S-2013-01-03

WOMEN VS. MEN AND THE CHANGING TRUTH ABOUT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE see Frontlines, page 7

MUGGED IN MIDTOWN see Midtown&Down, page 10

RESOLUTIONS, UGH? see Ask Joey, page 24 see Streetalk, page 4 see Scene&Heard, page 17 see Editor’s Note, page 3

GET FIT

AND PASS THE BUTTER! see Arts&Culture, page 16

SACRAMENTO’S NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

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VOLUME 24, ISSUE 38

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 2013

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.

2 | SN&R | 01.03.13

Begin again January is my favorite month. After a whirlwind season of holiday gatherings, I welcome the quiet that arrives each new calendar year—and with it the chance to reflect, renew and think ahead.

I don’t believe in making New Year’s resolutions, but I do believe in the power of resolve and the will to enact change: This year will be different. This year will be better.

Then again, the more things change, the more they stay the same, right? At least that’s the way it often feels in Sacramento.

Another year, another uncertain future for the Sacramento Kings, another tussle over the city’s mayoral structure, and yet another seemingly endless round of debates on sprawl, development and what exactly it takes to up Sacramento’s game in the national spotlight.

Maybe this year we’ll finally get a new arena, new businesses and a healthy arts scene that’s supported and promoted by the city as a whole.

Sometimes (OK, often) it feels as though we’re stuck on a rollercoaster loop made up of heady highs and depressing lows. Sometimes, it seems, that for every addition, there must be a subtraction.

Just recently, for example, I checked out the newly opened New Helvetia Brewing Company. The brewery, located at 1730 Broadway, is currently only open on weekends, but on a mid-December Saturday afternoon, its airy space boasted many curious beer fanatics, signaling a much-needed boost for an area that’s ripe for redevelopment.

Conversely, however, the owners of Crimson & Clover on 16th Street, one of my favorite vintage-clothing boutiques, just announced they’ll shut their doors for good this month.

Up and down. Up and down.

Frustrating—and yet I remain an optimist.

Maybe this year it will be different. Maybe this year it will be better.

—Rachel Leibrock

rac he ll@ n ews r ev i ew . com

January 3, 2013 | Vol. 24, Issue 38

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STREETALK LETTERS NEwS fEATuRE SToRy ARTS&cuLTuRE NighT&dAy diSh ASK JoEy STAgE fiLm muSic 15 miNuTES cover design by priscilla garcia bites and sound advice are on vacation

30 Jim Lane, Greg Lucas, Patti Roberts, Steph Rodriguez, Seth Sandronsky, Amy Yannello

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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“Get a bunch of people together and pick up all the trash on both sides of the road.”

Asked at Arden Fair mall:

What should Sacramento’s New Year’s resolution be?

Brandon Vineyard cashier

Keith Bachtell

Stacy Therkildsen

retired cook

Public transit could use a little bit of extra love.

I have seen it decline. Used to be the buses ran until midnight, now I cannot work past 9 o’clock [if I want to ride it home].

It’s rough for those of us don’t do the 8 to 5.

To help out the needy and homeless people more.

I would like to see them get jobs, get off the street.

There’s trainable people in there. There’s probably people in there who already have training but don’t have a means of getting a job or a place to get cleaned up.

college graduate

Something progressive in a more positive way. I think there is a lot of change that needs to happen, and we need to go about it in a more positive way. Instead of just pointing fingers, take some responsibility.

Jodi Piniak retired

Get a bunch of people together and pick up all the trash on both sides of the road. It’s a real blight.

Everywhere you go, if you look left and right, there’s garbage all over the place.

They clean up the American River and the trail for the bikers. Why not the roads that the people from out of state come down and say, “Oh my God, what a mess!”

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Things are difficult, there are a lot problems.

Everyone should just give instead of trying to receive all of the time. More jobs need to open up for people and make it easier for people to get hired.

Cecilia Palomino unemployed

To help us find jobs. There [are] no jobs out there.

I have been looking for a year; it’s bad out there.

Help everybody find jobs.

Breton isn’t wrong Re “What’s up, grinches?!” by Cosmo Garvin (SN&R Feature Story, December 20): I’d say I disagreed with about half of [this article], but, hey, that’s one of the things I like about the United States: We can agree to disagree.

The views that really struck me as off base were the comments about Marcos letter of Breton. I don’t the week know him, have never heard of him and didn’t read his article. That being said, I live on the grid and have an 8-year-old daughter. Our homelessness problem has become so bad lately, that she’s asking me to buy gas in Land Park, because she’s afraid and tired of constantly being harassed by these drug-addled bums. Last night, she asked if we could move to Canada because it’s too cold for people to live on the streets.

Being homeless as a result of bad luck is pretty rare, and those who were struck by misfortune have my compassion and sympathy. More often (much, much more often) these days, I’m seeing people that are not “down on their luck,” but instead a confluence of drug addiction, alcohol addiction, laziness, and the resulting mental illness from a life of drug and alcohol abuse.

These men and women who live fix to fix are the closest thing we have to the zombies in The Walking Dead. I completely agree with Marcos Breton that if something isn’t done to curb this problem, we will have child abductions in the near future. My daughter has been verbally accosted twice this week at two separate gas stations by raving lunatics. I’m 6 feet 8 inches [tall], 240 pounds, and I’m confident that I can take care of both myself and my daughter if anyone ever tried to physically assault us.

I can only imagine the fear that a single mom must feel these days when trying to buy gas after dark.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers, but something needs to be done to clean up our streets. I miss how safe this region felt 30 years ago.

Nicholas Adamek

Sa c ra m e nt o

This Warren-ts an apology Re “No hard feelings” by Cosmo Garvin (SN&R Bites, December 27): Really?! I cannot understand how you get your information all twisted and confused. So, let’s clear this up: You indicated that there are “no hard feelings.” Well, it appears from this article that all the hard feelings are with this biased magazine. City Councilman Allen Wayne Warren was not the person that replied [instead of] forwarding the “Fu** SN&R” email.

This Modern World

Besides the fact that this staffer was removed from Warren’s campaign, it is truly not [his] position. ... I am insulted that your insinuation is as such. The irony is that if there was such a person who [should] feel that way, it [would] be Warren. SN&R supported another candidate in both the primary and general election.

However, Warren has always taken the high road and continued to focus on what is important, and [has] not assumed and/or [made] inaccurate accusations. I have known Warren for years, and I have yet [to hear] him say anything negative about anyone or any organization. That is simply not his character. ... Cutting corners to find any [reason] to degrade our councilman is truly pathetic. If you truly want to state “no hard feelings,” try apologizing. Or better yet, recognize that Councilman Warren won and provide him with the respect he deserves so we can all work on [the] improvement of District 2. I am sure he would appreciate that.

Aaron P. Bryant Sacramento

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VIOLENCE Sacramento cops are seeing more men as victims of domestic abuse. But is this an exception or the new normal?

Unfortunately, it isn’t news to report that domestic-violence calls are ubiquitous by in Sacramento County. Dispatchers Raheem field thousands upon thousands of such F. Hosseini complaints each and every year in and around the capital city. r a h eemh@ newsr eview.c om But unlike the days when known victims were almost exclusively female, some patrol officers and outreach workers are noticing a subtle, almost imperceptible shift in who gets beaten and who does the beating.

“With respect to trends, numbers, incidents regarding domestic-violence calls, I can just say anecdotally that the tide has changed, so to speak, over the years,” observed Deputy Jason Ramos, spokesman for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department. “We see more and more cases where the primary aggressor is the female half instead of the male.”

“ We see more and more cases where the primary aggressor is the female half instead of the male.”

Jason Ramos deputy Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department One of the gnarlier examples occurred last month: On December 5, 2012, sheriff’s officers responded to a call from a Rancho Cordova apartment complex, where a 25-year-old woman reportedly tried to set her ex-boyfriend on fire following a dispute over their children’s clothes.

The incident took place around 11 a.m. that Wednesday in the parking lot of the La Loma Drive complex, where the 31-year-old male victim lives.

BEFORE

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He told authorities that his ex beckoned him to the passenger-side window of her car and said, “I’ve got something for you.” What the ex-boyfriend spotted—and smelled—was a 1-gallon jug of gasoline. The two struggled over the open gas can, dousing each other with its contents.

After wresting the jug away, the ex-boyfriend called the cops. The female suspect was arrested on arson charges but faces misdemeanor counts of domestic battery and destruction of property, according to Sacramento Superior Court records.

Hers isn’t the only such case.

More recently, on December 18, sheriff’s deputies jailed a 34-yearold Del Paso Heights woman after she allegedly clobbered her 35-year-old boyfriend with a candlestick and then used it to crack the windshield of his car.

That same Tuesday, Sacramento police arrested a 39-year-old East Sacramento woman after her husband accused her of physical assault.

A day earlier, police responded to a call from an O Street residence and arrested a 27-year-old woman for striking her boyfriend multiple times.

On December 15, at Fifth Street and Capitol Mall, a 31-year-old woman was cuffed for hitting her boyfriend with a bicycle. That’s right, a bicycle.

And on December 8, police apprehended a 44-year-old wife after she allegedly threatened to slice up her man with a pair of scissors. The suspect in that case—who faces felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon and

Last month, a Del Paso Heights woman beat up her man with a candlestick, then smashed his car’s windshield with it.

“VIOLENCE”

continued on page 8

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“ VIOLENCE”

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making criminal threats, as well as one misdemeanor count of brandishing a weapon—was deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial and is undergoing medical treatment, according to online court records.

So, what’s the deal?

Local experts are reluctant to say female-on-male domestic attacks are rising in prevalence, but they do see a bigger male population that’s reaching out more often.

“Men face very different obstacles to services,” explained Julie Bornhoeft, the director of development and community relations at WEAVE, which provides emergency shelter and support services to both male and female victims of domestic violence.

The stigma of being a male domestic-abuse victim is one of those lingering hurdles. Bornhoeft notes that the men who do contact her organization for help are much more likely to use anonymous means such as the hotline or online message board.

Anecdotal examples of female aggressors notwithstanding, women still represent 88 percent to 90 percent of those abused in domestic settings, the latest peerreviewed surveys indicate. Some studies put male victimization numbers considerably higher, but Bornhoeft said those surveys are either flawed or haven’t been subjected to peer review.

“It’s still a small number of the total we see,” she said.

WEAVE’s own internal numbers back up the national figures. Of the more than 12,000 calls WEAVE received between July 2011 and June 2012, 90 percent were from women.

WEAVE also provided emergency shelter to 178 women and 173 children, but only three men during that time period.

Between January 1 and November 30, 2012, the Sacramento Police Department documented 1,318 known offenses and persons arrested for felony domestic violence on a spouse or cohabitant, and another 917 cases of misdemeanor battery on a spouse or noncohabitant. While information on gender wasn’t available, if 10 percent of those case involved male victims, that would mean roughly 223 such cases through the first 11 months of 2012.

But, as Sacramento police spokeswoman Officer Michele Gigante points out, the city’s robust LGBT population makes it even trickier to draw simple conclusions about which gender is inflicting what amount of damage on whom.

“We see it on both sides,” she said. “It depends on what the fight’s about. There are so many factors.”

But that doesn’t mean a growing need isn’t there, just that the services and cultural attitudes haven’t caught up.

Bornhoeft said that while the stigma of being a male victim of domestic violence is gradually ebbing, such flip-side abuse is becoming more common in younger relationships, “where there might be less of a power imbalance.”

Of the more than 12,000 calls WEAVE received between July 2011 and June 2012, 90 percent were from women.

Women and children in need of shelter are provided access to WEAVE’s campus-style Safehouse, but WEAVE doesn’t have a similar option for its male clients. The three men WEAVE assisted last year were given hotel vouchers.

That’s part of a conversation the local nonprofit—which now almost exclusively goes by its acronym rather than what the word stands for: Women Escaping a Violent Environment—will be diving into over the coming weeks, Bornhoeft told SN&R. “You’re asking a lot of the questions we’re talking about,” she said. “It’s a very gray area. We’re not sure what services will look like in three months.

“We’re looking at how we create a truly inclusive program.”

When it comes to providing shelter, the answer for WEAVE may be to keep the genders separate, but equal. Ω

Strike that Proposition 36 might not set free many three-strikes offenders State inmates serving life terms are starting to file resentencing petitions with local judges following the passage of Proposition 36, the ballot by Michael measure that overhauls California’s controversial Montgomery three-strikes law. But opposition from local prosecutors and other factors could limit the number of qualifying inmates who actually get released.

Scott Thorpe, CEO of the Sacramento-based California District Attorneys Association, said his organization is recommending that district attorneys file subpoenas for the prison records of inmates seeking a resentencing hearing so they can scrutinize everything, including offenders’ health and psychological profiles and their participation in rehabilitation programs.

“We’re arguing that everything should be taken into consideration,” Thorpe said. “If [offenders] haven’t taken advantage of programs that were available to them, we’re saying that’s a relevant fact in determining whether this is a responsible person to go out into society.”

In Sacramento County, there are 150 three-strikes offenders eligible for resentencing under Proposition 36.

Prop. 36 allows sentence reductions for inmates convicted under the original 1994 law if their third strike was not a serious or violent felony (as defined by the California Penal Code), and their prior convictions did not include rape, murder, child molestation or other grave crimes.

In Sacramento County, there are 150 threestrikes offenders eligible for resentencing under Prop. 36, according the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. This number is above the state average.

Some 2,800 inmates serving life terms statewide could be eligible for shorter sentences or release under the measure. Of those offenders, nearly 70 percent originally were sentenced in five counties: Los Angeles, Kern, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego.

Resentencing is not automatic. The measure gives judges discretion to consider a host of factors to determine whether an offender poses an “unreasonable risk” to public safety and should remain in prison.

Those factors include the types of previous crimes, injuries to victims, lengths of prior prison terms, disciplinary and rehabilitation records in prison, and any other evidence the

Michael Montgomery is a writer at California Watch. Read more at www.california watch.org.

court deems relevant.

Opponents of Prop. 36 have argued that the measure was unnecessary because judges already have discretion to impose lighter sentences. They also criticized the initiative for allowing inmates who committed violent crimes prior to their final strike to qualify for possible release.

Thorpe said the measure is putting a heavy burden on prosecutors to pull together all the pertinent records to determine the level of risk an offender poses.

“The district attorneys have that responsibility for saying, ‘Hey, this guy is or is not a danger to public safety,’” he said.

Public defenders’ offices around the state also are bracing for a heavy workload, especially if a large number of petitions are challenged.

Prop. 36 provides little guidance on how the petition process should be conducted, though it specifies that inmates must file their petitions by November 2015. In recent weeks, prosecutors and defense attorneys around the state have been working with corrections officials to create a system to locate, copy and transfer inmates’ prison records to local courts assigned to evaluate the petitions.

In some cases, the records go back decades and are kept only on paper.

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, who publicly supported Prop. 36, said his office also is requesting prison records for all three-strikes inmates seeking new sentences.

Rosen said that of the 120 to 130 inmates who likely will qualify under the measure, more than half could win reduced sentences, leaving a significant minority that will remain behind bars for the duration of their terms.

“I believe that Proposition 36 balances individual fairness with public safety,” Rosen said.

But lawyers representing three-strikes offenders expressed concern that challenges over prison records could create a bottleneck in the petition process and long delays for some inmates who are eligible for release. Michael Romano, a Prop. 36 co-author who directs a law clinic at Stanford University, said another challenge is ensuring that every inmate who qualifies under the statute receives adequate representation and has a transition plan for life after prison.

“Their lives are on the line,” Romano said.

“This is their last, best chance of getting out of prison, reuniting with their families and getting to put their lives back together.”

While some petitions might be unopposed, Romano said, a “large number of cases are going to be contentious.”

“We are not expecting that prosecutors are going to roll over,” he said. “We are loading for bear.” Ω

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Grid-life crisis Cops follow up on Midtown’s muggings; suggestions for city’s post-arena future Seasons greetings—now gimme that iPhone and purse, sucker.

If you live in the central city, you probably know someone who was robbed last month. There were 22 such incidents reported, most on the Midtown side of 15th Street, between December 1, 2012, and Christmas Day, according to the Sacramento Police Department. This was nearly three times the r e L

by NicK MiL number of muggings during a similar 25-day period the ni c k a m @ne w s re v i e w . c o m prior month.

Is getting your goods jacked the new way of the grid?

Officer Doug Morse told SN&R that while predicting crime is “the hardest thing to do,” the department is investigating these incidents. And the police actually have “pretty good news,” he said.

For starters, there have been multiple arrests, which perhaps could be related to the robberies; detectives are following up to see if there are connections. Plus, “patrol officers are obviously aware of the robberies and are focusing on the area,” Morse assured.

And there’s also a suspect description out there: male, Hispanic, adult, 20-something, red baseball cap, white T-shirt.

As for why, police had little insight as to the spike in muggings at this point, other than to give a robber whatever he or she is asking for.

The muggings apparently got so bad, though, that victims started fighting back: On Saturday, December 22, near E and 24th streets just after 1:30 a.m., an armed suspect demanded a woman’s purse.

The victim obliged—but then chased the suspect down (something police advise against) and got the purse back. (Interestingly, robberies in Midtown have been on the decline since this woman’s vigilante moment.)

So, should residents leave the cash and phones at home? Keep the porch lights on?

Should we shutter-up completely, drink grogs and watch Matlock on Netflix until May? Leaders and law enforcement say don’t worry. So, here’s to the new year—hopefully a lucky ’13 for grid dwellers.

Nine months ago, the city was poised to put out a few hundred million for the discount version of

the kinds of pricey NBA arenas— sorry, I mean “entertainment and sports complexes”—that’ve popped up in Orlando, Fla., and Brooklyn in New York City over the past few years. It was, as the media so assured, a done deal. Until it wasn’t.

As you know.

But regardless of your opinion on the merits of using public money to pay for sports meccas, an arena on H and Fifth streets certainly would have transformed downtown. Perhaps into a Pleasure Island on steroids, complete with El Dorado Hellions driving the wrong way down one-way streets, never-ending beer and chickenwing houses on J Street, everyone with requisite Taco Bell or Coors Light in hand. But transformed, nevertheless.

I’m almost curious. But not $256 million curious.

What does pique my interest is whether City Hall will pursue another flagship project for the grid in 2013.

Rebranding K Street Mall as “The Kay” or souping up the Sacramento Downtown Plaza don’t qualify as game changers.

But how about spending that parking money on a confluence of multiple smaller projects?

Why not green light an urban park, some new outdoor space, complete with relocating the zoo to downtown?

Then, in addition to that, throw in a ramped-up, relocated, permanent farmers market, something like those in Europe, which draw in people from outside the city? (This embraces the mayor’s “Farm-to-Fork” and “Emerald Valley” visions, no?) Then, also, maybe subsidize a strip of eateries and music venues—à la Austin, Texas—but owned by the new generation of doers in Sacto (Ace of Spades, Shady Lady Saloon, Magpie Cafe, Hook & Ladder Manufacturing Co., The Red Rabbit Kitchen & Bar, Pour House, LowBrau) instead of corporate chains.

These locals know how to succeed and can draw in crowds. Throw in some breweries, coffeehouses, comedy clubs and theater stages for good measure and bam—a veritable entertainment district, all on one block.

The “think-big” crowd may never get over the dethroned downtown Kings arena. But we don’t need NBA palaces—or even a Lucky Strike bowling alley, as the mayor recently told me he’d like to see—to grow up. Sacramento has most of what it needs. Ω

What’s wrong with ‘Avocado’?

A behind-the-scenes look at branding the Affordable Care Act in California What’s in a name?

Plenty if you’re the California Health Benefit Exchange, which pledges to have a by Greg Lucas website operational by September displaying the various health-care plans more than 3 ca plowdown@ million individual Californians without covernewsreview.c om age and the operators of small businesses can purchase beginning January 1, 2014.

To accomplish the exchange’s mission of ensuring more uninsured Californians become insured, a great deal of marketing will be required. Some $90 million is earmarked for “outreach,” which, like “reform,” varies depending on the definer.

Part of that outreach is the creation of a name designed to resonate with consumers significantly stronger than “California Health Benefit Exchange.”

After much deliberation and the expenditure of far less than $90 million, the solution: “Covered California.”

If that seems a bit opaque, “the brand name will never exist on its own in a vacuum. It is just one part of [a] big system,” insists Chris Kelly, senior adviser of marketing and outreach for Covered California, in one of several PowerPoint presentations to the exchange’s board on the name-change issue.

Choosing “Covered California” was no whim. The list of options was winnowed through public hearings. There was testimony.

Written comments. Focus groups.

Among the rejected names was “Healthifornia,” perhaps because it calls to mind former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or the title of a Red Hot Chili Peppers album.

An investigation by the exchange in conjunction with legal counsel from Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide nixed “CaliHealth” based on “serious concerns about being able to trademark” the name, Kelly reported to the board.

Ogilvy is being paid some $900,000 by Covered California to help resolve issues like figuring out if Covered California is the best name for the entity formerly known as “the exchange.”

“CalAccess” and “PACcess” were tubed, perhaps since they’re even vaguer than “Covered California.”

Also rejected was “Wellquest,” no doubt due to it sounding too similar to Grover, as in Norquist, the Washington, D.C., anti-tax crusader.

Would “Avocado” have made other states green with envy over their failure to stumble upon so clever a name?

As to the rejection of “Ursa,” there’s simply no accounting for taste. It was one of the top-four names chosen last fall by focus groups in Los Angeles and Sacramento.

BEFORE

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The same investigation aided by Ogilvy that scuttled “CaliHealth” uncovered “language/translation concerns” regarding “Ursa,” Kelly told the board. Game over.

Something called “Quanti-Quali testing” of the remaining names—including proposed logos—was then conducted in San Diego and Sacramento.

“The name of ‘Eureka’ did not test well, but when presented with logo and tagline there was wide acceptance,” one of Kelly’s PowerPoint presentations to the board says.

“Eureka” was axed partly because it was perceived more as a “private program” than “Covered California,” which was seen more as a “public program.”

This rejection despite “Eureka” being California’s motto and translating from the Greek, appropriately enough, to “I’ve found it.”

Hispanic respondents found “Covered California” or “California Covered” to be “particularly appealing,” Kelly reported.

Two-thirds of all respondents concurred.

Search concluded.

Among the rejected names was “Healthifornia,” perhaps because it calls to mind former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or the title of a Red Hot Chili Peppers album.

Apparently, part of the attraction of Covered California was the ability to incorporate its two C’s in the logo.

Four options for the Covered California logo were examined by the 228 Quanti-Quali decision-makers—70 of whom were married and 158 single, Kelly’s PowerPoint notes.

Their favorite was the “inverted double C’s.”

“Many observed that [the logo] felt ‘safe’ and protected, especially respondents with families,” Kelly told the board.

Covered California is, of course, focused on more than merely sifting through naming choices proffered by focus groups.

While the prices and coverage options for consumers won’t be posted until September, bids to be under Covered California’s umbrella are already being accepted. Negotiations between submitters and Covered California are supposed to conclude by June 1. Ω

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THE

HIGH ROAD

by D A V I D D O W N S David Downs is a freelancer writer and author of the marijuana blog Legalization Nation.

WHEN NEWS BROKE on election night

that Colorado was the first state to legalize marijuana, patrons at the trendy Casselman’s Bar & Venue in Denver erupted in cheers, then hugged each other and cried. Organizers and friends of the state’s Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol thanked everyone— elderly black ladies, young hipsters, business execs—and there were far more people in suits than in tie-dye that night. And nary a hint of ganja smoke inside the hip establishment.

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A few hours later in Seattle’s Hotel Ändra, travel writer Rick Steves joined business leaders and members of the American Civil Liberties Union, along with Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, in thanking volunteers for making cannabis-legalization history in Washington as well.

But cheers for Colorado and Washington that evening were accompanied by a bit of jealousy here in California, where voters narrowly defeated this state’s pot-legalization measure, Proposition 19, in 2010.

“A lot of people have said to me, ‘How come we couldn’t do that last election?’” remarked Stephen Downing, a retired Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief and a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

But Colorado and Washington’s victories sparked more than just envy in the Golden State. Amanda Reiman, with the Drug Policy Alliance, says a new legalization initiative is now on the tip of everyone’s tongue in the California reform community.

“This was something that we were talking about before the election,” she said. “The results of the election have just ramped up those conversations, absolutely.”

Today, it’s not a question of if California will legalize marijuana for adults over the age of 21. Now, people just ask when.

ENOUGH WITH THE DOCTORS’ prescriptions and medicated gummy worms—how much money can California and Sacramento rake in if marijuana is legalized?

It’s a question political leaders and traditional media outlets are not just quietly wondering—they’re straight-up shouting it out loud on the heels of Colorado and Washington’s big free-weed moment.

Because, frankly, the payday’s looking pretty sweet.

Up north in Washington, its Office of Financial Management estimated in August 2012 that legalization would generate the state more than $500 million in tax revenue annually just through the implementation of a pot tax. And that’s just special tax revenue alone, not total economic impact.

Bloomberg business news said that marijuana could eventually be upward of a $110 billion industry in the United States. That’s right: on par with the domestic beer market.

Here in Sacramento, pot revenue has been smaller nugs, but all the while a meaningful chunk of change. The city’s marijuana tax alone—which levies an additional 4 percent on medical-cannabis dispensary retail sales— initially brought more than $110,000 a month during the summer of 2011. That is, until the U.S. attorney’s crackdown in the fall of that year, which forced many dispensary owners to close for fear of Uncle Sam’s retribution (now the tax brings in less than $30,000 a month).

Imagine if that tax revenue continued, or if there was a similar tax in the county. Plus, there are other economic incentives, such as jobs (a single dispensary employs dozens, including security, delivery, even graphic-design workers), state taxes, fees and more. Those in the local medical-marijuana community have told city and county leaders that the plant’s economic impact on the Sacto region could add up to upward of $250 million.

That makes sense: Sacramento is the sixth-largest city in the state, and Time magazine recently wrote that if California legalized pot, it would immediately become the state’s No. 1 cash crop, with more than $14 billion in annual sales alone.

This is not to mention the savings that would result from ending the “war on weed.”

For instance, Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron wrote in 2012 that the United States would pocket $7.7 billion each year if it didn’t have to enforce marijuana prohibition. His paper, which was published last summer, bore the supporting signatures of more than 300 economists, including three Nobel laureates.

Forbes magazine was even more ambitious with its prognostication, arguing that if the war on marijuana ended, America would save $41 billion from nonenforcement.

More savings abound, such as those that would result from moving dollars from the Mexican drug cartels to the American economy: Think tank the RAND Corporation estimated, for example, that legalized bud in California would suck away 4 percent of the cartels’ income. continued on A pot of gold, indeed. Ω PAGE 14

by Nick Miller

The Colorado victory may have blindsided the federal government, but the movement toward marijuana legalization had been building for a long time.

The state’s Amendment 64 really began with the Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation education campaign, which relentlessly hammered home the message that marijuana is safer than alcohol. Then in 2006, SAFER ran a statewide pot-legalization initiative.

Although it failed, the defeat taught the group some key lessons, including the importance of grassroots campaigning and building a solid political infrastructure.

Meanwhile, in Denver, elected lawmakers had become leaders of the national medical-marijuana movement. Coloradans legalized medical weed at the ballot box in 2000, but the medical-pot industry’s B E F O R E | F R O N T L I N E S | 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 | 01.03.13

“ THE HIGH ROAD”

nickam@newsreview.com

HOW COLORADO AND WASHINGTON FREED WEED

rapid and unchecked growth sparked intense criticism. The Colorado Legislature responded by passing seed-to-sale regulations for the state in 2010.

The new rules are administered by the Colorado Department of Revenue and today, gun- and badge-carrying officers from the Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division regulate the industry. Pot cops monitor grow rooms and club transactions via remote cameras linked to the Internet, while ensuring the collection of millions in tax revenue for the state.

Against this backdrop, in which the electorate not only had become aware that pot is safer than booze, but also realized that the state had a functioning system for controlling medical cannabis, marijuana-law reformers decided to launch another initiative for 2012.

The Marijuana Policy Project, a nationwide effort to decriminalize pot and keep users out of prison, provided 90 percent of the funding for the Amendment 64 campaign, according to Mason Tvert, its co-director. The Drug Policy Alliance, another nationwide drug reform group, donated the other 10 percent.

The highly professional campaign in Colorado conducted polling, drafted initiative language and paid signature gatherers to get the necessary valid signatures to put Amendment 64 on the ballot. The campaign also worked closely with the Students for Sensible Drug Policy, LEAP, the ACLU of Colorado, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People of Colorado to mobilize thousands of volunteers to go door to door and staff phone banks.

Like those of Prop. 19 in California, opponents of Amendment 64 spent less than half a million dollars, so the campaign was the reformers’ to lose.

Amendment 64’s ads featured and targeted a key swing group: young moms. The Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol campaign didn’t extol the virtues of pot: Instead, it talked about controlling the drug to keep it away from kids and promised that the tax revenue from pot regulation would benefit schools.

“I think folks in Colorado and Washington learned from California’s experience,” said Kilmer of RAND. Farther west, Washington—a liberal state with a long history of supporting medical cannabis—also had a group of serious professionals who slamdunked pot legalization in a state that was simply waiting for it.

BILLION-DOLLAR DOOBIE?

“A lot of people in California are starting to talk about a future campaign—certainly the debate about 2014 vs. 2016, all that’s being engaged,” said Bill Zimmerman, who helped run California’s successful Proposition 215 medical-marijuana initiative in 1996.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, for instance, has planned a conference on legalization in California later this month, January 26 and 27, in San Francisco. All the big players in the marijuana world—NORML, the Marijuana Policy Project, the Drug Policy Alliance, LEAP, Americans for Safe Access, the Emerald Growers Association, the Oaksterdam community in Oakland—have been holding both public and private talks as well.

And a new California legalization initiative may not be the only one in the nation. Recent polls show that Americans are increasingly comfortable with the idea of bringing pot out of the closet. A survey released last month from the respected polling organization Quinnipiac University showed that Americans now favor marijuana legalization 51 percent to 44 percent.

It’s a historic shift.

Americans also believe that states, not the federal government, should decide whether pot is legal. A Gallup poll released on December 10, 2012, revealed that 64 percent of Americans want to leave marijuana policy up to the states.

“I would not be surprised to see [cannabis legalization] on the ballot in a number of places in 2014 and 2016,” said Beau Kilmer, co-director of the Drug Policy Research Center at the nonpartisan think tank the RAND Corporation.

But replicating Colorado and Washington’s victories isn’t simply a matter of copying and pasting initiatives, reform experts say. The victories in both states came from a decade of hard work, resulting not only in strong political coalitions and palatable initiative language, but also campaigns run by professional operatives armed with lots of cash.

Experts also say California is a different beast entirely. Moreover, evidence has emerged that drug warriors are already lobbying the Obama administration to overturn election outcomes in Colorado and Washington before states like California can legalize pot, too.

Zeroing in on the economic impact of marijuana legalization

COLORADO AND WASHINGTON RESIDENTS PUSHED POT OUT OF THE CLOSET IN 2012.

W I L L C A L I F O R N I A B E T H E N E X T S T A T E TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA?

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Washingtonians legalized medical pot in 1998, two years after Californians, and ever since have struggled with how to regulate the drug—not unlike what has happened in the Golden State. Illegal dispensaries have thrived in cities like Seattle, but they’ve also been subject to raids by federal, state and local authorities.

Fed up with that chaos, pillars of the Washington community came together to run the Initiative 502 campaign, known as New Approach Washington.

The campaign sponsors included Washington ACLU drug-policy director Alison Holcomb, Seattle City Attorney Holmes, former U.S. Attorney John McKay, celebrity travel writer Rick Steves, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, two former presidents of the Washington State Bar, and a former professor at the University of Washington. In short, this was no coalition of hippie dreamers.

Much like Colorado, the Washington group polled extensively and came up with a moderate form of legalization that lifted penalties for adults possessing personal amounts, but banned home growing, created a tough new drugged-driving standard, and taxed the industry heavily to fund schools and research.

New Approach Washington spent about $5.7 million on the campaign, including about $2 million on TV advertisements that put toughtalking law-enforcement officials against prohibition front and center.

Initiative 502 passed, 55 percent to 45 percent, with 1.7 million votes for and 1.4 million votes against. Colorado’s Amendment 64 won by the same margin, 55 percent to 45 percent, with 1.3 million votes cast for it and 1 million votes cast against.

But California is not Washington or Colorado.

We’re bigger and more diverse. The pot-legalization movement here also has failed over the years to unite behind a statewide measure. And, while drug-law reformers foresee a domino effect from pot legalization in two states, a historic backlash is possible as well.

THE CALIFORNIA WAY One major hurdle for marijuana legalization in California is the diversity of opinion among residents.

“In Washington and Colorado, you can win over mainstream opinion and you’re then likely to win an election,” said Zimmerman of Prop. 215 fame. “Here in California, you’ve got to win the approval of a number of different communities, many of which often act independently of the mainstream: Latinos, African-Americans, youth, senior citizens. It’s a much more complex task.”

It will also be more costly: more than $1 million to gather the half-million valid signatures needed to put an initiative on the California ballot, experts say. Campaign marketing and operations could cost anywhere from $5 million to $15 million. But Reiman said pockets this deep do exist in the reform community. “A lot of people have $5 [million] to $10 million dollars laying around. It’s just a question of whether the people that have that laying around are going to find [marijuana legalization] a worthy cause.”

Funders will want to see an initiative that’s winnable at the polls yet acceptable to the fractious gaggle of reform groups in California. And that could be tough. During the Prop. 19 race, Oaksterdam organizers in Oakland not only had to fight the California Police Chiefs Association and the beer industry, but also the entrenched medical- and illegal-marijuana interests in Southern and Northern California.

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Pro-cannabis activists protest the Department of Justice’s crackdown on marijuana in California under the Obama administration.

Sharp divisiveness in the California cannabis community combined with tepid mainstream support in the electorate has also scared big donors over the years. And without the needed cash, legalization efforts have stalled. No fewer than five groups tried to get a pot-law reform initiative on the California ballot in 2012. All failed.

But Zimmerman and Reiman think there is enough objective data on California voter preferences to enable reform groups to agree on ballot language this time around. Even if the most extreme examples of “stoners against legalization” don’t agree with new drugged-driving laws or caps on home growing, the extremists “pale in comparison to people like moms in their 30s in Southern California” who voted against Prop. 19, Reiman noted.

Indeed, the gender gap over pot legalization remains strong—and that’s true throughout the nation. According to the Quinnipiac poll, American men support legalization 59 percent to 36 percent, but women oppose it 52 percent to 44 percent.

The age gap remains persistent as well.

Nationwide, residents 65 and older strongly oppose legalization: 56 percent to 35 percent, according to the Quinnipiac poll. By contrast, younger voters adamantly support it. Those aged 18 to 29 want pot legalized, 67 percent to 29 percent, and those aged 30 to 44 support it, 58 percent to 39 percent. In the 45-64 age group, 48 percent support marijuana legalization compared to 47 percent who oppose it. “It seems likely,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, “that given the better-than-2-1 majority among younger voters, legalization is just a matter of time.”

For many pot-legalization reformers, however, that time is not 2014. The California electorate is different in nonpresidential years, Zimmerman noted.

Republicans tend to come out in force in the off years, while Democrats stay home. Historically, offyear elections have given us Republican governors Ronald Reagan, Pete Wilson, George Deukmejian and Arnold Schwarzenegger. And a whopping 69 percent of California Republicans said no to pot legalization in a May 2012 Los Angeles Times poll.

“There are going to be people tempted by 2014; I think that would be a disaster,” Zimmerman said. “It could be another rebuke, which would make it much more difficult to pass an initiative in 2016.”

But waiting for the youth vote and Democrats in 2016 isn’t a sure thing either, particularly when California’s top Democratic leaders remain opposed to pot legalization, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and Gov. Jerry Brown.

Part of the reason Californians haven’t moved further on legalization may be due to the turmoil surrounding medical marijuana in the state. Brown went on CNN after the election to say the Obama administration should respect states’ rights with regard to pot laws, but he also said California’s system has seen “abuses.”

“We’ve got a medical-marijuana dispensary situation which is a mess,” said Zimmerman. “If we can’t clean that up and show the public that we’re capable in California of running marijuana distribution with medical patients, I’m not sure that they’re going to allow us to create a marijuana-distribution system for recreational users.”

PHOTOS BY DAVID DOWNS

“ THE HIGH ROAD”

continued from PAGE 13

The California Supreme Court also has yet to rule on the legality of dispensaries, or a city’s right to ban them. San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano will reintroduce a medical-marijuana-industry regulation bill next year, but Sacramento legislators have worried about touching what they view as an electric third rail in state politics.

There’s also the possibility that pot already might be legal enough for many Californians. When he was in office, Schwarzenegger made simple possession an infraction.

Since then, juvenile arrests for pot have plummeted to their lowest levels since record keeping began in the 1950s. In addition, most adult residents can get a medical recommendation for weed, and dispensaries and delivery services abound. According to RAND, the most common price Americans pay for pot is zero dollars. The reason? People typically receive it as a gift from friends.

LEGALIZATION BLOWBACK History is replete with political tipping points—moments in time when large numbers of people change their minds about a controversial issue. In addition to marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage appears to be at a political tipping point, too. In 2008, a Quinnipiac poll showed that Americans opposed gay marriage 55 percent to 36 percent. But in just four years, the country’s mood shifted dramatically; now, 48 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage, compared to 46 percent opposed.

That’s a 17-point swing.

“When these social issues begin to change and the public begins to view them a little different, the numbers can tumble pretty radically,” said Zimmerman.

Some pundits have credited President Barack Obama’s decision earlier this year to come out in support of same-sex marriage for helping turn the tide on that issue.

Conversely, if his administration embarks on a federal campaign to punish Washington and Colorado for legalizing pot, it could have a chilling effect on reform efforts.

Yes, Obama told ABC News last month that busting potheads in Colorado and Washington was not an effective use of federal resources, but he didn’t say anything about busting marijuana businesses. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont has called for hearings in 2013 on the conflict between state and federal law. Meanwhile, Attorney General Eric Holder has said recently the Department of Justice will announce its policy “soon.”

And while the federal government cannot stop states from repealing drug laws, it could sue to try to block the implementation of regulations in Colorado and Washington. The feds could also attempt to withhold transportation funds, or other retaliatory moves.

Holder may have single-handedly defeated Prop. 19 when he flew into Los Angeles for a pre-election press conference and blasted the initiative. Federal tolerance of state legalization also could threaten U.S. treaties with Latin American countries that fight our drug war, said Isaac Campos, a marijuana-prohibition historian at the University of Cincinnati.

Former Drug Enforcement Administration head Peter Bensinger is trying to mobilize retired DEA agents and narcotics officers to lobby the Obama administration for a crackdown, according to correspondence. In one email dated November 15, 2012, Bensinger urged the Association of Former Federal Narcotics Agents to take action: “We want to make it easy for all of you to help

MARIJUANA’S SHORT GAME

by Ngaio Bealum

WHILE “WAIT AND SEE” seems to be the prevailing attitude when it comes to sweeping cannabis-law reform in California, leaders in the state’s marijuana industry say 2013 will be a year of action.

In Sacramento County, the Committee for Safe Patient Access to Regulated Cannabis recently presented a petition to the board of supervisors to allow 22 medical-cannabis collectives to open for business. And next year, local activists will look to put continued political pressure on the county.

“It is in the county’s interest to place wellregulated dispensaries into play,” Sacramento-based Crusaders for Patients Rights’ Lanette Davies argued. “It is foolish and bigoted to deny patients safe access and deny the county residents muchneeded jobs and tax revenue.”

This fight may be a bit uphill, as the county has shown no sign of lifting its moratorium on dispensaries. And local initiatives to

overturn bans in San Diego County failed at the ballot box, showing that the medical-cannabis movement still has a tough time delivering enough votes to spur real action.

ask420@n ew srev iew .com

with marijuana convictions, such as loss of employment, housing and financial aid for college,” she said.

When it comes to legalization, however, the DPA and others are looking at 2016 for a ballot

WITHIN THE CITY LIMITS, MATTERS SEEM TO HAVE SMOOTHED OUT, AND SOME DISPENSARIES ARE RE-EMERGING. Amanda Reiman, California policy director with legislativeadvocacy outfit the Drug Policy Alliance, said her organization will continue to work on improving and developing “state-level medicalcannabis regulations” as a “blue print” for how things work in the pot business. “Additionally, we will be working to reduce [or] eliminate the civil sanctions associated

measure. “It takes about $10 million to run a successful initiative in California,” Reiman said during a panel at The Emerald Cup in Humboldt County in December 2012.

“We know California has the deep pockets, we just need to get the initiative right.” She added that she hopes to talk to more small- and large-scale cannabis farmers to get an understanding of what

us put pressure on the Administration to step in and stop Colorado and Washington from implementing the legalization of marijuana,” he wrote. “We need to push back.”

Drug warriors also have a strong economic incentive to fight legalization. “The money [from the federal war on drugs] is just too big for police departments through grants and asset seizures,” explained Downing of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “The state prison population is going down for the first time ever, but the federal prison population is increasing. All of that has to do with money.”

And the backlash from drug warriors may be working.

On December 7, The New York Times reported that the Obama Justice Department is weighing options as to how to respond to Colorado and Washington and whether to launch a crackdown or file lawsuits in those states.

At the same time, drug-reform advocates are girding for a long, tough battle. “I think it’s vital for anybody who wants to keep the momentum going to recognize that there’s going to be blowback in a serious way,” explained Campos. “There’s an enormous amount of practical, material interests wrapped up in the drug war. Those people must be putting a lot of pressure on Obama right now. The prison-industrial complex is superdependent on the war on drugs. We’re at a really crucial moment.”

Legalization in Washington and Colorado marks not only the beginning of the end, many say, but also the beginning of the most difficult part.

“We are looking up a huge mountain right now, and we’re all taking deep breaths and looking around and gearing up for a really long but hopefully successful fight,” Reiman said. “I think Californians are ready.” Ω

Forget 2014 or 2016: What’s going to happen with cannabis next year? they would like cannabis-law reform to look like.

The ranks of unionized marijuana workers also likely will grow in 2013. Over at the United Food and Commercial Workers, the director of the Medical Cannabis and Hemp Division, Dan Rush, anticipates “5,000 new members in the door by May 2013.”

He added that he hoped to announce a few more major clubs joining the union early this year, and the UFCW will also work on fixing the mess that is medicalcannabis regulation in Los Angeles, as well as working on regulations for “sun-grown” (that’s the new fancy appellation for outdoor weed) medical marijuana.

Medical-cannabis advocacy group Americans for Safe Access plans to continue the fight for patients’ rights. “We will continue to work toward ending housing and employment discrimination toward medical-cannabis patients,” said California director Don Duncan.

B E F O R E | F R O N T L I N E S | 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 |

Within the city limits, matters seem to have smoothed out, and some dispensaries are re-emerging. Florin Wellness Center has reopened after a brief hiatus, although it isn’t accepting any new members, and a few new clubs and delivery services also have opened in recent months. Activists say they hope to bring clarity and a few changes to the city’s outdoorgrowing ordinance as well.

Meanwhile, some California activists are becoming impatient with the state falling behind others when it comes to full-on legalization.

“Four years?!” one activist shouted during the panel at The Emerald Cup. “That’s four more years of people going to jail, of people losing their houses and children, four more years of wasted taxpayer money and resources!”

Ω Ngaio Bealum writes SN&R’s weekly marijuana column, The 420, and is also a local comedian and cannabis activist.

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for the C O M M O N

COLD COLD FRONT FRONT P H OTO S by wE S Dav I S

S N & R ’ S G O T y O U R b a C k S I D E C O v E R E D w I T H w O R k O U T

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STEPH RODRIGUEZ

a N D N U T R I T I O N T I P S T O H E l P b U S T T H R O U G H T H a T l a Z y w I N T E R H I b E R N a T I O N

You can use fancy barbells like Bodytribe Fitness owner Chip Conrad does—or, as he suggests, fashion your own from sandbags.

W

hether you’re a fitness junkie routinely hitting miles of pavement before work, or a sporadic, half-hearted exerciser, there’s no denying the biting winter season has finally settled in.

When the streets are wet and gray clouds blanket city blocks, even the most health-conscious person’s workout routine is bound to slip into hibernation. Instead of blaming it on the rain, however, or hiding beneath a quilt for the winter (which leads to, usually, the packing on of unwanted pounds), SN&R’s got you covered with tips from an alternative fitness trainer, yoga instructor and nutritionist who recommends lots of butter. Really.

‘EmpowErmEnt through movEmEnt’ Bodytribe Fitness owner and head trainer Chip Conrad has logged more than 20 years in the fitness industry and has owned a gym for nearly a decade. Not only does he regularly speak out against what he

16 | SN&R | 01.03.13

refers to as, “the corporate fitness world,” he’s also taught his workout philosophy of “empowerment through movement” across the country, from Los Angeles to New York City. Such empowerment, however, doesn’t require fancy equipment— Conrad encourages those who walk through his fitness sanctuary to take their routine back to the basics this winter to the comfort of their own living quarters.

He points to his own apartment as proof that anyone can find the means for an effective workout.

“I’ve got maybe 6-by-6 square feet of space, and that’s plenty of room,” Conrad says. “I can spend a whole session in [my apartment] doing all sorts of things, as long as I’m willing to be creative about it.”

During his cross-country travels, Conrad says his biggest surprise as a fitness trainer was learning just how many people can’t properly execute a basic push-up.

Such simple moves are crucial, he says. Indeed, Conrad swears by old-fashioned calisthenics and other basic exercises that include pull-ups, squats and even yoga variations.

The key, he adds, is incorporating a twist. For example, Conrad suggests exercisers try transitioning from a squat directly into a yoga pose—and then holding the move.

He also advises clients to construct an inexpensive but effective workout tool by fashioning a sandbag into a barbell.

“The big secret that I actually like telling people is that you don’t need

the gym at all or a gym membership.

Movement is such a free expression of the body,” he says.

“A critic will say, ‘Why is a pushup so tough?’ An artist would say, ‘How many ways can I do the pushup?’ My goal, as a trainer, is to [turn] people from critics into artists.”

A hEAling prActicE It’s cold and drizzly on a recent Tuesday evening outside The Yoga Seed Collective. On this night, patrons flood out of the building one by one, each pink-faced with exhaustion and carrying a rolled yoga mat under one arm.

Jess Rhodes, a petite, 27-year-old brunette, shakes hands with the yoga practitioners at her A to Om beginner’s class and then bundles up to exit the warm, musky room.

Rhodes has taught yoga since 2009 and promises that the practice is for everybody—regardless of age, gender, shape or size.

“You can come to a yoga class here, and you’ll sweat more than you’d ever sweat in a cardio class at the gym,” Rhodes insists. “Yoga has been something that has healed me and keeps me feeling good all the time.”

A former rugby player, Rhodes suffered numerous injuries from her time on the field, including a popped lung and broken ribs. She started exploring yoga after she broke her back doing back handsprings while

Pass the blood cake See DISH

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Will sulk for beer See BREW THE RIGHT THING

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Make no promises See ASK JOEY

Whose podcast is it anyway?

See EIGHT GIGS

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SCENE& HEARD The first 66 days

Sluggish? Jess Rhodes (left), an instructor at The Yoga Seed Collective, advocates yoga, and Dawn Throne of Fountain of Health Wellness Center and Spa recommends eating seasonal veggies.

practicing Hapkido, an ancient form of Korean martial arts.

While it wasn’t an “end of the world” injury, she says now, her body required new, gentler movements.

Her Hapkido instructor introduced her to yoga in very simple, basic terms: breathing and stretching.

Flash-forward two years later, and Rhodes now instructs yoga classes weekly. The practice has had a major impact on her body, helping to ease a lifetime’s worth of aches and pains, she says. “[I] have broken lots of things, so I shouldn’t feel this good.”

She sees its positive impact on her clients as well. One yoga student lost 40 pounds after progressing through the yoga studio’s beginner and intermediate classes while another—a Vietnam War veteran—discovered yoga’s mental benefits.

“He saw this YouTube video of a veteran that couldn’t walk doing yoga, and then [he was] running at the end, and it made him cry,” Rhodes says.

Such a profound result, she adds, is not uncommon. “[Yoga] makes everyone cry.”

Pa s s t h e butter With a last name like Throne, no wonder Dawn of the Fountain of Health Wellness Center and Spa has deemed herself the “Health Queen.”

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A nutritionist and business owner for more than 20 years, Throne insists that everyone should treat themselves royally this winter by eating age-old foods that also include one fatty luxury most doctors and nutritionists avoid: butter.

“A critic will say, ‘Why is a push-up so tough?’ An artist would say, ‘How many ways can I do the push-up?’”

Chip Conrad owner Bodytribe Fitness

“If you want to have good health, I look at it as eating royally—or eating good foods that are very historic,” Throne says. “It’s like treating yourself with such importance that you’re regal in your food choices.”

But don’t just slather any old butter on that piece of toast, she warns.

“It has to be pasture butter—meaning the cow ate green grass,” she says.

“It has to be the best.”

An avid farmers market shopper, Throne also encourages people to forgo store-bought apples, which she says are sometimes refrigerated

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F E AT U R E S T O RY

for up to a year. Instead, she advises shoppers to purchase locally grown fresh-picked fruit.

Throne also stresses eating for the season to keep the body and mind healthy.

“For example, tomatoes aren’t in season, so don’t eat them,” she says. “All your lemons and your citrus fruits are in season, and there’s a reason for that: They’re high in vitamin C and help fight against viruses. … Acorn squash, butternut squash, pumpkins— they’re all very high in vitamins A and D, which also go together to fight against [illness].”

Other in-season vegetables to keep an eye out for this time of year include cruciferous veggies such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and a variety of chards—all high in vitamin C and soluble fibers.

Throne suggests cooking these vegetables in soups this time of year, ensuring a low-calorie, nutritious and comforting meal.

“All of those [vegetables] give us our strength for the winter and are very important foods to eat at this time [of year],” says Throne. “This is the time for soup. It warms you up, and it fills you up.” Ω

Perhaps the majority of our collective failure is due to setting ourselves unrealistic goals.

Get fit at Bodytribe Fitness, 920 21st Street; (916) 835-4982; www.bodytribe.com; The Yoga Seed Collective, 1400 E Street, Suite B; (916) 978-1367; http://theyogaseed.org; and Fountain of Health Wellness Center and Spa, 2820 T Street; (916) 456-4600; www.fountainofhealth.com.

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A blinding headache, searing nausea and fits of vertigo is how I face the first day of every year; in other words, pathetically hungover. It is a sorry state that leaves me unsettled and despondent as I vow to make real changes in the year to come. For starters, I resolve to never touch alcohol again, and while I’m at it, I’m going to drink more water and less coffee, floss every day and begin in earnest on writing the great American novel.

Many people are promising themselves these very same things on the same day for the very same reasons.

According to statistics published at www.usa.gov, 45 percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions— and 41 percent of those people make them because they are not happy. Of these resolvers, 49 percent have infrequent success in meeting their goals, and fully one in four people have failed to succeed with any New Year’s resolution they have ever made. It makes sense. Breaking our resolutions three months in is practically a part of the tradition, and although we seem serious when we declare our intent to go from couch potato to marathon runner in 12 months, deep down we know our jogging career won’t even see late spring.

Perhaps the majority of our collective failure is due to setting ourselves unrealistic goals. I would like to jog more, but am I a failure because I can’t run every day for a year? Such a daunting task makes me want to give up from day one. But what if I start smaller with, say, a first-quarter-of-the-year resolution with an opportunity for renewal in the quarters to come?

Psychologists throw a lot of magic numbers out there for the amount of time it takes to create new habits. Twenty-one days of straight repetition is the shortest according to online articles, and 66 days seems to be the longest.

Even so, 66 days is a lot more realistic than 365, and perhaps with an initial success we will be motivated to repeat the challenge for another 66 days. And why stop there? If we make it 66, we may see ourselves through 132 or 264 or 330 days, simply by giving ourselves an opportunity to succeed over periods of time more easily tackled day by day.

It seems that over the course of two months, almost anything is possible, and depending on the immediacy of our results, our new habits may have real staying power.

This is all well and good when it comes to selfimprovement, but imagine what could be accomplished if we took 66 days to volunteer in our communities.

Or how about 66 days to live more consciously and sustainably? To commute by bike despite the weather or eat locally despite the price. Given that, 66 days may be enough to make a noticeable impact, not just in our community, but in our relationship and how we choose to interact with it all year long.

But maybe I am falling into the trap of unrealistic long-term goals. Let’s do our best one day at a time and evaluate it all come early March. Tomorrow, though, I’m really going for that run.

—Julianna Boggs

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NIGHT&DAY 03THURS 04FRI DON’T MISS!

DON’T MISS!

Nepalese film to be nominated for an Academy Award, this epic adventure of survival is also a narrative about Nepalese traditions and daily life.

Before the screening, Sacramento State University professor of Asian religions and cultures, Joël Dubois, will discuss the cultural significance of Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions in Nepal. Th, 1/3, 7pm. $6-$12. Crocker Art Museum, 216 O St.; (916) 808-7000; www.crockerartmuseum.org.

Trick-shot legend Mike Massey will conduct a public trick-shot exhibition and several challenge matches with APA Pool League members and other interested pool players.

Massey is a renowned pool trick shot artist. He is the 2002 World Artistic Pool Champion and has won numerous other titles including the ESPN Trick Shot Magic Championship in 2000 and 2001. F, 1/4, 7pm.

Free to attend. Challenge matches cost $10.

Hard Times Billiards, 5536 Garfield Ave.; (866) 401-7665.

HIMALAYA: The first

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.

Special Events DRAG QUEEN BINGO: Drag Queen Bingo is a fun and wild night of bingo every first Thursday at Hamburger Patties in Sacramento. First Th of every month. Hamburger Patties, 1630 J St.; (916) 441-4340; http://hamburger-patties.com.

Classes ARGENTINE TANGO CLASSES: Learn the Argentine tango through classes which are taught as a monthly series that begin on the first of each month. Classes frequently fill, so pre-registration is strongly recommend. Th, 6:30-7:30pm through 12/31. $50 per person for a 4-week series.

Tango By The River, 128 J St.; (916) 443-7008; www.river tango.com/tunitalei6p.html.

DADDY’S HERE FATHER SUPPORT GROUP: Men and dads get together and discuss life, relationship and parenting issues.

Guest speakers include attorneys, family law court facilitators, life coaches, coparenting counselors, motivational speakers and more. Th, 7-8:30pm through 10/31. $10. Center for Fathers and Families, 920 Del Paso Blvd.; (916) 568-3237, ext. 210; www.fathersandfamilies.com.

Poetry

TRICK-SHOT EXHIBITION:

Special Events ANANDA KIRTAN CHANTING: Join in an evening of sacred chanting.

Most chants are simple to learn, so you will be able to join in easily. You will sing many of the beautiful Yogananda and Kriyananda chants in English, as well as some traditional Indian chants, accompanied by harmonium and guitar. F, 1/4, 7-8:30pm. Free. Ananda Sacramento, 10450 Coloma Rd. in Rancho Cordova; (916) 361-0891; www.anandasacramento.org.

Art Galleries BOWS & ARROWS: Your Hair Got Long, new paintings by Jeff Mayry in the Bows Gallery.

F, 1/4, 6pm. Free. 1815 19 St.; (916) 822-5668; www.bowscollective.com.

Call for Artists SKETCH IT: HOLIDAY EDITION: Visitors ages five and older can sketch at their own pace while receiving drawing instruction.

This drop-in program meets in a different gallery each month.

F, 1/4, 11am. Free with museum admission. Crocker Art Museum, 216 O St.; (916) 808-7000; www.crockerartmuseum.org.

POETRY UNPLUGGED: Sacramento’s longest-running spoken-word open-mic, with guest hosts Frank Andrick, Mario Ellis Hill, Geoffery Neill and B.L. Kennedy.

Th, 8pm. $2. Luna’s Café & Juice Bar, 1414 16th St.; (916) 441-3931; www.lunascafe.com.

NERD-VANA

or BUST

Film

Comedy

5 BROKEN CAMERAS: 5 Broken

THE COLONY: This is a show more

Cameras is a first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil’in, a village in Palestine’s West Bank threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements and its so-called “separation barrier.” The film is shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat. Currently on a U.S. speaking tour, Emad’s brother, Iyad, will answer questions and lead discussion after the film.

F, 1/4, 7pm. Free. Salam Center, 4541 College Oak Dr.; (916) 448-7157; www.salamcenter.org.

Literary Events AUTHOR STEVE LIDDICK: California Writers Club, Sacramento Branch presents Steve Liddick, author of the memoir But First This Message: A Quirky Journey in Broadcasting, on the subject of how to get promotional time and space in the media. Liddick is retired after nearly 50 years as a print and broadcast journalist. He will offer tips on landing an interview and how you can get the most out of the opportunity when you are interviewed. F, 1/4, 9-11am. Free.

IHOP, 2216 Sunrise Blvd. in Rancho Cordova; (916) 213-0798; www.cwcsacramentowriters.org.

Concerts KEEP ON TRUCKIN’: Keep On Truckin’ is comprised of five seasoned musicians. KOT band members have opened for national acts and performed internationally. Take a step back in time and enjoy the music that influenced a generation. F, 1/4, 9pm. Free. Purple Place Bar & Grill, 363 Green Valley Rd. in El Dorado Hills; (916) 933-2616; www.purple placebarandgrill.com.

05SAT

DON’T MISS! HOLIDAY CONCERT: LA POSAD:

The Camerata California Chorus will be performing the holiday special La Posad with authentic musical instruments. This event will be conducted by Conductor Peter Nowlen. In addition, tickets for a chance to win a week in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico will be available at the door. Sa, 1/5, 7pm. $10-$22. Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, 1017 11th St.; (916) 444-3071.

Special Events ACADEMY OF ART UNIVERSITY OPEN HOUSE: Discover your creative potential at this open house.

Meet alumni and get feedback on your art portfolios. Learn about degrees in art and design, and enroll in pre-artcollege courses with an admissions representative.

Sa, 1/5, 10am-5pm. Free.

Hyatt Regency Sacramento, 1209 L St.; (800) 544-2787; www.academyart.edu/forms/ 2013-01-05-sacramentoopen-house.jsp.

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creative than its name. A team of improv veterans and friends build something with your suggestions. The team takes the stage every week to ask you some questions. Your answers and your ideas fuel the performance. Sa, 9:15pm through 12/28. Opens 1/5. $7. Blacktop Comedy, 7311 Galilee Rd. 150 in Roseville; (916) 749-3100; www.blacktopcomedy.com/ shows/thecolony.

Classes FREE-TREE PRUNING CLINIC: Learn how to help your trees develop good structure and form. A variety of pruning tools and techniques will be presented and discussed. There will be a walkabout on library grounds to look at tree structure and pruning. Sa, 1/5, 11am-12:30pm.

Free. Elk Grove Library, 8900 Elk Grove Blvd. in Elk Grove; (916) 974-4304; www.sactree.com.

LAMAZE CHILDBIRTH CLASS: This is a complete childbirth class covering all the important information you need to know to be prepared for birth.

Classes are designed to increase your knowledge of the birth process and build coping skills for childbirth.

Sa, 1/5, 9am. $150 per couple.

Residence Inn, 1930 Taylor Rd. in Roseville; (916) 525-7596; http://allbabies.biz/rosevillelamaze-childbirth-class.

Kids’ Stuff FAMILY ACTIVITY: BLACK-TAILED DEER: The bucks are in their winter glory, with beautiful antler crowns. Grab your binoculars or borrow some from Effie Yeaw Nature Center and catch a closer look at the black-tailed deer in their oak woodland habitat while learning more about their world. Sa, 1/5, 10:30am. Free. Effie Yeaw Nature Center, 2850 San Lorenzo Way in Carmichael; (916) 489-4918; www.effieyeaw.org.

OWL PROWL: Discover the owls that inhabit the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge. After a handson introduction, venture on a short walk along an accessible trail to look and listen for owls.

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

Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, OHair Rd. off of Hwy. 20 in Colusa; (530) 934-2801; www.fws.gov/sacramento valleyrefuges.

Sports & Recreation 5K RUN: 5K Resolution is a flat and fast certified 5k (3.1-mile) run and walk for people of all ages, fitness levels and abilities. It begins and ends at Crocker Park and loops along the Sacramento River. Sa, 1/5, 9am. $15-$25. Crocker Park, 216 O St., adjacent from Crocker Art Museum.

GUIDED WALK: Volunteer naturalists await your arrival at the Cosumnes River Preserve Visitor Center at 9 a.m. to lead you along Cosumnes River Walk’s three-mile loop trail. The trail takes you through grasslands, marshes, the river and oak forests.

Expert advice from your guide will enable you to enjoy the flora, fauna and history that surrounds you. Sa, 1/5, 9-11am. Free. Cosumnes River

Preserve Visitor Center, 13501 Franklin Blvd. in Galt; (916) 870-4317; www.cosumnes.org.

Concerts THE CHILLBILLIES: The Center for the Arts presents the Chillbillies, celebrating Elvis’ 78th birthday. There’s plenty of dancing room for this concert.

Sing along and dance to rousing renditions of rockers such as “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Jailhouse Rock” and “Hound Dog.” Sa, 1/5, 8pm. $12-$15. Center for the Arts, 314 W. Main St. in Grass Valley; (530) 274-8384, ext. 14; www.thecenterforthearts.org.

CLIFF EBERHARDT: The Auburn Placer Performing Arts Center presents the first concert of its 2013 season: Cliff Eberhardt.

Jim Bruno will perform as the opener. Refreshments are available in the Marquee Room at 6:30 p.m., and the concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Sa, 1/5, 7:30pm. $20. Auburn Placer Performing Arts Center, 985 Lincoln Way in Auburn; (530) 885-0156; www.livefromauburn.com.

MYLAR MUSIC: William Mylar begins his 36th year performing another of his signature free shows. Special guests include mandolin guru Ken Burnett.

Sa, 1/5, 6-8pm. Free. Strings Pizzeria, 9500 Micron Ave., Ste. 128; (916) 454-1908; http://stringspizzeria.com.

06SUN

DON’T MISS! DAVID STUDEBAKER: David

Studebaker started sneaking into comedy clubs when he was 14, sitting front row and studying at the feet of legends such as Bobby Slayton, Kevin James and Jeff Ross as they displayed their comedic prowess.

Almost 10 years later he’s a regular comic at those same clubs he snuck into as a youth and is one of the most in-demand comics in the Bay Area. Su, 1/6, 7pm. $15. Punch Line Comedy Club, 2100 Arden Way; (916) 925-5500; www.sac. punchlinecomedyclub.com.

Classes GENEALOGY CLASS: Two sets of records that may add clues to your genealogy research are obituaries and cemetery records. Genealogist Glenda Gardner Lloyd shows how these underused records can yield information about family relationships, clues to migration and suggestions for additional places to search. Su, 1/6, 1:303pm. Free. Sacramento Public Library (Central Branch), 828 I St.; (916) 264-2920; www.saclibrary.org.

Now Playing MISS NELSON IS MISSING: In this lively musical comedy, the kind and clever Miss Nelson masquerades as the infamous Viola Swamp, a nasty substitute, in order to teach her unruly class just what a good and fair teacher she is. Recommended for kindergarten through 5th grade. Su, 1/6, 1, 2:30 & 4pm. $8-$15. Three Stages Peforming

Arts Center, 10 College Pkwy. in Folsom; (916) 608-6888; www.threestages.net.

Concerts ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET: After a lively exploration of works by Antonin Dvorák, the acclaimed Alexander String Quartet turns to Austrian Franz Schubert, one of the leading exponents of the early Romantic era in music. The quartet, a major artistic presence in its home base of San Francisco, is a fixture among the world’s foremost ensembles. Su, 1/6, 7pm. $49. Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, 9399 Old Davis Rd. in Davis; (530) 754-2787; www.mondaviarts.org.

07MON

Literary Events ALZHEIMER’S BOOK SIGNING: Alzheimer’s affects everincreasing numbers of baby boomers and their families—5 million people in the US alone.

But this devastating disease doesn’t have to be inevitable.

Dr. Gary Small, professor of psychiatry and aging and director of the UCLA Longevity Center, is one of the leading authorities on Alzheimer’s and will be speaking and signing his latest book, The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program. M, 1/7, 5pm. Free. UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, 2825 50th St.; (916) 734-9040.

08TUES

DON’T MISS! THOMAS FRIEDMAN:

Columnist for The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, TV documentarian—these are a few of the hats worn by Thomas Friedman, an intellectual that the man in the street can look to for straight talk about our increasingly complex world.

Tu, 1/8, 8pm. Call for pricing.

Sacramento Convention Center, 1400 J St.; (916) 920-8655; www.sacramento communitycentertheater.com.

Special Events ASG EVALUATION DAY: The Art Service Group (ASG) will sponsor an art and antique evaluation focusing on paintings, prints, lithographs, and antique maps with Charles Gray; and general antiques, glass, pottery, memorabilia, collectables, decorative arts, fine art and furniture with Gary Cox. Informal appraisals (verbal approximations of value) are $10 per item or $45 for five items. Appointments are required. Tu, 1/8, 10am-4pm. $10-$45. Crocker Art Museum, 216 O St.; (916) 808-7000; www.crockerartmuseum.org.

Literary Events JAMES ROLLINS LAUNCHES COMPILATION: In his first-ever collaboration, local author and New York Times bestselling author James Rollins combines his skill for cutting-edge

Call for Artists

science and historical mystery with award-winning novelist Rebecca Cantrell’s talent for haunting suspense and sensual atmosphere in a gothic tale called The Blood Gospel. Tu, 1/8, 7pm. Free. Barnes & Noble, 1256 Galleria Blvd. in Roseville.

AUDITIONS: IMPROV: Blacktop Comedy, Roseville’s acting studio dedicated to the study, practice and performance of improvisational theater, is holding open auditions. Blacktop is casting two new troupes and looking for both short and long form improvisers. W, 1/9, 7-9pm; Th, 1/10, 6-7pm. Free. Blacktop Comedy, 7311 Galilee Rd., Ste. 150 in Roseville; (916) 749-3100; www.blacktopcomedy.com/blacktop-auditions-jan-9-10-2013.

Meetings & Groups WOMEN PARTNERS OF ASPERGER MEN: A free education and support group will be held for women partners of men with Aspergers Syndrome. It is coled by Sally B. Watkins L.C.S.W., and Marilyn Perry, Ph.D., both therapists. A formal diagnosis is not required to attend the group. Second Tu of every month.

Free. UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, 2825 50th St.; (916) 734-9040.

Concerts NINETY MILES: Ninety miles is the distance from the United States to Cuba. It also is a unique collaboration between three critically acclaimed jazz musicians. Vibist Stefon Harris, saxophonist David Sánchez, and trumpeter Christian Scott will be joined by trumpet legend Nicholas Payton. 1/9-1/12, 8pm. $19-$38. Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, 9399 Old Davis Rd. in Davis; (530) 754-2787; www.mondaviarts.org.

Concerts BATTLE OF THE MUSICIANS: For new and up-and-coming bands looking to graduate from open-mics to paid gigs, this is the perfect event. Each act plays two songs and the crowd votes for their favorites. It’s free and the winner earns a showcase gig at The Pine Cove the first Sunday night in November (flexible).

Tu, 1/8. Free. Pine Cove Tavern, 502 29th St.; (916) 446-3624.

ONGOING

SCOT BRUCE AS ELVIS: Gather at

TAKE NOTE, SAC GEEKS:

Sacramento’s anime and Japanese-pop-culture fans will converge downtown this weekend for SacAnime. The three-day event happens at the Sacramento Convention Center and the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel, with art exhibits, vendors, swap meets, celebrity guests, live music, dancing, and card- and video-game tournaments. It’s basically nerd-vana.

A definite highlight of SacAnime is the abundance and diversity of costumed performers and attendees. There will be a Japanese fashion show (featuring popular dress styles such as aristocrat, gyaru and visual kei), a costume contest (featuring popular anime cosplay characters), and Cafe Hoshi, a place where performers dressed as maids and butlers take orders for snacks and entertain customers. Attendees are also generally encouraged to dress up as their favorite comic-book or anime character.

The event also hosts a dozen or so guests, including voice actors (Kevin Conroy from Batman: The Animated Series; Toshio Furukawa from Dragon Ball Z; and Maile Flanagan from Naruto and The Office), musicians (Raj Ramayya and the Japanese band Kazha), a fashion designer (Cyril Lumboy) and an artist (Tsuyoshi Nonaka). To top it all off, there will be plenty of live music and dancing opportunities, including concerts, karaoke and dance lessons throughout the weekend; a formal dance called the Starlight Ball on Saturday night; and electronic deejay dancing on Friday and Saturday nights.

SacAnime, January 4-6. Friday only: $20; Saturday only: $30; Sunday only: $15; all weekend: $40. Sacramento Convention Center, 1400 J Street; and Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel, 1230 J Street; www.sacconventions.com.

—Jonathan Mendick

Lego heads, dress shirts, ties and shorts: Why not?

DON’T MISS!

the Hutchins Street Square to celebrate Elvis’ birthday. Hear music from Elvis impersonator Scot Bruce. Tu, 1/8, 7pm. $25$35. Hutchins Street Square, 125 S. Hutchins St. in Lodi; (209) 333-5550; www.hutchinsstreetsquare.com.

FOLLIES: The Davis Musical Theatre Company presents the Stephen Sondheim/James Goldman musical, Follies.

It’s directed by Steve Isaacson with choreography by Jacob Montoya.

1/4-1/27. $16-$18. Davis Musical Theatre Company, 607 Pena Dr. in Davis; (530) 756-3682.

09WED

Special Events

DON’T MISS!

CALIFORNIA STATE HOME & GARDEN SHOW: The California State Home

DINE DOWNTOWN RESTAURANT WEEK:

& Garden Show is one of Northern California’s premier consumer events. The show highlights the latest products and services in the remodeling industry, with an emphasis on kitchen, bathroom, interior design and landscape services.

Experience the best of Downtown Sacramento’s dining scene during Dine Downtown Restaurant Week.

For 10 days, local chefs will create special three-course dinner menus for $30 per person. 1/9-1/18, 5pm. $30.

Downtown Sacramento; http://downtownsac.org/ events/dine-downtown.

F, 1/4, 12-7pm; Sa, 1/5, 10am-7pm; Su, 1/6, 10am-5pm. $7.

Sacramento Convention Center, 1400 J St.; (916) 920-8655; www.sacramentocommunity centertheater.com.

Special Events START TRAINING INFO SESSION:

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON LIVE SPECTACULAR: Inspired by the hit

Start Training is a team halfmarathon training and fundraising program of the American Heart Association for all levels and abilities. Whether you choose to walk or run, our expert staff and coaches will train you from step one all the way to completing a halfmarathon. W, 1/9, 6pm. Free.

Connect Point Search Group, 180 Promenade Cir., Ste. 315; (916) 446-6505; http://sacramento starttraining.org.

movie, this live event is a neverbefore-seen production that audiences of all ages will enjoy.

The family show—which features more than a dozen life-size animatronic dragons, some with wingspans of up to 46 feet, Viking warriors and world-class circus artists and acrobats—also weaves in messages of tolerance and friendship. Th, 1/3, 7pm; F, 1/4,

Sleep Train Arena, 1 Sports Pkwy.; (916) 649-8497; www.arcoarena.com.

library start its Yu-Gi-Oh academy. If you know how to play and are willing to teach others—or if you want to learn how to play—join. And bring your deck if you have one. W, 1/9, 4pm. Free. Franklin Community Library, 10055 Franklin High Rd. in Elk Grove; (916) 264-2700.

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AFTER

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!

7pm; Sa, 1/5, 11am, 3 & 7pm; Su, 1/6, 1 & 5pm. $27.50-$72.

YU-GI-OH ACADEMY: Help the

BEFORE

Wait, there’s more!

PSYCHIC FAIR AND HEALING FESTIVAL: Have a burning question? Come, relax and experience psychic readings about love life, career, money, relationships and more. 1/5-1/7, 1-6pm. Free.

Berkeley Psychic Institute, 2018 19th St.; (916) 441-7780; www.sacramentobpi.com.

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DISH

Gringo-wiches See FOOD STUFF

Slow down, eat soup

MAKE IT A NIGHT OUT

HL Hot Pot 6930 65th Street, Suite 117; (916) 706-3299; http://hlhotpot.com Some restaurants are like a temple of flavor where eating can be an almost religious experience. The food at such a place must be focused on and eaten by mindfully, not chatted over. Kru Contemporary Becky Japanese Cuisine (2516 J Street) comes to Grunewald mind, as does Ella Dining Room & Bar (1131 K Street). The experiences at those types of places are usually quite individual except for periodic exclamations about the food.

Some restaurants, on the other hand, lend themselves to a convivial, communal experience where the food seems secondary. These types of places are filled with large tables populated by large groups—friends, family, et al. Some tables, perhaps, may even sport a lazy Susan, one of the world’s greatest inventions.

HL Hot Pot falls into the latter category. Here, the restaurant’s large room is dominated by a huge, fancy fish tank, and there are refrigerated cases at the back to allow the servers to quickly access the soup components that comprise its long list of ingredients. The ingredients encompass much of the plant and animal kingdom and range from fish to fowl to fungus and back again.

It works like this: Servers take your order Rating: and then wheel the broth and ingredients over ★★★ on a silver cart. (You might have to flag them Dinner for one: down, and I had to ask twice to get the TV $10 - $15 over our table turned off.)

On one visit, I pick four of the six broths; each is served two to a segregated pot and plunked onto the table-side burner. The beef broth is essentially pho, heavy on the star anise. The house broth is hardly subtle either, with whole cloves and Chinese dates floating therein. The miso shows a light hand with the dashi and miso paste, and the Thai-style broth ★ exhibits tart lemongrass. The key is that the POOR broth boils down over time and becomes ★★ saltier, concentrated and deeper tasting as the FAIR meal progresses—all the more reason to linger ★★★ with friends over the meal.

GOOD The following are some ingredients that I ★★★★ sampled throughout my meal (these categories EXCELLENT play very fast and loose with scientific classifi★★★★★ cations): EXTRAORDINARY Quadrupeds: The sliced-thin Kobe beef and lamb unfortunately both contract and toughen when they hit boiling broth, although the Kobe less so. The porcine meatballs have an overly springy texture, and the blood cake proved to be the least-popular ingredient at our table. Like the nerdy girl at the prom, it sat unloved, still at the table when the dance was over.

Piscine: The peppery fish cake here is served in raw patties with no instructions on how to pick them up, so armed only with chopsticks, I grapple one into the pot until I figure out how to render it just tender by modulating the cooking time. An appetizer of battered and fried creamy oysters was as popular as the prom queen and gone within minutes.

Poultry: The choices offered consisted mostly of innards, and I balk at the idea of grasping raw BEFORE

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chicken breast with chopsticks, so instead, this category is represented by cute little quail eggs with perfectly oozy yolks.

Fungi: The Bunapi and white crab mushrooms, no matter how exotic, taste very similar and like, well, cultivated mushrooms.

Flora: The photosynthetic options yield the most surprises. The “Tong O” features a woodsy, foraged flavor similar to miner’s lettuce, and the watercress loses its heat when dunked into the broth and becomes mild and juicy.

Blood cake proved to be the least-popular ingredient at our table. Like the nerdy girl at the prom, it sat unloved, still at the table when the dance was over.

Legumes: The pleasant, layered, slippery texture of the tofu skin is a revelation—this is now my new jam, and I order it in any incarnation, including at dim sum.

Wild card: Glass noodles can be made with various starches, and I’m not expert enough to pick whether these are made of tubers or legumes. I cook them last—the better to soak up the last remaining cups of the now-intense broth.

HL Hot Pot fosters sampling and sharing and is the kind of place where you may find yourself in such a lively conversation that the next time you look down, you see a table full of empty dishes. Unless you order the blood cake. Ω

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DISH

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 6 p.m. French. 901 K St., (916) 551-1500. Meal for one: $5-$10. ★★★1⁄2 G.L. 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 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 egg-white 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 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. DO SH AY N BY HA YL EY

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.

ILL US TR AT IO

Where to eat?

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. Dinner for one: $10-$20. ★★★1 ⁄ 2 B.G.

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 the bottom of the pan with rice, then stirred and fried up fresh the next day with dried Thai chilies and scallions. Thai and Lao. 2827 Norwood Ave., (916) 641-5890. Dinner for one: $10-$15. ★★★★ B.G.

North Sac

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

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.

BREW THE RIGHT THING Rare-beer woes

MUST DRINK:

It’s silly to declare any one beer the best in the world—but there is a beer that is the rarest: Trappist Westvleteren 12 by Brouwerij Westvleteren. To get your hands on a bottle, you must travel to the remote hop-growing region of Belgium, visit the abbey where the beer is brewed, and buy it directly from the monks. That is, until recently: A one-time shipment of Westvleteren 12 arrived in America, which caused an unprecedented frenzy. Pangaea Two Brews Cafe (2743 Franklin Boulevard) got a few cases, and on the day it arrived, all the employees looked frazzled. They had fielded more than 250 calls from as far away as Japan, including one in which the caller claimed that his father’s dying wish is to drink bottle of “Westie.” Owner Rob Archie joked that he was going to sell them to the people with the best hard-luck stories. Here’s my own sad-but-true: I traveled to this area of Flanders by bus, only to discover that the abbey had closed for Easter. (Sad trombone noise.) Can I buy a six-pack now?

Beer: Rueuze (barrel-aged lambic) Brewer: The Bruery Where: Corti Brothers, 5810 Folsom Boulevard;

(916) 736-3800; www.cortibros.biz

Beer: Old Rasputin XIV

(barrel-aged Russian imperial stout)

Brewer: North Coast Brewing Co. Where: Nugget Markets, various locations; www.nuggetmarket.com

Beer: Big Brown Beaver (barrel-aged strong ale) Brewer Berryessa Brewing Co. Where: The Davis Beer Shoppe,

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211 G Street in Davis; (530) 756-5212

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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.

La Victoria Mercado y Carniceria No. 2 If you breakfast 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 Blvd., (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 buttock.

Diners also have the option to order hand-shaped, griddledto-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.

Arden/ Carmichael

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

kimchi, all pretty low on the spice-o-meter, but Sarang Bang’s gul bo sam is the real Korean taco, no food truck required.

Lightly steamed napa cabbage serves as a scoop for pork, spicy-and-sweet zucchini, and thin-sliced raw garlic and jalapeño. Some entrees fall short, but all is forgiven with the spicy chicken. Here, chopped chicken is heavily sauced with a chili paste, garlic and honey concoction. It’s the kind of meal during which conversation is replaced by lipsmacking, grunts and short murmured exclamations like, “So good!” and “Holy crap!” Korean.

3631 S. Port Dr., (916) 368-2277.

Dinner for one: $10-$20. ★★★1⁄2 B.G.

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.

Nevada City

The Willo The Willo’s menu is simple, centered on a slab of meat and starchy sides— although the restaurant has added a veggie burger to its lineup. While the thick, smoky pork chop and the tender, butterflied half-chicken suffice, here it’s really all about the New York strip steak offered in small, medium and large portions. If you’re not the designated driver, slip into the bar for a shot to lull you during the long drive home.

The sassy bartender will fix you right up as you take in the curving walls of this prefab structure from a long-gone era, the E Clampus Vitus plaques and the regulars’ birthdays listed on the wall. American. 16898 State Hwy. 49 in Nevada City, (530) 265-9902.

Dinner for one: $20-$40. ★★★★ B.G.

Rosemont

Sarang Bang The servers at this Korean restaurant are courteous and friendly, and each meal begins with small dishes of banchan. There are three types of

9 TIMES

BEST

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK STIVERS

Giò Cha Duc Huong Sandwiches With banh mi, it’s

International love In this column in March 2012, I praised Koreana Plaza (10971 Olson Drive in Rancho Cordova) for its diversity of Mexican, Korean and Russian groceries, produce and prepared foods. Since then, the place has expanded, remodeled and reopened in the fall of 2012. It’s now called KP International Market, and it’s bigger and better. The new digs are reminiscent of the colossal size and linear layout of IKEA: Enter through the main double doors to shop for produce and dry goods; pass through a hallway (along which there’s a Korean prepared-foods section) into a meat and seafood room with more groceries flanked by a Mexican bakery (with handmade tortillas, chips and pork rinds); then, after checking out, you’re greeted with a dessert counter and Korean and Russian baked-goods vendors—part of an international food court that’s still mostly empty, but “coming soon,” according to the store’s website (www.kpinternationalmarket.com).

—Jonathan Mendick

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Treat yourself to gift certificates up to 75% OFF! Visit www.newsreview.com

Give up the resolutions My New Year’s resolution is always to lose weight, exercise and get into shape. I start out focused and committed, but soon I am making excuses and giving up. Any ideas?

Give up resolutions. Instead, pick a goal and devise a plan to reach that goal. Yes, there are apps for that, but before you download anything, exercise your brain.

Here’s how: Ask yourself why you want to lose weight.

by Joey ga rcia If the reason is external (you think you will be more a s k j o e y @ne w s re v i e w . c o m attractive, your partner or doctor says you must drop pounds or people make rude comments about your size), it’s Joey harder to shed weight and keep wishes you it off. If the reason arises from an awakened inside you (you recognize excess New Year. weight as a symptom of eating patterns that maintain denial about emotional pain, or you simply chose to feel healthier), it’s easy to lose weight and maintain your new shape. So, clarify your motivation, set the goal and create small, manageable changes to accomplish the goal in a reasonable time line.

For example, let’s say you want to lose 20 pounds. Adjust your diet, add in consistent exercise and give yourself at least six months to exit the cocoon of your current body and embody your new self.

Ask yourself why you want to lose weight. If the reason is external, it’s harder to shed weight and keep it off.

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.

Please drink responsibly.

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I’ve been divorced for 15 years and have not met a man with qualities that are right for me. I’ve had “boy toys”—fun, well-groomed and good-looking men who were not capable of connecting in a deep and lasting way. I have read that you have to love yourself before you can love someone else, but lots of people with low self-esteem are married, so that can’t be true.

I know my childhood has affected my choices, but I have been to therapy and changed. Still, I don’t meet men who are attractive, intelligent, worldly, financially stable, reliable, spiritual, giving and ready for commitment. What do I need to do?

Why not trust that you’re on the right path? You have stopped dating men with whom love is not possible. You are reflecting on the qualities you desire. You have been to therapy and incorporated what you learned. Now the task is to accept that some things happen on a schedule you cannot control.

In the meantime, keep your heart and mind open. Sometimes, love does not appear in the way we expect.

My parents have been married for 39 years, but their marriage is a sham. When I lost my job three years ago, I moved home so I could get back on my feet financially. My parents are great to me, but they hardly ever talk to each other.

My dad moved out of the master bedroom when my youngest brother graduated from college.

My mother buys gifts for herself and tells everyone they are from my dad. She does other things to keep up appearances, too. The problem is that my siblings have no clue and are bugging me to help plan a 40th-anniversary party and renewal-of-vows ceremony for my parents. I don’t want to be the one to tell everyone the truth, but I don’t know what to do. Please help.

You are fearful of relieving your parents of their burden because you think of yourself as their child.

See yourself as you are: an adult, equal to your parents. Failure to admit reality keeps you as stuck in appearances as your parents.

So tell them the plans. But don’t discuss options with either parent.

Let them decide what to do. If your parents continue living as roommates while also honoring the facade of a perfect marriage, that’s their business. But telling them the truth is an act of love, and that’s your business. Ω

Meditation of the Week “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor,” wrote Truman Capote. Can you accept that everything, absolutely every experience, contributes to your spiritual evolution?

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One drag queen and a baby A Tale of Two Cities What in the world is a wannabe drag queen preparing for her debut supposed to do with a squalling foundling on the doorstep? In the immortal by Kel Munger words of Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All About Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts; it’s kelm@ going to be a bumpy night.” newsreview.com In this case, our hero(ine) tries and abandons a variety of means to quiet the sobbing child before, in desperation, turning to PHOTO BY CHRIS BAAD

Despite the presence of the aforementioned baby, this is not a show for kids. It’s full-to-overflowing with high-camp sensibility and more than a few literary references as Carton’s transformation from wastrel to self-sacrificing hero is complemented by our performer’s transformation from mere mortal to an absolute queen.

Lee was most recently seen locally as the ghost of Jacob Marley in the Sacramento Theatre Company’s A Christmas Carol; he’s enlisted Sacramento cabaret meister Graham Sobelman to provide original incidental music.

Expect a thoroughly, wonderfully campy romp in this limited engagement.

And that baby? Trust us, she’s gonna be a star, no matter how many drag queens she has to go through to get to the top. Ω

3

Charles Dickens. And thus begins this amazing adaptation by Everett Quinton of the classic A Tale of Two Cities, originally produced by the Ridiculous Theatrical Company in New York City. The one-man show is onstage for a brief run at the William J. Geery Theater, with local actor Jerry Lee as the unwilling infant minder who will do anything to stop that incessant crying.

“Anything” includes acting out every role in Dickens’ novel of the French Revolution— drunken British lawyer Sydney Carton; French aristocrat Charles Darnay; a wicked uncle; an ingénue, as well as her father and governess; and the horrid villainess Madame Defarge—all while applying his makeup and costume for a drag performance.

Jerry Lee ignores W.C. Fields’ advice at his own peril, while baby Jane Robertson was born to be a star.

A Tale of Two Cities, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday; $17-$20.

SacImpulse at the William J. Geery Theater, 2130 L Street; (916) 749-6039; www.sacimpulse.com.

Through January 6.

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FEATURE

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Remember Isobel

The thing to bear in mind when watching Sarah Barbulesco’s Remember Isobel is that it’s a work in process, a play based on the screenplay for a film in preproduction by Barbulesco’s MIMBolide Productions Co. (This production and the upcoming film are fundraisers for Alzheimer’s disease research.)

That accounts for things such as the frequent scene changes, relatively short scenes and the compression of what is obviously more than two years into just two hours. The net result is that in addition to being an emotional and honest example of what Alzheimer’s disease does to a vibrant woman and her family, Remember Isobel is also an example of the differences between what makes the stage work and what’s needed for a film.

Scarlet O’Connor has the title role as an active widow who is beginning to forget things and suffers from profound and unusual mood swings. Isobel’s daughter Cate (Bonnie Antonini) is the one who shoulders most of the burden for her care. Cate’s spouse Helen (Elise Marie Hodge), a busy film director, doesn’t have much time to spare; there’s also a brother who can’t bring himself to deal with the reality of Alzheimer’s. Cate is aided by the couple’s two sons, teenage Patrick (Cahlil Gonzales) and the younger Ryan (the scene-stealing Nicholas Kennedy).

Barbulesco, as writer and director, has done well with a strong cast; nonetheless, it’s apparent from the structure that Remember Isobel is more oriented toward the medium of film.

www.newsreview.com

— Kel Munger

Remember Isobel, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday; $15. MIMBolide Productions Co. at the Ooley Theatre, 2007 28th Street; www.mimbolide.com. Through January 20.

STORY

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1st Visit

1

Disastrous, with little relief

$

(New Students Only)

The Impossible

1400 E ST. SACRAMENTO WWW.THEYOGASEED.ORG

The catastrophe happened on the day after Christmas, and the movie about it has a mildly nauseating whiff of calculation for holiday-season release. by Jonathan Kiefer Of course, show business being a business, calculation can’t be avoided, and this thing looks like it might have been pretty expensive to make.

It does, after all, recreate one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.

The engine of The Impossible is the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, last seen in Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter and before that in real life, when it killed hundreds of thousands of people in more than a dozen countries. Survivors included one Spanish family on a Christmas vacation in Thailand who found themselves separated and thoroughly battered, but then safely reunited against odds so long that the movie’s title only slightly exaggerates them.

2

On the grid. Off the wall.

Because audiences will empathize with the suffering of white people, that’s why.

2ND THURSDAYS 5–9 PM 21+

1 Poor

2 Fair

3 Good

4 Very Good

#ARTMIX

crockerartmuseum.org 26 | SN&R | 01.03.13

5 excellent

You can’t make this stuff up, but apparently you can anglicize it: What’s curious about The Impossible is that its makers, including screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez and director Juan Antonio Bayona, are Spaniards themselves, but the family in the film consists of an Englishman (Ewan McGregor), his English wife (Naomi Watts) and their three English kids. Is this just another round of that familiar film game by which the French people in Les Misérables speak with U.K. accents, or something more insidious?

One school of moviemaking thought holds that the best way into enormity is by the narrowest possible path. Thus, Schindler’s List isn’t about the entirety of the Holocaust; it’s just about Schindler’s list. There is wisdom in this approach, a useful comprehension of narrative and cinematic limitations. But one such limitation is the ease with which that same strategy can go wrong and become tactlessly reductive, its ostensibly necessary omissions suddenly seeming downright sinful.

In the case of The Impossible, the movie medium still is very powerful, but also still very obviously inadequate to the task of accounting for a quarter-million dear and violently departed souls. Does it help matters, necessarily, to frame that story around one tourist family’s ruined

vacation? Not so much, especially if the Thai villagers who attend to them, and even the local emergency workers, seem merely like extensions of their accommodating hotel staff.

It is likely that nowhere will complaints of ethnocentrism in The Impossible be registered more loudly than in the population hubs of white English-speaking critics who live far away from the Indian Ocean. So it should be noted that reportedly, many tsunami survivors were among the movie’s background cast and crew, and have expressed sincere gratitude for its production. As for the protagonists, it isn’t that being vacationing foreigners—whether Spanish or English or anything else—makes their story seem less remarkable. It’s that the movie itself does.

It is quite straightforwardly structured: First, we’re waiting for the big wave, then we’re watching it, then we’re wading through its aftermath. The scenes of devastation show great technical skill. What The Impossible lacks is conviction, a final decision on whether it’s a disaster movie, a horror movie or a sappy triumph-of-the-human-spirit type of thing. Can’t a movie be all three? Perhaps a movie can—but not this one.

To their great credit, McGregor and Watts both manage to avoid the heavy self-importance that often attends cinematic recreations of recent and regrettable history. As the oldest of the three boys, young Tom Holland makes an elegant display of assimilation, assuming burdensome new responsibilities within his family, helping other survivors and generally growing up very quickly. Some of this movie’s hokiest stuff, of which there’s a lot, rests on his shoulders, and he carries it nimbly. From now on, other movies—if they know what’s good for them—will be snapping him up.

The movie medium still is very powerful, but also still very obviously inadequate to the task of accounting for a quarter-million dear and violently departed souls.

Bayona’s previous film was a ghost story, The Orphanage—another tale of a riven family, and in that case, a supernatural fiction of surprising resonance. Tellingly, perhaps, The Impossible has both a ready-made horror and a basis in truth but barely any resonance at all.

Its admirers may protest, calling it the kind of movie that makes you want to hug your kids.

That’s fine. It’s also the kind that allows the perverse privilege of sitting through a terrible event from a safe distance yet again. Given these many calculations, maybe its budget would’ve been better spent on more direct disaster relief. Ω

by JONATHAN KIEFER & JIM LANE

3

Django Unchained

Just know it’s the sort of movie whose premiere gets postponed in the wake of school shootings and whose dialogue contains so many N-bombs that people have glumly gotten down to counting them. Sure, the word was common enough in the 1850s, but Quentin Tarantino is not exactly a paragon of historical verisimilitude. Here, again, the audacious everadolescent revisionist just wants us to know how, like, awesome our history would’ve been as one big bloody badass overlong Westernblaxploitation whatsit. Christoph Waltz plays a voluble and worldly bounty hunter who frees the eponymous hero, played by Jamie Foxx, to rescue his wife, played by Kerry Washington, from a brutal plantation lord played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Gangsta vengeance and tedium ensues. All told, good taste might have been more offensive. Waltz is wonderful, Foxx is deliberately less a character than a trope, and DiCaprio a bit of a bore, except in that he seems to enjoy acting again. Maybe the real revelation is Samuel L. Jackson in a careercapping turn as the slaveholder’s elderly houseman, a sort of terrible and riveting Tarantino apotheosis, or at least an antithesis of the actor’s role as Spike Lee’s Mister Señor Love Daddy. J.K.

3

The Guilt Trip

An inventor (Seth Rogen), off on a crosscountry road trip to try to interest retailers in his latest invention, impulsively invites his mother (Barbra Streisand) to come along, hoping to reunite her with a long-lost sweetheart when they reach San Francisco.

The movie appears to have undergone some post-production tampering (witness the many scenes from the preview trailer that didn’t wind up in the finished picture), but the final result is comfy and enjoyable. Dan Fogelman’s script has a gentle, low-key humor that meshes nicely with Streisand and Rogen’s easy screen rapport, and Anne Fletcher’s unobtrusive direction makes it all go down smoothly. Few surprises, but no glaring mistakes along the way, either. Colin Hanks, Nora Dunn, Adam Scott and Ari Graynor contribute thankless but nicely turned cameos. J.L.

3

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.

3

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 selfeffacement. 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 motion-captured 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.

BEFORE

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•

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 “AN INTIMATE TALE OF THE SMALL ACTS OF KINDNESS AND CONNECTION.”

“A REFINED TREAT.”- Todd McCarthy, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

STARTS FRI., 1/4

WED/THUR: 10:35AM, 12:45, 2:55, 5:10, 7:30, 9:45PM CALL 1-800-FANDANGO #2721 FOR FRI-TUES SHOWTIMES

- Michael O’Sullivan, WASHINGTON POST

THE IMPOSSIBLE CALL 1-800-FANDANGO #2721 FOR FRI-TUES SHOWTIMES

“ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES OF 2012.”

“AN INTOXICATING SPECTACLE THAT BREATHES NEW LIFE INTO THE CLASSIC.”

HITCHCOCK Anna Karenina - Rex Reed, NEW YORK OBSERVER

- Claudia Puig, USA TODAY

Scary mimes. No exploited animals.

It’s that kind of circus.

3

WED/THUR: 10:25AM, 12:30, 2:45, 5:00, 7:15, 9:30PM CALL 1-800-FANDANGO #2721 FOR FRI-TUES SHOWTIMES

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

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away

Visiting a shabby one-ring circus, a simple country girl (Erica Linz) is smitten with the show’s star aerialist (Igor Zaripov); together they fall through a vortex in the sawdust of the ring, traveling through a series of magical shows searching for one another. And on that simple, even flimsy, story premise, writer-director Andrew Adamson hangs a phantasmagoric tour of the various Cirque du Soleil shows playing at one Vegas casino or another during 2011: Ká, Mystère, Zumanity, Viva Elvis, etc. Each act is sublimely gorgeous to behold and lovingly photographed—but there’s a big difference between seeing them live in a casino showroom and in a movie, where deceiving the eye is the default setting. Lovely as each act is, they soon become monotonous, even tiresome, and the movie ends up less than the sum of its parts. J.L.

3

Jack Reacher

An ex-military cop (Tom Cruise) pops in to investigate the case against a killer sniper and finds things are not quite as openand-shut as they seem. Lee Child’s series of novels (in this case, One Shot) makes a surprisingly good fit for Cruise, even though the books’ Reacher is bigger and blonder. But if this turns into a franchise (is Cruise getting tired of Mission: Impossible?), writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (or whoever comes after) would be wise to pick up the pace on the next picture: At 130 minutes, this one threatens to wear out its welcome. Fortunately, Cruise’s movie-star charisma is well-deployed, the plot is engaging and the action scenes smoothly mounted. Rosamund Pike plays the accused killer’s lawyer, Richard Jenkins plays her district-attorney father, and David Oyelowo plays the lead cop on the case. J.L.

3

Les Misérables

The opera-lite smash from Victor Hugo’s novel comes to the screen, with ex-con Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), his dogged pursuer Javert (Russell Crowe), the doomed Fantine (Anne Hathaway), her daughter Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) et al, under the direction of Tom Hooper. There is much to respect in the movie, and the show’s fans will no doubt be satisfied. But they may find it less stirring here than on the stage as Hooper does make an occasional hash of things: unimaginative staging, often sloppy editing and the much-vaunted live singing on the set is at best a mixed blessing. Still, the production is lavish, the casting (including Eddie Redmayne as Marius and Samantha Barks as Éponine) is spot-on. The highlight comes early on, with Hathaway’s searing rendition of the show’s most famous song, “I Dreamed a Dream.” J.L.

5

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.

FRONTLINES

|

WED/THUR: 10:30AM, 1:20, 4:10, 7:00, 9:50PM CALL 1-800-FANDANGO #2721 FOR FRI-TUES SHOWTIMES

4

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 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.

4

REEL

REVIEWS. EVERY THURSDAY.

YOU’RE WELCOME, FILM GEEKS.

Skyfall

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.

TOBE HOOPER, DIRECTOR ‘TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE’

3

This Is 40

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.

F E AT U R E S T O RY

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STARTS FRIDAY, JANUARY 4!

FOR THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS

A RT S & C U LT U R E

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AFTER

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01.03.13

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SN&R

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PA I D A D v E R T I S E M E N T

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JAMES ROLLINS & REBECCA CANTRELL Reading / Discussion / Book Signing Tuesday, January 8th, 7PM 1256 Galleria Boulevard, Roseville (916) 788-4320 After a deadly earthquake uncovers an ancient tomb in Israel, a forensics expert, a priest, and an archaeologist explore the site—and are soon swept up in a dangerous search for a powerful text known as the Blood Gospel—in the explosive first installment of the Order of the Sanguines series.

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28 | SN&R | 01.03.13

Not-so-silly love songs

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The Left Hand bleeds romantic   with touchy-feely horror punk If you want something done right, do it yourself.

At least that’s what the Left Hand vocalist Victor Salazar told himself while searching by Steph Rodriguez for the ideal singer for his band. A New Jersey transplant packing a heavy accent and an adventurous personality, Salazar comes off—at least at first—as a bit intimidating.

As a teen growing up on the East Coast, he admits he developed an “indestructible� attitude and a tough-guy persona.

pHoTo by sTeven cHea

also made a video for the song “One Monster After Another,� filmed by the local production company Sucker Punk Productions.

The video, recorded a couple weeks after Halloween in the Cemetarium Haunted House in Fair Oaks, evokes The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the song also stems from Salazar’s love for the classic Mercer Mayer children’s book of the same name. Here, Salazar’s crooning vocals bleed romantic with a pulse of tortured soul, making Mayer’s tale bloom into a story of man who’s witnessed many frightful things. “I’ve found a lot of horror in myself,â€? said Salazar. “I had a really bad childhood growing up, real traumatic ‌ [and] I never had tools to deal with those emotions.â€?

Salazar says he’s found solace in music and in the family he’s made with wife Vanessa and their three children.

Now, when he performs, the singer’s voice bellows clear between fast-paced, full-bodied punk rock. Onstage, Salazar’s presence—accentuated by a thick, slick pompadoured hairstyle and aviator sunglasses—is perhaps best described as a dark Elvis Presley who’s been possessed by the Damned’s Dave Vanian.

Sit right down and we’ll tell you some scary stories.

For more information on the Left Hand’s music and show dates, visit www.reverb nation.com/ thelefthand.

Writing music, however, helped him eventually tune into the man beneath the exterior. “Growing up where I did, you always had to have this bravado that you put on, like, ‘I’m bulletproof, I’m tough as nails and nothing can really breach me,’�Salazar said. “It took me a long time to get over the exterior I had to put on. So, writing love songs helps.�

Love songs, sure, but there’s always a twist to Salazar’s music. His lyrics do not revolve around the generic pop scenario of boy meets girl, girl breaks boy’s heart, boy then locks himself in a room with a guitar and writes the next addition to the Monster Ballads glam-metal compilation.

No, no, no. Rather, the Left Hand is a horror-punk four-piece with songs influenced

by EC Comics’ Tales From the Crypt, B-horror flicks and Stephen King novels—not to mention a nod to vocalists such as the Misfits’ Glenn Danzig and Michale Graves. “Love and horror go hand in hand because in a lot of cases, love has the potential to be great or horrible, depending on what you or the other person puts into it,â€? said Salazar. “Instead of being generic about it, you can use a monster to tell a story ‌ or a movie.â€?

The Left Hand is scheduled to release its first album in February, an eight-song selftitled disc recorded with Bastards of Young guitarist Patrick Hills at Earth Tone studio in Rocklin. In addition to the album, the band

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“Love and horror go hand in hand because in a lot of cases, love has the potential to be great or horrible, depending on what you or the other person puts into it.�

Victor Salazar The Left Hand

––‡Â?† ƒÂ? ‹Â?ˆ‘ •‡••‹‘Â?ÇŁ ÂŠÂ—Â”Â•Â†ÂƒÂ›ÇĄ ƒÂ?—ƒ”› Í´Íś ͸ǣ;Ͳ –‘ Íş ’ǤÂ?Ǥ ‘—–Š ƒ–‘Â?ĥ ‹„”ƒ”› ʹ͝Ͳͳ ”—š‡Ž ‘ƒ†

The sunglasses, Salazar said, aren’t just for show. Sometimes, he explained, his teenagecultivated tough-guy persona fails him. “I have to wear the glasses because I sing with my eyes closed,� he said. “It gives me more confidence to actually look at people, [but] it’s hard for me to express my heart while making eye contact with strangers, so I put the glasses on, and it gives me that barrier.� Ί

Please drink responsibly.

B E F O R E   |   F R O N T L I N E S   |   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   |   

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01.03.13     |   SN&R     |   29

PHOTO BY DAN DION

03THURS The Smartest Man in the World

04FRI

05SAT

06SUN

Thom Stockton

Ifamodupe

Steve Earle

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

Punch Line Comedy Club, 8 p.m., $20 Greg Proops is a wordsmith. His podcast The Smartest Man in the World is a contemporary and illuminating listen; his intellectual COMEDY narrative and provocative twists on current events will leave you in stitches. He is an agile stand-up improviser who peppers the audience with unique riffs, thrusting and parrying insights and insults on contemporary culture. The comedian’s wit and spirit bring to light the inadequacies of modern culture. Proops will also be performing four stand-up shows at the same venue over the weekend, at 8 and 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday. 2100 Arden Way, www.gregproops.com.

—Paul Piazza

Naked Lounge Downtown, 8 p.m., $5

The city of Stockton had a rough year in 2012 (a record number of murders, financial and political problems, etc.). But that didn’t stop rapper Thom Stockton—who proudly hails from said city—from having a breakout year.

His music fits his unconventional physical appearance (he sports a well-manicured dark-blond mustache). Stockton’s crisp beats sound like they came from an underground Bay Area label such as Quannum Projects or Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings. His lyrical message is relentlessHIP-HOP ly positive, despite myriad selfproclaimed struggles. He’s on tour supporting his recently released album The Second Coming. The bill also includes Sacramento’s Chase Moore, Task1ne and DJ Epik. 2708 J Street, www.thomstockton.com.

Center for the Arts, 7 p.m., $65-$75

Local singer Ifamodupe doesn’t just channel that classic slow-jam soul sound, she also tunes into the spirituality from that era.

Masters of ’70s soul music such as James Brown and Curtis Mayfield brought a Zen spirituality to popular music. It was never SOUL about where the song was going, but how they were feeling in each and every moment. This is Ifamodupe’s music, in essence. She grooves and sings hard with a sultry voice, but never drifts away from that core spirituality. Her lyrics can be personal, introspective or just plain sexual. She also does spoken word and has written several books of poetry.

1111 H Street, www.twitter.com/ifamodupe.

—Aaron Carnes

Natural-born rebel and roots rocker Steve Earle passed through the crucible of his addictions to carve out deep critical adoration. Earle even verged on mainstream acceptance, courting both country and rock fans with his first three albums. Despite struggling with heroin through the ’90s, he continued to release music spanning genres: rock, Americana and even bluegrass. Since the millennium, he’s appeared in the HBO TV series The Wire; released two politically charged albums, one inspired by New York City; a Townes Van Zandt cover album; and 2011’s I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive, COUNTRY which accompanied his debut novel of the same name. 314 W. Main Street in Grass Valley, www.steveearle.com.

—Jonathan Mendick

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30 | SN&R |

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www.newsreview.com

07MON

07MON

09WED

10THURS

Whore Paint

Reel Big Fish

Ninety Miles

Art Mix

Davis Bike Collective, 8 p.m., $3-$5 In urban slang, the term “whore paint” refers to the type of bright, heavy makeup a woman slathers on her face. Typically, the lady who wears such cosmetics is thought to be shallow—obsessed with her physical appearance to the point of rendering it nearly unrecognizable from her true self.

The women in Rhode Island’s Whore Paint, on the other hand, craft post-punk music so decidedly raw and self-assured, there’s no need to worry they’ll wander down a sequined Kardashian path anytime soon.

PUNK Rather, tracks such as “Fuck You I’m Dead” and “Amen” are so fiercely feminist and aggressively riff driven, they’ll peel that layer of Mac Cosmetics right off your face. 1221 1/2 Fourth Street in Davis, http://whorepaintpvd.tumblr.com.

Ace of Spades, 6 p.m., $20

Mondavi Center, 8 p.m., $19-$42

Reel Big Fish hit the mainstream with its 1996 single “Sell Out.” But the ska-punk band from Huntington Beach, Calif., has never been SKA able to top that song’s success.

The group has released six albums since then, signed and dropped from a major label, gone through several lineup changes (to the extent that frontman Aaron Barrett is the only original member), and toured extensively on the Warped Tour. All the while, the group has kept an underground following while exploring cover songs and acoustic ska. Lyrically, the group combines sundrenched optimism with dark comedy and irony. 1417 R Street, www.reel-big-fish.com.

—Jonathan Mendick

Crocker Art Museum, 5 p.m., free with museum admission

Named after the distance separating Miami from Havana, this cross-pollination project of American jazz and Cuban music currently features New York vibraphonist Stefon Harris, Puerto Rican-born saxophonist David Sánchez and New Orleans native Nicholas Payton on trumpet. They mesh their own aesthetic influences and explore the Afro-Caribbean roots and polyrhythms of our island neighbors.

Supported by piano, bass, drums and percusJAZZ sion, this tight, exhilarating septet has been favoring extended versions of the sizzling, cathartic, sensual, and sometimes serene compositions performed in Havana with different personnel for the project’s 2011 studio and 2012 live albums. They’ll be playing here January 9-12. 9399 Old Davis Road, www.ninetymilesproject.com.

—Rachel Leibrock

This event will be like Dumpster diving at a craft fair with Dean Haakenson stalking you— but classier! The Crocker Art Museum’s oncea-month Art Mix gigs go down every second Thursday and, frankly, are cool opportuniFOLK/ART ties to get pretty weird inside a state-of-the-art museum. This month: You can hear wild lil’ folk troupe Be Brave Bold Robot (pictured) whilst partnering with ReCreate in building a giant sculpture out of trash. And you can purchase handmade jewelery and goods from People Who Really Build Things. The earlyevening party is free with museum admission ($5-$10), and you can buy beer at the Crocker Cafe by Supper Club and wander the museum, too, in your copious free time.

216 O Street, www.crockerartmuseum.org.

—Mark Halverson

—Nick Miller

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NIGHTBEAT BADLANDS

2003 K St., (916) 448-8790

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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.

SATURDAY 1/5

SUNDAY 1/6

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 1/7-1/9

Saturday Boom, 9pm, call for cover

Sin Sunday, 8pm, call for cover

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

Reggae with DJ Wokstar, 9pm, call for cover

AREVO, SQUAREFIELD MASSIVE; 8:30pm, $5

1400 Alhambra, (916) 455-3400

THE BOARDWALK

A THIRSTING SOUL, ANCYRA,

9426 Greenback Ln., Orangevale; (916) 988-9247 NO SYMPATHY, THE SHAFTS; 7:30pm

AFRAID OF FALLING, WEARING IT OUT IN SERPENTERA, NEKROCYST, ELIPSIS; PUBLIC, BENEATH THE MOON; 7:30pm 7:30pm, call for cover

BOWS & ARROWS

HIGHQ, DREW WALKER & JON BAFUS DUO, COVE; 8pm, $5

1815 19 St., (916) 822-5668

CENTER FOR THE ARTS

MOONALICE, 8pm, $12-$15

314 W. Main St., Grass Valley; (530) 274-8384

THE COLONY

THE CHILLBILLIES, 8pm, $12-$15

STEVE EARLE, 7-10pm, $65-$75

SOUL SEARCH, RUDE AWAKENING, MINUS, NEW DEAL, VITALITY; 8pm, $10

3512 Stockton Blvd., (916) 267-7576

DISTRICT 30

1016 K St., (916) 737-5770

Shine: deejay dancing, 9pm, call for cover

DJ JB, 9pm, call for cover

FACES

Deejay dancing and karaoke, 9pm, $3

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

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

FOX & GOOSE

JAY SHANER, 8pm, no cover

DER SPAZM, A THOUSAND YEARS AT SEA; 9pm, $5

KEVIN SECOND & GHETTO MOMENTS, DANNY SECRETION; 9pm, $5

G STREET WUNDERBAR

DJ Eddie Z, 8pm, no cover

THE GOLDEN BEAR

DJ Shaun Slaughter, 10pm, call for cover

DJ Crook One, 10pm, call for cover

DJ Whores, 10pm, no cover

1001 R St., (916) 443-8825 228 G St., Davis; (530) 756-9227

Hey local bands!

FRIDAY 1/4 Fabulous and Gay Fridays, 9pm, call for cover

BLUE LAMP

2000 K St., (916) 448-7798

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.

THURSDAY 1/3 Tipsy Thursdays, Top 40 deejay dancing, 9pm, call for cover

2326 K St., (916) 441-2252

HARLOW’S

LEVEL UP FOOD & LOUNGE 2431 J St., (916) 448-8768

LUNA’S CAFÉ & JUICE BAR

Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

Hip-hop and R&B deejay dancing, 9:16pm Tu, no cover MYLER & STARR, poetry by Rob Woodard, 8pm, call for cover

Nebraska Mondays, 7:30pm M, $5-$20; Brother Outsider screening, 6:30pm Tu

Get Down to the Champion Sound, reggae and dancehall deejays, 10pm, $5

1119 21st St., (916) 549-2779 1531 L St., (916) 442-8899

Industry Night, 9pm, call for cover

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

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

MIDTOWN BARFLY MIX DOWNTOWN

Open-mic, 7:30pm M; ANDY GARCIA, AVI JONES, CHIMI CHANGA; 8pm W

THOM STOCKTON, CHASE MOORE, TASK1NE, DJ Epik; 10pm, call for cover

2708 J St., (916) 441-4693

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

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

Dragalicious, 9pm, $5

DJ Eddie Edul, DJ Peeti V, 9pm, $10

DJ Elliott Estes, 9pm, $15

Salsa, Bachata and Merengue lessons, 8:30pm W, $5 DJ Mike Moss, 8:30pm, $20

DJs Gabe Xavier and DJ Peeti-V, 9pm W, $10

DJ Gabe Xavier, 8:30pm, $10

OLD IRONSIDES

THE NUANCE, 7:30pm M; Karaoke, 9pm Tu; Open-mic, 8:30pm W, no cover

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

ON THE Y

670 Fulton Ave., (916) 487-3731

Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

Open-mic comedy, 9pm, no cover

Karaoke, 9pm Tu, no cover

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THURSDAY 1/3

FRIDAY 1/4

THE PARK ULTRA LOUNGE 1116 15th St., (916) 442-7222

SATURDAY 1/5

SUNDAY 1/6

DJ Eddie Edul, 9pm-2am, $15

DJ Peeti V, 9pm, $15

Asylum Downtown: Gothic, industrial, EBM dancing, 9pm, call for cover

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 1/7-1/9

PARLARE EURO LOUNGE

Top 40, 9pm, no cover

Top 40, Mashups, 9pm, no cover

DJ Club mixes, 10pm, no cover

Top 40 dance mixes, 9pm W, no cover

PINE COVE TAVERN

Karaoke, 9pm-1:30am, no cover

Karaoke, 9pm-1:30am, no cover

Karaoke, 9pm-1:30am, no cover

Battle of the Musicians, Tu, no cover; Trivia, 9-11pm W, no cover

PJ’S ROADHOUSE

DJ Old Griff, 9pm, no cover

DJ Old Griff, 9pm, no cover

LOW TIDE RIOT, 9pm, $5

AVIOTT, 9pm, no cover

POWERHOUSE PUB

LEFT OF CENTRE, 9:30pm, call for cover

THE DECADES, 10pm, call for cover

FOREVERLAND, 10pm, call for cover

ROCKIN DOWN THE HIGHWAY, 3pm, call for cover

THE PRESS CLUB

Top 40 w/ DJ Rue, 9pm, $5

Top 40 Night w/ DJ Larry Rodriguez, 9pm, $5

Sunday Night Soul Party, 9pm, $5

SAMMY’S ROCKIN’ ISLAND

LOVEFOOL, 10pm, $5

POP FICTION, 10pm, $5

1009 10th St., (916) 448-8960 502 29th St., (916) 446-3624

5461 Mother Lode, Placerville; (530) 626-0336 614 Sutter St., Folsom; (916) 355-8586 2030 P St., (916) 444-7914 238 Vernon St., Roseville; (916) 773-7625

SHENANIGANS

705 J St., (916) 442-1268

Comedy Night and DJ Selekta Lou, 9pm, $5

SHINE

Shticks, a comedy night, 8pm, $5

SOL COLLECTIVE

Skratch Pad, 9pm, call for cover

1400 E St., (916) 551-1400 2574 21st St., (916) 832-0916 1320 Del Paso Blvd., (916) 927-6023

THE DELTAZ, 7:30pm, $5

Open jazz jam w/ Jason Galbraith, 8pm Tu; Poetry With Legs, 7pm W

Healing Dreams with Atava Garcia Swiecicki, 2pm, $15

Microphone Mondays, 6pm M, $1-$2

Country dancing, 7:30pm, no cover, $5 after 8pm

Country dancing, 7:30pm, no cover, $5 after 8pm

Country dance party, 8pm, no cover

Comedy open-mic, 8pm M; Bluebird Lounge open-mic, 5pm Tu, no cover

Blues jam, 4pm, no cover; TESS MARIE & THE POOR MAN BAND, 8pm, $5

SOPHISTAFUNK, 9pm Tu, $5; Acoustic open-mic, 5:30pm W, no cover

TORCH CLUB

X TRIO, 5pm, no cover; JASON KING, 9pm, $5

PAILER AND FRATIS, 5:30pm, no cover; AFRO FUNK EXPERIENCE, 9pm, $8

JOHNNY KNOX, 5pm, no cover; MAX CABELLO JR., 9pm, $8

TOWNHOUSE LOUNGE

DJs X-GVNR and Brian Rinehart, 9pm, no cover

DJ X-GVNR, 9pm, no cover

DJ X-GVNR, 9pm, $5

Open-mic, 9pm M; DJ Crescedo, 9pm W, no cover

Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

Karaoke Wednesdays, 8pm W, call for cover

904 15th St., (916) 443-2797 1517 21st St., (916) 613-7194

Jesi Naomi 6pm Thursday, no cover.

Sacramento Downtown Plaza (lower level) Soul and blues

LASHER KEEN, 8pm, $5 MARK GROWDEN, JULIE THE BRUCE; 8pm, $8

STONEY INN/ROCKIN RODEO

Karaoke, 9pm M; DJs Alazzawi, Rigatony, 10pm Tu, $3; IN THE SILENCE, 5pm W, $5

THE WRANGLER

8945 Grant Line Rd., Elk Grove; (916) 714-9911

Task1ne with Thom Stockton, Chase Moore and DJ Epik 10pm Friday, $10.

Harlow’s Restaurant & Nightclub Hip-hop

All ages, all the time ACE OF SPADES

YANKEE BRUTAL, REBEL RADIO, THE LONELY REVOLTS; 7pm, $10

1417 R St., (916) 448-3300

CLUB RETRO

ELLA PIERCE, KARLEE AND CONNOR, FOUR DAYS OUT, PARIE WOOD, 7pm, $7

1529 Eureka Rd., Roseville; (916) 988-6606

DOWNTOWN PLAZA (LOWER LEVEL) 547 L St., (916) 822-5185

THE MOTH ANATOMY, FROM CITIES TO SALT, DEAD BY NIGHTFALL; 6pm, $10

JESI NAOMI, 6pm, no cover

REEL BIG FISH, THE PILFERS; 6pm M, $20; HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD, 7pm W, $20 SIGNALS, MIRRORS, HOTEL BOOKS; 6:30pm, $5-$7 RUBY & THE EMERALDS, 2pm, no cover

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I am a cannabis user. My kids are old enough now to ask me about marijuana. What is the best way to talk to them about cannabis?

—High Dad For far too long in mainstream American culture, pot smokers have had to hide their cannabis use from just about everyone. Your parents, your children, your pastor and your square friends all had to be prevented from knowing that you like to smoke a little weed. Someone snitching EALUM B IO to your boss or the cops, or your kids inadvertently A G N by spilling the beans at school or church are all very valid concerns. Fortunately, the tide is changing.

In parts of Washington, the D.A.R.E. program no a s k420@ ne wsreview.c om longer includes marijuana in its curriculum. This is not true everywhere (yet), but it’s a step in the right direction. Weed is finally starting to be treated like alcohol, with people understanding that moderate use is fine for adults and a no-no for children.

In a recent interview with E! Online, the rapper and chronic marijuana user Wiz Khalifa, expecting his first child with model Amber Rose, had this to say: “I’m not going to be smoking right there over the baby, because smoke in general and being high is not good for a kid. None of that. But definitely he’s going to know what it is—and he’ll know the difference between being a child and not being able to use it and being an adult and knowing how to use it.”

California has an openAnd that is really the point.

Be honest with your container law to prevent kids. My kids know I smoke people from walking weed. They don’t like the down the street swigging smell at all, and I don’t smoke it in their presence, booze. Should they also but they know what it is and have some sort of how it works.

A good resource for “open pot burner” law? young children is the book It’s Just a Plant by Ricardo Cortés (www.justaplant.com). This book does a great job of explaining the history and uses of the cannabis plant in a way that children can understand.

Ngaio Bealum is a Sacramento comedian, activist and marijuana expert.

Email him questions at ask420@ newsreview.com.

My girl and I like to go out together, and we have a great time, but here’s the thing: I have no problem walking down the street smoking a joint or a blunt, but it makes her uncomfortable. She thinks it’s unrefined and rude to people that don’t use weed. I argue that I should be able to smoke pot just about wherever I want, and that getting high before we go eat or see a movie is my Godgiven right as an American. Who’s right?

—Proud of My Loud You could always get a portable vaporizer. While I agree that pot smoke should fill the air, I can see how many people get upset by the smell of any kind of smoke, be it tobacco or pot. I love it when I walk into a club or concert hall and smell weed in the air. It lets me know that the evening’s festivities will most likely be chill and nonviolent. But your girl has a point. California has an open-container law to prevent people from walking down the street swigging booze. Should they also have some sort of “open pot burner” law? Readers? What is the best way to deal with smoking weed in public? Ω

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GIFT CERTIFICATES FROM RESTAURANTS, BARS, CLUBS, TATTOO, RETAIL, THEATER, SALONS, SPAS, GOLF, VACATIONS & MORE 42 | SN&R | 01.03.13

by ROB BREZSNY

FOR THE WEEK OF JANUARY 3, 2013

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In 2013,

I pledge to conspire with you to increase your mastery of the art of friendship.

Together we will concentrate on making you an even stronger ally than you already are.

We will upgrade your skill at expressing your feelings with open-hearted clarity, and in ways that don’t make people defensive. We will also inspire you to help others communicate effectively in your presence.

I hope you understand that doing this work will empower you to accomplish feats that were never before possible for you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Chickens

and alligators share a common ancestor.

Seventy million years ago, they were both archosaurs. That’s why chickens possess a gene that has the ability to grow teeth.

A few years ago, a biological researcher at the University of Wisconsin managed to activate this capacity, inducing a few mutant chickens to sprout alligator teeth.

I predict there will be a metaphorically comparable event happening for you in 2013, Taurus. The “chicken” part of you will acquire some of the gravitas of an alligator.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “People wish

to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground,” said French novelist Marcel Proust. An attitude like that is always a barrier to growth, of course, but in 2013 it would be especially ill-advised for you Geminis. In order to win full possession of the many blessings that will be offering themselves to you, you will have to give up your solid footing and dive into the depths over and over again. That may sometimes be a bit nerve-racking. But it should also generate the most fun you’ve had in years.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Here’s the

horoscope I hope to be able to write for you a year from now: You escaped the chains that kept you enslaved to your primary source of suffering. You broke the trance it kept you in, and you freed yourself from its demoralizing curse. Now you have forged a resilient new relationship with your primary source of suffering—a relationship that allows you to deal with it only when it’s healthy for you to do so and only when you feel strong enough to do it. Very nicely done! Congratulations! Excellent work!

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “In this world,” said

Oscar Wilde, “there are only two tragedies.

One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” I’m counting on you to refute the last part of that questionable assertion, Leo. According to my analysis of the long-term astrological omens, you will definitely be getting what you want in the next six months. You will receive your prize, you will earn your badge, you will win a big game or claim your birthright or find your treasure. When that happens, I trust you will make sure it is an enduring blessing.

There will be no sadness involved!

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): English poet

Alfred Tennyson wrote so many memorable lines that he is among the top 10 most frequently cited authors in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. One of his most famous passages was, “’Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.” When he was on his death bed at age 83, his enigmatic last words were, “I have opened it.” Let’s make that declaration your mantra for the coming year, Virgo. In your case, it will have nothing to do with death, but just the opposite. It will be your way of announcing your entrance into a brighter, lustier, more fertile phase of your life. Try saying it right now: “I have opened it!”

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Back in 1830, it

was expensive to stay up and do things in your room after dark. To earn enough money to pay for the whale oil that would light your lamp for an hour, you had to work for 5.4 hours. And today? It’s cheaper.

You have to put in less than a second of hard labor to afford an hour’s worth of light. I suspect that in 2013 there will be a similar boost in your ease at getting the light you need to illuminate your journey.

I’m speaking metaphorically here, as in the insight that arises from your intuition, the emotional energy that comes from those you care about, and the grace of the Divine Wow. All that good stuff will be increasing.

BEFORE

|

15 MINUTES

by MADDI

SILVA PHOTO BY ANNE STOKES

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “I’ve

been absolutely terrified every moment of my life,” said Scorpio painter Georgia O’Keeffe, “and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” I think her declaration is excellent medicine for you. In 2013, you will have great potential for upgrading your relationship with your fears—not necessarily suppressing them or smashing them, but rather using them more consistently as a springboard, capitalizing on the emotions they unleash and riding the power they motivate you to summon.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

“Ambition can creep as well as soar,” said Irish philosopher Edmund Burke.

That will be good for you to remember throughout 2013, Sagittarius. Later this year, the time may come for your ambition to soar—in the month of April, for example, and again in the month of August. But for the foreseeable future, I think your ambition will operate best if you keep it contained and intense, moving slowly and gradually, attending to the gritty details with supreme focus.

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

Tom Robbins’ book Skinny Legs and All, one of the characters, Ellen Cherry, has a conversation with a voice in her head.

The voice gives her a piece of advice: “The trick is this: keep your eye on the ball. Even when you can’t see the ball.” I think that happens to be excellent counsel for you to heed during the next six months, Capricorn. You may not always be able to figure out what the hell is going on, but that shouldn’t affect your commitment to doing the right thing. Your job is to keep your own karma clean and pure— and not worry about anyone else’s karma.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I’ll be

bold and predict that 2013 will be a time when you’ll discover more about the art of happiness than you have in years. Here are some clues to get you started. 1. “It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.” —Agnes Repplier. 2. “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things that are beyond the power of our will.” —Epictetus. 3. “For the rational, healthy person, the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate his control over reality. For the neurotic, the desire for pleasure is the desire to escape from reality.” —Nathaniel Branden. 4. “Our happiness springs mainly from moderate troubles, which afford the mind a healthful stimulus, and are followed by a reaction which produces a cheerful flow of spirits.”

—E. Wigglesworth. 5. “Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere, wholeheartedly, one-directionally, without regret or reservation.” —William H. Sheldon.

6. “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”

—Charles Kingsley.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In 2013,

I pledge to help you feel at peace and in love with your body; I will do everything in my power to encourage you to triumph over media-induced delusions that tempt you to wish you were different from who you actually are. My goal is to be one of your resourceful supporters in the coming months—to be a member of your extensive team of allies. And I will be working with you to ensure that this team grows to just the right size and provides you with just the right foundation. If all goes well, your extra help will ensure that you finish almost everything you start in the coming year. You will regularly conquer everyday chaos and be a master of artful resolutions.

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

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FEATURE

Ring the bell, embrace the cracks One of Sacramento’s most exuberant, funny—and, yes, entertaining— actresses is Gay Cooper, a character actress whose face is likely familiar to local theater-scene regulars. From her first role in her hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., to performing monologues in Sacramento, Cooper can do it all. But sometimes, it’s not easy— the 60-year-old actress suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. “It’s been a roller coaster.” she says. “It has slowed me down at times over the last 30 years, but it hasn’t stopped me.” Indeed, she says she likes to live her life by her favorite lyrics from Leonard Cohen: “Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There’s a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.”

Cooper talked to SN&R about the art of crafting characters (imperfect or otherwise), Big Macs, and how her dream role would take her off the stage and behind the mic.

When did you start acting?

I was in high school, after I took my first drama class in the 10th grade—that’s where I really got introduced to acting.

I got a lot of encouragement from my drama teacher.

How did you get your first role?

The first role was the typical high-school tryout for the school play. I couldn’t tell you when [it] was. I’m old. I played Mrs. Gibbs in Our Town. I absolutely loved it.

She was just a lot of fun to play. I really had a good time. It gave me a lot of confidence, doing that role.

STORY

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A RT S & C U LT U R E

When did you realize you wanted to be an actress? In that 10th-grade play?

I was in my 20s, and I was cast as a lady who was 40 years older than me. I had a good time. I was just worried about the appropriateness of casting.

I wasn’t sure yet. I did know that I thoroughly enjoyed it. It really fit my creative spirit and increased my self-confidence. Then, I got that role of Mrs. Gibbs, and that really kind of sealed the deal. That was my creative outlet.

Along with singing—I did sing in high school, as well. The Sound of Music and all that.

Most challenging character?

How did you end up in Sacramento?

Because my soon-to-be husband got an internship at UC Davis Medical Center. I had an acting gig at the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, and I worked with a local theater company there. My husband moved out here, and I moved out three months later.

Best role?

Boy, I tell ya, I wish I had time to think about that one. One of my favorite recent roles was in Talking With … for Resurrection Theatre.

The role was Anna Mae in a monologue called “French Fries.” I absolutely adored that role.

In creating this character, I was able to channel my daddy in a way—some of his mannerisms, [his] way of talking [and] his love of storytelling. Because this particular character loved to tell stories, [and] whatever she said was truth, no matter what. It was the truth, no ifs, ands or buts. Even though she was talking about seeing a man healed by a Big Mac, it was true. It was written by a Southerner, so it had the Southern cadence, and, of course, I’m from Tennessee, so I was able to incorporate that as well. I was totally invested.

Worst?

I think every role is challenging, because even though it may be close to my heart, it’s still a challenge. I see every role as a personal challenge, which I gladly accept.

There was an acting class I took several years ago, and the acting teacher, the brilliant Janis Stevens, gave me and this other gentleman a scene from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? You know, I’m not anywhere, anything like the character Martha, and I would never be cast in a million years. But it was fascinating to tackle that role from that perspective of somebody who would never be cast. It was extremely daunting, but it really all came back down to finding what’s in me that would [also] be in that character of Martha. It’s all about a human experience.

Do you see yourself acting in 10 years?

I see myself continuing to pursue interesting character roles, which is my forte. One of my bucket-list items is to voice an animated character. I don’t know how, when, where, what, anything, but I want to voice an animated character.

Other talents?

I am an amateur—emphasis on amateur— photographer. I find it to be another extremely satisfying creative outlet. It’s another creative process that requires one to be in the moment, just like acting, and to be open to everything in your present field of vision. Ω

The only thing I can think of in terms of worst is back when I was in Tennessee. |

AFTER

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01.03.13

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SN&R

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43

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