Buddy Guy Turns Green Music Center Blue

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Buddy Guy Turns Green Music Center Blue

Having celebrated his 86th birthday last July 30, Buddy Guy remains one of the last pillars of the rich Chicago-blues music scene that counted the late Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and B.B. King among its luminaries.

Still at it, Guy brings his inimitable chops to Sonoma County next week with an appearance at the Green Music Center as part of his “Damn Right Farewell Tour.”

Auspiciously, the tour aligns with the release of Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase the Blues Away, a documentary, part of the PBS American Masters series, which aired last week and is now available streaming.

“The way they treat the blues now, you don’t hear it on your big radio stations anymore,” Guy said during a recent phone interview. “Your big AM/FM stations don’t play blues hardly anymore. So whatever little I can do to help keep blues alive, I’m open for it. I’m ready to wake up in the midnight hours of the night to help keep it alive, because without satellite radio, I don’t think you hear much of B.B. King no more.”

He added, “Even the British blues guys aren’t being played much on radio anymore. You get a lot of hip-hop and superstars’ records, which don’t need to be played because they’re so well-known. Their records are going to go [big] anyway. I don’t need to hear Muddy Waters as much as I hear Madonna or somebody else. Just play me Muddy Waters once or twice a month.”

Throughout the hour-and-23-minute-long American Masters episode, Guy’s life proves to be a fascinating tale. In addition to original interviews with Guy and numerous acolytes, including John Mayer, Carlos Santana, Gary Clark Jr. and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, viewers are treated to quite the travelogue.

The filmmakers trace the guitarist from his origins working the Louisiana fields his sharecropper family plowed—and where a portion of highway was named after him in December 2018—to the thriving 1950s Chicago music scene he arrived in with nothing but a guitar in his hand and the suit on his back. It was here that he got his first break, when Waters took the 21-year-old fret-bender under his wing.

“Sixty-five years ago last year I’d just gotten to Chicago, and I wasn’t looking to be a professional musician,” Guy said. “I’d left Louisiana because they told me I could go to Chicago, get a day job and wouldn’t have to pay to see Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson and all those guys. I was looking for a day job because I didn’t never think I was good enough to play with them. But I learned how to play Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed and a few Muddy Waters licks.”

“I hadn’t eaten in three days and a guy took me to the 708, a famous blues club on 47th Street in Chicago,” Guy continued. “I went up and played a number with the late Otis Rush and somebody called Muddy Waters, who was living about five blocks away. He got out of his van, and because he heard I was telling people how hungry I was, he brought me a bologna sandwich.”

Word of Guy’s guitar prowess got around. After a brief stint recording a few sides for Cobra Records, he landed at Chess courtesy of Waters, who favored the young musician. Soon, other artists in the label’s stable started using him on their records as well.

Label founder Leonard Chess begrudgingly used Guy while denouncing what he did as “just making noise.” However, the Louisiana native’s combination of tasty playing and over-the-top showmanship made him a favorite of the British Invasion triumvirate of Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, as well as stateside guitar god Jimi Hendrix. And while Guy is a humble man, he’s quick to acknowledge his abilities, particularly when asked what he thought about Hendrix the first time they met in 1968.

“You should ask what he thought of me, because he told me he came from a gig to come see me play because he’d picked up some things from me,” Guy said with a chuckle. “As a matter of fact, I was playing in New York, and he came in with a reel-to-reel tape recorder and I didn’t know who the hell he was. He asked if he could tape, and I could hear somebody saying, ‘That’s Jimi Hendrix.’”

He added, “I didn’t know much about him because I was following B.B. King, Muddy Waters and T-Bone (Walker). I said, ‘So what. Who in the hell is Jimi Hendrix?’ He come up and asked if he could tape what I was doing because he just canceled a gig to come to New York to hear me play.”

While blues may have fallen out of favor in the ’70s and ’80s, Guy experienced a comeback in the ’90s, beginning with the release of his 1991 album, Damn Right, I Got the Blues, his first recording in nearly a decade. Featuring cameos by Clapton, Beck and Mark Knopfler, the album is credited with kickstarting a blues rebirth. Guy has released a steady stream of albums since then, won eight Grammy Awards, earned a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction and played for fellow Chicagoan President Barack Obama.

“I always say I went from the outhouse to the White House,” he noted.

Having never stopped touring, even during his lean years, Guy understandably had slowed his pace some in recent years. But his fire for playing guitar and spreading the blues gospel hasn’t waned. Following on the heels of the PBS film is The Torch, a documentary that examines the guitarist’s ongoing influence on the blues and includes interviews with a number of musicians, including Carlos Santana and Susan Tedeschi.

As for what folks can expect coming out to see this living legend do his thing on stage, Guy promises prime rib in a world of Spam.

“Folks can expect the best that I got,” he said. “My dad told me this, and I’ll tell you the same thing he told me before I learned how to play when I was driving the tractor and plowing the fields in Louisiana. He said, ‘Son, don’t be the best in town. Just be the best until the best come around.’”

Buddy Guy performs at 7:30pm, Friday, Aug. 4 at Weill Hall at Green Music Center, 1801 E Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park. Tickets available at https://gmc.sonoma.edu/buddy-guy/

Dairy Drama: Petaluma Creamery faces lawsuits, loses access to sewer

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Dairy Drama: Petaluma Creamery faces lawsuits, loses access to sewer

An article in Petaluma’s local newspaper last week prompted more questions than it answered.

On Monday, July 17, the Argus-Courier reported that a commercial real estate firm was advertising one of the city’s largest ag-processing facilities and a few neighboring properties for sale. However, the Creamery’s owner, Larry Peter, was quick to quash the story, telling the paper “I’ve never listed the Petaluma Creamery for sale.” The online real estate listing, first posted on June 8, was quickly deactivated, and the Argus-Courier has yet to do more reporting on the oddity.

That’s not the end of the story, though. An investigation by the Bohemian found that while the Creamery has successfully paid off a long-standing debt to the city for wastewater fees and fines, Peter continues to juggle other bills—and recently reached an agreement with the city cutting off the Creamery’s access to the sewer system for the foreseeable future.

Demand Drops

In 2004, Peter made his name in the local agricultural community by purchasing the Petaluma Creamery, a cornerstone for the North Bay’s shrinking dairy community.

However, by September 2010, the business owed the city of Petaluma $604,720 in unpaid water bills and fines, according to press coverage from the time. Despite a 2018 court order to pay off the remaining balance over 24 months, the Creamery continued to fall behind.

In late 2020, the issue came to a head. The Creamery had accrued a bill for over $1.4 million in unpaid water fines and fees and the city, apparently finally having lost patience, threatened to revoke the Creamery’s crucial wastewater permit if the company did not pay up.

After the Bohemian broke the story, drawing attention by the Argus-Courier, Peter delivered a cashier’s check for more than $800,000 to city hall and later signed a March 2021 agreement with the city, agreeing to pay off the Creamery’s remaining debt and to foot the bill for third-party monitoring of the Creamery’s compliance with various regulations.

In a response to questions last week, Petaluma deputy city attorney Jordan Green confirmed that the Petaluma Creamery has paid off its debt to the city, with the lien on the Creamery property being removed in February.

However, the release coincided with bad news.

“Towards the end of 2022, Petaluma Creamery’s … wastewater discharges slowed, and eventually stopped in early 2023 due to a stop in production,” Green told the Bohemian in an email last week.

On June 13, the city locked the Creamery’s wastewater system, preventing any discharge into the city’s sewer from the facility. Two weeks later, Peter signed a third amendment to the Creamery’s March 2021 Consent Order agreement with the city, which allows the Creamery to stop paying for the third-party wastewater inspector while the facility’s sewer access is shut off.

It is not clear whether the Creamery is able to produce anything or employ anyone without discharging wastewater. Peter and his attorney did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story last week.

Photo by Daedalus Howell
In late 2020, the City of Petaluma cracked down on the Petaluma Creamery for a debt of more than $1.4 million. Photo by Daedalus Howell.

Competing Debts

While Peter and the Creamery were paying off the city, other creditors came calling.

In July 2021, David Bianchi sued Creamery milk suppliers Jack and Olivia Dei over an outstanding debt of $381,788 used to pay for feed supplies. The Deis in turn counter-sued Peter and Spring Hill Jersey Cheese, the company which operates the Creamery. Peter, the Deis argued in court, had agreed to pay off their debt to Bianchi as part of a deal to settle his outstanding $674,138 debt to them for a variety of unpaid bills—and interest payments—dating back to 2016.

“Through the years, Spring Hill began having a variety of financial and other difficulties, some of which have been widely reported in the news. The financial problems led Spring Hill to take milk from the Deis (and others) repeatedly while failing to pay or underpaying them. Spring Hill obviously used and profited from the milk it took,” a legal filing by the Deis’ attorney states.

“Spring Hill’s president Larry Peter continually acknowledged Spring Hill’s outstanding obligations to the Deis and repeatedly assured them that payments would be made when he had the funds. But he never paid the debt. After three or four years of problems, there came a point where the Deis’ sons, Chris and Brian, got involved. They were understandably concerned that their aging parents needed the money in their final years,” the document continues.

According to legal filings, Spring Hill has paid the Deis enough so that they could cover their debt to Bianchi, who has dropped his suit against the Deis. However, the Deis’ debt has not been fully paid. This April, the Sonoma County court ruled in favor of the Deis, recording a judgment of $508,521 against Spring Hill.

In a separate San Joaquin County Superior Court case, Pacific Gold Milk Producers, Inc., a Stockton-based dairy collective, has alleged that Spring Hill owes them nearly $3 million for milk Pacific Gold delivered between February and May 2022.

“Petaluma Creamery never disputed the June [2022] statement, but it canceled the contract in or about September 2022,” Pacific Gold’s attorneys wrote in a November 2022 legal filing.

In a May 18, 2022 email included in court documents, a Spring Hill employee requested documents from Pacific Gold to compare the companies’ records. After receiving documentation from Pacific Gold, she wrote “Well the great news is our numbers match exactly!”

Peter stated in a March filing that the Spring Hill employees working on reconciling the Pacific Gold account were unaware that he had a separate arrangement with a Pacific Gold representative for some of the milk sales under question. “This is still unresolved,” Peter wrote.

In April, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office recorded a “writ of attachment,” an order of the court creating a lien on the property, for nearly $3 million on the Creamery properties on behalf of Pacific Gold. The case is ongoing.

Court filings also show that rumors about the sale of the Creamery did not begin last week with the Argus-Courier’s article.

“Pacific Gold recently learned that Petaluma Creamery is in the process of selling its business to a third party. [Pacific Gold] now files this action to protect its rights and obtain provisional relief pending trial,” a Nov. 22, 2022 filing states.

A month later, just ahead of Christmas break, a Petaluma Creamery employee emailed a Pacific Gold employee: “I don’t have any planned days off. We are close[d] Dec 26th and Jan 2 for the holidays but barring us going out of business (could happen), I will be here.”

Petaluma Creamery jersey cow statue
Photo by Daedalus Howell

Peter himself has recently referenced the idea of selling as a means of paying off his debts, according to a legal filing by the Deis’ attorneys.

“Mr. Peter has sworn under penalty of perjury that if he won the lottery, the Deis would be paid the balance of their Note and much more. But he claims Spring Hill cannot pay because it does not have the funds to make the payment at the moment (though he has held out the specter of a possible future sale of Spring Hill which would allow it to repay the debt),” a March 29, 2023 filing states.

Juggling various debts is nothing new for Larry Peter. A review of county property records associated with Peter’s various companies reveals a decades-long history of property purchases, sales and debts in addition to fines levied by various state and local agencies.

Peter himself acknowledged that he started his dairy empire with high-interest loans in a December 2020 radio interview with then-Sonoma County Farm Bureau executive director Tawny Tesconi for The Crush’s Farm to Table segment.

“My dream was to own a dairy, so I went out and borrowed blood money—high-interest money—and went out and bought a dairy on Spring Hill Road… The first 20 years were pretty hard because I always had to borrow money at 20–25% interest to get started,” Peter told Tesconi.

It appears the debt dance has continued to the present. Last June, county records show, Peter and Spring Hill Jersey Cheese received a loan for $5.75 million from Socotra Capital, a Sacramento-based firm which specializes in “direct hard money loans to meet your real estate needs.”

Socotra is a “money lender specializing in financing real estate investors on projects that may not be possible through traditional methods,” the firm’s CEO Adham Sbeih said in an interview with River City Bank last month. “We are filling the space that many banks aren’t filling, whether it be a bridge loan, fix and flip loan, commercial refinance, construction projects, or other real estate projects.”

In return for the loan, records show, Peter staked the Creamery and the neighboring properties listed in the June real estate listing which the Argus-Courier reported on. The length and interest rate of the loan are not publicly available.

Spiritual Heroism

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Spiritual Heroism

There is something out there that can dissipate all our sorrows, instilling both immutable calm and readiness for action.

It sometimes appears in the mind’s eye as a cup or as a sword buried in stone. The object is hidden in an inaccessible place: the sword may rest upon a mountaintop, while the cup that holds the Water of Everlasting Life lies in a subterranean cavern on a remote island. We are likely either searching for the sword or the cup, because we possess the other—or at least a rudimentary version of it. But we need to join them, and while not easy, that can be done. After all, the two do exist together somewhere—in the Tarot, for example.

Why all this mystery? Because it’s called the Mystery Tradition.

But the schools have been closed for 2,000 years, and since then the Ageless Wisdom rests not at the center of civilization but on the outskirts. It is not the sacred science that has moved, of course, for it is the great Unmoved Mover, the axis around which the world turns. Instead it is mankind that has drifted away, cycling through the stages of civilization before arriving at the Age of Iron described by Hesiod, the spiritual winter in which all contact with the divine has been severed.

During such epochs—when the immortal wisdom becomes hidden and when sacred kings and temple priestesses are all extinct—metaphysical knowledge must be sought for and won through an inner battle between the part of us that is human and the part that is divine. The term for this quest for knowledge, enlightenment and awakening of dormant powers is “heroic spirituality.”

Typically brought about by crisis, it is an adventure that takes place when all the temples are closed. People no longer believe in the old gods, or know how to act upon the invisible realm of causation so as to produce effects in the visible realm. The Everlasting Light still shines, but its source must be found, and only the daring hero, guided by ancient books and his own dauntless determination, can find it.

We’re all no doubt familiar with someone who has undertaken this quest for the spirit, who said, in an iconic archetypal film, “I want to learn the ways of the spirit and become a knight like my father,” when his world lay in ruins, and others called the spiritual force a silly superstition.

An old alchemical text says one needs to be born for this undertaking. The thing is, everyone who was ever born for it didn’t know it until the hour arrived, and what seemed impossible suddenly became necessary.

Atomic Angst ‘Oppenheimers’ old wounds

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Atomic Angst ‘Oppenheimers’ old wounds

Nearly two decades ago, I somehow convinced my filmmaking pal, Abe Levy, to accompany me on a drive across the American Southwest, through the endless ribbon of mirages known as Interstate 40 until we reached the White Sands Missile Base in Socorro, N.M.

This was not our final destination, but an obligatory stop made on behalf of the U.S. government so that they could clear our rental car, our camera gear and our very persons before granting passage onto the base. After that, we drove 17 more miles into the base’s interior, then rendezvoused with a press liaison who drove us further still.

Levy was the cameraperson and I was the reporter, and our story was pegged on the 60th anniversary of the first detonation of the atom bomb. The subject had haunted my imagination since sixth grade, after I managed to miss the broadcast of ABC’s dystopian TV-movie about nuclear war, The Day After. In its absence, during the morning’s class discussions intended to soothe our anxious minds, my own nuclear nightmares filled the void.

At the end of the original broadcast, a disclaimer read, “The catastrophic events you have just witnessed are, in all likelihood, less severe than the destruction that would actually occur in the event of a full nuclear strike against the United States.” Naturally, this added more fuel-rods to the reactor fire of the Thanksgiving holiday, when families all across America shared solemn conversations about vaporization, radiation sickness and—oh, no!—hair loss, as the gravy boat dolefully bobbed around the table.

Not my family, of course—we missed it. But I knew what had happened on TV, if only secondhand, and that it was “less severe” than the real deal, which then seemed imminent.

Fortunately, President Ronald Reagan commanded Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall!” and I guess he did, because Jesus Jones made a music video about it, and my nuclear holocaust anxiety quelled into a low thrum through the ’90s. By 2006, I was able to confront the nearly forgotten fear at its literal genesis—the Trinity site in New Mexico—recorder in hand, as Levy popped off shots. I wrote and filed my story, and it eventually became yesteryear’s news.

Since then, not even North Korea’s nuclear-saber rattling during the early provocations of Donald Trump’s presidency resurfaced my atomic anxiety—though nicknaming Kim Jong-Un “Rocket Man” was, dare I say, inspired. No, it took filmmaker Christopher Nolan and his Oppenheimer marketing machine to flare up this radioactive half-life within me. But it’s not anxiety anymore; it’s angst. And I suppose it will always be there, like the shadows etched into the stone walls of Hiroshima by the boiling light of Little Boy. After 40 years, it’s an old friend. I suppose this is how we learn to stop worrying and love the bomb.

Read ‘Atomic Hangover’ at dhowl.com/bomb. Originally published at dhowell.substack.com.

Housing Brouhaha: Listen to Marin City residents

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Housing Brouhaha: Listen to Marin City residents

With its 825 Drake development project, the Board of Supervisors has again taken action that impacts Marin City without consulting, and over the objection of, Marin City residents. This is both a moral failure and a failure of representative democracy.

Marin City is the most diverse community in Marin County. It is a strong and vibrant community on a relatively small but beautiful patch of land in Marin County. Marin City is a half-square-mile community of 3,094 people—with only 1.2% of the total county’s population and .1% of the county’s land area.

Shockingly out of proportion to Marin City’s relatively small size, the county has concentrated its higher-density housing there. It has concentrated in Marin City 60% of the county’s public housing and nearly half of its publicly assisted multi-family rental units.

To this over-burdened community, the Board of Supervisors has now decided to add more high-density housing, reviving the previously shelved 74-unit 825 Drake project. There was no communication with the Marin City Community Services District—who have now voiced their strenuous objections—before pushing through a $40 million bond to support the developer.

This action is just the latest in a long history of initiatives that the Board of Supervisors has undertaken without consulting the residents of Marin City. For far too long, the Board of Supervisors has announced projects without seeing the need to listen to input from the residents. Like all Marin County residents, the residents of Marin City deserve representatives who listen to their concerns before deciding issues that impact their lives and community. They deserve the dignity of self-determination in the community that is their home.

The 825 Drake development project should be stopped immediately. The property should be conveyed to an entity committed to working on behalf of—and not against—the interests of the Marin City community. The Board of Supervisors should recommit to living up to their affordable-housing responsibilities in a way that does not perpetuate and increase racial disparities in Marin County.

Rev. Scott Clark is a pastor at First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo.

Your Letters, July 26

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Your Letters, July 26

Minority Rule

Dave Heller (“Letters,” July 19) is right, we need both “final five” and ranked voting in all elections. The 50 Republican senators represent 40% of the population. Minority rule happens when voters have no choices except the incompetent candidates from the two lame-ass major parties. Competition and anti-monopoly practices work for consumers, and they will work for voters. What organization in the world would tolerate replacing a degenerate imbecile “leader” in his 70s with a man older than he is? Is this really the best we can do, America?

Craig J. Corsini

San Rafael

Oppression

Thank you, Nikki Silverstein, for providing the true information about, and straight from, the unhoused residents whose conditions you write about (“Tent Tension,” July 19). Government and mainstream media tend to disinform and refuse unhoused people a voice. I appreciate, also, your coverage of the oppression of unhoused folks by governments.

Monica Martella

Via PacificSun.com

Local Resource

Whether addressing homelessness, housing inequities or rogue police brutality, your articles are always well researched, balanced, insightful, articulate and timely (“Tent Tension,” July 19). You are a valuable local resource. The Pacific Sun and our community are fortunate to have you!

Jerry Spolter

Via PacificSun.com

Barbie Takes a Heroine’s Journey

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Barbie Takes a Heroine’s Journey

Barbie mania is so pervasive that if one googles “Barbie” right now, the web page turns pink and sparkles with animated magenta stars.

Barbie has been a ubiquitous toy for decades, reigning as “supreme doll” before, during and after my childhood. So when I heard the new Greta Gerwig movie was Barbie, I was intrigued.

Gerwig’s previous films, Ladybird and Little Women, are poetic depictions of a mainstream story—women coming of age in a world hostile to them. They seem the perfect segue into Barbie, another reimagined feminine classic.

While one might expect shallow and beautiful, the Barbie movie owns it all—the good, the bad and the ugly—with a timely and compassionate message for women and men alike.

For the record, I didn’t see it with Oppenheimer, a phenomenon called “Barbenheimer,” where moviegoers watch the films as a double feature, ostensibly because they were released on the same day. For those participating in this five-hour film extravaganza, see Barbie last.

Directed by Gerwig, the live-action film Barbie was co-written by her and partner Noah Baumbach, and stars Margo Robbie and Ryan Gosling. It pokes fun at Mattel, even briefly featuring the character of Ruth Handler, first president of Mattel, who invented the iconic doll in 1959.

The story begins with “Stereotypical Barbie” living her best life in her dreamhouse, in an idyllic matriarchal world where the Barbies are in charge and the Kens play on the beach.

When Barbie suddenly has heretofore-unknown dark thoughts, she seeks the counsel of “Weird Barbie”—a Barbie who was played with “too hard” and as a result sports a choppy haircut, pen marks on her face and is always in the splits. Weird Barbie advises her to leave Barbie Land and travel to the “real world” to discover what’s wrong.

It’s a heroine’s journey into the dark-pink night of the soul, with dramatic consequences for not only Barbie, but for those in the real world and Barbie Land alike.

Part of the joy of the film is how visually over-the-top it is. The filmmakers spare no production-design expense, recreating all the accessories we remember, from the plastic furniture in the open-air dreamhouses to decals representing food on the fridge door.

Like Barbie herself these days, the film is more sophisticated than one might expect, and Gerwig uses all the satirical devices and comedy to deliver a drama with heart that is as aspirational for our world as its namesake doll is for kids.

Barbie was always considered an “aspirational” doll. Unlike baby dolls, Barbie represented what girls were to become personally; and what that is has changed considerably since 1959.

She’s come a long way, baby, to quote the old Virginia Slims cigarette ads from the ’80s, themselves conflicted times for feminism. For years, Barbies were only thin and white, with either platinum blonde or brunette hair. It wasn’t until the ’80s that Mattel made Black, Latina, and Asian Barbies. A Black doll in the Barbie world was first sold in 1968, almost a decade after Barbie was invented. But she wasn’t a Barbie, she was instead Barbie’s Black friend, Christie.

And more than just Barbie’s looks have changed. Moving on from her first words: “I love shopping,” and “Math class is tough,” her voice has evolved to the more inspiring “Find the beauty in everything you do,” and “What makes you different makes you special.”

Since the ’50s, Barbie has potentially become the most diverse doll line, and the doll in the film, and the film’s storyline, reflect those changes, too.

She’s come a long way; just don’t call her “baby.”

PQ

While one might expect shallow and beautiful, the Barbie movie owns it all—the good, the bad and the ugly—with a timely and compassionate message for women and men alike.

Take it All Off

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Take it All Off

Glen Ellen

Show Me Yours

For the second show of its 2023 season, Transcendence Theatre Company had decided to do a strip-down affair—literally—with their production of the Broadway hit The Full Monty. Based on the 1997 Academy Award-nominated sleeper hit by the same name, The Full Monty finds a father who needs to raise some quick cash to maintain custody of his son hatching a plan to become strippers with an unlikely group of lovable misfits. As in the film, comic hijinks ensue, but now with singing and dancing. Directed by Josh Walden, with music direction by Matt Smart, the show opens this Friday, July 28, and runs through Aug. 20 at Beltane Ranch, 11775 Sonoma Hwy., Glen Ellen. Tickets start at $35, with group discounts available. For tickets and more information, visit BestNightEver.org.

Mill Valley

Boom Tunes

With Oppenheimer opening last week, the world has entered a new Atomic Age—in the arts. Celebrate with New York City-based Subatomic Sound System, featuring Jamaican MC and vocalist Screechy Dan performing at the Sweetwater Music Hall on Friday, Aug. 4. The set highlights the band’s collaborations with the late, great Lee “Scratch” Perry, known for his work with Bob Marley & the Wailers, as well as performances of tracks with Screechy Dan, including “Champion Sound” and “Babylon Soon Fall.” Leveraging cutting-edge technology, the band has innovated a performance style that defies the traditional boundaries between DJing and live-band performances. The all-ages show starts at 8pm at Sweetwater Music Hall, 19 Corte Madera Ave., Mill Valley. Tickets are $23 and available in advance at bit.ly/subatomic-MV.

Rio Nido

Hello, Cello

Beloved North Bay-based band Dirty Cello, led by Rebecca Roudman on the band’s namesake instrument, has performed everywhere from Iceland and Israel to China and much of the U.S., not to mention the occasional castle in Scotland. See them locally this Friday when the band plays the Rio Nido Roadhouse, infusing their cello-driven music with rock idioms reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King and Bill Monroe. Oakland Magazine characterized the band’s music as “funky, carnival, romantic, sexy, tangled, electric, fiercely rhythmic, textured, and only occasionally classical.” Dirty Cello performs at 7pm Friday, July 28, at the Rio Nido Roadhouse, 14540 Canyon 2 Rd. Tickets are $10, cash only, at the door.

Cotati

Sound of the System

Breakdown, A New Musical—a comedy that explores societal insanity and mental illness, courtesy of the lauded San Francisco Mime Troupe—follows Yume, a homeless woman living “in a city that seems to have more paperwork than compassion,” with help “always just around the Kafkaesque labyrinthine corner,” as the show’s PR sardonically reminds. The troupe offers two North Bay performances: 7pm Thursday, July 27, in the Backlawn of the Mill Valley Community Center, 180 Camino Alto; and 2pm Saturday, Aug. 12, at La Plaza Park, 5 W. Sierra Ave., Cotati. Both shows are free and open to the public. For more information, visit sfmt.org/show-archive/breakdown.

Free Will Astrology, July 26

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Free Will Astrology, July 26

ARIES (March 21-April 19): You are about to read a thunderbolt of sublime prophecies. It’s guaranteed to nurture the genius in your soul’s underground cave. Are you ready? 1. Your higher self will prod you to compose a bold prayer in which you ask for stuff you thought you weren’t supposed to ask for. 2. Your higher self will know what to do to enhance your love life by at least 20%, possibly more. 3. Your higher self will give you extra access to creativity and imaginative powers, enabling you to make two practical improvements in your life.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In 1991, John Kilcullen began publishing books with “for Dummies” in the title: for example, Sex for Dummies, Time Management for Dummies, Personal Finance for Dummies, and my favorite, Stress Management for Dummies. There are now over 300 books in this series. They aren’t truly for stupid people, of course. They’re designed to be robust introductions to interesting and useful subjects. I invite you to emulate Kilcullen’s mindset, Taurus. Be innocent, curious and eager to learn. Adopt a beginner’s mind that’s receptive to being educated and influenced. (If you want to know more, go here: tinyurl.com/TruthForDummies.)

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “I could be converted to a religion of grass,” says Indigenous author Louise Erdrich in her book, Heart of the Land. “Sink deep roots. Conserve water. Respect and nourish your neighbors. Such are the tenets. As for practice—grow lush in order to be devoured or caressed, stiffen in sweet elegance, invent startling seeds. Connect underground. Provide. Provide. Be lovely and do no harm.” I advocate a similar approach to life for you Geminis in the coming weeks. Be earthy, sensual and lush. (P.S.: Erdrich is a Gemini.)

CANCER (June 21-July 22): I hereby appoint myself as your temporary social director. My first action is to let you know that from an astrological perspective, the next nine months will be an excellent time to expand and deepen your network of connections and your web of allies. I invite you to cultivate a vigorous grapevine that keeps you up-to-date about the latest trends affecting your work and play. Refine your gossip skills. Be friendlier than you’ve ever been. Are you the best ally and collaborator you could possibly be? If not, make that one of your assignments.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): There are two kinds of holidays: those created by humans and those arising from the relationship between the sun and earth. In the former category are various independence days: July 4 in the U.S., July 1 in Canada, July 14 in France and June 2 in Italy. Japan observes Foundation Day on Feb. 11. Among the second kind of holiday is Lammas on Aug. 1, a pagan festival that in the Northern Hemisphere marks the halfway point between the summer solstice and autumn equinox. In pre-industrial cultures, Lammas celebrated the grain harvest and featured outpourings of gratitude for the crops that provide essential food. Modern revelers give thanks for not only the grain, but all the nourishing bounties provided by the sun’s and earth’s collaborations. I believe you Leos are smart to make Lammas one of your main holidays. What’s ready to be harvested in your world. What are your prime sources of gratitude?

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): For many of us, a disposal company regularly comes to our homes to haul away the garbage we have generated. Wouldn’t it be great if there were also a reliable service that purged our minds and hearts of the psychic gunk that naturally accumulates? Psychotherapists provide this blessing for some of us, and I know people who derive similar benefits from spiritual rituals. Getting drunk or intoxicated may work, too, although those states often generate their own dreck. With these thoughts in mind, Virgo, meditate on how you might cleanse your soul with a steady, ennobling practice. Now is an excellent time to establish or deepen this tradition.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I’m wondering if there is a beloved person to whom you could say these words by Rumi: “You are the sky my spirit circles in, the love inside love, the resurrection-place.” If you have no such an ally, Libra, the coming months will be a favorable time to attract them into your life. If there is such a companion, I hope you will share Rumi’s lyrics with them, then go further. Say the words Leonard Cohen spoke: “When I’m with you, I want to be the kind of hero I wanted to be when I was seven years old.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Your theme for the coming weeks is “pleasurable gooseflesh.” I expect and hope you’ll experience it in abundance. You need it and deserve it! Editor Corrie Evanoff describes “pleasurable gooseflesh” as “the primal response we experience when something suddenly violates our expectations in a good way.” It can also be called “frisson”—a French word meaning “a sudden feeling or sensation of excitement, emotion or thrill.” One way this joy may occur is when we listen to a playlist of songs sequenced in unpredictable ways—say Mozart followed by Johnny Cash, then Edith Piaf, Led Zeppelin, Blondie, Queen, Luciano Pavarotti and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Here’s your homework: Imagine three ways you can stimulate pleasurable gooseflesh and frisson, then go out and make them happen.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Fire rests by changing,” wrote ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. In accordance with astrological omens, I ask you to meditate on that riddle. Here are some preliminary thoughts: The flames rising from a burning substance are always moving, always active, never the same shape. Yet they comprise the same fire. As long as they keep shifting and dancing, they are alive and vital. If they stop changing, they die out and disappear. The fire needs to keep changing to thrive! Dear Sagittarius, here’s your assignment: Be like the fire; rest by changing.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): There’s ample scientific evidence that smelling cucumbers can diminish feelings of claustrophobia. For example, some people become anxious when they are crammed inside a narrow metal tube to get an MRI. But numerous imaging facilities have reduced that discomfort with the help of cucumber oil applied to cotton pads and brought into proximity to patients’ noses. I would love it if there were also natural ways to help you break free of any and all claustrophobic situations, Capricorn. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to hone and practice the arts of liberation.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Silent gratitude isn’t very much use to anyone,” said Aquarian author Gertrude B. Stein. She was often quirky and even downright weird. But as you can see, she also had a heartful attitude about her alliances. Stein delivered another pithy quote that revealed her tender approach to relationships. She said that love requires a skillful audacity about sharing one’s inner world. I hope you will put these two gems of advice at the center of your attention, Aquarius. You are ready for a strong, sustained dose of deeply expressive interpersonal action.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): According to the International Center for Academic Integrity, 95% of high school students acknowledge they have participated in academic cheating. We can conclude that just one of 20 students has never cheated—a percentage that probably matches how many non-cheaters there are in every area of life. I mention this because I believe it’s a favorable time to atone for any deceptions you have engaged in, whether in school or elsewhere. I’m not necessarily urging you to confess, but I encourage you to make amends and corrections to the extent you can. Also: Have a long talk with yourself about what you can learn from your past cons and swindles.

Santa Rosa’s KBBF celebrates 50 years on air

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Santa Rosa’s KBBF celebrates 50 years on air

After a sometimes-tumultuous tenure, Santa Rosa’s KBBF, the country’s first bilingual public radio station, is celebrating 50 years on the air.

“KBBF is a trusted and vital community institution. It is the only Northern California station that provides local news, public affairs, and emergency information in the region in Spanish and English as well as in several indigenous American languages,” Alicia Sanchez, president of the board of directors of the Bilingual Broadcasting Foundation, the station’s nonprofit backer, wrote in a newsletter earlier this month.

The founders of the station included local college students and community leaders, all caught up with the political energy of the moment. The project was initially funded by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation.

When the signal first went live on May 31, 1973, volunteers hopped in their cars, tuned in to KBBF and drove off in various directions.

“It turned out that the signal reached, at that time, 18 counties,” Sanchez said in an interview.

For a few years, between the mid 2000s into the early 2010s, the station was subject to public scrutiny, with in-fighting and controversy about its use of funds, according to press coverage from the time.

However, KBBF managed to weather the storm. While the station still operates on a shoestring budget and relies heavily on volunteer labor, it continues to make a meaningful contribution to the community, especially during times of crisis.

“For us, there have been significant events that make it all worth it … One of them was during the killing of [13-year-old] Andy Lopez [by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy]. Because we [as a nonprofit] cannot advocate, what we did is we opened our airwaves for people to grieve the loss of a child,” Sanchez said. “What was so interesting was to hear the people calling in and talking about the grief and sending prayers to the family and all that, but also the grief they had gone through personally.”

The station also proved a vital resource for Spanish speakers during the October 2017 wildfires, when Sonoma County was revealed to have lacking translation services. Since then, they have offered important coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

KBBF’s anniversary celebrations kicked off on Sunday, July 23, with a public party at Santa Rosa’s Bayer Park. On Aug. 3, the station will hold a private, ticketed fundraiser dinner at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts. Seats at the event will cost $150 and up, with proceeds going to pay for various costs.

“To be sustainable, we need your support for backup broadcasting equipment and to expand our operations, which is crucial for us to stay viable and broadcast to our listeners, who depend on us for invaluable life-saving emergency information,” Sanchez wrote in a recent fundraising pitch.

Information about KBBF’s Aug. 3 event is available at kbbf.org/50th-anniversary-gala-fundraiser.

Buddy Guy Turns Green Music Center Blue

Having celebrated his 86th birthday last July 30, Buddy Guy remains one of the last pillars of the rich Chicago-blues music scene that counted the late Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and B.B. King among its luminaries. Still at it, Guy brings his inimitable chops to Sonoma County next week with an appearance at the Green Music Center as part of...
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Dairy Drama: Petaluma Creamery faces lawsuits, loses access to sewer

Photo by Will Carruthers
An article in Petaluma’s local newspaper last week prompted more questions than it answered. On Monday, July 17, the Argus-Courier reported that a commercial real estate firm was advertising one of the city’s largest ag-processing facilities and a few neighboring properties for sale. However, the Creamery’s owner, Larry Peter, was quick to quash the story, telling the paper “I’ve never...
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Spiritual Heroism

There is something out there that can dissipate all our sorrows, instilling both immutable calm and readiness for action. It sometimes appears in the mind’s eye as a cup or as a sword buried in stone. The object is hidden in an inaccessible place: the sword may rest upon a mountaintop, while the cup that holds the Water of Everlasting...
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Atomic Angst ‘Oppenheimers’ old wounds

Nearly two decades ago, I somehow convinced my filmmaking pal, Abe Levy, to accompany me on a drive across the American Southwest, through the endless ribbon of mirages known as Interstate 40 until we reached the White Sands Missile Base in Socorro, N.M. This was not our final destination, but an obligatory stop made on behalf of the U.S. government...
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Housing Brouhaha: Listen to Marin City residents

With its 825 Drake development project, the Board of Supervisors has again taken action that impacts Marin City without consulting, and over the objection of, Marin City residents. This is both a moral failure and a failure of representative democracy. Marin City is the most diverse community in Marin County. It is a strong and vibrant community on a relatively...
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Your Letters, July 26

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Minority Rule Dave Heller (“Letters,” July 19) is right, we need both “final five” and ranked voting in all elections. The 50 Republican senators represent 40% of the population. Minority rule happens when voters have no choices except the incompetent candidates from the two lame-ass major parties. Competition and anti-monopoly practices work for consumers, and they will work for voters....
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Barbie Takes a Heroine’s Journey

Barbie mania is so pervasive that if one googles “Barbie” right now, the web page turns pink and sparkles with animated magenta stars. Barbie has been a ubiquitous toy for decades, reigning as “supreme doll” before, during and after my childhood. So when I heard the new Greta Gerwig movie was Barbie, I was intrigued. Gerwig’s previous films, Ladybird and Little...
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Take it All Off

Glen Ellen Show Me Yours For the second show of its 2023 season, Transcendence Theatre Company had decided to do a strip-down affair—literally—with their production of the Broadway hit The Full Monty. Based on the 1997 Academy Award-nominated sleeper hit by the same name, The Full Monty finds a father who needs to raise some quick cash to maintain custody of...
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Free Will Astrology, July 26

ARIES (March 21-April 19): You are about to read a thunderbolt of sublime prophecies. It’s guaranteed to nurture the genius in your soul's underground cave. Are you ready? 1. Your higher self will prod you to compose a bold prayer in which you ask for stuff you thought you weren't supposed to ask for. 2. Your higher self will...
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Santa Rosa’s KBBF celebrates 50 years on air

Alicia Sanchez/KBBF
After a sometimes-tumultuous tenure, Santa Rosa’s KBBF, the country’s first bilingual public radio station, is celebrating 50 years on the air. “KBBF is a trusted and vital community institution. It is the only Northern California station that provides local news, public affairs, and emergency information in the region in Spanish and English as well as in several indigenous American languages,”...
Read more
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