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DECEMBER 24-30, 2015 | HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
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EDITOR’S NOTE
D
on’t get us wrong — we love the holiday season as much as anyone — but sometimes you just need a break. From the “Jingle Bells,” the jolly old fat men and the endless pressure to be on your very best behavior, it can be exhausting. So cut yourself some slack, and spend some time with this week’s FICTION ISSUE featuring five twisted tales (beginning on page 20). As guest editor Sam Ligon puts it in his introduction: “This issue is about fiction. Hard-boiled fiction. Black-night-of-the-soul fiction. Noir.” Also contributing stories are Robert Lopez, from New York; Stacey Richter, from Arizona; Lily Hoang, from New Mexico; and Spokane’s favorite son, Jess Walter. Also this week: read about two new art galleries in Spokane’s East Central neighborhood (page 31), the mortgage-crisis-as-entertainment film The Big Short (page 39) and the Cougs’ quiet trip to the Sun Bowl (page 33). Happy holidays! — JACOB H. FRIES, editor
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WHAT IS YOUR WORST HOLIDAY MEMORY? JEREMY HYNDMAN
It’s almost always getting a cold for Christmas. Have you tried asking for something else? I probably should ask for something different, but it’s what I always get.
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One Christmas time, I was 17; one of my siblings’ friends (who’d had some libations) somehow did a crazy dance kick that shattered the lamp above our new pool table. I spent all night picking glass off the felt... The next morning, my mom was on me about never helping clean the house. I got so angry, I told her everything. I was vindicated, but I ruined Christmas for everyone else.
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E
very Idahoan who cares about this state and how it came to be should read two relatively obscure books and be grateful the authors lived and worked here. Through their writings and teaching, these two left an indelible imprint on Idaho. And even though they labored in obscurity, the political cognoscenti in Idaho know them well. Any Idaho history is incomplete if it does not acknowledge their roles in shaping modern Idaho. One book is a delightful novel, a murder mystery in fact, but chock-full of the author’s knowledge of Idaho government, politics and public affairs. The other is a wonderful history of the major environmental issues that transformed and dominated much of Idaho’s political debate for 50 years, from the late 1930s to the late 1980s.
T
he novel, The Unlikely Candidate, is by the late Syd Duncombe, who for 27 years taught government and political science courses at the University of Idaho. He was an inspiring influence to an entire generation of Idaho’s political leadership. Among those influenced directly by taking a class or indirectly by being drawn into out-of-class discussions prompted by his teachings were future U.S. senators and/ or governors like Dirk Kempthorne, Jim Risch, Larry Craig and Steve Symms, and future attorney generals like David Leroy. Then there are the “behind-the-scenes” political practitioners also influenced by Duncombe’s passion for politics, like Phil Reberger, Robie Russell, Marty Peterson and Roy Eiguren. Many of his former students could recall how he brought politics to life by bringing different hats to class and then switching them, as he switched roles in the lessons he was bringing to life. His knowledge of politics was not just academic, either. Before coming to Idaho, he had worked in state government in New York and had even been superintendent of the budget in Ohio. He cultivated political officeholders on both sides of the aisle. One of his great fans was Cecil Andrus, who made Duncombe his acting director of the budget office upon his first election as governor in 1970. Duncombe put together Andrus’ first budget, and Andrus always acknowledged his debt to Syd for showing how a governor could truly shape policy if he understood how to put together a budget. The novel’s hero is — surprise! — a retired state budget director. Duncombe, however, wove into the text the kind of authentic details and knowledge that rings true with any who have been drawn into politics. Syd had been working on the novel for several years. His beloved wife, Mary, died in 1997, but before she passed insisted that Syd finish the
book, which he did in 1998. His passages on cancer are poignant, as his writing was obviously one way of dealing with his grief. He died at the age of 78 in Idaho Falls in late September of 2004. His legacy should live on beyond the lifespan of the hearts that were directly touched by his zest for life and politics.
T
he second book, Defending Idaho’s Natural History, is by former journalist and nineterm State Rep. Ken Robison. He was born in Nampa in 1936, received his B.A. from Idaho State in 1957 and began a 30-year career in journalism in 1959 as a copy editor at the Idaho Statesman. He was both a reporter and an editor for the Statesman, and from 1977 until his election to the Idaho Legislature in 1986 from Boise’s 19th Legislative District, he was the editorial page editor. When it came to handing out charisma, Ken missed the session. He always came across as thoughtful but calm, dispassionate and objective — the journalistic version of Joe Friday’s “Just the facts, ma’am.” To the surprise of many, however, he turned into an outstanding legislator, one who always did his homework. When he spoke, people listened. He loved the legislature, so he was one of those bulldog campaigners — knocking on every door in his district every year. Not surprisingly, his diligence and hard work was rewarded by re-election eight times. Robison brings this same diligence to his history of Idaho’s major environmental battles. He recognizes the truth in the old expression that “success has a thousand fathers and mothers; failure is an orphan.” He knows, too, that it is “citizen-activists” who bring change about, and that some battles take decades. He does justice to the many key folks who put forth time, talent and treasure. His account of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering is fascinating, and he exhaustively documents his sources. From the battles to restore salmon and steelhead runs, to the fight to protect the White Clouds, Hells Canyon and the Sawtooths, to the creation of the Frank Church—River of No Return Wilderness and the Selway/Bitterroot Wilderness, it’s all there. Robison has done an invaluable service in documenting the fight and the fighters. Like Duncombe, he labored in relative obscurity, but all Idahoans owe them both a tremendous debt of thanks. n
COMMENT | HISTORICAL FICTION
A Clatsop Christmas BY TED S. McGREGOR JR.
“G
et up, you lot, it’s Christmas!” But with the ground still soaking, and our new roof already leaking, we’ve shivered the night more than slept. “And ready your rifles, boys.” We’re huddled inside our somber outpost; some want to call it Fort Clatsop for the local chief who told us the elk were plentiful here. We’ve not yet proved that rumor, but the rain is no myth. This is a miserable, forsaken land, indeed, and even though we’re not the most ardent of spirit, we’ll mark the day of our savior’s birth here, with home heavy in our hearts. If I were back in Kentucky, at my father’s hearth, I’d have a bottle to myself, but our whiskey stores have long been spent. Yet we have, just two days past, moved into our timbered shelter to wait out the winter. We collect in the yard, and the captains emerge from their quarters — Captain Lewis looking a little in his moods, Captain Clark hale as ever. We take aim above the curtain of green, into the gray, and fire our salutes, the burst from our barrels washing warm over our faces. As camp tailor, I’ve been working on something for the captains and have them ready in my pouch — every stitch checked one last time during the long, soggy night. Horsehide moccasins, with a few red beads I managed to save as a flourish. (The Indians, they do prefer those blue beads in trade.) The captains review our line, doling out to each a tear of tobacco from the magical store that has stretched like the fishes and the loaves. When my turn comes, Captain Clark asks, “How are you holding up, Sergeant?” With but a raised eyebrow, his eyes retell our suffering in the snowdrifts of the Rockies, our marooning on a beach across this dismal river and our many nights of privation and uncertainty in this unknown country. “In good health, sir — something better than all the luxuries this life can afford.” “That’s fine,” the Captain laughs, “as we’ve only scraps of elk for Christmas dinner — and no salt. It’ll have to do.” He pulls off my share of tobacco, looking a bit larger than the last, and I reveal his gift. “Beautiful! Thank you, Whitehouse!” I feel the red in my face: “Thank you, sir,” I stammer, “for… seeing us through…” I lose my words in the moment. “Thank the Lord,” he answers. “Yes, I pray He will preserve us and enable us to return home in safety.” “Indeed, Sergeant,” the Captain adds, the downpour cowing the brim of his hat, washing down over his tunic as he raises his voice for all the Corps to hear. “It’s a fine day, men! We smell the sea, we take comfort in our own company and, against all probability, we live!” — Sgt. Joseph Whitehouse, the Corps of Discovery; Dec. 25, 1805
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COMMENT | GUEST EDITORIAL tragic but all-too-familiar elements of the trial perpetuated the same abuses that can be seen repeatedly in rape culture, police brutality and the historical mistreatment of black women. So why then, at a moment when the issues of police brutality against the black community and sexual assault are being addressed nationally like never before, would a case about a white officer sexually assaulting black women not receive more attention?
“Black women encounter the unfortunate disadvantage of not being able to have their experiences of discrimination validated.”
CALEB WALSH ILLUSTRATION
Invisible Women
Where’s the national outrage over the Oklahoma City rapist police officer? BY JACKIE VAUGHN
O
n Dec. 10, 2015, former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw was convicted of 18 counts of sexual misconduct that ranged from sexual assault to sexual battery, including four counts of first-degree rape. Holtzclaw originally had faced 36 felony charges involving 13 black women, whose ages ranged from 17 to 57. What is even more disturbing about this gross abuse of police authority is the lack of national attention it has received. Each victim’s testimony showed Holtzclaw’s
sadistic serial pattern of using his badge to prey on vulnerable black women. Holtzclaw intentionally chose black women who he assumed nobody would believe. He was a serial rapist who meticulously chose his victims on the basis of race, and his ability to use their circumstances to coerce them into sexual acts against their will. The majority of the victims shared similar backgrounds of systemic poverty, substance abuse and encounters with the law. The very reasons he preyed on these black women mirrored the appalling arguments of the defense, which centered on shameful character assassinations of the victims. The
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In 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia University, coined the term “intersectionality.” The theory, which centers on the process in which black women are simultaneously marginalized by both feminist and anti-racist frameworks, highlights black women’s unique experience dealing with both sexism and racism. Black women encounter the unfortunate disadvantage of not being able to have their experiences of discrimination validated, due to the narrow definitions of sexism and racism. Historically, the two have been associated around the very limiting experiences of white women and black men, respectively. The same can be said about the current national discussions around sexual assault and police brutality against African Americans. The erasure of black women from these national discussions highlights much of what is being seen regarding the lack of attention to the Holtzclaw trial. The inability of social movements to make their work intersectional cripples their ability to dismantle systems of oppression. When frameworks of social justice do not center their agendas on those who are the most marginalized in society, they will inevitably fall into the same pattern of silencing those who are the most invisible. Consequently, they continue to marginalize the most vulnerable even further. n Jackie Vaughn, a community organizer, previously hosted Voice of the People on KYRS, where she discussed issues of structural racism and systemic oppression. Mariah McKay’s column will return next month.
DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 9
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10 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
COMMENT | FROM READERS
NYE 2016
ALL THE PARTIES UNDER ONE ROOF.
Former Police Chief Frank Straub.
Reactions to a blog post on what former Spokane Police Chief Frank Straub has been up to (not much) during his final three months as a city employee:
YOUNG KWAK PHOTO
JESSE QUINTANA: At 22 dollars a word, people are complaining that a fast food worker gets $15 an hour? LORINDA TRAVIS: It amazes me that people like this can get hired in the first place. He should have never been placed in a supervisory position. JOSH ANDERSON: This is one expensive “cop.” Paid him a fortune to hire, another fortune to fire. MIKE LASCUOLA: What the City of Spokane needs is someone who is a great judge of character... GINA ANGELO RUBENDALL: Disappointing no matter how you slice it.
Reactions to a blog post about Mayor Condon’s remarks to Inlander reporter Daniel Walters that Walters’ Facebook profile picture was evidence of bias:
BENJAMEN PATRICK SHEPPARD: Like I said, people need to vote! We got stuck with this loser because most of the residents of Spokane didn’t vote. In my opinion, no one has a right to complain about him unless you vote. I did vote and am deeply disappointed that he’s still mayor and it disgusts me that we are stuck with this guy. KARYN HOEKEMA WOODARD: David Condon needs to be sworn in under oath to answer these questions. He is really good at talking and not saying ANYTHING. Very poor leadership that is going to cost us taxpayers dearly. TANYA RIORDAN: This is D.C.’s mode of operating. He tries to bully and intimidate people, retaliating and making them feel threatened and uncomfortable about expressing their personal opinion, if in any way in opposition to him. Many examples of this you could objectively report on if you wanted.
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DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 11
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ENVIRONMENT
Grazed and Confused Washington regulators won a landmark case confirming their authority over ranchers, but advocates say the state has been cowed BY JAKE THOMAS
J
erry White dunks a Mason jar into the chocolatemilk-colored waters of Hangman Creek. This dingy water, he says, is the poster child for one of the biggest environmental problems facing Washington. It’s also a symbol, he says, of a state agency too timid to enforce its regulatory mandate. As the water swirls and settles in the jar, White, who advocates for clean water as the Spokane Riverkeeper, says he suspects the creek has been brown so long that
people think it’s normal. “That’s not normal,” says White. “This is nuked. This is a broken creek.” Local tribes once speared salmon on its banks in the Palouse in the 1800s, but agricultural runoff has made it the most polluted waterway in the state, according to the Washington State Department of Ecology. It shouldn’t be this way, says White. Two years ago, the state Supreme Court decisively
Ranchers say that streams and vegetation are healthier with the presence of cattle.
ruled that Ecology has the authority to “control and prevent” sources of pollution from agriculture, meaning it can order ranchers to plant streamside vegetation to prevent soil from eroding and fertilizers from washing into waterways. The department also can order ranchers to build fences to keep cows from trampling vegetation and making cow pies in waterways, which can pollute water that people drink, play in or rely on for industry. This newly recognized authority has brushed up against private property rights that have been held sacred in the rural West ever since the region’s days as a frontier. Farmers and ranchers say that the new requirements have the potential to cripple their livelihoods, are based on faulty assumptions and take a cookie-cutter approach to ecological conditions that differ greatly by farm and region. “We in agriculture feel that the law is based on not anything but people’s misconceptions,” says Toni Meacham, a Connell rancher and attorney who has helped farmers and ranchers successfully challenge the Department of Ecology regulations. White says that Meacham’s efforts have created an “environment of obstruction” and prevented Ecology from addressing a substantial source of pollution in the state. Clean-water advocates say that the problem is also political, and the department has backed down in the face of industry backlash. “This is a dynamic that is really troublesome,” says White. “Ecology has a responsibility to ensure the public has clean water.” ...continued on next page
JAKE THOMAS PHOTO
DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 13
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“GRAZED AND CONFUSED,” CONTINUED...
J
ohn Pearson, a 53-year-old rancher, climbs out of his shiny Chevy Silverado on a bridge that spans Cow Creek along a stretch of highway outside of Washtucna, about 30 miles south of Ritzville. As semi trucks roar past, he points to a mile-and-a-half stretch of land where he sometimes grazes his herd. About a decade ago, Pearson received a letter from Ecology telling him that his cows were polluting the creek and he needed to build a fence. He built the fence, costing him $45,000 and $4,500 annually to maintain. Ecology also wanted him to pipe in water to his cows from a well. Doing so, he says, would have cost another $36,000. He hasn’t done it because, he says, water hasn’t run in the creek for two years and it’ll be another two before water runs again. When water is running, he uses a narrow opening in the fence to allow the cattle to access the creek, which he says prevents them from causing erosion or defecating in the water. Ecology referred him to programs to help offset the cost, but Pearson has avoided them out of concerns that the money would come with conditions limiting how he could use his land. “If you can convince us that we are destroying or damaging the water quality, then I think the farmer will be the first to change his practices,” says Pearson, who has faced no fines for refusing to install the pipes and well. “But we’re not seeing any information that shows us that we are.” White says that ranchers and farmers shouldn’t get to pick and choose what laws they want to follow. He says that Meacham, the Connell attorney and rancher whose family has raised cattle on the Palouse since the 1800s, has created an environment that’s made it harder for Ecology to regulate agricultural pollution.
In 2013, Meacham lost a landmark state Supreme Court case that established Ecology’s authority to keep cows, runoff and agricultural pollution out of waterways. But her advocacy work following the case has continued to keep state regulators largely at bay. Since the court’s ruling, Meacham got organized, helping set up educational events for ranchers and farmers. She’s also represented farmers and ranchers who’ve received letters from Ecology. Often, she says, the letters describe a “potential” to pollute, a standard that she says wouldn’t be tolerated by city dwellers. The department, she says, backs down quickly after she demands proof. Over the past two years, the department has sent out approximately 250 letters to agricultural producers (mostly livestock owners) warning them of pollution problems on their land. But according to department spokeswoman Brook Beeler, only three letters have resulted in financial penalties, the most notable of which was a $12,000 fine levied against a Whatcom County couple whose livestock were polluting shellfish beds. Beeler says that the Ecology Director Maia Bellon, who was appointed to the position shortly after the decision, opted to take a collaborative approach with agriculture, convening an advisory panel to listen to concerns from both sides with the goal of finding solutions. According to Beeler, about half of the farmers and ranchers Ecology contacts respond and accept technical assistance to address issues on their property. “It’s really all about politics,” says Andrea Rodgers, a staff attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center. She says that ever since the court decision, lawmakers have introduced
legislation to cut the department’s funding or reduce its authority, making its officials reluctant to take a harder line. “The agricultural community is very galvanized around the notion that regulatory approaches should not be implemented to address agricultural pollution,” Rodgers says.
I
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n the 1960s and ’70s, Congress passed legislation regulating industrial pollution and forestry practices, says White. Agriculture, he says, had escaped similar regulations because it occurs primarily on private property and because the industry has maintained a bucolic public perception. But according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it’s become the largest source of stream pollution in the country. Ecology’s regulations are based on the idea that bacteria from animal waste, as well as nitrogen and phosphorus used to fertilize crops, runs into waterways that can destroy fish habitat and also make water unsafe for drinking or recreation. In Western Washington, commercial shellfish beds have closed because of contamination from livestock waste. Drinking-water wells in the lower Yakima Valley likely have been polluted by nitrates, and property owners near Deep Lake in Stevens County worry that pollution from ranches upstream is making the lake unhealthy to swim in. “We live in a country where water is public, and from our perspective you’re cheating the public of an entitlement that is deeply American,” says White. In 2013, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, released a report finding that regulations established by the landmark federal Clean Water Act of 1972 weren’t meeting their goal of guaranteeing “fishable, swimmable and drinkable water” because they largely exempt agriculture. Implementing the law is typically left up to state agencies, like the Washington State Department of Ecology, and they’re allowed to include more expansive regulations intended to address specific issues. Scott Yager, environmental counsel for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, says that Washington is unusual in including agriculture in its Clean Water Act regulations, and that other states are considering similar steps. Across the border in Idaho, the EPA directly administers the Clean Water Act, meaning that it has the most basic level of regulation under the law. Concerns about Ecology’s authority come at a time when ranching is declining. According to a Washington State University study, the number of cows in the U.S. peaked in 1982 at 39 million and declined by more than a quarter by 2014. In Washington, that decline has been twice as rapid. Ranchers say that these regulations don’t account for the complexity of agriculture and aren’t helping the environment. Hal Meenach, president of the Spokane County Farm Bureau, says that the poor condition of Hangman Creek derives from naturally occurring soil erosion. Many orders from Ecology, he says, would make make too many farms and ranches economically unviable and would produce few environmental benefits. For instance, he says, requiring streamside vegetation can cut into valuable land and also can backfire, attracting wildlife that will deposit more fecal bacteria into the waterways than cattle do. Cattle grazing cuts down on plant species, says Pearson. The bottom line, he says, is that cattle may pollute, but the environment is better off with them. “Ranchers and farmers aren’t doing what they’re doing because they don’t like the environment,” says Pearson. “They are as much as in love with the environment as any environmentalist.” Last year, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy became a right-wing darling after an armed standoff with federal agents over grazing rights. The Western Environmental Law Center’s Rodgers says that currently, Washington’s agricultural community’s resistance to regulations hasn’t reached Bundy-like levels. But she says that could change, with a recent federal court decision that’s expected to bring more scrutiny to how dairy farms manage manure. “There is a lot of fear in the industry, and frankly, there should be fear,” she says. “Until the industry gets out of the dark ages and acts, there will be a threat in the form of regulation and litigation.” n jaket@inlander.com
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DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 15
NEWS | DIGEST
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16 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
FACEBOOK POKE During my interview with the mayor last week, I asked him if he wanted to revise his electoral debate statements defending City Administrator Theresa Sanders, now that the ethics commission has determined that she had been dishonest. He began his answer, however, in an unusual way, arguing that a joke I had made on my own FACEBOOK PROFILE PICTURE taken from the debate (“This picture is going to make every single comment I make sound like it’s coming from a College Republican”) was clear evidence of a political bias. On the blog, decide for yourself whether Condon was dodging our questions. (DANIEL WALTERS)
STRAUB’S HOMEWORK When Mayor David Condon ousted former Police CHIEF FRANK STRAUB, Condon gave him some homework to finish before the city’s highest-paid employee left the payroll. In addition to outlines and analyses of programs he’d started, the mayor asked Straub to do a literature review of a law enforcement diversion program. Last week, Straub handed in six pages, totaling 1,859 words, of what critics say is a half-assed job. As for the literature review? Straub says just Google it. Read more on our blog. (MITCH RYALS)
NEWS | BRIEFS
Musical Chairs A Spokane county commissioner and a councilman announce new jobs; plus, a local officer pleads not guilty MIELKE’S NEW JOB
About 11 months ago, County Commissioner Todd Mielke announced that he wanted to be the CEO of Spokane County. For a moment, it looked like the job was his. That was, at least, until County Commissioner Al French refused to second his nomination. Now he’s been tapped for another major CEO job: GREATER SPOKANE INC., the economic development agency and chamber of commerce in the area. He starts in February. “This is an opportunity to continue doing what I’m doing,” Mielke says. “I get to do it in my own community, and do it from an angle promoting businesses, and doing everything I can to help entrepreneurs flourish.” Mielke says he’s actually interviewed for the job once before and was one of the finalists. Last time he was beat out by Steve Stevens, the CEO of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. Stevens lasted little more than a
year at GSI, however, before moving back to Kentucky. Jeff Phillips, president of Rosauers Supermarkets and a search committee member, says this time the local touch was important to the search committee. “With Todd’s knowledge and expertise, with his history in this community as a former legislator, as a county commissioner, as a member of the community, as a small business owner — these elements were much more important to us this go-around,” Phillips says. The Spokane County Republican Party will put forward nominations for Mielke’s replacement, and the other two county commissioners members will pick one. French says that Mielke has done a lot of good things for the county, including leading the regionalization of the county’s animal control system and launching a new wastewater treatment facility. In the past, however, Mielke has been heavily criticized for his decision to purchase the Spokane County Raceway, a facility that has struggled to turn a profit. (DANIEL WALTERS)
SNYDER GOES TO OLYMPIA
Spokane City Councilman Jon Snyder will resign his position early next year to take a job ADVISING GOV. JAY INSLEE on ways to increase participation in outdoor recreational activities as well as jobs in the sector. Snyder, first elected to the council in 2009 and again in 2013, says he wasn’t actively looking for a new job and was surprised when the position, which pays $95,000 a year, was offered to him after he applied. He’s also reluctant to leave his hometown, especially when he says that Spokane is on the upswing. “I love this town and I love the moment this town is in right now,” he says. “We’re on a great path.” Snyder, known for advocating for more bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, says he’s particularly proud of
his work on planning and utilities, as well as reforming the police department. Previously, he was owner and publisher of Out There Monthly, a publication he founded in 2004 about outdoor recreation in the Inland Northwest. On the council, Snyder was considered part of a liberal voting bloc that grew to 6-1 after November’s election. His last day will be Jan. 12, after which the council will begin accepting applications for his replacement. Those who’ve expressed interest so far include Snyder’s own legislative aide Blaine Stum, former Pullman City Councilman Derrick Skaug, civil rights attorney Breean Beggs and Merlyn’s owner and perennial candidate John Waite. (JAKE THOMAS)
COP IN COURT
Spokane Police Sgt. John Gately, the former Police Guild president accused of tipping off a fellow officer to a search warrant, pleaded NOT GUILTY to felony charges earlier this week. Gately is charged with rendering criminal assistance and obstructing a law enforcement officer for allegedly telling Sgt. Gordon Ennis details of a Sheriff’s Office search warrant. Ennis is charged with raping a female officer during a drunken party. He has also pleaded not guilty. Sheriff’s detectives believe Gately told Ennis they wanted to search his hands for DNA evidence. By the time the warrant was approved and detectives went to collect evidence from Ennis, he’d trimmed his fingernails. Gately’s lawyer, David Allen, says the charges against him have no basis. Gately, who is currently on unpaid leave, will be booked into jail and released this week. His trial is set for March 14. (MITCH RYALS)
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DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 17
NEWS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Judge James Lawless, left, and the man convicted of killing him, Ricky Young.
Young and Lawless
A 41-year-old murder case is getting a new look, thanks to DNA evidence testing that could reveal suspects who were never caught BY MITCH RYALS
J
udge James Lawless sat alone in his Franklin County chambers with a small, brown package before him. It was unusually heavy for its size, and inscribed across the top next to his name was the word “personal.” Whoever sent the package intended for Lawless, and only Lawless, to open it. A court clerk delivered the package to the judge’s Pasco, Washington, chambers as he chatted with his fellow jurist, Judge Al Yencopal. Ordinarily a courthouse employee would have opened the small parcel, but the special instruction dictated otherwise. As Yencopal left, Lawless tugged at the brown paper, then at the white paper underneath it. As he did, a blue pull cord yanked a pin from the pipe bomb inside. An explosion ripped through his chambers, launching dust and debris into the hallway. Yencopal came running, only to see Lawless slumped back in his chair, bleeding. “Don’t go in,” he told the clerk, according to news accounts at the time. Lawless was pronounced dead later that afternoon. Ricky Anthony Young, the man convicted in 1975 for Lawless’ death, was given a life sentence. He maintained his innocence until 1994, when he wrote an affidavit detailing his involvement in the plot to kill Lawless — admitting that he helped build part of the bomb, but had no role in the final assembly or mailing. In his letter, Young identifies some co-conspirators, but he is still the only person to be charged with the crime. In November, attorneys with the Innocence Project Northwest, a legal clinic at the University of Washington
18 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
dedicated to exonerating the wrongly convicted, asked that 24 pieces of evidence be preserved and tested by the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. Those attorneys have since declined to comment when contacted by the Inlander, but the decades-old case is drawing attention in local legal circles, as some say the DNA could point to more suspects. Franklin County Judge Bruce Spanner ruled earlier this month that the evidence will in fact be preserved. A hearing for whether or not it will be tested is set for Jan. 19. “From our vantage point, the guy was convicted of first-degree murder by a jury trial,” says Greg Lawless, the eldest of the five Lawless children. “It was a devastating day for the whole family that continues to this day.”
J
ames Lawless and Young had crossed paths before. The details of their previous encounters provided the prosecutor, Jim Rabideau, with a motive in both trials. The first ended in a hung jury. In 1971, the then-19-year-old Young ran away with Margie Bishop, a Benton County deputy clerk’s 15-yearold daughter. The two planned to flee to California and get married, experimenting with drugs and sex on their way out of town, according to court filings. They didn’t make it far. Young burglarized a Prosser, Washington, drugstore, looking for pills and cash, according to court documents filed by the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office this year. He escaped after police shot him in the leg, but later was arrested when authorities
caught up with the teens in a remote “shack.” Young pled guilty to the burglary and faced 15 years in prison. Lawless showed him mercy, but not before he lectured the two runaway lovers. “I will be completely candid with you,” Lawless said to Young. “You have put the parents of this girl in an unfortunate position. They don’t want to lose their daughter, and she’s determined to maintain a relationship with you. Your background is such that you are about the worst possible example of a son-in-law that a parent could hope for.” He offered Young a deal: spend a year in the Yakima County Jail and five more on probation, rather than 15 years in prison, but refrain from any contact with Bishop. “If you want that arrangement, speak up. If you do not, I’ll send you to the Department of Institutions,” Lawless said. Young agreed. He served six of the 12 months, and then Lawless released him. He and Bishop were married on June 29, 1973. It didn’t take long for Young to find trouble. In the spring of 1974, several arsons and the explosion of a Benton County Sheriff deputy’s car followed one of the biggest drug raids to that date in the area — 48 people were arrested, including Young. He was charged with “unlawful manufacture of marijuana,” a felony. Authorities seized 72 plants. At that time, Young’s probation officer recommended that his suspended sentence be revoked in the burglary case for his suspected involvement in the arsons and explosion. A hearing was set in front of Lawless for June 6, 1974. The package addressed to “Justice James J. Lawless” arrived June 3. It took two trials to convict Young in the murder of Lawless. The first trial, held in Spokane, ended in a hung jury. The difference in the second was testimony from Young’s cellmate, David McKinney. “Strange enough, as so often happened in those days, they found a jailhouse snitch,” says Sid Wurzburg, Young’s defense attorney during his trials. “And that phony print they had was such a piece of junk.” The judge also denied Wurzburg’s attempts to enter a piece of evidence. Letters from the “People’s Army” were sent to local media at the time. They deLETTERS scribed in great detail Send comments to the contents of the editor@inlander.com. package and how the bomb was assembled, indicating that Young had some help. No one other than Young has ever been held responsible for the crime. Rabideau, the prosecutor, says that Young’s silence did him in with the jury. “He had every chance to get up and testify,” Rabideau tells the Inlander. “Ricky Young kept his mouth shut during the trial. That’s what hung him.”
W
hen Young was convicted, fingerprint evidence was the “gold standard” of forensic science, attorneys for the Innocence Project Northwest wrote in their motion to preserve evidence. However, the limitations of fingerprint identification have been called into question. Take, for example, the case of Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon attorney the feds linked to terror attacks on four commuter trains in Madrid in 2004. Weeks later, the Spanish National Police said the prints belonged to an Algerian national. DNA evidence now rivals fingerprinting as a powerful tool in court cases, though some experts caution that it’s not perfect, especially when presented to jurors in a courtroom.
For example, the presence (or absence) of DNA does not prove innocence or guilt, though it certainly can help support the case. When a DNA profile is identified on a piece of evidence, for example, prosecutors will give the jury a number like one in 1 billion. That is the probability of finding a match among a random unrelated individual from an at-large population. That statistic can range from one in two to one in 1 trillion or more, depending on the quantity and quality of the DNA sample. A mixture of two or more individuals’ DNA complicates the evidence even more.
“The state has claimed from the beginning that Young conspired with others. The presence of other DNA would only help finding other people, not exonerate [Young].” “That’s where DNA science becomes a statistical interpretation,” says Matthew Gamette, the director of the Idaho State Patrol’s forensic services lab. “For mixed samples, we rely on statistical tools, and different labs might use different statistical analysis on that.” “If you get over three people, it’s nearly impossible to deconvolute the contributors for that,” adds Gary Shutler, the DNA technical leader for the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. For his part, Young submitted a similar request for DNA testing in 2001, but nothing came of it. Now, his attorneys argue that if the partial fingerprint used to convict him 40 years ago doesn’t have his DNA, the state’s biggest piece of evidence would be invalidated. Franklin County Deputy Prosecutor Teresa Chen disagrees. “The state has claimed from the beginning that Young conspired with others,” Chen writes in a court motion opposing the DNA testing. “The presence of other DNA would only help finding other people, not exonerate [Young].”
I
n the rotunda of the Franklin County Courthouse, a plaque hangs outside courtroom three. In gold letters it reads: “Judge James J. Lawless Courtroom / Benton & Franklin Counties Superior Court Judge 1956 to 1975.” Lawless attended Gonzaga University Law School at night and worked during the day. He was elected as a Benton and Franklin County superior court judge in 1956 at 34, the youngest ever in the state at that time. He also served briefly as an interim judge on the Washington State Supreme Court. “He was as sensitive a human being as I’ve ever seen on the bench,” King County Superior Court Judge James Noe told reporters in 1974. “He is the last person you would expect this to happen to.” Greg Lawless was 20 when his father was killed. He says he didn’t attend either of the trials back then, and has been paying attention to the recent developments, but it’s difficult. Thinking about the case dredges up devastating memories, he says. But he also remembers his father’s wicked sense of humor and gentle nature. Occasionally, Lawless, now a real estate attorney in Seattle, would accompany his father to that city for work. He recalls checking out of the luxurious hotel the county had booked, opting for a cheaper one down the road. “That’s the kind of man he was,” Lawless says. “He was a good person, and the most honest human being.” mitchr@inlander.com
DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 19
I’m a fiction writer, but I’ve been writing weird essays for the Inlander,
and I was excited by the invitation to publish weird fiction here too, not to mention asking other writers to contribute their weird stories for this special fiction edition. Spokane is a fiction town -- so many great writers and readers here. Lots of great poets, too, I know that. But this issue is about fiction. Hard-boiled fiction. Black-night-of-the-soul fiction. Noir. It’s about playing with genre, form and darkness. After settling on a theme -- Holiday Noir -- I asked for work from some of my favorite writers, each representing one of the five families (and if you don’t get the “five families” reference, go watch The Godfather, parts I and II. Then watch again. Then watch six more times): There’s Robert Lopez, representing our interests
20 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
in Brooklyn, New York; Stacey Richter, joining us from Tucson, Arizona; Lily Hoang, of the Las Cruces, New Mexico Hoangs; and Jess Walter and me, from the darkest heart of Spokane. The stories here are about dames and drunks, tweakers and junkies, arsonists, private dicks and bindle punks, the usual holiday fare. Coal’s too good for these ginks and girlies. So buy yourself a drink, light up a gasper, and settle in for a dark evening alone, taking comfort in the fact that you’re not nearly as horrible as the people in these stories, and that here, finally, is a place within the relentless holiday season where you won’t have to worry about redemption. There won’t be any. -- SAM LIgoN, gueST edIToR
The
MATCHSTICK KILLER ng
by Lily Hoa
A
Lily Hoang is the author of four books, including Changing, recipient of a PEN Open Book Award. She teaches in the MFA program at New Mexico State University.
ccording to Mrs. Watkinson, it was “dark and stormy” that night, but we all know that’s bullshit because every night is dark and furthermore it was a full moon. The storm she may have been referencing — look, I’m giving her something like referencing credit, OK? — was a blizzard earlier that day, made the whole place glitter by sunset. So it wasn’t dark or stormy but it was cold, cold as a penguin without feathers, cold as a naked bear. On my notepad, I write, “Real cold.” I cross it out, write, “Real f---ing cold.” I’ve got to take this back from the start of it all, which is fine by me — case never sat right with me in the first place — but Old Sissy’s been sore about it all day. Just this morning Old Sissy was all, “It’s like you want a headache,” and I was like, “It’s new evidence,” and Old Sissy was like, “You just want them to be connected,” and he was right: I yearned for it, for him: the Matchstick Killer. Here’s the way my story goes, right? The Matchstick Killer always comes out lurking around Christmas time, and he picks a special little girl as his victim. I don’t have all the details worked out just yet, but somewhere in there he freezes her to death, burns her fingertips away because he thinks this is 1995 or some shit, and puts her outside of a random family’s window. His calling card: a pile of used matchsticks. Used to be I had a couple problems with what Old Sissy calls my theory. First, there was only one. Can’t exactly be a serial killer with just one kill. Next, lack of evidence. But let’s just think through this logically, OK? Coroner says the girl died of hypothermia and when I asked her for it plain speak she went, “She became like Frosty,” and so I followed, “Ho ho ho,” but neither of us laughed afterwards. But today, everything’s changed. Today, there’s another girl. Last night, like that night last year when the first girl appeared, was cold, real cold. Old Sissy couldn’t even get his smoke lit for all the wind, and the snow was so new it felt like cotton candy. I cross out “f---ing,” and Old Sissy knocks my head and says, “You writing a novel or what?” I look up all mean eyes, but Old Sissy doesn’t care much about my eyes, so he goes, “Enough writing, Sherlock.” Old Sissy laughs. He loves it when he
gets to call me “Sherlock” because that’s actually my name and the irony is so great it kills him. Most of the time he calls me “Sheryl.” He swats the pencil out of my hand. “Hey,” I say, and pick up the pencil, honestly offended, and then I notice something about Old Sissy, something I’ve never seen before. His fingers, the tips were blackened, just like the girls’. My brain starts doing some flips, and I’m putting one against one until they pop into a bigger one, and then I go, “No way.” Old Sissy looks confused and I don’t have the time to explain my head to him so I say, “Look at your fingers,” and he does and he doesn’t see anything so he shrugs to show me he doesn’t get it and I go, “No one burned them.” Old Sissy still looks confused and I can’t believe he’s so dense: it’s like he needs me to admit I was wrong, that there’s no Matchstick Killer and it’s all just a coincidence. “They were just cold!” I yell. I pull the hat off my head and throw it down. I turn around so no one can see my eyes start to sheen, and Old Sissy goes, “Bat’s hell, they weren’t,” and he throws a fresh manila folder onto my desk. With the eraser end of my pencil, I open the folder.
DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 21
T
Jess Walter is the author of eight books, most recently the story collection We Live in Water and the novel Beautiful Ruins. He’s still waiting for the G.I. Joe he asked Santa for in 1973.
22 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
wo days before Christmas, headlights roll across the duplex wall. I look out the window. Nice black car in our driveway. Climbing out, shopping bags over his shoulders, is the last person I’d ever expect to see. “It’s Greg,” I say. Like a twitchy Santa. Old Saint Tweak. Krystal Kringle. “What’s Dad doing here?” Brayden says. “He brought presents,” I say. “He ain’t my dad,” Lila says to the TV. He ain’t my dad neither, but I don’t feel the need to say so. I’m the oldest — fourteen, Lila’s twelve, Brayden eight. My dad was married to our mom, but now he lives in B.C. with a guy. Lila’s dad was married to our neighbor. Then came Greg, who lived with us until he got arrested. The newspaper story said Greg was part of a
“burglary ring” — like he was some master criminal, not a tweaker on the lookout for unlocked garage doors. After that our mom swore off men. I open the door. Leave the screen locked. “Hey Manda, where’s your mom at?” Greg says. “Her boyfriend’s.” Greg does his heh-heh machine gun laugh. He’s thin. Has a big scab on his forehead. Moves his mouth like he’s reminiscing about a stick of gum he once chewed. “Where’d you get the car, Greg?” “Where’d I —” He scoffs. “I mean — where does anyone get — at the car … place. Dealership.” He looks over his shoulder sort of nervously. Brayden says, “Hey Daddy. We’re watching Archer. It’s dirty.” Lila doesn’t look up from the TV.
“Come on, Manda,” Greg says. “Let me in.” He turns so I can see the bags. “I got presents.” Mom says not to let anyone in, but I don’t think she counted on Greg. Nobody counts on Greg. The bags are from River Park Square — Banana Republic, Pottery Barn, Macy’s, Nordstrom. Walmart I’d buy, but Nordstrom? Greg’s never set foot in a Nordstrom. “You brought us stolen presents?” “What?” He shifts his weight, says again: “What?” Presents are presents. I unlock the screen. Greg comes in, sets the bags down. Plops in a chair. “Got anything to eat, Amanda?” “What do you want?” “I don’t know. Nutella? Beef jerky?” Like a neighbor knocking at your door
asking for a cup of flour or a tuba. I make him a peanut butter sandwich. He watches Archer with us. When we laugh he laughs. I don’t think he’s really getting it. So I test him. A commercial comes on: a poor African girl with huge eyes. This actress says, “You could adopt that African kid for 19 cents a day.” I glance over at Greg and laugh. He laughs, too. “How’s school?” Greg asks. “We’re on break,” I say. “For Christmas.” “Your mom got any cigarettes around?” “She quit,” Brayden says. “Quitters never win,” Greg says. Lila sits up, grabs her metal crutches, starts for the bathroom. Greg leans over to me, “What’s she got again?” “Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy!” Lila calls from the bathroom. Greg pops the last bite of sandwich in his mouth. “I can never remember if it’s MD or MS.” “What’d you bring us, Greg?” Lila says when she comes back from the bathroom. He rubs his hands together. “Let’s see.” He starts with the biggest Nordstrom bag. Pulls out a scarf, wrapped in tissue paper. “This is for your mom.” He pulls out more presents one at a time: blue pajamas. An Estee Lauder Beauty Box. He gives Lila the pajamas and me the makeup. He opens the Banana Republic bag. There’s a men’s cardigan sweater, gray with a cowl collar. “For me,” he says. That big fluffy collar will look ridiculous on him — like wrapping a turd in velvet. There’s also a brown leather messenger bag. “Merry Christmas Brayden!” he says and tosses him the satchel. Brayden sits up on the couch and looks over the bag. He has a Seahawks backpack that he loves. “Is there blood on this?” he asks. “Shouldn’t be,” says Greg. The Macy’s bag is boring: just one little floor rug. “Welcome mat?” Greg asks. “No, it’s for a bathroom floor,” I say. “See, the toilet goes in the middle.” “Oh,” he says. I can see it’s a big disappointment: a shitter rug. There’s a smaller Nordstrom bag too. He opens this last. It has a pair of sunglasses. And two boxes: one with a bangle bracelet, the other with a nice women’s watch. “Huh,” Greg says, like he’s disappointed that’s all he’s stolen. That’s Christmas for you. I reach over and grab the sunglasses.
They’re in a nice case. There’s a tag. “These sunglasses cost two hundred and forty bucks!” “No way,” Greg says. I show him the tag. “Daaaamn,” he says. “Let me see that,” Lila says. She shakes her head. “Crazy.” It is crazy. Greg asks for another sandwich for the road. The whole time I’m making Greg’s sandwich, I keep seeing the 19-cent African kid, her huge eyes. I think: could a person really live on nineteen cents? Not like we’re rich. But Mom got a good job this year, doing medical records. And we get housing assistance and SSI for Lila. But shit, compared to that African girl, we’re Kardashians. But maybe that African girl doesn’t know she’s so poor. Compared to the people around her, maybe she’s normal. So how much would it suck to know some girl in Spokane, Washington, is in her warm living room, watching you on her big-ass TV, thinking: Aw, you poor African kid. I could save you for nineteen cents. I guess that’s how it felt looking through someone else’s Christmas bags and seeing that expensive stuff: like I was seeing back through the TV, like I’m the poor kid and some girl in $240 sunglasses is watching me during a commercial for Million Dollar Real Estate Housewife and feeling sorry for me. When I come back with his sandwich, Greg has the cowl-neck sweater on. It looks good. He grabs the sunglasses and the watch off the table. “I might return these.” At the door, Greg thanks me for the sandwich. “Tell your mom —” but he can’t think of what. He holds up the key to the car in our driveway. “Lexus,” he says. “Hybrid. Keyless entry. Sensible luxury.” I stand at the screen door and watch Greg back out in the stolen car. When he’s gone, I put my hand against the screen. I imagine the African kid putting her hand up to the TV glass. Our hands touching. There are different worlds in this world. As I close the door I hear the sirens. A cop car screams past. Brayden looks up from the TV. I hope Greg gets to keep the sweater. “God bless us everyone,” Lila says. Lila always says that at Christmas. And I always laugh.
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DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 23
Samuel Ligon’s second novel, Among the Dead and Dreaming, comes out next year, as does Wonderland, a book of his short stories illustrated by Stephen Knezovich. He teaches at EWU and edits Willow Springs, the university’s literary magazine.
24 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
S
he came at closing time, three nights before Christmas. Darla was up front, doing what she did with the office machines, while I sat in back, wondering how long I could keep the walls from closing in. Darla buzzed me and said, “You’re going to want to see this one,” all whispery. “Seems real nice.” Uh-huh, I thought. They all seemed nice when they first walked in, and Darla liked nice. She had four asthmatic cats, a crippled Chihuahua, and a husband doing a long stretch down at Walla Walla for aggravated assault. Still, she wanted everyone nice, everyone holiday cheerful. She wanted me to want that too, to find a nice bride, for instance, the two of us early to bed and early to rise, and raising a litter of citizen saps. She had no idea how Candy had ruined me, how far I’d fallen. She knocked and ushered in the twist.
And the twist was nice, healthy, too, filling out her velvet dress and looking as good as the last time I’d seen her, when all she’d been wearing was lipstick and powder. “Wouldn’t give me her name,” Darla said in a whisper voice everyone could hear. Mrs. Claus looked at me through the gauze of her veil, a pathetic attempt to hide her face. She took a seat on the other side of my desk, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Darla closed the door on her way out. Candy Claus took out a cigarette, tapped it twice, and put it in her mouth. I reached across to light it, watched her sit back and cross her legs again. She dangled her ankle bracelet, the diamond charms sparkling against her long bare leg. She wanted me to wonder where it would all end.
“Won’t he notice you gone this time of year?” I said, pulling out the bottle and glasses from my bottom drawer. “Aren’t you supposed to be fattening him?” I poured a drink, pushed it across the desk. Poured another for myself. “He doesn’t even know I exist,” she said, dangling the charms against her ankle. I watched her shake those diamonds, then looked at her face. “You’re pretty good at making men know you exist,” I said. “Johnny, I can’t stand it anymore,” she said, “him all sweaty, like he gets, if he gets anywhere near me — which he won’t. That’s what eats at me. How he won’t even touch me. The kink, back before, I could stand.” I didn’t want to hear about the kink. “You told me if he ever — ” “I told you a lot of things.” “You told me — ”
“Shut up,” I said. “You told me — ” “Too many things to forget,” I said. “But I’m working on it.” “What about his helpers, Johnny? You always said the elves were good eggs.” “So what,” I said. “He’s turned it all upside down,” Candy said. “The naughty kids are getting the good swag.” “Scram, if you don’t like it,” I said. “Go back to Omaha.” “And everyone else is getting the bad boy rocks. The whole pole’s covered in coal, just waiting to be delivered.” Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, I thought. Maybe that’s just what the world needed, more coal smeared all over it. “We gotta stop him, Johnny.” I poured another drink, took a long swallow. I’d never been dame dizzy like I’d been with her. She’d hired me to take pictures of him with his broads, the woodfolk and elves, but I couldn’t get anything on him. She told me about the giant molds of green and red Jell-o he insisted they make their bed on, the special shows he had the elves perform. He would never be true to one woman, she told me, over and over, but she went back to him the second he came crying to her about needing his Candy Claus, the whole world needing their Candy Claus. I thought she had it as bad for me as I did for her — that’s the kind of sap I was — but him showing up with a sable, crying in his beard, was all it took to win her back. I had plenty of reasons for wanting him dead, my own simmering hatred, but I wasn’t going to do it. Not tonight and not ever. “Johnny,” she said. “For the good kids.” “No,” I said. What did I care about the good kids? Let them have coal. Let them have shivs and roscoes. Torn stockings full of rocks would teach them the big grift, how the rich got diamonds and glad rags, while the rest of us got bricks. “Johnny,” she said. “It can be like it was.” “Nothing can be like it was,” I said, but she touched my hand and something sparkled, and whether she was lying or not didn’t matter. “Pour me another,” she said. I poured her another. “Kiss me,” she said. “I can’t,” I said, because if I did I’d never stop. “Make me forget,” she said. “Make me remember.” I kissed her, tasting liquor and smoke, candy and meat and fruit on the edge of rot. She pulled away, put her hand on my face. “Christmas eve, Johnny,” she said. “When he least expects it.” I kissed her and felt myself falling all the way into dizzy. I remembered how it had unwound last time, the fat man crying and making promises, and Candy demanding control of the list, which he wouldn’t
give her, though he told her she could have some say. But nothing would ever be enough for her. “It’s no good,” I said, pulling away. “What’s no good?” “The fat man gets rubbed, and what do I get?” “Me, baby,” she said. “All of me.” But I wasn’t biting — not after she’d left like she did, with pieces of my heart in her teeth. I knew what she wanted with that list — more toys for the nice kids and more than just coal for the naughty ones. Poison she’d give them, in sugar plums and candy canes. We’d be in bed, cooling with a smoke and champagne, and she’d wonder — why not kill the naughty ones? Their parents couldn’t do it, maybe, but why not somebody else, somebody jolly? Killing the naughty kids would be a Christmas miracle. Every year. “No, Candy,” I said, wiping my mouth. “I won’t do it.” “Why, Johnny?” “Because you’re no good,” I said. “And neither am I.” “That’s why we’re perfect, baby, why we should take it all over.” “Merry Christmas, baby,” I said. “You’re nothing but a heel,” she said. “You know that?” “That’s right, Candy,” I said. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your sleigh.” She whimpered. “Knock off the waterworks,” I said. She lowered the shoulders of her velvet dress. But I wasn’t going to look. I was done with her, with the fat man, with the naughty and nice. “He hits me, Johnny,” she said, one tear and another running down her cheek. “He won’t make love to me, but he hits me.” There were yellow and purple stains smeared over that porcelain skin of hers. I didn’t recognize them as hoof marks. Not then. It would be a few days before I figured it out, how Blitzen and Cupid had marked her to make a sap of me. I didn’t know anything then, couldn’t see anything but the red of my rage. I was sick with it, sick with her. But I knew how I’d take him out — with a shiv in his jelly, leaving him wedged in a chimney till somebody smelled his rot. “Kiss me,” Candy said. I kissed her. We only had a few days in front of us, but every one of them would be like Christmas — until she came for me. She knew I’d always be on the naughty list. So would she. And when she came for me I’d be packed and ready.
YELLOW BOX: JAN, THE TOY LADY, IS EXCITED TO HELP KIDS REDEEM THEIR WHIZ KIDS GIFT CERTIFICATES:
t How abou g somethin u to keep yo in ty toas 2016?
River Park Square (509) 456-TOYS DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 25
Stacey Richter is the author of the short story collections My Date with Satan and Twin Study. Her work has been widely anthologized and has won many prizes, including four Pushcart Prizes and a National Magazine Award.
26 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
I
t was my genius idea to score in Valencia Gardens. “Just this once,” Mikey said. We took Market over to 16th, then cut through on Albion, walking through the snappy winter light of California. I was ready to ditch my regular dealer, a maternal black lady who always greeted me with joy and disappointment, as though she were thinking: “My sweet little girl! How can she do this to me?” The last time, she’d actually shook her head and said, “What has become of you?” Mikey didn’t like to be seen with me. He walked a half a dozen paces ahead, floating through the streets like a normal person, dumb as a stump but with the even features and broad shoulders of a surfer. His appearance had been left untouched by heroin, whereas I’d become haggard and spectral, with angry welts on my arms,
crusty eyes, and the thinness of a carcass. But most of the horror was in my skin — blotchy, infected, with areas that looked plucked. I kept my sunglasses on and my eyes down. For some reason I kept thinking about that O. Henry story with the watch and the combs, maybe because of all the hair in the street. A bolus in every gutter. Some of it was mixed with tinsel, but mostly it was just hair. I caught up to Mikey at the corner. He looked at me and took a step back: what has become of you. ”It wouldn’t be so bad if you’d shower.” “I did shower,” I lied. “Appearance is what you show the world, Kimberly. It shows that you care about other people.” “Just like you care about me.” In the courtyard of the projects, we walked past an entire roasted turkey lying
on the ground, plump and golden brown. A few feet away, under a concrete bench, was a foil roasting pan. Nausea was creeping up on me — it was later than I thought. I wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping track of time. The streets had a holiday emptiness and the sun was so bright that everything looked flattened out — the ruststained buildings, the flecks of quartz in the sidewalk. Mikey led me up to an apartment on the third floor and introduced me to his dealer, a fit young guy with a certain groomed nattiness I associated with gay men. Mikey kept saying, Yes, Jeremy. What a great idea, Jeremy. This maddening habit had started when Mikey took a court-ordered Dale Carnegie course. He began referring to all black men as “gentlemen.” Even more surprising than Jeremy’s nattiness was the décor of the apartment. It was done up in what could be called a high
macho/grandma style. On one side of the front room were two overstuffed chairs with lace antimacassars; on the opposite side was a rack of free weights. In the middle, standing free like an obelisk, was a large china cabinet that reeked of furniture polish. Jeremy said, “You like my statues? Go on, take a look.” The requisite socializing dismayed me. Why couldn’t we buy drugs through a hole in the wall like they did in the East Village? I was experiencing waves of sweat, cold, nausea, and pain, in that order. Jeremy nodded toward the cabinet. I crept closer and peered at the little porcelain figures. There were deer and pigs and hedgehogs, grouped in threes and fours. It took me a moment to realize these were all animal families: mama, daddy, and baby animals huddled in cozy groups they would never, ever form in the wild. The hollow inside my throat flooded with warm liquid. “Miss Lana gave them to me. What do you think? “ They were revolting. “Beautiful,” I said. Jeremy counted out four bags as Mikey watched with hungry eyes; he’d agreed to introduce me in exchange for a taste. An old lady in a pink tracksuit — Miss Lana, I guess — had wandered in and was regarding us from the doorway. “What is she?” she said to Mikey, as though I wasn’t there. “Like a roommate?” Mikey blushed. “No.” “A sweetheart?” “No,” he said, with indignation. “I see a little glimmer in your eye,” she sang out, “I bet you’re sweethearts.” Mikey opened and closed his mouth, then took a breath and spat, “She’s my sister.” It was as though he’d said, “She’s my demon.” Miss Lana staggered backward. The air became heavier and wobbled with strangeness. The abscess in my arm began to leak a thick, brown substance, like gravy. * * * We didn’t speak until we were back on the street. The turkey was still in the courtyard. Inside my pocket, I carefully separated two of the bags from the others. I was reluctant to part with them and to delay the moment I said, “Merry Christmas.” Mikey laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” “Why? What’s funny?” “It’s not Christmas, Kimberly. It’s Thanksgiving.”
“It’s what?” He enunciated: “It’s Thanks-giv-ing, dumbass.” I blinked. Everything brightened and darkened at the same time. I was not paying attention; I had not been paying attention for quite some time. Now I could see the quartz sparkling in the sidewalk, the gobs of hair in the gutter. “That would explain the turkey.” He looked at me blankly. “What turkey?” * * * We parted at the corner, Mikey chuckling off to the south while I sulked northwards. I’d planned to give half the dope to Mikey, but in the end I’d only given him one of the four. He was always the favorite, it didn’t matter how stupid he was. It was like a light was shining on his head, a golden light. Dumbass. I made it home quickly, but by the time I got there something had happened to me. I was sick of the muddle, sick of my submerged life. Whatever the thing was that made people back away from me, I wanted to get rid of it. I made a resolution: I would kick. Okay, maybe not entirely, but I’d cut back. I would reclaim my marbles. I turned on the TV for company and began my ritual with the candle and the spoon. There was a vein in my ankle I liked; I slapped it and it rose up, blue and sweet. I tipped the contents of one envelope into the spoon: this was half my regular dose. On the screen, a bearded man was trying to sell me an electric razor: what was this? I was so lost. I added a syringe of water and waved the mixture over the flame until it hissed. Half a shot. It was so sad. I was lost but longing to improve. I would do better. Then the newscaster reappeared and said something, something, something… “and great weather on this lovely CHRISTMAS DAY!” The world revolved and clicked back into place. I wasn’t lost. Mikey was lost. I opened another envelope of powder and gently poured it into my spoon. Then I added a third. Who’s the dumbass now? I thought.
DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 27
Robert Lopez is the author of four books, including Good People, a collection of short fiction to be published by Bellevue Literary Press in January 2016.
28 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
hey opened the store with a going out of business sale. They were them, a man and woman, whatever. Maybe they were married to each other, maybe divorced, maybe it doesn’t make a difference. We can assign them names, say, Bill and Sharon, but it wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter to them, the man and woman, and it wouldn’t matter to Bill and Sharon, whoever they are. The man and woman had overheard someone talking at a bad luck bar that a Christmas store, selling ornaments and trees and lights, was a can’t miss. Said you only had to work one month out of the year. The man and woman, they had opened other stores and watched them go out of business before, a laundromat, a delicatessen, a haberdashery.
Last year it was a puppy mill. But then sometime around the holidays the puppies all died, probably of distemper. That sort of thing changes most people, and Bill and Sharon, if those are their names, are no exception. On the other side of town from the store, in a modest house, Sharon sits on a love seat. There is no one sitting next to her. There is no room for anyone to sit next to her, as the love seat can only accommodate one at a time. In fact, it is not a love seat at all, but this is what she calls it. She has her legs folded beneath her. She is comfortable. She is not reading or watching television. She is not knitting or listening to music. Perhaps later she will go for a walk around the block. She should be at the store right now, taking care of the register or helping customers, but she isn’t. She’s in the love seat.
Her husband is down on Division hawking trees and tinsel. His name might be Bill and he might be her ex-husband by now. They have been married and divorced to each other several times over. Bill will be there all day and most of the night. He will wonder where his wife is, if she still is his wife. He will most likely come home at midnight, drunk from the flask of Four Roses he fills each morning and drains throughout the day. He will crawl into bed, probably next to Sharon, who sometimes will fall asleep in the love seat so sometimes he has the bed to himself, which he enjoys, and he will pass out and then wake at 4:30 to go back to Division Street. At the store, the man is hanging tinsel around a door frame. His right hand is battered and bloody. It looks as though he were in a street fight, but there’s no way of knowing if this, in fact, is the case. It’s
possible he put his fist through a wall during a conversation with Sharon. It might’ve had something to do with the puppies from last year and who was responsible for what happened. It is five days before Christmas and the business is going well. On December 26th they will burn the building down. Then they will flee, probably to British Columbia. This is the plan they have in place, though it is subject to change because Sharon hasn’t been at the store in days. She hasn’t been in the bed when Bill has crawled into it the last few nights. It is possible she has left him or will leave him. It’s also possible she’s dead. Bill hasn’t heard from her. He doesn’t know if the plan is still in place or if he is the only one going through with it. The woman named Sharon, who is probably still alive, is thinking about leaving her husband and filing for divorce. She has talked it over with some friends, the ins and outs, the implications and consequences. It’s unclear if she will ever make up her mind. She is the kind of woman who can consider something for years and never make a decision. The love seat is a perfect example. She has wanted to either reupholster the love seat or get a new one for five years. She’s discussed both options with her husband, Bill, who is indifferent. He has told her to do whatever she wants with the love seat. This is one small example of why she might leave him someday. She is not one for violence, so she’s never considered stabbing her husband while he sleeps. She’s never considered drugging him and then smothering him with a pillow, either. This is one reason she hasn’t slept next to him in days. Last week she hid a butcher knife in the nightstand drawer on her side of the bed. She had no real intention of using it on her husband, but wanted it there in case she changed her mind. It’s possible she took it out of the drawer in the middle of the night and brandished it like she’s seen in the movies. It’s possible she leaned over her husband with the knife in her hand and wondered what kind of sound it would make. It’s possible
she decided it would depend on what part of his body she’d plunge it into. The man is down on Division, hawking trees. The man doesn’t know where the woman is, either his wife or his ex-wife, Sharon. He is hanging tinsel and she is somewhere else. She is supposed to be here helping him. She is supposed to be watching the register, helping customers. There are only five or six people wandering around the store and now the man has to be available to answer questions and cover the register while hanging tinsel at the same time. It is too much for one man to do, any man, but especially Bill, because just look at him. The woman is not at home sitting on a love seat. She does not have her legs folded beneath her. She is not comfortable. They do not own a love seat. They considered buying one once, but decided they couldn’t afford it. They decided they couldn’t see themselves sitting in a love seat. It is currently snowing in British Columbia. It has been snowing for three hours and will continue for another six. By the time it stops snowing there will be nearly a foot on the ground. It’s possible this is where the woman is. It’s possible she is there by herself, but it’s just as possible she is there with another man, whose name doesn’t matter, but if it does we should call him Alberto. It’s possible they are sharing a woodpecker pie, which is a recipe that has been in Alberto’s family for generations. You can use real woodpecker meat, but you don’t have to. The Alberto family makes it every year for Christmas. The man is hanging tinsel in the store and talking to customers. He tells them he opened the store with his wife but that he is a widower now. It’s possible he is telling the truth. When he talks to customers he calls her Lorraine, but he means Sharon. And she might be anywhere in the world, with anyone, doing anything at all.
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INLANDER.COM Inlander.com/books 30 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
VISUAL ARTS
Centrally Located
Two new art galleries add visual impact to East Central Spokane BY CARRIE SCOZZARO
D
iane Spano gets emotional when she talks about living and working in East Central since the ’90s, recalling the poverty and neglect she’s seen. Open drug use and prostitution. Violence. “Our life was in danger every single day,” says Spano, who lives in one of the neighborhood’s more than 600 homes that date back beyond a century. That’s when flatlands and forests east of Spokane gave way to streetcars, park neighborhoods like Liberty and Underhill, the railway, and eventually the freeway. Yet Spano also saw potential in East Central. As an Eastern Washington University architectural planning student in 1992, Spano drew an East Sprague storefront for the local business association. Twenty-three years later, she realized, she’d drawn the same building where she’d launched East Sprague Art Gallery. “It’s just ironic,” says Spano. Since opening this spring, Spano has had anywhere from 10 to 20 participating artists. “My criteria,” she says, is “if you have the courage to show, you’re in.” Some, like Bobbie Wieber, who paints awardwinning watercolor florals, and Clara Woods, who has an arts restoration business across from the gallery, have stayed on. Others, like Sam White, a local plumber by trade who recently had a show in Kendall Yards’ Marmot Art Space, have moved on. Commission-free space rents for between $50 and $100 per month. Artists do their own marketing, although Spano does a gallery-wide First Friday event. Occasionally she displays commission-only larger work, like Hank Chiapetta’s tiger-sized wood sculpture. Spano also shows some of her own fiber art at the gallery, which hosts pop-up events like Daron Brunke’s figure drawing classes and Ric Gendron’s recent weekend art show. Mostly, though, Spano works to make other people’s artistic dreams come true. The determined great-grandmother, who supports herself by cleaning houses, says that at least for this year, her artistic talents are all pointed toward the building itself. A few blocks west on Sprague, another new art gallery opened in November. Formerly known as Manic Moon & More, New Moon Gallery recently ...continued on next page
Sculptures by Lynn Sherrill at New Moon Gallery. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO
CULTURE | VISUAL ARTS
ABOVE: New Moon Gallery co-op core members (left to right) Michele Mokrey, Sigrid Morgan-Neil, Melinda Melvin, Denise Steen and Linda Malcombe. TOP LEFT: Bracelets by Steen. BOTTOM LEFT: “Hallucinated Habitats” by Ed Tyler. BOTTOM: The gallery also features a classroom. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO
“CENTRALLY LOCATED,” CONTINUED... relocated from North Monroe. Founding member Michele Mokrey ran the Artist’s Tree Gallery downtown from 2003 until 2009. In 2012, she and Mara Greene created Manic Moon & More. More artists joined, forming a members’ guild, and the gallery soon outgrew its surroundings. “We were ready to stretch,” says Mokrey, who runs New Moon with five core members: Joan Eaton, Melinda Melvin, Linda Malcom, Denise Steen and Sigrid Morgan-Neil. Their current roster numbers around 30 artists, some of whom help run the gallery, while others sell work on consignment or pay a percentage to exhibit. Mokrey discovered the new location for the gallery while chatting with Bruce Gage of Eco Depot, a longtime arts supporter and 20-year East Central resident. Eco Depot agreed to move its offices to the back of the building so New Moon could use its showroom. Eco Depot is one of a growing list of arts and design businesses in the region. Painter Jared Anderson has a studio above East Sprague Art Gallery, while Bruce Hormann’s edgy Object Space Gallery showcases alternative art and music. Nearby are sign painter Michael Ruby, Creative Catch photography and Tin Roof furniture, all of which have participated in something called Art on
32 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
the Ave. An annual arts fair since 2010, Art on the Ave is sponsored in part by the East Spokane Business Association. It has brought much-needed positive exposure to an area on the city’s redevelopment radar for years. In 2009, for example, it was rebranded as the International District, an effort whose luster has faded. The latest buzz is the city’s intention to “create vibrant, resilient neighborhoods” in East Central. They’ve partnered with Smart Growth America, committing upward of $50 million over the next three years to such things as residential roads and housing rehabilitation. The hope, of course, is that spending public monies WEEKEND will spur private C O U N T D OW N investment — Get the scoop on this restaurants, retail weekend’s events with spaces, even art our newsletter. Sign up at galleries. Inlander.com/newsletter. The city has even enlisted urban and regional planning students from Eastern Washington University to help survey the neighborhood, which will be like déjà vu all over again for Diane Spano. n
CULTURE | DIGEST
FOOTBALL THE SUN BOWL
W
Receiver Gabe Marks and the potent WSU offense head down to El Paso for the Sun Bowl.
ashington State quarterback Luke Falk says that he likes to sleep at least nine hours a day. Falk should be able to catch plenty of Z’s this week, because no one seems to be making much noise about the Sun Bowl. Thousands of the 12,000 tickets allocated to WSU and Miami (6,000 apiece) have gone unsold. Vast expanses of the 51,500 seats at the Sun Bowl figure to be unoccupied when the Cougars and Hurricanes clash Saturday in El Paso, Texas (11 am, CBS). Reasons for tepid fan interest are plentiful. For starters, only 47 of the 127 Football Bowl Subdivision teams do not play in bowl games. Many fans balked at spending Christmas out of town. Plus, airfares to El Paso range from pricey to preposterous. But let’s not get too down. After all, the Cougars are in a bowl for just the second time since 2003. The Sun Bowl features two 8-4 teams, though neither is ranked in the Top 25. The Cougars finished the regular season with an ugly 45-10 loss at Washington. Miami is 4-1 since interim coach Larry Scott replaced the fired Al Golden (newly hired Mark Richt won’t coach in the game), but the Hurricanes have lost five consecutive bowl games. The Cougars are 2½-point favorites against a Miami squad that placed no one on the All-ACC first team. Falk, offensive tackle Joe Dahl and wide receiver Gabe Marks made the all-conference first
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION BY LAURA JOHNSON
BOOK He walked up to Carly Simon, looked down at her breasts and asked: “Can I see you?” So recalls the famed 1970s singersongwriter of the first time she met full-time philanderer Warren Beatty — who would go on to be one of her inspirations for “You’re So Vain” — in her recent memoir BOYS IN THE TREES. The elegantly written confessional is perfect for those wanting to know about the famous men Simon slept with (Sean Connery, Cat Stevens, Mick Jagger, Marvin Gaye), and also about her marriage to sensitive singer-songwriter James Taylor. From insecurities to personal triumphs, Simon bares all.
WSU ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS
team in the Pac-12. However, Falk sat out the Washington game with a reported concussion, and Dahl and Marks are questionable for Saturday with apparent foot and/or ankle injuries. (WSU hides injuries as if such matters are controlled by the Federal Witness Protection Program.) Both teams prefer to move the ball through the air. Miami has the statistical edge on defense, but Pac-12 offenses are considered superior to those in the ACC. Special-teams play has been unspectacular on both sides. Five factoids that could prove pivotal: 1) WSU’s offense ranks first in the nation in passing and last in rushing. Miami’s defense ranks 29th against the pass and 106th against the run. 2) WSU is first in red-zone scoring percentage. Miami is 108th in red-zone scoring percentage defense. 3) Miami ranks fifth and WSU 101st in turnovers lost. 4) WSU ranks 10th and Miami last in least penalty yards per game. 5) The Cougars are seventh in tackles for loss, and Miami is fifth in TFLs allowed. — HOWIE STALWICK
MAKEUP The brand’s famed red-soled shoes are way too expensive for most working gals, but CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN LIP COLOUR, which hit high-end department stores in September, is well worth the splurge (without putting you in serious debt). In Sheer Voile, Velvet Matte and Silky Satin textures, the lipstick’s colors pop and stay fresh throughout the day and well into the evening. At $90 a tube — if you can call the bullet-shaped design inspired by Babylonian architecture a tube — this is not the sort of item to put in your purse and easily lose. Keep it at home. For those still looking for last-minute ideas, this amazing lip colour would also make an intensely personal and beautiful gift. TV FLESH AND BONE uses real ballerinas. This isn’t a show where actors like Natalie Portman or Julia Stiles train to look like dancers. Instead, dancers like Sarah Hay and Sascha Radetsky act — and for the most part, are believable. Hay recently was nominated for a Golden Globe for her effort. In just eight episodes, the new Starz drama delves into the world of classical ballet in New York City as one dancer (Hay) flees her disturbing family life in Pittsburgh to audition for one of the most prestigious companies in the country. All of the major dance story tropes are there — bulimia, drug addiction, terrifying feet, a crazed artistic director — but this show adds some new ones like stripping and a homeless guardian angel. Of course, most things here are way over the top, but through dance, this show succeeds. n
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O
SUPPER CLUB
Chef’s Choice
The Ivory Table’s intimate supper club dinners introduce local food lovers to a big city trend BY CHEY SCOTT
Chef Kristen Ward hopes to foster a culture of culinary appreciation with her supper club.
34 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
YOUNG KWAK PHOTO
n a block of unlit storefronts along East Sprague Avenue — some dusty and vacant, others closed to business for the day — a soft yellow glow spills onto the sidewalk beneath black-and-white striped awnings. Arriving at this beacon of warmth, guests in sets of twos and fours are greeted by an aproned hostess passing out complimentary cocktails. She checks their names off a list and leads them to one of the elegantly-set communal tables. A centerpiece of cedar boughs runs down its length; rows of wine glasses sparkle in the low light. Before dinner service begins, Chef Kristen Ward emerges from the kitchen. Smiling broadly, she pauses as the chatter dies down before welcoming the 30 diners seated before her in the Ivory Table Cafe’s quaint, French-inspired space. On this dark December evening, the sold-out event is the third in a monthly series of supper club events hosted at the catering service and cafe that opened in summer 2014. Ward, 33, has worked in the food industry since high school. A graduate of Seattle Central Culinary Academy, her past jobs include a stint at Le Gourmand, the now-shuttered, 27-year French mainstay in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. Later, she went to Chinon, France, to cook and teach classes at a chateau. She and her students would shop locally for the meal’s ingredients, and then eat together, supper-club style. Those experiences are partly what influenced Ward’s decision to launch a supper club at her cafe, which through the mid-afternoon serves sweet and savory crepes, sandwiches, salads and soups. “I grew up in a family that moved a lot — my parents were divorced and I would look at other people’s traditions and I always yearned for traditions and to be a part of one,” she explains. “I always had this idea of starting a dinner club. I always loved entertaining. With this little place, I saw immediately the opportunity, and I think people have responded so well.” Appropriately, tonight’s menu is very French-focused. A main course of beef bourguignon over a bed of creamy polenta is preceded by a savory, caramelized onion tart with Chevre cheese and herbed cream. Supper clubs are hardly a new culinary trend. The concept originally emerged in the 1930s and 1940s as a high-class dining event that would turn into an all-night affair with live entertainment and socializing. Yet in more recent years, the phrase has also been used to describe “underground” restaurants (many also unregulated by food/health safety laws) in hobby chefs’ own homes, or to refer to extremely exclusive dinners at pop-up locations in major metro areas that largely cater to wealthy clientele. The Ivory Table’s monthly events are neither underground nor exclusive, though the limited seats fill up quickly. At $50 to $60 per person, with a $25 optional wine tasting paired with each course, guests who’ve been to a previous dinner have the first dibs to reserve a spot for the next announced event. “What is different about this supper club is that we’re trying to create a place for people to belong,” Ward says. “It’s personal — we spend time talking. It’s not like, ‘Here’s your wine and your dinner.’ I know [beforehand] the people coming and so it’s more intimate.” The supper club format at the Ivory Table is also not unlike a one-off wine dinner event, which numerous chef-owned establishments in the region offer on a more infrequent basis. After dessert has been served — dark chocolate pot de creme, alongside a black currant port wine — guests linger at their seats. Ward is finally able to leave the kitchen long enough to begin greeting people: friends, family, other area chefs and return customers from previous dinners. “Any one of us can dine in any restaurant, but being a part of a community of people enjoying food and wine — you have a spot at the table. We have people making friends and who have hung out with those they’ve met at dinner here. It’s a community, I guess, that we have created.” n For information on the Ivory Table’s upcoming supper club events (next on Dec. 31 [sold out], Feb. 5 and 14, at 6 pm), visit ivorytable.com/events.
FOOD | OPENING
At The Davenport Grand
A caprese salad from Prohibition Gastropub. KRISTEN BLACK PHOTO
Secret Ingredients Special bacon and beef patty recipes add unexpected flavors to Prohibition Gastropub’s standard fare BY CHEY SCOTT
C
hef John Leonetti knows, as most do, that everything tastes better with bacon. Since graduating from culinary school in Portland more than 10 years ago, Leonetti has worked to perfect his candycoated bacon recipe to achieve the perfect melding of sugary sweetness with bacon’s fatty, savory flavor. Now as the chef-owner of the newly opened Prohibition Gastropub on North Monroe Street, Leonetti garnishes nearly every dish (save for a few salads and appetizers) on the menu with his signature bacon, coated with sugar and cooked in a top-secret method. “Everyone is putting brown sugar on bacon, and I wanted to make it more crystallized, so I don’t use brown sugar at all,” he explains. Prohibition’s bacon is one highlight of the restaurant’s classic gastropub fare, a menu of burgers, sandwiches, salads and savory, indulgent appetizers. Leonetti also makes his own beef patty mix for Prohibition’s burgers, adding an unusual ingredient alongside the seasoning: coffee grounds. “[The grounds] keep the juice inside the burger, so it doesn’t matter if it’s rare or well-done, the burgers are always going to be juicy because of the coffee grounds,” he says. “Every chef, we try to set ourselves apart with any style of cooking. With the coffeeinfused burgers, it’s my signature of being bold and brash.” The coffee grounds, paired with spices, bring out the earthy flavor of the beef patties on the Al Capone burger ($11.50), served with a fried egg, and the Bootlegger burger ($10.50), which adds blue cheese. Speaking of cheese, Leonetti has crafted a recipe for blue cheese lasagna ($10.50), layers of chicken and pasta with a creamy white garlic and blue cheese sauce. In the bar, the focus leans toward whiskey, bourbon and scotch, but also features several local and regional beer tap handles and regional wines. Leonetti and his wife, Jill, opened Prohibition on Oct. 31. It’s located just north of the intersection of Monroe and Indiana, in the building that most recently housed Webster’s Ranch House Saloon and before that, Working Class Heroes Bar & Grill. The Leonettis, who owned a local catering business, bought the building to realize their longtime dream of opening a restaurant. That venture, J and J Catering, is on hold for now while they focus on Prohibition. The couple’s long-term hopes are to open additional restaurant locations around the Spokane area. n Prohibition Gastropub • 1914 N. Monroe • Open Mon and Wed-Sat, 11 am-11 pm; Sun, 10 am-10 pm (closed Tuesdays) • facebook.com/Prohibition.Gastropub.Spokane 1 • 474-9040
Now open and serving highly addictive small plates from $6.50-$13 each Dinner and Whiskey Bar Tuesday - Saturday 5 PM - Close Open Table Online reservations — table13spokane.com
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DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 35
Ode to Joy-less This reviewer really, really doesn’t like Jennifer Lawrence BY ED SYMKUS
H
ollywood did not learn its lesson. A few years back, Universal released Flash of Genius, the true story of the guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. Well now, there’s an exciting story. The film vanished. Now, 20th Century Fox has glommed on to another fascinating tale: the true story of the woman who invented the Miracle Mop. You know, the self-wringing kitchen floor contraption that keeps your hands clean. What’s that I hear? Is it a communal yawn? The lame subject matter isn’t the main problem with Joy, named after Joy Mangano, the hapless, downtrodden Long Island divorcée who invented the product. The real trouble
JOY
Rated PG-13 Written and directed by David O. Russell With Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro is twofold: There’s too much of one thing, and not enough of another. Writer-director David O. Russell has proven himself to be a terrific creator of characters (sometimes based on real people, sometimes fictional) and situations to put them in. Flirting with Disaster, The Fighter and American Hustle remain his best examples of that. But that’s not the case with Joy. Many of his characters here, though based on real people, come across as caricatures, recognizably human from time to time, but often going back and forth from too kooky to too overwrought. There’s just not enough of the kind of Russell that his fans have come to expect. But there’s far too much of Jennifer Lawrence, who in the lead role inexplicably continues on as Russell’s current favorite actress, after a co-lead in Silver Linings Playbook (for which she nabbed an Oscar, an incident that still keeps me up at night), and a supporting role in American Hustle (mystifyingly earning her an Oscar nomination). Russell’s fascination with Law-
36 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
rence apparently transcends her lack of range as an actor. Though the story traces Joy’s rise from weak-willed, emotionally abused homemaker and single mom to powerful, hugely successful entrepreneur, Lawrence hardly registers any discernible change in facial reactions or attitude. She seems to remain in a comfort zone that sits between a tired smile and a pout. This starts out as a niggling problem that eventually turns annoying, since Russell chooses to keep his camera up close on her face, for long periods, even when she’s silent and lost in thought. Russell manages to get a couple of strong performances out of the people around Lawrence. Bradley Cooper does what he does best with those twinkling blue eyes, playing quietly excitable QVC founder Neil Walker, really an amalgam of people who put the shopping network together. And Edgar Ramirez is excellent as Joy’s loyal but exasperating exhusband Tony (who, in a flashback sequence, steals every moment of screen time when he grabs a microphone and blasts out a great rendition of Mama Told Me Not to Come). But Robert De Niro’s portrayal of Joy’s not-so-nice dad is unfocused (more of a writing than an acting problem) and Isabella Rossellini as his wealthy girlfriend needs some reining in, as she plays the part too broadly. The film totally succeeds when it goes behind the scenes in a TV studio to show what was happening in the early days of QVC (quality, value, convenience), and there’s a major casting coup with Melissa Rivers playing her mom Joan, who was a regular QVC pitchwoman. But the story of good luck and bad luck mixing with good and bad business decisions, along with a taste of fraud, becomes taxing, and finally dull. The good news? The film features a big, upbeat ending, then, even better, caps things off with a stunning a cappella version of the Cream song “I Feel Free” over the credits, sung here by Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes. n
FILM | SHORTS
Stuff yer own stockings
OPENING FILMS
CONCUSSION
Will Smith stars in this provocative drama as Dr. Bennet Omalu, a respected doctor who discovers that concussions suffered by professional football players are causing serious brain damage. It’s the movie the NFL really hopes you don’t see. (MB) Rated PG-13
DADDY’S HOME
Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg try to recapture the comedic chemistry they showcased in The Other Guys in this story of a strait-laced radio executive and nice-guy stepdad to two kids
THE DANISH GIRL
Eddie Redmayne stars as Lili Elbe, a Danish artist who was a groundbreaking figure for the transgender community. Directed by Tom Hooper (Les Misérables, The King’s Speech), The Danish Girl is largely fictionalized, but uses the story of Elbe and her relationship with Wegener as inspiration. (MB) Rated R
CHI-RAQ
CREED
Donny is an angry orphaned teen, rescued from the foster-care system by the widow (Phylicia Rashad) of boxing
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POINT BREAK
Since it’s been 24 years since the original Point Break gave us Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze in the only surf movie that’s also a crime flick, we have a remake. But this time the extremesport-loving criminals are a little more sophisticated, and are actually ecominded, Zen-following idealists who steal money from corporations and give the cash to the poor. (MB) Rated PG-13
legend Apollo Creed from the Rocky series. She has learned that Donny is the illegitimate son of her late husband and has decided to take responsibility for him — and that unique backstory of a tough kid brought into a life of privilege gives Michael B. Jordan the opportunity for a terrific performance. Donny then heads into the ring for a boxing career with help from his trainer, none other than Rocky himself (Sylvester Stallone, of course). (SR) Rated PG-13
THE GOOD DINOSAUR
The latest offering from Pixar is this computer-animated story that gives us an Earth that was never hit by the asteroid that knocked off the dinosaurs, and thus people and the mega lizards live together on the planet. When an Apatosaurus named Arlo is orphaned after his dad dies in an accident, he tries to make his way home and along the way befriends a boy named Spot. (MB) Rated PG ...continued on next page
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Spike Lee’s latest offering takes us to the rough streets of Chicago for, believe it or not, an adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata. Here, the women of Chicago go abstinent to stop the men in their communities from committing horrific acts of gun violence in an ongoing gang war. (MB) Rated R
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Your favorite trio of high-octave critters is back for the latest installment of their enduring franchise. This time around, Alvin and the gang are out to stop Dave (the human played by a post-My Name Is Earl Jason Lee) from getting married and have to get all the way to Miami to accomplish that. (MB) Rated PG
Celebrate at Barlows!
Writer-director David O. Russell once again teams up with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, this time to tell the seemingly odd-choice story of Joy Mangano (played by Lawrence), the self-made woman who invented the Miracle Mop and became a home shopping legend. (ES) Rated R
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Already at the top of numerous critics’ lists of 2015’s best films, Carol is a sweeping story of forbidden love between two women — Carol Aird (Kate Blanchett) and Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) — in 1950s New York City. Eleven years in the works, the historical drama carefully examines how repressive society was in response to homosexual relationships as Carol and Therese struggle to express their feelings while trying to hide their secret. (CS) Rated R
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(Ferrell) who has to contend with the unexpected return of their oh-so-cool biological father (Wahlberg). Soon enough, the two dads are competing for the children’s affection through increasingly ornate and slapstick-y feats of parental gymnastics. (DN) Rated PG-13
GE
THE BIG SHORT
Adapting Michael Lewis’ nonfiction book with Charles Randolph, comedic director Adam McKay lays out the stories of the investment banking insiders — including fund managers Michael Burry (Christian Bale) and Mark Baum (Steve Carell) — who saw the mortgage collapse coming as early as 2005, and began to realize how much the game was rigged. (SR) Rated R
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FILM | SHORTS
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HEART OF A DOG
Laurie Anderson directs this documentary about the death of her beloved dog and does so with a unique approach. Anderson is a well-known visual artist who employs her transcendent visuals to a mind-bending story that has been collecting fans the world over during its festival run. (MB) Not Rated
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In the last installment of the franchise, Katniss Everdeen (the amazing Jennifer Lawrence), doesn’t lead the rebels of District 13 in what everyone hopes will be a definitive assault on the Capitol. Instead, she’s bringing up the rear with the propaganda filmmaking team, making videos that will hopefully sway the hearts and minds of the Capitol citizens, who naturally aren’t on the rebels’ side. She’s going to take down President Snow, no matter what it takes. (MJ) PG-13
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Ron Howard’s latest big screen effort takes us out into the Atlantic for the real story that inspired Moby Dick. The historical drama takes us to the southern Pacific Ocean where in 1820 the crew of the Essex battled with a massive sperm whale that — spoiler alert, in case you slept through your junior English class — sinks the whaling vessel. We know about that, but the film also tells of the surviving whalers struggle to stay alive at sea after the Essex was gone. Starring Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker and Cillian Murphy. (MB) Rated PG-13
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38 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
Each Christmas, good children everywhere get the gift of their dreams in triumph. But what do the bad children get? No, not coal — Krampus. When the family Christmas party goes sour, Tom (Adam Scott) and his family must fend for their lives after Max (Emjay Anthony) destroys his letter to Santa Claus in anger, summoning the ancient evil spirit of Krampus. Though David Koechner supports Scott in maintaining the laughs, you’ll definitely want to leave the Santa-believers at home for this one, as Krampus relentlessly shocks with terrifying images of your most beloved Christmas characters. (MC) Rated PG-13
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As both of the identical Kray twins, Tom Hardy is a wonder, carrying his body, comporting his face, and subtly shifting his voice in ways that never leave the viewer in any doubt as to which brother he is embodying at any given moment (though the eyeglasses that Ron wears help, too). The Krays are violent, narcissistic men with no thought for anyone but themselves (except, perhaps, the mother who worships them) as they rule the criminal underworld of Lon-
CRITICS’ SCORECARD THE NEW YORK INLANDER TIMES
VARIETY
METACRITIC.COM
(LOS ANGELES)
(OUT OF 100)
Room
86
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
81
Theeb
80
Suffragette
67
HG: Mockingjay 2
65
Trumbo
60 57
Sisters DON’T MISS IT
WORTH $10
WATCH IT AT HOME
SKIP IT
don’s East End in the 1960s. (MJ) Rated R
sive scale in hushing up cases of abusive priests. (SR) Rated R
MEET THE PATELS
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
Actor Ravi Patel was nearing 30 and still single when he decided to let his family help find him a wife in the traditional Indian fashion. So, he took a camera along and documented the process in this comedic documentary about love, culture and family. At Magic Lantern (MB) Rated PG
ROOM
Jack lives with his mom (Brie Larson) in Room (no “the”), the only place on earth the 5-year-old has ever known. Room is a dingy toolshed supplied with nothing more than life’s essentials (a single bed where they both sleep, a toilet, dilapidated fridge, ancient TV and unreachable skylight) where Jack and Ma go through their daily regimen of washing, exercising, reading, eating, etc. On Jack’s fifth birthday, his mom decides to tell her son about the outside world… and hope for a life outside of Room. (MB) Rated R
SISTERS
Amy Poehler plays Maura Ellis, who’s recently divorced and trying to take care of everyone in the family while Tina Fey is Kate Ellis, a single mom who can’t hold down a job. When their parents announce that they’re selling the house where the sisters grew up, they head home to clear out their old things. But instead of saying goodbye to their past, they opt to relive it in the form of a huge party with their old high school friends, only with a personality twist: Maura will get to be the wild thing, and Kate will have to stay sober and responsible. (SR) Rated R
SPOTLIGHT
In 2001, the Boston Globe editor-inchief Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) asked the paper’s “Spotlight” investigative news team — Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) — to turn their attention to the case of a Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing several children. And as they begin digging — at first reluctantly — into the case, they discover that the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston might be engaging on a mas-
If you are reading this, we assume you are just now learning of this film’s existence here on the 37th page of our venerable publication and not from the marketing you may have seen on a cereal box, soda can, bottle of brake fluid or tube of hemorrhoid cream in your household. The seventh installment of George Lucas’ iconic franchise is set to be the biggest yet, full of all the big scifi visuals we’d expect from new director J.J. Abrahams. As for the plot...umm, well, um, the pictures on this burger wrapper are a little vague on that end. (MB) Rated PG-13
SUFFRAGETTE
Carey Mulligan stars as Maud Watts, a Londoner who was born and raised in a laundry, in 1912 London as the fight for women’s right began to take hold. As a group of women campaign for voting privileges in a movement led by Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep), a detective tries to undermine and dismantle their efforts. (PC) Rated PG-13
THEEB
Theeb (played by newcomer Jacir Eid) is a young Bedouin boy who is forced to fend for himself after he jumps camp to follow his beloved older brother Hussein (Hussein Salameh) on a mission to guide a British army officer (Jack Fox) to a long-abandoned well. Set in 1916, this Jordanian film from director Naji Abu Nowar is the country’s official entry into the upcoming Academy Awards. At Magic Lantern. (MS) Not Rated
TRUMBO
A celebrated screenwriter (Kitty Foyle, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo) and novelist (Johnny Got His Gun) when the Red Scare machine revved up, Dalton Trumbo was one of the more prominent Hollywood players to be called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 to discuss his perfectly legal involvement in the Communist Party. Here, he’s played brilliantly by Bryan Cranston in a story that can be overly theatrical at times. (KJ) Rated R
FILM | REVIEW
THE MAGIC LANTERN
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It’s the most wonderful time for a beer. Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling dig deep into the mortgage crisis.
Housing Bubble Bath The Big Short explains the mortgage crisis with a dash of humor
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BY SCOTT RENSHAW
I
don’t know about you, but if I were thinkHe wants his audience to understand what ing, “Who should make a movie about the went so horribly wrong, not just feel angry about 2008 subprime mortgage collapse?” my first it. And he commits to that notion with puckish answer would not likely be, “The guy who made meta-humor that includes asides like, “Here’s Anchorman.” Margot Robbie in a bubble bath to explain it to But that counterintuitiveness is almost you.” exactly what makes The Big Short so effective. There’s too much ground to cover for the Adapting Michael Lewis’ nonfiction book with individual characters’ stories to make much of Charles Randolph, Adam McKay lays out the an emotional impact, despite McKay’s efforts at stories of the investment banking insiders — conveying, for example, the grief driving Baum’s including fund managers Michael righteousness. But The Big Short THE BIG SHORT has a snappy energy that turns Burry (Christian Bale) and Mark Baum (Steve Carell) — who saw the Rated R one of the most maddening events Directed by Adam McKay mortgage collapse coming as early in recent history into something Starring Steve Carell, Christian as 2005, and began to realize how where all the greedy pieces sudBale, Ryan Gosling much the game was rigged. denly make sense — even the The subject is, of course, an greedy pieces who are, theoreticalinsanely convoluted one — full of arcane banking ly, our protagonists, as we’re reminded that being terminology and horrible behavior by banks, right about this Jenga-unstable situation means government regulatory agencies and bond-rating real economic pain for real people. companies — that resulted in a cascade of bankIt’s more effective than any documentary rupt businesses, lost savings and unemployment. when you can describe a gathering of the kind of McKay, however, refuses to turn it into a parade people who facilitated this crisis as “like someone of somber finger-wagging. hit a piñata full of white guys who suck at golf.” n
AIRWAY H EIGHTS
10117 W State Rt 2 • 509-232-0444
Visit our website for listings and showtimes spokanemovies.com
WANDERMERE
12622 N Division • 509-232-7727
Searchable by Movie, by Theater, or Time
Visit our website for listings and showtimes spokanemovies.com
DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 39
Retro-revivalist Brian Setzer gives those holiday tunes an energetic spin By Dan Nailen
B
eing inundated with the sounds of the season every time you leave the house or turn on a TV or radio can make even the jolliest among us long for the day after Christmas, when Rudolph, Frosty and all grandma-crushing reindeer are retired until next year. Spokane and the city’s neighbors might want to consider just one extra day of fala-las and rum-pum-pum-pums this year, as rockabilly and swing revivalist Brian Setzer is bringing his 18-piece band to town Dec. 26 to explore a slew of holiday classics and originals in the distinct retro style the Brian Setzer Orchestra has mastered over the past couple of decades. And they’ll bring a show full of songs from a brand-new Christmas album, Rockin’ Rudolph, that’s tasteful enough to make you remember Christmas tunes don’t have to be saccharine or schmaltzy.
Brian Setzer comes to Spokane the day aftter Christmas touting his holiday tunes.
40 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
Thank the frontman for that. Setzer is undeniably one cool cat, one of the best guitar players on the planet and a mean singer, too. As leader of the Stray Cats in the early ’80s, he essentially reintroduced America to rockabilly music, using a new medium (videos) and new channel (MTV) to turn a whole lot of middle-America kids into fans of classic, gritty American rock music rooted in the blues. A decade later, he helped launch the “swing” fad — we’re still feeling the repercussions of that one — with his Brian Setzer Orchestra bigband sound, full of blasting horns and led by his scorching
Five Killer Brian Setzer Christmas Rave-Ups • “Yabba-Dabba Yuletide” • “’Zat You Santa Claus?” • “Santa Drives a Hot Rod” • “Dig That Crazy Santa Claus” • “Run Rudolph Run”
guitar leads. He started dabbling in amped-up versions of Christmas tunes with 2002’s Boogie Woogie Christmas and continued with 2005’s Dig That Crazy Christmas as a means to give his band a reason to go on tour between albums of original music. The sweaty, rocking Christmas tours he leads are some fine counterprogramming to the elevatormusic trappings of Mannheim Steamroller or metal bombast of Trans-Siberian Orchestra. “These are great songs,” Setzer said in a record-label Q&A when he released Rockin’ Rudolph this fall. “It doesn’t matter if they are holiday songs or when they were written, they are just great songs. The trick is to make them sound hip, and some of them are eternally hip, you know? You don’t have to do too much.” Among the songs on the album, you can find a rockabilly version of “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” called,
appropriately, “Rockabilly Rudolph.” There’s a wickedly complex take on “Carol of the Bells,” with Setzer layering 32 guitars as substitutes for familiar rounds of vocals. “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” gets the full big-band jazz treatment and skips the vocals altogether, while songs like “Here Comes Santa Claus” and “Most Wonderful Time of the Year” will be instantly familiar through their traditional presentations. The strangest song of the lot? That would be “Yabba-Dabba Yuletide,” in which Setzer pairs some new lyrics he penned to the familiar Flintstones theme. “I was jet-lagged laying in bed in Paris,” Setzer said. “It was probably about 3 am, and I couldn’t sleep. I was just laying there. It was hot. I started singing, ‘Merry, Merry Christmas and a happy holiday to you’ in a Flintstones-themed melody... In the middle of summer, being jet-lagged in Paris. It makes no sense, but that’s how it happens sometimes.” Setzer’s Christmas shows are bombastic performances befitting his big-band orchestra, and while he’ll have to skip some favorites from past years in order to incorporate selections from the new album, he’s excited for the band to tear into new songs like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” the first song on the new set and an arrangement he’s particularly proud of. “You know it’s the Brian Setzer Orchestra when it comes at you with the crazy chords from the beginning, but you don’t know what song it could be,” Setzer said. “It’s just like chaos, and it sounds like you are stuck in traffic. Then the song comes in, and it’s awesome. I had my way of scuffing it up and making it badass, substituting chords, scuffing about the vocal, and that great guitar solo. I really love the solo.” No doubt, the people at the Fox on Saturday night will, too. n dann@inlander.com Brian Setzer Orchestra with Low Volts • Sat, Dec. 26, at 8 pm • $52/$62/$82 • All-ages • Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox • 1001 W. Sprague • foxtheaterspokane.com • 624-1200
DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 41
music | sound advice
EVENTS NEW YEAR’S EVE
A
t the stroke of midnight, we’re filled with so much hope. As the New Year begins, we kiss our honeys as the fireworks explode, and it seems like we’re on the precipice of something fresh and promising. A great soundtrack solidifies the whole experience. Fortunately, there are a number of live music events taking place on New Year’s Eve next Thursday night (check out the listings below). Here are four in particular that caught our eye. and is $25. Fans get party favors and free champagne at midnight.
Pickwick at the Bartlett
Pickwick is beloved by Spokane’s indie-rock fans; when lead singer Galen Disston unleashes his soultinged voice, local audiences go wild. The show starts at 9 pm; atypically for the Bartlett, it’s for the 21-and-over crowd. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 the day of the show.
Blue Öyster Cult at the Northern Quest Resort & Casino Of course, they’ll play the hits — “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” and “Burnin’ For You” — but the big thing with the Blue Öyster Cult’s NYE hard-rockin’ celebration is that you’re at least getting two of the original band members, unlike many of the nostalgia acts touring these days. The show at the Pend Oreille Pavilion starts at 10:30 pm
J = the inlander RECOMMENDs this show
Christmas Eve
Boomers Classic Rock Bar & Grill, Randy Campbell acoustic show Boots Bakery & Lounge, The Song Project J Bucer’s Coffeehouse Pub, Open Jazz Jam with Erik Bowen Buckhorn Inn, The Spokane River Band J Chaps, Spare Parts Coeur d’Alene Casino, Echo Elysim The Flame, DJ WesOne Mik’s (208-666-0450), DJ Brentano O’Shays Irish Pub & Eatery, Open mic with Adrian and Leo The Roadhouse, Christmas with Sammy Eubanks
Christmas Day
Beverly’s, Robert Vaughn Boomers Classic Rock Bar & Grill, Crybaby Coeur d’Alene Casino, Bill Bozly, Echo Elysium Crave, Stoney Hawk The Flame, DJ Big Mike & DJ Sassy Goodtymes Bar & Grill (92810700, DJ WesOne The Jackson St., Cary Fly Band Nashville North, Luke Jaxon with DJ Tom Northern Quest Casino, DJ Ramsin
42 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
Elton Jah Reunion at Red Room Lounge
You may have thought this breezy music was gone forever, after last year’s final show, but Elton Jah (pictured)— the reggae performer who covers Elton John hits — is back for one night only next Thursday. The show is $5 and starts at 8 pm. Jah, man.
’80s party at Jones Radiator
It’s time to let local DJs Lydellski and Orange Ready escort you back to the 1980s with their synthesizer and punk-heavy tunes. Those showing up in proper era attire get in for free; everyone else pays $5. The whole neon-lovin’ show starts at 9 pm. — LAURA JOHNSON
J = All Ages Show
The Ridler Piano Bar, Dueling Pianos feat. Christan Raxter & Steve Ridler The Roadhouse, Christmas with Sammy Eubanks
Saturday, 12/26
Barlows at Liberty Lake (9241446), Jan Harrison, Doug Folkins, Danny McCollim Beverly’s, Robert Vaughn Black Diamond, DJ Major One Bolo’s, YESTERDAYSCAKE Boomers Classic Rock Bar & Grill, Crybaby J Chaps, Just Plain Darin Coeur d’Alene Casino, Phoenix, Bill Bozly Crave, Stoney Hawk Curley’s, FM The Flame, DJ Big Mike & DJ Sassy Goodtymes Bar & Grill, DJ WesOne J Huckleberry’s Natural Market (624-1349), Guy Caillouet Iron Goat Brewing Co. (4740722), Donand Thomas The Jackson St., DJ Dave La Rosa Club, Open Jam Mik’s, DJ Beatkeeper - Jason Zareski Moose Lounge, The Vibe Raiderz Nashville North, Luke Jaxon with DJ Tom Northern Quest Casino, DJ Ramsin
J The Observatory (598-8933), Fun Ladies, the Smokes, the Holy Cow, Jordan Minnesota Pend d’Oreille Winery, Ron Greene J Pinnacle Northwest, Children of Atom, 37 Street Signs, Project X, Joshua James Belliardo, Deschamp The Ridler Piano Bar, Dueling Pianos feat. Christan Raxter & Steve Ridler J Schweitzer Mountain Resort, Flying Mammals The Roadhouse, Christmas with Sammy Eubanks The Viking Bar & Grill, The Bight, Nobel Gypsies Zola, Tell the Boys
Sunday, 12/27
Coeur d’Alene Casino, Kosh Daley’s Cheap Shots, Jam Night with VooDoo Church Hogfish, Open Jam J Pinnacle Northwest, Bad Penmanship’s 12th feat. Jaeda, Lacs Crew, Kosmos, K.Clifton, Eqmusiq, Estimate, Freetime, Dustykix, D.f.e. and more Zola, Soulful Max Trio
Monday, 12/28
J Calypsos Coffee & Creamery, Open Mic Eichardt’s, Monday Night Jam with
Truck Mills LeftBank Wine Bar, Monday Night Spotlight feat. Carey Brazil J Pinnacle Northwest, Elektro Grave Red Room Lounge, Open Mic with MJ The In-Human Beatbox Zola, Fusbol
Tuesday, 12/29
315 Martinis & Tapas, The Rub Brooklyn Deli & Lounge, Open Mic Fedora Pub & Grille, Tuesday Night Jam with Truck Mills The Jackson St., DJ Dave Jones Radiator, Open Mic of Open-ness Kelly’s Irish Pub, Arvid Lundin & Deep Roots Mik’s, DJ Brentano J Pinnacle Northwest, The Mentors, Toxinaut Swaxx, T.A.S.T.Y with DJs Freaky Fred, Beauflexx Zola, The Bucket List
Wednesday, 12/30 J The Big Dipper, Son of Brad CD Release (Spokane) feat. Winter in June, the Kiarah Perrault Band Eichardt’s, Charley Packard Geno’s Traditional Food & Ales (368-9087), Open Mic with T & T The Jackson St., DJ Dave The Lantern Tap House, DJ Lydell
Litz’s Bar & Grill (327-7092), Nick Grow Lucky’s Irish Pub, DJ D3VIN3 Pinnacle Northwest, DJ Freaky Fred The Ridler Piano Bar, Jam with Steve Ridler Soulful Soups & Spirits, Open mic The Roadhouse, Open mic with Vern Vogel and the Volcanoes Zola, The Bossame
New Year’s Eve
J The Big Dipper, Ryan Levey’s NYE Birthday Bash Bull Head Tavern, NYE with Bobby Bremer Band J Chaps, Spare Parts The Flame, DJ WesOne The Jammer (208-448-9956), Johnny & the Moondogs Laguna Café, Pamela Benton The Lariat Inn, New Year’s Eve feat. Ricks Brothers Loon Lake Saloon (233-2738), Six-Strings n’ Pearls J Red Room Lounge, Elton Jah Reunion Show (See story above for more details) Zola, NYE feat. UpperCut Schweitzer Mountain Resort, New Year’s Eve at Schweitzer feat. Flying Mammals Pend d’Oreille Winery, Ron Criscione
THE CELLAR, Laffin’ Bones COEUR D’ALENE INN, New Year’s Eve feat. The Ryan Larsen Band, Rox Music MAX AT MIRABEAU, New Year’s Ballroom Bash COEUR D’ALENE CASINO, Shiner, Donnie Emerson and Nancy Sophia CRUISERS, New Year’s Eve feat. Thunder Knife, Children of Atom, Pipers Rush
GET LISTED! Submit events online at Inlander.com/getlisted or email relevant details to getlisted@inlander.com. We need the details one week prior to our publication date. DOUBLE TREE HOTEL (455-9600), NYE Eve with Tuxedo Junction Big Band MIK’S, Affaire De Coeur New Year’s Eve Party with DJs Brentano and Kenya THE RIDLER PIANO BAR, NYE party with the Dueling Pianos LION’S LAIR (456-5678), NYE party feat. DJ Darkblood FIZZIE MULLIGANS, Chris Rieser and the Nerve BOLO’S, YESTERDAYSCAKE THE PALOMINO, Masquerade Ball feat. Perfechter Productions USHER’S CORNER SALOON (4820700), NYE feat. Armed &
Dangerous BOOMERS CLASSIC ROCK BAR & GRILL, Kostapalooza THE BARTLETT, New Year’s Eve with Pickwick (See story on facing page) CHECKERBOARD BAR, Masquerade New Years Celebration COEUR D’ALENE CASINO, PJ Destiny CURLEY’S, Tell the Boys IRON HORSE BAR, JamShack JOHN’S ALLEY, NYE feat. Flying Mammals JONES RADIATOR, ‘80s party feat. DJ Lydellski, DJ Orange (See story on facing page) KNITTING FACTORY, NYE Party feat. Invasive, Over Sea Under Stone, Broken Identity, Zaq Flanery NASHVILLE NORTH, NYE with Kristy from American Young, Luke Jaxon and more PINNACLE NORTHWEST, NYE Masquerade Ball feat. DJ Felon and more RAZZLE’S BAR & GRILL (208) 6355872, Bad Monkey RED LION HOTEL AT THE PARK, New Year’s Eve with the Cronkites SPOKANE AIRPORT RAMADA INN (838-5211), Bobby Patterson and The Fat Tones THE ROADHOUSE, Cowboy Boot Ball New Year’s feat. Steve Starkey and more THE HIVE, New Year’s Eve Ball feat. The London Souls NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, New Year’s Eve with Blue Öyster Cult
(See story on facing page)
Coming Up ...
MIK’S, DJ Beatkeeper - Jason Zareski, Jan.1- 2 ZOLA, Uppercut, Jan. 1-2 BISTANGO MARTINI LOUNGE, GRE3NE/Ron Greene, Jan. 1 BOOMERS CLASSIC ROCK BAR & GRILL, Kostapalooza, Jan. 1-2 FIZZIE MULLIGANS, Chris Rieser and the Nerve, Jan. 1-2 BOLO’S, YESTERDAYSCAKE, Jan. 1-2 THE SHOP, Daniel Hall, Jan. 2 THE BARTLETT, HIP HOP NIGHT Ryker Management Presents: Progress Report feat. Lou Era, Yodi Mac, All Day Trey, Ceez Carter, Ivy Team, Jan. 2 THE BIG DIPPER, Monarch EP release feat. 1Tribe, Flannel Math Animal, Nate Stratte, Jan. 2 ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, Fireside Music Series: Evan Denlinger, Jan. 7 THE VIKING BAR & GRILL, Stepbrothers, Jan. 8 ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, Fireside Music Series: Spare Parts Duo, Jan. 8 THE BIG DIPPER, The first Spokane Songwriter’s Festival feat. the Marco Polo Collective, Bradford Little, the Way Home, Andy Rumsey, Nate Greenburg, Paul Abner and more, Jan. 8 MULLIGAN’S BAR & GRILLE, GRE3NE/ Ron Greene, Jan. 8 THE BARTLETT, Bristol album release,
Jan. 8 THE BARTLETT, Silver Torches, Young in the City, Jan. 9 PANIDA THEATER, NuJack City, Jan. 9 THE BIG DIPPER, Seassionz Smooth Jazz feat. Heather Simmons, Jan. 9 THE BARTLETT, Car Seat Headrest, Jan. 11 THE BIG DIPPER, Stevie Lynne and Matt Bednarsky & Alyssa Prime, Jan. 15 KNITTING FACTORY, The Devil Makes Three and Miss Lonely Hearts, Jan. 15 KNITTING FACTORY, Hell’s Belles (an all-female tribute to AC/DC), Invasive, Elephant Gun Riot, Jan. 16 KNITTING FACTORY, Latin Lockdown feat. Capone-E, Down aka Kilo and more, Jan. 17 THE BIG DIPPER, The Dru Heller Trio, Jan. 20 THE BIG DIPPER, Kevin Brown and the Below Country, Jan. 22 THE BARTLETT, Hey Marseilles, Jan. 22 KNITTING FACTORY, Tribal Seeds, the Skints, the Steppas, Jan. 23 THE BARTLETT, Mama Doll, Moorea Masa, Jan. 29 THE BIG DIPPER, GS3 Dark Days of Winter Celebration, Jan. 29 THE BIG DIPPER, Son of Brad Spokane CD release party feat. Winter in June and the Kiarah Perrault Band, Jan. 30 THE BARTLETT, Kris Orlowski, Jan. 30 KNITTING FACTORY, Infected Mushroom, Jan. 30
“Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. All the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, with everyone calm and comfortable because The Tin Roof had just been there. A new Flexsteel sofa for the family room in its place, and an Amish dining table with seating for 12 (for extra guests just in case). The bedroom was glistening with a stylish new look, complete with a beautiful chaise for Mom to read her favorite book. When Santa arrived a huge smile came over his face, so he pulled up a chair, and slowed his fast pace. And we heard him exclaim as he left for the night, “What a comfortable home, they got it just right!” Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from everyone at The Tin Roof!
www.TinRoofFurniture.com Closed December 24 - 25
MUSIC | VENUES 315 MARTINIS & TAPAS • 315 E. Wallace, CdA • 208-667-9660 ARBOR CREST • 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd. • 927-9463 BABY BAR • 827 W. First Ave. • 847-1234 THE BARTLETT • 228 W. Sprague Ave. • 747-2174 BIG BARN BREWING • 16004 N. Applewood Ln, Mead • 238-2489 THE BIG DIPPER • 171 S. Washington St. • 863-8098 BIGFOOT PUB • 9115 N. Division St. • 467-9638 BING CROSBY THEATER • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • 227-7638 BLACK DIAMOND • 9614 E. Sprague • 891-8357 BOLO’S• 116 S. Best Rd. • 891-8995 BOOMERS • 18219 E. Appleway Ave. • 755-7486 BOOTS BAKERY & LOUNGE • 24 W. Main Ave. • 703-7223 BUCER’S COFFEEHOUSE PUB • 201 S. Main, Moscow • 208-882-5216 BUCKHORN INN • 13311 Sunset Hwy.• 244-3991 CALYPSOS • 116 E Lakeside Ave., CdA • 208665-0591 THE CELLAR • 317 E. Sherman, CdA • 208-6649463 CHAPS • 4237 Cheney-Spokane Rd. • 624-4182 CHATEAU RIVE • 621 W. Mallon Ave. • 795-2030 CHECKERBOARD BAR • 1716 E. Sprague • 535-4007 COEUR D’ALENE CASINO • 37914 S. Nukwalqw Rd., Worley • 800-523-2464 COEUR D’ALENE CELLARS • 3890 N. Schreiber Way, CdA • 208-664-2336 CRAFTED TAP HOUSE • 523 Sherman Ave., CdA • 208-292-4813 CRAVE• 401 W. Riverside Suite 101. • 321-7480 CRUISERS • 6105 W Seltice Way, Post Falls • (208) 773-4706 CURLEY’S • 26433 W. Hwy. 53 • 208-773-5816 DALEY’S • 6412 E. Trent • 535-9309 EICHARDT’S • 212 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208263-4005 FEDORA PUB • 1726 W. Kathleen, CdA • 208765-8888 FIZZIE MULLIGANS • 331 W. Hastings Rd. • 466-5354 THE FLAME • 2401 E. Sprague Ave. • 534-9121 THE FOXHOLE• 829 E. Boone • 315-5327 FOX THEATER • 1001 W. Sprague • 624-1200 GRANDE RONDE CELLARS • 906 W. 2nd • 455-8161 HANDLEBARS • 12005 E. Trent, Spokane Valley • 309-3715 HOGFISH • 1920 E. Sherman, CdA • 208-667-1896 IRON HORSE • 407 E. Sherman Ave., CdA • 208-667-7314 THE JACKSON ST. • 2436 N. Astor • 315-8497 JOHN’S ALLEY • 114 E. 6th, Moscow • 208-8837662 JONES RADIATOR • 120 E. Sprague • 747-6005 KNITTING FACTORY • 911 W. Sprague Ave. • 244-3279 LAGUNA CAFÉ • 4302 S. Regal St. • 448-0887 THE LANTERN TAP HOUSE • 1004 S. Perry St. • 315-9531 THE LARIAT • 11820 N Market St, Mead • 4669918 LA ROSA CLUB • 105 S. First Ave., Sandpoint • 208-255-2100 LEFTBANK WINE BAR • 108 N. Washington • 315-8623 LUCKY’S IRISH PUB • 408 W. Sprague Ave. • 747-2605 MAX AT MIRABEAU • 1100 N. Sullivan Rd. • 924-9000 MOOTSY’S • 406 W. Sprague • 838-1570 NASHVILLE NORTH • 6361 W. Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208-457-9128 NECTAR• 120 N. Stevens St. • 869-1572 NORTHERN RAIL PUB • 5209 N. Market • 487-4269 NORTHERN QUEST • 100 N. Hayford • 242-7000 NYNE • 232 W. Sprague Ave. • 474-1621 THE SHOP • 924 S. Perry St. • 534-1647 O’SHAY’S • 313 E. CdA Lake Dr. • 208-667-4666 THE PALOMINO • 6425 N Lidgerwood St • 242-8907 PEND D’OREILLE WINERY • 301 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-265-8545 PINNACLE NORTHWEST • 412 W. Sprague • 368-4077 RED LION RIVER INN • 700 N. Division St. • 326-5577 RED ROOM LOUNGE • 521 W. Sprague Ave. • 838-7613 REPUBLIC BREWING • 26 Clark Ave. • 775-2700 THE RIDLER PIANO BAR • 718 W. Riverside . • 822-7938 THE ROADHOUSE • 20 N. Raymond • 413-1894 SEASONS OF COEUR D’ALENE • 209 E. Lakeside Ave. • 208-664-8008 THE SHOP • 924 S. Perry St. • 534-1647 SOULFUL SOUPS & SPIRITS • 117 N. Howard St. • 459-1190 SPOKANE ARENA • 720 W. Mallon • 279-7000 SULLIVAN SCOREBOARD • 205 N Sullivan Rd • 891-0880 SWAXX • 23 E. Lincoln Rd. • 703-7474 TAMARACK • 912 W Sprague • 315-4846 THE VIKING • 1221 N. Stevens St. • 315-4547 ZOLA • 22 W. Main Ave. • 624-2416
DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 43
PERFORMANCE MOVIN’ AND SHAKIN’
Shaping Sound, a dance show that came through the INB Performing Arts Center this fall, already proved what So You Think You Can Dance alums are capable of creating. Next week, the show’s most recent batch of Top 10 dancers get to show off their moves from this summer’s season 12. Spokane is just one stop of 70, and as the reality program hasn’t yet been renewed for another season, this could potentially be the final SYTYCD tour. See them now. You never know which of this year’s highly talented crew will go on to be the next Emmy-winning choreographer or go-to Lady Gaga backup dancer. — LAURA JOHNSON So You Think You Can Dance Season 12 Tour • Mon, Dec. 28, at 7 pm • $29.50-$65 • INB Performing Arts Center • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • inbpac.com • 279-7000
FOOD NEW YEAR’S NOSH
Similar to Southerners eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day for good luck, the Japanese culture enjoys a tasty rice cake called mochi to celebrate the start of a new year. Traditionally prepared as a New Year’s decoration, kagami mochi consists of two round cakes, one stacked on the other, said to each symbolize the going and coming years. Mochi is a sticky, chewy and sweet treat, due to the way the glutinous rice flour is pounded into a paste mixed with water. — CHEY SCOTT 2nd Annual Mochi Festival • Sun, Dec. 27, from 11 am-3 pm • $4-$8 per item • Spokane Buddhist Temple • 927 S. Perry • spokanebuddhisttemple.org • 534-7954
44 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
HOCKEY I-90 BATTLE
After a few days of snuggly, warm, cozy holidays at home with the family, why not cleanse your palate of all that fluffy stuff with some hard-hitting, fast-skating rivalry hockey? The Seattle Thunderbirds cross the state for a game at the Spokane Arena against the Chiefs on Sunday night, and you can cheer yourself back into tough-ass mode as the New Year approaches. Bonus: it’s Coeur d’Alene Casino Buck Night, so hot dogs, Fudgsicles and sodas are just $1. — MIKE BOOKEY Spokane Chiefs vs. Seattle Thunderbirds • Sun, Dec. 27, at 5:05 pm • $10-$22 • Spokane Arena • 720 W. Mallon • ticketswest.com
GET LISTED!
Submit events online at Inlander.com/getlisted or email related details to getlisted@inlander.com.
LOUNGE
“
BOBBY PATTERSON AND THE
FAT TONES ” Bring in the
New Year 2016
THREE GREAT PACKAGES $
CELEBRATION FIRST NIGHT
Well, somehow 2015 snuck right past us and it’s time to kick it to the curb and welcome its much cooler sibling, 2016, to town in style with the annual mega-fete First Night Spokane. The family-friendly night includes everything from a 5K run to a fireworks show to, for the first year ever, a juried art show at the Kress Gallery in River Park Square. That’s just a sliver of the more than 150 events happening throughout the downtown Spokane area and one button gets you entry to all of them. — MIKE BOOKEY
CALL FOR DETAILS
79.99-$199.99 cover charge $5.00 without package
Spokane Airport Call for Package details
509-838-5211
First Night Spokane • Thu, Dec. 31, starting at 7 pm • $15-$18 • Downtown Spokane • For a complete schedule of events, tickets and more, visit firstnightspokane.org
ARTS CREATIVE COLLECTIVE
If the kids already are getting bored and restless, and the relatives are starting to wear you thin, pack up those adult coloring books, sketchpads, pencils and paintbrushes and head to the monthly Spokane Social Sketch meetup, always held the last Sunday of the month. Organized by notable local artist Tiffany Patterson, the group regularly draws professional and amateur artists of all skills and ages to collaborate on and experiment with art in a casual setting. Don’t feel intimidated if a stick figure is the best you’ve got, either. Art is for everyone and has broad benefits, from relieving stress to firing up the creative side of your brain. — CHEY SCOTT
I SAW YOU CHEERS & JEERS Submit your message at Inlander.com/ISawYou
Spokane Social Sketch • Sun, Dec. 27, from 2-5 pm • Free • All-ages • Boots Bakery & Lounge • 24 W. Main • facebook.com/socialsketching
SpokaneSymphony_Events_122415_8V_GG.tifDECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 45
W I SAW U YOU
RS RS
CHEERS JEERS
&
I SAW YOU ANDYS BARTENDER You said your name is Jackie. I just want to let you know you're absolutely gorgeous. We talked. We had a moment. Let's have brunch? — Chi SEAHAWKS YUK I saw you, now all I do is see you in my dreams. I know I'll never have a chance; we are from more than opposite sides of the tracks, fence, social class, opposite sides of the cell. I am more than glad I met you thank you you have changed me and helped me to find my self my real self I thought I lost forever. Even though your choice of football teams sucks, you will always be the coolest. Maybe in another lifetime. Hopefully in the next life. TO SAASHA ROSE GARVIN The day I quit using does not really matter much to me anymore, but it was the day I looked into my mother's eyes a and saw a wave of peace come over her eyes. Now I see what you meant about the small things in life can mean more and should not be taken for granted. (Sorry for all the times I took you for granted.) Saasha Rose you will always be a big part of my life no matter how far or close you are. Happy late 27th birthday, sorry I forgot it. I hope you have a Merry Christmas, and all your wishes come true. Love Always David Lee JEEP WITH WSU PLATES Sunday Dec. 6, the evening service at Life Center. You sat in the back by yourself in your grey rain boots. I came in late and sat at the other end of the row from you. We
had apparently parked near each other, as after the service I walked out to my truck just a little ways behind you. I think you got into a silver (?) Jeep with WSU plates. I'm sad I didn't say hello and ask how you resist jumping in every puddle you see with those boots on! I've looked for you the last couple of weeks at the evening service, but nothing. If you see this, maybe I'll run into you there again?
I SAW YOU RED DREADS You saw me, my red dreads a birds nest atop my head, in my best attempt to keep the crazy under control. You have seen me at my worst and at my best. You have given it all to our beautiful children and me. You are my better half. The life I share with you is better than anything I could have asked or hoped for in this life. Let's do that coffee date and maybe we can grab a watermelon to share in a gas station parking lot? I love you, my blue eyed beauty.
CHEERS HAPPY BIRTHDAY CODY Cody, May your birthday bring you as much joy as you everyday bring to others' lives. From the day that I met you, you spend your life in a caring and loving way. You are a shining star among us. May you find love, joy and happiness in your years to come. Love you to the moon and back. K A HEARTFELT THANK YOU CHEERS to all who were there for me when my husband passed away. There was always kind words, phone calls to check on me and visits. There were those who came and did yard work or cleared my walkways, not to mention the food that was brought to me. There were volunteers who were there to give me needed rides and volunteers who were there for home or auto repairs. Oh yes, CHEERS to the man who gave me $5 for groceries because I let him go ahead of me in line. Plus CHEERS for my family who gave 150%. I am so grateful and hope I can be there for all who were there for me. Jan SWEET TIKI My love! It's been almost 6 years since we got together as teens and seeing you is still the best part of my day. I'm so impressed with how hard you work and I'm so proud to be your girlfriend! You are so sweet and kind to
me and you make me so happy. Thank you for everything you do! Crow HELLO BATMAN Glad you understood my message. Your reply was perfect. I am still waiting for my handyman. Enter the batcave and take off your cape. Your birthday present awaits. Loving you through another year of waiting. Your
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46 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
INCONSIDERATE, DANGEROUS DRIVER To the man with a beard & knit type hat on in a blue older model sports car with a large white stripe that was on the
BOYS IN A BUBBLE They're just trying to shove multiculturalism down our throats! These were the words of a group of well-dressed young men smoking in the street. The worry is that they will have to take time out of their nightly drinking binges to learn more about the world during the daylight hours. There are jobs where it does comes in handy
I know you people need signs to remind you to yield to pedestrians, but come on! Slow down for the guy with the limp, please.
Batgirl
JEERS MILLWOOD DRIVERS Sometimes, I take the 94 bus home from work and cross the street at Argonne and Knox. I am really tired of people almost running me over when I get about a third of the way across the street. Valley drivers spend half the year going 10 miles below the speed limit on safe, dry roads. They'll sit at green lights for up to 8 seconds before they finally go. They take forever to change lanes or make turns. Unless I'm on foot, apparently. Then they're suddenly in such a hurry that they will run right over anyone who needs more than three seconds to get off their half of the road. I know you people need signs to remind you to yield to pedestrians, but come on! Slow down for the guy with the limp, please. IRRESPONSIBLE DRIVER Situation: the driver in front of you was trying to pull out of the parking lot and I was trying to pull out of a parking lot across the street. He and I got an opportunity and took it, but but you didn't stop like you should have, and instead took off like your being behind him meant you had made a proper stop causing me to almost t-bone your car. You had kids in that car! If you're going to drive at all, let alone with kids, please drive prop-
SOUND OFF 1. Visit Inlander.com/isawyou by 3 pm Monday. 2. Pick a category (I Saw You, You Saw Me, Cheers or Jeers). 3. Provide basic info: your name and email (so we know you’re real). 4. To connect via I Saw You, provide a non-identifying email to be included with your submission — like “petals327@yahoo.com,” not “j.smith@comcast.net.”
#wtbevents
erly and safely. Especially with snow and water on the road. I hate to think what could have happened if it turned out differently.
— MILLWOOD DRIVERS freeway by Argonne exit headed east on Friday the 18th at 11:15 am. Who are you to take other peoples' destiny in your hands? You sped past me on the right & swerved in front of me just as a person in the left lane signaling was getting over also. Luckily you swerved & didn't cause an accident. If you would have collided with that car I would have hated to think of the pile up there would have been & lives lost. Please, please everyone be courteous & conscientious drivers. Our well-being depends on it. DOG WALKERS - THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A POOP FAIRY! To the man who brings his dog twice a day to poop in the grassy area at 33rd and Cook — please pick up after your dog. And to all dog walkers who fail to pick up after their dog: picking up their poop — no matter where they leave it — is YOUR responsibility. It doesn't just go away! STAR SNORED The Star Wars Marathon. The hum of the light sabers seemed unusually loud in the theater. Turns out it was just the snoring people next to me. Somebody paid money and drove through the snow just so they could set in for a short winters nap. I planned ahead with my money, time, and travel. Thus, I stayed awake for all the movies that I wanted to see. Save the seats for people that can take the punishment and just stay home. Or next time I'll bring the warm water and the permanent marker.
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to learn about other cultures. I come from three different cultural backgrounds and the more I know the better my life becomes. Different colors, religions, and ideas make this world interesting. The word minority doesn't mean what it used to. The word culture doesn't either. Don't get left behind. CHRISTMAS LIGHT THIEVES Perhaps you are too young to realize the negative karma you've brought upon yourselves, so maybe try this. Don't spray paint or damage the led display lights to make them look old or whatever, use and display them prominently and enjoy them this season, then just let them reappear in our yard after the holiday season. If you see this, please act to change your future, you don't need Santa to keep you on the naughty list. Happy Holidays
THIS WEEK'S ANSWERS
NOTE: I Saw You/Cheers & Jeers is for adults 18 or older. The Inlander reserves the right to edit or reject any posting at any time at its sole discretion and assumes no responsibility for the content.
EVENTS | CALENDAR
BENEFIT
SOAP FOR HOPE As you return from holiday travels or venture to clean your bathroom cabinets this winter, AAA invites you to gather unused toiletry items to donate; hotel shampoos, conditioners, soap, extra unused toothbrushes or razors. Donations are accepted through the end of the year and will be distributed to local social serivce nonprofits. Spokane AAA, 1314 S. Grand Blvd. (358-6900) PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ After the Symphony’s New Year’s Eve concert, ring in the new year at the annual gala hosted by the Spokane Symphony Associates in support of the orchestra. Includes live entertainment by Master Class Jazz Orchestra, hors d’oeuvres, door prizes, late night fare, midnight champagne toast and more. Dec. 31, 9 pm-1 am. $85/ person. Davenport Hotel, 10 S. Post St. spokanesymphony.org (800-899-1482) A REASON FOR FREEZEN A fundraiser event before/after/during the Polar Bear Plunge at Lake CdA. Attendees of the plunge are invited to bring donated items to Sander’s Beach, including warm socks, hats and gloves to donate to the Coeur d’Alene St. Vincent de Paul warming center. Jan. 1, 10:30 am. on.fb. me/1mfdYNK (208-415-0116)
COMEDY
GUFFAW YOURSELF Open mic comedy night; every other Thursday at 10 pm. Free. Neato Burrito, 827 W. First Ave. facebook.com/pages/NeatoBurrito/115509695145435 (847-1234) STAND-UP OPEN MIC Local comedians; see weekly schedule online. Thursdays at 8 pm. Free. Uncle D’s Comedy Underground, 2721 N. Market St. bluznews.com (483-7300) STAND-UP COMEDY Live comedy featuring established and up-andcoming local comedians. Fridays at 8 pm. No cover. Red Dragon Chinese, 1406 W. Third. (838-6688) SAFARI Fast-paced short-form improv games based on audience suggestions. (Not rated.) Saturdays at 9 pm. $7. Blue Door Theatre, 815 W. Garland Ave. bluedoortheatre.com (747-7045) STAND-UP OPEN MIC Mondays; signup at 9:30 pm, show at 10 pm. Ages 21+. No cover. The Foxhole, 829 E. Boone. facebook.com/thefoxholespokane TRIVIA + OPEN MIC COMEDY Trivia starts at 8 pm; stick around for open mic comedy afterward. Tuesdays, from 8-10 pm. Free. Checkerboard Bar, 1716 E. Sprague Ave. checkerboardbar.com (509-535-4007)
COMMUNITY
CAMPBELL HOUSE HOLIDAYS The historic mansion at the MAC is decorated for Christmas and open for visitors to explore at their own pace (no formal tours). Also includes an activity, craft and four living history interpreters on site. Dec. 23-24, 26-27, 30-31 and Jan. 1-2, from 12-4 pm (until 3 pm on Dec. 24). $5-$10 museum admission. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931) JOURNEY TO THE NORTH POLE Daily, 40-minute evening cruises on Lake Coeur d’Alene offer views of the CdA Resort’s annual Holiday Lights Show, and includes a visit to Santa’s Workshop. Through Jan. 3, departing nightly at 5:30, 6:30
and 7:30 pm. $6/ages 6-12; free/ages 5 and under; $19.75/seniors (55+); $20.75/ adults. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdacruises.com (208-765-4000) SPOKANE WINTER GLOW SPECTACULAR The second annual holiday light display throughout Riverfront Park, free and open to the public nightly at 5 pm, through Jan. 1. Riverfront Park, 705 N. Howard. (625-6601) WINTER ENCAMPMENT A modern interpretation of traditional winter lodging, food and activities of the CdA Tribe. Enjoy the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s tradition of oral history as Cultural Director Quanah Matheson tells the story of the Coeur d’ Alene’s winter activities. A lighting shows also features tribal music, more than 15 teepees and 50 animals. Through Jan. 2, Fri-Sat, from 7-9 pm. Free. Coeur d’Alene Casino, 37914 S Hwy 95. cdacasino.com (800-523-2464) MODEL RAILROAD OPEN HOUSE Bring the family to see one of the region’s largest model train layouts. Dec. 26, 1-6 pm. Free. Evergreen Model Railroad Club, 18213 E. Appleway Ave. (939-5845) COOL CAMP An extension of Spokane Valley’s Parks & Rec’s summer day camp program, aimed at keeping kids engaged in creative and healthy activities during the long winter break. Dec. 28-31, from 8 am-5 pm. For ages 6-11. Day and week rates available. $33-$100. CenterPlace Regional Event Center, 2426 N. Discovery Place Dr. (688-0300) MOBIUS WINTER BREAK CAMPS Head to Mobius for fun learning and exploration during winter break camps themed around marbles, elves, rockets and other things that you can launch and more. Dec. 29; times vary. $20-$25/ session. Mobius Children’s Museum, 808 W. Main. mobiusspokane.org (321-7121) SCHOOL’S OUT SCIENCE Mobius Science Center hosts four science-based exploration day camps, for grades 2-4, to explore the universe, crime scenes, projectiles and biology dissection. Dec. 29-30. Times and camp themes vary. $20$25/session. Mobius Science Center, 811 W. Main. mobiusspokane.org (321-7133) WEE MAC EXPLORATION SESSIONS The MAC revives its pre-K museum educational exploration sessions, with activities to foster exploration and social development in prep for Kindergarten. Kids and a parent will engage in art activities and viewing, discover walks, songs, story time and more. Tuesdays from 9:30-11:30 am. For kids ages 4-5. $5/two people. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (456-3931) CDA NEW YEAR’S EVE CELEBRATIONS The New Year’s celebration includes two fireworks shows, at 8 pm and again at midnight, over the lake at the Resort. Also attend a Great Gatsby-themed party (all-ages until 9 pm) at the Resort Convention Center, with tickets from $15-$75. There are also family lake cruises ($20/person), adult cruises ($25/ person, 21+) and dessert cruises ($25$35) during the fireworks show. Dec. 31. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdaresort.com (208-765-4000) GLOW NEW YEAR Hosted by the Negative Split/Glow Run folks, a NYE event all about glowing bright, with a mechanical bull, live DJ, dancing and more. Dec. 31, 8 pm. $17-$27. Spokane Convention Center, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. nsplit.com (279-7000) INVENTION CONNECTION A family friendly NYE event with staff on site to help you imagine and create inventions
with Little Bits, Legos, Arduino, Minecraft and more. Dec. 31, 5-8 pm. Free. Spark Center, 1214 W. Summit Parkway. sparkwestcentral.org NEW YEAR’S EVE FAMILY CELEBRATION Spokane Public Library branches host a family NYE event to ring in the new year without having to stay up late. Includes stories, crafts, a countdown and more. For families and kids of all ages. At the Indian Trail, Shadle and South Hill branches. Dec. 31, 11 am-noon. Free. South Hill Library, 3324 S. Perry St. spokanelibrary.org (444-5331) FREE STATE PARKS DAY As part of the Discover Pass legislation, residents are offered access to any state park without needing a Discover Pass. Includes access locally to Riverside and Mount Spokane State Parks. Upcoming free days: Jan. 1, Jan. 17-18, March 19, March 26, April 22, May 8. Free. Riverside State Park, Spokane. parks.wa.gov BEER FLOW YOGA Local yoga instructor Lily Fife hosts her monthly yoga + beer class at Perry Street Brewing, a gentle yoga flow followed by beers and socializing at the brewery. Arrive early to save a spot/sign waiver. Jan. 2, 10:45 am. $15. Perry Street Brewing, 1025 S. Perry St. on.fb.me/1QDafGQ (509-279-2820) CHRISTMAS TREE RECYCLING Offered by Boy Scout Troop 400. Drop off your natural tree for recycling for a $5 donation requested. We will also come pick up your tree (within 15 minutes of CVHS) for a $10 donation requested. Visit our website to schedule tree pickup. All proceeds benefit the troop. Jan. 2-3 and 9-10, 9 am-3 pm. $5-$10. Central Valley High School, 821 S. Sullivan Rd. troop400.net/trees (927-6848) FROZEN: A SING-ALONG PARTY Kick off the new year with Friends Of the Bing and local, award-winning musician Nicole Lewis as Elsa, along with Olaf, Kristoff and friends. Jan. 2-3, at 2 pm. $20/ adults; $15/kids. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. bingcrosbytheater.com (509-227-7404) JUST PLAY Come to the library for a community playdate, with favorite toys and activities from the Play & Learn Storytimes to enjoy. For children ages 0-5; children must bring an adult. Jan. 5, Feb. 2 and March 1, from 10:30 am-12:30 pm Free. Medical Lake Library, 3212 Herb St. (893-8330) PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL INFO NIGHT A meeting offering information on Brilliance Charter Academy of Math Literacy, a proposed K-6 public charter school planned to open Sept. 2017. Jan. 5, 6-7:30 pm. Free. Post Falls Library, 821 N. Spokane St. (208-691-5617) JUST PLAY Come to the library for a community playdate, with favorite toys and activities from the Play & Learn Storytimes to enjoy. For children ages 0-5; children must bring an adult. Jan. 5, 4-6 pm. Free. Fairfield Library, 305 E. Main St. (509-893-8320) EXPLORING HUMAN ORIGINS: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HUMAN? The Smithsonian’s national traveling exhibit invites audiences to discover what we know about human evolution and how we know it. Visitors may view replicas and images from the Smithsonian’s popular human origins exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History. Experience more than 40 educational panels, interactive kiosks, hands-on displays, videos, 3D skull casts, and a large reproduction bronze statue. Jan. 5-Feb. 2, open daily from 10 am-6 pm. Free. North Spokane Library, 44 E.
Hawthorne Rd. (893-8350)
FESTIVAL
FIRST NIGHT SPOKANE Spokane’s annual New Year’s Eve celebration is a celebration of the performing and visual artists in our community. Admission buttons are on sale as of Nov. 24. See website for more event details as First Night approaches. Dec. 31. $15$18. Riverfront Park, 705 N. Howard. firstnightspokane.org (795-8691)
FILM
SPECTRE A cryptic message from the past sends James Bond on a rogue mission to Mexico City and Rome. Rated PG 13. Dec. 26-27, show times vary. Rated PG 13. $3-$6. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org (208-882-4127) CASABLANCA Achampagne toast to the greatest movie of all time. Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), who owns a nightclub in Casablanca, discovers his old flame Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) is in town with her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid). Laszlo is a famed rebel, and with Germans on his tail, Ilsa knows Rick can help them get out of the country. Dec. 31, 8-9:30 pm. $10. Panida Theater, 300 N. First Ave., Sandpoint. panida.org (208-255-7801) TRUMBO In 1947, Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was Hollywood’s top screenwriter until he and other artists were jailed and blacklisted for their political beliefs. Dalton used words and wit to win two Academy Awards and expose the absurdity and injustice of the blacklist, which entangled everyone from gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) to John Wayne, Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger. Rated R. Jan. 1-3; show times vary. $4-$7. Panida Theater, 300 N. First Ave. panida.org (208-255-7801)
FOOD & DRINK
SERVICE INDUSTRY & VETERANS CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER Employees in the service industry (restaurant/ bar community) are invited for a free Christmas Eve Dinner at 11:30 am and 12:30 pm. Veterans are also welcome to a smoked turkey dinner with all the fixings and figgy pudding. Reservations are required. Dec. 24. The Blackbird Tavern + Kitchen, 905 N. Washington. theblackbirdspokane.com (392-4000) CHRISTMAS DINNER AT THE DAVENPORT Dinner service on Christmas Day is offered at the Palm Court Grille, Safari Room and the Davenport Grand Restaurant & Lounge. Make reservations at 455-8888 or davenporthotel.com. Dec. 25. Prices vary. Davenport Hotel, 10 S. Post St. thedavenporthotel.com NO-LI BREWHOUSE TOURS See what goes on behind the scenes and how NoLi’s beer is made. Fridays at 4:30 pm. Free. No-Li Brewhouse, 1003 E. Trent Ave. nolibrewhouse.com (242-2739) MOCHIFEST The temple celebrates the beginning of a new year by offering traditional Japanese rice cakes for sale to the public, with dine-in and to-go orders available. Dec. 27, 11 am-3 pm. $4-$7. Spokane Buddhist Temple, 927 S. Perry. spokanebuddhisttemple.org (534-7954) NEW YEAR’S EVE MASQUERADE A masquerade party with prizes, drink specials and more. Dec. 31, 10 pm-1 am. Free admission. Steady Flow Growler
House, 328 N. Sullivan Rd. on.fb. me/1PjNdDs (509-598-8297) IVORY TABLE SUPPER CLUB Chef/owner Kristen Ward prepares a 5-course, rustic, French-style meal that features flavors of the season, paired with diverse collection of wines (+$20/person). Reservations required. Dec. 31 [sold out], Feb. 5 and Feb. 14 6-8:30 pm. $50-$65/person. The Ivory Table, 1822 E. Sprague. ivorytable. com/event/new-years-eve (202-2901)
MUSIC
THE BRIAN SETZER ORCHESTRA: CHRISTMAS ROCKS! TOUR The 12th Annual “Christmas Rocks! Tour” hits Spokane the day after Christmas, and comes in support of Brian’s first new studio Christmas album in 10 years, “Rockin’ Rudolph.” Dec. 26, 8 pm. $52$82. Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox, 1001 W. Sprague. foxtheaterspokane.com CHRISTMAS CAROL WALK Hosted by the Spokane Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, the walk takes carolers to three downtown churches, where at each organists perform for community carol singing in a new tradition that began last year. Dec. 26, 2 pm. Free. Central United Methodist Church, 518 W. Third. spokanecentralumc.org (838-1431) NEW YEAR’S EVE BALL The second annual event benefits Angels Over Sandpoint, and features live music by The London Souls. Ages 21+; doors open at 9 pm. Dec. 31, 10 pm. $40. The Hive, 207 N. First St., Sandpoint. livefromthehive.com (208-457-2392) SPOKANE SYMPHONY NYE SPECIAL: BEETHOVEN’S NINTH SYMPHONY The Spokane Symphony and Chorale join the multitudes around the world who celebrate New Year’s Eve with a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Beethoven’s masterpiece is considered by many to be the best and most joyous piece of music ever written, and has become an exciting part of the holiday revelry in downtown Spokane. Dec. 31, 7:30 pm. $16-$28. Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox, 1001 W. Sprague. spokanesymphony.org NORTHWEST SACRED MUSIC CHORAL: A HOLIDAY CHORALE SPECTACULAR The chorale’s winter concert features guest artists Paul Grove and the Crescendo Community Chorus. Jan. 3, 4-5:30 pm. $16-$22. Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 127 E. 12th Ave. nwsmc.org (208-446-2333) PETER RITZEN: A SPIRITUAL ODYSSEE IN MUSIC The pianist/composer presents an exciting program from his extensive repertoire, including Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Franck and Leschetizky. Jan. 9, 3:30 pm. $10-$15. Steinway Piano Gallery, 13418 E. Nora. (327-4266) UNDER THE STREETLAMP A concert celebration of classic hits of the American radio songbook from the 1950s-1970s. Jan. 14, 8 pm. $51-$61. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague. (227-7404) LUIS BRAVO’S FOREVER TANGO A celebration of the passionate music and dance of Argentina, with six world-class Argentine Tango couples, a traditional Argentine 1930s style vocalist and an 11-piece orchestra, featuring the instrument of the tango, the bandoneón, a 19th century German accordion. Features guest artists Anna Trebunskaya and Dmitry Chaplin from “Dancing With the Stars.” Jan. 16, 8 pm. $25-$99. Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox, 1001 W. Sprague. (624-1200)
DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 47
RELATIONSHIPS
Advice Goddess A MAn WAlkS Into A BArnAcle
I’m a 43-year-old man, and I’m trying to build my career after years of being a stay-at-home dad. I got involved very quickly with a woman I met online, but the truth is that she’s just not smart enough for me. I feel bad because she’s very sweet, but I’d rather devote my time to my work. I’ve tried to break up with her numerous times, but she just doesn’t seem to get it. I’ll tell her I really need time to myself, but she’ll still call AMY ALKON incessantly. How do you tell somebody it’s over in a way that is kind but gets through to them? —I’m Done You need “time to yourself”? Great. She can do that. Just call her when you’re ready. No, not on the phone. She’ll be out on your porch in her sleeping bag. Welcome to the rose-colored distorto-vision of being “optimistically biased” — succumbing to the human tendency to see what’s positive instead of what’s realistic. (“What I refuse to believe won’t hurt me!”) We’re especially likely to go happily dumb when our ego is involved. Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers explains in “The Folly of Fools” that we “protect our happiness via self-deception.” We have a “psychological immune system” that works “not by fixing what makes us unhappy but by … minimizing it and lying about it.” Neuroscientist Tali Sharot finds from her brain imaging research that having a distortedly positive view comes out of what she calls “selective updating.” When our brain gets information that things are going to be better than expected, it’s all, “Yes, sir, we’ll send that around.” But information that things will be worse than expected? That gets kicked under the bed — or would if the brain had feet and slept in a bed. There is another possibility here. Even if your girlfriend’s intelligence level leaves you confused about whether to take her to dinner or just water her and put her in indirect sunlight, she may be what I call instinctually smart. Possibly, it’s clear to her that you want to end it but she’s ignoring that in hopes of wearing you down. Regardless of the reason she’s still hanging around, the only way to change that is by telling her that you two are done, using very direct language, like, “I’m sorry, but it’s over between us. I am breaking up with you.” Should she keep contacting you, make it similarly clear that there’s no room at the inn for hope. This is actually the kind way to break up with a refuse-to-believe-er — being momentarily cruel, ideally as soon as you realize it’s over. In other words, putting your girlfriend out of her misery starts with putting her through it — pronto. Keep merely hinting that it’s over and, well, if an asteroid destroyed life on earth as we know it, three things would survive: cockroaches, the Kardashians, and your relationship.
the endeAr hunter
My girlfriend rarely, if ever, calls me by my actual name. Other women I’ve dated have done this, too. It makes me think of that country song that goes, “You don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’.” I’ve come to realize that I’ve been steadily losing interest in my girlfriend, and maybe she senses that. Or could it be something else? Why do women do this — not calling men by their actual names? —Nameless There are times when only your actual name will do — because the alternative is “Hey, Magic Penis, I’m over here…aisle 4!” But, generally speaking, the way people address each other is a statement about the kind of relationship they have. So when the nurse comes into the waiting room with a clipboard, you never hear, “Okay…Poopooface, the doctor will see you now.” A cop, likewise, will not ask, “Do you know how fast you were going, Turtlebutt?” A pet name is part of creating a relationship “culture” — things you do and say that mark the relationship as a distinct little society. (Cutesy handles also tend to, uh, travel better than matching bones through the nose.) Not surprisingly, relationship communication researcher Carol Bruess finds that partners in happy relationships use nicknames more than those in unhappy ones. Referencing previous research, Bruess explains that nickname use both creates intimacy and reflects it. So, it’s possible that your girlfriend’s nicknamery is a ploy — perhaps unconscious — to bring you two closer. (If she talks all cootchie-cuddly-coo, cootchie-cuddly-coo might follow.) But seeing as you have been “steadily losing interest” in your girlfriend, why are you sitting around pondering nickname use? You need to do your part: Inform your girlfriend that the relationshippypoo can no longer breathe on its owniecakes, and that it’s time she started referring to you as her ex-schmoopie — or, better yet, “that asshole” she used to date. n ©2015, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. • Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405 or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com)
48 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
EVENTS | CALENDAR
SPORTS & OUTDOORS
CHRISTMAS AT MT. SPOKANE The mountain runs are open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day from 9 am-4 pm, along with two tube hill sessions on Dec. 24, from 11:30 am-1 pm and 1-2:30 pm. Mt. Spokane Ski & Snowboard Park, 29500 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. mtspokane.com SKI WITH SANTA The Big Man in Red takes a break before the big day to fit in a few runs, with a Balloon Parade on Christmas Eve and carolers in the Village. Dec. 23-24. Schweitzer Mountain Resort, 10,000 Schweitzer Mountain Rd. (208-263-9555) NIGHT SKIING CANNED FOOD DRIVE: Ride the mountain at night for just $4 if you bring two nonperishable food items; otherwise, lift tickets are $15. Dec. 26, 4-8 pm. 49 Degrees North, 3311 Flowery Trail Rd. ski49n.com SPOKANE BADMINTON CLUB Meets Sun, from 4:30-7 pm and Wed, from 7-10 pm. Also meets for beginnerfriendly nights at the HUB Sports Center, 19619 E. Cataldo, Liberty Lake, on Tue, from 7-9 pm. ($5) $8/visit. West Central Community Center, 1603 N. Belt. (869-9229) SPOKANE CHIEFS VS. SEATTLE THUNDERBIRDS Regular season hockey match. Dec. 27, 5:05 pm. $10$22. Spokane Arena, 720 W. Mallon Ave. spokanearena.com (279-7000) SPOKANE TABLE TENNIS CLUB Pingpong club meets Wed from 6:30-9 pm and Sun from 1:30-4:30 pm. $2/visit. Southside Senior & Community Center, 3151 E. 27th Ave. sites.google.com/site/ spokanetabletennisclub/home UGLY SWEATER CONTEST Don the most terrible piece of clothing in your winter wardrobe on this day for a chance to win prizes, and of course, for the impress factor. Dec. 27. Lookout Pass Ski & Recreation Area, I-90 Exit 0. skilookout.com (208-744-1301) SPOKANE TABLE TENNIS Ping-pong club meets Mon and Wed, from 6-9 pm. $3/visit. HUB Sports Center, 19619 E. Cataldo. spokanetabletennis.com NEW YEAR’S EVE AT SCHWEITZER Ring in 2016 on the mountain with live music and entertainment for the whole family, with a big celebration party in Taps. Dec. 31; tickets go on sale for activities on Dec. 1. Dec. 31. Schweitzer Mountain Resort, 10,000 Schweitzer Mountain Rd. (208-263-9555) NYE AT SILVER Celebrate the departure of 2015 with a day of skiing and snowboarding, with the tubing hill open until 6 pm. Then hit up Noah’s to welcome in 2016, or hit up the Silver Rapids Indoor Waterpark for kidfriendly countdown events. Dec. 31. Silver Mountain Ski Resort, 610 Bunker Ave. silvermt.com (208-783-1111) FIRST DAY HIKES A fun yet moderately difficult family snowshoe hike on Trail 130. Meet at 10 am at the snowmobile parking lot. Hosted as part of Washington Star Parks’ statewide event. (A seasonal or one-day SnowPark permit is required for vehicle access to the park.) Jan. 1, 10 am. Mt. Spokane State Park, 26107 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. bit.ly/1Zm3wT4 (509238-2220) FIRST DAY HIKES (RSP) Depending
on snow conditions, this ranger-led hike will either follow the Deep Creek Interpretive Trail or the Centennial Trail. Learn about the natural world of the park and about the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps that built the park in the 1930s. Meet at 1 pm at the Deep Creek parking lot. Held as part of Washington State Parks’ statewide event. Jan. 1, 1 pm. Riverside State Park, Spokane. bit.ly/1Zm3wT4
VISUAL ARTS
17TH SMALL ARTWORKS INVITATIONAL The Art Spirit hosts its 17th annual invitational, featuring works by 37 regional artists and more than 225 new works. Show runs Dec. 4-Jan. 2; open daily (except. Dec. 25) from 11 am-6 pm. Opening reception Dec. 4, 5-8 pm. Mon.-Sun.. through Jan. 2. Art Spirit Gallery, 415 Sherman Ave., CdA. theartspiritgallery.com FIRST NIGHT SPOKANE JURIED ART SHOW First Night Spokane’s annual juried show is on display daily through Dec. 31, and is also open during First Night festivities. Free. Kress Gallery, 808 W. Main. firstnightspokane.org NATURE CONNECTS: LEGO BRICK SCULPTURES The MAC displays 27 giant sculptures created from nearly 500,000 LEGO bricks, created by nationally-renowned, award-winning artist Sean Kenney, the first artist to be named a LEGO Certified Professional. A build-your-own sculpture contest accompanies the exhibit. Through Feb. 7, 2016; gallery hours Wed-Sun, 10 am-5 pm; special holiday hours on Dec. 28-29, 10 am-5 pm. Reguarl museum admission ($5-$10) applies. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First. northwestmuseum.org SAP SMALL WORKS SHOW & SALE Back by popular demand, Saranac members’ Small Works Show & Sale features unusual, interesting and sometimes outrageous artwork. Open through Dec. 31; Thu, 2-6 pm, Fri-Sat, 12-8 pm (closed Dec. 25). Check SAP Facebook for additional holiday hours. Saranac Art Projects, 25 W. Main Ave. saranacartprojects.wordpress.com SPOKANE JEWELERS GUILD The gallery’s December guests artists are members of the Spokane Jeweler’s Guild. A customer favorite, the Guild brings original, handmade jewelry, just in time for Christmas shopping. Guild members showcasing a variety of jewelry styles, using numerous elements. Reception during Open daily through Dec. 31. Free. Pottery Place Plus, 203 N. Washington St. potteryplaceplus.com (327-6920) SPOKANE SOCIAL SKETCH Spend an afternoon drawing, sketching, collaborating, and socializing with other creatives. Social Sketch happens every last Sunday of the month, from 2-5 pm, and is open to all (and any skill level). Bring your art supplies! Free. Boots Bakery & Lounge, 24 W. Main. facebook. com/socialsketching (991-2184) SPOKANE ARTIST TRADING CARD SWAP Bring original 2 1/2” x 3 1/2” art that you have created to trade with other artists. No need to have cards; stop by and see what it’s all about. Dec. 30, 5:30 pm. Free. Boots Bakery & Lounge, 24 W. Main Ave. on.fb. me/1m5nZ0w (509-703-7223) WORLD ON FIRE Abstract paintings from the Pacific Northwest by Laura
Allen, Lisa Daniels, Ken Susynski, Veronica Reeves and Fiona Lau. Jan. 1-March 31; opening reception Feb. 5, from 5-8 pm. Chase Gallery, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. spokanearts.org FIRST FRIDAY Art galleries and businesses across downtown Spokane and beyond host monthly receptions to showcase new displays of art. Receptions are held on the first Friday of the month (Note: January’s event is held on Friday, Jan. 8 due to New Year’s Day), from 5-8 pm. For complete event details, the Inlander provides a comprehensive listing of all events at Inlander.com/FirstFriday.
WORDS
BROKEN MIC Spokane Poetry Slam’s longest-running, weekly open mic reading series, open to all readers and all-ages. Wednesdays at 6:30 pm. Free. Neato Burrito, 827 W. First Ave. spokanepoetryslam.org (847-1234) CHILDREN’S AUTHOR KRISTEN COOPER-HERBY The author reads a chapter from her book, “Stewy Baby Finds a Home,” and is accompanied by her dog, the real life Stewy Baby. Dec. 30, 1 pm. Free. Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 E. Front Ave. cdalibrary.org (208-769-2315) ORIGIN STORIES INK’s Origin Stories is a comic and graphic-novel style drawing and writing playshop that inspires students’ (grades 4-8) creativity and builds story-telling skills. Limited spots; register for free at sparkwestcentral.org. Meets the first Saturday of the month, Jan. 2-March 5. Spark Center, 1214 W. Summit Parkway. sparkwestcentral.org READING: BEVERLY THOMPSON The writer reads from her book, “Covered in Ink: Tattoos, Women and the Politics of the Body” and shares video clips from her documentary “Covered”. Many of the tattooed women interviewed for her book and documentary are from Spokane. Jan. 2, 7-8 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com (838-0206) SIGNING: GERALD HICKMAN The author signs his book, “Good Times in Genesee: A Tale of Two Families” in which he reflects on the history of his hometown Genesse, Idaho. Jan. 2, 1-3 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main. auntiesbooks.com (838-0206) EXPLORING HUMAN ORIGINS Dr. Rick Potts, paleoanthropologist and curator of the traveling exhibit, defines the main themes and messages of “Exploring Human Origins: What Does It Mean To Be Human?” Explore how fossils, archeological remains and genetic studies all shed light on our connection with the natural world. Jan. 5, 7-8 pm. Free. North Spokane Library, 44 E. Hawthorne Rd. (509-893-8350)
ETC.
CHARPENTIER’S MIDNIGHT MASS This year’s celebration begins with Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Messe de Minuit pour Noël, by the Cathedral Kantorei with a string quintet, a pair of flutes and organ, conducted by Dr Tim Westerhaus, beginning at 9:45 pm, followed by the regular Festival Eucharist beginning at 10:30 pm. Dec. 24, 9:45 pm-midnight. Free. Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 127 E. 12th Ave. (838-4277)
GREEN
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SPOK AN COUN E T READ Y ERS
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BE AWARE: Marijuana is legal for adults 21 and older under Washington State law (e.g., RCW 69.50, RCW 69.51A, HB0001 and Initiative 502). State law does not preempt federal law; possessing, using, distributing and selling marijuana remains illegal under federal law. In Washington State, consuming marijuana in public, driving while under the influence of marijuana and transporting marijuana across state lines are all illegal. Marijuana has intoxicating effects and may be habit forming. It can also impair concentration, coordination and judgment. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. For more information, consult the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board at www.liq.wa.gov.
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EQUIPMENT
Glass Piece 101 Numerous options create a customized pipe-purchasing experience BY AZARIA PODPLESKY
F
or smokers looking to expand beyond your basic joint, a glass pipe is usually the next purchase. But walking into a glass store for the first time, with rows upon rows of dry and water pipes of every size and shape imaginable, can be a little overwhelming. As Gage Strickland, a cashier at Piece of Mind’s Valley location, tells it, pipes are incredibly customizable, so with a bit of patience and some trial and error, every smoker can find the dry or water pipe that’s right for them. Strickland suggests that smokers who are new to pipes start with a small
RoyalsCannabis_ChristmasStoner_121715_3H_GG.tif Ex tr a Patr ols On Now
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DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 49 564_WTSC_DHGD_4V_Ad_F.indd 1
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dry pipe because there isn’t as much product to intake, and therefore the effect of smoking isn’t as harsh. “The harshness is why a lot of people would switch to a water pipe,” Strickland says. “It gives it something to filter it through, so some people can withstand it a little easier.” When shopping for a glass piece, take your time and really think about your personal preference; the size of the pipe, the side the carb is on, the bowl size and the size of the mouthpiece can be customized to your liking. Once you’ve found your ideal pipe, you need to maintain it to ensure a consistent smoke. Strickland says there are two popular routes when it comes to cleaning a glass piece: rubbing alcohol and salt, and factory-made cleaners. Both options have their downsides. “Some people don’t like the
granulated salt because it gets clogged a little easier and it’s harder to clean out,” he says. “Some people say that certain cleaners leave a taste.” For those looking for a factorymade cleaner, Strickland suggests a Piece of Mind top seller from a company called Randy’s. A 12-oz. bottle of the cleaner, which he says is phenomenal, goes for $10 at PoM. Finally, there’s the issue of storing your brand-new pipe. Strickland says the main thing to consider is the temperature of the area in which you’re keeping your piece: “You don’t want to store it in a really cold area, then take it to a warm area, because like most glass, if it’s a drastic temperature change, it could crack or break.” Now take your newfound knowledge and spend some time in a local glass shop; your dream pipe awaits.
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EVENTS | CALENDAR TANGO NIGHT Argentine tango dancing every Thursday, from 7-10 pm. Beginner’s lesson offered at 7pm, with open dance and practice from 8-10 pm. $5. German American Hall, 25 W. Third. tinyurl.com/SpokaneTango ST. JOHN’S CATHEDRAL TOURS Guided tours of the cut-stone, English Gothic Revival cathedral designed by Spokanite Harold C. Whitehouse. It features a unique collection of Medieval-style French stained glass by Charles J. Connick and William Willet & Sons, a 4,100+ pipe organ, and a 49-bell carillon. Tours offered 1st, 3rd, 5th Wed; Fri and Sat from 11 am-2 pm. Free. St. John’s Cathedral, 127 E. 12th Ave. stjohns-cathedral.org (838-4277) MAKING THINGS MOVE Use Gizmo’s laser to cut out intricate moving things. Make a motorized monster or a car, an ambling animal or a creepy crawler. Price is for (1) adult with (1) child. Dec. 26 or Jan. 2, from 10 am-4 pm. Dec. 26, 10 am-4 pm. $37.50-$45. Gizmo-cda, 806 N. Fourth St. gizmocda.org (208-651-6200) BEGINNING VINTAGE SWING Introductory Lessons in the vintage swing dance styles. Open practice on Mondays at 7 pm, with a lesson at 8 and dancing at 9. No experience or partner necessary. $5. Satori Dance Studio, 122 S. Monroe. vintageswingspokane.com FESTIVUS IN PINK A celebration of the all-purpose made-up holiday that has no religious affiliations accept to those devout Seinfeld watchers: wear pink, bring pink, eat pink foods, drink pink drinks and swing dancing. Proceeds benefit the Spokane Vintage Swing Fest. Dec. 28, 7 pm. $5. Satori Dance Studio, 122 S. Monroe. on.fb. me/1Nvtjkn (360-5106) SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE: SEASON 12 TOUR Celebrating its momentous 12th season and its new Stage v. Street format, “So You Think You Can Dance’s” top 10 finalists tour across the U.S. for a live stage show. Dec. 28, 7 pm. $30-$35. INB Performing Arts Center, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. inbpac.com R/C CHALLENGE WITH MINDS-I Design and assemble an R/C vehicle from Minds-I components, then compete on an obstacle course you create to test your driving skills and your machines’ capabilities. For ages 12+. Dec. 28, 10 am-5 pm. $25.50-$30. Gizmo-cda, 806 N. Fourth St. gizmocda.org (208-651-6200) WINTER BREAK ROBOT CAMP Attend a 3-day workshop devoted to building and programming Lego Mindstorms EV3 robots. Please plan to attend all three days. Space is limited, so registration highly recommended. For ages 10-14. Dec. 29-30, from 1-4 pm. Dec. 28. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley St. (509-444-5390) TRIBAL BELLY DANCE CLASSES Tribal Style bellydance classes with Cindy Moon Bear. Open to all. Wednesdays, ongoing, from 6-7 pm. $12/class; $60/ six classes. Malidoma Drum and Dance Studio, 408 W. Third. malidoma.biz NEW YEAR’S BALLROOM BASH Includes live music by the Willie B Blues Band, hosted by Dean Jaxon of 101 FM’s morning show. Tickets also include party favors, raffle/prizes and a midnight champagne toast. Dec. 31, 6:30 pm-1 am. $30/$35. Max at Mirabeau, 1100 N. Sullivan. on.fb. me/1mqECUd (924-9000)
EASTERN WASH. GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY LUNCHEON The group’s annual luncheon honors past presidents and distinguished members. Donna Potter Phillips presents a program titled “Our Ancestors Were Funny People as Proved by the Records.” The public is invited to attend. Jan. 2, 12-3 pm. Pearl China Buffet, 21 E. Lincoln. (468-9988) SPOKANE MOVES TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION The local activist group meets on the first Tuesdays of the month at 6:30 pm. All are welcome. First Tuesday of every month, 6:308:30 pm. Donations accepted. Liberty Park Methodist Church, 1526 E. 11th Ave. s-m-a-c.org (844-1776) JOB BOOT CAMP The 3-part workshop is for anyone looking to improve their job application and interviewing skills, especially those with a particular job opening in mind. Price includes all three sessions. Register online. $10. Jan. 7, 6-8 pm. Spark Center, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. sparkwestcentral.org GOOD MORNING GREATER SPOKANE A panel discussion on the advantages of the T-2-4 pathway for all students. Talk with higher education reps on education pathways within their institutions, and how this K-12 initiative is providing the region’s businesses with a talented workforce. Jan. 8, 7-9 pm. $30-$55. GSI, 801 W. Riverside Ave. greaterspokane.org HOUR OF CODE Learn to program a droid in a galaxy far, far away! Every student should have the opportunity to learn computer science. It helps nurture problem-solving skills, logic and creativity. For grades 3-6. Jan. 9, 10-11:30 am. Free; register online. Spark Center, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. sparkwestcentral.org
CRAFTS
LASER CUT JEWELRY Play with patterns and materials to create your personal look. Some materials supplied, other materials can be purchased the day of the event at Gizmo. Children under 12 need to be accompanied by an adult. Dec. 29, 1-4 pm. $25.50-$30. Gizmo-cda, 806 N. Fourth. gizmo-cda. org (208-651-6200) RUBE GOLDBERG FAMILY CAMP Help build a giant gadget at Gizmo which will perform a trivial task in the most complicated way we can imagine together. Price is for (1) adult with (1) child. Dec. 31, 10 am-4 pm. $25.50$30. Gizmo-cda, 806 N. Fourth St. gizmo-cda.org (208-651-6200)SO YOU Center, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. inbpac.com (509-279-7000) TWEEN CLUB The group meets on the first Wed. of the month for activities, crafts and snacks. Jan. 6, at 4 pm. Free. Spokane Valley Library, 12004 E. Main. (893-8400) BEGINNING LASER CUTTING & ENGRAVING Using editing software this one day class offers a basic understanding on how to run a laser engraver/cutter and how to design projects for the machine. Jan. 12, 6-9 pm. $25.50-$30. Gizmo-cda, 806 N. Fourth. gizmo-cda. org (208-651-6200) n
MORE EVENTS Visit Inlander.com for complete listings of local events.
DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 51
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ACROSS 1. “The Big Bang Theory” character from India 4. 1958 Best Picture winner that becomes 6-Down when a letter is added to its title 8. King or queen 13. Arrow-shooting Greek god 15. Like many Keats poems 16. Replies to an invite 17. Cutting remark 18. “Your Movie Sucks” author 20. In a 1952 novel, he wrote “I am invisible ... simply because people refuse to see me” 22. “You’re ____ talk!” 23. Gadget’s rank in cartoons: Abbr. 24. Wray of “King Kong” 27. Young ____ (kids) 28. Smash hits: Abbr. 31. Way in or out 32. ____ de deux
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THIS ANSW WEEK’S I SAW ERS ON YOUS 33. Home of Waikiki Beach 35. Taxing times? 37. Barack Obama’s first White House Chief of Staff 40. Curtain call chorus 42. Woodsy odor 43. PC key 46. Running ____ 47. Roseanne’s husband on “Roseanne” 48. Las Vegas block? 49. Gift shop buy 50. Speed-of-sound name 54. “... and ____ a good-night!” 56. TV journalist who wrote “War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq” 59. Tennis legend who won 12 Grand Slam singles titles in the 1960s 62. “Pleeeeeease?” 63. Cara of “Fame” 64. “____ jungle out there”
65. Morse code taps 66. Still-in-development apps 67. Utters 68. Fanatic DOWN 1. Prepare for a fresh start ... or a hint to this puzzle’s theme 2. First name in online news 3. Economist’s concern 4. Reason for an R rating 5. One with millions of followers 6. 2003 film bomb that becomes 4-Across when a letter is subtracted from its title 7. Trap during winter, perhaps 8. Before surgery, informally 9. 978-0553213119, for “Moby-Dick” 10. New Year’s ____ 11. Some chest-pounding, briefly
“RE-GROUP”
12. Contractor’s fig. 14. Back-to-sch. time 19. Online news aggregation inits. 21. Jolly Green Giant’s outburst 24. “Curses! I never win!”
25. Owner of Moviefone 26. There are 100 in one cent. 29. Crashes into 30. “That’s what ____ said” 31. Dr. of hip-hop
34. “Stee-rike!” caller 35. Elsa’s sister in “Frozen” 36. Tito, the King of Latin Music 38. City map abbr. 39. FEMA offering 40. Deli offering 41. “Norma ____” 44. Guest appearance? 45. Yo-Yo Ma, e.g. 50. Actors without lines 51. Pass with flying colors 52. “Hardball” host Matthews 53. “____ luego!” 55. Like much music of the ‘90s 56. “The Bold and the Beautiful” actress Sofer 57. Looking up 58. Strands of biology 59. Chest protector? 60. It’s targeted for extraction 61. Thus far
DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 53
JESSIE SPACCIA ILLUSTRATION
Makin’ Bacon A Happy Hour treat, health risk be damned BY DAN NAILEN
P
erhaps it’s the side of bacon that comes with a classic hangover breakfast, accompanied by a hairof-the-dog Bloody Mary or mimosa. Or it might be when a strip of the delicious, salty treat is deposited straight into said Bloody Mary, adding a smoky protein boost to the tomato juice, Tabasco and pickled asparagus. It just seems like bacon and alcohol are natural allies. I recently saw a Facebook post from Litz’s Bar & Grill in Spokane indicating that the folks at this Logan neighborhood watering hole felt the same — an offer of free bacon at Happy Hour on Monday nights. Further investigation obviously was necessary. Was this a trick to get me to order a burger? Would I find a buffet, where I could fill a plate with this culinary delight? Was this just a way for the bar to counteract the bad public relations bacon has endured at the hands of the World Health Organization, and its proclamation that processed meats can cause cancer? Arriving right at the advertised start of the free-bacon window (5 to 7 pm), there is no bacon to be found. Nine customers dot different corners of the place. One woman plays pinball while a tall, older man in a cowboy hat chats her up. The Cowboy is relentlessly charming, and she laughs easily at his chatter. A few guys sit at the bar playing pull-tabs and watch-
54 INLANDER DECEMBER 24, 2015
ing the pregame hype for Monday Night Football. Two others sit at a tall table and peruse the night’s Happy Hour specials. One, mulling the $2 PBR tall boy, says, “We have the best intelligence in the world, and some wacko could come in here right now!” His friend, considering 50-cent hot wings, replies simply, “He ain’t going to get far.” DISTILLED I might not be safe from bacon’s A SHOT OF LIFE health effects here, but at least this table seems ready for a shootout. I order a $3.25 Happy Hour whiskey. Old GrandDad, if memory serves. A head pops out of a doorway next to the bar and hollers, “Bacon’s on the way, guys!” No one seems to pay much notice to the announcement, but the distinct scent of the treat du jour starts to fill the room. The barkeep who updated us on the swine swings by to see if I want some wings with my Happy Hour bourbon. The Sriracha flavor is particularly good tonight, he says, but I decline. “I’m interested in the bacon,” I say. “Is this free bacon
a reaction to the whole cancer thing that just came out?” A blank stare, followed by “I haven’t even heard of that.” He disappears into the kitchen just as the Cowboy wanders over from the pinball machine, glances at the TV and starts speaking, quickly and loudly, to no one in particular. “Cincinnati playing tonight? They’re undefeated, aren’t they? I’m from Texas. College football. It’s like the Baylor Bears. They were terrible, and the last two years, they’re kicking everybody’s ass! My first wife is from Waco. She got knocked up by another guy. Then she went missing.” As the Cowboy continues his story of love gone wrong — WAY wrong — the barkeep returns from the kitchen with several small throwaway paper bowls, each with two half-slices of bacon inside. His arrival quiets the Cowboy. The barkeep drops my bowl of bacon off first, then in front of the other customers, then strategically through unpopulated parts of the bar where any new drinkers will see them when they arrive. The quality of the bacon? Not great, but like listening to the Cowboy’s tale, a surprisingly quality companion to bad whiskey. dann@inlander.com
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FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT THE DECEMBER 24, 2015 INLANDER 55