Planet Jackson Hole August 2, 2018 by Planet Jackson Hole

JACKSON HOLEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ALTERNATIVE VOICE | PLANETJH.COM | AUGUST 1-7, 2018

IN THE HOLE & UNDER THE

INFLUENCE How the Jackson milieu normalizes heavy drinking that spills into the lives of young people

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

2 | AUGUST 1, 2018

August 2018

St. John’s Calendar of Events Most events are free unless otherwise noted.

Health & Wellness

Support Groups Teton Parkies (For those affected by Parkinson’s Disease)

Gather for mutual support, discussion of disease and therapies, and more. POWER UP! A movement and voice class. Mondays, 2 pm Senior Center, $4 for ages 60 and up; $7 under 60

Exploring Options for Returning to Work Phase 2 of Breastfeeding Your Baby! Wednesday, August 15 10 am–noon Boardroom St. John’s Medical Center

Wine tasting at Jackson Hole Winery Thursday, August 2 5–7 pm 2800 W. Boyles Hill Rd $15/person Jackson Whole Grocer Tuesday, August 21 5:30 pm Dr. Summer Gibson, U of Utah neurologist Contact Elizabeth at 307.733.4966 or 614.271.7012

Grief Support Group Led by St. John’s Hospice social worker Oliver Goss, LCSW Drop-ins welcome, but please call ahead Wednesdays, August 8 and August 22 Noon – 1 pm

Call 307.739.7463

Please register by calling 307.739.6175

Spine Classes Information for people considering or scheduled for spine surgery Tuesday, August 7, 3-4:30 pm Monday, August 13, 1-2:30 pm Tuesday, August 21, 3-4:30 pm Monday, August 27, 1-2:30 pm Physical Therapy Room St. John’s Medical Center

Joint Classes

For those suffering from persistent memory problems; family members and caregivers welcome Thursday, August 9 Noon – 1 pm

Information for people considering or scheduled for joint replacement surgery Thursday, August 9, 8-9:30 am Tuesday, August 14, 4-5:30 pm Thursday, August 23, 8-9:30 am Tuesday, August 28, 4-5:30 pm Physical Therapy Room St. John’s Medical Center

For information, call 307.739.7434

Weight Management Support Group Open to everyone interested in weight loss and those considering (or who have had) bariatric surgery Tuesday, August 21 Noon Suite 206, 555 E. Broadway

Wednesdays, August 8 and August 22 10 am – noon OB waiting area St. John’s Medical Center

In Spanish! ¡En Español! Zumba with Elvis. Family friendly. Mondays and Wednesdays 5:30 – 6:30 pm Moose-Wapiti Classroom St. John’s Medical Center

For information, call 307.739.7572

For information, call 307.739.7678

tetonhospital.org/calendar

“The Challenges of Health Care Finance,” a look at patient volumes and reimbursement, presented by Dr Paul Beaupré, CEO; and John Kren, CFO/COO. Thursday, August 2 noon – 1 pm Boardroom St. John’s Medical Center

For expectant parents Saturday, August 25 8:30 am–5 pm

Memory Loss Support Group

Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Group in Spanish

For new babies and their families

Monthly Luncheon

Childbirth Education Class

For information, call 307.739.7517

St. John’s Auxiliary’s 27th Annual Charity Golf Tournament Tuesday, August 28, 2018 11 am Registration 1 pm Shotgun start

Please register by calling 307.739.6199

For info call, 307.739.7634

Teton Mammas

Auxiliary

For information, call 307-739-7517

Foundation Artist Talk with sculptor Jim Dolan Monday, August 27 noon–1 pm Boardroom St. John’s Medical Center

Please register by calling 307.739.6199

For information, call 307-739-7517

2018 Heart Summit: Living with Heart Disease in a Small Town Featuring keynote speaker Jeffrey Anderson, MD (researcher and cardiologist at Intermountain Heart Institute) and a panel of local experts Wednesday, August 1 7–8 pm Wort Hotel, 50 Glenwood

For information, call 307.739-7380

625 E. Broadway, Jackson, WY

JACKSON HOLE'S ALTERNATIVE VOICE

VOLUME 16 | ISSUE 29 | AUGUST 1-7, 2018

@THEPLANETJH |

@PLANETJH |

/PLANETJH

8 COVER STORY IN THE HOLE & UNDER THE INFLUENCE How the Jackson milieu normalizes heavy drinking that spills into the lives of young people Cover illustration by Kiki Kita

THE NEW WEST

15 MUSIC 16 ART

13 LOCAL SYNDROME

21 COSMIC CAFE

THE PLANET JACKSON HOLE TEAM PUBLISHER

SALES DIRECTOR

DISTRIBUTION MANAGER

Copperfield Publishing, John Saltas

Pete Saltas / pete@planetjh.com

Bill Fogarty

EDITOR

DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT

COPY EDITOR

Christian Priskos / christian@copperfielddigital.com

Joanna van Oppen

ADVERTISING ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

CONTRIBUTORS

Dave Alper, Chase Corona

Rob Brezsny, Julie Butler, Kelsey Dayton,

Robyn Vincent / editor@planetjh.com ART DIRECTOR

Vaughn Robison / art@planetjh.com

Carol Mann, Andrew Munz, John Saltas, Tom Tomorrow, Todd Wilkinson, Jim Woodmencey

MEMBER: National Newspaper Association, Alternative Weekly Network, Association of Alternative Newsmedia

567 W. BROADWAY | P.O. BOX 3249 | JACKSON, WYOMING 83001 | 307-732-0299 | WWW.PLANETJH.COM

PUBLISHER’S NOTE FAREWELL, JACKSON

Welcome to the last issue of Planet Jackson Hole BY JOHN SALTAS

de facto shepherd of Planet Jackson Hole operation. Two rookies, Dave Alper and Chase Corona, newbies to Jackson, rebuilt the sales department. Robyn was the soul, the heart. Every successful editor I’ve ever known was defined by a strong work ethic. If those former editors comprised a rock band, Robyn would play lead guitar, not rhythm. She will be a success no matter where she goes. If it had not been for her, we may not have come to Jackson at all. If not for her, we would not have remained. And because of her, because she has decided to leave the paper, we are now, nearly four years on, leaving Jackson

AUGUST 1, 2018 | 3

new editor, Angelica Leicht, who quickly discovered there was basically nowhere to live in Jackson. She worked from Driggs, Idaho. In time she would leave too, and it was during a fingers-crossed call to Robyn earlier this year that she agreed to come back to work in the community she loved with her name atop the newspaper she loved. She did. By that time, the staff of Planet Jackson Hole was nearly fully comprised of new parts. Only Distribution Manager Bill Fogarty remained from the earlier era. Our rock solid cowboy, Vaughn Robison, who had taken the production helm just months before Robyn left, became the

knowing that while we were not the perfect stewards for Planet Jackson Hole, we believed in the paper’s mission. We are incredibly proud of the stories and work we published under her helm. Jackson Hole is a better place thanks to Robyn Vincent. Yes, that is our farewell. Jackson, we hardly knew ye. This issue you hold is the final printed edition of Planet Jackson Hole that we will publish. We are talking to various persons interested in keeping this vital voice alive and well. We hope that happens, for among the greatest surprises of all these past years is that Jackson is the benefactor to many wildly talented people. They deserve to have their voices heard and their stories told. And what great stories Jackson provides. Big city, no. Real city, yes. We leave sad, but not broken-hearted. And we leave hoping Jackson rewards the likes of Robyn Vincent, a true Teton treasure. PJH

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

few years back our little publishing company in Salt Lake City purchased another little publishing company in Jackson Hole. Despite years of railing against chain ownership and the value of independent-minded newspapers, we found ourselves to suddenly be a chain enterprise, and our vision of owning and operating newspapers in the region was off to the races. But newspapers are both hard to buy and to sell and we ended up as a chain of two. Alas, what was once our off-to-the races verve became less and less pronounced. During our third year publishing Planet Jackson Hole, our editor, Robyn Vincent, announced she was leaving to build her education and journalism chops. It was only then I came to fully understand the many stories about the Jackson housing and employment crisis that Robyn had written and edited in the prior 130 or so issues under her helm. It took more than four months to find a

6 NEWS

JH ALMANAC LOWS BY METEOROLOGIST JIM WOODMENCEY

We are now officially looking at July in the rear-view mirror. August begins with a seamless transition this week, with seasonably warm temps and maybe a few thunderstorms. Average precipitation for the month of August is up a bit from July’s, averaging 1.20 inches. Hopefully, we get most of that, to make up for July’s deficit. The wettest August on record goes back to 1945, when a total of 3.80 inches of rain accumulated in Jackson.

The average low temperature this first week of August is 41-degrees, a degree cooler than the last week of July’s average low temp. The record low temperature this week is 28-degrees, set on numerous occasions, most recently on August 7th, 1969. It has never been colder than that during the first week of August, which gives this week the distinction of having the warmest record low temperature of any week of the year.

HIGHS

Average high temperatures this first week of August are also a degree lower than during the last week of July, sit right at 82-degrees for this week. Looks like we will start the month very near to that average, for high temps. I’d say the odds of getting up to record breaking temperatures this week are not looking too good. We would have to make it all the way up to 94-degrees to tie the record high for this week, which was set back on August 7th, 1994.

Sponsorship opportunities are available for Planet Jackson Hole’s Almanac. To become a weekly sponsor and see your message here, contact 307-732-0299 or sales@planetjh.com.

THIS WEEK

NORMAL HIGH NORMAL LOW RECORD HIGH IN 1994 RECORD LOW IN 1969

82 41 94 28

THIS MONTH AVERAGE PRECIPITATION: 1.2 inches RECORD PRECIPITATION: 3.8 inches (1945) AVERAGE SNOWFALL: 0inches RECORD SNOWFALL: 0 inches

Jim has been forecasting the weather here for more than 20 years. You can find more Jackson Hole Weather information at www.mountainweather.com

ENJOY YOUR FLOAT, BUT DON’T ROCK THE BOAT. Respect our community!

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

4 | AUGUST 1, 2018

AUGUST 1-7, 2018

•

Per Town of Jackson municipal code: No trespassing on private lands Open alcohol containers are strictly prohibited on Flat Creek. Dogs are prohibited in public parks. No dogs at large. Public urination is prohibited.

• • • • •

Please respect private property at all times. Utilize designated public access locations when accessing Flat Creek. Be considerate of neighbors and environment by limiting noise and disturbance to riparian habitat. Respect wildlife. Glass containers are prohibited. Please dispose of garbage in designated receptacles. Float at your own risk – no safety personnel present. Dangerous and swift flowing cold water, low clearance bridges and shallow water occur in some locations. For additional information and maps of public access points the Town of Jackson or the Parks and Recreation Department: www.townofjackson.com or www.tetonparksandrec.org

ilford Neilson is a name and a man seemingly lost to history. Or at least he’s irrelevant to those who believe the past means nothing and who take for granted the fact that special places exist on maps only because visionaries risked everything to keep them that way. Besides being a onetime Teton County attorney, Neilson was publisher of a newspaper that, while long gone, played a vital role in laying the groundwork for what Jackson Hole is today—the masterpiece of setting that drives our desire to be here. What do I mean? Imagine a sprawl of residential subdivisions and golf courses fronting the eastern side of A the Tetons, filling the landscape between Kelly and the Snake River where elk, bison and pronghorn now roam. Picture the old historic dude ranches converted into gated communities and playgrounds for the wealthy. Visualize motorboats cruising up and down the Snake between Moose and the dam. Think of thousands of cabins and condo units potentially encircling Jackson Lake and dispersed throughout the BridgerTeton National Forest in upper reaches of the valley. Today, as you drive north out of town past East Gros Ventre Butte and see the open expanses of Grand Teton National Park unfolding before you, pretend that instead the viewshed resembled a human anthill, the kind found along the front range of the Colorado Rockies or Wasatch. It easily could have happened and almost did. The miracle of what transpired instead could never be repeated. In the day, which is to say the 1920s, 30s and 40s when Neilson’s newspaper, the Jackson Hole Courier, was in operation, the fate of this remarkable, globally-iconic valley turned precariously on the same kind of forces now synonymous with the Trump Administration: truth and facts being made casualties; lies traded as accepted currency to advance political opportunism; a maniacal naive promotion of the “free market”; and rational-self-interest—short-term greed— prevailing over a longer-term common interest. For a stretch, Neilson and The Courier went into battle with a rival newspaper, The Grand Teton, supported by local citizens who vocally opposed creation of the national monument that would eventually

THE NEW WEST

Why they live here, why they choose to consciously deny the importance of environmental protection, why they portray it as merely a plot invented by liberals, why they aren’t more generous in supporting on-the-ground conservation in an ecosystem that has no rival, is absurd. Neilson didn’t write to win a popularity contest. “He was a really good journalist who dug in and found the truth. He made a big difference. He proved to be on the right side of history,” Righter said. “Had he failed, had his newspaper been absent, the essence of Jackson Hole, at least as we know it now, would have been destroyed.” This is reportedly the last edition of Planet Jackson Hole, a newspaper fighting the good fight once saved Jackson Hole paper founded by Judd and Mary BY TODD WILKINSON | @BigArtNature Grossman. They launched it as an alternative to the Jackson Hole morph into today’s Grand Teton Park. distortion and cockamamie assertions News&Guide (a paper for which I long Neilson was persuaded that conserv- advanced by proto-Sagebrush Rebels to wrote a column). ing the heart of Jackson Hole would not win the day, landscape protection, that When John Saltas of Salt Lake City lead to economic catastrophe as some is the basis for a tourism-based economy Weekly purchased it from them, he reset claimed. After he sided with John D. now worth hundreds of millions of dollars the tone of Wyoming’s only alternative Rockefeller’s quest to buy up private annually, would’ve never happened. newsweekly. In recent years, Planet ranches and homesteads (note: from willI spoke with Dr. Robert Righter, author Jackson Hole has explored social, enviing sellers) and donate it to the feder- of Crucible For Conservation: The Struggle ronmental and political issues not always al government to form the basis for an For Grand Teton National Park this week covered by the mainstream. The paper enlarged national park, an advertising after learning that Planet Jackson Hole has indeed had a fascinating roller coaster boycott was organized against the paper was sunsetting its operation. If you’ve not run. in an attempt to kill it and silence him. read Righter’s classic, you need to; it will I have a hell of a lot of respect for Locals opposed to the monument con- give you heart palpitations and butterflies PJH editor Robyn Vincent. She’s feisty, cocted all kinds of conspiracy theories. in contemplating the “what ifs” if things courageous, a champion of underdogs (of The Grand Teton published them as a true had gone the other way. which, in Jackson Hole these days there proud purveyor of fake news. As I’ve written in columns past, I praise are many in the form of people and wildThe community became bitterly divid- the late Cliff Hansen, one of the early life), and she’s willing to tackle contened when agitators, unable to gaze into the protestors of the monument. Hansen, a tious issues, including holding politicians future, tried to marginalize, malign and rancher, was a county commissioner who to account (as they should be). defame the efforts of conservationists. went on to become Wyoming governor Neilson would’ve liked her. There can They organized a mock armed revolt and and U.S. senator. In his last decades, howbe no doubt: the latest iteration of Planet drove a herd of cattle through the national ever, Hansen said he had been wrong to Jackson Hole would have come down monument in protest. fight protection. squarely on the side of conservation They spewed anti-government rhetoHowever, there are others in the val- during the battle over the monument. ric, decried land-use restrictions and dis- ley who remain bitter and spiteful, as if Like The Courier, Planet Jackson Hole played a kind of narrow-mindedness still Jackson Hole is the worse off for having is now going away, joining other casualpresent in our time. its unique natural character preserved in ties of print journalism and leaving the The Courier did not succumb to the perpetuity. News&Guide and digital start-up Buckrail pressure; it served as an important public Righter told me he has an aversion to to report the news you need to know— forum and, in one of its finest moments, how Jackson Hole has become a modrelying on verifiable facts, which add up published a lengthy essay penned by ern enclave for the uber-rich (who live in to the truth, so essential to the lifeblood of Rockefeller with help from National Park a different stratum from normal folks) a community. Service Director Horace Albright, dude and he notes the irony that a member of May they be a check on unchecked rancher Struthers Burt, local biologist/ that social class, Rockefeller, a moderate power and challenge short-term thinkconservationist Olaus Murie and others Republican businessperson, knew what ing; may they understand there are many that made the case for safeguarding the had to be done. things in a town worth more than money; majesty of Jackson Hole. Today, Jackson Hole proliferates with may they aspire to function as a conStories from The Courier were circulat- right-wing second homeowners who science for what’s right against what’s ed in Congress. routinely castigate conservationists as wrong. May they always succeed by conHad The Grand Teton existed as the extremists the same way that anti-monusidering citizens of the future. PJH only newspaper in this valley, enabling ment locals did.

The Need For Alternative Voices

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

AUGUST 1, 2018 | 5

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

6 | AUGUST 1, 2018

NEWS

ROBYN VINCENT

woman driving through Jackson, Wyoming, on her way to Montana left with a life-changing souvenir. On July 8, Anita Maddux, 50, was charged with a felony for possessing a 10 milliliter sample bottle of cannabidiol (CBD) oil from Cid’s, a Taos, New Mexico, health food store. Now Maddux could face up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine pending an August hearing. Independent of that incident, local and state law enforcement showed up to Lucky’s Market and Jackson Whole Grocer two weeks later to inform those stores that CBD products were illegal to sell if they contained any amount of THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis. Most CBD oil sold in stores like Lucky’s and JWG purport to contain .3 percent THC, an amount that does not have mind-altering effects as outlined in the 2014 federal Farm Bill. Third party lab analysis obtained by Planet Jackson Hole shows that Maddux’s CBD oil was under that threshold at .06 total THC. Indeed, as other states loosen cannabis laws and federal lawmakers sponsor legislation to do the same, Wyoming remains a dubious place to possess a hemp-derived product with even trace amounts of THC. At Cid’s, Maddux worked as an herbalist in the health and wellness department where she received a sample shipment of CBD oil from Functional Remedies. The Colorado company’s CBD oil was on the shelves at Lucky’s Market in Jackson when she was charged. Lucky’s did not return several requests for comment nor did Functional Remedies. CBD is a non-psychoactive compound found in cannabis plants that has a slew of reported health benefits. The Food and Drug Administration just approved it to treat epilepsy in the form of a new drug called Epidiolex. (Wyoming allows people with intractable epilepsy to use CBD oil under the care of a licensed neurologist.) CBD may also treat everything from Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s to depression, anxiety, inflammation and pain, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence also recently said CBD does not have abuse or dependence potential. For her part, Maddux was using the oil for chronic back pain—she has a missing disc between her L1 and L2 vertebrae. CBD oil, she said, had brought her some relief, though she took it only sporadically. Before her drive from New Mexico to Montana to care for her mother who has stage four colon cancer, Maddux placed the sample bottle in her bag and didn’t give it another thought.

Lucky’s barren shelves that were once home to CBD oil

CBD Oil Results in Felony Charge One woman faces charges for hemp-derived cannabidiol oil despite its recent presence in local grocers BY ROBYN VINCENT |

Classification and Confusion Despite the WHO’s recent findings, in the United States, CBD is a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning the federal government does not recognize its medicinal uses and considers it to have a high likelihood for abuse. That classification hasn’t stopped its proliferation. CBD oil has fueled a multimillion dollar industry online and at health food stores across the country. In September 2017, the retail giant Target was the first mega chain to dip its toes into the cannabidiol waters. It wasn’t a pioneer for long, though. It pulled the products from its online shelves after just a few weeks. One month later, Lucky’s made the leap, becoming the first chain natural grocer to carry CBD products. So why are mom and pop health stores and some chain retailers carrying the products if they are illegal? For one thing, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency hasn’t been shy about its indifferent stance. “While CBD currently is still Schedule 1, with our limited resources marijuana has not been our highest priority,” Barbara Carreno, a spokesperson for the DEA, told Planet Jackson Hole. “It is not a priority like opioids or synthetics which are killing people.”

@TheNomadicHeart

What’s more, Carreno said everything could change when the DEA schedules Epidiolex for medical use on September 24. A plant or botanical could have both uses that are legal and safe and uses that are not, Carreno said. As an example, she pointed to the opium poppy: “you get heroin and oxycontin from that.” Marijuana, meanwhile, “is a plant with many extracts, THC is one and CBD is another,” she said. “CBD has a small amount of THC but it is very, very low.” The overarching reason manufacturers are producing and selling these products en masse is because of the 2014 Farm Bill. That bill legalized the production of hemp under state pilot programs as long as those hemp products contain less than .3 percent THC. Under the Farm Bill, 40 states have legalized hemp programs including Wyoming, but its program is not slated to begin until 2019. And even though Wyoming is working on a program to allow people to cultivate hemp products, it is illegal to sell or possess such a product in the state if it contains any THC. Still, since it is a federal program some legal experts argue Maddux wasn’t in the wrong. “As long as hemp was grown as part of a state pilot program (like Maddux’s Functional Remedies CBD oil) then it is

federally legal,” said Jonathan Miller, general counsel to the U.S. Hemp Roundtable. That means Maddux “is allowed to take it across state lines,” he said. Miller said Maddux’s case is the first he has heard of someone being charged for carrying a vial of CBD oil. In fact, from his experience, in cases where people have been arrested for possession of both marijuana and CBD, the “CBD was thrown out.” Wyoming cannabis law, Miller continued, is confusing. “It is quite unfortunate law enforcement would take that confusing law and charge someone for having a product that has virtually no THC and which the World Health Organization has classified as harmless,” he said. “I would hope law enforcement was focusing instead on drugs that kill people.” On the national stage, Congress is moving in a direction that would remove hemp (cannabis containing less than .3 percent THC) from its classification as a Schedule I controlled substance. Sen. Mitch McConnell–R, Kentucky, sponsored the 2018 Hemp Farming Act, which handily passed in the Senate 86-11 on June 28. Wyoming, though, is fond of bucking national trends, especially when it comes to cannabis. Indeed, the state has a tight grip on cannabis laws even as public opinion swings drastically in the other direction. For example, more than 80 percent of Wyomingites say they want to see legalization of medicinal marijuana and more than 60 percent do not want people jailed for marijuana offenses, according to a 2016 survey by the Survey and Analysis Center and the University of Wyoming political science department.

The Un-wild West

Local law enforcement has been in contact with Wyoming’s Criminal Division of Investigation since fall 2017 when Lucky’s and Jackson Whole Grocer began carrying CBD oil. Jackson Chief of Police Todd Smith “reached out to us and asked us for some help because these products were being sold,” said Ronnie Jones of CDI. “Then we discovered this was going on across the state.” Since then, Jones said CDI has been visiting retail stores and conducting investigations to confirm whether those CBD products contain THC. Local law enforcement says as long as state law dictates it, they will enforce CBD’s prohibition. “I am duty-bound to uphold those laws,” Teton County Sheriff Jim Whalen said. “Clearly, if we were to talk philosophy, I might talk differently,” he added.

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| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

AUGUST 1, 2018 | 7

What is seemingly OK in other states will not fly in Wyoming. It is illegal to sell, buy or possess more than .03 grams of CBD oil that contains any amount of THC. Meanwhile, manufacturers of the oil maintain that if their product contains .3 percent or less of THC, it is legal, sowing greater confusion for state residents and retailers. Jackson Whole Grocer herbalist Heather Olson said she understands there is a problem with some companies. She said DCI’s Jones told her some of the products he tested carried higher levels of THC than what was indicated on the label. But Wyoming’s crime lab—where DCI tests substances—cannot actually test for specific amounts of THC. Maddux, meanwhile, is biding her time in Montana, caring for her ailing mother and going to job interviews. She does not dispute the reason why she was initially pulled over, which had nothing to do with CBD oil. On Sunday, July 8, Teton County Sheriff’s Deputy Jesse Wilcox noticed her

LOCAL FOOD, LIVE MUSIC, GOOD PEOPLE ON THE TOWN SQUARE EVERY SATURDAY 8 A.M. - NOON JULY 7 - SEPTEMBER 22

I Fought the Law...

expired California license plate and pulled Maddux over. She was also driving without insurance and an expired license. Maddux said she has led a simple life and didn’t have the money to address those issues before hitting the road. “My plan was to just get to Montana, to be with my family, and take care of everything there,” she said. According to the probable cause affidavit, Wilcox asked Maddux if she could pay a $850 fine for the tickets or appear in court on July 31. The affidavit stated Maddux said she could do neither. She didn’t think her brutal honesty would land her in jail, Maddux explained. Instead, she thought the interaction would lead to a mutually agreeable solution. “I have never been pulled over before,” Maddux said. “So I thought the best thing to do was just to be honest about my situation.” Indeed, a July 30 background check on Maddux showed she has had no prior run-ins with the law. After he deemed her “a flight risk” because she could not pay the fines and was likely to not appear in court, Wilcox arrested Maddux. At Teton County jail, personnel found her CBD oil, which they used a NIK test to determine the presence of THC. NIK tests are “rudimentary,” as Smith put it, however. They only confirm the mere presence of THC, not the actual amount. The oil, then, was sent to Wyoming’s crime lab for “analysis” and Maddux sat in jail for roughly 36 hours. She was released on a $1,000-dollar bond. To help pay for an attorney, Maddux sold her car for $550. Now she worries that much of the volunteer and service work that has become a large part of her life will no longer be an option if she is convicted of a felony. She worked as a disaster relief volunteer in Haiti after its 2010 earthquake and in the Philippines after its 2013 typhoon. She also volunteered as a yoga instructor teaching yoga to inmates in Oregon prisons. Now, she wonders about some of those inmates and their predicaments. That is to say, had she lacked the resources and life experience to question what happened and obtain a lawyer, she could have slipped through the cracks of the legal system, she said. While local law enforcement seems confident that a felony will not stick on her record, Maddux said in the meantime she agonizes about her August 16 hearing. Her life “has been thrown into upheaval.” PJH

Whalen did not seem convinced Maddux’s felony charge would stick. He suspected it will be pleaded down and pointed to his department’s lenient proclivities. “In terms of misdemeanors, we would prefer to write a citation and send people on their way, which is different than many municipalities.” Law enforcement is indeed “dutybound” by laws set forth by the Wyoming Legislature. But cannabis advocates, like Laramie attorney and Wyoming House Minority Whip Charles Pelkey–D, Laramie, point to the state’s law enforcement as a barrier to softening cannabis laws. Wyoming Rep. Stan Blake–D, Green River, “has introduced bills to make CBD oil readily available but we have gotten opposition from the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police that any THC is a violation of the law,” Pelkey said. It is true that sheriff and police associations throughout the country have pushed back against cannabis laws. Some point to Colorado’s rising crime data since the state legalized recreational marijuana in 2014, though it is unclear if the two are related. But Jackson Chief of Police Todd Smith said the notion that sheriffs and chiefs could hold that type of sway in the Legislature is absurd. “Law enforcement inherits the law from the Legislature,” he said. “We may get to testify our professional opinion but for any legislator to blame it on us is a cop out.”

YOU SATURD E A E

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

8 | AUGUST 1, 2018

IN THE HOLE & UNDER THE

INFLUENCE

How the Jackson milieu normalizes heavy drinking that spills into the lives of young people

BY JULIE BUTLER

t isn’t exactly a news flash that Jackson is a town where people are known to party as hard as they play. It’s even been said, tongue firmly in cheek, that it’s a place that “attracts drinkers with a skiing problem.” The glorification of Jackson’s “go big or go home” drinking culture has created a population of young adults who often unwittingly find themselves veering into alcohol abuse. Simply put, booze rules. Alcohol is served at almost every community event, fair or festival. People sip on white wine or whiskey during haircuts; bike en masse around town after first downing a few beers at a local watering hole and attend “paint and sip” classes. The pervasiveness of booze and the struggle to avoid drinking to excess begins with local children and spills into the spheres of transplants, usually 20-somethings seeking seasonal or year-round jobs that allow them to pursue high-adrenaline outdoor adventures on their days off. Those days are often followed by high octane-fueled evenings. “People here tend to get ‘vacation drunk,’” said Ryan Burke, 36, a licensed addiction counselor at Curran-Seeley, an alcohol and drug counseling, treatment and prevention services organization. “It’s literally like vacationland here so people who live here misinterpret that and think they have to be high all the time, permanently on vacation,” Burke said. “We’re the place where people are supposed to be happy so residents also want to be happy. If they have any problems in their life, they’re like: ‘I’m in Jackson Hole, I’m supposed to be happy all the time,’ so they’ll start drinking to avoid any stress or problems.”

GRAPHICS BY KIKI KITA

“

There are a ton of people who are local going through the program, and probably a disproportionate amount of those who grew up here.

Ingrained Examples

for work. Karns never missed a day of work, but some mornings she’d arrive “drunk and hungover,” she said. “And for all my friends it was the same thing. We all drank the way we wanted to drink. It seemed normal.” Karns’s take on why there are so many fundraisers in town that serve alcohol is that it’s “totally about the money raised from liquor sales and maybe loosening people up so they’ll spend more, donate more, bid more.” A lot of people have social anxiety; they’re not alcoholics, “but they really do need those couple of drinks to be around people and socialize and stay longer,” she said. Virginia Powell Symons, owner of Vibrant Events of Jackson Hole, coordinates several local fundraisers and other community events, such as EcoFair. Including the sale of alcohol, even at events billed as “family-friendly” is not meant to glorify drinking, she said. The inclusion of alcoholic beverages along with other refreshments offered is meant as an additive, not an incentive. “Alcohol is often the most productive fundraiser for nonprofits, as the overhead is usually slim to none and the sales are easy,” Powell Symons said. “I know that the nonprofit events that I’m affiliated with certainly see great revenues from alcohol sales.” That said, it is a priority for nonprofits to promote responsible alcohol service and make sure attendees are not overserved, she added. “I believe that most in our town do an excellent job.” Powell Symons prefers that volunteers not pour alcohol at the events she helps organize. They usually have representatives of the purveyor (Snake River Brewing, Jackson Hole Still Works, Jackson Hole Winery, etc.) pour if at all possible, she said. If that isn’t possible, she often recruit volunteers who work in restaurants and bars. While this does not guarantee those employees have taken the Training in Intervention Procedures (TIPS) program provided free by the Jackson Police Department, Powell Symons said it does ensure that she has folks handling booze that know not to overpour and who have a history of being responsible. Powell Symons is herself TIPS certified and encourages any of her staff members who are representing Vibrant Events to take the training as well. TIPS is available to alcohol retailers

AUGUST 1, 2018 | 9

As a counselor at Curran-Seeley, Burke works in the intensive outpatient and adolescent treatment programs. Over the past four years working at the facility, he has seen many native Jacksonites seek help for substance abuse. “There are a ton of people who are

make conscious consensual decisions. Many times they would take advantage of them when they were intoxicated by sexually harassing or assaulting them. Huser remembered constantly being grabbed by senior guys as a freshman at parties. “They would smack your butt or forcefully kiss you or try to lure you into rooms alone with them. It was very predatory behavior with a lot of manipulative pressure to drink.” In general Huser believes kids are just bored here and don’t know what else to do on the weekends, so they usually start drinking freshman year. They either learn to mellow out and control themselves by college, as she did, or they develop a dependency, she said. “I know kids who would even come to school plastered, especially senior year.” A student at the University of Montana in Missoula, Huser drank more as a teenager in Jackson than she does now in a college town that likes to party. Of course, not all people who grow up here have the same story as Huser. Take longtime resident Jenny Karns, a fifth generation member of the Karns family which has called this valley home since 1890. As a Jackson Hole High School student in the mid- to late-1980s, Karns was a self-described “party girl leader.” After more than a decade of struggling to put the plug in the jug, she counts three years of sober living under her belt. “No matter how much people seem to think they’re invincible, [alcohol abuse] catches up to you in the long run,” Karns said. “Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.” When Karns was a child, there weren’t nearly as many community events, so her exposure to adults drinking was mostly through family parties. She said it wasn’t until middle school that she was around kids her age and older who drank and smoked pot outside a now-closed arcade. (This, of course, could be Anychild, U.S.A.’s experience.) It wasn’t until Karns returned to Jackson following college in Utah and a year living in Park City that her drinking career really took off. “We partied all the time,” Karns said. “It was that 20-something ski culture, and this is what you did—drink a lot. I never honestly thought I had a problem until later. I could control things, I had a good life, I always showed up

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local going through the program,” Burke said, “and probably a disproportionate amount of those who grew up here.” Local children are exposed to public alcoholic beverage consumption pretty much from the get-go, especially while in tow with their parents at community events. The annual Wyoming Prevention Assessment (PNA) survey is designed to gather information for the planning, surveillance, and evaluation of substance abuse, violence, and delinquent behavior prevention programs, policies and practices. The Wyoming Department of Health’s Public Health Division, in collaboration with the Wyoming Department of Education, school districts and public schools, funds the research. In 2016, the PNA collected more than 13,000 state surveys from students in the sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th grades. It found that in Teton County, 84 percent of sixth graders and 94 percent of eighth graders reported attending a community event in the past year where adults were drinking alcohol, making the county No.1 in the state. The county also ranked first for the number of sixth and eighth grade students who said they attended an event where alcohol was sold: 71 percent and 79 percent respectively. Another No. 1 ranking for the county? Fifty-two percent of sixth grade students and 71 percent of eighth grade students said they attended a community event during the past 12 months where adults were drunk. Unsurprisingly, the study also found alcohol remains the most commonly used substance in all grade levels throughout Wyoming. In high school, drinking makes you cool, Huser said. “Alcohol is also very commonly used as a tool for some guys to “sexually prey on younger, inebriated girls, sort of initiating them into partying and drinking culture.” Huser said her male classmates often “targeted younger freshman girls by getting them very drunk and impairing their ability to think straight and

Noelle Huser, 20, was born and raised in Jackson and witnessed the normalization of drinking culture from an early age. Children grow up thinking that drinking alcohol is just one of the realities of living in the valley, she said. “It is a playground town and even the adults don’t always seem to fully grow up.” She agreed with Burke’s assessment that younger residents sometimes turn to liquid substances to try and maintain a happy facade. Huser opined that kids watch their parents and all their friend’s party and drink and “just have a good time, but as you get older, you begin to realize more and more that there are plenty of people in your community heavily relying on alcohol for their happiness.” Burke himself found it pretty easy to assimilate to the “play hard, party hard” approach to living in the Hole. He moved to Jackson when he was 21 and saw the valley as an “extension of college life.” “In college it was pretty acceptable that I would get as drunk as I did,” he said. And in Jackson “it was more acceptable that I would get that drunk.” When everyone around you is doing it, “it doesn’t seem to be such a bad thing,” he said. Burke drank to the max up until his early 30s, which was way longer than he wanted. “I had a lack of control on how drunk I wanted to get,” he said. “I am not in recovery, but I was going down a path that I didn’t like with my drinking.” His escape route came in the form of exercise; he traded his drinking “identity” for an athletic one.

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10 | AUGUST 1, 2018

in Teton County several times a year. According to the police department’s website, the purpose of the training is to help people create environments that promote safety and responsibility wherever alcohol is sold, served or consumed. As the mother of a three-year-old, Powell Symons said it is important for people to be cognizant of children’s exposure to alcohol use. “I’m constantly aware of the atmosphere around us when we attend a concert or other community event where alcohol is served,” Powell Symons said. “My husband and I drink responsibly in front of our son and we leave if it’s getting a little too wild or if people are intoxicated and acting like idiots.” The Jackson Hole Children’s Museum’s annual Touch-A-Truck may be the only kid-friendly fundraiser in town without alcohol, or worse, intoxicated individuals. The majority of the other family events in Jackson, such as Old West Days, the National Museum of Wildlife Arts’ First Sundays, the summer solstice celebration at R Park, the Jackson Hole Skijoring competition and the JacksonHoleLive/Raptor Fest/ Crawfish Boil combo serve alcohol in some form. The annual Snowmobile Hill Climb is always an event that families enjoy, but it’s also where adults of all ages tend to get intoxicated. “As Touch-A-Truck is our biggest annual fundraiser, we have definitely discussed selling alcohol as an additional revenue stream,” said Sara Fagan, the museum’s operations director. “What we always come back to is this: Touch-A-Truck is a fun family-friendly event, held on Sunday and showcasing the men and women who serve and protect our community every day.” While selling alcohol could increase event revenues, Fagan said “it doesn’t align with the spirit of the event and we have made an intentional decision not to sell it.”

Drunk Person, Meet the Cops Here’s a sobering statistic: according to the 2016 Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police report, alcohol was involved in 89.1 percent of all Teton County custodial arrests. Statewide the average was 57 percent. While Driving Under the Influence (DUI) arrests accounted for nearly 27 percent of all arrests statewide, the counties with significantly higher

statistics included Teton County (No. 1) at 48.73 percent. The valley placed No. 2 in arrests for public intoxication, at just more than 25 percent. The percentage of public intox arrests in all of Wyoming? Well, that number was half of Teton County’s: 12.86 percent. The report also revealed that the age group with the highest percentage of DUI arrests was ages 21 to 25, followed by ages 26 to 30 and 31 to 35. Hello, nearly half the population of Jackson Hole. Todd Smith, Jackson’s chief of police, Police Department, has been policing here for 28 years. Over that time, he has seen more than his fair share of both residents and visitors impaired by alcohol. “I can tell you that the numbers you see in that rep or t—t hos e public intoxication numbers— pale in comparison to the number of people we stop due to some sign of intoxication on the road, on the sidewalk and whatnot,” Smith said. “I think it would scare you if you saw the numbers of people that we encounter who are intoxicated and we stop to ensure that they’re going to be able to get home.” The Jackson Police Department’s system doesn’t necessarily equate an arrest with an event, so when asked if he thinks there is an over-abundance of alcohol-infused events here, Smith demurred. “It’s difficult for me to have a good measuring stick for that, because it’s always been that way,” he said. “Entities are relying on the revenue generated from alcohol sales to fund the events, so it becomes one of those things of, if you don’t do it, do you have money to hold the event or do it next time?” Smith doesn’t think the problem is an event having alcohol available, rather it’s more that he wishes people—especially young adults—would do things in moderation and know that

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nothing good is going to come from drinking excessively, he said. “Unfortunately the social norms here say that it’s OK to do that,” Smith said. “I’m sure there are other places in the country where this may be the norm, but I think for Wyoming, particularly here in Jackson with our vacationing culture, people feel like alcohol has to be part of everything they do.” After this summer’s first JacksonHoleLive concert at the Snow King Sports and Events Center, Smith said the police got a call from a citizen about a juvenile person passed out on the bleachers. “You see that kind of situation over and over and in law enforcement you become a little bit jaded to it because it’s so common, but then you stop and reflect upon the question: ‘Is it this way everywhere?’” Statistically, Smith said, “it’s not this way everywhere.”

“You see that kind of situation over and over and in law enforcement you become a little bit jaded to it because it’s so common, but then you stop and reflect upon the question: ‘Is it this way everywhere?’”

Beyond the Hangover

While being arrested or just plain embarrassed by a drunken encounter with the police is one consequence of drinking too much, there are actually physical and psychological consequences, too. And one doesn’t have to be a long-term drinker or north of age 40 to experience damaging effects. Alcohol exacerbates depression, since it is itself a depressant. It also causes brain damage. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “heavy drinking may have extensive and far– reaching effects on the brain, ranging from simple ‘slips’ in memory to permanent and debilitating conditions that require lifetime custodial care. And even moderate drinking leads to short–term impairment, as shown by extensive research on the impact of drinking on driving.” Rachel*, 34, of Jackson, found this to be the case. “I think it was when, after a heavy night of drinking, I had trouble speaking the next day,” she said. “This was jarring. I have always been a skilled public speaker, and won speech competitions throughout school. So when I

found myself stuttering, I realized just how badly I had been damaging my brain with alcohol. I could no longer conceal the effects.” Beyond neurological damage, according to the American Cancer Society, drinking alcohol can also raise the risk of getting cancer, including cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, breast and liver. In fact, a July 18 medical report in the British Medical Journal notes that deaths from liver disease have risen sharply in the U.S., with the biggest increase coming from perhaps an unlikely percentage of the population: millennials. The contributing factor? Drinking. The study, conducted by Dr. Elliot Tapper and Dr. Neehar Parikh at the University of Michigan, and the Veterans Affairs hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, looked at federal data taken from death certificates and the U.S. Census Bureau. They found a 65 percent increase in deaths from cirrhosis of the liver since 1999; 10 percent of those deaths were among people aged 25 to 34. “People so young might not even realize that they can drink themselves to death so quickly, but they can,” said liver specialist Dr. Haripriya Maddur of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago in an NBC News report. Maddur said the incidence of liver disease deaths in younger individuals is because millennials are drinking more and they’re drinking different types of hard liquor that are actually more potent than, say, beer. “Surprisingly, it only takes about 10 years of heavy drinking to actually lead to cirrhosis,” Maddur, who was not involved in the study, told NBC. “So when people start drinking in college and they start binge drinking, that can actually lead to end-stage liver disease at a much earlier age.” The Center for Disease Control and Prevention defines binge drinking as downing five or more drinks in a couple of hours for a man, or four for a woman. “For young folks around here, that’s a normal Tuesday,” Burke said. On average, Burke said most of the people who come to Curran-Seeley are 10 years into their addiction before they seek help and get diagnosed. “Often that’s because it takes 10 years to do so due to the stigma of stopping,” he said.

SOBERING THOUGHTS

Cover story author Julie Butler discusses kicking the bottle BY ROBYN VINCENT

When the Party’s Over

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You see that kind of situation over and over and in law enforcement you become a little bit jaded to it because it’s so common, but then you stop and reflect upon the question: ‘Is it this way everywhere?’

AUGUST 1, 2018 | 11

PJH: Is living in Jackson as a recovering alcoholic easier or harder than where you lived before JH? JB: I wouldn’t say it’s harder exactly, as, gratefully, my obsession/compulsion to drink was lifted many years ago. But since moving here from Connecticut in 2014, I have never been exposed to so much boozing in my all my years of recovery, and that can be very uncomfortable for me at times. It is said that alcoholics have a “builtin forgetter.” I think if I weren’t working

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Planet Jackson Hole: How long have you a program, if I didn’t have the support that I do, that I might fairly easily been in recovery? decide to join the fun. Julie Butler: 19 years Fortunately, the drunkenness I find PJH: When was your rock bottom myself around at times affords me the opportunity to see the old Jules and moment with alcohol? JB: My mother had been an active alco- her unhappiness, lack of self-esteem, holic until I was 20 and then she got sober. inability to say “when.” I don’t want to I did a one-on-one intervention with her go back there. and had to study up on alcoholism in order to do so. That’s when I learned it PJH: What has been the hardest thing can be genetic, and even though I’d been about recovery? a blackout drinker since age 15, I decided JB: It may sound corny, but the hardest my brother was probably the one who got thing for me sometimes can be “accepting the things I cannot change.” Yet as the gene, not me. My drinking was just fine, thank you deeply painful, frustrating and stressful as things can be and have been, very much. Until it wasn’t. Over the next 20 years of my drink- I know for a fact that taking a drink ing the blackouts persisted, I would lose never makes anything better. And a entire days recovering from hangovers, drink can even turn a good thing bad. my body began to crave alcohol more consistently and my mind’s obsession PJH: What advice do you have for with “when is an acceptable time to start young people who are thinking about drinking today?” slowly began to con- quitting? sume me. Alcoholism is a progressive JB: It’s entirely possible to be young disease, and for the last two months of my and not drink to excess, or at all; I know drinking, I was doing so every night and many people who got sober before the red warning flag was flying furiously. they ever had their first legal drink. When you start mixing vodka with your Removing alcohol as a social and emokids’ Juicy Juice boxes, it may be the time tional crutch, as a way to self-medicate, to accept you are powerless over alcohol! is doable. The clarity and self-discovery that comes from sobriety—whethPJH: Given your history with alcohol, er full-on abstinence or just significantly putting on what are some aspects of the breaks—is Jackson’s drinking culture that strike you amazing. Quitting most? drink ing JB: That going beyond the buzz seems to be doesn’t acceptable here, even glom e a n rified with “events” such you quit as the Gelande Quaffing the fun Championship at Teton of life. Village. No matter what I do or where I go, I see that 20- and 30-somethings never miss an opportunity to imbibe.

Alcohol or drug addiction, any type of addiction, is really not so much about the substance or activity one is obsessively and compulsively engaged in. Instead, it’s often about escapism— countless attempts to numb emotional and/or physical pain with alcohol. To temporarily blot out stress, unhappiness, fear or frustration. “We want to run away, get that psychological crutch,” Bu rke sa id. “People think ‘Oh, I’m not a drunk, I’m not down in the gutter,’ but you’re psychologically dependent on it if you can’t go to a wedding without drinking, go to any event without drinking. Psychological dependence is a huge deal that no one pays attention to.” Mia* is a 29-year-old recovering alcoholic who can attest to the roots of alcoholism and the psychological and physical struggles to overcome the disease. Almost 10 months sober, she is using the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, among other things, to stay alcohol-free. Mia moved to Jackson from Santa Fe, New Mexico, more than four years ago. Like many other newcomers to the valley, she said she didn’t drink as frequently until she came here. The area’s long, isolating winters contributed to her alcohol usage. “In the winter there’s nothing else to do in the evening and the days are so short, that it just feels like the only place to go are bars,” Mia said. “Most all of the roommates I have had since moving here drink/drank daily, which is by technical health standards to excess. But in Jackson that’s just considered completely normal and not too excessive.” Mia first tried to get sober in April 2017 when she said she’d reached a bottom and was completely miserable. That’s when she had to accept that her drinking “was out of control and that I

couldn’t stop on my own,” she said. “I stayed sober for 17 days and then I was in and out of the program for a few months because I wasn’t fully accepting the powerlessness of alcoholism and I had to keep trying it out through ‘controlled drinking.’” Once she did accept that her life was unmanageable because of her inordinate drinking, she found her friends here unsupportive of her decision to stop. “They’d say: ‘Oh you’re no fun anymore,’ ‘Why can’t you just have one drink?’ ‘You didn’t drink all week, can’t you just drink on the weekend?’” That lack of understanding and support from friends made it all the more difficult, Mia said. She wondered why alcohol is the only drug where when you stop doing it, you have to explain yourself. “When people ask, part of me sometimes wants to say, ‘Well drinking increases your chance for every single type of cancer and that’s why I’m not drinking. Why do I have to explain this?’ If I said I was cutting out sugar, people would say ‘great.’ If I said I was doing the Whole 30 Diet they would say, ‘That’s going to be hard but it’s good for your health.’” The intense pressure of her job in the creative arts industry and seasonal crunch time is what drove her to drink the last time at this point in the year. This summer she is 100 percent aware that this kind of professional intense stress is a huge trigger for her. The main struggle for Mia in sobriety is handling stress in a town where she said the go-to for dealing with pressure in a professional or social setting is having a drink. Still, Mia has found alternatives. “I have found that exercise for me does almost the same thing. It’s not a replacement, but the endorphins help me manage stress and in turn that has helped me lose weight and become healthier with a lot of positive effects instead of negative.” Another woman in recovery from alcoholism who has turned a negative into a positive is Brantley Sydnor, 35,

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12 | AUGUST 1, 2018

HELP AND INFO Alcoholics Anonymous The Jackson group of Alcoholics Anonymous meets daily on the St. John’s Church campus in the basement of the Browse N’ Buy building. The 24-hour number connects you with someone who can provide meeting information and put you in touch with a recovering alcoholic.

307-733-5322; AA.org Curran-Seeley Foundation Abstinence-based treatment programs are offered to residents on a sliding scale. It has an intensive outpatient program for men, women and adolescents. The organization also provides free, confidential consultations for people who are wondering if their alcohol use is normal, social or dependent.

307-733-3908; CurranSeeley.com Sober Events n A Sober Ski Week is held annually at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. It happens January 23 to 27, 2019 n Zenity Now at Teton Shala Yoga blends yoga and the 12 steps of recovery. Visit ZenityNow.com or Facebook.com/ZenityNow

who hasn’t had a drink in more than four years. In January of this year she decided to combine her two worlds of 12-step work and yoga into a program she created: Zenity Now at Teton Yoga Shala. It’s a meditative yoga practice designed for anyone interested in learning more about yoga or the 12 steps of recovery. “The 12 steps and yoga are both spiritual programs that really mirror one another,” Sydnor said. “I’m really hoping this appeals not only to addicts of drugs and alcohol, but also those people struggling with a relationship, struggling with a job, or their relationship to social media, whatever.” A 13-year resident, Sydnor struggled with most of the above for years. She said in her 20s, she was “that girl” who stumbled around at concerts and other events. After a while she would just isolate herself at home and drink the way she wanted to drink. But that was also problematic. “I’d put my phone away,” Sydnor said. “I couldn’t even drink in front of my phone.” Once she stopped drinking, she realized not everybody is or was as drunk as she thought. “A lot of it was just me,” Sydnor said. “That was really profound for me.” Sobriety has given her choices, she said. The main one being that after a couple of relapses, she simply chooses not to drink anymore. “It’s a drinking world in general and I have learned how to coexist with alcohol’s availability, especially here—it’s everywhere,” Sydnor said. “When people get too wasted, I just move away from them, or I leave.” She said she is grateful for those relapses, for those cases of what she calls the “fuck its.” “It’s what it took for me to wake up and fully understand that I just cannot touch it, I just cannot,” Sydnor said. “And then once I fully came to that conclusion and believed it, there was just a newfound freedom; I was just free. I don’t take sobriety for granted. I know it could go away if I don’t stay spiritually fit, so I do.”

Rachel, although not an alcoholic, has also held on to the moments of reckoning she has had. “In college, I sometimes was a binge drinker but when I moved to Jackson what changed was how I perceived heavy drinking,” she said. “My friends and coworkers normalized binge drinking to the extent that we laughed about blackouts; hangovers became a legitimate excuse to miss out on work meetings or engagements with friends. It was never ‘let’s have two drinks and call it.’ The extreme culture certainly contributed to that and booze always seemed to close out a challenging day in the mountains.” It was the drinking heavily, the hangovers and more that began to affect how Rachel was performing on the job. And that is precisely the reason she has virtually stopped drinking. “I found that as the hangovers got worse, so too did my ability to concentrate and my level of clarity diminished,” Rachel said. “I normally just suffered through those days at work, but I would become preoccupied with thoughts of going home when I could take the edge off with a drink. And the cycle would continue.”

said residents have to take some responsibility. During his three-year tenure as the executive director of the Prevention M a n a g e m e n t Organization of Teton County, Matt Stech’s main goal was for the community to have better awareness and knowledge about the consequences of Jackson’s intense drinking culture and how that affects local children. “The first thing we did was write the letter to the nonprofit community asking them not to openly promote alcohol at events,” Stech said. “Essentially we asked: ‘Hey, can you do this better?’” The letter read: “We are challenging all local nonprofits that utilize alcohol as a marketing or fundraising tool to engage in a voluntary self-assessment process and consider making positive changes to the use of alcohol in these capacities.” Two of the four questions included: “What kinds of associations are made in your promotion? Are they unnecessarily glamorizing or promoting alcohol?” And, “Do you serve alcohol at family-focused events? What messages might your promotion send to local children and youth?” Stech said this resulted in some understanding and change, but he feels there is still room for improvement, both for those holding events and the young adult population attending them and just abusing alcohol in general. “You can go to the art fair and not drink, you can go to a concert and not drink,” Stech said. “There are lots of things to do—it’s just finding a friend to go with you and not drink.” If you have a predilection to addiction it usually catches you in your late teens and keeps going on until the jig is up, Stech said. “People just keep it at a solid simmer and then it boils over in their 30s and 40s.” PJH

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It was never ‘let’s have two drinks and call it.’ The extreme culture certainly contributed to that and booze always seemed to close out a challenging day in the mountains.

Taking Action The good news in Jackson is that awareness of the acute alcohol abuse problem, as well as support and hope offered by recovery programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and CurranSeeley, can help break or at the very least, ease young people’s proclivity to party beyond the pale. “As an entire town, we can all take a step back, look and say, ‘Hmm, what is my alcohol use like? What is my alcohol promotion like? Am I doing this in a responsible way? Am I doing this in a way that promotes healthy living or am I doing it in a way that’s going to cause trouble for people down the road?’” said Trudy Funk, executive director of Curran Seely. As parents, as business owners, as nonprofits, as fundraisers, Funk

*Name has been changed to protect that person’s privacy

Where It All Begins

RYAN STOLP

LOCAL SYNDROME PET SPACE Pet Space is sponsored by Alpenhof

In his final column, the author makes the case for community authenticity and activism

@AndrewMunz

FIG

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AUGUST 1, 2018 | 13

a station on a ship primarily crewed by such diligent and inspiring women. Those who fall under the mantle of the free press, especially those within small communities like Jackson Hole, are often not given the credit due to them. So if you happen to come across them in the upcoming absence of their PJH articles, please thank them for their work. We are wiser because of them. And so I offer not a conclusion to Local Syndrome (a cure to such an affliction doesn’t exist), but rather an introduction to what lies ahead. I say with much regret that Jackson Hole may never live up to our hopes. I would love this town to become everything we want it to be, and more. I want the housing crisis to magically dissolve and for us to do more to respect and recognize our Latino neighbors. I want our J-1 workers to feel welcome among us and feel as though they could start new lives in the valley. I want the income inequality to work for this town rather than against it, and have Jackson be a trendsetting community rather than one that constantly trips over its feet. I want us to truly be here for one another and be leaders in suicide prevention efforts in the state. I want us to put a cap on monopolies and mitigations and allow the most ambitious among us to be granted equal opportunities across all vocations. While these wants might seem noble, albeit unrealistic, I don’t want us to stop wanting them. And I want us to be aggressively vocal about everything. We have to do more as a community to combat the greed and corruption that so clearly transpires in this humble hamlet. And in an era where free press is being threatened, much of that vocalization will rely on you, dear reader. This community is innocent. We must be stewards not only of the land, but of one another. Ignoring our local syndrome will only make our symptoms worse. Let this ending be where we begin to mend. PJH

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

I would not have been able to deliver drunken movie reviews, dispatches from my travels, a guide for heterosexual allies of the LGBTQ community, anonymous interviews, a cover story about an Icelandic drag queen, Jackson criticism, etc. I must have written at least two novels-worth of copy for this publication and couldn’t be more proud of every word that I published. Eventually, the words within this issue and those previous will vanish and all the hard work this paper has done to combat the too-oft uninformed minds of Jackson Hole will disappear. Readers have thanked me for offering unremorseful critique of Jackson, and I can only wonder if, in our absence, another publication has the gall to be as bold and challenge the minds of our community. Perhaps the embers we leave in our wake will reignite to form another alternative press, something unique and unexpected, ready to stand proudly in the shadow of the Tetons and not worry about sullying some predisposed image of Jackson Hole. Because writing a column like Local Syndrome is a lonesome ordeal, encountering those who read these words and igniting discussions with them has been incredibly rewarding. I’ve had plenty of critics over the years and I have welcomed their feedback. Our readers have made me a better writer, yes, but also a better citizen, one that is eager to pay more attention to the town he writes about and comment on issues that need to be commented upon. And, within the current of their encouragement, I’ve had the honor of being steered by Robyn Vincent, undoubtedly the hardest-working, most insightful editor this paper has seen. I have operated under her scrupulous eye for the past few years, and this town is in debt of her journalistic efforts, often invisible behind each published article. I reflect on all of the incredible reporting done by Robyn, Sarah Ross, Meg Daly and Natosha Hoduski, among many others, and am so proud to have been offered

he first draft of this column was fairly incensed, its contents fueled by the knowledge that this would be the final entry of Local Syndrome and the final issue of Planet Jackson Hole. I have a tendency to keep the floodgates open and offer my unabashed opinions without worry of consequence. That courage is both a blessing and a curse. Having one last opportunity to use this platform to express all the ways Jackson Hole has let me down was admittedly appealing. However, as tempting as it is, I don’t believe lobbing a final grenade in this moment of closure is a good use of the precious space allotted to me. This final issue deserves more than a bitter, ranting conclusion from Andrew Munz. Instead, I look towards the horizon with gratitude and with optimism, recognizing the power of not only the free press, but also the power of community. I have been involved with this paper on and off for 13 years. My first published piece lambasted then-editor Richard Anderson for spoiling the ending of the film Batman Begins. I was only 18—a firebrand in the making. Since then, I have written feature stories, movie reviews, cover stories and two weekly columns: Well, That Happened and Local Syndrome. Over the years PJH has had its ups and downs, but I strongly believe it has outshined other local news outlets with its unapologetic, trendsetting reporting and bombastic opinion pieces. We have not played it safe. We have not approached issues underhandedly. We pushed and prodded at social norms, angering more than a few people in the process. This town needs a good prodding every once in a while. But PJH was never a destructive wildfire; we were a controlled burn. Under editor Robyn Vincent, I’ve had free rein to write about the issues and topics that speak truth to me (while having some ridiculous fun along the way). Were I a contributor elsewhere, I guarantee

BY ANDREW MUNZ |

KHOL is celebrating 10 Years in 2018 Join the party du ring our Summer Members July 31-Au hip Drive, gust 6!

Call, Click or Stop By (307) 733-KHOL (5465) 891KHOL.COM

14 | AUGUST 1, 2018

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

The Center Lobby

And don't miss our special Jackson Hole Live double bill on Sunday August 5th, with Dj William's Shot's Fired and Salt Petal. Two great bands, one great cause. Snow King Ballfield.

SINGLETRACK MIND

’m shall begin with a few cliches because I know I’m beating a dead horse and preaching to the choir, but I think it’s a good time to remind ourselves about trail etiquette. We all think we’re angels on the trails but I bet if you think back to your last few rides, you may recall an encounter that didn’t go as planned. Good etiquette is important on many different levels. Obviously, it’s better to be nice to everyone and do the right thing because at the end of the day we’re all just out recreating and it’s a bummer to finish your ride following an unpleasant exchange on the trail. But the other, more selfish reason to be nice is to maintain trail access. It may not feel like it at times, but the land managers work their tails off to give us good trails to ride. If our user group is inconsiderate to

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other users, damages the trails, or burns in shortcuts, they will restrict our access on existing trails and stop building new ones. So, what should we do to keep as many people as possible happy? Just be nice and friendly. Slow down, make eye contact, stop and/or move over for people on foot. Say hello. Don’t wear two earbuds. Pick up and carry out your dog poop bag. Have a bell on your bike. Don’t alter the trail to suit your fancy. The general trail user code is that bikes yield to hikers and both yield to horses. Always assume it’s your obligation to get out of the way. If you get a verbal OK to pass, then do so politely, with a pleasant “thank you.” – Cary Smith

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| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

For all MEETING AGENDAS AND MINUTES WEEKLY CALENDAR JOB OPENINGS SOLICITATIONS FOR BIDS PUBLIC NOTICES AND OTHER VALUABLE INFORMATION

Visit out our website website Visit

tetoncountywy.gov TetonWyo.org The public meeting agendas and minutes for the Board of County Commissioners and Planning Commission can also be found in the Public Notices section of the JH News and Guide.

AUGUST 1, 2018 | 15

en years and food to opera ago, Zach and heavy metal Zimmerman music. It also offers was relatively new regular communito the valley. He ty affairs reporting moved to Jackson that includes interto do the classic “ski views with politbum thing” but he ical candidates, brought with him for example, but what would prove a also conversations valuable skill. with artists about Zimmerman new exhibitions learned to radio in the valley. It’s deejay as a high an important supschool student plement to other in California and media in Jackson, stuck with it when Zimmerman said. he went to college, “It’s more of a deejaying for stalive conversation D.J. Williams of Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe headlines KHOL’s 10th anniversary celebration. tions in Santa Cruz and you can capand Santa Barbara. ture more emotion Naturally, when when you hear it he heard about a straight from the brand-new radio subject,” he said. station in Jackson “The people you are called KHOL, he talking to are going had to investigate. KHOL and JacksonHoleLive team up to commemorate a to bring things to He headed to the airwaves that decade of community radio the basement of the you can’t capTeton Barber Shop, ture in print. The BY KELSEY DAYTON | @Kelsey_Dayton where the fledgling sense of intimacy and will be familiar faces on stage, station lived at the and immediacy is time. Walker White, then-station manag- Zimmerman said. unique to radio.” The five-piece multilingual band Salt er, welcomed him immediately. After all, To hear that intimacy and immedithey welcomed everyone interested—and Petal will also play the outdoor concert acy, listeners no longer need to be near soiree. The Los Angeles based group uses Broadway Avenue. About five years ago they needed volunteers. Today, as KHOL celebrates its 10th electric guitars, bass and drums, as well KHOL started live streaming, allowing anniversary, Zimmerman finds himself at as an accordion, synthesizer and hand people around the world to tune-in and the helm as station manager and KHOL’s percussion to create a unique tropical surf connect with Jackson. Each week a few offices have moved to the Center for the sound, according to JacksonHoleLive. thousand people stream KHOL. The result is that the band holds Arts. Zimmerman hopes that continues. But not much else has changed, “audiences captive in a new dance state He’d also like to expand broadcasting to of mind,” JacksonHoleLive’s website other parts of the state or more of Teton Zimmerman said. The station still tries to be inclusive explained. Valley. Proceeds from the party go to KHOL and representative of the community. But the biggest wish Zimmerman has They want to introduce more people to which remains 100 percent listener sup- is for more volunteers. He would love to the community radio experience and they ported with no state or federal funding, double the number of volunteers so that Zimmerman said. are still always looking for volunteers. the station could eventually have 24 hours Since KHOL started 10 years ago, the of programming. Volunteers don’t need The station marks its birthday with an outdoor concert on Sunday co-produced station has nearly tripled its number of experience. The station trains new DJs. with JacksonHoleLive. The party features volunteers. About 50 people in Jackson And it’s a way to get involved in the comShots Fired, a band led by D.J. Williams of give time each week to the station. Those munity, Zimmerman said. Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe. Shots Fired volunteers introduce the community to “We’re an important part of the overbrings together an all-star list of musi- new music, but also new voices within all community conversation,” he said. cians including those that play with Dave the valley. “We try to represent what the community “It’s the center core tenet for us to have looks like and what it sounds like and the Matthews Band, Lenny Kravitz, Greyboy Allstars and more, Zimmerman said. as many walks of life represented on the diversity we have in the valley.” PJH Every show brings a new line-up of per- station as possible,” Zimmerman said. formers, so every performance is fresh “You might not know a voice exists in the KHOL 10th anniversary celebration community until you hear it on KHOL with JacksonHoleLive, 6 p.m. Sunday at and brand new. It is Shots Fired’s first time in Wyoming, and then you learn about a pocket of the Snow King. Admission is a $5 donation but some of the musicians have been valley that makes this place special.” to KHOL and an additional $5 for adults. KHOL’s lineup includes about 40 (Kids 17 and younger are free.) through Jackson before with other bands shows that cover everything from sports

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

16 | AUGUST 1, 2018

ART

XXXXX

‘Give the buried flower a dream’ by Pamela Gibson.

Deep Expressions Walking into what Pamela Gibson has drawn from the world BY KELSEY DAYTON |

@Kelsey_Dayton

ong lyrics and poetry fill Pamela Gibson’s head as she works on her art. “For me, content is really important,” the encaustic artist said. “I have to have some ideas besides a visual idea that I’m inspired by, or I get lost.” So while some artists don’t title their work, or give a piece a basic name denoting its place in a series, the title of Gibson’s work gives viewers insight into an integral part of her process. Gibson’s work is driven not just by the landscape, where she finds inspiration, or the material she uses to experiment with color and texture, but also the words of the writers, artists and musicians that join in her mind as she works in her studio. Her latest show “Elemental,” which opens at Turner Fine Art on Monday, is inspired by earth, wind, fire and water, but also the words of Robert Frost, the lyrics of Bob Dylan and other poets and musicians. The show title also gives insight into Gibson’s process and current state of mind. The show is a bit of a departure

for Gibson, who usually uses the seasons to guide her work. This body of paintings is guided by the elements, including quintessence, which Gibson describes as the fifth element, one that can’t be seen, but that gives the four physical elements meaning. “All of those ideas are just very basic and weave their way through all of these paintings,” she said. “When you live in Jackson Hole, you are sort of always in the elements. They are not outside of you; you are living in them.” Gibson will debut 17 pieces she’s been working on since January, including several large works. Large-scale encaustic work is unusual because the paintings get so heavy, but two horizontal pieces in the show, “The answer is blowing in the wind” and “Give the buried flower a dream,” are seven-feet long. They can hang separately, but Gibson also designed them as a diptych—two pieces that can hang as one. Gibson, who has painted professionally for about 11 years, came to art later in life. She’d always dabbled, but it wasn’t until she was in her 40s that

so many years, I’m drawn to texture.” Her work, including pieces in the upcoming exhibit, is abstract. Gibson uses photographs as a visual guide when she paints, but those act as a prompt. One could never look at her photographs and match them to a painting; the work is too different than the inspiration. “For me, I can express ideas that are very different than if I were to paint a tree,” she said. “It’s a deeper expression for me. I made it through art school, so I can draw, but I’m not a Kathryn Turner. So for me, pulling things out of the world that I see, instead of trying to represent them, is what works.” PJH Pamela Gibson’s “Elemental” opens Monday. A reception is 5 to 7 p.m. August 16 and the show hangs through August 31 at Turner Fine Art.

she was brave enough to call herself an artist. Always interested in art she took a few classes at the Oregon College of Art and Craft near where she lived. She fell in love with art and went on to earn her bachelor’s degree. After school she focused on textiles. For years, she wove tapestries on a large loom. But within a year of making the move from Portland, Oregon, to Jackson, she sold the loom and began to focus on painting. “There was something about the light that was so different here,” she said. “The wool absorbs light and encaustic reflects.” Gibson uses hot, melted bees wax mixed with resin to harden it and pigments for color to create her encaustic paintings. She layers the paint and then goes back and scrapes, finding colors from previous layers to bring to the front. “It’s a subtractive thing, as well as additive,” she said. “That’s what I find really, really interesting about it. I can make the colors as opaque and as transparent as I want them to be. And there is a lot of texture. I was a fiber artist for

FRIDAY

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RED MOLLY THE MAMMALS JOE CRAVEN AND THE SOMETIMERS I’M WITH HER INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS GREENSKY BLUEGRASS

SUNDAY

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THE MUSIC OF JERRY & DAWG FEST. STU ALLEN, SCOTT LAW AND SAMSON GRISMAN MARTY STUART AND THE FABULOUS SUPERLATIVES FRUITION GREENSKY BLUEGRASS

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

MISSY RAINES TRIO BILLY STRINGS BAND

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

18 | AUGUST 1, 2018

Featuring dining destinations from breweries to bakeries, and continental fare to foreign flavor, this is a sampling of our dining critic’s local favorites.

ASIAN

TETON THAI Serving the world’s most exciting cuisine. Teton Thai offers a splendid array of flavors: sweet, hot, sour, salt and bitter. All balanced and blended perfectly, satisfying the most discriminating palate. Open daily. Located at 7432 Granite Loop Road in Teton Village, (307) 733-0022 and in Driggs, (208) 787-8424, tetonthai.com.

THAI ME UP Home of Melvin Brewing Co. Freshly remodeled offering modern Thai cuisine in a relaxed setting. New tap system with 20 craft beers. New $8 wine list and extensive bottled beer menu. View our tap list at thaijh.com/brews. Open daily for dinner at 5 p.m. Located downtown at 75 East Pearl Street, (307) 733-0005, melvinbrewing.com.

Mangy Moose Restaurant, with locally sourced, seasonally FRESH FOOD at reasonable prices, is a always a FUN PLACE to go with family or friends for a unique dining experience. The personable staff will make you feel RIGHT AT HOME and the funky western decor will keep you entertained throughout your entire visit.

CONTINENTAL ALPENHOF

Serving authentic Swiss cuisine, the Alpenhof features European style breakfast entrées and alpine lunch fare. Dine in the Bistro for a casual meal or join us in the Alpenrose dining room for a relaxed dinner experience. Breakfast 7:30 a.m.-10 a.m. Coffee & pastry 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Lunch 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Aprés 3 p.m.-5:30 p.m. Dinner 6 p.m.-9 p.m. For reservations at the Bistro or Alpenrose, call (307) 733-3242.

Reservations at (307) 733-4913 3295 Village Drive • Teton Village, WY

www.mangymoose.com

THE LOCALS

FAVORITE PIZZA 2012-2016 •••••••••

FAMILY FRIENDLY ENVIRONMENT

PIZZAS, PASTAS & MORE HOUSEMADE BREAD & DESSERTS FRESH, LOCALLY SOURCED OFFERINGS TAKE OUT AVAILABLE Dining room and bar open nightly at 5:00pm (307) 733-2460 • 2560 Moose Wilson Road • Wilson, WY

A Jackson Hole favorite since 1965

$5 Shot & Tall Boy

LUNCH

SPECIAL Slice, salad & soda

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

TV Sports Packages and 7 Screens

Under the Pink Garter Theatre (307) 734-PINK • www.pinkygs.com

ELY U Q I N U PEAN EURO

F O H ‘ E H

AT TH

AT THE

LOTUS ORGANIC RESTAURANT Serving organic, freshly-made world cuisine while catering to all eating styles. Endless organic and natural meat, vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free choices. Offering super smoothies, fresh extracted juices, espresso and tea. Full bar and house-infused botanical spirits. Serving breakfast, lunch & dinner starting at 8am daily. Located at 140 N. Cache, (307) 734-0882, theorganiclotus.com. Mangy Moose Restaurant, with locally sourced, seasonally fresh food at reasonable prices, is a always a fun place to go with family or friends for a unique dining experience. The personable staff will make you feel right at home and the funky western decor will keep you entertained throughout your entire visit. Teton Village, (307) 733-4913, mangymoose.com.

Open nightly 5:30pm

733-3912 307.733.3242

A Jackson Hole favorite for 39 years. Join us in the charming atmosphere of a historic home. Serving fresh fish, elk, poultry, steaks, and vegetarian entrées. Ask a local about our rack of lamb. Live acoustic guitar music most nights. Open nightly at 5:30 p.m. Reservations recommended, walk-ins welcome. 160 N. Millward, (307) 733-3912, bluelionrestaurant.com

MANGY MOOSE

R DINNEAGE I H LUNCTETON VILL I T S IN FA BREAKE ALPENHOF

THE BLUE LION

160 N. Millward • Reservations recommended Reserve online at bluelionrestaurant.com

MOE’S BBQ Opened in Jackson Hole by Tom Fay and David Fogg, Moe’s Original Bar B Que features a Southern Soul Food Revival through its awardwinning Alabama-style pulled pork, ribs, wings, turkey and chicken smoked over hardwood

served with two unique sauces in addition to Catfish and a Shrimp Moe-Boy sandwich. A daily rotation of traditional Southern sides and tasty desserts are served fresh daily. Moe’s BBQ stays open late and features a menu for any budget. While the setting is family-friendly, a full premium bar offers a lively scene with HDTVs for sports fans, music, shuffle board and other games upstairs. Large party takeout orders and full service catering with delivery is also available.

VIRGINIAN SALOON Come down to the historic Virginian Saloon and check out our grill menu! Everything from 1/2 pound burgers to wings at a great price! The grill is open in the Saloon from 4 p.m.-10p.m. daily. Located at 750 West Broadway, (307) 739-9891.

SNAKE RIVER BREWERY & RESTAURANT America’s most award-winning microbrewery is serving lunch and dinner. Take in the atmosphere while enjoying wood-fired pizzas, pastas, burgers, sandwiches, soups, salads and desserts. $9 lunch menu. Happy hour runs from 4 - 6 p.m., including tasty hot wings. The freshest beer in the valley, right from the source! Free WiFi. Open 11 a.m. - 11 p.m. Loacted at 265 S. Millward. (307) 739-2337, snakeriverbrewing.com.

ITALIAN CALICO

A Jackson Hole favorite since 1965, the Calico continues to be one of the most popular restaurants in the Valley. The Calico offers the right combination of really good food, (much of which is grown in our own gardens in the summer), friendly staff; a reasonably priced menu and a large selection of wine. Our bar scene is eclectic with a welcoming vibe. Open nightly at 5 p.m. Located at 2560 Moose Wilson Rd., (307) 733-2460.

MEXICAN

EL ABUELITO

Serving authentic Mexican cuisine and appetizers in a unique Mexican atmosphere. Home of the original Jumbo Margarita. Featuring a full bar with a large selection of authentic Mexican beers. Lunch served weekdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nightly dinner specials. Open seven days, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Located at 385 W. Broadway, (307) 733-1207.

PIZZA

PINKY G’S

The locals favorite! Voted Best Pizza in Jackson Hole 2012-2016. Seek out this hidden gem under the Pink Garter Theatre for NY pizza by the slice, salads, strombolis, calzones and many appetizers to choose from. Try the $7 ‘Triple S’ lunch special. Happy hours 10 p.m. - 12 a.m. Sun.Thu. Text PINK to 71441 for discounts. Delivery and take-out. Open daily 11a.m. - 2 a.m. Located at 50 W. Broadway, (307) 734-PINK.

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| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

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| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

20 | AUGUST 1, 2018

L.A.TIMES ANABRANDS By BRUCE HAIGHT

SUNDAY, AUGUST 5, 2018

ACROSS 1 4

Muppet chimp __ Minella “Patience you must have” speaker 8 Text for a promo 14 Unit of weight 19 Biblical priest 20 Steady 21 First name in the 2016 campaign 22 Informed 23 Track circuit 24 Company covering the ninth of Salinger’s “Nine Stories”? 27 Spur on 29 White wine apéritif 30 TRS-80s, e.g. 31 __ of interest 32 Company providing stimulation before a round? 36 Belief system 37 Robot arms don’t have them 38 Camera lens feature 39 Like a D, gradewise 40 Subway posting 43 Madame Bovary 45 Bankrolled 47 Acronymic distress about being excluded from the fun 48 Leery of 49 Opening feature 51 Company for ones who love taking sides? 54 “__ got it!” 55 Fax button 57 Toss in 58 Look down on, figuratively 59 Brain areas 61 Green, in a way 65 Rilke works 66 Company that bugs people? 69 “Real Time” host 72 Canadian site of the 1988 Winter Olympics 73 Tiny and shapeless

77 79 80 81 82

Timeless, in verse ’60s chic __ page Acapulco gold Company that moves a lot of cash? 87 Like some surveys 89 Card sounding like a platter 90 Christmas lot selection 91 “Little House” family name 93 Spent 94 Shirley MacLaine, to Warren Beatty 95 Ump’s cry 96 Big heap 97 Cartoon genre 99 Trace of color 101 Company named for its product container? 105 Old marketplaces 107 United 108 Moll’s limb 109 Grammy winner Gorme 110 Company dealing “frankly” with campaign issues? 115 Even a little 116 Overhead concern? 117 Emotionally out of control 118 Runs on 119 Laugh starter 120 Author Theodor __ Geisel 121 Helpful holdings 122 Nobelist Wiesel 123 Not even

11 In the cooler 12 Money-dispensing needs 13 “Suh-weet!” 14 More than a job 15 Tony, for one 16 Pasted message, stereotypically 17 Oil acronym 18 Many a gamer 25 Three-horse carriage 26 Dislodges 28 Key of Beethoven’s “Eroica” 33 Silky-voiced crooners they are not 34 One of the Weasley twins 35 Dog tag? 36 Italy’s Lake __ 39 Wham! or Roxette 41 Elite crew 42 Blog series 43 Awesome 44 Formally propose 46 Support 47 Film noir hat 48 Serving no purpose 50 “Look Back in Anger” playwright John 52 “Nick of Time” singer 53 Software details 56 “Glee” actress Rivera 60 Get-up-and-go 61 They’re rubbed when mingling 62 Calls for 63 DVD forerunner DOWN 64 Piece of cake 1 Former MLB exec Bud 67 “Get Shorty” novelist 2 Dollar rival __ Leonard 3 Beauty product for kissers 68 Unequivocal refusal 4 First female Fed head Janet 69 Softens 5 Eggs in a lab 70 ’70s breakout gaming 6 An in-box might be part of one company 7 Shenanigan 71 Toast for Mrs. Robin8 Legal gp. son 9 Penn. neighbor 74 Capital south of a 10 Brunch fare

panhandle “Dies __” How vichyssoise is usually served 78 Wipes out 80 Stamps of approval 83 Pilfer 84 Whirled weapon 85 First portrayer of Obi-Wan 86 Meditative genre 88 Gin __ 92 Kind of cookie 95 Catches 96 Cold outburst 98 Actually existing 100 Most clubs in a pro’s bag 101 Andean people 102 Scope 103 Like much loose-leaf paper 104 Focused (on) 105 Cookie monster? 106 Look steadily 107 Tools in locks 111 Early TV maker 112 Caught in the rain without an umbrella, say 113 Bouncer’s requests 114 Ballpark fig. 75 76

COSMIC CAFE Evolutionary Eating

How to tune up your frequency by changing your diet BY CAROL MANN

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Carol Mann is a longtime Jackson resident, radio personality, former Grand Targhee Resort owner, author, and clairvoyant. Got a Cosmic Question? Email carol@yourcosmiccafe.com

WINDSHIELD

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

As we do our part to increase our frequency, we will enjoy greater well-being in body, mind and spirit and clean up the environment from toxic chemicals. Evolutionary benefits are also predicted as we are simultaneously calibrating to the new energies streaming into our planet. For example, it is anticipated that more of the potential encoded in our DNA will activate. To further support the DNA upgrade, previously untapped capacities of our brains will come on-line. Some scientists foresee that accompanying advances to our consciousness will make telepathy, time travel, instant healing, and expanded sensory perception part of our repertoire. For the here and now, as best-selling author Michael Pollan advises us, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” PJH

Terry Winchell and Claudia Bonnist P.O. Box 3790 . 375 S. Cache Street . Jackson, Wyoming 83001 307-690-2669 or Toll Free 866-690-2669 Fax 307-734-1330 Email: TW@fightingbear.com Website: www.fightingbear.com

Scientists agree that the solar system is moving into a part of the galaxy where the energy frequencies are much higher than we have experienced in the past. The acceleration is catalyzing an evolutionary upgrade for our earth. If we choose to evolve with our planet, we have to help ourselves calibrate to the upshift in consciousness. There are many ways to support our spiritual awakening, many of which have appeared in this column. Let’s consider how the adage “you are what you eat” applies to upgrading our spiritual frequency. Foods are vibrational energies; they are life force translated into matter. When choosing to evolve, what you put into your body needs to be of the highest frequency possible, which means eating with purpose. If you are drawn to support your evolution with food, plants are the highest vibration because they are able to directly translate light frequencies into matter. Choose from the large variety of vegetables, herbs, fruits, seeds and nuts which are whole, fresh, seasonal, non-GMO and organic. If you’d prefer to eat some meat, seafood and /or dairy, the best options are organic, humanely treated and wild sourced. When animals are mistreated, fed chemically laden food, slaughtered inhumanely and their meat processed, the amount of life force in the vibratory essence of the food is drastically reduced. It goes without saying that any food subjected to toxic chemicals, genetic modification or those highly processed have a low vibration, which offers little to no food value and contributes to lowering the frequency of our consciousness. David Wolfe, a prolific author and proponent of food as the key to greater well-being and higher consciousness, researched the colors of food and what each color frequency is designed to facilitate for our well-being. Red is blood building and heart strengthening. Orange is

anti-inflammatory, happiness in action. Yellow foods build and repair tissue and aid immune system development. Green foods neutralize, deodorize, detoxify and cleanse the liver. Blue foods feed creativity, stem cells, bone marrow, the throat and the thyroid. Purple foods protect the gut, central nervous system, the brain and the eyes. Brown nourish the intestines, a digestive tract tonic if you will. White foods, meanwhile, benefit the lungs and the immune system, tabula rasa, source energy. Black foods nourish jing (primordial lifeforce essence), longevity, marrow and the kidneys. When preparing food, if you are fully present and in your heart, the process of making a meal becomes a meditation which infuses your extra love energy into what you eat. Here are three more high frequency additions to practice as you enjoy your food. 1.State the intention silently or aloud that you are eating for the purpose of advancing your consciousness. 2. Express gratitude for what you are about to eat. 3. Eat slowly and mindfully, being aware of the food, how it tastes and how it feels in your body.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

22 | AUGUST 1, 2018

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNY

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) “Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.” A character named Julia says that in Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited. I bring it to your attention as an inspiring irritant, as a prod to get you motivated. I hope it will mobilize you to rise up and refuse to allow your past and your future to press so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present. It’s a favorable time for you to fully claim the glory of being right here, right now. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) I’m not an ascetic who believes all our valuable lessons emerge from suffering. Nor am I a pop-nihilist who sneers at pretty flowers, smiling children, and sunny days. On the contrary: I’m devoted to the hypothesis that life is usually at least 51 percent wonderful. But I dance the rain dance when there’s an emotional drought in my personal life, and I dance the pain dance when it’s time to deal with difficulties I’ve ignored. How about you, Virgo? I suspect that now is one of those times when you need to have compassionate heart-to-heart conversations with your fears, struggles, and aches.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) “Don’t try to steer the river,” writes Deepak Chopra. Most of the time, I agree with that idea. It’s arrogant to think that we have the power to control the forces of nature or the flow of destiny or the song of creation. Our goal should be to get an intuitive read on the crazy-making miracle of life, and adapt ourselves ingeniously to its ever-shifting patterns and rhythms. But wait! Set aside everything I just said. An exception to the usual rule has arrived. Sometimes, when your personal power is extra flexible and robust—like now, for you—you may indeed be able to steer the river a bit.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Taurus socialite Stephen Tennant (1906-1987) was such an interesting luminary that three major novelists created fictional characters modeled after him. As a boy, when he was asked what he’d like to be when he grew up, he replied, “I want to be a great beauty.” I’d love to hear those words spill out of your mouth, Taurus. What? You say you’re already all grown up? I doubt it. In my opinion, you’ve still got a lot of stretching and expansion and transformation to accomplish during the coming decades. So yes: I hope you can find it in your wild heart to proclaim, “When I grow up, I want to be a great beauty.” (P.S. Your ability to become increasingly beautiful will be at a peak during the next fourteen months.) GEMINI (May 21-June 20) “Manage with bread and butter until God sends the honey,” advises a Moroccan proverb. Let’s analyze how this advice might apply to you. First thing I want to know is, have you been managing well with bread and butter? Have you refrained from whining about your simple provisions, resting content and grateful? If you haven’t, I doubt that any honey will arrive, ether from God or any other source. But if you have been celebrating your modest gifts, feeling free of greed and displeasure, then I expect at least some honey will show up soon.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Don’t worry your beautiful head about praying to the gods of luck and fate. I’ll take care of that for you. Your job is to propitiate the gods of fluid discipline and hard but smart work. To win the favor of these divine helpers, act on the assumption that you now have the power and the right to ask for more of their assistance than you have before. Proceed with the understanding that they are willing to provide you with the stamina, persistence, and attention to detail you will need to accomplish your next breakthrough. 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.

The absentee polling site is located in the basement of the Teton County Administration Building at 200 S. Willow St., and will be open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., through August 20th, 2018. You must go to a Vote Center to vote on Election Day, August 21, 2018 Please contact the County Clerk’s office for Vote Center locations on Election Day, or for any information regarding the August 21st, 2018 Primary Election and November 6th, 2018 General Election. Visit our website: elections@tetoncountywy.gov Email us: elections@tetoncountywy.gov Call: 307.733.4430

AUGUST 1, 2018 | 23

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Time does not necessarily heal all wounds. If you wait around passively, hoping that the mere passage of months will magically fix your twists and smooth out your tweaks, you’re shirking your responsibility. The truth is, you need to be fully engaged in the process. You’ve got to feel deeply and think hard about how to diminish your pain, and then take practical action when your wisdom shows you what will actually work. Now is an excellent time to upgrade your commitment to this sacred quest.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) I predict that August will be a Golden Age for you. That’s mostly very good. Golden opportunities will arise, and you’ll come into possession of lead that can be transmuted into gold. But it’s also important to be prudent about your dealings with gold. Consider the fable of the golden goose. The bird’s owner grew impatient because it laid only one gold egg per day; he foolishly slaughtered his prize animal to get all the gold immediately. That didn’t work out well. Or consider the fact that to the ancient Aztecs, the word teocuitlatl referred to gold, even though its literally translation was “excrement of the gods.” Moral of the story: If handled with care and integrity, gold can be a blessing.

If you are not registered to vote by 5:00 p.m. August 6th, you may only register while voting at the absentee polling site, or on Election Day at any Vote Center. Additionally, no political party changes can be made between August 7th and August 20th, unless you appear in person and vote by absentee or take an absentee ballot home. Political parties can be changed on Election Day at any Vote Center.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) “Dear Astrologer: Recently I’ve been weirdly obsessed with wondering how to increase my levels of generosity and compassion. Not just because I know it’s the right thing to do, but also because I know it will make me healthy and honest and unflappable. Do you have any sage advice? -Ambitious Sagittarius.” Dear Ambitious: I’ve noticed that many Sagittarians are feeling an unprecedented curiosity about how to enhance their lives by boosting the benevolence they express. Here’s a tip from astrologer Chani Nicholas: “Source your sense of self from your integrity in every interaction.” Here’s another tip from Anais Nin: “The worse the state of the world grows, the more intensely I try for inner perfection and power. I fight for a small world of humanity and tenderness.”

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) A scuffle you’ve been waging turns out to be the wrong scuffle. It has distracted you from giving your full attention to a more winnable and worthwhile tussle. My advice? Don’t waste energy feeling remorse about the energy you’ve wasted. In fact, be grateful for the training you’ve received. The skills you’ve been honing while wrestling with the misleading complication will serve you well when you switch your focus to the more important issue. So are you ready to shift gears? Start mobilizing your crusade to engage with the more winnable and worthwhile tussle.

On Monday, August 6th, 2018 voter registration for the Primary Election will close.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) Do you absolutely need orchids, sweet elixirs, dark chocolate, alluring new music, dances on soft grass, sensual massages, nine hours of sleep per night, and a steady stream of soulful conversations? No. Not really. In the coming days, life will be a good ride for you even if you fail to procure those indulgences. But here are further questions and answers: Do you deserve the orchids, elixirs, and the rest? My answer is yes, definitely. And would the arrival of these delights spur you to come up with imaginative solutions to your top two riddles? I’m pretty sure it would. So I conclude this horoscope by recommending that you do indeed arrange to revel in your equivalent of the delights I named.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) The questions you’ve been asking aren’t bad or wrong. But they’re not exactly relevant or helpful, either. That’s why the answers you’ve been receiving aren’t of maximum use. Try these questions instead. 1. What experience or information would you need to heal your divided sense of loyalty? 2. How can you attract an influence that would motivate you to make changes you can’t quite accomplish under your own power? 3. Can you ignore or even dismiss the 95 percent of your fear that’s imaginary so you’ll be able to focus on the five percent that’s truly worth meditating on? 4. If I assured you that you have the intelligence to beautify an ugly part of your world, how would you begin?

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

24 | AUGUST 1, 2018

J UL IAN R ACHL IN

“He is technically flawless—stunning in fact—and his eloquence is unfailingly persuasive.” - GRAMOPHONE

A TO P CL ASSI CA L M USI C FEST I VA L - T H E N E W YO R K T IM ES T H I S

W E E K

Wednesday, August 1 at 3PM

Wednesday, August 1 at 8PM

Thursday, August 2 at 3PM

Thursday, August 2 at 8PM

Donald Runnicles in Conversation with Composer-In-Residence Kareem Roustom

GTMF Presents: Pianist Olga Kern

Free Family Concert: GTMF Percussion Trio

$25

Teton County Library, Alta Free, but ticketed

Chamber Music with Violinist Julian Rachlin $25

Friday, August 3 at 8PM & Saturday, August 4 at 6PM

Festival Orchestra: Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto $25–$55

Teton County Library, Jackson Free, but ticketed

Tickets