Best of the North Bay 2001

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Best of the North Bay

Primal Beats

“Generally speaking, definitions are a big waste of time.”

Someone said that once, and we were just wondering who it was. Might have been Kerouac or Ginsberg, resisting an urge to define the Beat movement, or maybe Berry or Joplin or Hendrix, laughing off some lame attempt at defining rock ‘n’ roll.

Or, hey, maybe it was you, the last time some robotic drone from the Big City asked you to define your existence, to prove what’s so cool about living the way you do, to defend your role as a groovy member of the great Suburban Primitive Tribe of the North Bay.

It was you, wasn’t it?

You who are simultaneously hot, hot, hot and so very, very cool. You the triumphant suburban survivor who realizes that your tribe is not defined by things like geography and demographics.

To define the people of the North Bay, you’d have to talk all day, you’d have to talk about shades of green and music and rhythms and ideas and art and collaborations and truth-with-a-capital-T, because those are the primal heartbeats that sound through every amazing minute of your very special life.

Well, we asked you to talk, and talk you did. You’ve talked to us for weeks now. You’ve named and claimed all the things you love best about life within the North Bay Tribe–and here is what you said. Of course, we the staff and contributors of the Northern California Bohemian have tossed in a few tasty tidbits of our own. But you did the work, and we dig that about you, because we know that what really defines the North Bay is you.

You Suburban Primitive you.

Table of Contents

Readers’ Poll Results






Staff Picks






Staff and contributors’ picks penned by Yosha Bourgea, Greg Cahill, Bill English, Paula Harris, Avis Johnson, Ella Lawrence, Patrick Sullivan, David Templeton, and Marina Wolf.

From the March 22-28, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Maintained by .

Best Food & Drink

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Best Food & Drink

Best Food & Drink

Chow Time

SAUCE, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has one thousand vices; a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.

–from The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce


Photograph by Michael Amsler

Best Place to snare an Alligator

At Cajun Moon, the newly opened Louisiana-themed eatery in downtown Petaluma, you can come face to face with a vicious green reptile in two distinct ways. First, you can find one on your plate, should you order up a mess of deep-fried, battered alligator chunks, made from real alligator (tastes like a fish trying to pretend it’s a chicken). Second, should you sashay over to the restaurant’s elaborate indoor diorama–featuring a stunning wall-sized mural depicting a sleepy bayou on a moonlit evening, complete with ramshackle shack and mysterious peering animals–you’ll find a small herd of three-dimensional gators (like the one accompanied by chef/owner Levon Binion and Stephanie Cody of Cajun Moon) simulating a late-night romp through the swamp. You can touch them, but be careful: They know what you’ve just had for dinner.

205 Kentucky St., Petaluma, 707/773-4989. –D.T.

Best Subversion of the Chain-Restaurant Paradigm

Every 24-hour restaurant has its share of strange bedfellows. When everything else closes down at 10 p.m., necessity draws hungry people to the nearest feed station, regardless of their age, color, profession, or hygiene. But when two (or more) worlds collide, things can sometimes get downright surreal. Take the scene that unfolds most Thursday nights at the Lyon’s on Farmers Lane in Santa Rosa. One side of the room fills up with the queer youth group, with butch girls and femmy boys spilling over the seats and onto each other’s laps. On the other side, a long table of barbershop-quartet singers whiles away the time with sad, sweet harmonies that get annoying after the second song. In the middle of all this, members of some local Republican think tank polish off their wine and argue about the tip. Nearby, restless adolescents sneer or look faintly confused, but the connoisseur of human interaction simply smiles.

190 Farmers Lane, Santa Rosa. 528-9311. –M.W.

Best Closet Vegetarian Dish

OK, it’s not on the menu–you have to ask–but even consummate carnivores will lustfully devour the vegetarian platter of delicious goodies offered at Dempsey’s brew pub/bistro. Prepare for a heaping portion of vibrant tastes that has to be experienced to be believed. We recently tucked into a huge plate artistically piled and draped with spicy Asian coleslaw; mesclun green salad; crispy onion rings; char-grilled squash; whole roasted potatoes; an entire head of baked garlic with buttery cloves and fresh bread on which to smear it; a melange of sautéed zucchini, carrots, and red peppers; creamy mashed potatoes; basmati rice; fresh mango slices; and a small crock of thick, lightly spiced black bean chili–all for $11.95. This global mix of veggie delights really works–especially when you’re swigging back a cold one.

50 E. Washington St., Petaluma, 707/765-9694. –P.H.


Photograph by Michael Amsler

Best Hippie Grub

Amecca of rooster-helmet wearing, chicken-toting artists, kids in baggy pants, and strolling tourists, the East West Cafe in Sebastopol has some of the most mouth-watering falafel this side of Iran. The menu, of course, is not limited to falafel; it boasts four pages of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. East West’s salads are always fresh, crispy, and organic, and their wraps divine. (The tofu-teriyaki wrap is especially recommendable.) In a county that prides itself on its eclectic mix of liberals and artisans, it’s surprisingly hard to find some decent vegetarian, much less vegan, morsels. East West takes traditional Eastern cuisine and gives it a distinctively Californian flair, doing things with tofu and sprouts that just couldn’t be done anywhere else.

128 N. Main St., Sebastopol. 707/829-2822. –E.L.

Best-Dressed Baristas

The java-jerk uniform is more of an anti-uniform, defined by what it’s not. That is, its complete lack of uniformity is the dress code, which is great for keeping things casual and giving us a little taste of urban edge. And yet sometimes one wants a bit of Old World elegance and service to match. Emporio Rulli is that place. The bustling little cafe in downtown Larkspur is justifiably known for its pastries (try the panforte, a sticky-sweet cake with no flour and lots of everything else), its mirrored walls, and some of the strongest and best espresso north of North Beach. And no matter what time of day, the staff remain exquisitely polite and well-pressed: 10 triple lattes couldn’t break the fold in the back of their starched white collars. Espresso without the attitude!

464 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur. 415/924-7478. –M.W.

Best Place for Duck Eggs and Jackfruit

The supermarket is an American creation, a sterile, brightly landscaped freeway that displays food like a series of commercials. It is unlike markets in most other parts of the world, where advertising is less of a cultural imperative. For a taste of the exotic, take a walk down the narrow aisles of Mekong Market, located in the soon-to-be-face-lifted Roseland district. You won’t find club card specials here, or produce that is misted every three minutes. What you will find is an odd cornucopia of items that, for the most part, are unavailable elsewhere. Like cans of jackfruit and jellied azuki beans; black, goose-pimply chickens with heads and feet still attached; purple duck eggs; Ziploc baggies of bean sprouts and lime leaves; and rice noodles in four different widths. The delicious rubs shoulders with the bizarre, and depending upon your sense of adventure, there’s always something new to try.

1077 Sebastopol Road, Santa Rosa. 707/544-6201. –Y.B.


Photograph by Michael Amsler

Best Free Wine Glass

Well, technically, this glass isn’t exactly free (you gotta pay a small tasting fee to nab it), but the wine at Niebaum-Coppola Winery is so yummy you probably won’t be too peeved. What you’ll get (besides several tastes of liquid fruit) at Francis Ford Coppola’s facility is a perfect tulip-shaped, lead-free crystal goblet etched with a classy–not cheesy–logo of the Coppola insignia and signature. Go back a couple of times with friends and, voilà, you have the set! You can also buy ’em in the winery retail room at $7.50 a pop–but this is far more fun. Plus, while you’re at the impressive winery, pop into the famed director’s movie memorabilia exhibit on-site and check out an automobile from Tucker, Vito Corleone’s desk from The Godfather, and several honest-to-God Oscars glinting glamorously behind their glass case.

1991 St. Helena Hwy., Rutherford. 707/968-1100. –P.H.

Best Group for Obsessing about Food (aside from Weight Watchers)

For a movement that boasts a snail as its mascot, Slow Food has spread faster than you can say, “Now where exactly is that lettuce from?” Founded in Italy in 1986 in response to the encroachment of McDonald’s and the rapid disappearance of local food specialties, Slow Food has since spread to dozens of other countries, among them the United States, where these same issues have been long in the making and short of attention. The ideals of Slow Food–which include organic methods, small production, and attention to a region’s culinary history–found a natural home in San Francisco Bay Area. The first chapter, or convivium, in the United States was in the San Francisco, and the North Bay boasts six convivia of its own, which range from those on the remote roads of Mendocino County to a Napa group and three in Sonoma County. Recent Slow Food activities have included readings, seed swaps, watershed hikes, and a tour of the Jack London property, complete with a turn-of-the-(19th)-century picnic. An added attraction for membership is the semiannual journal, an engrossing read to be savored–how else?–slowly. Slow Food membership is $60 a year, $75 for a couple.

Call 1/877/SLOWFOOD, or visit the website at . –M.W.

Best Philosophical Winemaking Decision

In today’s corporate America, it’s not enough to run a profitable company; success is measured primarily by growth. That’s why regular and barbecue-flavored potato chips have been joined by Cheddar, ranch, and sour cream-and-onion permutations. It’s why McDonald’s introduces a “New Tastes Menu.” And it’s why wineries introduce “second labels” and additional varietals. Lou Preston was not immune to the “bigger is better” syndrome, expanding his winery’s product line and even changing its name to Preston of Dry Creek. But for Preston, who is as passionate about artisan bread-baking as he is about artisan winemaking, bigger was not better. Not long ago, he made the unusual decision to “grow smaller.” He’ll now make just about 5,000 cases of wine per harvest and sell the rest of his grapes to other (mostly larger) wineries. “We haven’t exactly come full circle,” he says. “Rather, the wisdom of our experience has moved us forward.” Small can be beautiful. –B.J.

Best Added (Vino) Value

Along with the three-pack of blue-striped gym socks, the box of family-sized laundry detergent, and the Cruisin’ Car Tunes of the ’60s cassette, you can now place an “exclusive” bottle of wine in your Wal-Mart shopping basket. Exclusive, that is, to the behemoth retailer that is partly responsible for transforming Main Street USA into a ghost thoroughfare. Wal-Mart has struck a deal with another giant business entity, E&J Gallo, to produce a line of wines dubbed “Alcott Ridge,” available only at Wal-Mart stores. The line includes America’s top-selling wine types–white zinfandel, chardonnay, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon–and is priced at around seven bucks per bottle. I tried the chardonnay and cabernet, and even though one is white and the other red, they shared two distinctive qualities: they taste rather thin and leave a lingering, unpleasant after-flavor. Of course, this is a brand and a line created not to satisfy the senses, but to meet a price point. That fact alone may not placate the palate, but at least at Wal-Mart wine purchasers get something they don’t receive at the typical wine shop: a hug. –B.J.


Photograph by Michael Amsler

Place to Blow the Inheritance on Truffles and Antelope

The ultra-chichi French Laundry may be just down the road, but a lesser-known restaurant is packing in those in the know with similar topnotch cuisine but slightly more accessible prices and reservation availability. At La Toque, tucked away in Rutherford’s Rancho Caymus Inn, Chef Ken Frank’s elaborate wine pairing menus (which change daily) are chock full of riches like South Texas antelope with lentilles du puy and cabernet foie gras sauce, paired with 1997 Boeger barbera. The night we went, a special seasonal menu featured truffles in every course. Set in a comfortable elegantly rustic dining room with a blazing fireplace centerpiece and superb service, this is special-occasion eating at its most polished. The fixed-price menu is $72 for five courses, which includes food only, or splurge another $40 for wines specifically tailored to match each forkful. The kitchen also accommodates vegetarians, citing them as a pleasant challenge, and will come up with a specific tasting menu just for them.

La Toque, 1140 Rutherford Road, Rutherford, 707/963-9770. –P.H.

Best North Coast Port Maker

OK, OK . . . by definition, “real” port must come from Portugal, just as “real” champagne must hail from the Champagne region of France. But that’s a topic for the intelligentsia of the world. For us normal folks, a port is a port is a port. And the local ports we’d like to drink in a storm come from Prager Winery and Port Works in St. Helena. These bottlings are about as atypical as port can get, made not from the politically correct grapes of Oporto, but rather from varietals such as cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and petite sirah. Authentic? No. “Portlike” in every way? No. Tasty? Yes! Not to mention more wallet-friendly than the imported bottlings of Graham, Dow, Smith Woodhouse, et al. –B.J.

Best Sonoma County Zin Vineyard

The Dry Creek Valley is considered the Valhalla of zinfandel, and thus is home to countless exceptional zin vineyards. But of all the plots, minuscule or immense, devoted to zin, none measures up to the Maple Vineyard. Zinfandel grapes from Maple confirm the talents of established winemakers and transform competent vintners into stars. Several wineries have access to Maple Vineyard grapes, and two in particular make breathtaking wines from this special fruit: Gary Farrell and Armida. The intensity of the berry and pepper flavors will arouse even the deepest-sleeping of palates. In a perfect world, just as all maple syrup should come from Vermont, all zinfandel should come from the Maple Vineyard. –B.J.

Best Screw-Top Wine

America’s skid-row winos may be in for an image makeover now that there’s a screw-top wine that sells for $135. That’s per bottle, not per gross. As the story goes, black gold/Texas tea magnate and art connoisseur Gordon Getty, one of the owners of Napa Valley’s PlumpJack Winery, didn’t like the idea that a certain percentage of wines (not just PlumpJack’s) were guaranteed to be undrinkable owing to tainted corks. The solution: eliminate the problem. Some purists may have been shocked when PlumpJack replaced cork closures with screw tops for 120 cases of its 1997 cabernet sauvignon, but most vintners weren’t. Behind closed cellar doors, they’ll tell you that screw tops are superior. At the same time, they feared that the public’s perception of a screw top could compromise the perceived value of their bottlings. PlumpJack’s bold experiment proved them wrong, and growing numbers of wineries will be replacing corks with screw tops in the future. By the way, PlumpJack’s cabernet is mighty fine wine. But then, at $135 a pop . . . er, twist . . . it had better be. –B.J.

Best Place to Lose Your Shopping List

Sometimes the best-laid plans go awry, and that cross-referenced week of menus winds up trapped in a bush in a rain-soaked parking lot. If you’re lucky, that parking lot will be the one in front of G&G Supermarket. G&G, a fixture of west Santa Rosa for almost 40 years, has the requisite Froot Loops and toilet paper and frozen peas, but wake up and look around: you won’t find this selection anywhere else. Obscure French cookies, good Italian cheese, seafood-flavored crackers from Japan, organic juice from Santa Cruz, and odds and ends from everywhere. Sometimes one wonders if the buyer isn’t a little ADD. Actually there are five or six buyers in the flagship store of this family-run business (there’s another, new G&G in Petaluma), and they all are really eager to stock what the customers ask for. The result feels something like a Middle Eastern bazaar, with clean floors and paper-or-plastic option.

1211 W. College Ave., Santa Rosa (707/546-6877); 701 Sonoma Mt. Pkwy., Petaluma (707/765-1198). –M.W.


Photograph by Janet orsi

Best White Noise with a Latte on the Side

If the human race is one big family, cafes are our family rooms. At once confessional and chat room, office and assembly hall, cafes must be all things to all people, which requires a certain aural quality. Too loud, and you can’t hear a person across the table; too soft, and you’re afraid to turn the page on your notebook. A’Roma Roasters and Coffeehouse has the perfect ambiance: one part groovy sound system with an unpredictable mix that manages to be audible but not obtrusive, and one part coffee-roaster grind, strained through the high-beamed ceilings and humming fans for a strangely effective noise masker. A counselor could hold a session in here and not violate confidentiality. Don’t get too comfortable, though. When that batch of Boxcar Blend is done, the decibels drop, and you might find yourself sharing with the room. And as comfortable as everyone looks, we’re not that comfortable.

95 Fifth St., Santa Rosa. 707/576-7765. –M.W.

Best Spin on the Wine Country for Teetotaling Relatives

The whole notion of “wine country” means nothing to recovering alcoholics, Mormons, or any other visitors who don’t drink. That much is clear when you try to entice them into coming. “I know this cute little tasting room . . .” Faces are blank. “Oh, and the vineyards are just beautiful this time of year . . .” Nothing. “Um, the ocean’s nice.” If you’re smart, you’ll plan ahead and avoid the awkwardness. It’s not hard. There’s the whole west Sonoma County Farm Trail experience, with a stop at Kozlowski Farms. A trip along the coast offers multiple opportunities for crab and saltwater-taffy tastings. My family’s favorite, though, is a visit to downtown Sonoma, for a stroll around the square and a visit to the Sonoma Cheese Factory. The Olive Press in Glen Ellen is a nice ending to the tour, oil sampling giving the basic experience of critical consumption without the boozy breath.

Sonoma Cheese Factory, 2 W. Spain St., Sonoma (707/996-1000); Olive Press, 14301 Arnold Drive, Glen Ellen (707/939-8900). –M.W.

Best Place to Chew Fish while Pretending You’re Elsewhere

If wishes were fishes, we’d have some to fry/ If wishes were horses, a poor man could ride. That’s what my grandmother used to say. It was terrifying to a wide-eyed 6-year-old, but now I appreciate her homespun wisdom and I’m here to tell you that though I can’t do squat about the horses, if your wish is for fish, paddle over to Cape Cod Fish & Chips in Cotati. Nicely crammed into a nondescript, hard-to-find, storefront hole in the wall near Sonoma State University, the place doesn’t look like much from the parking lot. Once you step inside, however, and order up a platter of crisp and crunchy cod served with a smile from a friendly and eccentric crew, you’ll be wishing you’d found this place sooner.

548 E. Cotati Ave., Cotati. 707/792-0982. –D.T.


Photograph by Michael Amsler

Best Way to Dish At The Bakery

Not content with just turning out fragrant ovenfuls of organic sweets like coffee cakes, scones, cinnamon rolls, and her signature original chocolate beet cake, Beth LaFrance, a.k.a. Beth the Baker, has added Chicago deep-dish pizza to her tasty repertoire. The Sebastopol regulars of this cozy community-hangout bakery, which has been dubbed “Cheers without the booze,” and hungry visitors couldn’t be more pleased with the new addition of pizza. And what a pizza it is, boasting a super-thick and luscious pastry-like crust filled with an extra layer of creamy cheese and topped with savory goodies like sausage and fennel seeds or tomato sauce and mushrooms. Beth assembles the pizza, and you take it home and bake it for a few minutes until the cheese is melted and the crust is a deep golden brown. Breathe deep, don the oven gloves, and cancel that trip to Chicago.

Beth the Baker, 171 Pleasant Hill Ave. N., Sebastopol, 707/823-1440. –P.H.

Best Unorthodox Cuppa Tea

In our neck of the woods, tea is more than just a steamy leafy brew in a china pot served properly at 4 p.m. with Devonshire cream-filled scones and cucumber sandwiches in Harrods’ posh Tea Room. Take the Republic of Tea, for example. Headquartered in Novato, this well-steeped company sells more than 75 varieties of teas, herbs, chai, bottled iced teas, jams, and cookies in specialty food locations throughout the United States. Unusual tea-inspired products include unsweetened, nonalcoholic bottled iced teas–touted to pair well with different cuisines: Blackberry Sage with roasted fowl or gourmet pizza, Ginger Peach with pork and spicy dishes, Jade Mint Green Tea with Asian cuisine, lamb, and duck, and so on. The Republic of Tea’s latest venture is a collaboration with Maine’s Stonewall Kitchen to create a line of savory and fruity tea jams in flavors like cinnamon-plum and raspberry-quince, which contains hibiscus and rose-petal essence. The stuffy old cuppa will never be the same again.

Republic of Tea, 8 Digital Drive, Novato, 415/382-3400. –P.H.

Readers’ Poll Results






Staff Picks





From the March 22-28, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Maintained by .

Best Romance

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Best Romance

Best Romance

Mating Game

“I love love,” she said, closing her eyes. I promised her beautiful love. I gloated over her. Our stories were told; we subsided into silence and sweet anticipatory thoughts. It was as simple as that. You could have all your Peaches and Bettys and Marylous and Inezes in this world; this was my girl and my kind of girlsoul, and I told her that. She confessed she saw me watching her in the bus station. “I thought you was a nice college boy.”

–from ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac


Photograph by Michael Amsler

Best Place to Wrestle an Ocelot

At Samhain (pronounced Sow-in), the pagan New Year, my sweetheart and I ventured for the weekend to the Isis Oasis in Geyserville. After unpacking the truck (we brought masks, cloaks, and an enormous down comforter), we toured the grounds, exploring yurts, huts, and big rooms full of Egyptian goddess gear. After a nontraditional dinner of pomegranates and other symbolic foodstuffs, we took a dip in one of the three hot tubs as well as the swimming pool (briefly though, it being the first weekend of November). Much pagan revelry and fun ensued, but the most memorable part of the weekend was the animals. The Isis Oasis boasts a large, well-cared-for menagerie, including black-and-white swans and other waterfowl, five pygmy goats, one unicorn, ocelots, pheasants, serval cats, Egyptian geese, emus, parrots, cockatiels, parakeets, llamas, and bobcats. One of the ocelots, a rowdy teenager, needed more human contact. After he snapped on his leash, we were allowed to take him out of his lofty tree-filled cage and onto the lawn, where he proceeded to violently claw and try to maim us. How sweet!

20889 Geyserville Ave., Geyserville. 707/857-4747. –E.L.

Best Romantic Meal in a Manor

At one time, dining at Madrona Manor Restaurant, an 1881 grand gabled historic landmark, meant sitting up straight, conversing in whispers, and listening to polite, if not pompous recorded chamber music. Not too conducive to melting your honey’s heart. But lately the venerable Victorian country inn and restaurant on the outskirts of Healdsburg has shed its stuffy image. The walls are softer-hued, the music sexier, and chef Jesse Mallgren’s menu lighter. The restaurant is still elegant, with its comfortable upholstered chairs, white linen tablecloths, cut-glass candlesticks, and heavy silverware, but now the ambiance succeeds in also being laid-back. After a relaxing wine-pairing dinner, take a dreamlike stroll through the beautiful landscaped gardens with their illuminated fountain, benches, urns of cascading flowers, and gorgeous scents.

1001 Westside Road, Healdsburg. 707/433-4231. –P.H.

Best Place to Meet Mr./Ms. Right

So you’re looking at the poor slob at the end of the bar–the loud-mouthed guy with the vodka stains on his necktie, the guy teetering on his scuffed Florsheims, the guy blabbing to his friends about his double alimony and triple child-support payments–and you’re wondering, Why can’t I meet the right guy? A sensitive guy. A caring guy. A guy with visible means of support. Maybe you’re looking for love in all the wrong places, as the old song goes. Where can you find a sober, motivated, financially secure mate? Check out the “How to Manage Your Inheritance” seminar at the newly opened SRJC Technology Academy. Sure, you might not be the only gold digger there, but why not give it a shot. Hey, you might even pick up some tips as a beginning investor. Caveat emptor: Of course, there’s always the possibility that everyone in attendance is on the make and the whole class could be just as poor, broke, and lonely as yourself. (Check the schedule for upcoming workshops.)

Redwood Business Park, 1372 N. McDowell Blvd., Suite H, Petaluma. 707/778-2410. –G.C.

Best Sunset and Samosas

There are two Sizzling Tandoor restaurants in Sonoma County. The downtown Santa Rosa location has great food and a view of Mendocino Avenue. The Jenner location has great food and a view of the Pomo Canyon hills, and, beyond, the ocean. Aah. This lovely spot is the place to wine and dine your lover. If you really want to make an impression, take your toots to a window table about an hour before sunset. Then, with bellies full of chicken Tiki Marsala, spinach samosas, and kheer, you can gaze deeply into each other’s eyes and then look westward for the breathtaking sunsets.

9960 Hwy. 1, Jenner (707/865-0625); 409 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa (707/579-999). –E.L.

Best Place to Get Your Socks Knocked Off

The upstairs dining nook at the Thai House in Santa Rosa is quite possibly one of the most romantic places on the planet. The lighting is dim, the decor superb, and the waitresses discreet and attractively dressed in traditional Thai costume. I save the Thai House as a special-occasion restaurant, dining on soft-shell crab and Thai iced tea on birthdays and anniversaries. The food is served in large dishes, set down on the middle of the table in traditional Asian-cuisine style. This makes it easy to share bites of whatever delectable dish you order. I really can’t think of a nicer way to spend an evening than snuggled up next to your sweetie, cross-legged on floor cushions, feeding each other perfectly cooked morsels of kung ka prow and pad thai noodles.

525 Fourth St. (above the Sonoma Coffee Co.), Santa Rosa. 707/526-3939. –E.L.

Best Way to Make Your First Date Laugh His or Her Ass Off

If you can’t win somebody’s heart through his/her stomach, try humor instead! Here’s the scenario. You’ve asked out the cutie behind the coffee-shop counter (or wherever you’ve found him/her), and he/she actually says, “Yes.” Keep your cool, but, for heaven’s sake, abandon the tired old dinner-and-a-movie routine. It’s been overdone. For a guaranteed smashing first date, take your swoon to Michele’s Restaurant on a Saturday night to see the Clueless Comedy Company perform. Michele’s is a great old Italian restaurant, complete with a large leather bar and booths, and pictures of old Santa Rosa taken nearly a hundred years ago. The Clueless Comedy Company puts on a hilarious show based on the English improv TV series Whose Line Is It, Anyway? The show starts at 9 p.m., but get there early for good seats. It’s $8, which is cheaper than a movie these days, anyway!

Seventh and Adams streets, Santa Rosa. 707/542-2577. –E.L.

Best Reason to Remember that the Fundamental Things Apply

Love is dead. That’s a drag and it’s all right at the same time. It’s not that I’ve given up hope or that I ever even care about this one way or another. After all, one learns to get along, to be alone with being lonely–most of the time. But a lot of my 30-something friends are getting nervous about spending not just Saturday nights, but the rest of their life alone without that special someone, someone with whom to share love and lust. Worst of all, I’m beginning to become aware that somehow, somewhere along the way, all that well-honed angst of my youth has mellowed or, worse yet, just dissipated. Yet the longing lingers. The part that gets tiresome is the same old story. Lose yourself in a new lover–for a while. Then wait for the disillusionment to settle in. Lately, I think about that Beck song “Beautiful Way”: “Searching on the skyline/ Just looking for a friend/ Who’s gonna love my baby/ When she’s gone around the bend?” I think I’ve gone around that bend. Then I remember that old Herman Hupfeld classic “As Time Goes By” (the Harry Nilsson version, of course): “You must remember this/ A kiss is still a kiss/ A sigh is just a sigh/ The fundamental things apply/ As time goes by.” OK, sounds hokey, but somehow it makes sense. Hopefully, the world will always welcome lovers–that just might give me enough time to figure this all out before I go crazy. –A.J.

Best Place For a Roll in the Hay

Yeah, you really do it, and at the ultra-swanky Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa no less! The Hay Flotation Back Treatment involves a tension-busting massage followed by a stint laying on “therapeutic alpine hay packs” while being “suspended on the warm flotation table.” If this all seems a bit too B&D for your taste, there are other more tender-sounding treatments available. How about a Couples Wine and Roses Kur, which features a bath à deux in rose petals followed by a grapeseed oil massage? Or maybe you and your sweetie would prefere a Couples Instruction in Massage, which all takes place in the privacy of your hotel room and gives you all the tools needed to begin the romantic rub-down.

18140 Sonoma Hwy., Boyes Hot Springs. 707/938-9000. –P.H.

Readers’ Poll Results






Staff Picks





From the March 22-28, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Maintained by .

Kenneth Cleaver

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Consumer Correspondent

February 1, 2001 Mr. Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President National Rifle Association 11250 Waples Mill Road Fairfax, VA 22030

Dear Mr. LaPierre:

The battle to claim the American political center finds the Republican Party undergoing a dramatic facelift. Part of this effort involves distancing itself from the religious right and welcoming people of color into the arms of the party, or at least to the podium of the national convention. The NRA should grab the torch from the GOP brain trust and ready the welcome wagon in an appeal for a new and diverse membership.

My friend David is extremely homosexual and interested in familiarizing himself with high-powered rifles. He is a tenacious worker with strong computer skills and would make an excellent director of the Pink Holster Society: the official Gay & Lesbian Auxiliary of the NRA.

The Pink Holster Society will provide a friendly environment for gays and lesbians to learn about and practice with firearms. The political necessity of organizing for the right to own, buy, sell, and discuss firearms ad nauseam will be the message hammered home through karaoke nights, potluck dinners, and drag shows.

The more the NRA reflects in its membership the diversity of the American people, the stronger it will become. I hope you will give serious consideration to backing the Pink Holster Society and hiring David Melito as its provisional director.

Sincerely, Kenneth H. Cleaver

March 2, 2001 Mr. Kenneth H. Cleaver P.O. Box 810 Bedford, NY 10506

Dear Mr. Cleaver,

Thank you for your recent letter addressed to NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. Mr. LaPierre has asked me to respond on his behalf. We appreciate you taking the time to contact our office.

Today we are faced with the most serious challenge to our Second Amendment rights in the history of our nation. The anti-gun forces in government and the media are determined to strip law-abiding Americans of their right to keep and bear arms, by eroding the value of the Second Amendment, and gradually limiting our rights.

Their intention is not to repeal the Second Amendment, but to devalue it to a point where it is worthless.

Thank you for your comments. We will be taking them into consideration as we work on our strategy to reverse the recent tide of anti-gun legislation, so as to secure our firearm freedoms well into the next century. If you have any questions, please call us at (800) 672-3888.

Sincerely, Robert L. Boyd Member Information

From the March 22-28, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘Trade Secrets’: Chemical Industry Esposé

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The Chemical Papers

Secrets of the chemical industry exposed

By Don Hazen

LIKE ERIN BROCKOVICH, the paralegal-turned-movie icon who fought against toxic polluters in California, Elaine Ross was determined to uncover the truth. Ross wanted to know what had killed her husband, a chemical plant worker in the bayous of Louisiana, at the untimely age of 46. She teamed up with crusading lawyer William “Billy” Baggett Jr., the son of a famous Southern litigator, and together they have become central figures in a David-and-Goliath battle to protect the health of all Americans, especially workers.

Now, in the latest chapter of the story, a team led by Bill Moyers has created a PBS special report called Trade Secrets that will air on Monday evening, March 26. The special, based on a secret archive of chemical industry documents, explores the industry pattern of obfuscating, denying, and hiding the dangerous effects of chemicals on unsuspecting workers and consumers.

At its core, the Moyers show asks a deeply troubling question: With more than 75,000 synthetic chemicals having been released into the environment, what happens as our bodies absorb them, and how can we protect ourselves? As part of the report, Moyers took tests designed to measure the synthetic chemcials in his body–a measurement known as “chemical body burden.” Moyers learned that his body contained 31 diffferent types of PCBs, 13 different toxins, and pesticides such as malathion and DDT.

When it hits the air, the Moyers special is expected to re-energize veteran health activists and medical professionals in their fight against a growing problem–unregulated and untested chemicals flooding the commercial market-place. This public heat, coupled with a burgeoning grassroots resistance to chemical producers, may set the industry on the defensive like never before . . . but that’s getting ahead of the story.

Legal Battle in the Bayou

Elaine Ross’s husband, Dan, spent 23 years working at the Conoco (later Vista) chemical plant in Lake Charles, La. After being diagnosed with brain cancer, according to Jim Morris of the Houston Chronicle, “Dan Ross came to believe that he had struck a terrible bargain, forfeiting perhaps 30 years of his life through his willingness to work with vinyl chloride, used to make one of the world’s most common plastics.”

“Just before he died [in 1990] he said, ‘Mama, they killed me,’ ” recalled Elaine. “I promised him I would never let Vista or the chemical industry forget who he was.”

And she hasn’t. She teamed up with Billy Baggett to file a wrongful death suit against Vista. Baggett won a multimillion-dollar settlement for Ross in 1994, but she wasn’t satisfied with just the money. She knew that her husband’s death wasn’t an isolated incident–that many other chemical plant workers were dead, dying, or sick because their employers weren’t telling them about potential health hazards. And Vista certainly wasn’t the only culprit.

So Ross told Baggett to take the fight to the next level. Baggett did, suing 30 companies and trade associations, including the Chemical Manufacturers Association (now called the American Chemistry Council) for conspiracy, alleging that they hid and suppressed evidence of vinyl chloride-related deaths and diseases.

As a result of the litigation brought on Ross’ behalf, Baggett has been able to obtain what he says is more than a million previously secret industry documents over the past decade. These “Chemical Papers,” as they are becoming known, chronicled virtually the entire history of the chemical industry, much of it related to vinyl chloride–minutes of board meetings, minutes of committee meetings, consultant reports, and on and on.

According to Jim Morris of the Houston Chronicle, the documents suggested that major chemical manufacturers closed ranks in the late 1950s to contain and counteract evidence of vinyl chloride’s toxic effects. “They depict a framework of dubious science and painstaking public relations, coordinated by the industry’s main trade association with two dominant themes: Avoid disclosure and deny liability.” The chemical companies were hiding the fact that they had “subjected at least two generations of workers to excessive levels of a potent carcinogen that targets the liver, brain, lungs and blood-forming organs.”

“Even though they [the chemical companies] may be competitive in some spheres, in others they aren’t,” Baggett told Morris. “They have a mutual interest in their own employees not knowing [about health effects], in their customers not knowing, in the government not knowing.”

“There was a concerted effort to hide this material,” said Dr. David Rosner, a professor of public health and history at Columbia University who has reviewed many of the documents as part of a research project. “It’s clear there was chicanery.”

And while the documents show that the companies freely shared health information among themselves, they “were evasive with their own employees and the government,” wrote Morris. “They were unwilling to disrupt the growing market for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic, used in everything from pipe to garden hoses.” The whole case and others like it “accentuate the problem of occupational cancer, which, by some estimates, takes more lives (50,000) each year than AIDS, homicide or suicide, but receives far less attention.”

“What I hope to achieve, through Billy, is that every man who works in a chemical plant is told the truth and tested on a regular basis in the proper manner,” Elaine Ross told the Houston Chronicle. “I want the chemical companies to be accountable for every little detail that they don’t tell these men.”

In a prepared statement, the Chemical Manufacturers Association called such charges “irresponsible.” The group said that it promotes a policy of openness among its members.

From Courtroom to Television Set

Award-winning TV producer Sherry Jones, who got access to the treasure trove of chemical company archives, started deeply probing the industry and its secret ways. She brought her findings to Bill Moyers, with whom she had previously worked.

Moyers agreed that the story needed to be told. The result of their collaboration is Trade Secrets, the 90-minute special that will be followed by a 30-minute roundtable discussion among industry representatives and advocates for public health and environmental justice. Coming as it does on Monday night, March 26–the night after the Academy Awards, where Julia Roberts may very well receive an Oscar for her portrayal of Erin Brockovich–this one-two punch of mass audience attention could deal the chemical industry quite a blow.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Center for Disease Control has released its National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals (available at www.cdc.gov/nceh/dls/report). The report, based on new technology that measures chemicals directly in blood and urine, has found a wide range of dangerous chemicals present in most humans.

Citizen activists and health experts have been fighting for decades to protect their families from untested and unsafe synthetic chemicals. It has been a difficult battle, owing in part to public misconceptions. Almost 80 percent of Americans think that the government tests chemicals for safety, which is untrue. Aside from chemicals directly added to food or drugs, there are no health and safety studies required before a chemical is manufactured, sold, or used in commercial or retail products. The same is true for cosmetic products and the chemicals in them.

So if the government isn’t regulating chemical safety, who is? Unfortunately, the chemical industry itself.

As health advocates have long complained, this self-regulation simply isn’t enough. “For the most part, we rely on chemical companies to vouch for the safety of their products,” says public health advocate Charlotte Brody, a former nurse. “That’s like relying on the tobacco industry to assess the risk of tobacco.”

Take the case of Dursban, Dow Chemical’s indoor insecticide product. Even after 276 people filed lawsuits claiming that they were poisoned by Dursban, Dow didn’t reveal information about the product that proved its toxicity. When the truth finally came out in 1996, the company was fined a miniscule $740,000 by the Feds for withholding information from public officials.

Critics have long said that strong government regulations would have prevented such fiascoes, and with Trade Secrets and the Chemical Papers as ammunition, they may be closer to getting their wish than ever before.

Taking the Chemical Industry to Task

Using the Moyers special as a rallying point, a coalition of grassroots groups called “Coming Clean” has bonded together to oppose the chemical industry. In early March, dozens of national leaders–health professionals, scientists, activists, and media experts–gathered for a weekend retreat in northern Virginia to plan the elements of this long-term assault. Charlotte Brody, currently Coming Clean’s head organizer, expressed the anger and outrage behind the meeting.

“For decades, chemical companies kept secret the hazards of chemicals they produce,” Brody said. “These chemicals are in our food, our water, the air we breathe. Now, they’re in all of us. Every child on earth is born with these synthetic chemicals in their bodies, and only a small percentage of these chemicals have been adequately tested.”

Dr. Mark Mitchell, a physician from Hartford, Conn., and one of the leaders of the national effort, insisted that to protect ourselves and our children from the harm of toxic chemicals, “we must phase out all dangerous chemicals over the next 10 years, beginning with those for which there are safer alternatives. And we must stop making the same mistakes by prohibiting the introduction of any new chemicals that pose a threat to our health and our children’s health. There also needs to be government action to insure the right to know about toxic chemicals, production, use, and test results.”

As a first step, Coming Clean plans to engage the public with the message of Trade Secrets. All across the country, thousands of events and viewing parties are being organized, timed to coincide with the Moyers show. The events harken back to the campaign surrounding the 1980s nuclear holocaust film The Day After, which galvanized a vanguard of anti-nuke activists to oppose the arms race.

“The local viewing parties will give people a chance to talk about the film after they see it,” says Stacy Malkan, Coming Clean’s media coordinator. “Rather than going to bed angry, they can discuss the issues with other concerned neighbors, and then channel their outrage and ideas into powerful grassroots coalitions.”

Momentum around the Moyers special seems to be picking up. The Whole Foods supermarket chain has agreed to carry Coming Clean’s flyers in every one of their stores, and many e-mail listservs, chat rooms, and message boards are buzzing about the March 26 show.

While most viewings will happen in private homes, activists in dozens of cities–from Anchorage to Austin to Biddeford, Maine–are holding public viewing events. In Ann Arbor, for example, a public viewing will be held in an organic-brew pub. In Buffalo, N. Y., environmental and labor leaders will stage a public showing and will use it as an opportunity to recognize three local whistleblowers battling pollution and environmental injustice. And in San Francisco, where breast cancer rates are among the highest in the country, Mayor Willie Brown, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and Sen. Barbara Boxer will all watch the show at the public library.

Eventually, the coalition hopes to harness the public outcry to push for government regulations and class-action suits against the chemical giants. Some organizers are hoping that Congress finally wakes up and focuses a spotlight on the chemical industry, while others are calling for corporate accountability.

“The American people deserve to know what chemical executives knew and when they knew it,” said Gary Cohen, a leader of the Boston-based Environmental Health Fund and co-coordinator of the group Health Care Without Harm.

Chemical Industry Backlash

In all likelihood, the chemical industry will trudge out familiar responses to Trade Secrets. They will bring in experts to argue the scientific validity of chemical poisoning. They will say, for example, that doses are so low that animals would have to drink 50,000 bathtubs of contaminated water to suffer any harm. But health professionals counter that small doses can have measurable impact in humans, and that people are often more sensitive to toxic substances than test animals. Furthermore, no tests have been done on the cumulative, long-term effects of small doses.

The industry also likes to tell the public that it has changed since the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, when chemical companies stonewalled every request for information or hint of danger. Of course, major incidents like the debacle over Dursban undermine that claim. Thus, despite millions of dollars of effort over the years, the public ranks the industry next to last in terms of public confidence (trailing only the tobacco industry).

So the chemical industry has essentially abandoned its efforts to change public opinion. As in most industries with health and safety issues, the chemical giants focus instead directly on Congress, where lobbying and campaign contributions are often more effective ways to wage their battle. Their goal is a simple one: to make sure that no laws would ever require them to perform health and safety testing for the compounds they produce.

Clearly, they have been totally successful thus far. But the time may be ripe for change. Polls show public sentiment is increasingly anti-corporate. According to a recent Business Week poll, 82 percent of the public feels that corporations wield too much power. According to a recent Roper poll, half the population feels that environmental regulations haven’t gone far enough.

With the chemical industry at the bottom of the public’s “good corporate citizen” list, a critical mass of citizens may soon come together to fight back.

From the March 22-28, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Best Kids’ Stuff

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Best Kids’ Stuff

Best Kids’ Stuff

Child’s Play

“The world is/not with us enough. / O taste and see.”

–from “O Taste and See” by Denise Levertov


Photograph by Michael Amsler

Best Drug-Free Alternative to Ritalin

OK, no more poking fun at the recent ADD flurry. Kid Street Theatre, a nonprofit agency dedicated to teaching kids important life skills, is now in its 10th year. The after-school program serves youth at risk, kids without homes, and other disregarded children in our community through its innovatively therapeutic arts program. The program keeps growing through support from its volunteers and benefactors. Activities include painting, acting, singing, and other artistic endeavors, but Kid Street’s main focus is theater productions written, directed, and acted in solely by the kid participants.

54 West Sixth St., Santa Rosa. 707/525-9223. –E.L.

Best Way to Raise a Star-Struck Kid

Laser blasters. Moon bases. Alien abductions. Invaders from Mars. Images that pervade the media and creep into the pliable minds of young children, most of whom are amazed to discover that real-life astronauts are still struggling to learn how to manipulate a space wrench while constructing the International Space Station and not–and now this will come as a real shock to a lot of kids–fending off venomous green space bugs from the Andromeda galaxy. Let Ed Megill put things into perspective for those little tikes at the Santa Rosa Junior College planetarium–no previous knowledge of trigonometry needed; Ed will provide that at the show. Get in touch with the cosmos. Fill those little heads with wonder while seated in an almost totally darkened room as the facility’s super-projector (which looks a bit like, well, a venomous bug from outer space) replicate a starry night sky on the magnificent domed roof. Marvel at the breathtaking slides from the Hubble Space Telescope (worth every red cent–and there have been billions of them–that American taxpayers have pumped into that baby). And, yes, they’ll even learn to identify the neighboring Andromeda galaxy–just in case they want to keep a watchful eye out for those blasted space bugs. Open weekends only. No children under age 5.

SRJC, Lark Hall, Room 2001, 1501 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa. For show times, call 707/527-4371. –G.C.

Best Place to Unveil Your Kid’s Invention

Has little Johnny reinvented the wheel or devised a better mode for Internet access? Then maybe he’s ready for the Marin County Fair’s “Invention Convention.” Sponsored by the Marin County Office of Education as part of the Logitech Inventor’s Lab, the Invention Convention is open to kids from kindergarten to high school. Each child is required to invent a unique product and create a booth to demonstrate that product to a panel of judges. Judges come from such prestigious companies as Sharper Image and Autodesk. In addition, a company from Ideas To Market (ITM) reviews the kid’s products and offers suggestions for improvements and marketing. More than 20 kids took part last year, with inventions ranging from the Compact Portable Bike Trailer to the Hands-Off Page Turner. The Invention Convention offers kids a great opportunity to use their imaginations and follow through with a marketing strategy. The event is held on the Marin County Fairgrounds in early July.

Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. 415/499-6400. –B.E.


Photograph by Michael Amsler

Best Place to Get in Touch with Nature

Armstrong Woods is famous for many things, those enormous groves of giant redwoods being the grandest of the state reserve’s many glories. Unfortunately, Mother Nature’s calm and magnificent grandeur is seldom as captivating to youngsters as it is to the stressed-out adult types you routinely see at the reserve, standing with their eyes closed, taking slow therapeutic breaths of cool, shadowy air. Fortunately, the park features a neat, interactive “display” that, even though it was not designed with children as its main focus, manages to appeal to kids’ most playful, hide-and-seekish inclinations. The Tactile Trail is a hands-on self-guided tour that meanders up and down through a quarter mile of forest. The cool part is that you can take the tour with your eyes closed. Created for the use of sight-impaired visitors, the trail ingeniously employs a length of smooth cable, suspended about waist high from a railing. By following the cable, you are taken through the trees up onto a porchlike platform where you can caress or embrace one especially large, moss-covered redwood and step in and out of dappled sunlight. At regular intervals are information stations, where you can read, in Braille and in print, about the surrounding flora and fauna, and even pick up a few historical tidbits–and yes, kids will get to open their eyes at these little “reading intervals,” which makes the whole experience a little less scary and a bit more educational. It is not unusual, at the end of the trail, to hear the excited voices of children saying, “Let’s do it again!” Fortunately, the trail ends where it begins, so repeat trips are easy.

Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve, 17000 Armstrong Woods Road, Guerneville. 869-2958. –D.T.

Best Place to Skip Rocks

You need two things to skip rocks: flat rocks and a smooth bit of water on which to skip them. Well, rock skippers, take note. China Beach, at San Rafael’s China Camp State Historical Park, has both in abundance. The beach is strewn with hand-sized, geologic bits and pieces, and the water–a quiet cove off of San Pablo Bay–is the calmest aquatic expanse this side of my brother-in-law’s swimming pool. With a little practice, your kids will be throwing triple-skippers in no time. Also, the gentle shoreline is a great place for toddlers and young children, the tidal pools provide hours of discoveries, and the museum (telling the tale of the thousands of Chinese fishermen who once lived at this shrimpery) is a real eye-opener.

North San Pedro Road, San Rafael (off Hwy. 101, 5 1/2 miles from Marin Civic Center). 415/456-0766. –D.T.

Best Place for Impressionable Youths to Watch Overdressed Adults Pretend to Stab Each Other with Swords

En garde! On the first Saturday of every month, the Rafael Film Center presents a rip-roaring big-screen adventure. As part of its ongoing Family Classics series, the RFC screens the same kind of amazing old-time swashbucklers that our parents and grandparents used to go see every Saturday afternoon. Recent films have included Treasure Island, The Mark of Zorro, and Gene Kelly’s The Pirate. Take that, kiddies.

1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. 415/454-1222 . –D.T.

Best Place to Take the Kids Back in Time

Let’s do the Alley Oop, sauntering back to, oh, say, 3 million years ago. No laser tag. No malls. No Sharon Wright. No chichi wineries. And absolutely no suburban sprawl. Now imagine that this bygone era is rocked by a massive volcano, spewing hot ash and roiling gases all over the front lawn of your nifty caveman/cavewoman digs (OK, in real life there were no people around to witness this, but let’s just pretend). Ashes everywhere–ashes in your hair (and not a Paul Mitchell salon in sight), ashes in your food (roasted bison intestines or some other gloppy caveman/cavewoman delicacy), ashes in the kids’ pool. Yech. Now imagine that you get burned to a crisp (hey, I said it was hot stuff spewing from this volcano), and everything gets coated in a carpet of fine ash–trees, plants, the future home of the Mondavis, the whole nine yards. Now flash forward to modern times. You’re still a caveman (or at least author John Gray wants to think of your Neanderthal alter ego that way, thank you very much), and those 3 million-year-old trees that used to provide shelter from marauding saber-toothed cats are still there–only now they’re petrified, owing to a mineralization process that is too complicated to explain in a Best of the North Bay issue. And it costs you five bucks to go visit those trees. Welcome to the Petrified Forest, a state landmark on the Sonoma/Napa border. It’s a great place to give kids a sense of the scale of things–big things, old things. It also boasts a way-cool gift shop, where, for just a few bucks, you can purchase a 60 million-year-old fish fossil, guaranteed to amaze classmates at your kids’ show-and-tell for many years to come. And like all good petrified forests, the place is filthy with history: In 1870, the site was discovered by Petrified Charlie Evans (and we don’t want to know how he earned that nickname). That same year, it was visited by author Robert Louis Stevenson and immortalized in the book Silverado Squatters. A little more than 100 years after that, the first petrified log was power washed–stay awake, this is important. Check it out for yourself. Drive north or south (depending on the location of your modern-day caveman/cavewoman digs) on Hwy. 101. Take the River Road/Guerneville exit to Mark West Springs Road (wave to the Northern California Bohemian office as you drive past). Continue driving on Mark West Springs Road until it becomes Porter Creek Road. Continue driving on Porter Creek Road until it ends at Petrified Forest Road. Make a left turn onto Petrified Forest Road. You will see the entrance to the Petrified Forest 1/2 mile down the road on your left. It’s open every day except Christmas.

Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and juniors (ages 12 to 17), and $2 for children ages 11 and under. 707/942-6667. –G.C.


Photograph by Michael Amsler

Best Place to Let Your Kids Express Their Creative Self

OK, it might not be the ultimate best place (there are many dynamite kids’ arts programs in the North Bay), but it is outstanding. Studio Be’s Creation Conservatory offers a wide range of fabulous classes that allow young children and teens to just be themselves. Spring classes–which started this week and run through May–feature a bunch of old favorites (classes in storytelling, playwriting, and solo performance) and a slew of new favorites (classes in improv comedy, modern dance, tumbling, vocal improvisation, and creative expression–and we’re all for that). The program’s director is Michelle Pelletier (above, back row), whose teaching and direction credits include the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. Summer classes begin June 18 and include the ever-popular Shake & Bake: Shakespeare in the Heat of the Summer, where kids can learn the fine art of throwing Shakespearean insults and a bit of handy stage fighting.

Studio Be, 206 Fifth St., Santa Rosa. 707/569-8206, ext. 2. –G.C.

Best Place to Not Get in Trouble

Don’t touch anything or you’ll regret it! How often do kids hear some uptight adult barking that threat? At the Bay Area Discovery Museum, children–up to age 10 or so–are actually encouraged to touch the exhibits. Required to touch the exhibits. Indeed, hands-on is the order of the day here. Create a self-portrait. Learn how to fingerprint someone. Use computers to fuse pictures of your family members–even those nervous nellies who are always yelling at you. Or just work on those gross motor skills, er, play. There is an ever-changing array of exhibits and activities at this unique North Bay resource, from art workshops and theater arts that help kids cope with bullies and intolerance to spring break activities camps and preschooler science labs. Reach out and touch it.

Bay Area Discovery Museum, Fort Baker, 557 McReynolds Road, Sausalito. Admission is $7 for adults and children ages 2 and up. Children under 1 and members are free. Group rates are available to schools, day-care centers, and community organizations. 415/289-7266. –G.C.

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From the March 22-28, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Maintained by .

‘It All Starts Today’

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‘It All Starts Today’

It All Starts Today.

Newfound Glory

Hope gets sneaky in ‘It All Starts Today’

SOME FILMS sneak up on you. For two hours, you sit there in the dark, staring up at the screen, having a certain kind of experience–sometimes enjoyable, sometimes not. And then, in the last few moments of the film, everything turns upside down and you learn that what you’ve been experiencing is not what you thought it was.

Think of The Sixth Sense.

It All Starts Today, the new film by French director Bertrand Tavernier (Round Midnight), pulls off a similar, though far superior trick. For 100 minutes, Tavernier makes us think we’re watching a film about frustration and hopelessness, a harrowing examination of the frustration of preschool teachers fighting for the futures of their students in the midst of hopeless poverty and abuse. And then, with nothing trickier than a slight shift of focus, he shows us that what we’ve been watching is, in fact, a lesson in the power of hope.

Daniel Lefebvre (Philippe Torreton, in a flawless, open-hearted performance) runs a publicly funded preschool in Hernaing, a small town in northern France where the unemployment level is rising fast along with the rates of alcoholism, crime, and violence. Though the French government offers low-cost education to children as young as 2 years old–an alternative to babysitting and more costly forms of child care–the program is poorly funded.

The system is also subject to absurd rules and regulations that routinely force the teachers to break the law, as when the teachers pool their own money to buy lunch for the children barred from the school lunch program–their parents didn’t turn in the proper paperwork– or when Lefebvre gives a ride home to a 5-year-old girl whose drunken mother has abandoned her, along with her little brother in a baby carriage, in the schoolyard.

Lefebvre is a good man, and his mounting despair and irrational outbursts of anger are a direct result of the remarkable dedication he has toward the children under his care. His main emotional ally is his resourceful live-in sculptor girlfriend Valeria (Maria Pitaressi), who’s overcome her own harrowing childhood in becoming a creator of “beauty from nothing.”

By immersing us, for the majority of the film, in the unendingly bleak details of the students’ lives, by demonstrating the insurmountable obstacles faced by the teachers, Tavernier brings us to the unbearable conclusion that there is no hope for these children.

When, in the last 15 minutes or so, tiny glimmers of goodness arise–a deaf child finally gets the medical help she needs, Valeria creates a neighborhood celebration using little more than plastic bottles and sand, a trembling parent thanks Lefebvre for his efforts–the effect is astoundingly emotional. After so much sadness and hopelessness, we watch as the teachers and the children gobble up the light as if they’d been starving. We in the seats gobble it up right along with them.

Though the film is French, the situation is not so different from that of many American schools. Few films in any language have so powerfully shown the gargantuan task our teachers face every day. When, at the end, Lefebvre describes the work of his miner father, whose legacy “is a pile of stones and the courage to lift them,” we know the words also speak for those who teach, protect, and fight for the futures of our children.

You may leave the theater wanting to give every teacher in sight a great big raise.

‘It All Starts Today’ opens Friday, March 16, at the Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. For details, see or call 415/454-1222.

From the March 15-21, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

The Wide-Eyed Gourmet

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On an aversion to cake doughnuts. Or frittering away one’s childhood

By Marina Wolf

FOR YEARS I’ve hated cake doughnuts (some people call them old-fashioneds) without really knowing why. My dislike has the unwavering focus of a childhood distaste, all out of proportion with the obvious facts of their sharp aftertaste and dry, stiff crumb. It was only recently that my family once ate cake doughnuts every Saturday for two years. That much exposure can make you sick of anything.

The doughnuts were one of my dad’s get-rich-quick schemes that he picked up to supplement his recession-level income. His other home-business ventures–Amway and Watkins were two of his favorites–depended heavily on charisma and gullible buyers, none of which he had in steady supply.

Doughnuts, on the other hand, required only a few gallons of hot oil and the stubbornness of a much-whipped mule. It was right up my dad’s alley. And considering that he was an electrical engineer, his idea was a pretty good one: Fry ’em up fresh and ferry them around to folks looking for a bit of a treat on Saturday mornings.

Of course, anyone in food service will tell you it’s a hell of a lot of work, and I don’t think Dad figured on how much. Every Friday night he lugged the equipment and heavy sacks of mix out from the laundry room, and every Saturday at 3 or 4 a.m. he fired up the fryer. We got used to the sounds of the enormous mixer, its clanging blades muted by a churning pale mess of dough, but the smell of the frying was unavoidable, oily and verging too close to burnt. By 8 a.m. the fumes had settled on every curtain in the house, there to linger until the following week.

At the beginning, Dad burned himself fairly often as he dropped the doughnuts in and fished them out, four or six at a time. After they cooled, he painted a thick coat of chocolate or vanilla frosting over the top, which settled in drops all over the table, no matter how carefully he laid down the paper towels.

There was no room in the kitchen to make a real breakfast, so we kids fed ourselves on the more obvious mistakes–the gnarled ones or the ones that stuck together. Then we washed our greasy hands and struggled to put together the pink cardboard boxes, which my father filled according to last week’s orders: one dozen plain, six each of plain and chocolate. He scrawled the name on each box, stacked them carefully in the bus, and yelled at us to hurry up. We could help deliver to houses of people we knew well, but that didn’t mean we could be late.

At first it was exciting to ring the doorbells, carefully present the plain pink boxes, and run back to the car clutching a few dollars. But in time I began to feel a certain resentment toward my dad’s customers, the ones I knew from church, especially. Their fathers had real jobs, one job each. They could get doughnuts from Dunkin’ Donuts if they wanted to, and fancy ones, too, maple bars and apple fritters and jelly donuts.

Why were they buying ours, our weird little crumbly cake donuts?

I can’t explain, then or now, the source of my distrust, except in the simplest of metaphors–cake doughnuts, apple fritters. What’s to explain? But even then I sensed the slight disdain in the smiles of my Sunday school classmates as they handed over the money, $1.50 per box.

Their fathers were sleeping in bed.

My father was sleeping in the car, his head lolling back, his mouth slightly open, and a trace of white dusting his brow.

From the March 15-21, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Living Wage Coalition of Sonoma County

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Living Wage Coalition of Sonoma County

Wage Wars

Sonoma County coalition: Share the wealth

By Paula Harris

MARTY BENNETT wants payback. And so do many others. They call themselves the Living Wage Coalition of Sonoma County, and they’ll soon be coming to a city council near you. The coalition, which includes various local organizations, such as labor, religion, and nonprofit groups, says the time has come for Sonoma County to work toward an increasingly visible nationwide issue: obtaining a living-wage ordinance.

Next week, the coalition–two years in the making and boasting a membership that includes the Sonoma County Council on Aging, Sonoma County Peace and Justice Center, North Bay Labor Council, and Women in Action–holds its first general meeting to drum up support for a new push to implement living-wage laws in the county government and every city in Sonoma County.

The ordinance will be similar to measures adopted in San Francisco and Santa Cruz, which now require contractors and subcontractors doing business with those cities to pay workers $11 an hour, plus benefits.

As a member of the coalition organizing committee, Bennett–a history instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College–says the upcoming meeting aims to educate the public about the movement and invite new organizations to join the coalition.

“We’re in the process of crafting living-wage ordinances for Petaluma and Santa Rosa and will be working with those two city councils as we proceed,” says Bennett. “Over time, we will go from one municipality to the next, and ultimately we’ll go to the county Board of Supervisors.”

Petaluma Vice Mayor Janice Cader-Thompson says that while she is concerned the new council majority will not support such an ordinance, she fully embraces it. “If we just look at the cost of living in Sonoma County, we should see it’s something we need to address–it’s not possible to live and work in this county at a minimal wage,” she says. “I think it’s important for this issue to come to the forefront.”

Bennett believes the time is ripe for building a local living-wage movement at the grassroots level for several reasons. “This movement is sweeping the country,” he says, noting that more than 50 cities and counties in the nation have passed similar ordinances since the movement began in the 1990s.

Another reason, Bennett says, is what he calls “the siliconization of Sonoma County.”

He points to the rampant wage inequality, skyrocketing house prices, and the “gold rush” of the high-tech industry. According to Bennett, the burgeoning North Bay telecom industry, while creating a considerable number of high-end jobs, also generates an extraordinary number of low-end jobs in the service sector.

The situation in Sonoma County, he adds, is beginning to mirror Silicon Valley’s.

WAGE DATA published by the California Employment Development Department tend to support that notion. The figures show that 45 percent of all the new jobs created in Sonoma County between 1995 and 2002 are expected to pay less than $10 per hour.

In addition, Bennett points out, only 17 percent of households in the county can afford the median-price home, which is hovering around $330,000. The national Low-Income Housing Coalition calculates that a renter must earn $15.94 an hour just to afford a typical two-bedroom apartment here.

Yet the local coalition has yet to propose an hourly living-wage figure. “As part of our ordinance, we’ll come up with a calculation of what we believe a living wage to be,” Bennett explains. “But there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. So how the ordinance is crafted may differ somewhat from one municipality to the next.”

Organizers say the living-wage ordinance will definitely cover any city contractors or subcontractors and could cover firms that lease property from the city, as well as firms that receive public subsidies, of any form, particularly redevelopment funds.

Representatives from labor, religious organizations, nonprofits, youth, and the Latino community are expected to speak at the first meeting. Members of each city council, and possibly a county supervisor or two, are scheduled to attend. The keynote speaker will be Stephanie Luce, professor of Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and co-author of the book The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy.

These days, Bennett is particularly buoyed up because the living-wage movement could gain even more momentum locally owing to the current national political climate.

“At the federal level, with what I would call a very hostile Republican administration that is certainly going to be very resistant to any further increases in the minimum wage, we could make a real difference with the living wage,” he says.

“By having local government model something and by having local government and citizens really make a firm statement that no one who works full time for a living should be in poverty, this movement could really begin to impact public opinion.”

The Sonoma County Living Wage Coalition meeting will be held Saturday, March 24, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., in the Santa Rosa City Council chambers, 100 Santa Rosa Ave., Santa Rosa.

For details, call 707/545-7349, ext. 48.

From the March 15-21, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘Pollock’

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‘Pollock’

Portrait of an Artist

Striking ‘Pollock’ never quite penetrates the riddle of artist’s life

By

NOW THAT everyone worships him as a dead art saint, no one will connect Jack the Dripper’s penchant for public urination with his talent for splashing paint. In Pollock, director/title star Ed Harris re-creates the way action painter Jackson Pollock spread drips and splatters onto canvases of still-breathtaking harmony.

The paintings themselves often exonerate Pollock’s turbulent, self-destructive life. He was not just the most celebrated American artist of his age; he was also the most self-hating: a corrosive, battling drunk who acted like a rock star on a bender.

What the fictional film Pollock (now showing at the UA 5 in Santa Rosa and the Sequoia in Mill Valley, and up for two Academy Awards, including a Best Actor nod to Harris) describes well is the mid-1940s art scene: backstabbing, hardscrabbling, the audience barely existent, the market practically nil. This film vividly portrays the way the ruthlessness of this scene turned inward on the artists. But it doesn’t go far enough in showing us what tormented Jackson Pollock.

Pollock makes the artist’s long-suffering wife, Lee Krasner, into a saint, too. Marcia Gay Harden’s performance (which scored her a Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress) is so strong that the film ought to have been called Pollock and Krasner.

Harden sought the feminist notes in this artist–note that two women, Barbara Turner and Susan Emshwiller, collaborated on the screenplay. Harden has one especially powerful scene–her furious reaction to Pollock’s suggestion that they have a baby. She’s smart enough to understand she’s already burping and diapering her husband full time.

But was Krasner–who sacrificed herself so utterly, who forced an unwell man into marriage–really a feminist hero?

Amid the conflict between Pollock and Krasner the other performers seem incidental.

Harris’ real-life wife, Amy Madigan, plays Peggy Guggenheim in a visual range from Mrs. Nosferatu to Lady Bird Johnson. It is only after reading about Guggenheim’s treatment of her stable of artists that you learn why someone might want to pee in her fireplace, as Pollock did. Guggenheim pioneered the financial advance that needed to be paid off in profits or repaid–the same technique that the recording industry has used to break down so many musicians. She was also essentially the only game in town for abstract artists during the mid-1940s.

An easy laugh is reaped from Guggenheim’s long-suffering assistant, Howard Putzel. Bud Cort reputedly gained 100 pounds for the Wayland Smithers-style part of Putzel. The question is, Why? He’s onscreen for only minutes.

By contrast, Harris has well-treated Clement Greenberg (Jeffrey Tambor), the first critic to recognize Pollock’s qualities as an artist, back when others were deriding his art as “baked macaroni.” Tambor, who excels at acting stout stuffed shirts, inflames Pollock with a trifling comment. When Greenberg says a particular painting has failed, Harris’ Pollock growls, “I’ll go back and fix it for you.”

Critics are generally portrayed in the movies as parasites. They hang around “like a passionate gambler without any money,” as Chekhov wrote. But Harris gives Greenberg his due. In the end Greenberg has the guts to tell Pollock that he’s losing his talent. Few critics have the integrity to face down their targets without any consoling words.

There’s a smaller role for Pollock’s last lover, Ruth Kligman, played by Jennifer Connelly. I was sorry to see Harris relegating Connelly to the background. Harris considered the lissome Connelly, in her fetching array of bathing suits and summer clothes, less fascinating than the pain of a blocked, raging artist on the warpath.

MUCH of the film is spent waiting for Mt. Pollock to blow up, though the lyrical moments hold your attention. Early in the film, Harden’s Krasner lures Pollock into her bedroom. Not since the film Crush have we seen the sensual side of Harden, who looks like a plumper version of pinup queen Betty Page. Her Lee undresses in shadow at the end of a hallway. You can’t see her body, just her silhouette. You can hear the different clicks and snaps of her clothing coming undone.

Listening to these little sounds, I remembered the story in Isak Dinesen’s Seven Gothic Tales, where the old seducer remembers how differently women undressed 50 years previously, in the days when their flesh was held in by metal and stays and laces. Perhaps it’s immaterial that the real Lee Krasner looked less like Marcia Gay Harden and more like Chico Marx.

The painting scenes are Harris at his best. Individual scenes of Pollock are in the league of H. G. Clouzot’s documentary The Mystery of Picasso, which showed the artist at work. Early on, as Pollock constructs the mural for Peggy Guggenheim’s apartment, there’s a me-and-my-shadow scene of him in front of a monster canvas, with the artist pacing in front of this blank space he proposes to fill.

Similarly exhilarating (though its exact occurrence will never be proven) is the Eureka moment, after Pollock trudges off to his studio in the snow. He heads out wordlessly into the unheated studio like a man on his way to the coal mine. After stocking a pitifully small potbellied stove and putting on some music, Pollock studies and studies his canvas. He lays down a crooked stripe of silver radiator paint as broad as duct tape and suddenly notes a curlicue drip of paint on the floor. Later, Krasner’s congrats (“You’ve done it, Pollock. You’ve cracked it wide open”) gives the vicarious pleasure of hitting pay dirt.

Harris’ Pollock is both virile and terrified, a stag in the headlights. He’s compelling, but he’s too much: there’s too much calculation of the mesmerizing gesture. We see Harris’ Pollock lighting a cigarette in the time it would take most people to go out for a pack of smokes.

One scene exposes the limits of Harris’ Sam Shepard-style look at Pollock, an Arizona artist gone east. Pollock is doing a radio interview and comes close to explaining his method. “I defy the accident,” Pollock says, meaning that he doesn’t believe in randomness when he’s painting. (And yet there doesn’t seem much that’s accidental in either Pollock or Harris’ performance.)

The interviewer and the artist pass a heavy old-fashioned microphone back and forth, putting silence between the questions. In this scene, Harris’ Pollock is communicating for a change. Why does he sound so different here than from the rest of the movie? Because he’s supposed to be stiff with fear from being on the spot? I’d suggest that maybe, in re-creating Pollock’s tones from tapes or transcriptions of the interview, a different type of Pollock than Harris’ character emerged.

While Pollock never goes wrong in the usual ways of an artist’s biography, there’s something missing and baffling in this movie. You try to read between the lines, and there’s not always material there. Harris feels so much sympathy for Pollock’s silences that he never goes up against them. The mystery of the artist is never peeled.

There’s something significant about his mother, who keeps turning up; but what is it? Read the source for this film, Jackson Pollock: An American Saga (Woodward/White; 1998) the definitive biography by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, and you find a better idea of what was eating him.

THE AUTHORS decided that his mother emasculated Pollock, and that she drove the artist’s father away. It seems a simplistic argument–if it hadn’t been for Stella Pollock’s striving and culture-vulturism, how would two of her sons have grown up to be artists?

But the film tiptoes around this relationship between Pollock and his mother. Family dinners set him off, as we see. When Pollock starts drinking one Thanksgiving, he flips over the table. No one tries to calm him down–it’s Harris’ view of the artist’s torment, understood by none.

In the interests of machismo, however, Harris left out one very strong reason for Pollock’s incredible booze consumption and self-hatred. Introducing Pollock’s mentor Thomas Hart Benton into the film might have spelled the matter out.

Benton was a great denouncer of the New York sissiness that was draining the vital juices from art. All this raillery was interrupted by Benson’s suspiciously extended camping trips with younger men. From Benton, Pollock inherited fears of the unmanliness of doing art that was abstract instead of social realist.

Pollock’s bisexuality, with which he wrestled all his life, may have been reason for his drinking and bullying. Pollock’s trysts with men is one part of the story Harris banned. Why? Because modern movie audiences couldn’t deal with it?

We’ve seen rock musicians, writers, and more than a few artists tearing up the screen in the throes of their creative torment. Here was the opportunity to show a different kind of torment: the story of how a macho artist–married, Schlitz-drinking, kind to his pet raven and his pet dog–felt that he wasn’t really straight and couldn’t stand it.

Harris is a commanding actor, serious and intense, but as a director he backed off from the most unusual part of the story. As a result, his often striking movie is a lock without a key.

From the March 15-21, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

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