San Diego CityBeat • Apr 6, 2016

MUSIC

Diarrhea Planet pushes harder on Turn to Gold

OPINION

Chargers v Padres: Dawn of Injustice?

2 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

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April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 3

Up Front | From the editor

Padres v Chargers: Dawn of Injustice?

Y

es, the Padres got a beatdown and lost, 15-0, to the Dodgers in their home opener. But it could be slightly worse. It could already be Chargers season.

Woe unto the San Diego pro sports fan. The local standard for success among our athletic heroes too often is mediocrity. The Friars’ all-time wonlost record is 3,417-3,947-2 (through Opening Day), a winning percentage of .464. The Bolts’ 432-437-11 record, and winning percentage of .490, make them slightly better losers. Forget not that San Diego has never won a Super Bowl (but lost one) and the Padres have never won a World Series (losing two).

Side by side in the front offices, the amiable bat blunders by the local boys of summer seem less offensive than the narcissistic apathy fans get from the gridiron gurus wearing Kryptonitelined jockstraps. You be the judge:

convention officials say won’t aid efforts to attract business. While bad vibes simmer, the team holds the back-pocket option to move to L.A. in the next couple years…to share a stadium with the Rams.

SERVING THE PUBLIC Padres: The team regularly updates the concession fare (hello, Gaglione Brothers, Brigantine and Board & Brew), re-jiggers the seating around the outfield and enhances the lights and the PA system.

And give-away nights abound: Get jerseys, hats, hoodies and all manner of free schwag all season.

Chargers: The Chargers are reaching out to NOlan Huelsman raise the hotel tax by 4 percent so they can redirect a public subsidy to build themselves that new lair.

HOMAGE TO HEROES PAST Padres: After retiring from the Padres, demi-god Tony Gwynn opted to coach his alma mater, San Diego State University, until his ORIGIN STORY cancer-related death in Padres: San Diego played 2014. Mr. Padre stayed conin the gee-whiz Pacific Coast nected to the pro team—he League before being called Padres Opening Day at Petco Park did TV color commentary up to the bigs in 1968. and is memorialized by a larger-than-life statue at Chargers: Hotel magnate Barron Hilton foundPetco Park. Revered closer Trevor Hoffman works ed them in 1959. The American Football Leaguein the team’s front office. Cy Young-award-winning affiliated team played one (winning) season in the pitcher Randy Jones does radio and TV for the team Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but moved to San and has a BBQ franchise at the ballpark.

Diego because they had a tough time competing for Chargers: The heart and soul of the team during fans with the National Football League’s Rams. the ’90s, 12-time Pro Bowl linebacker Junior Seau THE LAIR was traded away in 2003, then went on to play seven more years in the NFL. Seau committed suicide in Padres: In 1998 the team loaded up on talent and made it to the World Series (before getting swept by 2012. LaDanian Tomlinson became the face of the the New York Yankees). A ballot proposition that year Bolts, then the six-time Pro Bowler was released in to build Petco Park passed overwhelmingly, thanks 2010 and played two more years with New York Jets.

LT does local commercials for ASI Heating, Air and in large part to the team’s on-field success and an offSolar, and as an ASI “White Glove Guy” he has parothe-field public wooing and baby-kissing campaign died the Chargers’ threat to leave town. Eric Weddle led by former team president Larry Lucchino. was drafted in 2007 and the three-time Pro Bowler Chargers: After third- and fourth-place finishes the last two years, the team openly courted a move and hard-working defensive specialist became a fan to Los Angeles, but failed to get backing from the favorite. Last year, Weddle was fined for staying on NFL to build a stadium in Carson. Chargers frontthe field during halftime to watch his daughter perform. Earlier this year, the Baltimore Ravens signed man Mark Fabiani was relieved from his duty of belittling and denigrating San Diego, and now new Weddle to a four-year contract. Ka-pow. spokesperson Fred Maas is pitching an East Village

—Ron Donoho hybrid stadium-convention space plan that politiWrite to rond@sdcitybeat.com cians are treating like a new Nickelback release and This issue of CityBeat didn’t need another reason for the Crying Jordan meme to circulate. Looking at you, Villanova.

Volume 14 • Issue 34 Editor Ron Donoho Music Editor Jeff Terich Arts Editor Seth Combs Web Editor Ryan Bradford Art director Carolyn Ramos editorial assistant Torrey Bailey Columnists Aaryn Belfer, Edwin Decker John R. Lamb, Alex Zaragoza

Contributors David L. Coddon, Beth Demmon, Andrew Dyer, Tiffany Fox, Michael A. Gardiner, Glenn Heath Jr., Peter Holslin, Jessica Johnson, Scott McDonald, Jenny Montgomery, Susan Myrland, Jim Ruland, Ben Salmon, Tom Siebert, Jen Van Tieghem, Amy Wallen editorial Intern Elizabeth Pode Production Manager Tristan Whitehouse MultiMedia Advertising Director Paulina Porter-Tapia

Senior account executive Jason Noble Account Executives Beau Odom Mark Schreiber Jenny Tormey Accounting Kacie Cobian Sharon Huie Linda Lam Human Resources Andrea Baker

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San Diego CityBeat is published and distributed every Wednesday by Southland Publishing Inc., free of charge but limited to one per reader. Reproduction of any material in this or any other issue is prohibited without written permission from the publisher and the author. Contents copyright 2016.

4 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

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Up Front | Letters

DROP THE DUMB

In describing Helen Keller as “deaf, dumb and blind,” [“Getting physical at Lamb’s Players,” March 23] may I share that the deaf community is no longer saddled with the epithet “dumb.”

The terminology, if needed, is mute. Deaf people are an amazing lot, worthy of many adjectives, but dumb never should have been one of them.

Actually, to accommodate the hearing world, many deaf learn to voice, so they are not truly mute. Spread the word. And the next time you meet someone deaf, greet them and say hello.

It will be appreciated. I read CityBeat weekly.

Thank you for your sensitivity.

Nancy Drew,

Normal Heights

A SWEEP FAN

I hadn’t read your article from March 9 [“Homeless left out in the rain,”] until today.

You didn’t quote a single resident of the area— you know, those who pay taxes, don’t steal bikes, remain sober most of the time and don’t poop on the street. I get the impression you didn’t ask any. As far as I can tell, your story was a single interview with a self-described “homeless advocate” and a couple emails from the police and [City Councilmember Todd] Gloria’s office.

If you had, you’d have found out how welcome the cleanup sweeps are for us, and how much we appreciate it when the police bag up their stuff.

But you didn’t.

Why not?

#SDCityBeat

Did you bother getting up from your desk to write that?

Pete Zanko,

San Diego

BAD ADVICE

I have to tell you that I was surprised to read Amy Alkon’s Advice Goddess column in CityBeat. She may have a weekly blog talk radio show and be an “author” (Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say the F-Word)...but I found her subject matter puerile, in addition to neither being genuinely helpful nor funny. I think she was shooting for clever. It felt like she had no idea what she was going for. I hope she gets a grip. Horrible read. Embarrassing, actually.

Stephen Keyes, Encinitas

SHIP AHOY

Thanks for the nice write up about Jonathan Allen and the new art boat installation he’s created for the Arts District at Liberty Station [“Ship out of water,” March 23]. In addition to other contemporary art, by respecting our Navy history, we have artistic opportunities to contract with San Diego artists to create installations that harken to the heritage of the former Naval Training Center and the legacy of the two million men and women who trained here. This is a nice start and I appreciate your sharing this story with CityBeat readers.

Alan Ziter, Liberty Station

On the

Cover Editorial assistant Torrey Bailey snapped the cover photograph of Little Italy denizens enjoying a game of bocce ball. The newest addition to the CityBeat editorial team, Bailey has been overseeing coverage of our monthly installments of Neighborhood Watch, and this week brings the fourth in the series. “I was happily surprised to hear men walking the streets of Little Italy talking in Italian,” Bailey says. “Playing bocce ball, and in front of the restaurants in front of the Little Italy sign, they were bantering and verbally jabbing each other very excitedly.” Bailey’s not completely sure if the jabs were off-color, but they create ambiance one way or another. The coverage begins on page 15.

April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 5

Up Front | opinion

john r. lamb

spin

cycle

john r. lamb

Frozen Kevin Faulconer, patron saint of indecision The maxim “Nothing but perfection” may be spelled “Paralysis.”

—Winston Churchill

I

t took squeaky new Padres skipper Andy Green one game to figure out his honeymoon was over. By contrast, Mayor Kevin Faulconer—764 days into occupying the city’s top political catbird seat—still seems hip deep in champagne toasts on the ghost ship U.S.S. Victory Lap. Green, at least, has something tangible to put in his memory basket: On Monday, the Padres managed to reach the nadir of Major League Baseball’s Opening Day barrel-bottom by losing, 15-0, to the powerhouse Los Angeles Dodgers, the worst first-day shutout in history.

History, people!

For all his youth, Green took the loss like a man. One loss, albeit a nationally broadcast MountEverest-type loss. But still, one clunker amid a season of 162 new days. Petco Park, while perhaps blushing, did not implode.

Judging by social media, it appeared that a good portion of City Hall’s brain trust took the afternoon off to attend the team’s public dismantling by a superior, much-wealthier opponent. Spin Cycle can only hope that some valuable lessons were learned— and not simply that bottled water at Petco costs a ridiculous four bucks.

Perhaps these workers had time to peer beyond the walls of the ballpark, assessing a booming East Village and what its future

6 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

may hold should a hybrid stadium/convention center annex be plopped down just to the east.

(Some call this idea a “convadium,” a term Spin Cycle believes should be forever relegated to the Periodic Table of Elements under the category “inert gases.”)

The mayor, like the new manager, certainly has plenty on his plate. While Dodger cleats tapped home plate 15 times to the Padres’ zilch on Monday, it’s less obvious how many times Faulconer has crossed the plate, let alone set foot on the diamond.

Delving into the mayor’s calendar is something akin to deciphering ancient hieroglyphics, in that some understanding can be gleaned of the mayor’s priorities but much remains unknown.

Plenty of staff meetings to be sure, but lots of mysterious holes as well. Days typically begin no earlier than 9 a.m., and Fridays are frequently light on time constraints.

The January calendar, for example, highlighted Faulconer’s obsession with perfecting The Big Speech, aka the annual State of the City address. From Jan. 4 until he stepped on the stage at the Balboa Theatre 10 days later, Faulconer spent a portion of every work day (22 hours total) prepping for the speech—including

No time for Mayor Kevin Faulconer to chill...

6-and-a-half hours practicing with a TelePrompter and another 5-and-a-half hours rehearsing in the theater, according to his calendar. The speech ran about 50 minutes.

In among the proverbial mayoral duties as ribbon cuttings, meet-and-greets and the occasional media interview, Faulconer’s calendar is peppered with people and organizations but rarely the topic at hand. Some subjects are nebulously vague, such as “messaging” or “stadium” or “Spanos” or “Speaker Atkins.” Other time slots are simply marked “OOO,” meaning “out of office” with no further explanation.

Now, maybe voters—particularly the lethargic, San Diego kind—care little about the daily putterings of the city’s top pol. No one’s expecting a mayor to run a marathon every day followed by a brisk mountain climb. But it is, after all, an election year, when traditionally even the most dilatory electeds get off their duffs and act like they’re doing something.

Hell, even mayoral candidate Ed Harris, a city lifeguard sergeant, jumped into the fray this weekend while attending the county Democrats’ annual Roosevelt Dinner. During an otherwise underwhelming night, a gentleman in attendance collapsed, several sources said. While few details were available, Rollin Bush, the candidate’s newly anointed campaign consultant, confirmed that “the guy had a medical issue.”

Harris and two others, a firefighter and the head of the firefighters union, “stabilized his status until medics arrived,” Bush told Spin.

Did Harris run out and hold a press conference? Nope. Would Faulconer have? Magic 8-Ball says, “Most likely.”

This is not to say that anyone running for mayor should be considered above it all. The three running—Faulconer, Harris and former Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña—are far from perfect human beings, and two of them will tell you so. The incumbent, however, seems surrounded by minions

who shudder to think someone might consider their employer— dare Spin say it—fallible.

As this column heads to deadline, there is considerable chatter of a pending settlement between Faulconer’s pals at the Tourism Marketing District and the attorney he loves to hate, Cory Briggs.

This comes at an interesting time, when Briggs continues to push a proposed November ballot measure that would raise the city’s hotel tax from its current 10.5 percent (plus a legally shaky 2 percent surcharge added by hoteliers) to 16.5 percent while reforming how tourism dollars are managed and creating a path that city leaders could follow to bring the Chargers downtown, expand convention center space north of Harbor Drive and lead to new, promising uses for the Qualcomm Stadium site in Mission Valley, possibly as a park and extension of the San Diego State University campus.

Meanwhile, the Chargers have piecemealed out their own ballot measure proposal for November, which aims to hike the hotel tax to 16.5 percent and spend the bulk of the boost on a stadium/convention-center-annex hybrid that remains a work in progress. While the Briggs proposal sought to tightrope delicately among many interests, the Chargers plan seems like Godzilla stomping on fleeing villagers.

If one believes the rumors, the hoteliers among us are ready to run to the Briggs measure, but a mayoral sign-off is desirable. “No settlement,” proclaimed TMD board chairman Bill Evans when Spin asked Tuesday. But he declined to say if meetings were planned, ongoing or done and buried.

Faulconer’s defenders can continue their path toward omitting the words “on visitors” when they denounce the idea of a “tax hike,” but it just seems to be placing the mayor on a smaller and smaller island of indecision, where time and progress freezes.

Spin Cycle appears every week.

Write to johnl@sdcitybeat.com.

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Up Front | Opinion

Sordid

Edwin Decker

Tales

Why The Church is in a hurry to canonize Mother Teresa

S

o it’s official. The Vatican has confirmed the second miracle by Mother Teresa of Calcutta and she will be designated as a saint this September.

Typically, it takes a lot longer. In order to be eligible for sainthood, the Church requires a five-year waiting period (after the candidate’s death), an exhaustive investigation process into his or her words and deeds, followed by two attributed, posthumous miracles.

The first miracle came in 1998, a year after Mother Teresa died, when two nuns tied a medallion with her image around the torso of a cancerridden Indian woman who was cured soon after.

The second came in December when a Brazilian man with a brain infection was cured after his wife and her pastor prayed like mofos to MT and— wham bam, thank you, gramma— Mother Teresa is now a saint.

And boy did that happen fast— faster than any other canonization in modern history. Because Pope John Paul waived the five-year waiting period, blazed through the investigation, and quickly promoted her to the “Hurry-Up-Ya-Old-Bat-and-Perform-Two-Miracles-Already” stage.

Well I’m calling bullshit.

Let’s forget for the moment that dead nuns perform miracles at about the same rate that Donald Trump hires Mexican accountants. Let’s also set aside that the Mother Teresa was a self-interested, unscrupulous witch doctor who no more deserves sainthood than Augustus Gloop deserves a chocolate factory. Setting all that aside, the question remains—why the hurry?

To put it in perspective, it took three miracles and five centuries for Joan of Arc to be canonized and hundreds of miracles and nine centuries to recognize Saint George. As far as badasses go, George and Joan make Mother Teresa look like the patron saint of bridge club.

See, the Catholic Church doesn’t claim to create saints, it merely recognizes them. A saint is a saint whether The Vatican acknowledges it or not. However, through an investigative process called canonization, it seeks to recognize and honor them. The process is supposed to point to a potential saint, not the other way around. The fast-tracking of Mother Teresa by The Church is a clear conflict of interest— like a rogue detective who tweaks the evidence to convict his suspect, rather than letting the evidence decide who the suspect should be. That’s why the miracles came so fast. Because they were waiting for them! Longing for them. It was just a perfect storm of confirmation bias, self-fulfilling prophecy and post hoc conjecture all rolled into one, gargantuan super fallacy.

From the moment Pope John Paul waived the waiting period, it was a sure thing. I mean, at that point why even bother waiting for miracles? He may as well have just swung his smoking incense thurible

over a photo of the nun and uttered the magic words, “Two, four, six, eight, Mother Teresa is now a saint.”

Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, director of the Mother Teresa Center, said the Brazilian man’s brain recovery was confirmed as a miracle because there was a “...perfect connection of cause and effect between the invocation of Mother Teresa and the scientifically inexplicable healing.”

Seriously? A perfect connection of cause and effect? I know The Church isn’t all that hip to reason and logic, Father, but are you really that blisteringly asinine about common sense? Some people prayed for a man to get better and shortly after the man got better, and you call that cause and effect? So if the man recovered after taking a bath would you have claimed it was the healing properties of Mr. Bubble?

Please. You want a real example of cause and effect?

Here’s one: The Vatican pushed for Mother Teresa to be a saint and voila!

Now she’s a saint. The Pope might as well have waved his golden crozier over a statue of MT and chanted, “Thou are Sainted. Schlemiel! Schlemazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!”

So why the haste? Well, the Catholic Herald said it best: “Mother Teresa [is] one of the best advertisements for Catholicism...The coming canonization is likely to be huge.” Indeed, what a brilliant PR move. At a time when membership and money is plummeting, a mother Teresa sainthood would be just what the witch doctors ordered. And it makes perfect sense they would want to push it through quickly. They need to get it done before everyone finds out what a horrid person she really was.

Oh what? You thought Mother Teresa was some sort of, well, Mother Teresa? Likely not. There is a lot of criticism swirling around her, such as a scathing expose by (shocker) the late Christopher Hitchens, reports from volunteers within the missionary about dubious tactics, and a British medical journal, The Lancet, which described the care within her facilities as “haphazard” and “disturbingly lacking.”

Then there is her documented support of despots, tyrants and other fuckwads from whom she received money. For example, she publicly praised Indira Ghandi’s ruthless decimation of Indian civil rights in 1975. She applauded scumbag Haiti oppressor, Jean-Claude Duvalier, as an advocate for the poor. And she pleaded leniency for the notorious Lincoln Savings and Loan weasel, Charles Keating—all of whom showered her with a shit-ton of money and privilege. Of course, I will admit bias against the Church and its pitchmen, but even the most rabid Catholics have got to be scratching their heads. As for me, it’s just one more of a thousand reasons to think this organization is full of shit.

Peace be with you. Amen. Gezundheit!

“

Two, four, six, eight, Mother Teresa is now a saint.

“

#SDCityBeat

Sordid Tales appears every other week.

Write to edwin@sdcitybeat.com.

April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 7

Up Front | Food

by michael a. gardiner

the world

fare Rakiraki rock star

W

hen Junya Watanabe, chef-owner of Rakiraki Ramen and Tsukemen (4646 Convoy St.), talks with you, he looks through you. There’s an air of the rock star about Watanabe. Part of it is his hair, another the way he carries himself and another his highly fashionable, slightly edgy attire. Watanabe has an intensity that would be perfect for a politician or CEO. It’s an intensity that infuses every bowl of ramen at Rakiraki.

Before Rakiraki, before learning ramen from some of Japan’s bests, Watanabe was the creator of one of the world’s most famous fashion lines. After leaving Comme des Garçons, Watanabe launched a campaign to learn ramen from some of its contemporary Japanese masters.

From one notoriously difficult business, Watanabe went to another.

A bowl of ramen is, at its base, four things: a seasoning mixture called “tare” (Watanabe uses the term differently), broth, noodles and toppings. Indeed, a classic bowl of ramen is constructed in just that order. There are four major “types” of ramen—shoyu, miso, shio, and tonkotsu—each subdivided endlessly. It seems every town has its own distinctive version. Each, though, follows the tare+broth+noodles+toppings formula.

Except tsukemen. A mid-1950s innovation, tsukemen became Tokyo’s “in” ramen in the 2000s. It is, both literally and figuratively an “outside the bowl” way of thinking about ramen. Instead of noodles being served in broth, thicker noodles are served cold and on the side for dipping into a bowl of a piping-hot, more concentrated soup and toppings. Rakiraki offers a variety of tsukemens. The most traditional is a shoyu-based chicken broth using alkaline water (which gives it a subtle, ineffable sweetness) and vinegar. My favorite, though, was the spicy tsukemen with the X.O. underbelly. It is a fun dish full of big flavors all in balance.

8 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

Watanabe prides himself on his Hakata-style tonkotsu ramens, the “Black Edition” featuring black garlic, and the “Red Edition” featuring an intoxicating fermented chili pepper preparation.

The black garlic lends the already powerhouse pork-based broth a funky, beguiling depth. The fermented chile preparation of the Red Edition gives it an almost intoxicating quality as well as a definite kick.

One of the best items on Rakiraki’s menu doesn’t involve noodles: the chicken karaage, basically Japanese fried chicken. Often just fileted bits of soy-marinated chicken coated in potato starch and fried until crisp, Rakiraki’s karaage employs massive chunks of chicken. Their sheer size presents practical challenges, but they are challenges you want to overcome because the chicken is that good: moist, a hint of the soy-ginger-garlic marinade, all in a wonderfully crispy exterior.

Michael A. Gardiner

Hakata Tonkotsu “Red Edition” Within months Watanabe will not just be Rakiraki’s chef/owner, but also that of Pokirrito (a poke-burrito spot) and Tsuru Tsuru (a Tokyostyle stand-up Izakaya concept), both next door to Rakiraki, as well as Rakiraki Little Italy. If, at first blush, that seems like a lot to handle, perhaps it is. But there is a driven edge to Watanabe and a depth. He is more than meets the eyes.

And the same can be said about his food at Rakiraki. It is ramen, yes, but you somehow get the sense there’s more to it than that.

The World Fare appears weekly.

Write to michaelg@sdcitybeat.com.

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Up Front | drink

in the

By michelle poveda

spirits Cuba Libre: Let’s drink some rum

W

hile watching the news last month, I wondered if our newfound friendliness with Cuba had inspired any local bartenders. After 50 years, we now have a U.S. Embassy in Havana, Carnival Cruises will voyage there in May, and President Obama just caught a baseball game. I think it’s time for a cocktail. In my search, however, I found I was the only one with this genius idea.

Me: The chains are broken, people! Bust out the Cuba Libres! Everyone else: *crickets* Fine, I thought, I’ll make my own fun. Sure, my taste for Cuban delicacies can be quenched at a number of spots around town, such as Andrés on Morena Boulevard, the Havana Grill in Clairemont or Azucar for some baked goods in Ocean Beach, but I’m looking for a drink. So instead, I indulged in one of the things Cuba does best: rum. A rum cocktail made by cocktail experts sounded just right.

So here are three I found, in case you’re looking to celebrate with spirits.

Puesto’s Mojito (789 W. Harbor Drive, downtown; 1026 Wall St., La Jolla) Lucien Conner is Puesto’s drink guru and can whip up a mean cocktail. Famous for his Perfect Margarita, Conner also created the simple Mojito Classico ($10). Made with Matusalem rum—a white rum founded in Cuba and now produced in the Dominican Republic—it’s infused with fresh mint for 24 hours before mixed with bruised mint, fresh lime and cane sugar. Conner’s relationship with Puesto began three years ago as a consultant and now as Jefe in charge of both Puesto locations, as well as its upcoming venue in Irvine. His previ-

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ous experience includes work with Searsucker, Gaijin, and as a consultant to various bars and restaurants. Pick his brain about any kind of cocktail information and he’ll impress you.

Fairweather’s Daiquiri (795 J St., East Village) What conjures up visions of Havana nights more than Ernest Hemingway’s fave drink? Located on Rare Form’s rooftop in East Village, Fairweather’s Daiquiri ($10) is a classic blend of Denizum rum, fresh michelle poveda lime and a touch of sugar. It was created by CH Project beverage director Anthony Schmidt, who concocted Fairweather’s tropical-themed cocktail menu. Schmidt is a master of his craft, honing his skills at each CH venue, including Noble Experiment and his first foray, El Dorado Cocktail Lounge.

Trust Restaurant’s Rum Manhattan (3752 Park Blvd., Hillcrest) This rum-based Manhattan ($10) can be found at Hillcrest’s newest restaurant, Trust. Made with Diplomatico Exclusiva Puesto’s Mojito Rum­—a high-quality, Venezuelan rum—and Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth, it is the brainchild of bar manager Juan Sanchez. Beginning his cocktail career in 2003 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, Sanchez has since helped open the Addison in Del Mar, Seven Grand in North Park and managed the bar for seven years at Tower 23 in Pacific Beach, before becoming the opening general manager at hit liquor den Kettner Exchange in Little Italy. Now he’s slinging his best at Trust, which includes standout cocktails like the Penicillin, made with tequila, ginger, honey and lemon.

April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 9

Up Front | Drink

the

by andrew dyer

beerdist The new Resident at The Local

I

eration of San Diego IPAs is going to be happy and impressed. Two other IPAs are on tap, the Mosaichopped Urbanite and the single-hopped Chasing Citra.

It is not all IPA at Resident; also on tap is Perky Blonde, Loudmouth hoppy amber and Back Alley porter. Human Submarine, described as an American wheat, is the perfect hot weather beer. A coffee stout is set to debut this week, and Masterson has several white wine barrels soon to be filled with tart saison.

n a town awash in hoppy IPAs it can be a challenge for new breweries to make a splash with its own. Not the case with Resident Brewing Company (1065 Fourth Ave.). Brewmaster Robert Masterson gained wide acclaim after winning a homebrew competition, and his entry was produced and distributed as Stone collaboration R&R Coconut IPA. R&R Coconut was a revelation andrew dyer long before shelves were crowded with fruit-infused IPAs. Today, even with grapefruit, mango and blood orange haphazardly finding its way into brewer’s recipes, no one has come close to the delicious and complimentary flavors captured in R&R. Resident Brewing has been in planning for more than two years, touched off in no small part due to the reaction to R&R. “Stone’s big,” Masterson said.

“It got distributed in 40 states. It was all over the place and we got a Standing room only at Resident Brewing’s grand opening bunch of press on it.”

Masterson has resurrected his coconut cre“It’s one of my favorite styles,” he said, noting ation. Vacation IPA is truer to his original home- that he would like to bottle the saison as well. “It brew recipe, he said. He is still perfecting the rec- makes the beer more special, but we don’t have a ipe, and said the next batch would have an even bottling machine. If we do it will be kind of like more pronounced hop flavor. the way Toolbox and Council bottle theirs. We can “It’s pretty tropical, using Citra and Amarillo ferment it in the bottle.” hops,” he said. “We’re trying to get that pineappleMasterson said that even when he was home tropical goodness, like a pina colada.” brewing, he did not really see himself eventually Resident Brewing is tucked into the back of doing it professionally. He is still working fulldowntown restaurant The Local. It is difficult to time at his day job in IT. tell where the dining room ends and the tasting “I like brewing, but it’s different selling beer,” room begins. The Local has several taps at its own he said. “But I get to make all the beers and pick bar, serving other local and out-of-state brews. all the names, so I’m doing whatever I want.”

The Local/ Resident Brewing is easily accessible, If his opening salvo of beer is any indication a block and a half north of Horton Plaza and has a of what is to come, it looks like what Masterson generous parking validation policy. Together, they wants is perfectly in tune with what beer lovers in challenge the notion that downtown is not much San Diego want. of a craft beer destination.

The rest of the lineup at Resident is outstand- The Beerdist appears every other week. ing as well. Anyone with a love for the new gen- Write to andrewd@sdcitybeat.com

10 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

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EVENTS

SHORTlist

ART

the

THREE YOU HAVE TO SEE

1

SPRING AHEAD

For the last few years, the UC San Diego Springfest has been one of the best annual showcases of not only the university’s graduate music programs, but often the future of the local experimental music scene. This year, doctoral student and cellist Judith Hamann was picked to organize the performances.

“The fact that Springfest is so varied is one of its strengths. It can appeal to a lot of people from different backgrounds,” Hamann says. “That’s a credit to the UCSD music department which supports and generates very diverse approaches to music.”

It all starts with the annual “Immersion” opening event from 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday, April 10, at the Birch Aquarium (2300 Expedition Way, La Jolla). The aquarium will be transformed to include art installations, performances and music from local composer Joe Garrison, among others. There will also be instrument-building workshops and improvised music in different areas of the aquarium.

Then, from Monday, April 11 through Friday, April 15, and spread out across the UCSD campus, there will be a ton of fun musical events. Some of

2 STAYIN’ ALIVE

The hills aren’t the only thing alive with the sound of music. San Diego’s dance scene is, too, with the upcoming Live Arts Festival. This year’s theme, “Cross-Pollinating Dance: Diversity in Movement,” pays tribute to San Diego’s border town status and all the diversity that comes with it. Anne Gehman and Erin Tracy will start the 10 days of dance on Tuesday, April 12, with their performance MANNY ROTENBERG of Precipitate, an artistic interpretation of animalistic instincts and mortal appreciation. The rest of the “Love Letters: Frida Kahlo fest, which to Diego Rivera” runs until Sunday, April 24, dances through topics of age, disability, culture and even the relationship between Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

At White Box Live Arts (2590 Truxtun Road, Building 176), every show will begin at 7:30 p.m. and each costs $20, with passes for all 10 performances going for $110.

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the highlights include a screening of the Dario Argento horror classic, Suspiria, on Tuesday, April 12 at 8 p.m., with Hamann joining percussionist Ryan Nestor to perform the film’s score live. Another is an experimental theater performance from Los Angeles-based Southland Ensemble, who will be collaborating with UCSD musicians on Friday, April 15 at 7 p.m. There will be concerts from celERON RAUCH list/flutist duo Autoduplicity, as well as two nights of improvised music at The Loft @UCSD. Most performances are free. See ucsdmusic. blogspot.com for full lineup and venues.

Finally, Hamann, who lives in Barrio Logan, says she saw a disconnect between UCSD and other neighborhoods so she coordinated a Southland Ensemble final Springfest Festival event on Saturday, April 16, from 2:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Bread & Salt space (1955 Julian Ave.) in Barrio Logan.

“There will be a synthesizer petting zoo where kids can play around with them,” Hamann says.

“There will also be speaker-making workshops and improv stuff and this local ’90s queer-pop duo called Vodka Gummy Bear Lollipop that will potentially involve a lot of color and backup dancers.”

You had us at synthesizer petting zoo.

3 SEEING COLORS

Imagine living a life where, instead of simply seeing words on a page or sensing someone is happy just from their smile, you saw both in a wave of intense colors. It’s a real condition called synesthesia and while it sounds kinda cool, in the case of autistic artist Jeremy Sicile-Kira it can be quite overwhelming. Luckily, he transforms his visual processing into vibrant, colorful abstract paintings which will be on display at Inner Dimensions, a solo show opening from 6 to 9 p.m. on Monday, April 11, at Space4Art (325 15th Street).

Some might already be familiar with SicileKira from his appearance on an episode of the MTV doc “The Mighty Couple of series, True Massimo and Serena” Life, but this will be his first curated art show. Check out some of his work and get more info about the show at jeremysvision.com

HCathedrals: Jeff Ray at SDSU Downtown Gallery, 725 W. Broadway, Downtown. A site-specific, multi-sensory installation by the San Francisco Bay-area artist that explores the intersection between nature and architecture via photographic and video works that include original music compositions. Opening from 6 to 8 p.m.

Thursday, April 7. Free. art.sdsu.edu HEl Cuarto at Helmuth Projects, 1827 Fifth Ave., Bankers Hill. Interdisciplinary artist Claudia Cano will present a new pieces that stemmed from her study of the writings of Rosa Hernandez. Opening from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, April 8. Free. 619-2656842, sayingtheleastandsayingitloud.com HFeel the Bern: A Bernie Sanders Fundraiser Art Show. A group art exhibition to benefit Bernie Sanders’ campaign. Features work from Ody West, Nara Lee, True Delorenzo, Abraham Romero and dozens more. Takes place at a private residence at 4650 Harvey Rd. in University Heights. Opening from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, April 8. Free. facebook. com/events/978270595553935/ Open Studios Event and Collaborative Exhibition at Space 4 Art, 325 15th St., East Village. Tour over 30 open artist studios and see works in progress by artists working in a variety of disciplines.

Includes cocktails by Old Harbor Distilling Co., local craft beer and tacos from iSalud!

Barrio Logan. Opening from 6 to 9 p.m.

Friday, April 8. Free. sdspace4art.org HBarrio Art Crawl at Barrio Logan Arts District, 1878 Main St., Barrio Logan. A self guided tour consisting of the open studios, galleries, and local businesses of the Barrio Logan Arts District. Spaces include Bread & Salt,The Glashaus, Chicano Art Gallery and over a dozen more. From 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Free. 619-3669006, facebook.com/barrioartcrawl HBifocal: Bridging Perspectives at Gallery D, 1878 Main St., Unit D, Barrio Logan.

An exhibition connecting the past and the present of Barrio Logan curated by the San Diego Mesa College Museum Studies class and featuring works from Daniel Silvio Carbone, Alvaro Millan, Kathleen Mitchell, Armando Nunez and over a dozen more.

Opening from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Free. facebook.com/galleryd.sandiego/ HManufacturing Significance at Thumbprint Gallery, 920 Kline St., #104, La Jolla. A group exhibition in collaboration with selected writers from So Say We All. Provided with only the images of the artwork, writers were tasked to produce flash fiction to be displayed next to the respective pieces of original art. Opening from 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Free. sosayweallonline.com HOkinOptiOn at Glashaus, 1815-B Main St., Barrio Logan. An exhibition featuring new works from five San Diego artists: Ellen Margolis, Harikrishnan Varma, Ingrid Schraufstatter, Kaori Fukuyama and Susan Kirkpatrick. Opening from 6 to 9 p.m.

Saturday, April 9. Free. facebook.com/ events/523305317852194 HSan Diego Botanic Garden ArtFest at San Diego Botanic Garden, 230 Quail Gardens Dr., Encinitas. More than 20 artists will be showing and selling their works at this annual fair. There will also be locally-owned Woody cars on display and music from Bob Ballentine and friends. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 9 and Sunday, April 10. $8-$14. 760-436-3036, sdbgarden.org HStray Voltage at Distinction Gallery and Artist Studios, 317 E. Grand Ave., Escondido. New works from Casey Weldon, who is probably best known for his mix of pop-surrealism and comic book-

H = CityBeat picks

style portraiture. Opening from 6 to 9 p.m.

Saturday, April 9. Free. 760-781-5779, distinctionart.com Timeless. New works from Carina Graham, who specializes in black and grey illustrations on pages from antique books.

Takes place in the lobby of Dr. Kent Karras’ office (3800 Ray St, North Park) during Ray at Night. Opening from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Free.

Xanadu at Sparks Gallery, 530 6th Ave., Gaslamp. A solo show by Gloria Muriel who will be showcasing new drawings and paintings inspired by goddesses and deities. Includes themed musical and dance performances. Opening from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Free. 619-6961416, sparksgallery.com HInner Dimensions at Space 4 Art, 325 15th St., East Village. A solo show featuring highly colorful paintings from San Diego local Jeremy Sicile-Kira, a non-verbal autistic artist with a condition where he sees letters, words and emotions in color.

Opening from 6 to 9 p.m. Monday, April 11. Free. jeremysvision.com Far Out 2 at Hess Brewing North Park, 3812 Grim Ave., North Park. Over a dozen local artists showcase works themed around aliens, spaceships, galaxies and/ or just space in general. Opening from 6 to 10 p.m. Wednesday, April 13. Free. facebook.com/events/1726313797604570/

BOOKS Pouline Middleton at Barnes & Noble Oceanside, 2615 Vista Way, Oceanside.

The author of the new novel One Woman Three Men will share her personal experiences with having three men in her life and how it empowered her to get the love life she dreamt of. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 6. Free. modernloveandsex.com David Brin at Solana Beach Library, 157 Stevens Ave., Solana Beach. The science fiction writer and futurist will give a presentation and read from his most recent book, Insistence of Vision, a collection of vivid tales about possible tomorrows. At 6:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 7. Free. mystgalaxy.com Jonathan and Drew Scott at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The hosts of HGTV’s The Property Brothers will be signing their new book, Dream Home, a DIY book that includes all the tips and tricks you won’t see on TV. Price includes a copy of the book. At 4 p.m. Friday, April 8. $32.40. 858-454-0347, warwicks. com Cinda Williams Chima at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 5943 Balboa Ave., Ste. 100, Clairemont. The bestselling author of the Heir Chronicles and the Seven Realms series will sign and discuss Flamecaster, the first in a new series set a generation later in the world of the Seven Realms. At 4 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Free. 858-2684747, mystgalaxy.com HScott Ezell at D.G. Wills Books, 7461 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The musician and writer will discuss his new book, A Far Corner: Life and Art with the Open Circle Tribe, about his experiences living with a tribe on Taiwan’s remote Pacific coast. At 7 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Free. 858-4561800, dgwillsbooks.com Theresa Larson at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The former US Marine Platoon and bulimia nervosa survivor will discuss and sign her new memoir, Warrior. At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 9.

Free. 858-454-0347, warwicks.com Katie Kelley at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. As part of Warwick’s ongoing Weekend with Locals Program, the local writer will be discussing and signing Career Courage: Discover

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April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 11

EVENTS EVENTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11 Your Passion, Step Out of Your Comfort Zone, and Create the Success You Want.

At noon. Sunday, April 10. Free. 858454-0347, warwicks.com HSere Prince Halverson at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla.

The bestselling author of The Underside of Joy will be promoting her latest novel, All the Winters After, about a woman who returns to her home in Alaska after her immediate family dies in a plane crash.

Tuesday, April 12. Free. 858-454-0347, warwicks.com Rita Coolidge at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The ‘60s and ‘70s singer-songwriter will sign and discuss her book, Delta Lady: A Memoir. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 13. Free.

858-454-0347, warwicks.com

DANCE HLive Arts Fest at White Box Live Arts, 2590 Truxtun Road, Studio 205, Point Loma. Jean Isaacs curates a living history of dance, organized around ten evenings that follow the development of modern dance in the United States, from the early 20th Century to today. From Tuesday, April 12 through Sunday, April 24. See website for full schedule and times. Various times. $20.

619-225-1803, sandiegodancetheater.org

FASHION Fashion With A Passion at Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, 350 10th Ave., Downtown. The sixth annual event benefiting Make-A-Wish San Diego where attendees bring fashion accessories to swap. Also includes a fash-

12 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

ion show from L.A. designer Mohamed Salaheldin, as well as an array of food, beverage and dessert tastings. From 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, April 9. $50. fashionwithapassion.org

FOOD & DRINK HRhythm and Brews Music and Craft Beer Festival at Historic Vista Village, Main St. & S. Indiana St., Vista. The San Diego Brewers Guild event features 60 breweries and three bands. Proceeds benefit the Guild, a nonprofit whose mission is to promote awareness and increase the visibility of fresh, locally brewed beer through education and participation.

From noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 9. $35-$45. sdrhythmandbrews.com Suds & Science: What Are Your Genes Up To? at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens-Point Loma, 2816 Historic Decatur Rd #116, Point Loma. Join Dr. David Gorkin as he discusses the additional roles that genes play in our body and the way they direct different cells to know what to do. From 6:30 to 8 p.m. Monday, April 11. $5. 619-269-2100, rhfleet.org

HEALTH & WELLNESS Healthy Living Festival at Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. Attendees can choose from more than 30 lectures and workshops, as well as cooking demonstrations, medical testing, yoga, Zumba or Qigong classes, and much more. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Saturday, April 9 and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Sunday, April 10. $10. 858-755-1161, healthylivingfestival.com

MUSIC Jake Shimabukuro at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. Declared by Rolling Stone as a “musical hero,” the ukulele sensation has earned comparisons to Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 7. $35-$70. 760-839-4190, artcenter.org HsmART Festival at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. This collaborative performance event features a wide array of community artists, theater and musical groups performing on multiple stages. Includes artwork from 23 Escondido Unified School District schools and High Tech Elementary North County.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 9.

Free. 760-839-4190, artcenter.org HVinyl Junkies Record Swap at The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., Midtown. Vendors selling thousands of collectible and vintage records in all genres, plus DJs spinning throughout the day. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 9. $3. 619-232-HELL, facebook.com/VinylJunkiesRecordSwap Improvisatory Minds at Sherwood Auditorium, 700 Prospect St, La Jolla. The composers’ collective is essentially chamber music composed by jazz musicians.

The third concert of The Depicted Vibrations, a new San Diego concert series that showcases exciting new compositions and performers. From 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

Sunday, April 10. $25-$35. 858-4543541, musicatorreypines.com HRempis Johnston at Bread & Salt, 1955 Julian Ave., Logan Heights. Part of the Fresh Sound music series, the freeimprovising jazz trio is known for capitalizing on structural possibilities that give rare

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THEATER Stormy weather at Globe

JIM COX

W

hy has Somerset Maugham’s short story Rain been made into a film three times, and now a stage musical that’s world-premiering at the Old Globe? The answer, at the risk of oversimplification, is in its thematic wrestling match: Sex is good. No, sex is bad. No, sex is good. No…and so on. Only the story’s deeply repressed missionary, Davidson, really believes sex is bad, and he’s a flaming hypocrite who self-righteously stalks sexually free spirit Sadie Thompson.

Tantalizing as this may sound, the Globe’s musical, directed by Barry Edelstein and written by Sybille Pearson (book) and Michael John LaChiusa (music and lyrics) is preachy and fulsome. Possibly in an attempt to turn the short story into a grand two-act musical, Pearson and LaChiusa give all seven principal characters stage and song time, much of it a distraction from the moral and psychological battle between the missionary (Jared Zirilli) and Sadie (Eden Espinosa). As such, Rain feels bloated.

Espinosa enjoys the expository score’s best turns, though her strutting finale sounds like a Sally Bowles leftover.

Rain does play out, however, on a marvel of a set by Mark Wendland, a morphing, multilevel structure that’s a character in itself.

Rain runs through May 1 at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park. $36. oldglobe.org *** here are certain Broadway classics that, if staged sincerely, deliver time and again. Fiddler on the Roof is one of them. In the last four years on the area theater scene, Fiddler’s been presented by Moonlight Stage Productions (with North Coast Rep artistic

T

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though this was an issue in the Lamb’s staging, too. But Kathy Brombacher’s direction and Justin Gray’s musical direction are deft and faithful to this theater treasure’s messages of family, tradition and perseverance wrapped in timeless songs.

Fiddler on the Roof runs through April 24 at Welk Resort Theatre in Escondido. $49-$68. welktheatersandiego.com

—David L. Coddon Theater reviews run weekly.

Write to davidc@sdcitybeat.com.

OPENING: The Elephant Man: The acclaimed drama about a severely deformed British man who goes from sideshow freak to attempting to become accepted among the London aristocracy. Presented by the Oceanside Theatre Company and the Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company, it opens April 8 at the Brooks Theatre in Oceanside. oceansidetheatre.org Big River: Roger Miller’s Tony Award-winning adaptation of Mark Twain’s classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It opens April 9 at the New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad. newvillagearts.org Constellations: Nick Payne’s acclaimed play about a chance encounter between a man and a woman at a party and all the varying directions events can play out from there. Directed by Richard Seer, it opens April 9 at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park. theoldglobe.org

Eden Espinosa and Jared Zirilli in Rain director David Ellenstein playing Tevye) and by Lamb’s Players Theatre (with Sam Zeller in the lead role). Now Welk Resorts Theatre has gotten into the act. Its Fiddler stars a likable Rudy Martinez as Tevye, supported by Wendy Waddell, a familiar Welk face, as Golde. The only limitation on Welk’s production is the size of its stage, which appears crowded during the ensemble numbers—

Way Downriver: Two very different men must work together to survive a terrible flood along the Mississippi River. Adapted by Edward Morgan from William Faulkner’s short story, Old Man, it opens April 13 at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach. northcoastrep.org

For full theater listings, please visit “T heater ” at sdcitybeat.com

April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 13

EVENTS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

EVENTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 and meaningful form to an otherwise very spontaneous music. At 7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 10. $10-$15. freshsoundmusic.com HSpringfest at Various locations. The annual showcase of UCSD Department of Music’s graduate program, presenting an array of diverse musical performances at the Birch Aquarium, The Loft, Bread & Salt and more. See website for schedule and details.

From Sunday, April 10 to Saturday, April 16. Free. ucsdmusic.blogspot.com Telematics: Changing Tides III at Conrad Prebys Music Center, UCSD campus, La Jolla. The third and final performance of the Changing Tides: A Telematic Translocational concert series is led by bassist Mark Dresser who will be joined onstage by Michael Dessen, Myra Melford, Nicole Mitchell and Stephanie Richards. At 4 p.m. Sunday, April 10. Free. musicweb.ucsd.edu Wednesdays@7: Malcolm Goldstein at UCSD Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla. The renowned composer and violinist will give solo presentations of his compositions “but one bird sang not,” “gentle rain preceding mushrooms” and “my feet is tired but my soul is rested,” as well as various improvisations. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 13.

Free-$15.50. musicweb.ucsd.edu

PERFORMANCE Tonight in San Diego Season Premiere Live Taping at RAW Space Off Broadway, 931 1st St., Downtown. A live taping of the comedy talk show web series with a rotating cast. Host Jesse Egan and co-host Keith Foster, along with The Mondaze featuring DJ Teelynn, welcome a notable local and a musical guest. From 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Monday, April 11. $7. tonightinsandiego.com HsmART Festival at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. This collaborative performance event features a wide array of community artists, theater and musical groups performing on multiple stages. Includes artwork from 23 Escondido Unified School District schools and High Tech Elementary North County. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Free. 760-8394190, artcenter.org HJason Alexander at Copley Symphony Hall, 750 B St., Downtown. The Seinfeld star and Tony Award-winning Broadway actor brings the songs of musical theatre plus laughter and surprises for the City Lights Series season finale.

At 8 p.m. Friday, April 8 and Saturday, April 9. $20-$80. 619-235-0804, sandiegosymphony.com

14 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

“Nope Hope” by Casey Weldon will be on view at Stray Voltage, a solo exhibition opening from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, April 9, at Distinction Gallery (317 E. Grand Ave., Escondido).

POETRY & SPOKEN WORD

ists to share their ideas and chat with other creatives. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 7.

Suggested donation. sdarchitecture.org

HNational Poetry Month: Poetry & Art Presents “Hosting the Hosts” at San Diego Art Institute, 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park. Pulitzer Prize-winner Rae Armantrout, Justin Hudnall (So Say We All), Ilya Kaminsky (Poetry International), and many more will recite poems. After the group of hosts performs, audience members will have the opportunity to perform one poem under three minutes. From 6:30 to 10 p.m. Friday, April 8. Free-$5. sandiego-art.org

La Jolla Concours d’Elegance at Ellen Browning Scripps Park, Coast Blvd., La Jolla. Check out various types of fine automobile gems, from Italian marques, British marques, Woodies, ’50s classics, and American sports cars at this 12th annual auto show. From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, April 8, Saturday, April 9, and Sunday, April 10. $50-$150. lajollaconcours.com

SPECIAL EVENTS San Diego Made at Lafayette Hotel, 2223 El Cajon Blvd., North Park. San Diego Made will be joining the hotel’s weekly music night for a pop-up shop featuring 10 local makers. live music and drink specials. From 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 7. Free. 619-296-2101, sandiegomade.org HSDAF PechaKucha Night V. 23 at Bread & Salt, 1955 Julian Ave., Logan Heights.

San Diego Architectural Foundation’s semiregular networking night designed for art-

Spring Family Festival at 4th of July Park in Harmony Grove Village, 2815 Starry Night Drive, Escondido. Kick off the spring season at this annual festival that features live music, pony rides, a petting zoo, face painting, lawn games, crafts and a bouncy house. From 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Free. 949-7518951, harmonygrovevillage.com Tour de Cure at Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. Cyclists of all levels will join forces to raise funds for the American Diabetes Association. Waiting at the finish line will be more than 25 vendors, a taco truck and beer. From 5 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Saturday, April 9. $30-$50. 858-755-1161, diabetes.org/sandiegotourdecure

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(The latest in a series of features on San Diego’s most interesting communities)

TORREY BAILEY

F SOMETHING SEEMS FISHY IN SAN DIEGO, IT’S NOT THE BEACH. It’s Little Italy, the former hub of the world’s once-leading tuna industry. In the ’20s, the promise of sun and steady income convinced thousands of Italian families to relocate here. With the construction of the Interstate 5 cutting through the neighborhood and a rise in foreign competition, the big name tuna brands closed up shop, just as the rest of downtown was reopening for business.

Making its revival in the 2000s, Little Italy received its landmark sign and pro-

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gressed into a slice of Sicily. Bordered by Laurel Street on the north and bottoming out at Ash Street, Little Italy is a hotbed of tourism, officially signified by the existence of the neighborhood’s own app, featuring guided walking tours and hotel suggestions. Despite its undeniably American influence, Little Italy gives a nod to two cultural standards: an overwhelming selection of hand-tossed pizza and house-made pasta, and a historically significant art scene whose decline in popularity left a vacuum that was filled with artisanal furniture shops.

Where India and Date streets meet, construction on the upcoming Piazza Famiglia puts the neighborhood’s prime intersection in a bit of limbo. Still, it signifies the pinpoint between the area’s most popular blocks. Gazing straight down Date there’s a view of the San Diego Bay; a glance to the right finds the Little Italy sign and a look to the left lands on the downtown skyline. All along India there’s an abundance of diners digging in at well-heeled eateries such as seafoodheavy Ironside, or partaking in pasta portions at Prepkitchen, Buon Appetito or Davanti Enoteca.

April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 15

SETH COMBS

TORREY BAILEY

TORREY BAILEY

Kathi and Perri L. Meyer

Snoozy dogs at Bedford

Ryan Bradford ponders nougat and life, chews it over.

“It was the hot neighborhood. We used to get 200 people in here when there was a Kettner Nights event,” says Perry L. Meyer, when asked about the heyday of the northern Little Italy art scene in the ’90s and throughout the ’00s.

“There was so much going on and so many more businesses that were related to art, but rents went up and artists moved out. It’s a vicious cycle.” Still, Meyer stood strong.

His Meyer Fine Art space (2400 Kettner Blvd., meyerfineartinc.com) is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and the congenial 68-year-old Meyer, with help from his wife Kathi, still has an infectious attitude when it comes to the work. “I love watching collections grow or getting people started on their own collection,” Meyer says. “That’s what I’m all about.”

—Seth Combs

The whole rebranding of Northern Little Italy is kind of lame (NoLI, really?), but given a new abode and about five figures to blow, we know where we’d go for all our housewares needs. Yes, for three blocks on Kettner and India between Laurel and Hawthorne streets, discerning customers can find everything from a new bed to a midcentury armoire. Places such as India Street Antiques (indiastreetantiques.com) and Boomerang for Modern (boomerangformodern.com) have been there for decades, but relative newcomers such as the custom carpenters at Bedford (bedfordbuilt.com), the bedroom designers at AT HOM (at-hom.com) and the mid-century dealers at Homesteez (www.instagram.com/homesteez) have secured the neighborhood’s reputation as a go-to design and decorating destination. India Street Antiques even opened its own neighboring specialty store, Danish Modern San Diego, which is filled to the ceiling with vintage pieces. And yeah, we probably only could afford a vintage watering can from Architectural Salvage (architecturalsalvagesd.com), but we’ll still go to these stores just to sigh and dream of the day when we can have things this nice. Oh, and to pet those sweet pooches in front of Bedford.

—Seth Combs

Mona Lisa Foods (2061 India St.) is like your grandmother: staunch in tradition, impervious to change, and whose idea of a reward is often very detrimental to your health. The popular market is also home to a bunch of rare items, including a gamut of mysterious candies located around the cash register. We decided to test the candies, which we’ve always been curious about but too afraid to try.

La Florentine Torrone. It’s impossible to ignore these little boxes adorned with illustrations of Italian figures. Open them up, and you find foil-wrapped, super-sweet, lightly flavored nougat. The boxes are dope, but the excessive packaging seems to be overcompensating for the meh candies.

Lazzaroni. Cookies wrapped in thin, pastel-colored tissue paper. Mine was halfway open when I bought it.

Certainly some food-safety violation going on. The cookies turned out to be pretty good biscotti, but official review TBD, depending on whether or not we die from eating it.

Caffarellino. This is the money candy. It’s shaped like an ice cream cone but filled with whatever heaven is inside those Ferrero Rocher chocolate balls. Nears the line of being too intense, but nothing a little San Pellegrino can’t wash away. Be prepared to be sugar-buzzed out of your gourd for the rest of the day.

—Ryan Bradford

Where to drink on a scale of relaxed (1) to raucous (10)

16 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

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TORREY BAILEY

“I can’t get enough of Little Italy, but being the pioneer, that sort of just happened,” says Joe Busalacchi, owner of four Italian restaurants on India Street, not to mention several others spread around San Diego like grated Parmesan. Moving here from Sicily at the age of eight, Busalacchi learned English at Washington Elementary School on State Street. Then he landed his first job as a chef on board the tuna boat Uncle Louie, where he cooked for 22 men before upJoe Busalacchi grading to his first restaurant, Busalacchi’s (3707 Fifth Ave.). When he decided to open up Trattoria Fantastica (1735 India St.) in Little Italy, the neighborhood hadn’t even earned its name yet. “It was interesting because 8 o’clock or 9 o’clock would come around, and there would be nobody around, but we felt it was going to come.” Indeed, that neighborhood resurgence came. When he’s out of the office he’s back in the kitchen, testTORREY BAILEY ing the restaurants’ recipes, including ones for Po Pazzo’s transformation into Barbusa (1917 India St.), which will have a Mediterranean-inspired menu decked out in pastas with sea urchin and octopus. But Busalacchi’s son, PJ, says his favorite dish banks on the basics—pasta, broccoli, garlic and extra virgin olive oil, an ingredient Busalacchi was raised on and couldn’t cook without.

Catt White

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“I lived in Little Italy and we could do any-

thing we wanted there without getting in our cars, except shop for our groceries,” says Catt White, referring back to 2008. She is the only one who chooses the Mercato’s weekly vendors, and she admits being picky about it. The Saturday Farmer’s Market now spans five blocks and is the largest in the county. White says the surrounding businesses are on board, but the locals are a mixed bag. Picture post-Friday night when you’re waking up to an Advil-resistant headache while people are shouting “four-twenty-sixteen” or they’re cracking open a sea urchin and taking a selfie outside your window. But she says the market serves as a community quarters, softening the scrutiny, and the market’s business has become everyone’s business. “We know if (the vendor’s) baby is sick, they’re going to be out that week. And the whole market was rooting when the guy selling sauerkraut, his kid went to the national Little League thing,” she says. “If you want to just grocery shop, it’s way easier to just use the parking lot at Vons to go in and out, but people like to know where their food comes from.”

TORREY BAILEY

91-year-old Joe Scafidi has been playing bocce ball in Amici Park, at the corner of State and Date streets, for nearly half his life, 40 years to be exact Everyone on the court quickly came to a consensus that he’s the best of the bunch. Bocce ball, a game of strategy dating back to the Egyptians, challenges players to toss a set of balls, or bocce, as close to a marker as possible, making the team that gets the closJoe Scafidi est the winner. “You have to have good judgment to see where the other bocce are,” says Scafidi. His words are stressed in Sicilian descent, which is where he emigrated from in 1975 to become the captain of 12 tuna boats. He says an average load would bring 20 to 50 tons of tuna, but that he would catch sets of over 200 tons, totaling in 450,000 to 500,000 tons per year, before environmentalists chased him and tuna companies like Starkist and Van Camp out of business. Despite being put out of a job, he hasn’t considered moving out of San Diego.

“I’ve been as far as Hawaii, Marcus Island, all the way to Peru, Chile and the other side of the Caribbean. I’ve been there too, but there’s nowhere like the climate in San Diego.”

April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 17

TORREY BAILEY

Ever looked up at the ceiling of a Little Italy eatery and thought, “What the hell?” The design elements hanging overhead can trigger that reaction so we set out to collect those stories.

TORREY BAILEY

The restaurant’s two levels were thematically designed to reference that surge in maritime and manmade materials.

Hanging in the center of the double decker space is Tecture designer David Michael’s wooden sculpture, which he says “was intended to be a type of bridge between the two, spanning between the levels, ‘joining’ the Lower Level (which is darker, heavier, a bit more masculine) to the Upper Level (lighter, airy, spacious and more on the feminine side) together.”

TORREY BAILEY

Filippi’s Every wooden beam inside Filippi’s drips with Chianti bottles. General manager Danny (Filippi) Moceri says it dates back to the ’50s when fishermen would order bottles of the wine from his grandparents while they waited for their orders. “They would tell my grandfather, we’ll pay you when we come back from our big catch. So to keep track of them, the fishermen would drink the bottle of wine, put a nail on the wall, and they would sign it.” Eventually it got out of hand, and his grandfather cut off the trade. Since then, the originals have been removed since their straw became a fire hazard, but now Chianti bottles from current customers hover above.

18 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

Kettner Exchange

Kettner Exchange is a tribute to former congressman William Kettner, who brought the Navy to San Diego, inspiring related industries and igniting an economic boom.

Bracero Cocina de Raiz

Above the bottles and barstools is an art piece that resembles a farming tool and recognizes the oft-overlooked bracero migrant labor movement. “It’s an homage to these men who worked their asses off 24-7 and were the foundation for a better life for their families,” said artist Daniel Ruanova. “They helped shape California into what it is today and they don’t get credit for that.”

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April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 19

Culture | Art

Seen LocaL new project

B

ay Ho isn’t exactly known for being a hotbed of culture. It’s probably best known for the RV park people see from Interstate 5 and industrial spaces up and down Santa Fe Street. In between Pacific Beach and Clairemont, it’s a bit of a no man’s land. So on the surface, it seems like an odd place for an established contemporary art gallery to open up a new space, but that’s exactly what Mark Quint (of La Jolla’s Quint Gallery) has done.

“Yeah, it’s kind of an odd location,” says Quint Gallery associate director Sarah Trujillo-Porter about the recently opened Quint Projects (5171-B Santa Fe St.). “The space became available and we just wanted to go back to that warehouse thing of having an open space and seeing what can be done. It’s kind of fun.”

Quint leased the building space a couple months ago, which was previously used as a storage facility. And while the facade isn’t particularly glamorous, once inside it’s easy to see the potential of the space.

Large and cavernous, it has an industrial feel that’s perfect for installation and sitespecific work. The first work the Quint team decided to showcase was a 2004 sound piece from Icelandic artist Finnbogi

20 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

Pétursson called “Dream” consisting of water inside an acrylic bowl which is then vibrated using sound and illuminated from the bottom. Instead of having the standard evening exhibition openings, Quint and company settled on a “Morning Stop” program where the space will be open on three Saturdays in a row from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“The space is a little more accessible if you’re out and about,” says Trujillo-Porter, who says about 40 people showed up for the first April 2 opening (there will be two more on April 9 and 16). “It makes sense to have evening openings at the gallery in La Jolla, because people are already out to dinner or in the neighborhood. Here, we’re a little off the beaten path so why not try to do something different?”

Other than the “Morning Stop” openings, Quint Projects will be open by appointment only (see quintgallery.com for phone number). The next show, set to open May 23, will feature local installation artist and Ice Gallery owner Michael James Armstrong.

“There will be skylights and he’s going to continue with the thread work that he’s been doing,” Trujillo-Porter says. “He wants to do three of those pieces so this will be the second. It’s going to transform the entire space.”

—Seth Combs

©Finnbogi Pétursson, courtesy Quint Gallery

“Dream” by Finnbogi Pétursson

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Culture | Voices

THERE SHE

ALEX ZARAGOZA

GOZ

How to be a grown woman and steal alcohol from rappers

T

here are moments, especially since hitting my 30s, where I become self-aware of how hard I’m adulting. It’s mildly unnerving. Anytime I use the word “strategy” or briskly walk down a hallway while wearing a lanyard I feel like a character in an Aaron Sorkin joint.

And people seem to be catching on. While on a recent shopping excursion to the high-end boutique known as Forever 21, an employee asked me if she could go on her break. This isn’t even the first time that’s happened.

Granted, I’m usually readjusting clothes on racks because they’re a damn mess when this happens, so I guess it makes sense. But no, I choose to believe it’s the power that comes with confidence and knowing who you are and what you want. It’s the power of being a grown-ass woman.

As a social media campaign recently told me, #YouCanBeBoth a badass professional lady working to change the world and a club rat grinding up against a 24-yearold on a dance floor. As someone whose neck is scented with “Flowerbomb” by Viktor & Rolf and fingers are stained by Flaming Hot Cheetos, I feel this every day.

Lanez perform at F6ix, an 18-andover club downtown. However, this familial night of rap-bonding would be on a Thursday.

Weeknight partying is tough for me, but I’d be a shitty Zaragoza if I didn’t rally. Plus, I’d just purchased a girdle at Burlington Coat Factory that makes me look like a low-budget Kim Kardashian, so needless to say I wanted to show it off. My cousin, who spent years living in New York, looked the epitome of Bed-Stuy cool in her Timberlands and jeans. We literally looked like a hip-hop lesbian couple when we entered the club at 9 p.m.

Yup. 9 p.m. Only the nanas and the 19-year-olds show up that early. The bartender, dressed in hot pink Victoria’s Secret lingerie that appeared to be the uniform for every female employee in the club, told us Lanez wouldn’t be going on until around 1:30 am. Maybe.

Depending on his mood. Fuck. We had four hours to kill. My heart ached a bit for my bed.

Anyone over 21 who was drinking had to be kept in a section away from the youths. We were literally separated by a gate. Stay away, youths! A 22-year-old hit on Lily minutes after we stepped up to the bar. She looked him up and down and said, “I would crush you.” We really are related.

Behind the iron gates of alcoholism, we were surrounded by aspiring rappers, their entourages, women killing it in bodycon dresses and club employees seeing to their needs at private bottle-service tables. In that moment, I made a choice. I looked over at Lily and said, “I’m gonna steal a bunch of alcohol from these rappers for us.”

That became my quest. Any good con movie will tell you, the art of the con is believing the lie and speaking with authority. I harnessed the commanding presence that leads teenagers to believe I could manage a Forever 21, took off my glasses and walked It’s that both-ness that helped over to the server pouring chamme steal a bunch of alcohol from pagne. Then I looked her in the some rappers at a nightclub. You eye, held up an index finger and read that correctly. said “I’m gonna need two glasses My cousin Lily, who’s an on-air for the manager.” This is how I’m personality on Z90, texted me ask- using my theater degree. Thanks, ing if I wanted to see rapper Tory UC San Diego!

I stomped away barely able to hide my excitement and handed Lily her champagne. It tasted like garbage water, but the rush of my con gave it an extra flavor. Like I could conquer anything. In the Harry Potter universe, it would be the equivalent of drinking Felix Felicis, the elixir of luck. I was Felix Felicis wasted, ya’ll!

Feeling the Felix Felicis seer through me, I stole more and more booze using the power of my adulting and theatrical training. I lifted an entire bottle of shit champagne and handed it to some girl, who I now realize was definitely underage. Then I started taking vodka off the tables. I was unstoppable. If I could do this, gosh, imagine what Lin-Manuel Miranda could steal? Like a car or dinner at The Olive Garden or

something.

Then, as with all great con tales, it came crashing to an end because of my own drunken hamartia. Along with my adulting has come a certain level of lightweighted-ness. When some entourage-looking guy grabbed vodka I was definitely stealing and accused me of stealing, I stepped up to him and slurred “I don’t need anything from you. I can have this whole place. I’m Jennifer F6ix.”

Someone put me to bed.

Lily, who is obviously a saint, took me home. The last thing I remember was desperately wrestling against the girdle that seemed to have bonded onto my sweaty, alcohol-bloated body, crawling to the bathroom and vomiting up what tasted like poisonous gummy bears.

The next morning, I woke up, girdle halfway over one shoulder, hating life. But as an adult must do, I cleaned up, went to work and painfully completed a major project I’d been working on for weeks.

I can still be both, but man it hurts sometimes.

There She Goz appears every third week.

Write to alexz@sdcitybeat.com.

“

It tasted like garbage water, but the rush of my con gave it an extra flavor.

“

#SDCityBeat

April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 21

Culture | Film

Waking life

Cemetery of Splendour

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s surrealist film strolls through states of spiritual being

T

he gods are not crazy in Cemetery of Splendour.

Weerasethakul compels the viewer to think about In fact, they are quite curious about earthly nature and humanity as interconnected. The world goings on, including people’s fascination with of ghosts and creatures bridges the two, and his reincarnation and analyzing dreams. Apichatpong characters gradually come to terms with sharing the Weerasethakul’s sublimely wonderful new film is same space, seeing themselves as equals rather than so quiet at times that these otherworldly beings feel subordinates. In turn, Cemetery of Splendour feels comfortable enough to take human form and engage open, at peace with its malleable vision of the world. in conversation. That sense of curiosity infects the Multiple different entities and time periods overlap film, too, establishing a narrative structure that play- with each other, producing a carbon copy that only fully questions the boundaries of waking life. the enlightened can truly imagine.

Set in the Thai countryside at a newly minted hosWhile everything feels connected in Cemetery of pital where doctors tend to a squadron of comatose Splendour, there’s also a sense of perpetual evolution soldiers, the film plays with time and perspective in at play. Outside the soldiers’ window government deceptive ways. Afflicted with bulldozers unearth land sura bizarre sleeping disorder, the rounding the hospital, no doubt men lie in rows of beds flanked a clandestine effort to capture Cemetery of by neon fluorescent lights. Jenwhatever energy forces lie beSplendour jira (Jenjira Pongpas) arrives neath. Throughout, characters one day to visit a nurse friend experience awakenings as well; Directed by only to become drawn to one late in the film Keng connects Apichatpong Weerasethakul of the patients named Itt (Banwith the reincarnation of Itt, Starring Jenjira Pongpas, lop Lomnoi). After spending taking Jenjira for a tour of an Banlop Lomnoi and multiple days by his bedside, ancient domicile invisible to the Jarinpattra Rueangram Jenjira begins to think she’s human eye. Buddhist statues Not Rated “synchronizing” with him. Moand gaudy replicas of dinosaurs ments later, Itt awakens for the are the only elements that hold first time. their true shape.

The two characters quickly develop an unspoGradually, the film overwhelms you with its ken rapport. They take long walks through the town pristine images and fragmented narrative, inducing of Khon Kaen, sharing stories about their past and a surreal headspace where the clutter and noise of present, always questioning the definition of lucidity everyday life fade away. But there’s a cost to seeing and memory. All of their self-reflection seems to be beyond preconception; suddenly, routine and expeccaused by energy emanating from under the hospi- tation are emblems of an obsolete world that feels tal, an area once used as a school and before that a dangerously limiting. The film’s harrowing final shot burial ground. Keng (Jarinpattra Rueangram), a psy- portrays one character perpetually stuck between chic who can see the dreams of the sleeping soldiers, these realities. helps Jenjira understand the parameters of their Cemetery of Splendour, which opens on Friday, perspective and the limitations of our world.

April 8, at the Digital Gym Cinema, challenges the Cemetery of Splendour allows the viewer to do definition of cinema in our Marvel-ized age. It has no the same. Its succession of static, perfectly calm im- use for labels and archetypes, happy endings or tragages establishes a spiritual mood that enables both edy. Instead, Weerasethakul’s film quiets the mind, the characters and their godly counterparts to exist becoming a fitting anecdote to the constant bomwithin the same space. The result is a strange and bardment of reductive images and angry sound bites beguiling meditation on identity that transcends that flood our lives on a daily basis. For that reason, gender, time period and narrative convention. and many others, it’s the film of the year.

Weerasethakul’s directorial patience opens up the possibilities of any given frame without compromis- Film reviews run weekly. ing their dramatic weight.

Write to glennh@sdcitybeat.com.

22 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

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Culture | Film a newly set up hospital. Screens through Thursday, April 14, at the Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Demolition: Jake Gyllenhaal plays an investment banker who struggles to cope with his wife’s death after a tragic car crash.

For a complete listing of movies, please see “Film Screenings” at sdcitybeat.com.

Everybody Wants Some!!: Richard Linklater wrote and directed this “spiritual sequel” to Dazed and Confused about a group of college baseball players who navigate the complications of young adulthood.

Songs My Brothers Taught Me

Rez life

C

hloe Zhao’s Songs My Brothers Taught Me tenderly depicts life on the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation as equally poetic and sobering.

A dual coming-of-age story, the film unfolds through the eyes of high school senior Johnny Winters (John Reddy) and his younger sister Jashaun (Jashaun St. John) who live in a community ravaged by rampant alcoholism, weakened social institutions and a fractured cultural identity.

When their estranged patriarch (a known philanderer who’s fathered many children with different women) dies in a house fire, the siblings are forced to address their own complicated heritage and definition of family. Johnny illegally sells liquor and plans to move to Los Angeles with his girlfriend where she will be attending college, while Jashaun assists a local roadside vendor who sells art and clothing prominently featuring the slogan “Rez Life.”

The pragmatic decisions both children make reflect a different reality than the one discussed in their school. During one fascinating classroom scene a high school teacher asks his students to name their dream job, leaving many (including Johnny) conflicted about confessing professional aspirations that might never happen.

The future they see for themselves (poverty, recovery) stands in stark contrast to the one their educators are asking them to bravely envision.

Disconnects like this one helps fuel the cyclical pattern of selfdestruction and decay that has hampered so many of the residents’ lives. Zhao, a first time filmmaker, patiently observes these conundrums rather than passing judgment, and her stellar cast of non-professional actors delivers a great ensemble performance.

The camera often lingers on the children watching their parents for long spells, multiple generations stuck in a social quagmire together.

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Songs My Brothers Taught Me, which opens Friday, April 8, at the Digital Gym Cinema, is a socially relevant and aesthetically impressive film. It considers the hopeful and bleak qualities of underrepresented experiences in equal measure.

—Glenn Heath Jr.

Opening April and the Extraordinary World: In this animated fantasy based on the popular graphic novel, a teenage girl goes in search of her missing scientist parents.

Born to Be Blue: Ethan Hawke stars as Chet Baker in this biopic about the famous 1960s jazz musician.

Cemetery of Splendour: A psychic and a nurse try to help a group of sleeping soldiers who are under observation at

Mr. Right: Sam Rockwell stars as a wacky hitman who kills the people that hire him.

When he falls in love with a young woman (Anna Kendrick), she forces him to re-examine his life choices.

Songs My Brothers Taught Me: Set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the film a teenager and his sister as they confront the realities of community decay and complicated heritage. Screens through Thursday, April 14, at the Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Standing Tall: This drama starring Catherine Deneuve follows the life of a juvenile delinquent as he goes in and out of the child services program in France. Screens through Thursday, April 14, at the Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

The Boss: Melissa McCarthy plays a disgraced corporate mogul who is sent to prison for insider training. Once released, she attempts to gain forgiveness from all the people she screwed over.

One time only Caddyshack: Chevy Chase plays a snarky young golfer who joins a snooty country club and is met with instant disdain from the older clientele. Screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 6, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

April 6, 2016 • San Diego CityBeat · 23

EMILY QUIRK

Clockwise from top: Ian Bush, Mike Boyle, Jordan Smith, Brent Toler, Emmet Miller and Evan Bird ORDAN SMITH IS READY to be taken seriously.

Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done when your band is named Diarrhea Planet. Since their formation in 2009, the Nashville band has built up a reputation for being over the top. The punk sextet features four guitar players, including Jordan, which if you do the math amounts to 66 percent guitar. Their live show is legendary, rife with plenty of wild guitar shredding, acrobatics, crowd surfing and general mayhem. And their catalog includes song titles like “Ghost with a Boner!”

The band’s built up a strong critical following in the past half decade, though even their most ardent supporters sometimes lament the grossness/silliness of their name.

In March, Stereogum managing editor Michael Nelson tweeted, “Kinda sucks that the band I’ve been waiting for my whole goddamn life is called Diarrhea Planet.”

Smith acknowledges in a phone interview that their name doesn’t lend itself well to good marketing. But that just means they have to work harder.

“If we had a different name it probably wouldn’t be as much of an uphill battle,” he says. “With a name like ours, the live show is the only thing we can count on to shut people up. Everyone’s whining about our name…and it’s like, alright, we just play super hard to turn the naysayers into believers.”

Diarrhea Planet’s third album Turn to Gold, out in June via Infinity Cat, could very well be the record that elevates the band to the proverbial next level. Smith, bassist Michael Boyle, drummer Ian Bush and guitarists Brent Toler, Evan Bird and Emmet Miller have delivered their most ambitious record to date, featuring both their biggest sounding productions and most immediate melodies.

From the opening fanfare of introductory instrumental “Hard Style,” there’s a sense of grandeur and drama that suggests something bigger and better from the band, and that’s before we actually hear any vocals.

Turn to Gold balances the scruffy, scrappy underdog

24 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

charm of The Replacements, the big-stage showmanship of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and the blazing fretwork of Thin Lizzy. Sometimes it’s heavy (“Life Pass”), sometimes it’s subtle and pretty (“Let It Out”), and sometimes it’s firing on all cylinders (“Bob Dylan’s Grandma”).

In an interview with Stereogum, Bird joked that this album was their Back in Black. Though in all seriousness, Smith said they pushed themselves harder than ever on this one.

“We took a long time to make this one,” he says. “It was kind of a growing pains record. We spent years honing our live show, and got lots of recognition for the live show. People would say, ‘Oh you have to see them live, the records don’t do them justice.’ [This record is] just kinda us making an effort at taking the band in a more mature direction to try and round out our individual flaws.

“It’s kind of fun, we’re taking it into kind of a direction like the Eagles,” he adds, noting the shift toward giving different singers a showcase, rather than actually sounding like Eagles. “We’ve got lots of guys who can sing. So we’re making it a team thing: Team DP. I want to grow as a guitar player, too. I don’t just want to be a guy behind the microphone the whole time. I want to play guitar and rip solos and stuff. And the other guys want to sing a little more, too. So it kinda works out.”

Diarrhea Planet has undergone a significant evolution as a band, and pushing themselves harder to make the best music they can is just one small part of it. As Smith noted, the band’s live show is a crucial part of their identity, but spending as much time on the road has also led to changes in the non-musical aspects of the band.

Smith says as the band’s members approach their thirties, they’ve shed some of the party animal instincts that

they had in their early twenties. Now they only play shows sober, and they’ve embraced moderation in general, which he says is key to longevity in their line of work.

“When we started touring we were all 22 and now we’re coming up on 28. You just kind of learn the ropes on the road,” he says. “The road kind of smooths out rough patches in your personalities. When you’re in a van for so many days with a bunch of people, you have to learn how to not get on each others nerves and not drive each other crazy, and be kind and courteous. But the band has mellowed out a lot. I feel like a lot of people would think that it would be the opposite because a lot of bands go crazy and party on the road. You learn after touring so much that, for the most part, it’s the show that it’s really about. You just have to learn to take care of yourself.”

When Turn to Gold finally drops, it’ll be an opportunity for Diarrhea Planet to prove how far they’ve come and how much they’ve matured as a band. And Brian perhaps that name might stillEllis prove to be an obstacle, but whatever happens, Smith says, they take their music very seriously.

“We’re just six super normal dudes who have really committed ourselves to an ideal or a dream,” he says. “It hasn’t been easy all the time. And I don’t think it’ll always get easier. As you reach each level, the amount of work you have increases. But I hope people see Diarrhea Planet as a wake up call. Whether you’re starting a band or a company or something, I would hope that people see, yeah these guys made a company that had the worst name ever and drove it to success through hard work.”

Write to jefft@sdcitybeat.com or follow him on Twitter at @1000TimesJeff

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MUSIC

NOTES FROM THE SMOKING PATIO P

unk rock vinyl documentary Records Collecting Dust is getting a sequel. Director Jason Blackmore, who also plays guitar in the hardcore band Death Eyes, has begun work on the next installment of the documentary, which he hopes will be released in 2017. Following the first film, which focused on musicians from the West Coast, Blackmore has shifted his focus to the East Coast punk and hardcore scenes.

“I wanted to cover as much as possible: the West Coast, Midwest, East Coast,” he says in a phone interview. “I realized, maybe this could be a series.”

For Records Collecting Dust II, Blackmore has taken the step of launching a Kickstarter campaign to help fund its creation. Everyone who contributes receives a copy of the film, and depending on how much you donate, you could even receive a producer credit in the film. Blackmore says he doesn’t love the idea of crowdfunding, but after paying for most of the first film out of his own pocket, he’s looking to get a little help from the fans.

“Riot House ended up releasing [Records Collecting Dust], but it was a self-funded project,” he says. “That’s why we’re doing the Kickstarter thing.

We don’t really have any funding.”

So far, Blackmore has confirmed interviews with Quicksand’s Walter Schreifels, Page Hamilton from Helmet and Craig Wedren from Shudder to Think, among many others. The gist of the movie will be

Chica Diabla Chica Diabla (Self-released)

C

hica Diabla is a San Diego band, but their influences can mostly be traced to our nearest big-city neighbor, Los Angeles. Their sound is heavily steeped in the Sunset Strip sleaze of the ’80s, particularly early Motley Crue, as well as in the glam-rock crunch of The Runaways and classic punk in the vein of Black Flag or X. Suffice it to say there are a few things you can count on when listening to

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Helmet’s Page Hamilton (left) with Jason Blackmore the same, but this time around he says he’s a little better prepared.

“I’m eight interviews in,” he says. “I’ve already learned a lot from the first year of doing this. I know how to get from point A to point B quicker. This film is pretty similar to the first one. If you liked the first one, you’ll love this one.”

—Jeff Terich

Chica Diabla: Crunchy power chord guitar riffs, impossibly catchy hooks and a whole lotta ’tude.

All that being said, Chica Diabla aren’t going out of their way to rewrite the rules of rock ‘n’ roll or carve out an entirely new genre. Not that they necessarily have to. While there’s been a lot of bands for the past 35 years that have played some variation of what they do, there aren’t really that many bands that are doing this beefy sleaze-rock thing right now, and fewer still doing it well, particularly in San Diego.

Clocking in at just over 30 minutes, Chica Diabla’s self-titled debut comes and goes quickly (you might say it’s too fast for love, to reference a classic Crue album), but in that time the hard-rocking quartet packs in a lot of fun and waves about a million middle fingers. A sampling of the song titles should give you some indication of the lyrical content—”Because Fuck You,” “Nanana (I Do What I Want),” “Bat-Shit Crazy”—and “Missin’ Out” begins with a pretty righteous kiss-off to an ex via Facebook message.

Chica Diabla clearly do not give one-tenth of a shit.

That’s not really true, though, at least as far as their songwriting goes. Some of the songs here are a little too snotty for their own good, but when Chica Diabla are on, they’re most definitely on. Leadoff track “We Are One” is big on melody and wonderfully harmonized vocals while “My World” makes great use of a one-chord hook, and “Piñata” features one of the best riffs of the bunch. Chica Diabla aren’t interested in innovation, but their take on no-frills dirtbag rock ‘n’ roll is so fun that it’s hard to give a shit. When you need a soundtrack for a night of drinking and causing trouble, queue this up.

—Jeff Terich

April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 25

Music

Jeff Terich

If I were u A music insider’s weekly agenda Wednesday, April 6 PLAN A: Spencer Moody, Iska Dhaaf, Gothic Tropic @ The Casbah. Spencer Moody is best known as the frontman of The Murder City Devils, though he’s had other bands since, including noisy punks Smoke & Smoke. This time around he’s flying solo, but I don’t expect him to be rocking any less than usual. PLAN B: Tuft, Holiday Friends, Fellow Bohemian, Future Age @ Soda Bar. Tuft used to be called Hi-Ho Silver Oh, so I can say with certainty that they made the right move.

Their dreamily layered indie rock, however, sounds great no matter what name they’re using.

Thursday, April 7 PLAN A: Amon Amarth, Entombed A.D., Exmortus @ House of Blues. Entombed A.D. is the current incarnation of legendary Swedish death metal band Entombed, who have since fully morphed into a rip-roaring death ‘n’ roll band. If you like your metal a little more fun, or your rock ‘n’ roll with more grime and maximum heaviness, don’t miss this one. PLAN B: Pissed Regardless, Eukaryst, Griever, Deep Sea Thunder Beast @ The Casbah. Or you could opt for a show full of some of the best local metal bands. And this one’s even more worth your time because proceeds from the show go to benefit AIDS Lifecycle, a bike ride organized to raise money for the fight against AIDS/HIV.

Friday, April 8 PLAN A: The Seth Bogart Show, Las Robertas, Matt Bahamas, Clinebell Express @ The Hideout. Seth Bogart is best known as the frontman for Hunx and His Punx, and he’s bringing a solo performance to our fair city, sure to be chock full of sass and catchy hooks. PLAN B: Bit Maps, Kenseth Thibideau, Le Chateau @ Whistle Stop. A good way to spend a Friday night is with three great local artists. Bit Maps just wrapped up an 8-bit version of their recent album On Demand Living, and maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get to hear some chiptune gems. BACKUP PLAN: SWMRS, Partybaby, Nancy Sin, Pumphouse @ Che Cafe.

Saturday, April 9 PLAN A: Desert Generator Fest w/ Red Fang, Brant Bjork and the Low Desert Punk Band, Acid King, Golden Void, Ecstatic Vision @ Pappy & Harriet’s. Who’s up for a road trip? Take

26 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

a trek out to the desert if you want to catch a roundup of great psych, metal and stoner rock bands who capture the desert vibes with maximum volume. PLAN B: Lindi Ortega, The Walcotts, The Liquorsmiths @ The Casbah. Alt-country singer/songwriter Lindi Ortega blends a vintage country sound with upbeat rock ‘n’ roll grit and a smoky, torch-song sensibility that David Lynch would approve of.

If you like your twang with a dose of Roy Orbison, you should definitely be here.

BACKUP PLAN: The Schizophonics, Gloomsday, Hiroshima Mockingbirds, DJs Mike, Anja Stax, Mighty Manfred @ Til-Two Club.

Sunday, April 10 PLAN A: Operators, Bogan Via @ Soda Bar. Wolf Parade recently announced their reunion after a few years apart, but singer and guitarist Dan Boeckner has a new band, Operators, who make their San Diego debut this week. He’s got a pretty good track record, so I’m optimistic about his latest effort.

Monday, April 11 PLAN A: Tough Age, Young Hunter, The Killer Hz @ Soda Bar. Tough Age hail from Vancouver and play a fun and fuzzy style of power pop that’s hard not to love.

Their songs are almost impossibly catchy, and you’ll be sure to have them stuck in your head for days afterward. BACKUP PLAN: Peelander-Z, The Touchies @ The Casbah.

Tuesday, April 12 PLAN A: Diarrhea Planet, Music Band, The Soaks @ Soda Bar. Read my feature this week on Nashville’s Diarrhea Planet, who are one of America’s best rock bands, despite a name that might make your stomach turn.

They’ll be one of the best bands you see all year.

I’m not shitting you.

Seth Bogart

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Music

Concerts HOT! NEW! FRESH!

Insane Clown Posse (HOB, 5/27), So So Glos (Soda Bar, 6/4), Holy Fuck (Casbah, 6/12), Sarah Jarosz (Irenic, 6/18), Total Chaos (Brick by Brick, 6/19), Ne-hi (The Hideout, 6/22), Blue Oyster Cult (BUT, 6/26), White Lung (Casbah, 7/9), M. Ward (BUT, 7/12), Wye Oak (Irenic, 7/17), The Joy Formidable (Irenic, 7/20), Nothing (Soda Bar, 7/22), Kurt Vile and the Violators (HOB, 8/9), David Bazan (Casbah, 8/20), Guns ‘n’ Roses (Qualcomm Stadium, 8/22), Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 8/27), Huey Lewis and the News (Humphreys, 9/1), Sigur Ros (Copley Symphony Hall, 9/23), Tracy Morgan (Humphreys, 10/20).

GET YER TICKETS Jay Electronica (Music Box, 4/13), Steve Miller Band (Humphreys, 4/14), Silversun Pickups (Observatory, 4/19), The Damned (BUT, 4/19), Deafheaven (Casbah, 4/21), Deerhunter (Observatory, 4/22), Puscifer (Copley Symphony Hall, 5/1), Tortoise (BUT, 5/3), Explosions in the Sky (Observatory, 5/3-4), Kool Keith (Casbah, 5/4), Beach Slang (Casbah, 5/6), Four Tet (Music Box, 5/8), X, Los Lobos, Blasters (Observatory, 5/8), Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaires (Observatory, 5/12), Beyonce (Qualcomm Stadium, 5/12), Pennywise (Observatory, 5/13-

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15), Aesop Rock (BUT, 5/13), Andrew Bird (Music Box, 5/13), Joseph Arthur (Music Box, 5/17), Wreckless Eric (The Hideout, 5/19), Titus Andronicus, La Sera (Che Café, 5/20), The Thermals (Soda Bar, 5/20), Frightened Rabbit (BUT, 5/21), Jewel (Humphreys, 5/21), Pentagram (Brick by Brick, 5/25), Big Black Delta (Casbah, 5/29), Refused (BUT, 5/30), The Cure (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 5/30), Leon Russell (BUT, 5/31), Modern Baseball, Joyce Manor (HOB, 6/1), Voivod (Brick by Brick, 6/1), Yeasayer (Observatory North Park, 6/2), ‘X-Fest’ w/ Offspring, Cheap Trick (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 6/5), Case/ Lang/Veirs (Humphreys, 6/22), Brian Wilson (Del Mar Fairgrounds, 6/30), Ringo Starr and His All Star Band (Humphreys, 7/1), Lady Antebellum (Del Mar Fairgrounds, 7/5), Toad the Wet Sprocket, Rusted Root (Observatory, 7/9), Widespread Panic (Civic Theatre, 7/12), Psychedelic Furs, The Church (Humphreys, 7/19), Phish (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 7/23), Brand New, Modest Mouse (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 7/26), The Wailers (BUT, 7/29-30), Julieta Venegas (HOB, 7/30), Sublime with Rome (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 7/30), Weezer, Panic! At the Disco (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 8/3), Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo, Melissa Etheridge (Open Air Theatre, 8/23), Ben Harper (Humphreys, 8/23), Dave Matthews Band (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 8/26), Jackson Browne (Humphreys, 8/29), Journey, The Doobie Brothers (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 8/30), Mana (Viejas Arena, 9/9), Dierks Bentley (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 9/11), Ray Lamontagne (Open Air Theatre, 9/13), The Specials (HOB, 9/26), Ani DiFranco (BUT, 10/2), ZZ Top (Humphreys, 10/4), Kamasi Wash-

ington (Humphreys, 10/7), Jethro Tull (Balboa Theatre, 10/17), Peter Hook and the Light (HOB, 11/8).

April Wednesday, April 6 Basement at Lamppost Warehouse.

Spencer Moody at The Casbah.

Thursday, April 7 Elvis Costello at Balboa Theatre (sold out). Amon Amarth at House of Blues.

Friday, April 8 Third Eye Blind at Observatory North Park. Cullen Omori at The Casbah. The Shrine at Music Box. Seth Bogart Show at The Hideout.

Saturday, April 9 The Schizophonics, New Kinetics at Til-Two Club.

Sunday, April 10 Operators at Soda Bar. The Darkness at House of Blues. Steve Vai, Zakk Wylde at Humphreys by the Bay.

Monday, April 11 DMX at Observatory North Park.

Tuesday, April 12 Diarrhea Planet at Soda Bar.

Wednesday, April 13 Lord Huron at Belly Up Tavern (sold out).

Chvrches at Observatory North Park (sold out). Spencer Moody at The Casbah. Jay Electronica at Music Box.

Thursday, April 14

Saturday, April 23

NOFX at House of Blues (sold out). Steve Miller Band at Humphreys by the Bay. Bone Thugs N Harmony at Observatory North Park. Dwele at Music Box.

Ellie Goulding at Viejas Arena. Dilated Peoples at Observatory North Park.

Wednesday, April 27 Har Mar Superstar at The Casbah.

Friday, April 15 Beach House at Observatory North Park (sold out). Wild Wild Wets at The Casbah.

Saturday, April 16

Thursday, April 28 Thao & the Get Down Stay Down at Belly Up Tavern.

Friday, April 29

L.A. Witch at The Casbah.

Sunday, April 17 Acid Mothers Temple at Soda Bar. James Bay at Humphreys by the Bay (sold out). Foals at Observatory North Park.

Monday, April 18 The Front Bottoms at Observatory North Park. Protoje at Belly Up Tavern.

Immortal Technique at Observatory North Park. Body of Light, High Functioning Flesh at The Hideout.

Saturday, April 30 Flatbush Zombies at Observatory North Park. 36 Crazyfists at Brick by Brick.

Joe Mande at The Casbah.

May Sunday, May 1

Tuesday, April 19 The Damned at Belly Up Tavern. Silversun Pickups at Observatory North Park.

Chris Stapleton at Humphreys (sold out). Puscifer at Copley Symphony Hall.

Tuesday, May 3

Wednesday, April 20 The Big Pink at Soda Bar. The Arcs at Observatory North Park.

Thursday, April 21

Tortoise at Belly Up Tavern. Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds at Soda Bar. Explosions in the Sky at Observatory North Park.

Wednesday, May 4

Deafheaven at The Casbah.

Friday, April 22 Deerhunter at Observatory North Park.

Mac Sabbath at Music Box. Prong at Brick by Brick.

Crystal Bowersox at House of Blues.

Explosions in the Sky at Observatory North Park. Kool Keith at The Casbah.

clubs CONTINUED ON PAGE 28

April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 27

Music clubs CONTINUED from PAGE 27 Thursday, May 5 Mariachi El Bronx at Belly Up Tavern.

Fear Factory at Brick by Brick. Givers at The Casbah.

Friday, May 6 Violent Femmes at Humphreys by the Bay (sold out). Beach Slang at The Casbah. Jim Bruer at Observatory North Park. Voodoo Glow Skulls at Soda Bar.

rCLUBSr

710 Beach Club, 710 Garnet Ave., San Diego. Pacific Beach. Wed: Backwards Shaka. Fri: The Brewhahas, Surly Bonds.

Sat: Black Pearl Reggae, City Reef, Tribe of Five. Sun: Karaoke. Tue: Nina Francis, Brenden Bourgeois.

98 Bottles, 2400 Kettner Blvd. Ste. 110, San Diego. Little Italy. Fri: Todd Hunter Trio. Sat: The Benedetti Trio. Sun: The Matt Smith Neu Jazz Trio.

Bang Bang, 526 Market St., San Diego.

Downtown. Fri: Sinden, Hotfire. Sat: Sander Kleinenberg.

Bar Pink, 3829 30th St., San Diego. North Park. Wed: DJ Grandmasta Rats. Thu: ‘Ceremony’. Fri: Jacob Miranda. Sat: The Milkcrates DJs. Sun: ‘Rat Sabbath’.

Mon: ‘Wreckord Mania’ w/ DJ @Large.

Tue: ‘Tiki Tuesday’ w/ Fink Bombs.

Beaumont’s, 5662 La Jolla Blvd., La Jolla. Thu: Adam Block Duo. Fri: Modern Day Moonshine. Sat: The Jones Revival.

Sun: Kyle Furusho.

Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave.,

Solana Beach. Wed: KI, Hazmatt, The LIE Show, Twisted Relatives. Thu: Herb Alpert and Lani Hall. Fri: Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, Morgan Leigh. Sat: Pine Mountain Logs. Sun: Bunny Wailer, Pure Roots, DJ Carlos Culture. Mon: Casey Donahew Band, Leaving Austin.

Tue: Miami Horror.

Brass Rail, 3796 Fifth Ave., San Diego.

Hillcrest. Sat: ‘Sabado en Fuego’ w/ DJs XP, KA, K-Swift. Mon: ‘Manic Monday’ w/ DJ Junior the Disco Punk.

Cat Eye Club, 370 7th Ave, San Diego. 4S Ranch. Thu: Cool Cat Karaoke . Sat: Modern Day Moonshine LIVE at Cat Eye Club.

Dirk’s Nightclub, 7662 Broadway, Lemon Grove. Fri: The Hips. Sat: DJ Joey.

F6ix, 526 F St., Downtown., San Diego.

Downtown. Fri: DJ Rico. Sat: DJ Kurch.

Sun: Kyle Flesch.

Fluxx, 500 Fourth Ave., San Diego. Downtown. Fri: DJ Direct. Sat: Brett Bodley.

Gallagher’s, 5040 Newport Ave., San Diego. Ocean Beach. Wed: Brothers Reed.

Thu: The Dubbest. Fri: Coastal Frequency. Sat: Wild Side. Sun: Brothers Reed.

Mon: ‘Mic Check Monday’.

House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave., San Diego. Downtown. Thu: Amon Amarth, Entombed A.D., Exmortus. Fri: Gnash, Goody Grace, Julius. Sat: Rebel Souljahz, The Vitals. Sun: The Darkness, RavenEye. Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd., San Diego. Midtown. Tue: ‘High Tech Tuesday’.

Mc P’s Irish Pub, 1107 Orange Ave., Coronado. Wed: Goodall Boys. Thu: Ron’s Trio. Fri: Flipside Burners. Sat: Ron’s Garage. Sun: Ron’s Garage.

Moonshine Flats, 344 7th Ave., SAN DIEGO. Gaslamp. Thu: Two Year Anniver-

28 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

sary Party Featuring: The Cadillac Three, Tucker Beathard. Fri: Jackson Michelson.

Sat: Jackson Michelson.

Music Box, 1337 India St., San Diego.

Little Italy. Wed: Tank. Thu: Vilma Palma e Vampiros Rabanes, Todo Mundo, Los Hollywood. Fri: The Shrine, JOY, Petyr.

Sat: ‘The 15 Festival’.

Numbers, 3811 Park Blvd., San Diego.

Hillcrest. Thu: ‘Wet’. Fri: ‘Uncut’. Sat: ‘Club Sabbat’. Sun: ‘R&B Divas’.

Patricks Gaslamp, 428 F St., San Diego.

Downtown. Wed: The Upshots. Thu: The Bill Magee Blues Band. Fri: Miss Lauren Leigh. Sat: WG and the G-Men. Sun: Rosy Dawn. Tue: Paddy’s Chicken Jam. Rebecca’s Coffee House, 3015 Juniper St, San Diego. South Park. Wed: ‘Storytelling’.

Riviera Supper Club, 7777 University Ave., La Mesa. Wed: ‘Boss Jazz’ w/ Jason Hanna. Fri: Black Market III. Sat: G Burns Jug Band.

Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego. City Heights. Wed: Tuft, Holiday Friends, Fellow Bohemian, Future Age. Thu: Acid Dad, Rever, Cult Babies. Fri: Hayseed Dixie, The Screamin Yeehaws.

Sat: The Palace Ballroom, The Mondegreens, Grizzly Business. Sun: Operators, Bogan Via. Mon: Tough Age, Young Hunter, The Killer Hz. Tue: Diarrhea Planet, Music Band, The Soaks.

SOMA, 3350 Sports Arena Blvd., San Diego. Midway. Thu: Man Overboard, Forever Came Calling, Souvenirs, Such a Mess, Turn It Around. Fri: Leave The Universe, After The Fall, Amaya Lights, Lucia, Bakkuda, Chaos And Heaven. Sat: Beyond My Afterlife, DemaGagh, Mandala, Steel Toe, Inertia, Big Goat, Bucephalus.

Sycamore Den, 3391 Adams Ave., San Diego. Normal Heights. Thu: Davey Quinn, Star Anna, Mishka. Sun: The Big Decisions.

The Bancroft, 9143 Campo Rd., Spring Valley. Spring Valley. Wed: Karaoke. Thu: ‘Darkwave Garden’. Fri: Marujah, Aim for the Engine, Bloody Mary Bastards. Sat: Wicked Monk, Dark Globe, Desert Suns.

Sun: Trelic, Gus McArthur, The Grind.

The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., San Diego. Midtown. Wed: Spencer Moody, Iska Dhaaf. Thu: Pissed Regardless, Eukaryst, Griever, Deep Sea Thunder Beast.

Fri: Cullen Omori, Living Hour. Sat: Lindi Ortega, The Walcotts, The Liquorsmiths.

Sun: Escondido, Jake Loban. Mon: Peelander-Z, The Touchies.

The Che Cafe, 9500 Gilman Dr, La Jolla.

La Jolla. Fri: SWMRS, Partybaby, Nancy Sin, Pumphouse.

The Hideout, 3519 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego. City Heights. Fri: The Seth Bogart Show, Las Robertas.

The Irenic, 3090 Polk Ave., San Diego.

North Park. Thu: Little Green Cars.

The Merrow, 1271 University Ave., San Diego. Hillcrest. Thu: Daring Greatly, The Heart Beat Trail, The Peripherals. Fri: Eridia, Arson Academy, Offshore Impact.

Sat: Alive & Well, Wanted Noise, Picasso the Banshee, Sharks on Wheels. Tue: One I Red, Dark Water Rebellion, Heather Nation Band.

The Tin Roof, 401 G Street, San Diego.

Gaslamp. Wed: Jake Coco, Corey Gray, Tay Watts Trio. Thu: Shake & Shout. Fri: Cassie B Band, Chad & Rosie, Adam Henry. Sat: Cassie B Band, Nate Donnis.

Sun: Enter The Blue Sky, Star Bandits, The Renaissance Band, Joshua Ferreira.

Mon: Chuck Prada. Tue: Kenny & Deez.

Til-Two Club, 4746 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego. City Heights. Wed: Los Skarnales, In the Whale. Fri: Evacuate, Generation Suicida, Broken Cuffs, Systematic Abuse, Dead on the Wire. Sat: The Schizophonics, Gloomsday, Hiroshima Mockingbirds, DJs Mike, Anja Stax, Mighty Manfred. Mon: Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re, Skapeche Mode, Causers.

Tio Leo’s, 5302 Napa St., San Diego.

Bay Park. Fri: Scaring the Wives Band.

Sat: Detroit Underground.

Tower Bar, 4757 University Ave., San Diego. City Heights. Fri: Johnny Otis Davila, Cochinas Locas, Chango Rey & His Broken Heart Beat. Sat: Midnight Track, The Hathcocks, Kitty Plague, Strangely Strange. Sun: Polish, Bosswitch, Foreign Bodies. Tue: The Firecrackers.

Trislers Wine Bar, 8555 Station Village Drive, San Diego. Mission Valley. Sun: Tropical Sunset Workshop.

Ux31, 3112 University Ave., San Diego.

North Park. Thu: ‘Throwback Thursday’.

Fri: DJ Havoc. Sat: DJ Bodyrawk.

Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, San Diego.

South Park. Wed: Dorkbot #3, ‘St Vitus Dance Party’ w/ DJ Handsome Skeleton.

Thu: ‘Kiss and Make Up’ w/ DJs Jon Blaj, Kyle Badour. Fri: Bit Maps, Kenseth Thibideau, Le Chateau. Sat: ‘Booty Bassment’. Sun: Meth Dad, Terror Pigeon, Wizard Woes.

Winstons, 1921 Bacon St., San Diego.

Ocean Beach. Wed: SM Familia, DJ Carlos Culture. Thu: Casual, Pep Love, Opio, Abstract Rude. Fri: Orgone, Sure Fire Soul Ensemble. Sat: ‘Ocean Boogie’.

Mon: Electric Waste Band. Tue: Boychick, Retra.

#SDCityBeat

last words | Advice

amy alkon

advice

goddess Slight of hand My boyfriend mistakenly sent me a text meant for somebody else—a real estate agent with my same first name who’s showing him apartments.

This made me feel like I’m unimportant—easily confused with just anybody—and I got really upset. Of course, I know that he was just busy and multitasking. And despite knowing that he really loves me, I blow up like this a lot.

—Overreactor

ing. This takes preplanning—and the use, in the moment, of a technique called “cognitive reappraisal,” which involves reinterpreting your emotion-driven view of a situation in less emotional terms. Basically, you explore the boring alternatives. Say your boyfriend’s slow in texting you back. So…lack of respect (boohoo!)—or lack of phone, because the dodohead dropped it in the toilet again?

This isn’t to say your alternate explanation is correct. But the immediate goal of cognitive reappraisal is not judging the truth, the whole truth, blah, blah, blah. Through your considering alternate possibilities, cognitive neuroscientist Jason Buhle and his colleagues find that you divert the action in your brain from the stress and anxiety department (Freakout Central) to the thinky parts—like the prefrontal cortex. This allows reason to put on its Coke-bottle glasses and have a closer look at what’s really going on. This, in turn, will keep you from contributing to the notion many men have that we women are operating on one flickering bar of rationality. The way they see it, we have our marching orders—and we get them from outer space, via our hair accessories.

“

Assuming your boyfriend isn’t 11, “do u have any openings?” isn’t a sex question.

Your boyfriend’s mix-up was the sleep-eating version of texted communication. You ultimately know that, but no sooner did you get that text than your feelings started hammering on you. It’s like they were waiting to do it— like those people in folding chairs with umbrellas lined up outside some concert ticket venue. Pound!

Pound! Pound! “My watch says 10:31! What the eff?!”

Because fear comes up fast and there’s all this energy behind it, it’s easy to believe it’s telling you something you need to hear—and follow. But it helps to understand what neuroscience has discovered—that emotions are automatic reactions to something in your environment. They rise up (out of a sea of biochemicals) without your doing a thing. (It’s not like you have to nag, “Hey, life-sucking depression, you never visit anymore.”) Rational thought, however, takes work. You have to coax it up and give it an assignment, and then (lazy bastard) it right away starts pushing for a nap.

It is possible to pull reason into the mix before your emotions drag your boyfriend off for a beat-

Because fear comes up fast and there’s all this energy behind it, it’s easy to believe it’s telling you something you need to hear —and follow.

“

#SDCityBeat

(c)2016, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved.

Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or e-mail AdviceAmy@aol.com (advicegoddess.com).

Weekly radio show: blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon Order Amy Alkon’s book, Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say The F-Word

April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 29

30 · San Diego CityBeat · April 6, 2016

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April 6, 2016 · San Diego CityBeat · 31