Wine Tasting Room of the Week

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This year’s ZAP Zinfandel Tasting was big in all the usual ways. Wineries by the hundreds. Two pavilions full of purple-toothed acolytes. Mountains of cheese. Go with America’s Heritage Grape and you go big.

But big ain’t what it used to be. Some may still vaunt their “monster” Zins, but though high in proof, dark tannic bogs of writhing flavonoids they are not. Possibly to the benefit of all parties, the varietal is being honed down to its medium-bodied, consumer-friendly incarnation, something like a spicier version of Merlot. Extraordinary Zinfandels may really be as rare as angels’ visits (or demonic possessions), but I do miss the concentrated purple nightmares of yore.

So why do my barbarian taste buds flip 180 where it concerns the subtle, pale-red Zins of Harvest Moon, a boutique family winery in the Russian River Valley? The Pitts family sold grapes for decades until their thirty-something son returned to the farm and started vinting. Their modest, comfortable tasting room showcases estate-grown Zinfandel and Gewürztraminer. Harvest Moon Zins do seem to show their distinct charms from year to year. Is it the time-consuming vineyard practices of multiple harvests of each row–what winegrower Randy Pitts calls “shaving” the vineyard–and all the other diligence and love that’s put into these small-lot wines?

Love is the theme of Harvest Moon’s 2005 Randy Zin, their least expensive ($18), grab-and-go party-pleaser with a fun label, the winery’s black sheep with blackberry fruit and fiery spice (a few minutes out of the bottle dissipates a slight initial greenness, I’m guessing from the addition of Syrah). The 2004 Russian River Valley ($24) has the signature rosewater and cranberry character, while the 2003 Pitts Home Ranch Estate ($32) adds a whiff of toasted coconut and an even more demure finish. It’s still the 2002 Russian River Valley ($24) that hints best at that fleeting strawberry scent that enchanted me in the first place.

You might expect the 2006 Late Harvest Zinfandel ($32) to be syrupy, with overripe, raisiny fruit. You’d be wrong, deliciously so. The heady perfume is of raspberry and roses, fresh-baked pastry and the silky texture of–hey, is that wine just over two months old? They like to bring out chocolates to pair with your second go at the easy drinking treat, although I needed no more convincing to snap up a bottle for a dark winter’s evening. For a warm summer’s evening, there are the unique Gewürztraminers: a dry, a sparkling and a peaches and cream bathed in vanilla cream soda–I mean, dessert.

Harvest Moon Estate & Winery, 2192 Olivet Road, Santa Rosa. Open daily from 10:30am to 5pm. 707.573.8711.



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Open Mic

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February 7-13, 2007

Sometimes, we just didn’t get the right folks.
–Gen. Jay Hood, Commander, Guantanamo Bay, January 2005, commenting on the detainees held at Guantanamo prison

It has now been five years since the first detainees were brought to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. My client, Muhammed Qasim, has been detained there for nearly four years without charges. I think about Commander Hood’s comment every time I travel to Guantanamo to see Muhammed, a gentle, 30-year-old man with a deep penetrating gaze.

In the years before Guantanamo, Muhammed supported his mother and sister on their small family farm in Zormat, Afghanistan. He raised vegetables and cattle to feed the family, and sold any surplus in the local market. As he sits shackled before me in the dry heat of Camp Echo, thousands of miles away from his family farm, he dreams of waking up in his bed in Zormat and discovering that the last four years have just been a nightmare.

Late at night on Feb. 7, 2003, Muhammed says that U.S. and Afghani troops took him from his home at gunpoint. Someone in his village–Muhammed still does not know who–had said he was with the Taliban. The U.S. military in Afghanistan was passing out fliers offering to pay a $500 to $5,000 bounty to identify anyone connected with the Taliban. In a culture rife with long-standing feuds, many named personal enemies as a profitable and safe way to settle old scores.

Muhammed says that is what happened to him. The government has no physical evidence. The U.S. forces found no guns, rockets or anything else connected with the Taliban in Muhammed’s home when they took him away, but it makes no difference. Evidence is not required. The government will not even identify his accuser.

Based only on the whispered word of an unidentified person in Afghanistan, Muhammed has been held for nearly four years as an “unlawful enemy combatant” at Guantanamo prison along with about 500 others. After the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that the detainees have the right to challenge their detention, the government established Combatant Status Review Tribunal. These tribunals accord the detainees no genuine rights.

Muhammed appeared before such a tribunal in 2004. He was not allowed to see any evidence. He had no right to have a lawyer with him. He had no meaningful right to present evidence to show that he was not connected to the Taliban or to call witnesses to testify on his behalf. His only right was to make a statement. The tribunal ruled that he was an “unlawful enemy combatant.”

Case closed.

Muhammed has not been charged with any crime. He will never have a trial, even before a Military Commission. This means he has even fewer rights than the handful of detainees at Guantanamo who have been charged with war crimes. They at least get a Military Commission trial. Yet the government claims the right to hold Muhammed at Guantanamo “indefinitely.”

Muhammed’s one hope for challenging his detention is habeas corpus. Habeas corpus is a fundamental right older than our Constitution, renowned in our history as “the Great Writ.” It is the right to compel the government to justify in court why it has imprisoned someone. But Congress and the president last fall abolished that right for all those, like Muhammed, held as unlawful enemy combatants.

Muhammed’s only hope now is that Congress will either repeal the law abolishing habeas corpus, or that the Supreme Court will strike it down. In the meantime, Muhammed waits and wonders what has become of his sisters and mother and their family farm. And he hopes the U.S. someday soon will wake up and end this long nightmare called Guantanamo.

David L. McColgin, Esq., is part of a team of attorneys and investigators in the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia who have agreed to represent detainees held at Guantanamo Bay at the request of the Federal Court in Washington, D.C.The Byrne Report will return next week.


News Briefs

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February 7-13, 2007

Return of the cactus

A “wandering” cactus is once again rooted in the garden of the Pancho Villa restaurant in Fairfax. More than five feet tall and weighing over 100 pounds, the barrel cactus was dug up in broad daylight on Sunday, Jan. 28. Fuzzy images of the thieves and their truck were captured on videotape from a security camera. Originally planted in the 1970s, the cactus is valued at $5,000. Restaurant owner Kelly Medina studied the videotape for clues, posted bilingual “missing” fliers, put a lost-and-found notice on Craigslist.org and filed a police report. She also drove around looking for pickups similar to the one on the video. Finally, police received a tip that a cactus matching the description was in the front yard of a San Rafael home, wrapped in a blanket and tarp. Medina accompanied police to the site and identified it as her cactus. The home’s residents and neighbors say they have no idea how it got there. Medina’s landscaper brought the cactus home, and it’s thriving. Medina is installing an additional security camera on that side of the building. “We’re just happy that it’s back and that we can go about our business, instead of looking for the cactus,” she says.

Hooray for Habitat

There’s jubilation at the Solano Napa Habitat for Humanity, because after a four-year search the group has a potential site to build an affordable home on E Street in Napa. “It’s been difficult to find a place to build [in Napa],” says Solano Napa Habitat president Steve Brothers. Habitat has built 11 homes during its 10 years of operating in Solano County, but this is its first possible building site in Napa. Because of the long delay, the group started Napa-based participation in the national Habitat’s Home in a Box program, raising about $8,000 of the $75,000 needed to preconstruct the framework for a house and ship it to a community ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. It turns out one of the committee members for that project owns property in downtown Napa. If the land can be subdivided, Habitat now has an option to buy one parcel and build a house on it. They’ll need to raise money both to purchase the property and for permits and construction costs. Brothers says a community meeting will be held in March, to discuss both the Home in a Box project and the potential Napa building site. These aren’t the only steps forward for Habitat in the North Bay. The San Francisco Marin group is addressing neighbors’ concerns about parking and traffic for four affordable three-bedroom homes in an unincorporated area between Mill Valley and Tiburon. These will be the first Habitat homes in Marin County. And Sonoma County Habitat is finishing up the last of six homes being built in the Roseland area on the edge of Santa Rosa, bringing Sonoma County’s Habitat total up to eight new homes and 18 remodels since 1984. Habitat homeowners provide 500 hours of sweat equity and make principal-only mortgage payments (the homes aren’t free). “They’re just regular American residents,” explains Amy Lemmer of Sonoma County Habitat for Humanity.


Overdone Fun

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Overdone Fun

the arts | stage |

Photograph by Eric Chazankin
Yow: Dan Saski and Eric Thompson share a reflective moment in ‘Crummond.’

By David Templeton

Bullshot Crummond is an idiotic play.

This is not to say that it is unworthy of attention or attendance. On the contrary, I am recommending the Sonoma County Repertory Theatre’s new staging of Bullshot Crummond–an enjoyably pointless production that just began a six-weekend run–precisely because it is idiotic.

Idiocy has its place in the world of theater, and I’m always more than willing to be in the front row for it, though if all the world’s plays were locked in a building that had burst into flames, I admit I would probably have to leave the stupid ones until after I’d rescued Hamlet, The Lion in Winter, No Exit, Our Town, Proof, The Piano Lesson and Angels in America. And yet, I shudder to imagine what the world would be like without Animal Crackers, Arsenic and Old Lace, Noises Off, Spam-a-Lot, anything ever produced by the Reduced Shakespeare Company or Bullshot Crummond, all slight and silly works that wear their giddy, childish stupidity like chattering neon badges of honor.

We make warm, gooey places in our hearts for shows like these because sometimes it’s good and necessary to surrender our sense of taste and decorum and simply let ourselves stupidly laugh at stupid people doing stupid things.

What’s delightful about the Rep’s new production of Bullshot, nicely directed by the illustrious actor-director Squire Fridell (whose impressive résumé includes several years playing Ronald McDonald on TV), is that the five actors who play all the parts give outstanding, first-rate performances that are above and beyond what is necessary for this sort for thing. Really. Bullshot Crummond is the story of Hugh Crummond, a semi-clueless British detective who, aided by his faithful sidekick Algy and a ready-for-love damsel in distress Rosemary Fenton, attempts to foil an improbable kidnapping plot by Crummond’s arch nemeses Otto and Lennya Von Brunno. It is a blatantly and joyously one-dimensional play, and to make it funny, actors need only give one-dimensional performances.

Fridell’s actors apparently didn’t get that memo.

Dan Saski as Crummond, along with Dodds Delzell and Priscilla Locke as the evil Von Brunnos, hit the stage like full-fledged thespians plopped down in Rocky and Bullwinkle land, doing their best to fit in with the locals. Along with the silly poses, vicious bird puppets and goofy schtick–you won’t believe the bizarre things Locke can do with her face–they all give full, reasoned comedic performances, painting the characters’ simplistic cartoonish framework with occasional layers of creative nuance and shading, delivering actual acting in a show that does not really require it.

This is especially true of Jenifer Coté and Eric Thompson as, respectively, Rosemary Fenton and everyone else. Coté can say something like “Oh, Hugh!” and give it multiple colliding interpretations all at once, and Thompson, last seen as Scrooge in the Rep’s Christmas Carol, has never been this good, uncovering riotous comic gold in the most unlikely and trivial of moments. At one point, Thompson creates an almost too believable sense of exasperation as a flustered waiter, devotedly doing his job in spite of Crummond’s mistaken attempts to prove he is Von Brunno in disguise. He is stunningly good.

The highlight of the show, for many, will be Delzell’s magnificent scene as both Von Brunno and a visiting Italian hit man, casually quick-changing costumes, out of sight, as he paces back and forth from one end of a stone wall to the other. What some productions have staged with frenzied intensity, is transformed–hilariously–due to Fridell’s steady directorial pacing and Delzell’s metronome-like comic timing. It’s all still idiotic, but it’s good idiotic.

Less ridiculous, but similarly blessed with above-average performances, is the Pacific Alliance Stage Company’s new staging of Moss Hart’s seldom-seen 1940s comedy Light up the Sky. Directed with an eye toward tradition and detail by PASCO’s artistic director Hector Correa (who also appears in the show as a major character), Light Up the Sky takes place in an opulent hotel suite, the kind you see in so many 1940s comedies, big enough for the entire cast to line up in a row, striking fashionable poses while dressed to the nines and holding glasses of Champagne.

The occupant is the famed and slightly neurotic Broadway actress Irene Livingstone (Marcia Pizzo), who is preparing for the opening night of a brand-new play by idealistic first-time playwright Peter Sloan (Michael Navarra). The play, titled The Time Is Now, is a hard-hitting drama set in a post-apocalypse future with a cast of hundreds, clad in rags, gathering in the ruins of Radio City Music Hall–or so we are told.

We never actually see the play in question. Rather, we hear it described in glowing details as Irene Livingtone’s room is filled up with preshow well-wishers, including the play’s dreamy-weepy director, Carleton Fitzgerald (Correa); the blustery producer, Sidney Black (a superb Will Marchetti); his statuesque ice-skater wife, Frances (Kate del Castillo); Irene’s new-to-the-whole-theater-thing secretary (Shannon Veon Kase); and Irene’s chronically critical mother Stella (Shirley Nilsen Hall).

Also in attendance is Owen Turner (the dependably excellent Stephen Klum), a successful playwright who drops in to bemusedly observe the emotional ups and downs of his colleagues. Later, when everyone gathers back at the room after the show, when it seems as if the show is a flop based on tepid audience reaction, the unstable menagerie begin tossing barbed insults in every direction, the bulk of their hysteria becomes focused on young Peter Sloan, whose transformation from wide-eyed newbie to card-holding power-broker–especially once the reviews come out and the show looks to be a hit–is wonderfully and dramatically done.

The script is dated, peppered with references to people and products of the 1940s, and Hart’s patented style of wittily stilted conversation is decidedly nonmodern. But as with Bullshot, the reason to see the show is the quality of the acting, with Pizzo’s marvelous and entertaining turn as the overtly unstable prima donna standing as a clear and memorable highpoint. Her spectacular second act meltdown is a thing of beauty.

In the end, it is Klum’s seasoned playwright who sums up the lesson that the younger writer has just learned. Theater folk are “dubious people” for whom “decency is a luxury,” one they can rarely afford. The moment is funny and sad and true all at once, not the least bit idiotic. Even if the people it is said about do behave that way on a regular basis.

‘Bullshot Crummond’ plays Thursday-Saturday through March 4 at the Sonoma County Repertory Theater. 8pm; special matinees Feb. 25 and March 4 at 2pm. 104 N. Main Street. $15-$20; Thursday, pay what you can. 707.823.0177. PASCO’s ‘Light Up the Sky’ runs Thursday-Sunday through Feb. 11 at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center. Thursday at 7:30pm; Friday-Saturday at 8pm; Sunday at 2:30pm. 5409 Snyder Lane. $18-$21. 707.588.3400.



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May-December

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May-December

January 31-February 6, 2007

When I reviewed director Roger Michell’s 2004 film The Mother, I mentioned Anne Reid’s lead performance as something every woman over 40 ought to see. Looking at Venus–again, a collaboration between writer Hanif Kureishi and director Michell–it seems to be another case of a film in which the main performance is the most important thing. It is every man over 60, this time, who should turn out for Venus, to see and be captivated by Peter O’Toole’s sunset performance as an old rogue of an actor with one last fling left in him.

O’Toole’s Maurice is still working, sometimes playing a moribund granddad in a hospital bed, sometimes weaving through a cafe where he meets his cronies. He wheezes a dust-dry laugh, a laugh he needs since he’s been rendered impotent from a prostatectomy. In essence, all that’s left is the eyes and the voice.

His chum Ian (Leslie Phillips) is bedeviled by a grandniece, Jessie (Jodie Whittaker), from the provinces who has come to stay with him. Jessie is a scornful and troublesome girl who has no taste for living with an old man. Ian, who is quite fancy, believed he would be able to beckon Jessie with a little bell. Desperate for some help with the ungrateful girl, Ian asks for Maurice’s help. Maurice falls for Jessie, delighted by her sullenness, and tries to infect her with a little culture while marveling at her prettiness.

As a team, Michell tenderizes Kureishi’s shrewder instincts for greater commercial appeal. O’Toole makes sure the film doesn’t turn too courtly, too Cyrano de Bergerac (he tells Jessie outright he’d like a look at her genitals). When he all but buys her affection with jewelry or money for a tattoo, he can jest about it: “No pockets in a shroud.” But we also sense an undercurrent here of one side having a little power and the other having none–good reason for this Venus’ scorn.

The romance has a sharp, demanding side. Feeling sorry for Maurice’s ruined old age, you sympathize with the half-bright girl who has enough principles to keep from becoming a prostitute. But she is out for herself, as well as out for a good time; maybe it is mutual decadence that links the old goat and the young kid. Take, for example, a morning scene, where all we see of Jessie is one plump, pink, bare shoulder and a mound of blankets surrounding by a half-dozen empty beer cans.

Richard Griffiths delivers a comic turn as Maurice’s chum, and there is a moment of keen sorrow when Vanessa Redgrave turns up playing Maurice’s decayed ex-wife, who loves him but can never quite forgive him for what he did to her when they were married. Director Michell is highly televisionistic, and often soppy, as in a scene of Maurice wandering around in a fugue state at some outdoor theater closed for the winter. The story softens up, too, which wasn’t the case in Kureishi’s early days. Maurice denounces “the disgusting happiness and hope” that the young represent, but these two disgusting qualities arrive at the end of the film. It makes for a too-sweet finale for what is almost a captivating May-December, look-but-don’t-touch romance.

‘Venus’ screens at select Bay Area theaters.


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Welcome to the Jungle

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January 31-February 6, 2007

Mike Dillon is a percussionist by trade. He’s also a nomad. These two things landed him his most notable gigs in music. A member of Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade and Ani DiFranco’s touring band, Dillon has been a key element in the Texas funk scene since the heyday of his first bands, Billy Goat and Hairy Apes BMX. The fact that Dillon’s newest project is led by vibraphone is not entirely out of the blue. After a morphine binge lasting half a year and leaving him with only his vibraphone yet to be pawned, Dillon began Go-Go Jungle.

Learning Thelonious Monk songs and improvising in bands such as Garage a Trois worked out for a while, but it was teaming with bassist JJ “Jungle” Richards and drummer “Go-Go” Ray Pollard that Dillon’s blend of soul jazz and funk began to spark. Along with tenor saxophonist Mark Southerland, the acid-tinged sounds of the vibraphone smacked headlong into punk, metal and old-school jam-band sensibility.

Dillon is a son of punk rock and such metal monsters as Black Sabbath. To see him tattooed-up and disheveled in front of a vibraphone, it’s hard to decide which to join: the mosh pit or the drum circle. The Go-Go Jungle are propelled through Dillon’s vibe, and his subtle changes will move the band in any direction. From Waits to Zappa, the eclectic interplay is the band’s best feature.

Now, in their first U.S. tour, the Go-Go Jungle play the Black Cat Bar in Penngrove on Feb. 4. Their debut album, Battery Milk, out on Hyena Records, is a medley of sounds played with irreverence and tongue-in-cheek humor. The manic arrangements complement improvisation on songs like “Stupid Americans” and “Lunatic Express.” The happy grooves of “Bad Man” mix in George W. Bush sound bites, making for a sinister political statement. “Harris County” is a tribute to the late Eddie Harris that spits and flames out in the end. The album is a shining example of musical unpredictability.

Mike Dillon’s Go-Go Jungle shake up the Black Cat Bar on Sunday, Feb. 4. 10056 Main St., Penngrove. 8pm. 707.793.9480.


Hair of the Dog

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Hair of the Dog

January 31-February 6, 2007

In 1993, a salesman in the commercial printing business named Tony Magee began brewing beer in his home in the redwood forests of West Marin. His beer endeavor was just a hobby, but six months later, Magee was producing a bit more than he could drink by himself, with 600 or so barrels in the tank. So he went into business. He designed his own label–recognizable by a patch-eyed dog and a short blurb of wisdom in fine print–and he named his enterprise the Lagunitas Brewing Co. after his small rural hamlet near the Point Reyes National Seashore. Today, the brewery is one of the most successful beer producers in the state.

From the beginning, sales accelerated. Magee increased production to keep pace, and all the while washed the dregs of fermentation down the drain, like any brewer might. But the heaps of yeast and grain began to congest the small community’s sewage system, and in 1994 local officials asked Magee to chip in for maintenance costs or get out.

So Magee packed up his brewing gear and, with that lovely West Marin name, moved his beer factory to Petaluma. There, on the east side of town, the business has grown and grown, with Lagunitas now churning out more than 30,000 barrels per year. Magee and his cohorts continuously experiment with new styles and labels, and 17 staple beers regularly show up in the course of each calendar year.

Magee’s quiet office is vibrantly strewn with papers, posters and exotic beer bottles, and here the company CEO spends his work week just like a king should. He hangs out on the Internet, jams on his acoustic guitar and constructs new label designs with longtime pal and company beer marketer Ron Lindenbusch. Magee also writes and is, in fact, a widely read author. His brain, after all, is the creator of all those irreverent and psychedelic stories that go to press on the label of each Lagunitas bottle–which Magee tends not to spell-check.

Meanwhile, just out the door and a stone’s throw away from the administrative headquarters is the factory end of Lagunitas. Magee’s crew listens to loud rock ‘n’ roll while supervising the automated conveyor system. They move, pack and forklift the beer while the intense noise level discourages much conversation. The ass-end of a delivery truck is there most times, backed into the warehouse door, filling up on its cargo to ship outward into the wide and thirsty world–22 states, Canada, the Netherlands and Indonesia, to be precise.

But amid the brewery’s roar, hustle and bustle, there is a comforting quaintness to the scene. One single conveyor belt several inches wide handles every Lagunitas beer bottle ever seen. The bottles shuffle sideways as they are sanitized, rinsed, dried, labeled, filled and capped, moving steadily along at the rate of up to 3,000 cases per day.

“Out there in the world,” Magee, who regularly strolls through the brewery, muses, “there’s a toilet flushing for every couple of bottles.”

And out in back, barley, wheat, yeast and hops come in by truck at a proportional pace, and a visitor to Lagunitas distinctly perceives a satisfying equilibrium in the order of things here: a perfect balance between the world’s thirst and the world’s beer.

Despite the brewery’s success, Magee assures that Lagunitas is still a “microbrewery.” Thus, he and his team are blessed with the liberty to enjoy the surprises and mishaps of brewing, for things sometimes don’t go as planned. While big breweries promote consistency and nothing less, Lagunitas has enjoyed a few successful blunders. One case in point is its wildly alcoholic Brown Shugga.

“It was originally supposed to be Olde Gnarleywine,” Magee says. “It was the winter of ’97 and I accidentally wrote the recipe wrong for the brewers. They were missing about 350 pounds of malt. They were brewing it on Friday night and they called me at around 7 o’clock.”

The brewers told Magee that the gravity was too low, meaning there was not enough sugar in the mix. Heightening the severity of the problem was the fact that the brewing crew had just hopped the beer to its full potential.

“So you had all this bitterness against this low gravity,” Magee explains. “I was like, ‘Man, how can we save this beer?'”

There was no more malt in the house, so Magee commissioned the boys to hit the town and buy at least 200 one-pound boxes of brown sugar. They followed their orders, sticking up every market in town and demanding all their brown sugar. They paid for it, of course, but so did the town.

“If you were baking the next morning in Petaluma,” Magee chuckles, “you were in big trouble, because there was no sugar left.”

On Monday morning, C&H boxes littered the brew-house floor, but a new line of beer was in the tank. It tasted terrible for two weeks.

“I was like, ‘Oh great, this whole thing’s a big waste,'” Magee groans. “But then all of a sudden in the third week, it just cleaned up and picked up this candy-bourbon note, and that’s the beer it’s been.”

Other seasonal deluges, like Imperial Red Ale, Cappuccino Stout and the dark and delicious Hairy Eyeball, slosh through the Lagunitas brew house each year, but the mainstay of the company is the IPA, which constitutes 60 percent of the brewery’s output. While the business continues to grow, Magee strives to maintain his staff at the current level of approximately 25 people. He also prefers to keep advertising at a minimum.

“Beer speaks, people mumble,” he says, quoting the company motto and mission statement. “Some brewers are in articles all the time, and they probably do make good beer, but I like to let beer speak for itself.”

And so goes the living and learning of life as a brewer. On the east side of Highway 101, in one of the wine country’s largest breweries, the Lagunitas crew continues as a well-oiled machine. People keep mumbling, and the beer keeps talking. It rolls off the ribbon-thin Lagunitas conveyor belt bottle by bottle, case by case, and flush by flush.

Lagunitas Brewing Company. 1280 N. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma. 707.769.4495. www.lagunitas.com.

Born to Brew

Other beers we love
Ace-in-the-Hole Cider Pub (aka the California Cider Company) Specializes in ciders, keeping five in the house: apple, apple-honey, pear, berry and the “Wild Card,” a powerful and secret blend of fruit ciders. Pub grub and eclectic live music. 3100 Hwy. 116, Sebastopol. 707.829.1223.
Bear Republic Brewing Famed for its garlic fries, BRB keeps 12 homemade beers and four ciders–apple, pear, raspberry and pomegranate–on tap. 345 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. 707.433.2337.
Calistoga Inn Restaurant & Brewery With an upscale menu, a weekly open mic and a prime spot by the creek, CIRB offers three regular brews in-house, a porter, a stout and an IPA. Almost impossible to find outside the restaurant. 1250 Lincoln Ave., Calistoga. 707.942.4101.
Dempsey’s Restaurant & Brewery Petaluma’s other favorite microbrewery offers half a dozen handcrafted brews at any given time and rotates among a longer lineup of seasonals. 50 E. Washington St., Petaluma. 707.765.9694.
Iron Springs Pub & Brewery Pouring 12 beers at any given time, ranging from light pilsners to rich barley wines, the selection is complemented by a full menu. 765 Center Blvd., Fairfax. 415.485.1005.
Marin Brewing Co. As with all those listed here, MBC is also a restaurant and brewpub, and cycles through more than a dozen beers throughout the year. Also find the brewery’s selection in local supermarkets. 1809 Larkspur Landing Circle, Larkspur. 415.461.4677.
Moylan’s Brewery & Restaurant The sister company to the Marin Brewing Co. offers food as well its own range of beer, which is available at the pub and in stores. 15 Rowland Way, Novato. 415.898.4677.
Russian River Brewing Co. Featuring a full pub menu, this hopping place has a wide selection of beers on tap and some fantastic happy-hour deals. 725 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. 707.545.2337.
Third Street Ale Works The popular brewpub maintains a selection of 10 to 15 ales with its full restaurant menu. 610 Third St., Santa Rosa. 707.523.3060.
–A.B.

Quick dining snapshots by Bohemian staffers.

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Creating Choices

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Creating Choices

the arts | visual arts |

Design 2007:
Hello Creative | Russian Orthodox Frescoes | Drawing as the New Design

Photograph by Rory McNamara
Howdy: From left, Jesse Seaver, Eric Spillman, Steve Fischer and Tina Grob-Smith of Hello Creative.

By Patricia Lynn Henley

It’s all about images. About creating a certain attitude, telling a carefully crafted “story” with just the right look, just the right feel for a package design or a corporate video presentation, for a glossy photo calendar or a cleverly nuanced “this is who we are” website.

The company doing this slick, highly creative work is not based in New York or London. Not housed in an open-beam SoMa brick building. Rather, it’s being done in a studio office tucked into the second floor of a funky, former apple-drying warehouse in Graton.

Fresh apples once bobbed into the building via an aqueduct; now ideas and laughter flow freely, as the staff of Hello Creative–Eric Spillman, Steve Fischer, Tina Grob-Smith and Jesse Seaver–craft creative solutions for a client list that has included Apple Computer Inc., Banana Republic and Swatch, as well as Santa Rosa’s Medtronic Vascular, Kendall Jackson wines and others.

The bottom line, Spillman says, is communication.

“That’s what Hello is about, introducing a person or their idea to a larger audience. You can do that one on one, but when it comes to having to reach multiple people far away, you have to go in, figure out who these people are, what their dream is, and that’s the fun part. You get to tap into their ideals, to where they want to go.”

The designers at Hello Creative can do that because they are where they want to be: in a restored two-story building housing artists, studios, businesses and more known as Atelier One in rural, folksy Graton, where most roads are barely wide enough for two cars, and sidewalks are the occasional afterthought.

“I love Graton, I love the whole package,” Fischer enthuses. “It’s not just the studio space, it’s not just Atelier One. It’s walking into town and seeing the characters and being plugged into what’s happening.”

Often, he and Spillman talk over ideas while striding along the bike path that stretches out from both ends of their building. “We’ll just get out and walk, and cover a couple of miles while we’re brainstorming,” Fischer says.

Work also gets done when the three lunch together. “That’s our second office, right in downtown Graton,” says Spillman.

In their studio, rough concrete and brick walls rise up ton an ancient black tar paper ceiling covering the top of the old warehouse. A four-foot-wide window bathes every inch of their space with light. It also provides a view of willow trees meandering along a creek bed, as well as empty barrels and other industrial detritus scattered behind a hulking metal warehouse.

Their office is a symbol that you can be whoever you are and still succeed in business, Spillman says. “We try to take as much of a normal life as possible and include in it our work.”

Sometimes new clients are a bit taken aback when they walk into the funky studio, but within a few minutes they take a deep breath and relax. That’s when the stories come out, the dreams. The British guy who wants to one day raise sheep in Northern England. The San Franciscan who’s always wanted to live a slower, more rural life in the North Bay. The guy who dreams of escaping to Bend, Ore.

“You can hear these people just wanting to get out of their situation, to a degree, and they get a taste of it when they come up here,” Spillman says.

Of course, the folks at Hello Creative also try to mitigate any impression that they’re far away from the action. They’re considering adding a 415-area-code phone line, so Bay Area firms won’t dismiss them as “out in the boondocks.” But they have no intention of moving; they like being able to do great design in Graton.

Spillman didn’t start out there. Born and raised in Oregon, he spent 10 years in New York City, doing communications design for the publishing, entertainment, fashion and finance industries, and working with international companies. But when the first of his three kids was old enough to start walking, it was time to return to a West Coast lifestyle. Not happy with the wet weather in his native Oregon, he checked out Boulder, Colo., and Sebastopol, finally settling in Graton.

“Coming out to California, I had never learned to surf,” Spillman says. “I got here and learned to surf and realized there was this whole other side of existence that the door had not been opened to. That was the pivotal thing for me that made me start to value other things.”

Having bought a house, he then looked for studio space that was “a stone’s throw away and affordable.” He set up shop under the name Art Industria in Atelier One.

“I happened to have a friend with Apple and immediately started doing a ton of work for them,” he explains. “We spent seven years working for them.”

Fischer has worked in graphic design in the North Bay for almost 20 years, including running his own freelance design business. When he joined Spillman in March 2005, they changed the company name to Hello Creative. They considered and rejected the idea of getting an office with more “bling,” like frosted windows and a conference room. “It’s almost like resources are being extended that are going down a drain somewhere, when you don’t need to waste them,” Spillman explains.

A year later, Grob-Smith joined the team. She’s a native of Zurich who trained at a prestigious design school in Switzerland.

“Steve’s talented in ways that I’m not, so it’s a really good fit,” Spillman explains. “Tina is talented in a lot of the ways that I am, so we’re covering everything.”

Seaver brings his extensive multimedia and technical expertise to the group, serving as a CD-Rom and web designer. And depending on the nature of the project, they use a range of freelance talent: writers, photographers, illustrators, video editors and other designers, all working at a distance. “We work as a tight group, but we also reach out and grab these other people,” Spillman says.

They’re close enough to San Francisco to stay connected to the creative scene while still relishing their slower-paced rural lifestyle. And they travel frequently, bringing inspiration with them back to Graton.

“I do miss a little bit the hobnobbing with the super-creative work that’s being done in the big cities, but I go there, to New York or London to visit, and I get charged up,” Spillman says.

And they often bounce ideas among themselves, playing with concepts for their own products and designs, working on projects that haven’t been commissioned and don’t need to be finished in a week or less.

“It’s those kind of projects that give you what you don’t have up here, what you get from the city,” Grob-Smith says. “You start up the creative insight.”

Spillman adds, “Designers are in this spot between being artists and marketing people. They’re right in the middle and can do both. You sort of have to be able to do both.”

His basic focus has changed during his years in Graton.

“It used to be all about doing the hippest, coolest design and getting gratification from that. Now it’s migrated to connecting with the coolest, funnest people. It’s really about getting in, becoming friends with them, problem-solving with them and coming out winners as a team. It’s migrating to be much more human, I think.”

Often their efforts involve defining and refining a company’s identity.

“Identity work can be really challenging because there’s such a huge amount of information that you have to filter through,” Spillman explains. “You have to balance that with your gut feelings, to pretend you didn’t hear any of that material and just operate on your life’s experience or whatever. You balance the two.”

But creating identities, Spillman says, is nothing new.

“When there were different tribes, there was a need for each tribe to have an icon or something so they could communicate or show that they were who they were. It goes way back that there was a need to pick two colors or draw an icon or come up with a word.”

Tribal identities might have included a song. Now it’s a jingle or a tagline.

“We try to look for the moral good in these efforts,” Spillman explains, speaking softly but intensely. “It’s not just about selling something to someone. It’s more like what Apple does, which is helping people obtain their own dreams through the use of their product. We always hope to find that.”

Hello Creative also exists in the Graton of the web at www.hello-sf.com.



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Imperfect Beauty

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Imperfect Beauty

music & nightlife |

By Gabe Meline

By pursuing popular styles and attracting innovative talent, Darwin Meiners’ “Look Ma, No Band” Santa Rosa concert series has injected fresh blood into the old idea of ripping singer-songwriters from the assisted confines of their regular bands and pushing them unaided onto the stage. There’s plenty to recommend at this weekend’s fourth installment, which includes tunesmiths from the New Trust, Hanalei and Love Equals Death, all well-known punk- and indie-rock bands. But the performer destined to leave the strongest and most indelible mark is Des Ark, aka Aimee Argote, a singer from North Carolina with a bristling, urgent presence who plays the guitar, the banjo and the accordion. A circumventive artist whose resistance to adoration unwittingly acquires it twofold, Argote would be easy to love if the prospect weren’t so terrifying.

Writing of sexual delights and disasters with an experienced vulgarity and a chilling, stark honesty, she often houses her tumult in a dwelling of minor-key dissonance, as if to multiply the anxiety it creates. In the eerie rock missive “Jesus Loves You (But Yr Still Comin’ Home with Me Tonight),” Argote’s voice explodes like a comet amid slashing guitars; it is the musical equivalent of either an orgasm or a fist through the wall–it might be both.

A similar haunting lies in the exploratory epic “If by ‘Gay’ You Mean ‘Totally Fucking Awesome,’ Then Yeah, I Guess It’s Pretty Gay,” wrenchingly delivering a painful meditation on a failed fling. Her voice is restrained, almost embarrassed: “There goes the best damn summer that we ever spent,” she laments, “Drinking on the porch rolling our own cigarettes / Jumping up and down in our panties on the bed.” In the detailed delivery, Argote’s only mistake is being herself, and by song’s end, we don’t see how that could ever be a mistake at all. “I can’t tell when you’re gonna figure out that any line you use tonight will work,” she sings, “Because were both as fucking broken as we look.”

Alongside Argote’s hope, the violins, the guitars, the drums all die out and we feel a chill at the imperfect beauty of it all.

Des Ark performs this Saturday, Feb. 3, at Look Ma, No Bands! with Josh Staples, Brian Moss, Chon Travis and Our Lady of the Highway. Sweet Spot Lounge, 619 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. 9:30pm. $5. 707.528.7566.




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News Briefs

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January 31-February 6, 2007

Cancelling the news

KFTY TV 50 abruptly dropped its nightly news broadcasts on Friday, Jan. 26, throwing 13 people out of work and leaving North Bay viewers with almost nowhere to turn for timely updates on local events. The Monday-Friday 7pm and 10pm news shows got the axe, as did the weekend Week in Review program. But not to worry–the station’s website promises that live local news, weather and traffic updates will continue on its weekday 6am to 10am Armstrong & Getty program, which provides a visual view of this duo’s radio broadcast on Talk 910 KNEW radio. Two dudes in a booth–now there’s some informative TV news. A brief statement from Channel 50 general manager John Burgess is posted on the station’s website. Apparently there wasn’t enough advertiser support to keep the news programs alive. Burgess’ statement also says the programming changes “reflect the evolution of our strategic direction toward a multiplatform approach for news and information”–whatever that means. Burgess didn’t return requests for comment, but his website screed promises a new public affairs program, more web-driven content and a chance for viewers and community groups to develop “locally” based content. Until all that can be created, the station has replaced its news shows with reruns of Becker, Still Standing, Blind Date and Frasier. “This leaves a big gap in local news,” says George Magnan, programming and production manager for cable access stations in Santa Rosa. “What local folks are really going to miss is [news coverage] during an emergency. They’re not going to be able to go to TV 50 and see the flooding, because it’s not going to be there.” It’s unlikely that any one source will be able to fill the gap, says Bruce Robinson, news director for KRCB Public Radio and Television. “We do special news programming and election coverage, but nothing on a daily basis,” Robinson says. “Perhaps this will make us reassess the services we provide, but news coverage is a resource-intensive process, which is why TV 50 is bailing out.” It’s unfortunate, he added, that Channel 50 says it couldn’t find enough advertising support for its news programs. “It’s sad if the local business community won’t support this.” The result is no locally generated television news programs in the North Bay, and not a lot of in-depth radio reports. “The headline services basically follow the lead of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, and most local radio stations are just headline services,” Robinson notes. “The San Francisco television stations come up here occasionally and more often than they used to, but it’s not the same as having a local news station.”


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February 7-13, 2007 Sometimes, we just didn't get the right folks.--Gen. Jay Hood, Commander, Guantanamo Bay, January 2005, commenting on the detainees held at Guantanamo prisonIt has now been five years since the first detainees were brought to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. My client, Muhammed Qasim, has been detained there for nearly four years without charges....
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February 7-13, 2007 Return of the cactus A "wandering" cactus is once again rooted in the garden of the Pancho Villa restaurant in Fairfax. More than five feet tall and weighing over 100 pounds, the barrel cactus was dug up in broad daylight on Sunday, Jan. 28. Fuzzy images of the thieves and their truck were captured on videotape from...
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Overdone Fun

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May-December

January 31-February 6, 2007When I reviewed director Roger Michell's 2004 film The Mother, I mentioned Anne Reid's lead performance as something every woman over 40 ought to see. Looking at Venus--again, a collaboration between writer Hanif Kureishi and director Michell--it seems to be another case of a film in which the main performance is the most important thing. It...
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Welcome to the Jungle

January 31-February 6, 2007 Mike Dillon is a percussionist by trade. He's also a nomad. These two things landed him his most notable gigs in music. A member of Les Claypool's Frog Brigade and Ani DiFranco's touring band, Dillon has been a key element in the Texas funk scene since the heyday of his first bands, Billy Goat and Hairy...
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Hair of the Dog

January 31-February 6, 2007In 1993, a salesman in the commercial printing business named Tony Magee began brewing beer in his home in the redwood forests of West Marin. His beer endeavor was just a hobby, but six months later, Magee was producing a bit more than he could drink by himself, with 600 or so barrels in the tank....
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Creating Choices

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Imperfect Beauty

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January 31-February 6, 2007 Cancelling the news KFTY TV 50 abruptly dropped its nightly news broadcasts on Friday, Jan. 26, throwing 13 people out of work and leaving North Bay viewers with almost nowhere to turn for timely updates on local events. The Monday-Friday 7pm and 10pm news shows got the axe, as did the weekend Week in Review program....
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