San Diego CityBeat • Feb 20, 2013

The eyes have it The stories behind painter Kelly Vivanco’s characters can be found in their peepers

by Seth Combs · Page 18

SURVEIL P.6 POLLARD P.7 PERVY P.12 RESIDENTS P.23

2 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 3

The endgame for Prop. B If you live in San Diego and voted last June, odds are you said yes to Proposition B, a controversial overhaul of the city’s employee-pension system that passed easily despite CityBeat’s passionate opposition. You may know that it’s been challenged, and on Feb. 11, a judge working for the state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) issued a major condemnation of the measure, ruling that it violated state labor law.

As expected, U-T San Diego, in an editorial, quickly dismissed PERB as a “union front” and anticipated a different result when the matter goes to a “real judge.” The editorial didn’t even manage to break the seal on the PERB judge’s reasoning; doing so would have required the writer to think past his blind contempt for unions.

We don’t know what an appellate judge will do. What we do know is that the PERB judge confirmed our assertion that Prop. B was, at least, a brazen attempt to get around the spirit of the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (MMBA), which requires local governments to first negotiate with employees before asking voters to make substantial changes to retirement benefits. Former Mayor Jerry Sanders has admitted as much, in a December 2011 interview with CityBeat and in court.

He and City Attorney Jan Goldsmith simply believe that the law allowing private citizens to launch initiatives without triggering negotiations lets them get around the MMBA. All they had to do was say that Sanders was acting as a private citizen and get three of his friends to put their names on the initiative. But there’s no way they can keep a straight face and make the argument that Prop. B wasn’t an official city policy proposal thinly disguised as a grassroots citizen campaign. How Prop. B came to be is laid out plainly in the narrative section of the PERB ruling.

Sanders won major concessions from the unions on retirement benefits in 2008 by threatening a ballot measure, forcing the unions to the table to bang out a compromise. Amid that effort, then-City Attorney Mike Aguirre issued a legal opinion stating that such negotiations were required by law before a measure could be put on the ballot. It all played

out the way it was supposed to. With the unions’ help, the city lowered taxpayer costs.

In 2010, with the city still in financial trouble because of the recession, voters overwhelmingly rejected Prop. D, Sanders’ proposal to raise the sales tax. In response, he and City Councilmember Kevin Faulconer devised a plan to ask voters to change the retirement system from a guaranteed-benefit plan to more of a 401(k) system, because they assumed the unions wouldn’t play ball this time.

Along came noisy Councilmember Carl DeMaio, who’d been dreaming up his own pension overhaul that went further than Sanders and Faulconer’s.

The powerful, conservative Lincoln Club and the San Diego County Taxpayers Association sided David Rolland with DeMaio, forcing Sanders to cut a deal with DeMaio on a single initiative that carried some provisions Sanders didn’t want. Ironically, Sanders thought one of DeMaio’s provisions wouldn’t pass legal muster.

Sanders said in court that he never read Aguirre’s opinion, but Goldsmith obviously told him that he couldn’t legally go straight to the voters, because at some point in the process, Sanders started saying he was exercising his right to pursue direct democracy as a private citizen. Yet, he campaigned for the measure using the full force of his stature as mayor of Jerry Sanders San Diego, not to mention the paid time of his communications staff, who helped sell the measure to the public through the press.

The bottom line is that Prop. B wasn’t hatched by citizens who were outraged by San Diego’s pension system. The heavy lifting on pension-cost savings was done in 2008, but no one noticed. Prop. D’s failure told Sanders that he needed to do something splashy to convince the public that he was reining in spending. The whole thing was concocted and engineered as official city business by the Mayor’s office.

Again, we don’t know how a “real judge” will rule. But if that judge concludes that Prop. B was legal, it’ll provide a clear roadmap around state law for any city that doesn’t want to bother with messy negotiations with its employees.

What do you think? Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com.

This issue of CityBeat is dedicated to Canadian pharmacies [spam].

Volume 11 • Issue 29 Editor David Rolland Associate Editor Kelly Davis Music Editor Peter Holslin Staff Writer Alex Zaragoza Events Editor Shea Kopp Film Editor Anders Wright Web Editor Ryan Bradford Art director Adam Vieyra Columnists Edwin Decker, John R. Lamb

Contributors Ian Cheesman, Derrik Chinn, David L. Coddon, Jeff “Turbo” Corrigan, Dave Maass, Scott McDonald, Jenny Montgomery, Kinsee Morlan, Sasha Orman, Jim Ruland, Marie Tran-McCaslin, Jeff Terich, Quan Vu Interns Crystal Tellez-Giron, Rees Withrow Production Manager Efraim Manuel Senior account executive Jason Noble Advertising Account Executives Sean Eshelman, Beau Odom, Paulina Porter-Tapia

Our cover art, “Glare,” is by Kelly Vivanco.

Read our profile of her on Page 18. director of marketing Chad Boyer Circulation / Office Assistant Shea Kopp Vice President of Finance Michael Nagami Business Manager Angela Wang Human Resources Andrea Baker Accounting Tracy Lowe Alysia Chavez Vice President of Operations David Comden Publisher Kevin Hellman

Advertising inquiries: Interested in advertising?

Call 619-281-7526 or e-mail advertising@sdcitybeat.com. The advertising deadline is 5 p.m. every Friday for the following week’s issue.

Editorial and Advertising Office 3047 University Ave., Suite 202 San Diego, CA 92104 Phone: 619-281-7526 Fax: 619-281-5273 www.sdcitybeat.com

San Diego CityBeat is published and distributed every Wednesday by Southland Publishing Inc., free of charge but limited to one per reader. Reproduction of any material in this or any other issue is prohibited without written permission from the publisher and the author. Contents copyright 2013.

4 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

Paging Mike Hunt Is that guy in the band The Paragraphs with his picture on the lower right of the page [“Music,” Feb. 6] really named “Mike Hunt”? Hilarious.

Robert Sanchez Seems like a perfect stage name like “Sid Vicious” or “Black Francis.”

That’s the oldest crank-call name in the book. Call the store and tell them you need to talk to Mike Hunt and could they please page him over the intercom.

“Mike Hunt. There’s a phone Mike Hunt call for Mike Hunt. If you have seen Mike Hunt, could you contact me at the booth?”

Mike Hunt. That’s hilarious.

Johnny Reese, Pacific Beach

‘Recovery does work’ I am a recovering heroin addict. Thank you for publishing the article on Vivitrol [“News,” Jan. 30].

I have not been addicted to opiates in a long time. I switched my drug of choice to amphetamines during my last years of using. I wish they had a drug that blocked the receptors in the brain that felt pleasure from amphetamines.

I had a hard time getting clean initially; the cravings to go back out and use one more time were overwhelming. I had to hit bottom before I was ready to accept help. I spent years going on and off the wagon, during which time I remained relatively sober; however, I did little to make any significant changes in my behavior and thinking. Needless to

say, I just could not stay clean.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to put in place a whole new framework for living—that is something I learned in treatment, where I was surrounded by other recovering addicts and alcoholics.

I spent my days waking up early, cooking, cleaning, going to groups, doing laundry, working out and going to more groups. The days were long and structured. I still, to this day, apply those same principles to my living, even though I don’t have anyone telling me what to do and when to do it anymore.

I completed a program, Prop. 36, which is like drug court. I have not been in trouble since then.

Vivitrol can be a helpful tool, and I think coupled with one’s choice of 12-step program, it will lead to more success stories. I have more than 27 months’ clean and sober now; recovery does work. I used to be a hopeless case, and thanks to treatment and Alcoholics Anonymous, I have become a very different person. Today my life is worth living.

Nick A., Normal Heights

The right fit Congrats to Jen Van Tieghem on her new gig as CityBeat’s wine columnist [“Editor’s Note,” Feb. 13].

Anyone who’s ever worked with Jen knows that her enthusiasm for writing is a much sought-after commodity. Her fresh writing style is going to be a perfect match for CityBeat.

Vince Meehan, Santee

February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 5

Adam Vieyra

Candid camera

With 36 million location scans and counting, local police know where you’ve been

leveraging the broader community presence of local police to prosecute federal crimes and immigration violations.

Police say LPR is the future of law enforcement, a Robocop-style “force multiplier” that maximizes what officers can accomplish. But privacy advocates say the sheer volume of information collected, and the indiscriminate logging of mostly innocent people’s movements, amounts to a

by Jon Campbell broad system of surveillance.

Where’s your car? Well, dude, it’s in a huge Orwellian po“With so much data, it becomes very easy to build a comlice database. posite picture of what a person is doing, and to reveal an enorThat might seem like the plot of a bad movie, but since mous amount of personal information, simply by tracking their around 2010, police agencies in San Diego County have quiet- movements,” says David Loy, legal director of the ACLU of San ly used a network of sophisticated devices called license-plate Diego and Imperial Counties. When police can pull up a map readers (LPR) to monitor and record the movements of thou- of your travels—visits to your church or mosque, your doctor’s sands of everyday drivers. Even as you read this, police cars office or weekly AA meeting—they have access to a great deal equipped with LPR are patrolling of sensitive information. “It bethe streets, automatically scancomes analogous to GPS tracking ning and photographing every liwithout a warrant,” Loy says.

“If I was in their position, I’d want cense plate in sight, tagging each Most of the LPR devices in all the information I could get. But with a GPS coordinate and filing San Diego County are vehiclethe information away. For years. we have a Constitution, and we mounted, but there are also porWith 36 million scans and table LPR that can be set up at have checks and balances precisely counting—an average of 14 for special events, and fixed devices because no branch of government every registered vehicle in the installed at hotspot terrorist county—the database provides targets, or other places deemed should be trusted completely.” a mappable, searchable record worthy of monitoring, like along —David Loy of the movements of thousands Highway 94 in East County. of individual drivers. It’s sort of The system’s coverage is imlike FourSquare for cops, except pressive. Lt. Glenn Giannantothat it’s involuntary, the data is secret and there aren’t quite nio of the San Diego County Sheriffs Department says that as many narcissistic hipsters. when he types in a suspect’s plate number, he can be conThe system’s become a routine part of police work in San fident that he’s going to get a hit. “If it’s a normal person Diego County. Investigators at several local agencies say the driving around, you can pretty much guarantee that the historical data, stored in a database maintained by the San car’s going to get scanned,” he says.

Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), allows poHe seems to be right. According to information gleaned lice to challenge alibis, locate witnesses and generally nab from a public-records request, my Subaru was scanned, a lot of bad guys. It’s not just local cops who use it; the FBI, and its location logged, 24 times in the past 13 months.

DEA and investigators with Immigration and Customs EnSANDAG declined to release the full details of the reforcement (ICE) are also tapping into SANDAG’s records, cords, so there’s no telling what scandalous predicaments

6 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

I’ve been implicated in. But Dale Stockton, who manages the system for SANDAG, says that most of the reads occurred on a particular North Park street, not far from my home. This is typical of the system, Stockton says. If you happen to live on a heavily patrolled street, you’re more likely to appear in the database frequently.

San Diego County’s system is unusual; it’s one of the most seamlessly integrated LPR databases in the U.S. Thirteen different agencies operating at least 56 units—each one costs about $25,000—all send their information to a shared, countywide server.

That the SANDAG system spans the county is especially troubling to privacy experts. In most of the U.S., individual agencies keep their own data in their own systems, making it hard to search across jurisdictions.

Stockton says the interconnectivity of the data systems is critical to making LPR a useable technology for law enforcement in the county. “The value is in the data, but the value is only there if we can share with each other,” Stockton says. Criminals don’t respect town boundaries.

SANDAG’s system is worth paying attention to, because it may offer a glimpse into the future of LPR. As more and more departments acquire the technology—the majority of U.S. police departments already have at least one unit— shared systems like SANDAG’s will likely serve as a model.

When LPR devices first showed up in the arsenals of local police more than a decade ago, they were used mainly to look for unregistered drivers and bums with overdue parking citations—less Robocop, more Bionic Meter Maid—and LPR is still used for this kind of real-time, “hot list” policing. As the device scans license plates nearby, it compares each one to a list of known, wanted vehicles. When there’s a match, an alarm sounds inside the cruiser. San Diego Police Department spokesperson Lt. Andra Brown says in an email statement that LPR has been especially helpful in finding stolen cars with this kind of instant alert. But that application is becoming secondary to the mining of data.

Grants from the federal government, primarily the Department of Homeland Security, provided much of the funding for the county’s LPR system. In an elegantly circular arrangement, Homeland Security agencies like ICE are now reaping the fruits of that largesse, by tapping into local databases for their own investigations.

Christian Ramirez, human-rights director for the socialjustice group Alliance San Diego, says such close cooperation can blur the line between local police and immigration authorities.

“It runs the risk of creating a gap between local law enforcement and local communities, and particularly immigrant communities,” Ramirez says. “When that trust is eroded, when local communities believe there is close cooperation between local law enforcement and immigration authorities, they may be hesitant to contact local police.”

Both Loy and Kade Crockford, a researcher with the Massachusetts ACLU, whose work has focused on LPR technology in agencies across the country, say they don’t have a problem with using LPR in real-time to catch crooks.

They don’t even object to holding the data for a short period of time. But they consider the retention periods in the SANDAG system excessive. Currently, the shared database holds scans for between one to two years, which is typical of agencies nationwide. The San Diego County Sheriff holds on to its information indefinitely, in a duplicate, parallel system independent of SANDAG. In Massachusetts, Crockford’s group is pushing for a 10day retention limit—enough time, they argue, to investigate crimes while also avoiding a long-term privacy threat.

“LPR is a really interesting technology,” Crockford says.

With some basic protections and limits on retention, many of the privacy concerns are alleviated. “It’s really not hard to strike a balance between privacy and public safety.”

Police say they understand the apprehension some people

LPR CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

The organizer District 4 City Council candidate Barry Pollard relishes the chance to cast key swing votes

by David Rolland On March 26, voters in the 4th City Council District will replace Tony Young, who recently resigned. This is our third in a series of profiles of the leading candidates.

It’s a little strange to hear an African-American talk about life growing up as akin to a 1950s movie—in positive terms—but that’s how Barry Pollard describes his childhood in Valencia Park in southeastern San Diego.

“The yards were well-manicured,” Pollard says. “We knew to be back into the house when the streetlights came on. Our neighbors would watch everyone’s kids, and if you did something wrong six houses away, your parents knew about it before you even got home.”

He recalls being able to ride his bike on the streets without fear and exploring the undeveloped canyons with his dog.

Pollard went off to college and started his career out of state, and when he returned to San Diego in the early 1980s and moved back in to his childhood house on Costana Street, the neighborhood had deteriorated.

“The whole look and feel of the community had changed,” he says.

“More crime, a lot of drug dealing, a lot more traffic, sidewalks were not there still. It sort of disappointed me—that was the home I grew up in.”

That house is about a block away from the intersection of Imperial and Euclid avenues, which is not so affectionately called The Four Corners of Death, thanks to a history of crime centered there.

“My friends call it ‘the front lines,’” Pollard says.

He hasn’t solved the larger plague of violence in the area, but he immediately started fixing things on his block, launching a neighborhood-watch program

David Rolland

that he says managed to get new streetlights, speed bumps and enhanced communication and cooperation among neighbors.

Now, he wants to replicate that notion of community organizing as the next City Council member representing District 4. It’s his second run for the seat, having lost in 2010 to incumbent Tony Young, who resigned in December, halfway through his final term. The District 4 representative will be in a newly powerful position on the council because the other eight seats are divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans, and Pollard, a Democrat, is eager to cast those key swing votes.

“Tony did a great job of working across the aisle,” Pollard says, talking to CityBeat at a small table in a kids’ library at the Elementary Institute of Science in Valencia Barry Pollard and his supporters, in front of Park. “And the only thing I would the Elementary Institute of Science in Valencia Park have wanted is for some of that baThe first thing he noticed was con to come home. I would love to High School and earned a scholarhave some of those relationships, ship to the University of Louisiana that Latinos sat on one side, with at Lafayette. His dad was killed the blacks and whites on the othand I’ve already started.” in an accident when Pollard was er. “I knew right then that was one he son of a racecar driver young; his mother remarried some of the issues we had to deal with,” and a hospital lab man- 30 years ago. The whole family— he says. “So, I immediately made ager, Pollard, 59, attended Pollard has two older siblings, them change their seating and sit St. Rita’s Catholic Church and three daughters and a grandson— next to each other—and no hesitaSt. Rita’s Elementary School. He remains very close, he says. His tion at all.” played quarterback for Morse wife died seven years ago.

A community-liaison officer Pollard studied business ad- from the San Diego Police Departministration in college and chose ment was on hand. “There wasn’t human resources as his career, a lot of trust in calling the police, which has landed him in places because of the response time,” like Colorado, Texas, the East Pollard says, “but when they knew Coast and California’s Bay Area, that we had an effective and large working for companies in elec- neighborhood watch, the Southtronics, healthcare and aerospace. east Division responded liter“I would often find myself as ally within five to seven minutes. an intermediary between manage- They’re busy, but, in hindsight, ment and the employees,” he says, I think they, for the first time in “and got a chance to learn about all a long time, understood that the of the issues that we’re dealing with neighbors wanted them in there. today, for the city: pensions, em- The neighbors wanted our comployment, budgets, outsourcing.” munity to change. Our neighbors Roughly 15 years ago, he wanted the bad guys out.” formed his own company that rePollard says crime has decruits employees for businesses in creased as a result, and that’s why the niche power-supply industry. he’s a proponent of establishing Most of his work is done at night, neighborhood watches throughso he’s able to be involved in com- out the district. “If it’s going to be munity issues during the day. safer,” he says, “we’ve got to develAfter he went off to school, op a better working partnership his mom moved out of the fam- with the police department. There ily home to take care of her ail- are no other options.” ing mother and rented out the old hile Pollard’s neighborhouse. Much like the neighborhood-watch experience hood, it had fallen into disrepair, was his start in commuso Pollard moved back in and fixed it up. Then he formed the nity organizing, it wasn’t his pathfirst neighborhood watch. After way to politics. That came when he some successes, the watch went tried to site a community garden, dormant, and when a new wave like those he’d seen in San Francisof crime washed over his commu- co, on vacant land at the corner of nity, he reformed it again and was Logan and Imperial avenues. “Went flabbergasted when a large num- through a process and was not sucber of people—35—showed up to Pollard CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 the first meeting.

T

W

February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 7

LPR CONTINUED from PAGE 6 feel about LPR and stress that there are controls in place to protect data.

Any investigator accessing the system has their activity logged.

“Short of a criminal investigation, no one is accessing this data,” says Giannantonio with the Sheriff’s Department, “so there really is no need to dispose of it.”

Besides, police say, the system works. Sgt. Scott Walters of the Escondido Police Department says the data’s been critical in solving hit-and-run cases, homicides, burglaries—you name it.

“I’ve lost count of how many crimes we’ve solved because we’ve been able to go back and pinpoint locations,” he says.

While it wasn’t reported at the time, LPR data figured into one of the biggest criminal cases in recent county history. When police began to investigate John Gardner’s role in the disappearance of Amber Dubois, LPR scans collected more than a year earlier in Escondido helped place him in that city around the time of her disappearance. If privacy advocates had their way, police point out, the data

Jon Campbell

in that case would have been deleted long before it proved useful.

Gardner was later convicted of the rape and murder of both Dubois and Poway teenager Chelsea King.

The question of whether this data gathering is legal is a matter of some disagreement. Police argue that a person traveling in public doesn’t have an expectation of privacy. Furthermore, they say, no cop needs a warrant to write down your plate number. In that sense, LPR only does what a human cop can already do.

But privacy advocates say the sheer quantity of data being collected might change that basic principle. LPR isn’t analogous to a human cop, because they’re just too powerful. To match the performance of an LPR device, a police officer would have to read a license plate, take a GPS coordinate and note the date and time once every seven seconds, for the entirety of their 10-hour shift. That could get exhausting.

Crockford and others are hopeful that the courts might place some restrictions on LPR in the future, pointing to a dissent from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a recent GPS tracking case. But no court has ruled on

We’re told that this license-plate-recognition camera, encased in an orange structure located on Interstate 8, predates the current system and doesn’t send data anymore.

After San Diego Mayor Bob Filner trumpeted the removal of redlight cameras in the city—which he’s called, among other things, an invasion of privacy—we reached out to him for comment on LPR. His office didn’t return calls or emails. But a written statement he provided for a congressional hearing in 2001 might shed light on his feelings. He was talking about redlight cameras, but maybe he’d say something similar about LPR. “Will we be faced with the government acting as “Big Brother” continuously spying on law-abiding citizens?” Filner wrote. “I realize this might seem far-fetched to some, but we must remain vigilant against these types of abuse. … Technology changes faster than most of us can keep up with at this point. We must continue to try to use its benefits to better our society, but it must not be at the expense of fairness or freedom.”

the questions directly. Loy says he doesn’t want to take away a powerful tool; he just wants to make sure that there are controls in place.

“I don’t blame law enforcement for wanting to get more information,” Loy says. “If I was in their position, I’d want all the information I could get. But we have a

Constitution, and we have checks and balances precisely because no branch of government should be trusted completely.” Envisioning a future where everyone’s travels are constantly monitored? “That is extremely frightening” Loy says.

“I don’t think that’s the world we Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com. want to live in.”

Pollard CONTINUED from PAGE 7

to see how District 4 was deficient compared with other districts.

One thing led to another, and he was asked to consider running for City Council in 2010.

“And the next thing I knew,” he says, “I was running against a two-term incumbent, with no experience in doing campaigns.”

Pollard never stood a chance against Young, the City Council president, but his showing pleasantly surprised him: He got 37 percent of the vote with very little name recognition. It told him that if he were to run again in the next election, when there was no incumbent, he might actually win.

Having appeared on the ballot drew invitations to sit on more community boards, and he dove headlong into the decennial City Council redistricting process, which, despite the sometimescontentious meetings, was marked

cessful,” he says. “Just got really frustrated with the bureaucracy.

“It was crazy,” he continues. “It was an ungodly amount of money for water. It was liability. It was the size of the fence. It was going around canvassing the neighborhood to get permission. And I was only talking about a small community garden, and the fees were crazy. I mean, it was totally a nightmare.”

(Despite the adversity, Pollard says he’s “at it again,” these days trying to locate a solar field on vacant land near Chollas Lake in Oak Park. “I’m going to push that,” he says.)

The garden failure compelled Pollard to start looking at other problems in the area, and he began

by the spirit of collaboration and compromise he says he’d follow as an elected official.

“I don’t want to negotiate from a position of ‘I won’ and ‘I lost,’” he says, “but there is a thought of Can we live with it? That rules my interactions with other people.”

Like other leading candidates, Pollard would focus his attention on public safety, economic development and infrastructure in the district. A key goal would be finding a way to fund an update to the Southeastern Community Plan, which he says could help unlock economic growth in the area. He’d ask community foundations, such as the Jacobs Family Foundation, which has a strong presence in District 4, to help finance the update.

Would he be a politician who trades votes on citywide issues for votes on important initiatives in his district?

“Make no bones about it, [District 4] is going to be a decisive vote, and so I’m looking forward to conversations about what my community can get out of it,” he says.

“Because we’re ready; we just need to be at the table. We just need to be able to have some bargaining chips and negotiation power.”

And he believes he can remain independent.

“I’m not running for any other office after this,” he says. “I have no ladder to climb. I want to make a boon in this community for eight, nine-and-a-half years and ride off into the sunset.”

Write to davidr@sdcitybeat.com

8 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

edwin

sordid tales

decker Nobody needs to need an assault rifle I’d like to state at the outset that I’m not necessarily cide they don’t have a right to the security, comfort against gun control. What I am against is a certain and/or pleasure that an assault rifle gives them? argument that many gun-control activists use when Look at it this way: Let’s say you have a swimreferring to assault rifles. It’s an argument that boils ming pool. You love your swimming pool. You love my gallbladder every time I hear it, and I damn near sipping poolside margaritas with your wife on the hear it every time I observe a gun-control debate. weekends and periodically jumping in to cool off.

Take New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who said, Then one day, four kids drown in a local pool acin the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, “No one cident, causing a group of swimming-pool-hating needs an assault rifle to go out and shoot a deer.” reactionistas—who can’t understand why anyone Yes, duh, nobody needs an assault rifle to shoot a would want to bask in an over-chemicalized urine deer. But nobody is saying that’s the reason they need receptacle—to leap into action. They form an activthem. It ain’t about hunting. It ain’t even about “need.” ist organization (Mothers Against Over-ChemicalNo civilian needs an assault rifle for pretty much anyized Urine Receptacles), whip up a fear campaign, thing. Nor do they need cigarettes, Big Macs, chocolobby local government and send out press releases late, surfboards, Red Bull, thoroughbreds or paintball, revealing persuasive statistics such as the utterly and for damn sure nobody needs another has-been true fact that children die in swimming-pool acrocker to record an album of classic cidents far more often than they photo illustration: adam vieyra cover songs because he or she can’t do by guns. Finally, they convince write original music anymore. the public that “Nobody needs a And while we probably do need pool” (which is also true), and the automobiles, we don’t need highnext thing you know, you’re sipperformance sports cars that go ping margaritas beside a cementfrom zero to 100 in slightly less filled hole in the ground wishing time than it takes for something you hadn’t voluntarily surrenludicrous to come out of Ted Nudered your antique Dragunov gent’s gaping venison-hole.

SVD sniper rifle because there’s Indeed, the word “need” is rooftop access to the building way too subjective. Are we talkacross the street from the offices ing about Maslow’s Hierarchy of of Mothers Against Over-ChemiNeeds, as in air, food, water and calized Urine Receptacles. shelter? Or are we talking Decker’s Oh, and isn’t that the way it Lower-archy, as in, “I had a rough works in this world? People are day, and I need to get high”? so eager to support a ban on the Well, guess what? It doesn’t things that other people have and matter. The point of a free society do and want until the time comes is that we have a right to have and for somebody to take away the do and want the things we want. things that they have, want, do.

And if there’s concern about any of But, hey, if, after all this, you still have a need to bring “need” into these things, such as assault rifles, the discussion, then fine. I’ve got the burden is on the government to your need right here. prove that something is too harmBear with me for a moment. ful to the well-being of society and It should be evident to everythat prohibiting or regulating it one—thanks in part to the founding fathers who will put a meaningful dent in the problem. created this country to escape tyranny—that human Reasonable minds can disagree on whether asbeings need to be free. We need to control our own sault-rifle prohibition is warranted; just don’t give lives and pursue the things that please us. Maybe me any of this “nobody needs them” garbage, bewe don’t need assault rifles, per se, but we all need cause if “need” were the decider, you can say goodthe freedom to have them. Indeed, we need that bye to about 85 percent of the things you have and more than we need the guns themselves. That is do and want. how “need” factors into it.

People want assault rifles for different reasons: Regardless of what you think of the Second Collectors want them because it gives them a sense Amendment, it is in the Bill of Rights. And as of satisfaction when they add a new weapon to their Thomas Jefferson famously told Ben Franklin one display, no different than a stamp collector or art night while Googling “inexpensive French whorecollector. Others want to shoot their big, loud weaphouses” on a snuff-and-opium binge, “The Constions at the range. It’s an adrenalin rush. It stimulates tution is not just another iTunes contract for us to endorphins, like a snort of good whiskey (which click ‘Agree’ and forget about.” nobody needs, either). Then there are those who want to protect their families from home invasion or Write to ed@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcity believe Armageddon is coming. Regardless of why beat.com. Listen to “Sordid Tales: The Podcast” these people want, or think they need, assault rifles, at facebook.com/sordidtalesthepodcast. the question remains: Who are we to arbitrarily de-

February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 9

BY JENNY MONTGOMERY JENNY MONTGOMERY

creative menu of sandwiches, paninis, salads and more.

Try “Cheryl’s” panini, a toasty concoction of walnut butter, Nutella, a touch of honey and crispy slices of smoked bacon.

Yes, the “put bacon on it” trend has become a bit overdone, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that bacon is really tasty, and it can add a delightfully salty twist to an otherwise sugary creation.

I liked the combo of meat and sweet in this gooey delight.

The Busy Bee sandwich is another excellent study in savory and sweet contrasts. Thinly sliced, honeyed ham is paired with its traditional sandwich Nutmeg’s Coconut Rice & Mushroom soup pals, mustard and greens, but it also shares space with caramelized pineapple spread and a punchy crackedpepper goat cheese. I loved all the flavors in this sandwich and was even more delighted that it came on toasted olive bread, studded with little briny, black Greek gems.

It’s still soup season, and Nutmeg changes its Swing on in selection daily, so explore what its ladles have to offer. I’m in complete denial of the miserable Sometimes a lucky drive-by is what puts a restaucold that’s trying to take over my sinuses, so I rant on my radar screen. Other times, I get recfelt invigorated and boosted by a healthy bowl of ommendations from friends, colleagues or the the Coconut Rice & Mushroom soup. The cocorestaurants themselves. And, sometimes, I get an nut gave the broth a bare hint of sweetness, with email telling me that “this café serves everybody— a lovely grassiness that still felt substantial and not JUST Sabre Springs Swingers!” Nutmeg Bakcomplex. Meaty mushrooms and bright scallions ery & Café in Poway? You had me at swingers. gave toothy texture and flavor, while creamy, Hey, even pervs in the suburbs need decent homey brown rice rounded out the comforting sandwiches and baked goods, right? Don’t think you and humble bowl.

North Parkers have the lock on naughty behavior.

There are plenty of in-house baked goods, as It’s been a few months since I heard about well, including cookies, tarts, scones (which were Nutmeg (12640 Sabre Springs Pkwy., nutmegsd. a bit too hard on the outside—but that seems to com), and I’m glad it’s taken me awhile to get be standard in most bakeries I find, so maybe over there, because this new little café is firing on it’s my personal preference not being met) and all cylinders. Nutmeg has raised the bar for what a most intriguing croissant bread pudding with suburban communities, typically full of generic caramel sauce. I already have a dessert-themed and processed chain restaurants, should start return trip planned for that one. expecting and demanding from their food esI didn’t spot any “Sabre Springs swingers” on tablishments. Why should the hipster urbanites my visit to Nutmeg, but no matter. Put your keys in a bowl, take a seat and enjoy your meal. have all the cool places? Soccer moms want to eat local and organic, too!

Write to jennym@sdcitybeat.com Nutmeg serves breakfast and lunch (although and editor@sdcitybeat.com. it’s closed on Sundays), with an accessible and

NORTH

FORK

10 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

JEN VAN TIEGHEM

BOTTLE

ROCKET Hold the butter

I spent the first couple of my wine-drinking years believing that I hated white wine. Drinking the rich, buttery Chardonnay my mom enjoyed was as appealing to me as a root canal. The heavy mouthfeel and toasty flavors turned me into a redwine-only gal early on.

Then, somewhere along the way, I learned that my misplaced hatred for the Chardonnay grape was not the poor fruit’s fault at all. The butteredtoast and vanilla characteristics common to Chardonnay (especially in the United States) are actually the result of the wine being aged in oak barrels and often being produced with malolactic fermentation. Without these factors, the varietal is quite different.

After figuring out these winemaking secrets, I started trying Chardonnays that weren’t oaked—a quality usually noted on the wine label. In these versions, the wine’s been aged in stainless steel and maintains the true flavors of the grape.

Forget the butter and bring on the fruit!

Recently, I came across Smoking Loon’s antioak offering, Steelbird. The brand is common in most grocery stores, and its selections are often reasonably priced and user-friendly. Steelbird’s initial flavors are typical of steel-aged Chardonnay—crisp green apple and hints of citrus are tasty without an overabundance of tartness.

However, the wine’s secondary and after tastes I didn’t find as pleasant—metallic notes and strong alcohol flavors are left on the tongue. Luckily, I had some smoked Gouda in the fridge, and the JEN VAN TIEGHEM lightly nutty cheese balanced the flavors well when I had a nibble along with my wine. What I normally enjoy non-oaked Chardonnay for are the crisp, clean flavors—this one is just a bit off the mark since I didn’t find it as refreshing as others I’ve had.

I would recommend drinking Steelbird with crackers and a light goat-cheese spread. Or, if you’re a big fan of the citrus notes, like me, grilling up a piece of fish and flavoring it heavy-handedly with lemon would be a match made in wine heaven.

Overall, for a wine that’s normally priced at around $10, this one is a good buy and up to snuff with Smoking Loon’s long reputation of affordable wines that don’t suck.

Write to jenv@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 11

no life

offline

by dave maass

Three pervy things that aren’t quite porn Any history of the Internet will start with the early investments and groundwork laid by academia and the federal government, then go on to cite the momentum contributed by singular innovators like Mark Zuckerberg. Thematically, a student researcher would be forced into the conclusion that military readiness, private profit and ingenuity for its own sake have driven the rise of the ’net age, conspicuously leaving out one major factor.

Human perviness.

Pornography has long been at the forefront of online culture. Porn distributors have been the first to develop and experiment with new ways of media distribution, from streaming video to secure transactions. Porn pushed the limits of the copyright system and shocked legislatures into enacting some of the most onerous restrictions on expression. On the darker side of the spectrum, it’s always child-pornography collectors who are first to experience law enforcement’s newest invasive tactics. And, let’s face it, there are a lot of dudes out there who first learned to surf with a mouse in one hand, a boner in the other.

I’m a week behind CityBeat’s annual Sex Issue, which you should certainly go back and read if you skipped it, but I can’t let Valentine’s Day pass without highlighting some of the more fascinating pervy things I’ve recently come across on the ’net.

Don’t worry; they’re not actual porn—but close.

Wikipedia willies: I’ll admit it, like many pubescent boys, I was a bit of a horn-dog who would comb the pages of medical texts and National Geographic magazines for naked female bodies to explore. Today’s pre-teen digital natives have it so much easier, thanks to Wikipedia, where images of genitals abound in the goal of expanding human knowledge.

One of my favorite online discussions took place on the “Talk” page for the Wikipedia entry for autofellatio and involved whether it’s appropriate to include an image of a short-haired blond man, hunched over, with his junk down his throat—why that particular image and not, say, Ior Bock, the 20th-century Swedish mystic who went down on himself as part of a religious ritual.

The two-part final defense from higher ranking Wikipedia editors is priceless: “The first is that it verifies that the activity discussed in the article is physically possible,” the page says. “Until people saw for themselves that it is possible, there was continuing doubts that this activity was real or verifiable. The second main reason is that an image can help illustrate a subject more efficiently than any amount of words could.”

Tumblr girl: I’ve personally never had much preference for the porn-star genre—too much

12 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

The estrus detection system silicon, too much smoothness, too many overorgasms—but I do find my intellect is regularly engorged by by Stoya, the Digital Playground performer often cited as adult entertainment’s first big alternative star.

Stoya’s blog (stoya.tumblr.com) is a thoughtful, personal account of the porn industry, from getting a Fleshlight molded from her vagina to dealing with overly touchy fans. She posts photos behind the scenes, including fashion shoots and pictures of cats, and posters for her aerial-acrobatic shows, but she also delves into not-sexy-atall issues, like having a small, gross cyst removed from just between her vulva and thigh. Stoya is at her best when she’s examining the philosophical nature of porn and our culture—for example, her fierce opposition to the Los Angeles ballot measure that forced porn actors to wear condoms Cows cum home: Not too long ago, a writer friend of mine, Nahshon Landrum, commented on the controversy surrounding two rappers who tweeted photos of themselves engaged in various sex acts: Slim Thug was in full-on, stand-up bathroom intercourse, while Chief Keef was receiving oral pleasure.

“Well, it’s an interesting time we live in when Foursquare tells you where your friends are, Facebook keeps you up to date on people you don’t even like, and Twitter makes sure you know when your favorite entertainer is having sex,” Landrum wrote to me via email after I asked him to re-create the conversation.

And that brings me to the most awesome thing I’ve heard about on the ’net in a long time—and apparently it’s been around for years. A company called CowChips markets an “estrus detection system” that essentially allows ranchers to track when cows are in heat. You attach a little chip to a cow’s back end, then, whenever a bull tries to mount her, the chip transmits a wireless signal to a base station, which then feeds it directly to your computer.

In practice, this allows a farmer to track the best times for artificial insemination, but, really, what we’re talking about is real-time bovine sex alerts.

In existential terms, we live in interesting times in-fucking-deed.

Write to davem@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

the

shortlist

1

COORDINATED BY ALEX ZARAGOZA

Worlds on a string

Tell your friends that you’re going to see something called “Adult Puppet Cabaret” and you might get a puzzled look. Miss Piggy in pasties?

Sexy Punch and Judy?

Bridget Rountree’s heard it all. Six years ago, she and Iain Gunn co-founded Animal Cracker Conspiracy Co.—a puppet-making and performance outfit—and began putting on shows under the title Adult Puppet Cabaret. That’s “adult” as in “sophisticated,” not X-rated.

The point, Rountree says, is to encourage grownups to rethink puppetry.

“You say ‘puppets’ and everyone associates that with kids,” she says. “When we started Animal Cracker Conspiracy, we really wanted to be part of the movement of helping puppetry be seen as an art form and be for adults, in the echelon of fine arts—sculpture, painting or drawing.”

For the last four years, Adult Puppet Cabaret’s (adultpuppetcabaret.com) main event has been at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park— this year’s happens from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22.

Admission is $15. The evening starts in the museum lobby with drinks, a chance to make your own puppet and performances by several accomplished puppeteers. At 8:15, MoPA’s theater will screen Heather Henson’s Handmade Puppet Dreams, Vol. IV. The youngest daughter of Jim Henson, Heather each year compiles the best in independent puppet short films, some of which she’s produced. One of those films is Sam Koji Hale’s Yamasong, which will

2 Enemies within

During World War II, the 92nd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army was sent off to the front lines of northern Italy. Nicknamed “Buffalo Soldiers” for the division’s buffalo insignia, these predominantly black troops fought fiercely alongside Italian volunteers and ended up penetrating the Nazis’ formidable Gothic Line. But as Italian-Ghanian filmmaker Fred Kuwornu explains in his 2010 documentary, Inside Buffalo, they also faced an internal enemy, struggling against the racism and segregation of the Army. To celebrate Black History Month, the San Diego Italian Film Festival will screen the film at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21. Kuworno will sit down for a Q&A after the screening. $10. mopa.org

Mario Covic

Art

Books

HLux@Night at Lux Art Institute, 1550 S. El Camino Real, Encinitas. Check out work by artist-in-residence, sculptor Carlos Vega, who creates multi-layered carved lead panels. From 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20. $5. 21+. 760-436-6611, luxartinstitute.org

HAmy Finley at Carmel Valley Library, 3919 Townsgate Drive, Carmel Valley.

Food Network winner Amy Finley discusses her book How to Eat a Small Country and an upcoming tour of Paris she’ll be leading. At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20, cvsd.com/library

Surf Art Show at Lafayette Hotel, 2223 El Cajon Blvd., North Park. Rick Avena and Michael Thomas showcase surf-themed paintings, photographs and broken surfboards. Performances by The Short Eyes and DJ Sly. At 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21. 619-296-2101, facebook.com/ events/123103554533714 Discovery at Block No. 16 Union & Spirits, 344 Seventh Ave., Downtown. RAW hosts this independent art show, which features a film screening, musical performance, fashion show and live hairstyling and makeup artistry. From 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21. $15-$20. 619255-7625, rawartists.org

Iain Gunn and Bridget Rountree play with puppets. be screened at the event. Fans of her father will spot its Dark Crystal influences; anime fans will likewise dig the stunning, whimsical, Japanese-style tabletop puppets and the taiko-drumming soundtrack by L.A.’s On Ensemble. Hale will be at the screening to talk about his process.

“It’s an incredibly time-consuming art-form,” Rountree says. “Just making the puppets alone and then bringing film into the whole scenario—it’ll be great to hear someone’s process of how they went about attempting to do this.”

3

Clouded visions

Collaborations can be disastrous. Remember that Bowie / Jagger version of “Dancing in the Streets”? What a mess! But when they work, the results are magical. That can be expected at Clouds in my Room, a dance collaboration between Patricia Rincon Dance Collective, which is celebrating 30 years of dance, and Swiss choreographer Beatrice Jaccard of Company Drift. The concert, directed by Rincon, marks the kickoff of the UCSD Department of Theatre and Dance’s newest dance series. Jaccard will perform the story of one woman’s solitude through dreamlike movements, song and poetry that can be at times whimsical and at times bizarre. Catch it at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 22 and 23, at UCSD’s Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre. $10 to $17. rincondance.org Christian Glaus

Cobra Heart at Propagandist, 835 Fifth Ave., Downtown. The next installment of the series includes artists Adam Kyron Murillo, Blake Byers and Chris Rusanowsky, whose work includes life-size renditions of Terminator and Alien. At 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. 619-238-7117, facebook.com/events/129293267237278 HHuman Recession at Sole Lab, 605 Mission Ave., Oceanside. Arts group Hill Street Country Club presents this pop-up art exhibition featuring work by Andrew Colin, Jennifer Kerezi and Jeremy Raab that explores loss and social pressure.

From 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22, thehillstreetcountryclub.org HRaul Guerrero: Beatniks at Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla. Guerrero exhibits paintings and drawings inspired by the Beat movement of the 1950s. Also on display, Ed Ruscha: On the Road: Ruscha’s books, paintings and photographs inspired by passages in Jack Kerouac’s novel. On view through March 23. Opening reception from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. 858-454-5872, ljathenaeum.org/exhibitions.html HWe’re Not Playing Anymore at The Spot, 1835 Main St., Barrio Logan.

Thumbprint Gallery and Victor Villa throw a custom toy art show with pieces made of metal, vinyl, cardboard and other media.

At 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23, thespotbarriologan.com HMembers Only at Kettner Arts Gallery, 1772 Kettner Blvd., Little Italy. Artists Prudence Horne, Daphne Hill, Anna Stump and Heidi Galeria show work that focuses on the penis. From 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23. 619-851-4321, facebook.com/ events/115076252007848 HEn Plein-Air at L Street Fine Art, 628 L St., East Village. Paintings by 34 artists will be on display as a tribute to Charles Reiffel. On view through April 6. From 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24. 760-492-2876, lstreetfineart.com Commune 5 Year Anniversary at Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, South Park. The anti-tobacco artist collective celebrates its anniversary with a performance by Dead Feather Moon and art by Colin Ingram. At 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27. 619-284-6784, facebook.com/events/353376701442999 To Send Light into the Darkness at Gallery 21, Spanish Village, Balboa Park.

See contemporary art in digital media by members of the Digital Art Guild. On view through March 11. Opening Wednesday, Feb. 27. 619-233-9050, gallery21art.com

Beatrice Jaccard

Peter Brett at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. Author of the Demon Cycle series discusses his third fantasy novel, The Daylight War. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20.

858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com HMad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. John Joseph Adams and Austin Grossman discuss their compilation of 22 tales told from a villian’s perspective.

At 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. 858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com Weekend with Locals: Anne Ring at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. As part of their continuing series, Warwick’s hosts Anne Ring, author of A Summer in the Hills. At noon. Sunday, Feb. 24.

858-454-0347, warwicks.indiebound.com Gary Soto at MiraCosta Community Learning Center, 1831 Mission Ave., Oceanside. Mexican-American author and poet, Gary Soto, reads and signs his books. From 6:30 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26, miracosta.edu David Helvarg at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 8602 La Jolla Shores Drive, La Jolla. The author of The Golden Shore: California’s Love Affair with the Sea discusses the coastline and the relationship between San Diego and the Navy.

From 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26. $8. 858-534-3624, aquarium.ucsd.edu Zagat 2013 San Diego City Guide at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. Rebekah Sager, David Nelson, Seth Combs, Julie Alvin, Kathryn Carroll and Wendy Lemlin discuss their experience working on the famed guide and sign copies. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27.

858-454-0347, warwicks.indiebound.com P.T. McHugh at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. The author discusses his fantasy novel, Keeper of the Black Stones. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27. 858-2684747, mystgalaxy.com

Comedy Und1sputed Champs of Comedy at Undisputed Downtown, 320 16th St., East Village Undisputed hosts its first comedy night with Rocco Joel, Dave Wright, Nic Flair, Bryan Bartell and others. At 7 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 23. 619-450-6999, facebook.com/events/450577541675773 Lily Tomlin at Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Ave., Downtown. The comedian, actress and six-time Emmy winner performs. At 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23. $40-$90. 619570-1100, sandiegotheatres.net The Lights Out Comedy Show at Kensington Club, 4079 Adams Ave., Kensington. The Comedy Collective hosts Jesse Egan with Mike Kadir, Brian Simpson, Barbara Thomason and Tim Wicker. At 9 p.m.

Monday, Feb. 25. 619-284-2848.

Dance HClouds In My Room at Theodore and Adele Shank Theater, UCSD campus, La

CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 13

theater There’s more than one penguin encounter in town Diversionary Theatre in University Heights is staging the West Coast premiere of Marc Acito’s one-act play Birds of a Feather, the story of two male penguins at the Central Park Zoo who are given an egg to hatch and, subsequently, a chick to raise. It’s based on a true story and on the 2005 children’s book, And Tango Makes Three, that popularized the same-gender penguin parenting and incited many a moralizing conservative.

Steve Gunderson and Mike Sears, each a gifted comedic actor strong on physicality, hilariously inhabit the penguin roles without seeming silly.

They do double duty as a hetero (the implication is that penguin parents Roy and Silo are gay) hawk couple, Pale Male and Lola. Gunderson and Sears both indulge a moment as Roy and Silo’s grown chick as well.

Where Birds of a Feather strays is when the focus turns to its four human characters, all played

by Rachael VanWormer and Kevin Koppman-Gue. These include network newscaster Paula Zahn, her husband, a zookeeper and a birdwatcher. The charm, wit and innate drama of Acito’s play (he also wrote the book for last year’s potent Allegiance at The Old Globe) reside in the two penguin characters more than in the tribulations (however true) and retrospections of mere humans.

Birds of a Feather runs through March 3 at Diversionary Theatre in University Heights. $25$51. diversionary.org

•••

Cruel intentions abound in Ion Theatre’s production of British playwright Simon Stephens’ Punk Rock, in which bullying, baiting and general nastiness at a northwest English public school lead inevitably to shocking violence. Benjamin Cole, seen in last year’s The Mystery Plays at Ion, portrays Bennett, the biggest bully of them all, and his chief target is David Ahmadian’s nihilistic Chadwick. But the most neurotic in the bunch is J. Tyler Jones’ William, behind whose puppy-dog eyes lurks terrible pain and impulse.

Punk Rock is relentless in its darkness. School newcomer Lilly (Lizzie Morse) comes closest to being a sympathetic protagonist, but even she is Jolla. Patricia Rincon teams up with the international theater-dance ensemble, Company Drift, to tell the dreamlike story of a lonely woman through movement, song and poetry. At 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 22-23. $10-$17. 858-534-4574, theatre.ucsd.edu

Fashion Gypsy Wagon Bizarre at Vin De Syrah, 901 Fifth Ave., Downtown. Twelve designers, including Elisa Gonsalves Designs, Flight of Fancy and Moonlit Jewelry, display their work. Music performance by Salome. At 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21. 619-234-4166, facebook.com/ events/531891170165995 Thrift Trunk Show at The Loft @ UCSD, Price Center East. Fight consumerism and get some stylish vintage clothing at this trunk show featuring items from local thrift shops. At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26. facebook.com/events/142920842541003

Mike Sears (left) and Steve Gunderson in Birds of a Feather swallowed up in an adolescent inhumanity that goes way beyond angst. There are no fresh revelations about teendom or meanness, though as with the recurring real-life headlines of mayhem inundating us, we can’t ignore them.

Punk Rock runs through March 9 at Ion’s BLKBOX Theatre in Hillcrest. $15-$33. iontheatre.com

—David L. Coddon Write to davidc@sdcitybeat.com sand editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Opening: Time Stands Still: A couple—she a war photojournalist, he a war reporter—return from Iraq after she’s injured and face a less-exhilarating future together. Opens Feb. 20 at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach. northcoastrep.org Tonight We Improvise: It’s playwright Luigi Pirandello’s play within a play, chronicling a troupe of actors’ improvisational take on Pirandello’s own novella, Leonora, Addio!, about a controversial Italian family. Presented by UCSD’s Department of Theatre and Dance, it opens Feb. 20 at the Mandell Weiss Theatre at UCSD. theatre.ucsd.edu

For full listings, please visit “T heater ” at sdcit yb eat.com

Food & Drink Cheese Concierge at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. Venissimo Cheese hosts a cheese and wine pairing featuring three Italian cheeses. At 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21. $25. 858-4540347, warwicks.indiebound.com 8th Anniversary Weekend Kickoff: Dinner With Adam Avery at The Linkery, 3784 North Park Way, North Park. Avery Brewing hosts this anniversary dinner, which includes three courses and dessert, all paired with selected brews. At 6:45 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21. $88.50. Pre-purchsed ticket required. 619-255-8778, thelinkery.com HSeeds@City Farm Fundraiser at Sea Rocket Bistro, 3382 30th St., North Park.

Sea Rocket Bistro hosts a fundraising party to help the urban agriculture program at City College. Entry fee includes hors d’oeuvres that incorporate produce from the program.

From 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21. $15. 858-663-7752, searocketbistro.com Guide Dogs for the Blind Fundraiser at

14 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

Ken Jacques

Local Habit, 3827 Fifth Ave., Hillcrest. For National Dog Biscuit Day, Local Habit will donate 10 percent of the day’s proceeds to New Leash On Life Puppy Raisers: Guide Dogs for the Blind. From 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23. 619-795-4770, facebook.com/events/474880115904322 Beer U: Barley Wines at Stone Brewing Co., 1999 Citracado Pkwy., Escondido.

“Dr.” Bill Sysak leads a discussion about the barley wine beer style, including samples of 2013 Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine.

21+. At 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25. $32. 760471-4999, stoneworldbistro.com/beeru HPaso Robles Wine Grand Tasting at Corky McMillian Event Center, 2875 Dewey Road, Point Loma. Forty wineries will be pouring more than 150 wines while Peacock Cheese Company and Venissimo will be providing specialty cheeses and. From 6 to 8:30pm Tuesday, Feb. 26. $60. 805239-8463, pasowine.com HBehind the Craft: Cheese 101 at Green Flash Brewing Co., 6550 Mira Mesa Blvd., Mira Mesa. Rob Graff of Venissimo

Cheese joins Green Flash for a beer and cheese workshop to talk about the history of cheese and more. From 6 to 9 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 27. $10. 858-622-0085, greenflashbrew.com

B St., Downtown. Founded in 1642, this group entertained troops through World War II. Watch them demonstrate British military rigors and pageantry. At 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 24. $20-$85. 619-235-0804, sandiegosymphony.org

Health & Wellness

Carol Williams and Martha Jane Weaver at Spreckels Organ Pavilion, Balboa Park. Organist Carol Williams performs with special guest, mezzo soprano Martha Jane Weaver. From 2 to 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24. 619-702-8138, sosorgan.org

Alternative Happy Hour at Medical Education & Training Building, Room 145, UCSD School of Medicine, La Jolla. Alternative Healing Network’s series offers a sampling of health and wellness practices.

Food by Govinda’s Krishna Catering. From 4 to 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. $10 donation.

858-534-2230, althealnet.org Yoga to Sound & Craft Culture at Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd., Midtown. A healing Asana practice led by Courtney Kimpo with live accompaniment by Mystery Cave and Santino Romeri. Also enjoy live portraits and art vendors. From 7 to 10:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24. $4-$16. facebook.com/events/160653474084697 Weight of the Workplace: Promoting a Healthy Bottom Line at AMN Healthcare, 12400 High Bluff Drive, Torrey Pines. Learn about workplace wellness and improving worker productivity. Keynote speech by County Supervisor Dave Roberts. From 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27, chamber.sdncc.com

Music Robin Henkel at ArtLab Studios, 3536 Adams Ave., Normal Heights. Henkel performs live blues with Whitney Shay, Billy Watson, Caleb Furgetec and Toby Aherns Band. From 8 to 10 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20. $5 donation. 619-283-1199, ext.115, artlabsd.com Barbara Cook at Museum of Contemporary Art La Jolla, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla.

The Tony and Grammy award-winning soprano performs her program, “Let’s Fall in Love.” From 8 to 11 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20. $50-$75. 858-454-3541, ljms.org The Pat Metheny Project at Mira Costa College Theatre, 1 Barnard Drive, Oceanside. Peter Sprague crafts interpretations of the famous jazz composer’s work and performs with MiraCosta faculty members.

At 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. $10-$15.

760-754-9686, miracosta.edu Ricky Nelson Remembered and John Denver Tribute at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. Matthew and Gunnar Nelson perform their father’s hits alongside a video tribute. Jim Curry and his band also perform renditions of John Denver’s work.

At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23. $23-$45.

760-839-4190, artcenter.org/performances Violins, Voices & More at San Dieguito Methodist Church, 650 Second St., Encinitas. The San Diego Youth Symphony partners with San Diego Master Chorale to perform work by Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn and others. At 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 23. $10-$15. 619-2333232, sdys.org HGustavo Romero at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. The concert pianist performs Bach, Schubert, Maratka and Chopin. At 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24. $30-$47. 760-8394190, artcenter.org/performances Intrigue Between Two String Instruments at First United Methodist Church, 2311 Camino del Rio S., Mission Valley.

Armenian cellist Gaiana Mndoian and guitarist Robert Wetzel will perform. From 7 to 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, fumcsd.org HPipes and Drums of The Black Watch at Copley Symphony Hall, 750

Athenaeum Mini-Concerts at Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla. Pianist Mary Barranger and violinist Zina Schiff perform a free afternoon concert. At noon Monday, Feb. 25. 858-4545872, ljathenaeum.org

Outdoors Discover Mission Bay Bike Ride at Mission Bay. A group, cruise bike ride.

It is a family friendly route so bring the kids. See Facebook page for meeting location. From 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 20, facebook.com/ events/382212708496036

Performance HTribal Baroque at ArtLab Studios, 3536 Adams Ave., Normal Heights. S.K. Thoth and Lila’Angelique showcase choreographed tribal dancing set to violin and opera singing. From 8 to 10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. 619-283-1199, ext.115, artlabsd.com HAdult Puppet Cabaret at Museum of Photographic Arts, Balboa Park. Heather Henson’s Handmade Puppet Dreams Vol. 4 screens alongside Sam Koji Hale’s award-winning “Yamasong.” The evening kicks off with live performances by six puppeteers and the chance to make your own puppet. From 7 to 10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. $12-$15. 619-238-8777, adultpuppetcabaret.com HSamson and Delilah at Civic Center Plaza, 1100 Third Ave., Downtown. San Diego Opera presents the biblical tale of Samson’s betrayal by the seductive Delilah.

Sung in French with English subtitles. At 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22 and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24. $45-$275. sdopera.com HSo Long Sailor at Victory Theater, 2558 Imperial St., Logan Heights. A Navy and sailor themed circus show featuring comedy, circus arts and music. From 8 to 10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. $17-$20. 619-2361971, technomaniacircus.com The Burlesque Circus at Sunset Temple, 3911 Kansas St., North Park. Valentina and the Hoop Unit perform alongside aerialists, burlesque dancers, contortionists, belly dancers and other acts. At 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 22-23. $20-$25. 858344-2774, burlesquecircus.eventbrite.com Vagina Monologues at Price Center Ballroom, UCSD campus, La Jolla. This performance of Eve Ensler’s women’s empowerment play benefits the San Diego Center for Community Solutions and the V-Day Safe House in Haiti. At 8 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 27. $12.50-$14.50.

858-246-0809, boxoffice.ucsd.edu

Poetry & Spoken Word Poetry Ruckus at Ducky Waddle’s Emporium, 414 N. Coast Hwy. 101, Encinitas.

Local poets read their work with special guest, “I’m On the Menu.” If you would like to join the performance roster email, ruthlesshippies@gmail.com. At 7 p.m.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 15

5th Annual Bowling for Equality at Kearny Mesa Bowl, 17585 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Kearny Mesa. Join Human Rights Campaign San Diego and support gay rights with an afternoon of bowling. From 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23. $35. hrc.org/steering-committees/san-diego David Silverman at Student Services Multipurpose Room, UCSD campus, La Jolla. The president of American Atheists speaks in defense of “firebrand atheism.”

From 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24. $10$23. 858-534-2230, ucsdboxoffice.com Civilized Conversation Club at Coco’s Restaurant - Mission Valley, 13040 Friars Road, Mission Valley. This week’s roundtable discussion topic: “Conscience Clauses: Should Strong Belief Exempt People from the Law?” From 7 to 9 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25. 858-231-6209, civilizedconversation.wordpress.com What Matters to Millennials at Co-Merge, 330 A St., Downtown. Equinox Center hosts this panel discussion examining quality-oflife issues in San Diego, like job creation, housing affordability, transportation and water. From 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27. $10. 619-255-9040, whatmatterstomillennials.eventbrite.com

Special Events California Dharma Celebration at Town & Country Hotel, 500 Hotel Circle N., Mission Valley. Take part in meditation and teaching sessions focusing on the practice of modern Kadampa Buddhism. See website for schedule. Friday through Sunday, Feb. 22-24. $15-$80. 323-2330610, cadharmacelebration.org

“Sea in Me” by Daria Hlazatova is on view through March 17 in The Animal in Me, a group exhibition by the PRISMA Collective at Subtext Gallery (2479 Kettner Blvd. in Little Italy).

Wednesday, Feb. 20. 760-632-0488, duckywaddles.com New Writing Series: Eleni Sikelianos & Laird Hunt at Visual Arts Facility Performing Space, UCSD campus, La Jolla.

The two poets will read from their collection of published poems, short stories and parables. Free and open to the public.

From 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20. 858-534-3210, literature.ucsd.edu Rod Smith and Mel Nichols at Art Produce Gallery, 3139 University Ave., North Park. The authors read from their collections of poetry. At 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22.

7409732065, artproduce.org Village Idiots Literary Society at Brengle Terrace Park, 1200 Vale Terrace Drive, Vista. Share your poems and prose at the Feb. reading. From 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday,

Feb. 23. $2 donation. cityofvista.com

Wiggin’ Out at 57 Degrees Wine Bar, 1735 Hancock St., Middletown, Midtown.

Bust out your craziest wig for a night of wine, music and opportunity drawings to support the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. From 6 to 10 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21. $15-$35. 267-250-7615, facebook.com/events/158879617593291

HLa Paloma Winter Poetry Slam at La Paloma Theater, 471 S. Coast Hwy. 101, Escondido. Full Moon Poets hosts the 13th annual event. There are three elimination rounds and the winner gets a cash prize.

At 5 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24. 760-436-7469, fullmoonpoets.org

HDr. Entomo’s Palace of Exotic Wonders at San Diego Natural History Museum, Balboa Park. Resembling an oldfashioned circus sideshow, this exhibition explores the mysteries of insects, including many species indigenous to San Diego. On view through June 1. Opens Friday, Feb. 22. 619-232-3821, sdnhm.org

Politics & Community

Paranormal Investigation at William Heath Davis House, 410 Island Ave., Downtown. Team up with San Diego Ghost Hunters for an on-site paranormal investigation of this historic house. Bring cameras, smart-phones, hand-held video recorders and digital sound recorders.

From 10 p.m. to midnight Saturday, Feb. 23. $35. 619-233-4692, gaslampquarter. org/ghost-tours-investigation-davis-house

A World Without Rape at City Heights Rec Center, 4380 Landis St., City Heights.

International Socialist Organization discusses rape and a culture where it is not ignored or blamed on women. From 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, sandiegoiso.org

Burner Bazaar at Somewhere Loud, 3489 Noell St., Mission Hills. This fundraiser will help CORE Project build their interactive installation for this year’s Burning Man Festival. The event includes food, art workshops, cirque performances, DJs and other entertainment. From noon to midnight. Sunday, Feb. 24. $10-$20. facebook.com/events/588239844536609 Oscar Experience at Market Creek Events Center, 404 Euclid Avenue, Encanto. The only viewing party in San Diego to be officially sanctioned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At 5 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, kidstocamp.org/ rsvp2013-info.html

Talks & Discussions HPechaKucha Night V.17 at Lafayette Hotel, 2223 El Cajon Blvd., North Park.

San Diego Architectural Foundation hosts a night designed for artists to share their ideas and network with other creatives. At 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20. 619-296-2101, sdarchitecture.org/pecha-kucha-night Philip Ross at Camino Hall, USD campus, 5998 Alcala Park, Linda Vista. The artist, educator and inventor discusses his work, which focuses on the relationship between technology and the environment.

At 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21. 619-2602280, sandiego.edu Book Publishing 1-2-3: From the Writer’s Fingers to the Readers’ Hands at La Jolla Community Center, 6811 La Jolla Blvd., La Jolla. Laurie Gibson gives an overview of today’s book business and explores the pros and cons of traditional vs. electronic self-publishing. At 11 a.m.

Saturday, Feb. 23. $15. 858-459-0831, ljcommunitycenter.org Beyond Taking a Stand: Different Ways to Approach the Issue of Bullying at Irving J. Gill Building, San Diego Museum of Man, Balboa Park. Devin Hughes shares from his comic book about self-esteem, Self-Talk. UCSD’s Lonnie Rowell and USD’s Roddey Reid will discuss their research on bullying. From 1 to 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23. 619-239-2001, museumofman.org HGavin Newsom at Institute of the Americas, International Lane, UCSD campus, La Jolla. The former mayor of San Francisco, and current lieutenant governor, will discuss his book, Citizenville: Reconneting People and Government in the Digital Age. From 7 to 8:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25. $25. 858453-5560, revelleforum.ucsd.edu Impressionism Plus Two at Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla. Linda Blair will explore the historic context, personalities, theories and techniques of Impressionism art. At 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, Feb. 26. $12-$17. 858-4545872, ljathenaeum.org/lectures Life on a Sailboat at Hacienda de las Rosas, 2754 Calhoun St., Old Town. Lynn Fulks shares her experience living on a sailboat for six years. Ticket includes five wine or beer tastings with appetizers. From 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26. $10. , facebook.com/events/481371221908820 HRussell Lecture: Tania Bruguera at MCASD La Jolla, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla.

Bruguera will discuss her performances and installations, which blur the line between life and art, reflecting the politics of current social structures. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27. $5-$15. 858-454-3541, mcasd.org

For more listings, visit “E ve nt s” a t sd c it yb e a t.c o m

16 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

Couples

Makeover C O M P E T I T I O N

Four Couples.

Four Design Teams.

One Winner.

You Decide!

P h o t o s b y Ve s t i g e P h o t o g r a p h Y Assisted by Kahley Keefer

Margrette & Scott

Melissa & Michael

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SCOTT’S Hair

MICHAEL’S Hair

Detour Salon

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MARGRETTE’S Dress

MELISSA’S make-up

The Girl Can’t Help It

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SCOTT’S suit

MELISSA’S DRESS

The Girl Can’t Help It

Temptress Fashion

posture & health

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Chiropractique

Va-Va Varnish

shoOt location

Temptress Fashion

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Deer Park Winery & Auto Museum

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Mens Fashion Depot ALEX’S SHOES

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Martini’s Above Fourth

Paris Salon

Gene’s Hair

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Bettie Page

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Cast Your Vote at: www.SDCityBeat.com

Polls Close Friday, February 22nd at Noon February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 17

The eyes have it T

The stories behind painter Kelly Vivanco’s characters can be found in their peepers · by Seth Combs

here’s just something about those eyes.

Whether discussing Vermeer, Warhol, Van Gogh or contemporaries like Samara Golden or KAWS, it’s difficult to ignore how they use eyes to tell the story. When one looks at Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” is it the swirl of madness behind the figure or the look of sheer terror in those jutting, preemoji eyeballs that we notice first? Could one argue that even with his incised, naked physique, it’s that opaque stare into the distance towards Rome that gives “David” his majestic brilliance? And it’s certainly not Andre the Giant’s nose that makes us want to “Obey.”

There’s just something about Kelly Vivanco’s eyes.

Kelly Vivanco

Well, not so much her eyes, although they are a striking bluish-gray. Rather, it’s the eyes in her signature mix of pop-surrealism and Renaissance portraiture. The Lewis Carroll playfulness among the characters—be they children, woodland creatures or sometimes both—is both fantastical and haunting. Each has a story and the more you stare, the more they stare back at you. And don’t look to the gallery wall, to the accompanying informational label, for any hints. While the story may be in Vivanco’s characters’ eyes, it’s your own eyes that will interpret that story.

“I’ve never set out saying, ‘Oh, I have to do big eyes,’” says Vivanco on the phone from her home studio in Escondido. “For me, it always brought to mind silent movies—how the actors would always exaggerate their eyes, because much of the story depends on expressions. I think it’s a lot like that. Whatever you interpret that to be in my paintings, the eyes have to express these things, and it has to get to you wordlessly like a silent picture would. I know it’s one of the first things you connect with. We’re just programmed that way from birth to connect with faces, and the eyes especially.”

A Southern California native, Vivanco has developed a small, but devoted, following both in San Diego and beyond. Since 2004, she’s exhibited in places like London, Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle and Portsmouth, N.H. As lowbrow and pop-surrealist art has become increasingly more popular thanks to the Internet and publications like Juxtapoz and Raw Vision, it’s also gaining rec-

18 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

“Pink Flowers” ognition among the fine-art establishment.

What Vivanco surely has going for her is her accessibility. Mostly set in nature, there’s an uneasy edge to her works, but also a comfortable familiarity. Pieces like “Wander” and “Where Things Grow” give the viewer a sense of assurance while tapping into the side of the brain that’s in charge of absurd wonderment—that place where the viewer might still run with the animals or speak with the trees. That is, the people who buy her pieces may plan to hang them in their living room, but they might just as well be hanging them above their childhood beds.

“People tend to have a real connection with them,” says Dylan Jones, one of the owners of Subtext Gallery in Little Italy.

“Her work has a very broad reach, and we’ve

seen everyone from young kids to grandparents fall in love with her characters.”

“There seems to be something relational about each piece and the collections of unlikely heroes she often chooses as her subjects,” adds Don Hollis, the other owner of Subtext, who’s added Vivanco’s pieces to his own collection. “The ongoing journey and implied adventure seem to be the thread she weaves across her body of work.”

Subtext is well known for showcasing the best and brightest in contemporary and lowbrow art, and the gallery has been one of Vivanco’s biggest champions; since 2007, she’s been part of six group shows, one shared show (with Jason Limon) and her own solo exhibition, Dispatch From the Peppermint Forest.

While Subtext likes to feature her individually, Vivanco’s newest piece on the gallery’s walls, “Duck Wired,” landed there serendipitously as part of a group show for PRISMA, an international collective started in 2011 that features 30 artists from five continents. Vivanco is the only local member. The show, The Animal in Me, which opened last week and will run through March 17, is the first exhibition to showcase all 30 artists. The show’s curator, PRISMA founder Kaspain Shore, says Vivanco fit in precisely by not falling into a typical brooding-artist stereotype.

“She’s amazingly helpful, funny, kind, and entering her art world is like entering the land of magic and dreams, so inviting her was an easy decision,” Shore writes in an email from her home in Münster, Germany.

“It’s great to have a support group of likeminded artists that are going through some of the same sort of things,” Vivanco says.

Vivanco (kellyvivanco.com) dabbled in oils for “Duck Wired,” a departure from the acrylics she’s used for years, and she recently left her workspace neighboring Distinction Gallery (she’ll have another solo show there in 2014) to work more from home.

She was recently tapped to create a series of Wiens Family Cellars is using Vivanco’s wine bottle labels for the Temecula-based “Sprouted” on its label.

Wiens Family Cellars. When she isn’t busy “I’m just painting and leaving the story doing photo simulations for architectural ters in her head will get into next. up to you. It just opens up the art to so much projects or walking her two Chihuahua resWhatever you get from her work or from more than just saying, ‘Here’s the picture, cues around downtown Escondido, she’s in those eyes staring back at you, Vivanco is here’s the explanation.’ When you do it that her home contemplating what the charac- comfortable with how the story will unfold. way, the viewer won’t get anything out of

“Bubble Pipe” the work other than what the artist hands to them. However they see it, it says more about them than it does about me.”

Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com.

February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 19

seen local Manor House gets a kick When Manor House Quarterly first came out two-and-a-half years ago, it was a breath of fresh air in San Diego’s literary and arts scene. What began as a night of creative expression at founding director and then-Point Loma Nazarene University student Dane Cardiel’s house—dubbed The Manor—grew into a visually stunning magazine that’s published work by more than 100 local artists and writers since its inception.

Each issue of the journal is themed, with art by the likes of Margaret Noble, Wes Bruce, Ryan McGinness and upcoming cover artist Kelsey Brookes. The art serves as a companion to poems, short stories and interviews with contributors.

MHQ has grown slowly but exponentially, adding digital issues and apps for iPhone and Android. Now Cardiel is hoping to take his jourThe Spring issue of Manor House Quarterly, nal to the next level by marketing it as widely as with a Kelsey Brookes piece on the cover possible and asking for help the best way creative folks know how—via a Kickstarter campaign. or House is a win for San Diego in my book. People “Kickstarter is a pretty good way to catapult us in the San Diego arts-and-culture community should into new markets,” Cardiel says. “We’re just trying to be interested in what we’re doing.” conceptualize what it means to be successful in print media, and that’s trying to balance your online and Story behind the art digital platforms. This is a way for us to promote.”

He’s hoping to put MHQ on more newsstands Last Saturday, The HeART of Loteria exhibition across the country and in Canada, as well as promote kicked off at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balthe digital version. The money raised through Kick- boa Park, showcasing more than 100 pieces of art by starter would go toward marketing and distribution. local artists themed on Loteria, a Bingo-like game Backers would receive a range of goodies, like popular in the Latino community.

Among them was “El Predigital copies of MHQ, a yearCatrin,” which featured the El long subscription, art prints Catrin character from the game and more. ironing his tuxedo in a rundown As of Feb. 18, the campaign apartment. It was made by tathad 17 backers and had reached too artist Anthony Amaya, about 10 percent of its $10,000 otherwise known as Tone Chgoal. But Cardiel isn’t relying ingon, who inks skin at Chula only on friends and family to Vista’s Nitti’s Tattoo Parlor. get him there. He’s hitting the The piece stood out because pavement from Feb. 27 through it provided a back-story to a March 17, making stops at the one-dimensional character so Rhode Island School of Dewidely recognized by Latinos. sign, various places in New “As I was drawing it, I was York City and the Association thinking it can be El Catrin of Writers and Writing Progetting ready to go out for the grams conference in Boston, night,” Amaya says. “Everywhere he’ll have a booth with body thinks he’s an elegant, local publishing house Cooper rich, well-groomed guy, but I Dillon Books. thought it would be cool if, in “If we can get people to realreality, he’s just an average guy ize this is an exquisite piece of trying to make it.” print media you can’t just get The idea came to Amaya, or anywhere, we’ll reach our goal,” rather his mom, as they were Cardiel says. “It’s something I “El Pre-Catrin” by Anthony Amaya having breakfast at her home. think people will gravitate to.

Those who have seen it and invest in it love what She came up with the idea for a man ironing his clothes and calling it “El Planchado,” which is Spanish we’re doing.”

Cardiel envisions MHQ reaching the same level for someone whose clothes are ironed to perfection.

That suggestion got his mind spinning with ideas. as McSweeny’s or Juxtapoz. And, not only that, he “It wasn’t totally planned out,” Amaya says. “But says; it can put San Diego on the map for literary that’s how art works.” magazines.

“Exposure is everything,” he says. “It’s just me —Alex Zaragoza right now—me with a post-graduate salary trying to Write to alexz@sdcitybeat.com do everything. My personal philosophy is that if we branch out a bit we can bring it back. A win for Man- and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

20 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

The great outdoors Werner Herzog’s new documentary is different from his others

by Anders Wright Some directors are able to breeze between feature films and documentaries, though, generally, each filmmaker is stronger in one medium than the other.

Not so with the legendary Werner Herzog, who’s been churning out films, both fictional and nonfictional, for decades.

Herzog’s take on a subject is always unique, because he usually brings a camera someplace very strange, like, say, Antarctica, Death Row or a French cave full of ancient paintings, and simply records what he sees, eventually cutting together an oddball view of a small part of the world. His films aren’t intended to locally sourced and literally farm-to-table. be definitive, which is something that fans of his work You get the idea. The Taiga is beautiful and desooften appreciate. And though they’re designed to spot- late, and these trappers, sporting beards that urban light something specific, Herzog’s documentaries are hipsters can only dream about, live harmoniously as much about his own experiences in a place as they with the vast wilderness around them, spending are about trying to present an entire picture. months preparing to go out on their own for weeks That’s what’s so odd about his latest endeavor, at a time, hoping to return with enough food to keep Happy People: A Year in the Taiga, for which he shares their families and their dogs fed. Happy People has a directing credit with Russian filmmaker Dmitry the feel of nature films you’d find on the Discovery or Vasyukov. The movie—playing for one week at the Ken National Geographic channels, except that the creaCinema starting Friday, Feb. tures on display here are of 22—follows several hunters the same species as the creaand trappers who are based tures watching the show.

Happy People: in Bakhtia, a village of 300 they live simply, A Year in the Taiga it’s Though people deep in the Siberian not as if the folks in HapDirected by Werner Herzog Taiga. In this case, Herzog py People are by any definiand Dmitry Vasyukov didn’t actually travel to the tion simple. They’re smart, Starring Werner Herzog little village, where Vasyukphilosophical and insightNot rated ov and his crew spent a year ful, even though not one of lensing the residents. them seems to have a fixedAs you might imagine, a gear bike. barely inhabited part of Siberia is a brutal place; the The cinematography is gorgeous and the subjects villagers, who live similarly to how their ancestors are fascinating, but I felt Herzog’s physical absence did, have no electricity or doctors. They have very few from the film. True, he wrote and performed the nartrappings of modern life and make by hand almost ev- ration, but the director is such a sly fox that usually, erything they use. As I watched the men make a ca- one of the most interesting facets of his films is the noe, I couldn’t help but think that I could go to REI interactions he has with the people he meets. and buy one in less time than it would take to watch It isn’t that Happy People isn’t interesting—it is— the entire film. There are other disadvantages: There’s but it’s a different experience than Herzog’s other no Facebook. The only twitter you hear is that of the recent endeavor. In this case, the filmmaking is fairly birds. There are no craft cocktails—the only drink is passive, and while the trappers speak to the camera, locally made vodka, which Herzog calls as “vicious we never see who they’re speaking to. In that way, it’s as jet fuel” in his commentary. There’s no Genius Bar more of a traditional documentary, which is someto turn to if someone in Bakhtia has an issue with an thing we never expect from Werner Herzog. iPhone. That’s OK, because there are no iPhones—in fact, no cell-phone coverage at all. And lots of mos- Write to anders@sdcitybeat.com quitoes. On the plus side, though, everything eaten is and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Sprint to the finish

Django Unchained

This year, I’ve managed to catch more Oscar-nominated films than ever before, though I have yet to see all the documentaries and foreign films. Regardless, the winners will be announced on Sunday, Feb. 24, so if you still have films to see, your time is growing short. If you really want to put yourself through the wringer, you can see all of the Best Picture nominees, start-

ing at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 23, at AMC Mission Valley.

That’s a big commitment.

There are nine nominees, after all, and this is a 24-hour marathon. It’s a pretty good deal, though—you get all nine pictures for just $60, plus the chance to brag about it to your friends.

Here’s the entire lineup: Amour at 10 a.m., Lincoln at 12:30 p.m., Argo at 3:20 p.m., Django Un-

CONTINUED ON PAGE 22 February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 21

chained at 5:35 p.m., Les Miserables at 9:30 p.m., Zero Dark Thirty at 12:30 a.m., Life of Pi at 3:20 a.m., Silver Linings Playbook at 5:40 a.m. and, wrapping things up, my dark-horse pick for Best Picture, Beasts of the Southern Wild, at 7:55 a.m. on Sunday.

Or you could do something completely different. Keith York, San Diego’s go-to guy for midcentury and modernist architecture, will co-present Coast Modern, a documentary by filmmakers Mike Bernard and Gavin Froome that travels along the West Coast from L.A. to Vancouver, exploring modernist homes along the way. The movie screens at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, at the historic La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas.

York’s the kind of guy who wears many hats, including that of a Realtor, so if you see something you like in the movie, you can certainly turn to him to get something like it closer to home.

Dark Skies: A young family, led by Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton, learn that some nasty supernatural beasties want to get their mitts on them.

—Anders Wright

Dirty Dancing: Go ahead, have the time of your life at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

Opening Bless Me, Ultima: During World War II, a young man teams up with an elderly medicine woman to sort out the problems in his small New Mexico town. Screens at the Regal Rancho Del Rey in Chula Vista.

Hansel & Gretel Get Baked: Not to be confused with the recent big-budget version of the story, in this one, Hansel and Gretel take on a witch who uses some seriously good weed to lure teens into her house, where she, you know, eats them when she gets the munchies.

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga: The new documentary co-directed by Werner Herzog looks at trappers living in a desolate part of Siberia. See our review on Page 21.

Snitch: Dwayne Johnson goes undercover for the DEA after his son is busted during a drug sting.

One Time Only The Big Chill: Great ensemble. A group of college friends, like William Hurt, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, Kevin Kline and Tom Berenger, get together for a weekend after the death of a friend. That friend, by the way, was played by Kevin Costner, whose scenes ended up on the cutting-room floor.

Screens at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20, at the Central Library, Downtown.

The Greatest Show on Earth: Circus manager Charlton Heston hires trapeze hot shot Cornel Wilde, who saves his show but might end up stealing Heston’s girlfriend, Betty Hutton, while he’s at it.

Screens at noon and 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, at Reading Cinemas Town Square

in Clairemont.

One Life: Daniel Craig provides the narration for this big-screen nature film from the folks who brought you the BBC’s Earth.

Screens at several area theaters, Thursday, Feb. 21. Visit screenvision.com for details.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The last film of the original trilogy is vastly overrated. Screens at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, at ArcLight La Jolla.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?: The Public Library’s Bette Davis series continues with this 1962 Hollywood thriller.

Screens at 2:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22, at the Central Library, Downtown.

Inside Buffalo: The San Diego Italian Film Festival presents this documentary about the Buffalo Soldiers, the all-black 92nd Army Division, which fought in Europe during World War II. Director Fred Kuwornu will be on hand for two screenings: at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park, and at noon on Saturday, Feb. 23, at the Central Library, Downtown. Find details on the MoPA event on Page 13.

Gandhi: Ben Kingsley won the Best Actor Oscar, playing the Indian leader whose nonviolent movement had an enormous impact on his nation. Screens at 7 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 23, and Tuesday, Feb. 26, at Reading Cinemas Gaslamp.

Robot and Frank: In the not-too-distant future, an aging cat burglar (Frank Langella) is assisted by the robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) originally bought to take care of him. Screens at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, at the Central Library, Downtown.

Meet Bill: Average Joe Bill (Aaron Eckhart) finds satisfaction in mentoring a teen (Logan Lerman) after his wife (Jessica Alba) starts having an affair. Screens at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25, at the Central Library, Downtown.

To Kill a Mockingbird: Gregory Peck won his Oscar playing a 1950s Southern lawyer defending a black man, seen through the eyes of his tomboy daughter. Screens at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25, at Reading Cinemas Town Square in Clairemont.

The Godfather: Part II: Coppola’s mob masterpiece marked the first time a sequel was even better than its predecessor.

Screens at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25, at ArcLight La Jolla.

Canela: This Mexican movie, about a granddaughter and grandmother and their shared love of food, is the latest in UCSD’s ArtPower! Film’s Foovie series. A meal that sounds tasty is available at 7 p.m., and the movie starts at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Feb. 27, at The Loft at UCSD. The Black Scorpion: Miguel Rodriguez,

22 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

the head honcho of Horrible Imaginings, San Diego’s horror-film fest, is curating the Public Library’s ongoing Schlockfest and presents this 1957 horror, um, classic at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. Feb. 27, at the Central Library, Downtown.

Casino Royale: Daniel Craig’s first go as James Bond rebooted the franchise in spectacular fashion. Definitely shaken, not stirred. Screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

Now Playing Oscar-nominated short documentaries: This marks the first time the short docs have been presented in San Diego before the Oscar ceremony. The five films run more than three hours total, but they’re impressive, including Inocente, which was made in San Diego. Ends Feb. 21 at the Ken Cinema.

Beautiful Creatures: After the success of Twilight, you know there are plenty of young-adult supernatural franchises to come. This one is about witches!

Escape From Planet Earth: Brendan Fraser voices Scorch, an astronaut who needs the help of his little brother (Rob Cordrry) when he lands on an inhospitable planet full of unspeakable dangers. Hint: It’s Earth.

A Good Day to Die Hard: Bruce Willis goes to Moscow, meets up with his son (Jai Courtney) and shoots a bunch of guys.

John Dies at the End: This horror comedy from Phantasm director Don Coscarelli, about two slackers trying to save the world from forces unknown, is pretty funny. Paul Giamatti shows up in a supporting role.

Safe Haven: The latest Nicholas Sparks romance stars Julianne Hough as a mysterious woman who takes up with a hunky widower (Josh Duhamel).

Spike & Mike’s Festival of Animation: Sure, they’re better known for their sickand-twisted stuff, but this 30th-anniversary family-friendly greatest-hits set of films from the past four decades has some great stuff.

Screens through March at the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla.

Identity Thief: Jason Bateman hits the road to find out who stole his identity. Not a spoiler: It’s Melissa McCarthy.

For a complete listing

of movies pla ying locally, please see “F ilm S creenings” at sdcit yb eat.com under the “E vents” tab.

H

omer Flynn works for a company called The Cryptic Corporation. His main job is to serve as a spokesperson for The Residents, an avant-garde band from San Francisco whose members maintain their anonymity. Many have long assumed that Flynn is a Resident himself, but he carefully sidesteps the suggestion in an interview with CityBeat.

“That has been mentioned on more than one occasion,” he acknowledges, before moving on to the next topic.

The Residents have been together for more than 40 years. Since the beginning, they’ve presented themselves as a faceless, nameless entity—a clearinghouse for visceral music and multimedia art. Along with videos, CD-ROMs and DVDs, they’ve put out more than 60 albums, all of which are astounding in their strangeness, featuring foreign electronic textures and freakish, pitch-bent vocals.

Some of their albums dig into the American pop canon—or parody it, as with 1976’s The Third Reich ’n Roll, a mutated medley of ’60s pop tunes. Others explore foreign, even imaginary cultures: For 1988’s glorious synth opera God in Three Persons, a man with a thick southern drawl narrates a dark tale of Siamese-twin faith healers.

In the process, they’ve constantly toyed with audiences’ expectations, often with the help of striking costumes and elaborate marketing ploys.

“If you know anything at all about The Residents, nothing ever plays itself out in a straight way,” Flynn says. “They love getting people to feel like, you know, OK, I see what’s going on here. Alright, that makes sense. And then—bam!—all of a sudden, something comes out of left field that’s totally unexpected.”

Lately, The Residents have turned their high-concept lens on themselves. For recent live shows, they’ve revealed their “real”

names: Randy, Chuck and Bob. A couple of years ago, they stripped down from a quartet to a trio, explaining that their drummer, Carlos, had retired to take care of his ailing mother in Mexico.

Of course, those almost certainly aren’t The Residents’ real names. (“The truth is always a fluid substance when it comes to The Residents,” Flynn points out, his Southern accent vaguely resembling that of God in Three Persons’ narrator.) But by revamping their image, they’ve been able to toy with the public’s idea of who The Residents really are.

And the truth is, The Residents are old.

“Santa Dog,” their debut single, came out in 1972—back when the Vietnam War was still raging. In a nod to the band’s age, Residents singer “Randy Rose” plays the part of a senile retiree, donning a ghoulish old-man mask onstage and getting cantankerous on his Tumblr page (randyresident.tumblr. com) as he chronicles stops on their current Wonder of Weird tour.

In one, he writes: “Hey Everybody! I’m getting behind here! My plan was to take a picture of every venue but then we got to NYC and I thought the club sucked so I didn’t take one. But right across the street was this weird NY buggy thing that dumb fuck tourists ride in because it gives them the romantic idea that they are someplace cool like Paris or Venice when they’re are [sic] really just sucking smog from buses and cabs.”

To be sure, even these older, grayer Residents still have their absurdist, ambitious pluck. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Santa Dog,” they’re hawking the Ultimate Box Set, a 28-cubic-foot refrigerator packed with the first editions of seemingly every Residents release (including “Santa Dog” and their fantastically warped 1974 debut album, Meet The Residents), along with one of their trademark eyeball-and-

ap hic s Po or Kn ow Gr

After 40 years, The Residents take on their most personal project yet

by Peter Holslin

g,” in 1972. t single, “Santa Do

ased their debu The Residents rele

top-hat masks.

The Ultimate Box Set costs $100,000, and they’re also selling a “secret box” for $5 million. Flynn declined to say what’s inside the box, but said the contents are “not tangible.”

“If anybody goes for that, it’s definitely a one-time deal,” he says. “There’s only one of those.”

After all these years, one might wonder why The Residents insist on keeping their identities secret. On tour, they’ve offered an oblique hint: While his bandmates conjure mercurial electronics and fuzzed-out guitar, Randy shows up onstage in a raggedy Santa Claus outfit, emphasizing The Residents’ magical nature.

Much like Saint Nick, you need to really believe in The Residents (or at least the

idea of them) to truly enjoy them. Otherwise, all you see are some old guys dressed up in costumes, passing through town like any other band.

After all these years, Flynn seems pleased that so many Residents fans have kept on believing.

“The Residents are extremely grateful to have the opportunity to still be doing this—that people are still interested, people like you still want to do interviews,” he says. “After 40 years, to find that kind of interest, to find that kind of support, you know, it’s very validating, and they’re really thankful for that.”

The Residents play at Belly Up Tavern on Tuesday, Feb. 26. residents.com

February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 23

notes from the SMOKING PATIO Nicole Espina

Locals Only After eight years, several albums and countless hipster dance parties, the reign of Jamuel Saxon has come to an end.

Frontman Keith Milgaten confirmed to CityBeat on Monday that he’s disbanded the electro-pop quartet so he can focus on his solo project, Keith Sweaty.

“I don’t have any immediate plans to reform the band,” he tells CityBeat, noting that he’s moving to New York City in April.

“As much as I’d love to play music with my friends and work on jamming with a band, it seems a little bit counterintuitive.”

Jamuel drummer Jayson Ehm says the split was amicable.

“I appreciated all the time that I had with Jamuel Saxon and all the people that came to the shows, and we’re all still very good friends,” he says.

The group last played live in October, after traveling to New York City for the CMJ Music Marathon. In the months since, Milgaten has focused on making remixes and more stripped-down, club-ready tracks.

At Keith Sweaty shows, he’s stopped wearing his trademark gypsy vest and Goofy hat, which he says felt gimmicky.

“It kind of trips me out when Mikey [Turi] from Wild Wild Wets dressed up as me for Halloween,” he says. “I wanted to see if people actually gave a shit about the music I’m making.”

Milgaten started Jamuel Saxon as a solo project around 2005, often relying on a revolving cast of musicians to serve as his backing band. Things heated up when Ehm joined as a permanent drummer in late 2010; eventually, they became a four-piece with guitarist Mike Griffin and bassist Endi Rodriguez.

With this setup, Jamuel perfected a delirious live show that incorporated trippy projections, animal masks and dayglo body paint—not to mention the occasional psychedelic substance.

Milgaten says he now wants to adopt a more lightweight approach—partly because it’s easier logistically. When he hatched plans to leave town, Ehm opted to stay in San Diego; Griffin recently moved to Los Angeles.

Though Milgaten hasn’t dismissed the possibility of a Jamuel Saxon farewell show, he seems excited to move on.

“I see it more as the beginning of what I’m going to move on to next,” he says. “Ultimately, that’s just the way that I choose to look at it, because it’s, I guess, less depressing.”

In Ears We Trust An irregular feature in which we ask local musicians about the music they’ve been digging lately.

Joshua Quon, Tar Halos: “The new My Bloody Valentine album, MBV. I got Loveless in ’92, and was hooked.

24 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

Keith Milgaten (right) with “Keith Milgaten” This new one does not disappoint. I like how stylistically it sounds like a product of the past 22 years.

They get some of the best guitar tones ever!”

Megan Liscomb, Boy King: “I’ve been listening to the new Foxygen album [We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic] a lot, especially ‘San Francisco’ and ‘Shuggie.’ I feel like I found a secret Velvet Underground record that I never knew existed.”

Derek Emery, DJ ill spectre: “The best tunes I’ve heard in the last few weeks are coming from Giraffage (aka Charlie Yin) out of the Bay Area. Yin’s latest LP, Needs, is propelled by his rich, layered beat work and anchored by some choice, pitch-shifted R&B vocal flips. Taking bits of technique from a range of electronic microgenres—future bass, trap, broken beat, electro-soul, night bus and beyond—Giraffage deftly blends it all and imbues these tracks with his own distinct vibes. Even sweeter, this excellent record is available for free at the Giraffage Soundcloud page (soundcloud.com/giraffage).”

Jon “Artoo” Sajonas, Hell.Note: “Adrian Younge / Venice Dawn is just an all-around great project, timeless sound. I feel like they capture that early ’70s sound not a lot of modern bands can capture. I’ve been following them since The Black Dynamite Sound Orchestra and everything has been a great listen. I look forward to the new project with Ghostface [Killah].”

Angel Ceballos Alia Jyawook, Alia / Hot Nerds / Tiny Telephones / Kata: “I regret to inform you that I have been listening to the new Mumford & Sons album, Babel, on vinyl. A kick drum on every quarter note, a British accent and a banjo are doing the trick for me at the moment.”

—Peter Holslin Foxygen

Write to peterh@sdcity beat.com and editor@ sdcitybeat.com.

if i were u

BY peter holslin

Wednesday, Feb. 20

Saturday, Feb. 23

PLAN A: Buke and Gase, Aleuchatistas, Array Orchestra @ The Casbah. Like a couple of post-apocalyptic troubadours, Brooklynites Buke and Gase pluck out some crusty future-folk on a couple of modified instruments—a six-string baritone ukulele called a “buke” and a mutant guitar-bass called a “gase.” While they get plenty gnarly on their irresistible new album, General Dome, member Arone Dyer’s vocals add a note of sweetness. PLAN B: Birdzilla, Grammatical B and The B-Verbs, Birdy Rae @ Tin Can Ale House. Expect some zany dance-party action at this one. Hiphopper Grammatical B gets all up in your face with low-budget beats and nasalvoiced rhymes, while Birdzilla gets goofy / sexy with Auto-Tune vocals and bumpin’, club-ready beats. BACKUP PLAN: RYAT, Rainbow Arabia, Church Hustlers, Pool Party @ Soda Bar.

PLAN A: Gary Wilson @ Bar Pink. Since first emerging in the late ’70s, local tunesmith Gary Wilson explores a lifetime’s worth of sexual neuroses with a wonderfully bizarre mix of electro-funk, soft rock and psychedelic sound collage. Joined by a curiously costumed backing band onstage, he likes to don ratty wigs and mess around with a plastic blow-up doll. PLAN B: Bonnie Raitt @ Copley Symphony Hall. Roots legend Bonnie Raitt beat out Mumford & Sons and The Lumineers and bagged a Grammy last week for her latest album, Slipstream, and rightfully so. Featuring rockers and ballads alike, the record finds her as soulful as ever. BACKUP PLAN: Chicano Batman, Black Hondo, DJs Marsellus Wallace, RSI, Beto Perez @ The Roots Factory.

Thursday, Feb. 21

PLAN A: The Night Marchers, The Intelligence, Mrs. Magician @ The Casbah. On Buke & Gase a media-only Soundcloud stream of Allez Allez, The Night Marchers’ badass new album of primal rock ’n’ roll, they give the listener some instructions: “PLAY LOUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Expect frontman John “Swami” Reis and his able-bodied bandmates to do just that tonight. PLAN B: Ramona Buke and Gase Falls, Social Studies, Inspired and The Sleep @ Kensington Club. If you’re looking to get swept away by some elaborate, whooshing indie-rock, you’ve come to the right place: Led by former Menomena member Brent Knopf, Portland’s Ramona Falls love getting big and dramatic. BACKUP PLAN: Psychic Ills, Gap Dream, Riververb @ Soda Bar.

Sunday, Feb. 24

PLAN A: Meklit Hadero w/ Quinn DeVeaux @ The Loft at UCSD. As I wrote in last week’s issue, Ethiopian-American singer Meklit Hadero is probably best known for her jazzy take on the Ethiopian folk tune “Abbay Mado.”

But she’s also recorded a lovely, soulful album with Oakland R&B singer Quinn DeVeaux, which features covers of songs by both Arcade Fire and Stevie Wonder. (Hadero also plays at The Loft on Wednesday, Feb. 20.)

PLAN B: Warm Soda, Teenage Burritos, Buddy Banter, Shiva Trash @ Soda Bar. Oakland’s Warm Soda offer an infectious, lipstick-smeared burst of punk-rock glitz and glam. On the other hand, if you’re in the mood for some ramshackle, Best Coaststyle garage-pop, don’t miss local combo Teenage Burritos. BACKUP PLAN: Electric Healing Sound, O.P.P., DJs Mnstrpsy, Monday, Feb. 25 PLAN A: Sir Sly, Bear Mountain, Man Freak Sauce @ Whistle Stop Bar. Without Country @ The Casbah. L.A.’s Sir Sly play big electro-pop, even occasionally Friday, Feb. 22 employing a burst of wobbly, dubstep-style PLAN A: Del tha Funkee Homosapien @ bass. There’ll likely be some radio-ready Porter’s Pub. Another big name from the sounds at this free show, as the trio closes Golden Age of hip-hop, Del tha Funkee Ho- out a three-Monday residency. BACKUP mosapien is a master of withering, clowning PLAN: Coheed and Cambria, Between rhymes. He takes down a smelly dude in his the Buried and Me, Russian Circles @ song “If You Must” and riffs on facial hair House of Blues. in his recent “Movember Moustache Freestyle.” PLAN B: River City, John Meeks, The Far Country @ Tin Can Ale House. Tuesday, Feb. 26 Things should be getting plenty rootsy at PLAN A: The Residents @ Belly Up Tavthis one. Country singer John Meeks has a ern. Make your way to Page 23 to read my gorgeous voice, and River City sound dark feature about this iconic experimental band, and lush, with their rough-hewn voices and who’ve made a lot of incredible (and incredibly bizarre) music in their 40-year run. layered, fiddle-topped arrangements.

February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 25

HOT! NEW! FRESH! KRS-One (Winstons, 2/22, sold out), Robert Francis (Griffin, 2/28), Free Energy (Soda Bar, 3/4), Anais Mitchell & Jefferson Harmer (Casbah, 3/14), Dengue Fever (Casbah, 3/16), Aeroplane (Voyeur, 3/17), Imagine Dragons, Atlas Genius (HOB, 3/18), Barcelona (HOB, 3/20), Pure X (The Void, 3/21), Pennywise, Anti-Flag, Death by Stereo (HOB, 3/22), Gun Outfit (Soda Bar, 4/3), Tyler, the Creator (Porter’s Pub, 4/7), Local H (Soda Bar, 4/9), GWAR, Wilson & Warbeast (HOB, 4/11), Alkaline Trio, Bayside (House of Blues, 4/26), Maps & Atlases (Soda Bar, 5/3), Blowoff w/ Bob Mould, Rich Morel (Casbah, 5/10), Acid Mothers Temple, Tjutuna (Casbah, 5/12), Tera Melos, TTNG (Casbah, 5/22), Black Pus (Soda Bar, 5/22), Your Demise, Expire (Ché Café, 5/22), !!! (Casbah, 5/29), Dave Matthews Band (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 9/6).

February Wednesday, Feb. 20 B.B. King at Belly Up Tavern (sold out).

Meklit Hadero at The Loft @ UCSD. RYAT, Rainbow Arabia at Soda Bar. Buke & Gase at The Casbah.

Thursday, Feb. 21 Meklit Hadero at The Loft @ UCSD. Warm Soda at Soda Bar. The Orwells at The Casbah.

Friday, Feb. 22 Ramon Ayala at House of Blues. Del tha Funky Homosapien at Porter’s Pub. KRS-One at Winstons (sold out).

26 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

Saturday, Feb. 23 Allah-Las at The Casbah.

Sunday, Feb. 24 Psychic Ills, Follakzoid at Soda Bar. The Night Marchers, The Intelligence at The Casbah.

Monday, Feb. 25 Coheed and Cambria at House of Blues.

Tuesday, Feb. 26 The Residents at Belly Up Tavern.

Wednesday, Feb. 27 Morrissey at Balboa Theatre. The Used at House of Blues. Califone at The Casbah.

Thursday, Feb. 28 Electric Six at The Casbah. G. Love & Special Sauce at House of Blues. Robert Francis at The Griffin.

March Friday, March 1 Redd Kross at The Casbah. The Muffs at Soda Bar.

Saturday, March 2 Kishi Bashi, Shugo Tokumaru at The Casbah.

Sunday, March 3 David Lindley at Belly Up Tavern. Starfucker, Blackbird Blackbird at Porter’s Pub.

Monday, March 4 Marcus Foster at The Casbah. Killing Joke at Brick by Brick. Free Energy at Soda Bar.

Tuesday, March 5 Gold Fields, A Silent Film, Royal Teeth at The Casbah.

Wednesday, March 6 Maserati at Soda Bar.

rCLUBSr

710 Beach Club, 710 Garnet Ave, Pacific Beach. 710bc.com. Wed: Open mic, open jam. Thu: Live band karaoke. Fri: King Schascha, Pool Party, Lion Path, Soulective. Sat: Mike Pinto, Sandollar, King Legend. Tue: Battle of the Bands, semi-finals.

98 Bottles, 2400 Kettner Blvd. Ste. 110, Little Italy. 98bottlessd.com. Fri: Duke Ellington tribute w/ Fran Hartshorn, Irving Flores, Rob Thorsen, Duncan Moore.

Air Conditioned Lounge, 4673 30th St, Normal Heights. airconditionedbar.com.

Wed: DJ Hevrock. Thu: DJ Yaser Aly. Fri: DJ Junior the DiscoPunk. Sat: ‘Juicy’ w/ Mike Czech. Sun: ‘Noise Agents’ w/ DJs Watch .44, Sunday Sauce.

American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave, Downtown. americancomedyco.com.

Wed: Zoltan Kanszas. Thu-Sun: Dov Davidoff. Tue: Open mic.

AMSDconcerts, 4650 Mansfield St, Normal Heights. amsdconcerts.com. Fri-Sat: Venice.

Bar Pink, 3829 30th St, North Park. barpink.com. Wed: Stevie and The High

Stax. Thu: Hargo. Fri: ‘Bonkers! EDM Dance Party.’ Sat: Gary Wilson. Sun: DJs Joemama, Tramlife. Tue: ‘Tiki Tuesday.’

Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave, Solana Beach. bellyup.com. Wed: B.B. King, Candye Kane Unplugged Trio (sold out).

Thu: Harsh Toke, Ninja Love, Wild Wild Wets. Fri: Leftover Salmon. Sat: Cash’d Out Johnny Cash Birthday Bash, Jonny Two Bags, Salvation Town w/ Jon Pebsworth, Jeff and Jesse. Sun: Reckless Kelly, Micky and The Motorcars. Tue: The Residents.

Blarney Stone Pub, 5617 Balboa Ave, Clairemont. 858-279-2033. Wed & Fri: The Barmen. Thu: David Dunne. Sat: The Fooks. Sun: Open mic w/ Men of Leisure.

Mon: Trivia. Tue: Irish jam, Bob Pedde.

Bluefoot Bar & Lounge, 3404 30th St, North Park. bluefootsd.com. Wed: ‘What the Frack?’ w/ DJs Francy Pants, P. Star.

Thu & Sun: VJ JK. Fri: DJ Julz. Sat: ‘The Hangtight’ w/ DJs Profile, Uncle Junie.

Tue: DJ Girl Friday.

Bourbon Street, 4612 Park Blvd, University Heights. bourbonstreetsd.com. Wed: DJ Sebastian La Madrid. Thu: MNM. Fri: DJ Konrad Parker. Sat: Wendy Ho and Dreamgirls (8 p.m.); Ryno (10 p.m.). Sun: ‘Soiree’ w/ Kiki. Tue: Open mic, karaoke.

Brass Rail, 3796 Fifth Ave, Hillcrest. thebrassrailsd.com. Thu: ‘EDM Lifestyle.’

Sat: ‘Sabados en Fuego’ w/ Jay Valdez.

Sun: Daisy Salinas, DJ Sebastian. Mon: Junior the Discopunk.

Brick by Brick, 1130 Buenos Ave, Bay Park. brickbybrick.com. Wed: SD Music TV open mic w/ Special Delivery, Cactus 5, Daniel Parker, Hilly Rubin. Fri: Daemos, Symbolic, Snap Wire, Short Fuse. Sat: Ruck N Roll Rugby Benefit.

Cafe Sevilla, 353 Fifth Ave, Downtown. cafesevilla.com. Wed: Gipsymenco. Thu:

Joef. Fri: Gipsy Fusion. Sat: Aragon y Royal. Sun: Aragon y Royal.

Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. casbahmusic.com. Wed: Buke and Gase, Aleuchatistas, Array Orchestra. Thu: The Orwells, Pangea, The New Kinetics. Fri: Ugly Boogie, Lexington Field, Zozo Fiasco, The County Fair. Sat: Allah-Las, Tomorrow’s Tulips, Barbarian, New Mexico. Sun: The Night Marchers, The Intelligence, Mrs. Magician. Mon: Sir Sly, Bear Mountain, Man Without Country. Tue: Grand Tarantula, The Royalty, North Shore.

Che Cafe, UCSD campus, La Jolla. thechecafe.blogspot.com. Fri: Tiny Moving Parts, Tough Stuff, Colossal Rex, Malon.

Sat: Bane, Cruel Hand, Minus. Sun: Blackbird Raum, Sledding With Tigers, Just Nick.

Croce’s, 802 Fifth Ave, Downtown. croces.com. Wed: Fuzzy. Thu: Gilbert Castellanos and The New Latin Jazz Quintet.

Fri: Lady Dottie and The Diamonds. Sat: Richard James, Daniel Jackson (11:30 a.m.); Gio Trio plus-1 (8:30 p.m.). Sun: Elliott Lawrence (11:30 a.m.); The Archtones (7:30 p.m.).

Dirk’s Nightclub, 7662 Broadway, Lemon Grove. dirksniteclub.com. Wed & Sun: Karaoke. Fri & Sat: Serious Guise.

Dizzy’s, 4275 Mission Bay Dr, Downtown. dizzyssandiego.com. Fri: Fred Benedetti w/ daughters Regina and Julia, Jeff Pekarek. Sat: Joshua White / Jeff Denson Project. Sun: Anthony Smith w/ Derek Cannon, Kevin Freeby, Mark Lamson, Steve Haney.

El Dorado Bar, 1030 Broadway, Downtown. eldoradobar.com. Wed: Sweet Cheeks. Thu: Ghost Beach, Bangladesh,

the hit list Guiltless partying Waking up after a night of raging, one often feels a tad unfulfilled. Other than a hangover and a stranger snoring next to you in bed, what was the point of all that? These moments of self-reflection can be complete buzzkills, but they bring up an interesting idea: If your nights out offered some intellectual stimulation, maybe you’d feel a bit better about dancing on a table. Here are some events where you can learn as hard as you party.

Engage your brain at Whistle Stop Bar (2236 Fern St. in South Park) for Makeout Weird on Thursday, Feb. 21.

This mind-melter will bring together visual art and music that straddle the line between strange and striking. Check out a live set from Tijuana’s Dancing Strangers, whose new-wave sounds take inspiration from Joy Division and The Jesus and Mary Chain. There’ll also be tunes from O.P.P., a new project from Ale Mania’s Jeremy Rojas and Ash Smith. Between sets, take a gander at a video project by Trish Stone, mixed media by Alex Arped and handcrafted jewelry by Jess Lambard.

For more visually stimulating raging, check out RAW: Natural Born Artists, an ongoing series

highlighting creative expression, also happening on Thursday. Block No. 16 (344 Seventh Ave., Downtown) will be the scene of interesting pieces by 24 emerging artists. There’ll also be a dance performance by KO Dance Co., a runway show featuring locally designed clothing and music by Curt Quinn, The Hollerin, Ed Ghost Tucker and Zophie Felina Almost Classy. It’s a night of experiencing cool, creative, local endeavors.

Finally, make your way to The Propagandist (835 Fifth Ave., Downtown) on Friday, Feb. 22, as the underground club merges art and independent music for Cobra HeArt. Large pieces of wheat-pasted Dancing Strangers plywood will be suspended from the ceiling, serving as canvases for live art by Adam Kyron Murillo, Blake Byers, Amy Baca Lopez and others. DJs will spin some funky tunes while you experience original art being formed. Your mind grapes will thank you later.

—Alex Zaragoza Write to alexz@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 28

February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 27

Camron, Steve McQueen. Fri: ‘Soul Flexin’’ w/ DJ Charlie ROck, Question. Sat: Dolla Dolla DJs, Dirty Dave.

Epicentre, 8450 Mira Mesa Blvd, Mira Mesa. epicentreconcerts.org. Fri: I, Omega, Corelia, Immoral, A Truth Betrayed, Seeker, Bearstate, Cherish Your Blessings, Fly By Night. Sat: Implants, Arson Academy, Plane Without A Pilot, Assuming We Survive, Desolace, Behind the Fallen, Burnout Kids.

F6ix, 526 F St., Downtown, Downtown. f6ixsd.com. Thu: ‘Throwback Thursdays.’

Fri: ‘Fingaz Fridayz.’ Sat: DJ XP. Sun: Brett Bodley.

Fluxx, 500 Fourth Ave, Downtown. fluxxsd.com. Thu: Cosmic Gate. Fri: DJ Jam, DJ XP. Sat: Ricky Rocks, Sid Vicious, Kyle Flesch. Tue: The Game, DJs Brett Bodley, Decon, Dynamiq, Murphi Kennedy, Lojic.

Gallagher’s, 5040 Newport Ave, Ocean Beach. 619-222-5303. Wed: Lady Dottie and The Diamonds. Thu: DJ Reefah, TRC Soundsystem. Fri: Chi Club, DJ RM, DJ Sammi B. Sat: Brian Jordan Band, DJ Chelu. Sun: The Hips. Tue: Brett Walling.

Griffin, 1310 Moreno Blvd, Bay Park. thegriffinsd.com. Wed: Cobalt Cranes. Thu: Mostly Sunny, Privet, DA J, Julia Stine.

Fri: Sounddrug, Chris Hopkins. Sat: Mimi Zulu, Pink BoomBox Burlesque, Brothers Burns, Sunday Hustle. Sun: Stix N Stones, Addicts and Liars. Tue: Oliver Trolley, Shining Through, Chasing Claymores.

Hard Rock Hotel, 207 Fifth Ave, Downtown. hardrockhotelsd.com. Thu: Electronica’s Masque Rave. Thu: Low Volts, Dirty Sirens (Maryjane’s Underground). Fri: DJ Loczi, Slowhand (207), Kevin Brown, Huy Believe (Float). Sat: Mike Carbonell, DJ Kaos (207), DJ FreshOne, DJ FishFonics (Float). Sun: Sid Vicious, DJ Kurch (207).

House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave, Downtown. houseofblues.com/sandiego. Fri: Ramon Ayala. Sun: All Access. Mon: Coheed and Cambria, Between the Buried and Me, Russian Circles.

Ivy @ Andaz, 600 F St, Downtown. ivyentertainmentsandiego.com. Thu: Tristan D, IDeal, Kevin Brown, Angle, Damian Wolf, Raul IROK Rios, Scott Saunders, Animal Riot, Toma. Fri: Angle, Caliparis, Dynamiq, Decon, Este, Mr. Nice Guy, Murphi Kennedy. Sat: Zhaldee, DJ Who, Este, Ayla Simone, Slowhand.

Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. kavalounge.com. Thu: Piso Mojado, DiBo, Chris Renzulli, Jesse LaDue. Fri: ‘Freak Bizarre’ w/ Ubiquitous, Mikey Lion, Pork Chop, Jalen. Sat: ‘Aqua Boogie’ w/ DJs Blackass, Knottyboy, Chad Fortin, Nasty Neil. Sun: Envisionaires Gathering.

Kensington Club, 4079 Adams Ave, Kensington. 619-284-2848. Sat: The Love Lashes, Pharmacy, My Revenge. Sun: Ramona Falls, Social Studies, Inspired and The Sleep. Sun: Ramona Falls, Social Studies.

Mon: The Lights Out Comedy Show.

La Gran Tapa, 611 B St, Downtown. lagrantapa.com. Wed: Agave Guys, Carlos and Freddie. Thu: Carlos Velasco, Dusty Brough. Fri: Juan Moro, flamenco.

Sat: Pan Am, Latin Magic. Sun: Carlos Velasco. Tue: Tomcat Courtney.

Lestat’s Coffee House, 3343 Adams Ave, Normal Heights. lestats.com. Wed: Christine Parker, Russell Howard. Thu: A Mayfield Affair, Woolly Mammal. Fri: Aaron Bowen, Civil People, Okapi Sun. Sat: Cleo Antonelli, Rodellos Machine, The Plastic Arts. Sun: The Robin Henkel Band.

Loft @ UCSD, Price Center East, La Jolla. theloft.ucsd.edu. Wed & Thu: Meklit Hadero. Fri: Sybarite5.

Mc P’s Irish Pub, 1107 Orange Ave, Coronado. mcpspub.com. Wed: Jackson and Jesus. Thu: Harmony Road. Fri: Mys-

28 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

tique. Sat: Manic Bros.

Numbers, 3811 Park Blvd, Hillcrest. numberssd.com. Thu: DJ Angel X. Fri: ‘Viernes Calientes’. Sat: ‘Club Sabbat’ w/ Robin Roth.

Office, 3936 30th St, North Park. officebarinc.com. Wed: ‘Club 1979’ w/ Lyon Crowns, DJs Boys Don’t Disco, Pablo Stanley, J40. Thu: DJs Ikah Love, Adam Salter. Fri: Adam Salter, Huge Euge. Sat: DJs EdRoc, Kanye Asada. Sun: Uptown Top Ranking w/ Tribe of Kings. Mon: Rashi, Eddie Turbo. Tue: ‘The Void’ w/ Colour Vision.

Patricks II, 428 F St, Downtown. patricksii.com. Wed: 145th Street. Thu: DD and The Down Beats. Fri: Bill Magee Blues Band. Sat: Mystique Element of Soul.

Sun: Len Rainey’s Midnight Players. Mon: Troy Netter and The Cadillacs. Tue: Walter’s Chicken Jam.

Spin, 2028 Hancock St, Midtown. spinnightclub.com. Sun: Shotta Crew, Wreckin Krew, Fayah Heart.

Stage Bar & Grill, 762 Fifth Ave, Downtown. stagesaloon.com. Wed: Bl3ndr, Mark Fisher/Gaslamp Guitars. Thu: Dubstep DJs, Van Roth. Fri: Royal Heart, H.O.D., The Disco Pimps. Sat: Fingerbang, DJ Miss Dust. Mon: Reggae, Chrome. Tue: DJ Von Kiss, DJ Kahn Artest.

The Flame, 3780 Park Blvd, Hillcrest. flamesandiego.com. Fri: ‘Therapy’; ‘Darkwave Garden’. Sat: ‘Deeply Rooted.’

The Void, 3519 El Cajon Blvd, North Park. tinyurl.com/axnjs56. Wed: Strangers Family Band, Matt J Tow, The Phantoms. Sat: Black Marble, Heaven, Dreamboys, DJs Jonathan Weinberg, Mario Orduno.

Porter’s Pub, 9500 Gilman Dr., UCSD campus, La Jolla. porterspub.net. Thu: Moniker and VHS. Fri: Del tha Funkee Homosapien.

Tiki House, 1152 Garnet Ave, Pacific Beach. tikipb.com. Wed: Pete Kenden, Tommy Adrews, Matt LaKnot. Thu: Kayla Hope. Fri: Jet Pack Mojo - PB Middle School Fundraiser. Sat: The Fab Lushes. Sun: Open mic w/ Tim. Tue: Sweet Dreams.

Quality Social , 789 6th Ave, Downtown. qualitysocial.com. Fri: DJs Gabe Vega, Brady Spear, Kimbo. Sat: DJ Junior the Discopunk.

Til-Two Club, 4746 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. tiltwoclub.com. Thu: DJ Roger Lane, Captain Blackie. Fri: Miki Vale, niomiesoulfly. Mon: Karaoke. Tue: Comedy.

Queen Bee’s, 3925 Ohio St, North Park. queenbeessd.com. Thu: Real Things are Good, Tiffany Jane and The Kicks, From Chaos and Heaven, Brooke Nicole Telarico, Joshua Taylor, Days to Change.

Tin Can Ale House, 1863 Fifth Ave, Bankers Hill. thetincan1.wordpress.com. Wed: Birdzilla, Grammatical B, Birdy Rae. Thu: Mrs. Henry, Leanna May and The Matadors. Fri: River City, John Meeks, The Far Country. Sat: Mystery Cave, Seven Saturdays, Balloons. Mon: Tin Can Country Club w/ Blaze Eisner. Tue: The Dood’s Dinner Jam Band.

Rich’s, 1051 University Ave, Hillcrest. richssandiego.com. Wed: ‘Mischief’ w/ Bianca, DJ John Joseph. Thu: ‘Ladies Night.’ Fri: DJs dirty KURTY, Will Z. Sat: DJ Taj, Nikno. Sun: DJs Marcel, Johntastik.

Riviera Supper Club, 7777 University Ave, La Mesa. rivierasupperclub.com.

Wed: Kice Simko and Friends. Thu: Madford. Fri: High Rolling Loners. Sat: Bloody Mary Bastards.

Ruby Room, 1271 University Ave, Hillcrest. rubyroomsd.com. Thu: Gajit, CA$, Maine1, Illestrai. Fri: ‘Cuties for a Cause’ w/ The Amalgamated, 2,000 Tons of TNT, Donna de Muerta and Lilly Holiday. Sat: DJ Matt Consola. Sun: ‘Killer Chords’ w/ Mad Traffic, Thea Tochihara, Kiss and Yell.

Tue: God-Des, Tori Roze and The Hot Mess, The Lyrical Groove, Miki Vale.

Seven Grand, 3054 University Ave, North Park. sevengrandbars.com/sd. Wed: Gilbert Castellanos Jazz Jam. Thu: Ian Tordella Trio. Fri: John Reynolds Band.

Sat: Soul Organization.

Shakedown Bar, 3048 Midway Drive, Point Loma. theshakedownsd.com. Fri: Jason Cruz and The Howl. Sat: SK8 and BBQ w/ Duante Peters Gunfight, Angry Samoans, Dime Runner, PSO and the Code 7s.

Side Bar, 536 Market St, Downtown. sidebarsd.com. Fri: DJ Kurch. Sat: Joey Jimenez.

Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. sodabarmusic.com. Wed: RYAT, Rainbow Arabia, Church Hustlers, Pool Party. Thu: Warm Soda, Teenage Burritos, Buddy Banter, Shiva Trash. Fri: Takahashi, The Beautiful View, The Yawmen, Shark Blood. Sat: The Gore Horsemen, Black Market III, Hard Fall Hearts. Sun: Psychic Ills, Gap Dream, Riververb. Mon: Scott Mathiasen and The Shifty-Eyed Dogs, Jerry Olea and The 805 Drifters, The Peripherals. Tue: OBN Ills, Pass the Axe, Birthday Suits.

SOMA, 3350 Sports Arena Blvd, Midway. somasandiego.com. Fri: Scarlett Avenue (CD release), I Am the Conqueror, Ramona’s Flowers, Save the Bear, Parliament of Owls, Zip Zap. Sat: The Midas Touch, Wither Arcane, Unicorn Death, Morphesia, School of Rock.

Tio Leo’s, 5302 Napa St, Bay Park. tioleos.com. Wed: The Swamp Critters. Thu: Chet and The Committee. Fri: The Red Elvises. Sat: Revenge Deathball, Three Prong. Sun: Salsa.

Tower Bar, 4757 University Ave, City Heights. thetowerbar.com. Wed: DJ Mikey Ratt. Thu: Doug Benson. Fri: Tim Raldo and The Filthy Fuks, Systematic Abuse, Blood Stained Reality, Dirtbag, D.E.A. Sat: Day Show w/ Wha?, The Pheasants; Sunnyside, Pretty Boy Thorson, Girl-Illa Biscuits, Totes Brevs. Sun: California Bleeding, Reptilian Shapeshifters, Monochromacy, Chief. Mon: Pyrate Punx DJs. Turquoise, 873 Turquoise St, Pacific Beach. theturquoise.com/wordpress. Wed: Tomcat Courtney. Fri: Afro Jazziacs, Tomcat Courtney. Fri: Afro Jazziacs. Sat: Peligroso Caramelo, Tomcat Courtney. Sun: Sounds Like Four, Middle Earth. Mon: Ibrahim Senegal, Trio Neo. Tue: Ibrahim Senegal, Afro Jazziacs.

U-31, 3112 University Ave, North Park. u31bar.com. Fri: DJ Artistic, Cros1, Felt1, Hektik. Sat: Saul Q, Kid Wonder. Sun: Rasta Nation Reggae Night. Mon: DJ Groundfloor, Maine1. Tue: Karaoke.

Voyeur, 755 Fifth Ave, Downtown. voyeursd.com. Fri: Blende. Sat: Popeska.

Voz Alta, 1754 National Ave, Barrio Logan. vozaltaprojectgallery.com. Thu: Bill Caballero.

Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, South Park. whistlestopbar.com. Wed: ‘Vinyl Snobs.’

Fri: Midnight Rivals, Shake Before Us, Fam Royal DJs. Sat: ‘Booty Bassment’ w/ DJs Dimitri, Rob. Tue: ‘Friends Chill.’

Winstons, 1921 Bacon St, Ocean Beach. winstonsob.com. Wed: Open mic w/ Jefferson Jay (6 p.m.); Maka, I-Sight Band, DJ Carlos Culture (9:30 p.m.). Thu: O.B. Comedy Competition (6 p.m.); Brothers Gow (9:30 p.m.). Fri: O.B. Comedy (6 p.m.); KRS-One (9:30 p.m.). Sat: The Styletones. Sun: ‘O.B.-o-ke’ w/ Jose Sinatra. Mon: Electric Waste Band. Tue: Battle of the Bands Round 2.

February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 29

Ink Well Xwords by Ben Tausig

Across 1. Grass or snow, e.g.

5. Isle of Napoleon’s exile 9. Not in bottles 14. Representation 16. Yogurt-based Indian stew 17. Department of urology?

19. Org. that permits Pete Weber’s postroll “crotch chop” 20. Action film in which Hans Gruber quotes Plutarch 21. Jazz singer Carmen 24. Maj. with credits for studying credit 26. Michele on Broadway 27. 99% of the toys baby Julius owns, e.g.?

31. Drink gingerly 32. Funk style 33. In order (to) 36. Woody Allen’s whole thing?

41. Years in Latin class 42. ___ Claire, Wisconsin 43. Hefty reference: Abbr.

45. Total jerk lawn care guy?

50. Manti who got awfully defensive when asked if he was gay 53. Acts like a little bitch, perhaps 54. Helps someone get their battery going?

55. Bit out of a book 58. TV show that Gerald Ford was the first president to appear on 59. Meager cream cheese portion?

65. Jazz crooner Mel 66. Magazine that started Occupy Wall Street 67. “___ the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you”: Hamlet 68. It’s white and innocent 69. Big name in unhealthy quarts

13. Mei Xiang or Tian Tian of the National Zoo 15. Like ears 18. Sommelier’s suggestion 21. They’re on the mic 22. Good dishes 23. Turn yellow, as a banana 24. Shade near nude 25. Formed sides, as for teams 28. CA airport with a See’s Candies store 29. New Orleans hrs., during the Super Bowl 30. Ornamental Japanese fish 34. “Share ___ and a song” 35. What Obama was shooting in that one picture 37. Needle workers?: Abbr.

38. London’s Old ___ theatre 39. They may result in RBIs 40. “Star Wars” race 44. Residents, e.g., briefly 46. Big talk 47. Kind of heart valve 48. Goes on after getting fed up 49. Remove by cutting 50. Checks 51. Common action movie protagonist 52. Autumn clothing color 56. She plays Hermione 57. Stink to high heaven 58. Part torn from a paycheck 60. Smartphone, somewhat outdatedly 61. Deep Blue corp.

62. Homer’s frenemy 63. Ejaculate 64. Shit starter?

Proud sponsor:

Down 1. MLB injured reserves, briefly 2. Tape deck abbr.

3. “Oh gawwwd” 4. Certain arm candy, in tabloids 5. It dwarfs Vesuvius 6. Good thing to break, in a saying 7. Song parodied by “Fat” 8. Developer chemical, in photography 9. Pejorative for a certain farmer, once 10. Quick bite 11. Error partner 12. Venetian love Two $20 gift certificates to Mitch’s Seafood will be awarded weekly.

Email a picture of your answers to crossword@sdcitybeat.com or fax it to 619-325-1393.

30 · San Diego CityBeat · February 20, 2013

February 20, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 31