San Diego CityBeat • Sept 18, 2013

three

against

one

The inside story of how and why Donna Frye, Marco Gonzalez and Cory Briggs ended Bob Filner’s political career

by David Rolland • P.6

Faulconer P.4 Zuckerberg P.13 five P.20 Rockwell P.22

2 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 3

Kevin Faulconer, genuinely GOP Former San Diego City Councilmember and candiable policy overall, 47 percent of them agreed or date for Congress Carl DeMaio is a crusading, attenstrongly agreed, and only 11 percent disagreed or tion-seeking type of fiscally conservative Republican. strongly disagreed. Some 32 percent were uncerHe has clear ideas about how government should tain, and, again, the remaining 10 percent had no work—or, more accurately, how government should opinion or didn’t respond. be dismantled. By contrast, City Councilmember In short, people who are far smarter than FaulKevin Faulconer, a candidate for mayor of San Diego, coner—and us at CityBeat, for that matter—tend to is your garden-variety, go-along-to-get-along Repubthink that while raising the minimum wage might relican that reacts to whatever’s happening but doesn’t sult in some job losses, that’s a chance worth taking. crusade passionately for policy initiatives.

What’s not at all in dispute is the fact that those While DeMaio’s type is more polarizing, Faulmaking minimum wage will be a lot better off. Acconer’s type might be more frightening to progrescording to the Sacramento Bee, roughly 1.5 milsives because their relatively mild lion workers would get a boost in pay; David Rolland manner makes them look more modthat’s roughly 1.5 million people pumperate to the average voter than they ing more money straight back into the really are. economy, because, as we all know, lowLast Friday, Faulconer said he oper-income workers don’t hoard money posed the bill to raise the minimum like high-wage earners—they spend it wage in California, which passed the immediately out of necessity. And, no, state Legislature the day before and not all those people earning less than is expected to be signed by Gov. Jerry $10 per hour are pimple-faced teenagBrown. The bill would lift the miniers—33 percent are age 21 to 30, 22.4 mum wage from $8 to $9 per hour next percent are 31 to 40, 20 percent are 41 July and hike it again to $10 in 2016. to 50 and 18.3 percent are 51 or older.

“I support more jobs for working They’re also mostly Latino—61.7 families, not fewer jobs, which is what percent—so, Faulconer’s attempts to this bill will lead to,” Faulconer said, Kevin Faulconer reach Latinos by speaking the occaaccording to U-T San Diego. “Common sional Spanish will likely fall on deaf sense tells us companies will hire fewer people, ears. We’d bet Latino voters are more interested which could stall economic growth.” in what candidates will do to pull their communiFirst, don’t you just love arrogant high earners ties out of poverty than empty pandering. (You can who think low earners will be better off if we keep add to that Faulconer’s opposition to the Barrio Lotheir pay as low as possible? Second, by “common gan Community Plan option favored by the largely sense,” Faulconer means “talking points fed to ReLatino residents and his support of the option fapublicans by the business lobby.” It certainly doesn’t vored by the shipyard industry; indeed, according mean “prevailing wisdom of top economists.” to Voice of San Diego, City Councilmember and The truth is, top economists are pretty evenly mayoral candidate David Alvarez says Faulconer split on whether a $9 federal minimum wage would was the only council member to decline a tour of make it harder for lower-wage earners to find jobs. the community.)

Earlier this year, the Initiative on Global Markets at Yes, Faulconer is that boilerplate Republican the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Busiwho desperately clings to the idea that once you ness polled 38 of the nation’s elite brains on that load the upper class with government subsidies, revery question. None of them strongly agreed or duced regulations and reduced labor costs, money strongly disagreed that such a move would reduce will rain down on everyone below. As we’ve seen jobs. Some 34 percent agreed that it would while 32 during the past 35 years or so, that’s just not true. percent disagreed, and 24 percent just were uncerWe will strenuously oppose Faulconer’s candidacy tain. The remaining 10 percent had no opinion or because his policies will widen the gap between didn’t respond.

San Diego’s rich and San Diego’s poor and shrink its middle class.

However, when they were asked if the potential downside to raising the minimum wage was small What do you think? Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com. enough compared with its benefits that it’s a desirThis issue of CityBeat is dedicated to Miss America—and, to a much lesser extent, Syria.

Cover photos by David Rolland Design by Lindsey Voltoline

Volume 12 • Issue 6 Editor David Rolland Associate Editor Kelly Davis Music Editor Jeff Terich Staff Writers Alex Zaragoza, Joshua Emerson Smith Web Editor Ryan Bradford Art director Lindsey Voltoline Columnists Edwin Decker, John R. Lamb

Contributors Ian Cheesman, David L. Coddon, Seth Combs, Jeff “Turbo” Corrigan, Katrina Dodson, Michael A. Gardiner, Glenn Heath Jr., Peter Holslin, Dave Maass, Jenny Montgomery, Kinsee Morlan, Susan Myrland, Mina Riazi, Jim Ruland, Jen Van Tieghem, Quan Vu Interns Connie Thai Production Manager Tristan Whitehouse Production artist Rees Withrow MultiMedia Advertising Director Paulina Porter-Tapia Senior account executives Jason Noble, Nick Nappi

Advertising Account Executive Beau Odom director of marketing Chad Boyer Circulation / Office Assistant Elizabeth Shipton Vice President of Finance Michael Nagami Human Resources Andrea Baker Accounting Alysia Chavez, Linda Lam, Monica MacCree Vice President of Operations David Comden Publisher Kevin Hellman

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San Diego CityBeat is published and distributed every Wednesday by Southland Publishing Inc., free of charge but limited to one per reader. Reproduction of any material in this or any other issue is prohibited without written permission from the publisher and the author. Contents copyright 2013.

4 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

edwin

sordid tales

decker In defense of marital decrees A lot has been made about a recent column in which only lawmaker in the family. Don’t you believe for I wrote about my wife’s refusal to obey the bylaws one second that she hasn’t installed a few comof our marriage. Apparently, this notion of my immandments of her own. In fact, just the other night posing marital decrees is offensive to some—as if (true story), I came home with some friends after I were one of these emotionally abusive, controlthe bar closed and smoked some crack and blared freakish, “Honey-you-can’t-go-out-wearing-thatBlack Sabbath until the sun came up. Man, was dress” type of husbands. she pissed. The next day, when I was twisting on I think people misunderstood the types of rules the Couch of Despair like an impaled tree frog, she I was talking about. I was talking about stuff like: barked, “New rule, Ed: The next time you bring your The TV remote controls must always be returned degenerate friends to smoke crack in our home—do to the drawer, and whomever is driving the car not use the good spoons.” when the fuel indicator first flashes “empty” has to “Done,” I said—because I am an obeyer of rules fill the tank. You know, rules that are designed to as much as a purveyor. “Oh, and while you’re up, make both of our lives more convenient and have can you get me a glass of wa—,” I said, as the front nothing to do with domination. Seriously, anyone door slammed and her cackles faded into the diswho knows my wife knows the only control I get tance. Oh well. Whaddaya gonna do? The woman is when she lets me pick which movie we’re going values her silverware. to watch, from the selection of two chick flicks she I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, pre-picked, and I swear to Christ in high Heaven, But, Ed—I’ve been reading Sordid Tales for years. All we have not seen a film in 10 years that didn’t have you do is talk about breaking laws and defying social “forever,” “always,” “heaven,” “wedding,” “sister” norms. How can it be that you are actually a big, anor “traveling” in the title. noying rule guy?

But I cry-gress. The reason I’m in favor of mariGreat question, Imaginary Reader in my Head. tal rules, aside from shared conI am a rule-breaker, true. But I venience, is to protect myself only break bad rules. Bad rules I am a rule-breaker, true. from the numerous and blatant don’t deserve our obedience. hypocrisies of my marriage. For But I only break bad rules. Let’s take the rule of the common instance, when I’m enjoying a traffic light. Everyone knows that Bad rules don’t deserve meal, she’ll swoop right in and you must stop when the light take whatever she wants off my is red and stay stopped until it our obedience. plate. However, there are nuturns green. Well, that is one gimerous fork-sized scars on the ant fucking stupid-ass rule. back of my hand from those times when I tried to I mean, yes—it’s good that we have traffic lights at sample something off her plate. the bigger, busier intersections. This makes it safer Sometimes, when I’m hung over and twisting for everyone. However, there are those times at any in pain on the couch, I will call out to my beloved, given light when there’s nobody around, yet still we “Honey, I’m dying a bleak, black death over here— have to sit there and wait for no reason, like a black can you bring me a glass of water, please?” to which man at a taxi stand. Now, I ask you, why are we all she’ll snort, “You did this to yourself!” and leave me sitting around waiting at traffic lights in the middle to wither like a tree frog impaled on a Mojave cacof the night when there are no other cars in the area? tus needle.

Why can’t we look both ways then proceed with But if she’s hung over, the woman will have me caution? What’s that you say? We can’t be trusted to – herbalist driving around trying to find a Yínchuan proceed safely through the intersection. Horse balls! to round up some root of dragon spruce and powIf we can be trusted to proceed safely through stop der of rhinoceros horn for her ancient Chinese signs, we can be trusted to do it at traffic lights, too.

But I sigh-gress. The point is, rules are great when hangover remedy. they’re good rules. Good rules help keep us safe with The last time was the last straw. “Honey,” I said, minimal interruption to the natural flow of life. And as the stench of fermented llama fetus wafted from good marital rules reduce divorce rates and incithe cauldron I was stirring, “remember two weeks dents of domestic abuse (providing your wife ever ago when I was hung over and asked you for a glass complies with the rules). So you can sneer at my conof ice water?” nubial decrees, but remember: Everybody wins with “Yes.” my rules. Because I am the best rule maker ever! My “Do you remember what you said?” rules are fair to all parties. My rules are never arbi“No.” trary. My rules are vetted. My rules are wary of un“You said, ‘People in Hell want ice water, too.’” intended consequences. My rules improve lives. My “Your point?” name is Ed Decker, and I make good rules.

“Point is, we need a new rule. Either we take care of each other when we are hung over or we Write to ed@sdcitybeat.com don’t take care of each other when we are hung and editor@sdcitybeat.com. over. I don’t care which; just pick one, and we’ll go Listen to “Sordid Tales: The Podcast!” with that.” at sdcitybeat.com.

“You and your rules,” she snorted, as if I’m the

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 5

David Rolland

three against o n e The inside story of how and why Donna Frye, Marco Gonzalez and Cory Briggs ended Bob Filner’s political career

by David Rolland

O

ne of many identifiable starting points for the story of Bob Filner’s political demise is Monday, Dec. 3, 2012, the day he was sworn in as mayor and the day Donna Frye, a former San Diego City Council member and hero to progressives across the city, started working as his director of open government.

Frye began to see even on her first day that she would not be free to be the kind of open-government director she wanted to be, and within weeks, she realized that she was little more than a mannequin in a window display. She wasn’t allowed to have anything to do with public and media requests for information, and she and everyone else in the Mayor’s office were barred from communicating with the press, the City Council and the City Attorney’s office.

“As the director of open government,” she says, “I assumed I would be working with the media and the council members and helping them do what they needed to do.”

By early January, she already wanted out, but she figured she’d wait until after Filner’s State of the City speech on Jan. 15. The night of the speech, folks told her how happy they were that she was on Filner’s team, so she decided to give the job another chance. However, by early February, she’d had it.

She told Vince Hall, Filner’s chief of staff, that she didn’t feel like she was serving much of a purpose and that she would no longer obey the rules. “I thought it was best that I leave, because I was going to become a disruptive influence very quickly,” Frye recalls telling Hall. Hall asked Frye to hold off and speak to Filner. About a week went by before she could get a meeting, and when she did, Filner convinced her to change her mind again.

It was around this time that Frye says she started hearing stories of Filner—who had a fiancée whom he identified publicly as his “first lady”—hitting on women at events that he attended officially as the mayor, “but nothing that I could get anyone to go on the record about and nothing that was anything other than rumors,” she says. She also began hearing rumors, from people she declines to name, that Filner at times would send his security detail home and bring women to the Mayor’s office after hours.

More than once, Frye brought this up to Hall and suggested that he talk to Filner. The last time she spoke to Hall about it, on March 28, she says he asked her who was telling her these things, because if it was someone in the Mayor’s office, he would fire them. Flabbergasted, Frye

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says she lied, telling him it wasn’t anyone on the inside.

Hall recalls the conversation differently, telling CityBeat it was Frye who first mentioned members of the staff. He says he told Frye that he thought it was inappropriate for the staff to be discussing Filner’s personal life. He stresses that there was no illegal behavior in the rumors Frye related to him.

Frye had been keeping Marco Gonzalez and Cory Briggs abreast of what she was hearing about Filner. Gonzalez, an environmental attorney, is Frye’s longtime lawyer and close friend and confidant. Briggs, another longtime friend, is a public-interest land-use attorney and frequent thorn in the side of local politicians. Both are leaders in San Diego’s progressive movement.

“This is an issue that came up amongst us three,” Gonzalez says, “and we sat down early on and said, ‘Are we in agreement that what a person does in their personal time is their deal?’ If Bob’s messing around on his fiancée, that’s their issue. That’s not Bob as mayor.”

But they soon concluded that hitting on women at events that Filner attended as mayor—and had members of his staff with him—and bringing women to the office after hours constituted an abuse of his position and was an inappropriate burden on staffers who may have witnessed Filner’s activities.

“Even though I could not confirm it, even though I did not have first-hand knowledge,” Frye says, “I was hearing enough, from enough different people, both inside the office and outside the office, that I was beginning to think there’s a serious problem here.”

On Friday, March 29, the day after Frye last confronted Hall, she says he admonished her about something she’d been doing as part of her job, and that was it. She left early that day, and on the following Tuesday, after the Easter holiday, she cleaned out her office, walked into Hall’s office and resigned, handing him a letter that cited both the work-related incident and his alleged vow to fire those who’d talked to Frye about Filner’s behavior. (Frye says Hall didn’t dispute the charge at the time.)

“I said, ‘But I am going to do something. I’m going to give you a nice cover story.’” In February, Frye had been elected president of Californians Aware, a prominent statewide open-government-advocacy organization. “I’m going to say that that is why I’m leaving,” Frye told Hall, adding that he’d better deal with Filner’s habits with women.

F

rye, Gonzalez and Briggs set Filner’s downfall in motion. But why these three? How is it that a former City Council member and two environmental attorneys took it upon themselves to bring down a mayor they helped get elected? CityBeat interviewed the three of them for nearly six hours in two sittings, and the answer might be unsatisfying to some readers: It just happened. They found a seed of a scandal, and they felt compelled to act on it. They laughed several times during the interviews at the notion that what they did was elaborately planned and exquisitely executed, let alone pulled off at the behest of powerful puppet-masters who wanted Filner gone. They often had no idea what their next move would be; they frequently disagreed about what to do as the “chess game,” as Briggs and Gonzalez put it, played out.

“A lot of what we were thinking at that time was, like, we’re progressives; Bob’s progressive,” Gonzalez says. “What the heck does this do to our movement if our leader, in the context of a national debate over women’s rights… what happens with a progressive mayor who has these issues?”

CityBeat offered to interview Filner for this story. He didn’t respond.

G

onzalez stresses that a scandal involving real-estate developer Sunroad Enterprises played a major part in Filner’s downfall. On June 11, Briggs was at the San Diego City Council meeting when he heard something that he describes as “bullshit.” In May, the council had approved Sunroad’s request for an easement on public parkland in Kearny Mesa; Filner vetoed that approval, and now the council was considering an override of that veto. But instead of arguing against the override, Hall was telling the council that Filner had made his point on the project and wouldn’t oppose the veto-override. Briggs rushed to submit a public-speaker slip and, when called to the podium, said it sounded like the public was losing property without adequate regulatory review.

Briggs then listened as Councilmember Scott Sherman cited a city attorney memo that raised questions about $100,000 in donations from Sunroad to the city for two of Filner’s favored public projects. Sherman questioned the timing of the donations and Filner’s sudden support for the veto override. Briggs talked to Allen Jones, Filner’s deputy chief of staff, about it, and he found the mayor’s explanation of the Sunroad deal, as articulated by Jones,

David Rolland

Marco Gonzalez, Donna Frye and Cory Briggs (left to right) set in motion the eventual downfall of Bob Filner (opposite page). unsatisfactory. Briggs told Jones that he planned to sue. ing in the Mayor’s office, citing Filner’s abusive treatment A meeting had been scheduled for Father’s Day, June 16, of his staff. As has been widely reported since, Filner’s between Briggs and Filner. The topic was Briggs’ lawsuit communications director, Irene McCormack, had Jones’ against the city over its approval of a Walmart in Sherman back during that meeting, and when Filner asked what Heights. Jones was at the meeting, as was top Filner aide he’d ever done to her, she revealed that he’d told her that Lee Burdick and others. Filner began, Briggs says, by ac- she’d work better if she didn’t wear underwear. knowledging that the Sunroad deal could have been hanrye liked and respected McCormack, and the two dled better, but unless Briggs could guarantee he wouldn’t stayed in contact after Frye resigned. McCormack told sue over Sunroad, the Walmart meeting was over. Briggs responded by saying he couldn’t guarantee that his client, her what happened during the staff meeting, and Frye San Diegans for Open Government, wouldn’t sue, but he asked her if she had a lawyer. When McCormack said no, Frye said she’d have Gonzalez call her. agreed not to litigate it himself.

By that time, Frye had had two other women tell her “At that point,” Briggs says, “he starts screaming at me.”

He says Filner angrily acknowledged that he had Jones believable firsthand stories of what she considered to be work a quid pro quo with Sunroad and said that was the unacceptable behavior by the mayor, in addition to numerway business was going to be done in San Diego from that ous unconfirmed rumors. Gonzalez also had an activist point forward. Briggs says Filner essentially said that when friend who said Filner had invited her to breakfast to talk it came to developers, he was going to tip the scales in favor about her issues, and then asked her out to dinner. The acof the citizens, whether rules were followed or not. Briggs tivist would later reveal much more.

“Suffice to say that, at that point, the suspicions and the told Filner that there were legal ways to accomplish his goals, “but putting a gun to people’s heads and holding up allegations and the rumors and the stories were now hitting home,” Frye says, “and now we had evidence.” their property rights ain’t gonna cut it.”

Gonzalez says McCormack “He basically proceeded to was looking for a private resoberate me for about five minutes,” Briggs recalls. “He’s “I felt very deeply for the man. It made lution. She didn’t want to work in the Mayor’s office, but she standing up, he’s towering over me want to cry. It made me very sad. wanted to continue working me, and I get to see the bully.”

It made me want to help him.” for the city. She agreed to have A bit shaken, Briggs left Gonzalez meet with Filner to without discussing Walmart.

—Marco Gonzalez discuss the problem; a meeting The next day, he followed up was scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday, with Jones and Burdick and asked if the mayor planned to “put a gun” to Walmart’s June 28. Filner was alone. Gonzalez brought Frye, but not head to get concessions rather than following the law. McCormack. The two-hour confab would become known among Frye, Gonzalez and Briggs as “The Twilight Zone Briggs says Jones told him that the answer was yes.

“I called Marco and Donna,” Briggs says, “and I said, Meeting.” As Gonzalez describes it, it went from “uncomfortable” to “intimate” to “wacko.”

‘We got a problem.’”

He said Filner defended himself at first, identifying the Jones tells CityBeat a different story: Filner yelled at Briggs and kicked him out of the meeting, but he didn’t say narrowest definition of sexual harassment and inapproprithat Sunroad was the model going forward. Filner want- ate behavior for a public official. Frye lectured him on why ed his aides to find that Walmart was breaking rules, but hitting on a woman at an official event, even if she’s not when they said couldn’t (a judge found otherwise), Filner wearing a ring, puts her in a potentially uncomfortable sitsaid he’d have to ask Walmart for concessions rather than uation, perhaps even damaging if she works for someone who has business with City Hall. Several times, Gonzalez demand them under some kind of threat.

In any case, Jones resigned on June 20 during a meet- says, Filner appeared to acknowledge their points.

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When Gonzalez told Filner that he needed to start treating his staff better, Filner let his guard down, agreeing that he crosses a line and confiding that he’d been in therapy for anger issues in Washington, D.C., and had been on medication until traveling to San Diego to campaign for mayor. Gonzalez says he thought this could be a breakthrough—the answer could have been as simple as getting back into therapy and back on medication.

“I felt very deeply for the man,” he says. “It made me want to cry. It made me very sad. It made me want to help him.”

Frye didn’t feel that sense of compassion; she wasn’t buying it: “I was thinking that I’ve heard this story before.”

Soon Filner was back to defiance and looking for an escape from responsibility, Gonzalez says. “It literally eviscerated an hour-and-a-half conversation,” he says.

The meeting ended with Filner asking Gonzalez for a list of demands and Gonzalez agreeing to email a list and some arbitrary deadlines. The list included seeking mental and physical healthcare, getting back on medication, presenting the city’s sexual-harassment policy to his staff, apologizing to his staff for his abusiveness and getting robust managerial training on sexual-harassment issues.

Days went by after Gonzalez sent the list—no response.

Gonzalez emailed again, asking Filner if he received it. Filner answered on July 3, “Will call.” That call didn’t come until July 11, and it was too late.

It was Briggs who, over the weekend after the Fourth of July, first floated the idea of calling on Filner to resign. Gonzalez was reluctant, but the trio assigned Briggs to draft a letter, and they agreed to meet for lunch on Tuesday, July 9. Gonzalez recalls hoping that Filner’s then-fiancée, Bronwyn Ingram, would be the positive force the mayor needed to sort out his problems. But on Monday, July 8, Ingram announced in an email to her “Team First Lady” supporters that she’d split from Filner and broken off the engagement.

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y Tuesday, Frye was ready to call for resignation.

Gonzalez wasn’t there yet. Briggs was somewhere in between. As they talked, Briggs says, “we were thinking about more of, what if we don’t? Who are we if we don’t do the right thing?”

“What the hell kind of people were any of us going to be if we have one set of standards for the people that we like and we have another set of standards for the people

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 7

we don’t like?” Frye says. “Where is our moral authority?

Who the hell are we”—she pauses momentarily—“to tell Bob Filner to resign?”

She answers her own question: “Who we are is people that helped this man get to this place. And we also have the obligation to make sure that the public knows what was brought before them. And he needs to be held accountable.”

Briggs tears up as Frye recalls that emotional, pivotal July 9 meeting. Frye gets up to put her arms around him. “We spent a lot of time propping each other up at this lunch,” Gonzalez says as Frye comforts Briggs. “We were a wreck.”

Composing himself, Briggs explains his emotional inner turmoil: “The thing I hate most about politics is hypocrisy. And if there’s anything in what I’ve said to politicians over the years, it’s: ‘You’re being a hypocrite.’ And, at that lunch, every question we threw out to each other was basically, ‘Are we hypocrites?’”

With the politically progressive Filner in office, Briggs continues, “this was the first chance I’ve had in a long time to get some of our [policy] stuff done, but at the end of the day, the cause is more important than the guy we ask to carry the ball. It is tough to say, ‘This is going to be a huge setback.’ And it’s tough to have to look at a lot of your allies and say it’s better to have this short-term setback than the long-term setback that Marco was talking about.”

That long-term setback was what Gonzalez thought might have happened if Republican Party activists had been the ones to expose what the entire country now knows about Filner’s pathological behavior toward women.

“If the Republicans broke the scandal,” Gonzalez says, “they would do it in such a way that we would be set back not one election cycle, but the [progressive] movement would be set back a generation.”

The three left that lunch meeting having decided that, yes, they would call on Filner to resign, and they would each write a separate letter. But they wanted to shore up

8 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

some additional facts and crystallize their thoughts. Gon- agreed to meet at Frye’s house at 11 a.m. Wednesday. zalez wanted to talk to McCormack again. They hadn’t

By Wednesday morning, Briggs was getting calls from replanned to go public at all, let alone within 48 hours of porters about his faxed letter. Because it was about Sunroad exiting the restaurant, but “the universe,” as they call the and not women, the trio decided to release it publicly, hoping force of events out of their control, had other plans. it would keep the press busy while they got a handle on what Roughly 30 minutes after they left the restaurant, at KPBS and inewsource were up to. Frye says Sauer didn’t about 2:30 p.m., Frye received a tip that a local TV station know anything about the inewsource investigation, but there had something on Filner involving women. She assumed was some talk of KPBS investigating Filner’s harassment of it was about what McCormack said at that staff meeting women. While Sauer waited, Frye called Gonzalez and Briggs in the Mayor’s office. It would later turn out to be a false and told them that she wanted to make the letters public. She alarm, but Briggs told Frye that if the story was going to gave them to Sauer, and KPBS posted them later that day. break, they should get out in front of it—if it got out that Disclosure of the letters grabbed San Diego’s attention, Gonzalez was helping Filner work on his behavior, it could and since no women were willing to come forward, Gonzabe spun as a cover-up. They needed to write and send their lez, Frye and Briggs knew they’d have to get in front of the letters to Filner immediately. cameras to explain themselves. Late Briggs’ letter was about SunWednesday, Gonzalez announced on “Where is our moral authority? road and corruption, not about Twitter that there’d be a press conferWho the hell are we to tell Filner’s treatment of women. He ence the next morning. faxed it to the Mayor’s office at Bob Filner to resign?” n Thursday morning, July 11, 3:45 p.m. Gonzalez’s and Frye’s —Donna Frye a migraine headache that had letters were all about the women. been plaguing Frye hadn’t subsided.

Frye hand-delivered her sealed letter, giving it to a member of the mayor’s staff at about 4 It was Gonzalez’ late mother’s birthday—he credits her for largely instilling the values his actions aimed to uphold. p.m. Gonzalez emailed his at 6:29 p.m.

While they wrote their letters under the assumption Emotions were running high as they worked on their prethat they’d eventually go public, they had no immediate pared remarks. Each was stern-faced when they emerged from Briggs’ law office. Frye broke into tears during her plans to make them public themselves.

But as Frye was returning home, she got a call from comments about the women she’d heard from.

This was the beginning of the end for Filner—the growing Gonzalez, asking if she’d heard this thing about KPBS. Ricky Young, an editor at U-T San Diego, had tweeted a scandal would dominate local news for the next six weeks. link to a story on the website of J-Lab, a journalism-ad- Before that press conference, Frye and Co. had firsthand vocacy organization, reporting that inewsource.org, a stories from a small handful of women; soon after, they had nonprofit partner of KPBS, was investigating “possible ha- many more. Calls from women who had unpleasant experirassment of KPBS staffers by a public official.” Frye called ences—as far back as 21 years—poured in for weeks.

“One of them,” Briggs says, “said, ‘I’m 50-something Mark Sauer, a member of her City Council staff who’s now the senior news editor at KPBS, to see what he knew; they years old. I’m a single mom, and I work in the heart of

O

the political beast Downtown. If anybody knew I was talking to you, I’d never work again. I’ve got kids to put through school. I’d lose my health insurance. I’m done.’

That woman shouldn’t have to come forward for this to be real.”

After the press conference, Frye took her migraine to bed and was awoken that afternoon by a phone call. It was Filner. He told her he’d done what they wanted—he’d made a video apology that would be given to the press at 3 p.m.

But he also blamed Gonzalez for the whole thing, she says.

Groggy and in pain, she told him she’d watch the video and get back to him. Filner also called Gonzalez and left a message. Gonzalez never called back; it was too little, too late.

On Friday, July 12, Frye, Briggs and Gonzalez began lobbying elected officials and other civic leaders to join the campaign to urge Filner to step down. The first official Gonzalez talked to was his sister, state Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, who, like others, was reluctant to sign on in the absence of women coming forward. Briggs and Gonzalez both talked to Francine Busby, chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party.

“What I said is, ‘I’ve talked to a dozen women now— don’t make them come forward, because if they’re backed into a corner, they’re going to name names, and you’re not going to like the list of people who are on their list of witnesses. Don’t be stupid,’” Briggs says.

The trio arranged for women who said they’d been victimized by Filner to talk privately to Democrats Lorena Gonzalez, Assemblymember Toni Atkins and San Diego City Councilmembers Todd Gloria and David Alvarez, each of whom called for Filner’s resignation by the end of the day, along with the Republicans on the City Council.

Frye called Filner that day and left a message, telling him to step down and to take Hall, his chief of staff, with him.

Hall, it turns out, had the same idea—he resigned in pro-

test of the mayor’s behavior within hours.

Filner did interviews with several TV stations that Friday and dug in his heels, saying that he’d ultimately be vindicated. Briggs, Frye and Gonzalez knew they’d have to ratchet up the pressure. So, by the time they held their second press conference, at 10 a.m. Monday, July 15, they’d secured written narratives, through surrogates, from three alleged victims—a former supporter of Filner who called Briggs after the first press conference; the activist friend, who, when questioned again, revealed that Filner had tried to kiss her and groped her breast; and a staff member whom the public would later learn was McCormack.

Details from that second press conference would make national news and late-night talk shows; the terms “Filner Headlock” and “Filner Dance” were born.

Gonzalez told McCormack that he was more than happy to continue to represent her, but he also told her that if she wanted to “go big,” she might want to call notorious feminist attorney Gloria Allred. Apparently, that appealed to her; in fairly short order, Gonzalez got a call from Allred, who said she’d take it from here. There was no coordination between Gonzalez and Allred after that.

Meanwhile, Filner appeared to have no intention of resigning, and some of his alleged victims realized they were going to have to come forward and tell their stories.

McCormack was the first, appearing at a Monday, July 22, press conference with Allred by her side. Over the next three days, six more women would identify themselves as Filner victims—all via interviews with KPBS-TV, five of the six provided to KPBS by Gonzalez, Frye and Briggs, who appreciated the care shown by KPBS reporter Amita Sharma. Also, it had been Sharma who’d been investigating Filner’s behavior, so she brought something to the table that no other reporters could.

A dozen or so more women would come forward in

the weeks that followed, including the pièce de résistance brought into the fold by Allred: Michelle Tyler, a nurse who on Aug. 6 said Filner put creepy moves on her as she was desperately seeking his help in getting healthcare benefits for a wounded female Marine.

While he found Allred’s theatrics and use of tacky props highly distasteful, Gonzalez praised her: “Frankly, in the arc of this narrative of Bob Filner, she played an incredibly strong role.”

W

ith Allred on the scene and a Filner recall campaign beginning to take shape, the spotlight left Briggs, Gonzalez and Frye, but they continued to counsel the women who’d come to them. They did no celebrating when Filner finally resigned on Aug. 23, 43 days after they went public with their charges, particularly because they believe the City Council and City Attorney Jan Goldsmith abandoned McCormack and the other women.

“Even if they couldn’t settle all claims at that time,” Briggs says, “if they had any decency, they’d have settled with Irene. At least show that you are not using her, and they completely used her. And now that they have agreed to assume [Filner’s] defense, they will have to take the position that her allegations are false and that she has not been damaged.”

Days after Briggs made that comment, the city argued exactly that in a court document.

The night before Filner resigned, Briggs sent a proposal to Councilmember David Alvarez and asked him to pass it along to the rest of the council and Goldsmith in the council’s closed-session meeting the next day. Briggs said in his letter that the city owes him roughly $61,500 in attorney fees from past court cases, plus more than $22,000 in interest, and noted that the city believes it can charge him personally for attorney fees in other cases he lost on behalf of clients. Briggs’ offer was to settle that dispute by using part or all of the money the city owes him to settle McCormack’s case.

Briggs didn’t know whether or not Alvarez pitched the idea to his colleagues. He and the others acknowledge that it’s within the realm of possibility that Allred and McCormack wanted much more than $83,000, much more than the city was willing to offer. Frye says they’re still in contact with McCormack, but they don’t talk about her case against Filner and the city.

Alvarez tells CityBeat that he did relay Briggs’ proposal to his colleagues and the city attorney, but he declines to elaborate because it concerns active litigation.

Even Frye found herself moved by the beginning of Filner’s resignation speech, when he apologized to his supporters and his ex-fiancée. But she found “pathetic” the rest of it, when, much like in The Twilight Zone Meeting, he did an about-face and blamed his political opponents and the media. She, Gonzalez and Briggs are quick to point out that though more than two-dozen women ultimately stepped forward, there are many more who didn’t.

“There’s shit that we know that hasn’t gone public. And it never will,” Gonzalez says. “Other things he did, other people he did them to—things that are much worse than everything that’s been out there.

“We’ve got one big, gnarly story out there [from a woman] that would bring Bob down and put him in jail,” Gonzalez says, before Frye cautions him against revealing too much. Gonzalez assures her that he won’t. “We were emboldened to continue our efforts because we knew that there were worse, bigger things out there.”

The trio decline to comment on whether they’re aware of criminal investigations.

“The universe will take care of it,” Frye says.

“This man has now paid dearly. I see no need to kick the man in the nuts when he’s already laying on the ground,” Gonzalez adds. “And, as I see it, he has lost everything of meaning to him, and that’s it. It’s over.”

Write to davidr@sdcitybeat.com.

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 9

by michael a. gardiner Michael A. Gardiner

anchovies in olive oil— help one see these misunderstood little fish in a new way. Anchovies also showed up stuffed inside olives—not the pungent, forlorn little abominations in a jar that you hope you won’t notice in the finished dish, but sweet little flavor bombs that give the olives an unexpected meatiness. Perhaps the cured Serrano ham and Manchego cheese spoke to good sourcing rather than good preparation, but they Clams steamed in a green marinara sauce were good nonetheless.

Some of the warm dishes were not quite as successful. The pincho moruno—marinated lamb on skewers—seemed a bit imprecise, the flavors melding into an indistinct whole rather than acting in concert while maintaining independent identity. And while the tortilla Espagnola, a Spanish-style omelette A tapas crawl at Costa Brava with onions and potatoes, was perfectly cooked, There’s nothing like a tapeo, the Spanish ambuit seemed strange to have it served warm rather latory dining tradition of proceeding from one than cold. But the Padron peppers in olive oil tapas bar to the next, consuming the signature instantly brought me back to Galicia; the fried dish at each. I’ve experienced a lot of Spanish calamari could not have been more perfectly food, from Michelin-starred restaurants in San done, and gambas al ajillo—shrimp in garlic Sebastian to a vegetarian vendor at a folk-music sauce—was spot-on. festival in a Pyrenees meadow, nearly all of it It was with the specials, though, where Cosvery, very good. But there’s no class of Spanish ta Brava really shined. The clams steamed in a food that I’ve more regularly and lustily enjoyed green marinara sauce were perfectly cooked, than tapas. From Barcelona to Madrid to Sevilla with a broth perfumed beautifully by the fresh and the Basque Country, a tour of Spain is essenherbs. And the baby eels (angula) sautéed in oltially one great tapeo. ive oil with garlic and chile peppers, a Basque Sadly, as much excellent ethnic food as we specialty, were brilliant. These 2-inch-long, thin have in San Diego, tapas are not our strength. La white beauties had a sweet, shellfish-like flavor Gran Tapa has not been grand since Paul Doband supple texture and were framed artfully by son owned it nearly 30 years and seven owners olive oil, herbs, a bit of the fried garlic and just a ago. Café Sevilla was more authentic in its prior hint of chile. incarnation, though hardly excellent even then.

Costa Brava’s baby eel dish was so good that We lack the critical mass of tapas bars, much it reminded me that, on a tapeo, one only orders less consistent quality, to make a tapeo possible. the best dish at each bar. While there might not But the tapas at Costa Brava (1653 Garnet Ave. be enough tapas in town for a true tapeo, you in Pacific Beach, costabrava.com) are quite good. won’t go wrong by a trip to Costa Brava and a The standard dishes are well executed, and some dish of angula. specials approach spectacular. Parboiled octopus Write to michaelg@sdcitybeat.com marinated in vinaigrette was tender, toothsome and editor@sdcitybeat.com. and refreshing on a hot day. Boquerones—fresh

the world

fare

10 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

by ian cheesman

beer &

chees

How to get a degree in BEERology

Here’s a Fun Fact™ for you: Did you know that beer, despite being invented in the Orient some 600 years ago, is actually named for Lord Alastair Beerington of Sussex? It was part of an elaborate joke among the local British gentry, designed to mock Beerington’s gluten intolerance and unusually strong allergy to hops. Though their teasing was a bit cruel, it proved valuable; prior to that, the elixir was still unnamed and could be ordered only at local pubs by pantomiming the various stages of fermentation. In any case, once the moniker “beer” arrived, there was no stopping it.

Here’s yet another Fun Fact™: If you were taken in by any of the above, you’ve not been adequately schooled in the rich and storied history of beer. Also, shame on you for believing anything spewed by the Liberal Media. You really should know our tricks by now.

If you wish to rid yourself of your woeful ignorance of beer, there are many avenues available Anita cheesman

to you. Pursuing a master’s degree in hoptological studies is a popular choice, though it’s an expensive one. Joining a Trappist monastery is always a viable option, too, if a smidge drastic (very few people can pull off that clean-shaven pate).

However, if you’re one of those people who insist on doing things the easy and logical way, there’s always the BEERology exhibit at Balboa Park’s Museum of Man (museumofman.org/beer).

BEERology is a collection of lore and artifacts that demonstrates how beer has proven to be a cultural touchstone since time immemorial. To the Inca, it was the drink of the gods (in the form of “chichi,” a corn-based beer). It was represented in cuneiform (a Sumerian script) in some of the earliest writings discovered. Beer is an integral part of humankind’s journey to now, and this exhibit shares it well.

Museum of Man has made BEERology interactive, though probably not as often as most visitors would prefer. On select nights through next summer, the exhibit will be expanded to include beer tastings. In some cases, it will just make an interesting backdrop to enjoy delicious beers, such as the Craft Beer, Pizza, Sausages and Cupcakes (Sept. 19) and Flavors in Harmony: Pairing Beer & Food (March 20) events.

Other nights will have more of an academic tilt, including Yeast: The Smallest Ingredient in the World’s Favorite Drink, which will explore the contributions yeast makes beyond the simple (but entirely critical) conversion of sugars to alcohol.

If you’d enjoy learning a little more about the beverage that increasingly dominates San Diego culture, this exhibit will likely please. Even the most seasoned of beer historians is bound to learn something. While much of the content would be suitable for any number of museums, it’s particularly interesting to see it nested in the context of learning about our emergence as a species with such incredible capacities for technical knowledge and creativity.

Write to ianc@sdcitybeat.com The word for “love” expressed in many languages and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 11

by Mina Riazi mina riazi

Piled high with pupusas, tamales, enchiladas and plantains, the made-for-two sampler is a nice way to explore a large chunk of El Salvadoreño’s menu. And, at $17.99, it’s also reasonably priced. I ended up ordering the chicken enchilada plate and a cheeseand-zucchini pupusa.

Unlike its Mexican counterpart, the Salvadorian enchilada features its ingredients atop a thick, fried tortilla. A rich layering of refried beans, pulled chicken, slivered cabbage, tomato and crumbled cotija cheese completed the meal. Both texture- and flavor-wise, it was a well-balanced dish. The crunchy shredded cabbage and fried tortilla offset the softness of the other ingredients, El Salvadoreño’s chicken enchilada plate like the juicy chicken. Hot-pink ribbons of pickled onion added zesty tartness to the enchiladas, which arrived three to a plate.

The pupusas, though, were the definite crowd favorite. Chewy and oozing oil, the thick, pancake-like rounds of corn tortilla are stuffed with hot, melted cheese and everything from mushrooms to chicken to jalapeños. A bowl of El Salvadoreño’s hearty, curtido—Salvadorian-style sauerkraut made with home-cooked fare marinated cabbage and oregano—accompanied the griddle cakes.

When Maria Reyes first opened El Salvadoreño The curtido delivered just enough zing and in 1995, there were no other Salvadorian restaucrunch to the savory patties. Creamy, stretchy rants in San Diego. Located in Grant Hill (2845 cheese and sautéed zucchini were the star ingreImperial Ave., elsalvadorenosd.com), the roomy, dients of my pupusa. For those who like it hot, high-ceilinged eatery is the kind of place you make sure to spoon salsa roja over the patties. visit for sturdy, no-frills fare. Maria worked at I loved how certain parts of the corn cake were her mother’s sidewalk food stand as a young girl, charred, creating a satisfying contrast of textures. preparing pupusas and pasteles in San Miguel. So You can also order rice-flour pupusas, if those it’s no wonder that the grub here is honest and more strike your fancy. authentic—not dressed-up or dumbed-down.

Breakfast is served all day at El Salvadoreño.

From the outside, El Salvadoreño’s barred winA ground-beef-stuffed plantain sprinkled with dows and closed door make it appear ’round-thecotija cheese is on my must-try list for next time. clock closed. But the inside is much more inviting, It’s too bad that I didn’t have room for dessert, thanks to the yellow gleam of its wooden ceiling, because the menu flaunts several enticing optables and chairs. Knickknacks fill the shelves, and tions. Fried yucca pies, cheese-flavored Salvadorpaintings decorate the walls, making the hangout ian pound cake and cream of corn are tempting almost feel like Grandma’s place. alternatives to the standard chocolate-chip cookThe food extends the eating-at-home illusion— ies and ice cream. it’s robust, straightforward and fresh. Crack open After finishing the entire pupusa and most of the menu and you’ll find pictures of each plate the enchiladas, I just wanted to take a nap. Now, above a simple description: plantain chips with if I’d really been at Grandma’s house, I could have definitely made that happen. grilled pork chops, fried red Snapper, grilled steak and onions. If you arrive hungry, as you should, Write to minar@sdcitybeat.com choosing just one dish among the many options and editor@sdcitybeat.com. will be a brow-furrowing challenge.

One Lucky

Spoon

12 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

no life

offline

by dave maass

Is universal connection to Facebook a human right?

As the author of a column titled “No Life Offline,” ideal Zuckerberg presents. That said, the decI have an obligation to ring in on Facebook CEO laration also states that everyone has the right Mark Zuckerberg’s new endeavor to make sure to healthcare and education, and we aren’t no living being on the planet is without the opeven close to making that happen even in our portunity to connect to the Internet. own country.

Yes, I agree that, as an ideal, everyone should Do I believe that we are violating the huhave access to all the kitty gif-icles that you and I man rights of billions of people by not providing take for granted. If I didn’t, I’d be writing “Twofree wi-fi networks? No. But I do believe that if Thirds Life Offline.” a government has the capability of allowing acBut do I think Facebook is the right entity to cess to the Internet and does not in order to supbe leading the effort? Well, color me ambivalent. press its people, or, if a government selectively Last month, Zuckerberg rolled out his new, decides that one class of people should be exostensibly humanitarian project, Internet.org, cluded from the Internet, then you have a case. I with a press blitz and an ethnographic YouTube also believe, whole-heartedly, that access to the teaser that looked a lot like a re-dubbed version Internet can advance human rights across the of Rammstein’s “Amerika” music video. Through board, including education and healthcare. And a partnership with several telecommunications I do believe that we are setting our planet up for technology giants—including Guillaume Paumier a dark age of inequality if we Nokia, Ericsson and San Diego’s don’t agree that the connectivQualcomm—Facebook has proity gap should be closed in the posed a rough strategy to make next 50 years. the Internet more affordable, I applaud Facebook and its chiefly through streamlining partners for upping the stakes data flow and apps over moin the race for universal Interbile networks and devices. This net access. At the same time, would bring the Internet to it makes me groan a little. between 4 billion and 5 billion As much as Zuckerberg may new people, or the two-thirds downplay the profit motivaof the population that currently tion for his company, the fact does not have access. In an acremains that one objective is to companying whitepaper, Zuckgrow the available market for erberg further suggested that Facebook’s services. “connectivity is a human right.”

Let’s put it this way: Do I That’s a bold claim to make, think it would be a good thing and I’m not sure I agree. I’m not if free or affordable healthcare sure I disagree, either. was suddenly available to the You delve into a contenbillions of people currently Mark Zuckerberg tious realm of semantics when without? Yes! Do I think it you start talking about human rights. As much would be a good thing if that universal healthcare as I support LGBT equality, I get irritated when were provided by Pfizer, or some other pharmaLGBT groups use the term “human rights” to ceutical giant? No, I don’t, especially if, in return argue for same-sex marriage but then fail to for that care, that corporation expects to aggretake stands on torture or the death penalty. I gate those billions of people’s medical records, also roll my eyes at those who argue that hugains relaxed regulations from governments and man rights are synonymous with “God-given” plans to test potentially unsafe drugs on populanatural rights. tions with low medical literacy.

Similarly, I worry about universal conI tend to defer to the United Nations Univernectivity being dependent on Facebook havsal Declaration of Human Rights. As much as ing access to personal data of billions of users Zuckerberg may wish it did, it does not articuwho have little concept of the issues of privalate a right to 40 MBps and a mouse. However, cy we’ve all grappled with this last decade of it does say: social-network growth. Further, I worry about “Everyone has the right to freedom of opindiversity and the ability for populations around ion and expression; this right includes freedom the globe to develop their own online cultures, to hold opinions without interference and to rather than simply joining Facebook’s oneseek, receive and impart information and ideas size-fits-all model. through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

But in Facebook’s world, there is no “This And it also says: is Interesting” button. So, I begrudgingly click “Everyone has the right freely to participate “Like,” even if I’m not sure I like it at all. in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and Write to davem@sdcitybeat.com its benefits.” and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Both those clauses, in my mind, support the

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 13

the

SHORTlist

ART

COORDINATED BY ALEX ZARAGOZA

co-organizer Ana Morales says.

“We feel it is important to support this effort because we are bringing a relatively new and fresh dynamic to the San Diego art scene, showcasing local or homegrown filmmakers, artist and musicians,” she adds.

Put on by The Roots Factory, with some help from MoPA, the fest includes 15 films screened during the course of two days. That includes the Spanish-language Lucha Libre documentary Tales of Masked Men, the graffiti documentary Bombing Arizona and the doc on exploring the tasty Mexican From the documentary Tales of Masked Men ice cream, Tepoznieves.

It isn’t just cinema; the film festival is an all-out party featuring art and live music all weekend long.

A kick-off party with music from Arise Roots and Eskera will be held at Til-Two Club on Friday night.

Film buffs don’t have to travel to chilly Park City, On Saturday, there will be a Barrio Art Crawl that inUtah, to watch cool independent films. With the re- cludes a free group-art show at The Roots Factory turn of the Barrio Film Festival, happening from (1878 Main St. in Barrio Logan) and interactive video Friday, Sept. 20, through Sunday, Sept. 22, they installations at The Spot (1835 Main St.) from 1 to need only make their way to the Museum of Photo- 5 p.m. After Saturday evening’s screenings, head to graphic Arts (1649 El Prado) in Balboa Park. the Ken Club (4079 Adams Ave. in Kensington) for “When we began the Barrio Film Festival, we en- an after-party with live music from Cumbia Machin visioned two things: one, to bring films to the barrio, and Viento Callejero. An awards gala will be held on but, two, and more importantly, to highlight the work Sunday at The Spot, as well. So many activities! done by barrio artists and filmmakers themselves,” Tickets for screenings are $10. Get all the details barriofilmfest.com.

1

2

SUNDANCE ON THE BARRIO

¡SALUD!

3

HIGHBROW AT LOW TIDE

Tequila is a misunderstood and oftenA music festival next to the beach is nevabused liquor. But there’s a reason folks er a bad idea, primarily because it has its who really get to know tequila fall in love own built-in headlining attraction. But with it. Find that out at the Spirits of Mexico Festival, happening through Sept. 22 in Old Town. The the Carlsbad Music Festival—which comes with highlight of the fest is a tasting event from 6 to 9 p.m. the tagline “adventurous music by the beach”—offers something more Saturday, Sept. 21, where you can try hundreds of tecompelling to comquilas, mezcals and lesser-known agave-based spirits. pete with sand and Tickets are $60 to $75. From 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, sea. This year, the Sept. 19, at the Tequila Trail event, you can sample tefestival’s lineup inquilas and dishes from various Old Town restaurants. cludes more than 50 Tickets are $35. If free’s your preferred price, head jazz, classical, experto The Art of Tequila, an exhibition on view through imental and pop artSept. 22 from 1 to 6 p.m. at Barros Studio Gallery (2802 ists—including choral Juan St.). thespiritsofmexico.com ensemble Roomful of LUIS GARCIA-RIVERA Teeth, string group Calder Quartet and jazz guitarist Peter Sprague—in venues throughout the village. The festival takes place Friday, Sept. 20, through Sunday, Sept. 22, in Carlsbad Village. VilPeter Sprague lage Music Walk performances are free; tickets to individual venues can be purchased at carlsbadmusicfestival.org.

14 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

HSpectra at SDSU Downtown Gallery, 725 West Broadway, Downtown. Reception for the recently opened exhibition that explores the use of color through in the work of 10 artists from L.A., New York and San Diego. From 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19. downtowngallery.sdsu.edu HThe Sculpture Garden Reinstalled at San Diego Museum of Art, Balboa Park. The museum’s sculpture garden’s been dramatically renovated, featuring 19th- and 20th-century works by George Rickey, Barbara Hepworth, David Smith, Henry Moore and a never-before-shown work by Alexander Lieberman. On view until 2016. Opening Thursday, Sept. 19.

Free. 619-232-7931, sdmart.org Ellen Dieter and Judith Parenio at San Diego Art Institute-Museum of the Living Artist, Balboa Park. Juried artwork from the “Outstanding Visual Artists,” of the region. Opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m.

Friday, Sept. 20, sandiego-art.org Gloria Lee at Exclusive Collections Gallery, 568 Fifth Ave., Downtown. The abstract painter will showcase her new “Floral Splendor” series of works. From 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20. 800-204-0062, ecgallery.com HThe Kincade Chronicles at Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla. San Diego artist Jim Machacek turns the gallery into a walk-in novel via a series of etchings, collages, artist books, installations and created historical ephemera to bring the fictional Kincade family to life.

From 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20.

858-454-5872, ljathenaeum.org HKim Holbrook at Glimpse, 3813 Ray St., North Park. Holbrook paints largescale, vibrant abstract canvases. DJ Austin Brown will be on hand laying down the beats at this opening. From 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20. 619-255-8112, glimpseliving.com Kathy Zanot & Mick Phelan at San Diego Art Department, 3830 Ray St., North Park. New surrealist drawings from the West Coast Drawing duo. From 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20. 619-299-4278, sandiegoartdepartment.com HDana Montlack: Sea of Cortez at MCASD, La Jolla, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla Using John Steinbeck’s The Log from the Sea of Cortez as a guide, Montlack worked with scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Birch Aquarium to photograph specimens and charts from the waterways Steinbeck explored. Opens Saturday, Sept. 21. $5$10. 858-454-3541, mcasd.org HLost in the Memory Palace at MCASD, La Jolla, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla. The multimedia artworks of Janet Cardiff and George Miller emphasize aural and visual experiences that seek to transport the viewer to other realms of consciousness. Opens Saturday, Sept.

21. $5-$10. 858-454-3541, mcasd.org

Artists of North Park at Expressive Arts @ 32nd & 38 Thorn streets, North Park.

View a selection of works and hear from the lartists who created them. Participating artists include Brandon Hubbard, Sherri Raum, Sharon Tittle and Stephanie Weaver. From 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21. expressiveartssandiego.com HEngineered Truths and Time Traveled Devices at Visual, 3524 Adams Ave., Normal Heights. Bret Barrett exhibits new works that incorporate mechanical elements. On view through Oct. 5.

From 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21. facebook.com/visualsd

BOOKS Jonathan Maberry at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. Author and playwright talks about the latest his young-adult zombie series, Fire & Ash. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18. 858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com Jamie Ford at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The bestselling author will discuss and sign his sophomore novel Songs of Willow Frost.

At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18. 858454-0347, warwicks.com John Dufrense at Ink Spot, 710 13th St., Downtown. Dufrense will read from and sign No Regrets, Coyote, a thriller about a crime-solving therapist investigating a case of parental murder-suicide. Ken Kuhlken and T. Greenwood will also read from their work. From 4:30 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, sandiegowriters.org Larry M. Edwards at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The local author will discuss and sign his book, Dare I Call It Murder? A Memoir of Violent Loss, in which he ferrets out facts to get at the truth of how and why his parents were killed. At 12 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22.

858-454-0347, warwicks.com L.E. Modesitt Jr at Mysterious Galaxy Book Store, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. The author of the Recluse fantasy series will discuss his latest, The One-Eyed Man: A Fugue, with Winds and Accompaniment. At 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22. 858-268-4747, mystgalaxy.com Laurie R. King at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. King will discuss and sign The Bones of Paris, about a private investigator tracking a missing girl, and possibly her killer, through the bars and boroughs of Paris. Pastries and coffee will be served At noon Tuesday, Sept.

24. 858-454-0347, warwicks.com Melody Moezzi at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. Moezzi will discuss and sign Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life, her irreverent memoir about a manic-depressive Iranian-American Muslim woman. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25. 858-454-0347, warwicks.com

COMEDY

Fine Art Tile Show at Kensington Gallery, 4186 Adams Ave., Kensington. Original, hand-painted tiles from local artists Starkow, Ryan Dean and Kensington Gallery resident artist Mark Rimland. Proceeds go to support autism research. From 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21. 619-534-8120, kensingtongallery.org

Steve Byrne at Mad House Comedy Club, 502 Horton Plaza, Downtown. Byrne’s comedic style pays tribute to both the Irish and Korean sides of his heritage.

At 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, and Sunday, Sept. 22; 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept. 20-21. $20. 619702-6666, madhousecomedyclub.com

Outside: Selections from the Doug Simay Collection at Oceanside Museum of Art, 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside.

Outside focuses on a passionate collector and longtime supporter of the arts in San Diego, Doug Simay. Opens with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21. On view through Jan. 4. $10.

760-435-3720, oma-online.org

Mick Foley at American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave., Downtown. The former pro wrestler and best-selling author tries his chops at stand-up comedy with a storytelling angle of his days as a three-time WWE champion. At 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 15

THEATER One-man show brings Picasso to life Herbert Siguenza doesn’t merely portray Picasso in his one-man show, A Weekend with Pablo Picasso—he inhabits him.

From the opening moments, when he’s luxuriating in his bath to the creation of the last of the weekend’s six paintings—attacking a canvas with the flourish of a bullfighter—Siguenza lives the passion, joy and ferocity of the legendary artist. Yet there’s a playfulness to this inhabitation that staves off self-indulgence, a warmth as radiant as the south of France, where this play is set.

Siguenza, an artist-in-residence at San Diego Repertory Theatre, first proposed the idea of the Picasso show to Rep artistic director Sam Woodhouse five years ago. A year-and-a-half later, Siguenza, who wrote the script, workshopped the one-act play there. After productions in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Denver, A Weekend with Pablo Picasso, directed by San Diego Rep associate artistic director Todd Salovey, has returned to the place of its origin.

The premise: Picasso, at age 76, has been commissioned to complete six paintings and three vases over the course of a single weekend—which he knocks off as easily as one would a glass of red wine.

The audience serves as watchful art students with whom the great painter shares his philosophies, his wit and a few confessions over the course of the weekend.

Along the way, Siguenza, an accomplished painter in his own right, creates a body of Picasso-like paintings and sketches. It’s fascinating to watch him work as quickly and deftly as he does. The lessons imparted about art—in particular how it’s inexorably intertwined with politics—are taught less by a professor to his students than by a man of the world to other, more innocent, members of his kind.

As you might expect, there is no dramatic arc to A Weekend with Pablo Picasso, no action rising to clear climax. This weekend unfolds at Picasso’s whim. Not mere monologue, the show is enlivened by music, stage projections and bits that find Siguenza not only in a bullfighter’s cape, but also at one point donning the red nose of a clown. But it’s the intermittent painting on stage that most makes us believe that we are, incredibly, in the presence of a personality as towering as his art.

A Weekend with Pablo Picasso runs Friday and Saturday, Sept. 20-21. $18. 619-7953858, americancomedyco.com John Caponera at Comedy Store, 916 Pearl St., La Jolla. Drew Carey once said Caponera was “one of the nicest, funniest, and hardest-working guys I’ve ever known.” At 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept. 2021. $20. 858-454-9176, lajolla.thecomedystore.com Drake Witham at Comedy Palace, 8878 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Clairemont. Witham’s appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and is known for his sarcastic delivery. At 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 21-22. $20-$25. 858573-9067, thecomedypalace.com Drew Carey at Sycuan Casino, 5469 Casino Way, El Cajon. The star of The Drew Carey Show, Whose

16 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

DAREN SCOTT

Herbert Siguenza through Oct. 6 at the Lyceum Theatre at Horton Plaza, Downtown. $31-$58. sdrep.org

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

OPENING A Fundamental Change: Musical genres like rap, rock and gospel are used to explore how bad times bring people together and why some folks strive for peace while others engage in senseless violence. Opens Sept. 19 at the Lyceum Theatre at Horton Plaza, Downtown. lyceumevents.org The Importance of Being Earnest: Two guys, named Jack and Algernon, pretend to be Earnest to win over a couple of ladies who’ve got a thing for the name. Oscar Wilde’s funniest play, presented

by Cygnet Theatre, opens Sept. 18 at Old Town Theatre. cygnettheatre.org The Last Goodbye: Dig Jeff Buckley? How about Shakespeare? Get some of both from this modern take on Romeo and Juliet set to Buckley’s music.

Opens Sept. 20 at The Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park. theoldglobe.org Skin Deep: Maureen Mulligan is overweight, middle-aged and single. But, she decides to go on a blind date anyhow, which leads to some important life lessons. Opens Sept. 20 at Broadway Theatre in Vista. broadwayvista.com Two by Shepard: SDSU stages Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love, about a woman trying to escape a destructive relationship, and Action, about four people stuck at the end of the world. Opens Sept.

20 at the Experimental Theatre on the SDSU campus. theatre.sdsu.edu The Who’s Tommy: Some San Diego trivia: Des McAnuff, former artistic director at the La Jolla Playhouse, co-wrote this musical with Pete Townshend, based on The Who’s album about a deaf, dumb and blind pinball wizard. Opens Sept. 18 at Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista. moonlightstage.com

For full listings, please visit T heater ” at sdcit yb eat.com

Line Is It Anyway? and The Price is Right gets back to stand-up. At 6:30 and 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21. $35-$45. 619-445-6002, sycuan.com

FOOD & DRINK HSpirits of Mexico Festival: Tequila Trail at Old Town Historic Park, 2454 Heritage Park Row, Old Town.

Tequila lovers make their way through Old Town sampling signature dishes and tequila from more than a dozen participating eateries. From 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19. $35. 619-491-0099, thespiritsofmexico.com HYeast: The Smallest Ingredient in the World’s Favorite Drink at San Diego Museum of Man, Balboa Park. Experience the museum’s newest exhibit, BEER-

ology, with a beer in your hand. There will be craft beer samples and food tastings while the scientists at White Labs Inc. explain the vital role of yeast during the brewing process. From 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19. $20-$30. 619-239-2001, museumofman.org Wine in the Wilderness at Mission Trails Regional Park, One Father Junipero Serra Trail, San Carlos. Sip on wine, sample craft beer, and nibble on cheese and chocolate while bidding on a silent auction. Proceeds will support the San Diego YWCA. From 6 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20. $35. 619-475-5020, winesoroptimist2013. eventbrite.com 19th Annual San Diego Festival of Beer at Columbia and B streets, Downtown. San Diego’s original beer festival and fundraiser returns with more than 60 different breweries and 120 varieties of craft beer. Enjoy live music, purchase food from food trucks and restaurants, all while raising money for local cancer charities. From 6 to 11 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20. $35-$40. sdbeerfest.org

Herman and more. At 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21. $20-$25. 619-299-BLUE, concerts.livenation.com Luca Casarin at Villa Musica, 10373 Roselle Street, Ste. 170, Sorrento Valley.

This young Italian violin virtuoso and composer will perform at Carnegie Hall for his debut recital in October, but we get to see him for free. At 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept.

21. Free. 858-550-8100, villamusica.org HMalcolm X Experimental Music Festival at Malcolm X Branch Library, 5148 Market St., Valencia Park. A day of avant-garde music acts including one-man doom-metal project Author & Punisher, jazz from Nathan Hubbard and Louis Damian, sonic experimentalist Scott Nielsen, noise-rockers Bald Beast. spoken-word artist Reg E. Gaines and more. At 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21.

Free. 619-527-3405, staystrange.com Alison Marae at ArtLab Studios, 3536 Adams Ave., Normal Heights. The jazz singer celebrates the release of her debut CD and performs her own vocal interpretation of early jazz from the ‘30s. $10 cover includes CD. From 7:30 to 10 p.m. Sunday, Sept.

22. $10. 619-750-3355, artlabca.com St. Jude Children’s Hospital Benefit Show at Che Cafe, UCSD campus, La Jolla. Bands like Sledding With Tigers, Plastic City Pariah, Carlos The Dwarf and two more will play this show to raise funds for St. Jude’s, which provides medical treatment to children regardless of a family’s ability to pay. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25. $5.

858-534-2311, thechecafe.blogspot.com HLarry Goldings / Peter Bernstein / Bill Stewart at The Auditorium at TSRI,

10640 John Jay Hopkins Drive, La Jolla.

San Diego debut of this long-standing trio featuring Goldings on Hammond B3 organ, Bernstein on guitar and Stewart on drums. At 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25. $30-$35. 858-784-2666, scripps.edu Harmony Strings at Rancho Bernardo Library, 17110 Bernardo Center Drive, Rancho Bernardo. Appearing with a guest pianist, Harmony Strings returns to. From 6:30 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25. Free.

OUTDOORS California Coastal Clean-up Day Now in it’s 29th year, there will be several cleanups throughout the county, from Ocean Beach to Santee. See website for meetup spots. From 9 a.m. to noon Saturday,

Sept. 21. 619-952-5353, cleanupday.org 22nd Annual Paddle for Clean Water at Ocean Beach Pier, end of Newport Avenue, Ocean Beach. Surfers and ocean enthusiasts will paddle around the pier to raise awareness about the need for healthy coastlines. Free breakfast for all paddlers, guest speakers, live music and a raffle.

From 9 a.m. to noon Sunday, Sept. 22.

Free. 858-622-9661, sandiego.surfrider.org

POETRY & SPOKEN WORD Leah Noble Davidson at Art Produce Gallery, 3139 University Ave., North Park.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

Harvest For Hope at Stingaree, 454 Sixth Ave., Downtown. Chefs from 17 restaurants create unique dishes paired with fine wines and spirits to raise money for the Emilio Nares Foundation, which is dedicated to helping low-income kids battling cancer in San Diego. There will be a performance from Gilbert Castellanos and the Sensational Strings. From 3 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22. $100-$125. 858-571-3328, stayclassy.org Rancho Bernardo Tastings Festival at Bernardo Winery, 13330 Paseo del Verano N., Rancho Bernardo. Sample wine selections from county wineries, beer from San Diego microbreweries, and bites from local restaurants while enjoying live music, shopping and a raffle and silent auction.

From noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22. $20-$25. 858-487-1866, rbtastings.com

MUSIC HSteve Poltz at Birch Aquarium, 2300 Expedition Way, La Jolla. The local singersongwriter participates in the Green Flash Concert Series. Enjoy live music, food and drinks, and amazing sunset views from the aquarium’s Tide Pool Plaza. From 5:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18. $26-$34.

858-534-FISH, aquarium.ucsd.edu HCarlsbad Music Festival and Village Music Walk at Carlsbad Village, Carlsbad.

Now in its 10th year, the multi-genre fest will feature more 50 performances in three days with concerts in Magee Park and Carlsbad Village Theater on Saturday and Sunday, as well as the Village Music Walk on Friday. At 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, and 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 21-22. Free-$34.

760-809-5501, carlsbadmusicfestival.org The Robert Cray Band at Poway Center for the Performing Arts, 15498 Espola Road, Poway. The Grammy-award winning blues singer and guitarist who was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame performs. At 8 p.m.

Friday, Sept. 20. $13-$53. 858-748-0505, powayarts.org/shows.html HAmy Cole Charity Concert at Cole Family Home, 934 Catalina Blvd., Point Loma. An evening of live music, to celebrate the life of late artist/art teacher Amy Cole. Performances from El Monte Slim, Tide Pools and Marie Haddad. Proceeds benefit Young Audiences of San Diego.

From 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21. $20 donation. 619-840-8609, facebook. com/events/155744894621272 Voices From The Heart II at House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave., Downtown. This CD-release event will benefit Just in Time for Foster Youth and feature performances from Lady Dottie and The Diamonds, Lacy Younger, The Boundary Birds, Astra Kelly, Tolan Shaw, comedian MC Maria

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 17

A book release and performance of the Portland-based poet’s Poetic Scientifica, her new book exploring the commonalities of art and science. At 7 p.m. Friday, Sept.

20. $5 suggested donation. 650-823-7675, artproduce.org/poetic-scientifica

North Park Eco District Celebration at West Coast Tavern, 2895 University Ave., North Park. Celebrate North Park Main Street’s effort to bring knowledge and resources to the ‘hood to make it more ecofriendly. Complimentary appetizers and drink specials. From 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 24. northparkecodistrict.com

SPECIAL EVENTS Santa Fe Market at Bazaar del Mundo, 4133 Taylor St., Old Town. Stroll the lively outdoor marketplace and shop vibrant collections of sterling silver and an array of traditional Native American and Southwestern. From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept. 20-21 and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22. Free. 619296-3161, bazaardelmundo.com HBarrio Art Jam at Bread & Salt, 1955 Julian Ave., Barrio Logan. Featured bands include Afrojazziacs, Israel Maldonado and Quinteto Caballero. The poster art show, curated by Voz Alta Project, will feature artists like Salvador Gonzalez, Ricardo Islas and Miguel Angel Godoy. Food from Blueprint Cafe. From 9 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 20. $10. facebook.com/pages/ Bread-Salt/131432453678688

TALKS & DISCUSSIONS How Can We Bring Open Data to San Diego? at KPBS Studios, 5200 Campanile Drive, College Area. Join panelists Donna Frye, Jed Sundwall, Ben Katz and Joel Hoffmann as they discuss things journalists and concerned citizens can do to create more access to open data in San Diego. From 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18. kpbs.org

“Simayspace at 9th and G” is part of Outside: Selections from the Doug Simay Collection, which opens with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, at the Oceanside Museum of Art. cars, food and more. From 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21. 619-463-3006, sdcl.org

Sleepless San Diego at Liberty Station, Roosevelt & Cushing, Point Loma. The San Diego Rescue Mission’s annual event welcomes participants to sleep out or stay late to generate funds to help local homeless men, women and children. Register at sleeplesssandiego.org. From 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, to 7 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 22.

858-453-9600, sleeplesssandiego.org

HChula Vista HarborFest at Bayside Park, Plover Way, Chula Vista. Spend the day on the Chula Vista Bay enjoying live music, educational exhibits, historic vessels, playful harbor activities, fishing, exotic wheels, a youth zone and more.

From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept.

21. Free. 619-686-6200, cvharborfest.com

Spring Valley Fiesta at Spring Valley Library, 836 Kempton St., Spring Valley. Free entertainment and activities for all ages.

There will also be a Ballet Folklorico competition, an exhibition by muralist Sal Barajas, video games, face painting, low rider

HBike the Boulevard The annual event celebrating El Cajon Boulevard starts at Til Two club with a barbecue at noon and ends up at the Lafayette Hotel for a pool party.

See website for schedule. From noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21. theboulevard.org

18 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

Family Moon Festival at San Diego Chinese Historical Museum, 404 Third Ave., Downtown. The annual celebration of the the brightest full moon of the year. Festivities include Chinese arts and crafts, a calligraphy demo and, of course, various types of traditional moon cake. From 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21. $4 suggested donation. 619-338-9888, sdchm.org Bunnyfest 2013 at Park Boulevard and Presidents Way, Balboa Park. Enjoy a day of bunny games, children’s activities, food, an art fair with craft vendors, rabbit veterinarians, info booths and grooming services. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22. Free. sandiegorabbits.org

Green Scene at World Resources Simulation Center, 1088 Third Ave., Downtown.

City Planning Director Bill Fulton and architect Teddy Cruz will discuss how to plan and build a more sustainable and resilient San Diego region. From 5:30 to 8 p.m.

Wednesday, Sept. 18. $10 suggested donation. 619-234-1088, wrsc.org HRobert Irwin at Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center, SDSU campus. Hot off his critically acclaimed show at the Whitney Museum in New York, Irwin discuss his role in the West Coast Light and Space Movement. At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 24. tcf.sdsu.edu/sdsu_newscenter/news.aspx

For full listings,

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

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 19

going to the show From fast-food-inspired lowbrow art to Charles Bergquist’s otherworldly creations, our round-up of five current exhibitions

Contemporary Expressionism: The Creative Spirit @ Lyceum Gallery

Anium @ Subtext Gallery

Walking into the small gallery space at jdc Fine Art (2400 Kettner Blvd. in Little Italy), I was immediately met by a wall of faces, all haunting in their own way— “haunting” being the best word to describe the images in Anónimo: Heroes & Performers, an exhibition of works by Guatemalan photographer Luis González Palma that runs through Nov. 30. The photographs on view represent themes found throughout Palma’s work: life, death and the roles we play as performers in our respective worlds. Each melancholic photo focuses on a single figure and seems to tell a story. In “Anunciacion 11,” a teary woman sits seemingly abandoned in a theater.

A dark shadow looms behind her.

“The Shadow of His Youth” features a gloomy yet handsome man sitting across from a skull wearing a dunce cap. The image, printed on gold leaf, glows orange-red, giving it an aged quality. You can imagine how this man felt about the life he lived. There are only seven images in the exhibition (curator Jennifer DeCarlo will pull out additional images on request), but that’s all you need to walk away feeling moved. Late into the night, I could still see those tender, tragic eyes. jdcfineart.com

Mike Maxwell seems to be the guy whose art will only be appreciated after he dies. It’s sad, really; he’s a fantastic painter who’s developed a unique style of pop-surrealist portraiture (“lowbrow” art, if you’re nasty) and who ran around with Shepard Fairey back in the day, using San Diego as their canvas. Peers have come and gone, and Maxwell surely could have moved on to make a bigger name for himself, but he continues to live and work in eastern San Diego. His show ‘well & Good, running through Oct. 6 at the newly opened Low Gallery in North Park (3778 30th St.) won’t give the viewer any sense of Maxwell’s roots in the scene, but it can serve as a nice introduction to what’s become his trademark acrylic portraits of generals and other oldtimey gentlemen on wood canvases. However, it’s his recent works using spray paint and acrylic to create blots of abstraction that are the most revelatory and welcome sight, especially when surrounded by his more straight-ahead portraits, as well as those of North Carolina-based, hyper-surrealist Alli Good. Either way, while the show is quaint in size and scope, it’s a welcome breath of fresh air in what’s been a rather hackneyed North Park art scene, from a guy who remembers a time when art ruled the streets. facebook.com/ lowgallerysd

Quick refresher on expressionism: Originating in Germany in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, its manifestations are broad—a painting’s deemed expressionist if it seeks to capture emotion and not reality (think Edvard Munch’s The Scream). Contemporary Expressionism, organized by the San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild and on view in the Lyceum Gallery (79 Horton Plaza) through Oct. 13, shows just how broadly the term can be defined—there’s something for everyone here amid roughly three-dozen works, most significantly the chance to check out lesser-known or up-and-coming artists. Florida-based Jenny Wiener’s “Patchwork of Planes” is a tongue-in-cheek geometric dissection of one of Cezanne’s Mont Saint-Victoire paintings, while Georgia artist Caomin Xie’s “The Portrait of an Unknown Heroine,” from Caomin’s haunting Group Photos series, takes inspiration from both The Scream and the Chinese government’s practice of blacking out faces in photos during the Cultural Revolution.

Stand-out locals include sculptor Maidy Morhous, whose mesmerizing “Freefall” features a woman’s torso precariously—and gracefully—poised on the edge of its stand, and Kenda Francis, whose “Grace in the Waves” juxtaposes order and chaos, nature and urban life, with its focal-point nude woman lying complacent amid a thrashing ocean, surrounded by hints of stencil art. facebook.com/sdmaag

Earth. Wind. Fire. Water. Breasts.

Surely we can all agree they’re forces to be reckoned with. But Charles Bergquist has come prepared. With Anium, his first solo show running through Oct. 13 at Subtext Gallery (2479 Kettner Blvd. in Little Italy), the selftaught designer and photographer and native San Diegan is clearly in all of his elements. Experimenting with the combination of photography, graphic design and video, Bergquist has created a decidedly otherworldly, sci-fi experience for the viewer (spoiler alert: X-Files fanboys and girls won’t be disappointed). And the result is highly entertaining. The black-and-gray print “Devil’s Slide” is the most ominous in the collection; a rocky ledge juts into the frame, both daring you to enter the broken-down shack but also warning you that that may not be such a good idea after all. Several of Bergquist’s pieces play with this push-pull. In “This Beast Also Rises,” a serene mountainous landscape provides the backdrop for something much more dangerous: a topless woman.

Her head is obscured, but the direction of her stare is unmistakable; it’s as if we’ve interrupted her stroll through the fiery pits of hell. Carry on, then. It’s obvious Bergquist is having fun here, and he wants us all to come along for the ride. In one strikingly bright print, a bikini-clad woman floats face down in a magenta-colored pool. The title? “Bummer Summer.” subtextgallery.com

—Alex Zaragoza

—Seth Combs

—Kelly Davis

—Nina Sachdev Hoffmann

“Fastfood Paintings” @ Space 4 Art John Kilduff is both a complete kook and a genius. Watch an episode of his wacky former publicaccess television show, Let’s Paint TV, on YouTube. The Los Angeles artist does things like jog on a treadmill as he makes blended drinks and paints, all while fielding calls from a feisty public that mostly wants to shout out disses at rival gangs. Several works from the artist’s “Fastfood Paintings” series are hanging at Space 4 Art (325 15th St. in East Village) through the end of September as part of a group show curated by San Diego artist Joshua Miller (interesting work by Joshua Callaghan and J Noland is also on view). Kilduff churned out the work quickly at a live performance during the opening, letting attendees order from a “menu” and pay fast-food-like prices for the end results, which depict literal knuckle sandwiches, fountain-drink still lifes and other relics from fast-food culture. The quality of the work ranges from superb to sucky. He’s definitely painterly, but if you’re looking for top-notch stuff, you’re missing the point. Kilduff’s work will make you smile, and Googling the man to see his live performances might even inspire a laugh. Injecting a sense of humor into the art world and commenting on the commodification of creativity without coming across as irrelevant is a worthy work of art in itself. sdspace4art.org

Anónimo: Heroes & Performers @ jdc Fine Art

—Kinsee Morlan

20 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

‘well & Good @ Low Gallery

Seen Local The mechanics of Bret Barrett Hanging out in Bret Barrett’s Downtown studio is like hanging out at a kooky toy maker’s wacky workshop, or maybe the bedroom of Sid Phillips, the crazy neighbor kid from Toy Story who has a penchant for dissecting toys to make freakish re-creations.

The clicking, spinning and chomping sounds made by Barrett’s kinetic sculptures and artwork is almost deafening. It’s the complete opposite of Barrett himself, who speaks softly and patiently about his art and upcoming exhibition, Engineered Truths and Time Traveled Devices, which opens with a reception from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, at Visual (3524 Adams Ave. in Normal Heights).

At the exhibition, on view through Oct. 5, you’ll see the work that’s made Barrett (facebook.com/bret. barrett1) stand out in San Diego’s art scene. His surrealist paintings and collages each come alive with “Mechanism of Melancholia” by Bret Barrett the aid of a machine or toy that becomes part of the piece, telling its full story with each movement—like “Mechanism of Melancholia,” inspired by the Chinese proverb You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow In case we missed it from flying over your head, but you can prevent them A semi-regular feature that highlights cool exhibitions from building nests in your hair. The painting features we didn’t preview in the weeks before. the silhouette of a woman’s face with her hair forming a bird’s nest. A bird is perched on her head as two The thing about a piece of art is that it’s not always real pigeon feathers snap back and forth with the something you want to bring into your home. Like help of parts from a cassette recorder and DVD play- a vampire, you have to invite it in knowing that it’s er, making it look as though the feathers are engaged going to be there and transform everything that in a futile attempt to shoo away the bird. This one is surrounds it. This is why I was excited about Scott Zagar’s exhibition of new paintings, currently on Barrett’s favorite among the pieces in the show.

But while the art reveals the extent of Barrett’s view at Glashaus (1815 Main St. in Barrio Logan) imagination, when it comes to explaining it, he through Nov. 1.

The collection of large-scale, diamond-shaped struggles.

“You know, when you’re young, you just want paintings and color field oil paintings on canvas are to do it,” says Barrett, 47, whose DIY sensibility beautiful and accessible—the kind of pieces that can was instilled by his parents. “You don’t really think bring a room together.

The diamond series consists of 42- and 72-foot about what it is that you’re up to. I think as I’ve gotten older, I don’t know that any of those questions aluminum diamonds featuring colorful geometric are answered in my mind, but I think there is a co- patterns. He began that series in 2010 while living in Berlin. hesiveness.”

The color field paintings are large canvasses that, In fact, Barrett regularly gains new perspectives from afar, appear to be a solid hue. However, as you on his art.

“I love how many times I’ll be at a show and I had step closer, you see layer upon layer of texture and a complete intention for what the piece meant, and depth of color. They’re inspired by old Italian architecthen I’ll hear someone in the audience saying what ture, which often bears centuries’ worth of paint jobs.

“I think it’s really interesting because, looking at they think it is, and it’s something completely differthese really old buildings, I can ent, yet entirely valid,” he says. really feel a sense of time and The inspiration for his history,” Zagar says during a paintings and sculptures varies. visit to his studio at Glashaus, As a result, it’s been hard for for “like the old castles in Rome him to hone in on a single motiwhere Emperor Hadrian was vation for each piece. buried. It’s, like, many centuMaybe that’s because his ries old, and you can really get pieces come together serendipa sense of the time, and I think itously. Since collage is a major it’s really beautiful.” component in his work, BarYou can visit Zagar (scott rett collects toys, knick-knacks, zagar.com) and his art on Satmagazines and other found urdays or by appointment, or scraps. Often, he dumps out the stop by Glashaus during regubasket containing these items and the pieces happen to land “Hadrian” by Scott Zagar lar hours. in a way that inspires him. He —Alex Zaragoza simply cuts and pastes the pieces how they land.

However it comes about, Barrett says the objective is for people to enjoy his art. That’s all any artist Write to alexz@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com can ask for.

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 21

Off the grid Sam Rockwell talks noir, authenticity and isolation

by Glenn Heath Jr. I first noticed Sam Rockwell when his high-pitched screams made my parents laugh out loud during the hilarious and underrated Star Trek-spoof Galaxy Quest. As Guy Gleegman, the disposable archetype destined to die because the narrative called for it, Rockwell gave the character a genuine sadness that compleSam Rockwell as West Virginia hunter John Moon mented his perfect comic timing.

At that point, Rockwell’s career was seedy small-town lawyer, Ted Levine as a pragmatic just starting to cross over from the independent scene farmer, Jeffrey Wright as Moon’s alcoholic cohort and to Hollywood fare. In the 15 years since, the actor has Jason Isaacs (nearly unrecognizable) as a hillbilly gun carved out an impressive block of on-screen perso- hand. Each brings a different kind of dynamism that nas, from psychopaths to Lebowksi-like mentors, punctuates Moon’s non-verbal desperation. tormented loners to charming con men. Connecting Indebted to films like A Simple Plan and No Counthem all is a resistance to easy categorization. try for Old Men in its fatalistic sense of comeuppance, Despite his diverse filmography, Rockwell treads A Single Shot differentiates itself through a fascinatsome fairly new ground with his stoic, deeply con- ing social critique regarding the abandonment of rural flicted turn as hunter John Moon in David Rosen- America by its own people. Dilapidated farms, rusting thal’s new mountain noir, A Single Shot. Set in a fog- tractors and muddy pools of coal and ash dominate gy, rain-swept area of West Virginia characterized the frame, giving the film a post-apocalyptic quality. by massive ridges and abandoned quarries, the film “Cinematically, it’s very dark and brooding,” evokes the extreme locales one might find in an An- Rockwell says. “It’s shot on 35mm, and it does capthony Mann western. ture a spooky and lonely quality From its 13-minute opening to [Moon’s] dilemma.” sequence, which charts Moon’s Moon has a backstory that A Single Shot pursuit of a deer through the connects with this theme, havDirected by David Rosenthal woods sans dialogue, A Single ing lost his farm due to his Starring Sam Rockwell, William H. Shot establishes a very distinct father’s mishandling of the Macy, Jason Isaacs and Kelly Reilly and menacing tone. business. So, it’s not surprising Rated R “It’s a mood piece,” Rockwell when the camera lingers on his tells CityBeat over the phone bearded face before racking while traversing the streets of focus to the rotting infrastrucNew York City. “It’s like an Edgar Allen Poe story.” ture in the background, leaving the foreground The sense of impending fate is certainly palpable completely blurred. from the minute Moon accidentally shoots a woman An old-fashioned film noir at heart, A Single Shot in the woods and decides to cover his tracks by hid- foretells death in every frame. Yet the film’s final seing the body and stealing her bag full of cash. quence is surprisingly allegorical—and entirely disOne of the reasons A Single Shot resonates so turbing. With the weight of the world figuratively strongly is its ability to authentically capture the and literally on his chest, Moon, exhausted and alone, personality of the region. When asked about his own is left to consider the ramifications of his actions. preparation to play Moon, a skilled marksman and “I want the audience to be moved and enterlifelong inhabitant of the mountain terrain, Rockwell tained,” Rockwell says. “We’re challenging them says, “I had a guy tape my lines and play them back with this ending. We’re asking a lot of the viewer beso I could get the dialect just right. I learned how to cause it is very dark.” carry the gun, how to hold it the correct way.”

But this is exactly the type of film Rockwell exAs Moon gets more entrenched in a criminal under- cels in, a narrative on the fringes, one that defies world that resides close to his own impoverished and our expectations. economically desperate lifestyle, Rosenthal pits Rockwell against an array of great character actors in strik- Write to glennh@sdcitybeat.com and ing bit parts. There’s William H. Macy as a deceptively editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Opened eyes

Museum Hours

22 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

Look closely at Museum Hours.

As this entrancing movie unfolds, your eyes will wander to the corner of the frame and see a plethora of details: smoke emanating from a distant warehouse, steam wafting from a coffee cup or perhaps a lonely piece of discarded trash pushed along

by the wind.

Initially, because of their placement in the frame, these details might seem unimportant to director Jem Cohen. Nothing could be further from the truth; like the multifaceted Brueghel paintings the film so often references, each composition in Museum Hours contains markers of life frozen by art, some grotesque

and some sublimely beautiful.

On paper it’s the story of Johann (Bobby Sommer), a museum guard who’s spent six years watching over the Kunsthistorisches Art Museum in Vienna. His life is not so much interrupted as it is affirmed when he meets Anne (Mary Margaret O’Hara), a stranded Canuck from Montreal visiting an estranged comatose relative.

Together, the two glide through the museum passageways discussing their own past histories. Eventually, they leave the haloed perfection of the exhibition halls for the open streets beyond.

Museum Hours—which opens Friday, Sept. 20, at the Ken Cinema—is a romance not between people, but ideas. The delightful way Johann and Anne and share stories calls to mind the best sort of artistic expression.

They speak in possibilities, not finite arguments. It’s the kind of perspective Brueghel specialist Gerda Pachner (Ela Piplits) cherishes during her lecture on the alternate themes of one harrowing painting. The film’s most horrific moment involves an interruption perpetrated by a snobby couple capable of only faux-academic close-mindedness.

Museum Hours argues that to truly live is to see past the obviousness of bias and rhetoric. Viewing the world with fresh eyes is a radical and priceless act of bravery.

—Glenn Heath Jr.

Opening A Single Shot: An experienced hunter (Sam Rockwell) accidentally kills a woman while poaching deer in the forest, setting off a string of events that will get him embroiled in a seedy criminal plot. See our feature on Page 22.

Los Amorosos: Daniel Martinez and Marimar Vega star as estranged lovers who reunite during a lyrical visit through the Chiapas region of Mexico. Screens through Sept. 26 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Battle of the Year: Get your groove on with a bunch of fit young people competing for bragging rights in the ultimate dance competition.

Museum Hours: The Kunsthistorisches Art Museum in Vienna becomes the backdrop of a burgeoning friendship between a museum guard and Canadian woman visiting an estranged relative. Screens through Sept. 26 at La Jolla Village Cinemas. See our review on Page 22.

Prisoners: A desperate father (Hugh Jackman) takes the law into his own hands after his daughter disappears, despite the ongoing investigation by a dedicated police officer (Jake Gyllenhaal).

Salinger: An expansive and controversial look into the life of the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye. Sign Painters: Passionate documentary about the resurgence of traditional sign painters trying to save a dying art form in

Sign Painters the face of computer-designed and inkjet lettering. Screens through Sept. 24 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Thanks for Sharing: Romantic comedy about three friends who meet in a 12-step program for sex addicts. Awkwardness ensues. Stars Mark Ruffalo, Tim Robbins and Gwyneth Paltrow.

You Will Be My Son: A father and son clash over the future of their prestigious vineyard in France.

One Time Only Pearl Peep’s Movie Choice: It’s a leapof-faith kind of night. Surprise! Something screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

Obselidia: If the world’s going to end tomorrow, how are you going to live today?

Part road movie, part love story, part bittersweet meditation on the ephemeral nature of everything. A librarian believes love is obsolete, until a road trip to Death Valley with a cinema projectionist teaches him otherwise. Screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, at Scripps Ranch Public Library.

La Camioneta: Doc follows the path of decommissioned school buses from the U.S. to Guatemala, where they’re used for public transit. Also focuses on a plague of murders perpetrated by gang members when Camioneta drivers refuse to pay protection money. Presented by San Diego Latino Film Festival’s Que Viva! Cine Latino, it screens at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, at Otay Ranch Town Center Damaged Goods: After finding an abandoned pit bull in a field, a young British boy encounters a savage new world of underground dog fighting. Screens at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, at Queen Bee’s Art and Cultural Center in North Park.

Roman Holiday: Audrey Hepburn stars as a disgruntled princess eager to find love outside the limits of royalty. Gregory Peck is her American newsman prince.

Screens at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, through Saturday, Sept. 21, at Cinema Under the Stars in Mission Hills.

Pete’s Dragon: A young orphan and his magical dragon make waves in a seaside town while trying to escape the worst parents ever. Screens at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept.

19, at the Lafayette Hotel in North Park.

Barrio Film Festival: The Roots Factory and the Museum of Photographic Arts present the second annual fest, showcasing independent films. It happens Friday, Sept.

20, through Sunday, Sept. 22, at MoPA in Balboa Park. See Page 14 for details.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Play dress-up and sing like crazy. You know you want it. Screens at midnight Saturday, Sept. 21, at the Ken Cinema.

El Manzano Azul: A grown man reminisces about a pivotal summer he spent

on his grandfather’s country property in Venezuela. Presented by San Diego Latino Film Festival’s Cine en el Parque, it screens at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20, at Grape Day Park, California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

Wreck-it-Ralph: The titular video-game villain breaks out of his archetypical shell and finds being good quite infectious.

Screens at 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, at 4S Ranch Sports Park.

North by Northwest: Alfred Hitchcock takes crop-dusting to a new level, at Cary Grant’s expense. Screens at 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22, at Arclight La Jolla.

Humble Pie: An overweight grocery clerk sets out to become an actor and prove all of his detractors wrong in the process.

Screens at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 24, at Hervey Branch Library in Point Loma.

The Goonies: Me Chunk, you Sloth!

Screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

Ginger and Rosa: Two teenagers living in 1960s London attempt to transcend the looming menace of the Cuban Missile Crisis and retain some of their youth. Screens at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25, at the Mission Valley Public Library.

Now Playing An Oversimplification of her Beauty: An artist begins to reflect on his life after being stood up by a mystery woman, initiating a series of memories and observations that send the film into a stream-of-consciousness narrative. Screens through Sept. 19 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

The Family: Robert De Niro’s career continues to plummet in this dark comedy about a New York City family of mobsters living in France under false identities.

Insidious Chapter 2: More horrific and ghostly images from director James Wan, the devious auteur behind Saw, The Conjuring and, of course, Insidious.

Populaire: This fluffy and sweet ode to 1950s comedies follows the roller-coaster relationship between a secretary and her handsome boss, both of whom become obsessed with a speed-typing competition. Through Sept. 19 at the Ken Cinema.

Short Term 12: SDSU alum Dustin Cretton directs this award-winning film about the complex relationships populating a foster-care facility. Starring Brie Larson (The Spectacular Now) and John Gallagher Jr. (The Newsroom).

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

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 23

Daniel Boud

Way of the wanderer Dirty Beaches’ moody experimental sounds come from a life on the road

by Peter Holslin Moving to a new city is hard work. You have to pack up your shit, drop some coin to move it and hustle to set up new digs once you get there. You have to say goodbye to your friends and loved ones, and, worse, you have to reconcile with your biggest regrets—“Why didn’t I tell her I love her?”; “Why did I let them all down?”—while holding onto fond memories for dear life, lest they slip away forever.

Alex Zhang Hungtai, the creative force behind experimental rock project Dirty Beaches, knows how hard it is to move from one place to another—he’s been doing it his whole life. Born in Taiwan, he grew up in Honolulu before moving to cities like San Francisco, Montreal and Berlin. For every city he’s passed through, he’s amassed new friendships, memories and associations, only to eventually break from them out of necessity or personal choice.

“I’m a very nostalgic person. Not in the sense that I’m only obsessed with things that were around prior to my birth—no. I mean nostalgic as in, I miss the places I grew up in, and I miss all the food that I’ve eaten. I miss all the friends that I grew up playing with,” the 32-year-old musician says in an interview from a tour stop in Philadelphia.

In recent weeks, Hungtai’s made the road a temporary home as he and his bandmates tour in support of their latest album, Drifters / Love is the Devil, a beautiful double LP—which came out on Zoo Music, the label run by Crocodiles’ Brandon Welchez and Dum Dum Girls’ Dee Dee Penny—whose song titles (“Greyhound at Night,” “Like the Ocean We Part,” “I Don’t Know How to Find My Way Back to You”) emphasize gray-streaked vibes and transitory themes.

On the first section, Drifters, Hungtai roves the sonic highways on a bed of synth loops and drum-machine beats, singing in a guttural croon while his bandmates—guitarist Shub Roy, electronic artist Bernardino Femminielli and, occasionally, saxophonist Francesco De Gallo and drummer Jesse Locke—help whip up murky grooves, ghostly saxophone howls and gritty keyboard wails. On the other hand, the slower, more cinematic Love is the Devil finds Hungtai exploring minimalist chord sequences, distorted harmonic overtones and sonic flickers and moans of mysterious provenance.

Fans of Dirty Beaches’ 2011 breakthrough album, Bad-

24 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

lands, might prefer Drifters over Love is the Devil—both Badlands and Drifters are more traditionally rocking, in their own peculiar ways. But with repeated listens, Love is the Devil proves to be incredibly nuanced and emotionally rewarding. In the title track, Hungtai conjures a billowing cloud of synthesized strings and Mellotron chords, delivering a stunning performance that’ll rip the heart out of any lovesick pilgrim.

“This is my heart & soul. I need to get this off my chest,” Hungtai reportedly wrote on Twitter when the track came out. “This title track has blood & tears all over it and is the sound of my empty self. I need to share this before it becomes something else.”

True to Hungtai’s roving nature, Dirty Beaches—who play with SISU and Chasms at The Void on Saturday, Sept. 21—hits at familiar sounds from a worldly angle. On Badlands, Hungtai mined rockabilly, rock ’n’ roll and doo-wop not as a way to capture the indierock zeitgeist (since “retro” was stylish at the time), but as a poignant tribute to his father, who’d played in a doo-wop cover band while growing up in China.

With a distant, spooky croon reminiscent of Suicide vocalist Alan Vega, a pomaded Hungtai sang over loops of twinkling piano (“Lord Knows Best”) and sentimental guitar strums (“True Blue”). But everything was caked in lo-fi grime, giving the songs the feel of a weatherbeaten Polaroid.

Drifters / Love is the Devil also has a gritty, late-night tint, but the production is a bit more polished. When I mention to Hungtai that his songs sound like they’ve been dragged through the dirt, he corrects me, saying it was the other way around.

“We’re trying to bleach it and make it clean,” he says.

“We tried really hard to make it clean. You have no idea.

Alex Zhang Hungtai of Dirty Beaches We tried really hard.”

As it happens, the wanderer’s life isn’t one Hungtai’s always led by choice. When he was in his mid-20s, he had to leave the United States after he dropped out of college and his student visa was nullified. In interviews, he’s emphasized that it was no fun getting cut off from his bandmates and friends.

But in the time since, he’s embraced his inner nomad.

And as long as he stays single—“free as a bird,” he says—he probably won’t settle down any time soon.

“It’s hard to get a new job in a new town, but I’ve done that my whole life,” he says. “Every time you do it, you just develop the confidence that, ‘Yeah, I can actually move to a new city and get a new job and get a new apartment. I can do that. It’s not that hard.’ And once you develop that kind of confidence, you can go anywhere.”

Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com.

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 25

notes from the smoking patio Locals Only Drummer Ashley Brus has left psychedelic garage rockers The Kabbs.

Brus played her last show with the group—who released the “Get on My Way” single in April—at The Office in North Park on Sept. 11 and has since moved on to concentrate on a different instrument, the violin.

Brian Clinebell, The Kabbs’ vocalist, says in an email that the band’s in the process of finding someone new to get behind the kit.

“We are going to try out a new drummer, hopefully soon, and work on new songs with the new drummer,” he says.

Clinebell says that the band’s goal is to get back to playing shows by January. Despite the setback, they’re committed to keeping The Kabbs going.

“I hope we continue playing,” he says. “I love playing shows and have more songs to put together with Kyle [Whatley, guitar] and Ryan [Combs, bass].

“So, the future band seems good, it’s just down to putting in work.”

•••

Sean Martin, who plays guitar for The Heavy Guilt and The Midnight Pine, will leave San Diego soon.

He says he’ll be heading to Northern California for “non-musical reasons,” though he intends to continue playing music after relocating. Before he makes the move, however, he’ll record a new album with The Midnight Pine, who’ll play at Tin Can Ale House on Thursday, Sept. 26, with Joanie Mendenhall and Tide Pools.

The upcoming Golden Hill Street Fair has announced its music lineup. Rafter will headline and will be joined by Incan Abraham, Tropical Popsicle, Twin Brother, Strange Vine, Heavy Hawaii, Wild Wild Wets, Ditches, Ed Ghost Tucker and Kill Quanti DJs. The street fair takes place from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 13, on 25th Street, between B and C streets.

Music review The Most Hi The Most Hi EP (Kill Quanti) Ever since Jamaican pioneers like King Tubby, Augustus Pablo and Lee “Scratch” Perry began manipulating reggae recordings with echo effects and spacey mixes, dub has been in a constant state of evolution.

In the mid-1970s, it represented a sparser, otherworldly spin on roots reggae, and by the end of the decade, it was getting

26 · San Diego CityBeat · September 11, 2013

The Kabbs, with Ashley Brus at right its earthy textures roughed up and reincorporated into post-punk by bands like The Slits. In the 1980s, Adrian Sherwood’s experimental On-U Sound label brought dub into the dystopian age, and in the ’90s, electronic acts like The Orb used dub elements as a launching pad for ambient and house singles.

To hear where dub is today, however, give a listen to the debut EP by The Most Hi. A new project

by Santino Romeri of Illuminauts and Kill Quanti DJs, The Most Hi fuses traditional elements of dub—delay effects, reverb, deep and prominent bass lines—with more of a raw, punk aesthetic. Released both as a digital EP via Bandcamp and as a limited physical copy packaged in colored handmade scrolls, the record is 15 minutes of raw, dirty and ominous atmosphere.

The first track, “Do It To It,” is one of the more upbeat of the bunch, propelled by echoing, skipping beats and screeches of siren. The EP grows even more intriguing as it progresses, hitting a disorienting, noisy stride with second track “Top Sprocket.”

It’s little more than a noxious cloud of cacophonous samples for a solid 40 seconds but transitions into a cool, distorted bass throb, undercut with hard-hitting dancehall rhythms. It’s closer to Primal Scream’s XTRMNTR than The Upsetters’ Super Ape, but its dub roots are still easily detectable.

The longest track on the EP, “Shell Shock,” is also the only one to feature live vocals, provided by Ultragash. It’s an eerie, slow-creep of a track, juxtaposing bursts of beat-driven energy with passages of ambient tension.

The shortest track, “Banned in C.V.,” is saved for the end. A reinterpretation of Bad Brains’ “Banned in D.C.” through a noisy electronic filter, it closes the EP with a short explosion of chaotic fun.

Punk and dub have mixed before, but the solution stirred

by The Most Hi is a highly potent one.

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

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 27

if i were u Wednesday, Sept. 18 PLAN A: Valient Thorr, Lord Dying, Ramming Speed @ The Casbah. Do you enjoy wild, blazing guitar riffs? How about heroic vocals? Maybe some untamed facial hair? Of course you do! In any case, the aptly-if-ridiculously named Valient Thorr will scratch that barbaric itch. BACKUP PLAN: Midlake @ Soda Bar.

BY Jeff Terich ambient textures with a sinister, post-punk darkness. BACKUP PLAN: Deap Vally, Mystic Braves, JJUUJJUU @ Soda Bar.

Sunday, Sept. 22

PLAN A: The Psychedelic Furs, The Burning of Rome @ Belly Up Tavern.

It’s been a long time since The Psychedelic Furs have released any new music, but that hardly matters when your first four albums are as strong as theirs. Sure, they’ll Thursday, Sept. 19 play “Pretty in Pink,” but there are plenty PLAN A: Gold Panda, Slow Magic, Voices of other reasons to check out the U.K. legof Black @ The Casbah. One headliner on a ends. PLAN B: Lee Fields and the Expreslong list of great electronic shows happening sions, In Motion Collective, DJ Claire @ this week, Gold Panda takes a more playful, The Casbah. Lee Fields has had a long and but atmospheric approach to downtempo productive career that’s seen him go from music. The U.K.-born, Berlin-based pro- touring with the likes of Kool & The Gang ducer crafts gently surback in the 1970s to a Jane Chardiet real tunes from dreamy more recent move as an textures, sampled voices emotionally powerful and exotic loops. It’s less soul crooner. Earlier this like a dance party than year, he re-released his an audio vacation. PLAN 1979 debut, Let’s Talk It B: Harms Way, Dead in Over, which has a deeper the Dirt, Homewrecker, vintage funk sound than Fed to the Wolves @ his more recent material.

The Che Café. Dead in But whether it’s hardthe Dirt played The Che driving funk or romanCafé pretty recently, but tic ballads, Lee’s got all they’re back with fellow the right bases covered. crust purveyors Harms Pharmakon BACKUP PLAN: DeWay to get loud, brutal peche Mode, Crystal and grimy once again. BACKUP PLAN: Castles @ Sleep Train Amphitheatre.

Zaub Nasty, Melissa Alcazar, Anton’s Collective @ Tin Can Ale House.

Monday, Sept. 23

PLAN A: Joan of Arc, Swift Intruders, Big Bad Buffalo @ Soda Bar. There was PLAN A: The Orb, Nostalghia @ Porter’s a time, about 10 to 12 years ago, when the Pub. In the 1990s, The Orb became legends Kinsella brothers dominated indie rock. with albums like U.F.Orb and their signature The landscape has changed a bit since then, single “Little Fluffy Clouds,” and, this year, but Joan of Arc’s complex time signatures, the group hits its 25th anniversary. Help cel- surrealist humor and general weirdness ebrate by diving into their ambient dub and continue to provide an odd alternative to house jams. PLAN B: Metalachi @ The Cas- the power-chord norm. bah. The name more or less speaks for itself: Metalachi is a mariachi band that plays metal covers. Hear what Iron Maiden and Ozzy Os- Tuesday, Sept. 24 bourne sound like with a little south-of-the- PLAN A: Pharmakon, Body of Light, Sunborder flavor. It’s good, silly fun. BACKUP wheel, Elvissa @ The Void. Pharmakon is PLAN: Jesus AD, Tiger Sex, The Touchies, Margaret Chardiet, a New York-based industrial-noise artist who makes intense, visceral Gloomsday @ Kensington Club. compositions out of raw, punishing sounds.

Her new album, Abandon, is white-knuckle Saturday, Sept. 21 all the way, and closing highlight “CrawlPLAN A: MXMMF w/ Author and Pun- ing on Bruised Knees” is likely to give you isher, Swarmius, Bald Beast, Tenshun @ nightmares. In a good way! PLAN B: Mount Valencia Park. “MXMMF” stands for the Kimbie @ Porter’s Pub. Sometimes I think Malcolm X Experimental Music Fest, a day “dubstep” means different things depending of noise in the sun, in partnership with the upon where you live. In the U.S., it means Malcolm X Library and headlined by one- buzzy synths and bass drops. In the U.K., man industrial-metal destroyer Author and it means electronic innovators like Mount Punisher. It’s free, so stop by and get weird. Kimbie, who combine syncopated beats with PLAN B: Dirty Beaches, SISU, Chasms @ dreamy soundscapes. Whether either one is The Void. Flip to Page 24 for Peter Hols- the real definition, Mount Kimbie’s version lin’s feature on experimental indie-rock act is aces. BACKUP PLAN: Cali Cam, Kynan Dirty Beaches, which combines haunting @ Soda Bar.

Friday, Sept. 20

28 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

HOT! NEW! FRESH! Man Man (Casbah, 9/30), Louie Bello (BUT, 10/14), Saviours (Void, 10/16), Sleigh Bells, Doldrums (Moonshine Flats, 10/19), Castle (Void, 10/25), Lord Dying (Void, 10/30), Dax Riggs (Casbah, 10/30), Subhumans (Casbah, 11/4), Macy Gray (BUT, 11/7), The Body, Author & Punisher (Soda Bar, 11/12), Josh Berwanger (Soda Bar, 11/17), Steve Poltz (BUT, 11/21), U.S. Girls (Void, 11/23), Church of Misery (Soda Bar, 11/24), Waxahatchee, Swearin’ (Che Café, 12/7), Amon Amarth, Enslaved (HOB, 2/16).

CANCELLED The Julie Ruin (The Irenic, 9/22).

GET YER TICKETS Vampire Weekend (Open Air Theatre, 9/30), Toro y Moi (BUT, 10/1), Passion Pit (Open Air Theatre, 10/22), Paramore (Viejas Arena, 10/23), Buddy Guy (BUT, 10/28), Rocket From the Crypt (HOB, 10/31), Big Freedia (Casbah, 11/13), Alejandro Escovedo and the Sensitive Boys (The Casbah, 11/6), Janelle Monae (HOB, 11/6), Blitzen Trapper (Porter’s Pub, 11/9), Cults (The Irenic, 11/10), Ben Harper (Copley Symphony Hall, 11/16), Pearl Jam (Viejas Arena, 11/21), JAY Z (Valley View Casino Center, 12/7), Lee Ranaldo and the Dust (The Casbah, 12/14), NOFX (HOB, 12/19).

September Wednesday, Sept. 18 Valient Thorr at The Casbah. Wynonna at Belly Up Tavern. The Toasters at Brick

by Brick. Midlake at Soda Bar.

Thursday, Sept. 19 Lynyrd Skynyrd at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay. Julieta Venegas at House of Blues. Gold Panda at The Casbah.

Friday, Sept. 20 X-Fest w/ blink-182, The Offspring, 30 Seconds to Mars, Silversun Pickups, Jimmy Eat World, Wavves at Sleep Train Amphitheatre. Tech N9ne at House of Blues. The Orb at Porter’s Pub. Diana Krall at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay. Zapp at Valley View Casino Center.

Saturday, Sept. 21 One Drop at Belly Up. Dirty Beaches at The Void. Lila Downs at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay. The Vaccines at The Casbah. Cage the Elephant, Smallpools, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. at Junior Seau Oceanside Pier Amphitheatre. Deap Valley at Soda Bar.

Sunday, Sept. 22 Depeche Mode, Crystal Castles at Sleep Train Amphitheatre. Fall Out Boy at Valley View Casino Center. Lee Fields and the Expressions at The Casbah.

The Octopus Project at Soda Bar. The Psychedelic Furs at Belly Up Tavern.

Monday, Sept. 23

Tuesday, Sept. 24 Hanson at House of Blues. Mount Kimbie at Porter’s Pub. Title Fight at Epicentre. Common Sense at Belly Up Tavern.

Pharmakon at The Void.

Wednesday, Sept. 25 The Naked and Famous at House of Blues. Jail Weddings at The Casbah.

Blouse at The Void.

Thursday, Sept. 26 Woods, The Fresh & Onlys at The Casbah. Moving Units at Soda Bar. Michael Rose with Sly and Robbie at Belly Up Tavern.

Friday, Sept. 27 Islands at The Casbah. Blue Sky Black Death at Soda Bar. Air Supply at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay. Youth Code at The Void.

Saturday, Sept. 28 Keith Urban at Sleep Train Amphitheatre. Unknown Mortal Orchestra at The Casbah. Between the Buried and Me at House of Blues. Sol at The Loft.

Sunday, Sept. 29 Bullet for My Valentine at Soma. Matt Nathanson, Joshua Radin at House of Blues. Vaud and the Villains at Belly Up Tavern.

Monday, Sept. 30 Vampire Weekend at Open Air Theatre.

Man Man at The Casbah.

Joan of Arc at Soda Bar.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 31

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 29

October Tuesday, Oct. 1 Allah-Las, Jacco Gardner at The Casbah. Toro y Moi at Belly Up Tavern.

Wednesday, Oct. 2 Jake Bugg at House of Blues. Bob Schneider at Belly Up Tavern. Olafur Arnalds at The Loft.

Thursday, Oct. 3 Teenage Bottlerockets, The Queers at Soda Bar.

Friday, Oct. 4 John Mayer, Phillip Philips at Sleep Train Amphitheatre. Anathema, Alcest at The Casbah. Subhumans at The Casbah.

Saturday, Oct. 5 Maroon 5 at Sleep Train Amphitheatre.

Hugh Cornwell at Soda Bar. Shigeto at The Casbah.

Sunday, Oct. 6 Travis at House of Blues. Orange Goblin at Soda Bar. Anberlin, The Maine at SOMA. New Mexico at The Casbah.

Monday, Oct. 7 Taj Mahal Trio, Vusi Mahlasela and Fredericks Brown at Belly Up Tavern.

Pure X at The Casbah. Coliseum at Soda Bar.

Tuesday, Oct. 8 Pet Shop Boys at Copley Symphony Hall. Conor Oberst at Belly Up Tavern.

30 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

Wednesday, Oct. 9 Steve Earle and the Dukes at Belly Up Tavern.

Thursday, Oct. 10 The Legendary Pink Dots at The Casbah.

Friday, Oct. 11 Sean Hayes at The Griffin. Easton Corbin at House of Blues. King Khan and the Shrines at The Casbah. Spitalfield at Soda Bar. Red Fang at Brick by Brick.

Saturday, Oct. 12 Adult. at The Void.

Sunday, Oct. 13 Saves the Day at The Irenic. Kylesa at Brick by Brick. Drag The River at Bar Pink.

Monday, Oct. 14 Guitar Wolf at Soda Bar. City and Colour at House of Blues. The Dodos at The Casbah. Louie Bello at Belly Up Tavern.

Tuesday, Oct. 15 Primal Scream at Belly Up Tavern. Widowspeak at The Void. HAIM at The Casbah.

Wednesday, Oct. 16 Leon Russell at Belly Up Tavern. Braids at The Casbah. Crystal Antlers at Soda Bar. Saviours at The Void.

Thursday, Oct. 17 Helado Negro at Soda Bar.

rCLUBSr

710 Beach Club, 710 Garnet Ave, Pacific Beach. 710bc.com. Wed: Open mic, open jam. Thu: The Routine. Fri: Mark Hall (5 p.m.); Oceanside Sound System, Whiskey Avengers, Kingzland (9:30 p.m.).

Sat: Thrive, Veragroove, Roots of Mine.

Tue: ‘710 Bass Club’.

98 Bottles, 2400 Kettner Blvd. Ste. 110, Little Italy. 98bottlessd.com. Thu: Black Market III. Fri: Allison Adams Tucker Quintet.

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

Wed: DJs Innovade, Susio, Mr. German, JoshthebeaR. Thu: DJs Marbs, Bala, Ledher10. Fri: DJ Junior theDiscoPunk.

Sat: ‘Juicy’ w/ Mike Czech. Sun: DJs JoeMamma, Tramlife.

American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave, Downtown. americancomedyco. com. Wed: For the People. Thu: Edwin San Juan. Fri-Sat: Mick Foley. Sun: ‘Full Throttle Comedy’. Tue: Open mic.

AMSDconcerts, 4650 Mansfield St, Normal Heights. amsdconcerts.com. Sat: John Doyle.

Bar Pink, 3829 30th St, North Park. barpink.com. Wed: Stevie and the HiStax, DJ Barry Thomas. Thu: The Soul Fires. Fri: ‘Everything Is Terrible!’ w/ Milkcrates DJs. Sat: ‘Neon Beat’.

Bassmnt, 919 Fourth Ave, Downtown. bassmntsd.com. Fri: Stellar. Sat: Lazy Rich.

Beaumont’s, 5662 La Jolla Blvd, La Jolla. Wed & Sun: Kayla Hope. Fri: John Stanley King. Sat: Gonzology.

Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave, Solana Beach. bellyup.com. Wed: Wynonna and The Big Noise. Thu: Mishka. Fri: Young Dubliners, Shake Before Us. Sat: One Drop, Arden Park Roots, Piracy Conspiracy. Sun: The Psychedelic Furs, The Burning of Rome.

Tue: Common Sense, Paul Cannon Band, Stripes and Lines.

Boar Cross’n, 390 Grand Ave, Carlsbad. boarcrossn.net. Thu: Mysidia, Entrust.

Sat: Devistators, Shoreline Root.

Brick by Brick, 1130 Buenos Ave, Bay Park. brickbybrick.com. Wed: Toasters, Amalgamated, DJs Erny Earthquake, King Duffy. Thu: Two Lane Highway, Vasoline, The Blind Gunners. Fri: Sprung Monkey, Approaching Fiction, Zone of the Interior, Hazmatt. Sat: Burlesque Elvis Tribute. Sat: Hell on Heels Burlesque Review presents ‘Love Me Tender’.

Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. casbahmusic.com. Wed: Valient Thorr, Lord Dying, Ramming Speed. Thu: Gold Panda, Slow Magic, Voices of Black. Fri: Metalachi. Sat: The Vaccines, Chain Gang of 1974, Bad Suns. Sun: Lee Fields and the Expressions, In Motion Collective, DJ Claire. Mon: Lonesome Heroes, The Easy Leaves, John Meeks.

Che Cafe, UCSD campus, La Jolla. thechecafe.blogspot.com. Thu: Harms Way, Dead in the Dirt, Homewrecker, Fed to the Wolves. Fri: Brian Warren, Heatwarmer, Meraki, Swift Intruders. Tue: No Mic Open Mic. Croce’s, 802 Fifth Ave, Downtown. croces. com. Wed: Fuzzy. Thu: Gilbert Castellanos and the New Latin Jazz Quintet. Fri: Sue Palmer. Sat: Daniel Jackson (11:30 a.m.); Agua Dulce (8:30 p.m.). Sun: Elliott Lawrence (11:30 a.m.); The Archtones (7:30 p.m.).

Dizzy’s, 4275 Mission Bay Drive, Mission

Bay. dizzyssandiego.com. Fri: ‘The Colors of Latin Jazz’. Sat: Banda Magda. Sun: Muldoon.

El Dorado Bar, 1030 Broadway, Downtown. eldoradobar.com. Wed: ‘The Tighten Up’.

Thu: Matthew Dekay, Joan Dadon and Sand, Elong, Amanda Panda. Fri: ‘Hickeys and Dryhumps’. Sat: ‘Boys and Girls’.

Epicentre, 8450 Mira Mesa Blvd, Mira Mesa. epicentreconcerts.org. Fri: Ocean Hands, Patchwork Parachute, Buddha Trixie, Tim Connolly. Sat: Convent, The Calefaction, Within Ourselves, The Dawn Chose Orion, Silent Vice, Flowers Taped to Pens, Hospice, Children Midevil. Tue: Title Fight, Balance and Composure, Cruel Hand, Slingshot Dakota.

Fluxx, 500 Fourth Ave, Downtown. fluxxsd. com. Thu: AC Slater. Sat: DJ Cobra.

Gallagher’s, 5040 Newport Ave, Ocean Beach. 619-222-5303. Wed: Lady Dottie and the Diamonds. Thu: Sunny Rude. Fri: Noise Makerz. Sat: Danny and the Tramp.

Griffin, 1310 Morena Blvd, Bay Park. thegriffinsd.com. Wed: Snarky Puppy, Afro Jazziacs. Thu: Social Club, Night Riots, Oliver Trolley. Fri: Buhay Cali, Digital Martyrs, Odessa Kane, Rocky R3y, Olibata, Garvinski.

Sat: The Steppas, Hooligans, Da Mainland, DJ Westafa. Sun: Jempress and the I Sight Band, TRC Soundsystem. Tue: SXO, St. Cloud Sleepers, Plane Without a Pilot.

Hard Rock Hotel, 207 Fifth Ave, Downtown. hardrockhotelsd.com. Thu: Carousel, Magic Wands, Okapi Sun, Gabe Vega, Adam Salter.

House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave, Downtown. houseofblues.com/sandiego. Thu: Julieta Venegas. Fri: Tech N9ne. Sat: Lacy Younger, Lady Dottie and the Diamonds. Sat: Voices

CONTINUED ON PAGE 32

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 31

From The Heart II. Sun: Through the Roots.

Mon: Ben Rector, Tyrone Wells. Tue: Hanson, Paul McDonald.

Queen Bee’s, 3925 Ohio St, North Park. queenbeessd.com. Fri: The Trishas, Nena Anderson and the Mules.

Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. kavalounge.com. Thu: Mark de Clive-Lowe, Lil Ryan, Kevin Glover, Ivan G. Fri: RAW Hazard, Johnny 5, Oh Hazard, Vome, Jason, Fatcat, Genevieve.

Riviera Supper Club, 7777 University Ave, La Mesa. rivierasupperclub.com. Wed: Kice Simko. Thu: Shotgun Blues Band. Fri: Bloody Mary Bastards. Sat: Bedbreakers.

Kensington Club, 4079 Adams Ave, Kensington. 619-284-2848. Fri: Jesus AD, Tiger Sex, The Touchies, Gloomsday.

Lestat’s Coffee House, 3343 Adams Ave, Normal Heights. lestats.com. Wed: George Krikes, Nikki Lang, Rayana Zaraguza. Thu: 22 Kings, Andrew Duhnon, Beatie Wolfe.

Fri: Alaina Blair, Brian Johannessen, Kristi Krause. Sat: Allison Lonsdale (6 p.m.); Adam Stern, Sahara Grim. Sun: Charlotte Sometimes, Craig of Suede, Mason James. Mon: Open mic.

Office, 3936 30th St, North Park. officebarinc.com. Wed: ‘Club 1979’ w/ Super Buffet, Marco Polo. Thu: ‘For Your Pleasure’. Sat: ‘Strictly Business’.

Sun: ‘Uptown Top Ranking’. Mon: ‘Dub Dynamite’.

Onyx Room / Thin, 852 Fifth Ave, Downtown. onyxroom.com. Fri: ‘Rumba Lounge’ w/ DJs Martin Kache, Seize, La Mafia, Muzik Junkies. Sat: DJ Rags, Sachamo. Tue: Brian ‘Superb’ Olivia.

Patricks II, 428 F St, Downtown. patricksii.com. Wed: Len Rainey’s Midnight Players. Thu: Mystique Element of Soul. Sat: Bill Magee Blues Band.

Sun: TnT. Mon: WG and the G-Men. Tue: Walter’s Chicken Jam. Porter’s Pub, 9500 Gilman Dr., UCSD campus, La Jolla. porterspub.net. Fri: The Orb, Nostalghia. Sat: Zoniak, Samoan Irok. Sun: The Slackers, Ottly Mercer.

Tue: Mount Kimbie.

32 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

Seven Grand, 3054 University Ave, North Park. sevengrandbars.com/sd. Wed: Gilbert Castellanos jazz jam. Fri: Stevie and the Hi-Staxx. Tue: Lady Dottie and the Diamonds.

Shakedown Bar, 3048 Midway Drive, Point Loma. theshakedownsd.com. Fri: The Pheasants, The Focke-Wolves, Chica Diabla, Kodiak. Sat: Gamblerí Ûs Mark, Hard Fall Hearts, Bandits.

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

Wed: Midlake. Thu: The Dustbowl Revival, Euphoria Brass Band, A Mayfield Affair.

Fri: The So So Glos, Diarrhea Planet, The Frights. Sat: Deap Vally, Mystic Braves, JJUUJJUU. Sun: The Octopus Project, Paper Lions, Rubedo. Mon: Joan of Arc, Swift Intruders, Big Bad Buffalo. Tue: Cali Cam, Kynan.

Spin, 2028 Hancock St, Midtown. spinnightclub.com. Fri: Scarface. Sat: Jimmy Edgar, Kastle.

The Merrow, 1271 University Ave, Hillcrest. rubyroomsd.com. Thu: Bitter Sober, The Lovebirds, Whitney Myer. Fri: Clear Black, Love and the Skull, Hocus.

The Void, 3519 El Cajon Blvd, North Park. thevoidsd.com. Wed: Learning Team. Fri: White Poppy, Umberto. Sat: Dirty Beaches, SISU, Chasms. Tue: Pharmakon.

Til-Two Club, 4746 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. tiltwoclub.com. Fri: Arise Roots, Escera, Mala Salud, Scatterbrain. Sat:

The Widows, Marsupials, Christ Killer, Ramp Locals, DJs Juliancito, Chango Rey. Sun: Cabuloan, Batwings, Rebels and Traitors, Behind the Wagon.

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

Wed: Sweet Jesus, Gary Hankins, John and the Time Traveling Bicycle. Thu: Zaub Nasty, Melissa Alcazar, Anton’s Collective.

Fri: Tori Roze and the Hot Mess, The Brothers Zmed, Tolan Shaw. Sat: Daniel Crawford, Hurry On Sundown, Luke Johnson. Mon: ‘Tin Can Country Club’ w/ Gayle Skidmore. Tue: Normandie Wilson, Odi, Saba.

Tower Bar, 4757 University Ave, City Heights. thetowerbar.com. Wed: The Ratts Revenge. Fri: Johnny Manak and the Depressives, The Hip Priests, Human Shield. Sat: Shiva Trash, Bat Lords, Love Letters, DJ Richard Thompson.

U-31, 3112 University Ave, North Park. u31bar.com. Wed: ‘Turn the Beat Around’.

Thu: DJ Schoeny. Fri: DJ R-You, Boogie Buba, Beatknockers. Sat: DJ Qenoe.

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

Thu: Zachary Cuddy. Fri: Billy the Kid. Sat: DJ Vince Delano. Sun: DJ Decon.

Tue: Will Duka.

Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, South Park. whistlestopbar.com. Thu: ‘Astrojump’ w/ Kill Quanti DJs. Fri: ‘F#ing in the Bushes’ w/ DJs Daniel Sant, Rob Moran. Sat: ‘80s vs 90s’ w/ DJs Gabe Vega, Saul Q. Winstons, 1921 Bacon St, Ocean Beach. winstonsob.com. Wed: ‘Club Kingston’ w/ Revival, DJ Carlos Culture.

Thu: Elephants In Mud, Joshua Fischel, Tenacious C. Fri: Acorn Project, Brothers Gow. Sat: Stranger, Tribe of Kings. Mon: Electric Waste Band. Tue: ‘The Drop’.

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 33

Proud sponsor: San Diego Whale Watch

Ink Well Xwords by Ben Tausig

Across 1. Overwhelmed by a serve 5. “Go!” 10. Bean, e.g.

16. ___ wave 17. Camelid family member 18. Whirlpool alternatives 19. Monthly compendium of writing so vile you can’t put it down?

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46. Diary on a spaceship 47. “___ what you did there ...”

48. Proper partner 50. Super Mario Bros. 2 character who spits eggs 53. Fund 56. Branded variation of Crazy Eights 57. Keats’s “___ on Melancholy” 58. Women’s skating great Michelle who never won Olympic gold 60. College Board exam 61. “The Master” director, casually 62. Raunchy Foxx 64. Use Pam as a drug, maybe 66. What you will?

68. Genre that’s so obviously, transcendently

Last week’s answers

bad you have to hear more of it?

72. Off the scale, in a way 73. Gangnam’s city 74. Chore list heading 75. Linguistics unit 76. Drab tone 77. Judger of taste

Down 1. Stuff in a volcanic plume 2. Jack Ryan, e.g.

3. Bog down 4. One may be white-tailed 5. Perv 6. Woody Allen’s instrument 7. 1986 BMX racing film 8. Iowa straw poll city 9. Agatha Christie detective 10. 1965 movie in which Sophia Loren and Paul Newman are both really nice on the eyes 11. One of the Big Four record labels, until it became the Big Three 12. “Poker Face” singer, casually 13. International org. with 195 members 14. Any song from “The Grey Album,” e.g.

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70. Letters on a beer-thieving roommate’s note 71. “Arrested Development” brother

A pair of tickets for a three-hour San Diego Whale Watch tour will be awarded weekly. Email a picture of your answers to crossword@sdcitybeat.com or fax it to 619-325-1393. Limit one win per person per 30 days.

34 · San Diego CityBeat · September 18, 2013

September 18, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 35