Strippers Are Real Actual People

art entertainment food drink music nightlife Thursday, July 27, 2017

DGO

FREE!

STRIPPERS ARE REAL,

ACTUAL PEOPLE What’s life like for party strippers? It’s more than just taking off their clothes.

dgomag.com

Also: Interview with AFI’s Jade Puget, Animas Chocolate Co., and an unbelievable love story

Donald Trump is ...

CHILD LECTURER!

A video series about what happens when you take Donald Trump’s exact words and make him sound like a child, set in a world of stop-motion animation.

DGO Watch at dgomag.com/videos 2 | Thursday, July 27, 2017 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

DGO Magazine

STAFF

What’s inside Volume 2 Number 40

July 27, 2017

Chief Executive Officer

4

From the Editor

4

Love it or Hate it

DGO chatted with AFI’s Jade Puget about creativity, playing brutally honest guitar, and where in the hell that blues lick in “The Wind that Carries Me Away,” came from. 7

5

Vintage News

8

Sound

We also have an extended interview with Puget at dgomag.com

Downtown Lowdown

Douglas Bennett

AFI drops in

V.P. of Advertising David Habrat V.P. of Marketing Kricket Lewis Founding Editors Amy Maestas David Holub Editor/ creative director

8

David Holub

Album Reviews 9

dholub@bcimedia.com

10 Beer

375-4551

16 Pages

Staff writer Patty Templeton

17 Weed

ptempleton@bcimedia.com

Contributors

Seeing Through the Smoke 17

Katie Cahill

18 Savage Love

Katie Clancy

19 Happening

Christopher Gallagher

20 DGO Deals

Alexi Grojean Meggie J Bryant Liggett Jon E. Lynch

6 What goes in to all that chocolate?

Cooper Stapleton

DGO spoke to Carley Snider, co-owner and head chocolatier of Animas Chocolate Co., about the passion and complexity of running a chocolate biz.

Cyle Talley Robert Alan Wendeborn Advertising 247-3504 Reader Services

17 Don’t get comfortable Cannabis and hemp have a history in the United States which goes back to the Colonial era. But that doesn’t stop crusaders from trying to criminalize it, even now.

375-4570

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New travel feature We’ll start featuring quirky and cool spots near the Four Corners worth hitting up if you’re near. This week: The location of Butch Cassidy’s first robbery

DGO is a free weekly publication distributed by Ballantine Communications Inc., and is available for one copy per person. Taking more than five copies of an edition from a distribution location is illegal and is punishable by law according to Colorado Revised Statute 18-9-314.

Tell us what you think!

Got something on your mind? Have a joke or a story idea or just something that the world needs to know?

Send everything to editor@dgomag.com

/dgomag

22 Horoscope/ puzzles 23 First Person

/dgomag @dgo_mag

ON THE COVER Talking to Colorado-based stripping violinist Dalia Rasa (pictured) and her exotic dancer fiancé, Jay Clyde.

Courtesy of Jay Clyde and Dalia Rasa

DGO Magazine is published by Ballantine Communications Inc., P.O. Drawer A, Durango, CO 81302

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@dg

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David Holub |DGO editor

If I tell you this unbelievable love story, you might not believe me

I

t was 7 p.m. last Tuesday, and Stephanie and I are at Steve and Hattie’s house for an aerial yoga class. We take the outside stairs straight up to the studio. It is supposed to be a one-on-one couples class, with Steve teaching, but when I walk up, there is Tyler standing in the way, and I can see the studio is full of many more.

Oh yeah, the 6-foot-5 Tyler has on a dazzling purple wig beneath his colossal top hat. He’s fashioned a purple glitter beard, a ringmaster’s jacket, and overthe-knee shiny black stiletto boots. “Come this way,” Tyler says, showing me in with his sweeping hand.

I walk in to behold this: There is Hattie, spinning slowly on the lira wearing black fishnets, a sparkly gold tutu, gold sequined belly dancer halter top, and satin, purple, elbow-length gloves. To my left is Crystal, sitting on a chair grinning full of love and mischievousness. Then there is Patty sitting in an inflatable kid’s pool filled with balloons and candy, wearing a blue sequin top and blue bustle, with her knee-high Victorian pirate boots hanging out.

In the corner, a screen plays “Full Metal Jacket,” and to the right of it, Tim, in a giant yellow boa, assumes the role of carny barker, inviting me over for a game of miniature Plinko. We play a quick game, and I win and it seems like Tim kinda let me.

I keep moving around the room, dumbfounded and beyond perplexed. Steve, wearing black striped pants and a blue vintage polyester shirt, perches in some aerial fabrics. “Hi, Steve,” I say up to him.

“Helloooooo, David,” he sends down, deadpan. Nicole takes picture after picture.

Next, there are two monkey-masked people sitting at a table dealing cards, wearing chimpanzee costumes. One of them play-smokes a pipe. I realize soon that this is Kate and Heidi. Next to them is a table with five kinds of milk. Tyler fills a wine glass with chocolate-almond and I sip it.

As I make my way around, Stephanie follows me with a glint in her eye. The room is quiet, people generally talking only when I engage with them. I keep racking my brain. It’s not my birthday, and there are no anniversaries to speak of. If this is an intervention, I can’t imagine what for, but it would go down as the most surreal intervention in human history.

It felt like a dream. “I don’t understand what’s going on,” I kept saying.

-------In May of 2016, I wrote and produced a one-man show called “We Are Broken and We Are Whole” that I performed at the Durango Arts Center. It was rough around the edges and raw, but it came from my heart and it really meant something to me. The show’s title had a tagline: “Equal parts fiction and truth about what it means to be caged and what it takes to be free.”

Working with my friend and director Sarah Syverson (who wrote that tag line), the show was a collection of five scenes, all telling the story of how and why I got divorced seven years earlier. Three scenes were adapted from works of fiction, which were lightly staged and that I performed from memory; these were interspersed by two dramatic essay readings that told the story of what I had faced in my life, why I wanted out of my marriage, my regrets and shortcomings, but also the rebirth that came from that decision.

The works of fiction were all written shortly before or after I divorced, the first, a metaphoric story about a bird that gets trapped inside a church during a wedding and intermittently wreaks havoc on the ceremony. The second was about a guy whose home and its contents become unrecognizable or disappear altogether, and a love (and lover) he pines for.

But the third story and final scene of the show was my favorite. In it, my character opens by telling the audience, “I met her on July 11, 2016. We were particles and energy and matter one day, a universe the next. Our hearts had been beating in sync for centuries and when we held them together, the fire made us hot to the touch.”

After a short but intense courtship, realizing that they had a love like no other, my character explains, he and Hennie decided to throw the most surreal, dreamlike party to celebrate their love. At the party, “There was a lion tamer and a giant Plinko board and an inflated castle full of balls and candy. There was a hillbilly riding a unicycle, whistling and playing fiddle … There was a virtuosic tap dancer and an improvisational painter doing works of abstract expressionism.

There was a photographer doing conceptual self-portraiture.” They “brought in a couple of chimpanzees to smoke pipes and deal cards. There were three break-dancers and four magicians and a scientist performing physics experiments for the kids.”

Near the end of the party, my character tells the audience, he and Hennie gave each guest a stack of pictures, “some from the past, some from the future, some from that day. The pictures embodied the magic of two people who wanted nothing more or less than one another.”

-------Still trying to figure why so many of my friends were in Steve and Hattie’s aerial studio, Stephanie led me back to Crystal who invited me to open the ornate box in her hands. A note attached to a string read, “These pictures embody the magic of two people who want nothing more or less than one another.” I pulled the string to open the box and found a cloth sack housing an exquisite silver bracelet made in Crystal’s unmistakable style, atop a stack of pictures. In fact, it was every picture that had ever been taken of Steph-

anie and me. Except the last picture, which was of a sign that said “The Future.” Stephanie took this picture from my hand, flipped it over and read it.

Her words were everything you would want to hear from the person you love, and she and I fought tears while she read. At the end, she asked if I would marry her some day. I said, “Of course! Yes!” and we kissed a bunch and our friends applauded and whooped and wiped tears away, and I put on the bracelet and hugged everyone and laughed with everyone and kissed Stephanie some more.

-------Later, I learned the evening had been in the works for months. Stephanie had written my parents a card asking for their blessing. One night, she had kept a piece of ribbon by the bedside and measured my wrist as I slept. And she had secured the date with our friends a month ahead of time, but only told them the occasion four days before to maintain the secret.

When I had walked into the studio, I’d been too caught off guard by the bizarre, surreal scenes to understand what they all had in common, where the ideas had originated and what the theme of the night was – love and commitment. My brain could only think that we were celebrating something that had already happened, not understanding that we were there to celebrate the future, something new, something that will grow and blossom.

I had met Stephanie a mere two weeks after I performed “We Are Broken and We Are Whole.” A number of weeks after we met, I read her the show as we sat in my living room. She later told me she fell in love with me that night.

What Stephanie created last week was the greatest gift I’ve ever received. I didn’t understand what was happening because what she pulled off was incomprehensible: my brain could not comprehend something of that magnitude. What I walked into last Tuesday was what I had in mind when I wrote the story, and it’s what I really wanted to do when Sarah and I staged the show. Somehow, Stephanie managed to do this in real life, authentically, in one of the most meaningful moments of our lives no less. The one time in her life she asks someone to marry her and she nailed it.

In my show, the party they planned was to be an embodiment of what existed between them: “Something so vivid yet hard to describe ... even if you were there ... where you wake up the next day ... and think it was all a tender, invigorating dream.” That particular story I could imagine, and, after all, did.

The story Stephanie created, what really took place, and what has taken place in the year-plus since I met her – my real, human, blessed life – I couldn’t have imagined. I couldn’t have written it, either. It would have been way too unbelievable.

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[ love it or hate it ]

Self-help books

[Vintage Durango]

Disability in America »» A brief, very incomplete timeline

of disability rights in America

Love it “Done is better than perfect” is a mantra I learned from reading Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In.” Is it a problematic book at points? Yup. Did reading it make me someone who is nicer to myself and someone who finishes projects more frequently? Yup. When I was a kid who late-night philosophized at Denny’s with other chess nerds, I was an asshole about self-help books. I thought they were written by charlatans for desperate folks who couldn’t take the time to think for themselves.

Like I said, I was a pretentious, little a-hole.

Now, I understand. Life takes a toll. Death comes in. Job satisfaction decreases. Lovers let you down. The long road before you diminishes. You gotta scatter flares on the shadowed road to make up for all the busted streetlamps.

Not all self-help books are created equal. I ain’t gonna pretend that the effing Secret is a phenomenal resource, but there are others, and they can be a bright light on a dark night of the soul.

— Patty Templeton

Hate it Seeing an issue or problem and reading a book to attempt to understand or fix it and then employing the new knowledge to live a happier and more fulfilling life? Sounds good to me.

If only it were this simple.

The problem with self-help, simply, is people expecting simple answers to complex problems and a capitalistic industry willing to cash in on varying degrees of desperation.

Beyond the simple answers, self-help can give a false sense of progress and comfort while leaving the reader without long-term results. Reading self-help books can often provide great sources of information and insights, but without a dedicated plan of how to implement that information, readers might walk away patting themselves on the back for reading, thinking that merely taking in information is a magical change-agent.

Self-help books can also leave readers either focusing on the wrong issues or with information that simply makes them feel better about themselves without any resolution. Or, while we might begin to address the issue found in the self-help book, it might not be addressing the root of the issue, the equivalent of laypeople using WebMD to diagnose maladies.

Self-help is big business. It’s not entirely bad as a genre, but it’s one that preys on the desperate and usually promises more than it can deliver. That’s the fault of the books and authors, as well as those reading.

We’ve gotten to where we can all agree that “Hopeless Cripple Now Supports Her Family” would be an inappropriate headline today, but it’s been a long road to get here.

1770: Stephen Hopkins brings light to people with disabilities being perfectly capable of holding positions of power. He had cerebral palsy, was the governor of Rhode Island, and when he signed the Declaration of Independence, he said, “My hand trembles, but my heart does not.”

1817: The Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons opens, America’s first permanent school for those with hearing disabilities.

1829: The French educator Louis Braille invents his system of reading and writing for blind and visually-impaired folks. It reaches America in 1860.

1887: The intrepid reporter Nellie Bly releases “Ten Days in a Mad-House,” which exposes the horrifying conditions at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island. This prompts a grand jury investigation into the treatment of the institutionalized and an increase in budget for the Department of Public Charities and Corrections in New York.

1907: A massive setback. Indiana is the first state to establish eugenic sterilization laws that enable the state to sterilize »» Headline for a charitable orga“confirmed idiots, imbeciles and rapists” nization in the Aug. 3, 1961 Durango without their consent. It brings up ethical Herlad. questions about population, body control, and who deserves to live freely. Eugenics are then used by the Nazis to annihilate wide swaths of humanity.

1921: Franklin Delano Roosevelt is partially paralyzed by polio. His disability doesn’t hamper his will to give the world what-for and he becomes America’s beloved 32nd president. He drives the country out of the Great Depression and steers us through WWII. July 4, 1939: The first Lou Gehrig Day. It honors the Yankee’s famous first baseman, whose diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis brings wide public attention and study to ALS. 1965: Medicare and Medicaid are established through the Social Security Amendments of 1965. This provides federally-subsidized health care for Americans with disabilities and the elderly.

1972: The Paralyzed Veterans of America and other organizations file suit against the Washington Metropolitan Transportation Authority to add in accessibility to their design for a multi-billion dollar subway. Their victory is a landmark case in the accessibility of public transit.

2004: The first Disability Pride Parade is held in Chicago, honoring and empowering those with disabilities.

For more information on civil rights, oppression, and empowerment of those with disabilities in America, check out James I. Charlton’s book, “Nothing About Us Without Us.” —— Patty Templeton DGO Staff Writer

— David Holub ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Thursday, July 27, 2017 | 5

[eat]

What goes in to all that chocolate?

»» Animas

Chocolate Co. co-owner Carley Snider discusses the business of chocolatiering

Absinthe-infused chocolate. Yes, that exists and you want it. The Animas Chocolate Co., 2800 Main Ave., makes the wormwood delight, along with peanut butter fudge, lavender chocolates, spicy hot cocoa, chocolate-covered potato chips, Cowboy Coffee Truffles, and many other dark to milky-melty delicacies.

Animas Chocolate Co. is at the north end of Durango. When you walk in, there’s a counter to your left to sit and watch the on-site chocolate creation. You can peruse classic to adventurous chocolates in the main room, and to the right, there’s a cozy coffee and cocoa bar featuring even more confections.

DGO spoke to Carley Snider, co-owner and head chocolatier of Animas Chocolate Co., about the passion and complexity of running a chocolate biz.

How’d you get into the business of chocolate?

super small farms.

Ethics sound like they come into consideration fairly often with sourcing your business.

I used to work up at Tall Timber Resort. Now, it’s known as Soaring Tree Top Adventures. It’s halfway between Durango and Silverton. You have to take the train to get there. I started working there out of college, a week after I graduated.

We try to consider the ethics not just of our chocolate, but of all of our products. We source organic sugar and organic cream. You have to look at it as the whole picture of your business. We get all of our packaging local.

It’s not just the chocolate.

When I was working up there, I found this old, worn leather recipe book that had chocolate recipes in it. It was from the early 1900s. It was what inspired me to delve deeper into chocolate.

If there was one place in the world you’d go for chocolate tourism, where would it be?

A few years later, I met my husband, Marc, the other owner, and we decided to start a business with chocolate ... We started super small with four chocolate bars and four truffles and now we have over 50 products.

This may sound a little weird, but I would do a chocolate maker tour of the Photos courtesy of Animas Chocolate Company U.S. because there’s this American craft »» Carley Snider examines cacao beans. chocolate movement. More and more craft chocolatiers are making a ton of Where did the shop’s name of it goes a long way. great chocolate in the U.S., in very small come from? companies.

There’s a lot of new places popping up and How do you select your cocoa beans?

We named the shop Animas Chocolate Co. because I it’d be fun to do a road trip and visit all these little shops found that book near the Animas River up in Tall Timber.

We have two sections here. One is in-house where to see what they’re doing and get ideas and brainstorm. we do bean-to-bar chocolate with two styles of bars; When we made this place we thought, “What will What would you tell people on their one from Belizean beans and one from Bolivian beans. be our tag line?” and the Animas River is the River of own chocolate tour to get them to Lost Souls ... We loosely translate that into “Lose your The other section is couverture chocolate and come to Animas Chocolate Company? soul to chocolate.” that’s made with processed chocolate ... We use a What’s this I heard about rating the chocolates?

We like to have a calm to adventurous chocolate section. We rate all of our chocolates by river rapid ratings.

Class one would be like a milk chocolate. Class three is more like a chili chocolate. Class five would be an absinthe-infused chocolate.

What’s your personal favorite chocolate treat in here?

I would say the Bolivian Highline Bar. It’s our beanto-bar chocolate. It’s earthy and deep and a little bite

Belgian chocolate for most of our truffles and other products.

As we get a bigger capacity, we’ll start doing more bean-to-bar chocolate. The equipment for that is quite large so we don’t quite have the space for that here.

We’ve actually been to the farm in Belize. It’s really cool. It’s called Maya Mountain Cacao. The farm in Bolivia is sourced from the same company that provides the beans from Belize. It’s a distributing company that goes and picks out the farmers and beans and most of it is organic, most of it is fair trade, and it’s all

We carry a little bit different products than the average chocolate shop. We make all of our different confections in-house. We don’t bring in other people’s truffles or bars. We make them here.

You can come in, have a hot chocolate, and see what we’re doing, how we make the chocolate, and Marc and I are always around to chat about chocolate. It’s one of the things we love to do.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

—— Patty Templeton DGO Staff Writer

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[sound]

AFI’S JADE PUGET,

ON CREATIVITY AND BRUTALLY HONEST GUITAR An interview with guitarist and producer of “The Blood Album”

Can Eris please come forward? I’d like to kiss the goddess of chaos square on the mouth. Why? She’s kept her distance from AFI for over a quarter of a century. The lack of discord has allowed them to reach their 10th studio album, a self-titled work also known as “The Blood Album.”

AFI started as a hardcore band and evolved into a darker, Daedalian sound through the songwriting partnership of Davey Havok and Jade Puget. AFI’s cinematic, cerebral tracks could equally complement walking through the pines, the pines where the sun never shines or score the daily desk drawer glance Mary Shelley gave Keats’ calcified heart. It wouldn’t be unusual to hear an AFI anthem throbbed from the steel door covering the crooked maw of your favorite industrial club, and you can bet your stomping boots that “The Blood Album” continues to bring the beautiful noise.

DGO spoke to Puget about creativity, playing brutally honest guitar, and the inner critic.

People always talk about lyrics being brutally honest. Can guitar be brutally honest?

Ideas, it seems like if you don’t use them in the proper amount of time, they go stale.

Do you always get to an idea before it goes stale?

I guess it depends on what you’re going for. When you listen to, say the Ramones, you could say that that’s brutally honest guitar.

All down strokes, all power chords. You can’t get more raw and honest than that, but at the same time, if you’re talking about some flowery Yngwie Malmsteen solo, you can’t tear that down either. That’s an interesting question. I don’t know if I can answer that.

My folder where I keep all my projects I’ve got ongoing, like songs and song ideas, I’ve got easily over a thousand things that I’m working on. Maybe there’s something that I haven’t come back to in three or four years. I think I can go back to an idea that I was working on 10 years ago and make it a viable Having worked this long as a song but it’s a little more difficult. Say, professional musician, do you Dave and I wrote so many songs for have to battle an inner critic “Decemberunderground” and I still about the art you put into the have a bunch of them, completed songs world anymore? that we never recorded or did anything Not only do I battle the inner critic on with. Some that Hunter and Adam haa daily basis, but I believe the inner critic ven’t even heard. To go back to a song is absolutely crucial to anyone who is any that is completed like that and try to type of creative person. I mean, you have to make that into a current song, that’s a have confidence in what you do, but if you’re little more difficult. It seems like if it’s in overconfident and you think that everything a more nascent stage you can do it, but Courtesy of http://afireinside.net/ you’re doing is great and wonderful and I don’t know. There’s something that »» AFI (from left), Hunter Burgan, Davey Havok, Adam Carson, and Jade Puget you never edit yourself, you don’t have any when you finish [a song] and you’ve got objectivity about what you’re doing. No one the lyrics on there, Davey, those are is perfect. Everyone can improve on what lyrics on issues that he was feeling 10, they do.

15 years ago and he’s not feeling like that anymore.

More at DGOmag.com!

It’s a little more difficult.

I feel like I am definitely overly-critical, and evCan’t get enough? There’s a hellton more at erything I write, Dave is like, “That’s amazing! That’s How do you juggle as much as you do DGOmag.com. Jade Puget talks blues influencbrilliant! That’s great!” and everything I write I’m and maintain sanity, sense of self, and es, longevity, staying hungry as an artist, and like, “It’s terrible.” We kind of balance each other out, relationships? what he’s reading lately. which is good.

I think, for me, the drive to do music is what maintains my sanity. If I have to take a long time off, if I have Does any part of the creative process to take a couple days off from writing music, I start change as a band matures? feeling weird. I do it every day. Literally, every day, I ing to be as good as “Exile on Main Street?” No. Why I’ve had this conversation a lot and I think about write music. It’s not because I feel like I’m on the clock is that? We should all be better songwriters. this a lot: How, in a band that’s been around a long or anything, I’m just so driven to do it, even to this day. time, from us to the Rolling Stones, as you go on, it I try to make it a point to work harder and harder After doing it for decades, it’s just what I love to do. seems like you should get better and better at writing as time goes by on my craft, on doing what I do besongs and better and better at your craft because you know more and you’ve been around more and you’ve done it more. But most bands get worse as they go. Is a Rolling Stones album that they put out in 2017 go-

cause I realize that there is something in all songwriters where you’re better earlier and you have to work harder to maintain that level as you get older and as you do more and more and write more.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

—— Patty Templeton DGO Staff Writer

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[travel]

[sound] GET OUTTA TOWN

Downtown Lowdown | Bryant Liggett

Quirky & cool spots in the Four Corners and beyond

The location of Butch Cassidy’s first robbery Butch Cassidy, outlaw of the Old West made modern-day famous by the Paul Newman and Robert Redford flick, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” had his desperado dawning in Telluride.

Cassidy worked on a dairy farm, as a rancher, and eventually as a butcher in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where he acquired his “Butch” nickname. A rogue’s »» Butch Cassidy life called to Cassidy stronger than common work.

Cassidy’s crooked path began on June 24, 1889, with a plan that wasn’t even his. Cassidy’s pal, Matt Warner, proposed robbing the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride. Warner walked into the bank and shoved his gun to the nose hairs of a trembling bank teller. Cassidy bagged the available cash and Tom McCarty, Warner’s brother-in-law, watched the horses.

The take? Back then, it was a little over $20,000. In today’s terms? About $560,000. They would’ve gotten away free and clear if Cassidy hadn’t run into a rancher who knew him outside of town. The rancher told the inevitable posse who Cassidy was, thus cementing Butch Cassidy’s “wanted” status and criminal course.

The San Miguel Valley Bank burned down less than three years later. In its place, the Mahr building, 129/131 West Colorado Ave. in Telluride, was erected.

Today, a commemorative plaque marks Cassidy’s first bank heist. You’ll know you’re close if you’re at the corner of Pine Street and Colorado Ave. For more information on Butch Cassidy’s dastardly deeds, check out “The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”

by Thom Hatch.

—— Patty Templeton DGO Staff Writer

Kevin Russell shines with Shinyribs

K

evin Russell is a big fan of sense of place. The founding member of the on-hiatus Gourds, and leader of the Austin, Texas, band Shinyribs, is a believer in the idea that some recording studios contain a presence of the past, and that those studios that have been the delivery room for the birth of great recordings have held on to a mystique that can influence the sounds coming out.

It’s what brought him to Sugar Hill Recording Studios in Houston to record “I Got Your Medicine,” the fourth release from Shinyribs that continues his sonic exploration of American country rock, New Orleans R&B, and funk.

Russell and Shinyribs will play in Durango next week at KSUT’s party in the park with The Iguanas.

“I’d been reading this book about this recording studio in Houston called Sugar Hill. It has no relation to the Sugar Hill Gang, or the bluegrass label, no relation to anything else called Sugar Hill,” said Russell. “It’s the oldest, continuously operating recording studio in the United States. Seventy-five years they’ve been recording music in this place. And a lot of the swamp pop stuff that I’ve really gotten into in the past few years was recorded there. Willie Nelson recorded the demo of “Night Life” there, early George Jones was recorded there, and The Sir Douglas Quintet did all their hits there. There is so much vibe in the place. We did it all live, old-school, liveto-tape. It has that sound that I was going for, and this band was just made for that. We’re a live band, and it was just the best way to record this band at that time.”

You have to go back to 2008 for the story of Shinyribs.

It was his solo outing, a chance for Russell to play some things that wouldn’t have come to life with the Gourds.

He’d play sets solo as Shinyribs around Texas and when out on the road with The Gourds. When they went on hiatus in 2013, a hiatus that has been labeled with the ambiguous term of “indefinite,” Shinyribs picked up steam. The Gourds had two main songwriters in Russell and Jimmy Smith. While that democracy of a band left a big, beautiful, and well-deserved mark on rock and roots music, Russell is digging on being the sole band leader and shot caller.

“It makes everything just a lot easier,” Russell said.

“Everything from making decisions on things like

Courtesy of Shinyribs

GO! Friday (Aug. 4): KSUT Party in the Park with Shinyribs and The Iguanas, 5 p.m. $20 pre-sale/$25 day of show. Buckley Park, 12th St. and Main Ave. in downtown Durango. Information: 247-7657.

when and where we’ll play and when I’m going to record, to where I’m going to record, and what songs we’re going to do. I’m really enjoying it.”

Russell has always had a funky way with his songwriting and delivery. Go back to earlier Gourds shows, and Shinyribs shows now, and his set lists have a cover or two that could be Marvin Gaye or The Meters or T.L.C. or R. Kelly. The full Shinyribs band is a vehicle where Russell is front-man, leader of the conga line and full-blown funky entertainer.

“With the Tijuana Train-Wreck horns and my two singers The Shiny Soul Sisters, these are the two elements I arrange and write for now,” said Russell. “It’s just incredible; it’s a dream band for me, to have those elements, those colors, the horns and two female singers.

Its something you really have to experience live as well, the awesomeness of the way the horns and the singers move the air in front of the stage musically. It’s awesome.”

Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.

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[sound] What’s new Chain and the Gang,“Best of Crime Rock” Available: Now, via In the Red Records as a compact disc and on vinyl as a standard black LP. Also available in limited quantities (approximate pressing of 500 to 750 copies) of hot pink vinyl if ordered directly from the label.

As is the norm with In the Red Records, the limited-edition record is “first come, first served. No guarantees.”

and subgenres, including Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, King Khan, Kid Congo, Jay Retard, Black Lips, and the list goes on and on. Few labels today have amassed the sort of continuity top to bottom.

In short, just about anything they release is worth your hardearned cash.

If you’ve been a semi-regular reader of the breakout record reviews for DGO, my affinity for the Los Angeles, California-based independent record label In the Red is certainly apparent to you by now. The label began in 1991 by Larry Hardy as a vehicle to release a single by his then-favorite band, genre forebearers, Detroit garage punkers The Gories. To date, the label has released hundreds of titles by some of the most renowned artists in the indie/garage/punk/etc. genre

The latest release from the label comes from D.C. luminaries Chain and the Gang. Fronted by the legendary Ian Svenonius (of seminal ’80s and ’90s acts Nation of Ulysses and The Make-Up) and backed by Anna Nasty on bass, Francy Graham on guitar, and Mark Cisneros on drums, Chain and the Gang have released a unique record of brash, trash-tastic garage punk. This record is unique in that some classic Chain tunes have been

New at

July 28 Arcade Fire,“Everything Now” I’ve never really been that big of a fan of Arcade Fire’s particular brand of indie rock. “Reflektor” had some cool moments, but overall, it just hits me as disingenuous. That type of indie rock that banks on its eclectic nature. The self-titled single is one such example, weirdly channeling ABBA and the general disco-funk sound. There are a couple moments throughout where the singer sounds vulnerable and tackles subjects that are worth tackling, such as on the track “Creature Comfort,” where the singer seems to genuinely hope to help someone suffering from suicidal thoughts. In general though, I think the record stretches itself a bit too thin, and someone looking for nostalgic rock is better off listening to the last Phoenix record.

Alice Cooper,“Paranormal” A few issues ago, I talked about how Glenn Danzig didn’t sound old on the new Danzig record. Take that same sentiment and ramp it up to 11 for this one. I did not expect anything going into “Paranormal,” and I got an Alice Cooper album that can legitimately stand with the likes of “Billion Dollar Babies” in the Alice Cooper discography. The dude sounds as fresh as he

always has. Instrumentally, it’s exactly what you expect from classic/hard rock. But really the standout on this record is just how goddamn good Cooper’s singing sounds. The dude is pushing 70 and he sounds perfect. Compare him to someone like Axl Rose or Steven Tyler and you will rightfully bow down like Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar, proclaiming your unworthiness.

rerecorded here with renewed grit and grime, alongside brandnew, never-before-heard cuts from the band, making this a perfect record for old and new fans alike. From the mouth of the label itself, “Chain and the Gang are singular, terrifying, unparalleled. Not only the most ferocious live combo ever witnessed but also the world’s only anti-liberty rock ’n’ roll group.

Their motto?: “Down with Liberty ...

Up with Chains!”

Recommended for fans of The Make-Up, Nation of Ulysses, King Khan and BBQ Show, Pussy Galore, or the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

What follows is an hour of smooth rap channeling some of the vibes of the West Coast while harnessing the aggression and flow of the classic East Coast sound. “OMG” was a highlight for me, as I am always a fan of a Pusha T feature, as well as the juxtaposition

—— Jon E. Lynch KDUR_PD@fortlewis.edu

of the track “Rage,” which is oddly uplifting, with his voice soaring over a reverbed out and slightly delayed beat that sounds like it was recorded in a shipping container. That’s my style right there.

—— Cooper Stapleton

Make Them Suffer,“Worlds Apart” I love this style of deathcore that blends orchestral bits and heavy-as-hell breakdowns. Make Them Suffer have ended up becoming the poster child for the style after Abigail Williams and Winds of Plague slowed down on the releases, and the scene is better off for it. Their first record, “Neverbloom,” took me by complete surprise, and while “Worlds Apart” is a tad more predictable, it doesn’t lose any of its power for it. It does seem to embrace the contemporary hardcore style a little bit more than the black metal-influenced style of the last couple records. Which I think might alienate some of their fans, but it will almost certainly gain them new ones.

Vic Mensa,“The Autobiography” Finally, the man drops an actual album.

Coming out of the thriving Chicago scene alongside scene-darling Chance The Rapper, Vic Mensa is joining the 2017 crew of dropping genuinely amazing hip-hop records. The album begins with some soul music, which I think actually ill-prepares the listener for what “The Autobiography” offers.

262577

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[beer]

First Draughts | Robert Alan Wendeborn

Revelation from cleaning out the fridge: Don’t save beer

W

hen you’re an avid beer fan, you collect a lot of beer.

When you work in a brewery and are a beer fan, you collect a lot of beer you never thought you’d get to drink. Sometimes you get it and drink it all as fast as you can, and other times you hang on to it to savor. And sometimes you completely forget that you had it in the first place and you end up wishing you drank all your seasonally-released beer when you first got it. It can be a joyful and sad day cleaning out a beer collector’s beer fridge.

Lucky for you I’m documenting the cleaning out of a beer fridge. I’ve

got some Colorado beers, some Louisiana beers, and some Texas beers and we’ll see what held up and what didn’t.

First up is Euphoria Pale Ale, a winter seasonal from Ska Brewing dry-hopped with Simcoe hops that I picked up just before River Days in late May. The label on the bottom says to consume by June 23, 2017, (sadly places hand over heart). It pours a deep copper color with a firm, slightly tan head that lasts for the entire glass. The aroma is earthy, the familiar smell of old hops, with hints of melon, cola, and toffee. The flavor is a little sweet, the toffee coming through, with no melon or fresh hops,

but still has a bit of a hop-bitter bite.

When this beer is fresh, and when I had it in May, I usually tell people, “It’s like a Dale’s Pale Ale but way better.” It’s still better than a Dale’s, but noticeably diminished given the age.

Next is Spur by Bayou Teche Brewing, a pale ale that is re-fermented in oak barrels with Belgian candy sugar. I picked it up in early spring this year after chatting with the brewery owner for way too long.

It pours a rich, golden amber with white foam. On the nose there is a bit of floral and herbal and a tiny bit of the oak, but a load of tropical fruit. The taste is pretty sweet, with a good zing of those same tropical fruits, a little bit of candy and medicinal flavor, and a smooth finish Alexi Grojean/Special to DGO

Continued on Page 11

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From Page 10

with some very subdued hops. As it warms up, you get more barrel, more Belgian hygiene and more aged hop flavor.

One beer that I’m always on the lookout for, and was lucky enough to host one of the brewers last week, is Pearl Snap, a German-style pils from Austin Beerworks. I first had the beer on a trip through Austin, Texas, five years ago and was blown away by how clean and refreshing it is. The beer pours a brilliant gold with a poof of white foam that settles fairly quickly but leaves rings of lace on the glass as you drink. The aroma is a perfect lager smell that combines subtle hop, malt, and yeast esters.

The flavor is the same perfect combination with a little biscuit malt flavor, spicy hops, and fruitiness from the lager yeast.

The last beer to get cleaned out of my fridge is just a lucky find, a lime and cucumber gose from Urban South, which was only released through their taproom. Not sure how it ended up in the beer

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fridge at work, but I think it had to do with a trade for can lids with their brewery, which is about an hour away. It pours a hazy yellow, with some particulate floating as well. The aroma is straight-up key lime and a hint of herbal hoppiness.

The flavor is the same and with just a nice hint of salt and the perfect balance of tartness. The particulate isn’t noticeable on the mouthfeel, though there is a little bit of a fuller mouthfeel. I definitely could crush a few of these.

Cleaning out the beer fridge isn’t always this easy or lucky. Most of the time I have major duds that go immediately into the garbage, and the biggest lesson is don’t hang onto your beer. Beer is meant to be drank.

Unless the beer is bottle-conditioned, very high alcohol, or very sour, it will not get better with age. It will go straight to shit. So drink ’em if you’ve got ’em.

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WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT HOUSE PARTY STRIPPERS

I THE MOST AWKWARD THINGS I EXPERIENCED WAS SOMEONE WANTING TO TIE ME UP

EVERYBODY WANTS TO PUSH YOUR BOUNDARIES

FRAT GUYS. THEY’RE THE WORST I HAVE MY REGULAR LIFE THAT IS MUNDANE AS ANYONE ELSE’S WHEN YOU’RE DEALING WITH PEOPLE’S BASE DESIRES YOU FACE THEM IN A DIFFERENT WAY

I’M A NORMAL, ANONYMOUS PERSON THAT NO ONE WOULD EVEN THINK IS A STRIPPER

LEAVE YOUR STEREOTYPES BEHIND THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS THAT ARE NOT SEX THAT PEOPLE ARE INTERESTED IN

THE ONES THAT ARE TROUBLE ARE THE ONES THAT FEEL ENTITLED I DON’T REALLY LIKE TO BE NOTICED. I LIKE TO BE ANONYMOUS

»» Awkward gigs, uncouth

behavior, sensuality, stereotypes, and intimacy: Talking to Colorado-based stripping violinist and her exotic dancer fiancé

n her late 20s, Dalia Rasa realized that working a 9-to5 was the equivalent of karate-chopping her soul for eight hours straight. She wanted a more flexible, creative life, and in a fit of provocative whimsy, she took up exotic dancing.

Embracing erotic entertainment didn’t mean Rasa had to ignore what mattered most, her music. She plaited her passions into a titillating side-gig as a stripping violinist.

Along the way, Rasa met her fiancé, Jay Clyde, while camping in Nederland last summer. Clyde is new to the hedonic frolic that is house party stripping. He runs his own landscaping company during the day and moonlights as a stripteaser. He wondered what it’d be like to entertain people and wanted to see what kind of emotion and physicality private dancing brought out of an audience.

DGO talked to Rasa and Clyde about their carnal careers, audience etiquette, and when a strip show gets awkward.

Who hires a striping violinist?

Dalia Rasa: The people who are interested. It’s cool to meet them and hang out with them. We genuinely have interesting things to say to each other.

They’re people who really like music and, for a lot of them, the violin is a sensual instrument.

Jay, Dalia’s specialty is the violin. What’s yours?

Jay Clyde: (laughs) Yeah, I’m pretty well known for shaking my ass. I can go into a split and shake my ass like crazy.

Where do you perform?

Rasa: I’d love to do corporate parties, but right now it is mainly house gigs.

Sometimes people are having a get- together or they have these “sensuality parties.” They want to have a stripper there to be the medium that makes things comfortable and sets the mood as an official entertainer who specializes in sensuality.

Sometimes it’s a private show for one person.

Clyde: I perform private house shows for, usually, one to three people.

What’s the most awkward party you’ve ever performed at? It sounds like a one person show might be awkward as hell.

»» Jay Clyde Courtesy of Jay Clyde and Dalia Rasa

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Rasa: I think one of the most awkward things I experienced was someone

wanting to tie me up. I was like, “No.” Then they got really awkward because they thought that I thought they were a weirdo and that I was super uncomfortable. Which I kinda was. That was not fun.

Clyde: I did a dance for two guys.

They wanted to bang each other while touching me and me touching them. But they also wanted to tie me up, as well. (laughs) That was the most uncomfortable situation because I wasn’t exactly expecting that.

How do you deal with uncouth behavior?

Rasa: I had to learn how to be assertive before I was even willing to do house shows, let alone one-person shows. I had to know my boundaries and know exactly what to do if I felt awkward.

Everybody wants to push your boundaries. People think we’re just hanging out. They offer a drink or a glass of wine or weed. But it all can lead to something else.

Clyde: It comes down to respect and finding some kind of common ground with the customer. A lot of them will try and find that common ground with you because they want to get what they want.

Do you ever feel in danger?

Rasa: I’ve never really felt like I was in Continued on Page 14

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[love and sex] From Page 13

any danger at a house show. I am kind of muscular and not exactly petite; I’m not easily physically manipulated.

Clyde: Most people want to figure out how you think or how you feel rather than seeing how they can harm you ...

Usually it’s being uncomfortable but not feeling in danger, but it can shift. Like if a person’s not willing to back out of your space, it could turn into a dangerous situation. Me, personally, I’ve only ever been uncomfortable with a customer before, but not been in physical danger.

Do you think the experience of house party stripping is different for a man versus a woman?

Clyde: Absolutely. What it comes down to is strength and size. If you tend to be a bigger guy that has some good muscle, more than likely, no one is going to mess with you. They’re gonna want you to entertain them and that’s it. If you’re a little smaller or frailer, people tend to be more physical because they can be. They can pick you up or throw you around, even if you are a guy.

SUMMER

HOURS

With women, it’s the same thing, but women have to worry about a lot more.

As guys, we’re normally physically stronger and not as cautious because we don’t have to be ... A woman has more of a chance of being hurt or disrespected than a male would.

Dalia, do you bring security?

Rasa: Sometimes I do. It depends.

Sometimes I’ll invite people to where I live. Then someone will be sitting in the bedroom. A lot of people would be afraid thinking that the customer knows where you live, but it works for me.

Rasa: Frat guys. They’re the worst.

They’re young. They have all these stereotypical ideas. They get rowdy and think that they can treat you crappy because of your job and how they see that job. They don’t have a lot of respect.

What stereotypes do you have to deal with?

Rasa: The usual, that you’re willing to do anything for a price. Or people think that if you’re intelligent you must be manipulative. They think that if you’re not

intelligent you are absolutely clueless and that they can easily manipulate you.

When you’re dealing with people’s base desires, you face them in a different way. It’s unavoidable to deal with the id instead of the super-ego. Their id, their passion is up front.

So a fun side-gig gets dark.

How does that affect you?

Rasa: I have my regular life that is Continued on Page 15

How so?

Rasa: I have control of my space. Walking into someone else’s house, I have no idea how to get out or where to go or who knows I am there or who is around to help. You try to, in the back of your head, know your options. At my place, I have roommates who are big, who study martial arts. If there was an issue, nobody would necessarily want to try and come back because it wouldn’t be a good idea for them.

What’s the worst audience behavior you’ve dealt with?

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[love and sex] a flat rate fee?

From Page 14

Rasa: Tipping is a thing. People usually tip well, but I charge an amount that even if they don’t tip, I’ll be fine. Anything on top of my fee and I’m really happy; extra is always appreciated.

mundane as anyone else’s. I eat breakfast, work out, stress about all the usual stuff, and then I get to do these weird things where I get to find out about people’s sexuality and see things that other people never get to see.

What is your rate?

People let me in. They open up to me. Maybe they think I’m some random stripper, which is fine. They open up to me nonetheless because I’m an anonymous person.

Rasa: I currently charge $150 for an hour or $200 for two hours and that doesn’t include a lap dance or anything else. A lap dance is $50 extra per 10 minutes, which is cheaper than at the club.

Outside of my job, I’m a normal, anonymous person that no one would even think is a stripper. (laughs) I have these two lives that make it work. One is taboo and exciting and kind of a party and a little bit dark and weird, but then I have a really, really normal life to balance it out.

What extras can people request?

Rasa: People can request whatever music they want me to play. Some people want me to learn a classical song like Vivaldi. One guy liked rap so I played a bunch of his favorite rap songs and some of mine. If they want me to wear a certain outfit or I can fit a theme. Usually, people don’t have a lot of requests.

What kind of opening up do people do?

Rasa: There are so many things that are not sex that people are interested in. When you meet people who are interested in these things, fetishes or otherwise, things that don’t even seem sexual to me all the time, I think that’s pretty interesting. It forces me to open my mind about life’s possibilities and that not everyone is based on the same chemistry or the same ideas and everyone is so different.

What’s something most people don’t know about your job?

What etiquette tips would you give an audience?

What’s something you love about the stripping gig?

Rasa: Leave your stereotypes behind. Try to think of the person as an entertainer and performer, not as someone who needs attention or needs to be touched. Don’t see your dancer as deprived. They are an entertainer who enjoys performing and sexuality.

Rasa: I think a lot of people would assume that I’d be more jaded from this industry or that my opinion of men or people would have gone down. But actually, it’s the opposite.

I understand men, and people, and sexuality a lot more. I feel a lot more comfortable with myself and my self-esteem has gone up.

Rasa: That I’m a totally different person outside of my job. They don’t grasp that I’m a normal person. I used to be really shy; I don’t really like to be noticed. I like to be anonymous. People have a hard time with that and think, “Well, why the hell do you do this?” But a lot of people have dual personalities, that’s why.

Courtesy of Jay Clyde and Dalia Rasa

»» Dalia Rasa

What makes a bad audience versus a good audience?

Clyde: A bad audience would be people that do not listen to the dancer or try to belittle the dancer because they might think they’re better than them based on a job or whatever the case may be.

A good audience show you respect and asks you before they touch you. Or asks you before they are gonna jack-off or whatever it is.

It comes down to respect. If the customer doesn’t have respect, you’re probably not gonna have a lot of

fun. You’ll be like, “I wish this guy would back the hell off, but I want to make my money so I can’t do nothing about it besides be like, “Hey, back off a little bit.”

That’s pretty much what makes the difference between good and bad customers. The ones that are trouble are the ones that feel entitled, to be able to do whatever they want to do to you, around you, on you, because they pay this small amount of money to see you dance.

Should people tip even though there’s

There is something more that people can’t explain about connection and intimacy and I’m starting to understand that. It’s how I’m able to be successful without having to be an escort. People are willing to pay for something that is inspirational, kind of magical, sensual, and fantasy-orientated that’s not sex. I think that’s the most important thing that I like about it.

These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

—— Patty Templeton DGO Staff Writer

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[pages]

Visit The Cemetery of Forgotten Books weekly bestsellers

the stacks. All of that changes, however, when he’s introduced to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a secret library where, in lieu of being forgotten, obscure, and dying tomes are protected under the watchful eyes of a guardian.

July 16-22 »»News of the World, by Paulette Jiles (Paperback) »»The Woman In Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware (Paperback) »»A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman (Paperback) »»All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr (Paperback) »»The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah (Paperback) »»We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, by Samantha Irby (Paperback) »»On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder (Paperback) »»The Land of Stories: Worlds Collide, by Chris Colfer (Hardcover) »»The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera (Paperback) »»Whiskey Words & a Shovel, by R. H. Sin (Paperback)

White Rabbit book review: “The Shadow of the Wind,” by Carlos Ruiz Zafón Rewind to post-war Barcelona, 1945. Young Daniel Sempere lives a quiet existence. He resides above the bookshop that his father owns, and his days are consumed in

Here, Daniel is allowed to adopt any book. His selection, “The Shadow of the Wind,” launches him on a journey to discover more about the book, the author’s peculiar life, and why someone is determined to destroy all of the author’s remaining books.

If you enjoy a good mysteryturned-love-story with a Gothic underbelly, then give Carlos Ruiz

Zafón’s “The Shadow of the Wind” a try. Bonus: It is book one in the “Cemetery of Forgotten Books” series. If you love it, there’s more!

—— Keena Kimmel Owner of White Rabbit Books and Curiosities

263859

16 | Thursday, July 27, 2017 • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

[ weed ] Seeing Through the Smoke Christopher Gallagher

Given U.S. history, don’t get too comfortable with your weed

C

annabis is, and has been for nearly a century, a central figure in the American culture wars. It started that way with Henry J. Aslinger’s “Reefer Madness,” a nasty blend of racism, misinformation, and propaganda. It ramped up to full pitch with Nixon’s denial of science and willful decision to use it to vilify his opposition. It lurks behind Jeff “I thought the KKK was OK until I learned they smoke pot” Sessions’s plan to renew the abysmal failure known as “The War on Drugs,” which is actually his plan to defend the establishment behind the privatized prison industry.

Cannabis and hemp, its lower THC relative, have a history in the United States which goes back to the Colonial era. For most of the past 400 years, it has been recognized as an incredibly versatile and beneficial crop, used in applications from rope to cloth to medicine. There were even times in American history where it was used to pay taxes and when farmers were fined for not growing it. Think about that for a moment: there was a time (Jamestown colony, 1619) when the value of hemp was recognized as being so high, that the legislative body mandated each and every farmer grow it or risk being fined or even jailed. This favorable status of hemp in Virginia continued right up until our nation’s founding, as the Virginia colony’s lawmakers paid bounties for its production for over two and a half centuries.

Cannabis was added to the official U.S. Pharmacopoeia (the standard government publication cataloging medicines for over-the-counter distribution) in 1850 as an ingredient that was effective in treating over two dozen afflictions including opiate addiction (it might just be me, but something about that sounds timely). This was the status quo for cannabis well into the 20th century.

Then came Aslinger and cannabis prohibition.

Putting aside the mountains of evidence that prove cannabis to be an effective medical treatment, Aslinger chose to vilify a plant that had proven its

Alexi Grojean/Speci al

to DGO

value on these shores for centuries.

There is another, more sinister, motive the nation’s first drug czar blended into his crusade and it can be seen in nearly every statute ever passed against one of the oldest plants in human history. The plant is almost always referred to in law books not as “cannabis” but rather as “marijuana” (or the hilariously dated “marihuana”). This designation is not incidental. The plant was widely known by its proper name as a medical ingredient, but Aslinger, a man who referred to jazz musicians as “neither fish nor

fowl,” chose the Spanish language colloquialism to stir racist feelings in support of his cause.

Racism also underlaid President RichardNixon’s decision to continue prohibition. John Erlichman, his former domestic policy chief, admitted in a recent interview that Nixon began the “War on Drugs” (winner: Drugs) as a weapon against those he saw as his political enemies, hippies, and minorities. The statistics bear this out: Between 2001 and 2010, there were over 8 million arrests for marijuana; though the numbers show use between black and white people is roughly equivalent, blacks were 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for possession, indicating a clear racial bias.

Now, despite claims by Donald Trump the Candidate alleging to value states’ rights and the benefits of at least medical cannabis, his appointee for attorney general (when he is not busy ducking and dodging legal issues concerning Russia) has rolled back regulations against privatized prisons, a stain on contemporary American culture and the primary beneficiaries of drug arrests. And, according to The Cannabist, he has sent an investigatory team to Colorado to examine the ins and outs of legalization. I, for one, will not spend a lot of time wondering what his conclusions will be.

The blatant and predatory nature of how those currently in power attack their opponents gives the supporters of cannabis a tremendous tactical advantage – there is no reasonable way that we can be surprised when Sessions & Co. start to pass laws bolstering their position against the progress that has been worked toward for decades and has begun to come to fruition here in the 2010s. That gives us the opportunity to mount our defense and to attack through the only appropriate method: the spread of accurate information in support of our friend Mary Jane and against the dirty games based on race, money, and politics that people like Sessions have been playing for nearly a century. The information is available. The ability to spread it is as easy as typing and posting it or having a conversation. Now is the time to prepare. Soon, it will be time to fight. After that will come the time to kick back, relax, and burn one in celebration of a nationwide victory.

Christopher Gallagher lives with his wife and their four dogs and two horses. Life is pretty darn good. Contact him at chrstphrgallagher@gmail.com.

�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Thursday, July 27, 2017 | 17

[love and sex]

Savage Love | Dan Savage

Look out! Creepers, old and young, are on the loose!

I’m a reader in Kansas with two teenage daughters, 16 and 18. My girls recently met a boy where they work and both took an interest in him. The 18-year-old was devastated that he was more interested in her younger sister. I spoke to the 16-year-old about it, which is when I found out this boy is going to be a sophomore in college. The fact that he’s interested in a 16-year-old is a red flag. I asked the 16-year-old to keep her distance. She agreed, but I saw a shirtless photo he sent her. I don’t know what other photos he’s sent and I don’t know what she’s sent him, but I immediately removed all photo apps from her phone. The girls have had public fights about this boy. They’ve made peace with each other, but now my 18-year-old wants to date him.

I can’t control the actions of an 18-year-old but (1) it seem likely this guy is a complete creep and (2) isn’t her relationship with her sister more important?

Knowing A Numbskull Stalks Adorable Sisters 1. I’m not ready to pronounce this guy a creep – at least not for the age difference. It sounds like he met your daughters someplace they’re all working this summer, which is a lot less icky than some college boy creeping on high school girls via Instagram. And you say this boy is going to be a sophomore in college, KANSAS, but don’t give his age. There are 30-year-old college sophomores, of course, but if this boy went straight to college from high school, that would make him 19 years old. If your 16-year-old is closing in on 17, this guy could be “older” by two years and change. While I can understand why you wouldn’t want your younger daughter dating college boys, I think you are overreacting to the age difference – and it’s a moot issue, as he’s no longer pursuing your younger daughter.

1.5. You know what is creepy? Pursuing a pair of sisters. The possibility of conflict was so predictable, it was likely

a motivating factor for him. Getting off on drama and public fights isn’t a crime, but it is a red flag.

2. You ordered your 16-year-old to stop seeing this guy and deleted apps from her phone. (It’s cute you think your daughter isn’t tech-savvy enough to re-download and hide all the same apps.) You should warn your daughter about the risks of sexting – it may be legal for her to have sex (16 is the age of consent in Kansas), but she could face child porn charges for sending photos and this boy could wind up on a sex-offender registry for receiving them. (Laws meant to protect young people from being exploited are routinely used to punish them.) But don’t attempt to micromanage your daughters’ love lives. Parental disapproval has a way of driving teenagers into each other’s arms, KANSAS. If you don’t want your daughters having a [screw]-you-mom threesome with this guy before the summer is over, you’ll let them work through this on their own – but go ahead and stitch “boys come and go but sisters are forever” on a couple of pillows and put them on their beds.

I’m a straight guy married to a wonderful woman. She has a daughter.

This girl’s bio dad is a checked-out deadbeat, so I have played “dad” since I met her mom five years ago.

The girl who used to be a gangly, awkward 11-year-old is now 16, and there’s no other way to put this: She is hot. I’m not supposed to notice, I know, and I have ZERO interest in being creepy with her, and she has ZERO interest in me. But she has always liked to cuddle with me and still does. I believe safe closeness from a dad figure helps girls make good choices when it comes to boys. (If not for me, she might seek attention from douchebag teenage boys trying to take advantage.) I want to continue to play this role for her. But when she comes in wearing tiny shorts and puts her legs over my lap, I get rock hard. I’m not trying to be creepy, but I’m a guy and she’s a

perfect female specimen. I can’t say, “We can’t be as physically close as we used to be,” because that itself would be creepy and it would make her sad.

Insert Dad Acronym Here Obviously Sometimes children grow up and get hot, and bonus adults in their lives – typically (and thankfully) not their bio or lifelong parents – can’t help but notice. The onus is on the adult in that situation to suppress that shit. Not awareness of a young person’s objective hotness, which cannot be suppressed, but all evidence of said awareness. Which means setting boundaries and, if necessary, keeping your distance. No, you shouldn’t go to your stepdaughter and say, “You got hot, and I get boners when you put your legs on my lap, so stop.” But you should put an end to the cuddling. When she plops down on the couch, go take a walk or a shower or a shit. Better she has a sad over the end of snuggle time than she notices your boners and feels unsafe around you.

She’s most likely plopping down on you out of habit, IDAHO, not out of a need for affection from a trusted male. I promise you, she’s not going to start blowing bad boys in back alleys if she can’t get close enough to give you a boner anymore. (Also, if you don’t want to come across as a creep, don’t describe your stepdaughter – or any other woman – as a “perfect female specimen.” Ick.) My college-student daughter lives in an apartment over our garage. She has a boyfriend, age 19. After many loud “discussions,” he is allowed to sleep over. My daughter got an IUD without informing me, so I assume they’re sexually active. Two days ago, I crept into the apartment to check on something and found bondage items on her bed – a set of formidable leather restraints. I’m worried she’s being pressured to do things someone her age wouldn’t be interested in.

We agreed not to go into the apartment when she wasn’t present, and I know there will be a loud “discussion” if I tell her what I saw. The mental image of my bound daughter distresses me and I worry for her safety. What do I do?

Offspring Has Incriminating Objects You stay the [bleep] out of your offspring’s apartment when she isn’t home, OHIO, per your agreement.

And you keep these things in mind: Just as there are young queer people out there, there are young kinky people out there, too. Your adult daughter might be one of them. For all you know, the restraints were her idea and her boyfriend is the one getting tied up. And a scary-to-mom set of restraints is a lot safer than nylon clothesline or cheap handcuffs.

Leather restraints distribute pressure evenly, making them less likely to pinch a nerve or cut off circulation.

Like your adult daughter getting herself an IUD, formidable bondage gear is a good sign that she takes her safety seriously. (And how did you find out about the IUD she got without informing you? Did you wander up her vagina one day to “check on something”?)

Finally, OHIO, it’s perfectly understandable that you don’t like the mental image of your adult daughter tied to the bed in her apartment (her apartment, not the apartment), but I’m guessing you don’t like the mental image of your adult daughter with a dick in her mouth, either. Just as you don’t torment yourself by picturing the blowjobs your adult daughter is almost certainly giving her boyfriend, don’t torment yourself by picturing whatever else she might be doing with, to, or for him.

Dan Savage is a nationally syndicated sex advice columnist writing for The Stranger in Seattle. Contact him at mail@savagelove.net or @fakedansavage on Twitter and listen to his podcast every week at savagelovecast.com.

18 | Thursday, July 27, 2017 • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

[happening]

David Holub/DGO

»» MarchFourth

»» Erik Nordstrom performs with the

»» Baracutanga

Lawn Chair Kings.

DGO’s picks in and around Durango Rumba in Buckley Park

Durango Arts Center, 802 East Second Ave., on Thursday, July 27.

Community Concert on Wednesday, Aug. 2.

School Troupe 1096, a teen thespian group.

Concert Hall at the Park continues their fan-damn-tastic series of free live music in Buckley Park, 1200 Main, on Thursday, July 27, with the Brazilian rhythms of Baracutanga.

Doors at 6:30 p.m., show starts at 7.

The show’s $12 in advance and $15 at the door with all proceeds benefiting the La Plata County Humane Society.

There’s a $10 cash cover at the door with proceeds benefiting Durango High

Music’s from 5 to 7 p.m. with more info at www.rochesterhotel.com

Bring a picnic basket, blankets, and chairs but expect to ignore them. You’ll be too busy dancing to the world music of a seven-piece band with members from Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, and Colombia.

Show’s from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Details: www.durangoconcerts.com

Rock on to the SkaBQ Get lost in the rock ’n’ roll of Little Wilderness on Thursday, July 27, at SkaBQ, Ska Brewing’s weekly, free music series. The tunes start rolling at 5 p.m. and go to 7. Groove to basement indie rock and nom on a hugenormous sammich from the Container, Ska’s beer garden restaurant.

Odd sidenote: The Container’s cookies are effing awesome. And huge.

More at http://www.bowwowfilmfest.com

Turning Telluride into a joyride MarchFourth is a brassy, loudass, gd delightful band. If you turned a marching band into a circus and made James Brown the ringleader, that’s about where this band falls. There are dancers, acrobatics, stilt walkers, all to the tune of Louisiana swagger slipping into funk and jazz-fusion.

They crowd a stage with life and sound and they’re coming to the Four Corners all the way from Portland, Oregon.

MarchFourth plays at Club Red, 580 Mountain Village Blvd. in Telluride on Saturday, July 29. Doors are at 8 p.m. and show starts at 8:30.

Tix range from $25 to $45.

Info at https://www.facebook.com/ skabrewing

Lowdown at www.clubredtelluride. com

Doggie film fest at DAC

Lawn Chair Kings at Secret Garden

Dog lovers, you finally got your wish: a film fest dedicated to your furry friends. The third annual Bow Wow Film Festival celebrates canines with short films, stopping through the

The Secret Garden, hidden next to the Rochester Hotel, 726 East Second Ave., will host the acoustic Americana of the Lawn Chair Kings for this week’s

�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Thursday, July 27, 2017 | 19

[happening] Thursday

Friday Adam Swanson, 5:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave., 247-4431.

Theme Day Thursday – Chaplin, 9 a.m., $20, Thru The

Lens Photography, 643 Main Ave.

Library, 1900 East Third Ave., 3753380.

Chuck wagon cook-off, 5 p.m., $20, La Plata County Fairgrounds, 2500 Main Ave., 7495582.

Ben Gibson Band, 7-11 p.m.,

Rusty Shovel Saloon, 18044 County Road 501, Bayfield, 884-2964.

Lewis College, Center of Southwest Studies, Delaney Library, 1000 Rim Drive., www.fortlewis. edu.

Saturday

Adam Swanson, 5:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave., 247-4431.

San Ignacio Fiesta, all-day event, $0-$15, Goddard Avenue, Ignacio, www.stignatiuschurch-ignacio.com.

Durango Green Drinks, 5

p.m., Carver Brewing Co., 1022 Main Ave., 259-2545.

Burger and Band Night: La La Bones, 5 p.m., $20, James

The West in Story and Song,

7 p.m., $19-$24, Henry Strater Theatre, 699 Main Ave., 375-7160.

Durango Farmers Market, 8

Greg Ryder, 7 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave., 375-7260.

a.m., First National Bank of Durango, 259 W. Ninth St., www.durangofarmersmarket.com.

Ranch Terraces, 33846 U.S. Highway 550, www.jamesranch.net.

Free concert in the park: Baracutanga, 5:30 p.m., Buckley

San Ignacio Fiesta Dance,

8 p.m., $10-$15, Sky Ute Casino Resort, 14324 Highway 172, 5637777.

Bayfield Farmers Market,

8:30 a.m., Bayfield Roadside Park, U.S. Highway 160, 884-9544.

Park, 1200 Main Ave., www.durangoconcerts.com.

Ukulele Jam, 4 p.m., Magpies

PROPEL: Workshop Your Activism, 2 p.m., Durango Public

Strater Theatre, 699 Main Ave., 375-7160.

Southwest Summer Storytelling Series, 1 p.m., Fort

Main Ave., 247-7700.

Henry Stoy piano, 11 a.m., Jean

Pierre Bakery and Wine Bar, 601 Main Ave., 247-7700.

The West in Story and Song, 7 p.m., $19-$24, Henry

Family story time, 10:30 a.m., Durango Public Library, 1900 East Third Ave., 375-3380.

www.stignatiuschurch-ignacio.com.

atre, 699 Main Ave., 375-7160.

Newsstand Cafe, 707 Main Ave., 259-1159.

The Legend of Danny Boy, 7

p.m., $19-$24, Henry Strater Theatre, 699 Main Ave., 375-7160.

Monday 10 a.m., Recess Gallery, 1027 Main Ave., wdebalt@gmail.com.

“SHROUD” Peter Hay art exhibit, 10 a.m., Durango Arts

Center, 802 East Second Ave., 2592606.

Tim Telep, 6 p.m., Far View Lodge, Mesa Verde National Park, 5294421.

Submissions

Master’s Men Colorado, 6:30 a.m., DoubleTree Hotel, 501 Camino del Rio, 259-6580.

To submit listings for publication in DGO and www. dgomag.com, visit www.

The West in Story and Song, 7 p.m., $19-$24, Henry

Creek Trail, San Juan National Forest, 759-9113, mk@sjma.org.

Tuesday jam, 6 p.m., Steaming Bean, 900 Main Ave., 403-1200.

Strater Theatre, 699 Main Ave., 375-7160.

San Ignacio Fiesta parade,

Henry Stoy piano, 11 a.m., Jean

The Legend of Danny Boy, 7

10 a.m., Goddard Avenue, Ignacio,

DEALS

726 East Second Ave., 385-1920.

Tuesday

Butterflies and Blooms Family Walk, 9:30 a.m., Elbert

DGO

Secret Garden Summer Concert Series: Lawn Chair Kings, 5 p.m., $10, Rochester Hotel,

Terry Rickard, 7 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave., 3757260.

9 a.m., Education Literacy Health Inspiration Community Center, 115 Ute St., Ignacio, www.facebook.com/ elhicenter.

Pierre Bakery and Wine Bar, 601

Wee Walks with Durango Nature Studies, 10 a.m., $0-$5, Rota-

$10, Ska Brewing Co., 225 Girard St., 247-5792.

Happy Hour Yoga, 5:30 p.m.,

Sunday

amond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave., 247-4431.

Children’s story time, 10 a.m., James Ranch Terraces, 33846 U.S. Highway 550, www.jamesranch.net.

ry Park, 1565 East Second Ave.

Miki Harder art exhibition,

Fiesta Arts Fair: Farmers Market and Rummage Sale,

Adam Swanson, 5:30 p.m., Di-

Wednesday

Tim Telep, 6 p.m., Far View Lodge, Mesa Verde National Park, 5294421.

p.m., $19-$24, Henry Strater The-

swscene.com, click “Add Your Event,” enter the event info into the form and submit. Listings at www. swscene.com will appear on www. dgomag.com and in our weekly print edition. Posting an event on www. swscene.com is free and takes one day to process.

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Horoscope ARIES (March 21 to April 19) This is an excellent week to talk to partners and close friends about vacations, social occasions, the arts and anything related to children or romance. You’ll be clear about what you want.

TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) Discussions with co-workers will go well this week. You want to improve your work surroundings, and you know how to do it.

GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) The arts, sports, playful activities with children and anything to do with the entertainment world and show business will be successful ventures for you this week. You’re eager to be creative in these areas.

CANCER (June 21 to July 22)

Bizarro

Jump at the chance to do some home improvements this week. Likewise, you

might improve your relationship with a family member. It’s that kind of week.

LEO (July 23 to Aug. 22) This is a strong week for those in sales, writing, teaching and acting because you will express yourself with clarity and force. Furthermore, you know what you want, which is half the battle.

VIRGO (Aug. 23 to Sept. 22) Don’t be afraid to act on your moneymaking ideas this week. You have a clear focus about what you want to achieve, plus you have the confidence!

LIBRA (Sept. 23 to Oct. 22) You might have clever ideas about home improvements this week or any financial enterprise. Go after what you want because you are favored.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23 to Nov. 21) You will prefer to work alone and keep

a low profile this week. (Follow your instincts because your Spidey sense is very strong.)

to sign up for a course or to go back to school.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 to Dec. 21)

You will defend your best interests during disputes about inheritances and shared property this week. And you will be successful because you are willing to speak from the heart. (Sincerity is a rare commodity nowadays.)

A conversation with a female acquaintance will be memorable this week. This person might be a friend or a member of a group. You might be persuaded to change your goals.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 to Jan. 19) People notice you this week, and they will admire you. You have no trouble catching the attention of bosses, parents and VIPs. Because you look good, ask for what you want.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 to Feb. 18) Do anything different this week to satisfy your sense of adventure and your desire to learn something new. It’s a great week

PISCES (Feb. 19 to March 20)

BORN THIS WEEK You are friendly and playful, and you have strong opinions, especially about change. This is your power year! Whatever you have done in the past will now come to fruition. This is a year of big decisions and major achievements. Activity is key. You will be involved and busy.

Opportunities for advancement and recognition for your work will happen. © 2017 King Features Syndicate Inc.

[ need a word for ] The wet-ass, cold moment of disbelief when you sit on the toilet but the seat was up Using your foot to flush the toilet in a public restroom The moment you reach for the TP in a Porta Potty at a festival but there is none When the automatic toilet flushes like five times instead of once When some little a-hole kid peers under your bathroom stall When someone decides to piss right next to you when there are plenty of open urinals and stalls The savages who don’t wear shoes in a public restroom

22 | Thursday, July 27, 2017 • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

[Durango’s stories, told in their own words]

First Person | Cyle Talley

‘I LOVE THAT PLACE. IT’S WORTH SOMETHING.’ »» Everyman artist Shay

Lopez, on turning his family’s Tucson property into an artist getaway

Shay Lopez has done just about everything that a Durango creative can do – he’s a sculptor, a painter, a former partner with Studio &, a shoemaker (he’s wearing a gorgeous pair of leather sandals when we sit down to talk), and on and on like that. I see him downtown and he’s got a twinkle in his eye that tells me he’s up to something, and it turns out that he is: After 12 years in Durango, he’s about to move back home to Tucson, Arizona, to turn a house on his parents’ land into a getaway for artists. I tell his story here, in his own words.

[The house is a] beautiful spot with great amenities that I’ve always enjoyed sharing with people. I took Tim [Kapustka] and Elizabeth [Kinahan] and some people from Studio &, and they all saw what I saw – and this was years ago. We’re talking 2010. I’ve been talking about it for at least that long, but hadn’t ever been ready to pull the trigger. I love Durango.

This is where I’ve wanted to be. Something switched where I realized that I could go down to Tucson and still maintain my Courtesy of Shay Lopez connections to DuranLopez » » A scene from Shay Lopez’s family’s property in Tucson, Arizona, go, and especially netwhich he is converting into the TINAJA Artist Residency. working through all of the artists and creatives that I know here.

We could create a pretty great conduit and create there’s this place that’s very much a part of me and some great opportunities. it’s there on the property and it’s there for me to do Having grown up there, it is the most special place exactly what I’m talking about – building something to me in the world. So many people seek instant that is mine, of my creation, and that means a lot to gratification. The ideal now is that you buy a piece me. Not to mention that it’s a way that I could kick a of property and then you build a giant mansion with bit back to my parents and help them out a bit. everything that your heart desires in it. Well, my There’s a lot of opportunity for exploring the Tucparents built a tiny adobe on a hill, and then a larger son area in all of its different facets. It’s a place that’s adobe when they had children, and so there were a very specific, very unique, pretty remarkable envitwo houses on the hill. As my dad’s business and ronment. Tucson is famous for its Mexican food, and family grew, they built on an office and other rooms there’s so much cool stuff going on in the Mexican to connect the two places. Then a courtyard sprung food scene. There’s a movement to incorporate a lot of up in the middle of it all, an art studio for my mom, indigenous ingredients: foraging local herbs and desa pool area – 52 years of patience, hard work, and ert plants, using mesquite for flour and honey. Tucson passion for that place. They’ve done it in a very soulwas also recently named the United States’ first city of distinction for its culinary heritage. The city and its ful, down-to-earth way, building as they could afford surrounding area is one of the longest continually inand making all of the details matter. to habited places in North America – the last 1,500 years I’ve always wanted to do something like that, espethere’ve been people living in that valley. That Tucson cially as a creative person, and Durango is a very difficult place. So many of us are cobbling our lives togethis the only city – not San Francisco, not New York – to er because Durango’s a cool place to be, but I want to receive that honor is a big deal. I’ve also worked there invest myself in something more and get a bit more as an outdoor guide, and so leading desert hikes, exploring the Sky Islands – the mountains around return on that investment. So the compromise is that

Residency/retreat info session Shay Lopez will present a slide show and information session on the TINAJA artist residency and Sonoran Desert retreat from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday, July 27 at Studio &. Artists, travelers, and desert enthusiasts are encouraged to attend.

Tucson are incredible. I would hope to offer that to people, if they’re there, to facilitate that experience.

There’s awesome birding, amazing mountain views, the sunsets! I’m the guy to pull this off. I have a lot of interests, artistically and otherwise; I know the area well, I know the history, the stories. I could provide a really rich experience for people. And because this is a family property, it’s me.

[A friend of Shay’s notices us talking and shouts, “Hey, you’re gettin’ too excited over there! What’s all the passion for?!”]

It’s so funny that he’d say something. My ex’s dad used to point out the moments that I’d get really animated and excited about something. He’d say, “Trust your voice. When you get passionate about something, it’s evident in your voice.” And I am. I love that place.

It’s worth something. There’s value, first of all, in artists dedicating themselves to a place and giving themselves time to get away from everything else and really focusing on something without having to work or drive or whatever. There’s absolute value for me in sharing that with people, personally. That’s fulfilling to me. One of the things I love about Studio & is that we are trying, as much as we can, to help artists and to promote people’s works and passions. If I can provide a place for people to do that, that’s cool as hell. And like I said, that place is so much a part of me that, artistically, I would like it to be a part of my expression and for that place to be a part of my creative efforts.

Cyle Talley heard people singing Fall Out Boy at the top of their lungs in Moe’s the other night and wasn’t sure what to make of that. Email him with suggestions at: cyle@ cyletalley.com

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