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.

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.

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

Efren Carrillo’s attorney certainly has his work cut out for him—and now he has five and a half more weeks to prepare.

Carrillo appeared in court this morning, briefly, while his attorney Chris Andrian and Napa County deputy DA Cody Hunt announced an agreement to enter no complaint and delay the supervisor’s hearing until Aug. 30.

Judge Gary Medvigy accepted the agreement to continue Carrillo’s bond, provided that he stay 100 feet away from the woman who called 911 at 3:40am early Saturday morning to report the supervisor attempting to enter her bedroom window. Carrillo was later arrested wearing only his socks and underwear.

Judge Medvigy ordered Carrillo to have “no contact with the victim in this case, who I’m assuming we’re not naming,” adding repeated instruction to Carrillo that “if you see the alleged victim in this case, you are to make no contact, either directly or indirectly.”

Carrillo spoke just three words in the courtroom: “Yes, your honor.”

Because Carrillo and the woman referred to in court as Jane Doe are neighbors, Andrian made a request on Carrillo’s behalf to “make sure that if he’s in his residence, or going to or from his residence, he’s not in violation.” Medvigy agreed, adding that neither Carrillo nor his representatives were not to contact the woman via either Facebook or Twitter.

Prior to standing before the judge, Carrillo sat quietly, dressed in a grayish-beige suit and intermittently fidgeting with his thumbs. His eyes looked blankly ahead, except for a brief moment when he placed his hands on either knee and closed them, his head facing downward.

After the short appearance, Carrillo got into the passenger seat of Andrian’s BMW and the two drove away.

Rumor has it Sonoma Media Investments, owners of the Press Democrat, North Bay Business Journal, the Petaluma Argus, the Sonoma Index Tribune and other associated publications hired a new person to take over the magazine offerings. The publication company currently offers Home and Garden, Sonoma and Santa Rosa magazines among others.

In other SMI and magazine related news, owners of the investment company Stave Falk, Doug Bosco and Darius Anderson spoke at an event put on by North Bay Biz magazine (which is, incidentally, a direct competitor of the North Bay Business Journal) on the future of newspapers. With the new interest brewing in the magazine department, could this be the beginning of another partnership with a local publication by SMI? Only time will tell.