Tucson Weekly Jan, 13 2022

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JANUARY 13, 2022

JANUARY 13, 2022

JANUARY 13, 2022 | VOL. 37, NO. 2

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STAFF

CONTENTS

CURRENTS

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Healthcare workers plead with the public as COVID cases surge again, again

FEATURE

Tucson remembers Big Jim Griffith

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CHOW

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The Parish owner brings a little Southern comfort to downtown with The Delta

MUSIC

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

EDITOR’S NOTE

Jaime Hood, General Manager, jaime@tucsonlocalmedia.com

Farewell to a Legend BACK IN THE OLDEN DAYS, WHEN I was just a cub reporter with a few bylines to my name in the Arizona Daily Wildcat, I picked up the phone to talk to “Big Jim” Griffith about his book Southern Arizona Folk Arts.

I’d been working for a few years up at the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun, so I’d knew a little bit about folk arts and Big Jim’s work, but it was intimidating to prepare to talk with him.

He was gracious with his time and I wrote my first real feature story.

A few days later, I got a letter from Jim. I can’t remember many details, but the gist sticks with me today. He told me he’d been interviewed by many student journalists with mixed results, but he was pleasantly surprised by how the story had turned out.

It was a note of kindness that meant the world to me. He certainly didn’t have to take the trouble to send me a letter, but it was a major boost of encouragement.

That was the kind of guy that Big Jim was: Someone who went out of his way to lift people up, share stories and lead people to new frontiers. He died on Dec. 18, leaving behind his wife Loma and children Kelly and David,

Tyler Vondrak, Associate Publisher, tyler@tucsonlocalmedia.com Claudine Sowards, Accounting, claudine@tucsonlocalmedia.com

as well as two grandkids, Emile and Arwen and many, many friends.

This week, we bring together people who were inspired by Big Jim’s work to talk about what they loved about the guy. If you have memories you’d like to share, please leave them in the comments section.

Elsewhere in the news: Omicron is on the march, with more than 45,000 new cases reported just between last Friday and Sunday.

As I look at the state’s dashboard while I’m writing this on Tuesday, Jan. 11, an additional 213 Arizonans have died after contracting COVID, bringing the grim toll to 24,986, including 3,270 here in Pima County. Staff reporters Alex Pere and Nicole Feltman bring you the latest in our Currents section. When you’re out and about, be sure to mask up and be careful when you’re spending time indoors.

Jim Nintzel Executive Editor Hear Nintz talk about all things Tucson Weekly at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday mornings during the world-famous Frank Show on KLPX, 96.1 FM.

RANDOM SHOTS By Rand Carlson

Sheryl Kocher, Receptionist, sheryl@tucsonlocalmedia.com EDITORIAL Jim Nintzel, Executive Editor, jimn@tucsonlocalmedia.com Jeff Gardner, Managing Editor, jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com Alexandra Pere, Staff Reporter, apere@tucsonlocalmedia.com Nicole Feltman, Staff Reporter, nfeltman@tucsonlocalmedia.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 Emily Filener, Graphic Designer, emilyf@tucsonlocalmedia.com CIRCULATION Alex Carrasco, Circulation, alexc@tucsonlocalmedia.com ADVERTISING TLMSales@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.

Tucson Jazz Festival returns with a renewed focus on collaboration

TUCSON WEEDLY

21

A handful of people will hit it big with Arizona’s ‘social equity’ dispensary licenses

Cover images by Steven Meckler and 123rf.com, cover design by Ryan Dyson

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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JANUARY 13, 2022

DANEHY

TOM IS DONE LISTENING TO THE EXCUSES OF THE ANTI-VAX CROWD

By Tom Danehy, tucsoneditor@tucsonlocalmedia.com IF I READ ONE MORE WHINY OP-ED piece about how we should try to understand the people who are keeping the pandemic going by not getting vaccinated, I’m going to scream. It’s been a year since the vaccines became available, a year that could have been one of America’s finest hours, one in which a divided country could have come together to stamp out a deadly virus.

Instead, a vocal and vulgar minority has teamed up with the virus, prolonging our national agony. I don’t want to try to understand why these people are doing what they do. It’s not worth knowing. I just hope they all get sick. I’ve never wished anyone dead in my entire life, but I’ll be honest, when I hear about an unvaccinated person who dies from COVID, the most I can muster is “And…?”

I’m just tired of the COVIDiots. (My bilingual friend, Alfredo, calls them Pandejos.)

They want our Pandemic Fatigue to lead to our just shrugging and accepting their behavior as a matter of different strokes.

But it’s not and it never will be. This is not a petulant child making a scene in public until you give them some candy. These are grown human beings who think only of

CLAYTOONZ By Clay Jones

themselves and, in doing so, are indirectly causing the deaths of other people.

They need to be held accountable. For one thing, if the virus-denier/anti-vaxxer shows up at a hospital, they should be treated, but first they have to get vaccinated. The people who work there have to be vaccinated; the people who shop there should, too.

Another thing we can do is get rid of the stupid excuses that the anti-vaxxers and the America haters have been using for the past year.

• It’s against my religion: Well, no, it’s not.

It’s not against any established religion on Earth. Now, you might have some crackpot white Reverend Ike on cable TV, screaming, “Just send me your money and God will love you” and spouting lies about the vaccines, but that’s not religion. That’s blasphemy. (You could have asked televangelist Marcus Lamb, who railed against vaccines before he died of COVID last month.)

Many hard-core evangelical Christians in America long ago discarded any respect they might have once had for the Golden Rule in exchange for a twisted version of selfish libertarianism. What used to be bedrock Christianity has been replaced by

a demon brew of equal parts heresy, lunacy, and Trumpian nastiness.

Likewise, ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel and the U.S., who had initially resisted getting the vaccinations, are starting to come around on the recommendation of their rabbis, who are, in the performance of their duty and calling, choosing science over unnecessary death.

There simply is no religious reason to avoid vaccination.

• I’m waiting to see if it works (or if it’s safe): That might have sounded like a reasonable excuse to a few people a year ago. Nowadays, it’s the phrase that’s uttered into the speaker to gain entrance to the Dumbasses’ Secret Clubhouse.

Hundreds of millions of people have gotten the first shot and the second shot and the booster shot. The percentage of people who have had adverse reactions is a decimal point followed by a whole bunch of zeroes and then a single digit. Meanwhile, the best guess is that millions of lives have been saved by the miraculous vaccines.

And perhaps hundreds of thousands more could have been saved were it now for the confluence of the three M’s—MAGA, misinformation, and morons.

There is no way that somebody can use that lame excuse anymore.

• I’m doing some more research: Unless you have a multi-million dollar lab staffed by brilliant scientists and doctors and a pool of thousands of unvaccinated people who are all of a sudden willing to get vaccinated for science, you’re not doing re-

search. What you are doing is going on the internet, looking for the latest blurt of false information that you hope will somehow bolster the indefensible position that you have already staked out.

That’s not research. That’s you going online to look at something other than porn… for once.

• I had it, it sucked, but now I have natural immunity: Well, maybe you do, maybe you don’t.

It would be great if natural immunity were really a thing, but for most people, it’s at best just sort of a thing. According to science (which, apparently, has been banned from Fox News and right-wing talk radio), almost 40% of all COVID-19 cases produce zero productive antibodies. So, for more than a third of all the people who get COVID (and don’t die), all they have to show for it is some really bad memories and maybe some scarred lungs.

For those who do get some immunity out of the ordeal, that immunity fades faster than the immunity they would have received from a vaccination. Finally, if they have some natural immunity, getting a vaccination on top of that more than doubles the protection against the virus.

• I’m standing up for my individual rights. I’m a patriot: No, you’re not. You’re a selfish little B-word. You and your fellow travelers are the reason why we will soon be going into our third year of this nightmare.

We could have put it all behind us with a concerted, unified national effort.

But no… ■

JANUARY 13, 2022

CURRENTS

SPREAD AHEAD

Health workers plead with community as COVID cases skyrocket COVID will get a test, and not everyone who takes an at-home test reports their diagnosis.

The positivity of those getting tested, which dipped down to the 8% range last DUE TO THE FAST-SPREADING summer, jumped to 50% and “remains Omicron variant, Arizona saw more than inadequate for public health practice 45,000 new COVID cases reported beand many cases are going undiagnosed,” tween Friday, Jan. 7, and Sunday, Jan. 9. according to Gerald in his latest weekly Here in Pima County, there were 6,003 report. new cases over the same time period, While vaccinated people tend to have according to the Arizona Department of less severe bouts with Omicron, hospitals Health Services. are still facing huge pressure, particularly Dr. Joe Gerald, the University of Arizothanks to unvaccinated patients who na Zuckerman College of Public Health make up the majority of those who end up epidemiologist who has been tracking Arhospitalized with COVID. izona’s COVID outbreak since its earliest “While peak occupancy will not reach days, noted a total of 53,207 Arizonans prior levels, the Delta, and now Omicron, tested positive for COVID in the week waves have placed much higher levels ending Jan. 2, which was more than twice of chronic stress on our health system,” as many as the previous week. Along Gerald wrote. “We have so far seen 146 with that 120% increase, cases are being consecutive days with a combined occudiagnosed at 731 per 100,000. pancy >2000 patients whereas the sumCOVID was spreading especially mer 2020 and winter 2021 waves saw 57 fast among those 15 to 24 years of age, and 98 days, respectively. Until last week, who are seeing rates of 1,005 cases per 100,000, and lowest among those 65 and we had experienced 37 consecutive days with >3000 combined occupancy whereas older, at 407 cases per 100,000. People younger than 15 are averaging 409 cases the summer 2020 and winter 2021 waves saw 35 and 78 days, respectively. After a per 100,000. Those high numbers likely 10-day respite over Christmas-New Years, undercount the total number of positive we are once again >3000 combined occucases because not everyone who gets

By Nicole Feltman and Alexandra Pere APere@tucsonlocalmedia.com NFelftman@tucsonlocalmedia.com

pancy (last 4 days).”

Gerald criticized elected leaders for pursuing business-as-usual policies in the face of the wave. He said “the outcome will be more death and disability than necessary, more death and disability than others in similar circumstances will experience.”

Gerald’s comments were echoed in an open letter signed by more than 1,100 healthcare workers who urged Arizonans to get vaccinated or boosted and called on elected officials and hospital administrators to act to slow the spread.

The healthcare workers, including physicians, nurses, allied healthcare workers, public healthcare professionals and other clinical support staff from across the state of Arizona signed onto the open letter last week demanding more mitigation measures to rapidly reduce the spread of COVID-19 and prevent unnecessary deaths.

They said they were worried about the stress healthcare workers are experiencing as hospitals continue to operate on the edge of capacity and medical professionals face contracting the more transmissible Omicron in their workplace.

“But we’re also suffering as healthcare workers from moral injury after watching our patients, our families, community members suffer despite knowing the suffering is preventable and completely unnecessary,” Dr. Cadey Harrel said. “We are here to say enough is enough. We demand action. It is not too late at this point in time to change course.”

In their letter, the healthcare workers

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called on hospital administrators to establish stricter statewide visitation policies, including requiring masks, as well as increased testing capacity and new efforts to educate the public about the importance of wearing masks and other mitigation measures to slow COVID’s spread across the state.

“Gov. Doug Ducey’s continued blocking of mitigation strategies in the state has led us to the precipice that we are standing on right now,” Dr. Elizabeth Jacobs said.

In other recent COVID news: • Pima County Health Department Director Dr. Theresa Cullen said last week that the next several weeks will be crucial but she hopes to see case numbers decline later in January.

Thus far, health officials say the Omicron variant is highly transmissible but causes fewer hospitalizations.

“Our new hospital admissions seem to be stabilizing, though our ICU beds continue to be strained and constrained, the same as for our adult medical surgical beds,” Cullen said last week.

Pediatric hospital beds were available for use and Cullen reported that hospitals are seeing more pediatric hospitalizations for seasonal illnesses like RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and influenza than COVID. Although health officials say hospital admissions have stabilized, the healthcare system in Arizona is being pushed to its limit.

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COVID

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• The University of Arizona will head into the 2022 spring semester with in-person classes and a new indoor mask requirement amidst increasing COVID cases.

UA President Robert Robbins announced earlier this week that UA will be returning to campus with in-person classes on Wednesday, Jan. 12. UA is now requiring students and faculty to wear a surgical mask or high grade KN95 masks in indoor campus spaces. Students will need to show a negative COVID test 48 hours before dorm move-in, as well.

“There are a lot of tools we have that we didn’t a year ago, which gives me more confidence returning to in-person classes,” Robbins said.

Professor of Public Health Dr. Richard Carmona, a former U.S. surgeon general who is heading up the UA’s COVID response team, said the thinking has started to change on whether the University should move to online classes again because of “COVID exhaustion.”

Carmona said the academic community is becoming more opposed to lockdowns due to mental health repercussions.

“Let’s stay focused on protecting those who are most vulnerable, let’s try to keep our economy going, let’s try to keep our schools open, especially our elementary schools,” Carmona said.

The new policy says cloth masks will not be accepted, but surgical masks will be provided at the entrance of campus buildings and classrooms. Masking in school settings has been shown to lower the risk of COVID outbreaks. In late September of 2021, a collaborative study between the Pima County Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control found K-12 schools with a mask requirement were 3.5 times less likely to have COVID outbreaks than schools without mask requirements.

Robbins hopes students will regularly test and report their results to the University to be put in isolation dorms, but testing is not mandatory. UA has 300 isolation rooms available for students who test positive for COVID. The University will have on-campus testing and takehome test kits available to students.

Robbins said the University can’t

put a vaccination mandate in place for students but he asked students to get vaccinated, boosted, wear a mask, and regularly test each week.

Carmona also said it was vital for people to get vaccinated.

“We really need everybody to understand this sense of urgency and getting vaccinated is the most important thing you can do for yourself, but also all of us so that the more we can accelerate towards this endpoint, the less mutations we are going to see,” Dr. Carmona said.

• A new report published by the Arizona Department of Health Services shows vaccinated Arizonans are at less risk of succumbing to severe symptoms.

In November, unvaccinated Arizonans were 4.9 times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 and were 31.1 times more likely to die from COVID-19.

Pfizer released data in early December showing a booster shot can help neutralize the omicron variant.

People are eligible to receive a booster shot if they completed a two-dose COVID-19 vaccination series at least six months prior.

• Following approval from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control, Pima County is now offering Pfizer booster shots to ages 12 and up. The Pfizer vaccine is the only shot approved for those younger than 18.

Two dose COVID-19 vaccination series of Pfizer and Moderna are available at county sites, along with the Johnson & Johnson single-shot COVID-19 vaccine.

Those who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are eligible for a booster two months after receiving the shot. All of these vaccines and the Pfizer booster shots are available for free at these locations: Tucson Convention Center, 260 S. Church Ave. Abrams Public Health Center, 3950 S. Country Club Road Theresa Lee Health Center, 1493 W. Commerce Court North Clinic, 3550 N. First Ave. Check hours of operation at the county website at pima.gov/covid19vaccines.

• As of Tuesday, Jan. 11, a total of 24,986 Arizonans have died after contracting COVID-19, including 3,270 in Pima County, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. ■

JANUARY 13, 2022

ADIOS, BIG JIM

Saying goodbye to the man who stirred Tucson’s melting pot

JAMES “BIG JIM” GRIFFITH DIED just before Christmas, on Dec. 18, at the age of 86.

He’s best known in Tucson as the founder of Tucson Meet Yourself, the annual melting pot that bring together Tucson’s rich cultures, but he was much more: An encyclopedia of folk tales, a celebrated author, a tour guide who could reveal hidden paths here, in Sonora and elsewhere. He was an American original and a local treasure.

In tribute to this storyteller, the Weekly brings together just a few of his friends to tell a few tales, tall or otherwise.

IN MY MIND, MEMORIES OF “Big Jim” Griffith are forever intertwined with those of his dear friend and neighbor, Bernard “Bunny” Fontana.

Both moved to Tucson in the 1950s to study anthropology at the University of Arizona, where two titans of the field— archaeologist Emil Haury and cultural anthropologist Edward Spicer—were creating the finest anthropological department in the country for the study of the southern Southwest, including northwestern Mexico. Both bought land next to one another on Mission Road near San Xavier del Bac, which reflected their love of the Sonoran Desert and its Native peoples, especially the Tohono O’odham.

When I came to Tucson in 1973, Big Jim and Bunny became beloved mentors, teaching me in so many different ways that anthropology was more than an academic field. It was a way of life, a way of being, a way of immersing yourself in a region where O’odham, Yoemem, Sonorenses and Tucsonenses continued to shape the cultural milieu of a community far older than the United States.

And make no mistake about it: Big Jim was an anthropologist. He may

have called what he did folklore, but he always placed the arts people made and the food people ate in broader cultural and historical contexts. Jim wrote his dissertation on the iconic ceremonial masks of the Yoemem (Yaqui) and Yoremem (Mayo) peoples of southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa. He went on to write about an astonishing range of other subjects—O’odham chapels, Native and Mexicano folk arts, the sacred spaces of all peoples in the Pimería Alta. Jim didn’t write for academics but his scholarship was rigorous and encyclopedic. Because of his work, even newcomers to Tucson soon realized that Tucson was a multicultural city with roots that extended back thousands of years. More importantly, that multiculturalism reflected living, breathing, vibrant traditions created by living, breathing, vibrant people.

Above all, Big Jim and his wife Loma gave us Tucson’s signature cultural event—Tucson Meet Yourself—which showcases the arts, crafts, music and foods of all the different ethnic groups who have settled here.

My closest connection to both Bunny and Big Jim, however, was the Southwestern Mission Research Center, which was never a “center” at all but a network of people who loved a region that did its best to ignore a border that split it in half.

We shared that love with others through our three-day tours of the Spanish colonial missions in northern Sonora founded by Jesuit Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino in the late 1600s. Big Jim and Bunny were tour leaders when I began driving the SAG trucks that Jim Click Ford loaned us to follow the bus driven by Adán Morales.

They became part of my SMRC family along with Charlie Polzer, Jim Officer, Mardith Schuetz-Miller, Neto and Julieta Portillo, Ed and Mary Catherine Ronstadt, Carmen and Tom Prezelski, Nick Bleser and Birdie Stabel, David

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and Kim Yubeta, Tom Naylor, and the two women who really made the tours work, Leah Ward and Mary Malaby.

My fondest memory of Big Jim, however, took place in the high desert of northern Nevada, not the Pimería Alta. I gave a talk at the Western Folklife Center’s Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada, one January. Big Jim, who co-founded the festival, was there as well, and after it was over, a group of us adjourned to Meg Glaser’s ranch for food and drinks. There, in a bedroom, I found Big Jim and another musician playing Appalachian songs carried across the Atlantic by Irish and Scottish immigrants. Jim was playing his banjo, and it was then that I realized his curiosity was omnivorous. It knew no PHOTO BY STEVEN MECKLER boundaries of race or ethnicity, language or nationality.

“Big Jim” Griffith: 1935-2021 At a memorial service for Bunny at Mission San Xavier, I said that it was impossible for me to think of a of Nogales until I went with Big Jim. Tucson without him. For so many of His encyclopedic knowledge of the us, it is inconceivable to envision our folklore of the region was almost as rich community without Big Jim. I miss as his love for the land and the people. his larger-than-life personality, his On that memorable trip, I met some of generosity, the parties he and Loma the folks he had been working with for threw every September, his bad jokes. decades, learned about particular folk (“Sheridan!” he would boom, “Have you saints from that borderland, like Malheard the one …”) He called on all of us verde—he had been working on what to embrace one another and celebrate would become his book Folk Saints of our differences. Now more than ever we the Borderlands: Victims, Bandits, and need to honor his memory by carrying Healers (2003)—and I learned of his that message forward. penchant for telling tall tales.

—Tom Sheridan He could sure spin a yarn and only an experienced raconteur would notice Tom Sheridan is the author of Arizothe glimmer in his eye that signaled na: A History and has worked at both you were in for a treat! Most people the Arizona Historical Society and the believed him until his grin would turn Arizona State Museum. to laughter as the listener figured out Jim had been telling a tall tale.

At American Folklore Society (AFS) meetings, he would jam with the best of MY WORLD WOULD’VE BEEN them, deliver brilliant papers with powdifferent had I not been blessed with erful images, and chat with budding meeting Jim Griffith. I learned from folklorists, listening intently and offerhim; he supported my work; and ofing sources from his vast knowledge. I fered advice when I didn’t even know I remember such a conversation after a needed it. paper I delivered on the Texas border One memorable trip across to Sonora saints sometime in the late 1990s or began in Nogales, Arizona. I am a early 2000s. border dweller from Texas, but I didn’t His and Loma’s home filled with folk know the Arizona-Sonora border and objects and books was a welcoming despite having close friends and family CONTINUED ON PAGE 9 in Nogales, I had not ventured south

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ADIOS, BIG JIM

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space for many of us and he never tired of sharing his space and his stories. I will miss him at AFS, and on my infrequent visits to Tucson.

—Norma E. Cantú Norma E. Cantú is president of the American Folklore Society and the Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Trinity University.

ONE DAY AROUND 1995, A GIANT walked into my office at the Tucson Weekly.

At 6 foot 7, he easily towered over my 5-foot-4 frame. But he was a gentle giant with a massive smile.

He took one look at me, gave me one of those smiles and said, “You have the map of Ireland all over your face.”

Now I was the one beaming. I had

PHOTO FROM SOUTHWEST FOLKLORE ARCHIVES

Jim Griffith at an early Tucson Meet Yourself.

finally met Big Jim Griffith, a renowned folklorist who specialized in the peoples of northern Mexico and southern Arizona also Pimeria Alta, be they the Mayo, the Yaqui, the Tohono O’odham

and Mexicanos above and below the border and Mexican Americans in South Tucson and beyond.

I learned that day he was interested in the cultures and traditions of

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everyone he met, including me, an Irish-American from Philadelphia.

Tucson Meet Yourself, the annual cultural festival Big Jim and his wife, Loma Griffith, founded way back in 1974, is all about celebrating the Tucsonans who have come from the world over.

“A Filipino dance group was on stage,” he told me one year. “Ukrainian kids in costumes were waiting to go on.

A Norwegian man in a horned helmet and fur was selling food.” He was reveling in the moment, he says, when “a lady came over and said to me, ‘This is just like everything else in Tucson: nothing but Mexicans and Indians.’”

It was Big Jim’s job for years to help Tucsonans see beyond that narrow perspective.

In turn, Big Jim’s marvelous books taught me about my new home in the southwest; I learned not only what the Pimeria Alta is but why Mexican folk art equals the European Baroque.

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JANUARY 13, 2022

homes. And everywhere we went, Big Jim would pull out his ever-present banjo, sit under a tree or squeeze in the bus, and send his music sailing out into the world.

—Margaret Regan

ADIOS, BIG JIM

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9

He was a Ph.D. with a position at the UA, and an author of at least nine books. But he moved easily between the halls of academe and the streets.

Over the years I saw him emceeing an Asian Indian dance concert; telling silly jokes at plays; and wailing on his beloved banjo in the Posada procession in the old barrio.

But the happiest I ever saw him was in a tour in Sonora. He had joined an all-star cast of brilliant tour guides running a trip to the mission churches. He and his great friend Bernard “Bunny” Fontana, an anthropologist who studied the Tohono O’odham, led a merry busload of fans across Sonora. Over a couple of days, the group visited the tiny jewel-like mission and a couple of the big ones, including the Magdalena church where Father Kino’s remains rest. We listened to a talented soloist singing in a sanctuary and we shared jolly family lunches at Mexican

Margaret Regan is Tucson Weekly’s longtime arts writer and the author of The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona Borderlands and Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire.

HOW DOES ANYONE IN TUCSON ever have a chance to fill the big shoes of Big Jim Griffith, who for decades has served as our own local hero and (bi-) national treasure?

Whether you heard him barking out Uncle Dave Macon ditties over his banjo, telling bilingual puns at Tucson Eat Yourself or reading from his books on santos, street tacos and folk chapels of La Frontera, Big Jim was ferociously memorable to say the least.

COURTESY PHOTO

Jim Griffith talking with the gang at the Hungary booth at Tucson Meet Yourself.

And yet it was not just Jim’s legacy— or Loma and Jim’s memory—that will last in the changing forms of Tucson Meet Yourself, Southwest Folklore Alliance and the City of Gastronomy;

it was the whole entourage of wayward friends, mariachis and sad ones, street musicians and chickenscratch polka partners who waila-ed away the hours with him in the Snorin’ Desert.

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JANUARY 13, 2022

There was nothing normal, ordinary or conventional about how James Griffith lived, wrote, ate, clawhammered or danced the schottische. He was a supernatural power that helped Tucson galvanize its distinctive image among all Southwestern cities and celebrate its homegrown talents. Whatever Tucson was before Big Jim moved from Santa Barbara to bless the dry, dusty, stinkin’ desert earth, he was the catalyst who guided it into becoming more than the sum of its parts.

The last time I visited Jim on his porch near San Xavier Mission, he was bound to his wheelchair and had a stubble on his chin that was wilder than a grizzly bear. I went there ostensibly to have him tell me stories about Lalo Guerrero and Joaquin Murrieta, but I was really there to hear him spin the kind of yarn that no one else in the world could do.

As his narrative digressed and meandered all over Hellnback, his eyes grew wide and wild, his mole took on the aura of a third eye, his laughter soared and his voice blasted like a 10-piece Banda Sinaloense on steroids. We slid into sheer silliness, buoyant with bad puns and grateful for all we had seen, heard and done together over 40 years of fish-tailing down sandy desert roads and slumming in cantinas on both sides of the border. I was delighted—if not eternally grateful—to momentarily be a sidekick once again for a Borderline Fool as magnanimous and monstrous as Big Jim. Let the Little Guy go in Peace.

—Gary Paul Nabhan Gary Paul Nabhan is an ethnobotanist, the founder of Native Seeds/SEARCH and the author of multiple books, including Mesquite: An Arboreal Love Affair and Where Our Food Comes From.

I WAS CUTTING ACROSS CAMPUS FROM THE Student Union in August of 1971 headed back to the hotel on Stone Avenue where they dumped us out-ofstaters until fraternity and sorority rush made room in the dorms, when an unexpected sound caught my ear.

It was an old timey string band set up in a parking lot where the Harvill Building stands now.

It was my first day in Tucson and It had been a whirlwind day of frustration and elation. I had experienced my first monsoon storm the hard way, and there’s a college ID photo taken minutes later in all my drowned-rat glory to prove it. I’d met the president of the university, John Schaefer, as well as the head of the geology department, Ed McCullough. I met my geek childhood heroes Ewen Whittaker and Dr. Gerard Kuiper at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

Very exciting.

I’d spent the bulk of the day competing for classes

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by following a spreadsheet and a map like a scavenger hunt crisscrossing the campus to extract class computer cards from the room where each would be taught before said class filled up (with mixed success), then returning to a designated center to turn that slim packet of cards in for the mainframe to process, I assume, to declare some winner, although none was ever announced.

I was bone tired, dragging my butt. But the closer I got to that parking lot, the more I forgot how tired I was. A sonic gravitational tug drew me in. It was a great band. They had an ever-swelling crowd gathered of folks dancing, clapping hands and just watching. Now and then you’d catch a whiff of something now legal, then not so much. The whole experience was just what I needed to revive.

There was a guy with a rub board and another with a slap bass made with a stick and an overturned metal tub. There was a fine guitarist, too, and an excellent fiddler.

But the guy playing banjo, claw hammer style, was off the hook. He was a giant guy with awesome chops.

He made that banjo ring and chime, driving the fiddle and guitar. At the break I went up and passed my compliments to that banjo player—a guy by the name COURTESY PHOTO of Jim Griffith.

Jim Griffith was legendary enough to inspire folk art.

He was a grad student at the time, if memory serves. After that from time to time I’d see him playing at the Campus Cup and other local spots. Someof food and traditional arts and crafts from a broad times he’d be solo, sometimes with one or two other spectrum of Tucson’s indigenous and immigrant musicians and on rare occasions with some form of cultural groups at TMY, and all manner of traditional the Biodegradable String Band he’d played with the singing and dancing. night of my Tucson arrival.

We all knew that Tucson is a multicultural commuI would run into him at pretty much any old timey nity but this was genius on a whole other level. or bluegrass event or folk music gathering, and there were a lot in those days. There was a place called the CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 Modern Times Bookstore, first on Sixth Street and later on Speedway and Park, that was a music lover’s paradise, particularly for all things traditional, and I often ran into him there scouring the racks and occasionally jamming with some of the folks that worked there. The whole idea of an organization called the Tucson Friends of Traditional Music was hatched there, and Jim had a hand in some of those first shows, bringing in Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, Michael Cooney, Mick Moloney and many others few of us imagined we’d ever see.

Around that time Jim started Tucson Meet Yourself as a showcase for tradition bearers—people who had learned their art, music or craft the way it had been handed down generation after generation. The original fiddle player for the Stanley Brothers, Les Keith, had settled in Tucson and Jim gave him a stage to make that known. Tejana songstress Lydia Mendoza swelled the crowd in the park to capacity one year, and father of Chicano music Lalo Guerrero returned to hometown acclaim at TMY. There was a globe full

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ADIOS, BIG JIM

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

It was a feast for the senses, a place to celebrate all that we are as a community, to learn from one another, to rub shoulders and feel as one, all with what he termed “A hint of communion” to it all.

And while Tucson Meet Yourself was where most people knew of Jim Griffith, he was so much more. His books and tours of the Spanish missions of Sonora created an awareness of the history and context of some of the jewels of the desert. His other collections of traditional and sacred stories and lore of this region and its people fleshed out history better than Ken Burns could in all of his films.

To many from outside Tucson, he was the distinguished Dr. James Griffith, anthropologist and folklorist and the creator of the University of Arizona’s Southwest Folklore Center. He was well known in folk circles around the country and the world. And “Big Jim” Griffith was a god in the Southeastern

U.S. where he took first place in several national claw hammer banjo competitions.

In 1987, when I was hired by the Tucson Citizen, I figured I’d do that gig for a couple of years and then go back to composing and performing. But I wanted to make the time I was there count. So in my first days I went by the Southwest Folklore Center, then housed in that old pink building on Sixth Street across from the stadium, to talk to him and maybe do a profile on him.

In typical Jim Griffith style he refused to be the focus of an article.

Instead he gave me a list of names of people he thought ought to be written about. And he refused to be a source for the stories. He offered instead to put me in touch with people from their communities to have them, rather than an authority figure, tell their story.

I went back a few times over the years. Jim always had a way of enticing me with something else I’d never heard of, something real and true to this place.

He changed the way I did stories and how I would come to see my adopted

Learn how to talk to your kids about marijuana.

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Another one of Jim Griffith’s great loves was performing music.

home. If I’d had ideas of leaving, an hour with Jim and the thought would be inconceivable. There was too much yet to be seen and experienced here.

And too little ink about any of it.

Now and then he’d call to let me know when something amazing was happening. Like when the Tohono O’odham waila band The Joaquin Brothers played a polka festival in Carnegie Hall, wowing a crowd that never expected to see desert tribal members in ribbon shirts playing that music. He helped Angelo Joaquin, Jr. start the Tucson Waila Festival after a trip with the Joaquins to Wolf Trap, and was a constant fixture at the South Tucson Norteño festival, cheering on new and old generations of players, including the Pasqua Yaqui nation’s Los Hermanos Cuatro. He called again in 1997 to make sure I knew that Lalo Guerrero was getting the National Medal of Arts from President Clinton, along with Stephen Sondheim, Lionel Hampton, Edward Albee and Robert Redford.

Outside of work I got to see him in his element on a number of occasions, collecting stories and songs. He had an uncanny knack for picking up melodies and lyrics on first listen and recalling in detail stories passed down for generations by a variety of cultures that settled the Sonoran Desert and Tucson.

There is no doubt that Jim Griffith changed my life for the better, before,

during and after my time with the paper. And my experience is just one of many as he altered our city’s path in sublimely beautiful ways.

I am lucky to have had Jim as a friend. And so is all of Tucson.

We will profoundly miss our friend.

But we will see him all around us. We’ll hear him in a song, feel him close when we catch a whiff of something tasty from a smoky food stand, when we see a carver at work, or ladies cutting paper flowers or folks decorating eggs. When we see people in exquisite traditional garb from around the planet strolling by each other downtown, or hear an exotic tune. When we hold hands in a Tohono O’odham round dance at the close of each Tucson Meet Yourself and feel the unity of our diverse community.

The great photographer Dorothea Lange said a camera is an instrument to teach you to see the world without a camera. Jim gave us the complete sensory experience. He gave us the deeper meaning and the context. And all of us are forever in his debt.

—Daniel Buckley Daniel Buckley is a former reporter for the Tucson Citizen who is now working on The Mariachi Miracle, a film and companion book about how mariachi music has inspired schoolchildren across Tucson.

JANUARY 13, 2022

Editor’s Note: While we are delighted to see Tucsonans once again gathering for fun events, we are also aware that variants are in widespread circulation.

Please consider getting vaccinated against COVID if you haven’t yet.

Yoga in the Gardens. This year, I’m vowing to remind myself that it’s okay to not get something perfect right away.

Maybe it’s even better, because you “learn from the experience” or “grow as a person” or something similarly trite/ annoyingly true. Anyway, if you didn’t exactly wake up on Jan. 1 ready to be a new person, it’s still never too late to try new things, make small improvements and treat yourself with love. All this to say, take this outdoor yoga class with Mary Carhuff at Tohono Chul! You’ll deepen your connection to the Earth and be able to move at your own pace in a gorgeous setting. I am not an expert, but I don’t think it’s very common to regret doing yoga. 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.

Tuesday mornings through Feb. 8. Tohono Chul, 7366 Paseo del Norte. $10 (plus cost of admission).

Tucson Fringe. Unjuried, uncensored and unmissable, the Tucson Fringe Festival provides artists (especially underrepresented artists) with low-risk, lowcost opportunities to put on avant-garde and non-traditional shows. And gives the public the opportunity to see this fabulous art! This year’s lineup includes pieces such as “A Mermaid in Narnia (on LSD)” by Ariel Pinkerton, “Planetes: The Wanderers” by the Spider Silk Circus and “I’ll Be Broken Home for Christmas” by Jeffrey Baldinger and Jessica Michelle Singleton, plus many more live performances, live Zoom performances and free prerecorded YouTube videos.

Various times from Thursday, Jan. 13, to Sunday, Jan. 16. Venues are The Screening Room (127 E. Congress), the ATC Temple of Music and Art Cabaret Theater (330 S. Scott) and the Circus Academy of Tucson (400 W. Speedway).

See tucsonfringe.com for ticket prices.

Zoom…Zoom! Unlike so many things these days, this is not actually an event taking place virtually over Zoom.

Rather, it’s a community event at the local children’s museum that’s all about transportation. The museum will be open for free all day for kids (and maybe

Death of a Salesman. Whether you’re a theater aficionado or not, you’ve probably heard of this show by Arthur Miller. It’s a show about the American dream and facing mediocrity and looking back on your life and not feeling satisfied. It’s firmly a tragedy, but there’s a reason why this play is considered by many critics as one of the 20th century’s very best.

Head on over to see this production at the Rogue Theatre, directed by Matt Bowdren and PHOTO BY TIM FULLER with music direction by Russell Ronnebaum.

7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Jan. 23. The Rogue Theatre, 300 E. University Blvd. $42.

by Emily Dieckman Music for Brass. If you like trumpets, horns, trombones and timpanis, boy do we have a show for you. Or, more accurately, Hayato Tanaka and Betsy Bright, trumpets at the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, put together this great program for you to enjoy this week. Just a few of the pieces they’re playing are Paul Dukas’ Fanfare from La Peri, Giovanni Gabrieli’s Canzon septimi tono No. 2, Philip Glass’ Brass Sextet and selections from Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung and Die Walküre.

Tanaka did several of the arrangements.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15, and 2 p.m.

Sunday, Jan. 16. Tucson Symphony Orchestra, 2175 N. Sixth Ave. $16.

Dixie’s Tupperware Party. Straight from Dixie Longate’s bio in the press release, and I’m not kidding: “I have… three ex-husbands. All of ‘em have somehow died, but I ain’t crying about it. I’m way too busy traveling all over the place bringing creative food storage solutions to your town.” Dixie is an Alabama girl with just the right combination of gum chewing, bright red hair and old-school charm to make you want to relive the type of Tupperware party your grandma used to go to. Written by Kris Andesson and starring his drag persona, Dixie Longate, this show, in which Dixie demonstrates the many alternative uses of Tupperware, has had critics across the nation saying things like “I was laughing too hard to breathe.” Now it’s in Tucson as part of the Invisible Theatre’s 50th Anniversary Season. Get ready to crack up! 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 15, and 2 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 16. Berger Performing Arts Center, 1200 W. Speedway Blvd. $45.

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their curious parents, too) to learn about all of the different ways people and products get around in today’s world.

Scheduled guests range from Caterpillar and Suntran to the Pima County Library Bookmobile and the Tucson Police Department. 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15. Children’s Museum Tucson, 200 S. Sixth Ave. Free.

Historic Fourth Avenue Map Release Party. One of our city’s cutest and quirkiest streets deserves its own cute and quirky map, right? Come on down to the Surly Wench Pub for the release of the latest version of the Fourth Avenue Map. Bring a mask and bundle up, as this event is on the outdoor patio. The lovely maps by artist Johnny Carrillo will also be available for purchase, so you can have your own little Fourth Avenue at home on the wall. 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 19. Surly Wench Pub, 424 N. Fourth Ave. Free.

Unformatted. Who doesn’t want to spend a nice Thursday night laughing their face off? Tucson Improv Movement’s open mic night brings different teams to the stage for an experimental night of comedy. The unformatted nature of the show means it’s laid back and relaxed but still 100% funny. Best of all, it’s free! But, since Thursday is Friday Eve, it’s probably worth celebrating it with some of the beer, wine, drinks and snacks they’ll have for sale. 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 13. Tucson Improv Movement, 414 E. Ninth St. Free.

Women in Jeopardy! Okay, so picture this: Your best gal pal is dating a new guy, and you want to be happy for her, but you meet him and he’s really creepy (Red Flag No. 1). And he’s a dentist, so he likes torturing people, which is Red Flag No. 2 (just kidding—sorry to our dentist readers, we love you). But also—and this is PROBABLY the biggest red flag—it seems like he might be a serial killer. So you and your friends band together in a makeshift detective squad to get to the bottom of the situation. Are you in? This show by Wendy MacLeod, opening at Arizona Theatre Company this weekend, will have you cracking up. Saturday, Jan. 15, to Saturday, Feb. 5. Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. $40 to $73, or $25 to $58 for preview nights.

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CHOW

GULF TASTES

Parish owner brings a little southern comfort to downtown with The Delta

By Matt Russell tucsoneditor@tucsonlocalmedia.com THE SEED WAS LIKELY PLANTED when Travis Peters was a punk-rocking teenager, wearing an Operation Ivy band T-shirt and shredding around the streets of downtown Tucson on his skateboard.

He was a regular fixture on the downtown punk and boarding scene long before he captured the nation’s attention as a multiple award-winning chef and Food Network star. Though he opened his first restaurant on the northwest side a decade ago, The Parish, his connection to downtown remained strong. And just last week, he opened his second restaurant on the same street where he used to shred as a kid.

The Delta, located at 135 S. Sixth Avenue in the re-imagined space that

was formerly Janos Wilder’s DOWNTOWN Kitchen & Cocktails, is Peters’ and his business partners’ nod to genuine southern hospitality and “a healthy dose of spirited swagger.”

As Peters points out, both of his restaurants are inspired by southern traditions.

But The Delta’s menu is dominated by smaller, tapas-style dishes in a setting that pays tribute to the music culture of America’s big cities.

“Try to imagine The Parish’s punk rock cousin, who grew up in Los Angeles rock clubs, won the lottery, moved to the South, bought an old swanky joint and turned it into a chef-driven bar and grill, that’s The Delta,” he said.

So what does swank look like at the center of the plate? The Big D is Peters’ response, “a most ridiculous sandwich” as he defines it.

PHOTO BY JAVIER CASTILLO

The “Big D” comes with a smoked and Dr. Pepper-braised bone-in beef rib on a locally baked baguette.

The “Big D” comes with a smoked and Dr. Pepper-braised bone-in beef rib on a locally baked baguette, with an andouille sausage aioli, habanero-dill pickles, pickled vegetables, fermented, dehydrated and fried Shitake mushrooms and crispy beef tendons.

This is especially good news to me as you just can’t find decent beef tendons these days.

When the dish is delivered to the table, the server effortlessly pulls the bone from the meat and sets it alongside the plate.

Another salute to the swank is The Delta’s Stuffed Pork Rib Crown, a full rack of brined and smoked pork ribs turned up on its side with the ends fastened together with “meat glue.” Peters stuffs fried tater tots in the middle of the circle of ribs and tops them with pimiento cheese, two kinds of barbecue sauce, crumbled pork rinds, pickled onions and blueberries, and jalapenos that are fried with onions and soy sauce.

Excuse me, but how in the world does a guest even begin to attack this dish?

“This one clearly comes with a steak knife,” he said. “The ribs are standing straight up and down so you can see where you need to cut.”

You can just imagine the accelerating

landslide of saucy tots as each rib is eliminated.

But what about those smaller plates that are said to define The Delta’s distinctness?

Peters has you covered, with nearly 20 dishes ranging from a Giant Chicharron to a Crispy Pig Tail Confit. There’s also a Roasted Forbes Bone Marrow, with an upcharge for the “Bourbon Luge,” of course.

“This is a place for sharing, a place to enjoy food and drinks with the people you love,” he said.

Operation Ivy, that punk band that Peters loved in his youth, recorded a song in 1989 called “Gonna Find You” which promises, “If you can’t find a place it’s gonna find you.”

While Travis Peters wasn’t necessarily looking for The Delta as a kid on a skateboard, I believe that it found him. And now we’ve found a fun new place to get our swank and swagger on. ■ Contact Matt Russell, whose day job is CEO of Russell Public Communications, at mrussell@russellpublic.com. Russell is also the publisher of OnTheMenuLive. com as well as the host of the Friday Weekend Watch segment on the “Buckmaster Show” on KVOI 1030 AM.

JANUARY 13, 2022

MUSIC

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Grammy-winning jazz musicians David Grusin and Lee Ritenour are teaming up for a special show during the Tucson Jazz Festival.

A MINGUS AMONG US

Tucson Jazz Festival returns with a renewed focus on collaboration

By Jeff Gardner jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com AFTER NARROWLY MAKING IT into the early days of 2020, and being cancelled last year, the Tucson Jazz Festival is scheduled across multiple venues from Friday, Jan. 14, to Sunday, Jan. 23. The festival returns with an expanded variety of styles, both indoor and outdoor shows, and a special jam day that gets to the heart of jazz.

Of course, this occurs as infection cases are spiking throughout the state and two headliners, Herb Alpert and Jon Batiste, have rescheduled. But many events and performers are still planned to continue throughout town, at venues like the Fox Theatre, Hotel Congress, and the Rialto.

“Anybody on our line-up, I’m super

excited about, to be honest. We have some of the best performers. Unfortunately a couple have had to postpone their performances, but we still have fantastic musicians coming,” said Khris Dodge, executive director of the Tucson Jazz Festival. “I think the festival has been pretty consistent at offering a wide array of different styles within the jazz idiom, and this year is no exception. We work hard to offer options for different tastes.”

Highlights include Grammy-winning artists like singer Dianne Reeves, guitarist Lee Ritenour and composer Dave Grusin. Beyond individual performers, the Tucson Jazz Festival has also scheduled full bands and orchestras, such as the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra and Tucson’s own Orkesta Mendoza.

Dodge says a goal of the Tucson Jazz Festival is to bring in some of the best performers from around the country, but also feature our city’s own jazz community.

“We have some of the best in the country right here in our own city, and we need to highlight and celebrate our wonderful local musicians, in addition to those we bring in from out of town,” Dodge said. “Both are definitely of value.”

New to the festival this year is the Tucson Jazz Festival Jam, scheduled for five hours midday on Saturday, Jan. 15, on the Hotel Congress plaza.

“I’m really excited about the outdoor jam, which features performers booked for the Fox Theatre intermingling with some of our top performers here in town, creating different groups on three different stages throughout the day,” Dodge said.

The lengthy collaborative jam will give people a chance to listen to new combinations of performers. Because of its time, the audience can even listen for a bit, leave, come back, and there will still be new music performed.

“It’s something that happens in other jazz festivals. From an artist’s perspective, it’s really cool because you play with your own group all the time, and suddenly you have the chance to play with other great musicians that you normally wouldn’t get a chance to,” Dodge said.

On Monday, Jan. 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the outdoor Downtown Jazz Fiesta will be free to the public.

The Jazz Fiesta features drummer and composer Kendrick Scott performing along with the University of Arizona’s Fred Fox Jazz Ensemble.

While there are both indoor and outdoor events planned, Dodge says there are currently no virtual components planned, which goes in line with the lively and improvisational nature of jazz.

“Over the last two years, we’ve done a lot of virtual. And it was wonderful and we needed it, but I also feel, as a community, we need that live connection,” Dodge said.

Due to the seemingly endless nightmare that is COVID, Dodge admits scheduling changes may be necessary

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2022 Tucson Jazz Festival Friday, Jan. 14 through Sunday, Jan. 23

At Hotel Congress, the Fox Theatre, Rialto Theatre, Centennial Hall, Leo Rich Theatre and 191 Toole

TucsonJazzFestival.org

as the Jazz Festival draws nearer. However, participating venues are working with safety recommendations and mandates by the City of Tucson and Pima County.

“The biggest part is that we believe in our community, and we want to uplift our community. The arts and music does that,” Dodge said. “Of course, they don’t solve everything, but it’s a small piece of the pie that makes Tucson great. And if we can play a small part in making our community better, we’ll try to engage in as many ways as we can.”

SELECT LINEUP Lee Ritenour & Dave Grusin. Two jazz legends are teaming up for a special performance at the Fox Theatre on Sunday, Jan. 16. During a career spanning five decades, guitarist Lee Ritenour has amassed 16 Grammy nominations thanks to his technical fusion of jazz, pop, rock ’n’ roll and world music. Dave Grusin has worked as a composer, record producer and pianist, and has produced multiple film scores. In an effort to spread the love of jazz, Grusin is also co-founder of the National Foundation for Jazz Education, a philanthropic group dedicated to helping young jazz musicians.

Dianne Reeves. Singer Dianne Reeves is known for wielding her voice as an instrument, offering a rich tone as well as improvisation between jazz and R&B. Her work has won her five Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album, as well as an honorary doctorate of music from Juilliard music school.

Reeves will be performing at the Tucson Convention Center’s Leo Rich Theatre on Sunday, Jan. 23.

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Tucson’s Orkesta Mendoza, which combines mambo, indie rock and psychedelic music, perform at Hotel Congress on Jan. 22.

TUCSON JAZZ FESTIVAL CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

The Dave Stryker Quartet & The Eric Alexander Quintet. This ensemble performance pairs two musicians collaborating, each with their own group.

Uplifting guitarist Dave Stryker pairs his quartet with tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander’s quintet for a unique show filling the Fox Theatre stage on Friday, Jan 14.

Kendrick Scott. Drummer, composer and band leader Kendrick Scott has been named one of the most noteworthy rising stars in jazz, performing on multiple Grammy-winning records.

He has released multiple albums, both avant-garde and more traditional, and currently works on faculty at the Manhattan School Of Music. Scott will be performing with the UA Fred Fox Jazz Ensemble to headline the Downtown Jazz Fiesta on Monday, Jan. 17.

Orkesta Mendoza. Tucson’s own Orkesta Mendoza performs a special

style of percussive fusion that could really only come out of the Old Pueblo.

Dubbed “indie mambo,” Orkesta Mendoza’s large sonic offerings take influence from ranchera, cumbia, psychedelic music and more. Their unique music includes drums, accordion, keyboard, clarinet, guitar, saxophone, piano, and multiple singers. Orkesta Mendoza perform at Hotel Congress on Saturday, Jan. 22.

Sammy Rae & The Friends. Eight strong, this collective comes complete with a rhythm section, horn section and multiple singers. Band leader Sammy Rae traces her influences everywhere from classic rock to folk to jazz. This all combines into a sweet yet energetic performance with multiple interweaving melodies that stays danceable. Sammy Rae & The Friends take the stage at 191 Toole on Tuesday, Jan. 18. ■ For more information, a full line-up, and to purchase tickets, visit TucsonJazz Festival.org

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SATURDAY, JAN. 15

By Xavier Omar Otero tucsoneditor@tucsonlocalmedia.com

Where prophylactics* are strongly encouraged. This week: Lee Ritenour & Dave Grusin, Jamestown Revival, Dave Stryker, Eric Alexander, Son Volt, Cyrille Aimée, Adonis Rose & NOJO 7, Sammy Rae, El Eleven Ten, Kendrick Scott, Spanish Harlem Orchestra, y mucho mas. (*As the Omicron variant spikes in Arizona be cautious, mask up and get vaccinated or a booster shot.)

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Parisian-turned-Tucsonan jazz guitarist Naim Amor is performing music off his new album on Jan. 13 at Hotel Congress.

Beatles and Cream records. All that would change after hearing John Coltrane’s watershed album My Favorite Things. Soon, his burgeoning love affair with jazz would lead to sifting through stacks of vinyl by Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, and Miles Davis, intoxicated by their improvisational THURSDAY, JAN. 13 prowess. A formidable jazz guitarist with strong blues and soul inflections, From the foothills of the Rocky MounStryker has worked as both a sideman— tains, Green Buddha’s signature “No with the likes of Jack McDuff, Stanley Coast” reggae sound is an olio of funky Turrentine and others—and bandleader. reggae, rock and soul, dub and ska, Breaking new ground, Stryker’s latest with a ladleful of piquant Creole flavor. solo release, As We Are (2022), pivoting Green Buddha play tracks from Small on the interplay with a string quartet, Town (2018), their debut album. At highlights his talents as composer.

Chicago Bar. With an opening set by Stryker expands, “I always wanted to do singer-songwriter Randy Vega… Backed something where strings would really by bassist Thøger Lund, drummer Cabe integrated into the music, not a colsey Hadland, and Ben Nisbet on guitar, oring or sweetening that comes later.” plus special guest Stephen Dorocke The Dave Stryker Quartet and The (Handsome Family) on lap steel, PariEric Alexander Quintet pair for a consian guitarist magnifiqué Naïm Amor cert featuring the TJF String Orchespresents a concert featuring original tra. At Fox Tucson Theatre… Following material from his forthcoming album. a thread that is woven throughout her At Hotel Congress (plaza)… Joe Novelli eight-album discography, singer-song& the Cloud Walls—Gabe Sullivan on writer Katie Haverly is questioning drums and bassist Geoff Hidalgo—per- what it means to be human. Exploring form swampy, blues influenced, slide the meaning of purpose through her guitar-driven Americana and rock ’n’ unique cocktail of folk and jazz-tinged roll. Live & free. At Tap & Bottle (downpop. A self-described “jazzy mystic,” town)…

Haverly says her writing process is closely tied to the spiritual realm, and has grown to be one of “receiving FRIDAY, JAN. 14 energy from and living in communion with the beyond.” Katie Haverly perWith the banks of the Missouri River as stomping grounds, like many young forms material from Matter (2020), her latest release. At 191 Toole. With Jillian guitarists coming of age during the British Invasion of the mid-1960s, Dave Bessett and Female Gaze… The stuff of legend, Tucson’s latin dance party Stryker started out lifting riffs off of

MARK YOUR CALENDARS…

sin fronteras El Tambó celebrates the cultural remezcla deep-rooted in the borderlands. DJ Humblelianess presides. At Hotel Congress (plaza stage)…

Since forming in 2016, this Tempe trio have released scads of testosterone-fueled singles detailing “teen angst and punk-style anthems delivered through hip-hop sonics.” Belaganas share the stage with LA’s No Suits. At Club Congress…

In a collaborative project between French chanteuse Cyrille Aimée, band leader/drummer Adonis Rose & New Orleans Jazz Orchestra’s NOJO 7 septet, Petite Fleur (2021)—an instrumental written by soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet in 1952—tells the rich multicultural history and musical love story that blossomed between France and New Orleans, a city founded by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne in 1718 as the thriving capital of then New France for King Louis XV. Not unlike a “little flower,” a symbol of love and beauty flourishing, for Aimée music is “more of a human adventure than a musical vocation that has made me want to devote my life to its practice.” At Fox Tucson Theatre. With Kendrick Scott and Tucson Jazz Institute’s Ellington Big Band… Utilizing only a double-neck bass/guitar, a drum kit and looping pedals, post-rock duo El Eleven Ten create complex, deeply emotional layers of sound that at once pulse with CONTINUED ON PAGE 20

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XOXO

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19

beauty and charge hard like a locomotive. At 191 Toole. With Sego… Red-hot jazz improv bursts into flame—national and local professionals trade fours— on multiple stages. The Grover Quartet headlines TJF Jazz Jam. At Hotel Congress… Celebrate the first night of Dillinger Days. Kings of Pleasure kick things off with a pre-party. At Hotel Congress…

everyday life. Blending dulcet harmony vocals that spring from Americana, Southern country, Western rock roots. Young Man (2022) is a nostalgic gaze by not-so-young men reminiscing about their lost youth. On “Moving Man,” they sing, “I never thought a minute would be this hard to hold. Even though my papa told me, ‘Son you look up, and you’re old.’”

Jamestown Revival. At Rialto Theater. With Mipso and Robert Ellis… Dillinger Days. Prison Band, Mr. Boogie Woogie and the Desert Melodies provide the soundtrack. At Hotel Congress…

SUNDAY, JAN. 16 By the time guitarist Lee Ritenour was 16, he had already played on his first session with the Mamas and Papas. Shortly thereafter, he began performing with Tony Bennett and Lena Horne, at the age of 17.

Earning the nickname “Captain Fingers,” as word of this then man-child’s preternatural chops spread. And that is just the intro to an expansive story. Longtime collaborator and pianist Dave Grusin has worked in the music industry since the late 1950s. As a film composer, Grusin’s oeuvre stands as one of the most recognizable in cinema. Since the late ’60s, he’s scored more than 75 films, including The Graduate, Tootsie, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Heaven Can Wait and On Golden Pond. Accolades aside, Ritenour and Grusin’s collaboration goes back to the storied LA jazz club The Baked Potato during the 1970s. There in this pint-sized venue, you could find the duo jamming on Tuesday nights, while the likes of Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Al Jarreau, Eric Clapton, and a showy flock of others comprised the audience. Lee Ritenour & Dave Grusin reunite once again. At Fox Tucson Theatre… From Magnolia, Texas, childhood friends Zach Chance and Jonathan Clay write songs about

MONDAY, JAN. 17 The plain-spoken honesty conveyed in singer-songwriter John Moreland’s world-weary lyrics can astound and sting. “I can’t dress myself up and be some folk singer character that I’m not,” Moreland says.

“All I can do is be me.” John Moreland helps to heal “Old Wounds.” At 191 Toole. With S.G. Goodman… A drummer whose time is now. The New York Times says, “Kendrick Scott invests seriously in the ancient ideal of music as a healing force.” Created to explore a narrative, on A Wall Becomes A Bridge (2019) Scott adapts the admixture (representing the role of the turntable as instrument) with the addition of turntablist Jahi Sundance to the lineup. In a statement Scott lays out his vision: “Walls are easier to build than bridges. We are often quicker to stack bricks built of fear than we are to weave a cable of empathy and reach across a divide. My life’s purpose is to become an instrument of peace.” Drummer/composer Kendrick Scott headlines the Downtown Jazz Fiesta.

Featuring the UA Fred Fox Jazz Ensemble. At Hotel Congress (plaza stage)…

TUESDAY, JAN. 18 In short, Sammy Rae & The Friends—a horn-driven, eight-piece collective of musicians, dreamers, and artists—is a musical family Rae piecemealed together over years of scouting buskers on subway landings and attending gigs. “Our shows are safe spaces for you to do your thing; raise your voice, wear your funky clothes, and dance how you like. We don’t have fans, we have friends.” Euphoric jazz-rockers Sammy Rae & The Friends gives audiences a taste of The Good Life. At 191 Toole. With Joe Hertler and The Rainbow Seekers…

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 19 Cross-pollinating the names of two vintage guitar amplifiers to arrive at its title, Electro Melodier (2021) is Son Volt’s 10th album. Veering only slightly from 2019’s politically charged Union, principal songwriter

COURTESY PHOTO

Euphoric jazz-rockers Sammy Rae & The Friends gives audiences a taste of The Good Life at 191 Toole on Jan. 18.

Jay Farrar stares soberly at the present state of American discord, while cradling ghosts from its forgotten past. “Livin’ in the U.S.A.”—“Farrar’s version of Neil Young’s ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’”— is a song of social protest that references the Black Lives Matter movement (when the people took to the streets demanding justice) and takes swipes at the fossil fuel industry, governmental corruption and the broken promise of the American Dream. Son Volt. With Jesse Farrar. At 191 Toole… In an interview with Revolver, Matt Stephenson defined Brooklyn’s Machine Girl as “fucked-up electronic punk,” although they don’t like being tagged as industrial. Smashing together bits of jungle, drum and bass, digital hardcore, and rave, equally apocalyptic and ecstatic, Machine Girl bring their latest release, U-Void Synthesizer (2020).

At Club Congress. With Johnnascus and GNAR…

THURSDAY, JAN. 20 Spanish Harlem Orchestra is dedicated to bruiting the sounds that pervade El Barrio, a pulsating NYC community that gave rise to boogaloo, Latin soul, and salsa. Born in the streets, this rich musical legacy is deeply ingrained in the ensemble’s identity. Coming at you full force, three-time Grammy winners Spanish Harlem Orchestra celebrate Un Gran Dia En El Barrio. At Rialto Theater… After unceremoniously announcing the band’s imminent demise in 2003, post-hardcore/alternative rockers Shiner, apparently, have reconsidered and return with Schadenfreude (2020), their first studio album since 2001’s The Egg. Like the album title suggests, Shiner derive pleasure from another person’s misfortune. At Rialto Theater… Pushing boundaries, electronic synth duo Boy Harsher’s fifth release isn’t really a traditional album. But rather, a soundtrack to a short horror film.

Balancing cinematic instrumentals with pop songs, Boy Harsher presents The Runner (2022). At Club Congress…

Until next week, XOXO…

JANUARY 13, 2022

LICENSE LOTTERY

A handful of people will hit it big with Arizona’s ‘social equity’ dispensary licenses

By David Abbott tucsoneditor@tucsonlocalmedia.com THE CLOCK IS TICKING DOWN TO the time when the Arizona Department of Health Services is going to drop its balls into the hopper and choose who gets to reap what is likely to be tens of millions of dollars at stake in the upcoming lottery for 26 social equity adult-use licenses.

ADHS accepted applications the first two weeks of December 2021 and, at the end of the day, more than 1,500 were submitted.

Nearly one-third of the applications made their way to ADHS through “mentorship programs” set up by three of the largest operators in the state.

A list posted on the ADHS website in mid-December showed that 368 were submitted through the agency of Mohave Cannabis Co., an eastern Arizona company; 110 from Copperstate Farms (Your Bright Horizon) in Snowflake, and 90 from Mint Cannabis, founded in 2012 as Brightroot Inc. in Guadalupe, Arizona.

Local cannabis entrepreneur Zsa Zsa Simone Brown, who is part of a group currently suing ADHS to try to put the social equity lottery on hold so that the rules can be fine-tuned, thinks that list illustrates the problems with the program.

“They need to do away with that whole thing,” Brown said of the current configuration of the program. “They need a whole separate entity to oversee the program that has accountability to the voters .”

Brown is part of Acre 41, a group of four “influential female Black, Indigenous, and people of color” who sued to halt the application process late last year

to try to get ADHS to rewrite the rules to ensure licenses do not end up in the hands of established businesses that have already reaped the benefits of legal weed.

A Dec. 28, 2021 email blast from the group states that “mainstream license holders” have “gamed the system” by “establishing hundreds of entities that have back-office agreements.”

“Due to the numerous glaring loopholes in the rules, as expected, multistate operators and unscrupulous individuals have taken advantage of the system, submitting in excess of 1,500 applications,” the email states. “This is why Acre 41 is going to such great lengths to ensure that these licenses are protected, and as was promised in the voter initiative, set aside for people from disproportionately impacted areas.”

On Dec. 1, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Randall Warner denied an injunction against ADHS, but scheduled a hearing for Jan. 28 at 9 a.m.

In a motion to dismiss the case, Roopali H. Desai, one of Prop 207’s primary authors from Coppersmith Brockelman PLC in Phoenix, argued that Acre 41 was “lying in wait” until two weeks before the application period and had ample time over the course of the previous six months to make their voices heard.

“They (belatedly) seek mandamus and declaratory relief against the final [social equity] rules ... and ask the Court to enjoin DHS from allocating [social equity] licenses until DHS adopts rules more to Plaintiffs’ liking.”

In response, Acre 41’s attorneys stated that, “Defying the voters’ mandate, Defendants devised a regulatory scheme that allows multi-million-dollar marijua-

na corporations to immediately gobble up all 26 dispensary licenses the voters reserved for the people hurt most by the drug war. Even worse, the regulations Defendants crafted make no effort to ensure the jobs, sales tax revenues, and broader economic benefits marijuana businesses generate are returned to those communities most disproportionately harmed by the drug war.”

One of the biggest issues the group has with the rules: They would allow a transfer of majority ownership to the big players in the industry that are likely to provide resources and capital to applicants.

The licenses are estimated to be worth $10 to $15 million, with the cost of establishing a business in the million-dollar range. Successful applicants must obtain real estate and comply with a host of regulations, but also navigate the regulatory minefield of state and local governments to obtain zoning permits and other requirements.

According to the ADHS website, applicants must also have lived for three of the past five years “at a physical address in an area that has been identified by the Department as being disproportionately affected by the enforcement of Arizona’s previous marijuana laws.”

The Department identified those areas through analyses of criminal justice and socioeconomic data that included “considerations of limitations within the various data sources.”

ADHS identified 87 ZIP codes that depended on 2019 racial population data to identify areas with populations of Black/African American, American Indian/Alaska Native and Hispanic greater than 50% of the total population.

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It also looked at 2019-2020 data from the Arizona Department of Economic Security Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to find areas where the population received SNAP benefits above 25% of the population.

According to ADHS, 2,700 individuals completed mandated training by Nov. 24, 2021.

The lottery will not likely take place until after the beginning of February, as ADHS has to review all of the applications that are submitted and allow applicants to fix any problems.

That will give the women of Acre 41 the opportunity to go before the judge again and make its case to pause the program until the problems they see are fixed.

“No longer is it necessary for the public, DHS or the court to guess what might happen under the rules in their current state; the proof is in black and white,” Brown wrote in the Dec. 28 email.

“There is plenty of opportunity for everyone, but the focus should and must be on people from disproportionately impacted areas, not 26 lottery tickets that will fall into the hands of multi-state operators in a matter of months.”

The lawsuit is not coming cheap either, as Brown estimates Acre 41 has already spent $30,000 on legal representation.

But she says the fight won’t be over, even if they lose the case.

“What we want to do is bring light to the situation so that it can’t not be unseen,” she said in a subsequent interview. “Once people see all of this, more people will be talking about it. Once you read the fine print, you’ll see something is missing here.” ■

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SAVAGE LOVE HARD FOR THE MONEY

By Dan Savage, mail@savagelove.net

I’m a gay man in his forties. I very much love my husband but two years ago we acknowledged that our desire for each other sexually just wasn’t there anymore. Thanks in part to reading your column for many years, we were able to have a calm conversation about whether we wanted to remain together in a companionate marriage or split up.

We decided to stay together and I’m glad we did. Sex was the thing we fought about most, and our relationship improved when we took that conflict off the table. My husband has a couple of fuckbuddies that he sees while I do most of my playing online. (We had this conversation at the start of the pandemic and playing online feels safer.) One of things I’ve able to explore in the last year is FinDom. I really get off on sending money that we can spare to younger, hotter guys and being degraded for my pains. Thing is, almost all the guys doing FinDom are straight. It’s often a part of their persona they play up: they’re hot straight guys demanding cash tributes from “pathetic fags” that they would never touch in real life. As much as I like having my wallet drained by a hot young straight guy calling me a fag, I would so much rather give my money to a hot and dominant young gay man. Why do so few gay young men get into this? Do young gay men realize how much money they’re leaving on the table? Could you please tell them?

—Chances Are Some Hot FinDoms Are Gay “I don’t know why there aren’t more gay FinDoms out there,” said Master AJ, “but I’m certainly not the only one.”

AJ is 23-year-old sexually dominant gay man who lives, works, and drains gay subs all over the world from his home base in the Pacific Northwest. He first stumbled over the the FinDom scene on Twitter when he was a kinky gay college student struggling to pay his rent. “I was working two jobs, and while I wasn’t desperate, I thinking about money a lot,” said AJ. “So, the idea of being in control, which I was already really into, and dominating someone by demanding cash from him that he’d earned? It was a huge rush.”

Most male FinDoms go to such great lengths to emphasize how straight they are that AJ sometimes wonders. “There are no male Doms I’ve seen draining cisgender women,” said Master AJ. “So, if these guys really are straight, they would have to stumble on the gay FinDom scene or have the idea to start targeting a community they weren’t a part of in order to establish themselves.” And having seen how much pleasure so many straight-identified male

FinDoms get out of dominating gay men, “it seems possible that at least some of these guys aren’t being completely truthful about their sexualities.”

Why would a gay or bi male FinDom claim to be straight? Because, as AJ points out, it’s going to make him more appealing to a significant segment of the gay finsub community. “There are a lot of gay men who fetishize being bullied by straight men,” said AJ. “And a lot of gay subs enjoy the idea that they are tributing to someone who will never be attracted to them. Which I find kind of laughable because being gay doesn’t necessarily mean a guy has a chance with me.”

There’s also the issue of anti-gay slurs in FinDom play and how those slurs land.

“Slurs get used a lot in the FinDom/kink scenes,” said AJ, “and they really can sound and feel different depending on the sexuality of the speaker.” Meaning, for some gay men being called a fag by a straight guy in a safe, controlled, and consensual way—like during a cash draining session—feels more degrading (in a sexy way) than being called a fag by another fag ever could. “But other gay men prefer gay FinDoms because they don’t like hearing slurs from straight men,” said AJ. Zooming out for a second…

While it may be the case that a small handful of gay FinDoms pretend to be straight to attract gay subs, CASHFAG, I think something else is going on here. Namely, financial domination and other forms of online sex work have so lowered the “gay for pay” bar that the kind of straight man who wouldn’t have been able to profit off gay male lust 20 years ago—because he wouldn’t have sex with other men on camera for money—is now posting photos of his feet on Twitter, flipping off the camera, and ordering his gay followers to pay “fag tax” for the privilege of looking at him.

Just as straight gay-for-pay porn stars managed (and still manage) to get off doing gay porn, there are straight male FinDoms getting off on what they do. “I know I enjoy draining cash from men I find unattractive,” said AJ. “Being dominant turns me on even if I’m not into the person. So, there could be straight male FinDoms out there who get some sort of sexual satisfaction from draining gay men but are still straight.”

And it’s easy to see why a straight male FinDom who got a little turned during an online draining session with a gay male sub might make a point of emphasizing his straightness—not just to rub his sub’s nose in it, CASHFAG, but to reassure himself.

Still, even though there are more straight FinDoms out there than gay ones, AJ’s bank account and spotlessly clean bathroom proves you don’t have to be a hot straight guy to be a successful FinDom. He’s always been very open about being gay, CASHFAG, and not only do gay male subs all over the world send him cash, but local gay male subs clean his apartment and run errands for him.

“I’ve had a good experience with this,” said AJ, “it’s been both profitable and enjoyable and I’ve made great connections with so many people, including other gay Doms.

I’ve always really liked talking to other gay men—whether they are submissive and into FinDom or not or just intrigued by my profile.”

And if you really want to attract other gay men like him to the FinDom scene, CASHFAG, AJ suggests making an effort to find out gay FinDoms who are already online, diligently promote their content with likes and retweets, and—of course— sending your favorite FinDom(s) all the money you can reasonably spare.

“Because when you think about it,” said AJ, “tributing to a gay FinDom is like supporting a small queer business, and that’s something we should all be doing.”

Follow MasterAJ on Twitter @CashMasterAJ1.

Many years ago, as an apprentice cocksucker, I hooked up with a guy whose online profile indicated that he was uncut. I’m a Person of Foreskin myself, and I prefer uncut men, and his intact status was a selling point. Upon arrival, it was instantly clear that this gentleman had been circumcised.

(Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

Not only was his dick cut, it was cut highly, tightly and very visibly. When I asked him about the misinformation, he got defensive.

I think about this episode from time to time as I search for new and exciting cocks with which to do cock-related things. Every time I go in search of cock, without fail, I encounter men who claim to be uncut who are clearly cut. (I’ve enclosed a few pics sent by “uncut” men who do not, in fact, have foreskins!) The opposite has also happened: self-identified “cut” men who are unambiguously “whole.”

But the latter is much rarer an occurrence than the shockingly common false-uncut self-reporters. Have the terms “uncut” and “cut” fallen from the lexicon? Are men that unfamiliar with their own anatomy? Is it a generational or regional thing? What’s going on?

—Unexplained Nomenclature Confuses Usual Terminology I suppose it’s possible that a small number of men out there don’t know whether they’re circumcised. But I think the obvious explanation is the likelier one: these men are telling you—a prospective new sex partner—what they think you wanna hear. A cut guy will tell you he’s uncut (or vice-versa) because he’s concluded you prefer uncut dick (or vice-versa). Then he sends you a photo of his actual dick, essentially asking, “Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?” So, you’re being gaslit with dick pics, UNCUT. You’re being dicklit. questions@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage.

Columns, podcasts, books, merch, and more at www.savage.love.

JANUARY 13, 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): In the fantasy tale “The Wizard of Oz,” a tornado lifts the hero Dorothy from her modest home in rural Kansas to a magical realm called Oz. There she experiences many provocative and entertaining adventures. Nonetheless, she longs to return to where she started from. A friendly witch helps her find the way back to Kansas, which requires her to click her ruby slippers together three times and say, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” I suspect, Aries, that there’ll be a different ending to your epic tale in 2022. At some point, you will decide you prefer to stay in your new world. Maybe you’ll even click your ruby slippers together and say, “There’s no place like Oz, there’s no place like Oz.” (Thanks to author David Lazar for that last line.)

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Fifty-five percent of the people who live in Toronto speak primarily English or French. But for the other 45 percent, their mother tongue is a different language, including Portuguese, Tagalog, Italian, Tamil, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin. I wish you could spend some time there in the coming months. In my astrological opinion, you would benefit from being exposed to maximum cultural diversity. You would thrive by being around a broad spectrum of influences from multiple backgrounds.

If you can’t manage a trip to Toronto or another richly diverse place, do your best to approximate the same experience. Give yourself the gift of splendorous variety.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): One of your primary meditations throughout 2022 should be the following advice from The Laws of Human Nature, a book by motivational author Robert Greene. He writes, “In ancient times, many great leaders felt that they were descended from gods and part divine. Such self-belief would translate into high levels of confidence that others would feed off and recognize. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. You do not need to indulge in such grandiose thoughts, but feeling that you are destined for something great or important will give you a degree of resilience when people oppose or resist you. You will not internalize the doubts that come from such moments.

You will have an enterprising spirit. You will continually try new things, even taking risks, confident in your ability to bounce back from failures and feeling destined to succeed.”

CANCER (June 21-July 22): I would love to unabashedly encourage you to travel widely and explore wildly in 2022. I would rejoice if I could brazenly authorize you

to escape your comfort zone and wander in the frontiers. It’s not often the planetary omens offer us Cancerians such an unambiguous mandate to engage in exhilarating adventures and intelligent risks.

There’s only one problem: that annoying inconvenience known as the pandemic.

We really do have to exercise caution in our pursuit of expansive encounters.

Luckily, you now have extra ingenuity about the project of staying safe as you enlarge your world.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I suspect that your life in 2022 might feature themes beloved

by Leo author Emily Brontë (1818–1848).

“No coward soul is mine,” she wrote, “No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere.” I suggest making that one of your mottoes. Here’s another guiding inspiration from Emily, via one of her poems: “I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading: / It vexes me to choose another guide: / Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding; / Where the wild wind blows on the mountain-side.” Here’s one more of Brontë’s thoughts especially suitable for your use in the coming months: “I’ll be as dirty as I please, and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty!”

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): What reversals and turnabouts would you like to experience in 2022, Virgo? Which situations would you like to transform dramatically?

Are there imbalances of power you would like to rectify? Contradictions you’d love to dissolve? Misplaced priorities you could correct? All these things are possible in the coming months if you are creative and resourceful enough. With your dynamic efforts, the last could be first, the low could be high, and the weak could become strong.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “Everything good I’ve ever gotten in my life, I only got because I gave something else up,” wrote author Elizabeth Gilbert. That has often been true for me. For example, if I hadn’t given up my beloved music career, I wouldn’t have had the time and energy to become a skillful astrology writer with a big audience. What about you, Libra? In my reckoning, Gilbert’s observation should be a major theme for you in 2022.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Author C. S. Lewis wrote that we don’t simply want to behold beauty. We “want to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” If there were ever a time when you could get abundant tastes of that extravagant pleasure, Scorpio, it would be in the coming months. If you make it a

goal, if you set an intention, you may enjoy more deep mergers and delightful interactions with beauty than you have had since 2010.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian singer-songwriter Tom Waits began his career in 1969. He achieved modest success during the next 11 years. But his career headed in an even more successful direction after he met Kathleen Brennan, who became his wife and collaborator. In a 1988 interview, Waits said, “She’s got the whole dark forest living inside of her. She pushes me into areas I would not go, and I’d say that a lot of the things I’m trying to do now, she’s encouraged.” In 2022, Sagittarius, I’ll invite you to go looking for the deep dark forest within yourself. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. If you explore it with luxuriant curiosity, it will ultimately inspire you to generate unprecedented breakthroughs.

Yes, it might sometimes be spooky—but in ways that ultimately prove lucky.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricornborn Muhammad Ali was far more than a superb professional boxer. He was an activist, entertainer, and philanthropist who gathered much wisdom in his 74 years.

I’ve chosen one of his quotes to be your guide in the coming months. I hope it will motivate you to rigorously manage the sometimes pesky and demanding details that will ultimately enable you to score a big victory. “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you down,” Ali said. “It’s the pebble in your shoe.”

Comics

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AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): At a pivotal moment in his evolution, Aquarian playwright Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) swore an oath to himself. I’ll tell you about it here because I hope it will inspire you to make a comparable vow to yourself about how you’ll live your life in 2022. Author Robert Greene is the source of the quote. He says that Chekhov promised himself he would engage in “no more bowing and apologizing to people; no more complaining and blaming; no more disorderly living and wasting time. The answer to everything was work and love, work and love. He had to spread this message to his family and save them. He had to share it with humanity through his stories and plays.”

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Here’s what Piscean author Anais Nin wrote in one of her diaries: “When I first faced pain, I was shattered. When I first met failure, defeat, denial, loss, death, I died. Not today.

I believe in my power, in my magic, and I do not die. I survive, I love, live, continue.”

According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Pisces, you could claim her triumphant declaration as your own in 2022, with special emphasis on this: “I believe in my power, in my magic. I survive, I love, live, continue.” This will be a golden age, a time when you harvest the fruits of many years of labor.

Homework: What problem are you most likely to outgrow and render irrelevant in 2022? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

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ACROSS

1 Brave ___ lion 4 Still on the line, perhaps 8 Hallucinogen from a

cactus 14 Part of a range: Abbr.

15 Word that becomes its own opposite when “n” is added to the front 16 Temporarily out 17 Blackjack ___, source of dense wood 18 Film adaptation with … a choir arriving at the airport? (2016) 20 Brand of light-colored cookie 22 Nonfiction film, in brief 23 Minute, informally

24 … a room in an

environmentally friendly hotel? (2018) 28 Leave in a huff, with “out” 29 Carb- follower 30 Govt. org. that had the same leader for its first 48 years (1924-72) 33 Follower of John 35 Japanese carrier 37 Alphabetically first of the 100 most popular boys’ names in the U.S. 39 … a triceratops trying to find a spot for its car?

(1993) 43 Let up

CLASSIFIEDS

44 You might need this to

go on 45 “Mm-hmm …”

46 Kind of battle 47 Ginger ___ 50 Rob with four Super Bowl rings, familiarly 52 … a quick trip to purchase cutlery?

(2019) 56 The duck, in “Peter and the Wolf” 59 Pizzeria order 60 Skin-care application 61 … a movement to make invoices illegal? (2003) 65 Prefix with system 66 In a daze 67 Biblical progenitor of the Edomites 68 ___-core (punk offshoot) 69 “Absolutely, will do” 70 Feeling sad 71 Govt.-issued ID

DOWN

1 ___ friends 2 One on the case?

3 High-heel shoe

attachment 4 Presidential middle name 5 Pop singer ___ Max 6 Brooks with Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards 7 Home to the largest Goya collection in the world 8 Tranquil 9 Geology interval 10 “Catch my drift?”

11 Getting the job done 12 You might have a stake in this 13 Experimental, say

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30 Quality of a playful

kitten

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Something to chew on

32

Playwright William

33 Cracked a bit 34 Home of the 62-Down

hummingbird, the world’s smallest bird

36 Louisville is in it, in brief 38 Like 40 John, abroad 41

Dogs in Tibetan monasteries, once

42 Sleekly designed,

informally

48 Cell membrane makeup 49 Iniquitous 51

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53 Set certain underwater

traps

54 Makes out 55 [What a joke!]

56 Sign off on 57

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