S-2012-12-20 by News & Review

2012

rewind!

Yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best

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40 Music that ruled 31

Sacramentoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S newS & entertainment weekly

Volume 24, iSSue 36

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call to action A gunman opened fire at a Connecticut elementary school last week, killing 20 children and six adults. The horrific incident left this nation searching for answers. And, as the latest in a string of mass shootings, it also launched the conversation on the topic of gun rights and mental health. The same conversation sparked earlier this year by similar shootings at a mall in Oregon, a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and a movie theater in Colorado—the same conversation brought about by the January 8, 2011, shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that left six people dead. The shootings happen, and we talk and we scrutinize and we debate. And then we move on. Maybe this time it will be different. Certainly, this one seemed to shock us even more: 20 children gunned down. The shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, was remembered as smart but socially isolated. Lanza’s mother, Nancy—his first victim—was remembered as a gun enthusiast who legally owned the weapons, including a semi-automatic rifle that Adam used to carry out the shootings. Maybe this time will be different. Yet, even as details of the shooting emerged some tried to retreat, including Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, who declared “now is not the time” to talk about gun control. If not now, when? Addressing the nation just hours after the killings, however, President Barack Obama signaled it is time. “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action,” the president said, as he struggled to keep his composure. This isn’t about politicizing a tragedy. This is about preventing future mass killings. On Sunday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein announced plans to reintroduce legislation to ban assault weapons. It’s a start. —Rachel Leibrock

rachell@newsreview.com

December 20, 2012 | Vol. 24, Issue 36

05 07 09 15 17 18 26 28 31 35 36 38 40 55

STREETALK LETTERS NEwS GREEN DAYS EDiToRiAL fEATuRE SToRY ARTS&cuLTuRE NiGhT&DAY DiSh ASK JoEY STAGE fiLm muSic 15 miNuTES cover illustration by brian taylor bites and sound advice are on vacation.

15 our mission To publish great newspapers that are successful and enduring. To create a quality work environment that encourages employees to grow professionally while respecting personal welfare. To have a positive impact on our communities and make them better places to live. co-editors Rachel Leibrock, Nick Miller Staff writers Raheem F. Hosseini, Dave Kempa, Kel Munger copy Editor Shoka Shafiee calendar Editor Jonathan Mendick contributing Editor Cosmo Garvin Editorial coordinator Deena Drewis Editor-at-large Melinda Welsh Editorial intern Maddi Silva contributors Sasha Abramsky, Christopher Arns, Ngaio Bealum, Rob Brezsny, Joey Garcia, Becky Grunewald, Mark Halverson, Jeff Hudson, Jonathan Kiefer,

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Design manager Kate Murphy Art Director Priscilla Garcia Associate Art Director Hayley Doshay Design Melissa Arendt, Brian Breneman, Marianne Mancina, Skyler Smith contributing Photographers Steven Chea, Wes Davis, Ryan Donahue, Taras Garcia, William Leung, Shoka, Justin Short, Anne Stokes

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Director of Advertising and Sales Rick Brown Senior Advertising consultants Rosemarie Messina, Joy Webber Advertising consultants Rosemary Babich, Josh Burke, Vince Garcia, Dusty Hamilton, April Houser, Dave Nettles, Lee Roberts, Kelsi White Senior inside Sales consultant Olla Ubay Ad Services coordinators Melissa Bernard, Ashley Ross operations manager Will Niespodzinski client Publications managing Editor Kendall Fields client Publications writer/copy Editor Mike Blount Executive coordinator Rachel Rosin Director of first impressions Alicia Brimhall

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SN&R

building a

telling Stories By mike Blount

riting and publishing a book can be a huge undertaking for an upcoming author — especially a student — but a group of students in Sacramento is finding that task a lot easier thanks to an after school program dedicated to helping teens express themselves and improve their literacy. The brainchild of founder and Executive Director Katie McCleary, 916 INK is a mostly volunteerbased organization operating creative writing workshop sites throughout South Sacramento funded by The California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities Grant. The 10-year, $1 billion plan focuses on creating safe, healthy community environments so that children are healthy, safe and ready to learn.

“In partICular, I tHInk [tHe program] foCuSeS on How youtH See tHemSelveS In termS of HealtH and IdentIty and How we CreatIvely manIfeSt tHat In our daIly lIveS. HealtHy CreatIve wrItIng IS lIke SlIppIng a BunCH of SpInaCH Into tHe BrownIeS.” At Arthur A. Benjamin Health Professions High School in the upper Land Park neighborhood of Sacramento, a handful of kids voluntarily stay after school for an hour and a half once a week to participate in the workshop. With an instructor, students discuss and share their writing with the group, get feedback from the others and — in

youth become published authors through 916 INK.

the process — improve their writing skills. The goal at the end of each semester is to self-publish a book of their work. So far, 40 students have had their work published — something McCleary says not only improves their writing skills, but also improves their self–esteem and overall confidence. The program is giving these young residents of South Sacramento the chance to share their voice and talk about issues that affect them in their community. “In particular, I think [the program] focuses on how youth see themselves in terms of health and identity and how we creatively manifest that in our daily lives. Healthy creative writing is like slipping a bunch of spinach into the brownies.” Currently, 916 INK operates at four sites within South Sacramento comprising the BHC Grant. But McCleary says she hopes to expand the program and ultimately, establish a permanent creative writing center for students interested in the program.

HealtHy S a c r a m e n t o

it included in a book. “I like creative writing because it’s how I express myself,” Vicente says. “It’s how I keep track of myself in a way. Some things, I don’t even remember writing, like things I wrote in middle school. Going back and reading it, I see how I’ve changed and what my thoughts were then and what they are now.” Vicente recently had her poem “Band-Aid” published in the book Breath and Bones Anatomy of Youth Voice, an Anthology through 916 INK. She says the program has not only improved her writing, it’s allowed her to connect with other writers who are her peers as well. “All of us in the program get along well and feel comfortable. It’s a safe space where we can share.”

Seventeen-yearold junior Angie Vicente has been involved in the program for a little over a year and says her passion for creative writing goes back to when she was younger. Vicente has kept journals and written short stories for years. But 916 INK allowes her to share her creative writing with her peers, and a larger audience, by having

BuIldIng HealtHy CommunItIeS In 2010, the California endowment launched a 10-year, $1 billion plan to improve the health of 14 challenged communities across the state. over the 10 years, residents, community-based organizations and public institutions will work together to address the socioeconomic and environmental challenges contributing to the poor health of their communities.

916 Ink filling in the gap between storytelling, writing and literacy, 916 Ink is a nonprofit operating four creative writing workshops in South Sacramento funded by the Building Healthy Communities grant of the California endowment. the program transforms everyday youth interested in writing into published authors and gives them a platform to share their voice and improve their community through writing.

“Band–aId” angie vicente, 17, had her poem “Bandaid” published in the book Breath and Bones, Anatomy of Youth Voice, an Anthology through 916 Ink.

www.SacBHC.org

paid with a grant from the california endowment 4 | SN&R | 12.20.12

2012

“The gangbangers are the grinches in my world.”

rewind!

Asked at 21st Street and Stockton Boulevard:

Who was 2012’s biggest grinch?

Indria Gillespie MBA graduate

The California [Employment Development Department], because it took me six months to get my first check.

Breana Diaz-Hite

Eric Tagg after-school program worker

Alfonso Portela

unemployed

If anything was to ruin my Christmas it would have to be gas prices. Gas prices, because my mom lives out of town, and my biggest wish for Christmas is to just see my family, and gas prices puts a damper on it.

If Mitt Romney won [the election], that would have been a tell-all sign of an upcoming apocalypse. That’s my personal opinion; I am not much of a Republican. Almost the grinch of 2012.

Kingdom Patterson

Tyler Kinney

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Myself. I get awesome gifts from my family, and I instantly feel bad. “You guys work too hard, you guys don’t have any money. … Why are you giving me things? You should save this for something.” I am grateful—and then I feel bad … afterward. I take the joy out of my own Christmas.

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Mommy. Every year. She makes me feel uncomfortable and cold on Christmas morning. She treats me like a visitor in my family home. I mean, I grew up there.

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Long(er)-term fixes

This Modern World

by ToM ToM orroW

Re “Freshman disorientation” by Greg Lucas (SN&R Capitol Lowdown, December 13): It is truly a wonder how so many novice legislators become experts on seemingly every subject just after being elected. Of course, most are merely repeating the party line. It will be refreshing to see how this newly elected group compares with the former kick-the-can-down-the-road, six-yearterm-limited assembly members. I have the feeling that they will move to learn how the Legislature works, and in many cases, be more letter of responsive to those that put them in office, because strict the week party-line positions could well be political suicide. Can you imagine losing after the third term? It is a killer. No one will want a lame duck one-term senator, and being re-elected after losing is highly improbable. Twelve-year terms hopefully will correct some of the ills associated with the former catastrophe of six- and eight-year term limits. Let’s hope so, anyway. Great article, Mr. Lucas. Celes King IV

L o s A ng e l e s

Ad awareness?

Bowling alley not cool, K.J.

Re Buy Sell Trade it All Guns, Jewelry & Loan Company advertisement (12 Days of Giving: SN&R’s Nonprofit Giving Guide, December 13): As a personal friend, co-worker and colleague to all of you for many years, I hope you will take these words seriously. I was very disappointed by the full-page advertisement for handguns, semi-automatic rifles and ammunition I found in the middle of your Nonprofit Giving Guide supplement. I understand the SN&R has a liberal advertising policy that promotes free speech, but to place such an ad in the middle of a section promoting community-minded, charitable organizations is extremely careless. It is an insult to the organizations featured and totally ruined the spirit of the supplement. It was even placed directly facing the World Impact Ministries ad featuring a headline reading “Empowering the Urban Poor.” Did no one involved even consider the irony of that mixed message? SN&R is a community-minded company whose own mission statement promises “to have a positive impact on our communities and make them better places to live.” I believe the company is dedicated to living up to those standards and to do so it is absolutely essential that it change it’s policy regarding gun advertisements in the News & Review publications. Don Button Sacramento

Re “K.J.’s next act” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature Story, December 6): I just read the interview with Mayor Kevin Johnson. While I applaud his desire to get people living downtown, the notion that a national chain of “entertainment” bowling alleys will somehow be a “cool” thing that will turn downtown Sacto into a hip place to live is not only the lamest thing I ever heard, but is also about 20 years out-of-date and the example of everything wrong with K.J.’s approach. Every half-assed city in America thinks all they need is a few gimmicky chain restaurants, a convention center, or an outdoor mall with a brewery and movie theater, and suddenly urban folks will flock to downtown. K.J., do you have any ideas that have anything to do with reality? Try starting to build a downtown culture that is actually Sacramento’s, even if it isn’t accomplished in one shiny new swoop of development. You might not finish building the downtown of your dreams before your term is up, but building a foundation for something real would be an actual legacy and not a novelty—a word which is, at the moment, pretty much the story of your mayorship. Jane Watson Sacramento

Publishers’ note: Two local businesses underwrote listings in last week’s Nonprofit Giving Guide, but unfortunately we did not explain why their ads also appeared in the guide. We regret this omission. There has always been and will continue to be a clear separation between the ads that we run in the paper and SN&R’s editorial mission and content. We share Don’s grief about the events in Connecticut and welcome a national discussion about the many issues that may have contributed to this tragedy.

BEFORE

Why not Cosmo? Re “K.J.’s next act” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature Story, December 6): The fact that Mayor Kevin Johnson opted to interview with Nick Miller instead of “sacking up” to interview with Cosmo Garvin told me before I read the article that this would be a gutless avoidance of hard questions (what Nick Miller would vacuously describe as “pivoting”). And so it was. What an empty emerald dream, and what a deceptive monologue of smoke and mirrors. The last time I was at K.J.’s K Street makeover on a Friday night (about three months ago), I walked out of a brewery at 9 p.m. to a witness a miniriot among young

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STORY

toughs. No cops, no security, just us yokels watching the fight and wondering when the shooting would start in K.J.’s West Side fantasy. And the storytelling continues. Benjamin Bannister Woodland

Carbon-free energy trumps renewable Re “Bicycle dreams” by Todd Walton (SN&R Essay, December 6): [Todd] Walton cites Truthdig, which asserts that “Germany has converted 25 percent of its power grid to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biomass.” It is important to remember that renewable doesn’t mean carbon free. Renewable sources such as biomass and ethanol are still carbon-producing fuels. In fact, by reducing the need for coal and petroleum, they keep the prices of those fuels lower and delay the day when low-carbon sources such as wind and solar become cost competitive with fossil fuels. Renewable fuels are not the answer to global warming: carbon-free energy is. Jack Kashtan Sacramento

Retreat mission impossible Re “Good council” (SN&R Editorial, December 6): The Ralph M. Brown Act prohibits locally elected officials from meeting, as a body, unless the meeting is publicly announced and open to the public. Two years ago, the council met for a “retreat,” but did not accomplish much. It sounds like |

A RT S & C U LT U R E

SN&R is asking the council to meet in a similar fashion as it does when it begins its budget-building exercise. Those meetings are held at the library and hosted by the city manager and finance director. The meetings are open to the public, but rarely anyone other than the unions and staff attend. If SN&R truly means what it writes here, “This means that council leaders need to get to know each other by taking a group retreat, both the mayor and the eight members alone, and also with staffers. Yes, this sounds easy, simple, perhaps silly. But it hasn’t happened,” unfortunately, what you’re asking is illegal. Please do more research before you write another editorial; you’re getting to be almost as bad as The Bee. Dave Bivings Sacramento

Winter Solstice The crimson fire of autumn leaves Have burnt the vernal wax of summer wings, Leaving only spiny-finger withered oak To feed in winter cold—the mistletoe. Upon the hearth a bough is hung, Rites of oak leaves and songs are sung. The winter solstice, death and rebirth; A cawing black crow—the mistletoe. —Jim Cain Carmichael

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Can America bear its arms problem? On firearms, the political will to amend laws and the NRA’s history of stifling gun control The United States is not the only country to experience the horrors of mass shootings. by We are, however, the only society in which Joshua Holland a serious discussion of tighter gun-control laws doesn’t follow said incidents, such as the shooting at a mall in Oregon on December 11, and the massacre at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school this past Friday. In fact, in most countries, these kinds of tragedies result in concrete legislative action. Some argue that the reason America can’t alter gun policy and cut down on random gun violence is simple: the National Rifle Association has hoodwinked a lot of reasonable gun owners into believing that there’s an effort in this country to ban firearms altogether. To take away their guns. The reality, however, is that an American’s right to own firearms has never been more secure at any time in our nation’s history. A series of Supreme Court decisions—notably, a 2010 ruling that settled in favor of gun owners decades of debate about whether the Second Amendment was an individual right—effectively ended any possibility of banning firearms straight-out. Meanwhile, Democrats had determined that guns are a culture-war issue they don’t need to fight. And can’t win. In 2009, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had been the most vocal champion of the 1993 Assault Weapons Ban, said of gun control: “I wouldn’t bring it up now.” (Feinstein did allude to possible legislation banning assault weapons on the heels of this past week’s shooting in Newtown.) In that same year, President Barack Obama signed legislation into law that contained an amendment by Republican Joshua Holland is an Sen. Tom Coburn and opened up America’s editor and senior writer national parks to concealed weapons. at www.alternet.org, where a longer version Whereas just a little more than a decade of this story originally ago the federal government was enacting appeared. bans on assault rifles under President Bill Clinton. So, before Newtown, the fight over guns has moved to the margins, or states, where legislatures grapple with issues such as whether people can carry concealed firearms into airports. Or if they should ban BEFORE

FRONTLINES

Lawmakers once reticent to discuss gun control because of the National Rifle Association are speaking out this week.

concealed weapons in bars. Even whether a person should be able to get drunk when packing heat at their favorite pub. Florida, for instance, is now spending big bucks defending a law that prevents physicians from asking patients whether they have firearms in their homes. And Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently made news when he suggested that Americans may have the right to own Stinger handheld missiles because they are portable and, therefore, unlike cannons, they count as arms that a person might “bear.” (It’s worth noting that during the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union developed miniature nuclear weapons that could be carried in a backpack.)

Feinstein did allude to possible legislation banning assault weapons on the heels of this past week’s shooting in Newtown. The NRA constantly responds to tragedies such as those last week with “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” It opposes policy such as expanded background checks, or closing the gun-show loophole. In fact, that loophole—which allows anyone who isn’t a full-time gun merchant to sell weapons at gun shows without any background checks whatsoever—was pushed hard by the NRA back in the 1980s. In 2007, the NRA went so far as to lobby the Bush administration to oppose

a law that would have barred suspected terrorists from buying firearms. (Most intelligence experts say a Mumbai-style attack with small arms is one of the greatest terror threats we face, and last year an Al Qaeda spokesman encouraged “terrorists to use American gun shows to arm themselves” for such assaults.) Meanwhile, although 47 percent of Americans say they own a gun, the overwhelming majority aren’t proverbial “gun nuts”; they’re responsible people who worry about their kids getting caught in crossfire, who believe firearms should be handled safely, and see it as perfectly reasonable to keep them out of the wrong hands. That’s reflected in the polling. According to political analyst Cliff Schecter, studies of public opinion find that a majority of gun owners are in favor of closing the gun-show loophole the NRA championed (85 percent of all gun owners and 69 percent of NRA members). Eightytwo percent of NRA members believe that people on the federal terror watch list should be barred from buying firearms. Almost seven in 10 NRA members disagree with the organization’s efforts to prevent law enforcement from determining the origins of weapons used in crimes. Schecter writes that the NRA has “fought all efforts to make reporting lost or stolen guns to the police a requirement,” and in some cases has “actually threatened to sue to overturn these laws.” But 88 percent of gun owners—and 78 percent of NRA members—think that requiring people to report lost or stolen weapons is a pretty good idea. And while at first glance it appears the NRA has a stranglehold on extreme gun advocacy in this country, this is not entirely

true. There are even further right outfits lobbying against gun control. In 1975, an NRA board member who didn’t think the organization was taking a sufficiently absolutist position on the Second Amendment founded Gun Owners of America, which reportedly has 300,000 members (compared to the 4.3 million claimed by the NRA) and lobbies well to the right of its more senior cousin. But, given the rather significant divide between the NRA’s positions and the views held by most of its members, there still appears to be ample political space to the organization’s left to advocate reasonable gun controls on behalf of American gun owners. And, after the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., there could be more people who cherish the basic right to bear arms but also recognize that allowing certain types of guns to be purchased—or allowing drunken bar patrons to carry concealed weapons—is just stupid. Gun-control advocates ask, for example, whether 100-round magazines should be legal, given that they serve no legitimate purpose for hunting or target practice, and Americans favor banning them by a 63-34 margin. Others champion discussing a national “no-sell” list, which would give law enforcement and mental-health personnel the opportunity to flag potentially dangerous people and distribute the list to licensed gun merchants. Would these regulations end the scourge of gun violence in America? Of course not—people will always snap. But will Americans be willing to accept this era of mass shootings—we’ve seen four just since the June, and most of them were with weapons purchased legally—as a new normal? Ω

F E A T U R E S T O R Y | A R T S & C U L T U R E | A F T E R | 12.20.12

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Whistle-blowing it off City councilwoman calls slow response to whistle-blowers ‘woefully inadequate’

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Concerned city of Sacramento staffers may be swallowing their whistles, because a hotline set up for tipsters hasn’t by Raheem even addressed the small number F. Hosseini of fraud and corruption complaints already made. ra h e e m h @ At least this is the fear ne w s re v i e w . c o m Councilwoman Angelique Ashby articulated during a December 11 committee meeting last week on the city’s year-old whistle-blower program. The Office of the City Auditor currently operates the hotline, which city council ordered into existence this past February. Since then, the hotline has only received 19 calls, nine of which haven’t been investigated. “That’s not going to work,” Ashby said last week. “If we can’t handle 19 calls in a year, that’s woefully inadequate, right?” Of the 10 complaints city auditor Jorge Oseguera’s office investigated, two were substantiated, three were referred to other departments and three were unsubstantiated. Two others were information-only items. Both the substantiated complaints were deemed high priority: The city’s IT department tried to enter into a contract without putting its project out to bid first, which is required. The other substantiated claim involved managers who hadn’t completed mandated sexual-harassment training. The complaints that have yet to be investigated include allegations of bribery, kickbacks, theft and abuses of authority, according to the auditor’s report. “We can’t get to all of them at this time,” Oseguera told the committee. This didn’t fly with Ashby. “I don’t want people to find the courage to make that phone call, send that letter or come to you face to face,” she began, “and then not have their concerns researched, addressed, handled in a timely manner. ... “I don’t think it’s a system that’s working right now, and these numbers indicate it’s not working.” There are also indications the hotline’s call log should be much higher. Before the hotline was set up, the auditor’s office conducted a survey of city staff. Of the 580 employees who participated, 56 percent indicated they’ve witnessed at least one instance of fraud or waste at City Hall but didn’t come forward because they

feared retaliation or didn’t know where to report concerns. If those numbers were to be extrapolated, half of the people working for the city should be ringing up the hotline. Ashby also wondered whether the hotline was receiving the number of complaints it should. “I mean, 19 calls in a year is either to say we’re really stellar or people have no idea that there’s a whistleblower hotline, or they’re not comfortable with the process we put in place, and I’m going to guess it’s probably a bit of each,” Ashby said. While the auditor’s office runs the hotline right now, an effort is underway to shift that responsibility over to a third party. The Office of the City Auditor would still investigate the complaints that come into the toll-free hotline.

“ I don’t think it’s a system that’s working right now, and these numbers indicate it’s not working.” Angelique Ashby Sacramento City Council

Meanwhile, the city doesn’t know how much money it’s losing. National estimates say a typical organization can lose 5 percent of its annual revenues to fraud. If that figure held true in Sacramento, the city would be sacrificing about $30 million a year. The state of California, meanwhile, has identified roughly $31.2 million in governmental waste since establishing its own whistle-blower hotline in 1993. The state’s hotline received more than 7,200 calls or inquiries this past year. The California State Auditor reported both these figures the same day the city’s audit committee gathered to discuss its own slow-moving hotline. The Office of the City Auditor will file its next activity report six months from now, along with some recommendations on how to better administer the fledgling hotline. Ω

The Warren retort Newly minted District 2 Councilman Allen Warren answers critics, looks forward “What happened?!” One of Allen Warren’s longtime friends and new constituents has just taken a look at by Raheem the Sacramento city councilman’s car. Warren, F. Hosseini looking dapper in a fitted black shirt and slacks, stands in the doorway of New Faze raheemh@ newsre view.c om Development, the Del Paso Heights construction company he built from scratch after his professional baseball prospects shattered with his ankle. The councilman, 48, explains that he parked his car downtown under a tree the previous night during a swearing-in ceremony at City Hall. When the newly minted District 2 representative emerged, his car was covered in bird shit.

our community have been neglected? Yes, I do. Do I believe that sometimes our community is mislabeled? Yes, I do. Do I recognize and know that this community has very talented people that live here, good people that live in this community? Absolutely. I know that, I believe in that, and I believe that that’s part of the story that has yet to be told about this community.

So, are you saying this community hasn’t been given its due and proper?

PHOTO COURTESY OF ALLEN WARREN

There are a lot of positive things here that seldom get written about, and I want to be about finding, identifying and then exposing those things to people in this community. But also I want other people outside of the community to see and understand they can come here, buy a home and raise a family and be part of the solution. … They don’t have to move to other parts of the city or some other state.

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“The people of Sacramento should have had the right to vote. … Why wouldn’t they be able to weigh in on strong mayor?” Allen Warren Sacramento City Council

Somewhere in that mess is a metaphor for what it’s like to be a public servant. Warren, an affable, soft-spoken guy who’s devoted a lot of time—and his own money—to his hometown, still nurses a slight grudge against SN&R for reporting on his myriad financial difficulties. The paper focused too much on irrelevant negatives, he contends, and not enough on the goals he wants to achieve in his beloved district. But when asked about those goals, Warren says he can’t get specific. Not yet. And that’s the Warren paradox: He sincerely loves his battered community and wants to see it thrive (he even tries to get a story in SN&R about the vegan restaurant downstairs from his office) but may be distracted by the part of the glass that’s already half full.

Allen Warren, shown here chatting with a constituent during the campaign, squeaked out a Sacramento City Council win.

Raheem F. Hosseini: You’re inheriting a district that struggles with crime, poverty. There’s this perception that it’s been neglected by the city council. Where do you start? Allen Warren: When you say “inherited,” I’m born and raised here, so it’s not new to me. I grew up in this community … and I built my business here. … So I understand the challenges of the community, I think, in a pretty unique way, and I recognize them as challenges. They truly are challenges. Do I believe that parts of BEFORE

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What brings them back? Well, that’s part of it. We have to give them a reason to come here.

And what are those reasons? Opportunity. Why do people go anywhere? Why did people move west?

Are you talking about job opportunities? Why did you come here?

To this office? To the community.

Work. OK, so that’s why people would come here. If we can create other businesses like the News & Review or the restaurant downstairs [The Green Boheme] or ABC business, then people would come here to work. In addition to that, this is one of the more affordable areas for people to buy homes. … So, people can come here and buy a house for a lot cheaper than they can rent. And then you can rise with the rising tide of the

“THe WARRen ReToRT”

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“THe WARRen ReTORT” continued from page 11

real-estate market, which has driven values and wealth in this country for generations.

The financial collapse attested that you can’t rely too much on one thing or the other. You can’t rely too much on state jobs, you can’t rely too much on real estate to dig you out of a hole. Are you saying that real estate is one facet of the equation? Real estate is a big piece. … You only lose money in real estate if you’re forced to sell. If you can buy and hold on, the real-estate market will come back. It may not come back in our generation to what it was before, but if your kids hold on to it—

Holding on, though, has become a dicier proposition than ever. Absolutely. But guess what? Just because you lost it, the next person that comes and buys it from you is going to make money, right? When you lose your house, the person that comes and buys it at the bottom price … that person’s going to make money. You just didn’t make money.

There’s still a lot of losers in that equation. Of course.

Why do you think people voted for you? Let me just say that the race was a very difficult race. It was a tough race. Rob [Kerth] was a very formidable candidate, had been council person for two terms and basically [had] all of the institutional backing here. I think people saw past that because when they looked at who had made what commitments to the community—irrespective of which projects succeeded and didn’t—who took the risk to put their own money, hired people ... it was very evident. ... I think that people that know me understand that I’m not a quitter. I work hard and I fight for what I believe in. And I think that was big in terms of people determining that they could entrust me with this position.

As you said, the race was closely divided. During the election, you made some comments claiming that the city brought a lawsuit against you to convince you not to run. It wasn’t the city. It was part of politics. Politics is a rough-and-tumble business. The city filed a lawsuit and dropped it within two weeks. So they filed it, got the headlines.

But the question is: They did take that step, so how do you— Let me tell you, I wasn’t there. They had no basis to file the lawsuit, from my perspective, which is why they dropped it. You should ask the people that were there prior to me.

My question isn’t about the lawsuit. My question is how do you work with these people that, one, tried to get you not to run and— Well, keep this in mind. People tried to get me not to run and others tried to get me to run. That’s politics. That’s just the way it goes.

“You only lose money in real estate if you’re forced to sell. If you can buy and hold on, the real-estate market will come back.” Allen Warren

Kind of an “it’s all part of the game, and now the game’s over” thing? I’m sure there’ll be other games. They don’t stop. But I think they’re a little different at this point. Just as I need to get five votes, they need to get five votes as well.

A lot of horse trading? The key is to keep the city’s interests at heart and what I believe is best for the city. … Because that’s why we’re there. The seat does not belong to me. It’s the people’s seat. This is the District 2 seat.

I think you previously said that you didn’t see “strong mayor” as a main priority. You’re kind of looked at as a possible vote in Mayor Kevin Johnson’s favor. He hasn’t really said when he might bring it back again, but where does that fall? I think the people of Sacramento should have had the right to vote on it. … Why wouldn’t they be able to weigh in on strong mayor? It’s a big enough issue. So I believe that that should’ve been decided, and we should not be talking about that for four years. … Because if we continually talk about the same issues, then our list gets longer.

When an elected representative comes across a company they’ve had business with in the past or still might have business with, like if you’re still haggling with Wells Fargo over some issues, and they come before the council—

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I have not seen them come before us about anything. However, there’s a city attorney and the city attorney advises.

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And then you go with whatever the recommendation is?

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You have to work within the confines of the structure. … And let me just say, for the record, I would love to see Wells Fargo do great things in Sacramento. I would be supportive if I could, if it was not a violation for me to vote for. I’m not going to attack the News & Review for attacking me. I’d love for you guys to keep hiring, keep being a positive influence in the community.

I don’t think I’ve heard something specific that you’d really like to see happen in District 2. Is there something you could point to?

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Let me just say that I have substantial goals. I think there are a number of things that I could point to and say, “This is kind of the history of what I’ve been doing here.”

But just like one, one specific thing? You know, I’m not prepared to give you one, other than we want to create more jobs in District 2, and we want to lower crime in District 2. Those are issues that I think everyone can relate to, and I think they’re tied together, those two.

How about this? I recently did a story on the racial-profiling commission. When I spoke to the Rev. Ashiya Odeye, he mentioned that he might speak with you about getting the commission back up and running. Did you talk to him at all? I haven’t spoken with him about it, no.

Are you aware of the issues they’re dealing with? (Smiles.) I’m aware of racial profiling.

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Our country is reacting with shock, horror and grief to yet another mass shooting—this time at Sandy Hook by Dr. Bill Durston Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 elementary an emergency physician practicing schoolchildren and six adults were in Sacramento, and a killed by a lone gunman. We should Marine Corps combat be shocked. We should be horrified. veteran and former We should grieve for the victims and expert marksman their families. And, as a country, we decorated for courage under fire should be ashamed. in the Vietnam War Every year, more than 30,000 U.S. civilians are killed by guns. Children in the United States are killed by guns at a rate that is 12 times higher than in the other leading 25 industrialized countries of the world. Gunshot wounds are the second leading cause of death in children in the United States, just behind motor-vehicle crashes. The Connecticut shooting evokes memories of the 1989 Cleveland Elementary School shooting in Stockton, California, in which five children were killed and 29 wounded; the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado, in which 13 students and teachers were killed and 24 wounded or injured; and the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which 32 people were killed and 17 wounded.

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It is not predictable when and where the next mass shootings will occur, but it is certain that they will continue to occur. Between July 1, 1994, and June 30, 1999, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there were 220 separate shooting incidents on high-school campuses across the United States with 253 deaths. The report concluded that school-related shootings were “rare.” The Canadian press commented that it was “uniquely American” to regard 220 separate high-school shooting incidents in five years as rare. The single factor which most clearly distinguishes the United States from other democratic,

industrialized countries that have far less gun violence is the easy availability of guns in our country. We should be ashamed that we have not adopted the same kind of sensible gun-control laws as in those other countries which put the onus on the gun owner to show why he needs a gun, not on society to prove that he shouldn’t have one. We should be ashamed of our elected leaders who, with few exceptions, lack the political courage to even talk about gun control. Even after Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded in a mass shooting in January 2011, Congress failed to take any action to prevent future mass shootings. The current majority on the Supreme Court should be ashamed of itself for essentially rewriting the Second Amendment. In 1939, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of the United States v. Miller that the Second Amendment, which begins with the phrase, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” guarantees a collective right of the people to maintain armed state militias, such as the present-day National Guard, but not an individual right to own guns. The late Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger stated that the misrepresentation of the Second Amendment as guaranteeing an individual right to own guns was “one of the greatest pieces of fraud … on the American public” that he had seen in his lifetime. Shamefully, the current Supreme Court became a party to that fraud when it ruled in a 5-4 decision in 2008 that the District of Columbia’s ban on private ownership of handguns violated the Second Amendment. In the absence of anything short of a ban on handguns and assault weapons, it is not predictable when and where the next mass shootings will occur, but it is certain that they will continue to occur. It is past time for our country to stop the shameful epidemic of gun violence. It is time for us to adopt comprehensive guncontrol laws that show that we love our children more than our guns. Ω

Sacramento’s Hurricane Sandy?

by Auntie Ruth

See the film

Scientists say climate change will make devastating floods and droughts unavoidable

Try as she might, Auntie Ruth can’t imagine a documentary

They’re really coming—storms that are bigger and more devastating than anything scientists have seen before. Forget last month’s heavy rainstorms, which by Christopher Arns dumped almost 5 inches of rain and caused flooding, downed trees and created power outages across Sacramento. That was a warm bath compared to Northern California’s coming weather apocalypse, according to some prognosticators. As the climate continues to warm, forecasters believe superstorms like Hurricane Sandy, which ripped through the East Coast in late October, might one day threaten Sacramento. “If you have a couple of extremes that slam together at just the right place, then yeah, we do end up with an extreme event, and it is possible we would find conditions worse than anything we’d seen before,” said Michael Anderson, who manages the state’s climate program at the California Department of Water Resources.

Anderson said the cold Pacific Ocean off of California’s coast probably couldn’t spawn a hurricane, but he thinks comparable forms of severe weather might rock Sacramento as climate change gets worse. And other scientists agree. Roger Bales, director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced, also thinks a warmer atmosphere could lead to extreme changes in the state’s seasonal patterns. Bales said that “atmospheric rivers,” which are weather patterns that are funneling tropical storms from the southwestern Pacific into Northern California, already soak the region every year with winter storms. Those tropical fronts bring more rain and less snow for the mountains, but according to Bales, a warmer atmosphere will pack greater amounts of moisture and make things much worse. “As you warm the temperatures globally or in California, the elevation at which you get snow goes uphill, especially in the Sierra Nevada,” he said. “As the temperature gets warmer, some of those storms are pushed above freezing.” If that happens, rain and melting snow would tumble into the Sacramento Valley’s swollen rivers like a liquid avalanche, swamping the capital like the devastating floods of 1986 and 1997. In most worsecase scenarios, a mega deluge caused by climate change would dwarf anything wrought by storms like Hurricane Sandy or Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Experts say the likelihood of Sacramento falling victim to a liquid avalanche is growing.

Green Days is on the lookout for innovative sustainable projects throughout the Sacramento region. Turn us on at sactonewstips@ newsreview.com.

BEFORE

FRONTLINES

titled The American President that focuses mostly on climate change. But there are other countries. Take the island nation known as the Maldives. These are the islands that appear in your dreams, or in those travel brochures that are too luscious to be believed, or in movies when the ultra rich and beautiful dash off in their private jets to someplace obscurely tropical for sex, food, banter. An archipelago of about 1,200 islands in the Indian Ocean, hotels on the Maldives are six-star; the underwater sea life makes Hawaii’s look ho-hum; and the humid weather is tempered by breezes off an ocean that is insanely blue. Insanely blue and rising.

So how long until Sacto’s weather gets worse? Bales thinks the shift has already started, even if it’s not noticeable in Northern California just yet. But this may change as researchers start looking more closely at Sierra Nevada snow levels. “It’s not as clear because we may not have measuring stations in the right sensitive locations,” said Bales, “but we know the trend is already apparent across much of the western United States.” At the same time, experts don’t know exactly how big or how bad future storms will be, or how to link individual weather events to permanent changes in the atmosphere. Most scientists say those details are still a long way off.

It was ruled for decades by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, a dictator who imprisoned and tortured his opposition, including MoNot your average hamed Nasheed—Gayoom’s successor and president. the focal point of the 2011 documentary The Island President. Nasheed tackles climate change immediately upon taking office. This isn’t the American president; the urgency here is first-term and immediate: Seawater is seeping into the Maldives’ groundwater and the erosion of 300 feet of beach opens the film. This isn’t your father’s climate change; this is the kind that sends a chain-smoking Nasheed to the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference where, in confronting other delegates on an agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, he’d look them in the eye and say, “If we don’t do this, we’re all going to die.” He compares climate change to the Nazi invasion. Perhaps, with Hurricane Sandy, drought, forest fires and the annual occurrence of 100-year weather events, the comparisons to Poland in 1939 deserve more consideration. Eh?

Rain and melting snow would tumble into the Sacramento Valley’s swollen rivers like a liquid avalanche, swamping the capital. The good news, Anderson pointed out, is that California is trying to be prepared. In 2008, the state joined forces with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to create a spanking-new weather-observation system. The $21.5 million project, which should be completed by April 2014, will use a vast network of GPS, radar, soil instruments and wind sensors to collect information on every storm that slams into the Sacramento region. “I think one of the benefits we’re going to get is how is the climate changing in California and what impact is that having on water supply,” said Allen White, a NOAA scientist who’s managing the project. “This network will help be able to detect those climate changes with great detail across the state.” Anderson said the new system is already spitting out data on California’s changing weather patterns. Still, he thinks several years will pass until climatologists really understand the link between global warming and severe storms. “This is a very new endeavor,” Anderson said. “You have to have the right metrics to actually compute the statistics. It’s fairly new ground we’re working in.” Ω

F E AT U R E S T O RY

Nasheed speaks dramatically again and again at the UN, before 350.org and the summit. An agreement is brokered at the end of “Hopenhagen,” one termed “meaningful” by the United States, if few others. It came nowhere near Nasheed’s early call to limit carbon to 350 ppm and the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees. Still, this charismatic politician—practiWe bet your aunts cal, strategic, aware of what he can accomplish aren’t as cool as ours. on the international stage and what he cannot— Friend Auntie Ruth calls his mother at home in the Maldives and on Facebook elatedly shares this: “Some process is still alive.” and let’s hang out. The postscript to the film is stark: Nasheed was deposed by a coup last February and is currently in jail for what appears to Ruth to be trumped up charges. See the film. Ω

Label lobby California’s Proposition 37, a referendum that would have required genetically engineered foods to be labeled as such, failed by a narrow margin in the November election. But the statewide proposition drummed up national support to promote the labeling of genetically modified organisms. Just Label It, a national campaign consisting of a number of small farms, scientists and food companies, is raising awareness about the environmental and health impacts of GMOs. It is also lobbying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in support of the right to know about GMOs in our food. For more information, visit www.justlabelit.org. —Jonathan Mendick |

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Among the mud mosques of Mali, my sister, brother and I once spent the better part of a week when we were kids by Hugh Biggar wondering if Santa Claus would find us. For the Christmas holiday, our parents had decided to drive from our home in Accra, Ghana, north toward Timbuktu in Mali. Days later, fortified by warm soda and cold ravioli from cans, the dashboard in our car dislodged by the roads, we arrived hot and dusty just before Christmas in the town of Mopti at the edge of the Sahara in Mali. Each morning, a worn-down chicken would drag itself to the dirt courtyard of our hotel in Mopti and wake us with a feeble, sickly call to the day. Exhausted, the chicken would spend the day recovering in the shade, while my family and I went sightseeing.

On Christmas Eve, we went to bed beneath a dark desert sky with Santa Claus, hopefully, somewhere in those constellations above.

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EXEC. After ACCT. visiting cliff villages and 06.18.09 REM wandering along the mud-walled FILE NAME REV. DATE streets and02.19.09 markets of the city, we TRINITYCATHEDRAL061809R1 would return to the hotel in the USP (BOLD SELECTION) evening to find the chicken panting PRICE / ATMOSPHEREin / EXPERT / UNIQUE the shadows. As dusk set in, old men in robes prayed toward PLEASE CAREFULLY REVIEW Mecca, andYOUR the sky turned the ADVERTISEMENT AND VERIFY THE FOLLOWING: same dark blue as the veiled faces AD SIZE (COLUMNS X INCHES) of the local Tuareg. SPELLING Would Santa find us here on the NUMBERS & DATES edge of the Sahara? My siblings CONTACT INFO (PHONE, ADDRESSES, ETC.) and I wondered: Would camels AD APPEARS AS REQUESTED work better than reindeer? APPROVED BY: The next morning, the routine would begin again. The chicken would wake us with his scratchy call like a bad needle on a turntable, and we would drive off to visit nearby villages, markets and mosques. At lunch, spackled by dust and sand, we scrubbed ourselves with moist towelettes

ISSUE DATE

that had dried into something closer to steel wool in the heat, and again ate cold ravioli from cans and drank hot orange-flavored Fanta. Things changed on Christmas Eve, though. Our mother surprised us by unpacking a small plastic Christmas tree she had hidden in the car back in Accra. Unfolded, the tree was as gaunt and bony as the courtyard chicken. We made decorations out of colored paper and added them to the small tree. Skeletal as it was, the treeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brightgreen plastic was a gift of it own, since everything in Moptiâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the buildings, clothes, foodâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;took on the color and texture of sand. On Christmas Eve, we went to bed beneath a dark desert sky, the stars seemingly as close as a hand held in front of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face, and with Santa hopefully somewhere in those constellations above. That night, rather than sugarplums, I dreamed that Santa was looking for us in a parking garage at an American mall. The next morning, the chicken, for once, did not wake us. But it being Christmas, we woke early anyway, and Santa, with or without camels, had found my brother, sister and me after all. We spent the morning unwrapping a few gifts and listening to Christmas music on a small tape deck that warbled in a way not unlike the chicken. At noon, the hotel staff politely tapped on the door. Although Muslim, they were pleased to tell usâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the only guests in the placeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; they had prepared a special treat in honor of the Christmas holiday. Curious, we followed them to the dining room, which had one wall open to the street and doubled as a disco by night. After we sat down, a waiter brought out a covered silver tray and set it on the table. Proudly, and with a flourish, he removed the cover, and there before us on a bed of rice, gaunt, bony, undercooked, but still rising valiantly to the occasionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the chicken. ÎŠ

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Lessons from 2012 Certainly, 2012 felt like an extremely long year. Perhaps this is because of the length of the campaign “season,” which now lasts nearly two years—which leads us immediately to the first thing we’ve learned from 2012: It’s insane for a nation with the kind of structural problems the United States faces to spend $2 billion electing a president. And that’s not even the whole cost. It doesn’t include spending by political action committees and super PACs on state and congressional races, nor spending on local races or ballot measures. In fact, that figure doesn’t even include primary spending. USA Today estimated a total expenditure of nearly $6 billion— yeah, that’s $6 billion—on the 2012 elections. We cannot continue to consider ourselves a representative democracy when the guy with the biggest bank account gets to decide who runs and what he or she talks about. If you think that elected officials—who are almost always running for something—aren’t influenced by campaign donations, well, we’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn for you. It’s well past time for serious campaign-finance reform. While we’re at it: If we haven’t learned from this past year that we need to limit the campaign “season” to something more reasonable—say, a three-month time span—and put the brakes on campaign advertising and robocalls, then we weren’t paying attention. There’s also an issue with the mess some voters faced on We’re starting Election Day. Pre-election voter to see a new “purges,” states with voter-ID laws, electronic voting machines description: “global that didn’t work, messed up or climate chaos.” limited early voting, and problems with voter challenges were evident all over the country. We’ve got to push the Federal Elections Commission and Congress to work with the Department of Justice and set clear, simple and fair national guidelines for how elections will be conducted. First and foremost, we need a truly nonpartisan election system; any partisan elected official will be at the very least tempted to favor an election process that gives his or her own party the edge—and that’s not the way our elections should be run. So, lesson the first from 2012: Fix the U.S. election system. The second big lesson of the year? That “global climate change” or “global warming” might be too tepid a pair of terms to use for what’s happening to our planet. Instead, we’re starting to see a new description: “global climate chaos.” Not only did the entire nation experience longer periods of high temperatures this year, but Sacramento had the warmest September on record. Drought brought hardship to farmers in Iowa and it continues to plague Texas, while the Waldo Canyon “superfire” in Colorado last summer was just the latest such phenomenon, not the last. And let’s not forget Hurricane Sandy, which might have been a bad storm even without the warmer ocean temperatures that made it possible for its development into a superstorm. In short, as several major reports indicated this year, we’ve run out of time to stop global climate change. The question now is what we’ll do about mitigating it. And that is the third big lesson from 2012: It’s time to stop fiddling while the planet burns. Ω

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Sacramento tried to give the Maloofs an early Christmas present: some $256 million for a new arena. But the Maloofs opted to regift in 2012 with another big “Eff you.”

here 13 w , s d r a w a h c in r &R’s annual g N S ’s It ! g u b m u n a corner. h i t u p Bah, t e g s r e t a cramento h small-hearted Sa 18 | SN&R | 12.20.12

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We made a list. Checked it twice. Now, it’s time to find out who’s been naughty and, er, not nice. And nasty and horrible and selfish. It’s SN&R’s annual “What’s up, grinches?!” report, a yearly look at the scrooges and assorted suckers who really ought to get a lump of coal for Christmas. But they’ll probably get big-fat Christmas bonuses, instead. Three unwise men Thank you, Joe and Gavin and George. Especially you, George. There’s so much in public life to disagree and fight about in Sacramento. So it’s a sort of blessing that we have the Maloofs (making a return appearance in our grinches list this year) to bring us all together. It feels like just a few years back, when Sacramentans of all walks of life were cheering on the (almost) championship-bound Sacramento Kings team, only today, we are united in our loathing for the team owners. Because how many owners can boast that they completely sabotaged multiple attempts by their host city to lavish them with hundreds of millions of dollars for a new arena as the Maloofs have? Make no mistake, we at SN&R had deep misgivings about the last deal. The details were supersketchy—though it was pretty obvious the Maloofs would make out nicely. So, we’re not saying there isn’t blame to go around.

illustration by brian taylor

2012

But now it’s Christmastime, so for just a little while, all of us—sports fans and sportsphobes, big-government libs, rabid tea partiers, old NIMBY folks and young douche bags alike—can join our voices together in perfect harmony and sing, “Maloofs suck!” And isn’t that just the kind of togetherness the season is really all about?

hearT of doucheness Absolutely nothing wrong with grabbing some beers and some buddies and heading down the river. But that’s not extreme enough for organizers of Rafting Gone Wild and the more commercial Rage on the River events inflicted on the American River this year. The Gone Wild event turned all Heart of Doucheness as 3,500 partiers took to the water, and drunken bros rioted and threw rocks at law enforcement. Meanwhile, the Rage folks are trying awfully hard to build some sort of brand—what with their sponsorships from Rockstar Energy Drink and Two in the Shirt (Get it? Ugh). The mean-old grown-ups on the county board of supervisors are a little freaked and have already expanded the river’s alcohol prohibitions. If there’s more trouble, they’ll probably enact a complete booze ban, and no one will be able to enjoy a beer on the river. Thanks, bros. You are horrible.

homeless for The holidays “Speak truth to power.” It ought to be right there on the syllabus the first day of journalism school. It’s such an important part of what reporters do that the venerable McClatchy Company actually took it as its slogan a while back. But somehow, McClatchy employee and Sacramento Bee columnist Marcos Breton never got the memo. Or, when he did, it got all scrambled up in his brain pan and he misread it as, “Suck up to power, beat up on homeless people.” Here in Sacramento, activists and law-enforcement groups and businesses and residents and even some elected officials are trying to grapple with the multiple,

“whaT’s up, grinches?!” continued on page 21

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“what’S up, GriNcheS?!” continued from page 19

We get that Marcos Breton proBaBly thinks he’s Being counterintuitive, that he’s standing up to liBeral orthodoxy. But he’s not. he’s just Being kind of aWful. Look, we get it. The daily-newspaper audience is skewing older and meaner every day; it pays to throw some red meat to the get-off-my-lawn crowd now and again. But what about telling the other side of the story? And we get that Breton probably thinks he’s being counterintuitive, that he’s standing up to liberal orthodoxy. But he’s not. He’s just being kind of awful.

¿Feliz Navidad? Earlier this year, at the request of Walmart, Sacramento County sheriffs arrested Juana Reyes—an undocumented immigrant—for selling tamales outside of the Florin Road superstore and turned her over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (see “Deporting the tamale lady” by Nick Miller, SN&R Frontlines, July 26). Walmart is from Arkansas, so it

probably can’t help acting that way. But what’s up, Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department? The tamale lady had been selling there without problems for two years. She was only one of many vendors at that spot. For that, she gets turned over the ICE for deportation proceedings and possible separation from her two young American-born kids? The misdemeanor charges—of tamale peddling against Walmart’s wishes—have been dropped. Her immigration case eventually was dropped, too. photo IllustratIon by prIscIlla GarcIa

tangled-up issues of homelessness, and drug addiction and mental illness and shrinking social services and, yes, property rights, and even the right to just be in a public place without being harassed—either by a panhandler or by a cop. It’s a knotty set of problems, which require some enterprising thinking. As a city columnist at Sacramento’s daily newspaper, Breton has enormous power to shed light on these problems, amplify worthy ideas and maybe even speak a little truth to power. Instead, he’s used his bully pulpit to, well, bully, launching a one-man propaganda campaign against the poor. In column after column, he has equated being homeless with being a criminal. He’s even warned that if the homeless menace isn’t soon eradicated from the American River Parkway, then it is “only a matter of time” before homeless campers start abducting children. Ugh.

SataNS oF Sprawl Sprawl is back in big way, thanks to Sacramento’s lords (and ladies) of growth in suburban enclaves like Folsom, Elk Grove and, of course, on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors. Elk Grove is insisting that it needs to break south of the county’s longstanding urban-growth boundary and build a slew of new retail and office buildings in order to fix it’s “jobs-housing imbalance.” Never mind that the area it now wants to develop is out past the giant husk of a shopping mall that died mid-construction because there’s no need for any more development in Elk Grove. The city of Folsom just leapfrogged its boundaries to take in a vast swath of oak-studded hills south of Highway 50, while at the same time throwing out rules that used to require developers to provide housing for low-income folks in its market-rate projects. And the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors is still, as I wrote earlier this year, seriously considering a controversial 2,700-acre Cordova Hills project near Rancho Cordova “in an area previously considered off-limits for development.” Do we need all this far-flung development out in the pastures of the south and east county when we’ve got thousands of acres of developable land inside designated growth areas and next to existing infrastructure? Nope. But in the development game, greed beats need every time.

Galleria at roSe-hell It’s not grinchitude exactly, but what is with the mayhem that seems to go down with disturbing regularity at the Westfield Galleria at Roseville? A mentally unstable kid sets the roof on the fire in 2010. A flash mob of 5,000 would-be choral singers nearly collapses the floor later that year. Then, on the most recent Black Friday, a riot breaks out at Victoria’s Secret.

The city forgave Campbell Soup Company’s millions in taxes to invest in south Sacramento. But this fall, Campbell’s left anyway. So much for being business friendly.

Arguably, that stuff’s not the Galleria’s fault. Then again, the Galleria pretty much is the temple of mammon. So when the worshipers start getting out of hand, why shouldn’t the high priests get some of the blame? Also, that chunk of drywall that fell 10 feet onto a Salvation Army bell ringer and put her in the hospital earlier this month? That’s definitely on you, Galleria. Please, get it together before someone dies. Seriously, that’s not even a joke. Merry Christmas.

Good oNe, job creatorS Comcast fired 1,000 people in Sacramento and the Bay Area this fall, complaining about the high cost of doing business in the state. It’s true, California is damn expensive. The cable bills are outrageous. Comcast joins another California quitter, Waste Connections Inc. That company’s CEO also cited the business climate when it moved its headquarters from Folsom this year off to the business-topia of Texas. In contrast to California, Texas leads the nation in tax breaks and subsidies for corporations. And also in the rate of people without health insurance. And in the percentage of people earning minimum wage. And also in the number of West Nile cases and Walmart Supercenters. Makes you realize just how awful things are here, doesn’t it?

Sacramento’s abandonment issues have the chamber-of-commerce-types scrambling to figure out how to make Sacramento more desirable to big business. The go-to move usually is usually cutting taxes, gutting regulations and giving subsidies. But don’t put out too much, Sacramento. Those companies will still bolt once they get what they want. Remember, Sacramento forgave Campbell Soup Company’s millions in taxes to stick around and to invest in its plant in south Sacramento. Despite the generous subsidy, this fall, the company canned all its workers and left Sacramento in the soup. By the way: Comcast is also trying to help the Maloofs to spirit the Kings out of Sacramento. Something to think about when you sign over your paycheck to pay your cable bill this month. Yay, job creators!

“what’S up, GriNcheS?!” continued on page 23

12.20.12 | SN&R | 21

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“what’s up, grinChes?!” continued from page 21

Cop bloCked

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The Sacramento Police Officers Association police union had a little temper tantrum when Sacramento City Councilman Kevin McCarty and colleagues said they wouldn’t get any strong mayor for Christmas. When the council advanced Measure M to establish a charter commission, a perfectly reasonable solution to the strong-mayor fight started by Mayor Kevin Johnson and his ally the SPOA four years ago, union leaders angrily torpedoed negotiations with the city manager over changes to pension benefits, which could have avoided further cuts and layoffs.

It took McDonald’s two years to figure out that nobody wanted it to open a new restaurant in a residential neighborhood in Oak Park near Stockton Boulevard and Second Avenue. Across the street from the UC Davis Medical Center Richard and Annette Bloch Cancer Survivors Park. Next to the pediatric-obesity clinic. The city’s Community Development Department told them no. The Sacramento Planning Commission told them no. The neighborhood told them no, loudly, with signs. But Ronald McDonald kept coming until the city council put a stop to the madness, denying the fastfood pusher’s appeal of the Planning Commission decision. Good. Oak Park deserves a break today.

Lt. John Pike Learned this year that he won’t be in any LegaL troubLe at aLL for drenching PeacefuL Protesters in PePPer sPray. Put that in your stocking and stuff it. It was a self-serving smokescreen. Now, the election is over, and the public has said it has no appetite for charter reform (they murdered Measure M at the ballot box). The SPOA can drop the righteous indignation and get back to the bargaining table. We’d all like to see a fair settlement to the pension issue and see the cops back on the beat. Make everybody’s Christmas wish come true, SPOA.

pain in the aggie Over the last year, the UC Davis campus has been a hot spot for the Occupy movement and anti-bankster activism. It’s been no surprise, then, that students targeted a U.S. Bank inside the student union. The bank was paying UC Davis to let it be the sole bank on campus and to allow student IDs to carry the U.S. Bank logo and also to serve as ATM cards for students who opened accounts with the company—which the activists saw as a basic privatization scheme. A couple months of Occupy-style blockades put an end to that. U.S. Bank fled the campus, explaining it was “intolerable” for university officials to allow the blockade. No arrests were made during the protests. But three months later, the university convinced the Yolo County district attorney (and “What’s up, Grinches!?” alumnus Jeff Reisig) to retroactively bring charges against 12 protesters.

The “Davis Dozen” faces 20 counts each of “willfully and maliciously” obstructing movement to and from the bank. If convicted, each protester faces up to 11 years in jail and $1 million in penalties. Meanwhile, Lt. John Pike learned this year that he won’t be in any legal trouble at all for drenching peaceful protesters in pepper spray last fall. Oh, and UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi has still got her job. So put that in your stocking and stuff it.

genetiCally grinChy Seriously? Monsanto put $8 million into killing Proposition 37—the law requiring big businesses to put the information about genetically modified food on their labels? Isn’t that a little cliché? And really, the other leading money sources for the No on 37 campaign were DuPont and PepsiCo Inc. and The Dow Chemical Company? Seriously? Kind of playing into the whole greedy, sinister corporation stereotype, aren’t you guys? Of course, it worked. Prop. 37 was predictably defeated, drowned in a sickly sweet, genetically modified money sludge. Are any of these companies headquartered in California? Of course not, but that doesn’t stop them from spending whatever it takes to make sure our food-safety laws are written in the way that suits them. And, oh, look: Campbell’s Soup gave half-a-million bucks to defeat Prop. 37, too—money that might have made some laid-off workers’ Christmas a little brighter. Mmm, mmm, grinched.

bike thieves still suCk Is the capital city the bike-theft capital of the world? It sure feels that way; just ask Lance Armstrong. But as Raheem F. Hosseini wrote earlier this year (“Steal this bike,” SN&R Feature Story, July 26) the hundreds of stolen bikes reported this year are likely just a fraction of the bikes actually snicked. And good luck recovering your stolen bike—even if you find it later, locked up outside of a local bar (just ask SN&R co-editor Nick Miller). But people are fighting back. Check out Stolen Midtown Bicycles on Facebook. Sacramento State University encourages students to take advantage of its registration program—it’s very hard for police to help recover a stolen bike without serial numbers. The Sacramento Police Department was at one time considering a citywide registration program as well.

another year, another City CounCil Oh, Sacramento City Council, where to begin? The council screwed up the food-truck laws more than four years ago, and it still hasn’t fixed them, though it had multiple opportunities this year. On September 11, the council passed the anti-Occupy ordinance to make it illegal to hold overnight vigils or protests. It was better than the wildly unconstitutional rule first proposed—which would have required expensive permits for any kind of First Amendment activity—but not much. Plus, why lie and say it’s not about Occupy when it’s obvious to everyone that it’s about Occupy? So, yeah, 2012 was not your finest year, city council. See you next year. Ω

For two years, everyone—neighbors, the planning commission, city leaders—told McDonald’s, “No, you can’t build a new restaurant next door to a childobesity clinic in Oak Park.” But Ronald wasn’t lovin’ it—until city council finally put an end to such talk.

photo IllustratIon by prIscIlla GarcIa

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NOTHER YEAR , another seemingly bottomless cache of films to

review. Working as a professional movie critic isn’t for the faint of heart—we don’t know how SN&R film scribes Jonathan Kiefer and Jim Lane manage to do it and not turn bad. Seriously, how many Adam Sandler films must one sit through before the brain cells revolt and retreat? How many Keira Knightley films does it take to kill off one’s last shred of hope for humanity? And yet they soldier on and even find themselves rewarded with the occasionally great—or even masterful—film. The following are Kiefer and Lane’s picks for 2012’s best flicks—with a few rotten tomatoes thrown in as well, just to keep it real.

Crowd-pleasers, Scarlett Johansson and tigers, oh my! Holiday deadlines and last-minute releases of the movie-award season being what they are, this “best” list must be considered tentative, since several promising movies have yet to open (a few examples: Les Misérables, Zero Dark Thirty). So with that caveat, and reserving the right of revision, here are my top five for 2012 (so far), in alphabetical order:

ARGO: The operation that smuggled six Americans out of Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis was already halfway to a James Bond adventure. Director (and star) Ben Affleck and writer Chris Terrio simply took it the rest of the way in high style, playing up the once-classified CIA-Hollywood connection—and playing down the contribution of the Canadian ambassador, to the consternation of some of our neighbors to the north. That cavil aside, Argo was one of the year’s biggest crowd-pleasers, with the CIA cast as the good guys for a change. THE AvENGERs: Director Joss Whedon and co-writer Zak Penn put the fun—and plenty of it—back into the comic-book movie with this summer blockbuster. It was high-spirited and exciting, a welcome relief from the morose, brooding gloom of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies. Amid all the flashy CGI, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow all but stole the show. LIFE OF PI: It comes third alphabetically, but this adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel was the best picture of the year by a long mile, an instant classic among adventure movies and a dazzling parade of astonishing surprises, one after another. From director Ang Lee, writer David Magee and young newcomer Suraj Sharma in the title role, right down to the people who staffed the catering truck, everybody connected with this movie will probably never work on a better one as long as they live.

sALMON FIsHING IN THE YEMEN: With a title that sounds like a boring documentary short, this collaboration between director Lasse Hallström and writer Simon Beaufoy (adapted from Paul Torday’s novel) was one of the year’s most delightful surprises—a smooth blend of romance (from Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt), middlebrow mysticism (Egyptian actor Amr Waked) and wry political satire (Kristin Scott Thomas). THE sEssIONs: Iron-lung-bound quadriplegic (John Hawkes) seeks carnal knowledge from a sexual surrogate (Helen Hunt): The bare synopsis sounds like a recipe for either sniggering lewdness or indigestible sentimentality. But no, writer-director Ben Lewin (recounting a true story already filmed in an Oscar-winning documentary) avoided all the pitfalls, and the movie brimmed with warmth and wit. Lewin also got one of the best performances of the year from Hawkes, and from Hunt, the best of her career.

And at the crummy end of the stick, a couple of “worsts”: THE RAvEN: Narrowly edging out Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in the horror-Americana category, by virtue of a thoroughly illiterate script by actor Ben Livingston and one Hannah Shakespeare (definitely no relation). THAT’s MY BOY: Adam Sandler has been making one of the year’s worst movies —sometimes more than one—almost every year since 1995; this was 2012’s. Finally, a special (dis)honorable mention for: WuTHERING HEIGHTs: Actually a 2011 movie, this British

import didn’t hit the United States until last January’s Sundance Film Festival. It was hopelessly bad, so subYouTube incompetent that you often couldn’t hear or see the actors—which may have been a blessing. J.L.

Worldly sophistication—and Channing Tatum, too

My disclaimer—aside from the usual one, that I more easily say “favorite” than “best”—is that I’ve only just seen Zero Dark Thirty, and although I suspect it’ll be hailed as a film of the year, I also know I’ll need time to think it over, working out my reservations. Speaking of time, I can’t bear to waste any more on Cloud Atlas, so I’ll just quickly call that a worst for all its squandering sprawl. For some bests—well, favorites—try these: AMOuR: From the elegantly pitiless Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke, here’s a chamber play of sorts about the most basic human stuff: love and death. (Significantly, love alone is what the title comes down to.) It stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva as an elderly Parisian couple coming to terms with the end of their life together, along with Haneke regular Isabelle Huppert as a vexed daughter. Maybe no other living filmmaker

by JONATHAN KIEFER & JIM LANE

THE

T H E G O O D, BAD BAD 26 | SN&R | 12.20.12

Locals for the win See DISH

Pay up, give big See COOLHUNTING

Love, 21st-century style See ASK JOEY

BEFORE

FRONTLINES

OSLO, AUGUST 31ST: Although freely adapted from a 1931 novel that also inspired a Louis Malle film in 1963, Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s sophomore feature feels effortlessly contemporary. It’s a day in the life of a sad young literary man, fresh from drug rehab, who revisits his city and his own squandered potential. Such heavy stuff needs a light touch, and Trier has it. All of Oslo’s essentials—writing, design, acting, shooting, cutting—merge into an alertly cinematic support system for lead actor Anders Danielsen Lie, who haunts the proceedings with heartrending desperation. THIS IS NOT A FILM: Banned from making movies and under house arrest in Tehran, Iran, Jafar Panahi can’t resist getting back to work—not on a film, per se, but merely an “effort,” by which the prisoner of conscience testifies to his experience. Obviously a sly rebuke to police-state censorship, Panahi’s funny and personal project is presented with affecting humility, less a matter of rebellious defiance than of basic creative problem solving. It’s amazing. 21 JUMP STREET: Sure, I’m serious. Has not my seriousness been sufficiently established by all the worldly sophistication described above? Well, sometimes movies should just be fun, right? Take this lark with Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as hapless undercover cops on the high-school beat. Duly reconsidered in view of what else the year brought (including Life of Pi and Django Unchained and The Hobbit and Les Misérables and the lot of it), this might be the film that surprised me the most. Certainly it’s the year’s most improbably enjoyable, unnecessary regurgitation of lame ’80s TV. J.K.

SN&R film critics pick their favorite flicks of 2012—plus a few groaners and head-scratchers

F E AT U R E S T O RY

RewiNd!

The year in books, gifted

CeRtaiNly, 21 Jump StReet iS the yeaR’S moSt impRobably eNJoyable, uNNeCeSSaRy ReguRgitatioN of lame ’80S tV.

h g U

See FILM

2012

SCENE& HEARD

can so frankly assay the buildup to bereavement—that universal terror of lost companionship and certainty and consolation. It’s not just because the leads are elderly that this movie makes so many others seem like trite juvenilia. ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA: Not quite the neospaghetti western its title might imply, Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s lengthy, stately brooder does at least supply some rough justice, wide vistas and bantering dudes with big, amazing faces. Technically, it’s a procedural: A doctor, a lawyer, a killer and some cops drive around the steppes all night, trying to figure out where a body’s buried. They become exhausted and strangely self-revealing, subject to the inexplicable movie juju by which Ceylan makes gradual disillusionment seem so exhilarating.

e h t &

Morose POTUS

Books make excellent last-minute gifts: simple, easy to wrap, old school and they can be purchased locally. What’s more, you’re likely to surprise just about any friend with a book. But which book to get? The real key to happy book giving is to keep it local—and since Sacramento’s chock-full of writers, that’s a piece of cake. For fiction readers, consider American River College professor Christian Kiefer’s debut, the well-received novel The Infinite Tides (Bloomsbury USA, $26), about an astronaut who must negotiate the terrain of grief, which proves even more unfamiliar than the vastness of space. There’s also the debut collection from Sacramento writer and teacher Valerie Fioravanti, Garbage Night at the Opera: Stories (BkMk Press, $15.95), a series of linked stories that follow the residents of a north Brooklyn neighborhood through the process of economic collapse, community disintegration and gentrification. William T. Vollmann, the ever-productive Sacramento writer, edited the annual collection of The Best American Travel Writing 2012 (Mariner Books, $14.95). Two other, older favorites by Vollmann—both available in paperback—that might interest the readers on your Christmas list are 2008’s Poor People (Harper Perennial, $16.95) about the nature of poverty, and Riding Toward Everywhere (Harper Perennial, $14.99), his firsthand account of “catching out”—hopping trains and riding the rails. For science-fiction fans, Davis resident Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel 2312 (Orbit, $25.99) looks at what we humans might become 300 years hence, should we venture to the stars—and fail to care for our own planet. If you’re buying for a romance reader, there are a couple of best-selling Sacramento authors to choose from—dependThis book makes an ing on how much mystery and sex you’re excellent holiday gift. looking for in your gift. For those drawn to erotic thrillers, Sacramento writer Allison Brennan has published two new novels in her popular Lucy Kincaid series this year: Silenced and Stalked (Minotaur Books, $7.99 each). Should the reader you’re buying for prefer a little less sex and violence, Sacramento’s own Brenda Novak keeps the romance upfront—along with a California setting—in her new Whiskey Creek series, When Lightning Strikes and When Snow Falls (Harlequin MIRA, $7.99 each), with a third installment due early next year. And should you need to buy for someone who likes a bit of military-style action and adventure with their thrillers, try Sacramento veterinarian-turned best-selling novelist James Rollins’ latest novel in his Sigma Force series, Bloodline (William Morrow, $27.99). It’s got the Knights Templar, Somali pirates and the Sigma Force team, which adds a former U.S. Army Ranger with a K-9 partner to rescue the pregnant daughter of the U.S. president. Another sure bet for a mystery-thriller fan is local writer John Lescroart’s latest novel featuring San Francisco PI Wyatt Hunt, The Hunter (Dutton Adult, $26.95). This time, the mystery Hunt needs to solve is the murder of his birth mother. Of course, if it’s too risky to buy a book for a readerly friend (what if it’s already on the shelf at home?), there’s always a great fallback position: Time Tested Books (1114 21st Street, http://timetestedbooks.net) offers “Time Tested Bucks.” These are gift certificates in several denominations which feature a drawing of a well-known author—and they can be used for new, used or special-order merchandise. I’m partial to the $20 buck, which features a lovely portrait of Sacramento’s favorite daughter, Joan Didion. —Kel Munger

k e lm@ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m |

A RT S & C U LT U R E

AFTER

12.20.12

SN&R

NIGHT&DAY 20THUR

DON’T MISS! HOLIDAY FASHION AFFAIR:

Sacramento Fashion Week, the California Film Foundation and the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce team up to throw a Great Gatsby-style bash featuring small bites, cocktails, a photo booth, fashion and a deejay. Th, 12/20, 6pm. $15. Citizen Hotel, 926 J St.; (916) 492-4460; www.citizenhotel.com.

List your event! Post your free online listing (up to 15 months early), and our editors will consider your submission for the printed calendar as well. Print listings are also free, but subject to space limitations. Online, you can include a full description of your event, a photo and a link to your website. Go to www.newsreview. com/calendar and start posting events. Deadline for print listings is 10 days prior to the issue in which you wish the listing to appear.

DON’T MISS! RICKY BERGER: This concert

is part of a series celebrating the exhibition American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell through musical storytelling. Local artist Ricky Berger plays guitar, ukulele and keyboards, and will perform holiday classics as well as her original music. Her Sammie-award-winning altfolk sounds will transport you back to Rockwell’s time. Th, 12/20, 7-9pm. $6-$10. Crocker Art Museum, 216 O St.; (916) 808-1182; www.crockerartmuseum. org/component/rsevents/ event/1860-concert-rickyberger?Itemid=137.

SACRAMENTO STATE LIBRARY GALLERY: Double quilt exhibit at Sac State, a centennial “Four Eagles” quilt is part of a double exhibit at Sac State. Artistry of the Traditional Quilt runs in the Library Gallery Annex. Piecing the Past Together: Nineteenth Century Quilts runs in the Library Special Collections and University Archives. Through 12/20. Free. 6000 J St., (916) 278-4189.

VOX SACRAMENTO: Vox out of the Box, local art community Vox Sacramento is hosting a silent auction party and closing reception showcasing 50 papier mache box creations by 50 local artists. These unique and varied art pieces will be displayed in the gallery and sold in a silent auction as a fundraiser for the organization. Additional bidding opportunites will be available during Vox open hours. Th, 12/20, 7-9pm. Free. 1818 11th St., www.voxsac.com.

Comedy MAYHEM! IMPROV COMEDY: See Chicago-style improv right here in Sacramento. Each week features three different show formats including Montage, Mockumentary, Armando, Buddy Cop, SoundTrax, Match Game, Blind Date and more.

Third Th of every month, 8pm through 12/30. $8.

ComedySportz Theater, 2230 Arden Way; (916) 243-8541; www.comedysportz sacramento.com.

Film WHITE CHRISTMAS: This is a classic 1954 musical that stars Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye as nightclub entertainers, and features Rosemary Clooney

SN&R

SCREENING: SANTA CLAUS: Catch a screening of Santa Claus, a notoriously bad film featuring Santa Claus battling an evil spirit named Pitch and teaming up with Merlin to defeat him. It was once featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Th, 12/20, 7pm. $7. The Grange Performing Arts Center, 3823 V St.; (916) 736-2664.

Concerts

Art Galleries

and Vera Ellen as a singingsister act. It also features the songs of Irving Berlin. See it on a big screen for one night only. Th, 12/20, 7pm. $8. Auburn Placer Performing Arts Center, 985 Lincoln Way in Auburn; (530) 885-0156; www.livefromauburn.com.

12. 20.12

GROOVE THANG: The Groove Thang band is a variety cover band that plays a diverse mix of R&B, funk, Motown, rock and country. Th, 12/20, 6pm-2am. $7 cover after 8:30 p.m. Reunion Nightclub, 4370 Town Center Blvd., Ste. 100 in El Dorado Hills; (916) 939-0777.

CHRISTMAS SHOW AND SINGALONG: William Mylar performs live Christmas music and encourages the audience to join in on their favorite Christmas carols. Free holiday treats will be given out. Th, 12/20, 6-8pm. Free. Strings Pizzeria, 9500 Micron Ave., Ste. 128; (916) 454-1908; http://stringspizzeria.com.

MIKE JAMES: Thursdays are “Unwind” nights at the Broderick. It’s a laid back, dimly lit escape from your dayto-day routine with musician Mike James. Th, 12/20, 9:30-11:30pm. Call for pricing. Broderick, 319 Sixth St. in West Sacramento; (916) 372-2436.

21FRI

DON’T MISS! JO KOY: Catch a perform-

ance by stand-up comic Jo Koy, a touring comedian who performs in clubs across the country. He’s been featured on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and is often a panelist on Chelsea Lately. F, 12/21, 8:30pm. $39.50-$59.50. Thunder Valley Casino, 1200 Athens Ave. in Lincoln; (916) 408-7777; www.thundervalley resort.com.

DON’T MISS! MUSIC COMES FIRST: Mikal

Brown, a Sacramento small-business owner will be filming the pilot for a new reality series called Music-Comes-1st. The first episode, “The Evolution of Hip-hop,” featuring Yolanda Whitaker, also known as rapper Yo-Yo, will debut on YouTube the beginning of next year and will be a fundraiser for community music programs. Century Got Bars, Nome Nomadd, Mic Jordan, DJ Epik and others will perform. F, 12/21, 7pm. $20. California Automobile Museum, 2200 Front St.; (916) 442-6802; www.calautomuseum.org.

Special Events ARTIST MARKET: Do some lastminute holiday shopping at this artist market, featuring local artists. Arrive early for a Posada Navidena, a re-enacting of the journey of Mary and Joseph before the birth of baby Jesus, at 5 p.m. F, 12/21, 8pm. Free. La Raza Galería Posada, 2700 Front St.; (916) 446-5133; www.larazagaleriaposada.org.

THE SNOWMAN: Sight and sound combine for this holiday experience. The short animated film The Snowman tells the story of a young boy’s magical friendship with a snowman. The Oscar-nominated short, based on the book by Raymond Briggs, is shown above the San Francisco symphony as it performs Howard Blake’s heart-warming score. The evening also features performances of kid-friendly seasonal tunes and sing-alongs with the orchestra. F, 12/21, 7pm. $17.50-$58. Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, 9399 Old Davis Rd. in Davis; (530) 754-2787; www.mondaviarts.org.

Call for Artists POP-UP FRIDAY ART DAY: Work from a clothed model or work on your own art project. F,

1-4pm through 12/28. Opens 12/21.

$10. Patris Studio and Art Gallery, 3460 Second Ave.;

(916) 397-8958; http://patrisstudiogallery. blogspot.com.

Classes ANIMAL SHELTER HIGHLIGHTED: The Sacramento Public Library has invited Gina Knepp, Sacramento’s Front Street Shelter director, to explain what an animal shelter is and why we need shelters. Each child attending will receive an activity book related to the class to take home. The program is for kids ages 6 to 10, and parents are also encouraged to join. F, 12/21, 3:30pm. Free. Pocket-Greenhaven Library, 7335 Gloria Dr.; (916) 264-2920; www.saclibrary.org.

Kids’ Stuff WINTER ORNAMENT CRAFT PROGRAM: The Sacramento Public Library wants schoolage children to get messy while making a one-of-a-kind winter holiday ornament. The library will provide scissors, glue, felt and sequins, and teen volunteers will be on hand to help. F, 12/21, 3pm. Free. Rio Linda Library, 902 Oak Ln. in Rio Linda; (916) 264-2920; www.saclibrary.org.

Concerts THE END OF THE WORLD SHOW: The Yuba/Sutter Music Scene presents the End of the World Show,

featuring K Sera, Streetlight Fire, Brave Season and Brolly. F, 12/21, 7pm. $5. Lee Burrows Center For The Arts, 630 E St. in Marysville; (530) 742-2787; www.yubasutterarts.com.

MUSICAL CHARIS: Catch a performance by Sacramento band Musical Charis. The group is taking time from its busy schedule of touring, teaching music, writing and recording material to perform for free at the Pour House. F, 12/21, 9pm. Free. Pour House, 1910 Q St.; (916) 706-2465.

22SAT

DON’T MISS! ILLUMINATED POEMS: Tought by Trina L. Drotar, this class teaches you ways to illuminate poetry or prose with watercolor, colored pencils, watercolor and other materials. Attendees will leave the two-and-ahalf-hour class with an original finished product. Preregistration is required. Sa, 12/22, 1pm. $5. Sacramento Poetry Center, 1719 25th St.; (916) 441-7395; http://sacramento poetrycenter.org.

Special Events CROCS STORE OPENING: Crocs is opening a new location in the Arden Fair mall. Come by for the store opening and check out up to 150 styles of shoes. Sa, 12/22, 10am. Arden Fair, 1689 Arden Way; (916) 920-1166.

HOLIDAY FUNDRAISER: Those in attendance may bid on items in the a auction and enjoy the artwork at the Temporary Contemporary Gallery. Sing with the carolers as they serenade the evening and fill the air with holiday cheer. Snack on appetizers provided by Mama Kim’s Eats, sip wine, and take in the short performance of the Twilight Zone episode Five Characters in Search of an Exit. Sa, 12/22, 7pm. $25-$30. Big Idea Theatre, 1616 Del Paso Blvd.; (916) 390-9485; www.bigideatheatre.com.

PERSIAN PARTY: Child Foundation is hosting a Persian Party celebrating Persian culture and featuring the AVA Band, Behdad and DJ Raha. All proceeds go to underpriveleged students in Iran. Sa, 12/22, 9pm. $15. Harlow’s Restaurant & Nightclub, 2708 J St.; (916) 441-4693; www.harlows.com.

Kids’ Stuff BIRDING TOURS: Join for birding at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. An eight-passenger

accepted. Davis Community Church, 412 C St. Fellowship Hall in Davis; (530) 753-2894; www.dccpres.org.

I F Y O U ’ R E N O T C H R I S T I A N — or don’t believe in a biblical god

of any sort—then you probably already know there’s not much to do around Christmastime. Nevertheless, atheists, pagans and Pastafarians can all take comfort in the fact that there are at least some like-minded people holding events in the Sacramento area. There’s not really too much going on outside of Christmas, though—aside from the occasional HumanLight or Kwanzaa party. Here are some of the best non-Christmas events happening in the upcoming weeks. The Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento (2425 Sierra Boulevard) will be holding its own celebration of the winter solstice. The religion, which is about seeking spiritual growth in general, draws on a number of beliefs rather than a single religion. This free celebration, from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, December 21, features a labyrinth walk, potluck and ceremony with guest speaker the Rev. Julie Interrante, who will tell stories, lead prayer, and play the Native American flute. Several Kwanzaa celebrations happen in Sacramento between December 26 and January 1, the week the holiday is observed. One is the Black United Fund of Sacramento Valley’s free celebration at

Sacramento Freethinkers, Atheists & Nonbelievers and a few other groups will be throwing an annual HumanLight/Winter Solstice party on Sunday, December 23. The event gives atheists and other freethinkers a chance to get together and celebrate their beliefs. There will also be a raffle, a food drive for both humans and pets (through the River City Food Bank and The Sacramento Pet Food Bank, respectively), a potluck, and a performance by the Mockingbirds. The free party is held from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in Curtis Hall at the Sierra 2 Center for the Arts and Community (2791 24th Street).

refuge van will transport the group along the auto tour while a guide assists you with bird viewing and identification. This tour is best for beginner birders or nature enthusiasts interested in honing their nature skills and knowledge while witnessing the activities of winter guests. Sa, 12/22,

10am-noon; Su, 12/30, 10am-noon.

$6 per vehicle or pass required. Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, 752 County Rd. 99 in Willows; (530) 934-2801; http://fws.gov/sacramento valleyrefuges.

FROG VS. TOAD: Come check out toads and frogs up-close and find out how they are similar (they’re both amphibians), yet different. Find out about the special characteristics of their skin. Sa, 12/22, 10:30am. Free. Effie Yeaw Nature Center, 2850 San Lorenzo Way in Carmichael; (916) 489-4918; www.effieyeaw.org.

RAINBOW FAMILY STORYTIME: All are welcome at this monthly storytime sponsored by Sacramento Rainbow Families. Storytime for little ones begins at 10 a.m. Book discussion and crafting for school-age children begins at 11 a.m. This is an opportunity for LGBT parents and families to meet, spend time together and enjoy special activities highlighting Sacramento Rainbow Families.

Fourth Sa of every month,

BEFORE

10am-noon through 9/1. Free. McKinley Library, 601 Alhambra Blvd.; (916) 498-8494; www.saclibrary.org.

TOY DRIVE: Sacramento Simply United Together hosts its annual toy drive which will deliver toys on 12/22. The goal is to give away 1,000 toys to underprivileged kids in the Sacramento region. Sa, 12/22. Free. Colbert/Ball Tax Service, 2251 Florin Rd., Ste 146; (916) 470-7386.

Literary Events AUTHORS ANDREA BUCKROTH AND SHERI COCKRELL: Local authors Andrea Buckroth and Sheri Cockrell will be available to talk about their books, the writing process and getting published. Buckroth’s book My Diabetic Soul is a memoir of her life long journey as a diabetic. Cockrell’s writing is featured in Mom Entrepreneur Extraordinaire, a must-read for moms with a desire to unleash their inner entrepreneurs. Sa, 12/22, 10:30am. Free. The Market Place Folsom, 1325 Riley St. in Folsom; www.marketplacefolsom.com.

Concerts BIG IRON: Big Iron plays vintage honky-tonk with a modern wallop. Join the group at a new food-and-brew spot for a nocover night of strum and

FRONTLINES

twang, if the world doesn’t end first. Sa, 12/22, 9pm. Free. Bar 101, 101 Main St. in Roseville; (916) 774-0505; www.bar101roseville.com. Irish Band has just released its 23rd album, Dark Ocean. The album is based on the songs of pirates and privateers who sailed the oceans off America in the early years. Many of the songs are very rowdy and about the hardships faced at sea by sailors and about their short life spent in the taverns on the old coast. Sa, 12/22, 8pm. $12-$15. Sutter Creek Theatre, 44 Main St. in Sutter Creek; (209) 295-6440; www.sutter creektheatre.com.

Enjoy an evening of Hawaiian music with Willie K, Frank Delima, the Kalama Brothers and Kapalakiko Hawaiian Band. Willie K is a guitar virtuoso from the island of Maui. Sa, 12/22, 8:30pm. $29.50-$49.50. Thunder Valley Casino, 1200 Athens Ave. in Lincoln; (916) 408-7777; www.thunder valleyresort.com.

award-winning band Revolver tear up the Stag in Woodland along with Sour Diesel and Defyant Circle. Sa, 12/22, 9pm-1am. $5. The Stag, 506 Main St. in Woodland; (916) 949-5749; www.facebook.com/ revolver916. out from shopping and enjoy a Sunday afternoon grooving to rock ‘n’ roll with the sounds of Stephen Yerkey. Sa, 12/22, 47:30pm. Free. Laughs Unlimited, 1207 Front St.; (916) 446-5905; www.laughsunlimited.com.

FEATURE

STORY

Comedy

HAROLD NIGHT: The Comedy Spot presents Harold Night, a form of improvised longform comedy popular in Chicago, New York and L.A. See two teams every week in Sacramento’s first Harold show. W, 9pm. $5. Sacramento Comedy Spot, 1050 20th St., Ste. 130; (916) 402-4757; www.saccomedyspot.com.

National Wildlife Refuge, O’Hair Rd. off of Hwy. 20 in Colusa; (530) 934-2801; www.fws.gov/ sacramentovalleyrefuges.

AFTER

Wait, there’s more!

PENCE GALLERY: Our Stories: Judith Lowrys Artistic Reflections on Native California, an exhibition represents a select gathering of paintings completed over almost two decades by artist Judith Lowry. Lowry’s paintings are vibrant narratives that tell the story of her California Indian roots, mixing family histories with important oral histories and symbols inspired by her Pit River, Maidu and Washoe heritage. Tu-Su, 11:30am-5pm through 12/30. Free. Gallery hours are 11:30am-5pm Tu-Su. 212 D St. in Davis; (530) 758-3370; www.pencegallery.org.

Looking for something to do? Use SN&R’s free calendar to browse hundreds of events online. Art galleries and musems, family events, education classes, film and literary events, church groups, music, sports, volunteer opportunies—all this and more on our free events calendar at www.newsreview.com. Start planning your week!

Depression Exhibit, showcasing some of the magnificent artwork that was commissioned by the California State Parks System and created under State and Federal Government work relief programs dating from 1934 to 1942. Through 12/31, 9am-5pm. Free. 1315 10th St.; (916) 324-0333.

Chorale, directed by Interim Director Rachel Kessler, is inviting all lovers of Handel’s Messiah to a sing-along. The community volunteer choristers will be supported by members of the Davis Chorale, invited guest conductors, soloists, and instrumentalists. Community members will sing all the choruses and chorales. Su, 12/23, 4pm. Free, donations

Art Galleries

CALIFORNIA STATE CAPITOL MUSEUM: Artwork of the Great

MESSIAH SING-ALONG: The Davis

A RT S & C U LT U R E

ONGOING

Museums

Concerts

simple to advanced dances from Croatia, Greece, Israel, Turkey, Russia and Armenia.

26WED

3:30-5:30pm; Sa, 1/5, 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Colusa

INTERNATIONAL FOLK DANCE: Learn

a birthday bash with tons of

with a pajama party. Look at animals, shop for a variety of last-minute gifts, and enjoy a day of free admission during a day of shortened hours. M, 12/24, 10am-1:30pm. Free. Sacramento Zoo, 3930 West Land Park Dr.; (916) 808-5888; www.saczoo.org.

that inhabit the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge. After a hands-on introduction, venture on a short walk along an accessible trail to look and listen for owls. Su, 12/23,

Classes

KIMMY SIMONE B-DAY BASH: Catch

PAJAMA DAY AT THE SACRAMENTO ZOO: Celebrate Christmas Eve

OWL PROWL: Discover the owls

23SUN

STEPHEN YERKEY: Take some time

Kids’ Stuff

Z ROKK AND INKD-UP: Electrohouse mashup drummer Inkd-Up and remix DJ and producer Z Rokk bring a different style to downtown Sac. They are bringing live drums with heavy bass and a great vibe. Sa, 10pm through 12/31. Call for pricing. KBar, 1200 K St.; (916) 475-1673; www.facebook.com/ inkdupZRokk.

24MON

Most don’t require a partner and dances are fun workouts and mentally stimulating. Bring grit-free nonmarking shoes to dance in. Beginners welcome. Su, 7-10pm through 12/30. $35 for a five-class dance card ($25 for Davis Art Center members). Davis Art Center Studio E, 1919 F St., in Davis; (530) 758-0863; www.davisfolkdance.org.

WILLIE K’S WINTER WONDERLAND:

REVOLVER W/ SOUR DIESEL, DEFYANT CIRCLE: Hear Sammie

local jazz band which performs popular music, releases its new album, Come And Go. Enjoy the sounds of a full horn section. There will also be wine and food from Mama Kim’s Eats. Su, 12/23, 7pm. Free. Sacramento Temporary Contemporary, 1616 Del Paso Blvd.; (916) 923-6204.

The Brickhouse Gallery & Arts Complex (2837 36th Street). Happening on Wednesday, December 26, from 6 to 8:30 p.m., the event features drumming, singing, food and the collection of clothing to be distributed to homeless shelters. The Crocker Art Museum (216 O Street) celebrates Kwanzaa on Friday, December 28, with its artist-in-residence Deborah Pittman. At 2 p.m., she’ll be performing a multimedia piece inspired by Norman Rockwell’s painting, “The Problem We All Live With.” The event costs $3 for college students or $5 for general admission, and advance registration is required.

live music acts: Noface Shadowmen, Jemezzy, Luchi Lu, DJ Chainsaw and Kilo Kapanel. Sa, 12/22, 9pm-1am. $7-$15. River’s Edge Bar & Grill, 2125 W Capitol Ave. in West Sacramento; (916) 374-9155.

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2012: Year of the silver horse

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SN&R’s food critic raises a toast to the year’s best dining trends After a few years of feeling like the dining scene was, understandably, in a bit of a holding pattern because of the wrenching recession, I now feel by like it’s going almost too fast to keep up. Becky Some of the big changes have occurred in Grunewald no, not the newly branded stretch of K Street called “The Kay,” but in an area near the Safeway located on 19th Street. Let’s call it the “Silver Horse District.” Ramen House Ryujin (1831 S Street) recently took over for a spot that previously housed a generic Greek place and then a generic Mexican eatery—don’t you love it when a local restaurant replaces a chain, (which also happened when Firestone Public House trumped California Pizza Kitchen downtown)? While I steadfastly refuse to participate in the Shoki Ramen House vs. Ryujin debate, the latter is already a packed addition to the neighborhood. Right across the street, big changes are also happening at Bows & Arrows (1815 19th Street), with the departure of its much-loved Fat Face cafe helmed by Jaymes Luu and the advent of Bows Bistro, with chef Gabriel Nokes. Nokes has expanded his successful Sunday brunch menu to include creative sandwiches, more salads and soups, and late-night snacks such as chicken tacos and a veggie and pickle plate with vegan dressing. Perhaps most exciting of all is the opening of the nearby Hook & Ladder Manufacturing Co. (1630 S Street), a serious cocktail bar with ambitious food. I’m not sure if there’s much call in our still-depressed local economy for a casual place with $20-plus entrees, but the salads here are generously sized and skillfully composed, and the pizza is decent—more than decent, actually, in the case of one topped with rock shrimp and a sardine bagna cauda that tastes like haute anchovies. Meanwhile, across the grid, the most exciting development in my neighborhood is the opening of The Red Rabbit Kitchen & Bar (2718 J Street). Its menu features many strong dishes, including “street” tacos with a complicated preparation, an ever-changing house salad, and a wonderfully messy burger that’s served with an egg on top. My only problem with Red Rabbit is that it’s so popular that there’s often a 45-minute wait on the weekends. Some well-established places also had banner years. Masullo Pizza (2711 Riverside Boulevard) collected many deserved laurels, including famous pizzaiolo Chris Bianco ranking it as one of his top 11 pizzerias—right up there with Mario Batali’s Pizzeria Mozza. This just confirms what some of us have known for years: Masullo is turning out some of the best pizza anywhere, not just in Sac. And, of course, chefs Adam Pechal of Restaurant Thir13en (1300 H Street) and Tuli Bistro (2013 S Street) and Michael Thiemann of Ella Dining Room & Bar (1131 K Street)

2012

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BEFORE

FRONTLINES

FEATURE

have racked up too big of a word count nationally to recount here, but the two highlights include being quoted in a New York Times foie gras article and in the magazine Lucky Peach, respectively. While most of the hype is garnered by the fine-dining scene, the food of south Sacramento is just as important and exciting, sometimes more so. A simple dish of miniature baby clams sautéed with chili oil and served with chopped Vietnamese coriander at Bánh Xèo 46A (7837 Stockton Boulevard) is beautiful and surprising enough to take its place on any white-tablecloth menu. A platter of meltingly braised short ribs in tomato sauce with pillow-soft rice at Tacos & Beer (5701 Franklin Boulevard) could easily go for 26 bucks at a place like Mulvaney’s Building & Loan.

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All this and I haven’t even mentioned the rip-roaringly successful collaborations and competitions between local chefs or the upcoming Sacramento Bacon Fest, which is sure to be major, or the continued retooling of the places located across from the Crest Theatre on “The Kay,” or—well, you get the idea. Let’s raise a craft beer or artisanal cocktail toast to all the dedicated, hardworking restaurateurs in thanks, and with the wish that 2013 is even better, for them and for us. Ω

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STORY

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DISH Where to eat? Here are a few recent reviews and regional recommendations by Becky Grunewald and Greg Lucas, updated regularly. Check out www.newsreview.com for more dining advice.

Downtown

Estelle’s Patisserie With its marble tables and light wooden chairs, there’s an airy atmosphere, casual and cozy. Estelle’s offers an espresso bar and a wide assortment of teas and muffins and rolls for the breakfast crowd as well as sweets, including DayGlo macarons. For the lunch-inclined, there are soups, salads, sandwiches and meat or meatless quiche. One of the authentic touches is the spare use of condiments. The smoked salmon is enlivened by dill and the flavor of its croissant. Its tomato bisque is thick and richly flavored, and, in a nice touch, a puff pastry floats in the tureen as accompaniment. There’s a lot to like about Estelle’s— except dinner. Doors close at 6pm. French. 901 K St., (916) 551-1500. Meal for one: $5-$10. ★★★1⁄2 G.L.

Southeast-Asian flair. A spinach salad features ingredients that could be considered boring elsewhere: blue-cheese dressing, bacon, onion. But here, the sharply cheesy buttermilk dressing and the woodsy pine nuts make it a salad to remember. Grange’s brunch puts other local offerings to shame. The home fries are like marvelously crispy Spanish patatas bravas. A grilled-ham-and-Gruyere sandwich is just buttery enough, and an eggwhite frittata is more than a bone thrown to the

cholesterol-challenged, it’s a worthy dish in its own right. American. 926 J St., (916) 492-4450. Dinner for one: $40-$60. ★★★★ B.G.

Midtown

Firestone Public House A sports bar with a focus on craft beer isn’t exactly a groundbreaking concept, but two local and prominent restaurant families, the Wongs and the DeVere Whites, know what Sacramento wants: good beer; solid pub grub; and a casual, unpretentious atmosphere. Here, the bar is the centerpiece with a full stock

2012

REWIND!

of liquor and 60 beers on draught. The menu features savory appetizers—the tortilla soup with poached chicken, avocado and tomato is particularly noteworthy—and a selection of sandwiches and pizzas, including a simple pie with fresh mozzarella and tomato sauce. American. 1132 16th St., (916) 446-0888. Dinner for one: $15-$20. ★★★ B.G.

Shady Lady Saloon

So many bars try to do bar snacks, and so many fail. Shady Lady, however, nails it. The fried green tomatoes are punched up with a tarragon rémoulade and the huge charcuterie board is more like a groaning board, stocked with abundant regional meats and cheeses. The

pickle plate looks like Peter Rabbit’s dream, all teeny turnips and tangy carrot chunks. Generally excellent, the saloon’s cocktail list veers from the classics with a list of bartender-created drinks with unusual, but wisely considered flavor combinations: cilantro and tequila, blackberry and thyme, and the surprisingly sublime mixture of celery and pineapple. American. 1409 R St., (916) 231-9121.$10-$20. ★★★1⁄2 B.G.

North Sac

Asian Café Asian Café serves both Thai and Lao food, but go for the Lao specialties, which rely on

BREW THE RIGHT THING Best of the brew

MUST DRINK:

Wait, I’m supposed to actually remember my favorite beers of 2012? Isn’t brew impervious to being filed away in the ol’ mind trap? Anyway, rewind back to January and Mikkeller’s Invasion IPA—brewed here in Northern California at Drake’s Brewing—pops up again, what with its olive oil and mint notes and dry-hop boom. Norway’s HaandBryggeriet is a decent little brewery that I first got into this year, and its Haandbakk—a pinkbrown lambic with a unique tartness—is one I wouldn’t mind getting these hands on again. I drank a lot of Logsdon Farmhouse Ales’ Seizoen this summer, ditto AleSmith Brewing Company’s summer YuleSmith IPA—both quality. The best local beers of the year were any hoppy beer from Knee Deep Brewing Co. in Lincoln. And I definitely wouldn’t turn away a bottle of 3 Fonteinen’s Oude Geuze Golden Blend, which was blended with lambic aged four years; that was the beer of this year—or any.

Grange Restaurant & Bar You won’t find any “challenging” dishes on this menu—just delicious local and seasonal food such as the Green Curry & Pumpkin Soup, which has a

flavoring staples such as fish sauce, lime juice, galangal and lemongrass, lots of herbs, and chilies. One of the most common dishes in Lao cuisine is larb, a dish of chopped meat laced with herbs, chilies and lime. At Asian Café, it adds optional offal add-ons—various organ meats, entrails, et al—to three versions of the dish: beef with tripe, chicken with gizzards, or pork with pork skin. The beef salad offers a gentle respite from aggressive flavors, consisting of medium-thick chewy slices of eye of round with red bell pepper, chopped iceberg and hot raw jalapeño. The single best dish here is the nam kao tod, a crispy entree with ground pork that’s baked on

Beer: 5 Golden Rings Brewer: The Bruery Where: Burgers and Brew, 1409 R Street; (916) 442-0900; www.burgersbrew.com

Beer: Luciernaga (Belgian ale) Brewer: Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales Where: The Davis Beer Shoppe, 211 G Street in Davis; (530) 756-5212

Beer: EXXpedition Ale (red ale) Brewer: Drake’s Brewing Where: Samuel Horne’s Tavern,

719 Sutter Street in Folsom; (916) 293-8207; www.samuelhornestavern.com

—Nick Miller ILLUSTRATION BY HAYLEY DOSHAY

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South Sac

Bánh Xèo 46A Bánh Xèo 46A is named for its signature dish, a Vietnamese egg crepe. Each one completely fills an oval-shaped platter and is served shatteringly crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Bánh Xèo also offers nem nuong, or grilled pork sausages on skewers, and chao tom, a grilled-shrimp dish that arrives as a flamingo-pink paste melded into a sausage shape around juicy sugarcane. The staff is friendly and and a flat-screen TV emits a constant stream of saccharine Vietnamese love songs. Vietnamese. 7837 Stockton Blvd., Ste. 700; (916) 476-489. Dinner for one: $10-$20. ★★★★1⁄2 B.G. Giò Cha Duc Huong Sandwiches With banh mi, it’s the bread that sets the tone. Giò Cha Duc Huong Sandwiches goes against the grain with bread that’s more football shaped than submarine shaped, garlic bread, and a selection of premade grab-and-go sandwiches right by the counter. And, with its substitution of butter for mayonnaise and the emphasis on pâté, Duc Huong shows a stronger than usual French influence. The small menu is limited to eight sandwiches (mostly pork) and two soups: chicken curry soup and a beef stew called bo kho banh

mi, which comes with bread. There’s a thick float of chili oil on top of the yellow, turmeric and lemongrass-laced curry soup, which, at first, is off-putting until you realize it can be dipped into the yeasty, crusty, fluffy bread. Vietnamese.6825 Stockton Blvd., Ste. 200; (916) 428-1188. Dinner for one: $5-$10. ★★★1⁄2 B.G.

buttock. Diners also have the option to order hand-shaped, griddled-to-order tortillas. They are warm, soft, taste like corn and barely resemble those cardboard things you get at the store. Mexican. 5701 Franklin Blvd., (916) 428-7844. Dinner for one: $10-$20. ★★★1⁄2 B.G.

La Victoria Mercado y Carniceria No. 2 If you break-

Arden/ Carmichael

fast or lunch here on a weekend, you’ll likely encounter parties of bleary-eyed men conversing over large bowls of menudo, but La Victoria has plenty of other dishes on offer: breakfast plates, chile verde and roja, tacos, and tortas. In general, the food here has a reliable mid-level heat, but it distinguishes itself with its “normal” tacos, especially the cow-based ones, such as cabeza and lengua, and also its asada, which demonstrates a mastery of the cow: fatty, well-salted steak with a hint of garlic. They are served on tortillas fried in oil—which just adds to the decadence of the piled-up tacos. Mexican. 6830 Stockton Boulevard, (916) 427-1745. Breakfast or lunch for one: $5-$10. ★★★ B.G.

Tacos & Beer This is one of the area’s best Michoacán restaurants. Of its regional dishes, the enchiladas Apatzingán are unusual, filled with only a smattering of sharp cheese and diced onion, soaked in a vinegary sauce, and smothered in very lightly pickled, shredded cabbage with raw hunks of radish and avocado slices. Another specialty is the morisqueta—the ultimate comfort dish due to the unique texture of the white rice, which is as soft as an angel’s

Famous Kabob doesn’t disappoint. A skewer of juicy steak sports a nice chew to satisfy any craving. Another of ground beef is flavored with chopped onion and a hint of cinnamon. The braised lamb shank in a tomato-and-saffron sauce tastes best when the sauce has cooled a little bit and the lamb fat coats the meat like a silken sauce. With deft use of dried herbs and acidic flavors that brighten the dishes and stimulate the taste buds, these are meals that are quietly hearty and nourishing. Persian. 1290 Fulton Ave., (916) 483-1700. Dinner for one: $10-$20. ★★★★ B.G.

Bowl & Ramen Randomness yields wonderful rewards at Bowl Ramen, a ramen eatery under the same ownership as Mana Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar. This venture may explain the miso soup, not a common occurrence in other Korean joints, which is proffered here, along with the eight banchan dishes. It also explains the initially incongruous ramen and California Roll combo. For the less intrepid and the spice-averse, there’s nine ramen options, including ones that feature dumplings, cold buckwheat noodles and potato noodles. If not a believer in the miracle of sundubu, Bowl & Ramen offers conversion. This unique tofu stew has mushrooms, veggies, onions and an egg on top but simply reciting the ingredients doesn’t do the combination justice. Here, the bibimbap is presented in an artful way; among the dish’s vegetables are small cubes of zucchini that appear out of place but skillfully augment the other flavors. Korean. 2560 Alta Arden Expy., (916) 487-2694 Dinner for one: $9-$15. ★★★1⁄2 G.L.

Davis

Zen Toro Japanese Bistro & Sushi Bar Zen Toro features a large sushi menu, made up of both the steroidal Americanized rolls and traditional nigiri, but it also changes seasonally and features some uncommon offerings: Kinpira gobo with renkon (braised lotus and burdock-root salad) comprises matchsticksized fibrous pieces of burdock root and juicy slices of lotus in a sweet mirin soy sauce. It also features inventive desserts. The “uji kintoki parfait” (it translates roughly to “Best. Dessert. Ever.”) is served in a sundae glass filled with layers of greentea ice cream and sweet red beans, and it’s topped with whipped cream, chocolate Pocky candy, salty sesame crackers, peanut clusters, and warm, soft squares of mochi. Sushi. 132 E St. in Davis, (530) 753-0154. Dinner for one: $10-$25. ★★★ 1 ⁄ 2 B.G.

Famous Kabob It seems like if you’ve had one kebab, you’ve had them all. But as its name implies,

$ 39 Stre Tacoest

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‘C’ is for ‘cookie’ … and Christmas According to American folklore, Santa Claus is notorious for his love of—and voraciousness for—cookies (and milk). But since he’s fictional, what should one do with the cookies already baked for Mr. Claus? One option is to donate them to The Cookie Project. On Christmas Day, this local organization goes around delivering cookies to “people working crappy jobs that in a rational and kinder world should be at home with their families,” according to its mission statement. Now in its second year, project founder John Marcotte hopes to continue spreading holiday cheer—and cookies—to people such as firefighters, police and hospital workers. It also delivers to workers at companies such as Starbucks, McDonald’s and Denny’s, while encouraging the companies’ CEOs to give employees the day off. The Cookie Project’s website, www.cookieproject.org, features cookie recipes, The Naughty List (businesses that stay open on Christmas) and information on how to get involved. —Jonathan Mendick

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Want to hear Beck’s latest project? You’ll have to work for it. In Song Reader (McSweeney’s, $34), Beck composed new tunes and compiled them into a hardbound book of notated sheet music. The project BOOK was inspired by his interest in the oncepopular medium—the sheet music for Bing Crosby’s “Sweet Leilani” reportedly sold 54 million copies in 1937. “Nearly half the country had bought the sheet music … and had presumably gone through the trouble of learning to play it,” Beck writes. Musicians who play by ear shouldn’t despair: Song Reader also includes a guide to symbols and notations. Meanwhile, the rest of us must either take music lessons to hear Beck’s latest work—or at least wait for our more talented friends to do the work for us. —Rachel Leibrock

Form plus function fibonAcci cAbineT To truly understand how unique and interesting the Fibonacci Cabinet by Utopia Architecture & Design is, let’s start out with a brief math lesson, namely explaining what a Fibonacci sequence is: It’s a series of numbers starting with 0 and 1 in which the subsequent numbers are the sum of the previous two numbers (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc.). The Fibonacci Cabinet uses the sequence to determine the various sizes of the drawers. Sound confusing? It’s not actually that complicated. Once you see the logical progression of each individual cabinet’s size and how DESIGN they fit together, it’ll all make sense. These bamboo cabinets are custom-made; contact the company through its website for a quote on pricing. www.utopiadesign.cn/en/FibonacciCabinet.html. —Aaron Carnes

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34 | SN&R | 12.20.12

Christmas wish lists for Fab Four fanatics and vinylphiles everywhere are sure to be pricier to fill this year with the recent release of The Beatles Stereo Vinyl Box Set. It features 14 remastered albums, including 12 albums released in the United Kingdom from 1963 through 1970 (Please Please Me to Let It Be) as well as Magical Mystery Tour MUSIC and both volumes of Past Masters. Priced at $349.99, the set includes a souvenir T-shirt, a 252-page hardbound book with manufacturing details and a chapter dedicated to each album. www.beatles.com. —Mark Halverson

The reason for the season AmericAn red cross And sTAr educATion benefiT show In the spirit of the holidays, Rise Entertainment and Punch and Pie Productions present a two-day, all-ages benefit show raising money for victims of Hurricane Sandy through the American Red Cross MUSIC and for STAR Education, an after-school program that has encouraged the arts and music education for more than 25 years. Ten bands come together over two days (Saturday, December 21, and Sunday, December 22) to rock audience members into donating for both causes, with performances by Kill the Precedent, longtime punk rockers the Secretions, Killdevil and more. Day one features the return of Final Summation (pictured), a punk-rock band of 10 years that disbanded in 2010. Both shows start at 7 p.m. and cost $7 each, or shell out $12 for a pass for both days. Hosts for each evening vary, with the macho men of Supreme Pro Wrestling and the beautiful women of the Sac City Rollers taking turns. Also on the bill: Work Your Soul deejays Andy Garcia and Matthew Mora, who’ll spin northern soul, rocksteady and punk-rock records in between bands. And, when hunger strikes, check out the Knucklehead Hot Dog Diner food truck selling veggie and meat dogs. If all of this just isn’t enough of an incentive then think prizes—there will also be a raffle with goodies donated by local businesses like Royal Peacock Tattoo Parlor, Big Brother Comics, Crest Theatre, local artist-at-large Skinner, and more. The Where House, 5451 Warehouse Way, Suite 109; www.facebook.com/ RISEENTERTAIN?fref=ts. —Steph Rodriguez

2012

Revolution of love Dear Readers: As 2012 races to completion, we continue to resist a 21st-century lifestyle. In the collective cultural dream for this period, we anticipated enjoying copious free time. We simplified our belongings, embraced the four-hour workweek and organized our lives around the desires of our heart. We invested in visits with family and friends, and honored our need for solitude by Joey ga rcia and service. While we savored leisure, robots and androids a s kj oey @ ne wsreview.c om busily completed tasks for us. Unfortunately, instead, we are morphing into robots and androids, lurching semiconsciously through monotonous days and connected to others not by flesh, but by wiring.

Unplug from the umbilical cord of your digital device. It cannot feed you in the ways necessary to inspire your humanity. Let’s evolve. A real human being communicates, creates, plays, loves, feels and embraces imperfections. Find your path into the future by considering the following guidelines:

Got a problem?

Write, email or leave a message for Joey at the News & Review. Give your name, telephone number (for verification purposes only) and question—all correspondence will be kept strictly confidential. Write Joey, 1124 Del Paso Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95815; call (916) 498-1234, ext. 3206; or email askjoey@ newsreview.com.

Life is not what you think: Let’s agree to stop telling ourselves lies and stop teaching lies to children and teens. Good grades do not guarantee entry to the university of your dreams, but they can help. A college degree is not a guarantee of a well-paying job, career success or personal happiness, but it can help. Perfection in appearance does not guarantee friendship or love, but self-care is a sign of self-worth, and that is attractive. And flunking a class, divorcing a partner or being fired from a job is not failure. It’s an experience that can lead to new life. Let’s evolve to live and teach the truth: Life is a journey to learn how to give and receive love. Why should anyone wait until death to discover this reality? Recognize real love: Chemistry is not

love. It’s attraction, and sometimes, it’s lust. Sex is not love, and great sex is no guarantee that love exists now or later. Engage an evolved brain. Remember, too, that children and teens are not your confidantes. Respect yourself, your role as parent and your child’s or teen’s maturation process. If you need to talk about your marriage, divorce or dating

ReWiND!

exploits, go to therapy. That’s an act of love for everyone. Numbers are an illusion: A 30-year

marriage sometimes signifies commitment, friendship and chemistry. It can also represent two people who fear being alone, the financial ruin of divorce or the fires of hell. A long marriage can include abuse that one spouse has learned to tolerate. Similarly, age is just a number: It says nothing about a person’s maturity level or spiritual understanding. Humor is a tattletale: What we laugh

at or ridicule often reveals our wounds. Observe yourself and clean up unkindness so you can chortle without hurting a soul. Own your body: Listening to your body is your job, not your doctor’s. The more honesty and awareness you bring into the doctor’s office, the better equipped your doc is to treat you.

Tell Obama

whaT’s up! Send us your LetterS to obama and share your vision for the president’s next term. Email us what you think the president should do this time around during his second stint in the Oval Office. The best letters will appear in SN&R’s letters to Obama issue on January 17, 2013. email Obama at letterstoObama@newsreview.com. The deadline is Friday, January 4, 2013.

Managing your money is your job, not your bank’s, not your financial planner’s, not your mortgage broker’s:

Pay attention. (Get it?) That’s your investment in shaping your earnings and your financial future. Schools are troubled because adults are troubled: Children who are encouraged

to explore their passions, who are taught the skills of right relationships and who are lovingly guided into wholesome values will succeed. All of these qualities are taught through the experience of consistent parenting and consistent mentoring by other caring adults. Children learn what they live. Be born again: Unplug from the umbilical cord of your digital device. It cannot feed you in the ways necessary to inspire your humanity. Stop the download of fear that you might miss something. Slow down. Be born again as a human being. Spiritual solvency is important. A 21st-century life is one in which we develop the capacity to stay conscious and to selflessly choose to act from real love. This demands awareness. We must grow in our awareness of interior (feelings, thoughts, energy) and exterior (others, the environment, etc.) experiences, while also observing our interactions with each. If you are not practicing awareness, you may be in danger of becoming an automaton, enslaving yourself to a life that is not true. Ω

12.20.12 | SN&R | 35

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Sacramento had a bang-up theatrical 2012 Sometimes we forget how lucky we are as critics to live in a town so filled to the brim with theater companies that push the envelope with edgy by Jim Carnes, work—and bring that same energy to light Jeff Hudson, comedies and the classics. Here are a few of Maxwell McKee, our high notes for 2012, a year of outstandKel Munger ing theater. and We need to start with a handful of “whole Patti Roberts company, whole season” compliments. In the professional category, that goes to Capital Stage, which opened its new home on J Street and then pulled out all the stops

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Life and Undead of King Henry V and a This Is Spinal Tap take on Love’s Labour’s Lost, this would be the best season-ticket deal in town—and that’s without the rest of the plays on its list. The critics agree: Get thee some Big Idea! And in the experiments-of-the-excellentvariety category, we’ve got to name KOLT Run Creations’ empty-swimming-pool-in-anold-building production of Caryl Churchill’s feminist epic Vinegar Tom. KRC’s season was thoughtful—with Where We’re Born and Smudge, both Northern California premieres—but its final excursion into site-specific theater was a sold-out, extended knockout punch. Keep an eye on this troupe. The year also included moments of excellence so sublime that we had to bring smelling salts for our Willie rating: New Helvetia Theatre’s incredible staging of Next to Normal; B Street Theatre’s outstanding work on Arthur Miller’s The Price, and the incredible presentation of Red; Janis Stevens’ star turn in Sacramento native Joan Didion’s formidable one-woman show The Year of Magical Thinking at California Stage; and Green Valley Theatre Company’s steampunk version of The Rocky Horror Show.

Capital Stage’s Enron left us absolutely raptor-ous.

with a fantastic season. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the play with all the buzz a woman could hope for, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), which left us tingling and whispering, “More, please.” Then, there’s the raptor-ishly delightful tragicomedy of corporate raiders and government blindness, Enron. We can’t help but show the love for this local treasure that keeps getting better. On the community-theater front, how can we get you to give it up for Big Idea Theatre? It earned its name yet again by nudging up to professional standards while continuing to live on a community-theater budget—and offering community-priced tickets. With shows such as its detailed, note-perfect production of Tom Stoppard’s mammoth Arcadia, the blow-out-the-doors production of Killer Joe, a zombified The

But perhaps the best night of theater in town lasted only one night: Asclepius Productions’ benefit staged reading of August: Osage County. The company—the brainchild of local actress and music teacher Kelly Cullity, a cancer survivor—stages benefit shows using Sacramento’s talent to raise money for the American Cancer Society. It had help this year from the Sacramento Theatre Company, which allowed the use of its Mainstage. Oh, and the donated services of tons of local actors, both Equity and technically “amateur.” The staged reading went off-book in the third act, and thanks to topnotch work from the aforementioned Stevens, Shannon Mahoney, Maggie Hollinbeck, Nanci Zoppi and director Benjamin T. Ismail—plus the largest supporting cast seen locally in a long, long time—this show was as good as it gets. And it raised money to fight cancer. Yep, we love Sacramento theater. Ω

RECYCLE THIS PAPER.

Now Playing

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

This is the last year before Sacramento Theatre Company puts their musical production of A Christmas Carol on hiatus, and it’s in topnotch form with another outstanding Scrooge from Matt K. Miller. There’s been some updating of costumes and songs, and this version of the familiar tale adheres quite closely to Dickens’ classic tale. W 7pm; Th 12:30 & 7pm;

F 7pm; Sa 2 & 7:30pm; Su 2pm. Through 12/23.

$17-$37. Sacramento Theatre Company, 1419 H St.; (916) 443-6722; www.sactheatre.org. M.M. PHOTO BY KELLY CHRISTOFFERSEN

A Christmas Carol: “God bless us, every one!”

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

Jerry R. Montoya’s left-field holiday surprise is loosely based on the O. Henry story, with talking animals in a sputtering 1930s town (the railroad’s closing), domestic comedy à la The Honeymooners, and a hilarious birth scene. It’s loopy, funny and full of heart. Sa, Su 1 & 4pm; special performances 12/26, 27 & 28. Through 12/30. $18-$27. B Street Theatre, 2711 B St.; (916) 443-5300; www.bstreettheatre.org. J.H. PHOTO BY BILL MAHON

A PAIL OF GRACE

A tycoon who finds God and decides to shed all his worldly wealth hits obstacles thrown up by his family in Buck Busfield’s new holiday show. Laughs abound in this comedy that’s full of genuine good will toward men (and women). With B Street regulars Kurt Johnson, Stephanie McVay, Elisabeth Nunziato, David Pierini and David Silberman. Tu 6:30pm; W 2 &

6:30pm; Th, F 8pm; Sa 5 & 9pm; Su 2pm. Through 12/30. $23-$35. B Street Theatre, 2711 B St.; (916) 443-5300; www.bstreettheatre.org. J.C.

Short reviews by Jim Carnes, Jeff Hudson, Maxwell McKee.

Please drink responsibly. BEFORE

FRONTLINES

FEATURE

YOU’RE WELCOME, TREES.

A Pail of Grace: C’mon, show me how much holiday spirit you’ve got in that head of yours!

STORY

GREGG ALLMAN

& JAIMOE’S JASSSZ BAND

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A RT S & C U LT U R E

AFTER

12.20.12

SN&R

•

2 5 0 8 L A N D PA R K D R I V E L A N D PA R K & B R O A D WAY F R E E PA R K I N G A D J A C E N T T O T H E AT R E “A REFINED TREAT.”- Todd McCarthy, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER FRI-TUES: 10:35AM, 12:45, 2:55, 5:10, 7:30, 9:45PM NO MON 9:45PM

Ew deal Hyde Park on Hudson

“ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES OF 2012.” - Rex Reed, NEW YORK OBSERVER

HITCHCOCK Anna Karenina

WED/THUR: 10:25AM, 12:30, 2:45, 5:00, 7:15, 8:00, 9:30, 10:15PM FRI-TUES: 10:25AM, 12:30, 2:45, 5:00, 7:15, 9:30PM NO MON 10:25AM, 12:30, 9:30PM

“AN INTOXICATING SPECTACLE THAT BREATHES NEW LIFE INTO THE CLASSIC.” - Claudia Puig, USA TODAY WED/THUR: 10:30AM, 11:30AM, 1:20, 2:20, 4:10, 5:10, 7:00, 9:50PM FRI-TUES: 10:30AM, 1:20, 4:10, 7:00, 9:50PM NO MON 7:00, 9:50PM

F O R A D V A N C E T I C K E T S C A L L FA N D A N G O @ 1 - 8 0 0 - F A N D A N G O # 2 7 2 1

Show timeS valid dec 21 – 27, 2012 cloSed tueSday, dec. 25 for chriStmaS

december 21–24

oPeNiNG friday, dec. 21

WHITE cHrIsTmas

CHASING ICE Rated PG-13

The Holiday Classic

It was on the same fateful summer weekend in 1939, with the English royals visiting for the first time and worrying over war and by Jonathan Kiefer wiener etiquette, that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fifth cousin Daisy finally wised up to his philandering. This was not easy for Daisy; having recently been summoned to the president’s upstate New York retreat in order to see his stamp collection, she wound up jerking him off to a Glenn Miller tune in a meadow full of wildflowers, and becoming rather moony about the great man thereafter.

Fri-Mon 12:00 2:00 4:00 8:00 Wed & Thu 8:00 nightly

Now PlayiNG

arGo

Rated R Fri-Mon 12:15 3:00 5:45 8:25 Wed-Thu 5:45 8:25

Not Rated Friday 7:30 only Sat-Mon 1:00 4:30 7:30

Now PlayiNG

sOmEWHErE BETWEEN Not Rated Fri-Mon 6:00 only Wed & Thu 6:00 nightly

1013 K Street - 916.442.7378 join the list - www.thecrest.com

REEL

REVIEWS.

Ew! You want us to do what?

EVERY THURSDAY. YOU’RE WELCOME, FILM GEEKS.

‘‘YOU’VE NEVER SEEN IMAGES LIKE THIS BEFORE... IT DESERVES TO BE SEEN AND FELT ON THE BIG SCREEN’’ –ROBERT REDFORD

‘‘STUNNING IMAGES... TIMELY... A SOLITARY QUEST WITH GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS’’

“HHHHH ” ‘‘HEART-STOPPING’’ – Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES – Joe Neumaier, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

– Neil Genzlinger, THE NEW YORK TIMES

“VISUALLY BREATHTAKING’’ – Justin Chang, VARIETY

Poor

Fair

3 Good

4 A FILM BY JEFF ORLOWSKI www.chasingice.com • www.submarinedeluxe.com

STARTS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21

CREST THEATER 1013 K Street, Sacramento (916) 442-7378

38 | SN&R | 12.20.12

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Or so Hyde Park on Hudson very politely insists. The premise of director Roger Michell’s film, from Richard Nelson’s script, is not implicitly contentious. The problem is that it’s not implicitly compelling, either. A mousy naif, Daisy also serves as the movie’s narrator. “They all wanted something from him,” she tells us, in a tone that seems uninvitingly to split the difference between romance novel and children’s book, “and all he wanted was to relax.” All she wanted, maybe, was to please him and to maintain his preferential attention. But she wasn’t sure what she wanted, or at least the filmmakers weren’t. These are not the highest of dramatic stakes. But what if, in addition to being a faintly prestigious period piece, so obviously aimed at the audience for The King’s Speech as to include a supporting role for that film’s protagonist, Hyde Park on Hudson also is supposed to be a comedy? Importantly, this Daisy is played by Laura Linney, whose career has shrewdly reconciled dimpled guilelessness with squinting calculation, and accordingly taken her from enlivening episodes of Tales of the City to introducing episodes of Downton Abbey. And even more importantly, this Mr. Roosevelt is played by Bill Murray. Delight at his own good fortune always has read well on the face of Murray, who looks increasingly pleased to have figured out how little he now needs to do. Here, with Michell seeming reluctant to intrude, Murray gently

guides his old familiar unkempt charm into relatively new territory: the polio-stricken POTUS who also played around. Now, of course we wouldn’t want Murray to get all Daniel Day-Lewis on us, and indeed this particular big-screen presidential portrait, essentially a sketch, does at least seem refreshing for its lack of ponderousness. But we are within our rights to hope for something more innately, less politely Murrayish than merely peering through a pince-nez, champing at a cigarette holder and taking too much female affection for granted. In addition to Daisy, other women in Mr. Roosevelt’s life include his mother (Elizabeth Wilson), his personal secretary (Elizabeth Marvel) and his wife (Olivia Williams), yet more sharp actors mired in dull circumstances. As scenes linger, filling up on dead air instead of humor or tension, we’re left to reflect on how movies and the people in them have evolved in the years since, say, Rushmore, another strategic seriocomic application of Murray and Williams and hand-job jokes. Yes, a comedy would do quite nicely, but not one so safe and dainty and unfortunately sexless as this. Neither scandalizing nor humanizing, Hyde Park on Hudson avoids the apparent risk of intimacy. It settles soon enough into a lethargic holding pattern— perhaps intending to evoke the warm summer breezes whose virtues Daisy’s narration extols, or perhaps because it just can’t manage to go anywhere else.

Neither scandalizing nor humanizing, Hyde Park on Hudson avoids the apparent risk of intimacy. It settles soon enough into a lethargic holding pattern. With the date which will live in infamy still a couple of years away, our FDR prepares to receive King George VI (Samuel West) and Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman), the newbie royals in search of prewar support. This at least affords a sly few moments of aristocratic culture clash, and indeed, the movie’s best scene, one sodden late-night pep talk from paralyzed president to stammering king. But it also suggests inattention or indifference to the initial established framework. What was to become of that poor openhearted dullard Daisy? Did the movie get (understandably) bored and give up on its own main character? Not exactly: In Nelson and Michell’s arrangement, it was Daisy who showed the monarch how best to mustard up his hot dog. The rest is history, of sorts. Some new deals are better than others. Ω

turning heads

by JONATHAN KIeFeR & JIM LANe

Anna Karenina

Tolstoy’s oft-filmed tale of adultery in Imperial Russia gets a daring treatment from writer Tom Stoppard and director Joe Wright: The movie takes place in an ornate, slightly run-down theater, an apt metaphor for Imperial Russia itself, and for the rigidly structured conventions of upper-class society. As Anna, Keira Knightley is as alarmingly assertive as ever, her performance growing stronger as Anna grows ever more neurotic. Aaron TaylorJohnson plays her lover, the dashing cavalry officer Vronsky, as a callow pretty-boy, while Jude Law makes her stiff-necked, conventional husband more than the standard cardboard villain. Stoppard and Wright presume a passing familiarity with Russian literature—which may have been reckless of them—but the result, if you’re open to it, is bracing and stimulating. J.L.

Argo

In November 1979, as Iranian revolutionaries overrun the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and take the staff hostage, six Americans manage to escape and find refuge in the residence of the Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber). A CIA exfiltration expert (Ben Affleck) hatches an elaborate cover story to smuggle the Americans out disguised as members of a Hollywood film crew. Director Affleck and writer Chris Terrio fictionalize a real-life story, the CIA component of which wasn’t declassified until 1997—and is here emphasized somewhat to the detriment of the Canadian contribution, which was considerable and highly risky. Still, it’s a crackling good suspense thriller, told with mounting tension and just the right splashes of humor. John Goodman plays Oscarwinning makeup artist (and CIA contractor) John Chambers. J.L.

Hitchcock

Here’s another defanged Hollywood history, done in the biopic-snapshot style and complete with voguish prosthetic distraction—this time in the fat-suited form of Anthony Hopkins, rolling suspenselessly along as the master of suspense. Adapted by John J. McLaughlin from Stephen Rebello’s book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, director Sacha Gervasi’s film seems slightly afraid of appealing only to a rarefied film-wonk crowd, and settles therefore into broad, easy strokes. Worried about advancing age and declining reputation, this Hitch bucks all career advice and stakes his house on a self-financed adaptation of Robert Bloch’s novel, which, in turn, derives from the true story of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, who appears to the director in a few misbegotten dream sequences. There’s also some behind-every-great-man mythology, helped along by Helen Mirren as Hitchcock’s wife and unsung collaborator Alma Reville. The net result is companionable but eventually sort of irritating, like a good friend with a bad habit of pantomimed stabbings and a cappella renditions of Bernard Herrmann’s violins. Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel, James D’Arcy, and Danny Huston co-star. J.K.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Having done all right with his Lord of the Rings, director Peter Jackson returns to the fantasy fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien and another planned nine-hour trilogy, beginning with this overlong but eventually appealing first installment. As the eponymous diminutive, Martin Freeman excels at comporting himself with kooky company, particularly by means of self-effacement. Obediently, the movie also provides not just the requisite CGI spectacles but a few of the previous trilogy’s other human touches: the patient wizardry of Ian McKellen; the elfin nobility of Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving; the moistly sibilant voice and motioncaptured form of Andy Serkis. Mercifully, it’s less like watching someone else play a video game (albeit in unprecedented high definition) than it might have been—Jackson’s enhanced digital imagery has a vaguely fluorescent chill, but at least the film it’s in seems like a promising warm-up. J.K.

Killing Them Softly

When two small-time hoods (Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn) hold up a mob poker game, an out-of-town enforcer (Brad Pitt) is brought in to mete out appropriate punishment. Writer-director Andrew Dominik updates George V. Higgins’ novel Cogan’s Trade from the 1970s to the 2008 financial crisis, with

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This “sort-of sequel to Knocked Up” reminds us for better and worse how all Judd Apatow movies start to seem like sort-of sequels to each other. It is perhaps a consequence of siphoning so much material directly from life. This particular domestic farce, which also resembles a home movie, co-stars the filmmaker’s actual daughters and his wife, Leslie Mann, along with Paul Rudd as his proxy, and involves a married couple coping episodically with the onset of mutual middle age. Extended success may have taken off the edge of desperate hilarity in Apatow’s writing; more often than noticing how funny this movie is, you notice how long it is—more nudged than inspired. But maybe that’s just a function of getting older. Co-stars include Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Megan Fox, Jason Segel and Melissa McCarthy. J.K.

pronouncements from Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama streaming like mood music from every TV and radio, a counterpoint to the violent action in the foreground. Dominik overdoes the pseudo-political deep think—but then, he overdoes everything. The title is ironic; nobody is killed softly here—one execution plays in agonizing slow motion that seems to last 10 minutes. Still, it’s repellently fascinating, like watching a snake eat a rat. Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta and James Gandolfini round out the hard-boiled cast. J.L.

Life of Pi

An Indian youth (Suraj Sharma), shipwrecked while emigrating to Canada with his family, finds himself in a lifeboat mid-Pacific Ocean with the wreck’s only other survivors: a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and a tiger. Soon, it’s just our hero and the tiger, both hungry and desperate. Yann Martel’s award-winning novel becomes, in the hands of writer David Magee and director Ang Lee, one of the great adventure movies of all time, while not ignoring the spiritual undercurrents in Martel’s book. The movie is brilliant in every sense of the word, evoking Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli and Shere Khan one moment, The Story of Little Black Sambo (without the racism) the next, and cradling it all in magical realism. Cinematography (Claudio Miranda) and visual effects (Bill Westenhofer) are beyond superb, as is Sharma, who has never acted before. J.L.

Lincoln

Writer Tony Kushner and director Steven Spielberg adapt Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, one of the indispensable books on the Civil War. Alas, they dispense with all but five of Goodwin’s 916 pages, concentrating on the process of guiding the 13th Amendment (abolishing slavery) through Congress—a process where Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) leaves the wheeling and dealing to a party operative (James Spader). This makes Lincoln actually a supporting role, but there’s no making Day-Lewis a supporting actor: He’s Lincoln to the life, and his performance—far more than Kushner’s dramatic fripperies or Spielberg’s reverent listen-to-these-golden-words staging—is the best reason to see the movie. As Mary Lincoln, Sally Field overacts in an ill-written role. J.L.

Silver Linings Playbook

Recently out of a mental institution but far from stable, a man (Bradley Cooper) obsesses about reconciling with his ex-wife, even as he meets a woman (Jennifer Lawrence) who is equally emotionally fragile. Writerdirector David O. Russell adapts Matthew

FRONTLINES

Quick’s novel in his usual quirky manner, and the movie takes a while to reel us in. Cooper’s character is at first as exasperating to us as to his harried parents (Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver). But before we can completely turn off to this annoying nutcase, Lawrence comes along with a fearless performance that not only captures us but, within the story, calms and humanizes this nervous wreck without his even knowing it. Russell builds this romantic dramedy patiently, and the patience pays off; that inevitable warm feeling at the end is honestly earned. J.L.

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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 2

The vampire newlyweds (Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson), their werewolf buddy (Taylor Lautner) and various allies square off against the Volturi, led by the sinister Aro (Michael Sheen, in a campy performance that’s equal parts Mike Myers and Davy Jones of the Monkees, only less threatening). It’s probably not over—this series is too lucrative to end now—but be that as it may, Lautner, while no great shakes as an actor, at least has screen presence and a twinkle of humor in his eyes; Stewart and Pattinson remain monumentally dull, stiff and lifeless as the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Director Bill Condon injects a modicum of visual style, and Melissa Rosenberg’s script adds a cheap-shot ending that, though it departs from Stephenie Meyer’s novel, will probably please the fans. J.L.

F E AT U R E S T O RY

1/8th or 1/4

Combinable Coupons

We’ve had James Bond movies for 50 years now, and this one treats the benchmark like a special occasion. It’s clever how Daniel Craig still is becoming the devilish 007 we’ve always known, even as his third outing in the role applies a framework of fussing over oldness and possible obsolescence. Part of Skyfall’s project is sorting relics from ruins. The movie does right by its major players, including the impeccably tailored Craig and the immortally matriarchal Judi Dench, plus it welcomes franchise newcomers Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris. Its blowback plot involves Javier Bardem delighting in villainy and a rather cheeky British take on Freudian mama’s-boy anguish. Urbane yet never too serious and beautifully shot by Roger Deakins, this all seems a good fit for director Sam Mendes, who’s made his career imposing a sort of British pretense on American movies. The posh popcorn-muncher seems like just what the Bond experience always was all about. Nice to see there’s a future in it. J.K.

BLUEBERRY WIDOW OR BLUE KUSH

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12.20.12

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SN&R

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www.powerhousepub

Whiskey Dawn New Years Eve Mon Dec 31st TAINTED LOVE DEC 28

TOMMY CASTRO JAN 11 DAN HICKS &

Music ’til the end of the world SN&R music writers on the tunes, trends and obsessions that made 2012 the best last year on Earth If you’re reading this, it can only mean one thing: The Mayans were wrong, and we’re all still here. Maybe the world didn’t end, but living like it might was fun while it lasted. The following are the albums, shows, trends and sonic addictions that helped SN&R’s music writers survive 2012. photo by steven chea

12/16 - Gumbo Stew 12/20 - Chris Gardner 12/21 - Spazmatics 12/22 - WonderBread 5 12/23 - Ricky V’s Xmas 12/27 - Northern Heat 12/28 - TAINTED LOVE 12/29 - Arden Park Roots 12/31 - Whiskey Dawn 1/3 - Left of Centre 1/4 - The Decades 1/5 - Foreverland 1/6 - Rockin Down Hwy 1/10 - Calif Cowboys 1/11 - TOMMY CASTRO 1/12 - Dead Winter Carpenters 1/13 - Buddy Emmer 1/17 - Sandy Nuyts 1/18 - Inspector 71 1/19 - 8 Track Massacre 1/20 - DAN HICKS & Boogie Blasters 1/24 - Steel Breeze 1/26 - Poster Child 1/27 - DRIFTERS

BOOGIE BLASTERS

SUN JAN 20 DRIFTERS SUN JAN 27

614 Sutter St Historic Folsom CA (916) 355-8586 www.powerhousepub.com

Century Got Bars performed at the Sammies in October.

Hello, Spotify; goodbye, Coldplay 1. Spotify: Because Pandora is hella presumptuous, and I have control issues. 2. Rappers I’ve never heard with huge YouTube followings: What’s up, A$AP Rocky and Macklemore? 3. Coldplay taking a three-year hiatus: Take your time, fellas. Maybe you can make it five years. 4. Ace of Spades nightclub: Saw Snoop Dogg, Wallpaper, Morbid Angel, Gwar and Hatebreed there. ’Nuff said. 5. The Coup and the Roots’ new albums: Because hip-hop should lean in all directions.

—Ngaio Bealum

Sac’s best fearlessly personal, underground and underrated hip-hop records 1. Chuuwee, Wildstyle: Easy decision. Sacramento’s 22-year-old rap prodigy takes on hip-hop’s golden era. 2. Sleeprockers x Tajai, Machine Language: The four-man Sacramento Skratch/Production crew teams with the legendary Tajai from Hieroglyphics. 3. Century Got Bars, Forget Today, Remember Tomorrow: A fearlessly personal ride through her life, this album exemplifies why they call her “Got Bars.” 4.Tribe of Levi, Follow My Lead: What underground hip-hop should sound like. Period. 40 | SN&R | 12.20.12

5. J. Good, Bluffington High: One of the most underrated emcees in the city, and this album is proof.

—Andrew Bell

Best beer and band pairings 1. Aesop Rock and anything from Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.: Something about white rappers really shouts “fine line between challenging the status quo and being an embarrassing imitation of a genre,” the beer equivalent of which is Sierra Nevada. It can go either way. 2. King Tuff and a 12-pack of Hamm’s Beer: When the party rockers swung through Bows & Arrows earlier this month, their jangly guitar lines and bouncing bass screamed “good time.” 3. ESS and Ruhstaller Cptn. California Black IPA: When listening to a brooding, heavy band, you best be sipping something equally dark. They’re both too good to pass up come these gloomy winter days. 4. Death Grips and malt liquor, any brand: The Sacramento aggressors were a little distant while breaking through the glass ceiling of hip-hop this year. Hopefully, when they get around to playing their hometown, it will be an impromptu gathering under the freeway overpass and we’ll raise our paper-bagged 40s in celebration. 5. David Bazan and O’Doul’s: Alcoholic ex-Christian-rock musicians like Bazan should really abstain from hitting the sauce, as should the pregnant women and underage kids who ubiquitously populate his shows.

—Julianna Boggs

My year of living obsessively 1. Woozy, tripped-out pop: I listened to Best Coast (The Only Place), Frankie Rose (Interstellar) and Dum Dum Girls (End of Daze) so much this year, I’m still waiting for them to take out a restraining order on me. 2. Weirdo girls: Oddball estrogen dominated (Emily Wells, Peggy Sue, Sharon Van Etten, Alex Winston, et al), but it’s Fiona Apple’s The Idler Wheel … for the win, if only because she postponed a tour to be with her dying dog. Love. 3. Ladies of the ’90s: Cat Power (Sun) and the Corin Tucker Band (Kill My Blues) made it clear that I am, apparently, emotionally marooned in the year 1996. 4. Love is hell: The Babies’ X-styled boy-girl angst (Our House on the Hill); Damien Jurado’s sparse, moody indie rock (Maraqopa); and Paloma Faith’s retro blues (Fall to Grace) made for beautiful heartache. 5. Press play and repeat: There are few better highs in life than playing that one song obsessively; Woods’ “Cali in a Cup,” and Green Day’s “Let Yourself Go” demanded feverishly repeated listening.

—Rachel Leibrock

2012

rewind! Mainstream doesn’t have to suck

Soundtrack for the apocalypse

1. K’naan, Country, God or the Girl: This year’s best hip-hop release belongs to K’naan, a Somali civil-war refugee who learned English by listening to classic rap albums, and who collaborates well with such disparate artists as Nas, Nelly Furtado and Bono from U2. 2. Muse, The 2nd Law: Muse experiments with ballads, Queen-esque arrangements, and dubstep; what’s not to like about this ambitious album? 3. Cisco Adler, Aloha: Adler fronted rock band Whitestarr and produced three albums by rapper Shwayze, but his debut album is an ode to his Hawaiian roots—a blend of reggae, hip-hop, soul and pop influences. 4. Nicki Minaj, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded: Sure, “Starships” is hella annoying, but Minaj still brings a refreshing badass attitude to mainstream rap. 5. Green Day, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré!: The über-catchy pop punks are back with a triple album; hopefully frontman Billie Joe Armstrong will complete rehab soon so the group can reschedule its recently canceled tour stop at Sacramento’s Memorial Auditorium.

1. First Aid Kit, The Lion’s Roar: In yet another blow for Scandanavian folk, the latest album from the Swedish sisters Söderberg (Johanna and Klara) includes one of the most American songs I heard all year: “Emmylou,” a paen to country music, love and fidelity. 2. The Mynabirds, Generals: Laura Burhenn—who plays in Bright Eyes—shifts gears in this record full of foot-stomping music that’s more rock than pop. 3. Good Old War, Come Back as Rain: This Philadelphia-based indiefolk trio boasts a wide Americana streak, with occasional rock riffs on acoustic guitars. Think the Carter Family meets Mumford & Sons. 4. Imagine Dragons, Night Visions: These guys are classified as “indie rock,” and they’re the first band I’ve ever heard a free song from on iTunes and immediately bought the whole album. “Radioactive” tops my apocalyptic playlist. 5. Fun., Some Nights: Yeah, I love this poppy stuff. This is workout music, house-cleaning music, drivingaround-doing-errands music. If you haven’t heard these guys, you don’t listen to the radio much, do you? Lightweight, but in a good way.

—Jonathan Mendick

Five bangers or rippers I wouldn’t jam in front of my mom 1. Every 30- or 40-something who’s a ripper at heart should sing King Tuff’s “Bad Thing” in the shower—complete with air-guitar soloing—each morning. It’ll add years, man. 2. The coolest things about Death Grips’ “Hustle Bones” is the whiplike sound Zach Hill’s drums achieve during the verse, not the obvious choice: The year’s trendiest lyric, “My steez is ballin out!” 3. Hey, so Mom might actually like the psychedelic, classicinspired jam “Mind Mischief” off of Tame Impala’s sophomore release. Even though they’re Australian. 4. Meanwhile, would Mom even know what the hell was going on if I played any track off Trash Talk’s 119? 5. “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” is the jam of the year, right? What with Kendrick Lamar’s kinda kooky, surely cocky chorus and that smoothed out, R&B bassguitar backbone. It’s also Jesse Pinkman’s official theme song.

—Nick Miller

—Kel Munger

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Good friends, headbanging and nostalgia 1. Ceremony at Amoeba Records in San Francisco, March 6: On a random trip to the city with a good friend; this record-store-browsing session turned into a free show, courtesy of our old favorites. 2. Coheed and Cambria at the Knitting Factory in Reno, Nevada, August 2: My ninth Coheed and Cambria experience and Claudio Sanchez still makes my knees weak with his double-neck guitar solos and piercing falsetto. 3. Fucked Up at Slim’s in San Francisco, September 5: Vocalist Damian Abraham stripped down to his skivvies, jumped into the crowd and worked his way to the back of the audience, still holding his microphone attached to a very lengthy cord. 4. Saint Vitus at Harlow’s Restaurant & Nightclub, October 11: These ageold stoner-metal greats from the late ’70s made my neck sore from all the headbanging. 5. NOFX at Ace of Spades, December 10: Fat Mike isn’t so fat anymore. Every song was on point and struck the chords of my teenage years.

—Steph Rodriguez

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12.20.12 | SN&R | 41

20THURS

21FRI

Alma Desnuda

Rock for Tots

Some Fear None

Who Cares

Blue Lamp, 8 p.m., $10

Old Ironsides, 8:30 p.m., $5

Bows & Arrows, 8 p.m., $7 In Spanish, the term “alma desnuda” means “naked soul.” But that description doesn’t quite fit this quartet. Voted by Diablo magaiNDiE zine readers as the 2012 Best of the East Bay Local Band, Alma Desnuda dresses up its chill, acoustic jams with danceworthy grooves, sweet harmonies and a laid-back “California dreamin’” kind of vibe. The band’s revered for its live sets—think Phish lite—so don your best purple calico maxi skirt, dab some patchouli oil behind your ears and get ready to shamelessly hip-shake those winter blues away. 1815 19th Street, www.4nakedsouls.com.

—Rachel Leibrock

This event—the seventh annual—is all about hearing music by some of Sacramento’s gnarliest rock bands and donating toys to kids. If you bring a toy to the Blue Lamp on Thursday evening, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win prizes from local sponsors such as Spanish Fly Hair Garage Salon, American Graffiti Tattoo, and The Red Rabbit Kitchen & Bar. Plus, you’ll be serenaded with tunes by rock bands I’m Dirty Too (pictured), Horseneck, Lonely Kings, Bastards of Young and Fudi. The event is 21 and over. Rock So, listen to local rock acts, help kids in need and reap the benefits of this night out. 1400 Alhambra Boulevard, www.bluelamp.com.

—Jonathan Mendick

TownHouse Lounge, 9 p.m., donation

Listening to Some Fear None’s music is a bit like getting hit with a sledgehammer and enjoying the sensation afterward. With bone-shaking drum explosions, crunchy guitar licks and lead singer Nathan Giguiere’s pummeling voice, this band rocks from the Rock get-go. Giguiere’s Scott Stapplike vocals are on display in the brooding “Threshold,” and the heavy rock sound of “O.A.” grabs you by the throat and holds on tight. The group’s latest single “Disengage” has a punishingly powerful bass line that mixes well with the song’s roaring guitars. Some Fear None unabashedly rocks hard, and if the world ends on December 21, it’ll go out with a bang. 1901 10th Street, www.somefearnone.com.

Here’s what you do: Go to Safeway, buy a can of food, donate the can—and not some shitty tin of cream corn, natch—to get in free to this all-star holiday gig. It also might be the last TownHouse show ever (you never know!)—but don’t be a crybaby about that. Anyway, it’s a diverse lineup of local faves: Who Cares does verses, Dusty Brown boasts the beats, Doom Bird comes with, uh, beats now, too; and I’m Dirty Too’s armed with straightforward crash-and-jam rock. DJ chaRity Roger busts the scuttle in between songs upstairs, and deejays Shaun Slaughter and Adam J will put your whiskey gut to work on the dance floor. 1517 21st Street, www.facebook.com/ whocaresmuzik.

—Brian Palmer

ACE OF SPADES

1417 R Street, Sacramento, 95814 www.aceofspadessac.com

ALL AGES WELCOME!

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21

MONDAY, JANUARY 7

WRINGS (FORMERLY EARLY STATES)

THE PILFERS - DAN POTTHAST (OF MU330)

CAPITAL CITIES

—Nick Miller

REEL BIG FISH

COMING

SOON

01/17 Slightly Stoopid 01/19 Down

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27

X (ALL ORIGINAL LINEUP) MY JERUSALEM

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29

TURQUOISE JEEP PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS FRIDAY, JANUARY 4

PUNK VS. POP PUNK

PUNK: YANKEE BRUTAL - REBEL RADIO - THE LONELY REVOLTS POP PUNK: THE SKY COMMAND - SELF PROCLAIMED - LONELY AVENUE

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9

AN EVENING WITH

HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD

FOR ALL THAT STANDS - THE SUN SETS HERE BEFORE ME - OUR ENDLESS OBSESSION

TRIBAL SEEDS STICK FIGURE - THE MAAD T-RAY SIMPLE CREATION MONDAY, JANUARY 14

OF MICE & MEN WOE IS ME - TEXAS IN JULY - VOLUMES CAPTURE THE CROWN

12.20.12

01/26 Fallrise 01/27 Action Item 02/05 Nonpoint 02/06 The Wailers 02/07 Hot Water Music 02/13 The Green 02/16 For Today 02/17 Soulfly 02/22 Molly Hatchet 02/28 Testament 03/01 Meshuggah

TUESDAY, JANUARY 15

SUM 41

HUNTER VALENTINE & IAMDYNAMITE

Tickets available at all Dimple Records Locations, The Beat Records, and Armadillo Records, or purchase by phone @ 916.443.9202

42 | SN&R |

01/25 Roach Gigz

02/01 Silverstein

SATURDAY, JANUARY 12

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5

THE MOTH ANATOMY FROM CITIES TO SALT - DEAD BY NIGHTFALL

01/24 Gojira

03/05 Reverend Horton Heat 03/06 Black Veil Brides 03/20 Rebelution 03/27 Mindless Self Indulgence

22SAT

23SUN

Mustache Harbor

Iconoclast Robot

A Holiday Vocal Showcase

Harlow’s Restaurant & Nightclub, 10 p.m., $12

Blue Lamp, 9 p.m., $8

This NorCal-based soft-rock cover band claims to have been brought together by astrological signs and a love of sweet mustaches, but Mustache Harbor’s shared sense of humor had something to do with it, too. The faux-vintage rockers have a formidable list of easy-listening hits ready to rock your boat and some dance moves that will alternately attract and repel you. Think the Eagles and Steely Dan performed by ’70s porno-chic dudes in aviators and captain hats. Yacht rock not your thing? It will be. SOFT ROCK Join the mustache army at Harlow’s this Friday for the self-proclaimed “soft rock explosion” of a lifetime. Some predrinking required. 2708 J Street, http://mustacheharbor.com.

—Julianna Boggs

27THURS

pHoTo By kevIN gRAFT

21FRI

Shine, 5 p.m., $5

Truly live hip-hop is a rare thing—the Roots have that market cornered—but just having an emcee and live musicians doesn’t necesHip-HOp sarily qualify a group as “live hip-hop.” Sacramento-based troupe Iconoclast Robot is just too eclectic to wear that label. Sure, hip-hop’s in there, but so is moody, melodic ’90s-influenced alternative rock. And, yes, emcee Ryan Charles can sing, too. This isn’t even rap rock or nu metal with hip-hop influences or some other well-trodden rap-hybrid subgenre. It’s new territory. It’s music that melts genres to the point of stripping them of their previous connotations. There’s the raw energy of rock, the poetry of hip-hop and influences hard to even pinpoint. 1400 Alhambra Boulevard, www.iconoclastrobot.com.

Ace of Spades, 6:30 p.m., $32.50

Join Sammie award-winner Larisa Bryski (pictured) and her students as they present an all-ages holiday vocal showcase featuring 15 to 20 musicians ranging from age 10 to 70. It’s three hours of performances for the small fee of $5, and all of the money raised will help fund the Daniel Moreno Memorial Music Scholarship. On the bill are singers (pros and first-timers)—including Bailey Zindel from the Hungry; Brian and Colin HOLiDAY Curtin from North Bound Train; and Grant Chesin from the 2012 Skip’s Music Stairway to Stardomwinning band, Crossroads—who will perform holiday music, original pieces and cover songs. 1400 E Street, www.larisabryski.com.

Even though it didn’t solely pave the way for future punk rockers per se, American punk band X still influenced the world of music. After forming in 1977, X released its first LP, Los Angeles, a few years later. Little fun pUNK fact: The album was recorded by the Doors’ keyboardist, Ray Manzarek—which further explains X’s choice to cover “Soul Kitchen.” After a brief hiatus in the mid- to late-’90s, X reunited in early 2000 and currently tours with all original members. Whether you fell in love with “Johny Hit and Run Paulene” or “Los Angeles,” don’t miss the chance to hear them both live. 1417 R Street, www.xtheband.com.

—Steph Rodriguez

—Trina L. Drotar

—Aaron Carnes

Every Day

We Have

Blues

the

HAPPY HOUR M-F 6-7PM

THU Dec 20 9PM $5

FREE FOOD MON: 1/2 LB BURGER, 1/4 LB HOT DOGS & TACOS TUES: FISH, CHICKEN & SHRIMP TACOS WED: HOT WINGS & SPICY CHICKEN SLIDERS THUR: BBQ CHICKEN SLIDERS FRI: GYROS

$10 CRAZY DINNER SPECIALS

TUES: 16 OZ RIBEYE STEAK DINNER WED: FULL RACK BABY BACK RIBS THUR: 16 OZ NY STEAK DINNER FRI: PRIME RIB DINNER SAT: SLOW ROASTED TRI TIP DINNER

NEW YEAR’S EVE PACKAGES STARTING AT $10 FOOD • DRINKING • FUN 1320 DEL PASO BLVD • SAC for more info 916.927.6023 www.stoneyinn.com

Happy Hour Drink Specials • No Cover Thur: Fri: Sat: Sun: Tues: Wed:

X-Trio

5:30 - 7:30

Jimmy & Lew

5:30 - 7:30

Acoustic Johnny Knox

5:30 - 7

Dippin Sauce

FRI Dec 21 9PM $7

Cole Fonseca

SaT Dec 22 9PM $7

Jelly Bread

SuN Dec 23 8PM $5 WED Dec 26 9PM $5

Big Earl

Closed for Christmas Acoustic Open Mic 5:30 - 8

44 3 - 2797 www.torchclub.net

904 15 St. th

Btwn I & J Downtown Sac

(Across from Memorial Auditorium)

s a LOOn n fri, dec 21st

new year’s eve sPectacULar

Nathan Thomas Band 9:00pm • $5 Cover

with

Dave Russell

sat, dec 22nd

9pm-1am

Tom Drinnon A Tribute to Tim McGraw

9:30 PM • $5 Cover

Tess Marie and The Poor Man Band

NEW YEAR’S EVE BaSH! Champagne Toast & Party Favors at Midnight

fri, dec 28th Two Steps Down

Blues Jam

4-7

OPera hOUse

9:15pm • $5 Cover

sat, dec 29

• Champagne Toast • Complimentary Appetizers 8-9pm

Kenny Frye Band 9:00 PM • $5 Cover

MoFo Party Band $25

• Midnight Countdown For Thousand Balloon Drop

• Dancing and more

10 cover

Sacramento’s Finest Saloon 411 Lincoln Street, Roseville • operahousesaloon.com

12.20.12 | SN&R | 43

NIGHTBEAT

THURSDAY 12/20

FRIDAY 12/21

BADLANDS

Tipsy Thursdays, Top 40 deejay dancing, 9pm, call for cover

Fabulous and Gay Fridays, 9pm, call for cover

Saturday Boom, 9pm, call for cover

BLUE LAMP

1400 Alhambra, (916) 455-3400

I’M DIRTY TOO, HORSENECK, LONELY KINGS, FUDI; 8pm, call for cover

MALCOM BLISS, HOODS, BLACK MACKEREL, LET IT BURN; 8pm, $8

ELEMENT OF SOUL, STREET URCHINZ, ICONOCLAST ROBOT; 9pm, $8

THE BOARDWALK

9426 Greenback Ln., Orangevale; (916) 988-9247 PRODUCTIONS, TWEETYBRD; 8pm

STR8 LACED, C-DUBB, DRUNKFUNK

INCREDIBLE ME, MERCHANTS, THE WILL, THE WAY, OUTSIDERS; 7pm

GFN & R3D, B.O.P. AND THE GAUDY BOYZ, BOSS BIZ, R.T.R.S.; 8pm

BOWS & ARROWS

ALMA DESNUDA, DAVID ALFRED, ALTO; 8pm, $7

Nerd Night, 5:30 pm, call for cover

MONTEAZUL, THE NOTORIOUS SHANK BROS; 8pm, $5

2003 K St., (916) 448-8790

List your event!

Post your free online listing (up to 15 months early), and our editors will consider your submission for the printed calendar as well. Print listings are also free, but subject to space limitations. Online, you can include a full description of your event, a photo, and a link to your website. Go to www.newsreview.com/calendar and start posting events. Deadline for print listings is 10 days prior to the issue in which you wish the listing to appear.

1815 19 St., (916) 822-5668

CAPITOL GARAGE

Champion Sound Reggae, 10pm, $5

1500 K St., (916) 444-3633

THE COZMIC CAFÉ

Open-mic, 7:30pm, no cover

DISTRICT 30

DJ Danny Avila, 9pm, call for cover

DJ Billy Lane, 9pm, call for cover

Naughty and Nice deejay dance party, 9pm, call for cover

FACES

Deejay dancing and karaoke, 9pm, $3

Hip-hop and Top 40 Deejay dancing, 9pm, $5-$10

FOX & GOOSE

JOHN GRUBER, 8-11pm, no cover

FACE 4 RADIO, AWKWARD LEMON, MAR- RED UNION BLUE, THE MMM’S; TIN PURTILL, LEE MADELONI, 9pm, $5 9pm-midnight, $5

594 Main St., Placerville; (530) 642-8481 1016 K St., (916) 737-5770 2000 K St., (916) 448-7798 1001 R St., (916) 443-8825

G STREET WUNDERBAR Hey local bands!

Want to be a hot show? Mail photos to Calendar Editor, SN&R, 1124 Del Paso Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95815 or email it to sactocalendar@ newsreview.com. Be sure to include date, time, location and cost of upcoming shows.

SATURDAY 12/22

SUNDAY 12/23

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 12/24-12/26

Sin Sunday, 8pm, call for cover

Mad Mondays, 9pm M; Latin videos, Wii bowling, 7pm Tu; EDM night, 9pm W, $5

Papasotes’s Karaoke Explosion, 9pm, no cover

Geeks Who Drink pub quiz, 8:30pm W, no cover

Dragalicious, 9pm, $5

Queer Idol, 9pm M, no cover; Latin night, 9pm Tu, $5; DJ Alazzawi, 9pm W, $3

PREGNANT, POPPET, GENTLEMAN SURFER; 8pm, $5

Open-mic, 7:30pm M; Pub Quiz, 7pm Tu; NORTHERN SOUL, 8pm W, no cover

DJ Smilez, 10pm-1:15am, no cover

TONY BATASKA, 10pm-1:15am, no cover

DJ Shaun Slaughter, 10pm, call for cover

DJ Crook One, 10pm, call for cover

DJ Whores, 10pm, no cover

2708 J St., (916) 441-4693

The Siren Show presents: California, 7pm and 8pm, $10-$20

MUSTACHE HARBOR, 9pm, call for cover

AVA BAND, BEHDAD, DJ Raha; 9pm, $15

LEVEL UP FOOD & LOUNGE

Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

DJ Rock Bottom and The Mookie DJ, 9pm, no cover

LUNA’S CAFÉ & JUICE BAR

Joe Montoya’s Poetry Unplugged, 8pm, $2

KELLY ROGERS, 8pm, $6

ANCIENT ASTRONAUT, JAMES FINCH, NOAH NELSON; 8pm, $6

MARILYN’S ON K

908 K St., (916) 446-4361

“Rock On” Live Band Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

DARYL BLACK, 9pm, $7-$10

MR. FRIEND, AUTUMN SKY, ADRIAN BELLUE; 9pm, $5

MIX DOWNTOWN

DJ Billy Lane, 9pm, $10, free before 9pm DJ Elliot Estes, 9pm, $15

DJ Mike Moss, 9pm, $20

NAKED LOUNGE DOWNTOWN

World’s Worst Doctors Comedy Improv, 8:30pm, $5

FREEBADGE SERENADERS, RICKY BERGER, PUSHTONAWANDA; 8:30pm, $5

NORTHBOUND TRAIN, THE WHEELS; 8:30pm, $5

Jazz session, 8:30pm M, no cover; CFR, GUERO, BRIAN CURTIN; 8:30pm W, $5

OLD IRONSIDES

Acoustic bluegrass jam, 7:30pm, no cover

SOME FEAR NONE, END OF DAYS; 8:30pm, $5

THE GENERALS, 9pm, $5

Open-mic w/ Nico Applewhite, 8:30pm W, no cover

228 G St., Davis; (530) 756-9227

THE GOLDEN BEAR

2326 K St., (916) 441-2252

HARLOW’S

2431 J St., (916) 448-8768

1414 16th St., (916) 441-3931

1531 L St., (916) 442-8899 1111 H St., (916) 443-1927

1901 10th St., (916) 442-3504

Industry Night, 9pm, call for cover

Hip-hop and R&B deejay dancing, 9:16pm Tu, no cover Nebraska Mondays, 7:30pm M, $5-$20; Comedy night, 8pm W, $6

DJ Gabe Xavier, 9pm, $10

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A “friend” of mine has a problem: She is going through a rough divorce, and her ex is threatening to take the kids because of her medical cannabis use. Can he do that? —Concerned “Friend” a-chanThe answer used to be yes, but the times, they are a-chan gin’. Last year, the sheriff’s department took away the chil children of Daisy Bram, a young mother of two living in Butte County, after they raided her small cannabis-growing operation. They charged her with child endangerment. BEALUM It took six months, but the charges were eventually by NGAIO dropped and her children were returned to her care. Recently, the California Courts of Appeal found that someone using marijuana did not automatically a sk420 @ ne wsreview.c om mean someone was abusing marijuana. In this case, the father (known as “Paul M.” in court records) had a recommendation for medical cannabis, and would medicate in a shed outside of the house while an adult family member watched his child. The cannabis was also kept in a locked box in the shed. Originally, the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services had ordered the father to take random drug tests, and the lower If you take the necessary court agreed, but the appeals precautions, there is no court reversed that decision, stating, “both DCFS and reason for you to lose the trial court apparently custody of your kids over confused the meanings of the terms ‘substance use’ your cannabis use. and ‘substance abuse.’” As it stands now, medical cannabis is being treated more and more like a regular prescription and less like a criminal offense. If you take the necessary precautions, there is no reason for you to lose custody of your kids over your cannabis use. Good luck. Dude! Legalization in Colorado and Washington state, the fed crackdown in California, the raids on many Sacramento dispensaries—there’s a lot going on! Did you ever think all this would happen in your lifetime?

Ngaio Bealum is a Sacramento comedian, activist and marijuana expert. Email him questions at ask420@ newsreview.com.

—The Tripping Point Dude, yes way. I am surprised that it has taken this long. Many people thought President Jimmy Carter was going to legalize weed in the 1970s. Carter actually came out in favor of its decriminalization, saying, “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use.” Nothing ever came of it, Ronald Reagan was elected president, and the “war on some drugs” began in earnest. The ’80s were rough on pot activists, but the ’90s saw many advances. Proposition 215 was passed in 1996. Medical-cannabis dispensaries started in the ’90s, and medical-marijuana legislation spread to other states. By the time President Barack Obama was elected, many people acted like cannabis—at least medical cannabis— was already legal. There has been plenty of backlash the past year-and-a-half, but this year’s election has shown that not only does ending cannabis prohibition make sense as both an economic and a social-liberty issue, it also has the political will of the voting public. If we start now (like I always say: Start early, you’re probably stoned), I bet we can get some form of weed decriminalization in at least five more states by 2016. We are winning. Go hard. Ω

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TRY 54 | SN&R | 12.20.12

TODAY

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by ROB BREZSNY

FOR THE WEEK OF DECEMBER 20, 2012

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Isaac Newton

is regarded as one of the most influential scientists in history. But the time he spent as a member of the English parliament was undistinguished. The only public comment he ever made while serving there was a request to close the window because he was cold. Basketball star Michael Jordan had a similar schism. In the prime of his outstanding career, he took a year off to try playing baseball, which he did poorly. After analyzing 2013’s astrological aspects, Aries, I’m guessing that you should cultivate a firm intention to avoid doing what Newton and Jordan did. Keep playing to your strengths and emphasizing what you love. Don’t get sidetracked by peripheral concerns.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In 2013, I’d

like to help you cultivate an even more reliable relationship with your intuitions and hunches than you already have. You may not need much guidance from me, since the astrological omens indicate this will happen quite naturally. There’s another kind of inspiration I hope to offer you in the coming months: clues about how to be “bad” in ways that will give your goodness more vigor. And when I say “bad,” I’m not referring to nastiness or insensitivity, but rather to wildness and playfulness and experimentation. Here’s one further service I want to provide, Taurus: helping you build a greater capacity to receive gifts, blessings and support.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In the year

1900, few people believed that human beings would ever fly through the sky in machines. Most scientists thought that such a feat was impossible. For years, the Wright brothers had a hard time convincing anyone to believe their flights were actually taking place, even though they had photos and witness reports as documentation. Although the leap you’ll be capable of in 2013 isn’t quite as monumental as the Wright brothers’, it could be pretty important in the history of your own life. You may also have to deal with skepticism akin to what they had to face. Be true to your vision, Gemini!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In 2013, I

predict you will see why it’s wise to phase out an influence you have loved to hate for far too long. Uncoincidentally, you will also have a talent for purging emotional burdens and psychic debris that you’ve been holding on to since the bad old days. No later than your birthday, if all goes well, you will be free from a subtle curse you’ve been casting on yourself; you will finally be attending to one of your long-neglected needs; and you will have turned some rather gawky, half-assed wizardry into a smooth and silky magic.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In 2013, I pledge to

help you raise your lovability. It’s not that you are unlovable now, of course, but there’s always room for improvement, right? And if people become even more attracted to you than they already are, then you’re likely to get a lot of collaborative and cooperative work done. You will thrive as you and your allies work on projects that make your corner of the world a better and more interesting place. So what are the first three actions you could take to raise your lovability?

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): First question:

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I’m afraid I will never achieve my noblest dreams or live according to my highest ideas”? Answer: There’s a very good chance that in the coming year you will banish that fear from the sacred temple of your imagination. Second question: Have you ever wondered if maybe you unconsciously undermine the efforts of people who are trying to assist you? Answer: In the coming months you should discover exactly what to do to prevent such a thing from happening. Third question: Do you know the single most important question you should be asking in 2013? Answer: I predict you will figure that out sometime in the next three weeks.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In 2013, I will be encouraging you to journey into the frontiers and experiment with the unknown. I will seek to inspire you to go in search of teachings you’ve needed for a long time. Are you ready for this expansion, Libra? Are you feeling a natural urge to explore

BEFORE

forbidden zones and discover missing secrets and mess with your outmoded taboos? As you might imagine, doing this work would motivate you to develop a healthier relationship with your fears. To bolster your courage, I suggest you find some new freedom songs to sing.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In 2013, I

will do what I can to ensure that your fiscal biorhythms are in close alignment with the universal cash flow. You should have pretty good instincts about this worthy project yourself, Scorpio. And so there’s an excellent chance that your wealth will increase. The upgrade will be especially dramatic if you are constantly scheming about how you can share your riches and benefit other people with your generosity. I think there will also be an interesting fringe benefit if you maintain maximum integrity as you enhance your access to valuable resources: You will develop a more useful relationship with your obsessive tendencies.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

In 2013, I pledge to conspire with you to achieve more mixtures, connections, accords and unifications than you ever thought possible. I will furthermore be a fount of suggestions about how you can live well in two worlds. I will coach you to create a peace treaty with your evil twin and your nemesis, and I will help you develop a knack for steering clear of other people’s bad ideas and sour moods. I can’t, of course, guarantee that you will never again experience a broken heart, but I swear I will do everything I can do to heal the broken part of your heart that you’ve been suffering from.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): When

he was 21, the Capricorn writer Jack London set off to prospect for gold in the 1897 Klondike gold rush. He had a rough time there. Malnourished, he suffered from scurvy and leg pain. To make matters worse, he didn’t find much gold and returned home broke. On the other hand, he met scores of adventure seekers who told him stories of their travels. These tales served as rich raw material for his novel The Call of the Wild, published in 1903. It made him famous and is generally regarded as his masterpiece. I’m guessing you will begin a similar trajectory in 2013, Capricorn. Events that may at first seem less than successful will ultimately breed a big breakthrough.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I can’t

force you to seek more pleasure in 2013. I won’t nag you to play harder and explore the frontiers of feeling really good. However, I will say this: If you don’t plan to put yourself into at least partial alignment with the cosmic mandate to have maximum fun, you may not get the best use out of the advice I’ll be offering through my horoscopes in the coming year. Please consider the possibility of ramping up your capacity for pure enjoyment.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The study of

ancient Mayan civilization owes a lot to the fact that Americans started buying lots of chewing gum in the late 19th century. Huh? Here’s the connection: For a long time, chicle was one of the prime ingredients in Chiclets, Juicy Fruit, Bazooka Bubble Gum, and many other brands of chewing gum. Chicle is obtained from the sap of sapodilla trees, which grow in abundance in Mexico and Central America. Over the decades, workers harvesting the chicle accidentally found many Mayan ruins covered in overgrown vegetation, then told archaeologists about their discoveries. I foresee a metaphorically comparable sequence happening in your life during 2013. In unexpected ways, you will be put back in touch with and benefit from lost, forgotten or unexplored parts of the past.

You can call Rob Brezsny for your Expanded Weekly Horoscope: (900) 950-7700. $1.99 per minute. Must be 18+. Touchtone phone required. Customer service (612) 373-9785. And don’t forget to check out Rob’s website at www.realastrology.com.

FRONTLINES

FEATURE

15 MINUTES

by TRINA

L. DROTAR PHOTO BY STEVEN CHEA

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

No horns necessary Aja Monet is not what one expects when one thinks “opera singer.” She’s worked in retail and currently does time as a barista, a singing waitress and an elevator operator. She’s also studying to be an aerospace engineer and wants to research the sounds of space and integrate them into her music. In addition to singing, Monet plays cello, flute, piccolo, guitar and drums—but admits she’s yet to master the accordion. Monet, currently at work on her first album Saturnalia, recently talked to SN&R about the craft of opera, wearing horns and staging a music revolution.

How long have you been singing opera? I started making money [singing] when I was 9. I remember my mom saying, “You’re going to be in the opera,” and I’m like, “I don’t want to wear horns on my head.”

What’s up with the horns? (Laughs.) A lot of opera singers are smaller and more petite than me. … Usually [directors] like you to kind of be small … so they can fit you into older costumes. [Opera composer Richard Wagner] is, you know, [all about] the horns—the Vikings—[while] the French [operas] take place in the 1800s, so you have to fit into those corsets.

What is your favorite opera? The [most fun] one I was ever in would be Pagliacci. … [The production] ran out of women’s costumes, so I ended up being a boy. Pagliacci is my favorite [because] I like clowns. Clowns are awesome. They show our more tragic side of life—that’s where art comes from.

How would you classify your style? I was classically trained, but what I like to sing the most [are] more like gypsy standards, more like old drinking songs— opera’s only fun to sing because it gives you a big range. Not only do you have to think about [singing] in a different language, but you worry about all of the different notes and then all of the different octaves.

What other ways are you creative? I love to sew. I can make my own patterns, and I’m getting into cobbling and making my own shoes.

Do you make your performance clothes? Yes, all of them. When you go and see a band, it’s supposed to be extravagant, something that moves you, something that stays in the back of your mind, like when

STORY

A RT S & C U LT U R E

you watch a really good depressing movie and you’re like, “Why did that have to happen?” or, “Wow, that was really cool.” It sounds superficial, but it’s true. People do judge you by what you wear, and people remember you by what you wear.

Do you write your own music? Yes, and [for Saturnalia] what I do is I map all the stars from Orion each month and then put those calculations straight down onto sheet paper, and that’s how I create my melody. I do it each week for three months at a time, so it’s kind of a tedious process. Then I write my music. Since I’m so used to singing in Italian or French, I’m translating, because I’m not fluent [in those languages]. I actually tap a beat and then I loop it on a synthesizer, and that will be my percussion beat. I’m trying to think of something original.

Isn’t everyone trying to be original? I think people need to think a little more outside the box when they start a project. I wish a revolution in music would happen, and I wish people would actually make up their own genre of music and master it. I don’t want people to stop at the mediocre and think, “OK, this is good enough for a show.”

AFTER

Who influences you? My favorite singer of all time is Edith Piaf. I love her. All the way down to her tragic life. Tom Waits. I was really into post-punk and goth. I also like the electronic movement. Crystal Castles. I try to keep a broad range to pick and choose what I like, then I can kind of go off that. I love old standards: It’s like a template where you can take it and do whatever you want with it.

What’s it like to be a singing waitress? [I worked] at this restaurant [where it has] the waiters sing “Happy Birthday” in opera to people, or if there’s a romantic dinner, blurt out an aria, which seems really so awkward. I had to sing a salad song and a dessert song, and they were horrible. I’d sing about croutons, and [then sing] “Eat your dessert now. It comes from a cow. Take a big bite. It tastes dynamite. Eat your dessert. Eat your dessert. It is good to eat right now.” (Laughs.) I think it should be against the law. Ω

12.20.12

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