Coachella Valley Independent July 2017 by Coachella Valley Independent

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT | JULY 2017

VOL. 5 | NO. 7

alist n r u o j ent of ds m t c i d The in antÃº por ten C r the o Aaron f e r u fut a grim endment m First A

By Baynard Woods Page 1 2

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JULY 2017

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 Assistant Editor Brian Blueskye cover/Cover Story design Mark Duebner Design Contributors Gustavo Arellano, Max Cannon, Kevin Carlow, Cory Courtney, Kevin Fitzgerald, Bill Frost, Bonnie Gilgallon, Bob Grimm, Michael Grimm, Dwight Hendricks, Pete Holland, ValerieJean (VJ) Hume, Brane Jevric, Keith Knight, Erin Peters, Dan Perkins, Sean Planck, Guillermo Prieto, William Bryan Rooney, Anita Rufus, Jen Sorenson, Christine Soto, Robert Victor, Baynard Woods The Coachella Valley Independent print edition is published every month. All content is ©2017 and may not be published or reprinted in any form without the written permission of the publisher.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 $1 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, 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.

It’s a question I often get asked by people who are unfamiliar with the Coachella Valley Independent: “What sets your newspaper apart from the other local publications out there?” After briefly mentioning the history of the alternative press (and explaining how the Independent fits into that history), I answer by suggesting what I call, somewhat jokingly, the “Independent Challenge”: “Take five minutes, and thumb through the Independent. Look at the articles, the design, the breadth of coverage, and the quality of the reporting and writing. Then, do the same with any other local publication. You’ll understand the difference right away.” Yes, I am proud of what we accomplish every month in our print edition, and every day at CVIndependent.com—and I am also proud to announce that for the second time, the Independent is receiving a national journalism award. The Independent has been named a finalist in the 2017 Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) Awards, this time in the Column category. Anita Rufus’ “Know Your Neighbors” is one of three finalists in the category for publications with a circulation of 45,000 or less. Judges were impressed by her columns on a post-election meeting of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union; the battle against cancer being waged by the wife of a radio-station colleague; and the work by Palm Springs residents to clean up dangerous explosives and other remnants of war in Vietnam via Project RENEW. A total of 67 publications across the United States and Canada entered the competition, and we’ll find out where we placed on July 29, during the annual AAN Conference in Washington, D.C. You can find a complete list of finalists at AAN.org. Two years ago, the Independent’s Brian Blueskye took third place in the Arts Feature category. While there are a lot of journalism contests out there, the AAN Awards are the only one we enter here at the Independent. It’s a highly competitive contest, and all of the papers we’re competing with have larger staffs and more resources—so winning one of these awards means something. Congrats, Anita! Perhaps one of the stories in this edition of the Independent will win an award one day. I’m both proud of and alarmed by our cover story this month, about the charges being pursued by the federal government against journalist Aaron Cantu. He was covering an Inauguration Day protest that got out of hand—and because he was wearing a shirt that was the same color as the shirts of many of the protesters, he’s being prosecuted. Check it out on Page 12. Welcome to the July 2017 print edition of the Coachella Valley Independent. Take the “Independent Challenge” yourself—and email me with questions or feedback at the email address below. —Jimmy Boegle, jboegle@cvindependent.com CVIndependent.com

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OPINION OPINION

KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS

CVINDEPENDENT.COM/OPINION

Meet Dorys Forray, 87, an Indio woman who is a true role model

BY ANITA RUFUS

18 years. Her children and four grandchildren live in Los Angeles, so she has ample opportunihen you approach her house, you realize it’s the only one on her gated-community block ty to spend time with them. (“We’re very, very with a different front yard—stone and desert plants, rather than repetitive squares of close,” Dorys says.) However, Dorys is fiercely grass. independent and self-sufficient. Then she answers the door wearing a “NASTY WOMAN” T-shirt. “I went to college for a year, and then a year At 87—“almost 88, in September”—Dorys Forray is my new role model for how to age, not only of business school, but I never finished,” says graciously, but powerfully. Dorys is a woman who laughs easily, suffers no fools, and has what seems Dorys. “My first job was as a model on 34th like boundless energy to devote to the things that interest her. Street, in the garment district of New York. My A 14-year resident of Indio, Dorys moved to the Coachella Valley from Los Angeles, but still proud- dad was angry, because he said that wasn’t a ly proclaims, in an authentic accent, “I’m a Brooklyn girl!” Her father, who sold plastic pencil sharpgood thing for a girl to do. I was short, so I was eners, was lucky enough to meet and become Her attitude was, ‘I’m going to show you who I restricted to modeling pajamas and then moved friendly with Walt Disney. As a result, her father am.’ My mother instilled in me that you can do into coats.” was allowed to use Disney cartoon characters on or be whatever you want.” She laughs. “I worked in lots of jobs—insurhis items. “But my dad got sick soon after, and When you get to know Dorys, you realize how ance, publicity—but none of my jobs was a died,” says Dorys. much her mother influenced who she is today. career. However, I believe that even if you hate “When I was growing up, my mom was the Dorys married Allen Ullman, and they had the work, you have to find a way to love the job. only working mother (I knew). She was strict; three children: daughter Jaime, and two sons, “I spent 10 years in banking, working for the you had to do it her way. But she had chutzpah. Andy (A.J.) and Marc. The marriage ended after English bank, Lloyd’s. It was the most interesting job I’ve ever had. One day, they came to me and said they would give me a $2 million budget to design new five-piece uniforms for the 2,000 employees throughout California. I found a company to design, fit, produce and deliver every uniform. They actually went out to each office and measured everyone. It was a great success. I have no idea why they picked me, but I was so proud of how it all turned out.” Dorys moved to Los Angeles when her youngest was 14. She later married Edward Forray. “He was the love of my life,” she says, with glowing eyes. “We were together almost 20 years until he died in 1984. We had just moved into our dream house in Glendale in a lease-option deal. The day we went into escrow, he told me to sign the papers, and he was going to drop them off. He died so suddenly. He came home from work at 6 p.m., and he died at midnight.” Lloyd’s sent Dorys to educational programs, and asked her to teach new employees, because she was so effective at dealing with customers and other employees. “That grew into my designing a program called ‘Secretary Effectiveness.’ McGraw-Hill heard about it and wanted to publish it as Professionals in the Office. They offered me a job, but it was less money, so I declined. My husband died a month before I signed a contract with them for the publishing, and what I lost in my husband’s income, I was lucky enough to make up in royalties. You never know how things are Open Daily 6a - 2p | Closed Tuesday going to work out, and then they do.” When her husband died, Dorys left the bankCVIndependent.com

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Dorys Forray, with former presidential candidate Howard Dean.

ing world to run her husband’s business. “He had been a writer for game shows, and during the ’down season,’ when they aren’t on the air, he started a business doing promotional merchandise for NBC. When he died, I took over the business, even though I had no idea what I was doing.” Dorys and her daughter ran the business together. Because her daughter’s last name was Ullman, comedian/actress Tracey Ullman once called to see if they were related. “My daughter served that account for years!” she laughs. Although she is retired, Dorys is not one to sit around. “I’ve been a volunteer at Eisenhower (Medical Center) for five years,” she says. “I got very active politically when I moved down here, because it’s a smaller community, and you can really touch what’s going on, unlike in a huge city, where you feel lost.” Dorys has attended many events, and has met people like former presidential candidate, Gov. Howard Dean. “I also got involved in the variety show put on each year by the complex where I live,” she says. “I don’t care what part I do; it’s just great fun. Next show, I’m going to be a Mouseketeer! “I’m a putter, not a golfer, and I love mahjongg—I still have my mother’s set. I read a lot, too. But the project I’m most involved in right now is writing a memoir about my own life. I’m at Chapter 6. Maybe I’ll live long enough to get it done!” she laughs. “My weakness is that I’m never afraid to try anything. That’s also my strength.” The minute I met Dorys Forray, my view of my future changed. When I grow up, I want to be a NASTY WOMAN, too. Anita Rufus is also known as “The Lovable Liberal,” and her radio show airs Sundays at noon on KNews Radio 94.3 FM. Email her at Anita@ LovableLiberal.com. Know Your Neighbors appears every other Wednesday at CVIndependent.com.

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 5

JULY 2017

OPINION OPINION

ASK A MEXICAN!

Could the U.S. afford to legalize all undocumented immigrants? BY GUSTAVO ARELLANO DEAR MEXICAN: I’m reading the redneck rhetoric in one of your recent columns, and I am continually surprised by the hate posing as nationalism that so easily flows from the mouths of these degenerates. At least we don’t have to worry about that “nice” stereotype like the Canadians. Isn’t it possible that no one wants to make taxpayers out of all the illegals, because this would entitle them to minimum wage? I agree that if you’re going to enjoy the benefits of this country, you should maintain your culture, but also become a legal citizen—but can we afford to actually pay full price for the labor foundation that we currently enjoy at such a discount? Dr. W DEAR GABACHO: Interesting punto! Gabachos don’t want undocumented Mexicans to become American citizens, because they’re Mexicans, and they really feel that once we become the majority, we’ll rip out their hearts, wrap them in bacon and serve them as a breakfast burrito. And they also want us to remain perpetual peons, even if making us legal brings more money to the American economy. A 2013 paper by the Center for American Progress found that if undocumented immigrants were granted legal status and the possibility of citizenship that year, the United States’ gross domestic product “would grow by an additional $1.4 trillion cumulatively over the 10 years between 2013 and 2022.” Not only that, but analysts Robert Lynch and Patrick Oakford forecast the creation of 203,000 jobs per year in that time frame with amnesty. On the other hand, if said undocumenteds only got legal status in 2013, but weren’t eligible for citizenship for a decade, the GDP would grow by a relatively modest $832 billion. That’s more of an economic stimulus package than Trump could ever possibly conjure up— but since gabachos hate truth nowadays, the prospect of amnesty long ago went the way of the Paris climate accords. DEAR MEXICAN: Not long ago, I attended a Los Tigres del Norte concert at a small hall with no dance floor. The people attending were supposed to sit down and enjoy the music. Five minutes into the show, these jumping beans started dancing in the aisle. Within minutes, half of the attendees were going up and down

the aisles, dancing to the music. It’s not the first time I’ve seen Mexicans create improvised dance floors. Why do Mexicans love dancing so much? Lambada Louie DEAR GABACHO: Anyone who needs to ask why people dance to Los Tigres del Norte—the norteño supergroup that combines traditional polka beats with socially conscious lyrics to create something that’s part Clash, part Lawrence Welk and puro mexicano—has no soul, or is a gabacho. Mexican music is among the most danceable outside of Brazil, because its practitioners understand that nalga-shaking stirs humanity into the realm of ecstasy. Almost all the genres that constitute Mexican popular music—the aforementioned norteño, the brass-band strut of banda sinaloense, son jarocho’s twinkling harps and guitars, and even the dark riffs of Mexican heavy metal—put the focus on rhythms rather than lyrics. (The exception is ranchera, the domain of drunkards and macho pussy men.) But dancing for Mexicans is more than a mere physical act. Every hallmark moment in Mexican society centers on dances—weddings, baptisms, informal gatherings, birthdays and anniversaries. More noteworthy are the dances held by hometown-benefit associations that raise billions of dollars for the rebuilding of villages in Mexico. Mexicans know that dancing solidifies trust, creates community, and repairs the injured civic and personal soul. Besides, it’s a great way for Mexican adolescents to grope each other in a parent-approved environment. Catch the Mexican every Wednesday at CVIndependent.com. Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net; be his fan on Facebook; follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano; or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!

Solar Q&A

What do your TV remote control, your mobile phone and the smoke detector in your house have in common? A battery. Batteries are everywhere! The job of a battery is both big and small, from powering the flashlight in your kitchen junk drawer to backing up critical medical devices for hospitals, providing power for remote cell phone towers, powering U.S. Navy submarines—the list goes on and on. In 1749, Benjamin Franklin coined the term “battery” during his early experiments with electricity. Alessandro Volta invented the first working battery 50 years later by stacking piles of copper and zinc disks together, separated by pieces of cloth soaked in a salt solution. Fast forward to lithium-ion batteries, which were first invented in 1912 by G.N. Lewis and were first used in practical applications in the 1970s. Lithium is a near-perfect element to be used a battery since it has a very low density (weight) to electrochemical potential (energy storage) ratio. How do batteries work with solar? Lithium-ion batteries are now being used in many homes as a form of a backup generator that can be recharged by several sources. The best way to recharge a lithium-ion battery system is to use power from a rooftop or groundmounted solar panel array.

Renova Solar offers Tesla Powerwall and Sonnen residential lithium-ion battery systems. These systems, coupled with solar, provide both backup power and serve as “peak shavers” when utility rates are high. These devices save money and provide a “peace-of-mind” backup power source in the event of a natural disaster or cyber-attacks on the electrical grid. Are they affordable? Costs have been falling rapidly and with the help of a generous California state rebate for battery system (SGIP), which was reopened on May 1, 2017. When solar and storage are installed within the same calendar year, a homeowner is also eligible for a 30 percent Federal Tax Credit as well as the state rebate.

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JULY 2017

NEWS NO HOMELESS HOUSING HERE BY BRIAN BLUESKYE

he closing of Roy’s Resource Center in North Palm Springs—what was the western Coachella Valley’s only shelter for the homeless—has thrown many people onto the streets, and Coachella Valley Association of Governments (CVAG) is trying to act. However, on June 20, the Desert Hot Springs City Council voted against a proposed program that would offer 12 rental properties across the west valley for up to 90 days to those who are homeless or at risk for homelessness. The council decided to revisit the issue in September. The proposed program is a collaboration between CVAG and Path of Life Ministries. Desert Hot Springs City Councilmember Russell Betts said that he doesn’t feel the program is a good idea. “They keep deflecting to, ‘Oh, this is just trading a home for anyone who you’d love to have as a neighbor,” Betts said. “That’s the rapid rehousing portion of it. The part that is really objectionable is the emergency housing component: That’s where homeless (people) straight off the street get put into a house in a residential “The representative on the Homeless neighborhood. It’s basically putting a homeless Committee for Desert Hot Springs is shelter in the middle of a residential neighborCouncilmember Joe McKee, and he’s been hood—only it’s a homeless house instead of a very supportive of this. But he did inform us homeless shelter.” at our last meeting that he would vote ‘no’ Cheryll Dahlin, the CVAG management anabased on the decision of his council,” Dahlin lyst, said CVAG would continue to work with said. “The city has traditionally not contributthe city of Desert Hot Springs while impleed toward Roy’s Resource Center, and we are menting the program in Palm Springs and going to continue our outreach with the city to Cathedral City. address any questions they might have about

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The Desert Hot Springs City Council votes down a proposal to open a shelter in the city

the program. … Our staff recommendation and the recommendation from the Homeless Committee is that we focus on getting services up and running in Palm Springs and Cathedral City. “Councilmember Ginny Foat, of Palm Springs, and Councilmember Mark Carnevale, of Cathedral City, have been very supportive. The city of Palm Springs has put in their budget about $103,000 for this program, which was the requested amount … we made to each city in the Coachella Valley for Roy’s Resource Center. Cathedral City has put up half of that amount, and the other half will be discussed at a future meeting.” Desert Hot Springs resident Judy Shea has tried to help by opening a rental property to house homeless veterans in Desert Hot Springs. Shea, who said she would speak to the Independent after the City Council meeting, had not returned post-meeting phone messages as of our press deadline. Betts is not a fan of Shea’s efforts. “Eight years ago, she volunteered that same facility as an overnight cold shelter,” Betts said about Shea. “She went down to CVAG back then and offered it, and they took her up on it. It got red-tagged because … it was an unsafe building. They had 40 people staying there, with buses sitting out front of it, idling overnight. At 5 a.m., people would go there to pick them up and take them back down to Cathedral City or wherever else in the west valley, and bring them back again later. … It got shut down, and that was right around the time that Roy’s Resource Center was getting ready to open. They moved everyone down there.” According to DHS city officials, Shea once owned a home in Glendale and did work on it without permits; the property was eventually seized by Los Angeles County. Betts said Shea has been doing the same thing to the property she has in Desert Hot Springs. “She wants to put 40 people in there again. She said at the meeting that it wouldn’t be all veterans, but maybe other homeless,” Betts said. “She’s once again trying to operate a homeless shelter in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The worst thing is she has not pulled any permits. It’s common sense that when you do work on your house, you have to go to City Hall and file for a permit to go start doing this work, and an inspector goes out and has a look at it. She just started working with volunteers.” At the June 20 DHS City Council meeting, several residents expressed concern about Shea’s efforts. Marjorie Snell was worried

because Shea’s proposed location was close to an assisted-living facility. “Caring for veterans requires trained professionals who deal with PTSD, alcoholism, addiction and anger management,” she said. Betts also said DHS’ location on the outskirts of the Coachella Valley make it a poor location for a homeless shelter. One of the downfalls of Roy’s was its middle-of-nowhere location. “Let’s say that you get someone; they get stabilized, and now it’s time that they go look for work,” Betts said. “They’re not going to have a car, and they’re going to have to ride the SunBus. Anyone in Desert Hot Springs knows that it can be a 2 1/2 hour ride to get to your job. It used to be 2 1/2 hours just to get to College of the Desert. If Roy’s was too remote, downtown Desert Hot Springs is even more remote. We’re six miles further away. It’s real nice that everyone wants to push this off on Desert Hot Springs, but we have so many challenges here.” Dahlin conceded that the location of Roy’s played a role in the decision to repurpose the building into a long-term care facility for adults with mental illness. “The location of Roy’s Resource Center was a much debated topic. I think if you talk to Ginny Foat, she’d tell you about the challenges we had over locations back then,” Dahlin said. “As we embark on what we’d be doing in this next phase, we’ve discussed some possible locations for shelters, and you do run into questions and concerns from the city and the neighborhood when you talk about a physical building. The biggest upside to Roy’s re-purposing is that it’s a long-term board-and-care facility, so the need for daily transportation has been eliminated. You don’t have clients coming in and out every day.”

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 7

JULY 2017

NEWS

CVINDEPENDENT.COM/NEWS

BLOWING THE WHISTLE Judy Deertrack and Robert Stone take credit for going to the feds—as they launch City Council campaigns

BY BRANE JEVRIC

udy Deertrack and Robert Stone—both of whom have declared their intent to run for the Palm Springs City Council—recently disclosed that they were informants to the FBI regarding the Palm Springs City Hall corruption case. The case has resulted in bribery charges in connection with downtown development against former Mayor Steve Pougnet and developers John Wessman and Richard Meaney. In total, Deertrack, who is an urban lawyer, and Stone, a real estate broker and author, say they invested about 7,000 hours into collecting more than 10,000 pages of documentation. According to Stone, he called the U.S. attorney on the morning of April 10, 2015. “That afternoon, I received a return phone call from Joseph Widman, U.S. attorney for Riverside County,” Stone said. “He informed me that a supervisory FBI agent, Colin Schmitt, was also on the line.” Widman and Schmitt were intrigued by what because absolute power corrupts.” they heard, Deertrack and Stone said, and an It is worth noting that Pougnet was on the in-person interview was set up to be held about City Council from 2003 to 2007; then he was 20 days later. elected mayor. He served two terms and was “Judy and I spent 90 minutes discussing the apparently going to run for a third before case with Widman, Schmitt, Jorge Chavez from deciding against it when the scandal erupted the DA’s office and three field agents,” Stone in 2015. said. “The last words Schmitt said to us were: As for Deertrack, she said her first initiative ‘You have the full attention of the federal govwould be to protect the city from what she ernment at the highest level.’” called further legal and financial troubles by Deertrack explained what they found that asking for more state and federal help. led them to contact the authorities. “My first response would be a motion for the “Robert researched the mayor’s income and City Council to immediately contact the FBI, found a defunct corporation making payments U.S. attorney general and state attorney generto Pougnet,” she said. “Over three years, I tesal to confer and identify any ongoing threats to tified to the City Council on 22 projects that funding, projects or infrastructure as a result appeared suspect. Eighteen of those projects of the 18 or so projects that appear in the are now in the indictments.” indictments, and partner with these agencies According to sources, Pougnet and Wessman on remediation,” she said. She referred to the hated each other, so Meaney was brought in scandal that rocked the city of Bell, and said to handle the alleged payments, because he the city’s remediation actions saved Bell up to was the mayor’s friend. One of the investiga$100 million. tors at one point called the trio “the dumbest Both said they may lose votes as a result of criminals ever” because of the way the alleged their reputations as frequent city-government incriminating payments were made. critics. They also said that they don’t fear for Beyond taking credit as whistleblowers, their safety in the wake of their criticisms. Deertrack and Stone said they couldn’t com“The intense public scrutiny is its own proment on many specifics, as the case is still tection,” Deertrack said. “That does not mean under investigation. However, they were obviour role was without risk. We were cautioned ously able to comment on what they’d do if at times by law enforcement to be careful.” elected to the Palm Springs City Council come On a lighter note, Stone, who has authored November, when two seats will be up for grabs. four books so far, hinted that he may write “We need to have a two-term limit,” Stone about the city corruption case one day. said. “Eight years for the mayor, and that’s it, “It’s such a book,” he said. Judy Deertrack and Robert Stone. brane jevric

SEEING YOURSELF AS OTHERS SEE YOU

By Shonda Chase, FNP Co-owner, Artistic Director and Advanced Injector at Revive Wellness Centers in Palm Springs and Torrance

Have you ever wanted to know how others view you, compared to how you see yourself? I know that’s a loaded ques�on, so let’s just concentrate on the visual, and not the psychological rabbit hole that’s so easy for us to fall into. Our “Mirror View” is how we see ourselves in a mirror or in one of our selfies. Our “Social Views” are our side views, and how others usually look at us. Secret No. 1: Our friends usually look at us from 2-5 feet away—so go easy on yourself when you’re magnifying yourself to an improbable level of detail in your 5x mirror. Secret No. 2: Our “Social Views,” our right and le� sides, are how our friends usually see us—o�en, and on the “down low.” You take a “peek” at your friends from the side all the �me, right? Secret No. 3: In a consult, advanced aesthe�c prac��oners are evalua�ng your “Mirror View” and your “Social Views.” When we ask you to look in a mirror and tell us what bothers you, we’re also looking at your side view to see what we can do to improve both angles. For example, I’ve seen many pa�ents who need a simple chin implant to greatly improve their profile and balance their face—but they had no clue they needed an implant, because they usually don’t look at their profile. Bring side and front pictures of yourself to your consult, and Yourget donations of clothing, furniture, small goods, you’ll a be�er understanding of what your prac� �onerand is homeAdécor help Desertwill AIDS to provide our seeing. li�le “homework” helpProject you understand what can becommunity done to improve both yourmedical, Social and Mirrorcounseling, appearances. with needed dental, Nextsocial month,support I’ll shareservices news about three new medicalhousing, deand including nutrition vices with and much more. you—and tell you why Desert AIDS Project has received a 5-Star rating from you probably Charity Navigator for 5 years in a row — a distinction won’t hear only 6% of all non-profits receive. about them from otherit to Revivals. Donate medical prac- a healthier community. Help create ��oners. Un�l then, keep Tothe arrange pick-up Our a mirror view vs. our social view. secrets. Visit our

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COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 9

JULY 2017

NEWS

CVINDEPENDENT.COM/NEWS

SAVING THE SEA T

Work to mitigate the deterioration of the Salton Sea is finally under way—and the state is seeking public input

BY KEVIN FITZGERALD

he Salton Sea was accidentally created in 1905, and its relentless deterioration began in earnest after the area’s heyday as a resort area in the 1950s and 1960s. In the decades since, water levels have dropped precipitously, while pollution and salinization levels have skyrocketed—and as a result, the lake is a gradually evolving natural disaster in our backyard. Over the years, various scientific and political initiatives have been proposed to forestall the very real dangers posed by the degrading sea. But few, if any, of the proposed solutions have been implemented. Until now, that is. “The two-pronged approach is moving forward under the Salton Sea 10-Year Plan,” said Bruce Wilcox, the assistant secretary of Salton Sea policy at the California Natural Resources Agency. “(The first prong is) concentrating on getting some construction done out there so there’s some habitat restored, and more importantly, from a public health point of view, getting some dust suppression happening. We’re doing that right now. We’ve already started.” The second prong is still being developed, and southeastern shore of the Salton Sea. Wilcox various Salton Sea threat-management stakesaid the state-funded project includes about 500 holders—including the Salton Sea Authority, the acres. California Department of Water Resources, the Wilcox said other projects will get started Imperial Irrigation District and the California later this year and early next year. Department of Fish and Wildlife—are in the “The southwest corner of the sea includes the process of conducting a series of community New River, and on the east side of that river, workshops, led by Wilcox, in cities surrounding there are about 640 acres of species-conservathe Salton Sea. tion habitat,” he said. “We will advertise in the “These meetings are for anyone, but they’re next month for a bid on the development of this particularly designed for the public,” he said. project, and we should start construction on “We hold them in the evenings so that folks who that later this year. That’s a deeper-water fisherare working during the day can go.” ies habitat. We now have salinity issues with the What’s the goal of these workshops? Salton Sea that are raising heck with the fisher“What we’re hoping to get from the general ies, so when we put these on the ground, we’ll public is some input on whether or not they manage the salinity in these impoundments. At think the short-term projects make sense,” least we’ll then have some stable fish habitats. Wilcox said. “Are (people) happy with where It’s not enough, but it’s a start.” they are located (geographically)? What other The 10-Year Plan projects are expected to cost longer-range solutions do you see for the Salton about $390 million in total. Who will provide Sea? So far, we’ve gotten some interesting that funding? feedback. For instance, there’s concern about “We have $80 million in state of California water import. There’s concern on the part of grants stemming from (2014’s) Prop 1,” Wilcox people who live on the west side of the sea as to said. “But we’re looking at getting additional how soon there might be a restoration program funding from the (United States Department under way near them. Those are the sorts of of Agriculture) perhaps, or from the (federal) things we’re trying to get from folks. watershed improvement acts. There’s a bill right “Also, longer-term, we want to know if they now in the California State Senate that would think the two-pronged approach will work, and provide additional funding. I’m confident that how well they think it might work, or what they we’ll get the money we need.” think we should do to change it.” However, the Trump administration has not One encouraging aspect of the Salton Sea exactly embraced funding for environmental 10-Year Plan rollout is that it offers the first issues. evidence that separate bureaucratic efforts are “Well, it’s a new administration, and we’re finally coming together. Signed by the governor learning about them as they’re learning about in October 2015, Assembly Bill 1095 called for us,” he said, rather diplomatically. “We have a the creation of a list of “shovel-ready” Salton Sea signed memorandum of agreement with the restoration projects by March 31, 2016. Department of the Interior for funding. I’m “All of the projects which were mentioned in going to assume that we’ll get that funding.” that bill are included in the 10-Year Plan,” Wilcox However, Wilcox acknowledged that the said. “Red Hill Bay has started construction.” memorandum was signed under the Obama The Red Hill Bay Project is a joint effort by administration. the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Imperial “It certainly could be taken away,” Wilcox said. Irrigation District to restore habitat on the “But for the state of California, and for most

The Salton Sea. Tuxyso via Wikipedia.org

people who look at this question, the cost of restoring the Salton Sea is a huge number. But when you look at it from the federal government’s perspective, it’s a line item in a budget, and there are all sorts of line items in there that are bigger than this one, so I’m reasonably confident that we’ll be able to prevail with the agencies. We’ve had some very productive discussions with them to this point. … But I don’t want to kid anybody. Funding is going to be an uphill fight. It always is, no matter what the project is.” Wilcox expressed optimism that the 10-YearPlan will succeed. “I think the odds are reasonably good,” he

said. “(The sea) won’t be like it was in the 1960s. It’ll be smaller, but sustainable. We call it the Salton Sea Management Program for that reason: It’s not restoration, necessarily. It’s to manage and impact all of the things going on.” Workshops on the Salton Sea’s 10-Year-Plan are being held in cities all around the Salton Sea, including one at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, July 6, at the Indio Performing Arts Center, 45175 Fargo St., in Indio; and another at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, July 12, at the Rancho Mirage Public Library, 71100 Highway 111, in Rancho Mirage. For more information, including a complete schedule of workshops, visit resources.ca.gov/salton-sea.

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DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS Comey’s reference to J. Edgar Hoover reminds us that things could be much, much worse

BY BAYNARD WOODS

undreds of people were lined up in the marble hallways of a Senate office building, hoping to get one of the 88 public seats in Room 216, where James Comey, the FBI director Trump fired over the Russia investigation, was scheduled to testify at 10 a.m. on Thursday, June 8. That was at 8:30 a.m. More came. Some of the people waiting in the winding line said they’d arrived at 4 a.m. Bars were opening early, and for once, it seemed like reporters and senators were the only people in Washington, D.C., not day-drinking. Yes, this was serious shit. At one point, Comey said he told the president about salacious material—the Russian sex workers pissing on the bed the Obamas slept in, I guess—in a dossier gathered by a former intelligence official and later published by BuzzFeed; he didn’t want Trump to think the FBI would use the material against him. “I was worried very much of being in kind of a—kind of a J. Edgar Hoover-type situation,” Comey

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said, referring to the legendary director—you might say dictator—of the FBI for half a century. It was remarkable to hear Comey talk this way about the man more associated with the bureau than anyone else—but he had good reason: It helps us contextualize what is happening now, because things were even more fucked-up a century ago. That should make us feel a little better. Hoover—a powerful, paranoid and proud eccentric—crafted the modern FBI. He started working for the Department of Justice in 1917. The country had finally entered World War I in April of that year. Two years earlier, in 1915, as the war in Europe escalated, Germany feared U.S. involvement and began a propaganda campaign (or “active measures,” as we’re calling it). As Tim Weiner writes in his book Enemies: A History of the FBI, a German official “began to build a propaganda machine in the United States; the Germans secretly gained control of a major New York newspaper, the Evening Mail; their front men negotiated to buy The Washington Post and the New York Sun. Political fixers, corrupt Germans and crooked detectives served the German cause.” The U.S. eventually entered the war, and the government—especially the bureau, which worked under the Department of Justice— began to arrest and surveil German immigrants. “The bureau launched its first nationwide domestic surveillance programs under the Espionage Act of 1917, rounding up radicals, wiretapping conversations, and opening mail,” Weiner writes, noting that more than 1,000 people were convicted under the act. In 1920, a few years later, Hoover orchestrated the “biggest mass arrest in U.S. history,” according to Weiner’s research in unclassified documents, when the bureau “broke into political meetings, private homes, social clubs, dance halls and saloons across America,” arresting more than 6,000 people, for many of whom there were no warrants.

James Comey

Back in the modern day, 200 people, including a reporter, were charged with felony rioting after protests on inauguration day. Reality Winner, the federal contractor who leaked secrets about Russian attempts to hack voting machines in 2016, was arrested and charged under the Espionage Act a couple of days earlier. It’s still hard to imagine the scope of those 1920 raids. It shouldn’t be. Hoover later distanced himself from the raids and denied involvement. But rather than backing off as outrage grew over the violations of civil liberties, Hoover started to collect secret files on his political enemies. That’s what Comey was referring to when he referred to a Hoovertype situation. In a 2015 talk, Comey said he kept Hoover’s application for a warrant to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr., which cited “Communist influence in the racial situation,” on his desk. He said he required agents to study the Bureau’s MLK files and other instances of injustice, “to ensure that we remember our mistakes and that we learn from them.” Things may seem bad now, but the bureau’s previous political persecution of the left, immigrants and minorities should remind us that they can always get worse. Democracy in Crisis is a joint project of alternative newspapers around the country, including the Coachella Valley Independent. Baynard Woods is editor at large at the Baltimore City Paper. Send tips to democracyincrisicolumn@gmail.com.

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 11

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JULY ASTRONOMY J

This month and next are the best time of year to Planetsout andJupiter’s Bright Stars in Evening Mid-Twilight check moons and Saturn’s rings For July, 2017

This sky chart is drawn for latitude 34 degrees north, but may be used in southern U.S. and northern Mexico.

By Robert Victor

uly finds bright Jupiter in the south-southwestern sky at dusk, and Saturn in the southeast, closing to 65 degrees apart by month’s end. Before dawn, Venus gleams in the east, against the background of Taurus the Bull, with its two prominent star clusters and bright reddish star. On some dates, the moon forms attractive pairings with four of the five naked-eye planets, and four of the five bright zodiacal stars. In July’s evening twilight, bright Jupiter attracts attention in the southwest, with bluish Spica nearby to its left, and golden Arcturus high above them. Yellowish Saturn glows steadily in the southeast to south-southeast, in contrast to the vigorously twinkling reddish star Antares, heart of the Scorpion, to its right. The star reaches south in mid-twilight near month’s end. The Summer Triangle, topped by its brightest star, blue-white north of Saturn. The moon is full two nights Vega, ascends in the eastern sky. The Triangle’s later, on Saturday, July 8. By that date, Mercury other members are Altair, its southern point, can be glimpsed very low in the west-northwestand Deneb, trailing Vega. ern evening twilight. Look to the lower right of Mercury has a several-weeks-long but very Regulus, by 30 degrees on July 5, 15 degrees on low apparition in the west-northwest to west. July 14, 10 degrees on July 17, and shrinking to It loses nearly three-quarters of its brightness 5 degrees by July 21. during July, fading from magnitude -1.0 to +0.4, On July 8, we can catch the full moon rising and passes close by fainter, departing Regulus in the east-southeast shortly before sunset; on (+1.4) on July 25. the next evening, moonrise occurs within half In July’s morning twilight, Venus continues an hour after sunset. Thereafter, the waning climbing higher until late in the month, despite gibbous moon rises a little later and farther its having reached its greatest angular distance north each night. By July 14, the moon rises from the sun, 46 degrees, in early June. That’s just before midnight, nearly due east. Instead because in July, the sun-to-Venus line inclines of staying up late to wait for moonrise, get at an ever-steeper angle to our morning twilight outdoors before sunrise, and follow the wanhorizon. Before dawn brightens much, watch ing moon from July 9 through July 21 or 22. Venus, shifting a little more than one degree Venus, against a pretty background of the stars daily against background stars, pass 6 degrees of Taurus, provides another reason to arise south of the Pleiades star cluster on July 5, and early. Watch Venus go 6 degrees south of the within 3.5 degrees north of Aldebaran on July Pleiades star cluster on July 5; just 3.5 degrees 14. If you observe each morning at the same north of reddish-orange Aldebaran on July 14; time interval, Venus will appear almost stationa wide 7 degrees south of Elnath (Beta Tauri, ary during July, while the starry background tip of the Bull’s northern horn) on July 25; and rises toward the upper right, behind Venus. very close to third-magnitude Zeta Tauri, the Note Capella far to the north (left or upper southern horn, on July 27. (Use binoculars to left) of Venus. Before month’s end, Orion’s see the faint star near brilliant Venus on the brightest stars, Betelgeuse and Rigel, will 27th.) The waning crescent moon adds special appear in the east (with his striking three-star beauty to the scene on three mornings: On July belt, not plotted, midway between the two), 19, find the moon to the upper right of Venus, and Gemini’s Pollux, with Castor 4.5 degrees Aldebaran and the Hyades star cluster. On July above it, will emerge in the east-northeast. 20, the crescent moon will be just a few degrees Before mid-August, the Dog stars, Procyon and to the south (lower right) of Venus. An hour Sirius, will follow Orion into the eastern sky, before sunrise on July 21, the moon will be low completing the Winter Triangle with Orion’s in the east-northeast, well to the lower left of shoulder, Betelgeuse. Venus, while Orion’s shoulder, Betelgeuse, will On July mornings, the Summer Triangle of be rising widely to the lower right of the moon. Vega, Altair and Deneb is still up in west, and The moon rises at about the same time as Fomalhaut crosses south toward southwest. Venus on July 20. Two days later, on July 22, The moon and planets in July: On the evebinoculars may be required to spot the very old ning of July 1, the gibbous moon appears sevcrescent. Look for the hairline 1 percent moon eral degrees north of Spica, with bright Jupiter only 2 degrees up, one-half hour before sunrise, just to their right; on July 5, the moon passes just 21-22 hours before new. even more widely north of Antares. On the eveThat new moon occurs on July 23, at 2:46 ning of July 6, the moon passes a few degrees a.m.—one lunar month before the Aug. 21 solar

July's evening sky chart. ROBERT D. MILLER

Pollux

Deneb

8 Mercury 15

Vega

22 29

Altair

W Regulus

Arcturus

Jupiter 1

29 8 15 22

Spica

Saturn 15 22 29 Antares

mid-twilight eclipse! (SeeEvening the May columnoccurs at CVIndependent. when Sun is 9O below com for a list of resources.) Thehorizon. first view of this July 1: 46 minutes after sunset. month’s young 15: crescent is" expected on 46 " moon " the evening of July a" half-hour after 31: 4324," within " sunset. The 4 percent illuminated moon will then be 8 degrees up, 10 degrees north of west, at an age of 41-42 hours after new. As the sky darkens a bit, but before the moon gets too low, look a few degrees to the upper left of the moon for bright (magnitude +0.1) Mercury, with the fainter star Regulus (+1.4) just to the planet’s upper left. By the next evening, July 25, the crescent moon will have skipped to the upper left of the Mercury-Regulus pair, then at their closest, within a degree. Brighter Mercury will appear to the south (lower left) of Regulus. The evening of July 26 finds the moon far to the upper left of the now-widening pair. On the evening of July 28, bright Jupiter is closely to the lower right of the crescent moon; note Spica several degrees to the left of Jupiter.

Stereographic Projection On the next evening, July 29, the fat crescent by Robert D. Miller moon, half a day short Map of first quarter, appears to the upper left of Jupiter and Spica, while Mercury reaches greatest elongation, very low, just north of west, and 27 degrees from the sun (below the horizon while you can see Mercury). Check the website of the Astronomical Society of the Desert at www.astrorx.org for a listing of and directions to our star parties at Sawmill Trailhead, our high-altitude site (elevation 4,000 feet—wear warm clothes), starting at dusk on Saturday, July 22, Aug. 19, Sept. 23 and Oct. 14. Also, check out the Sky’s the Limit Observatory and Nature Center in Twentynine Palms, at skysthelimit29.org.

Robert C. Victor, formerly a staff astronomer at Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University, is now retired and enjoys providing sky watching opportunities for school children in and around Palm Springs. CVIndependent.com

Illustration: Anson Stevens-Bollen

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ozens of defendants, each sitting with their own lawyer, fill a Washington, D.C., courtroom, looking like college students wearing their nicest clothes for a job interview. However, the situation here is far more serious: They are all facing charges of felony rioting, conspiracy to riot and destruction of property on the morning of Donald Trump’s inauguration, when they were scooped up en masse by police with a controversial crowd-control technique which corrals protesters in a “kettle.” This is only one of the four groups among the 215 defendants who have been indicted on nearly identical charges. Many had to travel back to the District of Columbia to be arraigned on this Friday, June 9. One man who traveled here from Santa Fe, N.M., is sitting with his lawyer off to the side. He wears a black suit, has a black goatee and identifies himself as Tejano. He looks around the room like he is taking notes. Everyone else has already been arraigned before Judge Lynn Leibovitz. But this man, Aaron Cantú, wasn’t indicted until May 30, just a week before the hearing. He is a journalist who has written about policing, propaganda, drugs and politics for The Intercept, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, and many other publications. Reporting from the Republican National Convention on the possibility of a Trump presidency, Cantú wrote, “dream darker.” Like the others being charged, he’s now facing up to 70-plus years in prison. As various protests spread through the city on the morning of the inauguration, one group used “black bloc” techniques—wearing all black and acting in concert to attack symbols of multinational capitalism in a semi-anonymous fashion—in an attempt to disrupt the spectacle of the event, breaking windows of businesses like Starbucks and Bank of America.

The black bloc in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day. Photo: Baynard Woods

JULY 2017

“Individuals participating in the Black Bloc broke the windows of a limousine parked on the north side of K Street NW, and assaulted the limousine driver as he stood near the vehicle,” the indictment reads, “as Aaron Cantu and others moved west on K Street NW.” These black blocs have received widespread media attention in America since 1999, beginning with the Battle of Seattle at the World Trade Organization summit. A black bloc action that causes violence or damage is illegal and newsworthy—and yet, according to the indictment, Cantú is being charged for moving in proximity to the group he was covering. The indictment alleges that Cantú wore black and discarded a backpack as evidence of his part in the conspiracy. Because members of a conspiracy to riot wore black, anyone wearing black, it seems, is a member of the conspiracy. It is a crazy, complicated, sprawling case involving evidence from somewhere around 200 cell phones and various cameras. The discovery process will take months. In Washington, D.C., criminal cases that elsewhere would be handled by the state are prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office—so each prosecutor here ultimately answers to the president of the United States. Although most of the charges were first brought by an Obama appointee, this is a perfect example of what justice may look like in the Trump era. Like the travel ban, it is a grand draconian gesture followed by a lot of confusion. During the arraignment, prosecutor Jennifer Kerkhoff expressed concerns about finding herself in a “Brady trick bag,” referring to the law that requires the prosecution to turn over all relevant evidence in discovery. How does she know what material on someone’s phone might be relevant to another’s case? And how does the prosecution protect the privacy of co-defendants with data that is not relevant? “Can I just stop you?” Judge Leibovitz says to Kerkhoff as she talks about efficiency. “You brought charges against 215 people.” The judge does not have to finish. Leibovitz set most of the trial dates for October 2018, so that all evidence can be properly dealt with. “It’s concerning and confusing,” says Christopher Gowen, an American University law professor and partner at his own firm who was appointed to the case. “The fact that we are already here, and the amount of resources being spent to get to where we are, now leads me to believe we are going to have to sit through all these trials. All this taxpayer money is going to be wasted.” Gowen says that his client, Cabal Bhatt, was charged on the basis of wearing a bandana on his face to protect himself from police pepper spray. As the names of each of the defendants are called—Cantú and his co-defendants all plead not guilty—I think about how I was almost arrested reporting on the same events that day. I watched as the black bloc came around the corner, flanked by police. Trash cans rolled through the street. Pepper spray came out. An officer ran at me with her stick. I held up the media credentials hanging around my neck and yelled, “Press!” She went around me. I was lucky. At the advice of his lawyers, Cantú isn’t talking to the press. I ask Julie Ann Grimm, his editor at the Santa Fe Reporter, which hired him in April, if the charges make her more reluctant to assign him to certain stories. “His arrest was scary. The threat of being imprisoned for the rest of your life for just doing your job and observing a protest is … I don’t even know how to finish that sentence,” she says over the phone. “I think Aaron is nervous about covering protests. I’m slightly nervous about sending him out to them. But we’re really not going to let this action by the federal government or by the prosecutors in Washington, D.C., slow him down or to put a muzzle on his voice as a journalist.” Still, she says, he might do a couple of things differently now. “He will probably try to stay very separate from the people who are a part of the news event, and he will probably wear something like a tie.” But Grimm is quick to stress that Cantú is not the only one in this case whose rights are being violated. “We’re all standing up for Aaron, and this affects our industry and our identity as journalists,” Grimm says. “But the larger sort of corralling, the kettling, the mass-arresting, is also troubling.” As Cantú wrote from the RNC: “Imagining the worst possible future your mind can conjure is an essential step to avoiding a world you do not want to live in. Things are bad, very bad, and we will fuck them up even worse if we can’t acknowledge how very bad they are.” Baynard Woods writes Democracy in Crisis, a joint project of alternative newspapers around the country, including the Coachella Valley Independent. He is editor at large at the Baltimore City Paper. His work has also appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, the Washington Post, Vox, Salon, McSweeney’s, Virginia Quarterly Review and many other publications.

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COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 13

JULY 2017

CVI SPOTLIGHT: JULY 2017 The Talented Woman Behind the Man With the Legendary Mind Kres Mersky as Ellen Shoenhammer in The Life and Times of A. Einstein.

E=MC2. Can one famous formula-turned-phrase make a man? What does that recognizable formula say about the character of the person who created it? The one-woman play The Life and Times of A. Einstein, coming to the Coachella Valley Repertory Theatre Friday through Sunday, July 21-23, explores these questions. Directed by Paul Gersen and starring playwright/actress Kres Mersky, the off-beat fictional comedy centers on Ellen Shoenhammer, the secretary to Prof. Einstein—although she is far more than just his secretary. The character is loosely based on Einstein’s real secretary, Helen Dukas, whose duties included chauffeur, bodyguard and media liaison. She worked to keep his public image clear of scandal. She kept track of his dalliances and hid all of this damaging information protect his family. She was also the manager of all his business affairs—not

a small feat, especially when dealing with a busy “genius.” After her death in the 1980s, much of her correspondence was uncovered—and that’s when so much was discovered about Einstein’s illicit affairs. Mersky told me that The Life and Times of A. Einstein is a slice-of-life play, taking place on the great physicist’s birthday. He is supposed to be holding a press conference—but he is somehow unavoidably detained, so Ellen has to stand in for him. “Einstein was a celebrity then,” Mersky said. “People hid in the bushes to get photos of him—like modern-day paparazzi.” The play covers Ellen’s long association with the Einstein family, including how she came to meet the great man. Most importantly, she talks about his extraordinary research that changed our perception of the universe. Ellen also perfected the art of answering and evading questions—often better than the talking heads on today’s TV news. “I always wanted to do a play about

Einstein because of what he stood for,” Mersky said. “He was a complicated, great man who whose ethos and belief in the imagination helped shape science.” How did the play finally come about? “It’s actually a play I have been working on for 15 to 20 years. I loosely based Ellen on the real secretary,” Mersky said. I asked Mersky why Einstein remains such a popular figure today. “He is the world’s most famous refugee,” she said. “He is also known for all his humanitarian work. In 1933, he helped create the International Rescue Committee that, even to this day, is active. He will always be relevant.” Mersky said she enjoyed creating a character who is strong yet funny. That description could apply to Mersky as well; she’s a Los Angeles-based actress who has enjoyed visiting the valley over the years. Her acting credits include Revenge of the Nerds and the Charlie’s Angels TV series. She even appeared on the legendary yet short-lived The Richard

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Pryor Show. The Life and Times of A. Einstein is just one of CV Rep’s varied summer offerings, which include other one-person plays—including The Year of Magical Thinking, starring Linda Purl and based on Joan Didion’s riveting memoir; that takes place Aug. 11-13. CV Rep is also hosting various musical performances. One Tuesday per month, “Jazz at the Rep” will spotlight various talented musicians. If jazz is not your thing, CV Rep’s summer offerings also include a Cabaret Series and a Classical Music Series. The Life and Times of A. Einstein takes place at 7 p.m., Friday, July 21 and 22; and 2 p.m., Sunday, July 23, at the Coachella Valley Repertory Theatre, at 69930 Highway 111, Suite 116, in Rancho Mirage. Tickets are $30. For tickets, more information and a complete schedule of summer offerings, call 760-296-2966, or visit cvrep.org. —Dwight Hendricks

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ARTS

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PASSAGES OF LIFE

Pat Lasch’s female-driven sculptures offer surprises at the Palm Springs Museum of Art in Palm Desert

REPEAT ‘PARTY’!

The Desert Rose Playhouse brings back last summer’s hit feel-good comedy for a six-week run

By william bryan rooney

By jimmy boegle

ne of the best things that can happen when you experience art is to be surprised. It’s the artist’s job to transcend expectations and push you in new directions of thought and emotion. You don’t need to have any prerequisite art knowledge for this to happen; however, you must trust that those who choose to present their art have something to say. You can end up enlightened or repulsed—but if you are genuinely surprised, you may find out more about yourself through the art. This may very well happen at Pat Lasch: Journeys of the Heart, now on display at the Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Desert, The Galen. This is her first major exhibition, covering 43 years as an artist, and the intense biographical thread of feminist-driven art sculptures becomes more than the cakes and dresses you may have seen in photographs. Lasch’s work, in fine detail, covers the “passages” of life, from birth to expiration, with a passion rooted in a deep spirituality. Since the 1970s, Lasch has been making intricate sculptures resembling confections using acrylic paint, wood, paper and other things, as well as life-sized dresses which follow significant moments in a woman’s lifetime— made of piped paint lace and other materials. She was one of the first members of the A.I.R. Gallery women’s collective in New York City. The daughter of a German pastry chef and a seamstress, Lasch learned from her father that “if you make a mistake, put a rose on it.” As a viewer, it would be a mistake not to appreciate the details of her work. “The decorative ways in which she uses her media, from paint and paper to bronze, are interwoven with her spectacularly labor-intensive working methods,” said Mara Gladstone, associate curator for the exhibit. “Pat embraces emotion and beauty in her work, and there is power in that.” At the center of the exhibit is “A Life Blessed,” five pieces that represent the passages of a woman: birth, coming of age (via a communion dress), marriage (a wedding dress), an anniversary (a golden egg sculpture) and death (a shroud). The sculpture “The Egg Handler” depicts a woman dipping her arm into a collection of eggs, suggesting the nurturing of life. Even more striking are the “death” cakes— sculptures decorated with studded pins and drenched in black-paint icing. For Lasch, “cakes

hen Desert Rose Playhouse opened David Dillon’s Party last year on June 24 for a six-week run, the circumstances surrounding Desert Rose—the valley’s only LGBT theater company—and the LGBT community as a whole were rather bleak. Desert Rose’s future was up in the air, thanks to a substantial financial loss caused by the company’s critically lauded yet poorly attended production of Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches earlier in the year. Meanwhile, the LGBT community was reeling from the Pulse Nightclub massacre, which had taken place just 12 days before. Party turned out to be just what Desert Rose needed: The raucous comedy, about a “Truth or Dare”-style game played by seven gay friends at a house party, was such a box-office smash that the production was extended from six weeks to nine, returning Desert Rose to firm financial footing. The playhouse also took up a collection for Pulse Nightclub-related charities at each show—and raised more than $7,000 during the run. Therefore, it’s no surprise that Desert Rose is reprising Party for a six-week, non-extendable run this summer, opening Friday, June 23. The playhouse will again be passing the hat to raise money for various charities at each show. Artistic director Jim Strait, who directs the play, said the show was written by David Dillon in the early 1990s because the playwright couldn’t find a positive, uplifting gay play. “Everything was about AIDS or coming out,” Strait said. “He thought of a party he was once at where everyone at the end of the night ended up naked and dancing. So he wrote the play, and it had this wonderful, positive message.” Take note: Everyone onstage indeed winds up naked by the end of Party. In other words, the play is meant only for mature audiences.

CVIndependent.com

W Pat Lasch, “A Life Blessed: 50th Anniversary Golden Egg, 1985-1986,” plaster, thorns and gold leaf, collection of Jennifer Grausman. ©Pat Lasch.

mark time.” “Why not a cake for death? It’s one of our last and most important transitions,” Lasch said. She once brought one of the black cakes to an exhibition following the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. She was quoted then as saying: “I’ve always been interested in death. I want to know what that transition is about. But I’m also interested in union and marriage. The crucial question for me as an artist is, ‘Who am I? Where am I from?’” One particularly difficult transition for Lasch occurred recently, when she requested a cake she was commissioned to make for the New York MoMA 50th anniversary in 1979— only to find that the museum had discarded it when the museum was cleaning out its storage facilities. A museum representative acknowledged the mistake with an email: “Please accept my sincere apologies as well as my very best wishes for the success of your show in Palm Springs.” Some might say that really takes the cake. Lasch lives part-time in Rancho Mirage, as well as New York. To commemorate the exhibition, the artist has created limited-edition mini-cake sculptures that are available for purchase at The Galen. An illustrated color catalog accompanies the exhibition, with limited-edition copies available. Pat Lasch: Journeys of the Heart exhibit runs through Sunday, Oct. 15, at the Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Desert, The Galen, at 72567 Highway 111, in Palm Desert. Summer hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday through Sunday. Admission is free. For more information, call 760-346-5600, or visit www.psmuseum.org/ palm-desert.

Robbie Wayne played James, a butch, leather-wearing party attendee, in last year’s show—and he jumped at the chance to play the role again this year, he said. In fact, five of the seven actors from last year’s production returned to their roles. “We were pressing Jim: ‘Please, we hope we can do it again,’” Wayne said. Acting is a hard enough thing to do while fully clothed, so I had to ask: How difficult is it to perform while buck-naked in front of a room full of strangers? “Being in front of strangers is actually the easy part,” Wayne said. “The hard part is when your neighbors come to see the show, or your best friend’s mom is there. The people we knew in the audience made it scary—not the people we didn’t.” The LGBT community was still in shock following the Pulse shooting when Party opened last year. This year, circumstances are different—but still disconcerting, given the less-than-LGBT-friendly presidential administration now in place. Strait promised that Party will make attendees feel better about things, if only for a couple of hours. “We are, first off, having a good time and selling tickets,” Strait said. “But we are also spreading the gospel of a positive gay lifestyle. It’s such a wonderful bonding experience (for the characters), and the audience feels that, too.” Wayne said that for a lighthearted play, Party has a surprising amount of depth. “There are a lot of layers to this play,” he said. “There are some punch lines that are a lot more meaningful this year.” Party will be performed at 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday; and 2 p.m., Sunday, through Sunday, July 30, at the Desert Rose Playhouse, 69620 Highway 111, in Rancho Mirage. Tickets are $34 to $37. For tickets or more information, call 760202-3000, or visit www.desertroseplayhouse.org.

A scene from Desert Rose Playhouse’s production of Party.

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July in the Palm Springs Oasis By Brad Fuhr, e-publisher, GayDesertGuide.LGBT

June has proven to start the summer of our discontent with above average temperatures. Who ever said, “Summertime and the living is easy!” didn’t live in the desert. July is upon us and there’s no shortage of things to do this month in #ILoveGayPalmSprings. Our online events calendar and weekly email newsletter will keep you updated, but here’s a preview: Palm Springs Swing & Mix starts the month. Event organizers tell us: “Thousands of people all across the US, Canada, Japan cherish this fun, interactive, and sometimes challenging activity. And square dancing has evolved way beyond what many of us did in Jr. High or at church social halls,” stated Gary Dougan, Chair of Swing & Mix, the 34th Annual LGBTQ Square Dance Convention of the International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs. Swing & Mix organizers, Gary Dougan, Randy Clarke-Ianiero and Jim Reinhold, report that there are nearly 800 participants Swing & Mix will use the Palm Springs Convention Center for dancing, and the Renaissance Hotel lobby and pool for recreational activities. On Sunday & Monday, July 2 & 3, there will be busloads of square dancers doing “flashmob” square dancing at scenic sights around town. We have the events and links on our site at GayDesertGuide.LGBT. And then there are the fireworks! We’ve created a list on our site for all the area fireworks displays, but we want to call out a great fundraiser for AAP – Food Samaritans for the IndepenDANCE Day Party at the O’Donnell House overlooking the valley! The tramway is another vantage point for fireworks, but they will be tiny from that distance. We’re bringing back the mid-Summer Dance Party (Totally 80s) at its proper spot in late July – the 29th to be exact. Chill Bar’s Scorpion Room will again be the site with D.A.P. and PAWS program as the beneficiaries. Tickets on sale after July 4th.

#ILoveGayPalm Springs Because… Alexis says “#ILoveGayPalmSprings because…” By Nicholas Snow In the heat of summer, there are many COOL activities taking place at The LGBT Community Center of the Desert (visit TheCenterPS.org for their calendar of events) where you’re bound to bump into one of our favorite Coachella Valley natives, The Center’s Donor Engagement Manager Alexis Ortega (shown here in one of my favorite file photos of her). As we learn at TheCenterPS.org, born and raised in Palm Springs (and clearly used to these ho summers), “Alexis was the first in her family to attend college, and was heavily involved in campus LGBT groups at Stanford University…” she “returned to the desert shortly after graduation and has continued her passion for LGBTQ causes as an ongoing member on the Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast Committee, a volunteer and organizer of Palm Springs Dyke March, and an organizer of social events for younger local lesbians and queer women.” Among many reasons, Alexis explains #ILoveGayPalmSprings because “there are LGBT-friendly places everywhere. For a town of our size, we’re ridiculously blessed to have so many LGBT-owned, operated, and friendly businesses. As a younger queer woman, sometimes it’s not easy meeting friends, but it’s kind of cool knowing that one trip to Toucans can lead you to find new buddies, or even the love of your life (it’s happened to me!)... and taking a stroll downtown hand-in-hand with your partner won’t attract unwanted stares or attention.” She adds, “Every day, I drive by memories from my childhood and adolescence: running the mile at Raymond Cree Middle School, the football field at Palm Springs High School, where we had marching band after school and performed field shows; the Starbucks at the corner of Tahquitz and Palm Canyon, my first job ever. Nothing ever feels quite as good as home, and that’s how I feel about the entire city of Palm Springs!” We love you too, Alexis!

Looking to escape the summer heat in July? We’ll be at Gay Wine Weekend in Sonoma (see details on our back page) and also sneaking away for Outfest Opening Night party at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown LA. New Tesloop service can take you to LA and back in a Tesla ala Lyft. Save 20% when you use GDG20 when booking. Our theatre companies are busy in July: Naked “Party” at The Desert Rose Playhouse, a great summer series of music and dance at CV Rep and “In the Heights” at Palm Canyon Theatre. Tickets are on sale for many of our performing arts including Dezart Performs and the McCallum for their 2017-18 season. August brings Big Bear Romp to Big Bear and it’s not just for bears. Leslie Jordan headlines. We’re also looking forward to the grand opening on Stacy’s, a piano bar in downtown Palm Springs next to Streetbar. Stacy is looking for a grand piano, so if you have one taking up space, let him know! Rumor has it: Meet the Museum will be back on White Party weekend 2018. The new name for the Kimpton is The Rowan and the facility will boast a rooftop pool, 12,000 square foot pool deck with six cabanas and views to die for! Subscribe to our newsletter and like us/follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

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JULYJULY 2017 2017

Featured Businesses in Palm sPrings

Welcome to GayDesertGuide.LGBT Welcome to the Palm Springs Oasis and the one website and app that will “Guide” you to everything you need to know while visiting or living in the Coachella Valley. GayDesertGuide.LGBT is a mobile-first online guide to LGBT-friendly businesses, events and activities in and around the Palm Springs area. We’ve put together this “Quick-Start Guide” with a map and some of the top LGBT-friendly places to frequent.

We have a complete guide to Happy Hours in the Palm Springs area on our website. Get great deals on drinks and food at these restaurants, bars and clubs. Bookmark us on your mobile phone so you can find Happy Hours anytime!

RetroRoom Lounge

Chill Bar/Scorpion Room 36

Oscar’s Café & Bar 39

Toucan’s Tiki Lounge 42

Streetbar Blackbook

Trunks Cathedral City LuLu California Bistro 59

67 68

Pedego Electric Bikes

The Steakhouse at the Spa Resort Casino

EOS Fitness

Bongo Johnny's Patio Bar & Grille

LGBT Community Center of the Desert

Johannes Palm Springs

Camelot Theatres

LuLu California Bistro

Desert Rocks Indoor Climbing Gym

Pinocchio in the Desert

Escape Room Palm Springs

Peabody’s Café

CCBC Cathedral City

Hoo Doo Patio Restaurant & Bar

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

dish Creative Cuisine

Palm Springs Air Museum

Trio Restaurant

Architecture and Design Center

Broken Yolk Cafe

Copley’s Restaurant

Palm Springs Convention Center

Koffi North

Spa Resort Casino

Koffi South/Appetito

Bike Palm Springs

Manhattan in the Desert

28 Palm Springs Art Museum

Nightlife (See our Happy Hour Finder online)

Rio Azul Mexican Bar & Grill Watercress Vietnamese Bistro

RetroRoom Lounge

Reservoir , The Draughtsman

Chill Bar/Scorpion Room

Purple Palm

Hunters Nightclub

Thai Smile

Oscar's Cafe & Bar

Ristretto Coffee

SpurLine Video Bar Streetbar

Zin American Bistro

39 40

Tool Shed

Bontá Cathedral City

Toucan’s Tiki Lounge

Rick’s Grille

Blackbook

Eight 4 Nine

Trunks Cathedral City

Shopping 10

Destination PSP

My Little Flower Shop

Bear Wear

Motif

Hospital / Urgent Care

Hephaestus Jewelry

Pharmacy

Geras Toussant Gallery

Post Office

Revive Salon & Day Spa

Antique Galleries of Palm Springs

P.S.A. Organica Dispensary

Revivals

Symbol Keys Grocery Store

Tennis Visitor Center

Moxie

Rio Azul Mexican Bar & Grill Watercress Vietnamese Bistro 74

67 68

Trio Restaurant 61

Dine

@GayDesertGuide

Attractions

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Sunny Dunes

Dinah Shore

Indian Canyon Dr

14 73 54

N Palm Canyon Dr 16

Gene Autry Trail 23

Belardo Rd

Mesquite Ave

71 3 1 53 38

55 32

Ramon

Kirk Douglas Way

10 56

Calle Encilia

35 12 39 42 51 33 36

El Segundo

Saturnino

Arenas

Tahquitz Canyon

Andreas

Amado

Downtown Palm Springs

El Cielo Rd

Farrell Dr Mesquite Ave Belardo Rd

La Verne Way

E Palm Canyon Dr

Ocotillo Ave

Via Soledad

S Palm Canyon Dr Mesquite Ave

Cahuilla Rd

Ramon Rd

Belardo Rd

Arenas Rd

59 63 62 61 11

San Lorenzo Rd

Sunny Dunes

Camino Parocela

Saturnino Rd

Andreas Rd

Amado Rd

Alejo Rd

Calle Encilia

70 El Alameda

Indian Canyon Dr N Palm Canyon Dr 69 20 58 68

Tamarisk Rd

Tachevah Dr

Mel Ave

El Segundo

m Tra

ay W

Vista Chino

E Via Escuela

Racquet Club Rd San Rafael Dr

Grenfall Rd Warm Sands

Avenida Caballeros 29

Farrell Dr

S Sunrise Way

Ramon Rd

N Sunrise Way

Baristo Rd

Tahquitz Canyon Way

Farrell Dr

Map courtesy of HunKa Concepts

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Rancho Las Palmas Dentistry Robert Karl, Jr., D.D.S M.P.H. 760-568-2797

2017 “Save the Date” Coachella Valley Events

We are now offering new in-office teeth whitening: Sinsational Smile™. It’s a quick, comfortable and affordable way to whiten your teeth. Takes 20 minutes, yet can take years off your appearance! We can help you achieve a whiter smile and a more confident you!

June 30-July 2 Palm Springs Swing & Mix July 4 indepenDANCE Day Party July 6-16

Teeth Whitening Special only $99 when combined with your next cleaning! Call today to schedule your appointment.

OutFest, Los Angeles

July 7-9 3rd Annual Joshua Tree Improv/Comedy Festival July 16 Pets on Parade 24th Annual Awards Luncheon July 29 Mid-Summer Dance Party @ Chill Aug. 11-13

Idyllwild Arts Foundation’s Jazz in the Pines

Aug. 11-13

Splash House

Aug. 17-20

Big Bear Romp @ Big Bear Lake

Aug. 25-27

2nd Annual Comic Con Palm Springs

Sept. 4

Labor Day

Sept. 15 HIV and Aging Conference Sept. 28

#ILoveGayPalmSprings @Destination PSP!

Now available at DestinationPSP - new #ILoveGayPalmSprings merchandise. Visit DestinationPSP in downtown Palm Springs.

Gay Wine Weekend

We’ve moved to JULY 14-16 so you can celebrate PRIDE & join us Out In The Vineyard! It’s a weekend of Wine & Celebration with new winemaker dinners, winery tours and events. Visit GayWineWeekend.com

Palm Springs Pride Honors Awards

Oct. 7 Palm Springs Equality Awards Oct. 16 2nd Annual Sanctuary P.S. Guardian Angel Dinner Oct. 17 PS Chamber Business Expo Oct. 19-22

Modernism Week Fall Preview 2017

Oct. 21 Desert AIDS Walk

Contemporary Escena Home $739,900 Curt Larson 612-387-3985 Berkshire Hawthaway Home Services CA Properties

This beautiful Palm Springs home is move-in ready. It is furnished (per inventory), has an owned SOLAR system and it is on fee land. Enjoy mountain views from the private pool and patio when you want to relax or entertain. This exceptional property includes a private, detached CASITA with a bath, as well as two full master bedrooms. CalBRE #01974318 MLS #17-242288PS

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Oct. 25 Out PSP, A Kick off to Pride Oct. 26-29

Palm Springs Leather Pride

Oct. 27 The LGBT Center’s “Center Stage” Fundraiser Oct. 31 Halloween on Arenas Road Nov. 1 George Zander Candlelight Vigil Nov. 3-5 Palm Springs Pride Weekend Nov. 10-11

Palm Springs International Animation Festival

Dec. 1 World AIDS Day/D.A.P.’s Everyday Heroes

For More Info & Events visit GayDesertGuide.LGBT

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ARTS

A MADDEN-ING PERFORMER Funnyman Frank Caliendo brings his standup act to Morongo By brian blueskye

f you watched Mad TV in the early ’00s, you probably remember the guy who played George W. Bush and John Madden. You probably also remember he was on Fox NFL Sunday for a while. That guy is Frank Caliendo, and he’ll be bringing his standup show to Morongo Casino Resort Spa at 9 p.m., Friday, July 7. During a recent phone interview, Caliendo talked about his five seasons on Mad TV. “The opportunity to be on TV and do different characters with the impressions and different makeup was always great,” Caliendo said. “The disadvantage was going up against Saturday Night Live: They can be live and up to the minute. Ninety-nine percent of Mad TV was (made) two weeks in advance. It’s amazing to think how Saturday Night Live is able to put that show on. Some people got flustered with Mad TV, but Saturday Night Live was always going to get the accolades and the attention, because something could happen that day, and they could add it to the show and make multiple jokes about it. But Mad TV was great for trying to do different things and learning about acting from the ground up.” When I asked about his George W. Bush impression, Caliendo imitated Bush’s voice, telling me: “Always simple, man. Always stuff to do.” He then returned to his normal voice. “They weren’t sure if they were going to have me doing George W. Bush. They let me do a sketch with Michael McDonald, who was playing John Kerry, and it was a debate sketch. I kind of just took the sketch over, improvising. It just got laugh after laugh. That really was a lot of fun, and a great time for me.” Caliendo is a football fan, so his Fox NFL Sunday years were also great times for him, he said. “It was a lot of fun, given I was a Packers fan who grew up in Milwaukee. It definitely was pretty cool to be around those Hall of Fame football people. Some of those sketches worked, and some of them didn’t, but it was pretty amazing, because that’s really what took me to another level. Jimmy Kimmel used to bring me on to do the John Madden sketch with him, and he moved on, and I took over for him and started doing different characters each week. That was a huge deal for me.” Caliendo is a warrior of the road when it comes to standup comedy, but he said he’s now

Frank Caliendo.

trying to slow down. “I’ve done so much over the years that now, I’m actually trying to work more on the acting side,” he said. “I don’t audition stuff, but I’ve been working on the skill set and learning the craft a lot more. I do workshops and take classes. That’s been more of my focus than standup. I’m just doing a casino show here or there, and corporate and private shows once a month, but I’m not on the road like I used to be. I used to be out 45 weekends of the year, and I don’t really want to do that anymore. I’m trying to develop a one-man show and do things outside of the impressions.” Even though he once impersonated Bush for a living, Caliendo said politics is not his favorite subject. “If you’re listening to me for politics, you’ve got problems,” he said. Caliendo said it’s his kids who make him laugh more than anything. “The fact that my daughter, who is 10, wants a YouTube channel—what are you going to do with it?” he said. “My son and I are lazy and play video games, but my son is so lazy that he watches people play video games on YouTube. What is that about? I don’t even get it anymore. Things don’t make sense. The Internet has changed everything. … It’s going to be like that WALL-E movie, where everyone just wheels themselves around.” Frank Caliendo will perform at 9 p.m., Friday, July 7, at Morongo Casino Resort Spa, 49500 Seminole Drive, in Cabazon. Tickets are $31 to $124. For more information, call 800-252-4499, or visit www.morongocasinoresort.com. CVIndependent.com

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FOOD & DRINK

ON COCKTAILS L

CVINDEPENDENT.COM/FOOD-DRINK

While craft bartenders usually feel disdain for vodka, even it has its time and place

By kevin carlow

ast month, I admitted experimenting with vodka. Well, I think it’s time for a talk. Due to the timing of my lease ending, rent going up by $100 a month (seriously?), looming air conditioning bills and a summer break at Seymour’s approaching; I decided to spend some time back in the ancestral homeland known as Massachusetts. How long will I be back here in the East? We shall see, but the desert has certainly grabbed a hold on me, and I can feel it tugging already. Before leaving, I spent quite a bit of time saying my temporary goodbye by consuming potables at my neighborhood bars and restaurants. Being that my neighborhood was the Arenas Road area of downtown Palm Springs, this meant a fair amount of vodka. would find that off-putting, like walking into a Of course, one does not need to drink vodka on Arenas; the bartenders at Chill reach for the bar from a commercial, but I really grew to like the bold statement: “We’re a vodka bar; we’re Jameson bottle as soon as they see me walk not pretending to be something else.” The look in the door, and on the rare event I make it of the uniform bottles in sharply different hues to Bongo Johnny’s before 2 a.m., they do the was rather striking, actually—a back-bar Andy same—but vodka is the drink of choice for Warhol, in a way. most people on Arenas, it seems. My friends had informed me ahead of time I believe every alcoholic spirit has its that there would not yet be a cocktail menu. time and place. When the temps breach 100 (Again, this was during the soft opening.) degrees, and you are marathon day-drinking with friends and strangers, vodka makes sense. Being that I was a touch hung over that day, I had bartender (and neighbor) Justin whip me Straight out of the bottle, ice-cold from the up something that would be refreshing and freezer, with a pickle chaser? Yes, please! light. He had been churning out tall glasses of I was intrigued to see a new place serving a sort of cucumber vodka mojito, and suggestboth food and drink open on Arenas, after ed one. Sure, why not? seeing it under construction for months. Remember when I said every spirit has Blackbook didn’t even have a sign up when I a time and a place? Well, when the Devil’s first visited, but some friends who were sort Revenge fried-chicken sandwich came out in of “unofficial consultants” on the project had all its infernal glory, I was glad to have a coolinformed me that it was, in fact, open. Not ing cucumber-and-mint drink to soothe the only was it open; it was rather busy—word heat. I was told I was the first one to finish the gets around in a small town. The first thing I noticed was the giant wall of Hanson vodkas— sandwich, after a couple of weeks of selling them. Can’t take that away from me! As for the different flavors in various hues. Normally, I

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cocktail list, bartender Daved has some vodka and non-vodka concoctions on the way, including one with bourbon, honey and grapefruit named “Honey Booze-Booze.” He made one for my companion, and I tried it after my mouth stopped burning. Fitting for a party street, it was a tall drink of danger—sort of a whiskey punch and Brown Derby mixed together. You might be asking: “Wait … did he just do a write up about a bar without a cocktail program? Who wrote this, and what did you do with that other guy?!” Yes, I did, and not just to brag about my tolerance for spicy sandwiches; I am trying to prove a point: Vodka is, by its own nature, an unpretentious spirit. It has no age designation and no geographic attribution, and it is made out of the humblest of raw materials. The cognac maker can boast about his grand cru, the Scotch distiller his merroir, and the bourbon baron his rickhouse; even the humble mezcalero has his own terroir and agave varietal over which to swoon. However, the vodka distiller has merely humble grain or another starch. Does “winter wheat” get your heart racing? How about “estate-grown potatoes”? Sexy, right? Six times distilled? Ten times? I hate to break it to you, folks, but that is basically all a bunch of marketing hogwash. Don’t believe me? Get a few drinks into someone who actually makes the stuff. I have—several times, in fact. They know it’s malarkey, and without getting into the nitty-gritty of how continuous stills work, they’re … well, continuous. Distillate goes round and round and gets separated off constantly, with no way to say how many times it has all been distilled. You could use a pot still, of course, but the point of a pot still is to leave more congeners (things that aren’t alcohol and water; they bring flavors and, sometimes, hangovers) in the mix instead of just making neutral grain spirits, so then you have to distill it more times to get it mostly flavorless. When I worked (briefly) at a place that had more than 200 different vodkas on the menu,

and I did my best to know a little something about each one. At that restaurant, I was probably one of the worst servers, but, dammit, I knew the vodka flavor profiles! There were the bread or biscuit ones, the vanilla and butterscotch ones, the spicy ones made with rye (sorry, Polish-vodka drinkers; it’s usually rye, not potato!), the soapy French and Swedish ones, and the sharp and racy Russian ones. But the funny thing that happens when you make a cocktail, basically any cocktail, with vodka is that you lose most, if not all, of that flavor. That is why craft bartenders balk when you say, “I want a vodka cocktail, not too sweet!” But if you still insist on ordering a vodka cocktail at a craft bar, here’s how to get something you actually want to drink: 1. Are you feeling something citrusy? Want something with berries, or herbs? Perhaps something more adventurous? Lead with that: “I’m looking for something with citrus and mint, or maybe basil?” 2. Are there any flavors you hate? Tell me: “I don’t like grapefruit, though.” 3. Do you want it in a martini glass (“up”) or with soda (“long”)? 4. Puh-lease don’t say “not too sweet.” I know I am fighting a losing battle here, but saying that leads me to feel like you think I don’t know how to balance a cocktail properly. I know that you don’t mean it that way, but it is not a great way to start our relationship! If you think a bartender is going to serve you a sugary mess, don’t order a custom drink from him or her. 5. If dietary restrictions prevent you from having any sugar at all, like even from juice or vermouth, let me know. That leaves you with maybe two drinkable cocktails … sorry! And, please, no Splenda or Equal; that is just awful. Friends, stay cool during the summer months. I will still be involved in this column while I am away; you’ll see how next month. Kevin Carlow can be reached via email at krcarlow@gmail.com.

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JULY 2017

FOOD & DRINK

the

BEER GODDESS

By Erin Peters

hile it’s always a great time for delicious craft beer, it’s also fun to celebrate beer with others—and the upcoming months bring an array of awesome beer festivals where people celebrate in style. Beer weeks and festivals celebrate the culture and community of craft beer and give fans options to enjoy new and special brews. Here are just a few beer events to put on your calendar: San Marcos: Stone 21st Anniversary Celebration and Invitational Beer Festival, Aug. 19: Hailed as one of the godfathers of craft-beer events (pictured), this is not your average beer festival. It’s not only the largest craft-beer festival in Southern California; the beers are carefully selected to include some of the finest and rarest beers around. Seattle: Washington Beer Collaboration Festival, Aug. 19: Washington celebrates collaboration and creativity by featuring 25 unique collaboration beers from 50 different

Washington breweries. Stay tuned for the pairings. The second annual two-day outdoor event is presented by the Washington Beer Commission. Philadelphia: Labor Day Volksfest, Sept. 2-4: Willkommen bei freunden! Every Labor Day Weekend, the Cannstatter Volksfest Verein hosts a lively three-day party. Celebrating German heritage since 1873, this is the oldest Volksfest in the United States. Sacramento: California Craft Beer Summit and Summit Beer Festival, Sept. 7-9: Experience two full days of beer education, networking and tradeshows for brewers, retailers, distributors and craft-beer lovers at the convention center on Sept. 7 and 8. On Saturday, Sept. 9, enjoy a plethora of California craft beers at the largest beer festival on the West Coast, with more than 160 California craft breweries. Charleston: Charleston Beer Week, Sept. 9-16: The fifth annual Charleston Beer Week celebrates the South Carolina’s city’s craft beer community, from brewer to bartender and keg to glass. The city now boasts 19 production

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Get out your calendars, because beer-fest season is rapidly approaching breweries, four brewpubs and numerous craft beer-focused pubs and restaurants. Keep a look out on the website for a list of 48 sudsy events across the city. Big Bear: Big Bear Oktoberfest, September-October: Held among pine trees, mountains and Big Bear Lake, this is one of the longest running Oktoberfests in the country. Guests are treated to authentic German entertainment, brats, knockwursts and German beers in a beautiful alpine setting. Denver: Great American Beer Festival, Oct. 5-7: The Great American Beer Festival is the premier U.S. beer festival and competition. In its 30th year, the 2016 GABF competition awarded 286 medals to some of the best commercial breweries in the U.S. Want another reason to visit? With more than 3,500 different beers from more than 700 of the nation’s finest breweries, the event is listed as one of the top 1,000 “places” in the U.S. to visit before you die. San Diego, San Diego Beer Week, Nov. 3-12: From “Bikes, Brews and Brats With Green Flash” and a “Beer Train Trolley Tour”

to “Hops on the Harbor With Flagship Cruises and Belching Beaver Brewery” and a “Rare Beer Breakfast,” this 10-day craft-beer celebration features events like no other. Greater Palm Springs: Coachella Valley Beer Week, Nov. 10-19: Established in 2015 by yours truly, CVBW is a craft-beer celebration featuring festivals, dinners, tours, tastings and meet-the-brewer nights in and around Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Indio and La Quinta.

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FOOD & DRINK

WINE WISDOM JASON DAVID Bonny Doon’s Randall Grahm is still chasing the dream

HAIR STUDIO

LOVE YOUR HAIR

By pete holland

here is a Napa vintner who was born into a winemaking family in France and Country Club and Cook Street married into winemaking royalty in Palm De sert California. He loves throwing lavish parties and spraying his guests with Champagne. Even in 760-340-5959 photos taken in the vineyard, he dresses like he’s meeting James Bond for a game of baccarat. www.jasondavidhairstudio.net Picture this man. Now picture his polar opposite. That’s Randall Grahm, the founding winemaker from Bonny Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz, who drives an old Citroën and writes parodic wine-themed lyrics to Dylan songs. Grahm is in his 60s, and still ponytailed. “I’m Randall Grahm, and welcome to my nightmare,” he said at a recent event. This got a laugh, but it echoes his James Beard Award-winning book, Been Doon So Long, where one rambling footnote paints in grim Randall Grahm. KIRSTIN SMITH/BONNY DOON WINERY VIA WIKIPEDIA.ORG detail the indignity winemakers have to endure grape at the perfect site, intercede minimally, to sell wine: They pour their “product” (or life’s and allow greatness to ensue in spite of him, work … whatever) in an under-ventilated room not because of him. With what appeared to be full of reps wearing moist branded polo shirts— real candor, Grahm said he was “pretty much people who might have been selling prosthetics chickenshit” for drifting away from that mission instead of wine, had that job called first. His over the years. But here he is, refocusing on that quip was no joke. challenge in his 60s. Grahm does not have as many wines as he After a years-long search, Grahm used the used to. He sold his most commercially sucundisclosed sum he received in exchange for his cessful brands—Big House, Cardinal Zin and brands to purchase his ideal site, Popelouchum, Pacific Rim—about a decade ago, reducing by located in San Juan Bautista. It’s a place that about 90 percent his stake in an operation that came to him in a dream and whose name was selling 450,000 cases a year. But pumping means “paradise” in Mutsun, the language of out hundreds of thousands of cases of those the Native American people of the area. His crowd-pleasing brands had encroached heavily excitement about Popelouchum was palpable as on the goal Grahm set when he founded Bonny he poured us a taste of its nascent wine from a Doon in the early 1980s: to make vins de terroir. hand-labeled 375-milliliter bottle. The wine is a Grahm glides in and out of French as he perfumed and fruity grenache from dry-farmed speaks and writes, so here is the essence of his 2-year-old vines, and it is superb. conundrum: There are vins de terroir, and there Grahm’s history should be required reading. are vins d’effort: wines of place, and wines of He was at the vanguard of making syrah and effort, respectively. The former are expressions other Rhône varietals into California mainstays. of the land from which they come. The latter are He risked significant treasure by bottling the expressions of the winemaker’s work and are, entire 80,000 cases of 2001 Big House Red with Grahm would argue, what California winemakscrewcaps rather than corks, and continues to ers actually do well: They take grapes that have bottle all of his wines that way. proven over centuries to be perfectly suited to What goes into a wine? What determines their ancestral homes, bring them here, and what comes out? It is an answer that Randall make them work. When I asked him whether Grahm, throwing himself into a new project the term vin d’effort was necessarily derisive, he nearly four decades into his career, still seeks answered: “Mildly.” with wide-eyed curiosity. It is one he is wagerThe problem is that the little things done to ing Popelouchum will reveal, when the wine he make the wines work—like irrigating, say— envisions is a bottled reality. don’t limit just their chances of failing, but also their shot at fulfilling their lofty potential. A version of this piece originally appeared in the So Grahm is on a mission to plant the perfect Nashville Scene. CVIndependent.com

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the

FOOD & DRINK INDY ENDORSEMENT

We savor a splendid Korean stew, and devour a delicious Italian sandwich By Jimmy Boegle

WHAT The kimchi jji-gae WHERE Umami Seoul, 67555 E. Palm Canyon Drive, No. A-105, Cathedral City HOW MUCH $14.99 CONTACT 760-202-0144; www.umamiseoul.com WHY The variety of flavors and textures. I’ve had many good meals at 67555 E. Palm Canyon Drive, No. A-105, in Cathedral City. For years, that was the home of Thai Kitchen 1, my favorite neighborhood Thai restaurant. I was heartbroken last summer when I tried to call in an order of food to go—and got the “this number has been disconnected” recording. However, the fact that Umami Seoul is now occupying the space is making me feel just a little better about things. The original owners of longtime Palm Springs restaurant Wasabi are the folks behind Umami Seoul, which serves up a nice selection of Korean and Japanese fare, including sushi. The hubby and I stopped in for a recent lunch, and while one of the Korean-barbecue lunch specials caught his eye, I had to order a Korean entrée which is one of my all-time favorites: the kimchi jji-gae. For the uninitiated: This is a soup/stew in which kimchi is the star of the show. Therefore, the soup is tart and spicy, with the kimchi complemented by whatever the other ingredients are—in this case, pork and tofu. The dish is flavorful, filling and unique. As an added bonus, the kimchi jji-gae (as well as the other Korean entrées) comes with rice and various side dishes (bahn-chan)— including pickled sprouts, a potato salad, pickled daikon radishes and a tofu concoction. The meal as a whole contains pretty much every flavor profile imaginable, as well as a bunch of different textures and temperatures. Yeah, I still miss Thai Kitchen 1, its delicious basil chicken and its delicious tom yum soup. However, I’m thrilled that I can now get delicious kimchi jji-gae at a place not too far from home.

WHAT The Don Veto sandwich WHERE Larry’s Gourmet Market, 2781 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs HOW MUCH $7.99 (8 inches); $12.99 (12 inches). CONTACT 760-832-7188; larrysgourmetmarket.com WHY It’s a damn good sandwich. From North Palm Canyon Drive, Larry’s Gourmet Market does not look like much. I’ve zoomed by the reddish brick-walled building many times and have never really given it a first thought, let alone a second one. However, I once overheard someone raving about the sandwiches there. Then a friend sang those sandwiches’ praises to me. Thus, I decided it was time to check out Larry’s for myself. I was the only customer inside the cute market (which, by the way, features a great selection of liquor and wine). I went up to the deli and asked the pleasant woman behind the counter what sandwich she recommended; she suggested the Don Veto, with roast beef, capicola, mortadella, salami, provolone, veggies and Larry’s “famous” vinaigrette dressing. As my side, I picked the house-made pasta salad over potato salad and coleslaw. She said several sandwich orders had come in before mine, so I’d have a brief wait. I sat down at one of a very small handful of tables and chairs … and watched and listened as a steady stream of orders got called in. I may have been the only customer actually at the market at the time, but I was far from the market’s only customer. Turns out Larry’s—which also offers pizzas, salads, hot dogs and some Mediterranean specialties—does a lot of call-in business, and also offers delivery, for a $15 charge or more, depending on your Coachella Valley location. After a brief wait, my sandwich was ready, and I took it home to eat it. It was awesome— the roll was crispy and flavorful, and that “famous” vinaigrette added a perfect tangy and sweet complement to the salty and savory meats. Good stuff. Sandwiches are one of my favorite foods … and Larry’s is now one of my favorite local sandwich places.

WE LOVE OUR LOCALS Celebrate our “Love to the Locals” and enjoy a 3-course dinner for $39, crafted with locally sourced ingredients and the best in New American cuisine from Chef Nick Tall. Sunday-Thursday 5PM-9PM. Call 760.969.1818 for reservations or book on OpenTable. 572 N Indian Canyon Dr, Palm Springs, CA 92262 purplepalmrestaurant.com

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Restaurant NEWS BITES By Jimmy Boegle LOCAL RESTAURANTS OFFER SPLENDID SUMMER SPECIALS The summer giveth to Coachella Valley foodies … and the summer taketh away. As for the “taketh away” part: This is your annual reminder to call ahead before heading off to your favorite local bar or restaurant … because it may very well be closed. Some places take a couple of weeks off; others take off the whole damn season. However, an increasing number of places are choosing to stay open throughout the summer, because they recognize that most locals and even a fair number of sun-loving visitors are, in fact, here. Some restaurants offer up amazing deals, too—which leads me to believe that the summer is the best time to be a foodie in the Coachella Valley. Here are four of the summer deals out there that have caught my eye thus far: • Eight4Nine Restaurant and Lounge (849 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs) is offering a $29 three-course meal Sundays through Thursdays. I’m partial to Willa Jean’s fried chicken, by the way. • Bernie’s (69830 Highway 111, Rancho Mirage) is offering a $29 three-course menu daily; options include a 7-ounce cut of prime rib, and Wagyu meatloaf. • The Purple Palm Restaurant (in the Colony Palms Hotel, 572 N. Indian Canyon Drive, Palm Springs) has its three-course “love to the locals” dinner for $39, Sundays through Thursdays. The almond wood-roasted strip steak sounds amazing! • Shame on the Moon (69950 Frank Sinatra Drive, Rancho Mirage) is giving diners three great deals: a three-course dinner (soup or salad, entrée and dessert) for $21; and two different four-course dinner menus (soup or salad, appetizer, entrée and dessert), for either $29 or $38, Sundays through Fridays. Wow! Visit the restaurants’ Facebook pages and websites for more information—and let me know about other great specials not listed here; if we get enough, we’ll publish a roundup of these suggestions at CVIndependent.com! TASTE OF SUMMER RETURNS TO RANCHO MIRAGE Rancho Mirage restaurants are again teaming up to offer up delicious food at a discount—and benefit great causes while doing so. Here’s how it works: People can buy $10 wristbands, and anyone with those wristbands will be able to enjoy $4 offers at participating restaurants during the promotion periods: July 7-16, Aug. 11-20 and Sept. 8-17. All of the wristband proceeds will go to an impressive list of charities. Wristbands are available from the charities themselves; at the Rancho Mirage Chamber of Commerce (71905 Highway 111, Suite H); or at the launch party, taking place from 5 to 7 p.m., Thursday, July 6, at Pirch, also located at 71905 Highway 111, in Suite H. RSVP for that launch party, and get a list of participating restaurants and charities, at www. tasteofsummerranchomirage.com.

Experience Award-winning, Modern European Cuisine

Creative Chef Johannes Bacher

Voted “Best Chefs America”

Voted “Best Continental Restaurant”, “Best Martini”, and “Best Romantic Dining” by Palm Springs Life Readers.

BECOME A FAN ON FACEBOOK facebook.com/JohannesRestaurant

J O N E D WA R D S

johannespalmsprings.com

OPEN FOR DINNER AT 5 PM | CLOSED MONDAYS | PRIVATE DINING | AVAILABLE FOR GROUPS | SPECIAL EVENTS

196 S. INDIAN CANYON DRIVE, PALM SPRINGS, CA 92262

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(760) 778-0017

IN BRIEF Now open and earning rave reviews: Chef Tanya’s Kitchen, at 706 S. Eugene Road, over in the industrial area near Ramon Road and Gene Autry Trail in Palm Springs. The “plant-based kitchen that’s totally bitchin’” is a vegan restaurant, open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday (with expanded hours until 8 p.m. on Wednesday), helmed by Tanya Petrovna, the founder of Native Foods. Visit www. cheftanyapetrovna.com for more info. … After being closed for nine months due to the sudden death of the owner, Willie Boys finally reopened on June 2. The Morongo Valley barbecue joint and music venue, a popular destination for valley denizens, is located at 50048 Twentynine Palms Highway; get updates and information at www.facebook.com/willieboyssaloon. … The Arrive Hotels empire continues to grow: Chris Pardo and co. christened the Palm Springs Fan Club with a shindig on June 3. What exactly the space, adjacent to Arrive, at 1541 N. Palm Canyon Drive, in Palm Springs? “Palm Springs Fan Club is a cocktail lounge and event space,” according to the Facebook event page for that aforementioned shindig. “Designed with a nod to the iconic wind farms just outside Palm Springs city limits, Palm Springs Fan Club is a playful and unique location for pop-ups, receptions, meetings and weddings.” OK then! In other news, Pardo recently announced an Arrive hotel will be opening in Austin, Texas, in 2019. … Coming soon: Venezia Restaurant and Pizzeria, to the former Spaghetteria/Caffé Italia space at 2500 N. Palm Canyon Drive, in Palm Springs. While a slightly faded sign on the building inaccurately says to expect an opening in “early 2017,” the restaurant’s Facebook page says the opening date is close enough that the restaurant is now hiring. Visit www.facebook.com/veneziapalmsprings for more info. … Just in time for the scorching temps: Vinny’s Italian Ice and Frozen Custard, at 190 N. Palm Canyon Drive, in downtown Palm Springs, is open for business. Get info at www.facebook.com/ vinnysitalianiceandfrozencustard. … Popular La Quinta poke joint Pokehana, at 78742 Highway 111, is opening a second location in Palm Desert this summer—and we’re hearing rumors that yet another Pokehana could come to the valley by the end of the year. Watch www.pokehana.com for updates.

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22 23 24 CV

Kelley Ryan records beautifully layered music in PS, Ireland The man behind ‘Baby Got Back’ headlines at Spotlight 29 the lucky 13: Two local drumming greats answer our queries the flusters go full-time; read about it at Cvindependent.com

The Blueskye REPORT July 2017 By Brian Blueskye

www.cvindependent.com/music

Nile Rodgers

NRBQ brings its huge catalog and reputation for spontaneity to Pappy and Harriet’s

LEGENDARY LIVE

We’re in the depths of summer. Some venues, like the Purple Room (as of July 2), are on summer break. However, there are still hot events taking place in the Coachella Valley—in locations where you can stay cool. Get your dancing shoes ready for two events at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino. At 8 p.m., Saturday, July 15, CHIC featuring Nile Rodgers will be performing. At one point, Nile Rodgers claimed that he and CHIC would be appearing at Coachella in 2017—yet they weren’t part of the lineup. If you found that disappointing, here’s a great opportunity to see them. Nile Rodgers has been on the rise again thanks to his work with Daft Punk on the Random Access Memories album. Tickets are $39 to $69. If that isn’t enough … do you like dancing on the ceiling? At 8 p.m., Friday, July 28, the legendary Lionel Richie will take the stage. I remember when I was a small child in the 1980s hearing Lionel Richie on my mom’s car radio, and seeing his videos on MTV—when MTV was still a new thing. Don’t miss this one. Tickets are $89 to $159. Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, 84245 Indio Springs Parkway, Indio; 760342-5000; www.fantasyspringsresort.com. Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa is hosting some smaller events worth noting. At 8 p.m., Saturday, July 1, Imparables will be appearing. Imparables features two of Mexico’s funniest comedians, Adrian Uribe and Omar Chaparro, who will definitely leave you laughing. What more could you ask for? Tickets are $55 to $85. At 7 p.m., Monday, July 3, you will be in heaven if you grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, thanks to The Boy Band Night, featuring a variety of top-notch entertainers paying tribute to the boy bands you know and love. Another reason you’ll be in heaven: Admission is free! The Show at Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa, 32250 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage; 888-9991995; www.hotwatercasino.com. continued on Page 23

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MUSIC

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LEGENDARY LIVE

NRBQ brings its huge catalog and reputation for spontaneity to Pappy and Harriet’s

By Brian Blueskye

ith a discography going back to 1969, multiple covers by various artists, and a reputation as a fantastic live band, one has to wonder: Why isn’t NRBQ a bigger name in music? After more than 50 years, NRBQ is still going with founding member Terry Adams, and the group will be playing at Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace on Friday, July 7. During a recent phone interview, Scott Ligon, who has been working with Terry Adams since 2007, discussed how he discovered NRBQ, which stands for New Rhythm and Blues Quartet. “I’ve been a fan of the band since I was 18 years old,” Ligon said. “I’m 46 now, and they became my favorite band when I heard about them in 1988. I couldn’t even believe there was a band like that, that existed on the planet. I immediately started buying every single record on cassette and driving around in my car, listening to them. I just had a real instant connection with all of the music. There’s a certain kind of attitude, a feeling and a spirit to this music that is different. It’s kind of hard to explain, but it’s a real spirit of positivity and possibility that I related to right away as a young guy.” Ligon knew all the songs, so it wasn’t hard was really entertaining. These guys who ended for him to learn the material when he joined. up doing this, they had huge personalities that “I don’t remember ever sitting down and couldn’t be contained. There were 200 people at picking out the chords to these songs, but I knew these things—old ladies to see Andre the Giant them all,” he said. “I had them in my spirit. When and people giving Dick the Bruiser the finger. It it came time to be the guitar-player in the band, I was crazy! I recognized this wrestling thing in already knew them all, but I had to sit down and NRBQ, and I had to discover that Lou Albano ask, ‘What’s the chord on that bridge?’ and that was their manager for several years. … But kind of thing. Their catalog was in my soul simibecause I had an older brother who took me to larly to the Beatles or the Beach Boys. That’s how see wrestling when I was a kid, that was another highly I thought of this music.” connection I had to this band.” NRBQ is a band crate-diggers and audiophiles Considering how many live shows NRBQ have known about for years, but the average plays—always without a set list—it seems like music fan has probably never heard of it. I asked fans would often tape bootleg recordings, and Ligon why that is the case—and he struggled to that the band would be releasing a lot of live answer the question at first. albums itself. “I think that slowly but surely, people who “I’m sure people do (record bootlegs),” Ligon are really music people find out about us,” Ligon said. “I’m not really an archivist, and as far as said. “There’s just so much to wade through. releasing another live record goes, that just The thing about NRBQ is the volume of work— depends on if we have a night when we really there’s so much there. You really have to decide like the sound and feeling of it, and think people you’re going to do this if you’re going to dig would be interested in hearing it. There’s no curin. There are about 30 to 40 albums. There’s rent plan to do it, but if something comes along just so much music out there, but I think true that we really like, we’ll do another live record.” music-lovers find their way to it. But isn’t that a great thing when you go, ‘Wow, I can’t believe NRBQ will perform at 9 p.m., Friday, July 7, at I’ve never heard this before!’? That’s the way I Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, 53688 felt when I was 18 in 1988. I couldn’t believe Pioneertown Road, in Pioneertown. Tickets are this band existed. $20. For tickets or more information, call 760-365In the 1980s, NRBQ enjoyed a colorful period 5956, or visit pappyandharriets.com. during which WWF/WWE wrestler and manager NRBQ “Captain” Lou Albano managed the band. “There was something about this band I couldn’t put my finger on when I first started to see them, and I eventually figured out it was this wrestling thing,” Ligon said. “When I was growing up in the ’70s, my older brother would take me to see wrestling. I saw Andre the Giant, The Crusher and Mad Dog Vachon, and this was a whole subculture onto itself back in the ’70s. It CVIndependent.com

WRITING TO THE VIBE

Kelley Ryan records beautifully layered music while splitting time between Palm Springs and Ireland

By Brian Blueskye

hen I played local artist Kelley Ryan’s new album, Telescope, I was blown away. Although the songs seem simple, there is a lot going on: They are layered with instruments and sounds. For more than 20 years, Kelley Ryan has been working as a singer/songwriter, and she’s built a career as an independent artist who continues to evolve musically. During a recent phone interview, Ryan explained that the life experiences of friends, family and herself inspire her music. “I’ve been writing songs since I had a guitar in my hand when I was 12,” she said. “Everyone has their way, and this is sort of my way of expressing things I see and feel—through words.” Ryan splits her time between the Coachella Valley and Ireland. “My husband and I have had a house here for about 10 years. I was born in Portland, Ore., and moved to Los Angeles when I was 19, and met my husband there,” Ryan said. “We used to come out here all the time for short and long weekends, and we loved it here. Eventually, my husband sold his business. … We spend half a year in Ireland, and half in Palm Springs.” Ryan said some people express surprise when they learn she splits time between here Kelley Ryan. amos perrine and Ireland. “People ask me, ‘Wow, you live in Ireland and the California desert?’” she said. “I can’t imagine two more completely different places. One place, there are no snakes, and the other place, there are a ton of snakes. One place, we have a dehumidifier running all the time, and one place, we have a humidifier running all the time. The people in both places are the one thing we really love. In Ireland, we live on a cliff that overlooks the ocean, with fields and cows all around us. Here, we live right against a mountain. I do believe there is some kind of vibe in both places that is really inspiring to my writing.” Ryan has put out eight albums, and has built replicate it onstage. They won’t have multiple studios in both of her homes. voices or the sound effect of dripping water; “I took matters into my own hands and they won’t experiment a little bit. I know when hung out with people who taught me how to I play that I can’t take my horns player with use things in a recording studio,” she said. “I me, but I’m still going to try to make everyuse the studio and the recording process just thing sound great.” as much as picking up a guitar to write songs. The work by Ryan, who formerly used the I love being in the studio, and I work with name astroPuppees, has received various really great people who are friends. I can roam accolades. No Depression recently said about around with my own ideas, record as much as Telescope that it’s “so lush that you feel you’re I can, and put little snippets here and there, in a dream world.” Ryan said that with every and if I get an idea for a song, everything has album she’s put out, more people have discovto magnify that kernel of the idea. I love the ered her work. process, and I record way more than I actually “I wouldn’t think my stuff is for everybody, end up using.” or that it would be ‘huge,’” she said. “It’s kind Some artists try to limit themselves when of quiet, and every record I make, more people they record, Ryan said—but she does not. pick it up. This record has gotten much more “I think of a record more as an entity on its of a reaction; the people who are buying it or own. A lot of people will record a record based streaming it are talking about it.” on the idea that they’re going to go out and play live,” she said. “Sometimes, I think that limits people from trying things that are differ- For more information on Kelley Ryan, visit www.kelleyryan.net. ent on records, because they want to be able to

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MUSIC STILL MIXING-A-LOT I

By Brian Blueskye

n the 1990s, rappers were not afraid to produce amusing songs. Naughty by Nature made “O.P.P.”; Duice had “Dazzey Duks”; and then there was Sir Mix-a-Lot, with “Baby Got Back.” On Saturday, July 8, Spotlight 29 will host the Old School Freestyle Festival, with Sir Mix-aLot as the headliner. The show will also include Taylor Dayne, Stevie B, Sweet Sensation, Ying Yang Twins, Debbie Deb, Snap!, Pretty Poison and DJ Unk. During a recent phone interview with Sir Mix-a-Lot, aka Anthony Ray, I was surprised by not only the smooth tone of his voice, but his extensive musical knowledge—and his business acumen. I asked him what he’s been doing in between sporadic live appearances since releasing his last album, Daddy’s Home, in 2003. “I’ve been doing all kinds of stuff, man,” Ray said. “I do pretty well with publishing and licensing. I have a tech company I started called True United States of America years ago was a natural Human Interface, and we’re finally close to a progression. We never released a record, because first product, so that’s going pretty good. I’ve the old guys with money never gave a shit,” he also been dabbling in some real estate and had added with a laugh. bought some things in the down market in 2008 Ray said he felt a little bit out of place in and got out of them now, so that’s looking good.” Seattle’s music scene early in his career. Given the current state of the music industry, “When I released my first record, Swass, in Ray seems like a genius for not putting all of his 1988, there really wasn’t any grunge music,” eggs into one basket. he said. “Seattle wasn’t musically dormant, “The industry now is so different than back because there was music being made; it just then,” he said. “I’m definitely not a ‘get off my wasn’t national. It felt a little strange, and I lawn’ kind of guy, but at some point, you have to felt a little guilty, because you had great bands see it for what it is. The old guys are being stuwho were just starting to come together. pid, because they don’t want to let their music The Soundgardens and the Pearl Jams were be posted on any streaming service, but these just starting to get the momentum going, are the same old fucks who beg people to ‘please and I sneak in with this song called ‘Posse on play my record for free on the radio.’ I always Broadway’ and get a platinum record out of it. tell people that I always pitch myself, because in But once the grunge movement hit, and people this day and age, it’s not normal in hip hop to be realized Jimi Hendrix was from here, everything doing pretty well.” started to catch on, and I felt more comfortable.” Ray, originally from Seattle, said he loves Some bands that have come out of the grunge different types of music. He recorded the song world have said they hate the term “grunge.” “Freak Momma” with the band Mudhoney for Ray said he finds that opinion to be … well, the Judgment Night soundtrack, and he perstupid. formed and released several songs with the band “I hate that,” he said. “Can you imagine Runthe Presidents of the United States of America DMC saying to you, ‘Please don’t call us rap,’ under the name Subset. at any point? I don’t understand why grunge “I love music. I’ve never been a one-genre is something to be ashamed of. It’s still rock kind of guy,” Ray said. “I love hip hop. I’m crazy ’n’ roll. It’s uniquely Seattle, and I personally about EDM at my age, and then into old-school think when artists diss that term or that name, funk like Parliament-Funkadelic. The only thing they’re actually telling people not to take them I’m not crazy about is straight pop music. It’s seriously, because grunge is a unique sound.” always about been rock music with an edge— Of course, Ray’s biggest hit is “Baby Got grunge music, obviously, and stuff like Metallica. Back,” released in 1992. “Me recording with the Presidents of the “‘Baby Got Back’ was actually a serious track,” Ray said. “The reason the song was written was because at that time, back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the African-American idea of beauty was never represented publicly. You only saw three types of African-American women on Sir Mix-a-Lot TV: a prostitute, a heavy-set woman who gave advice to white children on their way to school in the morning, or a black woman who had to assimilate to another culture to be accepted. “After talking to the director (for the music

The Blueskye REPORT The man behind ‘Baby Got Back’ headlines Spotlight 29’s Old School Freestyle Fest video) and telling him the same thing, I was blown away when I walked in and saw this girl on a pedestal, which is what I wanted, but she’s wearing this … oh my God, talk about stereotypical. I thought someone was playing a joke on me. She had this big gold chain, and she looked like a prostitute with these cheesy shoes and leopard print, and I was like, ‘Whoa! You guys got me all messed up.’ It got me off on the wrong foot, and I had to explain to everyone in the room that this song was a serious subject wrapped in novelty. Those who did know that said, ‘Thank you,’ when I made that song. After that, the video went fine.” “Baby Got Back” was controversial due to its sexual content. “The song was banned from MTV, which I felt was ironic; that song wasn’t racy or sexist,” Ray said. “I was a little surprised that there was any issue whatsoever, to be honest. I made sure that in the song, I’m lusting for this girl, but I actually never get her. I never conquer. So it comes off like I’m a sexist pig, but I can’t get her because I’m a sexist pig, and that’s why, I think, the video really worked.” Ray has made a new album—but he said he’s hesitant to release it. “I have an album that’s actually ready … and what’s keeping me from releasing it is I have this issue with how it would be perceived,” he said. “I don’t want people to think I released a record only because I’m desperate. “People are shocked when they meet me and learn that I’m not broke. I was driving my Lamborghini the other day, and I had a guy come up to me and ask, ‘Did you rent that, or do you own it?’ Perception is that I must be broke, and that’s not the case. I don’t want that perception to be the reason that I tarnish things I do in the past, because I love making music, and I’m doing what I’m doing because I love music.” The current state of rap music came up. “It’s just like it was in any era. I say this about rock and rap: In any era, the cream rises, and the bad stuff sinks,” Ray said. “The kids grab a song, and it blows up. That’s good, but if those kids grow up and resent the fact they ever liked that song, that’s bad. Is there a formula for retaining those kids as they grow up? I don’t know. I got lucky, and three of my songs are still holding on, but it’s hard to do.” The Old School Freestyle Festival takes place at 8 p.m., Saturday, July 8, at Spotlight 29, 46200 Harrison Place, in Coachella. Tickets are $39 to $59. For tickets or more information, call 760-7755566, or visit www.spotlight29.com.

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Spotlight 29 will have a fairly low-key July, but at 8 p.m., Saturday, July 8, the Old School Freestyle Festival will be happening, featuring acts such as Sir Mix-a-Lot (read my interview with him on this page), Taylor Dayne, Stevie B, the Ying Yang Twins and others. Tickets are $39 to $59. At 8 p.m., Saturday, July 15, Elton John impersonator Kenny Metcalf will be returning to Spotlight 29. His shows are always an impressive tribute to the legend. Tickets are $20. Spotlight 29 Casino, 46200 Harrison Place, Coachella; 760-775-5566; www.spotlight29.com. Pappy and Harriet’s has a lot going on; here are just a few events. At 9 p.m., Saturday, July 15, Shooter Jennings will be appearing. The son of Waylon Jennings, Shooter has made a name for himself with his own brand of country music, as well as some very strange rock music on his 2009 album, Black Ribbons. Tickets are $25. At 9 p.m., Friday, July 21, the Queen of Joshua Tree herself, Jesika von Rabbit, will be performing. She recently released her version of the Culture Club single “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” which caught the attention of Boy George himself, who praised von Rabbit via Twitter. Also on the bill: Fartbarf, one of the most underrated acts to come out of Los Angeles in recent years. Imagine if Devo and Minor Threat had a baby … and then named it Fartbarf. Tickets are $15. At 9:30 p.m., Saturday, July 22, Terry Reid will be come to Pioneertown. Reid, a UK native who lives in the Coachella Valley, toured with the Rolling Stones and was almost a member of Led Zeppelin. He has a lot of stories, and he’ll gladly tell them to you. One of the funniest stories he told me involved Chuck Berry stealing his guitar amp. Tickets are $15 to $18. Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, 53688 Pioneertown Road, Pioneertown; 760-365-5956; www. pappyandharriets.com. Copa Palm Springs has an intriguing entertainer returning to the reigning Best Nightclub, as picked in the Best of Coachella Valley by Independent readers: At 8 p.m., Saturday, July 1, through, Monday, July 3, everyone’s favorite small-in-stature comedian, Leslie Jordan, will take the stage. Famous for roles in Will and Grace (will he be in the revival?), American Horror Story and Ugly Betty, Jordan is no stranger to the Copa. Tickets are $25 to $45. Copa, 244 E. Amado Road, Palm Springs; 760866-0021; www.copapalmsprings.com.

Fartbarf

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MUSIC

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the

LUCKY 13 Two local drumming greats answer our queries

By Brian Blueskye What’s your favorite music venue? The Viper Room in Vienna, Austria, is awesome. I was told by a guy who worked there that the building is about 600 years old, and it was originally a monastery.

Jeff Bowman

NAME Jeff Bowman MORE INFO Jeff Bowman is downright intense behind a drum set. He’s played in various groups, including legendary desertrock band Unsound, Mondo Generator, The Agents, Waxy, and Mighty Jack. What was the first concert you attended? It was my two favorite bands at the time, Anthrax and Iron Maiden, 1989, at the Long Beach Arena. What was the first album you owned? Kiss, Alive. I got it in kindergarten. I would sit and listen to it on my little yellow record player and study the double-album cover. What bands are you listening to right now? My kids have got us on a Beatles kick right now, and it’s been great to revisit them and watch my kids fall in love with them. What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get? Bob Dylan. Sorry if that offends anyone, but I don’t get him, and I’ve never been able to tolerate listening to him long enough to try to get him. What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live? I’ve been lucky enough to see most of my faves over the years, but I would have loved to have seen the Waters/Gilmour-era Pink Floyd. What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure? I own a double CD of dance/electronica music called Fired Up that I purchased after hearing it on a late-night infomercial. It gets me fired up. CVIndependent.com

What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head? I just volunteered to play a few kids’ church songs on bass guitar for an end-of-the-year “chapel jam” … and now I can’t stop singing: “Whether it rains, whether it pours, wherever I go, I will trust you, Lord.” What band or artist changed your life? How? I can narrow it down to one piece of music: It was the guitar solo part of the live version of a song called “She” on Kiss’ Alive. I was very young when I first heard it, but it completely filled me with the power of music, and made me feel that, for me, it wasn’t enough just to listen. It made me want to play. You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking? I’m asking Glenn Danzig to strongly consider dumping the overqualified and presumably overpaid Dave Lombardo, and let me play drums for the Misfits! What song would you like played at your funeral? “Synchronicity II” by The Police. It’s pretty humbling to know that the exact moment I die, many miles away, there will be some creature swimming around in a dark Scottish loch that doesn’t know or care the least bit ... . Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time? Pink Floyd’s The Wall. I was in first-grade when I got the 8-track, and it’s been part of the soundtrack of my whole life. What song should everyone listen to right now? The song that reminds you of being in love with your soulmate. Listen to it, and fall in love again and again. That’s Sting, “Fields of Gold,” for me.

NAME Greg Saenz MORE INFO Greg Saenz is currently the drummer for local band You Know Who; he plays in former Kyuss frontman John Garcia’s solo band; and he’s been involved with Excel, and My Head. However, he’s probably best known for his days as Gregory Pecker during a stint with The Dwarves.

Greg Saenz

What was the first concert you attended? The Village People with opener Gloria Gaynor at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, June 1979. What was the first album you owned? The Osmond Brothers, Crazy Horses. I was 5 years old, and after seeing them perform the title track “Crazy Horses” on TV, I was obsessed with Donny Osmond.

“Million Reasons,” Lady Gaga.

What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get? The Mars Volta, Dillinger Escape Plan, and Korn. I “get” the bands, because I know they have a vision, and a purpose, and it serves ’em right. What I don’t “get” is “moved.”

What band or artist changed your life? How? Tom Araya of Slayer. Los Angeles, 1987. … Dave Lombardo and Slayer had just parted ways. One week after the Lombardo departure, I approached Tom Araya at a hardcore show in L.A. that his younger brother’s band, Bloodcum, was playing at. Tom was quite friendly, and he gave me their manager’s phone number. I was told to learn “Altar of Sacrifice,” “Jesus Saves,” “Reign in Blood” and “Necrophobic.” … I obviously didn’t get the gig, and I knew I wouldn’t; I only knew that a chance to conquer my biggest fears would land me in a spot where I would earn respect so I could hold my head up high amongst my colleagues.

What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live? I was really believing that The James Gang was going to headline Desert Trip, and I am terribly disappointed about that not happening.

You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking? I’d ask Rivers Cuomo from Weezer: “Did you really audition for Quiet Riot?”

What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure? Besides doing air guitar in the mirror? Berlin, Oasis, Alter Bridge, The Cardigans, and XTC.

What song would you like played at your funeral? Why, it would be “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis, of course!

What’s your favorite music venue? Wild at Heart in Berlin: GREAT food, beer, a tattoo parlor with world-renowned artists, and a cool stage/sound system.

Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time? Aerosmith, Rocks.

What bands are you listening to right now? I’ve been enjoying Torche lately, and a band we recently played with called Vodun, from London. I’ve been listening to The Guess Who, and Grand Funk Railroad, knowing what an influence they were for Soundgarden.

What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head? “Baby I just need one good one to staaaaaaayy,”

What song should everyone listen to right now? “Combination” by Aerosmith, to help prove my point.

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 25

JULY 2017

OPINION COMICS & JONESIN’ CROSSWORD

“That’s Not a Word!”—not fact (really a fork) in entering the dictionary The Little Mermaid anytime soon 46 Sony handheld console since 2005, briefly Across 49 Big bankruptcy of 1 Newspaper revenue 2001 source 50 Seven on Sesame 8 Used, as a saddle Street, sometimes 15 Player seen in bars 51 “Only ___” (Oingo 16 Raw material used to Boingo song) make steel 53 Ranks above viscounts 17 *Mork’s epithet on 55 Got all the questions Mork and Mindy right on 18 *Second word of 56 ___ the Wind (Garth Jabberwocky Brooks album) 19 Flynn of Captain Blood 58 “Super!” 21 “___ friend!” 60 *Scrabble play by 22 Tax prep pros Bart (which Homer 26 Typeface embellishchallenged) in the secment ond-ever episode of 28 Chemical that makes a The Simpsons flea flee 62 *May 2017 mis-tweet 29 Sound that won’t go away 31 “The Wizard of ___ 67 Dawn-related Park” 68 Transcendentalist 33 “Science Guy” Bill Ralph Waldo 34 *Creatures ques69 17th-century Dutch tioned by Mr. Salt in philosopher who Willy Wonka and the wrote Ethics Chocolate Factory 70 7UP alternatives 37 Disreputable, slangily 38 Accompany to the air- Down port, maybe 1 Racecar driver Foyt 42 *Scuttle’s guess at and Backstreet Boy naming a human artiMcLean, for two

2 “That’s, like, preschool level” 3 Musical genre from Jamaica 4 Candy with collectible dispensers 5 Xavier Cugat’s ex-wife Lane 6 Beer from Golden, Colorado 7 Minima and maxima, in math 8 Brother or sister 9 Musical adaptation abbr. 10 “Hop ___!” 11 Lacking guidance 12 Allergen with its own index 13 The Who’s “Baba ___” 14 Turn on its head 20 ___ Ishii (Kill Bill character) 22 “Mangy Love” folk-rocker McCombs 23 Genre for the Ramones 24 “Whiles, like ___, I go to find my fawn”: Shakespeare 25 Fitted for a ring, e.g. 27 “It’s just a ___ wound!” 30 Harriet’s TV spouse 32 Creme-filled cookies 35 Arthur ___, inventor of the crossword in 1913

36 Old photo shade 39 Oil-producing gp. 40 Outdoor gala 41 SNL alum Armisen 43 Munchable morning mix 44 Collected wisdom 45 Intertwines 46 Winter coats 47 Decelerate 48 Ancient scroll materials 52 City known for mustard 54 Walk hard 57 Kia hybrid SUV since 2016 (what, you expected “Robert De ___”?) 59 Finished 61 Moulin Rouge! director Luhrmann 63 TGIF part 64 Id ___ (that is) 65 Moriarty, to Holmes 66 Low-ranking USN officer ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@ jonesincrosswords.com) Find the answers in the “about” section of CVIndependent.com!

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BY SEAN PLANCK

o, Jefferson. Let it go … Our evil elf of a U.S attorney general is whining about pot again, this time in a letter asking Congress not to renew the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment. The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which became law in December 2014, prohibits the Department of Justice from spending any federal funds to interfere with state medical cannabis laws. It must be renewed each year—and Sessions is requesting it not be renewed this time around. “I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime. The department must be in a position to use all laws available to combat the transnational drug organizations and dangerous drug-traffickers who threaten American lives,” Sessions wrote in the letter, first made public by Tom Angell of MassRoots.com. This comes at a time when an overwhelming majority of Americans (including 65 percent of police officers!) are in favor of some form of legalization, and more and more

states are starting to legalize marijuana for recreational use. One of the law’s namesakes expressed annoyance with Sessions’ letter. “Mr. Sessions stands athwart an overwhelming majority of Americans and even, sadly, against veterans and other suffering

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 27

JULY 2017

CVINDEPENDENT.COM/NEWS

California could become a sanctuary state for marijuana; Cathedral City restricts new dispensaries

Americans who we now know conclusively are helped dramatically by medical marijuana.” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican who represents parts of Orange County, in a statement to the Washington Post. Opioids are at the center of the worst drug epidemic facing Americans today—while marijuana is decidedly not. However, to Sessions, there is virtually no difference between opioids and marijuana, considering he recently described pot as just “slightly less awful” than heroin. Of course, the American Journal of Public Health published a study in September 2016 citing evidence that opioid use is lower in states with legal medical marijuana, but what do they know with their “statistics?” Pesky facts … The DOJ actually challenged the amendment under President Obama, but it was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. This ruling leaves it up to Congress to decide whether to remove RohrabacherFarr from the yearly appropriations bill— but the amendment has received strong bipartisan support ever since it became law. Conventional wisdom dictates that Congress would be reluctant to go against the clear will of the people, but how often does conventional wisdom come into play in Washington, D.C., these days? California is having none of this nonsense, and is making moves to become the first sanctuary state for cannabis. In anticipation of a legal showdown with Sessions’ DOJ, the State Assembly passed AB 1578 on June 1; the bill would prohibit state and local law enforcement from helping the feds enforce federal prohibitions against those adhering to California state law. The bill by Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Los Angeles Democrat, passed in a close 41-33 vote. The measure faces stiff opposition from law enforcement and Republicans, for reasons ranging from interference in federal and local interagency cooperation regarding other crimes, to claims that it violates federal law. “The hubris of California Democrats believing they can flout federal law on immigration and drug policy is beyond words,” said Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) during the floor debate. Jones-Sawyer’s retort: “AB 1578 ensures that our limited local and state resources are

not spent on federal marijuana enforcement against individuals and entities that are in compliance with our laws.” Rep. Rob Bonta (D-Alameda), a co-author of the bill, said: “People who are compliant with California law and operate within the legal cannabis market should not have to fear that a state or local agency will participate in efforts to punish or incarcerate them for activity that the state and its voters have deemed legal,” according to a Los Angeles Times report. The Tenth Amendment Center, a constitutional-law and states’ rights advocacy group, claims there is solid legal standing for the measure. “Provisions withdrawing state and local enforcement of federal law in AB 1578 rest on a well-established legal principle known as the anti-commandeering doctrine.

Simply put, the federal government cannot force states to help implement or enforce any federal act or program,” founder Michael Boldin said in a post on the group’s website. Jones-Sawyer said the bill could be edited to make it clear that cooperation in moving against illegal operations according to state law could continue. A Newsweek report estimated that 1,400 dispensaries are operating illegally in Los Angeles alone, and Jones-Sawyer would like those businesses shuttered, while protecting those adhering to local and state law. The bill faces an uncertain future as it moves to the State Senate. MEANWHILE, HERE IN THE VALLEY… The City Council of Cathedral City recently passed a moratorium on new dispensaries south of Interstate 10. The city of 53,000 has 10 licensed dispensaries operating, with another opening soon—that’s around 4,800 residents per dispensary. By comparison, Palm Springs has six dispensaries servicing 44,552 residents (or 7,452 residents per dispensary). The move is designed to help ensure the continued success of existing dispensaries in what is a comparatively saturated market. Cathedral City dispensaries may also see fewer customers in the future, as Palm Desert and Coachella are slowly moving toward allowing retail cannabis businesses. The measure passed 3-2, with Greg Pettis and Shelley Kaplan opposing.

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