Sonic Salute

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Sonic Salute

Andy Pohl was probably 13 years old when he first heard Fugazi. The prolific underground band helped define the Washington, D.C., punk scene in the mid-1980s with a mixture of noise and social consciousness that many dubbed art rock.

“Their whole idea of embracing DIY and having a strong sense of morality and responsibility to uplift everyone in the community was really inspiring to me,” says Pohl. “It stuck with me. And on top of that, their music is really good.”

Pohl credits Fugazi with getting him into music, and the North Bay bassist and guitarist of bands like Kalifornia Redemption, Good City Lie Still and SNIPERS!! always had it in the back of his mind to do a tribute album to the band.

This month, that longtime endeavor sees the light of day when

Everybody Wants Somewhere:
A Tribute to Fugazi is released on Pohl’s Sell the Heart Records label. Featuring 21 bands playing classic Fugazi songs, this massive collection includes 13 tracks on limited-edition vinyl and the rest offered as digital downloads.

“I was really encouraged by the fact that this many people were eager to be a part of this project,” Pohl says.

Tracks by several North Bay artists, including post-rock band the Down House, old-school punks My Last Line, ambient electronica outfit Identical Homes and songwriter Ryan Michael Keller, dot this genre-bending tribute album that also features bands from across the West Coast and beyond.

Everybody Wants Somewhere excels as a tribute by offering a wide array of bands, with diverse styles and genres, putting their own spin on Fugazi’s material and keeping things fresh and surprising throughout.

Some bands, like Berkeley punks Screw 32, stay true to Fugazi’s pulse-pounding energy on their entry, “Public Witness Program.” Others, like San Diego synth wave group Warsaw, who take on the track “Merchandise,” evoke the ethos of the material while reassembling the melodies to fit their personal aesthetic.

“I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised by what these bands came up with creatively,” Pohl says.

In the spirit of Fugazi’s ethics, this album also acts as a public service, in that all proceeds from the album will be donated to the San Francisco nonprofit Taking It to the Streets. The program helps empower homeless youth in the city by giving them a job cleaning up the Haight Ashbury neighborhood and providing mentoring, safe housing and other services to support self-sufficiency.

“I really love the concept and was compelled by what they’re doing,” Pohl says. “This is going to be an awesome partnership.”

‘Everybody Wants Somewhere:
A Tribute To Fugazi’ will be available on April 30 at local record stores and online at selltheheartrecords.com and sthr.bandcamp.com.

Yes We Can

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Yes We Can

The only thing I wanted to know about beer in a can when I showed up to witness Sonoma Springs Brewing Company’s inaugural canning session was, how do they put the beer in the can without it foaming all over the place? Right away I got my answer: the beer foams all over the place.

That’s a feature, not a flaw, of the process, says canning-line operator Adam Satrom. The carbon dioxide in the frothy brew helps to push out any remaining oxygen while the lids are fastened to the cans. It’s all about keeping the DO—dissolved oxygen—out of the can, chimes in another member of the five-dude crew from the Can Van, a mobile canning service founded by two women as a college project. The Can Van is now in constant demand up and down the West Coast as breweries like Sonoma Springs turn to pint-sized aluminum cans to put their flagship beers on the market.

Even then, a little bit of that DO does find its way into the can. “Our target range is 20 to 40 parts per billion,” says Satrom. “If you have a drop of air, there goes your parts per billion.” Oxygen is the enemy of beer, or more to the point, of beer freshness. Hop aromas are particularly vulnerable to oxidation over a short period of time.

For what seems like the longest time, glass was class, and the 22-ounce “bomber” a symbol of cool, quality craft beer in contrast to the derisory epithet “six-pack” that affixed to mass-market aluminum beer packaging. So what, exactly, is going on—is this a “green” packaging thing? Not necessarily. It all goes back to the DO.

Although glass is bottled under counterpressure and less oxygen gets into the bottle at first, the caps somehow let in about one part per billion per day. Over time, the bottle loses its advantage, making the can a worthy vessel for the mildly hopped Sonoma Springs kölsch-style ale. Tasted on bottling day and three weeks later, it held up well. Not a wetter, weaker pale ale, like some microbrew kölsch, it’s actually more like a nicely bittered, spot-on version of American-style lager produced by mega-breweries, just so much fresher, a little grainier and locally made by master brewer and founder Tim Goeppinger.

The brewery’s newest can release, available April 28, is a New England–style IPA called Juicy in the Sky. Meanwhile, Sonoma Springs signatures like the sweet and spicy Roggenbier Bavarian rye are available at the taproom.

Sonoma Springs Brewing,
19499 Riverside Drive, Ste. 101, Sonoma. Open Monday–Wednesday, 4–9pm; Thursday–Sunday, 1–9pm. Food-truck Thursdays. 707.938.7422.

Oscar Winner

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Oscar Winner

Once there was a man named Oscar, who took his steak with asparagus, Hollandaise sauce and lump crab. That much we know.

I first enjoyed this triple-threat of decadence atop a 10,000-foot mountain in Albuquerque, where the restaurant’s menu offered any entrée “Oscar-style,” for an additional seven bucks.

The name of this side is a nod to steak Oscar, in which a filet mignon is dressed up as a sort of surf-‘n’-turf eggs Benedict, and there are competing theories over which Oscar deserves credit for this brilliance. The two finalists are Oscar II, the king of Sweden from 1872 to 1905, and Oscar Tschirky, aka Oscar of the Waldorf, a maître d’ at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan in the 1880s.

Regardless of the true identity of the side dish’s creator, it’s a good combination. So good, it needn’t function just to pretty up some other entrée. The combination of asparagus and seafood, drenched in the smooth, velvety embrace of Hollandaise, presents more than enough deliciousness to qualify as its own dish. It is the richest sauce, combined with the most luxurious of seafood and the most decadent of vegetables.

While asparagus doesn’t contain fatty deposits of its own, it plays well with the lipids of others. When asparagus is cooked with fish, it can absorb its fatty juices. Fish and asparagus is an old combination. The earliest known recipe for asparagus, recorded in Latin by Marcus Apicius in the world’s oldest surviving cookbook, De Re Culinaria, involved baking asparagus with a fermented oily fish sauce called garum.

That garum sounds nice and all, but I think I prefer a nice wild salmon steak, with the bone in and skin on for extra juiciness. Coat it with olive oil and then sprinkle with salt and garlic powder and some mellow herbs like thyme or herbes de Provence. Or go Asian-style Oscar: coat
with sesame oil and rub with
1 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon
of garlic powder, and a pinch or two of black pepper, then add
3 tablespoons soy sauce.

Snap off the tough ends of your asparagus by feeling where the stalk wants to break. Arrange the spears like logs in a raft on the bottom of a baking dish, with a tablespoon or two of butter on top. Sprinkle with chopped lemongrass or zest of lemon/lime (or both). Lay the fish on top and bake it at 350 degrees until done the way you like it. The asparagus will cook apace.

As for that Hollandaise, that little black-diamond slope of kitchen alchemy—it’s as unforgiving as it is prestigious, but it can be made by mere mortals. You’ll need a whisk and a double boiler, preferably one that consists of a metal bowl with a rounded bottom or in a pot of simmering water.

The first step is to clarify the butter. Heat a stick of butter in a thick-bottomed pan on low heat. Watch it like a hawk, stirring every time it starts to bubble. After about five minutes there will be foam floating on top of the pot, and crud at the bottom. Let it cool for a few minutes, then spoon off the foam and carefully pour the clarified butter into a good pouring dish, being careful not to allow any crud or foam scum to pass, using a spoon to play defense if necessary.

If you wish, asparagus can be poached in the butter as it clarifies, perhaps broken into little pieces. Add a little extra butter if you want to do that, and remove the asparagus right after spooning off the floating scum.

Alternatively, poach your asparagus separately in butter, or half butter and half olive oil, for a rich result. Serve asparagus destined for Hollandaise at room temperature or warmer.

In addition to the clarified butter you will need:

1 tbsp. lemon or lime juice or light vinegar

1 egg yolk

1/4 tsp. teaspoon salt

2 tbsp. water

Combine all of these except the yolk in the double boiler, with the water on the lightest of simmers. Then kill the heat, leaving the bowl in place, and whisk in the yolk. Keep whisking until it’s a froth of bubbles. Beating continuously, slowly pour in the liquid clarified butter, a few drops at a time at first, whisking them in until completely incorporated, then adding more drops. When half of the butter has been used, you can add it a little faster. You should, at this point, have Hollandaise.

Blanching is fine, and then shocking in ice water to keep the bright green color and serving at room temperature. One little hack is to poach the asparagus in the Hollandaise butter as it clarifies. Just add a few more tablespoons of butter to account for what will be lost on the poached asparagus. Remove the asparagus right after spooning off milk solids on top, right before pouring off the clarified butter.

As it is the season of asparagus, it’s time to get our Oscars on. Those ideas will hopefully get you started, but there are infinite ways to combine asparagus and seafood with Hollandaise. If you want to substitute steak or cauliflower for the fish, it’s still fine. It doesn’t matter which
way you do it. The important thing is that you do it, and that you don’t screw up the Hollandaise. Oscar, whoever he was, would be proud.

Come Together

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Come Together

The massive lawn is planted, the street lamps are lit up and the sidewalks are swept. Santa Rosa’s Old Courthouse Square reunification project is nearly complete.

City officials and downtown businesses are hoping the open-space setting, which has been under construction for the last year and eliminates the section of Mendocino Avenue that previously bisected the square between Third and Fourth streets, will be a new focal point for the city, much the way that plazas anchor other North Bay towns like Healdsburg and Sonoma. The public will get its first look at the square with a ribbon-cutting dedication and daylong festival of events this Saturday.

Santa Rosa mayor Chris Coursey will lead the opening ceremony, local historian Gaye LeBaron will speak on the square’s history and cultural significance, and the Santa Rosa Symphony Brass Quintet will sound the horns on the new era.

Once the site is dedicated, local bands and dance groups will perform in the square throughout the afternoon. There will also be a mini farmers market, beer and wine gardens, and lots of kids activities and family-friendly fun. See for yourself on Saturday, April 29, Old Courthouse Square, Mendocino Avenue and Fourth Street. 12:30pm to 4pm. Free admission. For more details, visit srcity.org/CHS.

Add It Up

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Add It Up

Donald Trump has been in office 100 days as of April 29 and as we reach this milestone (millstone?), we add up the ways the popular vote loser has been a disaster for the North Bay and civilization at large.

1. Fuel-Efficiency Fallout President Obama bails out the auto industry, and now the industry gets the back-seat deal from Trump on fuel-efficiency rollbacks? The administration has vowed to eliminate the phased-in standards. California can hold the line, says Gov. Brown, but you can’t stop the guzzlers from crossing the border.

2. Bank-Fee Freedom The fine print in numerous areas of consumer concern got a lot less mean under Obama, under rules instituted by Dodd-Frank and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), both of which Trump has vowed to repeal and eliminate. For the time being, enjoy the absence of bigly overdraft fees when you go
35 cents into the red on your checking account.

3. Car-Loan Reforms The CFPB leveraged a North Bay lawsuit that paid out to thousands of car buyers who’d been subjected to discrimination at the dealership. Trump has vowed to kill the CFPB, so there goes another great reform.

4. Emergent Farmworker Shortage Who’s going to work when Immigration and Customs Enforcement is in the field checking papers among the grapes?

5. Offshore Drilling Trump has pledged a renewed push for offshore drilling and a streamlined regulatory and review processes, and all bets are off when Trump’s secretary of state is an Exxon diplomat whom you’re not even allowed to look at.

6. Dams and Drought State Republicans called for more salmon-slaughtering, drought-beating dams in the dry season—which means more concrete, more gravel mining and more dust for anyone who agrees that this is the way to go as far as infrastructure boondoggles are concerned.

7. Planned Parenthood Putsch Access to reproductive care is threatened by Trump’s call to defund Planned Parenthood, bad news for low-income women and families who depend on the services. The good news: public support for Planned Parenthood has never been higher.

8. Disconnect Decrees The Justice Department under Obama sought and obtained binding consent decrees (legal agreements) in various local police departments and jails to bring them into compliance with the Constitution. Attorney General Jeff Sessions: We’re not doing that anymore.

9. Civil Rights Investigations The FBI swooped into Santa Rosa when Andy Lopez was killed by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy. Sessions’ Department of Justice?We’ll take a pass, thanks.

10. Militarization of Police Trump has proposed a
$753 quintillion defense budget
to make America Great Again. The older military hardware trickles down to half-failed states and any needful locality with a Black Lives Matters “problem” or otherwise.

11. California McCarthyism The rugged hard-right California congressional delegation has been among the worst of the Trump throne-sniffers. Downstate, Rep. Kevin McCarthy urges federal-fund shutdown for high-speed rail and Trump calls him “my Kevin.”

12. Infrastructure Buyoffs The promised trillion-dollar boondoggle will have devilish details to sort out locally, and Democratically, as the corporate-industrial juggernaut meets with the business-class POTUS and the actual need on the ground in Sonoma and elsewhere. It could get awkward with “Blue Dog” Dems like Mike Thompson pledging cooperation.

13. ICE Meltdowns New anti-immigration edicts from the administration have taken hold as California sheriffs react with varying degrees of participation and as Dreamers have nightmares about Jeff Sessions with a Gitmo switchblade.

14. Roads to Ruin Trump’s road-building plan eliminates the federal Department of Transportation with its $500 million budget. OK, dude. A Petaluma pothole has meanwhile taken its latest victim.

15. Endangered Species Act I Trump’s not going to let a few squirrely butterflies intrude on his business plan, as his minions push him to blow off the ESA wherever and whenever possible. The wolves can move to Canada or face execution if they don’t like it.

16. Endangered Species Act II Trump-emboldened California Republican congressman Tom McClintock wants to “reform” the act to allow for logging of previously off-limits forests—to end the apocalyptic fires that have plagued the state. It therefore holds that if you support salamanders, you hate first responders. Nice try.

17. Endangered Species Act III The good news is that Trump
has yet to send his sons to kill the last American buffalo—and California’s ESA is a rugged and court-challenged law that has saved numerous California beasts from extinction.

18. Medical Cannabis Criminalized Expect a Sessions-driven spike in incentive raids at dispensaries seeing an uptick in business as a recreational crackdown sends users to the canna-doc. The good news is it’s never too late for a CBD rubdown to shake a man to his soul.

19. Elder Abuse The elders of West Marin, Sebastopol, San Rafael and other havens of spiritual decency are in for some real pain on numerous fronts—any room for Alzheimer’s research at the gutted National Institutes of Health under Trump’s budget? Nope.

20. Homeless Veteran Surge It’s axiomatic that if the administration withholds the number of American troops it is sending into harm’s way, then their disappearance into a USS Vinsonland of “miscommunicated” priorities about care for wounded warriors will ensue upon their return.

21. Economics of Resistance Trump’s election has created a surge in donations and interest in liberal and progressive groups as he’s pledged to hack away at federal grants that enhance community programs. Can the donations keep pace with the promised cuts? Yes, but we may have to go Doctor Zhivago on Zuckerberg’s S.F. estate.

22. Carbon Cut to Coal Crudity Ever get the feeling that this whole coal thing is just so Trump can stand around with a bunch of white guys in blackface and not get called out for it?

23. Open Encouragement of Disaster Capitalism Trump has called for a $500 million cut in FEMA’s pre-pre-preparedness budget, which generally goes for stuff like fires, earthquakes or floods—nothing to worry about in California.

24. Section—Wait? Marin County has a great program where they encourage landlords (or potential ones) to take a Section 8 voucher and rent below market in exchange for a kick-in from the county to make up the diff. But HUD secretary Ben Carson thinks Section 8 is the devil’s work.

25. Prisoner Program Putsch That San Quentin is one of the least violent prisons in the state is a direct reflection of its unusually high level of anti-recidivism programs, run mainly by citizens and groups from around the Bay Area. Obama put a priority on grants targeted at education and skills-training programs—a priority mocked by the new administration.

26. Let’s Try That Thing Where We Lock up All the Young Black Boys Again and Hope No One Notices A “crackdown on crime” threatens any progress Obama and Black Lives Matter have made when it comes to multiple lost generations of young black boys to the prison system.

27. Hedge-Fund Mental-Health Prison Blues The American prison industry can expect a surge in new business, and with it, a surge in profit to a cadre of select vulture capitalist entities that stand to profit mightily on others’ weakness, illness and pathos.

28. Encouraging Aggression Through Bully-Tactic Normalization The insidious normalization of the insane equals a possible road-rage meltdown on the commute if you dwell on it too long.

29. Tourism Industry Cooked Numerous reports have rolled in that the Trump tourism-slump is a real, ongoing deal. The good news is maybe people can afford to live around here again.

30. Brain Drain on Specialized Medical Services Trump’s new guidance on visas means fewer high-degree specialists from faraway lands will be on call to replace that balky heart valve.

31. National Public Radio Silence These threats come along every once in a while, but this time they mean it! Thank God for Joan Kroc.

32. Symphony of Sorrowful Cuts It’s not just kinky weird stuff—high-culture symphonies around the Bay Area rely on federal arts grants and funds in their annual budgets.

33. Museum of Museums “Hey, remember museums? Well, we’ve got a museum full of them. See, after Me and the Freedom Caucus heroically cut all the funding for arts and culture, we’re down to one museum, but it’s a big one, folks—a museum of museums! That’ll be $125, double for the kids. I don’t really like kids.”

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34. School Arts Programs “You know, while we’re at it—why are we encouraging this art stuff in school anyway?” Trump’s budget cuts federal funds devoted to school arts programs.

35. PBS a Goner? Mike Pence says he’ll save Sesame Street from the budget axe—but only if Bert and Ernie go through gay-conversion therapy.

36. Meals in Wheelbarrows Elders comprise a significant, growing percentage of Sonoma and Marin counties, and the homebound rely on Meals on Wheels programs that Trump has vowed to cut because they haven’t been adequately means-tested. Or was that mean-tested?

37. Librarians Are Cool Ivanka said great things about libraries the other day and was tweet-shamed by librarians who pointed out dad’s disdain for federal funds to support them. Support your local library tax-vote.

38. The Numbing, Dumbing Lies . . . that never seem to catch up with Trump, but they have caught up to, and warped, reality—a scary lurch toward a mandate of might makes right, emboldening morons where few right-wing loons have dared to tread before (such as on our Facebook comments section).

39. Nazi Punks . . . Witness a nascent California White Nationalist right that expresses its patriotism by flying a Confederate Flag at the July 4 Parade in Petaluma—and that was before he was elected.

40. NOAA More Trump pledges to gut funding to the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—and numerous fisheries while he’s at it.

41. Just a Bet, But . . . ? More casinos on the horizon?

42. Trade Deadlines Trump’s pushing a border tax that will screw consumers, wherever they shall consume and purchase everything from avocados to Trump’s made-in-China ties.

43. Recreational Blowback Say what you will about Big Cannabis in California, but if it goes, it all goes—and with it, all the investment and opportunity to expand an economy without fracking the state to death.

44. Cannabis and Cartel A cannabis crackdown means a vibrant black market, more cartel violence and a further militarization of police in neighborhoods that don’t need it.

45. $5 a Gallon Just in Time
for the Fourth And California
will be blamed for “leading the pack.”

46. Jared Kushner in a Flak Jacket Over His Suit Jacket Very troubling.

47. Me Tarzan, You Payin’ More domestic oil production means more tar-sands coming down the rail into the Bay Area.

48. Monomaniacal Pursuit of Popular-Vote Victory Trump said he could have won California if not for the damn illegals, and is hell bent on winning the state in 2020, led by a pack of rabid California advisers who hate-love their home state so much they want to destroy it.

49. Vulnerable and Unhinged Trump’s relentless criminalization of immigration, the continuous stoking of fear, the violent rhetoric—he’s goading the vulnerable and the ill to live by
his example.

50. Paris Accord Is Burning Trump says he’ll go with the denialists and withdraw from the multilateral accord. The good news is Sonoma Clean Power and Marin Clean Energy will continue to crank out the geo-thermalized truth of the matter.

51. Dairy Disaster Trump’s pledge to redo NAFTA could upend California’s socialized dairy industry that allows for such things as organic milk that isn’t $10 a gallon.

52. Blackmail Unhealthy Trump tried to blackmail Democrats with his “Trumpcare” fail, and now threatens Obamacare erosion by a thousand cuts unless they play along on tax reform and his dumb wall?

53. FEMA Blackmail Trump executive-blackmailed Democrats by saying he would cut off all FEMA funds to any “sanctuary city.” What happens if the state of California goes sanctuary?

54. Affordable Care Act Waiver Trump’s first executive order encouraged anyone in the healthcare industry, or in any state, who hates the ACA to do whatever they could to get around its demands. Emergency rooms throughout the North Bay shuddered at the prospect.

55. Hire Power Most federal employees work outside of Washington, including dozens at Bay Area national parks from Alcatraz to Pt. Reyes National Seashore. They’re all subject to a Jan. 23 federal hiring freeze.

56. El Fiduciary The Department of Labor is reviewing Obama’s “fiduciary rule.” That’s the one where financial advisers are bound to serve the best interest of their clients, and not their Wall Street overlords.

57. Silent Stream A 2015 Clean Water Act measure added a mandatory assessment of drinking-health impacts on streams and wetlands to the EPA’s environmental review—that rule has been sent down the river.

58. Crock of the Bay Trump’s budget eliminates the entire $500 million EPA contribution to the ongoing San Francisco Bay Restoration project.

59. Smokestack Frightnin’ Oh, of course Trump proposes cuts to EPA pollution-control grants that helps coal-burn plants shift to natural gas.

60. Spew It . . . And drastic cuts to EPA standards on said pollution.

61. ‘Degradation Without Consequence . . .’ Could apply to the 100-day spectacle to date, but specifically, Trump’s budget eliminates the EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.

62. Lost Coast President Obama used the Antiquities Act to add unprecedented numbers of national monuments to the ranks, and a few bear individual mention under a threatened rollback of the act. Firstly, and bigly: 400 additional acres to that North Coast jewel the Lost Coast.

63. Cascade-Siskiyou Obama added 48,000 acres to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in southwestern Oregon and Northern California, nearly doubling Bill Clinton’s set-aside.

64. California Coastal National Monument Another 7,000 acres of littoral majesty now under a renewed push for offshore drilling.

65. Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument An early Obama designation in Napa and Lake counties that Trump could undo if he gets the wild hair.

66. The Archangel of Justice Is Not Amused Obama’s other national monuments included: Cesar Chavez, Harriet Tubman and the Stonewall Inn. Can the Bill O’Reilly National Birthplace Monument be far behind?

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67. He’s Freaking out the Children At least when George Bush kept reading to the second graders on 9-11 he was doing it for the right reasons. And nobody could calm a crying child like Obama. This guy? On top of cuts to early education that will cut across First Start programs around the North Bay—how about signing a kid’s hat at the Easter Egg Roll and then making him cry when you throw it into the crowd?

68. It Takes a Village, and It Takes a Garden All that “Let’s Move,” good-health stuff from the Obama White House, not to mention the organic garden, has given way to a president who talks about chocolate cake, bombing Iraq and the Chinese premier in the same sentence. And it was Syria that you bombed, dummy.

69. Civil Warriors EPA guidance on lead bullets has been lifted by Trump, despite the fact that the lead-poisoned squirrel Ted Nugent just shot was eaten by an American bald eagle, who died. Just like American democracy? Remains to be seen.

70. We’re Doing Asbestos As We Can? The administration aims to liberate asbestos from the chains of hyper-regulation and an outright ban in most cases—and in the process crater the business at personal-industry law firms that specialize in asbestos lawsuits.

71. Insane in the Chlordane. The North Bay’s most-hated herbicide, Round-Up, is practically Raspberry Kombucha by the standard of the known cancer-causer and child-killer, but that didn’t stop EPA administrator Scott “Screwit” Pruitt from raising the trial balloon on the banned bug-killer.

72. Can’t Bear It Trump wants his blood-thirsty sons to be able to shoot hibernating bears again.

73. National Parking Lot The EPA administrator has vowed to review national parks for economic exploitation opportunities. The good news is nobody’s talking about mercury mining in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

74. Clean Air Abuse Act Trump’s EPA proposes gutting the Clean Air Act along numerous fronts, including refinery emissions—in a region with a big refinery that blew up just a few years ago—and a glut of tar-sands arriving from faraway red states.

75. Subprime Foreclosure Forecast The promised elimination of the CFPB and Dodd-Frank, the HUD hack who hates housing programs, the heinous hedge funders at the gate, and the Kleptocrat in Chief all add up to another housing disaster on the horizon.

76. Unending Gibberish About California Split in Two, Four, Six States —And recently given a kick in the britches by the arrival in California of Brexit bazooka Nigel Barfarge.

77. We Could Get Nuked by North Korea On the bright side, the USS Carl Vinson was just spotted entering Bodega Bay.

78. A General-Issue Embarrassment on the World Stage “But I want to ride in the gold carriage, queen mommy!”

79. Standards of Public Discourse and Decency Have Plummeted But at least people are now yelling “You Lie!” at town halls and right back in Rep. Joe Wilson’s face these days.

80. The Semi-Literate Emperor OK, you don’t read books. It’s populism, after all. Actually, not OK.

81. The O’Reilly Factor Let’s not forget that grabbing a woman by her genitals without her consent is sexual assault, and that’s a stain that won’t wash whether you’re the president or just some guy called Bubba.

82. He Won’t Let us Forget About Bad, Irrelevant People Scott Baio? Why?

83. Fast Food Nationalism It’s one thing to hit the Jack in the Box once in awhile for a fast-food repast; it’s another to run a country based on the quality of your Happy Meal toy, and your tweediculous reaction to said quality.

84. Nepotism and the Despot Impulse Ivanka’s getting trademark deals in China, the boys are out cutting deals in Moldovia, another Trump property is in the offing in D.C.—and Congress still can’t figure out how to pronounce “emoluments.”

85. Supreme Courting Disaster And, no, floating the idea of an olive-branch trade-off where Merrick Garland is promised the seat now held by the wanting-to-retire Ruth Bader Ginsburg will not cut it.

86. Fake News Press Conferences It starts with the size of the inauguration crowd and heads straight downhill to the location of the USS Carl Vinson—which actually is quite large.

87. Support for Overseas Fascists “David Duke? Never heard of him. Marine Le Pen? I’d vote twice for her if I could. Can I?”

88. Medal of Fiefdom The integrity of presidential stuff like the Presidential Medal of Freedom is out the window. Anyone who deserves it, is tainted. Anyone who is tainted—deserving. Sean Hannity?

89. Dogs of War He doesn’t have a dog, but if he gets one it’s sure to become an unpopular breed through no fault of its own. More will die in shelters. Sad.

90. UN Sanctuaries Sanctions-mad right-wingers want to punish and punish again anyone else who dares make peace a priority or tells the U.S. to get the heck out of my backyard.

91. Remorseless and Relentless Cruelty Trump is the best-worst enabler of the likes of Paul Ryan and a Freedom Caucus cadre that yet again is hurling its venal and vainglorious might into a Repeal Obamacare or Die effort as of this week.

92. Corey Lewandowski One hundred days later and thuggish sub-minions like journalist-beater Lewandowski take their place in the public arena as the clucks fade to memory and far-right media wagons are circled to protect, enshrine and provide succor to the worst of the worst.

93. Take Off Your Hate Kid Rock, Ted Nugent and Sarah Palin were sitting in a bar one day. Palin was so drunk nobody could figure out what the hell she was talking about, but the next day they all went to the White House and trashed the place. The punchline is sitting behind the big desk.

94. How Cool Would that Have Been? If the first woman to run the Boston Marathon—who was not, incidentally, attacked for doing so—did it again as a 72-year-old and Hillary was president? Instead we get Tom Brady, the Scott Baio of the NFL.

95. George Bush, Awesome Admit how awkward it feels to think a pleasant thought about George W. Bush in light of his “That shit was weird” comment on Jan. 20.

96. Alex Jonestown Massacre

Trump’s favorite conspiracy theorist believes Sandy Hook never happened, but his InfoWars is merely “performance art” when custody of his own kids is in question. A classic of the Trumpian pivot maneuver.

97. Ann Coulter Is a Riot The celebrity-author of In Trump We Trust, howls about her abridged right to free speech at Berkeley while pimping an illegitimate president who wants a federal libel law so he can sue everyone after he’s impeached.

98. They are Laughing at Us
Or, they are crying. The free world is aghast, ISIS is psyched and China is the world’s next great superpower. It was a nice run.

99. Bigly Bombs Presidential CNN reverted to vulgar war footing the moment the MOAB blew a hole in Afghanistan the size of Trump’s “I’m under audit” argument when it comes to releasing his taxes, speaking of things that are likely to blow up in your face.

100. Day 101 One hundred days into this experiment and the vile campaign is now subsumed by cable-internet immediacy, erased at the next presidential Mother of All Bombast moment. “They’re still talkin’ about my taxes, whuuuh?“ The good news is that tomorrow is another day to resist, refuse, write, rock out, write a letter, roll a number, call a loved one, march in the street, prepare the bunker, pick some basil or get ready for court.

Debriefer: April 26, 2017

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Debriefer: April 26, 2017

UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU

Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch announced last week that her office has set up a new consumer-fraud service—a move that could not have come at a better time, as the anti-consumer, anti-environment Trump hits his 100-day mark and pledges to destroy the planet and all the consumer protections instituted by Barack Obama, while he is at it.

Sonoma County citizens are encouraged to sign up for the service, which Ravitch says will help people avoid scams by offering regular alerts through the Environmental and Consumer Law Division of the district attorney’s office, which enforces those laws to “protect our citizens and environment from those who would pollute our air, ground or water or degrade our uniquely beautiful natural resources—as well as from those who would engage in fraudulent, dishonest or unlawful business practices.”

Hmm, that sounds like the Trump White House, but Ravitch isn’t pitching this service as anything other than a do-good moment for Sonoma County.

MORGAN UNFAIRCHILD

Remember Melanie Morgan, KSRO’s resident right-wing host who retired from radio last year? Where’d she go? Morgan turned up in a Marin Independent Journal story last week with a bunch of other anti-immigrant zealots who showed up at a Novato school to heckle the parents of immigrant children. One parent left the meeting in tears. Happy retirement, Melanie.

Total Recall

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Total Recall

A citizens’ group formed to push for a recall election of Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas cleared a hurdle last week when the county registrar of voters approved the paperwork for a petition that set in motion a signature-drive campaign.

The Community Action Coalition group now has until Sept. 30 to gather 35,000 signatures to force a special recall election, which would be scheduled within 80 days of the Sept. 30 deadline. The group is demanding a recall election before a scheduled November 2018 vote in an election that won’t feature Freitas; the sheriff has roughly two years left on his term, and says he isn’t running again.

Coalition spokesperson Evelina Molina says two years is plenty of time for worry in light of the anti-immigrant Trump administration and ongoing community outrage over the 2013 Andy Lopez shooting. Given the logistics of the recall, she says, if it were successful, it would effectively shave six months off of Freitas’ term. “That is very significant,” she says. “We don’t totally know how much ICE is being built up—six months is a lot of time.”

She describes her group’s efforts as a David vs. Goliath struggle between the $150 million budget of the sheriff’s office and the 15-member volunteer organization group behind the recall effort. And, she says, “there is a possibility that Freitas could change his mind,” and decide to run again after all. That seems a slim possibility given Freitas’ response to the recall effort.

In a parallel development, civil rights attorney Alicia Roman, chairperson of the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach’s Community Advisory Council, was removed from the body on March 15 by IOLERO executive director Jerry Threet.

Threet, the county auditor hired in 2016 to audit the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office’s (SCSO) internal investigations and work to bridge a chasm of bad faith in the community, explained his decision in a public statement that highlighted Roman’s unwillingness, he said, to work with the sheriff’s department to implement reforms and build trust in the county’s Latino community.

Roman is the lead local attorney behind an unfolding class action suit with thousands of noncitizen clients who claim they’ve been the victims of asset-forfeiture at the hands of law enforcement. She has been on the board since its inception. The 10-member board voted 8–2 to name her chair in December.

The Police Brutality Coalition of Sonoma County demanded Roman’s reinstatement at Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting as it also called upon the board to “react to the sheriff’s neglect of the [Citizen Advisory Council’s] work, and rework the mission of the IOLERO,” according to a statement from the organization. In a recent interview with the Bohemian, Threet lamented that a pro-police-leaning member of the council had resigned his post, indicating that the man had provided balance to the council.

Freitas has not attended any of the five Citizen Advisory Council meetings held so far, though he has sent representation from his office. He meets monthly with Threet and recently described the relationship with the auditor in constructive terms and as a work in progress.

As for the recall effort, Freitas challenged it via a letter his office submitted to the registrar of voters that highlighted the cost to taxpayers of a special election. Deena Thompson-Stalder,

Elections Manager at the County of Sonoma Registrar of Voters, says her office has run the numbers and the recall election would cost between $476,000 and $748,000 to administer.

The intersecting police reform actions follow the 2013 shooting of Andy Lopez. Activists’ frustration with Freitas and the SCSO—Erick Gelhaus, the officer who shot the 13-year-old, remains a street officer and was promoted to sergeant in 2015—has been ramped by a recent meeting Freitas held with five other California sheriffs and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (The meeting was in Washington before Sessions was sworn in.)

“Our conversations were primarily about ways we could work together to keep our communities safe,” says Freitas in his March 30 letter. He added that “whether you support me or are a critic of my six years as sheriff, I will be leaving office” at the end of 2018.

Trump has moved swiftly to ramp up deportation efforts and has enjoined local law enforcement in the effort, with mixed degrees of pushback and participation. Freitas has vowed to not work with ICE at the street level, but the agency is notified when violent offenders or DUI noncitizens are booked into the Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility.

The simultaneous recall-Freitas and retain-Roman activism is unfolding as a May 9 federal court date in Pasadena may shine further light on the prospects of a wrongful death suit brought by the Lopez family against Gelhaus and Sonoma County.

The county unsuccessfully argued for limited immunity for Gelhaus—presumably to clear a path to a county settlement without personally implicating the officer—and the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals may address the county’s argument that the shooting was justified under the circumstances. Lopez was carrying two toy weapons when he was shot six times. The county says he turned to point a toy AK-47 weapon at Gelhaus when he and another officer commanded him to drop it.

Too Big to Fail

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Too Big to Fail

More than half of U.S. citizens live in states with some level of marijuana legalization. Yet amid a plethora of polls showing that cannabis legalization is more popular with Americans than ever, the Trump administration is poised to ramp up a failed drug war.

First, Trump appointed racist-prohibitionist Jeff Sessions as attorney general and is planning to name yet another failed drug warrior, Congressman Tom Marino, R-Pennsylvania, to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Marino has also been a reliable vote in opposition to marijuana reform in Congress.

Trump, who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes nationally, repeatedly promised during the campaign to legalize medical marijuana and “let the states decide” about legalizing adult use. Various drug-reform groups warned that his statements could simply be a con act to draw supporters from Hillary Clinton, who was on record in favor of cannabis reform.

The percentage of Americans who “think the use of marijuana should be legal” has increased dramatically over the past 10 years and now stands at a record high, according to polling data compiled by the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

The survey has tracked adults’ opinions on legalizing marijuana since the early 1970s. Today, 57 percent of adults support legalization, up from 32 percent in 2006. That is the highest percentage of support ever reported by the poll. In 1987, only 16 percent of respondents endorsed legalization.

Support for legalization was strongest among Democrats and younger adults, but fell below
50 percent among Republicans
(40 percent) and those over the age of 65 (42 percent).

The survey’s findings are similar to those of other findings—all of which show majority support for regulating the adult use of cannabis.

At a speech at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona on April 11, 2017, Sessions admitted that he was “surprised” that his position against marijuana was drawing criticism. “When they nominated me for attorney general, who would have thought the biggest issue in America was when I said
‘I don’t think America’s going to be a better place if they sell marijuana at every corner grocery store’?” Sessions asked. “They didn’t like that. I’m surprised they didn’t like that.”

Chris Conrad is the publisher of ‘West Coast Leaf.’

Uh-Oh! O’Reilly

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Uh-Oh! O’Reilly

Once again, a man with an overgrown ego, known for his bluster and rudeness, has been laid low by what he called “unsubstantiated allegations” regarding his behavior.

Employed at Fox News Corporation for more than 20 years, Bill O’Reilly became the face and voice of an organization pandering a “populist,” right-wing ideology while lining its shareholders’ pockets. He rode roughshod over everybody in the organization except CEO and Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. Ailes’ own blind defense of O’Reilly’s indiscretions was bizarre, given his own similar boorish behavior that led to his being shown the door 10 months earlier.

Why O’Reilly decided to settle his legal matters rather than having his day in court to challenge such “spurious charges” is suspect. Perhaps it was the reality of being confronted by many women willing to speak truth to power that he could not abide, or the ensuing publicity that would trail after him like the stench of shit on a shoe sole. More than likely it was his reading of the tea leaves while “on vacation” and remembering the employment termination/escape clause in his contract, which would give him at least a $25 million bailout parachute from a crippled airliner.

No matter. In the end, the day belongs to the women who fought to keep this story alive, whether they received financial compensation or not. They were courageous in putting their professional lives on the line. Perhaps, these brave women’s actions will have a ripple effect, not only empowering more women, but also inspiring the men who work side by side with them to display the same integrity when misogynist and racist comments and behavior occur in the workplace, and to stand up together.

And what now of Mr. O’Reilly? Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about Billy. I understand there is an opening on The Apprentice. Maybe he should call Donny. They’re friends, you know.

E.G. Singer lives in Santa Rosa.

Open Mic is a weekly feature in the ‘Bohemian.’ We welcome your contribution. To have your topical essay of 350 words considered for publication, write op*****@******an.com.

Soaring High

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Soaring High

In the Heights, the 2008 Tony-winner from a pre-Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda, may not be as famous as that game-changing “historical hip-hop musical.” And it may not feature tunes as catchy and hummable as those Miranda wrote for the animated Disney film Moana.

But in many ways, In the Heights—a simple tale of a multicultural NYC neighborhood dealing with the aftermath of a massive Fourth of July power outage—is a far more joyous, sweet-natured, inspiring and exuberant experience than either of Miranda’s other works.

Currently running at Santa Rosa Junior College’s Burbank Auditorium, this vibrant show has all the hallmarks of a Lin-Manuel Miranda production: hip-hop and rap fused with other musical traditions (salsa a big one here), a no-apologies celebration of immigrant culture and tunes that challenge and showcase the talents of the performers entrusted to sing them. Under the delightfully detailed direction of John Shillington, with expert musical direction by Janis Wilson, a stunningly good cast of 32 performers brings New York’s Washington Heights to bustling, believable life.

As dawn breaks on what will become a record-hot day, Usnavi (a charming Joseph Miranda) is opening his tiny bodega, where he scratches out a living selling coffee and lottery tickets, all the while dreaming of someday moving to the Dominican Republic, from which his late parents emigrated. Meanwhile, neighborhood hero Nina (Jenna Vice, alternating with Katerina Flores) has returned from Stanford University bearing bad news. She’s just dropped out, sharply disappointing her proud parents (Evan Espinoza and Julia Kaplan). They own the local taxi service, where big-dreaming Benny (Cooper Bennett), who’s always had a thing for Nina, now works.

During that evening’s fireworks display, stunningly staged with the use of dazzling projections, the neighborhood’s lights suddenly go out. This sets in motion a series of events that will further challenge Benny, Nina, Usnavi and Vanessa, along with all the other residents of Washington Heights.

The sheer talent on display throughout the SRJC’s must-see production is vividly remarkable, a true celebration of the richness and promise of Sonoma County’s diverse, incredibly gifted young artistic community.

Rating (out of 5): ★★★★½

Sonic Salute

Andy Pohl was probably 13 years old when he first heard Fugazi. The prolific underground band helped define the Washington, D.C., punk scene in the mid-1980s with a mixture of noise and social consciousness that many dubbed art rock. "Their whole idea of embracing DIY and having a strong sense of morality and responsibility to uplift everyone in the community...
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Yes We Can

The only thing I wanted to know about beer in a can when I showed up to witness Sonoma Springs Brewing Company's inaugural canning session was, how do they put the beer in the can without it foaming all over the place? Right away I got my answer: the beer foams all over the place. That's a feature, not a...
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Oscar Winner

Once there was a man named Oscar, who took his steak with asparagus, Hollandaise sauce and lump crab. That much we know. I first enjoyed this triple-threat of decadence atop a 10,000-foot mountain in Albuquerque, where the restaurant's menu offered any entrée "Oscar-style," for an additional seven bucks. The name of this side is a nod to steak Oscar, in which...
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Come Together

The massive lawn is planted, the street lamps are lit up and the sidewalks are swept. Santa Rosa's Old Courthouse Square reunification project is nearly complete. City officials and downtown businesses are hoping the open-space setting, which has been under construction for the last year and eliminates the section of Mendocino Avenue that previously bisected the square between Third and...
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Add It Up

Donald Trump has been in office 100 days as of April 29 and as we reach this milestone (millstone?), we add up the ways the popular vote loser has been a disaster for the North Bay and civilization at large. 1. Fuel-Efficiency Fallout President Obama bails out the auto industry, and now the industry gets the back-seat deal from Trump...
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Debriefer: April 26, 2017

UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch announced last week that her office has set up a new consumer-fraud service—a move that could not have come at a better time, as the anti-consumer, anti-environment Trump hits his 100-day mark and pledges to destroy the planet and all the consumer protections instituted by Barack Obama, while he is...
Read more

Total Recall

A citizens' group formed to push for a recall election of Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas cleared a hurdle last week when the county registrar of voters approved the paperwork for a petition that set in motion a signature-drive campaign. The Community Action Coalition group now has until Sept. 30 to gather 35,000 signatures to force a special recall election,...
Read more

Too Big to Fail

More than half of U.S. citizens live in states with some level of marijuana legalization. Yet amid a plethora of polls showing that cannabis legalization is more popular with Americans than ever, the Trump administration is poised to ramp up a failed drug war. First, Trump appointed racist-prohibitionist Jeff Sessions as attorney general and is planning to name yet another...
Read more

Uh-Oh! O’Reilly

Once again, a man with an overgrown ego, known for his bluster and rudeness, has been laid low by what he called "unsubstantiated allegations" regarding his behavior. Employed at Fox News Corporation for more than 20 years, Bill O'Reilly became the face and voice of an organization pandering a "populist," right-wing ideology while lining its shareholders' pockets. He rode roughshod...
Read more

Soaring High

In the Heights, the 2008 Tony-winner from a pre-Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda, may not be as famous as that game-changing "historical hip-hop musical." And it may not feature tunes as catchy and hummable as those Miranda wrote for the animated Disney film Moana. But in many ways, In the Heights—a simple tale of a multicultural NYC neighborhood dealing with the aftermath...
Read more
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