San Diego CityBeat • Feb 22, 2017

2 · San Diego CityBeat · february 22, 2017

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February 22, 2017 · San Diego CityBeat · 3

UP FRONT | FROM THE EDITOR

With us...

T

here were many lessons to take away from the San Diego Women’s March back in January.

These lessons were not lost on City Councilmember Chris Ward (District 3), who last week formally announced a proposal for a San Diego Equal Pay Ordinance. The ordinance, if passed, would require that any contractor with a city contract certify that they are providing equal pay based on gender and ethnicity. What’s more, it will better protect workers and whistleblowers who wish to discuss pay without fear of retribution.

“This idea was actually first mentioned to me by a District Three constituent while campaigning, and it seemed like such an obvious policy proposal given San Diego’s longstanding commitment to aggressively push for worker protections,” said Ward in an email to CityBeat. “I was already exploring what the process and form of an Equal Pay Ordinance might look like before the Women’s March, but the energy and passion on display that day really drove home to me that this goes beyond important policy to be an important signal of our civic values.”

Similar to San Francisco’s Equal Benefits Ordinance, Ward says his proposal would “codify specific penalties for violators” in order that “the cost of violations would be far more significant than consciously failing to meet our ordinance.” He also adds that he does not expect that the city would not need to hire any more Contract Compliance Officers in order to enforce the ordinance.

Recent research by the Center on Policy Initiatives found that women in San Diego are paid 72 cents to every dollar that men are paid, which is even greater than the statewide pay gap. That alone should startle readers enough to voice their support for Ward’s proposal. Both State Senator Toni Atkins and Assemblymember Todd Gloria have endorsed Ward’s proposal, and while it would only apply to contracted city employees, it’s a progressively great start in getting the city in line with other cities’ worker protection laws.

… And against us Our local representatives in Congress get more breaks and time off from Capitol business than they know what to do with. To be fair though, this time is supposed to be used to fly back to their home districts

to hear from their constituents. And while they’re certainly not obligated to do this—and we’ll kindly overlook a golf trip here and a spa trip there—it would be nice to hear from all five of our congressional representatives during the first “district work period” recess since the inauguration, right?

And yet here we are and of the five, only Susan Davis (D-53rd) and Scott Peters (D-52nd) have committed to doing town hall forums. These types of events have made a lot of headlines lately thanks to constituents showing up and blasting and booing their local congressional rep. Admittedly, most of these reps have been Republicans, but we have to say we’re at least impressed with the fact that representatives like Steve Knight and Tom McClintock are showing up to face the music, even if the latter had to be escorted out by police.

So where are Duncan Hunter (R50th), Darrell Issa (R-49th) and Juan Vargas (D-51st)? Well, they’re not doing any public town halls. Can’t say that we blame them when a recent Union-Tribune article pointed out that these kinds of town halls can be a “lose-lose” for both participants. But what Issa, and to a lesser extent Hunter, don’t seem to realize is that they are in real danger of being bounced in 2018. Issa barely won reelection in November and his district is looking increasing purple these days. Hunter’s district, which bleeds into parts of Alpine and Escondido, is still reliably red, but he faces his own ethics issues and an ever-increasingly list of misappropriation of campaign funds.

And while Issa did address protestors at an impromptu appearance at his Vista office as this issue went to press, organized town halls are important for a democracy to thrive. For the representatives, showing up to talk to constituents, even the ones who vehemently disagree with their policies, can go a long way. For the constituents, it allows them to voice their concerns in hopes that something, anything, might resonate.

That’s why we created a series of flyers for the three San Diego reps who couldn’t bother to show up this week (they can be downloaded on the CityBeat website). It includes their phone numbers, and we highly encourage readers to post them anywhere they’re legally allowed to. What’s more, call or fax the numbers and let them know that they’re supposed to be using this time to hear from you.

—Seth Combs

Write to seth.combs@sdcitybeat.com

This issue of CityBeat is dedicated to Simon & Schuster who are seemingly cool with neo-Nazi propaganda, but draw the line at pedophilia.

Volume 15 • Issue 30 EDITOR Seth Combs MUSIC EDITOR Jeff Terich WEB EDITOR Ryan Bradford ART DIRECTOR Carolyn Ramos ASSOCIATE EDITOR Torrey Bailey COLUMNISTS Aaryn Belfer Edwin Decker Minda Honey John R. Lamb Alex Zaragoza

CONTRIBUTORS Matthew Baldwin, David L. Coddon, Beth Demmon, Andrew Dyer, Tiffany Fox, Michael A. Gardiner, Glenn Heath Jr., Lara McCaffrey, Scott McDonald, Sebastian Montes, Jenny Montgomery, Kinsee Morlan, Jordan Packer, Jim Ruland, Ben Salmon, Jen Van Tieghem, Amy Wallen EDITORIAL INTERNS Jamie Ballard, Sofia Mejias-Pascoe, Nicole Sazegar

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Jason Noble ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Beau Odom Mark Schreiber Jenny Tormey ACCOUNTING Kacie Cobian, Sharon Huie Linda Lam HUMAN RESOURCES Andrea Baker VICE PRESIDENT OF FINANCE Kacie Sturek

PRODUCTION MANAGER Tristan Whitehouse

VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS David Comden

MULTIMEDIA ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Paulina Porter-Tapia

PUBLISHER Kevin Hellman

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4 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · FEBRUARY 22, 2017

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UP FRONT | LETTERS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE ART SCENE IS THRIVING

UP FRONT From the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Letters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Spin Cycle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sordid Tales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

There She Goz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4 5 6 7 8 9

FOOD & DRINK The World Fare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Dishing It Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 The Beerdist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

THINGS TO DO The Short List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Calendar of Events. . . . . . . . . 13-14

ARTS & CULTURE Theater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 FEATURE: Statue of Responsibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Seen Local. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Film. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25-26

MUSIC FEATURE: Suicidal Tendencies. 27 If I Were U. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Concerts & Clubs. . . . . . . . . . 30-33

LAST WORDS Advice Goddess. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

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Hi Seth, I liked your article in CityBeat [“Q: What Does San Diego’s Art Scene Need to Thrive?,” Feb. 17]. I was going to go to the discussion but the reservations were full. I have been sculpting for about 14 years and lived in San Diego for the last 20. The first seven years I never sold a single piece. Then within two years I found myself in seven galleries across the U.S., a bunch of magazine articles, museums, etc. So far I have been in galleries in 13 different cities and exhibited in many more. Looking back on the ride, it has been a rocky road. There are actually many wellknown, successful artists in the region. They just weren’t at the meeting.

I think people were asking the wrong questions. The scene is thriving. I am the head of a sculpture group in So-Cal and we have over 60 members from L.A. to Baja. We are a community and there are a lot of communities like this around San Diego.

Mark Edward Adams

Carmel Valley

WHALE WATCHING

I am not a good writer myself so I envy others who are excellent! Aaryn Belfer’s column, “We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For” [Feb. 15], was right on! Analogy to Germanwings Flight 9525 was something I’ll never forget as an apt pictorial of our times. Periodically, myself, I think of Melville’s fictional Captain Ahab obsessed with sailing the “Pequod” to the crew’s demise in search of the great white whale.

Douglas Miller Downtown

WE WANT FEEDBACK

Email letters to editor Seth Combs at seth.combs@sdcitybeat.com, or mail to 3047 University Ave., Suite 202, San Diego, CA 92104.

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FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 5

PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL GARNER

UP FRONT | NEWS

Sick and tired After being exposed to dangerous levels of Fukushima radiation, local servicemembers say they can’t get the help they need

By Torrey Bailey

R

“

ight now, I know I have problems, but I’m afraid of actually finding out how bad they really are,” said William Zeller, a 33-year-old active-duty Navy servicemember living in San Diego. He’s one of the 4,500 sailors who were aboard the USS Ronald Reagan during Operation Tomodachi, a humanitarian aid mission sent to Japan the day after a tsunami triggered the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown.

“I know there’s something wrong,” Zeller said. “I’ve got many other people around me telling me I don’t look good, and I need to get checked out. While I am a workaholic, it’s a distraction.”

Zeller is only one of 318 sailors (and counting) who have joined a billion-dollar class action lawsuit filed in 2012 against the nuclear generators’ operating company, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, for injuries allegedly caused by radiation exposure.

The lawsuit argues TEPCO is financially responsible for the sailors’ medical care because the operating company, admittedly, did not inform the Japanese government of the meltdown. In turn, the Japanese government unknowingly misinformed the U.S. Navy of potential dangers of anchoring off the coast of Japan where the ship was engulfed in a plume of radiation for several hours.

“Everywhere we went we had to carry [gas masks] on our hips,” Zeller said. “We were turning on news networks, and we could see how we were right in the plume. You could taste the metallic air.”

In the six years since Fukushima, Zeller has only sought medical attention from the Navy since the care is financially covered.

“The military health system is a process, putting it politely,” he said, explaining how it took four years to learn he had abnormal bone growth, nerve damage and what he believes is irritable bowel syndrome, all of which began a year after Operation Tomodachi. His weight fluctuates 20 to 30 pounds within a month, and he’s unendingly fatigued.

“Before I went [on the USS Ronald Reagan], I used to be a martial arts instructor,” he said. “I used to go on regular bike rides. I hiked. I was in very good shape. Now, I wear a breathing machine when I go to sleep because I have respiratory problems. I literally just go to work and go home now.

I don’t have the energy or the pain threshold to deal with anything else.”

6 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · FEBRUARY 22, 2017

Navy servicemember seeks treatment for alleged radiation poisoning following Operation Tomodachi.

Considering the Veterans Association’s inability to treat members in a timely or efficient manner, Zeller’s lawyer, Paul Garner, said VA care is not an option. Instead, they’re hopeful that a fund set up by former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will come to fruition.

Koizumi announced the creation of the fund while visiting 10 affected sailors, including Zeller, in San Diego in May. Koizumi said he expects to raise $2 million by a March 31 cutoff date. The plan is to then transfer the money to the U.S. to supplement the sailor’s medical bills at, according to Garner, some of the best care centers across the country.

However, Garner knows $2 million won’t be enough to cover every need, especially since some sailors have reported symptoms appearing in their children who were born after Operation Tomodachi.

“I have no idea if it’s caused by the radiation that I was exposed to on the Reagan, but I don’t know that it’s not,” said Jason F., who was also on board the USS Ronald Reagan but didn’t want to share his last name while he’s still active duty.

His breathing is audible over the phone, as if climbing several sets of stairs, but he’s tucking his three-year-old daughter into bed at their San Diego home.

“That’s standard breathing for me,” he said. “I don’t know what to do about it. She has difficulty breathing too,” he said of his daughter, who was born in 2013. “She snores like a grown man.”

Jason is 36 years old, in shape, never smoked a day in his life and didn’t have trouble breathing until after his time on the USS Ronald Reagan. His respiratory difficulties have aggrandized since 2011, peaking during a 2016 deployment where the doctors told him the contrasting temperatures were to blame and gave him an inhaler to puff on. It took a formal request to fly him off the ship to receive medical treatment in Bahrain, where he was told he had a 60 percent chance of tuberculosis and a 40 percent chance of lung cancer. He has since been diagnosed with asthma by an outside specialist, although the treatments aren’t working.

“It’s difficult for them to figure out,” Jason said. “I mean, how many patients have they had that are exposed to radiation? And are they trained for that?”

When Zeller mentioned radiation exposure to doctors at the Navy, he said he was told it was interesting, if acknowledged at all.

Lung cancer is one of several cancers associated with high radiation exposure, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission website, as well as leukemia, which several sailors have been diagnosed with. Bloody noses, rectal and gynecological bleeding, weakness and ulcers, are also symptoms reported by the sailors and are signs of radiation poisoning, according to the Scripps Health website.

In 2014, the Department of WIKICOMMONS Defense published a report acknowledging that radiation exposure can cause such medical issues, but that the exposure levels were too low and the symptoms appeared too soon to make a connection.

While Zeller and Jason hope for financial support either from Koizumi’s fund or by winning the lawsuit, they want support for the others affected.

“I’m experiencing sympUSS Ronald Reagan toms, but it’s not just for me,” Zeller said. “It’s for the individuals who are way worse than me and to bring attention to them… They have tumors, cancers, birth defects in their children, some individuals have mass muscle fatigue where their entire half of their body isn’t functional anymore, and they are stuck in wheelchairs.

I am currently on the better end.”

The sailors are waiting for a decision from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals determining whether the lawsuit will continue in the United States or in Japan, if at all.

In January, TEPCO urged the court to dismiss the case, citing that it is a political matter that could impact international relations.

Jason said the lawsuit is about more than money, specifically when it comes to his daughter’s future.

“I just want accountability,” he said. “I want her taken care of. Whatever that takes.”

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UP FRONT | OPINION

SPIN

CYCLE

JOHN R. LAMB

Giving the finger to public comment Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

—Salman Rushdie

O

h sure, they’re occasionally loud, periodically redundant, sometimes meandering in their messaging. But do the actions of a boisterous handful of frequent speakers at San Diego City Council meetings represent “a subversion of the intent” of California’s open-meetings law?

Councilmember Scott Sherman seems to think so and has made it a top priority for 2017 to rid city airwaves of their images. Not their words, mind you dear reader, just the visuals.

Welcome to the grab-bag, hopscotch world of “non-agenda public comment,” a field of endeavor common among legislative gatherings where the public is legally entitled to attend. Over the years,

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leaders within the city of San Diego have wrestled with the value and importance of the non-agenda public comment portion of meetings, trimming it from three to two minutes per speaker and even arguing that it should occur only once during two-day City Council sessions because it’s technically one consolidated meeting.

Craig Sherman, a local attorney not related to the Republican councilmember, filed suit against the city in 2014 over the latter interpretation, prompting the City Council to revise a 13-year practice of allowing non-agenda public comment only on Tuesdays by adding a Monday comment period.

Attorney Sherman looks at Councilmember Sherman’s latest idea and sounds like someone ready to slip on the gloves and reenter the ring. “Sherman seems to be gunning after people who are

critical of City Council action or inaction,” he wrote Spin in an email.

“This is exactly what the Brown Act is supposed to provide—comment from people who do not have access to councilmembers (through special interest or lobbyists) who have to air their comments at a nonagenda public comment session.”

So what exactly is Councilmember Sherman proposing? Let’s read it directly from his Jan. 13 memo laying out his 2017 priorities for the council’s influential Rules Committee. At the top of Sherman’s list is this: “The Brown Act requires nonagenda public comment be held every meeting of the legislative body. The City of San Diego typically has the same ten individuals speaking on the same topic each meeting. This usage of non-agenda public comment is a subversion of the intent of the legislation. I would request a review of requirements for non-agenda public comment, including but not limited to the ability to only provide audio of the comments.”

By way of translation, allow Spin to take a crack: The same people approach the City Council with the same issues that never get resolved, ergo we should cut their video feed at meetings. Missing anything there?

SAN DIEGO CITY COUNCIL WEBCAST

San Diego Councilmember Scott Sherman blames images like this for his audio-ony public coment proposal.

Spin caught up with Councilmember Sherman last week as he emerged from an Audit Committee meeting at City Hall. Asked about his proposed limitations, he replied, “It’s not limiting. It’s changing some of the ways we do things. My biggest thing is I don’t want staff to be sitting around, waiting to do their presentations while we go through non-agenda public comment, especially when it’s usually the same 13 people.”

He said in the years he’s spent on the council, he could recall only once acting on anything resulting from non-agenda public comment.

The goal of his proposal, he said, is “just to make sure it’s not the same 12 people saying the same thing every time they show up.”

So to review, there are anywhere from 10 to 13 citizens who are consistent in their grievances, and this, says the councilmember, needs to be curtailed. And not showing their images on CityTV 24 or in webcasts will solve this?

“Unfortunately, there are a few people who like to come down because it’s televised,” Councilmember Sherman explained. “They go home and watch themselves.”

Spin isn’t quite sure how he knows this, but then the councilmember gets to the actual kernel of his argument when comment content is mentioned: “You can bring a PowerPoint and then it comes up and you’ll see obscene gestures and those kinds of things, and I don’t really want that going out over public television. Check out yesterday’s.”

Sure enough, last Tuesday represented a watershed moment in local political-comment theater when a frequent council speaker devoted his two minutes to a video loop of a gentleman brandishing double middle fingers to the camera while proclaiming, “Go show that to the City Council!”

It repeated 25 times before being abruptly cut off.

The speaker was Bob Kuczewski, founder of the Torrey Hawks, a hang-gliding enthusiasts club.

For a decade, Kuczewski has documented his rocky relationship with operators of the Torrey Pines Gliderport while urging city leaders to create some oversight for the prime cliff-side location that is actually a city park.

A software developer by trade with degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering, Kuczewski recently set up a website, sandiegocitywatch.org, as a kind of clearinghouse for local public commentary, including a slew of his non-agenda appearances, which typically include video snippets from his not-so-pleasant encounters with Gliderport employees.

“I try to show everything, not just the finger,” he recently explained. “When I started out I was very pleasant. But this is 10 years of me going down to the city. It’s $20 parking, half my day, and I’ve gotten nothing out of the council in all that time. This is the easiest problem they have—just create an advisory board.”

After his council representative, Sherri Lightner, refused to meet with him during her two terms, he’s more hopeful now that he’s already talked to her successor, Barbara Bry. But Sherman’s proposal still irks him: “They’re trying to shut me up, trying to keep the public from what I’m seeing.”

At the most recent Rules Committee meeting, where the priorities were discussed, speakers railed against Sherman’s proposal as “appalling” and “reprehensible.”

Activist attorney Cory Briggs, licking his chops should Sherman’s proposal be approved, said the councilmember “gets paid to sit there and listen to it. How much staff time do we waste making it John Lamb Day? How come that’s more important than actually hearing people’s grievances about how the government’s being run?”

Amen.

Spin Cycle appears every week.

Write to johnl@sdcitybeat.com.

FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 7

UP FRONT | OPINION

EDWIN DECKER

SORDID

TALES

The long-awaited vindication of a vulgar mofo

A

t last, at last, vindicated at last. Can you imagine my delight when I recently learned that, according to a variety of studies, people who regularly use profanity have a higher level of intelligence and integrity than those who do not?

I remember the first time I used a bona fide curseword. I’m not talking about kiddie cussing like “fartknocker” and “booger-eater.” I’m talking about adult curse words, like those on FCC’s list of banned words for TV including, in this case, the S-word.

I was around nine years old, on the school bus with some friends who were blubbering about the arrival of Escape from the Planet of the Apes, the third installment of the Apes film series.

“Don’t bother,” I told them. “It’s a piece of . . .” you know what.

I remember how it felt to say that word—so naughty but ever so gratifying—like how you feel after you inhale a pint of ice cream or visit a website that specializes in hermaphroditic midget porn.

See, Escape was not a, “pile of garbage” nor was it a “hunk of junk.” These descriptions did not adequately convey the contempt I felt for that film, so held because, well—it didn’t have any fartknocking apes in it! The first two films were loaded with ‘em— hundreds of apes walking around with their funky ape hunches making all their scrunchy ape faces. However Escape was set on present day Earth and featured only two actors in ape costumes!

Now I ask, what kind of boogereating monkey movie only got two fartknocking monkeys in it?

So, at the age of nine, I uttered my first curse. And criminy did the butt-slurping floodgates open! Turns out the S-word is a gateway curseword because shortly after came the F-word, the C-word, the MFing-word, the CSer-word, D-word, P-word, B-word and all the rest until, in almost no time, I became Tanner Boyle, the scowling, cursing, middle-finger-flinging, blonde smartass from the original Bad News Bears movie.

Today, profanity rolls off my tongue as readily as flatulence from Donald Trump’s Twitter feed. Of course, I’m not oblivious to my surroundings. If I stub my toe in church I’m not going to howl out the S-, F-, C-, MFing-, CSer-, P-, D- and B-word combo in front of The Virgin’s virgin ears. However, I might say it after a dinner party, if the valet loses my car keys.

For the record, I’m not talking about bigoted slurs, but rather, what we typically refer to as four-letterwords. I find these words to be useful and practical and reserve the right to use them at will—despite society’s disapproval. Indeed, for a long time now we have been told that swearing is a sign of low morals, inferior intelligence, creative laziness, and a limited— oh fer fuck’s sake, what’s that word again? Oh, I remember—vocabulary.

Well according to a recent study in the journal So-

cial Psychological and Personality Science, that’s a bunch of bullstinkies. In the study—which is subtitled “The Relationship between Profanity and Honesty”— researchers wrote, “The positive relation between profanity and honesty is robust...” And the reason for that, they surmised, is that, “Swearing is often used to express one’s feelings, which suggests people who do this regularly portray themselves in a more honest light.”

It also seems that frequent cursing is a sign of intelligence. According to a 2015 study published in the journal Language Sciences by psychologists Kristin and Timothy Jay, “... [heavy swearing] may be considered an indicator of healthy verbal abilities...” which in turn is a sign of intelligence.

This is not to say that people who swear are superior to those who don’t. I just want to dispel the myth that frequent cursing means we are stupid, lazy, and/ or morally inferior—and, to dispel the assumption that exposing children to four-letter-words causes them harm, of which there is not a shred of evidence to suggest.

Now, this is the part of the article where the reader might expect me to embark on a rant about how the censoring of profanity is a bunch of horsehonkers. It’s the part where I’m supposed to say that the FCC should eliminate the TV ban. The part where I say people need to lay off the swearshaming and that parents should take a pill whenever someone accidentally blurts an expletive in the presence of their kids’ precious eardrums.

But I’m not going to say those things. Why? Well, what if one day we collectively decided that all our delightful obscenities were no longer verboten?

What if everyone—your boss, your grandma, educators, Congress, Katie Couric, the cable news tickers, Jerry Seinfeld and Dora the Explorer all began regularly using four-letter words? Well they would lose their impact. And that, my friends, would be a travesty. If the F-word became so common that it had the same impact as, say, the word fudge, what good will it do when you hit your thumb with a hammer?

“Oh fudge, I have mangled my thumb—woe is me.”

If the C-word were as common as cantelope, how would you effectively berate your wife after catching her cheating?

“You cantelope! I hope you fudging rot in heck!”

Do we really want a time to come when the C-word is so impotent, I won’t even get in trouble for saying it? What a sad day it would be if nobody B-worded about the offensive language in this column. No, there will be no anti-censorship rant today. These words must remain taboo. I shudder to think what would happen if they didn’t.

Today, profanity rolls off my tongue as readily as flatulence from Donald Trump’s Twitter feed.

8 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · FEBRUARY 22, 2017

Sordid Tales appears every other week.

Write to edwin@sdcitybeat.com. @SDCITYBEAT

UP FRONT | VOICES

THERE SHE

ALEX ZARAGOZA

GOZ

His hands gave me empathy

I

t was early in the morning. My mom, sister and I sat in our family car, inching slowly to the checkpoint at the San Ysidro border to be questioned by Border Patrol.

That was the daily ritual. Wake up at 4:30 am, shower, dress, get in the car, blast the heater until our toes thawed and make our way down the hill from our house in Tijuana to cross into the U.S. for school and work. In the passenger seat, I spooned my mom’s sweet oatmeal into my mouth and carefully applied eyeliner as we slowly passed vendors selling blankets and tortas. All too often my mom’s signature, too-abrupt brake slam sent my eyeliner across my cheek, and I’d annoyingly have to start over.

On most days, we’d say our “nothing to declare” to the Border Patrol officer, we’d whiz up the freeway, and I’d be in homeroom by 7:30. On this day, I wouldn’t make it on time, and it would have a lasting impact on how I view the border and immigration.

We crossed and made our way up the 805. Just a few miles up, we hit standstill traffic. Again, we inched. I could see police cars and white vans up ahead.

“Chingada madre!” my mom swore aloud. “Qué estará pasando?”

I shrugged, “Quien sabe.”

And then we saw him. My mom let out a sob and quickly muffled her mouth with her hand. My sister cried out, “Oh my god!” I stared out the window frozen and wide-eyed with my heart in my throat.

Laying on the hard concrete of the 805 freeway was a man, a white sheet covering his body.

His dirty work boots and the cuffs of his jeans peaked out of the bottom. Just as we approached, two uniformed men walked up to his body. One bent down and picked up his hands.

I still remember his hands: Lifeless, brown and calloused. The wrinkles of his fingers were crusted with dried blood. His hands looked like my dad’s hands.

That same ashiness from working outdoors. That same dark skin. Years later, when I held my own dad’s lifeless hands, I would remember this man’s hands again.

The other man picked up the man’s feet. Together, the two of them lifted his body off the ground.

A sound escaped my throat. Our car drove past the scene, and I was dropped off at school.

That day I sat silently in my classes thinking about him, his family and how he got to the ground of that freeway. Back at home, we watched the news waiting for a possible answer, and it came. He was an undocumented person who had made his way across the border. As he was attempting to cross the freeway in the wee hours of the morning, he was hit by a car.

Sixteen years later, his hands and his body being lifted off the freeway are still seared into my memory.

While I grew up often hearing tragic stories of family friends dying or being caught while attempting to cross, and watched my own immigrant parents help many successfully get to America, I had never seen the reality of the danger so up close. Rather, it never fully sank in before that day. I didn’t know the man or love him, but I didn’t need to. He became the example in my head of the cost that often comes with striving for a better life.

For the days and years to come, the border became more than just a nuisance on my way to school. I began to look more deeply at it. I looked at the vendors I ignored or waved away and wondered if they had tried to cross and didn’t make it. If they lost family and friends or had seen lifeless bodies that filled them with fear. It made me acknowledge my privilege: I can freely cross a line any day or time I want, while many others die trying to cross that very same line.

The relationship between Mexicans, regardless of their citizenship, and Border Patrol has always been contentious and even hostile. For many, the Border Patrol is the enemy. If you’re about to interact with one, you silently pray they’re not a racist asshole on a power trip looking for an excuse to make your life miserable.

You have to get passed them, and if you’re an undocumented person, try not to die in the process. Seeing that man’s body exacerbated that deep distrust, disdain and split in my cultural identity.

As hateful anti-immigrant and anti-refugee rhetoric is spewed at high-volume by the current president, that dead man comes to my mind and is joined by the images of a Syrian baby washed up on a Turkish shore. I think of the dozens of people from different parts of Africa crammed into boats and countless others. I think of the Haitians currently living in Tijuana and their brutal journey there.

The president has no empathy. I’m not sure what it will take for him to grow a heart or even a sense of human decency.

Empathy shouldn’t only occur when we are directly affected. We should see and feel, and act in response. So thank an immigrant or refugee for coming to America and for what they’ve brought to this country and your life. Support their businesses and their causes, and most of all, support their humanity.

The wrinkles of his fingers were crusted with dried blood. His hands looked like my dad’s hands.

@SDCITYBEAT

There She Goz appears every third week.

Write to alexz@sdcitybeat.com.

FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 9

UP FRONT | FOOD

BY MICHAEL A. GARDINER

THE WORLD

FARE

Making Russian food great again

I

t once seemed cool to like Russian cuisine in a sort of ironic, vaguely countercultural sort of way. It may now be mandatory to like Russian cuisine in a sort of fascistic, vaguely homoerotic sort of way. Sad. Fortunately, Pomegranate Restaurant (2312 El Cajon Blvd.) in North Park will make it easy to comply with the dictates of our newly minted overlords.

The Russian food to which we once looked was either the peasant food of the country’s rural population or the faux-French stylings imported by Peter the Great. It was cool in the ’60s as an expression of Vietnam War opposition. In the Reagan era, the pre-Soviet imprint of dishes like Chicken Kiev and Beef Stroganoff were PC in a rightward direction. Soviet cuisine was something else altogether: austere mostly.

Pomegranate, billing itself as “Georgian-Russian,” tells promising tales of our future. Its most remarkable dish is, perhaps, the khinkali: massive Georgian versions of Chinese xiaolongbao: thinskinned buns filled with pork and aspic that melts in the cooking process, creating the magical effect of soup inside the dumplings. A bit of sour cream and some black pepper yield a remarkable dish. Putin would approve.

Some of the best dishes at Pomegranate are the appetizers. The lobio shows bean salads in a new light: red kidney beans cooked then mashed with vinegar, chilies, garlic, onions, walnuts and coriander and left to come together overnight. The result is earthy and acidic but balanced by a feta and tomato garnish.

But perhaps the most remarkable of the starters was the Ikra badrijannaya, curiously described on the menu as “poor man’s caviar.” The “poor man’s” part is clear; the “caviar” part less so. I couldn’t help but imagine how a Russian father might explain such a name to his son: Son: Daddy, that doesn’t look like caviar Daddy: I know son.

Son: Why do they call it caviar if it isn’t?

10 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · FEBRUARY 22, 2017

Daddy: Because we’re poor, son, we can’t afford caviar so this is what we put on our black bread.

Son: But it’s not caviar, dad.

Daddy: I know, son, shoot Putin and I’ll sell the book rights and we’ll be able to afford caviar.

But it tasted good. Eggplant, tomato, onion, garlic and vinegar? Even I’ll salute Putin for that.

Pomegranate knows where its black bread’s buttered: the beef stroganoff is very, very good. The beef is tender, mushrooms soft but not mushy, and the sour cream-enriched sauce luxurious but not overthe-top. It’s an easy dish to screw up. They didn’t.

The lamb chakapuli, on the other hand, was over-the-top, but in a good way. Lamb shanks, tarragon, cherry plum flavors and white wine braised into an utterly remarkable and irresistible dish.

The flavors are deep and beguiling. They’re exotic but also have a familiar resonance.

MICHAEL GARDINER

Golubtsi There’s golubtsi (stuffed cabbage leaves), pelmeni and more—both appetizer, main and dessert— but where Pomegranate really shines is the dishes that might not have ever made it into anyone’s Russian Cuisine Top-of-the-Pops: the Georgian dishes, the ones we didn’t celebrate back in the day.

It is the ones that Putin knows, you don’t and Der Petty Orange Führer surely doesn’t.

But there’s a good chance we all soon will. And if they taste as good as they do at Pomegranate maybe that won’t be as oppressive as I fear.

The World Fare appears weekly.

Write to michaelg@sdcitybeat.com.

@SDCITYBEAT

UP FRONT | FOOD

BY JAMES VERNETTE

DISHING IT

JAMES VERNETTE

OUT

The beer comes first at Beerfish

U

p until the ’80s, when Rubio’s started pimping the fish taco and sushi bars started appearing around town, seafood in San Diego was sort of a special occasion dish. At the time, the city was big on beef, not fish.

Thankfully, it seems we’ve turned a corner.

Along with sushi bars, people are looking to poke as everyday food and oyster and raw bars are catching on as they are in other seaside cities like Boston and Seattle.

It helps that fish goes especially well with beer, and San Diego is certainly a beer burg, which might help explain why Beerfish (2933 Adams Ave.) puts beer at the front of its name.

Beerfish opened about six months ago in that nether region between Normal and University Heights. Like Tajima, a few doors away, it claims to be in North Park.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s #fakegeography.

Neighborhood discrepancies aside, the place has a great vibe. The patio is open to the street but covered, and it’s the type of place that I could easily see meeting friends for a beer and oysters before going out for the evening—or even just hanging out at a table for a few hours.

Beerfish gets the first part of its name right: There is an extensive, well-curated beer list, and the staff is knowledgeable. I’m not a fan of beers that are hoppy just to be hoppy, and the staff was able to steer me towards more foodfriendly beers. Unfortunately, the beer list is only accessible by looking at video screens or going to a link on Taphunter.com. I find this kind of irritating since the food menu is printed on paper.

If I’m sampling a variety of beers, I’m much more comfortable looking down at a piece of paper than up at a video screen.

As for the fish, there are some weak spots but still a lot to like.

My designated driver and I split the pick six oysters, which came with horseradish cocktail, raspberry mignon and lemon on the side. It was my DD’s first time with oysters, but we both enjoyed that first blast of brine—like a wave crashing over

@SDCITYBEAT

The Captain’s Catch Plate you. Pro tip: the oysters are $1 each during the happy hour (Monday through Friday, 3 to 6 p.m).

I’d go back for those.

As far as entrees go, I was pretty happy with the Captain’s Catch Plate: two pieces of fried fish, two fried shrimp and two fried oysters, along with Old Bay-seasoned fries and coleslaw. The fish items were fried well, but the batter lacked seasoning. I didn’t notice it so much on the shrimp or the oysters, but definitely on the fish. Luckily, it comes with a Tabasco aioli, which provided the bulk of the flavor.

My DD got the linguini and clams, a special that evening. There were a lot of clams and garlic so he was happy and the few bites he let me have proved to be pretty good.

Another friend arrived and ordered the Crab BLT, which was served on a pretzel-type bun. The crab salad was nice, but I’m not sure it paired well with the bacon. My friend was happy, but I wonder if the bacon would have gone better if it had been paired with a crab cake.

Beerfish isn’t perfect, but vibe goes a long way with me. It’s the type of place where I could waste a few hours watching the world go by on Adams Avenue. I’d definitely go back for beer and oysters (especially at Happy Hour), but I’m holding out more hope for more seasoning on that batter.

FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 11

UP FRONT | DRINK

THE

BY ANDREW DYER

BEERDIST 3 Punk Ales ready to rock Chula Vista

A

fter two years of rehearsal, 3 Punk Ales (259 Third Avenue, Chula Vista) is ready to take the stage. So to speak. The upstart brewery will be the third operating brew house in Chula Vista and the first on Third Avenue, the city’s major downtown thoroughfare.

Over the last year and a half, the city of Chula Vista has rolled out the welcome mat for the beer industry. 3 Punk Ales will join Bay Bridge Brewing and the much-improved Novo Brazil in Eastlake as the only operating brew houses south of State Route 54. The new brewery will be just north of two other beer-centric venues—La Bella’s Pizza Garden and Third Avenue Ale House.

The three punks in “3 Punk Ales” are head brewer Kevin Lewis and Chula Vista natives Steve Garcia and John Marshall.

The name comes from a punk band Garcia and Marshall played in from 1999 to 2006 called Three Piece Scandal. Marshall and Lewis began home brewing around 2007, but Marshall said things didn’t get serious until 2013.

“We were still home brewing and started talking seriously about doing this for a living,” he said. “In 2014, we got a pilot system, moved into my garage and started getting serious about the recipes, getting an LLC and moving forward.”

Lewis said their break came by way of Butcher’s Brewing—now Finest Made Ales—and its head brewer Ray Knight.

“He gave us good insight and (sold) us ingredients,” Lewis said. “I asked to watch him brew one time, and that turned into me helping him brew on my days off.”

It eventually led to a job offer.

Lewis said Knight offered to take him on as a brewer, and in addition would give 3 Punk Ales the space and equipment needed to brew its beer—by way of an alternating proprietorship.

“We had to Google that,” Lewis said.

Their first beer, “Needle in the Hey!” IPA, was released in November 2015.

12 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · FEBRUARY 22, 2017

Garcia said their goal, from when they first put their business plan together, was to open on Third Avenue.

“Since before we started brewing at Butcher’s, the vision was always to get to Chula Vista—to get to Third Avenue.”

Each member of the ownership team—all three punks—said they brought something unique to the partnership. Garcia does marketing and finance while Lewis is the head brewer. Marshall described himself as a “utility guy.”

“I started as a brewer, but I kind of do everything,” he said. “I do a lot of licensing and paperwork.”

ANDREW DYER

John Marshall, Steve Garcia and Kevin Lewis As for the beer, Lewis described himself as somewhat of a traditionalist, and that beer drinkers shouldn’t expect any trendy, hazy IPAs just yet. “[IPAs] start hazy, but once it goes into the brite tank and the biofine hits it, it takes it away,” he said. “We’ve been trained for many years to get the beer clear.”

Although the tasting room is in the final stages of construction—it’s still a mess of plywood and contractors—the guys said they are on track to open in early April. They will launch with five core beers and build from there. The tasting room has an ambitious 20 taps.

Last year, I called Third Avenue the “next 30th Street” and with 3 Punks in the line-up, that prediction is one step closer to reality.

The Beerdist appears every other week.

Write to andrewd@sdcitybeat.com

@SDCITYBEAT

SHORTlist

EVENTS

ART

the

THREE YOU HAVE TO SEE

COORDINATED BY

SETH COMBS

LOGAN HEIGHTS

1

FRESH BEATS

Twenty years is a lot of time to put into series. The opening concert on Friday will feature any musical project, but for Bonnie Wright, her percussionists Steve Schick and Vanessa Tomlinson. love of experimental and under-the-radar music The duo played the inaugural Fresh Sound show has proven to be a fruitful one. She has curated and while both have performed solo concerts over the local Fresh Sound music series for over two the years, the Feb. 24 concert marks the first time decades now, and whereas others might have giv- they’ve performed on the same night since Tomlinson was a grad stuen up after a while, dent at UCSD where Wright says she’s Schick was, and still never lost sight of her is, a professor. original goal.

“I asked them first “Every once in a because they were the while people will say first concert in Febto me, ‘why don’t you ruary 1997 and they present more popuboth said yes so that lar music?’, and I say was thrilling,” Wright popular music doesn’t says. “I think they’re need me. It’s popugoing to have two sets, lar,” says Wright, who so Vanessa will play started Fresh Sound and Steve will play. I in 1997 and has since don’t know if they’re curated over 200 congoing to play as a duo. certs. “The whole goal Steve Schick and Vanessa Tomlinson I hope they do.” was to expose San DiOther concerts in the Fresh Sound series include egans to contemporary music whatever the genre, the Chris Speed Quartet (Wednesday, March 15), the and it’s been fun for me.”

For the series’ 20th anniversary season—which Nordeson/Brandtsegg Duo (Thursday, April 14) and begins Friday, Feb. 24 at Bread & Salt (1955 Julian Lukas Ligeti’s Notebook (Thursday, May 18). All conAve.) and runs through Thursday, May 18—Wright certs begin at 7:30 p.m. and are $20 for general adhas tapped musicians who have performed at the mission ($10 for students). See freshsoundmusic.com series in the past or who have a history with the for full details.

GASLAMP QUARTER

2 BIGGER AND BEAD-ER

You can spend hundreds of dollars for a NOLA Mardi Gras experience or you can save money and celebrate at the Gaslamp Quarter Mardi Gras. This year, the event has been extended into the weekend with a celebration on Saturday, Feb. 25 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. where a Big Easy Booze GASLAMP MARDI GRAS & Bites Tour in downtown San Diego offers Mardi Gras-inspired food and cocktails from 20 bars. The big party is still on Fat Tuesday, Feb. 27 from 5 p.m. to 12 a.m. in the Gaslamp Quarter.

The celebration begins with beads, live entertainment and music and Gaslamp Mardi Gras ends with a parade of confetti, dancers, floats, stilt walkers, decorated cars, performers and samba dancers. Tickets for Saturday range in price from $25 to $30, while tickets for Tuesday are $30 to $70 for VIP. This is a 21-plus event. sdmardigras.com

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LOGAN HEIGHTS

3 TIME AND SPACE

Melissa Walter is something of an extraordinary anomaly in the local art scene.

Whereas most artists often give up on their artistic dreams to work in a more financially dependable field, Walter quit a promising job working at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to devote more time to her personal artwork. Her work in astrophysics and astronomy are clear influences in A Study of Dark Matter, her new exhibition at Bread & Salt (1955 Julian Ave.). Opening from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 26, Walter’s work—the result of a month-long artist-in-residence stay at Bread & Salt—features illustrations and installation pieces that explore the wonders of the universe. What’s more, astrophysicist Dr. Karin Sandstrom from UCSD will also be on hand to speak about dark matter and gravitational lensing. melissawalterart.com COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

HWomen in Light: A Perspective at Luxe Gallery, San Diego City College 1081 16th St., East Village. The fourth annual group photography exhibit featuring work by female San Diego City College Photo Department staff, faculty, alumni and colleagues. Opening from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24. Free. facebook.com/womeninlight HQueen’s Circle at Marston Point Parking Lot, Balboa Park. In collaboration with Lambda Archives, Parkeology will transform the parking lot into a listening theater where parked cars will play the firsthand stories of when Balboa Park was a prime cruising spot.

From 5:30 to 11 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24.

Free. parkeology.org HKurb-Side: Peter Scheidt at SDSU Downtown Gallery, 725 W Broadway, Downtown. Local artist Peter Scheidt will be working from his mobile bike studio to carve spoons from discarded furniture. These creations will be available to take home. From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25. art.sdsu.edu/ sdsu-downtown-gallery The Erin Hanson Gallery Grand Opening at ​The Erin Hanson Gallery​, 9705 Carroll Centre Road, Mira Mesa.

Hanson will be showing off new impressionistic landscape works in the grand opening of her namesake gallery. Opening from 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25.

858-324-4644, erinhanson.com HA Study of Dark Matter at Bread & Salt, 1955 Julian Ave., Logan Heights.

New works from Melissa Walter, whose work is inspired by astrophysics and astronomy. Dr. Karin Sandstrom from UCSD will also be on hand to speak about dark matter and gravitational lensing. Opening from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26. Free. melissawalterart.com Eye Connect: Our Global Jewish World at Gotthelf Art Gallery, 4126 Executive Drive, La Jolla. A photographic show featuring the work of artists near and far as they capture images of Jewish life around the globe. RSVP recommended. Opening from 7:30 to 9 p.m.

Wednesday, March 1. Free. 858-3621351, sdcjc.org

BOOKS HSeth Lerer at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The author and editor will sign and discuss Tradition, his latest political monograph on the importance of literature and reading. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 22.

Free. 858-454-0347, warwicks.com HWriter’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University Crill Performance Hall, 3900 Lomaland Drive, Point Loma. Three days of workshops, seminars and lectures from featured authors such as Robert Pinsky, Shauna Niequist and Tracy Kidder. See website for full schedule and times. Various times.

Through Thursday, Feb. 23. $5-$10.

619-849-2200, pointloma.edu/writers George Geary at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The renowned chef will discuss and sign his new book L.A.’s Legendary Restaurants. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23.

Free. 858-454-0347, warwicks.com Marie Andreas at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 5943 Balboa Ave., Ste. 100, Clairemont. The local author’s launch party for the fourth installment in her Lost Ancients fantasy series, The Sapphire Manticore, will feature refreshments and prizes. At 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25.

Free. 858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com

“Gravitational Lensing” by Melissa Walter

H = CityBeat picks

HT. Greenwood at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The local author will discuss and sign her novel, The Golden Hour, about a woman who becomes the caretaker at a mysterious Maine house. At 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 22. Free. 858-4540347, warwicks.com

DANCE HCircumvent: Dance-in-the-Round at White Box Live Arts Theater at NTC Liberty Station, 2590 Truxtun Road, Point Loma. Blythe Barton Dance Company presents two new pieces that attept to shift space and perspective to bring athletic choreography a hair’s breadth from the audience. At 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25 and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb, 26. $15-$20. 714345-9861, blythebartondance.org

FILM Oscar Viewing Party at Cinema Under the Stars, 4040 Goldfinch St., San Diego. Dress up, taste small bites and sip sparkling wine while watching the Academy Awards on the big screen. From 4:30 to 8 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26. $60. facebook.com/cinemaunderthestars

FOOD & DRINK HBig Easy Booze and Bites Tour at Various Locations, Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego. Taste Mardi Gras-inspired bites and booze at 20 different locations, plus an after-party for those who collect enough beads. From 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25. $25. sdmardigras.com

MUSIC International Guitar Night at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. Check out pickers Luca Stricagnoli, Lulo Reinhardt and more as they jam on acoustic guitars in celebration of this event that has showcased notable guitarists since 1995. From 7:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 22. $30-$40. 760-839-4190, artcenter.org HRed Fish Blue Fish at Conrad Prebys Music Center, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla. UC San Diego’s own percussion ensemble will perform as part of the Department of Music’s ongoing Wednesdays@7 concert series. At 7 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 22. Free-$15.50.

858-534-3448, musicweb.ucsd.edu The Villalobos Brothers at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. Hailing from Veracruz, Mexico, the violin trio are acclaimed as one of today’s leading contemporary Mexican ensembles. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23. $25-35. 800988-4253, artcenter.org Chamber Orchestra with David Danzmayr at Copley Symphony Hall, 750 B St., Downtown. The San Diego Symphony welcomes back Austrian conductor David Danzmayr for a rare fullorchestra concert featuring works from Strauss, Tauský and Beethoven. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23. $28-$97. 619235-0804, sandiegosymphony.org HFresh Sound: Steve Schick and Vanessa Tomlinson at Bread & Salt, 1955 Julian Ave., Logan Heights. The two acclaimed percussionists will play dual sets for the opening concert of the 20th Fresh Sound season. At 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24. $10-$20. freshsoundmusic.com

EVENTS CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 13

BOOKS: THE FLOATING LIBRARY The Bard speaks

J

ason DeBoer’s Annihilation Songs (Stalking Horse Press) is a book unlike any other. At less than 100 pages it feels like a poetry collection, and in a sense it is. That’s because the stories in Annihilation Songs were composed using only words that appear in the work of William Shakespeare.

DeBoer, who is also a filmmaker, calls these stories reintegrations. “The work is an experiment in which each and every word used in each story also appears in a particular William Shakespeare play,” he explains in his Author’s Note. “The words of each play have been restructured into a new narrative.”

The result is a reading experience that conjures up feelings of déjà vu yet is completely new.

For instance, the story “Puzzle of War” draws from Hamlet yet tells a story that takes place immediately after the American invasion of Normandy during World War II. “A canopy of metal angels made their flights from England, dropping death on the German lines, and the blasted earth shook like a kettle-drum clapped by a million angry hands.”

Shakespeare’s words seem perfectly suited for a tale of great conflict, but it’s so strange to see them

deployed in such a modern context. The tension between the origin of the words and the uses to which DeBoer puts them is exhilarating.

“In the afternoon, a soldier hit a mine with a shovel, blasting him into the crow-flowers.”

In “Here Swims a Most Majestic Vision” DeBoer repurposes The Tempest to chronicle the declining marriage of Caliban and Miranda, and Two Gentleman of Verona provides the source material for “The Execution of the Sun,” which is about a bizarre love triangle between a writer, a publisher and his young wife that takes place on a train.

Equally entertaining is the short essay that serves as a preface to the book in which DeBoer describes a long, lonely sojourn to Kathmandu where the antimalaria medication he was taking turned him into an insomniac. That’s when the idea for Annihilation Songs first took hold.

“All’s well that ends well,” as Shakespeare famously writes, but for DeBoer, it’s all about the syntax: changing the order of the words to wring new meaning out of old and create astonishing scenes of modern lust, love and war.

Write to jimr@sdcitybeat.com.

EVENTS

“One” by Michael Chao will be on view at Women in Light, a group exhibition opening from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, at the San Diego City College Luxe Gallery (1081 16th St.) in the East Village.

—Jim Ruland

EVENTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13 The Chieftans at Copley Symphony Hall, 750 B St., Downtown. “Ireland’s premier musical ambassadors” return to the Jacobs Music Center with a night of Irish song and Celtic charm. At 8 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 25. $20-$60. 619-2350804, sandiegosymphony.org

Bruce Willard at D.G. Wills Books, 7461 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The poet will read from his new book Violent Blues, which focuses on his relationship with music. At 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25.

Free. dgwillsbooks.com

Sue Palmer & Her Motel Swing Orchestra at Music Box, 1337 India St., Little Italy. The local singer and her band will perform a special concert with the Shenanigans in support of ArtReach, a local nonprofit aiming to provide students at elementary schools throughout San Diego. At 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26. $25-$60. artreachsandiego.org

SPECIAL EVENTS

Hey I’m Tha Mama at North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach. Renowned jazz singer Spanky Wilson and her daughter, Angela Teek, perform chart-topping songs together. At 7:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27 and Tuesday, Feb. 28. $35. northcoastrep.org

PERFORMANCE HFalstaff at San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave., Downtown. San Diego Opera presents Verdi’s classic slapstick opera about a man who can’t resist the ladies, but the ladies sure can resist him.

At 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, and 2 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 26. $45-$235. sdopera.org

POETRY & SPOKEN WORD HVAMP: Talk Dirty Swipe Left at Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St., South Park.

So Say We All’s monthly storytelling night features stories about the varying ways we say nasty things to each other.

From 8:30 to 10 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23. $5 suggested donation. 619-2846784, sosayweallonline.com

14 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · FEBRUARY 22, 2017

HKuumba Fest at various locations.

San Diego’s longest running celebration of African-American expression, culture and heritage. Includes traditional African art, educational workshops, an African marketplace, a health fair, guest speakers and much more. From 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, and 1 to 9 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26. $10-$20. 619544-1000, kuumbafest.com HSan Diego Mardi Gras at Gaslamp Quarter, Downtown. The second largest Mardi Gras celebration in the nation, Fifth Avenue transforms into a carnival fest featuring five stages of music, masks, floats, stilt walkers, dancing and beads, beads and more beads. From 5 p.m. to midnight. Saturday, Feb. 25. $30-$70.

619-233-5227, sdmardigras.com San Diego Brazil Carnival Mardi Gras at Park6, 590 Fir St., Bankers Hill. The 25th anniversary party features cultural dancing, beads, a parade and all the other things we expect at a carnival event.

From 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 25. $25-$65. sandiegobrazilcarnival.com HMardi Gras at Urban Mo’s, 308 University Ave., Hillcrest. A LGBT-friendly Fat Tuesday blowout featuring a mask fashion show, drink specials all night and a Bead Off contest for cash and prizes. From 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 28. $3. 619-491-0400, urbanmos. com

@SDCITYBEAT

THEATER DAREN SCOTT

Imperfect arrangement

I

t feels strange to call a play about a subject as serious as the governmentimposed witch-hunting of gays and lesbians “delightful.” But so much about Intrepid Theatre Company’s production of Topher Payne’s Perfect Arrangement is delightful: the cheery model-home set by Sean Yael-Cox; the tailored period clothes

by Jeanne Reith; and a whip-smart, bantering cast.

The first act of the play is about two gay couples in 1950 who pretend, in the face of the aforementioned witch hunt, to be married off to each other is full-on madcap—plenty of slamming doors, disbelieving gasps and wide-eyed guffaws.

After intermission, though, Payne’s pretenders (here portrayed by John DeCarlo, Joshua Jones, Laura Bohlin, and Jennifer Paredes) run headlong into reality.

They’re forced to reconcile their “perfect arrangement” with their true sexual identities, their rightful outrage over the McCarthy-esque climate stifling them, and their heartfelt admissions about who they love most. The consequences of all that heavy weather becomes impassioned speeches from one and all while much of the madcapping persists. It’s a shaky equation that doesn’t completely add up in the storytelling.

Perfect Arrangement runs through

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9 to 5: The Musical runs through Feb. 26 at the Spreckels Theatre, downtown. $32$72; sdmt.org

—David L. Coddon

Theater reviews run weekly.

Write to davidc@sdcitybeat.com.

OPENING: The Blameless: Nick Gandiello’s drama was developed during the 2016 New Voices Festival and tells the story of the Garcia family, who are struggling to recover from a traumatizing event. It opens Feb. 23 at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park. theoldglobe.org Sex With Strangers: Two very different writers are unexpectedly trapped in a cabin and end up having a one-night stand only to find their literary careers intertwining later. Written by Laura Eason and presented by San Diego Repertory Theatre, it opens Feb. 23 at the Lyceum Space in Downtown. sdrep.org

John DeCarlo and Joshua Jones in Perfect Arrangement March 12 at the Horton Grand Theatre, downtown. $29-$58; intrepidtheatre.org

T

he musical 9 to 5, based on the 1980 film starring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton, is a fun little romp at the Spreckels Theatre downtown featuring an especially notable performance by Joy Yandell in the Tomlin role of the ill-used and defiant Violet Newstead.

But what really jumps out early in this San Diego Musical Theatre production is the first appearance of repugnant boss

Franklin Hart (David S. Humphrey, holding nothing back) during the smarmy number “Here for You.” Sexist beyond belief, Hart sounds like he belonged on that infamous “Access Hollywood” bus with Trump and Billy Bush. With that shameful episode part of recent campaign history, it’s hard to laugh at 9 to 5’s resident objectifier, vilified though he is. That aside, Yandell, Allison Spratt-Pearce and Karyn Overstreet are a trio to root for, and 9 to 5’s showtunes bear Dolly Parton’s singular mixture of wit, sass and sentiment.

Shadowlands: William Nicholson’s drama tells the true story of a late-in-life romance between C.S. Lewis and American poet Joy Davidman. Directed

by Kerry Meads, it opens Feb. 28 at the Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado. lambsplayers.org The Taming of the Shrew(d): In the dystopian future, a band of female warriors perform the work of Shakespeare as a cautionary tale on society’s follies.

Presented by UC San Diego Theatre and Dance, it opens in previews Feb. 28 at the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre in La Jolla. theatre.ucsd.edu

For full listings, visit “Theater” at sdcitybeat.com

FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 15

BURGER WEEK

6

AT PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS Look inside for more info!

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To Burger Week

FEBRUARY 24 MARCH 4 THROUGH

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CityBeat Advertising Section

2017 San Diego Burger Week

BURGER WEEK

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2017 San Diego Burger Week

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COURTESY OF THE RESPONSIBILITY FOUNDATION

CULTURE | ART

Artist rendering of the Statue of Responsibility t’s an idea that emerged from one of the worst atrocities in human history. A vision of a grand work of art and architecture.

This dream, first given to the world in a great work of literature, now has a dedicated group working to make it a reality.

DR. FRANZ VESELY Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist living in his native Austria when the Nazis overtook Europe. Forced into a Jewish ghetto in 1942, Dr. Frankl and his first wife Tilly were eventually deported to Auschwitz in 1944. He survived the horrors of the concentration camps, but his wife, mother Elsa and brother Walter all fell victim to the Nazi genocide.

Dr. Viktor Frankl After his liberation Dr. Frankl began writing about his experiences. His 1946 magnum opus, Man’s Search For Meaning, has become a classic of 20th century literature and frequently makes appearances on best book lists. In it he describes his time in the camps and his theory of logotherapy.

“According to logotherapy, this striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man,” Frankl says in the book. Frankl goes on to say that he believes it can be found even in the worst of situations.

The book has sold millions of copies, helping people throughout the world. The good doctor enjoyed a long life before passing away in 1997 at the age of 92.

Another passage from the book later struck a chord here in America.

“In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.

That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast,” the passage says.

Stephen Covey, the well-known author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, knew Dr. Frankl and intended to make the statue a reality. Covey sought the help of sculptor Gary Lee Price and their endeavor morphed into the Responsibility Foundation in 2012 with the stated mission of teaching about Dr. Frankl’s idea of responsibility and working diligently toward realizing the vision of the statue ever since.

Price said it was challenging to physically represent a

@SDCITYBEAT

Rounds says it will be easier to find these big donors concept like responsibility. A fan of abstract art, his design for the statue is two towering hands clasping each other at when a location for the statue has been nailed down.

The search for a host city has turned out to be a one the wrist. With plans calling for the statue to be hundreds of feet high, Price aimed for simplicity. He said the hands of the big hurdles facing the statue. Rounds said there are represent the strongest way for people to grasp one another, ongoing overtures to cities across the country and San Diego is one of many under consideration. He said that there have unity and helping others.

In 2004, Price and Covey were able to meet the late Dr. been intermittent talks with San Diego that haven’t yielded Frankl’s wife Eleonore in Vienna. They sought her approval a hard yes or no.

Still, there seems to be reason to believe the project is on of the project, and according to Price they were given an enthusiastic reception. Price came to find out that Viktor was the right track. In 2015 a 15-foot scaled down version of the an admirer of art. Eleonore took him to her late husband’s statue was dedicated at Utah Valley University. Rounds said study, and on the bookshelf sat a small sculpture of man with their “aggressive” goal for the statue’s completion is 2020.

A boost in visibility seems to be on the way as well. his arms outstretched toward the sky. Eleonore told Price that her late husband had purchased it shortly after his release Variety reported in August 2016 that a biopic on Frankl called The Search is being developed by Fuego Films. from the concentration camps.

“She said ‘Gary, he used that as a metaphor for Filmmaker and Responsibility Foundation Advisory Council responsibility’, and I said ‘how do you mean?’” Price said. “She member Alexander Vesely (yes, he’s the grandson of Viktor and Eleonore) explained that his said ‘Viktor would ask the question grandparents made San Diego a second where is the hand reaching down?’” home as his grandfather lectured at Price said that this lead Eleonore United States International University to offer him a challenge. (now Alliant International University).

“She says ‘you, my American He says the choice of San Diego as a friend, bring to me a sculpture that host city would be an appropriate one. answers my husband’s question.

“As I said it was a home away from Where is the hand reaching down?’” home, so I think it would be quite Price said. fitting,” he said.

That is, Price’s sculpture of two Such a project could prove hands locked tightly together serves nurturing to San Diego’s art and to answer Dr. Frankl’s question. Price has gone on to discuss the project with Eleonore Frankl and Gary Lee Price architecture scene. While Seattle has the Space Needle and San Francisco respected architect Gordon Carrier.

“Gary Price and I discussed the need to make the statue has the Golden Gate Bridge, San Diego seems to lack an physically accessible to the visitor...allowing people to iconic architectural landmark. The Statue of Responsibility interact with and circulate within it,” Carrier said in an could come to serve not only as a powerful monument in email. “Further, Gary and I also discussed the importance of itself but as a symbol for the city.

Rounds and Price were careful to stress the apolitical, the Statue’s profile in the sky.’”

The project has not been without its challenges. A.J. universal appeal of the project’s message. Rounds Rounds, Chief Marketing Officer for the Responsibility specifically said their endeavor is nonpartisan. This statue, Foundation, says there’s been challenges moving the so close to a border that many seek to shutter, would be a project forward. powerful statement.

“Funding is underway. We’re always looking for more “Years ago, somebody asked me, they said ‘if you could donations,” he said. “I think where the bulk of the funding sum up the sculpture, what does it represent?’ said Price. for the Statue of Responsibility is going to come from is one “And I said, and I thought a lot about it, I said two words: or two significant donors.” coming together.”

FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 23

CULTURE | ART

SEEN LOCAL

to us because it’s a transition into a permanent facility we’ve already started building.”

Leathers is referring to a plot of land in Sherman Heights that Space 4 Art is currently developing to become its permanent home. When asked about the lofts they were taking over and the fact that Halasz and company were being evicted, Leathers claimed that he he last year has been pretty great for Peter didn’t know anything about who would have to leave.

“We don’t even know yet for sure,” said Leathers.

Halasz. He had a successful show at the Quint Projects space where nearly every piece was “Honestly, I have a lease that just arrived this mornsold, and all of those pieces were painted in his East ing by email from HP Investors and they hadn’t even Village loft space. But on January 20, after four years identified yet what spaces we’re getting.”

And while Space 4 Art getting to stay in the East in the space, property owners HPI Real Estate SerVillage for another four years could be seen as a good vices & Investments slid an eviction notice under his thing, it is coming at the exdoor as well as Halasz’s neighSETH COMBS pense of three working artists bors, artists Kathryn Nova who have depended on those Williams and Richard Kenspaces to make a name for vin. Halasz says while he had themselves. Kenvin is a highly felt antsy when HPI bought the successful filmmaker and surfproperty on the 300 block of board artisan and has been in 16th Avenue, he didn’t realize his loft space since 2001. He that his neighbors, San Diego recently sublet a space to WilSpace 4 Art, were in negotialiams, but says he’s not surtions with HPI to take over the prised given the continual genartist studios. trification of the neighborhood.

“Space 4 Art basically cut a “In principle, it totally deal with HPI to get us kicked sucks especially in Peter and out so they could take over,” Peter Halasz and Kathryn Nova Williams Kate’s case. When some sort says Halasz, who says he of arts supporter underhandhad many of his suspicions edly goes and covets some artist’s space and takes it confirmed by HPI managing partner Summet Parekh.

“They [Space 4 Art] had a lease in the building they’re from them… that’s what happened to me before, you in now. They basically gave it up in exchange for taking know?” says Kenvin. “They are working, legitimate artists doing shows and doing what you’re supposed our lofts. So they’re going to put an office in here.”

Space 4 Art co-founder Bob Leathers confirmed to do in this arts district only they’re for real, and the move and that they had, indeed, been in negotia- they’re losing their spaces because of some bullshit.”

“The worst part about it is just the fact that they tions with HPI since September. didn’t warn us and then not saying a word to Peter, just “We’ve been negotiating since last summer and having the property manager slide something under the end result is that we have to move out of one of the buildings and we get to keep the other two and the door,” says Williams, who is considering a move to expand a little in one of them,” says Leathers. “Then L.A. “There hasn’t been any kind of camaraderie.”

MOVING IN AND OUT

T

we can stay here another four years. That’s important

—Seth Combs

TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE: WEATHERING THE STORM: TRAUMA BENEATH THE SURFACE

A

merica’s malls are loaded with distractions. within, the pièce de résistance of the exhibition was Personally, I can’t recall an instance in which just around the corner and down a very dark, hallway.

I went to a mall with no agenda other than to The hallway leads to a boxy white room with no acsee an art installation, but such was the case this past coutrements aside from a white seat and a pair of white weekend when I stopped by the San Diego Art Insti- headphones. As the viewer sits down, the headphones SETH COMBS blare an endless loop of overlaid static tute Project Space in Horton Plaza to into your brain. For myself, I can only see Nick Mansfield’s Weathering the say that the longer I stayed, the more Storm: Trauma Beneath the Surface. stressful it became. The cracks in the Known mostly for his large-scale white wall in front of me became bigphotographic work, Mansfield (nickger and more pronounced and my eyes, mansfield.com) has turned the space combined with the walls and the static into something of an interactive dosin my ears, began to play tricks on me. sier on the conceptions and misconTiny hallucinations began to flutter ceptions of Post-traumatic stress disand I became not so much stressed as I order (PTSD). Focused shoppers atwas disturbed and intrigued. tempted to whiz by the space (which, This was simply my experience speaking of distractions, is convewith the piece, but however others niently nestled next to Victoria’s Secome to experience it, Weathering the cret), but became distracted by the TV Storm (which is up through March 5) flashing images of people and scenes in various levels of stress. The fourWeathering the Storm: is a fascinating study of an issue that minute loop of images is affecting if Trauma Beneath the Surface many of us don’t fully understand or comprehend. And if anyone leaves a not a tad blatant but I suppose that was the intent: to distract shoppers just long enough mall, of all places, with a heightened sense of empaso as to make the point that, when it comes to PTSD, thy for what others may be dealing with just below the surface, then the artist has done his job. it isn’t just about soldiers.

And for those distracted enough to actually inquire

24 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · FEBRUARY 22, 2017

—Seth Combs

@SDCITYBEAT

CULTURE | FILM

Moonlight

#OscarsSoBlah Predicting the 2017 Academy Awards winners

by Glenn Heath Jr.

W

ith so much scandal, corruption and incompetence spewing out of Washington D.C. lately, the melodrama that is the Academy Awards seems somewhat quaint. Lacking in #OscarsSoWhite urgency, this year’s far more diverse competition has nearly drifted by without notice. Fittingly, the blandest frontrunner in years—a grating millennial mambo with bad singing about white people trying to save Jazz and resurrect classical Hollywood magic in a post-racial world—threatens to sweep the awards.

In keeping with my annual tradition of predicting the winners, you will find arguments for the major categories below. Follow my lead and you will surely be victorious in your office Oscar pool. Well, probably not, but still it’s always fun to tempt fate.

Best Supporting Actor: It’s hard to bet against Mahershala Ali, whose pivotal performance in Moonlight provides a foundation for the three younger talents who come to embody the film’s dynamic central character. Still, Lion is a film that loves to piss me off, so don’t count out the efficiently annoying Dev Patel.

Will Win: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight Should Win: Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis’s subtly seismic turn in Fences often steals the show from her bombastic co-star, Denzel Washington, and she’s primed to take home Oscar gold. Her closest competition is Michelle Williams in Manchester by the Sea, whose small role nevertheless detonates whenever on-screen.

Will and Should Win: Viola Davis, Fences Best Actor: It’s almost comedic that Andrew Garfield was nominated for Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge over Martin Scorsese’s Silence, but I guess Oscar voters like aw-shucks Americana over conflicted Catholic determination. This is the year of Trump after all. It doesn’t matter, ultimately, because he and the other nominees don’t have a chance in hell to defeat Casey Affleck. Riding a wave of critic’s awards and industry prizes, the Manchester by the Sea star has recently come under scrutiny for past indiscretions involving the sexual harassment of multiple women, but the negative headlines will not deter the inevitable.

Will and Should Win: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea

@SDCITYBEAT

Best Actress: Please God, let Isabelle Huppert win.

The French actress dominates every moment of Paul Verhoeven’s Elle with a salacious calm rarely witnessed on the big screen. Her diabolical performance will stand the test of time while Natalie Portman’s grotesque Jackie Kennedy and Emma Stone’s wideeyed singing barista will slowly drift into the ether never to be remembered again. God, I hope Isabelle Huppert wins. But she probably won’t because the world is shit.

Will Win: Emma Stone, La La Land Should Win: Isabelle Huppert, Elle Best Director: Ah, Damien Chazelle. I hope word has finally reached you that I think Whiplash is the embodiment of evil. Your cutie pie musical La La Land isn’t nearly as egregious, and at times I kind of liked it. But damn if those cloying look-mom-I-can-fly long takes and your whimsical one-note understanding of film history doesn’t stick in my craw. I really hope you’ve watched Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight and Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea and the guilt is setting in. Thank them in your acceptance speech and I might feel slightly better.

Will Win: Damien Chazelle, La La Land Should Win: Barry Jenkins, Moonlight Best Picture: By this point you’ve probably noticed I think La La Land is pretty mediocre. The film has its charms. Yet if you’ve experienced the sublime glow of Moonlight or the prickly burn of Manchester by the Sea, it’s unfathomable that this emotionally hollow fantasy about pursuing career over love is superior. Ugh. I’ve been disappointed before with Oscar, so what’s another year?

Will Win: La La Land Should Win: Moonlight or Manchester by the Sea or Arrival or Hell or High Water The 89th Academy Awards airs at 5:30 p.m. PST on Sunday, Feb. 26.

Film reviews run weekly.

Write to glennh@sdcitybeat.com

FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 25

CULTURE | FILM

Women on the verge

T

he new horror anthology XX defies genre norms by pushing stories of female complexity to the forefront. Written, directed by and starring women, all four short films try to complicate ideas of victimhood and motherhood by subverting traditionally male-dominated narratives. The result is a mixed bag, as is usually the case with projects that connect unique artists under the guise of a common theme or motif.

Mexican stop-motion animator Sofia Carrillo stitches together the whole with gothic chapter breaks involving a walking dollhouse living in a dilapidated building. Meant to provide a

26 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · FEBRUARY 22, 2017

XX sense of coherence, these visceral interludes tend to achieve the opposite effect.

Jovanka Vuckovic’s The Box kicks things off with an eerie parable about a woman whose family becomes mysteriously stricken by an extreme lack of appetite.

Unfolding slowly and assuredly, the film mixes creepy minimalism with splashes of grotesque gore. It simultaneously showcases the ache of parental delusion and helplessness.

Far more entertaining is Annie Clark’s (better known as indierocker St. Vincent) The Birthday Party, a darkly comedic romp starring Melanie Lynskey as a sullen mother trying to prep for her

daughter’s big day. Shot and paced like a slapstick comedy, it builds momentum toward a worthy payoff where a family’s private sins are unmasked at the most inopportune time.

Roxanne Benjamin’s Don’t Fall stalks four hipster hikers through the desert, making them pay the ultimate price for trespassing on sacred ground. The most traditional and rote of the bunch, it feels like an errant limb in this compilation with very little to say about the female perspective.

The uneven anthology concludes with Karyn Kusama’s ambitious but familiar Her Only Living Son, which tweaks the Rosemary’s Baby narrative to include a dash of Lynchian weirdness. Often striking for its seamless brutality, the film eventually devolves into an artsy episode of The Following.

XX opens Friday, Feb. 24 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

—Glenn Heath Jr.

Dying Laughing: Documentary that focuses on the craft, creative process and complicated lives of stand-up comedians told from the perspective of many of the top comedians of our time, including Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman and Jamie Foxx. Opens Friday, Feb. 24, at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Get Out: A young African-American man visits his Caucasian girlfriend’s family estate only to learn that they harbor a damning secret. The white privilege is deadly.

Me Estás Matando Susana (You’re Killing Me Susana): A Mexican soap opera star (Gael Garcia Bernal) loses his mind after discovering his wife has left him for a poet living in Iowa. Opens Friday, Feb. 24, at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Rock Dog: This animated film follows the wacky exploits of a Tibetan Mastiff who dreams of becoming a musician.

Tulip Fever: An artist (Dane DeHaan) falls for a young married woman (Alicia Vikander) while he’s commissioned to paint her portrait during the Tulip mania of 17th century Amsterdam.

XX: This horror anthology features women-driven stories written and directed by female filmmakers. Opens Friday, Feb. 24, at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

For a complete

OPENING

listing of movies,

A United Kingdom: Prince Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) of Botswana causes an international stir when he marries a white woman (Rosamund Pike) from London in the late 1940s.

section in C ulture

visit our F ilm

on sdcitybeat.com.

@SDCITYBEAT

LIGHTBOX REVELATION

MUSIC

Mike Muir navigates long-running thrash legends through World Gone Mad

By Scott McDonald ll he wanted was a Pepsi. Just one Pepsi! And his mom wouldn’t give it to him.

It’s been 34 years since Mike Muir first sang that infamous request on Suicidal Tendencies’ self-titled debut. And despite multiple hiatuses, lineup overhauls and a pair of back surgeries that should have sidelined the band-founding front man, he’s still singing about it today.

Born of the same Venice, CA counterculture that spawned the Dogtown Z-Boys skateboarding crew (of which Muir’s older brother Jim was a member), Suicidal Tendencies didn’t exactly seem built to last when they formed as teenagers in 1980.

They dressed like cholos, were anything but radio friendly and refused to take a purist’s approach to their aggressive sound. Yet the band’s pioneering hybrid of punk and metal, although initially not embraced by either genre’s fans, was a word-of-mouth success.

It helped to carry them through years of albums, rotating band members and a slew of side projects. That is, until more than a decade passed without any new material.

The band unexpectedly resurfaced in 2013 with the aptly titled 13, their first LP of original songs in as many years.

Last September, they followed it up with World Gone Mad, the twelfth Suicidal Tendencies studio album and the first to feature former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo.

@SDCITYBEAT

Suicidal Tendencies And while Muir hasn’t ruled out the possibility that their most recent release is the band’s last, he also isn’t shy when talking about what the addition of Lombardo brings to the table.

“Dave is obviously an amazing drummer,” said in a phone interview from Santa Monica. “But it’s great to be in a situation with a person that so enjoys being in the band. He doesn’t take a night off. He knows a lot of people are there just to see him, and he gives them everything he’s got. And it’s not like, ‘Oh, you should’ve seen the 30-year-old Dave!’ He’s up there putting other people to shame. His ethic works very well with ours.”

Good thing, too, given the band will continue to tour both stateside and overseas at least through the summer. Just don’t expect to see them on CNN anytime soon.

World Gone Mad is a well-timed collection of thrash-infused social commentary, but like all Suicidal Tendencies albums, it was never intended to be a singular political statement.

“I don’t think we’re a political band,” Muir says. “With such limited time, it’s really hard to get a point across—especially

when people don’t want facts. They just want something that reinforces their own opinion, and that goes beyond things like the election. I’m much more of a ‘this is the way it is, why is it that way?’ person.”

The one mantra that Muir does adhere to these days is, ‘If I never make another record, am I going to be happy to end it here?’

He even goes so far to say, “I actually think that’s the most important parameter and criterion in music.”

It’s an understandable perspective for an attentive father of three. He knows that if the rigors of touring don’t end up being the coup de grace to the band, the demands of family life could just as easily finish the job.

Muir wrote all of the songs on World Gone Mad. And he not only made sure that it could stand as the band’s farewell if it needed to, but that it also continued the trajectory he started for Suicidal Tendencies nearly four decades ago.

That same philosophy continues to define their live shows as well.

“We don’t want to be a nostalgic band,”

says Muir. “We want to remind people why they love the band. And we take the approach that every show might be the first and last time someone sees us. We want to have as much impact as we can.”

With Lombardo in tow and things seemingly going so well, you’d think Muir might change his mind about making World Gone Mad the band’s closing statement.

So far, at least, that hasn’t happened. The singer readily admits it would take much more of a collaborative effort to get him back in the studio again. And he is wisely prioritizing the limited time he has off from touring for things like volunteering in his son’s kindergarten classroom.

But for a band and bandleader who have essentially operated on their own terms for 40 years, really, anything is possible.

“Right now, this is our last record, and if that changes, it changes,” Muir says. “I think if you take that approach with anything, you’ll be all right. It’s been a long and sometimes very painful journey, and a lot of times it was a fight. But at the end if the day, I really like what we’ve done.”

FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 27

28 · San Diego CityBeat · february 22, 2017

@SDCityBeat

MUSIC

JEFF TERICH

IF I WERE U A music insider’s weekly agenda WEDNESDAY, FEB. 22

PLAN A: Priests, Stef Chura, Be All End All @ Che Cafe. Priests are one of my new favorite bands. They play an eclectic style of punk that goes back and forth between danceable no wave and densely beautiful shoegaze that’s always clever and witty. I see very little likelihood of this show not being a blast. PLAN B: Tennis, Hoops @ The Irenic. Husband-and-wife duo Tennis are an endearing band, not only because of their backstory but because they play jangly pop that’s easy to love on first listen. They continue to get dreamier as their production budget increases, so be ready to swoon.

BACKUP PLAN: Landlady, Cassandra Jenkins @ The Hideout.

THURSDAY, FEB. 23

PLAN A: Suicidal Tendencies, Crowbar, Havok @ Observatory North Park. Read Scott McDonald’s feature on Suicidal Tendencies, who have been playing hardcore and crossover thrash for more than 30

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years. I’m sure you’re all expecting to hear “Institutionalized,” but if they throw in their 1990 televangelist satire “Send Me Your Money,” I’ll be happy. PLAN B: Kim and the Created, Death Hymn Number 9, Mike Turi, Andrew McGranahan @ The Hideout. Kim and the Created are a super fun band to watch live. Part of it is their catchy style of psychedelic rock, but a lot of it is their frontwoman Kim, who’s super animated, typically dressed in outlandish costumes and all kinds of charismatic. BACKUP PLAN: Pinback, Sumatraban, Shades McCool @ Belly Up Tavern.

FRIDAY, FEB. 24

PLAN A: Black Marble, Uniform, Die Mißbildungen Des Menschen @ The Hideout. There’s nothing more satisfying, sometimes, than a squall of crushing industrial grind. Uniform plays a thrashy style of ‘80s-influenced industrial that’ll make you nostalgic for your old Ministry records.

They’re intense and awesome. PLAN B: Vince Staples, Kilo Kish @ Observatory North Park. Vince Staples continues to prove himself one of the most vital figures in hip-hop, having released the excellent Prima Donna EP after his outstanding debut Summertime ‘06. He’s also chill enough not to get upset when viral video stars get irrationally angry about the content of his songs. BACKUP PLAN: Gavin Turek @ Soda Bar.

SUNDAY, FEB. 26

SATURDAY, FEB. 25

MONDAY, FEB. 27

PLAN A: Moon Duo, Umberto, Calcutta Kid @ The Casbah. Moon Duo combines two great things: Dark, synthy post-punk and blazing psychedelic freak outs. Maybe on paper those don’t sound like two things that should go together, but they’re a clever enough band to appeal to both goths and hippie burnouts. PLAN B: Pinback, Big Bad Buffalo @ The Irenic. It’s a relief to us all that Pinback isn’t retired for good, and if you miss out on their Belly Up show this week, consider the all-ages option, opened by young indie rock MVPs Big Bad Buffalo.

PLAN A: Hideout, Bit Maps, Sixes @ Whistle Stop. A couple weeks ago I reviewed the new album by Hideout, So Many Hoops/So Little Time, and I liked it a lot.

And that’s saying a lot because I get bored easily with contemporary indie rock. They took it to the next level on this one, so definitely check them out. The show’s free, too, so no excuses.

PLAN A: ‘Metal Monday’ @ The Office.

I don’t ordinarily put DJ events on the ol’ If I Were U, but it would appear that bands in San Diego are taking the night off. So instead, why not have a few drinks and hear some local heshers spin their favorite metal jams. No cover!

TUESDAY, FEB. 28

Priests

PLAN A: Supersonic Dragon Wagon, Bosswitch, Nebula Drag @ The Merrow. Support your local riff-slingers!

This is a pretty solid trio of local heavy bands, my particular favorite of the bunch being Bosswitch, who combine pop hooks with some badass rock ‘n’ roll.

FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 29

MUSIC

CONCERTS HOT! NEW! FRESH!

WAND (Soda Bar, 3/22), Warbringer (Brick by Brick, 3/26), Wire (Casbah, 3/29), Hirie (BUT, 4/7), Kristin Kontrol (Hideout, 4/10), Mount Eerie (Irenic, 4/10), Katchafire (BUT, 4/11), Father John Misty (Humphreys, 4/12), Banks (Humphreys, 4/13), Ape Machine (Soda Bar, 4/13), Little Dragon (Observatory, 4/16), Toots and the Maytals (BUT, 4/17), Steely Dan (Humphreys, 4/17), Kaleo (BUT, 4/19), Mitski (Irenic, 4/19), Spiral Stairs (Soda Bar, 4/19), Twin Peaks, Hinds (Irenic, 4/20), Califone (The Hideout, 4/20), Lee Fields and the Expressions (Music Box, 4/20), Chance the Rapper (Valley View Casino Center, 4/24), Ariana Savalas (Casbah, 4/25), Jamey Johnson, Margo Price (Observatory, 4/25), Intronaut (Brick by Brick, 4/28), Com Truise, Clark (BUT, 5/12), Conor Oberst (Observatory, 5/14), Chris Stapleton (Mattress Firm Amphitheatre, 5/18), Magic Giant (Casbah, 5/20), Bryan Adams (Open Air Theatre, 5/22), Whores (Soda Bar, 6/6), Conflict (Soda Bar, 6/16), Metallica (Petco Park, 8/6), Incubus, Jimmy Eat World (Mattress Firm Amphitheatre, 8/11), One Republic (Mattress Firm Amphitheatre, 9/1).

GET YER TICKETS Bon Jovi (Viejas Arena, 3/5), Immolation (Brick by Brick, 3/5), Ghostface Killah (HOB, 3/10), The Menzingers (Irenic,

30 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · FEBRUARY 22, 2017

3/12), Matisyahu (BUT, 3/14-15), Anna Meredith (Soda Bar, 3/15), Teenage Fanclub (BUT, 3/16), Portugal. The Man (Observatory, 3/16), Julieta Venegas (HOB, 3/17), Wu-Tang Clan (Observatory, 3/20), ‘San Diego Music Awards’ (HOB, 3/21), Modern English (Casbah, 3/22), Common (Observatory, 3/24), Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Casbah, 3/25), Oathbreaker, Khemmis (Soda Bar, 3/27), Why? (Irenic, 3/30), The Old 97s (BUT, 3/31), DJ Quik (Observatory, 4/1), Richard Ashcroft (Spreckels, 4/1), Squirrel Nut Zippers (Music Box, 4/1), The Damned (HOB, 4/7), Green Day (Valley View Casino Center, 4/8), STS9 (Observatory, 4/8), The Maine (HOB, 4/8), Aaron Neville Duo (BUT, 4/9), Desiigner (Observatory, 4/9), Of Montreal (Music Box, 4/10), Power Trip (Casbah, 4/10), A Perfect Circle (Open Air Theatre, 4/11), Banks (Humphreys, 4/13), Preservation Hall Jazz Band (BUT, 4/13), Preoccupations (Casbah, 4/13), Local Natives (Observatory, 4/17), Steely Dan (Humphreys, 4/17), Reverend Horton Heat (BUT, 4/20), Lila Downs (Humphreys, 4/20), David Crosby (Humphreys, 4/23), Vieux Farka Toure (Casbah, 4/24), The 1975 (Open Air Theatre, 4/25), Willie Nelson (Humphreys, 4/26), Kings of Leon (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 4/28), Foreigner, Cheap Trick (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 4/29), Mariachi El Bronx (BUT, 5/5), Flaming Lips (Observatory, 5/7), Lionel Richie (Viejas Arena, 5/8), Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (HOB, 5/12), Cashmere Cat (Observatory, 5/13), Train (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 5/14), Testament (HOB, 5/16), Rodriguez (Humphreys, 5/23), Brian Wilson (Civic Theatre, 5/24), NKOTB, Paula Abdul, Boyz II Men (Viejas Arena, 6/1), Lady Antebellum (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 6/4), Valerie June (BUT, 6/8),

Def Leppard (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 6/16), Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (Civic Theatre, 6/26), Deftones, Rise Against (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 7/7), 2Cellos (Open Air Theatre, 7/18), Third Eye Blind (Open Air Theatre, 7/21), Diana Krall (Humphreys, 8/8), Sam Hunt (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 8/10), Green Day (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 9/13), Coldplay (Qualcomm Stadium, 10/8).

FEBRUARY WEDNESDAY, FEB. 22 AFI at Observatory North Park (sold out). Circa Survive at House of Blues.

Priests at Che Café. Tennis at The Irenic. Landlady at The Hideout.

THURSDAY, FEB. 23 Pinback at Belly Up Tavern. Captured!

By Robots at Soda Bar. Radical Face at The Irenic. Kim and the Created at The Hideout. Suicidal Tendencies at Observatory North Park. The New Regime, Kut U Up at The Casbah.

FRIDAY, FEB. 24 Black Marble, Uniform at The Hideout. Archgoat at Brick by Brick. Moose Blood at The Irenic. Jojo at House of Blues. The Staves at The Casbah (sold out). Vince Staples at Observatory North Park. Creedence Clearwater Revisited at Harrah’s SoCal. Steve Poltz at Belly Up Tavern. Gavin Turek at The Casbah.

SATURDAY, FEB. 25 Hippie Sabotage at Observatory North Park. Pinback at The Irenic. Hazel English at Soda Bar. Suicide Silence at SOMA. Moon Duo at The Casbah. Steve

Poltz at Belly Up Tavern. The Palms at Soda Bar.

SUNDAY, FEB. 26 Elektric Voodoo at The Casbah. Hideout at The Whistle Stop.

MONDAY, FEB. 27 Louie Anderson at Belly Up Tavern.

Susy Sun at Soda Bar.

TUESDAY, FEB. 28 Supersonic Dragon Wagon at The Merrow.

MARCH WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1 Alina Baraz at Observatory North Park.

Britton at Belly Up Tavern. Twin Ritual at The Casbah.

THURSDAY, MARCH 2 Mondo Cozmo at The Casbah. Wood Brothers at Observatory North Park.

Stevie Nicks at Viejas Arena. Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real at Belly Up Tavern. Death Valley Girls at The Hideout.

FRIDAY, MARCH 3 Miya Folick at Che Café. Senses Fail at Observatory North Park. Redwoods Revue at The Casbah.

SATURDAY, MARCH 4 ‘Experience Hendrix 2017’ w/ Buddy Guy, Kenny Wayne Shepherd at Harrah’s SoCal. Laura Stevenson at The Casbah.

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MUSIC SUNDAY, MARCH 5 Immolation at Brick by Brick. Shiner at The Casbah. Temples at Belly Up Tavern.

Sinkane at Soda Bar. Isaiah Rashad at Observatory North Park. Chase Rice at House of Blues. Red Hot Chili Peppers at Valley View Casino Center (sold out).

Bon Jovi at Viejas Arena.

MONDAY, MARCH 6 The Shins at Observatory North Park (sold out). Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at Belly Up Tavern.

TUESDAY, MARCH 7 Mykki Blanco, Cakes da Killa at Soda Bar. The Shins at Observatory North Park (sold out).

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8 Mike Pinto at Belly Up Tavern. Six Organs of Admittance at Soda Bar. Social Distortion at Observatory North Park (sold out). Blackalicious at The Casbah.

THURSDAY, MARCH 9 Lady Lamb at Soda Bar. Salif Keita at Belly Up Tavern. Whitechapel at House of Blues. Irish Rovers at Poway OnStage. Bash & Pop at The Casbah.

Social Distortion at Observatory North Park (sold out).

FRIDAY, MARCH 10 Big Thief at Soda Bar. POS at The Casbah. Tchami at Observatory North Park.

Ghostface Killah at House of Blues.

LVL UP at Che Café. Sick Puppies at The Irenic.

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SATURDAY, MARCH 11 Darkest Hour at Brick by Brick. Japandroids at Music Box. Neil Hamburger at The Casbah. G. Love and Special Sauce at Belly Up Tavern.

SUNDAY, MARCH 12 Daya at House of Blues. Menzingers at The Irenic. G. Love and Special Sauce at Belly Up Tavern.

MONDAY, MARCH 13 Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness at House of Blues. Davina and the Vagabonds at The Casbah.

TUESDAY, MARCH 14 Adelitas Way at Brick by Brick. UFO, Saxon at House of Blues. Matisyahu at Belly Up Tavern. Meat Puppets at The Casbah. Zach Williams at Soda Bar.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15 Matisyahu at Belly Up Tavern. Anna Meredith at Soda Bar. Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn at California Center for the Arts. Truckfighters at Brick by Brick.

THURSDAY, MARCH 16 Portugal. The Man at Observatory North Park. The Cadillac Three at House of Blues. Teenage Fanclub at Belly Up Tavern. Mike Wojniak at Soda Bar.

FRIDAY, MARCH 17 Jay And Silent Bob Get Old at House of Blues. The Routine at Soda Bar. Julieta Venegas at House of Blues. California Honeydrops at Belly Up Tavern.

SATURDAY, MARCH 18 Jungle Fire at The Casbah. James Chance and the Contortions at The Hideout. California Honeydrops at Belly Up Tavern. Fartbarf at Soda Bar.

SUNDAY, MARCH 19 Lake Street Dive at Belly Up Tavern (sold out). John 5 and the Creatures at Brick by Brick. Bob Log III at Soda Bar. Umphrey’s McGee at Observatory North Park.

MONDAY, MARCH 20 Maggie Rogers at The Irenic (sold out).

Kate Tempest at The Casbah. Wu-Tang Clan at Observatory North Park.

TUESDAY, MARCH 21 San Diego Music Awards at House of Blues. Palo Duro at Soda Bar.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22 Modern English at The Casbah. WAND at Soda Bar.

THURSDAY, MARCH 23 Omni at The Hideout. Electric Guest at The Casbah (sold out). Cro-Mags at Soda Bar.

rCLUBSr

710 Beach Club, 710 Garnet Ave. Pacific Beach. Fri: Brian Jones Rock’N’Roll Revival, Copy Cat Killers. Tue: Half Crown.

MUSIC CONTINUED ON PAGE 32

FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 31

MUSIC CLUBS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31 Air Conditioned Lounge, 4673 30th St, Normal Heights. Wed: ‘Interconnected’ w/ DJs Imper, Yaser Aly, Brian Scannell.

Thu: ‘Libertine’ w/ DJs Jon Wesley, 1979.

Sat: ‘Juicy’ w/ Mike Czech. Sun: ‘Chvrch’ w/ DJs Karma, Alice.

The Bancroft, 9143 Campo Road. Spring Valley. Thu: Born A New, Serpents Tongue, Albert the Cannibal. Fri: Chochkey, Fountain of Youth, Puerto, Ghost Dance. Sat: American Jihad, Dead 77, Carpit, The Brookhounds, Los Homeless, LA’s Forgotten, SSatns, Chuy Poluka, Barking Irons.

Bar Pink, 3829 30th St. North Park. Wed: ‘Midweek Boogie’. Thu: Gabriela Aparicio and La Buena Onda. Fri: ‘80s v. 90s’.

Sat: Candlelights, Fresh Brunettes, Fake Tides. Sun: ‘Rat Sabbath’. Mon: Tori Roze and the Hot Mess. Tue: ‘Tiki Tuesday’ w/ DJ Marshall Islands.

Bang Bang, 526 Market St. Downtown.

Fri: Barclay Crenshaw. Sat: Martin Jensen.

Beaumont’s, 5665 La Jolla Blvd. La Jolla. Thu: Simeon Flick Duo. Fri: Aquile Gunby Trio. Sat: Emotional Rescue.

Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave. Solana Beach. Wed: Full Revolution, Shujaa Sauti, JB and the Movers. Thu: Pinback, Sumatraban, Shades McCool.

Fri: Steve Poltz. Sat: Steve Poltz. Sun: The Highwayman, Shane Shipley. Mon: Louie Anderson.

Black Cat Bar, 4246 University Ave. City Heights. Fri: Levi Dean and the Americats, Black Oak Hymnal.

Blonde, 1808 W. Washington St. Mission Hills. Thu: The Rebel Set, Los Shadows, Twin Ritual. Sat: Zombies in Miami, Mark Quark, Rivka M, MaxBetta.

Boar Cross’n, 390 Grand Ave. Carlsbad.

Thu: Taken by Canadians. Fri: ‘Club Musae’.

Brick 15, 915 Camino del Mar. Del Mar. Thu: Antje Duvekot. Fri: Anne McCue. Sat: David Wilcox.

Brick by Brick, 1130 Buenos Ave. Bay Park. Thu: Speaker First, Katéa, Ben Hazlewood, MADYX. Fri: Archgoat, Valkyrja, Hellfire Deathcult, Ruines Ov Abaddon.

Sat: One Inch Punch, Godhammered, RDG, Pissed Regardless.

Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd. Midtown. Wed: Dark Thirty, The Wild Young Hearts, Astral Touch. Thu: The Phantoms, Snakes and Crows, Atlantic Answers. Fri: The Staves, Mikaela Davis (sold out). Sat: Moon Duo, Umberto. Sun: Elektric Voodoo, Creature Canyon, Jason Hanna and the Bullfighters.

Tue: DJ Artistic’s Hip-Hop Battle Bot. Che Cafe, UCSD campus, La Jolla.

Wed: Priests, Stef Chura.

Chico Club, 7366 El Cajon Blvd. La Mesa. Fri: Farewell to the Foxes. Sat: Super Buffet, Suite 100, The Armoires, Steve Rosenbaum’s Mess of Fun. Dirk’s Nightclub, 7662 Broadway. Lemon Grove. Fri: Josie Day Band. Sat: Hurricane Andrew.

Dizzy’s, 4275 Mission Bay Drive. Mission Bay. Fri: Christopher Hollyday Quintet.

Sat: John Reynolds Quintet.

The Field Irish Pub, 544 Fifth Ave. Wed: Fiore. Thu: Smokey Hoof. Fri: Black Donnelly’s. Sat: Black Donnelly’s. Sun: Blue Jean Simmons. Mon: Dan Porter. Tue: BJ Jezbera.

F6ix, 526 F St., Downtown. Fri: DJ Rell and Paris Paul. Sat: DJ Peso.

Fluxx, 500 Fourth Ave. Downtown. Fri: Dre Sinatra. Sat: Jami.

32 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · FEBRUARY 22, 2017

SPOTLIGHT Do androids dream of electric guitars? AFFIRMATIVE! Captured! by Robots is a one “man” band, fronted by the human, JBOT. As the story goes, JBOT attempted to create a musical group with robots, but somehow his rudimentary musical creations turned on him, and he now travels the world as their slave, forced to front their band as punishment for playing God. The result? A live show that’s akin to watching the animatronic Chuck E. Cheese band have sex with Hellraiser. Captured! by Robots plays Thursday, Feb. 23 at Soda Bar.

Henry’s Pub, 618 Fifth Ave. Downtown.

Wed: Ride the Mule. Thu: DJ Yodah. Fri: ‘Good Times’. Sat: ‘Rock Star Saturday’.

Tue: ‘50s/60s Dance Party.

The Hideout, 3519 El Cajon Blvd. City Heights. Wed: Landlady, Cassandra Jenkins. Thu: Kim and the Created, Death Hymn Number 9. Fri: Black Marble, Uniform, Die Missbildungen Die Menschen.

Sat: Angel Food, Angels Dust.

The Holding Company, 5046 Newport Ave. Ocean Beach. Wed: Baby Gow. Thu: DJ Green T, Sexy Kung Fu Katz.

—Ryan Bradford

Fri: Wise Monkey, DJ Mancat. Sat: Blink 18True, Puncture, Weezerton, DJ Jalil.

Mon: Fire From The Gods, New Challenger, Dayne Alexander, Killing The Messenger. Tue: Irie G. Hooley’s, 5500 Grossmont Center Drive.

La Mesa. Fri: Flipside Burners. Sat: King Taylor.

House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave, Downtown. Wed: Circa Survive, mewithoutYou, Turnover. Fri: Jojo, Stanaj. Sat: Dark Star Orchestra. Sun: Easton Corbin. Tue: San Diego Cajun Playboys.

Humphreys Backstage, 2241 Shelter Island Drive. Shelter Island. Wed: 52nd St. Thu: Pop Vinyl. Fri: Detroit Underground, High Tide Society. Sat: Funk’s Most Wanted, The Reflectors. Sun: Wildside. Mon: Mercedes Moore. Tue: Missy Andersen.

The Irenic, 3090 Polk Ave. North Park. Fri: Moose Blood, Trophy Eyes, Boston Manor, A Will Away. Sun: Pinback, Big Bad Buffalo.

Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. Wed: BRKN Symmetry. Thu: ‘Psilo’. Fri: ‘Purps and Turqs’ w/ Deep Jesus.

@SDCITYBEAT

MUSIC Sat: ‘This N That’. Sun: ‘Toombao’. Tue: Swamp Music.

Sue Palmer and Her Motel Swing Orchestra, The Shenanigans.

lish, Hawai. Sun: The Palms. Mon: Susy Sun, Justin Froese.

Kensington Club, 4079 Adams Ave. Kensington. Fri: Nights Like Thieves, The Montell Jordans, Burial Plot.

Numbers, 3811 Park Blvd. Hillcrest. Fri: ‘Uncut’. Sat: ‘Club Sabbat’. Sun: ‘R&B Divas’.

Lestat’s Coffee House, 3343 Adams Ave. Normal Heights. Fri: Andy Suzuki and the Method, The Brevet. Sat: Home, Spencer Dugan, Samer Bakri. Sun: Elise Truow, Elisia Savoca, Hannah Jordan.

OMNIA Nightclub, 454 Sixth Ave. Downtown. Thu: Vicetone. Fri: Sander Van Doorn. Sat: Elephante.

SOMA, 3350 Sports Arena Blvd. Midway.

Fri: Malik Burgers, 1207, Digi Gurl. Sat: Suicide Silence, Plague Vendor, Cameron Agron.

The Loft @ UCSD, Price Center East, La Jolla. Wed: Miguel Zenón Quartet. Fri: Thalma & Laércio de Freitas. Sat: Joshua White.

Mc P’s Irish Pub, 1107 Orange Ave. Coronado. Wed: Harmony Road. Thu: JG Trio. Fri: Trunk Monkey. Sat: Manic Bros. Sun: Pat Ellis and Blue Frog Band.

Martinis Above Fourth, 3940 Fourth Ave. Hillcrest. Wed: Andy Anderson and Nathan Fry. Fri: Janice Edwards Band & Nathan. Sat: Tiffany Jane and the Kicks.

Sun: Don L. & Ria Carey. Tue: Miss Coco Peru.

The Merrow, 1271 University Ave. Hillcrest. Sat: Hard Fall Hearts, Get Married, Casual Friday. Sun: ‘Back Alley’. Tue: Supersonic Dragon Wagon, Bosswitch, Nebula Drag.

Mother’s Saloon, 2228 Bacon St. Ocean Beach. Thu: DJ Dub B. Fri: The Brewhahas. Sat: DJ K Reed.

Mr. Peabody’s, 136 Encinitas Blvd. Encinitas. Wed: The Encinitas Gong Show.

Thu: The Sundance Band. Fri: Resurrection Society. Sat: The Traumatics. Sun: Tony Ortega jazz jam.

Music Box, 1337 India St. Little Italy. Fri: ‘Dance Yourself Clean’. Sat: Greyboy Allstars, DJ Williams, Shots Fired. Sun: The Rockets, Road Noise, Buzz Campbell;

@SDCITYBEAT

Panama 66, 1450 El Prado. Balboa Park.

Wed: Gilbert Castellanos. Fri: Trojan Rocksteady Boxsets. Sat: Matt Smith Neu Jazz Trio. Sun: Soul funk jam.

Parq, 615 Broadway. Downtown. Fri: Konflikt. Sat: Justin Credible.

Plaza Bar @ Westgate Hotel, 1055 Second Ave. Downtown. Fri: Gilbert Castellanos. Sat: Allison Tucker. Mon: Julio De la Huerta.

Rich›s, 1051 University Ave, Hillcrest.

Wed: DJ John Joseph. Thu: DJ Kiki.

Fri: DJs K-Swift, Will Z. Sat: DJs K-Swift, Taj, Nikno. Sun: DJs Hektik, Jesus Montanez.

Riviera Supper Club, 7777 University Ave, La Mesa. Wed: ‘Boss Jazz’ w/ Jason Hanna. Thu: The Coastal Eddies. Fri: Good Mojo. Sat: Creepxotica. Sun: Brennon Orndorff.

Rosie O’gradys, 3402 Adams Ave. Normal Heights. Fri: Chill Clinton. Sat: Black Market III. Seven Grand, 3054 University Ave. North Park. Wed: Miss Erika Davies and the Men. Thu: Jimmy Ruelas. Fri: Lyrical Groove. Sat: Jimmy Ruelas. Mon: ‘Makossa Monday’ w/ DJ Tah Rei. Tue: Nathan Hubbard Trio.

Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd. City Heights. Wed: Mozart’s Sister, Teen Daze, Vakoum. Thu: Captured! By Robots. Fri: Gavin Turek. Sat: Hazel Eng-

Sycamore Den, 3391 Adams Ave. Normal Heights. Sun: Daniel Crawford and the Unkind Ravens, Nina Frances.

Til-Two Club, 4746 El Cajon Blvd. City Heights. Fri: Flying Hair, Nebula Drag, Iguanadon. Sat: Trashkannon, All Beat Up. Sun: Pants Karaoke.

Tin Roof, 401 G St. Downtown. Wed: Allegra Duchaine. Fri: ‘Pink Ribbon Riot’.

Sat: Keep Your Soul, Kenny and Deez.

Sun: Tehila Havaiia. Mon: Tay Watts.

Tio Leo’s, 5302 Napa St, Bay Park. Thu: Charles Burton Band. Fri: The Hollywood Stones. Sat: Detroit Underground. Tue: Sue Palmer.

Tower Bar, 4757 University Ave. City Heights. Fri: Strike Twelve, Second Hand, Reckless Disregard. Sat: Midnight Eagle, Griever, Burning Hammer, Endless/Nameless. Sun: The Fountain of Youth, Chochkey, Que Oso, Puerto.

U-31, 3112 University Ave. North Park.

Thu: ‘Thursdaze’. Fri: DJ Havoc. Sat: DJ Junior the Disco Punk. Tue: ‘Electricity’.

Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, South Park.

Wed: ‘Retrograde’ w/ DJ JC. Thu: ‘Vamp’.

Fri: ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ w/ DJ Lazer Lizeth.

Sat: ‘Booty Bassment’ w/ DJs Dimitri, Rob Moran. Sun: Hideout, Bit Maps, Sixes.

Winstons, 1921 Bacon St. Ocean Beach.

Wed: Johnny Love, DJ Carlos Culture.

Thu: Modern Day Moonshine. Fri: DJ Icey, Omega Squad, Nastytrix, Mr. Ruxpen. Sat: Bang Pow, Celebration Guns, DJ Green T.

FEBRUARY 22, 2017 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · 33

LAST WORDS | ADVICE

AMY ALKON

ADVICE

GODDESS Stare Trek

who went for the fertile young hotties, not the 70-year-old ladies with a lot of personality.

The 40-year-old guy I’m dating swivels his Not surprisingly, brain imaging studies head to check out ladies everywhere. He by evolutionary psychologist Steven Platek even comments on those he finds attrac- and his colleagues find that when men see tive. I’ve mentioned that it bugs me. He pictures of curvalicious women—those contends that it’s my insecurities that are with an hourglass bod, a fertility indicareally the issue here. I can see how lower tor—there’s “activation” in (most notably) self-esteem might lend itself to an offend- the nucleus accumbens. This is part of the ed reaction, as opposed to just a shrug or brain’s reward circuitry and, as they put it, an eye roll, but is this really on me? “the seat of addictive behavior.” Regarding

—Blamed their findings, Platek told me, “We think that Yes, of course your insecurities are the real this is why men quite literally find it chalissue here. Because what woman wouldn’t lenging to look away from a highly attractive feel great when her boyfriend’s all “Whoa, female body.”

No, not “impossible” to look away. “Chalboobs are out tonight!”?

That said, it is normal that he’s driven to lenging.” Like it may sometimes be for you look. Men evolved to have their eyeballs all to keep from stabbing your boyfriend in the up in every hot woman’s business because thigh with a fork when he rubbernecks at the features considered beautiful in a woman a passing pair of Wonderbreasts. However, correlate with health and fertility. Ancestral feeling disturbed by his girl-gawking isn’t men who passed on their genes (and mating a sign you’re emotionally defective. Conpsychology)—the men whose male descen- sider that emotions aren’t there just to jazz dants are walking the planet today—are those up your day. Psychiatrist and evolutionary

34 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · FEBRUARY 22, 2017

psychologist Randolph Nesse explains that emotions have a job to do—to motivate us to “respond adaptively” to threats and opportunities. For example, that rotten feeling you get in response to your boyfriend’s ogling is basically an alarm going off alerting you that a man’s commitment isn’t there or is waning. Wanting to feel better pushes you to remedy the situation.

If your insecurity is tripping you up, it’s in how you seem to be second-guessing the emotions yelling at you, “Do something!

HELLO?! Are you in a coma?” The thing is, you don’t have to feel assertive to be assertive. You just have to (gulp!) stand up for yourself as an assertive person would.

Again, the problem isn’t that your boyfriend’s looking; it’s that he’s looking (and commenting) while you’re standing right there, feelings and all. Be honest with him: This doesn’t just “bug” you; it hurts your feelings. It makes you feel disrespected. And it needs to stop. Now. Because you want to feel loved, respected and happy—either with him or with some guy you meet at his funeral, after his tragic but inevitable death from drowning in a pool of his own drool.

Splendor In The Gracias For two years, I’ve been in the best relationship of my life, after years of really bad ones. I’m thinking that maybe the key to a happy relationship is having two people who think they aren’t good enough for each other. Not that we feel

that in a pathetic way. We each just feel really grateful and lucky to be with the other person, and it makes a difference in how we treat each other. Thoughts?

—Happy At Last

Sometimes the thing we tell ourselves is love is really “the thing I got into because I was scared I’d die alone—surrounded by empty singleserving zinfandel bottles—and get discovered 10 years later, mummified, on my couch.”

What seems key this time around—in how happy you two are—is the gratitude you feel. Gratitude for your partner comes out of noticing the sweet, thoughtful things they do -- like taking out the trash without needing to be “asked” at gunpoint.

However, what you’re grateful for isn’t so much the garbage relocation as what social psychologist Kaska Kubacka describes as your partner’s “responsiveness to (your) needs.”

This, in turn, tells you that your happiness is important to them, which tells you that they value you and the relationship. Awww.

Seeing that you’re loved and cared for like this motivates you to do sweet, loving things for your partner. Which motivates them…which motivates you… (Think of it as love on the Ping-Pong model.) This helps create and maintain the kind of relationship where, when your partner blurts out “I love you so much!” your inclination is to respond in kind—instead of turning around to see who the hell they’re talking to.

(c)2017, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved.

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February 22, 2017 · San Diego CityBeat · 35