Elegy for a Life

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Elegy for a Life

In Fruitvale Station, Bay Area filmmaker Ryan Coogler insists Oscar Grant—shot and killed by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle in 2009—was more than just a thug, and reminds knee-jerkers that being drunk and disorderly isn’t a capital crime.

Michael B. Jordan’s restrained portrayal of Oscar Grant affects even those who don’t want to be manipulated—who want to watch this story with unfogged eyes. Jordan gives us the charisma of the unlucky man from Hayward, a cherished father to his daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal, a prodigy), someone who wanted to do right so badly that he tattooed the name of his church on his shoulders.

But we’re allowed to see the sinner in Grant. We can feel for this young man’s confusion and desperation. We follow him running errands on the last day of his life: bitter coincidence, it was his mother’s birthday. Octavia Spencer’s excellence in this role will dazzle those who remember how good she was in The Help; there’s iron-clad evenness in her voice when she uses the euphemism “taking your vacations” to describe her son’s period in prison.

Coogler has a sharp, clean 90-minute film with no fat on it. But the next level of filmmaking would have counterpointed Grant’s life with the story of Mehserle, played by Kevin Durand. In real life, the Napa-raised, SSU-educated Mehserle’s own wife was ready to give birth any minute—which mirrors Fruitvale Station‘s insistence on Grant as a loving father. Moreover, Mehserle had faced an armed passenger earlier that night, and is depicted as horrified after the shooting. I doubt that hardliners who want to believe that a cackling racist executed Grant for fun can be satisfied by the plausible explanation that in the heat of the moment Mehserle drew a gun instead of a taser.

But who could blame extremists? Fruitvale Station‘s release follows hard on the atrocity of the Travyon Martin case. Coogler sums up Grant’s story with a peaceful demonstration, not the nights of rage; the audience is left with tears instead of easy solutions. It might not help, but I wonder how much it costs to rename a BART station after a person.

‘Fruitvale Station’ opens Friday, July 26, at Summerfield Cinemas.

Modern Star

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Modern Star

‘What I love about doing concerts,” says Tony-award-winning actress and singer Sutton Foster, “is it gives me a chance to step out of character and just be myself. Yes, people have seen me on Broadway and TV, playing all of these interesting characters. Now people get to meet me. They get to discover what it is that appeals to me as an artist, to find out who I really am.

“And hopefully,” Foster laughs, “people will still like me.”

Foster, who played Michelle on the ABC Family series

Bunheads, is best known for her work on Broadway, where she’s made a career of transforming iconic movie characters into equally iconic stage characters. She won her first Tony as the lead in Thoroughly Modern Millie, the stage adaptation of the 1967 Julie Andrews film, and went on to appear as Jo March in the 2004 musical adaptation of Little Women, the yodeling lab-assistant Inga in Young Frankenstein and the rough-and-tumble Princess Fiona in Shrek: The Musical. She also created the role of actress-in-love Janet van de Graaf in The Drowsy Chaperone, and went on to win her second Tony as Reno in the 2011 Broadway revival of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes.

On Aug. 1, in a one-night-only concert at Jack London State Park, Foster performs highlights from her Broadway shows, along with songs from her two solo albums. The concert is presented by the Transcendence Theatre Company, which has transformed the old winery ruins at Jack London into one of the hottest spots for live performance in the Bay Area. When Foster learned about the open-air, summertime shows, she quickly signed on for a performance under the stars in wine country.

“I’m really looking forward to performing outside,” says Foster, who will be accompanied by her longtime musical director Michael Rafter, and also by actress-singer Megan McGinnis, who played Beth to Foster’s Jo in Little Women. It’s not a long shot to guess they’ll be performing Little Women’s show-stopping duet “Some Things Are Meant to Be.”

And there may be some surprises, as well.

“We’ll be doing some songs that are brand-new to us,” Foster says. “I think it will be a nice, chill evening. Every song has been chosen with great care. Each one is an expression of who I am and how I feel. I would say this is going to be a very personal show.”

Fish Tales

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Fish Tales

We’re about halfway through the commercial fishing season for salmon, when quality is high and prices are low for wild, Pacific salmon. This presents an opportunity for savvy shoppers to gather a stash of fish to freeze and subsequently feast on all year long. But doing so requires care and focus. The process includes many steps, all of which have to be done just right—small lapses here and there can quickly add up to the difference between expensive disappointment and affordable delicacy. The two phases of this endeavor are the purchase and the processing of the fish.

I cruise the fish counters and seafood markets until I find fresh fish at a good price, at a fish counter that looks clean and well managed. Next, I ask the manager if it’s possible to buy whole fish, minus the guts and heads.

I prefer my fish headless because while I don’t mind some fish head soup now and then, I don’t want to pay the same price for the heads that I pay for the bodies. But I do want the collar, which is at the end of the fish’s body, right before the head and gills, where the pectoral fins attach on either side. Sometimes called spare ribs of the ocean, collars contain big chunks of rich, succulent flesh.

There are several reasons why I prefer whole fish to pre-cut fish. The price per pound is lower, even after accounting for the bones you pay for. More importantly, with whole fish the flesh receives less handling than do fillets, and the flesh remains protected from the air by the skin. This leaves the meat in better shape when you get it home. And whole fish can be cut into steaks, which is the best way to freeze salmon.

Freezing steaks is preferable to fillets for much the same reason that purchasing whole fish makes more sense than buying parts: the flesh is better protected from exposure to air, reducing the potential for spoilage. With steaks, most of the meat remains covered by the skin, with only the two cut ends exposed.

Some people complain about the bones in salmon steaks. But I think the bone situation is arguably preferable compared to filets. Fillets sometimes contain short, hidden short bones that can catch you by surprise. But with steaks, the bones all remain attached to the spine. You know where the bones are, and the flesh falls off them without hesitation. And when cooking steaks, those bones add flavor, in the same way bones add flavor to stock.

After purchasing the fish, bring it straight home, on ice, and get to work. I soak them in a strong saltwater solution to remove any slime—it’s an inexact mixture of about half a cup of salt in a big vessel of water. Once the salt is dissolved, add ice to the water, and then the fish.

Remove each fish from the salt water, rinse thoroughly, pat dry, and cut it crosswise into about three to five sections, depending on how big the fish is and how many mouths you plan on feeding per sitting. The sections can be cut into individual steaks when the fish is thawed, but for the sake of protecting the flesh from exposure to air, it’s better to freeze larger pieces that can be cut into portion sizes when cooking.

When cutting your fish into steaks, you want a thin knife that’s razor sharp. Otherwise you will risk pressing down too hard on the fish as you cut it, crushing the flesh.

When going to such lengths to freeze good fish, you’re wasting your time—or at least rolling the dice—if you don’t seal it in a top-quality vacuum sealer. Once you have one of these units, you’ll probably find yourself using it quite often for more than just fish.

Inner Space

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Inner Space

Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart is pretty far “out there.”

The last time he played in town, the global drum master transformed light waves from outer space into musical sound waves. Now, the next frontier Hart has taken on is inner space, the human brain.

It sounds like something from a sci-fi flick, but it’s actually not new. Alvin Lucier composed a piece in 1965 called “Music for Solo Performer” in which EEG electrodes on the performer’s head picked up alpha waves—a specific type of brain wave induced by intense concentration—and converted them into electrical energy. Run through amplifiers, speakers and noisemaking devices, the waves became sounds.

There’s no telling what Hart’s return appearance at the Raven this week will sound like exactly, except to say that he will wear a hat outfitted with electrodes. Hart’s new album, Superorganism, was made with help from Dr. Adam Gazzaley of UC San Francisco, and proceeds from the tour go to research toward music therapy. Hart plays Thursday, Aug. 1, at the Raven Theater. 115 North St., Healdsburg. 8pm. $30–$35. 707.433.6335.

Scream for Joy

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Scream for Joy

Jazmin Hooijer knew exactly what to do with the bounty of figs delivered straight from the backyard tree to the ice cream cart—caramelize the figs, add a dash of verjus (the tart juice from unripe grapes used for centuries in European and Middle Eastern cooking) and swirl it all up in a mascarpone ice cream.

That flavor is just one of the delicious concoctions on Nimble & Finn’s Ice Cream menu after Hooijer, who lives in Cazadero with her family, launched the tiny business in May 2013. Summer flavors range from a bright and tangy lemon verbena and Meyer lemon olive oil with dark chocolate chips to more traditional offerings like blueberry cheesecake, chocolate with salted pretzels and one of the most authentic tasting mint ice creams I’ve ever come across. “I like to take classic flavor profiles and do something new and unusual,” explains Hooijer, as she describes a woodsy, sweet and earthy tasting coriander ice cream with a vanilla base.

Made with mainly seasonal, organic and local ingredients, flavors shift on a weekly basis. “We wanted to have a homemade feel, but really nicely homemade and extra delicious,” says Hooijer, a baker who shifted to ice cream after taking time off to raise her two children, now two and four. Her plan is to continue selling at farmers markets while expanding into festivals and private events, with a possible storefront in the future.

“Selling ice cream, well, it doesn’t get much happier than that,” she says. “People literally squeal and dance and scream for joy when they see what I have.” Nimble & Finn’s Ice Cream is available at the Occidental Bohemian Farmers Market and West End Farmers Market. www.nimbleandfinns.com. 707.217.5885.

Opus One

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Opus One

I really had no idea about Opus One until the late 1990s, when my Sonoma-centric viticulture instructor derided the way the estate’s petite grapevines were trained low to the ground, as seen in Margaux. They’re roasting in the sun over there, he pointed out—and imagine the back injury!

But later a coworker of mine praised it: “I only drink Cabernet Sauvignon,” the 19-year-old gushed. “Opus One. It’s the best.” Napa hubris or last word in luxury? Intrigued, I made an appointment to see for myself a scant 15 years later.

Opus One stands out mainly for not standing out. Half-buried under an earthen mound, crowned by an airy pergola, the look is low-profile, high-style. In a neoclassical courtyard, chamber music plays from disguised speakers in a grove of olive trees.

There is no tasting bar—not at first glance. Tour groups meet their guide in the antique-furnished Salon, savoring a pour of entry-level Overture ($80)—which is not, we’re told, made up of inferior lots that didn’t make the Opus One cut—while getting briefed on the story: When Baron Philippe de Rothschild met Robert Mondavi at a trade conference in 1970, he got an idea. Eight years later, the baron, who had transformed Château Mouton Rothschild decades earlier, formed a partnership with California’s upstart wine royalty to make a single, Bordeaux-style estate wine. Today, Opus One maintains sales offices in Bordeaux, Tokyo and Hong Kong, where it enjoys particularly high prestige.

Our guide was knowledgeable and flexible—he can talk root stock taxonomy, if that’s what you really want. On the crush floor, fancy-toy viewing includes dual oscillating paddleless destemmers and computerized air-jet grape ejectors. In the mood-lit cellar, perfect, red-striped barrels rest in arcing rows—there are no stacking, honking forklifts in the Opus One sanctum.

After all the buildup, I expected an extended sit-down, our guide expounding, and then guests gurgling and enthusing. That’s how these things usually go. But no. We got our pour, thanked the guide, and everybody took a hike. The rooftop patio is a popular spot to drink in the view, while Opus is available by the glass and off-sale in the Partners’ Room below. And? The 2009 Opus One Cabernet Sauvignon ($225) is pretty good—wet cigar, medley of dark fruit, lingering pencil lead aftertaste. And if you want to know if it’s absolutely better than the rest of the high-priced Cabs now sold in this valley, there’s an easy way to find out: just ask the folks confidently smacking down their credit cards for another two cases in the Partners’ Room.

Opus One Winery, 7900 St. Helena Hwy., Oakville. 707.944.9442. By appointment daily, 10am–4pm. Tour and tasting, $60–$90; tasting only, $40. 707.944.9442.

Rise Again

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Rise Again

Most people call it “the house that reggae built.” When an arsonist burned down the firehouse that housed the Mateel Community Center in 1983, the Humboldt County nonprofit created the Reggae on the River music festival to help rebuild.

Since, just about every world-class reggae musician has rolled through the tiny village of Garberville, bringing the venue international prestige. Twenty-nine years later, and surviving a mess of controversy, the annual reggae festival has come full circle, returning to its original date and site at French’s Camp next weekend.

Justin Crellin, the Mateel Community Center’s general manager, has seen the reggae festival hit enormous highs and extreme lows. Over the years, Reggae on the River garnered international publicity, and attendance numbers climbed well past 25,000 people. With so many other commitments, the Mateel handed over festival operations to the newly formed People’s Productions in 2006. It seemed the perfect solution to maintain the event’s integrity: hiring Mateel associates who had worked on the festival for years.

“There was a perceived need to break off the production arm for Reggae on the River so we didn’t lose sight of the work the Mateel was doing,” says Crellin. “At the time, it made sense, but in hindsight we saw some of the negative sides that came along with taking it out of the Mateel office.”

The festival was successful that year, but a subsequent lawsuit alleged hundreds of thousands of dollars in missing receipts. Originally calculated to receive over $200,000, the Mateel received a fraction of the $16,000 promised by People Productions. “There was a point in the wake of the controversy and lawsuit where basically our entire crew was laid off,” Crellin says. “We weren’t even sure we were going to be able to keep operating.”

To make matters worse, the county issued the event permit to a different landowner who partnered with People Productions to host their own festival, Reggae Rising, on the date Reggae on the River historically took place. People Productions went under in 2009, but the damage was done. For a few years, the Mateel was able to hold the festival as a one-day event up the road in Benbow, but it was lackluster in comparison.

After years of working to regain the community’s trust, the Mateel has finally healed the wounds that divided even resident households. This year, at the original French’s Camp location, Reggae on the River is finally coming home.

“There have been silver linings that came with the controversy and history,” says Crellin. “We are trying to bring it back to something that’s manageable, that’s reflective of our community, something that’s safe to bring your family to and ultimately makes for a better experience.”

Photos: Rivertown Revival 2013

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Photos: Rivertown Revival 2013

It was yet another successful year for Petaluma’s Rivertown Revival on Saturday, highlighted by the incredible Crux Revival Tent Band delivering a full-on Alabama sermon, complete with call-and-response choir and holy cleansing in the congregation. Up on the hill, marriages were performed for $5; art boat races commenced in the river; plenty of food and beer was downed and music, music and more music lasted all day.

Click the girl on the tractor, below, for a photo slideshow.

Hunger Strike by California State Prisoners Enters Day Twelve

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Hunger Strike by California State Prisoners Enters Day Twelve

cfakepathpelicanbayshu.jpg

It’s being called the largest hunger strike in California State history. As of Thursday, July 18, 1,457 inmates in fifteen state prisons continue to refuse food, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The hunger strike began on July 8 at Pelican Bay State Prison—the maximum security prison outside of Crescent City, California—before spreading across the state. The prisoners are protesting a policy that allows those with gang associations (itself a contested definition) to be held in isolation for indefinite periods of time.

At its highest point, 30,000 prisoners refused food at at about two-thirds of the state’s facilities, according to Rolling Stone magazine. Hunger strikes have become more common place in California’s controversial and notoriously dysfunctional prison system, one that the U.S. Supreme Court declared in a 2011 court ruling violates constitutional rights to health and well-being.

According to Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity, the “hunger strike has been organized by prisoners in an inspiring show of unity across prison-manufactured racial and geographical lines.”

The five core demands include the following:

1. End punishment and administrative abuse.
2. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify gang status criteria.
3. Comply with established recommendations by the 2006 U.S. Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons.
4. Provide adequate and nutritious foods.
5. Expand or provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates. (one phone call per week, one photograph per year, wall calendars, etc.)

Jerry Brown appears to be having his own Mission Accomplished moment by declaring that the state prison crisis is over. Tell that to the guy who has no access to clean water, the 150 women prisoners that were coerced into being sterilized over the past decade, and the prisoner that’s been in windowless, cramped SHU for fifteen years straight.

Rivertown Revival: Come For the Music and Art Boat Races, Stay For the $5 Weddings

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Rivertown Revival: Come For the Music and Art Boat Races, Stay For the $5 Weddings

When boat races, delicious food, cold drinks, $5 weddings and good ole’ fashioned Americana music come together, you can be sure that the Rivertown Revival (RR) is making its way into Petaluma, usually known for being the ‘Butter and Eggs’ center of Sonoma County. Jam-packed with enough musicians, vendors and art boat competitions to keep anyone satisfied, where to begin?

Here’s a helpful breakdown of the various events occurring on this exciting day in which you may choose to indulge.

Music:

On five stages you will find musicians/bands of different backgrounds and genres performing throughout the day.

Performers include:
2013 NorBay winners for rock, The Highway Poets and for country/Americana, Frankie Boots & the County Line; Bay Area-based folk-punk band, Vagabondage; 13-piece funk/ecentric street band, Church Marching Band; Bay Area native and American roots-focused, Steve Pile band; singer-songwriter with a toy piano, Eliza Rickman; and (for the kids), children’s songwriter and guitar player, James K.

For the full list of performers, visit http://rivertownrevival.com/2013/05/rivertown-revival-2013-roster-revealed/

Buying cool items, plus food and drinks:

Merchants are present to sell their artisanal, environmentally friendly and one-of-a-kind specialty items at RR, which is committed to keeping the festival local, meaning vendors will be coming from within a 100-mile radius of Petaluma. Local food and beverages will also be available and toting the same message of sustainability.

$5 Weddings:

The festival will once again offer couples their one-of-a-kind and fun-filled party as a setting for an unforgettable wedding, and only for the low, low price of $5. Ceremony reservations are still available and are strongly encouraged. On site officiants will perform vow renewals and legal weddings, for couples with the proper paperwork, that is.

Email RR********@**************ts.com for more information.

For the Love of Art:

The festival features an array of art- art boats, art performances, music and other items for purchasing, and this year RR invites back sculptors from Sonoma County and beyond to showcase their art on land and some, perhaps, on water.

Called the ‘land(ing)’ artists, the group includes: geometric sculptor Boback Emad; 3-dimensional sculptors Eileen Fitz-Faulkner and Matthew Rapalyea; 22-year-old Petaluma sculptor Henry Washer; metal sculptor Sean Paul Lorenz; North Bay photographer and master printer Michale Garlington; sculptor and Santa Rosa Junior College design instructor Peter Crompton; metal and ceramic sculptor Todd Cox; and Santa Rosa recycled-metal sculptor Tyson Barbera.

More fun for every one:

1) The famous RR photo booth is here again, with photographer Michael Woolsey ready at the camera.

2) Enter your hand-crafted art boat in the Grand Flotilla competition where judges will score the vessels based on five categories. Apply here: http://rivertownrevival.com/apply-yourself-2/apply-yourself/

3) Kid-friendly activities are provided throughout the day on a designated stage this year, including kid-led music, jug band lessons, crafts, scavenger hunts, salmon fishing and more.

Now that you’re a bit more acquainted with the excitement Rivertown Revival has to offer, make sure to join the non-stop fun on Saturday, July 20, at Steamer Landing Park. 6 Copeland St., Petaluma. $5. 11am. Rivertownrevival.com

Elegy for a Life

In Fruitvale Station, Bay Area filmmaker Ryan Coogler insists Oscar Grant—shot and killed by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle in 2009—was more than just a thug, and reminds knee-jerkers that being drunk and disorderly isn't a capital crime. Michael B. Jordan's restrained portrayal of Oscar Grant affects even those who don't want to be manipulated—who want to watch this story...
Read more

Modern Star

'What I love about doing concerts," says Tony-award-winning actress and singer Sutton Foster, "is it gives me a chance to step out of character and just be myself. Yes, people have seen me on Broadway and TV, playing all of these interesting characters. Now people get to meet me. They get to discover what it is that appeals to...
Read more

Fish Tales

We're about halfway through the commercial fishing season for salmon, when quality is high and prices are low for wild, Pacific salmon. This presents an opportunity for savvy shoppers to gather a stash of fish to freeze and subsequently feast on all year long. But doing so requires care and focus. The process includes many steps, all of which...
Read more

Inner Space

Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart is pretty far "out there." The last time he played in town, the global drum master transformed light waves from outer space into musical sound waves. Now, the next frontier Hart has taken on is inner space, the human brain. It sounds like something from a sci-fi flick, but it's actually not new. Alvin Lucier composed...
Read more

Scream for Joy

Jazmin Hooijer knew exactly what to do with the bounty of figs delivered straight from the backyard tree to the ice cream cart—caramelize the figs, add a dash of verjus (the tart juice from unripe grapes used for centuries in European and Middle Eastern cooking) and swirl it all up in a mascarpone ice cream. That flavor is just one...
Read more

Opus One

I really had no idea about Opus One until the late 1990s, when my Sonoma-centric viticulture instructor derided the way the estate's petite grapevines were trained low to the ground, as seen in Margaux. They're roasting in the sun over there, he pointed out—and imagine the back injury! But later a coworker of mine praised it: "I only drink Cabernet...
Read more

Rise Again

Most people call it "the house that reggae built." When an arsonist burned down the firehouse that housed the Mateel Community Center in 1983, the Humboldt County nonprofit created the Reggae on the River music festival to help rebuild. Since, just about every world-class reggae musician has rolled through the tiny village of Garberville, bringing the venue international prestige. Twenty-nine...
Read more

Photos: Rivertown Revival 2013

Music, weddings, costumes and more from the Rivertown Revival on July 20, 2013.
Read more

Hunger Strike by California State Prisoners Enters Day Twelve

It's being called the largest hunger strike in California State history. As of Thursday, July 18, 1,457 inmates in fifteen state prisons continue to refuse food, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The hunger strike began on July 8 at Pelican Bay State Prison—the maximum security prison outside of Crescent City, California—before spreading across the state....
Read more

Rivertown Revival: Come For the Music and Art Boat Races, Stay For the $5 Weddings

When boat races, delicious food, cold drinks, $5 weddings and good ole' fashioned Americana music come together, you can be sure that the Rivertown Revival (RR) is making its way into Petaluma, usually known for being the 'Butter and Eggs' center of Sonoma County. Jam-packed with enough musicians, vendors and art boat competitions to keep anyone satisfied, where to...
Read more
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