Free Will Astrology, Mar. 4-10

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): Many ancient cultures had myths that explained solar eclipses as celestial creatures eating the sun. In China, the devourer was a dragon. A frog did it in Vietnam, wolves in Norse lore and bears in several Indigenous American legends. In some places, people made loud noises during the blackout, banging drums and pots, to drive away the attacker and bring back the sun. I suspect you are now in the midst of a metaphorical eclipse of your own, Aries. But donโ€™t worry. Just as was true centuries ago, your sun wonโ€™t actually be gobbled up. Instead, hereโ€™s the likely scenario: You will rouse an appetite for transformation that will consume outdated ideas and situations. Whatever disintegrates will become fuel for new stories. You will convert old pain and decay into vital energy. Your luminous vigor will return even stronger.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Maybe you have been enjoying my advice for years but still havenโ€™t become a billionaire, grown into a potent influencer or landed the perfect job. Does that mean Iโ€™ve failed you? Should you swap me out for a more results-oriented oracle? If rewards like those are the dreams you treasure, then yes, it may be time to search for a new guide. But if what you want most is simply to cultivate the steady gratification of feeling real and whole and authentic, then stick with me. P.S.: The coming days are likely to offer you abundant opportunities to feel real and whole and authentic. Take advantage.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In 1557, a Welsh mathematician invented the equals sign (=) to avoid repeatedly writing the words โ€œis equal to.โ€ Over the next centuries, this helped make algebra more convenient and efficient. The moral of the story: Some breakthroughs come not from making novel discoveries but from finding better ways to render and use whatโ€™s already known. Iโ€™m pleased to say that you Geminis are primed to devise your own equivalents of the equals sign. What strengths might you express with greater crispness and efficiency? What familiar complications could you make easier? See if you can find shortcuts that aid productivity without sacrificing precision.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): One benefit of being an astrologer is that when I need a break from being intensely myself, I can take a sabbatical. My familiarity with the zodiac frees me to escape the limits of my personal horoscope and play at being other signs. I always return from my getaway with a renewed appreciation for the unique riddle that is my identity. I think now is an excellent time for Cancerians like you and me to enjoy such a vacation. We can have maximum fun and attract inspiring educational experiences by experimenting. I plan to be like a Sagittarius and may also experiment with embodying Aries qualities.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In Scandinavian folklore, thereโ€™s a phenomenon called utiseta. It involves sitting out at night in a charged place in nature, like a crossroads or border. The goal is to make oneself patiently available for visions, wisdom or contact with spirits and ancestors. I suspect you could benefit from the equivalent of a utiseta right now, Leo. Do you dare to refrain from forcing solutions through sheer will? Are you brave enough to let answers wander into your midst instead of hunting them down? I believe your strength is your willingness to be still and wait in a threshold.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): You are a devotee of the sacred particular. While others traffic in vague abstractions, you understand that vitality thrives in the details. Your attention to nuance and precision is not fussiness but a form of love. I get excited to see you honor life by noticing all of its specific textures and rhythms. Now, more than ever, the world needs this superpower of yours. I hope you will express it even stronger in the coming months. May you exult in the knowledge that your refusal to treat the world carelessly or sloppily isnโ€™t about perfectionism but about respect.ย 

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Architect Antoni Gaudรญ spent more than 40 years designing Barcelonaโ€™s Sagrada Famรญlia cathedral. He knew he wouldnโ€™t live to see it finished. Itโ€™s still under construction today, long after his death. When he said, โ€œMy client is not in a hurry,โ€ he meant that his client was God. I invite you to borrow this perspective, Libra. See how much fun you can have by releasing yourself from the tyranny of urgency. Grant yourself permission to concentrate on a process that might take a long time to unfold. What a generous and ultimately productive luxury it will be for you to align yourself with deep rhythms and relaxing visions. I believe your good work will require resoluteness that transcends conventional timelines.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The ancient Chinese philosophical text known as the Tao Te Ching teaches that โ€œthe usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness.โ€ A vessel full of itself can receive nothing. Is it possible that you are currently so crammed with opinions, strategies and righteous certainty that youโ€™ve lost some of your capacity to receive? I suspect there are wonders and marvels trying to reach you, Scorpio: insights, inquiries and invitations. But they canโ€™t get in if youโ€™re full. Your assignment: Temporarily empty yourself. Create space by releasing cherished positions, a defensive stance or stories about how things must be.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The Yoruba concept of ashe refers to the power to make things happen. Itโ€™s the life force that flows through all things, and can be accumulated, directed and shared. Right now, your ashe is strong but a bit scattered, Sagittarius. You have power, but itโ€™s diffused across too many commitments and half-pursued desires. So your assignment is to consolidate. Choose two things that matter most and fully pour your ashe into them. As you concentrate your vitality, youโ€™ll get more done and become a conduit for blessings larger than yourself.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Whatโ€™s holding you back? What are you waiting for? A nudge from destiny? A breaking point when youโ€™ll be compelled to act? A hidden clue that may or may not reveal itself? Itโ€™s my duty to tell you this: All that lingering and dallying, all that wishing and hoping, is wasted energy. As long as youโ€™re sitting still, pining for a cosmic deliverance to handle the hard parts, the sweet intervention will keep its distance. The instant you claim the authority to act, youโ€™ll see it clearly: the path forward that doesnโ€™t need a perfect sign, a final push or fateโ€™s permission slip.ย ย 

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): If youโ€™re anything like me, you wince as you recall the lazy choices and careless passivity that speckle your past. You may wonder what you were thinking when you treated yourself so cavalierly, pushed away a steadfast ally or let a dazzling invitation slip by. At times, I feel as if my wrong turns carry more weight in my fate than the bright, grace-filled moments. Hereโ€™s good news for you, though. March is Amnesty Month for all Aquarians willing to own up to and graduate from their missteps. As you work diligently to unwind the unhelpful patterns that led you off course, life will release you from the heavy drag of those old failures and their leftover momentum.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In systems theory, โ€œcritical pointsโ€ are moments when long periods of small changes gradually accumulate, and then suddenly erupt into a big shift. Nothing appears to happen for a while, and then everything happens at once. Ice becomes water, for instance. I suspect youโ€™re nearing such a pivot, Pisces. Youโ€™ve been gathering strength, clarity and nerve in subtle ways. Soon you will be visited by what we might call a graceful, manageable explosion. The slow, persistent changes youโ€™ve been overseeing will result in a major transition.

Homework: Experiment with this principle: Take only what you need. Newsletter: FreeWillAstrology.com.

The Poet-Lawyer, Attorney Bernice Espinoza

Bernice Espinoza assumed the sobriquet of โ€œpoet-lawyerโ€ after a formative classroom confrontation with a Berkeley college professor who charged that she must choose between poetry and the law. He urged her to be a poet. She chose instead to be both.

Espinoza moved to the North Bay 10 years ago. She was in Sonoma for the first four of those years, the only self-identifying woman of color in the Public Defenders Office (where sensitivity and cultural competency can have a decisive role in client defense). There, โ€œBereโ€ was inspired to begin teaching โ€œknow your rightsโ€ classes in the community.

For the past six years, she has worked for Sonoma Immigrant Services, as a defense attorney for immigrants in federal deportation cases. Being bi-lingual and bi-cultural are great assets in this work. As is her trauma-informed approachโ€”97% of her clients are asylum seekers (and must therefore demonstrate a history of violent discrimination in their countries of origin. Crime that their governments were unable or unwilling to protect them from. Governments are sometimes the perpetrators.) 

Art helps too in drawing out these sometimes horrific storiesโ€”her process with them begins with sketchbooks, and often involves music, art and of course poetry. 

I met Espinoza in her law office in Santa Rosa. It was a tense time to visit her. In January, the Trump Administration fired 15 immigration judges in San Francisco (leaving only four). This is part of a campaign to deny these immigrants fair due process in favor of โ€œexpedited removal.โ€

Cincinnatus Hibbard: Bernice Espinoza, could you elaborate on the meaning of โ€˜poet-lawyer?โ€™

Bernice Espinoza: โ€ฆ I am a weaver of words for community, love and story-tellingโ€”in and out of the courtroom.

Before we blend the poetry and the law, tell me about your poetic practice independent of the law. How do you use it?

I have a little PTSD and ADHD. For me, poetry was and is a form of therapy. It was my therapy before I had an opportunity to have โ€œtherapy.โ€ [For my process] there is not an English word equivalent for desahogar. Its literal meaning is โ€œto stop drowning.โ€ But what it figuratively means is to stop drowning in emotion or feeling and release all your pain and suffering. Poetry was always my way to desahogar or stop from drowning.

For a lot of immigrants or children of immigrantsโ€”Latinรฉ youth, there is a stigma around mental health treatment, but there is an acceptance of art. Shared at floricantos [Mexican-American music and literary art events], the poetry has a healing power not just for oneself, but for our communities.

Tell me about courtrooms as floricantosโ€”as it were.

Now I can use the words and the writing, not only for my own healing, but in the courtroomโ€”telling the storiesโ€”giving the flower and the song [the flor and the canto] so that people can remember that people are peopleโ€”regardless of where they are sitting in the courtroom. We are all humans.

Learn more: Sonoma Immigrant Services can be reached at sonomaimmigrant.org. Bernice Espinozaโ€™s work as a โ€˜removal defense attorneyโ€™ is funded through a grant from The Secure Families Collaborative (established by the county and county council in 2018 and now an independent nonprofit). She invites readers interested in contributing to visit sonomacountysecurefamilies.org.


A Poem by Bernice Espinoza

Words are so powerful

that God used them 

to speak Life into existence

We use them now for RESISTANCE

Free 

Free 

Palestine!

Black Lives Matter!

Land Back!

When our communities are under attack

What do we do?

STAND UP, FIGHT BACK!

โ€œI am Joaquin. . .โ€

โ€œI have a dream.โ€

And everything between

Like the Mayan poem In Lakโ€™ech

You are my other me

So, I will use poetry for

Trans life visibility

Queer unity

To trample the oligarchy

Because

they canโ€™t take our history

or our Joy

OUR JOY

We will 

laugh

sing

write

play

hold our loved ones in our arms

Celebrate 

marriages

births

graduations

victories

We will celebrate joy

We will be 

JOY

Worst Day, Redux: Americaโ€™s Mass Shooting Epidemic

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In the early afternoon of April 17, 2025, I received what to date has been the worst message ever sent to me. It was my daughter, a senior at Florida State University, texting that she was running from campus because there was an active shooter nearby. 

I am grateful that my daughter thought to run when they heard the gun shots from her classroom, as did her boyfriend. I know that my daughter is still on ready alert when she hears sirens or what sounds like gunfire. I hoped never to have that kind of scare again. 

And then I woke up on March 1, 2026 to read a headline about a mass shooting in Austin, my daughter and her boyfriendโ€™s new home, where she attends law school. This time, a gunman opened fire in a bar, not far from her campus, leaving 14 people wounded. I couldnโ€™t stop crying as I messaged her to ensure that they were OKโ€”thankfully, yes. 

When does this stop? According to the Gun Violence Archive, there had already been 50 mass shootings in the U.S. three days before this one in Austin. Why should parents (like me) have to read the headlines and wonder if the second time my daughter was close to one of these incidents was the last? 

This country has been built on violence, justifies violence when it suits its needs and produces narratives to young people that violence is the answer to conflict. Violence is the way the United States typically โ€œsolvesโ€ international and domestic conflicts, from killing Indigenous peoples and taking their lands to โ€œremovingโ€ leaders to suit its needs. 

As I write this, I am reading about the U.S. and/or Israel killing 153 schoolgirls in Iran, and I am dying for those families. Reports are that the shooting in Austin may have been in retaliation for the U.S. attacks. 

This has to stop. May we all figure out how to do betterโ€”for us, for our world, and please, for our children.

Laura Finley, Ph.D., teaches in the Barry University department of sociology & criminology in Florida.

Bourbon, Barbera, Burgers: Edmondo Sarti Appreciates Craft

San Francisco-born burger chain Super Duper Burgers, which originally opened in 2010 with one location in the Castro neighborhood, has expanded to Corte Madera with its newest location, just opened this February. 

Built on the philosophy of fast food with slow food values, the retro-inspired fast-casual spot highlights all-natural, vegetarian-fed beef from Brandt Beef, free-range chicken sandwiches, organic veggie burgers, free house-made pickles, and organic milkshakes and ice cream cones crafted with Straus Creamery. To celebrate the recent opening on Feb. 11, the first 50 guests scored a free burger.

โ€œAfter years of looking for our next perfect location in Marin, we are excited to have the opportunity to open in Corte Madera,โ€ said Edmondo Sarti, COO of Back of the House, the company that owns Super Duper. โ€œAs a long time Marin County resident, this restaurant is right around the corner from my home, and Iโ€™m pleased to finally be able to serve my community and have Super Duper become part of the Corte Madera community.โ€

As a longtime San Francisco restaurant industry pro, Sarti has more than 25 years of experience opening, managing and operating restaurants throughout the Bay Area. Super Duper has been at the forefront of his work as Back of the Houseโ€™s flagship concept, and has grown to 18 locations under his operational leadership.

Amber Turpin: How did you get into this work?

Edmondo Sarti: It started when I was 13, making pizzas in my uncleโ€™s restaurant in the village of Portoverrara, Italy. Now, 40 years later, I am still wondering how my path led me here, allowing me to follow my passions and do what I love everyday.

Did you ever have an โ€˜ahaโ€™ moment with a certain beverage? If so, tell us about it.

It happens all the time, and thatโ€™s what keeps it interesting. Just when I think Iโ€™ve seen it all, someone introduces me to a new classic or an unexpected combination that pleasantly surprises me. Staying open to that kind of discovery is important.

What is your favorite thing to drink at home?

Depends on the mood and the occasion. My usual rotation is wine, an Americano, a bourbon, a gin martini or a Super Duper shake.

Where do you like to go out for a drink?

I really enjoy going to Farmshop in Larkspur for an Admiral. Great atmosphere, well-crafted drink, no pretenseโ€”a combination is harder to find than it should be.

If you were stuck on a desert island, what would you want to be drinking (besides fresh water)?

My go-to wine will always be Barbera, but on a warm island Iโ€™d lean toward something bright from Southern Italy like a Falanghina, Greco or Fiano. And Iโ€™d probably sneak in a Super Duper lemonade too,ย  just for good measure.

Super Duper Burger, 5839 Paradise Dr., Corte Madera, superduperburgers.com.

Your Letters, Mar. 4

Bored of Peace

Heaven knows that the newly established nothingburger Board of Peace, chaired by our president and aided by his brilliant son-in-law, the former UK prime minister Tony Blair and several other human rights abusers, will be pretty darn busy dealing with the fallout, a word carefully chosen, from our fun new invented conflict with Iran. 

The new board reflects the incoherent mix of perspectives, attitudes, allegiances and ideologies present in the administrationโ€™s wider โ€œforeign policy.โ€

The nightmare continues.

Craig J. Corsini
San Rafael

Just Do It

As the headlines blare through war, more war and the usual parade of political absurdities, itโ€™s easy to feel like weโ€™re passengers on a runaway train. But history, and daily life, suggest otherwise. 

Humans possess a miraculous capacity to do the right thing when we need to. We check on neighbors. We volunteer. We tell the truth when it would be easier not to. We choose decency over cynicism.

Most of it doesnโ€™t make the news cycle, but it makes a difference.

The world is broken, so repair it where you stand. Small acts count. You got this, humanity.

Micah D. Mercer
North Bay

Good Writing, Oscar Party and an Immigrant Legal Defense Fundraiser

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San Francisco

Good Writing

Marinโ€™s own Anne Lamott returns to the stage with a new bookโ€”and a co-author who happens to share her dinner table. Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences, co-written with husband Neal Allen, offers both a practical guide to sharper prose and a sideways peek into how the two collaborate on writing, editing and life. The pair appear together at the Curran Theatre for an evening of live, unscripted conversation about craft, clarity and the occasional marital debate over verbs. Allen, drawing from decades in journalism and coaching, lays out the principles behind the bookโ€™s 36 sentence-sharpening strategiesโ€”strong verbs, tighter edits, fresher turns of phraseโ€”while Lamott counters with the wit and candor that made Bird by Bird a modern classic. Expect equal parts insight and humor as they explore how to finish work when life gets messy, when to break the rules and how to make language sing. 7pm, Tuesday, March 17, Curran Theatre, San Francisco. Tickets start at $96. Visit us.atgtickets.com.

Larkspur

Awards Night

Hollywood glitz lands in Marin when the Lark Theater rolls out the red carpet for its annual Awards Night celebration. One may watch the live awards broadcast from Hollywood on the big screen, sip bubbly and settle in for an afternoon of cinema-pageantry with a local twist. The festivities kick off with a prosecco reception and hors dโ€™oeuvres before the telecast, plus a silent auction, live entertainment and a costume contest for those inclined to dress for the occasion. 

Hosted by The Larkโ€™s executive artistic director Josh Costello, the event turns awards season into a community affairโ€”equal parts glamour, fundraiser and film-lover fรชte. 3pm doors, 3:30pm pre-show reception, 4pm live awards broadcast, Sunday, March 15, Lark Theater, 549 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur. $95 reserved seating; $75 Lark members.

Occidental

Call for Care

West County gathers at The Altamont for A Call for Care, a community fundraiser supporting VIDAS (Vital Immigrant Defense Advocacy & Services), the Sonoma County organization providing trauma-informed immigration legal advocacy. With five locations across the county, VIDAS offers legal representation, mental health services, training and organizing support for immigrant families navigating an increasingly complex system. The afternoon blends music, art and action: DJ Timoteo sets the tone before a silent auction featuring local art, restaurant certificates, West County wellness offerings and staycation packages. And the evening culminates in an art salon spotlighting local poets and musiciansโ€”an adult-centered space designed for deeper listening and reflection. Equal parts fundraiser and gathering, the event aims to translate concern into solidarity. 3โ€“7pm, Sunday, March 8, The Altamont, 3703 Main St., Occidental. RSVP at altamontgeneralstore.com.

Sebastopol

Natureโ€™s Delights

Spring arrives early at Showstoppers Artist Collective with Natureโ€™s Delights, a two-month exhibition celebrating the bounty of Sonoma County and Bay Area talent. The group show brings together a diverse range of artistsโ€”including members of Santa Rosaโ€™s Raizes Collectiveโ€”spotlighting work rooted in community, culture and the natural world. Expect handcrafted, painted and homespun pieces alongside photography and boutique art, all housed within SACโ€™s Co-Create space, which doubles as gallery and gathering place. An opening reception invites visitors to meet the artists and take part in a collaborative community art projectโ€”less passive viewing, more shared making. Reception 2โ€“4pm, Saturday, March 7; exhibit runs Marchโ€“April 2026, Showstoppers Artist Collective, 186 N. Main St., Ste. 110, Sebastopol.

Emotional Oasis: Oliver Laxeโ€™s โ€˜Siratโ€™ opens in Bay Area

There are films that entertain, films that distract and films that politely flatter oneโ€™s intelligence. And then there are films that seem to look one in the eye and ask whether theyโ€™re prepared to lose something.

Sirat, the new feature from Galician-born director Oliver Laxe, belongs squarely in the latter category.

โ€œA father, accompanied by his son, goes looking for his missing daughter in North Africa,โ€ reads the logline. But that summary feels almost comically insufficient once one surrenders to its Burning Man-esque heat and dust. 

The father, played by Sergi Lรณpez, and his son begin their search at a rave in the desert mountains of southern Morocco, handing out photos of the missing daughter amid endless strobes and relentless electronic dance music. From there, the film becomes something closer to a pilgrimageโ€”equal parts road movie, fever dream and ultimately a metaphysical reckoning.

During a Zoom call, I asked Laxe about the hard choices embedded in the script, and he didnโ€™t hesitate.

โ€œFirst, we wanted to invite the spectator to a catharsis,โ€ he told me. โ€œWe believe in cinema. We believe in theaters. We believe in the spectatorโ€™s sensitivity.โ€

The filmโ€™s title refers to the Arabic word sirฤt, which translates simply as โ€œpathโ€ or โ€œway.โ€ However, in Islamic theology it carries far more gravity, referring to the Sirat al-Mustaqim, the righteous straight path of faith. In Islamic teachings about the afterlife, it also names the Bridge of Siratโ€”a razor-thin span suspended over hell itself, the perilous crossing every soul must attempt on its journey from this world to whatever awaits beyond.

โ€œThere is nothing worse than being misunderstood. Our intention was to take care of spectators, but we were pushing them to the abyss,โ€ said Laxe.

That tensionโ€”care versus confrontationโ€”animates Sirat. The film is emotional but never manipulative. It simply presents events and allows the viewer to metabolize them. We begin by regarding the ravers as vaguely threatening, either withholding information or professing their ignorance. Slowly, suspicion gives way to recognition, then trust, then grief. Itโ€™s an alchemy few filmmakers manage without tipping into sentimentality.

Laxe credits risk. โ€œThe key is crossing these minefields as an artist with your fears, but not being castrated by them,โ€ he said. โ€œWe feel freedom in the film.โ€

The rave sequences feel dangerously authentic because they were. Though set in Morocco, the large-scale party was shot in Spain so production could legally assemble roughly 1,000 real ravers as extras. โ€œIt was necessary to portray us today,โ€ Laxe said. โ€œSociety is looking for transcendence. But in a way, we are a little bit lost too.โ€

That search for transcendence extends to his casting. Laxe mixed professional actors with non-actors, a choice that unnerved financiers. โ€œWe needed radical fragility,โ€ he explained. โ€œAn actor is a specialist in building a mask. Someone who has never been in front of a cameraโ€”they are totally vulnerable. It is a beautiful energy.โ€

He spoke often of โ€œthe wound.โ€ โ€œWe will have to connect more and more with fragility,โ€ he said. โ€œWe will have to celebrate the wound, not escape and put on masks.โ€

Music, composed largely before shooting by electronic artist David Letellier (aka Kangding Ray), pulses through Sirat like a second bloodstream. The soundtrack and the production design are nearly one and the same. โ€œWe worked one year in advance to get the mood,โ€ Laxe said. 

He added, โ€œMy creative process is visceral. I donโ€™t go to the office to make films. I work with my gutsโ€”hopefully with my soul.โ€

Laxeโ€™s intent is evident throughout Sirat, which arrives not as an answer but as an ordealโ€”one that trusts the audience enough to let them fall, and perhaps, come back altered.

โ€˜Siratโ€™ is rated R. Distributed by NEON, in Spanish and French with English subtitles. 115 minutes. Now in theaters.

Musical Artist Rodney Crowell Brings Tour to Napa

Musical artist Rodney Crowell realized long ago that rather than become a star, he wanted to become exactly what the first two words of the sentence denote: a musical artist. After his 1988 album โ€œDiamonds and Dirtโ€garnered him 5 consecutive #1 hit songs on the country music charts, an inevitable crash was almost certain to happen. And it sort of did but for Crowell, it was really more of a pivot to becoming the artist he always wanted to be. 

If youโ€™re unfamiliar with Crowell, his background and bonafideโ€™s almost seemed charmed. The Houston, TX, native was discovered by the late, great Jerry Reedย  after he moved to Nashville, TN, to try to become a songwriter. From there, the late and great Guy Clark took him under his wing as both a friend and a mentor. In James Szalapskiโ€™s fantastic 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways, one can spy a young Crowell at a table filled with empty booze bottles trading songs with Clark and a similarly young Steve Earle.ย 

From there, Crowell joined Emmylou Harrisโ€™s band and went on to marry Roseanne Cash, daughter of one Johnny Cash. Throughout all of this time, he was making his own music to some success but really making it as a songwriterโ€™s songwriter selling songs which became hits to people like Bob Seger, The Oak Ridge Boys and Waylon Jennings.ย 

These mentions arenโ€™t meant to be name-dropping from a fan but rather, they should serve as just a few of the ingredients that helped create the still flourishing career Crowell has today. He also wrote a memoir, โ€œChinaberry Sidewalksโ€ about growing up poor in Houston and is currently in the midst of finishing a second memoir.

Crowell is back on the North Bay this Tuesday, March 3 at the Uptown Theater in Napa and it was an honor to speak with him by phone mere hours before heading to the West Coast from his Tennessee home. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Don R. Lewis: So is this tour a full band or a solo outing?

Rodney Crowell: Itโ€™s a full band, a 5-piece. Jerry Pentecost is the drummer, he spent time with Bob Dylan and all kind really good stuff. Viktor Kraus is premier bass player around Nashville for a good long while. Jen Gunderman [keyboard and accordian], she’d been out there with Sheryl Crow for I don’t know how long. And Mark Copley is out of New York City and he’s been a main stay up there and great singer and player. I’ve always really wanted to get a chance to work with him. Now he’s available. It just all worked out.

DRL: It all worked out. I feel like it all worked out as kind of a nice through line through your career

RC: So far (laughs)

DRL: I’ve always been such a fan, as a kid, my dad listened to country music. My mom listened to rock, and your music was always something they could kind of agree on in the car, and it’s just so great to see your career keep going. You had five number one hits and now you’re just making these great, poetic songs that you’ve really grown as an artist and you could have just sat back and done the nostalgia tour. What makes you, or what made you want to keep just improving and I guess for lack of a better term, grinding, just churning out really great songs?

RC: I’ll tell you what, honestly, there was a moment for me and it’s understanding my own sensibilities. You mentioned the five hits, so that was my 15 minutes of stardom. And what I realize about me, if I tried to continue trying to swing for that fence instead of just following my heart and getting up in the morning and working, basically my decision was to be more of a writer than a star. And who knows, I don’t even know if I really had the talent to be a star, but I had the work ethic to be a productive artist. So I think that, and I don’t mean that in that high mounted way, like, oh, I’m an artist. I mean, I’m grateful that I have sustained a pretty good lifestyle and raised a family. And my wife and I live comfortably because I’ve made a live in being honest. And what’s more important to me, what’s most important to me is getting up. 

If I’m at home, I’m up in the morning writing and that’s my job, and it’s a blessing that that’s my job. So, it became the focus. So maybe what I’m doing now is not that commercial thing that happens when you’re trying to make a name for yourself. But now here’s the way I equate it, and if this seems too high minded, forgive me but, I read somewhere that Renoir the painter, the day died, the morning of the day he died, he did a little still life of a flower. I think the poet and writer, Jim Harrison keeled over at his desk working on a poem. That’s what I want to do. I want to go out working.

DRL: Well, I think that’s an interesting dichotomy too, because when you’re first starting out, you’re hanging out with Guy Clark. Jerry Reed took you under his wing, and then you end up with Johnny Cash for a father-in-law. I mean, and Johnny Cash, I think kind of speaks to what you’re saying too. People don’t realize how big of a star he was in the seventies and eighties with TV and movies, so you could see that, but then he also was truly an artist and recording until he couldn’t anymore.

RC: Yeah, that’s true. And I also had the learning, I learned something from John. He was my father-in-law, I was married to his oldest daughter during a real low point and drought in his career before he got revitalized by Rick Rubin, but there was a period where we were in Jamaica in the wee hours, just he and I, he’s opening up to me. This is Johnny Cash opening up to me. This the struggle he was having that the record company had dropped him. Columbia Records dropped Johnny Cash.

DRL: Can you imagine? Thatโ€™s sacrilege.

RC: (Laughs) I mean, he had the blues about it, but he continued to work and continued to believe that he was an artist and vital, and Rick Rubin reinvented it, and man, one of those things that he did was โ€œ Hurtโ€ (the Nine Inch Nails song). I mean, thatโ€™s right up there with โ€œHe Stopped Loving Her Todayโ€ (George Jonesโ€™ 1980 song that is widely considered the greatest country song ever written).

So luckily that I that and Emmy Lou Harris has been my lifelong friend since I was 24, and so we’ve always had a conversation about how to remain creative and vital, and so I feel good about what I’m doing. What I say is I have a high opinion of myself as a songwriter. I do. I try to keep it down a perspective, but I see myself as a middle of the pack performer out there, certainly in ticket sales and what have you. It works for me.

DRL: So farโ€ฆ(laughs)

RC: I don’t have a large audience, but the audience that does stick around with me, they don’t hold me to just play in the hits. They’ll go with me. So it can remain interesting to me because I can explore things on a stage that are not the, {hits] โ€œPlease Remember Me, or โ€œI Couldn’t Leave You if I Triedโ€ all the time.

DRL: So, how does it work when you get up in the morning? Are you like, today I’m going to work on the memoir, and then do you go music first or does just however, whatever the muse tells you to do? 

RC: On the memoir. I’ll go three or four weeks on, that’s what I’m working on, and then a piece of music starts to hold my attention and I switch over to that. And then, for instance, the song that I sort of gloating over after finishing it after three years, it’s like the last month of work on it was, I’m going to bring this baby home, and when I finally did, it was like, I don’t know if this song’s worth the three years I put into it, but I got finished itโ€ฆ

DRL; Whatโ€™s the song?

RC: Oh, I just spent three years writing this one particular song, and I was kind of patting myself on the back and saying, good for you, man. You stuck with it and you found it. To me, that’s the satisfaction of the work man, and the fact that I’m enough of an extrovert and performer that I can go out and perform for people. I really enjoy it, and I figure I’m a pretty good performer, and there’s that part of it too. So I’m an introvert and an extrovert.

DRL: Well, I’m going to wrap it up here, but I follow you on social media. I wanted to ask you, do you have any gardening secrets? Your garden was popping off last year. That was crazy!

RC: (Laughs) Yeah. It was particularly well. I remodeled the raised beds. I had raised beds that were about a foot and a half, and I doubled the size of ’em so that the roots could, the roots had more. Right now they’re about two and a half to three feet high raised beds. Think that space underneath where the roots could go down and get their nutrients really made it come alive.

DRL: You’re like a green thumb over there! Did you time this tour so you could be home in time for garden season or just happened this way?

RC: I like to plant on the new moon and harvest on the full moon if I can.

More information about Rodney Crowell as well as tickets for his March 3 show at Napaโ€™s Uptown Theater can be found at rodneycrowell.com

Difficult Story Telling: โ€˜We Are Proud to Presentโ€ฆโ€™ Opens at Left Edgeย 

Leave it to Left Edge Theatre to tackle the massively complex, challenging social experiment that is the astounding Jackie Sibblies Drury play We Are Proud to Presentโ€ฆ A sincere โ€œBravoโ€ to this artistic effort, led by director Skylar Evans, and an ensemble cast of very familiar faces. The show runs at The California in Santa Rosa through March 8. One would be missing out if they pass over the opportunity to attend a performance of this production.

Drury, a Pulitzer Prize-winning African American playwright, has developed an intense, meta piece of art that will leave one shaken. This isnโ€™t a typical theatrical experience. Its intended effect is to confront, expose and pummel the audience like a tidal wave. 

Left Edge has long set the standard for our community to showcase works that speak directly to the human condition and that ask us to confront ourselves. This story asks the same of its actors, themselves playing actors who are workshopping their โ€œpresentation,โ€ about an obscure genocide of the Herero peoples of Namibia by the colonizing Germans in the years 1884-1915. 

The actors within Proud undergo a journey of self-discovery through the improvisation, frequent debates and confrontations they encounter in the artistic process of bringing their โ€œpresentationโ€ to life. And the script is an extraordinary feat of deconstructing the actorโ€™s process, while revealing the person beneath the artist. 

Using kitschy props, movement, dance, song, pantomiming, puppetry and drumming, each actor falls into scene immersion like theyโ€™re in a trance. This play makes strong demands of its performers, and Evans has a cast that seems eager to meet those expectations.

Each actor has specific moments of brilliance, with Isiah Carter and Thomas Peterson being the most consistent, grounded and truthful to the proceedings. Sam Minnifield sneaks up and turns in some of their best work to date. Nate Musser displays his continued skills as a character actor. Maddi Scarborough excels in a hilarious sequence while creating her characterโ€™s backstory, and Lexus Fletcher shines as the dynamic and often frustrated leader of the ensemble.

In the middle of a theater scene that tends to lean towards safe and classic in keeping its audiences comfortable, this company continues to lead the charge in producing relevant, meaningful works that ask more of its audience than just sitting back in their chairs. 

It encourages them to participate in the crucial dialogue about how to be better humans.ย Left Edge Theatreโ€™s โ€˜We are Proud to Presentโ€ฆโ€™ runs through March 8 at The California Theatre, 528 7th St., Santa Rosa. Wedโ€“Sat, 7:30pm; Sat & Sun, 1pm. $22โ€“$44. 707.664.7529. leftedgetheatre.com.

Back in Time: The Fight to Keep Trump off 2028 Ballots and Safeguard the Constitution

Could President Donald Trump be setting himself up to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt did in 1941, by serving a third term as president? While some folks pay little mind to Trumpโ€™s occasional hints of staying in office longer, California Sen. Tom Umberg isnโ€™t leaving it to chance.

The 22nd Amendment, added to the United States Constitution in 1951, states that no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice. Until recently, it seemed that Americans were in unanimous agreement that this rule was in the best interest of themselves and democracy as a whole. However, in late 2025 Trump constituents began selling T-shirts bearing the words, โ€œTrump 2028 (Rewrite the Rules).โ€ 

Since Trump took office for his second term a little more than a year ago, heโ€™s hinted at and sometimes explicitly talked about an additional term in office. He told reporters in a press conference last fall that a third term would really be his fourth term because of what he calledโ€”without evidenceโ€”โ€œthe rigged election.โ€ On Jan. 28, the FBI released a statement saying it executed a warrant at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Union City while investigating Trumpโ€™s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged. 

Just more than a year into Trumpโ€™s second term in office, Americans on both sides of the political aisle are dissatisfied with the slow-to-be-released, heavily redacted Epstein files. The National Rifle Association joined ICE protesters across the country in denouncing the killing of Alex Pretti. The United States is trending downwards in global popularity in response to tariffs, bombing campaigns, the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolรกs Maduro, the seizing of oil, the proposed real estate project in Gaza and more recent actions. 

So why in the midst of this political moment is Trump still ruminating on the outcome of the 2020 election? Is it because he seeks what he perceives as retroactive justice for an election he believes he won? Or could he be searching for justification to stay in office longer by running for a third term? 

Just in case the latter is true, Umberg said in a phone interview that he put forth โ€œno kingsโ€ legislation to safeguard the election process in California. Senate Bill 46 enables the California secretary of state to exclude presidential candidates from the ballot if they are ineligible to hold office, according to the Constitution. In other words, if Trump sought a third term as president, his name wouldnโ€™t appear on Californiaโ€™s ballot. 

โ€œMost of us think that the Constitution is quite clear on that point, but thereโ€™s at least one person who thinks they should be able to serve a third term,โ€ Umberg said. โ€œThus we need this bill to make it absolutely crystal clear that in California, if you serve two terms as president, you cannot appear on the ballot to serve a third term.โ€

While SB 46 would apply only to California, Umberg suspects that colleagues in other states may follow suit with similar measures to safeguard the election. Some of Umbergโ€™s GOP colleagues have suggested that measure is unnecessary or even redundant given the existence of the 22nd Amendment. 

โ€œWhat theyโ€™re saying is that we shouldnโ€™t take the president at his word,โ€ Umberg said. โ€œI do take the president seriously. When he says, for example, that people born in the United States arenโ€™t necessarily citizens and he tries to have them removed from the countryโ€”it turns out he wasnโ€™t kidding.โ€ 

Terri Jett, a political scientist, scholar and activist from Richmond, prides herself on making politics accessible to people of all ages with her PBS Simple Civics three-minute video series. Jett says that in an ideal world, we wouldnโ€™t need SB 46 because of how clear-cut and simple it is in the Constitution. However, she says that at this political moment a safeguard might be necessary.

โ€œOur checks and balances system is not working properly,โ€ Jett said. โ€œThe rule of law actually also is not working properly.โ€ 

Given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, Jett said little would surprise her. And if SB 46 safeguards the election, sheโ€™s all for it.

โ€œRegardless of the person โ€ฆ we do not want a monarchy in place, and we want to be able to change our representatives, even though we donโ€™t do it to the extent that I wish we would,โ€ Jett said. โ€œWe need to take whatever measure we can to add some guardrails to ensure that our constitutional protections are still in place and still effective.โ€

Nick, an enlisted member of the United States military who is rooted in the Bay Area but is currently on assignment out of state, declined to share his last name. He said that just because there is one incident in American history when a Democrat served three terms, SB 46 shouldnโ€™t go into effect just yet. 

โ€œI think since FDR had the chance to serve more than two terms,โ€ Nick said, โ€œwouldnโ€™t it be fair to let a Republican do it once to even the playing field? Then the parties can truly agree to eliminate any names from candidates seeking a third term.โ€

Roosevelt is in fact the only president in U.S. history to have served more than two terms. He began his third term in 1941 when he defeated Republican nominee Wendell Willkie, which coincided with the timing of World War II. Roosevelt served a short time into what would have been his fourth term when he died on April 12, 1945.

Ironically, many have noted similarities between Trumpโ€™s deportation policies and Rooseveltโ€™s Executive Order 9066, which incarcerated 120,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps.

Although Nick recognizes that federal law caps the presidency at two terms, he is tired of Californiaโ€™s โ€œself-declared exceptions.โ€

โ€œCaliforia regularly flouts federal law,โ€ Nick said. โ€œWhy wouldnโ€™t it be fair for red states to similarly declare an exception, should their voters desire it?โ€  

Monica Uribe and her partner, Angel Sandoval, reside in Santa Clara and have been on Bay Area streets protesting nearly every weekend since Trump took office last January.

โ€œI would definitely support any measure that stops Trump from being in office for a third term,โ€ Uribe said. โ€œOr anybody serving as president. We, as Americans, want to be able to choose and vote every timeโ€”because the people in this country get the last say.โ€

Uribe said it feels like the sitting government of the United States is being run as a dictatorship.

โ€œTrump wants to get away with it, but weโ€™re here to stop it,โ€ she said. โ€œThankfully, a lot of the courts are siding with us, and weโ€™re winning a lot of the battles.โ€

Free Will Astrology, Mar. 4-10

Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Many ancient cultures had myths that explained solar eclipses as celestial creatures eating the sun. In China, the devourer was a dragon. A frog did it in Vietnam, wolves in Norse lore and bears in several Indigenous American legends. In some places, people made loud noises during the blackout, banging drums and pots, to drive...

The Poet-Lawyer, Attorney Bernice Espinoza

Bernice Espinoza assumed the sobriquet of โ€œpoet-lawyerโ€ after a formative classroom confrontation with a Berkeley college professor who charged that she must choose between poetry and the law.
Bernice Espinoza assumed the sobriquet of โ€œpoet-lawyerโ€ after a formative classroom confrontation with a Berkeley college professor who charged that she must choose between poetry and the law. He urged her to be a poet. She chose instead to be both. Espinoza moved to the North Bay 10 years ago. She was in Sonoma for the first four of those...

Worst Day, Redux: Americaโ€™s Mass Shooting Epidemic

In the early afternoon of April 17, 2025, I received what to date has been the worst message ever sent to me. It was my daughter, a senior at Florida State University, texting that she was running from campus because there was an active shooter nearby
In the early afternoon of April 17, 2025, I received what to date has been the worst message ever sent to me. It was my daughter, a senior at Florida State University, texting that she was running from campus because there was an active shooter nearby.  I am grateful that my daughter thought to run when they heard the gun...

Bourbon, Barbera, Burgers: Edmondo Sarti Appreciates Craft

As a longtime San Francisco restaurant industry pro, Edmondo Sarti has more than 25 years of experience opening, managing and operating restaurants throughout the Bay Area.
San Francisco-born burger chain Super Duper Burgers, which originally opened in 2010 with one location in the Castro neighborhood, has expanded to Corte Madera with its newest location, just opened this February.  Built on the philosophy of fast food with slow food values, the retro-inspired fast-casual spot highlights all-natural, vegetarian-fed beef from Brandt Beef, free-range chicken sandwiches, organic veggie burgers,...

Your Letters, Mar. 4

Bored of Peace Heaven knows that the newly established nothingburger Board of Peace, chaired by our president and aided by his brilliant son-in-law, the former UK prime minister Tony Blair and several other human rights abusers, will be pretty darn busy dealing with the fallout, a word carefully chosen, from our fun new invented conflict with Iran.  The new board reflects...

Good Writing, Oscar Party and an Immigrant Legal Defense Fundraiser

Crush features North Bay arts and cultural events.
San Francisco Good Writing Marinโ€™s own Anne Lamott returns to the stage with a new bookโ€”and a co-author who happens to share her dinner table. Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences, co-written with husband Neal Allen, offers both a practical guide to sharper prose and a sideways peek into how the two collaborate on writing, editing and life. The...

Emotional Oasis: Oliver Laxeโ€™s โ€˜Siratโ€™ opens in Bay Area

There are films that entertain, films that distract and films that politely flatter oneโ€™s intelligence. And then there are films that seem to look one in the eye and ask whether theyโ€™re prepared to lose something. Sirat, the new feature from Galician-born director Oliver Laxe, belongs squarely in the latter category. โ€œA father, accompanied by his son, goes looking for his...

Musical Artist Rodney Crowell Brings Tour to Napa

Musical artist Rodney Crowell realized long ago that rather than become a star, he wanted to become exactly what the first two words of the sentence denote: a musical artist. After his 1988 album โ€œDiamonds and Dirtโ€garnered him 5 consecutive #1 hit songs on the country music charts, an inevitable crash was almost certain to happen. And it sort...

Difficult Story Telling: โ€˜We Are Proud to Presentโ€ฆโ€™ Opens at Left Edgeย 

Leave it to Left Edge Theatre to tackle the massively complex, challenging social experiment that is the astounding Jackie Sibblies Drury play We Are Proud to Presentโ€ฆ
Leave it to Left Edge Theatre to tackle the massively complex, challenging social experiment that is the astounding Jackie Sibblies Drury play We Are Proud to Presentโ€ฆ A sincere โ€œBravoโ€ to this artistic effort, led by director Skylar Evans, and an ensemble cast of very familiar faces. The show runs at The California in Santa Rosa through March 8....

Back in Time: The Fight to Keep Trump off 2028 Ballots and Safeguard the Constitution

Could President Donald Trump be setting himself up to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt did in 1941, by serving a third term as president?
Could President Donald Trump be setting himself up to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt did in 1941, by serving a third term as president? While some folks pay little mind to Trumpโ€™s occasional hints of staying in office longer, California Sen. Tom Umberg isnโ€™t leaving it to chance. The 22nd Amendment, added to the United States Constitution in 1951, states...
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