Reel Fun

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Reel Fun

Anniversaries are a lot like birthdays: they either live up to the hype or stop short of it.

When the Napa Valley Film Festival celebrates its fifth year Nov. 11–15, in the towns of Napa, Calistoga, St. Helena and Yountville, co-founder and producer Brenda Lhormer will be banking on the former. “We’re always challenging ourselves to do better, bigger, smarter. We want to make this year shine, pop and impress.”

The fest boasts 125 new independent films, appearances by 300 filmmakers and film-industry guests, 150 wineries showcasing their stuff, 30 chefs participating in culinary demonstrations, and lots more. This year brings an added emphasis to downtown Napa with the city’s newly anointed Riverfront Promenade where, in addition to films, you’ll find the Stella Artois Airstream & Beer Garden and the Ferguson Culinary Stage—you can even take morning yoga classes.

The Lounge screening venue has relocated to City Winery but continues to be the mecca for edgy and quirky flicks, like the mockumentary No Men Beyond This Point, which explores a world where women rule, men are no longer needed to procreate, and the token few that remain face the brink of extinction. Women continue their reign at a panel on Saturday morning, Nov. 12, “Shattering the Glass Lens: Women Behind the Camera.”

Friends and Romans follows a group of film extras with a panache for playing mobsters. Bent on extending their acting cred, the clan puts up a local production of Julius Caesar in a theater that might just serve as a habitat for actual mobsters.

The Napa Valley Film Festival continues to offer inspirational fare, too, like the docu-flick Landfillharmonic, showing Wednesday, Nov. 11 (and at a sneak preview the day before), which tells the story of the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, a Paraguayan kids group that plays instruments made out of recycled products from one of South America’s largest landfills—which happens to be their backyard. The 24- member band will give a live performance following the Wednesday screening at Lincoln Theater in Yountville. Also on the inspirational side, Right Footed follows the journey of Jessica Cox, who, despite being born without arms, went on to drive a car and learn to fly an airplane with her feet.

Pulp Fiction fans prepare to unite at Yountville’s Lincoln Theater for Friday’s celebrity tribute, where Access Hollywood‘s Billy Bush presents John Travolta with the festival’s Career Achievement award. Bruce Dern will also be honored, along with Lydia Hearst, Zoe Kazan, Evan Peters, Finn Wittrock and Keegan-Michael Key.

Travolta goes off the grid in Life on the Line, when a group of electrical workers find themselves flying too high on the wire during a deadly storm. Travolta is expected to attend the 5pm screening on Saturday.

Most films screen at multiple times at multiple venues. Check the full festival lineup at napavalleyfilmfest.org.

Mad for Beer

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Mad for Beer

For Whitney Fisher and Nile Zacherle, beer and wine go together like love and marriage. Husband and wife since 2007, and the parents of two young children named Madeline and Fritz, they work full-time in the Napa Valley wine industry. She’s at Fisher Vineyards, her family’s winery; he’s at Montagna Napa Valley.

Fisher and Zacherle also make craft beers, ales and lagers at Mad Fritz, their start-up brewery off Main Street in St. Helena.

“I grew up in Santa Rosa and got into beer through wine,”
Fisher says. “With Nile, it was
the other way. From the time he was a teenager he made beer.”

They make small batches of craft beers using locally sourced water and grain. They also make a “weir”—a wine and beer mix—that they call “the Fox and the Grapes,” which combines the fruity flavors of a California rosé with the spiciness of a European ale. Each 22-ounce bottle ($25) comes with a porcelain swing top.

Fisher and Zacherle borrowed the names for their brews from Aesop’s Fables, including the Peacock and the Crane, the Lion and the Mouse, and the Fool and the Cart. All of the labels have delightful sketches by the 17th-century English artist Francis Barlow, who illustrated the ancient Greek fables in 1666. The labels offer brief stories with moral lessons, and they provide information about the alcohol content, the kind of wine barrel in which the beer was fermented and the precise sources for the malt, barley, hops, corn and water.

The story on the label for the Lion and the Mouse, an ale made with St. Helena water and Clear Lake hops, and aged in a French oak barrel, describes a mouse that frees the king of beasts from a hunter’s trap. The moral reads, “All creatures are capable of greatness, both big and small.”

By starting small and by ignoring the brewing methods of big beer makers, the duo have shown that there’s a place for Mad Fritz in the heart of wine country, and maybe beyond.

Zacherle and Fisher are transparent about their product, and each batch is unique. For those who want the same exact taste time after time, don’t bother. The variations on the theme are almost endless, depending on chemistry and ingenuity.

On the Mad Fritz website, there’s lots of “nitty-gritty,” as Zacherle calls it, about the fermentation process, along with guidelines such as, “We suggest you serve our beers in wine glasses or bowled glassware.”

You can make an appointment to visit Mad Fritz and listen to the master brewer himself talk about the beer that might become more famous than St. Helena’s already famous wine. As Zacherle likes to say, “The path to good wine is littered with beer bottles.”

“We’re leading the charge,” Zacherle says. “No one in Napa or, for that matter, in much of the U.S. is making beers as we are, using single variety barleys, and stating the origin of the ingredients—the water and the hops—and also aging in barrels, and bottling unfiltered.”

For now, the beers are available at the brewery and select restaurants in Napa including Auberge du Soleil, the Rutherford Grill and Bounty Hunter.

Mad Fritz. 393 La Fata St., St. Helena. 707.968.5058.

Happy Hour

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Happy Hour

As undiscovered talents go, it’s hard to top Ted Hawkins. The soul and roots songwriter lived a hard life and died before his name was widely known in his home country. Yet for those who have heard his music, Ted Hawkins is as well-respected as he is enigmatic.

Such was the case with Austin musician Kevin Russell, longtime bandleader of Shinyribs. “It was love at first listen,” he says.

This weekend, Russell and a host of other artists come to the Lagunitas brewery in Petaluma to perform their Hawkins tunes from the new tribute album,

Cold and Bitter Tears: The Songs of Ted Hawkins, out now on Eight 30 Records.

“From the first song, I was just blown away,” Russell says. “I played it for everyone, and everyone loved it. We all shared his music in our little group.” By the time Russell made this discovery, Hawkins was living in Venice Beach and performing on the boardwalk as a busker. Popular in faraway places like Europe, the songwriter was often overlooked and unknown in the States.

Labels like Rounder Records gave Hawkins a deal, but his restless and unconventional life kept him in obscurity. In 1994, he hit the big time when he secured a record deal with major label Geffen and released The Next Hundred Years. Sadly, Hawkins died from a stroke shortly after the album came out.

Russell never got to see Hawkins live, but he became the self-described “Johnny Appleseed of Ted Hawkins,” playing his music during Shinyribs concerts and sharing Hawkins’ songs with anyone who would listen. One recent listener was Jenni Finlay, a music promoter and manager who first heard Russell play Hawkins last year in Kansas City. By the time she had driven home to Austin, she decided to produce a tribute album.

Recruiting several country, rock and folk artists, Russell, Finlay and writer Brian T. Atkinson co-produced Cold and Bitter Tears. The record features James McMurtry, Kasey Chambers, Mary Gauthier, Shinyribs and others, and includes a previously unheard demo, performed by Hawkins, as a hidden track.

“Every song has its own character that each artist brings,” says Russell. “There’s a lot of color on the record, but it’s not a paint-by-numbers project.”

This Friday, Russell and other album contributors are marking the release of Cold and Bitter Tears with a concert at Lagunitas, which originally helped finance the album.

“It’s going to be a fun time and a good celebration of his songs and his life,” Russell says.

Open at Last

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Open at Last

It’s not easy to open a hospital. In fact, it’s the most difficult thing many of us have ever done. But the rewards are clear. We are here to heal sick or hurting people. We are here to save lives.

If you were on staff at Sonoma West Medical Center during the rebuilding, you would have seen nurses huddled over computers, pharmacists working through lists of formularies, IT specialists mapping software protocols and everyone testing, testing, testing our levels of patient safety late into the night. For days, weeks, months we tirelessly refined, revised and reviewed our policies and procedures.

Throughout this process, Raymond Hino, our CEO, persisted in his support of the team and in his optimism that we would—soon—prevail. Every night we would sit down in his office and review our progress. Every morning we would convene to review the plan for the day. Dan Smith, hospital philanthropist and chair of the Sonoma West Medical Center board, could be seen hunched over his desk until midnight working on solving the problems that eluded others. Smith and his wife, Joan Marler, ever present, asked us the hard questions and helped us find the solutions. The two of them were confident about why they chose this path. Most of the time.

“I think I should have a pretty easy time in my next life,” Dan joked to me the other evening, “because I sure didn’t take the easy road in this one.”

So at 4pm on Oct. 29, when Ray Hino announced the hospital could open, we sent up a cheer that echoed through the hallways and bounced off the walls. The surge of emotion could be felt as the team gathered in the gardens to celebrate together. Some of us expressed a feeling of shock, as though we had just been found by a rescue team after being lost in the wilderness.

As of Nov. 2, we have seen 52 adults and children, and admitted five. We are busy doing what we came here to do. As one of our patients was being wheeled from the ambulance, he called out for Dan Smith, who came to his side. Reaching for Dan’s hand, he said, “Dan Smith, you’ve done a great thing. You’ve opened our hospital, and I personally want to thank you.”

Jane Rogan is director of communications for Sonoma West Medical Center.

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.

Good Grief

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Good Grief

It must be very tough to finance a movie in 2015 about a character who is nicknamed “Failure Face,” so one makes allowances for The Peanuts Movie. The Schulz signature is on the title and the end card, since the descendants of Charles Schulz were involved with the production.

In this fifth big-screen adaptation (the first using digital animation), the Peanuts gang is happily kept in a kind of Neverland, the sort of suburb that doesn’t much exist anymore. After earning 100 points on a standardized test, Charlie Brown becomes a minor celebrity at his school. The august Lucy van Pelt, put in this world to remind Charlie of his insignificance, is shocked by Charlie’s new status: “This is not easy for me! My whole world is turned upside down.”

Charlie Brown once embodied Kafka’s comment, “In the battle between you and the world, back the world.” But this movie version makes him a winner. He even gets to talk with the Little Red-Haired Girl! It’s like making a film in which Gatsby and Daisy get together in the end.

The other characters are as you left them—not enough of the erudite Linus, but relatively lots of the far more proactive Peppermint Patty. And the animators really win with Snoopy (voiced by the late Bill Melendez using archival recordings), who provides the silent, pre-verbal humor, living out his Walter Mitty fantasies as novelist, dance instructor and devil dog of World War I. He flies with the help of a hangar crew of Woodstock’s fellow goldfinches, arranged like winged versions of those ever-popular yellow Minions.

The Peanuts Movie is very likable, often poignant, in the end, and takes good care of the delicate comic strip from which it was sourced.

‘The Peanuts Movie’ is playing in wide release in the North Bay.

Newbies

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Newbies

From new faces in company management to a new face on the company logo, a number of Bay Area theaters have been introducing the “new kid in town,” and they aren’t just humming an old Eagle’s tune.

At Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma, Diane Dragone, formerly of San Leandro, has just been selected to replace executive director Terence Keane, who departed last June. Since then, Stephen Hamilton has filled in admirably, and was the one to officially introduce Dragone to Cinnabar sponsors and press at a pre-performance event in October. Originally from New York, Dragone has worked with Teatro ZinZanni, San Francisco Classical Voice and the San Leandro Performing Arts Center.

“Cinnabar has an incredible diversity of artistic performances, and it will be my job to make the community more aware of that,” Dragone says. “Petaluma is experiencing a lot of growth, with new people coming in all the time, so there are new people to tell about Cinnabar. For years, it’s been the ‘best kept secret’ in the North Bay. I’m looking forward to being a part of making it a lot less of a secret.”

Meanwhile, at 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa, Jared Sakren has been hired as the new executive director, a position that will work side by side with artistic director Craig Miller. Sakren—who’s been the artistic director of Arizona’s Southwest Shakespeare Company for over a decade—comes to California with a stellar reputation as a theater professional and fundraiser.

“Jared is awesome,” Miller says, “and with him taking on a lot of the development and financial matters, I’m going to be able to focus on building the artistic and aesthetic strengths of the organization.”

In addition, 6th Street has recently hired Steven Piechocki as the company’s new technical director, a position that has gone empty for nearly a year. An alumnus of the Texas Repertory Theatre Company, Piechocki served most recently as technical director of the Old Lyric Rep in Logan, Utah.

“Until now, without a technical director,” Miller says, “we’ve been piecemealing our sets together using local contractors, often not achieving the full potential of the set designs we’ve envisioned. With Steven, we’ve got a fully vested team player, and he’s already proven to be a huge asset.”

And finally, Marin County’s Ross Valley Players has made a major change as well, introducing a new barn-themed logo after over three decades of being identified with the previous one. The beloved company has been doing a lot of exciting artistic experimentation of late, and the new logo—bold, simple and fun—effectively reflects the changing face of one of California’s oldest continuing theater companies.

New Directions

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New Directions

San Francisco songwriter Andy Cabic (pictured) is the man behind long-running folk ensemble Vetiver. He formed the band in 2002. Over the course of five albums, Cabic has taken Vetiver from psychedelic freak rock to dusty folk to ambient soundscapes. On Complete Strangers, the band’s sixth album, Vetiver switch it up again.

The new record, released in March, marks four years since the group’s last LP, the longest gap in time between Vetiver albums since the band’s self-titled debut came out in 2004.

That last album, The Errant Charm, was a subtle record of ethereral jams. On Complete Strangers, Cabic takes the leisurely folk to new sonic locales.

Some songs on Complete Strangers, like “Current Carry,” are infused with bongo beats and sunny ukulele strings for a tropical sensation. Others, like the hypnotic opener “Stranger Still,” incorporate drum machine-produced blips and beats, sounding more like an Icelandic electronica project than a Bay Area rock band.

Cabic’s always been a master at creating effortless sounding melodies. Yet with all these exotic influences, it’s clear that trying to predict what he is going to pull out of the hat next is a futile effort. It’s also clear that the last four years have expanded his musical palette and allowed him to lead Vetiver anywhere he pleases.

Vetiver perform on Thursday, Nov. 5,
at Sweetwater Music Hall, 19 Corte
Madera Ave., Mill Valley. 10pm. $20–$22. 415.388.1100.

Sean Parker Goes to Pot: Billionaire all in for Legal Bud in 2016

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Sean Parker Goes to Pot: Billionaire all in for Legal Bud in 2016

In a widely anticipated move, Sean Parker, Napster founder, former Facebook president, billionaire philanthropist and Big Sur forest defiler, announced a new marijuana legalization initiative on Oct. 2—a move with the potential to throw a wrench in California’s 2016 push to legalize.
The Parker initiative would be the second big-ticket plan put forward to gather about 380,000 signatures to get legalization on the ballot. ReformCA has already sent its initiative to California attorney general Kamala Harris as it launched its signature drive. ReformCA has Howard Dean campaign guy Joe Trippi on the payroll and the support of old-guard pro-marijuana organizations like NORML, among a host of civil rights groups. ReformCA says it will spend up to $14 million in the campaign to free cannabis in the state, mostly on advertising—but the organization hasn’t yet lined up any big-time donors and is relying on contributions from its 70,000-odd members. 
So here’s the emergent picture, hazy though it may be as details around this latest initiative shake out: ReformCA has the organizational muscle but not the cash. Sean Parker has the cash but, as yet, no sign of a field organization to ring up the signatures.
Which means that it’s time to bring a pro-pot politician into the room for an intervention: Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has been identified as the public official most likely to bring the competing initiatives together into a cooperative juggernaut of legalization energy by election day 2016. Let’s hope. Newsom headed up a white-paper commission on marijuana legalization this year and has said he’d support an initiative, if it’s the right one. ReformCA and Parker both worked to hew their initiatives with the general lay-of-land in the Newsom white paper, which emphasized issues around taxation and keeping the devil-weed from the hands of children. And, while Newsom has made public noises about not wanting to encourage a so-called “Green Rush” should California go legal, the capitalists are at the gate and the presumptive rush is already on: Judging from the slew of pro-Parker supporters who came forward this week, some are as pro-business as they are pro-marijuana.
Parker is reported to be chums with the well-heeled-himself Newsom and says he’s ready to spend millions from his billions to launch his legalization initiative, which came out the gate with the support of organizations like the Drug Policy Alliance and the Sierra Club, and from tech-focused outfits like GreenRush, a California-based cannabis delivery company. 
“The involvement of heavy-hitting technology and investment leaders like Sean Parker is vital to gaining the momentum necessary for a real and robust regulatory regime critical to the continued growth of California’s world-class cannabis industry,” says GreenRush CEO Paul Warsaw in an email to the Fishing Report.

Charley Peach is Back from the Dead

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1379611_455137124602428_2138190636_n
It’s been years since we’ve heard from Charley Peach, the high energy and melodic rock band fronted by vocalist Kaylene Harry and guitarist Justyn Delbridge, and maybe the name doesn’t ring any bells for newcomers to the music scene. But, that’s all about to change.
From their Facebook page, the newly resurrected and reinvigorated Charley Peach last month announced a new show and new songs coming our way.

It’s been a looong time since you’ve heard anything Charley Peach related, but we’re back from the dead! We’re doing our first show in years and we would love to see you! Also, this is NOT a one off kind of thing. We’ve been jamming for the last few months, and already have a handful of new songs to add to the old ones.

Charley Peach make their return to the stage this Friday, Nov 6, at Whiskey Tip in Santa Rosa. They split a bill with Santa Rosa’s Become the Villain, a solo indie rock project from songwriter Neem Wood that’s recently seen new life as a full band. Santa Rosa alt-rockers the Tioxxaa open the show.
Before hearing Charley Peach’s new batch of songs, go on a trip down memory lane with some of their excellent older material here.

Help Manzanita Falls Record Their Second Album

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ManzanitaFalls
Sonoma County indie rock outfit Manzanita Falls makes compelling, emotionally-charged and infectiously addictive music. They’re also some of the nicest guys in the North Bay. So, when they ask for a little help in getting their sophomore album recorded and released, we’ll take up the call.
Right now, the band is hard at work trying to get their music to tape. This second album is a follow up to the band’s excellent 2012 debut, Vinyl Ghost. The songs on this upcoming release were written in the aftermath of a violent car crash the band suffered while touring in Texas on November 1st of 2012. Rising from the ashes of that event, this album promises to be an inspired and expressive collection.
First, Manzanita Falls needs your help in getting the record done. They’ve got an Indiegogo campaign online where you can donate and pick up some awesome perks, like wine tasting packages, green room and studio access and more. You can even get the whole band to come to your house for a day of landscaping. That’s worth it right there. Its also nice to help an authentically talented group make their art happen. Check out the video below and give the guys a couple of bucks! You’ll be glad you did.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTHm_AXIR8o[/youtube]

Reel Fun

Anniversaries are a lot like birthdays: they either live up to the hype or stop short of it. When the Napa Valley Film Festival celebrates its fifth year Nov. 11–15, in the towns of Napa, Calistoga, St. Helena and Yountville, co-founder and producer Brenda Lhormer will be banking on the former. "We're always challenging ourselves to do better, bigger, smarter....
Read more

Mad for Beer

For Whitney Fisher and Nile Zacherle, beer and wine go together like love and marriage. Husband and wife since 2007, and the parents of two young children named Madeline and Fritz, they work full-time in the Napa Valley wine industry. She's at Fisher Vineyards, her family's winery; he's at Montagna Napa Valley. Fisher and Zacherle also make craft beers, ales...
Read more

Happy Hour

As undiscovered talents go, it's hard to top Ted Hawkins. The soul and roots songwriter lived a hard life and died before his name was widely known in his home country. Yet for those who have heard his music, Ted Hawkins is as well-respected as he is enigmatic. Such was the case with Austin musician Kevin Russell, longtime bandleader of...
Read more

Open at Last

It's not easy to open a hospital. In fact, it's the most difficult thing many of us have ever done. But the rewards are clear. We are here to heal sick or hurting people. We are here to save lives. If you were on staff at Sonoma West Medical Center during the rebuilding, you would have seen nurses huddled over...
Read more

Good Grief

It must be very tough to finance a movie in 2015 about a character who is nicknamed "Failure Face," so one makes allowances for The Peanuts Movie. The Schulz signature is on the title and the end card, since the descendants of Charles Schulz were involved with the production. In this fifth big-screen adaptation (the first using digital animation), the...
Read more

Newbies

From new faces in company management to a new face on the company logo, a number of Bay Area theaters have been introducing the "new kid in town," and they aren't just humming an old Eagle's tune. At Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma, Diane Dragone, formerly of San Leandro, has just been selected to replace executive director Terence Keane, who departed...
Read more

New Directions

San Francisco songwriter Andy Cabic (pictured) is the man behind long-running folk ensemble Vetiver. He formed the band in 2002. Over the course of five albums, Cabic has taken Vetiver from psychedelic freak rock to dusty folk to ambient soundscapes. On Complete Strangers, the band's sixth album, Vetiver switch it up again. The new record, released in March, marks four...
Read more

Sean Parker Goes to Pot: Billionaire all in for Legal Bud in 2016

In a widely anticipated move, Sean Parker, Napster founder, former Facebook president, billionaire philanthropist and Big Sur forest defiler, announced a new marijuana legalization initiative on Oct. 2—a move with the potential to throw a wrench in California’s 2016 push to legalize. The Parker initiative would be the second big-ticket plan put forward to gather about 380,000 signatures to get...
Read more

Charley Peach is Back from the Dead

It's been years since we've heard from Charley Peach, the high energy and melodic rock band fronted by vocalist Kaylene Harry and guitarist Justyn Delbridge, and maybe the name doesn't ring any bells for newcomers to the music scene. But, that's all about to change. From their Facebook page, the newly resurrected and reinvigorated Charley Peach last month announced a...
Read more

Help Manzanita Falls Record Their Second Album

Sonoma County indie rock outfit Manzanita Falls makes compelling, emotionally-charged and infectiously addictive music. They're also some of the nicest guys in the North Bay. So, when they ask for a little help in getting their sophomore album recorded and released, we'll take up the call. Right now, the band is hard at work trying to get their music to...
Read more
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