Tucson Weekly May 12, 2022

MAY 12 - MAY 18, 2022 • TUCSONWEEKLY.COM • FREE

Tucson Salvage

Talking with Holocaust Survivors

Sonoran Explorin’

The man who loves buses

Travelin’ Man An excerpt from Tucson author Tom Miller’s new memoir

Currents

GOP eyeing federal abortion ban

Music

Return of the Meat Puppets

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MAY 12, 2022

MAY 12, 2022 | VOL. 37, NO. 19

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STAFF

CONTENTS SONORAN EXPLORIN’

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A day at the Old Pueblo Trolley and Bus Museum

TUCSON SALVAGE

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A survivor meet and greet, Holocaust Pt. 1

FEATURE

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A talk with longtime journalist and travel writer Tom Miller, and an excerpt from his new memoir

MUSIC

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ADMINISTRATION Steve T. Strickbine, Publisher Michael Hiatt, Vice President

EDITOR’S NOTE

Tyler Vondrak, Associate Publisher, tyler@tucsonlocalmedia.com

Remembrance of Travels Past I’VE LONG BEEN A FAN OF TUCSON author Tom Miller, perhaps best known for his travel writing about Latin America in books such as The Panama Hat Trail and Cuba: Hot and Cold. Miller got his start in the underground press of the 1960s, which may explain why he’s always seemed to have a soft spot in his heart for the scrappy gang here at the Tucson Weekly. Despite wrestling with Parkinson’s disease, Miller has pulled together a terrific book about his career, Where Was I? A Travel Writer’s Memoir. This week, we present an excerpt about the time Miller got himself lost in Saguaro National Park. (There are lessons to be learned.) Managing editor Jeff Gardner talks with Miller about his life as a man of letters.

Elsewhere in the book this week: Staff reporter Nicole Feltman takes a spin in TMC’s new healthcare van, which does old-fashioned house calls; Jennifer Shutt with the Arizona Mirror reports on the GOP’s new interest in a federal abortion ban, now that Roe v. Wade is going to be

Claudine Sowards, Accounting, claudine@tucsonlocalmedia.com

overturned by the Supreme Court; Reagan Priest of Cronkite News looks at the growing pressure on Arizona coroners; Sonoran Explorin’ columnist Emily Dieckman visits with Model bus guru Mark Hart of the Old Pueblo Trolley and Bus Museum; Tucson Salvage columnist Brian Smith hears the stories of Holocaust survivors; Christina Fuoco-Karasinski gets a taste of what the Meat Puppets have to offer ahead of their upcoming show at 191 Toole; XOXO columnist Xavier Omar Otero highlights the week’s best live music; the Tucson Weedly Test Department samples one of the state’s best edibles; and there’s the usual collection of calendars, horoscopes, comics and more scattered throughout the book.

Jim Nintzel Executive Editor Hear Nintz talk about how to raise a little hell in this burg at 9:30 a.m. Wednesdays during the world-famous Frank Show on KLPX, 96.1 FM.

EDITORIAL Jim Nintzel, Executive Editor, jimn@tucsonlocalmedia.com Jeff Gardner, Managing Editor, jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com Alexandra Pere, Staff Reporter, apere@timespublications.com Nicole Feltman, Staff Reporter, nfeltman@timespublications.com Contributors: David Abbott, Rob Brezsny, Max Cannon, Rand Carlson, Tom Danehy, Emily Dieckman, Bob Grimm, Andy Mosier, Linda Ray, Margaret Regan, Will Shortz, Jen Sorensen, Clay Jones, Dan Savage PRODUCTION Courtney Oldham, Production Manager, tucsonproduction@timespublications.com Ryan Dyson, Graphic Designer, ryand@tucsonlocalmedia.com CIRCULATION Aaron Kolodny, Circulation, aaron@timeslocalmedia.com ADVERTISING TLMSales@TucsonLocalMedia.com Gary Tackett, Account Executive, gtackett@tucsonlocalmedia.com Kristin Chester, Account Executive, kristin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Candace Murray, Account Executive, candace@tucsonlocalmedia.com NATIONAL ADVERTISING Zac Reynolds Director of National Advertising Zac@TimesPublications.com Tucson Weekly® is published every Thursday by Times Media Group at 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona. Address all editorial, business and production correspondence to: Tucson Weekly, 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona 85741. Phone: (520) 797-4384, FAX (520) 575-8891. Member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN). The Tucson Weekly® and Best of Tucson® are registered trademarks of Times Media Group. Publisher has the right to refuse any advertisement at his or her discretion.

RANDOM SHOTS By Rand Carlson

Meat Puppets reintroducing themselves through live release

TUCSON WEEDLY

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When life gives you Sublime’s lemon tea cakes, you’ve got cause to celebrate

Cover design by Ryan Dyson. Photo of Mitch McConnell by Gage Skidmore. Photo of Tom Miller by Jay Rochlin.

Copyright: The entire contents of Tucson Weekly are Copyright Times Media Group No portion may be reproduced in whole or part by any means without the express written permission of the Publisher, Tucson Weekly, 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, AZ 85741.

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SONORAN EXPLORIN’

BALSA WOOD BUSES AND A MAN CAVE MODEL S

Model bus guru Mark Hart of the Old Pueblo Trolley and Bus Museum talks about the history of Tucson transit and how air conditioning is overrated

By Emily Dieckman emily@tucsonlocalmedia.com

SORENSEN

MARK HART IS SURROUNDED BY buses, and that’s the way he likes it. He works at Old Pueblo Trolley and Bus Museum, where he spends his days either giving guided tours of the place or building intricate models of buses and trains. The museum houses dozens of historic buses and streetcars in various stages of restoration—including a 1948 Spartan Model S, which Hart lives in and describes as a “man cave.”

“It’s soundproof, comfortable, and it don’t take much to heat it,” he says of the bus, which was formerly owned by Navi-Hopi Tours and went between Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon. “Of course, that’s in the wintertime. In the summer, I don’t fool with air conditioning. I live with the hot weather.”

I interrupt him to make an incredulous

clarification: “You don’t have air conditioning? You just live in a metal bus?”

“It has air conditioning that was in the bus, but I don’t use it,” he says. “I don’t like air conditioning myself.”

So, you can tell early on that Hart, who goes way back with the Old Pueblo Trolley Company’s founder Gene Caywood, is a little otherworldly. He’s part Native American, and he tells me his Indian name is “Running Barefoot.” This is fitting because he hates socks almost as much as he loves buses.

The toenails peeking out of his sandals are painted green, and one toe on each foot is adorned with a gold ring.

Hart grew up in Tucson, and has lived here his whole life, save for a brief stint in the army. His interest in buses started when he was just a kid and the bus biz was booming—in 1931, Tucson Rapid Transit replaced electric streetcar routes with gas-powered buses. In the 1940s, gas rationing sent bus

PHOTO BY EMILY DIECKMAN

ridership through the roof, and then postwar growth hit made the enterprise even bigger. The options for getting from Point A to Point B were changing rapidly, and it was a thrilling time. Right in the middle of that, young Mark started building model buses.

“The idea was if I can’t have a big bus, I’ll make a model of it,” he says.

Hart is proud that he never uses assembly kits to create his models, but taught himself how to do everything from scratch. He’s made a chunk of change over the years from people who commission them. (There’s an old comment on the museum’s Facebook page that calls Hart “a true artist or craftsman… If he had a website I’d need a 2nd mortgage on my home for sure.”) From 1958 to 1978, he also drove buses, starting with Tucson Rapid Transit Company and continuing when the city bought the company and renamed the system SunTran. On the wall of the office where he builds his models, he has a framed paycheck for $126.60 from Tucson Rapid Transit, dated March 27, 1959.

These days, he spends his time making models while he listens to music or watches movies on a miniature DVD player. He also gives tours of the museum. The trolley and bus facility where he lives and works is just one division of Old Pueblo Trolley, along with the Street Railway Division and the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum.

Its current location was dedicated in October 2016, formally named the “Jones-Brogan Building.”

He loves to tell guests about how they’ve got a new greyhound bus scenic cruiser, and how rare it is that this 40-foot bus still has all its original seats. He’ll tell you about the bus strikes of the 1960s, which dragged on for over a month before Tucson Transit Corporation demanded everyone report back to work by midnight. Hart was one of only three people to come back, but that was enough to get things back up and running.

“I was what they call a scab,” he laughs.

The museum is fascinating and a little eerie to visit—a warehouse of old buses that used to be full of people heading to work, heading home, heading to a party. They served the people of Tucson, and now the crew at the museum is lovingly servicing them. But needless to say, Hart is the real highlight of visiting. It feels nice to be in a space that someone is so devoted to, and, in fact, to meet any person who is so devoted to one thing.

“This place here is the place keeping me alive, keeping me active,” he says. “I enjoy what I do here. The only disadvantage is I can’t call in sick because I live here.” ■ Old Pueblo Trolley and Bus Museum is located at 2530 S. Fourth Ave. Hours are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays through Sundays.

It doesn’t hurt to call ahead to make sure Mark Hart will be there to show you around: 520-400-7319.

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PHOTO BY RAPHAEL ROMERO RUIZ/CRONKITE BORDERLANDS PROJECT

CORONER CRUNCH

As death rates rise, medical examiners struggle to keep pace with caseload

By Reagan Priest Cronkite News

Dr. Jeff Johnson, chief medical examiner in Maricopa County, said the death rate for the county has stayed high through 2021 DR. GREGORY HESS SAYS HE HAS and early 2022, creating large caseloads for enough forensic pathologists on staff for the an office that is already facing a shortage of Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office to forensic pathologists. keep pace with the office’s caseload, but they “One of the struggles that we experience are still stretched thin. is that because there’s so few (pathologists) And his office is one of the lucky ones. that train every year, and so few that are As the nation enters a third year under available, it takes us a really long time to get the threat of COVID-19, Arizona medical somebody to join us when we have a vacanexaminers say they are struggling to keep cy,” Johnson said. “So while you wait for that, up with rising caseloads driven largely by you’ve got all the rest of your physicians rising deaths from the virus at a time when who are struggling and if you have two or there is a shortage in forensic pathologists. three vacancies at the same time, then that It’s not just Arizona: In states across the just magnifies everything.”

U.S., medical examiners are reporting sharp Johnson said the National Association for increases in their caseloads as COVID-19 Medical Examiners, the accrediting body for and related increases in overdose and other forensic pathologists and medical examindeaths strain their resources. er’s offices, recommends that one physician “We are fully staffed right now but we’re do no more than 325 “autopsy equivalents” kind of in the minority,” Hess said. “A lot per year. The three Arizona counties of places in the United States don’t have accredited by the association – Coconino, enough staff to keep up with the increased Maricopa and Pima counties – all meet that caseload, never mind … the load that they standard. had prior to the pandemic, prior to this But that comes as the total number of recent wave of overdose deaths that you see deaths in the state jumped a remarkable across the country.”

25% from 2019 to 2020, a year when some The Maricopa County Medical Examinsmaller counties saw deaths rise almost 50% er’s Office reported a 26% increase in deaths year over year. Deaths continued to rise in from 2019 to 2020. While deaths can be 2021, according to data from the Arizona expected to rise along with an increase in Department of Health Services, from 75,700 population, Maricopa County’s population to 80,733 – a more modest rise of 6.7% but grew just 1.9% in 2020. still well over the population growth of 1.7%

that year.

Pima County faces high caseloads in part because it handles deaths from Cochise, Graham, La Paz and Santa Cruz counties.

But it has been able to cope because it has remained fully staffed throughout the pandemic.

Hess attributes his office’s ability to avoid the forensic pathologist shortage to the availability of the University of Arizona’s pathology residency program.

Johnson also noted that the increased caseloads have been driven by the fentanyl crisis, which was made worse by the pandemic.

“We’ve seen a really strong upward trajectory in Maricopa County since 2015, the number of fentanyl deaths that we’ve seen between then and 2021 is nearly doubled every year,” Johnson said.

Both Johnson and Hess said that even though their offices are stressed, they have been able to keep up with the caseload.

Hess said it’s impossible to predict how the death rate will fluctuate or if it will return to pre-pandemic levels.

“I think everyone thought that the pandemic was going to kind of come and go, but it lingers,” he said. “We may have more waves of different variants and the mortality

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may stay high.”

Both Hess and Johnson agree the best way to combat the high caseloads is to increase education and opportunities for forensic pathology. The UArizona pathology residency is the only one of its kind in the state, according to Hess, making it more difficult for students to enter the field and take their expertise to other areas of the state.

It’s also not a field that many students are interested in, Johnson said, but if they recognized the importance of the work, it could help ease the strain on medical examiner’s offices.

“I think that the pandemic has highlighted how important medical death investigation systems are for communities and … for those public health datasets that allow policymakers and public health officials and public safety officials to design interventions to improve the situation,” Johnson said.

“We wouldn’t know about the opioid crisis if it wasn’t for medical examiner’s offices doing this work and highlighting these things,” he said. ■ For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.

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for comment Monday about what exactly the legislation would entail and whether it would include any exceptions, such as the life of the pregnant person, rape or incest.

Getting any abortion bill through the U.S. Senate is an especially challenging task for McConnell doesn’t rule out U.S. Senate vote outlawing abortion if GOP takes control either political party due to the legislative filibuster.

McConnell has been an ardent supporter

By Jennifer Shutt interview published over the weekend if of the procedural hurdle that requires at Arizona Mirror a nationwide ban is “worthy of debate,” least 60 senators to agree to cut off debate McConnell said it would be a possibility in a on a bill and move on to passage.

SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADER Republican-controlled Senate.

“We don’t want to break the Senate and Mitch McConnell isn’t ruling out bringing “If the leaked opinion became the final that’s breaking the Senate,” McConnell said a nationwide abortion ban up for a vote, opinion, legislative bodies—not only at the May 3. “As far as I’m concerned, if we’re should the U.S. Supreme Court end the state level but at the federal level—certainly in the majority it will remain the case in constitutional right to terminate a pregnan- could legislate in that area,” McConnell perpetuity.” cy and his party regains the chamber in the told USA Today. “And if this were the final The legislative filibuster stymied DemoNovember elections. decision, that was the point that it should be crats’ efforts to advance legislation codifyThe Kentucky Republican was somewhat resolved one way or another in the legislaing the right to an abortion earlier this year reserved last week when repeatedly asked tive process.” and is expected to stop a similar bill on a by reporters at the Capitol about the impact “So yeah, it’s possible. It would depend on procedural vote this week. the court overturning a 50-year-old precewhere the votes were,” McConnell Neither political party is forecast to gain dent would have. McConnell argued the real continued. the 10 seats necessary to hold a supermanews was about the leak of an initial draft Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst is expectjority of 60 senators following this year’s opinion to Politico, not the Republican-nom- ed to introduce a nationwide abortion ban midterm elections, making it highly unlikely inated justices preparing to overturn the bill in the U.S. Senate, according to The Congress passes legislation addressing landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

Washington Post. abortion in the near future.

But when asked by USA Today in an Ernst’s office did not return a request Several left-leaning Democrats have

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NO CHOICE

called for their party to tweak or do away with the legislative filibuster.

But other Democrats like Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin III have both repeatedly rejected the idea, and several other Democrats have expressed concerns about what legislation Republicans would pass once they’re back in the majority.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a letter Monday rebuking Republicans in state legislatures for advancing bills to restrict when and how women can access abortion services.

“Republican state legislators across the country are already advancing extreme new laws, seeking to arrest doctors for offering reproductive care, ban abortion entirely with no exceptions, and even charge women with murder who exercise their right to choose,” Pelosi wrote. “These draconian measures could even criminalize contraceptive care, in vitro fertilization and post-miscarriage care, dragging our nation back to a dark time decades into the past.” ■ This article was originally published by Arizona Mirror. Find more at azmirror.com.

MAY 12, 2022

With the rover, Green can do EKG scans, set up an IV, provide medications on scene, sew up cuts, diagnose COVID-19, flu, UTIs and STDs, do blood tests, perform ultrasounds and X-rays, and more.

“I know this is the future of health care,” Green said.

“People want to be at home, they don’t want to leave.”

This partnership is offering an alternative to patients who do not want to visit the hospital or do not have access to a primary care doctor. It can also be a safer option for patients who don’t want to risk catching COVID or another bug at an ER or urgent care facility.

TMC Director of Case Management Jeanne Rhodes said that not everyone who goes to the ER or to urgent care needs to be hospitalized. Instead, they can be very well served in the comfort of their own homes.

“People for the most part, if surrounded in the right environment, get better at home in that environment, COURTESY PHOTO so that will allow us to make the right call at the right time for the right patient,” Rhodes said.

Through Dispatch Health Bridge Care visit, any patient admitted to TMC who might be up for readmission will be visited by Dispatch and be met anywhere TMC introduces rovers to attend to your medical needs between 24-72 hours. They will assess their house, food insecurity and social determinants that would hold back health care.

The TMC and DispatchHealth partnership is helping not only patients of the hospital, but also relieving stress on TMC’s overwhelmed system. Over the course of the COVID outbreak, many hospitals were

By Nicole Feltman frequently overloaded and sometimes had to send nfeltman@tucsonlocalmedia.com patients to other hospitals, sometimes in other states.

Dan Gibson, TMC’s director of Communications NEXT TIME YOU NEED TO GO TO URGENT CARE, and Marketing, said the hospital wanted to lower their you might be able to get an old-fashioned housecall number of readmissions into the hospital. Dispatchinstead.

Health has a history of reducing readmissions by 30 Tucson Medical Center officials announced last percent. week that they have partnered with DispatchHealth to “We at Tucson Medical Center wanted to do somegive patients comprehensive, at-home, acute care. thing different above and beyond what other organizaTMC is currently the only hospital in the Tucson tions are doing primarily to continue to provide great metro area providing this mobile urgent care model. care and access to our patients in the community,” DispatchHealth currently has four active “rovers” Gibson said. “You look to find partners that do some(cars) in action serving the larger metro from 8 a.m. to thing exceptionally well and when we could bring 10 p.m. seven days a week, including holidays. that into this market and work together to take care of Every rover has an emergency care-trained Dispeople in a better way, it is a simple decision for us.” patchHealth medical team and is fully equipped Many people do not have access to technology, with necessary tools and treatments to give patients healthcare or transportation, so this collaboration is in-home care, including on-site diagnostics and a offering an accessible alternative for all those in the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act-certified lab.

Tucson Metro area. Dispatch health will be accepting Lead Nurse Practitioner Robyn Green said the sermost insurance companies. ■ vice her colleagues provide is so stellar that she would trust them enough to care for her own mother. Green For more information, visit dispatchhealth.com. has been a nurse practitioner for eight years and has been working with Dispatch Health in Tucson for the past 15 months. She has already made 2,500 visits in the few months Dispatch and TMC have been partnered.

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Story & photos by Brian Smith

A Survivor Meet and Greet, Holocaust Pt. 1 SEVERAL MONTHS AGO, my 8-year-old son ran in through the door like he does, floppy stomps, calling me names in the kitchen in some colorful foreign language he gleaned off Fortnite. He sat at the table and quieted, a rare hush fell over him, a kind of sadness, a tenderness. He explained he had just returned from planting daffodils at Congregation Chaverim outreach from his beit midrash studies, to honor the 1.5 million children murdered in Shoah (the Holocaust), as part of the International Daffodil Project. He said the daffodils represent the stars Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust. His little-kid mind cannot comprehend the idea of boys and girls his age yanked away from their homes, their toys, their parents, their brothers and sisters, their very existences, and slaughtered. He was captivated by the pluck of survivors who spoke, and he got to meet a few of them, see their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The massacre aspects he can barely, if at all, comprehend. The bravery aspect he can. Reece understands how a simple ceremony of planting daffodils is living proof there is bloom and growth wherever you are planted.

IF YOU WANT TO FEEL insignificant, sit at a roundtable group with folks who survived the most calculated, brutal, mass annihilation in human history. That’s where I am, inside an upstairs florescent-lit conference room at the Jewish Family and Children’s Services (JFCS) center in Tucson. I am asked to speak to the group as a writer/journalist, and tell

some of my story. I am pretty uncomfortable. Who the hell in this room would give a shit about my life?

Sharon Glassberg leads this weekly meeting for Holocaust survivors.

She is a whip-smart clinical therapist who “provides support and wellness services” to Southern Arizona Holocaust survivors. Among other duties, she schedules their speaking appearances at middle and high schools, remembrance events and at the Tucson Jewish Museum and Holocaust Center, and oversees group social activities, which may involve, say, a trip to hear the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. The main idea is social interaction and limiting the isolation for these folks. She has been working at the JFCS nearly five years.

(Note: the JFCS also offers in-home help, transportation services and financial assistance for survivors.

Funding comes from the international Conference on Jewish Material Claims Berlin-born Wolfgang Hellpap hid from Nazis as a boy.

Against Germany, private donations, grants.) are in the room, plus a few wives and them. I would do most anything for The Tucson-born Glassberg, a forcaretakers. Today is their first in-permer educator, and a married mother of them. It’s also about giving them a voice. Their suffering was not in vain.” son meet in two years, due to COVID. four, previously worked at the Jewish Glassberg breaks challah bread and It is community, yes, but also famiFederation of Southern Arizona, which leads a recitation of the shehecheyanu, ly, and heartbreaks are many.

“There led to her current role. Glassberg gets have been a lot of deaths among them a Jewish prayer expressing gratitude. very close to these folks, and they They honor Walter Feiger, a beloved in the last two years,” she says, her her. She has even traveled to Eastern survivor who recently died. tone rueful.

Europe for the annual “March of I talk. I tell them my wife is Jewish, I look out at the table of elderly the Living” international memorial and I am not. I tell them about my gentlemen and women, they could with several area survivors. It happrevious marriage, my Jewish grandbe the old folks behind you in line pens on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust mother-in-law, Tillie Ashman, who at Safeway, except, perhaps, three Remembrance Day) as a tribute to miraculously survived Auschwitz as a of them wear ballcaps that read all Holocaust victims, and includes a young girl, had the prisoner numbers “Holocaust Survivor.” There are march in southern Poland from Nazi roughly 62 Jewish survivors alive and death camps Auschwitz to Birkenau. living in Southern Arizona. Five are It is an honor for her to work with CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 tuned in on Zoom today, and six more them. She tells me, “My motivation is

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a construction company and has two daughters. He arrived in Tucson in 1996 and ran a hotel, retired 20 years ago.

I later learn Szperling became a well-recognized numismatist for his Holocaust medal collection. In 2010, Szperling published a book, A Catalog of Holocaust Medals with his daughter Julie. He has donated many of the medals to museums.

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still etched into her arm, still a part of her being, of her DNA. How she never talked about it, the horrors likely well beyond the scope of her reasoning in the present.

I never learned how Tillie made it out alive, such things were unspoken, but there was this sense of isolation around her, at least when I knew her, and I figure it was a kind of sad seclusion of horrible experience. I’d often wonder of her horrifying dreams and recollections. I was at her bedside when she died in Tucson in the 1990s, and she was a mystery.

I could see bits of Tillie in some of these folks, how life-changing atrocities and genocide is with you to the end but, mostly, I see how Tillie might have been able to confront her history and numbness and share her tale, like the group here, some of whom waited decades to tell even sons and daughters their story. I see how Tillie would’ve had the chance to come alive.

They joke and wisecrack, tell me, “Ah, you’re Jewish, at least honorary!”

That sort of thing. A lovely musicality floats off their various accents.

It is congenial, and welcoming. Each of them is curious. Each of them is kind. As a survivor, or even a loved one to a survivor (one wife says, “I am a survivor of a survivor”), none have led a life that I could possibly imagine. They talk of their love of Tucson, agree on its womb-like warmth and cradle of the surrounding Sonoran Desert.

Then, one by one, each goes around, via a big Zoom screen or in the room and introduces themselves, says a bit about who they are. For roughly two hours in quick bursts, horrific events come to life, beatings, murders, encampment, starvation, relocation. Themes recur: social inclusion, coming-of-age, isolation, conformity, surrender, Hitler, survival, hope and self-determination.

But ultimately triumph and beauty, such hard-earned careers after landing

Ukraine-born Yuliya Genina became a doctor after the Holocaust.

in America, as doctors and plumbers, teachers and artists, and becoming parents, grandparents, great grandparents and, learning to manage eternal PTSD and not try to outrun their pasts, and tell their stories. Hearing unedited stories in person all at once is an emotional onslaught, and it would be reductive to even try to unfurl any in short space. This is flesh and blood, human and fluid, not documentarian talking heads or actors, or censored for tender ears. This is the last generation of first-hand witnesses.

ON ZOOM, 94-YEAR-OLD Margot Heuman is lying on a bed from her home in Green Valley. Here is a woman who survived multiple concentration camps, tells of seeing dead bodies lining the road and stacked high. Her little sister and parents were murdered at Auschwitz.

Like everyone here, she is self-reflective and smart, led a long successful life. She says the Holocaust made her who she is. A play based on her life, The Amazing Life of Margot Heuman, premiered at the Brighton Fringe Festival in 2021.

Severin Szperling doesn’t utter a word until it is his turn to talk. He tells of the quiet sadness in his home,

his wife had died since this group last saw each other in person. He was born during the Nazi occupation in Częstochowa, Poland, and is one of the few Jewish Częstochowa children to survive. He was 2 and a half years old when his parents smuggled him out of the Jewish ghetto/annex to live with a Polish couple, his mom and dad were shot against a wall. Ninety percent of his family were murdered.

This Polish couple, his foster parents, risked getting killed for him, they changed his name, and later baptized him into Catholicism. He would say to his foster mother, “You’re not my mom, my mom was skinny.”

He often survived hiding in a rabbit hutch hole near the house so the scent would camouflage him from Nazi patrols and their dogs. Upon liberation, he remembers, “A Russian soldier giving me chocolate. I will never forget him. And I never had chocolate before.”

He began to learn of his biological family, found relatives in Israel, where, in 1964, he got a prized-possession picture of his father. (He has spent 50 years looking for information of his real mother, no luck). He landed in America in 1970. Two years later his Częstochowa fiancée arrived. He ran

THERE IS SPRY CHRIS TANZ ON Zoom, a highly educated baby survivor, born hidden under the threat of death between German-occupied Warsaw and the Russian line in an old TB sanitarium, in 1944 (during Yom Kipper). She is an author and renowned artist whose magnificent work defines monuments of sites and culture, (for example, the sweeping Sun Circle sculpture in Rillito River Park) and colors Tucson.

Polish-born Pawel Lichter, who gives his age as “90-plus,” is the group cut-up. (He later tells me how humor is set like a pre-emptive against pity. Mild sarcasm and insider jokes are aplenty today. “We always had humor. Look, it helped us survive.”)

He happens to speak seven or more languages, including Yiddish, whose usage was nearly rendered extinct by the Holocaust. His intellect is youthful. He can shift to a serious tone on a dime, tells of his family, who were affluent—his dad owned a prominent movie house in Rypin—and it was all taken from them, his uncle dragged away, tortured and murdered. Once, in late 1939, they were escaping Nazioccupied Poland, heading to Russia by horse and carriage, with whatever necessities they could carry, and were stopped by Nazis, and lined up to be executed. “I was a little boy, 8 years old,” he says. “At the last second a German officer said to my father, ‘You look like my professor!’ and he let us go. I don’t know why. It was a miracle.” He met his wife of 64 years, who is seated next to him, in Mexico City. They raised a family in Nogales, Arizona.

Wolfgang Hellpap, his wife Vilma by his side, wears a Holocaust Survivor

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cap, a little concave in a wheelchair, on oxygen. (His recent hospital bout with COVID nearly got him.) He turns 91 in June and is sharp, yet talks at a reserved clip. Born in Berlin to an unmarried couple, a Christian mom and a Jewish dad, who left Berlin before things got bad. Because of the insane pre-war Nuremberg Race Laws, Wolfgang suffered early, was yanked from second grade, mid-class, when it was discovered he was Jewish. Other kids spat at him.

At around 8 years old, he taught himself to read and write. He was terrified of the Gestapo, who caught him and threw him into an orphanage, where children were whipped awake and taken to camps. His mother rescued him by arguing he wasn’t actually Jewish. He hid with an uncle outside Berlin, lived in a shed separate from the house. By 1943, the bombing began. He was not allowed in the shelter with the others, forced to stay upstairs, where he watched and suffered bombings day and night. It’s a miracle he survived any of it.

He later made it to Israel (then Palestine), caught up on schooling.

At 17 he fought, defending the new state of Israel against bordering Arab countries, nearly losing a leg after getting shot. He healed and went back to fight. With the help of HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), he and his mother made it to America, where a year later he was drafted in the U.S.

Army and sent back to Germany as an American soldier. He served, returned to San Francisco and eventually started his own janitorial business. He retired to Tucson in ’05.

A survivor chimes in, “You helped liberate Israel! You gave us a home!”

AN AIR OF EARNED sophistication and grace floats around Ukrainian-born Yuliya Genina, who escaped Nazi capture with her mother and twin sister by crossing the frontlines on foot to the then-Soviet Union. She tells of children circling dead mothers, Messerschmitt fighter planes shooting people fleeing from an escape train. She later became a doctor.

A conversation breaks out on anti-Semitism in Ukraine, how Yuliya felt it long after the war, into the ’60s.

She arrived in Tucson in 1996. “The anti-Semitism in the Ukraine was so hard, that’s why I left,” she says. “In World War II they were murderous people. World War II was to kill fascists, I understand. But right now?”

There is a pause in the room.

Glassberg weighs in: “It’s so hard to avoid this topic.”

Another says, “I thought this was no politics?”

Glassberg adds, “All of our experiences are our experiences, and our experiences are our truths.” Everybody nods. There is no arguing. It is a conversation that quickly dissects and

identifies fissures between good and evil.

Sharon moves the discussion along.

Others talked, more heartbreaking and restorative accounts from Annique Dveirn, Simon Katz, Theresa Dulgov and Sidney Finkel. (Finkel’s harrowing survival story is documented in his great memoir everyone should read called Sevek and the Holocaust: The Boy Who Refused to Die.) By the end, another theme rose throughout and it defined this group of folks: the very simple idea of human responsibility; righting wrongs in the world. Tikkun Olam. Spreading kindness to heal the world. It is their wisdom. It is their grace.

THE MEETING ENDS AND Sharon asks for volunteers for upcoming speaking engagements, some are assigned. Soon the folks flicker off Zoom and the others mingle, laugh, grateful to see one another in person, and slowly shuffle out of the room.

Sharon and I head down the stairs, its walls softened with Jewish art and remembrances, to the exit. We talk of the group members, their long immersions into America, into Tucson, immigrations into a dream, and how very American it all is. How they love this country, despite a rise of anti-Semitism and racism and an entire American political party fueled on a raging undercurrent of white nationalism.

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She says, “For years they pushed so much of their existence behind so they could survive the trauma. They were thrust into a new world, this was a new opportunity for them to live their lives, as Americans. Really, America saved them. It let them lead their lives, as normal as possible. It was the land of opportunity to be who they are. I mean, that was the American dream. Can you think of inside the mind of a holocaust survivor coming here and being respected?

In what mind could they ever imagine where they weren’t killed or gassed or tortured?”

They are the daffodils. Perennial, lasting, teachers for the future.

The daffodils allow my son Reece perspective and gratefulness. For his baby sisters, for food in the refrigerator, for the love from his parents and wider tentacles of family, all of which get to grow together, and for a safe home and free public parks and education. He is learning to appreciate such things right now through the sufferings and deaths of others, and the survival of even others. It’s really about those daffodils. ■ Required reading: Volumes one and two of To Tell Our Stories: Holocaust Survivors of Southern Arizona (2015 and 2018, Jewish Family and Children’s Services of Southern Arizona) are available. Volume One is now a free e-book on Amazon.

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Lonestar at the Fox. The year is 1996: Lonestar’s chart-topping country single with a rock edge just came out. You can’t wait to burn it to a CD so you can play it on your next drive to the mall. The alt weekly scene is thriving. Life is good. For one night at the Fox Theatre, be whisked back to yesteryear by hearing a live performance of the band’s new TEN to 1 record. The album is a reflection of how the band’s music has evolved over the last 30 or so years of touring and selling 10.5 million records. Come on down, and enjoy the opening act by the Other Troublemakers, the project of Arizona Americana singer songwriter Eric Schaffer.

7:30 p.m. Friday, May 13. Fox Theatre, 17 W. Congress St. $37.50 to $57.50.

Terry DeWald Trunk Show and Presentation. There’s nothing like a Thursday in the gardens. At this special show at Tohono Chul, you’ll hear from DeWald, who is an expert in American Indian Art. He’ll be showing pieces through the middle part of the day, and at noon, he’ll do a presentation on the history, methods and materials of desert Southwest basketry.

He’ll be especially focused on designs and processes used by the Western Apache, Yavapai, Akimel O’odham and Tohono O’odham weavers on display in the main gallery as part of the Roy J. Kurtz Collection of American Indian Art. 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Thursday, May 12. Tohono Chul, 7366 Paseo del Norte. Free with admission: $15 GA, $13 senior/military/student with ID, $6 for kids aged 5 to 12.

Plein Air + Silent Spikes: New Exhibits at MOCA Tucson. Come see two new exhibits at our local contemporary art museum.

Plein air painting typically involves painting outdoors in a single sitting, but this exhibit explores the practice in the context of land surveying and settling, research, art history and more to examine shifting ideas of western landscape, painting and fieldwork. Silent Spikes is a two-channel video installation with accompanying photographs which looks at the 1867 Transcontinental Railroad strike by Chinese workers through the lenses of masculinity, race and labor. Members preview is 5 to 6 p.m. on Friday, May 13, public opening reception is 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday, May 13, and artists and curators are in conversation at noon on Saturday, May 14.

MOCA Tucson, 265 S. Church Ave.

Second Friday Food Truck Rally. Are you familiar with the migratory patterns of the Sonoran Food Truck? They are often solitary creatures who develop their own niches within the urban environment, Aesop’s Fables. Red Herring Puppets’ newest but on the second Friday of the month in show features unique takes on classic tales Tucson, they gather in a herd, much to including The Tortoise and the Hare, the Owl the delight of Tucsonans. At this month’s and the Grasshopper, The Fox and the Crow, roundup, enjoy food from Takoyaki Balls, and more. These timeless stories address Sugar Rush, El Tata Taqueria, and Fats the negative impact of things like bullying Phillies & Fries! East Side Marketplace and selfishness, while sharing the message Rally will be announcing more trucks that even the smallest creatures can achieve soon, so keep an eye on their socials. This big things. Told with large tabletop puppets evening will also feature local vendors and rhymed versions of the stories, this show selling crafts, jewelry and other handearned an UNIMA citation of Excellence—the made goods. 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, May 13. highest honor in American puppetry. We are excited for this one! See you there. Saturdays and Sundays, May 14, 15, 21, 22, 28 and 29. Red Herring Puppet Studio in the Tucson 7777 E. Speedway Blvd.

Mall (upper level between Macy’s and Forever 21), 4500 N. Oracle Road, Ste. 421. $8.

Tucson Pops Orchestra: Music Under the Stars. One of the best parts of spring is that it’s peak “evening concerts in the park” season. So three cheers for that!

This year is a special one, as it marks the 26th year of Music Under the Stars under Maestro László Veres, who will be stepping down as conductor at the close

by Emily Dieckman of the season. This week, enjoy an original composition by Mark Wolfram called Pops on Parade, a salute to cinema, and Astronomica. Feeling a little down about the state of the world? Maybe not quite ready for the heat a marimba solo by Catalina High School of summer? What you need is an embodjunior Tyler Kebo. Kebo has been studyied, interactive, performative enactment ing percussion with Tucson Pops lead of your star chart. Lucky for you, that’s timpani Homero Cerón for 10 years. Also exactly what Flam Chen is serving up featuring selections from Ragtime, Sweet for the next two weekends. This show Charity, the Count of Luxembourg and combines theater devices and circus more. 7 p.m. Sunday, May 15. DeMeester arts to transform the Annex Festival Outdoor Performance Center at Reid Grounds into a “star cupola” and read Park, 900 S. Randolph Way. audience members’ star charts. 7 to 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday May Retro Game Show Night: The Mismatch 12, 13, 14, 19, 20 and 21. MSA Annex, 267 S. Game. Did you know this is Tucson’s lonAvenida del Convento. $50 to be in the inner gest running monthly show at Hotel Conring, have your chart read and be entered into gress? Chatty Kathee brings you wacky a lottery to receive a personal enactment of your and warped versions of classic game chart. Or $20 for watching from the outer ring, plus access shows like “The Wheel of Misfortune” to the generational reading and dance party. and “Family Fuss.” This week, contestants selected from the audience compete for Total Lunar Eclipse. It’s nice to be in a city with so many astronomy resources when there’s an eclipse going on. This week, Flandrau Science Center & Planetar- life-altering prizes and enjoy appearances by ridiculous celebrity guests. In the origium is partnering with several local groups to provide free telescope viewings on inal Match Game, contestants guessed the University of Arizona Mall. The planetarium will also be screening a special, which answers to fill-in-the-blank quesmoon-centric version of their live planetarium start talk and hosting a public tions came from which celebrity guests. lecture by Steve Kortenkamp about 3D replicas of the lunar landscape. Between The Mismatch Game takes the silliness the partial lunar eclipse around 7:30 p.m. and the total lunar eclipse around 8:30, there’s another screening of the planetarium talk. Finish the night out with a view- to the next level. 7 p.m. Saturday, May 14.

Club Congress, 311 E. Congress St. $15. ing of the Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon laser light show. Festivities begin at 6:15 p.m. on Sunday, May 15, and costs vary, though telescope viewing and the lecture are free. Flandrau Science Center & Planetarium, 1601 E. University Blvd.

MAY 12, 2022

TRAVELIN’ MAN

By Jeff Gardner jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com

TOM MILLER’S WRITING CAREER HAS SENT HIM around the world, from Cuba to Spain and throughout the American Southwest. After nearly 50 years of underground journalism and travel writing, Tucson resident Miller’s latest project looks inward. Where Was I? A Travel Writer’s Memoir documents Miller’s exploits from the 1968 Democratic National Convention to the chaos of Nigeria. As much as it is a personal memoir, Miller says the book also serves as a guide for travel writers, and writers in general.

The book is both essay and journalism, drawing from documents, notes, memory, and stories from friends and family. After all, as Miller explains in the book’s introduction, he’s never cared for the distinction between writer and journalist; a good journalist should use literary allusions when called for, a good writer should observe well, and a good reader should appreciate both.

“There’s no particular rules I want to adhere to. The rules of writing are to be broken, and I did that a few times in this book,” Miller said. “I made it a point of not looking at other memoirs, because I was afraid I might copy their techniques. But I had a general framework for a memoir and I followed that.”

Though the book documents decades of travel, it opens with a more modern development: Miller listing his daily struggles with Parkinson’s Disease. Miller explained that the disease “takes the travel out of travel writing” and eventually he was unable to do basically any travel at all. But in an effort to continue writing, he decided to write about his own history. Despite the memoir being bookended by the disease, he says overall it is an optimistic book.

“I say ‘optimistic,’ because I was able to pull it off, so to speak,” Miller said. “At a certain point a few years ago, I looked forward and realized there was very little to look forward to. But when I looked backward I saw there was an entire career to write about. So I was optimistic about the approach, and saw that it worked.”

While some of the chapters are explicitly based around a location, such as “Colorado” or “South Africa” or “Tucson,” others are based on his work for The New York Times, freelancing, and travel writing. For lessons on travel writing, Miller explains that the best of it gets under the skin of a locale to sense its rhythm. He says to distrust any travel writing that opens with a cabby driving in from the airport or closes quoting a bartender at last call. Or, more generally, “avoid cliches like the plague, like the plague.”

“There’s a certain continuity both geographic and literary in the book. And those weren’t written goals, but those two approaches were always in my mind,” Miller said. “It’s not just from one end of Speedway to another, it’s the entire Western Hemisphere and even further. This book isn’t just written for people in Tucson, but people in Tucson will certainly appreciate it from a literary level.” ■

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LOST HORIZON In this excerpt from his new memoir, Tucson author Tom Miller recalls the time he went astray in Saguaro National Park

By Tom Miller tucsoneditor@tucsonlocalmedia.com ON IMPULSE ONE SUNDAY BEFORE PARKINSON’S

and after Thanksgiving, we decided to be tourists, that is to say, we went for a walk in the cactus forest east of Tucson. Not just any cactus and not just any forest.

The cactus was a saguaro, the plant that had been my friend since moving to the southwest years earlier. The forest was the 66,500-acre eastern flank of the Saguaro National Park. (Your actual acreage may vary.)

We entered the park about 3:30 that afternoon, almost two hours before sunset, looking forward to a hike free of NFL football or NPR news. “Hike” may be too strong a word, but we did undertake an energetic walk after we parked at the Loma Verde trailhead.

How refreshing to stroll through nature, even if it was neatly prepared for you, me, and everyone else. First, we walked this way passing gnarled mesquite trees, then that way avoiding tangled scrub brush.

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Finally, we passed palo verde trees slightly uphill to the north, intersecting a trail somewhat downhill to the east.

We saw trail signs, which we ignored, confident that we’d end up back where we began. Saguaro here, saguaro there, everywhere saguaro saguaro saguaro.

It’s an anthropomorphic plant that one minute has a regal bearing and the next, a goofy cartoonish posture. Carnegiea gigantea reminded me of the drunken fool who shot at a saguaro in the wilderness north of Phoenix back in 1982.

Frustrated that the majestic 125-year-old saguaro he fired at wouldn’t fall over dead, he picked up a cactus rib from the desert floor and started poking at one arm of the grand plant. The arm, which weighed almost a quarter ton, fell on him and killed him instantly. The trunk of the cactus, meanwhile, having lost its ballast, fell on him as well. A double homicide, as I saw it.

One of the signs in the Saguaro

National Park that Regla and I ignored was for the Squeeze Pen Trail. Another pointed to the Cholla Cactus Trail. One more destination sign was the Pink Hill Trail. The more trail signs we ignored, the more we enjoyed our outing. We were nothing more than weekend trekkers when we found ourselves at a wire fence, the other side of which was a lightly traveled road on Tucson’s far east side. We soon noticed the sun slowly beginning to set and we found ourselves mid-forest. All we had to do was reverse course and we’d be back at the original trailhead.

Against a spreading twilight, the cactus, both distant and nearby, looked more and more elegant. “Mute mobs of them throng the desert dusk,” wrote John Updike in his poem “Saguaros.”

The first patches of darkness appeared.

Overhead, Pegasus took his rightful position among the stars. The trail signs we’d ignored earlier now confused us with names, directions, and distance.

This time it wasn’t just evening, it was night. Would we have to find a rise on this moonless night and stay until sunrise? It appeared we would.

WAS THAT A HOOT OWL OVERHEAD?

Maybe. A lizard slithering through the buffelgrass? Could have been. Did we just hear a javelina and a coyote or was that our imagination? If we stumbled into a jumping cholla cactus we’d be pincushions for sure. Mountain lions, we later learned, lived far back in the arroyos. We were nowhere near them, except in our mind.

We looked for the highest spot around, a nearby hillock if possible.

Finally we found a slight rise on the Squeeze Pen Trail, took a deep breath, and sat down on the ground. Neither of us spoke our fears out loud, but we were both nervous that we’d be forced to spend the night in Saguaro National Park. To put it bluntly, we were plumb lost. I played the journalist’s game “Write That Headline!” and I didn’t like what I read.

First Regla lay down, her head on my lap. After a few minutes we switched.

Would this go on until the Sonoran Desert sunrise, more than 12 hours away? The Dylan line struck me once again: “There must be some way out of here.” At least we could sip water—if we had thought to bring some. Certainly we could use our flashlight—if we had brought one. Our dilemma would be resolved by calling 911—had we carried a phone with us. As the air turned cooler extra clothing would have been helpful—had we brought some. A trail map could guide us—had we not left ours in the car. We were fearful, both of us utterly unprepared and lost. Every few minutes we’d break the silence. “Hellooooo!” we’d yell. “Hellooooo!” We were desperate for leaving and desperate for staying.

While we hellooooo’d, a 48-year-old man driving a 2007 Chevy Tahoe pulled into the Loma Verde parking lot and looked into our car. It was John Williams, a burly park ranger in a Smokey Bear hat. Darkness had already fallen, and Williams was making his final sweep along the eight-mile Cactus Forest Drive looking for overnight campers and lost hikers. He saw our car, but neither driver nor passenger; not even food wrappers.

Williams listened for calls for help, and heard none. He looked for flash-

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lights bobbing about and saw none. He sounded his siren and flashed his lights.

We could neither hear nor see him. We kept up our occasional “helloooo!” He could have driven off during a “hellooooo!” none the wiser, completed his rounds, and gone home. Honey, what’s for dinner?

Regla thought she saw a dim blue and red light in the direction of the Loma Verde parking lot but it never occurred to either of us that they’d be lights of our salvation. We shouted. Was that our faint “helloooo!” Williams heard? It was. He walked up the Loma Verde and Squeeze Pen trails toward us. He yelled hello. We were ecstatic and yelled hello back. From that point the experienced park ranger easily located the inexperienced walkers. Relief dominated our emotions. For Williams it was all routine work, but clearly, he had saved us from a frightful night. We were rescued; I wanted to hug him.

As he escorted us down to our car, Regla, a big-city girl, acknowledged that she was “scared to death of wildlife.”

Replied Williams: “Oh, you would have had an uncomfortable night, but you’d have made it.” We arrived at the trailhead shortly after 8 o’clock. The temperature in the park sank to the mid-40s that night. We stopped for Chinese on the way home. ■ © Copyright 2022 Tom Miller. May not be reprinted without written permission.

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Meat Puppets with Mudhoney 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 18 191 Toole, 191 E. Toole Tickets start at $23 520-445-6425, 191toole.com

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CHEW ON THIS

Meat Puppets reintroducing themselves through live release

By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski tucsoneditor@tucsonlocalmedia.com

MEAT PUPPETS’ DRUMMER Derrick Bostrom is down on the music business.

He said he stopped paying attention to current music when the Spice Girls debuted. He’s frustrated that successful “musicians” these days are TikTok stars, those who buy ads on YouTube or trust fund children.

“It’s not the rock ’n’ roll that I got into,” he said. “At one of the last gigs the band did in 1994 or 1995 in San Francisco, we were told we have to be done by 11.”

Hopefully, he said, this won’t happen on its current tour in support of Meat Puppets’ latest album, “Dusty Notes.” The jaunt co-headlined with Mudhoney comes to 191 Toole on Wednesday, May 18.

“Whatever annoyances and hardships come from going out on tour, playing together night after night, listening to the music evolve, more than makes up for it,” said the band’s leader Curt Kirkwood.

Kirkwood is joined in the band by his son/guitarist Elmo Kirkwood, bassist/ brother Cris Kirkwood and keyboardist Ron Stabinsky.

For a reintroduction to Meat Puppets, they released “Meat Puppets Live Manchester 2019” on May 6.

During that run of shows, Meat Puppets

met with videographer Yousef Sheikh and his crew, who not only captured a multitrack audio recording of the band during its show in Manchester, but also created a multicamera video production of it.

The band posted some of it during their pandemic-imposed two-year hiatus from touring, and when Darron Hemann of DC-Jam Records offered to release a limited-edition six-song picture disc based on the material, they jumped at the chance.

The band worked with Sheikh and Derek O’Brien of DOB Sound on a half dozen tracks, which highlight the improvisational passages they crafted while on the road.

Meat Puppets updated songs like “Up on the Sun,” “Plateau,” “Seal Whales” and “Lake of Fire,” while releasing a new track from their latest album, “Dusty Notes,” called “Nine Pins.”

“Yousef was fortunate enough to capture us on a good night,” he said.

“Sure, we were all exhausted, starving and half-sick, and the on-stage sound was terrible, but as this performance shows, sometimes that helps.”

Meat Puppets’ label, Megaforce Records, released “Dusty Notes.” Bostrom said kids care less about amps and drums. They’re more into techno music and computers.

Meat Puppets aren’t selling “tons of records,” Bostrom said. However, Megaforce is helpful and supportive.

“It’s not like we’re keeping them in rent money,” he said. “They just like us. For

Record Store Day and with the resurgence of vinyl, we can do limited-edition releases for just about anybody or on your own and make just as much money with lower overhead without any real budget.

“The last three records we’ve done have all been limited releases or vinyl one-offs.

We did a 10-inch, four-song EP in 2020 that was going to be for Record Store Day, but it was derailed by COVID.” Similarly, their current tour with fellow ’90s alt rockers Mudhoney was sidetracked for two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Tucson, Meat Puppets close the show. Bostrom said to expect a no-frills concert.

“We don’t have a lot of resources,” he said. “We are not Elton John. We do not travel with a large entourage We are very lucky if we don’t manage to stumble into our equipment and break it and have to cancel our next show.

“One of the things about this COVID deal that concerned me was just about exactly two years ago, we canceled our tour after baseball was canceled. I work for Whole Foods. I have a photo on my Instagram feed of completely empty shelves. It had absolutely no products in some parts of the store.”

He said he was angry with promoters who told fans that Meat Puppets shows were postponed instead of canceled, thereby not refunding their money.

“The clubs wouldn’t cancel the shows,” he said. “It was a very, very dark tunnel, business wise. They were saying the tickets were still good until the show was rescheduled. The problem is the tour from 2020 is routed very, very differently than the one we’re doing now.”

Therefore, they’re not hitting the same towns. Bostrom said, some fans blamed the band.

“Social media is such that the bands think they have a personal relationship with the band,” he said. “They’re messaging me saying, ‘Where’s my money.’ I told them to talk to the club, but they were saying the club wouldn’t give their money back.

“I went in and deleted all of these events from the band’s Facebook page. Some of the promoters freaked out. It was definitely desperate times.” ■

By Xavier Omar Otero tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com

MARK YOUR CALENDARS… THURSDAY, MAY 12 Where the river of life flows. In 1989, this unsigned German guitarist’s self-released debut album, Marita: Shadows and Storms, was recorded in a shack beside a gravel pit on old analog equipment for less than $3,000. After signing with Higher Octave Music, a remastered/rebranded version, Nouveau Flamenco (1990), rose to be the best-selling instrumental acoustic guitar album of all time. He returns with Visions 2020 (2021), his thirty-third album. Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra.

At Rialto Theater… Spring flowers bloom.

Exploring themes of growth and acceptance, saxophonist/composer Autumn Dominguez & Friends toast the release of Sunflower Seeds (2022), Dominguez’ debut recording. At Hotel Congress Plaza…

FRIDAY, MAY 13 An unexpected pairing. Mexican superstars Alejandra Guzmán y Paulina Rubio have a long, at times contentious, history. In the early ’90s, they both dated Mexican pop singer Erik Rubin, which led to a public rivalry. “Who would have thought? Two perras [bitches] onstage,” Guzmán quipped at a recent concert, the Houston Chronicle noted. Real life drama and pop spectacle collide like a crossfire huracán. At AVA Amphitheater…

Singing her heart. Highlights on Dianne Reeves’ awe-inspiring resume include: Five Grammy awards, a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters award, honorary doctorates from Berklee College of Music and The Juilliard School. Her newest collection of songs, Beautiful Life (2013), showcase Reeves’ gifts in melding R&B, Latin and pop elements within the architecture of 21st century jazz.

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XOXO

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At Leo Rich Theater… “Never Enders.” Over the course of a thirty-year career, Lonestar’s rich vocal harmonies have propelled their well-crafted ballads and poppy country-rock songs to the top of the Billboard country charts. In an interview with Think Country, founding member Dean Sams muses about their potential fate had success not intervened. “Michael [Britt] would have fared okay. He was [studying] to be a pharmacist. Keech [Rainwater] would’ve been working on boats. I’d have been sackin’ groceries at Piggly Wiggly and Richie [McDonald] would’ve been mixing pigs feet.” At Fox Tucson Theatre… Rose in the garden. During the 1960s, a fresh-faced Karla Bonoff used to queue up at the legendary Troubadour in West Hollywood in hopes of landing a coveted slot for the open mic night. “It was an amazing time. Jackson Browne, James Taylor and Elton John were around in those days,” Bonoff recalls. Best known as a songwriter, she scored a hit with “Personally” (1982), a song that she didn’t write. Linda Ronstadt, Aaron Neville, Wynonna Judd, Bonnie Raitt have all recorded songs Bonoff did pen. At Berger Performing Arts Center. Accompanied by guitarist Nina Gerber.

RISO (Matt & Bekah Rolland of Run Boy Run) opens…

Reaching beyond the confines of any one performance genre, Tucson Libertine League celebrates the burlesque troupe’s fifth anniversary with a bash. DJ duo MiracleGrow spin wax at a post-show dance party. At 191 Toole… Influenced by the DIY ethos of The Pixies and PJ Harvey, Cedars is an electronic rock band from Texas who believe that beauty will change the world. At Thunder Canyon Brewstillery…

SATURDAY, MAY 14

MONDAY, MAY 16

Besos Mediterreano. In 2002, celebrated Greek-Canadian guitarist Pavlo won a lawsuit against R. Kelly (no stranger to legal entanglements) and Jay-Z, who sampled riffs from Pavlo’s “Fantasia” to create the rhythmic underpinning for “Fiesta.” “Fiesta” rose to become a Top 10 hit and Pavlo now shares in the publishing royalties as a co-writer. At Rialto Theater… Sometimes a cloud is just a cloud. Weaned on a steady diet of 1970s AM radio, songwriter/guitarist Eric D. Johnson (The Shins, Califone) began a solo four-track recording project in 1997.

From humble beginnings, Fruit Bats—noted as early entrants into the folk-rock scene of the early aughts— grew into a touring band with an ever-shifting lineup.

Johnson tells the Chicago Sun-Times, “I started out a hippie, but I’ve always had this pop jones. That’s been plenty revolutionary.” At 191 Toole… Remaining faithful to set lists and arrangements, Roy Orbison Returns with a re-creation of Orbison’s 1980’s concert era. At Fox Tucson Theatre… Inspired by the mysterious full moon and alluring starlit sky, GLOW: An annual multimedia art event, features the music of Kevin Pakulis and his Band. At The Triangle L Ranch (Oracle)… From North Carolina, traveling singer-songwriter Alma Russ weaves a patchwork of music: country, folk and Appalachian. At MotoSonora Brewing Company… Celebrating all things uniquely Tucson—featuring food trucks, street performers, live music y mas—2nd Saturdays Downtown is a monthly family-friendly urban street fair…

Known for their “wild live performances filled with beyond intense visuals and dangerous stage antics.” In the band’s formative years, opening shows for The Jesus and Mary Chain and Brian Jonestown Massacre, these noise rockers soon earned the distinction as NYC’s loudest band by reviewers. A Place to Bury Strangers. At 191 Toole. Flanked by Glove and Mute Swan…

SUNDAY, MAY 15

He’s not just a singer in a rock and roll band. In an interview with Louder, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Justin Hayward reflects on joining The Moody Blues in 1966. “We were all just trying not to get proper jobs. I don’t think any of us had our hearts in it until we began to write our own songs. Until then, nobody thought the band could last long.” The voice of The Moody Blues draws material from a career that has lasted nearly six decades. At Rialto Theater… “He’s a lil’ bit country, she’s a lil’ bit rock ’n’ roll.” All kidding aside, punk and grunge veterans Meat Puppets and Mudhoney circle the wagons for a co-headlining tour de force. At 191 Toole…

Fresh off the plane. Pi’erre Bourne began making beats in elementary school, encouraged by an uncle who introduced him to FruityLoops (music software). After studying sound engineering at SAE Institute, he landed a job at Epic Records (Atlanta). It was Bourne’s work on Playboi Carti’s breakout hit “Magnolia” (2017) that shifted the landscape of hip-hop production, pioneering a sound he describes as a “happy-ass beat with trap 808s.”

In 2021, Bourne won a Grammy for co-producing Kanye West’s Jesus Is King album, while continuing to work tirelessly advancing his solo career. Heat-seeking single “Drunk and Nasty” catapulted The Life of Pi’erre 5 (2021) to No. 17 on Billboard’s Top R&B/hip-hop albums chart. “...let them keep copying. I’m gonna keep setting the example,” Bourne tells Fader. At Rialto Theater… “Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.” In many ways The Smashing Pumpkins—whose songs stand as “anguished, bruised reports from Billy Corgan’s nightmareland”—epitomize the ’90s. They return with Cyr (2020).

At AVA Amphitheater… Unfit for human consumption.

Boosting two vegetarians in the band, England’s Carcass take metal to extremes. At 191 Toole… Consisting of sisters Gwendolyn and Lucy Giles, pop punks Dog Party feed off that symbiosis. “There’s songs that Lucy might show me that I’ve never [heard] before. I can hop in with harmonies just by looking at her.” At House of Bards…

TUESDAY, MAY 17 Westword describes the contrary nature of their sound as “two Beach Boys records [playing] at the same time.”

Worrying that Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist would be too long of a tag, at their record label’s urging, these Baltimore experimentalists christened themselves Animal Collective prior to the release of Here Comes the Indian (2003), their debut recording.

Now, they present their latest reverb-heavy sound collage, Time Skiffs (2022). At Rialto Theater… During the 1990s, these So-Cal pop punks landed three songs on the Top 40, including “Inside Out.” Sounding a bit jaded, on their Bandcamp site they state that they’ve experienced “all the terminally predictable ups and downs of every other band that’s been chewed up and spit out by the machine.” Eve 6. At 191 Toole…

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18

In Memoriam: A beloved figure on the Tucson music scene, Mario Lizarraga Cordova passed away on Monday, May 2, 2022.

A talented multi-instrumentalist, Cordova lent his formidable skills to numerous bands, recording projects, and musical events over the course of his life.

Notably he was a long-time member of The Resonars and a founding member of How To Build A Rocketship.

A gentle soul, with a huge heart, the kindness of his words and genuine smile will always be remembered.

Mario Lizarraga Cordova was 54 years old.

KMKR-LP 99.9 FM is hosting a record listening party to honor his memory. Saturday, May 14. At Steinfeld Warehouse Community Arts Center.

MAY 12, 2022

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

By Rob Brezsny. Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s EXPANDED WEEKLY HOROSCOPE 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700 $1.99 per minute. 18 and over. Touchtone phone required.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Choose the least important day in your life,” wrote Aries author Thornton Wilder. “It will be important enough.” I recommend that you make those your words to live by in the next two weeks. Why? Because I suspect there will be no tremendously exciting experiences coming your way.

The daily rhythm is likely to be routine and modest. You may even be tempted to feel a bit bored. And yet, if you dare to move your attention just below the surface of life, you will tune into subtle glories that are percolating. You will become aware of quietly wondrous developments unfolding just out of sight and behind the scenes. Be alert for them. They will provide fertile clues about the sweet victories that will be available in the months ahead.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “Every successful person I know starts before they feel ready,” declared life coach Marie Forleo. Author Ivan Turgenev wrote, “If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything, is ready, we shall never begin.” Here’s what educator Supriya Mehra says: “There’s never a perfect moment to start, and the more we see the beauty in ‘starting small,’ the more we empower ourselves to get started at all.” I hope that in providing you with these observations, Taurus, I have convinced you to dive in now. Here’s one more quote, from businesswoman Betsy Rowbottom: “There’s never a perfect moment to take a big risk.”

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Poet Ranata Suzuki writes, “There comes a point where you no longer care if there’s a light at the end of the tunnel or not. You’re just sick of the tunnel.” That’s good advice for you right now, Gemini. The trick that’s most likely to get you out of the tunnel is to acknowledge that you are sick of the damn tunnel. Announce to the universe that you have gleaned the essential teachings the ride through the tunnel has provided you. You no longer need its character-building benefits because you have harvested them all. Please say this a thousand times sometime soon: “I am ready for the wide-open spaces.”

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In the coming weeks, your imagination will receive visions of the next chapter of your life story. These images and stories might confuse you if you think they are illuminating the present moment. So please keep in mind that they are prophecies of what’s ahead. They are premonitions and preparations for the interesting work you will be given during the second half of

2022. If you regard them as guiding clues from your eternal soul, they will nourish the inner transformations necessary for you to welcome your destiny when it arrives. Now study this inspirational quote from poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “The future glides into us, so as to remake itself within us, long before it occurs.”

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Remember that you will never reach a higher standard than you yourself set,” wrote author Ellen G. White. That’s true! And that’s why it’s so crucial that you formulate the highest standards you can imagine—maybe even higher than you can imagine. Now is a favorable phase for you to reach higher and think bigger. I invite you to visualize the best version of the dream you are working on—the most excellent, beautiful, and inspiring form it could take.

And then push on further to envision even more spectacular results. Dare to be greedy and outrageous.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Before Virgoborn Leslie Jones achieved fame as a comedian and actor, she worked day jobs at United Parcel Service and Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles. Her shot at major appreciation didn’t arrive until the TV show Saturday Night Life hired her to be a regular cast member in 2014, when she was 47 years old. Here’s how she describes the years before that: “Everybody was telling me to get a real job. Everybody was asking me, What are you doing? You’re ruining your life. You’re embarrassing your family.”

Luckily, Jones didn’t heed the bad advice.

“You can’t listen to that,” she says now.

“You have to listen to yourself.” Now I’m suggesting that you embrace the Leslie Jones approach, Virgo.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “A person must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness.” Author Jean Genet wrote that, and now I’m offering you his words as the seed of your horoscope. If you’ve been attuned to cosmic rhythms, you have been doing what Genet described and will continue to do it for at least another ten days. If you have not yet begun such work, please do so now. Your success during the rest of 2022 will thrive to the degree that you spend time dreaming big in the darkness now.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Cursed are those who feel floods but who can only express a few drops.” So says an internet proverb. Luckily, this principle won’t apply to you in the coming weeks. I expect you will be inundated with cas-

cades of deep feelings, but you will also be able to articulate those feelings. So you won’t be cursed at all. In fact, I suspect you will be blessed. The cascades may indeed become rowdy at times. But I expect you will flourish amidst the lush tumult.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “It takes a great deal of experience to become natural,” wrote Sagittarian author Willa Cather. I’m happy to report that in recent months, you Sagittarians have been becoming more and more natural. You have sought experiences that enhance your authenticity and spontaneity. Keep up the good work! The coming weeks should bring influences and adventures that will dramatically deepen your capacity to be untamed, soulful, and intensely yourself.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “I intend to live forever,” proclaims 66-year-old comedian Steven Wright, who then adds, “So far, so good.” I offer you his cheerful outlook in the hope that it might inspire you to dream and scheme about your own longevity. Now is a great time to fantasize about what you would love to accomplish if you are provided with 90 or more years of life to create yourself. In other words, I’m asking you to expand your imagination about your long-term goals. Have fun envisioning skills you’d like to develop and qualities you hope to ripen if you are given all the time you would like to have. (PS: Thinking like

Comics

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this could magically enhance your life expectancy.)

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Stop insisting on clearing your head,” advised author Charles Bukowski. “Clear your f--ing heart instead.” That will be a superb meditation for you to experiment with in the coming weeks. Please understand that I hope you will also clear your head.

That’s a worthy goal. But your prime aim should be to clear your heart. What would that mean? Purge all apologies and shame from your longings. Cleanse your tenderness of energy that’s inclined to withhold or resist. Free your receptivity to be innocent and curious.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “The winner will be the one who knows how to pick the right fights,” wrote author Jane Ciabattari. Heed her advice, please, Pisces. You will soon be offered chances to deal with several interesting struggles that are worthy of your beautiful intelligence. At least one will technically be a “conflict,” but even that will also be a fruitful opportunity. If you hope to derive the greatest potential benefit, you must be selective about which ones you choose to engage. I recommend you give your focus to no more than two.

Homework: Is there somewhere in your life where you try to exert too much control—and should loosen your grip?

Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

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MAY 12, 2022

SWEET TREAT

When life gives you Sublime’s lemon tea cakes, you’ve got cause to celebrate By the Tucson Weekly Test Department tucsoneditor@tucsonlocalmedia.com LAST MONTH, SUBLIME WON THE Best Baked Edible in Tucson Weedly’s Cannabis Bowl—and the reason readers love them probably has a lot to do with the brand’s extraordinary Lemon Tea Cake.

The treat, which has been on Sublime’s menu since 2017, is “hands down” the company’s most popular product, topping the company’s sales charts almost every month, according to Rickie Fainkujen, brand manager

for Sublime. It’s little wonder: This moist and delicious cake, packed with 100mg of Sublime’s champagne distillate, is simply a superior cannabis edible. The lemon flavor overwhelms any underlying taste of cannabis, leaving just a sweet taste indistinguishable from your non-medicinal lemon bars.

“The Lemon Tea Cake was a group effort to create,” says Fainkujen, brand manager for Sublime. “Early in Sublime Brand’s life, we were trying to develop an infused lemon bar, but it was too messy to package. Chef Rich, who was brand new to the team at the

COURTESY PHOTO

time, helped create a moist lemon cake that would still have all the great lemon flavor you would get from a classic lemon bar, but also be easy to package and transport. Our lead kitchen help at the time made the suggestion to add white chocolate chips into the cake batter, and the rest is history!”

It’s also a potent method of cannabis delivery, so if you’re just dipping your

toe into cannabis edibles, follow the old maxim “start low, go slow.” MJ veterans will find that a dose between 10mg and 25mg will get you into the zone.

In the Tucson area, you can find Sublime Lemon Tea Cakes at Nature Med, Earth’s Healing, Curaleaf and Harvest dispensaries. ■

MAY 12, 2022

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TUCSON AREA DISPENSARIES Bloom Tucson. 4695 N. Oracle Road, Ste. 117 293-3315; bloomdispensary.com Open: Daily 9a.m. - 10p.m.

Botanica. 6205 N. Travel Center Drive 395-0230; botanica.us Open: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., daily Desert Bloom Re-Leaf Center. 8060 E. 22nd St., Ste. 108 886-1760; dbloomtucson.com Open: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., daily Offering delivery Downtown Dispensary. 221 E. 6th St., Ste. 105 838-0492; thedowntowndispensary.com Open: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday D2 Dispensary. 7105 E 22nd St. 214-3232; d2dispensary.com/ Open:9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday Earth’s Healing. Two locations: North: 78 W. River Road 253-7198 South: 2075 E. Benson Highway 373-5779 earthshealing.org Open: Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sundays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Offering delivery

Hana Green Valley. 1732 W. Duval Commerce Point Place 289-8030 Open: Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Harvest of Tucson . 2734 East Grant Road 314-9420; askme@harvestinc.com; Harvestofaz.com Open: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., daily Nature Med. 5390 W. Ina Road 620-9123; naturemedaz.com Open: 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., daily The Prime Leaf Two locations: 4220 E. Speedway Blvd.

1525 N. Park Ave. 44-PRIME; theprimeleaf.com Open: Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Southern Arizona Integrated Therapies.

112 S. Kolb Road 886-1003; medicalmarijuanaoftucson.com Open: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., daily Green Med Wellness Center. 6464 E. Tanque Verde Road, 85712. (520) 886-2484 Open: Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Satuday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. greenmedwellness.com

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Edited by Will Shortz ACROSS

Beginner, in lingo 5 Beaten via a referee’s decision, for short 9 Menial position 14 Words sung twice before “A pirate’s life for me” 15 Pint-size 16 Where the terminal dash in “Home Alone” takes place 17 Organized workers 19 Mythical lion’s home 20 Apt name for a worrier 21 One driving kids to a rink, say 23 “Roger that” 26 Sticking points?

27 Hindi for “reign” 28 Honor student’s pride, for short 29 Put up with 30 Accustoms (to) 32 Like planes and flags 33 Kind of lily 34 Fuel for a mustang?

35 Lucky hit for a PingPong player 39 Non-starters 42 Successfully study 44 Impostor syndrome feeling 45 The Heat, on scoreboards 46 Catch 47 Prefix with sexual 48 Jailers … or a hint to “unlocking” four answers in this puzzle 50 Vie to get 52 Sound of a mouse pointer?

53 Skirt 1

54 She played Billie Jean

King in 2017’s “Battle of the Sexes” 58 Formal decrees 59 “___ Creator Omnium” (ancient hymn) 60 Biblical son of Seth 61 Raring to go 62 Francis Drake and Ernest Shackleton, for two 63 Community served by Lambda Legal, in brief

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Sch. with the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library 2 Seemingly for-ev-er 3 Moonshine container 4 Plunder 5 “You shoulda kept that to yourself” 6 Stuffed Jewish dish 7 How some ballet is performed 8 ___ golf 9 Jordan Peele’s production company, named for a classic horror short story 10 Natives of the Great Plains 11 Like some signals and traffic 12 Their name has the “re” of “cream” and the two o’s from “chocolate” 13 Big smile 18 “Psst!” alternative 22 Certain high-fat, lowcarb diet, informally 23 Treasures buried in the hills 24 Bob ___, co-creator of Batman

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hobby 32 Peeps, so to speak 34 Solution to a bad hair day, maybe 36 1981 video game that featured the first appearance of Mario 37 Age, in a way 38 Moves out to sea 40 Thanksgiving 41 Gen-Z style with emo and anime influences 42 Go public with 43 Bugaboos

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44 Boil down 45 Soothing sound 47

“___ On Up” (“The Jeffersons” theme)

48 Marisa of “My Cousin

Vinny”

49 ___ One (vodka brand) 50 Actress ___ Pinkett

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55 Word with bad or smart 56 Head, slangily 57

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SAVAGE LOVE

REAL WORRIES

couple like you and your wife.

While there’s no way to

By Dan Savage, eliminate your risk of being mail@savagelove.net recognized on an app, HUSH, anyone who spots you on I’m a straight guy, married to a straight woman for 15 years. Feeld looking for extracurricular dick was on Feeld looking Several years back, I opened up to my wife about my fanta- for and/or offering up a little sies of her sleeping with other extracurricular dick of their own. The threat of mutually men. I was nervous about assured destruction—if they bringing it up. Her views on gossip about you, you’ll sex had always been tradigossip about them—is usually tional, and she had always expressed a very strict idea of enough to restrain bad actors, monogamy and commitment. as is the threat of the obvious follow-up question. (“Wait, So, I was extremely relieved when her reaction was intrigue why are you on Feeld?”) And most people on hookup apps rather than disgust. She was curious about it and wondered aren’t bad actors, HUSH, but if I really wanted it to happen fundamentally decent people like you and your wife, i.e., sinor if it was just something I wanted to keep in our rotation gles and couples looking for a little fun, not for an opportuniof dirty talk. Fast-forward to this week, and my wife tells me ty to hurt anyone. A friend or a relative or a coworker who she is interested in exploring spots your wife in a bar with a this. (Note to other guys who strange man—or in the lobby want this from their wives: be respectful, don’t pressure, and of a hotel or on her way into your apartment—is likelier give her time to think about to cause you headaches than it. Your patience might be one of your fellow perverts rewarded!) Here is the probonline. lem: We both have careers To minimize your risk of that could be complicated being spotted and outed on or damaged by the stigma the apps, HUSH, don’t post around “cheating.” I know face pics and only share them about all the apps out there, after you’ve established—to but we live a large city, and there is a non-zero chance that the best of your ability—the person you’re talking to isn’t we might run into someone on the apps we are connected a bot, a pic collector or an extortionist. Again, there’s no to professionally or socially. way to fully eliminate the risk, Are any of the apps out there geared toward folks who want but at a certain point you have to trust your gut and take a to go about this carefully? Is risk. You also have the option it possible to minimize the of creating a profile in a city risk of professional or social embarrassment here, or is this you visit regularly but don’t just something we must accept live in, HUSH. After you’ve found and vetted a few good to pursue this lifestyle? candidates, get yourself some —Hooking Up, Seeking Help airline tickets and a hotel room and have those drinks There are lots of dating apps in a bar that a colleague, a for people and/or couples fan or your father-in-law is looking for casual sex and/ unlikely to walk into. or kinky sex (Feeld, 3Somer, #Open, et al), and lots of questions@savagelove.net people—single and partListen to Dan on the Savage nered—looking for casual Lovecast. Follow Dan on Twitand/or kinky sex on regular ter @FakeDanSavage. dating apps (Tinder, OKColumns, podcasts, books, Cupid, Christian Mingle, et merch and more at al.). But hookup/threesome/ swinger apps, while perceived savage.love. as sleazier, are a safer bet for a

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