City Weekly January 12, 2017 by Copperfield Publishing

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t e e w S e h T BILLS

WHY, LORD ?!

E R U T A L S I G E L N

Bud! Booze! Teacher turnover and etention!

SEE Strapping Youth Once Active, Now Blinded by Pornography!

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CWCONTENTS COVER STORY LEGISLATURE PREVIEW

Liquor, porn, golden retrievers, oh my! Legislative madness is upon us. Cover photo illustration by Derek Carlisle

CONTRIBUTOR

4 LETTERS 6 OPINION 8 NEWS 21 A&E 25 DINE 31 CINEMA 33 TRUE TV 34 MUSIC 44 COMMUNITY

RYAN CUNNINGHAM

Cover story, p. 15 This Salt Lake City-based writer and bareback equestrian has served as a reporter, producer and host for Utah Public Radio and KCPW, covering everything from Mars research to the Utah Legislature. He will eat those breadsticks if you don’t want them.

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Group looks into potential LDS church tax-exempt code violations.

Where’s the beef baube Provençal?

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COMMENTS@CITYWEEKLY.NET @SLCWEEKLY

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This is ridiculous, and this man is looking for help in all the wrong places.

CRAIG PERRY

Women should not be objectified because he can’t get a date.

Nicely done, City Weekly, I see you’ve managed to bring out the haterade drinkers. Via Facebook

News, Dec. 29, “A disabled man’s fight to legalize sex work in Utah veers into stormy waters”

Of course they should [be legal]. I’m not interested in visiting one, but this is the land of the free. Let people live how they want. America needs to stop trying to parent its citizens.

KEVIN MCHENRY Via Facebook

Well, I can see points from both sides of the argument. ... If we are to ever explore the path proposed by opening up a brothel, I feel like it opens up more questions than it solves problems. I’m not saying there aren’t women who honestly enjoy this type of work, but for them it’s a highly personal job that comes with tons of risks, and I would imagine it’s often not done because they want to do it. There would need to be thorough regulation and the women who are actually doing the work would need to be compensated fairly; and how exactly do you define that? There are few things to me worse than sexual exploitation, and that’s exactly what I wouldn’t want to see happen here. I don’t know the guy in the article, but there’s more to life than feeling a need to constantly fulfill sexual gratification, and that’s where his position loses me. I feel bad for him in that sense, but that doesn’t entirely justify his arguments for why this should happen here.

ALAN RUSSELL ROE Via Facebook

Coal miners sell their body for money, too.

LINDSEY CAITLIN Via Facebook

SUE STORY Via Facebook

I personally believe sex work should be legalized nationwide. The legalization of it will bring regulations and protections for both workers and their clients. As it stands, a worker can be arrested if she reports a client that has abused and/or stolen from her, which is why many workers end up relying on a pimp or madam for protection. This means the client ends up beaten or killed instead of facing due process for their crimes, and I’m sure we all know the stereotype of a worker being beaten by her pimp. Countries like Germany and New Zealand saw a drop in violence against sex workers after they chose to legalize this profession. Something else to consider is that some pimps and madams have criminal affiliations and legalization would reduce money flow to these organizations. For those worrying about the health of the workers and clients, legalization would bring about mandatory testing that would drastically reduce the transmission of STIs. Remember: Keeping it illegal won’t stop it from happening and it needlessly increases the risks for everyone involved. And for those opposing it for religious reasons, that’s perfectly fine since you can have whatever faith or beliefs you choose, but please remember that religion has no place in legislation. I know this article will likely start some heated debates, but stay civil and don’t resort to name-calling. Being able to hear and consider all arguments surrounding this is necessary if you want a law to be made due to an informed decision instead of pressure from one side or another.

JESSIE GREEN

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Cover story, Dec. 29, “The Year in Photo Review”

STEVE P. CROWTHER

E E K LY

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| VOL . 33 N0.

Opinion, Dec. 29, “Voting in the Past Election”

Mr. Rosenzweig’s opinion piece points the finger at the short attention spans and social-media dependency of Americans in general and millennials in particular in order to explain why “Berniacs became moths attracted to the Donald flame,” apparently alluding to widespread defection from progressive values in favor of the “shiny new object” of Trump. Who are these mythical Bernie-ites who changed their tune post-primaries to rally for the xenophobic, racist, sexist playground bully that is Donald Trump? If anything, Bernie supporters threw Trump their vote only in as much as they refused to vote for Clinton, and judging by Clinton’s landslide victory at a margin of nearly three million popular votes (the most votes ever collected by any losing presidential candidate in history), it’s safe to assume the bitter Bernie-ites sucked it up and voted blue in a half-hearted shrug of solidarity to keep the Orange Menace out of the White House. Make no mistake about the importance of the question that Rosenzweig’s essay attempts to answer: Why would Americans accept change from a bigot over and above the election of another establishment candidate? This much is clear: Americans who felt the Bern and those who voted for a pig in a wig are desperately seeking a renewed vision of what kind of life is possible in America. Far from all Trump supporters constituting a “basket of deplorables” who must simply be written off the agenda of progressive politics as a lost cause, many of these voters simply voted for the only agent of change that was visible from their television screens. To place blame on the

THE Y E

IN PHOATRO RE V

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American people for voting for the candidate who received more major media outlet attention than all of the other Republican candidates combined is to mistake the effect for the cause. Rather than lambast former Bernie supporters who voted for Trump, our efforts would be better spent determining the extent to which Bernie Sanders’ message was silenced by corporate media interests intent on turning a profit from Trump’s buffoonery at the expense of the American public.

SARAH MANLEY, Salt Lake City

Blog, Dec. 30, “Locals say goodbye to neighborhood dive bar”

I’m from Murray, and never really liked going there. But I appreciated it’s character and age. Although it wasn’t my scene, it’s sad seeing another old Murray establishment fade away.

CASEY NELSON Via Facebook

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GUEST

OPINION Singin’ in the Rain When I first heard that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was going to perform at Donald Trump’s inauguration, I had to chuckle a little for a few reasons. First, Trump has seemingly, on face value, always had a thin relationship with the Mormons. Generally, there is no love lost there. It’s a values thing, and the Donald does not exactly espouse the high moral ground and covenants of the LDS church. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a heart and soul, or conviction—spiritual conviction, that is. I’m not sure about the other kind. In fact, he might be a very soulful man, but, like many of us, he doesn’t wear it on his sleeve. It was hard to wrap one’s head around his campaign rhetoric—“We love the Mormons!” But apparently “the Mormons” loved Trump right back at the polls. Then there is Mitt Romney. What about Mitt? Was Trump ever sincere in his courting of him for the secretary of state title? Many insiders—and at least half of your Facebook feed—thought Trump was baiting Romney, setting him up for an embarrassing fall for all the things Mitt said about Trump during the campaign. On the surface, they are seemingly as different as two people can be. You could even say they are arch enemies. And now, having the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing at Trump’s inauguration could be viewed as the ultimate “in your face” gesture to Romney. Nasty business, politics. Now, for the entertainment portion of our program: When I read about choir member Jan Chamberlin quitting and saying that per-

forming at the inauguration would be akin to endorsing tyranny and fascism, I thought that was a bit of a stretch. It reminded me of Kim Davis, the county clerk in Rowan County, Ky., who defied federal law in 2015 by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because of her own personal moral convictions. Just like Davis, Chamberlin is only drawing attention to herself. And that’s fine if she wants to express her convictions—she is free to do so—but beyond that, she is unwittingly drawing negative attention to the whole inauguration process, and to the presidency. When it comes down to it, her actions will have little effect on suppressing the tyranny and fascism she believes Trump represents. “I only know I could never throw roses to Hitler. And I certainly could never sing for him,” Chamberlin said in her resignation letter, which she shared on Facebook. For all his faults (again, check your social media feed for real-time coverage), Trump is not Hitler. I don’t care for his behavior and publicized antics, his off-thecuff comments or even his personality. I’ll make my comments and state my business with my vote. President Ronald Reagan called the Mormon Tabernacle Choir “America’s choir.” The choir has a prestigious history of excellence. It has performed around the world, even in countries whose politics and policies Chamberlin would likely not agree with. Ironically—and apropos of the current events surrounding the Russian government and our recent election—the group has performed in Moscow. The choir transcends politics, it has a higher calling and a lofty mission. Some might argue that it is sacrosanct.

STAFF BOX

Readers can comment at cityweekly.net

BY JOHN KUSHMA They’ve performed at the inaugurations of 10 presidents beginning with William Howard Taft in 1909, and including Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush. Personal convictions aside, this historic event and time-honored inauguration performance is bigger than one person. This is a team and a national effort with profound international repercussions. Really, I’m OK with Chamberlin’s decision to quit. It’s absolutely her call and right to follow her own moral compass, and many have shown her admiration for her actions. The church has come out in support of her decision to quit, saying that the performance is voluntary to begin with, so no biggie. Many within the LDS Church support her decision as well. Looking at the bigger picture, a punitive response might’ve been, “Pack up your songbooks and clean out your locker … You’re fired!” And, Jan, what if … just what if it was your angelic soprano voice ringing true in the midst of the choir’s performance that caught President-elect Trump’s ear and brought him closer to your point of view and convictions and inspired him, as the choir always inspires all of us? What if this was your mission on Earth—to break through to Trump and make him see the error of his ways? What if it were your singular presence at the inauguration and your singular performance that were meant to change the course of history? Who knows? The Lord sure works in mysterious ways. Singin’ in the rain, Jan—it comes with the job. In fact, it just might be the job. CW

I ’LL MAKE MY COMMENTS AND STATE MY BUSINESS WITH MY VOTE.

WE WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE AFTER THE FIRST SESSION.

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John Kushma is a Logan-based communication consultant. Send feedback to comments@cityweekly.net.

If you got invited to sing at Trump’s inauguration, which song would you perform? Nicole Enright: RuPaul’s “Oh No She Betta Don’t.”

Camille Elmer: “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon.

Enrique Limón: The National Anthem. The Mexican National Anthem. Scott Renshaw: “Springtime for Hitler.” Tyeson Rogers: “Fuck tha Police.” Sierra Sessions: “The End of the World” by Skeeter Davis. Josh Scheuerman: Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House.”

Andrea Harvey: I would start with “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown, then finish with “Fuck You” by Lily Allen.

Sarah Arnoff: Why sing anything? How about 40 minutes of silence so people can sit quietly and think about what they’ve done.

Rhett Wilkinson: As a member of the MoTab? That (quite white) ship has sailed—I resigned my church membership!

Derek Carlisle: “Faith No More” by The Gentle Art of Making Enemies.

Paula Saltas: The Beatles’ “Back In the USSR.”

Bryan Bale: Detroit Rock Titties.

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We certainly don’t want our hunters hassled, especially in the rain, and that is good reason to loosen Utah’s already liberal gun laws. Rep. Lee Perry, R-Perry, wants guntoters to be able to slip a coat over their open-carry guns—just in case it rains— The Salt Lake Tribune reported. Not to worry. If someone whips it out and kills you, then they can be charged, probably with murder. But maybe just illegal concealing of a weapon. Gov. Gary Herbert vetoed a similar proposal in 2013, based on a false story about a hunter in the rain. As we have learned in this past election, stories—especially bogus ones—are really persuasive. The landscape has changed since 2013, and now Donald Trump wants to make it easier to buy firearm silencers, the Washington Post reported. Can you guess why? It’s to protect your delicate hearing. No, you can’t make this stuff up. It’s even called the “Hearing Protection Act.”

KEVIN WEEMS

Take an extra

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FIVE SPOT

Sex Ed

The Deseret News did something slightly unexpected. It ran a front-page package on sex education. Yes, “sex” was even in the headline. It couldn’t have come at a better time. Forget the pregnancy rate, think about chlamydia and gonorrhea. More than half of those reported cases hit 15- to 24-year-olds. And if you have to ask why, then you haven’t done your sex ed homework. Republicans and House Speaker Paul Ryan are giddy at the prospect of repealing Obamacare and, along with it, defunding Planned Parenthood, which mostly does breast exams, pap tests and STI screenings. The D-News noted that abstinence-only programs are a zero-sum game at best, and that there are many effective sex-ed programs out there. Of course, the paper talked about parental involvement. And, hey, it even did a feature on father-son conversations.

Public Lands

What hasn’t been said about Bears Ears? Probably very little, but that doesn’t mean that the public understands the issue or is anything other than polarized by it. Jim Stiles’ article in the Canyon County Zephyr takes an up-close-and-personal look at a very contentious issue and drives through the long and complicated history of public lands. While Utah’s attorney general gets ready to sue the feds over the designation, the real challenges remain. It’s what Stiles calls “industrial strength recreation.” After years of being ignored or unheard, the environmental community changed course and partnered with groups under the umbrella of recreation. Now the real issue is whether Bears Ears will become another Moab—over-populated and teeming with gas fumes from ATVs.

By day, Nathan Spenser is a cool substitute science and math high school teacher for the Granite School District. But two to five nights a week, he is in the Salt Lake City music scene as a multifaceted artist. He plays keyboard, guitar, mandolin and harmonica and sings in a band. He just turned 29, and holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Utah.

You have a lot of gigs for a school teacher. Where do you perform?

I do both public venues and private events. For instance, I have dates coming up on January 18 at Gracie’s and on February 2 and 16 at Twist. I also play at the Snowbird Tram Club, the Garage on Beck and out of state near Jackson, Wyoming, and in Las Vegas. Sometimes I perform solo and sometimes with my band, The Nathan Spenser Revue.

How did you get involved with music and public performance?

I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, and I went to local schools where I studied piano and keyboard. At 15, I got my first guitar, and by 18 I was playing local coffee shops. I found that I like blues and jazz, but more country and western. I definitely liked the local Salt Lake music scene, because fellow artists help push each other to become better.

What kind of music do you lean toward?

I get inspiration from artists like Bruce Springsteen and Norah Jones and Prince. Prince said his most favorite song is the next song he writes. I like that, and I write a lot, and mainly I gravitate to what we call Intermountain West; that is music from the Rocky Mountain region of Utah, Wyoming and Colorado—areas that reflect the Western motif. I love the John Denver style, but I can play a variety of styles, so I manage to get a lot of dates.

You have an extraordinary playlist. How do you manage to even remember all that without notes?

I’ve had lots of music theory, and we constantly rehearse like crazy. What defines a cool song for me—and that makes it easier to remember—is a story and music that is interesting. I step inside the story with my own interpretation. Stepping inside the story helps you deliver. Music is great for the soul; it creates happiness and joy.

You seem to have so much. Is there anything else you’d like?

Supporting live local music helps perpetuate this great culture of ours. People should come out more for live shows. And, meeting a nice girl would be nice.

—STAN ROSENZWEIG comments@cityweekly.net

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A s you discussed back in 1991, in the pre-civilrights-era U.S., “one drop of black blood” was often enough to label a person as black. Aside from President Obama, have there been any other American presidents who under the onedrop rule would have been considered black? —Rick Westerman Around the time of the 2008 election, some might remember, every piddly rumor about a former POTUS’ possible African heritage got a good airing under click-friendly headlines like “Is Barack Obama Really Our First Black President?” I won’t keep you in suspense— most professional historians agree he probably is. Which is a sign of a likely coverup, according to Dr. Leroy Vaughn, whose writings claim unacknowledged African descent for a number of previous presidents. His evidence? “Whatever evidence there is, it would be destroyed,” says Vaughn, who like any good conspiracy theorist finds proof of his belief in the apparent lack of proof. Vaughn, a Los Angeles ophthalmologist, is the author of the self-published Black People and Their Place in World History (2002), setting him in a line of black researchers who’ve sought to identify prominent, ostensibly white historical figures as having had African ancestry. The most famous of these was Joel Augustus Rogers—a respected journalist whose work nonetheless included the 1965 pamphlet The Five Negro Presidents, which, Henry Louis Gates has written, “would get the ‘Black History Wishful Thinking Prize,’ hands down.” Vaughn, though, cites Rogers as his most important source. Thus far, the roster of presidents alleged to have been secretly black includes Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Harding, Coolidge and Eisenhower. It’s an irony, of course, that in order to make the case that black Americans have regularly occupied the White House, Vaughn and his precursors often have to rely on stories of mixed-race parentage that originated as racist smears (a not uncommon political gambit in times past, as discussed here in a recent column on campaign trash talk). Thus Andrew Jackson is determined to have had a black father based on would-be damning stories told by his enemies, and Vaughn makes much of a claim about Thomas Jefferson—namely that he was “the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father”—that didn’t pop up till after the Civil War. Contemporary mentions of Abraham Lincoln having “woolly hair” and caricatures of him as “Abraham Africanus the First” are probably better understood as anti-abolitionist race-baiting rather than evidence about his actual lineage. But in the secretly-black-president biz, any rumor of illegitimacy is also considered de facto proof of black parentage. Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks, might have been born to unmarried parents—ergo, she was mixedrace. Abe’s own paternity has long been disputed, with as many as 16 men IDed as possible papas other than poor Thomas Lincoln,

BY CECIL ADAMS SLUG SIGNORINO

STRAIGHT DOPE Before Obama

who (depending on who you ask) was either rendered sterile by the mumps, mysteriously castrated or cursed with testicles “no larger than peas.” From here it’s just one mighty leap to the conclusion that Abe’s ethnic background has been swept under the rug. Calvin Coolidge must’ve been black, Vaughn asserts, because his mom’s maiden name was Moor. (By this logic, Hugo Black was our first African-American Supreme Court justice.) Furthermore, Coolidge’s mother was rumored to have a Native American forebear. There’s more so-called proof—in a 1993 book, another black-president theorist, Auset BaKhufu, argues that by 1800 Native Americans in New England had become thoroughly intermingled with the local black population. As for Eisenhower: Well, in 2004 a New York Times piece noted that “for decades there have been questions about the possible mixed-race ancestry of Ida Stover,” Ike’s mom, while providing no further context; the idea seems ultimately based on nothing more than Stover’s appearance in her 1885 wedding photograph. But at least one set of rumors has pretty well been put to rest. A 2015 DNA test of Warren Harding’s relatives found “no detectable genetic signatures of sub-Saharan African heritage,” suggesting less than a 5 percent chance that Harding had a black ancestor within four generations. Claims to the contrary had been promoted nearly a century earlier by an Ohio academic and Harding-hater named William Estabrook Chancellor and allegedly spread around by Harding’s irate father-in-law. These claims proved particularly persistent—Harding’s grandniece recalled her family telling her about a passerby who had peeked into her baby carriage and explained, “Just wanted to see if she was black.” For the other such stories, their supporters’ last line of defense is “Well, you can’t prove it’s not true”—an all-too-common rhetorical move in these credulous times. Of course, if you trace anyone’s lineage back far enough, who knows what you’ll find; rewind a couple thousand generations and we’re all African, so under the one-drop rule, there’s no such thing as a white person. Which there really isn’t anyway, just as “black blood” doesn’t exist—science has established that traditional race categories don’t line up well with any underlying genetic distinction. But it’s just about impossible to convince some people there’s no hidden history of black presidents—or at least no easier than convincing other people that our actual black president wasn’t born in Kenya. n

Send questions to Cecil via straightdope.com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 350 N. Orleans, Chicago 60654.

THE

OCHO

THE LIST OF EIGHT

BY BILL FROST

@Bill _ Frost

‘Em in the Quorum.

7. Bare Rears at Bear’s Ears: Furry Dudes’ Nature Campout.

6. Manual Relief Society: The Wife-Swapping Show.

4. Dumb & Hummer 5: Oral Exams.

Position.

2. Orgazmo. 1. Herbie the Wonder Weasel: Gov. Gary Herbert X-posed.

MLK PRESENTATIONS

While it took Utah awhile to warm up to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, there are now multiple opportunities to celebrate his life and hear about his dreams. Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams gives keynote speech “Celebrating the Dreams of the Beloved Community” at St. Stephen’s/San Esteban Episcopal Church, where the Granger Young Disciples of Christ sings in choir. The University of Utah presents its 30th annual celebration with Beneath the Hoodie: A Look at Racial Profiling in America—a conversation with Sybrina Fulton, mother of slain teenager Trayvon Martin. A separate event— “We Live It, We Breathe It, A Discussion on Systemic Racism”—is led by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a writer, journalist and educator who writes about the black American experience. Coates discusses cultural, social and political issues, particularly in regard to the black community. 4615 S. 3200 West, West Valley City, Sunday, Jan. 15, 5 p.m., free, ststephensut.com; Fulton talk: Olpin Student Union Building ballroom, 200 Central Campus Drive, Thursday, Jan. 16, noon-1:30 p.m., free, kingsburyhall.utah.edu; Coates talk: Office for Equity and Diversity, University of Utah, 201 Presidents Circle, Room 204, Wednesday, Jan. 18, noon-1:30 p.m., free, streamed at diversity.utah.edu/streammlk

—KATHARINE BIELE

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JANUARY 12, 2017 | 11

3. Elder Skelter: Missionaries in

Utah still lags behind the nation in the percentage of women in the Legislature—19 percent compared to 25 percent nationally. If you want to help bolster that number, the Real Women Run Training For Women Looking to Use Their Voice in 2017 and Beyond is the ticket. Real Women Run offers two sessions, with Celebrating the Political Kaleidoscope specifically aimed at diverse women candidates, where you can learn the numbers, the truths and fallacies, and get a look behind the scenes of a real campaign. The keynote address is by Patricia Russo, executive director of the Women’s Campaign School at Yale University. Local expert panelists and speakers share insights about leadership, volunteering, campaigning and serving on boards. Y WCA Utah, 322 E. 300 South, Salt Lake City, Friday, Jan. 13, 5:30-7:30 p.m.; Salt Lake Community College, Miller Campus, 9750 S. 300 West, Sandy, 801-537-8610, Saturday, Jan. 14, 8 a.m.-4 p.m., $15-$25, realwomenrun.org

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5. Good Swings Utah: The

REAL WOMEN RUN TRAINING

Laying on of Hands.

CHANGE THE WORLD

8. Backdoor Bishop 2: Score

In a week, you can

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Eight adult films that triggered Utah Sen. Todd Weiler to sue for damages:

CITIZEN REVOLT

Pronounced Echo

Deaths of homeless people in permanent supportive housing speak volumes of Utah’s overburdened, under-resourced system. BY STEPHEN DARK @stephenpdark sdark@cityweekly.net

rom 2014 through the end of 2016, 19 tenants and two unauthorized individuals died at Palmer Court, the Salt Lake City supportive housing complex home to 300 or so chronically homeless single adults and families. Eleven of those deaths were unattended, meaning they were not from natural causes—if you can call the multitude of medical issues that can follow and strike a formerly chronically homeless person finally housed “natural.” Four were alcohol-related, five were drug overdoses and one remains an open investigation. Most died alone in their apartment. Four of them were in a state of decomposition, a story tragically familiar to any apartment complex. The Salt Lake City Police Department reports documenting the deaths, which City Weekly accessed through a record request, make sad, bleak reading. There’s the Christmas card addressed to “Dad” in a box shipped to Utah from Kentucky. The father was “obviously echo,” an officer wrote, meaning dead. He lay on the bed in “a process of decomposition [that] was still visibly active.” His apartment was clean and tidy and there were pay stubs that attested to someone who had successfully built a new life for himself, finding temporary work at a Marriott hotel. Then there’s the poignant story of a mentally ill man whose wife had been dead for several days in bed, but he did not know what to do. Or the man who collapsed unable to breathe in the hallway, and a witness too traumatized to leave his room and seek help. Palmer Court is owned and run by downtown shelter The Road Home. “There are certainly some tragic stories in there,” Road Home’s Executive Director Matt Minkevitch says about the reports. “They reflect so much of the human suffering with which agencies like ours deal on a daily basis.” Stories of lonely deaths also transpire at Grace Mary Manor, a much smaller supportive housing complex for the chronically homeless run by Salt Lake County.

P U B L I C H E A LT H

It has 86 single-occupant apartments. In the past seven years, an average of eight people per year died at Palmer, while three or four died at Grace Mary. Excepting that is in 2015, when 15 residents died. The county’s Housing Authority director Zach Bale says he and his team “really dug into data” from that year, but “it was very difficult to find out why” so many had died in such a short period. Two social workers agreed to review the 21 reports on the basis of anonymity because they did not have permission from their agencies to discuss the work of others. “It does scream that we just need more [case managers]. We just need more. It’s got to be more individualized care, and a focus on substance abuse and mental health,” one said. Minkevitch says his “very experienced” case managers are working diligently, “knocking on doors every day, checking on their clients daily.” At the same time, he notes, if an individual refuses to meet with their case manager, it is not grounds for eviction. “That’s not what our housing model is directed to do. There aren’t sticks involved, it’s far more carrots and encouragement.” The death reports, in themselves, do little to reflect either the complex, trauma-heavy journeys of residents through years or decades of homelessness to permanent shelter, or the challenges of trying to provide services, support and care for individuals who, in some cases, would rather isolate themselves in their new apartment after years on the streets, sleeping on the floor or curled up against the wall because that is what is familiar. Palmer’s case managers and staff often have to rely on social events, Minkevitch says, like bingo, coffee hours or a movie, to coax people out of their apartments. For some advocates, there remains a disconnect between what they see as lip service by the state to housing the homeless and the paucity of funding available to deliver all that they need to rebuild and regain their lives once they are in housing. As Salt Lake City struggles with the public reaction to its announcement of four small sites within the metropolitan area, the long-term ramifications of what that will mean with regard to a deficit of beds available for shelter remain unclear. The Road Home, after all, can sleep up to 1,100 people a night at a push, while the new shelters promise beds for 600. Licensed clinical social worker and executive director of Utah Domestic Violence Coalition Jenn Oxborrow says 65 percent of homeless women are DV survivors, yet there is a lack of shelter for single women. “It really all comes down to funding and policy at the end of the day,” she says. “With the four new sites, you have to have comprehensive teams to support the needs of people or you’re just going to have a series of small Road Homes all over again.”

NIKI CHAN

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12 | JANUARY 12, 2017

NEWS

Advocates point to a chronic need for more services for the formerly homeless. Oxborrow criticizes the lack of funding available for case management and the wide array of services that are needed to tackle the mental, medical, substance abuse and trauma-related complexities of the street’s most vulnerable people who are funneled through what’s called the “triage” system to permanent supportive housing in places like Palmer and Grace Mary. “I don’t see administrators of funding looking for partnerships with direct service providers like Matt,” Oxborrow says. “I see funding administrators not driven by a sense of public stewardship to solve the problem. Folks like Matt are willing to do the hardest, messiest part of the work. Instead of funders giving them the ability to find solutions, we limit them, then criticize the work they’re doing on the ground, and it’s just not fair.” Case managers are the frontline troops in the daily battle to monitor, support, encourage and guide residents, even if some decline such efforts. “I think of them as a bridge,” Bale says. “We need low enough [case manager to client] ratios to make sure we can support and be present enough so we generally know what’s going on.” The ideal case manager-to-client ratio is 1 to 10 or 12. Bale says the county’s sites have roughly a 20 to 25 caseload, while Palmer has 1 to 30 or 32. Palmer Court’s case managers, staff and residents would inevitably benefit from a doubling of the ranks of case managers. “I would think that permanent supportive housing providers including The Road Home would benefit greatly from having additional case managers on the ground providing

additional services,” Minkevitch says. Case managers’ jobs are “frigging hard,” Bale says. Follow veteran street outreach worker Ed Snoddy at Volunteers of America around, and you’ll find he is a master of patience. “It’s an amazing combo of having the ability to nudge and push and cajole and at times steer and nudge [a client] into your car,” Bale says, to take them to a medical appointment or detox. A number of the death reports noted that the deceased tenants had missed recent medical appointments, such as for kidney dialysis. Minkevitch says the next step in the evolution of supportive housing has to be onsite medical services. While Bale sees a potential “shining light” in possibly hiring a nurse care manager to provide medical support for non-medical trained case managers, Palmer Court pursued a different route. With the help of the Association of Utah Community Health Centers’ Alan Pruys, The Road Home and Fourth Street applied for a federal grant from Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) to turn the former hotel’s banquet kitchen and restaurant into a satellite clinic operated by Fourth Street. While the clinic was not to be limited to Palmer residents, Minkevitch sees many advantages to such a clinic, including encouraging isolating tenants to attend health fairs, and potentially reducing the number of emergency calls to fire and police by both residents and staff. HRSA denied the application, however, and so it’s back to the drawing board. The clinic “simply should happen,” Minkevitch says. “It’s too important for it not to happen.” CW

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BY CHUCK SHEPHERD

WEIRD

Too-Much-Reality TV Russian producers are planning the so-farultimate survivors’ show—in the Siberian wilderness for nine months (temperatures as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit), with 30 contestants selected after signing liability waivers that protect the show even if someone is raped or murdered. Police may come arrest the perpetrators, but the producers are not responsible for intervening. The show (Game2: Winter) will be telecast live, around the clock, beginning July 2017 via 2,000 cameras placed in a large area full of bears and treacherous forest. Producers told Siberian Times in December that 60 prospects had already signed up for the last-personstanding prize: the equivalent of $1.6 million. Only requirements: You must be 18 or older and “sane.” Bonus: The production company’s advertising lists the “dangerous” behaviors they allow, including “fighting,” “murder,” “rape,” “smoking.” Roundup From the World’s Press With car-camel collisions increasing in Iran’s two southern provinces, an Iranian government ministry is in the process of issuing identification cards to each camel, supposedly leading to outerwear license “plates” on each of the animals. Authorities told the Islamic Republic News Agency the registration numbers are needed if an accident victim needs to report the camel or to help trace smugglers. (No actual U.S.-style license plates on camels have yet made the world’s news photographs.) n Martin Shkreli became the Wall Street bad boy in 2015 when his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, bought the right to market the lifesaving drug Daraprim and promptly raised its typical price of $18 a pill to $750, but in November, high schoolers in the chemistry lab at Sydney Grammar in Australia created a molecular knockoff of Daraprim for about $2 a tablet. Their sample of “pyrimethamine” (Daraprim’s chemical name) was judged authentic by a University of Sydney chemistry professor. Daraprim, among other uses, fights deadly attacks on immune systems, such as for HIV patients.

Gazing Upon Nature as Nature Calls To serve restroom users in a public park in China’s Hunan Province’s picturesque Shiyan Lake area, architects gave users in toilet cubicles a view of the forest through ceiling-to-floor windows. To discourage sightseers who believe the better view is not from the cubicles but into them. The bottom portion, up to the level of the toilet, is frosted—though that stratagem probably blurs only a pair of legs, seated. CNN reported in October that China has at least one other such restroom, in Guilin province, viewing distant mountains. n Oops! Organizers of the Christmas Day caroling program at the Nelum Pokuna theater in Colombo, Sri Lanka, drawing thousands of devout celebrants, were apparently confused by one song title and innocently included it in the book for the carolers. (No, it wasn’t “Inna Gadda Da Vida” from a famous Simpsons episode.) It was “Hail Mary” by the late rapper Tupac Shakur—likely resulting in the very first appearance of certain words in any Christmas service publication anywhere.

current investigation into no-shows, including one man on the payroll (unidentified) who reportedly had not actually worked in 10 years. Another, who had been living abroad for 18 months while drawing his Kuwaiti pay, was reduced to half-pay, but insisted he had asked several times for assignments but was told nothing was available. (Gulf News reported that the 10-year man is appealing the freeze!) n Prosecutors in Darlington, England, obviously take child “cruelty” seriously because Gary McKenzie, 22, was hauled into court in October on four charges against a boy (whose name and age were not published), including passing gas in the boy’s face. The charge was described as “in a manner likely to cause him unnecessary suffering or injury to health.” He was on trial for two other slightly harsher acts—and another gas-passing against a different boy—but the judgment has not been reported.

n World-class chess players are famous for intense powers of concentration, but a chess journal reported in October that top-flight female players have actually been disqualified from matches for showing too much cleavage as they play, thus distracting their opponent, according to Ms. Sava Stoisavljevic, head of the European Chess Union. In fact, the Women’s World Chess Championship, scheduled for February, has decreed that, since the matches will be held in Tehran, all contestants must wear hijabs (leading a U.S. women’s champion to announce she is boycotting).

News You Can Use German Horst Wenzel, “Mr. Flirt,” fancies himself a smoothtalking maestro, teaching mostly wealthy but tongue-tied German men lessons (at about $1,500 a day!) in how to approach women—but this year has decided to “give back” to the community by offering his expertise pro-bono to lonely Syrian and Iraqi refugees who have flooded the country. At one class in Dortmund in November, observed by an Associated Press reporter, most “students” were hesitant, apparently divided between the embarrassed (when Wenzel informed them it’s “normal” to have sex on the first or second date) and the awkwardly confident (opening line: “I love you. Can I sleep over at your place?”). But, advised Wenzel, “Don’t tell [a German woman] that you love [her] at least for the first three months ... German women don’t like clinginess.” Undignified Deaths A 24-year-old woman who worked at a confectionary factory in Fedortsovo, Russia, was killed in December when she fell into a vat of chocolate. Some witnesses said she was pouring flour when she fell; others say she fell while trying to retrieve her dropped cell phone. n A 24-year-old man was decapitated in London in August when he leaned too far out the window of one train and struck an extension on a passing train. Next to the window he leaned from was a sign warning people not to stick their heads out.

The Passing Parade A December poll—sponsored by University of Graz and Austria Press Agency—revealed that Austria’s “word of the year” for 2016 was a 52-letter word beginning “bundespraesident” and referring to the postponement of the runoff election for president in 2016.

n Officials of Germany’s Ulm Minster—the world’s tallest church (530 feet high)—said in October that they fear it might eventually be brought down by visitors who make the long trek up with a full bladder and no place to relieve themselves except in dark alcoves, thus eroding the structure’s sandstone. A building preservation representative also cited vomit in the alcoves, perhaps as a result of the dizzying height of the view from the top. News of the Weird has reported on erosion damage to a bridge in Mumbai, India, from spitting and at the Taj Mahal from bug droppings.

n The Wall Street Journal reported in December a longstanding feud on the tiny Mediterranean island of Gozo, Malta, which has only 37,000 residents but two opera houses because of the owners’ mutual antipathy.

n The Dubai-based Gulf News reported in November that 900 Kuwaiti government workers had their pay frozen during the

Thanks this week to Peter Swank, Alexander Campbell and the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

The State Rock is

COAL

|ssue iA stsymbolic explanation of the Utah State Legislature. By Ryan Cunningham comments@cityweekly.net

JANUARY 12, 2017 | 15

In 2015, Utah’s general legislative session saw an attempt to designate the golden retriever as the state’s official “domestic animal.” The idea sprouted from the most innocuous of places: a fourth-grade class at Daybreak Elementary School in South Jordan. Their state senator, Republican Aaron Osmond, took

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Two Sizes Too Small

At the end of his well-rehearsed paean, all the small, pink men in big, black suits stand and applaud, moved by either accord or by habit. By this point, it is revealed that Utah is two places, not one. At once, it is both a place of untainted optimism and immovable doctrine, an alluring yet daunting blend of freshwater creeks and jagged mountains. The creek water that trickles down from the cliffs—so cool and refreshing to those Whoville Whos drawing from it—packages mineral traces of vast valleys of opportunity from beyond those foreboding mountains that stubbornly define their boundaries. But the Whos dream not of venturing out to those unseen valleys; rather, they dream of days when the trickle becomes a free-flow. And so, either admirably or naively, they stay with the mountains. Bitterness inevitably accumulates under the chilly Wasatch shadow. To those taken by shivers, I present an uncomplicated explanation for all of the bewildering eccentricities—the puissant mountains, the putrid melodies, the pink men, the stingy Grinch. There’s one simple, incontrovertible fact that places Utah politics squarely in the realm of the comprehendible, if only you hold it up to the inversion-diffused sunlight: Utah’s state rock is coal.

Utah, O glorious Utah! Best state in America Land! Please stay same forever. Federal nuisance, cease aggression!

Alas, as they are wont to do, Utah’s pink men took a casual pass on redemption. SB 53 was soundly defeated by a 27-43 vote, permanently sending golden retrievers to a farm upstate. I was sitting in the House gallery when the vote came down. As an occasional legislative reporter and frequent observer, neither the final tally nor the dearth of compassion in the room should have surprised me. I have witnessed literal life-or-death bills dismissed with similar apathy. No one’s life hinges on a state dog bill, but it was never about golden retrievers. It was about making sure that the first time a group of 10-year-olds asks lawmakers to pay attention, they don’t bark back at them like derisive hyenas. Call it a waste of time if you must, but don’t forget that someone else spent a hell of a lot more time thinking about, reading about, talking about and caring about Utah’s favorite dog than the Legislature ever had to. House Majority Leader Jim Dunnigan sang the well-rehearsed, dreary, waste-of-time anthem in SB 53’s obituary in the Tribune. “We have significant issues that need to take a lot of our time and brainpower,” Dunnigan said. “Maybe someone could ask themselves if there is anything more important than trying to come up with the state animal.” According to Title 63G, Chapter 1, Part 6, Section 601 in Utah Code, in the section titled “State Symbols,” there are 27 items more important than the state domestic animal. Below are a few of the items Utah lawmakers have devoted time and brainpower to designating a higher importance than golden retrievers: Utah’s state cooking pot is the Dutch oven. Utah’s state firearm is the John M. Browningdesigned M1911 automatic pistol. Utah’s state vegetable is the Spanish sweet onion. Utah’s historic state vegetable is the sugar beet. Utah’s state folk dance is the square dance. Utah’s state mineral is copper. Utah’s state rock is coal.

| CITYWEEKLY.NET |

very January, the parade of hope marches north on State Street. The tiny valley people with cheerful faces trudge past Temple Square and chug up the steep slope to the Capitol, by bicycle and by foot, holding colorful posters and singing, like Whoville Whos on Christmas morning, for clean air, well-funded schools, quality health care and fairness for all. One could be forgiven for thinking the Grinch— perhaps perched on Ensign Peak overlooking Salt Lake Valley from the north—is readying his dangerously overpacked sleigh for delivery of every Utah hope and dream. The following week, a different procession arrives: the small, pink men in big, black suits. They sit down at desks furnished with MacBooks and cups of Diet Coke. They pray, they say the Pledge of Allegiance, and then they honor the most notable and most recent dead people with a moment of silence. Then, the Grinch enters the chamber, formally receives the attention of the small, pink men in big, black suits, and sings. He sings a dreary, methodical anthem that’s strangely familiar, as if the Whovillean carols from the previous week were deconstructed and put back together by a team of humorless North Korean information officers:

the bill to the Legislature, hailing it as “a fun project to partner with these kids to teach them about the legislative process” in The Salt Lake Tribune. Alli Despain, the students’ teacher, hoped that proposing this bill would pique the students’ interest in politics. “Maybe one of them will be a senator someday,” she mused at the time. The first test for Senate Bill 53 was in front of the Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee, which is exactly the kind of intimidatingly jargony place you’d send a child’s dream to die. And the bill nearly did die—after hearing from Osmond, Despain and a small contingency of golden retriever super-fans (with Despain’s students bearing witness), the canine death panel narrowly approved the bill by a 2-1 vote, with three other committee members marked as “not present.” On the floor of the Senate, SB 53 faced further scrutiny. Without getting too technical about the intricacies of parliamentary rules, the bill had to pass two votes in the full Senate after the committee hearing, with the first being essentially a vote to decide whether or not to vote for real. It’s the legislative equivalent to, “Let’s talk more tomorrow.” The first vote (the vote to vote) was close. Sen. Lyle Hillyard, RLogan, explained that he preferred cocker spaniels. Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Saratoga Springs, voted “no” because he breeds German shepherds. Altogether, the Senate voted 15-9 for golden retrievers to live another day. The very next day, in fact, the Senate had their for-real-thistime vote. Hillyard, acknowledging the flack he got for his unabashed cocker spaniel endorsement, clarified that he was voting “no” mostly because he felt the bill was a waste of time— perhaps justifiably so. Regardless, SB 53 passed by a vote of 15-12. Surely, a never-ending pizza party ensued in Mrs. Despain’s class, as even the meekest Cindy-Lou Who sat quietly at her desk and daydreamed about one day becoming a senator. If you’re cheering for our intrepid youngsters of South Jordan right now, here’s the point when “bicameral” becomes a dirty word. It took 16 days for the Utah House of Representatives to get around to talking about the Senate-approved golden retriever bill; they waited until Day 45, the very last day of the general session. Rep. Brad Daw, ROrem, the House sponsor for SB 53, delivered a serviceable defense of the bill amid snickers and faux dog barks. But Daw perhaps was outdone by a thoughtful—nay, enlightened—speech from his Republican colleague from Lehi. Jake Anderegg implored his fellow state representatives to think not of dogs, but of the children. “This came from a fourth-grade class that was being taught about our form of government. And their teacher said, ‘Let’s put it to the test,’” Anderegg explained. He continued, “Now, we talk a lot about people not being engaged in the process. This is the epitome for why we would want them to be engaged. Not because of the golden retriever but because it teaches them this process.” There’s a common understanding among the small, pink men in big, black suits that the public’s engagement in their “process” is less than zealous. Anderegg reminded his peers of this, and presented SB 53 as a small token of redemption.

BRYCE GLADFELTER

LEGISLATURE MADNESS

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16 | JANUARY 12, 2017

A Wonderful, Awful Idea

Coal is a dirty black rock made of old dead things buried in the ground. We dig it up and burn it to stay warm, and it makes the air dirty. It’s a necessary evil—increasingly more evil than necessary. If you’re a child of unfortunate circumstance, you’ll find a lump of it in your stocking on Christmas morning. Coal is the object that replaces hopes and dreams. It’s a near-universal symbol of disappointment. And it’s the state rock of Utah. This is helpful to remember, because it rather succinctly explains the frustration and ennui associated with northbound glances toward the end of State Street. Utah is a place made of rocks, in overwhelming varieties of shape, size, color and composition. The whole state is an exhibition of breathtaking sculpture unlike anywhere else on Earth. Impossible sandstone columns and arches of brilliant, tawny orange punctuate the desert vistas of the south. Dramatic, brutish cliffs and peaks of granite, quartzite and limestone pierce the sky in the north. To the west, a mind-melting, flat expanse of pure salt. And somewhere in the east, buried under everything, is coal. Of course the state rock is coal. The state’s Capitol building might be composed of granite facades and marble floors, but a closer inspection reveals a mile-deep foundation of copper and coal. In the large waiting room outside the governor’s office, the largest, most prominent painting is an epic depiction of the Bingham Canyon Mine—one of the biggest open-pit mines in the world. On a clear day, you can see the gaping man-made hole from anywhere in Salt Lake Valley. For hundreds of hours I’ve observed those small, pink men in big, black suits bloviate over what’s important and what’s merely a waste of their time, but I am yet to discover their method of discernment. Golden retrievers are a waste of time, but a lump of coal demands permanent enshrinement in Utah Code? No straight line could ever connect those two dots without defying the laws of reason. So I sardonically revert to this simple fact and apply it as though it’s a pure principle of truth: Utah’s state rock is coal. Until recently, I never contemplated the origin of that fact. I had imagined a turn-of-the-century coal baron in a towering top hat cornering a small, pink man in a big, black suit, rumbling to him with feigned incredulousness, “You know what’s quite a crying shame? Utah has no state rock! Can you believe it? A gross impropriety, I say!” Thus, the state rock was born. As wholly believable as that scenario is, it deviates slightly from the real-life story. Just like the state domestic animal bill, the state rock bill purports to originate in one of Utah’s thriving state policy incubators: a public school. In 1991, the children of Castle Valley Center—a school for students with special needs—pitched the idea of making coal the state rock to Rep. Mike Dmitrich, a Democrat from Price. But if you read between the lines—and it doesn’t take much time or brainpower in this case—it’s pretty obvious that Dmitrich was the true driving force behind the initiative. In an interview conducted last year for the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, Dmitrich revealed a deeply personal bond to Utah’s coal industry. “My whole family was coal miners,” he told the interviewer. “My dad was actually killed in the Kaiser Steel coal mine. My grandpa got killed in the Bingham copper mine just before I was born. When my dad got killed, I was working on the opposite shift at Kaiser at the time. My father-in-law was a state mine inspector and I have eight uncles, and six of them worked in the mining industry; some started when they were 14 years old.” As a young man, Dmitrich got into college on a football scholarship. After aggravating a shoulder injury, he dropped out of school and, perhaps on instinct, went to work in a coal mine. Dmitrich quit mining after the untimely death of his father, choosing instead to pursue a less hazardous career path: bank-

On Day 39 of the general session, Dmitrich’s old friend Omar Bunnell helped HB 95 through the Senate with a 22-2 vote. Gov. Norm Bangerter went on to sign the bill into law. Bunnell retired the next year, allowing Dmitrich to take his seat in the Senate. Dmitrich himself retired from the Legislature in 2008—as a lawmaker, that is. He worked as a lobbyist full-time the very next session. And that’s why our state rock is coal.

Without Any Presents at All

ing. But loyalty to his mining heritage never faded. Dmitrich was first elected to the Utah House in 1968 when his state senator, Omar Bunnell, encouraged him to run for an open seat. Altogether, he served in the Utah Legislature for four decades. The pro-union Democrat said the coal miners’ union “really, basically, kept me in office for a long time.” In 1977, the federal government created the Office of Surface Mining, in part to regulate the mining industry. That’s right around the time when Dmitrich decided he was done being a banker. “I told the mine superintendent of Plateau Mining in Wattis, Utah, ‘I think you ought to have someone really track this because it’s going to impact the mining industry a lot.’ I was in the Legislature at the time, and we talked about it a little bit, so he says, ‘Apparently you have someone in mind?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, me.’ So he hired me as a kind of government affairs representative and I worked there for something like 30 years.” Mike Dmitrich, son of a coal miner and raised in Carbon County, was hired as a lobbyist for a coal company—while serving as an elected representative for a coal-mining district in the Utah Legislature. Flash forward to 1991. The students of Castle Valley Center, apparently clamoring for Utah to recognize coal as the official state rock, compelled Rep. Dmitrich to submit House Bill 95. Dmitrich expediently brought the bill to committee, where it easily earned a favorable recommendation. On just the fourth day of the 45-day general session, Dmitrich presented HB 95 to the full House for a vote. “I didn’t know coal was a rock until this year,” Dmitrich said on the House floor without even the slightest hint of irony. He then precisely noted the technical difference between a rock and a mineral. Why? Because the two cash rocks of Utah are coal and copper. Conveniently, copper is a mineral, while coal, by definition, is not. So Dmitrich was somewhat ingeniously laying the groundwork for copper to become the state’s official mineral—and it did, three years later in 1994. Here’s the best part: Who supposedly lobbied for copper’s designation as state mineral? None other than the budding young copper enthusiasts of Castle Valley Center. As an aside, Kentucky’s state mineral is—you guessed it—coal. Their state rock is Kentucky agate. By a 61-8 vote, Dmitrich’s HB 95 sailed through the House. After the vote, Dmitrich shamelessly invited all of his colleagues to tour a coal mine sometime—save for the eight who voted against his bill.

I’ve thought a lot about Mrs. Despain’s fourth-grade Whos since last year. I’ve wondered how they reacted to the news that golden retrievers were a waste of time. Were they upset? Did they decide to give up on politics? Did they care at all? “They were kinda bummed.” I talked to Alli Despain in March of 2016, almost exactly one year after the Utah Legislature nixed her students’ state domestic animal bill. “I heard the previous year that another fourth-grade class had changed the state tree, and they had a lot of really good reasons,” she told me over the phone. “And I told my kids that, and I was like, ‘You guys, maybe we can do something similar to that.’” Despain and her students really did work pretty hard on their bill. Their assignments included researching other state symbols, researching and writing about potential state domestic animals, and finding out everything they could about golden retrievers and the political process. Despain printed out a generic bill template from the internet and crafted a makeshift piece of legislation based on her students’ discussion. She then handed it off to Sen. Osmond, who happily agreed to sponsor the bill. “They came up with all of the ideas,” Despain said. “I only facilitated and typed it in, but really they wrote the entire bill.” With their teacher’s humble guidance and enthusiastic support, more than 40 kids contributed to the cause. They spent about a year altogether on it—from the moment Despain got the idea to submit a new state symbol, until the last day of the 2015 general session when the bill was defeated. Despain admitted that some of her kids were disappointed with the result, but they felt far from dejected. “They just felt really big. They felt like they could do something, even though they were 9- and 10-year-olds. They felt like, ‘Oh my gosh, if we as a class can present a bill and have it go this high in the government, have it go to the Capitol’—they felt like they could do that later in life, easily.” I asked Despain what she personally gained from the experience. She said that she, too, feels like she’s learned the value of her voice. She even planned to attend Utah’s caucuses with her husband. “I kinda always wanted to do those things, but … I don’t speak well. I don’t feel like I write very well. I really didn’t feel like I could make that much of a difference as an individual,” she said. “I really feel like it gave me confidence to feel like I could make a difference.” Utah is two places, not one. It’s a Who place, then a place less fun. It’s a home for hope to girls and boys. But then, to pink men, it’s all noise, noise, NOISE! Maybe their suits are too big, or their hearts too small— or it could be their aversion to alcohol. But the likeliest reason that I can cajole is that Utah’s state rock is coal. But Whos, take solace in this truthful fact: Even the tiniest voice can still have an impact. Someone will hear you. Someone will know. Someday, that little trickle will be a free-flow. CW Ryan Cunningham is a Salt Lake City-based writer and public radio producer. A version of this story was previously published on medium.com.

LEGISLATURE MADNESS

LEGISLATE ME

Putting faces behind some of this session’s heated topics. By Dylan Woolf Harris + Annie Knox

2 |ssue nd

Air Quality

School Funding

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Despite Utah’s breathtaking mountains, it’s not easy to coax outof-state educators to relocate here. Granite School District Resources Director Donnette McNeill-Waters says some states like Michigan have more teachers than jobs, but Utah’s pay scale is a tough sell. Utah is in the opposite boat: Teaching jobs are available, but fewer people are interested in stepping into the classroom. And high turnover rates have school officials scrambling. Granite School District, one of the largest districts in the state, lost 11 teachers since the school year began in August 2016. “Some as early as two weeks in,” McNeill-Waters says. The predominant reason cited is that teaching is too hard, she says, and the nominal pay isn’t incentive enough for the teachers to forge through the fatigue. Plenty of teachers find weekend, evening or summer jobs to pay the bills, which saps their remaining energy and time. “When they say to me, ‘I can work at Nordstrom and make more money,’ it’s difficult to keep them,” McNeill-Waters says. “They have high class sizes, high stress and teacher-performance pay.” In Granite’s 2016-2017 salary scale, a person with a bachelor’s degree will see no salary increases in his or her first three years. It won’t be until the bachelor holder’s sixth year that he or she breaks $40,000. An educator with a master’s degree won’t break $42,000 until his or her sixth year. So more and more teachers are looking for a new line of work. And by mid-year, the crop of new teachers has already found employment. McNeill-Waters says the schools have been creative in covering classes. In some cases, they’ll buy out a teacher’s preparation period, or try to find long-term substitutes. Classes can be split up and combined with others. None of these are ideal for the school or the students. Sen. Jim Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City, is proposing to restore pre2006 income tax for people making more than $500,000 a year. “That would create $278 million in education,” he says. (DWH)

When wintertime pollution is at its worst, Aaron Lepper doesn’t need to step out into sooty air to suddenly feel like he’s suffocating. It often happens when he’s inside on the couch. “I’m constantly exhausted. It’s not exactly fun walking around your house feeling like you’re on the verge of asthma attack just because the air quality sucks so bad,” the Clearfield 41-year-old who works in the aerospace industry says. Lepper believes genetics and childhood pneumonia conspired to give him asthma. The constriction and panic he feels during asthma attacks are likely to happen frequently this winter as northern Utah has been coping with its worst air quality on record. It has Lepper and his wife considering moving to another western state with cleaner air—maybe Oregon, Montana or Washington. An avid mountain biker who can generally manage his condition in warmer seasons, Lepper believes lawmakers should pass legislation to further restrict emissions from refineries and cars. “I hate saying that because motorsports are a big love of mine,” he says, noting he used to go to racetracks often as a spectator, “but I can’t help but think it still contributes to pollution.” Lepper says he hasn’t written to his legislators yet, but will pay attention to see what they do or don’t do this year to clear pollution in the Beehive State. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert asked the Legislature to fund better monitoring and additional research on Utah’s air quality. It’s too early to say if lawmakers will invest in the data projects, but some are already calling for them to do so. “That’s a critical request,” says Rep. Patrice Arent, the Democrat from Salt Lake City who has advocated for tighter emissions regulation. “Research money is really important.” When the winter inversion is particularly bad, Lepper routinely comes down with bronchitis. But he’s more worried about children, including his 5-year-old daughter. She doesn’t have asthma yet, Lepper says, but given her genes and the poor air outside her school and home, “we are expecting her to get it.” (AK)

Around 2012, Christine Stenquist purchased a baggie of weed from a street dealer, packed a pipe and lit up. She wasn’t looking to get faded, chill out with pals or any other overstated stereotype one might associate with a marijuana smoker. Stenquist was ill and in pain, and had been for 16 years, starting around the time she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Prior to self-medicating with pot, Stenquist downed gobs of prescribed painkillers, but they weren’t working. One day, trying to find respite from a crushing migraine, Stenquist visited a doctor who told her she was killing herself with opioids. By then, anecdotal evidence testifying to the healing properties of pot were well known, and Stenquist thought to give it a try. “I got relief seconds after my second hit and the nausea subsided,” she says. “That blew me away.” She’s used cannabis—now through a vaporizing machine— ever since. Last year, it seemed as though Utah lawmakers might legalize cannabis in some form for medical use. Stenquist found an ally in Rep. Mark Madsen, R-Saratoga Springs, but the measures died in the statehouse. Stenquist believes that the public needs to rethink the connotations it has with cannabis. Growing up in Florida, her dad was a narcotics officer who orchestrated substantial cocaine busts. She’s familiar with the anti-drug talking points but argues that narcotics can’t all be lumped into the same category. To dispel marijuana myths and promote an understanding of the medicinal uses, Stenquist founded Together for Responsible Use and Cannabis Education (TRUCE), a nonprofit. Since its founding, numerous residents have contacted Stenquist to ask for her advice. Many want to alleviate lingering maladies but fear that doing so will get them in trouble with the law. Nationwide, the legality of pot is experiencing seismic shifts. Depending on what state you’re standing in, marijuana is legal for recreational use, legal for medical use, decriminalized or strictly forbidden—which is also the federal government’s legal stance. Utah lawmakers will again this year decide whether to join the 28 other states that allow medical marijuana. (DWH)

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Medical Marijuana

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LEGISLATURE MADNESS

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Opiate Overdose

In the two decades since emergency room pediatrician Jennifer Plumb lost her brother to an opiate drug overdose, she has prodded lawmakers to do more to prevent deaths from heroin and prescription painkillers. Plumb heads Utah Naloxone, the group that successfully pushed the Utah Legislature to allow people to get the antioverdose drug without a prescription. Then she helped persuade lawmakers to allow people who aren’t doctors and pharmacists to legally administer naloxone—a development Plumb says is “pretty cool.” It means drug users, friends and family members can have the antidote handy before an emergency happens. They also can call for help without risking drug charges of their own. That’s after the Utah Legislature tweaked the state code to grant immunity for people who call 911 to save a friend or loved one from an overdose. The momentum is continuing. This year, lawmakers will debate a bill that would require doctors to look up a patient’s prescription history if they aren’t already familiar with it. Advocates hope the additional oversight will help cut down on overprescribing that can spark deadly addictions. But the crackdown presents another hurdle. “One of the things that keeps me up at night,” Plumb says in an email, “is knowing that heroin use and addiction are increasing rapidly as pain-pill prescribing gets wiser.” The majority of people who die from drugs have a prescription for chronic pain, according to state data. And Utah has had limited success in curbing addiction and overdose from opiates. A three-year state push to curb painkiller prescription coincided with a 28 percent reduction in opiate overdose deaths from 2007 to 2010, according to data from the Utah Department of Health (UDOH). But the program was not renewed, and the rate has almost climbed to the previous rate since the project expired. Twenty-four people die in Utah each month from prescriptiondrug overdose, according to the most recently published data from 2014. That puts Utah in the Top 5 states with the highest rate of drug deaths, UDOH says. (AK)

Health Care

It’s entirely possible that in a few months David Brooks will be uninsured. Currently, his company utilizes a program that provides a specific tax-exempt stipend so he can shop for health insurance on the federal marketplace. He says if the marketplace were to vanish with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, he’d be left to find something else. Worse case scenario, he says, if the mandatory requirement is scrapped, he’ll go without. Pocketing the money he currently spends on insurance would save him a boatload of cash. Nevertheless, he’d prefer not to have to start anew. State lawmakers could be on the hook to determine how to provide subsidies to the 87 percent of Utahns who receive tax credits through the federal system. “When you have it on the federal level, it makes it easier for everyone to be taken care of,” Brooks says. “Overall, ACA is all about the community, not one individual. You have to think broader about everyone else around you. The reason why it’s required is so everyone is taken care of.” If Brooks ditches insurance, he will join the thousands in this state without it, some of whom were waiting for policymakers to pass full Medicaid expansion last year. Instead, lawmakers passed House Bill 437 to cover about 16,000 or so of the 60,000 Utahns in a coverage gap. Experts determined the dollars couldn’t stretch that far, though, so the number to be insured was lowered to 10,000 once the federal government signs a waiver. Michael Stapley, who sits on the Utah Citizens’ Council and was president and CEO of Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators, says the legislative measure was woefully inadequate. “A fundamental reality is that those people who have health insurance in our economy have someone else contributing or paying for the major cost of that insurance. Those people that are left out do not have anybody that is helping them,” he said at a Citizens’ Council meeting last year. “It is a virtual guarantee that those people will not have health insurance, ever, unless somebody steps in and helps. We cannot ignore that.” But some policy experts believe Utah will put off tackling Medicaid again to see if Congressional Republicans make good on their promise to gut Obamacare. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to repeal and replace it, but other than tweeting it would be “something terrific,” he’s yet to detail a substitute plan. (DWH)

Reproductive Health

To Brooke Chambers, Planned Parenthood is like an old friend— a longtime source of support without judgement that is there when she needs it. The aspiring social worker from Ogden is planning to go to the group’s clinics for routine exams and birth control when she loses her health insurance in the coming weeks. Chambers has to quit her job and lose the benefits that go with it in order to begin the 400-hour field placement she needs to get her bachelor’s degree. She plans to put her education to use working with adults who have long-term mental illness. It won’t be the first time 25-year-old Chambers has sought services from the family planning organization. As a teenager, she went to Planned Parenthood for birth control because she knew she did not need her parents’ knowledge or approval to do so. “Planned Parenthood saved me then, and I plan on it saving me now,” Chambers, who grew up in Clearfield, says. She is hoping that Republicans in Congress will drop their plan to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood. And she is encouraged that Utah legislators have yet to file similar legislation this year after a federal appeals court last year kept the money flowing to Utah’s branch of the family planning organization. “I’m hoping Republicans will see that women need services like cancer screenings. Even men go there. It’s so important,” Chambers says. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Gov. Herbert’s August 2015 order to cut the funding from Washington after videos showed Planned Parenthood officers talking about reimbursement for fetal tissue. Herbert said the footage demonstrated callousness on the part of the officers and raised questions about the national group and its Utah affiliate. Planned Parenthood rejected the notion and stopped accepting the reimbursement. Chambers, for her part, believes the organization might play a more important role in Utah than in other states because it provides sex education to community groups and in its clinics that she says is more comprehensive than the abstinence-only lessons taught in Utah schools. “I think people need to be educated,” she says. (AK) CW

LEGISLATURE MADNESS

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Restricting Raunch

By Annie Knox

comments@cityweekly.net

After declaring porn a public health threat, Utah lawmakers vote on anti-porn bills.

Explore Salt Lake

Meet the locals Discover the neighboorhoods LGBT Scene in SLC Arts | Shopping | Recreation Nightlife | Food

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SEE

contact sales@cityweekly.net

JANUARY 12, 2017 | 19

tah’s push against porn is not over. Weiler’s proposal comes eight years after a The Beehive State became the nation’s Harvard University economics study named first to declare pornography a public Utah as the state with the highest per-capita health crisis last year. It is now poised to porn consumption, with a narrow lead over be the first to open pornography producMississippi. Neighboring Montana, on the ers to more lawsuits from those who feel other end, had the lowest rate of people buying they have been damaged by X-rated content. online porn. “All we would do is open a valve in our state Last year, lawmakers passed a symbolic code that would recognize this cause of action,” measure declaring porn a health crisis, and Resays Sen. Todd Weiler, the Woods Cross Republipublican Gov. Gary Herbert signed the bill. Tencan sponsoring the bill. “We’re saying if somenessee’s Legislature currently is considering a one feels they’ve been injured or harmed,” they similar measure. have grounds to sue. The Free Speech Coalition, a porn industry First Amendment proponents warn against trade group, called the Utah move “an old-fashrestrictions on freedom of the press and exioned morals bill, not founded in science. The pression, no matter how unsavory. But Weiler measure drew ridicule from late-night shows, brushes off the free speech concerns, saying his bloggers and the public. But Weiler says he proposal stops short of dictating what pornoghas received calls from several people thankraphers can create. The bill has yet to be drafting him. Those people include a Davis County ed, but Weiler says it would exempt porn sites mother, a pastor from Indiana, and a man from that take reasonable measures to make sure South Carolina who told Weiler he was putting only adults could access them. his life back together after his penchant for “My goal in everything I’m doing with reporn caused his wife to leave him. spect to porn is focused on trying to protect Weiler also proposes another law that would children and let them be innocent for a few boost public libraries’ digital defense against more years,” Weiler says, “rather than telling pornographic pictures and videos. He says adults what they can or can’t do in their own he knows of a dozen libraries in the state that home.” Weiler, an attorney, will make the case don’t have the budget to upgrade their Wi-Fi to to colleagues as the legislative session convenes block obscene images. He estimates the bill will at the Capitol on Monday, Jan. 23. set aside a pool of $50,000 to equip the public He hasn’t heard from other attorneys or buildings with the proper software. The sentiment is shared by the governor’s office. Utahns seeking a streamlined path to sue adult In his budget proposal, Herbert asked lawmakers film producers, but believes the opportunity to set aside a separate $50,000 for the private nonshould exist. profit Utah Coalition Against Pornography. Opponents of pornography say it underThe Utah Librarian’s Association did not remines marriages and provokes violence against turn a call for comment. Weiler says any step women, and that it is addictive. But the Amerireducing youngsters’ ability to consume porn can Psychological Association (APA) isn’t willis a good one. ing to go that far. Watching porn can become “I just I’m kind of horrified at the thought compulsive, the APA says on its website, but rethat this is going on out there.” Weiler says. CW search has yet to show it can result in addiction. Rep. Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, thinks there’s a better way to prevent children from turning to porn and what he says is its tendency to “provide an unhealthy, unrealistic picture of what sexual relationships should be like.” This year, King plans to revive a bill to allow lessons on healthy relationships and sexuality in Utah schools. Lawmakers last year voted down a version allowing comprehensive sex education to replace abstinence-only lessons. “I think, if anything, leaving kids in the dark increases the likelihood that, out of frustration or curiosity, they’re going to turn to Strapping other sources of information,” King says. They might turn to friends, parYouth Once ents or others for answers, he says, but Active Now “sometimes it will be porn.” King believes the law already allows Blinded By people to sue on the grounds Weiler wants to knit into state code. Pornography!

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LEGISLATURE MADNESS

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WIN, BOOZE OR DRAW

Series of proposed bills take aim at alcohol. By Dylan Woolf Harris dwharris@cityweekly.net

hen time seems to tick away at a speed you can’t process, or when you realize it’s difficult to follow tortuous prattle, or when you’re smacked with an irrevocable urge to vomit, you might be drunk off your rocker. But you’re probably at the Utah Legislature. It’s only fitting, then, that bills governing alcohol take stage once again as we head into the legislative session. But these laws don’t just touch the lushes among us. They impact tourism, safety, money and health. They demonstrate the balancing act between government and free market. They also raise questions about how much influence a teetotal religion has in a secular statehouse. So, pay attention this session. And hope that your stein, flute or shot glass (or abstain if you so choose) can sustain you for the next 45 days.

W Cash

Those long liquor store lines bedeviled boozeshoppers this past holiday season and provoked cursing from procrastinators—but at least they lit up legislators’ eyes with dollar signs. Utah liquor stores brought in more than $405 million in sales the last fiscal year after taxes. That means that if every man, woman and child in the state went out and purchased a $99 bottle of cabernet sauvignon today, it still wouldn’t come close to hitting the dollar amount the Department of Alcohol Beverage Control raked in. Money is sent back into government coffers. We booze hounds are a cash cow. The Al Caponian stranglehold on the market is incentive enough for Utah to protect its lucrative booze monopoly from the free market’s invisible hand. But that doesn’t mean the budgeting can’t be tweaked. State Sen. Karen Mayne, D-West Valley City, is introducing a bill that would allow the DABC to retain 15 percent of its profits. “It’s a retail store, so treat it like that,” she says. While admitting it’s probably too low, Mayne says 15 percent would be palatable to the Legislature. Currently, the state allocates a set number of dollars each year for the DABC. This ties the hands of store management, however. It’s tough to give meaningful raises to store employees, for example, if it’s unknown whether money will be made available in the following year’s budget. Mayne says this has inevitably led to problems within the stores, including low morale and high turnover rates. Starting full-time wage in all stores is $10.25 an hour plus benefits, except Park City and Moab where it is $12.24, according to the DABC. Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, is working on a competing bill that would set aside $750,000 for the department. This money would offer stores some flexibility. “They would have that in order to put out fires, so to speak,” he says. “There’re some great employees who work for DABC and they work for low wages.” For the upcoming year, Gov. Gary Herbert has recommended funding $49 million for the DABC, a $2.5 million bump from the recommendation last year.

DUI

Surely this year’s most noticeable alteration to an alcohol law proposes to lower the legal driving limit from a .08-percent blood-alcohol level to .05. Under this law, drivers will have to be extra careful with the amount of alcohol they consume. Rep. Norman Thurston, R-Provo, is the bill’s sponsor. In his research, he discovered that 1 out of every 6 drunken driving fatalities in the state occur in situations where a driver had a legal amount of alcohol in his blood. “The reality is that it’s not OK to drive [with a .08 BAC],” he says. “It might be legal, but it’s not OK.” No other state in the U.S. has a blood-alcohol content limit lower than .08 for general drivers, and it would seem this would set Utah apart yet again as a place with quirky liquor laws. Thurston doesn’t see it that way. Worldwide, he notes, .05 is a common limit, and U.S. commercial licenses often hold drivers to a standard of .04. But could a .05 deter out-of-state visitors? Scott Beck, president and CEO of Visit Salt Lake, doesn’t expect tourism to swing one way or the other. Whether Visit Salt Lake sides with Thurston will depend on the police. “In terms of alcohol level, we’ve always found it best to follow the advice of our law enforcement community,” he says.

3.2

For some reason, 2016 felt like a knock to the gut that could only be remedied with a bottle of suds. So, bottoms up. The good news for a fraction of Americans— namely Oklahomans—is, thanks to this latest election, they soon (2018!) won’t have to drink two-and-a-half frosty cans before they start to get their buzz on. That’s because Sooner State voters did away with the prohibitive constitutional rule requiring beer sold in its grocery stores be 3.2 percent alcohol. What’s an Okie’s business gotta do with Utah laws? The number 3.2, of course, represents to Utah beer drinkers a stodgy rule. The Beehive State is one of only a few places where grocery stores

are restricted to selling beer that consists of 3.2 percent alcohol by weight—or about 4 percent by volume. Like a gawky guy planted obstinately on a bar stool, Utah looked up to find itself among a few other outcasts. But last call eventually comes, right? Speculation swirled that Oklahoma’s vote could lead to changes in Utah. As the 3.2 market shrinks, national manufacturers won’t have incentive to brew it, the thinking goes. One such manufacturer, Anheuser-Busch, sent a statement to ensure that they weren’t going to stop producing beer fit for a Utah grocery store. “Anheuser-Busch is also a proud member of the Utah beer community and has provided Utah beer drinkers with their choice of beer, regardless of the alcohol content, for decades,” it reads. “Ultimately, our focus is on the customer and we are prepared to continue to provide Utah beer drinkers with the products they demand.” But the Utah Beer Wholesalers Association is leery that once Oklahoma’s law kicks in, followed by a similar measure in Colorado, that attitude could change. Nationally, 3.2 percent beer comprises about 1.8 percent of the market, Wholesalers Association President Jim Olsen says. Of that sliver, almost 60 percent goes to Oklahoma and Colorado. Brewers will have to decide whether they can “economically afford to shut down our lines, to flush the lines, to redo the packaging for less than 1 percent of the total beer consumed,” Olsen says. He is urging lawmakers to change the legal limit from 3.2 percent alcohol by weight to 4.8 percent alcohol by weight, which would equate to about 6 percent by volume. He chatted with Sen. Stevenson regarding these changes. Stevenson, however, prefers to wait on the proposal. “My guess is that’s next year or some point later,” he says.

Zion Curtain

Razzing 3.2 beer is like a faint guffaw compared to the derision some target at the so-called Zion Curtain. This law requires certain establishments create a barrier that hides the bar from patrons’ vision. It’s designed to save lives … or something. Whatever the rationale, executive director of the Salt Lake Area Restaurant Association Michele Corigliano says the Zion Curtain is no good for business, but she’s sanguine stakeholders can do away with it and keep the public safe. “They have been very receptive in knowing that we are all on the same page: We all want to decrease drunk driving. We don’t want to have people over-consume and have underage drinking,” she says. Patrons prefer to see drinks being made, she says, and bartenders would rather deal with the customers face-to-face. If those reasons aren’t enough, Corigliano argues that public safety should tip the scales. Bartenders are not allowed to sell to an intoxicated barfly, but it’s not always easy to tell, and the curtain provides one more barrier they have to get through. “There are many clues that bartenders have to notice when people are over-consuming. Those clues come from face-to-face contact. When they’re behind a wall, they can’t pick up the clues and that leads to drunk drivers or people just drinking too much,” she says. Visit Salt Lake also hopes to tear down the curtain. Sen. Jim Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City, will introduce a bill to topple the Zion Curtain. “Clearly, there are public safety issues involved with alcohol,” he says. “But sometimes we just have stupid, ridiculous rules, regulations and laws that have no effect on public safety—and just make Utah the subject of scorn and ridicule.” CW

ESSENTIALS

THURSDAY 1.12

TUESDAY 1.17

Tower with director Keith Maitland

NINA SUBIN

MATTHEW MURPHY

Author Ta-Nahesi Coates is a sought-after speaker, well known for his incisive and insightful observations on the cultural issues in modern America, most specifically from the perspective of an African-American male. Born and raised in Baltimore, Coates developed a perspective that combines the day-to-day realities of urban life with the nuanced understanding that can come from higher education. But, in fact, he didn’t graduate from college; after studying at Howard University, he honed his journalistic skills on the job. After stints at Washington City Paper, Philadelphia Weekly, The Village Voice and Time, he landed a blog column for The Atlantic. He also writes as a guest columnist for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Washington Monthly and others. Coates has a keen ability to distill complex concepts and ideas down to succinct phrases; in a 2012 essay titled “Fear of a Black President,” he defined racism as “broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.” He also does not shy away from controversy when making his points; in his second book, 2015’s Between the World and Me, Coates wrote, “To yell ‘black-on-black crime’ is to shoot a man and then shame him for bleeding.” Coates also authored 2008’s The Beautiful Struggle and writes for the Marvel Comics series Black Panther. Today, he is a journalistin-residence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Bill Kopp) Ta-Nehisi Coates @ Kingsbury Hall, 1395 Presidents Circle, 801-581-7100, Jan. 18, noon, free with ticket, tickets.utah.edu

Ta-Nehisi Coates

JANUARY 12, 2017 | 21

It’s not often that a piece of media can effectively blend the vibrancy of a campy, queer musical and the drama of working-class communities dealing with the pressures of modernization. But with its poppy and warm tunes and kookily sincere plot, Kinky Boots brings the best of both to present a musical in a class of its own. Based loosely on true events and the 2005 film of the same name, Kinky Boots centers on Charlie Price and his partnership with a drag queen and cabaret performer named Lola. Motivated by a desire to save the family business and a longing for acceptance, they work to shift production from men’s dress shoes to produce custom footwear for drag queens. Propelled by the poppy, energetic music and lyrics by ‘80s pop star Cindy Lauper, the play shows them finding ways to re-energize their communities and push for a greater culture of tolerance. Bruce Granath—vice president of marketing for Magicspace Entertainment, the local group responsible for Broadway productions in Utah— says Kinky Boots’ success on the New York and international stages made it impossible not to include in the Eccles’ inaugural season. “Kinky Boots will bring heart, humor and sparkle to the series and everyone who sees it,” he says. The captioned performance is on Jan. 21 at 2 p.m., and those interested should select seats on the Orchestra Right section of the main floor. (Kylee Ehmann) Kinky Boots @ Eccles Theater, 131 S. Main, 801-355-2200, Jan. 17-19, 7:30 p.m.; Jan. 20, 8 p.m.; Jan. 21, 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.; Jan. 22, 1 p.m. & 6:30 p.m., $30-$90, broadway-at-the-eccles.com

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WEDNESDAY 1.18

A dramatization of a real-life tragedy risks coming off as exploitative; a journalistic series of talking-head interviews with the principal players risks feeling musty and tedious. Director Keith Maitland came up with the radical notion of combining the two in a documentary with an uncommon sense of urgency, considering it’s depicting an event that occurred 50 years ago. The subject of Tower is the mass shooting that took place at the University of Texas on Aug. 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman took up a position in the university’s iconic clock tower and begin firing at people below. Maitland’s approach captures events almost in real time, using actors to re-create the experience of those involved in the incident while the actual survivors narrate in their own words. Those scenes are presented with an overlay of rotoscope-style animation, providing a surreal filter that actually makes those scenes feel more real. The stories that unfold offer lumpin-the-throat examples of heroism, both by civilians and—so welcome in an era when we hear so much about the worst examples—police officers. And in a particularly satisfying choice, Maitland never once attempts to bring in the point-of-view of Whitman himself, ensuring that this is a story about those whose lives he changed forever. Maitland visits Salt Lake City this week to host a Q&A after the Utah Film Center’s screening of this unique film. Get a chance to learn the behind-the-creation stories that resulted in one of 2016’s best documentaries. (Scott Renshaw) Tower with director Keith Maitland @ Rose Wagner Center, 138 W. 300 South, Jan. 17, 7 p.m., free, utahfilmcenter.org

TUESDAY 1.17

Kinky Boots

There’s plenty of competition in comedy realms these days, so it takes a special ability to not only survive, but also thrive. So credit Rachel Feinstein with a stand-up career that includes three specials on Comedy Central (the most recent being 2016’s Only Whores Wear Purple), appearances on HBO and The View, voice-over work for the phenomenally successful Grand Theft Auto video games and the major motion picture Her Composition, in which she played herself. “I just tell stories from my own life,” Feinstein says of her performances. “I talk a lot about my personal life and my family. People and relationships, and uniquely humiliating situations throughout my day.” Being the daughter of a mother who was a social worker and a father who worked as a civil rights lawyer by day and a blues musician by night also provides Feinstein with ample material. Her topics vary—men and sex (separately and in tandem), everyday absurdities and life’s inexplicable insanity. “There is plenty to mock in myself,” she admits. “My life is weird, and I have weird interactions and wild failures.” Feinstein shares those narratives in an evershifting array of characters and dialects, with no subject taboo and no target unscathed. “I like peoples’ voices and word choices and affectations, so I notice those things and talk about them on stage,” she says. “And pain! Of course, despair is always funny, right?” Right indeed. (Lee Zimmerman) Rachel Feinstein @ Wiseguys SLC, 194 S. 400 West, Jan. 12, 7:30 p.m.; Jan. 13-14, 7 & 9:30 p.m., $15, wiseguyscomedy.com

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FUNDING

State and the Arts

Utah might be a red state, but the picture for supporting the arts is far from blue. BY SCOTT RENSHAW scottr@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw

hen you think of a dyed-in-thewool red state like Utah—where Republicans dominate at most every level of government—you might expect strict conservative principles applied to funding the arts and arts education. But the interaction between the state’s art patrons, artists and public funding is more complicated. As public information and data specialist for the Utah Division of Arts and Museums, David Wicai has mined a mountain of data to determine where Utah fits in the national picture of state arts organizations in terms of funding. Every state agency provides an annual report to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies including information about per-capita public funding, yet it’s not always easy to define what programs should be considered in those figures, since each state arts agency might have a different mandate and incorporate different kinds of programs. “There are state-funded programs [in Utah] that are part of the state Office of Education,” Wicai says. “It doesn’t come through the arts budget, but still deals with arts. … Some [states] have no extra programs, some had money going to corrections, some coming out of departments

of commerce.” Based on the best available information, and incorporating Utah’s funding for arts education in addition to the UDAM’s $4.2 million FY2016 budget, Wicai estimates that Utah’s per-capita annual public arts spending is $4.71. That would rank Utah second—behind only New Mexico—among the states in the Western States Arts Federation, which also includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. And that figure only addresses spending at the state level. Utah arts organizations also benefit from Salt Lake County’s Zoo, Arts & Parks (ZAP) tax, Summit County’s Recreation and other similar local and municipal programs, making precise calculations even more challenging. Such a level of support, however, seems to be in keeping with Utah’s history of creating the first state-funded arts agency in the country in 1899—some 20 years ahead of the next state arts agency, and more than 50 years ahead of the creation of the federal-level National Endowment for the Arts. It’s also in line with more current statistics, including data from the NEA’s 2016 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, which noted that 84.5 percent of Utah adults attended a visual or performing arts event in 2015—the highest rate in the nation. “That’s kind of the ongoing challenge and question we have internally,” Wicai says, “which is, what do we do with these very strong numbers? We need to continue being a leader with arts support and participation to continue that trend.” That doesn’t mean that local arts organizations shouldn’t seek even more public support, even as they appreciate what they already have. Jerry Rapier, producing director of Plan-B Theatre Co., observes that ZAP in particular has “not only stabilized many Salt Lake County

organizations, it has allowed them to take risks and thrive. … Most public entities allow application for general operating funds, the importance and value of which cannot be overstated.” But while county and municipal support continues to grow, Rapier says, “things are a little less clear on the state level. I personally feel that the Legislature is not as in tune with the needs of artists and arts organizations as the city and county programs seem to be. … The number of organizations applying for funding steadily increases each year, while the funding itself remains flat.” Arts education also remains a key component in the overall picture of support for the arts, as the Utah Education Association and other advocates for the arts continue to push for increased funding for public-school arts programs, as well as the grants for educators offered through UDAM. “As a parent and an artist, I strongly feel that there can never be too much arts education in schools,” Rapier says. “There should be work by educators in tandem with the regular presence of professional artists to expose students to the depth and breadth of the arts themselves and also how easily and effectively the arts can be integrated into any other profession. And given that K-12 education is publicly funded, there is no question in my mind that arts education should also be publicly funded.” But while there is always room for improvement, Utah’s level of support offers optimism for those who value the importance of the arts for a community’s vitality. “I think that there is incredible support for the arts in Utah, whether it’s state-funded or privately funded,” Wicai says. “I think we are a national leader. If you were thinking, who are the top states in terms of arts funding, Utah probably wouldn’t come first. But we’re working on everyone starting to understand that.” CW

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Eight local artists—Debbie Joplin (her “Inamorato” is pictured), Ty Cummings, Whitney Horrocks, Michael Hadden, Denise Crane, Jessie Feveryear, Lisa Quagiozzi and Eric Fairclough)—are represented in the group show Abstract at Urban Arts Gallery (137 S. Rio Grande St., 801-230-0820, urbanartsgallery.org), through Jan. 31.

THEATER

DANCE

Aerial Arts of Utah Leona Wagner Black Box Theater, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City, 801-355-2787, Jan. 14, 11 a.m., rdtutah.org Golden Gates Russian Music & Dance Troupe Christ United Methodist Church, 2375 E. 3300 South, Jan. 17, 7 p.m., russianfolk.com Jessica Lang Dance Eccles Center, 1750 Kearns Blvd., Park City, 435-655-3114, Jan. 13, 7:30 p.m., ecclescenter.org

CLASSICAL & SYMPHONY

JANUARY 12, 2017 | 23

Improv for Planned Parenthood The Comedy Loft, 3934 Washington Blvd., Ogden, 801-719-7676, Jan. 14, 9-10:30 p.m., OgdenComedyLoft.com Improv Broadway 496 N. 900 East, Provo, 909-260-2509, Saturdays, 8 p.m., improvbroadway.com Improv Comedy Ziegfeld Theater, 3934 Washington Blvd., Ogden, 435-327-8273, Saturdays, 9:30 p.m., ogdencomedyloft.com

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COMEDY & IMPROV

NOVA Chamber Music: Transfigurations Libby Gardner Hall, 1375 E. Presidents Circle, 801531-7501, Jan. 15, 3 p.m., novaslc.org Salt Lake Symphony: OrchestrAnimals Libby Gardner Hall, 1375 E. Presidents Circle, 801-5317501, Jan. 14, 2 p.m., saltlakesymphony.org Sinfonia Salt Lake MLK Day Concert: Voices of America First United Methodist Church, 203 S. 200 East, Jan. 16, 7:30 p.m., sinfoniasaltlake.com Utah Symphony: Serenade for Strings St. Mary’s Church, 1505 White Pine Canyon Road, Park City, 801-533-6683, Jan. 18, 7:30 p.m., utahsymphony.org Utah Symphony: Tristan & Isolde Abravanel Hall, 123 W. South Temple, 801-533-6683, Jan. 13-14, 7:30 p.m., utahsymphony.org

A Year With Frog and Toad SCERA, 745 S. State, Orem, 801-225-2787, through Jan. 26, Monday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday, 7:30 p.m., scera.org Cash on Delivery Hale Center Theater Orem, 225 W. 400 North, Orem, 801-226-8600, through Feb. 4, times vary, haletheater.org Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Empress Theatre, 9104 W. 2700 South, Magna, 801-347-7373, through Jan. 21, dates and times vary, empresstheatre.com Fences Pioneer Theatre Co., 300 S. 1400 East, Salt Lake City, 801-581-6961, through Jan. 21, Monday-Saturday, times vary, pioneertheatre.org Gidion’s Knot Westminster College Dumke Auditorium, 1250 E. 1700 South, Salt Lake City, through Jan. 21, Thursday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; Jan. 21, 2 p.m. matinee, pinnacleactingcompany.org Kinky Boots Eccles Theater, 131 S. Main, Salt Lake City, 801-355-2787, Jan. 17-22, times vary, broadway-at-the-eccles.com (see p. 21) Live Museum Theater Natural History Museum of Utah, 301 Wakara Way, Salt Lake City, 801-581-6927, through April 15, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., nhmu.utah.edu The Marvelous Wonderettes Beverly’s Terrace Plaza Playhouse, 99 E. 4700 South, Washington Terrace, 801-393-0700, through Feb. 11, Monday, Friday & Saturday, 7:30 p.m., terraceplayhouse.com The Nerd Hale Centre Theatre, 3333 S. Decker Lake Drive, West Valley, 801-984-9000, MondaySaturday, times vary, through Feb. 4, hct.org Peter and the Starcatcher Heritage Theatre, 2505 S. Highway 89, Perry, 435-723-8392, Jan. 13-30; matinees Jan. 21 & 28, heritagetheatreutah.com Trial of Joseph Smith Sugar Space Arts Warehouse, 132 S. 800 West, Jan. 14, 7 p.m., thesugarspace.com Wizard of Oz Utah Children’s Theatre, 3605 S. State, Salt Lake City, 801-532-6000, through Jan. 14, dates and times vary, uctheatre.org

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown Ziegfeld Theater, 3934 Washington Blvd., Ogden, 855-911-2787, Jan. 13-Feb. 4, Friday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m., theziegfeldtheater.com

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PERFORMANCE

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24 | JANUARY 12, 2017

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Laughing Stock Improv The Off Broadway Theatre, 272 S. Main, Salt Lake City, 801355-4628, Fridays & Saturdays, 10 p.m., laughingstock.us Off the Wall Comedy Improv Draper Historic Theatre, 12366 S. 900 East, Draper, 801-5724144, Saturdays, 10:30 p.m., drapertheatre.org Open-Mic Night Wiseguys SLC, 194 S. 400 West, Salt Lake City, 801-532-5233, Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m., wiseguyscomedy.com PJ Walsh Wiseguys, 269 25th St., Ogden, 801-463-2909, Jan. 13-14, 8 p.m., wiseguyscomedy.com Quick Wits Comedy 695 W. Center St., Midvale, 801-824-0523, Saturdays, 10 p.m., $6-$8, qwcomedy.com Rachel Feinstein Wiseguys, 194 S. 400 West, Salt Lake City, 801-532-5233, Jan. 12, 7:30 p.m.; Jan. 13-14, 7 & 9:30 p.m., wiseguyscomedy.com (see p. 21) Random Tangent Comedy Improv Draper Historic Theatre, 12366 S. 900 East, Draper, 801572-4144, Saturdays, 10 p.m., drapertheatre.org Sasquatch Cowboy The Comedy Loft, 3934 Washington Blvd., Ogden, 435-327-8273, Saturdays, 9:30 p.m., ogdencomedyloft.com

LITERATURE AUTHOR APPEARANCES

Dustin Hansen: Game On! & Microsaurs Provo Library, 550 N. University Ave., Provo, Jan. 17, 7 p.m., provolibrary.com

SPECIAL EVENTS TALKS & LECTURES

Avalanche Awareness REI Salt Lake, 3285 E. 3300 South, Salt Lake City, 801-486-2100, Jan. 12, 6:30 p.m., rei.com/stores Douglas Stoup Snowbird Resort, Highway 210, Little Cottonwood Canyon, Snowbird, 1-800-2329542, Jan. 12, 6 p.m., snowbird.com/events Keith Maitland: Q&A with Tower director Rose Wagner Center, 138 W. 300 South, Jan. 17, 7 p.m., free, utahfilmcenter.org (see p. 21) Women’s Work Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, 20 S. West Temple, Salt Lake City, 801-3284201, Jan. 13, 6 p.m., utahmoca.org Ta-Nehisi Coates Kingsbury Hall, 1395 Presidents Circle, Salt Lake City, 801-581-7100, Jan. 18, noon, utahpresents.org/events (see p. 21)

FARMERS MARKETS

Winter Market Rio Grande Depot, 300 S. Rio Grande St., Salt Lake City, through April 22, Saturdays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., slcfarmersmarket.org

VISUAL ART GALLERIES & MUSEUMS

Abstract Urban Arts Gallery, 127 S. Rio Grande St., 801-230-0820, through Jan. 31, urbanartsgallery.org (see p. 23) Alyce Carrier: Old Work Museum of Contemporary Art, 20 S. West Temple, 801-3284201, through Jan. 14, utahmoca.org Amy Caron: Angel Series Corinne & Jack Sweet Library, 455 F St., Salt Lake City, 801-594-8651, through Feb. 25; reception Jan. 14, 3 p.m., slcpl.org Be It Ever So Humble ... Utah Cultural Celebration Center, 1355 W. 3100 South, West Valley City, 801-965-5100, Jan. 12-March 1, culturalcelebration.org

COMPLETE LISTINGS ONLINE @ CITYWEEKLY.NET

Benjamin Cook: Allure of the Mountains Chapman Library, 577 S. 900 West, 801-594-8623, through Feb. 28, slcpl.org Ben Steele: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Modern West Fine Art, 177 E. 200 South, 801-3553383, through Jan. 14, modernwestfineart.com David Levinthal: The Wild West Julie Nester Gallery, 1280 Iron Horse Drive, Park City, 435-6497855, through Jan. 17, julienestergallery.com Drew Conrad: The Desert Is A Good Place To Die CUAC, 175 E. 200 South, Salt Lake City, 385215-6768, through Jan. 13, cuartcenter.org Epics, Myths & Fables Meyer Gallery, 305 Main, Park City, 435-649-8160, through Jan. 15, meyergallery.com Fidalis Buehler Pioneer Theatre Co., Loge Gallery, 300 S. 1400 East, Salt Lake City, 801581-6961, through Jan. 20, pioneertheatre.org Jazmine Martinez: Ciclo Vital Mestizo Institute of Culture & Arts, 631 W. North Temple, Ste. 700, Salt Lake City, 801-596-0500, through Jan. 14, facebook.com/mestizoarts Jeri Jonise: Together Marmalade Library, 280 W. 500 North, 801-594-8680, through Jan. 20, slcpl.org Jordan Brun: Garish SLC Main Library, Level 2, 210 E. 400 South, Salt Lake City, 801-524-8200, through Feb. 10; reception Jan. 23, 6:30-8 p.m., slcpl.org Kaori Takamura & Gwen Davidson: Look Closely Meyer Gallery, 305 Main, Park City, 435649-8160, through Jan. 14, meyergallery.com Kristin Lucas: Air on the Go 20 S. West Temple, Salt Lake City, 801-328-4201, through Jan. 14, utahmoca.org Lindsay Daniels: Nepal Rises Sprague Library, 2131 S. 1100 East, Salt Lake City, 801-594-8640, through March 18; reception Jan. 17, 6:30 p.m., slcpl.org Megan Gibbons: Beyond the Narrative Alice Gallery, 617 E. South Temple, 801-236-7555, through Jan. 13, visualarts.utah.org Peter Everett: Transmutation CUAC, 175 E. 200 South, 385-215-6768, through Jan. 13, cuartcenter.org Scott Filipiak: The Fragility of Nature Anderson-Foothill Library, 1135 S. 2100 East, Salt Lake City, 801-594-8611, through Jan. 26, Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m., slcpl.org Stephanie Leitch: Interstices Granary Art Center, 86 N. Main, Ephraim, 435-283-3456, through Jan. 27, granaryartcenter.org Utah 2016: Mixed Media & Works on Paper Rio Gallery, 300 S. Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, 801245-7272, through Jan. 13, visualarts.utah.gov Where Children Sleep The Leonardo, 209 E. 500 South, Salt Lake City, 801-531-9800, through Jan. 31, theleonardo.org Work in Progress Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, 20 S. West Temple, Salt Lake City, 801-3552787, through Jan. 14, utahmoca.org

DINE

RESTAURANT REVIEW

Taking a Stand on Stanza

An at-long-last look at a not-so-new Italian bistro. BY TED SCHEFFLER tscheffler@cityweekly.net @critic1

TED SCHEFFLER

Housemade burrata with favas and basil

JANUARY 12, 2017 | 25

454 E. 300 South, Salt Lake City 801-746-4441 stanzaslc.com

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STANZA ITALIAN BISTRO & WINE BAR

topped with fresh fennel fronds and served with a spicy fennel-apple agrodolce and house-baked cinnamon-spiked semolina crackers. Other outstanding starters include arancini ($8)—a trio of fried rice balls made with fresh housemade mozzarella, peperonata and basil; and, in warm weather, the divine housemade burrata ($12) with fresh favas, tomato and basil. Stanza’s superb salads aren’t the afterthought they are in some restaurants. I and some of my fellow foodies think that their Caesar ($9) is one of the best in town, and the beet salad ($9) with goat cheese, chicories, candied almonds and white balsamic was delicious even to a beet naysayer like me. There are usually nine or 10 dishes on the menu featuring fresh, housemade pasta. I think the rich, meaty veal-and-pork casarecce alla Bolognese ($22) is second to none—a hearty and satisfying winter dish. At the lighter end of the scale is farfalle all’aragosta ($28), a lovely dish of fresh farfalle tossed with generous lobster morsels and long-stemmed mushrooms in a delicate white wine, lemon and garlic sauce. I very much like the whole branzino that Stanza’s slightly older sister Current serves, but the boneless, prosciutto-wrapped branzino with picatta sauce ($30) is probably easier for guests to tackle. Any time of year— but especially in cold weather—cioppino is a good call. Stanza’s consists of fish, potatoes, shrimp, mussels and calamari in a picante tomato broth ($32). For dessert, enjoy a scoop of the excellent housemade gelato and a glass of sweet, spicy Vin Santo. CW

That brings me back to Stanza, and why you’re only reading about it here now. Since I wasn’t going to review a soft opening, I returned a couple of months later. Then, just as I was about to write a review, chef Phelix Gardner—who was opening chef at Stanza—moved over to its sister restaurant, Current Fish & Oyster. So, I put the kibosh on that review, knowing that the menu was likely to change. Enter the very talented Logan Crew, a former Log Haven sous chef, to take over the Stanza kitchen. And so, it was back to for another visit. You can probably guess what happened. Yep, foiled again: Crew’s crew moved on just as I was ready to finally write a review, although he plans to return from time to time for tweaks and menu development. More months went by. Well, I never really felt that Stanza was a “chef-driven” restaurant in the first place, and apparently the owners now agree. The current kitchen might not have a “name” chef at the helm, but my most recent dining experiences tell me they’re on the right path. There is nary a trace left—besides the remodeled bar—of Faustina, the restaurant that was transformed into Stanza. The owners literally raised the roof and created a gorgeous, sprawling eatery with warm, contemporary décor, a private upstairs dining room, fire pit, patio seating, valet parking and more. The management team includes operations manager Hillary Merrill, who runs a tight ship in the front of the house. With Jimmy Santangelo on board as beverage director, Stanza’s wine, beer and cocktail selections are innovative and sprinkled with happy surprises. After many good meals at Stanza, I’ll just try to hit some of the highlights, in addition to excellent service from employees like Erin and Samantha. First, the crudo ti tonno ($16) appetizer is exquisite. It’s a round of minced raw yellowtail and red pepper,

| CITYWEEKLY.NET |

s we creep into the new year, the topic at hand is a not-so-new restaurant. My first visit to Stanza Italian Bistro & Wine Bar was in April of 2016. So, given that it’s a significant eatery in our city, why am I just now getting around to reviewing it? Well, if the court will allow me a brief sidebar, I’ll explain, and hopefully shed a little light into this business of reviewing restaurants. Many restaurants—especially bigger ones with large marketing and research budgets—host what are called “soft openings,” which are invite-only affairs that occur prior to a restaurant’s public opening. It’s a chance for staff to go through dry-runs, for the kitchen to (hopefully) work out kinks, and for everyone to get some practice before paying customers arrive. The food, and sometimes beverages, are normally comped or discounted by the restaurant. My first Stanza visit—the one back in April—was during a soft opening. Now, due in part to the prevalence of food blogging and social media, it has become fairly common practice for food writers to review restaurants based on soft openings. The articles tend to have titles like “First Bite,” “Sneak Peek” or “First Look.” Simply put, I think this practice is a bit disingenuous. For the most part, these “first looks” really are reviews, although they’re sort of not. They are rarely critical, which can mislead readers into thinking every restaurant is excellent. These puff pieces disconnect the writer from any sort of responsibility or risk; they are essentially free ads for free meals. I simply can’t see any way to justify a restaurant review based on a dining experience with a selected guest list, featuring free food and drink, prior to the restaurant’s public opening. But, I also get that in our fast-paced, über-click media world, food writers—just like legit news reporters—want to get the scoop. Everyone wants to be the first to give a shout-out to the chic new ramen bar or latest vegan, raw food restaurant. I can only control how I approach doing my own restaurant reviews, but I can tell you that you never have, and never will, read a review here based solely on a media dinner or soft opening. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just not right.

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26 | JANUARY 12, 2017

FOOD MATTERS

Times Go o d & a B e e r , P iz z

BY TED SCHEFFLER

TED SCHEFFLER

@critic1

Contemporary Japanese Dining LUNCH • DINNER • COCKTAILS

18 WEST MARKET STREET • 801.519.9595

Westside Witch

“After 40 billion years of trials and tribulations,” according to founder Scott Gardner, Water Witch (163 W. 900 South, 801-462-0967, facebook.com/waterwitchbar) opened a couple days before New Year’s. This unique bar is located in the commercial complex that also houses Meditrina and Laziz, and it’s a friendly, snug, diminutive space that’s crawling with bar talent—including all-star mixologists like Gardner, Matt Pfohl and Sean Neves. As well as cocktails, beer and wine, they boast one of the best selections of bar bites in town, like lardo with sea salt and piparras (pickled peppers); pork and duck liver mousse with Sauternes; or pork rillette with crostini, cornichons and mustard. Get a seat while you still can.

2991 E. 3300 S.

385.528.0181

Kosher at Canyons

The Silverado Lodge in Park City’s Canyons Village has opened Bistro Kosher Deli (2653 Canyons Resort Drive, 435-604-3000, parkcitymountain.com). The lodge is located at Park City Mountain, which is operated by Vail Resorts. It’s the only ski resort in North America with kosher offerings, according to Vail Resorts Vice President of Hospitality Ron Neville. Bistro Kosher Deli is open Sunday-Thursday from 4-9 p.m., serving items such as hot pastrami and turkey Reuben sandwiches, and entrées like chicken schnitzel, spaghetti and meatballs and citrus salmon. Food can also be pre-ordered for Friday pickup. The eatery features antibiotic- and hormone-free meats and a dairy-free kitchen, along with 100 percent organic produce.

Marco’s in Daybreak

Confession: As much as I’m drawn to independent, artisan pizzerias, I’m also a fan of the Marco’s Pizza franchise, founded by native Italian Pasquale (“Pat”) Giammarco. Local owner Jacob Webb has brought Marco’s—his fourth Utah pizzeria—to Daybreak (5414 W. Daybreak Parkway). “I was attracted to the Marco’s brand because it was founded on Italian freshness and quality standards,” Webb says. In addition to pizza, offerings include subs, salads, wines and more, which can be ordered online at marcos.com.

Award Winning Donuts

705 S. 700 E. | (801) 537-1433

ing r e t a C t u o b A Call Us arty P y a d i l o H r u Yo ur pies! We’ve got yo

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Quote of the week: “Don’t eat till you’re full; eat till you’re tired. —Andrew Zimmern

Tips: tscheffler@cityweekly.net

deli • bakery • coffee shop

Mon-Sat 7am-9pm & Sunday 9:30am-4pm • 1560 E 3300 S

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-Creekside Patio -87 Years and Going Strong -Breakfast served daily until 4pm -Delicious Mimosas & Bloody Marys -Gift Cards for sale in diner or online

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JANUARY 12, 2017 | 27

2646 South 700 East | www.inthecup.biz 801-904-3872 | Mon-Fri: 6am-6pm Sat: 7:30am-5pm | Sun: 7:30am-3pm

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28 | JANUARY 12, 2017

BEER, WINE & SPIRITS

The Wines of Winter

Suggestions for cold-weather sipping. BY TED SCHEFFLER tscheffler@cityweekly.net @critic1

f you live in the Cayman Islands, sunny Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro or other places with year-round warm weather, the wine you choose to drink isn’t likely affected by the seasons. But, here in Utah, Mother Nature plays an influential part in my wine buying and ordering decisions. I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t drink your favorite bright, summer sauvignon blanc during a cold snap; I’m not the wine police. But as our habits—eating and otherwise—change in wintertime, it makes sense that our wine selections would change, too. Many of us tend to be a bit more housebound in cold weather; we physically slow down some. And when it comes to

food, there are more hearty stews, roasts, braised and baked dishes, chilies, soups and slow-cooked meals than in warmer weather. And so, you’ll naturally want to select wines that complement those foods rather than overwhelm them. One of my favorite winter seductions is Provençalstyle beef daube, but I wouldn’t think of drinking it with a light pinot grigio. A key component to achieving successful pairings is to pay attention to texture. That is, the textures of both the food and the wine. A thick, hearty beef stew begs for a big, rich red to drink with it—perhaps one from Côtes du Rhône or Châteauneuf-duPape in France. They tend to have big fruit backbones, chewy tannins, high alcohol levels and dark, earthy flavors. A couple of good options would be Guigal Côtes du Rhône ($17.75) or the more luxurious Mont Redon Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($45.96). Another reason reds fit so well into our wintry ways is temperature. In hot weather, we want cold (or at least cool), refreshing drinks—in other words, white wines. When it’s chilly, we turn to those served at warmer temperatures—the reds. Not all winter reds have to be big, brooding, serious wines. Take, for example, 19 Crimes Red Blend ($10.99) from southeastern Australia. Like its name— which refers to the 19 different crimes that would result in British rogues being

DRINK sentenced to live in Australia— this blend of shiraz, pinot noir, grenache and cabernet sauvignon is whimsical, almost tasting like a chocolate-vanilla shake in a wineglass. It’s also a fruit bomb, bursting at the seams with currants and dark fruit flavors. Enjoy it next to a warm fireplace on its own, or pair it with red meat. Syrah, merlot and cabernet sauvignon are perfect partners for winter dishes, and Poggio al Tesoro Bolgheri Mediterra ($26.99) is made with all three of those varietals. It’s a fragrant and fruity wine that is rich and complex, yet light enough to pair with dishes such as roast chicken or pastas with sauces like carbonara, Alfredo or cacio e pepe. Other red wines especially wellsuited to the season are zinfandel, pinot noir (particularly with mushroom dishes), sangiovese, Barolo, malbec and Rioja. Obviously, I’m not going to eschew white wines entirely. But unlike in the spring and

summer—when I’m interested mostly in light, unoaked white wines—in winter I turn to heavier, oaky ones (both white and red) with bigger bodies and chewier textures than my summertime sippers. In other words, chardonnay. A white burgundy like Louis Jadot Meursault ($67.97) is 100 percent fermented and aged for 15 months in wood barrels before bottling. The result is Meursault that is rich enough to pair with roast turkey, pork and cream sauces. Domestically, big, rich chardonnays from producers like Rombauer ($35.99), DeLoach ($13.95) and Landmark ($27.49) are great for winter enjoyment. CW

A DELICIOUS RESOLUTION

GOODEATS Complete listings at cityweekly.net

Award Winning Vietnamese Cuisine

Featuring dining destinations from buffets and rooms with a view to mom-and-pop joints, chic cuisine and some of our dining critic’s faves. Del Mar al Lago

If you love ceviche, you’ll love Del Mar. Try the ceviche de mero, which is tender fish, mussels, octopus, calamari and more served with sweet corn and onions that complement the zesty spices. Portions are generous, and plates seem designed to be shared, so don’t keep that lomo saltado (strips of beef marinated in soy sauce, vinegar and spices, stir-fried with onions and tomatoes, served with steamed rice and french fries) to yourself. The restaurant is clean and airy, with an open kitchen where you can see your meal being prepared. 310 W. Bugatti Drive, Salt Lake City, 801-467-2890

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Named after its owner, Sawadee specializes in wholesome, family-style Thai cuisine served in an über-friendly atmosphere. Standards include pad Thai and spring rolls. For something more exotic, try honeyginger duck or a Thai curry puff. Spicy dishes include the curries, which can be tamed to your specification. Tofu can be substituted for any meat dish, and an extensive vegetarian selection will thrill non-carnivores. There’s a pretty good wine list, too. 754 E. South Temple, Salt Lake City, 801-328-8424, sawadee1.com

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Making a decision on one of the endless arrays of delicious desserts can be troublesome at Gourmandise, so why not try two? On the weekends, lines stretch out the door as people eagerly wait to sink their teeth into one of the tasty cakes, tarts, pastries, breads or breakfast pastries. No sweet tooth? No problem. The café menu includes an extensive list of salads, sandwiches and entrées. 250 S. 300 East, Salt Lake City, 801-328-3330, gourmandisethebakery.com

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Owner/self-taught pastry czar Leslie Seggar knows exactly what’s she’s doing on every level—from croissants to hot-pressed sandwiches. Leslie’s gourmet pastries feature only the finest ingredients, and the treats are enhanced by the store’s physical layout, right down to communal tables that create a warm and contemporary environment. The sticky buns are out of this world, but that is only one of many seasonal creations worth a taste test at Tulie. 863 E. 700 South, Salt Lake City, 801883-9741, tuliebakery.com

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Squatters has been the go-to brewpub for Salt Lakers since its 1989 inception. But the beer- and burgerlovers’ refuge has much more to offer its patrons: The diverse menu ranges from an insanely tasty Thai yellow curry to grilled salmon drizzled with wasabi aioli. After all these years, it’s still among the best in town. Another perk: You can pick up a six-pack of full-strength beer to take home, even after the liquor stores are closed. 147 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City, 801-363-2739, squatters.com

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JOHN TAYLOR

REVIEW BITES A sampler of Ted Scheffler’s reviews

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Restaurateur Carlos Rodriguez has moved from La Fountain to a bigger, rebranded and rebooted space that’s bustling even on a Wednesday night. The free tortilla chips are housemade and delicious, accompanied by a rich, dark red salsa that’s about as perfect as it gets. The molcajete bowl is brimming with a “stew” of scrumptiousness: grilled chicken, strips of carne asada, shrimp, nopales (cactus strips), charred jalapeños, onions and rectangles of Oaxacan cheese the size of Jenga blocks—all simmered in a lava-hot tomatillo sauce. Heat-seekers would do well to order the camarones a la diabla—a devilishly spicy and vibrant dish of tender, plump shrimp in a chiltepín-infused tomato sauce, served with white rice and a side salad of shredded greens and chopped tomatoes topped with crumbled queso fresco. A carnitas plate ($12.99) with excellent refried beans, Mexican rice, guacamole and pico de gallo fell a little short due to the dryness of the shredded pork, but the flavor was outstanding. Service could not be more friendly or professional. Rodriguez has raised the stakes regarding Mexican food in downtown Salt Lake City. Reviewed Nov. 10. 307 W. 200 South, 801-883-9255, facebook.com/chiletepin

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FILM REVIEW

Mission Impossible

CINEMA KERRY BROWN/PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Silence is a beautiful, complex mix of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. BY DAVID RIEDEL comments@cityweekly.net @davidmriedel

O B O R Y N I H S G BI

News from the geeks. what’s new in comics, games, movies and beyond.

SILENCE

BBB.5 Andrew Garfield Adam Driver Issey Ogata Rated R

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) Willem Dafoe Harvey Keitel Rated R

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JANUARY 12, 2017 | 31

Black Robe (1991) Lothaire Bluteau Aden Young Rated R

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The Mission (1986) Robert DeNiro Jeremy Irons Rated PG

it, the Japanese people and its government have very different ways of viewing the world from the Jesuits—but he’s not going to blink before Rodrigues does. Silence isn’t without its problems. Kichijiro keeps showing up and making things better or worse as the plot demands; if there were ever a character you’d want to punch in the face, it’s this guy. Ferreira’s explanations for his decisions don’t quite ring true (though maybe that’s the point), and Driver’s accent goes as quickly as it comes. But the cinematography is beautiful, the bulk of the performances stellar and Garfield deserves some kind of award for playing Rodrigues and Desmond Doss in Hacksaw Ridge in the same year. Ultimately, Scorsese puts forth no answer to the question of God’s silence; that would be pretty bold. Silence will probably feel like a reaffirmation of Christian faith to some and an impugnation of Christian arrogance to others. Whether it’s a Good Friday picture or an Easter Sunday picture likewise is open to interpretation. The movie’s final shot is one big question. CW

Taxi Driver (1976) Robert DeNiro Jodie Foster Rated R

Andrew Garfield and Shinya Tsukamoto in Silence

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are soon saying Mass in Latin and hearing confession, with difficulty, in Japanese. Soon other Christians come looking for them, and that brings fresh scrutiny from the local authorities. Rodrigues and Garupe split up in an effort to keep hidden and locate Ferreira. An inquisitor named Inoue (Issey Ogata, whose performance is simultaneously benevolent and malevolent, and therefore terrifying) tortures and kills several locals before capturing Rodrigues and giving him a choice: Apostatize, or watch your followers die. It’s here that Silence takes a contemplative turn, going from what is essentially a subdued cat-and-mouse thriller into fullblown philosophical head-scratcher. An interpreter (Tadanobu Asano) for Inoue makes the point that the Portuguese Jesuits have come to Japan in bad faith. How can the local authorities treat the Jesuits with respect if the priests don’t respect the Japanese enough to learn their language? Rodrigues is taken aback. He’s met someone who’s at least as smart as he is, and he’s not even the inquisitor. Rodrigues suggests that it’s the Japanese who are acting in bad faith—that the soil in Japan is rotten if it doesn’t allow the seed of Christianity to bloom. There’s a lot of back and forth like that between Rodrigues, the interpreter and Inoue. It’s a pleasure to watch Ogata contort his face in myriad ways as he hears Rodrigues answer his questions in exactly the same fashion as other Jesuit priests. And as Inoue tortures Rodrigues’ followers, it becomes clear he doesn’t enjoy it. As he puts

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here’s an old story that one of Martin Scorsese’s New York University professors said his films contained too much Good Friday and not enough Easter Sunday. It turns out, as Scorsese told America Magazine, the remark was uttered by Rev. Francis Principe in reference to Taxi Driver, and goes like this: “I’m glad you ended it on Easter Sunday and not on Good Friday.” A story that examines the profundities of faith, Silence has Easter Sunday and Good Friday running through it. It’s a quieter Scorsese movie (though not too quiet; there’s enough gore to go around). Its central question is open to interpretation: Why is God silent in the face of human suffering? In the 17th century, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), a Portuguese Jesuit priest, watches in horror as his fellow Jesuits are tortured. Eventually, we end up back in Portugal in the offices of Father Valignano (Ciarán Hinds). He’s explaining to Fathers Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver) that Ferreira, their mentor, is an apostate, having renounced Christianity. Rodrigues and Garupe want permission to go to Japan—where practicing Catholicism has been banned—find Ferreira, bring him home and preach to the converted, if they find any. Valignano doesn’t resist much, despite reports that priests are dying in large numbers. Soon Rodrigues and Garupe are recruiting Kichijiro (Yôsuke Kubozuka), a Japanese sailor and a drunk, to aid them once they get back to Japan. Kichijiro lives in a state of constant self-recrimination for adopting Christianity, then abandoning it to save himself while his family was burned alive at the hands of samurai purging the shores of anything not resembling Buddhism. When the Jesuits arrive in Japan, an underground Christian community greets them as heroes. Rodrigues and Garupe

CINEMA CLIPS

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perhaps even more impossible to ignore the ways in which she becomes a willing participant in sexual violence once her assailant Information is correct at press time. Film release schedules are becomes known to her. Verhoeven’s provocative perversity makes subject to change. it harder to resolve whether the connection between those two ideas justifies them both, makes them both even more potentially THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE BBB.5 offensive, or simply makes for a narrative that requires multiple If you want to know what A+ scary-movie directing looks like, it’s viewings to untangle the connection between shame and the need what André Øvredal (Trollhunters) delivers with this deliciously to find some manner of penance. Opens Jan. 13 at Broadway Centre creepy mix of body horror and haunted-house spookfest. In the Cinemas. (R)—SR basement of their home/family mortuary, father-and-son coroners Tommy (Brian Cox) and Austin Tilden (Emile Hirsch) try to LIVE BY NIGHT BB.5 determine the cause of death of a mysterious unknown woman If you’ve ever wondered what it might look like to film a script found at the scene of a mass homicide in a suburban Virginia home. consisting entirely of aphorisms, here you go. Ben Affleck wrote, Their progressively bizarre discoveries—a severed tongue; scars adapted Dennis Lehane’s novel and stars as Joe Coughlin, a smallon her internal organs—point to something unsettling, but that’s time criminal in Prohibition-era Boston who gets caught up in a not even the half of it. The set-up and character dynamics are war between Irish and Italian gangs, eventually becoming boss minimal at best, leaving the focus almost entirely on the mystery of a rum-running operation in Florida. Affleck did fine work and the Tildens’ increasing unease. And viewers will be right there adapting contemporary-setting Lehane in Gone Baby Gone, but with them, as Øvredal masterfully uses the dark corners of his set- while he paints a vivid picture of a multi-ethnic 1930s Tampa, ting, the haunting blank stare of Jane Doe and a sound design that the period piece gets away from him as he tries to create characranges from shudder-inducing use of autopsy tools to the ominous ters who don’t seem like a collection of speeches. As Joe learns tinkling of a bell. The climax almost seems doomed to be an anti- his important, potentially deadly lessons in life and love, you climax, but the middle third should be taught in film schools for get exchanges like “You make your own luck.” “Sometimes. how to turn atmosphere into delightful fright. Opens Jan. 13 at Sometimes it makes you.” Or “It’s not enough to break the rules; Tower Theatre. (NR)—Scott Renshaw you have to be strong enough to make your own.” Or an extended

high-school senior Tripp (Lucas Till) is restoring. But it’s not cool that the adults actually in charge of this movie crafted it as a sort of last-gasp romance of American environmental narcissism— yes, we are using up all the oil, try and stop us!—that fetishizes gas-guzzlers, or that it includes monster-in-a-truck shenanigans involving outrageously dangerous driving and massive criminal damage. You know, for kids. Opens Jan. 13 at theaters valleywide. (PG)—MaryAnn Johanson

THE BYE BYE MAN [not yet reviewed] Three friends discover the existence of an evil supernatural entity. Opens Jan. 13 at theaters valleywide. (PG-13)

PATRIOTS DAY B In the best of cases, dramatizing a real-life tragedy—especially one only a few years in the past—is a fraught enterprise. This is not the best of cases. Director Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg (Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon) again team up for fact-based rah-rah, this one focused around the April 15, 2013 terrorist attack at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It gets off to the worst possible start, introducing several everyday Bostonians going about their lives with mournful music in the background, as we simply wait for them to become casualties. Then there’s Wahlberg’s character, Boston cop Tommy Saunders, a fictionalized amalgam who’s like the Forrest Gump of this horrific event; he’s absolutely everywhere and figuring out absolutely everything, to a degree that feels grotesquely offensive to everyone else involved in saving lives and tracking down the Tsarnaev brothers. And it’s squirm-inducing to note how much time the chess metaphor that even Joe and the woman he’s flirting with story spends with the Tsarnaevs themselves, in a way that’s (Zoe Saldana) seem to get lost in. Familiar gangster-movie sce- unpleasant without ever being enlightening. I hope everyone narios need more specificity than a script that could be cut up involved feels good telling themselves this was all about honoring and inserted line-by-line into fortune cookies. Opens Jan. 13 the victims, instead of delivering an embarrassing cash-in. Opens at theaters valleywide. (R)—SR Jan. 13 at theaters valleywide. (R)—SR

ELLE BBB The question isn’t whether or not Paul Verhoeven’s adaptation of a Philippe Djian novel is problematic; it’s only whether or not the ways in which it’s problematic get in the way of what’s fascinating about it. Isabelle Huppert plays Michèle Leblanc, a video-game company president who is raped during a home invasion as the movie begins. What follows is a thorny character study sparked by Huppert’s performance as a woman whose tormented past—her father is in prison for a mass murder—is connected to her seeming self-loathing and manipulations of friends and family in the present. It’s impossible to ignore that Michèle’s Roman Catholic upbringing is somehow connected to her behavior, and

MONSTER TRUCKS .5B What if “monsters trucks” actually meant—wait for it—that there were monsters in the trucks? Apparently Monster Trucks was developed from an idea by the four-year-old son of a Paramount exec—shocking, I know—and yet a monster in a truck is the least ridiculous thing in a story that is often illogical and frequently hugely problematic. Maybe the fact that this is “for kids” excuses the absurd plot about a North Dakota oil drill unleashing a family of tentacle-y underground sea monsters—a species of megafauna previously undiscovered in many decades of oil prospecting—that just so happen to take a super-quick liking to using truck chassis as wheelchairs, like the vintage pickup that

SILENCE BBB.5 See review p. 31. Opens Jan. 13 at theaters valleywide. (R) SLEEPLESS [not yet reviewed] A cop (Jamie Foxx) searches for his kidnapped son. Opens Jan. 13 at theaters valleywide. (R)

SPECIAL SCREENINGS LOVING At Park City Film Series, Jan. 13-14, 8 p.m. & Jan. 15, 6 p.m. (PG-13) SUPERSTAR At Brewvies, Jan. 16, 10 p.m. (PG-13) TOWER See p. 26. At Rose Wagner Center, Jan. 17, 7 p.m. (NR)

more than just movies at brewvies

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My Kitchen Rules is half-baked; Homeland and Teachers return. My Kitchen Rules Thursday, Jan. 12 (Fox)

Series Debut: This is what the “celebrity” competition show has come to: a cook-off. In a borrowed Australian format, teams of two take turns hosting dinner parties for their competitors and judges—you suck, you go home. The “star” duos of My Kitchen Rules are ’N Sync’s Lance Bass and his mom, bro-and-sis singers Brandy and Ray J, comedian Andrew Dice Clay and Mrs. Clay, Real Housewife of Who Gives a Shit? Brandi Glanville and some dude, and singer Naomi Judd and her long-suffering husband. Judges Curtis Stone and Cat Cora, chefs who are arguably bigger celebrities than everyone else in this clown car, could keep it interesting, but what’s next? Landscaping With the Stars? Celebrity Dog Wash? Or …

Homeland Sunday, Jan. 15 (Showtime)

Season Premiere: After losing touch with/interest in terrorism soap Homeland a few years ago when—spoiler!— Damian Lewis’ co-lead character Brody was killed off, I’ve recently gotten caught-up on the Crazy Carrie (Claire Danes) solo-album seasons. Much to my surprise, Homeland has held up well without Brody—and Danes, who was great to begin with, is fan-damn-tastic on her own and

unencumbered by that ginger dead weight (and Lewis is better off on Showtime’s Billions, anyway). Season 6 finds Carrie back stateside after last year’s harrowing Berlin arc, but all isn’t well in the U.S.: A new president has been elected(!), and the transfer of power is looking to be tense and rocky(!!). If that’s not eerily real enough, this season will take place entirely between Election Day and Inauguration Day(!!!). Hell, let’s just go full bizarro and stage a crossover with Billions, already.

Teachers Tuesday, Jan. 17 (TV Land)

Season Premiere: Last January, TV Land quietly debuted this raucous mashup of Super Troopers, Bad Teacher and Broad City from six-woman comedy-improv troupe The Katydids (all of their first names are variations on “Katherine”), a hilariously wrong half-hour that almost elicits sympathy for their elementary-school pupils—until you remember that, oh yeah, they’re elementary-school pupils. The Teachers rank at varying levels on the Hot Mess Scale, but no Katydid (Caitlin Barlow, Katy Colloton, Cate Freedman, Kate Lambert, Katie O’Brien and Kathryn Renée Thomas … whew) outshines another in the ensemble, reminiscent of old-school cable anarchy-com It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Your homework: binge Season 1.

My Kitchen Rules (Fox)

Six Wednesday, Jan. 18 (History)

Series Debut: A SEAL Team Six action drama? “Inspired by real missions”? Like USA’s military-leaning Shooter, Six has experienced setbacks and delays (original star Joe Manganiello dropped out during filming, causing Six to scrap its planned July 2016 premiere). Also like Shooter, which has become an underreported stealth hit, Six has just enough jingoistic grit and brothers-in-arms heart to appeal to a flyover ’Merica wary of the dark geopolitical ambiguousness of shows like Homeland (though both share a director, Lesli Linka Glatter). In a lucky get, Walton Goggins (Justified), an actor who can do no wrong, has replaced Manganiello as captured SEAL Team Six leader “Rip” Taggart, adding some serious gravitas to this modern Saving Private Ryan riff. Big words aside: much yellin’, explodin’ and killin’.

Listen to Frost Mondays at 8 a.m. on X96 Radio From Hell, and on the TV Tan podcast via Stitcher, iTunes, Google Play and billfrost.tv.

Series Debut: I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, this is exactly like James Corden’s ‘Carpool Karaoke’!” Wrongo, you cynical dolt! It’s totally different, because there are no celebrities! Also, the host is Craig Robinson! It’s like comparing the bassline of Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” to Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby”—the ocean of disparity between the two is staggeringly vast! Incomprehensibly colossal! Goddamned yuge! How dare you suggest that Spike has given up on original ideas because of the success of Lip Sync Battle, which is just a stolen Jimmy Fallon bit! We’re making America great again here, people— you can either get onboard with Caraoke Showdown, or sit over there on the wrong side of history like a chump! Sad!

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Caraoke Showdown Thursday, Jan. 12 (Spike)

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MUSIC

From new romantic to tireless journeyman, Midge Ure stays true to his singular stance. BY LEE ZIMMERMAN comments@cityweekly.net

idge Ure has never lacked for success. Having originally made his mark as part of Britain’s so-called New Romantic movement from the mid-’70s to the early ’80s, he played a key role in a number of iconic musical outfits. He initially emerged as a member of one-hit wonders Slik (their single “Forever and Ever” made waves on both sides of the Atlantic), but is best known as the singer-guitarist of the second iteration of new wave/synthpop band Ultravox, whose classic albums Vienna (1980), Rage in Eden (1981) and Lament (1984) established the band as a worldwide phenomenon. Along the way, the Scottish musician played an essential part in Rich Kids (with former Sex Pistol Glen Matlock), the stylish but short-lived Visage and a later incarnation of Thin Lizzy. He also cowrote (with Bob Geldof) and produced (with Trevor Horn) the allstar Band Aid charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” which still ranks as the second best-selling song in British pop history. Add his membership in the Order of the British Empire and five honorary doctorates, and clearly Ure has more than proven his musical mettle. Today, Ure remains the perpetual journeyman rocker. He’s carved out several solo albums, including the soundtrack to the 1998 film Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God… Be Back by Five. Among these releases are a hit cover of the Tom Rush classic “No Regrets” and a distinctive take on David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World,” which are indicative of Ure’s constant quest to innovate and invent, without relying on his past successes or allowing them to inhibit his efforts at forward motion. “If you constantly use what you have done as a kind of level, you will never progress,” Ure tells City Weekly in a telephone interview. Keeping things fresh, he continues, is more interesting than “recreating something I did 30 years ago.” To underscore that point, Ure has embarked on several solo tours in recent years, including one that found him driving himself from city to city here in the States—sans tour manager, backing musicians or anything more than a rental car and his guitar. “I did it to show young aspiring musicians how hard things are for them in the industry today,” he says. “It’s not something I would choose to do, but I felt it was necessary. Strangely, because I was doing it for a specific reason, I found it very self-satisfying and enjoyable.” Yet when asked why he continues to tour at such a frantic pace some 40 years after his bigger breakthroughs, he puts his reason succinctly: “I’m useless at everything else.” Ultravox reunited briefly in 2009, touring and releasing Brill!ant (Chrysalis, 2012), “of which I am very proud,” Ure says. However, he remains fixated on the future, not the past. “Everything has a finite lifetime, and it was just Ultravox’s time to call it a day,” he says, adding “it seems unlikely we will do anything live again.” Still, a slight twinge of nostalgia is all but unavoidable.

HAINTSO ROTH

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34 | JANUARY 12, 2017

CONCERT PREVIEW

Midge Ure “I loved being part of a band because all the pressure isn’t all on your shoulders,” he says. But he maintains that there’s nothing quite as exhilarating as the ability to work on his own, “because it pushes you further than you believe you can go, especially if you want to create something better than you have before.” It’s also an artist’s right not to let the past define them. Ure grew up on the outskirts of Glasgow listening to the only radio station within earshot, absorbing everything it aired, from Sinatra to the Beatles. These influences resonate throughout his discography, so it’s understandable that, even now, Ure takes a bit of umbrage at the suggestion that his earlier acts fit whatever tidy niche that the press was so eager to pin them with. “Any description placed on an artist is usually conceived by the media, and not the artists themselves,” Ure says. “Ultravox were in existence way before the term ‘New Romantic’ was coined, so I always thought it inappropriate. But I can see why the term was used to describe Visage, because of [late singer] Steve Strange’s involvement.” With a new album in the works that features orchestral versions of his signature songs, Ure insists that his only choice left is to keep plying his craft the way he always has. “Commercial success allows you the good fortune to keep creating, but it’s not what I make music for,” he says. “If someone hears something of mine in 100 years’ time, it would be lovely to have them think I cared and spent time creating that. Success disappears as quickly as it arrives. To attain longevity—you have to earn that.” And the method, he says, is to “progress, progress, progress.” CW

MIDGE URE

Monday, Jan. 16, 7 p.m. The Complex 536 W. 100 South 801-528-9197 $20 in advance, $25 day of show 21+ thecomplexslc.com

HIGHLAND live music

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EAT AT SUE’S! YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD BAR · FREE GAME ROOM, AS ALWAYS!

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KARAOKE

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36 | JANUARY 12, 2017

SATURDAY & SUNDAY BRUNCH, MIMOSA, AND MARY THURSDAY:

Will Baxter Band

FRIDAY:

DJ ChaseOne2 @9:00

SATURDAY:

DJ Sneeky Long @9:00

SUNDAY:

Brunch & NFL Playoff Games

MONDAY:

Micro Monday & Geeks Who Drink Trivia @ 7:00! TUESDAY:

Karaoke That Doesn’t Suck! WEDNESDAY:

Dusty Boxcars @ 7:00, then VJ Birdman on the big screen AS ALWAYS, NO COVER!

32 Exchange Place • 801-322-3200 www.twistslc.com • 11:00am-1:00am

Raw Dog MUSIC Songwriter Sam Smith returns with two bands, two albums and no filter. BY RANDY HARWARD rharward@cityweekly.net

“W

hiskey,” from the Samuel Smith Band’s 2011 EP, starts with a fat kick drum and a simple, dirty blues riff echoed down low by the bass, and another guitar harmonizing in spots before it hits a fat groove, a nasty, burning slide guitar lick and gritty-reedy-raspy vocals. In a word, it’s raw. Much like Samuel Smith himself, who walks into Patrick’s Pub and immediately orders two shots (whiskey, natch) and a beer. Two minutes later at a corner table, Smith’s giving unfiltered candor. He’s the 35-year-old home-schooled son of an opera singer and multi-instrumental savant; he married right after returning from a mission in Latvia in order to escape his parents’ house, subsequently found drugs, divorced at 23 and is now in recovery. “I was incredibly unhappy,” he says, citing the cognitive dissonance of a faithless Temple marriage. “Drugs were my answer, and I went really hard until I checked into rehab at 113 pounds.” His fighting weight is 155. Smith says he’s stabilized. “Fuck A A meetings, right?” He wasn’t about to surrender to a higher power while declaring himself powerless, “but I knew the value of being in a safe environment and having some kind of regimen.” Gesturing to the glass vessels before him, he says it’s only booze and weed now. “To me, this is recovery. The Buds ’n’ Suds Program.” Smith found fellowship at Acoustic Music, whose staffers were his pseudo-sponsors and taught him some guitar chords. Music helped him get out of his head and stay safe. He quickly amassed a body of rootsy rock songs, but performing them for anyone meant being vulnerable, and Smith was already raw: “You go through a two-year heroin phase and … It’s more than a hangover, dude.” He decided to hit the streets; “I thought, ‘It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon. I’m gonna smoke a bowl and walk downtown and play for the homeless people.’” Eventually he waltzed into Bluekats Coffee & Junk Food, asking the barista to turn down the music so he could play a few songs. Afterward, a stranger told Smith, “You’ve got to keep doing this.” Venturing into the SLC music scene, Smith hit open mics, befriending Tony Holiday and Jordan Young, and knocking people out with his striking, vivid songs. When Smith met Dustin Swan, Joey Davis and Ren Pankovich, they formed the Samuel Smith Band, becoming a popular draw around town with a reputation for rollicking shows and unrefined but intimate songs. In 2013, they broke up because, Smith says, “I’m a fuckin’ dick.”

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Left to right: Darren Farnsworth, Shane Kiel, Sam Smith, Dustin Swan and Ben Chapman of Pigeon For two years, the SSB played only occasional events as Smith toyed with not being a musician. But he kept writing, which is his compulsion. He reveals a cyst on the back of his hand—a consequence of his relentless pen. “I grip really tight and I push really hard,” he says. Since someone had to play all those songs, he’s back with two bands and two new albums. Pigeon, a five-piece folk-Americana band, is dropping Shame and Regret, recorded mostly live in the studio and produced by Jay William Henderson. The band provides a simple, more stripped-down context— authentic Americana for Smith’s real, raw songs. The other project is the reunited Samuel Smith Band, who recorded their self-titled new joint comprised of “all fucking interesting songs” with Terrance DH at Counterpoint Studios, who’ll release it via his Mid Jet label. This weekend, the bands play a two-night stand: a funk night with Talia Keys on Friday, and a blues/ Americana night with Candy’s River House on Saturday. Both feature a slew of other local music all-stars. Two nights after the interview, Smith calls, happy and drunk, to report spending the day practicing SSB songs alone to “make sure my shit’s together,” doing bean counting for the Pigeon record and then rehearsing with the SSB. “I am proud of that record,” Smith says of Pigeon, adding he shed tears of joy in the studio. As for the SSB rehearsal, “It was like riding a fuckin’ bicycle,” he cackles. “Fuck, yeah.” CW

THE SAMUEL SMITH BAND AND PIGEON W/ TALIA KEYS, CANDY’S RIVER HOUSE, TONY HOLIDAY, RICK GERBER, KIRK DATH AND MORE

Friday-Saturday, Jan. 13-14, 8 p.m. The Acoustic Space 124 S. 400 West 801-657-2325 $15 ($25 for both nights), 21+ theacousticspace.com

THIS WEEK’S MUSIC PICKS

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COMPLETE LISTINGS ONLINE CITYWEEKLY.NET RANDY HARWARD, BRIAN STAKER & LEE ZIMMERMAN

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THURSDAY 1.12

Nahko and Medicine for the People

DANIEL JUNG

THURSDAYSATURDAY 1.12-14 Robert Earl Keen

There are other artists who can lay claim to being a bona fide musical ambassador from the great state of Texas, but few of

Nahko and Medicine for the People them can claim that birthright as assertively as Robert Earl Keen. For more than three decades, he’s steadily ploughed the roots of authentic Americana, furthering a tradition shared by Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, Joe Ely, Willie Nelson, Shawn Colvin and others who have made Lubbock, and the Texas southern hill country in particular, such a wellspring of contemporary country music. Granted, Keen might not boast as high a profile with the general populace as some of his contemporaries, but his work remains every bit as influential. With 18 albums to his credit, he’s given those who have covered his songs plenty to choose from, while also inscribing his own indelible imprint as a living legend. That’s cool for Keen, and the rest of us as well. (LZ) The Egyptian Theatre, 328 Main, Park City, 8 p.m., $39-$75, egyptiantheatrecompany.org

Robert Earl Keen

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JANUARY 12, 2017 | 37

DARREN CARROLL

Chicago Mike Beck

formance (YouTube). That’s one of my favorite Hiatt songs, ever, and he often performs it solo, acoustic and unaccompanied (best version is on Hiatt Comes Alive at Budokan, if you’re interested). Beck does likewise, for the most part, adding some effects to his guitar and a djembe player—and crushes it. Covers are a big part of Beck’s repertoire, and he’s an ace interpreter. But he’s also got some originals—like “I’ll Get There When I Get There,” a jaunty blues number that he calls “my personal theme song.” I know several folks, myself included, who could adopt it for their own. (Randy Harward) The Hog Wallow Pub, 3200 E. Big Cottonwood Canyon Road, 9:30 p.m., $7, 21+, thehogwallow.com

4141 So. State Street 801.261.3463

Show any appreciation of songwriters’ songwriter John Hiatt, and I’m all ears. The first thing I ever heard Chicago Mike Beck play was a cover of Hiatt’s “Through Your Hands” from Hiatt’s 1990 album Stolen Moments, via Beck’s 2013 Park City TV per-

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Nahko and Medicine for the People take both their music and their muse seriously. In these troubled and divisive times, they’ve made it their mission to bring optimism, peace and positivity to the group of followers they call their Tribe. Taking their philosophy from Native American traditions and a steadfast devotion to Mother Nature, and their music from just as many sources—world, jam, rock, blues—they’re intent on providing an impetus for change. The band’s latest album is called Hoka (SideOneDummy, 2016), derived from a Native American phrase. “With your trust and support, we humbly accept this role and speak our prayers of intention to take direct action,” the group proclaims on their website. “‘Hoka Hey’ means, ‘today is a good day to die,’ but perhaps with your help, it could transform into a better day to live.” OK, we’re feeling it, and immersing a message in the music obviously garners appeal. It’s moving, modern, intelligent and fueled by emotion and empowerment. And yeah, it hits a good groove as well. This Medicine goes down real easy. (Lee Zimmerman) The Depot, 400 W. South Temple, 7:30 p.m., $25 in advance, $28 day of show, depotslc.com

PINKY’S

LORIE MOULTON

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Gentry Densley had a big year in 2016. He reunited the seminal experimental metal band Iceburn he fronted in the ‘90s for a concert in July, and the band started work on a new release. His current band Eagle Twin seemingly rang (or clanged) in the New Year with a show on December 30—heavy enough to reverberate across two spaces in the calendar. And, last but not least, he became a parent. ET (and almost certainly no one calls them that) is more doom/sludge metal, but also highlights Densley’s ragged, rugged vocals, including Tuvan throat singing. Densley says the band is currently mixing a new album, The Thundering Heard (Songs of Hoof and Horn), due for release on Southern Lord this spring or summer. Songs include “Quanah un Rama,” “Elk Wolvf Hymn,” “Heavy Hoof” and “Antlers of Lightning/Hooves of Thunder.” Cornered By Zombies’ most recent disc, Hurry Up And Wait (self-released, 2013) finds their adherents with baited breath. Prior to their September 2015 Incompoop, noise duo Baby Gurl appeared on a split with Gaytheist, a finalist in the “local band name most likely to get you in trouble with your neighborhood religious maven” sweepstakes.

ADULT TRIVIA 7PM

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38 | JANUARY 12, 2017

SATURDAY

WEDNESDAYS

KARAOKE F R I D AY S

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Eagle Twin

All in all, this show might be an early 2017 attempt to address the question, “Why is hard, driving, metallic music always so popular in the state of the Beehive?” (Brian Staker) The Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 East, 8 p.m., $5, 21+, theurbanloungeslc.com

TUESDAY 1.17

The Expendables, Hirie, Tribal Theory

There are two musical genre branches that have, oddly, never had much convergence: surf rock and reggae. But Santa Cruz, Calif., outfit The Expendables have intermingled reggae with punk rock (a combo fated since the beginning, due to both styles’ raging against authority) with surf-style guitar playing, even to the extent of fretboard dueling like two beach bums in search of the perfect wave, updated with contemporary guitar sonorities and effects. As yet another musical combo about to celebrate 20 years in existence, they have both groomed their fanbase and refined their musical artistry. Filipino act Hirie brings a more traditional reggae sound, and Tribal Theory out of San Diego adds some “West Coast cool” that fuses their Pacific Island culture with an urban reggae aesthetic. In the middle of January, here’s a little summer up in the mountains of Park City. (BS) Park City Live, 427 Main, 7 p.m., $15-$65, 21+, parkcitylive.net

SLY VEGAS

4 SA HBOETE &R

MONDAY 1.16

CONCERTS & CLUBS

THURSDAY 1.12 LIVE MUSIC

Cowboy Karaoke (The Cabin) Karaoke with DJ Benji (A Bar Named Sue) Karaoke (Willie’s Lounge) Live Band Karaoke with TIYB (Club 90) Throwback Thursdays (Liquid Joe’s)

LIVE MUSIC

Blizzard Music Fest feat. Z&Z + Tribe + Echo + Ricky Miami + DJ Hype + Jamaica Bobsled Team (Rossland)

SAM SUMPTER

KARAOKE

Karaoke (Cheers to You SLC) Karaoke (Willie’s Lounge)

SATURDAY 1.14 LIVE MUSIC

Anders Osborne + Jackie Greene (The State Room)

SPIRITS • FOOD • GOOD COMPANY 1.12 CHICAGO MIKE 1.13 STONEFED 1.14 STONEFED 1.16 OPEN BLUES JAM

1.18 JOHN DAVIS 1.19 THE ROYAL ENGINEERS 1.20 SON OF IAN 1.21 CANDY’S RIVER HOUSE

3200 E BIG COTTONWOOD RD. | 801.733.5567 THEHOGWALLOW.COM

JANUARY 12, 2017 | 39

FRIDAY 1.13

Chaseone2 (Twist) DJ Dance Party Weekend w/ DJ Dizzy D (Club 90) DJ Juggy + DJ Brisk (Bourbon House) Friday Night Fun w/ DJ Twitch (Area 51) Housepitality w/ Funkee Boss (Downstairs PC) Lavelle Dupree (Downstairs PC)

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KARAOKE

DJ + OPEN MIC + SESSION + PIANO LOUNGE

Bad Housepitality w/ Funkee Boss (Downstairs PC) Boy Brian (Johnny’s On Second) DJ/VJ Birdman (Bourbon House) Dueling Pianos (The Spur Bar & Grill) Funkin’ Fridays w/ DJ Rude Boy + Jazz The New Wave w/ DJ Radar (Area 51) Jam Session (Sugar House Coffee) Pierce Fulton (Sky) Reggae Thursday (The Royal)

Book on Tape Worm Slumber Party— Night 1 (Velour) Cold Cave + Drab Majesty (The Urban Lounge) Dead Desire (Club X) Dream Collage + The Archive + Fired Pilots + HED (The Loading Dock) Homesafe + Chase Huglin + Life Lessons + Pushkart Champions (Kilby Court) Joshy Soul and the Cool (Funk ’n’ Dive) Kane Brown (The Depot) Left of Reason (The Royal) Mark Owens (Westerner) Motherlode Canyon Band (Sugar House Coffee) Red Shot Pony (Brewski’s) Robert Earl Keen (The Egyptian) see p. 37 Samuel Smith Band + Pigeon + Talia Keys + more (The Acoustic Space) see p. 36 Shupecabra CD Release + Color Animal + JANK (Metro Music Hall) Skye + Reflektor + Mome Wrath + A Murphy & the Giant (The Ice Haüs) Stonefed (Hog Wallow Pub)

DJ + OPEN MIC + SESSION + PIANO LOUNGE

What is it with Austin and big bands of superhappies in colorful hippie outfits, playin’ stuff called “joy-pop?” I blame The Polyphonic Spree—a great band, but their whole sunshine ’n’ Kool-Aid thing, plus drugs, inspired such a glut of these bands that it got old fast. The music is everywhere, even in commercials where it loses all of its original and intended inclusive, communal vibe. But once in a while, one of these new bands is pretty cool. Calliope Musicals makes the cut, hitting all the touchstones of the genre while also calling back to AM radio pop and even, if my ears hear correctly, a little bit of Elephant 6 pop. Listening to their album Time Owes You Nothing (2016) in the middle of January is doin’ wonders from my undiagnosed seasonal affective disorder (aka winter blahs). So I’m gonna keep listenin’. (Randy Harward) Kamikaze’s, 2404 Adams Ave., Ogden, 6:30 p.m., $5 in advance, $10 day of show, 21+, kamikazesogden.com

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The Bookends + Rick Gerber & the Doe + Solarsuit + LaFrantz (Kilby Court) Chicago Mike Beck (Hog Wallow Pub) see p. 37 Fruition (The State Room) Fly Me to the Moon (Gallivan Center) Joy Spring Band (Sugar House Coffee) Mortigi Tempo + Lord Vox + Coyote and the Moon (Metro Music Hall) Nahko and Medicine for the People (The Depot) see p. 37 Nightcaps (Gracie’s) Robert Earl Keen (The Egyptian) see p. 37 Tony Holiday + Talia Keys + Tom Bennett (The Urban Lounge) Will Baxter Band (Twist)

Calliope Musicals

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40 | JANUARY 12, 2017

WEDNESDAY 1.18

CONCERTS & CLUBS

CHRIS PREYSER

August Burns Red, Protest the Hero

Protest the Hero

New Expanded Hours for Rye: Monday-Friday from 9am-2pm Saturday and Sunday from 9am-3pm Friday and Sunday from 6pm-11pm

Free ticket Tuesday at Rye! 1 entree = 1 ticket at Urban Lounge (while supplies last) www.ryeslc.com

JAN 12:

8PM DOORS FREE SHOW

JAN 13:

8PM DOORS

TONY HOLIDAY TALIA KEYS TOM BENNETT

COLD CAVE DRAB MAJESTY UTA TRAX

JAN 14:

8PM DOORS

EAGLE TWIN CORNERED BY ZOMBIES BABY GURL

JAN 15:

8PM DOORS FREE SHOW

IVY LOCAL TAROT DEATH CARD TANNER NICHOLSON

JAN 17:

HIGH ON FIRE ARCHONS

JAN 18:

PLANNED PARENTHOOD BENEFIT SHOW:

7PM DOORS EARLY SHOW

7PM DOORS FREE EARLY SHOW

DIE OFF 7 PM DOORS EARLY SHOW

The Blue Divide (Brewski’s) Book on Tape Worm Slumber Party— Night 2 (Velour) BT (Park City Live) Dealin’ in Dirt + Balls Capone + Black Winged Birds + Melody & the Breakups (Club X) Declared Aversion + Adamantium + V.O. Sensei + Mars + Dead Metro + Hooligin (The Loading Dock) Dust In My Coffee (Piper Down) Eagle Twin + Cornered By Zombies + Baby Gurl (The Urban Lounge) see p. 38 Ginger & the Gents (Funk ’n’ Dive) Jelly Bread (O.P. Rockwell) Joe McQueen Quartet (Viridian Center) John Craigie (Gracie’s) Los Hellcaminos (Sugar House Coffee) Robert Earl Keen (The Egyptian) see p. 37 Rock Against Trump feat. Wey + Magda-Vega + Highball Train + Homo Levitus (Beehive Social Club) The Number 12 Looks Like You + Stolas

SWELL MERCHANTS DRAPE

Contrary to popular belief, Wednesday—not Sunday—is the best night of the week for Christian metalcore. Look it up. There’s all kinds of metrics and stuff, in addition to Bible verses that can be massaged to support that (among other things). Even if it wasn’t, Pennsylvaniabased quintet August Burns Red is still gonna play. The Jesus-shriekers are touring in celebration of the 10th anniversary of their 2007 album Messengers (get it?) and bringing along pottymouthed and, in this writer’s humble opinion, superior (yes, because of the swears) band Protest the Hero. The Canadian progressive rock group is of the same mind as Mexican prog/screamo band Pierce the Veil: They keep it fun, they skew younger and appeal to the new (read: yuck) Warped Tour crowd, they rock hard and they have chops that belie their scene and might keep them viable when their crowd matures. In Hearts Wake and ’68 January open. (RH) The Complex, 536 W. 100 South, 6 p.m., $23 in advance, $27 day of show, thecomplexslc.com

+ Ferolux + Visitors (Kilby Court) Samuel Smith Band + Pigeon + Candy’s River House + more (The Acoustic Space) see p. 36 Spazmatics (Liquid Joe’s) Stonefed (The Hog Wallow Pub) Tragic Black + OvM + vISION (Metro Music Hall) Wyte-Out Showcase feat. Riddled With + Elysium + Walking with Ghost + Purgatory Bliss + CrossFire US (In the Venue)

DJ + OPEN MIC + SESSION + PIANO LOUNGE

Brisk (Downstairs PC) DJ Dance Party Weekend w/ DJ Dizzy D (Club 90) DJ Ikon (Sky) DJ Juggy (Bourbon House) DJ Latu (The Green Pig) DJ Sneeky Long (Twist) Radio Play w/ DJ Jeremiah (Area 51)

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SUNDAY 1.15 LIVE MUSIC

Ivy Local + Tarot Death Card + FEAL + Tanner Nicholson (The Urban Lounge) Live Bluegrass (Club 90) Punks Against Pence feat. All Systems Fail + Sad State of Society + Ulteriors + Clocktower + Hus + Donner Partyhouse + Suburban Hell Kill + Dick Slip (The Underground) VO Sensei + Vinnie Cassius + Shadø + DUSK (Metro Music Hall)

DJ + OPEN MIC + SESSION + PIANO LOUNGE

Dueling Pianos (Sugar House Coffee) Open Blues Jam (The Green Pig Pub) Red Cup Event w/ DJ Juggy (Downstairs PC)

CONCERTS & CLUBS

CITY WEEKLY’S HOT LIST FOR THE WEEK

COMPLETE LISTINGS ONLINE @ CITYWEEKLY.NET KARAOKE

Karaoke w/ DJ Benji (A Bar Named Sue on State) Karaoke (The Tavernacle) Superstar Karaoke w/ DJ Ducky (Club Jam)

MONDAY 1.16 LIVE MUSIC

Calliope Musicals (Kamikaze’s) see p. 39 Jordan Young (Sugar House Coffee) Midge Ure (The Complex) see p. 34 Nathan Spencer Revue (Gracie’s)

DJ + OPEN MIC + SESSION + PIANO LOUNGE

Monday Night Blues Jam (The Royal) Open Blues Jam (The Green Pig) Open Blues Jam hosted by Robby’s Blues Explosion (The Hog Wallow Pub)

KARAOKE

Bingo Karaoke (The Tavernacle)

TUESDAY 1.17 The Expendables + Hirie + Tribal Theory (Park City Live) see p. 38 Brian Koviak (Sugar House Coffee) High on Fire + Archon + Die Off (The Urban Lounge)

Open Jazz Jam (Bourbon House) Open Mic (The Royal)

WEDNESDAY 1.18 LIVE MUSIC

August Burns Red + Protest the Hero + In Hearts Wake + ’68 January (The Complex) see p. 40 David Rohrer (Shades of Pale) Dusty Boxcars (Twist) End of the World Party feat. Swell Merchants + Drape + Bobby Laundry + Cathy Foy + Dream Slut (The Urban Lounge) Fuck the Informer + Eyesore + Diotima (Metro Music Hall) John Davis (The Hog Wallow Pub) Michelle Moonshine (Sugar House Coffee) Tim Ouburg (The Hog Wallow Pub) Wax Motif & Wuki: Retrograde Tour (Infinity Event Center)

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DJ + OPEN MIC + SESSION + PIANO LOUNGE

Open Mic (Muse Music) DJ Birdman (Twist) DJ Curtis Strange (Willie’s Lounge) Brisk (Downstairs PC)

DJ + OPEN MIC + SESSION + PIANO LOUNGE

Karaoke (The Tavernacle) Karaoke That Doesn’t Suck (Twist) Karaoke w/ DJ Thom (A Bar Named Sue on State) Karaoke w/ Spotlight Entertainment (Keys on Main) Karaoke w/ Zim Zam Ent. (Club 90)

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CROSSWORD PUZZLE

SITH-1

BY DAVID LEVINSON WILK

ACROSS

Last week’s answers

JANUARY 12, 2017 | 43

No math is involved. The grid has numbers, but nothing has to add up to anything else. Solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic. Solving time is typically 10 to 30 minutes, depending on your skill and experience.

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Complete the grid so that each row, column, diagonal and 3x3 square contain all of the numbers 1 to 9.

SUDOKU

1. Informing, with "in" 2. "Nighthawks" artist 3. Inhaler user's malady 4. Makes progress 5. Simplicity 6. Network owned by Showtime

47. Any of three literary sisters 48. Finished, as dishes 51. Listings in a dr.'s calendar 53. Grounded trans-Atlantic fliers, for short 54. Suffix at a natural history museum 57. Ziering of "Sharknado" 58. Fight-ending letters 59. His counterpart 60. Soil-turning tool

DOWN

7. Foundation exec. 8. Cheer at a fútbol match 9. SSW's opposite 10. Horror movie sounds 11. Where Etihad Airways is headquartered 12. Check of financial records 13. Rascals 18. Go by foot 22. Sport-____ (vehicle) 24. Sports star who lent his name to a clothing line 25. "... then again, it doesn't have to be this minute" 26. Ushers 27. Skillful 30. Remove plumbic traces from 33. "Can't Help Lovin' ____ Man" ("Show Boat" song) 34. Young amphibian 36. Erased 37. Retain 38. Relative of neo-soul 39. Intensify 43. Paul Anka's "____ Beso" 46. Least furnished

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1. When repeated, a ballroom dance 4. Accomplish 11. "____ for Activist" (2013 kids' book about social justice) 14. The "L" of UCLA 15. Eeyore's creator 16. Dude 17. Directions for finding the best swimming hole? 19. ____ Today 20. FaceTime device 21. South ____ 23. Characters created by Jules Verne and Disney 24. She "drank champagne and danced all night," in song 28. Land heavily 29. Navratilova rival 30. Took a chance 31. ____ Bridge, historic 1874 span across the Mississippi 32. "Lordy Lordy!" 35. Book jacket info 36. Reaction upon looking at Pete Rose's career statistics? 40. Sports org. with a five-ring logo 41. Bikini atoll, once 42. Ballet bend 44. Suffered a face-plant 45. E.g., e.g. 49. Teaching degs. 50. Bruce of "Nebraska" 51. Asteroids game maker 52. Karate schools 54. Encourage 55. Put ____ happy face 56. What a Jedi might say with a shrug of the shoulders? 61. Snack brand represented by Sterling Cooper on "Mad Men" 62. Pizza order, frequently 63. Sault ____ Marie 64. From A ____ 65. Ones who sleep soundly? 66. One of the Kennedys

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INSIDE /

COMMUNITY BEAT PG. 44 | FREE WILL ASTROLOGY PG. 45 INK PG. 46 | URBAN LIVING PG. 47

Cup of Coziness

With long winter months ahead, there’s nothing like hanging out at home with friends and a steaming cup of something tasty. Yerba mate—a traditional beverage from South America— has a long history of bringing people together and providing solo drinkers with an extra boost of energy. Local company Origin Yerba Mate wants to supply you with your fix. “We actually picked the name ‘Origin’ because of the Origin of Species, and put Charles Darwin on our labels,” co-owner Christopher Jensen says. Darwin discovered the beverage during his travels on The Beagle, and noted in his journals the supposed rejuvenating effects the tea could have on the mind. Naturally high in caffeine and full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, yerba mate is often shared among friends. “We are a company made up of friends with a common goal of bringing the best quality yerba mate to market,” Jensen says. “We all have a passion for good food and drinks, which is why we are so committed to ensuring our mate is the very best. It’s completely organic and all our flavors are natural—no fillers or chemicals.” Origin’s product comes in traditional, cacao, lemon verbena and peppermint flavors. The owners acquire their cacao from local company Solstice. Origin products can be found at several establishments around Salt Lake City, including The Rose Establishment and Mestizo. Two of Cafe Expresso’s locations—1100 E. 900 South; 602 E. 2100 South—use Origin lemon mate to make their “DJ tea” with milk and honey, and Nostalgia Café sells bags of Origin

ADAM BULLOUGH

Adults $7 • Kids $5

send leads to

Yerba mate is traditionally served in a gourd and drank during social gatherings.

peppermint and traditional loose leaf. It’s also sold through Amazon. But just because it’s sold by one of the biggest retailers around, don’t think it doesn’t have local impacts. “We’re employeeowned, so everybody that works for us owns a stake in the company,” Jensen says. “We also recently changed our bags and label processes to reduce waste and have less impact on the environment.” “It’s great to see such a refined, naturally grown product handled in such a grassroots manner,” creative director Cameron Hooyer says. “I think the product and packaging reflect the personal touch that is put into each bag of mate and I think that is something that the people of Salt Lake notice and appreciate.” After experimenting with a number of different producers, Jensen and his partners began sourcing their flavorful yerba mate from an organic farmer in Paraguay. It’s available to purchase looseleaf or individual tea bags, and can be enjoyed hot or cold. n

Origin Yerba Mate originyerbamate.com CAMERON HOOYER

Open Mon. & Wed. 4-8 p.m. Sat 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

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We have new hours!

S ON U W FOLLO GRAM A T S IN

T BEA

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY B Y R O B

B R E Z S N Y

Go to realastrology.com for Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes and daily text-message horoscopes. Audio horoscopes also available by phone at 877-873-4888 or 900-950-7700.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) I recently discovered Tree of Jesse, a painting by renowned 20th-century artist Marc Chagall. I wanted to get a copy to hang on my wall. But as I scoured the internet, I couldn’t find a single business that sells prints of it. Thankfully, I did locate an artist in Vietnam who said he could paint an exact replica. I ordered it, and was pleased with my new objet d’art. It was virtually identical to Chagall’s original. I suggest you meditate on taking a metaphorically similar approach, Capricorn. Now is a time when substitutes might work as well as what they replace. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) “It is often safer to be in chains than to be free,” wrote Franz Kafka. That fact is worthy of your consideration in the coming weeks, Aquarius. You can avoid all risks by remaining trapped inside the comfort that is protecting you. Or you can take a gamble on escaping, and hope that the new opportunities you attract will compensate you for the sacrifice it entails. I’m not here to tell you what to do. I simply want you to know what the stakes are.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) “I never wish to be easily defined,” wrote Cancerian author Franz Kafka. “I’d rather float over other people’s minds as something fluid and non-perceivable; more like a transparent, paradoxically iridescent creature rather than an actual person.” Do you ever have that experience? I do. I’m a Crab like you, and I think it’s common among members of our tribe. For me, it feels liberating. It’s a way to escape people’s expectations of me and enjoy the independence of living in my fantasies. But I plan to do it a lot less in 2017, and I advise you to do the same. We should work hard at coming all the way down to Earth. We will thrive by floating less and being better grounded; by being less fuzzy and more solid; by not being so inscrutable, but rather more knowable.

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| COMMUNITY |

JANUARY 12, 2017 | 45

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Here’s my declaration: “I hereby forgive, completely and permanently, all motorists who have ever irked me with their rude and bad driving. I also forgive, totally and forever, all tech support people who have insulted me, stonewalled me, or given me wrong information as I sought help from them on the phone. I furthermore forgive, utterly and finally, all family members and dear friends who have hurt my feelings.” Now would be a fanPISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) “All pleasures are in the last analysis imaginary, and who- tastic time for you to do what I just did, Leo: Drop grudges, let ever has the best imagination enjoys the most pleasure.” So said go of unimportant outrage and issue a blanket amnesty. Start 19th-century German novelist Theodor Fontane, and now I’m with the easier stuff—the complaints against strangers and passing his observation on to you. Why? Because by my astro- acquaintances—and work your way up to the allies you cherish. logical estimates, you Pisceans will have exceptional imaginations in 2017—more fertile, fervent and freedom-loving than VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) ever before. Therefore, your capacity to drum up pleasure will There are some authors who both annoy me and intrigue me. Even also be at an all-time high. There is a catch, however. Your though I feel allergic to the uncomfortable ideas they espouse, I’m imagination, like everyone else’s, is sometimes prone to churn- also fascinated by their unique provocations. As I read their words, ing out superstitious fears. To take maximum advantage of its I’m half-irritated at their grating declarations, and yet greedy for bliss-inducing potential, you will have to be firm about steering more. I disagree with much of what they say, but feel grudgingly grateful for the novel perspectives they prod me to discover. (Nobel it in positive directions. Prize-winner Elias Canetti is one such author.) In accordance with the current astrological rhythms, Virgo, I invite you to seek out ARIES (March 21-April 19) In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is a huge holy tree that links all of similar influences—for your own good! the nine worlds to each other. Perched on its uppermost branch is an eagle with a hawk sitting on its head. Far below, living near LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) the roots, is a dragon. The hawk and eagle stay in touch with Now would be an excellent time to add new beauty to your home. Are the dragon via Ratatoskr, a talkative squirrel that runs back there works of art or buoyant plants or curious symbols that would and forth between the heights and the depths. Alas, Ratatoskr lift your mood? Would you consider hiring a feng shui consultant traffics solely in insults. That’s the only kind of message the to rearrange the furniture and accessories so as to enhance the birds and the dragon ever have for each other. In accordance energetic flow? Can you entice visits from compelling souls whose with the astrological omens, Aries, I suggest you act like a far wisdom and wit would light up the place? Tweak your imagination more benevolent version of Ratatoskr in the coming weeks. Be a so it reveals tricks about how to boost your levels of domestic bliss. feisty communicator who roams far and wide to spread uplifting SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) gossip and energizing news. In 2017, you will have unprecedented opportunities to re-imagine, revise and reinvent the story of your life. You’ll be able to TAURUS (April 20-May 20) You have a divine mandate to love bigger and stronger and truer forge new understandings about your co-stars and reinterpret than ever before. It’s high time to freely give the gifts you some- the meanings of crucial plot twists that happened once upon times hold back from those you care for. It’s high time to take full a time. Now check out these insights from author Mark Doty: ownership of neglected treasures so you can share them with your “The past is not static, or ever truly complete; as we age we see worthy allies. It’s high time to madly cultivate the generosity of from new positions, shifting angles. A therapist friend of mine spirit that will enable you to more easily receive the blessings that likes to use the metaphor of the kind of spiral stair that winds up can and should be yours. Be a brave, softhearted warrior of love! inside a lighthouse. As one moves up that stair, the core at the center doesn’t change, but one continually sees it from another vantage point; if the past is a core of who we are, then our moveGEMINI (May 21-June 20) I love and respect Tinker Bell, Kermit the Frog, Shrek, Wonder ment in time always brings us into a new relation to that core.” Woman, SpongeBob SquarePants, Snow White, Road Runner and Calvin and Hobbes. They have provided me with much SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) knowledge and inspiration. Given the current astrological The Tao Te Ching is a poetically philosophical text written by a omens, I suspect that you, too, can benefit from cultivating Chinese sage more than two millennia ago. Numerous authors your relationships with characters like them. It’s also a favorable have translated it into modern languages. I’ve borrowed from time for you to commune with the spirits of Harriet Tubman, their work to craft a horoscope that is precisely suitable for Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie or any other historical figures you in the coming weeks. Here’s your high-class fortune cookie who inspire you. I suggest you have dreamlike conversations oracle: Smooth your edges, untangle your knots, sweeten your with your most interesting ancestors, as well. Are you still in openings, balance your extremes, relax your mysteries, soften touch with your imaginary friends from childhood? If not, renew your glare, forgive your doubts, love your breathing, harmonize your longings and marvel at the sunny dust. acquaintances.

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46 | JANUARY 12, 2017

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Everyone wants a tiny home. It’s all the rage, right? The tiny home TV shows are some of the most popular because well, they’re cute as hell, right? Personally, I would love to see a reality show called Living in My Tiny Home: Two Years Later. It’s as if some people have a fetish with dollhouses, whereas others just don’t need more than a pillow, a pan, a toilet and some clothes to exist. Friends and customers call me all the time, inquiring about vacant land where they could build a tiny home in the Salt Lake Valley. My reply is always, “Call the planning and zoning department!” If you’re a Salt Lake City resident, you’ll notice there aren’t any popping up in your neighborhood. If you live in more rural parts of the state, tiny homes are being built on mountain acreage and on ranches around Utah. I also suggest researching the cost, as those cute little two-story tinies you see on TV can run upward of $100,000. Pleasant Grove passed an ordinance as part of their zoning laws. In city legalese, tiny homes are considered Accessory Dwelling Units. Pleasant Grove ruled that ADUs can be built on the same lot as a main home, but the land under both houses can’t be subdivided. They also require the tiny home to be larger than 192 square-feet, built on a permanent foundation and permanently connected to city utilities like water and sewer. You see, if you had your tiny home on a trailer, it would be called an RV. There are sightings of tiny houses in Draper, Lindon and Fruitland, but no Tiny House Village … yet. Owners of these micro homes have gathered around the country to lobby local governments to allow for planning and construction of tiny home communities. Sounds pretty socialist, right? Well, pishaw to politics. The need isn’t going to go away. Several counties in California allow a tiny house (on wheels) in a backyard if it is a caregiver cottage. Fresno allows them without the caregiver requirement. RV parks are natural locations for these kinds of homes as they allow them to be parked and charge rent for the pad and utilities. Florida has a yearround tiny house community near Orlando, and Georgia’s Green Bridge Farm is a sustainable community that accepts tiny houses on lots they sell for $30,000-$40,000. In northwest Indiana, along the Kankakee River, a higher-end gated community for these homes is available with pads for sale or for rent. If you go to tinyhousecommunity.com, you can get info on 33 communities across the U.S., plus sites in Canada, New Zealand and the U.K. You won’t however, find any sites in Utah. But have faith; locals are working to get laws passed and make it happen. n Content is prepared expressly for Community and is not endorsed by City Weekly staff.

Babs De Lay

Broker/Owner 801-201-8824 babs@urbanutah.com www.urbanutah.com

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48 | JANUARY 12, 2017

Poets Corner

MY DOG & ME

I was running away from home, you see; and I was feeling so alone, was me. Just my dog and me, drinking tea....we were taken up in a cyclone.

We traveled for many miles, you see; my clothing went out of style, poor me. Just my dog and me, killed a witch, you see...and went through many trials. To the jaded city we went, you see; on getting home I’s hell-bent, was me. Just my dog and me, we got home, did we...and never looked back again.

DOUGLAS HEINL Send your poem (max 15 lines), to: Poet’s Corner, City Weekly, 248 South Main Street, SLC, UT 84101 or e-mail to poetscorner@cityweekly.net.

Published entrants receive a $15 value gift from CW. Each entry must include name and mailing address.

#cwpoetscorner

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