Want good luck in the New Year? Maybe eating just the right food will usher in 12 months of health, happiness and prosperity. It’s worth a shot, it could be fun and it might even be delicious.
Happy New Year, Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo (Brazilian), Feliz Ano Nov (Portuguese), Scastny Novy Rok (Czechoslavakian), Gullukkig Niuw Jaar (Dutch), Onnellista Uutta Vuotta (Finnish), Eftecheezmaenos o Kaenooryos Hronos (Greek), Niya Saa Moobaarak (Hindu), Blian Nua Fe Mhaise Dhuit (Gaelic), Buon Capodanno (Italian), Szczesliwego Nowego Roku (Polish), S Novim Godom (Russian), Feliz Ano Nuevo (Spanish), Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun (Turkish) and Cung-Chuc Tan-Xuan (Vietnamese).
And peace to everyone, everywhere.
Quick dining snapshots by Bohemian staffers.
Winery news and reviews.
Food-related comings and goings, openings and closings, and other essays for those who love the kitchen and what it produces.
Recipes for food that you can actually make.
Letters to the Editor
Tax Talk Rages On
Michael Shapiro was wrong about some aspects of selling books on the Internet, and (Letters, “Local Dialogue,” Dec. 20).
Shapiro seems unaware that his example, the local Copperfield’s chain, sells books on the Net. Indeed, when Santa Rosa’s Fourth Street Copperfield’s closed in 2004, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported that “Copperfield’s plans to expand its online sales of used and rare books and will be opening a warehouse for inventory. . . . Copperfield’s already sells through online sites such as abe.com.”
I live in Santa Rosa and have more than 2,700 books for sale at Amazon–some of them in competition with Copperfield’s listings. I sell to buyers all over the United States and spend the proceeds of my tiny business right here. It is true that buyers don’t pay sales tax at Amazon, but Copperfield’s and I have to pay the tax on all our retail sales to California addresses.
Geoff Johnson, Santa Rosa
Hallinan as Hero
Peter Byrne is off-base about (“Kayo of the North,” Dec. 13). He is indeed a hero to many of us who believe that there is a better way of dealing with drugs and prostitution in society than locking everyone up. Thank God there is someone out there who will defend, in a court of law, the Constitution, our civil liberties and the people from the destructiveness of arrests and incarcerations for victimless or consensual crime. Byrne seems intent on criminalizing many good people, continuing the overflow of prisons and trying to tarnish the good name of this stalwart of freedom and justice.
MIkki Norris, El Cerrito
Wrongdoer’s buffet
All I wanted for Christmas was reasonable security at the local YMCA. You would think that the facility located on College Avenue would be safe for our babies, women, children and families. Unfortunately, there is trouble brewing in wonderland. Recently, according to the Santa Rosa Police Department, there has been increased criminal activity in the area, and the back parking lot is a wrongdoer’s buffet. The back lot is an accident waiting to happen, and the front parking lot is not much safer.
The rear lot is very isolated, without proper lighting and little if any security. The front lot, although not so isolated, is without lighting and no security. I checked my list and checked it twice, and I know that the vandals, muggers and wrongdoers have been naughty and not very nice. Not even Dancer and Prancer would travel at night to the Y. I’m sorry that Santa couldn’t provide us with a security system so that locals can feel less loco while going to and from their vehicles.
Gene Colombini, Santa Rosa
Dept. of arrrgggh
Geoff Johnson is a polite man who recently found himself in Novato needing to buy a birthday present for his sweetie. Having a Boho at hand, he foolishly relied on information provided by our very own editor and headed over to Le Belge Chocolatier ( Dec. 13). That’s when Geoff discovered quite a few little nasty surprises:
Le Belge hasn’t been at the address we listed for at least two years; is better found in Napa than Marin; and never had the telephone number we ascribed to it.
But wait, there’s more! It turns out that Le Belge is a wholesaler and Geoff couldn’t have walked in and purchased chocs on the spot for his sweetie, anyway. He’d have had to call ahead (707.258.9200), which–absolutely!–we encourage anyone with a yen for chocolate who happens to yes find themselves in Napa to do.
Apologies to Geoff, apologies to every single reader who isn’t Geoff and apologies to Le Belge. And–man oh man–three cheers for the end of this year’s mistakes!
The Ed., doghouse digs
Born to It
‘This business is insanely hard,” chef Rick Vargas says matter-of-factly. “It’ll suck you dry if you’re not committed.”
Ironically, it’s a very wet, rainy gray Monday afternoon as Vargas chats, snatching a few moments for an interview in between the lunch and dinner service at his Bistro V restaurant in Sebastopol.
As if on cue, a soggy customer walks in and heads straight to the foyer bar for a steaming hot latte.
“I like rain,” Vargas announces, nodding at the downpour splattering the small garden flanking the patio entry. “It’s great soup weather. Comfort food. I love picking mushrooms in the rain.”
The telephone is ringing–more reservations being made, Vargas says thoughtfully–and that reminds him: he’s got to finish putting together the menu for his New Years’ Eve celebration. He leans back in his chair, sitting at one of the two-dozen white-clothed tables in his front dining room but clearly antsy to get moving again.
“I’ve been picking mushrooms since I was a kid. I’m with the Mushroom Society. I pick in the Santa Cruz mountains and all around here. I stay away from the deadly genus,” he says with just a hint of a smile. “Customers don’t like that.”
Then he stands up. He’s got to check on the dough that’s almost ready to be put in the oven for that night’s meal. There are French and walnut breads, both crafted from a sour “mother” (starter) of organic grapes, water and flour. He made the mother when he opened Bistro V almost two years ago, he says, after purchasing the former Chez Payo space that had tantalized West County diners with its lovely country French cuisine for 27 years.
“It’s crazy. But what am I going to do?” he asks, as much of himself as anyone as he heads toward his kitchen. “I was born into it–cursed into it, maybe.”
And thus begins a conversation with chef Vargas. Or just “Rick,” as he prefers. None of that stuffy “yes, chef” pretension, please. Because while he is indeed chef-owner of one of the North Bay’s best-hidden-treasure restaurants, he’s well aware that the reality of running a successful eatery is more Herculean than Hollywood.
To do it his way as he does at Bistro V, with everything from pasta to pastries and even pancetta homemade, takes endless energy. It takes such ability to multitask that his intensity might be confused with ADD. Besides lunch and dinner six days a week, Vargas and his kitchen host Sunday brunch, winemaker dinners, charity dinners like a recent benefit for AIDS victims in Namibia, nightly tasting feasts plus special-request vegan or vegetarian menus and private parties.
A few moments later, Vargas returns to the table, wiping semolina from his hands.
The insanity is in his blood, he explains. Pointing to a portrait of his father, Miguel, hanging on the wall of the elegant, rustically decorated bistro, Vargas says that at the age of four, he was put to work “standing on a chair, cutting mushrooms” in his parent’s San Francisco restaurant, West Portal Joe’s. It’s difficult to tell if he’s kidding when he murmurs that he might have been conceived in the kitchen there.
The love of cooking led him to the Le Pot au Feu culinary school in Paris and five years apprenticing at restaurants across France, including the Michelin three-star Au Crocodile. There he learned the importance of “minutiae,” like always hand-chopping vegetables for “textural integrity” (he blanches when asked if he would ever use a Cuisinart to speed along the brunoise garnishing a lamb shank, or even when rough cutting veggies for stock), and laboriously roasting chicken bones for brown jus.
When he returned to San Francisco, it was to work in the top restaurants Masa’s and Aqua. Great experiences, but bad situations in the end.
“I’m creative, a lunatic,” the spiky-haired, piercing-eyed chef muses. “I’m not a very good employee. But whatever, I don’t conform. I’m not easily controlled. I’m very good at what I do, but I hated the business side.”
Vargas’ next stop was opening Stoa in Palo Alto, an upscale Mediterranean cafe that prompted two dramatic changes in the chef’s life. First, the cuisine was strictly vegetarian/vegan, a challenge for someone who delights in the classic French cornerstones of meat, cream and butter. Second, Stoa cemented his permanent partnership with a Stoa chef who is now his wife, Meekk Vargas. In addition to acting as a pastry chef for Bistro V, the diminutive dynamo Meekk gets credit for keeping wild-child Vargas centered on the demands of Bistro V ownership.
“I am the luckiest guy in the world,” he says sincerely. “That lovely, sweet person keeps me in line. She makes smart people jump through hoops. I don’t know how she does it, but without her, I’d be roasting chestnuts over an open fire–out on the streets.”
Meekk’s influence and Israeli heritage show on Bistro V’s menu, which, though labeled “Wine Country Kitchen,” is more an intriguing whirl of classic French, Italian and Californian, with Peruvian and Mediterranean accents. A stuffed kabocha squash and wild mushroom duxelle tamale is vegan Southwestern, while chile-spiked organic chicken skewers come with hummus, tzatziki and caramelized eggplant. Juniper-crusted pork tenderloin glistens with Peruvian aji pan juices, and Vargas relies on his Peruvian-born father’s recipe for his classic Spanish flan dessert. A drop-dead gorgeous French onion soup, meanwhile, is pure Gallic glory, savory-rich with intensely beefy broth, caramelized onions and a gooey coverlet of Emmental.
And Meekk, like Vargas, is compelled to focus on the details. She hand-pulls the strudel dough for her signature apple dessert, makes the puff pastry from scratch for an appetizer of crisp pear and Point Reyes bleu tartlettes with port syrup, and even makes her own pot sticker dough.
“It’s a phenomenal amount of work,” Vargas admits. “We can buy a packet of a hundred [pot sticker] wrappers for 99 cents. We’re crazy. But the more machines interfere, the less it’s food.”
Upon leaving Stoa, Vargas heard the call of Sonoma. The area had been a favorite retreat as a child, a vortex of sorts for creative, earthy people like himself. Every weekend for a year, he and Meekk toured across northern California until they found Bistro V, which lured them with its turn-key, top-notch French chef’s kitchen, its herb and vegetable garden in the back and what Vargas says are its “straight-out nice people.” Much of the staff remains from Chez Payo, including a line cook of 15 years, Manuel Padilla.
When he’s not in his kitchen, Vargas is out patrolling the many organic farms in the area, visiting cheese makers, fishermen, vintners and beekeepers. They make up the backbone of his cuisine, with Laguna Farms produce, Joe Matos St. George cheese, fresh local mussels, Liberty Farms duck and Fulton Valley organic chicken.
He makes a point to avoid the owners at such places, he says with a smile, instead talking to guys in the field, the hands-on experts who can lead him to the perfect butternut squash, in the exact size and ripeness he seeks.
He could easily have set up shop in Napa, he knows, drawing more attention for such innovative recipes as a divine salad of roasted mixed beets, roasted red peppers, melted onions, borscht vinaigrette and sour cream with dill, tarragon and chives. But he found the valley too “frou-frou.”
“I don’t care about the competition, but I don’t care for the attitude.”
Bistro V, tucked off Sebastopol’s main drag on Gravenstein Highway South between a massive flea market and an adult toy store, has yet to garner critical acclaim, but with virtually every seat filled day and night, Vargas isn’t itching for a bigger spotlight.
“Hollywood only finds one out of many thousands,” he says of the glamorous kitchens he’s left behind for this fledgling, small-town operation. “But that’s more ego-driven than from the heart. Our customers are well-traveled. They appreciate nostalgic nuances and respect traditional preparations. They understand real food and passion.”
And suddenly, Vargas has had enough of this interview. Politely, but with no mistake that he means it, he’s heading back to his kitchen. He’s got herbs and vegetables to pluck from his organic garden, garlic to roast and that bread to put in the oven.
Oh, and he’s got soup to make. Tonight’s special will be a vegetarian quinoa packed with perfect, luscious, fresh-picked wild mushrooms.
Bistro V, 2295 Gravenstein Hwy. South, Sebastopol. Open for lunch and dinner, Wednesday through Monday; brunch, Sunday from 10am to 2pm. 707.823.1262.
Quick dining snapshots by Bohemian staffers.
Winery news and reviews.
Food-related comings and goings, openings and closings, and other essays for those who love the kitchen and what it produces.
Recipes for food that you can actually make.
First Bite
We were lured to the two-month-old Rocker Oysterfeller’s in the newly renovated Valley Ford Hotel by its $9.50-pulled-pork-sandwich-plus-a-beer special. Absolutely sure the place would be dead on a weeknight, especially with that name, we were surprised to find a steady stream of customers and a lively bar in this evocative little town.
Inside, the walls are covered with local art for sale; the menu is thick with local, organic ingredients and the wine list is almost 100 percent from Sonoma County. We were greeted with a plate of warm, tender corn-jalapeño biscuits and promptly ordered the signature dish, Rockers Oysterfeller ($14 for six) with bacon, arugula, cream cheese and a cornbread crust. Unlike oysters Rockefeller, which often smothers the bivalves, in this version you could really taste the oysters–nice fresh ones too, served on a bed of rock salt. We had a green salad ($6), which was lightly dressed in a well-balanced vinaigrette with crunchy pink radishes and a sprinkle of little homemade croutons.
Next we tried the Rosie organic fried chicken ($17) with mashed potatoes and Lagunitas Ale gravy. The fried chicken was juicy and not greasy, the crust very crisp. The potatoes, nice and lumpy, had a wonderful taste, thanks to Valley Ford’s own Oh! Tommy Boy potatoes. That pulled-pork sandwich (remember: $9.50 with a beer!) was served on a fresh ciabatta roll with fries. When you’ve had a sublime, falling-off-the-bone, melt-in-your-mouth roast-pork-shoulder experience as I have, it can turn you into someone who has no means to control ordering it whenever it appears. Because of this affliction, I have been sorely disappointed many times: too dry, too tough, too mushy, too greasy, not salty enough. But, no. This one was tender and luscious–not mushy–and delivered that sweet-savory one-two punch. The fries were crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, twice fried I’m pretty sure, salty as all get out and especially full-flavored–Oh, Tommy Boy! For dessert, we ordered a poached pear crisp ($7.00). It was simple and lovely with a light oat topping and a giant dollop of vanilla ice cream.
In addition to all the other righteous, local-supporting ways found here, Rocker Oysterfeller’s corkage is a mere $10, and only $5 if you bring a Sonoma County wine. That doesn’t happen every day.
The co-owners of the restaurant and inn, Shona Campbell and Brandon Gunther, moved here recently from Oakland where they ran a catering business. Campbell has been in the business for 15 years. Gunther has a long career as a chef and restaurant consultant. The Valley Ford Hotel houses the restaurant and rooms are reasonably priced, so you can stay the night if things get hairy. There’s a deck in the back under giant oaks, which the owners plan to open for events and weddings in spring and for a music series on weekends.
Have you been on your way home from the beach, hungry with no place to eat? Well, now you can stop here for a cocktail and a good, homey meal with local produce and wines. And when the owners open a market, offering local breads, cheeses, wines and more, you can stop there for picnic supplies heading out to the beach, too.
Rocker Oysterfeller’s at the Valley Ford Hotel, 14415 Coast Hwy. 1, Valley Ford. Open for dinner Tuesday-Sunday. 707.876.1983
Quick-and-dirty dashes through North Bay restaurants. These aren’t your standard “bring five friends and order everything on the menu” dining reviews.
Bless the Child
Showcasing his own versatility and range comes naturally to writer and director Alfonso Cuarón. In his 11 years as a mainstream filmmaking success, the Mexico native has helmed one of the most diverse list of films in recent memory: A Little Princess, Great Expectations, Y Tu Mamá También and, most recently, the über-blockbuster Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. For his latest engaging and assured tale, Cuarón has made yet another stylistic left turn by adapting The Children of Men, novelist P. D. James’ bleak, sci-fi-tinged vision of a future world gone infertile.
The London of 2027 is chock-full of depression, violence, apathy and overarching decay. One thing this place is sorely lacking is babies; unfortunately, the same goes for the rest of the planet. The youngest human on earth, dubbed “Baby Diego,” has just died at the age of 18. Disturbing and depressing though the state of affairs may seem, it all has little bearing on activist-turned-bureaucrat Theo Faron (Clive Owen). When his own son died 20 years ago, Theo lost interest in most anything and everything. But when his ex-wife (Julianne Moore)–still an activist after all these years–kidnaps him for the important mission of transporting Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), a miraculously pregnant young woman, away from the terror of the urban landscape and into the arms of the mysterious but scientifically inclined “Human Project,” Theo finds himself taking more and more of an interest in life, both his own and the continued existence of it on the planet.
For all of the importance attached to the first pregnant woman in 18 years, Children of Men‘s story is ultimately an intimate one. Following one man’s perspective, Cuarón and James eschew trite grandstanding about how and why our world will soon go mad, instead choosing to make it a sad but obvious inevitability. Gradually, our interest in the story leans more toward the heroic awakening of Theo than to the salvation of all human existence. Every character save Owen’s really just floats in and out as a supporting player or glorified cameo–even Kee the pregnant girl–and Michael Caine’s few scenes as Jasper the heroic hippie stage him as little more than a stoned Gandalf who provides counsel for our hero at crucial points in his journey. And make no mistake, this is ultimately a solidly crafted hero’s journey–jaded, apolitical nobody though that hero may be.
The stark look of the film harks back to the steady-paced classics of the 1970s filmmaking heyday. Children of Men is devoid of flashy editing and expensive effects, instead gaining visceral thrills from sheer unaffected experience. Cuarón and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki film the movie almost entirely with long, uninterrupted takes that give the film the feeling of an elaborately staged play, with the tension close to unbearable when it needs to be.
But Children of Men is first and foremost a suspenseful and occasionally action-packed thriller (with a few effective plot twists not to be disclosed here), though a measure of near-pretentious sci-fi posturing does manage to make its way in. Like every filmmaker from Back to the Future to Minority Report, Cuarón and his crew cannot help but indulge in somewhat gratuitous glimpses of their innovative inventions of the future. Media and advertising (really, video screens in general) permeate this ultramodern world, perhaps giving a clue as to the distractions necessary to exist in a world without the possibility of a collective future.
Indeed, those residents not engaged in bloody warfare and revolution seem as bored and defeated as the ravaged landscape. But all is not bleak and grim in Cuarón ‘s vision of the future. As people begin to encounter Kee and her unique situation, their actions and behavior confirm the innate decency of humanity, something many of the supposed “heroes” of the film largely underestimated. And it is upon this relatively uplifting message that Cuarón soars to his grandiose finale, pointedly demonstrating the goodness and hope that lie in us all–even in the face of a world gone to hell.
‘Children of Men’ enjoys a limited Bay Area engagement.
New and upcoming film releases.
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Ask Sydney
The following is the second in the holiday Sydney special begun last week, an in-depth and personal look at the collective questions of the moment. It’s December, a time of great responsibility. Not only are many of us feeling swamped by the expectations of the holidays (a time when family dysfunction can become a living, breathing behemoth, there to swallow us whole), but the New Year looms before us. Enter stage left: the dreaded self-reflection and ensuing resolutions that must be grappled with for the remainder of January, if not beyond, depending on a combination of personal fortitude and commitment. Add to this the pressure of having something fun to do on Dec. 31, the obligation to suddenly come up with motivation and a social life (when before Dec. 31 it was not necessarily mandatory to have either) and the results can be emotionally crippling. How, then, are we to accommodate the New Year with grace and poise, is it even possible? Read on.
Dear Sydney, how come I never keep my New Year’s resolutions? Every year I make them, and every year, I break them again. Should I just give up?–Vow Breaker
Dear VB: New Year’s is an overrated event, located at the height of our most miserable time of year. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, January means long, dark and often bleak days that are cold. Very cold. What a ridiculous time to make vows or to swear abstinence from anything, be it personality foibles or external addictions.
Why January? New Years should be June 1, right at the beginning of summer vacation. In June, I will eat less, I will exercise more, I will relax, I may even take a short vacation. This is a perfect time to shed my miserable behavior problems, and to finally, at long last, begin to work on becoming a better person. June is my month. I get a little tan, start to feel a little better about myself, like maybe I don’t look like such a staggering corpse.
In fact, with the season in mind, it makes perfect sense to change the entire calendar. June 1 should become the new New Year. Sort of like 40 is the new 30. This would make January, originally the first month of the year, the sixth, which is just fine. What difference does it make? This could be nothing but a good change. What, ultimately, is the purpose of ending every year on the sour note of Dec. 31?
Now that I have determined that New Year’s, due to no fault of my own, is located at precisely the wrong time of year, it makes much more sense why resolutions can be so difficult to keep. Observe some fairly typical New Year’s resolutions: Why can’t I stop being such a self-destructive asshole? Why can’t I just be a stronger person, better, with no bad habits? More functional. I just want to be more functional, more of the time. In fact, I’m going to start doing everything I need to do in order to achieve this goal. Not now. I don’t want to do it now. I’m going to do it in January. After Christmas, before the credit card bills start to come in. You know, during the rainy season.
Come on, this isn’t the way to go about quitting anything. It’s not as if the early morning hours of Jan. 1 contain some magical salve to promote vigilance and commitment. Sure, it’s helpful to just take the time to think about “self.” Like, hey, if I behaved a little differently, then maybe my life wouldn’t be so fucked up. It’s good to consider these things. But there is only one time to quit, one time to make change. Right now. As in, right this second, I am resolving to not be such a self-destructive asshole. Right now. I quit. Throw the cigarettes in the garbage. Stop what you’re doing and go for a walk. Quit your job. Right now. Be nice to your lover. This second. Don’t yell at your kids, starting pronto. Pay your bills on time. Right now, pay them. Walk the dog more. Go, do it. Finally make a donation to KPFA, don’t even wait for the fund drive. Just donate. Quit drinking. There is no tomorrow. The point is, if you aren’t going to change today, then what makes you think you will next week?
This is why I recommend the blanket approach. Instead of resolving to do a set of prescribed things, be a little vague. A nice way to encompass everything, without actually having to commit, is to say: “My resolution is just to do a little better this year. You know, in general.” Or: “I’m going to try and cut back on the bad stuff.” These sorts of resolutions are safe, and much more realistically achievable by mid-January. By February, when the true bleakness of winter has really begun to cut into your psyche, you can start simplifying things even further, based on your initial attempts at minimizing. Your resolution, while still remaining true to the original, can become a little more freeform: “Screw this resolution shit, I’ll be less of a self-destructive asshole later, maybe in the spring.” By leaving your resolutions open-ended, it’s possible to maintain self-confidence without actually having to accomplish your goals.
My point, Vow Breaker, is this, just because you don’t succeed in improving your life based on a drunken, midnight, midwinter assertion, doesn’t mean that you should stop trying.
Change happens in this moment, not in any other. And as for me, I’m staying up all night, May 31, 2007. First day of the New Year, and it’s just about summer time. I will be a better, more accomplished person in June. I just know it.
No question too big, too small or too off-the-wall.
Justice Warrior
Photograph by Michael Amsler
Civil servant: Dr. James Coffee has spent his life fighting for civil rights for all peoples.
By Lois Pearlman
The Rev. James Coffee’s office at Santa Rosa’s Community Baptist Church is jammed with every manner of book, letter, file, souvenir, framed photograph, poster and writing implement. His desk is piled high with a jumble of paperwork and his bookshelves groan under the weight of keepsakes representing people, places and events that have punctuated the minister’s long and demanding career.
“I preach here at the church, but I pastor the community. That’s why my desk is so crowded. I never get to do anything when I’m here,” he says, explaining that he performs most of his work at home where he can avoid the constant ringing of the telephone.
Even for a man as busy as Coffee, this time of the year is unusually hectic. There’s been Christmas and all the events, civic and religious, leading up to it. The first week in December brought the annual James E. Coffee Human Rights Awards, named in his honor; a week later, Coffee participated in the holiday dinner his church hosts every year with the Rotary Club for patients at Sonoma Developmental Center. In mid-January, he will preside over the annual Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration.
At 73, Coffee is a large, handsome man with an accent flavored by his Oklahoma childhood. Since 1960–when the southeastern part of the United States still had segregated schools and separate bathrooms for “colored” folks–he has served as the church’s pastor and Sonoma County’s most visible African-American leader. But he was initially reluctant.
“This church called me to be its pastor,” he recalls. “I didn’t want to come. I didn’t see any need. I didn’t see any black folks. I refused for three years.”
At that time, Coffee was living in the East Bay, “teaching and preaching around,” he says, after graduating from Golden Gate Seminary, now Mill Valley Bible College. The youngest of 13 children, he lost both his parents by 13 and moved to Alameda to live with relatives.
He remembers Alameda as “a racist little town” where he was one of two blacks on his high school’s athletic teams. It was a drastic change from his close-knit early years in a large black community and his first experience with integration.
“I started learning how to relate to a lot of people,” he said. “You put on the [athletic] uniform, and you become like one until you take it off.”
Raised by a Methodist minister father and a Pentecostal mother, he has always had a deep religious faith, but at 18 he says that he “got really serious about God” and returned to the church.
Santa Rosa’s Community Baptist Church was the denomination’s first black church, but it has changed with the times and now counts whites, Hispanics and Asian Americans among its members.
“I get to preach to the United Nations every Sunday,” Coffee says. But preaching in the church is only a small part of his job. He also participates in a dizzying array of programs, including Race Equality Week, a celebration of the racial and ethnic diversity of Santa Rosa; “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” where everyone is invited to share a meal with people they might not otherwise meet; Cool Kids Camp, for children who have witnessed domestic violence; the Diversity Forum, a discussion group for racial and ethnic understanding; and Hate-Free Santa Rosa.
He is also a long-standing and award-winning member of Kiwanis International, an honorary Rotarian for his work with that group, a participant with 100 Black Men of Sonoma County and a Paul Harris Fellow. Social Advocates for Youth in Santa Rosa named its teen shelter the Dr. James E. Coffee House in honor of his work with young people.
And he is the one that law enforcement, judicial and government officials turn to when they find themselves facing racially charged issues. During the Rodney King trial, Coffee helped Santa Rosa officials organize a rally and speak out. It diffused the potentially violent response to the not-guilty verdict, he says.
To illustrate his philosophy about serving the community, Coffee has adopted the symbol of the starfish. It comes from a story he tells about a bunch of beached starfish and a little boy who was trying to rescue them by throwing them back into the ocean as fast as he could, one at a time. A man comes along and asks the boy how he thinks he can save them that way. The little boy just throws another starfish into the water and says, “It makes a difference to that one.”
“We can’t change the whole world, but we can make a difference where we are,” Coffee says.
He also likes to make the point that change and the work that brings about change is not a 100-yard dash. “It’s a marathon,” he says. “It goes on and on because it’s handed down. Hate and prejudice is learned. Nobody is born a bigot. It is usually learned from someone we care about, so it’s generational. We are working on trying to stop the cycle.”
Another of Coffee’s longtime friends and colleagues, Camp Meeker activist Mary Moore, doesn’t always agree with Coffee’s moderate approach, but she honors his even-handedness.
“He has shown respect to the activist community, even when these issues weren’t popular or well-developed,” she says. “He gave us a place to meet, and he was open when we wanted to make coalition with him.”
It was with Moore and her organization at that time, SONOMoreAtomics, that Coffee and the Community Baptist Church organized its first Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration in 1982. The church became the second one in the country to celebrate the slain Civil Rights leader’s birthday, years before it was declared a national holiday.
Moore said Coffee has come through for her time and time again. When 12-year-old black girl Georgia Moses was killed in Petaluma not long after the much-publicized kidnapping and killing of middle-class white child Polly Klaas, Moore and others were appalled by the apparent lack of concern in the community. So Coffee helped to organize a memorial for the child at his church. A photograph of Moses, with an explanation of what happened to her, still hangs on a wall near the church’s social hall.
“When any kind of milestone happened, where did we go? To the church. There would be no place else to go if that church wasn’t there,” Moore says.
Coffee’s hallmark is his ability to engage with different kinds of people–everyone from elected officials to anarchists.
“I don’t always agree with what people think or believe,” he says, “but I honor all people. I believe that God created all people equal. There is a difference between equality and sameness. I believe everyone should have equal rights to do or believe what they want.”
Some say Coffee derives too much pleasure from the limelight and the hob-knobbing with politicians, but Moore concedes that he probably couldn’t accomplish all the things he does if he didn’t enjoy it.
“He’s what I’d call a justice warrior,” Moore says. “It will definitely be the end of an era if and when he retires.”
The Byrne Report
The headline for a half-page story in the front section of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat caught my eye: “AMAZING FAT-FIGHTING SUPER PILL DEVOURS FAT!” The story (Oct. 6) looked just like a newspaper article. Reading it, I learned that I can lose 40 pounds by spending only $129! Oh, yeah, there was a tiny blurb at the top of the article: “Paid Advertisement.”
When Santa Rosa’s daily newspaper isn’t flooding my snail box with pounds of junk called “Xpressmail,” it is dangling the (slim) chance of winning a $1,000 gift certificate for subscribing. The company wants you to subscribe so that it can charge hefty rates to advertisers for pushing product to people with equity loans. The PD recently offered me 10 weeks for only $10. The next week it went down to 26 weeks for $13. Not worth it when the weather forecast on the masthead is obscured by a stick-um ad.
It is getting harder and harder to distinguish reporting from advertising as the PD‘s news hole shrinks. Stories and photos about shopping often take up 50 percent of the space on the front page, followed by rehashing gory traffic accidents, and little or no exposure of the power brokers who run Sonoma County. Indeed, the PD espouses a chamber of commerce mentality on most issues, as does its owner, the New York Times Company. A Sept. 17 editorial supporting the erection of a Wal-Mart store is a case in point. “Wal-Mart has suffered from negative publicity about its employment practices,” the editorial wagged, as if the problem was poor public relations, not worker exploitation!
Bleys Rose, 56, has been a hard-working PD reporter for 17 years. He is head of the Media Workers Union at the daily. In an interview, Rose explained that management operates on a principle (developed through focus groups) that the paper’s readers prefer lifestyle stories over articles about the government. (Supposedly, they like to read about teenage suicides, but not much about how the Santa Rosa chamber powerhouse, Agilent Technologies, profits off the Iraq War.) Rose says that PD profit margins were about 25 percent in 2000. Competition from Internet advertising has cut it down to 14 percent to 16 percent, which would be considered bountiful by most businesses. But not at the PD.
“The way the company saves money is by cutting staff, dumping healthcare costs on employees and not filling vacant positions,” Rose remarks. Consequently, the newspaper cannot cover basic governmental meetings or investigate corruption. Instead, the company is dumping the town-hall beats and throwing financial resources into its consumer lifestyle magazines, Savor and Santa Rosa.
I asked PD publisher Bruce Kyse, who used to edit the PD, for an interview about these important matters. He declined, saying, “I generally don’t think it’s a good idea to talk publicly about the business end of our operations.”
This is not surprising, considering that Kyse sits on the board of directors of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce. His colleague, John Burns, publisher of the New York Times-owned Argus-Courier is a director of the Petaluma chamber. And the publisher of the North Bay Business Journal (also owned by the New York Times Company) is on the Santa Rosa chamber board. The two nonprofit chambers pull down $700,000 a year in government grants and spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on local newspaper advertising, according to their tax returns.
Chambers of commerce traditionally endorse chamber-friendly politicians and business-friendly ballot initiatives. For the Nov. 8 election, the PD and Santa Rosa chamber recommendations matched exactly, including opposing a campaign-finance-reform initiative. No shock there, since Sonoma County’s premier political consultant, Herb Williams, also sits on the chamber’s board.
Corporate chamber members fuel local elections with campaign donations to favored candidates. Interestingly, a national watchdog group, Public Citizen, just filed a complaint with the IRS accusing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (also a nonprofit) for failing to report paying millions of donated dollars to manufacture attack ads for election campaigns. Naturally, components of the television and newspaper empires run by the New York Times Co. are not opposed to breathlessly reporting on mud-slinging political contests. When they heat up, companies splurge on political advertising.
In its newsletter, the California Chamber of Commerce brags that its members, which include the Petaluma and Santa Rosa chambers, used their nonprofit government dollars this year in Sacramento to successfully lobby the legislature to kill an increase in the minimum wage. It also killed various pieces of legislation to increase corporate taxes, to strengthen unemployment-insurance protections and to regulate the telecommunications industry. In short, the chamber’s priorities are opposite to the needs of ordinary people.
Ditto with the Press Democrat.
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SexyBack: The Hot 13 Challenge
When you are lucky enough to bring that special someone back to your place and you’re looking to, you know, score, background music is crucial. To set the mood, you want something relaxing yet stimulating, romantic yet assertive. And unless your special someone is very special, Weird Al just isn’t going to cut it.
Outside of blindfolded string musicians bowing soft sounds for the frolicking of polyamorous aristocrats, make-out music was hard to come by before the advent of recording. Those with musical capacities could seduce with song, yes, but at some point they’d have to put the lyre down in order to get dirty.
So we should consider ourselves lucky, as we have slow jams, do-wop ballads, cool jazz and throbbing techno in our arsenal, spanning moods from frisky to sentimental. Justin Timberlake says he is bringing sexy back, but did it ever leave? Given that at least 50 percent of the pop songs ever written are about sex in some aspect, I’d have to say no.
Mr. Timberlake’s loss is your gain. It means that the world, dear Bohemian reader, is your oyster. We invite you to collect the 13 sexiest songs you know of to create the ultimate make-out mix and submit it to the Hot 13 Challenge.
Regular Bohemian readers may recall last year’s , a contest that elicited dozens of entries, all heartfelt. (To those of you who participated in the Sad 13 and are wondering where your promised “I Like Sad Music” pin is, I must confess that they, along with all of your wonderful mix CDs, are in several shoeboxes under my desk. Sorry. I’ll send them out real soon. We still love you.)
The experience was rewarding enough for a reprise, though this go-around we wanted something a little less . . . depressing. In the Sad 13 Challenge, readers showed us that music that was dear to their hearts. For the Hot 13 Challenge, show us what is dear to your loins.
The Hot 13 Challenge is all in the name of fun–and, of course, sexiness. Why 13 songs? It’s a good number, and you gotta draw the line somewhere. Other than that, your entry must be on CD or cassette tape and include a list of songs and their artists, no other rules apply. If Tiny Tim, Dr. Elmo and the Wiggles are your idea of sexy music, more power to you (although in all truthfulness, your chances of winning will be slim, but your chances of being made fun of, great).
Flow from song to song will by all means be taken into account. Cover art is strictly optional but a nice touch–though given the subject matter, if you must dip a toe into nudity, please restrict it to the softest of cores. Grossing out the judges will win you no brownie points.
In a new twist, the judging for this year’s mix CD contest will be bi-coastal (bi–how sexy!). That’s right, we’ll have a North Bay panel composed of highly skilled Bohemian professionals, plus a jaded New York panel, including yours truly heading up a handful of people who have no qualifications whatsoever except that I know them and they said yes. We must warn you that the judging process is completely unscientific, highly unregulated and very much subjective. Our intention is to keep snark levels to a minimum, though we can’t make any promises. Also, given the thousands of miles dividing our dual Hot 13 Challenge headquarters, disorganization is a distinct possibility. We’ll try our best, folks, but don’t expect this ship to sail smoothly.
Yes, yes–you’re wondering why the hell you should even bother. OK, here’s why:
(1) for a sense of community and warm fuzzy feelings; (2) because your Hot 13 Challenge mix CD might come in handy in your own personal life at some point, who knows; and (3) because the creator of the winning CD will receive a cool prize with an actual cash value and have his or her track list printed in the Bohemian‘s Sex Issue, publishing on Feb. 7, 2007. Me-ow!
To update you all on the progress of the Hot 13 Challenge, we have this year created a profile on that MySpace thing all of the kids are obsessed with. There you will be able to peruse track lists, read the Hot 13 blog, and waste time at work by posting silly comments when your boss is not looking. Visit .
And now, friends, as George Jones would say, the race is on. A tip: Slow jams of the 1980s are heavily encouraged to apply.
Send your entries, postmarked no later than Friday, Jan. 12, to the Hot 13 Challenge, North Bay Bohemian, 216 E St., Santa Rosa, CA, 95404. Please include an e-mail address or phone number. Sorry, we can’t return your entry.
The Byrne Report
On the Day of the Dead, I was dining out with friends, preparing to march in a candlelight parade in honor of the fallen. On my mind, of course, were the ghosts of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani people whom we have slaughtered these past 16 years. Over key lime pie, I commented that I planned, later that evening, to go see the film Death of a President, a mockumentary about the assassination of George Walker Bush. Then I made the mistake of grinning with pleasure.
My friends, bless them, are devoted to nonviolence, and so am I, in theory and in practice. But I was looking forward to seeing GWB get topped in the movies, and it showed. My friends were appalled. “Violence begets violence,” they cautioned.
Later that night, I watched the movie in a Petaluma theater. I am sad to report that it was tedious. Plus, I had to look at Bush’s face and listen to him talk, which I generally avoid since he gives me hives. When the shots finally rang out, and the president collapsed like the sorry sack of whatever he is, there was not a wet eye in the house. Nor were there any cheers. As entertainment, the experience was on par with watching roadkill.
Driving home, a verse from the Biblical book of Revelation reverberated inside my noodle: “But the Beast was captured, and with him the False Prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the Beast and worshipped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.”
Bush, naturally, reminds me of the false prophet. The beast is violence incarnate. Those wearing the mark of the beast are those among us who do nothing to stop Bush’s war on the world, i.e., most of us. If Revelation is true, we are in a world of trouble here in America. (If you see a guy riding a pale horse, run!–or pray for forgiveness.)
A few weeks after my vision, James Baker, an old devil if there ever was one, rode to rescue the false prophet who had prophesied so falsely about weapons of mass destruction, hurricane levees, Social Security and budget deficits. But Baker’s ride was in vain, because the only solution that the old devil could propose was to stay in Babylon until the Babylonians can “defend themselves.”
What planet does Baker live on? The Babylonians are defending themselves. Against us. And they have won. At a horrible price: their country is destroyed. But it is not al Qaida kicking our tanks out of oil-rich Babylon; it is enraged Iraqi people driving us out before we annihilate more of their children with bombs and blockades.
Clearly, many of our more business-minded generals are pissed by Caligula’s intransigence vis-Ã -vis Iraq. Defeat is starting to mess with corporate profits. I’ll bet they had a private showing of the mockumentary at the Pentagon and served Chivas and popcorn. History is odd. When President Kennedy thwarted the military-industrialists, of which the Bush family is a charter member, he was assassinated in Dallas, probably by militarists and Mafiosi. He was immediately replaced by Lyndon Johnson, a veritable Moloch in thrall to the company known today as Halliburton, and Hanoi was toast.
And when Kennedy’s brother called for an immediate pull-out from Vietnam in June 1968, he was gunned down by a guy who, to this day, claims he was brainwashed into doing it. Yes, I went to see another assassination movie, Bobby. A busload of Hollywood’s finest (liberal) actors portrayed the last day of Robert Kennedy’s life. He was running for president, and he had just won the California primary when Sirhan Sirhan popped him in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
The most interesting thing about Bobby is the real footage of Kennedy campaigning in the barrios and talking eloquently about violence begetting violence. I had forgotten that politicians used to resemble human beings, before the likes of Karl Rove robotized most of them. When Bobby was over, people wept in their theater seats. For me, the contrast between the two assassinations–one real, one fictional–was awful. President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning in his valedictory speech in 1961 that the military-industrial complex was subverting democracy in America has been made obvious by the fact that the Kennedys are dead, while the Bush family thrives.
That may change, says Revelation: “But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.”
Let us pray.
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