Synthesis Weekly – June 30, 2014

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SARAH FRAGOSO LIVING EVERYDAY PALEO

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Volume 20 Issue 45 June 30, 2014

For 20 years The Synthesis’ goal has remained to provide a forum for entertainment, music, humor, community awareness, opinions, and change.

Columns

This Week...

Letter From the Editor

Publisher/Managing Editor

by Amy Olson

amy@synthesis.net

PAGE 4

Creative Director

Productivity Wasted

Tanner Ulsh graphics@synthesis.net

by Eli Schwartz

PAGE 5

Exotic Adventures in Smalltown, USA

PAGE 10

Contributing Writers

logankruidenier.tumblr.com

PAGE 16

Immaculate Infection PAGE 17

Nerd

Accounting

by Anonymous

Ben Kirby

PAGE 19

Director of Operations Karen Potter

Owner

Comical Ruminations

Bill Fishkin bill@synthesis.net

by Zooey Mae

PAGE 20

Consider the Platypus

by Mona Treme

PAGE 6

Jessica Sid Vincent Latham

Dain Sandoval dain@synthesis.net

Unsolicited Advice

PAGE 21

Kozmik Debris

by Koz McKev

kozmckev@sunset.net

Arielle Mullen, Bob Howard, Howl, Koz McKev, Tommy Diestel, Jayme Washburn, Eli Schwartz, Mona Treme, Emiliano Garcia-Sarnoff, Jon Williams

Photography

by Bob Howard

Maybe you’ve heard of this wacky Paleo thing, but did you know Chico is home to some of the movement’s biggest names? Sarah Fragoso is the author of five cookbooks, the latest of which was just released about two weeks ago.

Get to know her story, her philosophy, and how she’s changing the world one little bite at a time.

Liz Watters, Mike Valdez graphics@synthesis.net Joey Murphy, Jennifer Foti

by Logan Kruidenier

Sarah Fragoso

Alex Light Alex@synthesis.net SynthesisWeekly.com/submit-yourevent/

Deliveries

Supertime!

zooey@synthesis.net

Entertainment Editor

Designers

by Emiliano Garcia-Sarnoff

Madbob@madbob.com

Amy Olson amy@synthesis.net

PAGE 22

The Synthesis is both owned and published

by Apartment 8 Productions. All things published in these pages are the property of Apartment 8 Productions and may not be reproduced, copied or used in any other way, shape or form without the written consent of Apartment 8 Productions. One copy (maybe two) of the Synthesis is available free to residents in Butte, Tehama and Shasta counties. Anyone caught removing papers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. All opinions expressed throughout the Synthesis are those of the author and are not necessarily the same opinions as Apartment 8 Productions and the Synthesis.

The Synthesis welcomes, wants, and will even desperately beg for letters because we care what you think. We can be reached via snail mail at the Synthesis, 210 W. 6th St., Chico, California, 95928. Email letters@ synthesis.net. Please sign all of your letters with your real name, address and preferably a phone number. We may also edit your submission for content and space.

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b l a c k & w h i t e

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Who among you would refuse a shower of attention and praise, a chance to be declared better than your peers, and a mysterious mystery prize that is probably the greatest thing you can imagine?

(Or possibly a gift card) Our favorite submissions will be published in an upcoming issue of Synthesis, and showcased on our Life in Chico facebook page.

Black and white photos only limit 5 entries per person.

Deliver to: design@synthesis.net

P H O T O S

D U E

J U LY

4

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SYNTHESISWEEKLY.COM JUNE 30 2014

B Y

Diets and Diatribes MY WEEK OF MISSING THE POINT ENTIRELY I spent the past several nights working overtime—straining my eyes staring at a computer screen, straining my wrists and shoulders with the tension of typing, and straining my mind with the stress of transcribing and editing an interview about simplifying your life and honoring your health. I wanted so badly to properly distill the essence of Sarah Fragoso’s message that I completely missed it.

So here I am, my body feeling like a clenched fist, I haven’t eaten properly all week, I’ve neglected my friends and my fiancé, and I’m skimming over the fruits of my labor which are basically slapping me in the face with irony.

The really beautiful thing about Sarah—apart from her face, body, and glowing personality— is the way she lives. She is bursting with generosity, open, loving, and completely fluid.

She does the things that matter to her and embraces the opportunities that stem from that. When she finds herself out of balance, she simplifies. When she finds herself inspired, she acts.

The whole idea of eating/living “Paleo” is often met with skepticism and labeled a fad, and in a way that’s justified. The concept can be co-opted as another path to weight loss, another way to sell products, or another thing to give neurotics a foothold to claim they’re allergic to everything—ruining dinner parties everywhere. It can be misinterpreted, done half-assed, and taken to extremes; it can be taken at face value and easily ridiculed. I can’t count the number of articles titled “Paleo Debunked!” where someone pushed their glasses up their nose and said, “Actually…”

Only to read through them and see they never

analyzed the actual research and nutritional template the diet is based on, just made buzzworthy assumptions and tore down straw men.

I think for a lot of people any attempt at becoming healthy is a fad, because it’s not something that fits into their crazy lifestyles or lines up with their other goals. We are nothing if not a manifestation of our priorities.

For the record, I am not eating a diet that would be considered Paleo. I do lean a bit that way, but I eat all kinds of dairy and legumes and occasionally eat bread/cake/ supercake. But the people I know who really understand the science of it and approach it with balance and self analysis, like Sarah, are onto something that goes way beyond cutting out grains. The broader concept is about using our bodies in the way they’ve evolved to be used, fueling them with foods they’ve evolved to thrive on, and nurturing our environment so it can support us in return.

Yes, we’re opportunistic omnivores who can survive on garbage (I lived on chips and ramen for about two years in my early 20s), and yes, we’re capable of staying alive for a good 80 years while plastered to a chair in front of a television or a computer, but there is a layer of misery that creeps into your life when your body is so misused. We have a choice: Survive vs. Thrive.

I know all this, and yet here I am with a raging pinched nerve in my shoulder, exhausted because the pressure I’ve put on myself has given me insomnia, and craving fat/sugar/ salt bombs because I’ve been telling my body we’re in a famine.

As I was saying, I feel like a dingus.

Letter From the Editor

by Amy Olson amy@synthesis.net

Steam’s Summer Sale and Metro: Last Light’s DLCs BECAUSE WHO REVIEWS WHOLE GAMES ANYMORE? Steam’s annual summer sale is upon us; an event that PC gamers meet with equal parts awe, despair, and joy. I decided to celebrate this festive miracle by purchasing the “Complete Edition” of Metro: Last Light, an excellent F(irst)P(erson)S(hooter) adventure through a twisted, post-bomb Russia, filled with mutants, bandits, and inexplicable phenomena. Last Light came out in 2013, and was a critical and popular success, although it never got the hype and coverage of many of its AAA contemporaries. I could review Last Light, but I’m not going to, because to me, and to many gamers, it’s old news. (I will say this: I recommend it as an extraordinary adventure through a terrifying and incredible place. And you get to shoot stuff, too.) Rather, I’d like to review what is new to me; the DLC missions that make the “Complete Edition” complete.

The DLC “Developer Pack” adds in a level called “DEVELOPER” which has a character and animation gallery, shooting range, and arena, and though a novel attempt at giving the player sandbox control, it wasn’t for me. Much better was the other level added, called “Through the Fire” in the mission, but unsubtly listed as “Spider Lair” in-menu. This level is a pure survival-horror experience, as the player crawls (occasionally literally) out of an abandoned missile silo home to a massive colony of giant mutant spiders, and armed only with a shotgun pistol, flamethrower, and the deadliest weapon of all: the flashlight. The spiders are extremely photophobic, and burn under intense lights. Ammo must be rationed carefully, and a large, dark, dangerous maze

of monsters navigated. Excellent, but short, and essentially plot-free.

The “Chronicles Pack” adds in three levels, but the best of which was the mission “Khan,” giving a full showcase of the Russian Metro’s mystic powers, taking the player on a controlled, short journey through ghosts, monsters, and mysteries. Although there’s little done, and the plot is incomplete and fragmented, and the player has little agency in choosing where they go, I still loved this mission for the main reason I loved Last Light’s main campaign: its intense, frightening, and fascinating atmosphere.

The winner of them all, however, came in the (otherwise weak) “Faction Pack.” The mission “Kshatriya” features the player as one of the few, crazed souls willing to pull in artifacts from the surface, and his quest to find valuable cultural and practical old world artifacts in and around the Russian State Library, Moscow’s massive institution of culture and knowledge, now ruined and filled with dangerous mutants. “Kshatriya” wins because of its openness, allowing the player to explore and create new paths in a huge, beautiful level, and it wins because of its brutality and difficulty. Exploring can be fun, but you need to pull in artifacts to make money, and you need money to afford the filters for the gas mask that keep out the fatal levels of surface radiation. You haven’t lived till you’ve had to put away your gun and put on your last filter in the middle of a firefight with huge, loping mutant dogs that you can’t even see because of the greasy black rain running down your mask. If you don’t want to try this game (and you should), at least try the “Kshatriya” DLC.

Productivity Wasted

by Eli Schwartz

FACEBOOK.COM/SYNTHESISCHICO 5

SARAH FRAGOSO ON FAME, FAMILY, AND LIVING EVERYDAY PALEO

by Amy Olson

So, for those people just joining us: Who are you?

[She laughs] I have no idea! I’m always trying to figure that out.

Really though, I lead a very simple life: I am a mom, and I am a wife—which sounds very archaic, but I really love being that.

You have kind of an awesome family, so that helps.

It totally helps. And I am so completely aware of that, because I’ve also been, in a past life, not with an awesome person, and unhappy.

I’m sooo lucky to be where I’m at: I stay home with my kids and I homeschool them, and I’m married to this awesome guy, and that’s the most valuable thing to me in the world.

BUT, what people know me for is not that; I run a blog—Everyday Paleo, which is where it all started—and I’m also an author of five books.

[I interrupt like it’s a pop quiz] Yeah, five! So that’s... the original Everyday Paleo Cookbook, the Everyday Paleo Family Cookbook, Paleo Pals, Everyday Paleo Italian Cuisine, and your brand new book, Everyday Paleo Thai Cuisine—which is available now at Costco, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.

[She laughs] Yeah! So, I didn’t just start with a blog, obviously.

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SYNTHESISWEEKLY.COM JUNE 30 2014

meeting with Rob Wolf—who is the New York Times bestselling author of The Paleo Solution—well, not at that time, [laughs] no one really knew who he was, but he had just opened a gym in Chico. We ran into him at a Relay for Life, and he was like, “Come to my gym!” and I was like, “OK.” But I thought they were totally crazy. They had this weird diet that they were promoting, I mean they were really nice people, but I never bought into it, and didn’t really ask what they did.

It was pretty much the birth of Crossfit and the Paleo diet, and people were like, “This isn’t a gym, it’s a warehouse; and you don’t eat cheese or bread?” It was completely nuts. There were people who were starting to dig it, and they were getting results, but I was totally oblivious.

So, fast forward to a couple years later. I was really in a bad place—this would’ve been almost seven years ago. I wasn’t me anymore, and I kind of didn’t know who “me” was. I didn’t even really realize I was unhealthy, but that’s what I was. I hurt all the time and I was having nasty, horrible candida issues— like yeast infections every single month—and as a woman you know how miserable that is. It affects your entire life, your relationships, your mood… everything was wrong. My legs would swell up and they were painful… I showed up at Rob’s gym and I was like, “I need help.”

I lost my mom to cancer—to breast cancer—and she was like the most health-centric person you would ever meet. It was all about “what food should I eat” and “it all should be organic” and she was a vegetarian for years… and yet she was never well. She was this positive, amazing force in the universe, but she couldn’t figure out how to be OK. So, in my mind, I was like, “Food can’t be the answer.” I watched my mom try to figure it out for years, and she couldn’t, and I lost her. So I was just like, “I’m faced with the same demise: I’m going to be unhealthy, and it’s genetic, and that’s how it is.”

I’d dieted before, like when I was in my early 20s I’d be like, “I need to be skinny!” so I’d take Hydroxycut and look like a crack addict, or try the Green Tea Diet or whatever. I just thought [diets were] all crazy, so when they were like, “Just try eating this way for 30 days and see how you feel,” I did it, more out of desperation and curiosity. And maybe because someone was finally telling me what to do instead of me guessing, and telling me with authority, like, “No you don’t understand, this is legit. There’s science behind this, and it’s changing people’s lives.” Not like, “lose ten pounds in three weeks.”

Just a couple weeks after my mom died, I had a chance

I literally couldn’t believe how good I felt. It blew my mind.

That’s what prompted me to have that become my world...

It’s like this infectious disease where people are like “I FEEL AMAZING!!! I wanna tell EVERYBODY!!!” I mean, that was me.

I wanted to share this with people. So I became a personal trainer at Rob’s gym, and one day Rob was like, “You should start a blog, all our clients are asking, ‘How do you feed your family so healthy, what are the recipes?’” And I was like, “Good idea!”

So I did that. Oh, and Dain, this guy Dain—you know him right?—I wouldn’t have been able to do it without him! He was like, “Sure, I’ll help you start a blog.” It was so neat to have him have my back, because I had no idea what I was doing…

I’ll never forget when Dain called me and he was like, “You had 35,000 visitors to your website this month!” And I was like 35,000? I don’t know 35,000 people. And he was like, “No you don’t get it, they’re from all over the country.” And people were commenting, and I was like, oh my gosh, unbelieveable.

So, to make a really long story short, I was approached by a publisher who offered me $5,000 if I’d write this book. I’m not so business un-savvy that I couldn’t be like, “Wait, you want to give me $5,000? I have at least 35,000 people who follow me (at that point), I can help you sell a lot of books. Nuh-uh, I’m worth more than $5,000.” So I decided that I was just going to start writing; I’d just write an eBook and see what happened.

[Sarah’s husband John comes in] “Hey, what’s going on?”

Hi, she’s recording me.

“Oh, sorry.”

That’s OK, you’re a part of it now!

[We laugh, and John exits—as it turned out, to deal with

Sarah’s double-Grammy award-winning sister Laura Sullivan’s visiting rescue dog who was apparently beefing with their motley-pack of odd-sized canines. You know, typical Wednesday.]

Right, so Rob was like, “Why don’t you sit down and talk with my publisher?” So I met up with him and showed him some of my writing, and he basically signed me at Starbucks on the spot.

So, from there, I just kept going. Now I conduct seminars nationwide, I’ve been lucky enough to work with Naval Special Warfare and the Navy SEALS, and I’m connected with the Savory Institute, which is an amazing group of people…

I feel so privileged and honored, because I really don’t know anything except for what I know from my own experience. I’m just a personal trainer with a passion for good food, and I want to help people feel good. To be able to turn my passion into what I guess is a career is pretty crazy.

You guys are trying to make everything you eat as locally sourced as possible. You have, what, like a thousand chickens right now?

Yeah! It sure feels like it [laughs]. You know, my big thing now is the idea that this whole [health] movement should not just be about your macronutrients, or whether you’re eating enough protein and carbs—and that stuff is important for people with specific goals—but I want the bigger message to be “Where is your food coming from? What are you doing to support your local economy? What are you doing to impact your environment? What are you teaching your children?” Kids really think that food drops from the sky, and it doesn’t. People have to work hard to be healthy, it’s not just a gift. So yes, we have chickens; we just raised our own meat chickens for the first time, and I have 12 layer hens that give us our eggs, and

you can see out the window we have a garden. I try to shop at the farmers market and Chico Natural or S&S Produce, and just support the people who work really hard in our community to make us healthy. I think it’s a really beautiful, symbiotic thing, and it makes me feel really good.

Has that changed your perspective on your community at all?

Absolutely! I feel so lucky to live here. My community is amazing, the people I know and hang out with are incredible, and the resources that we have here… I‘ve traveled all over the world, and you can’t beat Northern California. I can get all the grass-fed meat and organic vegetables that I want within a hundred mile radius, and that’s pretty special. My love affair with Chico has begun again… I just want to support what has supported me for so many years, and I think that’s a big way of doing it, even just getting your veggies at the farmer’s market.

So, now that you’re done with Thai Cuisine, you’re going to take a little bit of a break from writing books?

Yes. That is my plan, yes. And I might be lying to you, but I feel so good about that decision. I mean, who writes five books in three years?

That’s a lot! Plus two trips to Italy, and a trip to Thailand, and zigzagging all over the country doing seminars. After a while that’s gotta lead to a kind of uprooted feeling.

It does. And I still want to travel, but you know, I’ve got a lot here on the homefront to focus on. I’m just kind of ready to let all the stuff that I’ve done take care of itself. And I’m learning/ re-learning that if I’m not healthy, then I can’t nurture the people who need me—and I also can’t be a good role model for the people who are watching what I’m doing. So part of that is FACEBOOK.COM/SYNTHESISCHICO 7

dialing the heck back.

I want my kids to see me relaxed and happy, not always trying to figure out the next big thing. Because when they grow up I want them to be happy. I don’t want them to be doctors or lawyers—I mean if that’s what they want to be and that’s what makes them happy then that’s what I want—but I just want them to have that image in their mind of a vibrant, healthy, happy mom. I don’t have those memories, and I want that for my kids so badly. I’m still going to do some seminars here and there, but as far as like “nose to the grindstone” cranking out books…

And who knows what’s going to inspire you, who knows what’s going to happen? I think that’s smart. I approve of your life choices.

[We laugh] I’ve heard you talk before about how the Paleo monicker is a little bit stigmatized, and how it’s more just about developing a sustainable, healthy lifestyle.

Yeah. You know I LOVE Paleo, I think it’s a great jumping-off place, but it’s also very marketable and it can get a little convoluted, a little confusing, especially for someone who’s new to trying to figure out their health. Jason Seib, my business partner, coined the term “Internet Paleo,” which just made me laugh so hard the first time he said it, because you can turn it into whatever you want it to be.

It has gotten to the point where there’s stuff like “Paleo doughnuts” and this that and the other. Like if the ingredients aren’t on the “don’t” list it’s suddenly health food.

Right. My whole message is this—figure out who you are, and jump off from there. I do feel like the healthiest way to eat, when it comes right down to it, looks like the Paleo template.

If you’re not feeling good, try it for 30 days and see how you feel, and then decide from there what works for you. But to be honest, if I sat down next to someone and they were a diehard vegetarian and that worked for them, I’m not going to try to “convert” them.

For most people who have yo-yo dieted and broken their metabolism and have a bad relationship with food, it can really be hard coming to grips with that. They want a set of rules. They turn it into a diet, rather than 8

SYNTHESISWEEKLY.COM JUNE 30 2014

asking, “How is my body responding?” I just wish so badly, for women especially, that I could get that diet mentality out of them and teach them to love their bodies. I mean, not to accept them, like, “Oh I’m good with being sick and unhealthy and overweight,” I just want them to love and respect their body enough to figure out what it needs. And that might look different for different people.

Like how some people can handle dairy, and some people can’t?

Right. I always say to start with what I tell you to do in my books—start with the Paleo template—and then work your way forward from there. I know what certain foods do for me, and which ones to avoid, and it’s as simple and as hard as that.

Sort of like doing a factory reset on your system, and then loading apps to find out what works and what crashes. Fitness is such a big part of it too, right? We didn’t evolve to be couch people.

Yeah, if that caveman never got off of his rock, how long would he last? It’s funny to say that, but it’s really what’s happening now.

Oh yeah, if it wasn’t for going to the gym and walking from the far end of parking lots, I would be sitting all day staring at screens. Then I go home and stare at a screen to wind down from the stress of staring at screens. It’s ridiculous.

Yeah, I’ve definitely been there. The fitness thing is huge, and people often think they can’t even tackle it because it seems so impossible. You know, the media shows us that people who are in shape run 20 miles a week or whatever, and it’s just not feasible for the average person. And I get it, I used to be in that situation too, thinking the answer to health was that I needed to run and run and run. And that lasted about two days for me.

So, you and your husband John have a new gym (JS Strength), and what you do is not Crossfit. I know that was part of your life at one point; was moving away from Crossfit about making things sustainable?

Exactly. It’s about what you can do to be the healthiest that you can be, rather than getting shredded or looking good in a pair of jeans in the shortest time possible—and then blowing

out your knees or needing shoulder surgeries or something.

The crazy thing is that when we treat our bodies how we’re supposed to and get really stinking healthy, then we can have the body we want. But people think there should be a shortcut and that the goal is to look a certain way.

Anyway, I think Crossfit is great because it put barbells in people’s hands—I would’ve never picked up a barbell if it wasn’t for Crossfit—but on the other hand there’s no quality control, and it’s a sport, and people need to see it as that. I know there are some amazing Crossfit boxes out there that are really doing good for people, but then there’s a lot out there that are not. So it’s hard for me to recommend it to people because I don’t know where I’m sending them. I might be sending them to some blood-bath where they’re being told that they have to work out five days a week and maximize their membership and grind it out for an hour, and that’s not sustainable. At first it might feel good and you might get some results because you’re moving for the first time in a long time, but over time—I burnt myself out doing it.

I’ve learned a lot over the years about fitness, I’ve worked with some of the best people in the business with that passion and desire to really just help people find health. And that’s why John and I opened the gym. When we started it I was like, “I just want the people who are broken.” Which sounds really weird, but I want to train people who don’t really know where else to turn. And it’s crazy, people are like, “You only want me to come twice a week?”

I remember being really surprised by that when we started training with you. Somehow it made it so much more palatable, and then my strength improved so quickly

anyway, it was weird!

I think that the minimalist approach allows people to be active on the days when they’re not in the gym, and that’s what we really encourage—even just taking a few minutes a day to walk. Our bodies are intended to do a lot of slow, steadypaced work. It’s very soothing and good for you; your joints like it, your heart likes it, your brain loves it… And we need to lift and carry heavy objects, because our bodies respond to that—neurologically, from a hormone profile perspective, in our muscles and joints (if we’re doing it correctly)—that’s what we’re designed to do. If you’re going to move fast, do it for a short duration, because that’s how we evolved for survival. No one ever ran from a tiger for two hours or chased a pheasant for 30 miles. It just makes sense if you look at it from the perspective of where we came from.

And it works, that’s the big thing. We’ve seen it time and time again, and not just in our own lives.

So, what’s it like going from just normal everyday life to having thousands of people reacting and interacting with you, and knowing you even though you’ve never met them before. I can’t even say this in a way that doesn’t make it sound really bizarre, because it just seems like it would be really bizarre!

It is straight up humbling. When I meet someone and they’re excited to meet me I’m always like, “Holy crap, I hope I don’t disappoint you!” It’s just, I don’t know... I still don’t really believe it. When someone recognizes me—which really IS bizarre—like at Disneyland someone came up to me like that and my dad was like, “Did that lady just recognize you?”

And now you have a famous sister too! Your dad must be like, “WHAT?” Ha! Laura? She’s famous on a whole other level. I don’t happen to have two Grammys lying around. My dad loves it though.

But yeah, I do feel famous in my small part of the universe— famous isn’t even the word I’m looking for. But you know, I hear other people who do similar things to what I do be like, “Oh, my fans…”—but I don’t feel that way at all. I hear these people talk, and I’m like, “We all came from the same pile of shit. We started this lifestyle because we felt really bad and now we feel good, so don’t pretend like you’re someone special.”

I just feel blessed that I’ve been given the gift to be able to help spread the word, and that’s it. I feel like every person I meet is someone’s mom or someone’s sister or brother or dad—it makes me cry, literally. We are all connected. I’m that hippydippy weird person who feels like the universe connects us all in this really amazing spiritual way, and when I meet people who have changed their lives because they read my silly little book, it just makes me feel very small in the universe. And grateful for even being able to make this tiny difference. No, I don’t have fans, I have a huge extended family.

Sarah Fragoso’s books, including Everyday Paleo Thai Cuisine, are available at Costco, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. You can follow her blog at everydaypaleo.com, and check out their new gym JS Strength and Conditioning, located at 2866 Esplanade, at jsstrength.com

FACEBOOK.COM/SYNTHESISCHICO 9

Goals JUBILATION AND TEARS AT THE SPORTS BAR Total pandemonium, total chaos. We are jumping up and down, high-fiving in that way where our hands actually wrap together so that, really, we’re just holding hands— men and men and men and women and women and women—and the extended hand holding is turning into hugs and even multi-person-combo-hugs and our feet are doing little unseen River Dances of Joy or else they’re doing Tigger hops. We’re screaming, screaming indiscernible elongated vowels right into each other’s faces, faces flush with booze and triumph, everything a red, white and blue blur. And then, from somewhere— from me, actually, I think, though it doesn’t matter—comes the low simian chant, which takes hold. But it’s not the three letters—U, S, and A—that matter, but the sounds: those resonant repeating outbreaths, breathing as one, fists pounding the bar or the air, air that’s heavy with evaporated beer and pheromonal perspiration and chanted breath. People are literally wearing tribal war paint and they’re wearing star-spangled flags as bandanas or as scarves or as capes and they’re wearing tri-colored uniforms, too, and it’s important, here, to remember—to remember that “uni” means “one” and that “form” means “body.”

We scored. “We” being the U.S. soccer team and thus—through the magic of collective delusion—also me and the several friends I’m with and everyone else here at Argus, the (by-the-way-great) drinking establishment on 2nd Street, which is packed to fire-codestretching capacity. We scored. We scored and we are beating Portugal and its evil pretty boy, Ronaldo (properly pronounced with a rolling R 10

SYNTHESISWEEKLY.COM JUNE 30 2014

and a disdainfully elongated “a”).

about much more than that.

When Chico State soccer star Chris Wondolowski is subbed in toward the end of the game there’s another round of jubilation and cheers and, unbeknownst to me at the time, tears.

“It’s just…it’s every kid’s dream to play in the World Cup. And to see him out there…” Robby slumps back against the wall and buries his face in his hands.

But then, with like two milliseconds left in stoppage time, stupid Ronaldo and his fluttering fancy-feet executes a perfect pass over to some other stupid Portuguese player’s stupid feet, and he scores.

It’s as if the entire bar just collectively loses Who Wants to Be A Millionaire at the exact same time. Maybe worse.

You can pretty much see the joyous hormonal cocktail everyone’s been high on drain right out of them. We’re stumbling around, mumbling feebly. We’re dumbfounded, slackjawed, bloodless. We’re still breathing as one, but now it’s a collective gasp.

Out on the back patio, Robby Busick is using his t-shirt to wipe tears from his eyes.

Robby played with Wondolowski from 2001 until 2004 at Chico State and served as cocaptain with him. The shirt has a picture of Wondolowski on it and reads “One Nation/ One Team/One Wondo,” and is of Robby’s design. Thirty-odd members of Wondo’s family are wearing the shirt in Brazil as we speak, Robby tells me.

Though there is stinging disappointment about that last goal in Robby’s tears, they’re

Robby is co-owner of the excellent Italian food truck, Truck-a-Roni, which is pulled into Argus’ back patio, hooking-up some amazing bacony mac-and-cheese and meatball subs.

“I got married. Stayed in Chico… But he… A lot of people who went through what he went through would have given up… It’s a true testament to what hard work can do.”

Yes, we’re talking about grown men chasing around a little ball. Yes, the instinct that leads us to chant is the same one that leads us to war. Yes, sports fandom is a form of tribalism; arbitrary, conformist and sometimes even cruel. But as a friend of mine recently pointed out: we just are tribal. Humans, that is. We just are.

And yes, Trail of Tears, Slavery, Abu Ghraib, Vietnam. Yes. And yes, we’re five percent of the world’s population but use 28 percent of the non-renewable resources and create 40 percent of the waste and have 25 percent of the prisoners and 100 percent of the Kardashians and Black Friday stampede deaths. Yes, yes, I know. So chanting “USA” seems complicated, to say the least. But, in this case, we’re lovable underdogs!!! In this case it’s totally cool!

Question: What word should we use to

describe the man who weeps with joy for a friend’s success? What word for the crowd that suffers and succeeds together, that clasps hands, that embraces? What verb—for such things are not, in the end, stable—to describe when hearts and lungs and fists truly (as in physically) beat as one; synchronized, like birds, like fish, and we are bound together and yet boundless?

Love.

Exotic Adventures in Smalltown, USA

by Emiliano Garcia-Sarnoff

SUMMERFEST CHICO

- Adventist Health

Feather River Hospital

Food &

Drink Closed.

Closed

We need to drink, too!

Monday WATCH HERE ALL WEEK LONG FRIES

BURGERS

Mon-Fri Happy Hour 12-4PM $3 Sierra & Domestic

Daily Happy Hour from 4-7PM PBR $2.25 Everyday!

Closed

Menu cocktails $1 off. Sierra

Tuesday

Happy Hour2-6pm M-F $1.00 off Sierra and Dom

6PM -close $1 Off Pitchers

$1.00 off PBR & Olympia Pool Rates Cut in 1/2 !

$3 Sierra and Domestic Pints $ 3.50 Kam is ALL DAY!

Nevada Draft $3

Daily Happy Hour from 4-7PM PBR $2.25 Everyday!

Two Dollar Tuesdays! $2 PBRs $2 Tacos!

Happy Hour2-6pm M-F $1.00 off Sierra and Dom

Pitchers $1.00 off PBR and Olympia Cans Pool Rates Cut in 1/2 !

Come see our beautiful Patio! HappyHour4-6:

Closed

WING WEDNESDAY! $2 for 3 Wings

Daily Happy Hour from 4-7PM

Chicken Waffle Wed.!

8 ball Tourney 6pm

Full Bar in Back Room

sign-up

8PM-Close $2.50 Fire Eater Shots $5.50 DBL Bacardi

Weds, Fri & Sat Nights!

PBR $2.2S Everyday!

Happy Hour2-6pm M-F $1.00 off Sierra and Dom Pitchers $1.00 off PBR and Olympia Pool Rates Cut in 1/2!

Menu cocktails $1 off. Sierra

Wednesday

Nevada Draft $3

Live musicS-10

Cocktails

Come see our beautiful

Closed

Patio! Happy Hour 4-6:

Mon-Fri Happy Hour 12-4PM $3 Sierra & Domestic

Wander Food Truck on

Daily Happy Hour from 4-7PM PBR $2.25 Everyday!

Pints

the Patio 6pm

Chico Jazz Collective 8-midnight Happy Hour2-6pm M-F $1.00 off Sierra & Dom

Pitchers $3.50 Soccer moms

$1.00 off PBR and Olympia Pool Rates Cut in 1/2 !

$6 Dbl Roaring Vodka

Join us for Beers on our Patio Bar!

Friday

fries or salad 25 cent wings from halftime 'til they're gone!

Pitchers

Come see our beautiful Patio! HappyHour4-6:

Thursday

$6.50 Pulled pork sand w/

Every Other Week!

Pints

BEER

344 WEST BTH ST I CHICO, CA I 530-343-2790

Open Mic Comedy Night

Closed for 4th of July Holiday

Happy Hour from 4-6.

Mon-Fri Happy Hour 12-4PM $3 Sierra & Domestic

Pints

Daily Happy Hour from 4-7PM

Full Bar in Back Room Weds, Fri & Sat Nights!

PBR $2.2S Everyday!

Weekend Blast Offl!

8-close $5 Blasters

Rock Out at The DL!

Enjoy Live Music, Great Grub, and 10 9' foot tables Open @llam All ages untill lOpm

MONSTER MONDAY SPECIALS 6PM-CLOSE BEER $3/4/5/6 $1 SHOTS FREE Pool after lOPM

Chicken Strip Sand only $6.50 before 6 PM DOLLAR DAZE 6-9pm $1 Beer $1 Wells $2 Doubles FREE Pool after lOPM

Reuben Sand

w/ fries or

salad $6.50 5pm-Close 1/2 off kids items

Spm-Close Pitcher Specials $6/$9/$12 FREE Pool after lOPM

Baby Back Ribs $10.99 Philly Cheesesteak $7.50 6pm-Close $4 Grad teas $3 All beer pints FREE Pool after lOPM

10 oz. Tri-Tip Steak w/ Fries or Salad & Garlic Bread $8.99 8pm-Close $4 Jager $5 DBL Vodka Red Bull $6 Jager Red Bull

$2 Kamikaze shots FREE Pool after lOPM

We open at 12:00pm.

Saturday

Closed for 4th of July Holiday

Tacotruck.biz and Beers on the Patio!

Open at llAM $4.50 Bloody Mary $5.50 Absolut Peppar Bloody Marys Noon -6PM $8 / $9 SN Dom Pitchers $5.50 DBL Bacardi

Daily Happy Hour from 4-7PM

Full Bar in Back Room Weds, Fri & Sat Nights!

PBR $2.25 Everyday!

Rock Out at The DL!

Enjoy Live Music, Great Grub, and 10 9' foot tables Open @llam All ages untill lOpm

Baby Back Ribs w/Sa lad, Fries & garlic bread $10.99 8pm-Close $4 Single/$6 Double

Jack or Captain $2 Sierra Neva da FREE Pool after lOPM

Cocktails

Sunday

WE OPEN AT 12:00PM MIMOSAS WITH FRESH SQUEEZED OJ FOR $5 UNTIL5PM.

CLOSED

lOAM -2PM $5 Bottles of Champagne

with entree

Daily Happy Hour from 4-7PM PBR $2.25 Everyday!

$4.50 Bloody Mary $5.50 Absolut Peppar Bloody Marys

Free Pool with Purchase!

LOO off Sierra and Dom Pitchers

$5.19 Grad/Garden/ Turkey Burgerw/fries

$1.00 off PBR and Olympia Cans

Bloodies $3 Well, $4 Call, $5 Top, $6 Goose Mimosas $2/flute, $5/pint $6 Beer Pitchers FREE Pool after lOPM

SATURDAY 9/27 /2014

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or salad

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Lounge

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C HI CO CA

Closed

Go Down Lo

BEAR-E-OKE BURGER MADNESS! Bear Burger with fries or salad for $5.49. llam-lOpm.

Closed

Go Down Lo

Closed

Go Down Lo

Happy Hour 4- Spm Ladies Night!

BB pm-CLOSE $5 Pabst pitchers $2 shot board $4 Moscow Mules $3 Jamo and Ginger

LIVE JAZZ Drink Specials Early Bird Special 9-lOPM 1/2 off we lls

Happy Hour ll-6PM select bottles & drafts $2.7S

CLOSED

BEAR WEAR! 1/2 off while wearing Bear Wear.

MUG CLUB 4-lOPM

$2 All Day $2 Select Sierra Nevada or Dom Drafts $2 Kamis-any flavor

$3.50 Tea of the Day Bartender Specials Happy Hour4-8pm 10- Close: $2 Bartender Shot Specials $3 SkwVodka Cocktails $5 Dbl Bacardi or SoCo Cocktails

TRIKE RACES! Post time@ lOpm. Win T-shirts and Bear Bucks.

MUG CLUB 4-lOPM

All 16 oz Teas or AMF $3 All Day

$3.50 SkWY Vodka Cocktails $3.50 Tea of the Day Bartender Specials Happy Hour4-8pm

BURGER MADNESS! Bear Burger with fries or salad for $5.49. llam-lOpm.

Happy Hour ll-6PM $2.75 select bottles & drafts $216oz Wells

9pm-Close $212oz Teas $3 20oz Teas $2 Well, Dom Bottles & bartender Specials $5 Vodka Red Bull

2 FOR 1 BURGERS ALL DAY!!

MINORS WELCOME!

SPM-Close $2 Margaritas $3 Cuervo Marqis $2.50 Corona Bottles & Sierra Drafts $3 Corona Lite Drafts Mon-Sat 3-6PM $1 Dom draft, $2 SN draft, $2 wells

CLOSED

HappyHour4-7pm

Progressive Night!

8-lOPM $1 Sierra Pale Ale, Domestics, Rolling Rock & we ll cocktails up lOPM-close 25¢ per hour-close Mon-Sat free pool 6-SPM

Closed

Buck Night 8-Close $1 well cocktails, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Rolling Rock, dom draft $3 Black Butte $4 Vodka Red bull

Closed

CLOSED

Closed

$1.50 sliders and other cheap eats!

1/2 OFF EVERYTHING!!!

HappyHour4-7pm

USA VS BELGIUM JULY 1 AT 1PM

THUESDAY SPECIALS

$1.50 sliders and other cheap eats!!

$3.50 KLAMIS $3 SIERRA & DOMESTIC PINTS 134 BROADWAY ST, CHICO, CA I 530.893.5253

Buck Hour 10:30 -11:30 Closed for 4th of July!

LIVE MUSIC Drink Specials

LATE NIGHT EATS! kitchen open until 1 AM

Early Bird Special 9-lOPM 1/2 off wells

Opening at Spm for

LIVE MUSIC Drink Specials

BO's NIGHT!!

B pm-CLOSE

$4 Sauza Margaritas $3 Kamis $3 Shocktop & VIP pint

LATE NIGHT EATS! kitchen open until 1 AM

Early Bird Special 9-lOPM 1/2 off we lls

Free Happy Hour Food 4PM until it's gone

$3.50 Tea of the Day Bartender Specials

Happy Hour ll-6PM select wells, bottles and pints $2.75

Happy Hour4-8pm

$4 Sex On The Beach $4 Sierra Nevada Knightro ON TAP $1 Jello Shots 7-lOPM $3 Fireball

$3.50 Tea of the Day Bartender Specials

Happy Hour-4-7pm $5 Fridays 4-Spm Most food items and pitchers of beer are $5

CLOSED

Hot "Dawgs" ALL DAY!

CLOSED

POWER 102 VIP NIGHT Open at 9PM BODLE SERVICE Now Available!

Call for reservation 898-9898

Happy Hour4-8pm

BOTTLE SERVICE Now Available!

Call for reservation 898-9898

Open at 9PPM

KARAOKE "INDUSTRY NIGHT"

Call To Rent For Private Party

B PM-CLOSE

HALF OFF ALMOST EVERYTHING!(Except Red Bull and Premium Liquors) Specials All Day!

Go Down Lo

BURGER MADNESS! Bear Burger with fries or salad for $5.49. llam-lOpm.

$4 World Famous Bloody Joe $5 Premium bloodys your choice of vodka

Champagne Brunch llam-2pm $3 Champagne with entree

CLOSED

CLOSED

Champagne Brunch and SPORTS!

Champagne Brunch llam-2pm Every Sunday $3 Champagne with purchase of an entree

117 E 2nd St, Chico (530) 895-8817 FACEBOOK.COM /SYNTHESISCHICO

13

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Friday, July 4th

Monday, June 30th

DUNK YOUR CITY OF CHICO OFFICIALS

AETOLIA, FALSE WITNESS LASALLES

CHICO CITY PLAZA

Synth, computer-y bleeps and bloops, and big metal breakdowns with singer Chris Colvin screaming at you. This is Texas’ symphonic deathcore band Aetolia, recently signed to Razortooth Records (I haven’t heard of that either). Some as yet unannounced local bands are playing too. This is going to be an awesome summer metal show at a reasonable price (I hope). Let’s mosh and drink Bud Light together.

9pm.

This should solve every intra-city conflict we have within one evening. Come vent your righteous frustrations at the Dunk Tank, at the expense of our favorite city officials. This awesome part of Independence Day is a benefit for the Downtown Ambassadors program, a group that seems to be focused on figuring out what do with all the homeless peeps.

Also, there’s live music from 6-9pm.

Sunday, July 6th

Wednesday, July 2nd

THE RUGS, PAT HULL, SUNS OF THE PACIFIC

EXPERIMENTAL/NOISE MUSIC SHOWCASE

First things first, Pat Hull (pictured) is dropping a new album, In The Yellow Room. He’s being super modest about it in classic Chico style by having his CD release party in Santa Cruz July 1st. This makes tonight the unofficial CD release party... The album has a new recording of “My Flame” on it, the romance anthem of my life. This is also The Rugs’ last night before touring a week in OR. $5, 9pm.

A field of yellow grain. Cars rushing by.

The first Casio keyboard your parents bought you. All those really heavy dreams you can’t remember. This is me attempting to describe the music of the three artists performing this Sunday evening: Nervous Operator and Blankets (both from Vancouver), and Termite. This show will be real deep, real strange, and real FREE! Donations accepted. 8pm.

CAFE CODA

E ST. 1 7 7 6

Other new and exciting things!

30 Monday

Cafe Coda: The Rugs, Pat Hull, Suns Of The Pacific. $5, 9pm

In Outer Space dance troupe.

Bingo, drag, variety show. $10, 7:30pm LaSalles: Happy Hour with Black Fong. 4-8pm Monstros: Armed For Apocalypse, Shadow Limb, Monk Warrior. $5, 8pm

3 Thursday

4 Friday

LaSalles: Aetolia, False Witness, Myth. 9pm

2 Wednesday

ENJOY THE MAJESTY SAFELY

1078 Gallery: Bingo Is A Drag! Benefit for Everybody

Find Out How you Can Play Pool for Only $1/Day! SYNTHESISWEEKLY.COM JUNE 30 2014

One Mile: 4th Of July Celebration. 7am-11am Peking: BassMint presents Trap Of July! Bionix, Eyere Eyes, Billy The Robot. 9:30pm Silver Dollar Fairgrounds: Sprint Car Races & Fireworks

5 Saturday

City Plaza: The Alternators.

6-9pm

EAT. DRINK. PLAY.

14

NAKED LOUNGE

1078 Gallery: Twisted Strategies, The Resonators, Bogg + Tybox. $5, 7:30pm

Maltese: Beach Babe Ball! with The MalTeazers. Burlesque Show. $5, 9:30pm

6 Sunday

Naked Lounge: Experimental/ Noise Showcase. Nervous Operator (Vancouver), Blankets (Vancouver), Termite. Free/donations accepted, 8pm

LESSONS, LEAGUES AND TOURNAMENTS! GREAT FOOD! LIVE MUSIC! 319 Main Street (530) 892-2473

Ongoing Events 30 Monday

The Bear: Bear-E-oke! 9pm Chico Art Center: Sal Casa Retrospective. 10am-4pm Chico Womens Club: Prenatal Yoga. 5:30-6:30pm DownLo: Pool League. 3 player teams, signup with bartender.

7pm. All ages until 10pm Has Beans Downtown: Photography by Kale Barker. 5:30am-10pm Maltese: Open Mic Comedy or Music, alternates every week. Signups at 8pm, starts at 9pm. Mug Night 7-11:30pm The Tackle Box: Latin Dance Classes. Free, 7-9pm University Bar: Free Pool 6-8pm Yoga Center Of Chico: Sound Healing w. Emiliano. Breathwork, Meditation, Healing.

1 Tuesday

100th Monkey: Fusion Belly Dance mixed-level class, with BellySutra. $8/class or $32/month. 6pm Open Mic plus showcase by local musicians. 7pm Chico Art Center: Sal Casa Retrospective. 10am-4pm Chico Women’s Club: Yoga.

9-10am. Afro Carribean Dance. $10/class or $35/mo. 5:50-7pm.

Followed by Capoeira, $3-$10.

7:30-8:30pm Crazy Horse Saloon: All Request Karaoke. 21+ DownLo: Game night. All ages until 10pm Holiday Inn Bar: Salsa Lessons, 7-10pm LaSalles: ’90s night. 21+ Maltese: Karaoke. 9pm-Close Studio Inn Lounge: Karaoke.

8:30pm-1am The Tackle Box: Karaoke, 9pm University Bar: Free Pool 6-8pm Woodstocks: Trivia Challenge. Call at 4pm to reserve a table. Starts 6:30pm

2 Wednesday

Avenue 9 Gallery: “Carlos Loarca in Chico,” paintings of Guatemalan folklore.

The Bear: Trike Races. Post time 10pm Chico Art Center: Sal Casa Retrospective. 10am-4pm Chico Women’s Club: Afro Brazilian Dance. 5:30-7pm DownLo: Wednesday night jazz.

8 Ball Tournament, signups 6pm, starts 7pm Duffys: Dance Night! DJ Spenny and Jeff Howse. $1, 9pm The Graduate: Free Pool after 10pm Jesus Center: Derelict Voice Writing Group, everyone welcome.

9-10:30am The Maltese: Friends With Vinyl!

Bring your vinyl and share up to 3 songs/12 minutes on the turntable.

9pm-1am The Tackle Box: Line Dance classes.

Free, 5:30-7:30pm. Swing Dance classes. Free, 7:30-9:30pm University Bar: Free Pool 6-8pm VIP Ultra Lounge: Laurie Dana.

7-9pm Woodstocks: Trivia Night plus Happy Hour. call at 4pm to reserve a table. Starts at 8pm

3 Thursday

Avenue 9 Gallery: “Carlos Loarca in Chico,” paintings of Guatemalan folklore.

The Beach: DJ Mack Morris.

10:30pm The Bear: DJ Dancing. Free, 9pm Chico Art Center: Sal Casa Retrospective. 10am-4pm DownLo: Chico Jazz Collective.

8-11pm. All ages until 10pm The Graduate: Free Pool after 10pm Has Beans Downtown: Open Mic Night. 7-10pm. Signups start at 6pm Holiday Inn Bar: Karaoke.

LIFE IN CHICO

8pm-midnight LaSalles: Free live music on the patio. 6-9pm Maltese: Karaoke. 9pm-close Panamas: Buck night and DJ Eclectic & guests on the patio. 9pm Quackers: Karaoke night with Andy. 9pm-1am University Bar: Free Pool 6-8pm VIP Ultra Lounge: Acoustic performance with Bradley Relf. 7-9pm.

No Cover.

Woodstocks: Open Mic Night Yoga Center Of Chico: Ecstatic Dance with Clay Olson. 7:309:30pm

4 Friday

100th Monkey: Acoustic Music Singer Songwriter Showcase.

7:30pm Avenue 9 Gallery: “Carlos Loarca in Chico,” paintings of Guatemalan folklore. Opening Reception 5-8pm The Beach: DJ2k & Mack Morris.

9pm The Bear: DJ Dancing. Free, 9pm Cafe Coda: Friday Morning Jazz with Bogg. 11am Chico Art Center: Sal Casa Retrospective. 10am-4pm Crazy Horse Saloon: Fusion Fridays, the best country, rock, oldies, 80s & top 40. Country dance lessons 9-10:30pm DownLo: ½ off pool. All ages until 10pm. Live Music, 8pm Duffys: Pub Scouts - Happy Hour.

4-7pm The Graduate: Free Pool after 10pm Holiday Inn Bar: DJ Dance Party.

8pm-midnight LaSalles: Open Mic night on the patio. 6-9pm Maltese: Happy hour with live jazz

by Bogg. 5-7pm. LGBTQ+ Dance Party. 9pm Panamas: Jigga Julee, DJ Mah on the patio. 9pm

Peeking: BassMint. Weekly electronic dance party. $3. 9:30pm Quackers: Live DJ. 9pm Sultan’s Bistro: Bellydance Performance. 6:30-7:30pm University Bar: Free Pool 6-8pm

5 Saturday

Avenue 9 Gallery: “Carlos Loarca in Chico,” paintings of Guatemalan folklore. 12-5pm The Beach: DJ Mah. 9pm The Bear: DJ Dancing. No Cover.

9pm Chico Art Center: Sal Casa Retrospective. 10am-4pm Crazy Horse Saloon: Ladies Night Dancing. 10pm-1:30am DownLo: 9 Ball tournament.

Signups at noon, starts at 1pm. All ages until 10pm The Graduate: Free Pool after 10pm Holiday Inn Bar: DJ Dancing. 70s and 80s music. The Molly Gunn’s Revival! 8pm-midnight LaSalles: 80’s Night. 8pm-close Maltese: Burlesque with The MalTEAZers! 9pm Panamas: DJ Eclectic on the patio.

9pm University Bar: Free Pool 6-8pm Yoga Center Of Chico: Mind Power Workshop w. Gayle Kimball, Ph.D. 1-4pm

SICILIAN CAFÉ Visiting the Thursday Night Market?

Stop by for our Farmer’s Market Special!

6 Sunday

Chico Art Center: Sal Casa Retrospective. 10am-4pm Dorothy Johnson Center: Soul Shake Dance Church. Free-style dance wave, $8-$15 sliding scale.

10am-12:30pm DownLo: Free Pool, 1 hour with every $8 purchase. All ages until 10pm LaSalles: Karaoke. 9pm Maltese: Live Jazz 4-7pm. Trivia 8pm Tackle Box: Karaoke, 8pm

Do you like Life in Chico? So do we! “Like” Life in Chico, CA

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On The Town 16

PHOTOS BY VINCE LATHAM FACEBOOK.COM/VANGUARD.PHOTOGRAPHY

SYNTHESISWEEKLY.COM JUNE 30 2014

by logan kruidenier - logankruidenier.tumblr.com

Fermenting Hope for the Future About a month ago I started making wine. Right now our wood stove is surrounded by various glass jars and jugs, ranging in volume from three liters to five gallons. The carboys contain a host of luminous liquids comprising a kaleidoscope of colors: deep red, pink, purple, orange, gold, pale yellow, and more. These are fermentations of various stone fruits, flower petals, wild berries, and even one concoction derived from young oak leaves. Each container is topped with a rubber stopper and a three part plastic gizmo called an airlock. The airlock allows carbon dioxide, which is created during the fermentation process, to escape, while simultaneously preventing oxygen from seeping into, and potentially contaminating the wine within.

I’m addicted to it. If I don’t start at least a couple of gallons of wine each week I start to get the jitters. Luckily we have plenty of material to ferment here at the farm.

While traditionalists will argue that the only true wine comes from raw grapes, in fact you can make wine from just about anything. The interaction between sugar and yeast is what generates the alcohol. Most of the recipes I make call for pounds of sugar to be added per gallon of wine.

Winemaking forces me to think long term. The first wine I made was actually a honey-based mead, and it will be eleven months before I bottle it, and then I’m supposed to wait six more months before I crack a bottle open.

That’s a serious test of patience. Some of the lighter wines are ready much sooner—within seven to twelve months. In the mean-time I sneak sips from my young wines and try to imagine what they might taste like a year from now.

Panic at the Pub The Death or Glory is slowly but uncertainly being constructed. Every day brings a new anxiety as I try and think through every

possible problem that could arise, and do my best to pre-empt it. The project is so outside of my experience and knowledge that I occasionally melt down into a catatonic panic, holding my head in my hands and rocking myself until I can get a grip. Trish is a wonderful source of moral support, and assures me everything will work out fine, but I can’t recall the last time she built an underground pub. For better or worse it will work itself out one way or the other. Even a great failure teaches valuable lessons—but I am hoping for the best.

Chopped Liver Trish and I had the pleasure of attending a fundraiser for David Guzzetti the other evening. Guzzetti is well known for his longtime political activism, his radio program “Woody and Friends” on KZFR, and his extraordinary abilities in the kitchen. He is also unfortunately badly in need of a liver transplant. After two decades of waiting, he has finally made it to the “short list,” and the fundraiser was held to raise money for the itinerant costs the procedure will entail.

PHOTOS BY VINCE LATHAM FACEBOOK.COM/VANGUARD.PHOTOGRAPHY

On The Town

Good luck Dave! The whole town is pulling for you.

Immaculate Infection

by Bob Howard

Madbob@madbob.com

FACEBOOK.COM/SYNTHESISCHICO 17

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We Need to Talk About Money

BY TRIP HAZARD Greetings, this is a new column regarding frugality. Unfortunately, the word “frugality” isn’t terribly fun to say, and it has some negative connotations attached to it. For example, “generosity” is listed as an antonym for frugality. That fact makes me weep, because I see my frugality as enabling my generosity. (By not eating out every day, I save money, which I can use to take a friend out to eat later.)

Frugality has recently surged in popularity, particularly in response to the global housing/ market crash in 2008. People wanted to protect themselves from future crashes, and saw that an escape plan was actually quite simple: Cut unnecessary expenses, save as much as possible, and (eventually) rely on those savings instead of the whims of the market. [Note: You’re already on your way— you’re reading a free newspaper.]

Today, there exists a vast internet community of the frugal-minded, including minimalists, debt-free believers, freegans, do-it-yourselfers (DIY-ers), and the financially independent/ early retirement crowd. (For the record, I think of myself as a frugalitarian, because I can’t resist a good pun.)

There are some basic (but exceptionally powerful) concepts in the frugal community.

Rule number one is a simple equation: Spend less than you earn. It’s a simple idea, but there are a few sub-steps to fulfill it. First, you have to know how much you earn. That’s pretty easy if you have a steady job or are paid

18

SYNTHESISWEEKLY.COM JUNE 30 2014

salary—look at your paycheck. The second half of the equation is to know how much you spend. You’ve probably heard that referred to as “a budget.”

When I was a single college student, it was easy to keep a running total of my expenses in my head, because I simply didn’t have that many expenses—rent, food, cleaning supplies, toiletries. (It helped that I was already frugal.)

Given my meager student income, it was easy to compare my money in vs. my money out.

Getting married forced me to adapt my system—no longer could I simply keep a mental running total. It took us a few months to work out our communication on that matter, but now we enjoy having monthly budgeting sessions. Each month, we predict and allocate a certain amount of spending into one of a few categories (e.g. $100 for gas.)

Then, as the month goes on, we enter each day’s receipts into their category, totaling them until the end of the month. Then, at next month’s budget meeting, we see how accurate our prediction was (“Yay, only $92 in gas!” or “Close. $110 for gas.) and then update the prediction for the next month.

You might scoff and call us boring, but the results speak for themselves: We paid off about $40,000 in student loans in just two years, bought and paid for a fairly new vehicle, and go out to eat a few times a month. And now, that money we were putting toward debt is in our retirement accounts, earning money for us to use in the future.

Unsolicited Advice: The Last Word on Homelessness . . .lessness . . . lessness . . .

Welcome to Unsolicited Advice, an open column space for anybody who wants to tell someone (or

Adolf Hitler.

everyone) what’s what. Submit your 500 words to editorial@synthesis.net

This is about the “homeless” phenomenon, which is getting more phenomenal all the time.

Our idiot president of the ‘80s, Ronald Reagan, invented this ongoing crisis by closing down mental hospitals, gearing the economy toward the Fat & Wealthy and fucking everyone else. You have zero political power when you’re broke and sleeping under a bridge, and that’s why the right-wing always raise such a stink about paying taxes they could well afford to pay: social problems which are to their advantage might actually get solved.

Reagan, with his heart of cement, had the answer: “The solution to homelessness is quite simple: BUY A HOUSE.” Some of us were without a home in the ‘60s and ‘70s—but we weren’t called homeless then, we were called hippies. However, the hippie lifestyle was very different from the homeless bullshit we have now. The hardcore homeless of today hate you. Their intractable problems are YOUR FAULT, therefore gimmegimme-gimme, and fuck you if you don’t and fuck you if you do.

Is there really no answer?

Many things have been tried. Some towns have provided camps, which seems like a good idea, but those only increase the homeless population, with all its associated grief, because now they’ve got somewhere to be and word gets around. And there are shelters everywhere but they only accept “clean and sober” people, which is like having a house with no doors to get in and out.

In the old days they had vagrancy laws and would lock bums up for having “no visible means of support.” Of course, this was absurd because you can’t make it illegal for someone to be what they are—unless your name is

We’ve tried not giving anything to panhandlers, hoping this would make them go away. No good.

Results Are In!

We’ve tried giving them bus tickets to Elsewhere, shifting the problem from here to there. Also no good.

Maybe the biggest part of the problem: to those of us who are mostly self-supporting, the homeless are non-entities, some antisocial ugliness to be avoided. But they are a part of us—just a shabbier, smellier, more disreputable side which we’d rather not acknowledge.

If anything would fix this terrible jam, I think it would probably have to involve a change of perspective: we’d have to look at our homeless problem honestly and for what it is (a public and mental health issue) and act on it.

So, here’s my unsolicited advice: 1) Panhandle the panhandlers. Every time you see a homeless person, ask them for spare change or an extra cigarette. This should always be done while wearing your best clothes.

2) Kill ‘em with kindness. When a homeless guy begs you for a buck, write him a check for 500 or 1000 dollars. (Ask first if he accepts plastic.) Take him home with you. Get him to run your errands, or to do a little song & dance. Introduce him to your wealthy friends.

Help him to get a seat on the City Council.

3) Quit calling them “the homeless.” Remove the stigma; take away that identification, destroy the image that appeals to so many down-and-out folks and causes them to think that homelessness is really a viable lifestyle.

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Unsolicited Advice

by Bags

FACEBOOK.COM/SYNTHESISCHICO 19

Take A Spin In My Tit Castle

On The Town 20

Have you guys been watching the World Cup lately? I’ve been really surprised at how well the US is doing, although as of Wednesday night when I’m writing this, we play Germany tomorrow morning and I’m assuming we’ll be out of the competition after that.

Although, we’ve been doing so well, and other teams who normally dominate have been performing pretty miserably, which has only increased our chances at moving up. To be honest, I don’t entirely understand the ranking system used in the World Cup. I know it’s based on not just who wins and who loses, but also how many goals were scored in each game. If the US ties Germany, we’re still in it.

Even if we lose tomorrow, depending on the outcome of other games, we could still be in it. And if, when Uruguay plays Colombia, Luis Suárez takes a bite out of another player, a million more memes and GIFs will be born.

If for some reason you have no idea what I’m talking about, Luis Suárez is Uruguay’s starting forward. He’s been accused in the past of getting bitey with his opponents, but never before on such an unforgiving stage as the World Cup. And as strangely comical as this shameful behavior might seem, all I could think when I saw it happen was, “Germs. So. Many. Germs.” Even the Liam Neeson-esque headbutt move of Zidane in the last World Cup would have been safer on a bacteria level.

PHOTOS BY JESSICA SID

SYNTHESISWEEKLY.COM JUNE 30 2014

It would seem that I’m not the only germconscious individual out there, as I came across an article on i09 discussing all the possible bacterial infections and other terrible outcomes caused by being bitten by another human. According to the article, Hepatitis B and C, HIV and herpes simplex virus can all be transmitted by a human bite. Apparently the main concern regarding the area where Chiellini was bitten is nerve damage. In his post-game interview, Suarez had this to say: “There are things that happen on the pitch and you should not make such a big deal out of them.” Yikes.

And now, on a lighter, dare I say, bouncier, note: A booby bounce house! As pictured above, this magnificent oddity resides in the New York City Museum Of Sex. I have to say I appreciate the fact that the boobies are all different shades and sizes, but the odd shape of them makes them look like umbrellas to me. Or eyeballs. Hey kids, c’mon over and take a spin in my tit castle! It might be difficult to actually jump around in, but at least you’ll have Fantasia-esque dreams of strangely proportioned tits to look forward to for weeks to come!

Comical Ruminations

by Zooey Mae

zooey@synthesis.net

Things That Make You Go “YES!” NOT NECESSARILY THAT, YA PERVERT. What I mean is, what’s your touchstone? What do you do to affirm life, to collate evidence that this world isn’t 100 percent batshit insane? It could be one big thing, several little things, or some variation in-between.

Taking off your shoes at the end of the day and scrubbing the soles of your freshly-bare feet into the carpet. Gardening. Sex, of course.

Taking care of your goldfish. Music.

Ah, there’s a good one. We saw a woman play at an Irish pub on the coast once, and one of my most treasured memories of Mr. Treme so far is watching him listen with his entire being, in quietly rapturous communion with the music. I can appreciate savory music reviews (shout-out to Howl for his coverage of the bands at West by Swan’s release party!), but the musical center in my brain is so underpowered that I seem to only like extracheesy ‘80s pop. Reading about someone’s knowledgeable enjoyment of other people’s acoustic offerings makes me wish it actually functioned.

I’m more visual/tactile, and have a creative streak. So for me it’s all about color and texture, and artistic media that encompass both. Especially the former; I love color like JJ Abrams loves lens flares. Wandering through a craft store or an artisan’s faire is a little dangerous for me, and not just financially.

Colorful things are intrinsically awesome. If they sparkle and catch my eye, I run a very real risk of whiplash (actually happened once). And if I can TOUCH them… ohhh yeahh.

It really is amazing I haven’t been dragged out of Michaels by my ankles, covered in glitter and making happy little eeping sounds.

The sheer potential contained in craft stores is crack for me. All those tubes and skeins and packages, bursting with color and begging to become beautiful, useful items! A square of clay has so many possible futures—as a jewelry box, a cake topper, a figurine—a gazillion different things. Same goes for a blank canvas, its whiteness crying for a coat of chromatic glory, or a packet of buttery-soft chenille yarn in watercolor shades.

Venues like the Thursday Night Market are a sensory arabesque where you can see/feel/ hear/taste/smell what different people do with those crafting elements. It’s delightful and humbling to interact with the beauty, humor, skill, and soul artisans infuse into inert ingredients, creating things that are not quite alive but are so much more than mere objects.

I recently lost someone very close to me.

The way I dealt with it was by, without any conscious decision, discovering the world of artist trading cards. The instinct to heal by making tiny works of art, with tactile physical elements, trumped any sort of actual thinking. That got me through one of the roughest patches of my life (accompanied at times by copious amounts of wine). I’ve since moved on, leaving piles of paper and ephemera to gather dust around the house.

As far as repercussions from grieving go, it’s really tame…but seriously, what do I do with this (very pretty) shit?

Consider the Platypus

by Mona Treme

PHOTOS BY JESSICA SID

On The Town

FACEBOOK.COM/SYNTHESISCHICO 21

JUNE 30, 2014

BY KOZ MCKEV

Aries

Taurus

Gemini

Cancer

Leo

Virgo

The truth of life is that we are all born dependent beings with a certain amount of insecurities. We hide our vulnerability, hoping others will value us because of a strong persona. In some ways we end up alienating others due to a sense of looking like we’re “one up” over everyone else. Be more open to sharing your weaknesses as well as your strengths. Monday and Tuesday are power days for you, and being in your heart becomes easier. The weekend looks great for romance, negotiations and being diplomatic.

Work through fears and shyness and try to get to know your nearby neighbors. You are much more aware of style and contrast. Many concepts that you developed as a teenager seem relevant during this period. Tuesday afternoon through Thursday marks a more creative period for you. Pace yourself so you’ll have some energy left for the weekend. Your communication will begin to improve after Tuesday. Be in touch with siblings and old friends. Find simple pleasure in working with your hands.

Money allows and urges people to do strange things. The reward of capital doesn’t necessarily reflect effort or merit involved in getting a job done.

Mercury going direct in your sign gives you epiphanies and knowledge of where to go next. Stay focused on your true values. Family may need more attention this week. The weekend looks playful and potentially romantic. There may be an element of misbehaving children and unconscious adults. Remain patient and detached from outcomes.

Your influence and prime motive is to treat everyone as if they were family. To come in touch with our intimacy is to experience rich love. The middle of the week is full of messages and opportunities to get caught up with things.

By Sunday you’ll feel renewed enough to move forward with creative projects. You might want to avoid all the extras this weekend. Staying at home is a sensible plan.

Doors continue to open up for you. It’s high time you began living the dream without fear of reprisal.

Joy can be found by going to bed early and sleeping in. If you’re lucky enough to have a good lover the joy gets better. Be aware of the ways that secrets can get us into trouble. Sometimes it is better not knowing. Pursue your spiritual life with a passion. Help others who seem isolated or in some type of trouble with their health or with the law.

Monday and early Tuesday have a strong vibe with the moon in Leo. The weekend looks good for a mild adventure. Try to combine trips to save on time and gas.

Give thanks everyday for the people around you that have helped you. You can also give thanks for good situations that are yet to be seen. This is a time to look forward and to be hopeful. Make good karma.

Act like you own the place.

The moon will be in Virgo from mid-afternoon Tuesday through Thursday. Do act in service of the earth and others. The weekend looks good for economic expansion, singing, and eating. Pour on the sweet talk and see where it takes you. Sincerity is one of your better traits.

Libra

Scorpio

Saggitarius

Capricorn

Aquarius

Pisces

Because you are so nice, people depend on you more than you would like them to. Making things go easier at work will take effort from someone. Most likely that someone will be you. Love is an adventure and it may require that you go on a vacation at some point. You will need to get out of your comfort zone, yet you will be successful with your goals. Mercury going direct Tuesday will help things run smoother. The moon will be in Libra Friday through Sunday morning. Everyone wants to have a good time, it’s just that you’ll be doing most of the work.

You are free to be yourself.

What you previously didn’t understand, you are about to grasp. Risk-taking goes well. Fears get annihilated.

Joy comes from an unknown place, and at every turn there is a new discovery. Being a support to others will keep the evil doers away. Learn a new joke that’s worth telling.

Be helpful to others whenever you can. The moon goes into Scorpio Sunday early in the afternoon. The deep stuff comes up without effort.

Continue to work on making a difference. Go for what you don’t know.

Letting go of control is crucial this week. Don’t have too set of an idea as to how things need to turn out. A miracle could be waiting around the corner. You begin the week demonstrating your style, wit, and outlandish version of the obvious. As you humbly accept help from others things get better for you. Your love life remains healthy and full. The weekend looks good for socializing, being with friends and or attending an athletic event. By Sunday you’ll want to lay low and cool your jets.

If you want a good lover, be a good lover. When you want favors from others, give favors to others. Real leadership is about being an example of how justice should be dispensed. Fairness begins with good listening and being able to empathize with another point of view. Be the bigger person. When you’re alone it’s “your time,” when you’re with others it’s all about them. Tuesday through Thursday are good for travel. The weekend is good for showing your best talents and skills. You may even advance in your career.

Koz McKev is on YouTube, on cable 11 BCTV and is heard on 90.1FM KZFR Chico. Also available by appointment for personal horoscopes call (530)891-5147 or e-mail kozmickev@sunset.net

22

SYNTHESISWEEKLY.COM JUNE 30 2014

You love working toward a positive cause. This is a week where changing the world for the better is going to get some momentum, beginning with you. Be healthier. Fine tune your diet, exercise and sleep schedule to reinforce a more productive you. Team oriented work projects and service work go especially well during this period. Work on organization. The weekend looks great for travel, education, and new experiences. The love that you want to express in a creative way comes with more fluidity this week.

When we walk we should be loving the earth with our feet.

Your vision for the planet is real compassion and radical healing. When we are happy, our immune systems function better. When we are generous we get rewarded with more to give. You’re on a good flow.

Memories that escaped you will come back this week. The weekend looks good for magical studies, intense experiences and transformation. Praise Allah but tie up your camel.

Unfortunately not everyone is on an enlightened path. Be loving anyway.

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