San Diego CityBeat • June 25, 2014

1 0 h t a e D cell in

by Kelly Davis

er d r u m a w Ho e d i c i u s a and

in a San Diego County jail became

intertwined

P. 6

Drama P.7 Explosions P.9 Bio-art P.23 Spirit P.27

2 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 3

Mayor’s populism is empty so far One definition of “conservative” is someone who seeks to preserve and maintain the status quo: Don’t rock the boat. Don’t go out on a limb. Don’t make sudden, dramatic changes. Don’t be risky. In a way, and for the most part, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer is that kind of conservative.

Faulconer did make a splash immediately by moving quickly and decisively to hire a woman, Shelley Zimmerman, as the new police chief after William Lansdowne resigned amid controversy involving some officers’ conduct toward women. But beyond that, there hasn’t been much boldness so far.

In fact, Faulconer has fought back against boldness in a few high-profile policy areas. The City Council—well, the Democrats on the City Council, that is—has made some bold moves that Faulconer has resisted with all of his might: The council has tried to raise money for affordable housing by updating a long-out-of-date fee that developers of commercial property pay, tried to protect the largely low-income Barrio Logan from continued industrial pollution and pushed for a significant increase in the minimum wage within city limits. Essentially parroting the sky-is-falling rhetoric of factions of the local business community, Faulconer played a major role in defeating the housing-fee increase and the plan that would’ve protected Barrio Logan and is opposing a minimum-wage hike.

Our irritation over his stance on the housing fee can be overcome by an alternative proposal to raise more money to create new affordable housing, and we understand that such a proposal is in the works.

However, our anger over his stance on Barrio Logan hasn’t subsided since the sensible, councilapproved community plan was rejected by voters on June 3. His fierce opposition to the plan, fueled by his longtime, one-sided advocacy for business interests, kills any credibility he might have otherwise had when it comes to policy proposals to help underserved, underrepresented communities.

Faulconer can restore some of that lost credibility by following through on his rhetoric about serving neighborhoods and families, particularly the lowincome neighborhoods and families that need his help the most. A report released on June 12 by Faul-

coner’s Transition Advisory Committee includes some positive policy proposals. The 46-page report is a series of mostly vague recommendations to enhance education and youth opportunities, lower the cost of housing, combat homelessness, fix infrastructure, create jobs, strengthen the economy, make government more open and transparent, improve pubic safety and better serve military veterans.

For example, we like the attention paid in the report to expand educational opportunities and after-school programs for kids in struggling families. We like some of the proposals for lowering the cost of housing and making affordable housing easier to build, such as relaxing parking requirements for developments in transit corridors. We like the commitment to permanent supportive housing for David Rolland chronically homeless folks, although it’s unclear how the city would finance an expanded program. We also like the recommendation to work with employers and schools to align curriculum with local workforce needs.

And we like, generally, the idea to incentivize economic development in lower-income neighborhoods if it genuinely leads to greater opportunities for folks in those communities.

These are some potentially positive steps to close the gap between the haves and havenots in San Diego, combat poverty and strengthen the middle Kevin Faulconer class. But, in our view, Faulconer already has to climb out of a deep hole in that regard, because of the unfortunate choices he’s already made.

The mayor likely isn’t too bothered by that, because he’s riding a comfortable wave, thanks to an improving economy, a consequently easy city-budget process—that allowed him to dole out some new goodies—and a hey-look-we-all-get-along honeymoon with City Council President Todd Gloria and the rest of the council.

Most San Diegans these days would settle for political harmony and a City Hall free of scandal. We’d like to join the Kumbaya chorus—all it’ll take is some bold action by Faulconer to turn his populist spiel into something more than an empty PR pitch.

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

This issue of CityBeat was biting soccer players before it was cool.

Volume 12 • Issue 46

Cover design by Lindsey Voltoline

Arts Editor Kinsee Morlan

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

Staff Writer Joshua Emerson Smith

Intern Natalie Eisen

Web Editor Ryan Bradford

Production Manager Tristan Whitehouse

Art director Lindsey Voltoline

Production artist Rees Withrow

Columnists Aaryn Belfer, Edwin Decker, John R. Lamb, Alex Zaragoza

Vice President of Operations David Comden

MultiMedia Advertising Director Paulina Porter-Tapia

Publisher Kevin Hellman

Editor David Rolland Associate Editor Kelly Davis Music Editor Jeff Terich

Senior account executive Jason Noble Account Executives F. Scott Berman, Beau Odom, Kimberly Wallace Circulation / Office Assistant Giovanna Tricoli Accounting Alysia Chavez, Linda Lam, Monica MacCree Human Resources Andrea Baker

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

4 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

A map would’ve helped This letter is in response to the Joshua Emerson Smith article, “A war over B and C” [“News,” May 21]. In this article, Mr. Smith discusses the “B” and “C” propositions related to the Barrio Logan area.

Unfortunately, without a map, I did not understand this article. I believe a map would have helped everyone understand this better.

In any case, I still knew how I’d vote: If Jerry Sanders was against it, I’d vote for it.

Ron Harris, Scripps Ranch

Give ‘peace’ a chance I love it! Edwin Decker’s column on the Mt. Soledad cross [“Sordid Tales,” May 28] demolishes with simple fact the argument to keep the cross on the mountain top. A better veteran’s memorial would simply be: “Peace.” Every veteran I know could get behind that. Please, keep up the good work.

Rev. James Bowser, North Park

Cat videos on Mt. Soledad?

I’m an out-of-towner and picked up a CityBeat and read Edwin Decker’s well-researched rant concerning the Mt. Soledad cross [“Sordid Tales,” May 28]. I knew nothing of the back history, but thought your column was interesting and amusing.

After reading, I took a run up there to see what the fuss was about. While I was distracted by the amaz-

ing view, I did ponder the concrete forms used to construct the holy toture device. I certainly fall into the atheist camp but am tolerant of others’ views.

Anyway, it got me thinking about what could possibly be put there to avoid offending anyone’s religious sensitivities or otherwise. Maybe a largescreen TV with a funny cat video? Might make a funny followup column!

Derek Miller, Delta Junction, Alaska

Toni Atkins’ fail Thank you for your article on community choice when it comes to our electricity provider [“News,” June 4]. I was sorry to read that, in her first month as Assembly speaker, Toni Atkins has already sold San Diegans short. Instead of supporting community-choice aggregation (CCA) and giving San Diegans a choice for their electricity provider, she, in effect, has voted to block our choice. As a San Diego resident, I am offended by this vote.

As your article pointed out, the San Diego City Council’s Environment Committee unanimously voted in favor of opposing this legislation. The bill could undermine the city’s Climate Action Plan, which looks to community-choice energy as a vital tool that can help meet the city’s renewable-energy goals.

Atkins’ vote served the interests of big utilities at the expense of San Diego’s energy future. Toni, you are better than this.

Daria Flores, University Heights

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 5

Kelly Davis

h t a e D

in

cell 10

How a murder and a suicide

unty jail in a San Diego Co

ed became intertwin

by Kelly Davis

Dorcie Dawson holds the urn of her husband, who died in the San Diego Central Jail on March 28. fter her husband Richard died, Dorcie Dawson covered the glass-front cabinets in the living room of the couple’s North Park apartment with black paper. She didn’t want to look at the things he’d given her—the little clown dolls, the tiny glass angel in a red velvet box that he brought her when she was in the hospital.

“I feel my grief; I don’t want to see it,” she’d tell people.

Richard Dawson was found dead in his cell in the San Diego Central Jail at close to midnight on March 28, the fifth person to die in county custody this year. The coroner ruled his death a homicide, the result of strangulation. No one was charged, and the main suspect, Brandon Mason, was found hanging in his Central Jail cell on April 25. Though resuscitated, Mason was removed from life support a week later. San Diego Sheriff’s Det. Brian Patterson told CityBeat that charges were going to be filed against Mason, but he died before that could happen.

Dorcie doesn’t know anything about Mason—but she doesn’t believe he killed her husband. She said that doubts have been nagging at her from the moment she learned how Richard died—information it took her awhile to get. She’d received a call from the medical examiner on March 29, telling her Richard was dead, but it was a month before

A

6 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

she was able to track down Patterson, the homicide detective assigned to the case. She recalls him saying that Richard’s cellmate had killed him and then killed himself. She remembers telling him she was frustrated that no one from the Sheriff’s Department had contacted her. “A courtesy call would have been nice,” she said. She said Patterson told her he’d let her know if anything developed. This past Tuesday, when CityBeat told Dorcie that the case had been closed, it was the first that she’d heard about it. nmate-on-inmate homicide is rare. Of the 78 people who’ve died in San Diego County jails since 2007—CityBeat’s been reporting on the county’s high inmate-death rate in an ongoing series of stories—there’s only one instance in which an inmate was directly responsible for another’s death.

According to Richard Dawson’s autopsy report, he was last seen alive at 10:46 a.m. on March 28, per surveillance video. He was in module 7B, which contains 20 cells on two levels. Cell doors are open for part of the day, allowing inmates access to a dayroom on the first level.

According to the medical examiner’s report, inmates told sheriff’s investigators that Dawson missed lunch. At around 4 p.m., the report says, an inmate went to Dawson’s

I

cell to see if he wanted dinner, “but the decedent’s cellmate told [the inmate] to leave [Dawson] alone,” the report says. The inmate told investigators that Dawson was lying in his bunk, but the report doesn’t say whether the inmate gave any details beyond that.

California regulations require deputies to perform hourly safety checks that include “direct visual observation” of each inmate. But it wasn’t until 11:30 p.m., 12 hours after he was last seen alive, when Dawson didn’t respond during a bed check, that deputies entered his cell and removed a blanket that had been pulled up around his neck. There was blood on the cot’s fitted sheet, and Dawson, the report says, “was cold and not breathing.” A medical examiner’s investigator who arrived several hours later made note of blood spatters under the bunk and on the floor and trauma to Dawson’s face and ear. It was obvious that he’d been strangled and had sustained blows to the head. His cellmate “reportedly had a ‘swollen’ hand,” the report says.

None of the inmates in the module reported hearing, or seeing, the two fighting, Patterson said.

Dawson was 48 years old, 5-foot-7 and 165 pounds. He was HIV-positive, but he was strong, Dorcie said.

He’d been to jail before—his rap sheet

includes charges for drug possession and, nearly two decades ago, burglary. In early March, Dorcie had bailed him out after he was arrested for assaulting a man who Dorcie said had attacked her. Richard wasn’t a violent person, she said, but he was fiercely protective of her.

A week later, on March 12, he was arrested for possession of methamphetamine. Dorcie said Richard was trying to make money to hire a private attorney in the assault case.

Richard always got along with other inmates, Dorcie said. He was a likeable guy— sort of goofy. He wasn’t the type of person to pick a fight, but he could hold his own if someone came at him.

“There’s no way one guy could get him,” she said.

Dorcie last spoke to her husband on March 25 at around 9 p.m., memorialized as a collect call on her phone bill. She remembers asking Richard if he had a cellmate; he told her no. She said this stuck in her mind because it seemed odd.

Detention Services Bureau Commander John Ingrassia said Dawson and Mason shared Cell 10 starting on March 24. Mason was assigned to the top bunk, Dawson to the lower bunk. Module 7B is reserved for

Death CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

john r.

spin cycle

Hillcrest drama king

first,” is how she put it.

Stauffer has filed a complaint with the state Attorney General’s office, alleging that “the president has been running this nonprofit as a dictatorship and not informing the board of his activities.” In the process, she claimed, he violated the HBA’s bylaws, federal disability laws and state open-meeting laws.

Hale, in the meantime, has referred all media inquiries to “interim director” Nicholls, who denied all of Stauffer’s allegations, including that she was fired. After last week’s meeting, Hale declined to address the allegations, only noting that there’s been “a target on my back for years.” His relationship with former San Diego City Councilmember Carl DeMaio, who’s now seeking Scott Peters’ congressional seat, has drawn local and national attention.

On June 5, Stauffer said Hale arrived at the HBA’s Fifth Avenue office after a phone call during which he said he’d be there in 15 minutes to terminate her. “He came into the office, took my keys and unplugged my computer— pulled the power cord out of the back!—for the ‘safety of the organization’ and told me to get my things and get out,” she said.

She said he then followed her out to the parking lot and, during the course of what she described as a bizarre hour-and-a-half, tried to return her office key. “He was in my car door, and I’m telling him I want to go home, and he’s trying to give me my key back.

He knew what he had done was wrong. He was panicked.

“He tends to make knee-jerk decisions in a state of being angry and then is sorry later,” Stauffer said.

HBA board members sat quietly during last week’s meeting, but longtime member Glenn Younger told Spin later he believes the organization’s bylaws back up Hale’s decision to fire Stauffer.

“Johnathan Hale is a lightning rod for people who do not like the idea of his gay Republican partner,” he said in an email. “Most of that stuff is theater. In Hillcrest if you don’t agree with someone’s politics, then you’re evil.”

lamb “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

—Abraham Lincoln Nicole Murray Ramirez, dubbed the “Mayor of Hillcrest” last year

by San Diego City Council President Todd Gloria, couldn’t believe his ears.

“Jesus!” he whispered to Spin Cycle during last week’s raucous board meeting of the Hillcrest Business Association (HBA), the city’s oldest business alliance.

The association, founded in 1921, has seen its share of brouhahas throughout the years. But this one, it seems, may take the cake.

“I think I’d just declare a monarchy—and name myself queen!”

Ramirez said with a laugh when asked for his remedy.

At the heart of the latest kerfuffle is the status of the HBA’s executive director, Sonya Stauffer, who left a depressed real-estate industry last year to take on the reins of an organization known more for the events it oversees— CityFest, Hillcrest Farmers Market, Hillcrest Hoedown, the Pride Block Party, to name a few—than its role as the citysanctioned representative of some 1,300 businesses in the area.

Stauffer alleges that she was summarily fired on June 5 by the association’s president, San Diego Gay & Lesbian News publisher Johnathan Hale, for reasons that remain uncertain. Hale replaced her, he announced at the meeting, with her predecessor, Benjamin Nicholls, who’d departed last October to work for a local promotion company that puts on some of Hillcrest’s annual events.

At last week’s meeting, Stauffer stood up in the audience to declare that she still considers herself the HBA’s executive director because Hale, she said, acted in violation of the organization’s bylaws by firing her “without board knowledge or a board vote.”

In an interview later, Stauffer said Hale’s meddling on a daily basis made the job of the association’s three-member staff a “downward spiral” of unmanageability. “Business last, politics

Added Younger: “Johnathan has the authority to make decisions in the day-to-day running of the organization, up to and including termination.”

Not everyone’s so sure. Pat Libby, director of the University of San Diego’s Institute for Nonprofit Education and Research, said such action by an individual board member is “highly unusual.

It is not a best practice. Is it good governance? It is not.

“I’m not saying it’s illegal— I’m not an attorney,” she added.

“But the most valued asset held by a nonprofit is its reputation.

It’s incumbent upon all organizations to understand that they represent not only their own interests but for the nonprofit sector as a whole.”

Stauffer said she’s not received any formal notice of her termination. Nicholls told Spin that “she was never terminated. I think there was an intent to terminate her, but she handed over her keys and credit card and didn’t come back to work.” He said she was given “multiple opportunities to come back.”

Stauffer laughed at that claim and said she has a theory of her own—that Nicholls, who parted ways with McFarlane Promotions in March, wanted his old

John R. Lamb

Johnathan Hale pulls the plug on Sonya Stauffer. job back. Nicholls denied that he helped orchestrate her firing.

“We have some big events upcoming, and the board needed some leadership. So they gave me a call,” Nicholls said. He even blamed Stauffer for Hale’s insistence that some committee meetings be held at his Hale Media offices on University Avenue in a building that’s not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. But committee agendas prior to Stauffer’s hiring show that practice also occurred during Nicholls’ tenure, even though he

insisted that those were simply “ad hoc gatherings.”

“I really love the HBA,” Nicholls said. “I hate to see it pulled apart like this.” He acknowledged that Hillcrest is ripe with characters, including Hale, but that “the death of neighborhoods is a lack of character. It’s time to move on.”

Stauffer said she won’t back down. “I’ve dealt with politics,” she said, “but never anything like this.”

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

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 7

Death CONTINUED from PAGE 6

ty theft and breaking into a J.C. Penney. He was homeless at the time, the family member said, and needed food and clothing.

This past January, he was released from inmates in protective custody whose safety prison after serving two years, with no would be at risk if they were put in with the place to go and no personal identification. jail’s general population. Both Dawson and Mason was told by his parole officer not to Mason had asked to be placed protective leave San Diego County. custody, Ingrassia said, though he couldn’t “I could wire him money,” said the famdisclose why either man made that request. ily member, who lives in Northern CaliforDorcie isn’t sure why her husband asked nia, “but he couldn’t pick it up because he for protective custody, but she thinks it had didn’t have a state ID. I couldn’t pre-pay a to do with him being HIV-positive. A fam- hotel because he didn’t have a state ID.” ily member who spoke to CityBeat on the Mason met a woman, Brittany Vinck, condition that her name and relationship and moved into her apartment in Chula to Mason not be disclosed said the large Vista. On March 11, according to news “SD” tattoos on Mason’s neck often led reports, he stabbed Vinck while she was people to assume, wrongly, that he was in taking a shower and fled the scene. Chula a gang. He’d told her that he didn’t feel safe Vista police arrested him the following in the general population. morning. Vinck initially told police that Like Richard Dawson, Brandon Mason, Mason had stabbed her for being unfaithwho was 29, had been in custody before. A ful, but she later recanted. In a May 1 story, complaint in a recent case shows that at NBC 7 San Diego reported that Vinck had age 16, he was convicted in Sonoma Coun- sent the district attorney a notarized letty for assaulting a law-enforcement officer ter saying she was “high and drunk” that who the family member said was trying to night, had “physically fought” with Mason rape Mason’s girlfriend. (CityBeat wasn’t and stabbed herself in the chest when he able to track down details on that case by told her he was leaving her. He was moving press time.) He was tried as an adult, she to Northern California, the family member said, and sentenced to five years in prison. said, where his 8-year-old son lived. He’d Mason was a good kid who just needed gotten the OK from his probation officer. some stability in his life, the family member He had a job lined up and a place to stay. said. She tried to give him that, but spend“We wanted him to move to Northern ing most of his teen years in prison had set California to get his life together,” she said. a foundation that Mason couldn’t seem to “He told [Vinck], ‘I need to get out of here.’” break free from. He was in and out of prisDeputy District Attorney Mary Loeb on, usually on a parole violation. In 2012, he said that despite Vinck’s letter, there were was arrested in San Diego for pet- no plans to drop the case against Mason.

But the family member said Mason knew he’d be exonerated.

“Brandon knew that this girl was going to eventually tell the truth,” she said. “He knew that with an attorney… the truth would come out, and the jury would see that Brandon was not guilty. He knew that when he walked out of that jail, he’s getting on a bus and he’s coming to Northern California, and his life is going to be a whole lot better.

“A kid that knew his life was in front of him, a kid that has a son, a kid that has family who loves him, is not going to turn around Dorcie and Richard Da wson in 2009 and kill himself.”

8 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

fter Dawson was found dead on March 28, Mason remained on the jail’s seventh floor, but he was placed in solitary confinement and allowed out of his cell for only one hour every 48 hours.

The family member said she talked to Mason a number of times—she recalled phone conversations on March 28 and March 29. Mason never indicated anything was wrong. The last time they spoke was on April 19.

“He was joking on the phone; he was happy,” she said. “I was talking to him about the fishing trip we were going to take with his son. He was perfectly fine. There was no indication that there was anything wrong with him whatsoever.”

A friend visited Mason on April 22 and reported to the family member that Mason was fine. Mason met with his public defender, Tim Riley, on April 23 to discuss the Vinck case. Brandon was in a good mood, Riley said. It was a tough case, but Riley gave Mason hope that he’d prevail. Vinck’s letter hadn’t persuaded the DA, but “it definitely provided me with a defense,” Riley said. As for whether Mason ever told Riley that he was being investigated for murdering another inmate: “Nothing,” Riley said. “Not ever a reference that something else was going on.”

The friend visited Mason the following day, April 24.

“Brandon’s whole demeanor had changed,” the family member said. The friend told her that Mason “looked like the life was sucked out of him.”

“They’re trying to accuse me of something I didn’t do,” Mason told her. “Whatever you do, do not believe what you hear.”

The friend was so troubled by Mason’s mental state that she alerted a clerk at the jail’s front desk and asked that someone check on him.

According to Mason’s autopsy report, guards found him in his cell at 4:19 p.m. on April 25 with a bed sheet around his neck, the other end attached to the top bunk. His knees were on the bottom bunk and he was leaning forward, slumped over. He was resuscitated but later pronounced brain dead.

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Brandon Mason According to a document the family obtained from the Sheriff’s Department, when Mason was found hanging, there was blood on his face and on the floor, but it wasn’t clear where the injury had come from.

The family member was unaware Mason was a suspect in Dawson’s death until CityBeat told her. She’d been struggling to understand why he’d hang himself. Now she’s trying to reconcile the news that the person who was like a son to her had allegedly killed a man.

“You take this kid fishing, he can’t even take the fish off the hook because he’s scared he’s going to hurt the fish,” she said. “This is not a kid who’s going to beat the crap out of somebody and strangle him and kill him.”

Dorcie Dawson’s phone was turned off a couple of weeks ago. Without her husband’s income, she can’t pay her bills. She has full-blown AIDS, and it was Richard who made sure she ate properly and took her medication. The two of them met a little over a decade ago in a transitionalhousing program for people with HIV / AIDS and married not too long after.

Richard, or Ricky, as she refers to him, hoped he’d be able to serve time for both crimes—the assault and drug possession— simultaneously. He wasn’t a bad person, she said; he just made some bad choices.

“He could be done with it, and we could move on,” she said. “It was way past time.”

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

edwin

sordid tales

decker Please do not explode fireworks over the animals To salvage SeaWorld’s public image, which was reannual fireworks display that, while not conclusive, cently mauled by the documentary Blackfish, the “appeared to have resulted in perchlorate contaminatheme park’s spokespeople have been vigorously tion in soil and groundwater….” And that’s just from reminding us that, foremost, they are zoologists. an annual fireworks show. The SeaWorld hullaballoo They say their primary concern is for the environgoes off every night! And while long-term effects are ment and animals—both in the wild and in captivinot yet known, there’s consensus from both sides that ty—and I say that’s a load of bull-shark shit! there is a significant short-term increase in perchloThe reason I can call bull-shark shit on this oftrates and other contaminants after a fireworks show. repeated notion that SeaWorld is more worried “We’ve monitored a number of metals and eleabout animals than it is about the bottom line can ments and constituents to see if there [were] any elbe summed up in one word: fireworks. evations in the bay,” SeaWorld spokesperson David There’s an ongoing legal battle to ban Fourth of Koontz told SDNews.com in 2008. “It was shown July-type fireworks from being exploded over or that there was no negative impact on the quality of near the water because fireworks are full of contamithe bay as a result of our fireworks.” nants such as charcoal, gunpowder and heavy metals I found that quote to be curious. He begins by saylike mercury, copper and the sometimes-radioactive ing SeaWorld monitors the bay for “elevations” in strontium. They’re also loaded with perchlorate, toxicity and concludes by saying there is “no negawhich is the same garbage used in road flares and tive impact,” which is like saying, “I’ve monitored the rocket fuel. And SeaWorld San Diego is blowing that Switchfoot concert to determine how awful the drumshit up nearly every night, all summer long, right over mer is, and it was shown that the audience enjoyed the already sickly Mission Bay and its wildlife. the show.” The conclusion does not answer the premise.

In fact, it looks like a dodge.

Now, I know a lot of you So, I asked Koontz if there redneck, seal-clubbing types were, indeed, short-term spikes might say, “Buzz off, seaweed Just because there aren’t in contaminants after their firehugger. They’re just animals.” works display, and he respondAnd you know what, that’s to dead fish washing up on ed, “Concentrations of residual be expected from your ilk. But the shore doesn’t mean chemicals from SeaWorld’s this is SeaWorld we’re talksome seriously bad mojo fireworks… continue to be low ing about—the self-professed and below regulatory threshold champion of the waterways. Its isn’t happening. values…” which, again, avoids websites contain whale-loads the question. Probably because of self-aggrandizing statements there are significant short-term citing its environmentalist cred. elevations (a point conceded by, um, everyone). I It brags that it has “a commitment to animal welwant to know what makes him so sure that even fare,” which seems like a bunch of seahorse shit to short-term elevations don’t have an impact. me, considering SeaWorld’s insistence on reenactJust because there aren’t dead fish washing up ing the Battle of Fort McHenry over Mission Bay on the shore doesn’t mean some seriously bad mojo all summer long. It boasts that its “commitment to isn’t happening. Also, no mention of studying trends animals extends around the world” and “[r]espondin animal mortality, birthrate, disease, food supplies ing to wildlife in crisis is a commitment we take to and habitat destruction? We know that marine aniheart” and “[it] illustrates SeaWorld’s commitment mals rely on sound for orientation, socializing and to animal welfare” and—well, “commitment” my predator detection. Hard to believe there aren’t largemouth bass. If SeaWorld were truly that comsome creatures that aren’t adversely affected by the mitted, it wouldn’t even consider dumping that orgy of light and thunder pounding over their heads dreck over the bay any more than Mothers Against every summer night.

Drunk Driving would consider hiring Snoop Dogg Not to jump to conclusions before all the science is to sing “Gin and Juice” at its annual picnic. in, but I’m having a difficult time believing that rocket You can darn well bet the San Diego Zoo would fuel isn’t harmful to pretty much everything that isn’t never consider exploding fireworks over its park. a rocket. And, yes, that’s my unscientific opinion. But Because the zoo has a policy: “Please do not annoy, c’mon! If SeaWorld is truly committed to the habitat, torment, pester, plague, molest, worry, badger, harit wouldn’t even mess with fireworks until it was givry, heckle, ruffle… or bother the animals.” SeaWorld en the all-clear by the science community. has a similar directive: “Please do not annoy, badBecause, you see, SeaWorld has it hopelessly ger, pester, plague or bother the bottom line.” backwards. You don’t dump Pandora’s box of scary It should be noted that the research on this is stuff over the water because there’s no proof that young and inconclusive. The people who manufacit’s harmful. You hold off from doing so until you get ture or otherwise benefit from fireworks interpret conclusive proof that it’s safe! That’s what “committhat as meaning “safe.” However, the researchers ment” looks like. without bias (also known as scientists) believe there is cause for concern. Citing just one of many exWrite to edwin@sdcitybeat.com amples, the Massachusetts Department of Environand editor@sdcitybeat.com. mental Protection conducted an 11-year study of an

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 9

by michael a. gardiner Michael A. Gardiner

a tomato-sauce dab. Manti are at once familiar and exotic.

Another standout at Lezzet is the gözleme, a savory Turkish pastry filled with spinach, onion, cilantro, feta and mozzarella cheeses cooked on a griddle and served with yoghurt. The gözleme I tried in Turkey seemed to be a flatbread dish.

Lezzet’s is more of a pancake.

Regardless, it was tasty, if ever so slightly under-seasoned.

Any vegetable is a candidate for a rice-based stuffing in Turkey. And not just vegLezzet Café’s handmade manti etables. I’ve never tasted a mussel dish better than the steamed ones stuffed with rice and dried fruit offered by a street vender by the Bosphorus. Dolma (stuffed vegetables) are not, however, what Lezzet does best. Its grape-leaf dolmata—stuffed with rice, beef and onions—was even more egregiously under-seasoned than the gözleme. Polish Turkish cuisine in the barrio gołąbki have nothing to fear from the limp cabbage dolmata stuffed with the same filling (albeit Lezzet Café sits below the point where Chollas in a beautiful emerald-green wrapper).

Creek empties into San Diego Bay and Interstate Lezzet’s chicken kebab, served over rice pilaf 15 ends in the least fancied stretch of Barrio Lowith a green salad, was better. The seasoning was gan (3586 Main St., lezzetcafe.net). It’s the endspot-on and the grilled chicken was mouth-wapoint of a journey, if not exactly a destination. It teringly tender on the inside and perfectly caratakes an act of will to get there. melized on the outside. The simple, buttery rice Turkish cuisine—Lezzet’s specialty—is itself pilaf with julienned carrots was a real prize. the result of a journey that began as the nomadic But it’s entirely possible the highlight at LezTurks left the central Asian steppes, migrating zet is the bread—samsa—that arrived first at our west through Southern Central Asia into Anatable, and for no additional charge. This puffy tolia and, ultimately, to the Bosphorus straits. bread, simultaneously substantial and airy, was The rich fusion of the flavors the Turks gathered wonderfully savory in its own right, but paired along the way melded with Byzantine and Greek with Lezzet’s spicy salsa, avocado dip and yoinfluences into a rich and highly refined Ottoghurt sauce, it was an appetizer that would have man cuisine. satisfied as a complete meal.

A dish that embodies this migration—and one Lezzet’s location is not exactly inviting. Sitting of the best at Lezzet—is manti, steamed dumpbetween Adult Emporium and those tracks that lings filled with beef and onion (fried, they’re the café is metaphorically on the wrong side of it, called börek). Originating with the Uyghur Turks does take an act of will to go there. It’s an act well in what is now Western China, manti traveled worth taking to experience one of the more exotic and unusual meals available in San Diego. west with the Turkish people. In contemporary Turkey, they come in a wide variety of shapes and Write to michaelg@sdcitybeat.com with different meat fillings. At Lezzet, they’re and editor@sdcitybeat.com. topped with yoghurt, garlic, red chili powder and

the world

fare

10 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

BY KELLY DAVIS

cocktail

tales Smoke and drink

Mary made from clarified tomato juice and seasoned vodka. The world needs more savory cocktails.

Some other highlights: • The folks from Saltbox turned the pairing concept into a cocktail amuse-bouche, with smoked pork belly sitting in a cradle of Laphroaig, yellow chartreuse, lemon, grilled peaches, dandelion-infused honey and peach bitters. I’m craving one as I write this. (Head bartender Jordan Slocum says Saltbox will roll out a new menu on July 1 featuring spirits from Los Angeles’ Green Bar Distillery.)

• Encore is known as a champagne bar, but bar manager Scott McClain came up with a mighty-fine cocktail with his Maximilian Affair (a reference to France’s 1860s attempt to take over Mexico): Cognac, mezcal, Laphroaig, maple syrup, lemon, coffee bitters and fire-roasted Kelly Davis Fresno chili, garnished with a smoked applewood chip.

How could you turn down something described as “a really fancy, good Old Fashioned—with pork”? That’s the pithy explainer for the smoked pork belly wrapped in bacon / Old Fashioned pairing dreamed up by Hanis Cavin from Carnitas’ Snack Shack and Seven Grand’s Brett Winfield. It was the winner at CityBeat’s Chefs & Shakers Mash-Up, held June 19 at Hotel Palomar. The challenge to the 10 teams of chefs and bartenders: Come up with a food-and-drink pairing using smoke as the inspiration.

I could fill this space describing the food—Table No. 10’s perfect bite of scallop and how The Heart and Trotter got me to eat blood In last week’s Drink Issue, sausage—but this column’s we had bartenders come up about cocktails, right? So, with recipes inspired by the back to Winfield’s drink. seven VIPs with whom our Dubbed the Wilbur Old writers boozed. A moment Fashioned, it combined Glen of confusion resulted in two Garioch 1994 Single Malt recipes for jazz trumpeter Scotch, peat-smoked apple Gilbert Castellanos (lucky syrup and Rx smoked bitters guy). We ran Leigh Lecap’s for a smooth, smoky sipper.

(Ironside) white rum / CamBut it was Cusp’s Chris pari / orange cordial creation Burkett’s pleasantly sweet with the plan to include Alex Fear & Loathing that I was Maynard’s (Jaynes Gastromost smitten with. Burkett Chris Burkett smokes cassia bark. pub) equally appealing take let cassia-bark smoke fill on an Old Fashioned here: each tasting glass before adding the combo of Batasiolo Barolo Chinato fortified wine, Dry Gilbert the Great Sack 15 Year Sweet Old Oloroso sherry, hickory1 dash orange bitters smoked cola syrup (made from Mexican Coke) 2 dashes Angostura bitters and Fee Brothers bitters.

1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur If there’d been a category for best presenta1 ounce mezcal tion, it would have gone to Sycamore Den. Eric 1 ounce añejo tequila Johnson served his Shake & Break—Cruzan dark rum, Del Maguey mezcal, fresh lemon and pineStir and serve on the rocks, garnished with an apple juices, orgeat (almond) syrup and mole orange peel. bitters—over dry ice. Who doesn’t love anything involving dry ice?

Write to kellyd@sdcitybeat.com High-five to JSix’s Nate Howell for making and editor@sdcitybeat.com. a savory cocktail—a spicy, deconstructed Bloody

•••

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 11

by Mina Riazi mina riazi

The Southern dish flaunts a contrast of delectable textures and flavors: The tomatoes are firm and tart, with an almost silky, pudding-like center.

The coating, meanwhile, is hot and crunchy. A creamy “comeback” sauce loaded with spice completes the starter, but it merely distracts from the main act. Ditch the dipping sauce and focus all your attention on the deepfried gems instead.

Acme’s main entrées include sandwiches and savory meat pies, served with one side for a reasonable $11 to $14.

If you’re really famished, then the meatloaf dinner or smothered pork chops should do the trick. After a frustrating, Acme’s fried-chicken sandwich five-minute episode of bouncing back and forth between two options, I finally settled on the fried-chicken sandwich.

The sandwich arrived minutes later, accompanied by an oil-dripping slab of mac and cheese.

Acme’s fried-chicken sandwich is reasonably sized and therefore appears conquerable, but that’s merely an illusion. A fat, starchy biscuit— Southern flavors in East Village baked in-house—holds together the generously breaded and infinitely crunchy fried chicken You won’t find chitlins and gizzards on the menu thigh. It’s a well-crafted sandwich: Spicy coleslaw at Acme Southern Kitchen, but the newly adds just enough heat, and the biscuit doesn’t opened East Village restaurant does dole out crumble apart. The chicken stays moist and juicy, Southern classics—albeit more familiar ones—in although it could use more seasoning. Thanks to a tidy brick building from the 1920s. the firm biscuit, the fried-chicken sammie holds Acme owner Terryl Gavre also helms Café 222 up well in the fridge and makes for a sturdy snack and Bankers Hill, and her penchant for laid-back the next day. elegance has translated to the shoebox-size resMy grub buddy ordered Acme’s pulled-pork taurant. Blush-colored roosters and hens adorn sandwich—a saucy, drippy behemoth. A soft, the wallpaper; ceramic plates and muffin tins house-baked white roll, though delicious, failed double as decorations. Acme feels cozy, classy to sop up all the extra juices from the meat and and unpretentious—the kind of relaxed setting the coleslaw. Nevertheless, paired with spicyperfect for devouring smothered pork chops and and-sweet collard greens, it made for a rich and buttermilk biscuits. flavorful meal—just not a very portable one.

Located on the corner of Ninth and E streets, Lemon icebox pie, served in a clear glass, Acme inhabits a neighborhood that is still very ended our lunch. The tri-layered dessert features much in flux (901 E St., acmekitchensd.com). The a graham-cracker crust, lemon filling and fresh restaurant’s carefully put-together interior and whipped cream. With its clean, citrus flavor, country-music soundtrack exist in sharp contrast the refreshing sweet was a fine complement to to the at-times noisy construction unfolding outthe heavy, mostly deep-fried meal. Still, if given side. Still, once the fried green tomatoes reached a shot at a redo, I’d probably just order an extra helping of the fried green tomatoes. our table in a paper tray reminiscent of countyfair grub, it was hard to notice much else.

Write to minar@sdcitybeat.com Cut into thick discs, the tomatoes are dunked and editor@sdcitybeat.com. in a house-made batter and sent to the fryer.

One Lucky

Spoon

12 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

the floating

library

by jim ruland

The loneliness of dysfunctional families Deep Ellum by Brandon Hobson is a haunting novel about a fractured family struggling to overcome a dysfunctional history. That’s a summary that could apply to a lot of novels, but Deep Ellum, published earlier this year by Calamari Press, stands out as a miniature masterpiece of mood.

After his mother overdoses, Gideon Gray leaves Chicago and returns to Deep Ellum, a neighborhood in Dallas that has a long association with the city’s arts scene and music history.

Gideon is at loose ends, adrift in the world but not necessarily looking for a place to drop anchor.

“To pursue solitude requires a sort of minimal desire, or maybe no desire at all. This is how I see it. To find loneliness, to become your own saint.”

Strangers sense this immediately about him.

“You, young man, don’t make good decisions.”

Gideon stays at his sister Meg’s apartment, but days pass before he’s able to connect with Meg, his brother Basille or his ailing mother, who lives in the countryside. Gideon goes on long walks in the city, marveling at the cold.

“Snow on the roofs of buildings gleamed in the moonlight. From the rear fender of a parked car along Elm hung little icicles that sparkled. I walked past the store windows, past small mounds of dirty snow along the street. A dog was barking from somewhere above me, in one of the apartments, but besides that there was no traffic and little noise. Deep Ellum in the winter was asleep.”

Along the way, he meets many of his sister’s acquaintances, who drop not-so-subtle hints that Meg is in a bad way. “She talks about you a lot. I know more than you probably want me to know.”

He tries to communicate with his sister via text, sending messages to which she seldom responds, but that doesn’t seem to bother him. When one of Meg’s friends expresses his disdain for texting as a form of communication, Gideon responds with a shrug. “It beats talking.”

While Gideon’s post-rehab, pre-recovery malaise owes something to Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son, his situation also reminds me of Jim Thompson’s unfinished novel, This World, Then the Fireworks, in which the two main characters are brother and sister who also happen to be lovers. The slow accretion of information about Gideon’s relationship with his sister and her cur-

rent situation contributes to a feeling of dread that grows and grows while providing clues to Gideon’s disconnectedness.

Even the weather, which continues to throttle Deep Ellum, takes on a menacing air. As one character comments, “This cold snap we’re having is certainly no fun. The weather’s extreme here, isn’t it? Everywhere, really. It’s not supposed to be this way.”

Much of the conflict in Deep Ellum comes from Gideon’s stepfather, Gene, a man who’s stood by his mother through many difficult times yet is overbearing and difficult to be around. An emotional bully, Gene judges his stepchildren with the indignation of the righteous and has no compunction about designating himself as the family’s long-suffering martyr: “I’d like to see a show of hands of anyone who thinks this is easy.”

Gene is one of the few people who can get a rise out of Gideon, but when Gideon confronts his stepfather and demands to know what he really means, Gene takes the coward’s route: “I’m speaking to everyone.

You’re just the person I’m looking at. If I turn my head and look at everyone I end up losing track of whatever I’m trying to say. Don’t take it personally. This is a hard time for everyone.”

Hard times are crucibles for family relationships. It’s not uncommon at family gatherings to say, “I only see you at weddings and funerals,” but both are emotionally heavy times that have the power to sunder relationships or repair old rifts.

Though the characters in Deep Ellum are mired in a morass that’s more extreme than most readers have ever experienced, it’s one that can be undone if the members of this strange and fucked-up family can get in the same room together and agree to put old wrongs to right. Why is that so difficult for them? Why is that so difficult for any of us?

Hobson has crafted a beautifully written exploration of reconciliation with an astonishing ending that manages to feel both inevitable and surprising. It’s been a long time since I read a novel that delivers on its premise the way Deep Ellum does.

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

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 13

the

SHORTlist

ART

COORDINATED BY KINSEE MORLAN

KEVIN PATTERSON

There’ll be opportunities to take a crash course in the circus arts, play an array of unorthodox musical instruments and literally jump into a large pen piled high with books—the “Book Pond” asks folks to “build bookcastles, bury friends, have a sit, make a table and have a snack and soak in the information.”

“I think it’ll be a whole lot of fun,” says Nicole Hickman, Figment San Diego’s curatorial director, who’s been burning the midnight oil organizing and promoting the event Alonso Nunez will return to Figment San Diego on a volunteer basis. “We with his interactive “Super Hero Wall Mural.” have a good mix of return artists and new people, and I’m really excited about the participation from neighborhood artists from Barrio Logan…. The event Figment San Diego is an art event is actually happening on the same day as the Barrio where your eyeballs aren’t the only body Art Crawl [facebook.com/barrioartcrawl].” part getting action. The annual participaThe more than 30 artists who’ve put together tory-art party asks attendees to roll up their sleeves imaginative, interactive art projects this year include and get their hands dirty by helping create or experi- Valerie Turner, Chuk Moran, Stephen Love, Lori ence the work.

Lipsman and Thanasi Glavas. Two fully immersive For its second installment, Figment will take over installations that participants won’t want to miss Chicano Park in Barrio Logan from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. are Matt Elson’s mind- and reality-bending “Infinity Saturday, June 28. Expect to encounter everything Boxes” (sort of a house of mirrors, but more artsy) from your standard community-painted murals to and Jason Rogalski’s “A Child’s Breath” (a constantly more experimental projects like an air canon that evolving maze). shoots paint onto a giant paint-by-numbers canvas.

“There’ll definitely be some interesting things going on this year that we weren’t able to pull off last year because we were just so new,” Hickman says.

The event is free to attend. sandiego.figment It’s been only the last few years that the project.org world’s come to understand what everyone who’s owned a cat (or, as cats prefer, “had a feline flatmate”) knows as fact: Cats are Inspired by “recurring paranormal” exthe best! At 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 27, head over to periences, David Fobes creates art that 4246 University Ave. in City Heights (the sidewalk in explores the illusion of duality. Claimfront of the Black Cat Bar, appropriately) for DriveBy Cinema’s Meow or Never. The evening includes ing to have experienced psychic visions of the near a showcase of Internet cat videos and an Asian noir future and telepathy with his twin brother, Fobes’ film (selection TBA), shown on Drive-By Cinema’s abstract painting evinces mysticism through premilk-truck-turned-mobile-movie-screen. There’ll cise geometry. From 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, June 28, be tacos for purchase from tasty sidewalk grill Ta- folks will have a chance to see his work, which he cos Melissa, and you can duck into the Black Cat for calls the “artifacts” of the struggle to reach a higha beer or cocktail—or to hang with the bar’s head er plane. The one-night-only show, The Red See Scrolls, at Not an Exit Galpouncer, Behemoth. drivebycinema.com lery (1955 Julian Ave. in Logan Heights) will introduce a new collection of large collages mounted on heavy canvas. Including red wine, red lighting and a “scentscape” provided by artist Brian Goeltzenleuchter, the show promises to be a multisensory experi- “New World Map (2192”)

by David Fobes ence. misterfobes.com

1

2

ARTIST FOR A DAY

CATS ON FILM

3

14 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

PERCEIVE THIS

Sway Plus Art at Ux31, 3112 University Ave., North Park. Blk Owl’s semi-regular art event will include art from Rico McCrary, Tanner Thompson, Apex 2, as well as live music. From 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Wednesday, June 25. $5. blkowl.com HCreative Nights at Lux Art Institute, 1550 S. El Camino Real, Encinitas. Enjoy dinner and drinks from Stone Brewery, check out indie rockers Ed Ghost Tucker, participate in hands-on craft projects with Housgoods and ToshWerks, or just check out Beverly Penn’s exhibition of delicate bronze nature sculptures. From 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26. $20. 760436-6611, luxartinstitute.org #ArtExpoSD Live at Wonderbread Factory, 121 14th St., East Village. Join artists, designers and advertisers for a panel discussion about the DIY projects of John Purlia, Nicole Waszak and Tim Mantoani. This is a preview for a series of art events taking place around San Diego during ComicCon. From 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26. facebook.com/artexposd Interactive Books: From the Russian Futurists to El Lissitzky at Timken Museum of Art, Balboa Park. At this “Art in the Evening” lecture, Nancy Perloff, curator of modern and contemporary collections of the Getty Research Institute, traces Lissitzky’s aesthetic back to the book art of the Russian Futurists. At 7 p.m. Thursday, June 26. $45. timkenmuseum.org HThe Darkroom: Cristopher Cichocki at Museum of Photographic Arts, Balboa Park. Coachella Valley artist, Cristopher Cichocki will present Circulation, a sitespecific installation, accompanied by two audio/visual performances in 3D along with a DJ set curated by the artist. At 7 p.m.

Thursday, June 26. $6-$8. mopa.org HComposing Dwarfism and Performing Crip Time at Space 4 Art, 325 15th St., East Village. Two new exhibits curated

by Amanda Cachia. Dwarfism explores the work of dwarf photographers Ricardo Gil and Laura Swanson, while Performing features mixed-media installations from seven female artists exploring “crip time”—experiencing public space and time as a person with a disability. Opening from 7 to 10 p.m.

Friday, June 27. sdspace4art.org HVACANT at Disclosed unLocation, 1925 30th Ave., San Diego, South Park. A series of pen and ink drawings from Yerrie Choo that explore the human condition of loneliness and internal disconnection to others.

Opening from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, June 27.

619-933-5480, unlocation.com HDrift at Low Gallery, 3778 30th St., North Park. Bay Area artists Maja Ruznic and Josh Hagler celebrate the release of their collaborative art book Drift. Their visceral oil and watercolor paintings will also be on display. Opening from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, June 27. 619-348-5517, lowgallerysd.com Mass Creativity Day at New Children’s Museum, 200 W. Island Ave., Downtown.

Make art and discover what others are creating at this free outdoor festival. This event will showcase artwork that was made in different communities throughout San Diego. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Saturday, June 28. thinkplaycreate.org HFIGMENT San Diego 2014 at Chicano Park, Barrio Logan. A fully participatory and interactive art party that is free and family-friendly. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Saturday, June 28. 619-800-5689, sandiego.figmentproject.org HThe Red See Scrolls at Not an Exit, Bread & Salt, 1955 Julian Ave., Logan Heights. A small installation of larger collage and sculpture work by David Fobes. Opening from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, June 28. facebook.com/events/893284080688297

Mexican Seas/Mares Mexicanos at Birch Aquarium, 2300 Expedition Way, La Jolla. This world-premiere exhibit features Scripps scientist Octavio Aburto’s stunning photos of ocean life and the unique biodiversity in Mexican waters. Opens Saturday, June 28. $13-$17. 858-534FISH, aquarium.ucsd.edu HMuseum School Art Auction at Glashaus, 1815-B Main St., Barrio Logan.

Bid on works from some of the best local artists including Raul Guerrero, Anna Stump, bd dombrowsky and more to benefit the arts-based educational programming that is at the center of the Museum School’s philosophy. From 6 to 9 p.m.

Saturday, June 28. theglashaus.com Fresh Paint California at La Jolla Library, 7555 Draper Ave., La Jolla. The third annual invitational plein air and studio landscape art show. The exhibition will showcase some of California’s finest plein air painters including Ken Auster, John Budicin, Mark Fehlman, Robin Hall and more. Opening from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 29. 858-454-3424, lajollalibrary.org Strikes Up the Band at Carlsbad City Library, 1775 Dove Lane, Carlsbad. A solo art exhibition by local artist Cheryl Ehlers, whose signature painting style is bold and dynamic utilizing watercolor and acrylic mediums. Opens Wednesday, July 2.

760-602-2049, sandiegolibrary.org

BOOKS R.J. Belle at Upstart Crow, 835 West Harbor Drive, Seaport Village. Join fellow suspense lovers for a book signing with local author R.J. Belle and her newly released thriller novel, First One Down: A Paul Sutton Novel. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 25. 619-232-4855, upstartcrowtrading.com HFrank Ritter at Ducky Waddle’s Emporium, 414 N. Coast Hwy. 101, Encinitas.

A reading, discussion and book signing event with the author of Sex, Lies, and The Bible, which studies how interpreters of the holy text twisted what God and Christ said about our sexuality. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 25. duckywaddles.com HShoutin’ in the Library: A Beatles Celebration at New Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village. Author Chuck Gunderson will discuss his book Some Fun Tonight: The Backstage Story of How The Beatles Rocked America. A special performance by The Baja Bugs will precede the discussion. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 28. sandiegolibrary.org Vince Aiello at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The local author of The Litigation Guy and Back will sign and discuss his many legal thrillers.

At noon Sunday, June 29. 858-4540347, warwicks.indiebound.com Ingrid Thoft at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. Last summer’s Loyalty, Thoft’s debut about private detective Fina Ludlow, is being developed into a TV series. She will be signing the follow-up, Identity. At 7:30 p.m.

Monday, June 30. mystgalaxy.com HKitty Morse at Rancho San Diego Library, 11555 Via Rancho San Diego, El Cajon. The author of Mint Tea and Minarets will speak about the culture and cuisine of her native Morocco. At 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 1. sdcl.org/locations_RD.html Benny Lewis at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. National Geographic’s “Traveler of the Year” will discuss and sign Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World. At 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 1.

858-454-0347, warwicks.indiebound.com Richard Torregrossa at Warwick’s Book-

cadero Marina Park South, 111 W. Harbor Drive, Downtown. A Summer Pops Gala Concert, experience Elvis’ greatest with a full symphony and four Broadway veteran singers. At 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 27. $25-$55. sandiegosymphony.org Hillcrest Wind Ensemble at Lafayette Hotel, 2223 El Cajon Blvd., North Park.

The 45-piece ensemble presents its Summer Cabaret Concert “Red, White and Blues,” which includes various Americana pieces, show tunes, jazz and even some blues. At 8 p.m. Friday, June 27. $20$25. hillcrestwindensemble.com Sounds of Summer Pop-up Concert at Horton Plaza, 324 Horton Plaza, Downtown. Megan Ruger, a contestant from season six of The Voice, as well as local country artists Morgan Leigh Band, will perform a special concert to help celebrate summer in the city. At noon Friday, June 27. 619-239-8180, downtownsandiego.org

Ricardo Gil’s “Walking Man and Mannequins” is on view in Composing Dwarfism, opening from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday, June 27, at Space 4 Art (325 15th St. in East Village). store, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. Well known for non-fiction writing, Torregrossa will be promoting his latest book, Terminal Life, the first in The Suited Hero suspense trilogy series. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 2. warwicks.indiebound.com

COMEDY Rick Glassman at American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave., Downtown. ACC’s Breakout Artist Series continues with this L.A.-based stand-up who stars in the sketch comedy web series, That Guy & His Friend as well as NBC’s Undateable.

At 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 25. $16.

619-795-3858, americancomedyco.com HJamie Kennedy at American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave., Downtown. Malibu’s most wanted comes to town for a night of stand-up. At 8 p.m. Thursday, June 26, and 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 27-28. $24. 619-795-3858, americancomedyco.com HJeremy Hotz and Harry Basil at Hotel Del Coronado, 1500 Orange Ave., Coronado. The world-famous Laugh Factory’s new summer home is at the Hotel del and debuts its new series with performances from Hotz and Basil. At 8 p.m. Thursday, June 26, and 8 and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 27-28. $35. 800-4683533, laughfactory.com HAdam Ray at Comedy Store, 916 Pearl St., La Jolla. Ray’s best known for his guest turns on Adult Swim’s NTSF:SD:SUV, CBS’s Two Broke Girls, Netflix’s reboot of Arrested Development and Comedy Central’s Workaholics. At 8 and 10:30 p.m.

Friday and Saturday, June 27-28. $20.

858-454-9176, lajolla.thecomedystore.com

DANCE Dance Into Summer at Spanish Village Art Center, Balboa Park. The PGK Dance Project presents an evening of dance that features participants from their summer intensive and finalists of “Another Kind of Choreographer Competition.” At 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 27. $8-$20. 619-7028006, spanishvillageart.com

FOOD & DRINK HFood Truck Foodie Fest at Mama’s Kitchen, 3960 Home Ave., Chollas View.

Try three trucks and complimentary dessert at the Mama’s Kitchen parking lot.

The featured trucks include New Orleans Cuisine & Catering, Devilicious Gourmet Food Truck and Haad Sai Thai Food Truck.

Proceeds benefit Mama’s Kitchen. From 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, June 26. $15-$25.

619-233-6262, mamaskitchen.org HRum Fest at Hiatus Lounge, 7955 La Jolla Shores Dr., La Jolla. Hiatus Lounge’s second spirit festival of the season with rum from Zaya, Plantation Rum, Appleton Estate and more. There will also be tiki cocktails and slow-roasted chicken from the grill. From 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday, June 28. $10. 858-551-3620, rumfest.bpt.me Rock Star Beer Festival at Bassmnt, 919 Fourth Ave., Downtown. Unlimited sampling of over 40 craft beers under the Stone Distribution label with live music from Dantes Boneyard, Satellite Empire and DJ Paradice. At 5 p.m. Saturday, June 28. $25-$50. rockstarbeer.com Council Brewing Grand Opening Party at Council Brewing, 7705 Convoy Ct., Kearny Mesa. Celebrate the grand opening with tastings of 16 beers including four specialty beers, as well as a food truck serving up entrees and sides. From noon to 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 to 8 p.m. Saturday, June 28. $25. councilbrew.com HTaste of Adams Avenue The 13th annual event takes place along Adams Avenue from Normal Heights to Kensington and features tastes from 30 restaurants, coffee houses, pubs and other eateries.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, June 29. $35-$40. tasteofadams.com

MUSIC #HackingImprov: A Generative Song Cycle at Space 4 Art, 325 15th St., East Village. Composer and performer Blair Robert Nelson explores over a century of audio technology alongside violinist Kristopher Apple that attempt to reveal our relationship with musical memory and how we adapt to emerging discoveries. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 25. $10. 619269-7230, sdspace4art.org Twilight in the Park Summer Concerts at Spreckels Organ Pavilion, Balboa Park.

Summertime music and dance returns to Balboa Park for the 34th year. From 6:15 to 7:15 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, June 25-26. balboapark.org

Craig Ingraham at Bird Park, 28th & Thorn, North Park. The multi-talented singer-songwriter performs as part of the Bird Park Summer Concerts series. At 5:30 p.m. Saturday, June 28. concerts. northparksd.com HClassical Mystery Tour at Embarcadero Marina Park South, 111 W. Harbor Drive, Downtown. One of Summer Pops’ most popular acts, this symphonic Beatles tribute features nearly all the hits of The Fab Four. At 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Saturday, June 28-29. $27-$84. 619235-0804, sandiegosymphony.org HAca-Fest at Porter’s Pub, 9500 Gilman Dr., UCSD campus, La Jolla. A celebration of San Diego’s a cappella music scene featuring classics, country, pop hits and more. From 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, June 28. $5-$10. facebook.com/ events/276435255872520 The Detroit Underground at Wood House, 1148 Rock Springs Road, San Marcos. This nine-piece show band will perform hits from acts including Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind & Fire. Bring beach chairs or blankets for picnic seating.

At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 28. $3-$8.

Monte Maxwell at Spreckels Organ Pavilion, Balboa Park. Part of the 27th Annual Summer International Organ Festival, the chapel organist and director of chapel music at the United States Naval Academy will perform with special guests Navy Band Southwest. At 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 30. sosorgan.org Musical Fireworks at Scripps Miramar Ranch Library, 10301 Scripps Lake Drive, Scripps Ranch. Celebrate 4th of July week with Kelsey Kammeraad (soprano), Alexis Alfaro (tenor), and Ines Irawati (pianist) will performing selections from Mozart, Rossini, Liszt, Donizetti, Strauss, Loesser and Barber. From 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 1. $10 suggested donation. 616-403-8288

OUTDOORS Pacific Beach Crystal Pier Cleanup at Crystal Pier, Felspar St. & Ocean Blvd., Pacific Beach. San Diego Coastkeeper hosts a beach and street cleanup at Pacific Beach’s Crystal Pier. Meet on the north side of the pier. From 9 to 11 a.m.

Saturday, June 28. sdcoastkeeper.org

PERFORMANCE

HSummer Fun on the 101 The annual Leucadia music festival where you can catch musicians like Jack Tempchin, Nena Anderson, The Village Squares and others at venues around the area. See website for participating locations. From 4 to 10 p.m.

Friday, June 27, and noon to 8 p.m. Saturday, June 28. leucadia101.com

HSeduced by the Imaginarium Circus at The Irenic, 3090 Polk Ave., North Park.

A theatrical dream-world of performance art featuring sassy burlesque dancing, acrobatic contortionists, tribal belly dancers, spinning Hula Hoopers, fire dancers,

Elvis: A Tribute to the King at Embar-

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 15

Live theater at its most alive

THEATER

If site-based theater truly is the way to attract only by Chicanos, Mexicans and Hispanics. younger audiences to the medium and explode The ruling El Hank (John Padilla) is facing the constraints of a traditional stage, then bra- imprisonment amid a false charge and fears vo! Bravo, too, to San Diego Rep artist-in-resi- that his barrio kingdom will be usurped by dence Hebert Siguenza’s dystopian adaptation rival El Tomas (Victor C. Contreras) and his of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part One. blood-thirsty son El Bravo (Kinan Valdez).

El Henry, as it’s called, is a La Jolla Play- Hank’s partying son El Henry (Lakin Valdez) JIM CARMODY house Without Walls series wants none of the conflict, production, presented in preferring to carouse with association with the Rep. his drinking and thieving The latter’s artistic director, pals, which include Fausto.

Sam Woodhouse, directs But an Act 2-opening sumthe play, which unfolds at mit with his father (one the outdoor SILO space at that’s too conveniently reEast Village’s Makers Quarsolved, frankly) turns El ter, at 15th and F streets.

Henry around, setting the Siguenza not only wrote stage for a fierce street war this adventurous work, that culminates with the which mingles The Bard warrior princes going mawith Mad Max imagery and no-a-mano. low-rider cars, but he also The El Henry story is portrays a roly-poly Fausto, only half as riveting as the Herbert Siguenza (top) setting and staging of the a wise-ass take on Shakeand Lukin Valdez production. The audience, speare’s beloved comic foil, Falstaff. In the roles of opposing barrio war- seated either in plastic chairs or on hard-onrior princes are the sons of playwright Luis the-butt bleachers, is immersed in an enviValdez (Zoot Suit), Lakin and Kinan. ronment of piled-high crates, TV screens, a El Henry depicts a San Diego of the year broken-down truck and worn fences. The 2045, when all whites have fled, water is like “floor” is dirt. A young cast in warrior armor, gold and the renamed Aztlan City is inhabited masks and even Day of the Dead garb, lights

stilt walking puppeteers, juggling jesters and more. At 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 27-28. $20-$25. 858-344-2774, seducedbycircus.brownpapertickets.com

up the SILO space with incredible energy.

This is inspired theater that crosses borders and shatters barriers.

El Henry runs through June 29. $25. lajolla playhouse.org

Soul Train to Bluesville at The Merrow, 1271 University Ave., Hillcrest. Hell on Heels Burlesque Revue pays tribute to the best of the post-war blues era, ‘60s soul and R&B legends. At 8 p.m. Saturday, June 28. $12-$15. 619-299-7372, soultra intobluesville.eventbrite.com

OPENING

Opera in the Street at Tijuana Cultural Center, Paseo de los Heroes No. 9350, Tijuana. Two weeks of opera south of the border that includes a family-friendly festival, opera workshops and, of course, presentations of operas. See website for full schedule and details. Various times Sunday, June 29. operadetijuana.org

Border Lines: A free evening of readings of short plays by emerging playwrights about life along an international boundary. Presented by Playwrights Project and performed mostly in Spanish, it happens from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on July 1 at the Logan Heights Library.

POETRY & SPOKEN WORD

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

Disenchanted: In this musical satire, fairytale females like Pocahontas, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid and Hua Mulan strike back at exploitation.

Opens June 27 at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista. onstageplayhouse.org Off the Cuff: It’s improvisational theater, so anything can happen. One night only: June 28 at Patio Playhouse in Escondido. patioplayhouse.com Romeo and Juliet: A boy + a girl + a priest + two warring families = tragedy. Opens June 27 at the Coronado Playhouse. coronadoplayhouse.com

For full listings,

please visit “T heater ” at sdcit ybeat.com

HVAMP: Coming to America at Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, South Park. So Say We All’s monthly live storytelling show featuring tales about the culture clash that makes up our way of life. From 8:30 to 10 p.m.

Thursday, June 26. $5 suggested donation. 619-284-6784, sosayweallonline.com Choices at Spacebar, 7454 University Ave., La Mesa. A night of poetry, spoken word, open-mic performance and music centered around the theme of making choices. From 7 to 10 p.m. Thursday, June 26. atspacebar.com HEight Arms to Hold You Tour at Gym Standard, 2903 El Cajon Blvd. #2, North Park. Aaron Burch, founder and editor of the influential lit magazine Hobart, stops by to chat, share a few drinks and read from his anticipated debut collection of surreal, neo-Americana short stories, Backswing. At 7 p.m. Friday, June 27. $5 suggested donation. 619-501-4996, sos ayweallonline.com Shakespeare Reading at Upstart Crow, 835 West Harbor Drive, Seaport Village.

The San Diego Shakespeare Society’s regular open reading where anyone can join in or just come along to listen. This month’s play is Much Ado About Nothing. From 6:45 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 1. 619-2324855, sandiegoshakespearesociety.org

POLITICS & COMMUNITY HOpen City Project: Community Innovation at East Village New Urban Park, 13th Ave. and J St., East Village. Community-led teams show how citizens can come together to address civic issues by designing solutions. There will be handson activities and demos, showcases of community-produced apps, devices, objects and experiences designed to enliven neighborhoods. From 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 29. fablabsd.org

SPECIAL EVENTS Somali American Cultural Fest at Market Creek Plaza, 5160 Federal Blvd., Diamond District. This 10th annual, familyfriendly festival is held in honor of the 54th Anniversary of Somali Independence and features poetry, music, dance, fashion show, kids’ activities, food and vendors.

From 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday, June 26.

619-527-6161, somaliyouthunited.org Brazilian Carnaval at Bahia Resort Hotel, 998 W. Mission Bay Drive, Mission Bay. Every Thursday night through Aug. 28, there will be live Samba music, dancers,

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 16 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 17

and an all-you-can-eat beach barbecue buffet featuring authentic Brazilian food.

At 6 p.m. Thursday, June 26. $29-$64.

858-488-0551, missionbaycarnaval.com HTwo Scientists Walk Into a Bar Head over to one of over a dozen participating bars and ask a scientist anything you want. They’ll be easy to spot. Just look for the sign that reads: “We are scientists. Ask us anything!” See website for times and locations. From 5 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26. 858-488-0551, rhfleet.org PechaKucha Night at San Diego History Center, Balboa Park. The San Diego History Center partners with the San Diego Architectural Foundation on a special PechaKucha Night featuring presentations on historic San Diego. From 6 to 10:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26. 619-232-

6203, sandiegohistory.org Bacon Bingo in the in the Pig Pen at Carnitas Snack Shack, 2632 University Ave., North Park. Just what it sounds like: bingo with some of the best Mexi food in town. From 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, June 26. carnitassnackshack.com H30 Block Art Night at North Park along 30th St., between 3700 and 3900 block.

Boutiques and businesses in the heart of North Park showcase new artwork, host trunk shows and debut new wares. Highlights include a trunk show from jewelry artist Jaxkelly at Pigment and a photo show from Louie Navarro at Subterranean Coffee. From 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday, June 28. northparkmainstreet.com Downtown Chess Quarterly Tournament at New Central Library, 330 Park

Blvd., East Village. Sixteen players, 15-minute clock, double elimination. Final winner of each bracket plays in the championship. Held in conjunction with the Central Library’s ongoing Downtown Chess program. From 3 to 5 p.m. Friday, June 27.

619-236-5800, sandiegolibrary.org HMeow or Never at Black Cat Bar, 4246 University Ave., City Heights. A summer sidewalk “PAWty” celebrating two years of Drive-By Cinema. There will be cat videos, Asian noir, sidewalk tacos and more.

At 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 27. 619-2805834, drivebycinema.com Gourdstock Festival at Bates Nuts Farm, 15954 Woods Valley Road, Valley Center. Classes, gourd art and crafts exhibits and sales, vendors, demonstrations, make and takes, petting zoo and more.

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 28. sandiegocountygourdpatch.com Scottish Highland Games & Gathering of the Clans at Brengle Terrace Park, 1200 Vale Terrace Drive, Vista. Music, beer, bag pipes and rival clansmen testing each other’s prowess at various sports like running, jumping, wrestling, or primitive forms of weight putting with stones. No Braveheart jokes. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, June 28-29. Free-$10. 858484-1325, sdhighlandgames.org HOcean Beach Street Fair and Chili Cook-Off at Newport Avenue, Ocean Beach. The 35th annual event offers tasty festival nosh, art, beachfront entertainment, shopping and more. The chili competition will feature more than two dozen tastings from entrants competing for the

titles of Hottest Chili, Judges’ Award and People’s Choice Award. From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, June 28. 619-2244906, oceanbeachsandiego.com Pachanga de Frida at The Center, 3909 Centre St., Hillcrest. Celebrate the birthday of the legendary Mexican artist at this annual event featuring music from the Manny Cepeda Orchestra, sampling tacos from Baja Betty’s, beer from Hillcrest Brewing Company, and tequila from Frida Kahlo Tequila. From 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, June 28. $15-$20. 619-692-2077, events.thecentersd.org Nighttime Zoo at San Diego Zoo, 2920 Zoo Drive, Balboa Park. The rare chance to peek at nocturnal animal activity, live music, acrobatic performances, and up-close animal presentations will offer guests the opportunity to see the Zoo come alive at night. Kicks off from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, June 28. Through Sept. 1. $32-$42. 619231-1515, sandiegozoo.org HVintage Flea Market at Birch North Park Theater, 2891 University Ave., North Park. Vendors offer a variety of vintage and vintage-inspired items (including everything from home furnishings to clothing) in the back parking lot of the North Park Theatre. From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, June 29. sdvintagefleamarket.com HSteampunk Tea at Geisel Library, UCSD campus, La Jolla. Enjoy light refreshments with fellow futurists, explorers and adventurers and hear lively chamber music on steampunk-inspired instruments. From 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, June 29. library.ucsd.edu

SPORTS Ultimate Dodgeball Championship Local Qualifier at Sky Zone San Diego, 851 Showroom Place #100, Chula Vista.

Teams of all skill levels compete in Sky Zone’s all-walled trampoline rooms for a chance to move on to the regional tournament in Vegas. At 7 p.m. Thursday, June 26. 619-754-9782, skyzone.com/sandiego Fandemomium at SkyBox Sports Grill, 4809 Clairemont Drive, Clairemont. Wrestling pros from Tijuana to Los Angeles will enter the ring for an up-close battle that will end in a lucha-libre-style tag-team match featuring wrestlers with names like “Kray Z Klown” and “Extreme Parka.” At 7 p.m. Friday, June 27. $15. 858-2747269, fansunitedwrestling.wix.com

TALKS & DISCUSSIONS Building Resilient Cities: Geography and Demographics at World Resources Simulation Center, 1088 Third Ave., Downtown. Experts discuss strategies to handle global and local concerns regarding the escalation in carbon emissions. From 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, June 26. $10 suggested donation. 619-234-1088, wrsc.org HHistory Happy Hour: Sins of the Stingaree at San Diego History Center, Balboa Park. Learn how San Diego’s original red-light district, despite its reputation, was home to thriving ethnic communities. The evening includes music by the Bach Collegium Ensemble, Food from MIHO and cocktails by Please & Thank You. From 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 27. $20-$25. 619-232-6203, sandiegohistory.org

For full listings,

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

18 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

Special section produced by the San Diego CityBeat Advertising Department

Special section produced by the San Diego CityBeat Advertising Department

Special section produced by the San Diego CityBeat Advertising Department

Special section produced by the San Diego CityBeat Advertising Department

Kinsee Morlan

Kinsee Morlan

Janet Hubka, with images taken by Michael Zimber and other scientists

Body image

Michael Zimber

Ilus Art taps into San Diego’s biotech community and illuminates the art found in science

F

by Kinsee Morlan

rom the moment Michael Zimber first put his eye to a wise muted interior some color. At first glance, the images microscope, he appreciated the other-worldliness of the simply look like contemporary abstract art. abstract images he was seeing. His dad was a veterinar“I thought it was peacock feathers,” laughs Janet Hubian who brought his microscope home on the weekends, so ka, who saw one of the images hanging on Zimber’s walls Zimber spent a lot of time collecting leaves, mud-puddle wa- for the first time a little more than a year ago while visiting ter and even blood by pricking his own fingers and squinting her husband Mark’s office (Mark also works at Histogen). into the microscope lens as he examined his specimens.

Hubka, who has experience in interior design, was there “I definitely recognized the beauty at such a small to help her husband fill his blank walls with art. scale,” Zimber says, sitting in his office at a biotechnology “I looked at his screensaver on his computer, and I said, company in Sorrento Valley, his perfectly pressed white lab ‘I really like these feathers,’” she says. “And he explained coat draped over a hanger on the back of his office door. that they were actually cells from the lab.”

Zimber eventually moved on from analyzing leaves Hubka liked the image so much that she had the digiand mud and earned a doctorate degree in neuroscience. tal file printed on canvas and hung it in her husband’s ofZooming in on little pieces of sliced-up brain completely fice. Zimber, who’d captured the image during research rocked his world. years earlier, told Hubka he’d often “When you look at the absolutely thought about how the interesting awe-inspiring complexities of the patterns and colors he saw through brain, you recognize that it’s not his microscope would make for capjust a bunch of mush,” Zimber says. tivating art. He’d always wanted to “Even our liver, which is probably pursue the idea but never had time. the mushiest organ I can think of, is “I said to him, ‘Well, now I have incredibly structured—it has a beautime,’” says Hubka, who’d recently left tiful architecture. But the brain—of her post as an administrator at the Oscourse, I’m biased—but when you teopathic Center for Children, where see the neural networks of the brain, she worked for more than a decade. it’s pretty hard not to be humbled.”

Hubka dove in. She did market Zimber works at Histogen as the research and wrote a business plan “Axiom” by Michael Zimber director of applied research. In part, for what eventually took shape as he helps cultivate special cells that produce a protein with Ilus Art (ilusart.com), a company that uses cellular images regenerative qualities—a protein that’s then used in skin- captured by working scientists, prints the images on thin care products and, eventually, once the company is out of sheets of aluminum and sells them as sleek contemporary clinical trials, hair regrowth. A smattering of abstract art art. The new business venture is just a year old, but already pieces hanging on a wall in Zimber’s office gives the other- Hubka has sold several pieces, printed cellular art for oth-

er companies and foundations in the biotech industry and recently collaborated with Biocom, a biotech trade organization, in organizing Taking Art to the Cellular Level, an exhibition of cell imagery currently hanging at the San Diego International Airport.

“These are basically human dermal fibroblasts,” Zimber says, pointing to the image that looks like peacock feathers and now hangs in his office (the same image has since been printed and sold several times; Ilus Art doesn’t do limited editions unless it’s a special circumstance). “I was interested in knowing what kinds of cell markers were being expressed.”

The vivid colors, he explains, are the result of dyes used by researchers using florescent microscopes. Like a true scientist eager to get the public to understand, Zimber picks up a green marker and begins drawing pictures on a white board to help illustrate how the different dyes bond to particular parts of the cell.

“I was looking at the different types of proteins expressed, so that’s the green color you see,” Zimber says.

“The blue is the nuclear DNA, and the red is actually a poison from a mushroom. The poison adheres to the acting filaments…. Think of that as the skeleton of the cell.”

Zimber, who’s won awards for his cellular art, uses an expensive, very sensitive black-and-white camera to capture his microscopic imagery. While his scientific side looks for technical aspects only other science enthusiasts might critique, working with Hubka has taught him to let go a little and enjoy the images from a purely aesthetic perspective. He’s even started using some artistic license, playing with filters and contrast.

While Ilus Art is still a young company focused mostly on selling work to biotech-industry insiders and interiordesign consultants working in the medical field, Hubka has plans to market the work to the general public.

A major goal for both Zimber and Hubka is to use Ilus Art to get the work in front of kids to help entice them into a career in science. The company has donated several pieces to schools, and Zimber says he thinks showing a more creative side of science can help spark kids’ interest.

“We’re not just a bunch of guys with slide rules and pocket protectors,” he laughs. “We’re actually a very creative and dynamic group of people.”

Ilus Art prints come with detailed scientific description cards affixed to the back. Whether or not people read and understand the information, Hubka and Zimber think that once folks recognize that the beautiful imagery is actually cells, it’ll lead to a fascinating conversation at the very least.

“On one hand, you look in and say, ‘Wow, we’re never going to figure this all out,’” Zimber says. “We can go further and further and look at the cellular level, the molecular level, the atomic level, the quantum level and then you go, ‘When and where will we ever stop?’”

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

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 23

Seen Local No pulse for Art Pulse In May, I reported that the nonprofit organization Art Pulse was significantly scaling back its programming. The cutbacks, Executive Director April Game said, were due to an unexpected loss of financial support from Henry Moon, who’d been Art Pulse’s largest funding source since its founding in 2007.

After the story ran, a few Art Pulse contractors contacted me to complain that the organization has owed them money since late last year for work on Art Pulse TV, a visual-arts-focused television show that aired on NBC 7 San Diego last year (a program to which I once contributed), and Culture Buzz, an online platform for arts criticism and features. While some contractors have been paid in the meantime, others say they’re still owed.

Also, in the comments section of the earlier story on CityBeat’s website, Felicia Shaw, director of arts and culture at the San Diego Foundation, took issue with Game’s comment about a county Board of Supervisors initiative called Live Well San Diego, which Game said could eventually result in the creation of a countywide council for the arts. Formation of such a council has long been one of Game’s personal goals and Art Pulse’s overarching mission.

“Staff has been clear since the beginning that there are no plans to establish a countywide arts council and their intentions shouldn’t be misrepresented,” wrote Shaw, who, alongside Game, serves on the county’s Arts Enrichment Action Team for Live Well San Diego.

Another commenter on the story criticized Game’s description of the plight of Art Pulse’s loss of an angel investor as “the same old story for nonprofits.”

“The truth is, unlike the majority of nonprofit arts organizations I’ve known and worked with over the years, Game relied on one significant funder to support her vision and has not, for whatever reason, found other funding that would create sustainability through diversified resources,” wrote Victoria Plettner Saunders, founder of the recently launched artsjob website artcareercafe.com.

Game, who, back in May, told CityBeat she’d be fundraising and pursuing grant opportunities to keep the organization afloat, now says she’s ready to throw in the towel. She says that fundraising and other attempts to keep Art Pulse financially feasible

April Game (right) with Barbarella Fokos, executive producer of Art Pulse TV have been unsuccessful.

“The last of the fight has been taken out of me,” Game says, visibly upset. “Art Pulse is closing.”

The organization’s board of directors will meet this week, she says, to start the winding-down process. She says that the outstanding invoices will be paid within the next two months.

Art Pulse Gallery at Bread & Salt will close its doors at the end of July, but Game says she’ll look for homes for some of Art Pulse’s other programming during the next few months. She hopes to see initiatives like the Mentor Program, which provides San Diego artists with professional career training, continue, possibly under the wing of an existing nonprofit. The program has served some well-known San Diego artists, including one-time CityBeat cover artist Bhavna Mehta, who lists the Mentor Program as a major step in her professional career.

“It was really the beginning of me being introduced to the San Diego arts community,” Mehta says.

“It’s been a really good thing for me.”

Game says that Snorkl, an arts-and-culture events website and email newsletter spearheaded by Art Pulse, will continue to be funded even after the organization closes. She says she’ll work to keep it going because the site is so new and can potentially become self-sufficient through online advertising.

While she doesn’t want to comment specifically on Shaw’s criticism of her hope that Live Well San Diego would create a countywide arts council, she says she’ll give up her personal advocacy for that idea, too.

“If the conversation has advanced that some cultural infrastructure at the county level would be good, then great,” Game says. “But San Diego is on its own now…. Personally, I think I’ll start withdrawing myself from the art scene. I think I’ve done my part.

I’m tired.”

Game says she still thinks a countywide arts council is possible under the current Board of Supervisors and that the “prep work has been done,” in part by Art Pulse, but the concept needs a team of active advocates to become a reality.

“At least we can say, at the end of the day, we did our best,” Game says about Art Pulse and its sevenyear footprint in the San Diego arts community. “Was it good enough? I don’t know. There’s only so much a person can do.”

—Kinsee Morlan Write to kinseem@sdcitybeat.com Art Pulse Gallery and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

24 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

Major offense Paul Haggis’ awful melodrama is unintentionally hilarious

by Glenn Heath Jr. Paul Haggis’ Third Person is the comedy of the year. There’s only one problem: It’s supposed to be a deathly serious tragedy that ponders the interconnectedness of memory and expression.

The film’s funny bits are completely unintentional, spawned from hilariously misguided plotlines singed together by the fires of inane melodrama.

Sledgehammer cinema has been a specialty Liam Neeson and Olivia Wilde, likely embarrassed of Haggis’ ever since he released 2004’s Crash, an award-winning mosaic that now feels like the apex er in the clumsiest of ways, parallels between them (or low point) of modern social miserablism. But begin to spell certain offenses not limited to simply Third Person takes this brand of heavy-handedness to poor writing or stilted acting. Something far more a new level. sinister is going on here, and it has to do with the way Chalk it up to Haggis’ extensive background in the filmmaker exploits emotion. Instead of showing screenwriting and seemingly obsessive need to appear the audience a modicum of respect, Haggis elevates important. After spending years writing for television, interactions to decibel levels even the deaf could unthe success of Crash allowed him the opportunity to derstand. Boy, does he like screaming matches. pen a few Clint Eastwood joints (including the great Tantrums reign supreme, especially when it comes Million Dollar Baby) and some mediocre James Bond to suffering female characters (are there any other films starring Daniel Craig. Yet Third Person finds kind?). Anna fights back against Michael’s narcissism Haggis addressing the creative process itself for the with her own bipolar actions, resulting in a plot reveal first time, specifically the hazy overlap between per- so insulting that one can’t imagine why the talented ception and reality. This proves to be a scary place.

Wilde would even want to be associated with this The first time we see forlorn character. Kunis’ hot mess JuMichael (Liam Neeson), he’s lia pleads with everyone in her hovering over a laptop in a shadlife to give her a second chance Third Person owy Parisian hotel room, laborat raising her son, only to be reDirected by Paul Haggis ing over a new novel. Like all warded by being dragged across Starring Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, tortured writers, he trades puffs an apartment floor by her slimy Mila Kunis and Adrien Brody of a cigarette with gulps of single bohemian ex-husband (James Rated R malt, descending further into the Franco). Atias’ Monika doesn’t depths of frustration with every fare much better, forced into passing moment. Then a ghostly feeling something by a “romanwhisper: “Watch me.” These mysterious words repeat tic” situation that is glaringly one-sided and rote. throughout the film’s multiple plotlines like Cliff’s There’s a moment late in Third Person—which Notes reminding even the most disinterested audi- opens on Friday, June 27, at Hillcrest Cinemas—where ence member that, yes, everything is connected! one male character smugly states, “Women have the From Michael’s tumultuous relationship with a incredible gift of denying any reality.” Talk about an young writer named Anna (Olivia Wilde) Haggis tap exclamation point for Haggis’ torturous treatment dances over to New York City, where a depressive of an entire gender. The great irony here is that the mother (Mila Kunis) tries to get her life back togeth- director himself has created a film so delusional that er. Just to complete the globetrotting holy trinity, the he mistakes cliché for profundity at every turn. Look final segment of Third Person takes place in Rome, no further than the corny montages, ill-timed slow as a sleazy businessman (Adrien Brody) gets caught motion and grating score that burrows into your ear up in a child-trafficking case involving the daughter canal like an unforgiving parasite. When one characof a mysterious local woman (Moran Atias). In each ter yells at another, “Why do you get to play God?” case, clandestine motivations eventually brim to the it’s hard not to ask the same question of Haggis. surface, allowing personal traumas to explode on the Write to glennh@sdcitybeat.com screen like a barrage of fireworks.

As Haggis weaves these three lame tales togeth- and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Hearts and minds

Korengal

In 2010’s Restrepo, an often gripping but problematic war documentary, photographer Tim Hetherington and writer Sebastian Junger imbedded themselves with Army 2nd Platoon atop a mountain in the volatile Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. Using first-person interviews and hours of footage shot amid firefights

and boring downtime, the two filmmakers created a portrait of modern warfare sans flag-waving and political rhetoric.

Four years later, Junger has compiled some of the unused footage for Korengal, a quasi sequel to Restrepo that tries to push past the men’s experiences and include social and historical con-

CONTINUED ON PAGE 26 June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 25

text of the surrounding valley and its inhabitants. While many of the same subjects are interviewed, the focus of their discussions has slightly shifted. Junger is more interested in the way they perceive the outside world than he is in their internal feelings (although some of this still sneaks through).

The opening sequence begins with their base (named Restrepo after a beloved fallen comrade) being destroyed as the soldiers pull out of the area for good under orders from the Obama administration. Then the film jumps back in time to isolate specific themes worthy of consideration. Military tactics, weaponry, enemy personal and community outreach are all fleshed out just enough to give you a taste of the harsh experience.

But aside from its intrinsic value as a historical document, Korengal—which opens Friday, June 27, at the Ken Cinema and screens for one week only—doesn’t forge deep enough into new territory to warrant feature-length treatment.

It’s shot in exactly the same style and with the same young men, leaving the viewer with much the same feeling of disorientation.

Maybe Junger simply wanted to return to the material in order to honor Hetherington, who was killed in Libya during a mortar attack in 2011. Nonetheless, his latest film feels more like an admirable set of bonus features to another film.

—Glenn Heath Jr.

Opening Citizen Koch: Documents the trail of campaign funding behind the Tea Party’s rise to power. Screens at Reading Gaslamp Cinemas.

Half of a Yellow Sun: Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) and Thandie Newton, this drama set in 1960s Nigeria follows two sisters as they watch a country become ravaged by civil war. Screens through July 3 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Korengal: Taking unused footage from his previous film, Restrepo, Sebastian Junger looks even deeper at the fighting men waging war in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. Screens through July 3 at the Ken Cinema. See our review on Page 25.

Third Person: A successful writer (Liam Neeson) going through a mid-life crisis begins writing his next book only to find his novel splitting off in different directions. See our review on Page 25.

Transformers: Age of Extinction: Boom!

26 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

outback. Screens at 8:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, June 28 and 29, at Cinema Under the Stars in Mission Hills.

Parts Per Billion: The lives of three couples intermingle as they attempt to overcome a life-changing event. Screens at 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 30, at San Diego Public Library in East Village.

The Words: Bradley Cooper’s popular writer finds out the brutal end result of plagiarism, and it’s not a new book deal.

Screens at 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 1, at the Point Loma / Hervey Branch Library.

Violette

One Time Only Raging Bull: The epic tragedy of boxer Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro) filtered through the prismatic cinematic lens of director Martin Scorsese. Screens at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 25, at the La Jolla Community Center.

Grand Piano: Elijah Wood stars as a concert pianist who suffers from stage fright. Immediately before his comeback performance, he finds a mysterious note that sends him down a dark rabbit hole.

Screens at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 25, at the Mission Valley Library.

Seek: A young journalist tasked with covering his city’s drag-queen scene begins seeing images of a man who doesn’t exist. Presented by FilmOut San Diego, it screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 25, at Hillcrest Cinemas.

The Internet’s Own Boy: Aaron Swartz was a programming prodigy and information activist who committed suicide after being tormented by the federal government for years. This documentary examines the story behind the tragedy.

Screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 25, at the Carlsbad Village Theater.

Magic Mike: Ladies, beware of bulging biceps and extreme sweaty thrusts. Fainting has been known to occur. Screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 25, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

Creative Catalyst screenings: Facing North by Andrew Bracken is a short film that looks at people living in the San Diego border region from competing perspectives. It’ll screen at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 26, at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park. Director Neil Kendricks will screen an excerpt of his in-progress documentary, Comics Are Everywhere, at 4 p.m.

Sunday, June 29, at Digital Gym. Both filmmakers will be in attendance.

The Woman in the Window: Nobody did film noir like Fritz Lang, and this film, about a conservative professor (Edward G. Robinson) who gets tangled in a tryst with a femme fatale, proves why. Screens at 8:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, June 26 and 27, at Cinema Under the Stars in Mission Hills.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: A woman pursues a departed lover in Pedro Almodóvar’s hysterical melodrama about relationships gone amok. Screens at 1:30 p.m. Friday, June 27, at the La Jolla Community Center.

Under the Electric Sky: Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz take viewers behind the scenes of the Electric Daisy Carnival, the largest dance-music event in North America. Screens at AMC Mission Valley.

Eraserhead: David Lynch’s insane debut charts the life of a man who lives with his wife and demonic newborn baby in a hellish industrial environment. Screens at midnight on Saturday, June 28, at the Ken Cinema.

Violette: Emmanuelle Devos stars as a woman who befriends Simone de Beauvoir, inciting an intense relationship based on the quest for freedom.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: An unlikely trio of cabaret dancers travels across the desert to perform at a club in the desolate Australian

Now Playing Before You Know It: Vivacious LGBT seniors, from bar-hoppers to bold activists, are the subjects of this rowdy documentary that sets out to destroy conventional wisdom about old age. Ends June 25 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

The Dance of Reality: Alejandro Jodorowsky returns to feature filmmaking after 23 years with this highly personal and deeply political coming-of-age film set in his hometown of Tocopilla, Chile. Ends June 26 at the Ken Cinema.

Jersey Boys: Clint Eastwood adapts the popular Broadway play about the rise of musical group The Four Seasons.

Obvious Child: A sassy stand-up comedienne gets dumped by her loser boyfriend and then has a one-night stand with a stranger, which results in an unwanted pregnancy.

The Rover: In the Australian outback, ten years after society collapses, a determined nomad (Guy Pearce) hunts down the three men who stole his car. It co-stars Robert Pattinson (Twilight).

Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon: Directed by actor Mike Myers and Beth Aala, this documentary goes inside the crazy life of Hollywood insider Shep Gordon. Ends June 26 at La Jolla Village Cinemas.

Think Like a Man Too: Kevin Hart and Michael Ealy once again star in a mosaic of couples behaving badly, this time set in Las Vegas. It’s a sequel to the 2012 comedy Think Like a Man. Who is Dayani Cristal?: Part narrative, part documentary, this film starring Gael Garcia Bernal tackles the complex issues surrounding the California / Mexico border by clashing genres together. Ends June 26 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

22 Jump Street: Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill return for more violent shenanigans as undercover cops trying to expose a drug ring at a local college.

Chinese Puzzle: French comedy starring Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou about a middle-aged man who moves to New York City to be closer to his children.

Ends June 26 at Hillcrest Cinemas.

The Grand Seduction: Residents of a small harbor town try to woo a hot-shot young doctor with hopes of convincing him to relocate to their rural haven.

How to Train Your Dragon 2: Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and his dragon Toothless encounter new challenges while trying to bring their species together in harmony.

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

Judy Miller

ments are comparably more intricate, and there’s a discernable undertone of country-blues in the mix this time.

It’s not exactly foreign territory for the 63-year-old soul man. He was born in North Carolina and spent a good chunk of the ’90s working the Southern blues circuit.

Collaborating with Dan Auerbach probably had something to do with it, as well. Not only did The Black Keys guitarist / singer pen slow-burner “Paralyzed” for the record, Emma Jean was both mixed and partially recorded at his Nashville studio.

Despite the big-name assist, there’s nothing forced or manufactured about the new sound.

“A lot of musicians these days are lost to fads or trends,” Fields says. “They want to be a part of the ‘next thing.’ I just try to keep up with what I’m feeling.

Lee Fields preaches the gospel of feeling good “But there’s more to it than that,” he continues. “I want to sing about things that my family can be proud of in years

by Scott McDonald to come. If we lose our emotionalism, we lose our ability to reason. When you only focus on material things—cars, money, whatever—things become barbaric. People are more than that. I want to sing about things that will make a positive impact on lives.”

That, more than anything, is the Fields calling card.

He is a man undeniably driven to push raw emotion and unconditional love to the forefront of his art. And even though his music is permeated with references to a higher power, Fields insists it’s all-inclusive.

“When I talk about God,” he says, “I’m not just speaking from a Christian standpoint. I’m speaking to all religions.

I’m talking to anyone who loves with all of their heart and does unto others—all of it. We are spiritual creatures, as well as creatures of the flesh. I sing about things that try to bring us back in contact with who we are.

“Soul music is from the spirit. And the spirit is there forever.”

Fields will spread his unique brand of gospel around year. Emma Jean will take them across North America and the globe for the rest of this year, but things are unlikely Europe through November. to slow down anytime soon. After nearly five decades as It’s his third release for Brooklyn-based Truth and Soul a performer, he’s experiencing his biggest revival to date.

Records, and except for covers of J.J. Cale and Leon Rus- And while it’s impossible to know how much music the sell, the 11-song album was born from improvised slow- hard-working troubadour has left in him, there’s no doubt jams. Fields was sure that this would be his most intimate that every bit of it will come from the heart. offering to date once he chose the name for the album.

“I want the music to touch people,” he says. “I want “I wanted to do something very peryou to get something positive out of what sonal,” he says. “I wanted the album to I say. And I feel that artists should be rereally move me. And the only thing that sponsible. The same way that good food and The could do that was the loss of my mother. makes a healthy body, good music makes Every time I think of it, I can still feel the a healthy mind. That’s why I sing about void. I can still feel the loneliness of her how it feels when you lose someone, how Monday, June 30 not being here. But it also reminded me much you love someone, and what we can The Casbah of the truth that none of us will be here do together. Nice things. What’s so wrong leefieldsandtheexpressions.com forever. We all have our time. So when we with being nice? went into the studio, the only plan was to “Bad has been played out for a long time. What’s wrong with being good?” make something that would make us feel good.”

Mission accomplished. The new album also finds Fields and his band pushing their sound’s boundaries. Arrange- Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Soul salvation

L

ee Fields may have to get a pulpit. The man can preach.

Put aside the fiery funk jams and sweet soul serenades that define his remarkable 45-year career—when the veteran singer talks, it’s a different kind of sermon.

Part motivational speaker, part evangelical life coach, the charismatic frontman burns with the same wattage off stage as on. Coming from someone unafraid of mining the depths of emotional vulnerability for his songs, this is no surprise.

An undeniable and infectious passion defines Fields.

And whether he’s talking about his just-released LP, Emma Jean, or the completion of household chores, it’s profound.

“I take pride in everything I do,” Fields says in a phone interview from his home in Plainfield, New Jersey. “I was just doing some yard work with my wife and son. We like to keep it nice and pristine around here. It’s just such a beautiful thing when the whole cul-de-sac is looking good! Oh, man.

You come home and it makes you feel like coming home!”

Fields bursts into a hearty laugh when he finishes this thought, but he and his longtime band, The Expressions, won’t be spending much time on lawn maintenance this

Lee Fields

Expressions

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 27

notes from the smoking patio Locals Only Project Out of Bounds have launched a crowdfunding campaign to replace a stolen guitar that belonged to frontman Kris Asgharzadeh. According to a statement on their IndieGogo page, the Fender Stratocaster was stolen while the band was performing in Las Vegas earlier this month.

In addition to the guitar, the case, some cables, a tuner and some extra strings were also taken.

The band has set a goal of $2,200 to pay for the stolen guitar, which drummer Ryan Rutherford tells CityBeat in an email was being kept in what the band thought was a secure place.

“The kicker is that it was stolen from the place the venue told us to leave all of our equipment,” he says. “They ensured us that it was a secure spot and it was right outside of the security office for the entire building.”

Since the guitar was stolen before the band took the stage, Asgharzadeh had to borrow a guitar from a member of the band Maoli. And while Rutherford says that the guitar isn’t a collector’s item, it has value beyond money.

“He loved that guitar,” Rutherford says. “I don’t believe it was super-rare but the sentimental value was huge. He actually received that guitar as a gift from his original guitar mentor.”

As an added incentive to anyone who chooses to donate to the replacement of the guitar, the band

Music review The Midnight Pine Buried (Self-released) I’m always a little wary of musicians who try too hard to innovate or put a modern spin on folk, Americana and country music. These are sounds and styles that are built more on storytelling and emotions than aesthetics, anyhow, so if you don’t have something interesting to say in the first place, it’s likely to be a hollow shell of a sound no matter how you dress it up.

That hasn’t stopped some from trying: David Gray dressed up folk with trip-hop beats; Mumford & Sons got seemingly endless mileage out of just one busker-stomp rhythm; and a wide range of artists in the last decade put the “freak” back in folk, to varying degrees of success.

Trying to reinvent folk music has never been the goal of The Midnight Pine, at least as far as I know.

And yet there’s a freshness to their music that eludes some of the slicker, more stylized string pluckers of late. Much of this can be credited to the vocal style of leader Shelbi Bennett, who wavers between sound-

28 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

Project Out of Bounds is offering free downloads of their music, signed copies of their albums and free admission to their shows. The campaign is at indiegogo.com/projects/ kris-guitar-was-stolen.

•••

Before The Che Café closes in July, the all-ages UCSD venue will hold one last show that it’s calling For the Fucking Kids Fest. The show will feature performances by Danny Tanner, Retox, The Frights, Kids, Jacob Turnbloom (of Mrs. Magician) and Sledding with Tigers, among others, with more acts to be announced. For the Fucking Kids Fest will start at noon on Sunday, July 13. Tickets are $7.

—Jeff Terich ing contemporary and being broadcast from a haunted Victrola, circa 1955. Her voice is a bit bluesier and deeper than those of like-minded singer / songwriters like Jolie Holland and Neko Case, but it’s a uniquely sublime instrument all the same. Just listen to her overdubbed vocal harmonies on the a cappella standout “Lavish in Bloom” from new album Buried; it’s about as perfect as a 56-second song gets.

On Buried, the group walks the line between modern and vintage with ease, while appearing to pay little mind to either. Theirs is an atmospheric, almost gothic style of folk that can be chilling, like on the vibraphone-accented “Hey There,” or gently earthy, as on “Edge of Town.” Every song is gorgeously arranged, ranging from noisy and ominous (“Mother of Amends”) to drunken torchsong burlesque (“Tears”).

From a distance, it might not seem as if The Midnight Pine have done anything particularly radical on Buried. And that’s for the best; there’s no need to stand in the way of songs this good.

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

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 29

if i were u

BY Jeff Terich

Wednesday, June 25 PLAN A: The Thermals, Barbarian, Soft Lions @ The Casbah. Portland trio The Thermals play punk that needs no prefixes or hyphens. Power chords, big choruses and a healthy distrust of authority—that’s what they promise, and that’s what they deliver. BACKUP PLAN: Pure X, SISU, M. Geddes Gengras @ The Hideout.

Thursday, June 26 PLAN A: Sly and Robbie, The Taxi Gang, Bitty McLean, DJ Carlos Culture @ Belly Up Tavern. Sly and Robbie were the original drum-and-bass duo—literally. Drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare have nearly 40 years of history crafting dub soundscapes, producing material by Horace Andy and Gregory Isaacs and collaborating with legends like Grace Jones and Serge Gainsbourg. Sly & Robbie are dub pioneers, so don’t miss the chance to see them while they’re here. PLAN B: Patrick Park, Noel Jordan, Josh Damigo @ The Casbah.

I caught Patrick Park opening for Ed Harcourt about 10 years ago, and I became

30 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

an instant fan. His blend of alt-country and indie folk has made for some excellent records, but if you want a chill but sublime Thursday night, this is the way to go.

Friday, June 27

seasonal affective disorder? Come down to “June Gloom” and soak in some crushing doom, ranging from heavy and hard-rocking to abstract and weird. Hide from the sun while eight bands summon an unholy ruckus.

Casbah. See Page 27 for Scott McDonald’s feature story on soul singer Lee Fields, who’s just as inspirational off the stage as he is when he’s testifying to the ways of funk and rhythm ’n’ blues. PLAN B: Ash Borer, Hell , Griever @ The Che Café. For the first of two sure-tobe amazing black-metal shows in town this week, Ash Borer promise a blistering and epic sound, with a sense of melody that manages to slip through all of the sheer menace they project. They’re mysterious dudes and don’t give any interviews, but at least you can have them blow your mind in person. BACKUP PLAN: King Khan and the Shrines, Red Mass @ Soda Bar.

PLAN A: Pity Sex, Dangers, Solids @ Sunday, June 29 The Che Café. The Che Café is likely to be PLAN A: EMA, Mas Ysa @ The Casbah.

One of my absolute favorite songs closed in a month, so you should take this year is “Cthulu” from EMA’s advantage of the opportunity to visit The Future’s Void. It’s an intense while you can. And this is a good and draining song that finds show for it. Pity Sex have a powerful a happy medium between PJ and fuzzy indie-rock sound that’s Harvey and Nine Inch Nails, reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr.’s best and as it turns out, is just one of moments—bummed-out but 10 stellar songs on the album. bruising, and catchy as all get-out.

EMA—which stands for Erika Tuesday, July 1 PLAN B: Moving Units, Glass M. Anderson—is a pretty intense PLAN A: Deafheaven, Wreck and ReferSpells, Barbarian (DJ set) @ performer in general, so that’s all ence @ The Casbah. Last year, Deafheaven The Hideout. Perhaps you prefer the more reason to participate in played the entirety of their amazing new some sweet-ass disco sounds on this cathartic experience. PLAN album, Sunbather at The Void (R.I.P.), and it your Friday night, in which case B: World Party, Gabriel Kelly was, hands-down, one of the best shows I saw you should get your ass to this @ Belly Up Tavern. If you need all year. So you’d better believe I’m not going synth-heavy, cowbell-banging a reason to see World Party, look to miss seeing the Bay Area metal / shoegaze showcase. Dance-punk’s not no further than Karl Wallinger’s band again for an epic show at The Casbah. dead! BACKUP PLAN: Transfer, body of work: “Put the Message in PLAN B: Huey Lewis and the News @ Del Not in the Face, Shake Before Us, the Box,” “Is it Like Today?,” “Way Mar Fairgrounds. And now for something Hong Kong Fuzz @ The Casbah. completely different! Huey Lewis’ Sports Down Now,” etc. Need I say more? was one of the first cassettes I remember Saturday, June 28 being obsessed with (I was probably 5 or 6 Monday, June 30 PLAN A: “June Gloom” w/ Armed years old), and I still have a soft spot for those PLAN A: Lee Fields and the cheese-tastic ’80s hits. You’ve heard what the for Apocalypse, Deep Sea Thunder Expressions, Sure Fire Soul man said: It’s hip to be square. So you might Beast, Bhorelorde, Zsa Zsa Gabor @ The Bancroft. Got a case of reverse EMA Ensemble, DJ Claire @ The as well just embrace it.

HOT! NEW! FRESH! ‘For the Fucking Kids Fest’ w/ Danny Tanner, Retox, The Frights (Che Café, 7/13), Cayucas (Casbah, 7/22), The Coathangers (Soda Bar, 8/1), The Helio Sequence (Casbah, 8/15), Sylvan Esso (Casbah, 8/20), Jason Mraz (Civic Theatre, 8/21), Benjamin Booker (Soda Bar, 8/22), The Donkeys (Casbah, 9/6), Luis Miguel (Viejas Arena, 9/18), Jason Aldean (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 9/25), Slim Cessna’s Auto Club (Casbah, 9/26), Foster the People (RIMAC, 9/27), Colbie Caillat (Humphrey’s by the Bay, 9/28), Twin Shadow (BUT, 10/9), Passafire (BUT, 10/10), Metronomy (BUT, 10/19), Tennis (Casbah, 10/26), Delta Spirit (BUT, 11/1), Adrian Belew Power Trio (Casbah, 11/16), Psychedelic Furs, The Lemonheads (BUT, 11/17).

GET YER TICKETS Ronnie Spector “Behind the Beehive” (North Park Theatre, 7/3), The Antlers (BUT, 7/16), Chris Rock (Civic Theatre, 7/19), Doug Benson (HOB, 7/23), Au Revoir Simone (Casbah, 7/28), The Hold Steady (BUT, 7/31), Arcade Fire (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 8/5), The Head and the Heart (North Park Theatre, 8/11), Grouplove, Portugal the Man (Open Air Theatre, 8/17), The Zombies (HOB, 8/20), Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 8/21), Andrew Bird (Humphreys, 9/19), Lykke Li (North Park Theatre, 9/22), Temples (BUT, 9/27), Demi Lovato (Viejas Arena, 9/28), The

Gaslight Anthem, Against Me! (HOB, 9/30), DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist (HOB, 10/1), Joyce Manor (The Irenic, 10/2), The Beach Boys (Humphreys, 10/5), The Horrors (BUT, 10/13), The New Pornographers (BUT, 10/18), The Afghan Whigs (BUT, 10/24), Alt-J (SOMA, 10/24), Bonobo (HOB, 10/26), The Black Keys (Viejas Arena, 11/9), The Misfits (HOB, 11/16), Bastille (Viejas Arena, 11/19), Ira Glass (Balboa Theatre, 11/22), John Waters (North Park Theatre, 12/1), Fleetwood Mac (Viejas Arena, 12/2), Mike Birbiglia (Balboa Theatre, 12/5).

June Wednesday, June 25 Pure X at The Hideout.

Thursday, June 26 A-Trak at Fluxx. Sly and Robbie at Belly Up Tavern. Patrick Park at The Casbah.

Friday, June 27 Yuna at Belly Up Tavern.

Saturday, June 28 March Violets at Soda Bar.

Sunday, June 29 Sarah McLachlan at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay. World Party at Belly Up Tavern.

Monday, June 30 Ash Borer at Che Café. Lee Fields and the Expressions at The Casbah. Devo at Belly Up Tavern. The King Khan and The Shrines at Soda Bar.

July Tuesday, July 1 Asher Roth at The Irenic. Deafheaven at The Casbah.

Wednesday, July 2 Peter Murphy at Belly Up Tavern. Reigning Sound at Soda Bar.

Thursday, July 3 Ronnie Spector “Behind the Beehive” at The North Park Theatre. Wild Cub at House of Blues.

Friday, July 4 Nipsey Hussle at House of Blues. Ringo Deathstarr at Soda Bar.

Saturday, July 5 The Creepy Creeps at The Casbah.

Amen Dunes at Soda Bar.

Sunday, July 6 Venetian Snares at The Casbah. Kiss, Def Leppard at Sleep Train Amphitheatre.

Tuesday, July 8 Kenny Loggins at Belly Up Tavern.

Wednesday, July 9 Silver Snakes at Soda Bar. Wye Oak at Belly Up Tavern. S. Carey at The Casbah.

Thursday, July 10 The Fray at The Open Air Theatre. Braid

CONTINUED ON PAGE 32

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 31

Paisley at Sleep Train Amphitheatre.

Quiet Riot at House of Blues. Jefferson Starship at Belly Up Tavern.

Friday, July 11 Cloud Nothings at Soda Bar. Cher at Valley View Casino Center. Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band at Humphreys.

The Reverend Horton Heat at Belly Up Tavern.

98 Bottles, 2400 Kettner Blvd. Ste. 110, Little Italy. 98bottlessd.com. Wed: Rob Deez and Kenny Eng. Thu: Tiffy Jane and The Lyrical Groove. Fri: Fred Benedetti.

Sat: Robert Dove Quartet. Sun: The Matt Smith Neu Jazz Trio.

American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave, Downtown. americancomedyco. com. Wed: Rick Glassman. Thu-Sat: Jamie Kennedy. Sun: Michael Quu. Tue: Open mic.

Bang Bang, 526 Market St, Downtown. facebook.com/BangBangSanDiego. Fri: Manik. Sat: Curses.

Bar Pink, 3829 30th St, North Park. barpink.com. Wed: ‘H.A.M.’ w/ DJ L. Thu: DJ Old Man Johnson. Fri: ‘Bonkers’. Sat: Javier Escovedo, The New Kinetics. Sun: Rat Sabbath, DJ Ratty.

La Roux Saturday, July 12 Behexen at Til-Two Club. La Roux at House of Blues.

Sunday, July 13 ‘For the Fucking Kids Fest’ w/ Danny Tanner, Retox, The Frights at The Che Café.

rCLUBSr

710 Beach Club, 710 Garnet Ave, Pacific Beach. 710bc.com. Wed: Open mic, open jam. Thu: Live band karaoke. Fri: Casey Turner (5 p.m.); Sandollar, Valley Green, Just Chill (9 p.m.). Sat: Roots Covenant, Revival, Rough and Steady. Sun: Karaoke. Mon: Battle of the bands.

32 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

Bassmnt, 919 Fourth Ave, Downtown. bassmntsd.com. Thu: Fedde Le Grand.

Fri: Tyga. Sat: Rock Star Beer Festival.

Sat: Henry Fong.

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

Wed: Trent Hancock. Thu: Aquile. Fri: Dave Gleason Trio. Sat: Rhythm Authority. Sun: Sando.

Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave, Solana Beach. bellyup.com. Wed: Inspired and the Sleep, Second Cousins, Taken By Canadians. Thu: Sly and Robbie and the The Taxi Gang, Bitty McLean, DJ Carlos Culture. Fri: Yuna, Moonrise Nation. Sat: Wayward Sons, Smooth Harbor Yacht Club. Sun: World Party, Gabriel Kelley.

Mon: Devo (sold out).

Bluefoot Bar & Lounge, 3404 30th St, North Park. bluefootsd.com. Thu: ‘Jerk Alert’ w/ Mike Face. Fri: ‘Final Fridayz’ w/ Julz, J Time, Akrite, Kev Mighty. Sun: ‘The Spinning Plates’ w/ Grassy Noll, Iggy.

Boar Cross’n, 390 Grand Ave, Carlsbad. boarcrossn.net. Thu: Eken is Dead. Fri: ‘Club Musae’. Sat: High Tide.

Bourbon Street, 4612 Park Blvd, University Heights. bourbonstreetsd.com. Wed: VJ K Swift. Thu: ‘Wet’. Fri: Tori Roze and Johnny Alexander. Sun: ‘Soiree’. Tue: Karaoke.

Brass Rail, 3796 Fifth Ave, Hillcrest. thebrassrailsd.com. Thu: ‘Muscle’. Fri: ‘Brown Sugar’. Sat: DJs XP, KA. Sun: ‘Noche Romantica’ w/ Daisy Salinas, DJ Sebastian La Madrid. Mon: DJs Junior the Disco Punk, XP. Cafe Sevilla, 353 Fifth Ave, Downtown. cafesevilla.com. Wed: Aro Di Santi. Thu & Sat: Malamana. Fri: DJ Rhubino. Sun: Oscar Aragon.

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

Wed: Comicazi Comedy Crew with Karen Rontowski. Fri-Sat: Matt Iseman.

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

Fri-Sat: Adam Ray. Croce’s Park West, 2760 Fifth Ave., #100, Bankers Hill. crocesparkwest.com.

Wed: Chaz Cabrera. Thu: Bill Shreeve Quartet. Fri: Sue Palmer. Sat: Gilbert Castellanos and The Park West Ensemble. Sun: Sene Africa (12 p.m.); Todo Mundo (6 p.m.).

Dirk’s Nightclub, 7662 Broadway, Lemon Grove. dirksniteclub.com. Fri: Nemesis. Sat: The Farmers.

Dizzy’s, 4275 Mission Bay Drive, Mission Bay. dizzyssandiego.com. Fri: Bi-National Mambo Orchestra.

Epicentre, 8450 Mira Mesa Blvd, Mira Mesa. epicentreconcerts.org. Fri: Arsonists Get All the Girls, Arkaik, Death of an

Era, Gift Giver, Visionary. Sat: Lil Debbie, Ground Up, J Morille, Y.D.E. THE LABEL, The Nerz, Stone Age Camp, Grime Grave$.

F6ix, 526 F St., Downtown, Downtown. f6ixsd.com. Sat: DJ Dynamiq. Sun: DJ Brett Bodley.

Fluxx, 500 Fourth Ave, Downtown. fluxxsd.com. Thu: ‘IDGAF’ w/ A-Trak. Fri: DJ Bamboozle. Sat: Sid Vicious.

Gallagher’s, 5040 Newport Ave, Ocean Beach. 619-222-5303. Wed: Whiskey Avengers, Bangers and Mashups. Thu: Twisted Relatives, DJ Reefah. Fri: Noize Makerz, Kahi Lofa, DJ Chelu. Sat: ‘Day and Night Dance Party’.

Hard Rock Hotel, 207 Fifth Ave, Downtown. hardrockhotelsd.com. Thu: Sydney Blu. Sun: ‘Intervention’ w/ Stafford Brothers, EC Twins.

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. Thu: Mad Traffic, Belmont Lights, Restoration One, Dante’s Boneyard, Midnight Satellites, Broken Stems.

Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. kavalounge.com. Wed: Openoptics. Thu: ‘Kizomba’. Fri: Toombao.

Kensington Club, 4079 Adams Ave, Kensington. 619-284-2848. Sat: Grand Tarantula, Teenage Exorcists, Trips.

Mc P’s Irish Pub, 1107 Orange Ave, Coronado. mcpspub.com. Wed: Jackson and Jesus. Thu: Tone Cookin’. Fri-Sat: Ron’s Garage. Sun: Glen Smith.

Numbers, 3811 Park Blvd, Hillcrest. numberssd.com. Sat: ‘Club Sabbat’.

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

Patricks Gaslamp, 428 F St, Downtown. patricksii.com. Wed: The Rayford Brothers. Thu: The Bill Magee Blues Band.

Fri: Mystique Element of Soul. Sat: Len Rainey’s Midnight Players. Sun: Bill Magee Blues Band. Mon: The Groove Squad.

Tue: Walter’s Chicken Jam. Porter’s Pub, 9500 Gilman Dr., UCSD campus, La Jolla. porterspub.net. Fri: ‘Laughs and Drafts’. Sat: Aca-Fest.

Rich’s, 1051 University Ave, Hillcrest. richssandiego.com. Wed: DJ Kiki. Thu: DJ Moody Rudy. Fri: DJs Taj, Will Z. Sat: DJs John Joseph, Nikno. Sun: ‘Stripper Circus’.

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

Wed: Westside Inflection. Thu: Johnny Deadly Trio. Fri: Three Chord Justice.

Sat: Ugly Boogie.

Seven Grand, 3054 University Ave, North Park. sevengrandbars.com/sd.

Thu: Comedy night. Fri: Soul Organization. Sat: Jimmy Ruelas.

Shakedown Bar, 3048 Midway Drive, Point Loma. theshakedownsd.com. Wed: The Shifty Eyed Dogs, The Young Gents, Grizzly Business. Thu: Shadow of the GIANT, Western Settings, Caskitt. Fri: Fanny.

Sat: The Sleepwalkers, The Firecrackers!, Hard Luck Rebels. Sun: LOSE CONTROL w/ The Rare, Vatican Assassins, The Yucks, Locjaw, Blank Expressions.

Side Bar, 536 Market St, Downtown. sidebarsd.com. Wed: ‘Clash of the Nightlife Titans’. Thu: ‘Divino Thursday’. Fri: Joey Jimenez. Sat: Chris Cutz. Sun: Kyle

Flesch.

Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. sodabarmusic.com. Wed: Mystic Braves, Corners, Burning Palms, Electric Magpie. Thu: Chris Pureka, Jesse Thomas, Saba, Cassie B. Fri: Streets of Laredo, Colony House, John Meeks, The Gift Machine. Sat: The March Violets, Black Tango, Prayers. Sun: Feelgood, Sleepwalker, Everybody Knows, Rival Tides. Mon: King Khan and the Shrines, Red Mass. Tue: Black Pussy, Mothership, Red Wizard.

SOMA, 3350 Sports Arena Blvd, Midway. somasandiego.com. Fri: Felonies, Nuclear Sunday, Seconds Ago, City Of Crooks, Of Hope and Heresy, Made Of Dishonor.

Stage Bar & Grill, 762 Fifth Ave, Downtown. stagesaloon.com. Thu: Superbad.

Fri: Disco Pimps. Sat: Hott Mess, DJ Miss Dust.

Sycamore Den, 3391 Adams Ave., San Diego, Normal Heights. sycamoreden. com. Thu: The Cutaways, Lucky Keith.

Sun: Rey and Davies, The Lovebirds.

The Bancroft, 9143 Campo Rd, Spring Valley. 619-469-2337. Wed: Karaoke.

Thu: Habits, Greastrap, Town Troubles, Cabulon. Fri: Suburban Outlaw, The Tramplers. Sat: June Gloom 2014. Sat: ‘June Gloom’ w/ Dead Ghosts, Deep Sea Thunder Beast, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Monochromacy, Bhorelorde. Sun: What Cheer?

Brigade, Hot Nerds, Batwings. Mon: The Division Men, Hope Riot. Tue: Liam and the Ladies, Unsteady, Amalgamated Ska. The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. casbahmusic.com. Wed: The Thermals, Barbarian, Soft Lions. Thu: Patrick Park, Noel Jordan, Josh Damigo.

Fri: Transfer, Not in the Face, Shake Before Us, Hong Kong Fuzz. Sat: Mursic, Takahashi, Hammered, Old Man Wizard,

The Grim Imperials. Sun: EMA, Mas Ysa. Mon: Lee Fields and The Expressions, Sure Fire Soul Ensbemble, DJ Claire.

Tue: Deafheaven, Wreck.

Amigo, Brothers Weiss, Diamond Lakes.

Sat: Luke Johnson, Gregory Michael Thielmann, Evan Bethany. Mon: ‘Tin Can Country Club’.

The Che Cafe, UCSD campus, La Jolla. thechecafe.blogspot.com. Fri: Pity Sex, Dangers, Solids. Sat: Hudson Glover, Kill The Bats!, Just Friends, Statues of God, The Telephone Projects. Sun: Badger, Fermentor, Man Vs. Man. Mon: Ash Borer, Hell, Griever. Tue: Dreamcaste.

Tio Leo’s, 5302 Napa St, Bay Park. tioleos.com. Thu: The Fremonts. Fri: Wyatt Lowe and the Ottomatics. Sat: Full Strength Funk Band.

The Hideout, 3519 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. thehideoutsd.com. Wed: Pure X, Sisu, M. Geddes Gengras. Fri: Moving Units, Glass Spells, Barbarian (DJ set).

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

Thu: Soul Ablaze, Spaceshag, The Klay.

Fri: ‘SD Union’. Sat: Hell on Heels Burlesque. Sun: Karaoke.

The Office, 3936 30th St, North Park. officebarinc.com. Wed: ‘Dub Dynamite’ w/ DJs Rashi, Eddie Turbo. Thu: DJ Myson King. Fri: DJs Adam Salter, Kid Wonder.

Sat: ‘Strictly Business’ w/ DJs Kanye Asada, Gabe Vega. Sun: ‘Uptown Top Ranking’ w/ DJs Tribe of Kings. Mon: ‘The Beatles: Under Cover’ w/ members of Transfer, The Silent Comedy, Big Mountain, The Midnight Pine.

Til-Two Club, 4746 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. tiltwoclub.com. Thu: Nothingful, The Comeuppance, Judson Claiborne.

Fri: Chango Rey and His Lonely Heart Band, Malchicks, The Lewer, DJ Mongo Style. Sat: The Night Doctors, The Mochilero All Stars, DJs Erny Earthquake, King Dutty.

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

Wed: El Consumption, Susto, Soda Pants. Thu: Nuclear Tomorrow, Downward Spiral, I Trust You To Kill Me. Fri:

Tower Bar, 4757 University Ave, City Heights. thetowerbar.com. Wed: Warpvomit, Ascended Dead, Invocation War, Seraphic Disgust. Thu: DJs Heather Hardcore, Diana Death. Fri: Bankers Hill, Just In Case, Midnight Track. Sat: Wild Honey, Artifact, Red Wizard.

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

Wed: Tomcat Courtney (7 p.m.). Thu: 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.). Sun: Sounds Like Four (4 p.m.); Middle Earth (8 p.m.). Mon: Locked Out of Eden (7 p.m.).

Ux31, 3112 University Ave, North Park. u31bar.com. Wed: Fist Fight With Wolves, Setback City, Baby Coyote. Thu: Kid Wonder.

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

Wed: DJ Dominic. Thu: Chris Giglio. Fri: Billy the Kid. Sat: DJ Decon.

Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, South Park. whistlestopbar.com. Wed: ‘Kiss and Make Up’. Thu: VAMP: Coming to America. Fri: Octagrape. Sat: ‘Booty Bassment’.

Winstons, 1921 Bacon St, Ocean Beach. winstonsob.com. Wed: Open mic. Thu: ‘Subdvsn’. Fri: Aceyalone, Scarub. Sat: Ocean Boogie. Sun: Destructo Bunny.

Mon: Electric Waste Band.

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 33

Ink Well Xwords by Ben Tausig

Across 1. NCAA team that’s been to 33 Rose Bowls 4. California peak for which a soda is named 10. “My turn to be the bad guy in tag” 14. Genre of 65-Across 15. Imposed, as a tax 16. Obstacle in 65-Across that causes the titular enemy to 21-Across/61-Across 17. WWII zone: Abbr.

18. Not knowing right from wrong 19. Othello, ethnically 20. Deg. for a city developer 21. With 61-Across, slowly come to an end, and what this puzzle’s theme answers do 22. Words said with a shrug 24. Weapon for fencing 26. Strained euphemism for “black” 28. Tamil-speaking country 32. “Mad Men” ex 36. Most innuendo-laden 38. Mopey, in slang 39. Active sort 42. Silly toy from China?

45. Rainbow shape 46. Fence in 48. Track and field, e.g.

51. What Tito Puente was “King of” 54. Teegarden of “Friday Night Lights” 56. ___ colada 58. Combs, once 61. See 21-Across 65. Noted arcade classic, and this puzzle’s theme 66. Popular post-arcade version of 65-Across 67. Pulled-out drawers?

69. Nectarine center 70. Web periodical, I guess 71. Consoles on which to play 65-Across

Last week’s answers

34 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

72. Palindromic Dutch city near Arnhem 73. Old New York Times crossword editor Will 74. Going for the most on eBay, say 75. Rapper who feuded with Jay-Z for a time

Down 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Bill Withers song about a manipulative partner Screws, in the shtetl Rocker Alice in “Wayne’s World” Reuben’s side, perhaps Sphere opening?

Mary Kay competitor “Songs in the Key of Life” single dedicated to Ellington 8. Leaves with biscuits, say?

9. Riff on stage 10. Like fewer and fewer children, as from diseases like whooping cough (grrrr...)

11. Subatomic particle 12. “Time ___ My Side” 13. Via, once 23. Bit of lube 25. Cork’s spot 27. Git down in the ring 29. Language spoken across the border from southern China 30. Bad marks for students?

31. Nothing, in Naples 33. Occasion for a surprise attack in ‘nam 34. First site to report on the leaked Donald Sterling tapes 35. Fan of good crosswords, presumably :) 37. Yorke with a falsetto 39. WC 40. Madness?

41. 1980s TV hookup 43. “This ___ joke, right?”

44. Weed cousin 47. Moolah 49. Malefactor 50. Vicious who overdosed in New York 52. Cheap writing implement 53. Five Nations tribe 55. Black Flag’s second album 57. Puts in the pot 58. “That was a close one!”

59. Bean 60. “David Bowie Asks ___ If They Should Just Do Lasagna Again”: The Onion 62. Mythical monster 63. Consoles on which to play newer versions of 65-Across 64. Cocks usually stay away from it 68. Guess about an Airbus: Abbr.

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 35

36 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 37

38 · San Diego CityBeat · June 25, 2014

June 25, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 39