COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT | MARCH 2020
VOL. 8 | NO. 3
AB 5 was supposed to make things better for “gig economy” workers—but it’s threatening the livelihood of independent musicians By Kevin Allman
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EAT. DRINK. GIVE BACK. THURSDAY APRIL 30 DINE OUT. END HIV. OUR COMMUNITY IN ACTION BENEFITTING
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A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR Mailing address: 31855 Date Palm Drive, No. 3-263 Cathedral City, CA 92234 (760) 904-4208 www.cvindependent.com
Editor/Publisher Jimmy Boegle staff writer Kevin Fitzgerald coveR and feature design Beth Allen Contributors Kevin Allman, Jackie Botts, Max Cannon, Kevin Carlow, Katie Finn, Bill Frost, Bonnie Gilgallon, Andrea Gomez, Bob Grimm, Michael Grimm, Valerie-Jean (VJ) Hume, Matt Jones, Matt King, Keith Knight, Carlynne McDonnell, Brett Newton, Dan Perkins, Guillermo Prieto, Anita Rufus, Jen Sorenson, Robert Victor The Coachella Valley Independent print edition is published every month. All content is ©2020 and may not be published or reprinted in any form without the written permission of the publisher. The Independent is available free of charge throughout the Coachella Valley, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $5 by calling (760) 904-4208. The Independent may be distributed only by the Independent’s authorized distributors. The Independent is a proud member and/or supporter of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, CalMatters, Get Tested Coachella Valley, the Local Independent Online News Publishers, the Desert Business Association, the LGBT Community Center of the Desert, and the Desert Ad Fed.
This month’s cover story—by my friend Kevin Allman, who recently moved to Southern California after a 12-year stint as the editor of the Gambit weekly in New Orleans—examines the mess that Assembly Bill 5 has made for independent musicians. As the cover says … it’s a shit show. You can read the specifics on Page 12, but I wanted to point out something I discovered while editing and fact-checking Kevin’s story: This AB 5 mess marks the first time that a lot of young adults have had to seriously deal with the consequences of a new state law … and they’re pissed. One tongue-in-cheek comment I saw on a social-media account sums it up: “Yay California. Way to lift people up. Regulations is just what we need!” Actually … AB 5 was needed. It was just badly executed. In April 2018, in response to a case against a transportation company, the California Supreme Court ruled that a worker could only be considered an independent contractor (rather than an employee) if the worker met three specific criteria. As a result, the Legislature needed to step in and craft new law to clarify things … and that led to AB 5. Well, AB 5 arguably made a bad situation worse: In an attempt to “protect” Lyft and Uber drivers, as well as drivers for services like Postmates and Grubhub, by making sure they were classified as employees, Rep. Lorena Gonzalez pushed through legislation that, with neither rhyme nor reason, exempted some gigs, while not exempting others. Graphic artists and fine artists were exempted … while musicians were not. Freelance writers were exempted, but only if they write 35 pieces or fewer for a publication/website in a year. Why 35? I have no idea. Neither does anyone else. Take the situation Independent music scribe Matt King now faces. Matt, for the most part, decides what he writes about; he suggests story topics, and I say yea or nay while giving him a deadline. He works when he wants, where he wants, and is paid more than a minimum-wage equivalent for his work. Yet barring a change in the law, I’ll soon need to either bring him on as an employee, or let him go, if we want to comply with the law. Matt is also a musician and a band leader—and according to AB 5, he should be considered both an employee and an employer at his gigs now: He’d be an employee of the venue, and the employer of his band mates. It’s a shit show. The state and Democratic lawmakers are making a terrible impression on a whole lot of young residents as a result of AB 5—and who knows what future electoral consequences this may have? Welcome to the March 2020 print edition of the Coachella Valley Independent. Thanks for reading, and feel free to send feedback to the email address below. —Jimmy Boegle, jboegle@cvindependent.com CVIndependent.com
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OPINION PETS
CVINDEPENDENT.COM/OPINION
THE ULTIMATE GIFT OF LOVE T
BY CARLYNNE MCDONNELL
he love we receive from our animals is deep, beautiful, unconditional and extraordinary. The relationships we have with our animals are incredible: You might be aggravated with all the humans in your house or even in your life—but the magic woofie or kitty will always save the day. Whether you’re returning home for a trip or a simple errand outside, a pet is always happy to see you, wagging or barking to welcome you. This magical relationship makes it even more difficult, painful and heartbreaking to say goodbye. No matter how many years they live, it is never enough—and sadly, we often must make the decision to end their lives. It’s terrible to watch the decline of a pet. Sometimes it seemingly comes on suddenly—our eyes Yes, we call euthanasia the ultimate gift of are opened for the first time to a slowing gait, love—because that’s what you’re doing when a missed jump onto the couch, or the inability you’re ending your animal’s pain and suffering, to finish the usual walk. Sometimes we must while your heart is breaking. People always say watch as an illness takes hold. Regardless that they do not know how we do what we do. of how the end of the life of a beloved I always say: How can we not? These gentle approaches, it takes a toll—emotionally and and loving creatures are completely dependent physically. upon us for their well-being and care; in return, The hospice aspect of our sanctuary is the they give extraordinary love. How can we not most difficult—and it’s an aspect we deal with love these beloveds enough to say goodbye and a lot. We usually bring in senior dogs that are end their suffering? in the shelter system; they’ve been abandoned People also ask: How do we know when it by their family because the family can’t afford is time to say goodbye? It’s an easy (while still to pay for euthanasia, or perhaps they don’t heartbreaking) decision, after checking with want the responsibility of caring for an ill the veterinarian, if your animal can no longer senior dog. We know from the moment we get walk. It’s easy if your animal is too weak to the first request and/or see the first picture stand up or has lost bodily functions. It’s easy that the remaining life span will be short. if your animal no longer has any interest in Nonetheless, we approach each dog with the food or water. Be sure to ask the veterinarian if same hope—that there will be some sort of he or she is just extending the life or providing magic that restores quality of life or longevity. longer-term care. Veterinarians are life-saving We know that will almost never be the case, heroes—and sometimes it’s hard for them to but the heart wants differently. recommend saying goodbye. There have been times we have taken a dog But not every situation with an animal is straight from the shelter to the veterinarian to such an obvious crisis. It is the more subtle be euthanized, because the animal was dying, and the shelter did not want the responsibility. times that people need to be aware of: Suffering animals will sometimes still eat, drink and show We recently welcomed an older dog that wheezed and gasped. We tried a few medicines, you love, because you are their everything. Up to their last breath, they want to please you. Your and while he responded slightly, his level of great sadness and heartbreak should not stop discomfort was heartbreaking. Late at night, you from seeing clearly what is happening, and we took him into the ER vet and gave him the doing what is best for your animal. ultimate gift of love.
All pet owners need to be ready to say goodbye when the time comes
People always wonder after if they say goodbye if they did so too soon—if they did the right thing. Well, we say that it’s a good thing to wonder—because you will never forget if it was too late. We had a dog with congestive heart failure dog before we started Barkee LaRoux’s House of Love. She went into respiratory distress at the end of her life, because we were not paying enough attention. We have still not gotten over that experience. Do you want one more day or one more week with your animal if it’s truly suffering?
Trust me: We aren’t clinical about any of this. Our hearts break every time; we cry over every dog to whom we say goodbye. But every one of those dogs is held tightly, sung to or whispered to, and loved in the last minutes of their lives. Isn’t that something we all deserve? Carlynne McDonnell is the founder and CEO of Barkee LaRoux’s House of Love Animal Sanctuary, a senior animal sanctuary and hospice in the Coachella Valley. She has been rescuing animals since she was 4 years old.
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OPINION OPINION
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KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS L
BY ANITA RUFUS
anny Swerdlow, tongue firmly in cheek, introduced himself thusly: “I’m gay, Jewish, an atheist, a liberal, in a mixed marriage to a Native American, left-handed and a tree-hugger.” What else is there to know about this 73-year-old registered nurse? Quite a lot! Swerdlow was born and raised in Los Angeles, the younger of two brothers. His father died at 32 when Swerdlow was only 2 years old. “My ‘real’ dad was my mom’s second husband,” he says. “He was an accountant, somewhat distant, but a good dad and provider for our family. My mom lived a life of quiet desperation, pretty ignorant of the real world—but you have to remember that women in those days didn’t go very far. There were a lot of things she could and should have done that she never did. One of police department. Then they just stationed the lessons I got from that is: If I want to do two officers in front of the club, waiting for something, I do it … even if it’s not always a kids to come outside. good idea.” He laughs easily at himself. “I then went to the head of the police Swerdlow had a choice of high schools to bureau and began to learn about how politics attend in Los Angeles. “I could go to Fairfax High, which was very white and Jewish, or L.A. works. I told him we couldn’t run the club if he kept putting police in front of the club. High, which was very mixed.” He got on the phone, requested some budget He picked the latter. “I wanted something information—and then we never saw police different, and it opened my eyes to other there again. I learned that just because cultures. … I was interested in theater arts; I something isn’t right, that doesn’t mean it will wanted to go into that, because that’s what get fixed. I also learned that something can ‘homos’ did.” Instead, he got a degree in get done if you have something hanging over zoology and later studied fisheries’ biology. someone’s head, like the threat to take away Swerdlow surprised his family when he budget money. My experience with the club came out as gay. “They had come to visit me in taught me not to just trust the system.” Oregon, where I was working for the state Fish The nightclub, which was sold in 1997, Commission, and were surprised to learn of included a mini-studio for making films. “We my feelings. My mom cried; my dad was upset. did Night Scene for local TV with a focus on gay They were my liberal parents! Then they said I issues, and another show called Outrageous, wouldn’t be happy for the rest of my life. I told and then a show about cannabis common them I would go straight, but I couldn’t play that role. When I finally confronted them, they sense, to help push toward legalization. The kids did the shows, including learning how to accepted me for who I am.” do the technical stuff.” Swerdlow got involved with the gaySwerdlow’s parents lived in Palm Springs, liberation movement in Oregon. He started so he and his husband, Victor Michel—his a newspaper, and the police-advisory board partner for more than 27 years—would often asked him to join and represent the groups come down to visit them. Swerdlow’s mom had with which he was involved. taken ill and needed help, so he and Michel “Every Friday and Saturday night, young came to the Coachella Valley and stayed; they people would congregate on a street corner, and the police had tried to do something about now live in Whitewater. “We like it there,” he says. “There’s no it for years,” Swerdlow says. “At one meeting, businesses, very little traffic, lots of places to they asked me where else they could go. Six hike, and it’s close to the middle of nowhere, kids had come into my office to raise money to but not too far from somewhere.” open a club, so I told them to find a place, and His path toward becoming a nurse began I’d help bankroll it. A Realtor friend found a when he got a call from the hospital about place, but it was a disaster. I got seven kids to his dad. help me do the work, and they worked seven “I realized he couldn’t take care of himself days a week for 10 to 12 hours a day. I gave anymore, and I decided to become a medical them a 49 percent stake in the business. tech, ultimately going to College of the Desert “We opened an underage gay/lesbian and graduating as a registered nurse in 2006,” nightclub which became well-known, but he says. overnight, the problems began. The police Swerdlow became involved in Democratic started coming and busting kids for curfew Party politics, representing a Riverside County violations, batting them around and dragging assembly district on the party’s state central them off. I consulted a lawyer and sent a letter committee. He serves on the San Gorgonio to the city attorney, who sent a letter to the
Meet Lanny Swerdlow, a registered nurse with a long and storied history of activism
Memorial Healthcare District’s board of directors. Swerdlow has been passionate about the legalization of marijuana for many years. As a nurse, he is cognizant of the medical benefits of marijuana use, and has specifically championed the need for the Veterans Administration to make it available, despite the federal government classifying it as a dangerous drug. He was instrumental in getting language into the state Democratic Party platform supporting legalization prior to the passage of Proposition 64. He also has an online radio program and leads the Marijuana Anti-Prohibition Project, focused on the Inland Empire. In 2012, Swerdlow started the Brownie Mary Democrats of California. “I wanted to form the ‘Democratic Cannabis Club,’ but they didn’t want me to put that name on it, so I named it after the woman who was known for baking 600 brownies a day and delivering them to AIDS patients in San Francisco,” he says. “I want to get more involved in health-care issues, especially the need to ensure that everybody has coverage. And I’ll stay focused on cannabis. With thousands of people on alcohol or drugs, they can get off using cannabis. It doesn’t solve their problems, but it doesn’t have all the down sides, either. We need on-site use localities, and it should be as available as liquor.” Lanny Swerdlow describes himself in a lot of different ways. I describe him as an effective activist.
Lanny Swerdlow.
Anita Rufus is also known as “The Lovable Liberal.” Her show That’s Life airs weekdays on iHubradio, while The Lovable Liberal airs from 10 a.m. to noon, Sundays. Email her at Anita@ LovableLiberal.com. Know Your Neighbors appears every other Wednesday at CVIndependent.com.
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CLARIFYING BOUNDARIES A
by kevin fitzgerald
fter enjoying pizza and salad compliments of the city of Palm Desert, more than 100 residents—including the two plaintiffs in the ongoing legal process spawned by the city’s previous failure to move from at-large elections to district-based elections—convened on Feb. 12 for the “Public Open House No. 2: A Conversation About District Boundaries for City Elections” at the Palm Desert Community Center. During a similar January event, city officials implied that a new elections system with just two districts was a foregone conclusion—even though it was not, as we learned in subsequent conversations with the city attorney and an unhappy plaintiff in the lawsuit, based on the 2001 of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed against California Voting Rights Act. However, city the city, said she was pleased by the turnout. representatives at the Feb. 12 gathering were, She and her co-litigant, Lorraine Salas, agreed at times, more candid, with more of an effort to the preliminary settlement, they said, to made to explain the steps involved in the city’s save the city from an expensive court fight, adoption of the lawsuit settlement. in hopes that city residents would speak up in Still, remarks and presentations made by the mandated public forums—and that’s what City Manager Lauri Aylaian and Douglas happened at the Feb. 12 gathering. Johnson, president of the National “My impression was that the residents are Demographics Corporation—hired by the city trying to hold the city accountable for what to help facilitate the creation of the districts— (the city’s) intent is in pressing for only two were met by shared groans and chuckles from districts,” Quintanilla said. “It made me feel residents in attendance, who seemed skeptical pleased, because what Lorraine and I intended of the assertions being made. was to have the settlement foster community After the meeting, Karina Quintanilla, one
CVIndependent.com
Palm Desert residents now have a chance to offer input on the city’s new election districts
Douglas Johnson (seated in suit and tie), president of the National Demographics Corporation, listens as Karina Quintanilla shares her thoughts at the Feb. 12 forum. Kevin Fitzgerald
engagement and people to voice their opinions. It was wonderful to see that. It was great to be able to speak to a couple of the residents and give them my firsthand (input) on our decision to settle, as well as our commitment to continue to work for five districts. “But during the Q&A portion of the meeting,” Quintanilla continued, “I was very displeased that, when City Manager Aylaian was asked, ‘Who proposed two districts?’ she mischaracterized (our position) and implied that we had proposed having only two districts That’s why I made sure to speak up and clarify that we never made that decision.” Johnson urged residents to construct their own election-district maps and submit them to the City Council via the NDC’s online platform. (Residents can also print out a hard copy of their map and send it to the City Council.) We reached out to the city’s public information officer, David Hermann, via email to ask how seriously the council would consider any resident proposals. “Residents may submit two-district or fivedistrict maps,” Hermann replied. “The fivedistrict maps will be kept in the records and provided to council, but only processed and posted if council directs that they be processed.” In other words, according to Hermann, the City Council retains the right to dismiss any residents’ proposals out of hand: There is no requirement that the council share proposals with the plaintiffs or other city residents. In response to another question, Hermann said district plans could not be put up to a vote by residents because of a lack of time: “Plaintiffs wanted a solution implemented in time for the November 2020 council elections.” Quintanilla clarified her and Salas’ intentions with the settlement. “(The final settlement agreement proposal from the City Council) was so terrible that we just decided there was no point to dragging out
things behind closed doors,” Quintanilla said. “So, one of the results was to bring it out (in front of the public), but we did not say, ‘Let’s get this over with and get on to the election.’ That was, by far, not our intent.” While Quintanilla was heartened by the public turnout at the Feb. 12 meeting, she was disappointed by what she perceived as an unnecessarily confrontational stance taken by city representatives toward the plaintiffs and inquiring residents. “Many of us found it to be a derogatory expression when they kept saying that it was a ‘tsunami of changes’ coming through (as a result of the Voting Rights Act non-compliance lawsuit),” Quintanilla said. “Is it really a tsunami, which is a devastating, terrible natural disaster? Is democracy a natural disaster? How is civic engagement a natural disaster? Change is not a bad thing.” As for those map proposals: Quintanilla said she and Salas definitely planned on submitting a five-district map to the city for consideration. “Now that we’ve been to the meeting and seen the (map-creation) tools that were presented, we’re going to submit a map,” she said. “We want to have the discussion be about, ‘What is the goal for the city of Palm Desert?’ Is it all about El Paseo and beautification? That is not what defines a city. The city (representatives) have said repeatedly that the (advantage) of having the ‘at-large’ council was to preserve unity, community and working together. So, how does creating two or more districts impede that?” Palm Desert residents who desire more information about the ongoing process, offered from the plaintiffs’ point of view, can go to the Facebook page created by Quintanilla: www. facebook.com/District1PalmDesert. Residents who would like to take advantage of the Palm Desert district-map creation digital tools may visit www.representpd.org.
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CANDIDATE Q&A O
by kevin fitzgerald
n Nov. 1, 2019, District 28 State Sen. Jeff Stone, a Republican, resigned to become the western regional director of President Donald Trump’s Department of Labor. On March 3—the day of California’s primary election, as well as Super Tuesday nationally—voters will start the process of choosing Stone’s replacement. Five candidates—three Democrats and two Republicans—are running in the district, which reaches from Temecula Valley in the west to the Colorado River in the east, and includes nearly the entire Coachella Valley. Presuming no candidate gets a majority of the vote, the top two finishers will move on to a special vote on May 12, and the winner will serve the final two years with trees, so that we have a big park, which of the term. will also be good for the wildlife. They should The Independent recently spoke to all of the have done that right away. Then (we) use what candidates and asked each of them the same revenues we have and work together with the set of questions, on topics ranging from the private sector to use the algae, because we have Salton Sea, to their personal accomplishments, a lot of algae, which are good for renewable to California’s primary format. To read the energy. There’s talk about bringing water in complete answers, edited only for style and from the Sea (of Cortez) and using recycled clarity, visit CVIndependent.com; here, you’ll water to help regenerate the sea. But you have find their answers on one Salton Sea-based question, edited for space, style and clarity, and to be sure before you can say there’s a plan. People can say, “This is what I want,” but it presented in the same order as the certified list has to be realistic. of candidates. That question: What specific steps would Elizabeth Romero you recommend to stop the erosion Assistant vice chancellor of governmental and evaporation of the Salton Sea, and community relations at UC Riverside to mitigate the negative effects of the Democrat, 36 multiple health threats already evidenced As a resident of the eastern Coachella Valley, in the eastern Coachella Valley, such as obviously I have firsthand experience and increased asthma and respiratory illness? knowledge about what is happening in and around the sea, especially related to some Anna Nevenic of the environmental-justice issues that are Retired registered nurse, currently impacting our communities. I think nonprofit director and author the most important thing is that we have to Democrat, 72 ensure that we are moving forward in a way We have been talking for some 20 years that is founded in science and research, so that about it, and we should have started doing we can find the best solution to mitigate— something about it years ago, because you not only the current dust (pollution being can’t fix that problem in one day or one year. dispersed into the air), but also find long term But we haven’t done any of that. We’ve just solutions that allow us to restore the sea, been researching and analyzing and wasting not only for habitat (redevelopment), but for more money in the process. economic development, as well as long term My plan always has been that we can’t save continuity of the sea. the whole lake. So we (should) cover the area
We talked to the five people running to replace Jeff Stone in State Senate District 28 If we have an option to bring water into the sea, which is something that I think has been on the table and is still being explored, then we should pursue that. So there are various proposals out there, and I’m open to listening to and assessing all of them. But what I think is really important now is to also leverage the $220 million in funding that has already been allocated in the budget through the water bond so that we can actually get some projects moving. Joy Silver Businesswoman; housing adviser; political activist Democrat, 64 I’m really happy to talk about (this issue), because, for me, running for this office is the continuation of working on the things that I’m already doing. A lot of times, politicians get elected and say, “When I get elected, I will do this and the other thing,” and they elucidate some things that they’ll accomplish should you elect them. But for me … it’s about continuing to finish what I’m already pursuing. … What’s important to know about the Salton Sea is the “sea-to-sea” solution which has received traction throughout the desert cities. Resolutions have been passed through a number of those city councils (supporting this approach) as an answer to stopping the erosion and evaporation of the Salton Sea. The recommendation of the Salton Sea Coalition—of which I’m a member—is to put the engineering in place to start what is called the “ocean water import.” Now, the second part of this is to support the declarations of emergency that have been passed by Imperial County. The first declaration of emergency regards the local emergency for air pollution. The second one addresses the stoppage of emptying raw sewage into the New River. Both of those emergency declarations are of critical importance to overcome the delays that have happened (while trying) to implement any of the projects. What is great about these declarations is that they mitigate the permitting issues, procurement issues and agencies getting in each other’s way, including using money, because once the declarations of emergency are accepted, (any corrective actions) can be paid for without another bond. The total state revenue is $146 billion, and the “rainy day fund” has $16.5 billion, and the budget surplus is $21.5 billion. So the money is there to move forward and mitigate the declarations of emergency on both the raw sewage and the air.
Melissa Melendez U.S. Navy veteran; California District 67 assembly member Republican, 52 From the people who I’ve talked to about this issue, and from the things we’ve seen coming through Sacramento, I can say from the beginning that we really need more money. The government really needs to step up here and help us out. But I do think there are things we can do in conjunction with that, which range from some wetland development along the edges and the open areas. We can partner with state, local and federal entities on that. I would say we could be creating some habitats in there, too. These would be habitats that the community could access as well. We could provide some other amenities in there to really get community buy-in. The reality is that we need more water out there, which we can do in the future by bringing it in from new sources. I feel like we’ve just been standing still on this issue. A little bit of money gets thrown in there, but then the situation doesn’t change. I think that some of the things I mentioned are things we can do immediately. I think the governor promised about $220 million, but that is contingent on the bond measure passing. So what happens if the bond measure doesn’t pass? I don’t think that’s a fair solution. While I appreciate the (governor’s promise to direct) $220 million, let’s be honest: It’s going to take more than $220 million to solve this problem. John Schwab U.S. Marine veteran; owner and operator of a residential facility for developmentally disabled adults; real estate/mortgage broker Republican, 43 Ever since I was stationed at the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base, they’ve been talking about cleaning up the Salton Sea forever—and they just haven’t done anything. So we really need to take care of it, because it’s just become more of a problem with all the respiratory infections out there. I’m willing to work on coming up with a solution to help start cleaning it up. I’ve come up with some ideas that can help the area out there, because they just keep kicking the can down the road. Nothing’s getting done, and it’s just getting worse. … I’d like to talk to a lot of people about the environmental impact reports for that area and what needs to be done. We’re talking, in my estimation, about years of cleanup. It’s not going to happen quickly, but it is something that needs to be addressed. CVIndependent.com
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DISCRIMINATION OR THE FUTURE?
L
by JACKIE BOTTS, CALMATTERS
ast May, Burger Patch opened its doors in midtown Sacramento—with a sign that said “No Cash Accepted.” The owners of the organic and vegan burger joint were worried that a cash register might invite theft. But customers kept showing up with only cash. Sometimes the cashiers would accept it, working around the digital system; other times, they’d simply give the customer a free meal. About a month in, Burger Patch changed course, deciding to install a cash register after all. “We want to be able to have everyone come and eat here, no matter what,” said Zia Simmons, who has worked at the restaurant since it opened. “We don’t want to ever have to be like, ‘Well, if low-income. you don’t have a card, you can’t eat here.’” “I don’t think it’s intentionally A small but growing number of businesses discrimination. But that’s in fact what they’re are no longer accepting cash. Owners say that doing,” Hill said. Cashless stores “may be the accepting only credit cards, debit cards or thing of the future, (but) it’s not there yet.” digital wallets like Apple Pay is more efficient That’s why Hill recently introduced a bill to and lowers the risk of being robbed. Electronic require that all brick-and-mortar businesses in forms of payments are gaining popularity with California accept cash. consumers. If passed, California would become the third But the cash-free trend has raised concerns state, after Massachusetts and New Jersey, to that such shops exclude customers who ban cashless businesses before they become rely exclusively on cash. Sen. Jerry Hill, a widespread. San Francisco, Philadelphia and Democrat from San Mateo, says this amounts New York City passed similar ordinances in the to discrimination against people without past year, and Washington, D.C., is currently credit cards or bank accounts, who tend to be
CVIndependent.com
Many low-income Californians don’t use credit cards—so a new bill would prohibit most businesses from going cashless
Sacramento’s Burger Patch hasn’t taken down the “No Cash Accepted” sign on its front door, even though it began accepting cash about a month after opening last May. Jackie Botts/CalMatters
considering a ban. California residents with limited resources are far more likely to use cash. While 7.4 percent of California households do not have banks, the rate among households earning less than $15,000 per year is 27.3 percent, according to a 2017 survey by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. People of color, immigrants and disabled people are also more likely to be excluded by a cashless economy. In California, 20.5 percent of black households and 14.5 percent of Hispanic households do not use banks, according to the survey data. The rate is 24.8 percent among households that speak only Spanish at home, and 20.7 percent among adults with disabilities. Single mothers lack access to bank accounts at a rate more than twice that of single fathers. “When retailers don’t accept cash, they’re effectively locking out workers in low-wage jobs, communities of color and our homeless neighbors,” said Andrea Zinder, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council, which has endorsed the bill, in a statement. People between the ages of 25 and 44 pay with cash less often than people who are older or younger—about one-fifth of the time, compared with one-third, according to a 2019 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Under the proposed law, if a business turns away a customer who only has cash, it could face a civil penalty between $25 and $500. Online retailers would be excluded, as would car-rental businesses. No groups have filed opposition against the bill yet, but Hill expects that retailers may put up a fight. Around 10 percent of the nearly 100,000 businesses that use Square, a financial checkout service, are cashless, according to a recent national study from the company. The California Retailers Association has not
yet taken a position on the bill, said president and CEO Rachel Michelin. An uptick in retail theft has spurred some smaller retailers to turn toward electronic payments to avoid keeping cash behind the counter. She said the bill might be “premature,” given that she hasn’t observed a widespread trend in stores going cashless, other than in more techy areas like Silicon Valley. Hill said the issue came on his radar when he walked into a restaurant in San Mateo last year. “I saw there’s a sign there that said, ‘We don’t accept cash.’ That kind of shocked me and surprised me,” Hill said. “That seemed almost like they were discriminating against those who did not have the ability to pay an electronic transaction, and for me, that raised a flag.” The store was Sweetgreen, a build-your-own salad eatery with a sleek tech aesthetic, where a typical bowl costs upward of $10. The chain phased out cash transactions in 2017 but reversed course last year. “Going cashless … had the unintended consequence of excluding those who prefer to pay or can only pay with cash,” the company explained in a blog post last April. “To accomplish our mission, everyone in the community needs to have access to real food.” Amazon’s cashier-less automated convenience store, called Amazon Go, also decided to phase in the ability to take cash after facing backlash. To Hill, that’s evidence that companies can transition back “without great difficulty.” “I don’t know if (this bill) is as big of a deal for (retailers) as those who are now discriminated against because they cannot pay with cash,” Hill said. Jackie Botts is a reporter at CalMatters. This article is part of The California Divide, a collaboration among newsrooms examining income inequity and economic survival in California.
COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 11
MARCH 2020
NEWS
CVINDEPENDENT.COM/NEWS
MARCH ASTRONOMY
The three bright outer planets Planets and Bright Stars Evening converge thisinmonth forMid-Twilight a For March, 2020 Thisonce-in-20-years sky chart is drawn for latituderendezvous 34 degrees north,
I
but may be used in southern U.S. and northern Mexico. N
By Robert Victor
n the western sky after sunset, Venus in late March attains its highest position at dusk and its longest duration of visibility in a dark sky for 2020. All three bright outer planets—Mars, Jupiter and Saturn—cluster in the southeast before dawn. Don’t miss their rare, once-in-20-years compact gathering from March 18-31. In midMarch, Mercury reaches its highest position during a poor morning twilight appearance, very low in the east-southeast. Binoculars will help you find the innermost planet well to lower left of the outer-planet threesome. In the March evening sky, the huge Winter Hexagon of bright stars is in fine view, with Sirius, the brightest star, crossing through the south, and Capella, its second-brightest member, passing north of overhead. In clockwise bright outer planets span 18.5 degrees on order, locate Sirius, Procyon, Pollux-Castor, March 1, closing to 6.3 degrees at month’s end. Capella, Aldebaran, Rigel and back to Can you spot Mercury in the twilight glow to Sirius. Orion’s shoulder—red supergiant and their lower left? Binoculars help. future supernova Betelgeuse, inside the Early risers will be well rewarded by the rare hexagon—is still uncharacteristically faint morning scenes depicted on the illustration at this writing (matching the other shoulder from the March 2020 Sky Calendar here. Be star), but is expected to recover some of its sure to catch the compact gathering of the brilliance before the Winter Hexagon departs moon and three planets within a span of 8.3 from our view in the west in mid-May. Venus degrees on March 18, and the same three far outshines all these stars, and climbs to planets spanning just 7.1 to 6.3 degrees during its highest point around the date of greatest March 20-31, as Mars, in the foreground, elongation (maximum angular distance from passes from Jupiter toward Saturn. Watch the sun), on March 24. Telescopes show Venus’ Mars pass within 0.7 degrees of Jupiter on phase, then half full. The crescent moon skips March 20, and 0.9 degrees of Saturn on March past Venus on March 27 and 28, passing widely 31. Several morning scenes of the threesome, south of the planet. Catch the Pleiades star as well as scenes of the moon’s return to cluster (the Seven Sisters) within 5 degrees evening sky, appear in this excerpt from the of Venus for 11 evenings, March 29-April 8. March Sky Calendar. Binoculars give stunning nightly views! Check the website of the Astronomical On April 1, two days before the very Society of the Desert at www.astrorx.org close pairing of Venus with third-magnitude for a schedule of star parties. The primary, Alcyone, or Eta Tauri, the brightest member more-accessible location for our star parties of the Pleiades, they’re within 1.8 degrees. is the Visitor Center of the Santa Rosa and They’ll be less than 0.3 degrees apart on April San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, 3, when binoculars will certainly be handy for on Highway 111, within four miles south of observing the very close conjunction! Venus Highway 111 in Palm Desert. Our next session will be moving east against background stars there will be on Saturday, March 28, from 7 to by about 0.9 degrees per day, pulling away 10 p.m. Sawmill Trailhead, our high-altitude from the Pleiades. On April 5, Venus and site (elevation 4,000 feet), will have a star Alcyone are 1.9 degrees apart. party starting at dusk on Saturday, March In the morning sky, bright Jupiter attracts 21. The list of star parties on the society’s our attention to the southeast, where the three website includes maps and directions for both
March's evening sky chart. ROBERT D. MILLER Deneb
Arcturus
Capella
E
Regulus
Castor Pollux Aldebaran Procyon
29 22 Venus 15 8 1
W
Betelgeuse
Rigel Sirius
Canopus
Evening mid-twilight occurs
O locations. Star be cancelled in poor whenparties Sun is 9can below horizon. Mar. 1: 39 minutes after sunset. observing weather. 15: 39to check " " the" Impromptu Also, remember 31: 40 " " " Star Parties link on the Astronomical Society’s webpage. I’ll be offering sky watches in Palm Springs at the pedestrian bridge over Tahquitz Creek at North Riverside Drive and Camino Real and at other locations. Some sessions will be held in the daytime or at dusk to observe
S
Stereographic Projection
the changing phases ofMap Venus, andD.some by Robert Millerin the predawn to follow the gathering of the three bright outer planets. Abrams Planetarium publishes a monthly Sky Calendar with an evening sky map. Subscriptions are $12 per year at www. abramsplanetarium.org/SkyCalendar/index. html for three printed issues mailed quarterly. The March 2020 issue of the calendar will feature the rare compact gathering of the three bright outer planets in predawn skies, and Venus ascending to its greatest height in the evening sky. Wishing you clear skies! Robert C. Victor was a staff astronomer at Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University. Now retired, he often collaborates with John S. French on the Sky Calendar, and enjoys providing sky-watching opportunities for a variety of groups, mostly in the California desert and in Michigan. CVIndependent.com
12 \\ COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT
MARCH 2020
“IT‘S A SHIT SHOW”
By Kevin Allman
MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN about
AB 5 was supposed to make things better for “gig economy” workers—but it’s threatening the livelihood of independent musicians
people. You get hired by a food-and-bev person or assistant manager.”
THE MORE WORD SPREADS about
AB 5, the worse things will get—until the Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), the legislation signed Legislature fixes the mess it created. into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year that “Beyond the financial, legal and redefines how California companies can hire administrative mess created by AB 5, freelancers and contract workers—and much communities face even more of that writing has focused on Lyft and Uber profound threats from the new drivers, as well as freelance writers, who have law,” wrote Brendan Rawson, been hit hard by the law. the executive director of San But there’s another, less-discussed group Jose Jazz, in a commentary for of people whose livelihoods the CalMatters. “Segments of are being threatened by AB 5: our cultural and civic life are at freelance musicians. risk of going out of existence.” As the law is written, a Rawson wrote: “AB 5 musician hired for a one-off gig unnecessarily complicates at a club or restaurant could be other work arrangements considered both an employee found in community cultural and an employer, if he or she programming such as small put together a combo for the festivals, neighborhood street fairs, parades occasion. A musician hiring a and summer music series in our local parks.” producer once to help out on an Indeed, non-Equity theaters and album also would be considered dance companies are grappling with the an employer. And if musicians implications of AB 5. Island City Opera in perform paid work at houses of Alameda has canceled its planned March Left: Avenida Music’s Josiah Gonzalez: “If they really crack down on this, it could really affect our gigs.” worship on a regular basis, according to AB 5 performance of the opera The Wreckers over Right: Barry Martin, aka DJ Baz: “Should any enforcement begin, thousands of musicians will lose their as it stands now, a church or synagogue would concerns with paying temporary musicians, gigs across the state and not be booked again until an exemption for musicians is in place.” have to make them employees. and Herstand says he knows of a production While almost everyone agrees a “carve out” of West Side Story where the singers now will perform to recordings rather than the live music needs to be made in AB 5’s language to allow small and non-union musicians to make a living, that was planned, putting more than a dozen musicians out of a gig. that has not happened yet—and musicians and club owners are grappling not only with the For what it’s worth, Tamara Stevens, executive administrator of the Palm Springs bill’s prohibitions, but also its confusing language. Many professions are exempted, including Hospitality Association (PSHA), wrote in an email: “PSHA has not taken a position on AB 5.” “fine artists,” but the definition of “fine artist” isn’t clear legally. Herstand was part of a coalition that met with Assemblywoman Gonzalez to explain In a recent interview with KQED-TV, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, the San Diego the musicians’ dilemma. While he initially wrote on his blog that he was encouraged by lawmaker who authored AB 5, said, “Obviously, a muralist is a fine artist. A musician is a fine the December meeting, when the Independent spoke to him for this story in February, he artist.” But Gonzalez’s words don’t translate into law. expressed concern. “I think it will be very hard to find anyone complying with this law as it stands,” says Barry “I think Assemblywoman Gonzalez is pretty much dogmatic about her position; she doesn’t Martin, aka DJ Baz, a music promoter who stages the weekly Jazzville Palm Springs series seem willing to budge on this,” he says. at Wang’s in the Desert in Palm Springs. “And should any enforcement begin, thousands of musicians will lose their gigs across the state and not be booked again until an exemption for SEVERAL MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE have crafted new carve-out bills for a variety musicians is in place.” of professions, including for freelance writers, sign-language interpreters and newspaperdelivery drivers. SB 881, authored by state Sen. Brian Jones, for instance, would exempt ARI HERSTAND, A SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MUSICIAN and author (How to Make It in musicians and make many other tweaks to the law. the New Music Business) who has covered AB 5’s effects on his blog Ari’s Take (www.aristake. But Herstand says that the makeup of that particular bill’s sponsors—Jones and nine other com), is more blunt. signatories all are Republicans—may doom its prospects. “It’s a shit show with all the powerful organizations and unions,” Herstand wrote in January. “A bill in a Democratic state like California needs Democratic backers,” Herstand says, “and “And while they are throwing their proverbial dicks around breaking out their rulers, thousands of independent, working musicians are suffering. We do not have time to wait for them to agree Democrats will not buck the unions behind this.” Meanwhile, Assemblywoman Gonzalez is touting upcoming carve-outs for freelance on where the commas should be placed (in carve-out language).” writers, but said in a Feb. 6 tweet that musicians still will have to wait a bit. “We are still Herstand began a petition on change.org urging the Legislature to enact an exemption for pushing hard on industry and worker representatives to reach agreement on language musicians. As of this writing, it has nearly 168,000 signatures. “If (AB 5) stands,” he says, “I regarding musicians,” she tweeted. “We plan to address the unique situation regarding figure I’ll lose about $6,000 a year. I’d have to carry workers’ comp insurance (and) have to musicians in the next round of amendments by March. We are working hard on musicians enlist a payroll company, and file payroll taxes per employee—I may contract 50 people during issues!” the year. And I would be considered both an employer and an employee at the exact same gig.” While politicians tussle and posture over AB 5, it’s independent musicians like Josiah Josiah Gonzalez is one of the members of popular Coachella Valley band Avenida Music, Gonzalez and the members of Avenida Music who suffer. which plays at parties, weddings and other events. He plays keyboards and does most of the “Most of the bands are just oblivious to (AB 5),” he says, “but if they really crack down on band’s booking and management. The band has been speaking out about the dangers of AB 5 this, it could really affect our gigs.” on its social-media accounts. Gonzalez said that right now, a lot of people don’t know about the language in AB 5. For example, Avenida plays regularly at casinos, which, Gonzalez says, “don’t have dedicated music Kevin Allman is a California-based journalist. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinallman. CVIndependent.com
COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 13
MARCH 2020
SECRETS ABOUT NOT HAVING ENOUGH TIME TO TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES
By Shonda Chase, FNP Nurse Practitioner, Co-owner, Artistic Director and Advanced Aesethetic Injector at Revive Wellness Centers in Palm Springs and Torrance, and Medweight, Lasers and Wellness Center in Irvine
A HEART-WRENCHING, HILARIOUS PLAY...
“
ONE OF THE FUNNIEST PLAYS YOU’LL EVER SEE ABOUT DEPRESSION.” -The New Yorker
and WESTERN WIND FOUNDATION present
S
ocial standards change. Since nail salons mul�plied like rabbits, pris�ne mani-pedis are now socially obligatory. Since Lululemon improved yoga clothing, wearing sweat pants to workouts has become unthinkable. The standards of having visible roots changes every year or two—but a desire to not have visible grey hairs mo�vates us to keep our color appointments. I’ve never related to the sen�ments in Styx’s 1981’s hit song. I love the song, but the two lines that sum up that song, “I’ve got nothing to do and all day to do it. … I’ve got too much �me on my hands,” do not resonate in my life. I hear my pa�ents tell me they haven’t had �me to keep up with their treatments. Here are some appearance secrets that don’t take much �me—and help you stay ahead of changing standards. Secret No. 1: Botox or “Newtox” injec�ons can be done in 15 minutes. I like to give my pa�ents 30 minutes so we can talk about their goals, but in and out in 20 minutes reduces fine lines and wrinkles for three to four months. Secret No. 2: When pa�ents allow me to inject the proper amount of neuromodulator, longevity can last up to four or five months. That decision will save you money and increase your emo�onal well-being all year. Secret No. 3: Six to eight laser hair-reduc�on treatments take �me, but will save you five to 10 minutes of shave �me each day. When completed, you and your partner will enjoy baby-so�, smooth skin for the rest of your life. Secret No. 4: Down �me is now more about percep�on than reality. Bruises with injec�ons happen on occasion. I use an AccuVein laser to help me avoid veins and reduce the risk of bruising. Alas�n just released a product that significantly decreases bruise-recovery �me. And frankly, no one cares about a bruise when you look so much younger. I promise that the results of inves�ng a li�le �me for your medical aesthe�cs makes every minute of every day so much be�er. Next month, I’ll share more secrets that safely produce magical results for your authen�city, happiness and confidence. Un�l then, keep the secrets.
You can email your individual ques�ons to Shonda Chase FNP, or Allan Y. Wu MD, Revive’s cosme�c surgeon, at info@revivecenter.com.
by DUNCAN MACMILLAN with JONNY DONAHOE
STAR
RING
JOEL
directed by DEBORAH HARMON
APRIL 3-12
BRYA NT
PEARL McMANUS THEATER
in the historic Palm Springs Woman’s Club
TICKETS $35-45 • Visit dezartperforms.org or call (760) 322-0179
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14 \\ COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT
MARCH 2020
CVI SPOTLIGHT: MARCH 2020 Legendary Leaps: Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Returns to the McCallum
C
halvar Monteiro was 11 years old when he first saw the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. One of his four sisters worked at a performing-arts center in New Jersey, and he came away marveling at “not only seeing beautiful dance, but brown bodies doing classical dance. At the time, dance couldn’t be a career for a black man or woman.” He’s now in his fifth year with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which is on a 21-city tour that will come to the McCallum Theatre on Wednesday, March 25. The program includes one world premiere, “Ounce of Faith,” by Darrell Grand Moultrie. “It’s an abstracted way of paying tribute to the people who invested in him,” says Monteiro (@chlvrmntro on Instagram). “His direction to us was to think of the person who started us on our way in our dance careers.” The dance is particularly meaningful to Monteiro, he says. “I had four sisters. Growing up, I always wanted to dance, but money was tight,” Monteiro says. Most of his extracurricular activities were centered on the Baptist Church, but after seeing the Ailey dancers, he began training in earnest. He spent several years performing ballet with other companies—but auditioned for Ailey every year. “Six years later, I was invited to join the second company (of Ailey),” he says. The seventh try proved successful, and he was invited to join the main company. “It was a loooooong journey,” he says. “Revelations,” a ballet created by Ailey in 1960 when he was only 29, has become a staple of the company’s repertory; it also will be performed at the McCallum. It uses African-American spiritual music and tells the
Chalvar Monteiro in Alvin Ailey's “Revelations. Revelations.” Paul Kolnik
story of the black American experience in 36 minutes. “‘Revelations’ is super, super special,” Monteiro says. “Growing up in a Baptist Church, there’s a lot I relate to. It’s cathartic. It celebrates humanity and the history of black folks in this country, highlighting humanity and how it could be if and when we all come together.” The third ballet on the program is Jessica Lang’s “EN,” created in 2018 and described by the company as “a deeply personal reflection on the universal themes of passing time and returning to our roots.” Monteiro is in all three works. He performs six to eight times a week, sometimes in as
many as three cities each week. How does an athlete like a ballet dancer deal with all that travel? “The biggest thing to ensure success is to make sure you’re getting a lot of rest and a lot of water,” he says. “Most people in the company do cross-training—weights, swimming and yoga. You’re constantly challenging your body and changing your regimen based on the dances you’re performing. “Not only that,” he adds, “I have a good spiritual practice, and a support system on the road as well as at home to keep myself grounded. I read and journal every day as we travel. I’m more of an introverted type of guy. I
find peace and solace in budgeting my energy.” The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater presents an evening of dance that includes the world premiere of “Ounce of Faith,” by Darrell Grand Moultrie, and two of the company’s repertory standards: Jessica Lang’s “EN” and Ailey’s most famous ballet, “Revelations.” It takes place at 8 p.m., Wednesday, March 25, at the McCallum Theatre, 73000 Fred Waring Drive, in Palm Desert. Tickets are $70 to $120. For tickets and more information, call 760-340-2787, or visit www. mccallumtheatre.com. —Kevin Allman
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COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 15
MARCH 2020
MAKE THE EASY CHOICE
THE #1 CHOICE COMFORT AIR
presents
Reunion Project 4.0 – Palm Springs
HIV + AGING RESEARCH PROJECT: THRIVING WITH HIV
WE'RE #1 FOR A REASON
Presented by Eisenhower Health in partnership with HARP-PS and TPAN/Reunion Project
Saturday, April 4, 2020, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
ASK US
Annenberg Health Sciences Building at Eisenhower 39000 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage, CA 92270
ABOUT OUR 0% FINANCING
Keynote Speaker
Our Lady J
Emmy®-nominated writer and producer of “Pose“ and ”Transparent“
To guarantee food and beverages, RSVP REQUIRED at HARP-PS.org by April 1, 2019. For more information contact HARP-PS at 760-408-6267 or info@harp-ps.org *ASL available upon request
The HIV + Aging Summit consists of a mix of facilitated discussions, panels and presentations led by key researchers, advocates and long-term survivors of HIV/AIDS.
FREE EVENT – includes breakfast, lunch and cocktail reception
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS (Tentative Schedule Online)
Breakout Sessions will cover topics such as understanding self-association and HIV acceptance, dealing with loneliness and social isolation, using laughter to lift one’s spirits, plus an update on HIV treatment and research.
8 a.m. 9 a.m. Noon 1 - 3:30 4 p.m. 5 p.m.
Buffet Breakfast Breakout Sessions Buffet Lunch Breakout Sessions Our Lady J, Keynote Speaker Cocktail Reception
SPONSORS
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16 \\ COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT
MARCH 2020
Pink Martini featuring Singers China Forbes and Storm Large Wed-Sun, March 4-8 Presented through the generosity of Mar. 4 - Barbara Arnstein Mar. 5 - Angie Gerber and Robert & Carlyn Stonehill Mar. 6 - Jan Salta and Nancy Stone Mar. 7, 8pm - Rebecca Benaroya Mar. 8 - Ray Looney & Maryanne Vandervelde and Donna MacMillan
New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players
The Mikado Mon, March 9, 7pm
Chicago The Musical Fri, March 13, 8pm Sat, March 14, 2pm & 8pm Sun, March 15, 2pm & 7:30pm
Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder
Presented through the generosity of Mar. 13 - Barbara Arnstein Mar. 14, 2pm - Robert & Sharlene Britz Mar. 14, 8pm - Wayne & Rachelle Prim March 15, 7:30pm - Diane Anderson and Sherry Schroeder
Thu, March 12, 8pm Presented through the generosity of Marshall & Anne Silverstein
The Celtic Tenors Tue, March 17, 8pm Presented through the generosity of Ronald & Sylvia Gregoire
Paris! The Show
New York Philharmonic String Quartet Wed, March 18, 8pm
The Greatest French Songs
Straight No Chaser
Fri, March 20, 8pm
The Open Bar Tour
Presented through the generosity of Charles & Nancy Nevil
Order tickets by phone
760-340-2787
Mon, March 30, 7pm
Order online
mccallumtheatre.com
73000 FRED WARING DRIVE, PALM DESERT • BOX OFFICE HOURS: MONDAY-FRIDAY, 9:00am-5:00pm CVIndependent.com
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COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 17
MARCH 2020
ARTS & CULTURE BUILDING DANCE IN THE DESERT T
By andrea gomez
he Palm Springs Dance Project has burst onto the scene as a new and exciting dance program that merges professionals with local students—and the public will get to see the fruits of the program during a series of events taking place Thursday through Saturday, March 5-7. Darcy Carozza, the founder and executive director, started dreaming up the Palm Springs Dance Project in 2015, when she was the programming costs; they’ll also help introduce managing director of the Annenberg Theater the project to the community. First comes at the Palm Springs Art Museum. Dancin’ in the Streets, a flash-mob performance, “At that time, I noticed that dance was set to take place at Village Fest in downtown lacking at the theater, so I created a series of Palm Springs from 6:30 to 9 p.m., Thursday, events that included dance,” she says. March 5. A breakthrough moment came, she “It’s going to be a great event for the says, when around 40 local students were community. Everyone can get some flavor performing onstage at the theater. of the program, with some entertainment, “The event went so well—and it was because we’ll have our students performing inspirational,” she says. “I wanted to create alongside some professional dancers,” says more events—and that, basically, is where the Carozza. Palm Springs Dance Project came from.” Deborah Brockus, the program’s artistic Carozza produced an event called the Palm director—and an acclaimed dancer in the Los Springs Dance Festival in recent years. Angeles dance scene—is the choreographer. “In 2019, I listened closely to what our “What Deborah has done and is doing now community was looking for—and that was is creating customized choreography based on dance education for our local students,” our dancers’ strengths,” Carozza says. “You’re Carozza says. “We were able to develop a going to see some classical contemporary program where all of the students that we dance, hip hop and jazz. It will be energetic brought in would be covered under a grant and and entertaining; they’ll be running out with receive intensive dance training. It’s really been spotlights and loud music.” a grassroots effort between local donors and At 7:30 p.m., Friday, March 6, students local collaborators.” will be given their moment to shine in Those collaborators in the Palm Springs the Community’s Finest Showcase, a “preDance Project include the Palm Springs Unified professional” variety show at the Annenberg; School District and FIND Food Bank, which tickets are $25 to $28. provides free lunches for the students. “Our scholarship students will be The upcoming events will not only help fund performing for the community, but we have
CVINDEPENDENT.COM/ARTS-AND-CULTURE
The Palm Springs Dance Project shows off its efforts with a series of March performances and events
invited many of the dance studios (in) Palm Springs. … That will showcase the training and education that is available right here in Palm Springs,” Carozza says. “Students will dance to genres like lyrical, modern, hip hop and jazz, among others.” At 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 7, all eyes will be on The Main Event: An Evening of Extraordinary Dance, a professional concert dance program. BrockusRED, founded by Brockus, is set to perform alongside Luminario Ballet and Lula Washington Dance Theatre at the Annenberg. Tickets are $55 to $130. Carozza says the audience can expect an “energetic, powerful and uplifting program of dance. We’re very excited, because we will also be staging the first-ever aerial dance at the Annenberg Theater.” The dance will be performed by Luminario Ballet, but the Palm Springs Dance Project had the hang point permanently installed to be used in the future.
Carozza says she’s trying to expand the reach of the program through different mediums—and the Palm Springs Dance Project has partnered with the Palm Springs Cultural Center to show dance-oriented films, including a Sunday, March 1, screening of Billy Elliot, with a post-movie discussion centered around #BoysDanceToo. Panelists will include former Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo member Howard Sayette, musical choreographer/director José de la Cuesta and choreographer/director Douglas Graham. “We want to grow and broaden our programming for events year-round,” Carozza says. “Really, our goal is to build a thriving dance community in the greater Palm Springs area. We want opportunities to really engage and give back through the staging of these events.” For more information, visit www. palmspringsdance.org.
Opens March 20!
Three Palm Springs Dance Project scholarship winners pose with their awards.
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18 \\ COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT
MARCH 2020
GayDesertGuide.LGBT
Subscribe/Listen for your dose of the I Love Gay Palm Springs podcast with John Taylor & Shann Carr. A service of GayDesertGuide.com
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COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 19
MARCH 2020
FOOD & DRINK
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CAESAR CERVISIA T
By brett newton
his month, I want to take a look at what has been officially dubbed the “New England IPA,” but is otherwise known as the hazy IPA. If you are a craft-beer nerd, you may be thinking, “Aren’t you, like, years late to this party?” While I don’t get many questions about hazy IPAs at my taproom, I know people are still learning about them—and I also know there’s a small universe of things still being learned, either about these beers or about the ingredients used in making these beers. What I’m trying to say in a roundabout fashion is this: Whether you’re new to this topic or the haziest of “haze bros,” read on—because hazing up regular IPAs with various ploys there may very well be something you can such as the use of flour and apple sauce (I discover about this young style of IPA. know of a case of this firsthand, and the Let’s start with the facts (as far as I can results were wretched), to creations of justascertain them), shall we? The Alchemist, a plain-terrible beer that happened to be brewery with a very cool name in the town anything from lightly hazy to near-muddy or of Stowe, Vt., opened in 2003 and brewed a even “green,” with the flavor of hop matter somewhat murky double IPA called Heady not yet having settled out of the beer. Topper as an occasional release. Founder Some breweries even responded by and head brewer John Kimmich chose completely changing up what they brewed. to emphasize, rather than considerable When they did, lines would spring up at bitterness, the flavor and aroma aspects that their doors on the beer’s release date. I’ve hops add. The huge additions of hops—along heard stories of surrogates hired to wait in with an English yeast strain that produces line, sometimes early in the morning, to get fruity esters and doesn’t “finish out” (a whatever hazy liquid was being sold. Monkish brewing term meaning that the sugars are Brewing in Torrance is a prime example of not as fully converted into alcohol) like a this phenomenon: The brewery went from typical West Coast IPA yeast strain—left Belgian styles almost exclusively to being the the beer a little sweeter. All of that, along coolest kid on the block when they switched with the massive amount of proteins and their emphasis to N.E. IPAs and “pastry polyphenols from the malts and hops used, stouts.” Please don’t mistake my reference to created the haze that has become the de facto Monkish as a slight: They do what they do name of the style. The resulting beer had an well, and their success is well-deserved. (They impression of juiciness: It was citrusy and also make other styles that they put on in tropical, yet not cloying in its sweetness. their taproom, including a great Belgian-style Somewhere along the way, this style of tripel with hibiscus called the Feminist that IPA caught on in the northeastern U.S., and they’ve brewed from the beginning.) then spread westward; a craze resulted. I can’t I have since come to enjoy these IPAs, say for sure when it reached our coast, but as they have evolved a bit since their early I tried my first Heady Topper in 2011, and days. Hops strains have played a role in this. I didn’t start seeing breweries in Southern There are too many hop strains to keep up California making the style for a few more with; there are strains that give off flavors of years after. Instead, West Coast IPAs reigned virtually any fruit you can imagine—and the supreme here, with breweries like Stone same goes with various herbs. Sabro hops are at the forefront, making 100-plus IBU hop particularly interesting, as they can give off bombs. Much like the excesses in music in the flavors and aromas of pineapple and coconut. late ’80s and early ’90s led to grunge music, I had a hazy IPA from Brouwerij West out of people who were fed up with the bitterness San Pedro using the hop, and I’ll be damned arms race among brewers—people who if it didn’t taste like a piña colada beer— formerly couldn’t stand IPAs—could now without a single fruit addition! begin to enjoy the myriad beguiling flavors There’s also been a welcome upshot of that hops provided. this style’s rise to prominence: a lowering of When the trend first made it here, all of bitterness in regular old West Coast IPAs, the varieties I tried seemed quite similar to allowing consumers’ palates to survive more each other in flavor; they were very citrusy than one IPA in a sitting without fatiguing to and juicy. As with any industry’s trend, many the point of confusion. people then stepped into the hazy arena, A pseudo side effect has been an increased resulting in all kinds of tomfoolery—from interest in research conducted on hop oils,
Hazy IPAs have come into their own— and led to whole new areas of research on the wonders of hops
and the hottest of industry terms at the moment: biotransformation. These subjects are far too dense to get into here (and largely above my current pay grade), but to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there are more things in IPAs than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Thomas Shellhammer and his group of researchers at Oregon State University are leading the way on this front, and you’d better believe the Germans are looking deeply into the matter at the Hop Research Center in Bavaria. If any of this is interesting to you, stay tuned in the upcoming decade. When I said there was a small universe of things contained within hops, their growth and their use in beer, I probably wildly understated things. Brett Newton is a certified cicerone (like a sommelier for beer) and homebrewer who has mostly lived in the Coachella Valley since 1988. He currently works at the Coachella Valley
Brewing Co. taproom in Thousand Palms. He can be reached at caesarcervisia@gmail.com.
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ON COCKTAILS S
As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, Irish whiskey is on the mind
BY kevin carlow
pring is nearly upon us here in the desert—and it’s a great time for me and other transplants to remember how fortunate we are to have traded gray 40-degree days for 82 degrees and sunshine. Granted, we now have to dodge double-decker buses packed with house-peepers, as well as land yachts piloted by frail and bespectacled nonagenarians; such is the trade-off, I suppose—and late winter/early spring is certainly a better time for my wallet. I don’t know if it was the extended chilly weather or the dilution of the clientele base caused by the frenzy of development, but “season” definitely came late this year for most of us craft bartenders. And as summer approaches, we’re gonna need some whiskey. There are four types of Irish whiskey, according Specifically, we’re gonna need some Irish to Whisky Advocate: whiskey. • Malt: One hundred percent malted barley, If there is one drink that pretty much every made in pot stills; if it’s all from a single bartender has in common, it’s Irish whiskey— distillery, it’s called “single malt.” specifically, the stuff in the green bottle. I used • Pot still (my favorite): At least 30 percent to think it was a Boston thing, or an East Coast malted and 30 percent unmalted barley, and no thing, as I grew up on the stuff, but the reality more than 5 percent cereal grains. is that bartenders from coast to coast and • Grain: No more than 30 percent malted beyond will revert back to it after they’re done barley, distilled in a column still, with pretty pretending they’re all cool and esoteric. much any other common cereal grain, like corn Americans drink 40 percent of the entire or wheat. output of Irish whiskey, which helped save it as • Blended: A blend of two or more of the a viable export, according to Forbes.com. It’s so above styles. easy to drink, and it gets you where you’re going The brands most people, including inebriated without a lot of burn—so what’s not to love? bartenders and/or Bostonians, drink are of Without the Irish, we might not have had the blended variety. This doesn’t make them whiskey at all. As legend has it, Irish monks inferior, necessarily, as some of the tastiest invented it. They saw that Muslim Moors were Irish whiskeys are blends; it’s one of the reasons wasting the technology of alembic distilling people think of Irish whiskey as a smoother on things like “medicine” and decided to give option than other whiskeys. However, I it a proper use! The resulting “uisce beatha”— thoroughly advise branching out and trying pronounced something like how a Bostonian some of the pot-still varieties: While still quite would say, “Ooh, whiskey bar” and meaning easy-drinking, they have a good deal more body “water of life”—became the root of the word and a fuller flavor. The recent rise in popularity “whiskey.” Of course, their cousins the Scots of premium Irish whiskey (skyrocketing since didn’t take long to make their own “whisky” 2002, according to the Distilled Spirits Council) after the Irish showed them the process. has meant that finding smaller brands making a Irish whiskey was originally made in a pot craft-focused product has never been easier. still from malted barley, and could even be America has had a taste for the stuff for some peated, like many Scotches are—but chances are time. As David Wondrich points out in Imbibe!, the ones you’re drinking at most bars weren’t. Irish whiskey was quite popular in The States
in the 1800s, with bartenders as storied as Jerry Thomas recommending it in cocktails like the Irish Whiskey Skin and the notorious Blue Blazer. I will put the recipe for the Blue Blazer here, but my team of high-powered lawyers has advised me to state that this should not be tried at home. Two silver-plated mugs with handles and glass bottoms (Wondrich recommends using ones with tulip-flared edges) One teaspoon full of sugar A wineglass of Scotch and Irish whisky mixed (one ounce each, Wondrich says) Add one wineglass (1 1/2 ounces, per Wondrich) of boiling water; set it on fire, and while blazing, pour from each into the other mug, being particular to keep the other blazing during the pouring process. Serve in small bar tumblers; add a piece of lemon skin; pour the mixture into glass blazing; and cover with a cup. Thomas recommends practicing with cold water to get the pour down first, as do I if you simply must try this despite my warnings. Since the only purpose of the Blue Blazer is to show off, let’s do a safer cocktail instead, no? How about something boozy that uses a green ingredient (Chartreuse) and actually tastes good … right on time for St. Patrick’s Day! Come to think of it, I did a column on Chartreuse last month. Here’s the Tipperary Cocktail No. 1: 1 ounce of Irish Whiskey 1 ounce of Green Chartreuse 1 ounce of sweet vermouth Stir and serve up! This is basically the version in Hugo Ensslin’s 1917 (or 1916 … cocktail history, oof) Recipes for Mixed Drinks, but I adapted it from the Savoy Cocktail Book. I like adding a dash of orange bitters, since this is basically a Bijou cocktail
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with whiskey, and garnishing with orange zest. Pot-still stuff holds up nicely in this drink, but the blends give it a softer touch, which I prefer in this application. A lot of bartenders favor the recently late and lamented The Tipperary Cocktail at Fan Club Gary “Gaz” at Arrive. April Rojas Regan’s Tipperary No. 3, which reduces the Chartreuse to a half an ounce and ups the whiskey by double. It’s a nice drink, to be sure, but I like it closer to the original. As for the No. 2, let’s just say it doesn’t work for this piece. Feel free to substitute Irish whiskey into your Old Fashioned, of course, and your highballs and Collinses as well. There is even a shot we used to drink back in the day, a riff on the Washington Apple, called the Irish Apple: It’s two parts green-bottle Irish whiskey, and one part each of cranberry juice cocktail and sourapple liqueur. Don’t judge me; those years are mostly a blur. But I might just order one on St. Patrick’s Day, to remember the days when I had to elbow my way through the throngs of drunken parade-goers on Dorchester Street on my way to a double shift downtown. These buses and Buicks don’t seem so bad now, actually. Sláinte! Kevin Carlow is a bartender at Truss and Twine, and can be reached at CrypticCocktails@gmail.com. award-winning
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Just because you like a wine, that does not mean it’s a quality wine
JASON DAVID HAIR STUDIO
Y
By KatieLOVE finn YOUR
HAIR
ou should drink whatever wine you like! All that matters is what you like! The most important part of drinking wine is that you enjoy it! There isn’t a wine professional alive who hasn’t uttered these words a consumer. Country Club andtoCook StreetAnd all of these statements, to an extent, are lies. Palm De sert On one hand, we tell people that the only thing that matters is whether or not they personally like the wine—and they should never feel shouldn’t always require a scholarly effort 760-340-5959 embarrassed or question their choices. That’s in order to understand what’s in the glass. a good rule to live by, no matter the topic. On Sometimes, a wine’s greatest gift can be the www.jasondavidhairstudio.net the other hand, while we are assuaging people’s sheer gulp-ability of it. But it’s important not to wine fears, we are also dumbing down wine, confuse a pleasurable wine with a quality wine, and stripping away the very things that make or conflate the notion that our own perception us love wine in the first place—all the elements of the wine is the only one that matters. that a single vineyard, from a single year, from When I was studying for my advanced a particular type of fruit, influenced by specific sommelier exam, I had the privilege of tasting weather patterns, and tended to by loving with a master. As I began to analyze the first stewards of the land, can so articulately express wine—swirling, sniffing and tasting—he asked in such a small form. me to tell him about it. I proceeded to say, “I So … why do we wine professionals tell like it.” people these things? Is it so we’re not the wine That’s when the flogging began. He looked bad guy? Is it because we’re just grateful people me dead in the eye and said: “Katie, I don’t have put down their Cosmopolitan martinis and give a (expletive) what YOU think about are drinking wine, no matter what it is? this wine. Your opinion of it doesn’t matter. What’s equally as problematic is the I asked you to tell me about it. Identify its underlying suggestion that wine professionals qualities. Is it balanced? Concentrated? would rather have people drink what Seamless across your palate? Does it have a they know they like, as opposed to trying sense of place, and does it show typicity?” something new. I mean, heaven forbid someone These were the important factors in tries something and doesn’t like it! That would go determining the wine’s quality: Regardless of against all that matters! personal preference, these are the universal Yes, of course I want people to drink what elements that designate a wine’s caliber. I they like. I don’t think there’s a sommelier or wasn’t tasting the wine for my own pleasure; “wine expert” who wants to deny people the I was looking for its place among all the other innate joy of drinking their favorite bottle of wines. It was my job to look for and identify wine. After all, wine’s very existence is rooted what the average wine consumer can’t see. in pleasure, and it’s meant to enhance life. This Once I learned to take myself out of the is part of what makes wine so wonderful. I equation, I was able to be an advocate for winewill also contend that enjoying a glass of wine lovers to discover new gems they didn’t know
existed—wines of great quality and value. I would be able to help change preconceived notions that just because one wine tastes a certain way, that does not mean all wine tastes that way. I recently offended someone by writing in a newsletter that I gained immense satisfaction and joy from introducing someone to a wine that surprised them—something this person unexpectedly enjoyed when the person previously thought it was a grape or region for which he or she didn’t care. I couldn’t understand how this could possibly be offensive, and the look on my face prompted my victim to further explain his outrage. He proceeded to tell me that he should be able to drink whatever he likes without some “wine know-it-all” trying to change his mind. Yes, I whole-heartedly agree. Just like I would never try to convince a Pepsi drinker to switch to Coke, or explain to a skeptic that the Grand Canyon is more than just a big hole in the ground, I would never want to make wine overly important to someone who merely sees it as an alcoholic beverage. When it comes to simply selecting a wine du jour, there are plenty from which to choose. Every grocery store and big-box wine retailer is stocked floor to ceiling with wines that are crafted and manipulated to be void of regionality and varietal correctness. Most wine today is made in a homogeneous style, meant to be crowd-pleasing, without any discernible features or identifiable traits: These wines are often ripe, luscious and drinkable, with ample alcohol and just enough sugar to be detectable without being “too sweet.” These are the wine equivalents of Stepford wives. No pontificating or analyzing required—it’s just a pleasant, nondescript glass of wine.
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I’ll end with this: I’m not here to judge you or your wine preferences. I never want to offend anyone. It’s not anyone’s job to use wine as a weapon to bludgeon someone for choices or for some sort of perceived inferior wine knowledge. But I’m also not here to tell you what you want to hear. I will never tell you that just because you love a big Napa cabernet, it will make a fine pairing with that hamachi hand roll. I will never tell you to only drink what you know you like. I am here to make wine more enjoyable for those who care to know. I believe that learning the history and story of where the wine comes from can lead to a more-satisfying experience. I believe that we should constantly be tasting new and different wines—and that by doing that, we can discover more about what we like and don’t like. It’s my job to show you a whole world of wine out there. You just have to want to see it. Katie Finn is a certified sommelier and certified specialist of wine with two decades in the wine industry. She can be reached at katiefinnwine@ gmail.com. award-winning
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FOOD & DRINK INDY ENDORSEMENT This month, we’re enjoying some of the valley’s best Irish and Japanese fare By Jimmy Boegle
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CENTER Helping LGBTQ People Along Their Way Wherever you are in life’s journey, find connections and programs at The LGBT Community Center of the Desert. Safety Net | Empowerment | Physical Health Mental Health | Social & Fun | Life Enrichment
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THE SCOTT HINES
@ THE CENTER
WHAT The fish ’n’ chips with Pacific cod WHERE O’Caine’s Irish Pub, 36101 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage HOW MUCH $20 for 9 ounces, as pictured CONTACT 760-202-3311; www. ocainesirishpub.com WHY It’s crispy, moist and tasty. There are few food things more pleasant to me than biting into a perfectly prepared piece of beer-battered fish. First, there’s the crunch, the saltiness and the subtle beer flavor from the batter. Then comes the warm, soft fish; there are so many varied tastes and textures in each and every bite. Of course, “chips”—french fries—are a perfect companion. The mouth-feel starts off similarly— with crunch and saltiness— but then the potato ends up being completely different in terms of flavor and texture. Is there any wonder fish-and-chips is such a classic bar/pub food? No, it’s no wonder at all. One of the better versions of this dish I’ve had in the Coachella Valley is at O’Caine’s Irish Pub, which opened a year ago in the same shopping center as Gelson’s in Rancho Mirage. While O’Caine’s also offers both jumbo shrimp (six pieces for $25) and Nova Scotia salmon (8 ounces for $25) under the “fish and chips” banner, during my recent lunch visit, I went the traditional route—and I was hungry, so I got the larger portion (as opposed to the 6-ounce portion for $2 less). When my food came, I was pleasantly surprised: The pieces of cod were huge, and came with lots of medium-cut fries and a small cup of “minty pea coleslaw.” While I was hungry when I started my meal, I couldn’t even finish it all. Not only was I impressed by the food at O’Caine’s; I was also impressed by the service, the décor and the vibe. O’Caine’s is a fun place serving up delicious food and drink—and I’ll definitely be back for more of those delicious fish ’n’ chips.
WHAT The omakase WHERE Taka Shin, 641 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs HOW MUCH $75 to $100; $85 as described CONTACT 760-600-5806; takashin-ps.com WHY It’s the ultimate splurge/treat. When Miho Suma tells me something about Japanese food, I listen. Miho is the owner of Shabu Shabu Zen, the amazing Rancho Mirage restaurant that is, for my money, one of the top places to dine in the valley. A little more than a year ago, she emailed me and urged me to visit Taka Shin, which had just opened in the former Thai Smile space in downtown Palm Springs. “It is a REAL sushi restaurant,” she wrote, “not mainly serving American style rolls, but nigiri and authentic food. I suggest you to visit and try.” I told her I would … and a year passed, with her email still highlighted in my inbox. Then came the last month or so, during which my husband and I both suffered injuries involving broken or dislocated bones. We’re on the mend, fortunately, and we decided that we needed a good restaurant splurge to brighten our moods. Miho’s email came to mind—so I called Taka Shin and made a reservation. It was time for omakase. It’s a Japanese word that means, more or less, to entrust—the chef would prepare whatever he saw fit. And the eight courses that came to our table ranged from good to fantastic. First came an appetizer plate with an oyster, monkfish liver and seaweed salad. Second was cucumber salad with crab, followed by an egg custard containing mushrooms, shrimp and edamame. Fourth up was marinated sea bass in miso broth; then we received a tempura plate with shrimp, mushrooms, green beans and lotus root. Our six and seventh courses were sashimi (pictured) and sushi—and every bit of it was fresh and masterfully prepared. The meal concluded with cheese cake—one piece with strawberry, and the other with green tea. It was $85—worth every penny, and then some. Trust Miho and I when we say that Taka Shin is a gem—whether you’re splurging, or you just want a “normal” authentic Japanese meal.
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Restaurant NEWS BITES By Jimmy Boegle THREE PIECES OF UNSOLICITED ADVICE FOR RESTAURATEURS There’s surprisingly little restaurant news to report at this point during the busy season ... because, well, most everyone is so gosh-darned busy. Therefore, I’m going to take advantage of this relative news lull to offer up a few pieces of advice to the valley’s restaurateurs. While I’m certainly not a trained chef or a restaurant-management expert, I have been writing about food and restaurants for more than two decades now. And I’ve noticed some things. Enough with the preamble: • Be sure to make a good first impression. I’m stunned at how many restaurants put someone at the host/hostess stand who is ... well, less than pleasant. On a recent lunch visit to one of Palm Springs’ most-popular restaurants, we were seated by a young woman who seemed, well, downright morose—to the point that my husband and I, when she was out of hearing range, instantly asked each other if we had noticed her demeanor. We had ... and while I can’t remember off the top of my head what I had for lunch that day, I sure remember that unenthusiastic hostess. • Be sensitive to people dealing with disabilities or injuries. One example on how NOT to do things: The hubby and I tried to dine at another popular Palm Springs restaurant (that does not take reservations) on one recent, busy weekend night. I walked up and requested a table for two, and explained that because my husband—who was sitting in a chair in full view of the host/ hostess area—had just undergone knee surgery to repair a broken kneecap, he couldn’t bend his right leg; therefore, we needed a table rather than a booth. The woman seating people simply responded, “A table will take longer.” I said OK and was given a pager. We waited for about 20 minutes and saw all sorts of people seated immediately, albeit in booths. As my husband’s discomfort grew, I went up and asked how much longer the table would be. “A table will take longer,” the woman repeated. I asked if that meant 10 more minutes, or a half hour, or what—and she said she couldn’t tell me, but that it could be a while. At that point, I shook my head, handed her the pager and left. If we’d have been told that we could be facing a half-hour wait, minimum, when we’d arrived, we would have understood, thanked her and left. It was a hugely busy night, after all. However, to be told, simply, “A table takes longer,” without clarification .... that’s not good, especially when a regular customer is sitting, clearly suffering, in plain view. • Make sure your online presence is up to date. I’m a food nerd who likes to research menus before trying new places, and it’s a true bummer whenever I spot an item online I’d like to try— only to be told when ordering that the item I was craving is no longer available after a menu change. It’s not hard, or it shouldn’t be, to keep customers or potential customers informed by making sure websites and social media accounts are accurate. Thanks for reading … and thanks to all the hard-working restaurant employees and owners who kick ass during these busy months. IN BRIEF The biggest food festival of the year is here! Palm Desert Food and Wine will feature events from Wednesday, March 25, through Sunday, March 29. The biggest shindigs are the grand tastings, taking place from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, March 28 and 29, at The Gardens on El Paseo, at 73545 El Paseo. Tickets cost $100; you can get in earlier if you want to pay more. For tickets and complete schedule of events, visit www.palmdesertfoodandwine.com. … The four bars and restaurants at the Kimpton Rowan Palm Springs, at 100 W. Tahquitz Canyon Way, have a new boss: Dan Grunbeck was recently appointed the executive chef. He headed south from the Lodge and Spa at Brush Creek Ranch in Wyoming. “Marrying his French-Italian cooking style with his love of fresh, locally sourced ingredients, Grunbeck aims to elevate desert dining through memorable culinary moments infused with a strong sense of place,” says the press release announcing Grunbeck’s arrival. Welcome, Dan! … Lots of changes have happened recently at the Morongo Casino Resort and Spa, at 49500 Seminole Drive, in Cabazon. As part of a year-long remodel, Morongo opened three new restaurants: Mozen Asian Kitchen, offering an array of traditional delicacies from China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan; Pink Coffee, featuring coffee and house-made treats including gelato and baked goods; and the Good Times Café, a 24-hour gastropub with twodozen beers on tap. Learn more at www.morongocasinoresort.com. … There’s a new speakeasy inside Bouschet, at 611 S. Palm Canyon Drive, No. 22, in Palm Springs. It’s called PS Air. Watch www.bouschet.com for updates.
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Fever Dog embarks on a journey toward new sounds The Mattson 2 bring their experimental jams to Pappy and Harriet’s The lucky 13: meet the keyboardist for ocho ojos the lucky 13: Meet the guitar player for pescaterritory
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The Venue REPORT march 2020 By matt king
Steve Tyrell
It’s March in the Coachella Valley—but the weather isn’t the only thing getting hotter. Check out some of the fiery entertainment coming to us this month. The McCallum Theatre’s March schedule is packed. From Wednesday, March 4, through Sunday, March 8, you can catch Pink Martini, featuring singers China Forbes and Storm Large. The group’s diverse catalog crosses multiple music genres—and there’s a reason why Pink Martini is one of the most popular acts ever to come to the McCallum. Tickets are $58 to $98. From Friday, March 13, through Sunday, March 15, witness Chicago The Musical. The longest-running Broadway musical ever is coming to Palm Desert for five performances only! Tickets are $65 to $125. At 8 p.m., Wednesday, March 18, all the way from the East Coast, it’s the New York Philharmonic String Quartet! Four musicians from the famous orchestra are coming to town for an evening of musical expertise. Tickets are $25 to $65. At 8 p.m., Friday, March 27, vocalist Steve Tyrell will take the McCallum stage. With a Grammy under his belt, and a catalog filled with new takes on classic songs, Tyrell should offer a night of vocal greatness. Tickets are $40 to $80. McCallum Theatre, 73000 Fred Waring Drive, Palm Desert; 760-3402787; www.mccallumtheatre.com. Fantasy Springs is featuring a diverse lineup that has something to please pretty much anyone. At 8 p.m., Friday, March 6, renowned comedian and ventriloquist Terry Fator returns to Indio. He won hearts on his victorious season of America’s Got Talent, and continues to make audiences laugh at his Las Vegas residencies. Tickets are $39 to $79. At 8 p.m., Saturday, March 14, Latin superstar Pitbull will grace the stage. Go dance the night away to Grammy-winning radio hits from Mr. Worldwide. Dale! Tickets are $79 to $169. At 8 p.m., Saturday, March 21, Daryl Hall and John Oates return. They’re the No. 1-selling music duo in history, and are behind some of your favorite hits, like “Maneater.” Tickets are $79 to $169. At 8 p.m., Friday, March 27, Chaka Khan will be in the house— continued on Page 28
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he first show I ever went to in the Coachella Valley was a Fever Dog show—and the fusion of blues and psychedelic rock introduced me to the local music scene with a bang. That performance cemented Fever Dog’s place in my mind’s Hall of Fame—and the band has received a fair amount of attention beyond my fanboy self. The group was part of a European tour in 2015 with Fatso Jetson, and the band’s music has been well-received across various streaming services. Fever Dog is Danny Graham and Joshua Adams, recently joined by Ramses Lopez and Alex Galvan. A listen to the band’s earlier work on Volume One and Second Wind will take any rock listener back to the ’70s—albeit with a unique desert resources for it. My dad twist. Heavy-hitting tracks like “One Thousand was in a band, so we had Centuries” and “The Great Tree” are rockingly a lot of help to make reminiscent of Sabbath and Zeppelin, if those that happen.” bands had included stoner rock in their songs. Fever Dog is The band’s latest EP, Mainframe (2017), offers known for its epic live three tracks that are pure psychedelic rock, with performances. Long the title track sounding like a Pink Floyd B-side. hair flies all over the This takes us to the present day. The release place, and the jams keep of “Freewheelin’” earlier this year made stereos coming as Graham’s everywhere sparkle; the track is four minutes disco-ball guitar shines of every glam-rock fan’s dream. A second single on audience faces. release, “Solid Ground,” made it clear that the “For live shows, band was prepping for something big this we’re doing a mix of year—so I decided to check in with Fever Dog. everything,” Graham “Our album is planned for release this said. “We’re doing about year, hopefully not too long from now,” said half new songs and half Fever Dog. Erica Borg frontman and guitarist Danny Graham during old songs, with some a recent phone interview. “We’re going to try to improvisation and changes added in. We’re book some tours as soon as that’s out, hopefully trying to blend pretty much everything we’ve a European tour an Australian tour, and maybe ever done.” a small American tour, too.” With the change in sound came the addition The upcoming album is slated to be called of the aforementioned two new members. Alpha Waves. “Josh knew our new bass player, Alex, from “We are shopping for a label right now,” one of his old bands, The Active Kissers,” said Graham said. “We really want the next album to Graham. “He also met our keyboard player, be released under a European label. The last time Ramses, through Twitter. They were just we went to Europe, it would’ve helped to have a friends, and then we realized that he also played vinyl release. It’s the best thing to have on your music, so we asked him to join.” merch table, and we wanted to make sure that The band’s two recent singles are the first we were able to press it on vinyl this time.” Fever Dog releases in three years, and it’s been With a big 2020 ahead, Graham looked back pretty lonely without the group. on the band’s humble beginnings. “We took a break and didn’t really have a “I was brought up on almost exclusively KISS, specific goal on how anything was going to and a lot of ’70s rock music,” Graham said. “Me, sound,” Graham said. “Josh and I just started Josh and Nathan—our old bass-player—went recording whatever we wanted. Instead of to elementary school together and started deciding what kinds of songs we’re going playing together in 2006. We all picked up our to make, we just kind of went for anything. instruments around the same time. This upcoming record is pretty much a blend “When we first started, we were mostly a of everything we’re into—all the ’70s rock, hard-rock, AC/DC-style band. As soon as we progressive rock, experimental stuff and a lot of started going, we decided that we needed to do glam rock.” this for real and make a recording, even though we were only in the sixth-grade. We wouldn’t For more information, visit www.facebook.com/ have done that, though, if we didn’t have the feverdogrocks.
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26 \\ COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT
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JAZZY TWINS
The Mattson 2 bring their experimental jams to Pappy and Harriet’s
By matt king
M
CL EAR E E S 2020
W LY NO
WE CAN
any musicians will tell you that music comes first—but for Mattson 2, family reigns supreme. The Mattson 2 is identical twin brothers Jonathan and Jared Mattson, and they’re able to create soundscapes that sound like they’re coming from a larger group than a duo. With only a drum set and a guitar in tow, the two have been masterfully producing jazzy jams for more than a decade—and each track is packed with last day of class and ended up taking private aesthetically pleasing grooves. Take a listen to lessons with him. Those guitar classes really tracks “Naima’s Dream” and “Black Rain.” got my dexterity and confidence up.” The Mattson 2 are set to perform at Pappy Added Jonathan: “After two years of guitar, and Harriet’s on Saturday, March 21. I recently I wasn’t really vibing with it. One day, I was at spoke to them over the phone about the my older brother’s house, and I messed around upcoming show, the art of improvisation and on his drum kit. I played a beat, and he said, how they got their start. ‘It took me a week to learn that; how’d you get “Our mom signed us up for after-school that?’ That really boosted my confidence, so lessons in junior high, mainly to keep us out I began to save up money for a drum kit, and of trouble while she was at work,” Jared said. started making music almost immediately.” “We were the worst kids in the class, horrible Almost immediately is right: The brothers at playing guitar, and the teacher really had started up a band soon after getting their no interest in us. His partner, however, was instruments. the sweetest and most soft-spoken guy, and a “Right when I started playing drums is when really good guitar player. We met him on the we got into jazz music,” Jonathan said. “It was
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the first kind of music we played together, only after a year of me learning to play the drums. We had a few people join us, but they didn’t take it quite as seriously as we did, so we decided to make it work with just a duo.” Take a gander at some of the Mattson 2’s live performances to see how Jared is able to create both guitar and bass sounds by using pedals. “The transition is seamless once I saw what my friend Ray Barbee could do with a loop pedal,” Jared said. “It was mind-blowing to see how much music one person could make. I went and bought a loop pedal, and that was that. We were tired of people leaving the band, so it was kind of empowering to be able to do it on our own terms.” A huge part of the duo’s live show includes improvisation. Every song sounds new when played live—and the brothers, not surprisingly, play well off each other. “We’ve grown up our whole lives together, side by side,” Jonathan said. “There’s something very connected about that, and music is a part of that connection. We used to practice a lot, but after we got busier, we didn’t have time to rehearse anymore. Because we got so comfortable playing live shows, we got to a point where we didn’t need to rehearse that much, and added improvisation in. Because of our connection as twins and our shared musical dialogue, we don’t really need to rehearse.” Added Jared: “Vini Reilly said there are three elements of music: physical, emotional and intellectual. Physical is what gets you moving; emotional is the sound that moves you; and the intellectual is the lyrics and theoretical things that are happening. I think the fourth layer is improvisation, and that kind of feeds into all three of those. What I love about improvisation is that it ties all those elements together.” The group recently performed at the Ace Hotel and Swim Club in Palm Springs as a part of Desert Daze Nights. “Desert Daze Nights put on a great event, and there were some good people there to see us,” Jared said. “We’re super-tight will Phil (Pirrone, Desert Daze’s organizer), and we played one of the first years of the festival. It was a really cool way to kick off the tour.” Speaking more on the desert, Jared added: “I don’t know anyone who’s not a fan of the desert scene, especially a place like Pappy and Harriet’s, with all its history. It’s such a magical place, and there are so many things interwoven
The Mattson 2. Mark Wiitanen
there that make people love it. People from other countries don’t have a desert, so when they come here, they’re in total shock about how beautiful it is.” One of the most notable releases by the Mattson 2 is the duo’s collaboration album with Chaz Bundick of Toro Y Moi, Star Stuff. Their groovy jazz jams get a psychedelic makeover, and the eight-song track list seems to end too soon on every listen. “It was our first time working with a superestablished producer and incredible musician,” Jonathan said. “We were friends before fans of each other. … We met, with neither one of us having heard each other’s music. I gave him our album, and he invited us to jam with him, and then I went out and bought one of his records.” Added Jared: “Working with Chaz was like being in the kitchen, baking a cake with three people. Everyone has their own individual task, and we all work off each other and add stuff in. Pretty much everything we tried worked perfectly, and that had never happened before. … Our personalities worked well together, and everything was just super-easy. We actually had a recent jam with him and are still deciding what to do with some recordings we made.” The Mattson 2 will perform at 8:30 p.m., Saturday, March 21, at Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, 53688 Pioneertown Road, in Pioneertown. Tickets are $20. For more information, call 760-365-5956, or visit www. pappyandharriets.com.
COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 27
MARCH 2020
MUSIC
CVINDEPENDENT.COM/MUSIC
SOOTHING SOUNDS By matt king
E
mbedded in the air of Joshua Tree, one can find the soothing psychedelic folk sounds of the Adobe Collective. Every song from the group sets a listener in a state of extreme calm, and they create a perfect soundtrack for a lazy day. My favorite tracks include “Carousel” and “Home (Sins)” The band released its third album, All the Space That There Is, in January, and has been playing various shows around the Coachella Valley. I LP turns up jams a little bit more—with a bit spoke to brainchild of the band, Tim Chinnock, of a rock flair. over the phone about music, life and, of “The first couple of albums are definitely course, the name of the band. more what you call Americana,” Chinnock said. “It’s always hard to give something a name, “At the core of me, I’m a folk singer and a folk but somebody once told me that you just have writer. What’s so great about the new album is to name it,” Chinnock said. “In 2011, my wife, that as we’ve solidified our band lineup, we’ve Faith, and I were stationed at the Marine base been inviting other people to take more of an in Twentynine Palms. When we first moved active role in the creation of the stuff. I’d come to the area, the first house we found for rent up with some structure to the song, but then on Craigslist was this old 1937 original adobe we’d come together as a band to finish it. house in Twentynine Palms. It was passed “As for the recording process, we recorded down from this guy’s grandma, and he had with Chris Unck, who’s in the band, at High lovingly restored the whole thing; as soon as Lonesome Studio. With this album, he got a we walked in, we just felt at home. It was in little bit more freedom with the palette. What that house that songwriting actually started I’m really excited about for this new album to make sense to me, and songs just started is that we’re exploring a bunch of new and coming one after another.” different possibilities. It’s much more of a Although songwriting didn’t come to him collaborative approach, and we’ve got a little until later, Chinnock’s family has always been bit more of a rock feel thanks to Chris. We’re around music. taking people’s influences and building on top “I was born in Redlands and grew up most of what me and Faith started with our first two of my life in the Inland Empire,” he said. “My albums.” family has always been really musical, but it All the Space That There Is comes four years was always something that they did on the after the band’s last album. side. My dad and his three brothers were in a “We took a little bit of time off, because my band in high school, even though they grew up son was born, and it was also around the time very religious, and it was kind of against the I quit the military,” Chinnock said. “We took a rules. They all went on to get jobs, but they long time to move out of our house, get settled still did music on the side. I grew up kind of and make the split from the military, which is religious and kind of conservative, and when a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. John Lennon said that the Beatles were bigger Moving houses and finding a new job took up than Jesus, my parents went out and burned quite a fair amount of time. all of their rock records. So I was just left with “As for the album, well, it’s actually been my dad’s classical and folk records. I didn’t in the can for a while. We’ve just been trying really get into rock until junior high.” to shop it around and get some advertising The Adobe Collective’s discography includes behind it. Everybody in Joshua Tree knows a lot of serene tones, although the most recent who we are, but not everybody in Indio knows
The Adobe Collective, from Joshua Tree, seeks a wider audience for its brand-new album
who we are. It was all super-local in Joshua Tree for the first two albums, so we wanted to bring this new record out to a bigger audience.” Chinnock said the band has gradually gotten more serious—and that now, after almost a decade, things are truly coming together. “It’s been a slow burn,” Chinnock said. “When we started, me and my wife were in the military, and it’s hard to get serious about something like that when there’s an overlord in your life. Both of our first two albums
coincided with the birth of our kids. Now we’re at a place where our kids are old enough so we can start to get some distance from them—but we’re also getting so much richness from them that we put into our music. It’s a really good time right now, because we can take trips away for weekends if we need to play shows and whatnot.” For more information, visit www. theadobecollective.com.
The Adobe Collective. Matt Hall
CVIndependent.com
28 \\ COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT
MARCH 2020
The Venue REPORT continued from page 24 and 1980s R&B never sounded so good! Tickets are $49 to $89. Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, 84245 Indio Springs Parkway, Indio; 760-342-5000; www.fantasyspringsresort.com. Spotlight 29 has a March filled with nostalgia. The Tribute Concert Series keeps on truckin’, as you can catch tributes to Queen, Bob Marley, ABBA and the Rolling Stones, Fridays at 8 p.m. All the shows are $10, and are the cheapest form of time travel currently on the market. Spotlight 29 Casino, 46200 Harrison Place, Coachella; 760-775-5566; www.spotlight29.com. Agua Caliente is showcasing a few top events this month. At 8 p.m., Saturday, March 14, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons are coming straight from the ’60s. Experience a great vocal group from the past that still packs a punch. Tickets are $95 to $125. At 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 28, boogie the night away at Saturday Night Dance Fever. Come enjoy performances from The Trammps featuring Earl Young, Rose Royce, Evelyn “Champagne” King and many other disco greats! Tickets are $60 to $185. Agua Caliente Resort Casino Spa Rancho Mirage, 32250 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage; 888-999-1995; www.hotwatercasino.com. Morongo Casino Resort has some enjoyable evenings in store in March for people who
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want to be entertained. At 9:30 p.m., Saturday, March 14, Flogging Molly is coming to Cabazon. Wanna learn what the words “Celtic’’ and “punk” are doing next to each other? Well, go find out for yourself. Tickets are $69 to $79. At 9 p.m., Friday, March 20, entertainer extraordinaire Marlon Wayans will provide a comedy show for the ages. Go see the White Chicks actor live onstage! Tickets are $29 to $49. At 9 p.m., Friday, March 27, Rob Lowe brings his Stories I Only Tell My Friends tour to town. Tickets are $59 to $79. Morongo Casino Resort Spa, 49500 Seminole Drive, Cabazon; 800-252-4499; www. morongocasinoresort.com. Pappy and Harriet’s March schedule includes a lot of sold-out shows; here are a few shows you can still get into. At 8 p.m., Friday, March 20, local Latin-rock group Giselle Woo and the Night Owls will rock the Pioneertown stage. Catch Giselle and co. before Coachella crowds do in April—and the show is free! At 8 p.m., Saturday, March 28, Rose’s Pawn Shop and The Shadow Mountain Band will serve up a night of genrebending rock tunes! This show is also free! Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, 53688 Pioneertown Road, Pioneertown; 760-365-5956; www.pappyandharriets.com. Toucans is hosting two fantastic shows
in March. At 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 7, Leslie Jordan brings his Over EXPOSED show to town. The actor will provide a night of comedy and stories from his long career. Tickets are $35 to $45. At 7:30 p.m., Friday, March 20, Anne Steele brings her “Made Out of Stars” tour to Toucans. The singer/ songwriter recently released a new EP, and is prepped for a night of music and fun! Tickets are $25. Toucans Tiki Lounge and Cabaret, 2100 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs; 760416-7584; www.reactionshows.com. The Purple Room continues to provide many great nights out on the town. From Thursday, March 19, through Saturday, March 21, catch the return of the marvelous Marilyn Maye. This musical treasure has still got it at the age of 91, and has been a performer since she was 9! Tickets are $70 to $90. At 8 p.m., Saturday, March 28, Branden and James will return to the Purple Room. This time, catch the duo putting their classical spin on Lady Gaga’s songbook. Tickets are $40 to $45. Michael Holmes’ Purple Room, 1900 E. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs; 760-3224422; www.purpleroompalmsprings.com. The Ace Hotel and Swim Club is hosting myriad unique events. At 7 p.m., Thursday, March 12, it’s the return of Campfire Stories With Desert Oracle’s Ken Layne. Come and
indulge yourself in the mystique of the desert at this free event. At 1 p.m., Sunday, March 22, experience the first Draught in the Desert beer festival. More than 30 craft breweries will be pouring for your drinking pleasure. Tickets are $55. Ace Hotel and Swim Club, 701 E. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs; 760-325-9900; www.acehotel.com/palmsprings. The Date Shed will feature some local talent this month. At 8 p.m., Friday, March 13, local indie-rock group Blue Sun will be releasing its brand-new EP, Haunted Garden, with support from other great local acts like Milhan, Host Family and Shaman Rock. Tickets are $10. The Date Shed, 50725 Monroe St., Indio; 760-7756699; www.facebook.com/dateshed. You can also go support local music at The Alibi Palm Springs. At 6 p.m., Sunday, March 8, local psych/surf rock group The Flusters will perform, with opener 88 MPH. Let them entrance you with dreamy tunes all night long. The show is free! At 8 p.m., Friday, March 13, local indie duo YIP YOPS will make their hometown return. Go experience the group’s first show in the valley in months, with support from groups Gomi Neko and Israel’s Arcade. This show is also free! The Alibi Palm Springs, 369 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs; 760-656-1525; thealibipalmsprings.com
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MARCH 2020
MUSIC
CVINDEPENDENT.COM/MUSIC
the
LUCKY 13
Meet the keyboardist and guitarist for two of the valley’s best young bands by matt king
NAME Danny Torres GROUP Ocho Ojos MORE INFO Local-band Ocho Ojos has been the talk of the Coachella Valley for a couple of years now. With two performances at Coachella under their figurative belts, the band released single “Cali” late last year, and new track “Baile Trankis” arrived in late January. Behind the keyboard is Danny Torres. What was the first concert you attended? The Sounds of the Underground Tour back in 2006. It was a metal concert with about 10 to 15 bands on the lineup, but I honestly only cared about Cannibal Corpse and Behemoth. What was the first album you owned? The first album I ever purchased with my own money was King Diamond’s Abigail. What bands are you listening to right now? Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Steely Dan, and some more-contemporary artists like Mayer Hawthorne as well. I’ve really been enjoying a lot of the music Hawthorne has been releasing as a solo artist, and through his side project, Tuxedo—anything groovy and funky. What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get? I don’t think I can say that about any artist, genre or musical trend. There’s too much music in the world, so many different styles, that even as a musician, for me to say, “I don’t get it,” would be illogical. What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live? Without a doubt, Michael Jackson. Alive would be Sade. What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure? I’m not sure. I think I enjoy music too much to feel as if I have a “guilty pleasure.” What’s your favorite music venue? As far as performing, my favorite venue to gig at is Club 5 in Indio. It’s a small spot, but they’ve got a good sound system, good vibes para la raza, and great owners!
KRISTIAN G. SALAISES
NAME Jason Zembo GROUP Pescaterritory MORE INFO Local band Pescaterritory has played together for less than a year, but the group is already quite popular—popping up at shows all over town, and even getting attention from radio stations in the United Kingdom. The four teens excel with a stacked set list of original material mixed with covers of influential classic-rock songs. On guitar for the band is Jason Zembo. What was the first concert you attended? The first concert I went to for the music was a Rush concert—the 40th anniversary of the late Neil Peart joining the band. (May he rest in peace.) What was the first album you owned? The first album that I actually got into and bought was Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head? “They may fix the weather in the world … but tell me, what’s to be done, ’bout the weather in my head,” “Weather in My Head,” by Donald Fagen. My brother introduced me to this song shortly after my dad passed away, and the lyrics and song really stuck with me. What band or artist changed your life? Michael Jackson. For as long as I can remember, he has been my No. 1 influence and is one of the main reasons I began playing music. You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking? “Can I sit in on a studio session?” is what I’d be asking Mr. Donald Fagen of Steely Dan. What song would you like played at your funeral? I would have to go with a traditional song that’s played at probably 100 percent of Mexican funerals: “Amor Eterno” by Juan Gabriel.
What bands are you listening to right now? For a while, I was getting into prog: the early Genesis stuff, Yes, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, etc., and then I moved on to acts like Crosby, Stills and Nash; Neil Young; Simon and Garfunkel; and Cat Stevens—music that soothes the soul—but now I’ve started appreciating the Beatles more. What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get? The use of electronic instruments, such as drums, which a lot of music today uses. I do not like the timbre of electronic music, and a lot of it feels lifeless. What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live? I would love to see early Genesis led by Peter Gabriel live. Their music is so complex, and back in his prime, Peter Gabriel’s showmanship was something unparalleled. What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure? I don’t really have any guilty pleasure artists, unless you count Tenacious D as a guilty pleasure, but I’d heavily disagree with that classification.
Brian Blueskye
What’s your favorite music venue? I love all venues as long as they have power to plug in an amp. What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head? “In charge of who is there in charge of me / Do I look on blindly and say I see the way? / The truth is written all along the page / How old will I be before I come of age for you? / I get up, I get down / I get up, I get down / I get up, I get down,” “Close to the Edge,” Yes. What band or artist changed your life? Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and the Beach Boys. Led Zeppelin is probably my favorite band of all time, because of how organic they are. I got into David Bowie around seventh-grade, and his music and multiple personas taught me to be myself more than any other artist. The last influence is the Beach Boys, in particular Brian Wilson, who has influenced me the most as a musician and composer. You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking? “What’s up?” to Paul McCartney. What song would you like played at your funeral? “Forever” by the Beach Boys. Its lyrics are beautifully simple. Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time? I would probably choose either Pet Sounds or Dark Side of the Moon. What song should everyone listen to right now? If you have the time to listen to a 23-minute song, listen to “Supper’s Ready” by Genesis.
Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time? Bad by Michael Jackson. I can listen to that album in its entirety any time. What song should everyone listen to right now? Everyone should listen to the newest single, “Baile Trankis,” by Ocho Ojos (shameless plug). But seriously, check out “Healing” by Mayer Hawthorne. CVIndependent.com
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OPINION SAVAGE LOVE
CVINDEPENDENT.COM/OPINION
CONCERNED FROM EXPERIENCE BY DAN SAVAGE
I
started reading your column when I was a 20-year-old kid. Now I’m an old married lady with 20 years of (more or less) blissful married monogamy behind me. My oldest daughter, who is 23, just came out to me as a sex worker. She’s been making a slim living as a cam girl. She recently graduated with a marketable degree, but she hasn’t been searching for a job in her field, because, as she puts it, “It’s hard to want to apply for a minimum-wage job when I make the same working from home.” I’m finding this very hard to process on a number of levels. First—and I hope you will believe most importantly—it’s very hard for me to see her giving up what used to be her dreams. But that’s not the part I think you can help me with. I used to be a sex worker. For three years in the early ’90s, I was a dancer at the Lusty Lady on First Avenue in Seattle. That was before the internet really existed, but I think the job is actually fairly analogous to cam work: nudity and masturbation for the pleasure of others, with no actual physical contact. I found sex work to be corrosive to my personal goals. As a heterosexual woman, I hoped to fall in love with a man and have a family, and for me, the longer I did that type of work, the more impossible those goals seemed. I saw men at their worst 40 hours a week. As time went by, I felt myself withdrawing more and more from the possibility of any kind of affectionate relationship with a man. Quitting for me was an act of self-preservation. I did my best to react non-judgmentally when my daughter confided in me, but truthfully, I’m really unhappy about it. I worry about the effect sex work will have on her future—both her intimate relationships and her professional goals—and while there are people working to reduce the stigma
attached to sex work, that stigma still exists. I worry that she will become mired in poverty, barely getting by, and I worry that she will not be able to find relationships with men who value her worth. What do I do, Dan? Do I stand back and love her? Do I try to give her the benefit of my experience, even if that seems shame-y? Is this even any of my business, given that she’s older now than I was when I gave birth to her? The Cam Girl’s Mom Your daughter made this your business when she shared it with you, TCGM. So my advice would be to lean in (not stand back); love your daughter; and share your own experiences with her. But the goal shouldn’t be to get your daughter to stop doing sex work—that’s not the “benefit” you’re after—but rather to open the lines of communication and keep them open.
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My daughter told me she’s working as a ‘cam girl’; how should I react?
Zooming out for a second … The kind of sex work you did decades ago at the Lusty Lady was different in important ways. (I visited the Lusty Lady a few times in the early ’90s, TCGM, which makes you one of the few letter-writers that I might’ve seen naked who didn’t enclose photos.) The women who danced at the Lusty Lady were behind Plexiglas walls; men pumped quarters into slots to lift partitions that allowed them to see the women; and there were private booths for solo shows. But while you saw men “at their worst” (men can and have done worse), your daughter doesn’t have to look at the men for whom she’s performing. Her clients—her fans, if she has a following—aren’t on camera themselves. They may send her messages, and she may interact with them via DM, but she doesn’t have to watch them jack off. And unlike a performer in a peep show, your daughter can block guys who give her the creeps or who are in any way pushy or disrespectful. But while she doesn’t have to see men leering at her or watch come drip down Plexiglass walls, she does have to worry that someone out there might be recording her sessions and posting them online. And unlike the Lusty Lady (R.I.P.), the internet is forever. But the stigma around sex work is decreasing—Elizabeth Warren recently said she’s “open to decriminalizing” sex work (a tiny step in the right direction)—and with people of all ages furiously sexting each other, we’re quickly reaching the stage where everyone has nudes out there somewhere. Pretty soon, it won’t be in anyone’s interest to punish or harass people whose pics or videos go big or viral, because you could be next. Something else to bear in mind: You worry that doing this kind of sex work—roughly the same kind you did—may make it impossible for your daughter to fall in love, create a family, pursue her professional goals, or even make a decent living. But you fell in love, created a family, and presumably make a good living yourself. And while it’s possible that doing this kind of work delayed achieving those goals, TCGM, you weren’t derailed or destroyed by it, and your daughter doesn’t have to be, either. (And is less likely to be with her mom in her corner.) Also, your daughter may not want the same things you did. Not everyone wants one committed, long-term partner, and not everyone wants kids. While you’re understandably distressed that she isn’t doing anything with her degree at the moment, it’s possible your daughter’s ideas about what she wants to do with her life have changed since she picked a major. Working as a cam girl may give
her the time and space she needs to figure out a new dream for herself. And as crazy as it sounds to some … there are women and men out there whose dream job is sex work. Your daughter opened a door when she shared this with you, and there must be a reason she shared it with you. Hell, it’s possible she may want to be talked out of doing it. So don’t hesitate to share your experiences and perspective with her. It’s not shaming to tell her you did this kind of work and found it dehumanizing and corrosive. That’s the truth of your experience. But after you share your perspective, TCGM, listen to hers with an open mind. As all parents of adult children know or soon learn, TCGM, your kid gets to make their own choices and quite possibly their own mistakes. And sometimes what looks like a mistake to a concerned parent turns out to be the right choice for the adult child. I am a heterosexual male. My wife has been dating other men for the past year. When she started dating her first boyfriend, she told me she wasn’t ready for me to date other people, but would process through it, and then we could open up the relationship for me, too. After about six months, her first relationship ended, and we both started looking for other partners. She found another guy pretty much right away, and it took a few months before I started dating. I had a couple of dates with this woman and then kissed her at the end of our second date. When I told my wife what happened, she got jealous and angry. A day later, my wife stole my phone and sent a message to the woman I’d been dating, ending our relationship; then my wife blocked the woman from my social-media accounts and deleted her number from my phone. She broke up with her boyfriend and is insisting that our relationship is closed now. I love my wife, but I feel violated in so many different ways. Married A Dictator Your wife should’ve married a cuckold—a man who wants to remain faithful to a woman who fucks around on him and dates other men—and you should’ve married a woman who isn’t a controlling, manipulative, unhinged hypocrite. Luckily for you both, MAD, a divorce that would allow each of you to find a new partner—a cuck for her, a sane person for you— is still an option. Read Savage Love every Wednesday at CVIndependent.com; mail@savagelove.net; @ FakeDanSavage on Twitter.
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MARCH 2020
OPINION COMICS & JONESIN’ CROSSWORD
“I’m No Saint”—shot out 39 “That should do it” of the canon 41 Abbr. in want ads By Matt Jones denoting fair hiring 42 Clothing company Across founded in Queens 1 You’re the Worst star 44 Disallowed Chris 45 Sandwich grill 6 Gadot of Wonder belonging to Woman comedian Short? 9 DJ’s output 48 Movement started on 14 Pentium company social media in 2006 15 Have regret 49 Bale stuff 16 Positive terminal 50 Mini-menace 17 Liquid extracted 53 “No Ordinary Love” from beer brewed by singer quarterback Elway? 55 ___-Kettering 19 Be indecisive Institute 20 Margarine substitute 57 “Million Dollar ___” 21 Dodge (2006 Simpsons 23 Quagmire episode featuring 24 Musical ability Homer’s dad) 25 Recognize 58 Desktop images 26 Cookies in sleeves 60 Result of an arson 28 British actor Garfield investigation on is angry? Sesame Street? 32 Item thrown by 62 Got up Olympic athletes 63 20-20, e.g. 35 They’re attracted to 64 Brownish eye color sugar 65 The Post star Streep 36 Compete 66 Ken Jennings has 37 Work badge, e.g. four of them 38 NBA tiebreakers 67 Rub out
Down 1 Action figure with kung-fu grip 2 Waterworld girl with a map on her back 3 It’ll knock you out 4 Slot machine city 5 Chicago transit trains 6 President Cleveland 7 Invisible vibes 8 Disappointments 9 Like some sugar 10 Beguile 11 Gets out of the way 12 Time to “beware” 13 Gen ___ (post-boom kids) 18 Mary Louise Parker Showtime series 22 Lead-in to “while” 25 Like some shirts or pajamas 27 Molly’s cousin 28 Healthcare.gov statute, briefly 29 Completely consume 30 “Your Majesty” 31 Everything bagel bit 32 Per ___ 33 Notion 34 Winter house protection
38 Antiquated 40 Day planner divs. 43 Ones, in Juarez 44 “Helps stop gas before it starts” product 46 Microscopic 47 Actor Ving of Pulp Fiction 50 Resort island near Majorca 51 Boggy areas 52 “Get Out” director Jordan 53 Anna and the King of ___ 54 Part of a parcel, perhaps 56 Chocolat actress Lena 57 “Bearing gifts, we traverse ___” 59 Poutine seasoning? 61 ___-Hulk (upcoming Disney+ series) © 2020 Matt Jones Find the answers in the “About” section of CVIndependent.com!
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32 \\ COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT
MARCH 2020
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