Pizza Week Delivers as Tri-County Event Begins

Welcome to the ultimate weeklong pizza party. Starting Jan. 8, select pizzerias across Napa, Sonoma and Marin will participate in the culinary collaboration known as North Bay Pizza Week

After pizza was more or less invented in Naples as a sauced-up flatbread, it took the globe by storm when American GIs returned from World War II, bringing a fondness for pizza that led to a Cambrian explosion of different forms we know now—from traditional Neapolitan styles to thin crust in New York, Detroit squares, sheet pans and deep dish variants in Chicago, to name a few. 

Then there’s California-style pizza, which features a thin, chewy crust and unconventional toppings that embrace the concept of fresh, local ingredients in a creative twist on pizza that’s unique to the state. Which brings us back to the topic at hand: North Bay Pizza Week.

I decided to get a headstart on the tri-county pizza party by visiting San Anselmo’s Creekside Pizza & Taproom a week early to get the inside, um, slice.

Pat Townley, the owner of Creekside Pizza & Taproom, was kind enough to give me a tour of his establishment ahead of Pizza Week. However, I imagine that for him, every week is pizza week. During my behind-the-scenes peek at Creekside, I learned that there is much more to the establishment’s success than the obvious outstanding pizza, beer and ambiance.

My behind-the-scenes peek at Creekside demonstrated how even the most perfect pizza is simply a catalyst, an artistic centerpiece for something much bigger than the pie itself. 

Pizza, I realized, is the vessel that serves as a reason to gather together. Pizzerias are an integral, irreplaceable neighborhood fixture, a central hub where locals gather and commune over a shared pie. At the risk of sounding cheesy (or maybe saucy), pizza is community. That’s what North Bay Pizza Week celebrates. Of course, it helps that it tastes amazing, too.

Pie Chart

Visit NorthBayPizzaWeek.com and @restoweeks on Instagram for specials, updates and additions.

Amici’s East Coast Pizzeria

1242 Fourth St., San Rafael. 415.455.9777. amicis.com

Ausiello’s Homeslice

5755 Mountain Hawk Dr., Santa Rosa. 707.595.3923. ausielloshomeslice.com

The Bird

4776 Sonoma Hwy., Santa Rosa. 707.542.0861. thebirdrestaurant.com

Campanella

7365 Healdsburg Ave., Sebastopol. 707.910.3030. campanellasoco.com

Cibo Rustico Pizzeria

1305 Cleveland Ave., Santa Rosa. 707.623.9906. ciborustico.com

Creekside Pizza & Taproom

638 San Anselmo Ave. San Anselmo. 415.785-4450. creeksidesa.com

Diavola Pizzeria

21021 Geyserville Ave., Geyserville. 707.814.0111. diavolapizzeria.com

Domino’s Pizza

1561 Farmers Ln., Santa Rosa. 707.578.6161. dominos.com

Downtown Barbecue

610 3rd St., Santa Rosa. 707.843.4830. downtownbarbecue.co

Fogbelt Brewing Company Healdsburg

410 Hudson St., Healdsburg. 707.473.8532. fogbeltbrewing.com

Forge Pizza

155 Gasser Dr., Ste. B, Napa. 925.927.3394. theforgepizza.com

Fox Pizza

158 Crescent Rd., Corte Madera. 925.212.3466. foxpizzamarin.com

Gabacool Provisions

4927 Sonoma Hwy., Santa Rosa. 845.800.3552. gabacoolprovisions.com

Homerun Pizza & Sports Bar

484 Larkfield Center, Santa Rosa. 707.527.6600. homerunpizzalarkfield.com

KIN

740 McClelland Dr., Windsor. 707.837.7546. kinwindsor.com

L’Oro di Napoli

629 4th St., Santa Rosa. 707.541.6394. lorodinapolisantarosa.com

Luma Bar & Eatery

50 East Washington Street, Petaluma. 707.772.5037. lumaeatery.com

Mama J’s

10101 Main St., Penngrove. 707.664.1515. eatatmamajs.com

Mary’s Pizza Shack

101 Golf Course Dr., Rohnert Park. 707.585.3500

3084 Marlow Rd., Santa Rosa. 707.573.1100

535 Summerfield Rd., Santa Rosa. 707.538.1888

maryspizzashack.com

Palisades Eatery

1414 Lincoln Ave., Calistoga. 707.942.9300. palisadeseatery.com

PizzaLeah

9240 Old Redwood Hwy. #116, Windsor. 707.620.0551. pizzaleah.com

Psychic Pie

980 Gravenstein Hwy. S, Sebastopol. 707.827.6032. psychicpie.com

Red Boy Pizza

459 Entrada Dr., Novato. 415.382.7711. 

2042B 4th St., San Rafael. (415) 258-0420.

redboypizza.com

Rocco’s Pizza

711 E. Blithedale Ave., Mill Valley. 415.388-4444. roccospizzamillvalley.com

Salt & Stone

9900 Sonoma Hwy., Kenwood. 707.833.6326. saltstonekenwood.com

Slow Co. Pizza

8197 La Plaza, Cotati. 707.796.5124. slowcopizza.com

Sonoma Pizza Co.

6615 Front St., Forestville. 707.820.1031. sonomapizzaco.com

Stonework Pizza & Tap

615 E. Washington St., Petaluma. 707.981.7360. stoneworkpizza.com

The Red Grape

529 First St. W, Sonoma. 707.996.4103. theredgrape.com

The Village Italian Restaurant

1200 Grant Ave., Novato. 415.898.2234. thevillageitalianrestaurant.com

VJB Cellars

60 Shaw Ave., Kenwood. 707.833.2300. vjbcellars.com

North Bay Pet Photo Contest

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We’re looking for North Bay Pet Stars. Is your pet picture perfect? Showcase your pet love! Submit your favorite pet images and we’ll publish the winners in our Feb. 19, 2025 issue. Photo submissions & voting due Feb. 5, 2025.

Sponsorship Packages available to brand your business with our pet photo contest and strengthen community spirit and relations. Contact Lisa Santos, Advertising Director by email or 707.353.1139

Professional Heartbreak: On the Job Training

There are some who advise to get one’s heart broken early and often. 

Over the years, in romantic relationships, I have learned how to get dirty, fall down and pick myself up again. When embarking on a new potential dating escapade, I am mentally and emotionally prepared for some level of disappointment and heartache. I understand it comes with the territory of emotional vulnerability and risk. 

But this year, I got a whole new round of lessons in the school of the heart by something lesser-known but still deadly: professional heartbreak.

At 58, it feels late to be learning this lesson. Maybe that’s because I spent so many years placing my conceptual eggs in the baskets of romantic love, motherhood and community. Until my daughter entered adulthood a decade ago, I don’t think I ever really invested my heart in a job, not until the past six years, as I’ve been working in the capacity of social work with transitional age youth.

From early on, I observed that youth in our culture are poorly served through deficits in the structure of public education, including a lack of emotional wellness support. In the beginning, I obviously could not have articulated it that way. 

Instead, I would have said that sitting at desks at that age was pure lunacy and that between the ages of 12 and 16, we should have all been learning hands-on skills, living in the wilderness and developing survival techniques, doing community service, being guided to overcome our emotional isolation from one another and learning how to self-regulate our feelings.

I discovered transformative arts in college, which offered creative, philosophical, spiritual and non-clinical solutions. These are the most effective and powerful antidotes to the hollowness at the heart of our culture.

Like most idealists, finding a place to apply this base of skills and knowledge outside my degree program was another story. My education predisposed me to serve in the lean alleyway between clinical therapy, education and the arts, a difficult needle to thread. So, when I landed in workforce development, I was shocked to discover a real affinity for the calling. 

It is a place to apply all the tools I honed in a profoundly practical approach to career and education coaching. The component of a pragmatic goal is a fantastic crucible for providing effective support to struggling humans. In this newly found career niche, my heart opened to a calling. 

I fell in love with my job, the organization where I worked, my clients and the opportunity to make a significant, measurable difference in real-time to people struggling.

However, the context to provide this kind of support, funded by federal, state and local sources, comes only with specific strings attached. The underlying, hidden, implicit, politicized, personal and human strings took time to emerge and proved to be the heartbreaking mechanism concealed in the chowder.

An AI Google search defines “professional heartbreak” as a feeling of sadness or disappointment that can arise from several work-related experiences, including missed promotions, failed projects, rejected proposals, loss of trust or confidence, and loss of meaningful work.

On the surface, they could easily sound like just general complaints about the annoyances of being employed as a person in the real world. I’m aware of that. The old-school gremlin in my head shouts, well, that’s just having a job. Buck up, baby. 

However, the depth of heartbreak is proportional to the depth of effectiveness I found as a youth social worker, which has been the most satisfying professional work I have done to date. I guess that speaks to (despite my regular declarations that I hate people) how much I care about people and how much I get from helping to make another person’s suffering a little less.

After months of waking up heartbroken, confused, enraged, stymied and impeded, attempting in every way I could think of to find guidance, to try working through it with the people in my organization, I finally came to the difficult decision to leave the job I loved so much. I just couldn’t live with being siloed from opportunities I knew existed. I couldn’t watch the work I had done be corrupted, coopted, mishandled and wasted by those in positions of authority. 

Perhaps the worst was the feeling, while placing my heart on the line each day to support and comfort at-risk, marginalized and vulnerable clients, that my organization did not have my back. Instead, the people placed in that support and guidance role were manipulating and strategizing to benefit themselves primarily or other pet projects of their own, leaving the constituency I represent and for whom the funding exists to languish, not fully prioritized, not seen, not best supported.

I know many have walked through similar difficult situations. Perhaps many choose to stay and fight the good fight where they are, despite unjust conditions; despite people in management who have no business being there; despite layers of bureaucracy that require insane hoops, ridiculous rules, half measures at best, success that leads to punishment of those who bring it about or much, much worse.  

Probably to many, I sound like the worst kind of Pollyanna, and they’re thinking, “Lady, what world did you think you lived in?” Maybe I’m just another “Karen” right now, complaining about how her white girl privilege got wrinkled like a Sunday frock. Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

But heartbreak, my people. I laid it all on the line. Like a 14-year-old girl with her first crush, I was making a difference. I don’t like the way these big girl panties fit my middle-aged derriere. Maybe some can relate.

In the end, the suggested solutions for how to cope with it have rung hollow a bit: Allow oneself to feel emotions, set boundaries, practice self-care, reconnect with interests, seek support and allow oneself to grieve. I’ve done all of the above since this emerged, and I’ve walked through it. 

Yay, “Team Me,” for knowing how to care for myself. Those are the perks of being a professional social worker. We have mad skillz. But that last layer just won’t go away for me. Try washing it out. Try scrubbing it out. It’s like ring around the collar. So, I write. I put it here as a touchstone for anyone else walking through something similar. I should maybe share a copy with The White House. Ha ha. Just kidding.

We’re living through interesting times. I don’t know what the universe has in store for me as my next incarnation. My little idealist heart wants to build a little room where I can sit with people and just do what I’ve been doing, but without the toxic outliers that became the poison in the frog broth. Who knows; maybe I will. 

But in the meantime, I’m growing a new layer of resilience designed for the world of work. I didn’t know I needed it. Take a page from me if possible. The world will break one’s heart in new ways. But it’s OK, as Leonard Cohen reminded us. It’s maybe “how the light gets in.”

Charrisa Drengsen writes the newsletter ‘NOVEL atelier’ at novelatelier.substack.com.

Lights Up: North Bay Theater Companies Raise Curtains on 2025

North Bay theater companies have their collective fingers crossed that audiences will continue to come out and support them in 2025. 

Holiday-themed shows now give way to the usual mixture of comedies, dramas and musicals, from classics to contemporary works to a short play festival.

Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse gets things going in early January with What the Constitution Means to Me. Heidi Schrek’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist may take on deeper meaning with the potential Constitutional crises we may face in the coming years. 6thstreetplayhouse.com

For folks looking for something a little sillier, Cinnabar Theater continues taking their shows on the road to Sonoma State University with Gutenberg! The Musical! Opening Jan. 17, it’s a musical spoof about two hapless friends putting on a backer’s audition with the hopes of raising funds to produce their musical about the creator of the printing press. cinnabartheater.org

Former Bohemian critic David Templeton gets a remount of his one-woman show, Mary Shelley’s Body. Originally produced in 2017 at Sebastopol’s Main Stage West, this show features Spreckels Theatre Company artistic director Sheri Lee Miller reprising the role of Mary Shelley (well, her ghost) as she tells the story of her life. spreckelsonline.com

Sonoma Arts Live presents Six Degrees of Separation in late January. Playwright John Guare based his tale of a young African-American con man insinuating himself into the lives of the New York elite on a true story. Jonathen Blue stars as “Paul.” sonomaartslive.org

You may have seen this already, but 6th Street Playhouse’s second stage will be occupied by Groundhog Day: The Musical starting Jan. 31. The 1993 Bill Murray comedy gave way to a 2017 Broadway musical that, while not a smashing success, has become a reliable audience-pleaser. 6thstreetplayhouse.com

For folks looking for something on a little smaller scale, Napa’s Lucky Penny Productions will be presenting Love Letters. A.R. Gurney’s two-hander features two actors reading the correspondence their characters have shared over 50 years. Three sets of performers (Taylor Bartolucci & Barry Martin, Daniela Innocenti-Beem & Dennis O’Brien, LC Arisman & John Browning) take on the roles over a three-weekend run starting Jan. 31. luckypennynapa.com

Theater-goers who like their plays short, really short, might check out the Raven Players’ Raven Shorts. The show is composed of eight eclectic, original 10-minute plays by local playwrights Dan Stryker, Tony Sciullo, Jacquelyn Wells, Kyle Therral Wilson, Ron Nash, Francine Schwartz, Chrsitopher Johnston and Scott Lummer. The “festival” runs for two weekends starting Jan. 24 in Healdsburg. raventheater.org

There’s quite the variety of live theater from which to choose to warm your hearts and minds and escape the North Bay’s cold winter nights.

Breaking Ground with Northern California Public Media CEO Darren LaShelle

There is great news on the news for those with the post-inauguration blues.

Our own Northern California Public Media (NCPM) is on the march. This historic month, our local provider of NPR radio and PBS television will be breaking ground on a giant new building—the better to host tapings, screenings, lectures, music and parties, and meet us—the public that they serve. 

This new home cum media complex is one of a series of moves orchestrated by NCPM CEO and president Darren LaShelle, his board and his community advisors to meet the challenges of generational and technological transition facing “old media”—in a nation that badly needs it.

And while being myself, an NPR and PBS superfan, I have slipped a bit in the transition to digital. But in reviewing their programming for this interview—from Frontline to The Sonoma County Music Hour, to NOVA to Climate California, I was reminded that this is media made to make better citizens of us all.

CH: Darren, what is the assessed combined audience?

DL: Probably about 800,000 listeners and viewers.

CH: Wow.

DL: But to put that number in perspective, that is out of 8 million people in the Bay Area. So that’s something we need to work on.

CH: Tell me about the mission and how it has changed with the digital transition.

DL: To provide education to the public—free to them, lifelong learning—through media and technology. That is a really big umbrella under which many things are happening. Of course, broadcasting is the way we accomplished that mission for many decades, but now we have to be in all these new spaces to accomplish that goal—whether it’s Spotify and YouTube or live streaming, Hulu deals, Amazon Prime deals—trying to be everywhere that we can be. 

The work that used to just be—if I can say “just”—making great content and getting it to people. It’s changed, so we need to be on this panoply of changing platforms and digital streaming locations that come and go in popularity on top of everything else. We have to make sure we are where you need us to be.

Meet Darren LaShelle. Follow the link below to hear a 90-minute interview with LaShelle, one of the most influential people in our local and regional media, see press on the new building opening in Rohnert Park this year, download the PBS streamer ‘Passport’ or donate. linktr.ee/NCPMLINKS.

Culture Crush, 1/8

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Mill Valley

Write Now

Those whose New Year’s resolutions include a commitment to finally finishing their Great American Novel (or maybe a poem or two) can find guidance in “Ready, Set, Write,” an upcoming workshop led by regular Bohemian and Pacific Sun contributor Kary Hess at Mystic in Mill Valley. Beginners and seasoned writers are invited to a two-hour writing workshop to experiment, grow and share ideas. Hess will introduce seven key entry points into writing, including hands-on exercises and group discussions. The intent is to help authors gain a clear direction for their next projects and develop a community to help keep them on track. Hess is the editor of Made Local Magazine, the author of 1912: Poems of Time, Place & Memory and the creator of the SparkTarot Deck & Guidebook. The workshop runs from 5:30-7:30pm, Wednesday, Jan. 15 and Monday, Jan. 27, at Mystic, 31 Sunnyside, Mill Valley. Reserve a spot at mysticmv.com or karyhess.com. The fee is $85.

Sonoma

Sheanapalooza

Sonoma’s community is coming together for Sheanapalooza, a benefit event to support Sheana Davis, a cornerstone of Northern California’s food and hospitality scene, as she battles esophageal cancer. The event is set for 2 to 6pm, Sunday, Jan. 19, at the Sonoma Community Center. Attendees can expect an afternoon of Mardi Gras-inspired festivities, regional food and wine, live music and a silent auction. Davis is known for her generosity and advocacy for local producers. Proceeds from the event will help cover her medical and living expenses. Tickets can be purchased online (additional donations are welcomed and encouraged) at bit.ly/sheanapalooza. The community center is located at 276 East Napa St., Sonoma. 

Healdsburg

Songs of Life, Songs of Love

This month is the time to experience the transcendent beauty of opera at Songs of Life, Songs of Love, featuring soprano Morgan Harrington, mezzo-soprano Leandra Ramm and pianist Frank Johnson. This program, curated by Caroline Altman, includes highlights from Lakmé, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, La Traviata, Carmen and art songs by Schumann, Mahler and more. The power of music to evoke life’s poignant and passionate moments will be celebrated in an intimate setting at THE 222, 4pm, Sunday, Jan. 26. THE 222 is located at 222 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. For tickets and details, visit bit.ly/222-love.

Corte Madera

Son on the Run

One can join Carol Emery at Book Passage in Corte Madera as she reads from Son on the Run: Through a Mother’s Eyes, the story of a young man’s battle with mental illness, including paranoia, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression. Through this deeply personal account, Emery aims to connect with anyone affected by mental health challenges. As one online reviewer wrote, “I know it will help others to read it and have more understanding and empathy.” The event begins at 11am, Saturday, Jan. 18, at Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera. Details at bit.ly/son-run.

Free Will Astrology: Week of Jan. 8-14

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries poet Charles Baudelaire said that if you want to fully activate your personal genius, you will reclaim and restore the intelligence you had as a child. You will empower it anew with all the capacities you have developed as an adult. I believe this is sensational advice for you in 2025. In my understanding of the astrological omens, you will have an extraordinary potential to use your mature faculties to beautifully express the wise innocence and lucid perceptions you were blessed with when you were young. 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In many Asian myths, birds and snakes are depicted as adversaries. Their conflict symbolizes humanity’s problems in coordinating the concerns of earth and heaven. Desire may be at odds with morality. Unconscious motivations can be opposed to good intentions. Pride, self-interest and ambition might seem incompatible with spiritual aspirations, high-minded ideals and the quest to transcend suffering. But here’s the good news for you, Taurus: In 2025, I suspect that birds and snakes will cooperate rather harmoniously. You and they will have stirring, provocative adventures together.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Using a fork to eat food was slow to gain acceptance in the Western world. Upper-class Europeans began to make it a habit in the 11th century, but most common folk regarded it as a pretentious irrelevancy for hundreds of years. Grabbing grub with the fingers was perfectly acceptable. I suspect this scenario might serve as an apt metaphor for you in 2025. You are primed to be an early adopter who launches trends. You will be the first to try novel approaches and experiment with variations in how things have always been done. Enjoy your special capacity, Gemini. Be bold in generating innovations.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Psychologist Abraham Maslow defined “peak experiences” as “rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter.” The moment of falling in love is one example. Another may happen when a creative artist makes an inspiring breakthrough in their work. These transcendent interludes may also come from dreamwork, exciting teachings, walks in nature and responsible drug use. (Read more here: tinyurl.com/PeakInterludes.) I bring these ideas to your attention, Cancerian, because I believe the months ahead will be prime time for you to cultivate and attract peak experiences.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): According to my analysis of the astrological omens, your life in 2025 will be pretty free of grueling karmic necessity. You will be granted exemptions from cosmic compulsion. You won’t be stymied by the oppressive inertia of the past. To state this happy turn of events more positively, you will have clearance to move and groove with daring expansiveness. Obligations and duties won’t disappear, but they’re more likely to be interesting than boring and arduous. Special dispensations and kind favors will flow more abundantly than they have in a long time.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): One of my most enjoyable goals in life has been to expunge my “isms.” I’m pleased that I have made dramatic progress in liquidating much of the perverse cultural conditioning that imprinted me as I was growing up. I’ve largely liberated myself from racism, sexism, classism, ableism, heteronormativity, lookism and even egotism. How are you doing with that stuff, Virgo? The coming months will be a favorable time to work on this honorable task. What habits of mind and feeling have you absorbed from the world that are not in sync with your highest ideals? 

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Here’s one of my predictions for you in 2025, Libra: You will reach the outer limits of your domain and then push on to explore beyond those limits. Here’s another prediction: You will realize with a pleasant shock that some old expectations about your destiny are too small, and soon you will be expanding those expectations. Can you handle one further mind-opening, soul-stretching prophecy? You will demolish at least one mental block, break at least one taboo and dismantle an old wall that has interfered with your ability to give and receive love.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): If you’re not married and would like to be, 2025 might be your best chance in years to find wedded bliss. If an existing intimate bond is less than optimal, the coming months will bring inspiration and breakthroughs to improve it. Let’s think even bigger and stronger, Scorpio, and speculate that you could be on the verge of all kinds of enhanced synergetic connections. I bet business and artistic partnerships will thrive if you decide you want them to. Links to valuable resources will be extra available if you work to refine your skills at collaboration and togetherness.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I wonder how you will feel about the fact that I’m declaring 2025 to be the Year of the Muses for you Sagittarians. Will you be happy that I expect you to be flooded with provocative clues from inspiring influences? Or will you regard the influx of teachings and revelations as chaotic, confusing or inconvenient? In the hope you adopt my view, I urge you to expand your understanding of the nature of muses. They may be intriguing people, and might also take the form of voices in your head, ancestral mentors, beloved animals, famous creators or spirit guides.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Astrologers in ancient China had the appalling view that over two-thirds of all omens are negative, threatening or scary. I haven’t seen formal research into the biases of modern Western stargazers, but my anecdotal evidence suggests they tend to be equally pessimistic. I regard this as an unjustified travesty. My studies have shown that there is no such thing as an inherently ominous astrological configuration. All portents are revelations about how to successfully wrangle with our problems, perpetrate liberation, ameliorate suffering, find redemption and perform ingenious tweaks that liberate us from our mind-forged manacles. They always have the potential to help us discover the deeper meanings beneath our experiences. Everything I just said is essential for you to keep in mind during 2025.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Over the years, a few people who don’t know me well have accused me of “thinking too much” or “overthinking.” They are wrong. While I aspire to always be open to constructive criticism, I am sure that I don’t think too much. Not all my thoughts are magnificent, original and high-quality, of course; some are generated by fear and habit. However, I meticulously monitor the flow of all my thoughts and am skilled at knowing which ones I should question or not take seriously. The popular adage, “Don’t believe everything you think” is one of my axioms. In 2025, I invite you Aquarians to adopt my approach. Go right ahead and think as much as you want, even as you heighten your awareness of which of your thoughts are excellent and which are not.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I’m pleased, bordering on gleeful, that your homecoming is well underway. All the signs suggest that as 2025 unfolds, you will ripen the processes of deepening your roots and building a stronger foundation. As a result, I expect and predict that your levels of domestic bliss will reach unprecedented heights. You may even create a deeply fulfilled sense of loving yourself exactly as you are and feeling like you truly belong to the world you are surrounded by. Dear Pisces, I dare you to cultivate more peace of mind than you have ever managed to arouse. I double-dare you to update traditions whose emotional potency has waned.

Make More Art in a DOGE Eat DOGE World

Oh, history, that compulsive rerun machine, seems intent on dredging up its greatest hits—only this time, the sequelitis that’s plagued Hollywood has spread to Washington. But here’s the thing: When reality teeters on parody, art sharpens its blade.

Periods of upheaval have always been a crucible for creativity, pushing artists to confront the world’s contradictions and distill them into something resonant. When the center cannot hold, art steps in—not just as commentary, but as a means of cultural survival.

As history repeats, so does its creative backlash. We’ve crossed from “stranger than fiction” into full-on Mad Magazine territory. And for those with an anarchic streak and an artistic bent, this clusterf— is a gift.

Would punk rock or Basquiat have thrived stateside without the conservative cultural vacuum Reagan created? When Bush the First arrived, grunge bubbled up from the underground. When W metastasized into The White House, hipsters got vinyl back in circulation, and coffee and cocktails became art forms. Although comedians say they suffered under Trump because it’s impossible to satirize such a self-caricature, I urge them to “try harder.”

This is how art serves us in moments like these: It gives us the cultural vocabulary to understand our times. (If you can name it, you can blame it—and maybe even fix it.) Art is a flashpoint that clarifies where everyone stands, and inevitably, it becomes a timestamp by which we gauge how far we’ve come… or fallen.

More chaos births more creativity. Artists, this is your cue. Transform the wicked and banal with inspired urgency. Create fiercely, without restraint. Let the absurdity of our era be the unwelcome muse that sparks the masterpiece we never saw coming.

There’s no time for a manifesto, just a mandate: Make more art. Create to destroy. Burn it all down, rebuild it in your image, and, for the love of all things sacred and profane, Make Art Great Again.

Daedalus Howell is the editor of this paper and writes the Press Pass newsletter for creatives at dhowell.substack.com.

Zappa in Napa: Dweezil Comes Plays Wine Country

When it comes to musical iconoclasts, the late Frank Zappa left behind quite the creative legacy despite only living to the age of 52 before succumbing to prostate cancer in 1993. 

Three-plus decades later, his eldest son Dweezil is honoring his pop via the Rox(Postroph)Y Tour Return of the Son of…, a string of dates that will find the younger Zappa focusing his outfit’s energies on revisiting a pair of his father’s albums, “Apostrophe (‘)” and “Roxy & Elsewhere,” both of which were released in 1974 and have marked their half-century anniversaries. Hitting the concert stage after a four-year layoff partially caused by the pandemic, Zappa is eager to tackle this part of his father’s canon.

Zappa will perform at Napa’s Uptown Theatre at 8 pm, Friday, Jan. 10.

“The material that we’re playing from ‘Apostrophe (‘)’ and ‘Roxy’ is very well known to the fans, but the versions we’re doing are probably not as well-known because some of them pre-date the albums,” Zappa explained in a recent interview. “There are arrangements that came from live performances that were from 1973, but the album was recorded in 1974, so there are differences in some of the harmonies and some of the rhythms. These are very popular records and it’s just one of those things where the music stands in stark relief if you listen to what is happening in that music and you compare it to anything that’s happening in modern music — and you realize that it was done 50 years ago. It really shows people that there is so much that is undiscovered and so much more that can be done with music, and that’s something dad’s music showcases all the time.”

Zappa was barely four going on five years old when the two records came out. This was also around the time of a couple of vivid memories — the whirring of tape machines as his father was doing edits (“You would just hear the tape rocking back and forth going ‘wherp, wherp, wherp,’” the son said) and the recording of a song called “St. Alphonso’s Pancake Breakfast.”

“I was four or five years old when he was making that and I just remember thinking, ‘Oh great — a song about pancakes — that’s pretty sweet,’” he recalled.

And while Zappa was given a guitar when he was six, it wasn’t until the California native was 12 that he started getting serious about playing. At that point, it was a golden age of guitar players in the Golden State, where storied names like Edward Van Halen and Randy Rhoads proved to be huge influences on the budding guitarist — so much so that the former oversaw Zappa’s recording debut despite the young musician having been playing for nine months.

“The first song I ever recorded was ‘My Mother’s a Space Cadet’ in my dad’s studio, but Edward Van Halen produced it along with Donn Landee, who was the engineer that did the first six Van Halen albums,” Zappa said. “There are no words to describe how inspirational it was for me to be able to work with Edward on that recording.”

Zappa’s fascination with the guitar and his increasing proficiency on the instrument has served him well. Not only has he recorded seven solo albums, but he’s cut a pair of records with brother Ahmet and made cameo appearances ranging from projects by artists who appeared on his father’s recordings, to “Weird Al” Yankovic, Winger, Todd Rundgren, and the Dixie Dregs. 

Zappa’s willingness to think outside of the box led to arguably his most unorthodox project, the still-unreleased “What the Hell Was I Thinking” It’s a 75-minute piece he started back in 1990 and features contributions from 40-plus guitarists. Technology changes that found Zappa going from analog to digital to computer formats have delayed releasing this ambitious project, and it’s currently on hold while Zappa devotes his time to the current tour. 

“The idea was to have a piece of music that morphed as it went along, so it’s almost like if you were turning the dial on a radio and different music would start playing at different times,” Zappa said. “The goal was to use the guitar in different ways and then have some guest guitarists also play on it. In that way, if you imagined you were watching a scene in a movie and every major actor that you knew of had a small cameo role, that was kind of the musical joke in this.”

Recently, he’s footage for a possible concert film focusing on the behind-the-scenes preparation for the current tour. As is the Zappa way, Dweezil is going down his own creative path, a lesson he observed having a front-row seat to his father’s day-to-day.

“A lot of people will ask you what it’s like to either be in the shadow or follow in the footsteps of my father and what the struggles might be,” he said. “I didn’t ever think about it like that because I was just happy to have access to my dad, who I admired. When it came to me doing my own thing, all I was concerned with was if I am doing work that I am happy with or proud of. That’s really all that matters.”

Dweezil Zappa performs at 8 pm, Friday, Jan. 10, at the Uptown Theatre, 1350 Third St., Napa. More info and tickets here.

Your Letters, 1/8

Punchline or Prejudice?

Harry Duke’s Dec. 25 “2024’s Top Torn Tix, SoCo’s best/interesting theater of the year” included POTUS, etc. “Or Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying To Keep Him Alive,” a “feminist farce” (which he referred to as “pretty darn funny”) that undisguisedly discriminates against men as all cast members are female as are both the playwright and director.

This misandrist and blatantly sexist play promotes anger and resentment toward men. Would you endorse a theater production entitled “VPOTUS, etc. Or Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Men Trying To Keep Her Alive,” that portrayed a female VPOTUS as a buffoon and only employed male actors, writers and directors?

And the script is not kind to women either. Laura Foti Cohen of The Larchmont Buzz wrote, “POTUS is a brutal reminder that even women can make women look bad…Despite being in positions of power, the women are simpering and foolish, morally bereft and addled, immature and flailing. They are quick to anger and violence. Their first reaction to trouble is to cover their own butts. 

“They don’t know enough to check for a pulse to see if someone is alive. One is encouraged—and eagerly agrees—to perform oral sex to solve problems…virtually every character is herself a dumbass, or a milquetoast, a deceived sad sack, or an amoral creep. Rather than trying to keep their leader alive, none seem sorry at the idea of his potential death at their hands,” Foti Cohen continued.

Oh, and I see that you employ the director of the play at the Pacific Sun as a freelancer.

Talk about “group think.”

Joe Manthey

Petaluma

We appreciate your letters to the editor—send them to le*****@******an.com and le*****@********un.com . Letters may be edited for clarity and space.

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Punchline or Prejudice? Harry Duke’s Dec. 25 “2024’s Top Torn Tix, SoCo’s best/interesting theater of the year” included POTUS, etc. “Or Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying To Keep Him Alive,” a “feminist farce” (which he referred to as “pretty darn funny”) that undisguisedly discriminates against men as all cast members are female as are both the playwright...
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