San Diego CityBeat • Sept 17, 2014

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September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 3

You, football fan, hold the power An interesting juxtaposition unfolded on MSNBC that he knocked her out cold. Goodell had made Monday evening. Directly after a segment on The his decision not on what was just and right but on Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell about the rash a public-relations calculation: the indictment and, of domestic-abuse cases involving National Football more importantly, the first video were worth two League players, Cox Communications aired two games, regardless of what Rice had done. The seccommercials in succession: one promoting Cox’s ond video was worth an indefinite suspension. cable football package and one for AsianDate.com Then there’s the case of Minnesota Vikings runthat sells stereotypically demure-yet-alluring Asian ning back Adrian Peterson, who’s been indicted by women as objects of fetish desire. a grand jury on charges of reckless or negligent inWe don’t know exactly what market science goes jury to a child. Peterson has admitted that he hit his into the decisions made jointly by Cox and its adver4-year-old son with a switch, a flexible piece of a tisers, but we know that advertising isn’t completely tree branch fashioned to inflict pain as punishment. haphazard; we’re sold what we’re expected to want.

Once again, TMZ is in the middle of it, having reIf Cox and AsianDate.com aren’t aimlessly chucking leased police photos of the little boy’s body marked spaghetti at the wall to see if it sticks, we men apwith numerous injuries. Peterson has apologized parently love football and see women as objects. but insists he’s not a child abuser, saying that this is A bit of a stretch? OK, sure. But it reminds us that simply how he administers discipline, because it’s we, as consumers, are the bosses. We call the shots. the way he was disciplined.

Mike Morbeck Theoretically, we have tremendous The Vikings deactivated Petercollective power over what happens son for last week’s game, which in politics and in business. turned into a lopsided loss to the What’s become as clear as an New England Patriots, and, on open field to a running back is that, Monday, decided to activate him every step of the way, the NFL and its for this Sunday’s game in New franchises are doing as little as they Orleans. The team’s owners had can get away with in response to the a change of heart, saying the best spate of domestic violence that’s capcourse of action is to let the legal tured the country’s attention. The system do its thing. Meanwhile, primary aim has been to protect the Peterson, one of the league’s best football institution and keep those players, will help the Vikings win billions of dollars flowing. and do his part to keep the money In July, NFL Commissioner Rogflowing. After the Vikings released er Goodell suspended Baltimore their statement, news emerged of a Ravens running back Ray Rice for Adrian Peterson previous alleged incident involving two games for an assault on thenPeterson injuring another son, who fiancée Janay Palmer in an elevator in February, the was also 4 at the time. aftermath of which—Rice dragging Palmer’s limp We can’t conclusively say that the rate of domesbody into the hallway—was caught on video and tic violence among NFL players is far out of line shown to the public by TMZ. A grand jury indicted with the general population, but when you break Rice on aggravated-assault charges in March, the that down further into socioeconomic classificaday before he married Palmer. In the wake of crititions—that is, very wealthy men—it’s extraordinaricism, Goodell in August said he’d been too lenient ly high. and announced that, going forward, first offenses Combating the problem in society at large is of domestic violence would draw six-week suspenhard. Attacking the problem in the NFL is easier. sions. A public furor erupted last week when TMZ Already, public pressure has forced the league to released a second video that showed Rice punching act. Is it enough for you? If not, and you’re a football Palmer’s lights out, and Goodell claimed that he’d fan, you have power. If you can bite the bullet, you suspended Rice for only two games because Rice can turn off the TV. Do something extra-nice for had been ambiguous about what had really hapyour wife or girlfriend instead, or spend that time playing with your kids. pened inside that elevator.

But we now know that Rice unambiguously told What do you think? Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Goodell in June that he’d punched Palmer so hard This issue of CityBeat’s swamp ass has been upgraded to “Everglades ass.”

Cover art by Madeline Sherry.

Read about her on Page 20.

Volume 13 • Issue 6

Arts Editor Kinsee Morlan

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

Staff Writer Joshua Emerson Smith

Production Manager Tristan Whitehouse

Web Editor Ryan Bradford

Production artist Rees Withrow

Art director Lindsey Voltoline

Intern Narine Petrosyan

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

Vice President of Operations David Comden

MultiMedia Advertising Director Paulina Porter-Tapia

Publisher Kevin Hellman

Editor David Rolland Associate Editor Kelly Davis Music Editor Jeff Terich

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

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

Vice President of Finance Michael Nagami

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

4 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 5

Fulton seemed weary Regarding your Aug. 6 editorial about the departure of San Diego Planning Director Bill Fulton: I don’t think it was so much a change in mayors as just people. He was very frustrated at the communty meetings. I also watched him at the city meetings reporting on “progress”—he looked tired and depressed. I think an academic environment is better for him. I agree it is a loss for us.

Jan Bourgeois, East Village

Stop being so emotional In reply to the Aug. 6 letter from Nicola Ranson about the Central American children escaping poverty: She compared this with Jews of Europe escaping death in the 1940s.

This is the thinking of people who function with emotion rather than rational reasoning. We must not keep the children here; we must, with hearts bursting, return them to Guatemala, etc., as speedily as possible, after seeing to their health and hygiene. Otherwise, a multitude will come from all over the world to join 300 million Americans, only about 10 million of whom support everyone else. Picture a VW with people bursting out of all windows; productive Americans and businesses will leave this land, tired of supporting too

many non-productive dependants.

Our heart-bleeding must stop, and we must, as a nation, look to improving ourselves and seeking foreigners who have come to contribute to the common needs, rather than being led by heart-bleeders like Ms. Ranson. The nations from which these kids come have to be made to support their populations or they must be overthrown by the people of that nation.

As long as the U.S. eases the pressure on them, they don’t have to change.

Our leaders must stop kissing emotional rumps, and opportunists who benefit from this invasion, and do what they know they must.

Saul Harmon Gritz, Hillcrest

Hedgecock and arts funding I enjoyed reading Kinsee Morlan’s second installment of the county’s relationship with local arts organizations [“Art & Culture,” Aug. 13]. When I saw “the Voluntary Fund for the Arts” commented upon, it rang a big bell inside my memory bank.

That idea originated with me when Roger Hedgecock was a county Supervisor in the early ’80s.

At that time, I was a volunteer working in the COMBO annual corporate fund drive, giving me insights into the arts world in our county. When I saw first-

6 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

hand the hard time the arts had in raising donated funds, the thought occurred to me that there has to be a way to get the word out countywide but at low cost.

What goes to every legal parcel regularly? Property tax billings! I contacted Hedgecock with the idea to have an insert in every property-tax bill, giving individuals, businesses and other property owners the opportunity to support the arts community in our county. Hedgecock immediately saw the upside potential and did what needed to be done within the county to bring the idea to fruition, and it became a reality. These inserts became routine.

The challenge became for the county to sell the idea in the public domain so it could be successful. As I recall, that effort never really got traction, so it bounced along, bringing in a modest level of arts funding, but that was after the county first reimbursed itself for the cost to manage this effort. The net dollars raised is what Leah Goodwin had available for arts funding. I never knew how much the county skimmed off the gross receipts; I don’t think that amount was ever publicized.

The biggest supporter of this initiative, Hedgecock, left the Board of Supervisors to become mayor of San Diego, and so I believe it became an orphan until about 1993, when the county did away with it. I also think that the various arts groups did little to keep this funding vehicle front and center in the public’s mind as another

source of funds.

I still believe that, if done right, this type of outreach effort into the broader county community could be very workable and monetarily rewarding. Just look at how successful the recent crowd-funding initiative was for the San Diego Opera! One thing I did learn in all this was the overthe-top level of politics that seems to permeate the arts world in our county. Like most everything these days, it’s about the money and controlling that fund of dollars for the benefit of the arts community. Politicians don’t want to lose control of how any publicly generated dollars are spent!

Just thought you’d like background on the beginning of the Voluntary Fund for the Arts. Wonder what Hedgecock would say these days about this initiative for which he did all the heavy lifting.

Lou Cumming, La Jolla

Thanks for the laughs Why I look forward to Wednesdays and the drive to get CityBeat: “Cleaner than the colon of a vegan prom queen!” [“Sordid Tales,” Aug. 13]. You clearly got lots of laughs from this reader. Thank you, our precious good golly Gollum!

Kilian Roever, Chula Vista

Joshua Emerson Smith

The City Council might insist that Reese Jarrett become a proponent of mandatory affordable housing.

Friends with benefits Big-money plan to redevelop neighborhoods draws call for affordable-housing mandates

by Joshua Emerson Smith Two of the city’s most historically neglected neighborhoods will likely receive dramatic investment during the next decade. However, those holding the purse strings have largely avoided public scrutiny about what exactly that investment will look like.

Eying an initial $150 million in funds slated for development deals and revitalization efforts in Encanto and City Heights, affordable-housing advocates and others now see a chance to replace resources lost when redevelopment ended.

On Monday, the City Council unanimously approved longtime local developer Reese Jarrett as the new president of Civic San Diego, the city-owned nonprofit built from the now-dismantled Centre City Development Corporation.

Pointing out that 20 percent of all revenue under redevelopment was set aside for low- to moderate-income housing, Councilmember Ed Harris asked Jarrett during the meeting if Civic San Diego would back a similar program.

The answer was no. “It’s going to be on a project-byproject basis,” Jarrett said, “because we no longer have the continuing revenue that came out of redevelopment.

“Where the affordable housing is most needed, we’re going to try to implement it,” he added.

However, that’s not Jarrett’s call to make, City Council President Todd Gloria noted. “The policymaking is made by the board of Civic San Diego and by this City Council.”

“When we set up a box, Mr. Jarrett, you’re going to live within it, and we’re going to move forward,” Gloria added.

“But I want to stay mindful of the fact that it’s a balance, and that’s why I’m going to support Mr. Jarrett today, because I think you understand the balance.”

wage formula, which usually mirrors union wages.

“One of the things that you and I talked about, and many people who are here today have talked about in the past,” City Councilmember David Alvarez said to Jarrett at the meeting, “is how do we ensure that projects that come through the city, and this case through Civic San Diego, actually hire the people that live in the community where these projects are being built?”

While such questions are far from answered, it’s clear that money is coming down the pike. So far, Civic San Diego’s been awarded $58 million in federal new-market tax credits, which it’s used to provide incentives for private investment.

Officials are well on their way to putting together a $100-million investment fund aimed at building high-density “transit villages” along sections of El Cajon Boulevard and Imperial Avenue, as well as a separate $50-million investment fund to generate revenue through buying and leasing property. As this process plays out, advocates argue that a community-benefits policy would not only ensure good jobs but also prevent new development from displacing existing residents.

“The only anti-gentrification strategy there is affordable housing,” said San Diego Organizing Project Executive Director Kevin Malone. “If the new redevelopment 2.0 has no affordable-housing dollars in it, then gentrification just happens.”

During the last year, several members of Civic San Diego’s board of directors tried to raise similar points, calling for a public discussion of a community-benefits policy to regulate how the multimillion-dollar investment funds are spent. So far, the board has largely sidestepped the issue, declining to adopt a policy or even discuss the substance of the idea.

“I’ve been advocating for community benefits for over a year and haven’t seen much momentum at Civic San Diego in terms of good jobs and affordable housing,” said Murtaza Baxamusa, a member of Civic San Diego’s board.

“This is a pivotal moment for Civic to decide where to go.

To the extent that the City Council sets the goals and objectives for Civic, the better it will be to sustain itself in the long run.”

Senior staff with Civic San Diego declined to comment for this story.

The issue of defining community benefits for the investment funds heated up at a series of board meetings last fall.

At one meeting in September, Baxamusa, with the support of other board members, requested that city staff be on hand to answer questions about the creation of the funds.

In a stern response, Jeff Graham, Civic San Diego’s thenpresident, said, “Do I need to get the entire City Council in here to tell the board what their direction is? I have briefed every council member on this, and I have not received any opposition. I have briefed many, many community groups on this, and they are all asking, ‘When can you get out here and start helping us?’”

After spearheading the investment funds, Graham abruptly left in March to work for real-estate company Jones Lang LaSalle. Now, appointed by Faulconer and approved by the council, Jarrett, a former partner with developers Carter Reese and Associates.

While it’s unclear how Jarrett will handle the coming debate over a community-benefits policy, he acknowledges that it’s a significant issue in the community.

“There’s been a lot of discussion as I’ve made the rounds to talk to community groups and labor groups and other interested shareholders in the economic development that’s going to occur in these neighborhoods,” he said at Monday’s council meeting. “I think there’s a real important aspect of creating a template for having goals set for economic development, neighborhood development, community benefits—however you want to phrase it.”

In response to a CityBeat inquiry to Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s office, spokesperson Craig Gustafson said that while a comparison with redevelopment is not appropriate because of different restrictions on funding, “Mayor Faulconer would support a 20-percent set-aside once a stable source of revenue is identified.”

In recent months, a growing coalition of advocates have lobbied members of the City Council to draft a policy ensuring that development deals between Civic San Diego and the private sector include affordable-housing requirements that are at least as strict as those under redevelopment.

Specifically, advocates are pushing for 30 percent of residential units and 30 percent of investment funds to be dedicated to affordable- and low-income housing. Under redevelopment, 15 percent of residential units and 20 percent of funds were allocated.

“That is absolutely needed for the city, and I hope under Mr. Jarrett’s leadership, he will make that commitment,” Bruce Reznik, executive director of the San Diego Housing Federation, said at the council meeting during public comment.

Joined by members of the City Heights Community Development Corporation and the San Diego Organizing Project, the Housing Federation and others could be getting traction at City Hall for a so-called community-benefits policy.

“You never want to count your chickens, but some council members have been talking to us about this, and there’s clearly some interest on the 10th floor,” said Ken Grimes, City Heights CDC executive director, referring to the floor at City Hall that houses council offices.

Without such a policy, Civic San Diego will be challenged to negotiate a good deal for neighborhood residents, Grimes added. “It puts the agency staff in a difficult position when they’re trying to get a development deal done,” he said. “This way [with a benefits policy] they can say, ‘It’s not me…. Sorry.’”

Also being pushed is a policy to hire local workers and Write to joshuas@sdcitybeat.com guarantee construction is subject to the city’s prevailing- and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 7

John R. Lamb

spin cycle

john r.

lamb Minimum-wage battle, ‘Dragnet’ edition “All we know are the facts, ma’am.”

—Sgt. Joe Friday This is the city. San Diego, California. I work here. I carry a notebook. My name’s Spin. The column you are about to read is true; one name has been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

It was Tuesday, Sept. 9. It was warm in San Diego. Damn warm.

Warmer than a wool sock full of amorous hamsters. Sgt. Joe Tuesday was working the day watch out of Petition Assault and Fraud Detail. His partner’s Gill Bannon. It was 4:27 p.m. when the phone rang.

“Sgt. Tuesday! Get down here quick!” the squealing voice on the line was saying. “Petition enforcers are attacking! We need backup!”

Sgt. Tuesday recognized the voice of City Councilmember Scott Sherman. “Slow down, Council-

man. What is it this time? A paper cut? A missing clipboard?”

“No, no, no, this is serious!” came the tinny reply. “We’ve got an angry old man who just shoved one of my staff to the ground! It’s horrible!”

“Your staff is all in their 20s and 30s, right?” Sgt. Tuesday deadpanned. “This old guy must have been a moose.”

“Well, no, not really. Kinda skinny, actually,” Sherman stammered.

“Anyway, get down here now!”

As soon as Tuesday hung up, he knew he was in for a long night. He’d dealt with this Sherman character before, as well as his council cohorts Lorie Zapf and Mark Kersey. Dominated by a Democrat majority, these three Republicans had gained a reputation reflected in their street name: The Smiling Obstructionists.

“You know what bothers me,

8 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

Raisin Joe (left) and Smiling Obstructionist Scott Sherman Gill?”

“What’s that, Joe?” “These wide-mouth punk politicians. While we’re ‘rewarded’ with 3-year-old Maxwell House coffee for keeping Josephine Citizen safe, they’re off in their air-conditioned publicity-mobiles, screaming ‘Henny Penny’ at the slightest sign of trouble,” Tuesday said. “Know what really grinds my gears, Gill?”

“What, Joe?” “Josephine Citizen seems not to care one darn bit.”

Tuesday and Bannon nodded at each other and headed out the station door.

Summer is the time for mischief, Tuesday thought to himself.

Oh sure, we could put the cuffs on

the stifling heat or around the idle hands of itchy-trigger-finger campaign consultants scrounging for the next meal ticket. “Where does it end?” Tuesday said to no one in particular.

On their way to the scene of the alleged crime, Tuesday and Bannon stopped by the cramped office of government-behavior specialist Carl Luna, a poli-sci professor at Mesa College, to get his take on the recent up-tick in petition crime and embellishment.

“I gave a lecture on this today,” Luna said. “Politics is supposed to be a positive-sum game.

Everybody is supposed to win.

We’re supposed to be the Oprah Winfrey school of politics. That’s why we’re ‘We the People.’”

Tuesday and Bannon nodded.

“But in this my-side-or-bedamned, winner-take-all sort of approach,” Luna continued, “the two sides can’t meet on anything.

So everything falls apart.”

“So what’s the answer, professor?” Tuesday said.

“Hey, if you’ve got the money, you can do anything you want with petitions,” Luna said. “Maybe later, we’ll have a petition to rescind the adoption of minutes from a council meeting!”

Tuesday and Bannon nodded, then headed to the crime scene.

A sweat-soaked Sherman ran up to the duo when they arrived.

“Geez, I’m glad you’re here. It’s pandemonium!”

“Looks pretty calm to me, councilman,” Tuesday replied.

“Well, yeah, now, but you should’ve seen the chaos a few minutes ago. A grandmother shouted at one of my staff. And I think she’d been eating onions!

What are you going to do about these heinous two-bit-thug minimum-wage enforcers?”

“You sure they work for Raise Up San Diego, councilman?”

Bannon asked.

“Hey, if they’re not with us, they’re enforcers, pal,” Sherman barked.

“Let me tell you something,

Mr. Sherman,” Tuesday cut in. “On this beat, we run into all kinds.

Pimps, addicts, thieves, bums, winos. Liars, con men, cheats.

Every time a crime’s committed, you’ve got 1 million suspects to choose from. And the endless reports. You getting my drift?”

“No idea,” Sherman replied.

“Talk to Raisin Joe.” Tuesday and Gannon headed to the swank offices of Raisin Joe, a shark-chasing storyteller of infamy and chief lever-puller behind the anti-minimum-wage petition drive.

“Well, the Petition Patrol finally gets around to investigating this enforcer crime ring. About time!” Joe snaps without a hello.

Tuesday and Bannon stay steady as Joe regales the pair with bloated tales of all-out war, from pencil stabbings and clipboard grabbings to “bullying and voter disenfranchisement.” The result?

“Numerous police reports for assault, theft and other miscellaneous conflicts that have served as an embarrassment to our city.”

“You finished now, Joe?” Tuesday asked. “Good, because now you’re going to listen to me, you gutter-mouth punk. You keep harping about the minimum wage while you strut around in your custom suits and drink your expensive craft beers. Last report, we have more than 2,000 citizens— 2,000 souls!—who signed a form saying you and your merry bunch have flat-out lied to them to get their John Hancocks. Like every hoodlum since Cain up through Capone, you’ve learned to hide behind some quirk in the law.”

“I know my rights, and I know the law,” Joe said. “You got nothing on me.”

“Maybe so, Joe, but try to put that walnut-sized brain of yours to work on this,” Tuesday leaned in. “By sundown, we’ll know if the Signature Removal Brigade has outfoxed you, or whether you and your kind over at the Chamber of Commerce will be forever regarded as the true obstructionists to community action. If your plan is to end elective government as we know it, well you’ve put your prime client, Mayor Kevin Faulconer, in some hole.”

“How so?” Joe asked.

“You think it’s coincidental he’s lying low on the minimum wage right now?” Tuesday glared.

“He’s in a bad spot. Don’t push it, and his base fractures. Push it, and the moderate votes he seeks in 2016 will evaporate. Good luck with that.”

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

aaryn

backwards & in high heels

belfer The iWatch is more iExtraordinary than you’ve imagined “We love to make new products that improve people’s lives. We love to make things that allow our users to make things that they could never have imagined. We think it will redefine what people expect from its category.”

—Apple CEO Tim Cook

the sentiment and win my heart forever.

Other iADLs the iWatch can iHandle include picking up and dropping off the dry cleaning, walking the dog and volunteering at the homeless shelter (it cannot go to your dentist appointments, the singular fact that made me most conflicted about its value).

When it comes to grocery shopping, the iWatch As the winner of an online sweepstakes (I stumbled has you mostly covered with the free Hot-and-Cold onto it when I mistyped a url while shopping), I app. The iWatch can’t actually do the shopping (Apple got to test drive the new iWatch for a week and am is still working on eliminating all IRL interpersonal therefore in a unique position to weigh in on the interactions), but it does give you audio notifications attributes of this game-changing device. Reviews when you’re getting closer to or further from glutenhave swung from sycophantic praise to cartoonish free products. This will make the lives of people mockery, but aside from it looking a little Casiowith Celiac disease—as well as those who simply esque, I’d say I’m a lickspittle: This. Thing. Rules. martyr themselves for no good reason on the altar of Obviously, you can tell time on the iWatch (big inedible bread—so much simpler. ups to the developers for thinking that one through).

Those of us who’ve spent years clamoring for You can also talk to Siri, which I found comforting, brown-hued emoticons can finally be satisfied with as I often get lonely out in the world with nothing the amazing new Etch-a-Sketch technology that but my own original thoughts pinballing around my allows users to make their own unique emoticons. brain. Granted, I have a contusion on my forehead Now my black and brown friends can send me pretty from bumping into walls and glass doors and other blue LED hands clapping instead of the Eurocentric humans while staring down at my iWatch like yellow ones that always make me so mad on their Narcissus into the reflecting behalf. Way to shine, Apple! pool. But Siri guided me wordWay to shine!

There’s a bunch more for-word right into the nearest One radical feature included emergency room for bandaging. as part of the operating system that the iWatch can do— The only improvement I’d like is iBNclSv. It applies a complex the oatmeal chocolate chip to see in a future generation is algorithm to your contacts and her ability to apply the Steridetermines whether some of cookies it baked were Strips right there at Peet’s. your best friends are black. If nearly as good as mine.

As expected, the iWatch can you don’t meet the required keep you apprised of Facebook quota, your device will scan and Twitter goings-on, as well your immediate surroundings, as track your fitness progress and monitor your heart and send you text messages each time you have rate. What other reviewers have failed to mention— an opportunity to befriend a person of color. (You and I’m not sure why, since it’s revolutionary—is may set your quota manually by going into Settings, how the iWatch can upload your real-time death to Notifications, iDiversity, and then choosing a number your social-media platforms should your heart stop between 1 and 10 in the “I’m Not Racist” field.) beating. This’ll save your family not only from having Another savvy inclusion is the SwetTrkr4000. to send difficult text messages about your demise, This feature tabulates hormonal dips, hot flashes, but also from having to hack into your accounts. self-perception and mood swings. Data is correlated These incredible features are really just the minute-by-minute, and warning pings are sent iTip of the iIceberg. This little electronic wristlette to partners, spouses and kids when an irrational is useful for myriad Activities of Daily Living or tirade is eminent. New pings have been added to iADLs. For instance, new parents will be thrilled the device and include a European high-lo horn, that this device can wipe the baby’s ass, play Barbie an air-raid siren and the Mormon Tabernacle with the toddler (this, alone, is worth the price of Choir singing “Hot in Herre.” Warning pings can be admission), and babysit while you take a shower. followed by an automated text suggesting a peaceYou don’t even have to remove the iWatch: It can do keeping smart phrase such as, “Your neck looks all of this remotely. Lord knows I could have used nothing remotely like chicken skin.” this iWatch back in the day.

There’s a bunch more that the iWatch can do— Still, the iWatch is nothing for the parent of a the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies it baked were fourth grader to sniff at. To whom—er, I mean— nearly as good as mine—and I can’t do it justice what did I turn when I couldn’t help my kid figure here on this page. What’s most astounding is that out the number of different combinations in which we now have so much power right there on our GoJose could feed his gerbil, his rat, his mouse and Go Gadget wrists. And this kind of access is never his snake? The iWatch, of course! It immediately more important than when your iPhone is all the way over there in your other hand. wiped away my tears of frustration, patiently explained the best problem-solving strategy and Write to aaryn@sdcitybeat.com then offered a consoling, “This is bullshit!” before and editor@sdcitybeat.com. cuing “Nothing” from A Chorus Line to underscore

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 9

by michael a. gardiner Michael A. Gardiner

may be an affront to cows, not to mention all things holy, but the flavor of this chemicalladen, non-dairy, highly fatty product marries perfectly with the meat. God may never have intended Cheez Whiz to exist, but if He’d ever tried a cheesesteak, His most certainly would have been with Whiz.

And, for me, at Gaglione’s, it’s the Whiz. As with any good Philly cheesesteak, the beef is the star (though, somewhat sacrilegiously, Gaglione’s offers A cheesesteak after a visit to the condiment bar chicken versions). The Whiz rounded out the sandwich’s flavor, the bread soaked up the juices and a trip to Gaglione’s superb condiment bar yielded hot cherry peppers, pepperoncinis and an outstanding hot-pepper relish, all of which danced on the beef, providing accents.

The American-cheese version was, quite Cheesesteak Whizardry simply, a poor substitute for the Cheez Whiz. It lacked the assertiveness of the gooey stuff and the There’s likely no sandwich anywhere that’s more character of the provolone, a better choice. While thoroughly tied to a particular locale than the Pat Olivieri is generally recognized as the cheescheesesteak is to Philadelphia. Chicago has its esteak’s inventor, Joe Vento of Geno’s (across the Italian beef sandwiches, Miami its Cubano, New street from Pat’s) claims to have been the first to Orleans the Muffaletta and New England its lobput provolone cheese on cheesesteak—he always ster rolls. But regardless of where you happen to swore by it. The relatively mild, slightly salty flabe, it’s always a “Philly cheesesteak.” vor and semi-hard consistency makes it a natural Gaglione Brothers in Grantville (10450 Frifor the sandwich. It’s no Cheez Whiz, mind you, ars Road, Suite B, gaglionebros.com), though, but it is a natural. has managed to take the cheesesteak out of The perfect pairing with the cheesesteak are Philly without taking the Philly out of the Gaglione’s garlic fries. Fresh, crisp, seasoned cheesesteak. At the most basic level, a cheeseswith parsley and with the garlic’s spicy qualiteak is chopped steak cooked on a griddle and ties on full display, there’s nothing subtle about served with cheese in a long, soft Italian bun. them. Skip the Cheez Whiz fries, though. Along From there it gets more complicated. What type with a cheesesteak, they vastly exceed the FDA’s of cheese? Provolone, American or Cheez Whiz? recommended daily allowance for processed With or without onions? What about peppers? food. Your cardiologist, however, may appreciMost agree that the hallmark of a good cheesate the gesture. esteak is the balance of flavors and textures and Ask 10 Philadelphians where to go for a cheesthe “drip factor.” Gaglione’s gets this balancing esteak and you’ll get at least 11 answers: Pat’s, act right. The bun absorbs the meat and cheese Geno’s and John’s Roast Pork are common nomijuices without soaking through. nees. I might not be from Philadelphia, but I have Perhaps the most commonly debated cheesmy own nominee, and it isn’t from Philadelphia either: Gaglione Brothers. esteak issue is the choice of cheese. Abhorrent as the stuff may be, the perfect cheese for a Write to michaelg@sdcitybeat.com cheesesteak is, believe it or not, Cheez Whiz. and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Yes. The Dayglo-orange, heavily processed stuff

the world

fare

10 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

BY KELLY DAVIS

cocktail

tales San Diego, meet shrubs

When Louis Chavez was tapped to create the cocktail menu for Zymology 21—sister restaurant to Leyla and Alex Javadov’s popular Cafe 21 (locations in North Park and the Gaslamp Quarter)—shrubs seemed like the obvious way to go. Zymology, after all, is the study of fermentation, and shrubs are fermented syrups.

Mix fresh fruit, sugar and vinegar and let them sit for awhile, and you’ve got a shrub. In the 17th and 18th centuries, shrubs were used to flavor water or to mask the taste of poor-quality smuggled booze. Now, you’re increasingly seeing them on craftcocktail menus due to the popularity of house-made ingredients and because they add a nice acidity to a cocktail’s flavor profile.

Perhaps nowhere else in San Diego are shrubs highlighted more than at Zymology 21 (750 Fifth Ave., Downtown, zymology21. com)—they’re even part of the new restaurant’s clever, chemistry-themed decor, with jars of shrubs-inprogress lining shelves near the entrance. The menu includes shrub flights: each of the five currently available shrubs, mixed with tequila or champagne. Keeping with the chemistry theme, the flights come in test tubes that are placed in a large beaker of dry ice to keep them chilled. Or, you can get a simple classic, like a vodka Collins or whiskey sour, made with your choice of shrub.

“It gets [people] educated to what shrubs are, what they taste like,” Chavez says, “so they’re kind of not afraid of them, because when people think

of vinegar… they’re, like, What?”

The shrub-flight presentation is cool and all—beakers! dry ice!—but don’t let it distract you from Zymology 21’s specialty cocktails.

Try the Equinox Fizz—a deconstructed take on a classic fizz, with Half Moon gin and an apple-blueberry shrub and topped with a tasty meringue-like foam of egg white and lemon honey. The Resurrectionist highlights the new, hip kid on the cocktail block, Grand Poppy liqueur from L.A.-based Green Bar distillery, and includes Tru gin (another Green Bar item), house-made Pimms, a cardamom-strawberry shrub, champagne and an absinthe spray. It’s served with strawberries that also get an abkelly davis sinthe spray, followed by a quick hit from a blowtorch to really infuse the anise flavor. On the brunch menu is a bloody Mary that includes a shrub made with balsamic vinegar, beets, jalapeños and carrots.

Not all cocktails here include shrubs. The Escuela Vieja, Chavez’s take on an old fashioned, is made with a hickorysmoked mescal instead of bourbon and black walnut bitters instead of Angostura. It’s the most spiritforward on the menu and an exceptional cocktail.

As an homage to the walnut bitters, it comes with a beaker of candied walnuts (described by one Zymology bartender as “crack”).

Chavez, who came over Louis Chavez from Cafe 21 to help open the new restaurant, says it was initially a bit intimidating to create a cocktail program that complemented Executive Chef Leyla Javadov’s vision for Zymology 21.

“You have to have a drink that stands up with the food,” he says. “We had to get really creative.

It pushes us.”

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

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 11

by Mina Riazi mina riazi

apple version pairs wonderfully with the heatpacked salsas, which—in true DIY fashion—are spooned out of up-cycled mason jars.

During the course of my hour-long, fivetacos-deep lunch at Perla, the six salsas swiftly climbed the ranks, becoming the most important players and pushing the tacos into the benchwarmer or, less cruelly, supporting-actor realm.

Not that the tacos aren’t delicious. They are. Thanks to its smoked, shredded albacore, the El Futbol tastes charmingly of bacon. An unexpected sprinkling of pumpkin seeds adds light crunch to the cheesy concoction. It’s scrumptious and well worth $5.

Though less resplendent, the vegetarian taco is not unremarkable. Meaty Portobello spears are nicely charred, but the difficult-toeat whole spinach leaves don’t do it for me.

Still, it’s a solid taco, but perhaps a little less Tacos Perla’s totes adorbz salsa set deserving of your crumpled Lincoln bill.

Drizzle the mixed-nut salsa over your veggie taco and—excuse my over-sentimentality, please—suddenly everything will taste brighter.

Of course, the piquant sauce is meant to elevate and enhance the flavors of your food. But Perla’s mixed-nut version is not the usual, reddish, storebought stuff most of us mistake for salsa. Peanuts, The spicy six almonds, cashews, hazelnuts and Brazilian nuts combine with roasted chile de arbol, creating a When it comes to décor, Tacos Perla packs in zingy and buttery blend. Unfortunately, it’s not more DIY charm than a Pinterest board. Logan allergy-friendly condiment, but it will revive stump stools share the trim, 750-square-foot space the spinach-dense vegetarian taco. with repurposed baby-food jars, tile-adorned taAccording to the convenient salsa “cheat bletops and a cork photo board bearing—funnily sheet” found on every table, the pickled onion is enough—pinned images of smiling patrons. And supposed to work wonders for the Ocho taco. And let’s not overlook the color palette, which balancit does. Appropriately named, the Ocho packs in es bright candy shades with neutral wood tones. octopus along with chopped poblano pepper and In other words, the North Park newcomer’s cute jack cheese. Braised and then grilled, the chewy factor is on par with puppies and babies dressed as octopus bits are doused in pesto, which I found pumpkins, or Daniel Radcliffe, circa 2003. strange. Graciously, the pickled onion cuts the Unless your main goal is stockpiling photos for richness with its clean, no-nonsense flavor.

Instagram, though, Perla’s sumptuous visual deAlthough I appreciate fearless culinary experitails won’t be all-important. Opened in late June, mentation—the Del Mar, with its ginger-marinated the Mexican-influenced restaurant (3000 Upas shrimp, is another must-try—my favorite Perla taco St., tacosperla.com) offers traditional and nonis the Adobada. Complex in its own way, the twotraditional street-style tacos. Handmade corn bite morsel makes do without melted cheese and tortillas, prepared using a spiffy tortilla press, are pumpkin seeds and pesto sauce. A sunny swipe of crisp and chewy with pleasantly uneven edges. pineapple salsa, its sweetness leveled by turmeric and basil, is all the embellishment it needs.

You won’t find the limp, paper-flat kind here.

Perla’s aguas frescas are also made in-house Write to minar@sdcitybeat.com and served from giant, refrigerated vats that and editor@sdcitybeat.com. empty quickly during peak lunch hours. The pine-

One Lucky

Spoon

12 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

the floating

library

by jim ruland

Two tales of lost innocence How do you tell the story of an abusive relationship when you don’t recognize its wrongness until many years have passed? That’s the problem and central metaphor of Wendy Ortiz’s memoir, Excavation (Future Tense Books). Like an archaeologist, Ortiz sifts through the many layers of her memories in an attempt to solve the puzzle of her past.

The result is the lightning-quick coming-ofage story of a young Southern California girl in the late 1980s.

The center of the universe is the Sherman Oaks Galleria, made famous by the Valley girls of Moon Unit Zappa’s song of the same name.

“Valley Girl” never appears in Ortiz’s memoir in much the same way that “punk rock” never appears in Patti Smith’s Just Kids, but both Zappa’s song and Ortiz’s memoir involve a mysterious attachment to an English teacher.

Ortiz’s longstanding sexual and romantic affair with Jeff Ivers, her 28-year-old Porschedriving English teacher, that began when Ortiz was just 13 years old, drives the narrative. That sounds like a seriously creepy situation, and it is, but Ortiz refuses to paint herself as a victim.

“This is no kid, this is no boy, this is no fingerfucking in the park…. This is gut-wrenching firsttime-ever oozing red love.”

While Ortiz comes across as remarkably mature—something she’s told again and again, usually by men—her teacher becomes increasingly paranoid and pathetic. Ortiz goes to great lengths to make it clear that she was a willing participant in the relationship long after she left his class and moved on to high school.

“It was hard to say goodbye to this man for whom I was losing an identifier. He was no longer ‘Mr. Ivers.’”

For most of their relationship, it’s Ortiz who appears to hold the cards, deciding whether or not there’s a place for “Mr. Ivers” in the sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll she experiments with on a regular basis. But the affair isn’t completely onesided. Ortiz can be petty, and Jeff has moments where he’s almost gallant.

Ortiz mixes in scenes from her recent past, providing the reader with glimpses of the kind of woman this headstrong and risk-taking girl will become while hinting that unearthing the trauma of her teenage years was a decades-long endeavor. By turns sober and searing, Excavation challenges expectations as to what abuse looks

and feels like in immensely readable fashion.

•••

Stephan Eirik Clark’s comic novel, Sweetness #9, is also a tale of lost innocence, but on a larger scale.

David Levereaux is a junior flavor scientist at a company developing an artificial sweetener. While working in the lab, he makes some disturbing discoveries about the sweetener’s side effects on the rats in his care, especially a male named Louie, to which he has become attached. “He sleeps with his face pushed down into the sawdust. He’ll suffocate.

But what’s worse is I don’t think he even cares.”

When his co-worker urges him to drop it, Levereaux investigates the monkeys in the primate wing and observes that, “They were not simply overweight. They were obese.” However, when he arrives at work the following day, the fat and listless rats and monkeys have all been replaced with healthy ones.

Convinced that a conspiracy is afoot, Levereaux decides to blow the whistle on the zerocalorie sugar substitute and is summoned to the flavor company’s inner sanctum for a come-toJesus meeting with upper management, which goes poorly. Levereaux gets canned, and then blackballed by the industry, leaving the poor flavorist to doubt what he’d seen in the lab.

“My god, I thought, what have I done? And for the first time it wasn’t the memory prompted by this question that troubled me, but the uncertainty of that recollection. What had I done?”

Levereaux uses his time away from the lab to sort things out. There’s just one problem: He’s been sampling the sweetener, and both he and his wife are hooked, with potentially disastrous consequences for his young family. His wife’s weight balloons, his son stops using verbs and his food-activist daughter loathes him.

Clark takes the Levereaux family to the brink of the absurd and then reels them back to consider the ramifications of a world getting fatter and fatter. “We are all of us human and weak, born to succumb to our impulses and desires, and what if not desire had we been perfecting for the last ten years or more?”

That’s some high-calorie angst, but Clark turns a dystopian nightmare into a comic romp through the dark side of the American dream.

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

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 13

the

SHORTlist

ART

COORDINATED BY KINSEE MORLAN

A WAY WITH WORLDS

ring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry.

With each new novel, Mitchell’s loyal fan base conDavid Mitchell is the type of interna- tinues to swell, its appetite for his genre-defying brand tionally adored author whose obsessive of literature growing as it follows the author’s twistfans wear T-shirts touting his books. ing, enthralling tales that leap in and out of various He’s written six novels so far, including number- places and times. His novels are distinctly different, 9dream and Cloud Atlas—the non-literary crowd yet related, often including several different narrators will recognize the latter because the book was whose seemingly separate stories connect as the charturned into a weird-but-intriguing 2012 movie star- acters are cleverly woven into one another’s worlds— even if those worlds exist in different timelines.

“I don’t know of any other author out there who’s anything like him,” says Seth Marko, the guy behind The Book Catapult, a literary blog and brand that puts on cool, bookish events around town.

Not only do the various narrators in Mitchell’s books end up interweaving, Marko says, but, also, characters from past books often make cameos in the newer books, creating an even wider, interconnected, Mitchell-made universe inhabited by all of the author’s imaginative worlds.

“He thinks of it as if he’s writing this giant überbook over the course of his career,” explains Marko, who’s teamed up with Warwick’s bookstore to bring Mitchell to Sherwood Auditorium at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (700 Prospect St. in La Jolla) at 7 p.m.

Monday, Sept. 22. “I mean, come on, that’s pretty awesome, right?”

Marko will lead a conversation with Mitchell and then open things up for an audience Q&A. A book signing will follow. The $35 ticket includes a hardcover copy of Mitchell’s latest, The Bone Clocks, which Marko says is the buzz David Mitchell book of the season.

PA U

LS

TU

AR

T

1

2

SAVANT-GARDE

San Diego’s home to a staggering number of music festivals, at least on a small scale, but the one that harbors the greatest concentration of experimental, modern and abstract sounds is the Carlsbad Music Festival. Happening Friday, Sept. 19, through Sunday, Sept. 21, it’ll showcase an array of artists who range from the accessible (Trouble in the Wind) to the avant-garde (Swarmius) to music that fits somewhere in between, like Ogd_S(11) Translation Has Failed. And it just so happens that the majority of them are performing free concerts outdoors throughout Carlsbad Village, though it’s worth sticking around for ticketed performances from minimalists Dawn of MIDI and chamber group Art of Élan. Select events are $15 each. Get the full schedule at carlsbadmusicfestival.org.

3

SOME LIKE IT HOT

Ever wonder what it would be like to stuff your face full of Sriracha-infused churros? How about donuts laced with the iconic hot sauce? If you want to find out, there’ll be plenty of beer to wash down a wide variety flaming-hot edibles at the inaugural San Diego Sriracha Festival. From 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20, in Point Loma’s Liberty Station (2640 Historic Decatur Road), more than a dozen chefs will whip up dishes using the Thai hot sauce, including Brad Lyons of Slater’s 50/50 and Joe Kraft of Wow Wow Wow Waffle. There’ll be craft cocktails and beer on tap, including Stone, Iron Fist and URBN. Admission to the 21-and-older event is $59. sriracha.nightout.com

HArtist Lecture: Jack Whitten at MCASD, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla. Whitten explores the possibilities of paint, the role of the artist and the allure of material essences in his works. He’ll discuss his five-decade career, his process, sources of inspiration and his new exhibition, which opens at the museum on Saturday, Sept. 20. At 6 p.m. Friday, Sept.

19. $5-$15. 858-454-3541, mcasd.org HIrrelevant Roots at TPG2, 1475 University Ave., Hillcrest. A group show featuring members of the Copycat Violence Collective. Opening from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19. 858-354-6294, TPG2.net HART2GO at Brokers Building, 402 Market St., Downtown. New works in various mediums from Jacob Ramsden, Nicole Connelly, this week’s cover artist Madeline Sherry, Dan Camp and over a dozen more.

Opening from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, Sept.

19. facebook.com/brokersbuildinggallery America’s Finest at TPG2, 1475 University Ave., Hillcrest. A street photography exhibition featuring works by Alphi Quitevis, Luis Gonzalez, Michael Raymond, Picture Paul and Rob Hammer. Opening from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19. TPG2.net HArtScream Social at You Are Here, 811 25th St., Golden Hill. A one-night-only, pop-up event that showcases contemporary art produced by Point Loma Nazarene University students and graduates.

Artists include Joe Sloan, Elizabeth Burke and Jacob Dali Rivera. Opening from 7 to 11 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20.

HGlimpses at Not An Exit Gallery @ Bread & Salt, 1955 Julian Ave., Logan Heights. New paintings by local painter and art instructor Stuart Burton.

Opening from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20. facebook.com/pages/Bread Salt/131432453678688 Samisdat at Lyceum Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza, Downtown. Czech and Slovak artists living in San Diego will present work for the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. Opening from 5:45 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20. lyceumevents.org HDust, Grain & Lint at Glashaus, 1815B Main St., Barrio Logan. Street-style photography shot on film from local Gumisforlovers (aka Ian Cuevas) and new paintings from his wife, Florence. Opening from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20. gumisforlovers.com Mustafah Dhada at Fusionglass Co., 8872 La Mesa Blvd., La Mesa, La Mesa.

The sculptor originally from Mozambique will show off new sculptures as well as many of his study drawings and sketches.

Opening from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept.

20. 619-461-4440, fusionglassco.com HBulletproof! at Low Gallery, 3778 30th St., North Park. Jennifer Davis shows off her series of gouache works on paper that are fashioned to look like the paper targets you find at a gun range, but with a creative twist. Opening from 6 to 10 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 20. lowgallerysd.com HMaking Thread at Woodbury School of Architecture, 2212 Main St., Barrio Logan.

L.A.-based performance artist Mariel Carranza will be exhibiting/enacting her latest piece, in which she treats her body as material, working to detach herself from physical limitations. From 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23. architecture.woodbury.edu

FALKWYN DE GOYENECHE

BOOKS

Dawn of MIDI

14 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

Urge American Gastropub’s Sriracha Porter Quiche

HJames Nestor at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The journalist will discuss and sign Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves. At 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, Sept. 17. 858-454-0347, warwicks.indiebound.com Stuart Rojstaczer at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The author will sign and discuss The Mathematician’s Shiva, about a son mourning his mathematician mother while also trying to figure out if she’d solved the most difficult math problem of all time. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18. warwicks.indiebound.com Steven Gould at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. The young-adult and science-fiction author will sign and discuss, Exo, the fourth novel in the Jumper series. At 7 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 18. mystgalaxy.com Chelsea Cain at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. The acclaimed thriller novelist will discuss and sign her newest offering, One Kick, about a former kidnap victim who has developed resilience and combat skills and uses them to find two missing children. At 7 p.m. Friday, Sept.

19. 858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com HNot Far From Normal at Glashaus, 1815-B Main St., Barrio Logan. Tamara Johnson celebrates the release of her new book. There’ll also be small plates by Chef Tony Martin, beer pairings by Alex Carballo music by Lion Cut and more.

From 7 p.m. to midnight Friday, Sept. 19. facebook.com/events/900394279989123 HCorey Lynn Fayman at Taylor Branch Library, 4275 Cass St., Pacific Beach. The author of the novels Black’s Beach Shuffle and Border Field Blues will discuss his writing process and how he uses the San Diego setting in his novels. At 12:30 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 20. pblibraryfriends.org Dan Downs at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. As part of Warwick’s ongoing Weekend with Locals Program, Downs will sign and discuss Broken But Born Again, the true story of a young man who gets lost in drugs. At noon Sunday, Sept. 21. warwicks.indiebound.com Anna Carey and Gretchen McNeil at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. Two prominent names in young adult fiction sign and discuss their newest books.

Carey will be promoting Blackbird while McNeil will be promoting her fifth novel, Get Even. At 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21.

858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com HJames Ellroy at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. The author of novels such as The Black Dahlia and L.A. Confidential will sign and discuss his latest crime thriller, Perfidia, about the murder of a Japanese family in ‘40s L.A. just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. At 7 p.m. Monday, Sept.

22. 858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com HDavid Mitchell at Sherwood Auditorium, 700 Prospect St, La Jolla. The author of Cloud Atlas and Book Catapult creator Seth Marko will discuss Mitchell’s new novel, The Bone Clocks, about a 15-yearold psychic girl trying to solve multiple mysterious phenomena. Ticket price include a copy of the novel. At 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 22. $32.40. 858-454-3541, warwicks.indiebound.com HDr. Laurie Marker at Africa and Beyond, 1250 Prospect St., La Jolla. Marker will discuss and sign her new book, A Future For Cheetahs, which features photography by noted wildlife photographer Suzi Eszterhas and outlines Marker’s important work of saving the cheetah in the wild. At 12:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 22. africaandbeyond.com Sarah Cornwell at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. Cornwell will sign and discuss her debut novel, What I Had Before I Had You, about a divorced

woman’s humbling journey back to her hometown on the Jersey Shore. At 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23. 858-454-0347, warwicks.indiebound.com Linda Carroll at Barnes & Noble La Mesa, Grossmont Center, La Mesa. The author and veteran couples’ therapist will sign and discuss Love Cycles: The Five Essential Stages of Lasting Love. At 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, Sept. 23. barnesandnoble.com Aaron Becker at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The creator of the Caldecott Honor Book, Journey, presents the next chapter in his wordless fantasy, Quest. At 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24. 858-454-0347, warwicks. indiebound.com

COMEDY HNorm MacDonald at American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave., Downtown. The star of Norm, Dirty Work and pretty much the greatest host of SNL’s “Weekend Update” gets back to his stand-up roots. At 8 p.m. Thursday, Sep. 18, and 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sep. 19-20. $30. americancomedyco.com HLast Comic Standing Tour at Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Ave., Downtown. A showcase of the winners and other outstanding comics from the NBC series.

Featured comedians include Nikki Carr, Rocky LaPorte, Joe Machi and more. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18. $25-$45.

619-570-1100, sandiegotheatres.org HKate Berlant at American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave., Downtown. Berlant is the producer and host of the free weekly comedy show, “Crime & Punishment” at Cake Shop on the Lower East Side. At 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24. $12. 619795-3858, americancomedyco.com

DANCE HHarmony & Motion International Music and Dance Festival at Casa Del Prado Theater, Balboa Park. This fourth annual fest features world music and dance performers, including The Dornob Collective, Ballet Folklorico Aztlan, Allison Adams Tucker’s Allegato World Ensemble and more. From 1 to 4 p.m. and 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20. $16-$30. 858964-0709, harmonyandmotion.org HMediterranean Nights at Centro Cultural de la Raza, 2125 Park Blvd., Balboa Park. This inaugural audience appreciation event will kick off of the 21st season of PKG Dance and features Greek-themed performances from St. Spyridon’s Greek Folk Dance Troupe, Iza Moon Dance Collective and more. From 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20. 619-2356135, ThePGKDanceProject.org

FOOD & DRINK H5th Anniversary at Station Tavern, 2204 Fern St., South Park. The South Park eatery celebrates five years with five days of events. There’ll be discounts for cyclists, an anniversary beer from Monkey Paw Brewing and a daytime party for the kids, plus a fundraiser for the San Diego Architectural Foundation. See website for details and times. Various times through Saturday, Sept. 20. stationtavern.com HChef Showdown at Harley-Davidson Showroom Clairemont, 4645 Morena Blvd, Clairemont. The 10th annual event is San Diego’s own version of “Iron Chef” featuring local chefs in a lively culinary competition. Plus, you get to eat the food and proceeds benefit the Center for Community Solutions. From 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18. $150-$250. ccssd.org

San Diego Festival of Beer at Port Pavilion on the Broadway Pier, 1000 North Harbor Drive, Downtown. San Diego’s original beer festival and cancer-fighting fundraiser features live music and over 60 different breweries. Ticket includes 10 beer tasters.

From 6 to 11 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19. $30$40. 619-546-7488, sdbeerfest.org Autumnal Equinox Dinner at Suzie’s Farm, 1856 Saturn Blvd., Imperial Beach.

The fourth annual, four-course beer and wine-pairing dinner celebrates the turning of the season and the bounty of the summer harvest and features dishes from Chef Ryan Johnston and his team at Whisknladle Hospitality. From 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20. $175. 760-7740030, suziesfarm.com HSan Diego Sriracha Festival at Liberty Station, Roosevelt & Cushing, Point Loma. The Sriracha Cookbook and Food GPS spotlights the world’s most iconic hot sauce with multiple stations featuring a variety of Sriracha-themed dishes, including desserts. There’ll also be local craft beer, cocktails, sodas, iced coffee and iced tea help tame the heat. From 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20. $59-$160. thesrirachacookbook.com/news-events HSan Diego Restaurant Week at San Diego County. More than 180 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, Sept. 21, through Sept. 26. $15$45. sandiegorestaurantweek.com South Park Pup Crawl at Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, South Park. Eight dogfriendly cafes and bars offer drink and food specials to benefit The Barking Lot Dog Rescue. From 5:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23. $15-$20. sdhappydogs.com

HEALTH & WELLNESS Living Without the One You Cannot Live Without at UCSD Garren Auditorium, Biomedical Sciences Building, La Jolla. From author and professor Natasha Josefowitz, learn about the various states of the grieving process and how men and women grieve and heal differently. From 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17.

858-822-7485, aging.ucsd.edu Health and Wellness Center Open House at New Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village. Get free fitness and wellness consultations, learn about library resources and try out the new equipment.

Light refreshments will be served. From 2 to 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19. 619-2365800, sandiegolibrary.org

MUSIC Augustana and Paul Cannon Band at Birch Aquarium, 2300 Expedition Way, La Jolla. Enjoy food and drinks and amazing sunset views from the aquarium’s TidePool Plaza while checking out local rock band Augustana and folk-surf rock music from Paul Cannon Band. From 5:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17. $31-$36. aquarium.ucsd.edu HAll Access Fest at House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave., Downtown. Twenty San Diego Music Award nominated bands play 20 minute sets rotating from The Delta Room to The Music Hall. Bands include Red Fox Tails, Gayle Skidmore, Wild Wild Wets and more. From 5:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Wednesday, Sept. 17. 619-299-BLUE, listenlocalsd.com/lblgallaccess Third Thursday Concert Series at Sunset Temple, 3911 Kansas St., North

Park. As part of North Park’s monthly third Thursdays to promote local businesses, this inaugural concert will include Christine Sako, The Klay, and The Village Squares. From 7 to 10 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18. $10. sunsettemple.com Kembang Sunda at Cuyamaca College Performing Arts Theatre, 900 Rancho San Diego Parkway, El Cajon. This Indonesian Gamelan ensemble based in San Diego performs traditional Sundanese music from West Java. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18. $5-$8. cuyamaca.edu/performingarts HGilbert Castellanos Hammond B3 Trio at Westgate Hotel, 1055 Second Ave., Downtown. The local jazz threesome specializing in Afro-Cuban rhythms will perform on the Westgate’s pool terrace as part of their Sunset Poolside Jazz Series.

From 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept.

18. 619-238-1818, westgatehotel.com HCarlsbad Music Festival and Village Music Walk at Carlsbad Village. Now in its 11th year, this year’s fest will feature over 50 performances in three days with concerts in Magee Park and Carlsbad Village Theater. Almost all genres are represented, from country and jazz to indierock and classical. Various times Friday through Sunday, Sept. 19-21. Free-$95.

760-809-5501, carlsbadmusicfestival.org Etienne Gara and Izumi Kashiwagi at Encinitas Library, 540 Cornish Drive. The acclaimed pianist and violinist will perform Beethoven’s “Spring Sonata No 5,” ���� Poulenc’s “Sonata for Violin and Piano” and Ravel’s “Tzigane.” At 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19. $13. EncinitasLibFriends.org Bob Carlin & Cheick Hamala Diabaté

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 15

at Museum of Making Music, 5790 Armada Drive, Carlsbad. Best known for his clawhammer style of banjo playing, Carlin will be joined by Grammy nominee Diabaté, master of the Ngoni, a traditional Malian stringed lute. At 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept.

20. $22-$28. museumofmakingmusic.org Songwriters Acoustic Nights at Swedenborg Hall, 1531 Tyler Ave., Hillcrest.

Aaron Bowen, Lindsay White, Brooke Mackintosh and Chad Taggart perform their original songs. At 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. $8. comedyuc.com Chris Klich Jazz Trio at Scripps Miramar Ranch Library, 10301 Scripps Lake Drive.

The three-piece of pianist Ed Kornhauser, bassist Brian Wright and Chris Klich on sax performs as part of the library‘s “The Pleasure of Your Company” music series.

At 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. srfol.org Wah! at Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, 1875 El Prado, Balboa Park. The world-

music recording artist best known for playing spiritual Kirtan music will play a concert inside the Fleet‘s IMAX theater in celebration of the UN International Day of World Peace. At 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. $40.

619-238-1233, jyotimandir.com/concerts Dapper Dixie at University Community Library, 4155 Governor Drive, La Jolla.

The Dixieland jazz band performs its good old-fashioned music. At 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, Sept. 23. sandiegolibrary.org

OUTDOORS Ocean Beach Pier Pancake Breakfast at Ocean Beach Pier, End of Newport Avenue, Ocean Beach. The annual breakfast includes pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausages and other fixings, as well as music and raffle prizes. From 7:30 a.m. to noon. Saturday, Sept. 20. $5$10. obtowncouncil.org

International Coastal Cleanup Day at Border Field State Park, 1500 Monument Road, San Ysidro. Celebrated the third Saturday in September, it’s the largest beach and waterway cleanup day, clearing tons of trash from coastlines, rivers and lakes. At 9 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 20.

619-575-3613 ext. 330, cleanupday.org Paddle for Clean Water at Ocean Beach Pier, end of Newport Avenue. Surfers and ocean enthusiasts paddle around the Ocean Beach Pier to raise awareness about the need for clean water and healthy coastlines. There’ll be yoga classes, free breakfast for all paddlers, guest speakers, live music and more. From 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday, Sept. 21. surfridersd.org

POLITICS & COMMUNITY HPedal the Cause A cycling fundraiser

THEATER

Losing their religion in Kingdom City

Sheri Wilner’s Kingdom City is as much an homage first-act sequence in which chums Julia (Joanna to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible as it is a penetrating Strapp) and Jane (Summer Spiro) are getting comment on moral repression and censorship. The gradually crocked over supper. They’re drinking, twist—that the actors portraying the characters in but they’re also sitting—much too much. Perhaps a production of a play become their characters and as it was in ’25, the household maid, Saunders live out that play in real life—is a much-employed (Jacquelyn Ritz), walks away with the show. narrative device. But the metamorphosis sneaks Fallen Angels runs through Oct. 5 at North up on you in Wilner’s smartly written play, which Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach. $37 and is getting its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse up. northcoastrep.org under the direction of Jackson Gay. —David L. Coddon When the holy-roller teens of Kingdom City, Missouri, come face to face with their ultra-liberal Write to davidc@sdcitybeat.com director and with The Crucible itself, they’re even- and editor@sdcitybeat.com. tually reborn, and not in the born-again sense.

They are freed from the heavy hammer of judgOPENING ment and Scripture.

A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World: A Miriam, the initially reluctant director (Katie young woman returns to Salem 10 years after the Witch Trials, Blumberg), and her writer’s-blocked husband, but she’s not the only interesting newcomer. Opens Sept. 18 Daniel (Todd Weeks, Blumberg’s real-life spouse), at Moxie Theatre in Rolando. moxietheatre.com seem at first cookie-cutter New York intellectuals. Big Kitchen the Musical: This is a preview of a work in JIM CARMODY progress that pays tribute to Judy They’re humanized by their “The Beauty” Forman, the colorful encounters with the kids (well proprietor of the Big Kitchen restauplayed by Cristina Gerla, Ausrant in South Park. A $10 donation is suggested. It happens Sept. 22 at the tyn Myers and Katie Sapper), Big Kitchen. Search Facebook for “Big and, by the second act, Miriam’s Kitchen the Musical.” abrasiveness is diminished and Kinky Boots: Based on the 2005 film her caring about the desperate of the same name, this musical tells teens becomes believable and the tale of a young man who saves his affecting. All the while—and father’s dying shoe factory by having it turn out footwear for drag performers. here’s where Wilner’s craftsPresented by Broadway San Diego, it manship shines—flashes of The runs Sept. 23 through 28 at the Civic Crucible illuminate the story.

Theatre, Downtown. broadwaysd.com For Kingdom City, the PlayKatie Sapper (left) and Rothschild and Sons: A musical house’s Potiker Theatre is conchronicles the rise of Mayer RothKate Blumberg in Kingdom City. that figured with seats on both sides schild, an 18th-century businessman and the action in the middle. While this makes it and German Jew, who, with his sons, helped fund the fight Napoleon and sought enhanced civil rights for Jewmore difficult to see, it does give the setting a con- against ish people. Runs Sept. 22 and 23 at North Coast Repergregational feel and, more importantly, brings the tory Theatre in Solana Beach. northcoastrep.org/season/off actors closer. Amen to that. nights.html Kingdom City runs through Oct. 5 at La Jolla Scott Joplin’s New Rag: In a world premiere, Robert Barry Fleming, who wrote the script, performs a one-person play Playhouse. $15 and up. lajollaplayhouse.org

•••

North Coast Repertory Theatre’s staging of Fallen Angels, Noël Coward’s drawing-room romp about a couple of bored London wives in heat, must be a comedy of its time (it opened in 1925), because it just isn’t that funny today. Deadliest is a long

16 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

about ragtime composer Scott Joplin. Presented by Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company, it opens Sept. 18 at the 10th Avenue Arts Center in East Village. moolelo.net

For full listings,

please visit “T heater ” at sdcit ybeat.com

where all proceeds go to support cancer research in San Diego. Features courses for any riding ability. See website for times and locations. At 7:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 20, and 8 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. sandiego.pedalthecause.org

to work and play in. Activities include games, pizza, an afternoon yoga session, happy hours and more. For locations, visit downtownsandiego.org/parkingday and gaslamp.org/parking-day. From 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19.

Paws FUR Pink Dog Run/Walk at Liberty Station, Roosevelt & Cushing, Point Loma. Benefiting Susan G. Komen local breast health services, participants are encouraged to bring their four-legged friends to this dog-friendly event. From 7 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. pawsfurpinksd.com

Mira Mesa Street Fair at Camino Ruiz and New Salem St., Mira Mesa. Crafters and other vendors, non-profit and business information booths and food from around the world will be at this 16th annual event. There’ll also be carnival-style entertainment, a beer garden and music stage. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20. miramesatowncouncil.org

International Day of Peace Celebration at World Beat Cultural Center, 2100 Park Blvd., Balboa Park. A full-day festival that’ll include world music, yoga, singing bowl healing, drumming and meditation for world peace. Community activist Charlotte Hill O’Neal from Tanzania will be the guest speaker. From noon to 7 p.m.

Sunday, Sept. 21. worldbeatcenter.org

SPECIAL EVENTS Play 4 SAY at Liberty Station of Point Loma, Farragut Rd, Point Loma. Play 4 SAY is an adult three-person competition featuring popular lawn games like bocce ball, bean bag toss and ladder ball. Plus, sample culinary delights from local restaurants. All proceeds benefit SAY San Diego. From 4:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18. $30-$165. saysandiego.org San Diego Yarn Crawl This second annual event is a free, self-paced, self-guided tour of nine San Diego yarn stores, two alpaca farms and one mobile yarn truck. See website for locations and details. From 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept 1920, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept.

“The Monkey” by Jacob Rivera is on view in Artscream Social, a group show opening from 7 to 11 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20, at You Are Here (811 25th St. in Golden Hill).

21. sandiegoyarncrawl.com HSanta Fe Market at Bazaar del Mundo, 4133 Taylor St., Old Town. Stroll the lively outdoor marketplace and shop collections of sterling silver and traditional Native American and Southwestern blankets, paintings, sculpture and more. From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept. 19-20, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. bazaardelmundo.com HDowntown San Diego Park(ing) Day at various locations Downtown. Metered parking spots will be transformed into temporary mini-parks for the public

HImperial Avenue Street Festival along Imperial Avenue between 28th and 30th streets, Logan Heights. Enjoy a variety of family friendly activities and check out live music from King Community Choir, Chocolate Revolution, Chunky y Los Alacranes and more. From noon to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20. imperialavenuestreetfest.com HJurassic Quest at Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. Experience the sights and sounds of the Jurassic era with over 50 life-sized dinosaurs, dino crafts, Dino Science Station, Dino theater, coloring stations and a Dino Tour. From 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 20-21. $16-$20.

858-755-1161, jurassicquest.com Hispanic Heritage in Lemon Grove at Lemon Grove Library, 8073 Broadway.

The festive event will feature music, food, photo display, a short history video and a book signing by local author Tonton Jim and artist E. Felix Lyon. From 1 to 4 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 20. ci.lemon-grove.ca.us Fleet Week Coronado Speed Festival at Naval Air Station North Island, 200 Alameda Blvd. Fleet Week’s marquee event features fast-paced auto racing and exhi-

bitions for car enthusiasts. From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept. 2021. $25-$250. coronadospeedfest.com Encinitas Oktoberfest at Mountain Vista Drive at El Camino Real. The six-block fest will feature Bavarian dancers and bands, 200-plus artisan vendors, a food tent serving authentic German food and beverages, a parade, and a family fun zone. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. encinitasoktoberfest.com LGBT Wedding Expo at Horton Grand Hotel, 311 Island Ave., San Diego, Downtown. The second annual expo features dozens of gay-friendly exhibitors. From 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. 828-6458750, SameLoveSameRights.com Steampunk Swap Meet and BBQ at San Diego Lapidary Society, 654 Mildred St., Mission Valley. Starburner Galactic Courier Service with Grand Pacific Steam will be holding this one-stop-shop for all things steampunk. Bring items to sell, swap or give-away. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. 619-295-6905

TALKS & DISCUSSIONS Buddhism and the Twelve Steps at World Beat Cultural Center, 2100 Park Blvd., Balboa Park. Kevin Griffin, author of One Breath at a Time, will lead an evening talk and meditation exploring the ways that Buddhism and the 12 Steps of addiction complement each other. From 7 to 9 p.m.

Friday, Sept. 19. worldbeatcenter.org HArchitecture & the Unspeakable at Woodbury School of Architecture, 2212 Main St., Barrio Logan. Architect and filmmaker John Szot will discuss his recent work. Based in Brooklyn, his design prac-

tice is focused on exploring the relationship between technology and meaning in the built environment. At 6:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19. architecture.woodbury.edu HHow Prohibition Changed America at New Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village. Culinary Historians of San Diego will present this talk featuring author, food historian and lecturer Richard Foss. At 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 20.

858-349-8211, CHSanDiego.com HReaching Across the Nation: San Diego’s Influence on Domestic Architecture at NewSchool of Architecture & Design, 1249 F Street, Downtown. Architect Ione Stiegler will discuss “Spanish Colonial Revival: The Legacy of the Exposition.” At 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 20. $5 suggested donation. friendsofsdarch.com Sheldon Harnick at David & Dorothea Garfield Theatre, 4126 Executive Dr., La Jolla. The legendary Broadway lyricist sits down for a candid conversation about his life and career with National Jewish Theater Foundation artistic director, Arnold Mittelman. At 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept.

21. $25. 858-362-1348, lfjcc.org HSoldiers on TV at New Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village. Part of Cal Humanities’ initiative War Comes Home, Renee St. Louis leads a discussion between service members, vets and civilians looking at the ways the U.S. military has been portrayed on television. At 6:30 p.m.

Monday, Sept. 22. sandiegolibrary.org

For full listings,

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

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 17

Kin see Mo rla n

people,” Walters says. “And I’m not the only artist who borrows ideas and inspiration from cultures from around the world.” he Walters controversy is the latest in a long line of challenges the Centro Cultural de la Raza has faced over the years.

One of the largest Chicano arts centers in the Southwest, the Centro, housed in a former water tank in Balboa Park, once attracted international attention for its edgy programming and enjoyed financial support from heavy hitters like the National Endowment for the Arts. Famed groups like The Taco Shop Poets and The Border Arts Workshop can trace their roots to the Centro, and artists and activists like James Luna, David Avalos and Lalo Alcaraz often credit the institution for helping foster their careers.

Yet while some people know about the seven-year boycott of the Centro that ended in 2007 and resulted in a major change in leadership, the organization’s more recent fight for survival has been much quieter and less public.

During the past five years, the organization has been running solely on the support of volunteers, and while their efforts are valiant, the Centro’s reputation and cultural programming have suffered because of it.

There hasn’t been an executive director or any paid staff at the Centro since Stephanie de la Torre was let go in 2009. And aside from two modest grants from The Thursday Club Foundation and small donations collected at exhibitions and events, the Centro has had to piece together a budget without receiving any significant grant support or private donations for the last five years.

The organization recently applied for funding through the city of San Diego’s Commission for Arts and Culture Organization Support Program, but was denied and given a low ranking by the review panel, which cited weak organizational management and a lack of quality programming.

The Centro’s also been saddled with debt, including thousands in back taxes owed to the county, $18,000 owed to Konica Minolta for a long-term lease on a printer and back wages owed to de la Torre, who went unpaid for a year.

Currently, the nonprofit’s main funding comes from renting out the facility to other groups, plus collecting rent for private uses like weddings and quinceańeras.

All of this has prompted the city of San Diego, which owns the building and lets the nonprofit use the space free of charge, to send the Centro a letter notifying it of potential default on the lease.

“There’s been a lack of providing updated info regarding their insurance policy, rates and fees [charged to those renting out the space] and a concern about operating hours,” says Bill Harris, spokesperson for the city’s Park & Recreation Department.

“They’ll have to upgrade their act. They’re going to have to provide everything that the city asks: confirmation of insurance, confirmation of operating hours, confirmation of financials and a better description of how they’re utilizing the space.”

According to the Centro’s lease, which

T

Centro Cultural de la Raza

Volunteer-run Centro Cultural de la Raza

continues to hang on despite persistent challenges by ore than two-dozen concerned people showed up to the Centro Cultural de la Raza’s board of directors meeting on Sept. 3 to weigh in on a controversial installation by Silvio Nicholas Walters, a Los Angeles artist featured in the center’s annual Matices de las Américas group exhibition celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Most folks were in favor of asking the Centro board to remove the installation, a display of feathered, decorative costumes on mannequins that the artist and fashion designer describes as a “mashup of indigenous culture and high-end fashion.” Many were offended by the work and called the somewhat skimpy apparel cultural appropriation. They said the work was inappropriate for a center with a mission of preserving, promoting and educating the community about Chicano, Mexican, Latino and indigenous art and culture.

M

Kinsee Morlan

“It was, like, Oh god, what is this? Not here, not this space,” Ozzie Monge says of Walters’ installation. “This sort of nonsense happens in Hollywood, but not here.

To have a misrepresentation and hypersexualization of indigenous women like that—I say no way.”

Monge is a longtime volunteer at the Centro and a member of the organization’s Arts Advisory Committee (AAC), a group of roughly a dozen volunteers who coordinate the arts program at the Centro. He says the annual exhibition has been going on for years, which is why the other AAC members trusted curator Marisol De Las Casas, an AAC member herself, and didn’t scrutinize her selections in advance.

Ultimately, the Centro’s board voted to remove Walters’ installation. A few of the AAC members and at least one vocal critic of the decision—one of Centro’s original founders, artist Mario Torero—argued that remov-

18 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

ing the piece amounted to censorship.

“He’s just another guy playing with feathers and indigenous tradition,” Torero says. “It’s not original, and I’ve seen better, but it’s his own interpretation.”

Walters is upset with the board’s decision. He’s been busy contacting the board members, taking his complaints to social media and pitching his story to the press.

Telemundo 52 Los Angeles aired a short segment on the controversy, and U-T San Diego broke the news last Friday that De Las Casas and another AAC member, Rogelio Casas, resigned over the matter, citing outrage at the board’s decision to remove the work.

He says the Centro violated his constitutional right to freedom of speech (which reveals an inaccurate understanding of the Constitution) and is in breach of his contract guaranteeing that his work would be on view through the duration of the show.

“I don’t degrade anyone; I empower

Courtesy: Silvio Nicholas Walters

is to bring people into conformance.” armen Sandoval, the Centro’s board president, can be found volunteering in the space on Wednesdays, and she often fills in on weekends when other volunteers can’t make it. On a recent Wednesday, she simultaneously fielded phone calls—mostly inquiries about private rentals—and greeted visitors at the door, telling them about the Centro’s murals and art exhibitions.

While CityBeat was unable to get Sandoval’s response to the city’s letter—the existence of which came to our attention after the interview—she did indicate that things are improving. She says they’ve paid of much of their debts, acquired insurance and otherwise brought the space back from near disaster, including getting the Centro’s nonprofit status reinstated—it was revoked in 2009. They still struggle with marketing and adding more programming, she says, but they’re solving that by seeking out new board members and volunteers, particularly those with grant-writing and marketing abilities. While the Centro still needs a lot more help and support from the community, she says, the biggest hurdles have been cleared.

“We had a lot of challenges, which we’ve resolved with time,” she says. “We’re almost to the point now where we can hire staff. We’re looking forward to that probably within the next six months.”

Volunteers like Monge and Bertha “Birdie” Gutierrez say that while things aren’t as bad as they could be, they believe the board is largely incompetent, citing issues like the phone and

C

Silvio Nicholas Walters’ installation before it was removed went from long-term to month-to-month years ago after similar issues arose, it’s required to be open from noon to 5 p.m. every day. Currently, it’s open from noon to 4 p.m.

Tuesday through Sunday and, until recently, sometimes had trouble finding a volunteer on Tuesdays. The lease also dictates the amount the Centro’s allowed to charge outside entities and includes restrictions on certain types of events—the purpose being that the subsidized space should be used mostly for public, cultural programming rather than private events like weddings. Harris says the city typically wants an organization to be able to get grant funding rather than relying on renting out the space for the majority of its income.

Depending on the Centro’s board response to the city’s requests, the letter of default could result in the organization losing the space, but Harris says that’s not the city’s goal.

“That’s not our intent,” he says. “Our intent

Internet being shut off when bills go unpaid, and a general lack of transparency. They say a change in leadership is needed.

“Until we get competent people there, nothing is going to change,” says Gutierrez, who was recently suspended by the board and told she needed to take a break from volunteering, partly because she forgot to make note of a booked event on the Centro’s shared calendar.

There’s another narrative, however, articulated by those who’ve seen the Centro struggle yet survive in recent years: They say they’re impressed by the current leadership’s ability to keep things afloat.

“I see continuous exhibitions, the doors are open and we’re one of the few Chicano centers in the nation left open,” says Victor Ochoa, another Centro founder. “The story really should be about how the Centro is alive and that everybody works in a volunteer capacity from their heart—from their spirit—and none of us are doing this for money.”

“The Centro is surviving,” agrees Torero, who says the organization has received similar letters from the city in the past. While he thinks a change in the current leadership could help, he’s not worried about the Centro closing anytime soon: “We’ll negotiate and submit whatever they’re asking for, and we’ll continue struggling until a miracle comes about. We’re not the only ones struggling; all arts organizations are right now. The Centro will survive this.”

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

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 19

Kinsee Morlan

Seen Local Meet our cover artist A few years ago, visitors to Madeline Sherry’s studio in Downtown’s Brokers Building Gallery would’ve seen mostly large, emotive abstract paintings. It wasn’t until 2011, after a local curator showed interest in her infrequent figurative works, that Sherry, an abstract expressionist at her roots, decided to set abstract art aside for a while and focus on a series of paintings based on advertisements and photographs from Life magazine.

Sherry had stacks of the magazines from the 1940s and ’50s, and she always knew she wanted to do something with them. Inspired by the magazine’s subtle-yet-effective advertisements, she saw the idealized images of America as propaganda that ultimately affected her personally.

“I was just a baby in the ’40s, but my family life and the way I was raised were impacted by all this advertising,” she says. “The way we dressed, the moral code, it was all pictured in these images that show a magical place we’d all like to be.”

Sherry sometimes inserts modern-day objects and people into the paintings, a comment on how some things have drastically changed. In one piece, she’s replaced a mother carrying a tray of Schlitz beer with a transvestite, who looks right at home supplying the party with cold refreshments.

“I think by doing that, in a way, it can show how we are, where we are today,” she says.

Sherry debuted the paintings in a solo show that opened at the now-defunct Pulse Gallery in early 2013. “Carnival Club,” the piece featured on CityBeat’s cover this week, was one of the large-scale

Madeline Sherry anchor pieces in that show. It was inspired by a photograph that illustrated an article in Life that Sherry thinks had something to do with war bonds. The expressions on the faces of the people looking up at the girls onstage were what caught the artist’s eye.

“I don’t really remember the article at all,” she says. “But the image was hot.”

Sherry’s figurative series has received an enthusiastic response. Since the opening at Pulse, she’s been offered other shows and has sold several pieces. Her work will be part of Art2go, a group show that opens from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19, at the Brokers Building (402 Market St.).

While she says she misses the freedom and pleasure she experiences when painting abstract work, she doesn’t think she can go back to it just yet.

“I have to keep doing this because things are coming up and people want that kind of work,” she says.

“They’re not really after my abstract work, so what are you going to do, you know?”

—Kinsee Morlan Kinsee Morlan

Dive bars immortalized “The bar… is an exercise in solitude. Above all else, it must be quiet, dark, very comfortable—and, contrary to modern mores, no music of any kind, no matter how faint. In sum, there should be no more than a dozen tables, and a client that doesn’t like to talk.”

—Luis Buñuel For 13 years, artist Raúl Guerrero has been capturing the dim, snug and unpretentious atmosphere of dive bars on his canvasses. Like a lot of work in the longtime artist’s portfolio, the oil paintings are allegorical narratives that aspire to highlight interesting snippets of the history and culture of the Americas.

“I paint them every so often,” Guerrero says, talking in his Hillcrest home and studio. “Initially, it was on account of Buñuel and what he was talking about regarding bars. For him, they were places of meditation where you could go in and contemplate…. I enjoy a bar, especially the way he describes them, quiet. But, in general, those types of bars don’t exist anymore. But bars like that—places artists frequent— they’re interesting because there’s something about the environment that’s conducive to the artistic mind.

They’re places to just commune with the muses.”

Three new bar paintings by Guerrero are set to go on view at Air de Paris, a contemporary art gallery in Paris from Sept. 19 through Dec. 31. For the work in the show, Guerrero’s added another element, portraits of artists he knows and admires. In one of the paintings, for example, artist Guy de Cointet is depicted hanging out at the long-defunct Antrim Bar

20 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

Raúl Guerrero and his painting of The Whaling Bar in Santa Monica.

“All these great old bars are disappearing,” Guerrero says, pulling out his large painting of La Jolla’s iconic The Whaling Bar, which closed last year.

“I’m glad I got to them when I did.”

While Guerrero’s in Paris, he hopes to add to his series by painting a few Parisian artists in iconic bars across the city.

“Paris is the perfect place to show the work and try to do more,” he says, “because it’s known for bars that’ve traditionally been places for artists to hang out.”

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

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 21

Bite marks Kevin Smith digs into some meaty material

by Glenn Heath Jr. What hath the Internet wrought? Savagery, weakness and arrogance—nothing mankind hasn’t been mastering for the last few thousand years. The only difference is, nowadays predators don’t have to face their victims in person; they hide behind the safeguard of technology instead.

Kevin Smith slams this point home with Tusk, a new horror film that destroys the virtual distance of online aggression by slowly transforming one of Justin Long (left) and Michael Parks, before the horror its seediest offenders into a primitive beast. Yet there’s something far more sinister go- with a walrus he named Mr. Tusk. Seconds later, ing on than simple comeuppance. Like Clint East- Wallace collapses. wood’s William Munny growls at the end of UnforTusk takes the torture-porn template and turns given, “Deserves got nothing to do with it.” it upside down. As Wallace is drugged, gagged and In Tusk, Justin Long plays Wallace, the philan- bound, he quickly realizes that Howard’s motivations dering co-host of an abrasive and raunchy podcast are vastly different from your normal sadist. His decalled “The Not-See Party,” who travels around the sires are purely organic. The touch of skin, the howling country interviewing strange and eccentric people yelps of an animal, the pearly white of teeth—everybefore making fun of them on the air with his equally thing boils down to close-contact terror. Smith purfoul best friend (Haley Joel Osment). As we learn in posefully makes the final act of the film a sideshow of a key flashback with his girlfriend Ally (Genesis Ro- practical effects, as if his style and theme were primidriguez), Wallace was once a sweet, dorky stand-up tive warriors against all postmodern narrative forms. comic who’s turned into a slippery monster now that One of Howard’s peculiar quotes rings truer than he has found fame. This won’t be others as Tusk unleashes its bloody, his final metamorphosis. disgusting finale: “We survive at For the latest episode, Wallace all costs, until we butcher again.”

Tusk travels to Canada, referred to conAccording to Smith, Wallace and Directed by Kevin Smith descendingly in the film as “The Howard aren’t that different from Starring Justin Long, Michael Great White North,” to interview each other; they just slaughter in Parks, Genesis Rodriguez a clumsy YouTube sensation who unique ways. The Quebecoise deand Johnny Depp cut off his own leg with a samurai tective, played by an almost unrecRated R sword while performing for the ognizable Johnny Depp, addresses camera. He finds a corpse instead this issue during a hilarious but of an easy target; and it’s the first haunting monologue about the sign that any and all expectations will be thrown out layers of guilt and missed opportunities. For the first the window in Tusk. Dejected and aching for a story time in nearly a decade, Smith seems to be honestly to salvage the money spent on his plane flight, Wal- addressing complex ideas through purely cinematic lace discovers a mysterious note in a bathroom stall, means and not his own ego. written by a worldly sailor with stories to tell. What Finally, and most importantly, Tusk concerns could go wrong, right? itself with the ongoing generational divide perpeThe salty ghoul (Michael Parks) calls himself trated by technology. There’s a disconnect between Howard Howe, a lover of literature, artifacts and Wallace and Howard (despite their mutual aims to menacing metaphors who lives in a massive man- deform bodies and minds) that stems from the fact sion off the beaten path in Manitoba and en route that members of the Internet generation are so emdirectly to hell. Wallace enters Howard’s shadowy boldened by their own omniscience that they can’t abode seeking an easy target that he can turn into a see a monster coming until it skewers them in the salacious and manipulative segment for the podcast. neck. Reality bites.

He gets something else entirely. During their first lengthy conversation, the old man often references Write to glennh@sdcitybeat.com the time he spent shipwrecked on a frozen island and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Our melancholy

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them

22 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

People grieve in vastly different ways. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them spins this idea into a sublime meditation on one couple’s experiences grappling with the loss of a child. Ned Benson’s ambitious melodrama is unique in that it reduces the usual heightened emotions of the genre down to a quiet simmer.

In the opening scene, we see Conor (James McAvoy) and Eleanor (Jessica Chastain) at their happiest, having dinner at a swanky restaurant before gleefully running out on the check.

They end up giggling on the grass in Central Park, illuminated by a bed of fireflies. Seconds later, a distraught Eleanor rides across one of New York City’s highest bridges, abandons her bike and

jumps over the side.

It’s a deeply sad sequence of isolation and panic, one that stands in direct contrast to the dreamlike prologue. Here we have one of many examples where polar-opposite emotions and experiences clash. But unlike the two leads of Claude Lelouch’s classic French romance A Man and Woman, the poster for which hangs in Eleanor’s bedroom, Benson’s troubled couple spends much of the film toiling alone.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them—which opens Friday, Sept. 19—explores the procedures of transition, how and why we make decisions during times of emotional distress. The characters’ parents, played by William Hurt, Isabelle Huppert and Ciarán Hinds, are important to forming this process.

However, the bulk of the film’s power rests on the chemistry and courage of Chastain and McAvoy, each of whom conveys a combination of intimacy and rage that feels vibrant even during the quietest moments. Both actors give restrained performances that match Benson’s melancholic aesthetic, creating a demure yet affecting way of looking at the collapse of two worlds that used to be one.

—Glenn Heath Jr.

Opening A Walk Among the Tombstones: Liam Neeson scours the dark underbelly of the city in Scott Frank’s ghoulish crime film, looking for the killer of a drug kingpin’s beautiful wife.

My Old Lady: Kevin Kline plays an American who inherits an apartment in Paris that houses a mysterious resident. It co-stars Kristin Scott Thomas and Maggie Smith.

Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation: Documentary about one of the most famous architectural projects ever, Antoni Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

Screens through Sept. 24 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Take Me to the River: The Memphis music scene gets an in-depth documentary that follows a new album featuring legends from Stax Records. Screens through Sept. 25 at the Ken Cinema.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them: James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain play a couple who try to reclaim their relationship after experiencing a traumatic event. See our review on Page 22.

The Maze Runner: In this science-fiction film, a community of boys tries to escape an elaborate maze after being kidnapped and having their minds erased.

This is Where I Leave You: Four grown siblings are forced to return home after their father passes away and states in his will that they must all live under the same roof for a week. It stars Jason Bateman, Tina Fey and Jane Fonda.

Tusk: In this horror film by director Kevin Smith, a writer goes missing after interviewing a mysterious seafarer, causing his best friend and girlfriend to follow in search. See our review on Page 22.

One Time Only Chicken with Plums: The filmmakers of Persepolis return with this stunning parable about a broken-down musician trying to find hope in his later years. Screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17, at the Scripps Ranch Library.

Screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

duces Taraji P. Henson’s devoted housewife in Sam Miller’s erotic thriller.

Now Playing

The Drop: When a robbery goes wrong, a low-level thug (Tom Hardy) must lean on friends and enemies alike to survive. It’s the final film starring James Gandolfini.

A Five Star Life: A woman works as a luxury-hotel inspector and, despite her dream job, pines for a relationship of substance.

Besos de Azucar: Two precocious children must overcome their awful parents in this dark comedy by director Carlos Cuaron. Ends Sept. 18 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Dolphin Tale 2: Even a dolphin needs to find love.

No Good Deed: Idris Elba plays an excon with dangerous intentions who se-

The Notebook (Le Grand Cahier): Twins travel with their mother to stay with family in order to avoid the horror of World War II. There they encounter their evil grandmother, who forces them to do slave labor for food and shelter. Ends Sept. 18 at the Ken Cinema.

A Letter to Momo: After her father dies, a young Japanese girl moves to a seemingly tranquil island off the coast of Japan, where she encounters supernatural occurrences. Ends Sept. 18 at La Jolla Vil-

lage Cinemas.

Innocence: Boarding school turns out to be a horrifying experience for a traumatized young woman looking for solace after her mother is killed.

The Identical: Ashley Judd and Ray Liotta star in this drama about twin brothers who are separated at birth and then reconnect as adults involved in the music business.

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

Llyn Foulkes: One Man Band: Painter and multitalented musician Llyn Foulkes is on the precipice of obscurity at age 70.

This documentary follows his tenacious journey to be remembered. Screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17, at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Pearl Peep’s Movie Choice: What kind of movie mood will Pearl be in? Your guess is as good as ours. Screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

La Costa Film Festival: The program includes 43 feature films, after-parties and a tribute to Ed Harris. Runs Thursday, Sept. 18, through Sunday, Sept.

21, at various locations. Get details at lacostafilmfestival.org.

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead: Joe Cross decides to change his unhealthy lifestyle and lose 100 pounds in this documentary about the modern healthcare crisis.

Screens at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18, at various theaters. Get details at fathom events.com.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: In Howard Hawks’ masterpiece, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell convince a gaggle of adoring men that blondes have the most fun.

Screens at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18, through Saturday, Sept. 20, at Cinema Under the Stars in Mission Hills.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Looking for a perfect first date? Take your guy or gal to the most famous late-night movie ever made, a true litmus test for any relationship. Screens at midnight on Saturday, Sept. 20, at the Ken Cinema.

M: Fritz Lang’s horrifying moral tale stars Peter Lorre as a child killer who’s captured by people who are out for blood.

Screens at 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21, at Arclight La Jolla.

Fading Gigolo: John Tuturro decides to prostitute himself out to wealthy women in order to make a living after his flower shop goes bankrupt. Screens at 6:30 p.m.

Monday, Sept. 22, at San Diego Public Library.

Cinemanovels: A woman curates a memorial film retrospective for her deceased father and realizes how much his work has influenced her. Screens at 6 p.m.

Tuesday, Sept. 23, at the Point Loma / Hervey Branch Library.

The Skeleton Twins: Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play estranged twins who reunite after both escape death on the same day.

In Secret: Elizabeth Olson is one unhappy camper in this period melodrama about unrequited love and desire. Screens at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24, at the Mission Valley Public Library.

The Zero Theorem: Christoph Waltz stars as a genius computer programmer in Terry Gilliam’s mad-hatter film set in a fantastical future dystopia. Screens through Sept. 25 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Crazy Bitches: A group of vain women learn the true lesson of beauty as they’re picked off one by one during a weekend getaway. Screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24, at Hillcrest Cinemas.

The Goonies: They never say die.

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 23

p o h p Hi

historians

DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist dig through a legend's crates by

Scott McDonald

DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist know better.

They’ve never needed laser shows, a troupe of twerking dancers or ironic mash-ups to get their point across. These guys are collectors and old-school diggers—hip-hop historians and ambassadors of their genre.

They’re also aware that it’s impossible to tell the story of an entire musical culture in a single evening. But that isn’t going to stop them from trying.

Armed exclusively with albums from hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa’s 41,000piece record collection, the preeminent turntablists are back on the road together for the 28-date “Renegades of Rhythm” tour.

Over the years, the two have occasionally taken a break from other projects to record and tour with each other, but this

is something that has exceeded their wildest expectations. While they were initially invited to create a mix using Bambaataa’s massive stockpile, Shadow (Josh Davis) and Chemist (Lucas MacFadden) quickly realized the new endeavor demanded far more.

“It’s not a small thing,” Davis tells CityBeat. “It’s actually been somewhat of a burden to reflect Bambaataa properly and do him justice. He’s been such a hero for us.

We want to pay him, and the entire culture, due respect. To play Bambaataa’s collection is to tell the story of hip-hop.”

McFadden agrees: “It’s been incredibly humbling,” he says.

“These things have transcended being records and have become artifacts. I mean, we’re just not playing any records. These

24 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

were the ones played at the park jams and more intimidating by a staggering amount of clubs before the culture was even solidified, jackets and labels covered with masking tape while hip-hop was still forming. The hands to prevent rival DJs from nicking selections that have touched these copies and the sto- for their own sets. Acetates and test pressries they could tell—it just emanates energy.” ings were set aside, and difficult decisions That energy was working in their fa- were made. But with only 90 to 100 minutes vor even before the two knew they’d be of performance time each night, finalizing involved. Bambaataa (Kevin Donovan) do- the set list seemed next to impossible. nated his mammoth collection to Cornell “It was difficult,” MacFadden says. “It University in 2013. By chance, the curator was heartbreaking to pass on a lot of the of the collection was McFadden’s longtime things we wanted to play. This is a story friend Johan Kugelberg. that could be told over Although permission four days straight. But DJ Shadow and from the former Matawe finally came to our dor Records executive senses and decided to Cut Chemist and gallery owner was go from classic to clasOct. 1 all the DJs needed, both sic to classic. It’s perfect insisted that Donovan for celebrating how hipHouse of Blues hop has been shaped by give his blessing, as well. djshadow . com Bambaataa’s tastes. He’s “Cornell owns the cutchemist . com one of the major reasons records,” Davis says, we’re all here today.” “but we wanted to get They’ll play BamBam’s blessing out of respect. We felt it was a necessary step. baataa’s iconic breaks in tandem on six difThere was no way we were going to do ferent turntables using real-time effects— sometimes even sampling the record that’s this without it.”

Their respect runs deep. As cultural icon, being played. Accompanying visuals are trailblazer and legendary founder of hip- provided by longtime Davis collaborator hop-awareness group Zulu Nation, Afrika Ben Stokes, and images of the fledgling Bambaataa is admired worldwide. But for scene, album covers and important Bamtorchbearers like Davis and McFadden, he baataa moments will combine with the not only represents the origins of hip-hop, music. Davis and MacFadden want none of this to get lost in translation, so they’ll but also the origins of their own careers.

“There’s a lot of emotional attachment also narrate a good portion of each show— for me on this one,” MacFadden says. something they didn’t initially foresee.

“We expect a large part of each audience “We’re telling the story of hip-hop through the story of Bambaataa, but we’re also tell- won’t know why we’re doing this,” MacFading a story about ourselves. He inspired us den says. “So we think it’s important that we as DJs when we discovered these records.” explain why we’re here. It’s a big deal to us.”

But Davis believes that just being given “It’s ground zero for the cultural explosion that set the course for our own lives,” the opportunity has already made the enDavis adds. “And not just for Cut and me, tire undertaking a success.

“So few of the old-school guys kept their but for hundreds of thousands of people around the world. I honestly don’t know collections intact,” he says. “In most cases, what you could compare it to. It’s as im- collections were lost, sold, cherry-picked portant as it gets. And I think it’s safe to or ravaged. In some ways, it’s a miracle that say that without Kool Herc, Grandmas- the collection is as intact as it is.

“With it, we can represent him not only ter Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, hip-hop as a DJ, but as a recording artist and a peacewouldn’t sound the way it sounds today.”

With Donovan signing off, the next move maker who had a broader vision beyond just was to start looking through the records. It DJing,” Davis continues. “He was someone wasn’t an easy task. Before landing at Cor- who wanted to improve the condition of his nell, the collection was housed in three dif- community and people all over the world.

“He’s bigger than the culture itself.” ferent storage facilities in three different zip codes. Although it had been put in a sort of rough order, the daunting task was made Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com.

notes from the smoking patio Locals Only Folks who wandered into M-Theory Music in the early evening of Sept. 8 were greeted by the aggressive sounds of local band Grand Tarantula and Vermont garage-punks Rough Francis, but it wasn’t a typical in-store appearance. Both bands were there to support their friend Jason Blackmore (Death Eyes, Sirhan Sirhan, Molly McGuire, etc.), who was there to promote the trailer release for Records Collecting Dust, a documentary film he’s been working on (records collectingdust.com).

The film centers on the vast vinyl collections of big-name indie musicians and features interviews with people like Jello Biafra, Mike Watt and Keith Morris, as well as locals like Justin Pearson, John Reis and Mario Rubalcaba. The dozens of musicians interviewed aren’t just talking about how awesome their record collections are; they’re also discussing the records that blew their minds and changed their lives forever.

“I had known for some time that I really would like to do a music-related documentary film, but I really didn’t have a solid idea,” says Blackmore, who’s been working on the doc since October 2012 despite not having any formal training in film production.

“My background in film is, um, that I like films,” he says. “No background or education. I figured it’s

Music review The Tree Ring Ten Rivers (self-released) It was about 45 seconds into “Cadillac Mountain,” the lush, orchestral instrumental that opens The Tree Ring’s third album, that I realized that I was going to hate this record.

Hear me out. I don’t hate it for the music it contains; I hate it because it marks the formal end to what’s been one of San Diego’s most understated, underrated and sonically rich bands. The core quintet—Joel P West, Kelly Bennett, Darla Hawn, Jon Titterington and Daniel Rhine—has said that Ten Rivers is the last record, and the local scene is decidedly less cool because of that.

Still, what an exquisitely crafted final statement this is. Immediately accessible but still rewarding over repeated listens, it channels the absolute best musical inclinations of artists like Sufjan Stevens (“Feet in the Water”), Andrew Bird (“The Color Up in the Hills”) and even singers like Cat Stevens (“Beside a River”) and Rufus Wainwright (“Tunnel View”). It becomes clear very

Jason Blackmore (left) and Mike Watt like a band: Don’t sit around and talk about it; just do it.”

The doc is in post-production, and local punk label Riot House Records will handle distribution.

Blackmore says he plans to take the movie out on tour and to festivals, much like he would with one of his bands.

“We have had a good amount of people hit us up for festivals and showings and whatnot,” he says. “Let’s just say we have options, which is awesome. And look for a San Diego premiere in the near future.”

—Seth Combs

quickly that The Tree Ring, led by singer and multiinstrumentalist West, have refined their chamberfolk sound so finely that they’ve created a masterpiece and hit their creative peak just as they’re ready to take their final bow.

Lyrically, the LP is almost a concept album about nature, filled with enough references to the great outdoors to have made Thoreau jealous—valleys, rivers, clouds, hills, deserts, snow and everything in between, with West bellowing in the sorrowful ballad “Tunnel View,” “The trees have never made a promise / The trees have never let me down.” I get the sense that West is often speaking allegorically in these songs, and I can’t help but get a little excited—and hate this album a little less—when he so stridently proclaims in the album’s closing track, “O, Sequoia,” “We won’t break that easily / We’re strong as our rings.”

Is he talking about The Tree Ring themselves? I certainly hope so.

—Seth Combs The Tree Ring will play their last show with My Name is You at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17, at The Irenic.

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 25

if i were u

BY Jeff Terich

Wednesday, Sept. 17 PLAN A: The Tree Ring, My Name is You @ The Irenic. The Tree Ring are calling this their last show ever. That sounds fairly dramatic—and Joel P West told me a few weeks ago that they might do some informal shows in the future—but if you ever want to hear the group’s lush chamber-folk in a theater setting again, this might be your last chance. Don’t miss out. And see Page 25 for a review of their final record.

Thursday, Sept. 18 PLAN A: The Buzzcocks, The Executives, Images @ Belly Up Tavern. I’ve always preferred The Buzzcocks to The Sex Pistols. That might sound like heresy to some, but Pete Shelley and Co. have a pretty strong track record of unstoppable punkrock singles. And while they’re not the young, rebellious punks they once were, that doesn’t mean that “Ever Fallen in Love” or “What Do I Get?” don’t absolutely kill. PLAN B: RedRumsey, Teach Me Equals, Nothingful, Nada Bing @ TilTwo Club. Two-thirds of post-hardcore legends Unwound were in San Diego earlier this year when Survival Knife and Hungry Ghost played Soda Bar. And now the final third—bassist Vern Rumsey—will swing through with new band RedRumsey. It’s a bit mellower, but the same abrasive melody is still there. This’ll be a good one. BACKUP PLAN: Andrew Bird and the Hands of Glory, Tift Merritt @ Humphreys Concerts by the Bay.

Ogd_S(11) Translation Has Failed, many others @ Carlsbad Music Festival. This weekend is the Carlsbad Music Festival, which brings together a wide array of experimental musicians. Many of them are doing free performances along Village Walk, but make sure to stick around for a headlining performance from Dawn of MIDI at Carlsbad Village Theater. PLAN B: “A Benefit for Chuy” w/ Prayers, Emerald Rats, Mirage @ The Hideout. This benefit show tugged at my heartstrings a little. Chuy is a 1-year-old cat who’s recently become very sick, and to help raise funds for the medical expenses, some great Dan Wilton local bands are putting on a show. It’d be worth seeing anyway, but if you need the extra motivation—do it for Chuy! BACKUP PLAN: Sole and DJ Pain 1, Ceschi, Hellnote, iD the Poet @ Soda Bar.

Sunday, Sept. 21 PLAN A: Total Slacker, Paws, Flashlights, Air Surgeon @ The Casbah.

Total Slacker call themThe Bots selves “slimegaze,” but that doesn’t really tell us much of anything. So, let me translate: distorted guitars, lots of reverb, vocal harmonies, alt-rock hooks and lo-fi production. In short, they’ve got all the makings of a great indie-rock band.

Monday, Sept. 22

PLAN A: The Bots, Badabing, The Pheasants @ The Casbah. Definitely show up early for local fuzz-rockers Badabing and The Pheasants, but the real draw here has to Friday, Sept. 19 be The Bots. The L.A. teen-sibling twosome PLAN A: The Avengers, Hector Penalosa, always draws comparisons to early White The Touchies, Records with Roger @ The Stripes and Death and have made fans out Casbah. No, it’s not the Marvel superhero of Blur, Refused and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. tea—The Avengers are a San Francisco punk band that began playing way back in the late ’70s. Their songs rip, and frontwoman Pe- Tuesday, Sept. 23 nelope Houston is a total badass. If you’re PLAN A: Zammuto, Luke Wyland @ The not tapped out on punk legends—and of Casbah. Zammuto is a band fronted by course you’re not—then secure your place Nick Zammuto, a former member of the in the pit. PLAN B: L.A. Witch, Burning acoustic / electronic duo The Books, and if Palms, Shady Francos @ The Hideout. you liked that group, you’ll dig what he’s up I’m a sucker for a song that’s just smothered to now. However, it’s even more progresin darkness, and after hearing L.A. Witch’s sive and rhythmic than The Books. Hell, aptly named “Heart of Darkness,” I think it’s almost pop. This is music that grooves I’ve found a new band to watch. The song you and challenges you at the same time. mixes old-school country-folk with ghostly PLAN B: Zeahorse, Sick Balloons, Space backing vocals and a haunting whir of organ Heat @ Soda Bar. It’s an interesting cointo something that inspires a good fright, incidence that your other best option for Tuesday is another band whose name bewithout sacrificing hooks. Nicely done. gins with Z. This Australian group uses noisy, tweaked guitar effects and a keen Saturday, Sept. 20 ear for melody for an unconventional but PLAN A: Dawn of MIDI, Swarmius, highly accessible sound.

26 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 27

HOT! NEW! FRESH! Reagan Youth (Brick by Brick, 10/1), Sham 69 (Soda Bar, 10/1), Bear Hands (Casbah, 10/22), White Mystery (Til-Two Club, 10/23), Chicano Batman (Casbah, 11/1), Eyehategod, Today is the Day (Soda Bar, 11/7), Andre Nickatina (Porter’s Pub, 11/8), Rob Machado Foundation benefit w/ The All-American Rejects, P.O.D., Goo Goo Dolls (BUT, 11/10-11), Twin Peaks (Soda Bar, 11/13), Trans-Siberian Orchestra (Viejas Arena, 11/28), Jonathan Richman (Casbah, 12/2), Pallbearer (Soda Bar, 12/6).

GET YER TICKETS Buzzcocks (BUT, 9/18), Andrew Bird (Humphreys, 9/19), Drake, Lil Wayne (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 9/20), Lykke Li (North Park Theatre, 9/22), Unwritten Law (Porter’s Pub, 9/26), Thievery Corporation (BUT, 9/29), DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist (HOB, 10/1), Boys Noize, Baauer (SOMA, 10/2), Pinback (HOB, 10/4), Chromeo (SOMA, 10/8), The Horrors (BUT, 10/13), Washed Out (North Park Theatre, 10/16), Perfume Genius (Soda Bar, 10/17), Yellowcard (North Park Theatre, 10/17), The New Pornographers (North Park Theatre, 10/18), Metronomy (BUT, 10/19), Charli XCX (HOB, 10/21), Tinariwen (BUT, 10/21), Carcass (Brick by Brick, 10/24), Daryl Hall and John Oates (Open Air Theatre, 10/25), Warpaint (North Park Theatre, 10/25), Jenny Lewis (HOB, 10/25), Phish (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 10/25), Ab-Soul (SOMA, 10/26), Iceage (Casbah, 11/3), Rhye (North Park Theatre, 11/6), The Black Keys (Viejas Arena,

28 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

11/9), Hot Water Music (Irenic, 11/12), Death From Above 1979 (HOB, 11/12), Blonde Redhead (HOB, 11/15), The Misfits (HOB, 11/16), The Ready Set, Metro Station (HOB, 11/22), Mike Birbiglia (Balboa Theatre, 12/5).

September Wednesday, Sept. 17 The Breeders at The Casbah (sold out).

Macy Gray at Belly Up Tavern. The Tree Ring at The Irenic.

Thursday, Sept. 18 The Young Dubliners at House of Blues.

Luis Miguel at Viejas Arena. Gardens and Villa at The Casbah. Buzzcocks at Belly Up Tavern.

Friday, Sept. 19 The Avengers at The Casbah. Andrew Bird at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay. Big Mountain at Belly Up Tavern.

Saturday, Sept. 20 Drake, Lil Wayne at Sleep Train Amphitheatre. Sole at Soda Bar.

Sunday, Sept. 21 Kaiser Chiefs at House of Blues. Arsis at Porter’s Pub.

Monday, Sept. 22 Lykke Li at North Park Theatre. Better Than Ezra at Belly Up Tavern.

Tuesday, Sept. 23 Allen Stone at House of Blues.

Wednesday, Sept. 24 Rival Sons at Belly Up Tavern. Interpol at House of Blues (sold out).

Thursday, Sept. 25 King Tuff at The Irenic. Jason Aldean at Sleep Train Amphitheatre. Fat Tony at Soda Bar.

Friday, Sept. 26 Slim Cessna’s Auto Club at The Casbah. Unwritten Law at Porter’s Pub. Goldie at The Merrow.

rCLUBSr

710 Beach Club, 710 Garnet Ave, Pacific Beach. 710bc.com. Wed: Open mic. Thu: Live Band Karaoke. Fri: Adam Block (5 pm); Afroman, Vibe and R-Rob the Underrated. Sat: Samoan Irok, Josh Wa Wa White, Rasta Joon, Pali Roots.

Sun: Sunday Funday Karaoke. Mon: 710 Battle of the Cover Bands! Round 2.

Tue: Haus Party.

98 Bottles, 2400 Kettner Blvd. Ste. 110, Little Italy. 98bottlessd.com. Wed: Painting and Vino. Thu: Sunset Trivia. Fri: The Mosaic Quartet. Sat: SuperFuse.

Air Conditioned Lounge, 4673 30th St, Normal Heights. airconditionedbar.com.

Wed: DJ Kinky Loops (5 p.m.); Electro SD (9 p.m.). Thu: Dive. Fri: DJ Junior the Discopunk. Sat: DJ Mike Czech. Sun: Undercurrent. Mon: Organized Grime.

Tue: Trivia (7 p.m.); DJ Dos Borrachos (9 p.m.).

American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave, Downtown. americancomedyco.com.

Wed: Live from the Gaslamp. Thu: Norm

Macdonald. Thu-Sat: Norm Macdonald.

Sun: Jimmy Tatro. Tue: Open mic.

Bang Bang, 526 Market St, Downtown. facebook.com/BangBangSanDiego. Sat: Victor Calderone. Sun: Bambounou.

Bar Pink, 3829 30th St, North Park. barpink.com. Wed: Stevie and the Hi Stax. Fri: ‘Turn it Loose’ w/ Mr. Blow. Sat: ‘Neon Beat’. Sun: ‘Rat Sabbath’ w/ DJ Ratty. Mon: Tori Roze and The Hot Mess.

Tue: Old Man Johnson.

Bassmnt, 919 Fourth Ave, Downtown. bassmntsd.com. Thu: Digital Lab. Fri: Lil Jon. Sat: Myon and Shane54. Sun: Pendulum.

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

Fri: Scratch. Sat: Jones Revival.

Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave, Solana Beach. bellyup.com. Wed: Macy Gray. Thu: Buzzcocks, The Executives, Images. Fri: Big Mountain, 2 Tone Sounds. Sat: O.A.R. (5:30 pm); Jungle, Beaty Heart (8 p.m.). Sun: Odesza, Ambassadeurs, Hayden James (sold out).

Mon: Better Than Ezra, Scars on 45. Tue: Donavon Frankenreiter, Lera Lynn.

Black Cat Bar, 4246 University Ave, City Heights. Thu: Black Cat Combo. Fri: Meredith Moore Blues Band. Sat: Fuzzy Rankins, Fanny and the Attaboys.

Bourbon Street, 4612 Park Blvd, University Heights. bourbonstreetsd.com. Thu: ‘Wet’. Sat: Dream Girls. Sun: Soiree.

Tue: Karaoke.

Brass Rail, 3796 Fifth Ave, Hillcrest. thebrassrailsd.com. Thu: ‘Muscle’. Fri: ‘Hip Hop Fridayz’. Sat: ‘Sabado en Fuego,’ ‘Golden Chicks’. Sun: ‘Noche Romantica w/ Daisy Salinas’. Mon: ‘Manic Monday’.

Brick by Brick, 1130 Buenos Ave, Bay

Park. brickbybrick.com. Thu: ‘The Obscure80’s’. Fri: Sight Unscene (CD release), Symbolic, Aether Khora, Here From the Start. Sat: Hellbent, Smack This, Deeper Purple.

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

Wed: The Carlos Loma Show. Thu: RAW Comedy Thursdays. Fri-Sat: K-VonMon: Open mic.

Comedy Store, 916 Pearl St, La Jolla. lajolla.thecomedystore.com. Wed: The Think Tank. Thu: Best of San Diego Comedy. Fri-Sat: Michael Kosta.

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

Wed: Young Lions featuring Evan McColm. Thu: Gilbert Castellanos and The Park West Ensemble. Fri: Peter Sprague. Sat: Agua Dulce. Sun: Tres con Todo. Mon: Mark Fisher.

Dirk’s Nightclub, 7662 Broadway, Lemon Grove. dirksniteclub.com. Wed: Karaoke. Fri: FX5. Sat: DJ Dizzy D. Dizzy’s, 4275 Mission Bay Drive, Mission Bay. dizzyssandiego.com. Thu: Louise Goffin, Jon Kanis. Sat: Mikan Zlatkovich and His Trio. Sun: Chris Vitas.

F6ix, 526 F St., Downtown, Downtown. f6ixsd.com. Fri: JLouis. Sat: DJ Fingaz.

Sun: DJ Brett Bodley.

Fluxx, 500 Fourth Ave, Downtown. fluxxsd.com. Thu: ‘IDGAF’ w/ Vicetone. Fri: Dot Com. Sat: DJ Shift.

Gallagher’s, 5040 Newport Ave, Ocean Beach. 619-222-5303. Thu: Shamrocks and Dreadlocks.

Hard Rock Hotel, 207 Fifth Ave, Downtown. hardrockhotelsd.com. Thu: In the Valley Below, Borns. Sun: David Guetta.

Henry’s Pub, 618 Fifth Ave, Downtown. henryspub.com. Wed: Johnny Tarr, DJ Christopher London. Thu: Mark Fisher, DJ Yodah. Fri: ‘Good Times’. Sat: DJs E, Yodah. Sun: Almost Famous Karaoke.

Mon: DJs Yodah, Joey Jimenez, Johnny Tarr. Tue: Big City Dawgs.

House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave, Downtown. houseofblues.com/sandiego. Wed: All Access Fest. Thu: Darling Parade (6 p.m.); The Young Dubliners, Old Man Markley, Lexington Field, Eric Rigler. Fri: Keys N Krates. Sat: Little Mix. Sun: Aaron Carter, Zerogravity, Austin Porter. Mon: Martina McBride. Tue: Allen Stone.

Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. kavalounge.com. Thu: ‘Utopia Underground’. Fri: Junglist Fridays. Sat: Sierra Star. Sun: Comedy on Crystal. Mon: Roots Reggae Jah-Jah. Tue: High Tech Tuesday.

Legends Comedy Club, 9200 Inwood Dr, Santee. legendscomedyclub.com.

Fri: Erik Myers.

Lestat’s Coffee House, 3343 Adams Ave, Normal Heights. lestats.com. Wed: The Littlest Birds, Jessica Hull. Thu: On Fifth, Kaitlyn Woolling, Paige Sara. Fri: Mason James, Julia Cox, Phili Villalobos.

Sat: Allison Lonsdale and Eben Brooks (6 p.m.); The One and Only, Daddy Issues (9 p.m.). Sun: Chris Carpenter, Sophia Bacino. Mon: Open mic. Tue: Comedy Night w/ Christian Spicer and Rajan Dharni.

Martinis Above Fourth, 3940 Fourth Ave, Hillcrest. martinisabovefourth.com.

Wed: Andy Anderson and Nathan Fry. Fri: Janice Edwards and Nathan Fry. Sat: Carol Curtis. Sun: Ria Carey and Don L.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 29

Mon: ‘Musical Mondays’. Tue: Rising Talent Singer Showcase.

Mc P’s Irish Pub, 1107 Orange Ave, Coronado. mcpspub.com. Wed: Tone Cookin’. Thu: Sophisticats. Fri: Manic Bros. Sat: In Midlife Crisis. Sun: Ron’s Garage. Tue: Jason.

Numbers, 3811 Park Blvd, Hillcrest. numberssd.com. Thu: ‘Throwback Thursdays’. Fri: ‘Uncut’; ‘Vogue Decadence’.

Sat: ‘Eye Candy’. Tue: Karaoke Latino.

Onyx Room / Thin, 852 Fifth Ave, Downtown. onyxroom.com. Fri: ‘Rumba Lounge’ w/ DJ Soltrix. Sat: Rags, Yogui, Martin Kache, Young O, R You. Patricks Gaslamp, 428 F St, Downtown. patricksii.com. Thu: Myron and The Kyniptionz. Fri & Sun: Trey Tosh. Sat: WG and The G-Men. Mon: The Groove Squad. Tue: Walter’s Chicken Jam. Phileas Foggs Bar & Restaurant, 11385 Poway Road #100, Scripps Ranch. phileasfoggs.net/nb. Wed: Tap Take Over and Prize Giveaway.

Porter’s Pub, 9500 Gilman Dr., UCSD campus, La Jolla. porterspub.net. Thu: ‘Ragga Reggae Thursdays’. Fri: Professional Rapper Tour, DJ Omega. Sun: Arsis, Allegaeon, Exmortus, Theosis.

Queen Bee’s, 3925 Ohio St, North Park. queenbeessd.com. Wed: Firehouse Swing Night. Thu: ‘Elevated’ (spoken word). Sun: Salsa. Tue: ‘Lyrical Exchange’ open mic.

Reds Saloon, 4190 Mission Blvd, Pacific Beach. facebook.com/RedsSaloon. Wed: Jason Collings.

Rich’s, 1051 University Ave, Hillcrest. richssandiego.com. Wed: ‘Mischief’ w/ Bianca; DJ Kiki. Thu: ‘#LEZ’; Von Kiss. Fri:

‘Dirty Pop!’ w/ DJs Drew G, Will Z. Sat: ‘L.L. Bear’ w/ DJs John LePage, Munson.

Sun: ‘Stripper Circus’ w/ DJ K-Swift.

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

Thu: Psychic Vacuum. Fri: 22 Kings. Sat: Lady Star.

Seven Grand, 3054 University Ave, North Park. sevengrandbars.com/sd. Wed: Gilbert Castellanos Jazz Jam. Fri: Stevie and the Hi-Staxx. Sat: The Earful. Mon: ‘Makossa Mondays’ w/ DJ Tah Rei. Side Bar, 536 Market St, Downtown. sidebarsd.com. Wed: Forty Shades of Errol. Thu: DJ Fries. Fri: DJ Kurch. Sun: All Gold.

Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. sodabarmusic.com. Wed: Miner, Taken By Canadians, Katie Leigh and the Infantry. Thu: Bangladesh, Mittens, Badabing. Fri: This Legend, The New Addiction, Plane Without a Pilot, Dead Satellites. Sat: Sole and DJ Pain 1, Ceschi, Hellnote (Artoo and Adamnt), iD the Poet.

Sun: Lowell, Young Summer, Boychick.

Mon: The Dig, Style Like Revelators, Dinosaur Ghost. Tue: Zeahorse, Sick Balloons, Space Heat.

SOMA, 3350 Sports Arena Blvd, Midway. somasandiego.com. Fri: The Amity, Affliction, For The Fallen Dreams, Obey the Brave, Favorite Weapon, Exotype. Sat: Allvision, Jvdas, Krondosis b2b Ledn, Uherd b2b D-V3K, Brokeboi Reggie, IsvcIo!.

Stage Bar & Grill, 762 Fifth Ave, Downtown. stagesaloon.com. Wed: ‘90s Hip Hop’. Thu: Superbad (8:30 pm); ‘Bass Tribe’ (10 pm). Fri: DJ Slynkee, The Disco Pimps. Sat: DJ Miss Dust, Hott Mess.

Mon: ‘Almost Famous’ Karaoke.

30 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

Sycamore Den, 3391 Adams Ave., San Diego, Normal Heights. sycamoreden. com. Thu: Stephen Rey and the Sextette.

Sat: Doncat, R.A. Rosenborg. Sun: The Liquorsmiths.

The Bancroft, 9143 Campo Rd, Spring Valley. 619-469-2337. Wed: Karaoke w/ Cici. Thu: Brea, Lazy Cobra. Fri: DJ Pelengue, DJ HoofHearted. Sat: Batlords, Rail Them to Death. Mon: Father Murphy, Late Nite Howl.

The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. casbahmusic.com. Wed: The Breeders, The Neptunas (sold out). Thu: Gardens and Villa, Sandy Alex G. Fri: The Avengers, Hector Penalosa, The Touchies, Records with Roger. Sat: Kopecky Family Band, Avid Dancer, Spero.

Sun: Total Slacker, Paws, Flashlights.

Mon: The Bots, Badabing, The Pheasants. Tue: Zammuto, Luke Wyland.

The Che Cafe, UCSD campus, La Jolla. thechecafe.blogspot.com. Fri: Jerkagram, Monochromacy, California Bleeding, Steve Flato.

The Hideout, 3519 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. thehideoutsd.com. Wed: Trivia and Tacos. Thu: Shady Francos, Electric Healing Sound, Death Lens. Fri: LA Witch, Burning Palms. Sat: Benefit for Chuey w/ The Prayers. Sun: Spaghetti Social (6 p.m.). Sun: Pants Karaoke. Mon: Radiator Hospital, Days of Light Gravity, Buddy Banter. Tue: Tender Age. The Irenic, 3090 Polk Ave, North Park.

Wed: The Tree Ring, My Name is You. The Merrow, 1271 University Ave, Hillcrest. theMerrow.com. Fri: The Dread Crew of Oddwood, Eukaryst, Unicorn Death, Fadrait. Mon: Open mic. Tue: Glasmus, Cross My Heart Hope to Die, Citrus.

The Office, 3936 30th St, North Park. officebarinc.com. Wed: ‘Dub Dynamite’ w/ Rashi, Eddie Turbo. Thu: ‘No Limits’ w/ DJ Myson King. Fri: DJs EdROC, Huge Euge. Sat: ‘Strictly Business’ w/ DJs Kanye Asada, Gabe Vega. Sun: ‘Uptown Top Ranking’ w/ DJs Tribe of Kings.

The Salty Frog, 992 Palm Ave, Imperial Beach. TheSaltyFrog.com. Sat: Steven Briggs.

The Tin Roof, 401 G Street, Gaslamp. tinroofbars.com/Home/SanDiego. Wed: Rock Out Karaoke. Fri: Wilds$ide. Sat: Random Radio.

Til-Two Club, 4746 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. tiltwoclub.com. Thu: Nothingful, Teach Me Equals, Tactical Ffever, Nada Bing. Fri: ‘Epic Future Radness’ w/ Artifact, Dahga Bloom, Monarch, The Lumps.

Sat: ‘Epic Future Radness’ w/ The Blank Tapes, Amerikan Bear, The KABBs, Pearl Charles and The Pipes Canyon Band, Ward Combs. Sun: Banjo Bingo w/ Eric Hankins, Matthew Strachota, Gary Hankins, Jimmy Ruelas (4 p.m.); Jail Weddings, Moonshine, The Swift Beats (9.

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

Thu: Open mic. Fri: The Moves, Crow King. Sat: The New Kinetics, The Cardielles, Pleasure Fix. Mon: Tin Can Country Club w/ Jon Kruger.

Tio Leo’s, 5302 Napa St, Bay Park. tioleos.com. Thu: Sharifa and The Good Things. Fri: Blue Rhino. Sat: Detroit Underground. Sun: Salsa. Tue: Bayou Brothers.

Tower Bar, 4757 University Ave, City Heights. thetowerbar.com. Wed: San Pedro El Cortez, Gym Shorts, Kids in Heat, Sweat Lodge. Thu: The Blackjackits,

Western Settings, The Bertos, DFMK. Fri: Steady 45s, Mochilero All Stars, DJs Erny Earthquake, King Dutty. Sat: Midnight Eagle, Poontang Clam, The Areas.

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

Wed: Tomcat Courtney (7 pm). Thu: The Jade Visions Jazz Trio (7 pm). Fri: Afro Jazziacs, Tomcat Courtney. Sat: Vera Cruz Blues (4 pm); Tomcat Courtney; Gabriela Aparicio and Friends. Sun: Sounds Like Four (4 pm), Bigg Boss Bubale. Tue: Grupo Global (7 pm).

U-31, 3112 University Ave, North Park. u31bar.com. Wed: Buddy Banter, Sound Lupus. Thu: DJ Man Cat. Fri: Kid Wonder. Sat: DJ Qenoe, Maystar Fashion Show. Sun: So Cal Vibes, Jahkobeats.

Tue: Rad! Karaoke.

West Coast Tavern, 2895 University Ave, North Park. westcoatstavern.com. Wed: Mike Delgado. Thu: Decon. Fri: Billy the Kid. Sat: DJ Impakt. Tue: Clean Cut. Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, South Park. whistlestopbar.com. Thu: Mystery Cave, Tiger and the Teller, Umenos, Gajits. Fri: ‘F’ing in the Bushes’ w/ Daniel Sant, Rob Moran. Sat: ‘80s vs 90s’ w/ DJs Gabe Vega, Saul Q. Tue: ‘Videodrome’.

Winstons, 1921 Bacon St, Ocean Beach. winstonsob.com. Wed: Open mic w/ Jefferson Jay (6 p.m.); Soul Majestic, DJ Carlos Culture (9:30 p.m.). Thu: Atlantis Rizing. Fri: Comedy (6 p.m.); Sister Sparrow and The Dirty Birds, The Voodoo Fix (9:30 p.m.). Sat: The Routine and Friends. Sun: Liquid Blue, Sister Speak, Country Rockin’ Rebels, Black Pearl, DJ Layla (2 p.m.); O.B.-o-ke w/ Jose Sinatra (10 p.m.). Mon: Electric Waste Band.

Tue: Think and Drink Trivia (6 p.m.); Pixie Stixx Burlesque (9:30 p.m.).

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 31

Brendan Emmett Quigley

It’s the pits Across 1. Activity that in five years you’re going to be embarrassed you were so into today 4. Pull into, as a rest area 10. Took too much of 14. TV personality Fedotowsky 15. Finger Lakes Iroquois, or one of the Finger Lakes 16. Start over from square one 17. Deodorant made with whiskey?

19. With 53-Across, curse a deodorant?

20. 2013 Lorde hit 21. “Ice Age” sloth 23. Hank’s employer on “Breaking Bad” 24. Beckham’s wife’s deodorant?

29. Radio personality who said “I’m Howard Stern with a vocabulary” 30. ___ Spumante 31. Sleazebag 32. Liven up 33. Retsina, e.g.

34. Made a joke likely to be greeted with groans 35. War-time deodorant?

37. Tilted 40. Office memo heading 41. TiVo’s predecessor 44. Mil. trial 45. Formally surrender 46. Really wiggly 47. Deodorant for the single man?

50. Touchdown time?: Abbr.

51. Application of mousse 52. “¡___ con Dios!”

Last week’s answers

32 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

53. See 19-Across 55. Deodorant in a shell?

60. Univision’s “other” 61. “Hipster doofus” of “Seinfeld” 62. Soft drink in a green can, briefly 63. Look (at) amorously 64. Ill will 65. Pres. of the ‘50s

Down 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

10-Down overseer Word used with some sports records Yahtzee prop Real jerk “The ___ of Wu” (philosophical book by the RZA) 6. Popeye’s goil 7. Bangers and mash spot 8. Only Wimbledon winner to wear a wig 9. Ancient Nile hub 10. O’Hare airport code 11. Sprint at top speed 12. Iran-Contra Attorney General 13. Gave to a cause 18. Quaker’s breakfast 22. Best of the best 24. Best of the best, briefly 25. Bonnie with ten Grammys 26. “___ it ironic?”

27. Painter’s studio 28. Scoop holder 33. Had to have 34. Whittled (down) 35. Rager, e.g.

36. Some fantasy football trades 37. Oral pain reliever brand 38. It’s the law 39. “A Delicate Truth” author John 41. “How bizarre” 42. Cut in two 43. Deli bread 45. Senator Tom who wants to stage another constitutional convention 46. “Oh me, oh my” 48. Hanukkah potato pancake 49. ___ once in a while 54. Place for buds to hang out?

56. 59-Down’s mate 57. “Shutupshutupshutupshutup,” initially 58. “___ me be perfectly clear ...”

59. 56-Down’s mate

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 33

34 · San Diego CityBeat · September 17, 2014

September 17, 2014 · San Diego CityBeat · 35