San Diego CityBeat • Sept 16, 2015

2 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

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September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 3

Up Front | From the editor

Contiguously speaking

C

ould making the good citizens to 47 percent for a campus. San Diego Tourism of San Diego wonder whether a local inAuthority President and CEO Joe Terzi called the campus plan “a separate convention center.” He’d stitution will pull up roots and move out of town become a trend? The Chargers have welcome that as a private construction project—but shown that casting eyes at Los Angeles environs only after a contiguous expansion. focuses media attention, causes widespread heart Mayor Kevin Faulconer has endorsed the conpalpitations and gets local politicians flexing their tiguous plan, and is willing to put a transient occheck-writing hands. cupancy tax hike on a 2016 ballot to help pay for a What’s stopping another San Diego orgainzation $410 million expansion. from putting itself out there on the market because But here we are again, back where we started— it can’t get the new edifice it wants to play in? Supwhether with a football team or a civic project— pose the next job post for a sales manager at the San plotting public subsidies for private businesses that Diego Convention Center included the line: “Must don’t want to reach for their own wallets. be willing to relocate to Los Angeles.”

We’ll have plenty of time to dither about this At the risk of squelching good speculation with later. A convention center addition will not be hapfacts, I asked San Diego Convention Center Corpopening any time soon, presumably not at least before ration spokesperson Steven prayitno / flickr President Bernie Sanders gets Johnson if we can be absolutely in gear for his reelection run. sure SDCC President and CEO There’s still Cory Briggs’ pendCarol Wallace is not colluding ing litigation on the contiguous with Oakland officials about a site and latent opposition to sweet new convention hall in “walling off the bay.” A twoCarson, or pleading with a St. thirds majority vote for a new Louis billionaire to team up tax, whether it’s levied on visiwith him on joint meeting fators or locals, is less probable cilities in Inglewood. than an apology from Donald “That rumor would be abTrump (for anything).

It might seem civic-mindsolutely false,” said Johnson, ed that a big company like straight-faced.

The San Diego Convention Center JMI Realty put out a stateAs was the case with a new Chargers stadium, there are two possible local sites ment condemning the contiguous expansion plan, proposed for a San Diego Convention Center expansaying: “...any expansion that further walls off the sion. Both sites are downtown and each allows for an bay front is not in the best interest of the city or expansion of nearly 400,000 square feet. The “conits residents.” They must really care. Oh, wait, JMI wants to build the megahotel that would help antiguous” option calls for building on a parking lot and chor the campus plan. a grass lawn right behind the current center, bordering the San Diego Bay. The “campus” plan would be San Diego is a top meeting and convention destithree blocks away in East Village, and could be connation and the city could invest fairly in infrastructure that creates jobs in that industry. In-fighting, nected to the existing center via a 1,600-room megahotel and sky bridges. hotelier greed and a perennial dearth of shared viFor the Chargers, two million dollars of taxpayer sion seem destined to keep a plan that bolsters the money was questionably poured into an environtourism industry, while protecting taxpayers, from mental impact report in an attempt to show that moving the city forward.

Mission Valley was the logical choice for a new staOf course a convention center or visitor sales dium. About $90,000 (roughly $90,000 more than team can’t relocate. “The thing is that we can’t necessary) was spent on a study conducted by Conpick up and move to Los Angeles,” said the SDventions, Sports & Leisure International to confirm CC’s Johnson. “But I think what the question here what any tourism industry intern knows—contiguwould be is whether our clients will pick up and move to L.A.” ous space is preferred by meeting planners.

More than 50 current and past SDCC custom —Ron Donoho ers were surveyed by CSL, and 91 percent would “definitely, possibly or likely” use a contiguously Write to rond@sdcitybeat.com expanded center in the future; that number drops This issue of CityBeat admires the balls, if not the brains, of the person pretending to be a CityBeat staffer to score Kaaboo tickets.

Volume 14 • Issue 6 Editor Ron Donoho Music Editor Jeff Terich Arts Editor Seth Combs Associate editor 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

Senior account executive Jason Noble Account Executives Beau Odom, Kimberly Wallace, Isaac Aycox Accounting Kacie Cobian, Sharon Huie, Linda Lam

editorial Interns Torrey Bailey, Nancy Kirk

Human Resources Andrea Baker

Production Manager Tristan Whitehouse

Vice President of Finance Michael Nagami

Production artist Rees Withrow

Vice President of Operations David Comden

MultiMedia Advertising Director Paulina Porter-Tapia

Publisher Kevin Hellman

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.

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

San Diego CityBeat is published and distributed every Wednesday by Southland Publishing Inc., free of charge but limited to one per reader. Reproduction of any material in this or any other issue is prohibited without written permission from the publisher and the author. Contents copyright 2015.

4 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

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Up Front | Letters

REDEFINING IGNANCE Mixology psychology? Bunions in a bunch?

Neither of them is stupid (or in stupors)?

What is Edwinian Decker thinking—I mean drinking [“The difference between ‘ignorant’ and ‘ignant,’” Sept. 9]?

To argue that “ignorant” is the equivalent to the innocence of not knowing something is politically correct and ideological snookery.

Certainly we can understand some people live in bars to escape various realities. Certainly we can understand there are snobs of all shapes and sizes. Call me a half-boob but “ignorant” is from the word “ignore” which clearly means to be aware of the presence of something and choosing to not understand or bothering to comprehend—as in choosing to not pay attention. This, then, is not simply not knowing because you haven’t been told yet.

I pray (even as an atheist) no one takes this kind of knowledge seriously!

Besides I’ve been told all kinds of lies via the mainstream media—does that make me not ignorant? So who is doing the telling anyway?

You’re an ignorant ass, Edwin Decker!

You need to change your barstool and drink selection.

Brian Becker,

South Park

FUNDING AROUND

I enjoyed reading your article on pro football [“Pro football = crack,” Aug. 12]. Amazing that the NFL seems to be able to extort big money from cities with impunity from the

#SDCityBeat

federal government/Justice Department.

I was particularly interested in the description of finances. I’m curious, though, on the source/ interpretation of your information regarding the taxpayers being on the hook for $280 million from the city’s general fund over the next 20 years for maintenance of Qualcomm Stadium. Given the county may contribute $100 million to the $350 million from the public, it could almost be argued that a new stadium wouldn’t really cost much more for city residents than what they are paying now.

However, it is my understanding that Qualcomm Stadium is an “Enterprise Fund” entity and thus funded by revenues from user fees. Thus, the question, where is the general fund/taxpayers contribution?

Cover

Steven Fontana, San Diego

AWKWARD AND FUNNY I love Ryan Bradford’s Well That Was Awkward column. It is consistently funny. I mean, laugh-out-loud-three-or-four-times-per-column funny. I just read the reptile show column [“I’ve had it with these MF-ing snakes on my MF-ing brain!,” Sept. 2]; I also loved the one where his wife was out of town and he discovered a new way to make toast [“Cool cats when the wife’s away,” June 17]. Every one of them makes me laugh. Has [Bradford] ever done stand-up?

Thank you for the gift of laughter. In this day and age, it’s more valuable than ever.

On the

Suzy Perkins, La Mesa

Marcial Torres 28, holds his youngest son, Brian, in the drive way of his parents’ home in Vista, where he and his long-term girlfriend live with their three sons. He watches almost blankly as his five-year-old Damien and two-year-old Derrick (off camera) cruise around on bicycles. As associate editor Joshua Emerson Smith snaps photographs, Torres asks with a deep curiosity how he became a reporter, an accomplishment Torres’ demeanor reveals as unfathomable in his world. It’s hard to tell just how profoundly losing his legs, after being Tased multiple times by a sheriff’s deputy, have affected him.

September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 5

joshua emerson smith

Up Front | News

Shocking consequences Deputy who cost man his legs back on duty

by Joshua Emerson Smith

A

fter the third electrical shock, Marcial Torres stopped moving. He was lying face down on the ground, and the 28-yearold Latino man would not regain the ability to get up for another three months.

Sheriff’s Deputy Dylan Haddad, who’d repeatedly shot Torres with his Taser in a Vista parking lot, paced around Torres, waiting for paramedics to show up and remove the Taser’s barbs.

Torres had gone into cardiac arrest.

Transferred to Tri-City Medical Center, he slipped into a vegetative state, contracted sepsis and suffered organ failure.

Beating extremely long odds of survival, Torres eventually regained consciousness to find both his legs amputated below the knees.

As the Sheriff’s Department now faces a resulting multimillion-dollar lawsuit that alleges excessive force and a pattern of lax deputy oversight, CityBeat recently confirmed Haddad has returned to his beat.

“There is a systemic problem because there’s no transparency or accountability with respect to misconduct,” said Julia Yoo, a civil rights attorney with the law firm Iredale and Yoo, which is representing Torres.

Luckily for Torres, two security cameras caught the episode on video. Based on the footage, which has not been made public, Torres’ legal team filed the lawsuit this summer in U.S. District Court in San Diego.

The Sheriff’s Department originally anticipated Torres’ death and started an internal investigation, according to Torres’ legal team. However, when he survived, the department seemingly abandoned its efforts.

With all officer-involved shootings, as

Marcial Torres with his son, Derrick well as any use-of-force incidents that result in death, the investigation is forwarded to the District Attorney’s office, which didn’t receive such information in this case.

“I am not aware of any case related to this matter being submitted to us for review,” said spokesperson Steve Walker. “Additionally, our Special Operations Division reviews officer-involved shootings and incustody deaths, but this one does not appear to fit within those categories.”

When bringing a lawsuit against a deputy, it’s not uncommon to find a pattern of complaints and very little disciplinary action, Yoo said.

“One of the biggest problems that I see with the Sheriff’s Department is outright refusal to investigate,” she said. “On the rare occasion that Internal Affairs conducts a thorough investigation and recommends disciplinary action, that goes to a supervisor who can overturn that recommendation.”

Beyond confirming that Haddad, a deputy with four years experience in the department, has returned to his “normal duties” in Vista, the Sheriff’s Department and San Diego County Counsel declined to comment for this story.

Torres’ attorneys also declined to have him comment for this story. Torres lives with his long-term girlfriend and their three sons in Vista. Over recent years, he’s been charged with a number of crimes, including driving under the influence and drug possession.

According to the Sheriff’s Department’s procedure manual, a Taser—which produces 50,000 volts of electricity—should only be used to subdue a person “displaying assaultive behavior.” Multiple uses must be “reasonable” to gain control of a suspect.

The manual cautions that Tasers shouldn’t be used on pregnant women, children or

6 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

those “under the influence.”

Shortly after noon on June 26, 2014, Haddad encountered Torres in a shopping mall parking lot, according to an incident report. Haddad got out of his patrol car and told Torres to stop. Instead, Torres said “Fuck you,” kept walking and threw a glass pipe on the ground.

Earlier, Haddad had talked to a nearby resident who reported that a group of men had threatened to get a gun and shoot her after she told them to get off her property, according to the report. While Torres was identified as part of the group, he was never charged in connection with the incident and the woman identified another man as the primary suspect.

After throwing the glass pipe, Torres turned to face Haddad. In the incident report, the deputy describes Torres as taking a posture similar to a “Muay Thai fighter.”

Haddad also reported believing that Torres had a gun.

According to a court filing that describes the video, Haddad fired his Taser into Torres’ chest one second after Torres turned around. Torres fell onto his back, curled into a fetal position and then “writhe[d]” forward. Within 10 seconds, Haddad fired the Taser again. As Torres continued to roll around in pain, Haddad stood over him, and five seconds later, fired the Taser a third time. Torres then rolled on his stomach and lay motionless with his arms and legs sprawled.

Use-of-force techniques by sheriff’s deputies—including firing a Taser and pulling out a gun—have increased significantly over the last five years, according the Sheriff’s Department Use of Force/Internal A�� ffairs annual reports.

taser CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

Lawsuit alleges lax oversight Marcial Torres’ lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department argues the department has a “widespread history of ratifying misconduct by failing to conduct appropriate investigations.”

The lawsuit documents cases involving four deputies: In 2003, Deputy Jeffrey Jackson admitted to stalking a woman who sued the deputy after he shot and killed her husband. Despite multiple excessiveforce lawsuits, Jackson remained on duty through Sheriff Bill Gore’s appointment in 2009.

In 2009, Deputy Marshall Abbott, responding to a noise complaint, entered a home without a warrant to find roughly 40 people attending a Democratic Party fundraiser. After exchanging heated words with the host, Abbott threw her to the ground, causing injuries. Despite a lawsuit that resulted in a $1.2 million settlement, Abbott remained on duty, only to be hit in 2011 with another excessive-force lawsuit.

In 2011, Deputy Jason Philpot was the subject of an excessive-force lawsuit.

The plaintiff accused him of bringing false criminal charges, (including a felony) which were eventually dismissed by a judge. Shortly after, Philpot repeatedly punched a man in the face, fracturing his eye socket. Similarly, a jury acquitted the man of a resisting arrest charge.

During this time, Philpot maintained a public MySpace page under the name “Knuckle Sandooch” and included a drawing of a law enforcement officer that read: “I’m going to kick your ass AND GET AWAY WITH IT.” His occupation was listed as “Waste Management.”

After the excessive-force incident, Philpot was promoted to the sheriff’s training division, which instructs deputies on use-of-force tactics.

In 2011, Sgt. Elizabeth Palmer cost the county $150,000 in a legal settlement. Patrick Howard filed a complaint against Palmer for unprofessional conduct after she detained, yelled and threatened to bar him from the South County Courthouse for walking through the wrong metal detector. In alleged retaliation, she arrested Howard, who worked for an attorney service, a few days later at the courthouse. The charges were eventually dismissed, and Howard filed a lawsuit. As far back as 2001, Palmer has faced internal complaints involving racial discrimination and jokes. Recently, she’s been the subject of two more civil rights lawsuits.

—Joshua Emerson Smith

#SDCityBeat

Up Front | opinion

spin

john r. lamb

CYCLE Mayor Morales?

W

e need to stop with the happy talk and actually deal with what’s going on.”

Those words demonstrate that Gregory Thomas Morales is not your prototypical political candidate in the making. Most notably, the Encanto resident can’t imagine accepting campaign contributions—particularly from the working-class San Diegans he hopes to represent as mayor.

Indeed, Morales wants to step into the vacuum that is the June mayoral primary, from which more recognizable names such as Todd Gloria and Toni Atkins have flinched due to polling and perceptions that incumbent Kevin Faulconer is unbeatable.

Morales, who spent 10 years as a member of Encanto’s community planning group, thinks otherwise, but with a huge caveat. “He is beatable, as long as it doesn’t depend on spending money or the ability for the news to control all access and representation,” he said during a three-hour conversation over

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lunch last week at the iconic Salazar’s restaurant in East Village.

“The people are going to have to do it. I can’t do it,” he continued. “And the idea of me raising money to try to combat somebody that already has half a million dollars—who hasn’t even started campaigning yet—is absurd.”

Talking to Morales, Spin Cycle must admit, can make one’s head spin. He is a wealth of information, culled from a voracious reading appetite and an observational eye that compels him to put words to paper. He says he writes 2,000 words a day, much of it on the plight of people who have little or no political power.

A self-described decline-tostate fiscal conservative/social liberal, the Texas native is not one to mince words. Kathleen MacLeod, a retired county administrator who served with Morales on the Encanto planning group, calls him “absolutely fearless. He will address the elephant in the room.”

“I think he’s a very principled

person,” MacLeod added. “I have a lot of respect for him. He has voiced a lot of ideas about land issues here.

He just runs into a lot of brick walls, mostly the bureaucracy.”

Brian Peterson, a veterinarian who’s bumped heads with city leaders over development as leader of the Grantville Action Group, said he first met Morales in 2008, when they both attended a “gathering of the dissidents” in Ocean Beach. They have been friends ever since.

“He always tells me about socio-economic theories he has that are difficult to understand at first,” Peterson wrote in an email. “But the more you think about it, they make sense.”

Peterson specifically points to Morales’ argument against gentrification of poorer neighborhoods.

“The thing that really makes sense is that the avenue to wealth for the underprivileged communities is home ownership,” Peterson wrote.

“Gentrification should not displace current residents. Gentrification in order to provide affordable housing is retarded—my word, not Greg’s—because by definition, the area is already affordable.”

Morales described his stint from 2000 to 2010 on the Encanto Neighborhoods Community Planning Group as “purgatory.”

“I was the only Latino in a Latino empowerment district,” he said. And he bristles that his City Council District 4 is considered

Gregory Morales, the man who would be mayor a “black district” by leaders. “It’s against the Voting Rights Act. [Former city attorney] Mike Aguirre agreed with me. Even back in 1998, District 4 was a Latino plurality population.”

When Morales pointed out the lack of Latino representation on local boards and nonprofits, he said the late firebrand Councilman George Stevens once told him, “‘When you get to be a politician, they’re all the same color—money green!’ Probably the most honest answer I’ve ever gotten from a politician. He was straight up.”

Despite the rhetoric, Morales said, “I’m not trying to promote Latino-ism or gay-ism or straightism or Republican-ism. I’m trying to say that all people should have equal and just access to the political system and representation. You should have as much sway over me as any millionaire, and that’s not happening. And there’s a lot of us making less than $100,000 than more, so who deserves the most access?”

As for the $100,000 and change the mayor pulls down in the job, Morales said he would set his salary based on the median income in San Diego, which he said now hovers around $63,000. The rest, he said, he’d give away to underprivileged students. His staff would also be required to make that commitment.

“We have a lot of good people in San Diego who are perfectly willing to work for what the average person in San Diego makes,” he said. “Getting rich off the public?

Access to government jobs is the highest form of social welfare.”

Raised on a farm in Texas outside of San Antonio where he said his family dates back “maybe 300 years or so,” Morales fondly remembers summer jobs “pitching

watermelons and growing peanuts.”

“It was good work,” he said.

“There was a sense of accomplishment, and nobody was angry about working.”

After a stint in the Navy, Morales held a variety of jobs that took him to worldly places including Antarctica with famed Scripps oceanographer Walter Munk— jobs he talks about not in the sense of the actual work but the interactions he had with fellow workers.

On his Twitter page he refers to himself as a “socio-economist,” a self-given title he said was at first met with laughter.

He most recently worked as an equipment installer for AT&T until last year, when hoisting the standard 28-foot ladder issued to employees led to a torn rotator cuff and tendons in his left arm.

He laments not completing that job, or rather, his effort to study that labor population.

Over the years, he estimates he’s written 48 articles on the economy and labor “and pretty much been right on all of them.”

In 2008, he wrote “City Planning in Zero-Water Environments” (he believes the city’s water woes will escalate dramatically next year) but got no feedback from the city.

He calls the current political system in San Diego a “mutual benefit society that’s taken over our city.”

“It is odd,” he added, “because public relations here is more important than policy.” He considers Faulconer “awfully vanilla tapioca for a strong mayor, and if he’s not a strong mayor and he doesn’t have a policy stance, who’s running the city? A strong mayor should be able to fix things.

Maybe I’m naïve.”

Spin Cycle appears every other week.

Write to johnl@sdcitybeat.com.

September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 7

Up Front | Opinion

Aaryn Belfer

Backwards & in

high heels Reform to police review board needed

O

n the one-year anniversary since her department began using body cameras, and under the false pretense of public safety and maintaining the peace, San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman doubled-down last week on her previously stated and apparently intractable position on the release of body camera footage. In short: She’s the decider. Her reasoning? “It could be, as we’ve seen in other cities where public safety is at risk, where people are damaging property, assaulting people, you know, riot-type situations.”

Never mind that in “other cities” the “riots” began as peaceful protests until militarized police forces acted to instigate violence, something widely recorded on private citizens’ cell phones. Make no mistake, Zimmerman is clear that we—the public—will not be getting the transparency we deserve and, as those who pay her salary, are owed.

According to data reported by The San Diego Union Tribune, there’s been an increase in the use of force by police against San Diegans since this implementation of body cameras. At the same time, interestingly enough, there’s been a decrease in citizen complaints against officers.

Which prompts the questions: Where is the oversight?

What exactly happens with these complaints?

The City of San Diego has a Citizen’s Review Board (CRB), an all-volunteer panel of 23 people chosen by the mayor, whose job is to review complaints and hold the police department accountable.

However, according to Kate Yavenditti, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild, and member of both Women Occupy San Diego and the Coalition to Reform the Citizens’ Review Board on Police Practices, most complaints never make it to the CRB. This is because they are immediately routed, without any kind of tracking whatsoever, to Internal Affairs. IA then decides—much like Zimmerman on body camera footage—what will happen to them. Which is that they are disappeared.

taser from PAGE 6 In 2014, total use-of-force incidents increased by nearly 60 percent to 3,266, up from 2,045 in 2010.

In the same period, officers drew their guns 941 times, up from 705.

Meanwhile, arrests stayed nearly flat, increasing less than 3 percent.

Taser deployments followed the same trend, increasing more than 28 percent to 239 in 2014, up from 186 in 2010.

Overuse of Tasers by law enforcement is a “chronic problem,” said David Loy, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties.

“The Taser becomes a substi-

“This is not an independent review,” Yavenditti told me in a phone interview. “So how in the world can we have any trust in the system? The police are policing the police.”

Yavenditti cited as an example what happened to citizen complaints after SDPD officers in riot gear became violent toward Occupy San Diego activists in 2011. The Occupy legal team encouraged those who were assaulted by police to file complaints. “Many of them did not expect the police brutality that they experienced and were too afraid to file complaints.”

But 17 of them did file; and exactly zero landed at the CRB. (Three complainants went on to file lawsuits, all of which were settled by City Attorney Jan Goldsmith.) When the CRB does actually receive complaints, they are largely redacted.

The CRB—which is not allowed to interview the person filing the complaint or talk to witnesses— then reviews cherry-picked information. The only thing the CRB is empowered to do is to make policy recommendations; it cannot recommend discipline of officers or make any other meaningful impact.

Images of the decoy town of Rock Ridge from Blazing Saddles comes to mind.

As it happens, the City Charter is in the process of being updated, and it is the goal of the Coalition to Reform the Citizen’s Review Board on Police Practices to have four essential reforms built into this new charter. They include: 1. Independent investigators and subpoena power, as provided to the San Diego County Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) by the voters in 1990 (Proposition A); 2. Intake, tracking and review of all complaints be done by the CRB, rather than SDPD Internal Affairs, also as modeled by the San Diego CLERB;

tute for conflict de-escalation,” Loy said. “The Taser becomes a substitute for ordinary law enforcement techniques because it’s easier to pull out a device off your hip and Taser somebody than it is to actually go through conflict de-escalation protocols and calm the situation down.”

In these and all use-of-force cases, it’s nearly impossible to determine how or if the department investigated and disciplined a deputy. Those records are not considered public documents under the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights. Only a judge can order disclosure of such records.

Even the San Diego County’s

8 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

3. Change the name from “Citizens Review Board” to “Community Review Board”; and, 4. CRB should be appointed by elected representatives in each of the nine City Council Districts (two per district), with one mayoral appointee.

These reforms are backed by the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, the Black Student Justice Coalition, the San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice, United Against Police Terror, Women Occupy San Diego and a host of other activist organizations interested in transparency and building trust between our communities and the San Diego Police Department.

Women Occupy was scheduled to do a 10-minute presentation before the Committee on Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods at City Hall on September 23 at 1 p.m. But this presentation was conspicuously canceled by the committee chair. Instead, all input will have to be in the form of public comment. If you care—and you should—and can make it out, please attend and sign up to speak.

Turnout is important. If you want more information, you can send inquiries to sdcrbreform@gmail. com.

Reform of the CRB is not about antagonizing the SDPD; it is about creating a system of legitimate checks and balances, protecting the public from police brutality, and rejecting a status quo that allows Zimmerman (and those elected officials who support her policies) to dictate all the terms of our relationship with law enforcement. She must stop hiding body cam footage and complaints against her officers from public scrutiny. If this isn’t changed, citizens of San Diego will never have true safety.

“

Where is the oversight?

What exactly happens with these complaints?

“

“When people show you who they are, believe them.”

—Maya Angelou

Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board, which reviews misconduct complaints and then issues a determination of a deputy’s culpability, has no sense of how the department metes out punishment.

“I can’t really tell you whether or not they’re disciplining their deputies fairly or appropriately because I don’t know what discipline is imposed,” said CLERB Executive Officer Patrick Hunter.

“It would be unfair of me to make any kind of assessment.”

The nondisclosure of the video in the Torres case puts the public in roughly the same position. His attorneys have said they will be asking a judge to release the footage.

Backwards & In High Heels appears every other week.

Write to aaryn@sdcitybeat.com.

TOUGH TECHNIQUES ON THE RISE

3,277

3,266

+59.7% 2,700

2,416

USE OF FORCE

1083

2,045

941

+33.5%

788

GUN DISPLAYED

705

718 247

235

239

+28.5%

TASER DISPLAYED ARRESTS

186

29,354

2010

188

28,647

28,632

29,262

2011

2012

2013

30,112

+2.6%

2014

Source: the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department Use of Force/Internal affairs

#SDCityBeat

#SDCityBeat

September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 9

Up Front | Food

by michael a. gardiner

the world

fare

Avoiding the Thai two-step

I

f you’ve eaten Thai food in America you know the Thai two-step: Pick one from Column A (a menu of Top 10 Thai dishes) and one from Column B (protein options like beef, chicken, shrimp, tofu, duck and “mock duck”). You can have your color of the rainbow (red, yellow, green) curry, drunken noodles or Pad Thai with any protein you like. That’s the Thai two-step.

Now, your intrepid food writer is supposed to tell you that the Thai two-step is not “authentic.” It’s nothing like what you would get at Portland’s Pok Pok Restaurant where Andy Ricker, “the master of authentic Thai food,” offers dishes that elude that two-step.

That’s the same Andy Ricker who has written about “the absurdity of authenticity.”

And he’s right. It’s not lack of authenticity that is the problem with the Thai twostep. It’s boredom. Those same Top 10 Thai dishes cannot be all there is to Thai cuisine. That’s the problem.

Amarin Thai (3843 Richmond St.) in Hillcrest offers Thailand’s legendary street food as an approach to solving that problem. Bangkok is regularly rated among the Top 10 street food cities in the world, with Virtual Tourist ranking it number one. Whether roadside, riverside or down a narrow alley, some of the best bites in Bangkok—and throughout the country—come neither from restaurants nor homes but from the street.

Amarin brings a bit of that street food culture to San Diego with its “Sidewalk Menu.” Take, for example, the grapow noodles—wide rice noodles stir-fried with minced chicken, sliced Thai bird chilies, bell peppers, onions and basil. It’s the basil that is the key to the dish, pulling it all together.

10 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

The Sidewalk Noodles is another good choice—wide rice noodles stir-fried with chicken, egg, bean sprouts and green onions with a side of Sriracha. The dish is broad and comforting with flavors that speak of the streets of Yaowarat, Bangkok’s Chinatown, where it is a popular offering.

Perhaps my favorite item on the Sidewalk Menu is the Issan fried rice, from Thailand’s Northeastern region, abutting Laos and Cambodia. The dish consists of stir-fried jasmine rice with egg, garlic, onions, green onions and cilantro and features a terrific Issan-style sausage, garlicky and porky. It’s a simple dish—just a stirfry with some sausage and cucumber—and all the more wonderful for it.

Michael A. Gardiner

Issan fried rice Amarin also has a more conventional Thai menu (complete with two-step). The spring rolls and curries—indeed, most of the rest of the menu—was essentially what you’ve come to expect. But the “drunken noodles” (so-named not because the dish contains alcohol or was prepared by drunk cooks but because it was intended for drunken diners) reminds you why those are Thai Top 10 dishes. Spicy with savory chunks of chicken, the noodles are done well.

But when Amarin takes you to the street, they’re taking you somewhere you should want to go. It’s different, it’s not boring and you don’t have to get there with a two-step.

The World Fare appears weekly.

Write to michaelg@sdcitybeat.com.

#SDCityBeat

Up Front | Food

by ron donoho ron donoho

urban

eats

Game on at The Lion’s Share

I

t was stiflingly hot in the city—even after the sun went down—yet we were loath to the notion of turning on the new air conditioning. I imagined cool air coming from the ceiling vent starting an engine that powered an assembly line process ending with dollar bills being chopped into coleslaw. Rather than deal with that concept, and feeling hungry (probably due to the coleslaw imagery), we went out for a late bite to eat.

I recently moved from the Gaslamp Quarter to the Marina District, a leap of nearly nine blocks. I walk everywhere, but am now in search of new be-there-in-a-second, go-to spots. The Lion’s Share (629 Kettner Blvd.) is getting a probationary trial run.

There’s an unpretentious cool about the small place—with tables in the front and a bar in the back, where I’ve always eaten. The location is odd—it’s a few blocks from the tourist havens of The Headquarters and Seaport Village. But it’s tucked far enough away from Harbor Drive and sort of bounded by Kansas City Barbecue and the messy intersection of Kettner and G Street, which gets stalled fairly easily due to crossings

by Santa Fe trains and red trolleys.

The Lion’s Share is the rare mix of a spot that gets recommended to tourists by in-the-know

#SDCityBeat

concierges but is also a place downtowners can go and not be bothered with “Where ya from?” questions from waiters and bartenders.

The interior is dark, and there’s usually jazz music piped in. The walls are filled with framed prints of slightly unusual scenes with very unusual animal heads painted onto human bodies (a rabbit head on a gladiator; a lion’s head on Napoleon Bonaparte). And there are a few stuffed animal heads up on the walls.

The Lion’s Share Which brings me to the antelope head mounted behind the bar. You’re probably familiar with the notion of not naming an animal you might eventually eat. Well don’t get cozy with the antelope, because one of the most popular appetizers may have been his kin.

The antelope sliders come with red onion marmalade, smoked gouda and mustard aioli.

The meat is lean, and taste-wise falls between beef and venison. Not too gamey. And yet, game is a big calling card here.

There’s a kangaroo tartare, and the raw meat is rich and fatty and pretty gamey. The menu also includes a boar sausage poutine and chickenfried quail.

I tried the rabbit hand pie. It’s braised rabbit in a duck fat crust, with carrot puree. The server described it to me as an “artisanal hot pocket.”

Comedian Jim Gaffigan jokes that nobody ever had a hot pocket and afterward said: “I’m glad I ate that.” The crust on the rabbit hand pie was a little dry, but I have no regrets.

The menu at The Lion’s Share is not just a list of wild animals. My dining companion ordered the peach and arugula salad (with goat cheese and toasted hazelnuts) and exulted about the peaches being extremely fresh.

The cocktail selection is extensive. My Moscow mule was refreshing on a humid night. If the weather stays hot and bothersome, I’ll be back for more spirits, perhaps even one of several high-proof absinthes. So far, The Lion’s Share is in the running to be a go-to.

Urban Eats appears every other week.

Write to rond@sdcitybeat.com.

September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 11

Up Front | Drink

the

by andrew dyer

beerdist Bay Bridge Brewing now serving South Bay

W

hen I heard Bay Bridge Brewing (688 “When we first applied for our business license, Marsat Ct., Suite B) was opening a tastwe were told brewing was not permitted in Chula ing room in Chula Vista, I was ecstatic.

Vista,” Doug said. “[So] we worked with the planThe South Bay is a brewery desert so a new oaning commission and the city council to get the sis was welcome news. But when I learned it was law changed.” helmed by the same guys behind the long-shutThere is a beer for even the most craft-averse tered Brewhouse at Eastlake, I had to admit being drinker at Bay Bridge. Its Wolf Canyon Wheat skeptical. That venture came to an ignominious and Bonita Blonde are perfect transitional brews end under an avalanche of angry Yelpers, so I apfor those still stuck on the fizzy yellow stuff. proached their latest incarnation with caution.

Palomar Pale Ale is a throwback to the old days Happily, my trepidation proved unfounded. (of just a few years ago) before local brewers deBay Bridge’s tasting room was easy to find in a cided “Pale Ale” was just another word for “IPA.” nondescript indusWhile not a style I andrew dyer trial park in southdrink often, I was west Chula Vista. surprised by how Decorated with much I enjoyed its sports memorabilRolling Hills Irish ia, it had a distinct Red. Deep burgundy man-cave vibe. A in color, this rich ale dartboard hung from is slightly hoppier one wall, a TV from than expected, but another. It felt more maintains the ballike a friendly neighance of flavor that bor’s garage than a defines Bay Bridge. production brewery.

I even ordered a Pints at Bay Bridge second just to make are $5, and a flight of sure. five 5-ounce tasters Bay Bridge brews sets you back $10. approachable, qualDoug Chase, head brewer at Bay Bridge Brewing Everything it brews ity beer in a long-igis balanced and true-to-style. In this day of agnored neighborhood thirsty for local options. It gressive, hop-forward IPAs with barely-there will not challenge your palate with aggressively malt profiles, its Star of India IPA tastes like a bitter IPAs, bury your wits under 13 percent ABV trip back in time. It was a reminder that balance stouts, or have you competing with Whalezbros is not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to for uber-limited releases on brownpapertickets. the style. com. Its wares, served up in an atmosphere de“That’s what we like, and that’s how we devoid of pretension, are brewed to please everyone sign our beers,” head brewer Doug Chase said. from the craft newbie to the seasoned beer geek.

Many of the recipes were developed when And if you still think a brewery needs trendy Chase, along with co-founder Jim Shirey, began styles and sales gimmicks to be worthwhile, then I have a bridge to sell you. home brewing in the late ’90s. They are key figures in the short brewing history of Chula VisThe Beerdist appears every other week. ta, and if not for their efforts a decade ago, the Write to andrewd@sdcitybeat.com city might still be completely void of breweries.

12 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

#SDCityBeat

Up Front | books

The floating

by jim ruland

library Bottoms up

I

’m fascinated with recovery memoirs, drug novels and stories where overcoming addiction takes center stage.

The narrative arc of a recovery story is similar to a romance and it’s almost always the same: drinking is fun, being a drunk is hard, addiction is hell.

It doesn’t matter if the elusive high in question is heroin, meth or sex. The outcome often feels foreordained.

Everyone hits bottom, but everyone’s bottom is different—therein lies the suspense. At what point will the protagonist recognize he or she is trapped in a zero sum game? Will it happen before she loses everything, assuring herself of a chance at recovering that which has been lost? Or will she burn everything to the ground, reaching the point where she physically can’t go any further and anyone who has ever loved or respected her will never do so again?

Gruesome, right?

But the funny thing about bottoms is they aren’t really bottoms.

Hitting bottom suggests the point where one can’t go any lower, like the bottom of a well or the floor of an ocean trench, miles beneath the surface.

With addiction, one can always go lower—even after one has gone into recovery.

Many believe there are two kinds of addicts: those who have had their relapse and those who have it coming.

A relapse sets the recovery clock back to zero, and the addict returns to the beginning of their recovery, going all the way back to rehab if necessary.

The relapse is something that isn’t dealt with in druggy novels and boozy books that often because it’s inconvenient to the narrative. How can the hero have “changed” and “learned” if they’re back at square one before they’re halfway done?

Well, that’s life and that’s where Clancy Martin’s Bad Sex takes us.

Brett is a married woman with two kids and a husband who looks after them while she scouts properties in Mexico and abroad that the couple might be interested in buying.

Brett is many things: an investor, a writer, a recovering alcoholic, but is disengaged from these states of being in the world. They occupy her time but bring her neither satisfaction nor happiness.

#SDCityBeat

When the novel opens, a tropical storm has interrupted her travel plans, setting her fall in motion. Momentarily derailed, she invites trouble by arranging to meet Sadie, a notorious party girl, and Eduard, a rakish banker who fancies himself a lady’s man. In other words, she is courting a relapse which happens—as it inevitably must— about a third of the way through the book.

“A little past three in the morning, I went to the minibar and poured myself a vodka. It was the first drink I’d taken in two years. I savored it.

Then I had several more. They woke me and my spine tingled.”

The title is something of a misnomer as the sex in Bad Sex is often very good, charged as it is with the frisson of an affair that takes place in a series of luxury hotels far from home. That the sex is wrong doesn’t necessarily make it bad, but who would read a book called Wrong Sex? Martin’s prose is flat, his scope narrow. He is interested in reporting Brett’s transgressions with a minimum of editorializing, which lends power to her predicament.

“Cheating on your husband is a lot like doing cocaine. It’s rarely pleasurable, but try quitting.”

That’s addiction in a nutshell.

Martin uses sex as a standin for drinking. Despite alcohol’s place in our culture, most readers don’t understand why addicts do things they know are dumb, dangerous and wrong over and over again. They can’t comprehend why someone would keep drinking or snorting or shooting up when doing so costs them everything.

Sex, however, is a different story. Everyone understands that the desire for gratification and the need for restraint are usually at odds with one another. When skillfully done, this tension creates its own pleasure, and Martin is a master at it.

Martin has been fairly open about the fact that Bad Sex was written first as a memoir and then transformed into a novel. He’s written candidly about his alcohol addiction and his unconventional recovery in essays published in Harper’s and VICE. While some might regard Bad Sex as an antirecovery novel, it’s actually closer to a moral thriller. I just don’t recommend you read it alone in a hotel room.

Write to jimr@sdcitybeat.com.

September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 13

EVENTS

SHORTlist

ART

the

THREE YOU HAVE TO SEE

GASLAMP QUARTER

1 IN FOCUS

San Diego certainly has options when it comes to seeing classic or cult films on the big screen. And while places like Ken Cinema and Cinema Under the Stars have charm, they’re comparatively small next to a venue like the Balboa Theatre (868 4th Ave., Gaslamp), which opened in 1924 and seats up to 1,600 people. It was restored and reopened in 2009, but hasn’t served as a movie house since the ’70s…Until now [cue dramatic music].

“A core piece of the mission is to bring interactive experiences. You won’t just come and sit and watch a movie,” says Elizabeth Doran, the President and CEO of San Diego Theatres and the curator of the new Cinema @ The Balboa series.

“It’s about having fun together as an audience.”

The new Cinema series will kick-off on Sunday, Sept. 20 at 1 p.m. with a screening of Disney’s Frozen, but it’s only the beginning of a week’s worth of varied films that includes rock BALBOA PARK

2 CRAFT WORKS LYTNON GARDINER

Louis Comfort Tiffany Vase

14 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

SETH COMBS

docs like Tupac: Resurrection (Monday, Sept. 21), the Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense (Tuesday, Sept. 22), and the recent Kurt Cobain tribute, Montage of Heck (Wednesday, Sept. 23). After that, there will be screenings of Grease (Thursday, Sept. 24), Lawrence of AraSAN DIEGO THEATRES bia (Friday, Sept. 25) and Mary Poppins (Sunday, Sept. 27).

There will also be an interactive “Film in Focus” element to the screenings with planned Q&As with directors, actors and members of the community. For Grease, two of the original actors will host the event and, for Lawrence of Arabia, the New Americans Museum will be doing a presentation with members of San Diego’s vast Chaldean community. Oh, and it’s worth mentioning that the theater made a six-figure upgrade to the building, speaker system, projection booth and screen.

“The sound bounces in a way Balboa Theatre that doesn’t happen in a regular movie theater. We’ve been told it has the quality of Carnegie Hall,” says Doran. “I feel like we have the best cinema venue in Southern California now.”

Tickets range from $7.50 to $11.50. sandiegotheatres.org.

A 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. Saturday, Sep. 19. Free. 619348-5517, lowgallerysd.com HFloodplain at Helmuth Projects, 1827 Fifth Ave., Bankers Hill. A new body of work by visual artist Vabianna Santos, primarily composed of text-based work that indulges in willful contradiction and the reimagining of social interactions in conjunction with natural phenomena. Opening from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19.

Free. 619-265-6842, sayingtheleastandsayingitloud.com Italian Art and Artists at Meyer Fine Art, Inc., 2400 Kettner Blvd., Ste. 104, Little Italy. This exhibition will feature a diverse selection of artwork including original prints of lithographs from artists like Cappiello, Razzia, and Damiani. Opening 6 to 9 p.m.

Saturday, Sep. 19. Free. 619-358-9512, plmeyerfineart.com/ H6) A-1 Flyer Distribution, Sogi’s Honey Bakeshop at SPF15, 920 Ocean Blvd., Coronado. In SPF15’s sixth installment Alexander Wolfe (Chicago, IL) and Sogoal Zolghadri (Brooklyn, NY) tinker with the fuzzy lines between art, business and narrative. From 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sep. 20. Free. spf15.info H64 Oz. of Creativity at Culture Brewing Co, 111 S Cedros Ave, Ste 200, Solana Beach. Dozens of local artists showcase painted beer growlers with much of them priced at $150 or less. Opening from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18 and Saturday, Sept. 19. Free. 858-345-1144, sdbeerartfest.com

ESCONDIDO

3 COMIC CONTENDERS

Heading up to the Bay Area to see the San Francisco Comedy Competition is, well, a bit of a hike. Not that it wouldn’t be worth it. Iconic talents have performed at the prestigious contest since its start in the ’70s, including Robin Williams, Ellen DeGeneres and Louis C.K. Lucky for locals, the SFCC is now a national tour, and the semi-final round will be held at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido (340 N. Escondido Blvd.) on Wednesday, Sept. 23. Whittled down from a list of hundreds, 10 comedians will fight for a slot in the finals with Comedy Central vet Kabir Singh serving as the night’s host. In the end, a panel of judges, with a little help from the audience, will declare a winner.

The laughs start at 7:30 p.m. and tickets range from $25-$40. artcenter.org

CALIFORNIA CENTER FOR THE ARTS, ESCONDIDO

Don’t let the word “craft” fool you. Made in America: Craft Icons of the 50 States isn’t some Etsy-come-lately showcase, but rather a meticulously curated exhibition of contemporary and traditional works of art that have enriched American culture. This exhibit is part of the American Icons series of exhibitions at the Mingei International Museum (1439 El Prado) that highlights national works of folk art, craft and design dating back three centuries. With an emphasis on originality and workmanship, pieces include a midcentury Sam Maloof rocking chair (California), a Louis Comfort Tiffany long-necked bottle (New York), and a Gee’s Bend quilt (Alabama).

You can see the other 47 states when the exhibition opens from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept.

19 and runs through Feb. 21. Admission is $7-$10. mingei.org

COORDINATED BY

Butterflies and Insects at San Diego Natural History Museum, 1788 El Prado, Balboa Park. Twenty-four award-winning wildlife photographers come together to display 70 works that celebrate the gift of flight and depict majestic creatures in their natural habitats. Featured photographers include Abe Ordover, Sandy Zelasko, Barbara Swanson and more. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. Free$19. 619-232-3821, sdnhm.org/

Kabir Singh

HMade in America: Craft Icons of the 50 States at Mingei International Museum, 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park. A meticulously curated exhibition of contemporary and traditional works of art that have enriched American culture. The last of the American Icons series of exhibitions, it highlights national works of folk art, craft and design dating back three centuries. Opening from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Saturday, Sep. 19. Free-$10. 619-2390003, mingei.org HRainmaker at Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village. Artists explore water, its absence, beauty and history, through painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and animated collage. Artists include Adam Belt, Roman de Salvo, Lisa Hutton, and almost a dozen more. Opening from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. Free.

619-236-5800, sandiegolibrary.org

BOOKS Juli Bauer and Vanessa Barajas at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The two foodies and paleo-diet advocates will present their new cookbooks, Juli Bauer’s Paleo Cookbook and Clean Eating with a Dirty Mind. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sep. 16. Free 858454-0347, warwicks.com HCasey Schwartz at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The science journalist and staff writer at News-

H = CityBeat picks

week and The Daily Beast will sign and discuss her new book, In the Mind Fields: Exploring the New Science of Neuropsychoanalysis. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sep. 17. Free. 858-454-0347, warwicks. com/ R.A. Salvatore at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 5943 Balboa Ave., Ste. 100, Clairemont. The fantasy author will sign Archmage, which centers on a drow named Drizzt who must face the challenge of the dark elves of Menzoberranzan. At 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sep. 18. Free.

858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com Greg Van Eekhout, Fran Wilde and Adam Rakunas at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 5943 Balboa Ave., Ste. 100, Clairemont. The three sci-fi and fantasy authors will sign their respective new novels, Dragon Coast, Updraft and Windswept. There will also be tacos. At 2 p.m.

Saturday, Sep. 19. Free. 858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com HMichael Gardiner at San Diego Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village.

The author of Kosher Fusion: the Rebirth of a Tradition for the Modern Kitchen will illustrate how the diaspora-forced migration of the Jewish people resulted in the exchange of culinary ideas and the emergence of vibrant new cuisines. From 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. Free. chsandiego.com Ruthanne Lum McCunn at Chuang Archive and Learning Center, 541-B Second Ave., Downtown. A lecture and signing with author of Chinese Yankee, the story of an early Chinese immigrant who bravely served in the U.S. Civil War. From 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. Free-$4. 619338-9888, sdchm.org HMax & Luther at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. As part of Warwick’s ongoing Weekend with Locals program, the canine authors will stop by to promote their illustrated book, True Tails II from the Dog Park. At noon. Sunday, Sep. 20. Free. 858-454-0347, warwicks. indiebound.com HStephanie Clifford at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The Metro reporter for The New York Times will be promoting her debut novel, Everybody Rise, about a young woman who plunges headlong into a glittering world of wealth and social prestige. At 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, Sep. 23. Free. 858-4540347, warwicks.com

COMEDY Kevin Hart at Viejas Arena, 5500 Canyon Crest Drive, College Area. The hugely popular actor and comedian gets back to his stand-up roots on his “What Now?” tour. At 7 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. $53.50-$150. 619-594-0429, viejas.arenasandiego.com ‘90s Improv Show at Twiggs Bakery & Coffeehouse, 2804 Adams Ave., Normal Heights. Roar Theatre hosts its annual improv show dedicated to horrible ‘90s fashion trends and pop culture trends.

From 8 to 9:30 p.m. Friday, Sep. 18. $5.

619-296-4077, roartheatre.com HSan Francisco Comedy Competition: Semi-Final Round at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. Ten comedians will fight for a slot in the finals of the prestigious comedy competition. Comedy Central vet Kabir Singh will serve as the night’s host.

At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sep. 23. $25$40. 760-839-4190, artcenter.org/

DANCE HPGK Dance: The First Time at The Lyceum Theater at Lyceum Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza, Downtown. The local con-

#SDCityBeat

EVENTS perform songs from her album, Except Sometimes. At 8 p.m. Thursday, Sep. 17. $50-$60. 619-400-4500, martinisabovefourth.com

Sogi’s Honey Bakeshop’s hand painted sugar cookies will be available at SPF15’s 6) A-1 Flyer Distribution, Sogi’s Honey Bakeshop opening from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20, at Coronado Beach (920 Ocean Blvd.). temporary dance company performs 10 world premieres by choreographers from across the U.S. including Peter G. Kalivas, Sean Curran, and more. At 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18 and Saturday, Sept. 19, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20. $15-$20.

619-544-1000, thepgkdanceproject.org

FOOD & DRINK HTaste of South Park at South Park.

The inaugural tasting event will feature samples of food and drink from some of South Park’s premiere brick-and-mortar eateries. Tickets can be picked up from the info booth at the intersection of Grape and Fern. From noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. $30. southparkscene.com HSan Diego Festival of Beer at Broadway Pier Port Pavilion, 1000 North Harbor Drive, San Diego’s original beer festival and cancer-fighting fundraiser returns to downtown with over 120 varieties of craft beer. Includes live music, food trucks and raises money for local cancer charities.

From 6 to 11 p.m. Friday, Sep. 18. $50. sdbeerfest.org Change Their Lives: Ports of Call at Port Pavilion on Broadway Pier, 1000 North Harbor Dr., Downtown. The 17th annual event brings together fine food, auctions and music to benefit foster youth and families affected by family violence.

From 6 to 11:30 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. $250. southbaycommunityservices.org

HKAABOO Music Festival at Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. The inaugural, three-day music fest features dozens of national acts including headliners The Killers, No Doubt and the Zac Brown Band. From noon to 2 a.m. Friday, Sept. 18 and Saturday, Sept. 19, and 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20. $125-$799. 858-755-1161, kaaboodelmar.com HThe Music of Surf Rock at The Irenic, 3090 Polk Ave., North Park. The School of Rock San Diego performs songs by bands like The Centurions, The Atlantics, The Bel-Airs and more. Proceeds benefit School of Rock’s music programs. At 6:30 p.m. Friday, Sep. 18. $10. locations. schoolofrock.com/sandiego

HFleet Week Coronado Speed Festival at Naval Air Station North Island , 200 Alameda Blvd., Coronado. Fleet Week’s marquee event, the event features fast-paced auto racing and exhibitions for car enthusiasts of all ages at one of the most distinctive race track locations. From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

EVENTS CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

HAcoustic Mondays: Jenn Grinels at North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach. This night of acoustic music will feature singersongwriter Jenn Grinels, a California native with a musical theater background.

At 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sep. 21. $22. 858481-1055, northcoastrep.org

OUTDOORS

POETRY & SPOKEN WORD

#SDCityBeat

Landlubbers Day at Seaport Village, West Harbor Drive, Downtown. On “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” a festive celebration of all things pirate. Includes live music from the pirate-themed Jackstraws, a costume contest, arts and crafts, and food and drink specials from Seaport Village eater-

Pagan Pride Festival at NTC Park at Liberty Station, 2455 Cushing Road, Point Loma. This family-friendly festival celebrates the Autumnal Equinox through pagan rituals, workshops, and storytelling with entertainment provided by Nomad Culture, The Red Velvet Gypsies and more.

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19.

Free. 619-573-9260, sdpaganpride.org

Blue Sky Riders at Poway Center for the Performing Arts, 15498 Espola Rd., Poway. A musical collaboration between Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins and Nashville songsmiths Gary Bur and Georgia Middleman.

At 7 p.m. Sunday, Sep. 20. $25-$69.

858-748-0505, powayonstage.org/

MUSIC

An Evening with Molly Ringwald at Martinis Above Fourth, 3940 Fourth Ave., Hillcrest. The popular ‘80s actress presents a new show that fuses traditional jazz with popular standards. She will also

San Diego Bayfair at Mission Bay, Bay Park. The word’s quickest boats and just about everything else that’s fast on water will compete in races, freestyle motocross

HDiamond Street Festival at Market St. between Euclid Ave. and 54th St. This inaugural fest celebrating Southeast San Diego features arts, crafts, food, a custom car show, live music, and more. From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. Free. diamondstreetfestival.com

ies. From 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19.

Free. seaportvillage.com

René Barbera at Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Ave., Downtown. The award-winning tenor will perform a recital featuring opera arias, art songs and zarzuelas by composers such as Rossini, Bellini, and Obradors. At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. $30. 619-570-1100, sdopera.org

HSan Diego Restaurant Week at various locations. Now in its 11th year, more than 180 local restaurants will be offering three-course, prix-fixe dinner and two-course, prix-fixe lunch menus. See website for full list of restaurants and offerings. Various times. Sunday, Sep. 20. $15-$45. sandiegorestaurantweek.com

Northern Lights Anniversary Series: 3x3 at Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla. The first in a threepart concert series where violinist Victoria Martino and pianist Jame Lent celebrate milestone anniversaries of three major Northern European composers. This month: the music of Arvo Pärt. At 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, Sep. 17. $30-$35. 858-4545872, ljathenaeum.org/special-concerts

Santa Fe Marketplace at Bazaar del Mundo, 4133 Taylor St., Old Town. This annual weekend offers Native American jewelry, art and other creations by Navajo, Cherokee, and Hopi tribe members, among others. From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18 and Saturday, Sept. 19, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20.

Free. 619-296-3161, bazaardelmundo.com

and aerial trick shows at this annual event, now in its 51st year. From 7:15 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, Sep. 18 and Saturday, Sep. 19, and 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, Sep. 20. Friday, Sep. 18. $20-$250. sandiegobayfair.org

HJulian Music Festival at Menghini Winery, 1150 Julian Orchards Drive, Julian. The 46th annual fest includes a variety of musical genres, including Latin jazz, adult contemporary, alternative folk, Celtic and more.

Benefits the California Wolf Center. From 1 to 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. $15-$20.

760-765-2072, julianmusicfestival.com/

HCalifornia Coastal Cleanup Day at various locations throughout San Diego. Now in its 31st year, San Diego Coastkeeper and Surfrider team up together to host various cleanups throughout San Diego. Visit website for locations, details and updates. From 9 a.m. to noon. Saturday, Sep. 19. Free. cleanupday.org

HCharles Curtis at San Diego Museum of Art, 1450 El Prado, Balboa Park. Part of the Art of Music concert series, cellist Charles Curtis will play tribute to the musical performances that were a central component of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. At 7 p.m. Thursday, Sep. 17. $15-$20. 619-232-7931, sdmart.org

multicultural music and arts festival that includes dance, music, workshops, and food. See website for full schedule of events and times. From 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18, 1 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 19, and noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20. $10-$50. harmonyandmotion.org

HLong Story Short: Euphoric Recall at San Diego Writers Ink, 710 13th St., Downtown. So Say We All’s monthly improv storytelling show where anyone can tell a five-minute story about the times nostalgia painted things differently for you, for better or for worse. From 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. $5 suggested donation. 619696-0363, sosayweallonline.com Shakespeare Reading at Central Library, 330 Park Blvd, East Village. The San Diego Shakespeare Society presents this free, open Shakespeare reading which anyone can join in, or just come to watch. On this night: Love’s Labour’s Lost. From 6 to 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sep. 21. Free. 619-2365800, sandiegoshakespearesociety.org

SPECIAL EVENTS Harmony and Motion Festival at Casa Del Prado, Balboa Park, Balboa Park. A

September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 15

THEATER MOONLIGHT STAGE PRODUCTIONS

what’s real and what’s imagined becomes secondary to the preciousness of life itself.

Big Fish runs through Sept. 26 at the Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista. $24-$52. moonlightstage. com * * * North Coast Rep in Solana Beach has opened its 34th season with Ken Ludwig’s madcap comedy The Fox on the Fairway. Few playwrights write madcap better than Ludwig, whose Lend Me A Tenor four years ago was one of NCR’s most memorable recent productions. But The Fox on the Fairway, about love, golf and a high-stakes contest between two warring country clubs, is an exhausting exercise in farce and physicality. Its prop hijinks are obvious ones, its plot antics strained.

Bets Malone and Josh Adamson in Big Fish The six-person cast directed by Matthew Weiner goes all out, and Jacquelyn Ritz—sexy, saucy and Not your average fish story smart all in one—continues to be one of the NCR’s most delightful regulars. maginative” is the word that best describes The Fox on the Fairway runs through Oct. 11 at Big Fish, Moonlight Stage Company’s closing North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach. offering of its outdoor amphitheater season. $43-$50. northcoastrep.org Its trippy screen projections, versatile set pieces

—David L. Coddon and colorful costumes combine to transport you to a circus, to an open field of daffodils, to an Old Theater reviews run weekly.

West town, to the cave of a giant and more. These Write to davidc@sdcitybeat.com. are all memories from the manically creative mind of Edward Bloom (Josh Adamson)—or are OPENING: they? Are they instead fantasies? Fish stories if I, Joan: A one-woman play about a young, militaristic French you will? girl who has a special relationship with God. You can probably You may remember Daniel Wallace’s novel Big guess who that is. Written by Peter Mitsopoulos, It opens Sept.

Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions or more likely 17 at Swedenborg Hall in University Heights. joan.ticketleap.com Tim Burton’s 2003 film based on the book, Big A Night of Dark Intent: A thriller about six women attemptFish. This 2013 stage musical (book by John Au- ing to solve a years-old murder mystery in the house where gust, music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa) is a natu- the crime was committed. Written by L. Don Swartz, it opens ral extension. While less wacky and more sincere Sept. 18 at PowPAC in Poway. powpac.org than Burton’s film, Big Fish the musical, direct- Master Class: Terrance McNally’s acclaimed dramedy about ed at Moonlight by Steven Glaudini, is a mostly a once-famous opera singer who’s having a hard time adjusting to teaching. Presented by ion Theatre, it opens in previews merry carnival ride, with just the right amount of at BLKBOX Theatre in Hillcrest. iontheatre.com human warmth. (Its conflict stems from Bloom’s Hay Fever: Noël Coward’s classic comedy about a retired son, played by Patrick Cummings, trying to find stage actress, her writer husband, their eccentric children and out “the truth” about his eccentric—and dying— a weekend get-together gone awry. Presented by Cygnet Thedad’s past.) The always magnetic Bets Malone atre, it opens in previews Sept. 23 at the Old Town Theatre. teams with the resourceful Adamson to give you cygnettheatre.com true characters to root for, and the musical score For full listings, is unpretentious if innocuous. The defining “How please visit “T heater ” It Ends” sequence late in Act 2, however, is undeniably moving. At that point, the question of at sdcitybeat.com

I

EVENTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 Saturday, Sept. 19 and Sunday, Sept.

20. $25-$45. coronadospeedfest.com Puzzle Pursuit: Gold Rush at Old Town San Diego, 2474 San Diego Ave, 4S Ranch. The seventh annual scavenger hunt and race benefits Outdoor Outreach, a San Diego-based nonprofit with a mission to connect youth to the transformative power of the outdoors. At 9 a.m. Saturday, Sep. 19. $50. classy.org San Diego Brain Injury Foundation Friendraiser at Mission Trails Regional Park, One Father Junipero Serra Trail, San Carlos. This annual philanthropic evening will include wine-tasting, hors d’oeuvres, live music, and arts and crafts. Benefits brain injury survivors. From 6 to 8:30 p.m.

Saturday, Sep. 19. $50-$60. sdbif.org HParty ARTy for ArtReach at Del Sur Private Home, 15487 Artesian Spring Road. An evening of art, food, games, live music and fun with proceeds benefiting the ArtReach Free Workshop Program that provides free sequential art workshops in elementary schools that would otherwise have no resources for art. From

16 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

4 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Sep. 20. $125. 619615-1093, artreachsandiego.org

TALKS & DISCUSSIONS HBalboa Park and the Future of Urban Cultural Parks at San Diego History Center, 1649 El Prado, Balboa Park.

Nationally renowned landscape authority Charles A. Birnbaum will discuss urban landscape design and the importance of creating a vibrant city with a sustainable urban environment. From 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, Sep. 17. $20-$25. 619-2326203, sandiegohistory.org The Sound of Colors: A Journey Through Painted Poetry at San Diego Museum of Art, 1450 El Prado, Balboa Park. In anticipation of The Art of Music exhibition, Roxana Velàsquez, Maruja Baldwin Executive Director, will lead a journey through the painted poetry of selected works from the Permanent Collection. At 10 a.m. Friday, Sep. 18. $8-$16. 619-2327931, sdmart.org The San Luis Rey Indians and Missions at SDSU, 5500 Campanile Drive,

College Area. Three expert panelists will discuss a wide variety of views on Father Serra, the Franciscans, and the plight of the Luiseno and Kumeyaay Indians.

Takes place at SDSU’s Arts & Letters 101 auditorium. At 7:15 p.m. Friday, Sep. 18. Free. 619-594-5200, https://facebook.com/events/1660354917531219 Mission Valley: Planning for a Sustainable Community at NewSchool of Architecture & Design, 1249 F Street, Downtown. Amid the unsure future of the Chargers and its stadium, Friends of San Diego Architecture will discuss how to create a sustainable future for Mission Valley. At 9:30 a.m.

Saturday, Sep. 19. Free. friendsofsdarch.com

WORKSHOPS Book Publishing 1-2-3 at Artbeat on Mainstreet, 330 Main St., Vista, Vista. Led by editor Laurie Gibson, this workshop helps writers of all levels and genres improve their craft and explore the world of publishing and promotions. From 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sep. 23. $20. 760295-3118, artbeatonmainstreet.com

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September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 17

Here are five Instagram accounts we can’t stop

ing.

At this point, almost everyone knows the feeling. The obsessive double tap.

Whether it’s a friend, a crush, a celeb or some random person who happens to post cool stuff, if you’re on social media, chances are there’s someone whose posts you just can’t miss.

Instagram is one of the best marketing and branding tools visual artists have today. That’s not a novel thesis, but some artists are better at Instagram than others. Some artists don’t post enough. Some post too much. Some only post their completed works. Some post too much personal stuff and not enough art (another food pic? Really?). Some don’t engage with people who leave comments.

Some do, but come across as insincere. Really, it’s all about having a balance.

“I like seeing artists’ inspiration, sketches and references,” says Meegan Nolan, owner and curator of Low Gallery and director of youth programs at the San Diego Art Institute. “I like to see the process (#wip) and I love it when artists post videos and time lapse photos of the evolution of works. I also like that Instagram gives artists a chance to show off their personality and sense of humor which helps people link up with those they would get on well with professionally.”

With that in mind, here are five regional artists doing Instagram right.

strangers_in_a_fire

markmurphydesign

@combsseth Started a few months ago by artist Brandy Bell and musician Mitch Wilson, the concept behind Strangers in a Fire is simple enough: Use nude people as canvases or, more accurately, screens for highly vibrant, almost psychedelic projections. The duo works with both a digital and an oldschool slide projector to cast patterns and even landscape pictures on models. They’re consistently posting new content (at least one a day) and have gained enough followers that people are inquiring as to where they can buy prints of the pictures. “Strangers are contacting us to shoot them,” says Bell, who says she and Wilson started the project after she discovered some of her father’s old image slides from the ’70s.

“We started it as just something we’d like to do with friends, but people have really responded to it on Instagram.”

@combsseth Mark Murphy has been a staple on the local art scene for more than two decades now and is known mainly for his comic- and cartoon-inspired art and illustrations. He’s also a book publisher, graphic designer and independent curator, so Instagram is a useful tool to help market whatever he’s working on at the moment. “It’s invaluable, and authentic people win,” says Murphy, who posts a healthy mix of his works and other people’s art that he find inspiring. When it comes to his own pieces, rather than simply post finished works, Murphy posts pics of sketches and works-in-progress, offering followers a glimpse into his artistic process.

“You need to be purposeful in how you use it for yourself,” says Murphy. “To me the social game has always been about outreach and connection.”

18 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

taylormarieprendergast

al.tropics

@combsseth The work of Taylor Marie Prendergast was made for Instagram.

Whether she’s dabbling in ’80s-inspired photography or her large-scale, surrealist-inspired portraits, she loves to post the finished product, but doesn’t mix in too many pics of herself (when she does, they’re contrarily playful compared to her paintings). While this kind of tactic might not work for some artists, or could come across as inauthentic, it adds a layer of mystery to her work and the artist herself. Whatever it is, it seems to work for her. “I think it helps when posting art on any web platform to photograph the work in an environment so the viewer can see the work in scale,” says Prendergast, who spent three months in Croatia studying under the direction of artist Joze Ciuha. “Seeing the work hung on a wall next to furniture helps the viewer see it in a more realistic light. That has been the most impactful response.”

@combsseth Inspired by “crossborder folklore” and the “effects of sociocultural disintegration,” the work of Tijuana-based artist Luis Alonso Sánchez Varela can be heavy in nature.

That it comes across as accessible on a forum like Instagram is a testament to his talent. He works in a variety of mediums, but it’s his sculptural and neon work that people seem to respond to the most. A large reflective piece he recently installed in the desert at The Joshua Treenial was certainly a highlight from this year’s contemporary art fair. Still, he balances that seriousness with inspired portraits of hims elf out on the streets of TJ, finding inspiration wherever it comes to him. He may not always have a smile on his face, but one definitely gets the sense that he’s a serious artist who doesn’t take himself too seriously.

celestialterrestrial @combsseth If you’ve been paying attention at all to the local art scene over the last five years, Celeste Byers is certainly a name that should have come up

by now. A tireless painter and illustrator (really, we’re not sure when or if she actually sleeps), the O.B.-raised “nature worshipper and dream recaller” has had her work published in the New York Times and Lucky Peach, but it seems much more likely that locals have seen one of her murals around town whether it’s “Superhuman Nature” in O.B. or “Las Dimensiones” on the border fence in TJ. Both she and partner-in-crime @ aaronglasson are prolific Instagrammers, proving one doesn’t need to sacrifice quantity for quality. “It’s cool seeing people post process shots of their work to build anticipation for the final thing,” says Byers. Using that logic, Byers and Glasson use the app to take viewers on a journey through the artistic process, allowing followers a chance to see how giant murals are erected via time-lapse video and stunningly colorful pictures. #Nofilter needed.

Write to sethc@sdcitybeat.com

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Culture | Art

Seen Local

the natural world using everything from “thrift store cameras to big fancy cameras.” He specializes in desert landscapes that are stark and otherworldly. With the exception of a photo of a flash flood near the Salton Sea, there’s nothing in the photos featured in Rainmaker that scream water. In fact, quite the opposite, but look closer and you’ll see what Field sees. water works “You can see the shore of where this ancient lake ichael Field had a dream when he was a young boy. That dream, however, had noth- used to be,” Field says, clearly excited and pointing out the caves and ridges on the desert rocks that were ing to do with being an artist. formed by water hundreds, seth combs “I have zero motivation to thousands and millions of be an art star. I just want to years ago. “If you see these do my thing,” says Field in his caves, they look like the caves office at the San Diego Natuyou’d see at a beach in La Jolral History Museum where la. The only thing missing is he works as the lead exhibits the water and the tourists.” designer. He says this after Field has always been an nearly an hour tour of the avid camper and feels a parmuseum in which you can see ticular fondness for the deshis work all over the place. ert. And his photos have been Whether he’s talking about used by State and National mesa and canyon topography, Park services, as well as a or the parasite that makes JeU.N. report on the state of the rusalem crickets so thirsty, it world’s deserts. When asked quickly becomes clear Field if he has an agenda with his is living his dream. pictures or a message that “I used to come in here he’d like people to walk away when I was a boy and bring with, his response is both fossil bones I found,” says pragmatic and, yes, artistic.

Field. “And now I work here.

“I want people to look It’s pretty great.” deeper with where we’re at,” Still, however much he’d says Field. “When I go somelike to dismiss the idea, Field where, I can look through all is, indeed, an artist as well.

Look no further than RainMichael Field the bad freeway exchanges and see that it’s an awesome maker, a group show opening at spot…For me, it’s just about the Central Library on Saturday, Sept. 19 from noon slowing down and appreciating a little deeper what’s to 2 p.m. The exhibition examines water, drought and climate change through a variety of artistic mediums. here.” flickr.com/photos/minkfink58 —Seth Combs For almost half his life, Field has been taking photos of

M

floating in space

I

t’s hard not to assume something when Cathy Breslaw says she’s fascinated with “space.” One could easily mistake her large-scale, mixed-media pieces as some kind of reference to outer space or perhaps a grand statement about intergalactic worlds. That assumption could only be perpetuated by the fact that sculptural pieces like the fantastical “Dreamscape” and the ominous “Sensations” look as if they’re topographic renderings of another world.

“I’ve always had a real and genuine curiosity about space, but mostly the space around us,” says the Carlsbad-based artist. “The invisible space and what’s in that space. I feel an interconnection with everything and I don’t see anything as being separate. That’s a driving factor for me.”

As heavy as that sounds, the works on display at Macro Views, Micro Wonders, a solo show of recent works at the Mesa College Art Gallery, are still aesthetically pleasing and accessible. For much of the work, Breslaw uses a plastic, almost transparent industrial mesh material she found at a trade show in Taiwan to create holographic

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and almost hallucinatory effects. Some of the pieces seem to be suspended in mid-air, hovering five inches above the gallery walls as if an illusion. The works have the sensibility of a painter, with sheets of the industrial mesh splayed out like paint strokes, which is probably why Breslaw deseth combs scribes them as “paintings that aren’t made out of paint.” The aforementioned “Sensations” is a large-scale installation piece that includes a recorded sound piece by artist Francisco Eme. It was inspired by a trip Breslaw took to the Columbia Glacier in Alaska and, coupled with Eme’s eerie sounds, the result is both serene and haunting.

“I felt like I had to materialize that experience somehow.

Seeing the icebergs break off, it was overwhelming and surreal,” says Breslaw, who will be giving an artist talk at the Mesa Gallery on Sept. 30 at 11 a.m. “A lot of my work connects to the natural world. It’s very meditative Cathy Breslaw for me. It’s awesome, but not the kind of awesome that most people mean when they use that word. Awesome as in sublime.” cathybreslaw.com

—Seth Combs September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 19

Culture | Voices

ryan bradford

well that was

awkward

Slummy day real estate

O

ur real estate agent, K, meets us on Boston Ave. in Southeast San Diego. She drives a Prius. Is it possible, I think, to be a real estate agent and not drive a Prius? Is it even legal? Barking dogs drown out the sound of her heels against the pavement. The sound triggers memories of when I delivered mail for the U.S. Postal Service. If there’s a singular quality that defines an unwelcoming neighborhood, it’s guard dogs.

The owner of the property we’re about to see is probably in his late 30s, with a trimmed beard and skinny jeans. A hipster landlord. He notes my beard when we approach and says, “It’s like looking in a mirror!” I make a mental note to shave my beard when we get home.

“Now, you have to approach this house with, what I like to call, ‘Lysol behind the eyes.’ These tenants are,” he pauses, “…not very clean.”

Christ. Why stop at my eyes? Why not put Lysol in both my ears and mouth? I want to ingest fatal amounts of the cleaning product just so I don’t have to listen to this hipster slumlord anymore.

My wife and I look at each other, and then at K. She forces a smile—the kind of smile that says I’m sorry.

Hipster slumlord lets us in and, yeah, it’s bad: the kitchen has been cleaned very recently, but the smell of rotten food and dirty diapers still lingers. In the master bedroom, a soiled mattress rests on the floor, not even aligned against the wall.

Three children and their puppy occupy the other bedroom, furnished with only one bed. My wife, who has worked with transitioning homeless families into housing, will later tell me that this house is exactly like all her former clients’ homes.

“Well, all right,” we say, diplomatically signaling our desire to get out of there, as if things were really all right. As if there was no guilt in intruding on this less fortunate family and judging their home unworthy of our investment. As if there weren’t many levels of exploitation at play between hipster slumlord and his tenants.

“Well, all right.”

Back outside, hipster slumlord tells us that he has plenty of other properties if we want to see them. We decline. The drive to the next house is mostly silent. *** People often ask how we were able to afford a house. Yes, how indeed?

When wages don’t match the rising cost of standard of living; when the Union-Tribune calculates that it takes 18 years for a college-educated household to save enough for a 20-percent down payment in the San Diego housing market; when you work in media—media!— how can you afford a house?

The truth is I’m married to someone who saved money for a lot of years. We also received assistance from her parents. In other words, we are very, very lucky. I recognize ours is a privileged situation. If it’s

any consolation, not a day goes by where I don’t feel a little like a scrub for bringing nothing to the table except my charm and my moderately good looks. *** K points to the dead cockroach on the porch and says something about it being a bad omen. I usually appreciate K’s penchant for dark humor: often pointing out the creepiness of every wacky add-on we see, or suggesting that every locked door we encounter must hold bodies behind it. But now, given our proximity to Mount Hope Cemetery, the joke makes me feel cold.

It looks like the house was abandoned mid-flip.

The dark wood laminate floors look fine, but that’s the extent of the remodel. The interior is angled and dark like a German expressionist film. Grime covers the kitchen and bathroom. Someone has left a scale in the bathroom. But the most unsettling thing is the observatory/fishbowl room adjacent to the living room.

The entire wall that separates the rooms is made of glass. The other side contains all the former occupants’ possessions. Standing on the remodeled side, it’s like you’re looking into some diorama, or dollhouse, arranged by a giant child. The bed sits in the middle of the room, facing a TV. Wardrobes and other furniture litter the surrounding area. I imagine a scenario where a mad scientist traps unsuspecting homebuyers behind the glass and enacts a series of sadistic, Pavlovian experiments until we become living dolls in his domestic nightmare. The only time he’s not watching is when he leaves to use the bathroom and weigh himself, hence the lone scale. I determine that this must be the most logical explanation for this room, and therefore, we do not make an offer on the house. *** We buy a house in City Heights. When I meet the home inspector to get the report, I jokingly ask him if he found any ghosts. “No ghosts,” he says, without missing a beat. Then, he says that our roof needs to be replaced and our floors are crooked. *** When the cable guy emerges from under the house after installing our Internet, he says that there’s a cat skeleton under our house. “It’s old,” he says. “Just bones.”

Sometimes, when our cat’s in the hallway, he’ll arch his back for no reason. *** We live on a hilltop. For the first time since moving to San Diego, we’re not looking straight into our neighbor’s windows; we have a view. It’s our view. At night, we drink beer and watch the flashing lights of the shipyards in the distance. Not a bad way to spend 30 more years.

“

It looks like the house was abandoned mid-flip.

“

20 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

Well That Was Awkward appears every other week.

Write to ryanb@sdcitybeat.com.

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September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 21

Culture | Film

Honor among thieves

Black Mass

Johnny Depp goes nuts as Boston gangster Whitey Bulger

sinations tells us that Bulger means business. Connelly’s haphazard morality and delusional sense of loyalty is overshadowed only by his gym-bro arrogance. If Depp’s performance is pure evil, Edgerton’s

by Glenn Heath Jr. is just puerile.

Interestingly, multiple bit players watching from e wary of the film that confesses too much. Black the sidelines provide a more conflicted portrait of Mass commits this sin regularly, using long and Black Mass. These are the ones both remembering dramatic speeches to convey its “honor among back yet saying very little in the moment. Rory Cothieves” edict in relation to the true story behind infa- chrane delivers a stellar turn as right hand thug Steve mous Boston kingpin James “Whitey” Bulger (played Flemmi, whose conscience starts to get weighed

by Johnny Depp) and his clandestine relationship with down by all the carnage. An intriguing young actor the FBI. Even if this weren’t such a familiar gangster named Jesse Plemons plays another quiet lowlife genre convention, one would only have to watch for a with cauliflower ear for a face. He exhibits more honfew minutes to understand the low stakes. esty with one punch than Edgerton achieves in his Confessions by key criminal associates inspire the many self-proselytizing speeches. Scarier even is W. film’s traditional flashback structure. Director Scott Earl Brown as John Martorano, a silent enforcer who Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out of killed more than 20 people for the Furnace) leans on this trope the Winter Hill Gang. in the early goings to convey a Depp’s extraterrestrial versubjective and skewed vision sion of Bulger will surely get black mass of Bulger, a brutal, pale skinned much of the praise from critics.

Directed by Scott Cooper demon with slicked back thinOne scene in particular portrays Starring Johnny Depp, ning hair, rotten teeth and crysthe actor’s creepy dedication.

Joel Edgerton, tal blue orbs. The optometrist While visiting Connelly’s house Benedict Cumberbatch, behind Depp’s hypnotic contact for dinner, he confronts the lenses should get a Best Special man’s disapproving wife (JuliDakota Johnson Effects Oscar. anne Nicholson) with a not-soRated R In the mid-1970s, Bulger was subtle diagnosis of her faux ailsimply a regional player operatments. The way Bulger’s hands ing with his Winter Hill Gang suddenly caress her face induces out of South Boston, a working class enclave mostly chills. Later, when a character labels him “violently made up of Irish-Americans. Around this time an decisive,” it’s clear why. ambitious FBI agent named John Connelly (Joel Still, despite some strong performances and inEdgerton), who grew up in the same neighborhood, tense moments, Black Mass, which opens Friday, approaches Bulger to form an alliance with the hopes Sept. 18, can’t overcome its ridiculous treatment of of using his criminal contacts to eliminate Italian the FBI and Connelly’s character in particular. It’s Mafiosos on the North end. never believable that Edgerton’s character would be Getting in bed with the devil never turns out well, given carte blanche to do whatever he wants without but that doesn’t stop Connelly from continuously some repercussions. justifying his tenuous bond with Bulger even as the Whether or not Cooper purposefully let Edgerton Winter Hill Gang expands its operations and brazen run wild with caricature is ultimately a moot point. tactics under the FBI’s protection. Connelly’s con- The performance is bombastic and distracting, more cerned boss (Kevin Bacon) calls out the obvious, la- suited for a satirical romp in the vein of David O. beling their impotent unit “a bunch of Keystone cops.” Russell’s lousy American Hustle. Depp, on the other It’s true; Cooper’s film understands nothing about the hand, would feel right at home next to Jack Nicholprocedural aspects of police work, nor does it care to. son in Martin Scorsese’s superlative The Departed.

Eventually Black Mass only loosely abides by the Never the twain shall meet. rules of perspective for those small level hoodlums telling the story. Like Bulger and Connelly, the film Film reviews run weekly. does whatever it wants. A string of flagrant assas- Write to glennh@sdcitybeat.com.

B

22 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

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Culture | Film

Pawn Sacrifice

A serious man

I

’m convinced Tobey Maguire has never been a strong actor.

He’s all crazy eyes and smirk, both aggressive and meek (how is that possible?). Arguably, only Ang Lee and Curtis Hanson have been able to tame his insufferable eagerness to express things. Nowadays The Ice Storm, Ride With the Devil and Wonder Boys, which arguably contain Maguire’s best roles, seem like light years away.

Those feel like even murkier memories after watching Maguire ham it up as chess prodigy and anti-communist Bobby Fischer in Edward Zwick’s haphazard biopic,

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Pawn Sacrifice. As the arrogant and volatile young man wigs out during his much-publicized duel with Russian nemesis Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber) in 1972, the film flashes back to tell Fischer’s story growing up in Brooklyn and rising up the ranks of his sport.

Montages of Fischer’s victories are intercut with archival footage of the Vietnam War, the space race, and other critical historical events. When things do get personal, Zwick and Maguire have no idea how to make this character seem anything but domineering and exceptionally simplistic.

Eventually the film catches back up to where it began. Fischer

and Spassky trade strategic barbs on the chessboard, a sparring match with deep ideological implications in the Cold War. But as a sports film, Pawn Sacrifice, which opens Friday, Sept. 18, doesn’t achieve even the most elemental of thrills usually associated with its genre. There’s nothing at stake in this telling of the story, since every conflict between Fischer and his various opponents gets vocalized in the most overt ways.

Peter Sarsgaard shows up as a brooding priest/coach for Fischer, and Michael Stulhbarg steals multiple scenes as a wormy promoter and government stooge.

Both of these talented actors can only watch as Maguire turns Fischer into a caricature. Zwick and his fellow filmmakers don’t seem to mind.

—Glenn Heath Jr.

Opening A Brilliant Mind: A teenage math prodigy discovers that friendship is attainable when he lands a spot on the British squad competing at the International Mathematics Olympiad.

About Ray: Elle Fanning plays a teenager who decides to transition from female to male, a decision that causes a rift with mother Maggie (Naomi Watts).

Black Mass: In this true-crime biopic,

Johnny Depp plays Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, who ascends to the highest level of power by striking a deal with the FBI to eliminate his competition.

East Side Sushi: When Juana lands a position as a kitchen assistant at a local sushi restaurant, she shakes things up with her fresh perspective on food and flavor. Screens through Thursday, Sept. 24, at the Digital Gym Cinema.

Everest: Based on a true story, a group of extreme hikers are trapped atop Mt. Everest after a brutal snowstorm strikes. Stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke and Keira Knightley.

Mala Mala: This formally inventive documentary tells the powerful story of transformation through the eyes of nine transidentifying individuals in Puerto Rico.

Screens through Thursday, Sept. 24, at the Digital Gym Cinema.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials: A desolate and hot dystopia awaits those who brave “Gladers” who escaped the maze. Sounds like a fun time.

Pawn Sacrifice: Tobey Maguire does his best to overact as paranoid chess prodigy Bobby Fischer who really hates Communists, Jews and telephone receivers.

Slow Learners: Two awkward romantics band together to stop their losing streak in love. Screens through Thursday, Sept. 24, at the Digital Gym Cinema

For a complete listing of movies, please see “F ilm Screenings” at sdcitybeat.com under the “E vents” tab.

September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 23

Music

Shamir on the regular L

as Vegas has a long history of providing a conflicted muse to performers and songwriters throughout the last century of pop music, and for pretty obvious reasons. It’s a place where fortunes are made, lives are ruined and thousands of dollars can be spent on a night you barely remember. Elvis Presley famously described the city as a place that could “turn day into nighttime” and “night into daytime,” while the Cocteau Twins described the sight of the strip as “brighter than the sun” in “Heaven or Las Vegas,” likening the glowing sight of the strip with an ethereal vision of the afterlife. But the dark side of Vegas has provided just as much inspiration, if not more so, like when Gram Parsons lamented that “Las Vegas ain’t no place for a poor boy like me.”

Pop artist and Las Vegas native Shamir Bailey has penned his own paean to his home city, “Vegas” but it’s one that comes with the authority of someone who spent his formative years coming up in its less grossly capitalist parts. He uses clever alliteration and internal rhymes to convey the feeling of being hypnotized by neon, in lines such as “Energies, ignite like kerosene/Electric means, guaranteed to reach a peak.”

Vivid and poetic as the 20-year-old Bailey’s take on Vegas is, musically, he’s quick to explain in a phone interview that it’s not necessarily reflective of his own experience— and part of that has to do with his age.

“It’s very normal,” he says of his home city. “I mostly know Vegas from living in the suburbs. You’re in the desert, and it’s not as industrial as the strip—it’s a very normal lifestyle.

“You can’t do anything on the strip until you’re 21, and I’m still not 21,” he adds.

Bailey’s youth might be prohibitive in terms of what kind of activities he can participate in on the strip, but it hasn’t held him back in terms of artistry. His new album Ratchet,

24 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

Las Vegas artist makes bangers sophisticated beyond his youth by jeff terich

tually have meaningful lyrics. So I was like ‘I wanna do something like that.’”

Impressive as it is to hear an artist as young as Shamir delivering a record as cohesive as Ratchet, it actually follows the similarly strong Northtown EP from last year, released when he was 19, and the single “On the Regular,” which he also included on the album. That song—a highenergy series of clever boasts—even narrates his own upreleased in May via XL Recordings, is an impressive and fulbringing as a budding musician: “Wanted a guitar before I ly realized electronic pop statement that shows sophisticawanted a bike/Had an Epiphone, fuck a Fisher Price.” tion beyond his years. Recorded in collaboration with proAnd Bailey confirms that his life as a songwriter began ducer Nick Sylvester—a former music journalist—Ratchet is early on in his grade school years. an album that serves as both infectious dance-floor fodder “I’ve been writing little ditties to myself...as long as I can and singing-to-yourself-in-the-shower catharsis. remember,” he says. “I felt like I was actually writing muBailey says that it was important for him to maintain sic, seriously, when I first got a guitar, and started to get a that balance between fun, catchy songs and something little bit better a few years later. I’ve done so many different that’s ultimately more meaningful. It’s a balance he mainprojects—before writing as Shamir, I was in a punk band. tains well, turning damaged relationships And before that I did country music. into sing-along therapy on the impossibly So, definitely I’ve been writing, but I catchy “Call It Off,” while “Youth” finds don’t think that changed too much, him both celebrating and lamenting the just the style of music that I’ve been process of figuring your life out, and makdoing. So Shamir is a little more pop, ing mistakes along the way—set to an unand maybe a little more serious.”

Sept.

22 stoppable disco stomp, no less. There is With his 21st birthday just a couple The Irenic no shortage of earworms on Ratchet, but months away, Shamir Bailey is still in the shamir326.tumblr.com none fall into the trap of vapid, mainearly stages of what has the potential to stream fluff. be a fruitful career. Yet, in some ways, this “With upbeat, bubbly music, and has been a long time coming. Not everyone with electronic production, I think sometimes that the finds their calling before getting their driver’s license, but lyrics kind of get overlooked,” he says. “I just wanted Bailey says that being onstage is where he belongs. to kind of, like, make sure I was saying something with “It’s the most comfortable I feel,” he says. “It’s a huge rush my music. I feel like some pop music on the radio, and for me. It’s a whole exchange of energy between the listener stuff, is like, not necessarily great pop music. The lyrics and the audience and me, and we’re just having fun.” are primarily about dancing, love, blah blah blah. But then I discovered artists like Marina and the Diamonds, and Write to jefft@sdcitybeat.com or follow him on Twitter Clerkenwell Kid and Robyn, who make pop music but acat @1000TimesJeff.

Shamir

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September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 25

26 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

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September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 27

Music

notes from the smoking patio Locals Only

A

pair of local musicians opened a new music school in La Jolla. Natasha Kozaily, who performs under the name Gunakadeit, and Chad Farran, a percussionist, singer/songwriter and TV/film producer, just celebrated the opening of the Kalabash School of Music and the Arts, in the beachside community of Bird Rock.

The school was formerly called Prodigy School of the Arts, where Kozaily first took a job when she moved to San Diego. Over time, the hours spent working there ended up turning into an opportunity that she couldn’t pass up.

“When I moved here five years ago, I was teaching at this place called Prodigy School of Arts,” Kozaily says in a phone interview. “The owners wanted to sell, and they wanted to sell it to me. So the first person I thought of to partner with me on this was Chad.”

The school features a curriculum comprising private instrumental instruction, including voice, guitar and piano. There are also visual arts classes, and every class can be taught to students ranging in age from elementary school children to adult learners.

But Kozaily said she and Farran wanted the school to be more than just strictly educational.

Chad Farran and Natasha Kozaily “We were putting together this vision we had that is different,” she says. “It has more of a community vibe, more modern.”

In addition to hosting classes and private instruction for budding musicians, Kalabash will also host a variety of performance-based events, including open mics, student performances and, eventually, concerts by established musicians. For Kozaily, the school aims to give musicians-in-training the tools to become artists in their own right.

“We’re creating an opportunity to have students come together and jam,” she says. “That’s sort of the overall philosophy—we’re teaching them to create their own music.” kalabasharts.com

—Jeff Terich

IN EARS WE TRUST A semi-regular feature in which we ask local musicians about the music they’ve been digging lately Alex Capella, Bakkuda: Another Eternity by Purity Ring: “I’ve been super into some of the new tracks from Purity Ring’s new album, mainly ‘Push Pull.’

I love how catchy the vocals and melody are but then how dynamic and eccentric the percussion and synths are. It’s a perfect combo of pop and alternative/artsy in my opinion. I’ve also been enjoying this new artist, HANA’s, song ‘Avalanche.’ Coincidentally she’s opening for Purity Ring on their current tour! I love the minimalist approach to her music and her voice and melodies are super sweet.”

Brad Lee, Mr. Tube and the Flying Objects: “I’ve been hitting up the Mills Brothers pretty hard when we have friends or family over. If you’ve never heard ’em, I suggest starting with the song ‘Til Then.’ It’s great old-timey stuff. Pleases a wide array of tastes.

And I never go more than a week or two without some Fela Kuti and/or Tony Allen. Never gets old.”

Purity Ring it in the mail. Iron Maiden is the band that got me into metal from the beginning, and the fact that they are still making music amazes me. The new album is amazing. It has the classic Maiden sound with new elements that I have not heard before. A good listen for anybody interested in heavy metal.”

Natalie Emmons: Peace is the Mission by Major Lazer. “I’ve got Peace is the Mission on repeat. There are some major names on the album, but my favorite tracks are the collaborations with indie artists, like “Be Together,” featuring Wild Belle.

Parker Edison, Parker and the Numberman: “This month I’ve been listening to Fabolous’ Friday Nite Freestyles mixtape (with DJ Clue) and Chem-Trails by San Diego rappers Obnoxious & Scatterbrain. Both are real heavy with bars. Real Chris Bourne, Ruines ov Abaddon: The Book of rap is back.”

Souls by Iron Maiden. “I’ve been listening to the new Iron Maiden album nonstop since I received

—Jeff Terich

28 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

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Music

September 18 Jeff Terich Friday, PLAN A: Negura Bunget, Grimegod, Dyn-

seen several times, and I’ll happily see several more times. They make a lot of spectacular noise, but underneath the din their fari, Ruines Ov Abbadon, Lurid Memory songs are pretty damn catchy. They’re the @ The Merrow. It’s not often you get the best of several worlds. chance to see a Transylvanian black metal band(!), but Negura Bunget have made the trip all the way from Eastern Europe, with Monday, September 21 a catalog of spooky, mystical metal epics. PLAN A: Systems Officer, Birdy BarThat sounds like my kind of show. BACK- dot, The Lulls @ The Casbah. Systems A music insider’s weekly agenda UP PLAN: Turquoise Jeep, Noface Shad- Officer has been getting more active afgreat melodies, enter to get some free passes owmen, DJ Artistic, Rosa Veleno @ The ter a few years of relative quiet, and now Wednesday, September 16 they’ve stylized themselves as S.O. Whatat bellyup.com (for what it’s worth, Local Casbah.

PLAN A: Hum, Mineral @ Belly Up Tav- Natives’ atmospheric indie is better than ever the name, they’re a great local band, ern. If you grew up in the ’90s, and had an most). PLAN B: Jennifer Castle, Northern Saturday, September 19 and you should plan to be there early for affinity for big-guitar indie rock that rode American @ Seven Grand. Singer/songBirdy Bardot.

PLAN A: Mike Krol, Shady Francos @ the line between the underground and the writer Jennifer Castle has a fascinating aesSeven Grand. Mike Krol’s specialty is sumainstream, you probably loved Hum. You thetic. In some respects, she’s a rustic and per-short (two minutes or less) power-pop Tuesday, September 22 should have anyway, since their punchy an- old-school folk singer/songwriter. Yet in songs with a garagey, punk-inspired sneer. PLAN A: Shamir @ The Irenic. Read my thems are amazing. What’s more, they’re others, she’s a modern performer who uses It’s catchy stuff, but smothered in fuzz feature this week (page 24) on Shamir, a joined by emo legends Mineral. One more atmosphere and effects to her advantage to and attitude. How could you go wrong? 20-year-old singer from Las Vegas who check mark on the bucket list. PLAN B: create a surreal vibe. It’s pretty, just a little PLAN B: Goatsnake, Black Breath, Bat- has crafted an infectious and unforgetMobb Deep @ Observatory North Park. weird, and highly recommended. talion of Saints, Obliterations @ Brick table debut album, Ratchet. This show is This is Mobb Deep’s second show in San

by Brick. Doom metal rippers Goatsnake, sure to turn into a dance party, so don’t Diego this year, and that’s fine by me. Their featuring SunnO)))’s Greg Anderson, re- miss it. PLAN B: Future Islands, Dan landmark album The Infamous is still chillunited recently and just released their Deacon @ Observatory North Park. ing and hard-hitting. Backup Plan: Hand first album in 15 years. They’re as heavy Speaking of dance parties, the first of two of Gavrilo, Future Age, Boychick @ The and roaring as ever. BACKUP PLAN: Future Islands shows at the Observatory Casbah.

Radkey, Griever, Graf Orlock, Haruka happens tonight, and nobody’s leaving @ Soda Bar. without getting those limbs moving. Don’t Thursday, September 17 worry: Sam Herring, the band’s frontman, PLAN A: Local Natives, Cramer @ Belly will be doing most of the heavy lifting. The Sunday, September 20 Up Tavern. This one’s a little weird. This PLAN A: KEN Mode, Child Bite, Garrett man has moves. BACKUP PLAN: A Place show is free, with tickets being given out as a Jamieson @ Soda Bar. Winnipeg metal/ to Bury Strangers, Grooms, Keepers @ lottery, rather than being sold at the box ofSoda Bar. Mike Krol noise rock trio KEN Mode are a band I’ve fice. If you like atmospheric indie rock with

If I were u

#SDCityBeat

September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 29

Music

Concerts HOT! NEW! FRESH!

The Killers (Observatory, 9/19), ‘Back to Basics’ w/ Jedi Mind Tricks, Hieroglyphics, Brother Ali (Observatory, 10/11), Elefante (Music Box, 10/24), The Vibrators (Soda Bar, 10/26), Fear Factory (Brick by Brick, 10/29), Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts (Music Box, 11/4), Tokimonsta (Observatory, 11/13), Atmosphere (Observatory, 11/16), Allison Weiss (Casbah, 11/22), Kate Boy (Soda Bar, 11/22), Nashville Pussy (Hideout, 11/27), Nikki Lane (The Irenic, 12/1), Warren Haynes (Observatory, 12/5), Faster Pussycat (Brick by Brick, 12/6), Lights (HOB, 12/13), Chet Faker (Observatory, 12/29), The Academy Is… (Observatory, 12/30).

GET YER TICKETS Titus Andronicus (The Irenic, 9/24), Patton Oswalt (Balboa Theatre, 9/26), Ratatat (BUT, 10/2), Gaslamp Killer (Observatory, 10/3), Beirut (Open Air Theater, 10/6), Garbage (Humphreys, 10/6), Ash (Music Box, 10/10), Redd Kross (Soda Bar, 10/10), ‘CRSSD Festival’ w/ Flaming Lips, TV on the Radio, Giorgio Moroder, Jamie xx (Waterfront Park, 10/1011), 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), Ginuwine (Music Box, 10/16), 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), Natalie Prass (Soda Bar, 10/24), Shakey Graves (Observatory, 10/28), Failure, …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead (Music Box, 10/29), 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), HEALTH (Casbah, 11/10), The Menzingers, meWithoutYou (Observatory, 11/10), The Fall of Troy, Kylesa (Irenic, 11/10), Yo La Tengo (Observatory, 11/12), Soulside (Casbah, 11/12), Godsmack (Open Air Theatre, 11/12), Mayhem, Watain (Observatory, 11/13), The Album Leaf (Casbah, 11/13), Born Ruffians (Soda Bar, 11/13), Youth Lagoon (BUT, 11/14), The Cult, Primal Scream (HOB, 11/19), Big K.R.I.T. (Observatory, 11/19), Minus the Bear (Observatory, 11/21), Everclear (Music Box, 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), Ladysmith Black Mambazo (BUT, 1/19).

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

Hum, Mineral at Belly Up Tavern.

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

30 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

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

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 (sold out).

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 (sold out). 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 Supply 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 (sold out). Dead Kennedys at Observatory North Park.

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

Swervedriver at The Casbah.

Wednesday, Sept. 30 Ultimate Painting at Soda Bar. Halsey at House of Blues (sold out). Murs at The Casbah.

October 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.

Saturday, Oct. 3 King Dude at The Hideout. Thievery Corporation at Belly Up Tavern (sold

out). Florida Georgia Line at Sleep Train Amphitheatre. Gaslamp Killer at Observatory North Park. Musiq Soulchild at Music Box.

Sunday, Oct. 4 Citizen Cope at Observatory North Park.

DJ Krush at Belly Up Tavern. Holly Miranda at The Merrow.

Monday, Oct. 5 The Word at Belly Up Tavern.

Tuesday, Oct. 6 The Fratellis at House of Blues. Paul Weller at Observatory North Park. Beirut at Open Air Theater. Garbage at Humphreys.

Wednesday, Oct. 7 Lil Dicky at Observatory North Park.

Thursday, Oct. 8 Xavier Rudd and the United Nations at Observatory North Park. Riverboat Gamblers at The Hideout. Braids at Soda Bar.

rCLUBSr

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

Thu: Karaoke. Fri: Blink 180True, Punkture, Moxie. Sat: POB, White Glove Service, Layne, 7 Seal Dub, King Zero.

98 Bottles, 2400 Kettner Blvd. Ste. 110, San Diego. Little Italy. Fri: Sexteto Sonero Del Caribe. Sat: Jamie Shadowlight & Naganuma Dance.

Air Conditioned Lounge, 4673 30th St., San Diego. Normal Heights. Wed: ‘Culture’ w/ DJ Ele. Thu: ‘Good Times’. Fri: DJ Junior the Disco Punk. Sat: ‘JUICY’ w/ DJ Mike Czech. Sun: ‘Church’ w/ DJs Bass Exotic, Karma, Vinnassi, Karaoke.

Mon: DJ Royale.

American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave., San Diego. Downtown. Wed: Open mic. Thu: Maz Jobrani. Fri: Maz Jobrani.

Sat: Maz Jobrani.

Bang Bang, 526 Market St., San Diego.

Downtown. Thu: Justin Martin. Sat: Dropout.

Bar Pink, 3829 30th St., San Diego.

North Park. Thu: DJ Ikah Love. Fri: ‘Turn It Loose’ w/ Mr. Blow. Sat: ‘Neon Beat’ w/ Gingger Shankar. Sun: ‘Rat Sabbath’.

Mon: ‘Motown on Monday’. Tue: ‘Tiki Tuesday’ w/ DJ Marshall Islands.

Bassmnt, 919 Fourth Ave., San Diego. Downtown. Fri: Peace Treaty. Sat: Sandro Silva.

Beaumont’s, 5662 La Jolla Blvd., La Jolla. La Jolla. Thu: Cougar Canyon Band.

Fri: Modern Day Moonshine. Sat: Slower.

Sun: Daryl Johnson.

Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach. Solana Beach. Wed: Hum, Mineral. Thu: Local Natives, Cramer. Fri: DSB: A Journey Tribute, Betamaxx. Sat: The Highwayman Show, Grass. Sun: Justin Hayward, Mike Dawes (sold out).

Mon: The Ann Wilson Thing (sold out).

Tue: Cocorosie, Crush Effect.

Boar Cross’n, 390 Grand Ave., Carlsbad. Carlsbad. Fri: ‘Club Musae’.

Brass Rail, 3796 Fifth Ave., San Diego.

Hillcrest. Wed: Karaoke. Fri: ‘Hip Hop Fridayz’. Sat: ‘Sabado en Fuego’ w/ DJs XP, KA. Mon: ‘Manic Monday’ w/ DJs Junior the Disco Punk, XP. Brick by Brick, 1130 Buenos Ave., San Diego. Bay Park. Thu: Unearth, Voices of Ruin, The No Name Gang, Pissed Regardless, Retribution. Fri: Revolution Mother, True Rivals, Thorne, Sed-

#SDCityBeat

Music Zella Crane, The Cardielles. Sun: Astral Touch, Mystery Cave, DJ Gajits.

The Balboa, 1863 Fifth Ave., San Diego.

Bankers Hill. Fri: Splavender, Adult Films.

Sat: Gayle Skidmore, Storm Circus, Sean Lee. The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., San Diego. Midtown. Wed: Hand of Gavrilo, Future Age, Boychick. Thu: Thundercat.

Fri: Turquoise Jeep, Noface Shadowmen, DJ Artistic, Rosa Veleno. Sat: Lucy’s Fur Coat, Takahashi (sold out). Sun: Lucy’s Fur Coat, Madly. Mon: Systems Officer, Birdy Bardot, The Lulls. Tue: Legendary Shack Shakers, Joe Fletcher, BadaBing.

SPOTLIGHT One of the biggest success stories of the local border region, Tijuana-based Julieta Venegas has been making music for more than 20 years, first with a Latin alternative edge, and later transitioning into more of a big-budget pop sound. Her eclectic style has earned her widespread acclaim, including five Latin Grammy awards, and she was the first artist to record an episode of MTV Unplugged in Mexico. Plus she can play a mean accordion. Julieta Venegas plays at Music Box San Diego on Friday, Sept. 18, and Saturday, Sept. 19. erra, Takedown. Sat: Goatsnake, Black Breath, Battalion of Saints, Obliterations.

Mon: Abolishment of Flesh, Gortuary, Lurid Memory, Temblad, Ouroboros. Tue: Sisters ov the Blackmoon, The Augments Project, Mursic.

Cafe Sevilla, 353 Fifth Ave., San Diego.

Downtown. Wed: Aro Di Santi. Thu: Malamana. 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: Liz Grace Duo. Thu: Patrick Berrogain Trio.

Fri: Teagan Taylor. Sat: Curtis Taylor Quartet. Sun: Danny Green Trio. Mon: Hank Easton. Tue: Liz Grace Duo. Dirk’s Nightclub, 7662 Broadway, Lemon Grove. Lemon Grove. Fri: Serious Guise. Sat: DJ Raymond T. Dizzy’s, 4275 Mission Bay Drive, San Diego. Mission Bay. Thu: Gillian Margot with Geoffrey Keezer. Sat: Charles Owens & His Quartet.

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

Downtown. Fri: Tantrum. Sat: DJ Kurch.

Sun: DJ Shadowman.

Fluxx, 500 Fourth Ave., San Diego. Downtown. Thu: Chris Brown, Fetty Wap. Fri: Deejay Al. Sat: DJ Brett Bodley.

Gallagher’s, 5040 Newport Ave., San Diego. Ocean Beach. Thu: SYNRGY, DJ Reefah. Fri: The Fooks, DJ Lya. Sat: Smash Ups. Mon: ‘Hip Hop Monday’ w/ Lit One. Hard Rock Hotel, 207 Fifth Ave., San Diego. Downtown. Fri: Ben Benavente.

Sat: Soulman, Fishfonics.

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

Downtown. Wed: AOK Musik. 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. Thu: Megan Nicole, Alex Angelo, Sammi Sanchez. Fri: TROYBOI. Sat: The Dan Band.

Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd., San Diego. Midtown. Wed: ‘This n That’. Thu: ‘Acid Varsity’. Fri: Machino, Fax, Subtle System. Sat: ‘Wiggle’. Tue: ‘High Tech Tuesday’.

Kensington Club, 4079 Adams Ave., San Diego. Kensington. Thu: CumbiaSazo, Cumbia Machin, DJ Viejo Lowbo.

LOUNGEsix, 616 J St., SAN DIEGO. Downtown. Sat: Solarium Saturdays.

#SDCityBeat

Mc P’s Irish Pub, 1107 Orange Ave. , Coronado. Coronado. Wed: Tone Cooking. Thu: Harmony Road. Fri: The Upshots. Sat: The Manic Bros. Sun: Ron’s Garage. Tue: Gene Warren.

Numbers, 3811 Park Blvd., San Diego.

Hillcrest. Thu: ‘Wet’. Fri: ‘Vogue Decadence’. Tue: Karaoke Latino.

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

Patricks Gaslamp, 428 F St., San Diego.

Downtown. Wed: The Upshots. Thu: The Bill Magee Blues Band. Fri: RedWave.

Sat: Ruby & The Dawgs. Sun: The Fuzzy Rankins Band. Mon: The Groove Squad.

Tue: Paddy’s Chicken Jam. Rich’s, 1051 University Ave., San Diego.

Hillcrest. Wed: DJ John Joseph. Fri: DJs DrewG, Will Z. Sat: DJs Luke Allen, DJ Hektik. Sun: DJ Moody Rudy.

Riviera Supper Club, 7777 University Ave., La Mesa. La Mesa. Wed: ‘Boss Jazz’ w/ Jason Hanna. Thu: Man From Tuesday. Fri: Johnny Deadly Trio. Sat: Finnegan Blue. Tue: Karaoke.

Seven Grand, 3054 University Ave., San Diego. North Park. Thu: Jennifer Castle, Northern American. Fri: Euphoria Brass Band. Sat: Mike Krol, Shady Francos. Mon: ‘Makossa Monday’ w/ DJ Tah Rei. Side Bar, 536 Market St., San Diego.

Downtown. Thu: ‘Divino Thursday’. Fri: ‘S-Bar’ w/ Kyle Flesch. Sat: DJ Decon.

Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego. City Heights. Wed: Gilligan Moss, Garden Echo. Thu: San Pedro El Cortez, Rever, Los Adictos Violentos. Fri: The New Kinetics, Duping the Public, The Heartbeat Trail, The Liquorsmiths. Sat: Radkey, Griever, Graf Orlock, Haruka.

Sun: KEN Mode, Child Bite, Garrett Jamieson. Tue: A Place to Bury Strangers, Grooms, Keepers.

SOMA, 3350 Sports Arena Blvd., San Diego. Midway. Fri: The Major Minus, The Wild Fires, Natalie Emmons Band, The Troubadour Parade, Nite Lapse. Sat: The Frights, The Buttertones, Santoros, Bad Kids, Essex Class.

Spin, 2028 Hancock St., San Diego. Midtown. Fri: Sian.

Sycamore Den, 3391 Adams Ave., San Diego. Normal Heights. Thu: Vanwave,

The Che Cafe, UCSD campus, San Diego. La Jolla. Sun: Leucrota, Sloths, allmywisheswerethrowndownawellandshoulddiethere, Debt Ritual, Heritage Unit.

The Hideout, 3519 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego. City Heights. Sat: Dirty Fences, Schitzophonics, Faux Ferocious.

The Irenic, 3090 Polk Ave., San Diego.

North Park. Fri: The Music of Surf Rock.

The Loft @ UCSD, Price Center East, La Jolla. La Jolla. Sat: Circa Waves, Oberhofer, Bird Dog. The Merrow, 1271 University Ave., San Diego. Hillcrest. Wed: Ricardo Beas & Cafe Peyote, Payola Presley, Sika. Thu: The Gift Machine, Sick Balloons, Heather Nation Band. Fri: Negura Bunget, Grimegod, Dynfari, Ruines Ov Abbodon, Lurid Memory. Sun: Viri y Los Bandidos. Tue: Amigo, Loom, Clean Room.

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

North Park. Wed: Mint Field, Astral Touch, Mike Delgado. Thu: ‘No Limits’ w/ DJ Myson King. Mon: The Peripherals, Jeremiah BZ, Mike Delgado. Tue: ‘Trapped’.

The T Lounge, 1475 University Ave., SAN DIEGO. Hillcrest. Thu: Stanza.

The Tin Roof, 401 G Street, San Diego. Gaslamp. Wed: Pat Hilton and the Mann. Thu: Spawnbreezie. Fri: Coriander. Sat: Kemeline. Tue: Jenny O’Henny Band.

Til-Two Club, 4746 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego. City Heights. Thu: Wild Honey, Spacewax, Megafauna, Empty Palace, Operation Mindblow Lightshow. Sat: Wang Dang Daddies, Clean Room.

Tio Leo’s, 5302 Napa St., San Diego.

Bay Park. Wed: Phil Friendly Trio. Thu: Sharifa & The Good Thing. Fri: Blue Largo. Sat: Clapton Hook. Tue: Zydeco Blowout.

Tower Bar, 4757 University Ave., San Diego. City Heights. Thu: Swordwielder, Age of Collapse, Christ Killer. Fri: Santa Ana Knights, Static and the Cubes, Pentecostals. Sat: Red Wizard, Chiefs, Fantasy Arcade.

Ux31, 3112 University Ave., San Diego.

North Park. Wed: DJ Mo Lyon. Thu: ‘Throwback Thursday’. Fri: DJ Bodyrawk. Sat: DJ Qenoe. Sun: Quinto Sol, Raiz Muzik. Mon: DJ Bacon Bits. Tue: Karaoke.

Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, San Diego.

South Park. Wed: ‘Open Oscillator’.

Thu: ‘Astro Jump’ w/ Kill Quanti DJs. Fri: ‘F-ing in the Bushes’. Sat: ‘80s v.

90s’ w/ DJs Gabe Vega, Saul Q. Tue: ‘Videodrome’.

Winstons, 1921 Bacon St., San Diego.

Ocean Beach. Wed: Spirtual Rez, DJ Carlos Culture. Thu: New Orleans Suspects, Bomb Squad. Fri: The Moves, Homesick Hitchers, Justin Warner. Sat: Almost Young, Falling Doves, Name the Band, The Slashes. Sun: Karaoke. Mon: Electric Waste Band. Tue: AJ Froman, Whirled Piece, Gabriela & La Buena Onda, SEANCY.

September 16, 2015 · San Diego CityBeat · 31

Last Words

Brendan Emmett Quigley

Crop circles Across

66. “___ bien”

1. Bruce Lee role

68. Like a piece of cake

5. Survey’s result

69. Staycation stuff

9. Sweatshirt size 14. Word’s representation?

Down

15. Plains native

1. Sorta

67. Menial sorts

16. Sardinia’s country

2. Tart in tone

17. Receptionist’s cry 18. Moves to get you back on track, briefly 19. Elle rival

3. Plant detritus?

4. Broadcast 5. Wake-up time for those on the early

20. Common photo ID

shift, maybe

23. 2 letters

6. “Believe you me!”

24. Dorm mentors: Abbr.

25. Duke and NC State’s div.

26. Make a person feel good 33. Ref’s dropping 35. Sammy with corked bats 36. Easter’s start?

37. “Familiarity breeds contempt” coiner 39. “Catch you on the flip”

7. Gallagher of Britpop 8. From southern India 9. Typing while Skyping, e.g.

10. “Quit stalling, do it!”

11. Poverty, figuratively 12. Art supply eaten as a kid and sniffed as a teenager 13. Needle part

40. Herb in a potpie

21. Misjudge

42. Gained a lap

22. Big Mama?

43. Hymn word

27. Fifth word on “Sgt. Pepper”

45. Mishap reaction 46. Tennis tournament won 9 times by Rafael Nadal

28. Boy band with a star before its name 29. Job ad ltrs.

30. “No more takers?”

51. TV actor Somerhalder

31. Frolic

52. Link to, on Facebook

32. “___ bien”

53. Trains above the road

33. Put nothing away

56. Implores, as to a judge

34. Brandon & ___ (indie rock group

61. Childish retort

associated with the Kardashians)

62. Shrinking Sea 63. “You pig!” accompanier 64. “Wait ___ your father gets home” 65. ATM card Last week’s answers

38. Sun protectors 39. Candidate Carson 41. Weed-attacking tool 44. Office pulldown 47. Blends (with) 48. Dog 49. Big Beck album 50. Lickety-split 54. Measurers of logical reasoning, for short 55. Honoree of Mar. parades 56. Plexiglass sheet 57. “Render ___ Caesar...”

58. Turn into a parking lot 59. Cantata excerpt 60. Big druggie 61. Coffee container

32 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

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34 · San Diego CityBeat · September 16, 2015

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