San Diego CityBeat • Sept 2, 2015

2 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

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September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 3

Up Front | From the editor

Reform the Ethics Commission

T

he call for reform in the way comThere have been three Ethics Commission board chairs (Gil Cabrera and William Howatt, and current missioners are placed on the San Diego Ethics Commission board is growing stronoutgoing chair John O’Neill) who were nominated for second terms but not selected to return. Ostenger. If supporters of depoliticizing the prosibly, they were booted for being perceived as too cess succeed, this would be the rare and welcome aggressive in levying fines, or for political paybacks. instance where a problem area is cauterized before That’s the kind of retaliatory action that could be the hemorrhaging becomes critical.

For now, though, three new commissioners and avoided if impartial board selectors were in place. one re-appointee have been tapped by Mayor Kevin In the Ethics Commission’s 14 years of exisFaulconer, and await September confirmation by tence, there haven’t been any reported instances the city council. of political party blocks working together on the In early August, former San Diego City Counseven-member board to vote for or against levying cilmember Donna Frye told CityBeat: “Get rid of a fine. The board can include no more than three the mayor and the city council participating in the members of any political party, and must have at appointment of people who are going to provide least one “decline to state” member. enforcement actions on you.”

It takes four votes to pass non-enforcement reThat makes infinite sense—which is what prolated decisions (like approving meeting minutes, ponents of good government, sigh, or, perhaps, ordering pizza for aftercityoflamesa.com might say is the reason it doesn’t exist hours sessions). in political practice.

But it takes five votes to impose a Frye has long been a backer of fine. That means three votes (out of changing Ethics Commission board seven) can block a fine. It also means appointments so that a panel of retired impartiality is paramount. judges makes the picks. The League of The hoopla surrounding this year’s Women Voters favors this idea. Last nominations focused on two types of year, according to an editorial in The politics: office, and the old-fashioned San Diego Union-Tribune, City Attorpolitical party kind. It was widely believed the nomination of Bob Ottilie— ney Jan Goldsmith included this notion an oratorically gifted lawyer who in an annual list of possible changes in the City Charter. became disdainful of perceived overBill Baber When the city’s Charter Review reaching by the commission—was Committee met in May 2014, none of the city counan office politics nomination. (After Ethics Comcilmembers in the group—Sherri Lightner, Chris mission Executive Director Stacey Fulhorst stated Cate, Marti Emerald or Mark Kersey—made a mopublicly that she and other staff and commissioners tion to consider the plan, according to the U-T. would quit if Ottilie was picked, the risk-averse deIn August, Kersey’s office sent CityBeat this cision by Mayor Faulconer was to pass on him. It email: “Many of the recent nominations for this also appears that stating an objection to Ottilie joincommission have been made in a bipartisan noning the board helped push O’Neill out the door. A mayoral spokesperson, though, says “all nominees political manner, including the nominations made by my office. (I joined Council President Lightner were thoroughly vetted” and “public statements by to nominate a Republican and Councilmember [Davarious individuals had no bearing on his decisionvid] Alvarez to nominate a Democrat.) I favor almaking process.”) lowing the current appointment process to play out The negative perception of two other nominees— Democrat Xavier Martinez and Republican Bill Babbefore we begin looking at ways to change it.”

Alvarez’s office sent word that he is “willing to er—is that they are too entrenched by party politics. consider reforms.” Reform action must begin in the Martinez didn’t get picked; Baber is tentatively in. city council.

Ethics Commission board members need to look, and be, politically untouched. The city counWell, a public proposal for reform is currently being drafted. Several former Ethics Commission cil needs to give up control of the appointment prochairs are working on an op-ed piece that will call cess, stat.

—Ron Donoho for changing to a process of retired judges nominating commissioners—similar to the way redistricting Write to rond@sdcitybeat.com commissions are formed.

This issue of CityBeat has no desire to swim with hammerheads.

Volume 14 • Issue 4 Editor Ron Donoho Music Editor Jeff Terich Arts Editor Seth Combs Staff Writer Joshua Emerson Smith Web Editor Ryan Bradford Art director Carolyn Ramos Columnists Aaryn Belfer, Edwin Decker, John R. Lamb, Alex Zaragoza

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

Senior account executive Jason Noble Account Executives Beau Odom, Kimberly Wallace, Isaac Aycox Marketing Intern Drake Rinks Accounting Kacie Cobian, Sharon Huie, Linda Lam Human Resources Andrea Baker

Advertising inquiries Interested in advertising?

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

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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 2015.

4 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

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Up Front | Letters

REUNITED I’m writing this letter to say thank you for Alex Zaragoza’s August 26 article “The Fight to Reunite.” I was overwhelmed to read about the families who can’t be together because of our poor border system that’s nothing more than a segregation system; a giant monster that hurts us more than helps us. My mother was deported back in 2010 and I currently reside in Tijuana (proudly) to be near her. I know most families don’t have that luxury. I am also offering my help to the Deported Veterans Support House in any way possible. The fact that this can happen to anyone is a disgrace to humanity.

I love being an American. But, to be bold, if being an American means ripping families apart than you can keep your Old Glory. I’ll keep my family, thank you.

Richie Estrada,

Tijuana

IT’S A GAS, GAS, GAS Your first sentence in [“Caring about bike sharing,” Aug. 19] reminded me of an idea I’ve had for several years now. I live in Tijuana and cross into the U.S. three or four times a week. Tens of thousands of people cross the border each day with maybe half of them sitting in their cars (sometimes for hours) burning gas and polluting our air as they inch toward the checkpoint so they can then cross into the U.S. and then drive to wherever they’re going. It just seems to

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me that some kind of strategy could be put in place so that the cars could be grouped and then their movement staggered so that for 10, 15, 20 minutes at a time, everyone could turn their car’s engines off until a signal is given that it’s time to move forward (then again stop and turn off your engine).

It wouldn’t extend their wait one minute and besides saving gas it would make the whole experience a little less stressful.

Does this sound like a good idea and, if it does, any idea of who (or what group) I should share it with so maybe it could actually be considered?

Jesse Egan,

Tijuana

CLASSY INTERRUPTER

I was so moved by the article that appeared in the July 22 edition of CityBeat: “A White Person’s Guide to Activism.” Thank you for your moral courage, innovative thinking and insight. I’m African-American. I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. Went to school during integration and during grade school, was bussed to a suburb close to Ferguson.

Talk about racial strife! I teach a Diversity Management course as part of Continuing Education at Southwestern College. I was wondering if, in the future, you’d consider serving as either my guest lecturer, or making an appearance as a guest speaker during the class? Some amazing things hapNO PUBLIC MONEY pen in this class. Again, thank you for your Suggesting that the owner(s) of the Char- “light.”

Michael Van Keith, gers should seek financial assistance from

College Area the public is highly questionable [“Football = crack,” Aug. 12]. Have we overlooked that fact that, first and foremost, an organization like the San Diego Chargers is a busisend us your thoughts ness. Financial assistance for all of the busiRead a story in San Diego CityBeat ness community, either start-up and/or for that inspired you to add your two existing businesses, should be uniformly cents? We welcome letters to the applied. So it appears that with a proposal editor that respond to, or follow up to have the public take the risks, normally on, news stories, columns or opinion associated with the entrepreneurs, the burpieces that have run in these pages. den of start-up is shifted to the public. Well, Send an email to editor Ron Donoho maybe that would be OK if the all business at rond@sdcitybeat.com. For your would be able to have public money. letters to be considered, you must in Bob Lewis, clude your first and last name, and the

Mira Mesa part of town where you reside.

On the

Cover After hours at Slab City, I find myself dazed by the sun, watching my selfappointed tour guide, Doc (left), and 18-year-old Zack roll cigarettes at the Internet Café, a sprawling wooden structure featuring a computer and benches. Half a dozen other slabbers lounge about watching movies, smoking and drinking water in the 115-degree summer heat. People express mild enthusiasm or indifference at my Nikon D200 as it clicks portraits of the city’s most dug-in inhabitants. After about 30 minutes, I notice a beefy looking dog lying motionless under the bench where Zack is sitting—one of countless details camouflaged in ubiquity.

—Joshua Emerson Smith

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 5

Up Front | News

should slab city grow up?

State poised to sell famous squatter village to inhabitants by joshua emerson smith Builder Bill at the Range getting ready to set up Slab City’s weekly music event

W

alking into the Slab City Christian Center for the second time in less than a week, I find its caretaker, Smiley, in roughly the same circumstances, laughing boisterously through his salt-and-pepper beard and mooching beers from tourists. Three young Navy guys stationed in Coronado smoke cigarettes and soak it all in. I hover for a minute, listening to Smiley ramble about the old days when he could still drink jungle juice and outrun the law past the county line.

It’s a hot Saturday in late August in the Imperial Desert, and outside on the Center’s front porch, a group of sunbaked Slabbers chat cheerfully. An Angeleno with a video camera kicks back in a plastic chair waiting for weirdness to ensue. I drink beer and chat with an intelligent, middleaged transient named Brian, who furtively smokes a bowl and reminisces about the ’80s when The Slabs hosted a massive open-air market.

“It was one commercial zone, man,” he said. “People were earning a living out here. There was Linda. She used to run the CB radio net. She’s still somewhere in the area. But all those people from back then are mostly gone.”

A squatter village outside the small, crumbling town of Niland, Slab City emerged in the ’60s after a dismantled World War II-era military base left only concrete slabs. The California State Lands Commission became the area’s absentee landlord, turning a blind eye to squatters and flocks of “snowbirds” looking to park

their motorhomes for free during the winter months.

Save for the occasional sheriff’s deputy rolling through in an air-conditioned SUV, The Slabs have, for decades, remained largely unaffected by government intervention, a situation that has evolved into a cleverly constructed, speed-fueled village made almost entirely of recycled materials.

Complete with a library, Internet café, bedand-breakfast and music venue, the city, like a neighborhood on the verge of gentrification, has also attracted an encampment of seasonal artists from Los Angeles who offer their own fascinating, tweaker-style sculpture garden.

However, the anarchic atmosphere that made The Slabs a twisted paradise and fashionable Southern California tourist destination could be about to change forever.

In a move that would likely invite increased government scrutiny, a nonprofit, known as the Slab City Community Group Inc., has applied to buy the land from the state for a nominal amount. Despite anger and resistance from many residents, the group maintains the move is necessary to protect the area from outside development and could improve conditions for many impoverished Slabbers.

“Yes, [the county] is going to try to make us do better sewage control, and we have in our minds plans for how to deal with that,” says William “Builder Bill” Ammon, “but whatever we have do to is better than losing our homes.”

Around dusk, I find Builder Bill setting up his weekly music concert at the Range,

6 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

an artfully decorated performance venue bookended on either side by blue and white painted buses whose rear doors open flush with the stage floor. The sun goes down and strings of lights come on above an audience lounging in rows of mismatched couches and chairs. I watch Builder Bill belt out a verse of “House of the Rising Sun” while playing guitar.

A senior figure at what’s often referred to as “the last free place on earth,” the 66year-old former construction worker has lived at The Slabs for more than 15 years.

Over the last two years, he’s teamed up with a group of Slabbers and snowbirds who say they fear the state will sell their home, possibly to a renewable-energy developer that would clear the area for solar panels or a geothermal plant. *** Everyone I talked to outside of Slab City, including employees at the State Lands Commission, expressed skepticism about the desirability of the land, which has been unsellable for the last 50 years. The roughly 640-acre plot is part of a remaining 462,000 acres of property known as the California School Trust Lands. Part of a federal program dating back to 1850 that gifted 5.5 million acres to the state for educational purposes, much of the property has been sold off or leased over the last century with proceeds currently going to the state teachers’ pension fund.

“Who would want to buy this land?” I ask while Builder Bill sets up for the concert. “It’s surrounded by other land that

someone could buy where they wouldn’t have to eject a whole village of people.”

Dressed in jeans and a Speedy Gonzales t-shirt, Builder Bill looks at me earnestly through wire-rim glasses and long white hair. “Here’s the thing, the day we know the answer to that question, it’s too late.”

If the Slab City Community Group Inc. bought the land, he acknowledges, the nonprofit would have to start paying property tax, and the county might start enforcing building codes, as well as sewer and garbage regulations.

“Within that community, some of them want to bring those services in and others don’t,” says Ryan Kelley, Imperial County Supervisor for District 4, which includes Slab City, “and if they travel this path, they better know what the answer is before they make a decision that’s going to have those ramifications.”

Over recent months, the community group rented a dumpster and hauled out tons of garbage. However, after the snowbirds left for the summer, the remaining 200 or so year-round Slabbers couldn’t muster the $200 monthly fee. When I mentioned that the area seemed rather tidy, Builder Bill laughed that I just hadn’t looked in the corners.

However, nobody will be forced to leave Slab City because they can’t afford to help pay for basic services, Builder Bill says.

“I’ve been saying for decades that every county needs a Slab City,” he says. “All the homeless people who lose their vans that they’re living in because there’s nowhere

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photos by joshua emerson smith

East Jesus, a private artist camp and public sculpture garden located in Slab City to park the damn thing, right? It saves the government all of that hassle.”

Donations and grants collected by the nonprofit will pay for sanitation and other services, says Lynne Bright, a snowbird and core member of the community group. The 59-year-old retired Canadian bureaucrat and lawyer met her recently deceased husband, Mike Bright, at The Slabs in 2009. Married into the community, Bright has faced vilification for her role in the nonprofit.

“Over time, people will see that this is the right thing to do,” she says over a cell phone, explaining that it’s too hot to be at The Slabs, “and over time, this will be the defining moment when Slab City grew up and became an adult, kicking and screaming maybe.” *** Monday at the Christian Center, about five days earlier, Smiley and Dave, a 33year-old recent arrival from Orlando, share the smallest joint I’ve ever seen with two German tourists stopping through on their way to San Diego. It doesn’t take much prodding to get them fired up about the community group.

“There’s this lady named Lynn Bright,” Dave says. “She’s part of this committee or something. I don’t know all the extremities, but what they really want to do is make it a rent-based land. It’s not fair.”

After sharing similar concerns, Smiley adds on an unrelated note that The Slabs have recently started “changing for the better. People are getting a little bit of respect and thinking about their neighbor. That kind of vibration just kind of precipitates like a wave in an ocean.”

A guy named Doc in a long scraggly beard holding an umbrella and a purse rolls up on a beach cruiser wearing nothing but a dress, cowboy hat and a pair of sandals.

Smiley pours some water into Doc’s hat, which Doc puts on, letting the liquid rush over him.

Articulate and sharp witted, Doc tells me he moved to the slabs about four years ago.

Like so many at Slab City, he fears both losing the land to developers, as well as potential secret dealings by the community group.

“The magic of this place is membership without rulership, and what they would do would bring rulership,” said the 52-year-

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old former software engineer. “The first thing I ever saw them discuss, and I saw posted on their little office wall, was stuff about eviction.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Doc takes me on a tour of Slab City. People are poor but not desperate and rather inviting, eager to show me their homes and chat about the future and history of The Slabs. By the end of the day, the only thing I fear is getting caught in a tweaker rant of never-ending segues.

“We are what I consider to be the state’s most cost-effective institution; we’re all here because we’re not all there,” Doc says smiling and trailing off.

The only prickliness I encounter is at East Jesus, the camp of Los Angeles artists, who have also put in an application to buy the plot of land they inhabit. For a month, I’ve been trying in vain to get them to talk to me.

“We got an email from you,” says a guy I later identify as Frank. Talking to me from behind a gate that separates their sculpture garden from a hip-looking camp marked as private, he asks rhetorically, “Why didn’t we answer it? Because it’s 116 degrees in the shade, man. We don’t really do interviews in the summertime.”

To be fair, Frank probably gets an annoying amount of media requests. Every year, The Slabs attract an increasing horde of tourists, reporters, artists and even Hollywood moviemakers. The area’s popularity exploded after Sean Penn’s 2007 movie Into the Wild featured a short but electric cameo by Leonard Knight, the now-deceased creator of Salvation Mountain, a multi-colored adobe art installation that greets folks on their way into The Slabs. *** Within an hour of pulling up to Salvation Mountain on Saturday, I run into two artists from L.A. painting and stenciling an old wooden boat, as well as a motherdaughter duo from San Diego touring the place as inspiration for the 17-year-old’s multimedia high school class.

In 2011, as Knight’s health waned, supporters and friends established Salvation Mountain Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to maintaining the mountain. After the cre-

ator of the recognized piece of folk art was hospitalized around 2012, the state offered to sell the land to the nonprofit for next to nothing.

“I told [the state], ‘We would love to own the land the mountain sits on,’” nonprofit board president Dan Westfall says over a cell phone near his home in San Diego. “He wanted me to take the whole 640 acres because he wanted it off his desk. I said, ‘No way.’”

Having met Knight in 2008, the 65-yearold holistic health practitioner became enamored with what he calls “the purest ministry” he’d ever seen. Spending weeks at a time out at the mountain, Westfall got to know many Slabbers, including Builder Bill and Bright, who are also involved with the nonprofit.

Similar to the cleanup issues at Slab City, there are concerns about toxicity from paint at Salvation Mountain. However, unlike the community group, Salvation Mountain Inc. has brought in money from tourist donations, as well as a $32,000 grant from the Annenberg Foundation to pay for supplies and equipment.

That’s a model The Slabs could replicate, says Builder Bill. “We can do that, and we actually have people that know how to do that.”

“Is there a worry that that’s going to ruin

the magic of the free-for-all atmosphere of the last free place on earth?” I ask.

“I’m sure that’s what all the hoopla’s really about,” he says. “Whatever the lies they made up to make their political arguments, that’s what’s really on their mind, and of course, we’re here living that life, too. We don’t want to mess that up.”

The state is now conducting a survey of the land in preparation to sell separate parcels to the three nonprofit groups. Within 18 months, the terms of the deal could be finalized and before the land commission board for final approval.

Back on the porch of the Christian Center on Saturday afternoon, I speculate with Brian about the future of Slab City. He traces all controversy back to the popularity of Salvation Mountain, which he argues has attracted too much attention for The Slabs’ own good.

“Everything was copacetic until the money started happening, until Leonard died, and then other people took over. Now there’s money involved. It’s just fucked it all up. What’s the old saying, ‘Drag a $100 bill through a trailer park, you’re going to have trouble.’”

Write to joshua@sdcitybeat.com or follow him on Twitter at @jemersmith

a brief history of

salvation mountain Mid-1980s: In his early 50s, Leonard Knight starts building and painting an installation on a mountain outside of Niland, CA as a testament to Jesus Christ and the Christian religion.

1994: The state expresses concerns that paint from the mountain may be a health hazard. Threatening to remove the installation, Imperial County officials back off after the idea proves significantly unpopular.

2008: While vacationing in the desert, San Diegan Dan Westfall meets Knight and starts an enduring relationship, which includes extended stays at the mountain and an effort to care for the aging folk icon.

2011: Westfall and others start Salvation Mountain Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to maintaining Knight’s legacy.

2013: Los Angeles-based Annenberg Foundation granted the nonprofit 1998: After initial setbacks, the mountain $32,000 for materials and equipment to structure grows by as much as 50 feet as maintain the site.

Knight transitions from using sand and January 2014: Salvation Mountain Inc. cement to adobe clay mixed with straw. applies with the State Lands Commission 2000: The Folk Art Society of America designates Salvation Mountain a “folk site worthy of preservation and protection.”

to buy the land the mountain sits on.

February 2014: Knight dies at the age of 82 at the Eldorado Care Center in El Cajon, where, at the urging of friends, he 2007: The movie by Sean Penn Into the spent the last two years of his life due to Wild briefly features Knight giving a tour health concerns. of the mountain. Subsequently, popularity of the mountain soars to more than 1,000 people a week in the fall and winter months.

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 7

john r. lamb

Up Front | opinion

John R. Lamb

Spin

Cycle Mystery Senate theater If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

—H.L. Mencken

N

ow playing at the Mystery Café dinner theater in Bankers Hill’s iconic Imperial House is a Roaring ’20s whodunit titled Where There’s a Will, There’s A Wake! The theater website proclaims: “Unfortunately, someone has just whacked the head of the family…Eddie ‘Longlaces’ Shoeleone! And you are personally invited to his wake!”

But last week, a political whodunit took center stage in the dark-draped theater space when a meeting of the San Diego County Young Democrats turned raucous over its agenda of friendly endorsements for the coming 2016 election cycle.

Originally scheduled for a

Young Democrats friendly endorsement but then later pushed from the agenda to a later date, incumbent state Sen. Marty Block, whose district includes most of San Diego, said he flew down from Sacramento just for the meeting to make his case for support.

“I had my acceptance speech here for the friendly endorsement,” Block half-joked to the packed room of young political activists. “I am the incumbent, but apparently not friendly enough.”

Block then launched into an impassioned speech about focusing on upcoming battles with Republicans rather than “splitting the party because somebody wants to challenge…a sitting Democrat.”

A couple months ago, Block had a stock line when asked about rumors that termed-out state Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins was considering a challenge to his re-election plans. “She’d make a great state senator…in 2020!”

8 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

he would say with his trademark toothy grin.

Well, the line is gone and so is the humor. Team Marty is convinced the Democratic primary fight between two local political heavyweights is on, and he’s trying to lock up endorsements as quickly as he can while Atkins operatives do their best to slow down that process so Atkins can finish what they describe as her “Herculean” work as speaker by January.

“It does nobody any good to have a Democrat challenge an incumbent Democrat,” Block told the crowd, claiming that 22 of 25 members of the state Senate’s Democratic Caucus that day had endorsed him “no matter who runs against me, Democrat or Republican. And more than that, they decided it was really important for them and activists like you to talk to any Democrat you might hear of who wants to take on a good Democratic incumbent.”

Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins and state Sen. Marty Block He added: “We’ve seen tonight how it splits people, splits the activists.”

Political consultant Laura Fink, who works part-time as a special assistant for Atkins, attended the meeting but did not specifically address the rumors that Atkins will challenge Block.

“I do understand the challenges that all of these discussions face, but the message that I bring from Toni Atkins tonight is that she has a laser-like focus on a particularly difficult legislative session. And the reason that it’s difficult is that it’s extraordinarily ambitious,” Fink told the activists, noting efforts to tackle a $6 billion annual transportation backlog, raise MediCal reimbursements and pass historic environmental legislation.

Atkins echoed that sentiment when Spin Cycle approached her Saturday before she hosted an employee wage-theft forum in Bankers Hill. When asked about a run against Block, she said, “You know, I’m not ready to talk about this. I’ve got two weeks of session left, and I’m getting stuff from every direction. At some point, I would love to sit down with you and talk about it—I’m not afraid to talk about it—but I want to focus on the next two weeks. We’ve just got a lot spinning.”

Mickey Kasparian, president of the influential San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, was also a panelist at the wage-theft forum. He seemed less concerned about an AtkinsBlock battle (“It will work out,” he said) than he was about Democratic Rep. Scott Peters receiving a friendly endorsement that same night.

Incensed by Peters’ June vote to give President Obama “fast track” trade authority, Kasparian said the search for a more labor-friendly Democratic challenger to Peters continues. “I think we’re getting close,” he said. “That endorsement of Scott really sent me over the edge. That really pissed me off.”

Kasparian said Atkins, mean-

while, has not reached out for an endorsement in a 39th Senate District challenge of Block. “I mean, it may come,” he said. “Maybe when the session’s over in the Assembly things may come a little clearer.”

Why the likely challenge? According to Atkins supporters, a primary bloodbath was avoided four years ago when Block told Atkins that he wanted to run for the Senate seat she had coveted for some time—her mentor, Christine Kehoe, held the seat previously— but would only hold the seat for one four-year term and then retire, opening the door for her run when she termed out in the Assembly in 2016.

“He changed his mind,” said a source with knowledge of the conversation.

With talk of leadership changes whirling about in Sacramento, it is indeed “a balancing act,” as Atkins spokesman John Casey told the Sacramento Bee last week for a story about a letter Atkins sent to fellow Democrats asking them to agree to an early January vote to choose a speaker replacement.

The best scenario, Atkins supporters say, would be for Block to stick to his earlier promise— his seeking early endorsements would suggest that’s not going to happen. Otherwise, as one operative put it, “we’re wasting upwards of $3 million” on an innerparty battle.

“Hopefully it works out,” Kasparian said, “but I mean, it could be a bloodbath. I’m hoping it’s not. We don’t need that shit, but it may.”

As far as politicians breaking a promise about their future plans, one Democratic insider put it this way: “I was not particularly surprised. He’s like 90 percent of people in elective office who have a flexible relationship with that concept.”

Spin Cycle appears every other week.

Write to johnl@sdcitybeat.com.

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Up Front | Opinion

Aaryn Belfer

Backwards & in

high heels

Namaste, little children

R

oughly 25 miles north of the city of San Diego, nestled between Solana Beach and Carlsbad, is a fairytale town by the sea. Life is quite idyllic there, with the higher-than-state-median household income and lack of riff raff; a non-gated gated community. Encinitas is a gem of a town that is home to one of the world’s best surfing spots, the Lux Art Institute and the Self-Realization Fellowship temple. Many of the citizens seem interested in peace, love, surf and knowing their inner selves.

But not all of them.

In any community, there are always outliers— who, in this case, might not really be outliers, seeing as how all of this groovy beach town’s elected officials are right-wingers.

So, a number of years ago, the Encinitas Union School District (EUSD) received a generous halfmillion dollar grant to bring yoga into its nine elementary schools as part of the EUSD’s physical education program. It was supposedly the first time in the nation this had been done. This triggered some pearl clutching among certain parents who were then—and remain today—steadfastly horrified and aghast that their children might be brainwashed into a religious practice.

Clearly, these parents have never been to a yoga class. One visit to any CorePower and they’d understand that American-style yoga is not at all about religion. It’s about ass. Tons and tons of firm, flexible yoga ass adorned in the least amount of Lululemon attire one can wear. And let’s be honest, nobody’s going to bring a lawsuit about the cult of consumer culture and overpriced workout clothes, certain byproducts of an extended grade school yoga education.

Seriously, though, yoga is beneficial to practitioners in myriad ways.

Despite a clear statement from the EUSD that this is not a religion-based yoga practice, a lawsuit was filed (duh: America) over the religious indoctrination of these little angels; these precious darlings of the affluent; children of the entitled, havers-ofeverything-good in their schools. Class sizes in EUSD are mostly in the low-to-mid 20s. One hundred percent of their teachers are deemed “highly qualified” in their School Accountability Report Cards; 100 percent are credentialed. The percentage of children scoring proficient or advanced on standardized testing (in all but one school) is above both district and state levels. (Interesting aside: Reported scores of the very few children of color lag far behind their white counterparts). Their facilities are all top notch; they’ve got current textbooks and instructional materials; they have band class with instruments. And they have yoga.

I swear I want to throw a glass of cold water in the faces of these objectionist parents and tell them to wake the damn hell up.

Many kids in San Diego Unified School District can’t begin to imagine such resources and opportunities available to children in the EUSD because they’re utterly unimaginable. While Encinitas tykes are stretching out and getting centered, kids at my daughter’s school—and others like it—make-do with an endless rotation of PE teachers who don’t know the kids’ names, and who make them run lap after lap around a track (if they’re lucky to have one; ours took more than a decade of fighting to obtain).

At other schools, children kick rationed balls across concrete where grass should be.

Yoga would be a gift to these kids, like it is to those in Encinitas. And a judge agreed: These antiYogis lost their lawsuit. And yet, the group persists.

Just last week, flyers—warning of the dangers of yoga and bearing the address of what has got to be the most boring, nonsensical website I’ve ever read—were placed on vehicles of parents attending a back-to-school night event. The fight for the hearts and minds of children is not over.

According to the snorefest website, approximately 250 parents have opted their children out of the demon yoga sessions. One parent testimonial states that she wants her children praying “to our God” and focusing “on Him during” yoga time. Supporters are urged to contribute “at least $10 on ministry,” and to watch a video of “Pastor Bob at Horizon Christian Fellowship Church” wearing an “I miss P.E.” t-shirt. (Note: Yoga is a portion of the PE offered at EUSD.) Dean Broyles, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in this case, cited more tangible concerns. “Children throughout Encinitas,” he said in a 2013 Huffington Post article, “as a result of this being promoted in the public schools, are spontaneously at birthday parties, at playgrounds, on weekdays and weekends, getting into the lotus position, putting their hands in the jnana mudra and meditating.”

Egads! Not the lotus position! Not at birthday parties or on weekends! NOT—hold me back, people—the jnana mudra!

Nevermind that this is the gesture of wisdom or, as it’s known in American yoga studios, touching your thumb and forefinger together. The last thing any parent wants is their child throwing signs. And boy howdy, do I get that! It is particularly frightening for the 46 black children in the district of nearly 6,000 who might “spontaneously” go lotus in a park one happy Saturday and be subsequently deemed menacing or mentally ill or mistaken as reaching for their waistband.

Maybe this is a crisis after all, this yoga-in-school business. In which case, we should be applauding the concerted and dedicated efforts of those for the safety and well-being of endangered Encinitas youth.

“

Clearly, these parents have never been to a yoga class.

“

#SDCityBeat

Backwards & In High Heels appears every other week.

Write to aaryn@sdcitybeat.com.

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 9

Up Front | Food

by michael a. gardiner

the world

fare Is it a chain?

N

ine out of 10 foodies will tell you chain restaurants suck. Not without good reason; but is it really so cut and dry? It’s not as if L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon is thought of as a chain, even though there are nine of them. You don’t have to dig deep to find foodie love for Tender Greens. And recently, Daniel Patterson (chef of San Francisco’s Michelin-starred Coi) and Roy Choi (of revolutionary Los Angeles food truck Kogi) announced they are launching a fast-food concept with the oddly ambitious goal of producing the world’s best 99-cent burger.

But for me the strongest proof of the blurring of that line was the fact I’d eaten at Little Itay’s Davanti Enoteca (1655 India St., there is also a location in the Del Mar Highlands shopping mall) multiple times without knowing it was a chain. But five Davantis pretty much make it a chain. And with a total of more than 30 restaurants under Francesca’s Restaurant Group ownership, it is clearly that.

Enotecas, in Italy were traditionally wine bars (the word translates literally as “wine library” that did not serve food. They have evolved, today, to include food for the table. And it is, perhaps, in that light that some of the best dishes at Davanti are under the “per la tavola” (for the table) section of its menu. Perhaps its single best dish is the mascarpone polenta with ragu-of-the-day. The waiter theatrically spreads the mascarpone-enriched polenta porridge across a wooden plank tableside before ladling the ragu in a wide swath across its middle. Whether that ragu is of slow-braised beef short ribs or a tomato-rich pork shoulder, the flavors are deep, soulful and comforting.

Another great per la tavola item is the focaccia

10 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

di Recco (a town outside Genoa in Liguria) with honeycomb. The thin abread is stuffed with a witch’s brew of different soft cow’s milk cheeses and comes with piece of honeycomb which pairs brilliantly with the cheese and bread. Both of these shared appetizer dishes combine a seeming simplicity with a remarkable depth of flavor.

Davanti’s pasta dishes are excellent too. Take the uovo in raviolo alla carbonara, described on the menu as giant ravioli with ricotta, spring pea, pancetta, egg and pecorino. In fact it is a delicious—if appetizer-sized—dish featuring a soft egg inside a single raviolo (not ravioli) with a Donald Trump-like combover coif of pea shoots.

It is a technical triumph that would be a feature of any high-end tasting menu. If the size disappoints the flavor does not.

Michael A. Gardiner

Paccheri con salsiccia e pomodori al forno Perhaps Davanti’s best pasta is the paccheri con salsiccia e pomodori al forno—giant rigatoni with sausage and oven-roasted tomatoes are a particular standout. A kiss of spice in the sausage plays off the sweetness and acid notes of the roast tomato’s sweetness and acid notes. Crucially, though it was those big rings of perfectly al dente pasta that remained the star of the dish.

Does it really matter whether Davanti is a chain? It’s one of the better—if not best—Italian restaurants in San Diego? Chain? Sure. But ultimately, what Davanti proves is that not all chain restaurants have to suck.

The World Fare appears weekly.

Write to michaelg@sdcitybeat.com.

#SDCityBeat

Up Front | Food

by jenny montgomery jenny montgomery

pot pie. Grandma Lucy’s Chicken Pie is dynamite, with a well-herbed crust that stays hot and flaky on top, but soft and chicken-juice-filled on the bottom. Peas, carrots, and enormous chunks of white meat make this individual pie a great lunchtime alternative to just another sandwich.

Although most pies at Betty’s come in a larger, traditional, shareable size, all of the pies are made in singlesized tins, perfect for one hungry maw.

The Get Along Lil’ Kielbasy Pie had everything I like: sausage, potatoes, spinach, Grandma Lucy’s Chicken Pie and a cheesy white sauce to bind it all. The flavors were good but something went awry in the ovens on mine because the inside was still pretty cold. Forgivable once, but a bit disappointing nonetheless.

Many of the pies are made with yeasted dough, which yields a much chewier and toothsome case for fillings than a traditional butter or shortening Because pie crust. You don’t get as much of the pie crust flakiness, but it stands up to the meaty, cheesy fillings that go with savory pies. rom “yapper” to “soup cooler,” there is no I loved the Eat Yer Greens, a beautiful puff of shortage of fun and colorful euphemisms a pie encased in that great yeasted dough. The for our mouths. “Pie hole” might be my filling is a decadent creamed spinach (and kale, favorite, though, if for no other reason than pie of course), gooey with Parmesan and mozzarella is the best. The good folks at Betty’s Pie Whole and studded with mushrooms. The outer crust (155 Quail Gardens Dr.) in Encinitas know pie is gets an adorable cowgirl worthy brand of “BPW” awesome; so awesome, in fact, that their entire burnt into the top—a sweet touch. menu is pie-centric.

And speaking of sweet, there are still plenty of Betty’s is the sister restaurant to the muchdessert pies to be had. Check out the Blackbird, lauded Elizabethan Desserts, which moved to a either with a lattice crust or a crumble top. Sumdifferent location down the road, letting Betty’s mer is the time for this one, juicy with bluebertake over the former space. Now the charming, ries, raspberries and blackberries. The Opossum cowgirl-themed eatery can focus not only on the is another fun treat, rich with a cream cheese sweets that put them on the map, but savory pies chocolate mousse, whipped cream and chopped as well. pecans. Wash it all down with some peach sweet If you’ve never made the trip up the coast tea and you’re good to go. to Betty’s Pie Whole, it’s well worth it. The Pie I’ve heard mouths referred to as “cake holes.”

Whole is tucked into the Sunshine Gardens nursBut the era of the cupcake has come and gone. It’s ery complex, just a few trots down from the San time for pie.

Diego Botanic Garden, so you can nibble on pie and grab a few succulents while you’re at it.

North Fork appears every other week.

There’s no point in perusing a savory pie menu Write to jennym@sdcitybeat.com. if you aren’t going to tuck into a classic chicken

north

fork F

#SDCityBeat

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 11

Up Front | Drink

the

by andrew dyer

beerdist Still local after all these beers

T

But the acquisition of established craft brewhe craft beer industry is in a state of rapid eries is something that can cause consumers expansion and consolidation. As the bubto reach for their pitchforks. Shortly after Inble continues to inflate and cover larger Bev/AB’s acquisition of Seattle stalwarts Elyslices of the market, Big Money sees an opporsian Brewing Company, its head brewer and tunity to invest or take over. The acquisition co-founder resigned. Recently, the label made of craft brands by multinationals has become its local debut, and at a noticeably lower price common. While these deals help make brewery point than comparable San owners wealthy, they almost Diego brands. never result in further inno“As you’ve noticed, we vation or higher quality. A rustart to see what was once mored buyout of local brewer craft brands showing up on Saint Archer by MillerCoors shelves in more locations, threatened to infect San Ditaking advantage of the disego with this noxious trend. tribution channels of those I reached out to San Dilarger macro companies, and ego Brewers Guild president being placed side by side Kevin Hopkins to find out if [with actual craft beer],” there is pressure on other loHopkins says. “Your average cal breweries to sell. consumer may or may not “I don’t feel there’s any recognize who owns any parpressure whatsoever to do it,” ticular entity, so they’re going Hopkins says. to choose based on their perIn July, Firestone Walkception, and that does cause a er announced a partnership little confusion.” with Belgian brewer Duvel.

As these once-regional The Paso Robles craft piobrands expand into more marneers characterized the deal as necessary to grow their Valuable real estate kets, they demand more space on shelves, and retailers may brand. Their beer can now be be tempted to carry more of these labels at the exbrewed at any of Duvel’s facilities and distribpense of smaller, local operations. uted to more far-flung markets.

Given today’s environment with everyone San Diego brewers have not had to look as far from multinational brewing conglomerates to to fund their growth. Stone, Green Flash, and Wall Street scratching to get into the market, it is Modern Times are just a few of the locals curprobably only a matter of time before one or more rently growing. locals end up either selling outright, like Elysian, “The breweries in San Diego that would like or taking on a partner, like Firestone Walker. Valuto expand are doing so, and doing so at a rapid ations are high, and a quick windfall could be too clip,” Hopkins says. “[But] what we are seeing tempting to resist. It will be interesting to watch is large non-craft brands acquiring craft-centric the fireworks when this inevitably happens in a brands as a foray into the industry.” community as passionate about craft beer as San Craft-bashing Super Bowl ads aside, macDiego. Get your popcorn ready. ro-brewers crashing the party is nothing new.

They’ve launched their own faux-craft labels like InBev/Anheiser-Busch’s Shock Top and The Beerdist appears every other week.

MillerCoors’ Blue Moon.

Write to andrewd@sdcitybeat.com

12 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

#SDCityBeat

EVENTS

SHORTlist

ART

the

THREE YOU HAVE TO SEE

COORDINATED BY

KINSEE MORLAN

NORTH PARK

1BOX TOPS

Denialle Von Fitch has been selling her vintage-inspired clothing and accessories for more than three years, but like many in her trade, she’s relegated to selling her wares on the Internet. That’s not to imply that her business, The Oblong Box Shop (theoblongboxshop. com), isn’t doing well. In fact, business is booming. Still, it’s a nice feeling when she sells one of her circle skirts or floral print rompers to a customer in person.

“I just noticed that San Diego didn’t have one of these retro-type shopping days where you can go and shop a lot of online vendors that don’t have storefronts,” Von Fitch says. “I just thought it’d be great to put together an event where you can see these clothes in person and actually meet the designers.

Thus, the Pin Up Pop-Up Shop was born.

Now in its second year, the one-day shopping event features more than a dozen designers and vendors specializing in vintage and retro-inspired clothing and products. Some of the local names include Fancy Fruits and Ribbons & Rockabilly, both of which will have custom-made accessories for sale, while Retro Riviera and Double Trouble Apparel specialize in pinup-style clothing for women of all shapes and sizes. Speaking of pin-

BALBOA PARK

2MANY MOVIE NIGHT

Go out to watch a feature movie at a theater and you’ll invest about two hours of screenwatching time in one story. Better yet, plan to attend the 3rd annual San Diego CityBeat 5 Minute Film Festival. With festival shorts each clocking in at five minutes or less, you’ll spend roughly the same amount of time soaking in 27 different plots. Doors open at the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Theater inside the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 3. A short reception will include a meet-and-greet with the local filmmakers, light hors d’oevres and a nohost bar, followed by the screenings of Life Without Mustard, The Che Café Take Away and dozens of other fun, factual and musically entertaining films. Tickets are $20 at the door. sdcitybeat.com

Nancy Freeman of Fancy Fruits ups, for $100 (the shopping event itself is free to attend) Vixen Photography will do a pinup photo shoot where customers can channel their inner Bettie Page.

“I wanted it to be more than a shopping event.

I wanted it to be a pinup-for-a-day event,” Von Fitch says.

Once customers have some fresh new threads, it only makes sense to show it off at a post-Pop-Up Shop cocktail party, where there will be drinks, professional burlesque dancers and music from “sci-fi/punk rock lounge act” The Jimmy Psycho Experiment. It all goes down at Queen Bee’s (3925 Ohio St.) in North Park on Saturday, Sept. 5. The Pop-Up Shop happens from 1 to 5:30 p.m. and the cocktail party ($20) begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets and info can be found at pinuppopupshop.com.

TIJUANA

3VEGGIE VENDORS

San Diegans are pretty lucky when it comes to the convenience and availability of great Mexican food—being right next to Mexico itself will do that. Still, a lot of the local Mexican cuisine tends to cater to carnivores, given the ubiquity of California burritos and fish tacos around town. Yet Love, Eco & Friends is bringing a celebration of the vegan lifestyle directly to Tijuana. The festival will feature vegan treats from California Cakes and Good Sorbo Yerba Mate, in addition to cruelty-free shoes and apparel, and other vegan-friendly wares. It’s a family-friendly event, so all ages are welcome. Love, Eco & Friends takes place from noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 6 at Passage Rodriguez (Av. Revolucion, between 3rd and 4th streets) in Tijuana.

COURTESY OF RYAN LAPINE

HLooming at The Front at Casa Familiar, 147 W. San Ysidro Blvd., San Ysidro.

New pieces from Iván Abreu, whose works are inspired by the procedural drawing generated by processing Internet Weather data. Opening from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3. facebook.com/ events/1024698794214819 HA Tiny Space of Silence at Low Gallery, 1878 Main St., Barrio Logan. A solo exhibition from Becky Guttin, who uses organic and industrial matter to make pieces that resemble oxidized metal.

Opening from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday, Sept.

4. lowgallerysd.com HDeliberate Distortions: Jazz in Today’s Art at The Studio Door, 3750 30th St., North Park. Over thirty-three artists showcase work in this exhibition representing jazz in contemporary art. Participating artists include Ally Benbrook, Steven Paulsen, Bonnie Roth and more.

Opening from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept.

4. thestudiodoor.com HJason Humphrey and Ashley Heber at Graffiti Beach, 2220 Fern St., South Park. The two local artists show off new works. Humphrey’s work is created with tiny dots of ink making up most of the images, while Heber’s work deals with ideas of desire and appropriation through vibrant paintings. Opening from 6 to 9 p.m.

Friday, Sept. 4. shopgraffitibeach.com Oceanside Art Walk at Downtown Oceanside, Pier View Way and Tremont St., Oceanside. Over 20 businesses throughout downtown Oceanside transform into galleries to showcase local art. From 6 to 9 p.m.

Friday, Sept. 4. oceansideartwalk.org Object, Concept and Journey at Casa Valencia Galeria Baja, Barracks 16, Ste. 101, 2730 Historic Decatur Road, Point Loma. New works by gallery director Aida Valencia, who uses materials such as cooper, iron, glass, marble semiprecious stones, and recycled materials to create work that reflects her Mexican roots. Opening from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4. Opening from 5 to 10 p.m. valenciagallery.com HAlley Art Festival at Downtown Vista, Main St. and Indiana Ave., Vista, 760-7261122. This annual fest includes a film festival, live music, a public art installation, interactive murals, a makers market, a beer garden and much more. From 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. Free. alleyartfestival.com HBijou: Box Offices by Ave Pildas at Joseph Bellows Gallery, 7661 Girard Ave., La Jolla. A solo show featuring Pildas’ small-scale vintage black and white photographs of theater box offices from the mid 1970s. Opening from 6 to 8 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 5. josephbellows.com Everything Flowers at TPG2, 1475 University Ave., Hillcrest. A solo show from local artist Isaias Crow who will showcase paintings that mix pop-surrealism and psychedelia. Opening from 5 to 10 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 5. tpg2.net HFood for Thought: A Celebration of Food in Art at William D. Cannon Art Gallery, 1775 Dove Lane, Carlsbad. A new group exhibition featuring more than 40 two- and three-dimensional still life paintings that use food as the primary subject matter. Opening from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. carlsbadca.gov/arts Julian Arts Guild Fall Show at Julian Town Hall, 2129 Main St., Julian. Talented artists from Julian and nearby communities will present their paintings, photography, mosaics, ceramics, printmaking, jewelry and other works of fine art. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5, through Monday Sept. 7. julianca.com

The Che Cafe Take Away by Ryan LaPine

#SDCityBeat

Vegan vendor Positive Vibes

H = CityBeat picks

HKelsey Brookes: Psychedelic Space at Quint Contemporary Art, 7547 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The local painter will be promoting and signing his new book, which compiles three years and four exhibitions worth of his work. He will also be debuting new paintings and will have prints of his works for sale. From 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. quintgallery.com HPlayboys by Peegirl at ACD Gallery, 2923 Upas St., North Park. Local artist Taylor Marie Prendergast showcases new works inspired by vintage starlets and the golden age of Playboy. Opening from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. acdgallery.com HStick ‘Em Up IIII at Visual, 3776 30th St., North Park. Sticker swap and art show where folks can meet some of the street artists who make San Diego a more colorful place. Includes hand-drawn sticker competitions as well as a variety of live exhibitions. Opening from 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. visualshopsd.com HWomen’s Work at R.B. Stevenson Gallery, 7661 Girard Ave., Ste. 201, La Jolla.

A group show featuring all female artists and showcasing new works from Tania Alcala, Celia Reisman, Vicki Walsh, and more. Opening from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. rbstevensongallery.com

BOOKS HSteven Druker at La Mesa Community Center, 4975 Memorial Dr., La Mesa. The attorney and writer will present his book, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public. At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2. $5 suggested donation. 619-667-1307, facebook.com/ events/1644677895801710 Adam Bray, Cole Horton, Michael Kogee, and Cecil Castelluci at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 5943 Balboa Ave., Ste. 100, San Diego. The authors of Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know, Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens Moving Target and Star Wars Rebels: Battle to the End will be signing and discussing their respective contributions to the Star Wars canon. At 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3. Free. mystgalaxy.com Margaret Coel at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 5943 Balboa Ave., Ste. 100, Clairemont. The author will sign and discuss the 19th book in the Wind River Reservation Mysteries series, The Man Who Fell from the Sky. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3. Free. mystgalaxy.com HKelsey Brookes: Psychedelic Space at Quint Contemporary Art, 7547 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The local painter will be promoting and signing his new book, which compiles three years and four exhibitions worth of his work. He will also be debuting new paintings and will have prints of his works for sale. From 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. Free. 858-4543409, quintgallery.com Susan A. LeBron at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. As part of Warwick’s ongoing Weekend with Locals program, LeBron will sign and discuss her relationship advice book, No Fig Leaves Allowed: Getting Emotionally Naked. At noon. Sunday, Sept. 6. Free.

858-454-0347, warwicks.com HAlephonsion and Benson Deng with Judy Bernstein at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave, La Jolla. The three authors will be on hand to promote the special 10th anniversary edition of their eyeopening memoir, They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 9. Free. warwicks.com

EVENTS CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 13

THEATER

EVENTS EVENTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

DAREN SCOTT

Hannah Corrigan in Violet

Violet opens San Diego Rep’s 40th season

I

f you travel the theater circuit at all, you’ve no doubt experienced a few heavy-handed productions that employ screen projections to alert the audience as to the significance or definition of a given scene. If executed with technical savvy, this device can have artistic merit. It can just as equally come off as condescending. No need for such a gimmick with Violet, the Jeanine Tesori/Brian Crawley musical based on Doris Betts’ book The Ugliest Pilgrim that opens the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s 40th season (congratulations, Rep!). Violet is about the nature of beauty—what it is, what it isn’t, how it’s beheld.

This is as clear as a big ol’ harvest moon hangin’ over North Carolina. Y’all.

Forgive the Southern flavor. You can’t help it with a story that unfolds entirely in the 1960s American South. Violet (a stridently impressive Hannah Corrigan) is on a pilgrimage from her Carolina hometown to visit a Jimmy Swaggartlike televangelist (Jason Heil, working up a sweat) whom she hopes can heal the facial disfigurement she’s suffered with since a childhood accident.

On this multi-stop bus trip, she meets a couple of young soldiers, macho yet insecure Monty (Jacob Caltrider) and an intense African-American sergeant, Flick (Rhett George), and so begins an unlikely love triangle. Paralleling all this is a re-

14 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

creation of young Violet’s (Katelyn Katz) relationship with her father (Jason Maddy) whose ax it was that accidentally scarred his daughter.

There aren’t a lot of narrative surprises in this nearly 20-year-old show, and Violet’s metamorphoses from joy to despair and back again late in the going stretch credulity. But the performances directed by Sam Woodhouse are rock-solid, and the musical score, while not boasting numbers that will stay with you for very long, has something for everyone: country, blues, bluegrass, rock and especially gospel. “Raise Me Up,” the highlight of the Hope Church sequence, is a real barn-burner thanks to Lula Buffington and a backing choir.

Set as it is in 1964, there is historical perspective in Violet. The most potent point made is that prejudice and fear of those who look different from us is as alive today as it was then.

Violet runs through Sept. 13 at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, downtown. $36-$75. sdrep.org

—David L. Coddon

Theater reviews run weekly.

Write to davidc@sdcitybeat.com.

OPENING: The Diary of Anne Frank: The stage adaptation of the inspirational true story of a young girl hiding from Nazis in WWII Amsterdam. It opens Sept. 3 at Vista’s Broadway Theater. broadwayvista.com The Taming of the Shrew: A free outdoor production of Shakespeare’s witty comedy about matchmaking. Presented

by Point Loma Playhouse, it opens for four performances on Sept. 4 at Point Loma Park. pointlomaplayhouse.com Blueprints to Freedom: An Ode to Bayard Rustin: This world premiere drama set in 1963 centers on the redemptive story of Civil Rights hero Bayard Rustin. Written by Michael Benjamin Washington, it opens Sept. 8 at the La Jolla Playhouse’s Potiker Theatre. lajollaplayhouse.org Big Fish: A musical about a southern salesman who spins tall tales to his son throughout his life. Based on the novel by Daniel Wallace and the motion picture by Tim Burton, it opens Sept. 9 at Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista. moonlightstage.com The Fox on the Fairway: A country-club president bets on a golf tournament but loses his ringer to the other side in this Caddyshack-esque comedy. It opens Sept. 9 at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach. northcoastrep.org

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

COMEDY HAn Evening With Alec Mapa at Martinis Above Fourth, 3940 Fourth Ave., San Diego. The actor and comedian has been dubbed “American’s Gaysian Sweetheart” and is known for his appearances on Switched At Birth, Desperate Housewives and Alec Mapa: Baby Daddy. At 8 p.m.

Wednesday, Sept. 2 and Thursday, Sept. 3. $30-$40. 619-400-4500, martinisabovefourth.com Louie Anderson at Hotel Del Coronado, 1500 Orange Ave., Coronado. The creator of the cartoon series, Life with Louie, and former host of the Family Feud gets back to his stand-up comedy roots. At 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4, Saturday, Sept. 5, and Sunday Sept. 6. $35. 800-468-3533, laughfactory.com/clubs/hotel-del-coronado

FASHION FNX Fashion Show at Porto Vista Hotel, 1835 Columbia St., Little Italy. Designer Michael Marinas is having his first solo fashion show featuring his line of street and athletic apparel. From 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4. Free. 619-544-0164 Glamour on Goldfinch at The Patio on Goldfinch, 4020 Goldfinch St., Mission Hills. Join Fashion Week San Diego for an event featuring designer Lady Lane. Enjoy informal modeling, bites, a specialty “Bubbles & Bling” cocktail, and a Haute Dog fashion show. Partial cocktail proceeds benefit the Rancho Coastal Humane Society. From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. Free. 619-501-5090, fashionweeksd.com/events/glamour-goldfinch HPin Up Pop-Up Shop at Queen Bee’s, 3925 Ohio St., North Park. A one-day shopping event features over a dozen designers and vendors specializing in vintage and retro-inspired clothing and products. Saturday, Sept. 5. Free. pinuppopupshop.com

FOOD & DRINK Beer, Bacon and More Beer at Quad Alehouse, 868 5th Ave., Downtown. Try an array of Firestone Walker beer paired with bacon-centric courses by chefs Brandon Brooks, Nate Soroko, Phillip Ian Esteban and more. At 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3. $50. 619-239-3339, quadalehouse.com September Sessions: Saint Archer at Hiatus Lounge, 7955 La Jolla Shores Dr., La Jolla. Saint Archer White, Blonde, Pale Ale, and IPA beers will be paired with tasting plates by Chef Donald Lockhart, followed by a screening of a surf movie. At 7 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 5. $25. hotellajolla.com HLove, Eco & Friends Festival Vegano at Passage Rodriguez, Av. Revolucion, between Calle 3 and 4, Tijuana. A celebra-

tion of the vegan lifestyle in Tijuana. The festival will feature vegan treats from California Cakes and Good Sorbo Yerba Mate, in addition to cruelty-free shoes, apparel, and other vegan-friendly wares. From noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6. Free. facebook.com/events/843719258999054 The Brisket Battle at Iron Pig Alehouse, 1520 Garnet Ave, Pacific Beach.

Three local BBQ chefs square off for best brisket in town. Price includes three 4-6 ounce tastings, three sides and three beers from Mother Earth Brewing. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6. $45. ironpigalehouse.com HBBQ & Reds at The Patio on Goldfinch, 4020 Goldfinch St., Mission Hills. A double blind tasting of three house-made BBQ sauces and three BBQ-friendly wines with a little pork and fries for dipping. From 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 9. $35.

619-501-5090, thepatioongoldfinch.com HHormel Black Label Bacon Fest at NTC Park at Liberty Station, 2455 Cushing Road, Point Loma. Over 20 eateries will be serving food that includes the greatest meat of all time. There will also be over 25 breweries to help patrons wash it down.

From 2 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. $60. 619-573-9260, sdbaconfest.com HHeart of Pacific Beach Restaurant Walk at Pacific Beach, Intersection of Garnet Ave. and Cass St., Pacific Beach.

Enjoy a leisurely stroll between Everts and Lamont St. while sampling a great variety of menus from local restaurants like The Patio on Lamont Street, Tap Room, Costa Brava and more. Includes a craft beer tasting as well. From 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 9. $20-$25. heartofpb.bpt.me

SPECIAL EVENTS The Sky Tonight: Mythology in the Solar System at Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, 1875 El Prado, Balboa Park. This live planetarium show allows you to see the San Diego sky through a giant outdoor telescope and learn about the Nordic stories behind many of the celestial names astronomers use today. At 7 and 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2. $14.95$16.95. rhfleet.org HSan Diego CityBeat 5 Minute Film Festival at Museum of Photographic Arts, 1649 El Prado, Balboa Park. This third annual fest features screenings of 27 supershort films shot by local filmmakers. Doors will open at 7 p.m. with a short reception that includes light hors d’oeurves and a no-host bar. At 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept.

3. $15-$20. 619-238-8777, sdcitybeat.com HFestiarte 2015 at Mexico Park in Playas de Tijuana, Tijuana. The ninth annual fest features paintings, poetry, film, crafts, cuisine and international music of various genres. From 3:30 p.m. to midnight

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EVENTS Music alumnus. From 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3. Free. ideas.ucsd.edu HThe Jimmy Psycho Experiment and Burlesque Show at Queen Bee’s, 3925 Ohio St., North Park. The Oblong Box Shop’s three year anniversary cocktail party features drinks, professional burlesque dancers and music from sci-fi/ punk rock lounge act The Jimmy Psycho Experiment. From 8 to 11:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. $20. pinuppopupshop.com

“Emoticons” by Vicki Walsh will be on view in Women’s Work, a group show opening from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5, at R.B. Stevenson Gallery (7661 Girard Ave., Ste. 201, La Jolla).

Friday, Sept. 4, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m.

Saturday, Sept. 5, and 10:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6. tijuanaconcerts. com/festiarte-2015 HFriday Night Liberty at NTC at Liberty Station, 2640 Historic Decatur Rd., Point Loma. This monthly gallery and studio walk features open artist studios, galleries, live performances, shopping and entertainment throughout NTC’s Arts and Culture District. From 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4. Free. ntclibertystation.com HBarona Powwow at Barona Indian Reservation, 1000 Wildcat Canyon Rd., Lakeside. More than 300 Native Americans from across the country will showcase traditional tribal dancing and spectators will also be able to enjoy Hand Drum contests, singing, music, authentic Native American cuisine and handcrafted jewelry. From 6 to 11 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4 and 6 to 11 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5 and Sunday, Sept. 6. Free. 619-443-6612, barona-nsn.gov.

HU.S. Sand Sculpting Challenge at B Street Pier, 1140 North Harbor Dr., Downtown. Come watch some of the world’s top sand artists create sculptural masterpieces out of 300 tons of sand. Check out the website to see some of the past creations. From 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5 and Sunday, Sept. 6, and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 7. $7-$10. ussandsculpting.com HFestival of Sail at Embarcadero Marina Park North, 1 Marine Way, Downtown.

Twenty-plus tall ships and vessels from around the world will park at the bay. Tour the vessels while enjoying live entertainment, a petting zoo, a beer garden and food and drink from dozens of restaurant booths.

From 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5 and Sunday, Sept. 6, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Monday, Sept. 7. $5-$7. sdmaritime.org Closing Day & Party in the Paddock at Del Mar Racetrack, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. The last day of the summer racing season includes a post-race Party in the Paddock featuring live music from Wayward Sons. From 7 to 9 p.m. Monday, Sept. 7. $6. delmarscene.com

MUSIC Música en la Plaza at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. Live music, tacos, and tequila in the Center’s Lyric Court. Los Montaño will perform on Sept. 4 and 11. The Manny Cepeda Orchestra Quartet will play Sept.

18 and 25. At 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4.

Free. 760-839-4190, artcenter.org/event/ musica-en-la-plaza/2015-09-25 Gregory Page and the Accompanists at 98 Bottles, 2400 Kettner Blvd. Ste. 110, Little Italy. The local singer-songwriter will play some new music as he and his band prepare for their European tour in October. At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. $18.

619-255-7885, 98bottlessd.com/events H1812 Tchaikovsky Spectacular at Embarcadero Marina Park South, 206

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and Paralympic Games to Team USA fans across the country. From 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 5. Free. 415-318-4094, teamusa.org/road-to-rio-2016 HMiracle Babies KidsFest at Petco Park, Park Blvd. and Imperial Ave., Downtown. Before the Padres vs. Los Angeles Dodgers game, join Miracle Babies for bounce houses, face painters, balloons and more. From 1 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6. $18-$40. miraclebabies.org

SPORTS

WORKSHOPS

Road to Rio Tour at B Street Pier, 1140 North Harbor Drive, Downtown. Nastia Liukin and eight Team USA athletes will be in San Diego for the continuation of the Road to Rio Tour, which brings the spirit and excitement of the Rio 2016 Olympic

HSketchparty San Diego at The Balboa, 1863 Fifth Ave., Bankers Hill. The inaugural edition of the semi-regular communal drawing get-together. There is no schedule or agenda. Just come and draw. Materials provided, but feel free to

bring your own. From 8 p.m. to midnight.

Thursday, Sept. 3. Free. 619-955-8525, facebook.com/thebalboasd Tinkerers’ Club: Paper Circuits at Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, 1875 El Prado, Balboa Park. Tinkerers’ will learn about how circuits work and create working circuits on paper using LED technology, soldering irons and more. From 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. $15. 619-238-1233, rhfleet.org Gardening 101: Early Fall at City Farmers Nursery, 4832 Home Ave., City Heights. Come learn the basics of gardening in San Diego with Farmer Bill. Learn about soil, watering, planting schedules, maintenance and pest control. From 8 to 9:30 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 6. Free. 619284-6358, cityfarmersnursery.com

Marina Park Way, Downtown. Summer and Summer Pops go out with a bang as cannons and fireworks light up the sky and the San Diego Symphony plays the music of the iconic Russian composer. At 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4, Saturday, Sept. 5, and Sunday, Sept.

6. $20-$79. 619-686-6200, sandiegosymphony.org Paul Oakenfold at Del Mar Racetrack, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. The legendary EDM DJ plays as part of the Racetrack’s Summer Concert Series.

Concerts are free with racetrack admission. At 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4. 858-7551141, delmarscene.com Weezer at Del Mar Racetrack, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. The iconic rock band behind hits like “Buddy Holly” and “Beverly Hills” play the Del Mar Racetrack as part of the Summer Concert Series. Concerts are free with racetrack admission. At 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6. $6. 858-755-1141, delmarscene.com.

Opera Wednesdays at La Jolla Community Center, 6811 La Jolla Blvd., La Jolla.

Southern California’s top performing operatic artists sing in this new series of special concerts. From 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 9. $10 suggested donation.

858-459-0831, ljcommunitycenter.org

TALKS & DISCUSSIONS HSouth Bay Culture Think Tank at Art Produce Gallery, 3139 University Ave., North Park. In conjunction with her Chula Vista exhibition, artist Anna Stump will discuss the culture scene in Chula Vista, Bonita, National City, San Ysidro, South San Diego, and Imperial Beach. From 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2. Free. 619584-4448, artproduce.org HThe Art of Wood Carving at Mingei International Museum, 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park. Designed for all ages, this drop-in program will include gallery tours of Carved and Whittled Sculpture, wood carving demonstrations and discussions with local craftsmen. From 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5. Free-$10. mingei.org Before 1915: Balboa Park’s Early History at Grossmont Health Care District Auditorium, 9001 Wakarusa St., La Mesa. Nancy Carol Carter, horticultural historian, will discuss how Balboa Park weathered 47 turbulent years before the world swept into San Diego to visit the Panama-California Exposition of 1915. At 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Sept.

8. Free. sdmart.org

PERFORMANCE HIDEAS Performance: Rocket’s Red Glare at Calit2 Auditorium, Atkinson Hall, UCSD campus, La Jolla. This performance in the Initiative for Digital Exploration of Arts and Sciences (IDEAS) series features the work of professor Amy Alexander and sound artist Curt Miller, a UC San Diego

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 15

kinsee morlan

Culture | Art

I

t’s sweltering hot at Lower Otay Reservoir in Chula Vista. Photographer Anton Orlov is shirtless and sweating inside his bright orange, fullsized school bus, which he’s transformed into a traveling darkroom named “The Photo Palace Bus.” The Russia-born photographer and two of his shutterbug friends are experimenting, trying to capture an ambrotype of the lake using a 16-by-20-inch, 19thcentury wooden camera and a variant of the wet-plate process, a highly involved photographic process invented in the late 1850s.

Orlov is inside the stuffy darkroom coating a glass plate with collodion and silver nitrate, preparing it for exposure. Once it’s ready, he bursts from the darkroom and jogs briskly down a gravel path toward the camera, which is set up on the shore of the lake pointing toward the water and a large, beautiful, fluffy cloud rolling slowly over the surrounding mountains. He puts the plate in the back of the camera, removes the slide protecting it from the light, then focuses the camera before removing the lens cap for a three-second-long exposure.

He puts the slide back in, removes the plate

Anton Orlov and The Photo Palace Bus and runs—faster this time—back to the bus so he can develop the image before the plate dries and the image is lost.

“I’m coming out,” say Orlov from the confines of his portable darkroom where he’s following the remaining steps in the tricky wet-plate process.

“Oh, wow, this is all sorts of messed up,” he says, squinting at the image that’s appearing on the glass plate and launching into a stream-of-consciousness analysis. “What the heck is that? It’s a multitude of crapitude. Not enough exposure? Really? Yup, not enough exposure. Fogging, yeah, serious fogging. But look at that cloud, though. Just look at that. Ok, so, overall, that was a complete waste of a lot of chemicals.”

Wet-plate photography is difficult. Orlov has done it enough, though, that most of the time his photographs turn out beautifully. This shoot was a challenge, he later explains, because it was the first time he tried using the 16-by-20-inch camera to make ambrotypes and the excessive heat was messing with his chemicals. After six hours of trying, he eventually packed up the bus and headed home, ready to call the ex-

16 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

periment a failure—for now anyway. Soon “The vast majority of old photographic Orlov says he’ll head into his dark room on processes are sensitive to the UV spectrum Adams Avenue—the last rentable darkroom of light and the blue wavelength, so that’s in San Diego—and figure out how to get it why we have red light in the the darkroom, right before he goes back out into the field for instance,” Orlov explains. “And in my dark box, which I use to develop wet plates with the large vintage camera again.

Orlov is dedicated to keeping wet-plate on location, it has these red windows…. I photography alive, despite its challenges noticed that sometimes the light would and limitations. go through the red windows and the sun “One of the reasons I like doing wet would be shining right on my plate and it plate—aside from longevity, resolution and would still come out perfect.”

He thought it would be neat to make a look of it—is that each image is completely unique,” he says. “I can make 10 plates of a camera out of that same red see-through table-top setup with all the same lighting material so people could watch as the picand camera settings and every one will be ture was being exposed. He recently unslightly different because the emulsion and veiled CLERA to a public audience at an developer are poured by hand. So, I guess I event at the Museum of Photographic Arts like to have a little bit of me in each plate.” in Balboa Park where he took people’s porAlways a fan of alternative processes traits using his self-made camera.

Portraits are Orlov’s bread and butter. when it came to his professional photography, Orlov took a wet-plate photography In a time when everyone with a cell phone workshop a few years back and was instantly can call themselves a photographer, he sets hooked. Since then, he’s been one of its big- himself apart by using the antique processgest advocates and rising stars. He took a es and making a photo session more like an cross-country trip aboard The Photo Palace educational experience.

Bus in 2013 and produced about 500 plates, “So, every portrait session is a miniature many of which he shared on his blog, thepho- performance piece and there’s also a miniatopalace.blogspot.com, garnering fans along ture history lesson and chemistry lesson,” the way. That same year, he was featured in he says. “I explain the whole process and I the The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Los show everything from pouring to developing. Then the most magiAngeles Times and dozcal moment is when it dips ens of other media outlets in the fixer and reverses after he discovered eight from a negative into a posdeveloped negatives of itive right in font of you— never-before-seen images from World War I taken that always gets a wow. in France. He found the And I always get a little extremely rare negatives wow inside myself, too, because even though I’ve in the back of a vintage done probably over 1,000 camera he bought at a Los Angeles thrift store. Anton Orlov’s “True Face” tintype plates by now it still gets He scanned the images, me every time.” posted them to his blog and the media blitz When Orlov’s not shooting portraits, he’s began. Orlov says he later went back to the often working on his fine-art photography same thrift store, bought another camera and pointing his lens toward urban decay and found yet another never-before-seen and streetscapes. His shots have an added image. He’s doing some research on it before layer of beautiful ominousness thanks to the he publishes that photo to his blog. Once he darker, ghostlier tones created through the does, he’ll undoubtedly grab more attention. wet-plate process.

Orlov is flirting with fame in other “I don’t really shy away from any subways, too, thanks to his most recent blog ject, actually,” he says. “If it makes a good post about the world’s first-ever transpar- composition and if the light reflects from ent camera he invented and built. Dubbed it right, I’m interested. I had a picture of CLERA—short for Clear Camera—the in- horse shit published once. The light was vention looks like a vintage wooden da- right. The texture was right. I did a five-byguerreotype camera, but it’s made of trans- five-inch exposure of it. It’s full of silvery tones. It’s gorgeous.” lucent red polycarbonate.

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September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 17

Culture | Art

Seen Local creature habits

T

here was a point a few years ago where Shelby Gubba’s little monsters seemed to be popping up everywhere. They were on the posters of club shows around town. On the walls of local galleries (as well as one in Tokyo). There was even a commissioned 3D piece she did of a mustachioed “Safe Sex Ninja” kicking the butt of sexually transmitted infection (it’s way cuter than it sounds). Still, she’ll be the first to admit that it’s been a while since her curious creatures have been anywhere else but in her mind.

“Over a year ago, I got a promotion at my job at Planned Parenthood and I was just throwing all my energy into that,” says Gubba, who says she got out of the habit of consistently producing art. “I love my job, but I’m just in a great mental space now. It’s just so easy to drop off the map and to stop doing something, but now I’m mostly just focusing on staying focused. Consistently putting stuff out.”

This new focus will be on display at QTOD, a new show at Disclosed Unlocation Gallery in South Park (1925 30th St.) that opens Saturday, Sept. 5 from 6 to 9 p.m. The show will feature more than 100 (“my crazy goal is 150,” says Gubba) new, sketchbook-style works, all of which were made on baseball card-sized paper using pens and markers. Gubba says the cards will be scattered all over the walls in a disorganized fashion to give viewers a sense of what it feels like to be in her head. As for the creatures themselves,

Shelby Gubba well, they’re fun. Take one part Daniel Johnston’s iconic “Hi, how are you?” drawing, throw in some Don Hertzfeldt animation, and top it with the childlike whimsy of illustrators like Elise Gravel and Geof Darrow, and it’s easy to see why Gubba’s drawings are popular with kids and adults alike.

“Some of it’s weird and kind of kooky, but nothing scary,” says Gubba, who is also working on a new album with The Dabbers, a band she started with her husband Zack Wentz. “Whether I like it or not, my work seems to be very kid-friendly. I don’t like scary stuff. The darkest I’ll ever go is a little vampire bat and even he’ll be holding a beer and wearing a baseball cap.” shelbygubba.com

—Seth Combs

farewell & hello, again

T

o paraphrase Yogi Berra, it’s déjà vu all over again. Again.

Back in 2009, CityBeat bid farewell to arts editor Kinsee Morlan in these very pages. I was welcomed as her replacement, although only a paragraph or so of a 700-word piece talked about my resume. That was fine with me. At the time, I knew I had big shoes to fill. Morlan was called “indispensable,” “tireless,” and “one of the most valuable employees this paper has ever had.”

It wouldn’t be the first time CityBeat had to say goodbye to her, and it seems only suitable that I’m once again tasked to replace her. After all, she came back to replace me after I left in 2010 and, after a few breaks to start a family, she had been CityBeat’s arts editor ever since. Well, there was one other arts editor in that span, but we won’t get into that.

If I have my math correct, Morlan wrote for CityBeat for 10 years. A decade’s worth of authoritative arts reporting, as well as hands-on work within the local arts scene. Not to mention the fact that she did all this while she and her husband raised two beautiful boys. It is truly sad that she has decided to leave CityBeat again, but I shall, as I have done before, do my best to fill her shoes. Well, let’s be honest; I no longer see myself as having big shoes to fill. Her shoes should be bronzed and dutifully displayed in some kind of San Diego arts hall of fame.

As was written in that 2009 goodbye, “She forged a path, and if we veer too far from it, we’ll do so at our own peril.”

That path is no longer exclusively CityBeat’s to follow, but rather anyone covering the local arts scene. I can’t promise I won’t ever veer from that

18 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

Kinsee Morlan path. I’d like to think I still have my own trails to blaze. However, I’ll never stray too far and always do my best to keep Morlan’s path within my line of sight, lest I become lost in the wilderness.

Fare thee well.

—Seth Combs

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September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 19

Culture | Voices

ryan bradford

well that was

awkward

I’ve had it with these MF-ing snakes on my MF-ing brain!

I

do a lot of thinking in my car. I find there are few things more relaxing than being cocooned in a vehicle, away from computers or screens, drowning out the outside world with music. It’s only then when my mind can wander. It’s during these times when I can contemplate the big abstractions in life: What should I be doing with my life? What’s the point of life? What’s the point of anything? What’s—HOLY SHIT, IS THAT A BILLBOARD FOR A REPTILE SHOW? The billboard is the color of a highlighter—yellow or green, I don’t know. It’s too bright to tell.

Stark, black lettering states that, yes, this sign that is burning into my retinas, my soul and my sense of judgment is the “Reptile Super Show.”

I try to be nonchalant when I bring it up at the office, since “falling for billboards” is not a quality I want most people to know about me.

“Are you interested in going to this reptile show with me?” I ask our former arts editor, Kinsee Morlan. I leave to the use the restroom. By the time I come back, Kinsee’s already got the reptile show’s head honcho on the phone and is securing us press passes (or pressssss passssesssss, I think, because snakes). * * * I can’t blame my wife for being confused and perhaps a little bit perturbed when I—a man with no past interest in reptile shows, who has displayed no desire to attend a reptile show, and has, in fact, previously regarded the idea of a reptile show with fear and aversion—suddenly want to go to a reptile show. For one, we recently purchased a new home and had just moved in the day before, so this excursion seems like I’m escaping grown-up responsibilities.

And who knows, maybe I am. I tend to lose sight of priorities in moments of stress or duress. In that moment, there’s large text in my brain that reads “30-year mortgage” which quickly droops like wet noodles, turns green and slithers away.

Kinsee picks me up with her husband and two kids in tow. On the way, we talk about which reptiles we’re most excited to see. The frontrunners are snakes, because duh, but frogs seem like they have a chance to be the sleeper hit.

We drive to the downtown Civic Center. Walking up, we see a man walking toward us holding a reptile show bag.

“How is it?” Kinsee asks.

“Awesome!” the guy says—a blunt, declarative outburst. He says it like he’s been waiting his whole life to tell someone how awesome a reptile show is, his end-all descriptor.

Inside the lobby, there’s a big tortoise roaming around in a fenced-off section. It’s practically the size of a smart car and it moves like its life is defined by pain—not due to how it’s treated (which seems

well), but just the natural result of being old and slow and boring. There’s a young woman inside the enclosure, sitting on a chair, thumbing through her phone. I wonder what trouble you have to get into to be busted down to tortoise duty.

We approach the table to redeem our passes. The guy in charge doesn’t want to give us all press access to the show, but Kinsee is steadfast in her demands, and it’s cool to watch her haggle for free access to the snake show. The guy relents and gives us all tickets, but not before taking my CityBeat card and yelling after us: “I’ll be looking for you in the paper, Ryan Bradford.” Let me tell you, it’s not a great feeling to be on a snake guy’s shit list. Not great at all.

The showroom is packed with reptile enthusiasts, many of whom look like roadies for screamo bands. Man buns are huge here. I see more than one person with a snake tattoo. But overall, people are stoked to be here. SSSSStoked.

Among the first things I see in the showroom are cages and trays of mice, separated by stages of development.

On the far right are the newborns—a tray of squirming, pulsating mice fetuses, really. I can’t look away.

“What eats these?” I ask.

The lady shrugs. “Circle of life,” she says.

Small, round plastic containers cover the tables; the snakes look poured into them—coiled up and ambivalent to their small habitats.

The shapes of the containers and the variety of snakes make it feel slightly reminiscent to picking out a specialty salsa at Whole Foods. A man-bunned guy sees me taking notes. “I used to do that,” he says, unaware that my notes just say “snake containers = salsa.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I confess. “This is my first time. Why do people come to these?”

Besides as an escape from their capitalized Big Life Changes?

Man Bun says that a lot of people here are professional breeders, a habit that he admits is “addicting.”

He points to a snake called a Spider that, when mixed with a Butter Banana, can produce the Pastel Clown, a snake valued at $900.

I ask how many snakes he owns.

“Oh, hundreds.”

SSSSSShudder.

I meet back up with Kinsee’s family at Downtown Johnny Brown’s for a post-show meal. Her son shows me the rubber snake he bought and I pretend to be interested, but it’s no Pastel Clown so it’s hard for me to care that much.

“How was it?” my wife asks when I get home.

“Awesome!” I say, surprised at myself to realize I’m only partly joking.

“

IS THAT A BILLBOARD FOR A REPTILE SHOW?

“

20 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

Well That Was Awkward appears every other week.

Write to ryanb@sdcitybeat.com.

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September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 21

Culture | Film

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant

2015 Fall Movie Preview

A personal look at the season’s upcoming film releases

by Glenn Heath Jr.

T

he next four months will bring the final Hunger Games, a new and revamped Star Wars entry, Steven Spielberg’s latest historical drama, and “the eighth film by Quentin Tarantino.” Those are big time players in the movie world by any standard, but frankly I’m more excited to see Jem and the Holograms. Hold your horses, fanboys. Give me a moment to explain.

Anticipation is an entirely personal beast. We look forward to things based on our past experiences and tastes. When it comes to big budget goliaths or tentpole franchises, my first inclination is to walk the other way. I’d rather take a chance on a smaller genre film made by directors or starring actors who are working on the fringes of Hollywood and the indie circuit.

So, instead of providing free promotion for the industry elite, this Fall Movie Preview will sway toward the eccentric, shining a light on the films that deserve consideration. A few of them might turn out to be major.

September The Perfect Guy (9/11): It’s not a good sign the studios aren’t screening it early for press, but the pedigree behind this low-rent Fatal Attraction rip-off is too good to ignore. Michael Ealy stars as the eponymous lothario who woos Sanaa Lathan’s heartbroken lass only to hint at multiple psychological red flags once things get hot and heavy.

Both actors are capable of transcending trashy material and getting at something deeper. Finally, director David M. Rosenthal previously made the crafty and tense mountain noir A Single Shot with Sam Rockwell, which bodes well for the suspense factor.

Of Interest: The Visit (9/11), Everest (9/18), Black Mass (9/18), Sicario (9/25), Queen of Earth (9/25).

Here’s hoping the bonkers-looking subject matter translates well to the big screen and Chu is capable of recapturing the magic he was able to achieve with his previous dance films.

Of Interest: The Martian (10/2), The Walk (10/9), Yakuza Apocalypse (10/9), Steve Jobs (10/9), Bridge of Spies (10/16), Victoria (1016), Crimson Peak (10/16), Our Brand is Crisis (10/30), The Keeping Room (10/30).

November Carol (11/20): Todd Haynes’ luminous adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel subtly dissects the emotional compromises felt by a closeted lesbian couple living in 1950s New York City. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara deliver powerful performances as the two women struggling to be together in an era where their love is deemed taboo.

The film downplays melodrama to provide a quiet and deeply personal examination of belief systems suppressed by the status quo. One should expect Haynes and his performers to be highly lauded come awards time.

Of Interest: Spectre (11/6), By the Sea (11/13), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (11/20), Creed (11/25), The Good Dinosaur (11/25).

December

The Revenant (12/25): The Western I’m most looking forward to in December is Alejandro González Iñárritu’s grimy and brutal revenge epic. It’s based on Michael Punke’s 1820s-set novel about a fur trapper (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) crossing dangerous terrain to hunt down those men who left him for dead.

An early trailer proves that the Academy Awardwinning filmmaker and his great cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki will once again use long takes to explore tormented men under constant attack from the elements. Supposedly there isn’t much dialogue in the film, putting more pressure on the actors to october convey a myriad of emotions through performance.

Jem and the Holograms (10/23): Based on the 1980s Of Interest: Youth (12/4), Star Wars: The Force animated television show, this girl-power rock op- Awakens (12/18), Joy (12/25), Snowden (12/25), The era could be a subversive look at our social-media- Hateful Eight (12/25), Concussion (12/25). crazed culture. In the hands of director Jon M. Chu (Step Up 3D), it will certainly be a gorgeous, crisp and Film reviews run weekly. brazen celebration of style and artistic expression.

Write to glennh@sdcitybeat.com.

22 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

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Culture | Film out of the mundane. This helps Catch Me Daddy gain traction in the early going. It eventually becomes clear that Laila has runaway with Aaron against her conservative father’s wishes, which inspires the patriarch to send his son and a horde of gangsters out into the Yorkshire countryside to Catch Me Daddy track down the young lovers.

Eventually Catch Me Daddy, Young blood which opens Friday, Sept. 4, at young Pakistani woman the Digital Gym Cinema, reveals named Laila (Sameena itself to be a razor-sharp chase Jabeen Ahmed) lounges film, a lesson in sustained anxiety. in a caravan with her drifter Chase scenes are intricately cut boyfriend, Aaron (Connor Mcto explore the depth of both open Carron). A brutish gangster in and cramped spaces. That it rarea tracksuit carries his baby girl ly transcends these thriller trapthrough a shopping mall. An agpings to address the complexities ing cokehead wanders around a behind themes of patriarchy, tradisheveled living room waiting dition and power is unfortunate. for the sunrise. This is England.

Still, it’s an auspicious debut Catch Me Daddy opens with from Wolfe, mostly known for his a string of striking images that, hallucinatory music videos with at first glance, feel disconnected violent undertones. There are from each other. These portraits multiple instances of directorial of blue-collar existence seemrestraint, where the sounds and ingly exist out of time. It’s only sights of nature take on an etheafter director Daniel Wolfe (who real quality. Dreary beauty like co-wrote the film with his brother this lends credence to the more Matthew) hints at a greater genre miserable aspects of the film, structure that the plot starts to which feel as organic as any part unfold. of nature caught in wide angle.

By denying the audience any

—Glenn Heath Jr. exposition, Wolfe builds tension

A

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Opening

through Thursday, Sept. 10 at the Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

A Walk in the Woods: Robert Redford plays Bill Bryson, a novelist who decided to hike the Appalachian Trail after spending two decades living in the U.K. Co-starring Nick Nolte.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine: This intimate documentary looks at the personal and private life of the late Apple CEO. Screens through Thursday, Sept.

10, at the Ken Cinema.

Before We Go: Captain America himself Chris Evans directs and stars in this romantic comedy about a pair of strangers who find themselves stuck in Manhattan for the night and forced to address some long simmering emotional issues. Opens Friday, Sept. 4, at the Reading Gaslamp in downtown.

Turbo Kid: This homage to 1980s postapocalyptic schlock tells the story of an orphaned teenager who scours a wasteland looking for relics of the past. Screens at 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept, 4 and 5, and at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 9 at the Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Catch Me Daddy: A young Pakistani woman and her boyfriend escape the city for country living, only to be hunted by gangsters working for the girl’s ashamed father. Screens through Thursday, Sept. 10 at the Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Grandma: Lily Tomlin plays a misanthropic woman whose life is upended when her 18year-old granddaughter shows up needing help. The two eventually embark on a raucous road trip to make amends, because it’s the movies and that’s what happens.

Learning to Drive: A recently divorced white lady takes driving lessons from a Sikh driving instructor played by Ben Kingsley. I mean, why wouldn’t she?

Obediencia Perfecta: A young seminarian sent to live in a distant monastery tries to live the “perfect obedience,” drawing the attention of his order’s founding father.

Screens through Thursday, Sept. 10 at the Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

People, Places and Things: In this heartfelt drama, Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) plays a single father living in Brooklyn dealing with a custody battle involving his twin daughters. Screens

One Time Only Old School: Will Ferrell, Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn start a fraternity: Do you join? The answer is undoubtedly yes.

Screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

Casablanca: Great fan theories for this film can be seen in When Harry Met Sally… Screens at 8 p.m. Thursday - Sunday, Sept. 3 - 6, at Cinema Under the Stars in Mission Hills.

They Live: Screens at 11:55 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5, at the Ken Cinema.

A Birder’s Guide to Everything: A young birding fanatic think’s he’s made the discovery of a lifetime, so he sets off on an adventure despite the wishes of his father. Screens at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 8, at the Point Loma / Hervey Branch Library.

Robin Hood: Men in Tights: Contains For a complete listing the only brail playboy in the history of cinmovies, see ema. of Thank you Melplease Brooks. Screens at 8 p.m.

Wednesday, Sept. 9, at The “F ilm Screenings” atHeadquarters. sdcitybeat.com under Fast Times at vents” Ridgemont the “E tab.High: All Sean Penn wants is some pizza. Can’t you

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 23

Music andrew piccone

Alex Luciano (left) and Noah Bowman

24 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

Diet Cig’s Alex Luciano remembers the first time an electric guitar buzzed to life in her hands.

“We went and tried to practice and (bandmate Noah Bowman) plugged me in. It was kinda like, ‘Whooooaaaa,’” she says. “I just felt so powerful, like I could rock.”

Bowman remembers that moment, too.

“Her jaw dropped. Drool came down her face,” he says, with Luciano cackling in the background.

“I think her whole body melted.”

These days, Diet Cig—a budding young band based out of New Paltz, New York—is becoming known far and wide for its ultra-catchy pop-rock, penned

by Luciano and powered by punk energy and the ennui of early adulthood. But there was a time when Luciano’s songs were simply bedroom wonders, written on an acoustic guitar but with nowhere to go.

“I didn’t really know what I’d do with them,” says the 20-yearold Luciano. “I really liked them and I liked writing songs and I knew I wanted to do something. But I wasn’t sure what.”

The duo’s first meeting is already a thing of indie-pop legend: Bowman was playing a house show with his band Earl Boykins, and Luciano interrupted to ask him if he had a lighter. They hit it off; Luciano started hanging out with Bowman and his band, and her eyes were opened to the joys of playing music with other people.

“I never really thought being in a band would be my thing,” she says. “But being around other bands and going to more shows…made me realize that anyone can do it if they really want to. And it’s so much fun.”

Eventually, Luciano shared her tunes with Bowman, who suggested new arrangements and more volume.

“He structured our songs so they’re fun to dance to,” Luciano says. “I’m totally gonna dedicate a chapter to him in my memoir.”

Bowman, 22, is nonchalant about the whole thing.

“It was really more of just, like, we needed something to do. She already had the songs,” he says. “Honestly, this whole thing was never a plan. It was just, like, let’s write some songs and maybe play some house shows and have a good time. But now we’re where we are now.”

When Diet Cig talked to CityBeat, the duo was in Olympia, Washington, nearing the end of a two-month road trip

before their first national tour, which kicked off Sept. 1 in Seattle. Their route zig-zagged them from New Paltz to the South to Chicago to New Orleans, across the Southwest and the Rocky Mountains (where the scenery made them “feel very small in a good way,” Luciano says), then down to Los Angeles and up the West Coast.

“Our leases ended at the end of June and we knew this tour was gonna happen,” Bowman says. “We could either get a place and pay to not live there or we could go on the road and travel and see a lot more than we would see if we were on tour.”

The band’s actual, musical tour coincides with the vinyl release of its new “Sleep Talk”/“Dinner Date” single, which follows the five-song Over Easy EP released in February. That’s only seven songs total, but that hasn’t stopped big-time publications from heaping praise on Luciano and Bowman. Stereogum declared Diet Cig a “band to watch” while premiering the band’s first-ever tune to be released to the public, and Rolling Stone praised the song “Scene Sick” in print, right between Kanye West and Kid Rock.

No doubt about it, Diet Cig’s sound is likeable. All seven of those songs spill over with jangling guitars and charming melodies, as Luciano sings of infatuation, indifference, breakups and boredom, the absence of kitchenware in her first apartment and hopping a fence to go swimming, and never wanting to hear about your band again. She delivers it all with a world-weary perspective and effortless cool that belies her age.

And she comes by that naturally.

“It’s definitely all me. It’s all in my head. Which is why it was scary at first because it was like, ‘Oh my god, these are all my personal thoughts happening right now and everyone’s listening to them,’” Luciano says. “I feel like I can only write about what I know, so all the songs are things that have happened to me or feelings that I’ve felt.

Which makes me feel like I enjoy playing them more because it’s all me.”

Which is not to say Luciano doesn’t take a bit of artistic license here and there. How else, then, could she paint such a convincing picture of 1994 in “Breathless,” in which she hopes you’ll come over and watch The Simpsons on her floor—just ignore her DVD box set, she notes in the lyrics, because DVDs didn’t exist back then.

Neither did Luciano, of course.

“My mom was like, ‘I graduated high school in 1994!

What the heck? You weren’t even alive yet,’” Luciano says with a laugh. “I mean, I was the next year. I always thought it was a cool time. But mostly it just rhymed well.”

DIET CIG

September 8 The Hideout dietcig.bandcamp.com

#SDCityBeat

#SDCityBeat

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 25

Music

notes from the smoking patio Locals Only

S

an Diego beatmaker Deep Urth is offering up his latest album in an unusual format: 3D sculpture. Deep Urth, whose real name is Thomas McGilvray, released his new album Reb:Urth on Bandcamp in August, where listeners can buy a digital version of the album.

But for $20, that album will come accompanied by a 3Dprinted sculpture that serves as an abstract representation of the music on the album.

For McGilvray, using a 3DDeep Urth’s new album is being released with a 3D-printed sculpture. printing method of enhancing McGilvray says this was also a much more costhis album was an opportunity to give listeners something that they wouldn’t other- effective method of giving listeners something unique, since the cost of pressing vinyl continues to wise find in a new album.

“It was kind of a link to combine two things I go higher.

“It’s an interesting solution for artists that don’t love,” he says in a phone interview. “I’m an engineer by trade, and I use 3D software to make animations have the ability to do something with a big budget,” and visuals. I saw what other people were doing with he says. “You can do one model at a time, or you can sculptures, and realized it would be a cool thing to do 100,000, and it won’t cost a lot.” *** combine them with music.” he second edition of the CRSSD Festival has anMcGilvray says that the sculpture he designed is nounced its second wave of acts performing on informed by the downtempo instrumental hip-hop Oct. 10 and 11 at the Waterfront Park. Joining sound of the album, as well as by the natural world.

“The music and sculpture inspire each other,” the previously released group of acts, which included he says. “My overall vision of the art I’m making, Jamie xx and Giorgio Moroder, are Banks, Nicolas I wanted it to be really organic. I’m from Florida Jaar, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Tchami originally, and spent a lot of time outdoors. I like that and more. See the full lineup at crssdfest.com

—Jeff Terich mystique.”

T

ALBUM REVIEW Brian Ellis Group Escondido Sessions (El Paraiso)

O

ver the past few years, North County has become a reliably fertile locale for purveyors of strange, mind-bending music. A long list of psychedelic rock groups of different shapes and sizes have launched along the Pacific Coast Highway, from the trippy garage sounds of Amerikan Bear to the heavier prog-psych of Astra. The latter’s Brian Ellis has unloaded his share of solo recordings in the past decade as well, each one a uniquely interesting and peculiar piece of music that ranges from space rock freakouts to funk-laden jazz. So far this year, two albums bear the prolific multi-instrumentalist’s name, and his latest, Escondido Sessions, is a groove-heavy wonder of exploratory jazz fusion.

The album is credited to the Brian Ellis Group, and it is, by all means, a group effort. Ellis—who on other recordings has proven his abilities on both guitar and saxophone—sticks primarily to keyboards here, while drummer Michael Hams and bassist Trevor Mast keep the pocket deep, and saxphonist Patrick Shiroishi takes on his own melodic explorations, sometimes with a heavy dose

26 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

of delay effects, and sometimes without. It’s a fluid mixture of sounds that’s first and foremost about groove, but has the secondary effect of taking the listener on a psychedelic journey, much like Ellis’ other works with bands such as Astra or Psicomagia. It’s heady stuff, but it’s also very easy to like.

If you’ve made it this far without recoiling at the phrase “jazz fusion” (a phrase that’s been slapped on both some of the best and most cheeseball jazz records of all time) then you’re in luck. Escondido Sessions leans far closer to Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew than GRP Records in the late ’80s. A lot of that has to do with the warmth of the album; Ellis’ organ lends a nourishing glow to every song here, while David Hurley’s congas add a fun, organic sensibility.

Escondido Sessions is a lot more concise than Bitches Brew, but it has a similar effect on the listener. It’s the sort of record you can just put on repeat while you melt into your seat as the sound drapes over you. Score one for North County.

—Jeff Terich #SDCityBeat

#SDCityBeat

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 27

28 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

#SDCityBeat

Music

Jeff Terich

If I were u A music insider’s weekly agenda Wednesday, Sept. 2 PLAN A: Divers, Shallow Cuts, Santa Ana Knights, Hot Damn Sextet @ The Casbah. Portland’s Divers play guitar rock.

There’s nothing too fancy about it, no twee flourishes, no orchestral swells, no synthesizers, no growling metal vocals. They rock hard and they do it better than most of the other bands that claim to do so. BACKUP PLAN: The Mynabirds, Decker, The Lovebirds @ Soda Bar

and I horn-salute them. BACKUP PLAN: The Blasters, Fanny and the Attaboys, The Bedbreakers @ The Casbah

Sunday, Sept. 6

PLAN A: Ducktails, Regal Degal, Hills Like Elephants @ The Casbah. Matthew Mondanile is usually seen playing guitar with his other band, Real Estate. But his solo project, Ducktails, has a dreamy, jangly charm all its own, and new album St. Catherine is loaded with low-key indie gems.

PLAN B: Weezer @ Del Mar Racetrack.

Thursday, Sept. 3 PLAN A: Shellshag, Rad Payoff, The It’s free and it’ll be a fun rock show. That’s Waste Aways, AIDS Cop, Black Dots, all it needs to be. BACKUP PLAN: Dead Behind the Wagon, Sass Dragons, The to Me, Western Settings, Civil War Rust, Grids, Burn Burn Burn, 48 Thrills @ Dudes Night, Horror Squad, Hellgod, Soda Bar. The annual punk rock weekend Londons Falling @ Soda Bar. of mayhem, Awesome Fest, kicks off with this show, headlined by fuzzy Brooklyn Monday, Sept. 7 duo Shellshag who combine noisy guitars and infectious hooks. BACKUP PLAN: PLAN A: Craft Spells, The Victoriana, OthThe Donkeys, Big Search, Oh Spirit @ er Bodies @ The Hideout. Seattle’s Craft Spells make better use of synthesizers than The Casbah most bands, their hazy, new wavey dreampop the kind of sound that hits the spot when it’s oppressively hot outside. Close out your Friday, Sept. 4 PLAN A: Dam-Funk, Cookie Crew DJs, holiday weekend with some fine, fizzy tunes.

Brougham d’Elegance @ The Casbah. PLAN B: Beer, BBQ, A Nap @ Your House.

Read my feature from last week on Dam- It’s also Labor Day, though, so I’m giving you Funk at sdcitybeat.com. The Los Angeles the option of taking a break from seeing live funk producer is a prolific creator of epic, music. If the working world can take a holisynth-laden funk that nods to Prince and day, then we night owls can give ourselves the Parliament, with a whole lot of future-funk night off, too. vision. Get your ass moving when he makes his moves on the keytar.

Tuesday, Sept. 8

Saturday, Sept. 5

PLAN A: Diet Cig @ The Hideout. Read PLAN A: ‘When You Sleep’ w/ Mono- Ben Salmon’s feature this week on New chromacy, Casey Chisholm, Scott Niels- York duo Diet Cig, who have built up a lot en and Michael Zimmerman Duo, Cave of buzz with only one single and one EP Space @ Che Cafe. I’m always down to released thus far. But Diet Cig’s handful of get weird on the weekend, and this Stay commercially available songs are definitely tuneful, and most certainly fun.

Strange event pretty much invites you to do so.

This showcase of experimental artists is headlined by drone guitarist Monochromacy, who recently turned a chapel in Balboa Park into a place of dark worship. See it for yourself. PLAN B: Valdur, Voidceremony, Xantam, Mysticism @ Til-Two Club. Valdur plays black metal just like the original Norwegian heathens did—as raw and as evil as possible. The California group knows how to do gnarly right, Ducktails

#SDCityBeat

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 29

Music

Concerts HOT! NEW! FRESH!

Unearth (Brick by Brick, 9/17), Circa Waves, Oberhofer (The Loft, 9/19), Patton Oswalt (Balboa Theatre, 9/26), Ratatat (BUT, 10/2), Kaskade (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 10/2), Musiq Soulchild (Music Box, 10/3), Ash (Music Box, 10/10), Nick Diamonds (Casbah, 10/12), Ginuwine (Music Box, 10/16), HEALTH (Casbah, 11/10), Moon Taxi (BUT, 11/10), Godsmack (Open Air Theatre, 11/12), Big K.R.I.T. (Observatory, 11/19), Everclear (Music Box, 11/21), Børns (BUT, 11/24), Mythbusters Unleashed (Civic Theatre, 12/5), Ladysmith Black Mambazo (BUT, 1/19).

GET YER TICKETS Hum, Mineral (BUT, 9/16), Mobb Deep (Observatory, 9/16), Shamir (Irenic, 9/22), Titus Andronicus (The Irenic, 9/24), The Lemonheads (BUT, 9/24), Death Cab for Cutie (Open Air Theatre, 9/25), Duran Duran (Open Air Theatre, 9/27), Gaslamp Killer (Observatory, 10/3), Beirut (Open Air Theater, 10/6), Garbage (Humphreys, 10/6), Xavier Rudd and the United Nations (Observatory, 10/8), ‘CRSSD Festival’ w/ Flaming Lips, TV on the Radio, Giorgio Moroder, Jamie xx (Waterfront Park, 10/10-11), alt-j (Open Air Theatre, 10/13), Neil Young (RIMAC Arena, 10/13), Twin Shadow (BUT, 10/14), Young Thug (HOB, 10/14), Florence and the Machine (Viejas Arena, 10/14), Deafheaven, Tribulation (Casbah, 10/15), Janet Jackson

(Viejas Arena, 10/17), The Black Lips, Ariel Pink (Observatory, 10/18), My Morning Jacket (Open Air Theatre, 10/19), YOB (Brick by Brick, 11/19), Skinny Puppy (Observatory, 11/20), The Sword (BUT, 10/22), Insane Clown Posse (Observatory, 10/22), Mac DeMarco (Observatory, 10/23), Mudhoney (Casbah, 10/24), Natalie Prass (Soda Bar, 10/24), Shakey Graves (Observatory, 10/28), Madonna (Valley View Casino Center, 10/29), Coheed and Cambria (Observatory, 10/29), Ghost (Observatory, 10/30), No Knife (Casbah, 10/31), Kris Kristofferson, John Prine (Civic Theatre, 10/31), ‘Night of the Shred’ w/ Rwake, Torche, Windhand (Quartyard, 10/31), Trey Anastasio (HOB, 11/1), The Menzingers, meWithoutYou (Observatory, 11/10), The Fall of Troy, Kylesa (Irenic, 11/10), Yo La Tengo (Observatory, 11/12), Mayhem, Watain (Observatory, 11/13), Youth Lagoon (BUT, 11/14), The Cult, Primal Scream (HOB, 11/19), Minus the Bear (Observatory, 11/21), Sturgill Simpson (Observatory, 11/22), Rise Against (Soma, 11/22), New Found Glory, Yellowcard (HOB, 11/22), Chance the Rapper (SOMA, 11/23), X, Mike Watt (Casbah, 11/27-28), The White Buffalo (HOB, 12/10), Reverend Horton Heat (Observatory, 12/13).

September Wednesday, Sept. 2 Millencolin at Observatory North Park.

Thursday, Sept. 3 Pink Martini at Humphreys by the Bay. Marshall Tucker Band at Belly Up Tavern.

Friday, Sept. 4 Dam-Funk at The Casbah. ‘Awesome

Fest’ at Soda Bar. Paul Oakenfold at Del Mar Racetrack.

Saturday, Sept. 5 The Australian Pink Floyd Show at Open Air Theatre. ‘Awesome Fest’ at Soda Bar. The Dickies at Brick by Brick.

Sunday, Sept. 6 Man Man at The Casbah. Ducktails at The Casbah. ‘Awesome Fest’ at Soda Bar. Weezer at Del Mar Racetrack. Cat Power at Belly Up Tavern (sold out).

Monday, Sept. 7 Craft Spells at The Hideout.

Tuesday, Sept. 8 Diet Cig at The Hideout.

Wednesday, Sept. 9 The Psychedelic Furs, The Church at Observatory North Park. Ariana Grande at Sleep Train Amphitheatre.

Thursday, Sept. 10 Johnette Napolitano at The Casbah.

The Get Up Kids at The Observatory.

Friday, Sept. 11 Dead Feather Moon at Belly Up Tavern.

Sunday, Sept. 13 Chayanne at Viejas Arena. ZZ Top at Humphreys by the Bay. Kamasi Washington at Soda Bar. King Parrot at Brick by Brick.

Monday, Sept. 14 The Who at Valley View Casino Center.

Tuesday, Sept. 15 Wavves at Observatory North Park. Krisiun, Origin at Brick by Brick.

Wednesday, Sept. 16 Mobb Deep at Observatory North Park.

Hum, Mineral at Belly Up Tavern. Joakim at Soda Bar.

Thursday, Sept. 17 Mew at Observatory North Park. Unearth at Brick by Brick.

Friday, Sept. 18 Negura Bunget at The Merrow. Chris Cornell at Balboa Theatre (sold out).

Iggy Azalea at Valley View Casino Center.

Julieta Venegas at Music Box.

Saturday, Sept. 19 Goatsnake at Brick by Brick. Radkey at Soda Bar. Kevin Hart at Viejas Arena.

Julieta Venegas at Music Box. Circa Waves, Oberhofer at The Loft.

Sunday, Sept. 20 Ricky Martin at Viejas Arena. KEN Mode at Soda Bar.

Monday, Sept. 21 Glass Animals at SOMA. The Ann Wilson Thing at Belly Up Tavern. Mark Knopfler at Humphreys by the Bay (sold out). Systems Officer at The Casbah.

Tuesday, Sept. 22 A Place to Bury Strangers at Soda Bar. Def Leppard at Sleep Train Amphitheatre. Legendary Shack Shakers at The Casbah. Shamir at The Irenic. Future Islands at Observatory North Park.

Wednesday, Sept. 23 The Skull at The Hideout. Future Islands at Observatory North Park. Joywave at The Casbah. Snarky Puppy at Belly Up Tavern.

Thursday, Sept. 24 Titus Andronicus at The Irenic. Foo Fighters at Sleep Train Amphitheatre.

Oh Land at House of Blues. The Lemonheads at Belly Up Tavern.

Friday, Sept. 25 Royal Blood at House of Blues (sold out). Death Cab for Cutie at Open Air Theatre. Dave Koz at Humphreys by the Bay.

Saturday, Sept. 26 Luluc at The Loft. Catfish and the Bottlemen at House of Blues. Air Sup-

30 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

#SDCityBeat

Music ply at Humphreys by the Bay. Shannon and the Clams at The Casbah. Patton Oswalt at Balboa Theatre.

Sunday, Sept. 27 Duran Duran at Open Air Theatre. Dead Kennedys at Observatory North Park.

Monday, Sept. 28 Tove Lo at Observatory North Park.

Swervedriver at The Casbah.

Wednesday, Sept. 30

mana. Fri: Joef & Co. Sat: Malamana.

Sun: Aire. Mon: Malamana. Tue: Gio Trio.

Croce’s Park West, 2760 Fifth Ave., #100, San Diego. Bankers Hill. Wed: Pat Dowling. Thu: Steph Johnson and Rob Thorsen. Fri: Sue Palmer. Sat: Charlie Arbelaez Quartet. Sun: Louis Valenzuela Trio. Mon: Tim Doyle. Tue: Fabien.

Dirk’s Nightclub, 7662 Broadway, Lemon Grove. Fri: TNT. Sat: DJ Raymond T. F6ix, 526 F St., Downtown., San Diego.

Downtown. Fri: DJ Rags. Sat: DJ Dynamiq. Sun: DJ Kaos.

Ultimate Painting at Soda Bar. Halsey at House of Blues (sold out). Murs at The Casbah.

Fluxx, 500 Fourth Ave., San Diego.

Downtown. Thu: Posso. Fri: Reflex. Sat: DJ Karma. Sun: Travis Porter.

October

Hard Rock Hotel, 207 Fifth Ave., San Diego. Downtown. Fri: DJ Slowhand. Sat: Calphonics.

Thursday, Oct. 1 Toxic Holocaust at Til-Two Club.Vintage Trouble at The Irenic. Empress Of at Soda Bar. Aterciopelados at House of Blues. Peaches at Belly Up Tavern.

Friday, Oct. 2 Ratatat at Observatory North Park.

Kaskade at Sleep Train Amphitheatre.

Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe at Belly Up Tavern. Agent Orange at Soda Bar.

rCLUBSr

710 Beach Club, 710 Garnet Ave., San Diego. Pacific Beach. Wed: Open mic.

Thu: Karaoke. Fri: The Charlie Rae Band, Boxcar Chief, Talia Keys. Sat: Kid Wilderness, Gabe Kingsley and Soul Fire. Sun: Karaoke. Mon: DJ Royale.

98 Bottles, 2400 Kettner Blvd. Ste. 110, San Diego. Little Italy. Thu: 2-Bit Palomino. Fri: The Will Pierce Trio. Sat: Gregory Page and the Accompanists.

Air Conditioned Lounge, 4673 30th St., San Diego. Normal Heights. Wed: ‘Breezy Bliss’ w/ DJs Tommy Dubs B2b Volz, Josh Taylor, Jus Sven B2b Gianna & Viking. Thu: ‘Good Times’. Fri: DJ Junior the Disco Punk. Sat: ‘JUICY’ w/ DJ Mike Czech. Sun: ‘Church’ w/ DJs Bass Exotic, Karma, Vinnassi.

American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave., San Diego. Downtown. Wed: Open mic. Thu: Craig Robinson.

Bang Bang, 526 Market St., San Diego.

Downtown. Fri: ‘Psycho Disco’ w/ Treasure Fingers. Sat: Aryay.

Bassmnt, 919 Fourth Ave., San Diego.

Downtown. Fri: D.O.D.. Sat: Kill the Noise. Sun: Adrian Lux. Beaumont’s, 5662 La Jolla Blvd., La Jolla.

Thu: Adam Block Duo. Fri: 3 Headed Monster. Sat: Ruby and the Dogs. Sun: Sando.

Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach. Wed: The Lonesome Billies, Brawley, Roy Ruiz Clayton. Thu: Marshall Tucker Band, Moonalice. Fri: One Drop, Aloha Radio, Kainga Music.

Sat: The Spazmatics, Graceband. Sun: Cat Power (sold out).

Boar Cross’n, 390 Grand Ave., Carlsbad. Thu: Taken by Canadians. Fri: ‘Club Musae’. Sat: AOK. Brass Rail, 3796 Fifth Ave., San Diego.

Hillcrest. Fri: ‘Hip Hop Fridayz’. Sat: ‘Sabado en Fuego’ w/ DJs XP, KA. Sun: ‘Soiree’. Mon: ‘Manic Monday’ w/ DJs Junior the Disco Punk, XP. Brick by Brick, 1130 Buenos Ave., San Diego. Bay Park. Sat: The Dickies, The Infidelz, Oddball, Applekore, Uncivil. Mon: ‘Metal Monday’.

Cafe Sevilla, 353 Fifth Ave., San Diego.

Downtown. Wed: Aro Di Santi. Thu: Mala-

#SDCityBeat

Henry’s Pub, 618 Fifth Ave., San Diego.

Downtown. Wed: AOK Muzik. Thu: DJ Junior the Disco Punk. Fri: ‘Good Times’.

Sat: DJs E, Yodah. Mon: DJ Antonio Aguilera. Tue: Big City Dawgs.

House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave., San Diego. Downtown. Wed: Atlas Genius, Dreamers, The Shelters. Fri: Magic!, Danny Mercer. Mon: Gondwana, Piracy Conspiracy, El Arka.

Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd., San Diego. Midtown. Wed: Bassmechanic, Micah J Fox. Thu: Psilo. Sat: ‘Ascension’. Sun: ‘Dance Ahoy’. Tue: ‘High Tech Tuesday’.

Kensington Club, 4079 Adams Ave., San Diego. Kensington. Wed: Repulsing the Monkey. Thu: Repulsing the Monkey.

Fri: Sculpins, Systematic Abuse, The Natives.

Lestat’s Coffee House, 3343 Adams Ave., San Diego. Normal Heights. Wed: Lily Love, Andrew Nicholas, Jill Elardo.

Thu: Frankie Bourne. Sun: Abstrak, Raelee Nikole. Mon: Open mic.

LOUNGEsix, 616 J St., San Diego. Downtown. Sat: Solarium Saturdays.

Mc P’s Irish Pub, 1107 Orange Ave., Coronado. Wed: JG Duo. Thu: Ron’s Trio. Fri: Mystique. Sat: Ron’s Garage.

Sun: 4-Way Street. Mon: The Stilettos.

Numbers, 3811 Park Blvd., San Diego.

Hillcrest. Thu: ‘Wet’. Fri: ‘Uncut’. Tue: Karaoke Latino.

tings, Civil War Rust, Dudes Night, Horror Squad, Hellgod, Londons Falling. Mon: Reagan James, Jara, Natalie Emmons.

Tue: Steve ‘n Seagulls, Great Peacock.

SOMA, 3350 Sports Arena Blvd., San Diego. Midway. Sat: For The Win, Cut Your Losses, Heavyweight, Guidelines, Scarlett Avenue, Here From The Start.

The Balboa, 1863 Fifth Ave., San Diego. Bankers Hill. Sat: Ditches, Strange Planet.

The Bancroft, 9143 Campo Rd., Spring Valley. Wed: Karaoke. Thu: ‘Darkwave Garden’.

The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., San Diego. Midtown. Wed: Divers, Shallow Cuts, Santa Ana Knights, Hot Damn Sextet. Thu: The Donkeys, Big Search, Oh Spirit. Fri: Dam-Funk, Cookie Crew DJs, Brougham d’Elegance. Sat: The Blasters, Fanny and the Attaboys, The Bedbreakers.

Sun: Ducktails, Regal Degal, Hills Like Elephants. Tue: Young Empires, Armors.

The Che Cafe, UCSD campus, San Diego. La Jolla. Wed: Ugly Lovers, Basta Basta, Slorig, DNLL. Fri: Shady Francos, The Living Strange, Nimzo Indians, Beach Goons. Sat: Monochromacy, Casey Chisholm, Scott Nielsen and Michael Zimmerman Duo, Cave Space.

The Hideout, 3519 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego. City Heights. Mon: Craft Spells, The Victoriana, Other Bodies. Tue: Diet Cig. The Merrow, 1271 University Ave., San Diego. Hillcrest. Wed: Nathan Payne, Grass. Thu: Big Goat, Sensory Station, Accept That You Have Suffered, Malison. Fri: Roman Watchdogs, Eridia, The Wind Playing Tricks. Sat: Neighbors to the North, Mrs. Henry, Plastik Deer, Super Buffet. Sun: Miracles of Modern Science, Bandalier, Hand Drawn Tree. Tue: By An Ion, Grenda, Astral Touch.

The Office, 3936 30th St., San Diego.

North Park. Wed: The Slashes, Cult Vegas, Clean Room, DJ Mike Delgado. Thu: ‘No Limits’ w/ DJ Myson King. Fri: ‘Nite Moves’ w/ DJ Beatnick. Mon: Degradys, Vaginals, Fistfight with Wolves, Sake Pete.

Tue: ‘Trapped’.

The T Lounge, 1475 University Ave., San Diego. Hillcrest. Thu: Stanza.

Onyx Room / Thin, 852 Fifth Ave., San Diego. Downtown. Thu: ‘Tea Party Thursday’. Fri: ‘Rumba Lounge’. Sat: ‘Onyx Saturday’. Tue: ‘Neo Soul’.

The Tin Roof, 401 G Street, San Diego.

Gaslamp. Wed: Pat Hilton & Mann. Thu: Cassie B Band. Fri: Cassie B Band. Sat: Coriander, Sahara Grim Quartet. Sun: Chuck Prada. Mon: Acropolis Showcase.

Tue: American Yeti.

Queen Bee’s, 3925 Ohio St., San Diego.

North Park. Sat: The Jimmy Psycho Experiment and Burlesque Show, Pin Up Pop-Up Shop.

Til-Two Club, 4746 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego. City Heights. Fri: The Rosalyns, The Diddley Daddies, Vicky and the Vengents. Sat: Valdur, Voidceremony.

Rebecca’s Coffee House, 3015 Juniper St, San Diego. South Park. Wed: Storytelling Collected Tales.

Tio Leo’s, 5302 Napa St., San Diego.

Bay Park. Wed: Seat Belt. Thu: Rockin’ Aces. Fri: Karaoke. Sat: Colour. Tue: Holla Pointe.

Rich’s, 1051 University Ave., San Diego.

Hillcrest. Wed: ‘Mischief with Bianca’. Sat: DJs Taj, K-Swift. Sun: ‘Stripper Circus’.

Riviera Supper Club, 7777 University Ave., La Mesa. La Mesa. Wed: ‘Boss Jazz’ w/ Jason Hanna. Fri: Three Chord Justice. Sat: Baja Bugs. Tue: Karaoke.

Side Bar, 536 Market St., San Diego.

Downtown. Thu: Vince Delano. Fri: Deejay Al. Sat: DJ Slowhand. Sun: ‘Five/Ten’ w/ DJ Kaos.

Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego. City Heights. Wed: The Mynabirds, Decker, The Lovebirds. Thu: Shellshag, Rad Payoff, The Waste Aways, AIDS Cop, Black Dots, Behind the Wagon, Sass Dragons, The Grids, Burn Burn Burn, 48 Thri. Fri: Upset, Rad Payoff, Detached Objects, Altercation Comedy Tour, The Chill Dawgs, Calafia Puta, Burn Burn Burn. Sat: Toys That Kill, Shellshag, Shotwell, Winter Break, Hands Like Bricks, Dead Dads, The Kids. Sun: Dead to Me, Western Set-

Tower Bar, 4757 University Ave., San Diego. City Heights. Thu: Hours, Debt Ritual, Cave Bastard. Fri: ‘Hip Hop vs.

Punk Rock’. Sat: NSA, Reckless Disregard, Making Incredible Time, Strangely Strange, Midnight Track.

Ux31, 3112 University Ave., San Diego.

North Park. Wed: DJ Mo Lyon. Thu: ‘Throwback Thursday’. Fri: DJ R-You. Sat: DJ Bodyrawk. Mon: DJ Fishfonics.

Tue: Karaoke.

Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, San Diego.

South Park. Wed: ‘St. Vitus Dance Party’ w/ DJ Handsome Skeleton. Fri: The Amandas.

Winstons, 1921 Bacon St., San Diego.

Ocean Beach. Wed: Dub Siders, Rick Haze, DJ Carlos Culture. Thu: Destructo Bunny. Fri: The Calphonics. Sat: Banyan, AJ Froman. Sun: Karaoke. Mon: Electric Waste Band. Tue: Illmaculate & Onlyone, Sighphur One, Locness.

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 31

Last Words

Brendan Emmett Quigley

Expired links Across 1. Like some lofty expectations 6. Top cards 10. The Scarecrow’s creator 14. Does a number two 15. Frank Herbert classic 16. Really rankle 17. Spilled some Cheerios, say?

19. Commedia dell’___ 20. “Lucky Jim” novelist Kingsley 21. Tire inflation spec.

22. Job applicant’s hope 23. Farmer’s ___ (sunburn that shows the outline of your t-shirt) 24. Proposed to put a split in the road?

27. Painter born Doménikos Theotokópoulos 29. Conclusion 30. Waterway to an inlet 31. Rap producer ___ Gotti 32. Clumsy fool 33. J. K. Rowling or Arthur Conan Doyle, e.g.

34. Gave a member of the A-team the boot?

38. Soft shot in tennis 39. Classic dinosaur name 40. Singer Pia ___ 41. People take them to Wrigley Field 42. Gainesville-to-Orlando dir.

43. Tracking bands 47. Chose to play some Courtney Love on Spotify?

50. Rural mother 51. One with his head in the cloud?

52. Mapquest owner 53. Ready and willing 54. Big moneymaker Last week’s answers

32 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

55. Comestibles after a night of drinking?

58. Québécoise girlfriend 59. German automobile company 60. Wipe clean 61. Shakespearean king who was “more sinn’d against than sinning” 62. Spacious 63. They may be scribbled down

Down 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Download that fixes bugs Completely run-of-the-mill Sound made while chewing one’s cud “Next Friday” co-star Mike Spice meas.

Supplements Third-degree, as a polynomial Musician Brian who used the anagrams “Ben Arion” and “Ben O’Rian” as pseudonyms 9. When you might pick up some crabs 10. “Garden State” director Zach 11. Drone operators 12. Like some motives 13. Cousin of the mongoose 18. Genre for Homer 22. “Strange” 24. Ability to telecommute, e.g.

25. 2013 NBA champs 26. At home 28. Presidential candidate Perry 32. Yosemite platform 33. Shot in the dark 34. While away the hour 35. Badge of honor 36. Good Samaritan’s job 37. Eucharist, e.g.

38. Point of math 42. Overhead item?

43. Golfing blunder 44. Comment after an all-day hike, probably 45. Gay writer 46. Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Rebecca Ferguson 48. More kissable and pinchable, likely 49. Made Hell Week a living Hell 53. ?uestlove’s do 55. Acknowledge the applause 56. Wire letters 57. Room that might host a fantasy football draft

#SDCityBeat

#SDCityBeat

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 33

34 · San Diego CityBeat · September 2, 2015

#SDCityBeat

#SDCityBeat

September 2, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 35