City Weekly January 4, 2024

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TAKIN’ CARE OF BUSINESS

Twenty years into its underdog run, a new publisher guided City Weekly through tumultuous times.

BY BENJAMIN WOOD

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CONTENTS

Cover Story

Takin’ Care of Business Twenty years into its underdog run, a new publisher guided City Weekly through tumultuous times.

By Benjamin Wood

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Cover photo by Derek Carlisle

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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. 16,000 copies of Salt Lake City Weekly are available free of charge at more than 1,000 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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Unfair Care

@CITY WEEKLY

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I am a 15-year-old transgender male living in Utah who is currently seeking gender-affirming surgery, but a bill adopted last year by the Utah Legislature (SB16) is making that impossible for nearly three more years.

And who’s to say there won’t be more bills passed in that time frame that could make it more difficult, even as an adult?

Being able to get this procedure would greatly benefit me and many other transgender youth in this state. I believe it is unfair that we are being restricted from

receiving these procedures.

Gender-affirming care is life-saving treatment and has been backed by credible medical organizations to be the most effective way to help transgender people.

In Utah, minors are able to receive various cosmetic plastic surgeries as long as they have parental permission—so why not have that for gender-affirming surgeries as well—especially since they are used for medically necessary reasons, not just cosmetic ones?

Also, the rate of regret for other plastic surgeries—such as rhinoplasty—are much higher than gender-affirming surgeries, though I’m not seeing any bills being rushed through the Legislature to ban these other plastic surgeries for minors.

The decision to pass this bill feels like a consciously biased choice that wasn’t actually backed by proper research, because gender-affirming care has been proven by countless studies to benefit the recipients.

By passing SB16, the Utah Legislature actively chose to go against what mul-

tiple medical journals and studies state by implementing these changes instead of allowing the medical provider to make these decisions on a case-by-case basis.

While I understand wanting to protect children from making long-term decisions that may harm them, I believe that this bill does more harm than good in the long term, mainly due to the fact that gender-affirming surgeries are proven to contribute to lowered suicidality in people who receive such care.

I understand that these topics may not completely align with the personal beliefs of these lawmakers, but medical and mental health care should be between the patient, the guardian and the medical provider—not the government.

Government officials are supposed to be the voice of the people, but it does not feel like I am being properly represented.

RAYMOND ZIEMSKI

“Auld Lang Syne…” Dec. 28 A&E

Thanks to the fireworks last night, the air quality was shit.

But I am sure that for everyone struggling to breathe, it was worth it for some of you to be entertained for the night.

Yeah, good one.

JEREMY GRAY

Via Facebook Happy New Year to my favorite Utah newspaper!

CODY BURROWS

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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!

West Valley

THE WATER

COOLER What advice do you give yourself as you begin 2024?

Wes Long

Take a few more chances in your life and keep a space open in your heart for forgiveness.

Kelly Boyce

Value your sleep. The extra activity isn’t always worth it. Use that extra energy to make the things that matter more worth it.

Benjamin Wood Trust your gut.

Katharine Biele

Calm the “f—” down!

Larry Carter

No more excuses—get rid of the fat and do something about that rump shaker and gut!

Scott Renshaw

Figure out how to get back to the person who wasn’t sick for four years, instead of the person who has been sick for six solid weeks.

Pete Saltas

Go with your gut instinct and not just at the dinner table.

Jerre Wroble

Put yourself in an unfamiliar setting and learn something new.

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PRIVATE

BY JOHN SALTAS

No Smoking

T

he only New Year’s resolution I ever made that mattered was quitting smoking. Like nearly everyone else, I’d forever given in to the reality that no matter how much I resolved to lose weight, I still gained a couple pounds each year instead.

Despite resolving to be a better person, I too often remained an asshole despite my best intentions. I swore to God I would swear less, but damn it, I’ll be a sumbitch if that one ever lasted more than a minute.

As far as I can recall, my pledge to quit smoking in 2008 is the only resolution I ever kept, never mind that I’d made the same resolution annually at least 30 times prior. Call it luck, but I finally got a resolution to stick, and I’m grateful for that.

Medical journals say that after one year of quitting smoking, the chances of a heart attack are cut in half and that after 15 years, the chances of a coronary event are the same as that of nonsmokers. I’d shout “hallelujah” for crossing that threshold, but I’ve been known to jinx myself, so I won’t do that lest I start clutching my chest like Redd Foxx used to do.

That’s all basically good news for me, but to be sure, smoking damages lots more than just the heart and lungs.

Smoking is also no friend of the mouth, throat, esophagus, cervix and bladder.

I’m guessing that the plural pills I take daily might not have been medically prescribed if I had never listened to my good buddies—teenage drinking knuckleheads all—and sucked down my first Camel stud. “What are you afraid of, you dumb Greek? It’s not gonna kill you!”

They were sort of right—I ain’t dead yet. Nor, gratefully, are most of my other once-smoking buddies from the era

@johnsaltas

EYE

when sucking on ciggies was stupid and smelly—but cool!— and we were yet to be cast as pariahs. There were lots of us back at those Alice Cooper and Moody Blues concerts who smoked indoors and out without so much as a passing thought about second-hand smoke.

We even smoked in movie theaters. Sheez! And on airplanes—I still can’t believe they let that ever occur, even considering the seats were not so cramped back then and dousing a cigarette would not require untangling body parts from your seat companions first. We smoked in restaurants until they banned that practice. Utahns smoked openly in private clubs—basically what we call nightclubs today— until New Year’s Eve 2008, long after public smoking was out the door nationally.

That’s the night I quit smoking, only to be tested bigly in New Orleans a few days later when Utah played Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Nearly didn’t make it.

I had taken up smoking in the first place in part to be a rebel of sorts. Everyone smoked back then, but I never saw myself as following a pack—I was being a rebel. Our role models were our fathers, uncles, cousins and brothers who fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam—nearly all smokers. Our cultural icons smoked, including everyone from the Beatles to seemingly every popular actor and actress, from Ronald Reagan all the way down to Fred Flintstone. They were rebels, too, in my view.

So, when I could no longer smoke at the bar while plugging quarters into trivia machines and slamming tequilas— and instead was told that if I wanted to smoke that I’d have to go outside—I drew the line. Nope. They can’t tell me what to do, so I quit.

When the puffers went outside, I did, too, and kept on going. A nice benefit of not smoking also meant not having bar tabs, because it soon became apparent that although I annually spent a small fortune in bars, I wasn’t really there

to drink but, rather, to smoke.

I wasn’t a home smoker. I lit up in clubs. On that 2008 New Year’s Eve, private clubs turned in their ashtrays. What they got in return was to allow consumers into their establishments without a private club membership. That new world was begat after decades of squabble between restaurants, clubs, consumers, sinners and saints that was finally resolved when Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. just flat out got it done.

Psst—it was the revenue begat of the tourism industry that caused the sniggling parties to cave—not any fake concern about my health or my passage to a better spot in the hereafter. The “second-hand smoke is deadly” team can also be credited, but that was not a strong local movement, because after all, “free agency” and all that.

It was all for good, though. It’s only anecdotal but I’d guess the tourist industry, the Utah liquor industry and tens of thousands of lungs and hearts are better off because Huntsman accomplished what no one else could.

Not having a place to smoke made quitting easier for me. I only mention that because I have a sense that many smokers (whose habit is, I think, far cooler than vaping) are no different than I was. I fully resented being told what to do. Not smoking is hard enough without every piously perfumed nagger out there doing more harm than good by constantly nagging.

By now you may be wondering, what’s going on here? A Private Eye column without a ding at Mike Lee? Yeah, for this week at least.

Despite the pitiable insurrectionist and U.S. Constitution abuser that he is, I feel a certain kinship to Mike Lee. Like smokers such as I once was—no matter how much he is condemned for being an ass, he’s learned to embrace being one. Happy New Year. CW Send comments to john@cityweekly.net

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HITS & MISSES

BY KATHARINE BIELE |

@kathybiele

MISS: Shipping & Handling

Here in Utah, if you really, really want something to be true, then it must be true. That pretty much sums up the long and persistent trajectory of the Utah inland port. While the Legislature has been all agog over the financial prospects of trucking in goods from the coast, city dwellers and environmentalists have been less than enthused. Now comes a report from the Utah Investigative Journalism Project and KUER 90.1 FM that disputes the port’s economic smoke and mirrors. The conclusion from “leading experts on shipping, logistics and supply chain management” was to “cast doubt on the vision of the port being lean, green and successful.” Imports from the West Coast are on the decline and electrification of the trucking industry is a pipe dream.

Meanwhile, Weber County is rushing to approve a satellite port near the Great Salt Lake and waterfowl management areas. If the dollars don’t add up, the taxpayers may be saddled with a bill for a kind of Potemkin village.

MISS: Off the Road Again

There’s something ironic in the way the state government condemns “federal overreach” and yet doubles down on its own heavy hand in local government decisions. Let’s talk about Moab; the Bureau of Land Management recently banned motorized vehicles from 300 miles of dirt trails and roads in an effort to conserve the iconic vistas. The Grand County Commission celebrated the ban, and Moab City has never been a big fan of off-roaders plowing through the city’s narrow streets. Still, Gov. Spencer Cox is appealing the ruling, and Sen. Mitt Romney is in favor because, of course, “the impact on the economy in the region.” Motorized recreation organizations are fighting the ruling, too. It’s unclear if it would really bar users from accessing the land but, certainly, it would put a dent in motorized use around “the offroad capital of Utah.” And if recreation means money, then the thinking’s been done.

HIT: Camp Sights

As we enter 2024, Salt Lake appears to be taking homelessness seriously— sort of. The Salt Lake Tribune editorialized about how the city’s new sanctioned homeless camp might help the situation. The state, however, is looking at opening a permanent camp west of 700 West between freeway ramps at 500 South. If you’ve been out there, you’ve seen dozens of tents and makeshift shelters, but the state plan would erect miniature shelters like those at the temporary site. Many of the unhoused have resisted shelters as unsafe and overcrowded, something Wayne Neiderhauser, the state’s homeless coordinator, understands. Whether the Legislature will be on board with an estimated operating budget of up to $3 million a year is anyone’s guess. After all, we’re talking about Salt Lake City, the liberal anti-Christ of Utah.

BY CAT PALMER

Real talk: 2023 was hard.

A

t the beginning of the year, I was still processing my brother’s sudden death. Shortly after that, I watched in horror as our governor signed away the rights of trans youth to access gender-affirming health care during the last legislative session. Then, last spring, one of my closest friends succumbed to a life of mental illness and took her own life.

This new year—2024—is an election year. And I am holding my breath, because I suspect that the all-knowing folks on Capitol Hill will probably use our children as political pawns once again.

More real talk: 2023 had plenty of shiny and glittery moments.

I celebrated my first wedding anniversary to the most beautiful human. My partner and I planted a beautiful garden. I get a tremendous amount of pleasure from eating food I have grown. And despite laws that remain on the books in Utah—poised for the day opponents of gay marriage can turn back time like they did with abortion—our very queer union is still legal and intact.

I made a new friend who has become more like a brother from another mother.

I danced to a lot of live music this year. My soul needed these things.

Seeing my kids come into their own brings me joy, and the politicians cannot legislate that.

My daughter is thriving and, as she says, “What is Christmas without HR-T? Cismas!” She has excellent care, despite our government’s best efforts to change that.

Most real Talk: I learned a lot in 2023. I will learn more in 2024.

As I look ahead at 2024, I am thinking about slowing down and connecting more. We need more kindness in the world and, when I take a moment to slow down, I realize how beautiful connections are and how we truly need more love in this world.

In 2023, my goal was to dance more and to live with intention. In 2024, I’ll focus on loving life and people more.

I do not believe that all you need is love … I believe we need acceptance, too. But right now, I simply want to love and take moments to pause and enjoy the ride. My hope for you, dear readers, is that you will have a 2024 filled with love. We certainly could all use more of it right about now. CW

Small Lake City is home to local writers and their opinions.

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Think reality TV is bad now? It’s nothing compared to the sadistic dreck of 20 years ago.

BY BILL FROST comments@cityweekly.net

W

e’re finally here: Actual reality is worse than reality TV. Shows like The Masked Singer, America’s Got Talent and The Golden Bachelor may be garbage, but they’re still an improvement over what TV was hacking up in, say, 2004. Let’s take a look back at reality TV of 20 years ago: None of these shows are available outside of grainy YouTube clips, as they’ve all been rightfully relegated to the dustbin of history.

My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance (Fox): In the early 2000s, Fox was the king of sadistic reality competition shows, and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance was the network’s finest/worstest hour. The setup: If Randi and Steve can convince their families that they’re going to get married, each will win $250,000. The twist: “Steve” was an actor out to sabotage the game with John Belushi-lite zeal. After putting Randi through psychological torture for six episodes, the ruse was revealed, and she won $1 million. Blowing a perfect finale, Steve wasn’t executed.

The Rebel Billionaire (Fox): The Rebel Billionaire: Branson’s Quest for the Best was a Fox ripoff of another rich guy’s reality competition show—more on that later— with a dash of Fear Factor. In addition to

A&E

subjecting aspiring entrepreneurs to business challenges, Branson would also take them skydiving and hot-air ballooning because … rebel? The ultimate “prize” was to win $1 million and become the acting president of Branson’s Virgin Group for about five minutes (rounded up). Not Fox’s dumbest show, but up there.

My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance

Battle for Ozzfest (MTV): The prize of $1 million was the standard of 2000s reality TV, but not on MTV’s Battle for Ozzfest—no way was Sharon Osbourne giving away a dime. One member of eight painfully obscure metalcore bands would compete in challenges and general nonsense in order to win a noon slot on a flatbed trailer by the port-a-potties at Ozzfest. By the fourth episode, Ozzy was making contestants wear bondage masks and bite the heads off of “bats” through a glory hole.

The winning band was outlived by their tribal tattoos.

The Player (UPN): If a reality show aired on UPN in the 2000s, did it ever really exist? (UPN was a TV network, kids.) Despite its obscurity, The Player could be a player today: 13 spike-haired himbos competed to seduce a hot model (Dawn Oliveri, who went on to be an actress in House of Lies and 1823) against the douchey backdrop of South Beach, Miami. The Player is so trashtimeless, it’s shocking that Paramount+ hasn’t rebooted it complete with Dawn’s dismissal phrase, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Get on it, P+.

Superstar USA (The WB): By 2004, American Idol was the reality TV show, and the country’s infatuation with Satan’s Bleached Anus himself, Ryan Seacrest, was well underway. The WB (it was also a TV network, kids) inexplicably countered American Idol with Superstar USA, a spoof singing com-

FOX TELEVISION

The Reality TV of 2004

petition that rejected talented singers and advanced tone-deaf caterwaulers. To keep the audience from laughing during the finale, the producer told them the singers were terminally ill “One Wish Foundation” kids. Yeah, 2004 went hard.

The Casino (Fox): It had a theme song written by Bono and The Edge, it was created by reality TV king Mark Burnett, and it was set in the flashiest city in America, Las Vegas—and yet The Casino couldn’t attract enough eyeballs to even finish its 13-episode Fox run in the summer of 2004.

The problem: The show starred a pair of millionaires with the combined charisma of a plastic palm tree. The other problem:

It was filmed at the Golden Nugget on Fremont Street, which may as well have been in Mesquite (Vegas nerds, represent).

The Apprentice (NBC): The root cause of everything terrible now in the 2020s, as NBC’s The Apprentice yanked one Donald J. Trump from the edge of celebrity oblivion and made him a household TV star on Jan. 7, 2004. The “Business Survivor” series was notable in that it spent more time raking over the losers than celebrating the winners, a Trump tactic that has, exhaustingly, spanned the ages. It’ll be so awkward if NBC, and the rest of the Liberal Media, are shut down by again-President Trump in 2025 with a wheezing “You’re fired.” CW

RDT: Emerge

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JANUARY 4, 2024 | 11

IZZY ARRIETA

COURTESY PHOTO

One of the more infamous details associated with the reign of England’s King Henry VIII was his string of six wives—Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr—as the monarch attempted to secure a male heir. Even those with the historical knowledge to recall all of the names might tend to bundle them together in their connection to the king, which provides part of the thematic foundation for SIX, the 2017 musical comedy from writer/composers Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss that sets out to give individual voices to these women.

The premise starts as a kind of tragic competition, framed as a concert in which Henry’s six wives each attempts in turn to demonstrate that she was the most poorly-treated of all of them. SIX gives the concept a frisky modernized sensibility, such as playing on the idea in the song “Haus of Holbein” that Anna of Cleves was chosen through the equivalent of a dating app, and was ultimately rejected by Henry for not being as good-looking as her profile picture suggested. Yet it’s ultimately a narrative about seizing agency, and refusing to be defined by the worst way a man mistreated you.

Broadway at the Eccles presents the touring production of SIX at the Delta Hall of the Eccles Theater (131 S. Main St.) Jan. 9 – 21, with performances at 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday – Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. & 8 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. & 6:30 p.m.

Sunday. Tickets are $79 - $199; visit arttix.org to purchase tickets and for additional event information. (SR)

All the arts—even those that might seem solitary—benefit from mutual support. Sometimes that takes the form of literal collaboration, and sometimes it’s more about providing an environment that helps promote artists’ work, whether that involves providing ongoing education and materials, helping to write grants or getting artists into shows and art festivals. The non-profit Glass Art Guild of Utah and its membership of nearly 50 Utah-based glass artists provide all of that for the creators in this delicate form, including kicking off 2024 with the group showcase Bling in the New Year.

The work is the result of the “warm glass”/kiln-formed glass process, a creative form that dates back more than 4,000 years. The kiln-heating process can produce both decorative, artistic work and functional pieces like drinking glasses and bowls, in a wide range of styles based on temperature work and processes known as fusing, slumping and casting. The results are delicate and beautiful, spanning every possible color—and while the most obvious gift-giving season may be behind us, you can always consider treating yourself.

Glass Art Guild of Utah’s Bling in the New Year show comes to the Utah Cultural Celebration Center’s Bridge Gallery (1355 W. 3100 South, West Valley City) in conjunction with West Valley Arts, Jan. 5 – March 1. The exhibit is free to the public during operating hours, Monday – Thursday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., with special hours noon – 8 p.m. for the Jan. 5 opening, and March 1 closing date, as well as Feb. 2. Visit glassartguild.org for additional event information. (SR)

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Broadway at the Eccles: SIX

Glass Art Guild of Utah: Bling in the New Year

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The very name of Repertory Dance Theatre draws attention to its emphasis on the existing canon of modern dance, yet that doesn’t mean it’s a company exclusively stuck in the past. For its first production of 2024, Emerge, RDT emphasizes the opportunity the company provides for its dancers to create new work, as well, and invites dance studios and students from throughout the Salt Lake Valley into the process.

The evening of new choreography includes RDT’s Artistic Associate, Nicholas Cendese—who grew up studying with the University of Utah’s acclaimed Tanner Dance—returning there to set new work on current Tanner Dance students, as well as setting work on students from his own Sandy studio, South Valley Creative Dance. Other RDT dancers will be offering their new work via student participants in RDT’s Jan. 2-4 Winterdance Workshop at the Rose Wagner Center. Other works on the program include dancer Jonathan Kim choreographing and performing a solo dance incorporating improvisation, dancer Megan O’Brien choreographing for freelance community dancers, and company rehearsal director Lauren Curley collaborating with dance educators from throughout the valley, helping to draw attention to those who work behind the scenes training the next generation of dance talent.

RDT’s production of Emerge visits the Rose Wagner Center’s Leona Wagner Black Box Theater (138 W. 300 South) for three performances, Jan. 5 at 7:30 p.m. and Jan. 6 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 general admission; visit arttix.org or rdtutah. org for tickets and additional event information. (Scott Renshaw)

Complete listings online at cityweekly.net

COURTESY PHOTO

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BY BENJAMIN WOOD bwood@cityweekly.net

I

DEREK CARLISLE

| CITY WEEKLY |

JANUARY 4, 2024 | 13

n 2003—as Salt Lake City Weekly approached its 20th birthday—the times, they were a-changin’.

The country was reeling in post9/11 divisions and anxieties, increasingly uneasy over deteriorating conditions in Iraq. Utah and Salt Lake City were settling into post-Olympics visibility, with the state’s reputation shifting from that of a quirky backwater filled with religious nuts to … a quirky backwater filled with religious nuts where you could at least order a goddamned drink.

The media was increasingly post-internet, and while dark clouds were appearing on the horizon, an impending economic collapse had not yet arrived to rain on the parade and decimate the news industry. And, most surprisingly of all, City Weekly was post-John Saltas ... sort of.

“After ordering a round of tequila shots, City Weekly owner John Saltas blew away staffers Nov. 14 when he passed the torch of publisher to Jim Rizzi, the paper’s associate publisher and vice president of sales and marketing,” Jake Parkinson wrote in the Media Matters section on Nov. 20, 2003. “‘It’s time,’ Saltas said. ‘City Weekly has become more than a paper, it has become a company. That has not been an easy thing for me to adjust to.’”

Rizzi, a San Francisco transplant who’d bounced around the American West working for several New Times publications, had never been to Utah before he made the move to join CW. And while the SLC and San Francisco media markets “could not be more different,” Rizzi said the decision

eries to distribute their own product back to attendees. As cumbersome as that was, the arrangement was the result of considerable discussion and negotiation with the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services (née “Control”).

“It was illegal for them to sell to the public directly— I don’t remember the specifics,” Rizzi said. “Everybody at the DABC was kind of scratching their heads, trying to figure it out with us.”

Rizzi said he didn’t have much hope that City Weekly would be allowed to hold the festival, and he again credited Saltas as “instrumental” in navigating the regulators.

“They let us do it,” he said, “with a lot of restrictions, but they let us.”

Things were arguably as good as they had ever been for City Weekly. A new printer in Ogden modernized the production and printing process; a prominent location on Main Street overlooking Gallivan Station flexed at a time when The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News had fled from downtown, and a staffed-up newsroom was kicking ass and taking names.

But then the housing bubble popped, and the country entered a crippling recession, and the warning lights flashing at every newspaper in the country switched to a fullthroated alarm bell.

“It’s always more fun when we’re winning, and we had a good run there for a while,” Rizzi said. “It’s a lot easier to do stuff if you have a positive cash flow.”

Rizzi left City Weekly, abruptly, in 2012, with Saltas stepping back into the role of publisher. In the Tribune’s report at the time, Rizzi said that CW was doing better than many of its peer papers, but that the alternative news business simply wasn’t as rewarding as it had been in the past.

He reiterated that sentiment in a recent interview, saying that it became depressing to go to work after experiencing some of the highest points at both City Weekly and the broader news environment.

Now living in California and no longer working in media, Rizzi gave one more tip of the hat to John Saltas and City Weekly for staying in the fight after all these years.

“It was hard for me to see the industry decline,” Rizzi said. “[Saltas] has weathered that storm like I would never have been able to.”

Today, Saltas is as complimentary as ever for Rizzi and the time they worked together.

“Jim was always regarded as one the best in our industry,” Saltas Said. “His impact on City Weekly and in this city was immense. I miss our coffees.” CW

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Twenty years into its underdog run, a new publisher guided City Weekly through tumultuous times.

worked out “perfectly.”

“It wasn’t hard to be ‘alternative’ in Utah,” Rizzi said. “It was really fun. It was exciting.”

Rizzi said that prior to Utah, he had never lived anywhere with such a stark predominance of one type of people, that being members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It went beyond seeing Utah as a “conservative,” or “religious” state, he said, in that the spoken and unspoken influence of the church was an ever-present fact of life.

But that influence was also changing, with loosened liquor laws inviting new and larger business interests to the Wasatch Front and with an outspoken liberal firebrand—and easy editorial foil—leading the capital city.

“I remember Rocky [Anderson] was mayor back then—we were poking at him a lot,” Rizzi said. “It was the beFormer ginning of the transition away from City the private club format of the bars.

Weekly They were opening up a little bit.” publisher Rizzi remarked on the unique chalJim Rizzi lenge of covering the Latter-day Saint church—how its political and economic power demands scrutiny but how its cultural omnipresence creates lines that shouldn’t be crossed. As an outsider to the local media environment, Rizzi said he valued his partnership and friendship with John Saltas, who Rizzi described as “hands down” the best person he’s worked with, even though that friendship involved eating more Greek food than Rizzi ever cared to.

“It was kind of a good fit. [Saltas] came up on the editorial side, and I came up on the business side,” Rizzi said. “He knew the market inside and out. He was the expert at how to manage the Mormon situation.”

And much like how Private Eye/City Weekly was born out of the constraints of Utah liquor laws, it was during Rizzi’s time at the paper that the Utah Beer Festival was launched.

True to form, it challenged protocol and pushed through new loopholes in the state’s laws, as nothing like it had ever been tried before.

“What’s more unique to Utah than the damned liquor laws? That’s what led us to it,” Rizzi said.

Held at Washington Square around the City & County Building, the original beer fest involved City Weekly first purchasing all of the beer, then coordinating with brew-

| CITYWEEKLY.NET |

Takin’ Care of Business

Salt Lake City Weekly moved to Main Street in late 2003, during the paper's 20th year in print.

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| CITY WEEKLY |

14 | JANUARY 4, 2024

Rewind Vo l u me 20: 2003 t o 20 0 4 years of

salt lake

CITY WEEKLY

BY WES LONG wlong@cityweekly.net

T

he modern era was taking shape as City Weekly reached its 20th year. The United State’s invasion of Iraq was generating criticism abroad and at home, as Saddam Husein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction appeared increasingly nonexistent and as phrases like “exit strategy,” “preemptive strike” and “enhanced interrogation” entered the lexicon.

Now a mainstream technology, the internet was generating debate over file-sharing services like KaZaA and the “ripping” of CDs. Service providers were jockeying for market share, touting low prices and special services like spam email filters, while AOL was blanketing the earth with promotional software (including an insert in the June 19, 2003, issue) offering a limited number of free hours online. And with dial-up demand rapidly outpacing cities’ aging communications infrastructure, some Utah municipalities—but not Salt Lake—banded together in a fiber-optic project called UTOPIA. Gov. Mike Leavitt resigned mid-term to join the Bush administration as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, after denying for months that he’d be doing exactly that. His absence left Utah briefly governed for the first time—and so far only time—by a woman: Olene Walker.

Salt Lake City was in an Olympic hangover, with relaxed liquor laws and development deals disrupting the private club and restaurant markets. The Zephyr closed, Brick’s became Sound and In the Venue, Siegfried’s Delicatessen was forced to relocate and, in a bid to survive, the Dead Goat Saloon transformed into a strip joint called The Crazy Goat, angering its downtown neighbors and, in particular, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Those changes were indicative of an economic tug-of-war taking shape between an embattled Main Street downtown and a shiny new Gateway Mall, built for the games and luring institutions like The Salt Lake Tribune four blocks west.

When downtown anchor Nordstrom eyed its own move to The Gateway, the Salt Lake City Council intervened and the LDS church committed to revamping its declining ZCMI

Center and Crossroads Plaza properties, an effort that would result in the construction of City Creek Center.

They weren’t the only ones betting on Main Street. KUTV 2 TV relocated to the Wells Fargo building, making a splash with its street-level studio overlooking Gallivan Plaza. Eagle-eyed viewers might spot their friends on the news, or the well-placed ads for KSL 5 on the Trax trains that passed behind the KUTV anchors. (Trax trains also began running until 1 a.m. on weekends, with UTA advertisements inviting nightlife patrons to “Linger later.” That service, unfortunately, was cut back and today the trains, like most Utah lawmakers, are asleep by midnight.)

City Weekly took up residence on Main as well, above Sam Weller’s Zion Bookstore, a point of pride that founder John Saltas often took note of in his new weekly column, Private Eye. “There are three dominant papers in the Salt Lake Valley, and you’re reading one of them,” Saltas wrote, launching the new feature on Jan. 8, 2004, under the headline “Heeerre’s Johnny!”

He noted that during 150 years of statehood, scores of newspapers had come and gone. And the other remaining papers in the valley, The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News, shared a propensity for “gushing over their so-called independence” while enjoying an “unfair, monopolistic marketplace advantage” in the form of their Joint Operating Agreement, or JOA. “We’ve been defiant not because we’re leftover hippies, not because we’re antiestablishment, anti-government or antichurch (I was there on Sunday—were you?), not because we’re rank amateurs and snotnosed brats,” Saltas wrote. “We just won’t lie down for the buggers who want to bugger us. It feels weird to say it, but we’ve grown into a company now, not just a paper. But this company has the same attitude as the paper—that we will not be pushed around, that there are meaningful individuals and communities out there who need our voice, that there are hypocritical bastards out there who need the exposure of our warm

sun and that there are institutions out there that need the type of probing examination only a kind proctologist like City Weekly is willing to administer.”

Saltas frequently joked in his new column that he now wrote at the behest of Jim Rizzi, who took on the role of publisher at the start of 2004. A few months earlier, in September of 2003, Ben Fulton was named the paper’s new editor.

In a Sept. 18 column on his promotion, Fulton described the gig as unglamorous, demanding and nerve-racking. “It’s a lot like moving a king-size mattress up seven flights of stairs,” Fulton wrote. “And I love it to pieces, even if sometimes I’m looking for the nearest cliff to jump off.”

New digs, new leadership, new moxie— City Weekly was strong and hungry. But you wouldn’t know talking to the local Society of Professional Journalists chapter. For the first time, the announcements inviting editors to apply to the SPJ’s annual awards contest were sent via email, rather than through the post. And City Weekly’s email was “accidentally” left off the CC’d list.

Remembering Vol. 20: In the race

Salt Lake City Mayor Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson was in a tough fight for a second term, heading into November against challenger Frank Pignanellii, who had made downtown decline a central component of his campaign. Anderson was also dogged by lingering resentments over the LDS church’s acquisition of Main Street between South Temple and North Temple, a landswap agreement Anderson inherited from Deedee Corradini but which bore fruit—including overzealous security enforcement, free speech protests and a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union—during his administration.

Meanwhile, Anderson was busy evangelizing a new era for Main Street and downtown, and reacting poorly to those who were critical of his administration. When Pignanelli held a press conference on the steps of City Hall—noting high staff turnover as an argument against Anderon’s

“abrasive” leadership—the mayor crashed the event, telling reporters he was there to keep his challenger honest. Anderson was also found to have directed his campaign staff to compile a dossier on local news coverage deemed biased against him, taking particular aim at Salt Lake Tribune reporter Heather May. “I feel I have an obligation to point these things out,” Anderson told City Weekly’s Jake Parkinson, according to an Oct. 2 report. “It is not one instance. I have seen a fairly consistent pattern that I think is misleading and puts a negative bent on City Hall.”

The 145-page dossier, compiled by spokesman Josh Ewing, was “never meant for public consumption,” Anderson said.

Nevertheless, Parkinson reported that Ewing identified 45 instances of adversarial bias in the Tribune, from lack of coverage on the opening of a Sprinkles Ice Cream shop to the use of the phrase “flip-flop” in a way that strayed from Ewing’s perceived definition of the term.

“You pick up a copy of The New York Times and read about the Dave Matthews concert in Central Park,” Anderson said. “We should have similar upbeat stories in our papers.”

Anderson would ultimately win reelection and, even more impressive, three Best of Utah awards that year, including Best Democrat, Best Sane Politician and Best Utahn. “In the past, Best Utahn might have meant the kind, agreeable, almost soporific personality who loved to cheer people up for any old reason,” his blurb in City Weekly stated. “With Anderson, we finally have someone who’ll shake your hand with a firm grip, share a good joke, then argue with you until the sun sets.”

By 2004, Anderson would be featured in a different race—the first-ever Salt Lake City Marathon. Asked to speak while runners waited for the starting gun, a Hits and Misses column on April 29, 2004, chided the newly reelected mayor for a long-winded speech that prompted jeers—and some obscenities—from anxious participants.

By the next issue, race director Scott Kerr had written in to correct the record and keep City Weekly honest. “It is a necessary

In the Market

come an infamous destroyer of newsrooms around the country, demonstrating a habit of buying up struggling papers on the cheap, strip-mining their assets and then leaving them to whimper into oblivion. By mid-2004, this process had begun at the Tribune, with Singleton opting to move his newspaper to The Gateway and selling the historic Ezra Thompson Building at 143 S. Main, now the home of Neumont University.

“The Tribune’s owners have said they want to sell the Tribune Building and move to more efficient digs. Gateway and office space on Main Street have been mentioned as possibilities,” Ted McDonough reported on May 13, 2004.

News of the impending move prompted 55 Tribune employees to sign a letter warning Singleton that the relocation “would be a tremendous symbolic blow to the future of Main Street and a threat to the credibility of the paper’s news coverage and editorializing on the subject.”

The Tribune moved to The Gateway in 2005, where it remains today.

In the Debate

| CITY WEEKLY |

JANUARY 4, 2024 | 15

City Weekly’s reporting generated significant dialogue among its readers, with letters to the editor every week on topics like the Iraq War and Bush administration, as well as Utah-specific stories like the closure of Salt Lake City schools (as divisive then as it is today, with the same trends at play), John Blodgett’s investigation of the high rates of bankruptcy among Latterday Saints, and Tim Sullivan’s report on the “urban explorers” who made a hobby of trespassing the city’s dilapidated and abandoned structures.

A Sept. 18, 2003, cover by Kristy Davis on Utah’s vegan community generated a wave of letters that continued for months, with readers arguing the merits and challenges of a vegan diet and criticisms that Davis had focused too narrowly on the local vegans who overlapped with Straight Edge culture.

“If I go vegan, do I have to give up my dreams of being a straight-peg square with a wife, two kids, a mortgage and steady jayoh-bee?” wrote Paul Ballard. “I just realized

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It was a year of upheaval for local news.

KRCL 90.9 FM launched RadioActive, originally as a live call-in program, while KUER 90.1 FM’s move away from classical music was duplicating the schedule of other NPR affiliates and putting pressure on both KRCL and KCPW 88.3 FM. For the state’s major dailies, The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News, the year would see big changes that set the course for rough years ahead, as both papers today are published only weekly, outside of downtown and under corporate structures that scarcely resemble their prior selves.

As City Weekly began its 20th year in print, the Deseret News became the Deseret Morning News, shifting away from its longstanding afternoon schedule (the News had merged its newsroom operations with KSL two years earlier, a forced marriage still finding its footing in 2003, and beyond).

The swap to a morning paper would lead to layoffs at the Newspaper Agency Corporation, or NAC, as the printing and distribution shop—co-owned by the Trib and DNews under their JOA—could consolidate its work shifts. But immediately after the switch, NAC CEO Joe Zerbey was effusive, praising the efficiency of his team and noting that the News appeared to have dodged a predicted subscriber exodus.

“My vice president of circulation keeps saying he’s absolutely amazed at how smooth it’s going. It’s a testament to good planning,” Zerbey said, according to a May 29 report by Shane McCammon. “My people did in nine months what it took Phoenix three years to do. They did in nine months what it took Seattle two years to do. I’m very proud of them.”

Newsroom staff were less enthused. A morning paper required late-night print deadlines, common in the industry but nonetheless new at the time for the Deseret News. And as employees explained to McCammon, anonymously, the transition period required both a morning and afternoon paper, meaning double shifts for the production team.

“It’s been tough to staff both night- and daytime shifts with no more people,” one News employee said. “And the attitude is ‘If you don’t like it, leave,’ which I don’t think is healthy.”

Another employee dinged upper-level editors for keeping the daytime routines they were accustomed to, continuing to schedule early-morning huddles that evening managers were expected to attend.

“Working nights is different,” they said, “and although that is just the way the newspaper industry is, it hasn’t been that way for the D-News people, and change is a bitch.”

But for the Tribune, 2003 to 2004 may have been the year to end all years. Its reputation damaged by the resignation of editor Jay Shellady—prompted by the scandal of two reporters selling information to the National Enquirer related to Elizabeth Smart’s abduction—the paper had a new editor in Nancy Conway, a declining subscriber count and a controversial owner, Media News Group’s Dean Singleton.

By mid-2004, it was becoming clear the Kearns-McCarthey family would fail to repurchase the Tribune away from Singleton.

Readers lamented the declining status of the state’s paper of record and frequently took aim at “Carpetbagger Singleton,” as he was described in a letter to the editor from Sandy’s Stephen Schubach.

“Mr. Singleton would be better served if he kept his words to himself and not confirm for everyone his ignorance,” Schubach wrote. “Dean Singleton single-handedly has been the most disruptive influence in Utah in the last decade. I submit that nothing he does or says reflects our community spirit or sense of loyalty.”

Media News Group would go on to be-

| CITYWEEKLY.NET |

safety requirement to have a 10-minute lapse from the start of the wheelchair and handcycle divisions to the marathon start,” Kerr wrote. “We were also experiencing some difficulty with the sound system.

While the wireless microphones were being brought back on line, Anderson was asked to fill the time by speaking to the crowds of enthusiastic participants.”

how much I sound like my granddad right now. He didn’t like anyone. I will probably get hit in the back of the head with a skateboard, and I probably deserve it. Forget I said anything.”

But the most-discussed topic of the year, by far, was LGBTQ rights. The United States was on a collision course with marriage equality, as court rulings in Massachusetts opened the door to the nation’s first legal same-sex unions and other rulings struck down laws against sodomy and cohabitation. Faced with the prospect that judges could end “traditional” practices with the strike of a gavel, many states, including Utah, rushed to pass new statutes and prop up existing laws limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

Virtually every issue published during City Weekly’s 20th year included letters on the subject of marriage equality, which also won Best Political Cause in that year’s Best of Utah. Readers would go back and forth for weeks, some promoting the “hetero ideal” while others shared personal stories of exclusion and discrimination. In a March 11 letter, La Verkin’s Aimee Marie Selfridge described the pain of watching President George W. Bush call for a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.

“He declared in front of millions, probably billions of people, that I am ‘a threat to the sanctity of marriage’ and that I am unnatural and ‘weakening the good influence of society.’” Selfridge wrote. “With tears streaming down my face, I listened as he called to the masses to ‘protect marriage’ from me.”

The topic took center stage in a cover story on April 15, 2004, in which Barney Hadden interviewed Mormon-raised C. Jay Cox, who directed the film Latter Days about a closeted LDS missionary who has a secret relationship with his neighbor.

“It’s not like a personal screed against Mormonism,” Cox said. “I just wrote it from my experience having been on both sides.

I guess, possibly, one of the things people don’t like about the movie is the possibility that it presents an alternate viewpoint.”

In a letter to the editor on May 6, 2004, Jay Bosworth of Salt Lake City wrote about pushing away the memories of his own mission, from the terror of first arriving in a strange country, to confessing his “sins” to the mission president and coming home early, and the inappropriately probing questions asked of him by “the brethren” of his local congregation.

“I have always wanted to put ‘my experience’ into words, if only to exorcise the demons of self-loathing and regret that the church so readily instills in its followers, and this great article leaves me prompted to do so,” Bosworth wrote. “Now more than ever, it is important that those who suffered similar spiritual and emotional abuse speak up, that we make our stories heard.”

Other letter writers scoffed at the sophistry of Utah elected leaders, who were simultaneously working to loosen concealed carry and weapons possessions laws while trying to prevent the LGBTQ community from legitimizing their relationships.

“At least gay couples may carry their concealed firearms to school and church,” wrote James Hull of Salt Lake City on Feb. 12, 2004. “Rest assured, no person in Utah shall ever be denied that privilege.” CW

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Richsburgersngrub.com

JANUARY 4, 2024 | 17

new year is upon us once more, which means it’s time to check the pulse of the food and dining world as we know it.

Last year saw the rise and fall of many interesting food trends—here’s hoping we’ve learned to cool it on fried-chicken restaurants, thank you very much—and a new year means new dishes to try both at home and at your favorite restaurant.

I’ve been dutifully keeping tabs on what the experts are saying about 2024 and its impact on food and dining, so here are a few trends on the horizon along with some local spots where you can dip your toes in the water.

Beverages With Bling. Edible glitter has long been a staple of the baking world, but we’re starting to see this sparkly adornment take off in the world of drinks—both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. For the latter, you’ll want to check out Hello Sugar (4489 W. Partridge Hill Lane, Riverton, 385-342-1313, hellosugardonuts.com) for their mixed sodas.

These colorful sodas are sugar bombs of the highest order, each of which comes swirling with a hypnotic array of sparkly glitter.

If you’re after a glittery beverage that’s a bit more grown-up, you can check out the Glitter Disco-Nut Rum at Dented Brick Distillery (3100 S. Washington Street, 801-883-9837, dentedbrick.com), a coconut-flavored rum that brings all that disco ball sparkle to your favorite home-

pepper sauces, chimichurri and sofrito are great ways to spruce up your condiment tray at home, and you can also snag some of their flavorful spice blends as well.

Vinyl Bars. As I plunge headlong into my midlife crisis, I am starting to see collecting vinyl records as a safe way to contend with my own mortality. I’ve poked around here and there, but after hearing about the vinyl bar trend that has caught on in much more metropolitan parts of the country, I thought mixing vinyl appreciation with drinking might be a good gateway for me. I was proud of little ol’ Salt Lake for not being five years behind on this trend, because we’ve got Seabird (seabirdutah.com) downtown (7 S. Rio Grande Street, 801-456-1223) and in Draper (13811 Sprague Lane, Ste. 210, 385255-5473).

Seabird is owned and operated by the same team that brought us Yoko Ramen, Yoko Taco and La Barba Coffee, so there is no shortage of coolness within the cozy confines of both locations. The vinyl bar concept isn’t exactly a new one—Japanese bar culture has featured listening bars or HiFi bars for decades now—but it’s definitely a concept that has been gaining traction in the U.S. as of late.

So say you’re interested in the intersection between vinyl and craft cocktails. What can you expect from a vinyl bar? Obviously, you’ve got a spot where you can get good drinks and small plates, but Seabird’s audio ambiance is entirely flavored with their vinyl collection. You’ll see the HiFi setup as soon as you walk in, pumping everything from Santana to Joy Division. Those after a more reflective experience at the bar will enjoy the freedom to snag a cocktail and simply listen to the curated albums that the bartenders/music aficionados spin for their clientele.

I’m excited to explore these trends plus a lot more over the course of the year—as always, if you’ve got a hot tip on a burning food trend, hit me up on the socials. CW

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A

made cocktail. During Pride Month, you can also check out Proper Brewing Co. (857 S. Main Street, 801-953-1707, properbrewingco.com) during Pride Month for their batches of Big Gay Ale, a vivid pink ale that has plenty of glittery sparkle.

Of course, with DIY mixology being what it is today, you can always head over to Orson Gygi (3500 South 300 West, 801268-3316, gygi.com) to snag edible glitter in every color imaginable. Throw a little gold in your old-fashioned, or mix a bit of purple in your dirty Dr. Pepper for a bit of shimmery bling with your beverage.

Creative Condiments. Perhaps it’s our recent affection for small bites and snacks on-the-go that has given rise to an equally ardent focus on the condiments that come with our meals. It’s not all that surprising when you think about how American food culture was built on a foundation of salt, black pepper, ketchup and mustard; there’s something akin to betrayal when you learn that most of the world outside the U.S. serves condiments with condiments of their own. With the broadening of our cultural horizons and the ease at which we can order things online, American diners are seeking out whichever flavor-enhancing condiments they can get their hands on.

I’ve been seeing the garlic chili crisp sauce really take off, which makes sense because it’s awesome and you can put it on anything. Fly By Jing (flybyjing. com) makes a popular variety pack that is available at most grocery stores, and you can typically get a variation of this condiment served tableside at great local noodle bars like One More Noodle House (3370 S. State Street, Ste. N5, 801-9068992, onemorenoodlehouse.com).

If you’re looking for locally-made flavor enhancers, Van Kwartel Flavor Science (van-kwartel-flavor-science.square. site) is a great bet. Their roots are firmly planted in the foods and influences of the Carribbean, which is a culinary melting pot in and of itself. Their wide variety of

| CITYWEEKLY.NET |

What’s on the menu for 2024 and where you can get it locally.

COURTESY PHOTO

Seabird

A list of what local craft breweries and cider houses have on tap this week 2 Row Brewing 6856 S. 300 West, Midvale 2RowBrewing.com Avenues Proper 376 8th Ave, SLC avenuesproper.com On Tap: Midnight Especial- Dark Mexican Lager

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Desert Edge Brewery 273 Trolley Square, SLC DesertEdgeBrewery.com On Tap: La Playa-Mexican Style lager Epic Brewing Co. 825 S. State, SLC EpicBrewing.com On Tap: 2023 Big Bad Baptist BarrelAged Imperial Stout Variants Fisher Brewing Co. 320 W. 800 South, SLC FisherBeer.com On Tap: A rotation of up to 17 Fresh Beers!

Grid City Beer Works 333 W. 2100 South, SLC GridCityBeerWorks.com On Tap: Cask Nitro CO2 Helper Beer 159 N Main Street, Helper, UT helperbeer.com Hopkins Brewing Co. 1048 E. 2100 South, SLC HopkinsBrewingCompany.com On Tap: Winter Ale Kiitos Brewing 608 W. 700 South, SLC KiitosBrewing.com

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Mountain West Cider 425 N. 400 West, SLC MountainWestCider.com On Tap: Winter Solstice Wassail Cider and Bee Sting Cyser Hops Offset Bier Co 1755 Bonanza Dr Unit C, Park City offsetbier.com/ On Tap: DOPO IPA Ogden Beer Company 358 Park Blvd, Ogden OgdenRiverBrewing.com On Tap: Injector Hazy IPA Park City Brewery 1764 Uinta Way C1 ParkCityBrewing.com On Tap: Salt City Haze Policy Kings Brewery 223 N. 100 West, Cedar City PolicyKingsBrewery.com Prodigy Brewing 25 W Center St. Logan Prodigy-brewing.com On Tap: Cached Out Hefeweisen -Now available to go!

Proper Brewing 857 S. Main, SLC ProperBrewingCo.com On Tap: Whispers from Krakatoa Helles Lager with Habanero and Mango Proper Burger: Sour Ranger - Blackberry and Lemon Sour Proper Brewing Moab 1393 US-191, Moab, Utah 84532 On Tap: Angus McCloud- Scottish Ale Red Rock Brewing 254 So. 200 West RedRockBrewing.com On Tap: Gypsy Scratch Red Rock Fashion Place 6227 So. State Redrockbrewing.com On Tap: Munich Dunkel

Roosters Brewing Multiple Locations RoostersBrewingCo.com On Tap: Identity Crisis Session West Coast Hazy Cold IPA – the name says it all!

SaltFire Brewing 2199 S. West Temple, S. Salt Lake SaltFireBrewing.com On Tap: Deep Dive Series - Rice Lager Draft Salt Flats Brewing 2020 Industrial Circle, SLC SaltFlatsBeer.com On Tap: Huldra and Holle: Rum barrel aged Imperial Stout with Chaga Mushroom Scion Cider Bar 916 Jefferson St W, SLC Scionciderbar.com On Tap: Ciders of Spain Good Clean Funk - 6.5% ABV Second Summit Cider 4010 So. Main, Millcreek secondsummitcider.com On Tap: Pear Pink Peppercorn & Tarragon Cider Shades Brewing 154 W. Utopia Ave, South Salt Lake ShadesBrewing.beer On Tap: Slim Shady Gluten Friendly Light Ale Live Music: Thursdays Shades On State 366 S. State Street SLC Shadesonstate.com On Tap: Foggy Goggle Winter Lager Silver Reef 4391 S. Enterprise Drive, St. George StGeorgeBev.com Squatters Pub Brewery / Salt Lake Brewing Co. 147 W. Broadway, SLC saltlakebrewingco.com/squatters On Tap: Salt Lake Brewing Co.’s Grandma’s Cookies Nitro Stout

Squatters and Wasatch Brewery 1763 So 300 West, SLC UT 84115 Utahbeers.com On Tap: Tree Beard IPA w Fresh Spruce Tips and Simcone, Citra & Ekeanot Hops Strap Tank Brewery, Lehi 3661 Outlet Pkwy, Lehi, UT StrapTankBrewery.com On Tap: Wake-Up Call Coffee Stout. Collab with KBER 101 and Kings Peak coffee.

Strap Tank Brewery, Springville 596 S 1750 W, Springville, UT StrapTankBrewery.com On Tap: Bananza Hefeweizen

Stratford Proper 1588 Stratford Ave., SLC stratfordproper.com On Tap: Yacht Rock Juice Box - Juicy IPA TF Brewing 936 S. 300 West, SLC TFBrewing.com On Tap: Dunkel Lager Talisman Brewing Co. 1258 Gibson Ave, Ogden TalismanBrewingCo.com On Tap: Witches Brew Top of Main Brewing 250 Main, Park City, Utah saltlakebrewingco.com/wasatch On Tap: Top of Main’s Warmer Winter Spiced Ale Uinta Brewing 1722 S. Fremont Drive, SLC UintaBrewing.com On Tap: Was Angeles Craft Beer UTOG 2331 Grant Ave, Ogden UTOGBrewing.com On Tap: Golden Grant 5% ABV. Vernal Brewing 55 S. 500 East, Vernal VernalBrewing.com Wasatch Brew Pub 2110 S. Highland Drive, SLC saltlakebrewingco.com/wasatch On Tap: Top of Main’s Mother Urban’s Parlor Blonde Ale Zion Brewery 95 Zion Park Blvd, Springdale ZionBrewery.com Zolupez 205 W. 29th Street #2, Ogden Zolupez.com

JUICY IPA 7.2%

18 | JANUARY 4, 2024

RoHa Brewing Project 30 Kensington Ave, SLC RoHaBrewing.com On Tap: Dog Dag IPA Third Tour, this uses the Veterans Blend Hops

Bohemian Brewery 94 E. Fort Union Blvd, Midvale BohemianBrewery.com

Craft by Proper 1053 E. 2100 So., SLC craftbyproper.com On Tap: Purple Rain - Marionberry Helles

TWO LOCATIONS

Level Crossing Brewing Co., POST 550 So. 300 West #100, SLC LevelCrossingBrewing.com On Tap: You-Tah Coffee Uncommon Moab Brewing 686 S. Main, Moab TheMoabBrewery.com On Tap: Golden Sprocket Wit

Chappell Brewing 2285 S Main Street Salt Lake City, UT 84115 chappell.beer On Tap: WarPig - Cascadian Dark Ale

BEER + PIZZA = <3

Red Rock Kimball Junction 1640 Redstone Center Redrockbrewing.com On Tap: Bamberg Rauch Bier

Bewilder Brewing 445 S. 400 West, SLC BewilderBrewing.com On Tap: ESB - English Amber

Bonneville Brewery 1641 N. Main, Tooele BonnevilleBrewery.com On Tap: Peaches and Cream Ale

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Level Crossing Brewing Co. 2496 S. West Temple, South Salt Lake LevelCrossingBrewing.com On Tap: Down the Road - West Coast IPA

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Verdict: This is a really balanced, super drinkable pils. I think I’m going to be a huge fan of the Just Me Series, and this one does not disappoint. It really needs to be enjoyed by any fan of local lagers. If you like Pilsners, you will love this latest winner from Offset.

Salt Lake Brewing - Brewers Batch (Vienna): Named after the city in which it originated, a traditional Vienna lager features a subtle use of Noble hops, with the malt having a crisp quality, a toasty flavor and some residual caramel-like sweetness. This Vienna pours a pale amber color with excellent clarity. A small frothy off-white head, with tiny bubbles effervescing, looks great. The aroma is malt-forward—toasty, bready and doughy. I’m also getting nutty notes that resemble chestnut, followed by sweet caramel with subtly spicy, crisp and floral hop notes. Some fruity notes in the nose as well like dried cherries?

Very easy to drink—light in body, flavorful, and uncomplicated. While this beer is malt-forward, Head Brewer Jason Stock did a good job with the bittering hops to provide balance to the caramel malt backbone of this beer. The finish is surprisingly dry, which prevents the beer from tasting cloyingly sweet and keeps you going back for more. The 5.0 percent ABV keeps the mouthfeel light. The finish is initially sweet, then feels like my mouth has dried out and I need to drink more beer. The carbonation level on this beer is spot on.

Verdict: A well-done Vienna-style lager. This is the kind of beer that you want to drink when you don’t want to think too much about what you’re drinking, yet you also don’t want to sacrifice flavor or balance. I see this as the kind of beer that you would want to pair with a soft pretzel with spicy mustard.

SL Brewing’s Vienna is only on draft at SL Brewing/Squatters and at SL Brewing/Wasatch/Top Of Main Brewing. Offset’s Park City brewery of course has the Tettnang, but I found some in SLC at The Bayou on State Street. Enjoy your lagers and, as always, cheers! CW

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predict 2024 will be the year of the lagers in Utah. With so many locals rediscovering them, and the fact that our brewers love to make them, the math is simple—and who doesn’t prefer simple math? We begin with two fine examples to get you started.

Offset - Just Me Series (Tettnang): This new series of single hop pilsners from Offset Bier features Tettnang hops, a member of the Saaz hop family and is widely used around the world. A lot of brewers make single-hop pale ales, this is the only Pilsner single hop series I can think of in our market.

The Tettnag pours a pale straw to straw color with great clarity, maybe a hint of chill haze. The pour gives twoand-a-half fingers of fine, bone-white head. Floral and herbal notes, light notes of noble spice, a hint of earthy black tea and a light malty-sweet character emerge, along with some baked bread, as well.

Grassy hops mix with some lemon zest and herbal flavors as the huge bready, grainy biscuit malt follows up.

The biscuit malt powers through to the finish with some more grassy hops. The finish is bitter, but not overly so, and the finish is drying; this is a really nicely balanced beer. Mouthfeel is slightly bitter at the finish, but still very smooth through the middle. It’s almost perfect.

None of the 5.0 percent alcohol is present, as it offers perfect carbonation and great drinkability.

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2024 is on course to be a special beer year.

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Loco Burger Opens in Kearns

Loco Burger remains one of my favorite burger spots in the state, and they recently opened a second location in Kearns (5470 S. 4220 W., locoburger.com). This new spot joins its original location downtown (1702 S. Main Street), which means we now have 100 percent more torta-inspired burger goodness to enjoy. For those who have yet to indulge in the Loco Burger menu, this place has individual burgers topped with salchi hot dogs, ham, pork loin and bacon, or you can get one burger that has all of those extras—which you should definitely try at least once in your life.

Whether you’re downtown or out West, Loco Burger is always worth a visit.

Mochinut Opens in South Jordan

The cozy Sugar House snackery known as Mochinut (2142 S. Highland Drive, mochinututah.com) has made some strides over the years with a second location in Park City (1241 Center Drive, Ste. L), and now we’re welcoming its third location to South Jordan (10498 S. Redwood Road). When it originally opened in Sugar House, Mochinut was one of the few spots one could try the Japaneseinspired doughnut made from gluten-free rice flour. Now that they’ve expanded their reach a bit, you can get savory snacks like Korean corndogs and flavorful boba milk tea. If you’re hankering for something small that delivers a flavorful wallop, look no further than Mochinut.

STK Steakhouse Opens Downtown

An international fine dining chain known as STK Steakhouse recently opened its doors in downtown SLC (111 S. 300 West, Ste. 101, stksteakhouse.com), and it’s bringing a new level of swanky atmosphere and dry-aged beef to our local table. STK has locations all over the country, and they’ve opened international locations in London, Milan, Dubai and Ibiza, so one can’t help but imagine the opulence it has in store for fine dining fans in Utah—I fully expect it to be the backdrop for a messy RHOSLC fight during the show’s next season. On top of that, the menu really does look divine for connoisseurs of high-class steak and craft cocktails.

Quote of the Week: “There’s only one right way to eat steak—with greed in your heart and a smile on your face.” –Soumeet Lanka

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REVIEW Crash Course Society of the Snow finds new power and universality in a 50-year-old event.

BY MARYANN JOHANSON comments@cityweekly.net

ociety of the Snow: That sounds nice, sorta winter-cozy, like it’s a twee Hallmark Christmas movie. But this movie is anything but. Here we have another retelling, after 1993’s Alive, of the real-life 1972 charted-plane flight from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Santiago, Chile, that ended in a horrific crash in the Andes Mountains, stranding the players of a young amateur rugby team, their friends and family, and the crew members on a snowy, inaccessible glacier. They had no cold-weather gear, minimal food, no way of summoning help and little chance of survival.

It’s tough to know how much of this story is spoilable, given the media circus that surrounded the actual event, plus the studio production that was Alive, with future big names including Ethan Hawke and Illeana Douglas. Then again, the plane crash was half a century ago, and even Alive is 30 years old, closer in time to the events it depicts than it is to this new movie. It’s possible some audience members may not be aware of the full story, so I’ll be as circumspect as I can.

Perhaps it is that very passage of time that makes the harrowing reality of what the passengers faced on that glacier easier to tackle onscreen. Society is far blunter about the difficult decisions the crash survivors had to make in order to endure long enough for any rescue to reach them, and while Alive didn’t exactly ignore those choices—it couldn’t have, given that they were central the tale—it approached them warily, instead concentrating on the adventure aspects. In

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this new film, the moral, ethical and philosophical quandaries of sustaining oneself in body and spirit in impossible conditions takes center stage. The result is in many ways profoundly spiritual, sometimes in a specifically religious sense—the passengers were all devout Roman Catholics—but overall in a humanist way that even someone with no faith can be moved by.

Which isn’t to say that Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona eschews the inevitable action of the plane crash; he depicts it with an immediacy that is traumatizing even for us watching. And dangerous exploits are also an inescapable part of the story, as when survivors begin to climb nearby peaks to survey their surroundings. Bayona plays all of this not for thrills, however, but with a mounting sense of horror at the vastness of the Andes. When a climber looks back from his summit and registers that the white plane fuselage is utterly invisible against the snow, the despair is palpable. How will they ever be found? Is rescue too much to hope for? How do you cling to hope?

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The decades since Alive have changed the levels of authenticity we expect from a film like this. It’s hard to imagine that this story told today could get away with casting American actors and having them speak dialogue in English, as the 1993 movie did. Indeed, Bayona’s terrific and hugely engaging cast is exclusively Uruguayan and Argentinian, most of them newcomers. The nominal protagonist in this ensemble piece is Numa Turcatti, a passenger who wasn’t even included in Alive; he is played by Enzo Vogrincic, who has the looks and the intensity of a young Adam Driver, and rivets the movie in his determination to survive. The script is based on the 2009 book of the same name

by Uruguayan journalist Pablo Vierci, as well as more than 100 hours of interviews with still-living survivors. Some of the film was shot at the actual crash site.

There is a sense of melancholy memorial about the film, the weight of so many young lives lost. As they die, their names and ages appear as legends onscreen.

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Bayona has done disaster before in the 2012 tsunami survival drama The Impossible, which also focused on fragile people amidst vast catastrophe. But Society— Spain’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the upcoming Oscars— shares a soul, too, with his horror movies, 2007’s The Orphanage and 2016’s A Monster Calls, and their aching confrontations with grief and death. What those people on the glacier went through is so extreme that most of us can barely fathom it, never mind have any experience to compare it to. Even if you already know the full extent of what it took to survive this nightmare, Bayona’s rendering of it finds new power and universality in what they suffered. CW

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POOL TOURNEY HOSTED

BY JARED AND TANNER

A

brand-new year is great for a lot of things—it’s a fresh start in many ways. Many use the new year to set resolutions that often fall by the wayside, but the new year is also a great time to take a look and reevaluate your music library.

It’s a foolproof way to start something new without the disappointment. Without further ado, here are more songs from locals to add to your music library, and maybe start a new playlist with.

Otis Moore, “Lost”: Back in November, local poet Otis Moore reintroduced himself on his Instagram page as a musician.

“Originally this account was for my poetry, but the poems gave life to a songwriting passion that I have always had, but never felt capable or adequate of pursuing,” he said in a post. “Somehow, I have been able to write and record several songs over the past year. I have spent hundreds of hours putting together an album that I am so so excited about. I can’t wait to share it!” So far Moore has treated us to three new singles, the latest being “Lost,” released in October. The track is a slow, contemplative and beautiful track that includes piano, string instruments and Moore’s calming, gentle voice. Listening to the song feels like being lost in thick fog, but Moore is guiding you through to the light—fitting, considering all the lovely inversion we’ve been having so far this winter. This fog would be a more fantasylike fog, though, not horrid air pollution.

It’s obvious Moore is a poet while listening through, as the lyrics are as captivating as the music accompanying them. Moore

Muskies, “Atomic Avenue”: Have you ever thought to yourself: “Man, I really need a band in my life that’s named after a large freshwater fish?” If so, boy do I have great news for you. Local band Muskies are here to fill all of your fish and psychedelic needs. Muskies describe their sound as “pike psych,” and honestly, there’s no better way to describe the music Muskies has put out so far. Their most recent single “Atomic Avenue” is an entertaining and lively track that has everything you’d want in a fun piece of psych-rock: trippy effects, fun lyrics, plenty of tempo changes and saxophone for good measure.

This is a perfect track to play with a gettogether of friends, or zooming down the road with the windows down (when it gets warm, anyway). Muskies’ other releases thus far have also been a romp, so any of their songs would be a great addition to your playlists. Their music is streaming everywhere now, plus they have some awesome music videos on their YouTube channel. youtube.com/@muskies Bliss Witch, “Nice Girl”: All music genres have their interesting origins and storied histories, but punk is one of those special genres that has stood the test of time and had a significant impact on the world of music. It’s always a treat to find new bands in the genre to imbibe, especially when they’re local. SLC punk/alt rock group Bliss Witch blessed us with their self-titled debut album in 2018, and although we haven’t gotten new material since then, the 12 tracks on the album are punk-tastic enough to keep you hanging on. One song worth highlighting is “Got a Problem”—a punk title if I’ve ever heard one. It of course features the crunchiest guitar, loud vocals

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BY EMILEE ATKINSON eatkinson@cityweekly.net @emileelovesvinyl

and a general fuck-you attitude. If you’re needing more of that in your life, look no further. Also keep an eye out for Bliss Witch playing around town if you want some of that in-your-face punk action, or now streaming on BandCamp.

Von Masse, “Absolute”: If you’re in the mood for something dreamier, Von Masse has you covered. Their sound incorporates psych/dream/shoegaze vibes that are easy to get lost in. “Absolute” is a single off of their most recent release, Voider, and you can easily fall down the rabbit hole with this one. It starts out mellow with drums,

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keys and clean guitar before ascending to the chorus. The track has an overall light, echoey and weightless feel to it. This is another song that’s great to have in the background of a gathering, or even something mellow enough to study to. “Absolute” will bring all of the chill vibes you’re looking for to any situation. You can find this song on Voider, which is streaming on Spotify now.

Go forth and start 2024 off right—with an epic new playlist that will keep you company through whatever the year may bring. CW

Ne w &

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Start your year off with some fresh music.

posts tons of demos on his Instagram, so hopefully we’ll get more full releases soon to add to our playlists. “Lost” is streaming on Spotify now.

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There’s a lot happening music-wise as we enter 2024. The cold weather and inversion are steadily creeping in, but that doesn’t put a stop to the epic shows happening nearly every day around town. If you’re itching to start the new year off right with some excellent rock shows to headbang to, this is your chance. This bill is loaded with rock favorites from SLC, and there’s no doubt it’ll be an incredible time.

Swerved By Blondes is at the top of the bill, and will hopefully be playing plenty of tracks from their newest album Pick Me Girls. Each song on the album has an incredible, infectious energy that any rock fan can enjoy. Also on for the evening is Comply or Evict, who celebrated their most recent release I’m Not As Drunk As You Think I Am! back in September. The opening track on the EP, “Angel and Devil,” has quickly become one of their most streamed songs, and rightly so. The new EP is Comply or Evict at their best: loud, hard and showcasing a sound way beyond the years of the young rockers. Fans of ’00s or ’10s hard/alt rock will feel right at home listening to this group. Last but not least is Subterra, who have a few songs out so far, but are off to a good start. They also fall into the alt-rock category, so it’s hard to go wrong if you’re looking for more of that sound. Come rock out on Friday, Jan. 5 at 7 p.m. Tickets for the all-ages show are $10, and can be found at 24tix.com.

(Emilee Atkinson)

Night of The Gripe @ the International 1/5

The delight of music comes best in spaces where one is no longer an outsider, no longer an observer. You (yes, YOU!) are now part of Night of The Gripe. Night of The Gripe is a dark comedy-themed music event featuring performances off of the beaten path. Currently on its third iteration, this opus features several acts including GRGL, a blackened doom-metal duo. Loud, distorted, slow, covered in arsenic, chlorine and COVID, this is the sound of the future. You’ll also catch Poor Form, an unknown entity who likes to talk and sing, in constant crisis but delivering its sermon with a smile. Is it dead? Rotten Musicians roll with irreverent experimental trap pop that’s mildly entertaining but not very good for everyone. And there’s DJ Wet Bread, who is widely known for her bland personality and tactless grifting. She draws repulsion even from her own family, who can’t bear her presence due to her whirlwind of psychological issues that taint her every interaction, leaving behind a trail of shattered relationships. You should know with absolute certainty that these acts will never be on top-40 radio or in heavy rotation on [insert television programming here], or perhaps they are just one catchy tune away from stardom or blaring from frat houses. Who knows? This is an experience set to air life’s gravest grievances; to get the Gripe is to catch it. Catch these artists on Friday, Jan. 5, doors at 9 p.m. Tickets for the 21+ show are free at internationalbarslc.com. (Mark Dago)

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The Pharcyde @ Metro Music Hall 1/6

The Pharcyde’s Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde has never gone out of rotation after a friend accidentally left it at my house back in ’92. It’s one of the few albums that transcends the genre into “greatest of all time” territory, touching on moods and subjects that any rapper even slightly worried about image or street cred wouldn’t get anywhere near. “Oh Shit,” “4 Better or 4 Worse,” “Soulflower” and the beyond-brilliant, happily melancholy “Otha Fish” are all stone classics. Their second and most commercially successful single off that LP, “Passin’ Me By,” perfectly captures the frustration and pain of young unrequited love.

It’s unbelievable. Ever since seeing the video for that song on Yo! MTV Raps, I haven’t been able to stop listening to, and still play it at least a dozen or so times a year. “In a way, Pharcyde can be put into the one-hit-wonder category, but I think it’s a little more than that,” member Fatlip told Spin in 2012. “‘It (Passin’ Me By)’ feels like an anthem. Like, it’s never gonna go away. I love hearing it in clubs. I love seeing people react when it comes on. And I never get sick of performing it.” Come on out and celebrate what is sure to be a special night with these L.A. rap icons. Blacc E, Dumb Luck + Zac Ivie and DJ Juggy open. Catch these acts at Metro Music Hall on Saturday, Jan. 6. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets for the 21+ show are $32 at 24tix.com (Mark Dago)

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The saddest part about New Year celebrations is that, eventually, the party has to end. If that bums you out, don’t fret, because there’s plenty more fun to be had to curb that post-holiday party comedown. This weekend you can catch legendary Dutch DJ and producer Nick Leonardus van de Wall, better known as Afrojack. This is also a good chance to experience big room house-style EDM in the new Park City venue, The Marquis. The influence van de Wall has had on EDM across Europe can’t be overstated, and lovers of electronic music won’t want to miss the experience of his live sets firsthand. Afrojack has been active in the professional EDM scene for nearly two decades, but his passion and work ethic for electronic music actually started when he was only 11 years old. By age 14, he was playing at local clubs, eventually releasing his first single “In Your Face” in 2007. A mere three years later, he released his most famous song, “Take Over Control” featuring Eva Simons. The well-known lyrics, “I want you to take over control / Plug it in and turn me on,” have been sampled in almost every top DJ set for over a decade. Come bump along with fellow house music lovers on Friday, Jan. 5 at 9 p.m. Be sure to make it early to support the openers, local DJ duo Z & Z, at The Marquis Park City. Tickets cost $60. Go to www.lnepresents. com (Arica Roberts)

The Pharcyde in 1993

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Afrojack

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JANUARY 4, 2024 | 27

Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country @ The State Room 1/9

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28 | JANUARY 4, 2024

Daniel Donato

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The term “Cosmic Country” was originally coined to describe the music made by the late great Gram Parsons, the man who helped accelerate the melding of rock and country courtesy of stints in The Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, as well as on his own. Daniel Donato references his own music the same way, and though he’s appropriated it for his own purposes, it’s certainly fitting. The Nashvillebased singer, songwriter and guitarist proves that point with his critically-acclaimed new album, Reflector, a collection of 15 original songs conveying the same spirited sound that originated with Parsons and other icons of Americana music—Dylan, the Dead, Merle, Waylon and Willie. “I think Cosmic Country is a tale as old as time,” Donato stated in a press release that accompanied the new album. “It’s yin and yang in a musical form. It’s three chords and the truth, and then on the other side, it’s exploration and bravery. I really went through a lot of years of grinding, and still am, to achieve this sound which is a vehicle for my personality… the personality is a vehicle for my soul.”

It proves that what once was old is now new again, and given Donato’s down-home twang, indelible influences, a predominance of pedal steel and, most importantly, his own unfettered enthusiasm, he makes it clear that he is, in fact, the real deal. Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country performs a 21+ show at The State Room at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 9. Tickets cost $29 at tix. axs.com. (Lee Zimmerman)

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free will ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNY

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

The plan I will propose in this horoscope is for temporary use. I’m not recommending you stick to it for all of 2024, but just for the next 15 to 18 days. If you do, I believe it will set you up for beautiful success in the coming months. Here’s my idea: Embark on a free-form extravaganza of playing and having fun. Just for now, set aside your ambition. Don’t worry about improving yourself and producing results.

Simply enjoy a phase of suspending inhibitions, creatively messing around, having nothing to prove and being motivated by the quest for joy.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Climate change is impacting rainbows. Rising temperatures and dryer conditions mean that some parts of the world will get fewer rainbows, and other areas will get more. Canada and Siberia will benefit, while the Mediterranean will be less well-endowed with sky-borne arcs of color that come from sunlit rain. But I predict that no matter where you live, the rainbow will be a potent and regular symbol for you Bulls in 2024—more than ever before. That means you will have increased reasons to entertain hope and more power to find beauty. On occasion, there may even be very good luck at the metaphorical rainbow’s end. If you’re an LGBTQIA2S+ Taurus, be on high alert for breakthroughs in your ability to get the appreciation you deserve.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)

CANCER (June 21-July 22)

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

I hope that working hard on togetherness will be a fun project for you in the coming months. To do it well, you must outgrow some habitual ways of doing friendship and intimacy. You will have to be imaginative and ingenious. Are you willing to believe that you do not yet know all there is to know about being a fantastic ally and partner? Are you ready to approach the arts of collaboration and cooperation as if enhancing your skills is the most important thing you can do? For the sake of your best selfish goals, be a brilliant teammate in 2024.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

Each of us is a complex, kaleidoscopic work of art, whether or not we consciously approach our destiny in that spirit.

Every day, we use our creative imagination to craft new elements of the masterpiece known as the story of our life.

Leos come by this fun project naturally, but you Sagittarians also have great potential to embrace it with glee and panache. I trust you will be especially keen on enjoying this sacred work in 2024. And right now, today and in the coming weeks, will be an excellent time to ramp up the scintillating drama.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

“I am against sex education in schools because sex is more fun when it’s dirty and sinful.” So said Capricorn author Florence King. I reject and rebel against that perverse declaration—and encourage you to disavow it, too, in 2024.

In my astrological opinion, the coming months will be a favorable time to learn everything about sex and eros that you don’t already know. I hope you will dive deep as you gather a rich array of teachings about how to enjoy the art of making love more than ever before. (Consider consulting tantric manuals like Margo Anand’s The Art of Sexual Magic: Cultivating Sexual Energy to Transform Your Life.)

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Singer-songwriter Tori Amos says she’s sure she was burned for being a witch in a previous lifetime. I suspect most of us had past incarnations in which we were punished simply for being our beautiful selves. I bring this up, Aquarius, because I think 2024 will be a favorable time to get some healing from any ancient hurt like that. You will have a series of experiences that could help you recover from the illusion that being faithful to your truth is somehow wrong. Life will conspire with you to help you reclaim more of the full audacity to be your gorgeous, genuine self.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)

I believe 2024 will be one of the best years ever for your education. Your willingness and eagerness to learn will be at a peak. Your knack for attracting inspirational teachers will be excellent. It’s likely you will be exceptionally curious and open to good influences. My advice is to be alert for lessons not just from obvious sources of wisdom and revelation, but also from unexpected founts. Don’t be too sure you know where revelations and illumination might come from.

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.

JANUARY 4, 2024 | 29

I expect 2024 to be a free-spirited, wide-ranging, big-vision type of year for you, dear Virgo. I predict you will feel an abundance of urges to travel, roam and explore. You will be more excited than anxious about the prospect of leaving your comfort zone, and you will have a special fondness for getting your mind expanded by interesting encounters.

That doesn’t mean you will avoid all awkwardness and confusion. Some of that stuff will happen, though it will usually evolve into educational adventures. And the extra good

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

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If you will ever in your life go viral—that is, create or do something that suddenly becomes widely known and influential—I bet it will be in 2024. Even if you don’t produce TikTok videos seen by 10 million people, you are at least likely to become more visible in your local community or field of endeavor. Of course, I would prefer that your fame and clout spread because of the good deeds you do, not the weird deeds. So I urge you to cultivate high integrity and a wildly generous spirit in the coming months. Be a role model who inspires and uplifts.

I am pleased to inform you that a visit to hell will not be on your itinerary in 2024. You may be invited to take a few excursions into the realm that depth psychologists call the underworld, but that’s a good thing. There you will be able to hunt for treasures that have been hidden and uncover secrets that will illuminate your epic, months-long quest for wholeness. It may sometimes be dark and shadowy down there below, but almost always dark and shadowy in ways that will lead you to healing. (I will reiterate what I implied above: The underworld is not hell.)

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Japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849) developed a fascination for his country’s iconic Mount Fuji. In his seventies, he produced a series of woodblock prints titled Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Later, he added three books of prints collectively called One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji. Some art historians say his obsession stemmed from the legend that the mountain was home to the secret of immortality.

The coming year will be a fine time for you Cancerians to celebrate and concentrate on your own Mount Fuji-like passion. Sometime soon, identify what it is, and start making plans to commune with it intensely.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

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As one of your inspirational stories for 2024, I offer this tale from singer-songwriter Tom Waits: “Once upon a time, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. They grew next to each other. Every day, the straight tree would look at the crooked tree and say, ‘You’re crooked. You’ve always been crooked, and you’ll continue to be crooked. But look at me!

I’m tall, and I’m straight.’ Then one day, lumberjacks came to the forest and looked around. The manager in charge said, ‘Cut all the straight trees.’ And that crooked tree is still there to this day, growing strong and growing strange.” (PS: Here’s more from Gemini writer Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant.”)

news is that wandering out in nature will provide even more inspiration and healing than usual. Treasure this quote from conservationist Rachel Carson: “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure: the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring.”

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Hopeful 2024

I

t’s a new year and many folks will be on the move. Why? In-migration to Utah is the reality, not people moving out of the state. Many will opt to rent when they first arrive, to take time to educate themselves about neighborhoods, schools, commuting times and proximity to things like stores, mass transit, outdoor activities, bike lanes, etc.

For a while, our capital city had a dearth of available rentals. But highrise apartment buildings have sprouted up faster than a rat up a drainpipe and, now, landlords are finding they need to offer incentives to get vacancies filled in a timely fashion.

The waitlist for affordable rental housing, with below-median income prices is still long, though, no matter which big city in Utah you look at. The same is true if you’re looking to purchase a home or condo in our larger cities—anything under $450,000 will generally get snapped up, sometimes still with multiple offers. And if the property for sale is a “fixer-upper,” it will often get sold to investors paying cash and closing fast, which blocks out any chance for first-time buyers to purchase, update and build sweat equity in their home or condo.

The good news is that the Biden administration has finally got a grip on inflation. People appear to be feeling better about the economy because sales were up—both online and at stores— this past holiday season.

The Federal Reserve has chosen not to raise interest rates. From March 2022 to June 2023, the Fed raised the federal funds rate by a total of 5.25 points. The 30-year mortgage rates rose to almost 8% in October, but have been falling ever since. I did have a client get a rate under 6% just before the end of the year and most predictions are that interest rates on home loans in 2024 will keep heading downward.

The more rates go down, the more buyers will enter or re-enter the market to attempt to buy a home—putting pressure on low inventory around the state. Also, first-time buyer programs are readily available, offering lower interest rates and monies for down payments and closing costs.

My best advice for anyone looking to buy is to cozy up to a seasoned, fulltime mortgage/loan officer. Have them run your credit to see if you need any repairs to improve your score. Yes, lenders can help you do that at no cost.

They will also watch interest rates for you and stay in touch when the rate is in your favor for what you can qualify for in a loan. Then, go shopping with your Realtor for your new home.

If you currently own and have a high mortgage interest rate, most lenders these days offer free refinancing of your current loan, which could save you hundreds of dollars each month in loan payments. n Content is prepared expressly for Community and is not endorsed by City Weekly staff.

CROSSWORD PUZZLE

© 2024

FINALE

BY DAVID LEVINSON WILK

ACROSS

1. Athlete’s cold spell 6. Place for experimentation 9. DKNY’s Donna 14. Patty Hearst alias 15. “The Simpsons” character whose last name is Nahasapeemapetilon 16. Wear away 17. Grads, now 18. Tell (on) 19. Most of 1999 20. Game show in which contestants guess correct answers such as albacore and yellowfin?

23. Longtime New Yorker magazine cartoonist Chast 24. Like some martinis 25. “The Simpsons” character whose last name is Szyslak 28. Competition show in which a Scrabble player gets the Q, the Z and both blanks?

33. “Just my luck!”

34. Post-WWII alliance 35. ____ Spumante (Italian sparkling wine) 36. Stevenson of 1950s politics 37. Tina Fey was its first female head writer, in brief 38. Galileo, by birth 39. French for “milk” 4. Wordless performer 40. Org. based in the Orville Wright Federal 5. Deli choice Building 6. National Council of ____ (Latino civil 41. “There in a sec!” rights organization that changed its name 42. Teen drama about an American high to UnidosUS) schooler in London who takes the elevator 7. Give ____ on the back and corrects herself when she calls it an 8. Booty call? “elevator”’?

9. Big name in smooth jazz 45. Concorde, e.g.: Abbr.

10. Opera singer’s audition piece, perhaps 46. Work of fiction?

11. Hollywood’s Howard 47. Ctrl-Alt-____ 12. Citrus drink suffix 48. Pilot’s opposite ... or a three-word 13. Duck Hunt console hint to what’s changed in 20-, 28- and 21. Catcher’s spot, in baseball 42-Across 22. Hot drink dispensers 54. “Fast X” actor Jason 25. Cluster of mountains 57. ____ Kwon Do 26. One-eighth of a circle 58. Cole Porter’s “Ev’ry Time ___ Goodbye” 27. Squeezing (out) 59. Flighty?

28. ____ special (menu heading) 60. Class for some U.S. citizenship applicants 29. New Age physician 61. Greek salad ingredient 30. Muse of lyric poetry 62. Bags for flour 31. Categorized by district 63. Abril, por ejemplo 32. Maguire’s “Spider-Man” director 64. Org. that monitors LGBTQ representation 33. Fortunetellers might read them 37. Something intended to move fast 38. Tadpole DOWN 40. Carnival 1. Superfan, in modern lingo 41. Alphabet quartet 2. “____ Land” (2016 movie) 43. Swabs, say 3. E pluribus ____

44. Cars named after Henry Ford’s son 48. Enjoy a bath 49. Lighten (up) 50. Carter of “Gimme a Break!”

51. Most populous continent 52. Kind of lamp or cake 53. Scrutinized 54. ____ o menos (Spanish 101 phrase) 55. Egg cells 56. Karaoke need, for short

Last week’s answers

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

Come Home for the Holidays!

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30 | JANUARY 4, 2024

Software Engineer @ Finicity Corporation (Salt Lake City, UT) F/T Own sftware dlvry tasks (code dvlpmnt, test, dplymnt) at an applctn/sftwre cmpnnt level. Prtcpate in team priortztion dscssions with Prdct/ Bsnss stkehlders. Rqrs a Mstr’s dgree, or frgn eqvlnt, in infrmtn systms, infrmtn tchnlgy, Cmptr Scnce or Engnrng or rltd & 2 yrs of exp in the job offrd or as a Sftwre Dvlpr, or rltd. Altrntvly, emplyr will accpt a Bchlr’s dgree & 5 yrs of prgrssvly rspnsbl exp. Qlfyng exp must inclde at lst 1 yr wth the fllwng: JavaScript; Angular; TypeScript; Node.js; NGRX; RxJS; CICD Pipeline tools; Code Quality Tools (Checkmarx, Sonar, Zally); Scrum; Cloud Technologies.

Emplyr will accpt any suitbl combo of edu, training and/or exp. Telecommuting and/ or working from home may be permissible pursuant to company policies. Rate of pay: $135,803.00- 147,000.00 / year. Send resume to Kyle Byrd, Kyle.Byrd@mastercard.com, 434 Ascension Way, Salt Lake City UT 84123.

Reference MC117-2023.

NEWS of the WEIRD

BY THE EDITORS AT ANDREWS MCMEEL

Editor’s note: News of the Weird extends greetings for a peaceful and happy new year full of many notably weird moments. While you’re welcoming 2024, enjoy some of our favorite items from earlier in 2023.

Bright Idea

If you’re looking for a crafty project for 2023, the online shop Savor has you covered, Slate reported. For the low price of $46.95, you can put together your own “In Case I Go Missing” binder, which Savor says “makes it super easy for the true-crime obsessed to record their key stats for their loved ones.” Those facts include medical and financial information, fingerprints and lists of “hangout spots.” One woman added “a hair sample just in case they need it for DNA testing.” Elizabeth Jeglic, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, soothingly says, “The majority of adults will not go missing or be kidnapped.” Her colleague Patrick McLaughlin offers some ideas for the kit, though: recent photos, the unlock code for your phone, pics of tattoos, scars or birthmarks, handwriting samples—but he warns that such binders might not be admissible as evidence.

The Aristocrats

Bright Idea

for 2024! Julie “Bella” De Lay

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

Selling homes for 40 years in the Land of Zion

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Selling homes for 11 years

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New World Order

Tired of your John Hancock looking like a child’s scribble? Priscilla Molina of Los Angeles can help with that.

The Associated Press reported that Molina’s business, Planet of Names, will make over anyone’s signature for between $10 and $55. People seeking her service are “not happy with their signatures. They don’t relate to who they are. They don’t give the message they want to convey to the world,” Molina said. She designs up to 300 custom signatures per month, and offers a range of styles, from elegant and artistic to ... illegible.

Can’t Possibly Be True

Pastor John Lindell of the James River Church in Springfield, Missouri, claimed on the congregation’s livestream on March 15 that a “creative miracle” had taken place the day before at the church’s Joplin location, the Springfield News-Leader reported. Lindell explained that “prayer team members” had prayed over Kristina Dines, who had had three toes amputated after her husband shot her in 2015. “As the ladies prayed for Krissy ... all three toes grew, and by that point, were longer than her pinky toe,” Lindell said in the livestream. “Within an hour, nails began to grow on all the toes,” he added.

While Dines hasn’t commented to the paper, she said in a video on Twitter that she saw the toes reforming.

“Listen, do you understand? I can stand on tippy toes.

No, I couldn’t do that (before) because I didn’t have toes to tippy on,” Dines said. During the livestream, Lindell also suggested to parishioners that other miracles are coming: “... some people in this room—you’re gonna raise people from the dead. It’s going to happen.” Stay tuned.

HOME LOANS MADE BRIZZÉE

Compelling Explanation

In Dallas, grocery worker Coby Todd, 21, is sure that a “mischievous child ghost” pushed a shopping cart into his car as he was leaving work, Fox News reported on March 30. The day before, Todd had gone “ghost hunting” at a home in Frontier Village, Texas, and had sensed the presence of a “little boy” spirit, he said. He thinks the spirit followed him home and to work the next day. “Maybe he was trying to play with me,” Todd said. He checked out the store’s security footage to see who might have pushed the cart, and it does appear to suddenly turn and roll on its own toward Todd’s car, which he estimates is worth about $25,000. “It upset me,” he said. “It’s not fake.”

Send your weird news items to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com

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JANUARY 4, 2024 | 31

Jerry Martin had what he thought was a winning idea for a retail shop: The Drug Store, where people could buy cocaine, heroin, meth and MDMA that had been tested for fentanyl. Vice reported that Martin’s mobile shop, in Vancouver, Canada, was open less than 24 hours when he was arrested for drug trafficking. The store, housed in a mobile trailer that Martin parked next to a police van, featured bright yellow boards with prices listed for all the drugs. Martin wore a stab-proof vest as he sold the items from behind a plexiglass window. According to him, his plan included getting arrested so that he could challenge “laws that prevent a safe supply and result in death by poisoning” in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

It’s about time! Japanese garment company Takikou has developed a wearable bean bag, Oddity Central reported. “This concept was born out of the idea of a cushion that would allow you to totally let go, anytime, anywhere,” said the company’s Shogo Takikawa. “You can put this on and chill out in your living room or loads of other places.” The bean bag is available in different sizes and colors, but it does weigh about 11 pounds (which might make you want to sit down more often).

Prices range from $60 to $119.

Babs De Lay

| CITY WEEKLY |

Unclear on the Concept

Weird Fashion

NAMASTE

| COMMUNITY |

Michael Raduga, 40, founder of the Phase Research Center in Russia, but—critically—not a doctor or neurosurgeon, nearly lost his life in June when he tried to implant a chip in his brain on his own, in his living room in Kazakhstan. The Daily Mail reported that Raduga lost more than a liter of blood in his quest to control his dreams. He said he practiced on five sheep’s brains and watched hours of neurosurgery on YouTube before starting on his own head. “During the first 30 minutes I was ready to give up many times because ... I was afraid I could just lose consciousness,” Raduga said. “I finished the surgery, I took a shower and I worked for 10 hours straight. People didn’t know.” But neurosurgeon Alex Green of the University of Oxford wasn’t having it. “This is an extremely dangerous thing to do,” he said. “We are probably decades away from being able to synthesize new experiences.”

The Mondaiji Con Cafe Daku (loosely translated: Problem Child Concept Cafe) in Sapporo, Japan, was forced to fire one of its waitresses in April after she was discovered to be adding her own blood to cocktails, the Daily Mail reported. The cafe owner called her actions “absolutely not acceptable” and said the establishment would close while every drinking glass was replaced. “We will hire a contractor to clean the store, change glasses and dispose of alcoholic beverages that may have been contaminated,” he said. He called her actions “part-time job terrorism.” A local doctor said anyone who had patronized the cafe should visit a doctor and have a blood test.

YOGA INSTRUCTORS

| CITYWEEKLY.NET |

Wow! Things went literally and physically south on July 11 at a press dinner on New York’s Upper East side in support of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign.

According to Page Six, as Kennedy answered questions, someone posed one about climate change, but before Kennedy could answer, Doug Dechert, the event host, screamed, “The climate hoax!” which brought a scold from art critic Anthony Haden-Guest, who called him a “miserable blob.” The two continued their exchange, with Kennedy calmly looking on, until Dechert loudly released a “prolonged fart” while yelling, helpfully, “I’m farting!” After attempts to change the subject and more verbal antics, the evening wound down. The next day, Dechert told Page Six, “I apologize for using my flatulence as a medium of public commentary in your presence.” How do we get on this guest list?

Creme de la Weird

We sell homes to all saints, sinners, sisterwives and...

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32 | JANUARY 4, 2024

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