City Weekly December 16, 2021

C I T Y W E E K LY. N E T D E C E M B E R 1 6 , 2 0 2 1 — V O L . 3 8

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WALKING THE TALK 15 A&E

25 DINE

How nonprofits like the Utah Pride Center might envision a better future.

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CITY WEEKLY

FREE

SALT LAKE

Essay by Esther Meroño Baro

32 MUSIC

CONTENTS COVER STORY

WALKING THE TALK How nonprofits like the Utah Pride Center might envision a better future.

Essay by Esther Meroño Baro

19

Cover design by Derek Carlisle

6 OPINION 10 A&E 25 DINE 29 CINEMA 30 MUSIC 37 COMMUNITY

2 |DECEMBER 16, 2021

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STAY INFORMED! Want to know the latest on coronavirus? Get off Facebook and check out these three online resources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov World Health Organization: who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019 State of Utah Coronavirus Updates: coronavirus.utah.gov

STAFF Publisher PETE SALTAS Associate Publisher MICHAEL SALTAS Executive Editor JOHN SALTAS News Editor BENJAMIN WOOD Arts & Entertainment Editor SCOTT RENSHAW Contributing Editor JERRE WROBLE Music Editor ERIN MOORE Listings Desk KARA RHODES

Editorial Contributors KATHARINE BIELE ROB BREZSNY ESTHER MEROÑO BARO MIKE RIEDEL ALEX SPRINGER Production Art Director DEREK CARLISLE Graphic Artists SOFIA CIFUENTES, CHELSEA NEIDER Circulation Manager ERIC GRANATO

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Salt Lake City Weekly is published every Thursday by Copperfield Publishing Inc. We are an independent publication dedicated to alternative news and news sources, that also serves as a comprehensive entertainment guide. 15,000 copies of Salt Lake City Weekly are available free of charge at more than 1,800 locations along the Wasatch Front. Limit one copy per reader. Additional copies of the paper can be purchased for $1 (Best of Utah and other special issues, $5) payable to Salt Lake City Weekly in advance. No person, without expressed permission of Copperfield Publishing Inc., may take more than one copy of any Salt Lake City Weekly issue. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without the written permission of the publisher. Third-class postage paid at Midvale, UT. Delivery might take up to one full week. All rights reserved.

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SOAP BOX Women Need Opportunities, Not Praise

Ever since its founding, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been exclusively governed by men—a phenomenon by no means exclusive to the LDS tradition. In its 1995 “Proclamation to the World,” the church states that “fathers are to preside … and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.

Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.”

But despite obvious power differences, LDS women are often framed as “spiritual and moral giants” who have profound gifts and abilities. In contrast, LDS men are frequently portrayed as hard-headed, prideful, even stupid.

Many church members can recall a general authority, bishop or stake president giving a talk in which he vehemently praises his wife while debasing himself.

And it is often said that men need the priesthood to keep them in order, while women do not because of their natural proclivity for benevolence.

Sentiments like this hold in place structures that keep women out of church leadership. Ironically, the very attributes and abilities essential for priesthood leadership—love, discernment, sensitivity, kindness—are supposedly possessed in great measure by women, the very individuals barred from serving in those positions.

Sociologists Ryan Cragun, J.E. Sumerau and Emily Williams believe an important factor at play is what they call “soft influence tactics,” or rhetoric from those in power that praises, compliments and comforts subordinated groups, while preserving existing power structures.

Women’s roles and opportunities have seen modest improvement in recent years, but patriarchy still permeates every aspect of church government.

@SLCWEEKLY

However, as recipients of endless male praise, it is common for LDS women to internalize the idea that they are, in fact, treated fairly and equally. To mask such inequities, LDS men praise women as the “moral and spiritual fabric” of the family and the church, while simultaneously preserving their own power and influence.

A genuine step toward gender equality requires institutional adjustments that allow women the same leadership opportunities currently available to men. Such a shift would come with the notion that one’s ability to lead and influence has no correlation with one’s gender identity.

I call upon LDS leaders to replace their hollow adulation of women with actual opportunities, so that a more concerted and collective effort can prevail in challenging and overcoming LDS patriarchy.

KEITH BURNS

Mount Vernon, New York

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“The Rail World,” Dec. 2, Hits&Misses

It’s ironic that both semi-trucks and the proposed Uinta Basin rail line received a frown. As noted, the Uinta Basin supplies the Salt Lake Valley with crude oil for refineries. And that crude is currently shipped by “carbon-spewing” trucks via Interstate 80—passing Heber, Park City, Parley’s Canyon, Daniel’s Canyon, Strawberry Reservoir, Jordanelle Reservoir and plenty of national forest.

Trains, while still carbon-spewing, are four times more efficient than trucks. Unless we radically change human behavior, there will be a demand for the refineries’ gas and thus still a demand for the Uinta Basin crude. So long as there is that demand, it would be better to trade the carbon-spewing trucks for the somewhat less carbon-spewing rail line.

JEFF PARKER

Midway Care to sound off on a feature in our pages or about a local concern? Write to comments@cityweekly.net or post your thoughts on our social media. We want to hear from you!

THE BOX

What has life taught you recently?

Katharine Biele

Well, given that I got stuck near the sand dunes this week, I have learned not to trust Google maps and to bow down in adoration of Search and Rescue.

Carolyn Campbell

Be gentle with yourself, because life isn’t always gentle with you.

Sofia Cifuentes

There are many things that are out of my control, and it is important to flow and adapt with life to live better, at least to live more calmly and happily.

Scott Renshaw

With the deaths of a high-school classmate and a professional colleague within the space of a couple of weeks—both of whom were my age—I’m getting a great big dose of “don’t take any day for granted, and take care of your health.”

Eric Granato

This year has taught me to be grateful for the important things in my life. No matter how bad something is, I’ve got someone who cares in my corner.

Paula Saltas

Travel as much as you possibly can. It doesn’t need to be extravagant. Learning about different foods and cultures is a great education.

Benjamin Wood

Spend a little time outside every day.

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OPINION

BY BENJAMIN WOOD

Seasons Greetings ‘Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the state Utahns gathered at school boards, boiling with hate.

The books and the lesson plans, assembled with care Were piled on kindling, as smoke filled the air.

The children were huddled under desks, behind doors With visions of gunfire and deafening roars.

Mom cheered, “Let’s go Brandon!” Dad donned a red cap, While the unsheltered outside took a long winter’s nap.

When from Capitol Hill there arose such a clatter, I jumped on my bike to see what was the matter.

Away to the chambers I flew like a flash, To find mostly white men, dividing our cash.

The moon lit the ground where there should be more snow, Showing warm, sticky mud bubbling up from below.

When what to my wondering eyes did appear, But Governor Cox, arriving near.

He had driven from Fairview, lively and quick, But do not be fooled, he’s hardly a hick.

More rapid than eagles, his excuses they came, He whistled and shouted and called them by name: “We’re the best managed state! It ain’t broke so no fixin’ And to upset the base would be a big riskin’ To the Vivint Arena! To the Governor’s Ball!

Come write a check, write a check, write a check all!”

As trees that before inland hurricanes fly, Torn from their roots and thrown through the sky, So back to Fairview the governor flew With a truck full of donations, and gasoline, too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard from the street, The squealing of tires and the pounding of feet.

As I locked up my bike and was turning around, A car-struck pedestrian lay on the ground.

He was covered in blood, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with asphalt and soot.

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, For he’d just finished shopping before the attack.

Ambulance lights twinkled, as responders carried The body away, soon to be buried.

It was only a minute before what caught my eye Was Representative Schultz, spreading dark lies.

“An audit,” he said, “will undoubtedly show, “The flaws in mail voting that only I know.”

Speaker Wilson was there, silent and scheming Searching for ways to send initiatives fleeing.

No ganja for grandma, no wine on the shelf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

A crack of his gavel and a twist of his head Was all it took to fill lawmakers with dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, Carving the state like a right, proper jerk.

Democrats protested, but he thumbed his nose, And then made sure to strike a more humble pose.

I turned on my heels and gave a sad whistle, Wanting to leave that foul place like a missile.

To you, dear reader, as I bike out of sight— “Happy holidays to all! And to all a good night.”

Private Eye is off this week. Benjamin Wood is the news editor at City Weekly.

Send comments to bwood@cityweekly.net.

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HITS&MISSES

BY KATHARINE BIELE @kathybiele

MISS: Blowing Smoke

You’re probably getting tired of hearing about the Utah inland port, either who’s singing its praises or who’s warning of the consequences. If that sounds like a fair give-and-take, it’s not. The most recent meeting of the Utah Inland Port Authority tells the story, but it’s two stories diametrically opposed.

First, let’s talk about UIPA’s 4-minute video. “It’s the air we breathe. … The time to decide what Utah’s future looks like is today. … It’s about the network. … How do we protect the birds. … After-school programs.” And of course, they’re “working on” making everything low-emission and just beautiful.

Dr. E. Thomas Nelson, a board member of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment doesn’t see it that way. He’d prepared questions and comments he was “eager to ask.” After an hour and a half of closed session, the board came back, sang some praises and adjourned.

“If this inland port is such a spectacular idea,” Nelson said, “why not allow the public to comment? The decisions made now behind closed doors will resonate for the citizens of Salt Lake City for generations to come. We deserve to be heard. We deserve a say in our future.”

MISS: Two Steps Back

Charles Trentelman has an idea the Legislature should embrace. In his Tribune letter, he suggests they look to the past for cues on election integrity.

Trentelman, a former reporter, was reacting to the curious idea of moving back to in-person voting, despite Utah’s stellar record with vote-by-mail ballots that are virtually free of fraud. Even the Republican lieutenant governor told the AP that the effort to change the system is designed to destroy trust in elections. Trentelman reminds us of a past where only land-owning white males could vote and cynically suggests FBI background checks, body searches and of course, only one polling place per county. To his Twitter audience, Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, points to a performance audit giving the state high marks. But in the era of conspiracies and Google “research,” that will not be enough.

HIT: Not So Fast

This time, someone listened to the public din of dissatisfaction and maybe, just maybe, the public outcry will help stop a quarry in Parleys Canyon. The Salt Lake County Council called a special meeting after hearing about plans for a company euphemistically called Tree Farm to use drills and explosives to mine limestone, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson “said she was ‘gravely concerned’ about the proposed quarry in the canyon that connects the Salt Lake Valley to Park City by way of Interstate 80.” That led to a hasty meeting to change the Foothills and Canyons Overlay Zone. Wilson thinks the change will help preserve the canyons, support recreation and mitigate health risks to residents. In this case, the bureaucracy seems to be working.

CITIZEN REV LT IN A WEEK, YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

Remember the Unsheltered

The snow has hit the streets, and the homeless are scrambling for shelter. In the United States, 40% of the unsheltered are youth, and they are at a higher risk of death from many factors, including the weather. Each year, 5,000 unaccompanied youth die as a result of assault, illness or suicide. Overall, some 13,000 homeless people die each year, and last year, 53 Utah homeless died on the streets. Three were overcome by exposure to the elements. Of course, the coronavirus has been a factor in many deaths, but chronic illness, injury and disease that can strike anyone affects the homeless at significant rates. Come to this year’s Homeless Persons Memorial Candlelight Vigil, joining with the Inn Between, the Road Home, and the Fourth Street Clinic “to prevent additional loss of life or suffering caused by homelessness through advocacy, education and other initiatives.” Pioneer Park, 350 S. 300 West, Tuesday, Dec. 21, 5:30 p.m., free. https://bit.ly/3oHX9yf

Shelter Outreach

Of course, homelessness is not all about death. You can help the unsheltered this winter at the Christmas Sort and Outreach, where donations will be accepted to keep people on the streets safe. “The purpose of this event is to get donations of essential items out to the folks living unsheltered on the street. We provide food, water, clothing, shoes, blankets, sleeping bags, hygiene kits, etc.,” say organizers from Unsheltered Utah. The nonprofit will also need help with food preparation and distribution. Funds are needed for firewood and heating options, as well. “Upon arrival at the storage unit location if there is space in your vehicle to load donations then pull in through the gate, if there is not, please park on the street outside of the gate.” 46 Orange St., Sunday, Dec. 19, 1 p.m., free. https://bit.ly/3GBEpXx

Make a Joyful Noise

Hey, now is the time to let your representatives know what you think. We are not kidding when we say that very-Republican Utah is seeking an unnecessary and duplicative review of elections—yes, from 2020!

Utah has been a beacon for the rest of the nation on how to conduct elections safely and accurately and no, there is not a lot of distrust in the system, despite what rightwingers declare. The nonprofit Alliance for a Better Utah calls this a “pretext for making more laws that attack the freedom to vote” and is inviting Utahns to Make Your Voice Heard through their website. The U.S. Senate should pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act “to create national standards to ensure that we can safely and freely cast our ballots, ensure that trusted local election officials count every vote, and prevent partisan politicians from sabotaging the results of our elections.” But for now, focus on your local politicians who apparently think it was not enough that Utah voted red and are attempting a Red Scare.

Send a message online, now and soon. Free. https://bit.ly/3rUuIiB

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ENTERTAINMENT PICKS, DECEMBER 16-22, 2021

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Utah Symphony’s programming appeals to audiences of all ages all year long, but the holiday season provides a particular showcase of that wide-ranging sensibility. This weekend, while the Symphony presents a show specially designed for kids, it also includes one that will remind parents of their own childhoods.

As part of the Entertainment Series, Utah Symphony presents a holiday pops program with special guest vocalist Jodi Benson (pictured). For more than 30 years, Benson has been a pop-culture fixture as the voice of Ariel in Disney’s beloved animated feature The Little Mermaid, and this week she joins the musicians to share Christmas carols, Broadway standards and, yes, probably a few familiar Disney tunes as well. The show visits Utah Valley University’s Noorda Center (800 W. University Parkway, Orem) on Thursday, Dec. 16, and Abravanel Hall (123 W. South Temple) on Dec. 17-18, all at 7:30 p.m., with tickets ranging from $17.50 - $95.

COURTESY PHOTO

Utah Symphony: Holiday Pops with Jodi Benson & Here Comes Santa Claus

Also on tap on Saturday, Dec. 18 are the annual Here Comes Santa Claus shows, featuring the Symphony performing a wide range of holiday favorites, sing-alongs and a visit from a certain jolly old elf. The performances at 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. at Abravanel Hall are a kidfriendly length of under an hour, and a walletfriendly price with tickets starting as low as $12.

Proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours is required for all Utah Symphony performances, along with required face coverings. Visit utahsymphony.org for tickets to all performances, and additional event information. (Scott Renshaw)

Paul Reiser It’s hard to believe that it’s been 40 years since Paul Reiser burst onto the pop-culture scene in 1982’s Diner as Modell, the wisecracking member of the central crew of friends who had a problem with words like “nuance.”

Reiser himself clearly had less of a problem with the word, incorporating it into the name of his production company, but that doesn’t mean he’s allowed himself to be typecast over the decades of his career as an entertainer. From Aliens to Mad About You, from Stranger Things to The Kaminsky Method, he’s been on big and small screens as a versatile actor.

Yet as he told a Phoenix television station earlier this month, “My first love has always been standup. The acting was maybe in the background, maybe as a possibility, but it certainly wasn’t the plan. … Then I got busy, I started kicking it down the road, and I hadn’t gotten back to standup. I was just getting started, and I don’t know if you heard, we had this pandemic. … So just recently … I thought, ‘Let’s go back to clubs.’ There’s something in the air in a comedy club. It’s a little looser, the audience knows how to be a comedy

COURTESY PHOTO

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ESSENTIALS

the

audience.”

Reiser gets a chance to entertain one of those looser comedy-club audiences locally when he stops in at Wiseguys Gateway (194 S. 400 West) Dec. 17-18, 7 p.m. & 9:30 p.m. each night. Tickets are $35, and face coverings are encouraged while audience members are not actively eating or drinking. Visit wiseguyscomedy.com for tickets and additional information.

(SR)

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ESSENTIALS

the

Complete listings online at cityweekly.net

ODYSSEY DANCE

ENTERTAINMENT PICKS, DECEMBER 16-22, 2021

Odyssey Dance: It’s a Wonderful Life

SARAH WINKLER

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DECEMBER 16, 2021 | 13

time with stratifications.

“I’ve been imagining what lies deep beneath the surface and strata of her mountainous terrain,” the artist says in a statement, “and allowing the paintings to reflect and glow with metals, minerals and crushed rock indicative of the region’s mother lodes. … I’m letting nature guide me in color, texture and mood through her most introspective and restful season, Winter.”

An opening reception for Mountain Glow will be held at the gallery on Friday, Dec. 17, 6-8 p.m., with the artist in attendance. Visit gallerymar.com for additional information. (SR)

A place is defined, to a significant extent, by its geography. The Wasatch Mountains of Utah are a constant visual presence, a regulating force on our weather patterns and an engine for our recreation economy. Yet for Park City in particular, another component of its identity comes from those same mountains: the precious metals inside them that led to a mining boom and the founding of the city itself.

The interplay between those elements inspires much of the work presented in Colorado-based artist Sarah Winkler’s one-woman show Mountain Glow, opening this week at Park City’s Gallery MAR (436 Main St.).

The title refers not just to the unique and precious light of a mountain December, but to the glint of precious metals that might be captured in this landscape. Winkler works experimentally with a variety of pigments and additives in her paintings to provide unique textures and colors, while the structure of the individual works (“Mountain Glow” is pictured), with their layering evoking a sense of geological

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As was the case for many holiday productions in 2020, Odyssey Dance’s traditional dancebased production of It’s a Wonderful Life had to take a hiatus from live presentation due to the ongoing pandemic, and a streaming recorded production took its place. While it was still wonderful to have access to the show, it’s a more wonderful life now that folks can return to a live show, with all of the accompanying energy.

Those familiar with the 1946 movie already know the tale of George Bailey, a small-town man who wonders if the world would have been better off had he never been born—and gets a chance to find out thanks to an angelin-training showing George a world without his existence. Odyssey Dance Company

artistic director Deryl Yeager transformed the story into a dance-based production in 2008, with original choreography and a score by award-winning composer Sam Cardon. “It has the look of a Broadway show, but the story is told through dance and the use of voice-overs very much like the film,” says Yeager via press release. The result is a brand-new way of looking at a story that’s already familiar to generations, providing a much-needed inspirational message about how much every individual can change the world.

Odyssey Dance’s It’s a Wonderful Life visits Kingsbury Hall (1395 E. Presidents Circle) Dec. 17-23 for seven performances, with tickets ranging from $35 - $55. Attendees are requested to wear face coverings during performances. Visit artstickets.utah.edu to purchase tickets and for additional event information. (SR)

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THEATER

Masked and Answered

A&E

This Bird of Dawning returns with its unique spin on the Nativity story

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t’s hard enough for a company to sell a production that makes use of theatrical masks, as The Sting & Honey Company’s artistic director Javen Tanner well knows.

But with the company’s holiday show This Bird of Dawning returning from last year’s pandemic hiatus, it becomes even more complicated in a world where the meaning of masks has changed.

“I’m working with performers right now who when they don’t have their masks on, they have masks on,” Tanner says, referring to backstage safety protocols. “So it has been different to think about what it means that we’re doing a mask piece.”

Now in its 12th year of production, This Bird of Dawning presents an interpretation of the Nativity story that incorporates poetry, music and, yes, the ancient tradition of theatrical masks. According to Tanner, it’s creation dates back to the mid-2000s, shortly after Tanner had relocated to Utah from New York, when a friend at the theatrical company with which he had been involved when he lived there reached out to him about the possibility of developing a seasonal Christmas piece—which, as Tanner notes with a laugh, “are really great for a non-profit’s budget.” Yet they also wanted something that was a bit more serious, and

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BY SCOTT RENSHAW scottr@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw not fall into the predictable traps of the same old shows.

“We tossed around different ideas,” Tanner recalls. “We were both very much into mask work, and into poetry. We initially thought about something connected to Dylan Thomas’s ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales.’ Then I thought, what if we just do something around the Nativity, but use what we’ve done around mask work? I just kind of took it and built the piece from there.”

For its initial Utah presentation in 2008, Tanner built the cast with students at Sandy’s Waterford School, where Tanner is a faculty member and teaches the techniques employed for the show. While it was originally planned as a one-time fundraiser, with a cast of just eight students, it has since grown into an annual tradition that includes between 17 and 20, and once even as many as 32 cast members.

According to Tanner, continuing to produce This Bird of Dawning with his Waterford students is a significant part of why it has continued. “Some students do it all four years, he says. “And every year, the students who did it the year before, they’re introducing it to students who are doing it for the first time.”

Yet as is the case with any production that is put on annually for pragmatic reasons of popular audience support, there’s the question of how it remains artistically interesting, especially for Tanner himself, after more than a decade of putting it on.

For him, the answer has a lot to do with the powerful elements at play in this kind of story that transcend its specific spiritual meaning to believers.

“I’m fascinated by how theater all over the world, they all evolved out of ritual, out of religious practices,” Tanner says. “One of the things that’s so fascinating is how close this piece gets to that. The audience just connects to it. … My job is to have a conversation with an audience. I’ve never been interested in it as a proselytizing piece, but I am interested in how deeply it connects with an audience, even people who are not Christian or not religious.”

Tanner does acknowledge that over the years, he has considered expanding the concept to include non-Christian winter religious traditions, but that he himself didn’t feel as comfortable writing about those traditions that were not his own without a great deal of research. And while he did think about ending the production

after its tenth year, “I got lots of pushback from that. Even though we only do three shows a year, it has become a tradition for a lot of people.

It was a tradition that had to take a break in 2020, like so many holiday shows. While some companies offered streaming versions of their holiday shows, Tanner says that the existing recorded productions were not of a high enough quality to present to the public, and that it wasn’t logistically reasonable at the time even to do a recording specifically for the purpose of online presentation. But now the show goes on, with plans for a professional filming in the studio, and the prospect of staging This Bird of Dawning in New York.

“So where it goes in the next few years,” Tanner says “it seems to have built new life.” CW

THE STING & HONEY COMPANY: THIS BIRD OF DAWNING

Regent Street Black Box (Eccles Theater) 144 Regent St. Dec. 17, 7:30 p.m.; Dec. 18, 3 p.m. & 7:30 p.m. $10-$20 arttix.org

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Crisis of Values

DECEMBER 16, 2021 | 19

In 2020, as pandemic lockdowns were imposed across the world, the nonprofit Utah Pride Center (UPC) laid off half its 25-person staff, including Brim Wachendorf, Liz Pitts, bek Birkett, Michael Bryant, and my friend and fellow community organizer, Hillary McDaniel.

“This downsizing is happening as a result of COVID-19’s impact on our funding streams,” UPC’s then-CEO Rob Moolman told Q Salt Lake at the time, “out of an abundance of caution for the finances and long-term future of the Center.”

The group of five former employees has since filed a lawsuit against the Utah Pride Center claiming wrongful termination, discrimination, and retaliation. Each of them had previously raised concerns about nepotism, discrimination and potential mismanagement of funds with Moolman, who resigned in July of 2021. These complaints and others were made by more than a dozen employees, many of them investigated and corroborated by The Salt Lake

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The contradictions between a nonprofit’s charitable mission and the individuals who fill its board and direct the budget suggests the crisis is historical, systemic and one of values, leadership and imagination—all exacerbated by the pandemic.

The experiences of five former Utah Pride Center employees filing a lawsuit against the organization provides evidence and anecdotes for this dynamic. Their story— along with my own experiences working with community organizations locally and across the country over the past decade— raises questions that should be asked of those making urgent appeals for donation dollars this giving season. Starting with this one: In a world where economic, racial and gender inequality has grown wider, and climate change catastrophes more frequent, what needs to change for these organizations—and most importantly, the communities they serve—to withstand these alltoo-predictable “perfect storms”?

to because of health concerns or lack of childcare—it’s worth digging further than the UNA survey. Is economic fallout from the pandemic truly the root cause for why organizations positioned to support communities through crisis are struggling?

The roughly 100-year history of philanthropy shows that nonprofits were originally created for the wealthy to supplement social services where the government fell short, but soon became another outlet for the affluent to accumulate wealth through businesses that harm our communities—tax free.

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espite Utahns needing social services more than ever during a pandemic, nonprofit organizations are in crisis.

A survey conducted by the Utah Nonprofits Association (UNA) and released in May 2021 claims the 121 organizations that participated saw a 37% decline in staffing levels from 2019 to 2021—alongside an estimated 40% decrease in revenue—despite a 74% increase in demand for their services. The UNA report on the survey results included testimonials from nonprofit executives, who described feeling burnout from trying and failing to meet community needs.

Hillary McDaniel, former director of the Utah Pride Festival, alleges their jobs were axed due to retaliation.

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Also suing UPC is Michael Bryant, former UPC community development manager.

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“This perfect storm of increased demand, reduced funding and staff cuts as a result of COVID-19 and its accompanying economic crisis left nonprofits scrambling to provide critical services to society’s most vulnerable populations,” the report stated.

“Cutting both staff and services in a time of increased demand creates ongoing and far-reaching consequences.”

As the myth of a widespread labor shortage has been recontextualized as a “Great Resignation”—with workers refusing to return to their jobs over low wages and toxic working conditions, or being unable

Essay by Esther Meroño Baro

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bek Birkett, former executive assistant and bookkeeper for UPC, is also a plaintiff.

How nonprofits like the Utah Pride Center might envision a better future

Joining the lawsuit is Liz Pitts, former UPC community engagement director.

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Brim Wachendorf is one of five former employeesof the Utah Pride Center suing the nonprofit.

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WALKING THE TALK

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22 | DECEMBER 16, 2021

Tribune in an article published in June of 2020.

“The excuse that our roles were terminated because of COVID is ridiculous,” Wachendorf said, who was laid off in April 2020 along with Pitts, “because all of our roles were the ones that specifically, outside of therapy and health insurance, contributed directly to bringing funds into the [Pride] center.”

McDaniel said that before the layoffs, everyone who was fired had offered to take pay cuts and were told it wouldn’t be necessary to cut staff at the start of the pandemic because the UPC had “put money away.” When the center later received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan from the federal government—shortly after the first wave of staff cuts—employees, including Bryant and McDaniel, questioned why those laid off weren’t given back their jobs.

They too were then put on the chopping block in June 2020 along with Birkett, who had been advocating for increased financial transparency.

I met McDaniel in 2018, months before they were hired at the Pride Center. That year, McDaniel was serving as the volunteer entertainment director for the Pride Festival, which they said was the first time they realized the UPC wasn’t walking the talk on its mission and values.

At the time, a wave of community campaigns was spreading across the country, protesting corporate sponsors and police presence at Pride parades and demanding an end to “rainbow-washing”—or the performative support for the queer community while continuing practices and policies that disproportionately harm LGBTQ+ folks.

When McDaniel found out that Wells Fargo would be joining the parade—a financial institution mired in controversy over its funding of the Dakota Access Pipeline and allegations of discriminatory lending practices—they pulled organizers aside and decided to lead the charge on pressuring Moolman and the UPC board to take divestment seriously.

“I knew there were enough people on the inside who were realizing ‘there’s more of us than them’,” McDaniel said. “Sometimes that creates a spark of hope that we can create change, so we started having conversations.”

McDaniel reached out to a handful of queer friends— including myself—with a proposal to launch a petition and disrupt the Pride Parade. We named our campaign “Queers Divest.”

“We’re just moving this conversation out from behind closed doors because there was no progress being made,” McDaniel told City Weekly in 2018. “There were maybe some people nodding their heads, but no one was doing anything.”

In addition to demands for the UPC to divest from Wells Fargo and Chase Bank—and revoke their entries in the Pride Parade—the petition called on the center to re-examine the diversity of its board of directors and the process for appointing board members. A letter announcing the petition suggested that “a history of trading board positions for donations coupled with closed-door practices serves to maintain a disturbing culture of white supremacy, colonialism, classism and ableism within the center.”

The letter—or perhaps the media attention around the letter—brought Moolman to the table with Queers Divest, and an agreement was made to give petitioners a free parade entry ahead of Wells Fargo and Chase Bank, with UPC leadership committing to make changes to the center’s funding structure.

Moolman marched with Queers Divest in the parade, though he did not participate in the intermittent “die-in” demonstrations (in which participants lie on the ground, as if dead) that were performed every 20 minutes or so, forcing the companies and organizations behind to stop.

“One of my roles as executive director is to make sure I am listening constantly and trying to learn more about the important issues that affect both our communities and other marginalized groups, and to try to understand practical ways we should, or could, step in,” Moolman told City Weekly at the time. He also said that making the UPC board more diverse was a “tricky” question.

Supporters of the Queers Divest campaign marched ahead of financial institutions in the 2018 Pride Parade

“What does diversity look like that is not tokenism?”

Moolman asked.

Months later, during a town hall event at East High School, Moolman said the Pride Center couldn’t immediately walk away from its funding sources due to the services they paid for, but he committed to a three-year plan to divest from conflicts of interest.

Those conflicts included donations from Jane Marquardt, a co-founder of Equality Utah and the vice president of Management and Training Corporation (MTC)—a private prison company that also builds and maintains migrant detention centers—and L3Harris, which contracts with the Department of War to create surveillance technologies and other defense products.

UPC’s most recent annual report lists both Marquardt and L3Harris as donors, along with Wells Fargo and other questionable funding sources. But conflicts of interest are not limited to the UPC, Salt Lake City, the COVID pandemic or even the current century. “[Since the Revenue Act of 1913] wealthy individuals and families can receive tax deductions by diverting their financial assets into private foundations …[which are] only required to disburse 5% of their assets annually,” a report

by Justice Funders states. “The remaining 95% can be invested in companies—including those that cause social, economic and environmental degradation—to maximize profit and further accumulate wealth.”

“Are our souls worth the money we make from the human cost of war? How can we sleep at night?” asked my friend Luis Miranda Perez in a recent op-ed in The Salt Lake Tribune that highlighted donations made by war profiteer Northrop Grumman to the University of Utah, Utah State University and United Way of Salt Lake—Northrop also contributes to the UPC. Instead of expecting a “thank you” and applause at the next gala, Justice Funders asks, how might philanthropists courageously tell the truth about the harm done to communities through their businesses? How can they build

and repair relationships in ways that shift power imbalances, giving unrestricted money and land back directly to the communities they’ve exploited to gain their wealth?

Crisis of Leadership

“Being a part of the [queer] community, many of us worked here because we knew how important these services were,” said McDaniel, whose first interaction with the Pride Center was as a community member seeking mental health support. Though Moolman and most executive staff identified as LGBTQ+, McDaniel said “community members had to be sneaky about helping other queer people.”

One such incident was described in the aftermath of a Latter-Day Saints church leader making transphobic remarks during the faith’s General Conference. Wachendorf, who was responsible for posting to social media for the UPC, drafted a response and discussed it with Bryant, then-UPC community development manager, who added a fundraising request to the outgoing statement.

“We knew it was a time-sensitive thing, so we went ahead and posted it because [Moolman] couldn’t be found, even though he liked to have the final say on everything,” Wachendorf said. Instead, they turned to Pitts for approval, then-community engagement director.

“I knew it was going to ruffle some feathers,” Pitts said, “but I knew it was the exact right message to send from this organization.”

According to the group, when Moolman saw the post, he thought it was too directly critical of the LDS Church.

Rather than turning to Wachendorf, who was attempting to make their case, he “aggressively cornered” Bryant.

Wachendorf and Bryant both identify as gender non-binary, but Wachendorf believes this was one of many moments where their identities were invisibilized and power imbalances were created based on gender presentation— Wachendorf being seen as a woman, Bryant as a man.

“I want to say ‘abuse.’ I faltered, thinking, ‘abuse is a strong word,’ and then I realized it was abusive behavior,”

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Crisis of Imagination

DECEMBER 16, 2021 | 23

Esther Meroño Baro (she/they) is a parent, writer, multimedia artist, community organizer and member of the Movement Building Medicine collective. If you have stories to share for a future piece about Utah-based organizations that are reimagining community care and social change, please reach out to movementbuildingmedicine@gmail.com.

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I asked the group of former UPC employees why they’re pursuing a lawsuit if they believe the whole system’s broken.

“I don’t believe accountability, in this case, is going to happen,” says McDaniel. “Maybe by me speaking up and banding together with other people who are wounded, there can be some collective healing between us.”

Pitts also doesn’t believe the UPC has the capacity to change at this time. “I started thinking, ‘how will I have accountability?’” Pitts said. “I’m going to continue to be a queer activist and a leader in this community, so how am I going to do a better job?”

I don’t have answers to all of the questions posed here, and the issues aren’t limited to nonprofits—I’ve experienced them in for-profit and volunteer community groups led by people across the spectrum of identities. But my hope is that we can gather together in our respective communities to talk about them, experiment, fail, try again and share stories about what we’re learning along the way.

Because there’s one thing I do know, that organizer and educator Mariame Kaba said best: “Nothing we do that is worthwhile is done alone.” For me, that includes surviving, and with some love and hope, maybe even thriving through this unrelenting perfect storm.

“I feel like we’re all part of something really world changing and critical and so important, so I’m not going to give up. I’ll take breaks,” said Pitts. CW

There are no fresh quotes from Moolman in this piece, and no comments from Pride Center board members or Stacey Jackson-Roberts, the center’s new CEO. The UPC board chair directed questions regarding litigation to the center’s lawyers, and cc’d Jackson-Roberts to discuss the future and goals of the pride center. But Jackson-Roberts, in turn, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“I’m not out to ‘get’ anyone,” I said in one of my attempts to arrange an interview. “My hope is to draw attention to systemic issues …[and] tease out the paradox many of us are finding ourselves in of wanting to do good in the world within a broken system.”

And it is indeed a paradox: Earlier this year, I worked on a project gathering paid and volunteer community organizers across the country to talk through these challenges and outline how our work could include “wellness strategies” to sustain us and our communities. Roughly 50 people responded with concrete operational shifts—like fourday work weeks, health care for chosen family, child-care support and unlimited time off—along with cultural ideals, using words like “connectedness,” “thoughtfulness,” and being “human” together.

What shifts in values will it take for community organizations to create an internal culture of care? How might integrating those values into their operations and strategies for service increase their capacity to meet the needs of the

Opportunity to Change

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was detrimental to their work: “If [the organization] was more egalitarian in its decision making,” he said, “it would have a larger collective impact.”

Forbes reported in February 2020—one month before COVID-19 reached pandemic levels—that the voluntary, annual turnover rate for employees at nonprofit organizations was 19%, outpacing the annual all-industry average of 12%. The reasons cited included workers being underpaid, overworked and under poor management.

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Wachendorf said. “It was something that we had to endure from the people with the final say of things—on and on and on. And the fact that it was coming from the absolute top of our organization meant that we had no one to turn to, no one to protect us.”

The former employees described another moment shortly after the pandemic when Bryant suggested the center start a food bank. “Despite lots of pushback, Michael persisted,” says Pitts.

The media was invited to report on the shift in strategy, and the group described Moolman conducting interviews—despite being one of the people pushing back against the idea—and asking the staff to undo the work of storing heavy boxes of food, without offering to help, in order to stage photos for the press.

“It speaks so much to the dichotomy between workingclass and wealthy employees,” Birkett said. “We didn’t have empowerment in leadership.” “[It was] really apparent to me that some people genuinely cared about the whole community, some people treated it like a piggy bank and some people treated it like a social club,” said Bryant.

Other Salt Lake organizations have similarly struggled to make space for employees with lived experience inside the communities they serve. Prior to the pandemic, Abram Sherrod worked as a program director for an organization whose mission he described as aiming “to change the world, by starting in our local communities that need it most.” But leadership was so far removed from those marginalized communities, he said, that program objectives never matched the needs on the ground. “[A staff that] was predominantly upper middle class, heterosexual and mainly Christian did not reflect the communities we served,” Sherrod said. “I believe that the lack of diversity among its staff, especially in leadership positions, crippled the organization’s ability to execute their core functions.”

Sherrod also thinks a hierarchical leadership structure

community? And what kind of leadership and structure does an organization need for those values to become ever-evolving agreements with the communities they serve?

Pitts said she has tried to model her own leadership style after Carol Gnade, who originally hired her at UPC and left the Pride Center in 2018. According to Pitts, Gnade lifted the organization by expecting every employee to succeed and helping them to grow into their roles.

“There are leaders everywhere, it has nothing to do with our title or position,” Pitts said.

So how are organizations redefining leadership and supporting leaders from the communities they serve? How are they engaging community members in decision-making processes that increase their capacity to think critically, collaborate and build trust with one another? How might these shifts lead to more self-organized communities that can rely on each other during crises?

When I ask what a future for the UPC should look like, Pitts points to “simple” logistics. “A Pride center should be open seven days a week,” she said. “The people who work at a Pride center need to be outside the walls of the building, need to be in the community doing the work that needs to happen. There needs to be street outreach, really cognizant recognition that there are people right here who do not have their basic needs met.”

Operating at the whim of wealthy philanthropists with questionable values is clearly not effective in allowing community organizations to carry out their mission. What if leaders had the courage to create mutual accountability in their philanthropic partnerships? Would their strategies get more creative and values-driven, out of an abundance of imagination? How might those strategies contribute to creating more sustainable economies that can care for us all and weather any storm?

“All the money wasted by the nonprofit industrial complex, things they throw away—time, money, resources, people—what could we do with that bucket?” asks McDaniel. “That’s the bucket I want. We’re going to take the things this system has discarded or forgotten about and build a better system.”

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Get your Cuban flavor fix at South Salt Lake’s Batista Food and Grill.

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AT A GLANCE

Open: Mon.-Sat., 12 p.m.-8:30 p.m., Sun., 12 p.m.-7 p.m.

Best bet: The vaca frita Can’t miss: Check out their Cubanos

tried my first Cubano sandwich at Utah’s annual Living Traditions Festival probably around a decade ago. This was a formative experience for me, as it revealed that there is indeed a Fibonaccian “golden ratio” present in the sum of a sandwich’s parts. The roast pork shoulder, sliced ham, melted cheese, mustard and pickle pressed between two slices of grilled (or otherwise toasted) bread presents a small glimpse into the divine.

Since then, I haven’t been able to resist ordering a Cubano whenever I happen to see one. With that bit of backstory in mind, you can imagine my excitement when Batista Food and Grill (493 E. 2700 South, 385-484-3757), a Cuban and Nicaraguan restaurant with a team straight from Miami, opened its doors in South Salt Lake.

Of course, I couldn’t wait to dig into their Cubanos ($10.50)—they have the original, along with a Cuban steak and chicken sandwich—but I was excited to take a deeper dive into Cuban cuisine, which is pretty new to me as a whole. Based on my experience at Batista, I noticed a lot of the same culinary DNA featured in Puerto Rican and Venezuelan dishes—no complaints here. I’ve done plenty of gushing about my love of fried plantains, and you can’t really go wrong with stewed black beans and fluffy white rice as a side to a hefty helping

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BY ALEX SPRINGER comments@cityweekly.net @captainspringer

wiches Batista is serving up. While I’ve had many fancier variations on this classic sandwich, this one is an excellent litmus test for what a Cubano should be. The roast pork and sliced ham deliver up their yinyang of porcine flavors exactly as planned, and the melted cheese acts as a nice, mild buffer between the more intense notes of vinegar and acid imparted by the yellow mustard and thick dill pickles. Again, there is something borderline magical going on within a Cubano, and it’s something Batista has captured for their own iteration. I could see this being the Cubano fan’s workhorse sandwich shop during weekday lunch runs.

In addition to a solid Cubano, Batista’s supporting cast of sandwiches doesn’t disappoint. The pan con lechon ($10.50) is all about that sweet, sweet roast pork, and it comes with a scoop of fries for good measure. The pan con bisteck ($10.50) and the sandwiches de pollo ($8) are additional variations on the grilled sandwich theme for anyone looking to push the structural integrity of their sandwich construction.

I’m also a fan of any regional joint that offers a small bakery window that features tasty desserts to complement your meal, and I can recommend the guava and cream cheese turnovers ($4) hanging out in the counter display case.

All in all, Batista is a great entry point for Cuban food for us locals north of Havana.

They’ve got their grilled meat game primed for all comers and having a spot where I can get a nice Cubano as a lunchtime indulgence has me feeling all kinds of grateful this holiday season. CW

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Havana Bites

of grilled meats.

Fans of grilled, braised, roasted and skewered proteins will most definitely find a favorite here rather quickly. The vaca frita ($15) is a nice opener for Cuban food newbies, as it’s quite accessible while offering a gateway into the nuances of this island cuisine. It’s a tender skirt steak, grilled up with sliced onions and then shredded into a savory meat pile with a dome of white rice. Simplicity is the key here—from the tender, deftly spiced skirt steak to the savory grilled onions, each ingredient gets a chance to speak for itself before adding its flavorful contribution to the whole plate.

For more of an ensemble dish, the bisteck encebollado ($13.50) gets a similar treatment with the addition of fried plantains.

Those in the mood for something more on the grilled and skewered side will dig the pork or chicken shish kabob ($10.50).

Plentiful chunks of protein are grilled to perfection and served up with some crinkle cut fries—which were unexpectedly great in their own right. They go well with the ham and cheese croissants ($8), which are tasty either as grab-and-go sandwiches, or as a versatile side dish to any one of these grilled all-stars.

Even though I had ordered a sizable main dish in the vaca frita, I couldn’t help but add one of Batista’s Cubanos to the docket.

Unlike the daintier ham and cheese croissants, the Cubano is a sandwich monster.

From the juicy roast pork to the acidic mustard-and-pickle combo, it’s a sandwich that has it all. I also appreciate Batista’s efforts to liberally smash this sandwich on the panini grill to get it as flat as possible— something mystical happens in this process that makes all those rich flavors fuse together to and create the Cubano’s signature superpower.

Those who share my adoration for Cubanos will feel right at home with the sand-

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OUTDOOR SEATING ON THE PATIO

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2 Row Brewing 6856 S. 300 West, Midvale 2RowBrewing.com On Tap: Feelin’ Hazy

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Level Crossing Brewing Co. 2496 S. West Temple, South Salt Lake LevelCrossingBrewing.com On Tap: Vienna Lager

RoHa Brewing Project 30 Kensington Ave, SLC RoHaBrewing.com On Tap: Mild and Free British Mild Roosters Brewing Multiple Locations RoostersBrewingCo.com On Tap: Cosmic Autumn Rebellion SaltFire Brewing 2199 S. West Temple, South Salt Lake SaltFireBrewing.com On Tap: Grievance - Apple Brandy Barrel Aged Scotch Ale Salt Flats Brewing 2020 Industrial Circle, SLC SaltFlatsBeer.com On Tap: Pumpkin Spice Latte Ale Shades Brewing 154 W. Utopia Ave, South Salt Lake ShadesBrewing.beer On Tap: Winter Warmer Amber Ale Silver Reef 4391 S. Enterprise Drive, St. George StGeorgeBev.com

A list of what local craft breweries and cider houses have on tap this week Squatters 147 W. Broadway, SLC Squatters.com Strap Tank Brewery Multiple Locations StrapTankBrewery.com Springville On Tap: PB Rider, Peanut Butter Stout Lehi On Tap: 2-Stroke, Vanilla Mocha Porter TF Brewing 936 S. 300 West, SLC TFBrewing.com On Tap: Edel Pils Talisman Brewing Co. 1258 Gibson Ave, Ogden TalismanBrewingCo.com On Tap: 7th Wonder Pale Ale Toasted Barrel Brewery 412 W. 600 North, SLC ToastedBarrelBrewery.com Uinta Brewing 1722 S. Fremont Drive, SLC UintaBrewing.com On Tap: Was Angeles Craft Beer UTOG 2331 Grant Ave, Ogden UTOGBrewing.com On Tap: Snowcat IPA Vernal Brewing 55 S. 500 East, Vernal VernalBrewing.com Wasatch 2110 S. Highland Drive, SLC WasatchBeers.com Zion Brewery 95 Zion Park Blvd, Springdale ZionBrewery.com Zolupez 205 W. 29th Street #2, Ogden Zolupez.com

Holiday Happiness

BY MIKE RIEDEL comments@cityweekly.net @utahbeer

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DECEMBER 16, 2021 | 27

evel Crossing - Cryptoporticus: This double IPA was made using the Philly Sour yeast. It’s relatively new to our area, but has seen steady use by Level Crossing already. Discovered by Lallemand Brewing and the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Penn., this new yeast was isolated from a dogwood tree growing in Woodlands Park graveyard of West Philadelphia, and gives a sophisticated sourness to beer without the need to use bacteria.

It pours a medium coppery amber, with a fine half finger white head with great retention and lacing. The first whiff gives off some lacto sour notes and stone fruits, then it explodes with a huge amount of dank citrus hops.

First sip is like the screech of a needle on an LP: big sourness, with equally big dankness. Varieties of orange and lemon build on a puckering base; caramel malt pushes out a bit, but for the most part, this is a battle of lemony tartness and hop dankness. Up next comes the stone fruit aspects that I got in the aroma, followed by the yeast, which imparts a slight estery flavor with big sourness. Towards the end come the malts, which show up almost as much as they did in the aroma, imparting all the same aspects. On the finish, the sourness doesn’t linger too much, but there is some assertive bitterness from the big hop bill.

Overall: This 8.4 percent IPA will be a tug of war on your palate at first, but once acclimated, your brain will easily be able to bounce back and forth between complexi-

ties.

Proper - Wolf of the Eclipse: This Roggenbier, or “rye beer,” was made using nearly 60 percent rye malt. This gives it a grainy and spicy flavor with some classic German weizen beer characters of tart citrus, vanilla or bubblegum. This beer bill has enough happening already, but that wasn’t enough for the Proper Brewing crew, so they decided to age it in Pinot Noir wine barrels for six months.

You’d think this might be tart or sour by virtue of the Pinot barrels, but nope—it’s actually quite balanced. The barrel is present, but not overwhelming, and while the rye is immediately noticeable, too, it’s all very balanced and quite enjoyable. It pours a bright copper color with a clear transparency, just a bit of fog to it. Head is a finger of white foam that retains decently well.

Aroma is granite, biscuit and cookie wafer with lemon zest and then a hint of green apple, dry pear and dark grapes draped over the top.

What starts as a standard rye lager evolves into a lightly vinous white wine.

The flavor profile favors apple, dry pear and green grapes with lemon zest and wafery malts beyond. Punchy dryness meets medium fruitiness, both of which hit quickly and then recede, exposing the underlying rye. Balance is good, with the first hitting just hard enough to be counterbalanced by the rye effectively. Mouthfeel is crisp, with a refreshingly dry and tight effervescence texture through each and every sip.

Overall: Crisp and refreshing, with punching notes that strike outside of the Roggenbier norm, this 6.66 percent beer is a refreshing, complex and unique twist on the style, while still coloring within the lines.

The packaging for Cryptoporticus is quite beautiful, as the 16-ounce can features an image of the dogwood tree from where the yeast was discovered; the rest of the can is various sparkling hues of purple and red. All in all, it’s a very attractive presentation. Wolf of the Eclipse features a much more menacing appearance for a beer that is quite tame and lovely, so don’t let the Proper’s 16-ounce can influence you to the contents inside. As always, cheers!

CW

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This is the time for festive flavors.

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MIKE RIEDEL

BEER NERD

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Utah Restaurant Owner Speaks at IRC Event

The Independent Restaurant Coalition or IRC (saverestaurants.com) recently hosted a virtual press conference to petition Congress to replenish the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF). This fund was established to help restaurants and other hospitality-based businesses sustain themselves through countless strains on their resources, and it’s in dire need of a refill. Sara Lund, owner of Bodega and The Rest (331 S. Main Street, 801-532-4452, bodegaslc.com) joined speakers from other restaurants across the nation to urge Congress to pass the Restaurant Revitalization Fund Replenishment Act, which would add $60 billion to the RRF. We’ll keep an eye on the progress of the RRF and see how things shake out.

Serving classic Italian cuisine Beer & wine available Open seven days a week (801).266.4182 | 5370 S. 900 E. SLC

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Taste Masters Festival

Fans of the Taste Masters Podcast (tastemastersdrink.com)—or of craft beer, cupcakes and kombucha cocktails in general—will want to check out the inaugural Taste Masters Festival this Friday. Join the Taste Masters team to discuss all things local and beerrelated while enjoying some excellent food and drinks.

A portion of the proceeds will go to Best Friends Animal Society, and plenty of great local sponsors have donated prizes for the event’s raffle. Whether you’re a longtime fan or a new listener, it’ll be a tasty way to show some love to the Taste Masters team. It’s all going down on Dec. 17 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Bewilder Brewing (445 S. 400 West, 385-528-3840, bewilderbrewing.com).

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28 | DECEMBER 16, 2021

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Crack Shack Opens

I am not exactly sure when the deluge of fried-chicken joints will cease its relentless sprawl throughout our state, but it is not this day. Crack Shack (912 E. 900 South, crackshack.com), a chicken place out of Southern California has selected the 9th and 9th area as the location for its first Utah-based location. To help ease their transition into one of SLC’s most celebrated neighborhoods, Crack Shack will feature a full bar that includes craft beer from Kiitos, Shades and T.F. Brewing, along with donating a portion of their grand opening proceeds to local LGBTQ+ charity Encircle (encircletogether. org). Crack Shack officially opens on Dec. 17.

Quote of the Week: “Fame itself doesn’t really afford you anything more than a good seat in a restaurant.”

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CINEMA

FILM REVIEW

Tale from the Crypt

Nightmare Alley finds Guillermo del Toro merging two distinctive storytelling traditions from the same era.

BY SCOTT RENSHAW scottr@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw

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ence a better hint as to what was to come, right up to a final shot that would be at home in any vintage EC tale.

If there’s one major problem with Nightmare Alley, it’s that it doesn’t grasp that its brand of EC-style narrative works best when it’s ruthlessly lean, and this 150-minute film is not that. While there’s nothing wrong with the individual pieces, the pacing feels off when they’re all added together. That takes nothing away from the grin that emerges when it becomes clear what del Toro is up to, and the unique result of merging these two storytelling traditions. Tales of suckers and femme fatales do indeed work when served up with a shiver and a wink. CW

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Stanton to remain a silent observer and audience proxy for long enough that it briefly feels like the character might be mute. It’s such a fascinating world—populated by great character actors like Dafoe, Strathairn, Toni Collette and del Toro veteran Ron Perlman—that it’s a bit disappointing to realize that we’re going to have to leave it.

It’s in the second hour that Nightmare Alley reveals its true noir colors, as Stanton and Molly find fame performing in the big city, then get tangled up with a mysterious psychologist (Cate Blanchett, taking to the diva mode where she’s at her best). The bulk of the drama involves Stanton ignoring the advice of his veteran carny friends and getting into “spook shows” of pretending to communicate with the dead, eventually involving a wealthy mark (Richard Jenkins) who clearly should not be crossed. And it’s through these attempted cons that the film shows the kind of morality tale it wants to be.

Because if it’s nothing else, del Toro’s Nightmare Alley is film noir as filtered through another piece of popular culture with its roots in the late-’40s and early-’50s: EC horror comics. The moments of overt gore feel perfectly in sync with the shocking tales of grim comeuppances, most familiar to more modern audiences in stuff like the Stephen King/ George A. Romero collaboration Creepshow, or the Tales from the Crypt TV series. It almost seems a shame that it didn’t get that kind of branding, since it might actually give the audi-

| CITYWEEKLY.NET |

f you gave me a list of 100 of the most critically and commercially successful directors working today, and asked me which of them was best-suited to making a contemporary film noir, I’m not sure Guillermo Del Toro would be among my first dozen choices. It’s not that Del Toro doesn’t have a distinctive aesthetic, or even that he might not seem comfortable in darker thematic shades; there’s plenty of evidence in his career of both. It’s more that his preferred stories have generally been pop entertainment, like his three different comic-book adaptations and robots-vs.-monsters adventure Pacific Rim. Even the movie that won him an Oscar is about a love story involving the Creature from the Black Lagoon. What would it even look like when Guillermo Del Toro poked his head into cynicism?

As it turns out, Del Toro has a distinctive take on film noir as evidenced by his remake adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s novel Nightmare Alley—one that actually falls in line with an idiom he had already proved quite comfortable in. Because while this Nightmare Alley certainly traffics in some of the classic tropes of film noir, it does so with an assist from a very specific kind of comicbook sensibility.

The setting remains Depression-era America, with a drifter named Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) finding his way into the company of a traveling carnival led by veteran barker Clem (Willem Dafoe). While he works odd jobs, he begins learning the tricks of the mentalist trade from an alcoholic mentor (David Strathairn), becoming adept enough at the game to hit the road with his beloved Molly (Rooney Mara), and try to turn the showmanship of “mindreading” into a career.

The opening hour, with its immersive focus on the world of carneys and their various acts, provides a solid foundation for del Toro’s love for gleeful grotesquerie, while simultaneously feeling like a genuinely in-depth exploration of 1930s carny life. The screenplay, by del Toro and Kim Morgan, weaves in plenty of detail about how the operation runs its various rackets, while allowing Cooper’s

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SLC

30 | DECEMBER 16, 2021

MUSIC

THURSDAYS

LUCKY THURSDAYS!

FRIDAYS

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Alicia Stockman

BEEHIVEPHOTO

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Alicia Stockman narrows a career’s worth of songs into her first album.

BY ERIN MOORE music@cityweekly.net @errrands_

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CONCERT PREVIEW

JOHNNYSONSECOND.COM

165 E 200 S SLC 801.746.3334

ocal singer/songwriter Alicia Stockman’s style of Americana goodness and warm folk tradition is one she’s settled into comfortably over the years, gaining accolades at songwriter competitions like the Songwriter Serenade, Tucson Folk Festival, Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival and winning the Susanne Millsaps Performing Singer-Songwriter Showcase at the Utah Arts Festival in 2017. On those and other stages, it’s often been just her and her guitar, but she’s dabbled with bands before.

But it wasn’t until this year—after gaining support from a Kickstarter campaign— that she was able to book time to put together a full album in a setting designed for bringing out the best in her songs. With the help of her friend and mentor, Nashville’s “Americana Queen” Mary Bragg, Stockman’s finally put ten precious songs out into the world after a long time holding onto them, in the album These Four Walls, which came out Nov. 5.

“When I was picking the songs for the album, I started with 35 or 40 songs” written over years spent performing live, Stockman says. “When the pandemic came, I

had time to actually focus on them and give them the TLC that they deserve and put together this collection that at the time I felt was long overdue,” Those songs range in emotion from quiet joy to heavy sadness to determination—a lot of determination. Songs like “Grit” and the title track bleed the emotion, the former being a steely-eyed, “cast iron” nod to getting back up when the world knocks you down and skins your knees. The latter is, however, a gentle and introspective track about moving out of stifling surroundings, even if it just means opening the windows to let in a crossbreeze. “‘These Four Walls’ was super near and dear to my heart; that’s like my mental health song,” says Stockman of the deeply melodic track, which is also one of the songs that actually references a personal time in her life.

She also draws from her own life on “Just Checking In,” which is a nostalgic, warm look back at the past and old friendship. It also showcases Stockman at her most Jewel-like—a sweet delight, and one of the best songs on the album. “Halfway to Houston” is another, though the framework and refrain of Stockman breaking down—literally in a car and emotionally—on her way out of a relationship uses Houston as a metaphorical vehicle, since Stockman’s stomping grounds lie north, here in Utah. “Car breaking down halfway through Texas, that didn’t happen, but it was about processing the break up,” she says.

She also calls it a hybrid of her two styles, personal and fictional narrative. “The story of the song is not exactly what happened, but this sentiment is what happened, so the emotional quotient is correct,” she says. “I had to somehow make this term ‘halfway to Houston’ work every time I came back around to it, so I used it as creative license to write a story—but I also used it to process what I was going through at the time.”

Spoken like a true disciple of Americana, where a Western trope like the expanse of the Texas sky becomes the perfect space to process a change just as big.

Her other writing style, of fictional narrative, also yields some of the best songwriting on the album, particularly on tracks like “Used to the Cold,” which is one of the oldest songs she was wrestling with for These Four Walls. “It’s just a really sad song, and I never knew where it fit—it’s hard for me to put into a live set, I didn’t know where it belonged,” Stockman explins. “My producer, Mary, it really resonated with her, and she said ‘let’s do it justice.’”

And with the lineup of talented musicians Bragg and Stockman had on hand to provide backing instrumentation throughout the album—providing valuable input as well as their bass, guitar and drums— the song became a quiet stunner, with lap steel that weeps alongside the story of dreams lost to a lover’s drink. “It was tough, I had to make sure that I didn’t get too preachy with a story that I was borrowing, so I worked hard on [doing] it right,” Stockman admits. Without being personal, though, the songwriting displayed is still some of the most affecting and relatable on the album, imparting the pain of a life worn thin by time.

Besides finding the musicians to help do right by her music, Stockman’s also found valuable insights into other parts of the music world in Nashville, namely from other musicians who are just as baffled at how to make a living in this changed landscape.

While booking shows is still uncertain at a time when dates are still getting canceled and rebooked constantly, Stockman says she hopes to tour her polished songs soon.

If you’re already a fan, or you are after sitting down with These Four Walls, you can find the album and keep up with where to see her play at aliciastockman.com. CW

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The band LANCO—short for Lancaster and Company—call themselves “honkytonk hippies” on their latest release, the EP of the same name. And the designation fits well for the group of Nashvillers, who are rather new on the country music scene, having got their start after meeting producer Jay Joyce at a Keith Urban concert in 2015. When it comes to the music they’ve made since, they may very well be described as hippies, in the sense that even on earlier releases like 2018’s Hallelujah Nights, they do a great job of fusing traditional country sentimentality and pop approachability, in a way that could almost be construed as indie-leaning, but it isn’t quite. Their music is immediately approachable even to fans outside the country lexicon, whether it’s that first album, full of hooks, or their latest EP. Full of feel-good jams built to appeal to many, the band’s Honky-Tonky Hippie tour will be accompanied by the talents of Ross Ellis. The country soloist is a complimentary fit for the big, romantic pop country vibe of LANCO, though he leans more into the soul side of things, especially on his latest single “Home to Me.” Both acts come to The Depot on Thursday, Dec. 16 at 7 p.m., and tickets to the all-ages show are $27.50 at depotslc.com.

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LANCO at The Depot

We’ve been in this pandemic for a hard bit now, long enough that some folks like Luke Combs are still just now starting to promote 2019 albums on tour—in his case, his album What You See Is What You Get. In a review of the album, Rolling Stone noted that it’s an apt example of his high-’90s country-rock influence, filled with his “well-crafted, down-the-center power balladry.” It includes country tropes galore, like the opener “Beer Never Broke My Heart,” and finding beauty in the mundane and the homely, like he does while looking over old family photos on “Refrigerator Door.” Rolling Stone and others have also called him an up-and-coming country music Everyman, and the way he keeps his feet in the cheeky-butwise ’90s camp is interesting considering he’s only 31, meaning he probably grew up with the music of artists like Brooks & Dunn and Alan Jackson filtering over the radio. Besides What You See Is What You Get, Combs also has a series of extended-release songs to play on the tour, ones released over the big void of 2020, titled What You See Ain’t Always What You Get. He’s also got a fresh single out, the meta “Doin’ This,” which finds him reflecting on how his life would be different but also the same without the stardom he’s found since he burst onto the scene in 2015. See the ever-growing country legend when he stops at Vivint Arena on Thursday, Dec. 16.

The show is all-ages, starts at 7 p.m. and tickets are $80 - $538.75 at lukecombs.com.

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The Backseat Lovers at The Depot

Their most popular song may be called “Kilby Girl,” but these homegrown indie rockers have long outgrown the scrappy venue—they just announced a U.K. and European tour, and for this SLC stop, they’ll be coming to The Depot. The Backseat Lovers found their popularity very quickly and very recently after winning the Velour Battle of the Bands in the summer of 2018, which we mentioned last week in our piece on the legacy of the competition. The four-piece is the latest band to find fame after winning it, and for good reason—they’ve got charm in spades, from their earnest and romantic songwriting style to their upbeat and hooky melodies. “Kilby Girl,” off of their 2019 album When We Were Friends, isn’t the only winner by the band either. Frontman Josh Harmon shows his crooner chops on other songs too, like on the honeyed and dramatic “Pool House,” or on “Watch Your Mouth,” where both Harmon and the guitar parts exhibit a little more grit than usual as the story of a frustrated and shallow relationship unravels. The way that song then sinks back into gentler, soulful guitar ramblings is a perfect example for how the band juggles both positive and negative passions in general—and those efforts result is some catchy songs. The all-ages show is this Saturday, Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. Even The Depot can’t contain these famous locals, though, so at press time find resale tickets for the sold-out show at depotslc.com.

DEANNE ROSE

The Backseat Lovers

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MUSIC PICKS

Mark O’Connor

Get It Write Holiday Ball at The Urban Lounge

Get your hip hop fix this Christmas season and head over to The Urban Lounge to do it. This Tuesday, Dec. 21, find a killer list of locals lined up under the banner of Get It Write Records, a local hip hop hub and label known for putting out work by big Northern Utah names in the rap scene like Zac Ivie, Ocelot, Dumb Luck, Earthworm, T-Mental, ChefboyZarDeE and Titan The Quiet Boi. While those artists won’t be performing at the show, trust their proximity to the up-and-comers slated for this holiday affair, and watch them chase their own notoriety. The lineup includes AP, CeeLos, Big C, The Messenger, PJ The Giant and Christian Harris, plus other artists like Dblacc who’s got a fresh single out in “When I was Down,” an oscillating brag track that contrasts other 2021 tracks like the low-key, dramafilled “Gold100.” CeeLos also has some singles worth drawing attention, following up a round of 2020 singles with this year’s really good “Lil Goat,” a collaboration with Uriel Lopez, who provided compelling beats that take the song to another level. The show starts at 7 p.m., is 21+ and tickets are $10 at theurbanloungeslc.com.

Mark O’Connor at Eccles Center Theater

A man of many genres, Mark O’Connor doesn’t stop on any one style—from country, bluegrass, jazz and classical, he’s had experience playing it all on his violin and fiddles, after starting out as a youth learning flamenco music on classical guitar. It didn’t take long for him to move onto becoming a prolific artist in his own right as a teen in the ’70s, a career that would lead to collaborations with contemporaries like James Taylor, or Johnny Cash on the song “The Devil Comes Back to Georgia.” It follows that such a disciple of all kinds of music would also turn to the challenge of Christmas music, and that’s what he did in 2011, when he released An Appalachian Christmas. Though not of the region himself (he’s a Washingtonian), O’Connor nods to Appalachia with an admirable quality of sound and ease of spirit, taking on songs such as “The Christmas Song,” “O Christmas Tree” and “Carol of the Bells” while giving them all the keening, elegant treatment of his strings with accompanying vocals from various artists. Since that release, the album has been celebrated as a Christmas classic, and he tours on the album every year as a tradition—one that’s being brought back this year to the Eccles Center in Park City. He’ll be touring with an ensemble that includes his wife Maggie O’Connor on fiddle and vocals and his son Forrest O’Connor on mandolin, guitar and vocals. The show goes on Tuesday, Dec. 21 at 7:30 p.m., and tickets range from $39 - $125 at parkcityinstitute.org.

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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.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) Key questions for you, beginning now and throughout 2022: 1. What do you need to say, but have not yet said? 2. What is crucial for you to do, but you have not yet done? 3. What dream have you neglected and shouldn’t neglect any longer? 4. What sanctuary is essential for you to visit, but you have not yet visited? 5. What “sin” is it important for you to forgive yourself for, but you have not yet forgiven yourself? 6. What promise have you not yet fulfilled, even though it’s getting late (but not too late!) to fulfill? 7. What secret have you hidden so well that you have mostly concealed it even from yourself?

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Taurus novelist Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) took one of his manuscripts to a publishing company, hoping it would be made into a book and sold to the public. A few weeks later, he got word by mail that his masterpiece had been rejected. He took a train to the publisher’s office and retrieved it. On the train ride home, he turned the manuscript over and began writing a new story on the back of each page. He spent no time moping. That’s the spirit I recommend you embody in the coming weeks, dear Taurus.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Leo-born Edna Ferber (1885-1968) was a celebrated author who won a Pulitzer Prize. She was witty and outspoken. Her stories featured strong women and characters struggling against discrimination. “I never would just open a door and walk through,” she said about her career. “I had to bust it down for the hell of it. I just naturally liked doing things the hard way.” In the coming weeks, Leo, I urge you not to adopt Ferber’s attitude. In my view, you’ll be wise to do everything possible to open doors rather than bust them down. The best way to do that is to solicit help. Cultivate your ability to ask for what you need. Refine your practice of the arts of collaboration, synergy, and interweaving.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) The coming months will be a favorable time for you to redefine the meaning of the term “sacred” and to deepen your relationship with sacredness. To spur your imagination, I offer four quotes: 1. “Recognizing the sacred begins when we are interested in every detail of our lives.”—Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa; 2. “When you notice something clearly and see it vividly, it then becomes sacred.”—poet Allen Ginsberg; 3. “Holiness begins in recognizing the face of the other.”—philosopher Marc-Alain Ouaknin; 4. “Modern culture, in its advertising of sex, is in a misguided fashion advertising its longing for the sacred.”—teacher Sobonfu Somé.

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CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Capricorn author E. M. Forster wrote, “The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.” I propose we universalize that: “The only people, information, and experiences that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.” I believe this principle will be especially fruitful for you to embrace during the next three months. Prepare yourself for lessons that are vital for you to learn—and on the frontier of your understanding.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Among America’s Founding Fathers was Aquarian William Whipple (1730-1785). He was one of 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, instigating war with Great Britain. Unlike many of his colleagues, however, Whipple believed it was hypocritical to enslave human beings while fighting for freedom. That’s why he emancipated the person who had been in bondage to him. The coming months will be a favorable time to make comparable corrections, Aquarius. If there are discrepancies between your ideals and your actions, fix the problem.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) According to Piscean author Ryunosuke Akutagawa, “People sometimes devote their lives to a desire that they are not sure will ever be fulfilled.” So true! I can personally attest to that behavior. Is such a quest misguided? Delusional? Naive? Not in my view. I see it as glorious, brave, and heroic. Akutagawa did too. He said that those who refrain from having inspirational desires are “no more than mere spectators of life.” In any case, I recommend you think big in 2022, Pisces. From an astrological angle, this could be the year you home in on and refine and upgrade the single most important desire you will ever have.

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VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) “No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell,” wrote Virgo dramatist Antonin Artaud. That’s a ridiculous generalization, in my opinion. For example, I occasionally generate songs, stories, and horoscopes to help me escape from a momentary hell. But most of my creations are inspired by my love of life and a desire to inspire others. I’m very sure that in the coming weeks, your own motivations to produce good things will be far closer to

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Prolific author Ray Bradbury liked to give advice to those with a strong need to express their imaginative originality. Since I expect you will be a person like that in 2022, I’ll convey to you one of his exhortations. He wrote, “If you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you.” Keep in mind that Bradbury was referring to constructive craziness, wise foolishness, and divine madness.

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CANCER (June 21-July 22) Actor and model Kate Beckinsale unleashed a cryptic boast: “My best feature is unfortunately a private matter, although I’m told it is spectacular. But you can’t really walk it down the red carpet.

What can I say?” Are you imagining what I’m imagining? I bring this oddity to your attention in the hope that I can convince you to be more forthright and expressive about your own wonderful qualities. It’s time to be less shy about your beauty, less secretive about your deep assets. Show the world why you’re so lovable.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) Author Barbara Sher offered this wise counsel: “Imaginary obstacles are insurmountable. Real ones aren’t.” I bring this to your attention because I believe the coming weeks will be an excellent time to identify the imaginary obstacles you’ve erected in your inner world—and then smash them or burn them or dispose of them. Once you’re free of the illusory interference, I think you’ll find you have at least twice as much power to neutralize the real obstacles.

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GEMINI (May 21-June 20) “John Coltrane was an addict,” wrote author Cornel West about the renowned jazz saxophonist and composer. “Billie Holiday was an addict. [Nobel Prize-winning author] Eugene O’Neill was an addict. What would America be without addicts and post-addicts who make such grand contributions to our society?” I welcome West’s sympathetic views toward addicts.

Many of us who aren’t addicts understand how lucky we are not to have the genetic predisposition or the traumatic experiences that addicts often struggle with. We unaddicted people may also have been spared the bigotry and abuse that have contributed to and aggravated some addicts’ addictions. Having acknowledged these truths, I nevertheless hope to do whatever I can to help you convert any addictive tendencies you might have into passionate obsessions. Now is an excellent time to launch a new phase of such work.

mine than to Artaud’s. You’re in a phase when your quest for joy, generosity, blessings, and fun could be fierce and productive.

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© 2021

ORONYM

BY DAVID LEVINSON WILK

ACROSS

55. Award won twice by Hammerstein, fittingly 56. “Love Jones” actress Long 57. ‘90s exercise fad 61. Laid low 62. Brian who composed the “Prophecy Theme” for the 1984 film “Dune” 63. It’s found on the rim of la copa de margarita 64. Letters between aliases 65. Daisy Ridley’s “Star Wars” role

Last week’s answers

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.

17. ‘Fore 18. TV’s ____ Raw 21. Apt. units 22. Ugandan dictator Amin 23. Carol, e.g.

24. Deliberately grill too long 25. Ezra Pound, e.g.

26. Apt surname for a mechanic 31. Wray of “King Kong” 32. Words with a ring to them?

33. Critical marks on treasure maps 35. Stumblebum 36. Grammy winner for 2001’s “Lady Marmalade” 37. Costly Super Bowl purchases 39. Puzzle solvers’ cries DOWN 40. Suit to ____ 1. Prohibit 41. Some House votes 2. Professor’s email address ending 44. Rural road feature 3. Wee bit 45. Genre that influenced 4. Negative campaigner’s tactic No Doubt 5. Alternative to Amtrak’s Northeast Regional 46. How to collect $200 in 6. Pablo Picasso’s designer daughter Monopoly 7. Suffix for east, west, north or south 47. Chipped in 8. “Get what I’m saying?”

49. Hard to come by 9. Triage team member 52. “Pull Over” rapper 10. “Doe, ____ ...”

53. Nervous state 11. One-point throw in horseshoes 54. Palindromic Dutch city 12. Having foliage

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

1. Many are placed in Vegas 5. Some sign language users 9. Landlocked African nation 13. Name that derives from the Hebrew word for “earth” 14. Be emotionally invested 15. First home for 13-Across 16. Recovery program for naked fish?

19. Guthrie who sang at Woodstock 20. Frank 22. “My thing is yelling ‘butter pecan!!!’ and ‘mint chocolate chip!!!’”?

27. Head-slapper’s cry 28. Reddit Q&A 29. They play behind first and second basemen: Abbr.

30. Up the creek 34. Lead-in to therapy 38. Perfectly overcast 24 hours?

42. Nintendo dinosaur who eats fruit and throws eggs 43. “Step on it!”

45. Luxury hotel amenity 48. ____-backwards 50. Evian, par exemple 51. Competition to see who can correctly answer the most questions about the author of “The Metaphysics of Morals”?

58. “Pippi Longstocking” author Lindgren 59. Home to more than 4.5 billion 60. “Get that woman, Roman ruler!”?

66. Demographic of many TikTok users 67. Machu Picchu builder 68. Swelter 69. Anita who sang “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby” 70. Action figure?

71. Maker of Ultimate Eye Cream

SUDOKU X

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38 | DECEMBER 16, 2021

CROSSWORD PUZZLE

URBAN L I V I N

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never understood at Christmas time why “bad kids” got coal in their stockings. Back in the day, coal was the number one fuel to keep homes warm, and impoverished people still follow coal trains/trucks to pick up fuel that’s fallen off the vehicles—again, to heat their homes and in some cases to cook with.

In addition, there’s the mythical Santa deciding each year who’s naughty and who’s nice.

Well, whatever list you might end up on this year, the Better Business Bureau has just come up with a really naughty list that you should take heed of and share with friends and family. They call it the 12 Scams of Christmas: • Misleading social media ads offering free trials and then charging a monthly fee you never signed up for.

• Social media gift exchanges— especially ones asking you to “pay it forward” or be a “Secret Santa”—which can expose personal information to bad actors.

• Holiday apps where you can chat live with Santa or relay your holiday wish lists.

Free apps can contain malware or get you endless advertising on your phone.

• Alerts that your Amazon, Paypal, Netflix or bank account have been compromised.

• Free gift cards from supposedly legitimate companies.

• Temp holiday jobs that are simple employment swindles aimed at stealing money and personal info from applicants.

• Look-alike websites out to rob you blind.

• Fake Charities (verify a charity at www. give.org).

• Fake shipping notices to trick you into paying new fees.

• Pop up holiday virtual events (markets, craft fairs) that are marketed as free, but scammers figure out how to charge admission and get your credit card info.

• Top holiday wish list items of ridiculously priced luxury goods and electronics that end up being cheap counterfeits and knockoffs.

• Puppy scams. Always request to see the pet in person before forking over big bucks for a puppy.

Another big scam that still takes its toll is when a--holes pose as a trusted friend or family member by email or phone asking for money because they had been robbed, stuck in a foreign country, or lost their wallet. Or worse, when you get a call from a supposed IRS employee or a local constable saying something to the effect that “if you don’t pay immediately, we are sending a police officer to your home to arrest you for failure to pay.”

Note: The IRS does not call to collect fees. Nor do local police, sheriffs or constables contact people to collect money.

I know someone who was swindled out of $1,200 this year because they believed a rep from Amazon had told them their account had been hacked. And the oldest scams of record are Ponzi schemes, where supposed “investors” get you to hand over your money with the promise that you will quickly make 50% to 100% returns. Utah is famous for these kinds of rip-offs, so please be careful when approached by people who want you to part with your hard-earned bucks. n Content is prepared expressly for Community and is not endorsed by City Weekly staff.

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WEIRD

Creme de la Weird Some news items just catapult themselves to the lead story position. On a Delta airlines flight in November from Syracuse, New York, to Atlanta, the woman sitting in 13A allegedly tried to breastfeed her hairless cat, much to the cat’s (and other passengers’) distress. Flight attendants repeatedly asked the woman to return the yowling cat to its kennel, the New York Post reported, but she refused. “Her shirt was up and she was trying to get the cat to latch ... and the cat was screaming for its life,” said Ainsley Elizabeth, a flight attendant who was on board during the incident. Finally, a message was sent through the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) alerting the ground crew in Atlanta that they would need a Red Coat team member to apprehend the woman at the gate. (Red Coats are specially trained to handle customer service issues, which now include cat-breastfeeding.) It’s unclear what happened to the woman or her cat after the flight landed.

Cuteness Alert The Flower Mound Rebels, a youth football team in Texas, won’t be in the playoffs this year, NBC News reported. The Rebels, composed of 7- and 8-year-olds, are “too good” for their league, boasting a perfect record and having outscored their opponents 199-6, according to Keller Youth Association Vice President Rhett Taylor. “They are a select-level team.”

He said if the team had competed in the league’s super bowl, he would have caught it from parents of other teams. Center Greyson Tanner, 8, reported being “very sad” about the ruling.

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Bright Idea In Greenwood, South Carolina, firefighters responded on Nov. 28 to the Morningside assisted living facility, where several rounds of ammunition, which had apparently been stored in a toaster oven, discharged and caught a resident’s apartment on fire. WSPA-TV reported that employees initially believed a shooter was on the property when they heard shots, but the room’s resident was found unconscious and suffering from smoke inhalation. The fire was extinguished, and no other apartments were damaged.

A Likely Story Dale Wheeler, a 56-year-old IT worker from Morrisville, North Carolina, crashed his car just four miles away from his home on Nov. 12 and then disappeared, The Raleigh News and Observer reported. Officers responding to the crash found the keys still in the car, along with “a little bit of blood.” Wheeler was reported missing after not showing up for work for two days, but it was almost two weeks before anyone saw him again. On Nov. 28, someone called police to do a welfare check at Wheeler’s home and found him there, alert and conscious. He was taken to a hospital, where he explained that he had walked away from the accident but went back to find his phone, then was lost in the woods for nearly two weeks before finding his way home. Police said an investigation is ongoing.

That’s So Haute Politix, a menswear brand in Australia, celebrated Movember (when men grow mustaches to raise awareness of men’s health care concerns) with a special suit of clothing made of mustache hair, Oddity Central reported. The Mo-Hair suit’s fabric was made by Melbourne artist Pamela Kleeman-Passi, who collected hair from salons and individuals. “When hair is on your head, it looks really beautiful,” she said. “But when it’s off the body, it immediately becomes disgusting ... I’m interested in the polarity between what’s really voluptuous and what’s really repulsive.” If you’re interested in the Mo-Hair suit, sorry: It isn’t commercially available.

Send your weird news items to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.

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Oops!

Twenty-year-old Lucy Battle of Burnley, England, nearly threw out the baby with the bathwater ... er, with the sofa, recently.

Battle posted an ad on Facebook Marketplace about her sofa, with the caption “Need gone today,” but she accidentally posted a photo of her 7-month-old son, Oscar, rather than of the furniture, Leeds Live reported. “I just somehow managed to upload the wrong photo ... I didn’t expect it to go so far!” Battle said.

One user commented, “Can I swap for a teenager?” But Battle isn’t budging: “I don’t want to give away my child.”

People With Too Much Time on Their Hands ... or, Try the Decaf Mark Smith of Cass County, Missouri, filed a class-action lawsuit in late November against Folgers Coffee Co. and its parent company, J.M. Smucker, for misleading label information about the serving sizes and quantity of coffee in its canisters. Smith says the company has “grossly misinterpreted the number of cups of coffee” that can be made from a container, calling it a “classic and unlawful bait-and-switch scheme,” The Kansas City Star reported. Folgers rebutted by saying that the label offers two ways to make coffee, and its label uses the words “up to” when describing how much a canister could make.

Julie “Bella” De Lay

| COMMUNITY |

‘Educational’ Toy Ania Tanner, a grandmother from Ontario, Canada, found a cute singing and dancing cactus on the Walmart website and purchased it for her granddaughter, CTV News reported. The animated $26 toy sings in three languages: English, Spanish and Polish. But when Tanner, who is Polish, listened to the Polish lyrics, she was shocked: “This toy uses swear words and talking about cocaine use. This is not what I ordered for my granddaughter. I was in shock. I thought, what is this, some kind of joke?”

The Polish song is by rapper Cypis, who didn’t give permission for the use of his song by the Chinese manufacturer of the item. For its part, Walmart said the toy is sold by a third-party vendor and will be removed while they investigate.

n The Tan Hill Inn in northern England—Britain’s highest-altitude pub—drew a big crowd on Nov. 26 for the Oasis cover band Noasis.

But when heavy snow and dangerous wind conditions hit the remote pub, more than 60 people were stranded there, with the exits blocked and vehicles buried, NPR reported. People slept on the floor and mattresses and ate Yorkshire pudding while playing games and watching movies. Noasis missed their next gig, in Essex, but everyone was able to leave the inn by Nov. 29 with a great story to tell.

THOSE WHO WORK FROM HOME!

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Randy Aliens Preacher and author Sharon Gilbert, 69, raised a reaction when she appeared on the “Jim Bakker Show” on Nov. 23 and described the moment when an alien visited her for nefarious reasons. “After Derek and I got married, one night, this other Derek appears in our bed. The real Derek is lying down next to me; other Derek sits right up out of him. It startled me,” she said, according to Newsweek. No doubt! Gilbert asked the “critter” who he was, “Because he clearly wanted to have sexual relations.” Along with claiming to be Derek, the creature said he was Xerxes, but Gilbert wasn’t having it. “I reached up, grabbed his face and I said, ‘You are a liar, and Jesus is real.’ And I pulled that face off, and beneath it was a reptile.” One Twitter user responded, “This is a story a 7-year-old tells when you ask them why they’re late for something.”

Awesome!

Swedish meatballs for everyone! A snowstorm that dumped about 12 inches in Aalborg, Denmark, on the evening of Dec. 1 forced about 30 people to spend the night in an Ikea store, Pix11TV reported. Store manager Peter Elmose said customers and employees slept “in the furniture exhibitions and our showroom on the first floor, where we have beds, mattresses and sofa beds,” giving shoppers the chance to “pick the exact bed they have always wanted to try. It’s been a good night. All fun.”

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