Coachella Valley Independent January 2016

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPDENDENT | JANUARY 2016

VOL. 4 | NO. 1

PLACES WITH PRIDE

AS THE LGBT COMMUNITY GAINS MAINSTREAM ACCEPTANCE, MANY PLACES WHERE GAYS AND LESBIANS HAVE TRADITIONALLY GATHERED HAVE BLINKED OUT OF EXISTENCE—BUT NOT IN PALM SPRINGS. PAGE 13

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JANUARY 2016

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 Editorial Layout Wayne Acree Advertising Design Betty Jo Boegle Contributors Gustavo Arellano, Victor Barocas, Max Cannon, Garrett Dangerfield, Kevin Fitzgerald, Bill Frost, Bonnie Gilgallon, Bob Grimm, Alex Harrington, Valerie-Jean (VJ) Hume, Brane Jevric, Keith Knight, Robin Linn, Tommy Locust, Marylee Pangman, Erin Peters, Dan Perkins, Deidre Pike, Guillermo Prieto, Tim Redmond, Anita Rufus, Jen Sorenson, Robert Victor

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, artsOasis and the Desert Ad Fed.

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COVER DESIGN BY andrew arthur

The Coachella Valley Independent print edition is published every month. All content is ©2015-2016 and may not be published or reprinted in any form without the written permission of the publisher.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.

This was supposed to be a very different Note From the Editor.

I’d planned to write about our fabulously successful Best of Coachella Valley 2015-2016 party (see more about that on Page 12) and then introduce our cover story, which was supposed to be about discrimination at a local institution. (We’re still working on that piece; look for it in the near future.)

However, all of that changed on Dec. 10, when my friend George Zander, a well-known community activist, suddenly passed away.

George and his husband, Chris, were attacked in downtown Palm Springs on Nov. 1 in what police are calling a hate crime. After a brief altercation with a man who used the word “faggot,” George and Chris were attacked by that man and another man moments later in front of Sherman’s. Chris suffered a concussion after taking a tire iron to the head. George suffered a broken hip in the scuffle.

Post-attack, things seemed to be going OK. Chris was recovering from his injuries; George’s hip surgery was successful, and he was home after stints in the hospital and a rehabilitation facility. The police think they’ve caught the perpetrators, and the community was beautifully rallying behind George and Chris.

But on the morning of Dec. 10, George was rushed to Desert Regional Medical Center due to an emergency. He was gone within minutes. Chris told the world via Facebook that George died in his arms.

What all of this means in terms of the prosecution of the thugs who allegedly did this remained to be determined as of our press deadline.

What it means to the community is heartbreak.

Here at the Independent, we shifted gears and decided to make George the topic of this month’s cover story. Brian Blueskye did a fantastic job of showing all that George has done over the years to help the afflicted in the Coachella Valley. Check it out on Page 14.

I last saw George on Nov. 18, the day after the benefit show on behalf of the Zanders that the Independent put together with Chill Bar. He was still in the rehab facility at the time; he went home several days later. George was typical George: His spirits were high, and he was already plotting his next bit of activism, telling me about something he’d recently learned about that he thought deserved media attention.

Now that the holiday craziness is behind us, I am going to pursue that story that George told me about. If what George told me is correct, and it probably is, it’ll be an excellent piece. Look for that soon.

In the meantime, welcome to the January 2016 print edition of the Coachella Valley Independent.

—Jimmy Boegle, jboegle@cvindependent.com

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 3

JANUARY 2016

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Enjoy cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and live music at this red carpet affair.

An Eames Anthology: Articles, Film Scripts, Interview, Letters, Notes, Speeches

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JANUARY 2016

OPINION

KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS

The Works of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley Are Hitting Too Close to Home WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/OPINION

I

By Anita Rufus

admit I’m feeling unnerved.

The terrorist attack in San Bernardino followed seemingly unrelated events including the shooting of Black Lives Matter activists in Minneapolis, and the murder of three people at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Then came the fire-bombing at the mosque in Coachella, and the death of my old friend George Zander after the gay-bashing he and his husband, Chris, suffered in downtown Palm Springs. (As of this writing, it is not yet clear whether Zander’s death was directly related to that assault.)

Coincidentally, I recently ran out of new books on my nightstand, and began re-reading two old favorites: 1984 and Brave New World. They are both incredible novels—but reading them at the same time is perhaps an unnecessary punishment at a time when our country’s future seems to be so precariously hanging on the next presidential election.

George Orwell’s 1984 is set in a world of never-ending war, invasive government surveillance, the manipulation of history, tyranny dominated by the presence of Big Brother, and the control of society by a privileged class via a party motivated purely by power. The book was published in 1949, after World War II, and uses the destruction of London as its physical backdrop (not unlike the devastation depicted in Mad Max or Clockwork Orange). It also envisions a society in which citizens are controlled through fear and intimidation.

Orwell introduced concepts we use today.

When things are described as “Orwellian,” we mean they go too far in manipulating or depriving the population of the basic necessities of life. The concept of Big Brother became a reality television show on which a group of people live together, isolated from the outside world—and always under the watchful eye of the television camera.

“Doublespeak” and “groupthink” came straight from Orwell’s frightening vision of a totalitarian future in which children spy on their parents, and the ultimate punishment for independent thinking is to be confronted by the thing that frightens one most. Anyone who has ever read 1984 cannot possibly forget Winston Smith and the rats.

Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley and published in 1932, casts the future as a perpetually happy utopia in which people live in a clean, efficient, technically advanced society, without

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traditional marriage or family—embryos are artificially manufactured with restricted abilities and ambitions. Class distinctions are fully accepted based on sleep-programmed education from infancy, and the size of the population is strictly controlled so each class can be provided with everything it needs. A drug keeps the population docile, and those few who dare to see themselves as individuals are banished to uninhabitable parts of the globe. Individuality is discouraged, and society is run as a benevolent dictatorship.

How do these two books relate to my being upset about the beating of the Zanders and the bombing of the mosque? These two local crimes seem motivated by individuals willing to use violence based on their individual visceral opposition to gays or Muslims. A recent study by Nathan Kalmoe, a University of Michigan doctoral candidate, articulated a broader explanation of the willingness of individuals to use violence for political gain.

At a time when the leading candidate of one of our two dominant political parties is shamelessly using demagoguery to play to the fears of Americans in exchange for political support, it is no surprise that Kalmoe found that combative and even violent political rhetoric can make some Americans see violence as an appropriate means to an end.

“The rhetoric of ‘fighting’ for a cause, declaring ‘war’ on problems, and suffering ‘attacks’ from opponents, is how political leaders, journalists and citizens often talk about politics,” says Kalmoe. “Political leaders, pundits and citizens regularly demonize opponents and emphasize the righteousness of their own goals. Language like that may facilitate moral disengagement, which allows people to rationalize the harm they do to others.”

To be fair, most people in the study opposed violence, but a significant minority, ranging from 5 to 14 percent, agreed with

the use of violent options, while between 10 and 18 percent were indifferent. That means millions of ordinary Americans accept the general idea of violence to gain political ends. Not surprisingly, Kalmoe found that young adults are more prone to adopt violent attitudes after exposure to such language— possibly explaining the appeal of groups like ISIS and domestic militias that seem to offer a way for disaffected young people to act and not just feel powerless.

Both Brave New World and 1984 are cautionary tales, and each depicted a future that has not come to pass. But we do have elements of each: surveillance; calls for a greater invasion of privacy, even of citizens; the manipulation of language to mean something other than what it means (in 1984, the three central principals are “War Is Peace; Freedom Is Slavery; Ignorance Is Strength”); conformity in the name of assimilation; the use of drugs to minimize distress; turning on each other in the name of security (“If you see something, say something”); and class consciousness.

More than 25 years after Brave New World, Huxley wrote a nonfiction work, Brave New World Revisited, in which he considered

whether the world had moved toward or away from his vision. According to Wikipedia, Huxley concluded that the world was becoming like the future he had envisioned much faster than he originally thought it would.

My conclusion, after San Bernardino, the attack on the Zanders, and the Coachella mosque firebombing, is that we are much closer to 1984 and Orwell’s prediction that fear would be the ultimate motivator of political power.

If we are to retain our values and head toward a more optimistic future—one in which our religious houses of worship and the Zanders of our world are secure—we need to recognize that casting every conflict in apocalyptic language and falling for demagogic rhetoric must be rejected.

If you think your vote doesn’t count, think again—while you still can.

Anita Rufus is also known as “The Lovable Liberal,” and her radio show airs Sundays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. 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

JANUARY 2016

OPINION

THE POTTED DESERT GARDEN

Three Slow-Growing Plants That Will Work Well in Your Garden

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/OPINION

B

By MARYLEE PANGMAN ountiful color or elegant statements? Whichever you choose, these three beautiful, perennial, evergreen plants take less work, less water and less summer aggravation than many other garden options The boxwood, Texas mountain laurel and ponytail palm each can serve as a focal point on their own, while the boxwood and laurel can be underplanted in the cooler winter months with colorful annuals. During the summer months, add water—and they’ll live on. No pruning is needed during those hot months, because every branch on the plant serves itself with shade. Add a little

fertilizer monthly to keep the plants healthy during those long summer days, and they should remain in fine form.

that just asks to be showcased in a pot whose width supports the breadth of the canopy of the tree form.

Pots to fit the plant Because these plants are slow-growing, the roots will not take over the pot quickly, so you can plan on leaving the plants in their new homes for several years. However, you need to be sure you are planting them in the correct size container to begin with.

Purchase a five gallon plant. Since these plants are slow-growing, you don’t want to start with a miniscule plant and be waiting until your kids or grandkids are grown for it to amount to anything. A reputable, local nursery should be able to give you a hand in picking out an attractive plant.

The boxwood can go into a 20-24 inch pot, while I would put the mountain laurel or ponytail palm in a 24-inch pot to start. The reason: You can trim the roots of the boxwood as it approaches being root-bound, whereas the ponytail palm will be most happy if left in the same pot for a very long time. You may find the Texas mountain laurel in shrub or tree form, and in either case, with its stature, it deserves a larger pot, such a 24-inch one.

However, you can decide depending on the size of the tree.

If you’re not planning to plant any flowers in these pots, choose pots that add to the décor—make them as special as your plant selection. The boxwood has a deep green leaf and no substantial flowers, so your pot could be a brighter color that the green complements.

The laurel flowers for a couple of weeks in the spring with clusters of purple, grapejelly-scented flowers that will remind you of Wisteria. Although short-lived, you will want to keep the color of the flowers in mind when selecting your pot.

The ponytail palm is a very stately plant

Caring for the plants Plant the boxwood and Texas mountain laurel using quality potting soil, and add some fertilizer to the mix. Use cactus soil for the ponytail palm.

Be sure to plant each of these plants at the same soil height they had in the nursery can.

Keep the ponytail palm high in the pot so it is positioned like it is on a stage: Keep that bulbous stem up and out of the moist soil so it is supported. Add some stone to finish the look and provide added protection to the stem.

Press the soil down firmly as you add each 12 inches to remove air pockets and reduce the risk of the soil level dropping. Once planted, water thoroughly so that the entire volume of soil is wet.

During the warmer and hot months, blast the plants with the jet setting on your hose nozzle from about four feet away to rid the plant of dust and pests. Do this once a week or more as you walk around your yard. This is really important to deter spider mites during the hot months.

The boxwood and Texas mountain laurel respond well to pruning. However, don’t prune off the seed pods of the laurel, because they are next spring’s flowers. The plants should be kept moist; never allow the soil to completely dry out.

If the plant becomes root-bound—you will know this is the case if water runs right through the roots immediately, and the plant is starting to look sad—you can prune the roots by a third and put it back in the same pot with fresh potting soil. This is more likely to happen with the boxwood as opposed to the laurel.

The ponytail palm is actually neither a palm

nor a tree, but a succulent in the agave family.

This plant only needs water when almost completely dry, as it stores water in the “bulb.”

If the bulb looks shriveled, then give it a solid, long drink. Test the soil down low in the pot with a piece of metal or a 1-inch-diameter pole to see if the soil is moist.

This month is a great time to plant any of these. The winter climate of Coachella Valley will not put them at serious risk of any frost damage. However, those living in higher elevations will want to protect the ponytail palm if the nighttime temperatures approach freezing.

Enjoy these plants for years to come in your desert potted garden!

Marylee Pangman is the founder and former owner of The Contained Gardener in Tucson, Ariz. She has become known as the desert’s potted

A potted ponytail palm.

garden expert. Marylee’s book, Getting Potted in the Desert, has just been released. Buy it online at potteddesert.com. Email her with comments and questions at marylee@potteddesert.com.

Follow the Potted Desert at facebook.com/ potteddesert. The Potted Desert Garden now appears monthly.

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JANUARY 2016

OPINION

ASK A MEXICAN!

Why Does Your Newspaper Give Space to This Racist, Filthy Column?

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/OPINION

By Gustavo Arellano EAR MEXICAN: I want to start by saying I’m a Chicano. Now, I don’t understand why you allow Gustavo Arellano’s column in your publication.

He is a racist. First, he has a negative cartoon of a Mexican. Just look at it. Just because his last name is Arellano, that does not give him the right to display such filth and to speak for all people of Mexican or Latino decent.

Second, he calls white people gabachos.

In Spanish, this is the white stuff that accumulates at the corner of your mouth.

It’s the equivalent to calling a black person a “nigger,” a Mexican a “beaner” or a Jew a “kike.” It’s ugly, isn’t it?

I’ve brought this up to him, and his response to me is that it’s all in jest. How can you call a person a racist name in jest? Please take his racist ass off your magazine, and please look into the word gabacho.

Chicano Charlie DEAR READERS: This guy followed up with me by sending a private email that whined, “I don’t think you have the balls” to publish his letter.

Well, guess what, Chicano Charlie? Not only do I have the huevos; I also have the facts. I’ve never claimed to speak for all Mexicans—just the smart ones. A gabacho is a gabacho, not saliva—you’re thinking of baba, which you should be familiar with, since your words are babadas. If we want to call a gabacho a nasty slur, we call him a Donald Trump supporter.

And who says you can’t call someone a racist name in jest?

Anything is possible in this columna— including not granting a pendejo his dream.

So guess what, Chicano Charlie? This columna ain’t going nowhere—feliz año nuevo, gabacho!

DEAR MEXICAN: I own a shop in a small shopping complex. I see lone Mexican guys (with no wife or girlfriend in sight) buying expensive pieces of jewelry. I’m sure they are going to trade the jewelry for quickie sex, possibly with our women. Isn’t this crude, low-class and tantamount to prostitution? At least us white Americans of European descent know how to wine, dine and make a girl feel CVIndependent.com

special before asking for the hot biscuit.

Where’s the romance? Are Mexicans only interested in getting their rocks off?

An Honestly Outraged Local Entrepreneur DEAR CHINITO: Bruh, you’re just jealous they ain’t shopping at whatever piece-of-caca storefront you operate. And you’re also mad these hombres are getting action—the last I heard, a woman is more apt to go out with a man who surprises her with a ring than some loser who refers to her privates as a “hot biscuit.”

But, yes: Mexican men are only interested in having sex with white women. Sucks for you!

GRACIAS, READERS! For another awesome year of random questions, kind words, hilarious haters and ever-present DESMADRE. Reward your faithful Mexican with the regalo of watching the premiere of Bordertown, the Fox animated show on which I served as a consulting producer. It starts Sunday, Jan. 3, at 9:30 p.m., and will air each Sunday at the same time afterward. Watch it live; DVR it; stream it on Hulu—I don’t really care as long as you watch it within a week of its air date.

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 w@ gustavo_arellano!

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 7

JANUARY 2016

NEWS

DROUGHT DEBACLE

Despite ImpressiveCuts Cutsinin Water Despite Impressive Water Usage, Some Local Usage, Some Local Agencies Receive Agencies Receive Hefty Fines for Not Doing Enough Hefty State Fines for Not Doing Enough

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/NEWS

A

s the calendar turns from 2015 to 2016, Gov. Jerry Brown and his Sacramento conservation team are pleased with the results of California’s statewide droughtemergency restrictions.

However, they’re not happy with the efforts of Coachella Valley’s largest water agencies—despite significant cuts in local water usage.

“Californians have reduced water use by 27.1 percent in the five months since emergency conservation regulations took effect in June,” wrote Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), in her Dec. 1 monthly press release.

“In October, when outdoor water use—and the opportunity for significant savings— typically drops off from the hot summer months, the statewide conservation rate was 22.2 percent, down from 26.4 percent in September. Adding to the challenge, October brought temperatures that were well above normal for most of the state. Nonetheless, average statewide water use declined from 97 gallons per person per day in September to 87 in October.”

Meanwhile, representatives of the Coachella Valley’s two largest water agencies expressed pride over their customers’ conservation achievements—and frustration with SWRCB delays in addressing multiple requests for reductions in their state-high 36 percent reduction targets, as well as anger over the lack of transparency in the state’s process to levy onerous fines against them.

“I think our customers have done a really good job,” said Heather Engel, the director of communication and conservation for the Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD), which provides water to most of the eastern valley. “We’re averaging 27 percent savings over 2013, and honestly, that’s pretty impressive. But—and unfortunately, there is a ‘but’—that 27 percent is not enough to make the state happy.

By kevin fitzgerald “We were fined $61,000 by the state, because they don’t think our customers are doing enough. It was very disappointing to receive that fine, because I think we’re doing a good job. But we’ve got to move on.”

How often may fines be levied? “They haven’t made that clear. In fact, when they released the October numbers at the beginning of this month, they did not announce any new fines. I don’t think anyone knows when to expect another announcement of fines.”

On the western end of the valley, Ashley Hudgens, the Desert Water Agency (DWA) public information officer, expressed concern over the CVWD fine and a similar fine levied against the Indio Water Authority (IWA). So far, the DWA has avoided a penalty.

“The hard thing about this is that the state’s action here is kind of arbitrary,” Hudgens said. “If you look at Indio, and you look at CVWD, there are very different circumstances there. Each of them had very different levels of contact with the state before the fine, and there wasn’t a real pattern (of which agencies the state fined).

We crunched the numbers a dozen ways: Was it suppliers who missed their targets by volume, or was it those who missed by gallons per capita, or was it those who missed their target by percentage? There was no rhyme or reason necessarily to link the people the state chose to fine in any of the calculations that we did. So we don’t know if we’re in peril of a fine.”

Repeated attempts to contact Brian Macy, general manager of the IWA, for comment were unsuccessful.

Hudgens reiterated the DWA’s disagreement with the 36 percent reduction target assigned to the agency.

“The 36 percent target in our minds is arbitrary, and it’s disproportionate to the circumstances here (high average temperature and lack of rainfall) and our (existing) water supply,” she said.

Hudgens also praised her agency’s customer base for achieving a cumulative savings through October of 29.2 percent—

above the state average, but below the state’s mandate to the DWA. “I’m incredibly proud of our customers for doing that, but there is still more to do,” she said. “Everybody needs to do their part.

I think the city of Palm Springs has set an incredible example. They’ve done a really good job of conserving—and since they’re our biggest customer, that’s been huge for us.”

In response to the state fine, the CVWD implemented heightened restrictions as of Dec. 1. All residential and commercial customers are now prohibited from any outdoor irrigation on Mondays and Thursdays. Also, penalty fees for exceeding water-usage allotments have increased close to 100 percent.

“In the cooler months that we’re entering now, your landscaping doesn’t need water seven days a week,” Engel said. “The plan is for people who don’t normally cut back to do so for these two out of seven days. If they do, then they are reducing their water use by about 28 percent. If we have a large segment of customers who do that, it could have a significant impact on our overall savings.

We don’t know for sure if that will generate enough savings to allow us to reach our 36 percent target, but we’ll see what the results are.”

We’ve all heard forecasts predicting heavy precipitation due to a strong El Nino condition in the Pacific Ocean. Could that relieve the pressure on valley residents to limit every drop of water they use?

“We’re waiting to see what happens and how it impacts our reality,” CVWD’s Engel said. “If the state gets a lot of rain, and if the lakes get full, and there’s snow in the Sierras, then the state might lift the drought emergency. But it would require a lot of rain and snow for that to happen.”

They’re also in wait-and-see mode at the DWA. “We are trying to be cautiously optimistic and remind people that even if we do have a wet winter, it’s going to take a lot to get us into a sustainable level in terms of the state’s aquifers,” Hudgens said.

Speaking of sustainable levels: How are the two largest valley agencies coping with the revenue shortfalls caused by the reduction in water usage by their customers?

“We are still experiencing a large drop in revenue because of the conservation, and it is mostly being made up with penalties revenue each month,” the CVWD’s Engel said. “So that has allowed us to only dip into our reserves a little bit each month. As a result, we’re in really good shape financially, because we have those healthy reserves.”

But at the DWA, there are no penalty fees, nor is there a tiered rate structure as part of a conservation strategy.

“We are in a revenue shortfall situation,” Hudgens said. “Before this year began, we adjusted the budget downward since we assumed this is where we would be—so we’re coping with it. We are going to have to look at rates, and I think that’s on everyone’s mind out here. I think all the local water agencies are going to be looking at rates. I would guess probably sometime in 2016, we will see a rate study. Of course, that’s up to our board of directors.”

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JANUARY 2016

NEWS

CENSORED!

The 10 Biggest Stories the News Media Have Largely Ignored

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/NEWS

By Tim Redmond hen Sonoma State University professor Carl Jensen started looking into the new media’s practice of self-censorship in 1976, the Internet was only a dream.

Back then, the vast majority of Americans got all of the news from one daily newspaper and one of the three big TV networks. If a story wasn’t on ABC, NBC or CBS, it might as well not have happened.

Forty years later, the media world is a radically different place.

Americans are now more likely to get their news from several different sources through Facebook than from CBS Evening News. And yet, as Jensen’s Project Censored continues to find, there are still numerous big, important news stories that receive very little exposure.

As Project Censored staffers Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth note, 90 percent of U.S. news media—traditional outlets that employ full-time reporters—are controlled by six corporations. “The corporate media hardly represent the mainstream,” the staffers wrote in the current edition’s introduction.

“By contrast, the independent journalists that Project Censored has celebrated since its inception are now understood as vital components of what experts have identified as the newly developing ‘networked fourth estate.’”

Jensen set out to frame a new definition of censorship. He put out an annual list of the 10 biggest stories that the mainstream media ignored, arguing that it was a failure of the corporate press to pursue and promote these stories that represented censorship—not by the government, but by the media itself.

Jensen died in April 2015, but his project was inherited and carried on by Sonoma State sociology professor Peter Phillips and Huff.

Huff teaches social science and history at Diablo Valley College. Under their leadership, the project has, at times, veered off into the loony world of conspiracies and Sept.

11 “truther” territory. A handful of stories included in the annual publication—to be kind—were difficult to verify. That’s caused a lot of us in the alternative press to question the validity of the annual list.

But Huff, who is now project director, and Roth, the associate director, have expanded and tightened up the process of selecting stories. Project staffers and volunteers first fact-check nominations that come in to make sure they are “valid” news reports. Then a CVIndependent.com

panel of 28 judges—mostly academics, plus a few journalists and media critics—finalize the Top 10 and the 15 runners-up.

The results are published in a book that was recently released by Seven Stories Press.

I’ve been writing about Project Censored for 25 years, and I think it’s safe to say that the stories on this year’s list are credible, valid—and critically important. Even in an era when most of us are drunk with information, these stories haven’t gotten anywhere near the attention they deserve.

1. Half of global wealth owned by the 1 percent We hear plenty of talk about the wealth and power of the top 1 percent of people in the United States, but the global wealth gap is, if anything, even worse. And it has profound human consequences.

Oxfam International, which has been working for decades to fight global poverty, released a January 2015 report showing that, if current trends continue, the wealthiest 1 percent will very soon control more wealth than everyone else in the world put together— if they don’t already.

As reported in Project Censored, “The Oxfam report provided evidence that extreme inequality is not inevitable, but is, in fact, the result of political choices and economic policies established and maintained by the power elite, wealthy individuals whose strong influence keeps the status quo rigged in their own favor.”

Another stunning fact: The wealth of 85 of the richest people in the world combined is equal to the wealth of half the world’s poor combined.

The mainstream news media coverage of the report and the associated issues was spotty, at

best, Project Censored notes: A few corporate television networks covered Oxfam’s January report, according to the TV News Archive.

CNN had the most coverage with about seven broadcast segments from Jan. 19 to 25, 2015.

However, these stories aired between 2 and 3 a.m.—far from primetime.

Sources: Larry Elliott and Ed Pilkington, “New Oxfam Report Says Half of Global Wealth Held by the 1%,” Guardian, Jan. 19, 2015 Sarah Dransfield, “Number of Billionaires Doubled Since Financial Crisis as Inequality Spirals Out of Control–Oxfam,” Oxfam, Oct. 29, 2014 Samantha Cowan, “Every Kid on Earth Could Go to School If the World’s 1,646 Richest People Gave 1.5 Percent,” TakePart, Nov. 3, 2014 2. Oil Industry Illegally Dumps Fracking Wastewater Fracking, which involves pumping highpressure water and chemicals into rock formations to free up oil and natural gas, has been a huge issue nationwide. But there’s been little discussion of one of the side effects: The contamination of aquifers.

The Center for Biological Diversity reported in 2014 that oil companies had dumped almost 3 billion gallons of fracking wastewater into California’s underground water supply. Since the companies refuse to say what chemicals they use in the process, nobody knows exactly what the level of contamination is. But wells that supply drinking water near where the fracking waste was dumped tested high in arsenic, thallium and nitrates.

According to Project Censored, “Although corporate media have covered debate over fracking regulations, the Center for Biological Diversity study regarding the dumping of wastewater into California’s aquifers went all but ignored at first.”

In May 2015, the Los Angeles Times ran a front-page feature on Central Valley crops irrigated with treated oil field water; however, the Times report made no mention of the Center for Biological Diversity’s findings regarding fracking wastewater contamination.

Sources: Dan Bacher, “Massive Dumping of Wastewater into Aquifers Shows Big Oil’s Power in California,” IndyBay, Oct. 11, 2014

“California Aquifers Contaminated with Billions of Gallons of Fracking Wastewater,” Russia Today Oct. 11, 2014 Donny Shaw, “CA Senators Voting NO on Fracking Moratorium Received 14x More from Oil & Gas Industry,” MapLight, June 3, 2014 Dan Bacher, “Senators Opposing Fracking Moratorium Received 14x More Money from Big Oil,” IndyBay, June 7, 2014 3. 89 percent of Pakistani drone victims not identifiable as militants The United States sends drone aircraft into combat on a regular basis, particularly in Pakistan. The Obama administration says the drones fire missiles only when there is clear evidence that the targets are al-Qaida bases.

Secretary of State John Kerry insists that “the only people we fire a drone at are confirmed terrorist targets at the highest levels.”

But the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which keeps track of all the strikes, reported that only 4 percent of those killed by drones were al-Qaida members, and only 11 percent were confirmed militants of any sort. That means 89 percent of the 2,464 people killed

by U.S. drones could not be identified as terrorists. In fact, 30 percent of the dead could not be identified at all.

The New York Times has covered the fact that, as one story noted, “most individuals killed are not on a kill list, and the government does not know their names.” But overall, the mainstream news media ignored the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting.

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NEWS Sources: Jack Serle, “Almost 2,500 Now Killed by Covert US Drone Strikes Since Obama Inauguration Six Years Ago,” Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Feb. 2, 2015 Jack Serle, “Get the Data: A List of US Air and Drone Strikes, Afghanistan 2015,” Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Feb. 12, 2015 Steve Coll, “The Unblinking Stare: The Drone War in Pakistan,” New Yorker, Nov. 24, 2014 Abigail Fielding-Smith, “John Kerry Says All those Fired at by Drones in Pakistan are ‘Confirmed Terrorist Targets’—But with 1,675 Unnamed Dead How Do We Know?” Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Oct. 23, 2014 Jack Serle, “Only 4% of Drone Victims in Pakistan Named as al Qaeda Members,” Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Oct. 16, 2014 Jeremy Scahill, “Germany is the Tell-Tale Heart of America’s Drone War,” Intercept, April 17, 2015 4. Popular resistance to corporate water-grabbing For decades, private companies have been trying to take over and control water supplies, particularly in the developing world. Now, as journalist Ellen Brown reported in March 2015, corporate water barons, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, the Carlyle Group and other investment firms, “are purchasing water rights from around the world at an unprecedented pace.”

However, over the past 15 years, more than 180 communities have fought back and re-municipalized their water systems.

“From Spain to Buenos Aires, Cochabamba to Kazakhstan, Berlin to Malaysia, water privatization is being aggressively rejected,” Victoria Collier reported in Counterpunch.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., some cities—in what may be a move toward privatization—are radically raising water rates and cutting off service to low-income communities.

Sources: Ellen Brown, “California Water Wars: Another Form of Asset Stripping?”

Nation of Change, March 25, 2015 Victoria Collier, “Citizens Mobilize Against Corporate Water Grabs,” CounterPunch, Feb. 11, 2015 Larry Gabriel, “When the City Turned Off Their Water, Detroit Residents and Groups Delivered Help,” YES! Magazine, Nov. 24, 2014 Madeline Ostrander, “LA Imports Nearly 85 Percent of Its Water—Can It Change That by Gathering Rain?” YES! Magazine, Jan. 5, 2015 5. Fukushima nuclear disaster deepens Nearly five years after a tsunami destroyed Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant and causing one of the worst nuclear accidents in human history, radiation from the plant continues to leak into the ocean.

But the story has largely disappeared from

the news.

As Project Censored notes: “The continued dumping of extremely radioactive cooling water into the Pacific Ocean from the destroyed nuclear plant, already being detected along the Japanese coastline, has the potential to impact entire portions of the Pacific Ocean and North America’s western shoreline. Aside from the potential release of plutonium into the Pacific Ocean, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) recently admitted that the facility is releasing large quantities of water contaminated with tritium, cesium and strontium into the ocean every day.”

The plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company, “admitted that the facility is releasing a whopping 150 billion becquerels of tritium and seven billion becquerels of cesiumand strontium-contaminated water into the ocean every day.”

Sources: “TEPCO Drops Bombshell About Sea Releases; 8 Billion Bq Per Day,” Simply Info: The Fukushima Project, Aug. 26, 2014 Sarah Lazare, “Fukushima Meltdown Worse Than Previous Estimates: TEPCO,” Common Dreams, Aug. 7, 2014 Michel Chossudovsky, “The Fukushima Endgame: The Radioactive Contamination of the Pacific Ocean,” Global Research, Dec. 17, 2014 6. The global impacts of methane and arctic warming We all know that carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are a huge threat to climate stability. But there’s another giant threat out there that hasn’t made much news.

The arctic ice sheets, which are rapidly melting in some areas, contain massive amounts of methane—a greenhouse gas way worse than carbon dioxide. As the ice recedes, that methane is getting released into the atmosphere.

Dahr Jamail, writing in Truthout, notes that all of our predictions about the pace of global warming and its impacts might have to be re-evaluated in the wake of revelations about methane releases: “A 2013 study, published in Nature, reported that a 50-gigaton ‘burp’ of methane is ‘highly possible at any time.’ As Jamail clarified, ‘That would be the equivalent of at least 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide,’ noting that, since 1850, humans have released a total of about 1,475 gigatons in carbon dioxide. A massive, sudden change in methane levels could, in turn, lead to temperature increases of four to six degrees Celsius in just one or two decades—a rapid rate of climate change to which human agriculture, and ecosystems more generally, could not readily adapt.”

Source: Dahr Jamail, “The Methane Monster Roars,” Truthout, Jan. 13, 2015

7. Fear of government spying is chilling writers’ freedom of expression Writers in Western liberal democracies may not face the type of censorship seen in some parts of the world, but their fear of government surveillance is causing many to think twice about what they can say.

Lauren McCauley, writing in Common Dreams, quoted one of the conclusions from a report by the writers’ group PEN America: “If writers avoid exploring topics for fear of possible retribution, the material available to readers—particularly those seeking to understand the most controversial and challenging issues facing the world today— may be greatly impoverished.”

According to Project Censored, a PEN America survey showed that “34 percent of writers in liberal democracies reported some degree of self-censorship (compared with 61 percent of writers living in authoritarian countries, and 44 percent in semi-democratic countries).

Almost 60 percent of the writers from Western Europe, the United States … indicated that U.S. credibility ‘has been significantly damaged for the long term’ by revelations of the U.S. government surveillance programs.’”

Sources: Lauren McCauley, “Fear of Government Spying ‘Chilling’ Writers’ Speech Worldwide,” Common Dreams, Jan. 5, 2015 Lauren McCauley, “Government Surveillance Threatens Journalism, Law and Thus Democracy: Report,” Common Dreams, July 28, 2014 8. Who dies at the hands of police—and how often?

High-profile police killings, particularly of African-American men, have made big news over the past few years. But there’s been much less attention paid to the overall numbers— and to the difference between how many people are shot by cops in the United States and in other countries.

In the January 2015 edition of Liberation, Richard Becker, relying on public records, concluded that the rate of U.S. police killing was 100 times that of England, 40 times that of Germany, and 20 times the rate in Canada.

In June 2015, a team of reporters from the Guardian concluded that 102 unarmed people were killed by U.S. police in the first five months of that year—twice the rate reported by the government.

Furthermore, the Guardian wrote, “black Americans are more than twice as likely to be unarmed when killed during encounters with police as white people.” The paper concluded that, “Thirty-two percent of black people killed by police in 2015 were unarmed, as were 25 percent of Hispanic and Latino people, compared with 15 percent of white people killed.”

Sources: Richard Becker, “U.S. Cops Kill at

100 Times Rate of Other Capitalist Countries,” Liberation, Jan. 4, 2015 Jon Swaine, Oliver Laughland, and Jamiles Lartey, “Black Americans Killed by Police Twice as Likely to be Unarmed as White People,” Guardian, June 1, 2015 9. Millions in poverty get less media coverage than billionaires do The news media in the United States doesn’t like to talk about poverty, but they love to report on the lives and glory of the super-rich.

The advocacy group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting analyzed the three major television news networks and found that 482 billionaires got more attention than the 50 million people who live in poverty.

From Project Censored: “The FAIR study showed that between January 2013 and February 2014, an average of only 2.7 seconds per every 22-minute episode discussed poverty in some format. During the 14-month study, FAIR found just 23 news segments that addressed poverty.”

Sources: Steve Rendall, Emily Kaufmann, and Sara Qureshi, “Even GOP Attention Can’t Make Media Care about Poor,” Extra!, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, June 1, 2014 “Millions in Poverty Get Less Coverage Than 482 Billionaires,” Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, June 26, 2014 Frederick Reese, “Billionaires Get More Media Attention Than The Poor,” MintPress News, June 30, 2014 Tavis Smiley, “Poverty Less Than .02 Percent of Lead Media Coverage,” Huffington Post, March 7, 2014 10. Costa Rica is setting the standard on renewable energy Is it possible to meet a modern nation’s energy needs without any fossil-fuel consumption?

Yes. Costa Rica has been doing it.

To be fair, that country’s main industries— tourism and agriculture—are not energyintensive, and heavy rainfall in the first part of the year made it possible for the country to rely heavily on its hydropower resources. But even in normal years, Costa Rica generates 90 percent of its energy without burning any fossil fuels.

Iceland also produces the vast majority of its energy from renewable sources.

Sources: Myles Gough, “Costa Rica Powered with 100% Renewable Energy for 75 Straight Days,” Science Alert, March 20, 2015 Adam Epstein, “Costa Rica is Now Running Completely on Renewable Energy,” Quartz, March 23, 2015 Tim Redmond, a longtime editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, is the founding member of the San Francisco Progressive Media Center and editor of that nonprofit’s publication 48 Hills.

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JANUARY ASTRONOMY

The Moon and Various Planets Join Each Other to Create an Unsual Lineup

Planets and Bright Stars in Evening Mid-Twilight For January, 2016

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F

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

By Robert Victor rom late January through most of February, early risers can enjoy all five bright planets before dawn. The waning moon sweeps past four of these planets Dec. 31-Jan. 7, and past all five Jan. 27-Feb. 6.

One hour before sunrise, find brilliant Venus in the southwest, with Saturn nearby to its upper right Jan. 1-8, and to the lower left thereafter.

These two planets are 8 degrees apart on Jan. 1, closing to 5 degrees on Jan. 4. On two mornings, they’ll form a spectacular close pair in the same telescopic field, within 0.7 degrees, on Jan. 8, and 0.5 degrees on Jan. 9.

They’re still within 4 degrees on Jan. 12, widening to 7 degrees on Jan. 15.

Each day, Venus goes east against background stars by just more than 1.2 degrees, while Saturn goes by only 0.1 degrees, and Mars goes east about 0.5 degrees. Watch Venus pass 6 degrees north of first-magnitude Antares, heart of the Scorpion, on Jan. 7, and 3 degrees north of a third-magnitude star marking the top of the Teapot of Sagittarius on Jan. 28. Steady Saturn is 6.3 degrees to 7.5 degrees from reddish twinkling Antares this month, and stays 6-9 degrees from that star throughout Saturn’s current apparition, which ends when the planet sinks into the evening twilight in November 2016.

Bright Jupiter, in the southwest to westsouthwest an hour before sunup, barely moves against stars this month, but it will shift 10 degrees west over four months, Jan. 8 to May 9. This apparent temporary reversal of Jupiter’s motion is centered on the planet’s opposition and all-night visibility on the night of March 7-8.This retrograde motion is a consequence of the faster-moving Earth overtaking the giant planet.

Mars is in the south-southeast to south in this month’s morning sky, 6 degrees to 21 degrees east of Spica. On Feb. 1, Mars will pass 1.1 degrees north of third-magnitude Alpha in Libra. Once Mercury emerges from the sun’s glare in late January, all five nakedeye planets will be on display, in the order Me-Ve-Sa-Ma-Ju, in an impressive panorama across the southern morning sky. Mercury brightens from magnitude +1.2 to 0.0 at dawn in last 10 days of January, and continues to brighten into February.

Jupiter (magnitude -2.3 in mid-January) and Saturn (magnitude +0.5), with its ring system now tipped 26 degrees from edge-on, are favorites for telescopic viewing. They’re in the sky simultaneously mornings in the early months of 2016, and evenings from late CVIndependent.com

spring into summer. Bright Venus (magnitude -4) in January shrinks to 0.2’ (arcminute) across, while increasing from 77 percent to 85 percent illuminated. Venus and Saturn appear within the same telescopic field on Jan. 8 and 9. Red Mars (magnitude +1.3 to +0.8) starts 2016 as a tiny disk 0.1’ across, nearly full. By opposition and closest approach in late May, Mars will triple in apparent size and match Jupiter in brilliance!

Follow the waning moon before dawn, near Jupiter, on Dec. 31, near Mars and Spica on Jan. 3, and near Venus, Saturn and Antares on Jan. 6 and 7.

Look for the moon within an hour after sunset each evening Jan. 10-23, as it waxes from crescent to full.

On Thursday, Jan. 14, Mercury is at inferior conjunction, as the planet goes between Earth and the sun, while passing north of the solar disk.

In mid-January, the Summer Triangle of Vega-Altair-Deneb is visible at both dusk and dawn. Evenings, once Sirius has risen in the east-southeast, look for the Winter Hexagon of Sirius-Procyon-Pollux-CapellaAldebaran-Rigel-Sirius, with Betelgeuse inside.

On Sunday and Monday, Jan. 17 and 18: Venus and Mars are 45 degrees apart in the morning sky. On Jan. 18, Ve-Sa-Ma-Ju span 90 degrees. Ma-Ju are 45 degrees apart.

Tuesday, Jan. 19: The moon’s leading dark edge, invisible in daylight, occults or covers Aldebaran, eye of Taurus the Bull, around sunset in the Coachella Valley. Times of star’s disappearance and reappearance for Palm Springs: 5:06 p.m. and 6:16 p.m. A telescope is best for viewing these events. After the star reappears, check at various times during the evening and watch the moon pull away from the star.

N

During Jan. 23-Feb. 7 in the morning sky, watch the waning moon go east against the zodiacal backdrop, posing near Regulus on Jan. 25 and 26, near Jupiter on Jan. 27 and 28, and just 4 degrees north of Spica on Jan. 30.

Illustrations of events mentioned above appear E W in the Sky Calendar. The sample excerpt on the next page depicts events such as the gathering of moon, Venus and Saturn on the mornings of Jan. 7-8. To subscribe, visit www.abramsplanetarium.org/ skycalendar.

Planets and Bright Stars in Morning Mid-Twilight For January, 2016 The Whitewater Preserve will This sky chart is drawn for latitude 34 degrees north, but may be used in southern U.S. and northern Mexico. host a star party on Saturday, S Evening mid-twilight occurs Stereographic Projection Jan. 2, from 5. until 8:30 p.m. when Sun is 9° below horizon.

Map by Robert D. Miller N Jan. 1: 44 minutes after sunset.

15: 42 " " " For information, call 760-32531: 41 " " " 7222.

To provide a chance for locals to view the unusual lineup of the moon and four or five planets, I will hold three predawn sky watches this month, if the sky is clear. The first will be held on the first clear morning of Wednesday, Jan. 6, or Thursday, Jan. 7, to E W view a compact gathering of the waning crescent moon with Venus and Saturn. The second will be held on the first clear morning of Friday, Jan. 8, or Saturday, Jan. 9, to view Venus and Saturn simultaneously within a telescope field. The third session will be held on the first clear morning S of Sunday, Jan. 31, or Monday, Morning mid-twilight occurs Stereographic Projection when Sun is 9°Evening below horizon. (top) and morning (bottom) Map by Robert Miller skyD.charts.

Feb. 1, to view the lineup of all five naked-eye Jan. 1: 44 minutes before sunrise.

15: 43 " ROBERT " " D. MILLER planets and the moon. All three watches will 31: 41 " " " be held in Palm Springs, from 5:15 until 6 I will present a preview of sky events of 2016 a.m., on the pedestrian bridge crossing over on Friday, Jan. 29, at the Portola Community Tahquitz Creek, at Camino Real between Center in Palm Desert. Socializing begins at north and south Riverside drives, three blocks 6:30 p.m., with the lecture at 7 p.m. north of Cahuilla Elementary School.

The Astronomical Society of the Desert will Robert C. Victor was a staff astronomer host a star party on Saturday, Jan. 16, at dusk at Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State at the Visitor Center of the Santa Rosa and University. He is now retired and enjoys providing San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. skywatching opportunities for school children in More information is available at www.astrorx. and around Palm Springs. org.

Pollux

Capella

Vega

Deneb

Procyon

Betelgeuse

Aldebaran

Altair

Rigel

Sirius

Mercury

8

1

Fomalhaut

Deneb

Capella

Vega

Altair

Pollux

Procyon

Arcturus

Regulus

Jupiter 8 15

1

Mercury 22 29

Mars

1 1 8 15 Venus 29 22 15 8 Antares

Saturn 22 29

1

8

Spica

15

22 29

22

29

JANUARY 2016

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JANUARY 2016

SNAPSHOT

Images From the Best of Coachella Valley 2015-2016 Party

Bianca Rae, the morning anchor for KESQ News Channel 3, accepts her award for Best TV News Personality from Independent publisher Jimmy Boegle. She was the first award-winner honored at the event—because she had to go home and get to bed. She gets up at 3:30 a.m., after all. PHOTO BY GARRETT DANGERFIELD

DJ Tommy Locust (also an Independent contributor) spins to close out the Best of Coachella Valley 20152016 party. The Chill Bar house DJ was a finalist in the Best Local DJ category, as was Independent resident DJ Alex Harrington, who started off the party. PHOTO BY JIMMY BOEGLE

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The Flusters—voted the Best Local Band by Independent readers—performed for a crowd of about 100 revelers at the Best of Coachella Valley 2015-2016 party at Bart Lounge—winner of the Best Nightclub and Best Bar Ambiance awards—on Tuesday, Dec. 15. PHOTO BY JIMMY BOEGLE

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JANUARY 2016

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JANUARY 2016

WHEN CHRIS ZANDER SHARED THE NEWS on Dec. 10 via Facebook that his husband— local LGBT activist and local Equality California field director George Zander—had passed away, many people in the community reacted with shock.

George and Chris Zander had been attacked on Nov. 1 near Calle Encilia and Tahquitz Canyon Way in Palm Springs after leaving Hunters Nightclub. Two suspects, Keith Terranova and Christopher Carr, have since been arrested; both have pleaded not guilty to crimes including battery with serious injury, elder abuse and hate crime. The Palm Springs Police Department said Carr has nine previous arrests, and both Carr and Terranova have previously been convicted of battery.

Chris Zander, 33, required stitches after being struck in the back of the head with a tire iron, while George Zander, 71, suffered a double-fracture to his hip, which required surgery.

George had gotten through the surgery and was back home after spending some time in a rehab center. Friends reported that George was recovering and in good spirits—which is why Chris’ announcement on Dec. 10 was so shocking.

That morning, George was rushed to Desert Regional Medical Center and passed away at 7:50 a.m., police said. The cause of death has not been publicly released as of our press deadline.

Prosecutors have not yet said whether Terranova and Carr will be charged with murder.

DURING A RECENT PHONE INTERVIEW, Equality California executive director Rick Zbur talked about all that Zander did in the desert.

“He was our primary staff person in the desert areas and Inland Empire, and he started working with us in 2009,” Zbur said. “George was an amazing person, and it’s a huge loss for our organization, the LGBT community and the broader communities in the desert area.

“He spent his time working with us and focusing on schools and making sure the needs of seniors were met. He was our primary person in the desert areas enrolling people in health care, and, of course, George was a bit of a political junkie and understood the importance of making sure pro-LGBT elected officials were elected. He was very much our person on the ground and a key part of our political program as well.”

George Zander and friend Ray Chance.

Zbur said that while Zander was a great activist, he was also was a person who cared deeply for others.

“I can’t tell you how many of our volunteers in the desert communities are so saddened by his passing. He mentored individuals, and people loved him. He was a kind and generous soul. He used his work to try to mentor LGBT individuals and young adults as they were coming up, and help them understand the importance of organizing and how you do it. He really took people under his wing and became a big part of their lives.”

Zbur said the fact that such a hate crime could happen in a “gay Mecca” like Palm Springs illustrated an unfortunate reality.

“We know that hate crimes are still commonplace throughout California and throughout the nation,” he said. “I think there’s been sort of a recent understanding of the violence that transgender people are now facing throughout the country. We had 22 transgender people lose their lives in the past year. But this is also a wake-up call that we have a see GEORGE ZANDER Page 16 CVIndependent.com

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GEORGE ZANDER continued from Page 15

lot of work to do in advancing acceptance and understanding of the entire LGBT community.

“We have pockets of misunderstanding and apathy toward our community, and that’s why we’re very focused on the new part of our mission, which is increasing acceptance for LGBT people. George was a very key part of that process for us. Within our community, after the huge success we achieved with marriage equality, people have asked, ‘Is the fight over?’

I think this shows that we have a lot of work to do.”

PAULINA ANGEL, A LOCAL MUSICIAN AND transgender activist, was a close friend of George Zander. During an interview at the LGBT Community Center of the Desert, she talked about how she met George.

“About 10 years ago, I was part of Gay Associated Youth, and they invited me for a fundraiser brunch in Palm Springs, and at that event is where I met George,” Angel said.

“I was still this shy person, and I didn’t know what to expect. I first came out as gay before I came out as transgender, so he knew me when I was this person named Paul Angel. He loved talking to people and working with people. He made sure that your rights were taken care of.

“The great thing about him was that he was always working on something. Whether it was rights for the LGBT community, or for people who needed health care, he cared. He cared about people in the middle class, and people in the Hispanic community—he really loved working on Hispanic-related issues. He was a very dedicated organizer. He loved organizing things for people and making sure their messages were heard. That’s one of the great things about George.”

Angel noted that George was dedicated to anything he took on, which made him enjoyable to work with, no matter the issue.

“He was always hard at work. He’d be up until 3 in the morning working on something,” Angel said. “He loved to work, and he would never rest until something was done. That’s the thing I loved about him and what we had in common—we both loved working on things all the way into the night. Even when people around us were asleep, we loved working.”

After the November attack, Angel stayed with Chris at the Zanders’ home and helped him through the difficult time.

“It was especially hard on Chris. I remember when he came back to their place after he got out of the hospital,” Angel said. “Once he saw me, he ran up to me and just hugged me and was crying; I was a little-teary eyed, too. He was so shaken up by what happened and was very nervous. He was always thinking about George and just wanted to go back and be by his bedside. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, and I helped him out with facilitating anything that came along.

“When I saw George (after the attack), he had the biggest smile. Even when something knocked him down, he always put a smile on CVIndependent.com

George Zander at one of many festivals at which he worked. COURTESY OF THE LGBT CENTER OF THE DESERT

his face. He was like, ‘Hey, these people did this to me, but they haven’t taken away my smile.’”

She last saw George on Nov. 17—the day of her first musical performance in many years, at the benefit show for George and Chris Zander organized by the Independent at Chill Bar in Palm Springs.

“I saw him before the show,” she said. “I went and visited him, and we were just making each other smile and laugh. He asked me, ‘Are you going to play me a song?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll play you a song.’ But I wasn’t able to, because he had to go and have X-rays. We spent 20 minutes talking about the event and what was going on. I remember he told me, ‘I’m a little bit in pain, and you might hear me say a curse word or two.’ I joked with him: ‘George Zander say a curse word? Never!’”

Angel said she plans to keep working as an activist.

“For me, I talk to my grandmother a lot, and we talked about this. She asked me, ‘I’m concerned about you, because you live there, and you’re at a lot of those events. Aren’t you afraid of someone attacking you?’” Angel said.

“My belief is if it happens, it happens. I’m not going to live my life under the sheets thinking I can’t go out because someone is going to beat me up. I’m going to live my life, and if it happens, it happens, but I’m not going to let it stop me from doing what I need to do.

Especially as an activist myself, I’m not going to let it scare me away from the work that I’ve been working on—and what George worked on.”

RAY CHANCE, A FRIEND OF GEORGE AND Chris Zander, started a GoFundMe campaign to get a star for George Zander on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars. In just seven days, he raised $11,000, with a boost from local philanthropist Harold Matzner. Chance is now going through the process to get the star approved.

“It was kind of a gut emotional reaction to do

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something to memorialize George,” Chance said.

“After he died, I thought, ‘That’s not the end of it! It’s not going to end here!’ George was a star in his own right. He was a star in Palm Springs.

He brought light everywhere he went, and he was always on the street on Thursday nights at the VillageFest. In Palm Springs, there can be no better legacy for George. When I talked to Chris about it, after we got through the tears again, Chris said, ‘George would be tickled pink to have a star on the sidewalk!’ I was like, ‘Thank you, Chris! That’s all I needed to hear!’”

Chance said some people have questioned whether it’s appropriate for such an effort to be dedicated to getting George a star, but he plans on seeing this to completion.

“I’ve received some less-than-supportive comments about doing this, and questions like, ‘Why don’t you donate to a foundation?’ or this or that. Everyone needs to choose his or her own way to honor,” Chance said.

Chance was a friend of George Zander for 12 years.

“I met him after I moved to the desert.

George had a huge public personality, and in the 12 years I knew him, he became an incredibly devoted, dear and loved person,” Chance said.

“We would set aside a day in April where we would have our own Thanksgiving so all of our chosen family could get together.”

Since starting the GoFundMe effort, Chance has heard from many of George Zander’s friends from Seattle, where Zander lived before moving to Palm Springs.

“He had a huge impact there,” Chance said.

“Based on the number of people who have donated and made comments from Seattle— including friends he had up there who are on the Seattle City Council issuing a letter of condolence to Chris Zander—he was big in Seattle before he came down here. And God bless him for coming down here, because with George, there was no artifice about his dedication to equality, tribal equality or transgender equality.

He was for equality for all.”

ON THE DAY OF ZANDER’S DEATH, I REACHED out to prominent LGBT and HIV/AIDS activist Cleve Jones.

“I moved down to Palm Springs in the late ’90s, and sometime after that, he had just moved down from Seattle,” Jones said from San Francisco. “We had both been involved in Democratic Party politics. He was also a member of the peace vigils that were held every Saturday at Tahquitz Canyon and Palm Canyon to oppose the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“He was a really lovely man. He was a gentle soul, very kind, very smart, very hard-working, and it’s just a terrible loss. I’m so angry and hurt that such a wonderful life would end the way it did.”

Jones said people can learn a lot from George Zander about what it really means to be an activist.

“A lot of people call themselves activists, and all they ever do is talk about it or type about it, but George really was an activist

George Zander and Jeanne Legault, during his days in Seattle.

and a worker,” Jones said. “He was always out there, and you could see him every Thursday night at VillageFest, and he would be out there with the Stonewall Democrats. He was at every rally, every hearing, and he always did the work. He didn’t just talk about it—he DID the work. I really value people like that, especially in this current age with people who think clicking on a screen is activism.”

Jones reflected on the fact that such an attack happened just off Arenas Road in Palm Springs.

“Right in the gayborhood, and right where it’s supposed to be a safe place,” he said. “I believe we’ve won some very important victories in recent years, but there are so many of us who are still being beaten up and murdered, and too many of our kids who are committing suicide and (contracting) HIV. Our work is not done and never will be.

“I would like to believe that what happened to George and Chris will have some meaning, and I hope and expect that many people will see this as a dreadful reminder that there is work to be done. It’s so hard to convey to people who didn’t know George what a sweet and dear man he really was. I just really don’t have the right words to describe what a gentle soul he was. I don’t recall him ever engaging in any mean-spirited stuff. He was very positive and brought out the best in people in everyone that he was around.”

CHRIS ZANDER HAS BEEN KEEPING A low profile and declined to speak to the Independent. However, on Dec. 21, he took to Facebook to discuss plans for a memorial service for George.

“We have not yet decided a date for George Zander’s celebration of life services,” he wrote.

“I will make sure to post it on both of our pages as soon as a date has been chosen. I know there is a sense of urgency with many of his friends to pay their respects, and I would like nothing more than to honor that, but at this time, I am still in a bit of shock and haven’t been able to make a clear decision on when all of this should take place. Thank you for all of your LOVE and support!”

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JANUARY 2016

CVI SPOTLIGHT: JANUARY 2016 A Prince's Journey: The McCallum Hosts 'Pippin' In 1972, a musical that tells the story of a young prince from the Middle Ages named Pippin made its Broadway debut under the watchful eye of writer Stephen Schwartz and director Bob Fosse.

It would run for almost five years—the 33rd-longest run in Broadway history. A revival returned Pippin to Broadway from 2013 to 2015, and a national tour has now been going strong since September 2014.

That touring production will arrive at the McCallum Theatre for eight performances Jan. 12-17.

During a recent phone interview, Brian Flores, who currently plays the lead role, said he grew up singing songs from the musical.

“I love Pippin, as well as the songs that the lead role sings,” Flores said. “I consider myself more of a singer, and in my voice lessons, I would sing ‘Corner of the Sky’ and ‘With You,’ which are some of the first songs I ever sang.

“When the call went out and the agents got me the audition (for the touring show), I was really excited to go in for the role and sing the songs. That’s what really drew me to the character, and now that I’ve been playing it for the past three or four months, it’s been unreal to explore the character and what he really means to me.”

As Flores stepped into the starring role, he encountered some surprises along the way—including the need for a new skill he had never utilized before.

“This show is very interesting, and it’s a different take: It’s basically a circus, and there’s a ton of acrobatics and a lot of amazing spectacles in the show. I have to do

some of those acrobatics,” he said. “I have to do a back flip and stand on a guy’s shoulders while he runs around onstage with me. It’s physically demanding, and it took a while for me to learn, but it’s a skill set that I never thought I’d have in my life—and now that I have it, I’m grateful for this show and the ability to do it. It was really hard, but the crew of acrobats playing in this show is consistent. The mantra of these acrobats is that they trust each other. … There’s no judgment, and they’re all supportive and took me under their wing.”

Being on the road can be both challenging and rewarding, Flores said.

“I personally haven’t done a long run of a show like this before, but I think it’d be much easier to do in one place,” he said.

“We usually do eight shows a week, and our schedules are really difficult. … We have our Monday off, but we’re traveling in a dry and dirty airplane. It’s really difficult, and you have to focus on taking care of yourself. You have to be as careful as you can when you’re on the road and don’t do anything that can take you out. It’s much more difficult.

“Some people would argue differently, but I think touring is amazing in its own way, seeing all these different cities you wouldn’t see otherwise.”

Another plus: A touring production ends up reaching people who are not able to make it to Broadway.

“People come and see these shows, and they have no idea that this is actually a thing that exists,” Flores said. “They leave the theater so happy that they came.”

While he’s focusing on the role of Pippin

A scene from Pippin.

for now, Flores mentioned one specific musical he would love to perform in someday.

“I’ve been doing it since I was a little kid. I started playing guitar, I did a lot of children’s theater, and then in high school, I really got super-serious about it taking voice lessons, and decided I wanted to go to college for it,” Flores said. “There are lots of roles that I’d love to do, but for something on Broadway right now, there are so many amazing new productions—but I love Jesus Christ Superstar. So either Jesus or Judas—that

would be amazing. Or maybe both, and I can switch off every night.”

Pippin will be performed at 8 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 12 through 16; 2 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 13; and 2 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 16 and 17, at the McCallum Theatre, 73000 Fred Waring Drive, in Palm Desert. Tickets are $57 to $107. For tickets or more information, call 760-340-2787, or visit www.mccallumtheatre.com.

—Brian Blueskye

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JANUARY 2016

ARTS & CULTURE

SUCCESS SQUARED

Debra Ann Mumm Finds Synergy—and Detractors—as Both an Artist and an Entrepreneur

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/ARTS-AND-CULTURE

I

By Victor Barocas n the arts world, Debra Ann Mumm—president and founder of the familyowned business Venus Studios Art Supply, in Palm Desert—is an oxymoron.

She’s a successful artist. And she’s a successful entrepreneur.

In the industry, many art galleries and supply shops close within months of opening. However, Venus Studios is celebrating its fifth anniversary with an art expo in January—and the business has not stagnated; in fact, it has expanded.

Venus’ expansion about three years ago led to a significantly larger gallery space, an increased number and variety of courses, private areas individual artists can rent, and an art-supply store that carries the latest materials and is the only store in the desert where some products can be purchased.

Unfortunately, artistic purists and entrepreneurial purists alike bash Mumm.

The artistic purists claim that Mumm sold out and is now a lesser artist.

The entrepreneurs impugn her efforts because she lacks the singular focus

Debra Ann Mumm.

CVIndependent.com

demonstrated by the best entrepreneurs. In other words, Venus Studios has too many individual and seemingly separate initiatives.

Mumm laughs at both groups. She would tell, quite bluntly, the entrepreneur complainers that their criticisms are without merit. For example, Mumm sees Venus Studios’ public-murals wing, PLANet Art, as offering practical solutions to big-picture issues. The artist asserts that murals and other large-scale works foster communication and build bridges that are not possible with traditional written and spoken language.

Whether or not explicitly articulated

by Mumm, her and her studio’s socially responsive initiatives are based upon three powerful business models and theories: “synergy,” as discussed by systems theorists; “collective unconscious,” or images, concepts and beliefs that are contained within every culture; and the fundamental gestalt psychology principle, “The sum is greater than each of the parts.”

Mumm says she’s a “lifetime doodler” who has always made art. Before founding Venus Studios, her professional title was “trained materials specialist”: She explored the surface and subsurface interactions (chemical and structural) between specific acrylics and non-acrylic surfaces.

Over the past few years, Mumm’s artistic vision, like her business, has increased in scale. She’s moved from small-scale canvases and paintings on found objects to larger works with defined presences.

“Inner Dimension” is a dreamy piece.

By connecting the organic with potentially hard-edge geometric forms, and by using light-to-medium blues and greys on a highly textured object—a wood plank, probably a found object—Mumm produces a clearly 21st-century piece with a 1950s retro sensibility. Both the palette and organic forms are vintage 1950s, while the easily missed purplish-blue grid floating in and out of the other objects and shapes moves the work forward some 50 years. “Inner Dimension” could be hung over a sofa and not be called “sofa” art: Each visit to the piece reveals something different and fresh.

The otherworldly qualities of “Just Beyond” make it hard to find a frame of reference in the visual-arts arena.

Some elements seen reminiscent of the transcendental movement; however, Mumm’s harsh backlighting makes the piece’s inclusion in a modern offshoot or reinterpretation of the works of the transcendental painters of the 19th-century Hudson River School impossible. The otherworldly qualities seem better-suited to the transcendental school that came from New Mexico’s early modernists.

The best fit, however, is probably not the visual arts, but contemporary Gothic and horror literature. On some level, Mumm—a voracious reader who in December rolled out a new blog—may in some way be channeling contemporary novelists, like Stephen King, in a visual format.

Two icons of American innovation and business meet with Mumm’s “Smith and Wesson Meets Westinghouse.” However, the meeting is not pleasant. The front door of an old Westinghouse refrigerator hangs on the wall. By highlighting and exaggerating the discolorations, dings and dents, Mumm makes it easier to recognize the obvious.

The emotional impact of the piece becomes evident once the perforations are recognized as multiple bullet holes, quite possibly caused by a Smith and Wesson gun.

In contrast, a childlike sensibility of freedom and hope is present in “Taste the Rainbow.” Created from an old, partially broken wood pallet, the wood’s textures remain; however, they support and do not

"Just Beyond" by Debra Ann Mumm.

conflict with the overall composition. In lieu of removing or repairing the broken slats, Mumm reinterprets them. Ultimately, they add an almost sculptural quality, especially when they are a foil to the shadows they create.

Going forward, Mumm sees herself doing more writing as she continues to paint with found objects as her primary canvases.

Meanwhile PLANet Art continues to thrive as she talks with other desert businesses and cities about murals and other large-scale projects. For example, she recently worked with the Westfield Mall on a mural project.

Venus Studios Art Supply is located at 41801 Corporate Way, No. 7 and 8, in Palm Desert.

The shop and gallery are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday; and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday. For more information, call 760-3405085, or visit www.venusstudiosartsupply.com.

JANUARY 2016

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 21

NEW YEAR’S SECRETS FOR YOUNGER-LOOKING NECKS In the fourth quarter of 2015, we spent some “Holiday” columns sharing information on how two important results of healthy aging treatments are looking better and feeling so much happier about ourselves.

This month, we’re going to reveal two secrets about treatments that can improve our neck’s appearance and our profile.

Take a look at your recent selfies and ask yourself, “Does my neck make me look younger and thinner, or older and heavier?” If you aren’t happy with your answer, you’re going to be thrilled with this month’s secret!

This year’s first secret is that Kybella injections were just A Revive patient before and four weeks approved for use in permanently after one Kybella treatment. reducing unwanted neck fat. Kybella’s formula destroys fat cells. This precise treatment takes just 15 minutes. Full results can take up to 12 weeks, and treatments can be repeated for even more results.

The photos here show the progress of a patient of ours four weeks after her first treatment. Her results will increase as more of the destroyed fat cells are expelled by her body’s natural metabolism.

January’s second secret to having your neck help you look younger and thinner is having healthy, vibrant skin. Your skin’s appearance is an important subject to discuss with your aesthetic medical practitioners. A number of nonsurgical radio-frequency and laser treatments, plus take-home therapy products, can help rejuvenate our neck’s skin. These energy treatments are important to add to our plan if we want more to look thinner and more attractive.

Next month, we’re going to share information about medical technologies and a plan to help our necks make us look younger and thinner, for less cost than ever before.

Until then, keep the secret.

Read the entire article at www.revivecenter.com/blog.

Email your individual appearance and aging questions to Ms. Chase at Shonda@revivecenter.com.

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Night Fever and ABBAMANIA

John Pizzarelli Sat, January 9, 8pm

Thu & Fri, January 7 & 8, 8pm

Pippin

City of Rancho Mirage Presents

The Peking Acrobats

Starring John Rubinstein and Adrienne Barbeau Tue, January 12, 8pm Wed, January 13, 2pm & 8pm Thu & Fri, January 14 & 15, 8pm Sat, January 16, 2pm & 8pm Sun, January 17, 2pm

Sun, January 10, 3pm

Riverdance - The 20th Anniversary World Tour

Burton Cummings

Fri, January 22, 8pm Sat, January 23, 2pm & 8pm Sun, January 24, 2pm & 7pm

Tue, January 26, 8pm

Presented through the generosity of: January 22: Patrick and Edeltraud McCarthy January 23: Jerry and Sarah Mathews

Pink Martini With singers China Forbes and Storm Large Fri & Sat, January 29 & 30, 8pm Sun & Mon, January 31 & February 1, 7pm Tue, February 2, 8pm

Colin James

Presented through the generosity of: January 29: The Portland Group January 30: Arlene Schnitzer February 1: Linda and Manny Rider, Nancy Stone, Robert and Carlyn Stonehill February 2: Helene Galen

Order tickets by phone

760-340-ARTS (2787)

Thu, March 17, 8pm

Order online

mccallumtheatre.com

73000 FRED WARING DRIVE, PALM DESERT • BOX OFFICE HOURS: MONDAY-FRIDAY, 9:00am-5:00pm CVIndependent.com

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COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 23

JANUARY 2016

24 25 28

SNIFF THE CAP: THE WINES OF HUMBOLDT COUNTY THE INDY ENDORSEMENT: PIZZA AND DESSERT ON EL PASEO RESTAURANT NEWS BITES: LOOKING BACK AT 2015 AND AHEAD TO 2016

www.cvindependent.com/FOOD-DRINK

Enjoying the Beer and Wine of the Central Coast

GRAPES & GRAIN

26

ERIN PETERS CVIndependent.com

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FOOD & DRINK

SNIFF the CAP Fishing for Wine in Humboldt County

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/FOOD-DRINK

By Deidre Pike

I

’m leaning back in a comfy bucket seat behind the driver of the Troutmobile—a Ford SUV. My tummy’s full of breakfast: poached duck eggs and mimosas from a wine bar in Arcata, Calif.

This is a fine way to start a quirky Humboldt County wine-tasting tour. I’ve joined an adventure that will end tonight with a private tasting at Coates Vineyards.

The winery is remote—in the Six Rivers National Forest, not far from the bustling unincorporated community of Orleans, which is 12 miles east of Weitchpec. Surely you’ve heard of Weitchpec. No? It’s at the everywhere else. This fact, touted on the juncture of the Trinity and Klamath rivers in Coates Winery website, means that the grapes Humboldt County—not far from the Pacific’s are “generally more healthy, vigorous, and …

Lost Coast. This area is better known for can better express their varietal characters.” crops other than wine.

As the afternoon begins, we turn inland The Coates Winery is a 12.5-hour drive from the Pacific Coast drive and head into north from Palm Springs and a mere 2.5 the mountains. Sitka spruce. Second-growth hours from Humboldt’s largest center of redwood. Invasive pampas grasses. commerce, Eureka. About 15 wineries are The Troutmobile slows through a listed as members on the Humboldt Wine residential area. A familiar smell wafts Association website. Several more listed as through the window—pungent, spicy, nonmembers. Coates is one of the latter. potentially intoxicating.

This is northern Northern California. In my “Someone’s burning trim,” observes a vast 15 minutes of Internet research, I can’t co-adventurer. find another California winery further north The sun shines, a rarity. Recent rains have than Coates. Robin and Norman Coates’ made the hills green alongside Highway all-organic vineyards are so remote that the 299, a logging road that moves inland from grapes can grow on their own rootstock: the Pacific Coast to Redding. The drive to They don’t have to be grafted to diseaseCoates takes us off 299 in Willow Creek, well resistant rootstock, as happens pretty much before Redding. We’re driving north toward

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Hoopa. We’re on the way to Weitchpec, a place written about in Vice magazine’s “War in Weed County.”

Before today, I knew only one person in this van—the journalist who invited me along. No matter. A love of wine makes us all fast friends.

We share memories of remarkable tastings in Amador County, Sonoma, Paso Robles and Southern Washington. Advice is shared, recommendations made. I take notes.

Because the drive is long, and we’re a thirsty bunch, we stop beyond Willow Creek at a private home overlooking the Trinity River. There, we sample local and regional wines—some we’ve brought along, like an award-winning 2009 Moonstone Crossing Barbera. Today’s tour organizers had spent the previous afternoon at the Moonstone tasting room in Trinidad. Moonstone’s Sharon Hanks had poured dozens of tastes of wine made from grapes imported from Amador, Lake and Mendocino counties by local genius winemaker Don Bremm. The winery is among the county’s best-known. It’s open to the public and easy to find on Main Street, just off Highway 101.

We drink other fine bottles. Standouts include a Dutcher Crossing Carignane ($36, Sonoma winery and Mendocino grapes) and the 2010 Dogwood Mea Culpa ($65, Humboldt winery and Napa grapes). So tasty.

These are my kind of people.

Our designated driver herds us back into the Troutmobile. Then we’re going north-er and north-er. In Weitchpec, we turn east and drive along the Klamath River to Orleans.

The winery isn’t in Orleans, but beyond it, of course—a few more miles up winding narrow roads.

“I forgot how early the sun goes down,” someone says.

Even in the dark, the Coates’ home and vineyards form a lovely oasis. A fire crackles in a woodstove. Robin Coates ushers us into the kitchen where bottles of red wine are lined up on a bar. Robin ladles out lentil soup, which pairs perfectly with the estate’s sangiovese and zinfandel.

A wine connoisseur in our group declares the 2012 sangiovese ($18) the best he’s tasted all day, which is saying something.

The varietal makes me think of Tuscany. Ah, Tuscany.

Our talk turns to wines with which one might start the day, and Norman Coates suggests his trebbiano, the Italian white from grapes he planted in the 1990s.

“If you have to drink wine for breakfast, that’s the one to drink,” he says.

Debate ensues as to whether one drinks the wine before coffee or after it.

My wine journalist friend seems disappointed that she can’t give readers the inside scoop on how to visit the Coates Winery. The winery is not open to the public.

The couple prefers that people visit the

Norman Coates pours his reds for a private tasting in Orleans, Calif. DEIDRE PIKE

website and, you know, buy the wine at area stores.

“We’re not as social as some winemakers,” says Norman.

Talk turns to crime in Humboldt County.

We crowd into the Coates’ living room and watch the trending YouTube video series featuring a “Boondocking” guy—the Nomadic Fanatic—who makes a stop in Eureka. He encounters a Starbucks-drinking vandal, fends off the theft of his solar panels by a felonious meth-head, and parks a block away from a McDonald’s that is the site of a recent officer-involved shooting.

“Let’s get the hell out of Eureka,” concludes the nomad at the end of the YouTube video.

Laughter ensues. We taste the syrah and a delectable cabernet sauvignon—lighter than many California cabs and superbly drinkable.

We eat cheese and pate and sourdough rye baked this morning.

Bliss ensues.

Before leaving, we hike up an unlit road to the Coates’ warehouse, where cases of wine are stacked alongside crates of ripe organic kiwi. Those grow here, too, and this year’s harvest was abundant.

We buy wine and tote two cases down the dark road. Giggling in the moonlight, we climb back into the Troutmobile and head back to the coast.

I seem to remember someone passing around a bag of gummy peach rings. But I might have been dreaming, dozing in the comfy bucket seat.

Ah, Humboldt County.

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 25

JANUARY 2016

the

FOOD & DRINK

INDY ENDORSEMENT

We Enjoy Pizza and Dessert on Palm Desert's El Paseo

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/FOOD-DRINK

By Jimmy Boegle WHAT The capricciosa pizza WHERE Piero’s PizzaVino, 73722 El Paseo No. 1, Palm Desert HOW MUCH $15.90 lunch; $18.50 dinner; $8.90 happy hour CONTACT 760-5682525; www.ppizzavino.com WHY Amazing quality and a low price.

It’s often said that pizza is like sex: Even when it’s bad, it’s good.

Well, I strongly disagree. I’ve had some baaaad pizza before that was in no way good.

(As for bad sex … well, that’s a discussion for a different column.) After enjoying the capricciosa pizza at Piero’s PizzaVino, I disagree even more: This pizza is so excellent that it makes almost all other pizza worse by comparison.

The folks at Piero’s PizzaVino take their pizza seriously: The menu and placemats emphasize that all the pizzas here are baked at 800-900 degrees for 60-90 seconds or so in the imported “Marra” Neapolitan woodburning oven. Furthermore, the pizza-makers use only San Marzano tomatoes grown near Naples, Italy; they use only Doppio Zero flour, which has a higher protein content than most flours; and they use only house-made Fior di Latte mozzarella cheese.

Combine all of this with excellent toppings on the capricciosa pizza—ham, mushrooms, artichokes and kalamata olives (the menu incorrectly says black olives), in addition to tomato sauce and mozzarella—and … wow.

I would have stood and applauded the pizza right there in Piero’s bar area if that would not have caused a scene.

Why was I dining in the bar area, you ask?

Well, Piero’s offers “happy hour” there all day, every day—from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.— and the deals are pretty amazing: The pizza pictured here cost just $8.90. Yeah, it’s a little smaller than the regular-menu pizzas, but it’s certainly large enough to satisfy any hungry diner. Add a glass of nice house wine ($5 at happy hour) to that pizza, and you really have something: one of the best meals per dollar you’ll find anywhere in the valley—on ritzy El Paso, no less. Who’da thunk it?

WHAT The Opera Cake WHERE Pastry Swan’s Fix, a Dessert House, 73580 El Paseo, Palm Desert HOW MUCH $8.50 CONTACT 760-340-3040; www.pastryswan. com WHY It’s a dessert with a lot going on.

Epicurious.com tells the story of opera cake like this: “Many believe that Louis Clichy was its creator because he premiered the gâteau (cake), with his name written across the top, at the 1903 Exposition Culinaire in Paris. It became the signature cake of Clichy’s shop on the Boulevard Beaumarchais. However, another pastry shop, Dalloyau, sold a very similar dessert, known as L’Opéra (in honor of the Paris Opera), and some claim that theirs was the original.”

I don’t know who deserves credit for inventing opera cake, but I do know this: The version served al El Paseo’s Fix, a Dessert House, is pretty freaking incredible.

The Fix opened in 2011 and serves the yummy goodies produced by Pastry Swan, long one of the valley’s top bakeries. However, The Fix doesn’t just offer yummy baked goods; it also serves full meals, including pizzas, sandwiches and salads. Plus there’s a full bar!

However, let’s put aside the booze and entreés for now, because The Fix is most renowned for one thing: desserts. It’s in the restaurant name for a reason, after all.

Desserts are exactly what we were looking for on El Paseo one recent afternoon, and The Fix gave us, well, our desired sugar fix.

Everything we had was yummy, but the opera, well, took the cake: The almond sponge cake with chocolate, coffee and marzipan notes was fantastic. This dessert is not for the faint of heart: It has a lot going on thanks to all of the varied yet complementary flavors.

It’s also quite rich: After devouring a piece of opera cake, you won’t want a second piece right away.

However, you probably will want another the next day. Bon appétit.

CVIndependent.com

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the

FOOD & DRINK A Tale of Grapes and Grain: Enjoying the Beer and Wine of the Central Coast WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/FOOD-DRINK

By Erin Peters ome beer-drinkers and winedrinkers have the idea that you must be loyal to one beverage or style.

Well, let me introduce myself: My name is Erin Peters. I am a cross drinker—and I’m not the

only one.

A visit to California’s Central Coast offers cross-drinkers like me the chance to compare some of the world’s best artisan beers and wines. I recently took a drive up to Paso Robles, and then further north to the Monterey area, to find out what craft beers are preferred by wine experts.

Midnight Cellars is a small-production, award-winning winery on the west end of Paso Robles. The boutique winery produces sustainably farmed Bordeaux grapes on 28 acres of hilly and limestone-rich soil. Midnight is known for making some of the best blends and big merlots. (Do not mention Sideways to the winemakers there!) Merlots are often viewed as gateway wines—kind of like pale ales are in the beer world. However, Midnight’s 2010 Estate merlot transcends this stereotype: It’s big, bold and rich with dark fruit flavors.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, Shelby at midnight told me how much she loves Sierra Nevada’s pale ale—still known as one of the biggest pale ales in the industry. There’s a nice balance in both this beer and this wine.

Just around the corner from Midnight is a gorgeous, upscale tasting room, serving old-world varietal wines. Sextant Winery serves powerful zinfandel and petite syrah blends. The folks at Sextant claim it is the only winery in North America to cross-pollinate grenache and cabernet sauvignon, producing a big and bold caladoc. Bright Bing cherries and ripe blackberries are layered with dark fig, cinnamon and spicy cardamom notes. It’s delicious and poetically one-of-a-kind. Just don’t call it a blend.

Enthusiastic and knowledgeable server Kate Keller is a fan of local breweries like Central Coast Brewing, Libertine Brewing Company and BarrelHouse Brewing Company.

BarrelHouse is a must-do when visiting the CVIndependent.com

Central Coast—not just for the beer, but also for the beautiful views and the inviting patio.

The brewery typically has at least a couple fantastic sours on tap.

Monica Villicana not only runs a boutique winery, Villicana Winery, in Paso Robles; she and her husband, Alex, were the first in the area to distill spirits from the used grapes.

Winemakers bleed a percentage of the free-run juice from red-wine grapes before fermentation to enhance the quality of the wines. Saignée is this French term meaning “to bleed,” and this juice is often discarded. By fermenting this bleed and then triple-distilling it, Re:Find Distillery has found a new use for saignée.

No surprise: Monica’s first choice of libations is wine; then she’ll reach for liquors such as brandy, vodka or whiskey. While she’s not a big beer fan, she recently found one that she enjoys and can drink for a longer period of time: Central Coast Brewing’s Original Chai ale. The spiced blonde ale from this veteran downtown San Luis Obispo brewery—it’s been open since 1998—comes in with a very manageable 4.9 percent alcohol by volume and has flavorful notes of vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.

Her husband, Alex, will grab Firestone Walker’s Double Barrel Ale when he’s not enjoying his own cabernet sauvignons, zinfandels, merlots or syrahs. This American take on a British-style beer has sweet malt flavors overlaying a slightly woody aroma.

Villicana’s vintner likely enjoys the earthiness notes that highlight roasted bread, caramel and oak.

Traveling north on Highway 46, I stopped in Cambria, a lovely seaside village that oozes quaint, artistic expression. Here, you’ll find several wineries and what used to be called Cambria Beer Company. After a trademark dispute, the local brewery is now thriving as 927 Beer Company. Head brewer and president Aaron Wharton doesn’t have a taste for wine, but in true collaborative craft-beer-industry fashion, his patrons and friends bring him bottles and growlers of their beers to exchange with his own brews. Some of his favorites include Modern Times, Noble AleWorks,

Re:Find Distillery turns wine waste into fantastic spirits. ERIN PETERS

Rare Barrel and Alpine Brewing. In January, Aaron will start offering barrel-aged beers on a monthly basis.

Down the street is tasting room for Moonstone Cellars. Server and “wineaux” Ron Panna tends to favor chardonnays and appreciates red varietals like petite syrah.

Young petite syrah wines may have dark berry and plum fruit characteristics, as seen in the winery’s 2013 petite syrah, which is a club exclusive—and it’s fantastic. This wine is full of spice and dark fruit and demands a meal befitting its robust and full-flavored nature, such as rosemary leg of lamb.

When not sipping on wine, he seeks out beers like Lagunitas Sucks’ Brown Shugga.

Brown Shugga is a whopping 10 percent ABV American strong ale that carries flavors of malt, dark fruit and brown sugar together beautifully. Many strong ales also have prominent notes of spice, just like syrahs.

Heading up Highway 1, in Big Sur Village, I came upon a cozy pub serving some of the best wings I’ve had in a long time. Maiden Publick House is a bit of a transcendental intersection, where locals, hippie campers and tourists enjoy brews among surrounding lush forests. The menu also lists nice beer pairings for the appetizers, salads, sandwiches, burgers and traditional favorites, like shepherd’s pie or Monterey chicken. Choose beers from 12 taps or 70 bottles. Parish Pub in Santa Cruz owns Maiden Pub, giving them access to a nice beer selection.

Continuing north to Monterey, I stopped

by Alvarado Street Brewery and Grill. The first thing I noticed were the delicious smells wafting from the main bar and kitchen.

Thanks in part to access to pristine, local ingredients, the brewery has started a barrelaging program utilizing zinfandel barrels from

Joullian Vineyards in Carmel Valley. Now aging is the Kriek lambic with Brettanomyces—and 40 pounds of cherries. Alvarado’s approach to artisan craft beer nabbed them gold at the 2015 Great American Beer Festival: The Mai Tai PA was recognized in the internationalstyle pale ale beer-style category. The beer lineup includes Saboteur saison, Super Rad! sour and Double Cone double IPA. The Super Rad! was, well, super rad—and their bacon and egg flatbread was positively scrumptious.

I later picked up a bottle of pinot noir from my dear friend Cathy. (I’ve known her since the fifth-grade!) She and her husband, Chris Weidemann, started Pelerin, a small artisan winery in Carmel Valley. Their wines are handharvested, gently tended and bottled without filtration. When not sipping on pinot noir or Rhone-style Syrah, Chris and Cathy enjoy beers from the Monterey Coast Brewing Co. in Salinas. Chris enjoys mid-weight, moderately hoppy ales.

Here’s a quick guide that may help you match your beer preferences with your wine preferences: Enjoy Chardonnay? Try wheat beers.

Like carménère? Try West Coast IPAs. Drink syrahs or chianti? Try a porter.

If you enjoy merlot, pick up a pale ale.

Like riesling? You may also like Czech pilsners.

Shiraz or grenache-blend aficionado? Try a Belgium ale.

Is your go-to pinot noir? You should try a lambic or a sour.

These are mere recommendations; after all, nothing beats your own palate.

Wine is known to be gorgeous, mysterious and sophisticated. Craft beer can portray a sense of worldly history, anarchy and fun.

Enjoy both—and you can have it all.

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 27

JANUARY 2016

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FOOD & DRINK

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LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING AHEAD AT THE LOCAL RESTAURANT SCENE As we turn the calendar from 2015 to 2016, it’s worth examining the year gone by in the local food scene—and speculate about what’s coming up.

What did we learn about the local restaurant scene in 2015? A few top-of-the-mind thoughts: • Intriguing restaurants can still create a buzz. Think for a moment: What was the last local restaurant that opened and created a buzz like Eight4Nine did? Unless I am forgetting something (which is entirely possible), it’s been years since a new place created such a fervor.

In some ways, Eight4Nine represents a perfect restaurant-buzz storm: It has an excellent pedigree, thanks to the team of co-owner Willie Rhine, the longtime general manager at Lulu California Bistro; renowned photographer John Paschal; and veteran executive chef Chuck Courtney. It has an exciting location, in the burgeoning uptown design district of Palm Springs. Finally, previews of the look and menu of the restaurant helped build excitement long before the doors finally opened.

I also think part of the buzz surrounding Eight4Nine can be attributed to a less-than-pleasant fact about the local dining scene: People are starving for great dining experiences here. There are a lot of good restaurants in the Coachella Valley. Tons of ’em. But there are just a few great ones.

• Having said that, there are nuggets of greatness to be found in the Coachella Valley food scene.

Roman Blas is doing amazing things at Over the Rainbow, and just got a little love on Top Chef.

Babe’s Bar-B-Que and Brewhouse was named the 2015 Brewery of the Year at the California State Fair, and the two newer breweries in the valley are picking up medals at various beer competitions.

• The stupid runs deep when it comes to some protesters. I totally understand why someone would be opposed to the concept of foie gras, or want to be vegetarian. There are some serious, serious problems with the corporatized food industry in this country regarding food safety and humane practices.

However, I don’t understand why local food protesters set their sights on Mindy Reed and Zin American Bistro.

In January, a California law banning foie gras—fatty duck or goose liver—was overturned, and Reed added several foie gras dishes back to the menu at Zin, located in downtown Palm Springs.

Soon after, she was besieged with hate mail and protesters.

If the protesters had done their research, they would know that Reed is one of the area’s biggest proponents of local, free-range and humanely raised ingredients. That goes for foie gras, too.

“I serve foie gras that’s humanely raised,” she told the Independent earlier this year. “The geese are not caged. There’s no tube. There are no machines. The goose is hand-fed. There are a few farms doing this. Geese will gorge themselves naturally. People who like foie gras appreciate the fact that I buy humanely raised foie gras.”

Reed also had a question for her protesters.

“Why aren’t they picketing McDonald’s or other restaurants in town (that don’t seek out meat from humanely raised animals)?” she asked. “I don’t think it’s fair.”

She’s right. If you’re going to protest, think things out first, OK? • Restaurants come and go. We lost a lot of great restaurants this year, including The Falls Steakhouse, Margarita’s, Twin Palms Bistro and Lounge, Michael’s Pizzeria, Wasabi, 3rd Corner Wine Shop and Bistro, Dickie O’Neal’s Irish Pub and the Hacienda Cantina and Beach Club.

So what should we expect from the local restaurant scene in 2016? Whether you love what’s going on in downtown Palm Springs, or you hate it, restaurants will be part of the scene when all these new developments begin opening late this year. Here’s hoping they are good ones.

I also think (and hope) that the craft-cocktails trend continues to develop in the valley. While you’ll find more craft cocktails here now than you would have two or three years ago, the cocktails scene is still lacking.

Whatever 2016 may bring in the food and restaurants world, we’ll be reporting on it. Keep watching this space.

IN BRIEF Congratulations to the fine folks at Rio Azul Mexican Bar and Grill. The much-loved Mexican restaurant, located at 350 S. Indian Canyon Drive, in downtown Palm Springs, celebrated its fifth birthday in December. Get more details at rioazulpalmsprings.com. … Coming soon to downtown Palm Springs: Chicken Ranch, which is going into the old Jiao spot at 515 N. Palm Canyon Drive.

Dave Morgan and Mike Smith are opening the place, which according to its Facebook page will offer free-range, farm-fresh, locally grown fare including rotisserie chicken, sides and salads. There’s a full bar as well. Keep your fingers crossed for a January opening date; watch www.facebook.com/ EatChickenRanch for updates.

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 29

JANUARY 2016

THE DESTINATION FOR FOODIES & MUSIC LOVERS ALIKE

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However, the work done by the award-winning Coachella Valley Independent has been—and always will be—available to all, free of charge.

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31 33 34 35 37

Elektric Lucie Focuses on the Spanish Side The Former Burning Bettie Frontman Returns to His Rock Roots With Monreaux Styx Keeps on Touring—and New Music May Be on the Way Desert Rock Chronicles: Meet Atala, and Enjoy Some High Desert Doom Mark Your Calendars for Surfer Blood at Pappy's

www.cvindependent.com/music

Dwight Yoakam Is Coming to Spotlight 29.

That and Much More in The Blueskye Report.

33

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THE MAN IN THE HAT

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 31

JANUARY 2016

MUSIC DESERT + LATIN +

ROCK

Elektric Lucie Focuses on the Spanish Side After Signing With a Mexico City Label

A

By Brian Blueskye fter five years together, Latin/rock band Elektric Lucie is branching out well beyond the group’s devout Coachella Valley audiences. In fact, the band recently signed with a record label in Mexico.

Elektric Lucie’s ever-evolving lineup currently includes Viktor Estrada (guitar, vocals), Jorge Carrillo (bass), Jose Lopez (guitar, keyboards) and Hernan Hernandez (drums).

“We’ve played as a three-piece; we’ve played as a four-piece; and we’ve played as a five-piece,” Estrada said during a recent interview at the band’s practice space at Estrada’s house in Indio. “It’s been like a coalition of musicians. … We’ve been working, working and working, and that’s how we

landed a record deal.”

Lopez is the band’s newest member.

“I’ve been in bands since high school,” Lopez said. “I’ve known Viktor for years. I used to play in metal and punk bands, and I was also in a ska band, which is where I met Viktor 15 years ago. We never played together until recently—like months ago. The style they were doing was entirely different from what I was doing, but it was awesome, and I loved it. I put my two cents into it, and this is what we’re doing now.”

The addition of Hernan Hernandez on drums was also a big part of the band’s evolution. While he lives and breathes heavy metal, he’s adjusted to the Latin-rock style.

He has technical skills from being in the marching band during high school.

“I’ve been adjusting to how they play, and they’re master musicians,” Hernandez said.

“I’ve honed it down. … On my part, I’ve learned all their songs, and we’ve started to record. I’m catching up to these guys, and the sound is getting there and is really tight. It’s only up from here.”

While Elektric Lucie’s new album, Bipolar, has lyrics mostly in Spanish, Estrada said the band has songs in both English and Spanish. When I asked about song themes, they all laughed, and Estrada quickly said: “Love!” Much of the band’s music does have serenade elements—with a bit of a kick. Even with heavy guitars in some of the songs, the rhythm is just right, and you can feel the emotion.

“It’s sexual, sensual—and sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, with everything in between. Sex sells,” Carrillo said. “We’re not showing our things out in public or anything like that, but

it’s all about the timing of the song being not too fast, and not too slow. It’s right there in the middle, where you can just groove to it.”

The band at the moment is focusing more on audiences that embrace Elektric Lucie’s Latin elements.

“We’re focusing a lot on the Spanish market,” Estrada said. “We tried a little bit of the English thing, and I’ve heard some good compliments. We have listeners in England and Eastern Europe, but we got signed by a record label in Mexico City, so we’re focusing a little more on the Spanish side.

“Some people will see it here in the valley. … They’ll see you at a local show, and later on, if you do something great, you won’t be playing those local shows anymore. Your record label won’t want you to play those shows anymore. Stuff like that happens.”

After signing to Casete Mexico and playing shows both regionally and in Mexico, Estrada said he has learned one important thing.

“If you want to succeed as a band, you have to put money into it,” Estrada said. “If you don’t put any money into promoting or into your band having decency in live shows, there’s no point. You want to look good, and you want to play good. … If you really want to do something with your band, you have to put money into promotion. You’re wrong if you think you’re going to get into a record label, and they’re going to give you everything—no! … Where the real promotion is when you start paying for the promo team that’s going to get you interviews and music on radio, which we really need. Some people don’t understand that.”

While Elektric Lucie is doing a lot of shows and promotion outside of the Coachella Valley

Elektric Lucie

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/MUSIC

these days, the members said the desert is always a part of what they do.

“We have some influence from the desert rock, definitely,” Carrillo said. “This is the valley that we know, and there are some new wave and metal sounds. We incorporate all of that stuff.”

Lopez agreed.

“We’ve all been playing music individually since Kyuss started,” Lopez said. “We do things from pop to metal. We incorporate everything and blend everything. I was all into metal and punk when I started playing in high school. When I play with these guys, it

feels amazing, and I love the music. We love what we do, and we’re excited about what we’ll be doing in the future.”

Estrada said new material is in the works.

“We’ll probably start recording our next album in a couple of months,” he said. “We’re not sure if we’ll still be at the label, given they only signed us for a year, but it depends. It’s open season for us right now: 2016 to me, I feel it’s going to be our best year.”

For more information on Elektric Lucie, including a show scheduled for Friday, Jan. 22, at The Date Shed, visit elektriclucie.com.

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JANUARY 2016

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 33

JANUARY 2016

MUSIC

The Blueskye REPORT

DELIGHTFULLY DARK & DIRTY

JANUARY 2016

By Brian Blueskye

Former Burning Bettie Frontman Giorg Tierez Returns to His Rock Roots With Monreaux

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/MUSIC

I

By Brian Blueskye

Monreaux.

n early 2015, Burning Bettie parted ways with frontman Giorg Tierez. His former bandmates began a new band called Hollace, replacing him with Deadend Paradox frontman Alex Antonio.

Meanwhile, Tierez has bounced back with a new band called Monreaux, along with Deadend Paradox bassist Chris Dub. During a recent interview in Indio off of Monroe Street, Tierez joked about the interview being “held on Monroe about Monreaux” while describing the issues he had after he was fired from Burning Bettie.

“It was a struggle to find players again that I was compatible with—people who were interested in a similar style and similar goal,” Tierez said. “I’ve always linked up

with our bass-player, Chris Dub. We’ve always talked, and we’re really good friends. As it happened, at the same time, we were removed from our bands. It’s funny, because when you get around the local music scene, you sort of have a kinship sometimes. I looked at Alex (Antonio) as my friend as well. Deadend Paradox was one of my favorite bands when I looked at local music. Those guys were my friends, and the guys from Burning Bettie were my friends, too … .”

“I actually started Burning Bettie and got kicked out for whatever reasons, and I got replaced by a friend of mine.”

Tierez talked about playing at CV Weekly editor/publisher Tracy Dietlin’s birthday party, and the awkward feeling he had when he saw his old bandmates. “They were all there and were going to do an acoustic thing.

The first guy I saw was Alex, and he was like, ‘Hey! What’s going on?’ like nothing. I was like ‘Hey … .’”

The early practice sessions for Monreaux included Bri Cherry, formerly of Machin’, as well as a couple of other people Tierez couldn’t nail down.

“Bri was going through a rough time, and I was going through a rough time,” Tierez said.

“My friend Abe, he had two jobs and got into his own business, and that halted quickly. I was back to square one, but I like to think it’s not over with those two, because there might be some things coming up.”

Tierez eventually recruited Chris Dub and picked up multi-instrumentalist Ryan Diaz.

Diaz has proven himself to be a phenomenal drummer during Monreaux’s live shows; add in Chris Dub on bass, and you have one of the best rhythm sections in the valley.

Tierez explained how Diaz joined the band.

“For Burning Bash, there was no band yet,” Tierez said about his annual concert and party. “But I was still dead-set on playing and booked all the bands. I had seen Ryan perform at an open-mic one time, and he has great skills. When I saw him playing drums, I was like, ‘Holy shit! Where did this guy come from?’ He’s a total human metronome and a studio drummer as well; he’s quick to pick up on anything, and he’s already putting together what I’m thinking about for a song.

Chris was a little iffy at first before I brought Ryan to jam at his house in Desert Hot Springs, but it worked out.”

Tierez said he’s struggled to bring on a permanent guitarist.

“I hit up multiple guitarists who I had for leads, and I hit up a friend of mine who I jammed with before I started Burning Bettie, and he happened to be doing nothing in the moment, a month before Burning Bash; we wrote four songs,” Tierez said. “We had the set for Burning Bash.”

“The guitar player left for personal reasons.

I had multiple other names who are supertalented, and we did two more shows, and once again are in search of lead guitar.”

Tierez said Monreaux has come a long way in a short time. He believes that a house party in Coachella the night before a gig at Schmidy’s Tavern has been their best yet.

“It was us, Fight Like a Girl, Kill the Radio, and Venus and the Traps. There were about 100 kids there, and we had the crowd moshing, which is the first time I’ve seen anyone moshing to any music I ever wrote,” Tierez said. “The crowd was a lot edgier. I know we were playing for high school kids

John Pizzarelli

and maybe a little younger than that, and I was like, ‘Wow, holy shit!’ We were told we were the best (bands) of the night.”

Tierez said he’s finally put Burning Bettie behind him.

“When we first started, it was great. But then it turned into a lot more chill and alternative,” Tierez said about his former band. “My original plan is what I’m doing now: rock ’n’ roll, a lot heavier, catchy and fast. That’s what I’m excited about. It’s dark and dirty—and that’s what I wanted.”

Tierez said Monreaux plans to compete in some battle-of-the-bands competitions in 2016, as well as come up with new material— and tighten the screws.

“We want to have full sets to play, do some recording and definitely play out of town, because I’m done relying on local shows, given it’s boring, and you get burnt out,” Tierez said. “Chris and I have been doing it for years, and I hate to say I don’t want to play with my friends’ bands, but it’s so saturated, and everyone is playing every fucking week. It’s not big enough here to play every two weeks or even once a month. If you do shows locally, you’ll be opening for someone mainstream who’s coming town or playing with big local bands like Mondo Generator. I’d rather just go into the studio or write new songs to make us better.”

For more information, visit www.facebook.com/ monreauxmusic.

It’s January. That means the holiday season is over—and it’s a brand-new year! That also means the busiest portion of season is here— and there are some great events going on throughout the month.

The McCallum Theatre has some fine shows in January. At 8 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 9, guitarist/vocalist John Pizzarelli will be performing. Known for his modern interpretations of songs by John Lennon, Gershwin and Antonio Carlos Jobim, he’ll definitely put on a good show. Tickets are $37 to $77. At 8 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 26, Burton Cummings will be stopping by. As the former lead singer of The Guess Who, he’s known for his golden voice—and for writing some huge rock hits, including “American Woman.” Tickets are $37 to $57. McCallum Theatre, 73000 Fred Waring Drive, Palm Desert; 760-340-2787; www. mccallumtheatre.com.

Fantasy Springs Resort Casino has quite a lineup in January. At 8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 8, the resort will host some much-loved teen idols … from the 1950s. The Golden Boys, consisting of Bobby Rydell, Fabian and Frankie Avalon, are all still big names in the music industry. If you’re a fan of the ’50s and ’60s heartthrob era, you’ll want to be here. Tickets are $29 to $59. At 8 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 9, Kathy Griffin will be bringing her “Like a Boss” comedy tour to Fantasy Springs. Griffin is a two-time Grammy winner and pulls no punches when it comes to her routines. Tickets are $39 to $69. You’ll be thrilled to know that Tony Bennett will be coming back to Fantasy Springs at 8 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 16. I saw his excellent show last year, and I can say continued on Page 36 CVIndependent.com

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JANUARY 2016

MUSIC MEN OF

MIRACLES

Styx Keeps on Touring—and New Music May Be on the Way

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/MUSIC

S

By Brian Blueskye

tyx formed in 1970 and managed to survive the rise and fall of disco. The group has also endured the turbulent departure of frontman Dennis DeYoung, bassist Chuck Panozzo’s battle with HIV, and the death of drummer John Panozzo—yet Styx continues to tour, having done so since reforming in 1995.

The band will be stopping by Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa on Friday, Jan. 15.

In 1999, Styx hired new frontman Lawrence Gowan, a Canadian rock vocalist who opened for Styx in 1997. During a recent phone interview, Gowan said stepping into the role was a lot easier than many would assume.

“I can’t say that I went into it with any trepidation,” Gowan said. “I went into it with a smile on my face, hoping it would go well, and hoping that I would validate their choice. It’s a pretty critical moment when a band decides that a former member of that band is no longer going to be with them.

They need to get someone new. With my own background, and the fact that I had played all the same buildings that Styx had played in Canada, I felt that I could handle myself pretty well in front of a big audience. … I was also thinking that it was going to be very different for me, and I thought at the same time, ‘This is a great band. I just have to fit in to what they already established.’”

Gowan admitted he hadn’t seen Styx perform until he opened for them in 1997, but he said he’d admired their work for many years.

“I was very aware of them, and I remember hearing their songs, particularly when ‘Blue Collar Man’ came out,” he said. “Styx was so omnipresent in the ’70s that you couldn’t help but be extremely aware of all their material. I love the fact that they were the first non-British band to have true success playing what was partially progressive rock.

That’s really where my acute awareness was with Styx, and that’s what I really admired about them.”

Styx’s 1983 concept album Kilroy Was Here led to a rift between Dennis DeYoung and the other members of the band. When Styx made a tour stop at the Cotton Bowl in Texas in 1983, on the same bill as Ted Nugent and Sammy Hagar, the performance drew loud booing as some audience members threw things. On the flip side, Kilroy Was Here went platinum and featured two hit singles, including one of Styx’s biggest-ever hits, “Mr. Roboto.”

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Soon after the tour, Styx broke up.

“We were doing a medley for a number of years where we would just do the opening of ‘Mr. Roboto.’ From the recollections, stories and accounts I hear from the guys from that era, it was obvious they went through some painful experiences at that point, because they were pulling at various directions, and they felt the band disintegrating with that record.” Gowan said. “… For me, I heard it at the time and thought, ‘That’s kind of a weird song,’ but it stood the test of time, and I kind of like it.

“If they ever want to add more of that to the set, I’d be fine with it. For the guys in the band, they want to stick to relevant material at this point, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t delve into it at some point in the future if the wounds completely heal over.”

Styx remains a big deal as a touring band.

Gowan said he sees plenty of younger people in the crowds.

“This past year, we went on tour with Def Leppard, and ended up one of the top five amphitheatre tours of the summer,” Gowan said. “That’s means something for a band that has been around for over four decades.

I think the mandate when I joined the band was to play a minimum of 100 shows each year, and elevate the show. We’ve amassed such an audience of aficionados that they can’t seem to get enough, and we’re happy to keep satisfying that demand as much as we can. I’ll also say that the unforeseen result would be the Internet as a source of being able to discover classic rock for people who weren’t born in that era, and we see audience (members) now who are ... under 30 years of

Styx

age every night.”

Styx often tours with REO Speedwagon.

“We get along great,” Gowan said. “We didn’t tour with them in 2015, but it’s highly likely that we’ll team up again in the near future. That’s one of those combos that sell a lot of tickets, and people just happen to like that combo together. We also get along great with those guys. I’ll tell you how much they are friends to us: A couple of years ago, our bus broke down in the middle of the night, and they came by on their bus and picked us up. They saved some of their bunks for us.

We’re indebted to them in some regard for that, and they didn’t even ask us to split the gas, which was very generous of them. Plus we also ate most of the food on their bus.

They’re fine chaps!”

Styx hasn’t released an album of new material since Cyclorama in 2003. However, Gowan said new material may be on the way soon.

“Judging by the release schedule that we’ve had, you might assume we’d never come up

with anything new. But we have for several years now, and we have to finish it, and we have to find time in the schedule to actually promote it instead of the usual 100 shows in front of us,” Gowan said. “I can’t pin down when it will be released, but I spent a lot of time in the studio this past year. We’re figuring out where the band is going to go musically in the future, but that future keeps getting railroaded in the most beautiful of ways, which means we have to go play another 50 to 100 shows before we come back to the current recording project. That might sound like a lame excuse, but that’s the reality of it. I look forward to when we might be able to release it.”

Styx will perform at 9 p.m., Friday, Jan. 15, at The Show at the Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa, 32250 Bob Hope Drive, in Rancho Mirage.

Tickets are $45 to $85. For tickets or more information, call 888-999-1995, or visit www. hotwatercasino.com.

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 35

JANUARY 2016

MUSIC

DESERT ROCK

CHRONICLES

Meet Atala, and Enjoy Some High Desert Doom

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/MUSIC

By Robin Linn

Atala. MATT HALL

he ultra-heavy psych-rock music scene that is associated with our California desert took root in the mid-’80s. The music of bands like Fatso Jetson, Kyuss, Throw Rag and Unsound helped shape the budding underground local music scene; today, a slew of aspiring musicians are borrowing from punk, acid rock, grunge and metal-new sounds.

Today, type “stoner rock sub-genres” into your computer’s search engine, and a dozen varieties will come up. Black metal, doom, sludge, psych (combined with any other genre, i.e. psych-rock, psycho-billy, psycho-punk), fuzzrock, spacerock, grunge and old-school metal seem to have knocked speed metal and death metal off of the list … or were they perhaps selected by Mother Nature for extinction and rebirth?

The Mojave Desert has been a breeding ground for original hard rock and provides an environment that is ripe for exploring the darker, less-conventional forms of musical expression. In the ’90s, Zach and Erica Huskey’s band Dali’s Llama was one of the few “desert rock bands” that was all about the doom. Dali’s Llama’s sound was thick as pea soup, expressed through deep-droning, drop-tuned, fuzzy guitar riffs and fueled by thick, heavy rhythmic structures that warbled the mind.

Today, the desert is teeming with stoner-rock bands. But the high desert, only 25 miles away, has a very different vibe than the low dez. There are far more hippies and indie bands up there Monreaux. making feel-good music—some of it so sweet you can gag on it.

Then there’s Atala.

Atala reunites Rise of the Willing bassist John Chavarria (Sons of Serro, A’rk) and guitarist Kyle Stratton, and introduces drummer Jeff Tedtaotao (Forever Came Calling). The band formed in early 2013, when Stratton set out to

create his own unique style of ultra-heavy desert rock while applying his “off-grid” lifestyle to the music, allowing it to flow from the source—the universal energy pool.

He didn’t want to overthink the music, nor did he want to focus on how heavy it was. He kept his testosterone in check and explored his instrument, dialed in his signature sound and began writing his ass off. Using his guitar, a couple of expression pedals and a wall of 100-watt amplifiers, he wrote Atala’s self-titled debut album and then enlisted the help of producer/bassist Scott Reeder, who carved out a name for himself with Kyuss, The Obsessed, Goatsnake, Nebula, Fireball Ministry and his current project, Sun and Sail Club.

Shaman’s Path of the Serpent will be Atala’s second record, and is slated for release in May 2016. The members left the desert and recorded at Cloud City Studio, this time working with Billy Anderson, who has produced records for Mr. Bungle, Sleep and The Melvins. Four new mind-bending tracks are saturated with wicked guitar riffs that are angular and disjointed, fueled by a thunderous rhythm section that moves and breathes together as one, while monotone vocals deliver lyrical contemplations of life after death. It’s an intoxicating supersludge sound bath.

“Musically, we were drawn more to heavier influences, which evoked a darker side of our music,” Stratton said. “Lyrically, the album is about a path through death to a new awakening—which is dying spiritually to a rebirth that is free of fear.”

It seems Stratton truly was tapping into the universal energy pool.

“It’s interesting how I wrote an album about a shaman’s path through death to a new awakening, and then upon arrival home, I fell ill and had a near-death experience. Then my body was taken apart and put back together, and I am only now nearly healed. It’s crazy that I could accidentally manifest such an experience. I have to be careful with the power of the mind and its ability to create.”

Watch the band’s website (atalarock.com) and Facebook page (facebook.com/ataladesertrock) about upcoming shows.

Read more, including an expanded version of this story, at www.desertrockchronicles.com.

CVIndependent.com

36 \\ COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT

JANUARY 2016

The Blueskye REPORT continued from Page 33

Mike Epps

you do not want to miss Bennett when he comes to town. Tony Bennett has truly done it all in the music industry. Tickets are $49 to $99. At 8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 22, Mike Epps will be bringing his comedy tour to Fantasy Springs. One of my favorite performances

by Epps was in Next Friday. I still can’t contain my laughter when his Day-Day tells Ice Cube’s character, Craig, the story of “Baby-D.” Tickets are $39 to $79. If you need another reason to love Fantasy Springs in January, Heart will be performing at 8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 29. Remember during the 2008 election when Sarah Palin stole the song “Barracuda” as her theme? Heart was not pleased. The members of Heart are legends

and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members.

Tickets are $49 to $79. Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, 84245 Indio Springs Parkway, Indio; 760-342-5000; www.fantasyspringsresort.com.

Agua Caliente has two excellent events scheduled this January. First, there’s Styx, which you can read about elsewhere in this issue. At 8 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 9, the red-headed stranger himself, Willie Nelson, will be appearing. Willie has made stops in the Coachella Valley in each of the past two years, proving he’s still a fantastic draw.

Tickets are $95 to $125. The Show at Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa, 32250 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage; 888-999-1995; www. hotwatercasino.com.

Spotlight 29 has an excellent January calendar. At 8 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 9, you won’t want to work; you’ll want to bang on the drum all day when Todd Rundgren stops by. I once read that Rundgren was asked by punk band Bad Religion to produce the The New America album. It was not a good experience, according to bassist Jay Bentley.

Tickets are $35. At 8 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 23, get ready to honky-tonk harder than you’ve ever honky-tonked before, because Dwight Yoakam will be coming back. After seeing Yoakam perform three

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times now, I can tell you he’s consistently spectacular. I still can’t stop talking about his performance as Doyle, the alcoholic boyfriend, in Sling Blade. Remember, “Stuart Drives a Comfortable Car.” Tickets are $45 to $65. Spotlight 29 Casino, 46200 Harrison Place, Coachella; 760-775-5566; www.spotlight29. com.

Morongo Casino has some intriguing stand-up shows this month. At 9 p.m., Friday, Jan. 8, Sinbad will be coming back—not too long after a performance a few months ago at Spotlight 29. The star who was all over television in the ’90s is apparently doing stand-up again after hitting hard financial times. Warning: The reviews of his recent shows have not been excellent. Tickets are $29 to $39. At 9 p.m., Friday, Jan. 29, Bob Newhart will be stopping by. Newhart is a legend from the golden era of comedy. Tickets are $35 to $45. Morongo Casino Resort Spa, 49500 Seminole Drive, Cabazon; 800-252-4499; www. morongocasinoresort.com.

The Hood Bar and Pizza has one event worth noting that we know about at this time: At 9 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 23, T.S.O.L. will be appearing. If you’re not familiar with T.S.O.L., it is only one of Los Angeles’ most notorious punk bands. Frontman Jack Grisham has spoken extensively about how much mischief he got into, and how bad of an addict he once was; he tells some truly insane stories about how bonkers he can be when he’s under the influence. At the same time, Grisham’s honesty and sobriety has been an inspiration for addicts; it’s been said that he’s given some talks at the Betty Ford Center and other rehabilitation facilities. Tickets are $12. The Hood Bar and

Pizza, 74360 Highway 111, Palm Desert; 760636-5220; www.facebook.com/thehoodbar.

The Copa Palm Springs has a lineup that will attract American Idol fans for sure.

At 8 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 16, and 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 17, Frenchie Davis will perform. Davis has been seen on American Idol and The Voice. Tickets are $25 to $45. At 8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 22, and Saturday, Jan. 23, former American Idol contestant Melinda Doolittle will be appearing. Tickets are $25 to $45. Copa, 244 E. Amado Road, Palm Springs; 760-866-0021; www.copapalmsprings. com.

The Date Shed has one event on the schedule that we know of: At 9 p.m., Friday, Jan. 29, the acts of Puro Oro will be performing. Puro Oro is the local coalition of artists including J. Patron, Thr3 Strykes, Slum the Resident and many others. Tickets are $10. The Date Shed, 50725 Monroe St., Indio; 760-775-6699; www.dateshedmusic.com.

Tony Bennett

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 37

JANUARY 2016

MUSIC

INDIE TO SIGNED AND BACK TO INDIE

Mark Your Calendars for Surfer Blood at Pappy and Harriet's

WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/MUSIC

S

Monreaux.

By Brian Blueskye urfer Blood’s debut album, Astro Coast, struck gold.

Critics praised the 2010 album, and the new indie-rock group was on many music journalists’ lists of breakout bands of the year. This all led to some high-profile gigs for Surfer Blood.

Surfer Blood will be appearing at Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace on Friday, Jan. 15.

Despite the success—which has continued through two more albums, most recently 1000 Palms—not everything has been easy, frontman John Paul Pitts said during a recent phone interview.

“Our guitarist (Thomas Fekete) was diagnosed with cancer in December of

last year and had to take some time off. We thought it was only going to be six months, but it’s an aggressive form of cancer,” said Pitts. “Kevin Williams, our bassist, left in October. He decided he had toured enough.

He moved to Austin, and he wanted to get off the road after five years. We’re still close with him, but I definitely understand his situation.”

The band members aren’t exactly rich, either.

“It is hard, even for a band like Surfer Blood, who has some notoriety and is wellknown,” Pitts said. “We still struggle to pay our rent, and it can be tough relying on music for a living. I love what I do, and that’s more important to me.”

Astro Coast is still Surfer Blood’s biggest critical success. Striking gold on the first album is rare in the music business, and Pitts said the response was surprising.

“I really didn’t know what to expect. I had gone back and forth a million times on that first record,” he said. “Was it too pop or too weird? I didn’t know how people would react to it, but people around the world seemed to love it. That was surprising for me, and I was obviously really happy about it.”

Pitts described being selected by Pavement to play the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in 2010 as a surreal experience. He said that it was also amazing to tour with another one of the band’s big influences—The Pixies.

“That was one of the best experiences of my life,” he said. “Not only did they treat us very well, and (we) got a soundcheck every night; we were on tour with them for two weeks, and I never stopped watching their set. I watched it from beginning to end every

night and never got sick of it. The Pixies were the first CD I ever bought at the mall, I think.

It was a huge deal for me.”

Surfer Blood recorded its second album, Pythons, after being signed to Sire/Warner Bros. records, and worked with Pixies producer Gil Norton.

“It was our first time working with a producer, and we really didn’t know what to expect,” Pitts said. “Before that, we had only done home recording. Recording in a studio with a producer, we felt a lot of pressure— probably more than we were ready for. Gil is an awesome person to hang out with, and he speaks music like a language, understands songs, and is very opinionated. We definitely butted heads with him in the studio a fair amount of times. But at the end of the day, he turned our second record into a really glossy pop record. I feel like we never have to ask ourselves if we thought we could make that record, because we already have.”

Surfer Blood’s time with Warner Bros.

Records was short-lived; the band was dropped after just one year.

“I will be forever grateful that Warner Bros. was able to put us in a studio with someone like Gil, and we were able to record in the room next door to where the Beach Boys recorded Pet Sounds,” Pitts said. “That was truly a magical experience that I’ll never forget, and I’m glad we got to do that.

“The guy who brought us in left the company six months after we were there, and there were people in the company who understood what we were going for and liked it, and others who didn’t understand it at all.

There were so many people working there that it became frustrating for us trying to

Surfer Blood.

figure out who to talk to.

“When we heard that we were going to be dropped from the label, we weren’t too particularly surprised or upset by it. I had heard stories that they were one of the more honest and transparent labels, and I will say that there are people who are there who are awesome. … But I’ve learned if you sign a contract that’s longer than 20 pages, it’s probably too much.”

For Surfer Blood’s third album, the band went back to its roots, and Pitts said the members found the routine that best works for them when it comes to recording.

“It was all self-produced. After recording one record in a bedroom and recording another one in a Hollywood studio, I think we’ve learned a lot about what we needed production-wise, and what we didn’t need,” he said about 1000 Palms. “We were in a good place to self-produce, and we’re all homerecording enthusiasts to begin with, so the

challenge of making a record is fun for us, and I think we’re pretty good at it.”

Guitarist Thomas Fekete continues to battle cancer, which has spread to his lungs and spine; a GoFundMe campaign has been launched on his behalf to help him to keep up with his medical bills. When I asked Pitts whether Fekete will ever be in the band again, Pitts said he did not know.

“It’s too hard to say right now,” he said.

“Right now, he’s out of the hospital. He’s able to eat food and keep it down, and do all that normal-person stuff, but by no means is he ready to leave home for a month and be on tour.”

Surfer Blood will perform with Cayucas at 8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 15, at Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, 53688 Pioneertown Road, in Pioneertown. Tickets are $15. For more information, call 760-365-5956, or visitwww. pappyandharriets.com.

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38 \\ COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT

JANUARY 2016

MUSIC

the

LUCKY 13

Meet Two Members of a Veteran Local Band— and a Guy Who Really Likes Cologne WWW.CVINDEPENDENT.COM/MUSIC Sunday Funeral.

By Brian Blueskye Alfa Cologne.

Type O Negative, and Judas Priest. Mostly I just listen to whatever sounds good.

Grant: Zebrahead, Avenged Sevenfold, and Reel Big Fish.

What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get?

Brian: Dubstep. I’m sorry, but it sounds like two washing machines trying to screw.

Grant: Goblin core. I don’t get that crap.

What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live?

Brian: I would have loved to see Type O Negative live, before Pete Steele’s untimely death.

Grant: Easy one: Pink Floyd.

NAMES Brian Frang and Grant Gruenberg GROUP Sunday Funeral MORE INFO Sunday Funeral has been rocking in the Coachella Valley for many years now.

Co-fronting the band with lead guitarist/ vocalist Justin Ledesma is rhythm guitarist/ vocalist Brian Frang. Sunday Funeral just added drummer Grant Gruenberg to the mix. Sunday Funeral was recently part of two battle-of-the-bands contests that took place at The Hood Bar and Pizza. For more information, visit www.sundayfuneral.com.

What was the first concert you attended?

Brian: The Wallflowers, when I was 15. Can’t remember much of it, though.

Grant: Fabulous Thunderbirds and Dr. John, at Oasis Waterpark.

What was the first album you owned?

Brian: Oh, hell. … I think it was a Marty Stuart album. I was pretty young.

Grant: Weird Al Yankovic’s Even Worse.

What bands are you listening to right now?

Brian: Mostly metal: Nightwish, Iron Maiden, CVIndependent.com

What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure?

Brian: “Careless Whisper” by George Michael.

Grant: New Kids on the Block and DJ Mustard.

What’s your favorite music venue?

Brian: Oh, I can’t pick a favorite; everyone’s treated us really well. On the other hand, The Hood has pizza.

Grant: Local: What used to be J Dee’s Landing. Out of town: Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head?

Brian: “It’s a small world after all.”

Grant: “Fuck you too bitch, call the cops! I’m a kill you and them loud ass motherfucking barking dogs,” Eminem, “Forgot About Dre.” What band or artist changed your life?

How? Brian: Michael Jackson probably had the biggest impact. He’s the reason I became a singer. I saw him perform at the Super Bowl in ’93 (on TV), and I pointed and said, “I wanna do that when I grow up.”

Grant: Eminem, because I realized my life really wasn’t that bad. I stopped caring about a lot of things after hearing him.

You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking?

Brian: I’d ask Anthony Kiedis. “Where do you think you’d be today if you hadn’t gotten into music?”

Grant: I’d ask Jim Morrison: “Why are we here?”

What song would you like played at your funeral?

Brian: “A Tout Le Monde” by Megadeth.

Grant: “Another One Bites The Dust” by Queen.

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

Brian: You just love making these hard.

Probably Judas Priest’s Painkiller.

Grant: Reel Big Fish, Why Do They Rock So Hard?

for a copy of FanMail by TLC. What bands are you listening to right now?

Notorious B.I.G., 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, Pink Floyd, AIR, Beck, Serge Gainsbourg, Aphex Twin, and CocoRosie.

What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get?

There really is nothing. I would listen to anything, but nothing in particular.

What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live?

Britney Spears, the Blue Man Group, Celine Dion, Boy George and George Michael.

What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure?

Leonard Cohen.

What song should everyone listen to right now?

Brian: “What It’s Like” by Everlast. It’s got a message I think more people need to take to heart before judging others.

Grant: Reel Big Fish, “Another FU Song.”

What’s your favorite music venue?

Overland in Fallon, Nev.

NAME Alfa Cologne MORE INFO Meet Alfa Cologne, a local musician who says he “writes loves songs to promote his perfume line.” To quote his Facebook bio: “Alfa Cologne records songs using his girlfriend’s iPhone, an acoustic guitar and whatever he finds to make music (brooms, leaves, dogs barking, laugh tracks) in Southern California, where he picked up surfing on couches.” Alfa Cologne has performed at venues including the Coachella Valley Art Scene and Whole Foods. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/ alfacologne.

What band or artist changed your life?

How? Tonetta and Daniel Johnston.

What was the first concert you attended?

A Bright Eyes-sounding band that an ex invited me to.

What was the first album you owned?

I exchanged my parents’ Mariah Carey album

What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head?

“Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy,” from “Tick Tock” by Kesha.

You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking?

I would ask Slash about his experience in the jungle.

What song would you like played at your funeral?

“Tajabone” by Ismael Lo. Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time?

Bitches Brew, Miles Davis.

What song should everyone listen to right now?

“CoCo,” by O.T. Genasis.

COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT // 39

JANUARY 2016

COMICS & JONESIN’CROSSWORD

Across 1 How-___ (instructional books) 4 Kind of bar lic.

7 Today rival, initially 10 Chiding sound 13 “Not my call” 15 FF’s opposite, on a VCR 16 “That’s ___ quit!”

17 Malaria medicine 18 Canniest, for instance 20 Group that keeps count from AK to WY 22 “A garter snake!”

23 DDE’s command in WWII 24 Denounces strongly 26 Armenia and Georgia, once 29 James Bond’s first foe 31 Former Texas governor Perry 32 “Don’t reckon so” 34 Singer-songwriter Redding 36 Reticent 37 WWII naval cruiser named for a Hawaiian

city 40 Night wear, for short 42 ___ Kong International Airport 43 Congressional assent 44 Feels sorrow over 46 They’re known for 10s and 20s, but not 30s 48 Slipper tips 51 “Snowy” heron 53 Sombrero, for one 54 Audio collectibles 56 1929 Luis Bunuel Salvador Dali surrealist short film 61 One side of a drill bit, e.g.

62 What student loans cover for 63 Namath, in 1977 64 “May ___ now?”

65 Palindromic 1992 album from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones 66 Bauxite, e.g.

67 Maze runner 68 Gees’ predecessors 69 1/6 of a fl. oz.

Down 1 Canadian wool cap 2 Catalogued musical works 3 Stones’ companions 4 “___ Eyes” (1975 Eagles hit) 5 Air purifier emissions 6 Waiting for the London Underground, perhaps 7 Take hold of 8 Restaurant request 9 One of four in an EGOT 10 Dessert made with espresso 11 Steadfast 12 Actress Cattrall 14 1300, to civilians 19 Equipment 21 Dictator 25 Astronomer’s view 27 OR personnel 28 Pageant adornment 30 Like a mechanic’s rag 33 Yell that puts the brakes on 35 Wintertime bird treat 37 Password accompanier

38 Not one minute later 39 Chinese philosopher ___-tzu 40 Tense beginning?

41 As they say, go for it!

45 Denominational offshoot 47 Town square cente piece, maybe 49 Billy ___ (2000 movie) 50 Lampoons 52 His and her 55 Break of day 57 Young Frankenstein heroine 58 “Sho ___!”

59 “Vaya con ___” 60 Bar assoc. member 61 To and ___ ©2015 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@ jonesincrosswords.com) Find the answers in the “About” section at CVIndependent.com!

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40 \\ COACHELLA VALLEY INDEPENDENT

JANUARY 2016

Deals available in the Independent Market as of January 1:

Get a $20 gift certificate to TRIO Restaurant for $10—a savings of 50 percent!

Get a $20 gift certificate to the Purple Room for $10—a savings of 50 percent!

Get half-off gift certificates to Zin American Bistro!

Get half-off gift certificates to Alicante!

Get a $20 gift certificate to Bart Lounge for $10—a savings of 50 percent!

Get a $40 gift certificate to Rio Azul Mexican Bar and Grill for $20, or a $20 gift certificate for $10—a savings of 50 percent!

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Get a $40 gift certificate to Johannes for $20, or a $20 gift certificate for $10—a savings of 50 percent!

Get a $25 gift certificate to Shabu Shabu Zen for $12.50—a savings of 50 percent!

Look for more deals to be added during the month!

Want your business in the Independent Market? Call 760-904-4208, or email jimmy@cvindependent.com.

CVIndependent.com