San Diego CityBeat • Nov 27, 2013

n 1 o i 0 t c i 1 F

The winners of our annual short-story contest • P. 21

2 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 3

Kevin Faulconer and his lying friends Let’s start with a necessary jab at San Diego City Councilmember and candidate for mayor David Alvarez.

A few weeks before the Nov. 19 primary election, Alvarez sent out a statement saying, “Out of town interests and a politician running for Mayor of San Diego are teaming up to threaten the recently approved Barrio Logan Community Plan update which would create jobs and improve the health and quality of life of Barrio Logan.”

By not specifically calling out City Councilmember Kevin Faulconer, Alvarez’s opponent in the upcoming runoff election, Alvarez essentially gave Faulconer a pass on his major role in the effort to overturn the landmark update of the Barrio Logan Community Plan, which was passed by the City Council at the end of good-faith negotiations and a proper Democratic process.

Indeed, Faulconer pretty much got a free pass on every issue as the primary campaign became a race between Democrats Alvarez and Nathan Fletcher for the second spot in the two-man runoff. It was conceded that Faulconer, the only high-profile Republican running for mayor, would easily secure the first spot.

We hope that Alvarez is done giving Faulconer a free ride on Barrio Logan because Faulconer is neck-deep in the controversy.

As detailed in Joshua Emerson Smith’s news story on Page 7, people who have been getting paid to collect signatures to place on the ballot a referendum that would overturn the Barrio Logan plan update have lied to potential petition signers about the impacts of the update.

They’ve told people that the Navy will pull out of San Diego, that the plan will replace the shipyards with condos and that tens of thousands of jobs will be lost—none of which is true. This wasn’t simply one signature gatherer gone rogue; there have been numerous documented cases of blatant lying. We’ve seen multiple videos of the liars doing their thing.

Faulconer opposed the plan update and immediately hitched his campaign wagon to the effort to get a referendum on the ballot. He initially lied himself, stating that the plan update would kill 46,000 maritime jobs. He’s stopped saying that—because it’s false—but the damage of his disinformation, coupled with the lies being told by the signature

gatherers, has been done. It’s likely that the only way to stop the referendum is for Coast Law Group and Environmental Health Coalition to succeed in proving election fraud.

We asked Faulconer to comment on the obvious pattern of lies, but he declined, instead providing us with a written statement that continues the rhetoric that the plan update is a job killer and expresses hope that the court won’t get in the referendum’s way.

Faulconer must be held accountable. Not only did he express unequivocal support for the referendum; he even went out and collected signatures himself as a campaign stunt. But also, CityBeat’s Kelly Davis analyzed campaign-finance disclosures and found that Faulconer has raked in at least $36,650 from people involved in shipyards in San Diego, the industry that’s bankrolling the refDavid Rolland erendum campaign.

Reporters must press Faulconer on the deceitful referendum process whenever he attempts to use it to his advantage in the race for mayor. He bought in to it, so he owns it.

The only controversial aspect of the wide-ranging plan update is a small buffer zone inside which no new ship-repair-related businesses can open without getting a conditional-use permit and no such existing business can expand by more than 20 percent without getting that permit. That’s pretty much it. No new housing can be Kevin Faulconer built in the zone or anywhere closer to the waterfront. Plan opponents simply believe that the buffer zone will create a residential-serving commercial area that will allow residents to get comfortable, and they’ll eventually start complaining about the shipyards.

Meanwhile, the point of the plan update was to provide additional relief to residents who’ve long been coping with air pollution that’s so bad that children in Barrio Logan are hospitalied for asthma at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rest of the population.

If a referendum reaches the ballot, that genuine, true, real-life information will surely be drowned out by the distortions coming from the far-betterfinanced other side.

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

This issue of CityBeat will trample you on Black Friday.

Volume 12 • Issue 16 Editor David Rolland Associate Editor Kelly Davis Music Editor Jeff Terich Arts Editor Kinsee Morlan Staff Writer Joshua Emerson Smith Web Editor Ryan Bradford Art director Lindsey Voltoline Columnists Aaryn Belfer, Edwin Decker, John R. Lamb, Alex Zaragoza

Contributors Ian Cheesman, David L. Coddon, Seth Combs, Michael A. Gardiner, Glenn Heath Jr., Nina Sachdev Hoffmann, Peter Holslin, Dave Maass, Scott McDonald, Jennifer McEntee, Jenny Montgomery, Susan Myrland, Mina Riazi, Jim Ruland, Jen Van Tieghem, Quan Vu Production Manager Tristan Whitehouse Production artist Rees Withrow MultiMedia Advertising Director Paulina Porter-Tapia Senior account executives Jason Noble, Nick Nappi Account Executive Beau Odom

Cover art by Scrojo Circulation / Office Assistant Giovanna Tricoli Intern Connie Thai Accounting Alysia Chavez, Linda Lam, Monica MacCree Human Resources Andrea Baker Vice President of Finance Michael Nagami

Advertising inquiries Interested in advertising?

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

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

Vice President of Operations David Comden Publisher Kevin Hellman

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 · November 27, 2013

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 5

Correction In his film review in last week’s issue, Glenn Heath Jr. mistakenly wrote that the first Hunger Games movie came out in 2010. It was released in 2012. We’re sorry for the error.

6 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

to working on the root causes of homelessness so the problem will go away.

Barry Pulver, Rancho Penasquitos

A better homelessness question

Who’s next on Decker’s hit list?

The one and only correct answer to the question on homelessness [“Editorial,” Oct. 30] is “that is a bullshit question.” Any person with half a brain understands that it will not be any one or combination of programs that the city of San Diego can enact that will “solve” the homeless problem. It requires actions at all levels of government, business, NGOs and the public to create the society where homelessness no longer exists.

The question that should have been asked is, “What do you consider is the problem with the homeless population?” The answer to that question will not only be an excellent barometer on how the candidate will address homeless people in our city but also give us insights into how that person will govern. If that question was asked, I suspect that Kevin Faulconer would say it’s the effect it has on Downtown businesses—no one would want to go to a restaurant or Realtor if there was a homeless person standing in front—and David Alvarez responding that it’s the damage that occurs to those who are homeless, the effect it has on a parent who can’t provide housing for a child, the child who is made to feel worthless or the vet who has given up.

And those answers will tell us how they will address the problem, ranging from making the homeless invisible so they won’t interfere with business

May I assume that the next belief system Mr. Decker will viciously attack will be Islam and Mohammad, just like he did with the Catholic faith and the Pope in his Nov. 13 “Sordid Tales” column? If he’s still alive after attacking Islam, then he can turn his hate speech on the Jewish, then Sikh, then Buddhist, then Baptist inter alia belief systems. After all, equality of outcomes is the hallmark of a progressive world outlook, a world outlook espoused

by San Diego CityBeat.

Lou Cummings, La Jolla

Wouldn’t vote for Peters Regarding your Nov. 13 editorial about Scott Peters’ recent vote on the Affordable Care Act (ACA): Essentially, Peters voted to gut the ACA since the ACA can’t function with a parallel market that doesn’t have to adhere to the ACA. Your editorial put it perfectly!

I don’t live in Peters’ district, but I surely wouldn’t vote for him if I did. Hopefully, the Dems can find a more representative candidate next time around.

Hope Nelson, Carlsbad

The shipyard is falling!

Courtesy: Coast Law Group

Kevin Faulconer stands by legally challenged signature drive

about this issue to do the same,” he wrote.

“I’m hopeful the court will not stand in the way of San Diegans voting on this plan if the City Council does not rescind it.”

The Environmental Health Coalition (EHC), a nonprofit organization that has

by Joshua Emerson Smith over the years focused much of its work on Barrio Logan, filed the lawsuit earlier this On his way to pick up some groceries at month, asking a San Diego Superior Court Trader Joe’s in Hillcrest a few weeks ago, Da- judge to throw out the referendum due to vid Lundin overheard several people talking election-code violations. If the court disabout a plan to build condominiums on San agrees and allows the process to continue, Diego’s shipyard while they were gathering the City Council must decide whether to signatures for a petition. One of the signa- nix the community-plan update or send it ture gatherers said the petition would stop to the voters. the development, save more than 40,000 It’s not clear what signature gatherers jobs and keep the Navy from leaving. have been instructed to say, but Chris Wahl, Believing the facts to be grossly inaccu- spokesman for the referendum campaign, rate, Lundin asked the man where he got said the claims aren’t lies at all. his information, but the signature gatherer “EHC says so because they are taking refused to answer. A woman also collecting the literal interpretation of direct jobs at the signatures said the petition was for a ref- shipyards,” he said. “Our interpretation is that erendum to prevent the city from closing a virtually all maritime jobs in [San Diego] are Navy repair facility and to save jobs, but she tied to the Navy, and this flawed plan directly would not elaborate. threatens the naval presence in the region.”

Stories of conniving signature gatherLawyers for EHC said that the claims coners have lately not been hard to come by. stitute deception because signature gatherers Besides numerous accounts in the me- expressed their opinions as fact. The plan, dia, Lundin’s story is one of more than 40 they argue, cannot directly affect the shipyard signed declarations collected in two weeks because it’s located on port tidelands, which by the Coast Law Group for a lawsuit on be- are regulated by the state, not the city. At the half of the Environmental Health Coalition. same time, the Navy has publicly taken a neuThe sworn testimonies represent incidents tral stance on the community-plan update, at more than a dozen locations. and the city estimates that the area could see The lawsuit contends that signature an increase of about 4,800 jobs. gatherers tricked numerous residents into The Faulconer campaign maintains that signing a referendum petition by claiming the plan could eliminate “thousands of that the recently approved update of the jobs” but recently abandoned a claim that Barrio Logan Community Plan would cause it threatens 46,000 jobs—a number that inthe shipyard to close and be built over with cludes all maritime-related industries, such condominiums, push out the Navy and re- as marine recreation, biomedicine, fishing, sult in the loss of 46,000 jobs. weather science, even some jobs at water“I don’t think there’s ever been a case of front hotels and restaurants. voter fraud in California quite this bad, in “The 46,000 figure was an initial figparticular where we have evidence of it,” ure,” said Tony Manolatos last week before said Livia Borak, the attorney handling the leaving his position as Faulconer’s camcase. “This isn’t one or two signature gath- paign spokesman. “We since have revised. erers. This is ubiquitous.”

It’s not accurate.”

Mayoral candidate and San Diego City Manolatos expressed skepticism about Councilmember Kevin Faulconer, who’s col- widespread lying by signature gatherers lected at least $36,650 in campaign contribu- but agreed that several specific statements were inaccurate. “I tions from the shipping don’t think the Navy’s industry and related in“The 46,000 figure going to pull out of San terests since September, Diego. I don’t think the has embraced the referwas an initial figure. port’s going anywhere.” endum and even helped We since have revised.

However, Wahl said collect signatures for the community-plan it as part of his quest to It’s not accurate.” update allows residenbecome mayor. He de—Tony Manolatos tial development that clined multiple requests will eventually push the for an interview regarding the false claims being made by signature shipping industry out completely.

“Whether that housing is one, two or gatherers, but, in an email statement, he stood by the referendum campaign despite three blocks away, once the housing is there, there’s no turning back,” he said. “You the allegations of fraud.

“I’ve been upfront with San Diegans can build housing anywhere in the city. You about the great uncertainty this plan poses can’t put the shipyards anywhere.”

Located adjacent to the neighborhood for the shipyard suppliers that contribute to the employment of thousands of San of Barrio Logan, San Diego’s shipyard emDiegans, and I encourage everyone talking ploys roughly 7,000 workers. There are also

A signature gatherer outside of Trader Joe’s in Hilcrest displays a sign falsely stating that a referendum would prevent “re-zoning the shipyard.” a handful of maritime-related businesses located between the working waterfront and the neighborhood’s roughly 4,300 residents.

Everyone agrees the situation is less than ideal.

The three shipping giants that control the waterfront—General Dynamics NASSCO, BAE Systems and Continental Maritime of San Diego—raised concerns that as the neighborhood grows, homeowners and renters will increasingly complain about noise and pollution, pressuring industry to scale back.

At the same time, residents already complain about their proximity to pollution.

Circumscribed by the maritime industry to the west and Interstate 5 to the east, Barrio Logan’s children are hospitalized for asthma at 2.5 times the county average.

To address the issue, San Diego City Councilmember David Alvarez, who is also running for mayor, brokered a deal between the shipping industry and the residents of Barrio Logan.

In the end, the City Council approved the plan with a “transition zone,” located along Harbor Drive and Main Street between Sigsbee and 28th streets, to separate residential and industrial with commercial uses.

The industry lobbied hard to prohibit any residential from being allowed in the zone, and, after negotiations, Alvarez agreed.

“I’ve acknowledged that that was a legitimate concern with the previous ver-

sions that were out there,” he said. “Look, we want to defend the working waterfront, and you don’t want to lose those jobs.”

To protect the neighborhood from potential sources of pollution, Alvarez also included a provision requiring new industrial businesses to go through a rigorous permitting process before locating in the transition zone. The plan grandfathers in the fewer than a dozen maritime-related businesses already located in the transition zone, allowing them to expand by 20 percent or less without a new permit.

However, the shipping industry took offense to the requirement and launched the referendum campaign, citing concerns about residential encroachment.

“I think it comes down to a group of individuals who are so entrenched in wanting to win, and have spent so much money trying to win, that if they do not win, they lose credibility,” Alvarez said. “This is not about winning.

That’s why there was a compromise.”

The referendum campaign is expected within the next week to turn in the necessary number of signatures to force a vote on the issue. If the City Council overturns the plan, it cannot be re-approved for at least a year, unless substantial changes are made.

Kelly Davis contributed research to this story. Write to joshuas@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 7

spin cycle

john r.

lamb ‘There will be negativity’ “Nobody roots for Goliath.”

—Wilt Chamberlain High above Downtown—on a sparkling November morning that seemed to cry out, “How hard can selling San Diego as a tourist destination be?”—stood mayoral hopeful Kevin Faulconer, flanked by a dozen or so people whose livelihoods, his campaign folks explained, depend on tourism dollars.

Faulconer, whose campaign to date has been criticized by opponents as too Downtown-focused, laughed off Spin’s suggestion of the irony of the venue choice for his first news conference since finishing first in the primary election to replace the dethroned Bob Filner.

“Oh, I think it was, I don’t know.

Matt? View? Location?” Faulconer

said Monday, turning to Matt Awbrey, currently the City Council member’s chief of staff and spokesperson, who’ll take over the primary communications reins for the campaign beginning Jan. 1.

“View, location,” Awbrey echoed, “but also to point out that San Diegans, no matter where they work, they live throughout the city, and their lives and employment are going to be affected by the decisions of the next mayor.”

The hotel industry is firmly behind Faulconer in this mayoral run. So it’s not hard to fathom how a $1,000-a-night presidential suite at the pristine Courtyard Marriott on Broadway was made available for a half-hour press conference that drew four reporters.

The backdrop from the balcony was indeed breathtaking, but

8 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

the event just oozed exclusivity.

From instructions by a desk clerk to head downstairs to meet a woman in a brown skirt who will escort you via elevator to the 14th floor, to the walkie-talkie-toting security guy who completed the circuitous delivery, frankly, it all felt a little cloistered.

Once there, Faulconer could be heard in full-throttled campaign mode, hammering on two recent City Council votes where he and council colleague and mayoral opponent David Alvarez parted ways.

Alvarez, he boomed, “voted for the jobs tax and against the tourism plan. That’s the wrong path….

These two votes, cast two days after the primary election, underscore a fundamental difference between my colleague and myself.”

The “jobs tax,” as Faulconer and opponents like to frame it, was a reference to the council’s approval of a boost in the so-called linkage fee charged to developers to help subsidize affordable housing. Proponents argue that the fee hike was long overdue and necessary for San Diego’s costly housing market. Opponents labeled it a job killer.

“Council made the wrong vote on that jobs tax,” he said of the party-line 5-4 vote. “We need to do everything we can to ensure

that it does not go through.”

Asked if that meant yet another referendum challenging a council vote, he balked. Instead, Faulconer reiterated his alignment with shipbuilders pushing two controversial referendums challenging a council-approved community plan for Barrio Logan. The Environmental Health Coalition has filed suit against shipbuilders, claiming signature gatherers lied about the community plan’s impact on the industry (see Pages 4 and 7).

Regarding the “tourism plan,” Faulconer was referring to the council’s near-unanimous approval last week to release millions of city-held dollars to the hotelier-run Tourism Authority for promotional efforts. Alvarez was the lone vote against the plan, citing continued legal risk to the city over the arrangement.

Faulconer backers over at Doug Manchester Media Empire Inc., aka U-T San Diego, immediately piled on Alvarez, calling him in one editorial “the lone holdout”— the implication being that the Democratic council member is anti-tourism rather than simply lawsuit-averse. Campaign-mailer designers no doubt cooed.

“The love fest is over,” laughed Mickey Kasparian, president of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, credited by many as the reason Alvarez remains in the hunt.

Local GOP Chairman and ’50s-Mafia-movie-lingo aficionado Tony Krvaric, who once referred to Kasparian as “The Bat,” actually shared congratulatory handshakes with Kasparian on election night when Krvaric paid an unannounced visit to Alvarez Central in Logan Heights.

“He said, ‘You guys ran an amazing campaign,’” Kasparian said. “I kind of took it as respect for the job that we did.”

But Kasparian knows the hits will come. Some were touched on during the primary—that Alvarez is too inexperienced (read: young), that he’s the City Council’s most liberal member, that he’s beholden to his labor supporters.

That he’s basically Filner Jr. “I know people say they’d prefer to hear the positives about candidates,” he added, “but from the beginning of time, there’s always negativity that is put out in campaigns because, ultimately, people want to win. Sometimes they go below the belt. You’re going to see that in this campaign. I’m not saying who throws the first punch, who draws the first blood, but there will be negativity.”

When Krvaric tweeted a week

John R. Lamb

Faulconer and his security before the primary that he considered third-place finisher Nathan Fletcher “an arrogant, self-centered prick who sees himself as God’s gift to America,” the backlash was swift. Even Faulconer decried the tone, albeit without calling out the GOP chairman by name.

Asked Monday if part of leadership is about influencing the behavior of supporters, Faulconer pivoted: “What I’ve said is it helps everybody to use language that is appropriate…. It’s all about policy, not personalities.”

Certainly, the attacks against Fletcher stretched beyond mere policy disagreements—daily Faulconer tweets hammering on the former state Assembly member to release his calendar and college transcripts demonstrated that.

Spin provided Faulconer with a copy of the résumé he submitted in 2000 to then-Mayor Susan Golding, requesting appointment to the city’s Park and Recreation Board, hoping it would spark recollections about his public-relations days that so far have proven rather elusive.

For Nelson Communications Group, Faulconer wrote, he provided “strategic oversight and management for firm ballot measure campaigns.”

“The firm was involved in a variety of ballot-measure campaigns,” he said Monday. “Let me think about that and get back to you.”

He did, however, quickly recall meeting Star Wars creator George Lucas “once” while working for a previous company on land-use issues for Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Ranch in Marin County. “Great guy,” he said.

To which his campaign manager Steve Puetz interjected, “That’s some serious investigative journalism!” When reminded it was on Faulconer’s own résumé, Puetz softened. “I had no idea you had done work with Lucas,” he said.

Live and learn.

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

edwin

sordid tales

decker Our federal holidays are mostly full of shit I was thinking recently about the myth of the first being venerated. However, there’s also the problem Thanksgiving, the one of the Pilgrims breaking bread that Columbus wasn’t even close to being the first with the Wampanoag Indians and the—ahem—lastperson to find America. As Norse Viking Leif Ericking friendship that ensued. son told a reporter from Modern Pillager magazine, Don’t get me wrong; in practice, I love Thanksgiv“Hann á hamar Þórr ferr oft til Jötunheima ó liviör ing—what with the turkey, the football, the eggnog and chyyped?” which translates loosely to: “What am I, bonding, it really would be a magical day if not for the chopped liver?” fact that Thanksgiving has been lying to us all along.

Columbus never set foot on what is now U.S. soil, There are a lot of Thanksgiving myth debunkers says author and historian Bill Bryson in the book At out there, and a lot of the debunkers themselves need Home: A Short History of Private Life: “It would be debunking, but if you wade through, you’ll discover hard to name any figure in history who has achieved the first Thanksgiving was nothing like the Hallmark more lasting fame with less competence. [Columimage we all have in our heads; nor was it even called bus] spent eight years bouncing around the islands Thanksgiving. It was purportedly an impromptu of the Caribbean and coast of South America conmeal among the Pilgrims, likely to give thanks to God vinced that he was in the heart of the Orient…. He for the food, valuables and graves they just robbed never worked out that Cuba is an island and never from the natives. The real first Thanksgiving was once set foot on, or even suspected the existence of, proclaimed by Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop the landmass to the north that everyone thinks he to celebrate the colonists’ victory massacre of 700 discovered: the United States.”

Pequot men, women and children.

Oy, do I have little tolerance for feel-good fairy There are other theories, most of which end tales, population-controlling myths and the propwith a grip of dead Indians, but one thing is certain: ping up of false heroes. That’s why, when I become The story Thanksgiving has been telling us all these King of America, I will repeal all these full-of-shit years about this iconic meal is a federal fables and replace them teepee-sized pile of bison shit. with true and useful holidays— And it occurred to me, as I was holidays like Blissmas, which The story Thanksgiving mulling over these ever-so-upliftis Christmas without gift shophas been telling us all ing thoughts, that Thanksgiving ping or religious worship, and these years about this is not the only holiday that’s not Melloween, which is Halloween been completely square with us. minus any brats pounding on iconic meal is a teepeeTurns out most of our federal holyour door demanding candy and sized pile of bison shit. idays are, indeed, quite up to their exaggerated praise for their tebrims with fecal matter—not the dious costumes. least of which is Christmas, which On the fourth Thursday of evcelebrates the birth of the baby Jesus even though ery November, we’ll celebrate Banksgiving, a holiit’s unlikely that Christ was born on Dec. 25. day that requires financial institutions to give inThere’s nothing in the scriptures that identifies terest-free loans to anyone who asks. In June, we’ll Jesus’ birthdate, and it’s unlikely that the Church celebrate Mammorial Day, an homage to breasts— guessed it correctly some five centuries later when it God’s greatest gift—and on Ass Wednesday, we shall didn’t even get his birth year correct (most contemcelebrate God’s second greatest gift. porary historians put Jesus’ birth at around 5 B.C.).

Casual Sex Friday is the day you can bang your More compelling, however, are clues to the seaassistant in an empty conference room with no son in which Christ was born. According to Luke strings attached, and every Saturday we shall ob2:7-8, the shepherds were in the fields at the time of serve The Black Sabbath Day, a holy day when Jesus’ birth, which is problematic since shepherds you’re not allowed to work, drive, use the phone or would not have been out during a bitter Israel winconsume anything besides alcohol, drugs and koter unless it was to cut a sheep open and crawl insher bat heads. side for warmth.

And last but not least—a holiday for which hisLuke also states that Joseph and Mary were in tory will forever thank me—I hereby declare Aug. Bethlehem to register for the Roman census. But the 15 as Not for the Children Day. NFCD is the one day census was taken in autumn. There are more clues, when nobody is allowed to say, “What about the but the accepted conclusion of most academics, children?” or “We have to do it for the children!” theological historians and anybody else who delved or care about children in any way. This means permitting unscrambled porn on daytime network into it a tad deeper than what they learned in the television, profanity at the dinner table, speeding third grade is that the date was likely lifted from the in school zones and duct-taping kids’ mouths when pagans who worshipped Dec. 25 as the birthday of they get fussy in restaurants. the sun god. So, with a few dabs of whiteout and a bit of marketing, the sun god became the Son of God and Write to edwin@sdcitybeat.com thus a worldwide holiday, albeit bullshit, was born. and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Now, Columbus Day—there’s a holiday that’s unListen to “Sordid Tales: The Podcast” abashedly full of it. Chris Columbus’ vicious crimes at sdcitybeat.com. against humanity are enough to preclude him from

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 9

by michael a. gardiner Michael A. Gardiner

the helm at Herringbone Los Angeles). Searsucker was cloned in Austin and Scottsdale. Perhaps most bizarrely, EHG opened a restaurant in Entebbe, Uganda—a place more known for daring hostage rescues than high cuisine.

What in the name of tweed was going on here?

A Restaurant Week lunch re-visit to Searsucker suggested cracks were beginning to show. While the tomato-tarragon soup with basil pesto was, if anything, Beef tartare, taro chip and quail yolk better than a year before—its deep, roasted flavor said “tomato” and did so loudly, brashly and excitedly, not unlike Malarkey’s personal style—the El Cubano sandwich and the steak salad were flawed. Where the pulled pork had been gloriously moist, it was now on the dry side. The steak managed to be both overdone and fatty. The desserts were a disaster.

What a difference a year makes Dinner at Searsucker, with its nightclub atmosphere, was perhaps more revealing. The beef tarBrian Malarkey can still cook fish, and he does so tare was well-executed, the quail egg an attractive really well. Despite the pressures of celebrity and and elegant touch and the flavors well-balanced. the exigencies of managing a rapidly expanding The crab cake with Tabasco was less successful. The (and contracting) restaurant empire, the mako lump crab meat itself was flavorful, and I enjoyed shark with crispy onions at Searsucker (611 Fifth the “carb-free” feature, but it was unremittingly Ave., Downtown, searsucker.com) serves as a resalty, and the capers exacerbated the problem. minder to those who ate at Oceanaire before MaThe “Tongue & Cheek” dish was a step back in larkey’s run on Top Chef: The man can cook fish. the right direction. The braised beef cheeks were all A year ago, Malarkey was flying. He was the deep, luxurious meaty goodness in contrast to the face of the ever-growing Enlightened Hospitality crispy bits of tongue. While the nopales and queso Group (EHG) “Fabric of Social Dining” restaufresco lent more to the look than the flavor, the pickrant empire: Searsucker, Herringbone, Gabardine, led daikon batons were a brilliant touch both visuGingham and Burlap. Malarkey was the face of the ally and on the palate, offering a hint of acidity that San Diego culinary world, our most recognizable the dish needed to counter its richness. and marketable figure. His new foodie television And then there was that mako shark. Succulent game show, Taste, was about to debut on ABC, and and moist with a perfect char, tomato on one side his flagship restaurants, Searsucker and Herringwith uncharacteristically delicate sauce swirls on bone, found both critical and business success. the other and crispy onion rings on top, this was a That was then. A year later, five local restaudish worth coming back for, a dish worth patience rant concepts have shrunk to three. Gingham (a) in the face of EHG’s turbulent year. Malarkey, it caught on fire (literally), (b) was nearly sold to the should be remembered, was a top chef at least in part because the man really can cook.

Cohn Group and (c) subsequently shut its doors.

Burlap in Del Mar also closed (only to be rebrandWrite to michaelg@sdcitybeat.com ed as another outpost of Searsucker). Four chefs and editor@sdcitybeat.com. left (one, Anthony Sinsay, since returned to take

the world

fare

10 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

by ian cheesman

beer &

chees

These are coordinates worth tracking A waypoint is a reference for navigation, a term commonly associated with a GPS landing spot or an item of interest. It’s also part of a clever name for a new restaurant, a cleverness only slightly deflated by my inability to find it by name on Google Maps on the mediapreview night. That’s not irony, but it’s amusingly close.

Waypoint Public (3794 30th St., waypointpublic.com) has emerged from the ashes of The Linkery (there are some who say the grounds are haunted by the tortured ghosts of displaced sausages) as North Park’s newest bistro and beer bar. It’s a welcoming space, at least as welcoming as a restaurant can be with decorative meat cleavers on the wall.

Fear not, though, as the unusual decor is just an extension of Waypoint’s eclectic vibe.

Surveying the menu is like attending an upscale potluck, where all the neighbors trot out their personal specialties (even the Johnsons, who usually just dump an Entenmann’s crumb cake on a platter as if we wouldn’t notice).

Everything looks intriguing, and even dishes you’ve had before seem unfamiliar on closer examination.

However, all those disparate offerings are unified by the boundless magic of beer pairings.

The pairings cite brew styles rather than brands, putting the onus on servers to not only understand the characteristics of those styles, but also be aware of the nuances of current beer offerings that populate them. That’s no small feat when they’re contending with something like

the Waypoint burger, a beef burger stacked with mozzarella, pulled pork, tomatillo salsa, spicy pickled vegetables and a fried egg. However, one Waypoint burger and Gigantic IPA later, I found my faith was well-placed.

(As an aside, should you order that burger, be sure to get it with a side of fries. They’re fantastic in their own right, and, more importantly, they can be lashed together to form a rudimentary life raft to protect the bottom of the bun from the copious drippings this sandwich generates. This is not a burger designed to leave your dignity intact as you mow through it.)

The beer menu is likewise a grab-bag of craft-brew selections, offering everything from kristalweizens to milk stouts. The 30 taps, including two nitro lines, have a gravitation ian cheesman toward San Diego brewers, but I saw as many hoppy beers represented from out of town as local ones.

They may not have your favorite San Diego IPA, but given the quality of the selections, it seems they’ll always have something just as good from elsewhere. If nothing immediately inspires your passion, they proved to be generous and speedy with sample tastes.

Trying to be everything to everyone is usually associated with satisfying none, but it’s a big part of Waypoint’s soul. It’s both artisanal dining and a casual, family-friendly Beer + Bear = Beeear restaurant (courtesy of a kids menu and a play area tucked in the corner). The menu confidently assembles everything from duck, leek and date terrines to po’ boy tacos. The restaurant is a cramped, boomy bar at its nucleus and openair dining along the periphery. And how do they pull it all together? I’m not sure. Voodoo, probably. But they do.

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

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 11

by jenny montgomery Jenny montgomery

version, with comforting items we all know and love. Authentic?

Debatable.

Diverse?

Not so much.

All the familiar Mexican-restaurant tropes are here—sparkly sombreros on the wall; lacy, crepe-paper bunting; and combo platters covered with cheese. And although most sane people love a hot plate with cheesecovered anything, years of sameness in most local Mexican joints has probably left you a little uninspired when faced The pork chili verde burrito with yet another chimichanga platter. But there’s a quiet spark to this restaurant that made me feel like I’d walked into some place special. Sure, there’s the multigenerational staff greeting you with a smile. And who wouldn’t love to watch an aviary full of colorful tweeting canaries just off the main dining room? But, ultimateCharming diners since 1946 ly, Tony’s Jacal just serves up fantastic food.

In between sips of margarita, I forked up big Maybe it was my pissy attitude after a long day bites of a burrito filled with pork chile verde. Evdriving around listening to commercial radio (why ery hunk of pork was delicate and savory, with is Savage Garden still a thing?!), or perhaps it was nary a tough or fatty bite to be found. This isn’t my desperate thirst for something ending in “argajust another tortilla wrapped around a mushy rita,” but I was instantly charmed by Tony’s Jacal pile of mediocrity. Even the beans, a side I rarely from the moment I passed through its doors. bother with at most Mexican restaurants, were Tony’s Jacal is no secret hideaway. The Solana a tender, slow-cooked delight. Be gone, brown Beach favorite (621 Valley Ave., tonysjacal.com) paste from a can! These beans were a reminder has been around—and owned and operated by the that such a hearty and humble staple can be more Gonzales family—since 1946. Yet, I always hear than a plate-filling afterthought. loyal raves about its next-door neighbor, Fidel’s.

And if we’re being thoughtful about things, Don’t get me wrong, Fidel’s is lovely, but there’s let’s think about the weak margaritas most Mexijust a little bit of local magic in the Jacal’s walls. can joints serve up. Sure, there’s nothing that There’s also magic on the table. I started with a says “craft cocktail” less than a fluffy, pink strawhot dish of queso fundido—bubbly, melted cheese berry concoction with a thimbleful of tequila. cooked with salty bits of warm, orange chorizo.

But, damn it, I wanted one (did I mention Savage Try my husband’s improvised treat and add a bit Garden?), and Tony’s version had a surprisingly of salsa with each tasty bite. strong kick. It’s the small things, but what fun is No matter what food trends hit San Diego Couna bird aviary inside a restaurant if you’re not a bit buzzed while listening to the chirps? ty, our culinary scene is still dominated by Mexican food. From the haute to the humble, there’s quite a Write to jennym@sdcitybeat.com spectrum of Mexican cuisine to be found. However, and editor@sdcitybeat.com. most of it consists of that familiar “Americanized”

north

fork

12 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

the floating

library

by jim ruland

Apocalypse 101 Lucy Corin is a writer whose work presents difficulties. Her newest book, One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses, from McSweeney’s Books, contains three short stories and a series of 100 linked prose pieces that range in length from several pages to a single sentence.

Her writing is littered with obstructions. The narrative is submerged. The stories don’t connect. Despite the dense prose, plots thin instead of thicken. Her characters are like sea creatures that occasionally breach the surface but then just as quickly disappear into the depths.

In some of the prose fragments she calls “apocalypses,” it feels as if they have a single cataclysmic—yet unnamed—event in common. In other stories, the apocalypse is clearly a metaphor for something more mundane but no less catastrophic.

“Got there and the ground was covered with bodies. Lay down with everyone and looked at the sky, bracing for the explosions.”

Sounds horrific, but the title of this apocalypse is “July Fourth.” Are we in a horror movie or a teen drama?

For the longest time, I wasn’t sure. In fact, I was fairly certain I wasn’t “getting it” and was carried along by the strength of Corin’s prose, which is rendered with such startling urgency that I’d read some passages over and over.

“Nothing is the same outside the body, and you are putting your body into stuff that is not you all day and all night with the force of your will, more and more the more you age, beaming onto the world like headlights from outer space or another epoch.”

In most narratives, meaning is a tilted floor upon which the parts of the story slide. In Corin’s apocalypses, there’s no tilt, no propulsion toward a cohesive truth. To put it another way, the stories serve as cylinders in an engine that roars but doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s up to the reader to piece together the fragments.

In an apocalypse called “New Me,” Corin writes, “They trudged on and on but the land was barren. Fungus rotted their limbs and bacteria new to the dying world cruised their organs.”

This apocalypse contains the truth of every system, whether it’s religion, government or family: Everything ends. Corin’s prose reminds us that it’s the job of the failed system to fool the world into thinking it can sustain us—right up until it falls apart. And then what?

What’s terrifying about these stories is that even after the collapse, when there’s destruction all around us and we can see through the metaphor, we still require protection and comfort and love. Either we get it, discover the capacity for giving it or go mad. The things that drive us now will continue to drive us at the end of the world, but the irony is those things will mean more when the structures that give our lives meaning have been eradicated.

Everything else is noise, but we are obsessed with noise and allergic to the truth of our undoing. We strive to make our lives as noisy as we can.

“When everything is coated with the debris of everything else it has the appeal of a finished product.”

•••

Imagine you’re in a relationship, a deeply dysfunctional relationship in which all your flaws are out in the open. Sounds terrible, right?

Chelsea Martin’s Even Though I Don’t Miss You is a bit like that, but, odds are, neither you nor your doomed partner is half as witty, wry or scintillatingly sarcastic as Martin.

“I hated it when you would disregard another girl’s feelings. I only wanted you to disregard my feelings.”

The book is written as a kind of apologia-after-the-fact to a former lover. Written in the second person, the lover is addressed as the narrator recollects experiences that illuminate something about them. It’s neither a screed nor a pity party, but like the couple whose recent break up was live tweeted from a Brooklyn rooftop, neither of them comes out unscathed.

“You said, ‘It seems like you’re strategically planning your mental breakdown so it fucks over your manager at work.’ I said, ‘I’m just trying to fuck over anyone I can these days.’”

At less than 100 pages in length, the book can be read in a single sitting and lives up to the premise of its publisher: Short Flight / Long Drive Books, an imprint of the literary magazine Hobart.

Martin’s hilariously convoluted aphorisms speak to the impossibility of relationships, especially when it’s time for them to end.

“What I want and what I want are usually two different things.”

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

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 13

the

SHORTlist

COORDINATED BY KELLY DAVIS

ARLENE IBARRA

“Our kids are able to have Spanish and art and ceramics and music at their school because of this event,” says event chair and McKinley parent Jen Byard, “so it’s pretty cool.”

Now in its fourth year, the South Park / North Park community shindig, which will run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1, at 32nd and Thorn streets, is expanding—if not in its geographic footprint, then in its offerings. This year, Byard says, there’ll be “more of everything—more restaurants, more craft beer, more activities for kids”—including a new gaming truck— “more handcrafted vendors. There’s not an area that’s new this year, but everything is bigger and better.”

Thirty local restaurants will compete in the chili cook-off, including two-time Scene from the 2012 SoNo Fest & Chili Cook-Off overall champ Ritual Tavern (2010 and 2012), plus eateries that’ll make interesting dishes, such as a Spam chili by Fathom Bistro and an Ethiopian chili by Cardamom Café and Bakery, A helpful hint to the restaurants compet- plus vegan and vegetarian versions. ing in this year’s SoNo Fest and Chili Byard says the chefs are “extremely competiCook-off: San Diego’s interim mayor, tive. They’re all over Facebook calling each other Todd Gloria, who’ll be among the judges, likes it spicy. out, trash-talking—in a nice way—but definitely very However it’s made, Gloria says, “chili is like pub- competitive. Last year, it was a tie. Ritual Tavern and lic service: It may look like a mess but can be very Blind Lady [Ale House] tied for first; they’re both gratifying.” That’s especially true when the money raring to get another championship.” folks pay to eat it goes to a local public school—North For $20, attendees get a unique bowl, handcrafted Park’s McKinley Elementary. by a member of the San Diego Ceramic Connection, to take home. They also get two stages of live music and, for an extra cost, beer from 12 local craft breweries.

“It’s one of the most unique local events that Shopping local is cool. You can feel a little San Diego has,” Byard says. “We’ve kept it very unbit better about yourself when you pass on commercial. So, when people come, they can get an your hard-earned bucks to small boutiques experience that is very North Park.” And South Park. owned by people in the community. But hyper-local sonofestchilicookoff.wordpress.com shopping is even cooler—buying goods directly from the people who make them. From noon to 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 29, The Goods Show will be back for a third year, 333’s Jazz at the Museum is the comoffering conscientious holiday shoppers the chance to plete package: art, jazz, wine and tasty spend Black Friday at Queen Bee’s (3925 Ohio St. in eats. The ongoing series—a collaboraNorth Park), where more than 40 artists and artisans will be hawking their wares. The lineup includes artists tion between the Oceanside Museum of Art (704 David Michael, Chikle and Miranda Marks, plus local Pier View Way) and 333 Pacific restaurant—brings NENA ANDERSON vendors like clothing companies Urban Octopus and local jazz musicians to the Circles and Squares, tea seller JavateaCo and reVetro, museum for an evening which makes jewelry and accessories from repurposed performance. From 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30, glass. facebook.com/thegoodsshow 333 will provide appetizKELLY TIANO ers, desserts and wine while attendees take in a performance by pianist Danny Green, guitarist Dusty Brough, bassist Justin Grinnell and drummer Julien Cantelm. The museum’s current exhibitions will be open for viewing, Danny Green as well—five don’t-miss displays that’ll compel you to see your surrounding environment in a whole new way, including James Enos’ Urban Entropy, Outside: Selections from the Doug Simay Collection and Stephen Curry’s Scape / Escape. Tickets are $30. oma-online.org Find jewelry by reVetro at The Goods Show

1

2

A CHILI DECEMBER

CITE YOUR SOURCES

3

14 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

SEE, HEAR, TASTE

ART

DANCE

HToni Larios at Disclosed Unlocation Gallery, 1925 30th St., South Park. The first U.S. solo exhibition of Tijuana artist, Toni Larios. From 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 29, unlocation.com

The Nutcracker at Poway Center for the Performing Arts, 15498 Espola Road, Poway. New West Ballet performs the holiday classic. At 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 29, and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 30-Dec. 1. $30-$40. 858-748-0505, powaycenter.com

The Artist Gathering at Seaside Bazaar, 459 S. Coast Hwy 101, Encinitas.

Paintings, sculpture, mixed-media, live jazz, DJs, food and more will be featured at this open-air event. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. 760-753-1611, facebook.com/events/734714229876546 Humane Society Studio Tour at Cathy Carey Art Studio & Garden, 2048 Ridgecrest Place, Escondido. Cathy Carey hosts an open studio and garden tour.

A suggested donation of $10 will go to the Humane Society. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. 760-489-9109, artstudiosandiego.com FusionGlass Co. 10th Anniversary at Fusionglass Co., 8872 La Mesa Blvd., La Mesa. Help celebrate 10 years in business at this annual holiday party that includes a champagne toast, door prizes, food, music, entertainment and an art show.

From 7 to 11:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30.

619-461-4440, fusionglassco.com HClosing Reception at CraftLab Gallery, 821-A South Tremont St., Oceanside. Your last chance to check out three exhibitions: Margaret Chiaro’s Magical Realism, Andrea Gruber Matthies and Melissa Stager’s Riding Shotgun and Marta Hotell’s Moments of Metal. From 3 to 8 p.m.

Sunday, Dec. 1. craftlabgallery.com HDeck the Walls at Basic, 410 10th Ave., Downtown. Thumbprint Gallery presents its annual show featuring the work of local artists on skateboard decks.

True Delorenzo, David Goff and Sharif I. Carter will be live painting. From 7 p.m. to midnight. Tuesday, Dec. 3. 619-531-8869, ww.facebook.com/ThumbprintGallery

BOOKS Fannie Flagg at Warwick’s Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. The bestselling author of Fried Green Tomatoes signs and discusses her new book, The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion. At 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, Dec. 3. Free. 858-454-0347, warwicks.indiebound.com

COMEDY HDoug Benson at American Comedy Co., 818 B Sixth Ave., Downtown. The High Times’ 2009 “Stoner of the Year” recipient and prolific comic does a stand-up set. At 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 27. $20. 619-7953858, americancomedyco.com Finest City Improv at Finest City Improv, 705 16th St., Downtown. Teams perform comedy based on audience suggestion.

Shows start with “Mutiny Happy Hour” at 7 p.m., musical impov (think Glee meets Whose Line is it Anyway?) at 8 p.m. and Second City-style improv at 9:30 and 10:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 29. $5-$12. 619306-6047, finestcityimprov.com Eric Schwartz at Mad House Comedy Club, 502 Horton Plaza, Downtown.

He’s been on Showtime and Comic View, but fans love his funny YouTube videos. At 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 29-30. $20. 619-7026666, madhousecomedyclub.com Steve Byrne at Comedy Store, 916 Pearl St., La Jolla. He’s performed on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Conan, but most will know him from his starring role in Sullivan & Son. At 8 and 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 29-30. $20. 858-4549176, lajolla.thecomedystore.com

The Nutcracker at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. San Diego Academy of Ballet’s performance of the classic. At 7 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 30-Dec. 1. $17-$42. 760-839-4190, artcenter.org HGrupo Tapatio de Oceanside at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. Grupo Folklorico Tapatio teams up with Grupo Folklorico Cuautitli for a night of traditional dance. At 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. $15. 760-839-4190, artcenter.org

FOOD & DRINK HBelly Up Rockin’ Wine Fest at Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach.

Enjoy tastings from Carruth Cellars, Gavilan and Dierberg Winery and stick around for live music from local pop-rockers, Get Back Loretta. At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 4. $20. 858-481-8140, bellyup.com Sip, Swirl and Savor at Andaz Hotel, 600 F St., Downtown. A holiday-inspired wine pairing and tasting benefiting Mama’s Kitchen. From 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 4. Donations encouraged. andaz. hyatt.com

HOLIDAY EVENTS Run for the Hungry at Broadway Circle, 324 Horton Plaza, Gaslamp. Racers are encouraged to wear their zaniest Thanksgiving-themed costumes at this annual 10K and 5K. Proceeds will benefit the Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank and Jewish Family Service’s Food Assistance programs. At 7 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 28. $35. unitedrunforthehungry.org Oceanside Turkey Trot at Oceanside Civic Center, 300 North Coast Highway.

Move your feet before you eat at this annual 5 mile, 5k or kids run/walk to benefit Oceanside schools and charities. From 7 to 11 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 28. $22-$45.

760-434-5255, osideturkeytrot.com HSurfin’ Santa’s Arrival at Seaport Village, West Harbor Drive, Downtown.

Enjoy a holiday parade, crafts (including eco-friendly ornament making), street performers and live music throughout the day while welcoming the So-Cal version of Santa Claus. From 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. 619-235-4014, seaportvillage.com Ugly Sweater Run at NTC Park at Liberty Station, 2455 Cushing Road, Point Loma. The third annual 5K fun run invites participants to dress in their ugliest holiday sweaters and run through NTC’s winter wonderland, which includes giant holiday inflatables, hot chocolate stands, snow machines and free Sam Adams beers upon finishing. Proceeds benefit Toys for Tots. At 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. $39.

8586928243, theuglysweaterrun.com SantaCon San Diego Wear a Santa costume or any holiday-themed costume (Ms. Claus, snowman, elf, reindeer, nutcracker, Krampus, Grinch, etc.) and join like-minded revelers at this annual pubcrawl around the city. Bring $8.50 for ferry and $5 for trolley day pass. From noon to 1 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. 619-573-9260, facebook.com/events/1407139406183126 Monarch School Toy Drive at Vida Mia Boutique, 1015 12 National City Blvd., National City. Local artists and vendors

will display their wares. There’ll be live music and drawings. Guests are asked to bring a new unwrapped toy, socks or underwear to benefit the Monarch School for homeless youth. From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. 619-838-8142, facebook.comVidaMiaBoutique13 Toyland Fundraiser at Queen Bee’s, 3925 Ohio St., North Park. Bring a plate of holiday cookies to share, a new unwrapped toy or cans of food for the Toyland Parade Toy & Food Drive. Enjoy live music featuring Baja Bugs Band and a silent auction. From 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. $5. queenbeessd.com San Dieguito Art Guild’s Holiday Bazaar at Encinitas Community Center, 1140 Oakcrest Park Drive, Encinitas.

This holiday shopping event will include jewelry, fused glass, paintings, gourd art, leather-bound sketchbooks, ceramics and more. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. offtrackgallery.com HHoliday Market Sundays at Ducky Waddle’s Emporium, 414 N. Coast Hwy. 101, Encinitas. This weekly holiday market is an alternative to the malls and brings an eclectic group of vendors offering a selection of vintage and artist-created goods. From noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1. 760-6320488, duckywaddles.com

MUSIC HSan Diego Jazz Fest at Town & Country Hotel, 500 Hotel Circle N., Mission Valley. A gathering of dozens of jazz bands from as far away as Italy representing a wide variety of styles including traditional jazz, Dixieland, ragtime, swing and rockabilly. See website

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

THEATER

DAREN SCOTT

Nothing like a little holiday-season S&M Venus in Fur isn’t nearly as kinky as it pretends to be. But it is pretty damned funny. Credit playwright David Ives, who skewers literary pedants and gender dynamics in a single deft stroke, and who created the memorable Vanda Jordan—actress, dominatrix, goddess.

In San Diego Repertory Theatre’s current production of Venus in Fur, Caroline Kinsolving is a hysterical force of nature as leatherclad, dog-collar-wearing Vanda, who’s more than a match for uptight, pretentious playwright Thomas Novachek (Jeffrey Meek). As Vanda, who’s auditioning for the lead role in Novachek’s play that he swears is not about sadomasochism, Kinsolving ping-pongs from earthy wisecracker to 19th-century m’lady and still finds time to swing from a pole like a pro.

The latter earned her a burst of applause on opening night from the Rep audience, demonstrating better critical reception than Elizabeth Berkley got for Showgirls.

Kinsolving and Meek thrust and parry for an hour-and-a-half on stage in the Rep’s compact, barely furnished Lyceum Space, play-acting and changing costumes (though Kinsolving is mostly in fetish-wear) and even swapping genders near the end. The closest they ever come to the aforementioned kinky is Meek’s zipping up Kinsolving’s thigh-high boots while she writhes on a fainting couch.

(That’s the extent of any comparison be-

tween this play and Kinky Boots.) There are narrative suggestions throughout that Vanda Jordan may not be whom she first appears to be, and the otherworldly finale implies the downright mythological. Take these clues for what they are.

Co-directors Kim Rubinstein and the Rep’s Sam Woodhouse keep Venus in Fur from careening off track, though in Kinsolving and Meek they have a pair of actors who clearly have a feel for Ives’ play. Woodhouse told the opening-night audience before curtain that Venus in Fur is the most produced play in America this year, and that’s not a big surprise. From the theaters’ standpoint, it must be relatively inexpensive to produce and, for audiences, it’s 90-something minutes of laughs naughty enough to inspire après-show romancing—or fantasizing, as the case may be.

Venus in Fur runs through Dec. 8 at the Lyceum Theatre at Horton Plaza, Downtown. $31-$47. sdrep.org

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

Caroline Kinsolving

OPENING A Christmas Carole: Cygnet Theatre continues its tradition of presenting the holiday classic in the style of a radio play, complete with old-timey commercials. Opens Nov. 29 at The Old Town Theatre. cygnettheatre.com Catch a Falling Star: Lambs Players’ holiday play this year revolves around a woman’s attempt to film a musical Christmas card at a remote mountain cabin that was meaningful to her father. Opens Nov. 29 at Lamb’s Players Theatre. lambsplayers.org Million Dollar Quartet: A musical-theater representation of an impromptu jam session involving Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash at Sun Records. Presented by Broadway San Diego, it runs Dec. 3 through 8 at the Civic Theatre, Downtown. broadwaysd.com Reasons to be Pretty: In Neil LaBute’s plain-spoken comedy, four blue-collar characters wrestle with notions of physical beauty and the power of modern-day language.

Presented by Ion Theatre Company, it opens in previews Nov. 30 at BLKBOX Theatre in Hillcrest. iontheatre.com

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

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 15

for schedule. Through Sun. Dec. 1. $15$105. 619-291-7131, sdjazzfest.org

own compositions. From noon to 5 p.m.

Sunday, Dec. 1. sosorgan.org

Brenden Borgeois at ArtLab Studios, 3536 Adams Ave., Normal Heights. The singer-songwriter will play original music.

Dixie Maxwell will also be performing.

From 8 to 10 p.m. Friday, Nov. 29. $5.

619-750-3355, artlabca.com

HJava Bach at Mingei International Museum, Balboa Park. A Baroque-style concert with Bach’s “B minor Suite” for flute and strings and selections from his Coffee Cantata for soprano and chamber ensembles. From 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1. $30. 619-239-0003, mingei.org

The Danny Green / Dusty Brough Project at Oceanside Museum of Art, 704 Pier View Way. Pianist Green and guitarist Brough join forces for a night of original jazz music, joined by bassist Justin Grinnell and drummer Julien Cantelm. 333 Pacific will provide appetizers, wine and beer and dessert. At 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. $20.

760-435-3720, oma-online.org North Pole Express at Casa Del Prado, Balboa Park. The San Diego Sun Harbor Chorus presents its 36th annual Christmas Show. From 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. $15-$20. sunharbor.org Moonlight Beach Serenaders at Encinitas Library, 540 Cornish Drive, Encinitas. Enjoy Hawaiian-style Christmas music and hula dancers. At 2 p.m.

Sunday, Dec. 1. encinitaslibfriends.org Kirtan and Chanting for Peace at World Beat Cultural Center, 2100 Park Blvd., Balboa Park. Experience this non-denominational chanting practice passed down through the ages with the goal of creating peace and harmony. At 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1. 619-230-1190, worldbeatculturalcenter.org HOrgan Concert at Spreckels Organ Pavilion, Balboa Park. A free, five-hour concert; donations will benefit the San Diego chapter of the American Red Cross.

Civic Organist Dr. Carol Williams has prepared a variety of music, including classical and contemporary and her

Camera Lucida at Conrad Prebys Music Center, UCSD campus, La Jolla. A program including Bach’s “Brandenburg Concert No. 6,” Beethoven’s “Violin Sonata No. 10,” and Brahms’ “String Quartet in F Major.” At 7:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 2. $25. musicweb.ucsd.edu/concerts Master of Traditional Chinese Music at Smith Recital Hall, SDSU, College Area. This “World Music Series” concert features national and international names performing a variety of musical styles.

From 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Dec. 2. $12$15. music.sdsu.edu Coco & Lafe at Rancho San Diego Library, 11555 Via Rancho San Diego, El Cajon. An evening of blues-based acoustic music and character-driven story songs. At 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 3.

619-660-5370, sdcl.orglocations_RD.html Wyatt Lowe & The Youngbloods at California Center for the Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. The all-youth blues trio performs soulful blues, rockabilly and roots. At 1, 4 and 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 4. 760-839-4190, artcenter.org

POETRY & SPOKEN WORD Summation V: The Merging of Art and Poetry at Escondido Municipal

Gallery, 262 E. Grand Ave. This bookrelease event features regional awardwinning poets reading from their works and artists commenting on their visuals that inspired the poetry. From noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30. 760-480-4101, hitherandyahn.com

Tree of Life World AIDS Day Vigil at Fifth Street and Washington Avenue, Hillcrest.

Mama’s Kitchen’s 22nd Annual Tree of Life World AIDS Day Vigil honors those affected

by AIDS and recognizes the ongoing efforts to end the worldwide epidemic. From 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1. mamaskitchen.org

Shakespeare Reading at Upstart Crow, 835 West Harbor Drive, Seaport Village. Join the San Diego Shakespeare Society for an open reading of the Twelfth Night. From 6:45 to 8:30 p.m.

Tuesday, Dec. 3. 619-333-0141, sandiegoshakespearesociety.org

HSoNo Fest & Chili Cook-off at San Diego Ceramic Connection, 3216 Thorn St., South Park. A chili tasting, beer and wine garden, holiday shopping, live music, food trucks, activities for kids and more. Proceeds benefit the McKinley Elementary School foundation. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1. $20 for chili bowl and tastings. 619-281-CLAY, sonofestchilicookoff.wordpress.com

Christine Wertheim and Matias Viegener at UCSD SME Performance Space Room, UCSD campus, La Jolla.

Wertheim is the author of +|’me’S-pace, the editor of the anthology Feminaissance, and, along with Viegener, co-editor of Séance and The n/Oulipean Analects.

Viegener is a writer, artist and critic who’s exhibited at LACMA, Ars Electronica, ARCO Madrid, The Whitney and MOCA. From 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 4.

858-534-2230, literature.ucsd.edu

SPECIAL EVENTS HThe Goods Show at Queen Bee’s, 3925 Ohio St., North Park. A market featuring local artists and vendors. Some proceeds benefit Outdoor Outreach, a San Diego organization that offers comprehensive programming and mentoring to at-risk youth. From noon to 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 29. $5. facebook.com/thegoodsshow HSan Diego Indie Craft Mart at Queen Bee’s, 3925 Ohio St., North Park. More than 30 vendors will be selling everything from candles to jewelry to home accessories.

From 2 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1. facebook.com/events/558614010890344

HPechaKucha Night at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens-Point Loma, 2816 Historic Decatur Road, #116. The longawaited return of PechaKucha, an informal and fun gathering where creative people share their ideas in a fast-paced format.

Includes presenters like Chris Cantore, Greg Koch and Kinsee Morlan. At 7:30 p.m.

Monday, Dec. 2. $15 donation suggested.

619-269-2100, pechakucha.org HProject Homeless Connect at Golden Hall, San Diego Concourse, Downtown.

Volunteers are needed for this annual one-day resource fair that provides health screenings, haircuts, counseling, legal aid and other services for San Diego’s homeless. From 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Wednesday, Dec. 4. 619-578-7471, sdhc.org/Special-Housing-Programs.aspx

TALKS & DISCUSSIONS La Convivencia: Jews, Christians and Muslims in Iberia at New Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village. San Diego City College Prof. Laurel Corona leads a three-part discussion program on the seven centuries during which Jews, Christians and Muslims lived peacefully together in medieval Muslim Spain. At 6:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 2. 619-2365800, sandiegolibrary.org Barry Edelstein In Conversation with Jack O’Brien at Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park. Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein and Artistic Director Emeritus Jack O’Brien will explore the history of The Old Globe and O’Brien’s new memoir about his early years in theater. At 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 2. $10. 619-231-1941, TheOldGlobe.org Riding Rocinante at North Chapel, 2881 Roosevelt Road, Point Loma. In a wide-ranging conversation with elite cyclist, James Stout, Dr. Nicolas Reveles explores connections between the themes and episodes in Don Quixote and a man whose life and work take him on many

16 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

Check out Toni Larios’ “Garganta” at a reception from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 29, at Disclosed unLocation (1925 30th St. in South Park). interesting journeys to Spain. From 7 to 9 p.m. Monday, Dec. 2. sdopera.com Transforming Communities Through Art at Oceanside Museum of Art, 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside. The museum’s executive director, Daniel Foster, and a panel of experts will discuss the power of art to transform a community. From 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 3. $10. 760-4353720, oma-online.org

For full listings,

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

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 17

WN

TOWN • OCE

AN

B

• PA

ST

AD

RE

•

San Die go

• NORTH PARK

CIFIC BE

CH

AC

H

•

DO

EA AM

S AV

ENUE • HI L

LC

SHOP LOCAL FIRST!

Support your local, independent merchant

18 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 19

Seen Local

Kinsee Morlan

The art of voting Kearny Mesa’s never been known as a hotbed of edgy public art, but when the county of San Diego cuts the ribbon at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 3, and unveils the new pieces on view inside and outside the recently built Registrar of Voters building (5600 Overland Drive), it will solidify the County Operations Center as one of the best places to see interesting, high-quality public art in the region.

“I think people are pleasantly Gail Goldman (left) and Jay Johnson discuss an art thrilled by the caliber of the artwork,” installation at the new Registrar of Voters building. said Gail Goldman, the public-art consultant hired by the county to amass the collection, from people punching out the holes on voter ballots. which is sprawled across the campus’ 47 acres.

“I realized that each one of the tiny pieces repreThe $2-million budget for purchasing existing sented a vote,” he said of the chads, which were crepieces and commissioning new site-specific instal- atively incorporated into one of the new pieces on lations came from a Board of Supervisors policy view inside the Registrar of Voters office. “I thought that allows one-half a percent of the estimated cost that was pretty significant.” of a county construction project to be committed to The pieces Johnson created range from beautiful original works of art. The policy has long been in ex- light boxes made from stained-glass windows salistence but not invoked for more than two decades. vaged from the first-ever San Diego County CourtInstalled in phases over three years, the new 31- house to rather mundane historical photo collages. piece collection includes work by San Diego artists In one of the works, he’s enlarged an old-school voter Joyce Cutler-Shaw, Marie Najera, Manny Farber, stylus and cast it in acrylic, turning it into a gorgeous, Glen Crooks, Philipp Scholz Rittermann, Chris- modern-looking sculpture. topher Puzio and Anne Mudge. The latest pieces “When I started looking at all the objects, I realto be unveiled at the Registrar of Voters are by Jun ized it was all stuff that was casualties of the digital Kaneko and Jay Johnson. A guidebook providing age,” Johnson said of the ephemera he ended up inbackground on the collection will also be released. cluding.

Johnson played a special role in the project. The “I think it’s important,” said county Supervisor well-known local artist completed 25 different works Ron Roberts of Johnson’s work. “While it is art, it’s and covered approximately 4,000 square feet of wall history and a whole lot of other things.” space across the campus. He was tasked with digging Roberts, who has an architecture background and through the old Operations Center buildings before an interest in the arts, has taken the county’s publicthey were torn down and pulling out interesting or art program under his wing. He said the overall goal valuable archival materials, to be used in his found- of the collection at the Operations Center was to object assemblages and sculptural displays. show how artwork can become an integral part of a The process included a somewhat gruesome tour construction project. He said the county will include of the Medical Examiner’s Office and a few dump- more public art in future projects. ster-diving sessions. Johnson hired a local art histo“If you talk to employees or visitors, they know rian to help him search through what he described there’s something a little different out there [at the as “some really important things, a lot of interesting Operations Center]—an added touch,” Roberts said. stuff and a lot of junk.” Among his findings are a doc—Kinsee Morlan ument signed by Abraham Lincoln just weeks before his assassination, a map of the county from 1879 Write to kinseem@sdcitybeat.com and bags of chads, the tiny paper circles that come and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

20 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

Fiction 101

If you’ve been reading our annual Fiction 101 issue since its inception in 2003, you know that our judges favor stories that veer more toward silly, surreal, edgy, imaginative and/or clever than earnest and straightforward, unless they’re beautifully written.

That was true again this year, when pieces about a public defender for monsters and Twitter in biblical times won first and second place. Third place went to one of the shortest stories we’ve ever honored (22 words). Oh, about the second-place winner: Yes, we know that one of the tweets is well over 140 characters long—we’ll just assume that in Jacob Gardenswartz’s fictional world, tweets can be longer.

Frank bit into his sandwich—which, by the way, was full of worms. “Fuck,” Frank said, “my sandwich is full of worms; dinner is ruined.”

It had been a bad day for Frank. He woke up in a pile of dead bodies, got ketchup on his favorite shirt and found out that his roommate was sneaking into his room at night, lying naked next to him on the bed and forcing nightmares into his brain.

Still, Frank could not be discouraged.

“Tomorrow will be different,” he thought out loud.

“I’ll loosen it.”

“A little more—at least a finger’s width of space.”

“It’ll look stupid; you can’t just have it hanging loose like a slob.”

“It’s around my neck, for chrissakes!”

“Fine!”

“Now my throat’s dry. I couldn’t swallow, now my throat’s dry. Do you have any water?”

“No.” “I’ll have to whisper my speech.”

“You’ll seem mysterious that way.”

“But—” The ground disappeared beneath his feet and the noose snapped his neck without as much as a whisper.

Colin Jones, Ocean Beach

Colin Jones, Ocean Beach

Honorable Mention

Frank's Shitty Day

Honorable Mention

Honorable Mention

Wereburger

Christmas Eve

I was eating a hamburger. Before I bit it, it bit me.

That evening, I cut myself shaving. I bled mustard. The next morning I was a hamburger.

My wife left me because she’s vegan. She was cheating on me anyway, I think. Whore.

I also got fired. I couldn’t type on a computer anymore. Hamburgers don’t have arms. Whatever. My job sucked.

My cat, Doctor Claw, kept licking me.

When I was a human he ignored me. Prick.

Yesterday I turned human again. My wife came back. I got my job back. And Doctor Claw is ignoring me again.

Yay.

Eddie still didn’t have a tree. The sales lots were closed, so he snuck into Mrs. Jensen’s back yard to steal her pine.

It was dark. Her car was gone. He lifted the saw.

“Stop!”

He whirled around, saw no one. I must be hearing things. He shrugged, and pressed the blade against the trunk.

“I said stop!”

Suddenly the tree began moving. Branches engulfed him and tightened like a python.

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream. He struggled, grew dizzy. Then darkness.

Mrs. Jensen came up and began to pet the tree.

“Good boy!” she said. “Good boy.”

Kareem Khalidy, Normal Heights

Fred Longworth, Normal Heights

Honorable Mention

(Blank) Humor

Illustrations by Scrojo

We don’t often provide constructive criticism, but we will this time: Work on those endings, folks. There were many stories that had so much potential but didn’t make it past the first round because they fell apart in the last sentence.

Just a little helpful hint for ya.

Congratulations to the 20 contestants who got their stories published—especially to our three winners, as well as Colin Jones and Michela Rodriguez, who got both of their entries in print.

The Best of the rest

Handy Mr. Esselstein

“It’s too tight.”

“It’s supposed to be.”

“Well, I can’t swallow. It’s making me “He’s doing it again,” whispered Catherine as she snuck back into the break room. nervous that I can’t swallow.”

First Place

Do-gooder of the Year The honoree was Connie, a public defender since her days in the old country.

She was quick to represent the vampires. “Everyone needs vitamin B,” she argued. Always a friend of fiends, Connie marched arm-in-arm with ogres, working mummies and trolls. She supported the gravediggers’ strike, calling it a win-win for cannibals and epicureans who come to braise their loved ones, not bury them.

At the latest feast-on-friends-frenzy, the keynote speaker was brief. “She fought in every fracas then stepped into her final fray. We honor Connie today.

Dibs on her tender heart.”

Peter Thomas Franson Hepburn, La Mesa Everyone at the office knew the boss masturbated in the handicap stall when things weren’t going so well at home. Last year, when Mr. Esselstein and his wife were going through their separation, Thom found Japanese soft-core stuffed into the toiletseat-cover dispenser. It was gone the next day, but that was the first year they all got a Christmas bonus. “Eww,” Sherrill winced as she swallowed the second half of an overripe banana. “Maybe this year I’ll get a new flat screen.”

Bob Bobertson, University Heights

Eskimeiosis I gave birth to your mother in the back of an ice truck. How I found myself in the back of an ice truck heavy with the weight of your momma is another story for another time when you’re older. But, oh man, was I hollerin’ as that truck driver chugged along down the highway, spillin’ my guts all over his wares. Your momma came sliding out slippery across the ice and damn near got frostbit. I’ve never been partial to the cold since then, but I reckon that’s why your mother ran away to Siberia with that damned Russian.

Hanna Tawater, University City

The Three on the Hill Atop the hill slept Ergador. Giant blood was $1,000,000 / ounce. Hence, he was attacked 24/7.

Normal weapons couldn’t harm him, but magic might. So, Wizard Margez blasted Ergador with fire, but the fire died when it hit him.

Infuriated, Margez left. That evening, King Barg attacked, using his diamond sword. When struck, Ergador gasped his last word: “Wizard!” Margez appeared, and when he saw Barg, shot fire at him, and Barg was ashes. Then he took Ergador’s blood and set off.

500 years later...

CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 21

Fiction 101 Atop the hill slept Margez. Wizard blood was $1,000,000 / ounce. Hence, he was attacked 24/7.

Oscar Arnold (age 11), Scripps Ranch

Filial Piety “We’ve found a new place for you to live.”

She knocks her porcelain cup over, and the jasmine tea soaks into the white tablecloth as the words soak into her wrinkled skin.

“Karen and I are moving the kids to Marin. The schools are better there. But we don’t have room for you.”

She is silent, remembering the plane ride with her son from Hong Kong to San Francisco, when he held her hand during takeoff and pressed his nose against the window during landing.

“But we’ve found the best place possible.

You’ll be so happy.”

She pours herself more tea.

Michela Rodriguez, Poway

ing. “You have a nice accent,” she says, and I brace myself for her next question. “So, where are you from?”

I could simply say “Iran,” but after decades of an American life, I resent being “Take me to your leader.”

“OK.” Ernest led the little green man blamed for my homeland’s political coninto the house where Lucille was washing flicts. “I’m Persian,” I finally say and wait for the outpour of ignorance. the breakfast dishes.

A smile lights up her face. “Ooh! I love Raygun in hand, he asked, “Are you Paris! the—.”

Paris?

The little green man blasted the frying I exhale hard and return her broad smile pan as Lucille bashed him on the head.

“Ernest, I told you to keep the door shut with one of my own. “Me, too, dear. Me, too!” so the forest varmints couldn’t get in.”

Zohreh Ghahremani, Pleased with the frying-pan bottom’s La Jolla new shine, Lucille placed the pan in the drying rack.

“Sorry. It won’t happen again.” Ernest gathered up the broken little body and buried it beneath his prized American Beauty roses as fertilizer.

It was Edmond’s 650th birthday. His friends Patrick J. Donahoe, cheered as he unwrapped his present: a Mira Mesa bound and delicious-looking young man whose supple physique watered the elder vampire’s mouth. Edmond licked his new dentures and felt the sharpened fangs with his tongue. He knelt down beside his gift, all The train ride is noisy, but that doesn’t stop eyes watching. He bent down and bit into the woman sitting next to me from talk- the man’s flesh, feeling a rush of blood like juice flow into his mouth. Moments later, Edmond stood and wiped his lips, satisfied.

He licked his gums and looked down at his dentures still firmly fixed upon the young man’s neck.

Lucille and the Little Green Man

No Country for Old Vampires

The Bliss of Ignorance

This isn’t how it should be, he thinks, cemented to the barstool, elbows on the counter, a waitress counting tips on his left, no one on his right.

“Can I get you another Pepsi, Arnold?”

Libby asks from behind him. Her voice perky, her eyes solemn. They can pay her to smile. They can’t pay her to help.

“S’alright, Lib,” he murmurs. “I should head home.”

She takes his glass. Arnold stares at the white space on his finger.

“I should head home.”

The waitress on his left leaves.

Arnold sits on the barstool, his swiveling, creaking island of a home.

Michela Rodriguez, Poway

Wandering Spirits

She’d gone to Paris to find herself but wound up finding an artist named Pierre. He worked with oils. The language gap was part of the fun. Eyelashes batting and lips pouting told Pierre everything: She was here to experience France. They traipsed from the Louvre to Les Halles, from the Eiffel Tower to the Arc de Triomphe. He kissed her outside a café on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées. It rained, she danced. She’d found her niche.

Years later, she spotted Pierre in a bar in Samer Naoum, Santee.

His friends called him “Pete” and Rancho San Diego he ordered a PBR. Fuck France, she thought.

Second Place

#gardenofeden on Twitter, 4000 BC Day 1 @therealAdam: So lonely. @therealAdam: Wish I had someone else with me!

Day 2 @therealAdam: In paradise but my rib hurts from God making my companion. #firstworldproblems? @therealAdam: Naked and so don’t care. #datedenmentality @EveNotSteve: You could’ve at least made us something other than figs!

RT @God (official): All of creation and life in less than a week? Not bad for six day’s work #andontheseventhdayherested @God (official): @EveNotSteve: Stop complaining.

Day 3 @snake224: @EveNotSteve gurl you have to try this new “apple” thing #orgasm in my mouth @EveNotSteve: @therealAdam: Why are we naked? @God (official): Fuck this shit #sendintheflood

Jacob Gardenswartz, La Mesa 22 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

Diner Divortium

Lesley McCaskey, Ocean Beach

A Strange Morning Out West “I ain’t really never seen anything like it,” grumbled Old Roinihan, scratching his bald pate from underneath his hat. “Did a number on ev’ry dam’ chicken I had, an’ what’s left got strewn all over the barnyard. You just can’t trust them rabbits—that is, the ones what walk like men.”

Behind him, the halfwit Douglas crooned sorrow over Betty, who would never cluck again.

Keith McCleary, Normal Heights

Don at Dawn Don fears illness and death. A creature of habit, he carves deep grooves into his routine like the nightly practice of brushing off last night’s detritus of skin flakes and dirt bits from the fitted sheet or the morning ritual when he swallows dried goji berries to stave off cancer. Last night, he fell into bed too drunk to care and, at sunrise, ventured outside, the berries ignored, to fetch the pa-

per. From the Torrey Pine, the stealth owl mistook the man’s head for a rabbit, diving in with her talons, pulling two bloodshot eyeballs out and away like gooey taffy.

into the desert, to the dead-end of a rutted road. We talk and drink from a case of beer.

She thinks I’m her boyfriend and flirts with me. I tell her she’s beautiful.

Blazing sun in the windshield wakes Christina Burress, me; mama’s stiffening body leaning on Del Mar my shoulder. I bury her under sand and flowering sage. As I leave, buzzards circle overhead.

Grandma’s Birthday

It was oddly verdant for a cemetery, like Piper remembered it. And, of course, there were flowers—huge bouquets placed on the ground for what exactly?

Once they were meant for the departed; now, it just seemed like a contest for who missed their loved one the most. The baby’s breath Piper was holding for her grandmother paled in comparison to the plethora of white carnations honoring Mrs. Puckett. Piper wondered if Puckett’s granddaughter brought those, that pompous Mary Sue. But no matter. Maybe next year Piper would bring some carnations, too—or a Weed Whacker.

Ashley Davis, Chula Vista

Mama’s Last Party My old sick mama is unhappy at the nursing home, so I sneak her out at midnight and drive east on I-8. We go over the mountains,

Fare

Third Place

The sun shone through the open window and made the table warm to the touch. Bronzed and golden brown, he felt warm, as well. Inside and out. The aroma of roasted spices filled the air, and it felt as though they cloaked him. Cumino, ancho, piquin. Cinnamon? Yes, even cinnamon. As the curtains waved back OB Laureate Lloyd, and forth, casting shadows across the length Ocean Beach of his being, he imagined a cabbage, sliced thin, chilled down, dressed in crema fresca.

To him, the right salsa meant vitality.

Rejuvenation. Serrano, cebolla y tomate. He was complete.

He was at peace.

Back on the beach with the lady—broke.

He was a fish taco.

“Paradise is free,” she says, fingers crabwalking my back.

Anthony Medina, “It’s December, not a chill in the air.”

Chula Vista “You’re depressed. Perhaps more sunshine? A hike?”

“I have an appointment in the morning with a specialist. He says there’s a fix.”

“Side effects?”

“None.”

I skim the newspaper.

“People are dying out there.”

“Didn’t the doctor tell you to think positively?” She kisses me. I don’t feel a damn thing.

“This can’t be December,” I whisper to her. “Will it ever get cold?”

Waking world When she left for work, he rolled over to her side of the bed. This was the closest they would ever be.

David Kinsey, Golden Hill

Warm December

Aaron Philip Clark, City Heights

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 23

Weathered patterns Alexander Payne finds fortitude in crippled American Midwest

by Glenn Heath Jr. Wrinkled faces and fading business signs: The American Midwest is a landscape of worn-out visages in Alexander Payne’s Nebraska. Both are physical indicators of a disappearing sensibility that stands at odds with the loud, vivacious and dynamic experience of post-modern urban living.

Things are quiet here, lacking in melodramatic Bruce Dern, again the aging curmudgeon trappings and aggressive images.

Yet this is no utopia; Nebraska’s aged bodies and (Angela McEwan) who runs the local newspaper. decomposing commercial emblems represent an In a stunningly candid scene with David, Peg quiignored portion of the country struggling to even etly recounts how she lost Woody to Kate decades maintain a façade of fortitude. earlier simply because she wasn’t as formidable a Personifying this connection is Woody Grant personality. Her quiet melancholy flickers for only a (Bruce Dern), a grouchy retiree who believes that he’s moment, though, before transitioning to an equally won $1 million in a Publisher’s Clearing House-type matched fondness she feels for the man who would sweepstakes. Determined to collect, he spends the eventually become her husband, now passed away first act attempting to walk to Lincoln from his home but still ever on her mind. in Billings, Mont. Spurned by his verbose firecracker Woody himself has seemingly repressed most of a wife, Kate (June Squibb), who belittles his efforts of his memories. When asked about Peg, he at first one snappy quip at a time, Woody grows increasingly denies remembering her, but then later tells his son, desperate. Youngest son David (Will Forte) finally “That was a long time ago.” For Payne, one’s level of steps in and offers to drive his father himself. happiness is determined by whether you give up reThe road trip that follows ties in with similar se- sentment or let it fester. quences so integral to Payne’s other films. Like the With so much subtext populating every scene, the wine-country tour in Sideways and the Hawaiian film—which opens Friday, Nov. 29, at Hillcrest Cinjungle trek in The Descendants, emas—is at its best during silent Woody and David’s drive across moments traversing the hypnotic Nebraska state lines is simply a MacGuffin and vast landscape of the region.

Directed by Alexander Payne for conflicted characters to conFavoring panoramas and shot in Starring Bruce Dern, Will Forte, front decades of silent trauma. pristine black-and-white, it makes This comes to a head when father a point to establish an expansive June Squibb and Bob Odenkirk and son spend a weekend layover sense of space that allows its charRated R in Woody’s hometown, a quaint acters the proper distance to stew. micro-universe that harbors both There’s a lot of room to get saviors and serpents from his past. Most of the latter lost—in your thoughts, regrets and uncertainty about are close family. the future. Fittingly, in a story about one character’s As news of Woody’s winnings spreads like wild- pursuit to reach a single location, multiple side trips fire across the community, he and David find them- play key roles in shaping the narrative’s power. During selves pinned against a wall of passive-aggressive- one such tangent to Mt. Rushmore, Woody is unimness by relatives asking for handouts. Mysterious old pressed, finally walking away and grumbling, “We’ve debts are called in, and opportunism seems to rise up seen it. Now we can go.” Another missed opportunity. from the cracks of Main Street. Unfortunately, Payne Yet, by the end, one gets the feeling that while takes this opportunity to craft some truly abrasive revelation will never come, Woody and David do characterizations, painting the desperation of stag- finally find a foothold to re-discover the missing nant souls in judgmental comedic strokes. pride that has decimated their family. In Nebraska, Thankfully, the director balances them out with this is as close to the American dream as anyone’s equally caring bit players from Woody’s past, people going to get. who are genuinely thrilled not just by his potential success, but also for the opportunity to see the man Write to glennh@sdcitybeat.com again. Most notable is an ex-girlfriend named Peg and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Border angels

Go for Sisters

24 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

John Sayles became a major director, in my mind, during 11th-grade U.S. history class. After a viewing of 1987’s Matewan, a riveting account of a West Virginia coal strike in 1920 that led to a bloody battle between townspeople and Pinkerton agents, I was immediately fascinated by Sayles’ deep respect for community, region

and the relationship between the two. His subtle directing style and carefully developed characterizations also stood out.

Look at the entire Sayles canon and you’ll see that he’s spent the last three decades exploring different areas of the United States and Latin America with this same focused understanding of sociology, character and political subtext. But none of his films

feel quite like Go for Sisters, the a panorama of cultures and perdirector’s new effort, which opens spectives for these diverse spirits Friday, Nov. 29, at the Ken Cinema to discover proper redemption. and screens for only one week.

—Glenn Heath Jr. After 2010’s Amigo, an ambitious but ultimately comproOpening mised historical drama set during the Philippine-American Black Nativity: Angela Basset and ForWar, Go for Sisters feels perfectly est Whitaker lead this ensemble dramedy, directed by Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou), streamlined. about a young man who visits his esEssentially a road film, it begins tranged relatives for the holidays, only to with Los Angeles parole officer discover a newfound sense of family and Bernice (LisaGay Hamilton) en- inspiration. It opens Wednesday, Nov. 27. listing an estranged old friend and The Book Thief: A young girl faced with convict named Fontayne (Yolanda the horrors of Nazi Germany steals books Ross) to help locate her miss- as an act of defiance and begins sharing them with Jewish refugees. Markus Zuing son, who may have been kid- sak’s best-selling novel comes to the big napped in Tijuana. With the aid of screen in this adaptation starring Geoffrey an ex-federale (Edward James Ol- Rush and Emily Watson. Opens Wednesmos), the two women dive down day, Nov. 27, at La Jolla Village Cinemas. the criminal rabbit hole south of Go for Sisters: In John Sayles’ latest character piece, a Los Angeles parole offithe border. cer leans on an estranged convict friend to But Sayles sees their search help find her kidnapped son south of the as an opportunity to explore old border. Screens for one week only at the wounds, judgments and resent- Ken Cinema. See our review on Page 24. ments. The interactions between Homefront: Jason Statham plays a forBernice and Fontayne are littered mer DEA agent who retires to a backwoods only to find more trouble in the form with frayed emotional nerves that town of a country gangster (James Franco!) pack a wallop. looking to protect his drug operations.

Go for Sisters is, above all, a sto- JFK: The American Betrayal: Another ry of missing persons, and not just documentary about the JFK assassinain the physical sense. Each char- tion, claiming the president was taking acter is trying to find something, part in peace talks with Russia and Cuba his death. Conspiracy theorists be it a sense of purpose, identity or before rejoice. Screens through Dec. 4 at Digital family. As always, Sayles provides Gym Cinema in North Park.

One Time Only Warren Miller’s Ticket to Ride: The renowned sports filmmaker’s 64th directing effort starts the snowboarding season with a collage of extreme footage featuring three gold medalists. Screens at 6 and 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 29, at La Paloma Theater in Encinitas and 6 and 9 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30, at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s La Jolla location.

Homefront Nebraska: Aged retiree Woody (Bruce Dern) is determined to collect his winnings after receiving a phony sweepstakes letter, eventually dragging his reluctant son (Will Forte) on a road trip that’ll change both of their lives. Alexander Payne’s latest is a melancholic ode to family and the Midwest. See our review on Page 24.

Oldboy: Spike Lee’s remake of the brutal Korean revenge saga stars Josh Brolin as a man imprisoned for 20 years by an unknown captor, only to be suddenly released without explanation and taunted by a madman.

Philomena: Comedian Steve Coogan takes on a more serious role as a cynical journalist who ends up helping an elderly woman (Judi Dench) search for her long lost son. Oscar nominations are a certainty.

Tlateloco, Verano del 68: Two teenagers from the opposite sides of the track find romance during student protests in Mexico City in 1968. Screens through Dec. 5 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

Star Trek: Into Darkness: Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the rest of the Enterprise crew find themselves under attack from a new, more powerful villain played to perfection by Benedict Cumberbatch. Screens at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 29 and 30, at Cinema Under the Stars in Mission Hills.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Based on the popular graphic novel, Edgar Wright’s love letter to video gaming and young heartbreak is a kinetic dynamo mashing style and character in fascinating ways.

Screens at midnight on Saturday, Nov. 30, at Ken Cinema.

Hello I Must Be Going: Recently divorced and holed up in her parents’ sleek suburban home, Amy (Melanie Lynskey) begins an affair with a younger man that takes her down a rough-and-tumble road toward rejuvenation. Screens at 6:30 p.m.

Monday, Dec. 2, at the San Diego Public Library in East Village.

The Imposter: A homeless man discovered in Spain claims to be the kidnapped son of a Texas family that’s swimming in secrets. This documentary is not what it seems. Screens at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 3, at Hervey Branch Library in Point Loma.

9 to 5: In this classic 1980s feminist comedy, three women (Dolly Parton, Jane Fon-

da and Lily Tomlin) working in dead-end corporate jobs decide to take revenge on their chauvinistic boss (Dabney Coleman).

Presented by FilmOut, it screens at 7 p.m.

Wednesday, Dec. 4, at the Birch North Park Theatre.

Sugar: Independent drama about a young girl coping with the psychological effects of PTSD on the streets of Venice, Calif.

Screens at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 4, at Reading Gaslamp Cinemas.

Die Hard: The best Christmas film ever made. Screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 4, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

Now Playing A Case of You: Justin Long plays a lovable writer with insecurity issues who creates a fabricated online profile to win the heart of Evan Rachel Wood’s adorable barista. Ends Nov. 28 at Digital Gym Cinema in North Park.

The Broken Circle Breakdown: A Belgian couple is torn apart by loss and connected by passion for bluegrass music.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) finds herself once again fighting to survive the titular death match that has become a necessary evil in the dystopic future.

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

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 25

Speaking

Julianna Julianna Barwick’s Barwick’s language

Vocalist creates expansive pieces with only her voice • by Ben Salmon

I

n the first 90 seconds of “One Half,” the third song on Julianna Barwick’s new album, Nepenthe, something unexpected emerges from her familiar, reverberant haze: actual, discernible English words.

“I guess I was asleep that night,” she sings over and over as the song crests. “Was waiting for….”

The song recedes, just in time to not only preserve the narrative suspense, but also save Barwick from having to fill in more of the story.

Over a half-dozen years and two previous, home-recorded albums, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Barwick famously built her tunes out of looped and layered vocals and little else, eschewing language and its traditional role in storytelling.

So, the lyrics on “One Half” inevitably spur the question: Is Barwick interested in writing more songs with words?

She answers definitively—for now, at least.

“I don’t want to do that. That seems painful to me,” she says in an interview from Tulsa, Okla., where she’s visiting family before heading west on a tour that will bring her to San Diego’s Luce Loft, the East Village event space, on Saturday, Nov. 30.

“It just doesn’t come naturally to me,” she says. “It would feel like homework.”

With Nepenthe and 2011’s wordless masterpiece The Magic Place, Barwick—who grew up singing in church in the Midwest—has put forth some of the most emotionally affecting (and critically acclaimed) music of the past few years. Her sound is hauntingly beautiful, and her style impeccable. Barwick has been described as a one-woman choir of angels by the likes of The Village Voice and Utne Reader. Undeniably, her methods have worked thus far.

“It’s been pretty hectic, organizing concerts and get-

26 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

ting music to choirs in Poland and Portugal,” she says. “But it’s… a total dream come true.”

Of course, sometimes a wrinkle in the routine is too inviting to pass up. Enter Alex Somers, an American producer based in Iceland, best known for his work with postrock heavyweights Sigur Rós. After hearing Barwick’s music through his brother, Somers emailed her out of the blue to gauge her interest in working together.

“I didn’t even think twice about that one. I just answered it,” Barwick says. “Like, ‘Yes, totally. When? Anytime.’”

That was a couple of years ago. In February, she traveled to Iceland with an open mind, ready to soak in the country’s cold, dark landscape.

“The idea of going to this place,” Barwick says, “that is completely singular and totally stunningly beautiful was really exciting, because, of course, you’re influenced by your environment.”

Evidence of that is all over Nepenthe, on which icy melodies and sheets of harmony move at an unhurried pace that befits the overcast skies of winter near the Arctic Circle. (The visuals that returned home with Barwick, courtesy of filmmaker Derrick Belcham, are a perfect complement to the Nepenthe sound—equal parts strikingly gorgeous and shiver-inducing.)

Somers’ influence can be heard on the album, as well, from the triumphant coda of “The Harbinger” to the submerged piano that kicks off “Forever” or the Sigur Róslike whale-song effects in “Pyrrhic.” Working in the famed Sundlaugin studio—which Sigur Rós converted from an old swimming pool several years ago—the collaboration between Somers and Barwick is a thread that runs throughout the gentle crescendos of Nepenthe.

It was a welcome change after years of solitary soundscaping sessions, Barwick says.

“If I want to make a hermit-style record, I can. Any time I want to. And I… almost certainly will,” she says. “I was just really excited about having the opportunity… to go to Iceland and to have eyes and ears [in the studio] that aren’t mine. Alex and I talked for a year before I even went over there, so we hatched a bunch of ideas, [and] I was really ready and pumped to go over there and start working.”

Barwick is fully aware of the contrast between her past recording experiences and the Nepenthe process, which also included contributions from the contemporary classical string ensemble Amiina, Múm guitarist Róbert Sturla Reynisson and a choir of teenage girls. But once she was in studio and creating music, she slipped easily into her unique, sometimes insular style of composition.

That place—open-ended though it may be—is comfortable for Barwick.

“That’s one thing I love about the… spontaneous looping stuff: There’s no way to predict it or plan it or compose it ahead of time,” she says. “The first time I made a thing, I was, like, ‘I love the way this sounds, and it’s so much fun to make, and I don’t have to painstakingly think something through ahead of time. I can just do it and it’s super fast and fun.’ I just loved everything about it.”

Her on-the-spot sound creations also coexist nicely with her goal of avoiding lyrics forever.

Forever—right, Julianna?

“Not yet, or maybe ever,” she says. “I’m not saying never.

I’m just not interested.”

Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com.

notes from the smoking patio Locals Only Cuckoo Chaos is coming to an end. The eclectic indie-rock group, who started in 2006, will play their last show on Saturday, Dec. 28, at Soda Bar. There’s a twist, however—the band’s five members are launching a brand-new project together in 2014.

They aren’t yet ready to reveal the name of the new band, but there are plans to release an album next year that’s been in the works for more than two years.

In an interview at Influx Café in Golden Hill, bass player Garrett Prange explains that in the process of recording the album, Cuckoo Chaos more or less evolved into an entirely different band.

“I think we all wanted to do something more expansive, dark and artistic,” he says. The new band is “representative of all of us—what we’re collectively into.”

Originally started as a home-recorded project by frontman Scott Wheeler, Cuckoo Chaos took Rebecca Joelson

shape with its current lineup in 2010. In 2011, they released their first EP, Woman, which had a strong tropicália and Afrobeat influence. Yet guitarist and keyboardist Jackson Milgaten says that it took a while for the group to determine what direction they wanted to take their music, which led to added stress on the band.

“We were figuring out what kind of band we wanted to be,” he says. “Now, we know how we work, and we have a game plan for how we move forward.”

Some of the songs the band’s been playing live in the past year will be on the new group’s debut album, though they won’t be playing any Cuckoo Chaos material going forward. In January, they’ll announce the details of the new project, but Milgaten says they want to make sure the time is right before they drop the news.

“It’s kind of like how you don’t want to tell anyone that you’re pregnant right away,” Milgaten says. “You want to make sure that it’s alive and well and growing.”

—Jeff Terich

Cuckoo Chaos

Pilgrims’ playlist It’s not even Thanksgiving yet and you’re probably already nauseated by Christmas music—whatever you do, don’t tune into 95.7-FM! And if you’re looking for music to play while the family sits down for a good ol’-fashioned turkey gnaw, the pickin’s are slim. There aren’t that many Thanksgiving carols, except for “Over the River and Through the Woods.”

With that in mind, I thought I’d cook up a playlist of songs from San Diego artists past and present to put everyone in a thankful, festive and gluttonous mood: Gonjasufi, “Holidays”: Chances are, your holidays won’t be as psychedelic as Gonjasufi’s, but now is as good a time as any to make them a little weirder. Spin this beat-driven gem and put some disorienting fun into your Thanksgiving.

The Heavy Guilt, “Goin’ Home”: A lot of us will be going back to our childhood homes to visit with family, and there’s definitely a comfort-food aspect to The Heavy Guilt’s bluesy, soulful, indie-rock sound.

Rafter, “Salt”: You might say the secret ingredient is salt—just about everything on the menu is going to be loaded with it. As it should be.

Inch, “Sugar”: Save some room for dessert, be it pumpkin or apple pie—or the charred marshmallows off the top of the sweet potatoes (guard your loose fillings!).

Hot Snakes, “Think About Carbs”: Potatoes, rolls, stuffing, pie—you get the idea.

Heavy Vegetable, “The Ducks at Ralphs”: Or, maybe you’re into the whole turducken thing.

Mrs. Magician, “Fuck You Aunt Gloria”: Visiting with family gets stressful sometimes, and after emptying a few bottles of wine we might say some things we’ll end up regretting. Like the title of this song.

Trumans Water, “American Fat”: Is there anything more American than stuffing your face and packing on a few pounds during the holidays? I don’t think so.

The Locust, “An Extra Piece of Dead Meat”: And, of course, everybody Gonjasufi loves leftovers. This 30-second blast of noisecore will help you tap into your most primal, carnivorous instincts while you’re raiding the fridge at midnight.

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

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 27

if i were u

BY Jeff Terich

Wednesday, Nov. 27 PLAN A: Stripes and Lines, Jackson Price, Ed Ghost Tucker @ The Casbah. Stripes and Lines appear to have learned all the right lessons from alt-rock, and the group finds the right balance between intensity and atmosphere, hooks and intrigue. Dance off a few calories before the big feast on Thursday.

PLAN B: Too $hort, DJ Brett Bodley @ Fluxx. Oakland MC Too $hort is a hip-hop legend, having once sold 50,000 copies of an album the old-fashioned way: word of mouth and self-promotion. The posh Gaslamp club Fluxx might be an odd fit for his old-school West Coast g-funk, particularly with an enforced dress code, but as Tom Haverford of Parks and Recreation might say, “Treat yo self!” BACKUP PLAN: Nightlands, Stag, Jeans Wilder @ Soda Bar.

Thursday, Nov. 28 PLAN A: Turkey, Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Pie @ Your House. On Thanksgiving, this is the only lineup I care about. Sure, some punk band will probably put together a house show after everyone’s drained the

feature on Julianna Barwick, a singer who uses her vocal abilities like an instrument, layering loops of her own voice until they create a heavenly, ambient sound. And come early for guitarist Mark McGuire, who creates some heady, psychedelic sounds of his own. PLAN B: Redd Kross, Octa#grape, Friday, Nov. 29 Joel Jerome + Babies on Acid @ The CasPLAN A: Fever the Ghost, Golden Beach- bah. Redd Kross grew out of the L.A. punk es, Island Boy, Tiger Milk Imports @ Soda scene of the ’80s to evolve into a revered Bar. Los Angeles’ Fever the Ghost haven’t indie-rock group in the ’90s. Their newest been around long, but they’ve been quickly album, Researching the Blues, keeps intact building up buzz with their Syd Barrett- their ultra-fun blend of power pop and meets-T. Rex acid-laced rock glam rock. It’s impossible to freakouts. They may be green, feel bad while listening to but they most certainly rock. this band. BACKUP PLAN: Get in on the ground floor Modern Life is War, Somaand check them out before li Pirates, Suspect @ The the buzz grows even louder.

Che Café.

PLAN B: Sweatson Klank, DJ Pound, Sleeve, Nick Sunday, Dec. 1 Lang, Dream Repeat @ The PLAN A: Capsula, The Void. Paris-born, Los AngeWooly Bandits, Zero Zero les-based producer Sweatson @ The Casbah. ArgentinKlank deals in grimy, atmospheric beatscapes that fit Kaki King ian rock group Capsula have been honing their psychecomfortably next to those of Flying Lotus or his extended Brainfeeder delic alt-rock sound for 15 years, and in family. Shake the Thanksgiving hangover that time, they’ve toured with Tropicalia legends Os Mutantes and collaborated with some of his hallucinatory IDM. with David Bowie producer Tony Visconti.

Check out their new album, Solar Secrets, Saturday, Nov. 30 for a fine display of hook-laden spacePLAN A: Julianna Barwick, Mark rock. BACKUP PLAN: Neighbors to the McGuire @ Luce Loft. See Page 26 for our North, Muscle Beech, Cut @ Soda Bar. bottles in the liquor cabinet, but it’s safe to say most of us will be nursing a pretty serious food coma by then. Just be careful if you’re planning on deep-frying that bird.

Pass me another drumstick!

28 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

Monday, Dec. 2 PLAN A: Nightmares on Wax, Illuminauts @ Belly Up Tavern. Nightmares on Wax, aka George Evelyn, is a trip-hop pioneer, having been recording down-tempo electronic material for more than two decades. And the U.K. producer just keeps on crafting new smoky, atmospheric and crackly grooves. Dance, chill out or just feel the vibes—this show will help wash Monday off after a long weekend.

Tuesday, Dec. 3 PLAN A: Kaki King, Jerome Holloway @ The Casbah. Whenever a magazine publishes a list of the greatest guitarists, somehow Kaki King manages to just miss the cut, which is baffling. She’s one of the most talented contemporary guitarists, and she does her thing in the framework of a gorgeous pop song. Watch her fingerpicking style up close and be in awe. PLAN B: Secret Samurai, The Trebants @ Tin Can Ale House. It doesn’t get very cold in San Diego in December, so it’s not entirely out of the question to jam out to some instrumental surf-rock as the holidays draw near. Secret Samurai does old-school surfguitar tunes that sit comfortably between The Ventures and Dick Dale—right where they belong. BACKUP PLAN: Together Pangea, The So So Glos, Buddy Banter @ Soda Bar.

HOT! NEW! FRESH! Polica (BUT, 12/18), Perfect Pussy (Soda Bar, 12/19), Poison Idea (Brick By Brick, 1/3), The Dragons (Casbah, 1/4), Corrections House (Soda Bar, 1/6), Tennis (Soda Bar, 1/12), Martha Davis and The Motels (BUT, 1/15), Pure Bathing Culture (Soda Bar, 1/24), The Menzingers (Che Café, 1/30), Oneohtrix Point Never (The Irenic, 2/8), Brandon Boyd and Sons of the Sea (HOB, 2/11), Secret Chiefs 3 (Casbah, 2/12), Marissa Nadler (Soda Bar, 2/23), R. Stevie Moore (Soda Bar, 2/24), Walk Off The Earth (HOB, 3/5), The Casket Girls (The Void, 3/7), Journey, Steve Miller Band (Sleep Train Amphitheatre, 5/15), Milk Carton Kids (BUT, 6/22).

CANCELLED Sinead O’Connor (BUT, 11/26)

GET YER TICKETS Fitz and the Tantrums, Chvrches, The Airborne Toxic Event (Valley View Casino Center, 12/6), JAY Z (Valley View Casino Center, 12/7), ‘91X Wrex The Halls’ w/ Queens of the Stone Age, Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys, Cage the Elephant, Alt-J (Valley View Casino Center, 12/8), IconaPop (HOB, 12/15), Andrew WK (Epicentre, 12/20), Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (HOB, 12/22), Matthew Sweet (BUT, 1/2), Three Mile Pilot (Casbah, 1/7), No Knife (Casbah, 1/8), Janelle Monae (HOB, 1/13), Pinback (Casbah, 1/14), The Penetrators (Casbah, 1/17), Buck O Nine (Casbah,

1/18), Skinny Puppy (HOB, 1/25), OFF! (Casbah, 1/29), MXPX (The Irenic, 1/31), Yuck (The Casbah, 2/2), Young The Giant (SOMA, 2/9), White Denim (The Casbah, 2/9), New Politics (HOB, 2/17), The Wailers (BUT, 3/2), Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings (HOB, 3/22).

November Wednesday, Nov. 20 Kate Nash at Porter’s Pub. John Vanderslice at Soda Bar. Pennywise at Belly Up Tavern.

Thursday, Nov. 21 Steve Poltz at Belly Up Tavern. Pearl Jam at Viejas Arena. Moving Units at Hard Rock Hotel.

Friday, Nov. 22 Obits at The Casbah. B-Side Players at House of Blues. English Beat at Belly Up Tavern.

Saturday, Nov. 23 English Beat at Belly Up Tavern. U.S. Girls at The Void. Screaming Females at Soda Bar. The Locust at Porter’s Pub. Cayucas at The Loft.

Sunday, Nov. 24 Drake at Viejas Arena. Night Beats at The Casbah. Church of Misery at Soda Bar.

Monday, Nov. 25 Sir Sly at The Casbah.

Tuesday, Nov. 26 Deltron 3030 at House of Blues. Hard

Fall Hearts at The Casbah.

Wednesday, Nov. 27 Ryan Cabrera at The Griffin. Chris Isaak at Belly Up Tavern. Nightlands at Soda Bar.

Friday, Nov. 29 The Devil Wears Prada at SOMA. Polar Bear Club at The Irenic. Fever The Ghost at Soda Bar. Crystal Bowersox at The Griffin.

Saturday, Nov. 30 Julianna Barwick at Luce Loft. Redd Kross at The Casbah. Modern Life Is War at Che Café.

December Sunday, Dec. 1 Less Than Jake, Anti-Flag at House of Blues. Sasha at Bassmnt. Rufus Wainwright at Belly Up Tavern.

Monday, Dec. 2 Nightmares on Wax at Belly Up Tavern.

Tuesday, Dec. 3 Kaki King at The Casbah.

Wednesday, Dec. 4 Tedeschi Trucks Band at Balboa Theatre. Gavin Turek at The Casbah. Howie Day at The Griffin.

Thursday, Dec. 5 Macklemore & Ryan Lewis at Valley View Casino Center. Margaret Cho at Balboa Theatre. Black Uhuru at Belly Up Tavern.

Friday, Dec. 6 Black Joe Lewis at House of Blues. Cadillac Tramps at The Casbah. Fitz and the Tantrums, Chvrches, The Airborne Toxic Event at Valley View Casino Center.

Saturday, Dec. 7 JAY Z at Valley View Casino Center. Waxahatchee, Swearin’ at Che Café. Soft Lions at Soda Bar. Fu Manchu at The Casbah. MS MR at Soda Bar.

Sunday, Dec. 8 X at Belly Up Tavern. Fates Warning at Brick by Brick. Hayden at Soda Bar. Queens of the Stone Age, Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys, Cage the Elephant, Alt-J at Valley View Casino Center.

Monday, Dec. 9 Dinosaur Bones at Soda Bar.

Tuesday, Dec. 10 Third Eye Blind at House of Blues. Exhumed at The Casbah.

Wednesday, Dec. 11 The Black Crowes at Balboa Theatre.

rCLUBSr

710 Beach Club, 710 Garnet Ave, Pacific Beach. 710bc.com. Wed: Zig Zag Jones.

Fri: Kirk Ward (5 p.m.); High Noon, Saline Solutions, Tim and the 23’s (9:30 p.m.).

Sat: Devocean, Brothers Gow, Low Budget. Tue: ‘710 Bass Club’.

98 Bottles, 2400 Kettner Blvd. Ste. 110, Little Italy. 98bottlessd.com. Fri: Jamie Shadowlight. Sat: Coast Bop. Air Conditioned Lounge, 4673 30th St, Normal Heights. airconditionedbar.com.

Wed: DJ Sean Marcich. Thu: DJs Bala, Ledher 10, Less Than None. Fri: ‘Unwind’ w/ DJ Junior the DiscoPunk. Sat: ‘Juicy’ w/ Mike Czech.

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

Wed: Doug Benson. Fri-Sat: Joey Diaz.

Sun: ‘Full Throttle Comedy’. Tue: Open mic.

AMSDconcerts, 4650 Mansfield St, Normal Heights. amsdconcerts.com. Fri: Irish Christmas in America.

Bang Bang, 526 Market St, Downtown. facebook.com/BangBangSanDiego. Wed: Thomas Gold. Fri: Christian Karlsson. Sat: Danny Daze. Tue: 12th Planet, AC Slater, Clicksandwhistles.

Bar Pink, 3829 30th St, North Park. barpink.com. Wed: DJ L. Fri: Fam Royal.

Sat: ‘Funk 101’ w/ Stevie and The Hi-Stax, DJ Barry Thomas. Sun: City Mouse, Floor Notes. Mon: The Husky Boy All-Stars.

Tue: ‘Tiki Tuesday’ w/ Adrian Demain’s Exotica-tronica.

Bassmnt, 919 Fourth Ave, Downtown. bassmntsd.com. Wed: 3Lau, Borgeous.

Fri: Digital Lab. Sat: Brillz. Sun: Sasha.

Beaumont’s, 5662 La Jolla Blvd, La Jolla. brocktonvilla.com/beaumonts.html. Wed: Mike Myrdal. Fri: John Stanley King. Sat: Random Radio.

Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave, Solana Beach. bellyup.com. Wed: Chris Isaak (sold out). Fri & Sat: ‘A Grounda-

CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

November 27 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 29

tion Thanksgiving’ w/ Paula Fuga and Mike Love. Sun: Rufus Wainwright. Mon: Nightmares on Wax, The Illuminauts.

Tue: B.B. King.

Bourbon Street, 4612 Park Blvd, University Heights. bourbonstreetsd.com. Wed: ‘Wet’. Fri: ‘Go-Go Fridays’ w/ VJ K-Swift.

Sat: ‘Dinner With the Dreamgirls’. Sun: ‘Soiree’.

Brick by Brick, 1130 Buenos Ave, Bay Park. brickbybrick.com. Wed: Hessler, Dive Bomber, Hundred Caliber. Fri: Mother Mary Mood, Blood Dancer, Xolmani.

Sat: Allison Chains, Black Sabbitch, Smack This.

Cafe Sevilla, 353 Fifth Ave, Downtown. cafesevilla.com. Wed: Aro Di Santi. Thu & Sat: Malamana. Fri: Joeff and Co. Croce’s, 802 Fifth Ave, Downtown. croces.com. Wed: Fuzzy. Fri: Gilbert Castellanos and The New Latin Jazz Quintet.

Sat: Daniel Jackson (11:30 a.m.); Yavaz (8:30 p.m.). Mon: Dave Scott and Monsoon Jazz.

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

Dizzy’s, 4275 Mission Bay Drive, Mission Bay. dizzyssandiego.com. Fri: Dmitry Matheny. Sat: Mark Augustin and Lisa Hightower. Sun: Justin Grinnell.

El Dorado Bar, 1030 Broadway, Downtown. eldoradobar.com. Wed: Staches & Mashes: A Movember Benefit. Fri: ‘The Beat Kitchen’ w/ Question, Charlie Rock, Freddie Joachim. Sat: ‘BandG vs. Hickies’. Tue: The Mattson 2.

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

Fluxx, 500 Fourth Ave, Downtown. fluxx-

sd.com. Wed: Too $hort. Fri: DJ Scooter.

Sat: DJ Sid Vicious.

Cookin’. Fri: Ron’s Garage. Sat: The Upshots.

Gallagher’s, 5040 Newport Ave, Ocean Beach. 619-222-5303. Wed: The Heavy Guilt, Deadly Birds. Fri: Danny and The Tramp, DJ Arox. Sat: Legacy Pack, Destructo Bunny, DJ Chelu.

Numbers, 3811 Park Blvd, Hillcrest. numberssd.com. Thu: ‘Varsity’. Fri: ‘Viernes Calientes’. Sun: ‘Joe’s Gamenite’.

Tue: Karaoke Latino.

Hard Rock Hotel, 207 Fifth Ave, Downtown. hardrockhotelsd.com. Sat: Loczi, Freshone.

Henry’s Pub, 618 Fifth Ave, Downtown. henryspub.com. Wed: Johnny Tarr, DJ Chris London. Fri: DJs Rev, Yodah. Sat: DJs E, Yodah. Mon: DJs Yodah, Joey Jimenez.

House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave, Downtown. houseofblues.com/sandiego. Wed: Chase Rice, A Thousand Horses. Thu: ‘House of Giving’. Fri: The Dan Band.

Sat: Judith Hill, Chyla. Sun: Less Than Jake, Anti-Flag, Masked Intruder, Get Dead.

Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. kavalounge.com. Thu: DJs Swamp, Sixfootunda, Uncut, Bassmechanic, KC3PO. Fri: ‘Tribalove’. Sun: ‘The House With No Name’.

Kensington Club, 4079 Adams Ave, Kensington. 619-284-2848. Wed: The Amalgamated, The Lexicons, Sugar Brown. Fri: Super Buffet. Sat: The Nite Crawlers, Nutstache, Masteria.

Lestat’s Coffee House, 3343 Adams Ave, Normal Heights. lestats.com. Wed: Clayton Severson, Curt Owen, Northridge.

Fri: Danielle Stathas, 23 Shades, Tyler Boone. Sat: Laura Leighe, Teresa Storch, The Santana Brothers. Mon: Open mic.

Tue: Comedy night.

Mc P’s Irish Pub, 1107 Orange Ave, Coronado. mcpspub.com. Wed: Tone

Onyx Room / Thin, 852 Fifth Ave, Downtown. onyxroom.com. Fri: ‘Rumba Lounge’. Sat: DJs Sachamo, Rags, Engage.

Patricks Gaslamp, 428 F St, Downtown. patricksii.com. Fri: Trey Tosh and the TnT Band. Sat: Mystique Element of Soul.

Quality Social , 789 Sixth Ave, Downtown. qualitysocial.com. Thu: DJ Saul Q. Fri: ‘90s Dance’.

Queen Bee’s, 3925 Ohio St, North Park. queenbeessd.com. Fri: ‘Gorilla Music Battle of the Bands’. Tue: Open mic.

Rich’s, 1051 University Ave, Hillcrest. richssandiego.com. Wed: DJs Casey Alva, John Joseph. Fri: DJs Dirty Kurty, Will Z. Sat: DJs Taj, Nikno. Sun: ‘PUMP!’ Riviera Supper Club, 7777 University Ave, La Mesa. rivierasupperclub.com.

Wed: Kice Simko. Fri: Cougar Canyon Band. Sat: Sleepwalkers. Tue: Karaoke.

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

Wed: Gilbert Castellanos jazz jam. Fri: Hills Like Elephants, Diatribes. Sat: Soul Organization.

Shakedown Bar, 3048 Midway Drive, Point Loma. theshakedownsd.com. Wed: ‘Retro Revival’. Fri: Gunner Gunner, Wilson Renette, Decompression. Sat: Middle Class Rejects.

Side Bar, 536 Market St, Downtown. sidebarsd.com. Thu: ‘Divino Thursdays’.

Sat: Epic Twelve.

Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. sodabarmusic.com. Wed: Nightlands, Stag, Jeans Wilder. Fri: Fever The Ghost, Golden Beaches, Island Boy, Tiger Milk Imports. Sat: The Hollerin, Brothers Weiss, Leanna May and The Matadors, Love and The Skull. Sun: Neighbors To The North, Muscle Beech, Cut. Mon: Big Country Elephant, Boondock Brothers, Troupe. Tue: Together Pangea, The So So Glos, Buddy Banter.

SOMA, 3350 Sports Arena Blvd, Midway. somasandiego.com. Fri: The Devil Wears Prada, The Ghost Inside, Volumes, Texas In July. Sat: Tribal Seeds, Stick Figure, The Expanders, Piracy Conspiracy.

Spin, 2028 Hancock St, Midtown. spinnightclub.com. Sat: DJ Harvey, Doc Martin.

Stage Bar & Grill, 762 Fifth Ave, Downtown. stagesaloon.com. Wed: Mark Fisher and Gaslamp Guitars. Thu: Van Roth.

Fri: Audiotrap (8 p.m.); Disco Pimps (10:30 p.m.). Sat: Final Days (8 p.m.); Hott Mess (9:30 p.m.); DJ Miss Dust (10:30 p.m.). Sun: ‘Funhouse/Seismic’.

Mon: Isleside (7:30 p.m.); ‘Fettish Monday’ (10 p.m.).

The Brass Rail, 3796 Fifth Ave, Hillcrest. thebrassrailsd.com. Wed: ‘The Boys Are Back’ w/ DJ Ivan. Fri: ‘R-Night’ w/ DJ Kiki.

Sat: ‘Sabados en Fuego’ w/ DJs XP, KA. Sun: ‘Noche Romantica’ w/ Daisy Salinas. Mon: ‘Manic Mondays’ w/ DJs XP, Junior the DiscoPunk.

The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd, Midtown. casbahmusic.com. Wed: Stripes and Lines, Jackson Price, Ed Ghost Tucker. Fri: Gone Baby Gone, The Filthy Violets, The Phantoms, The Frights. Sat: Redd Kross, Octa#grape, Joel Jerome and Babies on Acid. Sun: Capsula, The Wooly Bandits, Zero Zero. Tue: Kaki

King, Jerome Holloway.

The Che Cafe, UCSD campus, La Jolla. thechecafe.blogspot.com. Thu: Safe and Sound, Reunion. Sat: Modern Life Is War, Somali Pirates, Suspect. Mon: Wood Spider, Sledding With Tigers. Tue: Human Behavior, The Telephone Projects, Bear Creek.

The Griffin, 1310 Morena Blvd, Bay Park. thegriffinsd.com. Wed: Ryan Cabrera, Keaton Simons. Fri: Crystal Bowersox, Seth Glier. Sat: Viva Santana. Mon: St. Cloud Sleepers. Tue: The Beautiful View, Old Man Wizard, Hot Karate.

The Loft @ UCSD, Price Center East, La Jolla. theloft.ucsd.edu. Tue: Mark Dresser Trio.

The Merrow, 1271 University Ave, Hillcrest. rubyroomsd.com. Sat: Smokestack Relics, The Good Neighbor, Johnny Deadly Trio.

The Office, 3936 30th St, North Park. officebarinc.com. Wed: ‘Be Thankful’ w/ DJs Kanye Asada, Ikah Love. Thu: ‘Spanksgiving’ w/ DJ Jimbo James. Tue: ‘The Boardroom’.

The Void, 3519 El Cajon Blvd, North Park. thevoidsd.com. Wed: ‘Bitch Please’ w/ Baby Boo DJs. Sun: Lust For Youth, Hive Mind, Sunwheel.

Til-Two Club, 4746 El Cajon Blvd, City Heights. tiltwoclub.com. Fri: ‘Philippines Benefit’ w/ Never Pass Go, The Mice, Four Tracks, Bat Lords, Western Settings. Mon: Karaoke. Tue: Stand Up Comedy.

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

Wed: Hanging From The Rafters, Tiger Milk Imports. Fri: Badabing, Mittens, Death By Snoo Snoo. Sat: Birdzilla, Ruben Lady, Sacri Monti. Mon: ‘Tin Can Country Club’ w/ Fast Heart Mart. Tue: Secret Samurai, The Trebants.

Tio Leo’s, 5302 Napa St, Bay Park. tioleos.com. Wed: Theo and Zydeco Patrol.

Fri: Rising Star. Sat: Full Strength Funk Band.

Tower Bar, 4757 University Ave, City Heights. thetowerbar.com. Wed: The Ratt’s Revenge. Fri: The Beautiful View, OkayOkay!, One I Red. Sat: 99th Floor, Schitzophonics, DJ Tony the Tyger. Tue: Dan Padilla, Prince (TX).

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

Wed: Kevin and Eduardo (4 p.m.); Tomcat Courtney (6 p.m.). Fri: Tomcat Courtney (5 p.m.); Afro Jazziacs (9 p.m.). Sat: Tomcat Courtney (5 p.m.); The Jade Visions Jazz Trio (7 p.m.). Sun: Sounds Like Four (4 p.m.); Amarain Band (8 p.m.). Mon: Thee Antagonist (4 p.m.); Stefanie Schmitz and Amanda Portela (7 p.m.). Tue: Stefanie Schmitz (5 p.m.); Grupo Globo (7 p.m.).

U-31, 3112 University Ave, North Park. u31bar.com. Wed: Groundfloor, Cam|Ron, Mike Cooper. Fri: Beatnockers, DJs Saul Q, R-You. West Coast Tavern, 2895 University Ave, North Park. westcoatstavern.com.

Wed: DJ Qenoe. Thu: DJ Clean Cut. Fri: DJ Slowhand. Sat: DJ Decon.

Whistle Stop, 2236 Fern St, South Park. whistlestopbar.com. Wed: Commune.

Fri: The Donkeys. Sat: ‘Diamonds In the Back’.

Winstons, 1921 Bacon St, Ocean Beach. winstonsob.com. Wed: ‘Club Kingston’ w/ Maiz, DJ Carlos Culture.

Fri: In Motion Collective, Sure Fire Soul Ensemble, DJs Question, Marcellus Wallace. Sat: The Earful, Delta Nove. Mon: Electric Waste Band. Tue: New Riders of the Purple Sage.

30 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

Proud sponsor: San Diego Whale Watch

Ink Well Xwords by Ben Tausig

Across 1. Floors 5. Sir, in India 10. Small hardware store purchase 14. “That fall wasn’t as bad as it looked” 15. “In ___” (Nirvana album) 16. Lowbrow Vegas alternative 17. Shakespearean drama set in a dojo? (-Kid) 19. Neural transmitter 20. It may get rubber-stamped 21. Send into the hall?

23. App maker’s concern 25. Dead fans tend to like them 28. Shortage in the cellar? (-Iron) 33. Takes down, as a back might 34. Mayonnaise-y sandwich substance 35. It’s fermented warm 36. Engorged 37. ___-de-France 38. Hit hard, as a baseball 41. Perfects 43. Ellington rolling in dough? (-Big) 45. It comes up from behind 46. Brand next to Swanson and Birds Eye, perhaps 47. Mineral used as a weighting agent 51. Place for some rock 55. Like some thermometers 57. Valentine’s Day gifts that have to go back at the end of the night? (-Guns) 59. Major American export 60. One of a reproductive pair

Last week’s answers

61. Great Basin tribe 62. Guys, in an early ‘90s slang spelling 63. They hang onto stars 64. Meh

Down 1. Collaborative website 2. Muscat’s country 3. Run 4. Genre for Operation Ivy 5. Gave a nappy finish to, as leather 6. Org. for Djokovic 7. Prefix with pad 8. Party in recent nuclear negotiations 9. Woody’s last name on “Cheers” 10. Passage to the lungs 11. “This register’s open” 12. Chicago deep dish chain 13. Weigh station unit 18. Zaps, in spite of significant medical red flags 22. “Breaking ___ Hard to Do” 24. Enter equivalent 26. Tackle box gizmo 27. Dr. Jekyll’s alter ego and family, were he to settle down with an evil wife and kids 28. Enclose, as with bricks 29. First hip-hop single to reach #1 on the Billboard charts 30. Stayed mad 31. Not driving 32. Rascal 33. Buffalo player in yellow and blue 36. Afternoon cupful, say 39. Sap 40. Mountain lift 41. Horrible cartoon 42. Foul 44. Source of some spring color 48. Chain with stacks 49. DVR giant 50. Fashion periods 52. Regarding 53. The Quilts of ___ Bend 54. ___ Auto Club (Canada’s answer to AAA) 55. Wu-Tang Clan member who died in 2004 56. ___ Speedwagon 58. Places to go for a break, briefly

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.

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 31

32 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 33

34 · San Diego CityBeat · November 27, 2013

November 27, 2013 · San Diego CityBeat · 35