Pamposh

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Pamposh

Photograph by Michael Amsler

Currying Flavor: The sister and brother team Mona Dhar and Sumeer Karihaloo co-own Pamposh.

Ghee Whiz

Pamposh Indian restaurant is a jewel in the crown

By Heather Irwin

There’s a running joke in Manhattan’s East Village about the Sixth Street curry houses there. Lined up, one restaurant after another–Banjara, Bombay, Goa, Tajmahal–rumor has it the dozens of restaurants in Little India share a single ghee-soaked kitchen. Having visited the tandoori ghetto for a late-night nosh more times than I’d like to admit, I can assure that there is a certain, well, sameness, to it all.

In fact, one wonders sometimes if just about every Indian restaurant in the States doesn’t share the same kitchen. After making my way across the country from Indian buffet to Indian buffet there’s only so much dried-out tandoori and creamed-spinach something-or-other one can eat without wondering, “Wait, didn’t I just have this in Portland?”

Which is why I had no unusually high hopes about Pamposh, which opened six weeks ago in Santa Rosa’s Mission Plaza–alarmingly close to a McDonald’s, no less. Tandoori, uh huh. Vindaloo, right. Samosas? Check.

However, the first sign that things might be different were the two tables of diners sitting next to us who–how shall I put this?–looked like they knew the territory. So when a well-fed auntie asked for a bib to cover her ample chest as she dug into the vindaloo, I thought: we’re at the right place.

I also appreciate good service more than most–meaning that I really despise lousy servers more than most. At Pamposh, you’re made to feel like the maharaja. Giving menu suggestions and food pairings and even offering to help us pair wine, our server gently led us through the array of choices and gave outstanding guidance in our final decisions. Then again, maybe our Drew Barrymore-esque server was just flirting with the Boy, who, after having his arm twisted into an uncomfortable position by me, admits to perhaps unconsciously flirting back. Ah, well.

The menu is completely à la carte, meaning you can mix and match a variety of side dishes, appetizers and entrées. This can be a wonderful thing if you know what you’re doing–and disastrous if you don’t. It’s easy at Pamposh to opt for guidance from someone who can help avoid 10-spice flavor pileups. Less is sometimes much, much more.

Additionally, Pamposh doesn’t force-heat greenhorns into a taste-bud-searing meal masking bad food with sheer firepower. All dishes (except the lamb vindaloo) are served mild, unless the diner asks for medium (which is reasonably spicy) or hot (you’re on your own). The vindaloo is served hot, unless a mild version is requested.

Dinner (and the restaurant currently only serves dinner, with a lunch service in the works) began with an amuse-bouche of crisp spiced crackers and a tomato-avocado chutney. A mango lassi ($4) is a great way to start your palate off–cool, creamy yogurt and mango mixed into a frothy, foamy mocktail.

We decided to try the mixed appetizer platter ($7.25), featuring aloo tikki (potato patties spiced with herbs and onions), mixed vegetable pakora (fried vegetable fritters) and chicken pakora. The plate came with both sweet tamarind and mint chutneys for dipping. The fritters were the standout winner, crisp and crunchy without the usual gut-busting grease and batter.

The wine list is small and relatively unimpressive. A better choice with spicy Indian food is a bottle of imported Indian beer. Fundoo!

Naan, a clay-baked flatbread, is a staple of Indian dining and a virtual requirement for sopping up all the various sauces. We decided to try the onion kulcha ($3), a naan stuffed with onions and fresh cilantro, which went perfectly with our pan-fried curries. The bread is a warm and chewy circle of wonderment you rip apart to reveal onions and herbs inside. Thin and slightly doughy, it is the perfect foil to stealthy sauces that threaten to return themselves uneaten to the kitchen. Dip, swirl, scoop–it’s all perfectly kosher.

Pamposh offers a number of veggie-friendly dishes, including dal makhani ($8.95), made of slow-cooked lentils, and sag paneer ($9.95), a homemade cheese cooked with spinach and a creamy tomato sauce. The cheese is firm, almost tofulike, and has a mild taste that complements the acidity of the tomatoes and takes on the flavors of coriander and cumin.

We opted away from the simple tandooris–meat cooked traditionally in a clay tandoori oven–for pan-fried curries with savory sauces. The prawns in apricot sauce ($15.95) were savory in a deep red-orange sauce that hints at rather than accosts with fruit. Mixed with coconut milk, it is a creamy tonic both hot and soothing.

Lamb vindaloo ($13.95) is a dish familiar to Indian diners, fragranced with the darker, more mysterious spices of cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. Served with potatoes, Pamposh’s vindaloo sauce should be ordered medium to hot, as the mild version ends up flat. In both, the lamb was tougher than a vindaloo should be–which is nearly falling apart.

But what’s had me pining away for days, unable to focus at certain moments, was the chicken tikka masala. The dish was a blend of tandoori chicken with a creamed curry sauce that makes the eyes tear with pleasure. In fact, the Boy has pointedly asked me to stop saying “Tiiiiiiiikkkka!” at every opportunity, pointing out that some moments are just plain inappropriate for the screaming of “Tikka masala!” But believe me when I say it was that good.

Don’t forget to order at least one dish of the Pamposh rice ($1.95) for each person, which is a light basmati rice with sweet peas and roasted cashews. Additionally, the mango chutney ($2.50) is a necessary flavor agent to any Indian dish.

The only brow raiser for me was the relatively small size of the entrées compared to their price, which tended to be $12 and up. However, both the Boy and I agreed that we probably couldn’t have eaten more. I also started getting annoyed by the piped-in Bollywood music, but was told that I was merely being a curmudgeon.

On each visit, we were far too stuffed to even consider dessert, and no amount of flirtation could convince us otherwise. However, on future trips, we may try to control our appetites in order to leave room for the homemade saffron custard and berries ($6).

Then again, when the tikka calls, one must obey.

Pamposh Restaurant is currently open for dinner only, Tuesday-Sunday, 5-9pm. 52 Mission Circle, Ste. 10, Santa Rosa. 707.538.3367.

From the July 21-27, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Tango and Flamenco Dancing

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Tango and Flamenco Dancing

Photograph by Rory McNamara

Olé: Tango teacher Christy Coté and a partner practice their moves.

Three-Minute Love Affairs

Tango and flamenco have long showcased the beautiful and young, while devotedly practiced by the pleasant and old. Why? Because art and obsession know no age.

By Jennie Orvino

Dance is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire.
–George Bernard Shaw

We begin with a glance and a nod of assent. I snake my arm around my partner’s shoulders as I feel his right hand warm my back. I turn my head toward him and we take a moment to feel each other’s balance, to harmonize our concentration. I respond to a slight dip of his body and glide into one backward step and then another; I follow his lead into a figure eight, a turn, a pause. My left foot is weightless, touching his right, and when his foot slides out, mine goes along willingly. We step forward and shift back, our legs twining and lifting before we’re on to another move, pulled along by the music’s melancholy seeking and soaring. There is a moment where I flick my leg defiantly, then immediately lean forward against him in complete trust. We both listen and succumb to a rush of stringed instruments, crooning vocals and the wail of what seems like an accordion under exquisite torture. I feel his breath in sync with mine as he moves with and between my steps, both of us working to end together perfectly on the last note of the song.

 

We should have a warning at our website: ‘May be habit-forming,‘” says Gustavo Hornos, a native of Buenos Aires, the world capital of tango. His teaching partner and wife, Jesica Salomon, adds, “The elegance, the romanticism and the sensuality attract people. If you don’t have those things, you want them. If you have them, you want more!”

“What’s so addictive is the feeling of connection,” Hornos says. “The tango is a very close dance, your bodies are very much in contact. You almost feel the heartbeat of your partner, really–you are facing each other heart to heart in a beautiful zone of sharing. It’s about your life moving with another life. This is so powerful,it’s maybe the main reason people get so crazy about tango.”

Watching a tango demonstration by these two salon-style dancers under the lights at Ellington Hall, I can’t help but be swept away. Anyone who has seen even a photograph of the stage play Forever Tango knows that the dance stirs desire and generates heat. This kind of intimacy is why tango is often referred to as a “three-minute love affair.” It might also account for the preponderance of forty- and fifty-somethings in the classes I attend. It requires maturity to take the risk of getting close.

Tricia, 61, a political activist and teacher, says, “Every time you dance with someone, it is an event. You are right in front of the person, with a very intimate frame. You can’t think about anything but what you are doing–sometimes you can’t even think. It’s a great stress release. It also becomes obsessive. You want more and more of what it gives you.”

 

There is a cliché that tango was born in the brothels of Buenos Aires, but as dance scholar Christine Denniston notes, the brothels were where people of the upper and middle class first encountered it. The lower classes and immigrants from Africa and Cuba had already brought their rhythmic patterns and dance vocabulary to the barrios. Early tangos were accompanied by improvising on guitar, violin and flute. Around 1910, the bandoneon, originally created as a kind of organ for religious services, was put to better use and has since became the trademark tango instrument.

In the 1800s, many tango musicians got their start, as many a New Orleans jazz artist did, in the red light district, playing to entertain customers while they waited. Since the ladies were otherwise occupied, the men used the opportunity to practice dance by dancing together. They used their skills later in the dance halls to attract eligible women into their arms. On the street corners, tango was a challenge dance men did with each other to display their prowess.

Despite the tango’s original sexual disposition and combativeness, the contemporary relationship of the partners is not one of tension, or dominance and submission. “When I lead Jesica,” Gustavo Hornos says of his wife, “I am feeling her movements, her balance, and I am sensitive to that. So she is also leading me. We are both leaders and followers.”

“I believe that the woman is an individual at all times,” says Jesica. “A good leader gives space for the woman to do embellishments and to express herself in any moment. When you’re first learning, there is a lot of emphasis on leading and following, but actually the partners are making the dance together. It’s like we are one body, one leg, one arm.”

 

Amid the stacks of tables and chairs in a large multipurpose room, Donna Agoita flashes her remote toward a boom box and prepares couples for their across-the-floor practice. Tango happens in Petaluma at the Lucchesi Community Center because this teacher wants to create more of a community for tango in the North Bay. She works with beginners to understand the basics.

“Tango is a grounding dance, full of challenge and subtlety,” Agoita says. “The follower needs to be willing to let go, to be extremely present, flexible and very ready for the lead. The leader must be focused on the partner, aware of their skill level and sensitive to it. This dance is not about showing off; it is about making a connection.”

In order to experience such co-mingling and aliveness, students make a considerable investment of time and money. Carol, 50, travels weekly around the county and to Marin so she can take several classes and occasional private instruction.

“I’m ga-ga over tango,” she says. “I first saw this dance in a small ballroom in Vienna where a group of seven men and seven women called Tango Seduccion gave a three-encore performance. They knocked me off my seat. As the show progressed, the dancing became more and more intimate. When I got back to the United States, I couldn’t find Argentine tango classes soon enough.”

Students–even if they are experienced dancers–discuss how hard it is to survive their first attempts at the complex steps. Emil Waldteufel, the chef-owner of Emil’s restaurant in Santa Rosa, has studied all kinds of dance in his life, including tap dancing in the hoofer style. He has even performed onstage. “The first few lessons, I found tango difficult. I was blurting out ‘I’m sorry’ all the time, but I’ve progressed well. Sometimes a breath of the music will come over me while I’m working and I’ll happily execute a little step. Then I’ll go back to my sauté pan.”

Paul, a 58-year-old vineyard mechanic and Calistoga resident who takes classes in Sonoma, Petaluma and Santa Rosa, describes tango as “a dance for overachievers. It draws intelligent people because it’s not easy to learn. But it still has soul. Tango has a way of making you yearn for it.” And a retired artist who declines to give even her first name says that the dance makes her feel feminine and seductive. “You want to dress up and look beautiful when you do it.”

Indeed. When tango took Paris by storm in 1912, it was said that women abandoned their corsets to dance tango. Couture designers changed the position of feathers in women’s hats–from sweeping horizontally across the face to going up vertically from the forehead–so as not to get in the dance partner’s face. “Tulip skirts,” which open at the front, making leg flicks and ganchos (hooks) easier, became popular, and manufacturers, then as now, sold anything they could with the “tango” adjective preceding it.

In an increasingly competitive and mechanized American culture, people in the tango community find it a relief to have an activity that is noncompetitive yet personally developing, warm and pleasant to do. Traditionally, tango etiquette allows no one to snub or abandon a partner. It can even require the courtly gesture of escorting a woman back to her seat after dancing, and it’s considered polite to engage her for more than one number. In Argentina, eye contact, a nod or a smile is enough to indicate a man’s intentions. The same is true for a partner’s response. The dynamics of the dance venue are a result of all the participants being neighbors and friends, with an understanding of social graces.

Bill, a 52-year-old self-described instructor-sailor-poet-single-father, who finished high school and started college in Argentina, remains enamored of this cultural phenomenon that went in and out of favor and at one time was even banned as subversive, under a repressive military regime.

“Back then, tango was something that only my father listened to,” Bill remembers. “We had to learn in order to dance with our mothers for our graduation ceremony. I preferred folklore and rock and roll. It wasn’t until later, after being prohibited by the military government of Argentina to return [Bill assisted his brothers’ escape from the country in 1976], that I could allow myself to be embraced by the deep melancholy and defiant joy of the tango, and I started to listen to it deliberately and learned to dance again.

“I love to move in unison to the music–suggest, wait, follow, until my breath and chest and pelvis melt into my partner’s,” he says. “The tango has certainly helped me to be more gracious sexually, and should be a prerequisite to intimacy.”

 

Tango and its cousin, flamenco, were both created by the kind of people who generally leave no mark on history: the poor and the underprivileged. Flamenco arose from the melting pot of Roma people who migrated to southern Spain, particularly Andalusia, in the 15th century, and from two other cultural minorities, the Moors and the Jews. These groups made common cause with the native Spanish mountain people and a smattering of Christian infidels. Around their campfires, the flamenco arts developed, probably beginning with only voice and rhythmic hand-clapping, followed later by guitar and dance.

The students of flamenco I have met range in age from a 22-year-old recent college graduate to a 67-year-old retiree. Some women say the combination of fast, intensive footwork with graceful arm and hand movements made them feel very powerful. Others like that it’s “sexy but not explicit and over-the-top.” Most reported their interest was piqued by seeing the dance live in performance, or in the movies or on television. Many said learning it was a lifelong, even secret, desire.

Christina is a 33-year-old social worker from Sebastopol. When she was about 11 years old, she saw Carmen and was enthralled. “I tortured my parents by playing the record for hours and stomping around the house,” she laughs. What Christina terms a “little splash of experience” remained latent until she began a relationship with a man who was interested in flamenco guitar. The couple began to explore their mutual dream of music and dance through friends who were performers.

Now Christina studies with Phoebe Vernier (who goes by the professional name of “La Fibi”) at Ellington Hall. Christina and her boyfriend can practice together, although she says that keeping the dance and guitar in compas (locked into the rhythm) is one of their most difficult tasks.

Regarding her three years’ worth of flamenco study, Christina says, “Honestly, it has not been all fun, especially in the beginning. This is the most challenging form I’ve tried, by far. It’s the most complex in terms of rhythm, footwork and the multiple things you have to do simultaneously. It’s very specific, almost like a science.

“Once the basics are mastered, a person can have more freedom. So I can’t quit now, just when I’m getting a taste of that freedom. I’m seeking mastery so that I can get full expression of grief, anger, pain, exhilaration– all the extreme emotions. I want to express with full force, no holding back. That’s what attracted me as a child, and that’s what attracts me now.”

All things fiery and passionate appeal to Bonnie, a red-haired soprano and voice teacher just six months into flamenco classes. She describes it as being “like opera, where you have to sing with your whole body. You can’t dance with a bland face. Whatever feeling you can imagine, there’s a song and a rhythm for it.”

For Serafina, a 55-year-old trying to overcome her anguish following the dissolution of an 18-year marriage, listening to the language of the songs has provided an emotional catharsis, a way to love life again. “I stumbled,” she says. “And wept. I lost my balance. And screamed in the car on the way home. But I felt the spirit of flamenco rising up from the floor, pushing and shoving me to keep trying. The music was my constant friend. The other middle-aged dancers were my family. The singers, my strangled voice.”

One instructor maintains that “women don’t have anything to dance about until they are older than 35.” On the other hand, flamenco expertise seems to transcend age and body type.

Carol and Bernard W. are both eligible for senior movie discounts. I met them at Flamenco Arts Company of Santa Rosa, where they were practicing sevillanas, a social dance often done in pairs. In addition to dance, Bernard studies flamenco guitar and was one of two men at class the night I visited.

The other, a 44-year-year old chiropractor named Brian, appreciates flamenco for stress reduction. “I like to make noise and stomp my feet, especially on a Friday night,” he jokes. Brian studies with his wife, a champion ice dancer. “What’s great is that my lack of expertise doesn’t hold her back, as it would in ballroom-type dancing.” Several women agreed that their feelings of strength, femininity and independence through flamenco is in great part due to not needing a partner in order to excel.

“There’s no limit to the things you can try as long as you can still walk,” says Barbara, a 54-year-old designer and builder from Petaluma who has studied flamenco for five years.Barbara says learning this form of dance is like learning to play an instrument– with your feet. “The sound of the shoe is so defined, anyone can tell when you’re off! But when everything is in sync, it’s like those days at the office when you’re wearing high heels and they tick down the hallway. You’ve got things rolling, you’re wide awake and on top of it, you’re making something happen.”

 

Revealing the cultural context is very important to musical artist and scholar Robin Brown, who, with his wife Elena, owns Flamenco Arts. “We are very much into instructing form and style with precise attention to detail, but we also emphasize the total collaboration of forces that make up the community and this huge family of Spanish dances and song. We want our students to know more than just the translation of lyrics. We want them to understand where the music comes from, what the politics and folkways had to do with the expression,” he says.

Many lyrics flowing from the mouth of the cantaores (flamenco singers) were written by poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca, an artist committed to preserving the traditional music of southern Spain. Similarly, the world-renowned Argentinean author Jorge Luis Borges wrote poems that were adapted to tango by many of the genre’s finest composers, such as Astor Piazzolla. Perhaps the music had more resonance for these literary giants, as each was exiled from or politically harassed in their home countries.

There are those who believe that entering and understanding cultures other than their own is the first step toward empathy for “the other,” a pathway to world peace. This is a focus for Darcy, a 45-year-old body worker. “I’m doing this because, for that brief hour, I am not an American,” she explains. “I am part of an entire cultural milieu of people doing palmas (clapping), yelling ‘Olé!’ dancing, singing and thoroughly enjoying themselves.”

The Zangria Latin Supper Club, a Petaluma restaurant, is the only regular venue for live flamenco in the North Bay. Phoebe “La Fibi” Vernier dances in and produces weekly Saturday-night performances there. She also brings in artists who give workshops in authentic technique.

“I grew up on the road with my mother, an Italian immigrant who was a professional Middle Eastern dancer; I was onstage for the first time at the age of four,” Vernier says. “A lifetime with dance has fulfilled something that’s missing for me in American culture–song, music and dance as an integral part of everyday existence.”

The teachers and owners of show venues are of course enthusiastic, but the mostly middle-aged aficionados of tango and flamenco are its best promoters. These students can afford to fly off to Buenos Aires, take jaunts to Spain, book cruises and hold conventions–anything to help perfect their execution and deepen understanding of the originating culture of their beloved dance. They host ever more juergas and milongas, social gatherings where dedicated practice pays off in an evening of big fun.

As one tanguero confessed without apology, “It’s a madness that grips you.”

Famed Spanish flamenco dancer and choreographer José Galván appears in concert with the Flamenco Arts Co. and performers direct from Spain, Friday-Saturday, Aug. 20-21, at the Jackson Theater, Sonoma Country Day School, 4400 Day School Place, Santa Rosa. $25-$35. 707.544.0909.


Spirit Moves You

Here are some handy websites for tango and flamenco history, tips and accessories, as well as North Bay dance venues in which to practice and learn.

Argentine Tango
www.zanabonidesign.com (clothing, accessories)
www.22tangoshoes.com
www.history-of-tango.com
www.thetangolesson.com
www.tangopetaluma.com

Flamenco
www.flamencouniversal.org
www.flamenco-world.com
www.sfflamenco.com/lafibi.html
www.flamencoarts.net

Venues
Ellington Hall, 3535 Industrial Drive, Santa Rosa. 707.545.6150.
Sonoma Community Center, 276 E. Napa St., Sonoma. 707.938.4626.
Flamenco Arts Co., 2337 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. 707.544.0909.
Zangria Latin Supper Club, 1370 Redwood Hwy., Petaluma. 707.795.0119
Lucchesi Community Center, 320 N. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma. 707.778.4380.
Footloose Dance Center, 5320 Old Redwood Hwy., Petaluma. 707.795.8058.

–J.O.

From the July 21-27, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘Othello’ and ‘She Stoops to Conquer’

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‘Othello’ and ‘She Stoops to Conquer’

Oh, Curse of Marriage!: Iago (Paul Sulzman) drips poison into Othello’s ear (Aldo Billingslea) at MSF.

Two Good to See

Marin Shakespeare scores with ‘Othello’ and ‘Conquer’

Othello, which will be celebrating its 400th anniversary this November, is without a doubt one of Shakespeare’s best and most important plays. In the famous tale of forbidden love and newlywed bliss gone very, very bad, Othello is a black mercenary soldier living in Venice who falls for Desdemona, a beautiful white woman, and marries her. But when driven to a jealous rage by another soldier’s false reports of his bride’s infidelity–exacerbated by Othello’s socially reinforced suspicion that his blackness makes him unlovable–he has a breakdown, kills Desdemona and finally himself.

It’s no surprise that in most modern productions of Othello, all of this is played very, uh, sensitively. The play is a tragedy, after all, and like Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and Taming of the Shrew, is packed with material that, while vividly representative of the social attitudes that existed when it was written, could easily be seen as just plain offensive, to today’s audiences. As a result, many directors work so hard to de-emphasize the tricky stuff while highlighting the “important” parts of the play–the poetry, the passion, the sweet and tragic beauty of it all–that they end up with a show that is cautious, denuded and boring.

Talk about a tragedy.

In director Cynthia White’s new production of Othello, one of two shows that opened the 2004 Marin Shakespeare Festival in San Rafael, the issue are presented sensitively enough, with a first-class Othello played by a mesmerizing Aldo Billingslea. But this is a production that embraces Othello for what the Bard most likely intended it to be: a grand, slightly dirty soap opera, and a white-knuckle thriller packed with enough lies, heartless plots, accusations of infidelity and incidents of spousal abuse to thrill the very heart of Jerry Springer. It’s Shakespeare meets the Young and the Restless, and it’s the most entertaining production of Othello you are likely to see.

Jennifer LeBlanc, as Desdemona, maintains the necessary amount of believable virtue but also imbues her with just a hint of fresh, eager sexual enthusiasm, enough to give a veneer of possibility to Othello’s rising suspicions. Those suspicions, as everyone knows who’s seen other productions, are created by the machinations of the evil Iago, Othello’s ambitious third-in-command. This Iago, energetically portrayed by Paul Sulzman, is convincing as a charming sociopath whom nobody should trust and yet everyone does. His oily manipulations of Othello are astonishingly masterful; we can see why everyone keeps saying that Iago is an honest man.

At the heart of any production of Othello, of course, is the love between Desdemona and the Moor of Venice. This one works. Billingslea and LeBlanc are convincingly crazy about each other, even after Othello finally goes crazy.

It is another flavor of insanity entirely that runs the show in the delightfully staged She Stoops to Conquer. In Oliver Goldsmith’s 1771 farce, young Mr. Marlowe, a rich gentleman, is on his way to meet the Hardcastles, the family of the woman his father wants him to marry, none of whom he has never met. For complicated reasons related to the crass tomfoolery of one Tony Lumpkin (Jonathan Gonzalez), Marlowe is tricked into believing he is lost, that the Hardcastle’s house is an inn and that his would-be parents-in-law (the hilarious Phoebe Moyer and George Maguire) are the innkeepers. To say he is rude to them is an understatement. But that’s not the worst of his problems.

Poor Mr. Marlowe (a foppish Darren Bridgett), though charming and witty around barmaids and serving women, becomes a stammering idiot around females of his own social class. When he first meets his intended, the beautiful Miss Kate Hardcastle (Deborah Fink), he is so flummoxed he can’t bear to look her in the face. Later, when he bumps into her after she’s donned more casual attire, he mistakes her for the cleaning woman and falls instantly in love. It’s ridiculous, yes, but it’s extremely well-done, and quite funny.

Too bad Othello didn’t have a Tony Lumpkin on board. Things might have turned out better if he had.

‘Othello’ plays Friday-Sunday through Aug. 15. July 24-25, July 30-Aug. 1 and Aug. 7, 13 and 15 at 8pm; July 25 and Aug. 8 at 4pm. ‘She Stoops to Conquer’ plays July 23, 25, 31, Aug. 6, 8 and 14 at 8pm; Aug. 1 and 15 at 4pm. Dominican University’s Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, San Rafael. 415.499.4488. www.marinshakespeare.org.

From the July 21-27, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Reading

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Reading

We Don’t Need No Thought Control: Leave your kids alone.

My Back Pages

Rock ‘n’ roll reading

By Greg Cahill

Say what you want about Albert Goldman– the Kitty Kelley of rock writers–but his cutting, no-holds-barred biographies of such rock icons as Elvis Presley and John Lennon put the false images of our heroes under the full glare of the sun. In true Hollywood Babylon-style–and unlike Greil Marcus, who could find a fathomless ocean of mystery in every note Robbie Robertson ever played–Goldman plowed fearlessly through the sordid backwater of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, earning enemies but making for great summer reading.

In that same spirit, Stephen Davis’ newly released biography Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend (Gotham; $27.50) offers steamy reading, with previously untold accounts of Morrison’s seldom-talked-about bisexuality, giving perhaps new insight into the Doors’ decision to cover the old Willie Dixon blues song “Back Door Man” on the band’s eponymous 1967 debut. Still, when it comes to Morrison’s bisexuality, much more is implied here than actually stated, like the singer’s alleged sexual encounter with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones.

Goldman himself even pops up in one account, in which Morrison, clad in skin-tight leather pants, allegedly produced an erection while being interviewed by the critic. Accord-ing to British press reports, lawyers excised a sado-masochistic affair between the Lizard King and a major Hollywood star.

For the most part, you’ll have to settle for stories about Morrison copping blow jobs from Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico in the bathroom at Andy Warhol’s Factory (Morrison declined a role in Warhol’s avant-garde skin flick Fuck); the FBI’s lengthy surveillance of the singer; and the drunken exploits preceding his 1971 death in Paris.

Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll also take center stage in Taboo Tunes: A History of Banned Bands and Censored Songs (Backbeat; $17.95), in which author Peter Blecha casts a fresh eye on the travails of musicians–Billie Holiday, Woody Guthrie, Frank Zappa, Nirvana, 2 Live Crew, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, et al.–who have come under fire over the years for challenging the mores of their times with provocative lyrics. If you can get past the tirades, Taboo Tunes reads like an essential primer for a Culture Wars 101 course. Blecha comes across as a bit naive at times but does a good job of exposing the morality police as they continue their self-righteous attacks.

“It always amazes me how these God-fearing freedom fighters are so ready to spit on the First Amendment every time they see the bogeyman,” shock-rocker Rob Zombie tells Blecha.

Meanwhile, Rob Jovanovic’s Perfect Sound Forever: The Story of Pavement (Justin, Charles and Co.; $19.99), sporting a pleasingly upscale fanzine design, takes a reverential approach to its subject. Jovanovic, a British writer and frequent contributor to Mojo and Record Collector, tumbles head over heels as he tells the tale of the pioneering Stockton, Calif., indie-rock band that was one of the most influential acts of the ’90s.

To his credit, Jovanovic serves as an informed literary tour guide, taking the reader backstage as the rock scene is transformed in the post-punk maelstrom by such innovative bands of the times as Pavement, Sonic Youth and Nirvana.

But the mother of all new music biographies has to be Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie (Norton; $29.95) by Ed Cray. Best known for his earlier portraits of such nonmusical historical figures as Gen. George C. Marshall and former Chief Justice Earl Warren, Cray gained access to a treasure trove of unpublished letters, diaries and journals at the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives to create a compelling look of this legendary champion of the underdog.

Cray never goes for the jugular, à la Goldman, but he makes it clear that Guthrie wasn’t exactly the consummate family man. Guthrie’s second wife, Marjorie, emerges as the real hero of this story for her willingness to stand by her man so that the rest of us could reap the fruits of his Dust Bowl-era genius.

Meanwhile, look for Bonnie Marson’s quirky novel Sleeping with Schubert (Random House; $21.95) to become a real summer sleeper. This fast read describes a female pianist who becomes a musical genius after she is possessed, literally, by the spirit of the late-19th-century Viennese composer Franz Schubert, who is hell-bent on completing his famous Unfinished Symphony. Light and breezy, Marson fills this charming book with witty observations about growing up, struggling with bad hair and just trying to get by. The newly released companion CD, Sleeping with Schubert (Sony Classical), will put you right in touch with the great man himself.

From the July 21-27, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival

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Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Photograph by Andree Lanthier

Jean, Dark: Tyler Layton is Joan of Arc in the ‘Henry’ trilogy.

Touring Company

A trip to Ashland is well worth the drive

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland is a traveler’s festival. The annual eight-month-long event features 11 plays in rotating repertory, five by Shakespeare, the rest by classic and contemporary authors. Each year, the Shakespeare plays are a mix of famous crowd-pleasers and obscure, little-performed “problem plays,” like this year’s magnificent tackling of the Bard’s seldom-seen first play (actually, plays, plural), an epic trilogy about England’s least impressive monarch, Henry VI, a king who dreams of giving up the throne, and gets his wish, though not the way he wanted.

According to figures published by the festival, 88 percent of its audience trek more than 125 miles to attend plays during the festival’s run, and nearly half of its total audience travel from California, with about 7 percent from the North Bay. Last year, of the 381,000 tickets sold–approximately 120,000 actual theatergoers seeing 3 1/2 plays apiece–just under 10,000 seats were occupied by the Shakespeare-loving derrieres from Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties. Ten thousand people covering approximately 350 miles (one way) to see 3 1/2 theatrical productions, many of which were written by a guy who died over 400 years ago–that’s impressive.

Almost as impressive as Henry VI, Part One, and Henry VI, Parts Two and Three, as directed by Libby Appel and Scott Kaiser.

The first, staged in the OSF’s intimate New Theater, is enormously entertaining, employing a hard-working cast, some playing several roles, in a tale about a young king (Henry, usually performed by the temporarily sinus-infected Cristofer Jean, but well-tackled the day I saw it by understudy Jason McBeath), whose disinterest in politics allowed the bloody War of the Roses to blossom around him.

As conceived here, the first part of the trilogy is less about Henry than it is about war hero Sir John Talbot (Jonathan Haugen) and a suitably brave but pleasantly unstable Joan la Pucelle, aka Joan of Arc (Tyler Layton), battling and debating over the fate of France. The play is a lean two hours long, and staged a little like a hockey game, with a fortress representing France on one side of the theater and England on the other, and with all the players ping-ponging back and forth in an attempt to score a military goal, it’s pulse-pounding, eye-popping fun.

Parts Two and Three have been ingeniously combined into one play, performed outdoors on the majestic outdoor Elizabethan stage. A slightly older, now-married Henry (Gregory Linington understudying for the still-ailing Jean) wrestles with his country’s political troubles, which include a hostile takeover attempt on part of the York family, descendants of Richard II, from whom Henry’s grandfather stole the throne several decades back. Henry’s biggest problem, however, is his wife Margaret (the amazing, elastic Robin Goodrin Nordli), a bloodthirsty mama on a par with Lady Macbeth, only less likely to ever go mad with guilt.

Stealing the show (and eventually, the crown) is James Newcomb as Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the handicapped hunchback who will one day become Richard III. Newcomb is funny and sarcastic, but also vicious and scary; he’s not the kind of guy who you’d want to appear in a room you are all alone in, which, sadly, is what Henry probably thinks when Richard shows up, grinning, late in this vastly enjoyable, unfairly demeaned play.

Newcomb nearly steals the show again as Dogberry in Much Ado about Nothing, the famous comedy in which Shakespeare serves up two wealthy couples, each of them becoming the subject of a separate elaborate plot in which their lives and futures are rudely messed around with. Giddy misogynist Benedick (Brent Harris) and sharp-witted, love-spurning Beatrice (Nordli) both detest one another, so of course they will be tricked (by friends, no less) into falling in love.

Meanwhile, young Claudio (Jos Viramontes) and Hero (Tyler Layton), who have fallen for one another upon first sight, will be very nearly torn apart by an evil conspiracy worked by nasty people (not friends) intent on wrecking the couple’s wedding.

Directed by Laird Williamson, this energetic, screwball comedy version of Much Ado is given a Jazz Age spin, with festive paper lanterns inching along above the set (again in the Elizabethan Theatre), and with characters clad in tuxedos and evening gowns as they leap about and hide behind bushes. While there are other side-plots, confusions and peripheral conflicts, any production of Much Ado depends on the dramatic believability of its two central couples, and these actors make their characters breathe with authentic puppy love.

Other highlights of this year’s festival are a very funny Las Vegas-style version of The Comedy of Errors, starring Ray Porter and Christopher DuVal as two sets of identical twins, separated at birth but thrown together by accident. Gangsters are involved. Lastly, Kenneth Albers plays the title role of King Lear in a gutsy, pagan-powered production that emphasizes the heartbreak of poor, deluded Lear, while having some first-rate fun with all the gooey villainy of the play’s many bad men and even badder women.

Lorraine Hansberry’s mighty American drama A Raisin in the Sun–mounted in Ashland’s amazing Angus Bowmer Theatre by director Andrea Frye–is among the strongest in an especially strong crop of non-Shakespearean plays. Dreams are at the heart of the beautifully staged Raisin, about an African-American family in 1954 Chicago. Though Richard L. Hay’s astonishing set is rooted in gritty realism (the Younger family’s apartment home not only looks lived in, it features a working kitchen sink and stove), throughout much of the play, a mysterious patch of bright blue sky hangs suspended over the set, fading in and out as the family’s dreams–mainly those related to owning their own house–slip closer to reality before lurching suddenly away.

The entire cast is first-rate, but it is Crystal Fox’s astonishing embodiment of world-weary Ruth Younger and Chris Butler’s heartbreaking rage as Ruth’s chauffeur husband Walter Lee that anchor the show in reality, while Pat Bowie’s steely and matriarchal Lena propels the story forward into the powerful “blue sky” of unbending hope and hard-won humanity. The show is proving to be a word-of-mouth favorite in Ashland.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore., runs through Oct. 31. Call 541.482.4331 for program details, or visit www.orshakes.org.

From the July 14-20, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Danny Sorentino

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Danny Sorentino

Erudite: Singer-songwriter Danny Sorentino picks up a few quick tips before heading out.

On the Town

Danny Sorentino chases the vibe on an all-night tour of his favorite local spots

“No loitering–sidewalk closes at night,” reads the large red sign outside of A’Roma Roasters in Santa Rosa. Scurrying up the sidewalk on a recent warm Saturday night, I try not to look loiter-like as I hurtle toward A’Roma’s front entrance. It’s about 8:30pm, and Danny Sorentino leans out from the light-filled doorway to greet me. “Hey. Not a bad crowd for so early in the evening,” he pronounces, ushering me in.

The place is indeed reasonably well-occupied, with a mix of coffee-sipping young people of the teens-and-20s variety, many with meticulous bleached-blond Mohawks or dangly-twinkly piercings, and a lot of colorful over-20s running the gamut from balding chess players and laptop cowboys to pony-tailed hipsters here to be hypnotized by the music of the live band. Tonight, the featured act is the Alexis Harte Band, a tight Americana-folk foursome from Berkeley playing in a cramped corner of the coffeehouse.

“So, have you heard of these guys?” I ask Sorentino.

He shakes his head.

“They have a nice Dave Matthews thing going,” he observes, “with the fiddle and the guitar and drums, and their drummer’s using a cocktail drum set. Very cool. Let’s grab some drinks, then we’ll find a table.”

With that, we get in line for a cup of coffee.

We’ll need the caffeine, because A’Roma’s is just the first of five live music establishments Sorentino and I will be visiting between now and midnight, just a small sampling, selected by Sorentino, of the diverse music and dancing scene that exists, mostly without cover charge, in the North Bay.

A longtime fixture of the Bay Area music scene, Danny Sorentino is practically my relative, his wife being the sister of the wife of my wife’s brother. He’s also co-host with Doug Smith of KRSH 95.9-FM’s Friday morning show DS Squared, a funny, thrust-and-parry preweekend sneak peek at live musical events around the Bay Area.

But more to the point, his enduringly popular roots-rock band the Sorentinos have performed hundreds of shows in this area, recorded boxloads of CDs and been featured in numerous movies and television shows (90210, anybody?). Having appeared all over Northern California and beyond, the Sorentinos have opened for acts like Peter Frampton, Chicago, Bob Dylan and Hootie and the Blowfish, and will be touring Europe this fall in support of their new CD, Love and Haight (Jackalope).

In short, Sorentino knows his musical way around the county. Over the years, he has accumulated a stunning wealth of knowledge about what it takes to have a good time when searching for live music, mostly for free. From the perspective of a performer and a consumer, Sorentino has developed an expert’s eye as to what’s cool–and what isn’t.

He likes the vibe at A’Roma, the one local venue where his teenage kids can actually come hear him play. “This is a very user-friendly place,” he says. And from a musician’s perspective, it’s evidently a good place to try out new material. “For one thing, there are no TVs with the sports channel on,” he says, waiting to speak until the band is between songs. “That’s my one pet peeve– TVs turned on when the band is trying to play. Bugs the hell out of me.”

We listen to the next three tunes, after which Sorentino, noticing that the band’s tip jar has only one $5 bill in it, scopes out a more rominent location for the jar and boldly relocates it to a spot closer to the band.

“No one’s making a lot of money in this business,” he remarks, signaling that it’s time to head out to our next spot. “Most musical artists in this area all work on spec; they work for nothing or next to nothing, hoping something big will happen someday. These guys are good, they’re way above average, but if they’re going to work in this area, they’ll need all the help they can get.”

Out in the parking lot, we stop to plot out the plan for the rest of our night. The good news, Sorentino explains, is that it’s never hard to find great live music somewhere in the North Bay on your average Saturday night.

“There are a lot of people out there who play,” he says, “and a lot of it is pretty high quality. It’s not like it was back in the ’70s and late ’80s, but it’s good.”

The local scene in the ’70s is now the stuff of legend, drawing people from San Francisco every weekend who were thrilled to soak up some of the energy generated by John Lee Hooker and Kate Wolf and Van Morrison; by Terry Garthwaite and Commander Cody and Jesse Colin Young and Perfect Crime; by Eddie B. Barlow and Lazy Bones and all the various member of the Grateful Dead. While today’s local music scene may no longer shake the world the way it did 30 years ago, Sorentino believes that those legendary days are still having a positive impact on the North Bay.

“Those guys set the bar,” he says, “and to this day, the basic level of musicianship in these counties is very, very high overall.”

On the other hand . . .

“For musicians, back in those days,” Sorentino continues, “there were just a lot more places to play, so you could actually make a living in this area, just playing in the Bay Area. There were places all over, and a lot of them continued until the late ’80s. But now, forget it. Most of those places are gone. Most people can’t make a living doing music in this area any more.”

On the other other hand . . .

“The good thing,” he says, “is that with fewer spots for bands to play, and a higher grade of local talent than you’d get in a lot of other places, you can almost always open up the paper and be able to find a good show somewhere close by.”

With that, Sorentino suggests the Twin Oaks, on Redwood Highway near Petaluma, for our next stop.

“Who’s playing tonight?” I ask.

“I have no idea,” he laughs.

The parking lot of the Twin Oaks is jammed with semis, dozens of pickups and countless motorcycles. Led Zeppelin music oozes from the building’s walls. The police sobriety checkpoint just up the road (thanks to which I am now the proud owner of a pamphlet entitled, “We Thank the Sober Driver–We Arrest the Rest”) has apparently done little to discourage tonight’s attendance.

“Now, if you’ve never been here before,” Sorentino says, “you should know that the Twin Oaks is not a place you go for meaningful conversation. This is a bit of old Sonoma County, a place for country and rhythm and blues music, hard-drinking, have-some-fun music. A’Roma’s, now that’s a place where you might listen to the lyrics and actually entertain some intellectual notion about them. Here at the Twin Oaks, there’s no such thing. People who come in here want to drink hard and they want to have some fun–fast. They want music that fits that vibe. I guarantee that whatever this band turns out to be, they’re going to be very, uh, primal.”

Clearly enjoying his tour-guide role, he holds the door open. “Welcome to the classic American blue-collar bar! Notice that the pool table is the primary decorative centerpiece, and that there is not one but several television sets, all tuned to sports stations. That one has rodeo!” he marvels. Our fellow patrons are a blend of bikers and dairy farmers, muscle-shirted youths and white-haired old-timers, livestock wranglers and beefy truck drivers. Not a Mohawk in the bunch.

The bartender informs us that tonight’s band, currently on break after their first set, are a local group known as Road Hog and the Rippers. Sounds pretty primal to me.

Fifteen minutes later, the band are back from their break.

“Oh God, look at this!” Sorentino says in a low voice. “These guys are perfect!” Road Hogg and the Rippers look exactly like a motorcycle gang. Maybe they are a motorcycle gang, who knows–they’re certainly jolly.

“Glad you all made it through the checkpoint,” grins lead singer Bob Cuozzo, adding, “Hey! Can someone cut the jukebox, please?”

The Rippers’ first tune is a cover of an old Rolling Stones song, and Sorentino hollers, “These guys are great!” After playing an original tune with the refrain “Let’s burn it down! Let’s burn it down!” they slide into an excellent cover of George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone.” A couple of songs later, Sorentino gives me the thumbs up; it’s time to move on.

Once outside, he says, “Man! These guys were good. But hey, look at ’em. If they’re not good, who’s gonna tell them? Not me!”

“So what’s next?” I ask.

“Now, for something completely different,” he says. “Next stop, the Black Cat.”

The Black Cat, in downtown Penngrove, used to be called Kelly’s Bar, another old Sonoma County saloon for serious drinkers, but the place changed hands a few years ago and was soon transformed into something a little different–and a lot more entertaining.

“The Black Cat is basically a very cool lesbian bar,” Sorentino explains, outside the establishment’s back door, “but it’s a really laid-back, open lesbian bar. I hosted an open mic night here last month. Great vibe. The crowd was totally, totally fun, totally cool, a lot of couples. I love it here.”

It’s about 10:30pm now, but the place isn’t very full, only about 10 or so people, in all three of the basic gender-coupling combinations. There are two TVs, one that seems to play only commercials and the other tuned to the Food Channel. Iron Chef is on.

Unfortunately, we’ve arrived on a night when no live music is offered; we should have been here Friday. Tonight, the Black Cat is featuring an ’80s-oriented DJ from Santa Rosa’s weekly Rock ‘n’ Roll Sunday School gig spinning a dance-heavy groove officially titled Saturday Service. As we find seats at the bar, a strobe light hits the dance floor, and the invisible DJ cranks up the Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl,” followed by Roxy Music’s “Love Is the Drug.”

“You know, the Black Cat is less than a mile away from the Twin Oaks,” Sorentino notes, “but it’s a completely different world.”

He orders us a couple of pints, for which we are charged a total of five bucks. “Five bucks for two Pabst Blue Ribbons,” he toasts. “How can you beat that?”

Now we’re listening to the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me,” which proves so exciting a lure that, a few seconds later, the bartender is out on the dance floor shaking it.

“Like I said, the Black Cat is very relaxed,” shrugs Sorentino. “It’s just an easygoing place to hang out and have a good time. Look, even the bartender is having a good time. You put another 20 people in this place, and it’d be a fuckin’ scream.”

The Cotati hub, a few miles north of Penngrove, is a kind of musical magic triangle, formed by Spancky’s (“Mostly cover bands playing ZZ Top biker music,” says Sorentino); Sweet Lou’s Italian restaurant, featuring a small attached jazz club; and the landmark bar and music spot, the Tradewinds.

We head for the Tradewinds.

Holding court tonight is the Jody Counter Band, who pretty much own the fourth Saturday of the month at “the ‘Winds,” as it’s known to regulars. A popular spot for live music, the ‘Winds focuses on offering solid R&B music and good straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll. Jody Counter is an exceptional guitarist whose monthly appearance here attracts a lot of appreciative fellow musicians.

“In my opinion, this is the best bar in the county for top-notch, original rock ‘n’ roll music,” Sorentino says, shouting to be heard above the music. “The Tradewinds is one of my favorite spots in the county–maybe because I played some of my first gigs here.”

The Counter band have just played a cover of Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing.” On the final chord, the crowd explodes in approval.

“He just pulled off a perfect, note-for-note rendition of that guitar solo!” says Sorentino, pointing to Counter. “Look at all these people. They know they just heard something pretty great.”

A number of dancers, maybe a dozen or so, have been showing their appreciation by rocking out wherever they can find the space to do so. One exuberant dancer is doing her thing so close to the band that she keeps coming within striking range of the bass player’s swinging guitar.

As the band slides into the opening chords of AC/DC’s “Live Wire,” the Woman Who Dances Too Close again begins to leap and lurch her way up and around the band, punching her fist in the air, pulling so close that someone steps up to move her away, and when that fails, simply picks her gently up, draping her over his shoulder, and carries her to the back of the room, where she starts dancing again as if nothing happened.

“Wow!” Sorentino shouts, as the song comes its rousing rowdy conclusion. “How can someone not love this?”

At 11:30pm, we’re back on the sidewalk, where loitering actually seems to be encouraged. The scene is electric and alive, with people talking, singing and hanging out. It’s the natural environment created when you have three decent music spots within a few dozen yards of each other.

“Check it out now,” says Sorentino. “We’ve been to four places in three hours, and we have yet to be asked to pay a cover charge. I wanted to show that, though there may be a lot fewer clubs than there used to be, you can still go out any weekend and hear some really great music–for free!”

We’re about to break the cycle, because now Sorentino is curious about the scene over at Sweet Lou’s, where a rap/funk/hip-hop/reggae band called Fish Out of Water are playing. For that we’ll cough up five bucks apiece. But right now, Sorentino has one last point to make.

“Even though, earlier in the night, I was sounding like the voice of doom and gloom,” he says, “even though I think it is true that there are not as many places to play as there once were in this area, I think we’ve proved that, as far as the music-loving audience is concerned, anyone has a pretty good shot at going out, just like we did, to see whoever’s playing and falling into whatever kind of vibe you want to fall into.

“If you’re a blue-collar guy, there’s the Twin Oaks. You’re a college kid from SSU, you can go to A’Roma’s or come to Sweet Lou’s. There are plenty of places to fall in and find some good music.

“And tonight,” he grins, starting across the street to hear more music, “we’ve just scratched the surface.”


Do It Like Danny

A’Roma Roasters and Coffeehouse
95 Fifth St., Railroad Square, Santa Rosa. 707.576.7765.

Black Cat Bar and Cafe
56 Main St., Penngrove. 707.793.9480.

Spancky’s
8201 Old Redwood Hwy., Cotati. 707.664.0169.

Sweet Lou’s Family Trattoria
8201 Old Redwood Hwy., Cotati. 707.793.0955.

Twin Oaks Tavern
5745 Old Redwood Hwy., Penngrove. 707.795.5118.

From the July 14-20, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Swirl ‘n’ Spit

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Swirl ‘n’ Spit

Swirl ‘n’ Spit
Tasting Room of the Week

Preston Vineyards

By Heather Irwin

Lowdown: The story goes something like this: winery owner Lou Preston wanted Italian marble for his tasting room bar counter. The designer warned against installing the expensive marble, concerned that the very porous marble would be easily stained by red wine spills. Then the customers had better not spill, Preston replied.

The marble counter, with a few red wine stains, still sits at the center of the tasting room. Preston is a notoriously exacting kind of guy. He doesn’t like kids messing around on the bocce court unattended and he leaves notes for the staff when they mess up his bread-baking kitchen. But that exacting nature and desire for order makes for some damn good wine. And it’s why, when you ask so many folks around Sonoma which is their favorite winery, more than a few of them will tell you they’re huge fans of the quirky Preston.

The Dry Creek Valley winery sits far north on West Dry Creek Road, with a sign at the entrance detailing the rules of the winery. No outside wine, limited picnic facilities, no beer and, oh, feel free to hug the cats. It’s a lovely place, with organic vegetables for sale near the door and some of Preston’s homemade bread almost always for sale. Follow the rules and you’ll have a great time.

Mouth value: The winery recently cut production from some 30,000 cases down to 8,000 annually so that the Prestons could have more control over the process. The 2003 Viognier ($25) is a great summer wine with lots of floral, apricot and tropical fruit notes–typical of the varietal–but a lot less overtly flirty than many. The 2003 Vin Gris ($15) is made from 30 percent Mourvedre and 70 percent Cinsault. The wine is pink, yes; simpering, no. The Mourvedre gives a healthy infusion of power while allowing the wine to keep its gentle sensibilities.

Reds, however, are the bread and butter. The 2002 Mourvedre has deep, dark fruit and chocolate with a nice tannic nip. The 2002 Sangiovese is tarter and fruiter–a sort of mid-afternoon romp through the blueberry bushes. The 2001 L. Preston Red, in the stenciled bottle, is a favorite, a Rhone-style blend of Syrah, Mouvedre, Carigane and Cinsault with lots of dark cherry flavor. We also enjoyed the hearty, vanilla and oak-heavy Syrah ($18), though in 95 degree heat, it felt a like wearing a wool sweater in August.

Don’t Miss: Sundays are the best day to visit. The bread is usually fresh, and it’s the only day you can get the Guadagni jug wine straight from the barrels. Jim Guadangi was an Italian farming neighbor of the Prestons who inspired the simple home-grown blend. Preston’s wife, Susan, designed the labels and will grab a huge jug from the shelf and fill it up personally while you eagerly wait.

Spot: Preston of Dry Creek, 9282 West Dry Creek Road, Healdsburg. Open daily, 11am to 4:30pm. Tasting fee, $3. 707.433.3372.

From the July 14-20, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Video Voyeurism

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Video Voyeurism

Through a Glass Darkly: Technology is unintentionally aiding creeps.

Voyeur Victims

New technology changes one Sonoma family’s life forever

By R. V. Scheide

Last October, Michael Heintz picked up a recently purchased digital camera and crept out into the Santa Rosa night. He stood outside his 15-year-old stepdaughter’s bedroom window and waited for her to undress. For motives he claims he doesn’t understand, he began snapping pictures of the naked teenager.

During the course of the next month, Heintz made 122 clandestine digital photographs of his stepdaughter in various states of undress, including extreme close-ups of her body. He downloaded the pictures into a file that he titled “Covert2” on his laptop computer. In late November of last year, his stepdaughter accidentally discovered the nude photos of herself, and the lives of this family were changed forever.

Heintz, 41, the former operations manager at the Summerfield Waldorf School in Santa Rosa, currently resides in the Sonoma County Jail, convicted on misdemeanor charges of child pornography and invasion of privacy. In addition to the photographs of his stepdaughter, police also found child pornography downloaded from the Internet on his computer.

His stepdaughter, whose name is protected due to her age, now reportedly suffers from disorders ranging from delayed stress syndrome to anorexia. Her mother, who wishes to simply be known as Kathy, suffers from similar stress-related disorders and wonders how the man she knew for 13 years and with whom she had a son could turn their world so upside down.

“I remember spinning around,” says Kathy, 38, recalling the incident recently at an outdoor cafe in Sonoma, where she currently rents a home. “No! This can’t be real, this can’t be true!”

But the virtual images turned out to be all too real, and she’s been spinning ever since, trying to reconcile progressive sensibilities about crime and punishment with her own desire for justice for her family.

“I didn’t want jail time at first,” she says of Heintz’s sentencing. She’d heard about a special halfway house near San Diego. “I wanted a live-in program. This was somebody I loved very dearly. I didn’t wish for anyone to go to jail.”

In April, Heintz, who has no previous criminal record, pleaded guilty to four of the 22 misdemeanor counts of possessing child pornography and invasion of privacy lodged against him. In exchange, the Sonoma County district attorney reduced his jail sentence from one year to six months. With time off for good behavior, Heintz, who declined to be interviewed for this article, could serve as little as four months.

Now that justice has run its course, Kathy has changed her tune.

She feels let down by the legal system and thinks Heintz should have gotten a much stiffer sentence. “The way they chose to prosecute him was mild, the plea bargain was a joke.” she says. “I thought the whole thing was a farce, in a way.”

In addition to jail time, Heintz was sentenced to three years probation and required to register as a sex offender with the appropriate local authorities for the rest of his life as long as he remains a California resident. How much punishment would be enough?

“It depends on how you look at,” says Santa Rosa attorney Stephen Gallenson, who defended Heintz in court. “I know Michael and I don’t think he would ever do this again. But from the perspective of breaking Kathy’s trust, you could give him 10 years and it still wouldn’t be enough for her.”

For Kathy, the sense of betrayal was deepened by the fact that for the past four years, she’s been studying the growing worldwide phenomenon of child trafficking and sexual exploitation at the California Institute for Integrative Studies, where she’s completing a doctorate in psychology. For her final project for her BA, she traveled to the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, India and Nepal in 2002 to research child prostitution firsthand.

That same year, she wrote a research paper titled “A Historical and Cross-Cultural Look at the Long-Standing Existence of Adult-Child Sexual Practices and the Current Polemics Surrounding Pedophelia.” As she notes in the report: “[T]he sexual exploitation of children has alarmingly escalated with the advent of the Internet. Today, in a world that knows no boundaries, millions of children are victims of child pornography and child trafficking.”

Waiting outside his stepdaughter’s bedroom window last October, Michael Heintz was fully aware of child pornography’s alarming escalation. He’d edited many of Kathy’s papers, including the report cited above. He grasped the new digital camera, cool and compact in his hand, and allowed his boundaries to expand.

We are getting a lot of computer stuff,” says Detective John Schnetzinger of the Santa Rosa Police Department’s sex crime unit, who investigated the Heintz case but could not comment specifically on it. “We know that people who molest children also like child pornography. The digital age is upon us.”

The legal system is having a hard time keeping pace with the digital age. Nowhere is this more clear than in the realm of erotica–witness the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to ban enforcement of 1998’s Child Online Protection Act, which would have forced web-porn purveyors to limit access to minors, because such limitations probably violate the First Amendment rights of adults.

Today, sex and tech are meshing on levels that are both enlightening and frightening, as the culture grows more free but also provides ready access to depictions of deviancies ranging from bestiality to pedophilia and beyond. Terms such as “up-skirting,” which refers to using a hidden digital camera or camcorder to secretly photograph underneath the clothing of unwitting female subjects, then uploading the images to the web, have entered the popular lexicon. Voyeurism has come out of the closet–and into courtrooms ill-prepared to deal with it.

“Today’s video voyeur may be little more than the next generation of yesterday’s peeping Tom,” notes legal scholar Lance E. Rothenberg in a 2001 American University Law Review article on rethinking privacy rights in the digital age. “Video voyeurism, however, is a far more intrusive and disturbing wrong than mere window peeping. Modern electronics have transformed the deviant, usually solitary, act of peeping into a booming and perverse online industry.”

Many states, California included, have responded to such phenomenon as up-skirting with legislation that recognizes the potentially pervasive aspects of new technology. In 2002 California modified its existing violation of privacy statute with new language stating that anyone using a camera or camcorder to secretly “shoot under or through the clothing of an individual . . . with the intent to arouse, appeal to or gratify the lust, passions or sexual desires” is guilty of violating that person’s privacy, a misdemeanor. A previous change to the statute recognized the growing popularity of digital cameras and camcorders, prohibiting their use on unsuspecting victims in public places where a “reasonable expectation of privacy” exists.

Heintz pled guilty to two counts of this latter modified statute, which makes no mention of the perpetrator’s intent. In fact, according to two psychiatrists who examined Heintz before his sentencing hearing this April, Heintz claims not to have understood his intentions when he took the photos of his stepdaughter. As defense attorney Gallenson notes in the defendant’s sentencing brief: “[The prosecution’s examining psychiatrist, Dr. Donald Apostle,] notes a strong tone of denial running through the interview regarding the sexuality of the photographs but also notes that Mr. Heintz has been in therapy trying to ascertain his motivations.”

Dr. Apostle, Gallenson said, had found that Heintz was not a pedophile, but a “voyeur,” stating that “voyeurs are very passive people who do not physically attack and are no physical danger to the victim.” For that reason, Gallenson argued that his client should not be subject to a long incarceration.

“It is suggested that a lengthy jail sentence will do nothing to let this defendant know and completely understand the impact he has had on his [family],” Gallenson argued. “This is because jail is impersonal and the pain that has been caused in this case is anything but impersonal.”

There was another option, Gallenson suggested. “What would be more appropriate in this case is for the defendant to be required to sit before his family on a regular basis, in a neutral setting with a therapist involved, to hear from the them, the ones that he loves, how they have been effected by his actions.”

This suggestion didn’t go over well with Kathy or her daughter, who hasn’t spoken to Heintz since discovering the photos.

“I was floored!” Kathy recalls. “We were presented with this just before the sentencing. It was an insult.”

If Heintz had attempted to distribute the pictures of his stepdaughter on the Internet, he could have been charged with felony child pornography. He pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing child pornography, which is punishable as a misdemeanor on the first offense. Kathy thinks state law should be changed so that possession of child pornography is a felony on the first offense. She supports a wide-ranging ballot initiative, the Sexual Predator Punishment and Megan’s Law Expansion Act, currently circulating throughout the state. If the initiative qualifies for the ballot and is approved by voters, it would, among other things, make possession of child pornography a felony in California.

In addition to six months in jail, three years of probation and having to register as a sex offender in the state of California for the rest of his life, Heintz is prohibited from working as a teacher and is not allowed to be alone around children. He is subject to regular polygraph examinations during his probation and must undergo therapy at his own expense. Communication with his stepdaughter is forbidden and he currently has only supervised visitation rights with his son.

There’s no doubt that Michael Heintz has lost a lot. “He was charged with the best we could charge him with,” says Sonoma County deputy district attorney Phil Abrahams. “He got a reasonable sentence.”

Kathy disagrees. She intellectualized her pain at first, holding it at bay. But her ex-partner’s continued denial of the crime’s sexuality, the reduced jail sentence, the knowledge that convicted sex offenders in California have to register with law enforcement authorities but are not required to, say, notify new neighbors of their criminal past all continue to eat away at her. Heintz didn’t physically touch anyone, but Kathy feels like she and her whole family have been molested.

“He’s not a violent person, but I know from experience that he doesn’t know his own boundaries,” she says. “I want his neighborhood to know, so they can close their shutters.”

For more information on the Sexual Predator Punishment and Megan’s Law Expansion Act, visit www.projectkidsafe.org.

From the July 14-20, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Dave Mac Nab

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Dave Mac Nab

In the Moment: Dave Mac Nab keeps it fresh.

The Sound of Science

Dave Mac Nab fires up his jazz lab

By Greg Cahill

After 12 weeks working as a hired gun in the house bands for the national touring productions of The Lion King and Hairspray in San Francisco’s theater district, guitarist Dave Mac Nab is eager to get back to his experimental crucible of sound, the Dave Mac Nab Jazz Lab. “I’m hungry to play!” says the highly sought-after bandleader, sideman, session player and songwriter.

Now living in Sebastopol, the New York- born and L.A.-raised musician has shared the stage over the years with Sting, Shelby Lynne, k.d. lang, Matchbox 20, Jeff Beck, Bob Weir, Rickie Lee Jones and a host of other acts. But it is the Dave Mac Nab Jazz Lab–equal parts rock, funk, Latin and blues, and with a strong rhythmic drive–that serves as the main outlet for his creativity.

The Jazz Lab is drawn from a loose-knit confederation of about 10 players, many from the same San Francisco avant-jazz collective that spawned Gen-X jazz guitarists Charlie Hunter and Will Bernard, and violinist Jenny Scheinman. That talent-laden pool of players includes drummers Scott Amendola (of the Charlie Hunter Quartet), Ches Smith (of Theory of Ruin), Jason Lewis, Alan U’ren and Devon Hoff, and bassists Todd Sickafoose and John Shifflett, among others.

“Personnel decisions are based on a combination of what I feel like doing on a particular night, and of course, who’s available,” explains Mac Nab, who has recorded two CDs on the Noir label. “But no matter who’s playing, I can count on any of them to be on the same page as me. And sometimes I really like it when the band comes together at the last minute. While I know it’s a little confusing for promotion of the shows, it’s cool because I don’t have time to think about the gig too much, therefore keeping it fresh and spontaneous.

“This is the spirit of the Lab–keeping the music fresh, honest and alive, regardless of the personnel or repertoire.”

That sense of spontaneity comes to play during the song selection process as well, and it lends the proceedings an adventurous edge. “To me, with this type of instrumental music, it’s not so much the songs themselves, but rather how they’re played,” Mac Nab says. “That’s why a typical night for me will include Thelonious Monk, Paul Simon, Cole Porter, Sting, the Beatles, Duke Ellington, Radiohead and originals all mashed together, with the cohesion supplied by the players and their interpretations.

“I’ve never made a claim that what I’m doing here is revolutionary or groundbreaking,” he adds, “it’s just honest, in-the-moment playing that attempts to incorporate the different styles I like to play.

“We’re all up there playing from the heart, and that seems to be what the folks love to hear.”

The Dave Mac Nab Jazz Lab with drummer Alan U’ren and other players to be named performs on Thursday, July 15, at Zebulon’s Lounge, 21 Fourth St., Petaluma. 8pm. $6. 707.769.7948.


Spin Du Jour

Carla Bley (piano), Andy Sheppard (soprano and tenor sax), Steve Swallow (bass) and Billy Drummond (drums)
‘The Lost Chords’ (ECM/WATT)

Jazz pianist and post-bop composer extraordinaire Carla Bley, who organized this all-star session, calls The Lost Chords “a continuation of a search . . . of one small corner of American music.” This follow-up to 2003’s critically acclaimed big-band album Looking for America has as its genesis the frustration that Bley experienced as a child disappointed to learn that Sir Arthur Bliss’ piano music “The Lost Chord” proved harmonically ordinary.

Years later, Bley is still searching for that lost chord, and she’s come up with some doozies, including some too difficult to play on piano. She employs them throughout (while giving the rhythm section inspiring and challenging parts) on nine songs that include the title track (which opens with an entrancing slow movement), a 15-minute arrangement of “Three Blind Mice,” and “Tropical Depression,” a revamped version of an earlier previously unrecorded Bley piece once known as “4/4 Under the Volcano.”

This newly released CD, full of catchy melodies and evoking a sense of melancholia, goes a long way to further Bley’s reputation as one of the most consistently intriguing figures in the experimental-jazz scene. Visit www.wattxtrawatt.com for Bley’s extensive account of the recording of this project–truly one of the most eccentric blogs on the Internet.

–G.C.

From the July 14-20, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘Metallica: Some Kind of Monster’

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‘Metallica: Some Kind of Monster’

Life, Camera, Action: Filmmakers huddle close as Metallica open way up.

We’re OK, Metallica’s OK

‘Some Kind of Monster’ and the deconstruction of America’s biggest metal band

By Sara Bir

Ritchie Camden was the classic Metallica fan. He sat in front of me in homeroom, and his entire wardrobe consisted of two Metallica T-shirts. I spent many an unhappy hour staring at his back, completely befuddled by this band’s appeal. Based on the aesthetic of their T-shirts, Metallica sang about skulls and hammers and long, frizzy hair. Ritchie Camden slumped around school, his zitty face obscured behind a curtain of chin-length greasy hair and his skinny shoulder blades jutting out of threadbare Metallica shirts. He had to retake seventh grade a few times.

That, to me, was the public face of Metallica for years. So where were all the Ritchie Camdens now? At the opening of Metallica’s big, honking documentary, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, in San Francisco– the band’s hometown, no less–not one metal-shop metalhead could be seen. Instead, there were lots of regular, everyday guys, most of them in their early 20s with regular, everyday girlfriends in tow. There were some hipster types wearing vintage Metallica T-shirts à la Ritchie Camden, and there were some teenagers wearing Metallica T-shirts à la Hot Topic. Mostly, though, I saw film buffs, and I wondered how many of them, like me, hadn’t touched a Metallica record since . . . well, since never.

We can thank filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky for bringing all of this together. The team–who were behind the documentaries Brother’s Keeper and Paradise Lost–began filming Metallica in 2001 as the band embarked upon recording a new album at a makeshift studio in San Francisco’s Presidio. Two years, one bassist, countless hours of therapy and many epic arguments later, Metallica release St. Anger. With the band’s blessing, Berlinger and Sinofsky caught it all on tape. Some Kind of Monster is the engrossing result, and it offers both music fans and pop-culture buffs a rare chance to witness mega-musicians being all too human.

There are two basic types of rock documentaries: those that, with help from stock footage and talking heads, look back at a band’s legacy (The Compleat Beatles, for instance); and those that look forward with a band from a crisis at present to a daunting future (Gimme Shelter.) The former can be informative, but it won’t offer the voyeuristic thrills of the latter, where the filmmakers put us smack-dab in the middle of everything to watch the sparks fly.

Some Kind of Monster is particularly fascinating because it is Metallica, and bands don’t get much bigger than them–these guys have sold over 90 million albums worldwide. Man, that’s nuts. What does selling 90 million albums do to a person? Makes them impossible to work with, apparently. As the film opens, bassist Jason Newsted quits the band after 15 years, citing a lack of creative input.

And then there were three: frontman James Hetfield, guitarist Kirk Hammett and drummer Lars Ulrich. Longtime producer Bob Rock fills in on bass during the recording sessions, which are far from harmonious. Hetfield and Ulrich are at each other’s throats, so to keep the band from killing each other, management brings in a therapist.

Here’s where it starts to get good. In other rock documentaries, you have squabbles and breakdowns and temper tantrums–as there are indeed here–but in Some Kind of Monster, we also witness Metallica hashing it out with therapist Phil Towle, talking about how they feel and drawing up a Metallica mission statement. Back in 1982, if Metallica had a mission statement, it was probably to get fucked up and rock. Ninety million albums sold changes a lot.

Tensions mount until Hetfield storms out of the studio and checks himself into rehab, practically cutting off communication with the rest of the band for a year. In the meantime, therapy sessions continue and Ulrich undertakes his crusade against Napster, which turns into a PR kiss of death.

In the midst of all this seemingly rock-star behavior, we somehow get a sense of Metallica as real people who just happen to have way more money than we do: Hetfield picks his daughter up from ballet class; Hammett reads Fortune magazine during studio downtime and surfs to unwind; Ulrich’s father (who comes off as sort of a Danish yogi) visits and puts his son on edge.

The movie is surprisingly hilarious, thanks in great part to Metallica’s reactions to the touchy-feely earnestness of therapist Towle, and most of the time, we laugh with Metallica and not at them. Berlinger and Sinofsky pull off that great documentary trick: even though we truly have no idea who these people are, we feel like we do, and we end up hanging out with these Metallica dudes instead of sitting in some movie theater like schmucks.

We know how the movie ends, because we know that Metallica does not break up and that, eventually, they do complete and release the album that becomes St. Anger. Still, there’s this tragic air to everything in the film–the arguments, the songwriting, the therapy–because we also know that there’s no going back for Metallica. They can never play music strictly for fun again, because they’ve been through too much, and bringing it back is a matter of more than simply re-revisiting garage days.

But nor can they just quit, because then what would they do? Retire, be super-rich and do nothing? There’s a scene where Hammett and Ulrich go to a sold-out Bimbo’s show in San Francisco to see Echobrain, Jason Newsted’s new band. There they are, with their lead singer in rehab and recording at a standstill, shelling out tens of thousands of dollars a month for a band therapist, and Echobrain is the toast of the town. Art is hard.

Documentaries like this are crack for music fans, especially nonmusical ones such as myself. Watching a song come together in the studio, you get a little rush from the spike of creativity–which is funny, because if you’ve ever been around a band while they are recording in real time, it’s the most boring thing in the world. Thanks to the miracle of editing, we can get a sense of the boring stretches without suffering through them, and in the end come out feeling like we, as viewers, played a small role in Metallica emerging from their midband crisis.

Which proves that there’s no such thing as an archetypical Metallica fan, and that’s why there were no Ritchie Camdens at the theater the other night. They have, like Metallica, all grown up.

‘Metallica: Some Kind of Monster’ is playing at theaters throughout the Bay Area.

From the July 14-20, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Pamposh

Photograph by Michael AmslerCurrying Flavor: The sister and brother team Mona Dhar and Sumeer Karihaloo co-own Pamposh.Ghee WhizPamposh Indian restaurant is a jewel in the crownBy Heather IrwinThere's a running joke in Manhattan's East Village about the Sixth Street curry houses there. Lined up, one restaurant after another--Banjara, Bombay, Goa, Tajmahal--rumor has it the dozens of restaurants in Little...
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Tango and Flamenco Dancing

Photograph by Rory McNamaraOlé: Tango teacher Christy Coté and a partner practice their moves.Three-Minute Love AffairsTango and flamenco have long showcased the beautiful and young, while devotedly practiced by the pleasant and old. Why? Because art and obsession know no age.By Jennie OrvinoDance is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire.--George Bernard Shaw We begin with a glance and...
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‘Othello’ and ‘She Stoops to Conquer’

Oh, Curse of Marriage!: Iago (Paul Sulzman) drips poison into Othello's ear (Aldo Billingslea) at MSF.Two Good to SeeMarin Shakespeare scores with 'Othello' and 'Conquer' Othello, which will be celebrating its 400th anniversary this November, is without a doubt one of Shakespeare's best and most important plays. In the famous tale of forbidden love and newlywed bliss gone very,...
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Rock ‘n’ Roll Reading

We Don't Need No Thought Control: Leave your kids alone.My Back PagesRock 'n' roll readingBy Greg CahillSay what you want about Albert Goldman-- the Kitty Kelley of rock writers--but his cutting, no-holds-barred biographies of such rock icons as Elvis Presley and John Lennon put the false images of our heroes under the full glare of the sun. In true...
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Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Photograph by Andree LanthierJean, Dark: Tyler Layton is Joan of Arc in the 'Henry' trilogy.Touring CompanyA trip to Ashland is well worth the drive The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland is a traveler's festival. The annual eight-month-long event features 11 plays in rotating repertory, five by Shakespeare, the rest by classic and contemporary authors. Each year, the Shakespeare plays...
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Danny Sorentino

Erudite: Singer-songwriter Danny Sorentino picks up a few quick tips before heading out.On the TownDanny Sorentino chases the vibe on an all-night tour of his favorite local spots "No loitering--sidewalk closes at night," reads the large red sign outside of A'Roma Roasters in Santa Rosa. Scurrying up the sidewalk on a recent warm Saturday night, I try not to...
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Swirl ‘n’ Spit

Swirl 'n' SpitTasting Room of the WeekPreston VineyardsBy Heather IrwinLowdown: The story goes something like this: winery owner Lou Preston wanted Italian marble for his tasting room bar counter. The designer warned against installing the expensive marble, concerned that the very porous marble would be easily stained by red wine spills. Then the customers had better not spill, Preston...
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Video Voyeurism

Through a Glass Darkly: Technology is unintentionally aiding creeps.Voyeur Victims New technology changes one Sonoma family's life foreverBy R. V. ScheideLast October, Michael Heintz picked up a recently purchased digital camera and crept out into the Santa Rosa night. He stood outside his 15-year-old stepdaughter's bedroom window and waited for her to undress. For motives he claims he doesn't...
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Dave Mac Nab

In the Moment: Dave Mac Nab keeps it fresh.The Sound of ScienceDave Mac Nab fires up his jazz labBy Greg CahillAfter 12 weeks working as a hired gun in the house bands for the national touring productions of The Lion King and Hairspray in San Francisco's theater district, guitarist Dave Mac Nab is eager to get back to his...
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‘Metallica: Some Kind of Monster’

Life, Camera, Action: Filmmakers huddle close as Metallica open way up.We're OK, Metallica's OK'Some Kind of Monster' and the deconstruction of America's biggest metal band By Sara BirRitchie Camden was the classic Metallica fan. He sat in front of me in homeroom, and his entire wardrobe consisted of two Metallica T-shirts. I spent many an unhappy hour staring at...
Read more
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