Tucson Weekly, April 8, 2021

DANEHY: ALL HAIL THE UA WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM

A Life in Song

APRIL 8 - 14, 2021 • TUCSONWEEKLY.COM • FREE

Ned Sutton influenced a generation of local indie musicians A tale of Tucson Salvage by Brian Smith ARTS: Spring Roundup

MUSIC: The Folk Festival Is Back!

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APRIL 8, 2021 | VOL. 36, NO. 14

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STAFF

CONTENTS CURRENTS

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Board votes to fund transportation for asylum seekers leaving Border Patrol custody

CURRENTS

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State lawmakers look to block Corporation Commission from setting renewable energy standards

ARTS & CULTURE

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The arts are rebounding in Southern Arizona

TUCSON SALVAGE

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So Close…

EDITOR’S NOTE

HEY, HOW ABOUT THAT UA WOMEN’S ration Commission from moving forward on basketball team? As columnist Tom Danehy renewable energy standards unless the Legnotes this week, “This was a season to be islature signs off on them and looks at why cherished, a team to be revered, and the start Pima County is setting up transportation for of something that will leave us all awestruck.” asylum-seeking undocumented immigrants This team sparked a lot of joy after they are released from in our town at a time when we Border Patrol custody; The could really use the boost. And Skinny provides a preview of just wait’ll next year! this year’s Tucson City CounThis week, Tucson Salvage cil races; associate editor Jeff columnist Brian Smith lands Gardner previews this weekin the cover slot with a profile end’s Tucson Folk Festival; of legendary Tucson musician arts writer Margaret Regan Ned Sutton, who was a mentor rounds up a number of dance, to many indie musicians who music and gallery shows that were up and coming in the are happening in upcom1980s. Sutton had his share of ing weeks; Tucson Weedly hard times as a Tucson musicolumnist David Abbott looks Women’s basketball coach at some zoning issues with local cian, including being set up for UA Adia Barnes. an absurd drug bust that netted dispensaries; and there’s plenty him a few years in prison, but he served his more cartoons, columns and cracklin’ content time and still knows how to strum a guitar, throughout the paper. although he hasn’t tried to do it for a living Stay safe out there! We’re almost through since he got out of the pen. Read all about his this COVID thing. fascinating life starting on Page 14.

Jim Nintzel Elsewhere in the book: Staff reporter ChrisExecutive Editor tine Duran turns out three big stories this week. On top of filling us in on the latest on Hear Nintz talk about all things Tucson COVID, Duran also examines how GOP state Weekly at 9:30 a.m. Wednesdays during The lawmakers want to block the Arizona CorpoFrank Show on KLPX, 96.1 FM. RANDOM SHOTS By Rand Carlson

Meet Ned Sutton: Unsung in and out of song

ADMINISTRATION Jason Joseph, President/Publisher jjoseph@azlocalmedia.com Jaime Hood, General Manager, Ext. 12 jaime@tucsonlocalmedia.com Casey Anderson, Ad Director/ Associate Publisher, Ext. 22 casey@tucsonlocalmedia.com Claudine Sowards, Accounting, Ext. 13 claudine@tucsonlocalmedia.com Sheryl Kocher, Receptionist, Ext. 10 sheryl@tucsonlocalmedia.com EDITORIAL Jim Nintzel, Executive Editor, Ext. 38 jimn@tucsonlocalmedia.com Austin Counts, Managing Editor, Ext. 36 austin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Jeff Gardner, Associate Editor, Ext. 43 jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com Mike Truelsen, Web Editor, Ext. 35 mike@tucsonlocalmedia.com Christina Duran, Staff Reporter, Ext. 42 christina@tucsonlocalmedia.com Contributors: Rob Brezsny, Max Cannon, Rand Carlson, Tom Danehy, Emily Dieckman, Bob Grimm, Andy Mosier, Linda Ray, Margaret Regan, Will Shortz, Jen Sorensen, Clay Jones, Dan Savage PRODUCTION David Abbott, Production Manager, Ext. 18 david@tucsonlocalmedia.com Ryan Dyson, Graphic Designer, Ext. 26 ryand@tucsonlocalmedia.com Emily Filener, Graphic Designer, Ext. 29 emilyf@tucsonlocalmedia.com CIRCULATION Alex Carrasco, Circulation, Ext. 17, alexc@tucsonlocalmedia.com ADVERTISING Kristin Chester, Account Executive, Ext. 25 kristin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Candace Murray, Account Executive, Ext. 24 candace@tucsonlocalmedia.com Lisa Hopper, Account Executive Ext. 39 lisa@tucsonlocalmedia.com Tyler Vondrak, Account Executive, Ext. 27 tyler@tucsonlocalmedia.com NATIONAL ADVERTISING VMG Advertising, (888) 278-9866 or (212) 475-2529 Tucson Weekly® is published every Thursday by 13 Street Media at 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona. Address all editorial, business and production correspondence to: Tucson Weekly, 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona 85741. Phone: (520) 797-4384, FAX (520) 575-8891. First Class subscriptions, mailed in an envelope, cost $112 yearly/53 issues. Sorry, no refunds on subscriptions.

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City of Tucson zeroes in on zoning updates for marijuana-related businesses

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transmissible and potentially more harmful.

“One of the silver linings here, though, is that the same kinds of mitigation measures that allow us to prevent transmission for the normal garden variety COVID are Pima County keeps mask mandate in place, opens vaccine to anyone 16 and older, creates new going to be the same ones that allow us to prevent transmission with these potenindoor vax centers tially more infectious more transmissible variants,” said Garcia.

By enforcing a mask mandate, Garcia complaints and works with businesses to hopes to “buy time” for Pima County as it

By Christina Duran resolve the conflict. He said there have christina@tucsonlocalmedia.com continues in its vaccination efforts. been very few cases the county needed to “It’s unfortunate that the governor has take action. taken this action, which other people are In consultation with Huckelberry, the interpreting as the pandemic is over,” Pima County Attorney’s Office and Garcia, PIMA COUNTY’S MASK MANDATE Garcia said.

County Health Director Dr. Theresa Cullen will remain in place and health inspectors While he’s sick of it too, Garcia asks will continue to instruct health inspectors have the legal authority to enforce those people to continue to follow these “relato enforce the mask mandate in establishmandates in food establishments, county tively easy measures” until the county has ments that prepare or offer food. The resolu- achieved a level of community immunity officials said last week. tion also covers any establishment open to In a March 26 letter, the Pima Counwith at least 75% of the population vaccithe public. ty Attorney’s Office informed County nated. “We are not there yet and we cannot Any businesses violating the resolution Administrator Chuck Huckelberry that pretend that the behaviors that we’re enGov. Doug Ducey does not have the legal can be fined $500 per infraction, and poten- gaged in public don’t impact the health and tially face suspension or revocation of its authority to prevent the County Health well-being of others,” Garcia said. operating permits. Individuals can also be Department from enacting reasonable As of Monday, April 5, more than 328,000 fined $50 per infraction, although the county Pima County residents, or roughly 31%, had public health measures. has not fined anyone so far, said Garcia in a received at least one vaccine shot and more Everyone in Pima County over the age press briefing Tuesday. of 5 must wear a face mask over their nose than 202,000 were fully vaccinated. Garcia “We believe that most operators in this and mouth unless they have a qualifying estimates that within a few weeks, county county are doing the right thing,” said Garexemption or are able to maintain physical officials will achieve a level of vaccination cia. “We believe that most citizens in Pima distance, according to Resolution 2020-96, that will allow the community to breathe.

County are doing the right thing, and we said Deputy County Attorney Jonathan “Our goal here isn’t to fight with the want to continue to give them the tools that governor or fight with the state,” Garcia said.

Pinkney. The Board passed the resolution they need to be able to continue to demand “Our goal is to try to do the best thing that on Dec. 4, 2020. that people use masks when they are in Pima County Chief Medical Officer we know how to do for the people of Pima public spaces.”

Dr. Francisco Garcia said the board has County. We will continue to do that and we Despite the continued vaccination effort authority, through an Arizona statute to hope that we will have a healthier communiand the approval of a federal POD that adopt provisions to preserve the health ty because of that.” could vaccinate another 210,000 residents, of the county and the Arizona Supreme Pima County Administrator Chuck HuckGarcia noted that last week in Pima County, elberry noted in an April 1 memo that the Court has recognized counties “may enact the number of COVID cases increased for public health measures that are equal to or rise in Arizona cases comes as cases are on more restrictive than ADHS.” Garcia called the first time in 10 weeks. the rise in many states. Huckelberry said the For the week ending March 21, Garcia Ducey’s order an “overreach on the part of increase could be connected to the different reported Pima County had 16 more cases the executive.” variant strains and noted that both the UK Garcia admits the arguments being made of COVID-19 than the previous week. The and Brazilian variants have been detected previous week saw one more death than are similar to those made in court when in Pima County’s wastewater monitoring, local bars sued the county for the mandatory the previous week and case numbers would though only the UK variant has been discovlikely change because of the reporting lag. curfew passed on Dec. 15, but believes they ered through COVID testing.

Garcia said the bump was only one stand on “solid ground.” and brushed off “This type of variant expansion is not undeath, “but that person mattered to their concerns about a legal challenge. common or unexpected, but it does create family, and any loss of life, which is “Bring it on,” Garcia said. greater urgency in order to achieve a level of Contrary to Ducey’s statement that mask avoidable, is something that we need to community immunity before new variants mandates are neither followed nor enforced, mitigate against.” take hold,” Huckelberry said. “We are very Garcia noted the concern over the growGarcia said Pima County receives comclose to returning to a level of normalcy, ing number of COVID-19 variants in the plaints through their portal. however this process will be delayed if infeccounty and Arizona at large, with the South tion rates increase significantly. We clearly He explained the county has a “‘three African, UK, Brazilian, and California varistrikes and you’re out” process in place to need to continue all mitigation measures, ants found in Arizona, which may be more process complaints. The county receives including the wearing of a mask.”

CURRENTS

MASK ASK

ANYONE 16 OR OLDER NOW ELIGIBLE FOR VACCINE PIMA COUNTY OPENED ELIGIBILITY for the COVID-19 vaccine to anyone 16 and older as Monday, April 5.

The county’s move brings it in line with the state, which opened eligibility to those 16 and over on March 24. In response, Pima County opened eligibility before to those 16 and older with high-risk medical conditions and essential workers.

“We have made great progress in vaccinating those groups and are continuing our efforts to ensure that vulnerable and at-risk populations have access to the vaccine as well,” said Pima County Health Department Director Dr. Theresa Cullen in a prepared statement. “With vaccine availability increasing in the county, it’s the right time to expand and have the same eligibility requirements no matter where you want to get your shot.”

The county opened another vaccination POD at El Pueblo Center, 101 W. Irvington Road, on Monday, April 5. This walk-in POD offers on-site registration and will operate from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Next week, the county is scheduled to open another indoor vaccination site at Kino Event Center.

Vaccination appointments, which will begin April 12, will be available from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Registration will open on April 9 via the state’s registration system at podvaccine.azdhs.gov.

County officials closed the COVID testing center at the Kino Event Center earlier this week in order to set up the new indoor vaccination site.

While the county has expanded eligibility for those 16 and older, only the Pfizer vaccine has been approved for teenagers 16 and 17 years old. Pfizer is available at the state-run site on the University of Arizona campus, at the county’s Banner South vaccination site and potentially at local pharmacies.

Those under 18 need a parent or legal guardian with them to complete the consent forms or have an accompanying adult bring a notarized letter stating that the parent allows the accompanying adult to complete the consent forms. ■ To register for an appointment with the county visit www.pima.gov/covid19vaccine or call the support line at 520-222-0119.

APRIL 8, 2021

DANEHY THE ARIZONA WILDCATS WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM HAD A GLORIOUS SEASON, EVEN IF THEY FELL SHORT AT THE BUZZER

By Tom Danehy, tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com ONE OF THE GREATEST MOVIES ever about music (although you can’t really call it a musical) is The Commitments, an often-hilarious story of a group of hardscrabble, pasty-faced Irish kids (and one grizzled professional) in Dublin who get together to form a soul-music band. They stumble along, spurred on by Jimmy, their self-appointed manager who can neither sing nor play an instrument but is supremely capable of using his gift of gab to help give the band a fighting chance. Slowly, then all of a sudden, they get good, then better. And just when they are on the threshold of making it big, things go terribly wrong.

As it begins to crumble, the veteran, Joey “The Lips” Fagan, tells Jimmy, “Sure, we could have been famous and made albums and stuff, but that would have been predictable. This way it’s poetry.”

And as anybody who has suffered through an AP Literature course can tell you, poetry mostly stinks.

After working their way through the first four rounds of the NCAA Tournament, the Arizona Wildcats women’s

CLAYTOONZ By Clay Jones

team had already made history. (And can we PLEASE stop using the term “Lady” Wildcats? The fans know that they’re women.) Only one Arizona women’s team had ever advanced to the Sweet 16 and that run ended right there. But here was upstart Arizona crashing into the Final Four by surviving a serious scare at the hands of BYU in the round of 32, then smacking No. 2 seed Texas A&M in the Sweet 16.

It was rarified air, an unprecedented run. But, like everything else in the Time of COVID, it had a downside. The Cats missed out on the opportunity to play the first two games at home in McKale Center, where, one hopes, that BYU game wouldn’t have been so nerve-wracking to watch. Then, instead of the usual six or seven days between the Elite Eight game and the Final Four, the COVID-affected schedule gave Arizona (and its fans) only three days to revel in the newness and greatness of it all.

The enthusiasm back here in Tucson was also tempered by the fact that Arizona would be facing mega-monster

Connecticut, a team that was appearing in the Final Four for the 13th consecutive year! Not even the legendary UCLA teams of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton can come close to that kind of a streak. The prevailing (albeit unspoken) sentiment around Tucson was along the lines of “Yeah, it so cool that they made it to the Final Four. Let’s hope that UConn doesn’t humiliate them.”

Instead, the Wildcats rose up and shocked the basketball world by coming away with a double-digit win over a Huskie team that was favored by a whopping 15 points. Then it was on to the championship game against fellow Pac-12 team Stanford. The Cardinal has escaped with a one-point win over defending national champion Baylor. Stanford had thumped Arizona twice during the regular season, but no one expected the matchup between the emotionally exhausted Cardinal and the on-a-major-roll Wildcats to be a blowout.

In terms of basketball aesthetics, we were kin’ hoping for visually pleasing game. What we got was uglier than Bjork’s prom dress.

Arizona forced Stanford to commit 21 turnovers (to only six by the Cats), including a shot-clock violation with six seconds left in the game and the Cardinal clinging to a one-point lead. Arizona had 12 steals to only one by Stanford. All that, coupled with the fact that Arizona shot

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18 free throws to only two for Stanford, screams Advantage-Arizona. But the Cats gave it all back by shooting a dismal 29% from the field and 27% from the threepoint line.

(I coach high-school girls’ basketball and my slogan has always been, “You might not always play well, but you can always play hard.” That’s what we got from both teams in the championship game.)

Aari McDonald, who had willed the Cats into the championship game with multiple performances that are guaranteed to be the stuff of legend, had a decidedly off day. She scored 22 points, but was only 5-20 from the field. She also missed three big free throws.

But when it came down to Game Time, a chance to win a national championship, it was McDonald who was going to take the final shot. Said Coach Adia Barnes, “It was Aari or nothing. That’s my decision as a coach.”

Even triple-teamed, her shot came close. I had friends who texted me and asked in exasperated tones, “Why did (Barnes) have Aari take that shot?” I told them, “Because Barnes has obviously seen Hoosiers.” You dance with the one who brung ya.

This was a season to be cherished, a team to be revered, and the start of something that will leave us all awestruck. It was wonderful. ■

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CURRENTS

HERE’S A LIFT

Board votes to fund transportation for asylum seekers leaving Border Patrol custody

By Christina Duran christina@tucsonlocalmedia.com

THE PIMA COUNTY BOARD OF Supervisors voted 4-1 on March 24 to enter into transportation contracts to transport asylum seekers dropped off

by Border Patrol at Ajo to Tucson.

Border Patrol officials in Ajo had been releasing asylum seekers to the International Sonoran Desert Alliance (ISDA), an Ajo nonprofit, which then asked asked Catholic Community Services to provide transport to Casa Alitas, a temporary shelter in Tucson, because ISDA has no facility to house them, according the County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry’s March 24 memo.

In turn, Casa Alitas asked Pima County to provide the transportation to Tucson.

The Border Patrol has also been dropping off migrants in Yuma and then the City of Yuma pays for transportation to Casa Alitas.

According to Pima County Spokesman Mark Evans, the county has since been included in communications between Border Patrol and NGOs, but Border Patrol continues to change the release date and times and the number of asylum seekers transported, which makes it “very difficult to plan for transportation.”

In an April 2 memo, Huckelberry reported that from March 19 to March 31, Border Patrol has released 315 asylum seekers at their station in Why, Arizona. He said the county has requested Border Patrol release asylum

seekers awaiting transport at its Why station as they have been doing for the past week. The county is currently receiving proposals from transportation companies to transport individuals from Ajo or Why to Casa Alitas.

In 2019, Border Patrol would transport asylum seekers to temporary shelters like Kino Event Center or El Pueblo Community Center, built in collaboration between the City of Tucson and the county, when they were processing about 1,000 individuals a day, said Huckelberry.

Border Patrol officials informed Huckelberry that they would be unable to enter transportation contracts themselves with NGOS to transport asylum seekers directly to a temporary shelter, because it would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from spending federal funds in excess of an appropriation, and from accepting voluntary services.

When asked for clarification on when U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would cite the Anti-Deficiency Act and why, a CBP official said the agency lacks the legal authority to provide or facilitate transportation of a person who has been processed for release, but will ensure that the release of any individual in their custody is done so safely while also ensuring that all operations are consistent with law. However, if CBP determines that the release of individuals directly from a specific facility is not safe, CBP will identify alternate locations in close proximity, which may include transportation hubs, government or Non-Governmental Organization facilities.

In June 2020, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found CBP had violated the Anti-Deficiency Act when they used funds from the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border Act of 2019, granted by Congress to respond to the surge of migrants in that year. GAO found CBP spent emergency funds for “consumables and medical care” on ATVs and a canine program and “did not provide any explanation as to how these items relate to the consumables and medical care line item.”

Huckelberry said the county is investigating the issue of the Anti-Deficiency Act. Transportation services provided on March 19-21 to move asylum seekers from Ajo to Casa Alitas cost $2,000, said Huckelberry, but he expects the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could reimburse the county for the transportation expenses. The contracts would also include rapid COVID-19 tests for asylum seekers, as Huckelberry was told Border Patrol only tests symptomatic individuals. Casa Alitas is providing rapid tests to asylum seekers.

Of the 315 individuals released, only two tested positive for COVD-19 and were isolated. In his April 2 memo, Huckelberry said all individuals would be required to wear an N95 mask and go through temperature checks. If anyone’s temperature is above 100.4ºF, the individual and the family unit would be returned to Border Patrol, who would transfer them to their contracted medical provider.

He stated drivers assisting with transport must be fully vaccinated at least two weeks prior and must wear a mask.

Previously, CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller had said migrants are tested at the border before they are allowed entry into the U.S., but that is only for those

being processed under Migrant Protection Protocols that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while awaiting court hearings.

According to a CBP official, individuals processed in Arizona for release are not tested unless they display symptoms, but the overwhelming majority of encounters are being returned to Mexico through Title 42, a public health emergency order that would allow CBP to expel those who may pose a health risk, using COVID-19 as the justification.

“CBP personnel conduct initial inspections for symptoms or risk factors associated with COVID-19 and consult with onsite medical personnel, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), or local health systems as appropriate,” reads a statement from Customs and Border Patrol. “Onsite medical personnel can provide basic assessment and supportive treatment, but suspected COVID-19 cases are referred to local health systems for appropriate testing, diagnosis, and treatment. These COVID-19 procedures are consistent with longstanding CBP procedures for preventing the spread of communicable diseases.”

However, the number of migrants this year is higher than what was seen in 2019. Border Patrol had previously informed Pima County that they could see an increase of migrants of three times what was seen in 2019. In February CBP reported 100,441 encounters at the border, while in the same month in 2019 reported 76,545.

In a briefing Friday morning, Deputy Chief of Border Patrol Raul Ortiz said the agency ended February with 380,000 apprehensions and said in 2019, when he was Acting Chief of the Del Rio Sector, they had over 859,000 apprehensions. Ortiz says he “fully expects to surpass that this fiscal year.”

Out of the 6,000 migrants processed Thursday, April 1, 1,900 were Title 8 while 300 were processed under Title 42, according to. Ortiz, who added that they continue to leverage Title 42 to expel individuals across the southern border, but this would not include unaccompanied minors.

Gov. Doug Ducey blames the current influx of migrants on the Biden Administration.

“Arizona’s southern border is broken. This is Joe Biden’s border crisis,” said Ducey at a press briefing on Wednesday, March 31. “Yet the Biden Administration has been anti-wall, and they have been absent without leave on this issue. Who couldn’t see this crisis coming when the policies of the previous administration were reversed willy-nilly, and the signals that have been sent into Central America has got the cartels as taking advantage of these people and these families and incentivizing them to make this dangerous journey?”

Ducey said that NGOs need help in housing the asylum seekers but urged the Biden administration to send a stronger message to discourage border crossers.

“These NGOs do need help,” Ducey said. “Second, we need clear communication from the Biden administration that the border is not wide open and there are not rooms available in America. And third, we need testing. The virus is still with us, it’s spreading. It’s certainly spreading in these close quarters of these communities and people are being infected, infecting others as they’re transported.” ■

THE SKINNY AND THEY’RE OFF Here’s how this year’s Tucson City Council races are shaping up Jim Nintzel jnintzel@tucsonweekly.com

THE LANDSCAPE FOR THIS YEAR’S Tucson City Council came into focus earlier this week, as the deadline to turn in nominating petitions arrived with eight candidates filing to run for office.

No Republican candidates filed to run this year, but two independent candidates did turn in their petitions ahead of Monday’s deadline.

There are three seats up for grabs in Wards 3, 5 and 6. Barring successful legal challenges to nominating petitions or write-in campaigns in the primary, here’s how the ballot is shaping up: Ward 3: This north-central seat is wide open as Paul Durham, who won the seat four years ago, stepped down last month for personal reasons. Democrat Karin Uhlich, a former Ward 3 council member, was appointed the seat but won’t be seeking election this year.

Two Democrats filed to run: Kevin Dahl and Juan Padres.

Dahl turned in his signatures last week.

“We hit the ground running with strong support from friends, neighbors, and Tucson’s environmental leaders,” said Dahl, a resident of Ward’s Samos neighborhood near Campbell and Grant for more than three decades. “Our message of addressing climate change, with its record-breaking heat and drought, has really resonated with Tucson voters.”

Dahl, who has led the Tucson Audubon Society and Native Seeds/SEARCH and now works for the National Parks Conservation Association, has gathered a strong team of environmentalists behind him, including Congressman Raul Grijalva, who said that Dahl “has had a strong career as an advocate for the environment. He is strategic, passionate and inclusive.”

Carolyn Campbell, a veteran of many

APRIL 8, 2021

land-use battles over the decades in Tucson, is chairing Dahl’s campaign.

In a sign of strong organization, Dahl last week filed his application for city matching funds for his campaign after raising roughly $10,000, which included 235 contributions of at least $10 from city residents. Provided he qualifies after an audit (candidates need to deliver a minimum of 200 contributions of $10 or more), Dahl will be eligible for a dollar-for-dollar match of whatever he can raise, but he has to limit his campaign spending. The final cap for this year’s campaigns has not yet been calculated, but the preliminary figure is $143,373.

Dahl said he would focus on developing strategies to reduce the impact on climate change on Tucson.

“We need aggressive adaptation and mitigation plans to deal with the disproportionate impact that climate will have on vulnerable communities,” says Dahl.

“At the same time, the Ward 3 office must continue to do a great job of providing timely information, advocacy, and access to services, especially to those most at risk in our community.”

Padres, an entrepreneur who tried to unseat Pima County Supervisor Sharon Bronson in 2020, said his campaign would focus on issues related to poverty.

“Ward 3 has some of the most distressed areas in Tucson,” Padres said.

“It has the highest poverty rate, lowest home ownership, highest crime rate, and some of the worst infrastructure in the city. There is an abundance of vacant and decaying commercial plazas throughout the ward. I am running to try to bring back investment into the ward, which would create jobs, lower the poverty rate, increase homeownership and thus reducing crime. We need to invest in infrastructure, transportation, and affordable housing to accommodate our workforce and their ability to effectively commute to and from work. Lastly, public safety is key. If our residents and busineses do not feel safe in the ward, we will not be able to achieve any of these things. Therefore we need to invest in public safety and rethink how we approach ward 3.”

No Republican has filed to run, although an independent candidate, Lucy Libosha, did deliver her signatures.

Libosha, a high-school math teacher, said she wasn’t “a career politician.”

“I offer a working-class perspective of a person who grew up poor despite my family’s strong work ethic, which in a lot of ways parallels the same stories that I hear from so many community members in Ward 3,” Libosha said. “As an Independent, I am not interested in partisan alli-

ances that conflate the needs of our city.

I will continue to engage our community and continue to work to connect, uplift and invest in Ward 3 and the greater Tucson community.”

Ward 6: Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik is facing two opponents in the Democratic primary: UA academic advisor and community radio KXCI DJ Miranda Schubert and community organizer Andres Portela.

As The Skinny reported last week, Kozachik is feeling so confident about his support in the ward as he seeks a fourth term that he said he wouldn’t be seeking

SORENSEN

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campaign contributions. He suggested potential donors should instead spend their money supporting local business or a nonprofit organization.

When she launched her campaign, Schubert, an academic advisor at the University of Arizona who has also hosted a feminist-oriented live talk show at Club Congress, said in a statement that she wants to see the council do more to provide affordable housing, policies that lead to higher wages and alternative policing strategies.

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CURRENTS

POWER STRUGGLE

State lawmakers look to block Corporation Commission from setting renewable energy standards our authority with the energy rules so it was important that the state Legislature tackle this through their particular bills, and we provide data and information,” said ACC Chairwoman Lea Marquez-Peterson.

THE ARIZONA CORPORATION If passed, the bills would block a proposal Commission and energy companies are before the commission that would require maintaining a “business as usual” strategy electric utility companies produce half of the in the pursuit of clean energy and energy reliability in Arizona, despite twin bills look- state’s energy through carbon free resources by 2032 and be completely carbon-free by ing to strip the ACC’s power.

2050. Alternative energy sources would House Bill 2248, sponsored by Rep. include solar, wind and nuclear energy, as Gail Griffin (R-Sierra Vista), would bar well forest biomass and natural gas. the Arizona Corporation Commission’s The proposal passed by the commisfrom adopting or enforcing policy that sion in November 2020 will be voted on regulates electrical generation resources again as the commission held elections acquired by public service corporations (PSCs) without specific legislative author- the same month and now has two new members: Commissioner Jim O’Connor ity. The bill passed the House on a vote of 31-28, with one “no vote” and will go to and Anna Tovar.

Previously the proposal passed with a vote in Senate Appropriations.

The twin bill in the Senate (SB 1175), spon- vote of 4-1, with Commissioner Justin Olson sored by Sen. Sine Kerr, is waiting for a vote as the one dissenting vote.

In his dissent, Olson said he believes the from the full Senate. proposal would increase rates and that rateThe bills emerged this year following a payers had previously voted against 2018’s ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court in Proposition 127, a constitutional amendment July 2020 confirming the authority of the that would require electric utilities to genercommission to regulate utilities for public health and safety, but also negating the com- ate half of their annual sales from renewable mission’s authority to set clean energy rules energy sources by 2030.

Marquez-Peterson said it was important under their ratemaking authority. for her, when voting in support of the new The immediate question before the court was whether the commission had the clean energy rules, that they are an “affordable option for ratepayers in Arizona.” express authority to appoint a new interim “We need to understand the economic manager for Johnson Utilities. While the court ruled with the commission, it clarified impact to each of the ratepayer’s families, not only in Phoenix and Tucson but also the authority granted to the commission in rural Arizona and throughout the state,” by the Arizona Constitution, as well as the said Marquez-Peterson. “By setting these powers of the Legislature.

According to the opinion of the court, the energy rules by 2050, this allows kind of the guardrails, is how I describe it, for ACC has an exclusive ratemaking authorutilities to accomplish that goal and using ity, exempt from legislative interference, whatever technology makes the most sense allowing it to prescribe rates, charges and classifications. Further, the commission has and is the least cost-option that limits permissive authority under which it has the carbon emissions.”

For Marquez-Peterson it is also important “authority to regulate PSCs to preserve and that the rules be updated, as the rules have protect public health, safety, convenience, not changed since 2006. and comfort.” However the Legislature has In 2006 the commission approved the Repolice power to override regulations made by the ACC, as the Legislature has the duty newable Energy Standard and Tariff (REST), which requires electric utilities generate 15% to enact laws “reasonably necessary for the of their energy from renewable resources by preservation of the public health, safety, 2025 and that they file an annual implemenmorals, or general welfare of the public.” “[It] kind of put some gray area related to tation plan to show compliance to the rules.

By Christina Duran christina@tucsonlocalmedia.com

Neither bill would change the renewable energy rule, as it was approved prior to June 30, 2020.

However, the commission has taken a neutral stance and continues in its plan to vote on the new clean energy rules, regardless of the Legislature.

“This to me isn’t about who does the energy rules, but that it’s thoroughly vetted and that it’s the right action for ratepayers,” said Marquez-Peterson. “It’s all about the ratepayers and the communities we serve.”

Marquez-Peterson said they have provided state legislators with information about the four-year process it took to create the clean energy bills and it would be up to the state Legislature to tackle and lead the effort if the bills pass.

Sen. Kirsten Engel (D-Tucson) agrees that the legislature has the responsibility to establish policy for the public health and welfare, but not authority nor the expertise to preempt the commission after the agency has spent four years working on the new rules with a large group of stakeholders.

Engel said the Legislature hasn’t spent time developing clean energy standards, unlike the Corporation Commission.

“We’ve never had hearings on the matter,” said Engel. “Unlike the commission that it’s been working on these rules for four years of a stakeholder process with hearings and open docket, a lot of participation, the legislature has really done nothing. So, the sponsor seems to put out an amendment saying that this is now the state policy on energy. And it clearly doesn’t reflect anything close to the deliberative process that the ACC has used to come up with its revised rules.”

For Engel the bills are not only unconstitutional but also mean halting progress Arizona has made in pursuit of clean energy and economic progress.

“The legislature is intruding upon the role of the Arizona Corporation Commission and the impact of these bills will be to remove the authority of the commission to go forward with the process it’s engaged in now, which is to promulgate revised clean energy rules for the state,” said Engel. “Secondly, I believe that these bills will be harmful to Arizona’s economy and will prevent us from making an important contribution in mitigating climate change, which we are very clearly feeling the harmful effects of today.”

Over the past year neighboring states have experienced the effects of climate change through utility pitfalls, from the rolling blackouts and forest fires in California to

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the frozen and overwhelmed energy grid of Texas this winter. Over a six-month period from March to August 2020, Arizona had the warmest months to date, by an average increase of 3.6ºF, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.

A 2017 study conducted by Climate Lab, a group of scientists, economists and computational experts, found that Arizona could see losses of 10 to 20% of the GDP per year by 2080 due to climate change.

However, Engel said Arizona has already seen the economic prospects of investing in clean renewable energy to mitigate the effects of climate change.

“This is a source of high-paying jobs and right now, with the COVID pandemic, it’s more important than ever that we get people back to work and the clean energy sector has been one of the growth sectors in terms of jobs,” said Engel. “This is clearly, I think, the future, and a very bright future for Arizona’s economy.”

Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability advocacy organization, estimates the current renewable energy standards (REST) have created $2 million in gross benefits for the public and customers of Arizona Public Service (APS) and Tucson Electric Power (TEP) combined. By expanding the rules to require 45% renewable energy by 2030, they project Arizona could generate an additional billion dollars in net benefits over the next 10 years.

Both utility companies have their own Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), setting clean energy rules. APS plans to generate energy through 65% clean energy and 45% renewable energy by 2030 and eliminate its use of coal by 2031 to reach the goal of 100% clean, carbon-free electricity by 2050. A similar goal as those proposed in ACC’s new clean energy rules.

TEP also submitted an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) to build a cleaner energy grid over the next 15 years by providing over 70% of power from wind and solar resources, reducing 80% of carbon emissions by 2035 and expanding their energy storage resources as they transition away from coal.

However, TEP has not committed to 100% clean, carbon-free energy by 2050.

“We’re focused on that 15-year span because we believe we can achieve those goals within that amount of time,” said TEP Supervisor of Media Relations Joseph Barrios. “Beyond 2035, we’ll continue to look for ways to improve the service we provide to customers.”

Like the commission, TEP says it will continue to pursue its energy plan, but “as a regulated utility, TEP will follow any new rules or requirements.” ■

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ARTS & CULTURE

SEE A SHOW

The arts are rebounding in Southern Arizona unconventional venues, including the Reid Park Zoo, the St. Philip’s Farmers Market, and a Tucson Museum of Art (TMA) patio.

The shows were a hit, and this month the dancers will once again perform a series of BIT BY BIT, THE ARTS ARE short outdoor concerts. First up is a return to opening up in Tucson. And the arts organizations are dreaming up clever new ways TMA, on Sunday, April 11, followed by a gig at Brandi Fenton Memorial Park on Sunday, to keep their artists and fans safe from April 18. The final show is at Rillito Regional COVID-19.

Park, near the racetrack, on Saturday, April In the coming weeks, Ballet Tucson will 24. send its dancers to perform in the great Two company choreographers, associate outdoors, and the Yume Japanese Gardens director Chieko Imada and Balletmaster will host Funhouse Movement, performing Daniel Precup, have created five new dances Japanese Butoh dance among the plants. to be performed in all three concerts. Each Untitled Gallery opened last week after show will feature nine dancers. months in lockdown, and the Rialto, which Imada’s “Shall We Dance?” is a comical doesn’t plan to stage concerts until the end duet about relationships, and her Trio is a of summer or later, has temporarily turned contemporary jazz piece. Precup, formerly a its space into a gallery of rock-and-roll full-time dancer in the troupe, will dance a photos. romantic pas de deux with prima ballerina At Gaslight Theatre, actors are staying Jenna Johnson in his piece “Rhapsody.” outside, performing a comical play “Buc(The two are married in real life.) He also caneers of the Caribbean”, on the theatre’s choreographed a classic ballet solo for spacious front porch. The Rogue Theatre company will soon bring Shakespeare’s “As Johnson, inspired by the Spanish ballet “Raymonda,” as well as “Reverberation,” a You Like It” onto the boards; patrons can either go to the theatre to see the actors live lively piece for five dancers.

Each of the concerts is just 20 minutes or stay home and watch the play on video. long, and each will be performed twice at Arizona Theatre Company is not coming back in the flesh until the fall, but meantime each venue.

Ballet Tucson Spring Pop Up Performancit’s staging robust virtual shows for free.

This month’s audio play stars the renowned es: Tucson Museum of Art, 140 N. Main Ave. Shows at 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Sunday, actor John Larroquette.

April 11. Audience members must buy a Of course, things can change in a flash ticket to the museum; buy early—some in COVID time, and a nasty variant of the shows sold out last time around. Ticket virus has been threatening another surge.

Art events can quickly be cancelled if there’s holders are welcome to visit the museum’s an outbreak. Before you leave home, check to art galleries; two popular shows on view are The Wyeths-Three Generations and Native make sure that the players and dancers will in fact be strutting their hour upon the stage. art in the new Indigenous gallery. tucsonmuseumofart.org.

If the planned shows and exhibitions do Brandi Fenton Memorial Park along the go on, art goers must do social distancing Loop, 3482 E. River Road, west of Dodge and hand sanitizing. And of course they must “just put on the damn mask!” a phrase Blvd. Shows at 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. at Sunday, April 18. Bring blanket or chairs. coined by Jim Kenney, the wise mayor of Free.

Philadelphia. Here are details on just a few Rillito Regional Park, along the Loop, 4571 of the planned events in Tucson’s mini arts N. First Ave. Shows at 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. renaissance: Saturday, April 24. Bring chairs. Free.

DANCE Funhouse Movement Theater dance troupe has been around for years in various LAST NOVEMBER, BALLET TUCSON iterations, but this week’s concerts are dancers, who had not performed since unique. Joan Laage, a visiting artist from the March 2020, did a brief but magical Pacific Northwest, will lead Poetry Stones, nighttime concert at the Tucson Botanical an evening of butoh at the Yume Japanese Garden. They went on to dance in other

By Margaret Regan tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com

PHOTO COURTESY RIALTO THEATRE

Broken Bells performs at the Rialto Theatre. Images of previous shows such as this are available to view and purchase at the Rialto Theatre Gallery Project.

Gardens of Tucson. A Japanese art form that combines dance and theater, butoh is both contemporary and traditional. Audience members can expect to see dancers and musicians moving among the lush plants.

The concerts will run in the gardens Thursday, Friday and Saturday, April 8, 9, and 10. To limit the number of people in the garden, there will be two sessions each evening, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. and 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tickets, $25 for non-members, $18 for members, are available at yumegardens.org.

The show will take place in the gardens at 2130 N. Alvernon Way; 303-3945.

Trayte. Called The Gallery Project, the show will be open from 6 to 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and will stay up until the music returns.

Entry is by reservation only; all comers must take a temperature check. Free. Photos, posters, cocktails and popcorn will be for sale. For info and reservations, visit rialtotheatre.com/gallery-project.

THEATRE

IN ADDITION TO STAGING PIRATE theatre on the porch, Gaslight Theatre is regularly hosting live music, with some shows outside and others in. Virtual plays VISUAL ART are also available to watch at home. Why not try the “Beach Blanket Bee Bop!” virtual UNTITLED GALLERY HAD A ROUGH show? For info, visit the gaslighttheatre.com. winter, between the pandemic and the road Rosalind is one of Shakespeare feistiest work near its home in the Steinfeld Warefemale characters; she delights in tricks house Community Art Center. But last Satand gender-bending. The Rogue Theatre urday the artist-run operation reopened and brings her to the stage in “As You Like It,” a celebrated with a brand-new juried show, hilarious play with more than 20 characters. aptly named “Emergence.” The exhibition, Running April 22 to May 9, it’s the troupe’s running through June 5, has 43 artworks. last play in this tumultuous, masked and “Reid,” a painting by Karol Honeycutt, is a prerecorded season. To buy tickets—for the deft portrait of a young man who looks like live production or for the video—see he’s gone to hell and back, a suitable image theroguetheatre.org. for our times. Art lovers not yet comfortable Speaking of Shakespeare, King Lear plays going out can see the whole show virtually a role in “The Heath,” written by prolific on the gallery website. Untitled is at 101 W. playwright Lauren Gunderson and proSixth St, suite 121. Open Saturdays from duced as an audio play by Arizona Theater noon to 5 p.m. June 5. Free. Untitledgallery- Company. Gunderson turns to acting in tucson.com. this semi-autobiographical tale about her The Rialto Theatre has temporarily relationship with her grandfather. Emmy moved over into the visual art category. winner John Larroquette is both Lear and With live music forced into hiatus by the the granddad. The free production runs coronavirus, the Rialto is honoring past from 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 14, to 5 p.m. concerts with photos by C. Elliott and Mark Sunday April 18. To hear the show on your A. Martinez as well as poster art by Ryan own devices, visit arizonatheatre.org. ■

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APRIL 8, 2021

as they were when they applied, which opened the door for other musicians.

The festival’s national headliners are Grammy-winning fiddler, guitarist and singer Laurie Lewis, joined by guitarist Nina Gerber. The national headliners will perform their set livestreamed from Berkeley, California.

The regional headliner, performing live from Park Place, is the western swing quartet The Tucsonics. This local group covers the likes of Bob Wills and Gene Autry on steel guitar, violin, drums and more.

Finally, the family show headliner performing from the Centennial Hall Stage, is singer/songwriter and “dad with an open mind and a sense of humor” Ron Pandy.

Plenty of Tucson favorites are also sharing their tunes, including P.D. Ronstadt, Ryanhood, Sophia Rankin, Ryan David Orr, Eric Schaffer & The Other Troublemakers, and Leila Lopez, who has won Best Folk Musician in the Tucson Weekly’s Best of Tucson poll multiple times.

COURTESY TUCSON KITCHEN MUSICIANS ASSOCIATION “Our goal is to be the best showcase Local Western swing group The Tucsonics will perform as this year’s regional headliner. and presentation of acoustic music in the Southwest,” Rolland said. “It is a festival where you can come and discover your new favorite group. Every year I go and see someone play who Tucson Folk Fest returns with virtual and in-person options I’ve never heard of before, and just fall in love with their songs and the way they play on stage.” could be enjoyed by all, even if they

By Jeff Gardner After the last year’s cancellation, the weren’t able to come in person,” said jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com festival board reconvened in June, and Matt Rolland, president of the Tucson Kitchen Musicians Association, which gradually formulated the 2021 event.

ALTHOUGH 2020 SAW NO produces the annual festival. “Our goal The board realized the festival would need to be hosted on private property, formal festival, the minds behind the with redesigning the festival was to as the City of Tucson was not granting Tucson Folk Festival continued to sup- create a live performance opportunity event permits. Some of the private port local music throughout the year for as many performers as we could locations also served as inspiration for with a series of intimate, livestreamed and afford, and also make sure all the how to conduct the festival. performances. performances were happening in a “It’s been a year where everyone’s But this weekend, Tucson Folk place where safety recommendations coming up with creative ways to perFestival is returning with in-person could be followed.” form and keep the arts going,” Rolland performances at multiple venues, as The event generally includes more well as virtual shows. The 36th Annual than 150 musical acts across six stages, said. “We never would have considered having the festival in a parking lot until Tucson Folk Festival takes place Satur- but this year, music fans can look forwe saw others trying those drive-in day, April 10, and Sunday, April 11, with ward to about 75 performances, rangin-person events at the Mercado San ing from local mainstays to nationally concerts. And then we saw musicians Agustin Annex and Park Place Mall, touring acts. The Tucson Folk Festival livestream so much, and asked what and online broadcasts from Centennial receives hundreds of applications each it would look like if we had a broadHall at the University of Arizona. year, but in addition to this, the panel- cast-only stage.”

Performances at the MSA Annex can “We realized we needed to find new ists honored all selected applications sites, new ways we could spread out our from last year as well. Rolland says that be viewed in-person by up to 94 attendees in spaced out seating pods. Beaudience, and ultimately add a broadmany of the musicians, understandcast component so that the festival ably, were not able to perform this year cause of limited capacity, reservations

MUSIC

ACOUSTIC ARTS

36th Annual Tucson Folk Festival Saturday and Sunday, April 10-11 At the MSA Annex (267 S. Avenida del Convento), Park Place Mall (5870 E. Broadway Blvd.), and livestreamed performances from University of Arizona’s Centennial Hall. tucsonfolkfest.org

are required and can be made online and in-person at any Bookmans store.

Park Place Mall will utilize a drive-in set-up, available for up to 300 cars with no reservation required.

The UA’s Centennial Hall showcase will not have an in-person audience and is viewable online by live broadcast. This broadcast will include dozens of pre-recorded shows from out-of-state artists, or those who were not able to attend due to health reasons, as well as live performances. In addition, they will also broadcast the Stefan George Memorial Songwriting Competition previously performed at Monterey Court, and a live broadcast of the Young Artist Showcase and Family Show. The Centennial Hall show is presented by UA’s Arizona Arts and Arizona Arts Live!

“The festival this year would not be possible without the Arizona Arts and Arizona Arts Live! team coming on as title sponsors,” Rolland said. “It’s been such a huge gift in terms of technical support, but also marketing support.”

Due to the isolation and lack of in-person performances over the past year, Rolland anticipates the musicians will have plenty of inspiration and new tracks heading into this year’s Folk Fest.

“I know we’ll hear some new songs about dealing with COVID, both with humor and with realism,” Rolland said. “I think that’s one of the things that’s best about the folk music genre, is people always find a serious and a humorous way to look at life and cope.

I’m fully expecting people to find joy in reconnecting, and singing along, even though we’ll be spaced apart. It’s meant to be participatory.” ■

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Ned Sutton: Grandpa. ‘The Man. The Myth. The Bad Influence.’

Story & photos by Brian Smith

Meet Ned Sutton: Unsung In and Out of Song THE THREE WHITE DUCKS, Huey, Dewy and Louie, hang together in a corner like a band, waddle and flop in unison, squawking a specific waterfowl rhythm that soon becomes a kind of dusty, backyard aria, which includes two young clowning grandchildren, an overhead helicopter, a hammock creaking in the breeze, several baby chickens in a coop, and Ned Sutton bitching about the rises in the yard, the hard dirt humps he finds difficult to step on to arrive at his chair. When he

plops down, on this cool, March afternoon, he’ll be there awhile, his mere presence providing extraordinary information.

In a tired, gray cowboy hat and aviator shades, vintage silver and turquoise jewelry, Ned looks today every bit the aging outlaw-country man as Merle Haggard was at 71. Yes, Ned is old. The Ace bandages to combat swelling in his ankles. The diabetes. The gray trousers wide enough to accommodate an expanded mid-riff, decorated with dried blood stains on a knee.

His laughter now a coarse guffaw, and the sweatshirt he wears under his plaid longsleeve announces “Grandpa. The Man. The Myth. The Bad Influence.” The long sweet recall it takes before he’ll introduced an anecdote with “here’s one!”

He’s blessed with a thick gray mane, diabolical self-deprecation and death jokes, and a longtime partner in wife Katherine, who sits near him today. All tempered in sweet farm smells of little vegetable gardens and animals.

One would be hard-pressed to picture Ned as a guy who more or less influenced a generation of Tucson indie kids. Those who went on to international respect, from Rainer Ptacek, Howe Gelb and Giant Sand, to Al Perry, Billy Sedlmayr, and, even more abstractly, Calexico. Country-punk alchemist Perry says Ned was “a personal and musical influence for decades.” He is a walking secret history, a sort of missing link between ’70s Tucson bluegrass and country milieu of The Dusty Chaps and the Bob Meighan Band and others to the post-punk.

Yet, none of Ned’s music is available on streaming services or is even for sale new, save for a few lo-fi live YouTube videos of more recent years, and one treasure, he and soul-handler Rainer (on dobro) playing Chuck Berry’s “30 Days” on Jonathan L’s KLPX radio show from ’85. See, Ned is a master of interpretation, more than he was ever a songwriter. He figured the greats wrote songs better than he ever could. But what influenced others is his command and presentation of song, the singing, the phrasing, the effortless vocal sway and glide between the conversational to the melodic, that gift of note sliding and portamento. Most listeners have no idea how difficult this is, only that it is good.

Katherine heads off into the house and returns with Ned’s old Martin acoustic and unpacks it. He lifts it into place and strums, taps a foot, dust rising over the portable firepit, and begins a Porter Waggoner tune.

Their 2-year-old granddaughter goes off to nap in a hammock. Ned slackens, stops, clears his throat, finds the vocal key, laughs, “boy, things change!” Then he suddenly switches to a song he remembers as “TwoBit Melody” by Woody Janda, a deceased guitarist/songwriter (Tucson bands The Dusty Chaps, The Frank & Woody Show) and begins. And finally, that voice: “Her hands are colored yellow from the cigarette she’s smoking….”

There is an ever-slight hiccup of a

Missouri yodel and underscore of gospel tones in his singing, borne of the old hills and hollers, the odd Buddy Durham sides and the radio, but with a Kristofferson delivery, only richer, more melodic. In his hands the song earns a delectable sadness, perceptible in the air between his inhales and still-steady guitar strums, where birds chirp and wind blows. A croon that now could sell a prayer to the unbeliever.

He plays others too, a nearly forgotten ’60s classic “Rock, Salt and Nails” by old country anarchist Utah Phillips, and more modern Jimmy Staats song “Wires and Wood.” He is a human jukebox with a knowledge and love of the traditional country, honky tonk, bluegrass, and rock ’n’ roll.

That is part of who he is, his is decades of work and life and family, a commitment to craft, and, years of endless nights in shithole bars, some unjust jail time, and certainly intuitiveness, that born-with X-factor. He has aged into a song wisdom, that needs to be captured before it is gone.

It didn’t start exactly that way. He was drawing as a boy too, comics. But he really wanted to be a nurse.

NED WAS BORN ONE OF FIVE IN Belleville, Illinois, to an Air Force father and a mother who played gospel piano.

Dad’s career took the Suttons all over the country, but Ned spent his summers growing up in Sedgewickville, Missouri (“pop. 99, said right on the sign”) with his grandparents, his gospel-singing fiddler grandpa, Jesse James Loberg, and the bluegrass coming up the stairs as he was getting ready for breakfast. His voice first entertained Methodist church-goers when he was a boy.

The Suttons settled in Tucson in time for Ned to pick up the guitar and graduate from Catalina High in ’66. “I had awful little folk country combos with names like The Travelers Three,” Ned laughs. Started off to be a nurse, graduated from UA, specialized in EMT so he could go anywhere and work. Got a secondary degree, and began teaching.

Ned wipes his dry fingers on his knees, and grunts, “So the nursing stuff was a lot a fun. But, hey, this playing music is a lot more fun.”

In the early ’70s Ned began playing at The Cup, a tiny venue located across from the University of Arizona main gate, behind the old Zip’s Records, and a ground zero for Tucson folk and bluegrass.

APRIL 8, 2021

featured a mix of hardcore traditionalists, between bands until one night when they hippies, Christian folkies and colall played a battle of the bands and lege kids. Ned fit in, would the styles merged. play with folklorist marvel Ned played around in “Big Jim” Griffith, other combos, includand the experience ing the popular evolved into Ned string band Disco playing music fullRamblers. At one time. He met wife point he cooled Katherine too. off from playing Her attraction to those endless Ned at first? “He nights, even was always my opened a shortfavorite musician lived shop to work to dance to.” on Volkswagens In those days, called Foont Tucson was still Brothers. A skill he dismissed as a dusty picked up working musical backwater, 500 on a sister’s VW. “He miles from L.A., but it was has that kind of mind,” amped on regional musical Katherine says, “just picks dialects, a closed-in-bythings up.” Ned roadied Sharp-suited Ned Sutton circa ‘79. desert provinciality— for The Dusty Chaps too, which began decades touring every watering earlier with Tucson-steeped artists like the hole within driving distance.

“Father of Chicano Music” Lalo Guerrero Ned’s exile ended with Ned Sutton & or Dean Armstrong and the Arizona Dance The Rabbits, who made a home at the jukeHands—especially the country-related stuff. and-cowboy-boot stomp Oxbow Saloon.

People could stumble into a bar and feel The frontman’s secret, Ned says, is to they discovered the bands themselves, how surround yourself with “the best players they represented a community. Jim Brady because it just makes you look so great.” a KWFM DJ in those days, now recordDrummer Ralph Gilmore well rememing studio owner, agrees: “The quality of bers playing with Ned, beyond the weed, players was astounding for the size of the iced coffees with bourbon at rehearsals. town.”

Gilmore, a rock-fusion drummer and singMusicians like Ned stayed put and er with a mad record collection who later influenced each other. “We had a manplayed with everyone from Street Pajama to dolin player who blew off law school at Rainer’s Das Combo and the Guess Who, Vanderbilt to stay and play bluegrass,” Ned met Ned not long after landing in Tucson laughs. He goes lengths on Tucson honkyin ’76. His few years with the Rabbits in the tonk heroes The Dusty Chaps, how there early ’80s were, he says, a blast. was so much more beneath their surface.

“The Rabbits had so many incarnations,” Ned ditched nursing to lead Fast Eddie Gilmore says. “That’s how it was in those & the Rodeo Kings, his first fulltime pro days.” outfit, featuring his repertoire and stomp.

Ned scammed his way into at least one In those days, for a band to play bars it had lucrative gig, making up a phony setlist to do four sets a night, five nights a week. filled with radio songs he didn’t know to Lots of covers. That is how it was done, get hired, and worked at the old Hilton on how a Tucson musician not named Linda Tucson’s Miracle Mile. Gilmore rememRonstadt made a living. Ned drew good bers playing the Hilton a lot, and also Ned crowds and lots of drunks. Some nights at developing a large following in Phoenix, a bar like Hooligan’s Bar & Grill, it’d be a and the motivations behind the shows. “It buck or two to get in, including all the flat was never about stardom with Ned. It was pitcher beer you could guzzle. The mostly always about the music.” string band featured mandolin and banjo Ned sums up the glories of the day this and was more raw and old-timey than the way: “It was all seat of the pants, little rashugely popular Bob Meighan Band and cals putting on a show. He laughs of the Dusty Chaps, both of whom landed deals joyful punishments too. “Yep, it was a lot of on Capitol Records. Katherine remembers brain damage in those days. Matter of fact, even the dancing styles were different I’m paying for a lot of it now. By the time I

parked and got my instrument ready, and got in the door, I was already stoned, in like 50 feet. Someone would say, ‘Here man, over here, man.’”

Ned recorded his lone album in 1981, the long out-of-print, German release Drugstore Cowboy, a star-popping singsong fest filled of heart-surging twang and melancholy country. The Dusty Chaps’ George Hawke wrote and produced the album, recorded at the old Lee Furs recording studio. Sonically it was up-to-the-moment, and Hawke’s songs fit Ned like an embroidered cowboy shirt.

“Hawke wrote the best stuff I’d ever heard,” Ned says. “And Hawke always appreciated where I was coming from.”

Though the album sank commercially, it changed things. Howe Gelb offers perspective. “Think of his Drugstore Cowboy album, which only came out in Germany. It should have been big everywhere. So really, he was the first indie rocker from here, back in ’81, when Europe was still a mystery to the rest of us.”

Ned’s one European tour supporting Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown was cancelled at the last minute. Too expensive to take the band over. That stung Ned.

HATRED SWIRLED AROUND THE early days of Tucson punk. Many barbands and their crowds loathed the “punks” at most local clubs, especially the Night Train. Bloody fights ensued and gunshots sometimes rang out down Fourth Avenue on Night Train “Punk Nights.” That animosity didn’t really exist with the country and bluegrass folks, and a kind of country/ post-punk alchemy ensued. “The stoner cowboys were friendly as fuck,” Gelb says, “there was something seamless with the country folk.”

In 1981, Gelb, awed by Ned at his barrel-down live shows, worked up the guts to ask Ned to sing on a song he was recording called “Curtis Jon and Sue.” “It was all these post-punkers on the recording,” Gelb says, “Ned on vocals, Rainer on dobro, Barry Smith on violin, I played piano…” The tune appeared a few years later on a local country-punk cassette compilation (and will soon be reissued on a three-album Tucson compilation). The recording, he says, “bridged the camps of post punkers and the stone-y cowboy swing bands. Rainer and I would hang with Ned, we gravitated to him, he was funny and fascinating. The older guys [on the

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Ned Sutton comic from his book Gray Matter.

rootsy side] like George Hawke, Juke Joint Johnny, and Randy Lopez thought we were cute; I mean those guys could really play.”

Gelb laughs, “Most of us came out of punk, ya know.”

The former punk-supporting KWFM DJ (and onetime Giant Sandworms manager) Dave La Russa remembers Ned’s influence on the new music. “Ned’s local rep was everyone knew who he was; his voice was angelic. People responded to that.

Whenever he was around in those days he carried a musical campfire, a song to sing, a story to tell. With Rainer [who died in 1997] there was a mutual respect. Ned’s deep knowledge and relationship to country music, the way he plays it, is astounding.”

One day a few years later, Ned called Gelb when he was living with Giant Sandworms in Manhattan. Ned had booked a summer-long series of dates in South Dakota and Wyoming and would Howe like to join him on piano?

Ned recalls, “I heard him play enough stuff and knew he had an appreciation for the music, and that was it. And the two girls in their early 20s from Howe’s [scene], Christy Anderson and Andrea Curtis, as the rhythm section, would bring a lot of spark.”

Gelb agreed to go. “We get to South Dakota and Ned’s thing was biker bars, and we played Rapid City, Spearfish and other towns, four and five sets a night. I never learned any of those songs, he would turn CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

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A croon that could sell a prayer to the unbeliever.

TUCSON SALVAGE

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

around and say, this one is in ‘G.’ These biker types were into coke, and they gave us a band house to stay in.”

“I was in grad school in Massachusetts,” Katherine says.

“I got some very interesting calls from South Dakota.”

“Ned’s repertoire was classic,” Gelb continues, “just killer.

Ned was so gregarious on the mic. But in Casper, they fired us, they wanted 38 Special or whatever. We came back to Tucson.”

In 1990 Ned sang several songs on Gelb’s Giant Sand side-gig, The Band of Blacky Ranchette album Sage Advice. That’s Ned’s belt buckle on the cover of the band’s Heartland album.

The song “Blind Justice” on the debut self-titled Blacky Ranchette album is about Ned catching a drug case and going to jail.

COCAINE FLOODED TUCSON IN THE EARLY ’80s, the clubs and bars, and Ned got popped for selling it.

Ned didn’t deal the shit but knew where to get it and did a favor for a “friend,” a set-up by a weasel-y DJ looking to lessen his own sentence. “I knew where to get it, so I did, like a fool.”

He walked down to a 7-Eleven for the meet, absurdly delayed because his own Neighborhood Watch meeting ran late.

“The next thing I know there were five or six cops with guns pointed at me. I said, ‘Aw, put those away.’ People wrote letters on my behalf, had work-release lined up but I still got five years. The hanging judge was ready for me.”

Local papers called it an injustice.

Ned was devastated, as was Kathy, but Ned got out in

two years. He used the time to spin straw into near-gold.

Inside Fort Grant jail he picked up graphic arts, played in a little band, and he made the all-star jail softball team.

By then Ned had perfected his cartooning skills and landed an ongoing strip in the Tucson Weekly. His work also appeared in City Magazine, Phoenix New Times and other places. He kept the “crazy poems” coming while locked up. (His book, Grey Matter, released in 1981, is a hilarious admixture of music satire and barely hidden self-deprecation.)

Jail essentially ended Ned’s playing music for a living.

He learned to adore all the things he had in a life suddenly valid with or without music.

“We shifted gears, did the family thing,” Katherine says.

“He worked the print shop, doing graphics. He was so good at everything that when things would fall through with the music, it was OK. He took classes to learn computer but he really sat there and drew racy cartons,” she laughs. “He picked up computers from reading books.”

With long gray hair, deep blue eyes, high cheekbones and a fierce intelligence, there is a late-’60s Laurel Canyon thing about Katherine, a woman known for hiking in the desert barefoot. A matriarch, and devout caretaker, she is at once conscientious today of her two grandchildren (she daycares them most weekdays), and of Ned. There is a deep familial optimism and patience in her labor, which never seems desperate. It easy to see Ned the beneficiary of a woman long marked for great love. He says as much, always has.

“She’s a magician on that stuff,” Ned says. “Yeah. A magician alright.”

“I married him for money,” she laughs. “It was the only way to get in-state tuition.” The couple married in Reno in secret in ’72 as students, married again for family four years later. Katherine earned her master’s degree in

APRIL 8, 2021

Katherine and Ned Sutton in their backyard.

expressive therapy at Leslie University in Massachusetts after they married, later interned in a San Francisco school for autistic children. Earned certifications and made her living working with children with severe developmental issues, worked 12 years with children on the Tohono O’odham Nation Reservation, for example.

She continues her work to an extent, even helps out the “Kids Create” program for children at the UA Poetry Center.

Ned reasons he’s been protected by Katherine’s heart.

“My karma can beat your dogma anytime!” she laughs.

Old Ned guffaws.

“We’re the only ones who can tolerate each other,” she says.

“I needed someone to take of care of me!”

It’s one of those loves for the ages, the deep trust, how they enumerate the ways they love each other in little bursts of practical, jokey commentary.

Like any couple who finishes the other’s memory, the deeper stuff takes on an air of silent timelessness, after 48 years of marriage. “The secret is we allowed each other the freedom to do the things we loved,” Katherine says. “If I left him half of my memories would be gone because he remembers different things. Besides, he cooks. And, we keep different hours.”

There were no life plans, ever, things sort of evolved. “Pretty much our philosophy on everything,” Katherine says. “Let’s have

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Ned’s 1981 album led the way for Tucson indie kids.

a baby after 14 years of marriage! Or let’s have a house!”

Ned coached little league, went to the school band meetings, PTA meetings, worked the snack bar, all of it while doing freelance graphic work. “He was really the stay-at-home dad,” Katherine says. Their children Thelma-Jean and Cisco are in their early 30s now, and successful.

In 2001 Ned suffered a near-fatal heart attack.

“Talk about fun things,” he says, the guitar still on his lap. “I get in the emergency and this the guy in scrubs said, ‘holy cow, you’re having a heart attack!’ I told every joke I ever knew to nurses and orderlies. It’s like they never met anyone who had that perspective on life who had just had a heart attack.”

He pauses, “I don’t do anything anymore except too many donuts.”

HE LAID IN THE HOSPITAL BED, HIS

mind preoccupied with what seemed of little concern to anyone else. A sudden shift, a time “to shit or get off the pot.”

He thought to himself: You owe it to the cosmos, having this little gift.

After the heart attack and convalescence, he formed Ned Sutton & Last Dance with John Jensen, Dan Sorenson and Ric Volante, started gigging a bit.

“Hell, I had a comeback a few years ago,” he laughs. “I got out of music and then got back into it sober.”

You could hear a chair squeak when Sutton played a stunning, hushed rendition of Ricky Nelson’s “Lonesome Town” at Rainer’s 2017 memorial at EXO in Tucson. He chokes up in recall and wipes wet from his face. “The audience was so intimate and close, listening to everything I was doing, gasping when they were supposed to.

“It made me cry. I only did three songs for Rainer, but I could hardly walk out of there I was so high on it.” His voice lifts, “And once you play it, it is gone into the wind.”

Such rare moments are addictive as hell for a singer, and they sustain Ned. “My problem now is I get so emotional when I play songs.” A moment hangs, the 6-year-old grandson with his mohawked hair rumbles politely about, and Ned adds, “But hopefully I’m older in that way that makes me smarter and with a bigger heart.”

Ned steps gently into the warm and cozy Sutton house and his movements suggest physical discomfort, which he tamps down with host-like formality. He talks of the Irish and Scottish music he’s been listening to, some in Gaelic, and fiddler Aly Bane, the old gospel records, and the inspiration there. And the raising of two children here, where it is filled with rich sentiments and dusty memoires, a beautiful roll-top desk of heavy dark wood Ned handcrafted, a kitchen cabinet that once belonged to gangster Joe “Bananas”

Bonanno procured from a yard sale. A small office crammed of albums and CDs, live Sutton shots and family photos.

It’s like he sees life in a world where chunks of gold are hidden in song, or in the lives of his children and wife, picked out as easily as some George Hawke number. Allows him freedom from regrets, or maybe he never had any, a life eternally in-the-present.

He plans to record a double album soon, is excited to get back to playing after this pandemic. “Country can make you start drinking again and see the bottom of the bottle. But I’m going to die sober. That’s what I got now, terminal sobriety.”

“I’ve got a nice list of stuff I want to record, like 60 or 70 tunes. Early George Jones, Merle Haggard, John Prine, maybe some newer stuff. I got everybody who can tune an instrument lined up for this thing, a real who’s-who. I want to record music I love. At least people I know will love hearing it again.”

Ned moves out to the frontyard, a well-tended concern of desert succulents and plant life in a mid-century subdivision. These sweet efforts toward decorum now thickening in spring, highlighted by the immense pine tree that dates from their daughter’s first Christmas. Ned’s low-rumble voice lifts. “I’m pretty proud of my background, and the friends I’ve made over the years. I’ve been lucky to take a leak in some pretty tall grass.” ■

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SPACED OUT

City of Tucson zeroes in on zoning updates for marijuana-related businesses

By David Abbott david@tucsonlocalmedia.com IN THE RUN-UP TO PASSAGE OF 2020’s Prop 207 legalizing adult-use recreational cannabis in Arizona, the City of Tucson began the process of reevaluating its zoning codes for what has become a billion dollar industry statewide, even before the advent of adult-use recreational sales.

The process continues this month as the deadline for the Arizona Department of Health Services to finalize the rules has come and discussions continue in the chambers of Tucson city council.

While the rules take shape, though, the marijuana business has quickly evolved into an economic powerhouse, creating jobs and generating revenue for the state and municipalities.

From the outset of the pandemic, the marijuana industry has been considered an essential service and was one of the sectors that saw booming sales in a year when many businesses, especially in the hospitality industry, were facing massive losses, going into debt to stay afloat or shuttering altogether.

The year 2020 saw a big increase in economic activity in the cannabis sector, from $700 million in total medicinal sales

in 2019 to topping $1 billion in 2020, according to Leafly, an online information clearinghouse for the marijuana industry.

There was an attendant job bonanza, with Arizona adding 5,648 jobs in 2020 to bring the total to 20,728 individuals employed in the sector. That number is only expected to grow as the industry expands over the course of the next several years.

In August 2020, the city began work on temporary measures to help ease crowding at local dispensaries as a crush of patients lined up in the early days of coronavirus restrictions to stock up on medicine. The zoning discussions were also intended to get ahead of the green rush with updates to the Unified Development Code Related to Medical and Adult Use Marijuana Dispensaries.

In the wake of a stakeholder meeting in mid-October, the city enacted COVID-related temporary measures to accommodate social distancing, including curbside pickup and delivery, home delivery and the utilization of unused space to expand dispensary lobbies. It also allowed for the use of drive-thrus where they exist in buildings that have been converted to dispensary use.

The opening of the recreational mar-

ket came earlier than anyone expected when the DHS gave the green light to begin adult-use sales on Jan. 22. The few dispensaries that opened up early for recreational sales were inundated with new customers lining up for hours to get legal pot, causing parking problems and disrupting the ebbs and flows of the neighborhoods surrounding local cannabis shops.

The Arizona Department of Revenue recently reported that the new adult-use market brought in $2.9 million in January alone. The Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee estimates revenues could reach more than $1 billion by 2023, mirroring what the medicinal marketplace has already achieved.

Recent city tax collection projections estimate that by 2026, Tucson could reap more than $9 million in tax revenues annually from dispensary and adult-use sales.

The early crush of business has died down as the novelty has worn off and cannabis supplies have been strained, but municipalities throughout the state continue to do what they can to regulate pot sales and use. Prop 207 allows local jurisdictions to create their own

APRIL 8, 2021

rules around recreational weed, but they cannot create ordinances more restrictive than what is currently allowed for medical dispensaries.

Among the changes proposed in Tucson are increasing the maximum size of a dispensary from 4,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet; removing restrictions on drive-thrus; and amending the ordinance to reflect weed’s legal status.

In order to increase opportunities for more locations, the updates propose reducing “setback,” the number of feet between dispensaries or between a dispensary and a school, church, public park, library or substance treatment facility.

The process hit a snag in January, when a planning commission session had to be postponed due to the ravages of COVID and because three commissioners had to recuse themselves due to perceived conflicts of interest.

“Because we had lost some commissioners during COVID, we didn’t have enough commissioners to actually get a quorum for the item,” said Dan Bursuck, a Tucson principal planner who added that they were able have some meetings last month.

“It’s a quick timeline for a code amendment,” Bursuck said. “We usually don’t do these things as quickly as this.”

In a March 17 meeting, commissioners were hesitant to move forward with the UDC changes, with some in favor of waiting for AZDHS to finish writing the final rules for recreational cannabis, including the 26 social equity licenses intended to diversify ownership and help communities that have been adversely affected by the decades-long War on

Tucson’s #1 CBD Dispensary

Drugs. The amendments passed with a 3-5 roll call vote though, and will move on to city council.

Although AZDHS had an April 5 deadline to finalize the rules for adultuse (after press time), the development of the social equity program does not have a timeline.

“As far as the rulemaking, it’s all being done at the state and I haven’t noticed that it’s particularly an open process,” Bursuck said. “I have sent emails and calls up to them to try to get an understanding of what’s going on, and they’ve told me to check their website, and eventually, it’ll be up. I think we’re kind of in a situation where there’s just not a lot we can do, but we’re trying to figure out a way to really support those licenses when they do come on board.”

The city does not have a lot of control over regulation of cannabis dispensaries, and is limited to land use, dispensary size and dealing with complaints from the public. Even if Tucson gets some of the social equity licenses, Bursuck does not expect the overall number of shops to be more than 15 or 20.

The City Council was scheduled to take up the issue at this week’s City Council meeting, which took place after the Weekly’s deadline. Council members had the choice of adopting UDC amendments as proposed, adopting proposed amendments with changes, continuing the item to a later meeting or sending it back to the planning commission for amendment.

Information about the process can be found at tucsonaz.gov in both the mayor and city council and planning commission sections of the website. ■

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

By Rob Brezsny. Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s EXPANDED WEEKLY HOROSCOPE 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700 $1.99 per minute. 18 and over. Touchtone phone required.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Author Susan Sontag defined “mad people” as those who “stand alone and burn.” She said she was drawn to them because they inspired her to do the same. What do you think she meant by the descriptor “stand alone and burn”? I suspect she was referring to strongwilled people devoted to cultivating the most passionate version of themselves, always in alignment with their deepest longings. She meant those who are willing to accept the consequences of such devotion, even if it means being misunderstood or alone. The coming weeks will be an interesting and educational time for you to experiment with being such a person.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the 1930s, Taurusborn Rita Levi-Montalcini was a promising researcher in neurobiology at the University of Turin in Italy. But when fascist dictator Benito Mussolini imposed new laws that forbade Jews from holding university jobs, she was fired.

Undaunted, she created a laboratory in her bedroom and continued her work. There she laid the foundations for discoveries that ultimately led to her winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. I foresee you summoning comparable determination and resilience in the coming weeks, Taurus.

crafty and winsome at the same time, and few accomplish it after the age of six,” wrote Cancerian author John W. Gardner. But I would add that more adult Crabs accomplish this feat than any other sign of the zodiac. I’ll furthermore suggest that during the next six weeks, many of you will do it quite well. My prediction: You will blend lovability and strategic shrewdness to generate unprecedented effectiveness. (How could anyone resist you?)

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Staring at flames had benefits for our primitive ancestors. As they sat around campfires and focused on the steady burn, they were essentially practicing a kind of meditation.

Doing so enhanced their ability to regulate their attention, thereby strengthening their working memory and developing a greater capacity to make long-range plans. What does this have to do with you? As a fire sign, you have a special talent for harnessing the power of fire to serve you. In the coming weeks, that will be even more profoundly true than usual. If you can do so safely, I encourage you to spend quality time gazing into flames. I also hope you will super-nurture the radiant fire that glows within you. (More info: tinyurl.com/ GoodFlames)

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Religious scholar Karl Barth (1886–1968) wrote, “There will be no song on our lips if there be no anguish in our hearts.” To that perverse oversimplification, I reply: “Rubbish.

Twaddle. Bunk. Hooey.” I’m appalled by his insinuation that pain is the driving force for all of our lyrical self-revelations. Case in point: you in the coming weeks. I trust there will be a steady flow of songs in your heart and on your lips because you will be in such intimate alignment with your life’s master plan.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Physicist Victor Weisskopf told us, “What’s beautiful in science is the same thing that’s beautiful in Beethoven.

There’s a fog of events and suddenly you see a connection. It connects things that were always in you that were never put together before.” I’m expecting there to be a wealth of these aha! moments for you in the coming weeks, Virgo. Hidden patterns will become visible. Missing links will appear. Secret agendas will emerge. The real stories beneath the superficial stories will materialize. Be receptive and alert!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “It is not easy to be

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Jungian psychoana-

SAVAGE LOVE CONCESSIONS

By Dan Savage, mail@savagelove.net

I’m a 29-year-old straight male. I’ve been with my 25-year-old partner for six years. I love her and think that we are perfect for each other. We have all the things that make existing with someone wonderful. But about two years into our relationship I had a two-week-long affair while I was out of the country. I fucked up. I came clean to my partner and we’ve done our best to work through this over the last four years, but it has obviously caused some trust issues between us. I’ve never cheated again and I try every day to work through these issues I caused in our relationship.

There’s also been two recent instances

of me breaking her trust. On a particularly stressful day I was caught sneaking a cigarette—the sneaking part is the issue— and on another occasion I did drugs in our communal back garden with a friend after she had gone to bed. I owned up to both straight away. I view both of these as being a symptom of the lockdown/pandemic prompting me to break with my “normal” behavior. But my partner is no longer comfortable allowing me to have the freedom to go out with my friends and partake in drugs without her express permission, which she already said she’s unlikely to grant me. The other element to this is, we want kids in three years.

lyst and folklore expert Clarissa Pinkola Estés celebrates the power of inquiry. She says that “asking the proper question is the central action of transformation,” both in fairy tales and in psychotherapy. To identify what changes will heal you, you must be curious to uncover truths that you don’t know yet. “Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open,” says Estes. I bring this to your attention, Libra, because now is prime time for you to formulate the Fantastically Magically Catalytic Questions.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In April 1933, Scorpioborn African American singer Ethel Waters was in a “private hell.” Her career was at an impasse and her marriage was falling apart. In the depths of despondency, she was invited to sing a new song, “Stormy Weather,” at New York City’s famous Cotton Club. It was a turning point. She later wrote, “I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, of the misunderstandings in my life I couldn’t straighten out, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted.” The audience was thrilled by her performance, and called her back for 12 encores. Soon thereafter, musical opportunities poured in and her career blossomed. I foresee a parallel event in your life, Scorpio. Maybe not quite so dramatic, but still, quite redemptive.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I love to see you enjoy yourself. I get a vicarious thrill as I observe you pursuing pleasures that other people are too inhibited or timid to dare. It’s healing for me to witness you unleash your unapologetic enthusiasm for being alive in an amazing body that’s blessed with the miracle of consciousness. And now I’m going to be a cheerleader for your efforts to wander even further into the frontiers of bliss and joy and gratification. I will urge you to embark on a quest of novel forms of rapture and exultation. I’ll prod you to at least temporarily set aside habitual sources of excitement so you’ll have room to welcome as-yet unfamiliar sources.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn poet John O’Donahue suggested that a river’s behavior is

We’ve agreed that I will fully abstain from all drugs after we become parents.

My problem is that I am trapped between a desire to meet the wants of my partner while also maintaining a degree of autonomy. When we discuss these matters—which we’ve been doing frequently lately—her argument boils down to this: “You did a bad thing, you need to make concessions so that I feel safe, you having to seek my permission makes me feel safe.” It’s coming to loggerheads and I don’t know if I’m the unreasonable one here, especially since I’m arguing for the freedom to do an illegal drug. I would appreciate your external, outside, drug-positive perspective in this.

—Don’t Really Understand Girlfriend’s Sentiment

worthy of our emulation. He said the river’s life is “surrendered to the pilgrimage.” It’s “seldom pushing or straining, keeping itself to itself everywhere all along its flow.” Can you imagine yourself doing that, Capricorn? Now is an excellent time to do so. O’Donahue rhapsodized that the river is “at one with its sinuous mind, an utter rhythm, never awkward,” and that “it continues to swirl through all unlikeness with elegance: a ceaseless traverse of presence soothing on each side, sounding out its journey, raising up a buried music.” Be like that river, dear Capricorn!

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?” wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In response to that sentiment, I say, “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!”

Even if you will live till age 99, that’s still too brief a time to indulge in an excess of dull activities that activate just a small part of your intelligence.

To be clear, I don’t think it’s possible to be perfect in avoiding boredom. But for most of us, there’s a lot we can do to minimize numbing tedium and energy-draining apathy. I mention this, Aquarius, because the coming weeks will be a time when you will have extra power to make your life as interesting as possible for the long run.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I know of four different governmental organizations that have estimated the dollar value of a single human life. The average of their figures is $7.75 million. So let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you are personally worth that much. Does it change the way you think about your destiny? Are you inspired to upgrade your sense of yourself as a precious treasure? Or is the idea of putting a price on your merit uninteresting, even unappealing? Whatever your reaction is, I hope it prods you to take a revised inventory of your worth, however you measure it. It’s a good time to get a clear and precise evaluation of the gift that is your life. (Quote from Julia Cameron: “Treating yourself like a precious object makes you strong.”) ■ Homework: Send brief descriptions of your top three vices and top three virtues. FreeWillAstrology. com.

I had some emergency dental work done this morning and I’m a little strung out on… what are those things called again? Oh, right: drugs. Last night I selected the letters I wanted to respond to in this week’s column and I really didn’t expect to be on powerful painkillers when I sat down to write my responses today. In all honesty, I probably shouldn’t be operating advice machinery at the moment but deadlines are deadlines. You should take my advice with a grain silo or two of salt, DRUGS, and everyone else should just skip this week’s column entirely.

OK! DRUGS! Here we go! My outside, external, drug-positive-but-with-caveats (see below) perspective on your dilemma boils down to this: Do not make babies with this woman. Don’t scramble

APRIL 8, 2021

your DNA together with hers—not unless it makes your dick hard to think about begging this woman for permission every time you wanna smoke a little pot with a friend or take a fucking shit for the next 40 years. (And, trust me, you’re still going to want to smoke pot after the babies come.) If that kind of begging excites you, great. Have all the fucking babies. But if that doesn’t excite you… dude… run the fuck away.

Yeah, yeah: you did a bad thing.

You had an affair four years ago and you made the mistake of telling your girlfriend about it even though 1. she most likely was never going to find out about it and 2. you quickly came to regret it. Your regret wasn’t instantaneous—your regret took a couple of weeks to come—but the fact that you haven’t cheated on her since is a pretty good indication that your regret was sincere. And now here you are four years later, DRUGS, waking up every day and getting back to work on those trust issues. Because you’re still in trouble. Because you made the mistake of telling your girlfriend about an affair she would never have found known about if you had kept your mouth shut.

But you know… come to think of it… maybe it was a good thing you that you told your girlfriend about the affair, DRUGS. Not because honesty is always the best policy. The famed couples counselor and author and podcaster and Ted Talker Esther Perel urges people who’ve had affairs to consider the “burden of knowing” before they disclose. If you sincerely regret the affair and it’s not going to happen again and your partner is not in any physical risk and is unlikely to hear about the affair from a third party, sparing them the burden of knowing is the second-most loving thing a person can do. (Not cheating at all would, of course, be the most loving thing a person can do.)

So to be clear, DRUGS, I don’t think telling your girlfriend was the right thing to do because all affairs must be disclosed. I think telling your particular girlfriend was the right thing to do because she’s telling on herself now. If she doesn’t feel like she can trust you ever again—and if she’s constantly on the lookout for new reasons why she can’t trust you—then she needs to end this relationship. But she hasn’t ended the relationship, DRUGS, and you need to ask yourself why she hasn’t. I have a hunch: She hasn’t ended it because she

past, your girlfriend’s zero tolerance policy might be justified. But if we’re not talking about hard drugs and you don’t have addiction issues, DRUGS, you shouldn’t have to beg your girlfriend’s permission in advance—which she’s denied in advance—to smoke a little pot with a buddy.

likes it this way.

Someone who cheats and gets caught and discloses and wants to make it right can expect to spend some time, well, making it right.

They should expect to spend some time in the doghouse and, to extend the metaphor, they should expect to spend some time on a short leash. But a person can’t spend the rest of their life in the doghouse. A cheater has to take responsibility and be considerate about insecurities the affair may have created or worsened. But if a cheater has done all that and years later the person the cheated won’t let them out of the doghouse—or is constantly finding new reasons to keep the cheater in the doghouse—then the doghouse is where the cheated wants the cheater.

Forever. Which means instead of being angry you cheated on her, DRUGS, on some level your girlfriend is delighted you cheated on her. Because the wrong thing you did allows her to control you for the rest of your life.

But it shouldn’t. And if she insists it does or that it should, DRUGS, you should leave her.

About those caveats: You don’t specify the drug you used in the backyard with your friend but I’m gonna assume it was weed—which is legal where I live but not where you live. There is, of course, a big difference between stepping out to smoke a little pot after the girlfriend has gone to bed and sneaking out to smoke a lotta meth.

And if you’re an addict and a little pot has led to a lot of harder drugs in the

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THE SKINNY

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

“The majority of Tucson’s residents aren’t people who are preoccupied with the resale value of their home,” she said.

“They’re families like mine, working for the institutions and small businesses that drive Tucson’s economy, but feeling igI’ve been listening to old episodes of nored and left out of whatever future our the Savage Lovecast while working leadership is imagining for the city.” from home. Yesterday I heard you Portela is a community organizer who explain to straight male listeners that recently left a job working for Ward 1 their straight female partners would Councilwoman Lane Santa Cruz. say “yes” to sex more often if “sex” “Making the ballot was the first step,” didn’t always mean the woman getting Portela said. “The second step is workfucked. That really resonated with me, ing with the community to bring back community-centered representation. My a straight woman with a male partner. family has found home here for generWhen my husband came onto me the next night and I didn’t feel like opening ations and I believe it’s time we have a up to get basted, instead of saying “no,” representative that is focused on home.”

Val Romero filed signatures to run as I offered to jerk him off while he sucked an independent on the November ballot. my tits. It was great—for both of us!

Romero said he collected more signatures Total win! Thank you, Dan Savage! than Kozachik or Schubert, which he sees —Joyfully Enjoying Relevant Knowledge as a sign that voters want a change.

Ward 5: No candidates filed to run You’re welcome, JERK! It’s always against Councilman Richard Fimbres as nice to hear from folks who’ve taken the Democrat seeks his fourth term. But my advice and didn’t regret it!

Lucas Rodriquez, an independent who didn’t get enough signatures to qualify for mail@savagelove.net the ballot, is vowing to run as a write-in Follow Dan on Twitter candidate in November. @FakeDanSavage.

The primary election is Aug. 3. The savagelovecast.com general election is Nov. 2. ■

Comics

22

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

APRIL 8, 2021

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