From the Ground Up

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From the Ground Up

October 25-31, 2006


This story about failure and success begins on a 30-acre ranch. Here, on the outskirts of Sebastopol, Dan Smith–local kid turned wizard and farmer–grows all organic strawberries, raspberries, escarole, frisée, corn, peppers, leeks, cherry tomatoes, zucchini and much more. Over the last year, he’s poured tons of compost–a mix of rice hulls and duck manure–into the soil to make it more productive. He’s invented a precision seeder that makes the sowing of vegetable seeds nearly effortless. He’s built a huge barn, restored a couple of 1946 tractors–built the same year he was born–and put up a Japanese tea house near the top of the ridge.

This sunny morning in October, he’s running late, and as usual is doing more than one thing at the same time: brushing his teeth while fastening the belt that holds up his faded jeans. Summer squash has to be harvested, winter cabbage planted, weeds weeded. Smith wants to figure out how to grow frisée without brown spots, and the best way to serve the Bosc pears and the Mission figs from his farm at the French Garden, his new restaurant in Sebastopol, one that he intends to make into a destination for foodies from around the world.

Smith thrives on adversity, and over the past 30 years, he’s provided himself with an array of problems to work out in his head and with his hands. He’s failed, perhaps as often as he’s succeeded, and his failures, he says, have led to his success. A college dropout from Sonoma State University and a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, he’s been a building contractor, a computer programmer, a financial whiz, a founder of the Sonoma County Beekeepers’ Association and the president of the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation.

“The creative element gets me up every morning,” he says. “Learning excites me.” He pauses a moment, gazes at the sunflowers in the field and adds, “I think of myself as a painter. I paint in vegetables, software, bee hives and buildings.”

Smith, who has lived almost all his life in Sonoma County, was born to 20th-century pioneers. His mother, Jean Farmer, worked as a potter and an artist. His father, Ralph Smith, painted movie sets in Hollywood, including the Yellow Brick Road for The Wizard of Oz. Then, during the Red Scare and the congressional committees that investigated subversives in the movie industry, his father lost his job, and moved with his wife to Petaluma, where he became a housepainter.

Dan Smith grew up poor in the 1950s. For three years, while his parents built a home, the family lived in a canvas tent with a wood stove for heat and cooking. Dan, his two brothers and his sister did almost all of the gardening, with shovels. They planted and harvested, took care of the goats and sheep, and almost all of the food they put on the table came from the garden and the farm.

“I never saw or even heard of a TV dinner,” he says. “We ate our own goat meat and drank goat’s milk. Mornings, I milked the goats before I went to school. In the fall, my brothers, my sister and I picked pears and apples. My mother gave us big cans and sent us out to pick blackberries. ‘Don’t come home until they’re filled,’ she’d say.”

When he wasn’t doing chores at home, he worked for the neighboring Petaluma chicken ranchers, many of them socialists like his parents.

Dan graduated from Petaluma High School in 1963, the time depicted in the movie American Graffiti. He attended college briefly, studied math, physics and biology, then moved to Mendocino County, where he lived on a commune, worked in a lumber mill and operated a fork lift.

“I had no plan whatsoever,” he says. “Jesus, man, it was the 1960s! I wanted to stay out of Vietnam, and I did almost anything and everything that came along. When I received my induction into the military, I appealed to the draft board in Santa Rosa. ‘I won’t take orders to kill someone else,’ I told them. They gave me conscientious objector status, and I worked at Pacific State Hospital for the mentally ill to fulfill my service.”

When he returned to Sonoma County, he started a construction company and built houses, and commercial structures at Matanzas Creek Winery on Bennett Valley Road, and La Gare French restaurant in Santa Rosa. Then, on a rainy winter morning, he fell off the roof of a building and landed in the mud.

“I couldn’t move,” he says. “I thought I was paralyzed. The woman who owned the house we were remodeling came out and stared. ‘Can I do something?’ she asked. I told her to call an ambulance and bring me a blanket.”

During the year it took him to recover, he created the Master Builder, a software program for builders that includes accounting, bookkeeping, payroll and estimates for jobs. Though he didn’t know anything about computers when he started, he learned quickly, and, like almost everything else in his life, he learned by failing and failing again, until he succeeded. In 2001, he sold the company, which had grown to over a hundred employees, to Intuit for a bushel of money, though the deal, which was set for Sept. 13, had to be postponed in the wake of 9-11.

“I’ve learned there are no straight paths in life,” Smith says. “Opportunities come along. We seize them or we don’t. The gifts we’re born with are not ours to keep for ourselves.”

In 2001, his life took another radical turn, while waiting for a flight at San Francisco Airport. By coincidence, Smith met an 84-year-old cancer survivor named Woody Strong who wore a baseball cap that said, “Be a Doer, Not a Talker.”

“I was 55,” Smith remembers. “I listened to Strong describe the schools, hospitals and water systems he helped to build in Nepal, and I could see I was a slacker. I said to myself, ‘This is who I want to be,’ and I thought, ‘It is possible to do the impossible.'” Within weeks, Smith came up with the funds to build a monastery for the Tibetan Buddhist monks living in exile in Kalimpong, India. It’s going up right now.

Closer to home, on a Yellow Brick Road he’s paving himself, Smith hopes to create a local model for sustainable agriculture that might be applicable around the country, and around the world. Along with his wife, Joan Marler, a sixth-generation Californian, and a pioneer in the field of archaeomythology, he’s determined to buck big agribusiness, cultivate crops, bring back lost varieties and transform the ways we eat.

“I know we’re not the first to try,” he says. “But we have an ideal spot. We can grow food that tastes incredibly good and that’s healthy. We’re learning every day. Sometimes, we try to grow something–like Napa cabbage–that doesn’t work. It’s as though the land says, ‘Look, stupid, you can’t grow Napa cabbage in the summer. You have to plant it early in fall and cultivate all winter.'”

Later, the same day, at the French Garden, his elegant Sebastopol restaurant, Smith wears his best shirt and pants. In the kitchen, chef Stephane Roy prepares a soup from cauliflower and apples grown on the farm. The menu features a beet salad with homegrown ingredients and there’s a gazpacho made from tomatoes, cucumbers, purple onions and chives picked just that morning.

“Nothing on the menu has pesticide,” Smith says. “Nothing has been trucked from far away or stored in a warehouse for weeks. This is as fresh as it gets, anywhere. We’re going to keep on making connections from the ground up. We’re going to bring people together, and to link all of us to the land, and to the food we eat.”

The French Garden Restaurant and Brasserie is located in the former Marty’s Top of the Hill historic structure, 8050 Bodega Ave., Sebastopol. Open for dinner Wednesday-Sunday. 707.824.2030.

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.

Deep Roots

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music & nightlife |

By Bruce Robinson

The man was old, dark-skinned and blind, wearing a blue suit as he stood singing on a D.C. street corner. Four-year-old Markus James was entranced.

“It’s the first memory I have of music,” the bluesman recalls. “It was as if he was in his own world, and all this noise and bustle on the street, which was louder than him, somehow went away and I could hear his sound, even though he was singing very quietly and plaintively. It was like time stood still and I heard only him, like he was some kind of an angel.”

Fast-forward a couple of decades to another pivotal experience: “The Smithsonian Folklife Festival where I first heard West African string music and singing. That was Alhaji Bai Konte, and I was completely mesmerized by him,” James says, seeming a bit distant as he revisits the moment.

It’s a short hop from those memories to the present, where they form the foundation for a rare and wonderful cross-cultural synthesis. For the past dozen years, James has traveled frequently from his west Sonoma County home to the West African nation of Mali, where he has performed, written and recorded with some of that region’s most revered traditional musicians. Those collaborations, which explore a hypnotic linkage between acoustic delta blues and the timeless modalities of the desert instruments, have been captured in a series of four self-released CDs (with two more due out on a national label early next year) and the award-winning video documentary, Timbuktoubab.

“It’s been about creating something that’s based on blues music from my end,” James says, citing Charley Patton, Bukka White, Skip James, Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker as influences, “[and] based on traditional music from their end.” James performs such a melding on Nov. 3 at the Sebastopol Community Center.

That also involves such ancient instruments as the calabash (a hollowed gourd drummed on with small sticks), the njarka (a sort of one-stringed violin) and the eight-stringed kamele n’goni, known as the hunter’s harp of the Wassalou people. But for the Wassalou, these instruments are not for entertainment, James explains. The harp, for instance, is played “to get into a trancelike state to commune with the spirits of the animals they’re gonna go hunt. Or the njarka is used in traditional music for healing and to call the jinn, the spirits of the river, for all kinds of purposes–to get people in a trace, to heal people, to bless the crop or play for rain or whatever.”

Significantly, this unique musical merging was first validated in Mali among the players themselves, and then in public performances, including one in a public market in Timbuktu, which is featured in the film. “The people who had come into the market that day, they had honestly never seen anything like that–a toubab, as white people are called there, playing live music, and certainly not with their traditional musicians.”

The resulting hybrid defies definition.

“A lot of people have said, ‘What is this, what do you call it?’ James admits. For American performances, he presents it as “Desert Blues,” a title that begins to evoke the music’s transcultural melding. In this rare Nov. 3 return to his home turf, James will perform with Mamadou Sidibe, an acknowledged master of the kamele n’goni; Amadou Camara, who plays both the calabash and the three-stringed bass called bolon; and Karamba Dioubaté on calabash and djembe, a goblet-shaped, skin-covered hand drum. The East Bay’s didgeridoo ace, Stephen Kent, will also sit in. All this swirls around James’ spare guitar and gruff, half-whispered vocals, which alternate verses in English and Sorai, one of Mali’s dozen or more dialects.

Within the five-note pentatonic scale the ancient instruments employ, and the emphasis on cadence, which James defines as “a melodic rhythmic segment that repeats itself,” the music is ethereal and hypnotic, exotic and transcendent. Even for the musicians themselves.

“That’s a very mysterious thing,” James muses, “because it sometimes seems that there’s no rhyme or reason to which shows really transcend. Some of my African friends will say things like, ‘Well, the jinn visited us tonight.’ Or they will say, ‘I felt my heart open tonight.’ For me, that’s what you’re always looking and hoping for. I honestly think of it as getting lucky.”

Markus James appears with the Wassonrai, including Mamadou Sidibe, Amadou Camara, Karamba Dioubaté, with special guest Stephen Kent and Senegalese singer-songwriter Guelel Kumba, and Afrissippi with Kinney Kimbrough and Justin Showah on Friday, Nov. 3, at the Sebastopol Community Center. 390 Morris St. 8pm. $13-$15. 707.823.1511.




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Wine Tasting Room of the Week

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In 2001: A Space Odyssey, computer superbrain Hal asks a researcher, “Will I dream?” before getting his plug pulled. If researchers at Japan’s NEC Technologies have it their way, the next great artificial intelligence might inquire, “Will I drink?” They’ve created a winetasting robot that uses an infrared spectrometer to analyze the contents of a glass and report on its flavor profile (sommeliers the world over collectively shudder). Bomb squads have long used robots to go where humans fear to tread. Is the day far off now when robots are sent into tasting rooms in lieu of, say, wine writers? Not, dear readers, if I can help it. I promise that I will always venture heedlessly into any tasting room, any time–for you–even at the risk of getting bombed (in the blotto, not blammo!, sense of the word).

This nearly happened on a recent visit to Sonoma’s Buena Vista Carneros tasting room, which is likely the oldest such establishment in California. The winery’s history is recounted in a wall-sized story board that recounts its founding in 1857 by Count Agoston Haraszthy, a member of the Hungarian Royal Guard, who, among other disparate pursuits, also ran a ferryboat and founded a city in Wisconsin before launching the local wine industry. Despite the rich heritage of Buena Vista’s location, the winery sources its grapes down the road a few miles at the lauded Carneros appellation, where it owns a thousand acres of the prime real estate. Recent efforts by viticulturist Craig Weaver have borne fruit, which was summarily crushed and expertly turned into award-winning vino by winemaker Jeff Stewart.

The 2004 Syrah ($25) is rife with leather and tar, and satisfies an olfactory addiction for the deep, smoky aroma of hot asphalt about to be bulldozed. The 2002 Merlot ($25) is an inky, peppery wine with a alluring dusty quality, not unlike the cozy smell of a recently reignited furnace. Likewise, the 2003 Pinot Noir ($35) has a toffee nose that gives way to cherry and wood notes, which finishes in a flush of Mexican chocolate. In contrast, the 2004 Chardonnay ($22) is like eating a caramel apple from the inside out. It begins with the crisp hues of green apple, but finishes with a broad caramel flavor–perfect Halloween sipper.

Buena Vista Carneros, 18000 Winery Road, Sonoma. Open daily,10am to 4pm. Tasting fee, $5. 707.938.1266.



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Open Mic

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October 25-31, 2006

In spite of the Foley pedophile scandal and GOP cover-up, Republicans will retain the House and Senate this November. Why? The GOP and their corporate allies have control and the security of the voting machines we have been forced to use without our consent.

The most fundamental and primary consideration for this country and the world is voter disenfranchisement and fraud in the vote count. This crime occurred in 2000 and 2004, and nothing has changed for this election or 2008.

Ohio and Florida are being stolen again, and other states are vulnerable. On a near daily basis, the fraud and corruption of the voting machines is now being exposed for what it really is: a GOP power play to monopolize all aspects of voting.

The system now in place was created by a corporate/government program called the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which is essentially a federally mandated program of vote counting without any independent security oversight, done by machines made and controlled by GOP supporters, including Diebold, whose CEO publicly guaranteed Ohio to Bush in 2004. A Princeton computer professor took 10 seconds to hack into a Diebold voting machine.

That was the presidency and they knew it. But none of the $3.9 billion HAVA funding may be used to purchase new punchcard machines or to update an existing punchcard system. In simple terms, there is no verifiable vote-counting process in these machines or in this GOP controlled process, nor are other systems permitted.

Burger King can count the number of french fries sold daily, and all other major industrial countries have accurate and fair voting systems, but we do not. This is intentional.

The question, then, should be asked: What is the purpose of government and who controls it? The corporations or the people? Lincoln wrote, “Government of the people, by the people and for the people . . . shall not perish.”

Well, folks, this administration is not for the people, and we are perishing. Not one single piece of legislation has been passed willingly by the GOP where the people benefit over profit. The charade of helping America vote is in fact a velvet coup d’etat, ignoring what this country was founded on: no taxation without representation. The Declaration of Independence reminds us, “Governments . . . deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” We have no representation if we can’t vote, and the consent of the governed has been hijacked by GOP/corporate/government manipulation under the guise of fair voting.

The freedom our forefathers fought for has been prostituted by no-bid private profiteering, our values and ideals perverted, our resources plundered, our treasury emptied and our hopes dashed by corporate greed lubricated with this administration’s planning and collaboration.

The solution? Today and tomorrow and the day after, ask every official representing you, from the local city council to your senators, for emergency legislation for this coming election that requires all voting equipment, regardless of the cost or inconvenience, to produce a paper record that lets voters verify how they voted and to de-certify the voting machines in their current configuration, as they are attempting to do in Colorado.

Do not relent. Create a groundswell. If enough towns, cities, counties and states refuse to accept this stranglehold, we will make a difference. Ultimately, this outcry will go up the political food chain, forcing a fair federal system of vote counting.

It is time to take this country back, demanding now that the charade for this November’s election cannot continue under the current stacked deck. Anything less is acceptance of what Mussolini called “the merger of state and corporate power”–also known as fascism.

Stuart Kiehl lives in Sonoma County. The Byrne Report will return next week.


Letters to the Editor

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October 25-31, 2006

Santa Rosa City Council recs

Santa Rosa voters can improve our city council by voting for a set of leaders who are independent of development industry influence, and who have the political will to enforce policies already on the books that has been missing in recent city decisions.

Susan Gorin, Veronica Jacobi and Caroline Banuelos have been endorsed by Concerned Citizens for Santa Rosa. We are a 20-year-old community interest organization whose members work to ensure that whole community interests are represented in city planning and policy-making. Business interests are already well represented by a majority of the council, and a balance is needed in coming years when city decisions on development policy must respond to the needs of the widest spectrum of our population.

Susan Gorin, Veronica Jacobi and Caroline Banuelos represent that balance, and they deserve your votes on Election Day.

Anne E. Seeley, Co-Chair, Concerned Citizens for Santa Rosa

Yes on Guardino

Recently I ran into an acquaintance outside of North Light Bookstore from my days as a soccer/baseball mom. She inquired about my John Guardino bumper stickers. Why was I not supporting the incumbents, she wondered. Weren’t they OK? I stood in the sun for a minute to compose my thoughts.

To me, the city council is like a symphony and a few new instruments can sometimes make all the difference. If you don’t give them a try, you won’t know what a great sound you can have?

For me, John’s education in science brings a few new notes to the score and his life experience adds a subtle nuance that can broaden the entire Wednesday evening performance. As first chair violin players Pat and Lisa have performed well but I want to hear something special like a bass or a cello ? something different. I believe John has special talents and can bring an exciting new dimension to our city council. We’re a multifaceted city and we should have richly complex music on our council. That is why John is music to my ears and I will vote for John Guardino on Nov. 7.

Linell Hardy, Cotati

Online voter recs rec

I just filled out my absentee ballot, and I was greatly helped by knowing what various organizations that I respect recommend for each proposition. Sixteen major statewide groups from progressive to conservative, including the Democratic, Green, Libertarian and Republican parties, various unions, the Sierra Club and the Farm Bureaus have their recommendations neatly listed on one chart, which can be seen and printed out at the website ElectionInfo.org

As a liberal, I saw that most of the left-of-center groups recommend “yes” votes for all propositions except these four, which get “no”s: 83, 85, 88 and 90.

I highly urge concerned citizens to check out the Ballot Propositions Recommendation chart. It helps! Tell your friends, since informed voters make better choices for all of us.

Sharon Hansen, Albion

Yes on Bowen

Debra Bowen is the only candidate for Secretary of State who is expressive on the subject of fraudulent elections. The Secretary of State office has newly become very pivotal because it is the elected office which controls the state electoral process, and contracts with private voting machine companies. As in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, mass manipulations are slated to take place in California to turn this into a swing state which happens to swing uncharacteristically. As Bush will say, “How could anyone have predicted this?”

Awake ye California dreamers, and at least get out of your fog to vote Debra Bowen as Secretary of State. She’s been a state senator for years and before that a grass roots organizer from southern California.

T. S. Siegel, Santa Rosa

Stingingly smart

The proposed North Bay commuter train, SMART, sounds like a sane and pleasant alternative to the below song’s portrayal of our own modern rush hour hell on Highway 101, unless the lemmings are committed to going over the cliff en masse in one fashion or another.

“Another working day has ended, / only the rush hour Hell to face. / Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes, / contestants in a suicidal race….”

From the song “Synchronicity II,” The Police, lyrics by Sting.

Keith Bramstedt, San Anselmo


Iraq the Vote

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Iraq the Vote

See John Run: Forget about the gubernatorial race. John Garamendi’s bid for lieutenant governor is the most important office on the ballot.

By Bohemian Staff

For those keeping track, this is the 10th election that California has held in the last six years, costing us some $2 billion to enact, mostly because the governor and legislators refuse to do their jobs. The recurring theme is that if there is an unpleasant decision to be made, the voters have to make it; if such infrastructure items as roads and schools need attention, borrow it from the grandkids.

Money issues aside, this election is important for other reasons. With the pileup of GOP scandals–each more sickening than the last–this is an opportunity to shake up our elected offices and regain a moral center in those offices currently open. With even President Bush admitting last week that the violence in Iraq resembles the Tet offensive of Vietnam, strong midterm voter turnout will remind the neocons that U.S. citizens still carry a mantle of humanity. Change must come.

You’ll find some of the usual knee-jerk reactions you’d expect below, as well as surprises. We’re quite sour on the bond issues this year, flat-out angry about them, as a matter of fact. In our Nov. 1 issue, we’ll reprise these selections as a quick clip ‘n’ go guide to take to the polls. Please vote.

Clearly, a Schwarzenegger victory on Nov. 7 is inevitable. Is it any surprise? Phil Angelides never seemed qualified or dynamic enough to make a legitimate run for the governorship, and his unsavory relationship with developer Angelo Tsakopoulos–a story broken in these pages–made him a shady choice for the Democratic party nominee. Green candidate Peter Camejo, a conscientious candidate who gave the seat his best shot during the 2003 recall election, is practically a no-show this time around. We might endorse him if we could find him.

Instead, it’s clear that most of the heavy lifting for socially conscious voters will come in some of the state’s other offices. While we can do little about a Schwarzenegger landslide, we can exhort voters to pay careful attention to the supporting offices in this race, which will line candidates up for the next gubernatorial bid.

Schwarzenegger’s attempts at a political left turn since his disgraceful special election last year have resulted in a new level of bipartisan progressive governance in Sacramento. We grudgingly applaud the Schwarzenegger of Nov. 7; we fear and distrust the Schwarzenegger of Nov. 8. We don’t believe that he will continue this unusual display of character once he is a lame duck incumbent.

Neither can we in good faith support Angelides, whose lackluster reforms, inability to mount an effective campaign, outrageous Tsakopoulos transactions (skirting law to pave over vernal pools and inflicting other environmental degradation in the name of gross wealth) concerns us greatly about his ability to subsequently lead this state. We wring our hands.

Recommendation: No endorsement

This is absolutely the most exciting race among the state offices. As insurance commissioner, and in his campaign this year, John Garamendi has been a force to reckon with, a bright spot in a mostly disappointing slate of candidates. In defending the rights of Californians against big insurance companies, he’s been fearless; he’s got the fighting spirit that has eluded most of the Democratic party’s slick Gray Davis types over the last several years.

People often complain that the California lieutenant governor doesn’t do anything; Garamendi has big plans to change that. He’d like to exert his influence in education and environmental issues, revolutionizing the importance of the office. At a time when the UC system is out of control and California is on the brink of sealing the deal as the leading state for alternative-energy solutions, both changes could be critical. Garamendi is the man to get them done.

Recommendation: John Garamendi

Republican candidate Bruce McPherson is running on the notion that he has cleaned up this office in his short time there; and indeed, he has. When he was appointed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last year, the secretary of state’s office was a mess, with Kevin Shelley having resigned in disgrace. That said, McPherson certified the Diebold voting systems pushed upon the state by the Bush administration and implemented the Help America Vote Act without comment, meaning that this election itself is in peril of being compromised by machines that provide no record. Challenger Debra Bowen is an upstanding legislator whose crusade as an open-government advocate wins her high marks. We foresee great things for her.

Recommendation: Debra Bowen

Eminently qualified, State Board of Equalization member John Chiang is perfectly poised to move up the ranks. Endorsed by outgoing controller Steve Westly, Chiang has fought for fair property-tax assessment for domestic partners, helped organize the janitors union for those workers who clean the Board of Equalization’s offices and is a former board member of Planned Parenthood. His decisions and actions are fair and balanced, progressive and far-sighted, and his devotion to the welfare of children and the indigent is to be praised. We welcome Chiang to the higher ranks of government.

Recommendation: John Chiang

This office is another important choice for voters who want state government to actually get things done. Bill Lockyer has been an effective attorney general with a bipartisan popularity. Just look at the comprehensive list of endorsements he’s won from progressive officials, law-enforcement organizations, environmental groups, women’s organizations–you name it. The reason? He’s shown courage and tenacity, whether it’s fighting for $5 billion in refunds for consumers victimized by energy companies in the artificial energy “crisis” or doubling the size of the elder-abuse prosecution program. We think he’ll bring the same relentless energy to the office of the treasury.

Recommendation: Bill Lockyer

Get off the “Moonbeam” thing, already. Here’s the difference between the two main candidates for attorney general. State senator Chuck Poochigian is the kind of right-wing candidate who sees this office as strictly severe law-and-order. His campaign for this office is like something from another age, one that we don’t want to go back to. He calls his opponent “soft on crime” and mocks him for not supporting the death penalty, yet he himself opposes the banning of ammunition for assault weapons. Jerry Brown is a thinker with progressive values who wants to innovate within the office; for instance, using its powers not only to protect Californians from violent crime, but also from environmental crime and corporate crime, legacies begun by outgoing attorney general Bill Lockyer. Brown is the only choice for an all-around safer California.

Recommendation: Jerry Brown

Why is Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Poizner a better choice for insurance commissioner than Cruz Bustamante? Perhaps a better question is, why in the world is Bustamante running for this office in the first place, other than to make a safe landing in another state job? He’s one of the worst choices we can think of. He landed on the side of insurance companies far too often as a legislator and has taken large sums of money from the industry. He still has not made good on his promise to return hundreds of thousands of special-interest insurance monies that he should never have taken in the first place. Graft, scandal and back-door deals are surprisingly out of favor this election year.

By refreshing contrast, Poizner has cast himself in the mold of the outgoing John Garamendi–a protector of consumers’ rights and a staunch defender of hard-won state regulations. It’s true he has yet to prove himself, but his reputation in the business world is outstanding collateral on his upright agenda.

Recommendation: Steve Poizner

The Measures

This ballot measure ties up the loose ends on 2002’s voter-approved Proposition 42, which says all of the state’s gas-tax revenues have to be used solely for transportation purposes–constructing, maintaining and operating public streets and highways, building public transit and mitigating the environmental impacts of these efforts. Unfortunately, Proposition 42 lets the legislature “borrow” this money in an “emergency,” without precisely defining those terms. Big surprise: the state has already siphoned off this money for other uses, taking part of the funds in the 2003-’04 fiscal year and all of it in 2004-’05.

Proposition 1A will fix that by putting strict limits on any borrowing and requiring repayment within three years, with interest. Generally it’s not a good idea to earmark money for only one purpose, because it limits flexibility in a true emergency. Do we really want highway funds to be sacrosanct while vital social programs are cut? However, Proposition 1A is merely tweaking the law to make our state leaders act the way the voters intended when they passed Proposition 42.

Recommendation: Yes on 1A

These initiatives all pay for extremely worthy causes by having the state sell general obligation bonds to raise money that has to be repaid, with interest, over many, many years. Over the 30-year life of the bonds, Proposition 1B is estimated to cost $38.9 billion in principal and interest for street, highway and transit projects with an annual repayment cost of $1.3 billion; 1C would spend some $6 billion total to fund low-income housing in urban areas near public transportation and would require a yearly repayment of some $204 million; 1D would tally up $20.3 billion for repairing and upgrading public school facilities statewide for K-12, community colleges and universities; and 1E calls for an approximate debt of $8 billion for disaster preparedness and flood-prevention projects at the state and local level.

What’s not to like in these ballot measures? Debt, that’s what. Hundreds of billions of dollars that will have to be repaid by our grandchildren because the governor and the legislature are unwilling to do their jobs in an election year. Bringing bond measures to the voters is the easiest way for politicians to wipe their hands clean and still make everyone happy. Except, of course, those Californians footing the bill in 2036.

It’s important to support these vital projects, but having the state go deeper into debt by selling more bonds shouldn’t become standard operating procedure. Depending on how France is doing on any given day, California is reported to be either the fourth or fifth largest economy in the world. We should be able to pay as we go instead of incurring crushing debt. At the risk of sounding (shudder) like the knee-jerk, no-more-taxes folks, enough is enough. The proposed projects are great ideas; financing them through bonds is an extremely bad idea.

Recommendation: No on 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E

This election is all about targeting bad guys: pedophiles, smokers, sexually active teens and oil companies. While we are outraged by the heightened wave of sex crimes against adults and children, Proposition 83, which attempts to get tough on sex offenders, is seriously flawed in its sweeping scope and lacks foresight in planning. Whereas current law provides for global positioning system (GPS) monitoring of roughly 1,000 sex offender parolees who are deemed at high risk to commit sex crimes again, Proposition 83 would require GPS monitoring of nearly all felony registered sex offenders throughout their lives–even if they are unlikely to re-offend and even if their crime had been nonviolent.

For example, a 19-year-old boy who has consensual sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend but is convicted of statutory rape would be subject to lifetime GPS monitoring. Proposition 83 would also require many registered sex offenders to live further away from schools and parks than is currently mandated, pushing them into rural areas. Guess where there’s a lot of rural area? Yep, the North Bay. According to the ACLU, this provision could also be used retroactively to force someone guilty of indecent exposure decades ago to move from his current community, with very few options for resettling. Who will fund, track and oversee this growing nation of the GPS braceleted, and where will they live? We side with the ACLU and the Green Party on this one, unpopular a decision as it may be.

Recommendation: No on Proposition 83

Air, water, earth. All should be provided in excellent condition to Californians by the state’s general fund, yet once again, legislators and the governor come to us shaking and scared, afraid to pass funding to ensure clean water for every citizen. Rather, they want citizens to go into debt to the tune of $10.5 billion over 30 years to possibly ensure safe water, a bond measure that doesn’t provide for dams, storage or adequate flood control. We are not in a spending mood for bond measures this election, particularly not at future generation’s expense, particularly as none of them outline a payment plan. Clean water is a given right, and we demand that our politicians do their jobs.

Recommendation: No on Proposition 84

More creeping antirights legislation, this proposition was introduced under different guise last November and roundly rejected. Proposition 85 seeks to permanently amend the state constitution to prohibit a minor from having an abortion until 48 hours after the physician has notified her parents in writing. The sole exception is if the minor can prove to a juvenile court that she’s mature enough to make the abortion decision for herself. Most adults would have difficulty navigating such a legal maze, let alone a panicked teenaged girl who might be carrying her father’s child. This amendment pushes teens to seek illegal and potentially dangerous abortions. Proposition 85 aims to destabilize a young woman’s right to self-determination. The era of the coat hanger must never return.

Recommendation: No on Proposition 85

Aimed squarely at reducing teen smoking rates, Proposition 86 requires a $2.60 per pack excise tax on cigarettes. The ensuing money will be spent on hospital and health services, children’s health coverage and to combat cigarette-related illness in those who can still afford to smoke. This is another instance of California demonizing one segment of society to fund another segment–again providing monies that should come from our general fund. It is also a harsh, regressive tax against those who can least afford it, the less educated and the underemployed who make up the majority of California’s remaining smokers. However, cigarettes are not milk, meat or fruit. They are not housing, clean water or winter heat. Regardless of how some of us may feel, they are not necessities. This is a tough fiscal pinch that promotes better health for the state at large and pays for important programs. We don’t like it but we can’t deny it.

Recommendation: Yes on Proposition 86

Proposition 87 aims to raise $4 billion by levying a “severance” tax on oil producers in California to fund research, production and use of alternative energy sources. The law forbids oil producers to pass the tax on to consumers, an abuse admittedly difficult to determine. However, according to the legislative analysis of the proposition, the very nature of economic competition will discourage oil producers from marking up the price of their product. By helping consumers afford alternative fuels and by setting up an infrastructure that will make using efficient energy more practical, Proposition 87 has the potential to make great strides toward reducing emissions and our dependence on foreign oil in the long run. California, the nation’s third largest oil-producing state, would be setting a long-term precedent for the whole country to live greener. Oil companies aren’t happy about Proposition 87, but Al Gore is, and we’re going to side with him on this one.

Recommendation: Yes on Proposition 87

There are those of us who remember the exact day that John F. Kennedy was shot or where they were on 9-11. Then there are those who have an acute memory of the day that Proposition 13, California’s disastrous property-tax revision, kicked in for California’s schools. Poof! Gone were foreign language, art instruction, choir and music. Poof! Science became an elective in high schools. Poof! School nurses and guidance counselors and library hours and teacher’s aides disappeared. Devised in part by the same evil brains that brought us Proposition 13, Proposition 88 aims to impose a $50 tax on most land parcels in California to fund schools, with exemptions to seniors–the biggest voting bloc–and the disabled. It will prove disastrous to small districts who ordinarily go to their constituents in time of need, and is opposed by the California State PTA.

Recommendation: No on Proposition 88

Proposition 89 seeks to institute cleaner political campaigning by divorcing candidates from corporate and labor interests. Through a 0.2 percent tax increase on corporations and financial institutions, Proposition 89 would create a public fund to pay for both primary and general election campaigns. Candidates could opt into the fund after demonstrating adequate public support through collecting a certain number of signatures and $5 donations from the public. The proposition also moves to decrease campaign contributions dramatically for candidates who decide to go the traditional, private funding route.

Proposition 89 would be a positive step in many respects. By scrambling up money that corporations would have spent on political candidates anyway, the strings would detach. However, Proposition 89 privileges select interest groups, and according to the NAACP, this violates both First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights and will prompt a legal mess. Furthermore, this proposition is written by one set of special interests as a volley against others. For these reasons, we must recommend against this flawed proposition. It aims toward where we should be going but falls far short.

Recommendation: No on Proposition 89

Eminent domain is certainly on the minds of Sonoma County voters, who worry that the city of Santa Rosa will use it rashly to annex a proposed vast swathe of town. Eminent domain, however, built our national highway system for better or for worse and, used judiciously, gives us stronger, better local economies and places to live. Proposition 90 preys on Californian’s fears that the government aims to swoop down at any time and snatch our property away. While such fear is not groundless, this particular proposition is written in such a way as to be a field day not for developers, but for attorneys. Witness the billions of dollars of lawsuits tying up Oregon courts right now after the passage of a similarly flawed measure. What a mess!

Recommendation: No on Proposition 90

This will extend a quarter-cent sales tax for another 20 years, from 2011 to 2031, to support the efforts of the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District. Since voters first approved this tax in 1990, the district has preserved more than 69,000 acres. The district is asking for early approval of an extension so it can enter into real estate negotiations (always with willing sellers) with proof that it has ongoing funding available.

There’s been some criticism that the district hasn’t provided enough public-access opportunities. Right now, the open space district can’t use any of its money to operate and maintain any recreational lands it buys. That means it has to find a partner, such as the state parks department, to open these sites to the public. Under Measure F, up to 10 percent of the funds can be used to cover the costs of ongoing public access on these properties, which will increase recreational opportunities.

Other changes include adding “agriculturally productive lands” as an official category; allowing funding for urban greenspace, trails and athletic fields; and having the county collect the sales tax as required under current state law. In general, we’re against increasing sales taxes, because it puts a larger burden on low-income folks, who can afford it the least. But the open space district is working well–not to everyone’s perfect satisfaction, but it’s working. Approving the original quarter-cent sales tax was one of the better decisions Sonoma County voters have made. Let’s keep it going.

Recommendation: Yes on Measure F

The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District, or SMART, ordinance is the premiere bone of contention among voters in Marin and Sonoma counties this election. Many Marinites, particularly members of the Marin Conservation League–whose forefathers opposed construction of the Golden Gate Bridge–are against it. Marinites have been quoted in the local media making foolish statements about the exclusive loveliness of their slice of heaven, as though the establishment of a light rail system would send hordes of unwashed Sonomans to the gilded streets of Tiburon. But it’s time to put all such pettiness aside and look at our future.

Population growth in the North Bay shows no signs of abating, but our environment is in undeniable decline. Measure R proposes a quarter-cent sales tax to fund a light rail system with an adjacent bike path from Cloverdale to Larkspur. Much of the rail and many of the stations have already been built. Will SMART solve the snarl that is Highway 101 at 3:30pm? Absolutely not. Will it solve global warming or overcrowding or reduce the majority of commuters who travel alone each day? Nope. Is it a perfect solution with a perect train attached? No way. But it is a sensible step for a more sensible future and will make a positive impact on life in the North Bay. It’s time to move forward into the 21st century. We look forward to riding SMART.

Recommendation: Yes on Measure R

Currently, roughly one-quarter of Napa County is protected as public open space, yet very little of it is actually accessible for public recreation. Amazingly, scenic Napa is one of only five counties in all of California without its own park department. Although the Napa Board of Supervisors came up with a master plan for parks in 1975, it didn’t get funding and never came to fruition. Measure I would create a parks and open space district aiming to finally make more of this land actually available for the public.

The district would be run by five elected volunteers. It would be funded in the first few years with between $350,000 and $500,000 annually from an existing hotel tax, but would likely need more money–potentially obtained through grant–to follow through its maximum potential. However, it would not be able to levy a tax without permission from voters, and it would not have the right to exercise eminent domain.

The measure’s opponents, scared of bureaucracy and the potential for an increase in taxes, threaten that Measure I would create “an extremist single issue board that only promotes parks to the exclusion of everything else.” We can imagine worse things.

Recommendation: Yes on Measure I


Guns and Arias

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Guns and Arias

the arts | stage |

Photograph by Jim Johnson
Fine romance: Kathleen Sisco and William Neely.

By David Templeton

Opera is a fundamentally silly art form, and its silliness is its essential strength–though many of its fans take opera much too seriously to agree. Like Japanese animé, another fundamentally silly yet dependably entertaining medium, those elements that first-timers might see as weaknesses are, in fact, the medium’s primary appeal. In both art forms, people tend to express themselves differently than in real life; artificiality replaces realism from the first note sung or the first line delivered; the plots are always far less important than the poignancy and colorfulness of the characters; and every single emotion is played way over the top.

In spite of these excesses and eccentricities–or, more likely, because of them–both animé and opera are able to reach in and move us, take control of our brains and hearts, and spin them like tops in ways that are profoundly satisfying. Someday, enterprising folks will realize this and we will see splashy animé versions of Madame Butterfly, Carmen, Don Giovanni and the Ring cycle. Until then, we who appreciate both opera and animé must experience our art forms separately, one at a time.

Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West–currently playing at the Cinnabar Theater–is not as well-known as many of Puccini’s other masterworks and is not among his most lyrically memorable creations, musically speaking. But it has an inherent charm that keeps it from disappearing from the opera repertoire, and, much like the notion of an animé version of The Flying Dutchman or Die Fledermaus, the very idea of an Italian opera set in the Wild West is enough to induce curiosity.

Since its inception, Cinnabar has been committed to making opera accessible to new audiences–largely by presenting them in English–and this production, directed by Elly Lichenstein with musical direction by Nina Shuman, is a fine example, for which Shuman has contributed a new English translation. It’s a crowd-pleasing trifle packed with barroom brawls, high-stakes poker, angry lynch mobs and a dash of frontier bad language. There is no way to describe the perverse delight of hearing an operatic baritone singing the phrase, “You son of a bitch!” It’s not exactly Deadwood, but it’s kind of a kick, and the opening-night audience reacted to each random instance of cowboy-opera profanity with appreciative laughter and applause.

The opera, which first appeared in 1910, was based on a play by David Belasco, the American author who also wrote the play on which Puccini’s Madame Butterfly was based. The story is reasonably predictable, and unlike some operas, it is pleasingly uncomplicated. In a mining camp in the California Sierras, rifle-toting Minnie (impressively portrayed by San Francisco-based soprano Kathleen Sisco) is one of the town’s few females, so her barroom is the most popular drinking and gambling establishment for miles around. All the men have proposed marriage, none more forcefully than the local sheriff, the dark and dangerous, occasionally violent Jack Rance (a believably grounded William Neely, who looks like Burt Reynolds and sings with a soothing baritone that could lull a bear to sleep).

Insisting that she will only marry for love, Minnie manages to keep her suitors and customers in balance until the unexpected arrival of legendary bandit Ramerrez, disguised as a dashing Marlboro-man-type known only as Dick Johnson from Sacramento, a fine fit for tenor John Davey Hatcher. Minnie falls for him instantly, and as the hard-bitten salty Wells Fargo agent Ashby (Sonoma’s John Bonnoitt) rallies the miners to join his Ramerrez-hunting posse, Rance becomes increasingly jealous of Dick Johnson from Sacramento.

Working with an impressive set by John Connole (especially splendid in the first act barroom scene), director Lichenstein has created a believably seedy world for her ensemble, who look the part down to the last dirty jacket and grizzled beard. With one of the best blends of voices and actors in recent Cinnabar memory, Girl of the Golden West–silliness and all–is worth gambling on, even if you’ve never seen an opera before.

After all, who knows how long you’ll have to wait for the animé version.

‘Girl of the Golden West’ runs through Nov. 11. Friday-Saturday, Oct. 28, Nov. 3 and 10-11 at 8pm; Sunday, Oct. 29 and Nov. 5 at 2pm; Wednesday, Nov. 1 and 8 at 7:30pm. Cinnabar Theater, 3333 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. $30-$32. 707.763.8920.



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Meet Mike

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Meet Mike

the arts | visual arts |

Photograph courtesy Michael Cooper
Chassis: Nearing completion, Cooper’s massive car is entirely made of cunningly design wood pieces.

By Gretchen Giles

Sculptor Michael Cooper has lived with his wife, Gayle, in their west Sonoma County home for some 26 years, but to hear him tell it, he’s just now arrived in the North Bay. “This is my introduction,” he says modestly. “Walter brought me into the county.”

The “Walter” in this instance is Dr. Walter Byck, owner of Santa Rosa’s Paradise Ridge Winery and the main driving force behind last year’s vastly successful countywide Sculpture Sonoma. Byck says that he just wanted to make friends, so he invited all of his favorite sculptors to participate in the yearlong multi-venue event. That way, he reasoned, he’d get to know them better. Along the way, Byck urged visitors to meet Mike Cooper, visit Mike Cooper, become familiar with Mike Cooper’s work. Byck’s eyes held a certain gleam that those who know the good doctor understand means this advice should be heeded.

Cooper’s second introduction, perhaps, comes on Oct. 28, when he is one of nine artists showing work for auction at the Keller Estate Winery at the Art + Architecture fundraiser for the burgeoning Petaluma Arts Council. The recipient of a $1 million grant from an anonymous donor this June, the council is moving ahead with plans to build a permanent arts center. Having identified the former railroad depot smack downtown as the best location, the council is trying to raise matching funds that will eventually total between $2 million and $4 million, depending on the resulting scope of their project.

Compared by the AMS consulting group hired to guide them to such other worthies as San Rafael’s ArtWorks Downtown space and the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, the proposed Petaluma Art Center would provide exhibition opportunities to area artists as well as classroom time to those interested in learning to create. Currently, it is a newly painted but defunct depot near an unused railroad track across from Long’s Drugs.

Such tumbledown description is a contrast to the serene order that Cooper instills in his work and his life. Trained as a sculptor at San Jose State University and UC Berkeley, Cooper taught art for some 34 years at De Anza College in the South Bay. Fascinated with cars, such Western mythology as Hopalong Cassidy and guns, as well as the functional beauty found in chairs, Cooper mixes his sculptural training with a woodworker’s sensibility and an unremitting sense of the perverse. He uses metal-working tools to cut wood; he weds exquisite quilted maple pieces to aluminum sprayed with auto paint; and he puts toothy spikes into his chairs just where a casual sitter might mistakenly lean to relax.

On a recent sunny morning, his rural oversized studio allows light and grudging warmth in through the open doors. Cooper shows a photograph of a 7-by-8-foot sculpture currently on loan to the Oakland Museum. Whenever, he says, “they kick it out of the museum,” he’ll bring the contraption home. Ostensibly a chair, but so tricked out with engines and widgets that it will literally hop when revved, the piece, called Ride, is one of the only works that Cooper has placed out in the art world.

Which brings us back to his introduction.

While Cooper has lived in Sonoma County for decades, his life has been focused on teaching and family. He’s had little contact with the traditional barbs of the art world and even less with the many artists who populate the North Bay. When Byck found him last year and began beaming that meaningful gleam, Cooper barely knew anyone north of the Golden Gate and had not shown much at all.

“I’ve basically given my stuff away over the years,” he says sheepishly. The visitor looks around the studio. In progress on a massive table is an equally massive wooden sculpture consisting of thousands of pieces, each cunningly co-joined and made of different woods–many of them wooden strips ingeniously fitted together by Cooper to reveal clever interior designs when carved–that form the engine and chassis of an elaborate vehicle. “A car person will be able to figure out everything on this,” he chuckles, rubbing a piece thoughtfully.

Elsewhere in the studio sits GMO, a hybrid chair that has a seat and a back and two arms, but whose manifestation as a possible piece of furniture ends there. Cooper has created “horns” of sorts with aluminum and given the sculpture the appearance of kinesis by adding soft rounded metal forms like wheels whose shape repeat themselves as ball-bearing-type forms elsewhere on the piece. Generally eschewing ready-mades, Cooper even creates such details as wooden gear linkage when making a carlike sculpture. Across the room, another piece uses pneumatic pressure to raise an oversized gun that, when fully extended, protects an oil derrick on a platform. “It’s obscure,” Cooper chuckles. “It’s exactly the kind of piece you can never sell.”

Selling, of course, has its pleasures, particularly when it’s for a good cause. In organizing the Petaluma Arts Council fundraiser that will see Cooper’s massive wooden car chassis on auction, stone sculptor Edwin Hamilton curated the work of seven other colleagues whom he particularly esteems.

In addition to his own and Cooper’s sculptures, contributing are Sonoma painter Chester Arnold, Santa Rosa ceramicist Todd Barricklow, Sonoma Valley stone sculptor Gilham Erickson, Napa sculptor Gordon Huether, Cazadero wood sculptor Bruce Johnson, Sebastopol environmental artist Ned Kahn and Sonoma Valley found-metal sculptor Brian Tedrick. “I got to consider exactly who I would want to show,” Hamilton says with a broad grin, standing on a recent rainy day at the Keller Estates Winery.

Designed by renowned Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta, Keller is currently only open to the public by appointment, though plans to have a regular tasting schedule are in the works for next year. Specializing in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the Keller family made their fortune in automobiles and live mostly in Mexico. Walking through the chilly wine caves with Keller staffer Sandy Maus, Hamilton says that the proposed Petaluma Arts Center is “one of the best community-minded projects I know of.”

Pausing in the winery’s handsome tasting room, looking through French doors out into a courtyard that will allow Art + Architecture revelers to spill out among the evening’s special sculpture, Maus sighs. “Art,” she says directly, “is what makes us civilized.”

Which is why, of course, we’re so eager to make the introduction.

The Art + Architecture fundraiser for the Petaluma Art Center is slated for Saturday, Oct. 28, from 5pm to 8pm. Keller Estate Winery, 5875 Lakeville Hwy., Petaluma. $125; includes shuttle to the winery, live entertainment, food, wine and many surprises. 707.766.5200.



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Zut, Abhors!

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Splitting his time between Guerneville and Manhattan, acclaimed consultant Clark Wolf graces these pages with the occasional diatribe from the periodic local.

Who cares what the French think?! Well, lots of people do, but when it comes to restaurants in the Bay Area, the recently published Michelin Guide seems like it was written for an elite coterie of reserved French businessmen–circa 1964.

When I first discovered the Guide Michelin (geed-misch-lahn, as I was instructed to call it), it was the ’70s. My formerly waist-length raven hair was clipped to a sort of television bob eerily reminiscent of Suzanne Pleshette’s. I’d been a waiter on the railroad between Oakland and Chicago–on the Silver Zephyr, no less–where some of the dining cars still sported woodburning stoves. Really.

I won’t discuss my long nights in Mafia-run dance clubs, but I will admit that dinner in the Windy City was often at the Pump Room, after a languid amble through the stunning galleries of the Art Institute. I was starved for urban and world-class culture.

Back in the City by the Bay, I got hired to open a cheese and wine shop at the base of Nob Hill, from which I was plucked to help open the legendary Oakville Grocery in San Francisco.

Yes, I was the first to bring arugula to the West Coast. I swear it wasn’t my idea–I just did it. But in the quick bit between a cute little shop and the big time that led to a world of now-accepted up-market staples, I was a curious, quick study with a keen interest in useful cultural history and any chance at a really good meal. I’d had my fill of mom’s tater tots and the impoverished college years of clutching boxes of Kraft Dinner.

I got myself to Europe a few times, occasionally invited by trade boards that helped cushion and cosset. I was long past the sleeping-bag-and-hitchhiking portion of our show and started on my list of must-try temples of excess: Caviar Kaspia (before the Caspian was endangered) in Paris; Alain Chapel (by the side of the road in an exurban French village, and the inspiration for the Inn at Little Washington, outside of D.C., as well as for a generation of culinary drama queens); and some solid one-star treasures that served stuff like tripe and pigeon.

I also got to eat–six times in two years, I’m embarrassed to confess–at a Parisian place called Jamin, where the chef was a guy called Joël Robuchon, who was soon after pronounced, and arguably so, the best chef in the world.

These days, Joël spoons up the rare and wondrous at a couple of stylish counters: one in Paris, one in Las Vegas (natch) and one in Manhattan, at the Four Seasons Hotel. They’re called L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon. An atelier is usually a sort of design workshop or studio. I guess after all his success, it’s the tinkering he really craves.

The great Alain Senderen has sent back his stars from his exquisite spot on Paris’ Place de Madeline and gone more casual, renaming his restaurant Senderen’s at a hallowed location that once housed the legendary Lucas Carton. I mean, really, if these guys are turning in their tuxes and starched toques for jeans and flip-flops, who are we to hold out for tiaras?

Don’t get me wrong. The French Laundry is arguably a classic, American-based, three-star Michelin restaurant. Cyrus is clearly a two-star by wise choice. They both bridge old world and new in commendable and often transporting ways.

But my long favorite, solid, heartfelt and delicious one-star category choices would clearly include Santa Rosa’s ZaZu and Graton’s Underwood; San Francisco’s Zuni Cafe and the Slanted Door; Oakland’s Oliveto; and a whole lot more. This recently published book was light on reality and devoid of saucy treasure. Unlike old France, where one star was the road to two and two was hoping for three, these restaurants and many others are delightfully fulfilling–and fulfilled–just as they are.

Truth is, Marin has some major dairy and organic farming going on. Sonoma has so many sorts of brilliant, down-to-earth agriculture that restaurants are almost an afterthought, or for visitors, or for an occasional celebration. Good, solid, local spots abound or are popping up from Alameda to San Jose (really!), and have always been a part of life in Berkeley.

Our show-off corridors are mostly clustered in San Francisco and the Napa Valley, but the food splendor of Northern California is most often at home, on our own table.

So, I’ll keep calling them French–not freedom–fries (even though they really oughta be Belgian) and enjoy an occasional big deal meal, but I’ll buy American tires for my hybrid car (let’s face it: the Michelin Guide was designed to promote their rubber meeting the road) and take my cue about where and what to eat from friends, the assorted trustworthy critic and my own experience of nibble and sip.

And as far as the Michelin Guide’s sense of photography, factual detail and critical viewpoint? No stars, honey. Not even a satisfactory.



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‘Rat’ Tales

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‘Rat’ Tales

October 18-24, 2006

‘Ed Roth was not just an icon of the hot rod,” says artist and pin-striping master Nat Quick. “Roth was, and still is, an icon of American ingenuity and creativity. He looked at something everyone else was looking at—the automobile—and he saw something different. Ed Roth did for the car what Andy Warhol did for cans of soup.”

In fact the late Ed “Big Daddy” Roth was a legendary “kustom kar” pioneer whose life and accomplishments include the creation of several outrageous hot rods, the off-the-cuff invention of the airbrushed T-shirt and the gleefully grotesque Rat Fink cartoon character, all of which are vibrantly honored in Ron Mann’s new illustrated documentary Tales of the Rat Fink, opening at the Rafael Film Center for a one-week run beginning Oct. 20.

Nat Quick began painting cars himself in Oklahoma in the 1960s, where he was known to hang out in drive-in parking lots with his paint kit, offering to do speedy pinstripe dash jobs for a quart of beer or a few bucks. Years later, he was painting hot rods for some of the best-known racers on the streets and tracks. In Los Angeles, where he established his own shop, Quick became known for his inventive airbrush style and his pin-striping accuracy. Any car that carried the recognizable Nat Quick signature was considered more than just a car with a cool paint job—it was a work of art.

Quick, who now lives in Petaluma, just finished watching Tales of the Rat Fink at his apartment studio. The space is crammed with the various accoutrements of the professional “pinhead”: airbrush equipment and compressors; paint boxes crammed with pin-striping brushes; framed covers of car magazines bearing Quick’s work. The walls are covered with Quick’s latest works of art, superbly realistic oil paintings depicting real-life WW II aviation battles. These are his major artistic efforts these days, though he still occasionally takes on a pin-striping job if it seems interesting enough. Watching Rat Fink, however, has left him happily nostalgic for the days when every young guy’s car was cool, and the heroes of the hot-rod world were the guys with the paints and the crazy ideas.

“Roth really was the first guy to ever airbrush an image on a T-shirt, and that is what got me started doing airbrush art,” says Quick, who finally was introduced to Roth at a “brush meet,” sort of like a convention for car artists, back in 1985. “I was so honored that he knew who I was. He’d heard of me back in the ’60s. It was nice because, though I probably always would have become an artist, Ed Roth is the guy who inspired me to become an airbrush artist. Later on, it was Von Dutch [the pinstripe guru also mentioned in the movie] who inspired me to do pin-striping. These guys created this art form. They began a huge phenomenon that is still alive today.”

One of the film’s more fanciful touches is the way it shows classic hot rods from the ’50s and ’60s, including some of Roth’s better-known creations, such as the Outsider and the Beatnik Bandit, and gives them voices, with people like Jay Leno, Ann-Margret, Matt Groening and the Smothers Brothers taking on the classic cars’ personalities to tell pieces of the Ed Roth story.

“The one car the movie left out is the dragster Roth built,” Quick points out. “It was named Yellow Fang. It was all triangles.” He reaches over to his drawing table, pulls off a piece of paper and a pencil, and in 10 seconds produces a rough sketch of Yellow Fang. “It was driven by a guy who lived about a half-mile from my shop in L.A. He moved it in a glass-sided trailer with gold leaf trim. Yellow Fang was just something fun and bizarre among dragsters. Ed Roth was the master of bizarre.”

Intriguingly, as the film points out, many of these fabled machines seldom had the chance to put any actual rubber to the road, and many couldn’t have handled high speeds even if given the chance.

“A lot of these cars weren’t really meant to race or even to drive much,” says Quick. “They were created as pieces art. That’s really all they were good for. But listen, in my book, being a piece of art, adored by generations—that’s plenty enough.”

‘Tales of the Rat Fink’ opens Friday, Oct. 20, at the Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. 415.454.1222.


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From the Ground Up

October 25-31, 2006This story about failure and success begins on a 30-acre ranch. Here, on the outskirts of Sebastopol, Dan Smith--local kid turned wizard and farmer--grows all organic strawberries, raspberries, escarole, frisée, corn, peppers, leeks, cherry tomatoes, zucchini and much more. Over the last year, he's poured tons of compost--a mix of rice hulls and duck manure--into the soil...
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Deep Roots

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Wine Tasting Room of the Week

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Open Mic

October 25-31, 2006In spite of the Foley pedophile scandal and GOP cover-up, Republicans will retain the House and Senate this November. Why? The GOP and their corporate allies have control and the security of the voting machines we have been forced to use without our consent.The most fundamental and primary consideration for this country and the world is voter...
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Letters to the Editor

October 25-31, 2006Santa Rosa City Council recsSanta Rosa voters can improve our city council by voting for a set of leaders who are independent of development industry influence, and who have the political will to enforce policies already on the books that has been missing in recent city decisions.Susan Gorin, Veronica Jacobi and Caroline Banuelos have been endorsed by...
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Iraq the Vote

See John Run: Forget about the gubernatorial race. John...
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Guns and Arias

the arts | stage | Photograph by Jim Johnson Fine...
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Meet Mike

the arts | visual arts | Photograph courtesy Michael...
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Zut, Abhors!

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‘Rat’ Tales

October 18-24, 2006'Ed Roth was not just an icon of the hot rod," says artist and pin-striping master Nat Quick. "Roth was, and still is, an icon of American ingenuity and creativity. He looked at something everyone else was looking at—the automobile—and he saw something different. Ed Roth did for the car what Andy Warhol did for cans of...
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