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2020 NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • special double issue • dec 23 - jan 05, 2019 • Vol. 29 No. 50 & 51

December 31st Downtown Charlevoix

Fireworks . Food&Drink . Family Fun Activities: Snowman making, S'mores & Hot Cocoa, Horse Wagon rides, Movie, Restaurant Specials, Fireworks, Bridge Drop, Fireworks

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2 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

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If it Walks Like a Duck I write because I think people ought to be reminded of who our president was before being elected. His behavior, lifestyle, and business transactions were far from typical of one who seeks to be the commander in chief. Little wonder there were those who, very early on, believed he was unfit to be president. There was a reason why people were mentioning impeachment early in his term.

Robert McQuilkin, Frankfort Letter Rebuttal Once again, just like the White House, we have another “righty” deflecting Trump’s actions. Maybe Mr. Patchen [Dec. 16 letter to editor] should go to www.factcheck.org before he writes into Northern Express. If withholding military aid from Ukraine in order to find dirt on your opponent isn’t impeachment material, I don ‘t know what is.

Trump benefited from having the Air Force stay at his properties at least 40 times, as well as hosting international conferences.

In addition, Pence stayed at his properties in Europe while he was there.

Trump said that the wall would be paid for by Mexico, but who is footing the bill?

Us, of course. His immigration policies have put children in filthy conditions at our borders. He has said that the KKK people were “good people.” Above all, he has divided this country, and so many countries now dislike us that we are a laughingstock.

His Twitter rants are legendary, and he manages to cut down every race. His actions are pathetic. He might have gotten elected last time, but it wasn’t by popular vote.

Let’s get out and vote to make sure this narcissist doesn’t get in again! By the way, I’m not defending what happened in the past — just hoping to better the future.

Tom Webster, Grawn Much Obliged Mike Lloyd [in the Dec. 9 profile of North Peak Brewing Company) was being modest when he said that North Peak and Kilkenny’s Irish Pub “participated” in the Special Olympics Polar Plunge. Actually, for the last several years, Kilkenny’s has been a marvelous venue for our plunge. They provide the entire Kilkenny’s establishment — at no charge — for the pre- and after-plunge activities, plus food for all brave plungers and volunteers.

It makes for a great celebratory atmosphere, which always provides a fun time for all involved. We are greatly appreciative of their exceptional support.

John Michael Casteel, Special Olympics Michigan Area 2 Director, Traverse City

More Firsthand Witnesses Needed The Republican representatives are suggesting President Trump was concerned about corruption, so that his asking about investigating Biden was only about corruption, and withholding financial aid was to make sure the aid was being handled appropriately.

I think the notion that Trump was concerned about corruption would be news to New York. The New York attorney general filed suit against President Trump and his three eldest children, alleging “persistently illegal conduct” at the president’s personal charity. The suit alleged that Trump had repeatedly misused the nonprofit organization to pay off his businesses’ creditors, to decorate one of his golf clubs, and to stage a multimillion-dollar giveaway at one of his 2016 campaign events. One of the charities was for kids who have cancer.

To correct these egregious acts, a New York state judge ordered President Donald Trump to pay $2 million to a collection of nonprofit organizations — this in connection in a settlement with the New York state attorney general’s office to resolve a civil lawsuit alleging the foundation unlawfully coordinated with the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.

Perhaps the Senate can bring in firsthand witnesses who can reveal what they knew about the Ukraine incident. If the Senate subpoenas the following: White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Adviser John Bolton any doubts about what happened can be revealed. If they fail to appear, that would support the second article of impeachment.

Ronald Marshall, Petoskey Memory Lane This letter was inspired by Mr. Patchen’s letter. Remember when Trump promised to build a wall along the U.S./Mexico border and claimed that Mexico would pay for it? Invited Russia to interfere in our 2016 election? Put innocent children in cages after separating them from their parents? Ordered a government shutdown (the longest one in U.S. history) when Congress wouldn’t approve funds for the border wall? Said that white nationalists were “ … very fine people … “ (after three persons were killed in a protest rally in Charlottesville, Virginia)?

Said our Medicare would be the very best? Told over 13,000 lies to date while in office because he knows his supporters are too stupid or don’t care (or both) to know the difference between the truth and his constant lying? Paid hush money to an adult film actress to keep her quiet about their affair? Withheld, and continues to withhold his tax returns like no president has done before him? Announced plans to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement?

Withdrew U.S. troops from Syria, leaving them defenseless against the Turkish military?

Involved Ukraine in our 2020 election by withholding congress-approved military aid in an attempt to get them to do an investigation on an opposing presidential candidate? Told U.S. congresswomen to go back where they came from? Called the F.B.I. scum? Trashtalked John McCain — even after he died?

Bullied a 16-year-old girl for becoming Time magazine’s person of the year?

Aah, good times. And remember when this (extremely partial) list of disgusting, despicable things that ol’ Donny boy has done became so long that I just stopped writing it?

Pick on Someone Your Own Size Greta Thunberg is the 2019 Person of the Year, pictured on the cover of the Dec. 23 issue of Time magazine. As a 16-year old, Thunberg belongs to a generation that has the most legitimate concerns about a climate change she views as “the beginning of a mass extinction.”

Then, in what could be described as a great example of “personality projection,” one of Donald Trump’s tweets accused Thunberg of displaying an “anger management problem.” He took this position even after his wife, Melania, had proclaimed her national campaign against bullying. This attack on a 16-year old by the most powerful man in the world is a perfect example of bullying.

A presidential statement that took issue with the convictions of 97 percent of climate scientists would have been perfectly appropriate and far less threatening to a teenage girl. But this would have been a level of presidential behavior to which we have increasingly grown unaccustomed.

So Trump’s choice was to go head to head with a large number of highly trained climate scientists — or terrify one 16-year old girl, who bumped him off the cover of Time magazine. Easy choice.

CONTENTS features Crime and Rescue Map......................................7

A Crushing Loss and a New Beginning..............10 Unique Christmas Services..............................12 Your 2019 Holiday Soundtrack........................13 Fun Family Activities and Day Trips..................14 Last Minute Stocking Stuffers..............................17 The Thistle Pub & Grille.....................................20 New Years Eve.....................................20 What it takes to be Mr. & Mrs. Claus ...............27

dates................................................28-31 music Four Score.....................................................32

Nightlife.........................................................35

columns & stuff Top Ten...........................................................5

Spectator/Stephen Tuttle....................................6 Modern Rock/Kristi Kates................................33 Bob Ross, Pellston Film................................................................34 Crossword...................................................37 I Second That Emotion Advice..........................................................36 Kudos to Paul Patchen on his great Freewill Astrology..........................................37 letter in the Dec. 16 issue of Northern Classifieds..................................................38 Express. With all due respects to Paul I feel compelled to add just a couple more, using his format: Remember when the Ukrainian President Poroshenko stood in front of a joint session of Congress pleading for arms so his country could defend itself against Russia, and Trump sent nightvision goggles and blankets to their aid — oh wait, that’s right, Obama was the president.

Remember when Trump’s son Don Jr. was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company and received $80,000 per month with no experience in that field? Oh wait, Northern Express Weekly is published by that wasn’t Trump or his son; that was Joe Eyes Only Media, LLC. Biden and his son Hunter.

Publisher: Luke Haase There is a video of The Donald laughing 135 W. State St. Traverse City, MI 49684 it up about how he got the Ukrainian Phone: (231) 947-8787 Fax: 947-2425 prosecutor fired for investigating his son by email: info@northernexpress.com admitting he had given Ukraine six hours www.northernexpress.com to “get it done” or they wouldn’t get the Executive Editor: Lynda Twardowski Wheatley $1.5 billion dollars in aid (and by the way, Finance & Distribution Manager: Brian Crouch Sales: Kathleen Johnson, Lisa Gillespie, Kaitlyn Nance, no missiles included in this money either)?

Michele Young, Randy Sills, Todd Norris Oh wait, that wasn’t Donald Trump; it was For ad sales in Petoskey, Harbor Springs, Joe Biden.

Boyne & Charlevoix, call (231) 838-6948 And finally, we should all have expected Creative Director: Kyra Poehlman this when Trump touched the arm of Distribution: Dave Anderson, Dave Courtad the Russian President Medvedev while Kimberly Sills, Randy Sills, Roger Racine discussing a nuclear arms deal with Russia, Matt Ritter, Gary Twardowski which was caught on a hot microphone: Listings Editor: Jamie Kauffold “I will have more flexibility after my Reporter: Patrick Sullivan reelection.” Oh wait, that wasn’t Trump Contributors: Amy Alkon, Rob Brezsny, Ross Boissoneau, either; that was Obama.

Jennifer Hodges, Michael Phillips, Steve Tuttle, Kristi Kates, It seems that maybe Trump is being Al Parker, Meg Weichman, Todd VanSickle, Janice Binkert blamed for everything the other side is trying to keep covered up. And with respect Copyright 2019, all rights reserved. Distribution: 36,000 to Frances Church, “Yes, Virginia, there copies at 600+ locations weekly. Northern Express Weekly is free of charge, but no person may take more than really is a swamp.

See, Stephen Tuttle, there is another side. one copy of each weekly issue without written permission of Northern Express Weekly. Reproduction of all content It just needs to be reported. without permission of the publisher is prohibited.

Bill Ryan, Traverse City

Clint Chambers, Traverse City

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 3

this week’s

top ten

ski with santa

Sleder’s Family Tavern to be Sold

Michigan’s oldest, continuously operated restaurant is about to change hands. We’re happy to report, however, that it’s staying in the family.

Brian and Deb Cairns, who have owned Sleder’s Family Tavern since 1992, are selling the 137-year-old restaurant to their son and daughterin-law, Ryan and Megan Cox, on Dec. 31. The couple worked together there through high and college. Now married and with three kids — two of whom work there now — the pair plans to maintain the family-oriented food, service, and ritual smooch of Randolph the Moose for customers, as their legacy demands. Or, as their 11-year-old daughter requires; word is, the couple’s youngest daughter, age 11, has already stated her intention to take over Sleder’s in the future. No doubt, Vincil Sleder, the Bohemian immigrant who founded the neighborhood tavern in 1882, would be proud.

Ski with Santa on Christmas Eve at Crystal Mountain, Thompsonville! He will hit the slopes at 1pm. Call the Snow Sports Desk at: 888-968-7686, ext. 2000 for more info. If you’re in the Harbor Springs area, Santa will be skiing on the Bunny Hill at Nub’s Nob on Christmas Day from 1-3pm. nubsnob.com

4

A flight of birds. A sacred ceremony. And the barren landscape that bears all witness. In his final novel before his death in 1970, Nobel-prize winning author Tarjei Vesaas paints the plain Norwegian countryside pastel.

Now nearly 50 years old, the original text, first published in 1971 as “The Boat in the Evening,” couples complex verse and prose in an impressionistic coming-of-age novel of which Monet himself would have been proud.

Fast-forward half a century, and renowned translator Elizabeth Rokkan is giving Vesaas’ vignettes a little 2020 flair. A modern reimagining of the original Norwegian, Rokkan’s translation of “The Hills Reply” is one holiday treat we don’t feel guilty about devouring.

5

2 tastemaker

the kitchen’s salmon bowl

If the run-up to the holidays has left you feeling a little peaked, consider stepping off the Buddy the Elf diet of candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup to make way for something we like to call the day-long dish: The Kitchen’s salmon bowl. It might be made for one person for one meal, but this behemoth bowl of goodness — protein-rich salmon and hard-boiled eggs, detoxifying cucumbers and greens, lycopene-rich tomatoes, anti-inflammatory red onions, antioxidant-rich capers, protein-andfiber-packed quinoa, and a just-plain-good dressing of lemon-dill yogurt — measures about 7 inches wide and nearly 4 inches deep. We got ours at 9:30am after a highly indulgent Traverse City’s Men’s Night. One breakfast, lunch, and dinner later, the bowl was finally empty — and our temple feeling far better for it. $13.95. Get yours at The Kitchen, 1249 Woodmere Ave. in Traverse City. (231) 947-8646, www.thekitchen.tc

4 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

Hey, read it!

The Hills Reply

6

Big Birthday Party for Sleeping Bear

The new year will mark the 50th anniversary for the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, and the park plans to celebrate all year long.

“The story of Sleeping Bear Dunes is not finished.

We are excited to engage with the community as we look forward to the next 50 years,” said Superintendent Scott Tucker.

Everyone is invited to the celebration’s kick-off event at the Dune Climb from 10am until 4pm, on Jan. 18. Join park rangers and volunteers from the Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes and Historic Sleeping Bear for a “Hibernation Celebration” full of fun winter activities like snow sculpture and snowshoeing. (The event is free with a park pass.)

Special events will take place throughout the year, and you can learn about those by downloading the park’s new mobile app, which is available for Apple and Android devices and full of information to help you explore the park.

Stuff we love Free Sober-Driver Rides on New Year’s Eve Hailing an Uber via app on New Year’s Eve might work find in bigger cities and those the size of Traverse City and Petoskey, but those ringing in the new year in smaller towns are often SOL for rides. Not so Benzie County. The Benzie Bus (aka Best in Show at Benzie’s Christmas Magic Parade, see photo) is offering free rides from 5pm to 3am on New Year’s Eve. So whether you hit up the Roaring ’20s party at the Cabbage Shed, the growler drop at Stormcloud Brewing Company, or prime rib and karaoke at Geno’s Sports Bar, just ring up (231) 325-3000, ext. 1, to book your ride. (Note: Traverse City’s Bayline bus — always free — will offer extended service until 1am on New Year’s Eve; you can park and ride from the Meijer Car Wash or Woodland Creek Furniture to downtown TC.) Learn more: www.benziebus/com, www.bata.net.

Learn to Curl in Harbor Springs The Petoskey Curling Club is hosting a “Learn to Curl” event that’s open to anyone who is curious about the sport.

Curling is the fastest growing sport in the U.S. with over 185 clubs and more than 20,000 curlers of all ages, according to a press release from the club. The sport has been rising in popularity in recent years, a trend that was bolstered by the gold medal the U.S. men’s curling team took home from the 2018 Olympics.

The Petoskey Curling Club was formed in 2015 and first played outdoors at Petoskey’s Winter Sports Park’s rink.

The club moved indoors last year to the Petoskey Ice Arena, which is located on M-119 in Harbor Springs.

“Learn to Curl” will take place from 12:30 until 1:30pm Saturday, Dec. 28. Email fraser@framac.com to make a reservation.

8 BAVARIAN TO THE CORE.

Bottoms up Iron Fish’s Christmas Cocktail

231-946-8810 • 890 Munson Avenue • Traverse City • DonOrrSkiHaus.com

Most roads to Thompsonville are long and straight and lead to Crystal Mountain Resort and Spa. But located about three miles away, down a country road from the ski hill, is Iron Fish Distillery. The distillery recently rolled out its Christmas cocktail menu, which features eight drinks conjured up by a team of five women who work at the distillery. The Christmas Island cocktail is made with Michigan White Rum, orange, pineapple, pomegranate, and lime juices. The rum is subtle in the sweet tropical concoction but warms you up on a cold winter’s day and quickly puts you in the holiday spirit. “[The menu] always represents the seasonal flavors,” Iron Fish co-owner Sarah Anderson said. “But it is always different every year.” A few other drinks on the limited-time menu include Vegan Eggnog, Gingerbread G&T, and the Yule Mule. Find ’em all before they’re gone at 14234 Dzuibanek Rd., Thompsonville.

Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. (231) 378-3474. www. ironfishdistillery.com.

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 5

CHOOSING GOOD WILL spectator

by Stephen Tuttle Another year without peace on earth or good will toward anyone. Pretty much the same as last year, and the year before that, and before that.

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We still have wars percolating away in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Ukraine, South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, and Mali. Not to mention the drug wars in Mexico and various skirmishes in another dozen or so countries.

The consequence of all this fighting falls heavily on civilians. According to Amnesty International, the civilian death toll in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan alone has reached 244,000. Add another 20,000 dead in Syria, 7,000 in Yemen, plus at least 10,000 in Mexico’s barbaric drug wars in which cartels seem intent on killing everybody.

(There were 15,000 homicides in the U.S., but those aren’t really war casualties, just us stupidly killing each other.)

Most of the deaths are by gunfire, but explosive devices and bombardment have also killed many. The heavier the weaponry being used, the more likely it came from the United States. We are the largest arms dealer in the world by miles, and we haven’t been very discriminating about who ends up with

So much for peace on earth. Unfortunately, good will is in very short supply, too.

In 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identified nearly 1,100 hate groups fomenting trouble in the United States.

Most are either white nationalists or white supremacy fans, though they range from virulent and violent racists to virulent and violent anti-Semites to anti-government and pro-gun groups.

The hatred isn’t confined to appalling rhetoric.

The Department of Justice is now required to keep statistics on reported hate crimes.

In 2018, they documented more than 7,100, including 24 murders, directed at 8,800 individuals. Nearly 60 percent of those victims were attacked for no other reason than the color of their skin, their country of origin, or their religious beliefs.

As repugnant as that sounds, it’s a tiny tip of a very big iceberg. There is no requirement hate crimes be reported as such, and some states don’t even keep track of such crimes, categorizing them as non-hate incidents. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) believes nearly 95 percent of hate crimes are unreported, underreported, or categorized as something else.

If politicians can insult entire ethnic groups, women, and unpopular religions, too many of our citizens believe that’s now an acceptable norm.

It is not. the weapons; intentionally or accidentally, we arm everybody.

Those in war zones lucky enough to avoid being killed are fleeing in mind-numbing numbers.

According to the UN Commission on Human Refugees (UNCHR), a staggering 70 million civilians have been displaced by these various wars, most in the Middle East or Africa. Fully half the population of Syria has been displaced, and millions now reside in hastily created refugee camps. People have fled to other parts of their country or sought refuge or refugee status in neighboring countries. It is the largest civilian dislocation in human history.

We keep trying to wind down our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re still there, fighting the longest wars in our history. We almost made it out of Syria — abandoning our Kurdish allies on the battlefield in the process — but then we were drawn back in to “protect” Syrian oil reserves and refining.

We haven’t done much in the way of bringing bad actors into line, either. Despite our president’s claim he made a deal with North Korea requiring them to “denuclearize,” the agreement only says they’ll talk about it.

While we’re arguing about that, Kim Jong Un is back to testing longer range missiles and, according to our intelligence community, still working on their nuclear program.

6 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

It is shameful and just getting worse as our citizens listen to and act on the destructive bloviating from both sides of the political spectrum. If politicians can insult entire ethnic groups, women, and unpopular religions, too many of our citizens believe that’s now an acceptable norm.

It is not.

Little peace and good will but not much common sense, either. We continue ignoring the overwhelming evidence of climate change — we’ll increase our greenhouse gas emissions for the third year in a row — that now surrounds us. We keep selling killing machines to oppressive regimes. We insult our allies and cozy up to our enemies. We tolerate hatred and the groups espousing it.

Politicians have driven us into a ditch of killing, hatred, and stupidity, but we can ignore them and crawl back out into the light. Maybe we can’t stop the wars; they are, after all, very good business for our arms peddlers.

But good will is a choice we can make, every day, with family, friends, and strangers.

The solution is not in Lansing or Washington but within each of us. Climbing out of the mud thrown by our “leaders” would be a good start.

A personal commitment to civility and decency would be even better, a great gift for all of us.

Crime & Rescue BODY FOUND IN LEELANAU A woman who was reported missing by her husband in Traverse City was found dead in the woods of Leelanau County the same day.

A passerby discovered the body at 11:30am Dec. 11 in a wooded area off of Kasson Center Road near Maple City. Leelanau County Sheriff’s deputies and state police crime lab technicians spent the day processing the crime scene.

At 5pm that day a Traverse City man reported that his 62-year-old wife was missing. According to Traverse City Police, the husband had last seen his wife after the couple had an argument Dec. 10, and when he returned to their apartment the next day, the woman was gone.

The woman was originally from Chicago and had been living in Traverse City for a few months.

Police said a “person of interest” in the case was arrested on unrelated charges and that the person who is in jail is not the woman’s husband.

The woman’s body was sent to Munson Medical Center and then transported to the Western Michigan University School of Medicine for an autopsy.

SCREAMS LEAD POLICE TO SCENE A woman was able to call 911 and leave the line open as she was attacked by her boyfriend, police said.

Dispatchers who answered the 911 call could hear a woman scream and a man threaten to kill her in the background; they sent Cheboygan County Sheriff’s deputies to the residence in Benton Township.

The first deputy to arrive at 4:45pm Dec. 2 was able to get into the home and arrest the suspect, 33-year-old Joshua Adam Hendrix. The Cheboygan man faces up to 10 years in prison on charges that he strangled the woman, whom he’d been dating for 2 ½ years.

MAN ARRESTED FOR CALIPER ASSAULT State police were called to a home in Cadillac after a man allegedly attacked a woman with a brake caliper.

Police arrived at the home on Fourth Avenue at 6:45pm Dec. 7 to find a suspect, 33-year-old Dylan McQueen, barricaded inside a garage and the woman at a nearby friend’s house; the woman told police that she’d been assaulted when a brake caliper was thrown at her and that her phone ran out of power as she tried to call 911.

McQueen was arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.

TWO ARRESTED IN METH STING Undercover officers arrested two people in a methamphetamine investigation, including a woman accused of bringing a small child with her to a drug deal.

Traverse Narcotics Team officers received a tip about a man selling meth from his Benzonia home in November; undercover officers made several purchases from the suspect over several weeks, according to a press release.

On Dec. 5, detectives stopped a female motorist as she drove away from the residence; they determined that the woman had purchased meth and smoked it while there was a small child in her vehicle.

The woman, 26-year-old Nicole Lynn Ballard, was arrested for possession of methamphetamine and fourth-degree child abuse. Her 10-month-old child was turned over to family members, and

by patrick sullivan psullivan@northernexpress.com

Child Protective Services was notified.

Later that day, officers raided the house and arrested 45-year-old Micah Steven Carnes for delivery of methamphetamine, maintaining a drug house, and possession with intent to deliver.

MAN ARRESTED IN GROCERY STORE A man who struggled with Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s deputies as they tried to arrest him inside a grocery store faces charges of resisting and obstructing police.

The suspect, Benjamin John Dahlstrom, a 31-year-old Traverse City man, was acting strangely and approaching other customers at the Tom’s store in Interlochen. Staff called police to ask that he be removed.

When deputies arrived, they recognized Dahlstrom and knew that he had a warrant out for his arrest; when they went to arrest him inside the store, he ran, and the deputies caught him. There was a struggle, and the three fell into a rack of merchandise, said Capt. Randy Fewless.

Dahlstrom was tasered, taken to Munson Medical Center to be checked out as a precaution, and was taken to jail. The incident happened at 4:35pm Dec. 6.

EX-BOYFRIEND CHARGED In Grayling, an argument between exes over a cell phone escalated and ended with the arrest of the boyfriend on strangulation charges.

A woman told state police that her ex came to her house Dec. 4 at 8:30am to pick up a cell phone and that she told him she would put it in his mailbox after she removed her personal information from the device.

When she asked him to leave and began to close the door, he lunged inside, knocked the phone from her hand, breaking it, and then attacked her, the woman told police. The man then kicked the phone outside and left.

Troopers also interviewed the suspect, 27-year-old Joseph Henry Somero. He was later charged with a 10-year strangulation charge, home invasion, and domestic violence.

SUSPECT ARRESTED AT SHELTER A 36-year-old Kingsley man was arrested on assault charges after witnesses said he attacked a man outside Safe Harbor in Traverse City.

A man and a woman were dropping off the suspect at 6pm Dec. 7 so that he could spend the evening at the homeless shelter when the suspect became upset with the man, who was a passenger in the vehicle.

The suspect tackled the 51-year-old and punched him several times, knocking him out, Traverse City Police Capt. Keith Gillis said. The victim was taken to Munson Medical Center and was expected to recover. Officers found the suspect nearby and arrested him.

Clark, the former pastor of Traverse City’s West Side Community Church in Leelanau County, was under investigation in that county after an audit of church finances this summer found some irregularities. Clark was suspected of misusing $500,000 in church funds over several years.

PASTOR’S DEATH UNDER INVESTIGATION A Traverse City church pastor’s gunshot death was under investigation in Benzie County.

John Clark was found Dec. 9 in the woods near his Benzie County home, dead of a single gunshot wound to the head.

Authorities said they were investigating to determine whether Clark’s death was self-inflicted.

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Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 7

THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT opinion

bY Amy Kerr Hardin Several years ago, Michigan’s Republican lawmakers tried a little experiment. They launched a pilot program in three counties to get an idea of how many public assistance recipients were also drug users. They didn’t nab a single soul. Turns out, the working poor, often laboring at two or three jobs just to keep the lights on, don’t have illicit drug money on hand. Republicans literally “pissed-away” taxpayer dollars on their folly.

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Conservatives harbor a pernicious prejudice against those struggling in our economy, and they’ve demonstrated a pattern of routinely punishing those in poverty, even when their legislative assaults cost a bundle to implement and administer. Instead of winning the war on poverty, they are waging a war on the poor.

Their latest battleground is healthcare for those in need. Medicaid, known as “Healthy Michigan,” covers over a halfmillion Michiganders. Under the Snyder administration, the Republican-led legislature sought an exemption to the federal law so they could impose a work requirement on Medicaid recipients. Michigan is one of nine states with such a law. Of those states, five have active lawsuits opposing the law. Federal courts have already struck down these types of requirements in three other states.

The Trump Administration, not known for their compassion, is actively fighting the nullification of the work-requirement laws.

They recently took up an appeal in the D.C. Circuit Court, where they utterly fumbled their oral arguments.

Groups representing the Medicaid recipient plaintiffs are asserting that the waivers granted by the Trump Administration lack legal basis in the spirit and letter of the federal Medicaid law, and the courts thus far concur.

Some would argue that compliance shouldn’t be a problem if those on assistance are already working a couple of jobs, right?

Nope. This requirement is specifically designed to be an act of insidious cruelty.

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8 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

By way of example, Arkansas turned its most vulnerable citizens into human guinea pigs to test their new law, and they quickly saw thousands of state residents unnecessarily lose healthcare. Not because they weren’t working — the majority of Medicaid beneficiaries are gainfully employed. The reason they lost coverage was because the Arkansas law, just like Michigan’s, was intentionally drafted to be over-the-top burdensome for the recipients to comply with its rigorous monthly reporting requirements. They are being set up to fail, to the amusement of the GOP. Inexplicably, Michigan’s legislature continues to push for full implementation of this draconian Arkansas-style law, due to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020. The rollout is fleecing taxpayers because the courts will surely strike the measure down.

To no avail, Gov. Whitmer asked the legislature to put the law on hold while challenges work their way through the judiciary. Litigation is not a speedy process, and one can’t help but wonder how many wrongful death suits will

be filed against the state after the courts have their say. The ill-advised implementation of the program is sure to cost the state millions and is once again proof that Republicans exercise little fiscal responsibility when they have an opportunity to stick it to the poor.

One bright spot: If we elect a Democrat to the presidency in 2020, all of these laws will instantly disappear as the states lose their waivers. But lives and precious taxpayer dollars will have been wasted in the meantime.

In another brazen example of Republican heartlessness, the Trump administration has similarly called for a work requirement for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients.

Of the 688 million nationwide, Michigan has 1.1 million SNAP participants. Initial estimates on the number of Michiganders who will lose food assistance come in at just over 47,000. That number is predicted to bloom to 180,000 if the requirement continues.

SNAP is vital to individuals and families who need a little assistance to carry them through a rough patch. And it’s not a lot of money. The average household sees a benefit of $256 a month. Individuals get about $127 per month, which works out to about $1.41 per meal. A family of three cannot earn more $1,732 to qualify for SNAP. Nationally, about 1 million SNAP beneficiaries are veterans.

The changes were announced on Dec. 5, and the implementation will take effect April 1, 2020. The rationale is purportedly to restore the dignity of work among recipients. Once again, we see another new requirement that will cost nearly as much to roll out and administer as the underlying benefit. The USDA estimates that nearly 700,000 people will lose food assistance.

Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, ranking member to the Committee on Agriculture, had choice words on the Trump initiative. “This Administration is out of touch with families who are struggling to make ends meet by working seasonal jobs or part-time jobs with unreliable hours. Seasonal holiday workers in northern Michigan’s tourism industry, and workers with unreliable hours, like waiters and waitresses, are the kinds of workers hurt by this proposal.”

She’s right. People forced to work two or three part-time jobs have little say in, nor stability of, their work schedule. A single conflict of scheduling, or an unpaid sick day can be devastating to their continued employment.

In 2018, Congress similarly considered adding a SNAP work requirement, a measure couched in the Farm Bill. That measure was rejected in both houses through a broad bipartisan consensus.

But now, it appears cruelty has trumped common decency.

Amy Kerr Hardin is a retired banker, regionally known artist, and public-policy wonk. You can hear and learn more about the state of Michigan politics on her podcast, www.MichiganPolicast.com.

Wait, What?

Joe Rwamirama, 48, of Kampala, Uganda, has an unusually practical superpower: “He is known all over the city as the man who can kill mosquitoes with his farts,” local barber James Yoweri told The Sun on Dec. 10. Rwamirama said no one in his home village has ever contracted malaria because his gaseous ejections knock out insects over a 6-mile radius. “He is respectful of people around him and will only fart when there are mosquitoes around,” Yoweri continued. Rwamirama hopes to market his gas and claims that insect repellant companies have been looking into its chemical secrets, but The Sun couldn’t verify those claims.

Undignified Death When a Shelby, Ohio, police officer responded to a call on Nov. 13 about a sick or rabid raccoon on a residential street, he had a tough decision to make. The raccoon did seem either injured or ill, and according to WJW, the officer decided it needed to be destroyed.

However, there is no area animal control department, and police officers don’t have the “training or equipment to capture a potentially rabid animal,” officials said. And the officer was hesitant to use his firearm because of the time of day and because some residents were outside their homes. So he decided to use his vehicle to eliminate the raccoon, running over it several times to finish the job. Unfortunately, a bystander was recording the incident, and people on social media are calling for the officer’s removal. The Shelby police chief responded: “The video is disturbing to watch. ... We are having an independent group, with a prosecutor, to determine if any criminal charges are appropriate (but) ... this incident doesn’t violate any wildlife laws.”

Just Weird -- It’s very cold and very dark, in an existential sort of way, in Minneapolis at this time of year. To wit: Cianna Violet, 24, passes by a certain spot, near a Broadway Pizza location, as she commutes to work. In November, she noticed a yellow traffic pylon with an extra something clinging to the top and pulled over to check it out. It was a rat -- dead, frozen, sad.

Until Dec. 3, when Violet noticed something about the rat had changed. Sure enough, someone had dressed the chilly little rodent and even remembered accessories, like a tiny silver backpack and fur-trimmed boots. The outfit is “100 percent seasonably appropriate,” Violet told CityPages. “I’m sorry it had to die, but in death it has brought a reason to smile to hundreds.”

-- Meanwhile, it’s warm and sunny in Las Vegas, and the pigeons are wearing cowboy hats. What? On Dec. 9, KVVU reported that pigeons have been spotted with tiny red cowboy hats on their heads. Mariah Hillman, who runs an animal rescue, at first thought the little headwear was cute, but then began to worry about how the hats had been affixed to the birds’ heads. “Did they glue them? ... Is it something that’s going to impede their flight or attract predators?” she wondered. Hillman and her agency have been handing out business cards and asking people who see the little urban cowbirds to “just feed them until I get here. I’m only 3 miles away and I’ll come trap them.”

Bright Idea The Raleigh (North Carolina) News & Observer reported on Dec. 9 that a 14-year-old runaway made a logical choice when deciding where to hide. Around 8:30 that morning, as workers at Bed Bath & Beyond opened the store in Greenville, they discovered someone hidden in the store and called police. Officers responded for a “breaking and entering in

progress,” but found only a teenage boy who had “camped out” in the store overnight. He was returned to his home.

Great Art! In Miami Beach, Florida, you don’t even have to leave the oceanfront to get caught in a traffic nightmare. For Miami’s Art Basel, Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich unveiled on Dec. 3 a masterpiece three months in the making: sand sculptures of 66 actual-size cars and trucks locked in a traffic jam, which he calls “Order of Importance.” His artwork is meant to bring attention to the climate crisis, Dezeen reported.

The work includes several lanes of traffic split by a traffic divider. Most of the vehicles are partially submerged in a nod to rising sea levels created by global warming. “As an artist, I am in a constant struggle to make people aware of this reality,” Erlich said. It is his largest project to date.

Bah, Humbug!

-- Marie Bennett, 40, and Joseph Betancourt, 24, of Woodland, California, would have made the Grinch proud, but police in Red Bluff weren’t having it. On Dec. 5, the two allegedly broke into the Children First Foster Family Agency, where they stole “(a) large amount of toys that were being held there for children for Christmas presents,” police told Fox News. Surveillance video showed the burglars coming and going from the home next door; officers arrested Bennett and Betancourt for burglary, theft and breaking and entering, and they recovered the stolen toys, declaring, “These ‘Grinches’ will not be stealing Christmas from kids on our watch.”

-- The Bosch’s Country View Nursery in Allendale, Michigan, is a longtime favorite destination for Christmas tree shoppers. But sometime in early December, the Grinch visited, lopping the top halves off more than a dozen trees, according to WZZM13. It takes a fir tree between six and 10 years to grow to Christmas tree height, explained owner Brian Bosch.

“Somebody had a bad day, I’m assuming,” he said. “I don’t know why somebody would do that.” Bosch did say that the trees might recover, although it would take a few years.

Police Report -- In Turlock, California, mothers became alarmed when a man turned up at their doors, asking for “five strands” of hair and fingerprints from their children in order to collect their DNA. “He said he was with Amber Alert,” Lauren Hassett told KTXL on Dec. 4, and “that he needed to finish a DNA file” on her daughter. She also said the man asked for her daughter using a name the 13-year-old girl only uses online. Hassett ordered the man off her property and called police, who were later able to catch up with him. Officers said the man’s business was legitimate, but “the manner in which the information was relayed led to some misunderstanding. ... The involved adult male was passing out child DNA kits, which would be retained by the family, in the event it was ever needed for future investigations.”

-- Operation Santa’s Naughty List took place Dec. 3 to 8 in Polk County, Florida, seeking to target human trafficking and prostitution, and it was beyond successful. The sting stung 124 people, including 46 customers and numerous others for different crimes, but the standout was Rodney Davis, a 56-year-old husband and security guard at Disney World, the Tampa Bay Times reported. When Davis showed up to purchase sex from an undercover detective, he was wearing ... nothing. Not even socks.

Prostitutes who were identified as victims of human trafficking were taken to shelters and offered support services.

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Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 9

A CRUSHING LOSS AND A NEW BEGINNING Following a devastating August fire, the family that runs Manistee County’s Dublin General Store hopes to have the business reopened by April.

By Patrick Sullivan Last summer, on the final day of August, Pastor Tomas Truax approached a crime scene, the smoldering remains of the only grocery store for miles and miles.

The institution of Dublin, Michigan — an unincorporated town in southeastern Manistee County so tiny its name doesn’t even appear on Google Maps — the Dublin General Store, was gone.

The first order of business for Truax and his parishioners from the First Church of Wellston was to feed and comfort the firefighters who had battled the fire that had consumed the grocery/hardware store over the past night.

It would turn out that someone had started the fire intentionally, setting the blaze just outside the wall where the store’s liquor was stored inside, an unfortunate circumstance that provided the boost that assured the entire building would be quickly consumed. By the time Truax arrived, the place was a total loss.

Truax said he soon realized that it wasn’t enough to feed and comfort the firefighters; something also needed to happen to help the people who lived nearby.

MANY ANSWER A CALL The loss of the Dublin General Store wouldn’t merely be an inconvenience for people around the area. Truax said he expected it would be a burden.

“It is a huge thing,” Truax said. “We do have our local M-55 Market, and they’re trying to do as good as they can, but the loss of the Dublin General Store definitely leaves a big gaping hole. If I need an onion, I can’t just drive down the road anymore.”

The nearest large stores are not close. It’s a 28-mile drive to Manistee from Dublin. It’s a 36-mile drive to Cadillac, not including a 12-mile detour that was in place until early December.

The pastor recruited volunteers who would drive people who asked to go shopping in those places. The drivers would use their own vehicles and pay for the gas.

Truax said the response to the offering was both over- and underwhelming — lots of people volunteered to be drivers, but only a handful of people requested help.

Truax said that only two rides have occurred so far, but he expects that once winter weather sets in, making driving more difficult and stressing budgets with heating

bills, there will be more people who come forward to ask for help.

“We’re pretty hardy people out here,” he said. “We’re used to driving far for the things we need.”

Jim Priester, a resident of Wellston, which is just down the road from Dublin, said the loss of the Dublin General Store was jolting, not just because of the hour-plus-round trip it takes to drive to Manistee or Cadillac, but also because the general store offered familiar faces and good, small-town service.

“It will be nice to have them back,” said Priester, who lives three miles from the store.

Priester said he believes the store helped sustain the community with weekly bacon or sausage specials good enough that people would stock up their freezers.

He said he also likes the M-55 Market, but it’s not big enough to take up the slack.

They’ve got some meat and canned goods, but not the kind of selection that you find in a grocery store, and it is more expensive.

“You either have to go around the detour, which is a 12-mile detour, all the way into Cadillac, or we have to go into Manistee,” he said.

Most people make that a once-a-week trip that they plan out very carefully, Priester said.

For others, even that isn’t possible. There are seniors who live in the area who can’t drive, and there is a lot of poverty in the area.

Some people cannot afford the gas money it takes to make it back and forth to the cities on a regular schedule.

“It’s not that upper class of an area,” Priester said. “People live in smaller houses, and they are lower income people.”

On the upside, Priester said, there are two good restaurants in town, places that have been taken over and kept alive by waitresses who bought out the businesses, Kozy Kitchen and Mel’s Country Café. Those provide good food at reasonable prices. But again, not everyone can afford eating out either.

OPENING AS SOON AS POSSIBLE Troy Fischer, the son of the store’s owner, Greg Fischer, said getting the Dublin General Store back open as quickly as possible has been the family’s goal since the fire.

“We’ve been shooting for early April.

We’ll see what happens. Weather plays a big part in that, too,” Fischer said.

The family knew that the store was popular in the area and beyond. People drive for hours for the Dublin beef jerky. (In 2012,

10 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

the store wound up on a “best detour” list in Esquire magazine.) They recognized, too, that the store was the heart of their small community. But it took a fire and the loss of the store for everyone to realize just how important the Dublin General Store was.

“It’s one of those, you-don’t-know-whatyou’ve-got-until-its-gone kind of deals,” Fischer said.

Though Dublin is barely a tiny dot on the map in the middle of the wilderness of the Huron-Manistee National Forest, thousands of people live nearby and depend on the store.

The store employs 35 to 40 people and, significantly, those employees, though most remain without work, have been getting paid since the fire. That’s because Greg Fischer had good insurance.

“My dad’s two main concerns were, ‘What am I going to do with the employees, and what am I going to do with the community?’”

Troy Fischer said. “The employees, they’re like family, you know. They’ve been with him for a lot of years.”

So, it was important to take care of them and also important that they stay in the area so that there are employees around when the time comes to reopen the store. The Fischers were fortunate to have had the foresight to pay for insurance for the business so that the employees could be taken care of.

And for the community, Fischer said, his father knew that getting the store open as soon as they could was important, and that’s what he’s set out to do.

“When I tell people that we’re going to be open by April, they’re blown away by that,” Troy Fischer said.

Greg Fischer said all of the permits for the new building had been approved as of early December except one state building permit, which he expected to have in hand by the end of the month.

They are building a custom-designed, pre-engineered building that’s already been mostly delivered to the site, so once they’ve got that last permit and have completed the site-prep work that started this month, the building can be erected fairly rapidly.

At least that’s what Greg Fischer hopes will happen so that the store can open in April like planned.

“In a perfect world, and if mother nature cooperated and everything else, that’s what will happen,” he said.

Much of the most important work has already taken place: Greg Fischer said he made sure that since he was afforded the opportunity to build a grocery store from scratch, he would take what he’s learned from his years in the business and build the best store that he could.

He hopes to be able to add a pharmacy and he plans to expand the section for beef jerky and other homemade items that are the products that lure people to make a road trip specifically to visit the store.

A NOD TO THE PAST Another important part of the new

building’s design is the façade at the entrance, a roof which is a tribute to the architecture of the original 1935 store.

It’s also going to be 15,000 square feet larger than the previous store. That’s quite a bit larger than that original store, which also burned down in a fire of undetermined origin, over the Fourth of July weekend in 1963. According to a Manistee NewsAdvocate article about that fire, that original building was two stories (the owner’s quarters was upstairs) and filled a footprint of 50 feet by 100 feet.

Everyone got out of the 1963 fire safely, but firefighters had to come from miles away from Kaleva, in Maple Grove Township, (Dublin is in Norman Township). Volunteers used pickup trucks to haul water from a mile away. The owner managed to save the cashbox from the store but not much else.

Greg Fischer’s mom, Rose Mary Fischer, was born in Chicago and moved up to Dublin with her family when she was just four years old, in 1935. She went on to raise 15 children and, in 1966, she and her husband bought the store. A decade later, Greg took over with one of his brothers.

Rose Marie Fischer said she isn’t sure what originally brought her family to this remote, out-of-the-way clearing in the woods to take over an abandoned store. She said she had family in Hoxeyville at the time, so maybe that was it.

“I guess my parents came because they wanted to get out of the city,” she said. “It was a tough time then, you know, it was the Depression. There was no business there to start. Well, they made a go of it, I guess.”

The matriarch worked at the store until she was 18. She remembers the first time the store burnt down, in 1963, but can’t recall the cause. It started under similar circumstances, she said, starting outside the store and then spreading quickly into the building. She said the fire spread quickly but it didn’t really matter how quickly the building was taken — the firefighters came from so far away.

Then, like today, the family was determined to re-open the only source of groceries for miles.

“The fire was at Fourth of July, and by deer season they had the store built, and they were in operation,” she said. “I think in those days maybe they didn’t have to go through so many hoops.”

If the cause of the 1963 fire is unknown, the cause of the 2019 Dublin General Store fire is a subject of great interest in the area today.

Troy Fischer remains optimistic that

whoever set the fire will one day be caught.

He hears rumors about breaks in the case from time to time, but then those rumors never go anywhere.

Troy Fischer said if the arsonists are from the area, he believes there is a good chance they’ll be caught. If they were just passing through and this was some random malicious act, then it would be less likely that the guilty could be punished.

Troy Fischer said there is surveillance video that captured the culprits, but he hasn’t seen it. He said he wishes that police would release an image so that people could look at it to see if someone could be identified, but maybe the image quality is just too poor.

“We do have somebody on video, but it’s bad video. Its grainy,” he said.

Manistee County Sheriff ’s Det./ Sgt. Scott Soper said the investigation is ongoing, and the department is working with partners to analyze evidence. Other than that, he said, there was nothing new to report, but he added that if anyone knows anything about how the fire started, they should call him.

BEEF JERKY ROAD TRIP If the fire has shown the people of this rural, out-of-the-way place how much they depend on the Dublin General Store for their day-to-day needs, it’s also proven to the family that runs the store just how beloved some of their home-grown products are.

Troy Fischer grew up making jerky. He started to learn the craft from his dad at age 7 or 8. Later, he left Dublin and went to college and worked a couple of jobs.

He missed the family business, though.

Gradually he realized that he could bring the family business to the city where he was living.

“There’s so many people down in Grand Rapids that know about us,” he said. “I was up every weekend helping anyway.”

Troy Fischer opened his first Dublin Beef Jerky store in metro Grand Rapids in 2005.

In 2012, the store moved into its current location in Grandville, across from a major source of foot traffic that’s interested in beef jerky: Cabela’s.

Now that the Dublin General Store is closed, people are taking their beef jerky needs to Grandville.

“The weirdest thing out of all of this is [that we are] shipping to Irons, Dublin, and Wellston.

We’re shipping right to our backyard,” he said.

“Last week we probably had 10, 15 people come down here from that area.”

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Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 11

By Ross Boissoneau As the cast of A Charlie Brown Christmas sings, “Christmas time is here.” And at churches across the area, that means special services: Maybe bigger music — with brass, winds and percussion joining piano, organ, or even drums and guitars. But sometimes the special services mean scaling back rather than scaling up, as the emotions stirred by the holidays run the gamut from joy to sadness. Here, a look at some unique services churches around the region are designing to help attendees celebrate, grieve, or simply honor the holiday in a way that feels right to them.

ANGELS, HYMNS & DRUM KITS At Sojourn Church in Traverse City, pastor Matt Herron said the church’s 3pm and 5pm Christmas Eve services will include guitars and drums while being led by piano. Most important is the human voice. “The service is planned in a way to accompany singers. The priority … is the voice of our congregation.”

At The Tabernacle in Buckley — a progressive church that embraces the teachings of Jesus and Scripture, “not man’s religious traditions” — religion Pastor John Vermilya says the sounds of the season will also include voices, drums, and guitars. “We’ll have a full band” at each of its three Christmas Eve services.

He said the three services — one in the afternoon, one in the evening, and one at midnight — are necessary because last year the location held two services, and both were so crowded they had to set up chairs in the lobby. That’s a necessity with as many as 900 attending service in Buckley, and another 300– 400 people at The Tabernacle’s second location in Manistee. The church draws attendees

from as far away as Cadillac, Manton, Cedar, Traverse City, even Houghton Lake. And this year, the Manistee location will have its own service for the holiday, mirroring the service in Buckley; typically the pastor’s sermon is live in Buckley and streamed to Manistee.

The music and the instrumentation typically differ at Catholic churches, where tradition tends to reign supreme — less contemporary Christian; more well-known and well-loved hymns. Many Catholic churches augment the sound of organ, piano, and/or acoustic guitar with brass, wind, even percussion for the holiday celebration. That’s the case at St. Philip Neri in Empire, which music director Peter Bergin said will begin mass with Christmas carols and add select instruments to his piano and organ.

A VERY POLISH CHRISTMAS Did someone mention Christmas carols?

Kelly Lauster from the Diocese of Gaylord pointed to Holy Rosary Church in Cedar, which will start its holiday services on Christmas Eve with Polish Christmas carols at 3pm, followed by a kids’ Christmas play before Mass begins.

And it’s not that there is no room for technology: Lauster said St. Francis Xavier in Petoskey will simulcast its 10pm mass on 96.3 FM. Most Catholic Churches hold mass on Christmas Day as well on Christmas Eve. At St. Mary’s in Gaylord, for example, Christmas Eve services will take place at 5pm and 10pm, with 8am and 10am masses on Christmas.

FOR THOSE ON FAITH’S FRINGES Speaking of innovation, Pastor Patrick Holden at Kensington church in Traverse City — a Protestant church with eight

12 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

locations around Michigan — said that both its Sunday services on Dec. 22, as well as its 4pm Christmas Eve service, will take place in the round, creating a different atmosphere.

Holden said their typical service is a big production, with a large screen, motion, and graphics. “We keep in mind our audience: 30 percent are on the fringes of faith,” he said.

In contrast, the 11pm Christmas Eve service, dubbed “Render,” will take place in a separate, smaller room, creating a more intimate experience. It is geared toward traditional church-goers. “The 11 o’clock “Render” service is more traditional. The content is different,” he said.

A LIVING NATIVITY Bayview Wesleyan offers a unique presentation to coincide with the season and its services. Its Living Nativity has been a staple at the Traverse City church since 1974.

“It’s meant to be a living Christmas carol,” said Pastor Chris Emery.

The 30-minute outdoor show includes two different human casts as well as a fourlegged cast of ponies, sheep, goats, and other animals, all in a wood stable built to resemble the stable in which Jesus was said to have been born. The presentation runs from 6pm to 8pm Dec. 22 and 23, and 5pm to 6:30 Dec. 24. It is followed by cookies and beverages inside the church, or at the last presentation by the Christmas Eve service.

Emery said between 300 and 500 people typically attend the event nightly. “It sets the tone for what Christmas is all about,” he said.

HEAL THY HURTING HEART Recognizing that the holidays aren’t always happy occasions for everyone, some

churches offer special services for those whose Christmases may feel more blue than white. At New Hope in Acme, a Remembrance Service will be held in the church’s lobby on Dec. 22. It will be an intimate service offering music and a safe place to grieve for those struggling with the loss of a loved one this holiday. It will be led by Tim Manzer, the church’s care pastor.

Sojourn Church in Traverse City also offers a similar service on Dec. 22, this one coinciding with the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. “The goal is to create space for those experiencing the holidays as a challenging time, for people to come where little is expected of the participants. It’s a time to be comforted,” said Herron.

CAROLS & CANDLELIGHT The Christmas Eve celebrations end similarly at many churches, regardless of the denomination. The “Candlelight and Silent Night” Christmas Eve service at New Hope will include familiar Christmas carols, vocal and instrumental soloists, and conclude with the congregation lighting candles together and singing “Silent Night.”

Ditto Kensington and Bayview Wesleyan.

“All our services end with candlelight,” said Holden.

“Four-hundred people singing — it’s a great way to put the star on Christmas,” said Emery.

Whatever their differences in presentation, pastors say it is important to share the message of the birth of Christ, one of the two most significant events in the history of Christianity (the other being his resurrection at Easter). “It’s a pretty special time for the church,” said Herron. “We turn up the joy. It makes for a special time.”

Your 2019 Holiday Soundtrack The best — and a few to bypass

No matter how many times we’ve heard “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” or “Sleigh Bells,” each year a new crop of artists puts their stamp on songs of the season. This year’s holiday music crosses all genres, from jazz to rap, metallic to country. If you’re looking to update your longtime Christmas soundtrack or curate an all-new one, start here. By Ross Boissoneau

CHICAGO Chicago Christmas For their fourth holiday assortment, the members of the “rock band with horns” turn in a set of original holiday tunes plus a couple ringers. “Sleigh Ride” fits like a comfortable old scarf. Founding member Robert Lamm thought “What the World Needs Now” would fit in lyrically and musically, and maybe it does — though it would definitely have stuck out among a host of familiar holiday tunes. As to the originals, it’s tough to break through the Christmas clutter with something new. They all sound like Chicago, but it’s unlikely any of them will be played ad nauseum on the radio.

NE-YO Another Kind of Christmas Five new songs take their place alongside some reimagined Christmas classics, like “Someday at Christmas,” a plea for peace

by Stevie Wonder during the Vietnam War, and Marvin Gaye’s “I Want to Come Home for Christmas,” inspired by the plight of prisoners of war. Ne-Yo documents a Christmas Eve breakup on “Just Ain’t Christmas” and takes us to the islands on the reggae-tinged “Christmas Vibez.”

He channels Luther Campbell more than Wonder or Gaye on the R-rated “Open Mine Tonight;” Candice Boyd guests on a spirited rendition of “Carol of the Bells.”

IDINA MENZEL Christmas: A Season of Love Nothing says Christmas like overproduced odes to holiday favorites, whether it’s “Sleigh Ride” or “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” (Or anything

else on this recording.) If you miss the orchestrated classics of Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis or the like, you’ll find this right up your alley. Others may opt for something more intimate without being so overbearing.

LEA MICHELE Christmas in the City Menzel’s former Glee castmate essays similar territory but fares considerably better.

At least, until “Silver Bells,” which becomes cloying with its swooping strings. She does give Brenda Lee’s twang a run for its money on “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

You will get a sentimental feeling indeed.

DAVE STRYKER 8-Track Christmas Jazz guitarist Stryker has released three 8-Track albums, looking back on the organbased jazz stylings popular when eight-track cartridges were all the rage. Here he adds vibes to the classic organ trio sound and gets points for originality. That said, holiday music is notoriously difficult to pull off in a jazz vein with tradition and familiarity often at war with improvisation. So, “This Christmas” is a winner, but “What Child Is This?” is less so. “Sleigh Ride” is a delight, and the gentle, wistful “Christmas Time Is Here” is great for guitar and vibes — but not for organ, which makes it sound too much like a lounge act.

ANDREW BIRD HARK! HARK! is a quick shot of Christmas classics rendered as warm folk songs, courtesy of Illinois-based singer-songwriter

Andrew Bird. Bonus points for including “Skating” from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

The fiddle on that tune and “Christmas Is Coming” give them a retro, down-home feel, which is further accentuated by Bird’s whistling on “White Christmas.” He does the same on “O Holy Night” — albeit less successfully.

ROB HALFORD WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS Celestial AKA a Judas Priest Christmas. That’s right, the longtime Priest frontman celebrates the birth of the Christ child with a family band including his brother Nigel, his nephew Alex, his sister Sue and close friends. The most surprising thing isn’t that this holiday recording exists, it’s how well much of it works, at least if you’re in the mood for some holiday metal. Some – okay, most – is shriekingly metallic, from a full-on assault of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” to “Away in a Manger.”

Then along comes “Morning Star” to change the mood completely before Halford and crew turn it up to 11 on “Deck the Halls.”

JOHN BASILE Silent Night Basile plays guitars. Lots of guitars, with digitized, MIDI-ed backing to his nylon string and electric guitar. None of it sounds canned or forced – on the contrary, it’s lovely, melodic and where he drifts off the well-known melodies into improvisation, it’s never too off-the-wall. His version of “Christmas Time Is Here” has a gentle Latin vibe, while “The First Noel” is appropriately melody-based. The title track benefits from piano, presumably MIDI-produced by Basile, the only musician credited.

LOS LOBOS Llegó Navidad The titles may be unfamiliar to the uninitiated, but they are all traditional — just not U.S. traditional. The band researched nearly 150 Christmas-related songs from across the Americas for this collection. Most are sung in Spanish, which probably limits their appeal.

KEB’ MO’, MOONLIGHT Mistletoe, and You Bluesman Keb’ Mo’ has crafted a winner from this 50-50 mix of new and familiar holiday music. “Christmas Is Annoying” paints an amusing picture of the holidays, while “Santa Claus, Santa Claus” and “Merry, Merry Christmas” are engaging electric blues. His duet with Melissa Manchester on “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” is a highlight.

THE OAK RIDGE BOYS Down Home Christmas We’ll end where we began, in a sense: Like Chicago, the Oak Ridge Boys opted for a nearly all-original program. They gather round “The Family Piano” for a good old time, then go for more of the same with “Angels.” Of the two non-originals, “Silent Night” is given an almost gospel treatment, while “Amazing Grace” is even more so. Best bet: “Reindeer on the Roof,” featuring the amazing rich bass of Richard Sterban. The “buh-booms” and “that’s right” rival “oom poppa mow mow” from the Oak Ridge Boys’ classic song “Elvira.”

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 13

How to Resist Leaving Your Kids in a Snowbank Over Winter Break

Fun family activities and day trips

By Kristi Kates You’ve baked all the cookies, visited with all the relatives, unwrapped all the gifts, watched all the movies, and played all the games ... and there’s still a week of winter break left to go. Now what? If you and your kids are starting to come down with a hot case or cabin fever, get out of the house and head to one of these fun destinations in Michigan.

LITE UP THE NITES

Weeknights through Dec. 31 You probably can’t name a kid who ever gets tired of twinkling, colorful holiday lights.

So if they keep asking for more, load ’em up and take them on a road trip to Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan, where a drive-through tour through a display of millions of holiday lights has been running for over 20 years. Animated holiday motifs share space with cartoon characters and brightly lit tunnels; other kidsized activities onsite include rides on a mini train, refreshments, and puppet shows in Nite Lites’ own “Winter Wonderland.”

Cost: $25 per car More Information: www.nitelitesshow.com

GO GNOME HUNTING

Dec. 28 (12pm-8pm) Pond Hill Farm’s Gnome Scavenger Hunt — a trail walk on which you seek out little gnome houses, open their doors to find letter clues, and combine the letters to try and win a prize — runs year-round just north of Harbor Springs, but it takes on a particularly festive flair on Dec. 28, when you can chase the gnomes on cross-country skis or snowshoes, too. After your search, take in some sledding, enjoy a fun family lunch in the cafe — with live music — and visit the animals on the farm.

Cost: Visiting the farm is free; food and some activities are extra.

More Information: www.pondhill.com

BOUNCE IT OUT

Ongoing An entire room of trampolines? Including walls you can bounce off? That’ll keep even the most active kid occupied. Grand Rapids’ Sky Zone (there are several other locations in Michigan, as well) encourages kids to bounce off the walls, floor, and everywhere. It also offers a Foam Zone, where kids and adults alike can try more daring stunts — and fall safely into a landing zone of giant soft foam cubes — as well as rock-wall climbing, parkour blocks, and even a toddler zone. Schedule your own group event with the fam over the holidays, and you’ll be the talk of the season. If you’ve got little ones, keep an eye out for Character Toddler Time events ($11.99 per toddler), which happens over holiday break and includes guests like Santa and Snow Princesses. (Pssst …

Sky Zone also sells gift cards, so you can kill two birds with one stone: Stuff a gift card in your kid’s stocking and enjoy his grin Christmas day and a few days later on the trampoline.)

Cost: Prices start at $15.99 per person per hour; an all-day pass is $31.99 per person.

Rates vary for group events, inquire directly.

More Information: www.skyzone.com

TUBE AT TIMBERLEE

Ongoing, weekends only No gear is needed to ride a giant inflated tube down the mountain at Traverse City’s Timberlee Hills — your ticket covers your tube rental plus Timberlee’s nifty handle-tow system so you can glide back up to the top of the hill while lounging in your tube instead of having to lug the big doughnut up yourself. After an afternoon of some speedy, bumpy fun, take a break in the warming lodge — it offers TVs, a full-service kitchen and bar, and kid-friendly snacks like pizza, nachos, cheesy bread, and cinnamon-sugar (bread) nuggets, hot cocoa — and even adult beverages for Mom and Dad. Cost: A one-hour ticket is $14; a two-hour ticket is $24. (Bonus: A two-hour ticket can be split in half, time-wise, but cannot be shared with another person.)

More Information: www.timberleehills.com

14 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

SIT IN A SURREY

Selected dates starting Dec. 21, weather permitting Watch the delighted looks on your kids’ faces when you sit them behind a team of beautiful Belgian horses on a covered surrey — aka carriage —at Crystal Mountain in Thompsonville. The horses (and their driver, of course) will take you all on a unique and comfortable wintery trek through some of northern Michigan’s prettiest landscapes. At ride’s end, a bonfire and complimentary hot cocoa will be waiting.

Cost: $12 per person, one kid 6 years old or under free with each paying adult.

More Information: See the events calendar at www.crystalmountain.com

GO ON A KIDS QUEST

Ongoing (Holidazzle dates are limited) Mom and Dad can head downstate for some casino fun, while simultaneously taking the kids on their very own (supervised) mini-vacation at Kids Quest.

Work it like this: Take your crew to Kids Quest at Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in Mt. Pleasant and plan to participate in the “Holidazzled” activites, which include seasonal crafts and visitors from the North Pole. While you and your adult partner trade off taking in some gaming tables and slot machines, the kids can check out the Karaoke Star Stage (complete with dress-up accessories), Sports Room, video gaming stations, a giant climbing maze, and their own cafe. Even the littlest of kids can have fun in the Tiny Tots room.

Cost: Hourly fees for play vary by kids’ age.

More Information: www.kidsquest.com

HEAD TO THE WORKSHOP

Now through January 5 Education and fun in the same Christmas break activity can be found at the Ann Arbor Hands-on Museum this holiday season, home of the family-approved Hands-On Holiday Workshops. Your kids can learn about how animals adapt to winter (“Critters

in the Cold” workshop); match up posture with pitch and torso with tempo (“Music and Movement”); make a house for insects (“Habitat Building”); or even make that most favorite of gooey kids’ toys, slime. (Check the museum’s website for days and times for each workshop; all repeat throughout the season into January.)

Cost: $6 general public, $4 museum members (per workshop) More Information: www.aahom.org

GO INTO BATTLE

Ongoing Got a large crew of kids or teens? Send them into battle — literally — by taking them to BattleGR in Grand Rapids, where they’ll be put into teams and can get out all of that leftover Christmas break energy through mission/objective-based games of laser tag or archery tag. Your kids will not only have a blast but also be stealthily learning tactics, strategy, and the art of friendly fights.

Cost: Each 30-minute session costs $15 per person, a 60-minute session is $25. For group pricing (eight people or more) or to book larger party packages that include refreshments, contact BattleGR directly.

More Information: www.battlegr.com

CELEBRATE EARLY

Dec. 31 Rather than celebrate the arrival of 2020 like a boring old adults, take your kids to the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum for a party of their own! The museum’s “New Years Early Eve” runs from 6pm to 8pm, and fits an entire New Years’ celebration in for the little ones before bedtime. Each kid will be equipped with noisemakers, party hats, and glow bracelets, and they can enjoy pizza and dancing until the big ball drop — complete with confetti — at “midnight.”

Cost: $10 per kid member/$15 per kid non-member.

More Information: www.grcm.org

HAVE SOME FAMILY FUN

Now through Jan. 3 The Air Zoo Aerospace and Science Experience in Portage, Michigan, is offering up their Winter Break Family Fun days as a complimentary (yes, free!) add-on to general museum admission on Thursdays and Fridays. Kids will find oodles of themed crafts and special games, fascinating interactive demonstrations, and special guests (the schedule changes daily, check the website for details). Activities include making a snowstorm in a bottle, excavating the icy moons around Jupiter, building roller coasters and rockets, and even an early celebration of the New Year.

Cost: Adults, $15.95; kids 5–18 $14.95; kids 4 and under are free.

More Information: www.airzoo.org

WATCH THE MAGIC

Jan. 2 magic show, ongoing museum Sometimes it literally takes magic to keep the kids occupied. That’s no problem at all at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, where a special performance from “museum favorite,” magician John Dudley, will entertain and astonish audiences on Jan. 2. Dudley combines traditional stage magic with modern trickery for a fastpaced show to delight all ages; some guests might even be plucked from the audience

to help him do magic. After the magic show, check out the rest of the museum — especially its puzzle treks (hint: try the new Mindbender Mansion) — and other interactive activities.

Cost: Free.

More Information: www.kzookids.com

AMP UP YOUR REALITY

Ongoing If you’ve got a wide range of ages in your family, this is another place that will be fun for everyone from kindergarteners to teens to parents. Amped Reality in Grand Rapids is an immersive experience for everyone, where you simply put on a headset and are taken right “into” a virtual destination and quest of your choice. Walk a plank like a pirate, hit cubes with light sabers to the beat of music, chase dinosaurs, ride a roller coaster, or cut falling fruit with giant swords. There are spooky games and tougher challenges for older kids, and friendlier quests for the younger set. You can even take a virtual vacation to a winter break-appropriate snowy location!

Cost: $30 per hour per VR station. Larger parties can be accommodated; see “pricing” on the website.

More Information: www.ampedrealityvr.com

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Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 15

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last-minute Stocking Stuffers Need a lil’ something to stuff in somebody’s Christmas stocking? Don’t waste time waiting for Amazon to deliver. Simply shop the old-fashioned way: Stroll into a shop in your town and buy something special.

Here’s a few ideas we’re hoping to find in our stocking on the 25th.

By Kristi Kates 1. LIGHT IT UP These beautiful Michigan-made 8-ounce soy candles include essential oils for strong, long-lasting scents, plus a cherry wood wick. There are so many to choose from for every stocking you’ve got on your list — staff favorite “Woods and Earth” includes notes of cloves, flowers, and oakmoss. There are even wildflower seeds embedded in the candle labels; peel the label off after the candle’s done, and plant in a sunny location!

Stuff It! $24.98 each at The Katydid, 305 East Lake St., Petoskey. (231) 758-1030, www. thekatydid.com.

2. GET ’EM A SAILBOAT (SORT OF) This one will actually fit quite nicely in a stocking — well, the ticket will, anyway.

But it will open up far bigger vistas for your giftee when you pre-purchase a sailing trip for them through the Inland Seas Education Association. Choose from a variety of types of sailing jaunts — a breakfast trip from Suttons Bay to Traverse City; a beer education sail accompanied by brews and staffers from Short’s Brewery; or a historical learning trip, just for starters.

Stuff It! Trips start at $30 per person.

ISEA, 100 Dame St., Suttons Bay. (231) 2713077, www.schoolship.org

3. SHELL GAME Got a giftee that loves the water? Bring part of the ocean inside with this colorful, glistening abalone shell bowl with iridescent interior. Used for centuries for burning smudge (an ancient practice, typically used by indigenous people, in which sage is burned with the intention of helping clear out negative energy), this shell can also be used as an accent piece or as a unique way to hold small items like coins or jewelry.

Stuff It! $18 at Inspired Living, 119 Water Street, Boyne City. (231) 582-2663, www. balilivingimports.com.

4. PAPER CHASE Mark your giftee’s favorite place in the world with a striking handcrafted paper carving by artist Whitney Maxwell Ramer; the inventory of available pieces changes regularly, but you’ll always find images of bodies of water and local architecture, all showcasing the artist’s love of the area and making for very unique gifts. Harbor Springs’ favorite local bookstore showcases many of Ramer’s pieces and can assist you in locating the perfect one.

Stuff It! Prices vary by piece. Find out more at Between the Covers, 106 E. Main St., Harbor Springs. (231) 526-6658, facebook. com/btcbookstore.

5. HELP THE GARDEN GROW If your giftee has been bemoaning how far away the start of gardening season is, gift him a Garden Gift collection from Bloom, customized by staff based according to your price point. Your gift will include a variety of upscale gardening gifts, which could include garden scissors, seed markers, scarves, and other goodies, all thoughtfully styled in a container that can be reused as a planter or décor piece, plus a festive silk ribbon.

Stuff It! Garden Gift Collections are available in small, medium, or large (small starts at $50) at Bloom Floral Design,100 Van Pelt Place Suite A, Charlevoix, (231) 6759017 or 220 Park Ave., Petoskey. (231) 6228335, ww w.bloomfloraldesign.com.

6. SNACK ATTACK Got a college kid on your list? Send her back to school in snackin’ style with this tasty assortment of both savory and sweet Traverse City-themed treats. We’re pretty sure brain food includes a box full of cherry yogurt pretzels, Campfire Crackle snack mix, chocolate covered dried cherries, cherry sour patch candies, and cherry salsa.

Stuff It! $38.50 at Benjamin Twiggs, 1213 East Front St., Traverse City. (231) 947-0208, www.benjamintwiggs.com.

7. LOAFING AROUND You might not be able to make the scent of fresh-baked bread waft gently out of someone’s Christmas stocking … but you can gift them this package of Sturgeon River Pottery’s own Cheesy Garlic Beer Bread mix.

You won’t even need butter once this bad boy is all baked up; goes great with a stew or soup, especially after a cold day outdoors, or just on its own. Your giftee could even pay it forward and give their loaf as a gift. (Also available in spinach and parmesan.)

Stuff It! $6.95 per mix, at the intersection of US-31 South and Park View Rd. in Petoskey.

(231) 347-0590, www.sturgeonriver.com.

8. THE WRITTEN WORD For those who still appreciate the elegance and fun of a handwritten piece of mail, tuck a box of Inuit art note cards into their stocking from the Dennos Museum gift shop. These beautiful cards on thick stock are available in several different mixes of designs, including art by Ningeokuluk Teevee, Tim Pitsiulak, and Kenojuak Ashevak. The “Preening Owl” thank you card is a popular favorite.

Stuff It! Cards start at $12.95 per box of 10 at the Dennos Museum Store, at Northwestern Michigan College, 1701 E. Front St., Traverse City. (231) 995-1586, www.shop.dennosmuseum.org.

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 17

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A photo of The Hayloft Inn owner Marion Peplinski singing with guitarist Harry Dorman at one of the dozens of Roundup’s Bill Dungjen made possible over the last 15 years.

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TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR ROUNDUP TIME See the last of the legendary open-mic show where Billy Strings and The Accidentals cut their teeth

By Tom Carr After 15 years of hosting the open mic Thursday nights at the Hayloft Inn, Bill Dungjen is hanging up the microphone after a longer version of the weekly event on December 26.

“I just figured 15 years is enough,” said Dungjen. “Everything’s got a life cycle.”

Old friends of the show have been making the trek out to M-72 west of Traverse City to sing a few songs before the end of the series.

“It’s part nostalgia, or people wanting to get their licks in while they can,” Dungjen said.

Shayne Arsenault was a former regular who hasn’t been able to make it there as often in recent years, but he wanted to make it back a couple times before the curtain falls on Roundup. There are other great open mics in the area, but he said there was something truly special about Dungjen’s long-running weekly gathering.

“With it being all the way acoustic with a condenser mic [a microphone commonly used in studios because of its ability to capture a large frequency and reproduce the speed of an istrument and voice], it’s like playing in my living room,” he said.

Arsenault has made good friends among other regulars. He’s developed as a player and watched others do the same, while seeing a broad range of abilities among the players.

“I’ve seen some people grow and get a lot better, and that’s a really cool thing,” he said.

Dungjen started hosting in 2004, and has improved the show over the years. He came up with the “Roundup” name several years ago, and for many of those years, he broadcast the show on WNMC, Northwestern Michigan College’s radio station. For a time, he put together Sunday afternoon performances that cast on Interlochen Public Radio, as well. He encouraged people to bring all types of talents, including stand-up comedy, poetry reading, skits, or anything else that would make for an entertaining sight or sound.

He’s seen hundreds of performers in the 750-or-so shows he’s done at the Hayloft, and among them have been some unusually great performers — and others that were just plain unusual.

Many remember when Traverse City’s bluegrass-guitar virtuoso Billy Strings and then high-schoolers The Accidentals used to stop by — long before Strings played the Grand Ole Opry or The Accidentals took the South by Southwest Festival by storm, and well before both piled up accolades on a national scale.

There have also been many surprisingly polished hobby musicians, some of whom have become regulars, while others were a one-time sensation.

Others have been memorably off-beat, like a bit of performance art inspired by Don Quixote … and with props.

“And there was this one guy who had learned one song on the trombone, and he came and ripped it off and it was fun,” Dungjen said.

Still, it was musicians, mostly acoustic, who were the bread and butter of the show.

Bluegrass, pop, country, blues and soft rock were the most often heard, with a bit of jazz thrown in on occasion.

Every week, Dungjen set up the red-velvet curtain to contain the sound and muffle noise from the back door and musicians tuning up (when they weren’t tuning or warming up in the bathroom) on the wooden dance floor of The Loft.

It was more than just a parade of singers and guitarists. Every so often, Dungjen or a performer would say, “Hey Kids, what time is it?” and the audience would answer in a resounding chant of “It’s Roundup Time!”

Also, every week, Bill read the police blotter from the Leelanau Enterprise, for folksy minor crimes and irritations reported, and for a time, he and regular visitors performed original comedy skits.

The longest drive contest was a favorite feature. Usually, someone from Kingsley, or maybe Charlevoix would win. One week, two families from China battled it out to determine out whose home was actually farthest from M-72.

Swing/blues singer/songwriter Blake Ellliott, who now performs full-time around Michigan and beyond, said she learned a lot from Dungjen.

“I cut my teeth there,” said Elliott, who has also hosted open mics elsewhere. “It gave me an appreciation of what it is to run an open mic and be a good host and create a welcoming atmosphere. He’s a generous host.

“I really appreciated his showmanship,” she added. “It always felt like a Prairie Home Companion-ish vibe.”

While both Dungjen and the Hayloft owners have decided that the program has grown as far as it can at that location, Dungjen hasn’t ruled out bringing back a version of it at another venue. If that happens, though, it won’t be until after he takes some time off from it.

Meanwhile, Dungjen will continue to play gigs in the area with bluegrass and acoustic musicians, and last year he and his family launched a seasonal breakfast food truck named Cracked. And he will continue to produce Glen Lake High School plays.

The final run of the Roundup, Dec. 26, is scheduled to start at 5 p.m., rather than the usual 8 p.m., at the Hayloft Inn, 5100 E Traverse Hwy, aka M-72, in Cedar.

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THE THISTLE PUB & GRILLE DINING AMIDST SNOWY SLOPES AND SCOTTISH TARTANS

On an early December morning, the outdoor temperature at Crystal Mountain Resort in Thompsonville registered 22 degrees (minus wind chill). Snowmaking machines on the slopes above Kinlochen Lodge roared like jet engines, spewing curtains of white powder on the natural base that had already heralded an early ski season in November. But inside the stately stone and timber building, a peaceful, holiday-bedecked entrance hall led dining guests to the warm and welcoming Thistle Pub & Grille.

By Janice Binkert The Thistle Pub & Grille, takes its name from the prickly purple thistle plant, which has been the national emblem of Scotland for nearly 800 years. The Scottish-themed restaurant is a nod to the heritage of Crystal Mountain’s president and CEO, Chris and Jim MacInnes, respectively, whose family coat of arms hangs above the large stone fireplace in Kinlochen. Colorful mounted tartans and intricate tapestries of woodland scenes adorn the burnished wood-paneled walls of the dining room, the bar menu features a good selection of single malt Scotch whisky as well as a Scottish ale (Crystal’s Twisted Thistle), and the repeating strains of Celtic music playing in the background add to the atmosphere. You almost expect kilted dancers to swirl into the restaurant doing a Highland fling.

SORRY, NO HAGGIS But if you come to Thistle expecting to

feast on bangers and mash, black pudding, or the (in)famous haggis with “neeps” and “tatties” (turnips and potatoes), you’ll be disappointed. That said, other Scottish delicacies — those more familiar to northern Michigan diners, such as shepherd’s pie, salmon, Scotch eggs, and lamb — do show up as features from time to time alongside the primarily northern Michigan-oriented specialties that make up the bulk of the regular menu, said Thistle’s head chef Jeremy Ursum.

While pursuing a degree in art at Kendall School of Design in Grand Rapids, Ursum worked in the various kitchens at Crystal Mountain Resort during summer and holiday breaks, starting in conference services, then moving to banquets, and gradually making his way up through the culinary ranks. “It started out as a parttime job — a way to earn money to pay off my school loans,” he said, “but I really fell in love with cooking when I got into the science of it. I began to see myself staying

20 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

in the restaurant industry, and when I came back [to Crystal] after that next semester, I thought, ‘I’m happy here, and I think I have a bit of a knack for this thing.’ That’s when I started working full time for the resort.”

Ursum was invited to join the Thistle team in 2004, a year after it opened, and was eventually offered the head chef position.

“One of the things I learned working with Chef Bryant [Bryant Betts, Crystal Mountain Resort’s executive chef] is that everything doesn’t have to be pushed to the limit. There’s much more intricacy involved in cooking. I think near the middle of what has been my 18-year career in the kitchen, I was all about, ‘Let’s take this flavor to the max … .’ But now it’s like ‘How does this go with this?

Does this crème frâiche need salt, or do I leave it really simple and let it play off this dish a lot more’? Or with complementary flavors — sometimes one thing should be a little less prominent than another.

Even making a beurre blanc — the whole

process of doing it is what’s going to lead you to success, not just adding all of the ingredients together. Once you know what you’re doing, you can play with flavors and combinations, and that’s where the creativity comes in, keeping it interesting and making you excited about what you do. But it’s even more fulfilling when somebody else gets excited about it.”

SHARING THE SPOTLIGHT AND EXPERTISE Obviously, plenty of people have gotten excited about Ursum’s food, and not only day-to-day guests who come to the restaurant. This year, he was named “Culinary Star of the Year” by the Michigan Governor’s Conference, and The Thistle Pub & Grille was recognized in Traverse, Northern Michigan Magazine’s most recent “Red Hot Best” poll as the “No. 1 Ski Resort Property Restaurant” in northern Michigan. Ursum is honored by the awards, but they haven’t gone to his head. “I’m not an egotistical person — I

just love to cook,” he said. He also gives a lot of credit to his staff. “They are the ones who really make it happen, and I care about every single one of them.”

Ursum likes the fact that at this stage of his career, he can be a little more instructional.

“We have people working with us in the kitchen who are just starting out, and I really enjoy helping them learn the basic skills and then setting them on a path to where they can develop their own flavors and style, not just replicate what I do,” he said. “For example, I have a young guy right now who doesn’t have any formal culinary training, but he’s very interested and is absorbing everything. I could tell by the glimmer in his eyes the first day he came in that he was hungry to learn. In no time, he was crossutilizing ingredients and jumping around from one station to another, and I thought to myself, ‘This kid’s got it.’”

Ursum said that at some point, he thinks he would really like to teach. “My dream would probably be to go around to schools and talk to the students about what they would like to do later — help them find their direction. I feel like, with a little encouragement and some fundamental training, maybe some of them would do well in the hospitality field. It’s definitely a market that needs good people.”

AN ODE TO THE SEASONS The menu at Thistle Pub & Grille changes seasonally, with a definite emphasis on farm-to-table during the summer. The restaurant partners year-round with several local farmers and Michigan producers, many of whom are listed on the menu. An article in Crystal Mountain’s Winter 2019/2020 Mountain Life magazine, written by Tricia Phelps, CEO of Taste the Local Difference, talks about how seasonal cooking Up North is possible year-round, and includes a recipe from Ursum using local ingredients that are available in the winter.

Thistle’s current menu is, of course, also a reflection of the winter season, and includes a diverse selection of dishes like beetroot hummus (beets, truffle butter, garbanzo beans, tahini, lemon and garlic oil, served with sea salt crackers); Thistle fries (with truffle butter, Parmesan cheese, and roasted garlic aioli); jumbo lump crab cake (with Louisiana maque choux [a hot side dish made with corn], fried green tomato and Cajun remoulade); kale and arugula salad (with dried cherries, bacon, roasted cashews, blue cheese, and strawberry balsamic vinaigrette); Thistle’s award-winning sirloin chili (a secret recipe, with sweet onion, sour cream, and Michigan cheddar); blackened pub-steak Dorsi (the coveted top cap of the ribeye, served with cognac beurre rouge and arugula greens); shrimp and grits (seared shrimp, andouille sausage, vintage cheddar and charred corn grits, fried onions and pan jus); and Harrietta Hills rainbow trout (with cauliflower-carrot basmati pilaf and puttanesca relish).

Among the dessert offerings from Thistle’s pastry chef are Michigan apple crisp (with vanilla bean ice cream) — a customer favorite — and brown butter cake (with macerated berries, Greek yogurt, and whipped cream). Thistle’s lunch menu is very similar, but in lieu of large entrées, there are more sandwich — or “handheld” — options.

Ursum found that translating his art background into the culinary profession was a pretty natural process for him. “I can look at something and draw or paint it, but some art is more like abstract expressionism — just seeing where the canvas takes you.

Usually people with the latter mindset are kind of all over the place — very free form.

I’m more the type who likes things orderly,

Michigan Governor’s Conference’s “Culinary Star of the Year,” Jeremy Ursum, head chef of Crystal’s Thistle Pub & Grille.

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everything in rows. But in cooking and plate presentation, I can be totally linear in one aspect and then abstract in another aspect. It’s all about balance, proportion and color.”

This winter, if you’re heading to Crystal Mountain for downhill or cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, skating, enjoying a horse-drawn surrey ride, or relaxing in the resort’s spa, why not cap it off with a meal at the Thistle Pub & Grille? Come summer, your dinner or lunch could be combined with a day of golfing, fat-tire biking, or hiking or taking in an outdoor concert in the onsite Michigan Legacy Art Park.

One thing that Ursum wanted to emphasize, though, is that while the

restaurant is referred to as “fine dining” on Crystal’s website, he prefers to call it “casual fine dining,” with an emphasis on “casual.” Everyone is welcome — families, couples, singles, groups — and “come as you are” (i.e. hat hair, golf shoes, and racoon-style sunglass-tans included) is the only dress code!

The Thistle Pub & Grille is located within Crystal Mountain Resort, 12500 Crystal Mountain Dr. in Thompsonville. Open for lunch, 11am to 5pm daily; dinner 5pm to 9pm Sun–Thurs, and 5pm to 10pm Fri–Sat. For reservations or more information, call (800) 968-7686 and follow the prompts, or visit www.crystalmountain.com/dining.

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Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 21

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22 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

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Prizes include:

• $500 American Airlines voucher • 2 Downtown Traverse City gift baskets courtesy of our new 2020 sponsor, Edward Jones • Overnight stay with two lift tickets at Crystal Mountain + Historic Tour for two at The Village at Grand Traverse Commons $10 cover for assorted beverages, chili bar and great networking!

See you at Cherry Capital Airport!

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 23

What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?

By Ross Boissoneau For many, going out on the town is the only way to rig in the new year. Champagne at midnight, party favors, music, maybe even fireworks. So where to go and what exactly to do? We gathered a few fun options for adults and families from across the region.

CHERRYT BALL The annual downtown Traverse City festivities features a large replica of the unofficial city fruit being dropped to the ground at the stroke of midnight. It’s a tradition started a decade ago by a group of Traverse City-area residents as a way to celebrate and give back. In the last 10 years, it’s raised more than $112,000 for local nonprofits.

The large cherry drops from the sky at the intersection of Park and Front streets. The party begins at 10pm and ends just after the new year.

Everyone is welcome to this free event, though Salvation Army volunteers will be on hand to accept donations — $3 per person works great, says organizers — by check and cash. Typically, between 8,000 and 12,000 attend, which also offers a DJ for dancing in the streets, and there are even fireworks at midnight (weather permitting). If it’s too cold outside for you or your baby, you can still watch the CherryT Ball drop live on the CherryT Ball Facebook page.

GRAND TRAVERSE RESORT AND SPA Dinner at Aerie Restaurant & Lounge features a one-night-only three-course pre fixe menu with wine pairings from its awardwinning wine list ($85 per person). Local musician Johnny P. Band will perform live music. Seating is limited. Book online at OpenTable.com or (231) 534-6800.

For those looking for a little more action, resort guests and members of the public over age 18 are invited to a celebration in the silverand-black bedecked Governors’ Ballroom. The Midnight in the Mitten celebration will honor the state’s agriculture with an eight-course strolling dinner you can pair with Michigan-made libations. A champagne toast and balloon drop will happen at midnight; a cash bar, party favors, and dancing to the Blue Water Kings (until 1am!) will entertain you until then.

Kids age 6 to 12 can ring in the new year, too: The Kids’ New Year’s Eve Party includes a pizza party dinner, games, and a few HUGE

surprises, plus a kid-friendly toast at midnight!

Registration is $50 per child and $35 for additional siblings ($40 per child and $25 for additional siblings for Club Members). Licensed daycare for kids up to age 6 is also available for $10 per hour, per child. (231) 534-6780.

Learn more: www.grandtraverseresort.com.

displays, billed as “the greatest New Year’s Eve Firework Shows” at both 9pm and midnight, but the fun starts long before, at 1pm, with s’mores and hot cocoa around bonfires at East Park in the afternoon, a free family movie at Charlevoix Cinema III, a snowman-sculpture contest, and horse-drawn carriage rides.

GARLAND LODGE & RESORT The rural resort outside Lewiston is offering a New Year’s Eve extravaganza at with a Crab & Prime Rib Buffet at $44.95 per person.

Reservations are required. Live entertainment from 9pm-Midnight features the Brenda Loomis Band (21+ only), with a $20 cover, which includes snacks and champagne toast; admission for those at the buffet will receive $10. And if you’re staying over or just starting over, everyone is welcome to kick off admission off the New Year with an All-Day Bloody Mary Bar New Year’s Day while watching football in Antlers Bar.

CELEBRATE CELEBRATE & SKI Of course, Of course, many revelers like to take to the slopes. Most of the ski and snowboard resorts offer special amenities and activities for New Year’s Eve.

THE RITZ AT THE RAMSDELL Don your tiaras and top hats, Ladies and Gents. The Puttin’ on the Ritz party at the Ramsdell Theatre is doing New Year’s Eve in grand Jazz Age style. The festivities begin at 8pm and features the music of Dave Greer’s Classic Jazz Stompers. Hors d’oeuvres, party favors, noisemakers, a champagne toast at midnight, and fancy libations. Tickets are $50; go to www.mynorthtickets.com.

CROOKED TREE ARTS CENTER The adults can’t have all the fun. Crooked Tree Arts Center and the Petoskey District Library are joining forces for the 12th annual, fun-for-all-ages New Year’s Eve at the Arts Center. Ring in 2020 from 5pm to 9pm with live music on five stages, enjoy arts and crafts, magic workshops, pottery, balloon tying, karaoke, a free pizza buffet, cookies & cocoa, refreshments, and the famous “Midnight at 9” ball drop on Mitchell Street! Tickets are $10 for adults (over 18) and $5 for students (2–18) are available for purchase at the Petoskey District Library and online at www.crookedtree.org.

CHARLEVOIX Traverse City drops its famed fruit; Charlevoix drops — what else — its drawbridge.

The double-leaf bascule bridge in the middle of town will be lit up and lowered to the timing of the countdown to 2020. There are also fireworks

24 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

SHANTY CREEK RESORT The sprawling resort outside Bellaire offers a host of activities for all ages. For the younger set, Kids’ Night Out in the Bellaire Room runs 6pm–10pm, with games, arts and crafts, dancing, and snacks. On the other hand, maybe the whole family wants to party together, at the Family Fun Prime Rib & Crab Legs Dinner Show in the Lakeview Hotel’s Grand Ballroom. It begins at 6:30pm and features dinner, a comedian, then dancing to a live DJ. Adults, $60; children 6–12, $25; kids 5 and under, free. Reservations are required. Call (231) 533-3000 ext. 7084.

The Lakeview Restaurant offers a more low-key approach to traditional dining, a roaring fire, and floor-to-ceiling views of the fireworks over Summit Mountain at midnight.

(231) 533-3070 to reserve. Didn’t plan ahead?

Head to Ivan’s at Schuss Village, where all you (21+ only) need to get into the party is $10.

CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN There’s something for pretty much everyone here on New Year’s Eve. There’s a pre fixe dinner at the Thistle Pub & Grille ($60 per person) or a buffet at the Wild Tomato ($40 for adults, $18 for kids 7–12, $11 for kids 6 and under), or the New Year’s Eve Family Fun Party And Buffet in Hudson Bay in the upper level of the Crystal Center. The buffet (and adult cocktails) is open 6pm-8pm; face painting, crafts, and games begin at 7pm; a live DJ starts at 8pm. Ages 13+, $39 per person; 7–12, $29; 6 and Under, $15.

After 9pm, it’s just $15 per person.

The New Year’s Eve adult party runs 8pm to 12:30am for $99 per couple, $59 for individuals. It features live music and tasty treats in Hudson Bay at the Crystal Center.

It features heavy hors d’oeuvres and cocktails

from 8pm to 10pm, with a live DJ from 8:30pm to 12:30am. Just want to dance? Only $15 to get in at 10pm; cocktails available, plus a complimentary champagne toast at midnight, and, yes, fireworks! Reservations are required for all; call (855) 998-5359.

Don’t miss the torchlight parade down the Cheers run, starting at 10pm. Everyone with a valid season pass or lift ticket is welcome to participate. To carry a torch, you must be 16 years of age (kids aged 8–15 can carry a glow wand) and you must sign up at the Snowsports Desk on Dec. 31.

NUB’S NOB Heading north to Harbor Springs? You can ring in the New Year with a view of a Nub’s Nob tradition: the Torchlight Parade Ring light show down Smokey. Watch the bottom of the Green Lift on Dec. 31 at 6 p.m. With the sun dipping below the horizon around 7, the nighttime starts early up here, making this a great family event for little ones who might not be able to stay up until midnight.

BOYNE MOUNTAIN/BOYNE HIGHLANDS Don’t forget the Boynes! The New Year’s Eve Family Glow Night at Boyne Mountain in Boyne Falls features special pricing at Avalanche Bay Indoor Waterpark — $34 juniors, $41 adults — if you book online in advance. www.boynemountain.com.

There’s also a family dinner buffet from 5 to 9pm in Matterhorn in the Civic Center and Eriksen’s Dinner Party at 5pm & 8:15pm with band Under the Moon. Kids get their own celebration and pizza party at Helga Haus Children’s Center (adjacent to Civic Center), plus crafts, games, a late night movie, and the annual Torchlight Parade and fireworks display. Child care including all activities and pizza dinner is $60 per child. Reservations recommended; call (231) 549-7274.

Boyne Highlands in Harbor Springs isn’t to be left out, not with its own Torch Light Parade and fireworks display, plus a bonfire and s’mores at the Main Lodge from 6pm9pm, zipline adventure tours 10am & 1pm, and Horseback Trail Rides, and Pony Rides all before midnight! The Zoo Bar New Year’s Eve Party goes from 9pm to 1am, and a New Year’s Eve Teen Party is at the Day Lodge from 10pm to 12:30am. Call 888-436-2296 for pricing and reservations.

Four Reasons People Come To Sleder’s 1. The burgers are ground fresh.

2. The french fries are homemade.

3. The beer is ice cold.

4. Oh! And there’s a moose to smooch!

SLEDER’S FAMILY TAVERN

717 Randolph • TC • 231.947.9213 • OPEN 7 DAYS • sleders.com

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Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 25

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26 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

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By Al Parker

Judi and Fritz Boehm as their Christmas alter egos.

Every year a dedicated cadre of Kris Kringles man the front lines of the Christmas season. From Thanksgiving to nearly Christmas Eve, these are the Santas that you see in stores, parades, parties and anywhere else a dab of holiday jolliness is required.

It would be easy to be cynical about these guys. After all, most Santa images in popular culture are used to peddle everything from Red Bull to M&Ms. But that misses the point.

Spend some time talking with these Santas, and you quickly learn that these are the guys to whom we entrust our children’s most heartfelt wishes and dreams. They are from a place where good behavior and kindness are not only valued but also rewarded.

Santa Claus, in truth, is not about giving or receiving gifts, but about joy — giving and receiving.

Here, Northern Express sits down with several area Clauses — both Santa and the Mrs. — to find out how they came to embody the spirit of the season and hear some of their most memorable moments.

THE INSTINCTS OF A GOOD SANTA When Williamsburg resident Rod Kuncaitis invites a few friends over for his jolly ol’ appearance at the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa’s annual “Breakfast with Santa,” it’s hardly your average get-together.

“I think we had 580 people, all told [last Christmas],” said Kuncaitis, a bright-eyed elf of a Santa Claus. “It takes a while, but it’s really fun.”

With no formal training, Kuncaitis said he was sort of drafted into Santa duty about six years ago, when he took over from Dick Smith, a long-time Acme-area St. Nick.

Kuncaitis has the natural instincts that make a good Santa, asking a few ice-breaking questions to the shyest of children and never promising a specific present. “I’ll ask their name, where they go to school,” he explained.

“I’ll ask if they’ve been good, and sometimes I’ll joke and ask if they drive. One time I asked a boy if he’d been good and he said ‘No.’ I asked if he loved his mom and dad and he said ‘Yes.’ Then you’re good, I told him.”

Kuncaitis has heard more than a few unusual requests over the years. “One 60-yearold woman asked me to pray for her because she had just been diagnosed with cancer,” he said. “Another lady told me about her failed marriage. You don’t know what’s coming next.”

He was once taken aback by an overly friendly woman who crawled onto his lap, flung her leg across his and openly flirted with Santa. “This was right in front of her husband and children,” he recalled, shaking his head.

“You never know.”

Over the years, Kuncaitis has invested about $1,800 in two Santa costumes. He rotates them out during the busy season, during which he makes about 20 appearances as the Jolly Old Elf. Within the Santa community, he said, there are different genre of Santas, namely fake beard vs. real beard — and the difference in valuation is real.

“A fake-beard Santa gets about $100 an hour, while a real-beard Santa gets $150 and up,” he explained. “I’m a fake-beard Santa. I’m not looking to get rich at this, just to have fun with the youngsters. My goal for next year is to learn sign language.”

THIS SANTA DOESN’T CHARGE A FEE Ken Mattei got pressed into Santa service about two decades ago.

“There was a ‘Breakfast with Santa’ event, but we couldn’t find a Santa [at a reasonable price], so I bought a suit and did it,” recalls Mattei, a retired GM executive who lives in the Gaylord area. “I’ve been doing it for charitable organizations now for many years. I get a lot of phone calls.”

Each year, Mattei does 20 to 25 events between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. Unlike some St. Nicks, Mattei doesn’t charge a fee for his services, which take him across northern Michigan and as far south as Pontiac.

Out of all his holiday appearances, one

Repping the Man — and Woman — in Red What it takes to be Mr. & Mrs. Claus

event in Mancelona last year stood out.

“You know, a lot of kids come up and want an iPad or Xbox or something expensive,” said Mattei. “But this one little guy came up with his two brothers and quietly whispered to me ‘All I want is my dad back with us. He’s in jail. And I want my grandpa alive — he passed away. And our dog passed away.’”

That request sent Santa reeling.

“That just torqued me big time,” said Mattei, who later launched an investigation to find out who the boys were and what their family situation was. “We tracked them down and learned that they lived south of Kalkaska.

Mom worked at a diner, and everything the boy said was true. They were having some hard times.”

Mattei, who is president of Gaylord annual Alpenfest, approached the Gaylord Chamber of Commerce and worked with Kiwanis and the Meijer Store to help the family. “We got a conference room full of things for Mom and the kids,” said Mattei. “And we delivered them the weekend before Christmas.”

NO (LEGIT) BEARD, NO PROBLEM Cadillac resident Al Dumond has been an old-world Father Christmas at Wexford County events for two decades. It began when he was approached to play the role and narrate a community theater event.

“They kind of found me,” said Dumond, who works for the city of Cadillac. “And I’ve

been at it, on and off, ever since.”

Dumond’s version of St. Nick features a slightly different coat and a walking stick complete with tinkling bells, plus a bushy beard, which is fake. “I can’t grow a beard, so I go with a fake one,” said Dumond, who has no formal Santa training.

His old world look sometimes takes youngsters and their parents aback.

“I was at an event at the Wexford Historical Museum, and there was a modern Santa leaving as I replaced him,” recalled Dumond. “There were a couple of kids looking and looking at me. ‘Come here,’ I whispered to them, and the boys did but looked confused.”

After the youngsters left Dumond, their parents explained the boys’ puzzled behavior.

“They had just sat on the lap of the modern Santa who I replaced, and then they sat on my lap,” said Dumond. “They wondered who was the real Santa.”

Any advice for any St. Nick wannabes?

“You got to really want to do it,” advised Dumond. “It’s a commitment. It’s gonna take time, and you always have to have a jolly disposition.”

SANTA AND MRS. CLAUS Fritz Boehm, from Manistee, began his Santa career four years ago when the local Elks Club asked him to star in an event.

“I’m a member, and they asked me to play Santa,” said the 75-year-old retired

chiropractor. “I enjoyed it so much, so then I was asked to appear at a few schools in Manistee.”

Boehm, who already sported a short white beard, let his chin whiskers grow. Since then, he’s appeared at Crystal Mountain Resort events and made several school visits, private house calls, and Manistee’s Sleighbell Parade, where he appears as “the Old St. Nick.”

Last October he became a certified St. Nick by attending the Charles Howard Santa Claus School in Midland, the longest running Santa School in the world. It’s been active since 1937.

Fritz’s wife, Judi Boehm, went along as Mrs. Claus and thoroughly enjoyed the three-day session.

The school offers students lessons on how to behave as Santa, media interview tips, presentation skills, and much more. It gave the Boehms a chance to meet like-minded Santas and to share stories and tips. They also had an opportunity to spend time with live reindeer and ride the Polar Express train.

“We met a young Santa from Jerusalem,” said Fritz. “He sees 9,000 kids a year in Jerusalem. He’s a Christian and arrives at events on a camel. His real job is working security for the Israeli government.”

“It was such fun, a really neat experience” she said. “The school was all about the heart.

Everyone there had a special photo of a kid who had touched their heart. Everyone involved has a real passion for it. And it was really fun to dress up as Mrs. Claus.”

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 27

dec 21

saturday

BREAKFAST WITH SANTA: 9-10:30am, Shanty Creek Resort, Lakeview Restaurant, Bellaire. Enjoy a pancake breakfast with Santa. Bring a non-perishable food item for charity/food bank, & you will receive $1 off each meal.

---------------------HOLIDAY SELF-CARE WITH YIN AND TONIC YOGA: 9am, 812 S. Garfield Ave., Suite K, TC. Join Wendy in a 75 minute Yin practice as Samantha, a licensed massage therapist, kneads & soothes your tired muscles as you stretch. Donation. eventbrite.com

----------------------

BENZIE COUNTY DEMOCRATS MONTHLY MEETING: Benzie County Democratic Party Headquarters, 9930 Honor Hwy., Honor.

9:30am: coffee klatch; 10am: community announcements, followed by featured speaker.

Free. benziedemocrats.com

---------------------DISCOVER WITH ME: 10am-noon, Great Lakes Children’s Museum, TC. Frost a cookie or two. greatlakeskids.org

---------------------GIFTS TWICE GIVEN BENEFIT: 10am, Ward and Eis Gallery, Petoskey. This gallery will donate 20% of purchases on Sat., Dec. 14 & 21 to Women’s Resource Center of Northern Michigan to support essential services for women, children & families. 231-347-2750.

---------------------HORIZON BOOKS, TC EVENTS: 10am-noon: Veterans for Peace Meeting. 12-2pm: Heather Shumaker will sign her books “The Griffins of Castle Cary” & “Saving Arcadia.” 2-4pm: Richard Alan Hall will sign his book “They Call Me Machete.” horizonbooks.com/event

---------------------CHRISTMAS MIRACLE MILE/UGLY SWEATER DASH: 11am, Cherry Public House, Glen Arbor. The mile-long race includes a half-mile run to & from the Cherry Public House, followed by a quick warm-up stop for either a pint of beer or mug of hot cherry cocoa, & finishing with another half-mile run ending at the Public House. $20 adults, $10 ages 7-12 & free for under 6.

Find on Facebook.

---------------------FRENCH LANGUAGE GROUP: 11am, New Peninsula Community Library, Community Room, TC. Held on the third Sat. of the month.

This group invites all language Francophiles, fluent & beginner, to converse in a friendly & social environment. Free. peninsulacommunitylibrary.org

---------------------TANNENBAUM BLITZEN: 6-9pm, Shanty Creek Resort, Bellaire. Enjoy a torchlight parade down the face of Schuss Mountain, Christmas carols around the tree, Christmas cookie decorating & a visit from Santa. Fireworks follow at Schuss Mountain. $13 adults, $8 ages 5-12, & free for 4 & under. shantycreek.com

---------------------BLISSFEST’S 14TH ANNUAL SOLSTICE CELEBRATION: 7pm, Red Sky Stage, Bay Harbor. Enjoy live music by Boundarywater Trio, Dr. Goodhart & the Solstice Singers, Kirby, Robin Berry, Mary Stuart Adams & others.

Bring a snack to pass. $10 Blissfest members; $12 general admission. redskystage.com

---------------------“HOW GRINCHY MET THE WHO”: 7:30pm, Grand Traverse Circuit, TC. Presented by Mash-Up Rock & Roll Musical. “How Grinchy Met the Who” is a reimagined parody of both the beloved Christmas classic & the psychedelic rock opera “Tommy,” with a little extra of The Who sprinkled in. $20-$25. mashuprockandrollmusical.com

---------------------“MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET”: 7:30pm, Crooked Tree Arts Center, Petoskey. Presented by the Little Traverse Civic Theatre. $15 adults; $12 students (18 & under). ltct.org/season-events/2019/12/12/miracle-on-34th-street

NATURALLY 7: 7:30pm, Great Lakes Center for the Arts, Bay Harbor. A band without a band, these seven guys play soul, rap, rock & folk.

Using only their voices, they play trumpets, electric guitars, bass cello, harmonica, a full drum kit & more. $45, $40, $35, $30. greatlakescfa.org/event-detail/naturally-7

dec/jan

21-05

---------------------WINTER SOLSTICE RECITAL: 7:30pm, Old Art Building, Leland. Featuring Dr. Mezraq Ramli, oboe & Dr. Dorothy Vogel, piano with special guests Lynn Hansen, oboe & The Prevailing Winds Quintet. $30. mynorthtickets.com/ events/winter-solstice-concert-12-21-2019

dec 22

send your dates to: events@traverseticker.com

sunday

AUTHORS SIGNINGS: Horizon Books, TC. 12-2pm: Lynne Rae Perkins will sign her book “Wintercake.”

1-3pm: Valerie Penz will sign her book “Deliciously Holistic.” horizonbooks.com/event

---------------------A CHEBOYGAN CHRISTMAS: 3pm, Cheboygan Opera House. Featuring Nathan Towne, Evan Archambo, Gabrielle Wells, Kevin Wells, Dennis Despain, Victoria West, Eden Lavender, Thomas Tafoya, Santa & others. For a donation: Enter to win an original painting: “Santa of the Opera” by Tim Cook courtesy of Art Vision Cheboygan. $20 families of all sizes; $10 adults. theoperahouse.org

---------------------JINGLE BELL RUN: 5pm, Warehouse District, TC. This 5K run/walk tours TC neighborhood streets bordering downtown that are decked out in holiday lights & decorations. Join or watch runners of all ages donned in festive holiday costumes in this non-timed three mile run, which will be followed by holiday cookies & hot chocolate. Race starts at Garland St., just outside The Workshop Brewing Co. $25. tctrackclub.com/jingle-bell-run

dec 23 dec 24

monday

HOLIDAY STEM PROGRAMMING: 12-3pm, Great Lakes Children’s Museum, TC. “Long Winter’s Night” Science Lab. greatlakeskids.org

tuesday

SANTA AT THE PUB: 122pm, Short’s Brewing Co., Bellaire. Enjoy pictures, hot chocolate & a candy cane.

---------------------

SKI WITH SANTA: 1pm, Crystal Mountain, Thompsonville. Santa will hit the slopes at 1pm. crystalmountain.com/event/santa-ski

dec 25

wednesday

SKI FREE WITH SANTA: On the slopes of Schuss Mountain, Shanty Creek Resort, Bellaire from 9am-4:30pm.

Pay it forward with donations of non-perishable food items, gently-used winter clothing &/or household items to benefit local food pantries. shantycreek.com

---------------------FREE COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS DINNER: 1-3pm, United Methodist Church, East Jordan.

231-536-2161.

---------------------SKI WITH SANTA: From 1-3pm on the Bunny Hill, Nub’s Nob, Harbor Springs. Enjoy cookies from Mrs. Claus at the bottom of the hill afterwards. nubsnob.com/calendar

28 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

Those who can’t make it until midnight may want to head to the Torchlight Parade at Nub’s Nob, Harbor Springs on NYE at 6pm. Gather at the bottom of the Green Lift and watch as the Nub’s Nob Ski Patrol & the Winter Sports School skiers make two runs down Smokey with flares in hand, creating a beautiful light display. nubsnob.com

dec 26

thursday

HOLIDAY STEM PROGRAMMING: 11am-3pm, Great Lakes Children’s Museum, TC. The Grinch STEM Lab Challenge. greatlakeskids.org

---------------------RANGER-LED SNOWSHOE HIKE: 1pm, Philip A. Hart Visitor Center, Empire. For all experience levels. Reservations required: 231326-4700, ext. 5010. Free, but must have park entrance pass.

dec 27

friday

HOLIDAY STEM PROGRAMMING: (See Thurs., Dec. 26)

--------------

LIVE MUSIC WITH JIM CROCKETT: 7:30-9:30pm, Horizon Books, TC. horizonbooks.com/event/ live-music-jim-crockett-0

---------------------ROCK BABY ROCK!: 7:30pm, Great Lakes Center for the Arts, Bay Harbor. Travel back to the beginnings of rock ‘n’ roll with entertainer & songwriter Lance Lipinsky & his Chicagobased group “The Lovers.” $45, $40, $35, $30. greatlakescfa.org/event-detail/rock-baby-rock

dec 28

saturday

HOLIDAY SELF-CARE WITH YIN AND TONIC YOGA: (See Sat., Dec. 21)

--------------

2019 REFLECTIONS HIKE AT HATLEM CREEK PRESERVE: 10am. You will walk quietly to observe signs of wildlife & the flowing waters which feed Glen Lake all year. Free. leelanauconservancy.org

GNOME FEST: 12-8pm, Pond Hill Farm, Harbor Springs. Featuring a Gnome House Scavenger Hunt. Cross-country ski, snowshoe, fat tire bike or hike through the woods to discover the secret gnome code inside of the houses to win a prize. Gnome man EXPLOSION at 4pm.

Live music from 5-8pm. Plus more. pondhill. com/public-events

---------------------AUTHOR SIGNING: 2-4pm, Horizon Books, TC. Carolyn Striho has collected her poetry & lyrics in her first book, “Detroit (Maiden Energy).” Enjoy a few tunes played by Carolyn & her husband. Stay for the signing. horizonbooks.com

----------------------

SING-ALONG SOUND OF MUSIC: 3pm, Great Lakes Center for the Arts, Bay Harbor. A screening of the classic Julie Andrews’ musical film, complete with subtitles, so the audience can sing along. There will also be props, a fancy-dress competition & more. $20. greatlakescfa.org/event-detail/sing-along-sound-of-music

---------------------FRESHWATER CONCERT: JOSHUA DAVIS TRIO: 8pm, Freshwater Art Gallery/Concert Venue, Boyne City. A finalist on season 8 of NBC’s The Voice, Davis brings his trio to perform down home & honest music. Bring an item for the Food Pantry collection box. Call for tickets: 231-582-2588. freshwaterartgallery.com

---------------------THE COASTERS & THE DRIFTERS: 8pm, Odawa Casino, Ovation Hall, Petoskey. Enjoy memorable songs like “Under the Boardwalk” & “Save the Last Dance for Me.” $30. odawacasino.com

dec 29

sunday

YOGA + BEER: 11am, Silver Spruce Brewing Co., TC. A one hour flow class. Register.

Donation based class. eventbrite.com

dec 30

monday

HOLIDAY STEM PROGRAMMING: 12-3pm, Great Lakes Children’s Museum, TC. Flying Reindeer STEM Lab Challenge. greatlakeskids.org

--------------

HOLIDAY RAIL JAM: 4pm, Boyne Mountain Resort, Boyne Falls. For skiers & snowboarders. A fast moving competition with music, an announcer & various divisions. boynemountain.com/upcoming-events/holiday-rail-jam

---------------------BEACH BASH: 6-8pm, Charlevoix Area Community Pool. Grab your swimsuits, lounge poolside, toss some beach balls, & soak in the hot tub. Two slices of pizza, refreshments & goody bags provided. Reservations required (75 people max): 231.547.0982. $6 per student or adult (swimmers & non-swimmers). Children 3 & under are free. charlevoixpool.org/beach-bash

dec 31

tuesday

TC NYE CHERRYT BALL DROP: 10pm, Front St., downtown TC. A street party with a massive illuminated cherry that is lowered to signify the coming year. There will also be live music, entertainment & fireworks (weather permitting). The first 2,400 people will receive an LED bracelet with their donation. $3 donation per person to benefit Food Rescue of Northwest Michigan. cherrytballdrop.org

---------------------COUNT DOWN TO NEW YEAR’S: 10am3pm, Great Lakes Children’s Museum, TC. Countdown to 2020 at noon. Watch the ball drop & make some noise. There will also be New Year’s activities in the Great Lakes Room. greatlakeskids.org

---------------------NYE CELEBRATION: BRIDGE DROP: 1pm.

Featuring family friendly & adult focused events hosted throughout downtown Charlevoix, three fireworks shows, horse drawn wagon rides, a snow sculpture contest, free movie, the bridge drop & more. bridgedrop.com

---------------------RANGER-LED SNOWSHOE HIKE: 1pm, Philip A. Hart Visitor Center, Empire. Choose a “Snowshoe Saunter” for beginners or “Snowshoe Trek” for more experienced snowshoe hikers. Must register: 231-326-4700, ext. 5010.

Free, but must have park entrance pass.

---------------------NYE @ BOYNE MOUNTAIN RESORT: 4pm, Boyne Mountain Resort, Boyne Falls. Featuring a Family Glow Night, dinner buffet, Children’s Celebration & Pizza Party, Snowflake Lounge Party & more. boynemountain.com

---------------------NYE FREE NITE OWL SHUTTLE: With Benzie Bus. Call 231-325-3000, ext. 1 to book your ride. 5pm-3am. benziebus.com

---------------------NYE AT CTAC, PETOSKEY: Crooked Tree Arts Center, Petoskey. All-ages, alcohol-free celebration featuring performances & workshops by CTAC instructors, area artists & organizations, including Blissfest Music Organization & Petoskey District Library. The evening concludes with a “Midnight at 9,” TimesSquare style ball drop on East Mitchell St. The outdoor festivities begin at 8:30pm & are free.

There will also be free activities at Petoskey District Library from 5-9pm, including karaoke, confetti & more. $10 adults, $5 students. crookedtree.org/event/ctac-petoskey/newyears-eve-arts-center

---------------------NYE AT CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN: 5pm, Crystal Mountain, Thompsonville. Dinners, parties, kids activities, live music, fireworks, Torchlight Parade & more. crystalmountain.com/newyear

NEW YEARS EVE ROARING 20’S PARTY: Bonobo Winery will have 3 experiences to choose from: The Jazz Age: Will pick you up at Mammoth Distillery, TC at 6pm & bring you to the winery for cocktail hour. At 7pm you enjoy a 3 course dinner paired with Bonobo wines. At 9:30pm you’ll be taken back to Mammoth where you’ll enjoy dessert, live music & unlimited cocktails to ring in the New Year. The Flapper: Pick you up at Mammoth Distillery at 6pm & bring you to Bonobo Winery where you’ll enjoy a complimentary glass of wine, appetizers & live music. At 9:30pm you’ll be taken back to Mammoth where you’ll enjoy dessert, live music & unlimited cocktails. The Roadster: Starts at Bonobo Winery at 6pm. You’ll receive a complimentary glass of wine & appetizers will be available.

Winery will close at 10pm. 231-882-6062. $50/$100/$175. bonobowinery.com/upcoming-events#html

Mon, Dec 23

$5 martinis, $5 domestic beer

pitcher, $10 craft beer pitcher.

with Chris Smith

Tues, Dec 24 - closing at 9pm Wed, Dec 25 - Closed Thurs, Dec 26 - $2 off all drinks & $2 Coors Lt. pints W/DJ DomiNate

New Year,

New Beautiful

Invisalign for adults and teens.

Smile

---------------------TORCHLIGHT PARADE: 6pm, Nub’s Nob, Harbor Springs. Head to the bottom of the Green Lift & watch as the Nub’s Nob Ski Patrol & the Winter Sports School skiers make two runs down Smokey with flares in hand, creating a beautiful light display. Free. nubsnob.com/ torchlight-parade

---------------------SIPS & GIGGLES NYE COMEDY SHOW FEATURING ANDREW NORELLI: 7:30pm, Old Town Playhouse, TC. Enjoy this internationally touring comedian who has been on David Letterman, Comedy Central, Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson, Comedy.TV, & much more. $25 advance; $30 door. mynorthtickets. com/organizations/uncorrect-comedy

Experience the Schulz Ortho Difference 231-929-3200 | SCHULZORTHO.COM Invisalign and custom esthetic braces treatment. Call for free consultation.

TRAVERSE CITY

then: Snack FiveCoate Sat, Dec 28 - Snack FiveCoate Sun, Dec 29 - Head for the Hills Live Show (10am-noon) then: Karaoke (10pm-2am) Mon, Dec 30 - $5 martinis, $5 domestic beer pitcher, $10 craft beer pitcher.

231-929-3200 • 4952 Skyview Ct.

Tues, Dec 31 - Soul Patch & Avis Kane

CHARLEVOIX

Wed, Jan 1 - closed

231-237-0955 • 106 E. Garfield Ave.

Thurs, Jan 2 - Closed

Fri, Jan 3 - Happy Hour: Chris Sterr

---------------------NYE @ TREETOPS: Treetops Resort, Gaylord. Two parties at 8pm: Family Party: Featuring music for all ages provided by a DJ, a photo booth, children’s activities & more. $20 adults (21+), $15 ages 13-20, $10 ages 6-12, & free for 5 & under. Adults Only Party: Live music by the Straits Shooters band, late night hors d’oeuvres, bonfire with s’mores & fireworks & more. $20. For 21+. treetops.com/events

Fri, Dec 27- Happy Hour: Harvey Wallbangers

then: DJ Fasel Sat, Jan 4 - DJ Fasel

Sun, Jan 5 - KARAOKE (10PM-2AM)

www.schulzortho.com

941-1930 downtown TC unionstreetstation/myspace.com

---------------------NYE’S PARTY IN MANISTEE: PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ: 8pm, Ramsdell Regional Center for the Arts, Manistee. Entry includes party favors, noise makers & champagne toast at midnight.

Dance to the beat of Dave Greer’s Classic Jazz Stompers. $65. mynorthtickets.com/events/ PUTTIN-ON-THE-RITZ-12-31-2019

---------------------ROARING 20’S NYE BASH: 8pm, Castle Farms, Charlevoix. Dance with music by DJ Casey Rusch. Enjoy heavy hors d’oeuvres & desserts with a chocolate fountain. Wear your 1920’s outfits for a chance to win prizes for best costume, couples costume & best jazz cats (dancing pair). Also capture memories with the Magic Mirror Photo Booth. $75/person includes two drinks & a champagne toast. castlefarms. com/events/new-years-eve-bash

----------------------

Join us, as together we create

Solutions that

UNIFY

ROARING INTO 2020 W/ LARRY MCCRAY: 8-11pm, Odawa Casino, OZone, Petoskey. Enjoy this blues legend. Free. odawacasino.com/ entertainment/events.php

---------------------ANNUAL NYE BALL DROP IN NORTHPORT: Midnight, downtown Northport, in front of the holiday tree. All of the local bars & restaurants will have live music.

jan 01

wednesday

THE FROZEN RABBIT 5K RUN/WALK: 11am, Norte Wheelhouse, Civic Center, TC. Presented by Running Fit. Benefits Norte. $5; 12 & under free. elgruponorte.org/ theme_event/frozen-rabbit-5k-run-walk

donate at groundworkcenter.org/donate

---------------------DANCES OF UNIVERSAL PEACE: 3pm, St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, Beulah. Dance until 6pm, & then enjoy a potluck. 231-651-0370.

Donation, $10.

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 29

jan 02 Greyscale: K 100% / K 75%

Buying Collections & Equipment

1015 Hannah Ave. Fonts: Gotham Black / Century Expanded Traverse City

GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE!

231-947-3169 • RPMRecords.net

thursday

HOLIDAY STEM PROGRAMMING: 11am-3pm, Great Lakes Children’s Museum, TC. Flying Reindeer STEM Lab Challenge. greatlakeskids.org

--------------

POTLUCK & OFF THE WALL MOVIE NIGHT: Helena Township Community Center, Alden.

Potluck dinner, 6pm; movie, 7pm. Sign up for potluck: 231-331-4318. Free.

jan 03

friday

HOLIDAY STEM PROGRAMMING: (See Thurs., Jan. 2)

--------------

4TH ANNUAL MIDWEST NORDIC RENDEZVOUS: Timber Ridge Resort, TC, Jan. 3-5. Featuring guest instructor Zeke Fashingbauer, a PSIA-C examiner & USSA/CXC certified coach. Presented by Vasa Ski Club. vasaskiclub.org/Midwest-nordic-rendezvous.html

----------------------

THURSDAY

Trivia nite • 7-9pm

FRIDAY FISH FRY

All you can eat perch

HAPPY HOUR:

FOR ALL Sporting Events!

Daily 4-7 Friday 4-9 Sunday All Day

231-941-2276 121 S. Union St. • TC. www.dillingerspubtc.com

231-922-7742 121 S. Union St. • TC. www.dillingerspubtc.com

FOOD & DRINK SPECIALS

AN EVENING WITH JAKE ALLEN: 7:30pm, Great Lakes Center for the Arts, Bay Harbor.

Allen has produced several acclaimed solo records, playing every instrument himself to complement his voice. $20. greatlakescfa.org/ event-detail/an-evening-with-jake-allen

jan 04

saturday

4TH ANNUAL MIDWEST NORDIC RENDEZVOUS: (See Fri., Jan. 3)

--------------

GLCO YOUNG CHILDREN’S LIBRARY SERIES #4: 10:30am, Petoskey District Library. A 45-minute session for children ages 4-10 to participate in interactive activities with GLCO musicians, including story-telling, directed listening, singa-longs, chant, movement & dance, imitation & rhythm games. Free. glcorchestra.org

----------------------

RHYTHM SOCIETY ORCHESTRA: 7:30pm, Crooked Tree Arts Center, Theater, Petoskey. A 15-piece big band swing band who re-creates the music & presentations of the swing era 30’s & 40’s - with some Rat Pack material from the 50’s. $25 CTAC members; $35 non-members; $10 students. crookedtree.org

jan 05

sunday

4TH ANNUAL MIDWEST NORDIC RENDEZVOUS: (See Fri., Jan. 3)

helping hands

FRIENDS ANNUAL HOLIDAY MITTEN TREE: Donate new mittens, scarves & hats to the Friends of Interlochen Public Library through Dec. 30. Bring to Interlochen Public Library to benefit those in need within the Interlochen area. tadl.org/interlochen

----------------------

WINTER GEAR DRIVE: Collecting mittens, gloves, hats, coats & boots for local kids & teens in need. Proceeds benefit EJ kids. Collection locations: South Arm Café, East Jordan Public Schools (Elementary front door), East Jordan True Value, Valley Graphics Printing, Inc. & The East Jordan Laundromat.

231-350-0781.

30 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

ongoing

HOLIDAY BOOK SALE: Interlochen Public Library, Dec. 9-30. Held during regular library hours. tadl.org/interlochen

----------------------

FESTIVAL OF TRAINS: Crooked Tree Arts Center, TC, Dec. 14-31. Open Mon. – Sat., 10am-6pm & Sun., 10am-4pm. Special hours on Dec. 31: 10am-4pm. Santa will visit on Dec. 21. Closed on Dec. 25. $5 for 4 & under; $30 Festival Pass. greatlakeskids.org/festival-oftrains-2

----------------------

LEARN TO SKI & SNOWBOARD MONTH: Offered at Nub’s Nob, Harbor Springs & Boyne Highlands Resort, Harbor Springs, Jan. 2-31.

Cost: $20 to learn to cross-country ski & $35 for downhill & snowboarding lessons. Includes rentals & lift ticket or cross-country pass.

----------------------

GENTLE YOGA FOR ADULTS: Tuesdays, 10am, Dec. 10-31, Interlochen Public Library, Community Room. Focus on breathing, gentle repeated movements & stretches. Bring your own mats, water & towels. Free; donations welcome. tadl.org/interlochen

----------------------

HARBOR SPRINGS INDOOR FARMERS MARKET: Saturdays, 9am-noon through Dec. 21. Harbor Springs Middle School.

----------------------

KIDS ON SKIS IN THE WOODS EVERY SUNDAY: Sundays, 11:45am, Timber Ridge Resort, TC. Presented by Norte & Vasa Ski Club. A group ski for families. The use of Timber Ridge Resort will be free for the entire Winter Vasa Domingos Ski Season. elgruponorte.org

----------------------

MONDAY SOUL YOGA FLOW: Mondays, 8:30am, Dec. 9-Dec. 23. Bodies In Motion, TC. A Vinyasa styled class. eventbrite.com

----------------------

NEW SNOWSHOE HIKES: Saturdays, 1pm, Jan. 4 - Mar. 14. Choose from two ranger-led snowshoe hikes to explore the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore park. “Snowshoe Saunter” is for beginners & “Snowshoe Trek” is for more experienced snowshoe hikers.

Meet for an introduction at the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center, Empire. These hikes are free, but participants do need a park entrance pass or have an annual pass to participate. Reservations are required whether participants borrow snowshoes from the National Lakeshore or have their own. facebook.com/sbdnl

----------------------

RUN SABADOS: Saturdays, 9am through Dec. 28. Norte Wheelhouse, Civic Center, TC. Run in cooperation with Norte, TC Track Club, Michigan Runner Girl & Running Fit. elgruponorte.org

----------------------

TRAIL TUESDAY: Held Tuesdays through winter at noon. Antrim Conservation District Office, 4820 Stover Rd., Bellaire. Enjoy a hike through the Cedar River Natural Area. 231-533-8363.

art

ANNUAL CIRCLE MARKET: Charlevoix Circle of Arts. Featuring local artists’ & designers’ handmade gifts. Runs through Dec. 23. Open Mondays-Saturdays from 11am-5pm. Closed Sundays. charlevoixcircle.org/exhibit-circle-market

----------------------

ANNUAL WINTER MEMBER EXHIBITION: Oliver Art Center, Frankfort. Runs through Jan. 3. oliverartcenterfrankfort.org

----------------------

ART DIVAS POP-UP ART STORE: Runs through Dec. 22 at 342 River St., Manistee.

Featuring artists Terri Barto, Jeanne Butterfield, Mary Wahr, Lynn Williams & Chris Wuchever.

----------------------

BIG GROUP/SMALL WORKS EXHIBIT: Higher Art Gallery, TC. Featuring over 50 artists. This show is dedicated to encouraging the gifting of original art by providing small works at affordable gift giving prices. Show runs through Jan. 1. higherartgallery.com

Bringing the sound and energy of a full band to Great Lakes Center for the Arts, Bay Harbor on Fri., Jan. 3 is Jake Allen. Allen has produced several acclaimed solo records, playing every instrument himself to complement his voice. The show starts at 7:30pm and tickets are $20. greatlakescfa.org JUST GREAT ART: City Opera House, TC. This

exhibit runs through Jan. 2. Fifteen local artists, all members of the Plein Air Painters of Northwest Michigan, will exhibit their original works in pastel, oil, watercolor & acrylic. The show hours are M-F from 10am-5pm & during events at the Opera House. cityoperahouse.org

---------------------RECONSTRUCTIONS OF MADONNA AND CHILD: BLK MRKT, TC. A Personal Look at a Traditional Theme. Presented by Joan Gallagher Richmond. A series of Madonna and Child images constructed by interpreting “Master” paintings from the Proto and Early Renaissance eras. On display through Dec. Find on Facebook.

----------------------

SNO SNAKE SHO: Ramsdell Regional Center for the Arts, Hardy Hall, Manistee. Art Snake was started by a group of local artists who mapped out a summer weekend tour of artists’ homes & studios. See these artists’ contribution to the community in this show. Runs through Dec. 21. ramsdelltheatre.org/art-exhibits

---------------------DENNOS MUSEUM CENTER, NMC, TC: - EXPLORATIONS IN WOOD: SELECTIONS FROM THE CENTER FOR ART IN WOOD: Runs through Dec. 29. Curated by Andy McGivern, this exhibition features 74 objects, a small sample of the work in the collection of Philadelphia’s Center for Art in Wood, gathered over a forty-year period.

- CAROLE HARRIS: ART QUILTS: This fiber artist extends the boundaries of traditional quilting by exploring other forms of stitchery, irregular shapes, textures, materials & objects. Runs through Dec. 29. dennosmuseum.org

---------------------GAYLORD AREA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS, GAYLORD: - CALL FOR ENTRIES: For the Black & White with a hit of Color Exhibit, which will run from Jan. 9 – Feb. 29, 2020. Entries accepted from 1/2/20 through 1/8/20 during hours of 11am 3pm, Tues. through Fri. & 12-2pm on Sat. All Michigan artists 16 years old or older may enter. Part-time MI residents are also eligible.

Entries can be of any medium but must be in good condition & of the artist’s own creation. gaylordarts.org - GACA’S HOLIDAY ART MARKET: Runs through Dec. 21 from 11am-3pm on Tues. through Fri. & 12-2pm on Sat. 989-732-3242. gaylordarts.org

NORTHWESTERN MICHIGAN BESTSELLERS For 12/15/2019

HARDCOVER FICTION DogMan Fetch-22 by Dav Pilkey Scholastic Inc. $12.99 Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens G.P. Putnams’s Sons $27.00 The Guardians by John Grisham Doubleday $29.95 PAPERBACK FICTION Clergyman’s Wife by Molly Greeley William Morrow Paperbacks $15.99 Michigan Chillers Terror Stalks Traverse City

by Johnathan Rand Audio Craft Publishing $5.99 Harsen’s Island Revenge by Karl Manke Karl Manke $20.00 HARDCOVER NON-FICTION Blue Zones Kitchen by Dan Buettner National Geographic $30.00 Finding Chika by Mitch Albom Harper $24.99 The Life of the Sleeping Bear by Friends of the Sleeping Bear Dunes Mission Point Press $29.95 PAPERBACK NON-FICTION Get Over It by Anne Bonney Anne Bonney Enterprises $15.00 Trails of M-22 by Jim Dufresne Michigan Trail Maps $19.95 Field Guide to Northwest Michigan by James Dake Grass River Natural Area $16.00

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 31

Happy Holidays!

I am Grateful this Holiday Season!

I welcome future opportunities to assist you with

your Real Estate!

I Wish You and Yours Good Health and Spirits in 2015.

2020.

FOURSCORE by kristi kates

Wham! – Last Christmas: The Soundtrack – Legacy

A movie inspired by … ’80s dance-pop outfit Wham!? That’s Last Christmas, a new romantic holiday comedy co-written by Emma Thompson and featuring Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) and Henry Golding. The soundtrack is mostly fun, in a nostalgic sense, and outline much of the plot for the movie (girl meets boy, romance and roadblocks occur), and the album itself represents Wham!’s own trek through their career, from first hit “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” through “Praying for Time,” “Waiting for That Day,” and the namesake title track.

Thank You!

SAM ABOOD

231-218-5130

www.samabood.com sam@samabood.com

Saamm

Eugene Ormandy – Complete Columbia Christmas Albums – Real Gone Music

Ormandy has been conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra for 44 years, and under his direction, the orchestra has earned three Grammy Awards. With this set, Ormandy has applied his deft talents to holiday music, fusing the orchestra with the Temple University Concert Choir (under the direction of Robert Page) for a remarkably emotional take on traditional holiday carols, from “Silent Night” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” to a more contemporary “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” This new edition has also been newly remastered and refreshed with new liner notes and is a perfect background to the holidays.

402 E. Front Street Traverse City, MI 49686

Lincoln Brewster – A Mostly Acoustic Christmas – Integrity Music

With its ’60s-era pop-art album cover and quirky self-produced approach, this offering from Brewster shifts casually from jazz to blues, pop to classic sounds, with the ease of a good friend passing the tray of holiday canapes. Classics like “Jingle Bells” and “O Come All Ye Faithful” are included here in an appealing acoustic format, and by the time you get to “Linus and Lucy” — a different take on the familiar instrumental tune from A Charlie Brown Christmas — you’ll be a fan. The only sour notes are the intrusions of electric guitar, which seem out of place in this otherwise engaging set.

John Legend – A Legendary Christmas – Columbia

Revisiting his 2018 holiday collection, Legend is back with four additional holiday classics to which he sets his smooth vocals over remixes of classic and modern sounds in his own distinctive way.

Stevie Wonder adds harmonica to “What Christmas Means to Me,” while Esperanza Spalding brings her unique sound to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Legend’s solo takes on “Please Come Home for Christmas” and “This Christmas” are also standouts. The only misstep is “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” with Kelly Clarkson, which is great musically, but awkwardly reworded to be ‘PC’; it should have just been left as the vintage holiday time capsule it’s meant to be.

32 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

MODERN

Get Festive with Kacey and Friends

Kacey Musgraves

ROCK

BY KRISTI KATES

Singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves is the latest musical celeb to get her own holiday special, and it’s streaming now on Amazon Prime. Narrated by Dan Levy, the show will feature performances of classic seasonal tunes by Musgraves and her friends, including late-night talk show host-slash-singer James Corden on “Let it Snow,” actress Zooey Deschanel on “Mele Kalikimaka,” fellow singer Lana Del Rey on “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” and comedian/actor Fred Armisen on “Silent Night.” Leon Bridges will also guest to duet with Musgraves on her own original holiday song, “Present Without a Bow,” and you’ll see additional appearances from the Radio City Rockettes and Musgraves’ own grandmother …

Panic! at the Disco singer (and Taylor Swift duet partner) Brendon Urie has sung his way into Frozen 2 with a rock version of the tune “Into the Unknown,” performed in the movie

by Elsa, and by Urie and crew on the (very different) reimagined soundtrack version. Also on the Frozen 2 soundtrack, you’ll find another updated tune from the aforementioned Kacey Musgraves, plus score from Christophe Beck.

Cast members Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, and Evan Rachel Wood also appear on the album…

The latest release from ex-Detroiter Jack White’s Third Man Records is on the way, and it’s a special one for his band, The Raconteurs.

Live in Tulsa captures highlights from The

Raconteur’s three-night performance at the Cain Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma — reportedly White’s favorite venue to play. The release from Third Man, a special Vault 43 package, includes that show plus a disc of White and pal/bandmate Brendan Benson’s first performance together in Detroit in 1999, and an acoustic show at Third Man Records Cass Corridor, in which the men performed tunes from both The Raconteurs and The White Stripes…

The perfect song to download this week (or just play on loop from YouTube) has got to be The Jonas Brothers’ latest effort — an uptempo holiday tune called “Like It’s Christmas,” the third Christmas song in their career to date.

Singing about how the loved ones in their lives make it feel like Christmas every day, the track is perfect to add some new sounds into your 2019 holiday season. It can be purchased at all the usual music outlets or listened to/watched at https://youtu.be/2pPhuG_VJgA …

LINK OF THE WEEK Check out singer Alessia Cara’s fun recent performance at the 2019 E! People’s Choice Awards. She sang her track “Rooting for You” alongside her live band and an energetic horn section (the tune is from Cara’s latest EP, which was just released this past September). https:// youtu.be/Lo8ue9n7GG4 THE BUZZ Gift someone a little brush with Blake Shelton this Christmas. The country singer (and

Gwen Stefani paramour), who’s also a coach on The Voice, will perform at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit on March 21, and tickets are on sale now …

Trans-Siberian Orchestra will bring back their bombastic brand of holiday music to Little Caesars Arena a little earlier — but slightly after Christmas — Dec. 28 …

Jimmy Fallon’s rollicking house band, The Roots, will be in concert at The Fillmore in

Detroit on Dec. 27 …

And singer-songwriter Ellis Paul will perform at Ann Arbor’s The Ark on Jan. 10 … and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock. Happy Holidays!

Comments, questions, rants, raves, suggestions on this column? Send ’em to Kristi at modernrocker@gmail.com.at modernrocker@ gmail.com.

DOWNTOWN

FREE NITE OWL

TUESDAY DEC. 31

Call 231.325.3000 ext. 1 TO BOOK YOUR RIDE

TRAVERSE CITY

SUNDAY 12:30 • 8:45 PM MONDAY 2:30 • 4:45 PM

WEDNESDAY 12n • 3 • 6 • 9 PM THURSDAY 12:15 3:15 • 6:15 • 9 PM FRIDAY 12n • 3 • 6 8:45 PM

Merry Movies at the State!

SHUTTLE

Holiday Specials and Events!

See the full schedule at:

•••••••••••••••••••••••••• ••••••••••••• R

5 P.M. - 3 A.M.

JOKER

FRIDAY 11:15 PM - Friday Night Flicks -$3 or 2 for $5 DOWNTOWN

IN CLINCH PARK

Details at BENZIEBUS.COM

UNDERWRITTEN BY

SUN, WED & THU 1:30 • 4 • 6:30 • 9 PM MONDAY 1 • 3:30 • 6 • 8:30 PM TUESDAY 12:30 • 3 PM 231-947-4800

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 33

Netflix & Change Your Life Now, we’re not saying you need to make a New Year’s resolution. Any kind of growth or personal change should not be based on something as arbitrary as calendar date. Yet as clichéd as it’s become, the end of the year is naturally a good time for some thoughtful introspection and reflection as you look back on the past and look forward to the future.

Need some inspiration? We’ve compiled a selection of recent films, both documentary and narrative, with inspiring messages — like getting healthier or pursuing your passion — to motivate you as you gear up to take on 2020.

APOLLO 11

her smell

O

S

ver 11,000 hours of audio and hundreds of hours of never-before-seen NASA footage has been beautifully and painstakingly restored to tell the mesmerizing story of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s first lunar mission.

With staggering footage, from inside both the mission and mission control skillfully edited together, you’ll feel like you’re right in the middle of this heart-pounding, wondrous adventure.

This triumphant moment of human achievement reminds us just what we are capable when we work together toward a goal. I mean, we went to the moon. THE MOON. This film gives you hope of the purest and most magnificent kind. And if that that isn’t the right tone to start your off with, I don’t know what is. Streaming on Hulu

o at first glance Elisabeth Moss’ (The Handmaid’s Tale) Becky, a drug-addicted, and often repulsively-behaved, punk rocker is portrayed to such an extreme that she is perhaps not the most relatable character, yet at the same time, this challenging and shattering portrait certainly applies a lens to our own self-destructive behaviors and asks what it might take to make it out clean to the other side. Intense, epic, and with one of the rawest performances of the year, Her Smell also features one of the most powerful and heartbreakingly beautiful moments of any film this year: a now-sober Becky sitting down a piano to play a stripped-down cover of Bryan Adams’ “Heaven” at her young daughter’s request. It’s poignant and aching and unforgettable and reminds us just how delicate a process transformation can be.

Streaming on Kanopy

THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM

MAIDEN

I

I

n this captivating personal documentary, two big city dreamers and their cherished dog (yes, this sweet canine is a huge bonus) leave behind their successful careers for a decidedly different change of pace. They buy some land, hoping to use traditional methods to restore a damaged ecosystem and start an organic farm. It’s a long, arduous, and sometimes heartbreaking journey filled with unforgettable characters (the greatest love story of 2019: Emma the pig and Greasy the rooster) to become the thriving Apricot Lane Farms, but the payoff is deeply rewarding. And the film’s messages are multifold, from finding the courage to take a career risk and pursue your passion as well as thoughtfully examining issues of the environment and our relationship to our food and where it comes from, it gives you so much consider — and in an exceedingly entertaining way. Streaming on Hulu

f you’re looking for absolute and total inspiration, Maiden has it in spades. An edge-of-your-seat journey of sheer determination, it follows Tracy Edwards and her quest to assemble the first allfemale sailing crew to compete in the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989. Facing ridicule from the press, hostility and sexism from pretty much every angle, and sponsors worried they would literally be attaching their name to a sinking ship, Edwards was able to secure funding and enter the race. But from there the adventure was only beginning, as archival footage and interviews with Edwards and crewmates take you inside the thrilling race. What makes Maiden so special, though, is that while it will make you emotional in all the ways you expect, it also — especially for women — carries a more unexpected weight that hits you hard. Rent or buy wherever you stream.

BRITTANY RUNS A MARATHON

THE SOUVENIR

B

S

rittany is in a similar boat many people will ride at the beginning of the year. Brittany (a phenomenal Jillian Bell, in a role of equal comedic and dramatic heft) wants to make a change and get into shape. And so, like those of you here who have taken the plunge and signed up for this spring’s Bayshore Marathon, Brittany decides she’s going to train for and run the New York City Marathon. And so she begins an emotional, hilarious, and heartfelt journey that begins with a single run around the block in this rousing crowd-pleaser. But for as funny and fresh as the film is, what makes Brittany’s incredibly inspiring story so winning is that it’s not really about a physical transformation but something much more meaningful. Streaming on Amazon Prime

34 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

o it’s almost glib to apply a New Year’s resolution theme to this deeply personal cinematic work of art based on director Joanna Hogg’s own experiences, but at the same time, this romantic drama will deeply resonate with those who have ever been in or are experiencing a toxic relationship.

It stars Honor Swinton Byrne (daughter of actress Tilda Swinton; Tilda also plays her mother) as an ambitious film student who finds herself captivated by a charming but totally bad-news older man and shows how their relationship causes her to lose her artistic voice. Not remotely mainstream, this romantic drama can be a frustrating watch as this woman with so much going for her continues to stay with this jerk.

But that it can make you so uncomfortable also speaks to its power and demonstrates how authentic and real and honest it is. Sometimes it can take seeing a bad relationship from the outside to recognize: If you don’t want a character to put up with it, why would you?

nitelife

dec 21 - jan 05 edited by jamie kauffold

Send Nitelife to: events@traverseticker.com

Grand Traverse & Kalkaska

ACOUSTIC TAP ROOM, TC 12/21 -- Corbin Manikas, 8 12/27 -- Summer Green, 8 12/28 -- Andre Villoch, 8 BONOBO WINERY, TC 12/31 -- Swingbone, 6 FANTASY'S, TC Mon. - Sat. -- Adult entertainment w/ DJ, 7-close GT DISTILLERY, TC 12/21 -- Crystal Bindi Performers, 7-9 12/31 -- Loren & Shelby, 7:30-10

MAMMOTH DISTILLING, TC 12/21 -- Matthew Mansfield, 7:30 PARK PLACE HOTEL, TC BEACON LOUNGE: Thurs,Fri,Sat -- Tom Kaufmann, 8:30 RIGHT BRAIN BREWERY, TC 12/28 -- Full Metal Spectrum w/ Aurelius, The Glorious Dead & Kronie, 8 ROVE ESTATE VINEYARD & WINERY, TC 12/27 -- Levi Britton, 5-8

HOTEL INDIGO, TC 12/21 -- Zeke Clemons, 7 12/27 -- Blake Elliott, 7 12/28 -- Fremont John Ashton, 7 1/3 -- Blair Miller, 7

SAIL INN BAR & GRILL, TC Thurs. & Sat. -- Phattrax DJs & Karaoke, 9

KILKENNY'S, TC 12/20-21 -- Lucas Paul, 9:30 12/26,1/2 -- 2Bays DJs, 9:30 12/27-28 -- One Hot Robot, 9:30 12/31 -- Broom Closet Boys, 9:30 1/3 -- Risque, 9:30 1/4 -- Brett Mitchell, 9:30

THE LITTLE FLEET, TC 12/31 -- Sparkling NYE Celebration w/ DJ, 6 THE YURT: 12/23 -- Seth Bernard, 6:309:30

LEFT FOOT CHARLEY, TC 12/23,12/30 -- Open Mic Night w/ Rob Coonrod, 6-9 12/27 -- Blue River, 6-8

THE DISH CAFE, TC Tues, Sat -- Matt Smith, 5-7

THE PARLOR, TC 12/21 -- Blair Miller, 8 12/26,1/2 -- Chris Smith, 8 12/27 -- David Martin, 8 12/28 -- Younce Guitar Duo, 8

THE WORKSHOP BREWING CO., TC 12/21 -- Snacks & Five Trio, 8 12/23 -- Big Fun Jam Band, 6-8:30 Tue -- TC Celtic, 6:30 Wed -- Jazz Jam, 6-10 12/26 -- Matt Mansfield, 8 12/27 -- The Broom Closet Boys, 8 12/28 -- Radel Rosin, 8 12/31 -- Raging 20's NYE Bash w/ Distant Stars, 8 UNION STREET STATION, TC 12/21 -- DJ Coven, 10 12/22 -- Kenny Olsen & Friends, 8 12/23 -- Chris Smith, 10 12/26 -- DJ DomiNate, 10 12/27 -- Happy Hour w/ Harvey Wallbangers; then Snack Fivecoate 12/28 -- Snack Fivecoate, 10 12/29 -- Head for the Hills Live Show, 10am-noon; then Karaoke, 10pm-2am 12/31 -- Soul Patch & Avis Kane, 10 1/3 -- Happy Hour w/ Chris Sterr; then DJ Fasel 1/4 -- DJ Fasel, 10 1/5 -- Karaoke, 10 WEST BAY BEACH, A DELAMAR RESORT, TC VIEW NIGHTCLUB: 12/31 -- Countdown to 2020 Party w/ Risqué, 9

Antrim & Charlevoix CELLAR 152, ELK RAPIDS 12/21 -- Blue River, 8 12/27 -- Blair Miller, 8-10 12/28 -- Blake Elliott, 7

MAMMOTH DISTILLING, CENTRAL LAKE 12/30 -- Eve of the Eve w/ Shady Hill, 8

ETHANOLOGY, ELK RAPIDS 12/21 -- The Pistil Whips, 8-11 12/28 -- Flower Isle, 8-11 12/31 -- NYE Party w/ Conrad Shock & The Noise, 10

SHORT'S BREWING CO., BELLAIRE 12/21 -- Seth Bernard, 8:30-11 12/23 -- Ugly Sweater Party w/ Reggie Smith & The After Party, 5 12/26 -- Chris Michels Band, 8:30-11 12/27 -- Luke Winslow King, 8:30-11 12/28 -- The Pocket, 8:30-11 12/29 -- Mike Mains & The Branches, 8:30-11 12/30 -- Jake Allen, 8:30-11 12/31 -- NoMi, 9-11:30

LAKE STREET PUB, BOYNE CITY 12/23 -- Holiday Music by Izzy Wallace, 6 Wed – Mastermind’s Trivia, 7-9 MAMMOTH DISTILLING, BELLAIRE 12/22,12/29 -- Eric Clemons, 6

STIGG'S BREWERY & KITCHEN, BOYNE CITY 12/21 & 1/3 -- Crosscut Kings, 7 12/27 -- Jeff Pagel, 7 12/28 -- Sydni K., 6 1/4 -- Chris Koury, 7 TORCH LAKE CAFÉ, CENTRAL LAKE 1st & 3rd Mon. – Trivia, 7 Weds. -- Lee Malone Thurs. -- Open mic Fri. & Sat. -- Leanna’s Deep Blue Boys 2nd Sun. -- Pine River Jazz

Emmet & Cheboygan BEARDS BREWERY, PETOSKEY 12/21 -- Adam Hoppe, 8-11 12/22 -- Pete Kehoe, 6-9 12/26 -- Open Mic Nite w/ Host Charlie Millard, 7-11 12/28 -- Greg Vadnais Jazz Quartet, 8-11 12/29 -- BB Celtic & Traditional Irish Session Players, 6-9 12/31 -- The Michigan Rattlers, 9 1/3 -- The Third Degree, 9 1/4 -- Radel Rosin, 8-11 1/5 -- Charlie Millard Solo, 6-9 CITY PARK GRILL, PETOSKEY 12/21 -- Rock the Bells w/ DJs Franck & Dayv, 10

12/27,1/3 -- Annex Karaoke, 10 12/28 -- The Third Degree, 10 12/31 -- Roaring 20s Bash w/ The Lavender Lions, 10 1/4 -- Bill Oeming, 10

3-6 12/28 -- Mike Ridley, 3-6 12/29 -- The Pistil Whips, 3-6 12/30,1/1 -- Patrick Ryan, 3-6 12/31,1/4 -- Pete Kehoe, 3-6

KNOT JUST A BAR, BAY HARBOR Mon,Tues,Thurs — Live music LEO’S NEIGHBORHOOD TAVERN, PETOSKEY Thurs — Karaoke w/ DJ Michael Willford, 10 NUB'S NOB, HARBOR SPRINGS NUB'S PUB: 12/26 -- Owen James, 3-6 12/27 -- The Moon Howlers,

ODAWA CASINO, PETOSKEY OVATION HALL: 12/28 -- The Coasters & The Drifters, 8 O ZONE: 12/31 -- Roaring into 2020 w/ Larry McCray, 8 THE SIDE DOOR SALOON, PETOSKEY Sat. – Karaoke, 8

Leelanau & Benzie CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN, THOMPSONVILLE VISTA LOUNGE: 12/26 -- Project 6, 7-11 12/27 -- Soul Patch, 7-11 12/28 -- Treetops, 7-11 12/29 -- Johnny P Band, 7-11 12/30 -- Johnny P, 7-11 12/31 -- Borkum Rif, 9 1/3-4 -- The Broom Closet Boys, 7-11

LAKE ANN BREWING CO. 12/31 -- NYE Party w/ Stonefolk, 9

DICK’S POUR HOUSE, LAKE LEELANAU Sat. — Karaoke, 10-2

LUMBERJACK'S BAR & GRILL, HONOR Fri & Sat -- Phattrax DJs & Karaoke, 9

IRON FISH DISTILLERY, THOMPSONVILLE 12/21 -- Wink (Solo), 7-9 12/22 -- Seth Bernard, 4-6 12/26 -- Levi Britton, 6:30-9:30 12/27 -- The Real Ingredients, 7 12/28 -- Barefoot, 7-9 12/29 -- Sam & Bill, 7-9:30 12/30 -- Jack Fivecoate, 7:30-9 1/3 -- Paul Livingston, 7-9 1/4 -- Jake Frysinger, 7-9

LEELANAU SANDS CASINO, PESHAWBESTOWN BIRCH ROOM: 12/21 -- Flat Broke, 8 12/28 -- Time Machine, 8 SHOWROOM: 12/31 -- Phase 5, 9

ST. AMBROSE CELLARS, BEULAH 12/21 -- Jen Sygit, 6-9 12/26,1/2 -- Open Mic w/ Jim & Wanda Curtis, 6 12/27 -- Chris Michels, 6-9 12/28 -- Soul Patch Party, 6-9 12/31 -- Barefoot, 6-9 1/3 -- Jake Frysinger, 6-9 1/4 -- Blake Elliott, 6-9

STORMCLOUD BREWING CO., FRANKFORT 12/21 -- Abigail Stauffer, 8-10 12/22 -- Barrels & Carols Holiday Sing-Along, 6:30-8:30 12/23 -- Olivia Mainville, 8-10 12/27 -- The Brandino Extravaganza, 8-10 12/28 -- Evan Burgess, 8-10 12/29 -- Dragon Wagon, 8-10 12/30 -- Mike Struwin, 8-10 12/31 -- Keith Scott, 8-10 1/3 -- Lara Fullford, 8-10 1/4 -- Sean Miller, 8-10 THE CABBAGE SHED, ELBERTA Thu -- Open Mic, 8 TUCKER'S OF NORTHPORT 12/27 – Karaoke Night, 8 12/31 – NYE Celebration w/ One Hot Robot, 9

Otsego, Crawford & Central ALPINE TAVERN & EATERY, GAYLORD Sat -- Live Music, 6-9

TREETOPS RESORT, GAYLORD 12/31 -- NYE Family Party w/ DJ & Adults Only Party w/ Straits Shooters, 8

Send us your free live music listings to

events@traverseticker.com

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 35

FARMHOUSE/ACREAGE/STEEL BUILDING W/3 PHASE POWER Industrial building (60x80) plus an additional 24x40 pole barn that sits next to a farmhouse on 38.83 acres of land in beautiful Leelanau County. Great visibility along the M-72 corridor and agriculturaly zoned to allow for a new business venture! Additional mobile home on the property could be rented out for even more income! So much potential at this location! A must see! $375,000 MLS 1869487 M-22 CONDO AT THE HOMESTEAD Hawks Nest 29, is an updated condo at the Homestead Resort, that has been completely updated with an industrial, “up-north” vibe. Located on the beach side with some views of Lake Michigan, this 2 BR / 2 BA, 804 square foot condo, has 2 walk-out screened balconies, a newly installed fireplace, top to bottom updated finishes and more. Come check it out! $245,000 MLS 1866557 LAKE LEELANAU FRONTAGE Spectacularly charming custom built English Cottage on 103’ feet of private North Lake Leelanau, known as Robinson Bay. Impeccably maintained, 2 BR / 1.5 BA, with over 2000 square feet of finished living space to stretch your legs. With water views from almost every room, and 170’ of private dock to call your own. Large master suite, marble bathroom floors, granite kitchen tops, and more. A must see! $849,900 MLS 1865522 COMMERCIAL BUILDING - EMPIRE Located in the village of Empire, this is an ideal location for any Leelanau based business.

816 sq/ft office space in street-side portion has bath & kitchenette.

1908 sq/ft warehouse in rear offers 16’ ceilings, double 14’ overhead doors, lofted mezzanine for additional storage & 2nd bath. $230,000 MLS 1858611

AIRPLANE HANGER IN EMPIRE Spacious 45x60 clear span airplane or helicoptor hanger located at the William B. Bolton Airport in Leelanau County. Sliding doors, concrete floors, with floor drain, utility sink, and shower, concrete apron to taxi way. Ground Lease is $1500/ per year for 10 years. Great opportunity to have your own space for your private airplane. $62,500 MLS 1869813

231-334-2758

www.serbinrealestate.com

‘Tis the season of gratitude and good will and the time to say, ’thank you’ to my clients, both buyers and sellers, who have trusted me to guide them through their real estate transactions.

s e h s i w Best joyful for a Year!

New

Marsha Minervini

(231) 883-4500 marsha@marshaminervini.com 500 S. Union Street Traverse City, MI 49684

36 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

the ADViCE GOddESS Heart Of Barkness

Q

: My friend recently bought a $3,000 labradoodle but refuses to pay to get it trained. The dog is really badly behaved.

Whenever I bring up the need for training, my friend gets very defensive and lashes out at me. Last time I visited her, the dog got into my bag and chewed through some seriously expensive skin care products I treated myself to. She acted like it wasn’t an issue and even said it was my fault for leaving my bag on the floor! We’ve been friends for nearly 20 years, so it’s a little complicated, but how can I let her know her actions feel inconsiderate and get her to take proper responsibility for her dog?

--Beware Of Owner

A

: Most dogs enjoy chewing on a nice raw bone to pass the time; hers likes to mix things up with the occasional $200 tube of eye cream.

Your friend’s response to her delinquentdoodle destroying your stuff — “Yawn...whatever” — suggests she comes up short in a personality trait called “conscientiousness.” Conscientiousness is one of the five core personality dimensions that shape how we typically behave (the other four being openness, extroversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability). Each of these dimensions reflects a spectrum — a scale from low to high — so, for example, extroversion includes everything from extreme extroversion to extreme introversion (the party animal versus the sort of animal that prefers hiding under a car till the shindig’s over).

Research by psychologists Joshua Jackson and Brent Roberts finds that people with high conscientiousness are responsible, hardworking, orderly, and able to control their impulses. (Their work was focused on the behaviors of the conscientious, as opposed to thoughts and feelings.) Not surprisingly, other research — a cross-cultural study by psychologist Martin C. Melchers — finds that people with higher levels of conscientiousness tend to be more empathetic (making them less likely to react to their animal turning a friend’s possessions into chew toys by being all, “Dogs will be dogs!”).

Personality traits are, to a great extent, genetic, and tend to be pretty stable over time and across situations. However, psychologists Nathan Hudson and R. Chris Fraley find that a person may be able to change their personality traits, including their level of conscientiousness. Their research suggests that a person can become more conscientious

BY Amy Alkon

by continually setting very specific weekly goals -- for example, tasks to follow through on that they’d normally let slide.

The problem is this friend of yours might need some wakeup call to be motivated to change. People who get away with living sloppy typically see no reason to live otherwise. Consider the difference in how driven someone would be to clean up their act in the wake of “hitting bottom” versus, say, “hitting middle.”

Another demotivating factor might be your friend’s WTR — “welfare trade-off ratio” — a term that unfortunately sounds like illegal food stamp swapping. In fact, as evolutionary psychologists David Buss and Lars Penke explain, a person’s welfare tradeoff ratio refers to how much weight they place on their own interests relative to those of another person.

In other words, “welfare” really means “wellbeing”— as in, “How willing am I to sacrifice what’s best for me so you can have what’s good for you?”

Buss and Penke add that people who are narcissistic — self-centered, exploitative, with a strong sense of entitlement, and lacking in empathy — “habitually place a higher weight on their own welfare relative to the welfare of others.” Now, maybe you don’t see this sort of selfish, cavalier attitude coming out habitually in your friend, but maybe that’s because friendship is fun-centered and thus doesn’t have the sort of strains put on it that a business partnership or relationship does.

(You don’t have to decide whether to have an abortion because you went out for drinks with your friend.)

Where does this leave you? Unfortunately, without a lot of attractive options. Though it’s reasonable to prefer that she change her philosophy on dog training (which appears to be “Why bother?”) expecting her to do so is basically the love child of toxic hope and irrational expectations. Tempting as it must be to simply demand she train her dog, as you’ve already seen, telling people what to do tends to backfire, leading them to tell you where to go.

What you can do is choose: Consider whether the benefits of having her in your life are worth the cost. If you decide to keep her around, be realistic: Leave any pricey rejuveceuticals and anything else of value locked in a kennel when visiting her and Cujodoodle. It might also help to look on the positive side: It’s only her dog running wild; she isn’t hollering out the back door, “Kids, if you rob the liquor store, don’t forget Mommy’s merlot!”

aSTRO

lOGY

DEC 23 - JAN 05

BY ROB BREZSNY

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Fifteenth-century Italian

metalworker Lorenzo Ghiberti worked for 28 years to turn the Doors of the Florence Baptistry into a massive work of art. He used bronze to create numerous scenes from the Bible. His fellow artist Michelangelo was so impressed that he said Ghiberti’s doors could have served as “The Gates of Paradise.” I offer Ghiberti as inspiration for your life in 2020, Capricorn.

I think you’ll be capable of beginning a masterwork that could take quite some time to complete and serve as your very own “gate to paradise”: in other words, an engaging project and delightful accomplishment that will make you feel your life is eminently meaningful and worthwhile.

SAGITTARIUS

(Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Sagittarian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875– 1926) embodied a trait that many astrology textbooks suggest is common to the Sagittarian tribe: wanderlust. He was born in Prague but traveled widely throughout Europe and Russia. If there were a Guinness World Records’ category for “Time Spent as a Houseguest,” Rilke might hold it. There was a four-year period when he lived at fifty different addresses. I’m going to be bold here and hypothesize that 2020 will NOT be one of those years when you would benefit from being like Rilke. In fact, I hope you’ll seek out more stability and security than usual.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): You’re wise to cultivate a degree of skepticism and even contrariness. Like all of us, your abilities to say NO to detrimental influences and to criticize bad things are key to your mental health. On the other hand, it’s a smart idea to keep checking yourself for irrelevant, gratuitous skepticism and contrariness. You have a sacred duty to maintain just the amount you need, but no more—even as you foster a vigorous reservoir of receptivity, optimism, and generosity. And guess what? 2020 will be an excellent time to make this one of your cornerstone habits.

PISCES (Feb 19-March 20): Dante Alighieri

(1265–1321) finished writing The Divine Comedy in 1320. Today it’s considered one of the supreme literary accomplishments in the Italian language and a classic of world literature. But no one ever read the entire work in the English language until 1802, when it was translated for the first time. Let’s invoke this as a metaphor for your life in the coming months, Pisces. According to my visions, a resource or influence that has previously been inaccessible to you will finally arrive in a form you can understand and use. Some wisdom that has been untranslatable or unreadable will at last be available.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Denmark during World War II. In 1943, Hitler ordered all Danish Jews to be arrested—a first step in his plan to send them to concentration camps. But the Danish resistance movement leapt into action and smuggled virtually all of them to safety via fishing boats bound for Sweden. As a result, 8,000+ Danish Jews survived the Holocaust. You may not have the opportunity to do anything quite as heroic in 2020, Aries. But I expect you will have chances to express a high order of practical idealism that could be among your noblest and most valiant efforts ever. Draw inspiration from the Danish resistance.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): When she was 31, Taurus writer Charlotte Brontë finished writing her novel Jane Eyre. She guessed it would have a better chance of getting published if its author was thought to be a man. So she adopted the masculine pen name of Currer Bell and sent the manuscript unsolicited to a London publisher. Less than eight weeks later, her new book was in print. It quickly became a commercial success. I propose that we make Brontë one of your role models for 2020, Taurus. May she inspire you to be audacious in expressing yourself and confident in seeking the help you need to reach your goals.

May she embolden you, too, to use ingenious stratagems to support your righteous cause.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): 2020 can and

should be a lyrically healing year for you. Here’s what I mean: Beauty and grace will be curative.

The “medicine” you need will come to you via poetic and mellifluous experiences. With this in

mind, I encourage you to seek out encounters with the following remedies. 1. Truth Whimsies 2. Curiosity Breakthroughs 3. Delight Gambles 4. Sacred Amusements 4. Redemptive Synchronicities 5. Surprise Ripenings 6. Gleeful Discoveries 7. Epiphany Adventures 8. Enchantment Games 9. Elegance Eruptions 10.

Intimacy Angels 11. Playful Salvation 12. Luminosity Spells

CANCER (June 21-July 22): There are years

that ask questions and years that answer,” wrote author Zora Neale Hurston. According to my astrological analysis, Cancerian, 2020 is likely to be one of those years that asks questions, while 2021 will be a time when you’ll get rich and meaningful answers to the queries you’ll pose in 2020. To ensure that this plan works out for your maximum benefit, it’s essential that you formulate provocative questions in the coming months. At first, it’s fine if you generate too many.

As the year progresses, you can whittle them down to the most ultimate and important questions. Get started!

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The Roman Emperor

Vespasian (9–79 AD) supervised the restoration of the Temple of Peace, the Temple of Claudius, and the Theater of Marcellus. He also built a huge statue of Apollo and the amphitheater now known as the Colosseum, whose magnificent ruins are still a major tourist attraction. Vespasian also created a less majestic but quite practical wonder: Rome’s first public urinals. In accordance with astrological omens, I invite you Leos to be stimulated by his example in 2020. Be your usual magnificent self as you generate both inspiring beauty and earthy, pragmatic improvements.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): When Virgo author Mary Shelley was 18 years old, she had a disconcerting dream-like vision about a mad chemist who created a weird human-like creature out of non-living matter. She set about to write a book based on her mirage. At age 20, she published Frankenstein, a novel that would ultimately wield a huge cultural influence and become a seminal work in the “science fiction” genre. I propose we make Shelley one of your role models for 2020. Why? Because I suspect that you, too, will have the power to transform a challenging event or influence into an important asset. You’ll be able to generate or attract a new source of energy by responding creatively to experiences that initially provoke anxiety.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libra-born mystic poet Rumi (1207–1273) wrote that he searched for holy sustenance and divine inspiration in temples, churches, and mosques—but couldn’t find them there. The good news? Because of his disappointment, he was motivated to go on an inner quest—and ultimately found holy sustenance and divine inspiration in his own heart. I’ve got a strong feeling that you’ll have similar experiences in 2020, Libra. Not on every occasion, but much of the time, you will discover the treasure you need and long for not in the outside world but rather in your own depths.

ScORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Among his

many accomplishments, Scorpio rapper Drake is an inventive rhymer. In his song “Diplomatic Immunity,” he rhymes “sacred temple” with “stencil.” Brilliant! Other rhymes: “statistics” with “ballistics”; “Treaty of Versailles” with “no cease and desist in I”; and—my favorite—”Al Jazeera” (the Qatar-based news source) with “Shakira” (the Colombian singer). According to my analysis of the astrological omens in 2020, many of you Scorpios will have Drake-style skill at mixing and blending seemingly disparate elements. I bet you’ll also be good at connecting influences that belong together but have never been able to combine before.

“Jonesin” Crosswords "Alphabet Run"--the quick part of the song. by Matt Jones

ACROSS 1 Tres ___ cake 7 Dangerous reptiles 11 Indicted Giuliani associate Parnas 14 Breathe out 15 Monument Valley state 16 Windows file extension 17 100% correct 18 It may be an acquired taste 20 Comment about a loud blockbuster after thinking it was a Chaplin movie?

22 “___ Tu” (1974 hit song) 23 Shoe bottom 24 “Nailed It!” host Nicole 26 Mountain suffix 27 Permit 29 “Beefy” Trogdor feature 31 Academic URL ender 32 Fake device 34 “Where did ___ leave off?”

36 Phrase you won’t hear from me or other solvers?

39 Winding 41 Den-izens?

42 Planned Airbnb event in 2020 43 Throw in 46 “A Dream Within a Dream” writer 47 “Charlie’s Angels” director, 2000 50 “That ___ funny” 52 Island with Pearl Harbor 54 Country singer McCann 55 Like the most lenient newspaper ever?

59 Word before band or papers 60 2001 A.L. MVP Suzuki 61 Pint at a pub 62 Service rank 63 Home-___ (local athlete) 64 “That’s it” 65 Steering wheel adjunct 66 Finely decorated

DOWN 1 Apartment renter 2 Become invalid 3 Irascibility 4 Has no love for 5 Tesla CEO Musk 6 Airmailed 7 Pub quiz round format, maybe 8 “A Streetcar Named Desire” shout 9 Four-time Masters champion 10 It’s between the knee and the ankle 11 2020, for one 12 Goes beyond 13 “Oy ___!”

19 Summer cookout leftover 21 Aperture setting on a camera 25 9-to-5 grind 27 “Threepenny Opera” star Lotte 28 “Baudolino” author Umberto 30 Creator of Piglet and Pooh 32 Driver’s license agcy.

33 “The King and I” star Brynner 35 “___ Miserables” 36 Hematite and pyrite 37 Close, as a jacket 38 Exhibit site 39 10% of MXX 40 High-end 44 Two-ended tile 45 De Niro’s wife in “Meet the Parents” 47 Smallest possible quantities 48 Bordeaux red wine 49 Aplenty 51 “American Chopper” network 53 Hulkamania figure 54 “Mean Girls” actress Lindsay 56 “Trouble’s in store” 57 “Mambo King” Puente 58 “Happy Birthday” writer 59 Indy 500 month

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 37

NORTHERN EXPRESS

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WANTED BUYING OLDER MOTORCYCLES ROAD Or Dirt Bikes Used ATV’s Snowmobiles Newer & Antique Boats & Motors Running Or Non (810) 429-6823

CARIN TERRIER PUPPY’S Pure Michigan Carin Terrier puppy’s born 11/24/19 and ready for their loving forever homes around 1/11/2020 3 boys and 1 girl (all looking Wheaton and red) dewormed. $800.00 (231) 633-7008

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CRYOSKIN - PERMANENT FAT LOSS IN 30 MIN 1.84” average loss every session! Nonsurgical+NO sideFX www.

EarthLabsHeal.com

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HOLISTIC WELLNESS & CANCER SUPPORT Natural care for PAIN+ANXIETY +DEPRESSION+SLEEP+WEIGHT www.EarthLabsHeal.com

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ELK RAPIDS VILLAGE SEEKS FT Laborer/ Equipment Operator 1 Demonstrated worth ethic & passion for community. Laborer (no CDL) starting $14.61; Equip Op 1 (CDL) starting $17.86. Generous benefits.

Application info: www.elkrapids.org

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RESERVATIONS MANAGER ON CRYSTAL LAKE! Small Frankfort family resort seeking professional, friendly, detail-oriented candidate with good computer skills. Must be flexible, a team-player, and able to handle a variety of tasks. Full-time summer, part-time winter. Send resumé to fun@ chimneycornersresort.com. 231-352-7522.

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3 br W SHORE ELK LAKE HOME $1150 $1150 Modern 3 bdr 2 bath 2 car attached garage, Elk Lake pier. Part furn, mid Dec thru June 1 - 30 your choice of ending. Brian TEXT 847-502-0190 9877 Elk Lake Trail, Williamsburg

Log on to submit your classified!

northernexpress.com/classifieds Easy. Accessible. All Online.

38 • december 23/30, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly

ESTATE SALE: 50 year collection of contemporary art. Regional artists from USA. No reasonable offer refused. Quality items glass, clay. 2 & 3 dimensional. Charlevoix 231-348-5906 anytime

Easy. accessible. all online.

Northern Express Weekly • december 23/30, 2019 • 39

PETOSKEY

Friday, December 27 Crab Leg & Seafood Buffet 4PM–9PM | $24.95 Waas-No-Dé Buffet

Saturday, December 28 The Coasters & The Drifters 8PM | General Admission $30

ROARING INTO

MACKINAW CITY

Sunday, December 29 Roaring Red Hot Points 8AM–11:59PM

NEW YEAR'S EVE

Start the new year on a hot streak!

Get up to 10X Points when you play with your Pure Rewards Card.

PETOSKEY CON'T.

Tuesday, December 31 $68K Cash Countdown NOON–12:15AM

Ovation Hall

Winners every half hour!

Prime Rib Buffet 4PM–9PM | $21.95 Waas-No-Dé Buffet

Sunday, December 29 Roaring Red Hot Points 8AM–11:59PM

Crab Leg & Seafood Buffet 4PM–9PM | $34.95

Start the new year on a hot streak!

Get up to 10X Points when you play with your Pure Rewards Card.

Waas-No-Dé Buffet

Ozone NYE Party 8PM–3AM | $5 Cover after 11PM

Monday, December 30 $68K Cash Countdown 4PM–MIDNIGHT Winners every half hour!

Champagne Toast at Midnight

Larry McCray 8PM–11PM

Monday, December 30 New Year's Hot Seats 4PM–10PM Tuesday, December 31 New Year's Hot Seats 4PM-MIDNIGHT NYE Prime Rib Dinner 12PM–10PM | $13.95

Live music in Ozone

Late Night Buffet 12:30AM–3AM | $9.95 Waas-No-Dé Buffet

PLAY KIOSK GAMES FOR BONUS ENTRIES Every Thursday & Friday in January & February

EARN ENTRIES JANUARY 2 – FEBRUARY 29

5 BASE POINTS = 1 DRAWING ENTRY

GRAND PRIZE DRAWING February 29, 2020 | 9PM

One Grand Prize winner will be drawn.

cash DRAWINGs February 29, 2020 | 6PM–8:30PM

Two winners every half hour to come up and play a game for up to $1,000 cash!

STANDARD PROMOTIONAL RULES APPLY. SEE PLAYERS CLUB FOR DETAILS. 2019.

Odawa RET 49125 Northern Express APPROVED.indd 1 4050649 • december 23/30, 2019Ad•12.23 Northern Express Weekly

12/19/19 5:42 PM