San Diego City Beat 070319

2 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

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UP FRONT | FROM THE EDITOR

Distraction keeps us sane

W

e all process a limited amount of information. Even when we do process that limited amount of information, we retain even less of it. Sure, some of us may read more news than others in an attempt to try to stay well-informed, but it’s much more likely we’ll read that story and forget most of it. We simply take what we need. We move on.

In fact, moving on is something we have to do these days in order to keep our sanity. The web is increasingly filled with listicle-type articles offering tips and methods on how to tune out the stressfulness of the world and focus more on mental health.

These articles—with headlines such as “6 Things You Must Do Today to Stay Sane in an Insane World” and “4 ways to cope when politics are stressing you out”—are, at best, yet another distraction from a world where we’re all collectively suffering from some form of attention deficit disorder. They are editorialized self-help guides that are often penned by non-experts. No shade, but I find them to be barely a step above the inspirational quotes that Baby Boomers and Burning Man attendees leave on their Facebook walls. Like, really, who wants to see another inspirational quote that’s probably misattributed and…

Sorry, I got distracted.

Yes, clickbait self-help guides are generally worthless. Why? Well, for the same reasons as stated above. More importantly, the suggestions on “how to stay sane” and “how to cope” are fundamentally useless unless there’s an actual concerted effort on the reader’s part to execute a plan of action.

Everyone loves the idea of staying off Twitter at certain hours or the idea of taking a bubble bath instead of reading about what trigger-warning nonsense the president barfed out of his gob that day. But unless we truly commit to breaking these habits, then our self-care routines, or lack thereof, will remain the same.

Don’t get me wrong, there are articles out there written by legitimate experts in their respective fields that provide useful tips for people suffering from any variety of mental maladies. They are easy to spot.

For example, look to the bio of the writer. If it’s legit, it’s likely written by someone who has devoted their career and most of their life to the topic at hand and not some blogger who shares a $4000/month closet space

in Williamsburg. Another thing to look for is whether the article is devoted to specific types of afflictions or diagnoses rather than lumping together a broad list of life hacks for an even broader amount of people.

When it comes to navigating and even circumnavigating the madness of everyday life and especially our current state of politics, there’s really only one tip that is useful to remember: We all must… [checks Twitter notification, falls down rabbit hole of political hot takes on whether the census will still be incomplete thanks to the Trump administration’s actions to add a citizenship question and despite the Supreme Court ruling that the question was unlawful] Sorry, where was I? Oh, right, in order to stay sane, we all must… Eh… I guess I got distracted again and forgot what I was going to write.

Well, maybe that’s just it. Maybe we’re too hard on ourselves for not being engaged all the time. Personally, I’m easily distractible and often get upset when I find out I haven’t retained every single detail of whatever political controversy du jour is trending on social media. The other day, I actually looked into whether or not Ritalin was still being made only to find out that it’s probably cheaper if I just do cocaine all the time.

Hey, has anyone seen that video of [googles Hell’s Kitchen host] Gordon Ramsay in the jungle finding out how cocaine was made?

That was really gross and…

Yeah, so I haven’t done a very good job in addressing this. But that’s OK. In an age where we’re all trying so hard to be less distracted and more mindful, could it be that it’s actually the distractions that are keeping us sane? Whatever readers are planning to distract themselves with on their Independence Day weekends—whether it’s mindlessly staring at low-grade pyrotechnic explosions in the sky or binge-watching Stranger Things 3—remember that you deserve it.

There’s nothing wrong with getting distracted. It’s the ultimate life hack. It’s as American as apple pie. Also, did you know that if you google fireworks, pop-up fireworks graphics begin to explode all over the screen. No, really, it’s pretty cool. [stares at google fireworks for five seconds]

—Seth Combs

Write to seth.combs@sdcitybeat.com

This issue of CityBeat suddenly likes “Old Town Road” again.

Volume 17 • Issue 46 EDITOR Seth Combs WEB EDITOR Ryan Bradford ART DIRECTOR Carolyn Ramos STAFF WRITER Andrea Lopez-Villafaña COLUMNISTS Aaryn Belfer Ryan Bradford Edwin Decker Alfred Howard John R. Lamb Rhonda “Ro” Moore

CONTRIBUTORS Christin Bailey, Torrey Bailey, Jackie Bryant, David L. Coddon, Beth Demmon, Julia Dixon Evans, Michael A. Gardiner, Sara Harmatz, Glenn Heath Jr., Peter Holslin, Lizz Huerta, Lara McCaffrey, Scott McDonald, Jim Ruland, Ben Salmon, Ian Ward

ACCOUNTING Perla Castillo Linda Lam

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JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 3

UP FRONT | LETTERS

CREATIVES AREN’T THE ONLY ONES

As awful as the writer’s account of creative freelancers being taken advantage of is, I am not surprised [“Artists pay the price,” From the Editor, June 5]. However, I can say that it is not only in the creative realm that workers have been (or are) being taken advantage of.

At some of my past positions, some of the inequities that I either witnessed or endured at the hands of employers included: a. Sexual harassment/assault in the office during office hours. b. An employer who bounced the checks of employees. Eventually, I was reimbursed for my bounced checks and unused vacation, but not for the check return fees that I incurred, fees that were substantial, even though federal law requires that the employer reimburse employees for these types of fees. c. Attempt to pressure employees to commit illegal actions on behalf of the employer. d. Trying to use questionable accounting procedures to short-pay employees or deny employees legitimate overtime pay.

There is no shortage of unscrupulous and shady employers with a sense of entitlement, i.e., they believe that it’s their company, their personal fiefdom, and they can do with it whatever they want. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, they’re right. Why?

ON THE

a. They know more about labor and tax laws (and how to skirt them) then most of their employees do. b. They have more money and more lawyers than their employees do to fight off civil litigation from said employees who try to fight back.

In many of today’s workplaces, there is a fundamental lack of respect by employers for their employees, both personally and professionally. They see them as interchangeable and replaceable; they are tools in their view, not people. Push comes to shove, their first, last, and only concern is profit, consequences to everyone and everything else be damned. And more often than not, rule of law be damned as well. Me first, screw everyone else—[this] is their guiding star.

And this mindset on the part of employers is being further reinforced in Washington D.C. by the current so-called “administration,” one that has the highest turnover rate of cabinet members and White House staff in living memory. The current occupant of the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was already notorious as a horrible boss long before he descended upon Washington; by all accounts, that has not changed.

As long as this sense of entitlement exists among employers, they will continue to take advantage of and exploit their employees. Take it from someone who knows, up-close and very personal.

A.F. Kaplan, via sdcitybeat.com

WE HAVE A PODCAST! Yes, we’re aware that the third episode of Show in Progress with Matt Strabone was a little late, but it was worth the wait. In this week’s episode, Strabone speaks with political communications pro Phoebe Sweet about the two nights of Democratic Presidential debates. Who were the winners? Who stood out? Who fell on their face? Why is Chuck Todd so terrible? The two political junkies address all these questions and more. As always, Strabone ends the show with one of his signature jokes, which are so awful/awesome, they sound as if something Joe Biden might get a good chuckle from. Show in Progress is available pretty much anywhere podcasts are available, but readers can find it streaming on sdcitybeat.com as well.

4 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

COVER

TABLE OF CONTENTS UP FRONT From the Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Letters to the Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Spin Cycle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Backwards & In High Heels. . . . . . 7 Well, That Was Awkward . . . . . . . 9

FOOD & DRINK Local photographer Oscar Aranda (@oskiaranda on Instagram) certainly has an eye for capturing spirited moments within the local hardcore scene. For Craig Oliver’s cover story on the state of hardcore bands in San Diego, Aranda’s pics were a natural choice. The local photographer says he’s taken pictures at “countless” shows since he first started in 2016. The picture on the cover was from the second night of Fear of Noise, a local hardcore festival held at the Che Café. “A thing I like about this photo is the juxtaposition,” says Aranda. “There are people moshing in the foreground but on the sign in the background it says ‘This is a safe space.’” Aranda compiles his work and sells them in zine-style collections, which can be found at blurb.com/user/ oskiaranda.

World Fare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Anatomy of a Cocktail Scene. . . . . 11 Final Draught. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

THINGS TO DO The Short List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Calendar of Events. . . . . . . . . . . 12-13

ARTS & CULTURE Theater. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Feature: Head Crammers: ’Merica Edition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18-19

MUSIC Feature: San Diego Hardcore. . . 20 Black Gold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 The Spotlight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 If I Were U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Concerts & Clubs. . . . . . . . . . . 24-26

IN THE BACK Astrologically Unsound. . . . . . . . 25 CannaBitch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

@SDCITYBEAT

JOHN R. LAMB

UP FRONT | OPINION

SPIN

CYCLE Backyard blitzkrieg The home is the chief school of human virtues.

—William Ellery Channing

T

he recent war of digitized words between San Diego mayoral contenders Todd Gloria and Barbara Bry over housing philosophies was many things to behold, but elucidating it wasn’t.

If we are to read between the (punch)lines of Councilmember Bry’s fundraising emails and State Assemblymember Gloria’s reciprocal tweets, it’s clear that the future of where and what kind of new homes (and whether those homes will or won’t be built in the city) will be one of the signature clashing points of the 2020 election season.

The question remains, will the electorate be any wiser after all is said and done?

It began when Bry’s campaign dropped an email with the subject line, “They’re coming for our homes.” Spin had two immediate

@SDCITYBEAT

JOHN R. LAMB

thoughts: 1.) Bry must be trying to stake a claim with conservative North County homeowners prior to the anticipated entry of council colleague and recent Republican Party departer Mark Kersey, and; 2.) Hoo boy, the YIMBYs are going to pounce.

Tom Shepard, Bry’s seasoned campaign guru who’s racked up his fair share of mayoral victories over the decades, wouldn’t say if the dustup had produced a campaigncontribution bonanza for his candidate, but he did suggest that the initial missive drew “more positive responses than any other email from this campaign.”

In that email, Team Bry took Gloria to task for backing Senate Bill 330 (SB 330), which, if approved, would prevent cities from placing restrictions on new development for five years. Gloria pushed for amendments that safeguarded San Diego’s 30-foot coastal height limit and certain parking standards, but Bry played up the loss-of-localcontrol angle.

“SB 330 would void local restric-

tions on density, land use, zoning, and design standards and give Sacramento politicians control of local land use decisions!” the email screamed. “This issue highlights a big difference between me and my opponent. He’s representing lobbyists and other Sacramento insiders.

I’m standing up for San Diegans.”

She also had a few barbs reserved for the burgeoning “Yes in My Backyard” [YIMBY] movement.

“I told the YIMBY’s [sic] that I would not even seek their endorsement because of their support for Sacramento intrusion into local planning. My opponent now wears their endorsement as a badge of honor.”

Sacramento is a frequent punching bag for local politicians. It’s an easy scapegoat, given its tendencies to give off a lot of steam but little heat. Shepard acknowledged to Spin that “Sacramento pre-emption of local land use regulation will be one of several key issues” in the mayor’s race.

Gloria wasted little time in firing back on Twitter, arguing, “San Diego shouldn’t settle for a Mayor who won’t tackle the housing problem head on. We can move San Diego forward and build the housing we need while protecting our neighborhoods. A candidate who views our future as a choice between the two isn’t right for our city.”

Concluded Gloria: “I am unapologetically a pro-neighborhood, pro-

Recent squabbling between mayoral candidates Barbara Bry and Todd Gloria over San Diego’s housing future provided more pitchforks than proposals housing candidate. Any assertion otherwise is simply out-of-touch.”

The ensuing back-and-forth among supporters of both candidates was as surprising as San Diego’s longstanding ability to talk a crisis to death without making any noticeable headway in solving said crisis.

YIMBYs—many of them young progressives uncertain of their housing future in San Diego—let their thumbs fly to let Bry know that they found her tactic to be dripping in racist code language and pandering to the fears and self-interests of entrenched homeowners.

As one housing advocate put it to Spin privately, “This is the rupture line of generational angst. The older folks who own homes are scared they have diminished power personally and politically, and their home is their castle and they damn well paid for it. They know where the sun comes in their window. It’s just environmental psychology.

You want to keep your place in the sun, literally and figuratively.”

YIMBYs, on the other hand, the advocate noted, “are younger, browner, more idealistic, and [they are] the future. Old-school conservative voters have always turned out in high numbers but have very little space to grow. Their actual population is shrinking. On the other side, there’s huge potential for growth. That’s why older voters are terrified of YIMBYs.” So, what’s the answer? First, this particular YIMBY advocate suggested that it’s time to tone down the rhetoric, adding that an “affirmative vision is needed.”

In other words, current residents need to see that new residents will add vibrancy to their communities, rather than traffic or the destruction of “neighborhood character,” whatever the hell that really means.

A couple months back, Spin

suggested that the much-vaunted single-family zone—the supposed epicenter of the American Dream— would be the true battleground of the 2020 elections. That appears to be where we’re headed.

Bry has invoked the high-risesnext-to-ranch-homes fear-mongering, which is beyond unfortunate.

As Spin noted in that earlier column, San Diego has already suffered through a mayor, Maureen O’ Connor, who hated the idea of apartments and condos in singlefamily zones but had no idea that the Mission Hills neighborhood she grew up in was dotted with multifamily abodes.

Someone much smarter than Spin should come up with a map that pinpoints all of these singlefamily-zone incursions, particularly in hot beds of NIMBYistic activism, to demonstrate that the future so many people think they fear is already here.

Whether Bry gets a bounce from leaning NIMBY is anybody’s guess, since polling on the subject is as hard to find as a decent-priced onebedroom apartment. One poll rumored to be floating among housing folks suggests, according to some who have seen it, an unfortunate human reality that all mayoral candidates will have to navigate.

Unsurprisingly, the poll apparently finds that San Diegans are most concerned about our homeless and housing crises, which is a good thing.

But as one person who read the poll noted privately, “While most San Diegans care about our housing crisis, most of them also are not in favor of increasing density in their neighborhoods. They want to fix the problem, but they’re not keen on being part of the solution.”

Spin reached out to Team Gloria regarding his vision for singlefamily zones but did not hear back.

Stay tuned.

JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 5

6 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

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UP FRONT | OPINION

AARYN BELFER

BACKWARDS & IN

HIGH HEELS

E. Jean Carroll and the Age of Jackals

I

t was Friday, June 21, 2019, and my phone started blowing up with incoming text messages and passionate commentary clearly based in radical recognition. Famed advice columnist E. Jean Carroll had just published an excerpt from her upcoming book, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal.

One after another, girlfriends near and far pinged me with a link to said excerpt in which Carroll credibly accuses Donald Trump of raping her in a changing room at Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman department store 23 years ago.

After describing the way Trump shoved her against a wall, forcibly kissed her on the mouth and pinned her so she couldn’t escape, the author writes, “The next moment, still wearing correct business attire, shirt, tie, suit jacket, overcoat, he opens the overcoat, unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway—or completely, I’m not certain—inside me. It turns into a colossal struggle.”

And with that, Carroll became yet one of more than 20 women who have accused the President of the United States of sexual assault.

Carroll’s piece isn’t about Trump, per se. It’s an opus to “hideous men,” as she calls them, and we’ve all encountered them—we’ve politely turned them down, ignored them, rebuffed them and, like E. Jean, we’ve fought them off. It’s impossible to be a woman on earth and not have your own list of “hideous men.”

The author’s list, while long, is not exhaustive, nor is it in any particular order. Regardless, she doesn’t get to Trump until the end. He’s nothing special. In fact, if he weren’t who he is today, he would just be another cretin among the many cretins she’s known. And as disgusting as he is, she doesn’t even rank him in the top 10 of her most vile cretins.

In the days following the publication of Carroll’s story, what should have been a nationwide earthquake instead resembled a prolonged, collective shrug.

Meh, it’s just rape. Of a woman. By the President of the United States of America.

In his piece, “Let’s Shut Down the Authoritarian Regime,” scholar and writer Henry A. Giroux calls this cruel time “the Age of Jackals,” an “era ruled by the architects of an apocalyptic nationalism, regressive populism, and brutally repressive and racist forms of authoritarianism.”

Authoritarian experts—from Sarah Kendzior to Tim Snyder—have been sounding the alarm for years, pointing out the various indicators of just how far we are slipping away from the idea(ls) of America. They warn of how quickly things once thought of as absurd and unfathomable become normalized.

“Authoritarianism has a playbook,” Kendzior wrote in a Tweet this past March (and over and over again before that). “We’re not reading tea leaves: we’re read-

ing history. When normalization sets in, people start justifying decisions they don’t quite understand. They start saying the leaders must be playing 3-D chess.”

If we want to know what normalization looks like, we need only let the reaction to the Carroll bombshell be our barometer. In any other universe, such an accusation would bring down a president. But not this guy. This guy was “elected” despite his own admission that he assaults women—is entitled to assault women—whenever he feels like it. He’s got binders full of assaulted women and even his own ex-wife has accused him of rape.

Yet, all the major networks ignored Carroll’s story the weekend following its publication. The New York Times didn’t bother to run the story of our rapist POTUS on its homepage, and when it finally did dedicate some ink to the topic, two days later, the story ran in the paper’s “Books” section. This is normalization.

It wasn’t just the Times that didn’t think a rape accusation by the prez was above-the-fold news. The Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune and Washington Post all made the same calculus. The New York Post ran the story but Col Allan, an advisor to the paper and friend of Rupert Murdoch, directed publishers to pull the story. It’s all scrubbed away now with only an error page in its place. This is normalization.

And when asked for a reaction to the E. Jean Carroll story, 3-D chess champ Nancy Pelosi said, “I haven’t paid much attention to it.” This is normalization.

Megan Twohey, the Times journalist who broke the Harvey Weinstein story, did pay attention to Carroll and interviewed two women who corroborated her accusation.

Twoey told the audience of “The Daily” podcast last week, “[t]his is, by far, the most serious allegation that’s been made against the president, ever.”

I’m grateful to Twohey for doing what her publication didn’t, but also shame on her for getting it wrong.

Not to downplay the grotesqueness of what The Donald did to Carroll, but as despicable as it was, it wasn’t as bad as what he was accused of doing to Katie Johnson (a pseudonym) who he allegedly beat and raped in 1994 when she was 13 years old. Rape of a child is bad-bad and as far as allegations go, that is, by far, the most serious allegation that’s been made against the president, ever... and it’s likely one most people haven’t heard of before.

We live in a world that has grown bored with #MeToo, that ho-hums when brave and credible women like Carroll, like Christine Blasey Ford tell the truth about the hideous men who hurt them. And instead, the hideous men get ahead. None of that is normal. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. Not even a little bit.

In any other universe, such an accusation would bring down a president. But not this guy. This guy was ‘elected’ despite his own admission that he assaults women— is entitled to assault women— whenever he feels like it.

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Backwards & In High Heels appears every other week.

Write to aarynb@sdcitybeat.com.

JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 7

8 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

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UP FRONT | VOICES

RYAN BRADFORD

WELL THAT WAS

AWKWARD

Ryan and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

I

t’s Friday, but I look at a calendar just to make sure it isn’t marked “Shit On Ryan Week,” because, oh lord, it’s been A. Week. A week full of Mondays. A week where even Garfield would’ve said oof.

Flashback to the actual Monday of that week. An ear infection rages through the left side of my face, making it difficult to concentrate and stay balanced.

It’s the third or fourth ear infection I’ve had in the past six months, which unlocks traumatic memories of being a toddler and having so many infections that doctors put tubes in my ears.

Their resurgence is not really a mystery, given the fact that I’ve developed a raging addiction to cleaning my ears out with Q-Tips over the last couple of years, the biggest doctor no-no apart from smoking. I don’t half-ass with Q-Tips. This isn’t just a loose swipe around the lobe—we’re talking earfucking, baby. Hard and satisfying.

If you don’t moan a little, what’s even the point?

Well, the point is that when someone fucks their ear with a QTip, they often end up developing a wax plug build-up in their ears.

This happened to me last November, which required a trip to urgent care to have it removed. Despite the sublime joy of having a doctor spray warm jets of water in my head to remove evidence of sin (seriously, ear irrigation is now my new kink), the consecutive infections I’ve had since that cursed urgent care trip made me believe that it had sort of an “opening the gates” effect.

So now, after three ear infections, I decide to make an appointment with my regular doctor. She doesn’t have an opening until months from now. Months! I don’t even know if I’ll still be alive in months. It feels like I’m calling a Ghostbuster to take care of a poltergeist throwing plates at my head right now, only to have them tell me that they can’t come for months, and by that time, the spooky powers will have swallowed my house and shat it into the pits of hell. Thanks but no thanks.

Another trip to urgent care and an expensive prescription later, the infection subsides. I think I’ll move to Australia (where they have universal healthcare).

On Tuesday, I take my car in for a routine oil check.

My trusted mechanic tells me that all my tires are bald, that he can see metal through them.

“Is that bad?” I ask.

A new set of tires—plus some other work I’ve neglected to handle in the last five years—puts the bill at $600. I hand over my credit card, thinking again that I should move to Australia (to escape my crippling credit card debt).

On Wednesday, I’m noshing on a Jolly Rancher in our editorial meeting (as one does) and I feel an extraneous, jagged chip swishing around. I stick my finger in my mouth and hook out a hard chunk of white. For a second, I think it’s one of those candy barnacles—a generic sugar byproduct that sometimes happens during manufacturing.

But, no. It’s part of my fucking tooth.

Mortified, I stick the piece of my skeleton in my pocket, hoping that none of my colleagues have seen.

I’d never imagined I’d be the guy pulling pieces of his teeth out at a meeting, and I descend into a shame spiral. Is my hygiene that bad? Just over an ear infection and now this? Am I falling apart?

I haven’t been to a dentist in years, not because I’m afraid of them (although who likes the dentist?) but because of a shady experience at the last one I went to: They confused me with another client—even put their chart and x-rays up in front of me—and were going to perform services on me based on the other person’s charts (how’s the dentist situation in Australia?).

I go down the Yelp listings and call every dentist who will take my insurance. I finally get one who can see me the next day and book it. Later, I discover that this place is owned by the same dental conglomerate that owns the shady office, but at this point I just don’t want the broken tooth to become infected.

Two hours in the dentist chair is not my ideal morning, but the dentist is very kind and doesn’t shame me for being a Jolly Rangerchomping idiot. I leave with a new inlay and a bill for $700, which I’m supposed to be happy about because my insurance took care of $500.

I post about the experience on social media and get a barrage of well-meaning messages telling me that I should’ve gotten the tooth fixed in Tijuana, which, hey, is great advice and exactly the thing I want to hear after the work is already done and paid for.

I usually try to make these columns about something bigger than me, but after my week, I just don’t have it in me. Maybe the big lesson here is that our healthcare system sucks, but that’s not really a surprise, is it? Or here: maybe just don’t chew on Jolly Ranchers. Yeah, let’s go with that.

Now, I need a beer. I’ve heard they have a lot of that in Australia.

I’d never imagined I’d be the guy pulling pieces of his teeth out at a meeting, and I descend into a shame spiral.

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Well, That Was Awkward appears every other week.

Write to ryanb@sdcitybeat.com

JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 9

UP FRONT | FOOD & DRINK

BY MICHAEL A. GARDINER

THE WORLD

FARE

Excellence under the arbor

I

can method of meat cookery in which primal cuts are slow-steamed in an earthen pit over coals. Instead of cooking the lamb in a pit, Plascencia and Torres wrap it in banana leaves and then wrap that in clay to grill in personal portions. They pair the result with charred salsa, pickled red onions and flour tortillas. It’s a dramatic, contemporary and very Baja take on an ancient classic.

Perhaps the real stunner at Animalón is the lobster meat that is so tightly wound in parallel strands of spaghetti that it reads visually as a single noodle.

That sits atop a rich lobster mole, tomato jam and Mexican crema. It is, again, a technical triumph but also a conceptual one; referencing Puerto Nuevo’s heritage as a lobster village, as well as a parade of influences on the region’s cuisine. Mostly, though, it’s utterly delightful.

n July 2013, I wrote, “the best restaurant in our region may not be in San Diego… it may not even be in this country.” At that time, I was referring to Javier Plascencia’s Misión 19 in Tijuana.

Now, though, it may not even be the best restaurant in Plascencia’s empire. And this is not because of any failings at Misión 19. It’s because Plascencia’s Valle de Guadalupe restaurant, Animalón (Carretera Tecate-Ensenada Km 83, 22750 Valle MICHAEL A. GARDINER de Guadalupe, animalonbaja.com), captures the essence of the Cali-Baja dining style better than any other restaurant.

Meals at Animalón are outdoors, under the protecting arbor of a 200-yearold live oak and on a section of the Casa Magoni vineyard that Animalón shares with Finca Altozano, another Plascencia restaurant. Dining outdoors is not all that uncommon in Baja—and Valle—restaurants. Standouts like Malva and Deckman’s en el Mogor helped establish that.

But there may be no restaurant setting in Baja, perhaps none anywhere, quite as idyllic as the one found at Animalón.

From an amuse-bouche of a single mussel inside an edible “mussel shell” and a spiced genoise (think sponge cake) to the toasted oak ice cream desLobster tallarines with mole, tomato jam and crema sert—and everything in between—PlasUltimately, what made Misión 19 special back in cencia and chef Oscar Torres created a menu that is all about Baja California. It is all perfectly executed. 2013 was the way it captured the zeitgeist of what was happening in Tijuana at the time. It was food And it is all delicious.

Take, for example, the seared octopus with for Tijuanenses by Tijuanenses, but just as inspired, pipián pesto, chile morita emulsion and crispy ten- and made with as much technical prowess as found tacles. Octopus is, perhaps, the signature ingredi- anywhere. What makes Animalón special is that it ent of Cali-Baja cuisine. It’s nearly a cliché. But takes some of that and does it in the language of Plascencia and Torres reimagine it, poaching the Baja. This restaurant could not be anywhere else. octopus in sous vide bags before searing it on the Everything on every plate is from Baja. That idyllic grill. They then use the octopus liquid from the bags setting is pure Baja. And it is all convincing. Everyto make crackers. The technical virtuosity and cre- thing about it asks the rhetorical question: “where ativity are exceeded only by the sensual pleasures else would you ever want to be?” resulting from the textural and flavor contrasts.

One of the signature dishes at Animalón is clay The World Fare appears weekly. baked lamb barbacoa. Barbacoa is a mainland Mexi- Write to michaelg@sdcitybeat.com.

10 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

@SDCITYBEAT

UP FRONT | FOOD & DRINK

ANATOMY OF A COCKTAIL SCENE

BY IAN WARD

#60: Going bananas at The Guild Bar

rian David Wondrich and Maison Ferrand, the French producer of Cognacs. The idea behind it is to bring back a beautiful expresne day back in my merry youth— sion of rum that has been around since the in the year of our Lord 2006, to be 1700s. It is a blend of an aged rum—which exact—I found myself hovering has been steeped with pineapples—with an unaged rum that was distilled with pineabove a toilet bowl at Petco Park.

A friend of mine had the ingenious no- apples. It’s rounded with notes of clove, bation to sneak a bottle of 99 Bananas into a nana, orange zest and, of course, pineapple.

An incredible use of the rum can Padre game, which I then all but chugged be found at The Guild Bar (500 West throughout the course of the game. This was in the depths of a hot July day so— Broadway, theguildhotel.com), which just somewhere along the way—the pretzels, opened inside The Guild Hotel in Downmustard, warm beer, hot sun and the 99 town. It’s that gorgeous building that we so often pass unassumBananas all collided. We all COURTESY OF THE GUILD BAR ingly when heading west on know what happened next.

Broadway. Someone finally I would like to say that told me, “Oh, that’s the old I have not much cared for YMCA,” and I’d lament on 99 Bananas since, but the what a waste it was to see it truth is I never cared for 99 sitting vacant. It’s just that Bananas in the first place. kind of building.

It tastes terrible now and I Well, now it is no longer knew it tasted terrible back a waste. In fact, it’s quite in 2006. It’s always tasted lovely, with sun-lit courtlike synthetic rubbish as yard dining and a warm, most fruit-inspired beverwelcoming lobby bar. ages do.

As for the cocktail, The Plantation Stiggins’ FanThe Passion of the Passion of the Caribbean, cy Pineapple Rum, on the Caribbean it embodies the spirit of the other hand, is one of the rare exceptions. Those who have not had the hotel: Revisionist with tropical touches. I pleasure of trying it, please pick up a bot- would imagine the creator, Bar Manager tle. I can think of few other spirits that are Logan Bethke, drew his inspiration from genuinely perfect to drink in the summer. what it must have felt like to spend the Plantation Pineapple Rum is the result day selfishly drinking at a posh hotel in the of a collaboration between cocktail histo- Caribbean or on a British colonial beach.

With Plantation Pineapple Rum, passionfruit, coconut and banana liqueur (not 99 THE PASSION OF Bananas), the Passion of the Caribbean is luscious and tropical with bold sweet and THE CARIBBEAN tart elements pulling each other apart in as prepared at The Guild Bar a finessed frenzy. The abundance of tropi2 oz. Plantation 1 oz. Liquid Alchemist cal fruit speaks to the opulence associated Stiggins’ Fancy Passionfruit Syrup with the themes of the hotel. One could Pineapple Rum 1/2 oz. Coco López even say it was enough to shed my old 1 oz. Giffard Banane 1/2 oz. Orange juice memories of terrible banana liqueurs.

O

du Brésil

1/2 oz. Lime juice

Combine ingredients and shake over ice.

Strain into a chilled coupe glass.

@SDCITYBEAT

Anatomy of a Cocktail Scene appears every other week. Write to ianw@sdcitybeat.com.

BY BETH DEMMON

FINAL DRAUGHT Top 40

BETH DEMMON

L

ike hardcore pornography, good design is hard to define—but I know it when I see it. Good beer is the same way. It’s subjective to a point, but a fresh, well-made beer using high quality ingredients is objectively enjoyable even if it’s not my favorite style.

The Original 40 Brewing Company (3117 University Ave., original40brewing. com) has both good design and good beer.

It would feel more like a restaurant than a brewery if not for the hulking silver brewhouse dominating the back portion of the space. Even so, it avoids the humdrum feeling of industrial taprooms by utilizing an abundance of Instagram-inspired touches, all impeccably executed by Tijuana design firm Casa Duhagón. (Think lots of hanging greenery, an ornately marbled bar and modernist light fixtures aplenty.)

Head brewer Chris Gillogly cut his brewing chops in places like Green Flash Brewing Company and Groundswell Brewing Company before moving to OG40. His approach to brewing is down-to-earth, with styles that range from relentlessly popular (hazy IPAs, duh) to almost endearingly oldfashioned (a no-frills brown ale that is one of the better representations of the style in a town that already has some great ones).

His longtime status in the local brewing industry means guests can expect plenty of collaborations, including one with Horus Aged Ales on a bourbon barrel-aged imperial dessert stout.

Personally, I like to start summertime day drinking with a German pilsner whenever I can. It’s low ABV (OG40’s is 4.7 percent) and when it’s done right, it’s like a refreshing breeze on a hot afternoon. The Schlock Purist pilsner at OG40 is decidedly crushable, light and crisp. I’d recommend it for beer newbies and veteran drinkers alike.

Of the 14 house beers available on the day I visited, five were hazy IPAs or double IPAs. The beertender recommended the Let’s Brew Tomorrow, a Pure Project

Original 40 Brewing collaboration that’s a 6.3 percent ABV take on the hazy trend. My first sniff of the tangerine-tinted taster nearly bowled me over with its citrusy wave of aromatics, followed by a hefty helping of tropical hops. I underlined “smooth” and “bright” in my tasting notes, then underlined them again after each sip.

After the beertender nailed it with her hazy recommendation, I broke a personal rule and asked her what the most popular beer on the menu happened to be. I feel somewhat pathetic when I can’t make up my own mind. But when I’m drinking solo, it’s imperative to streamline my indulging and focus on the best available.

She handed me the hefeweizen and I knew she was two for two. “Damnnnnnn” was the first word that came to mind, even after I watched it spew somewhat haphazardly from the tap. Once it settled, it hit its stride as an aromatically inviting, flavorfully invigorating fresh take on the popular German style.

I settled in with my final beer and glanced around the room. Solo drinkers, couples and families all co-existed peacefully. There was an impressive range of diversity in the room. San Diego tends to pat itself on the back for this kind of diversity, but I don’t see it in reality quite as much.

But like good design, it wasn’t forced or hard to define. It was just right.

Write to bethd@sdcitybeat.com or check her out on Instagram at @thedelightedbite.

JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 11

EVENTS

SHORTlist

ART

the

THREE YOU HAVE TO SEE

COORDINATED BY

SETH COMBS

ENCINITAS

BEAUTIFUL MINDS

It’s summer and already it seems like we’re oversaturated with live music events and festivals. And it’s no secret that a lot of these festivals have issues when it comes to representation and creating safe spaces for attendees.

That’s what makes the inaugural Lady Brain Fest such a nice alternative to the regular options.

Sure, we like a good beer-drenched bro-down every now and again, but Lady Brain Fest (LBF) is all about celebrating sisterhood in a tranquil environment where everyone is welcome. To hear co-organizer and local musician Cathryn Beeks tell it, the festival is an extension of the Lady Brain Collective, a “local collaborative whose vision is to reject the notion that womxn-identifying artists must compete or hoard information in order to succeed in their respective fields.”

“Lady Brain itself was Lindsay’s brainchild,” says Beeks, referring to fellow co-organizer and Lady Brain Presents founder Lindsay White. “She basically thought we needed a collective for women and women-identifying creative people to support each other off of Facebook and social media.

Everyone is always hitting the like button and what not, but some of us don’t really know each other.

So she just started having a brunch at her house.”

Those brunches soon grew to impromptu musical sessions monthly showcases, which soon led to the idea of an actual festival. Held at the gorgeous

NORTH PARK

CATHRYN BEEKS

HSongs That Never Die at MCASD Downtown, 1001 Kettner Blvd., Downtown.

Artist Marnie Weber’s 2015 filmic installation about the Spirit Girls, a fictitious allfemale rock band whose members died tragically in the 1970s. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Through Sunday, Oct. 27. Free-$10.

858-454-3541, mcasd.org

Astra Kelly Heritage Ranch (450 Quail Gardens Drive), the setting is ideal for the 20 womxn-fronted musical acts performing throughout the day.

“Since male-fronted acts routinely get the lion’s share of festival bookings, we brought forth a festival that challenges those norms while celebrating intersectional Lady Brain talent that is inclusive of a range of ages, cultures, sexualities and music genres,” says White.

Performers include White and Beeks, as well as CityBeat faves Marie Haddad, Jessica Lerner, Tori Roze & the Hot Mess and Astra Kelly. There will also be poetry readings from Lizzie Wann, interactive art stations, local vendors and a kids zone. It happens Sunday, July 7 from noon to 7 p.m. and admission is $12 online (ladybrainpresents.com) and $15 at the door.

GASLAMP

SHE IT UP

MISS FIRE

“The personal is political.” It’s a slogan historically associated with second-wave feminism, but it’s also the guiding principle behind She Fest. Presented by San Diego Pride, the inclusive annual festival embraces intersectional feminism and celebrates the LGBTQ womxn community. The music lineup for the free fest is one of the main draws and includes performances by electro-pop artist Car Astor, singer-songwriter Giuliana and local artist Lindsay White. There’s also a dog fashion show and various workshops with topics ranging from bicycle repair to queer polyamory. There’s also an official afterparty at Gossip Grill from 6 to 10 p.m. She Fest happens Saturday, July 6 from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at North Park Community Park (on Idaho Street, between Lincoln and Polk Avenues). More info at sdpride.org/shefest.

HTo Do · A Mending Project at MCASD Downtown, 1001 Kettner Blvd., Downtown. A new workshop-based exhibition conceived of by artists Michelle Montjoy, Anna O’Cain, and Siobhán Arnold, and which is in response to the escalation of political, social, and economic tensions in the United States. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Through Sunday, Sept. 22. Free-$10.

858-454-3541, mcasd.org

Theatre lovers are often surprised to learn that many of their favorite musicals are based on classic operas. Rent is based on Puccini’s La Bohème, while Aida is based on Verdi’s opera of the same name. Perhaps the best of these, in our humble opinion, is Miss Saigon, which is based on Madama Butterfly. But whereas Madama Butterfly takes place in Japan, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil (the duo behind Les Misérables) reimagine Miss Saigon as a tragic love story between an American GI and a South Vietnamese woman in the midst of the Vietnam War. The newly updated Broadway revival of Miss Saigon will make its local debut Tuesday, July 9 at 7 p.m. at the San Diego Civic Theatre (1100 Third Ave.) and run through Sunday, July 14. Tickets range from $27.50 to $260 at broadwaysd.com.

MATTHEW MURPHY

COURTESY OF SAN DIEGO PRIDE

HMore like a Forest: Paintings and Sculptures by Richard Allen Morris at MCASD Downtown, 1001 Kettner Blvd., Downtown. A reprisal installation of the local artist’s 1988 show, which featured Morris’ evocative sculptural work. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Through Sunday, Oct. 27.

Free-$10. 858-454-3541, mcasd.org Catnip Capers at June Rubin Studio, 2690 Historic Decatur Road Ste. 214, Barracks 19, Liberty Station, Point Loma. Artist’s reception for Rubin’s original, whimsical cat artworks in a variety of mediums.

Opening from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, July 5.

Free. 858-229-4571, junerubin.com HHeads Up at Sophie’s Kensington Gallery, 4186 Adams Ave., Kensington. Reception for recent works by local artists Dan Adams and Anna Zappoli featuring their oil paintings and portraits. Other artists include Jeff Alton, Dorothy Bicknell, Samantha Calderon and more. Free.

Opening from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, July 6. Free. stmsc.org HPROUD+ Art Exhibition at The Studio Door, 3867 Fourth Ave., Hillcrest. LGBTQIA+ artists present contemporary works that celebrate the unique sense of pride in the community and juried by Rakeem Cunningham. Opening from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday, July 6. Free. 619-2552867, thestudiodoor.com Friducha: A Frida Kahlo Art Show at La Bodega Studios and Gallery, 2196 Logan Ave., Barrio Logan. Frida-themed art from dozens of artists including Amy Rodriguez, Hector Villegas, Ivonne Carley and more. Also includes live music and a Frida lookalike contest. Opening from 3 to 10 p.m. Saturday, July 6. Free. facebook. com/labodegagallerysd

BOOKS HJ.S. Breukelaar, Keith McCleary, Gabriel Hart at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 5943 Balboa Ave., Ste. 100, Clairemont. The three novelists will be promoting their latest books, Collision (Breukelaar), Circus + The Skin (McCleary) and Virgins in Reverse & The Intrusion (Hart), as well as have a moderated discussion with local writer Lizz Huerta. At 2 p.m. Saturday, July 6. Free. 858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com HRachel Ignotofsky at San Diego Natural History Museum, 1788 El Prado, Balboa Park. Author Rachel Ignotofsky will talk about her new book, Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World, and will discuss historic and contemporary sexism in STEM fields.

From 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday July 9. $9-$12.

877-946-7797, sdnhm.org HKali Wallace at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 5943 Balboa Ave., Ste. 100, Clairemont. The local novelist will discuss and sign her new thriller, Salvation Day. At 7 p.m. Tuesday July 9. Free. 858-2684747, mystgalaxy.com

She Fest 12 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

Miss Saigon

H = CityBeat picks

Judith Teitelman at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The writer and nonprofit veteran will discuss and sign her new book, Guesthouse for Ganesha.

At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 10. Free. warwicks.com HMaurice Broaddus at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 5943 Balboa Ave., Ste. 100, Clairemont. The novelist will discuss and sign his new Black steampunk novel, Buffalo Soldier. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 10. Free. 858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com

COMEDY Brad Upton at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. Comedian Brad Upton, past winner of the Las Vegas Comedy Festival, will be performing at the Del Mar Fair. At 9:30 p.m. Thursday, July 4. Free-$44. sdfair.com

FILM HTurtle Odyssey at Fleet Science Center, 1875 El Prado, Balboa Park. The San Diego premiere of the nature documentary that explores the unique lifecycle of an Australian green sea turtle named Bunji. Various times. Friday, July 5 through Monday, July 29. $18.95-$21.95. rhfleet.org HNot-So-Silent Short Film Festival: Innovative Inventors at IDEA1, 899 Park Blvd., Downtown. Multimedia curator and soundscape artist Scott Paulson presents screenings of silent classic films with accompanying music from his band, the Teeny-Tiny Pit Orchestra. From 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday, July 6. Free-$32.54. vanguardculture.com

JULY 4TH O’fest Beach Festival at Oceanside Pier from the Strand to Tyson Street Park, Oceanside. Part of Oceanside’s Star Spangled Independence Week, the O’fest Beach Festival will feature children’s entertainment, retail and food vendors, and plenty of opportunities to enjoy the beach.

From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, July 4.

Free. visitoceanside.org SIP & SWIM: Fourth of July Pool Party at Lafayette Hotel, 2223 El Cajon Blvd., North Park. Celebrate Independence Day by soaking in rays by the Weissmuller Pool, jamming to hits by DJ Ratty and enjoying refreshments from Urbn Leaf and Truly Hard Seltzer. From noon to 5 p.m.

Thursday, July 4. $30. 619-296-2101, lafayettehotelsd.com/events HAbove the Fireworks at Cabrillo National Monument Foundation, 1800 Cabrillo Memorial Drive, San Diego. Watch multiple firework shows taking place around San Diego County. Bring friends, a picnic and lawn chairs. From 6 to 10 p.m. Thursday, July 4. $40-$50 per vehicle. cnmf.org Red White and Brews at Eppig Brewing Waterfront Biergarten, 2817 Dickens St., Point Loma. Eppig Brewing will be serving their special release Independence Pale Ale at this second annual event that includes a view of the Big Bay Boom fireworks show. From 2 to 10 p.m. Thursday, July 4. Free. eppigbrewing.com HOld Town 4th of July Celebration at Old Town Historic Park, 2454 Heritage Park Row. An old-fashioned Independence Day celebration featuring a parade, arts and crafts fair, wagon rides, food specials and more.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, July 4.

619-491-0099, oldtownsandiegoguide.com HSan Diego County Fair 4th of July Celebration at Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. An all-day celebration featuring a patriotic opening ceremony, concerts and culminating with a fireworks display. Fireworks begin at 9 p.m.

EVENTS CONTINUED ON PAGE 13 @SDCITYBEAT

EVENTS EVENTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 From 9:30 a.m. to midnight. Thursday, July 4. Free-$20. 858-755-1161, sdfair.com Old Fashioned Fourth of July Celebration at Old Poway Park, 14134 Midland Road, Poway. The turn-of-the-century-style festival includes a steam train, patriotic arts and crafts, gun-fighting reenactments and a fireworks show at 9:30 p.m. From 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday, July 4. Free. poway.org 4th of July Fireworks and Parade in Coronado. The island’s annual Independence Day celebration features a parade at 10 a.m., concerts throughout the day and, finally, fireworks over Glorietta Bay. From 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, July 4. Free. coronadovisitorcenter.com 4th of July Celebration at Seaport Village, 849 W. Harbor Drive, Downtown.

Catch the fireworks over the bay while enjoying live music, kids’ crafts, games, patriotic photo opps and food and drinks.

From 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday, July 4. Free. seaportvillage.com HIndependence Day Festival & Fireworks at California Center for the Arts, 340 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido. Live music, food, games and activities for children. The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing Band will conclude the evening. From 4 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, July 4. Free. 760-8394190, artcenter.org HBig Bay Boom at San Diego Bay. Fireworks will be discharged simultaneously from barges placed strategically around San Diego Bay off Shelter Island, Harbor Island, Embarcadero North, Seaport Village and more. See website for exact locations. At 9 p.m. Thursday, July 4.

Free. bigbayboom.com

@SDCITYBEAT

4th of July Dinner Abroad the Berkeley at the Maritime Museum of San Diego, 1492 N. Harbor Drive, San Diego.

First, a buffet dinner on a Victorian-era steam ferryboat. Then, fireworks over San Diego Bay. Price includes admission to the Maritime Museum’s art exhibits.

From 5 to 6:30 p.m. and 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Thursday, July 4. $20-$45. sdmaritime. org 4th of July Party by the Bay at Hilton San Diego Bayfront, 1 Park Blvd., Downtown. Grab a seat on the grass lawn to watch the West Coast’s largest fireworks show while snacking on “all-American BBQ” items and drinks from the beer garden. From 2 to 10 p.m. Thursday, July 4. Free. hilton.com Red, White & Waterfront Celebration at Lane Field Park, 1009 Lane Field Drive, Downtown. Bring chairs and blankets for American BBQ favorites, beer and wine, and watching the Big Bay Boom fireworks with a music simulcast. From 5 to 10 p.m.

Thursday, July 4. $5-$10. eventbrite.com 4th of July Fireworks Cruises at Flagship Cruises & Events, 990 N. Harbor Drive, Downtown. Select from four different cruise options that all take guests through the bay to enjoy the fireworks from a close range with an unobstructed view. From 7 to 10 p.m.

Thursday, July 4. $30-$149.50. 619234-4111, flagshipsd.com Lyle Lovett and His Large Band at Embarcadero Marina Park South, 200 Marina Park South, Downtown. The singer, composer and actor will give a performance mixing elements of Americana, swing, jazz, folk, gospel and blues. At 7 p.m.

Thursday, July 4. $25-$98. 619-2350804, sandiegosymphony.org

MUSIC Sunset Poolside Jazz Series at Westgate Hotel, 1055 Second Ave., Downtown.

Ian Buss, an accomplished saxophonist, composer and educator, and his trio perform live music as part of the annual jazz series curated by Gilbert Castellanos.

From 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, July 4. $25. 619-238-1818, westgatehotel.com Micky Dolenz at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. The original member of The Monkees will perform a concert on the Showcase Stage. At 1 p.m. Thursday, July 4. Free. sdfair.com The Doo Wop Project at Embarcadero Marina Park South, 206 Marina Park Way, Downtown. Classic American pop and rock music from Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, Michael Jackson and more will be “doo-wopified” by the sevenperson group of vocalists. At 7:30 p.m.

Friday, July 5. $20-$100. 619-235-0804, sandiegosymphony.org HHorizon Music Festival at Embarcadero Marina Park North, 400 Kettner Blvd., Downtown. This year’s edition of the Horizon Music Festival will showcase performances by Outkast’s Big Boi and Elephante among others. From 12:30 to 7 p.m. Saturday, July 6. $30-$85. intothehorizon.com The Midtown Men at Embarcadero Marina Park South, 200 Marina Park South, Downtown. The vocal group’s 10th anniversary tour reunites stars from the Original Broadway cast of the smash hit musical, Jersey Boys, to perform iconic ’60s music.

At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 6. $31-$92.

619-235-0804, sandiegosymphony.org Dvořák’s New World Symphony at Embarcadero Marina South Park, 200 Marina Park South, Downtown. Frances-

co Lecce-Chong conducts a concert with 17-year-old guest violinist Julian Rhee, who will perform classical music from Tchaikovsky, Bruch and more. At 7:30 p.m. Sunday, July 7. $24-$93. 619-2350804, sandiegosymphony.org Jethro Tull at San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave., Downtown. Ian Anderson, the flute and voice behind Jethro Tull, will celebrate half a century as a performing musician will his signature use of flute, whistles and other non-traditional instruments in rock music. At 8 p.m. Sunday, July 7. $56.50-$935.62. sandiegotheatres.org

OUTDOORS The Morning After Mess, River Cleanup at Dog Beach, 5142 W. Point Loma Blvd., Ocean Beach. Enjoy a long walk on the beach… picking up trash to help our local ecosystems. From 9 a.m. to noon. Friday, July 5. Free. 619-2977380, sandiegoriver.org

POETRY & SPOKEN WORD HBriana Muñoz at The Ink Spot, 2730 Historic Decatur Road, Ste. 202, Liberty Station, Point Loma. Muñoz will read from her most recent collection of poetry, Loose Lips, which addresses themes of love. From 7 to 7:30 p.m. Friday July 5.

Free. sandiegowriters.org

POLITICS & COMMUNITY Hands off Iran! A March on Balboa Park at the Balboa Park Fountain, 1549 El

Prado, Balboa Park. Hosted by the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Answer San Diego, the march demands an end to escalating tensions with Iran. From 3 to 6 p.m. Sunday July 7. Free. facebook. com/events/2292737470988735

SPECIAL EVENTS HSan Diego County Fair at Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. It’s time again to ride some rides, play some games and, best of all, stuff your face with a bizarre variety of deepfried food. Various times. Through Thursday, July 4. Free-$20. 858-755-1161, sdfair.com HShe Fest at North Park Community Park, 4044 Idaho St., North Park. Woman-centered celebration to support the talents and contributions of womenwithin the LGBTQIA+ community. Includes performances from Car Astor, as well as a dog fashion show and various workshops From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, July 6.

Free. 760-822-3591, sdpride.org/shefest Superheroes’ Night Out at The New Children’s Museum, 200 W. Island Ave., Downtown. A family-friendly event with dancing, circus performers, a superhero photo booth and a workshop by Little Fish Comic Book Studio. Costumes are highly encouraged. From 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday, July 6. $15-$35. 619233-8792, thinkplaycreate.org HLady Brain Fest at Heritage Ranch, 450 Quail Gardens Drive, Encinitas. This inaugural music festival will feature 20 acts on two stages, all fronted by womxn.

Participating artists include Lindsay White, the Becca Jay Band, Gaby Aparicio and more. From noon to 7 p.m. Sunday, July 7. $10-$15. ladybrainpresents.com

JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 13

THEATER KEN JACQUES

Pumped up mix

M

ore than five years after Lamb’s Players’ Mixtape ended its lengthy residency at the Horton Grand Theatre in downtown, the ’80s musical revue is back, this time at Lamb’s Coronado venue. For lovers of that decade, this show is, to borrow the title of a memorable song

by The Cure, just like heaven. That Cure song is naturally on Mixtape’s gargantuan playlist.

The ’80s was a decade of excess, and Mixtape crams way, way too much into nearly two and a half hours of nostalgia. From remembering Pac-Man and The Smurfs, to acknowledging the Challenger space shuttle tragedy, it all feels, well… excessive. That being said, it’s no easy feat to musically document an entire decade. Then again, Lamb’s has done it on other occasions, with its ’60s’70s-inflected Boomers and the sweeping retrospective American Rhythm.

Created by Jon Lorenz and Colleen Kollar Smith and directed by Kerry Meads (who also directed the original Horton run), Mixtape is a multi-genre retrospective. There are nods to the superstars of the time (Michael Jackson, Madonna) and dance pop (Wang Chung, Wham!), as well as to new wave (Duran Duran, Oingo Boingo), pop balladry (Lionel Richie), R&B (the Pointer Sisters),

14 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

OPENING: Avenue Q: A musical comedy about a recent college grad who moves to New York City and is surrounded by foul-mouthed puppets. Presented by OB Theatre Company, it opens July 5 at the OB Playhouse in Ocean Beach. newvillagearts.org The Sunshine Boys: Neil Simon’s comedy about a young theatre agent who attempts to reunite his famous uncle with his former vaudevillian acting partner after a 12-year estrangement. Directed

by Steve Murdock, it opens July 5 at Lamplighters Community Theatre in La Mesa. lamplighterslamesa.com

Mixtape hair bands (Bon Jovi), and even TV theme songs (Cheers, Hill Street Blues, et al). The tunes come speedily, one after another, and most of them are performed only in part, but all are faithfully rendered by a stout live band.

Two of the ensemble performers, David S. Humphrey and Joy Yandell, are Mixtape veterans. They’re joined for the new iteration of the musical by Angela Chatelain Avila, Marqell Edward Clayton, Janaya Mahealani Jones, A.J. Mendoza and Shawn W. Smith. Their stamina and enthusiasm are impressive, as is the choreography by co-creator Smith and the slew of period costumes designed by Jemima Dutra.

Colorful and commemorative projections

designed by Michael McKeon enhance the trip back through time.

Mixtape resorts to a little piety and preachiness (cue U2) along the way, but the majority of the stage time is devoted to the MTV-driven visual flash and musical eclecticism that defined the decade.

For Gen Xers with long memories, that’s as good as it gets.

Mixtape runs through Sept. 1 at Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado. $28$82; lambsplayers.org

—David L. Coddon

Theater reviews run weekly.

Write to davidc@sdcitybeat.com.

The Tale of Despereaux: Based on the children’s book, this musical tells the tale of a mighty mouse who wants to become a knight. Presented by PigPen Theatre Co., it opens July 6 at the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park. theoldglobe.org Miss Saigon: The Broadway production of Claude-Michel Schönberg’s adaptation of Madama Butterfly tells the story of a young woman who falls in love with a young GI during the Vietnam War. Presented by Broadway San Diego, it opens July 9 at the San Diego Civic Theatre in Downtown. broadwaysd.com Another Roll of the Dice: This world premiere musical works as a pseudo sequel to Guys and Dolls and includes hits from the Frank Loesser songbook. Based on the stories of Damon Runyon, it opens July 10 at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach. northcoastrep.org

For complete theater listings, visit sdcitybeat.com

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JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 15

CULTURE

CityBeat staff dishes on some subversive new shows, books and other media to get readers through a week of feel-good patriotism

Oh, Canadians. They delight us with their graded syrups, eternal politeness and a wall-less border. However, in DarIMAGE COMICS cy Van Poelgeest’s Little Bird, our neighbors to the north are the enemy. The United States has become an ultra-nationalistic Christian empire that takes over North America and it’s the Canadians who form an underground rebellion in order to save the world. After losing her mother in a resistance battle, 12-year-old Little Bird continues her quest to find “The Axe.” She’s an unflinching, ferocious warrior, fighting equally murderous Jesus-loving zealots who are intent on expansion in the name of God. I love that a young girl and a giant Canuck swinging an axe might be the ones to save us from ourselves. Swirling blood and floppy unidentifiable guts (drawn by Ian Bertram) are repulsive and pleasing, and there’s a lot of them. Anyone familiar with the more grotesque scenes in Akira would be a fan.

This graphic novel is undoubtedly a continuing commentary on colonialism and the oppression of native people by Americans—a message we should never forget.

For centuries, land has been the driving force behind wars and genocide. In the 1830s, Native American families in Oklahoma were driven out of their sacred homelands to the eastern part of the state by the U.S. government. Now, their land is at risk again. In “This KELI GONZALES Land,” a podcast series by Crooked Media, Oklahoma journalist and Cherokee Nation citizen Rebecca Nagle follows a U.S. Supreme Court case as the justices decide if half the land in Oklahoma is, in fact, Indian country. Nagle’s reporting is eye opening for those not familiar with the struggles indigenous Americans continue to face. Nagel breaks down the appeal case of convicted murderer Patrick Murphy who was sentenced to death for killing George Jacobs in 1999. Murphy’s defense attorneys argued the murder took place on Cherokee land, therefore not in the state’s jurisdiction. The Supreme Court’s decision, could either be the largest restoration of tribal land or a devastating blow to those communities. Nagel explains it’s not just Murphy’s life on the line, but also the sovereignty of the tribes.

—Carolyn Ramos

Flesh-eating zombies are purely an American invention.

Since the undead first showed up in George Romero’s 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, they’ve also served as allegories to our uniquely American turmoils. Unfortunately, the most popular piece of zombie-tainment for the past 10 NETFLIX years has been The Walking Dead, which is entertaining, but also as bloated and mindless as the zombies themseleves. Netflix’s Black Summer, on the other hand, feels like the perfect mirror to our turbulent society. The story is bare-boned: amidst a zombie outbreak, a diverse group of strangers band together in an effort to get to a sports stadium. The culminating effect, however, is more desperate and scary than anything I’ve seen lately.

There are little-to-no backstories, some episodes cruise by with virtually no dialogue, and main characters are dispatched with zero fanfare. The show’s lean and mean, and it’s impossible not to notice American society reflected in aspects of it, especially within the treatment endured by a non-English speaking character. There’s also the military’s general ambivalence toward human suffering. U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.... brrraaaaiiinss!

—Ryan Bradford

16 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

—Andrea Lopez-Villafaña

America’s polarizing political climate is fuel for JimBob’s art. The Colorado-based cartoonist converts complex, contentious issues into satirical memes (think: “trigger warning”). His Instagram page @madebyjimbob, serves as an archive of these cartoons, and JIMBOB is essentially a 1,156-panellong F-you to PC culture and comedy’s leftist trend. Characterized by hyperbole and seemingly right-leaning ideologies, the cartoons draw a diverse group of people into the comments section: political accounts, avid fans, curious onlookers. To some, his art is offensive and questionable.

To others, it’s funny and relatable. JimBob is no stranger to content violation notices, and his work has been removed from platforms like Instagram and Facebook on multiple occasions. But if there’s one thing that stands out about JimBob’s art, it’s that we don’t have to agree with it for it to be funny. More importantly: No one is immune to being made fun of, regardless of where we fall on the political spectrum.

—Anna Fiorino

There are plenty of books about the plight of undocumented Americans and the problematic history of U.S. border policy, but efforts to combine the two can be difficult. To focus on one without the other feels incomplete, but also writing about the millions of undocumented immigrants can also feel impersonal. Rather than take a broad approach to the subject, Aaron Bobrow-Strain’s The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez manages to seamlessly weave together the very personal true story of an undocumented Mexican-American woman while also providing readers a sense of how her many misfortunes are interconnected with the U.S.’s border policies over the past 30 years. With a novelistic approach, Bobrow-Strain recounts the story of Aida Hernandez, a lifelong resident of a small Arizona border town whose life is upended over and over on both sides of the border. Without giving away too much of her story, I will simply say that this book can and will serve as a beautiful introduction to anyone interested in the subject of immigration and, as Bobrow-Strain puts it, the dignity of one woman’s “simple act of continuing to live in a world where you were not meant to survive.”

—Seth Combs

Featuring members of local noise-rock bands such as Innerds, The Locust, Holy Molar and many more, local group INUS’ forthcoming record, Western Spaghettification, won’t come out until Aug. 9. But the group just released its latest track, “Kajillions and Bazillions,” and it’s a discordant-yetmeditative death-prog rock (yeah, I made that description up) single that accurately reflects the insane state of the world at present. Thanks to Guns ‘n Roses’ The Spaghetti Incident, I’m admittedly sensitive to any album titles that include the word “spaghetti,” but the title is a play on the spaghetti western movie genre, and spaghettification (otherwise known as “the noodle effect”) is the ripping apart that happens once something enters a black hole. So it’s clear that this album is going to be a serious treatment on the bleak state of the world we currently inhabit. Personally, I can’t wait to dig in more and give my brain and ears a rigorous workout.

—Jackie Bryant

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JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 17

CULTURE | FILM COURTESY OF A24

Blinded by the light

Midsommar

Ari Aster’s new horror film is a bloated, sophomoric chore

by Glenn Heath Jr.

F

lorence Pugh is one of the few modern film bition researching post-doctoral topics, while Mark actors who would have been right at home in the simply wants to have sex and do acid.

Coming on the heels of Aster’s drab Hereditary, a silent era. Even in a comedy, like Fighting With My Family, her piercing eyes scream defiance, dispens- flawed but dread-inducing debut with some genuineing looks indicative of a resilient female gaze fed up ly terrifying nighttime visuals, Midsommar flips the with unworthy men. Such natural fortitude inevita- script and utilizes relentless daylight and vibrantly bly challenges societal institutions and gender hier- blossoming hues to frame carnage with crystal clararchies, like in Lady Macbeth where Pugh plays a cal- ity. Repetitive close-ups of openly mashed craniums culating femme fatale that uses sexual lust to upend and slow camera movements along filleted flesh prove the traditional roles and responsibilities of arranged Aster to be the kind of sadist who appreciates every marriage in the 19th century. Other pivotal roles in cringe-worthy detail.

Much of Midsommar’s unbearably bloated period epics like Outlaw King and The Little Drummer 140-minute duration elides violence entirely to show Girl are similarly subversive.

Director Ari Aster’s abominable new horror film, how Dani and Christian’s crumbling relationship Midsommar, almost completely neglects this side of distracts them from the glaring warning signs. This Pugh’s expressionist arsenal, but that’s just one sin positions Pugh’s performance in a perpetual holding among many. Pugh plays Dani, a frazzled and grief- pattern of confused looks, pouty breakdowns and mostricken college student who’s eerily reliant on her ments of self-loathing. That is until the film’s viscerlousy and uncommitted boyfriend, Christian (Jack ally evocative climax that finally embraces her keen ability to evoke unrepentant Reynor). Recently gutted by rage with one look. But the quick family tragedy, she looks hagMIDSOMMAR transition feels unearned and by gard and hollowed out, always a Directed by Ari Aster that time the film has entered few tears away from becoming a Wicker Man territory. puddle of sobbing nerves. Bouts Starring Florence Pugh, Whatever resolve Dani disof extreme depression make her Jack Reynor, Will Poulter and plays in the violently floral creespecially vulnerable to gasWilliam Jackson Harper scendo doesn’t forgive Aster’s lighting by weak and manipulaRated R deeply hubristic vision. It’s a tive men, who seem to be in seavanity project stretched to the son during the summer months. gills with overcooked camera The film juxtaposes Dani’s compromised perspective with menacing or indif- shots that conspicuously blur the boundaries between ferent responses from her masculine surroundings. fantasy and reality. In one instance he quite literally Christian’s cowardly passive aggression is initially turns the world upside down. All of it points to a filmportrayed as absurdly pathetic, with Dani’s hal- maker who thinks very highly of himself, thanks in lucinatory fits helping to justify her denial and his no small part to the many critics (some of whom are obvious worthlessness. There’s no such cover when glorified publicists) that have dubbed him the second the couple travels to rural Sweden on the invitation coming of Stanley Kubrick.

Ironically, the scariest recurring sound in Midsomof exchange student Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) who wants them to experience his secretive community’s mar (opening Wednesday, July 3) can be heard during rare mid-summer festival along with fellow academ- its quietest moments. As Dani and company try to ic cohorts Josh (William Jackson Harper) and Mark catch some sleep in Sweden’s hours of pseudo-dark(Will Poulter). ness, an unseen infant howls relentlessly. The endNever fully embracing the ugly American stereo- less cries ricochet off shared living quarters where type, Midsommar nevertheless paints its western tour- predator and prey bed down for the night. And withist protagonists as collectively oblivious to the sinis- out a shred of self-indulgence, horrific feelings come ter forces at play. Dani’s freshly minted trauma clouds to life. her impression of the cultish sect and their mysterious traditions, but the men have no excuse. Josh and Film reviews run weekly.

Christian are blinded by their own educational am- Write to glennh@sdcitybeat.com

18 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

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CULTURE | FILM COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

Maiden

Making waves

T

racy Edwards was tired of being told no when she finally decided to recruit an allwomen sailing team for the 198990 Whitbread Round the World Race. A nomad who fell in love with boating while working on a charter service, she had endured years of rampant sexism and inequality while unsuccessfully trying to break through rigid gender barriers in the male-dominated sport.

Maiden, a moving and traditionally structured documentary named after the team’s sturdy vessel, chronicles this tumultuous journey using a standard combination of archival footage and talking head interviews. Often stylistically banal, director Alex Holmes’ film focuses more on the historical and social importance of Edwards’ achievement.

Edwards confronted the limitations of patriarchal tradition at every turn of her life. An abusive stepfather marred her childhood, and early attempts to become a sailor were met with dismissive responses from condescending captains.

This scorn continues, both from journalists and rivals, once Edwards assembles her team. Most of these characters are interviewed at length for the film and reminisce about the difficulties of finding funding, differences in leadership tactics, dips in morale, and the gritty details from their grueling nine-month race that charts the length of the globe.

Grainy video footage from the race itself gives Maiden its immediacy. This is where Edwards and her crew were forced to forget all of the swirling drama surrounding the voyage and focus on one elemental concern: survival. It is here that the doc becomes something more than an activist or sports documentary, but rather a classic tale of camaraderie on the high seas, a narrative arc that’s always been filtered through a man’s perspective.

In that sense, Maiden (opening

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Friday, July 5 at Landmark Hillcrest Cinemas) doesn’t need to be formally subversive to be daring.

Like Edwards herself, the film is relentlessly in step with the cycles of competition, of which gender should play no role.

—Glenn Heath Jr.

OPENING Maiden: A sports documentary about the first all-female sailing team to compete in the famed Whitbread Round the World Race that had been previously dominated by men. Opens Friday, July 5, at Landmark Hillcrest Cinemas.

Midsommar: Dani (Florence Pugh) decides to join a trip to Sweden with friends who are researching mid-summer festivals, but their rural hosts have other plans.

Opens Wednesday, July 3, in wide release.

Ophelia: This new spin on Shakespeare’s Hamlet looks at the tragedy from the perspective of young Ophelia played by Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Force Awakens).

Opens Friday, July 5, at the Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Spider-Man: Far From Home: The latest Marvel film takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame and sees Spider-Man (Tom Holland) battling evil forces while on a school vacation in London. Opened Tuesday, July 2, in wide release.

The Proposal: Artist Jill Magid tries to recover the works of architect Luis Barragán from a Swiss bunker in this riveting doc about democratizing access to art. Opens Friday, July 5, at the Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

The Quiet One: A documentary about Bill Wyman, a founding member of The Rolling Stones and whose quiet demeanor set him apart from fellow bandmates Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Opens Friday, July 5, at the Landmark Ken Cinema.

Wild Rose: Jessie Buckley stars as a Scottish ex-con who wants to make it as a country music star in this drama from director Tom Harper. Opens Friday, July 5, at Angelika Film Centers Carmel Mountain.

For complete movie listings, visit Film at sdcitybeat.com.

JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 19

OSCAR ARANDA

MUSIC

Heat at Teros Gallery or years, the San Diego music scene has often been fractured, with bands struggling to find an audience as they compete for booking to open for larger touring acts. The result is that the community, as a whole, suffers.

Among a few growing pockets as of late, however, is the local hardcore punk scene, which seems to have found its footing with acts like Heat, Therapy, Crime Desire, All Beat Up, Gritos, Bayonet, Spirited Away and others coming together to build a foundation.

Blaine Factor plays bass in the band Therapy along with his brother, guitarist Sean Slingerland. They’ve watched the city’s punk scene struggle to exist in the national music sphere after spending 10 years in Age of Collapse.

“The San Diego punk scene used to be pretty insular in that there would be bands from different regions like Chula [Vista], Escondido, Vista, East County, et cetera, that would mostly only play with each other,” Slingerland says. “But recently there seems to be a lot more cross over, a lot more co-

20 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

operation, and San Diego seems more open to have the rest of the national scene come here and to want to be a part of that national community.”

Factor agrees with his brother, saying they wanted to add to this sense of community by starting Fear of Noise, a two-day punk festival held at the Che Café on the UC San Diego campus.

“I think in a city like San Diego that doesn’t have a super strong punk infrastructure to lean on, you really have to invest some serious effort into doing it yourself [DIY],” says Factor, adding that the next Fear of Noise Fest will be held in December. “You can’t really sit around and wait for stuff to happen—you gotta go out there and make it happen. Punk returns what you put in, you know?”

Daiki Kusuhara has bounced around Southern California and the Bay Area for 20 years, helping book shows and working with punk publication Maximum Rocknroll.

In 2012, he joined Crime Desire and eventually Heat and Morpheme as well. He says San

Diego always had something of a reputation.

“Within the DIY punk network, San Diego has been notorious for not having a great scene for years,” says Kusuhara. “Some of us wanted to change that by joining forces.”

But how can a DIY network function without DIY spaces?

Stephanie Raffe (Karbonite, Gritos) says that before she turned 21, there seemed to be a lot more house shows where young punks could see bands, many of them local.

“I feel like it’s more of a bar scene now so it might be harder for young people to experience a DIY punk show,” says Raffe, before adding that she doesn’t want to discount places like Red Brontosaurus Records and the Teros Gallery space, who often host all-ages shows. Bars such as Tower Bar, Til Two, Whistle Stop and SPACE have all accommodated the emerging scene, albeit for a 21-and-over crowd.

The current political climate has also been a great reminder to the scene that acting purely out of self-interest doesn’t benefit the greater good. Chris McQ, singer for

Therapy, moved to San Diego three years ago from Canada. She says it’s extremely important to create a scene that is progressive, inclusive and encouraging.

“I want to see people engage with punk music and use it as a cathartic outlet, especially for folks who are marginalized or underserved in ‘regular life’; who deserve to have their voices uplifted and heard.”

“People are dissatisfied with how capitalism and the state have exploited people, furthered the destruction of the environment, harmed and displaced people, and continued the cycle of inequality and violence against marginalized populations,” McQ continues. “I think we are at a point where even the mainstream world is shocked by the spread of hate and violence, and I hope that it translates into some good being done to push back against it.”

Adam Bixel, singer for the local band Heat, says he sees the hardcore scene as having always moved “parallel with society.”

“I feel like there’s always been an aversion to capitalism or bipartisan politics in punk; however, it’s the changes that are now happening from within punk that are more interesting. Women, LGBTQ and POC communities are being heavily represented within punk and hardcore, while the entertainment industry and norm culture struggle to find accurate representation or inclusion. If the punk scene can be a space for marginalized and indigenous communities to be visible, that is important.”

Bixel points out that the punk scene has always been at the forefront of supporting progressive causes. On a local level, they’ve held shows and raised funds for human rights and social justice organizations like Border Angels and Planned Parenthood.

And while an outsider might make facevalue judgments about folks in the punk world, Blaine Factor and his brother know that the “the nicest people in the world come from punk and hardcore.”

“It’s a scene that relies entirely on community building,” says Factor. “There’s no heroes or hotshots. There is no corporate money or record producers to run the show.

People do this for the love of it. It nullifies egos cause if you act like an asshole, no one wants to book your band.”

“I suppose punk was born of rebellion and then weaponized as a form of protest against the status quo,” Slingerland adds.

“I don’t think much has changed in that department. I hope it never does.”

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JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 21

MUSIC

BLACK

ALFRED HOWARD

GOLD

Sleepless in Santee

T

he alarm went off at 4:50 a.m. I was in a deep sleep—an ebony unconsciousness. It was my first solid rest since Klay Thompson tore his ACL in game 6 of the NBA Finals. On that night, anxiety’s puppet stings and Warrior’s fandom collaborated to turn the pitter-patter of my heart into a John Bonham drum solo.

I was sleeping next to my girlfriend who finds rest a more fleeting activity than I do, so I quickly struck the alarm as if I were trying to avoid a whammy on Press Your Luck. I usually start my Sundays at 5 a.m., but I wanted to arrive at the Santee Swap Meet by 5:24 a.m., three minutes or so before one of the other record guys.

And at that ungodly hour, I must also allot for the 10 minutes of comedic, awkward bumbling. This includes classic slapstick routines such as putting my left shoe on my right foot and attempting to brush my teeth with Neosporin.

I’m a morning person by necessity, not by design.

I have one CD in my car, The Beavis and Butthead Experience (25 cents at last week’s Santee Swap) and Nirvana’s opening track, “I Hate Myself and Want to Die,” was perhaps a subtle clue as to the day ahead.

I listened to the song on repeat til I got to the drive-in theatre that hosts the swap meet. I had decided to write an article about the Santee Swap Meet as I was walking through it last week. I had looked up from my phone’s screen (reading up on Klay’s ACL) and had seen a man with a longsleeve Harley Davidson shirt, a Fox Racing baseball cap and a sheathed broadsword the size of his body. I immediately looked back down to see why Thompson hadn’t had his operation yet.

22 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

A little while later I thought to myself how strange it was that this man, a reallife dystopian motorcycle villain straight out of Mad Max, hadn’t pulled my attention away from my cell phone. But at the Santee Swap Meet, I often see things that would raise red flags elsewhere.

Where else does an overtly polite man

The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun

by Farm with a chainsaw have a booth offering tree services and scripture? For real—he has a sign that says “RULE OVER SIN OR BURN IN THE LAKE OF FIRE” and another sign that says “Will Trim Your Trees.”

Back to my most recent visit. I walked through the corridors of commerce looking for boxes of records. I cordially waved to the guy who had grabbed an original copy of Pink Floyd’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn for $5 on that one morning when I hit my snooze bar and showed up late.

I was casually walking around when Randy, another record guy, tripped over a penny loafer and, in a moment of misguided altruism, I caught him. Once he

regained his balance, he grabbed the copy of Television’s Marquee Moon I had been heading toward. If I had only let him Million Dollar Baby his head on the seller’s pickup truck, I’d own my third copy of Marquee Moon. I’ll carry that memory to my grave. I’ll be in hospice, struggling to recall the names of my children through glaucoma-clouded eyes, and someone will bring up Marquee Moon and I’ll raise my fist to the sky to scream, “RAAAANNNNNDDYYYY!” At the end of the day, searching for vinyl gems at a swap meet is 99 percent luck and a little skill. By this point of the morning, the sun was in full obnoxious bloom and there were at least five other vinyl vultures circling the scene.

I began picking through a particular box of records first, when I asked, “how much?” The seller said, “50 cents a record.” This is increasingly rare these days, as most sellers have caught wind of the vinyl resurgence and suddenly want $15 for their Carpenters records. At 50 cents apiece, I get wide saucer eyes and begin to grab everything. It’s amazing what you can rationalize when it comes to bargains. Suddenly I’m buying Billy Joel records just because. At 25 cents, I’ll buy Loggins and Messina records just because. Readers don’t want to know what happens at 10 cents.

In this pile of records was one interesting one: Farm’s Innermost Limits of Pure Fun. It had a blank white cover with no information, but the drummer’s name was Dennis Dragon and there were song titles like “Crystal Shingles” and “Inner Space.”

Once I got it home, it turned out the record was a 1968 psychedelic soul jazz soundtrack to a surf movie. The music spanned from cinematic, break-heavy funk and reverb-drenched California folk to a sprawling, sludgy closing track titled “Coming of the Dawn.”

I would have gambled on this record for $10 so 50 cents was a huge success.

Sometimes, a little less sleep ends up paying off.

Black Gold appears every other week.

Alfred Howard is always looking for vinyl and stories, and can be contacted at blackgoldsandiego@gmail.com.

THE

SPOTLIGHT DEMETRIOUS

Big Boi

B

ack in 2003, if you had asked me—or any music critic for that matter—which of the two main singles from Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below would hold up over time, I almost certainly would have said “Hey Ya.” That song, which appeared on Andre 3000’s portion of the double album, was huge that summer. Hell, it was huge the whole year.

Big Boi’s single, “The Way You Move,” was a bass-heavy banger, but “Hey Ya”—well, it just sounded timeless.

Looking back, I think I was wrong. When was the last time anyone heard “Hey Ya” blasting out of a car? Listening to it now, it sounds dated and almost childish; a novelty song of the time. “The Way You Move,” however, has stood the test of time. It sounds like it could have been made today, but still holds a nostalgic factor for anyone who was alive at the time it was first released.

I could go on for days about my love of Outkast. But while most of us spent the majority of the ’90s and early ’00s thinking it was Andre that was the real star of the group, I’ve come around to thinking it was Big Boi who was the real artist all along. My proof? I heard “Hey Ya” playing in a Target the other day. A fucking Target. Later in the week, I heard “The Way You Move” booming out of a packed club night at the Whistle Stop with younger millennials singing and dancing along.

That’s timeless.

—Seth Combs

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MUSIC

IF I WERE U

BY CITYBEAT STAFF

Our picks for the week’s top shows

RICK RODNEY

WEDNESDAY, JULY 3

PLAN A: Ceremony, Sheer Mag @ The Irenic. Sonoma County quintet Ceremony started out as a pissy hardcore band, but have since morphed into one of best postpunk bands in the world. Their new album, their first in four years, doesn’t come out until August, so this show should be a nice preview of yet another new direction for the highly versatile group. PLAN B: Lev Snowe, Vinyl Beach @ Che Café Collective. Winnepeg native Lev Snowe makes beautiful psych-pop for disaffected young lovers who like nothing more than to curl up and feel all the feels. So yeah, we like it. BACKUP PLAN: Futurebirds, Zeb Zaitz @ Soda Bar.

THURSDAY, JULY 4

PLAN A: Beekeeper, Gravespell, Monarch, Supra summus @ Soda Bar. Look, everyone’s Plan A should be to make sure all your pets are safe and calm during all the fireworks. Afterward, however, head to Soda Bar and listen to some thrash metal because it’s the American thing to do. BACKUP PLAN: The English Beat, Warsaw Poland Bros. @ Belly Up Tavern.

FRIDAY, JULY 5

PLAN A: Drug Hunt, Wild Wild Wets, DREAM BURGLAR, San Pedro El Cortez @ The Casbah. This is a pretty great lineup top-to-bottom, especially local psych-rockers Wild Wild Wets, who always put on a good show. PLAN B: SIXES, Smokescreens, Los Pinche Pinches, Blacks Beach Boys @ Whistle Stop. Another great local lineup, but this one has more of a garage and surf rock vibe. BACKUP PLAN: Helsott, Cage, Mythraeum, Cryptic @ Brick by Brick.

SATURDAY, JULY 6

PLAN A: Earthless, Crypt Trip, Warish @ The Casbah. Are psych-rockers Earthless the best local band? It’s possible. We once had a friend describe them as “epic, spacerock, dude!” and what they’d want to listen to while fighting the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica. So, yeah, they rock! PLAN B: ‘Horizon Music Festival’ w/ Big Boi, Elephante, Justin Caruso @ Embarcadero Marina Park North. Check out this week’s Spotlight section for our editor’s loving tribute to Outkast’s Big Boi. BACKUP PLAN: (Sic) Verbs, Interested Goldettes, Pall Jenkins @ Black Cat Bar.

SUNDAY, JULY 7

PLAN A: ‘Lady Brain Fest’ w/ Astra Kelly, MC Flow, Lindsay White, Marie Haddad, and more @ The Heritage Ranch. Check

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Ceremony out this week’s Short List section for more info on this womxn-powered festival. PLAN B: Hate Drugs, Jet Black Alley Cat, Patternist, Ignant Benches @ Soma. Hate Drugs play romantic indie pop that’s perfect for summertime beach strolls and making out under boardwalks. It’s such great beach music that we were shocked to learn the band is from Bakersfield, but hey, that’s cool. There’s some great Basque restaurants in Bakersfield. BACKUP PLAN: Earthless, Crypt Trip, Salt Lick @ The Casbah.

MONDAY, JULY 8

PLAN A: Amyl and The Sniffers, MOSS! @ Soda Bar. They have mullets. They’re sweaty. They’re Australian and they may kick you in the face. Yes, Amyl and The Sniffers play bad-ass, old-school rock with a punk edge, and they’re fronted by Amy Taylor, who may or may not be the second coming of Wendy O. Williams. PLAN B: Usnea, CHRCH @ SPACE. There’s been some great metal coming out of Portland these days, and Usnea is definitely one of the best in the doom metal camp. Heavy, grinding riffage with a singer that sounds like something that just ascended from a pit in Lord of the Rings.

TUESDAY, JULY 9

PLAN A: The Chats, Tommy and the Commies @ Soda Bar. It’s an Australian punk invasion this week. The Chats are young, snotty lads who look like feral teenagers and play songs like “Mum Stole My Darts” and “Yeah Nah.” They often sound like they’re one song away from passing out in a puddle of Foster’s cans, but in a good way. BACKUP PLAN: Secret Fun Club, Tap & Die, Shoot the Glass @ The Casbah.

JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 23

MUSIC

CONCERTS HOT! NEW! FRESH!

Mrs. Henry (Casbah, 7/20), Full Blast Fun Boy (Soda Bar, 7/30), Dezorah (Soda Bar, 8/19), Shonen Knife (Soda Bar, 8/24), Gondwana (Music Box, 8/28), Grateful Shred (Music Box, 9/6), Steve Grimmett (Brick By Brick, 9/9), Gutter Demons (Soda Bar, 9/15), Durand Jones (BUT, 9/18), Luis Fonsi (Humphreys, 9/19), Daddy Long Legs (Casbah, 9/22), Guida (Casbah, 9/23), Obituary (Brick By Brick, 10/3), Led Zepagain (BUT, 10/11), Collie Buddz (Observatory, 10/13), The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band (Casbah, 10/19) Off With Their Heads (Casbah, 10/23), Michale Graves (Brick By Brick, 10/29), Kikagaku Moyo (Music Box, 11/1), Manlord (Brick By Brick, 11/5), Son Little (The Irenic, 12/11), Powerglove (Brick

By Brick, 4/25).

ALL SOLD OUT The English Beat (BUT, 7/5), The Chats (Soda Bar, 7/9), Billie Eilish (Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre, 7/13), Jeff Bridges (BUT, 8/6), The Psychedelic Furs (Observatory, 8/6), Death Cab For Cutie (Observatory, 8/9-10), Touché Amoré (Ché Café Collective, 8/13), Orville Peck (Casbah, 8/15), David Grisman (BUT, 8/29), Queen Nation (BUT, 8/30), The Marshall Tucker Band (BUT, 9/12), Oliver Tree (Observatory, 9/18) MXMTOON (HOB, 10/2), Jonas Brothers (Pechanga Arena, 10/7), Morcheeba

(BUT, 10/13), Tyler Childers (Observatory, 10/15), Mike Watt & The Missingmen (Casbah, 11/2), Two Door Cinema Club (Observatory, 11/8), Built To Spill (Casbah, 11/14).

CANCELLED Jagwar Twin (Casbah, 7/21), Ozzy Osbourne (North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre, 7/23).

GET YER TICKETS Porter Robinson (OMNIA, 7/19), Pouya (HOB, 7/23), Lil Jon (OMNIA, 7/26), Blink-182, Lil Wayne (North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre, 8/7), Kacey Musgraves (Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre, 8/27), Andy Grammer (HOB, 9/2), Carrie Underwood (Pechanga Arena, 9/10), Tony Bennett (San Diego Civic Theatre, 9/14), Yungblud (Observatory, 9/19), Cigarettes After Sex (Observatory, 10/5), The Who (Viejas Arena, 10/16), Judah & The Lion (Observatory, 10/17), Senses Fail (HOB, 10/19), Hozier (Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre, 10/26), Helmet (BUT, 11/7).

JULY WEDNESDAY, JULY 3 80’s Heat at Belly Up Tavern. Ceremony at The Irenic. New Found Glory at House of Blues. Slum Village at Music Box. Futurebirds at Soda Bar. Zedd at OMNIA.

THURSDAY, JULY 4 The English Beat at Belly Up Tavern.

24 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

Beekeeper at Soda Bar. High Tide Society at The Casbah.

FRIDAY, JULY 5 Anuel AA at Viejas Arena at SDSU. Drug Hunt at The Casbah. Fuerza De Tijuana at Music Box. Amerikan Bear at Soda Bar. Helsott at Brick By Brick.

SATURDAY, JULY 6 Tainted Love at Belly Up Tavern. Six String Society at Music Box. The Convalescence at Brick By Brick. Earthless at The Casbah.

SUNDAY, JULY 7 Ian Anderson at San Diego Civic Theatre. Chuck Ragan at Belly Up Tavern.

Earthless at The Casbah. My Mynd at Soda Bar.

MONDAY, JULY 8 Amyl and the Sniffers at Soda Bar. Shawn Mendes at Pechanga Arena. Usnea at SPACE.

TUESDAY, JULY 9 Secret Fun Club at The Casbah.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 10 Bob Schneider at Belly Up Tavern. Jon Bellion at Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre. Guster at Humphreys. Nightmares on Wax DJ set at Music Box. Glitterer at Ché Café Collective. Vaya Futuro at The Casbah. King Whisker at Soda Bar.

THURSDAY, JULY 11 Tim Skold at Brick By Brick. Foghat at Belly Up Tavern. The Manhattan Trans-

fer at Music Box. Xiuhtezcatl at House of Blues. XYLØ at The Casbah.

FRIDAY, JULY 12 The Silent Comedy at The Casbah.

Ward Davis at Observatory North Park.

Daniel Sloss at Balboa Theatre. Davilla 666 at Soda Bar. Phutureprimitive at Music Box. Mistresses of All Evil at Brick By Brick.

SATURDAY, JULY 13 Roni Lee at Brick By Brick. The B-Side Players at Belly Up Tavern. The Loons at Soda Bar. Spice Pistols at The Casbah.

Furrageous at Music Box.

SUNDAY, JULY 14 Jackie Mendoza at Soda Bar. Tower 7 & The Professors at Belly Up Tavern. The Havnauts at The Casbah.

MONDAY, JULY 15 No Knife at The Casbah.

TUESDAY, JULY 16 Hugh Jackman at Pechanga Arena. FEA at Soda Bar. The Hiroshima Mockingbirds at The Casbah.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 17 Dylan LeBlanc at The Casbah. August Burns Red at House of Blues. The Appleseed Cast at Soda Bar. Atomic Groove at Belly Up Tavern.

THURSDAY, JULY 18 Dressy Bessy at Soda Bar. Lunar Vacation at House Of Blues. Elizabeth Colour Wheel at SPACE. Paragraphs at Belly Up

Tavern. Vince DiCola at Brick By Brick.

Malt Couture at The Casbah.

FRIDAY, JULY 19 Why Don’t We at Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre. Rick Braun at Humphreys. Thunderpussy at Belly Up Tavern. The Claypool Lennon Delirium at Music Box. Birdy Bardot at Soda Bar. Porter Robinson at OMNIA. Confide at Brick By Brick. Emo Nite at The Casbah.

SATURDAY, JULY 20 Beck at North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre. Monsieur Perine at House of Blues. SuicideGirls at Music Box. Cigar at Soda Bar. Betamaxx at Belly Up Tavern. Chantel Jeffries at OMNIA. Mrs. Henry at The Casbah.

SUNDAY, JULY 21 Infinite Floyd at Brick By Brick. Don’t Stop Or We’ll Die at Soda Bar.

MONDAY, JULY 22 We Were Promised Jetpacks at The Casbah. Ringo Deathstarr at Whistle Stop. Kim Gray at Soda Bar.

TUESDAY, JULY 23 Pinky Pinky at Ché Café Collective.

Pouya at House Of Blues. Party Nails at The Casbah.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 24 Jonathon McReynolds at House of Blues. Cracker at Belly Up Tavern. Drab Majesty at Music Box.

MUSIC CONTINUED ON PAGE 25

@SDCITYBEAT

BY CHRISTIN BAILEY

MUSIC MUSIC CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24 THURSDAY, JULY 25 Bob Log III at The Casbah. Andy McKee’s Guitar Masters at Music Box. Golden Vessel at Soda Bar. The Alarm at House of Blues.

FRIDAY, JULY 26 Stef Chura at Soda Bar. Thrice at North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre. Reel Big Fish at House of Blues. The Highwayman Show at Belly Up Tavern. AJ Froman at The Casbah. Lil Jon at OMNIA.

SATURDAY, JULY 27 $UICIDEBOY$ at SOMA. Wayward Sons at Music Box. X at Belly Up Tavern.

Black Sabbitch at Soda Bar. A Midsummer Masquerade Ball: French Follies at Observatory North Park. ‘80s Metal Jam Night at Brick By Brick.

SUNDAY, JULY 28 The Raconteurs at Cal Coast Credit Union Air Theatre at SDSU. Matt Costa at Music Box. Decrepit Birth at Brick

By Brick. Wayward Sons at Music Box. X at Belly Up Tavern. Ric Scales at The Casbah.

MONDAY, JULY 29 Ninet Tayeb at Soda Bar. Le Saboteur at The Casbah.

TUESDAY, JULY 30 The Drums at Observatory North Park.

Full Blast Fun Boy at Soda Bar.

@SDCITYBEAT

rCLUBSr

710 Beach Club, 710 Garnet Ave., Pacific Beach. Wed: Open Mic. Thu: ‘Bringing Back Rock ‘N’ Roll’. Sun: Karaoke. Tue: Trivia.

Air Conditioned Lounge, 4673 30th St., Normal Heights. Wed: ‘#HipHopWeds’.

Fri: ‘House Music Fridays’. Sat: ‘JUICY’.

Sun: DJ Staci. Mon: ‘Organized Grime’.

Tue: DJ Staci.

American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave., Downtown. Fri: Tony Rock. Sat: Tony Rock. Sun: Tony Rock. Tue: Open Mic. The Bancroft, 9143 Campo Road, Spring Valley. Wed: Karaoke. Thu: Beebout, The Great Wide Open, Clementine Darling. Fri: Mood of a Sinner. Sat: Off the Rails, Black Levee. Mon: Trivia. Tue: Karaoke.

Bang Bang, 526 Market St., Downtown.

Fri: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs.

Sat: Jubilee.

Bar Pink, 3829 30th St., North Park. Sun: ‘Rat Sabbath’.

Beaumont’s, 5665 La Jolla Blvd., La Jolla. Fri: Born Fighters. Sat: Rolling Heartbreakers.

Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach. Wed: ‘80s Heat, Bella Lux Dance Crew. Thu: The English Beat, Warsaw Poland Bros. Fri: The English Beat (sold out). Sat: Tainted Love, Metal Street Boyz. Sun: Chuck Regan, Dave Hause, Dan Andriano.

MUSIC CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

ASTROLOGICALLY UNSOUND Weekly forecasts from the so-called universe ARIES (March 21 - April 19): Practice patience this week. Actually, you may have to start off by just practicing the practice of patience this week. It’s really about building from the ground up here.

TAURUS (April 20 - May 20): Don’t jump to judgment; There are many reasons why an antique doll would turn its head slowly toward you other than just “being evil.”

GEMINI (May 21 - June 20): This week, try to have new experiences and explore places where you do not automatically connect to the free Wi-Fi. CANCER (June 21 - July 22): The past goes back forever and the future never seems to end, so consider yourself lucky to live in the present, but that will be over pretty soon.

LEO (July 23 - August 22): Just because something is true does not mean it has to be said. But the inverse corollary is also true: Just because something is a lie does mean you have to say it.

VIRGO (August 23 - September 22): This week, there are two paths: neither of them starts in a yellow wood (it’s not the season for that), but both of them end up in the same undesirable place.

LIBRA (September 23 - October 22): The simplest way to learn your limits is by reaching them. Well, actually, the simplest way would be trusting the warning sign but let’s not pretend you’re that credulous.

SCORPIO (October 23 - November 21): If you feel crippled by the weight of all the mistakes you’ve ever made then go outside and put up a hummingbird feeder. A bad person has never fed hummingbirds.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 - December 21): There is a different moral weight and ethical concern to take into account when squishing a spider in your bed versus squishing one on a tree outside.

CAPRICORN (December 22 January 19): The things you do today will reverberate through all of time. After all, the only reason you’re here is because a fish was bored of being in a swamp. No pressure though.

AQUARIUS (January 20 - February 18): Now is not the time to second-guess your instincts; that time would have been four seconds ago when you decided to roll down a hill inside a giant tractor tire.

PISCES (February 19 - March 20): Frivolity can be great when judiciously practiced, and it can even be a great time when you’re excessively frivolous—but, you know, not for long.

Astrologically Unsound appears every week. Follow Christin Bailey on Twitter at @hexprax.

JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 25

MUSIC MUSIC CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25 Black Cat Bar, 4246 University Ave., City Heights. Sat: (Sic) Verbs, Goldettes, Pall Jenkins.

Blonde, 1808 W. Washington St., Mission Hills. Wed: ‘Dance Klassique’. Fri: ‘We Are Yr Friends’. Sat: ‘Just like Heaven ‘80s New Wave’. Sun: Vandalorum, Francis Roberts, Space Wizard in Space. Tue: ‘Techit Easy’.

Boar Cross’n, 390 Grand Ave., Carlsbad.

Sat: Big Dude.

Brick by Brick, 1130 Buenos Ave., Bay Park. Fri: Helsott. Sat: The Convalescence. Mon: Usnea, CHRCH. The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., Midtown. Wed: DJs Bart Blackstone, Vaughn Avakian, Mr. Mazee, Dennis the Menace, Chulita Vinyl Club, Tr3sBeatLes. Thu: High Tide Society. Fri: Drug Hunt, Wild Wild Wets, Dream Burglar, San Pedro El Cortez. Sat: Earthless, Crypt Trip. Sun: Earthless, Crypt Trip, Salt Lick. Mon: Amyl and the Sniffers. Tue: Secret Fun Club, Tap & Die, Shoot the Glass.

Che Cafe, 1000 Scholars Drive S, La Jolla. Fri: Fashion Jackson, Small Crush.

Sat: Castaway, Silenus, Modern Color, Final Path, Buriedbutstillbreathing. Sun: The Dead Coats, Sustivity, Chump, Spirited Away.

Dizzy’s, 4275 Mission Bay Drive, Bay Park.

Fri: The Mikan Zlatkovich, Brian Levy 4tet.

F6ix, 526 F St., Downtown. Fri: Birdy Bird.

Sat: Bar1ne. Sun: ‘Reggae Sundays’.

Fluxx, 500 Fourth Ave., Downtown. Fri: DJ Brees. Sat: DJ Scooter.

House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave., Downtown. Wed: New Found Glory. Fri: Noise Pollution. Sun: The Millenial Club, The Ivy.

26 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · JULY 3, 2019

Humphreys Backstage, 2241 Shelter Island Drive, Shelter Island. Wed: Come Together. Thu: Michele Lundeen. Fri: Platinum Vibe. Sat: Wildside. Sun: Stellita’s Groove. Mon: Billy Watson. Tue: Mercedes Moore.

The Irenic, 3090 Polk Ave., North Park.

Wed: Ceremony, Sheer Mag, Bugg.

Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd., Midtown.

Wed: ‘Rhythm Nation’. Thu: ‘Star Spangled Bangers’. Fri: ‘Weird Psyence’. Sat: ‘Ascension’. Sun: DJ Rescue, Oddson.

Kensington Club, 4079 Adams Ave., Kensington. Fri: Tome, D. Rex, Habak, Submissive Tiger. Sat: Satan’s Pilgrims, Thee Allyrgic Reaction, The Premonitions.

Lestat’s Coffee House, 3343 Adams Ave., Normal Heights. Fri: Natural Disaster, Tristan Brooks, Samer Bakri. Mon: Open Mic. Tue: Comedy Night.

Mc P’s Irish Pub, 1107 Orange Ave., Coronado. Wed: Manic Bros. Thu: Stilettos. Fri: Ron’s Garage. Sat: Stilettos.

Sun: Fish. Mon: Bob Wade. Tue: Gene Warren.

Martinis Above Fourth, 3940 Fourth Ave., Hillcrest. Mon: Brian Justin Crum.

Tue: Brian Justin Crum.

The Merrow, 1271 University Ave., Hillcrest. Wed: Karaoke. Fri: Street Cleaner, Jak Syn. Sat: ‘Bear Night’. Mon: ‘Playground Monday Night Dance Party’.

Mother’s Saloon, 2228 Bacon St., Ocean Beach. Tue: Trivia.

Mr. Peabody’s, 136 Encinitas Blvd., Encinitas. Thu: The Sickstring Outlaws. Fri: Custard Pie. Sat: Tower7. Sun: Jazz Jam. Mon: Open Mic. Music Box, 1337 India St., Little Italy.

Wed: Slum Village, Chuuwee, Boon

League, Primo Dirty. T-Chronic. Fri: Fuerza De Tijuana. Sat: Six String Society, Mimi Zulu, Casey Hensley, Veronica May.

ers, MOSS!, Razor Nights. Tue: The Chats, Tommy & the Commies (sold out).

The Office, 3936 30th St., North Park.

Wed: ‘Independance’. Mon: ‘Night Shift’.

SOMA, 3350 Sports Arena Blvd., Midway.

Sun: Hate Drugs, Jet Black Alleycat, Patternist, Ignant Benches, Lunar Hand.

OMNIA Nightclub, 454 Sixth Ave., Downtown. Wed: Zedd. Fri: Coast Club. Sat: DJ Shift.

SPACE, 3519 El Cajon Blvd., City Heights.

Wed: ‘Guilty Pleasures’. Fri: ‘Rituals’.

Tue: Karaoke.

Parq, 615 Broadway, Downtown. Fri: YG. Sat: Ikon.

Spin, 2028 Hancock St., Midtown. Fri: ‘Booty Fest’.

Pour House, 1903 S. Coast Highway, Oceanside. Wed: Open Mic. Fri: Playboy Manbaby. Sat: Zephyr Blue Band. Sun: Shane Shipley. Mon: Trivia. Tue: DJ Lexicon Devil.

Sycamore Den, 3391 Adams Ave., Normal Heights. Wed: Paul Gregg. Tue: Trivia.

The Rail, 3796 Fifth Ave., Hillcrest. Thu: ‘Country Dance’. Fri: ‘Bad Behavior’. Sat: City Royals Pride Show. Sun: Noche Romantica.

Rich’s, 1051 University Ave., Hillcrest.

Wed: ‘Independence Day Celebration’.

Thu: ‘#Lez + Techniche’. Fri: ‘ElectroPop’. Sat: ‘Voltage’. Sun: ‘Discoteka’.

Riviera Supper Club, 7777 University Ave., La Mesa. Wed: ‘Boss Jazz’. Fri: Blue Largo. Sat: Baja Bugs. Tue: Funk Jam. Rosie O’Gradys, 3402 Adams Ave., Normal Heights. Wed: Chloe Lou & Davies.

Thu: DJ Ratty. Fri: Taryn Donath Duo. Sat: Thump Juice. Mon: Jazz Jam. Tue: ‘Adams Gone Funky’.

Seven Grand, 3054 University Ave., North Park. Wed: Lady Dottie & the Diamonds.

Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd., City Heights. Wed: Futurebirds, Zeb Zaitz.

Thu: Beekeeper, Gravespell, Monarch, Supra Summus. Fri: Amerikan Bear, Shades McCool, Band Argument. Sat: Elektric Voodoo. Sun: My Mynd, Jonny Tarr, Ramagas. Mon: Amyl and the Sniff-

Til-Two Club, 4746 El Cajon Blvd., City Heights. Sun: ‘Pants Karaoke!’.

Tin Roof, 401 G St., Downtown. Wed: DJ Jwin. Thu: Keep Your Soul. Fri: Keep Your Soul. Sat: DJ Jwin. Sun: Karaoke. Tue: Erick Tyler.

Tio Leo’s, 5302 Napa St., Bay Park. Wed: The Jazz Pocket Swing. Fri: Bump City Brass. Sat: Santana Ways. Mon: ‘Sexy Salsa & Sensual Bachata’. Tue: Big Time Operator Orchestra.

Tower Bar, 4757 University Ave., City Heights. Fri: Skinny Veny, Mad Cow Disease, Lowesighpur. Sat: Se Vende, Squarecrow, Playboy Manbaby, Flaunt.

U-31, 3112 University Ave., North Park.

Thu: ‘BoomBox Thursday’. Mon: ‘#31 Flavors’.

Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St., South Park.

Wed: ‘Fantasy’. Thu: ‘Groove is in the Heart’. Sat: ‘80s vs ‘90s Dance Party’.

Mon: ‘Electric Relaxation’.

Winstons, 1921 Bacon St., Ocean Beach.

Wed: ‘Club Kingston’. Thu: Burnt, Almalafa, Unsteady, DJ Miss Lulu. Fri: Cubensis, Moonalice. Sat: Boostive, Suenos. Sun: Karaoke. Mon: Electric Waste Band. Tue: Robert Jon & The Wreck.

@SDCITYBEAT

BY JACKIE BRYANT

IN THE BACK

CANNABITCH Sky high

I

t’s officially summer and if my text messages and DMs are any indication, people are gearing up for seasonal travel with one thing on their minds.

“Hi! Have you ever traveled internationally with cannabis?”

“Yo, do you fly with weed?”

“Hey Jackie—quick question. Do you think I can take my vape pen to Spain?”

In the last month alone, I have probably fielded a dozen or so requests for advice about traveling with cannabis. While I’d consider myself a seasoned pro when it comes to most cannabis laws, it was just a couple of weeks ago that I found myself crouched in a bathroom stall, feverishly googling tips for stashing joints in my carry-on before attempting to go through TSA. So, if anything, I understand how much confusion and misinformation is out there.

TSA has claimed that they are not looking for our weed. This is TSA’s official stance, which they originally wrote in, of all places, an Instagram post (modern life is weird).

@SDCITYBEAT

“Let us be blunt,” the caption says, surely no pun intended. “TSA officers DO NOT search for marijuana or other illegal drugs.

Our screening procedures are focused on security and detecting potential threats.

But in the event a substance appears to be marijuana or a cannabis-infused product, we’re required by federal law to notify law enforcement. This includes items that are used for medicinal purposes.”

Good news: I made it back to San Diego with three whole joints stuffed to the brim with Alaskan weed! The bad news is I’ve never been stopped or caught, so I can’t definitively say what, if anything, security is looking for. Also, I’m a white chick. I get the benefit of the doubt in most scenarios.

Take this advice with a serious grain of salt.

Edibles and topical salves are an obviously good place to start. I always remove the product from its original packing or peel off the labels, because why give it away so easily? Ziploc bags are good in a pinch, but I recommend springing for a smell-proof bag, like the one I am currently using from The Original Stash Bag (originalstashbag. com). It’s not perfect, but it definitely helps to reduce the stank, so it’s worth it.

The next step up is to bring a vape pen.

JACKIE BRYANT

A packaged joint from Alaska I’ve successfully traveled with a pen to several continents and on at least 50 flights in the last year two years alone. I generally advise people to take the cartridge off the battery and stow it in a toiletry bag, while keeping the battery in a separate part of the carry-on. But in practice, I’m lazy and I

leave it fully assembled. Again, grain of salt.

I have also been known to use my vape in-flight, exhaling into a wet paper towel or a sweater or blanket when the lights are dimmed. I really don’t recommend this as it’s highly illegal and kind of a dick move— but, it does make flying better.

Flying with flower is the final frontier and one that I’ve only recently crossed myself. I realized I was being kind of a loser about it when my best friend’s mom said she stashed a bit in her carry-on on a trip to the Bahamas. I was impressed—the boomers are not only catching up to us younger folk, but they’re giving even fewer fucks than we are.

So, inspired by my favorite housewifeturned-renegade-pot-smuggler, I tried it. I removed the label, kept it in the individual plastic cases and threw it in my stash bag.

I was flying from Alaska to Washington to California—in other words, all states where weed is recreationally legal. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s still not allowed on a plane, but it does lower the stakes. Nobody stopped me. I’d do it again.

CannaBitch appears every week. Follow Jackie Bryant on Twitter at @jacqbryant.

JULY 3, 2019 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 27