Anonymous 4 & Others

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Anonymous 4 & Others

High Times


All 4 One: Having the Anonymous 4 playing in a local church is like having Bruce Springsteen playing in your garage.

Photo by Susan Johann



Unearthly delights, cowboys, strangers, and horny heathens

I’M HORNY FOR HILDY–the 12th-century German abbess and mystic who left behind a stunning litany of sacred and secular hymns, and turned me on to the transformative beauty of medieval music. OK, Hildegard von Bingen’s been dead for over 800 years, yet her otherworldly chants–recorded faithfully or with a wash of annoying synthesizers–are still hot items among fans of early music.

Which brings me to the Anonymous 4, superstars in the still remote galaxy of medieval musicians. Sure, the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos–who scored a landmark hit with 1994’s Chant (Angel/EMI), an uplifting collection of Gregorian numbers sung in Latin–get most of the press. And you can imagine the stir if that glorious choir were to pop up for a local tour. But it’s a sin that the upcoming performance by the Anonymous 4–actually classically trained singers Ruth Cunningham, Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer, and Johanna Maria–at the Redwood Arts Council’s chamber music series is scarcely causing a ripple on the local music scene.

Their captivating best-selling debut, An English Ladymass (Harmonia Mundi), sold over 150,000 copies worldwide and spent most of 1993 and 1994 on the classical music charts. Those aren’t high numbers by pop music standards, but impressive enough to earn this New York­based foursome a reputation as the King Midas of medieval chants and polyphonic singing. Their follow-up albums–1993’s On Yoolis Night, 1994’s Love’s Illusion, 1994’s The Miracles of Sant’iago, and 1995’s The Lily and the Lamb–all have charted equally well.

“There is justice in the world after all, for these are wonderful performers: distinctive personalities with individual voices,” the New York Times opined, “who by dint of hard work blend with superb balance and unearthly purity.”

No one’s ever going to say that about Courtney Love.

Anonymous 4’s most recent project was to sing the voice of Joan of Arc in Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light, conceived to accompany Carl Dreyer’s classic silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc. Indeed, this is a small choir that is virtually unparalleled in their tonal purity and precision of pitch.

The spiritually uplifting superstars of high church music–who could ask for anything more?

Anonymous 4 performs Friday, April 11, at 8:30 p.m. at St. Vincent de Paul Church, 35 Liberty St., Petaluma. Tickets are $25, $20, and $15. For details, call 874-1124.
Greg Cahill

Random Notes

Other upcoming soul food includes the Kinky antics of Ray Davies Friday, April 4, at the Marin Center. Davies plans an unusual evening of storytelling and songs, including a spelling out of his classics and a bit of his twisted humor. A splendid time is guaranteed for all. 8 p.m. Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. Tickets are $18-$25. 415/499-6400. . . . Closer to home, plan on arriving early for the Shawn Colvin gig Tuesday, April 8, at the Luther Burbank Center. Smart songstress Patty Griffin opens the evening, singing from her debut album Living with Ghosts (A&M), an effort that was recorded mainly in a Nashville kitchen. Griffin, who was a waitress with a penchant for poetry until just three years ago, has a heartbreaking delivery and an honesty that is beautiful to hear. Songwriter Freedy Johnston (named 1994’s songwriter of the year by Rolling Stone magazine) also fills the bill before Colvin, performing from his This Perfect World album. The whole evening sounds like a small, perfect world. From 7 p.m. Tickets are $22.50. 546-3600. . . . The Mystic Theater in Petaluma hosts the Little Dog Tour Saturday, April 12, featuring the Americana roots rock of producer/guitarist Pete Anderson (the man behind albums for Roy Orbison, k.d. lang, Michelle Shocked, and others), the sounds of The Lonesome Strangers, and guitarist Jeff Finlin. 9 p.m. Tickets are $10. 765-6665. . . . The rock-a-punk-a-billy of the Reverend Horton Heat drenches the Mystic in martini time Saturday, April 19, at 9 p.m. This gig is almost sold out, so hurry on over to get the $15 dollar tix. . . . Also on the verge of being ticketless is watching Les Claypool pound the cricks out of his new drummer when Primus plays a benefit gig at Petaluma’s Phoenix Theatre Saturday, April 12. Tickets are $25 and proceeds benefit the Carson Warner Memorial Skate Park Fund. 762-3566. . . . . And finally, former Sun Ra sideman Michael Ray brings his funky Cosmic Krewe back to the Powerhouse Brewing Co. Saturday, April 12, for more reeling jazz. 268 Petaluma Ave., Sebastopol. 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $14. 829-9171.
Gretchen Giles

From the April 3-9, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

The Scoop

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Huff ‘n’ Puff

By Bob Harris

IN THE FIRST BREATH of fresh air a tobacco company has ever provided, Liggett has finally admitted that “cigarette smoking causes … lung cancer, heart and vascular disease, and emphysema.”

Let’s not stop there.

Maybe Liggett will also concede that the only reason they confessed was for the money–limiting their own liability via settlement, thereby making themselves more attractive as a takeover candidate.

Maybe Philip Morris will also admit that they are engaged, in the words of a Minnesota state court judge, in “an egregious attempt to hide” incriminating information about their manufacturing and marketing practices.

Maybe R.J. Reynolds will acknowledge that, as newly released documents reveal, in 1984 they made a “long-term commitment . . . to younger adult smoker programs.” After this decision, the Joe Camel ads were produced, and the number of children addicted to RJR’s death sticks increased by a factor of 50.

Maybe the ad agencies and PR flacks who whitewash tobacco will begin creating new campaigns to alert the public that cigarettes are America’s real drug problem. Maybe they’ll invent cuddly cartoon characters–Mighty Coughin’ Power Rangers, Nicotine Patch Kids, Tracheoto-Me-Elmo–to teach our kids that more than 40 times as many of our loved ones die from cigarettes as from all illegal drugs combined.

Maybe they’ll admit pouring money into “Smoker’s Rights” front groups whose only real purpose is to keep as many people addicted as possible. Maybe they’ll also admit how dopey their arguments are. (Suppose I enjoy wearing a dime bag of plutonium strapped to my left thigh; does that give me the “right” to irradiate everyone around me? Spitting on a sidewalk can be restricted, but blowing carcinogens into the air an infant is breathing is a “right”?)

Maybe the Republican Party will confess that its leading contributor is Philip Morris, and four of its top 10 supporters are tobacco companies. Maybe Bob Dole will admit that his insane comments questioning smoking’s addictive power were colored by his love for Marlboro money and frequent flights on U.S. Tobacco company jets.

Maybe Al Gore will cop to his obscene lie at last year’s Democratic convention, when he grandstanded his sister’s smoking-related death as an anti-tobacco epiphany. Maybe he’ll admit to soliciting cigarette money for years after her death, once proudly boasting to a convention of tobacco growers of his love for harvesting and rolling tobacco by hand.

Maybe the shareholders who profit from tobacco companies will realize their moral (if not legal) liability for the cancer trade. Maybe all the corporate types who deride their victims as lacking “personal responsibility” will suddenly remember that the primary purpose of forming a corporation is to evade personal responsibility.

Maybe the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, creators of “This Is Your Brain” and other ads–useless in stopping drug abuse, but great for maintaining phony Drug War hysteria–will admit that much of their funding originates with tobacco companies.

Maybe Time and Newsweek will own up to letting their own druglike dependence on tobacco ads influence their coverage of America’s tobacco holocaust for over 40 years.

Maybe public figures who glamorize smoking–Letterman, Limbaugh, Madonna, etc.–will admit they’re encouraging children to become addicted. Maybe they’ll learn from Humphrey Bogart, Steve McQueen, Groucho Marx, Arthur “Smoke ‘Em by the Carton” Godfrey, Edward R. Murrow, and several of the Marlboro Men in the ads themselves, all of whom died of lung cancer.

Maybe you storeowners who sell cigarettes will realize you’re as much to blame as the manufacturers. R.J. Reynolds needs you as badly as the Medellin Cartel needed Freeway Ricky Ross. Maybe you’ll stop selling products that kill your customers.

And maybe you smokers reading this right now will admit that you’re–putting it mildly–drug-addicted fools. Maybe you’ll get help to stop selfishly endangering others and cutting your own life short.

Or maybe that’s too much to ask.

From the April 3-9, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

Talking Pictures

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Talking Pictures

Going Solo


Call of the Wild: Julia Ormond gives the cold shoulder to humanity.

Steven Voien and Lydia Bird discuss ‘Smilla’s’ sense of solitude

By David Templeton

Writer David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate post-film conversation. This time out, his guests are authors Steven Voien and Lydia Bird and the subject is solitude, as portrayed in the film Smilla’s Sense of Snow.

THE CAFE is crammed with weekend wanderers, collectively making merry cacophony while the espresso machine hisses out a noisy new latte every few minutes. Our foursome, bumped and jostled numerous times as we work our way to our table, takes refuge in the backmost corner of the place. Having just come from Smilla’s Sense of Snow–a film full of long potent silences and lingering shots of vast, unpeopled ice fields in Greenland–we find all this exuberant humanity around us a bit jarring and strange.

“Smilla was a very prickly, hostile, suspicious person!” shouts writer Steven Voien, referring to the film’s title character–an icy and reclusive, math-obsessed glaciologist investigating a murder, who is played with a tangible sadness by Julia Ormond. “Scientists–as a bunch, because they have to be loners–tend to be prickly people, wouldn’t you agree?” This question is directed at my brilliant and insightful scientist wife, Susan.

“Well, I’m a geologist,” she replies, leaning in to make herself heard. “We’re always happy to have company. One benefit of never having to sneak up quietly on a rock.”

“Anthropologists, I would imagine, would be fairly social scientists as well,” suggests author Lydia Bird, as the din around us settles. “They’re out on digs together, that sort of thing. Personally, that would get to me. I’m much more of a loner than Steven is. “

Voien and Bird (who are married), have lived in Africa, India, and Bulgaria, a result of Voien’s former position as a Foreign Service diplomat. Voien’s intelligent new novel Black Leopard (Knopf, 1997)–a sequel to his A High and Lonely Place–is set in the streets and forests of West Africa and features protagonist David Trowbridge, a globe-trotting, solace-craving, leopard-loving biologist.

Bird’s Sonnet: One Woman’s Voyage from Maryland to Greece (Farrar Straus Geroux/Northpoint Books, 1997) will be released in May. The sonnet of the title is the name of Bird’s boat, a craft that took on its own personality during the months-long solo adventure in which she rekindled her own love affair with solitude.

“What’s interesting about Smilla,” Voien continues, “is how she’s brought out of herself by the events she’s thrown into. From a writer’s point of view, loners are kind of sterile characters–unless you open them up.”

“What about nuns and monks?” I ask, wondering if the cloistered experience is perceived as sterile by those committed to it.

“That life is impossible to imagine to me,” Voien shrugs. “I suppose if you had a rich spiritual life, you could do it.”

“I think that may be part of what creates a loner,” suggests Bird. “They have enough within themselves so that they’re not seeking sustenance from outside. But in the case of the cloistered nun, that’s someone who decides to take herself, permanently, out of life. With a solo sailor or someone who wants to walk alone to the North Pole, it’s different. It’s taking yourself away from the world for a while to get perspective on it–but you are planning to come back. I can’t wait, sometimes, to get out on the ocean, to get into an environment that is simple, where I know every little part, like I know every element of my boat.”

“That’s exactly how Smilla is in regard to mathematics and to snow,” Susan adds. “Her understanding of them is comforting to her; they’re her constant.”

That sense of comfort can also, we agree, be derived from a connection with a place, as in Smilla’s relationship to her homeland of Greenland. We each name places that have put their hooks in us. For myself, it’s Mt. Tamalpais; for Susan, it’s Antarctica.

“Africa,” Voien states, “really got under my skin. I was sad to leave it. It broke my heart. That’s one of the reasons I wrote my novel, to re-create Africa for myself.”

“In the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight,” says Bird. “that will put its hooks in you. Then there’s a voyage I’ll never forget, to Glacier Bay in Alaska. To have these unbelievable calving glaciers made of unfathomably blue ice. That was an extraordinary experience.”

“Sleeping on a glacier in Central Asia,” remembers Voien with a laugh, “we’d pitch our tent on ice, lay down the rice pad, and climb into the sleeping bag, thinking it was warm enough. Two hours later we’d wake up and realize that we were sleeping on an ice cube! The cold seeps up from the glacier. Talk about putting its hooks into you. Those particular hooks went right into my bones!”

From the April 3-9, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

Culture

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Culture

Ridin’ High


That Ain’t No Bull: Suburban cowgirl Shelli Gregersen of Santa Rosa takes the (mechanical) bull by the horns at Kodiak Jack’s Saloon in Petaluma.

Photo by Eric Reed



‘Best of’ local culture–
having a crush on wine country

DEFINING SONOMA COUNTY culture is a little like writing a dictionary: if you don’t use a lot of words, you’re probably cheating somebody. Our culture is defined in part by our geography, in part by our history, and in part by the names in our telephone books. Our culture is us, we the people of Sonoma County: We keen connoisseurs of costly caffeine, carousing in cafes and cantinas and clubs; we crane-watchers and cliff-clamberers and carriers of cameras; we coaches and cops and co-authors; we card-carrying consumers of collectible kitsch; we coy creators of complex comix; we clean-cut collegians, compulsively conked-out at classical concerts; we conversational club-hoppers clamoring to be cool; we common-law companions and crab-crackers and cowboys and kids. Put another way: Culture is what you see when you walk down the street. Here are a few of our favorite sights.

Best Place to Ponder What
Might Have Been

In a delicate, laurel-perfumed glade just beside Hwy. 101 south of Cloverdale, a brass historical marker honors the site of Icaria-Speranza, a once-thriving commune established in 1881 by French followers of social scientist Etienne Cabet, whose 1840 novel Voyage en Icarie described a society without violence, misfortune, or private property–utopia, in a word. Already the French proto-communists had reinhabited the old Mormon town of Nauvoo, Ill., but financial difficulties caused several Icarians, as they called themselves, to search for a new location in fertile California. Along what’s now known as Icaria Creek in Cloverdale, they built their dream, farming several hundred acres of vineyards, orchards, and wheat. Alas, utopia proved elusive here, too, for it seems that people are never quite as communitarian as they believe. The bountiful Icaria harvests created a desire for profit, which eventually doomed the share-and-share-alike economy and social structure of Icaria-Speranza. The commune was history by 1886. Still, standing among the petals of light sifting through the trees–the historical marker stands only yards from the site of Icaria’s main barn–it’s hard not to think, “If only … ” Look for directions to the California historical marker near the Asti exit on Hwy. 101.–S.B.

Best of the Worst of Teen Angst

We are Sonoma County teenagers, and this is our life: These are the Sampoerna clove cigarettes and imported Bidis we bought after seeing them in the “bad” column of our freshman Health text. We hang out at A’Roma’s. All afternoon. (Or at least until an employee asks us if we’ve bought anything. “You mean, today?” we ask as we grudgingly leave.) “What do teenagers do around here?” an adult asks. Do? We drive around the Airport Cinemas parking lot smoking a piddly joint stolen from one of our parents, then go in and see the same movie we saw last week. We complain about high school (certain of us love high school, but the rest of us fear and pity them). We figure out schemes for arriving late and leaving early; Jim writes a note from my dad and I write one from his mom. We start drinking too young. We do Xtc with 20 of our best friends when someone’s parents are out of town. We all feel much closer the next morning. We talk behind each others’ backs. Then we go back to A’Roma’s. Is it really that bad? I suppose not. Often, on these glorious spring days, we’ll find ourselves on the way to the beach, the river, the awesome Sebastopol cemetery, the Inn, the Phoenix, Doyle Park, or Shiloh Park, and we’ll remember how lucky we are to live here. –Z.L.

Best Place to Hear Bach on a Sunday Night

For the original unplugged music, there is no finer local venue than the 120-year-old Occidental Community Church. For the past 17 years, it has played host to the annual concert series sponsored by the Redwoods Arts Council. “It’s intimate. The acoustics, I think, are the best in the county,” says RAC president Kit Neustadter. And if the sight lines are not so great and the pews a little uncomfortable, “nobody falls asleep at our concerts and the sound is fabulous,” he adds. So is the list of performers the RAC has attracted to tiny Occidental–a Who’s Who of chamber groups, string quartets, and gifted soloists. The RAC programs are two-thirds classical and one-third eclectic–jazz acts, storytellers, folksingers, even an unusual adaptation of The Tempest performed with Balinese shadow puppets. Tickets for each show are sold separately, but many sell out in advance. For details, call the Redwood Arts Council at 874-1124.–B.R.

Best Place to View a Vanishing Landmark

OK, so economy-sized purple concrete dinosaurs probably never really roamed the earth. That didn’t stop the T-Rex links at the Pee Wee Golf Course in Guerneville from becoming a modest local landmark over the years. And even though the miniature golf course is closed–a victim of the new bridge over the Russian River that is now under construction–it has not yet been dismantled, leaving the proto-Barney figure in place for another round of colorful look-how-deep-the-flood-was-this-time photos in the local daily. But this may be the last time, as the folks who built and operated the Pee Wee Golf Course–and similar facilities at Lake Tahoe and Carson City–reportedly plan to relocate the venerable vertebrate to one of those faraway sites. Pee Wee Golf, Hwy. 116 at Neely Road, Guerneville.–B.R.

Best Place to Step Lively
(Out of the Closet)

So you’re gay but you don’t feel too gay about hanging out in that biker-swamped river bar or being suspiciously stared down as you boogie with your partner among those who are straighter than a forest. So where do you go? If it’s a Sunday night you can go straight to Heaven. Club Heaven, that is. Taking over the Funhouse each Sunday since July of ’95, Club Heaven is manned by Randy Rowlands, the master planner behind this weekly funfest who provides his own security staff to ensure that each week is as safe as the last. “Our community is very diverse,” says Rowland. “When we first opened, our community was very nervous about coming downtown, but we have a policy: If you don’t get along with our clientele, you’re not welcome. Period. But,” he adds brightly, “we have had absolutely not one problem at Club Heaven. Not one. And, every week I try to create something different or unusual.” Among his unusual offerings are the Rowlands Revue of drag queens and kings, which draw an audience that Rowlands estimates is about 60 percent straight. Agreeing that drag performances are often a drag for female audience members who might feel insulted by the garish depictions of womanhood, Rowlands stresses, “This is theater. It’s not sloppy, and it’s not a put-down. It’s the art of performing as a female without the gaudiness that could go along with it.” With the success of the Santa Rosa location, Rowlands is lobbying to open Heaven on Saturday nights at Guerneville’s former Ziggurat club, hoping to fling wide the doors this April 19, just weeks before the Women’s Weekend bash takes over the river. What amazes Rowlands most about the success of his club is that Sunday nights are among the least sexy of the week, yet hundreds still come out to mix and mingle. “We’ve become a destination spot,” he says proudly. Club Heaven, 120 Fifth St., Santa Rosa. 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. $5. 544-6653.–G.G.

Best Place to Soak up Ethnic Folk Music

Who’d have guessed that a former boxing gym at the edge of the Laguna de Santa Rosa would become the premier venue for folk and ethnic music in Sonoma County? Yet that is the improbable history of the Sebastopol Community Center, which in less than a year and a half has presented a remarkable array of off-the-beaten path musical performers. The first annual Sebastopol Celtic Festival in September 1995 “got the ball rolling,” says center director Kim Caruso, and the 500-seat room has since played host to Indian sarod master Ali Akbar Kahn, Scottish fiddler Alastair Frasier, Native American flutist R. Carlos Nakai, and nights of music, dance, and drumming from Peru, Africa, and the Caribbean. Folkie performers over the past year include Tom Paxton, Cheryl Wheeler, and U. Utah Phillips. Plus blues concerts, R&B shows, and Grateful Dead (taped) dance parties. The center is also the co-sponsor of the upcoming Kate Wolf Festival, which will expand to two days when it returns in the summer. Sebastopol Community Center, 390 Morris St. 823-1511.–B.R.

Best Short Sunday Drive

Stands of firs, laurels, and oaks shaggy as raccoon coats, old barns gray and weathered as a codger’s beard, a stalwart Victorian schoolhouse, a valley so quiet that a bird’s song seems thunderous, a ridge so smooth it’s like exploring Ava Gardner’s arm, and ocean views so wide you can see all the way to distant centuries–this is Coleman Valley Road, Sonoma County’s best-kept paved secret. There are no shops or malls along the way, no restaurants (quaint or otherwise), barely any buildings of any kind. The reason to traverse Coleman’s couple of dozen miles is for the pure, slow, elegant pleasure of driving straight into the county’s best scenery without any commercial interference–the nearly lost experience of becoming part of the scenery yourself.At the main intersection in the center of Occidental, point your wheels due west (there’s a sign). Coleman Valley Road concludes at Hwy. 1 just north of Bodega Bay. First-timers will want to drive it east-to-west, as the connection on the coast isn’t marked.–S.B.

Best Place to Achieve Rapture

For some of us, there are few pleasures as acute as standing, dusty to the knees, on a baking-hot June day in the aromatic glory of the Sonoma County dump. What could lead one to Petaluma’s Recycletown for hours of olfactory adaptation and free hot dogs? The art, of course. Hosting its annual “Oh, Rapture! It’s Scrapture” contest of objets d’art culled entirely from recycled items (don’t call them junk), the Recycletown staff don heavy Western-era costumes–sashaying around vehicular paeans to the hot glue gun, risk-taking sculptural oddities employing skis and ironing boards, and small, simple configurations of beauty wrought entirely from Barbie parts and paper clips–before they perform their yearly skit. Ideas recycled from year to year and surprising loveliness found in the dump, that’s scrapture: an evocation of a throw-away culture remade into configurations that even the fussiest housekeeper couldn’t bear to toss. And all of it celebrated on possibly the hottest, stillest afternoon in June with plenty of serious work, plenty of free sodas, plenty of deliciously burned hot dogs, and plenty of goodwill, dust, smoke, and laughter to go around. Oh, rapture! Recycletown at the Sonoma County dump, 403 Mecham Road, Petaluma. June 28. Free. 795-3660.–G.G.

Best Places to Catch a Latin Beat

Here the language is Spanish, the fashion vaquero–that of the Mexican cowboy. Dressed in boots, white cowboy hats, black shirts, and spiffy white dinner jackets, the Mexican dance band alternates between gentle ballads and galloping rhythms. Welcome to Planeta Furia, a 18-and-over Latin dance club on Seventh Street in Santa Rosa that offers an adults-only area for drinking cervezas. Check your machismo at the door; a sign there reads: “No: colors, bandanas, starter jackets, baggies, weapons, or gang groups. Yes: cowboy hats and good clean fun.” A short walk across town, a tuba player pipes a soul-stirring backbeat for a swirling set of dancing señors and señoritas. Here, the drummer stands at the front of a crowded stage overflowing with sassy brass and Latin percussion instruments. On the dance floor couples swing, hip to hip, arm in arm–passionate and sexy. This is Los Caporales. Located in the same Railroad Square building that once housed Magnolia’s rock club, this stylish new venue offers on weekends the best of contemporary Mexican music and dance, including banda (Wednesdays and Thursdays are American music nights). No minors, please. Patrons fall within two categories: couples dancing amid a comet’s tail of swirling lights, and young men watching from the sidelines or kidding around over arcade soccer. At $15 and $12 respectively, the cover charges seem steep at first, but include thorough, no-nonsense security and an authentic Latin band in pleasant, friendly surroundings. Planeta Furia, 528 Seventh St., Santa Rosa, 578-4445. Las Caporales, 107 W. Fourth St., Santa Rosa–D.B.

Best Place to Eat Free Food
on a Saturday Morning

R&B means “rhythm and blues,” of course, but locally it oughta be called R&B&F–rhythm and blues and food–because there’s just something about gettin’ your mojo workin’ that gets your appetite workin’, too. Johnny Otis understands this. Otis, Sebastopol’s most famous R&B vibes player, pianist, hambone leader, apple farmer, and preacher, serves up the hot tunes and hot food every Saturday at 9 a.m. in a live broadcast from Copperfield’s Books for KPFA (94.1-FM). Come on in for biscuits and blues, muffins and shuffles, soup and soul; all the foodstuffs, free for the taking, are provided by Johnny’s pals at local cateries. For two hours, Johnny spins classic oldies, provides wonderful from-his-own-life stories about the songs and the artists, and frequently launches into prodigious, if not downright righteous, political testifyin’ while the food is fryin’. Copperfield’s Books, 138 N. Main St., Sebastopol. 823-2618–S.B.

Best Place to Catch the Blues
on a Friday Night

You’ll never mistake Negri’s for a trendy wine bar. But the funky, smoky Italian restaurant and dance spot in downtown Occidental is the place to hear legendary bluesman Nick Gravenites. Best known for writing “Born in Chicago” for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and credited with helping to bring the Chicago sound to San Francisco in the early ’60s, the founding member of super-group Electric Flag continues to refine his craft. A songwriter for Janis Joplin, Gravenites is still creating and recording songs and living the blues. If you ask, sometimes he’ll belt out “Born in Chicago,” and, well, sometimes he won’t. You just gotta catch Gravenites in the right mood–a blues mood, so to speak. Negri’s, 3700 Bohemian Hwy., Occidental. 874-3623–S.P.

Best Picnic Spot

Don’t know about you but some of us remember way back when Sunday afternoon was widely considered “family day,” a now nearly extinct notion that was once as American as not burning the flag. Food was the primary focus, with massive spreads of chicken and biscuits and Aunt Dot’s gooey apple pie. The adults gathered to trade tool tips and recipes on the veranda while the kids leg-wrestled on the well-manicured lawn. Happily, this tradition is still alive outside of reruns of Happy Days. Each Sunday, the beautiful square in downtown Healdsburg comes alive as dozens of families gather to behave civilly toward one another in public. The picnic tables become festively ornamented with bright tableclothes and overflowing baskets of food. Music–live and recorded–wafts through the air as the multicultural assembly transforms the spot into a heartwarming homage to familial love–D.T.

Best Thing to Do After Losing an Election

You know what they say: All the world’s a stage and politics makes strange bedfellows. But does that explain why Eric Koenigshofer took up acting after losing the 5th District supervisor’s race last year? Probably not. Still–in his winning acting debut–Koenigshofer recently pontificated with panache in Sonoma County Repertory Theatre’s You Can’t Take It with You. Playing a stuffed shirt circa 1938, Koenigshofer as Mr. Kirby seeks to prevent his son from marrying into a nutty family. By play’s end, the old capitalist softens and accepts his future in-laws. Koenigshofer–the candidate-turned actor–enjoyed an applause-filled respite from the political theater.–S .P.

Best Place to Spend May Day

Every May 1, rancher Bill Wheeler calls back the true believers to his rolling 320-acre property off Coleman Valley Road to reconnect with the high, heady days of the late-’60s, when Wheeler Ranch was the quintessential “hippie commune” (as described in Harper’s, no less). “There are no rules!” was the old Wheeler cry. You still hear it, though nowadays the reply often is “But at least there’s Prozac!” What’s fun about Wheeler’s May Day picnic is the playful mingling of Deadheads and beats, songbirds and bongo drums, meadows and sky, and–out on the dirt road leading to the ranch–VWs and BMWs, plus kids of all ages around adults of all sanities. Almost everyone at some point winds up hot and drippy inside a makeshift clothing-optional sweathouse. When you arrive–bring wine, food, and, well, you know–look for the ruggedly handsome guy with the most holes in his jeans. That’s Bill Wheeler. Drive five miles west of Occidental, just past Oceansong Farm. Sometimes there’s a sign, sometimes not.–S.B.

Best Place to Name-Drop

Since going secular in 1981, the Luther Burbank Center for the Performing Arts has played host to a steady stream of big-name talent, most of whom have left their mark at, if not actually on, the facility. Bedecking the walls of the spacious backstage lounge are large clusters of autographed photographs of the stars who have passed through, many on the way up (Nashville songstress Mary Chapin Carpenter, Dead-apparent Phish, country sweetie LeAnn Rimes), others whose careers peaked some time ago (boho Edie Brickell, perpetual comeback queen Pia Zadora). A few regulars are on the wall more than once (new publicity shots are required), and some of the juxtapositionings are just plain odd, as the pairing of lounge king Wayne Newton with the silent Marcel Marceau, or finding rumpled activist Ralph Nader sandwiched between paint-by-numbers country star Garth Brooks and perpetually hip word-comic George Carlin. But the collection is not 100 percent complete, lacking, for instance, the late crooner Roy Orbison, whose final California tour included a memorable stop in Santa Rosa. Luther Burbank Center for the Performing Arts, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. 546-3600.–B.R.

Best 1996 Show Worth its Waits

It took a heap of unnecessary legal bills for a local good guy to make it happen. That was the downside. The upside was the show itself, with reclusive neo-hipster Tom Waits–a Petaluma area resident–headlining a rare assemblage of intriguing singer/songwriters that also featured T-Bone Burnett and spouse Sam Phillips, Charlie Sexton, Alejandro Escovedo, and the tragically underappreciated Tonio K. Even at $100 a seat, the Aug. 11 benefit concert at the Raven Theater in Healdsburg–a fundraiser for theater owner Don Hyde’s legal defense fund–was an instant sellout. Living up to the stratospheric expectations of ticket-holders, the once-in-a-lifetime gig dominated conversations for weeks afterward. Hyde, busted on bogus Kentucky drug charges by an anonymous informant, got off, too.–B.R.

From the March 27-April 2, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

Eats

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Eats

All Fired Up


Smokin’! Donnie Harris keeps the home fires burning at Pack Jack Bar-B-Que Inn in Sebastopol.

Photo by Janet Orsi



‘Best of’ local food and drink–
what a mouthful!

THERE ARE THOSE who feel that our fair county should really be described as ‘Whine Country’ because the choices of eateries are too diverse, too numerous, and too excellent to decide upon for just one short meal, one long evening, or one middling afternoon. There are the fares of every country, the straight-ahead mashed potatoes wish-I-was-in-jammies diners, the seven-fork dinners, and all of that damn good dead grape. But amazingly, day after day, county residents get up, gird their loins, loosen their belts, and foray out for yet another excellent meal. Poor us.

Best Place to Press Beer Drinkers
into Public Service

Many among the thirsty throng of veteran beer drinkers slinging 10-ounce tasting glasses at the Luther Burbank Center proclaimed the Beer Fest the best event of its kind. Although billed as a “tasting,” this hoppy-go-lucky fiesta is made possible by pure, raw party spirit. Last year, the love of drink motivated 1,000 beer nuts to part with 20 bucks each. This collective act of charity meant $12,000 for Face to Face, Sonoma County’s high-profile AIDS relief agency. Determined to downplay the specter of mass inebriation and to educate the public about quality beer, organizer Lynn Newton says this year’s fest features the “Beer Fest Invitational Craft Brew Competition.” The results of the contest will be announced as the party begins. “That way,” Newton intones, “people will know what good beer is.” We’ll drink to that. Don’t miss the Beer Fest–with 40 microbrews, food tasting, and rockin’ tunes–Saturday, April 19, from 1 to 5 p.m., at the Luther Burbank Center for the Performing Arts, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. For details, call 887-7031.–D.B.

Best Place to Lick Cream
While Sky-Watching

A certain writer we know claims there is a strong psychological link between ice cream sundaes with caramel sauce and single-propeller aircraft; oddly, whenever he thinks of one, he immediately has thoughts of the other. No doubt this arises from all his youthful weekends spent slurping iced dairy products with his dear old dad while watching deft aeronautical maneuvers from a little diner at the postage stamp­sized airport near their home. It’s a good thing for him that he now lives so near to the Two-Niner Diner out at the Petaluma Airport. Like something out of the TV show Wings (or even Happy Days), this unique diner boasts an old-fashioned ice cream counter, lots of airplane stuff on the walls, and big windows, from which sky-watchers have a clear shot of the unusually long runway and all the thrilling gravity-busting activity that takes place thereon. And the caramel sauce, we hear, is heavenly. 561 Sky Ranch Drive, Petaluma. 765-2900.–D.T.

Best Place to Go Gringo

The salty carnal essence at the bottom of a roast pork burrito at El Favorito Taqueria in Roseland is enough to make you squirm with pleasure in your hard orange plastic seat. The low prices, big portions, and fabulous food–fast not fancy–makes El Favorito an underground cult favorite. Located at the unimproved site of a former Church’s Chicken, this fast-moving taco shop is a no-frills, cheap-thrills Mexican food mecca. Clearly, not one centavo of your $3.60 super burrito goes to gratuitous interior design. Call out your order over the blaring jukebox. Eat salsa from a plastic cup. Read a menu board that blatantly identifies “cabeza” and “suiza” as “beef by-product.” Three minutes from downtown Santa Rosa. 565 Sebastopol Road, Santa Rosa. 526-7444.– D.B.

Best Place to Munch Pizza Sans Tomatoes

If you think pizza is defined as a disc of dough plied with tomato sauce, cheese, and pepperoni, then you must not have visited Pizza Gourmet. Here, you’re just as likely to savor a pie bedecked with pesto or a lively green tomatillo sauce and accompanied with such rare fare as caramelized onions, roast chicken, and cilantro (the Acapulco); roasted garlic and red peppers (the Gilroy); or salsa, chilies, beef, avocado, and green onions (the Mexicana). These award-winning departures from the pro-forma norm are just part of an impressively diverse selection of pizzas that anchors a menu of more conventional pastas, salads, sandwiches, side dishes, and desserts. You can also create your own exotic combinations from a list of specialty toppings and sauces, plus seven cheeses and five meats. And, yes, pepperoni is an option. Pizza Gourmet, 7350 Commerce Blvd., Cotati, 795-8008; 1415 Fulton Road, Santa Rosa, 575-1677.–B.R.

Best Place to Find a Thrill
on Blueberry Hill

A long country block off Hwy. 116 near Forestville, Bruce Goetz’s blueberry farm is a genuinely rustic enterprise. His six acres of berries have been growing happily at the edge of the coastal fog zone ever since 1940, when his grandmother started the first commercial blueberry plantings in California. For a few short weeks each summer, they become a magnet for blueberry lovers from far and wide who converge on the farm to carry off baskets, boxes, or flats of plump, fresh-picked berries. The selection of Goetz’s own jams and jellies and baked goods, offered in the weathered barn-turned-store, is augmented by fresh blueberry ice cream in the summer and shelves of holiday gift ideas in December. The berries don’t ripen at the same time each year, but you can get on a mailing list for an early warning, just by asking. Green Valley Blueberry Farm, 9345 Ross Station Road, Forestville. 887-7496.–B.R.

Best Place to Sit in the Sun
for No Damned Reason

Not many places have a whole menu section dedicated to specialty polentas. But the Willow Wood Market Cafe is one of a kind. Despite a yup-scale selection of gourmet grocery items, this is a neighborhood hangout with a west county flavor, smack dab in the heart of downtown Graton. “The town was in need of it,” says co-owner and head chef Matthew Greenbaum, who admits he’s been surprised by the way the cafe has taken off in its first year and a half, quickly outstripping the market side of the operation. Regulars, who know to give way during high-volume mealtimes, when soups, sandwiches, and hearty breakfasts take over, can nurse a cappuccino for hours in between. The outdoor patio in back is a hidden oasis in good weather, too. Willow Wood Market Cafe, 9020 Graton Road, Graton. 823-0233.–B.R.

Best Place to Gnaw on a Bone

All the way from Egypt, Texas, Donnie Harris appropriately named his Sebastopol rib joint Pack Jack’s after the family mule–this man is stubborn about barbecue. Here you get ribs and chicken, beer, wine, and sweet potato pie, all strictly Texas style. And that means a deep-pit barbecue. A firebox stoked with oakwood cooks the meat with smoke and heat. This precious hole-in-the-wall is all country, pure cowboy. Grampa’s “shopping list” hangs high on the wall; it’s an antique single-shot shotgun. There’s a pistol, a whip, a bull-riding rig, and an autographed picture of rodeo stud Joe Beaver, calf-ropin’ champion of the world and a regular customer. Harris’ BBQ sauce is the same recipe that’s been used since the days of slavery. “If it wasn’t used 200 years ago, then we don’t use it today,” he insists. “Poor people are always the best cooks because they have to be innovative to make food really delectable.” Pack Jack Bar-B-Que Inn, 3963 Gravenstein Hwy. S., Sebastopol. 829-9929.–D.B.

Best Place to Cut the Mustard

“Are we dining out today?” shouts Ralph Morgenbessen, downtown Santa Rosa’s hotdog merchant par excellence. The recipient of this effusive greeting, an approaching customer still crossing the street several yards away from Morgenbessen’s unmistakable hotdog cart, responds by shouting his order: two giant turkey dogs, no sauerkraut. Ralph’s Courthouse Classics, as the Brooklyn-bred Morgenbessen has named his thriving wiener biz, has for four years been a popular fixture at Courthouse Square (corner of Mendocino and Fourth). Aside from the fresh, steaming, New York­style dogs–beef, turkey, polish sausage, and Louisiana hot links, with all the fixings gleefully offered–Morgenbessen’s regular clients come for the man himself. Jovial in the extreme and able to engage almost anyone in conversation, he routinely–and this is no mere hyperbole–turns a quick lunch on the run into a warm, good-humored event. “I came to the Bay Area in ’64,” he will tell you, if you ask, and possibly if you don’t. “Just in time for the Summer of Love. The only problem with Californians is they’re too spoiled by the weather. In New York, you could sell a hotdog on a rainy day, but not here. It’s a good thing there are so many gorgeous days, am I right?” Oh, and one more thing. “You want sauerkraut with that?”–D.T.

Best Place to Munch Bagels
while Reading ‘Der Stern’

So you like keeping up with Germany’s beautiful people while munching a bagel and sipping coffee. Then Sawyer’s Books–which has been keeping locals informed for over 50 years–is the place to order your next cappuccino. There’s a new coffee cart in place, featuring a tasty northern Italian blend. Order coffee and enjoy browsing some 1,700 magazines and dozens of newspapers from around the globe at this popular downtown newsstand. And the user-friendly establishment allows readers take a peek at their magazine of choice before plunking down their cash. It’s an honor system that works. Indeed, dedicated patrons have been known to straighten magazine shelves after their messier, newcomer counterparts. And for coffee drinkers who prefer sitting down, there are sidewalk tables, and plans call for a few inside tables. Sawyer’s Books, 638 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. 542-1311–S.P.

Best Place to Knock Back
Sing Ha and Satay

Less money than therapy and tons tastier, too. Burn off that heavy work-a-day stress with an order of spicy Thai food–hold the chairs. Take a load off at the Thai House in downtown Santa Rosa in the cozy, traditional sit-on-the-floor section. Remove your shoes. Grab a pillow. Take some time. Relax in subdued lighting, warm carved wood paneling, and plucky sonorous tunes from Thailand. Cold Thai beer washes garlicky sautéed eggplant, coconut milk soup, and a side order of peanut sauce. Sneak a catnap between bites. 525 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. 526-3939.–D.B.

Best Place to Spit Pits

There are those who simply don’t realize that line dancing goes back much further than the receding follicles on Garth Brooks’ hairline. Heck, it’s all Greek to those folks. As well as it should be: it’s all Greek to the folks at Papa’s Taverna, too. With Greek food and Greek dancing on Sunday afternoons, this hidden gem in the rough, weedy areas alongside the Petaluma River fairly bounces on Sundays with dressed-up folks holding hands with strangers, moving their legs in slow rotations before them, and hopping elegantly to the left. Or is it to the right? The music is live, the food is lively, and there is a small tucked-away outside patio just in the perfect spot for afternoon sun and late-day sunsets that can’t be beat for sitting, sucking the meat from Kalamata olives, forking into the crumbly richness of a slab of fresh feta cheese, and mulling the lemony-ricey goodness of a homemade dolma while watching industrial types work on their docked boats. No wonder the Romans came and stole it all. 5688 Lakeville Hwy., Petaluma. 769-8545.–G.G.

From the March 27-April 2, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

Best of Sonoma ’97

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Best of Sonoma ’97

Surfin’ Sonoma

From bagels to beaches, wineries to web sites–and every little curiosity in between–The Best of Sonoma County

WE HIT THE NEWSSTAND each Thursday chock full of what we modestly feel are the best in arts, eats, and news. But for seven scintillating days we turn the tables, inviting our readers to fill us in on the best discoveries in Sonoma County, ranging from the smallest details of the best dry cleaner guaranteed to return your cherished garments buttons and all, to the big-picture places perfect for falling to one’s knee to declare oneself almost definitely possibly ready to fall in love.

Of course, we can’t resist making a few picks of our own. Writers in this, our third annual Sonoma County Independent Best of Sonoma County Readers’ Poll, are Dylan Bennett, Steve Bjerklie, Greg Cahill, Gretchen Giles, Zooey Lasinger, Sara Peyton, Bruce Robinson, and David Templeton.

We thank the more than 1,000 readers who took the time to fill out that ballot and lick that stamp. We have learned many things from you. For example, we have learned that Goat Rock is a heck of a place to view a sunset–and we hope that you don’t all decide to sit on it at once. We have learned about the simple joys of surfing at Salmon Creek State Beach. Your picks ranged from the best local art gallery (congrats to Santa Rosa Junior College) to your favorite vegetarian dining place (forks off to the East West Bakery Cafe).

We also have learned from a gentleman, who claims to be a reverend, that Santa Rosa Adult Books and Videos is his preferred gift store, erotica shop, first-date meeting place, and favorite necking spot. Sometimes we learn more than we want to know.

In fact, sex plays heavily on the minds of a lot of readers. One male respondent lists Motel 6 as the best close escape. We don’t know if he’s the same guy who lists Sears as the best erotica store–but, man, those power tools …

And then there is the woman who ranks Helen Putnam Plaza in Petaluma as the county’s best outdoor adventure spot–evidently the caffeinated teen denizens of that park are even wilder than some recent press reports have misled us to believe.

Sure, most of our readers are sweet as honey. But then there is that cranky fella whose passionate handwriting dashes out bad-tempered responses: “Quacks! All of them!” he replies when asked to choose the best chiropractor; “Piss on the Internet!” he snaps at the best web site; “Burn ’em all down!” he snorts in regard to the best local C&W bar; and we’re sorry to learn that the best bartender in the county “quit three years ago.”

We figure this guy must have been that bartender–in any case, he could sure use another round.

Looking for the best tattoo? Got 25 to life? One reader suggests San Quentin State Prison–“Oops!” she adds coyly, “not in Sonoma County.”

Best brunch? One reader favors Jack-in-the-Box for an elegant late-morning meal.

Yet another balks at the notion of being turned into lunch–best surfing spot? “Don’t like sharks,” he responds shortly.

On the other hand, there is the explosion of responses we have received for the best birthing spot category: any taxicab, the woods, or even a ’69 VW will do. Less traditional choices include Chuck E. Cheese’s (talk about the ultimate first birthday party, though the sight of a 7-foot-tall robotic rat could be rather traumatic) and the Catholic Church (no Immaculate Conception jokes, please).

As for the grail-like quest for that favorite fishing spot, well, our readers will never tell. One respondent jots down with guarded finality: “It’s a secret.”

Aw, come on, we’ll only tell 78,000 of our closest friends.




















From the March 27-April 2, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

Kids

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Kids

Child’s Play


Janet Orsi

Just a Little Off of the Top: Evan Castro gets clipped by Desiree Casanova at Just Kidz Kutz.

‘Best of’ for kids–
keeping up with the young and restless

A CERTAIN FELLOW we know is fond of describing his philosophy of child-rearing. “When a kid is born, you lock them in a barrel and feed them through a hole until they are 18. Then,” he concludes merrily, “you plug up the hole.” In addition to recommending that he never have children, we must point out that this unfortunate man was raised in a boring suburb of Los Angeles that afforded few entertainment opportunities other than one would find inside a barrel. Had he been a child in Sonoma County–enticed daily by such delights as ice-skating with Snoopy and wandering the mystical trails of Armstrong Woods–even he might view spending time with a child as the eye-opening adventure it often can be.

Best Place to Introduce Your Kids
to the Wonders of Willy

Sitting out on a blanket in the enchantment of a midsummer night’s dream with a child on your lap is easily one of the finest ways to enjoy the dizzying wonder of a Shakespearean play, and the clover-scented, oak-shaded glen of Sonoma’s Dunbar Meadow is easily one of the best settings in which to enjoy it. While the county is lousy with Shakespeare festivals, none of these festivals are in any way lousy, and the productions by the Valley of the Moon Shakespeare Festival are notable for the loveliness of the setting as well as their unique approach to the limberness of some of the finest words ever penned in the English language. Pack an ample picnic and beam in pleasure as your children sit very, very still for the oddly uttered antics on the stage. Best about Dunbar Meadow (an attribute it shares with the also awfully good Sebastopol Shakespeare Fest) is that play equipment stands nearby should a child become restless during the soliloquy. As a parent who had to drag her children crying from Sebastopol’s production of Hamlet before the much-promised sword fight because of the late hour, I can vouch that the play equipment is rarely considered. Cross-dressing, star-crossed lovers, and a jewel hanging in an Ethiop’s ear are. Valley of the Moon, 11700 Dunbar Road, Glen Ellen. 996-4802–G.G.

Best Place to Stick a
Feather in Your Cap

For an aviary that will shame the collections in most zoos, you need venture no farther than a quiet lane within sight of Elsie Allen High School. Waldie and Bonnie Scheffler’s Santa Rosa Bird Farm is home to breeding pairs of 75 species, from tiny doves to towering ostriches. But the incredible variety of pheasants, peacocks, parrots, and other species, with their dazzling plumage, is the big attraction. These are breeding pairs, best left alone from February to June, but through the summer and fall they are a colorful and educational destination for visitors of all ages. By appointment only; call ahead. Santa Rosa Bird Farm, 1077 Butler Ave., Santa Rosa. 546-1776–B.R.

Best Substitute for a Saturday Night Bath

Right now, you can hear the creek chattering alongside the vacant pools at Morton’s Warm Springs, but when the Kenwood resort reopens in May, forget it. Instead, the air will be filled with other splashings–the sounds of kids vigorously enjoying themselves. Morton’s got its name from the family that established the resort and upgraded the waterworks back in the 1940s, but there have been popular, public hot springs on the site since before the Wappo Indians gave way to the winemakers. Nowadays, expansive lawns and playing fields, and a platoon of picnic tables augment the aquatic attractions, which are still filled daily from the 92° springs on the property. Open daily from May to September, with slightly lower rates and shorter hours on the weekdays, the resort also offers season passes for frequent visitors. Morton’s Warm Springs Park, 1651 Warm Springs Road, Kenwood. 833-5511.–B.R.

Best Place to Fool Kids
into a Two-Mile Walk

There must be something about the meandering oval that Spring Lake makes as it laps around its shores that fools the immature eye into thinking that the end is just around the corner, that the car is parked in just the next lot, and that the TV might still be warm at home. With the generous aid of this illusion, enterprising parents find it easy to lure ordinarily hike-less tykes around to the next grassy corner, up to the next sighting of a great white heron, and down to the next good climbing tree when walking around Spring Lake. Gently graded, with ducks aplenty, a parcourse for the ambitious, and a great summer swimming hole, Spring Lake catches sunset in the reflection of its waters and helps even the most recalcitrant young adventurer forget his or her Sega-side and savor the deeper, primal joys of stuffing filthy old feathers down a sibling’s pants and racing ahead to hide from mom or dad in a dark tree. Camping, picnicking, boating, and biking, too. 5690 Newanga Ave., Santa Rosa. Day use, dawn to dusk. Free admission. 539-8092–G.G.

Best Place to Fulfill a Childhood Dream

It’s a rite of passage. Every kid dreams about snaring the big one. But just don’t try to convince your child that the real joy of fishing is sitting in the sun on the shore of a tranquil freshwater lagoon while watching the wildlife. Kids know the point of the cast: the catch. Hagemann Ranch Trout Farm–which features a well-stocked pond surrounded by fragrant eucalyptus and a cool coastal clime–is the perfect place to fulfill that dream. You can rent a rod, buy the bait, and the helpful staff will even show you how to cast the darn line. Pay $2 for each fish caught (no catch and release allowed). But here’s the best part: they’ll even clean and ice the fish for no extra charge. Pack a picnic and make a day of it. Hagemann Ranch Trout Farm, Hwy. 1 north of the Bodega Hwy. intersection. Open April (weekends only until June) through November. 876-3217.–G.C.

Best Place to Spend No Money
Doing Nothing in Particular

This spot probably doesn’t apply to those with haughty teenagers who would rather eat razor blades than be trapped in public with their parents, but for those whose children still like them, the plaza in Sonoma is a marvelously low-key time-waster. The ducks are always hungry for the greening heels of bread, the play equipment includes high-flying, lofty swings; there are lots of trees for shade and for desperately scrambling up, and long stretches of unfettered grass on which to stretch, unfettered. Move with the deliberate, attentively eyed slowness of an oil dowser, and traverse the square. A different aspect is found on each side, and the children can’t get lost no matter how far they caper ahead. Simply round the next corner.–G.G.

From the March 27-April 2, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

Love

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Love

Heart’s Desire


‘Best of’ local romance–
sex in the dunes, single dads



TRUE STORY: Seven or eight years ago, in Petaluma’s small, rose-filled Wickersham Park, two young women sat amorously entwined on the grass. Seated on a wooden bench behind the two sat an elderly couple. After a time, the senior citizens arose to leave, but stopped where the youngsters lay. “Are you in love?” the man asked the surprised women. After an uncomfortable silence, they affirmed, shyly, that they were. “This is where we fell in love,” the man replied. He paused, squeezed his smiling wife’s hand, then nodded farewell. Being in love is a wonderful thing. Being in love in a beautiful place is even better.

Best Fountain to Kiss In

One of the reigning clichés of romantic movies is the much-loved, climactic little occurrence known as the “fountain embrace.” You know it, right? Two people spy each other from opposite ends of some public fountain or pond or–as in the case of Tom Hanks’ Forrest Gump–the big reflecting pool at the Washington Monument. Instead of walking around the watery obstruction the way normal people would do, these lovestruck souls always clamber right into the darn thing and then kiss and hug somewhere in its big wet middle. Should such a romance-movie impulse ever descend upon you, Sonoma County is full of appropriate spots for your frolick through city-owned H2O. Our favorite choice: Santa Rosa’s Courthouse Square, replete with descending pools crowned by a rectangular, sidewalk-level fountain with enormous spewing spouts that will add drama to any kiss. The water is clean, but cold, and the piped-in classical music often wafts over from the park across the street. And there are always plenty of people around to applaud you, or not. It’s perfect. And yes, it is quite illegal, so we’re not really suggesting it. In fact, we discourage such behavior. Should you see your long-lost love across the courtyard, perhaps the two of you should meet at the water’s edge for the big hug. It’s still quite romantic–and you won’t have to dry off afterwards–D.T.

Best Place to Watch the Ocean
While You Boff Your Mate

Why watch the walls and think of England (don’t ask) when you can make love in the great outdoors? The 2.5-mile Pomo Canyon trail starts at Willow Creek State Park campground and leads to the rocky shores of Shell Beach. About halfway along the gentle trek, through towering redwoods, scrubby meadows, and fields of wildflowers, watch for a gathering of solicitous grassy vistas looking down upon the path. Scamper up there. Fill your eyes with bold blue ocean, subdued green neon hills, nippy white coastal clouds, and the brown feathers of a seafaring hawk. Listen to the music of nature as your mate contemplates the pastel sky and both of you are filled with warmth. Outside is breezy, inside warm, and, well, not dry. Willow Creek Campground is located on Willow Creek Road off of coastal Hwy. 1 next to the Sizzling Tandoor Restaurant at Bridgehaven near Jenner. Open April 1 through Nov. 1. 865-2391.–D.B.

Best Place to Meet a Single Father

So you hired a babysitter and checked out the local club scene. You chatted up a few guys in cyberspace and even tried a personal ad or two. Still no luck? Here’s a tip for busy single moms looking for new relationships. Glide into something new at Snoopy’s Ice Arena. Saturday afternoons are the best time to spot single dads with young ones in tow. Are these men responsible? Hey, they’re spending quality time with their kids. Are they in shape? Well, at least they can wobble around on a pair of skates. Are they emotionally available? How the heck should we know! Still, it’s wonderful to skate, practice a figure eight or two, sip a hot chocolate, and shop for Peanuts trinkets at this Charles Schulz­owned establishment. Redwood Empire Ice Arena and Snoopy’s Gallery and Gift Shop, 1667 W. Steele Lane, Santa Rosa. 546-7147–S.P.

Best Place to Drive Around and
Dream About Your Dream House

Let’s see, the master bedroom should have a sunken Jacuzzi tub, next to a big window with a major view. There should be a big yard, far enough from noisy roads to be quiet, but close in enough for you to be able to get groceries and other essentials in a reasonable amount of time. Close to the coast is nice, too, maybe with a few redwoods for shade in the summer. Where to find it all? Cruise the ridges west of Sebastopol, where the choice spots offer glimpses of the coastal fog banks on one side, the lights of Santa Rosa, and maybe even wispy plumes from the geysers along Mt. St. Helena’s lower slopes. All with picturesque apple orchards in the foreground. Idyllic? To be sure. Plausible? Hey, right up front, we said we were dreaming–B.R.

Best Place to Shop for Wedding Rings

You’ve either popped the question or responded to it in the affirmative, and now you need to buy the wedding rings. Where do you go? The most economical and convenient spots for such purchases are your nearby shopping mall or big-box stores, but these are also –and get ready for an understatement–the least romantic places on the face of the earth. And shouldn’t your quest for rings be as loaded with romantic trappings as possible? We joyfully suggest a trip to Duncans Mills, about an hour’s drive from Hwy. 101 (go northwest on Hwy. 116). The destination–a tiny rustic community–is just part of the whole romantic pastiche. The journey iself will take you through some of the loveliest scenery in Sonoma County. Once there, mosey along the tiny stretch of Hwy. 116 that constitutes Duncans Mills’ downtown. The galleries have loads of unusual items, including handmade jewelry–and wedding rings–that you won’t find in any mega-mall. An ideal setting for browsing, staring into each other’s eyes, and mapping out mutual futures. Handholding is mandatory–D.T.

Best Place to Pour Water over
Your Lover’s Naked Shoulders

The Russian River is indeed the lifeline of the county, but the Gualala River is a helluva lot more private. As any couple who has ever tried to find the perfect spot along the Russian on a splendid Saturday afternoon can attest, when 400,000 other well-meaning people descend upon its banks with their children, dogs, transistors, and hibachis–a romantic finger-food kind of picnic à deux becomes decidedly à don’t. Ah, but the charms of the Gualala River, whose quiet meanders can be found off of Skaggs Springs Road when caught up by Lake Sonoma, are as sibilant as its very name. Pull over where you can and scramble with wine bottles, blankets, and hampers down to its rocky shores. You’re likely to find a river not as rushin’ as the Russian, with rocky natural verandas along its shore, ample pools in which to float, and not one single other person around. Just your lover. Which brings us back to the naked shoulders.–G.G.

From the March 27-April 2, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

R&R

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R&R

Play Time


Pump It Up: David Ramfier feels the burn at Gold’s Gym in Petaluma.

Photo by Eric Reed



‘Best of’ local recreation–
feeling laid back or laid out?

DID YOU EVER SEE that movie The River Wild, the rousing flick with Meryl Streep taking her family on a white-water rafting trip? Well, guess what? Though the movie tanked at the box office, and only did so-so in the video stores, this simulated river ride was still experienced by more people in its first month of release than the national yearly average of folks who actually wentrafting–or for that matter even dipped their toes in a real, live river. We are a nation that prefers to watch other people breaking a sweat while fantasizing about how much better we’d do it, if we only had the time. We at the Independent find this disheartening, and though local statistics on this subject are unavailable, we are certain that if the survey were taken in Sonoma County–land of rivers and coastline and mountains and trails and really cool exercise clubs–the results would have been far less predictable.

Best Place for a Close Coastal Escape

Red-tail hawks circling in the warm morning drafts. The sound of feeding waterfowl. The cool sensation of coastal fog against your cheeks. The musty scent of a teeming marsh. The 250-acre wetland restoration project at Chanslor Guest Ranch and Stables is one of the county’s most beautiful places–and one of its best-kept secrets. Located about a mile north of Bodega Bay and bisected by Salmon Creek, Chanslor Ranch boasts a bed and breakfast and a horseback riding stable. But it is the wetland that is the real jewel–a rich habitat to local bats, shore birds, and raptors, and home to such sensitive and endangered species as steelhead and coho salmon, the tidewater goby, the northern red-legged frog, California freshwater shrimp, and western pond turtles. The gentle, rolling hills provide a hearty, but not too strenuous climb suited to young and old alike. Ecologist Michael Fawcett offers guided nature hikes by appointment only. Adults, $10; children under 12, $5. 2660 Hwy. 1, Bodega Bay. 875-9861.–G.C.

Best Spot to Search for Spouts

Every year hundreds of California gray whales make their an annual 5,000-mile trek to birth their calves in the waters off Baja. You can travel there to see them, but if you don’t have the cash or the time, this time of the year you can just drive over to Bodega Head–one of the farthest points out to sea in the county–to catch a glimpse of these stately, 42-foot-long creatures. On weekend afternoons, docents are on hand to show you how to look for spouts, narrow geysers shooting up from the sea, and easy to spot when the sea is calm. If you’re lucky, you may catch a glimpse of a humpback, too. At the several-hundred-acre state park you’ll find well-worn trails, secluded beaches, and breathtaking views of the coastal panorama. But a warning. The cliffs are steep, the ocean is mighty, so be careful. To get there, take Eastshore Drive off Hwy. 1. Drive west until you can go no farther.–S.P.

Best Place to Learn the Ropes

There are calmer places to ponder one’s mortality than while trembling on a small wooden platform several stories up a redwood shaft. But there is no more exhilarating way to get down than the simulated soaring that is a peak experience for participants in the Four Winds Ropes Course, the outdoor “experiential training” offered by a company that has been operating for the past 10 years in a wooded canyon at Ocean Song Farm and Wilderness Center. The 11,000 visitors each year include a few curious individuals, but most are groups, such as business organizations, leadership teams, schools and youth groups, social clubs, and even therapy groups. The challenges of the course have more to do with cooperation and creative thinking than physical exertion, although some of that is required, too. As for a greater sense of self-knowledge, it’s there for the taking, too. Four Winds Inc., 7765 Healdsburg Ave., Suite 11, Sebastopol. 824-0917.–B.R.

Best Place to Pursue Endorphins,
Espresso, and the Great Outdoors

“We’re pretty much in outlaw mode out here,” muses Tom “Snap” Gonnella, the laid-back scion of an old west county family and owner of Gianni Cyclery in Occidental. He’s talking about bicycle racing. Gianni hosts numerous bike races each year, including the grueling Ring of Fire contest, unsanctioned by the major bicycling organizations. That way, the $10 entry fee trickles back to riders–“not to dictators”–via cool prizes and free food. “A racer should always get some food,” judges Gonella. Biking enthusiasts rave about the good vibes, the pancakes and coffee, and the gorgeous paths that take pedalers past giant redwoods, lush ferns, and lots of poison oak (thus the name). Winners get a can of Taylor Maid Organic Panic coffee, a loaf of Great Harvest bread, a bottle of Gianni Cyclery hot sauce, and the pride of being top dog. The pint-sized bike shop fields Team Gianni, which lives to ride by Snap’s simple creed: “Don’t quit, and have a good time.” 874-2833.–D.B.

Best Place for Great Legs
in a Hobbesian Universe

Soccer, the largest spectator sport on the planet, boasts about 17,000 participants in Sonoma County, making it the fastest-growing, most popular–and populist–game in town. Over 14,000 boys and girls ages 5 to 18 form the majority of soccer fanaticos kickin’ it around locally. Add to this swarm 1,300 high school players, a women’s league, a co-ed league, the Inter-American Soccer League known erroneously to gringos as the Latin League, a thriving over-30 men’s league, an overflowing indoor soccer barn, and even an a cohort of over-48 men who grow more devious as their legs slow down. Leagues typically arrange teams in several divisions to ensure relatively even competition. Occasionally men’s soccer can deteriorate into a rabble of trash-talking, puffy-chested roosters. But most players defer properly to the referee as the leviathan in this Hobbesian universe and stick with the fundamentals of dribbling, passing, and shooting.–D.B.

Best Way to Laze Down a River

You can count of plenty of company when you glide down the lower Russian River: turtles, herons, crayfish, bass and catfish, an otter if you’re lucky, or perhaps a raccoon. Oh, yes, and other folks in canoes, too. From a quiet private beach just off River Road at Mirabel Road in Forestville, Burke’s Canoe Trips dispatches dozens of sleek silver vessels daily through the summer months to meander downstream to just north of Guerneville. There, all you have to do is drag your craft up onto the sandy shore, gather your belongings, and take a short walk back up to the road to catch the funky old school bus that will shuttle you back to Burke’s parking lot. It’s about a 10-mile trip, typically accomplished in three to four hours. Along the way, there are other beaches–some secluded, some quite populous–a couple of bridges, and a few mildly tricky curves to negotiate. These get somewhat rearranged by the rampaging winter waters each year, but the essence of the trip remains unchanged: a leisurely way to appreciate nature while catching rays, snacking on whatever guilty pleasures you bring along, and wondering why you haven’t gotten out and done this sooner. 887-1222.–B.R.

From the March 27-April 2, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

Everyday Stuff

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Everyday Stuff

Nuts and Bolts

‘Best of’ everyday stuff–
these are a few of our favorite things

UNFORTUNATELY, life cannot be all romance and revelry. Sometimes you have to settle down and do your laundry, wash your dog, have your oil changed. As we make our way from one potentially mind-numbing task to the other, it has been proved that a small part of our brains remains alert, scanning the horizon for any little highlight to engage our intellects or assuage our beleaguered egos: a sunglass salesperson with a delightful professional manner, a gas station decorated with flair and whimsy, or a casually offered remark that the pathway you just walked down might be haunted by ghosts. The human animal lives for such things. Here are some people and places that have brightened our days, in hopes that they may brighten yours.


Best Place to Ponder a
Three-Piece Hemp Suit

George “I Guarantee It” Zimmer kicked in $100,000 for the Proposition 215 campaign to legalize medical marijuana last fall. Does that mean that his 332-store Men’s Wearhouse chain will soon be carrying menswear cut from hemp-based cloth? “We’re definitely investigating it,” answers Kirk Warren, a senior VP at the company headquarters in Fremont, surrounded by hemp fabric swatches, garment samples, and even business partnership proposals. With Armani reportedly readying its first hemp suits for this spring, it appears the race is on. “Thus far, we’re not carrying any of the [hemp-based] products,” Warren says, “but we certainly are interested.” And, he adds, the company is even thinking about hemp-based paper products, too, once they become economically viable. And that’s no pipe dream. The Men’s Wearhouse, 1001 Steele Lane, Santa Rosa. 525-1324.–B.R.

Best Door-to-Door Cigar Salesman

He comes to the door under the cover of darkness. He’ll meet you in a parking lot, in a corporate office, or in a crowded restaurant. CIA? No, C-I-G-A-R. Meet Val Cordova, founder of Cigaramor, a one-man, after-hours, high-end cigar service. For a $30 minimum purchase he’ll meet you just about anywhere with a fat suitcase of premium smoke and billows of good advice to select just the right stogies for you. When not working his day job as a bread baker, Cordova makes house calls to nearly 300 personal customers, offering 70 different varieties of hard-to-find cigars. 542-2667.–D.B.

Best Place to Sidestep a Ghost

According to certain so-called Spirit Detectives–those eerie folks who claim they can sense the presence of the ephemeral dead–Sonoma County is absolutely crawling with transient ghosts, thinly sliced leftovers of lives gone by and a fair number of spectral immigrants who’ve moved here for the climate. You can’t see them, say the experts, but they are here. You may have just stepped in one. One particular local landmark ranks as the numero uno specter-infested region in the whole county: General Vallejo’s former stomping grounds at the Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park. The nasty old general, legend has it, enslaved numerous local Indians, many of whom died at or near the site of the historic mansion. Victoria Bullis, a ghost-busting psychic from San Francisco, has claimed that most of the Adobe ghosts keep clear of the house itself–“Bad energy,” she says–but there are scores of spirits still congregating on the pathways that lead to the old complex, caught forever in a vast family reunion that will never end. So next time you visit the park, think of those who’ve passed that way before, and, hey!–be careful where you step. Petaluma Adobe Historic State Park, Old Adobe Road, Petaluma. 762-4871.–D.T.

Best Used Cars at Used-Car Prices

A road-ripping Datsun 280Z for $300? A Ford pickup for $400? Where do you go? J.J.’s Towing Service, of course. These guys tow the cars of all the tweeking deadbeats arrested on the highway. If the driver doesn’t come back, then the car is sold “as is” on a lien sale. The J.J.’s crew prices ’em to sell. The best part is J.J.’s complete indifference to your purchasing decision: no pressure, no bull. The right car for you will have three interlocking traits: cheap, neglected, and mechanically virtuous enough to survive the abuse. “As is” means that their passing smog certification is up to you, but in this day and age consider that maze merely an opportunity for personal growth. J.J.’s Towing Service, 175 W. College Ave., Santa Rosa. 528-7445.–D.B.

Best Place to Reflect on Mortality

The constant ringing of the Bell Monument to Nicolas Green and the Children of the World provides an unceasing song of love and remembrance for a 7-year-old Bodega Bay boy who was killed two years ago by bandits in Italy. Nicolas’ parents–Maggie and Reg Green–have faced their sorrowful loss with acts of love and forgiveness, not revenge and anger. By donating their son’s organs, they ignited a surge of organ donation around the globe. The 130 bells, a gift of thanks from families throughout Italy, hang from a pyramid structure created by San Francisco sculptor Bruce Hasson. Of course, there’s no right way to memorialize a tragedy, but the Greens have shown us a compelling option. Let the tuneful bells serve as a sounding board for your own inner thoughts. Near the Community Center in Bodega Bay, just north of town and to the west of Hwy 1.–S.P.

Best Place to Serve a Foot Fetish

This isn’t the least expensive place to purchase a pair of clogs. Nor does it have the biggest selection of boots and pumps. But it boasts perhaps the best collection of comfy, sturdy, beautiful shoes in the county. Yes, they even have some Birkenstocks. But look here for terrific brands from Denmark and Germany and fashionable Canadian boots. With popular styles for men and women, their shoes sell out fast. The friendly staff is happy to put you on their call list and phone when new shoes arrive. Satisfy your soul desire at Sole Desire, 441 Coddingtown Center, Santa Rosa. 571-8643–S.P.

Best Place to Dress Like
a Million for 20 Bucks

Want the skinny on the best-kept bargain fashion secret in the county? Get to know the folks at CP Shades and they’ll phone you about their next unadvertised sale. Women countywide have pounced on these loose-fitting, all-natural-fiber, wash-and-wear clothes (no ironing allowed). The holiday line, matching vests and pants made from shiny rayon in an array of gemlike colors, starred at many a winter party. And yes, that million-dollar look probably cost about 20 bucks (if it was on sale). This partial-outlet store carries new clothes at full price along with bargains. The late-spring line features brighter colors, short flared skirts, and a few slightly skinnier items. Check it out. 206 G St. at Petaluma Blvd. S., Petaluma. 773-3290–S.P.

Best Words to Rear End

We don’t know that it originated locally, but the best non-PC carniverous bumper sticker we’ve seen is the one pasted on a beat-up pickup parked on Sonoma street. It asks, “If God didn’t want us to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?” Second place is a tie between “Only Users Lose Drugs” and the smart-aleck down-the-tubes sass of “Windows ’95/Apple ’86.” Runners-up, decidedly local in origin, are Deaf Dog Coffee’s ubiquitous “Friends Don’t Let Friends Go to [encroaching Oregon-based coffee chain]” and Dutton Radiator’s delightfully tacky boast of its business as the “Best Place to Take a Leak.”–D.T.

Best Place to Get a Ticket

Getting a ticket on Petaluma Boulevard right outside the police station near Payran Avenue at 8:10 a.m., just after shift change, is easy. No accomplishment at all: done it twice. Whether it’s 27 in the 25 or those tags that are a mite past registration, the early birds, freshened up on a night’s sleep and strong coffee, truly do get the worm–particularly at month’s end when, we suspect, those “we don’t have quotas” quotas are due for the officers. And being the worm scrambling through the glove box, past the extra (dried-out) pens, thick stacks of repair invoices–and, incredibly, the half bag of Fritos–to find registration and proof of insurance gets expensively old after the first time. You’d think that some people would learn. Yep, you sure would.–G.G.

From the March 27-April 2, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

Anonymous 4 & Others

High TimesAll 4 One: Having the Anonymous 4 playing in a local church is like having Bruce Springsteen playing in your garage.Photo by Susan JohannUnearthly delights, cowboys, strangers, and horny heathensI'M HORNY FOR HILDY--the 12th-century German abbess and mystic who left behind a stunning litany of sacred and secular hymns, and turned me on to the transformative beauty...
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The Scoop

Huff 'n' PuffBy Bob HarrisIN THE FIRST BREATH of fresh air a tobacco company has ever provided, Liggett has finally admitted that "cigarette smoking causes ... lung cancer, heart and vascular disease, and emphysema."Let's not stop there.Maybe Liggett will also concede that the only reason they confessed was for the money--limiting their own liability via settlement, thereby making themselves...
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Talking Pictures

Going Solo Call of the Wild: Julia Ormond gives the cold shoulder to humanity.Steven Voien and Lydia Bird discuss 'Smilla's' sense of solitudeBy David TempletonWriter David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate post-film conversation. This time out, his guests are authors Steven Voien and Lydia Bird and the subject is...
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Culture

Ridin' High That Ain't No Bull: Suburban cowgirl Shelli Gregersen of Santa Rosa takes the (mechanical) bull by the horns at Kodiak Jack's Saloon in Petaluma.Photo by Eric Reed'Best of' local culture--having a crush on wine country DEFINING SONOMA COUNTY culture is a little like writing a dictionary: if you don't use a lot of words, you're...
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Eats

All Fired Up Smokin'! Donnie Harris keeps the home fires burning at Pack Jack Bar-B-Que Inn in Sebastopol.Photo by Janet Orsi'Best of' local food and drink--what a mouthful!THERE ARE THOSE who feel that our fair county should really be described as 'Whine Country' because the choices of eateries are too diverse, too numerous, and too excellent...
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Best of Sonoma ’97

Surfin' SonomaFrom bagels to beaches, wineries to web sites--and every little curiosity in between--The Best of Sonoma CountyWE HIT THE NEWSSTAND each Thursday chock full of what we modestly feel are the best in arts, eats, and news. But for seven scintillating days we turn the tables, inviting our readers to fill us in on the best discoveries...
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Kids

Child's Play Janet OrsiJust a Little Off of the Top: Evan Castro gets clipped by Desiree Casanova at Just Kidz Kutz.'Best of' for kids--keeping up with the young and restlessA CERTAIN FELLOW we know is fond of describing his philosophy of child-rearing. "When a kid is born, you lock them in a barrel and feed them through...
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Love

Heart's Desire 'Best of' local romance--sex in the dunes, single dadsTRUE STORY: Seven or eight years ago, in Petaluma's small, rose-filled Wickersham Park, two young women sat amorously entwined on the grass. Seated on a wooden bench behind the two sat an elderly couple. After a time, the senior citizens arose to leave, but stopped where the youngsters lay....
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R&R

Play Time Pump It Up: David Ramfier feels the burn at Gold's Gym in Petaluma.Photo by Eric Reed'Best of' local recreation--feeling laid back or laid out?DID YOU EVER SEE that movie The River Wild, the rousing flick with Meryl Streep taking her family on a white-water rafting trip? Well, guess what? Though the movie tanked at the...
Read more

Everyday Stuff

Nuts and Bolts 'Best of' everyday stuff--these are a few of our favorite thingsUNFORTUNATELY, life cannot be all romance and revelry. Sometimes you have to settle down and do your laundry, wash your dog, have your oil changed. As we make our way from one potentially mind-numbing task to the other, it has been proved that a...
Read more
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