s-2018-12-13

Dana Gioia’s battle for the future of the arts, literature and critical thinking in America

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man who

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saved reading by scott thomas anderson

Sacramento’S newS & entertainment weekly

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Volume 30, iSSue 35

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EditoR’S NotE

dEcEmbER 13, 2018 | Vol. 30, iSSuE 35

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SN R SN&

20 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.

Editor Foon Rhee News Editor Raheem F. Hosseini Managing Editor Mozes Zarate Staff Reporter Scott Thomas Anderson Copy Editor Steph Rodriguez Calendar Editor Maxfield Morris Contributing Editor Rachel Leibrock Editorial Assistant Rachel Mayfield Contributors Daniel Barnes, Ngaio Bealum, Amy

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N&R Publications Editor Michelle Carl N&R Publications Associate Editor Laura Hillen N&R Publications Editorial Team Anne Stokes Marketing & Publications Consultants Steve Caruso, Joseph Engle, Traci Hukill, Elizabeth Morabito, Luke Roling, Celeste Worden

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We love the arts I’m a big fan of live theater, musicals in particular. I’ve seen shows on Broadway, in London’s West End, in Las Vegas, in San Francisco and in Sacramento, at the Community Center Theater and Music Circus.

So I’m happy to raise the curtain on our plans: In the months ahead, you’ll see more stories about theater, music and other arts in the pages of SN&R. That includes performances for broader audiences at bigger venues such as Golden 1 Center, as well as more grassroots events at smaller spaces. And we’ll continue spotlighting undiscovered and new artists.

A vibrant arts scene is important to a city’s future, along with a strong economy, efficient local government and inclusive civic culture. Besides, the arts make for a far more interesting place to live.

This happens to be a crucial— and exciting—time for the arts in Sacramento. Established players such as the Philharmonic and Opera are clawing their way back from the Great Recession. New groups are seeking a foothold and offering different forms of art. Some smaller venues are struggling to stay open.

At the same time, two major venues are undergoing long-overdue restorations: Memorial Auditorium’s first phase started in June; the Community Center Theater project starts in January.

As the arts grow in Sacramento, SN&R’s coverage will as well.

—FOON RhEE fo o nr @ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

SN&R is printed at PressWorks Ink on recycled newsprint.

Circulation of SN&R is verified by the Circulation Verification Council.

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“Spending time With family, really.”

asked at Foothill ChristMas trees on FolsoM boulevard:

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Mark ChapMan

saMantha snapp

ryan sChultz

law enforcement worker

We do a two-night, three-day trip to San Francisco for Christmastime. We go down to Union Square for shopping. They’ve got the ice rink, just park the car, see the city. Very festive.

A lot of fun.

sous chef

high school student

Just the generic stuff.

Spending time with family, really. Taking time out to appreciate not the grind of life, but seeing other humans happy and interacting and not having to focus on getting money, working and making it to the next day.

Nothing. I just like sitting at home and watching movies and just hanging out.

Megan boydston

debbie Me yer

teacher

gretChen kjose

secretary

The breakfast we do with my family every Christmas morning. ... They’re called “magic muffins.” They’re like cinnamon-sugary goodness. They’re just delicious. And then we have bratwurst and stuff like that, like a German family. So that’s our tradition. It’s really good.

retired

Making kroštule, which is a Croatian pastry. My mom is from Croatia, so she’s brought that to us and every year, I get together with my 91-year-old aunt and my mom, who’s going to be 90, and then my sister and cousins and now my daughter and my nieces. We’re passing on the tradition.

My favorite holiday tradition is Thanksgiving and just having the whole family there for dinner. …

That’s my favorite holiday because nobody expects anything other than just a good meal and friends and family.

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Adopt, don’t dump

Not what, but how?

Re: “What now?,” by Jeff vonKaenel (Greenlight, December 6): I’m a conservative Democrat and agreed with most of your suggestions. So the big question in your last paragraph is how can we pay for it. Part of the answer is in your article with cutting the huge tax cut Trump has implemented and cutting military spending, (with a decent cut of that alone we could fund all of your suggestions, but that isn’t going to happen).

My two cents is related to that and also suggests that if we don’t do this, we won’t be able to afford anything. And that is getting a handle on “unfunded liabilities.” Many cities have let some large unions, especially the “public safety”-related ones, get very large concessions and compensation over the years.

This has already directly led to bankruptcy for several cities.

Kevin mcHuGH s a c ra m e nt o via email

Re: “What now?,” by Jeff vonKaenel (Greenlight, December 6): I’d like to see a surcharge that reflects the true cost of single-use plastic and foam packaging. These items can take 400-1,000 years to degrade, if they do at all, and are not recyclable or compostable. There are compostable and recyclable options available for drink containers, eating utensils, plates and to-go containers.

The cost of adopting these items is much less than trucking these items to fill dumps and landfills where they will sit for ages. And there is no perceivable difference to the consumer between recyclable and non-recyclable items of this sort.

Kim HanKs sa c ra m e nt o via email

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Expectations vs. temptations Re: “We want your voices,”

by Foon Rhee (Editor’s Note, December 6): First day on the job and you already expect your audience to do something for you. Mighty tempting to write something of value and give it to a stranger who represents a company that essentially litters widely once a week. As you well know, you get what you pay for. So, one presumes the “essays” that you will soon publish will be of a quality commensurate with your own publications.

Glen Forester s a c r a me nto v i a s a c to le tte r s

No mention of two outstanding local businesses that would qualify as local institutions: Ettore’s Bakery and Roma’s Bakery. Boo.

read more letters online at newsreview .com/sacramento.

lily toppenberG sa c r a me nto v ia Fa c e b o o k @SacNewsReview

Correction Re: “7 deadly lessons”

by Raheem F. Hosseini (Feature, December 6): The story incorrectly identified Sacramento police chief Daniel Hahn’s hometown. He grew up in Oak Park. SN&R regrets the error.

Facebook.com/ SacNewsReview

@SacNewsReview

Not so sweet Re: “The Dessert Issue,” (Feature, November 30): I was very disappointed when I read the dessert article.

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Stevante Clark is running for mayor, in part, to ensure that his late brother Stephon lives on.

Photo by karlos rene ayala

An alliance of brothers Community-led initiative gets support from Obama Foundation, Stevante Clark

by Kate Gonzales

As Stevante Clark publicly and painfully mourned the loss of his younger brother this year, he was actually grieving for two brothers.

The police killing in March of 22-year-old Stephon Clark became national news and prompted months of protests. He was another unarmed black man, shot in the backyard of his grandmother’s Meadowview home. People shared a photo of him and his two young sons online, and around the country they said his name.

But the family had already experienced deep loss. Twelve years earlier, 6

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16-year-old De’Markus McKinnie died in what was determined to be an accidental shooting.

“People always say Stephon Clark,” Stevante told SN&R recently. “They don’t know about De’Markus.”

Stevante’s older brother belonged to a grim statistic. The Sacramento County Child Death Review Team found that from 1990 to 2009, African-American children died at twice the rate of those of other ethnicities. To reverse this trend, the Black Child Legacy Campaign was formed to offer more services to the communities most impacted. Other

efforts have run parallel to this work to improve the lives of boys and young men of color, some of which were recently recognized.

In mid-November, the Obama Foundation announced the Sacramento region would receive financial support for its My Brother’s Keeper Alliance. The foundation’s initiative aims to address opportunity gaps for boys and young men of color by supporting programs in partner communities nationwide.

My Brother’s Keeper Sacramento Collaborative falls under the umbrella of

The Center at Sierra Health Foundation, which will distribute $500,000 over the next two years. The money will fund mentorship in schools, intensive case management, family-focused violence intervention and more services in neighborhood community centers.

Chet Hewitt is president and CEO of the Sierra Health Foundation, a private philanthropy that addresses health inequities throughout Northern California.

The Center focuses on the San Joaquin Valley region.

“Here in California we think of ourselves as a state that pays a lot of attention to issues like equity and inclusion,” he said. But given the data, “We know that we need to do better.”

As a member of the Black Child Legacy Campaign, First 5 Sacramento Commission’s recent report on the effectiveness of the programs it funds was optimistic.

Between 2013 and 2016, the county saw a 45 percent decrease in AfricanAmerican infant deaths. Over the same period, there was an 18 percent drop in African-American children born preterm

The case againsT The anTifa Three see neWs

09

The fires lefT Them homeless see neWs

11

beats

mandaTory order and 54 percent fewer sleep-related But in recent years, gun violence has deaths. In all these categories, the increased in the city. disparity gap narrowed between AfricanLast December, the City Council American children and all other races. committed $1.5 million over four years But Hewitt pointed out “there is so to work with the Richmond-based much more work to do.” nonprofit Advance Peace, which Growing up in neighborhoods connects mentors with young men throughout Sacramento, Stevante Clark known to be involved in crime and said the poverty and violence didn’t gun violence to set them on a better seem extraordinary. path. The mentors help the participants “It felt normal because it felt like develop and work toward goals while everybody was going through the same offering them support services and job thing in our surroundings,” he said. “I’m training. “Fellows” who show progress one of the few people that made it to 26 after six months can receive up to without being in jail or in handcuffs or $1,000 a month. incarcerated until my brother [Stephon] “I’m all for whatever helps people died, unfortunately.” in the under-resourced communities,” The Meadowview neighborhood Stevante said about the program. where his grandmother still lives is one “Everybody needs somebody to look at of seven communities the Black Child them and say, ‘I see you.’”

Legacy Campaign serves. The others— Hewitt, the board chairman of Arden Arcade, Del Paso Heights and Advance Peace, said the program curbs North Sacramento, Foothill Farms violence while offering opportunities to and North Highlands, Fruitridge and people from all backgrounds. That call Stockton, Oak Park and Valley High— for inclusion was made during are home to incubator sites, the protests that followed where partners provide Stephon Clark’s death. services in one place.

“When people “The goal was to protested really build commudowntown, nity capacity to they called for intervene in this housing and particular issue,” … social and Hewitt said. economic “Support from interventions My Brother’s as a way of Keeper will allow improving us to scale up that community Stevante Clark particular work.” life,” he said. brother of Stephon Clark In California, Hewitt added Oakland and Los Angeles that it will take an also received the Impact all-in effort to remove Community grants, and Fresno barriers to young men of color and Richmond received $50,000 becoming “the next generation of seed grants. Hewitt said the Impact entrepreneurs and innovators and civic Communities will become a learnleaders.” ing network, sharing their strategies Heeding that call, Stevante has talked with one another. That knowledge about getting a library or a “largerwill be passed on to the two seed than-life” community center established communities. in Stephon’s name. He envisions the 24-hour space housing a computer according to a report from The lab, counselors and an entrepreneurial Washington Post, one area where boot camp. Last month, just a few days Sacramento is making progress is the before his 26th birthday, he announced number of homicides that city police his plan to run for mayor in 2020. solve. The report found that 65 percent “No one can fight for my brother of homicides have resulted in arrest harder than me,” he said. “I’ll do whatsince 2007, compared to less than half ever it takes to make sure his name lives in the 55 largest cities on average. from generation to generation.” Ω

“Everybody needs somebody to look at them and say, ‘I see you.’”

Days before a Millbrae-based attorney was among the first to sue Pg&e for the destruction brought by the camp fire, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered the energy giant to make a slew of changes to its safety protocol based on a years-long investigation.

At a November 29 hearing in San Francisco, the utility commission could barely get business underway after angry protestors filled its chambers, loudly chanting, “This meeting cannot continue until PG&E admits its crimes!”

Once the meeting did start, a line of people slammed PG&E’s track record during public comment. Some questioned why the possibility of criminal charges over the Tubbs Fire and Camp Fire hadn’t been raised, especially since the owners of the ghost ship, the Oakland warehouse where 36 died in a 2016 blaze, face prison time. Others railed against PG&E CEO Geisha Williams getting her pay doubled to $8.5 million the same year her corporation was implicated in the wine country wildfires.

Once utility commissioners had a chance to speak, they had some criticisms of their own for PG&E. CPUC had enlisted North Star Consulting Group to conduct a years-long investigation into PG&E’s safety practices in the wake of the 2010 san Bruno pipeline explosion, which

killed eight people. That probe was recently completed.

“We learned a lot from the consultant,” said Commissioner Cliff Rechtschaffen. “It’s an exhaustive report.”

North Star recommended that the commission order PG&E to make some 61 safety reforms.

“It found that PG&E appears not to have a clear vision for its safety programs and instead pursues many programs without clear thinking as to how they fit together,” Commissioner Michael Picker noted. “So, this has been deeply troubling to me and it keeps me awake at night trying to understand how this is going to affect customers and the landscapes where PG&E is active.”

CPUC voted unanimously to order Pg&e to make the reforms. Picker told the public that, while North Star’s findings are not directly linked to the recent fires, the commission would open “a new proceeding” on that matter.

Meanwhile, attorney Dario de Ghetaldi filed a lawsuit December 6 in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of a number of Camp Fire survivors, citing circumstantial evidence he says points to PG&E being responsible for the deadly blaze. (Scott Thomas Anderson)

Buyers BeWare Calls haven’t slowed down to the city of

sacramento’s anonymous whistleblower hotline.

That was the message from city auditor Jorge Oseguera at the start of December, when he told the City Council that, between April 1 and September 30, the hotline received 85 new tips. Of them, Oseguera said his team was able to substantiate six “related to potential fraud, nepotism, compliance with city codes and inappropriate use of city resources.”

While Oseguera didn’t elaborate much on the complaints during his presentation, a 12-page report he prepared detailed all of them. The most serious substantiated tip, deemed of medium priority, was that Department of Utilities employees were submitting “fraudulent receipts to receive reimbursement for personal protective equipment.” The department director fired eight employees, who had improperly collected a total of $5,000.

The other five substantiated tips, all deemed low priority, included a city vehicle speeding on Fruitridge Road and a city employee advertising a personal business through electronic city resources.

During a presentation on the report, frequent council critic James “Faygo” Clark questioned why the city is consolidating the independent budget analyst position into the auditor’s office if the whistleblower hotline has so much activity.

Clark noted that the auditor’s office had already complained about having insufficient staff to address all the whistleblower tips.

“Help them be able to actually address it in a more productive manner,” Clark said.

Nevertheless, Councilman Steve Hansen praised the existence of the hotline, saying, “It has yielded, I think, a greater trust knowing that there’s a place for people to anonymously report tips.”

Oseguera maintains that the hotline is a deterrent that keeps city employees walking the line.

“It makes them question whether to engage in those [wrongful] things in the first place,” Oseguera said. “We have addressed some serious issues.”

In all, the hotline has received approximately 1,000 tips since being implemented in 2012.

(Graham Womack)

12.13.18 | sN&R | 7

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Defendants and their attorneys discuss their motion to dismiss assault and riot charges stemming from a June 2016 melee between white nationalists and protesters.

Photo by Raheem F. hosseini

Preliminary theater CHP officer’s testimony offers first glimpse of prosecution’s strategy against antifa three

by Raheem F. hosseini

More than two years after the state Capitol served as the stage for one of the most violent clashes between white supremacists and demonstrators prior to Charlottesville, a prosecutor auditioned his office’s case against three defendants who were there to confront Nazis.

Yvonne Felarca, Porfirio Paz and Michael A. Williams face felony assault and misdemeanor riot charges stemming from the June 2016 melee that seriously injured 10 and previewed an ugly resurgence in racial animosity across the country.

On December 6, Felarca’s attorneys told supporters outside the Sacramento Superior Court that they expected to get the case dismissed on grounds that the district attorney’s office had singled out their clients after the California Highway Patrol, which investigated the riot, “colluded” with Nazi sympathizers and forwarded more

ra h e e m h @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

than 100 arrest warrants, most against antifascist demonstrators. The DA’s office has only charged one white nationalist. Before entering the courthouse, Felarca expressed confidence that her side’s motion to dismiss would “stop this witch hunt.”

What the antifa three got instead was a first glimpse of prosecutors’ plan of attack.

A scheduling judge clipped any notion that defendants’ motion would be heard when he sent the parties to the third floor for their scheduled preliminary hearing.

In Sacramento County, prelims are held so that judges can determine if there’s enough evidence to warrant a jury trial.

Only the prosecution gets to call witnesses, with the defense able to cross examine and object. And object they did.

While preliminary hearings generally favor the prosecution, Deputy District Attorney Paris Coleman was slowed by

numerous objections arguing that his sole witness, CHP Officer Donovan Ayers, did not actually see the fights he was there to testify about. Defense attorneys Linda Parisi and Mark Reichel, representing Williams and Paz, respectively, also pounced on Coleman’s attempts to have Ayers describe video footage that hadn’t been authenticated.

The prolonged hearing resulted in a continuance to December 18, when Ayers will continue his testimony and Judge Stacy Boulware Eurie will consider defense’s motion to dismiss the charges.

Before the clock expired, Ayers provided the first detailed account of what his tight-lipped agency says happened that Sunday afternoon two summers ago. The 12-year veteran testified that he arrived about three hours before the event and positioned himself on the roof of the Capitol as part of a tactical team assigned to cover a permitted event on Capitol grounds.

Weeks before, the CHP granted a permit for approximately 50 people to attend a rally organized by the Traditionalist Worker Party, a white nationalist political group that was backing then-candidate Donald Trump and getting RSVPs from local hate groups. The CHP quickly became aware of fliers and social media posts promising a confrontation between TWP and hundreds more who opposed its message, Ayers testified.

Asked to name the protest groups, Ayers recalled By Any Means Necessary, or BAMN, a Bay Area group fronted by Felarca, a Berkeley school teacher. But he had to be prompted by Coleman to also name antifa. “There was a strong indication of violence through these sources,” Ayers said.

While the CHP has the authority to rescind permits, it didn’t do so. Instead, the agency spearheaded a security plan that allowed CHP officers on horseback and city police officers in riot gear to be quickly outflanked by waves of combatants. Around 11 a.m., Ayers said, protestors started gathering on the Capitol’s west side. “It was clearly not the permitted party,” he testified.

Asked how he knew, Ayers said he could tell by the banners and clothing, which he described as identifying with “socialist” and “communist” ideologies, prompting derisive scoffs from the defendants’ supporters in the gallery.

Coleman asked Ayers to focus on two of the six fights the CHP investigated—a skirmish at 10th and L streets allegedly involving Felarca, and one on the south

portico of the Capitol allegedly featuring Paz and Williams. Regarding the first event, Ayers testified that he recognized victim Nigel Walker as a member of the permitted group because he was flying a flag with a “white nationalist-type symbol.”

Ayers testified that he saw Walker crossing the lawn toward protesters, recognized that “he was likely not going to be welcome” and attempted to whistle out a warning. Instead, Walker waved his plastic flag pole at the protesters and shouted, “antifa, here I am,” Ayers said.

Ayers’ view of what happened next was obscured by trees, he testified, but he later found a video that picked up the action with Walker back on 10th and L. Titled “nazi looking for trouble,” the clip was played in the courtroom on mute only after defense attorneys successfully objected to Ayers testifying about a video that wasn’t going to be shown. The clip shows Walker, wearing a black T-shirt, green trucker cap and backpack, walk down a sidewalk toward cops in riot gear.

As Williams, a plastic pole couched under his arm, speaks to officers, Felarca enters the frame close to Williams.

At first, she just stands near him. Then she begins to gently tap her fists against his midsection. Walker shoots the officers a look. Someone pulls Walker’s backpack as an unidentified man knocks Walker to the ground with an awkward jump kick. Other hard-to-see individuals descend, kicking Walker. Officers flood the frame and yank people off. One riot cop shoves Felarca entirely out of the frame.

A second video clip, recorded by a state library employee, is bathed in the shadows of the Capitol’s south portico, making the attack on two skinheads by a group of protesters difficult to see. In his testimony, Ayers identified both Paz and Williams as assailants. This scene unfolded directly under where Ayers was standing on the roof, so he only saw the crowd’s approach.

While Judge Boulware Eurie allowed the videos and Ayers’ testimony about them, Coleman may have a harder time getting both allowed at trial. That’s when the prosecutor would likely have to authenticate the source of the videos, which he was unable to during the prelim.

The day came to an end as Coleman tried to nail down the people’s allegation that Felarca incited a riot.

Asked to recall the comments Felarca reportedly made through a bullhorn that afternoon, Ayers said, “The thing that stands out clear to me was, ‘We beat their asses.’” Ω 12.13.18 | SN&R | 9

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A precarious predictor One year after the Tubbs Fire, many of the displaced are still homeless

by Scott thomaS anderSon

s c o t t a @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

City and county officials will engage in It’s a devastating kind of déjà vu.

In October 2017, a fire swept through Sonoma another HUD-required survey in January. That, County, forcing hundreds into evacuation centers. Kuykendall believes, might offer a clearer picture Then a line of FEMA trailers began rolling in. As on the fire’s ongoing impacts.

“I think those numbers will be very telling,” Cal Fire investigators began studying potential she said. links between damaged PG&E equipment and Numbers on Santa Rosa’s rental market are the blaze, and as the coroner began counting telling enough. Prior to the Tubbs Fire, the city the dead, some fire refugees spent weeks living had a 1 percent vacancy rate. The city lost 5 alongside “pre-disaster homeless.” Both groups percent of its housing following the Tubbs Fire. faced a thinned-out rental market with catapultFor Jennielynn Holmes, director of shelter and ing prices. housing for Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa, that A year after the Tubbs Fire wreaked that has been a prescription for continuing calamity. havoc, nearly every element of the story is play“We had a housing and homeless crisis ing out again 160 miles north, in Paradise, after on October 7, and when the fire broke out on the Camp Fire. And if what happened in the wine October 8, we entered a whole new world,” said country is an indicator, there’s a good chance Holmes, who also serves on Sonoma’s task that some of the displaced will end up in force for housing fire victims. “What the ranks of Butte County’s long-term we’re seeing now is the ripple homeless.

“What effect of the fire-related market That conclusion seems inevithat decimated our housing table when studying official we’re seeing now opportunities, especially for data from the U.S. Housing is the ripple effect people with lower incomes. and Urban Development of the fire-related We’re starting to see people Department. Some six enter into homelessness for months after the Tubbs market.” the first time because of Fire, the agency worked Jennielynn Holmes that.” with officials from the city director of shelter and housing, Holmes added that a false of Santa Rosa and Sonoma Catholic Charities of Santa sense of security is setting in County to measure the fire’s Rosa with some now that national impact on homelessness. They media moved onto other stories— did this by combining HUD’s bianand other disasters. nual one-night survey of homelessness “People think the problem’s been solved and with a specialized telephone audit of nearly 1,200 no one was left without a home, and that’s just households. The effort found 2,996 homeless absolutely not true,” Holmes stressed. “There individuals in Sonoma County, with one-third are still a lot of people in a high-crisis situation. of surveyed respondents saying they had been Once the media left, and the attention left, that’s affected by the Tubbs Fire. when the recovery process got a lot harder. It’s County officials also documented an addibeen difficult to keep a spotlight on these people tional 21,482 “precariously housed” residents— who’ve had their lives turned upside down, as people couch- or floor-surfing, doubled- or well as the extreme need that continues to exist tripled-up in homes, or on the verge of becoming here.” homeless. Of those individuals, 39 percent lost a The same need was on full display in the house in the fire and another 11 percent lost housparking lot of Chico’s Walmart in the wake of the ing due to economic impacts from the fire.

Camp Fire, which destroyed 13,972 residences Kelli Kuykendall, Santa Rosa’s Housing and and 528 commercial structures, according to Cal Community Services manager, said she hasn’t Fire. A tent city sprung up there full of displaced seen any new data since April, but that the survivors. By mid-November, Walmart posted circumstances on the ground look grim. signs asking the dispossessed to leave, suggesting “With the anecdotal conversations I’ve been that within two weeks Butte County’s humanitarhaving with our providers, the feedback continian crisis had already begun shifting into a public ues to be about just how tough it is right now to image crisis. Ω house people,” Kuykendall told SN&R.

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Steinberg’s brilliant idea by jeff vonkaenel

When I heard about Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s plan to have each City Council member come up with at least 100 homeless shelter beds in their district, my reaction was the same as when I listen to a Jimmy Hendrix guitar riff, or enjoy a Freeport Bakery tiramisu or watch former Cleveland Indians shortstop Omar Vizquel and second baseman Roberto Alomar turn an unbelievable double play. Whoa. How in hell do they do that?

Steinberg’s gift is politics, and he is playing at a world-class level.

His proposal is brilliant. The biggest obstacle to solving Sacramento’s homeless problem has not been money. We just haven’t been able to agree upon locations for shelters.

Everyone wants more homeless shelters, just not in their neighborhood.

Every suggested site has a problem.

There are already too many homeless people in this area, why invite more? There are no homeless here, so they would be isolated and far from services. This location is on a busy street. That location is on a quiet street. On and on.

So nothing gets done. And meanwhile, it’s so cold outside. Why should our fellow citizens have to sleep on hard sidewalks, along the river or behind our buildings? Why should they spend the night outside in the rain, in the wind, in the smoke?

Why should they be left vulnerable to illness and violence?

Homelessness is a national disgrace. We gave the rich more tax breaks, but we can’t find shelters for our homeless. And homelessness is also a Sacramento disgrace, when we can’t agree on locations for homeless shelters.

Steinberg’s 100-bed proposal will require each elected official to make a tough call, most likely a controversial one. If a council member can’t suggest a location, the city should

j e ffv @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

identify city-owned land or work out some arrangement with a private landlord to ensure that we have 100 beds in each district. We need to move heaven and earth to bring shelter to those in need.

According to Google Maps, SN&R’s office is a 12-minute walk from the shelter on Railroad Drive.

And unlike some of my business and residential neighbors, I supported the city opening a shelter in our neighborhood. Why? It’s true that I am a bleeding heart liberal, but I also believe the shelter in our neighborhood has made things better. Since the shelter opened, there have been fewer homeless people sleeping in our doorway when I arrive in the morning. When I mentioned this to Del Paso Boulevard Partnership Executive Director David Plag, he said it was the increased security that came with the shelter that had made the difference. Fair enough.

But at the end of the day, we won’t have homeless people sleeping in our doorways and on our streets only when we provide a safe place for them to sleep. In our North Sacramento district, I applaud council member Allen Warren for showing real leadership and taking an incredible amount of political heat by agreeing to have a shelter in his district. Each of our council members should follow his lead and step up.

Creating 800 more beds for the homeless in Sacramento would be like listening to a Hendrix riff, while watching a Vizquel-Alomar double play, while eating a Freeport Bakery tiramisu.

An impressive achievement. Ω

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www.calvineaesthetics.com 12.13.18 | SN&R | 13

the

man who

saved reading by scott thomas anderson 14 | SN&R | 12.13.18

scotta@newsreview.com

Dana Gioia’s battle for the future of the arts, literature and critical thinking in America

D

ana Gioia stepped through a Romanesque archway, looked at the stone columns down Pennsylvania Avenue and realized he had to escape Washington, D.C. It was 2009 and the internationally known poet had just spent six years fighting to rebuild the National Endowment for the Arts, convincing far-right congressmen that it could be more than a controversygenerator around Jesus’s image splashed in body fluids. Gioia had reluctantly agreed to lead the agency on the heels of Newt Gingrich getting House Republicans to vote it out of existence, only to be stopped at the last minute by a handful of senators. The endowment was still under nonstop attack from conservative think tanks when Gioia took over.

Washington insiders looked on with cynical anticipation. They were eager to see how Gioia—a California writer to his core—would navigate the NEA’s vast political minefields. But Gioia scarcely had time to worry about that before he faced a more existential problem. A new government report questioned the very future of reading in the United States. Gioia and the NEA were about to get involved in the fate of American intelligence.

Six years later, Gioia was leaving his post as things were looking better for American letters, at least with younger readers. But as he stood under the endowment’s headquarters in the old capital post office, a masterpiece of sculptures and Gothic dormers he’d saved from being sold, he felt a deep sense of unease. And it wasn’t a premonition that the architectural treasure he’d preserved would soon become Donald Trump’s glitzy hotel.

No, for Gioia, it was a personal kind of foreshadowing. He was so exhausted from the blood sport of D.C. politics that he couldn’t write any more. He worried he might never write again.

For someone who had won the American Book Award and had a poem translated into 12 languages, it was a hard future to contemplate.

Slowly, by spending months alone on an island, Gioia began finding a new writing voice. But just when his creative powers were returning, Gov. Jerry Brown asked him to take up the mantle of literary warrior again, this time fighting to bring reading back into the public sphere across California. Gioia couldn’t walk away from the request, or the challenge. Yet he stepped into the role just as wildfires were about to engulf his own life, wreaking devastation and tragedy across his state and leaving many unsure if art really has a place in healing.

Crisis of the minD In 1953, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 described a future where novels are relics and human thought is enslaved by interactive screens. But when Gioia first arrived in Washington, D.C. in 2003, such predictions were hardly a threat national leaders were talking about.

That would change.

Gioia didn’t know what to expect when he took the helm of one of the world’s most prominent arts agencies. He knew Republicans had changed tactics from trying to legislate its demise to simply eviscerating it by a thousand budget cuts.

But Gioia did have one strong ally: thenFirst Lady Laura Bush, a career librarian and founder of the Texas Book Festival.

“The NEA had few friends,” Gioia said. “It was seen by the right as the purveyors of smut and blasphemy and seen by the left as the inept purveyors of smut and blasphemy. Everyone said there was no way to change the status quo, because there had been too much blood spilled on both sides.”

But Gioia thought he could secure the endowment’s future if he made its mission bringing the best art to the most Americans possible. He was months into that process when the real punch came. The NEA had directed the U.S. Census Bureau to conduct a large survey on participation in the arts. Building on similar studies in 1982 and 1992, the survey produce a startling conclusion:

Photo by ashley hayes-stone

g” ved readin a s o h w n continued on page 16 “the ma 12.13.18 | SN&R | 15

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“the man who sa ved With the rise of digital media, less than half of U.S. adults were now reading literature. The survey found there had been a 10 percentage-point decline over two decades, which was a loss of 20 million potential readers.

The drop spread across every age group, every ethnic group, both genders and all income levels.

Worse yet, the steepest decline was among those 18 to 34, who 20 years earlier had been the most likely age group to read a book.

The survey also indicated this backsliding of a literate America had rapidly accelerated with the advent of social media networks, streaming services and allconsuming video games. Experts extrapolated that, if the trend continued, reading as a pastime would be all but nonexistent in another 50 years.

And that would matter far beyond just book sales.

Gioia’s team had studies showing that people who didn’t read were less likely to vote in elections, volunteer for charities, attend public events and support cultural institutions. And Gioia was an early prophet in sensing there was more to the peril. Later, neurological research and MRI testing suggested that reading increases brain connectivity and improves basic human empathy, while exposure to most screen-based media has the exact opposite effect. Based on the best available science, the swift decline in reading could be seen as an epidemic jeopardizing America’s entire civic fitness and intellectual destiny.

“I think we perceived, quite rightly, that this was a crisis,” Gioia recalled.

Many working on the front lines of academia saw that crisis, too. One was Janis Cox Jones, an English professor who taught Gioia’s poetry and criticism for years at Folsom Lake College. Around the time Gioia gave a reading in Folsom in 2005, Jones started to notice a sharp decline in students’ writing skills, which seemed related to fewer and fewer of them reading.

continued from page

reading”

15

“The top 10 percent of students were as good as ever, but suddenly the bottom third were so far down that they were well below remedial high school reading levels,” Jones recalled.

But Gioia was doing more than compiling reports. He made a controversial decision to steer what was left of the NEA’s resources away from the art world’s power base on the East Coast and instead throw them into a wider intervention on reading. That involved launching several new initiatives.

The first was The Big Read, which used NEA grants to help entire communities read and discuss the same work of literature. The endowment also produced a compelling series of audio documentaries about writers that were made available through the then-emerging phenomenon of podcasts. It was a digitally engaging approach to reach new, younger audiences.

Another venture Gioia spearheaded was Operation Homecoming, which allowed veterans returning from war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan to process their experiences through free writing workshops. Funded in part by the U.S. Department of Defense, it led to thousands of service members getting rehabilitative therapy through their own creativity and the power of the written word.

Gioia’s final two projects focused on youth outreach. One was Poetry Out Loud, a push to get high schoolers interested in great literature by having them memorize and perform poetry in a localto-national competition. It quickly spread to high schools in all 50 states. Gioia’s last project was called Shakespeare in American Communities, which brought highquality productions of the Bard’s plays to public schools.

“We would see the way it could power kids’ imaginations, broaden their vistas of the world and help them understand their own complicated experiences,” Gioia said. “I think when young people don’t get exposure to the arts, they can have trouble understanding how life and culture really works.”

Burned out though he was, Gioia left the endowment in a good place. The countless days of traveling with Republican congressmen to their home districts, showing them veterans recovering through writing and students coming to life around poetry throw-downs and Shakespearean duels, had finally gained the NEA some new allies.

Congress actually increased the endowment’s budget every year Gioia was running it. When the torch was passed to an Obama appointee in 2009, there was a bipartisan vanguard on the Hill ready to protect the arts. Equally important, new studies were underway that pointed to more young people reading books.

But when Gioia’s flight left Washington, D.C. in 2009, he wasn’t sure if his own life or art would ever be the same.

ExilE from main StrEam Gioia had always loved dusk on the West Coast, seeing the diamond snow of the constellations, watching the gold glimmer of Mars hanging low on the night.

Once he’d made his way to the tiny San Juan island of Waldron, he could finally see those starry vistas opening for him again.

He turned to his own dilemma —the question of whether he’d write again. He stayed in a small cabin on a garlic farm. There was no power, no plumbing and no phone. What the island did have was silence. Gioia spent his days wandering its rocky beaches. In the evenings, he ate cold food by candlelight. Sometimes, he watched the sea shimmering from the edge of a 19th century ruin called Crum’s Castle. It was a time of self-banishment, but it was liberating.

Years before, Gioia’s writing career had been launched by another period of exile. As a teen, he was mesmerized by writers and poets of the western landscape, especially those who tackled the rugged majesty of California. After graduating from Stanford Business School, Gioia only experimented with such prose-painting in his free time.

He was too busy climbing the ladder at General Foods Corp. And that also meant living in New York City.

In 1982, Gioia started penning a poetic memory of the Golden State. He was dreaming of its scorched grass and heatbeaten ridges, of its gliding, brass-colored slopes in the grip of summer. It all poured out on the page. He called it “California Hills In August.” The poem soon appeared in The New Yorker and then became the cornerstone of his first book, Daily Horoscope. It was eventually translated in countries from northern Europe to Southeast Asia.

Walking alone on Waldron island in 2009, Gioia was starting to hear calm cadences and serein rhythms in his ear.

theory of the perpetual avant-garde” he believed was alienating readers from modern verse. And of course, when Gioia ran the NEA, the only poets to agree with his funding decisions were those sharing his belief that “there’s no point in literature if it’s not for real people.”

But regardless of what his ivory tower critics thought, Gioia felt the creative winds running through him again. His time on Waldron inspired a new book of poems, Pity the Beautiful.

Things were looking up. Gioia was teaching literature at the University of Southern California part of the year and spending the rest jotting down verses at his home in Sonoma County. He was settling back into his dream of being a full-time writer when he got a surprise

Photo by scott thomas anderson

Away from D.C.’s blaring cab horns, and the gleeful Game-of-Thronary of Capitol Hill, Gioia could focus on birds drifting over the shoreline, on sunlight cutting spider webs, on the color of waves battering rocks.

“It took a long time to clear my mind,” Gioia remembered. “I found myself. It was the solitude and the beauty … I felt a kind of divine presence of nature.”

Few knew it, but Gioia was writing again. To some that wasn’t a good thing.

He’d had enemies in the literary world since 1991, when his essay in The Atlantic titled “Can Poetry Matter?” caused a firestorm. In it, Gioia argued that many American poets were happy to be part of an insulted, irrelevant group of professional obfuscators mainly subsidized by universities. Gioia doubled down after the backlash, railing against “the bankrupt

Dana Gioia reads to a crowd in Stockton on his road trip to all 58 California counties.

call from Gov. Jerry Brown’s office. The bookish governor, sometimes called the “philosopher king,” summoned Gioia for an interview. Within days, Gioia was named the 10th poet laureate of California.

“It was a somewhat mysterious process,” Gioia acknowledged. “When it was announced, it all happened so fast that I didn’t have a lot of time to think.”

But the wheels were turning for Gioia soon enough. He decided that his laureateship could be a vehicle for inspiring counties to host more literary events. He also realized the best way to do it would be through a statewide odyssey that no modern California writer had ever undertaken.

eading” o saved rcontinued on page 18 “the man wh 12.13.18 | SN&R | 17

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“the man who continued from page 17 saved readin g”

From the Ashes A billowing dome of smoke crested over the ridge. It was October 9, 2017 and the Tubbs Fire was burning near Gioia’s home of 22 years, on a hilltop overlooking Sonoma’s rolling woodlands. He and his sons quickly tried to rescue as many things as they could grab.

On the first morning of the inferno, a hellish red glow pierced the darkness just one hill away from Gioia’s property.

A shift in the winds ultimately saved his home, though many of his neighbors were less fortunate. The fire killed 22 people, incinerated 2,800 houses and charred 35,000 acres in and around Santa Rosa.

His entire community was grieving.

The threat of wildfires had been on Gioia’s mind even before the catastrophe.

It was tied in a strange twist of fate to his new mission as California’s poet laureate.

Gioia had decided to hold public literary events in all 58 counties. He thought if he partnered with local writers and Poetry Out Loud winners, he could remind young and old alike about the special energy that flows through gatherings around books. He was convinced that it was especially important in California’s most rural places.

“I decided if you’re going to be chosen to represent the power of literature, and the importance of literacy, then you need to go everywhere,” Gioia explained. “Mostly I visited small towns … It’s not about the size of the audience, it’s about the quality of the event.”

He hosted an event in San Joaquin County that Paula Sheil won’t forget.

Sheil is president of a nonprofit operating Stockton’s The Write Place, a center that offers writing workshops for kids, as well as introducing them to book binding, paper making and letter pressing. The center hosted Gioia’s San Joaquin appearance, which drew a full house, including high school and college students.

“His performance was so earthy and humble and human,” Sheil recalled. “And it wasn’t condescending. He didn’t make us feel like Stockton wasn’t worthy of an event like this.”

Over three years, Gioia’s long road tour has drawn similar crowds, and reviews, from Siskyou County to Tuolumne. On July 13, 2017, a large audience packed the garden behind a tavern in Mariposa County to hear Gioia speak. Two days later, the Detwiler Fire erupted there, blackening 80,000 acres, consuming 58 homes, burning well into Yosemite National Park.

The new era of fear and mourning was only intensified by last month’s

Camp Fire, which destroyed Paradise and took at least 85 souls with it.

As the state’s poet laureate, Gioia is the closest there is to an official elegist for our once-golden hills. While he doesn’t offer simple answers for how to heal, he does know that literature—that all art—has a way of helping people breathe again.

Gioia knows that from the most painful moment of his own life. In 1987, he and his wife Mary’s first son, Michael Jasper, died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

“We had this beautiful, happy, healthy little boy,” Gioia remembered of his fourmonth-old. “We were shocked by how joyful we were to be parents. When he died, it plunged us into a depression, a sadness and a mourning, that lasted for years.”

Over time, the poet described his child’s passing as a numbing doorway that introduced him to other parents suffering in their solitude. He says it thrust him into “a secret society that nobody wants to be in.” But the death also inspired some of Gioia’s most moving art, including his poems, “Planting a Sequoia” and “Majority.”

Gioia stresses that contemplating his loss—the fragility and mutability of life itself—spurred him into the biggest decision of his career—to leave his corporate job in 1992 to write full-time. He didn’t care about money anymore. He just wanted to pursue art and empathy, comradery and creativity. It was a risky move since his wife was pregnant again. But Gioia quickly landed work as a correspondent for the BBC and as editor of one of the nation’s most influential poetry anthologies. He also published a book of verse dedicated to Michael Jasper called, The Gods of Winter.

Today, Gioia hopes that the thousands of Californians he’s read to over the last three years and who he’s brought out to events to hear other writers and budding young poets, will remember that literature can be a bridge to human connection even in our very worst moments.

“Wisdom begins by recognizing that, while we control some things, ultimately our lives are beyond our control,” Gioia said. “When bad things happen, we should not try to hide from our own grief.

You need to accept the sorrow and trust where it will lead you.

“Where art helps is to provide powerful summaries of other peoples’ experiences.

When these things happen, we feel isolated.

And while art won’t eliminate the pain, it does reconnect you to others and give you perspective—and it gives you hope.” Ω

Planting a Sequoia

by Dana Gioia

All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard, Digging this hole, laying you into it, carefully packing the soil.

Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific, And the sky above us stayed the dull gray Of an old year coming to an end.

In Sicily a father plants a tree to celebrate his first son’s birth— An olive or a fig tree—a sign that the earth has one more life to bear.

I would have done the same, proudly laying new stock into my father’s orchard, A green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs, A promise of new fruit in other autumns.

But today we kneel in the cold planting you, our native giant, Defying the practical custom of our fathers, Wrapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant’s birth cord, All that remains above earth of a first-born son, A few stray atoms brought back to the elements.

We will give you what we can—our labor and our soil, Water drawn from the earth when the skies fail, Nights scented with the ocean fog, days softened by the circuit of bees.

We plant you in the corner of the grove, bathed in western light, A slender shoot against the sunset.

And when our family is no more, all of his unborn brothers dead, Every niece and nephew scattered, the house torn down, His mother’s beauty ashes in the air, I want you to stand among strangers, all young and ephemeral to you, Silently keeping the secret of your birth.

Dana Gioia wrote “Planting a Sequoia” in tribute to his late son, Michael Jasper.

12.13.18 | SN&R | 19

IllustratIons courtesy of sean MakIney

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casters The rising pod ken in Brown Chicix Brown Cow m y humor and bodn positivity whe sex talking about

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a rhythm like ’70s porn music, Monkey and Miss Laura sing the words “Brown Chicken Brown Cow” when they get on-air. Childish jokes follow, and Laura announces to the internet that her colleague is blushing.

“Let’s bump up the blush meter to 2,” she says. Monkey (real name Sean Makiney) reddens easily. The highest he hit on the fictional meter was 32.

He was so red that his face felt like it was on fire, he says.

Everyone laughs, including Madame Alchemia (Lee Asplund) and The Professor (Todd W. Spencer), who sometimes host, but primarily do production and

20 | SN&R | 12.13.18

tech on the podcast. Silliness relaxes the vibe of this Sacramento show about sex and body positivity.

What’s it called? Dim the lights and cue the groovy bass line, baby. Cuz you’re listening to Brown Chicken Brown Cow. Today’s guests are Robert and Samantha, a polyamorous couple with two daughters, 8 and 10 years old. Laura asks: How did you tell your kids about having multiple romantic partners?

“It was more us explaining that we have a very open family, and we want to be open to anybody that we feel is important to us,” Samantha says. “It was fun to see how open and excited they were to have the conversation with us.”

The interview stays serious until Laura (who asked not to be named) poses a final question, as she does with every guest: What barnyard animal are you?

“We are an inclusive show, and we believe in all types of barnyard animals, not just traditional, hetero-normative barnyard animals,” Laura prefaces.

Robert says he’s a dolphin, and Samantha’s a kangaroo.

“You have a pouch and you can carry your two kids in there,” Laura says. “That is a great animal to be.” This cracks everyone up, including Robert and Samantha, who had just cautiously revealed their alternative lifestyle to the web.

In a year and a half, Brown Chicken Brown Cow has become one of Sacramento’s most popular podcasts, with a digital audience stretching around the world. Some episodes are back-and-forth discussions among the hosts, others are interviews with experts. The goal is always to make sure things aren’t stuffy when they talk about serious topics, such as consent, sex with disabilities, or 50 shades of polyamory.

The show airs four times a week. The podcast started casually in June 2017, with friends hanging out and chatting about sex. It quickly saw its audience soar, and with it production values and guest caliber. It has had nearly 150 guests on so far, including Janet Hardy, co-author of The Ethical Slut, and Dr.

Consistently good pizza see disH

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a CHristmas Carol Cluster see stage

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Bap notes talk BaCk see musiC

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poolside santa see Calendar

Mastering Golden 1 knowledge: Makiney lives with a back injury and says he has had several intense migraines a week for the past 37 years.

“When we looked at ‘Sex and Disability Month,’ that was really close to me,” Makiney says. “It showed me that there are a lot of different people out there with visible and invis invisible disabilities. From alcoholism to not being mobile. Depression.

[Post-traumatic stress disorder]. You’re still a sexual being.”

There’s an obvious intersection of positivity movements in how they discuss every topic. During the sex and disabilitythemed month, they interviewed Christella Garcia, who won a bronze medal in Judo at the 2016 Paralympics. Makiney asked what her body selfimage was like when she had to gain weight to compete.

“When I look back at it now, it wasn’t about the weight. It was about having something in my life that I could control,” Garcia said of her teenage years. “It was tricky, feeling like my body is a weapon. I was building it for this particular reason, which was to be a Paralympic medalist.”

The hosts say they’re hopeful for what 2019 has in store for Brown Chicken Brown Cow. “We are finding new and better ways to engage and empower our audience,” Makiney says. “I hope to make the world a slightly better place with each and every show.” Ω

As The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’s spaghetti Western score haunts in, that scene of Eli Wallach skipping through a cemetery displays from dystopian cubes hanging over a phone-lit crowd.

The song peaks to an audio sample of gatling-gun drums, a pre-recorded drilling crescendo long enough to reach maximum crowd restlessness until, lights up: it’s that band who sued napster, and they sound insane with real instruments.

Last Friday, metallica played its first sacramento show in seven years, and 17,281 fans

broke golden 1 Center’s attendance record for a concert. Touring behind its 2016 album Hardwired...to Self Destruct, could the 37-year-

encore of the breathless thrasher “Battery,” the love song “Nothing Else Matters,” and “Enter Sandman” tucked the night in right.

Kind of funny: a speckle of headbangers were caught in a mosh throughout most of the set, including during the doldrums-y ballad “Welcome Home (Sanitarium),” which our photographer Ashley dubbed “the saddest

mosh pit in the world.”

Metallica’s performance skipped a whole 26 years of music, from its 1994 album Load to 2008’s Death Magnetic, which meant the band only performed material from its garage days to the tail-end of its arena-flung careers, a track list that detoured around the four’s controversial alt-rock decade, its therapy-stricken

“There are a lot of different people out there with visible and invisible disabilities.

From alcoholism to not being mobile. Depression.

PTSD. You’re still a sexual being.”

Sean Makiney co-host, Brown Chicken Brown Cow

Check out brown Chicken brown Cow on itunes: itunes.apple. com/us/podcast/brown-chicken-brown-cow-podcast.

Metallica frontman James Hetfield.

old heavy metal band still, oh I don’t know,

ride the lightning?

Yes. The four—Lars Ulrich on drums, Kirk Hammett on lead guitar, Robert Trujillo on bass, and James Hetfield on rhythm guitar and vocals—have a rare way of connecting perpetually with the crowd. No plate-glass window vibe here, where the musicians feel distant, untouchable and surreal. They rocked in the round, with microphones circling the stage. Add in epicly cued concert lighting, ooo pretty pyrotechnics and those dynamic tube cubes that fit the motif of each song—projecting cryptic crosses, portraits of fallen soldiers and ticket stubs from old Sacramento Metallica shows—and that’s an awesome visual orchestra for a rock show.

Some highlights: A frightening crowd chorus chanted “die!” during the interlude of “Creeping Death” to delightfully warm torchfire spitting from the stage; and a three-song

Photo by Ashley hAyes-stone

Barbara Chubak, a head urologist at Mt. Sinai hospitals in New York.

Earlier this year, Brown Chicken Brown Cow reached about 70,000 individual users monthly. The podcast has been on hiatus since November due to personal issues, so that number has dipped slightly. The team of four says it’ll return in January next year.

The first indication of success came last February, when Makiney, noticed it had topped Dan Savage’s often topranked podcast, Savage Lovecast, in the sexuality category on Apple iTunes.

The podcast now regularly lands in the Top 100 of all podcasts on iTunes. Brown Chicken Brown Cow even hit No. 1, overall, three times.

That’s impressive considering that, according to an early 2018 Nielson report, there are more than 550,000 podcasts worldwide.

Brown Chicken Brown Cow is not an advice show, which are aplenty in the sexuality category. It’s a topic/ interview podcast, and its appeal is in its simplicity of good friends having a conversation.

“If we’re having fun, people listen,” says Asplund. “We pride ourselves in trying to get as much content out there from as many viewpoints as possible, while being a little crazy.”

The polyamory episodes were one of the podcasts’ monthly themes. With some topics, the hosts bring their own experience (they’re all polyamorous).

Others they approach with naiveté.

Makiney, for example, says he’s not into kink, but has hosted episodes on the topic. When the talk turns to sex and disabilities, he has first-hand

experiment St. Anger, and that Lou Reed-Metallica mishmash Lulu. A greatest hits, minus the other stuff. less impressive was Jim Breuer, the former Saturday Night Live star who opened the show, offering light jokes and scanning the crowd for the youngest and oldest fans. He was doing God’s work trying to entertain an eager crowd, but maybe they ought to have an

opening band next time?

At the end of Metallica’s set, Ulrich recounted past Sacramento shows, including an early gig where the band played in the parking lot of a Tower Records. If Metallica performs in Sacramento again, if you’re a fan or are curious about this style of music, and if you have a pretty penny to spend on a ticket, trust me: it’s one of the best live

experiences out there.

—Mozes zarate mozesz@newsreview.com

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IlluSTrATION BY kATElYNN mITrANO

Grown-up sweets bRioche donut, estelle baKeRy & PâtisseRie Estelle Bakery & Pâtisserie only offers its Brioche Donut ($3.95) on Fridays. So I pass on the danishes, tarts and cakes … wait … why am I passing up sugary goodies for a mere brioche doughnut? After one bite, it’s understood.

It tastes just like its aroma: fresh-baked and delicious.

Sweetness plays a supporting role on this soft, spongy, bread-like doughnut with a buttery richness; and only a modest sprinkling of sugar adorns the top. Even the spoonful of vanilla custard hidden in the center evokes understated indulgence, rather than extreme saccharine. I left grateful that I resisted the more toothsome treats, newly in love with the more age-appropriate Brioche Donut: A doughnut for adults. 2530 Arden Way, estellebakery.com.

—amy bee The Sonny is one crispy, thin-crust pie at La Crosta topped with fennel sausage, mozzarella, feta, kale, garlic confit and pickled red onions.

Evviva La Crosta La Crosta Pizza Bar

PHOTO BY STEPHANIE STIAVETTI

by StePhanie Stiavetti

330 Third Street; (916) 389-0372 Good for: Thin-crust pizza and a glass of wine Notable dishes: Pappardelle alla Bolognese, The muffaletta,

Piadinas

$$$

Italian, West Sacramento

Lovers of The Rind, a lovely wine and cheese bar on L near 18th Street in Midtown Sacramento, will be ecstatic to hear that owners Sara Arbabian and Steve Tatterson have opened a new restaurant in West Sac: La Crosta, an Italian phrase that translates to “The Crust.” With generous outdoor seating and a dome-shaped pizza oven that’s encrusted entirely in pennies aptly named “Penelope,” La Crosta is the newest installment of hipster-friendly eateries on 3rd Street, just off the I Street Bridge.

While La Crosta has an extensive menu, the star is, of course, pizza. Gas-powered Penelope stays the course at about 500 F, churning out an endless stream of crispy, thin-crust pies. Diners will find a series of neo-traditional pizzas, riding a gradient that may take you by surprise. Consider The Seafood ($15) with scallops, rock shrimp, mozzarella and a piquillo pepper remoulade. Alas, they were out of an ingredient when I tried to order it so I opted for “The Margarit-ish” ($12), its name meaning it’s not quite traditional with puristchagrining oregano and cherry tomatoes, but it still hits all the right notes with a gorgeously crispy, flavorful crust. The Sonny ($16) was also a delight, with fennel sausage, mozzarella, feta, kale, garlic confit and pickled red onions. It was a little on the sweet side, but the 22 | SN&R | 12.13.18

contrast of tart feta and bitter kale against the sausage and pickled onion worked well.

Though pizza rules the roost here, La Crosta has a long menu with a number of appetizers, sides, entrees and Piadinas (flatbread sandwiches, like a small pizza folded in half). Several sides fell short, however, such as the Brussels & Bacon ($5), which sat limp and lifeless without even a hint of browning, or the Greek Chop Salad with baby gem lettuce, Valencia oranges, pepperoncini and sheep’s milk feta vinaigrette ($9) which was, per my dining companion, “just a salad” without a hint of feta—or flavor—to be found. Then there was the Pesto “Potatoes Bravas” ($5), which seemed to completely lack salt. When I inquired to the manager, he explained that someone had complained that the potatoes were too salty the day before, so the line cook had apparently swung hard in the opposite direction.

Still, there were more winners than disappointments on the menu. The Pappardelle alla Bolognese ($20) was quite possibly the most savory dish I’ve eaten in months, a seductive umami-bomb with a generous sprinkling of Grana Padano. The Muffaletta ($12) was a meaty dream of mortadella, provolone, olive tapenade and both Calabrese and Milano salami. The Three-Layer Creamsicle Panna Cotta ($9) was missing its signature orange-vanilla flavor, but overall had a nearly flawless texture.

The champs are numerous at La Crosta. If you’re willing to brave dinnertime bridge traffic, it’s well worth the drive for consistently good pizza and pasta.

With an impressive wine list, it’s a great stop after a long day to drown your sorrows in carbs and vino.

Salute! Ω

’Tis the season Koala ... holiday cocKtail, the Red Rabbit Kitchen & baR It’s not often the bartender entreats you to sing the name of your cocktail, but the burly, red-and-green clad dude behind the bar promised it would “make the cocktail taste better.” This gin- and citrus-based Christmas cocktail, cheerfully named the Koala La La La La, La La La La, ($12), comes with a tiny stuffed koala in a Santa suit clinging to the coupe, which is kawaii as hell. Being inside The Red Rabbit right now is like physically inhabiting one of those cliché ugly Christmas sweaters. That’s because this is its second year participating in the “Miracle” Christmas-themed popup, a festive affair that transforms more than 80 bars worldwide into merry watering holes that serve a fixed menu of holiday cocktails.

So, if you’ve had enough of cinnamon and dairy-heavy holiday drinks, choose the Koala for a refreshing, pine-y blast. 2718 J Street, theredrabbit.net.

—becKy GRunewald

ThE V WoRd

Go ahead, go nuts Are sacha inchi seeds the superfood you’ve never heard of? When they are still on the vine, the seed pods look like a palm-sized hybrid of a starfruit and bell pepper. When dried, these photogenic four-to-six-point stars look like an anise pod’s beefed-up cousin. They originate from the Amazon and are also known as the Inca peanut; they do taste peanutty and slightly sesame. Dense with omega-3 fatty acids, amino acids and protein, they’re a great nutritional source for people who are vegan, but also for, you know, all people in general. However, mention “sacha inchi” at a local natural foods store, and one might get a blank stare.

No worries—the roasted seeds and powder are available online. Sprinkle them on a salad or grain bowl or snack on them plain, and use the powder in soups, smoothies or baked goods—we’re talking super, superfood pancakes and brownies, folks. Go nuts!

—shoKa

IllustratIon by Mark stIvers

Eat. Drink.

Be Merry.

Repeat.

Thank you for voting Kupros! ’18

1217 21st St • 916.440.0401 | www.KuprosCrafthouse .com

award winning dumplings

Toast for the Hulk at heart

PH: (916) 509-9556 7 4 1 9 Laguna B Lv d . # 1 8 0 JourneyToTheDumpling.com

by Jeremy WinsloW

Oblivion Comics & Coffee is sophisticated like a high-end coffee shop and rustic like an indie record store. Across from the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on 11th Street in downtown Sacramento, the shop features all manner of fandom: statues and figures of Marvel’s Captain America, DC’s Batman and even little Funko Pops.

Behind the counter stands a massive comic book-paneled wall. But don’t let the geeky overindulgence fool you. Oblivion is just as much a specialty coffee shop as it is a haven for those who seek to delve into the realms of good vs. evil.

“Coffee was one of those conduits that we wanted to spur conversation to get people to stay a little longer and geek out a little bit more,” said co-owner Neil Estaris.

And while familiar drinks such as cappuccinos, lattes and mochas are available, Oblivion also serves creative beverages such as The Dark Sith (drip coffee with espresso), the Latte of Truth (caramel, white chocolate, steamed milk and espresso) and the Cobblepot (steamed dark and white chocolate and espresso). The last two are finished with a variety of familiar symbols from Wonder

Woman, Batman or the Tri-Force, all dusted with a little help from a stencil and some powdered chocolate.

The shop also keeps up on food trends with its specialty toast menu.

Every Tuesday is “Toast Tuesday” with each slice $1 off. Toast in itself is nothing special. It’s just bread and butter, after all. But Oblivion elevates plain-old toast with spices such as cinnamon, sugar, black and crushed red pepper from The Allspicery.

The Texas-style bread from Grateful Bread Co. is cut in-house and the result is a 1-inch, bulky slice of country French or sourdough bread, toasted, buttered and smothered with a smorgasbord of fixings.

There’s the decadent Winter is Coming (country French blanketed in cream cheese, crushed Oreo cookies and chocolate drizzle, $5); The Oblivion (sourdough layered with cream cheese, blackberry and strawberry preserves, $5); and popular choices such as The Edible Hulk (sourdough covered in avocado, topped with sea salt, black and crushed red pepper, $5.25). Pro tip: Be sure to ask for a fork and a knife. It’ll get messy.

“We recently just started [serving] the Jack-Jack toast. If you’ve seen The

Incredibles, you have Jack-Jack who has all the powers. So that toast is mirrored after an everything bagel ... with cream cheese and the everything seasoning on top,” Estaris said.

A hook left around the countertop reveals the “comics” portion of the shop. But this back area, separated by a small art gallery filled with works by local artists on monthly rotation, has a welcome familiarity to it, creating a small-scale amalgam of both crate-digging and shelfshopping. Here, neatly organized, still-sealed comics, graphic novels and manga for all ages fill the shelves: for kids (Steven Universe), for adolescents (Naruto), for young adults (DC/Marvel) and new comics are released every Wednesday.

Named after the DC Universe’s Oblivion Bar, a tavern located in a pocket dimension that’s treated as a neutral hangout spot for the monstrous and the magical, Oblivion Comics & Coffee succeeds in creating a space “where anyone is welcome, geek or not.” Even if you’re the barbarian who eats messy toast without utensils. Ω Join the squad at oblivion Comics & Coffee for toast tuesdays with $1-off specialty toast all day; 1020 11th street, oblivioncomics.com.

BUY 1 GET 1 1/2 OFF Buy any dinner entree at regular price, get the second for HALF OFF! Must present coupon, cannot combine with other discounts. One per table. Valid Mon-Thu only. Expires 12/19/18.

Happy Hour

Monday–Friday 3–6pm Voted “Best of Sacramento” 3 years in a row!

1315 21st St • Sacramento 916.441.7100

Halal Way or the Highway ning

raps, ∙ Award win ∙ Burgers ,&wm ore fels platters

fala

Open Mon-Sun 11am-9pm 3620 North Freeway Blvd #305, Sacramento l (916) 891-0375 2690 East Bidwell Street #300, Folsom l (916) 817-1184

12.13.18 | SN&R | 23

Now playiNg

5

Meet Me in St. Louis

A tale of two Scrooges

by Sawyer Kemp

If you enjoyed the MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis, you’ll love the Woodland Opera House stage version. The production is crisply directed by Rodger McDonald, beautifully costumed by Denise Miles and topped with a first-rate cast. Fri 7:30pm, Sat 7:30pm,

Sun 2pm. Through 12/16; $7$25; Woodland Opera House, 340 2nd St. in Woodland, (530) 666-9617, woodland operahouse.org. B.S.

5

Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley

Set at Christmas time, two years after the end of Pride and Prejudice, this story brings back the Bennet girls for another round of drama and comedy, leading up to a gala Christmas celebration.

A delight for Austen fans and non-Austen fans alike.

Thu 2pm & 7pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 2pm & 7pm, Tue 2pm & 7pm. Through 12/30; $28-$38; Capital Stage, 2215 J St., (916) 9955464, capstage.org. B.S.

4

Visitors

Visitors by playwright Barney Norris is a heart-aching and heartwarming story of a family coping with dawning dementia. Sharp humor and tragic truths combine with Big Idea Theatre’s unflinching four-person cast, making the production uplifting, sentimental and softly sad. Thu 8pm, Fri 8pm, Sat

8pm. Through 12/15; $12-$18; Big Idea Theatre, 1616 Del Paso Blvd., (916) 960-3036, bigideatheatre.org. P.R.

short reviews by Bev sykes and Patti roberts. see the “on stage” section of the calendar on page 31 for more live performances.

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STC’s Scrooge wallows a little.

A Christmas Carol & A Christmas Carol B street: sat 4pm & 8pm 12/22, sun 4pm & 1pm 12/23, 2pm Mon 12/24, 6:30pm Wed 12/26, 6:30pm thu 12/27. through 12/27; $18-$23; B street theatre, 2700 capitol avenue, (916) 443-5300; bstreettheatre.org. stc: thu 7pm, fri 8pm, sat 2pm & 8pm, sun 2pm, Wed 7pm. through 12/23; $22-$37, sacramento theatre company, 1419 h street, (916) 443-6722; sactheatre.org.

’Tis the season for everyone’s favorite holiday anti-hero, Ebenezer Scrooge, to show us the error of our selfish ways, to delight us with a Victorian Christmas fantasy and to make us wish we actually understood what a figgy pudding was. Sacramento theater patrons have the annual choice of two versions of the classic story: Sacramento Theatre Company’s musical rendition—directed by Michael Jenkinson and Michael Laun—and B Street Theatre’s farcical sequel—written and directed by Buck Busfield.

STC’s production offers a storybook adaptation by Richard Hellesen and David de Berry, drawing most dialogue directly from Dickens’ original text. Matt K. Miller plays a pitch-perfect, miserly Scrooge against a large, energetic ensemble who are double- or triple-cast in the scenes from Christmases past, present and future. The show revels in party and crowd scenes—complete with a beer stein-thumping dance number—that succeed at sweeping up both the audience and Scrooge in their cheerful spirit.

However, viewers who came not for the Fezziwig Ball so much as the thrice-haunted, OG nightmare before Christmas experience will not be disappointed. Choice technical effects bring the spooky-factor to Dickens’ beloved ghost story, and a scene-stealing collaboration between costume designer Jessica Minnihan and actor Melinda Parrett served me the ethereal “Tilda Swinton as powdered-wig Ziggy Stardust Christmas Past” 24 | SN&R | 12.13.18

Photo courtesy of charr crail PhotograPhy

realness that I was, as the kids say, there for. The show offers delightfully ominous visions and powerful, direct audience address to caution us all against letting greed crowd out our hope for a better world.

Some 20 blocks away, B Street Theatre indulges us in our collective right to “Bah! Humbug!” In Busfield’s reimagining, Greg Alexander plays a long-jaded Scrooge trapped in a Groundhog Day-esque yearly cycle, in which every Christmas Eve he experiences a redemptive conversion and falls from grace by January.

The show is part of B Street’s Family Series, and caters to younger audiences with ample fourth-wall busting asides, cartoonish physical violence and bathroom humor, alongside some genuinely funny gags, as when the ghost of Christmas past zooms in, hovering and twirling like Satan’s own Roomba.

In this version, most of the story focuses on Scrooge’s attempts to skip out on his three ghostly visions, even when the ghosts turn to Dickens’ increasingly unflattering “first-draft” visions of Ebenezer’s life. Light on the life lessons but heavy on the pratfalls, this play offers an impressive number of quick changes and preposterous accents from a cast of five who play the dozens of characters that make up this Christmas tale—and a few new ones, to boot.

Hearing the Dickens story again, I was struck by how relevant this 19th-century tale continues to be in a city where homelessness is a major issue year-round, and in a time when many of our modern-day Cratchits still struggle to afford health care. Perhaps what is most telling about these two productions is that even though the B Street production directly spoofs the type of show that STC is running, the classic tale can more than stand up to its satire, making room for both productions in one town. Ω

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Well-DoNe

5 suBliMe– DoN’t Miss

Photo courtesy of Blake flores

Take an abridged, slightly askew look at the season of giving with Blake Flores, Torie Stoicich and Tyler anderson.

Holiday irreverence As the holiday season steamrolls around again, it’s important to get a dose of reality. The Ultimate Christmas Show (Abridged) was written by the folks behind the Reduced Shakespeare Company, Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor. The three-person hijinks follows three churchgoers who, in light of a veritable pageant/variety show catastrophe (none of the acts showed up), are forced to perform the entire cavalcade themselves. If you’ve ever found yourself in a similar situation, you won’t want to miss this commiseration. Show up, and bring a present—because there’s a gift exchange. Now that’s interactive theater. Fri 8pm, Sat 8pm, Sun 4pm, through 12/23. $15; 8215 Auburn Boulevard in Citrus Heights. (916) 509-3445, theatreintheheights.com.

—Maxfield Morris

fiLm CLiPS

All about liege

The Favourite award-winning actress Olivia Colman dares you to look at her in all her royal splendor.

At Eternity’s Gate

3

Boy Erased

The tragic life of Vincent Van Gogh has been realized on film by directors as diverse as Vincente Minnelli and Robert Altman, and there was even a hand-painted animated version of the story released last year. There would not appear to be much meat left on that bone, but if anyone could find new avenues and alleyways in this well-mapped territory, it would be neo-expressionist painter turned biopic director Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). Starring Willem Dafoe as the tortured Dutch artist, At Eternity’s Gate covers Van Gogh’s productive but difficult last year in the south of France. Schnabel tries to give new life to familiar material through a self-conscious naturalism full of hand-held camera shots, long takes and lens flares. Unfortunately, this breath of fresh air eventually turns stale, and the film is ultimately more academic than tactile. Schnabel coaxes a feverishly potent performance out of Dafoe, but who hasn’t? D.B.

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After establishing an acridly humanist aesthetic across several singularly suffocating films, there was some question about whether Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, The Lobster) could make the leap into the cinematic mainstream while also keeping his unique vision and voice intact. He didn’t exactly inspire confidence with last year’s comparatively straightforward The Killing of a Sacred Deer, a film that was sour and cruel without the restless invention and sucker punch satire of his earlier efforts.

All those fears are put to rest by The Favourite, a piquant costume drama about sexually charged power struggles deep within the inner circle of Queen Anne, the monarch of Great Britain in the early 18th century. Lanthimos takes a lean, sharp and witty script by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara about conniving women and weak men and imbues it with his own peculiar and pitiless absurdism.

The result feels like an outrageously opulent cross between Dangerous Liaisons and All About Eve. Of course, none of it works without good performances, and The Favourite features stunning work from Olivia Colman as the mentally and physically frail Queen Anne, as well as rich supporting turns from Rachel Weisz as Lady Sarah Marlborough and Emma Stone as Abigail, the two scheming competitors for her favor. Weisz has been reliably good for a long time, but Colman is a real find (she has primarily worked in British TV, although she appeared as the hotel manager in The Lobster) and Stone is a revelation, doing nuanced and calibrated work rather than an impression of herself.

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by Daniel Barnes & JiM lane

by Daniel Barnes

As the story opens, Lady Sarah is the queen’s companion, purse keeper, puppet master and secret lover, easily manipulating the gout-stricken monarch after decades of harsh devotion and wielding her influence like a weapon against political rivals. Into the household comes Abigail, a distant cousin of Sarah left destitute because of her dead, drunken father’s gambling debts, now pleading for a position as a scullery maid.

In the patriarchal world of The Favourite, the male politicians dress in powdered wigs and makeup, and they act as coarse and craven and silly as they please (you will never look at a naked man getting pelted with pomegranates in the same way again), but conniving cruelty and sexual negotiation are the only ways for women to acquire power. Yet Queen Anne, who abuses underlings like a man and acts without fear of consequence to her power, also emerges as a strangely pitiful figure.

Although tormented by her fellow maids, Abigail proves surprisingly resourceful and manipulative. Inspired by the strength and power of Lady Sarah, she starts manipulating her way into the queen’s good graces, and eventually into her bed. As the stakes grow higher and Sarah starts to fight back, the methods of manipulation become increasingly savage. Like other Lanthimos movies, The Favourite is ultimately about people pushing past the assumed limits of love and morality and toward self-ruin, but the director realizes that vision on his grandest scale yet. Ω

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Ralph Breaks the Internet

When a new Wi-Fi is installed in their arcade, classic video game characters Wreck-It Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) and Princess Vanellope of Sugar Rush (Sarah Silverman) get their first glimpse of the internet—which comes in handy when Vanellope’s game loses a discontinued steering wheel and they turn to eBay to find a replacement before old Mr. Litwak (Ed O’Neill) unplugs the game for good. This sequel has the strengths of the original—nice rapport between Reilly and Silverman; brilliant, visually witty animation (this time portraying the web as a teeming megalopolis); good supporting voice work (Gal Gadot, Jane Lynch, Taraji P. Henson, Alan Tudyk, etc.). But it’s all too clever by half—or rather, by about 20 minutes; its feathery charms are hard put to support nearly two hours’ running time. J.L.

1

Creed II

If there was any hope that after hogging the screen in Ryan Coogler’s 2015 reboot Creed, Sylvester Stallone would cede the spotlight to Michael B. Jordan and company in this tired sequel, it gets dashed quick. We are not two minutes into Creed II before Rocky Balboa begins the first of many long-winded life lesson speeches, and the film never stops obsessing over him. Ironically, most of Creed II deals with Adonis’ concerns that he will never escape the shadow of his famous father, but he’s clearly worried about the wrong person’s shadow. Even the plot of Creed II is recycled from 1985’s Rocky IV, as defeated Russian contender Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) emerges from decades in exile with a vengeance-minded son named Viktor (Florian Munteanu). Whatever you think about Rocky IV, it is inarguably a mid-1980s time capsule. Creed II isn’t a time capsule, but it should get buried. D.B.

4

Maria by Callas

The life of world-famous 20th-century opera singer Maria Callas gets the Amy treatment in this serviceable documentary from director Tom Volf. Rather than rely on “expert” testimonials, Volf goes the in-herown-words route, assembling Maria by Callas from period clips and recordings of Callas, as well as her own letters and telegrams (contemporary opera singer Joyce DiDonato voices Callas, who died in 1977 at the age of 52). Maria by Callas rushes through the American-born, Greek-educated soprano’s early life, largely focusing on the tabloid controversies that dogged Callas at the height of her fame, including her affair with Aristotle Onassis and her public image as a temperamental diva. Nearly two hours long and loaded with performance sequences, Maria by Callas is more for opera diehards, and the most striking revelation here is that once upon a time, people became famous for being the best at something rather than the worst. D.B.

Only another impressive turn from Lucas Hedges elevates this earnest, but slipshod drama above the level of an after-school special. Based on the memoir by Garrard Conley and starring Hedges as Conley, Boy Erased covers the Arkansas teenager’s immersion in gay conversion therapy, while also flashing back to the events that led him to enroll in the sadistic and pointless fundamentalist program. Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman give perfunctory supporting performances as Conley’s religious parents, who initially encouraged him to enter the so-called “ex-gay” program. Scripted and directed by Joel Edgerton (The Gift), who also co-stars as the abusive program leader Victor Sykes (an avatar for the real-life Love in Action director John Smid), Boy Erased is sensitive but distant, with no shortage of hackneyed storytelling devices. There are some powerful moments, but despite Hedges’ nuanced work, we always feel a little emotionally and intellectually removed from the protagonist. D.B.

2

3

Green Book

In 1962, Bronx bouncer Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) takes a job as driver and bodyguard for black pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) as he tours the Jim Crow South.

Take a true story, add a super-smart script (by Tony Lip’s real-life son Nick Vallelonga, with Brian Hayes Currie and director Peter Farrelly), brilliant turns by the two stars, and matching support from Linda Cardellini as Mortensen’s wife, and you get a bullseye crowd-pleaser, one of the feel-good movies of the year. The oddcouple pairing—one cultured, fastidious and circumspect, the other coarse, slovenly and heedless—ripens into mutual respect on common ground by hitting all the expected beats. It might have been painfully predictable, but the central relationship—and the superb actors portraying it—make it a pure pleasure. J.L.

Robin Hood

The legend of Robin Hood gets made over into a mashup of The Hurt Locker in its first half, then morphs into V for Vendetta in its second. The script is by firsttimers Ben Chandler and David James Kelly, and the rotten fruit of their misbegotten labors is moronic and sub-literate. Otto Bathurst directs as if hoping to be the next Guy Ritchie. Meanwhile, the latest actor to embark on the fool’s errand of filling Errol Flynn’s tights is Taron Egerton, who fares no better (indeed, worse) than Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe before him. (The less said about Jamie Foxx and Eve Hewson as this movie’s idea of Little John and Maid Marian, the sooner their careers will recover.)

“Forget history,” says the narration, “Forget what you think you know.” Better advice would be to forget this godawful movie. J.L.

4

Widows

When their husbands are all killed in a robbery gone wrong, three women (Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki) are on the hook for the lost money; their only option is to follow through on the robbery the gang planned to commit next.

A 1980s British miniseries gets reworked by writers Gillian Flynn and Steve McQueen (who also directed) into an all-American story about organized crime and political corruption in Chicago. It’s like Ocean’s 8 for grownups—with all the stylish fun of a good heist movie, but thickened and enhanced by a real-world desperation that makes the caper more than a simple lark. Davis’ powerhouse presence is complemented by Rodriguez and Debicki (in a starmaking turn), plus an equally powerhouse supporting cast: Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall and Bryan Tyree Henry among others. J.L.

excellent

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leigh vaughnn 2018 sammies winner,

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WIN FREE LUNCH ON US! EVERY WEDNESDAY!

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gets into the depths of your head and speaks to something funky in you.

Like an ear infection—but the good kind. Maybe that’s a way to think of the pocket, as a head-bobbing ear infection. from l to r: Joby Morrow, elwood allen, emery Mesich, The group’s russell Brown, Cornelius scott daniels and rod Morgan. undeniable talent Missing from the photo: emmanuel “eJ” Johnson. spans multiple generations. Their ages range from 21 to 66, a fact the group celebrates and attributes to Knox.

“Mark’s the liaison between the younger part of Bap Notes are social scientists—constantly the band and … you guys,” Mesich says. The others conducting experiments, making observations and laugh and fill in the phrase Mesich avoided: “The testing their hypotheses. Figuratively. older part of the band.”

Literally, though, they’re an eight-musician jazzThey welcome the new blood—the talent, the funk hip-hop band—and as an octet, they need to be unique musical phrasing and the energy. in sync. In their own microcosm of the music scene, “He’s a young cat, but he has flavor,” Daniels the Bap Notes are hard-wired into social dynamics, says of Mesich, “And seasoning,” Morrow adds, as noticing when things are grooving and when they’re Daniels continues to sing the praises of Allen, the not. Sometimes the bug is a musician’s inflated ego, band’s young bassist. a lesson on music theory—or in one case, a stage They’re making their band into a finely tuned packed with uninvited musicians at Shady Lady. music machine, and that means perfecting They’ve been percolating into their current new elements. Their latest album Share form since 2015. Each member has a showcases 12 Bap Notes tunes—most distinct case of music in the bones—and “It’s purely instrumental. That may soon there’s an awful lot of bones in eight about coming change, as the group believes that bodies.

Daniels belongs on the mic.

Brace yourself for Bap Notes: out of my shell and “He’s shy for some reason, Rod Morgan, keyboards; Russell opening up around but he can really sing,” Morgan Brown, guitar; Cornelius Scott these guys.” says. “He knows all his harmoDaniels, drums and vocals; nies and everything.”

Mark Knox (styled Marknoxx), Cornelius Scott Daniels Daniels explains why he’s vocals and drums; Emmanuel “EJ” drums and vocals, Bap hesitant to take the spotlight.

Johnson, keys; Ellwood Allen, bass Notes “For me, I’m getting back into guitar; Joby Morrow, trombone; and the rhythm of musical life,” Daniels Emery Mesich, sax and flute. says. “It’s about coming out of my shell and That’s a lot of folks making a lot of opening up around these guys.” sounds—but as the band says, they’ve got the That said, the band isn’t stressing about the addipocket. They are pocket. tion. They treat vocals as just another instrument.

What’s a pocket?

They just want to make music together for a living, “The pocket is a loop, but it also is the feel,” basking in eight spotlights. explains Daniels, sitting with the band in a cold “You think about problems in this whole world garage lined with rows of vinyl records. and everything: Share,” Morgan says. “That’s all “It’s the ability to provide consistency and you’ve gotta do to solve damn near every problem in energy to any particular rhythm, and it’s the this whole world, is share.” Ω thread that allows musicians to know where each other are,” Morrow chimes in, “that tends to get established by the drum and by the bass.”

Check out bap notes at facebook.com/bapnotes.

Whatever the pocket is, the sound of Bap Notes, especially live, is infectious—one that

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gift guide

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Bring a little light (and fun) into any room with the Alessi Girotondo LED Lamp ($120). this small and portable LeD accent lamp — which comes in blue, green, pink or white — has a rechargeable battery and three brightness levels of soft, diffused light. It makes the perfect gift to keep a modern design lover’s nights merry and bright. collect all four at Lumens Sacramento Showroom on K Street.

almonds are a classic California treat, and no one does almonds better than blue diamond! try Blue Diamond’s Winter Medley Holiday Gift Box ($27.95), which includes a variety of chocolate-covered fruit, mints and — of course — chocolate and yogurt-covered almonds!

28 | SN&R | 12.13.18

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gift guide

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Gold RiveR distilleRy 11460 SunriSe Gold CirCle, Suite C, ranCho Cordova | 916-476-3868 www.GoldriverdiStillery.Com Between 1920 and 1933, Sacramento was known as the “wettest city” in the nation. today, Gold river distillery is Sacramento County’s first legal distillery since Prohibition. Pick up a bottle of wheel house absinthe ($55) — it’s already holiday colored! if the green fairy isn’t your thing, try wheel house american dry Gin ($32) for a smooth yet bold experience. these prices are available only at their rancho Cordova tasting room, which is open Fridays, 4 to 7 p.m., Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday 12-4pm.

MANNHEIM: A HUMOROUS AND UNEXPECTED JOURNEY OF SELFDISCOVERY WWW.CRLEVINE.COM For the baby boomer on your gift list, give them “Mannheim: A Humorous and Unexpected Journey of Self-discovery” by Sacramento native and McClatchy High grad. Charles (Chuck) Levine.

(Paperback copies are $13.99 at Time Tested Books, 1114 21st St., Sacramento and on Amazon). This humorous memoir which began as a letter to his children, details his experiences during the Vietnam War after he was shipped to play baseball for the army, while stationed in Mannheim, Germany.

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for the week of December 13

bY maxfield morris

poSt EVENtS oNLINE For FrEE At newsreview.com/sacramento

MUSIC THURSDAY, 12/13 BroAdSIdE: The pop-punk band will be playing with confidence, along with the band With Confidence. It’ll be a night to remember and complain about later. 6pm, $15-$18. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

HoLIdAY popS 2018: The Placer Pops Chorale will be putting on a holiday show. Musicians, special guests and an elevating platform of songs will make this a night that will make your ears thank you, if they do that. 7:30pm, $29.50. Dietrich Theatre, 5000 Rocklin Road in Rocklin.

FrI

TOO SHORT The West Coast rapper

who’s collaborated with countless huge names is coming to Sacramento with Rappin’ 4-Tay, DJ Eddie Z and more.

12/29, 7pm, $29.50-$100, on sale now. Ace of Spades, eventbrite.com.

CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REvISITED Two of the founding members of CCR bring a new word to the acronym.

Single seats only. 12/31, 8pm

& 11:30pm, $94.95, on sale now.

Thunder Valley Casino in Lincoln, ticketmaster.com.

CALIFORNIA RISES Gavin 30

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HoLIdAY popS 2018: The Placer Pops Chorale

indoor pool. If that’s not enough for your discerning kin, there’s also a storytime session with Mrs. Claus, an ornamentmaking lesson with Santa’s elves, some reindeer games for playing and pizza and cocoa for sale. The event is free, but you can donate $2 to the YMCA or a non-perishable food item for the Food Bank. 2021 W Street, ymcasuperiorcal.org/swimwithsanta.

Tickets. Tickets. Tickets. Tickets. Tickets. Tickets. Biscuits.

of California wildfires doesn’t have a set lineup or a place to buy tickets, but when was the last time a governor threw a concert? Can’t miss. 1/6, details unclear. Be on the lookout. Golden 1 Center.

YOUNg DOLPH Born in Chicago and

raised in Memphis, rapper Young Dolph is likely the most successful current artist named Adolph. 1/8, 7pm, $35-$99, on sale now. Ace of Spades, eventbrite.com.

MONSTER JAM Monster

trucks will be revving in the G1C, touring on their latest album.

1/18-1/20, various times, $23-$80, on sale now. Golden 1 Center,

A$AP ROCkY

Give the deets, Gavin. |

12.13.18

is back—there’s a total of four shows at this venue, so there’s no excuse to miss it, unless you don’t like holiday tunes. 7:30pm, $29.50. Dietrich Theatre, 5000 Rocklin Road in Rocklin.

JAMMIN’ Jo’S WINtEr dANCE 2018: Winter is a time for jammin’, so come on down for some holiday music, drinks and appetizers. 7pm, $15-$20. Country Club Lanes, Sky Room, 2600 Watt Ave.

SAVING ABEL: The rock band from the 2000s is still kicking, and though their original lead singer Jared Weeks has moved on, that won’t stop the group from capitalizing on some national notoriety and keeping the tour going. 7pm, $16-$18. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

SATURDAY, 12/15

ticketmaster.com.

Newsom’s benefit concert for victims

FRIDAY, 12/14 from the Hawaiian jammer, touring to support her holiday album All is Bright. 9pm, $35. Harlow’s, 2708 J St.

YMCA CentrAl SACrAMento, 5pM, no Cover

tICKEt WINdoW

his stylings to Sacramento, along with his Grammy nominations and a Grammy award. You’ll forgive him if he doesn’t bring the prize on stage, as that’s a tad gauche. 7:30pm, $35-$65. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

ANuHEA: It’s a reggae kind of Christmas show

Wet Christmas Some of the mystique of Santa Claus comes from his elusive nature. If everything goes according to SportS & outdoorS plan, you’ll never see him. Well, if elusiveness isn’t for your kids, you can have them swim with Santa at this YMCA event. The evening starts off with the obligatory photo shoots, followed immediately by a dip in the heated,

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE YMCA

14

Who wouldn’t want to swim with Saint Nick?

Kurt ELLING: The jazz vocalist will bring

The rapper and member of the

A$AP Mob is a can’t-miss act. 2/1, 8pm, $40-$115, on sale now. Golden 1 Center, ticketmaster.com.

tHE CALIForNIA HoNEYdropS: Bay Area R&Bers are stopping through with some big energy and fun sounds. 9pm, $30. Harlow’s, 2708 J St.

BOB SEgER & THE SILvER BULLET BAND Don’t miss the

CHAMpIoN SouNd: The night was made for

MUSIC HEALS Get some caring music

dIrtY CELLo: Regular cello performances too

ramblin’, gamblin’ man. 2/28, 7:30pm, $75-$120, on sale now. Golden 1 Center, ticketmaster.com.

from Laurie Morvan Band, Tom rigney & Flambeau and more, all benefiting the North Valley Community Foundation and victims of the Camp Fire. 3/13, 7pm, $30-$40, on sale 12/14.Harris Center, harriscenter.net.

“WEIRD AL” YANkOvIC Don’t

miss the most famous music parody maker of our age. 8/11, 8pm, $49.50$79.50, on sale now. Memorial Auditorium, purchase.tickets.com.

reggae, dance-hall and hip-hop music. Well, this night was, anyway, by the promoters for Momo Sacramento. 10pm, no cover in advance-$20. Momo, 2708 J St. tame for your specific stringed tastes?

Give this Bay Area, bluesy band a chance to sweep you off your feet. 7pm, $20. Sofia Tsakopoulos Center for the Arts, 2700 Capitol Ave.

MErrY KrAMpuS!: It’s beginning to look a lot like Krampus, according to the Hideaway.

Come check out performances from Cities You Wish You Were From, Sparks Across Darkness, Shotgun Sawyer and

snr c a le nd a r @ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m

Online listings will be considered for print. Print listings are edited for space and accuracy. Deadline for print listings is 5 p.m. Wednesday. Deadline for NightLife listings is midnight Sunday.

Send photos and reference materials to calendar editor Maxfield Morris at snrcalendar@newsreview.com.

Vinnie Guidera & the Dead Birds. 9pm, $5. Hideaway Bar & Grill, 2565 Franklin Blvd.

NIGHt oF tHE BLuE SWAN IV: The record label founded by Will Swan of Dance Gavin Dance fame is bringing you this night of music, featuring the Fall of Troy, Hail the Sun, Royal Coda, Icarus the Owl, Wolf and Bear and Adventurer. 7pm, $17-$25. Ace Of Spades, 1417 R St.

trAVIS SCott: The rapper known as Scott is performing the songs from his album Astroworld. Tripie Redd is also going to be there, as will Gunna and Shecka Wes. 7:30pm, $26.39. Golden 1 Center, 500 David J. Stern Walk.

WHEN doVES CrY: Nine musicians come together united under one flag—a purple one. Get a taste of Prince from this tribute band formed in 2015. 9pm, $12-$17. Opera House Saloon Roseville, 411 Lincoln St. in Roseville.

SUNDAY, 12/16 AFtoN prESENtS: Come see what Afton’s going to show off—it’s acts by Zahirah, 40CalMori, JDK Daundaboss, Big Rob & Da Squad, Kurtis Ozra, RobySounds, Tstylin, Chris Kash and many, many more. 6pm, $12. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

HoLIdAY BANd CoNCErt: The Sacramento Concert Band heard about the holidays and had to get in on the musical performance scene. The usual classics are on the playlist, so show up if you the previous words intrigued you. 2:30pm, no cover. Rio Americano High School Center for the Arts, 4540 American River Drive.

torCH CLuB HoLIdAY pArtY: The Torch Club is getting into the holiday spirit with a party. There will be some special guests throughout the day, You Front the Band will be playing, and the event is also collecting items for children affected by the Camp Fire, including toys, backpacks and gift cards. 5pm, call for cover. Torch Club, 904 15th St.

uNSILENt NIGHt SACrAMENto EdItIoN: See the event highlight for this musical collaboration event on page 32. 6pm, no cover. Fremont Park, 15th & Q Streets.

TUESDAY, 12/18 tHE MANHAttAN trANSFEr: The Manhattan Transfer is a jazz vocal group. The members have accolades by the dozen and vocal cords by the twos. Check them out during their stop in town. 7:30pm, $39-$69. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

WEDNESDAY, 12/19 BourBoN & BLuES: The Steve Freund Trio is playing the weekly Bourbon & Blues event that pairs blues music with bourbon, if you want. 6:30pm, $8. Momo, 2708 J St.

SLAVES: The Sacramento hardcore band is playing an all-acoustic show with Dayseeker, Sunsleeper and Nerv. 6:30pm, $15-$18. Holy Diver, 1517 21st St.

MONDAY, 12/17

WWE Raw Golden 1 Center, 4:45pm, $20-$115

Nothing says Christmas quite like buff people fighting other buff people. The Shield will go up against Braun SPORTS & OUTDOORS Strowman, Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre. Ronda Rousey and Bobby Lashley will fight. Something about the whole evening, all the fighting, gets me choked up. Well, whichever religion or lack thereof you hold dear, one thing we can all agree on is that some over-the-top violence is just what the doctor ordered this time of year. 500 David J. Stern Walk, golden1center.com.

COMEDY BRICKYARD KITCHEN AND BAR: Homegrown Comedy Presents The Smash Brothers. Cory and Chad are the Smash Brothers, two identical twins who put on quite an act. Through 12/15. $12. 1474 Eureka Road, Suite 120 in Roseville.

LAUGHS UNLIMITED COMEDY CLUB: Hella-larious

PhOTO BY PEDRO GAYTAN, CC BY 2.0

FESTIVALS FRIDAY, 12/14 SACRAMENTO GLOBAL WINTER WONDERLAND: Do you like lights? Global Winter Wonderland has you covered, as lights are some of the primary features of the festival. Show up for the lanterns, the food, the gifts and rides. It’s the fifth year of the show. Come enjoy 17 acres of the holidays. 5pm, $17$32. Cal Expo, 1600 Exposition Blvd.

SATURDAY, 12/15 SECOND ANNUAL BAD SANTA PARTY: Do you like your Santas the way you like your 1980s Michael Jackson albums—thrilling? Well, this event featuring a bad Santa will certainly thrill. The man in red will lead this sort of twisted take on the classic holiday party, with activities like a charity spanking booth, an ugly sweater contest and more. 11am, $18. Yolo Brewing Company, 1520 Terminal Street in West Sacramento.

CHRISTMAS IN OAK PARK: This two-part event begins at Underground Books at 11 a.m. and moves to the Guild Theater at 1 p.m. The first part features a Christmas storytime, a photo opportunity with Black Santa, arts and crafts. At the theater, you’ll eat some classic holiday snacks and watch a Christmas movie. It’s a free, fun time for everyone. 11am, no cover. Underground Books, 2814 35th St.

COLLEGE CYCLERY RENOVATION CELEBRATION: Sacramento’s own octogenarian bicycle repair shop has received a facelift, and they’re celebrating. There will be exhibits, prizes, a raffle, food trucks, libations and more fun. 5pm, no cover. College Cyclery, 2760 21st St.

EDHFD SANTA RUN FINALE: Santa will make his way through El Dorado Hills with his entire coterie of Christmas companions. Show up for some fireworks, some cookies and the hottest hot chocolate this side of the Mississippi. 6pm, no cover. El Dorado Hills Town Center, 4364 Town Center Blvd. in El Dorado Hills.

FREE PICTURES WITH SANTA: Is there a more traditional way to get your holiday card photo than hopping on a HarleyDavidson motorcycle while Santa stands by approvingly? I hardly think so, so bring a camera, stop by and get your body onto a brand new motorcycle for a photo opportunity. Noon, no cover. Harley Davidson of Sacramento, 1000 Arden Way.

MAKERS MARKET: The Sacramento Co-Op isn’t just for providing a valuable food service to the community—it’s also the host of Makers Mart this year, inviting more than a quarter of 100 makers and vendors to display and sell their gifts. There will be drinks and snacks for sale and a community

spirit that isn’t for sale—it’s free. 10am, no cover. Sacramento Natural Foods Co-Op, 2820 R St.

SUNDAY, 12/16 CHANDO’S TACOS CHRISTMAS PARTY: Get down to the Chando’s Christmas party, featuring Santa, dollar tacos, live music, prizes and more. 3pm, no cover. Chando’s Tacos, 5665 Power Inn Road.

FILM FRIDAY, 12/14 THE PRINCESS BRIDE: Relive the magic of the Rob Reiner movie from the story by William Goldman, who recently died. 7pm, $8. Auburn State Theatre, 985 Lincoln Way Suite 204 in Auburn.

SATURDAY, 12/15

FOOD & DRINK SATURDAY, 12/15 PERIDOT 2ND POP-UP DINNER: Peridot chef Russell Middleton is preparing an eightcourse meal for you, as long as you’re one of the people who buys a ticket to this pop-up event. And remember, as they should probably start saying: “Come for the first course, stay for the second through eighth courses.” 7pm, $75. Sierra 2 Center, 2791 24th St.

SUNDAY, 12/16 BRUNCH EGGS BENEDICT & MIMOSAS: Get your brunch on. This Sunday, Strapping Store is changing the pace, going from a unique boutique to an even more unique boutique, bringing you eggs Benedict from Oakhaus and mimosas from Beers in Sac. Bring the kids, bring your best friend from high school, because it’s brunch time. 10am, no cover. Strapping Store, 3405 Broadway.

MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET: Who is that Kris Kringle filling in for Santa Claus? This Christmas classic tirelessly seeks the answer to that question. 7pm, $7.50$9.50. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

SUNDAY, 12/16 THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL: Do you like Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol? Come see it get Muppeted, with Michael Caine, Kermit and the rest of the Muppets. Wait, is Michael Caine a Muppet? No … surely not. 4pm, $7.50-$9.50. Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

THE BREAKING POINT: Get the classic Hemingway novel To Have and Have Not. It stars John Garfield and Patricia Neal and is a noir work of crime. 12:30pm, no cover. Central Library 828 I St.

with Dane Madden! Is it a good sign when the name of the evening feels the need to tell you that it’s “hella-larious”? Let Dane Madden be the answer to that question at this night featuring David Reyes, Chadd Beals, Cesar Calix, William Eiland, Paul Green, Jeff Robinson, Elisa McGuff and Carlos Rodriguez. Thursday 12/13, 8pm. $15. Vince Morris. Morris is joined by Saul Trujillo and Josh Means. Through 12/15. $20. 6th Annual Military Moms on a Mission Comedy Night. Morris, Trujillo and Means from the previous entry make a comeback at this show that benefits Sacramento nonprofit Blue Star Moms. Sunday 12/16, 5pm. $20. 1207 Front St.

COMEDYSPORTz SACRAMENTO: Dual Duel 3.

The improvisation continues at a furious clip, wrapping up this month-long tournament with one night of improv greatness.

See the best that this tournament had to offer. Friday 12/14, 10pm. $8. 2230 Arden Way.

TOMMY T’S COMEDY CLUB: Darren Carter.

Carter, the comedian with a heart, has been featured on a number of shows and is apparently well-known for his take on Snoop Dogg. Through 12/16. $20-$30. 12401 Folsom Blvd. in Rancho Cordova.

ON STAGE B STREET THEATRE: Halftime With Don. Get the B Street experience, this time taking on the story of Don Devers. The former linebacker ends up sharing his story with a sports writer and there’s a whole bunch of heartwarming that goes on. Through 12/30. $33-$37. 2700 Capitol Ave.

BEAR RIVER COMMUNITY THEATER: Home for the Holidays. Bear River High School shares an evening of student performances, and donations will go toward Camp Fire

CRAFTS + DRAFTS HOLIDAY AT DRAKES: You like holiday shopping fairs? Of course you do. Meet some people selling some things they made and purchase some of those things. Come out for 50 different local creators, pizza, drinks and more. 6pm, no cover. Drake’s: the Barn, 985 Riverfront St.

TRACK SEVEN’S 7TH ANNIVERSARY BEER DINNER: Track Seven is turning seven, which is a very special milestone. Three courses of dinner, care of chef Noah Mansfield, will be paired with six different beers. The evening will include a jaunt down memory lane with fan favorites and will end with a souvenir glass given to each and every guest. 6pm, $45-$60. The Other Side by Track 7 Brewing Company, 5090 Folsom Blvd.

MONDAY, 12/17 DINNER WITH SANTA CLAUS: Sure, you could have dinner with a close acquaintance or a family member you haven’t seen in a while—or you could have some food with a stranger in a costume. I know what I’d do, and it rhymes with “meet with Fanta.” The food is pizza. 5pm, no cover. Hop Gardens Taproom, 2904 Franklin Blvd.

victims. Tuesday 12/18, 7pm. $5. 11130 Magnolia Road in Grass Valley.

BIG IDEA THEATRE: Visitors. It’s your last chance to visit this production about aging and the impermanence of life. Through 12/15. $12-$22. 1616 Del Paso Blvd.

CAPITAL STAGE: Miss Bennet Christmas at Pemberley. Christmas only comes once a year, as does this production—an imagined sequel to Jane Austen’s ephemeral work.

See what fate befalls Mary Bennet in this production our reviewer rated five William Shakespeares out of five! Through 12/30. $25$42. 2215 J St.

CELEBRATION ARTS: Black Nativity. “Black Nativity” is a gospel song play about the birth of Jesus written by Langston Hughes. Through 12/21. $20. 4469 D St.

ICELAND ICE SKATING RINK: Iceland Holiday Magic Ice Show. See some ice performances set to holiday tunes, drink some cocoa beverages and even skate with Santa once the show is over. It’s the can’t-miss event of the Iceland holiday season! 7pm. Through 12/16. $10-$15. 1430 Del Paso Blvd.

K STREET BETWEEN FRONT AND 2ND STREET: Theatre of Lights Performances. Take to the streets in Old Sacramento for an outrageous and fun telling of a Christmas classic poem.

Entertainment will rain down on you from the balconies of the old town, so come out and join in the festivities. Through 12/23. No cover. K St.

MCLAUGHLIN STUDIO THEATRE: MTC’s Holiday Cabaret 2018. This show features some of the most classic holiday tunes you could wish for, with a live orchestra and performances by dance students. Through 12/16. No cover-$15. 3470 Swetzer Road in Loomis.

SACRAMENTO THEATRE: A Christmas Carol.

Ebenezer Scrooge is at it again, plagued by spirits and intent on miserly behavior. Check out the original “Extreme Makeover” of this holiday hum-bugger. Through 12/24. $30$40. 1419 H St.

THE COMMUNITY CENTER THEATER: The Nutcracker. This classic story took a twist this year, with new creative direction from Amy Seiwert. The main character’s name is

CALENDAR LISTINGS CONTINUED ON PAGE 32

ThURSDAY, 12/13

Last-Minute Herbal Gifts for the Holidays Yisrael FamilY Urban Farm, 5pm, $20

You’re running out of time. Every minute of every day is working against you, making it harder and harder for you to find the gifts you need. Well, that’s fine, because this session of gift-making will solve your problems! You’ll CLASSES make a body scrub, body oil and sachets of herbs that you can give as a gift (or keep for yourself). Maria Schiffler of Sapphire Herbal Boutique will run the class. Come out and make a unique gift. 4505 Roosevelt Avenue, yisraelfamilyfarm.net.

PhOTO COURTESY OF MARKUS SPISKE

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SEE morE EvENtS aNd SUbmit yoUr owN at newSreview.com/Sacramento/calendar

tueSday, 12/18

SPortS & outdoorS tHurSday, 12/13

africanamerican Pioneers columbus Hall 953, 7Pm, $5

maGiCal CHriStmaS traiN: You could be simply having a magical Christmas train if you’ve got the spare capital. Hop aboard as the locomotive leaves the station and takes you places along the river, all with a Christmas theme. 6:30pm, $39-$54. Sacramento RiverTrain, 400 N. Harbor Blvd. in West Sacramento.

Eric Bradner shares the PHoto courteSy oF uc Berkeley, BancroFt liBrary stories of African-American pioneers. He’ll explore some of the families that made the Sacramento area their home amid the turmoil of California’s entrance into the Union.

In a time when slavery was permitted throughout ClaSSES most of the country and bigotry was alive and well, these people made their mark on the region. Come learn their stories with the Sacramento Historical Society. 5961 Newman Court, sachistoricalsociety.org.

Friday, 12/14 midNiGHt yoGa: This yoga runs from 9 p.m. until midnight, and it’s free. Also, there will be herbal teas for your enjoyment and edification. 9pm, no cover. Classy Hippie Tea Co., 3226 Broadway.

SaCramENto KiNGS vS. GoldEN StatE warriorS: The Kings face off against the Golden State Warriors—try not to miss it. 7pm, $73$300. Golden 1 Center, 500 David J. Stern Walk.

Saturday, 12/15 Holiday oN tHE StEPS: Take to the state CalENdar liStiNGS CoNtiNUEd From PaGE 31 different, but the music’s the same! Come out and enjoy the ballet. through 12/23. $25$100. 1301 L St.

tHE GUild tHEatEr: 6th Annual La Pastorela de Sacramento. Four performances of this pastoral musical featuring local artists are coming to the Guild Theater. through 12/16. $5-$15. 2828 35th St.

tHEatrE iN tHE HEiGHtS: The Ultimate Christmas Show (abridged). Some of the best holiday traditions are the selfreferential ones, and this show featuring three church members forced to spontaneously put on a holiday show promises to be self-referential. See what silly, zany antics are going on at St. Everybody’s—because if there’s anything the holidays need more of, it’s antics. Bring a gift to participate in a gift exchange, if it suits you. through 12/22. $15. 8215 Auburn Blvd., Suite G in Citrus Heights.

wESt SaCramENto CommUNity CENtEr blaCK boX tHEatrE: Moby Dick, the Panto. Call him Ishmael, if you’re inclined—if you’re not, come see this production with puppets. There’s music, zaniness, wackiness and more. Also, there’s candy. Join in the lighthearted look at the story of Captain Ahab and the white whale. through 12/23. $5-$15. 1075 W. Capitol Ave in West Sacramento.

wilKErSoN tHEatrE iNSidE tHE CaliForNia StaGE ComPlEX: Enfrascada. Teatro Espejo presents a work by Tanya Saracho with an all-female cast. It’s about romance, about magic and about love. through 12/22. $18$23. 1725 25th St.

woodlaNd oPEra HoUSE: Meet Me In St. Louis.

Summarizing this musical is a hard thing to do every week—but join in the merriment of one family as they prepare to go to the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. through 12/16. $67$128. 340 Second St. in Woodland.

art broad room: Girls Night Out Gallery Show.

Sacramento women makers bring you a

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doctor-recommended levels of gliding. 7pm, $10-$15. Folsom Railroad Turntable, Leidesdorff Street in Folsom.

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12.13.18

show of art from local ladies. This free event features creations as well as free cocktails from Burly Beverages. 7pm. through 12/14. No cover. 2311 S St., Suite 3.

dowNtowN daviS: 2nd Friday Art About. Davis is a town full of art—take in some of that art displayed by various establishments for free. On an average night, some 30-odd venues open their doors for a night of art and conversation. Friday 12/14, 5pm. No cover. E Street Plaza in Davis.

PENCE GallEry: Fabrications by fiber/ DIMENSIONS. A number of different mediums come together for one wild exhibition, care of more than 30 artists. through 1/31. No cover. 212 D St. in Davis.

PENCE GallEry: Holiday Market. The market for holiday goods continues daily, so hop down and get your mitts on some simply gorgeous ornaments for your tree, hearth or home. through 12/24. No cover. 212 D St in Davis.

Sol CollECtivE: Pedacitos. Crystal Galindo’s exhibition opened on Nov. 29 and runs through Jan. 7, so come meet the artist behind the art at this reception. The exhibition follows the evolution of Galindo’s work over time, and focuses on representation for womxn and femmes of color. Saturday 12/15, 6pm. No cover. 2574 21st St.

all aGeS FairytalE towN: Winter Wonderland. Santa will be coming to town—Fairytale Town, that is. You can meet him starting at 3 p.m.—but there will be so much more than just that red fellow. A giant, walk-in snow globe.

Charlie Brown-themed activities. Snowfall at 7 p.m. Don’t miss this veritable wonderland of snow. Saturday 12/15 & Sunday 12/16, 1pm. $7. 3901 Land Park Drive.

NortH SaCramENto-HaGGiNwood library: Read to a Dog. Get your child the hands-on reading experience that employers are looking for by having them read to a dog.

Daphne will sit, stay and be a somewhat active listener as your child practices their literacy. 2pm. through 12/15. No cover. 2109 Del Paso Blvd.

Capitol and watch some dancers bring bachata, salsa and more to the home of California legislation. 5pm, no cover. State Capitol, 1303 10th St.

monday, 12/17 wwE raw: The wrestling experience you don’t want to miss is coming to a Golden 1 Center near you—the only one. See the event highlight on page 31, and see wrestling on Monday, Monday, Monday! 4:45pm, $20$115. Golden 1 Center, 500 David J. Stern Walk.

take action tHurSday, 12/13 CommUNity GiFt trEE: Get your gifting on by sharing some holiday cheer. The El Dorado County Office of Education Child Development Program and Choices for Children are working together to give those less fortunate a merry season of giving. Give some toys or some money to give the gift of a great season. 7am, no cover. Choices for Children, 3161 Cameron Park Drive in Cameron Park.

Friday, 12/14 ClEaNEr air PartNErSHiP QUartErly lUNCHEoN: Talk to local leaders about air quality in Sacramento and what’s being done to improve it. See what advocacy is going on, what issues are going concerns and what you can do to make a difference. 11:30am, no cover. Sacramento Association of Realtors, 2003 Howe Ave.

Saturday, 12/15 HoUSEwarmiNG For tHE HomElESS: This winter donation drive, hosted by Sacramento SelfHelp Housing, brings those necessities that are most needed to the people experiencing homelessness in the area. Volunteers will be waiting at the main gate of Cal Expo to collect linens, small appliances and kitchenware to distribute to recently displaced individuals. 8am, no cover. Cal Expo, 1600 Exposition Blvd.

tueSday, 12/18

claSSeS

Holiday liGHtS rUN CrEw witH brooKS: Take to the streets of Sacramento and see what fine holiday lights folks in the Fab 40s have adorned their homes with. It’s a few miles of running for all skill levels and ages. 6pm, no cover. Fleet Feet, 2311 J St.

iCE SKatiNG: There’s a new ice skating rink in town—well, new for the season, anyway.

Come skate in a donut-shaped rink for the holidays. It’s a fun way to get in your

tHurSday, 12/13 Holiday CooKiES aNd trEatS worKSHoP: Are you one of those klutzes that just can’t seem to make things work in the kitchen?

Well, fret not! We’ve all been there. Now, all there is to it is to go to this workshop, and you’ll pick up the tricks of the trade

for sugar cookies, almond biscotti, hot chocolate and white chocolate peppermint bark. Jill Simmons leads this very special holiday workshop. 6pm, $33. Community Learning Center & Cooking School, 2820 R St.

laSt-miNUtE HErbal GiFtS For tHE HolidayS: Are you having a hard time finding the gifts you need for people? Come to this lastminute giftmaking class, featured on page 31. 5pm, $20. Yisrael Family Urban Farm, 4505 Roosevelt Ave.

Saturday, 12/15 NUNo FEltEd SCarF ClaSS: This class walks you through how to felt a scarf. It’s the crafting craze that swept Australia and then began sweeping America. Let this broom take you away into the wide, wide world of felting. It’s a four-hour engagement, and no experience is necessary. 11am, $90. The Tin Thimble, 3750 Taylor Road in Loomis.

Sunday, 12/16 tHE UGliESt SwEatEr diNNEr & PaiNt: Pull on your ugliest sweater, put on your dirtiest gumbo bib and get ready to paint. There’s live poetry, a sweater contest, painting and more. 5pm, $50. 1900 28th St., 1900 28th St.

tueSday, 12/18 aFriCaN-amEriCaN PioNEErS: Learn about the African-American people who lived in the Sacramento area during California’s early statehood, featured on the upper left of this page. 7pm, $5. Columbus Hall 953, 5961 Newman Court.

art & NatUrE SEriES SESSioN ii: This class for ages 8-12 will bring the young artists to a park to find subjects to bring to life in two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms. 3:30pm, $90-$95. Blue Line Arts, 405 Vernon St. #100 in Roseville.

oPEN UrbaN Farm dayS: Come to the farm in the city for a bit of heartening, characterbuilding farm work. You’ll spend some time in the great out-of-doors volunteering for however much time you want to. You’ll get some new experiences and meet some likeminded people that enjoy farming. 10am, no cover. The Yisrael Family Urban Farm, 4505 Roosevelt Ave.

Sunday, 12/16

Unsilent Night: Sacramento Edition Fremont Park, 6Pm, no cover

It’s time to make some holiday noise. This Sunday, bring your biggest boombox and get ready to make some sounds.

FEStivalS This sonic art project, originated by composer Phil Kline in 1992, doles out four different 45-minute musical tracks for individuals to project simultaneously, creating a shifting “sound sculpture.” You’ll take the sculpture on the road, marching through Sacramento and sharing in the sounds of the season. Download the music in advance and get ready to flood the streets with melody. 15th and Q Streets, sacramento.unsilentnight.com.

PHoto courteSy oF unSilent niGHt: Sacramento

submit your calendar listings for free at newsreview.com/sacramento/calendar THURSDAY 12/13 ArmAdillo music

2003 k ST., (916) 448-8790

Poprockz 90s Night, 7pm, call for cover

BAr 101

All Stars 4 Premiere Party with Gia Gunn, Spectacular Saturdays, 7pm, call for 8pm, $10-$20 cover

CLUB Klymax, 7pm, $20-$35

AntikytherA, Saint Apostate and more, 8pm, T, $10

cApitol GArAGe

Capitol Fridays, 10pm, no cover before 10:30pm

Dinner and a Drag Show, 7:30pm, $5-$25

crest theAtre

Art Institute of California Graduation, 5:30pm, no cover

1013 k ST., (916) 476-3356

Kurt Elling, 7:30pm, $35-$65

elk’s tower BAllroom FAces

2000 k ST., (916) 448-7798

Faces Karaoke, 9pm, call for cover

FAther pAddY’s irish puBlic house 435 MAIN ST., WOODlAND, (530) 668-1044

Fox & Goose

1001 R ST., (916) 443-8825

hArlow’s

2708 J ST., (916) 441-4693

Steve McLane and Laurali’s Christmas Party, 8pm, no cover

Nickle Slots, 8pm, call for cover

The Attendees Single Release Party and the Dialers, 9pm, $5

The O’Mally Sisters: Kally & Ally, 9pm, $5

Open-Mic Night, 7:30pm, M, no cover

Travis Scott, 7:30pm, $79-$300

WWE Monday Night RAW, 4:45pm, M, $20-$300

College Night, 10pm, call for cover

Hit Parade, 9pm, $7

Let’s Get Quizzical, 7pm, T, no cover; Cornhole, 6pm, W, no cover

Merry Krampus w/ Cities You Wish You Were From and more, 9pm, $7

Shitshow Karaoke, 8pm, M, no cover; Twisted Trivia, 8pm, W, no cover

Vagabond Brothers, 9pm, call for cover

Dave East, Shooter, D. Jones, Errol Vibes Anuhea, Justin Young and Alex Sparrow, and DJ Awall, 7:30pm, $25-$30 9pm, $35

2565 FRANklIN blvD., (916) 455-1331

hiGhwAter

with Shotgun Sawyer 9pm Saturday, $7 Hideaway Bar & Grill Rock

1517 21ST ST.

Broadside, With Confidence, Sleep On It and Small Talks, 6pm, $15-$18

kupros

Will Comstock, 8pm, no cover

lunA’s cAFe & Juice BAr 1414 16TH ST., (916) 737-5770

The Trivia Factory, 7pm, M, no cover; Geeks Who Drink, 6pm, T, no cover

No Chill, 10pm, no cover

1910 Q ST., (916) 706-2465

1217 21ST ST., (916) 440-0401

Every Damn Monday, 8pm, M, no cover; Noche Latina, 9pm, T, no cover

High Card Drifters, 8pm, call for cover

hideAwAY BAr & Grill

holY diVer

Funday Frolic, 3pm, call for cover

Sequin Saturday, 9:30pm, call for cover

500 DAvID J STERN WAlk, (888) 915-4647 5681 lONETREE blvD., ROcklIN, (916) 626-3600

The Manhattan Transfer, 7:30pm, T, $39-$69

Absolut Fridays, 9pm, call for cover

Golden 1 center

hAlFtime BAr & Grill

Miracle on 34th Street, 7pm, $7.50-$9.50

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

Muppet Christmas Carol, 4pm, $7.50$9.50

Son of Hepcats Holla’Day with Peter Petty, 8pm, $25-$35

921 11TH ST.,

cities you wish you were from

Karaoke Night, 9pm, T, call for cover; Trapicana, 10pm, W, call for cover

Butte County Fire Benefit w/ Dead Man Taxed and more, 5pm, $15-$20

Holly Le Babe, Bridal Party, Cugino and Mediocre Cafe, 8pm, $10

1500 k ST., (916) 444-3633

PHOTO cOURTESY OF PHIl PEREz

B.P.M. & Sunday Funday Remixed, 4pm, call for cover

Pint Night and Trivia, 6:30pm, M, no cover; Open-Mic, 7:30pm, W, no cover

1400 AlHAMbRA blvD., (916) 455-3400

with Trippie Redd and more 7:30pm Saturday, $79-$300 Golden 1 Center Hip-hop

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 12/17-19

Bongo Furys, 9:30pm, no cover

Blue lAmp

travis scott

SUNDAY 12/16

Dylan Crawford, 9:30pm, no cover

101 MAIN ST., ROSEvIllE, (916) 774-0505

PHOTO cOURTESY OF EUROFAN88

SATURDAY 12/15

The Cousins, 6:30pm, no cover

207 F ST., DAvIS, (530) 758-8058

BAdlAnds

FRIDAY 12/14

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

Saving Abel, Black Oxygen, RepresA and more, 6:30pm, $16-$18

Adelitas Way, Fallout Kings, Sindria and Never 4 Naught, 6:30pm, $14-$16

Seaway, Trophy Eyes, Hot Mulligan, Can’t Swim and Microwave, 6pm, M, $17-$20

Zahirah, 6pm, $12

Kupros Quiz, 7:30pm, no cover Cloud Hats, Fontaine Classic and Red White Elephant, 8pm, $7

Elk Grove Writers & Artists Literary Reading, 6pm, call for cover

Jazz Jam with Byron Colborn, 8pm, W, $5

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The hideaway Voted best dance club in Sacramento

by KCRA A LIST 2016-17-18

Fri dec 14th

Bar & Grill

Upcoming events:

James Harkins and Stoneys Christmas bash!

Merry KraMpus w/ Cities you wish you were FroM, shotgun sawyer, Vinnie guidera & the dead Birds, sparKs aCross darKness

Fri dec 21st

Saturday december 15 8Pm, 21+

Brian From Flat Busted

Fri dec 15th

James Harkins

twisted triVia wedneSday 8Pm, free

12th annual new Years eVe Bash ONLY $10 BuCKS BeFORe 10pm

new saturday happy hour

$15 after • $1 draft & $3 Jack daniels 8-9pm • Free late night breakfast open til 3am • VIp tickets available North Forty live music in front bar Country dancing in back!

free jukebox, $3 kamikaziS, $5 Sandwich+chiPS+olymPia combo, $3 fire Pocket ShotS SaturdayS noon-4Pm

1320 del paso BlVd in old north sac

2565 Franklin Blvd

2 STepS FROm dOwNTOwN | 916.402.2407 STONeYINN.COm FOR NIgHTLY dRINK SpeCIALS & eVeNTS

916.455.1331 12.13.18

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submit your calendar listings for free at newsreview.com/sacramento/calendar THURSDAY 12/13 momo sacramento 2708 J ST., (916) 441-4693

ONOFF and Stellar: A Tribute to Incubus, 8pm, $8-$10

old IronsIdes

Turnbuckle Blues Review, 8pm, $5

1901 10TH ST., (916) 442-3504

on tHe Y

670 FUlTON AvE., (916) 487-3731

Open-Mic Comedy/Karaoke, 8pm, no cover

Palms PlaYHouse

Jeremy Clyde, 7:30pm, $18-$22

13 MAIN ST., WINTERS, (530) 795-1825

PlacervIlle PublIc House

414 MAIN ST., PlAcERvIllE, (530) 303-3792

PHOTO cOURTESY OF DEF JAM

dave east

PowerHouse Pub

Christmas Acoustic, 9:45pm, call for cover

tHe Press club

Blitzed with DJ Lady Grey and DJ Dada, 9pm, no cover

614 SUTTER ST., FOlSOM, (916) 355-8586 2030 P ST., (916) 444-7914

FRIDAY 12/14

SATURDAY 12/15

Sweet Leaf & Steve Smyth, Judas Rising and Banger, 8pm, $10 DonGato Latin Band, 8pm, $14-$18

Christmas Jug Band, 7pm, $16-$20

Jazz Gitan, 8pm, call for cover

The Blue Lights, 8pm, call for cover

Out of the Blue, 1pm, call for cover

Skid Roses, 10pm, call for cover

Ugly Sweater, 9pm, call for cover; Fresh Makers, 10pm, call for cover

Max Cabello, 3pm, call for cover

Karaoke, 8:30pm, T, call for cover; 98 Rock Local Licks, 9pm, W, call for cover

Pop 40 Dance with DJ Larry, 9pm, $5

Sunday Night Dance Party, 9pm, no cover

Reggae Night, 9pm, T, no cover

Red Museum presents: Reindeer Games Director’s Cut, 8pm, no cover

sactown unIon brewerY

Yoga with Mo, 10:30am, no cover Julie & the Jukes, 9pm, no cover

1409 R ST., (916) 231-9121

socIal nIgHtclub

1000 K ST., (916) 947-0434

stoneY’s rockIn rodeo

World Tour Beats, 9pm, no cover

Current Personae, 9pm, no cover

DJ Ishh, 10pm, no cover before 11pm

Winter Break with Pete Alexander, 10pm, no cover before 10:30pm

Brian from Flat Busted, call for time, $5-$10

Stoney’s Christmas Bash, call for time, no cover with toy donation, $5

tHe torcH club

MIchael Ray Trio B-day Bash, 9pm, $6

Stevie Redstone, 9pm, $10

10 Foot Tiger and Night Animals, 9pm, $10 You Front the Band, 8pm, no cover

Jazz Jam with Ice Age Jazz Quartet, 8pm, T, call for cover

Yolo Brew and Paint Nite, 12pm, call for cover

Trivia with Geeks Who Drink, 6pm, T, no cover

Pamela Hayes Classical Ballet Theatre presents The Nutcracker, 5pm, $18-$36

Holiday Celebration with High Voltage, 7pm, T, $21-$36

2nd Annual Bad Santa Party, 11am, $20

1520 TERMINAl ST., (916) 379-7585

1417 R ST., (916) 930-0220

HarrIs center

10 cOllEgE PKWY IN FOlSOM, (916) 608-6888

Pamela Hayes Classical Ballet Theatre presents The Nutcracker, 7pm, $18-$36

Pamela Hayes Classical Ballet Theatre presents The Nutcracker, 7pm, $18-$36

Pamela Hayes Classical Ballet Theatre presents The Nutcracker, 5pm, $18-$36

sHIne

The Shine Jazz Jam, 8pm, no cover

Alex Jenkins Quartet with Charles Mullinaux, 8pm, $10

Tenor Explosion and the Zach Teran Group, 8pm, $10

Pre-sale tickets at faces.net

Buffet • Balloon Drop • 5K in prizes Giveaways • Guest DJ’s

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College Wednesdays, 8pm, W, no cover before 9pm, $10

The Fall of Troy, Hail the Sun, Royal Coda and more, 5pm, $17-$25

New Year’s Eve Party

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Sunday Funday, 8pm, no cover

all ages, all the time ace of sPades

1400 E ST., (916) 551-1400

34

Alex Jenkins, 9pm, no cover

Country Thunder Thursdays, 9pm, no cover

Yolo brewIng co.

Kurt elling

Open-Mic, 7pm, M, no cover; Empire Vault Game Night, 6pm, W, no cover

1320 DEl PASO BlvD., (916) 927-6023 904 15TH ST., (916) 443-2797

7:30pm Thursday, $35-$55 Crest Theatre Jazz

Tuesday Night Karaoke, 9pm, T, no cover

George Cole and Eurocana, 8pm, $18-$22

1210 66TH ST., UNIT B, (916) 272-4472

PHOTO cOURTESY OF ANNA WEBBER

Live Music With Heath Williamson, 5:30pm, M, no cover

212 15TH ST., (916) 750-4733

sHadY ladY

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 12/17-19 Bourbon and Blues with the Steve Freund Trio, 6:30pm, W, $8-$28

Petty Party, Sea-Legs and Moon Weather, Lipstick!, 9pm, $5 9pm, $7

red museum

with Shooter and more 7:30pm Thursday, $25-$30 Harlow’s Hip-hop

SUNDAY 12/16

Champion Sound, 10pm, no cover in advance, $20

12.13.18

For more cannabis news, deals & updates visit capitalcannabisguide.com

cannabis recall ... yikes see ask 420

37

your meme vote counts see goatkidd

like to add that we should not be spending our money in places that don’t support cannabis freedom. Do some research.

Support those that support you. Think globally. Smoke locally. nia (Purpose) To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

The cannabis community is fortunate to already have a purpose: We want to end the prohibition and demonization of the cannabis plant. Done and Done. Let’s get back to work.

Ujamaa is the fourth kuumba (creativity) To do always as principle of Kwanzaa and much as we can, in the way we can, Ngaio Bealum says apply to leave our community more beautiful it by thinking globally and and beneficial than we inherited it. Think smoking locally. of this one as “The Campfire Principle.”

Are your decisions as an activist going to Photo by serene lusano make it easier and better for the activists that follow in your wake? Do you have any long-term goals or just short-term ones? Also: More art. Please. Hell, cannabis has sparked creativity since before Louis Armstrong lit his first joint. values can be applied imani (Faith) To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness

by Ngaio Bealum a s k 4 20@ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m and victory of our struggle. You can’t spend years and money and effort and sweat if you don’t have faith that your crisis as a way to help people in need. Now cause is right and just. It takes more than chutzpah to think you can win against that weed is legal, clubs should be doing the federal government. You have even more to help people. Shout out to have faith in your cause. to all the clubs doing food and I have always found clothing drives this holiday Kwanzaa cannabis activists to be season. unwavering in their has expanded to ujamaa convictions, at least (cooperative embrace all lifestyles in terms of the economics) To build and cultures willing unshakeable belief and maintain our in the healing to celebrate family and own stores, shops, properties of the and other businesses traditions. cannabis plant. and to profit from Kwanzaa has Ngaio Bealum them together. When come a long way SN&R columnist, cannabis I see all the cannabis from its ’60s roots activist dispensaries and edibleas an alternative to the makers and dab extraction white man’s Christmas. Far companies and graphic design from being a celebration just for black squads and cannabis event companies and people, it has expanded to embrace all all that good stuff, I am filled with joy. lifestyles and cultures willing to celebrate All these cannacentric businesses (and the family and traditions. I would like to wish ancillary businesses such as the lawyers you all a Happy Holiday season and an and CPAs and security companies) are especially Happy Kwanzaa. Ω evidence of Ujamaa in action. I would also 12.13.18 | SN&R | 35

5

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an activist’s guide to kwanzaa SN&R’s pot guru says the annual holiday’s core to further advance the cannabis movement

kwanzaa is the best winter holiday.

Christmas is cool and Hanukkah is awesome, but Kwanzaa is my all-time favorite. Why? The Seven Principles, that’s why. Each day of Kwanzaa has a theme.

The point is to discuss what these principles mean to you and your family, then do what you can to follow these principles all year. The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa are also a great guide for living an activisttype lifestyle. Take a look at how to apply these principles to your everyday life and keep fighting the good fight. umoja (unity) To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race. Unity is important.

We may have our differences (and I’m sure you know the cannabis movement is full of, um, let’s call them “strong-willed individuals”), but we have to remember that we are all on the same bus. There’s no need and no time for name-calling and bad-mouthing. Being united in common

1

cause despite our differences is a very American ideal, and we should all strive to live up to our ideals. kujichagulia (self-determination) To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves. Seems simple enough. Be yourself. Live your truth. Smoke your weed.

Just about everyone I know in the cannabis industry is really good at self-determination (See “strong willed individuals” above.)

Standing against injustice is hard work.

You deserve a bong hit. ujima (collective work and responsibility) To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together. I know it sounds kinda co-dependent, but you can still help people and have healthy boundaries. The cannabis community is really good at this. We love a good benefit and helping sick people. Well done. Remember: The modern legalization movement was started during the AIDS

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Yesterday a book fell on my head...Well, I only have my shelf to blame!

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By Ngaio Bealum

as k 420 @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

Bad labs Um, I hear, like, there’s a cannabis recall or something?

—C. Rome o’TogRafee iLLuStratioN By katELyNN mitraNo

Yeah, dude. It’s wild out here.

According to public reports, the person in charge of Sequoia Labs, a Sacramento-based cannabis testing facility, failed to replace faulty lab equipment, choosing instead to falsify reports on

LL RECA

about 700 different cannabis products. The state Bureau of Cannabis Control noticed that the paperwork was fishy, did a surprise inspection, and boom: Sequoia Labs voluntarily relinquished its business license, fired the lab tech at fault and is installing new protocols while working with state regulators to get its license reinstated and be back in business by 2019.

At least one person is not so optimistic. Alec Dixon, co-founder of SC Labs in Santa Cruz, told me this: “Dude, they’re done. You can’t come back from integrity loss, and you’re gonna get sued. I feel bad for them. I feel worse for the people having to go through the process.” While the BCC has yet to announce a recall, it has halted sales of the affected products pending a retest. Losses could be in the millions.

Dixon also told me he was glad to see the BCC being proactive and rigorous about keeping labs honest.

“The most fascinating thing is, if you you are gonna have robust regulations on suppliers, you have to have even stricter regulations on labs,” he said.

“The biggest hole in other states’ systems have been not regulating the labs, so the BCC being aggressive and holding labs accountable is good because bad data is like a ticking time bomb.”

There are only 43 state certified cannabis analysis labs in California.

And only one “Labcabincalifornia.”

Shout out to Pharcyde. There is tremendous pressure for cannabis analysis laboratories to be accurate and fast. It is a shame that one person decided to skirt the rules and jeopardize not just product, but people’s careers. Big up to the BCC for putting our hella high cannabis tax dollars to good use, and good luck to everyone at Sequoia Labs in getting their lab back on an even keel.

I saw a Prop. 65 sticker on my cannabis products. Weed causes cancer? I’m freaking out. What’s up?

—Howe TeHeCk-IsTHIsTRoo

Blame myrcene. And weed. And California. According to Proposition 65, cannabis and myrcene can be considered a carcinogenic, despite years of research proving otherwise.

If myrcene caused cancer, there would be a whole lot of GoFundMe’s for the hashtag “Kush” on Instagram.

I wouldn’t worry about it. Cannabis is a known cancer-fighter. Puff away. Ω

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Do you know any books that could help a man in his late 20s understand love? My boyfriend told me he doesn’t know what love is. He thinks romantic love is the stuff you see in the movies, like being together 24/7 and showering each other with gifts.

He thinks love means to fall head-overheels and be obsessed with each other. How can I help him understand that love is not the frou-frou stuff he thinks it is? I try to show him by loving him, but he learns best through reading so I’d appreciate book recommendations. I know he is capable of loving me. He shows me love every day in simple ways like actively listening. How do I explain what love is?

If your boyfriend takes cues from films, he’s been indoctrinated to confuse infatuation with love.

Infatuation relies on inner conflict, like the tension between feeling as if you finally found your soul mate and the fear you’ll lose your soul mate if you don’t win him over fast. Conflict in a film creates viewer excitement, but conflict in life usually inspires stress and suffering.

Infatuation is the “I can’tlive-without-you, sex 10-times-a-day, you-are-my-bae” prologue to love.

It’s an emotional rollercoaster, but people equate that drama with love because that’s what they’ve seen in films and TV or heard in song lyrics.

Most songs about relationships actually describe infatuation, a temporary state of emotional imbalance that hurls us into connecting with each other. Once a couple commits to each other, infatuation fades, making room for real love.

That’s love as a verb—attentive, open, accepting, affectionate, steady and trustworthy.

My favorite self-help book about relationships is How to Be An Adult In Relationships by David Richo. But before you gift your man with a copy, push yourself toward a change of heart.

Start complimenting him each time he does something you appreciate. When he does something you dislike, let him

know, but don’t dwell on the misstep.

Instead, focus on what you’re grateful for. Tell him about the things he does, like active listening, that make you feel loved and accepted. Celebrate having a man in your life who knows how to be present and aware. Above all, avoid doing what you accuse him of doing.

You’re concerned that he holds the wrong definition of love. You may be right, or not. It doesn’t matter because love isn’t about being right and making the other person wrong. Love is a path to spiritual growth.

Getting curious about your own motivations helps. Ask yourself if you hold back from flirting with your man and if so, why. Investigate whether you need to get more comfortable with expressing your sexuality and desirability. You might be surprised to discover that your boyfriend’s desire for a rom-com relationship is, in part, a reaction to something you withhold. Flirt more with your man. Be head over heels grateful for him. Create a relationship that fits both of you. That’s what love does. Ω

Celebrate having a man in your life who knows how to be present and aware.

MeDITaTIon of THe Week “You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have,” said Kayla Mills. How long can you go without checking your phone?

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 Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 95815; call (916) 498-1234, ext. 1360; or email askjoey@newsreview.com.

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FRee will aStRology

by Ashley hAyes-stone

by Rob bRezsny

FoR tHE WEEk oF DECEmbER 13, 2018 ARIES (March 21-April 19): In 1930, some British

mystery writers formed a club to provide each other with artistic support and conviviality. They swore an oath to write their stories so that solving crimes happened solely through the wits of their fictional detectives, and not through “Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, or Act of God.” I understand that principle, but don’t endorse it for your use in the coming weeks. On the contrary.

I hope you’ll be on the alert and receptive to Divine Revelations, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery and Acts of God.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): When you’re

prescribed antibiotic pills to fight off infection, you should finish the entire round. If you stop taking the meds partway through because you’re feeling better, you might enable a stronger version of the original infection to get a foothold in your system. This lesson provides an apt metaphor for a process you’re now undergoing. As you seek to purge a certain unhelpful presence in your life, you must follow through to the end. Don’t get lax halfway through. Keep on cleansing yourself and shedding the unwanted influence beyond the time you’re sure you’re free of it.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Danish scientist and

poet Piet Hein wrote this melancholy meditation: “Losing one glove is painful, but nothing compared to the pain of losing one, throwing away the other, and finding the first one again.”

Let his words serve as a helpful warning to you, Gemini. If you lose one of your gloves, don’t immediately get rid of the second. Rather, be patient and await the eventual reappearance of the first. The same principle applies to other things that might temporarily go missing.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian author

Elizabeth Gilbert is a soulful observer whose prose entertains and illuminates me. She’s well aware of her own limitations, however.

For example, she writes, “Every few years, I think, ‘Maybe now I’m finally smart enough or sophisticated enough to understand Ulysses.

So I pick it up and try it again. And by page 10, as always, I’m like, ‘What the hell?’” Gilbert is referring to the renowned 20th century novel, James Joyce’s masterwork. She just can’t appreciate it. I propose that you make her your inspirational role model in the coming weeks.

Now is a favorable time to acknowledge and accept that there are certain good influences and interesting things that you will simply never be able to benefit from. And that’s OK!

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): More than three centuries

ago, Dutch immigrants in New York ate a dessert known as olykoek, or oily cake—sugarsweetened dough deep-fried in pig fat. It was the forerunner of the modern doughnut. One problem with the otherwise delectable snack was that the center wasn’t always fully cooked.

In 1847, a man named Hanson Gregory finally found a solution. Using a pepper shaker, he punched a hole in the middle of the dough, thus launching the shape that has endured until today. I bring this to your attention because I suspect you’re at a comparable turning point.

If all goes according to cosmic plan, you will discover a key innovation that makes a pretty good thing even better.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I can’t believe I’m going

to quote pop star Selena Gomez. But according to my analysis of the current astrological omens, her simple, homespun advice could be especially helpful to you in the coming weeks.

“Never look back,” she says. “If Cinderella had looked back and picked up the shoe, she would have never found her prince.” Just to be clear, Virgo, I’m not saying you’ll experience an adventure that has a plot akin to the Cinderella fairy tale. But I do expect you will benefit from a “loss” as long as you’re focused on what’s ahead of you rather than what’s behind you.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Among the pieces

of jewelry worn by superstar Elvis Presley were a Christian cross and a Star of David.

“I don’t want to miss out on heaven due to a technicality,” he testified. In that spirit, and in accordance with astrological omens, I urge you, too, to cover all your bases in the coming weeks. Honor your important influences.

Be extra nice to everyone who might have something to offer you in the future. Show

your appreciation for those who have helped make you who you are. And be as openminded and welcoming and multicultural as you can genuinely be. Your motto is “Embrace the rainbow.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Are you a gambling

addict seeking power over your addiction? If you live in Michigan or Illinois, you can formally blacklist yourself from all casinos. Anytime your resolve wanes and you wander into a casino, you can be arrested and fined for trespassing. I invite you to consider a comparable approach as you work to free yourself from a bad habit or debilitating obsession. Enlist some help in enforcing your desire to refrain.

Create an obstruction that will interfere with your ability to act on negative impulses.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “What is the

point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable?” Author John Green asked that question. I confess that I’m not entirely comfortable with it. It’s a bit pushy. I find I’m more likely to do remarkable things if I’m not trying too hard to do remarkable things. Nevertheless, I offer it as one of your key themes for 2019. I suspect you will be so naturally inclined to do remarkable things that you won’t feel pressure to do so. Here’s my only advice: Up the ante on your desire to be fully yourself; dream up new ways to give your most important gifts; explore all the possibilities of how you can express your soul’s code with vigor and rigor.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In the fairy tale

Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the heroine rejects both the options that are too puny and too excessive. She wisely decides that just enough is exactly right. I think she’s a good role model for you. After your time of feeling somewhat deprived, it would be understandable if you were tempted to crave too much and ask for too much and grab too much. It would be understandable, yes, but mistaken. For now, just enough is exactly right.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In 1140, two dynasties were at war in Weinsberg, in what’s now southern Germany. Conrad III, leader of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, laid siege to the castle at Weinsberg, headquarters of the rival Welfs dynasty. Things went badly for the Welfs, and just before Conrad launched a final attack, they surrendered. With a last-minute touch of mercy, Conrad agreed to allow the women of the castle to flee in safety along with whatever possessions they could carry. The women had an ingenious response. They lifted their husbands onto their backs and hauled them away to freedom. Conrad tolerated the trick, saying he would stand by his promise. I foresee a metaphorically comparable opportunity arising for you, Aquarius. It won’t be a life-ordeath situation like that of the Welfs, but it will resemble it in that your original thinking can lead you and yours to greater freedom.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The National Center

for Biotechnology Information reported on a 15-year-old boy who had the notion that he could make himself into a superhero. First he arranged to get bitten by many spiders in the hope of acquiring the powers of Spiderman.

That didn’t work. Next, he injected mercury into his skin, theorizing it might give him talents comparable to the Marvel Comics mutant character named Mercury. As you strategize to build your power and clout in 2019, Pisces, I trust you won’t resort to questionable methods like those. You won’t need to! Your intuition should steadily guide you, providing precise information on how to proceed. And it all starts now.

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 realastrology.com.

Effusive inclusion Some women in this world live to shop, and some find the illfitting clothes and stores that don’t carry their sizes a painful invalidation of their bodies. They do the pants dance in the changing room, trying to squeeze into those cute-as-hell jeans while questioning why they go through so much torture just to find a pair of pants. This problem that so many women face resonated with Rachael Chisenhall, so she

created Her Story Clothing Co, an online boutique that she says is made for “every body.” It launched in September and she is pleased with the traction she’s gaining—not only enthusiasm for the stylish clothes, she says, but recognition for the company’s values.

Chisenhall recently penciled SN&R into her schedule to chat about how her company supports all body types, how she gives back to her community and her own fashion don’ts.

How do your clothes support body positivity?

We created a collection called Fashion Fit for Curves, because I don’t like the word “plus-size,” which most of the clothes [go] up to 3X. I also want the clothes to be just as good quality, cute and in style as the regular sizes, because a lot of boutiques don’t have a lot of cute “plussize” clothes, in my opinion.

How did you come up with the name of the company?

One of the best things therapy can do for somebody is help them work on healing. Her Story Clothing Co came from telling your story, because your story matters … Also, it can be really healing and empowering to let people hear it, so that’s why on our blog we want to feature—every month—a new story about a person who overcomes any obstacle that got them closer to loving themselves. I promise there are others feeling the same way, and the story part unites people, and it’s a way to pay it forward.

What does body empowerment mean to you?

There are so many things, but I’ve been a therapist for over 10 years, and I primarily work with people who struggle with eating disorders or disordered eating, meaning that they don’t qualify for a

Rachael Chisenhall sports one of her boutique’s empowering tops.

PHOTO BY ASHLEY HAYES-STONE

diagnosis of an actual eating disorder.

They do, however, have a poor relationship with how they see themselves, the food they eat and how they feel about themselves. So to me, body empowerment is tackling all those things, because if you love your body, you are going to treat it like you love it, or if you don’t, you are going to treat it like you don’t.

I think it’s about empowering people to go toward a sense of, “I love my body, and it’s something I’m proud of, and I’m excited about how can I dress it up.”

my husband and my mother will back me up on that. But I would say sometimes my passion has gone in and out because I struggled with my weight. My body changed since I had my baby—she is 2-and-a-half now—so my body is never going to be the same, to be honest.

I even had to check myself, because buying clothes wasn’t fun when I gained weight. So instead of beating myself up, I went to go find clothes that looked good on my body.

What charities do you work with?

Oh lord, I don’t know how much time you have. In middle school, my best friend and I wore JNCO pants; yeah, your audience might not know what they are. They were really baggy, huge-legged jeans, and it was horrid. I don’t know why my mother let me go out like that.

About two years ago, my husband and I went to New York and went to a gala there, and Project HEAL was there. It’s a national organization and the largest organization in the U.S. that helps people get treatment for eating disorders. A lot of people don’t know that treatment for eating disorders costs up to 20 grand a month, so Project HEAL raises money through galas and fundraisers. So, 5 percent of the proceeds of almost all the items in my store go to them. I also work with a local organization called Glass Slipper, which helps high-risk foster girls. So, for every “She Believed” shirt sold, 50 percent [of the proceeds] goes directly to Glass Slipper.

Have you always had a passion for fashion?

Yes and no, because I have always had a passion for shopping for clothes, and

Describe your fashion fail.

What’s next?

I really want to build trust with my customers because we are so new, and I think that building trust takes time. It’s really important to me to make sure we have excellent customer service. Also continuing to look for good partnerships in the community and hopefully continue with Project HEAL and Glass Slipper. Ω Visit Rachael Chisenhall’s clothing website at herstoryclothingco.com, Glass Slipper at theglassslipper.org and Project HEAL at theprojectheal.org.

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