had been planning to institute a Special Release series, the development of The Trailhead happened somewhat by acci-

dent. A barrel of the already four yearaged American Single Malt and a barrel of the peated variation were both aging in some sherry barrels. The team had no plans to cut them loose. So why release it?

“Because it tastes so fucking good,” says Negley. And while the majority of the 850 bottles were sent to Alberta and British Columbia, Negley says there’s still roughly 50 bottles still for sale at the tasting room for $95 a pop.

“We don’t believe there’s a $100 bottle of whiskey that’s under eight to nine years old,” says Negley. “We put that price on it because we knew it was good. With the special releases it’s got to be a limited amount, but also flavor.”

The whiskey is an incredible sipper and more than justifies the price tag. That it serendipitously launched the series and acted as Negley’s first foray into blending also helps solidify its lore.

“This was our first chance to really flex in that blending capacity,” says Negley, noting that the follow up, an expression by the name of The Ten Essentials, will launch in late July or early August. It will combine single malt from four different oaks — port, sherry, armagnac and American.

Negley says the series will continue with names that allude to all things outdoors, with an annual release he hopes

will grow into the kind of debauchery found at a Stranahan’s Snowflake launch party. “Alastair didn’t move here because he likes the rain,” says Negley with a laugh. “It’s not a theme, it’s a lifestyle.”

It should come as no surprise that Boulder Spirits have become such critical darlings. Water comes from Eldorado Springs with grains arriving from the U.K.-based Muntons, the same company used by many of the isle’s heavyweights, including Macallan. “If you start with quality, in theory, you end with quality,” Negley says.

The Trailhead wasn’t the only release to catch the kingmakers’ attention within the last year. The Colorado Straight Bourbon Five Year popped up at number 10 on author and critic Fred Minnick’s Top 100 American Whiskeys for 2022 alongside the likes of George T. Stagg and the Old Fitzgerald 19 Year. And while that batch is sold out, the 2023 edition is set to be released on June 1.

In addition, Vapor will be helping Root Shoot Malting — a fifth generation family farm in Loveland that supplies barley, wheat, rye and non-GMO corn to craft brewers and distillers — launch its own whiskey. “We’ve got the biggest pot still in the state. So they wanted to see how their malt performs at a worldclass level,” says Negley. The brand is set to launch this summer.

WEED WEB 2.0

BY WILL BRENDZA

Online cannabis sales were legal in Colorado for just over a year thanks to one of the executive orders signed by Gov. Jared Polis during the COVID-19 pandemic, D 2020 011. And now, after a threeyear hiatus, online sales are coming back — this time, permanently.

Executive Order 11 was one of the least controversial orders the governor signed in 2020. It allowed businesses to sell, deliver and offer takeout services for alcohol. It suspended vehicle weight restrictions so emergency supplies could be delivered. And it postponed physical examinations for medical cannabis card issuances.

But the order also made it possible for cannabis businesses in Colorado to accept online orders — something the law explicitly prohibits normally.

Colorado’s temporarily legal online ordering service was one a lot of people took advantage of during the pandemic; to skip the lines, to avoid as much in-person contact as possible, and sometimes just because it was convenient. And everything ran smoothly for almost 14 months, right up until Executive Order 11 expired

and online sales became illegal again.

In February 2021, Rep. Matt Gray tried to pass HB21-1058, Promoting Social Distancing in Marijuana Industry, which would have made online cannabis sales permanently legal here. However, despite the temporary permittance of online sales for so long without incident, HB21-1058 became entangled with public fears and an ongoing debate surrounding underage access to cannabis products (Weed Between the Lines, “Concentrated Regulation,” July 1, 2021). The House Finance Committee shot Gray’s bill down in a 7-4 vote on May 20, 2021.

But now, two full years after the last legal online cannabis sales were made, Gov. Polis has signed a new bill into law that will reallow Coloradans to buy weed online. HB23-1279, the Allow Retail Marijuana Online Sales bill, permits dispensaries to “accept payment online for the sale of retail marijuana and retail marijuana products.”

Cannabis pre-orders are currently legal. But they still require the customer to make their purchase in person at the dispensary. This bill changes that, though it would still require the cus-

tomer to provide a valid ID to prove they are of age either at the dispensary or to a delivery driver upon pickup.

Not only will this bill bring the cannabis industry into the e-commerce era, it will help address several serious problems the cannabis industry faces today — the largest of which has to do with banking. Currently, banks that openly accept cannabis business money risk losing their banking insurance, which is why many of them still refuse to accept cannabis business customers. That’s also why the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act was

a workaround to the banking problem through online sales.

Not only will that make transactions easier for dispensaries, it will make them safer. Because most dispensaries encourage or flat-out require cash purchases, they’re put in a dangerous situation. With so much cash on hand all the time, dispensaries have become a target for robbery — which sometimes ends in violence. By allowing dispensaries another alternative to cash transactions, the state is helping reduce that problem.

And finally, this might be the push Colorado needs to help get cannabis delivery services off the ground.

reintroduced into the House last month for the third time since 2019 (Weed Between the Lines, “Reintroducing SAFE,” March 25, 2021). That bill would offer protections for banks so that they could finally accept money from these state-legal businesses. However, HB23-1279 would provide

Cannabis delivery business licenses have been reserved for social equity companies — businesses owned by people disproportionately affected by the war on drugs — and dispensaries are required by law to use social equity transporters or business owners for delivery services (Weed Between the Lines, “Punch the Gas,” Feb. 16, 2023). But it hasn’t taken off. For a host of reasons, cannabis delivery isn’t a service the public is widely taking advantage of, primarily because the laws surrounding delivery are complicated and require significant investments from dispensaries to partner with a third-party social-equity transporter. Many hope that legal online orders will simplify that and help delivery businesses finally get off the ground.

HB23-1279 will take effect sometime in mid-July, making things easier, safer, and hopefully more equitable for everyone.

Colorado legalizes online cannabis purchases, which could have cascading positive effects on the industry