San Diego CityBeat • May 14, 2014

Equality P.7 kill P.9 lower P.32

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2 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

On the waterfront Nearly six years ago (holy cow!), we published a for Naval purposes. Under the deal, Manchester piece in this space under the headline “Big dreams.” would build the Navy a new headquarters in exThe big thing being dreamed was a grand public change for the right to develop hotel, office and repark bookended by a new San Diego City Hall and tail space on the rest of the property. new central library on the property now known as The California Coastal Commission has sued the the Navy Broadway Complex, south of Broadway Navy and Manchester, asking a judge force the Navy and between Pacific Highway and Harbor Drive. to submit documents assuring compliance with We’re reminded of that commentary by the truly state coastal laws amid a Downtown landscape outstanding new San Diego County Waterfront that has changed significantly since the Navy first Park that opened to the public this past weekend. won approval for its redevelopment plan in 1991.

The park surrounds the stately County AdministraThe Navy Broadway Complex Coalition (NBCC), tion Center with lawns, landscaping and fountains an activist group opposed to the development, has that kids are encouraged to enter and splash around filed an appeal of a federal-court ruling against its in. There’s also a playground equipped with slides claim that the plan is inadequate when it comes to and modern swings and structures for wee people defending against terrorism.

Jeff Hammett to climb on.

Manchester got his deal Leave it to children to with the Navy in 2006, so exploit a design flaw: If you it’s already been eight years, encourage them to play with and it’s unclear when the lethe fountains, they will. All gal fisticuffs will end. Cory weekend long, they sat and Briggs, the attorney repstood on the arcing jets and resenting NBCC, says he joyfully diverted the water doesn’t yet have a date for every which way, causing oral arguments and doesn’t flooding serious enough that know if it’ll be this year. If the water had to be turned it ever does end, there’s no off on Monday. But we asguarantee that Manchester sume that problem can be will have the financing to easily solved. And for the make the project happen. purposes of this editorial, For our part, we’re hopwe won’t get into how the ing that Manchester and the water feature and the vast Navy see no end to the challawn fit into San Diego’s lenges and decide to scuttle The county’s Waterfront Park the whole thing and write drought conditions.

The point here is, San Diego finally has someit off as just a bad idea from the get-go. Then, the thing to be proud of along its Downtown waterNavy and the city of San Diego can get together and front, which is otherwise an embarrassing expanse draw up something new. Maybe it would involve a of missed opportunities. Happily, the so-called new Navy headquarters, but it would be better to North Embarcadero Visionary Plan will further find a home for the Navy elsewhere and dedicate beautify the waterfront. Phase 1, with an expanded the whole Broadway property for public use. esplanade, new pavilions and jacaranda groves and Since we published our commentary in 2008, a spruced-up west end of Broadway, will be fully the city built a new central library in East Village, so done by fall. We can debate the design details endthat idea is moot. But we still need a new City Hall lessly, but it’ll be a lot better than the horrendous to replace the one that’s falling apart on C Street, status quo. and we still think the waterfront would be a great All we need to complete the facelift is to regain place for it—as long as it’s surrounded by a magnifipublic control of the Navy Broadway Complex cent, world-class park and other public amenities. property.

At least now, with the county’s Waterfront Park, we have a glimpse of what’s possible.

The U.S. Navy has gotten away with handing the land over to developer and U-T San Diego publisher What do you think?

Doug Manchester, even though the Navy basically Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com. got the land from the public so that it could be used This issue of CityBeat once got into an escalator fight with the San Diego Chicken.

Our cover art is by Pablo Llana.

Read about him on Page 28.

Volume 12 • Issue 40 Editor David Rolland Associate Editor Kelly Davis Music Editor Jeff Terich Arts Editor Kinsee Morlan Staff Writer Joshua Emerson Smith Web Editor Ryan Bradford Art director Lindsey Voltoline Columnists Aaryn Belfer, Edwin Decker, John R. Lamb, Alex Zaragoza

Contributors Ian Cheesman, David L. Coddon, Seth Combs, Michael A. Gardiner, Glenn Heath Jr., Nina Sachdev Hoffmann, Peter Holslin, Dave Maass, Scott McDonald, Jenny Montgomery, Susan Myrland, Mina Riazi, Jim Ruland, Ben Salmon, Jen Van Tieghem, Quan Vu

Circulation / Office Assistant Giovanna Tricoli

Production Manager Tristan Whitehouse

Vice President of Finance Michael Nagami

Production artist Rees Withrow

Vice President of Operations David Comden

MultiMedia Advertising Director Paulina Porter-Tapia

Publisher Kevin Hellman

Senior account executive Jason Noble Account Executives F. Scott Berman, Beau Odom

Accounting Alysia Chavez, Linda Lam, Monica MacCree Human Resources Andrea Baker

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

San Diego CityBeat is published and distributed every Wednesday by Southland Publishing Inc., free of charge but limited to one per reader. Reproduction of any material in this or any other issue is prohibited without written permission from the publisher and the author. Contents copyright 2014.

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 3

New item on the list I liked Kinsee Morlan’s story in the April 2 Food Issue, “Cheers without the beers.” It’s nice seeing restaurants and older compadres supporting and enjoying each other. The La Mesa Bistro & Bakery is a little out there, but I’ll put it on my list of interests to visit.

Russ Hessler, Point Loma

More park parking needed I found your April 2 editorial on plans for the Balboa Park Centennial celebration very interesting. However, no matter how great the programs, people will not attend if they don’t have a place to park when they get there. What was Mayor Filner thinking? Did he intend to celebrate the centennial of Balboa Park by taking us back to 1915, when pedestrians with parasols strolled through the park on a lazy Sunday afternoon?

That era is gone. Ours is a society dependent on our cars. Public transportation to and from Balboa Park is pitifully behind the times. The era when 90 percent of the museum funding came from city, state and government support is in the past. Today, 90 percent of operating funds come from philanthropy, ticket sales, special events and memberships.

And guess who the major philanthropists are: the elderly.

Filner’s pro-pedestrian experiment has single-handedly cut off access to the front

4 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

door of museums for the elderly; those who drop off their spouses in front of the museums or the Prado restaurant will now block the single lane of traffic when they stop; those in walkers and wheel chairs will have to negotiate treacherous paths with ramps and potholes to get to and from distant parking lots, as will families with young children who are not out of strollers and the thousands who attend evening events and want to use valet parking.

The Art Alive Bloom Bash at the San Diego Museum of Art has 700 people attending in cocktail attire. Where and how will they park since Alcazar parking lot is closed and there is no valet service available? Will they be asked to don their tennies and walk through dark paths to reach distant parking lots when the event ends at midnight?

The current tram service from Inspiration Point is seldom-used. The public doesn’t know where the pick-up and drop-off locations are located. Many sit waiting on the steps of museums for the tram to arrive without a posted schedule.

More parking is needed. Filner decreased it. I understand that attendance is down.

Some museums report ticket sales are approximately half of what they were a year ago at the same time. Best of luck to all individual institutions in Balboa Park that are working on plans to attract visitors to Balboa Park throughout the year for the 2015 Centennial celebration with less parking.

Irwin Jacobs’ plan to resolve this problem

should be brought back on the table. Additionally, Balboa Park has a lot of empty acreage to build a multilevel garage like the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which uses a firstclass tram service to drop off throughout the park. See numerous studies funded by the Legler Benbough Foundation on the future of Balboa Park.

Everyone is encouraged to keep the fight alive to preserve the future and accessibility of Balboa Park by increasing parking in a responsible and thoughtful way, as was proposed.

Fallon Walsh, Downtown

Wishing Decker the best I’ve always enjoyed Edwin Decker’s thoughts and views, even when I disagreed with him. I loved The Beatles, but I started having doubts about John Lennon’s views when I heard he purchased 70 furs for Yoko Ono and friends, but that was a number of columns ago [“Sordid Tales,” March 5].

I’m sorry Decker is going through a separation [“Sordid Tales,” April 16]—love problems are tough—but maybe one of the reasons she split was his habit of putting their business in the streets, as the vernacular goes.

I wish him the best, though!

Peggy Spates, Southcrest

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 5

6 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

David Rolland

Attorney Cory Briggs is on the warpath for equal funding for neighborhood roads and infrastructure.

Paving favorites Fairness of city infrastructure spending plan questioned

by Joshua Emerson Smith In a meeting in late March, David Graham, San Diego City Councilmember Mark Kersey’s chief of staff, sat down with activist attorney Cory Briggs to discuss a controversial lawsuit holding up roughly $120 million in bond funding for badly needed road repairs, fire stations, libraries and other projects.

After some negotiation, Briggs said he’d agree to drop the lawsuit if Kersey, who chairs the council’s Infrastructure Committee, would broker a deal committing the city to a fixed list of bond-funded projects. The city has such a list, but it can change at the discretion of the mayor and the City Council.

After the initial meeting, Kersey’s office never responded to the proposal, Briggs said. Kersey’s office also declined CityBeat’s request to comment on the exchange. The Mayor’s office said it was never made aware of the offer.

Based on a complex legal argument, Briggs contends the 30-year borrowing scheme—known as a lease-revenue bond—has been improperly executed and should be required to go to a public vote. At the heart of his concern is the idea that taxpayers are being burdened with debt they aren’t benefiting from equally under the city’s spending plan.

“If you go to the voters with something that has these disparities in it, even the rich districts who are beneficiaries of the way things are now are going to vote against it,” Briggs said.

Under Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s proposed fiscal year 2015 budget, infrastructure spending from the city’s general fund is concentrated in four City Council districts, according to a list of capital-improvement projects requested by City Councilmember David Alvarez.

“It’s going to be a priority of mine that we have equality

“No neighborhood’s getting everything they want because the needs far outweigh the available resources to pay for them,” Udrys said.

However, even if work on the convention-center expansion and the bridge project were subtracted, City Council President Todd Gloria’s District 3 would still receive more than $23.1 million and Faulconer’s former District 2 more than $16.5 million in non-sewer-and-water infrastructure funding. That looks cushy when compared with about $4.3 million in funding for District 8, which includes some of the city’s most neglected neighborhoods, such as Barrio Logan, Sherman Heights and Logan Heights.

When asked about the inequities, Gloria said the city’s infrastructure approach “should be prioritized based on need.”

“Some neighborhoods in San Diego—because of age, lack of appropriate previous investment and or access to funding sources like facilities benefit assessments—have needs that are more urgent than others,” he said in an email.

“As long as the city continues to invest based on need, the quality of life throughout all communities will improve.”

To that end, city officials have proposed a five-year infrastructure spending plan with a citywide “asset management system” to assess needs and investment strategies. Officials anticipate submitting a draft plan to the council’s Infrastructure Committee in July.

“It will show you the projects that are in the queue, as opposed to just guessing every year when the budget comes out,” Udrys said. “It allows for much more transparency, and, frankly, it’s just a better approach to planning.”

However, that raises questions about how the city will maintain and pay for these future infrastructure needs.

With a whopping $2 billion backlog of deferred capital projects, the continued use of lease-revenue bonds to bolster the infrastructure budget is “not sustainable or recommended,” according to a review of the mayor’s proposed budget by the City Council’s Independent Budget Analyst’s office (IBA).

The city’s been using a series of such bonds since 2009 and plans to continue doing so until 2018, by which time the city will have borrowed roughly $591 million. Each bond is to be paid back over 30 years. In fiscal year 2015, the bonds will cost the city’s general fund roughly $18.6 million in annual debt service. In 2019, the annual debt service will cost the city more than $39 million.

That’s why the IBA, along with Councilmembers Gloria and Alvarez, has been exploring a lower-interest generalobligation bond coupled with a tax or fee increase to be put on the November 2016 ballot. Planning for such a measure would take as many as 18 months and require outreach across all communities in order to build support.

“I think we need to do something in November of 2016,” Gloria said at last week’s infrastructure budget hearing. “I don’t think that’s negotiable. I think we have to do that, or the next opportunity is 2020.”

Even with the use of costly lease-revenue bonds, streets will crumble and facilities deteriorate at a rate of up to 10 percent during the next five years, according to the IBA. “I think this council needs to decide if we want to get serious about infrastructure,” Alvarez said at the hearing.

“The IBA is presenting a very, very clear picture.”

Neither Faulconer nor Kersey would take a stance on a general-obligation bond that included a tax or fee increase.

“We can’t lease-revenue bond forever,” Kersey said in an email. “But until we have a comprehensive, long-term approach to investing in infrastructure, like the multi-year infrastructure investment plan currently in development, it’s premature to discuss going to the voters for more revenue.”

Faulconer is expected to submit his final budget on May 20. The City Council is expected to vote on the budget on June 9. Faulconer has 10 days to veto any changes. The deadline for a final spending plan is June 30.

in funding for all communities of the city, and we’re going to track where the expenditures are going with all of our [Capital Improvement Program] funding revenue,” Alvarez said at a May 6 budget hearing on infrastructure.

While Council Districts 1, 2, 3 and 7 would collectively pull in more than 62 percent of non-sewer-and-water infrastructure spending under the proposed budget, the remaining five districts would receive less than 13 percent combined, including Alvarez’s economically disadvantaged District 8, which has been allocated less than 2 percent of funding. About a quarter of the spending is proposed for projects, such as road resurfacing, whose locations have yet to be announced.

The mayor honored an existing list of “shovel-ready” projects, said Almis Udrys, Faulconer’s director of government affairs. “It takes a little bit of time to clean out these legacy projects that have been in the system for several mayors back and that have already had funding spent for design, etcetera.

“There are projects from years ago before the city really did any sort of legitimate or logical planning-andconstruction process that would just kind of get in,” Udrys added. “There was never a lot of logic to it.”

The proposed allocation for the borrowed bond proceeds looks troubling, as well. While Districts 1, 2 and 3 would get 26 percent of funding combined, Myrtle Cole’s District 4 would receive just 1 percent, and District 8 would get nothing. With 62 percent of all bond funds in a “citywide” project category, the yet-to-be released locations of street resurfacing projects will have a significant impact on funding equality.

Of overall proposed infrastructure spending, a few large projects with citywide significance exaggerate the numbers, Udrys pointed out, such as about $98 million for the West Mission Bay Drive Bridge in District 2 and about $32 million to start expansion of the San Diego Convention Write to joshuas@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Center in District 3.

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 7

spin cycle

john r.

lamb Get-’em-outta-the-garage sale “I always get nervous when people start talking about legacies.”

—Bill Clinton Last week in the bowels of Balboa Park’s San Diego History Center, one member of the local Mayoral Resignation Club attempted a joke at the expense of its most recent inductee.

Regaling an intimate gathering of 18 friends, former coworkers and a handful of curious historical gawkers, the man introduced as “Judge” Dick Murphy was running through his checklist of 10 Goals and hit upon the establishment of the city’s Ethics Commission.

“And the Ethics Commission set up a code of ethics. We set up an organization to enforce that code,” Murphy said straightfaced before a smirk appeared.

“Unfortunately, when we did the

ethics code, um, we didn’t include prohibiting groping by the mayor.

But other than that, we covered almost everything else.”

Light laughter emanated from the Thornton Theatre, and Spin Cycle immediately began imagining if former mayor Bob Filner, instead of home confinement, had been sentenced to one bigass, citywide roast in which anyone with a one-liner could get up and fling away. Talk about a healing experience!

Within these pages and beyond a decade ago, Murphy was described as many things as he lumbered toward eventual resignation—out of touch, insular, a bust at crisis management, excuse-oriented and blind to red-flag warnings, financial and otherwise. Never funny and introspective.

The small gathering—including many silver-haired veterans

8 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

of political battles waged a generation ago—was treated to an ever-so-slight peek into the obviously sharp mind (Harvard MBA, Stanford law degree, people!) and Midwest-influenced banter of San Diego’s 33rd mayor, who was there ostensibly to hawk the small-run memoir he released in 2011, San Diego’s Judge Mayor: How Murphy’s Law Blindsided Leadership with 2020 Vision. Proceeds from the night’s modest book sales went to the History Center.

His reasons for donating those proceeds? After praising the importance of the History Center and touting his autobiography as “really a documentary on my time as mayor,” he ended with perhaps his greatest motivation: “To make my wife happy.”

Explained Murphy: “See, we printed 1,000 books… and I still have a couple hundred left, and my wife does not want 200 books in the garage for the rest of her life.”

He described himself as a “goody two shoes” compared to “goofy” Peter Q. Davis (later a behemoth during the Downtown redevelopment boom) when they

John R. Lamb

worked together eons ago at Bank of America. When he ran as an underdog for mayor in 2000, he and Davis yukked it up.

“He and I would sit together, and we would joke,” Murphy recalled. “I didn’t really think I’d win anyway, so I was having a good time at all the debates…. We were the best of friends.”

They would later work together to turn what Murphy called “a hole in the ground” into Petco Park, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary. (Murphy didn’t mention if he attended the festivities.) The former mayor said he even “insisted” that Davis’ name be included on the commemoratory plaque at the ballpark.

But Murphy’s tone shifted while he recalled running for reelection in 2004, when Davis decided to challenge him—or, as the former Superior Court judge put it, “sort of a longtime friend turning on me.”

It was at that point that Murphy emphasized his central theme of the night: that his resignation was an “act of sacrifice” to get the city moving forward again under the auspices of a new strong-mayor form of government, which he backed.

Murphy argued that under the previous city-manager form of governance, the City Council— led by the mayor—was precluded from delving too deeply into employee finances. “You know, I’m pursuing my 10 goals,” he said. “All the internal operations at the city were left to the city manager. The charter said we’re supposed to do that. We’re not supposed to interfere with personnel decisions.

“So when he comes in and says, ‘I suggest that we do this,’ I wouldn’t say we just rubberstamped it, but we kind of deferred

to his recommendation….

We didn’t understand that we were underfunding [the pension system], and so should we have understood it? Well, maybe if we had given it some thought, maybe we should have understood that…. And it turns out to be, in 20/20 hindsight, a mistake.”

He said his difference with Davis boiled down to management style: “He didn’t approve of the way I did things. He didn’t like my quiet, behind-thescenes efforts.”

Spin Cycle mentions Murphy’s rant on Davis Aw. because it came burbling forth after Spin read a Davis quote from a 2011 U-T San Diego story about the memoir, in which the retired banker opined, “Blaming it on Murphy’s Law and the (wildfires) and stuff like that I think is revisionary history. He just didn’t understand the finances and wouldn’t listen to people.

He was pretty headstrong.”

The Murphy administration was no fan of Spin Cycle, nor of CityBeat, for that matter. Murphy inspired a host of nicknames— Mayor 10Goals (honoring his major focus while Rome burned), Mayor 1Goal (when winning reelection seemed paramount, a decision he now calls his greatest regret), the wildfire-inspired Dancing Dick and the Yellow Jackets, and Mayor Flippy-Flop.

The latter came rushing back to the memory banks when Spin noticed the wine-and-cracker spread prior to Murphy’s talk, particularly a bottle of California red labeled “flipflop.”

“There were several people who said, ‘Gosh, what a great label for an evening with a politician,’” joked History Center Executive Director Charlotte Cagan in her opening remarks.

(She asked an underling if that was purposeful, and the reply was, “No, it really wasn’t!”)

Murphy was kind toward this publication (“CityBeat wasn’t really the problem here”), but admonished the U-T, which had endorsed him twice (“They sort of turned on me”), and arch-nemesis / then-City Attorney Mike Aguirre (“He was only interested in his own headlines”).

The lesson in the end for Murphy? As he put it: “You can delegate authority, but you can’t delegate responsibility.”

Legacy learned.

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

edwin

sordid tales

decker The YMCA is trying to kill me When a fat man walks into spin class for the first “Murder by Crunches (one, two, three),” and it’s time, all commotion abruptly stops—like an Ameriproof that the YMCA is hunting me for sport. can backpacker entering the local pub of a rural, Indeed, these were no ordinary crunches. The English village with a persistent werewolf problem. instructor introduced a series of additional moThat’s how it was when I got to spin class at tions like kick outs, scissors, leg lifts, hip thrusts, the Peninsula YMCA, with everyone glaring at me, bicycles, flutters and lumberjacks, which are perwondering if I was going to survive the thrashing formed by lying flat on your back, hands above and considering giving me tips on staying alive. your head, knees bent, feet flat on the floor and “Stay on the road, lad. Keep clear the moor.” then slowly raising your mid-section while the inWhile spin class is new to me, working out isn’t. structor hacks at your abdomen with a felling axe.

For most of my adult life, I’ve been going to gyms, Boot camp: In the moments before my first boot with limited results. Typically, I’d start my session camp was about to begin, I knew I was a dead man. with 30 minutes on the stay-in-place bicycle thingy, There were all these bright-eyed, happy-healthy pedaling ineffectually while making my Words people who were stretching and running in place with Friends moves. Then I’d walk around the gym, and champing at the bit to start the drills. I ask periodically lifting heavy iron things and putting you, is there anything more disconcerting than a them back down again. If I was feeling particularly group of happy-healthy fitness types all awake and energized, I might’ve even got on the dreadmill for enthusiastic before a morning workout—as if they some fat-man jogging, or “walking” as it’s known to like working out; as if morning is a time of elation regular people. for them; as if they can’t wait to go forth into the Then one day, I decided to try some of these fitworld, unaware that the world is a festering wasteness classes the Y offers—you know, like strength land of angst, despair and a never-ending stream conditioning, aqua aerobics, Piof pointless movie remakes, a lates, TRX, boot camp, gut cut world where true love is a lie and/or the aforementioned spin and your wife will dump you It’s during this drill class—where you have the privijust as surely as Don Sterling’s that I’ve been known lege of being barked at by a drill iPod don’t got no Public Enemy sergeant in yoga pants as techno on it? Ah, but what does it matto tell the cougar, music blares and the toxic globter anyway because we’re all go“Just take me already.” ules of sweat from a decade of ing to be dead soon—dead, dead, bad eating cauterize your eyedead, dea—er, did I mention I’m balls. And so, morphing my glutnot a morning person? tony for food into gluttony for punishment, I settled For our first drill, the instructor took us out to on boot camp, gut cut and spin. the parking lot to run laps while carrying Home DeSpin: From the moment I stepped into the pot buckets with weights inside. The fit people ran torture chamber cycling room, I knew that spin effortlessly while I crawled half-dead on the paveclass would try to kill me. These machines aren’t ment, gasping for water and listlessly swatting at the same as the gym bikes I was used to; they’re buzzards. I began to pray to the god in which I don’t high-tech, multi-functioning, all-metal, massbelieve for relief. It was then I understood why the murdering Terminators that will go back in time YMCA was trying to kill me. How could I have been and murder you before you’re born if they have to. so blind? YMCA stands for Young Men’s Christian The class is all about drills, of which there are two Association. It hates me because I’m agnostic! types: sprints and climbs. Climbs simulate cycling Well played, YMCA. But let me ask you someto the top of a mountain, which is accomplished by thing: What kind of creator tortures his children in incrementally raising the resistance to its highest this manner? Wouldn’t a loving god let us eat whatlevels, standing up out of your seat, and steadily ever we want and not get the diabetes or the puffy biking up, up, up (passing billy goats and some ankles? Or, at the very least, he’d make the food that Sherpa along the way) until blood spurts from tastes the yummiest—burritos and burgers, for inyour eyes or they have to call an evac helicopter, stance—be the healthy food? If God truly loved me, whichever comes last. wouldn’t he make it so that sitting on my ass playing Sprints are when you pedal super-fast—mainvideo games was a massive calorie burner—I mean, taining a certain amount of RPMs, for a certain seriously, God, what would it take to make that hapamount of time, for a certain number of reps, leadpen? A snap of a finger? A whisper into the ear of an ing to a certain number of embolisms. intern? Get ’er done for crissake! Because it won’t The worst, however, are the sprint / climb combe long before homicide investigators are snapping bos, also known as “mountain lions,” because it’s pictures around a chalk outline of my body and like a normal mountain climb but with the occaquestioning the YMCA staff, who will all undoubtedly claim that I was mauled by a cougar. sional sprint, as if a cougar had suddenly appeared and began chasing you up the hill. It’s during this Write to edwin@sdcitybeat.com drill that I’ve been known to tell the cougar, “Just and editor@sdcitybeat.com. Listen to take me already.”

“Sordid Tales: The Podcast!” at sdcitybeat.com.

Gut cut: This is an ab workout I like to call

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 9

by michael a. gardiner Michael A. Gardiner

quick trip under the salamander. It’s what grilled-cheese sandwiches dream of being when they grow up. Perhaps it’s the ham-and-cheese sandwich taken to its logical extreme—or maybe not, as Currant also offers a croque madame, the same thing topped with a fried egg. Either sandwich is a deep draught from the comfort-food well.

But if Currant’s croque monsieur is a good sandwich, its unique take on the Reuben is a great one. The classic Reuben is a grilled rye sandwich filled with corned beef, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut with Russian dressing. Currant takes this Currant’s Reuben sandwich New York deli classic and substitutes a red-cabbage kimchi for the sauerkraut, Irish white cheddar for the Swiss cheese and a cornichon-Dijon aioli for the Russian dressing.

Each change is minor in and of itself, and the sandwich is still recognizable as a Reuben, but it really is something new and better. The totalHow to dress down well ity of the tweaks (combined with the outstanding house-cured corned beef ) elevates the dish Currant American Brasserie reminds me of one to something more than the sum of its parts. Like of my ex-girlfriends. She cleaned up really well and all great dishes, this is one that feels like it wasn’t looked great in eveningwear but was even more created or invented, but rather has always been attractive in old jeans and with her hair down. there, just waiting to be discovered.

Currant (140 W. Broadway, Downtown, currant Currant has other good lunch sandwiches. restaurant.com) has an elegant look, someThe brasserie burger is well-executed, if not where between a fine-dining establishment and spectacular. The white cheddar and caramela French corner bistro, and its dinner offerings ized onions enhance the beef without dominatare great. But where it really shines is in its ing it. The thyme-laced french fries are a classic lunch menu. and comfortable accompaniment. Currant’s take Currant was the second stop on my “CityBeat on a French dip sandwich is also good, featuring World Fare Best Sandwich on the Planet” tour. shaved Brandt beef and those same caramelized Specifically, I went there for the croque monsieur, onions, along with an au jus dipping sauce and France’s unique version of the grilled ham-andthose same fries. cheese sandwich with béchamel sauce. Legend The burger and French dip may be good, but has it the first croque monsieur was “invented” the sandwich to get on a lunchtime trip to Curwhen French workers left their lunch pails by a rant is the croque monsieur or the Reuben. Curradiator, returning to find the cheese melted into rant’s version of these great sandwiches of Paris the ham and bread. Its first documented appearand New York—one classic, one decidedly not— ance was on a Parisian café menu in 1910. show that this girl really knows how to let her hair down.

Currant’s version, featuring country ham and Gruyere cheese (Emmental is, perhaps, more traWrite to michaelg@sdcitybeat.com ditional) in between slices of crusty French bread and editor@sdcitybeat.com. and topped with béchamel sauce, arrives after a

the world

fare

10 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

BY KELLY DAVIS

cocktail

kelly davis

tales Scents of place

Nate Howell hands me a round thing that looks like it could be a piece of candy or maybe some fancy dried fruit. Nope—it’s a cedar-wood ball that’s been soaked in gin, and it’s the garnish for the Hunt & Gather, the Northwest-inspired drink on JSix’s regional-themed cocktail menu.

Made with cedar-infused Aviation gin, grenadine, fresh grapefruit juice and egg white—with that cedar ball floating on top—it’s a delicate, nuanced drink, served with a shot glass of Oregon Pinot Noir that you add as you sip. Howell, JSix’s head bartender, gives the egg white a good dry-shake (without ice), to give the drink an almost meringue-like froth.

“I always like to suggest drinking it with this to your nose,” he says, pointing to the cedar ball, “so you can really smell the aromatic in the wood. And then after you have a sip, sort of top it with the Pinot and it really kind of cuts through the cedar, and it cuts through that juniper quality of the gin and really rounds out the cocktail.”

Earlier this year, JSix (616 J St., Downtown, jsixrestaurant.com) underwent a major rehab, and Howell, who’d been the head bartender at Cusp at Hotel La Jolla, was tapped to head up the cocktail program. The idea of doing seasonal cocktail menus wasn’t singing to him. Inspired by seeing a bartender at Aviary in Chicago use cedar in a cocktail, Howell, working with JSix chef Christian Graves, came up with the concept of regions—West, Northwest, Northeast, etc.

Each of the six drinks on the menu includes a spirit, and flavors, from that region. Aviation gin, for instance, is based in Portland. Here, it’s infused with cedar chips from Oregon Redwoods.

In Our Own Backyard, the cocktail under the “Local” header, is made with rum from San Diego’s Ballast Point (plus Marie Brizard apricot liqueur, house-made salted orgeat syrup, fresh lime and mint). It’s “a really nice sort of quintessential San Diego, tiki cocktail,” Howell says.

Nate Howell The Hola Y’all, the cocktail representing the South, includes both Del Maguey mezcal from Oaxaca and Texas-made Tito’s vodka that’s been infused with Graves’ spicy barbecue rub. If you like heat, try the infused Vodka on ice with some soda. Straight-up, it’s fantastic, too, but potent.

“The whole menu’s really basic,” Howell says. “It’s fresh citrus, herbs we grow in the yard”—JSix’s rooftop garden. “It’s a bunch of simple things added up to make a really great final product.”

Howell also selected for the menu three wellknown classics (Negroni, Manhattan, Whiskey Sour) and three obscure classics (Bijou, Brown Derby, Chicago) and plans to expand both lists.

Flip over a few more pages and you come to a section called “Medicine Cabinet” that features a bar tool of the month for purchase (currently a bar spoon, it changes quarterly) and a short list of house syrups for sale—including that salted orgeat.

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

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 11

by Mina Riazi mina riazi

stand ’em, stay away.

I recommend grabbing a table on the balcony. It’s peaceful up there, and if you need a distraction from your date, there’s a decent view. Plus, once the outdoor fire pit gets crackling, the smoke will fill the air and it will smell of high-school bonfires and nostalgia.

The Yellow Deli’s easy-tofollow menu covers the basics: sandwiches, salads and soups.

Juice-bar offerings and a short stack of breakfast options fill the back page. Much of the restaurant’s produce comes from nearby farms, including Morning Star Ranch. The breads are home-baked, and you can tell.

Still, the breads I tried often Imagine this as a cute, cuddly mascot. lacked textural complexity. I ordered the Deli Rose, a sandwich with an A-list cast: roast beef, corned beef, hot pepper jack cheese and provolone. The all-star ingredients meet the usual fixings on an onion roll.

Maybe this is my inner glutton speaking, but the onion roll that arrived minutes later looked so small. More importantly, it lacked the symphonic Sandwiches on the balcony crackle that carby dreams are made of. The sammie’s soft and juicy ingredients contributed to The Yellow Deli feels far removed from the rest the bread’s sogginess. Still, a great sandwich reof Vista. The two-story house sits on a quiet, unlies only somewhat on a rich range of textures. crowded stretch of East Broadway. Inside, almost What matters more is flavor. everything—from the smooth, polished tables to The hot pepper jack cheese saves the Deli the spiral staircase to the food elevator—is made Rose, lending its sharp tang to an otherwise mildof wood. For some, the wooden interior might rely flavored sandwich. I suggest ditching the tocall Snow White’s cottage or eighth-grade summato slices—they don’t elevate the taste, but they mer camp. For me, it’s the waterfront log cabin do make the sandwich slippery. Instead, pack in that I mentally escape to every now and then. a few potato chips, which should arrive on your In 2003, the deli’s owners demolished a runplate. The chips will add some much-desired down, one-room building and began constructcrunch and saltiness. ing a full-fledged structure from the ground up.

A cheesy jalapeño roll was the highlight of The quasi-treehouse was born in 2010. A quick my Deli meal. The chubby slab reminded me tour of the place (315 E. Broadway, yellowdeli. that sometimes the carby stuff is better left uncom) reveals why it took seven years to build. To adorned. In fact, if The Yellow Deli ever considbegin with, it’s no pocket-sized Disney cottage. ers getting a mascot, the jalapeño roll should be The spacious restaurant includes a wraparound it. Why? Well, it’s simple and savory and 100-percent homemade. balcony and a coffee bar with its own seating area. The coffee bar’s cushy couches and free Write to minar@sdcitybeat.com wi-fi lures slouching 20-somethings with all the and editor@sdcitybeat.com. intensity of a neodymium magnet—so if you can’t

One Lucky

Spoon

12 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

the floating

library

by jim ruland

Not-so-happy endings Antonia Crane opens her new sex-worker memoir, Spent, from Barnacle Books, with one of the least glamorous, non-erotic sex scenes I’ve read in recent memory.

Recruited as a sensual-massage therapist by her friend Kara, Crane finds herself in a compromising situation. The allure of easy money has brought her to the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills on Christmas Day for a four-hand massage. The client, a widower with a skin condition who is “covered in tiny scabs,” predictably wants sex and is willing to double the fee. Are they interested?

With a quick glance from Kara, Crane bolts to the bathroom for condoms, and then they go to work: “I looked into Kara’s blank blue eyes and our tongues met in circles around the latex condom. I tasted the sour plastic of new tires, party balloons, and hospital gloves.”

What’s remarkable about the scene isn’t its lack of eroticism; it’s how quickly Crane slides down sex work’s slippery slope. All it takes is a glance from Kara for her to go from happy-ending masseuse to prostitute— an ugly word that comes into play only when the police get involved—and I don’t think I’m giving much away by revealing that Crane eventually gets booked on pandering charges. Johns generally prefer the term “escort services,” burying the word “sex” in the language of commerce that reduces the escorts to “service providers,” a class of women defined by the needs of the men they serve.

Crane is having none of that. She embraces the term “sex worker,” for it defines the work, and it’s often hard work that she performs. When you need your car repaired, you go to a mechanic, not an automotive-services provider. For Crane, stripping, lap dancing, performing in peep shows, screwing on camera or providing sexual services of any kind is sex work. This attentiveness to language makes Spent an intoxicating read.

Crane’s memoir is divided into five sections that explore the various ways a beautiful, intelligent girl from a middle-class family in Humboldt, California, can end up a professional sex worker: Bulimia and body-image issues as a young girl.

Divorce and reckless drug use during her teenage years. Relationships scarred by drug addiction and sexual trauma. And years of sober stripping

that lead to forays into other kinds of employment before being lured back to easy money and transactions that keep getting darker and darker.

Crane is too savvy a writer to suggest there’s a causal relationship between her damaged past and reckless decisions. She owns her choices.

Spent is neither an explanation nor a mask. Crane is unstintingly frank and often very funny: “She handed me her curly brown wig that smelled like it had been held captive in a bucket of Downy fabric softener since 1985.”

While the setting and circumstances are often somewhere between tawdry and lurid, the writing is sharply focused: “A tranny in a wheelchair was bumming change out front while smoking a Pall Mall. ‘Nice wig,’ she said. I dropped a couple of quarters in her Styrofoam cup. She glared at me. ‘You idiot. That’s my coffee.’”

Crane doesn’t deliver a blow-by-blow account of every phase of her life, sordid or otherwise. For instance, we don’t learn about how she came by her elaborate tattoos and are likewise spared the quotidian details of her relationships—romantic or not. In between stripping gigs, she finishes school and gets an MFA. The relationship that frames the narrative is the one she has with her mother and her mother’s bile duct cancer, which ultimately proves terminal.

The scenes immediately before her mother’s demise, when “[t]he room shrunk with the heat of our bodies waiting for death,” are the most harrowing. Because she’s always broke, Crane has to hustle for plane fare to visit her dying mother. At the hospital, she’s appalled by the poor treatment her mother’s receiving and can’t escape reminders of the strip club where she works. “The hospital looked shabby and unkempt, and this pissed me off to no end.

Her room smelled like Pleasures: bleach and air freshener.” As her mother nears the end, Crane makes a shocking decision that left me stunned.

If you’re looking for cheap thrills or redemption by reconciliation, you won’t find it in Spent; what you will encounter is the brave, bold voice of a writer who refuses to let the emptiness of her past get in the way of living life to the fullest.

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

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 13

the

SHORTlist

COORDINATED BY KINSEE MORLAN

COURTESY: MEDIA ARTS CENTER SAN DIEGO

born. Ethan von Thillo, executive director of the nonprofit, says that when they moved in three years ago, their alley was blighted. Since then, they’ve added a mural, planted trees and turned it into a safe space for film screenings and classes. The goal is to expand alley improvements down the block, creating a corridor that ties together restaurants and shops along that stretch of the boulevard.

If you’d like to help with the alley overhauls, go to facebook.com/takebackthealley and look for the link to the volunteer sign-up page. Or, stop by: From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Bread & Salt, help plant fruit trees and check out a mural-in-progress and an exhibit of Woodbury architectural students’ ideas for neighborhood beautification. In the alley between Imperial and Commercial avenues, they’ll be painting Take Back the Alley at Media Arts Center’s Digital Gym in North Park murals, building planters out of bike spokes and tires and holding a block party. Along the 2900 block of El Cajon Boulevard, the cleanup culminates with a block party from 6 to 10 p.m. that’ll When folks think of neighborhood revi- include Old Harbor Distilling Co. cocktails at Coffee talization, alleyways don’t usually come and Tea Collective, the Puesto food truck and an exto mind. Could the often-unwelcoming hibition of artwork by Paul Wig at Gym Standard. thoroughfares become attractive public spaces?

“I think next year you’re going to see even more On Saturday, May 17, through an initiative communities getting involved,” von Thillo says. “I called Take Back the Alley, makeovers will be hap- think what you’re seeing here is a little teeny movepening at four locations: between Imperial Avenue ment that’s just going to expand once more people and Commercial Street (bounded by 28th and 29th hear about it.” streets), between Clay and Franklin avenues (bounded by 30th and 31st streets) and at Bread & Salt (1955 Julian Ave.), all in Logan Heights; and the alley beArtist Tim Youd wants to retype 100 hind Media Arts Center San Diego in North Park classic novels in five years. To make it (2921 El Cajon Blvd.). even more of a challenge, he’s decided Media Arts Center was where the initiative was that each novel must be typed “on location,” which means he sets up a typewriter in a place that somehow relates to the book or the author. Youd’s currently retyping all seven of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels. Chandler lived in La Jolla, so Youd will tackle The Long Goodbye and Playback for his show opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s La Jolla location (700 Prospect St.) on Saturday, May 17. Youd will start typing on Saturday and continue through Sunday, May 18. He’ll be back this summer to finish up, but art objects created during his performances will be on view through August. mcasd.org DAVID CROTTY The North Park Festival of Arts is in its 18th year, and it’s really growing into something. Happening from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, May 17, along University Avenue and down side streets in the heart of North Park, the mostly free fest will feature 30 music acts on four stages and 25 dance performances on a dedicated dance stage. The North Park Craft Mafia will display its wares and hold craft workshops, and there’ll be a quick-draw plein air competition, a juried fine-art show, a Veterans Art Zone focused on the work of military veterans and a section highlighting the Ray Street arts district. And the Waypoint Craft Beer Block will boast more than 30 brewers—get taster tickets ASAP because it’ll sell out before the event.

Tim Youd northparkfestivalofarts.com

1

SAFE PASSAGE

3

2

ART, MUSIC, DANCE, BEER

14 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

JUST YOUR TYPE

ART

BOOKS

HEl Lissitzky: Futurist Portfolios at Timken Museum of Art, Balboa Park. Two of the Soviet artist’s portfolios will be on display. The work combines bold geometric shapes and a unique graphic-design sensibility. Opens Thursday, May 15.

619-239-5548, timkenmuseum.org

HZohreh Ghahremani at New Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village. The 2012 “One Book, One San Diego” author of Sky of Red Poppies will discuss her second novel, The Moon Daughter. At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 14. 619-2365800, sandiegolibrary.org

HExternal Affection: The Art of Xiaoye Sun at Bread & Salt, 1955 Julian Ave., Logan Heights. A selection of bronze sculpture from this up-and-coming Chinese sculptor. Opening from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, May 15, artpulse.org

Kathi Diamant at Upstart Crow, 835 West Harbor Drive, Seaport Village. The author of the Geisel Award-winning Kafka’s Last Love: The Mystery of Dora Diamant will discuss and sign the memoir. At 7 p.m. Thursday, May 15. upstartcrowtrading.com

HNew Contemporaries VII at Meyer Fine Art, Inc., 2400 Kettner Blvd., Ste. 104, Little Italy. The annual show where artists are nominated for the San Diego Art Prize “emerging artist” category. They include Shane Anderson, Margaret Noble, Lauren Siry and Kim Reasor. Opening from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, May 15. sdvisualarts.net

Michael Cunningham at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours will discuss and sign his new novel, The Snow Queen. At 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 16. warwicks.indiebound.com

HNoLI Nights on and around India Street and Kettner Boulevard in Little Italy The first of this new walkable quarterly event features art at spots like @Hom, jdc Fine Art and the final show at Noel-Baza Fine Art. See website for details. From 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, May 15. 619-358-9512, littleitalysd.com/events/noli-nights HNorth Park Festival of Arts on University Avenue between 30th and 32nd streets in North Park. The 18th annual free festival features 40 artists, vendor booths, a craft beer block and six stages of live music.

From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, May 17.

619-358-9512, northparkmainstreet.com From the Page, Through the Lens at Space 4 Art, 325 15th St., East Village.

Words Alive presents this exhibit based on the American classic The Great Gatsby and featuring work by students in the Teen Services Adolescent Book Group program.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 17.

858-274-9673, wordsalive.org HTreasures of the Tamayo Museum at MCASD, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla. Highlights from one of Mexico’s top modmuseums. The exhibition includes paintings by Rufino Tamayo, as well as Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Mark Rothko, Larry Rivers and others. Opens Saturday, May 17. $5-$10. 858-454-3541, mcasd.org HTim Youd: The Long Goodbye at MCASD, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla. Youd has undertaken the task of retyping 100 classic novels at locations relevant to the author’s life or the plot of the novel.

He’ll be retyping two Raymond Chandler books at MCASD on May 17-18 and will return in July. Selections from his 100 Novels project will be on display, along with his eccentric typewriter “portraits,” Opening Saturday, May 17. mcasd.org Memorabilia to Art: A Progressive Show at Expressive Arts, 3201 Thorn St., North Park. A special reception and artist talk for this show where artists took their clutter and memorabilia and turned it into art. From 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday, May 17. expressiveartssandiego.com HPhotographs of Thomas D. Mangelsen at San Diego Natural History Museum, Balboa Park. Panoramic photographs and excerpts from Mangelsen’s journals. The exhibition chronicles his experiences from the jungles of India to the icebergs of Antarctica. He’ll be on hand to discuss his work. Opening from 7 to 8:15 p.m. Saturday, May 17. $12. sdnat.org The Sketchbook Project at San Diego Museum of Art, Balboa Park. This collection of more than 30,000 artist sketchbooks, housed in a custom bookmobile, stops in Balboa Park for one day only.

From noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday, May 20. sketchbookproject.com

HRon Pattinson at Stone Brewing Co., 1999 Citracado Pkwy., Escondido. Meet the beer historian and author of The Home Brewers Guide to Vintage Beer. From 4 to 6 p.m. Friday, May 16. stonebrewing.com HRuth Reichl at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The restaurant critic and author of numerous cookbooks stops by to sign her first foray into fiction, Delicious. At 7 p.m. Sunday, May 18. warwicks.indiebound.com. She’ll also be at The Chino Farm, 6123 Calzada del Bosque, Rancho Santa Fe, for an afternoon of seasonal food tastings and music.

From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, May 18. goodearthgreatchefs.com Kenny Weissberg at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The local author stops by to sign and discuss Off My Rocker: One Man’s Tasty, Twisted, Star-Studded Quest for Everlasting Music.

At noon Sunday, May 18, 858-454-0347, warwicks.indiebound.com HGlen Hirshberg and Weston Ochse at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont.

Hirschberg signs and discusses Motherless Child. Ochse will be promoting his paranormal military thriller, Grunt Life. At 2 p.m. Sunday, May 18. mystgalaxy.com Kiera Cass, Kevin Emerson and Amanda Maciel at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. Kiera Cass will discuss The One, Emerson presents Exile, and Maciel will be promoting her anti-bullying, coming-of-age debut, Tease. At 7 p.m. Monday, May 19.

858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com Kitty Morse at Kous Kous Morocccan Bistro, 3940 Fourth Ave., Hillcrest. The San Diego chef and author will talk about her memoir, Mint Tea and Minarets, and share some of Morocco’s culinary and cultural treasures while guests dine on a Moroccan lunch. At noon Monday, May 19. $35.

619-295-5560, adventuresbythebook.com

COMEDY Charlie Murphy at American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave., Downtown. Known for his stories about Rick James and Prince on Chappelle’s Show. At 8 p.m. Thursday, May 15, and Sunday, May 18, and 7:30 and 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 16-17. $25. americancomedyco.com Skyler Stone at Mad House Comedy Club, 502 Horton Plaza, Downtown. He’s been on The Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Comics Unleashed and Comedy Central’s Premium Blend. At 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 16-17. $20-$30. madhousecomedyclub.com Rick Ingraham at Comedy Store, 916

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 15

Pearl St., La Jolla. A comedy club vet, he’s opened on the road for national headliners like Andrew “Dice” Clay and Pauly Shore. At 8 and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 16-17. $20. 858454-9176, lajolla.thecomedystore.com Bobby Slayton at Comedy Palace, 8878 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. Often referred to as “The Pitbull of Comedy,” he’s been performing stand-up for over 30 years. At 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 16-17. $20-$25.

858-573-9067, thecomedypalace.com Sammy Obeid at American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave., Downtown. He’s best known for his 1,001-day streak of consecutive comedy performances. At 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 21. $12. 619795-3858, americancomedyco.com

HAmir K at Mad House Comedy Club, 502 Horton Plaza, Downtown. Born in Tehran and raised in Southern California, he won OC’s Funniest Stand-Up competition and performed on this year’s CBS Diversity Showcase. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 21. $15. madhousecomedyclub.com

DANCE

cinitas Library, 540 Cornish Drive, Encinitas. The third of four Salon Dance Series performances, choreographed by Patricia Rincon Dance Co. artist Kenna Crouch.

From 2 to 3 p.m. Sunday, May 18. $10 suggested donation. rincondance.org

FASHION

Alonzo King LINES Ballet at Spreckels Theater, 121 Broadway, Downtown.

The Bay Area-based company known for incorporating elements of both classical ballet and contemporary dance presents a program of three dance pieces. At 8 p.m. Saturday, May 17. $17.25-$72.25.

619-235-9500, ljms.org

Golden Scissors Fashion Show at Sheraton Hotel & Marina, 1380 Harbor Island Drive, Downtown. The annual fashion show features Mesa College student designs and collections. Includes a silent auction, student exhibits and a runway show with proceeds going to Mesa College scholarships. At 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 15. $15-$50. sdmesa.edu/fashion

I Only Know (What I Don’t Know) at En-

Buffalo Exchange Anniversary Tour

Buffalo Exchange celebrates its 40th anniversary with a stop from a touring vintage 1969 Airstream pop-up shop with a selection of vintage apparel and freebies and other stuff. It’ll be at the Pacific Beach location on Friday and the Hillcrest location on Saturday. From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Friday and Saturday, May 16-17. 858273-6227, buffaloexchange.com/BufEx74

FOOD & DRINK HEat.Drink.Read. at McMillin Event Center, 2875 Dewey Road, Point Loma. The San Diego Council on Literacy’s annual fundraiser where local chefs are invited to create a dish based on a favorite book.

Seventeen chefs will be participating, including Waypoint’s Amanda Baumgarten, The Marine Room’s Bernard Guillas and

Urban Solace’s Matt Gordon. Also, sample beers from several local breweries. From 5:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 14. $60. eatdrinkread.com HA Convergence of Art & Chocolate at New Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village. Chef Will Gustwiller of Eclipse Chocolate will serve up some chocolate creations and tell the story behind them. From 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Saturday, May 17. chsandiego.com HBrew Rendezvous at SILO in Makers Quarter, 753 15th St., East Village. A food, farm and craft-beer pairing event celebrating the unique role of craft brewers, local growers and restauranteurs in cultivating community and health. Proceeds benefit Community Health Improvement Partners’ efforts to tackle obesity. From 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 18. $55. 619-2557069, sdchip.org

HEALTH & WELLNESS HBike to Work Day at San Diego County.

Stop by one of more than 90 pit stops conveniently located throughout the county to pick up a free T-shirt, snacks and encouragement. All day Friday, May 16. icommutesd.com/events/bike-to-work-day Training Your Brain to Behave at Center for Integrative Care, 3547 Camino Del Rio South, Mission Valley. Learn how to train your brain to lead a healthier, active life. Guest presenters include Lesley Paterson, a World Champion triathlete and Dr. Simon Marshall, professor of behavioral medicine at UCSD. From 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 21. 619-2874005, manciniacupuncture.com

MUSIC #HackingImprov: A Generative Song Cycle at Space 4 Art, 325 15th St., East Village. Composer/performer Blair Robert Nelson explores more than a century of audio technology through his generative song cycle with help from violinist Kristopher Apple. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 14. $10. 619-269-7230, sdspace4art.org HOpera Wednesdays at La Jolla Jewish Community Center, 4126 Executive Drive, La Jolla. Southern California’s top operatic artists sing in this new series of special concerts. From 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 14. $10 suggested donation.

858-459-0831, ljcommunitycenter.org Hredfishbluefish at Conrad Prebys Music Center, UCSD campus, La Jolla. Part of the WED@7 series, UCSD’s crack percussion ensemble presents Stockhauen’s Mikrophonie and Lucier’s Kettles. The program will also feature Steven Schick performing the UCSD premiere of Lei Liang’s Trans. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 14. $15.50. 858-534-6503, music.ucsd. edu/concerts Rachmaninoff in the Key of Jazz at Copley Symphony Hall, 750 B St., Downtown. Joined by jazz artists and the San Diego Symphony, virtuoso pianist Kirill Gerstein performs everything from jazz to excerpts from Rachmaninoff’s “Third Piano Concerto.” At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 15. $20. sandiegosymphony.org HEvolution: Onda Nueva 2.0 at The Abbey, 2825 Fifth Ave., Hillcrest. Mainly Mozart’s highly successful Onda Nueva series is re-created with artists celebrating the best of the next generation in music from our neighbors to the south. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 15. $35-$65.

619-239-0100, mainlymozart.org Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto at Copley Symphony Hall, 750 B St., Downtown. Russian composers are the

16 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

theme of this Jacobs Masterworks concert as Jahja Ling and the San Diego Symphony perform early 20th century masterpieces

by Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff. At 8 p.m.

Friday and Saturday, May 16-17, and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 18. $20-$96. 619-2350804, sandiegosymphony.org Jazz Night San Diego at Casa Artelexia, 2419 Kettner Blvd., Little Italy. A celebration of jazz to support of San Diego’s non-profit, public radio station, Jazz 88.3. The Charles McPherson Trio headline. From 6 to 9 p.m.

Friday, May 16. $100. jazz88.org HMarco Eneidi and Cosmic Brujo at Dizzy’s, 4275 Mission Bay Drive, Mission Bay. Part of the Fresh Sound music series, musician/composer/alto saxophonist Marco Eneidi and Swiss/Mexican drummer Cosmic Brujo play a series of solos and duos. At 7 p.m. Friday, May 16. 858-2707467, freshsoundmusic.com Bushwalla and Cody Lovaas at Mission Healthcare, 2385 Northside Dr., Suite 200, Mission Valley. The concert will be held on a grassy lawn outside Mission Healthcare’s office and proceeds will be donated to the Dream Foundation, a wish-granting organization for adults with life-threatening illnesses. From 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 17. $15-$30. homewithmission.com Lillian Palmer at Visionary Dance Theatre, 8803 1/2 La Mesa Blvd., La Mesa.

The actress and cabaret-style singer performs jazz, swing, Latin and beyond. At 8 p.m. Saturday, May 17. $20-$25. 619758-8112, visionarydancetheatre.org Indigo Girls and the San Diego Women’s Chorus at Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Ave., Downtown. The duo will perform with the local chorus for a program called “Songs of Protest, Songs of Peace.” The concert benefits the Lesbian Health Initiative of the San Diego Human Dignity Foundation. At 7 p.m. Sunday, May 18. $30-$100.

619-291-3366, sdwc.org

THEATER

COURTESY: MOXIE THEATRE

Friends from the friendly skies The title of Marisa Wegrzyn’s play Mud Blue Sky suggests unsightliness where none should be. In this airy comedy at Moxie Theatre, the lives of aging flight attendants Beth (DeAnna Driscoll), Sam (Jo Anne Glover) and Angie (Melissa Fernandes) are not unsightly, but they are untidy. The fun’s gone out of their jobs after so many endless flights, and things aren’t very happy on the ground, either.

Beth is the most fed up of the three, weary of back and of mind, getting her marijuana fix from an artless young dealer (J. Tyler Jones) when she’s off-duty and seriously contemplating “stopping” her job (she won’t call it quitting). Sam is clinging to her fading flightattendant charms but lonely and watching from afar (or above, much of the time) the restless growth of her teen-aged son. Angie has put on a happy face out of sheer will, but it slips off easily.

Mud Blue Sky is set almost entirely in a drab Chicago hotel room not far from O’Hare International. It’s Beth’s room, but Sam and Angie and even Jonathan the pot dealer make a playground out of it for an evening of highs, lows, confessions and silly, stress-relieving laughs. Moxie’s Jennifer Eve Thorn directs an ace cast. Driscoll handles all strata of comedy, from the one-liners and double takes to the meticulously physical. Both Glover and Fernandes have shown themselves to be talented

comedians in past productions around town (Glover is also Moxie’s general manager), and the chemistry between them and Driscoll is infectious. Making his debut at Moxie, Jones is the most adorably innocent pot dealer you’ll ever see, doing business on his prom night in a rented tuxedo and looking not that many years out of puberty. But he, like the rest of this terrific cast, is funny and completely at ease with Wegrzyn’s clever and not-too-mawkish script.

The one-act play flies by like an air commute from San Diego to San Francisco, and though it does pause from its hotel-room pranks to address weighty life questions, laughter is permitted to carry the day. One bonus to experiencing Mud Blue Sky: You’ll gain new appreciation for the flight attendants on your next trip.

Mud Blue Sky runs through June 8 at Moxie Theatre in Rolando. $20-$27. moxie theatre.com

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

OPENING Happy Days: Sledgehammer theater company returns from six years in hibernation to stage Samuel Beckett’s play with two characters, one who spends eternity partially buried in dirt and one who lives in a cave to escape

Melissa Fernandes (left) and DeAnna Driscoll unforgiving heat. Opens May 15 at the 10th Avenue Arts Center in East Village. sledgehammer.org Lost in Yonkers: It’s the 1940s, and a man causes upheaval in his extended family when he decides he needs to make money as a traveling salesman. Presented by Oceanside Theatre Company, it opens May 16 at Brooks Theatre. oceansidetheatre.org The MotherfHHker with the Hat: A former drug dealer fresh out of prison is back with his addict girlfriend and desperate to know whom the man’s hat in her apartment belongs to. Presented by Cygnet Theatre, it opens in preview on May 15 at Old Town Theatre. cygnettheatre.com Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike: A successful actress returns home to Pennsylvania, where her siblings have spent much of their adult lives caring for their now-deceased parents, and she’s brought her dumb, much younger boyfriend with her. Opens May 17 at The Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park. oldglobe.org The Wizard of Oz: The classic story is brought to life

by Arms Wide Open, a nonprofit group that gives folks with special needs opportunities to be involved in the arts. Runs May 15 through 21 at the Lyceum Theatre at Horton Plaza, Downtown. lyceumevents.org

For full listings,

please visit “T heater ” at sdcit ybeat.com

The Gundecha Brothers at Encinitas Library, 540 Cornish Drive, Encinitas. Dhrupad music is the oldest and most profound form of Hindustani vocal music and the Gundecha Brothers are masters of the form. At 7 p.m. Sunday, May 18. $10-$25. sandiegolibrary.org Sidney Hopson at New Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village. The percussionist plays a program entitled “The Fabric of Sound,” which features selections from Jacob Druckman, Christopher Norton, Astor Piazzolla and Iannis Xenakis.

At 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 18. 619-2365800, sandiegolibrary.org HMusic Meets Bells at Market Creek Plaza, 5160 Federal Blvd., Diamond District. Indian classical music and dance fusion featuring an amalgam of Chitravina, Santoor and Odissi dance. There will also be Indian vegetarian cuisine. From 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, May 18. 619-527-6161, indianfineartsacademy.org Una Nocha Yidishe at Oceanside Museum of Art, 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside.

The Grammy-nominated band Klezmer Juice, featuring Gustavo Bulgach, performs Latin and Jewish music. At 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 20. $8. 760-4353720, sdrep.org HMiss Erika Davies Trio at Lemon Grove Library, 3001 School Lane, Lemon Grove. The vintage-style crooner performs. At 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 20.

Free. sdcls.homestead.com Joan Osborne at Birch Aquarium, 2300 Expedition Way, La Jolla. The blues and soul singer behind the hit song “One of Us” performs at the Green Flash concert series, which pairs live music with panoramic ocean views on Birch Aquarium’s outdoor

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 17

Tide-Pool Plaza. From 5:30 to 9 p.m.

Wednesday, May 21. $28-$36. 858534-5037, aquarium.ucsd.edu

Zone and a car show will all be part of this 21st annual event. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, May 18. 469-2206, sicilianfesta.com

PERFORMANCE

HA Night at the Opera at Ken Cinema, 4061 Adams Ave., Kensington. This pay-what-you-can benefit screening of the Marx Brothers’ classic will benefit the San Diego Opera. Host Dr. Nicolas Reveles will be joined by members of the Opera’s Chorus performing the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore, the opera featured in the film. At 8 p.m. Monday, May 19. 619-819-0236, sdopera.com

this at Expressive Arts Institute, 2820 Roosevelt Road, Ste. 204, Point Loma. Series of live performances with Liam Clancy and others, who, through improv and performance, attempt to examine the paradigm of audience as co-creative. There will be a pre-performance salon and after party at Solare Ristorante. From 6 to 10 p.m. Thursday, May 15. $5. ex pressiveartsinstitute.org

POETRY & SPOKEN WORD HUndocumentation at UCSD SME Presentation Lab, Voigt Drive and Matthews Lane, La Jolla. Amy Sara Carroll, assistant professor of American Culture, Latina/o studies, gives a presentation followed by a poetry reading. At 5 p.m. Thursday, May 15, and 1 p.m. Friday, May 16. visarts.ucsd.edu HTake Back the Alley at Bread & Salt, 1955 Julian Ave., Logan Heights. Help beautify the alleyway behind Bread & Salt and check out Woodbury architectural students’ ideas for urban renewal. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 17. facebook.com/takebackthealley

POLITICS & COMMUNITY HDinner and Bikes at La Bodega Studios and Gallery, 2196 Logan Ave., Barrio Logan. Enjoy chef Joshua Ploeg’s gourmet vegan and gluten-free buffet spread.

While eating, Joe Biel will screen his short films about bicycle activism and culture.

Then Elly Blue will discuss “Bikenomics,” showing the audience how to make a compelling economic case for making San Diego more bike-friendly. At 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 14. $15-$25.

619-752-0796, bikesd.org

SPECIAL EVENTS HLove, Lust & Libido: The Chemistry of Sex at Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, Balboa Park. Part of the Fleet’s “Science on the Rocks” series, peep into the science of sex by exploring the laws of attraction, tinkering with sex toys and finding answers to questions you’ve always wanted to ask. Ticket price includes food and drink samples. 21+ only. From 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, May 15. $20$30. 619-238-1233, rhfleet.org HNorth Park Spring After Dark A quarterly event with more than 25 businesses coming together to show off San Diego’s original shopping district. Peruse galleries and independent boutiques and enjoy specials at bars and restaurants. See Facebook page for details. From 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, May 15. 619-238-1233, facebook.com/northparkafterdark Pet Day on the Bay at Hornblower Cruises, 1066 N. Harbor Drive, Downtown.

Hornblower invites dogs to cruise for free with their owners. Includes a one-hour narrated cruise. Proceeds benefits the Helen Woodward Animal Center. At 9:30 a.m., 11:15 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday, May 17. $24. 888-467-6256, hornblower.com HTake Back the Alley Block Party along the 2900 block of El Cajon Blvd. in North Park. To celebrate the clean-up and beautification of the alley behind this stretch of retail, enjoy cocktails and a photo booth at Coffee & Tea Collective, the Puesto food truck, an exhibition of art

18 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

“I Long to be Free from Longing”

by Margaret Noble will be on view in New Contemporaries VII, a group exhibition opening from 6 to 9 p.m.

Thursday, May 15, at Meyer Fine Arts (2400 Kettner Blvd. in Little Italy).

by Paul Wig at Gym Standard and more.

From 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, May 17. facebook.com/takebackthealley HPirate Days at Maritime Museum of San Diego, 1492 N. Harbor Drive, Downtown. This two-day celebration will include kids costume contests, carnival games, cannon firings, weapon demos, scary stories and a scavenger hunt for the pirate treasure. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday, May 17-18. $8$16. 619-234-9153, sdmaritime.org KidsFest San Diego at NTC at Liberty Station, 2640 Historic Decatur Road, Point Loma. More than 100,000 square feet of interactive stations where kids can move, sing, create and escape in pure play. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, May 17-18. $13-$18, 760-579-1518, kidsfestsandiego.com Serra Mesa Craft Fair at City View Church, 8404 Phyllis Place, Serra Mesa.

Shop from 300 booths featuring unique hand-made items created by crafters from throughout San Diego. There will also be a rummage sale. From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, May 17. 858-560-1870, cityviewsd.com/craftfair San Diego River Days Celebration Take part in events along the length of the river, from Santa Ysabel to Ocean Beach, including hikes, nature walks, bike rides, trail building projects, gardening and more.

See website for an interactive map. Saturday and Sunday, May 17-18. sandiegoriver.org/sdriverdays HMulticultural World Music and Dance Festival at Market Creek Plaza, 5160 Federal Blvd., Diamond District. Distinguished San Diego artists will perform traditional music and dance from Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Mexico and more. From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 17. centerforworld music.org/concerts.html HWorld Cultural Festival at Educational Cultural Complex, 4343 Ocean View Blvd., Lincoln Park. Live musical performances on three stages, a family area, international food trucks and dozens of craft vendors.

From 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, May 17.

760-634-0273, sdce.edu HSnakes in the Garden at Art Produce Gallery, 3139 University Ave., North Park.

Held during the North Park Festival of Arts, this special event will feature cocktails

by Snake Oil Cocktail Company, a social dance stage hosted by Meeshi Ravi, live bands, a gallery exhibit by Anna O’Cain and interactive sculptures by William Feeney. From noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 17. 619-584-4448, artproduce.org HSicilian Festival at between Beech and Grape streets, Little Italy. Grape stomping, authentic Sicilian cuisine, nonstop musical entertainment, cultural displays, a Kids

TALKS & DISCUSSIONS pop!TALK: Live Your Passion at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, 7445 Mission Valley Road, Mission Valley. Career and “life weaver” Marcy Morrison discusses how to make a formula to create a life doing what you love. From 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday, May 15. $5-$10. 619-574-6909 Jacquelyne Silver: Hooray for Hollywood! at Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla. Part piano concert, part lecture series focusing on the music, moguls, movie stars. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 15. $19. ljathenaeum.org HPico Iyer at Price Center Ballroom, UCSD, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla. The essayist, novelist and world adventurer will address his doubts about technology in a talk titled “Weapons of Mass Distraction: Keeping our Sanity and Balance in a High-Speed, Displacing World.” At 7 p.m. Thursday, May 15. 858-246-0809, helenedison.ucsd.edu HA Way with Words at New Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village. Join Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett of public radio’s A Way with Words as they talk about language, slang, books, reading, libraries and more. They’ll also take questions from the audience. At 5:30 p.m. Saturday, May 17. 619-236-5800, sandiegolibrary.org The History of Nancy Drew and Other Children’s Series at The New Ink Spot, NTC at Liberty Station, 2730 Historic Decatur Road, Barracks 16, Ste. 204, Point Loma. James D. Keeline, an expert on children’s books series, discusses Nancy Drew’s creator, Edward Stratemeyer. At 6 p.m. Sunday, May 18. Suggested $5 donation. 619-696-0363, sandiegowriters.org Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939 at Temple Solel, 3575 Manchester Ave., Cardiff-by-the-Sea. Thomas Doherty discusses Hollywood’s sordid and often shameful past when it came to dealing with Nazi Germany. At 7 p.m. Monday, May 19. $15. templesolel.net HWhat’s Wrong with This Picture?: Tulipmania, Then and Now at Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla. Art history lecturer Derrick Cartwright explores the art-collecting world of today.

At 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 20. $19. 858454-5872, ljathenaeum.org/lectures The Incredible Journey of The 1001 Nights at New Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village. USD professor Michael Lundell discusses the origins and influence of “One Thousand and One Nights” (aka “The Arabian Nights”), stories and folktales compiled during the Islamic Golden Age. At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 21. sandiegolibrary.org

For full listings,

please visit “E vents” at sdcit yb eat.com

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Ginger Shulick Porcella

Out

with the

Ginger Shulick Porcella brings an edgy new energy to the San Diego Art Institute Story and photos by Kinsee Morlan

G

inger Shulick Porcella is hanging by the water features outside “la bola,” the iconic sphere-shaped building in front of the Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT).

Mist from the fountain spritzes her when the wind blows, but she stays put as she searches through a large crowd of labor protestors gathered around the giant ball.

She’s looking for Jose Hugo Sanchez, a well-known Tijuana performance artist with whom she hopes to collaborate in the near future.

“I think I’m the one who sticks out here,” laughs Porcella, a self-described “old-souled” 32-year-old with several visible tattoos, including one on her chest that reads “Permanence” in large script.

Porcella was named the new executive director of the San Diego Art Institute (SDAI) at the start of the year, taking the place of Timothy Field, who headed the organization for 16 years before departing the post suddenly last year under a cloud of secrecy. Porcella officially started in March, leaving behind her life in New York City, where she worked as an administrator for several arts nonprofits and collectives and ran her own art consultancy.

One of Porcella’s first tasks has been an in-depth survey of the area’s art scene. Rather than focusing only on San Diego, though, she’s taken a more regional approach and began networking with interesting artists and arts organizations from Los Angeles to northern Baja California.

“We’re in the process of redefining SDAI’s mission and expanding our membership to be more inclusive,” she explains. “I mean, really, who do we want to be?”

SDAI is a 73-year-old nonprofit most known for its recurring juried shows primarily exhibiting the work of member artists, who pay annual fees. Located in the basement of the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park, the institution is largely viewed as a place where folks can find reasonably

old

priced, fairly traditional paintings and sculptures made by mostly older San Diego artists. While the organization has helped member artists like Dan Adams, Dani Dodge, Ellen Dieter and Patric Stillman make names for themselves, it’s been criticized by some as a pay-to-play vanity gallery. SDAI also runs the San Diego Art Department in North Park, which offers classes, studios and a gallery space for local artists.

For Porcella, who’s known for curating shows that involve video, performance art and other more experimental and contemporary work than what typically hangs on SDAI’s walls, the transition to the more traditional organization has been a big one. While she promises that local visual art will remain the core of what SDAI does—approximately 75 percent of the programming—she has big plans.

Longer-term projects include setting up a residency program open to international artists; transforming a board room into a project space geared toward new-media, site-specific installations and experimentations; adding a few curated and themed juried shows to the exhibition schedule; and expanding the membership to involve more regional artists working in diverse mediums, including performance art, sound and video. She’s also been working to establish partnerships with existing arts organizations.

She was in Tijuana just a few weeks ago, in fact, meeting

with representatives from the Instituto Municipal de Arte y Cultura de Tijuana (IMAC) to discuss collaboration.

“We just haven’t done much outreach—we’ve been so insular,” Porcella says. “I think a lot of places in San Diego are very insular, but I feel like that’s not the future. The future is collaborating and partnering.”

There are a handful of smaller changes Porcella has already set in motion: She’s working on a new website, a redesign of the upstairs gift shop and rebranding of the SDAI logo and name. She’s also lowering the juried-show entry fee for nonmember artists, upping admission from $3 to $5 and getting rid of restrictions on the type of work allowed in shows.

“I think we have all the raw materials for being successful,” Porcella says. “We have a great staff, the board’s super supportive, the members are supportive and it’s a great space and a great location…. We have all the organizational infrastructure in place. It’s just, like, OK, what do we do with it?”

Porcella describes herself as a truck-driver’s daughter who grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, outside of Chicago. The upbringing set the groundwork for her becoming a lover of art and artists (she’s married to artist Don Porcella).

Porcella went to school for piano but hated performing in front of audiences, so she doesn’t play anymore; nor does she consider herself an artist or a musician. Instead, she’s most comfortable as an arts administrator whose goal is helping artists make a living. She’s happy doing administrative tasks like fundraising, grant writing and marketing.

“I always say, I help people who think outside of the box to just shove it all inside the box and make it work somehow,” Porcella says, letting loose her distinguishable, high-pitched laugh.

Hugo Sanchez eventually spots Porcella in the crowd, and the two immediately engage in an enthusiastic discussion. They casually exchange their résumés, discuss upcoming exhibitions they’re working on and eventually agree that they’ll try to work together in the fall. Porcella has a big international exhibition showing at SDAI, which she co-curated, and the day it closes is the same day Hugo Sanchez will open a retrospective at CECUT. They’ll find a creative way to collaborate and cross-promote the two shows.

“I like your energy,” Hugo Sanchez says before the two part ways. “You have this soul—you want to do things.

You’re alive.”

“Yeah, I’m a doer,” Porcella says before heading to her next appointment at TJINCHINA Project Space, a new gallery on Avenida Revolución that’s run by artists Mely Barragán and Daniel Ruanova, another two artists she hopes to work with.

“I don’t just say things; I make them happen, too,” she says. “I’m curious to see how people will respond to change at SDAI. I mean, we’re not changing anything too drastically. It’s more about incorporating a lot of new stuff and seeing how people respond to that. I think, hopefully, people will like it. If not, we’ll deal with it.”

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

Ginger Shulick Porcella meets with Tijuana performance artist Jose Hugo Sanchez.

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 27

Seen Local Meet our cover artist Mouthful, Tijuana artist Pablo Llana’s solo show featuring wall pieces and sculptures made of junk-food wrappers, is on view at Instituto de Cultura de Baja California (ICBC) in Tijuana (310310 Paseo del Centenario Blvd.) through the end of May. The show includes pop-art imagery, like a giant mouth with a tongue hanging out, a modified shopping-cart installation, Cokebottle and potato-chip-bag sculptures and large-scale portraits of obese people, created from junk-food wrappers. When CityBeat recently visited ICBC, a class of young students was there to tour the facility and see the exhibition. Eating lunch on the grass outside the gallery, many of them munched on Doritos, Takis and other junk food that Llana had incorporated in his show by recycling wrappers and bags donated by local families and sculpting the trash into art.

“You were there to see it with your own eyes,” Llana says. “Kids prefer eating chips rather than fruit.

Obesity is a huge problem here, and it’s all thanks to publicity, consumerist culture and advertising.”

Last year, Mexico one-upped the United States, stealing the notorious title of the most obese country in the world. According to a 2013 United Nations report, nearly one-third of people living in Mexico are obese. It’s a relatively new phenomenon there, due in part to the introduction of American-made processed foods. While Mexico’s getting fatter, the northernmost sate, Baja California, takes the sugarladen cake when it comes to the country’s growing obesity epidemic. That’s why Llana wanted to show

Pablo Llana

his work in Tijuana.

“My goal with this exhibition is, by using these recycled wrappers, I wanted to show what people consume today thanks to marketing and advertising, which is constantly encouraging us to buy these artificial products,” Llana says. “If even just one visitor to the show gets the message and decides to change their eating habits, my goal would be fulfilled.”

“Viacrucis,” Llana’s piece on the cover of CityBeat this week, picturing an overweight man bent over as he bears the weight of the large McDonald’s Golden Arches on his back, blames the obesity problem not just on McDonald’s, but on all corporations making, marketing and selling unhealthy food.

The piece is representative of the other portraits in his current solo show, which depict overweight people with black bars over their eyes. From afar, Courtesy: Pablo Llana the pieces look like they could be expressionist paintings. Up close, the obsessive care Llana took in collecting, color-categorizing and assembling the junk-food wrappers is revealed.

“I love the medium,” Llana says about working with wrappers. “The more I work with it, the more I love it.”

—Kinsee Morlan Write to kinseem@sdcitybeat.com Pablo Llana’s solo show, Mouthful, is on view at ICBC through May. and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

28 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

Self-reflection Jesse Eisenberg battles himself in Richard Ayoade’s bizarre satire

by Glenn Heath Jr. People are committing suicide at an alarming rate in the shadowy alternate universe of The Double. It’s such a common occurrence that police officers don’t have the time (or interest) to investigate specific motives in each case. Considering the mind-numbing look and feel of this retro-1950s dystopia, self-destruction seems like a logical endgame.

Lowly data processor Simon (Jesse Eisenberg) has flirted with the idea thanks to a never-ending parade of abuse felt at the hands of his co-workers and family Jesse Eisenberg eyeballs Jesse Eisenberg. members. He’s meek, cowardly and far too sensitive, the perfect victim in a claustrophobic world fueled by (shadows, bars, staircases) and intrusive camera work emotional repression and social alienation. (zooms, close-ups), jarring aesthetics that help pin SiDirector Richard Ayoade spends much of the mon down like a mounted butterfly on display. Charfilm’s first half establishing the gravity of Simon’s acter interactions are filmed with deadpan restraint, nightmarish environment. The office elevator refuses highlighting the absurdity defining every ass-backto budge, the lobby guard provides daily harassment wards conversation. It’s as if Aki Kaurismäki’s haloed and the main office is afflicted with a constant inte- compositions were crossbred with Guy Maddin’s franrior buzzing sound that would drive a lumberjack in- tic silent-cinema montages, creating a shifting physisane. The entire world appears to revolt the second cal world to match Simon’s psychological confusion.

Simon walks into a room, performing a kind of silent Thematically, the film poses an interesting central bullying that’s horrific in its quiet ruthlessness. But question: What kind of society mistakes a man’s vile he takes it, day after day. tendencies for his virtuous ones?

“It’s terrible to be alone too We see a lot of our current selves much,” Simon confesses to a beauin The Double’s blurred answer.

The Double tiful co-worker named Hannah Self-indulgence and instant gratiDirected by Richard Ayoade (Mia Wasikowska) after watching fication are admissible culprits in Starring Jesse Eisenberg, a stranger jump to his death. But the growing isolation people feel Mia Wasikowska, Wallace in The Double, one must be careful nowadays, and just because SiShawn and Noah Taylor what they wish for. A few scenes mon lives in a world far removed Rated R later, Simon’s suave doppelganger from reality doesn’t make it feel

walks in for his first day of work at the same office, a Freudian wake-up call that expands the scope of his daily punishment. Smooth, confident and corrupt, James (Eisenberg) dominates the office in a matter of days, relegating Simon to non-person status by snuggling up to their dimwit boss (Wallace Shawn) and making lustful eyes at Hannah.

Debauchery ensues as Simon attempts to beat James at his own game, failing miserably to regain some semblance of confidence. While the plot twists and turns thanks to dream logic, The Double hinges on Eisenberg’s strong dual performance to inhabit polar-opposite characters, sometimes in the same frame. There might not be another young actor who can go from being so convincingly nebbish to illuminatingly decrepit in an instant.

But it’s Ayoade’s style that gives The Double a singular identity. Visually, we get a blend of noir lighting

any less like the 21st century.

In The Double—which opens Friday, May 16, at the Ken Cinema— narrative clarity is often lost to the glory of happenstance and intrigue, just as it is in this year’s other split-personality film, The Enemy. If Simon and James are the same person (most would make this claim), Ayoade doesn’t make this argument his first priority.

Instead, he’s far more interested in looking at the strange process of transition, how someone moves from a life of fear toward self-awareness, shaking off the poor posture and standing upright, looking someone in the eye and telling them the bitter truth.

The Double suggests that to do so, we must make peace with our root evils, no matter how unwieldy the results.

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

Empty pocket

God’s Pocket

Some movies try so hard to be dramatic they end up looking like comedies. John Slattery’s debut, God’s Pocket, a leaden and messy 1970s mosaic that mistakes continued hysterics for conflict, is a perfect example.

Despite the round robin of terrible things happening onscreen, one can’t help but snicker at how

poorly it’s all being represented.

The flowery voice-over that opens God’s Pocket should be the first sign of its creative limitations.

Spoken by a burnt-out journalist, (Richard Jenkins) and describing a blue-collar neighborhood in South Philadelphia, the narration poetically introduces a unique type of working-class specimen

CONTINUED ON PAGE 30 May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 29

mired in the cyclical doldrums of poverty and ignorance. While the writer’s words are later proven to be inadequate, there’s something in their pomposity that trickles down to the filmmaking itself.

One can sense this level of selfrighteousness in the crucial opening scene where a loud-mouthed construction worker (Caleb Landry Jones) is violently dispatched in full sight of the entire crew. The victim’s idiotic mother (Christina Hendricks) instantly smells a cover-up when the police report her son’s death to be an accident. She sends her lackey husband (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) to investigate, setting off a string of events that pinball off each other in ridiculously convoluted ways.

By attempting to portray the

social contradictions of an impoverished neighborhood through the lens of a crime film, Slattery’s movie makes a play for genre territory previously mined by The Friends of Eddie Coyle and Mystic River. Boy does it fail. The dialogue is laughably off-kilter and tonally confused, spoken without a hint of confidence from an otherwise ace cast that also includes John Turturro and Eddie Marsan.

If you want to truly honor the late, great Hoffman, skip God’s Pocket (opening Friday, May 16, at Hillcrest Cinemas, if you must) and give another spin to his Sidney Lumet collaboration, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Now there’s a spider’s web worth getting caught up in.

—Glenn Heath Jr.

In a World: Attempting to prove her arrogant father wrong, a lowly voice coach enters a film-trailer voice-over competition against a young rival. Screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 21, at the Scripps Ranch Library.

Opening

Newton-John and John Travolta about a good girl who challenges the high-school dynamic when she starts dating a bad boy. Screens at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 15, through Saturday, May 17, at Cinema Under the Stars in Mission Hills.

Caddyshack: All hell breaks loose on an executive golf course when a rowdy new member starts challenging the old guard.

Screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 21, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

Julian Wild and Scenic Film Festival: The third annual event will showcase films about nature, community activism and environmental justice. Runs Friday and Saturday, May 16 and 17, at locations in an around Julian. Visit julianfilmfestival. com for details.

Now Playing

Belle: The illegitimate, mixed-race daughter (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) of a navy admiral being raised by aristocrats finds herself in a precarious social position in Victorian England.

Chef: Jon Favreau returns to comedy filmmaking with this story of a well-respected chef who opens a food truck after being fired by a posh restaurateur.

The Double: Jesse Eisenberg plays a government clerk whose already-failing confidence is shattered when his exact physical double starts working in the same office. See our review on Page 29.

For a Woman (Pour une Femme): A writer delves into her family’s history, including her parents’ time in a concentration camp, their ties to communism and a mysterious uncle no one wants her to know about. Screens through May 22 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

God’s Pocket: In a rough-and-tumble blue-collar neighborhood in South Philadelphia, a low-level hustler (Philip Seymour Hoffman) tries to please his fragile wife (Christina Hendricks) after her son is killed. See our review on Page 29.

Godzilla: The gigantic mutant lizard is back and bigger than ever, ready to decimate a city near you.

Million Dollar Arm: On a mission to find the next baseball phenom in the unlikeliest of places, a sports agent (Jon Hamm) travels to India in hopes of convincing talented cricket players to play American baseball.

One Time Only Heathers: Being cool could get you killed in this iconic dark comedy about a high-school outsider (Winona Ryder) who takes revenge on the bullying “in” crowd.

Screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 14, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

Di Madre in Figlia (From Mother to Daughter): This documentary looks at the collaboration between electro-folk group Fiamma Fumana and Mondine de Novi, a women’s chorus that first formed in Modena, Italy, during the World War II resistance movement. Screens at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 15, at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park.

Grease: Classic musical starring Olivia

30 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

Exotic World and the Burlesque Revival: Documentary about a goat farm in the middle of the Mojave Desert that became the location for the largest burlesque revival since the 1940s. Screens at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 17, at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Summer ’82: When Zappa Came to Sicily: It’s 1982 and a young Sicilian journeys to Palermo to see Frank Zappa perform. He misses the concert, but 30 years later, he sets out to piece together not only that moment in his life, but Zappa’s as well. Screens at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 17, at the Convivio Center in Little Italy.

Japan Film Festival: Spend the day watching a triple feature of cutting-edge and entertaining Japanese films. Runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, May 18, at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. Get details at japan-society.org.

Budrus: This doc follows Ayed Morrar, a resident of the Palestinian town of Budrus who organizes nonviolent protests to stop the construction of Israel’s West Bank barrier. Screens at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, May 18, at the Rancho Bernardo Library.

Tiny: A Story About Living Small: A documentary about one couple’s attempt to build an itty-bitty house. Screens at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 18, and 7 p.m.

Wednesday, May 21, at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Koran by Heart: Three 10-year-olds leave their hometowns to take part in the annual International Holy Koran competition in Cairo. A discussion follows the film, as part of the library’s “Muslim Journeys: Let’s Talk About It” project. Screens at 6:30 p.m. Monday, May 19, at the San Diego Public Library in East Village.

Stolen Seas: The first film in the International Rescue Committee’s International Documentary Film Series explores the Somali-pirate phenomenon and why it’s

become a multimillion-dollar growth industry. Screens at 7 p.m. Monday, May 19, at La Jolla Village Cinemas.

Stripes: Deadbeat friends (Bill Murray and Harold Ramis) decide to quit their boring jobs and join the Army. Screens at 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 19, at Arclight La Jolla.

A Night at the Opera: This pay-whatyou-can benefit for the San Diego Opera includes a showing of the Marx Brothers film and a performance by the opera chorus. Screens at 8 p.m. Monday, May 18, at the Ken Cinema.

Veronica Mars: Former teenage private eye Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) may be years removed from her high-school escapades, but in this film sequel to the popular television show, she’s once again pulled into a disturbing murder mystery.

Screens at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 20, at the Point Loma / Hervey Branch Library.

Cesar’s Last Fast: In 1988, activist Cesar Chavez participated in his last hunger strike in protest of farmers’ use of pesticides that harmed immigrant workers in the fields. Richard Rey Perez’s documentary uses remarkable found footage to tell this final act in Chavez’s amazing life. Ends May 14 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

The German Doctor: A family traveling through Patagonia, Argentina, happens upon a mysterious German doctor hellbent on continuing his radical experiments left over from World War II. For No Good Reason: Ralph Steadman is one of the pivotal artists who worked alongside Hunter S. Thompson to advance the gonzo movement. In this documentary by Charlie Paul, Johnny Depp visits Steadman to talk history, hallucinogens and aesthetics. Ends May 15 at Hillcrest Cinemas.

Legend of Oz: Dorothy Returns: Hollywood goes back to the well with this animated sequel to the classic Wizard of Oz, finding Dorothy whisked back to the magical land in order to save her friends from a new villain.

Locke: Set entirely in a car, this thriller follows Ivan Locke’s (Tom Hardy) downward spiral after he receives a phone call that sets in motion a series of events that will change his life forever.

Moms’ Night Out: Sure to be advancement for modern feminism, this comedy follows a series of mothers who leave their clumsy husbands and rowdy children behind for a night out on the town.

For a complete listing of movies, please see “F ilm S creenings” at sdcit yb eat.com under the “E vents” tab.

alex

there she goz

zaragoza How Gozie got her groove back Someone very wise once said these beautiful, inbelly full of rolled tacos to the mod ’60s swan I am sightful words that have resonated deeply with me in my fantasies. I was pinned with the number 23 for many years: “You know those bumper stickers and looked upon the 49 others I’d have to beat to where it says, ‘Shit happens, and then you die’? They reclaim my title as San Diego’s soul-dancing queen, should have ’em where they say, ‘Shit happens, and or court jester, depending on whom you ask. then you live,’ because that’s the truth of it.”

The first round was a dance-off in groups of 10.

The philosopher who sleepily stammered through A table of highly qualified, soul-loving judges was that genius bit of wisdom was Anna Nicole Smith. set up on the stage. I sat on a stool, waiting for my When I die peacefully in bed, an old lady serving as group to be called. A pair of strong hands rubbed the meat in a hot, 20-something dude sandwich, I’ll my shoulders, and an encouraging voice whispered fist bump that doped-up angel upon arriving in Heavin my ear, “Visualize the trophy. You’ve got this.” en for giving me those sagacious words to live by.

When my group was up, I jumped off the stool The thing about most slumps is that they can and hit the floor ready to werk. “The Clapping Song” be conquered, and the moment mine ended came

by Shirley Ellis came on, and I let loose, whipping in true Gozer fashion—shaking dat ass hard on a my hair and pumping my hips from side to side. I dance floor. We all have our go-to bad-time fixes, could feel my heart throbbing and my breath catchand when I saw that the New York Night Train Soul ing in my chest. I shook my ass so hard I thought my Clap & Dance Off was coming to town, I knew it uterus might fall out in a gory mess. Thank God for was time to knock my bad vibe’s dick to the dirt. control-top underpants.

The Soul Clap is a traveling soul night helmed At the end of my group round, it came down to

by DJ Jonathan Toubin, who hits the 1s and 2s me and a lanky dude with some sweet Mick Jagger hard, spinning soul and garage jams so good you moves. I smiled, but in my mind, I thought, You’re gocan’t keep your feet or your meat in your seat. If ing down, turkey. We battled hard, and at a few points, there’s one thing I can’t resist, it’s a saucy slice of I thought I was going to pass out from exhaustion. pizza. But a night of dancing to killer soul jams is The judges scrutinized every move and conferred. up there with tasty piece of pie.

No. 23 would move on to the next round. Yes! A major draw of the Soul Clap Winners from each group is the dance contest that goes off round were called to the dance I busted out my at midnight. Willing participants floor in an all-star The Hunger hit the floor, busting out their Games: Catching Fire-style melée, “sexy go-go chicken” best Mashed Potato or Watusi for only for nerds who have outdated move, which is bragging rights and a cool $100. haircuts. The competition was goThe last time the Soul Clap ing to be tough, but I was ready. basically a groovy, rolled into town was 2010. Back The music came on, and so hair-tossing then, I teased my hair high, put did I. I busted out my “sexy go-go impersonation of on a cute, thigh-grazing vintage chicken” move, which is basically dress and channeled the spirit a groovy, hair-tossing impersona chicken. of Tina Turner’s jaw-dropping ation of a chicken. It usually kills, booty shake for the win. I worked but my competitors were no hacks. hard for that $100, and I breathlessly chugged a can They came out of the gate strong, getting down on of Tecate after taking the crown to replenish whatthe ground, swiveling their shoulders and giving ever alcohol I’d burned in the process. All those every former beatnik a run for her money. Pearls of times my mom and I would dance to “96 Tears” in sweat collected on my hairline, flattening my teased my bedroom led to that moment, and I was proud. hair, but I kept going. No level of exhaustion will kill Four years later, I was back at the Clap, a little my determination to shake my ass. older and with internal organs so pickled in alcohol The music stopped, and the judges convened. that college kids could use them as masks for a new I assume it was the hardest decision of their lives. form of getting wasted called “gutsfacing.” Even Obama would probably need a pack of Marlboro with a few extra miles on me, I still have my moves reds under that level of pressure. Then they made and was ready to bring them hard and dance that their decision, and, sadly, No. 23 wasn’t called. dust off my shoulders.

A gangly dude with herky-jerky moves and a hipswiveling babe with a sea-foam-green streak in her Just like before, I teased my hair high, rimmed my hair faced off in a sudden-death round, and I watched eyelids with my signature black cat-eye liner and put from the sidelines, slightly disappointed and extremeon a little vintage number reminiscent of a Hullabaly winded. A few people gave me pats on the back and loo backup dancer. My girlfriends and I warmed up high fives. In the end, sea-foam babe took the win. I on the dance floor, gin and tonics serving as my powhanded my invisible crown to her from afar. er fuel for some truly supreme body poppin’. It was I may not be a champion, but I did get what I redizzyingly exciting being out there, doing the jerk, ally wanted: my groove back. feeling fun and even sexy. Yeah, I’m such an abuelita that doing the Twist makes me feel like a babe.

Write to alexz@sdcitybeat.com When the clock struck midnight, I went reverse and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Cinderella, turning from a workaholic goose with a

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 31

Denmark’s Lower leave the darkness behind •

From left: Kristian Emdal, Simon Formann, Adrian Toubro and Anton Rothstein ower are misunderstood. In their five years together, the Copenhagen band has released only one EP—2012’s Walk on Heads—and two 7-inch singles, one of which is a split with Iceage. So far, that’s all anyone knows about the band, but it’s a limited picture.

The four-song Walk on Heads EP is an invigorating, if harsh, introduction to the group, a series of brief, lo-fi punk songs exploding with energy and distortion. It’s short, but it leaves an indelible impact.

But Lower don’t really sound like that anymore—not exactly. In June, they’ll release their long-awaited full-length debut, Seek Warmer Climes, via Matador Records, and it’s likely to catch some listeners by surprise. There are few moments of moshpit mayhem or full-blown noise-punk outbursts. Its sound is more atmospheric. Its

32 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

songs are longer. And more often than not, it sounds like an entirely different band.

In a Skype interview from guitarist Simon Formann’s apartment in Denmark, singer Adrian Toubro says the group made a conscious decision to depart from their harsher, earlier material.

“We definitely tried to move away from that kind of coarse punk sound that existed on the Walk on Heads EP,” Toubro says. “In a way, I still wouldn’t say that Walk on Heads was typical punk music, but it definitely had some of the characteristics of punk—way more than this new record has.”

With Seek Warmer Climes, Lower have made a progression from chaotic hardcore to an artier, tempered post-punk style. It’s not so much that they’ve completely abandoned their punk instincts; they’ve just channeled them into a broader palette of

by Jeff Terich

sounds. Toubro, Formann, bassist Kristian In fact—and this is where it gets a bit ironEmdal and drummer Anton Rothstein have ic—Lower began writing the songs for the delivered an album that’s more about mood album well before they even released Walk than a visceral, aural assault. on Heads. Toubro and Formann say the alOn first listen, that mood seems pretty bum took about three years to finish, but dark: Joy Division, Magazine and early it happened in various phases. When they Sonic Youth are all close analogues to began, there was a much looser approach, the approach the band takes on the and they took their time to piece the parts new album. (The band also cites of each song together. It was only after what Formann calls David Bow- they ended up connecting with Matador ie’s and Roxy Music’s “soft, sexy Records that the process accelerated in the lounge sound.”) But, lyrically, home stretch.

Seek Warmer Climes tells a much “It took some time. It was a long prodifferent story. On the urgent opening cess,” Toubro says. “When you start out, track “Another Life,” Toubro’s lyrics (“Now it’s just—you perhaps are more relaxed it’s time to change,” “Strive for another life”) with it than trying to figure out how serireflect a desire for self-improvement and a ous it should be.”

“It was definitely more intense at the motivation to embrace a more positive direction. That sentiment is echoed in the al- end of the process than it was at the beginbum’s title, which is taken from a line in its ning,” Formann adds.

Lower have a month’s worth of tourlast song, “Arrows.”

In their earliest songs, Lower had a ing ahead of them, which will give U.S. more openly pessimistic outlook, and it’s a audiences a chance to hear the album bereputation that continues to follow them. fore they can drop the needle on it. But In 2012, Rothstein told Pitchfork that with Seek Warmer Climes finished and Lower are “not aiming for joyous or sunny nearly ready to be unleashed on the listening public, Lower are tunes.” And that might already looking ahead to technically still be true; the next album—and plan for Toubro, however, that to have its songs written doesn’t mean their songs before they board a plane need to be bleak.

Monday, May 19 to the states.

“We talked about how “We’re trying to make we might want to leave Soda Bar the most of our time right behind some of the negalowercph.bandcamp.com now and… maybe have tivity,” Toubro says. “It enough songs to record was more pessimistic, the next LP at some point the first songs we made.

And we might have been inspired by other within the year,” Formann says.

“We have more of a clear idea of how things than we are now.

“People, journalists… always talk about the next thing should be,” Toubro adds. this dystopian, cold sound that evokes “The important thing is that it never wanangst,” he continues. “But I would never ders into a standstill, and we’ll never just praise those kinds of emotions or mental try to make the same type of music.” state. It’s not for me.”

It took a long time for Seek Warmer Write to jefft@sdcitybeat.com Climes to end up sounding the way it did. and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

notes from the smoking patio Locals Only Gabe Lehner, formerly of electronic-pop duo Inspired Flight, is preparing to release his debut album, Against the Odds of Entropy, under the name 9 Theory. The album is tentatively set for release in July.

Lehner says he began writing and recording the songs about two years ago, before Inspired Flight broke up.

“It’s been a couple of years,” he says. “I’ve already made two-and-a-half albums’ worth of material. I just picked the 12 songs I thought were the best.”

Against the Odds of Entropy was recorded entirely

by Lehner, but it features a list of noteworthy contributors, including Zero 7 vocalist Sophie Barker, Atlanta MC Killer Mike and Wu-Tang Clan’s Killah Priest, among other guest singers. Lehner says the album has some Radiohead influence, but a pretty eclectic sound overall.

“It’s very groove-oriented, and there was an emphasis on having dope beats,” he says. “I have a huge love for hip-hop, and you get that flavor for it. It’s very melodic, and there are lots of vocals. But it’s very much couched in a groovy, electronic, hip-hop sound. There’s an overall chill vibe.”

The recording is finished, but the album still needs to be mastered and pressed to vinyl and CD. To help raise funds to wrap up the project, Lehner has launched a crowd-funding campaign (gofundme.com/9theory).

Anyone who contributes a minimum of $10 will get a digital download of

In Ears We Trust A semi-regular feature in which we ask local musicians about the music they’ve been digging lately Josh Damigo: “Reverie” by Joe Henry. “Lately I’ve been on an outlaw-country kick, and Joe Henry’s album is the perfect blend of indie songwriter with Tom Waits-like delivery and Jason Isbell writing. The production on the record is raw, and you can actually hear his cat, neighbor’s dog and the mailman trying to get in on the tracks.”

Carrie Gillespie Feller, Ilya / Tactical Ffever: Now You Are One of Us by The Paper Chase.

“Before John Congleton was producing amazing records for St. Vincent and Swans and David Byrne, he was fronting a band called The Paper Chase.

This particular record is an epic, apocalyptic, post-rock masterpiece. Hypnotic beats, frenzied guitar and piano and haunting lyrics are interspersed with samples that sound like field recordings from a planet under attack. If paranoia and anxiety had a soundtrack, this would be it. Probably one of the biggest influences on the music I make.”

Hadi Fever, The Stalins of Sound: Wenu Wenu

the album, and greater contributions fetch bigger rewards, including a private live performance, an offer to record your band and an official 9 Theory remix of your music.

The process isn’t done yet, but Lehner is optimistic about seeing his project through.

“It’s finally starting to be a concrete thing now,” he says. “I’m so proud of it.”

—Jeff Terich

Gabe Lehner, aka 9 Theory

by Omar Souleyman. “Pretty awesome DIY Arabic music that’s super-unconventional with Casiosounding keyboards and drum machines, which is a bit reminiscent of the tapes my parents have of ’80s Lebanese electro-pop with a modern aesthetic. I also just got a compilation album called C’est Chic: French Girl Singers of the 1960s. I love the ye-ye movement, and I love any girl that sings in French.”

Matthew Steven Bearrones, Kids (Part 1): “The Waiting”

by Angel Olsen. “I absolutely love this song and Angel Olsen.

There’s very few artists that can actually make me feel anything with just their voice, and Angel Olsen has that special ability. By the time the song finishes, I’m quietly weeping (no shame). It’s beautiful.”

Matthew Steven Bearrones, Kids (Part 2): “Be Mean” by Tweens. “Totally dance-able, catchy, female-fronted punk Omar Souleyman from Cincinnati. I’ve been blastin’ and jammin’ this song in my car all week. It’s one of those songs that’ll stick with you all day after just one listen. I just can’t handle it, though, and have to play it over and over again.”

—Jeff Terich Write to jefft@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 33

if i were u

BY Jeff Terich

Wednesday, May 14

Sunday, May 18

PLAN A: Say Hi, Big Scary, PRGRM @ The Casbah. Eric Elbogen has been recording under the Say Hi name for more than a decade, and in that time, he’s released a good number of charming, low-key indie-pop albums that are catchy and warm and fuzzy. It’s not twee, exactly, but it sure is fun. PLAN B: Loom, Sycamore, Arctic @ Soda Bar. Loom rhymes with “doom,” which is fitting, given that the local group specializes in bluesy, riff-heavy hard rock and metal. Seeing some hometown rockers show off their fretwork is probably a better way to spend your Wednesday night than whatever you had planned.

PLAN A: Zero Boys, Neighborhood Brats, Dan Padilla, Dead on the Wire @ Soda Bar. As hardcore punk bands of the ’80s go, Zero Boys run the gamut. Their classic album Vicious Circle alternates between Bad Brains-style intensity and sing-along anthems. Shout if you know the words, but definitely don’t miss out. PLAN B: Red Fang, Big Business, American Sharks @ Porter’s Pub. Portland stoner-rockers Red Fang rock hard enough to make this show worth your while, but noisy Washington duo Big Business make it doubly awesome.

Crack open some beers and rock the fuck out. BACKUP PLAN: Stalins of Sound, Shiva Trash, Shake Before Us, Bat Lords @ Tower Bar.

Thursday, May 15

PLAN A: Kishi Bashi, Plume Giant @ The Irenic. Of Montreal / Regina Spektor col- Monday, May 19 laborator Kishi Bashi creates beautifully PLAN A: Lower, San Pedro El Cortez, lush pop primarily through violin and elec- Empire Pleasure, Comet Calendar @ tronic loops. It’s impressive to hear how Soda Bar. See Page 32 for my feature on Copenhagen post-punk band big a sound can come from Lower, who are set to release just one forward-thinking their debut LP, Seek Warmer dude. PLAN B: Early Man, Climes, next month on MataBhorelorde, Christ Killer dor. Recommended if you @ Til-Two Club. Early Man like Joy Division with more are a duo, but their thrashoptimism, or Sonic Youth’s metal throw-downs are plencatchier tracks circa Sister. ty loud and intense—enough PLAN B: Damien Jurado, to make you think they’re a Jerome Holloway @ The band twice their size. Make Casbah. Seattle singer / it to the show a little early to songwriter Damien Jurado catch Bhorelorde, who sufhas been consistently putficiently impressed me with ting out powerful indie-folk their submission to CityBeat’s records since the ’90s, and 2014 Great Demo Review. they just keep getting betKishi Bashi ter. His latest, Brothers and Friday, May 16 Sisters of the Eternal Sun, is PLAN A: Castle, Chiefs, Deep Sea Thun- a lushly arranged gem with some of his best der Beast, Plunder @ Tower Bar. San Fran- songs to date. cisco’s Castle are a pretty heavy band, but it’s their melodies that stand out larger than their sheer power. Bassist Elizabeth Black- Tuesday, May 20 well’s vocals give the band a smoky mystique PLAN A: Tyvek, Octagrape, Teenage that sets them apart from so many of the Burritos, Vyper Skwad @ The Hideout. cookie-monster barks in metal. BACKUP Detroit garage-rockers Tyvek are endearPLAN: Gary Wilson and the Blind Dates, ingly raw, with the jittery weirdness of Poontang Clam, Max Daily performing post-punk bands like The Fall. They’re not your typical disciples of distortion; just un“The Apprentice” @ Til-Two Club. der the surface of all that fuzz, Tyvek harbor a level of fun and character that most Saturday, May 17 garage bands can only dream of. PLAN B: PLAN A: The Creepy Creeps, The New Ki- Howlin’ Rain, Buffalo Killers, Bad and netics, Hills Like Elephants, many others the Ugly @ The Casbah. Howlin’ Rain are @ North Park Festival of Arts. It’s spring, a wild and wooly bunch who play a style of and being hot and sweaty will be the norm soulful, heavy psych that nods liberally to for a while, so you might as well embrace Deep Purple and Uriah Heep. They’re the it: Festival season is here. The North Park kind of band Homer Simpson would put on Festival of Arts is a good one to hit up, with a mixtape between Grand Funk Railroad a lineup featuring bands like The Creepy deep cuts. BACKUP PLAN: Your Heart Creeps and Hills Like Elephants. BACKUP Breaks, Karl Blau, Adams and Eves, BogPLAN: Wha?, Die Missbildungen de Men- sey and the Argonauts, Imaginary Plants schen, Don Forla @ Tin Can Ale House. @ The Che Café.

34 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

HOT! NEW! FRESH! T-Pain (Fluxx, 6/6), Pure X (The Hideout, 6/25), Rita Rudner (North Park Theatre, 7/19), Kevin Gates (Porter’s Pub, 7/26), Steve Gunn (Soda Bar, 8/11), The Naked and Famous (North Park Theatre, 8/20), Lake Street Drive (North Park Theatre, 8/22), Whitey Morgan and the 78s (Soda Bar, 8/23), Ben Kweller (Casbah, 10/1), Eddie and the Hot Rods (TilTwo Club, 10/9), Kasabian (HOB, 10/9), The Pretty Reckless (HOB, 10/12), The Black Keys (Viejas Arena, 11/9), John Waters (North Park Theatre, 12/1),

GET YER TICKETS M.I.A. (SOMA, 5/30), Kelis (HOB, 6/3), Guided by Voices (BUT, 6/14), Failure (HOB, 6/15), The Both (BUT, 6/15), Nightmares on Wax (HOB, 6/23), EMA (Casbah, 6/29), Devo (BUT, 6/30), Deafheaven (Casbah, 7/1), Wye Oak (BUT, 7/9), Cloud Nothings (Soda Bar, 7/11), La Roux (HOB, 7/12), Chris Isaak (Humphreys, 7/16), The Antlers (BUT, 7/16), Dwarves (Soda Bar, 7/18-19), Wolves in the Throne Room (Che Café, 7/19), Doug Benson (HOB, 7/23), OK Go (BUT, 7/24), Boris (Casbah, 7/24), Donovan Frankenreiter (Harrah’s SoCal, 7/26), The Hold Steady (BUT, 7/31), Arcade Fire (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 8/5), Sara Bareilles (Open Air Theatre, 8/9),The Head and the Heart (North Park Theatre, 8/11), The Sonics (Irenic, 8/16), Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 8/21), Marc Anthony (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 8/29), Andrew Bird (Humphreys, 9/19),

Pixies (Humphreys, 9/27).

May Wednesday, May 14 Stephen Marley at Belly Up Tavern.

Thursday, May 15 Journey, Steve Miller Band at Sleep Train Amphitheatre. Early Man at Til-Two Club.

Friday, May 16 Gary Wilson at Til-Two Club. Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger at The Casbah.

Saturday, May 17 Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs at The Casbah. Tim McGraw at Sleep Train Amphitheatre. Iggy Azalea at House of Blues.

Sunday, May 18 Anti-Nowhere League at House of Blues. ‘Songs of Protest, Songs of Peace’ w/ Indigo Girls at Balboa Theatre. Red Fang at Porter’s Pub.

Monday, May 19 Damien Jurado at The Casbah. Lower at Soda Bar. Band of Skulls at House of Blues.

Tuesday, May 20 Katchafire at Belly Up Tavern. Howlin’ Rain at The Casbah.

Wednesday, May 21 Wayne “The Train” Hancock at The Casbah. Katchafire at Belly Up Tavern.

Shai Hulud at The Che Café.

Thursday, May 22 Papercuts at Soda Bar.

Friday, May 23 Chris Robinson Brotherhood at Belly Up Tavern. Against Me! at House of Blues. Gang Green at Til-Two Club. Negura Bunget at The Merrow.

Saturday, May 24 Hellogoodbye at The Irenic. YG at House of Blues. Matt Pond PA at Soda Bar. Baths at The Casbah.

Sunday, May 25 Suzanne Vega at Belly Up Tavern. Protomartyr at The Hideout. Angelic Upstarts at Soda Bar. The Bloody Beetroots at Bassmnt.

Monday, May 26 Blood Red Shoes at The Casbah. Jeremy Jay at Soda Bar.

Tuesday, May 27 Crystal Fighters at The Irenic. Nothing at Soda Bar. In the Valley Below at The Casbah.

Wednesday, May 28 Backstreet Boys, Avril Lavigne at Viejas Arena. Eagulls at The Casbah.

Thursday, May 29 The Meatmen at Soda Bar. Pink Mountaintops at The Casbah. The Green at Belly Up Tavern.

Friday, May 30 Potty Mouth at The Che Café. Merle Haggard at Belly Up Tavern. Ben Ottewell at House of Blues. M.I.A. at SOMA.

Saturday, May 31 Kill Holiday at Soda Bar. Blackalicious at Belly Up Tavern.

rCLUBSr

710 Beach Club, 710 Garnet Ave, Pacific Beach. 710bc.com. Wed: Open mic, open jam. Thu: Live band karaoke. Fri: Marc Aliana (5 p.m.); Rogue Stereo, Misc Ailments, Her Crimson Love (9 p.m.). Sat: Stone Horse, Funk Junkies, Fakebook, UDT. Sun: Karaoke.

98 Bottles, 2400 Kettner Blvd. Ste. 110, Little Italy. 98bottlessd.com. Thu: Tiffany Jane. Fri: Randi Driscoll.

Air Conditioned Lounge, 4673 30th St, Normal Heights. airconditionedbar. com. Wed: ‘Discoisfordancing Presents’ w/ DJs Squarewave, Dez Thrill, Benedikt.

Thu: DJs ALA, Mikeytown. Fri: DJ Junior the DiscoPunk. Sat: ‘Juicy’ w/ Mike Czech. Sun: ‘Undercurrent’.

American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave, Downtown. americancomedyco. com. Wed: TJ Miller. Thu-Sun: Charlie Murphy. Tue: Open mic.

AMSDconcerts, 1370 Euclid Ave, City Heights. amsdconcerts.com. Sat: Run Boy Run. Bang Bang, 526 Market St, Downtown. facebook.com/BangBangSanDiego. Fri:

CONTINUED ON PAGE 36

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 35

2ToneDisco, Kana. Sat: Chris Lorenzo, Boys Don’t Disco.

Thu & Sat: Malamana. Fri: Joeff and Co. Sun: Oscar Aragon.

Bar Pink, 3829 30th St, North Park. barpink.com. Wed: Cali Cam. Thu: Neighbors to the North, Saint Shameless, The Bloodflowers. Fri: Mr. Blow. Sat: ‘Neon Beat’. Sun: Rat Sabbath, DJ Ratty.

Mon: The Husky Boy All-Stars.

Comedy Palace, 8878 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, Clairemont. thecomedypalace.com.

Fri-Sat: Bobby Slayton.

Bassmnt, 919 Fourth Ave, Downtown. bassmntsd.com. Thu: Blasterjaxx. Fri: Kennedy Jones. Sat: Seven Lions.

Beaumont’s, 5662 La Jolla Blvd, La Jolla. brocktonvilla.com/beaumonts.html.

Thu: Adam Block. Fri: Scratch.

Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave, Solana Beach. bellyup.com. Wed: Stephen ‘Ragga’ Marley, Jo Mersa, Wayne Marshall (sold out). Thu: Trouble in the Wind, Yellow Red Sparks, Tolan Shaw. Fri: Nahko and Medicine for the People, The Revivalists (sold out). Sat: Vokab Kompany, Pep Love, Delta Nove. Sun: Spirit Soul and Song, Cas Haley, Mike Love, Kimie, Tubby Love. Mon: The Fabulous Pelicans. Tue: Katchafire, Maoli, Thrive, DJ Emmanuel.

Boar Cross’n, 390 Grand Ave, Carlsbad. boarcrossn.net. Thu: Vans Battle of the bands. Fri: ‘Club Musae’. Sat: Hi Roots, Sunny Rude.

Bourbon Street, 4612 Park Blvd, University Heights. bourbonstreetsd.com. Wed: ‘TRW’ w/ VJ K Swift. Thu: ‘Wet’. Sun: ‘Soiree’. Tue: Karaoke.

Brass Rail, 3796 Fifth Ave, Hillcrest. thebrassrailsd.com. Thu: DJ Simon Taylor.

Fri: ‘Rivalry’. Sat: DJs XP, KA. Sun: Daisy Salinas, DJ Sebastian La Madrid. Mon: DJs XP, Junior the Disco Punk.

Cafe Sevilla, 353 Fifth Ave, Downtown. http://cafesevilla.com. Wed: Aro Di Santi.

36 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

Comedy Store, 916 Pearl St, La Jolla. lajolla.thecomedystore.com.

Fri-Sat: Rick Ingraham.

Croce’s Park West, 2760 Fifth Ave., #100, Bankers Hill. crocesparkwest.com.

Wed: Sahara Grim Quartet. Thu: Bill Shreeve Quartet. Fri: Tegan Taylor Band.

Sat: Gio Trio. Sun: Fuzzy.

Dizzy’s, 4275 Mission Bay Drive, Mission Bay. dizzyssandiego.com. Wed: Los Hermanos Arango. Thu: The Mesa College Jazz Ensemble. Fri: Marco Eneidi and Cosmic Brujo. Tue: Brad Steinwehe Jazz Orchestra.

El Dorado Bar, 1030 Broadway, Downtown. eldoradobar.com. Wed: ‘Milk and Cookies’. Thu: ‘Boats and Hoes’. Fri: ‘Hickeys and Dryhumps’. Sat: Falcons, Adam Salter, Kanye Asada. Tue: The Dark Side.

Epicentre, 8450 Mira Mesa Blvd, Mira Mesa. epicentreconcerts.org. Fri: Kurt Travis, Andrew Justin, So Much Light, Everybody Knows, Hotel Books, Inthebackground, Charlotte Hill, James Dean. Sat: Future Age, Caravan, Gilbert.

F6ix, 526 F St., Downtown, Downtown. f6ixsd.com. Fri: DJ XP. Sat: DJ Dynamiq.

Fluxx, 500 Fourth Ave, Downtown. fluxxsd.com. Thu: ‘IDGAF’ w/ Deorro. Fri: Juicy J. Sat: Sid Vicious, Ricky Rocks.

Gallagher’s, 5040 Newport Ave, Ocean Beach. 619-222-5303. Wed: Fish Out of Water. Thu: Revival, DJ Reefah, TRC Soundsystem. Fri: Pool Party, DJ Kilbride.

Sat: Funk’s Most Wanted, DJ Chelu.

Hard Rock Hotel, 207 Fifth Ave, Downtown. hardrockhotelsd.com. Thu: Transfer, Blackout Party, The Heavy Guilt.

Henry’s Pub, 618 Fifth Ave, Downtown. henryspub.com. Wed: Johnny Tarr, DJ Christopher London. Thu: Mark Fisher, DJ Yodah. Fri: ‘Good Times’. Sat: DJs E, Yodah. Mon: ‘Kinetic Soul’. Tue: Big City Dawgs.

House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave, Downtown. houseofblues.com/sandiego. Wed: Finish Ticket. Sat: Iggy Azalea. Sun: Anti Nowhere League, TSOL, The Riverboat Gamblers. Mon: Band of Skulls.

Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. kavalounge.com. Wed: ‘Future Wednesday’. Thu: Luminaries. Fri: Simpler Times. Tue: ‘High Tech Tuesday’.

Mc P’s Irish Pub, 1107 Orange Ave, Coronado. mcpspub.com. Wed: Mystique. Thu: 2 Guys Will Move U. Fri: 4-Way Street. Sat: Trunk Monkey. Tue: Jason.

Numbers, 3811 Park Blvd, Hillcrest. numberssd.com. Thu: ‘Varsity’. Fri: ‘Viernes Calientes’. Sat: ‘Factory’. Sun: ‘Joe’s Gamenite’. Tue: ‘Karaoke Latino’.

Onyx Room / Thin, 852 Fifth Ave, Downtown. onyxroom.com. Fri: ‘Rumba Lounge’. Sat: ‘Play Skool’. Tue: Poetic Avenue.

Patricks Gaslamp, 428 F St, Downtown. patricksii.com. Wed: The Rayford Brothers. Thu: The Bill Magee Blues Band. Fri: Mystique Element of Soul. Sat: Johnny Vernazza. Sun: The Hit List. Mon: The Groove Squad. Tue: Walter’s Chicken Jam. Porter’s Pub, 9500 Gilman Dr., UCSD

campus, La Jolla. porterspub.net. Thu: Eric Bellinger. Sun: Red Fang.

Rich’s, 1051 University Ave, Hillcrest. richssandiego.com. Wed: DJ Marcel.

Thu: DJ Kinky Loops. Fri: DJs Drew G, Will Z. Sat: DJ Blaine Soileau. Sun: DJs Kid Madonny, Cros.

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

Wed: Westside Inflection. Thu: Tacos Deluxe. Fri: Chess Wars. Sat: Bed Breakers.

Tue: Karaoke.

Seven Grand, 3054 University Ave, North Park. sevengrandbars.com/sd. Thu: Kelly McFarling, River City. Fri: Soul Ablaze.

Sat: Still Ill. Mon: DJ Artistic.

Shakedown Bar, 3048 Midway Drive, Point Loma. theshakedownsd.com. Thu: ‘Dark Wave Garden’. Fri: Condor, Great Electric Quest, Night Crawlers. Sat: Roman Watchdogs, Look Up Here, Squirelly Arts, The Krimson Blues. Sun: Hightide, Sandollar, Timothy H. Miller, DJ Carlos Culture. Tue: ‘Soul Shakedown’.

Side Bar, 536 Market St, Downtown. sidebarsd.com. Thu: ‘Divino Thursday’.

Fri: DJ Dynamiq. Sat: DJ Slowhand.

Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. sodabarmusic.com.

Wed: Loom, Sycamore, Arctic. Thu: Juan Wauters, Lube. Fri: La Santa Cecilia, Cumbia Machin, DJs Bob Green, Viebo Lowbo.

Sat: Old Man Markley, The Downs Family, Ugly Boogie. Sun: Zero Boys, Neighborhood Brats, Dan Padilla, Dead on the Wire. Mon: Lower, San Pedro El Cortez, Empire Pleasure, Comet Calendar. Tue: In the Valley Below, The Mercy Seat, Grizzly Business.

SOMA, 3350 Sports Arena Blvd, Midway. somasandiego.com. Wed: BlessTheFall,

Silverstein, The Amity Affliction, Secrets, Heartist. Sat: The Banner, Agitator, Life For A Life, Nuclear Sunday, Too Much Beer, Resomation.

The Hideout, 3519 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. thehideoutsd.com. Wed: Happy To Be Progressive Hour. Tue: Tyvek, Octagrape, Teenage Burritos, Vyper Skwad.

Stage Bar & Grill, 762 Fifth Ave, Downtown. stagesaloon.com. Wed: Mark Fisher and Gaslamp Guitars. Thu: Superbad.

Fri: Disco Pimps, The Shakedown. Sat: Hott Mess, DJ Miss Dust. Sun: ‘Funhouse/Seismic’.

The Loft @ UCSD, Price Center East, La Jolla. theloft.ucsd.edu. Sat: Danny Green and Peter Sprague.

Sycamore Den, 3391 Adams Ave., San Diego, Normal Heights. sycamoreden. com. Thu: Podunk Nowhere, Christopher Dale.

The Bancroft, 9143 Campo Rd, Spring Valley. 619-469-2337. Wed: Karaoke. Fri: JE Double F, Tenshun, XR, Dean Moore.

Sat: Some Kind of Nightmare, Dramalamadingdong, Fictitious Dishes, Badabing.

Sun: D.R.E.A.D., Detonated, Infamous Symphony, Fadrait.

The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. casbahmusic.com. Wed: Say Hi, Big Scary, PRGRM. Thu: The Cave Singers, The Dabbers. Fri: The Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger, Fever the Ghost. Sat: Holly Golightly and The Broke-offs, The Loons, Hong Kong Fuzz. Sun: All Them Witches, Desert Suns, Slow Seasons.

Mon: Damien Jurado, Jerome Holloway.

Tue: Howlin’ Rain, Buffalo Killers, Bad and the Ugly.

The Che Cafe, UCSD campus, La Jolla. thechecafe.blogspot.com. Wed: Inspired and The Sleep, Paper Days, Oh Spirit, Ed Ghost Tucker. Sat: Plastic City Pariah, Bulldog Eyes, The Telephone Projects, Blood Orphans. Sun: After Nations, Stained Glass Windows, Vinegar Tom, Active Kissers. Tue: Your Heart Breaks, Karl Blau, Adams and Eves, Bogsey and the Argonauts, Imaginary Plants.

The Merrow, 1271 University Ave, Hillcrest. rubyroomsd.com. Wed: Open mic.

Thu: Boxcar Chief, Spaceshag, One Foot In The Blues. Sat: ‘SD Union’ w/ Marcus Visionary. Sun: Karaoke.

The Office, 3936 30th St, North Park. officebarinc.com. Wed: ‘Dub Dynamite’ w/ DJs Rashi, Eddie Turbo. Thu: ‘No Limits’ w/ DJ Myson King. Fri: ‘After Hours’ w/ DJs Chris Chamberlin, Jason Tokita, Chad Fortin. Sat: ‘Strictly Business’ w/ DJs EdRoc, Huge Euge. Sun: ‘Uptown Top Ranking’ w/ Tribe of Kings. Tue: DJ Ramsey.

Til-Two Club, 4746 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. tiltwoclub.com. Thu: Early Man, Bhorelorde, Christ Killer. Fri: Gary Wilson and the Blind Dates, Poontang Clam, Max Daily performing “The Apprentice”. Sat: ‘Benefit for CJ and Monica’ w/ Sculpins, Evacuate, The Kreaps, Nerve Control.

Tin Can Ale House, 1863 Fifth Ave, Bankers Hill. thetincan1.wordpress.com.

Wed: Qualia, Colony, Machines Learning.

Thu: Seeking Alpha, Get Back Shadow, Throne. Fri: St. Cloud Sleepers, Deadly Birds, Grizzly Business. Sat: Wha?, Die Missbildungen des Menschen, Don Forla. Tue: Brutalion, Black Beast Revival, Leather Nun. Tio Leo’s, 5302 Napa St, Bay Park. tioleos.com. Wed: Christopher Dale. Thu: Charles Burton Band. Fri: Serious Guise.

Sat: Colour. Tue: Zydeco Patrol.

Tower Bar, 4757 University Ave, City

Heights. thetowerbar.com. Wed: The Ratt’s Revenge, DJ Mikey Ratt. Fri: Castle, Chiefs, Deep Sea Thunder Beast, Plunder. Sat: Dirty Dishes. Sun: Stalins of Sound, Shiva Trash, Shake Before Us, Bat Lords.

Turquoise, 873 Turquoise St, Pacific Beach. theturquoise.com/wordpress.

Wed: Tomcat Courtney (7 p.m.). Thu: Talia (4 p.m.); The Jade Visions Jazz Trio (7 p.m.). Fri: Gabriela Aparicio (4 p.m.); Tomcat Courtney (7 p.m.); Afro Jazziacs (9 p.m.). Sat: Zak Lipton Trio (4 p.m.); Tomcat Courtney (6:30 p.m.); Tony LaVoz and Cold Duck Trio (9 p.m.).

Sun: Sounds Like Four (4 p.m.); Big Boss Bubale (7 p.m.). Mon: David Hermsen (4 p.m.). Tue: Grupo Globo (7 p.m.).

Ux31, 3112 University Ave, North Park. u31bar.com. Wed: River Uphill, Two Wolves, The Paper Thins, Vinyl Mill, Carlton. Thu: DJ R-You. Fri: Lee Churchill.

Sat: DJ Qenoe.

West Coast Tavern, 2895 University Ave, North Park. westcoatstavern.com.

Wed: DJ Este. Thu-Fri: DJ Slowhand.

Sat: DJ Stick D. Tue: DJ Clean Cut. Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, South Park. whistlestopbar.com. Thu: ‘Astrojump’ w/ Kill Quanti DJs. Fri: ‘F#ing In the Bushes’ w/ DJs Daniel Sant, Rob Moran. Sat: ‘80s vs. 90s’ w/ Daniel Sant, Rob Moran. Tue: ‘Dream Night’ w/ DJ Mario Orduno.

Winstons, 1921 Bacon St, Ocean Beach. winstonsob.com. Wed: Jam Kwest, DJ Carlos Culture. Thu: Nikki Hill. Fri: Maka Roots and I Sight Band, Piracy Conspiracy, Ras Mikey. Sat: The Red Not Chili Peppers, The Concrete Project. Sun: Destructo Bunny. Mon: Electric Waste Band.

Tue: Theosis, No Name Gang, Wilson / Renette, Gunner Gunner.

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 37

Proud sponsor: Pacific Nature Tours

Ink Well Xwords by Ben Tausig

Across 1. Post-trim powder 5. Inventor whose name is spelled out by the horizontal lines of special characters in this puzzle 10. Naked 14. Fat abbr. popularized by Rachael Ray 15. Images limited by the Seventh Ecumenical Council 16. Claim 17. West African wardrobe item 18. “The Ant and the Grasshopper” author 19. Like Don Draper 20. Pillar 22. Butterflies 24. Genesis character often associated with masturbation 25. ZZ Top song about butts 26. Thrown together 29. Animal named before Dancer 31. Place that’s full of jerks?

35. Against 37. Novel 39. Textbook unit?

40. Stage character who never appears 41. Board game with fake definitions 44. Words before “hustle” or “limbo” 45. Make out, in the UK 47. ___ Day (Hawaiian holiday) 48. Mr. Smithers, e.g.

50. Pampered 52. Eccentric 54. Businesses in a 2000 financial meltdown 55. Hipster magazine that seems, despite its protestations, persistently conservative 57. Home improvement host Bob 59. Travelocity competitor

Last week’s answers

62. “I’m ready” 66. Othello, e.g.

67. States, to the French 69. Streaming video device maker 70. Bubbe 71. Italian 100 72. Gave a line 73. One looked up to 74. Anti-formalist actress Uta 75. Stylistic periods

Down 1. President pro ___ 2. Sneaker brand 3. Shapeshifting Norse god 4. Some washers and arcade games 5. Sporty Mazda two-seater 6. It’s deep, man 7. Optimistic 8. ___-cone 9. Cable channel that covers college sports 10. Buy shots all around?

11. Tel ___, Israel 12. Russo who plays Frigga in the “Thor” movies 13. Units in Physics 101 21. Not invite to the All-Star game, perhaps 23. Storm front?

25. Shady thing 26. What you put away for a rainy day: Abbr.

27. Sierra ___ 28. Still-banned ballplayer, to fans 30. Break up the relationship 32. “I love,” in Latin 33. Ancient Irish alphabet 34. Rounded hammer parts 36. Paradise in literature 38. Droll 42. Ang with two Best Director Oscars (or Spike with none) 43. Two-time U.S. Open winner Ernie 46. Be linked to a lot 49. Few and far between 51. Handpicked thing 53. Maid from the movie version of “Clue” 56. Bohemian, now 58. “Now we have to take this outside ...”

59. Erstwhile sci-fi magazine 60. Grim Cormac McCarthy novel, with “The” 61. One-named pop singer/jet-setting idea man 62. “Metropolis” director Fritz 63. Time it takes for the little hand to spin around 64. Source of much cheap modern furniture 65. Bath bubbles 68. Something brewing

A pair of tickets for a 4.5- or eight-hour Pacific Nature Tour will be awarded weekly. Email a picture of your answers to crossword@sdcitybeat.com or fax it to 619-325-1393. Limit one win per person per 30 days.

38 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 39

40 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 41

42 · San Diego CityBeat · May 14, 2014

May 14, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 43