“Some Poems Are Bad” by Saundra Rae Davies
This poem is bad
It’s not sad
Cause I’m mad
Madly madly mad
Been had
By many
Not just poems
Had a lover once
Twice or more
Truth be told
I wasn’t nice
I was seductive
Fake
Like a snake
Writhing toward my victims
Biting a ration of a body
Tastes bitter
No compassion
Just passion
Some poems are bad
They make me tell the truth
Sometimes I’m bad
Saundra Rae Davies lives in San Anselmo.
Each year since 2005, the NorBays have recognized and celebrated the best bands of the North Bay as voted by the readers of the Bohemian and Pacific Sun.
In this unprecedented year of 2020, North Bay musicians and bands continue to safely create excellent music online and on record while they endure a pandemic that has wiped out their main source of income, namely concerts and other social activities that continue to be canceled or postponed nine months into the shutdown.
Given the fact that venues have largely been closed to the public since late March, it may seem that 2020 was a quiet year in music, though North Bay musicians were among the first professionals to transition to a virtual platform for live events, and they have continually found ways to entertain the public from a distance. As the year closes out, it’s more important than ever to recognize and support the creative folks who make the North Bay special.
With that in mind, the 2020 NorBays are going live and asking the readers to once again take to the polls to vote for their favorite North Bay bands in several genres.
This year’s NorBays boasts more than a dozen musical categories, including Blues, Country, Folk, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Indie, Rock, Reggae, Punk, Metal, Electronica, Singer-songwriter, Americana and R&B.
Click here to find the 2020 NorBays ballot and enter your favorite local band from Sonoma, Napa or Marin Counties in each category. Please enter one name per category. Multiple “stuffed” votes from the same person will be recognized and thrown out. Voting ends Wednesday, Dec 16, at 12pm. Winners will be announced in the Dec 23rd NYE issue.
For those who need a refresher in North Bay music makers who have kept working in 2020, here are a dozen bands and performers that made headlines in the Bohemian and Pacific Sun this year.
In March, Marin supergroup Green Leaf Rustlers—comprised of frontman Chris Robinson (vocals, guitar), Barry Sless (pedal steel, lead guitars), Greg Loiacono (lead guitars, vocals), Pete Sears (bass) and John Molo (drums)—released their debut album; a 2-LP live record, From Within Marin.
Also in March, North Bay singer-songwriter and rancher Ismay merged her folk music and love of nature in an enthralling, full-length debut album, Songs of Sonoma Mountain.
In April, alt-pop quartet Lungs and Limbs released a new album of lush electronica and ethereal vocals, Great Goodbye, that somehow predicted the social isolation the North Bay was about to experience.
Also in April, Marin County musician Colin Schlitt, bassist and occasional vocalist for eclectic alternative-pop ensemble El Radio Fantastique, turned up the reverb with his solo project Peppermint Moon and released a digital EP, A Million Suns.
Former NorBay Award-winner and thoughtful Hip-Hop artist Kayatta released her debut, Beautiful and Messy, on June 19; a date which also marks Juneteenth, the oldest nationally-celebrated remembrance of the ending of slavery in the United States.
Also in June, alternative singer-songwriter and Petaluma native Matt Reischling debuted his new solo project, Matt Reischling & the Black Box, with the album Spirit Holiday; a melodic and lyrically reflective collection of original tunes (and one David Bowie cover) that looks back on Reischling’s adventures and imagines new ones.
In August, the North Bay big band King Street Giants released their third album of New Orleans–style jazz, Everything Must Go, which marked the band’s first release to feature vocals and the first release under the group’s current name.
In September, North Bay classically trained pianist and songwriter Eki Shola concluded a musical journey that began after the 2017 Tubbs Fire with the release of her full-length electronica-jazz album, Essential.
Also in September, San Rafael string band Late for the Train charmed North Bay audiences with their debut album, Plant It or Build It, a folksy collection of romantic songs full of thoughtful lyricism.
September also saw the debut collaborative LP from Marin County-based Rock & Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Elvin Bishop and Sonoma County-based Blues Hall of Fame harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite, 100 Years of Blues. The down-home collection of music features Bishop and Musselwhite trading songs over the course of 12 spirited tracks that consist of nine originals and three reimagined blues classics.
This fall also saw West Marin world music artist Jai Uttal–best known for albums that blend reggae, jazz and rock ’n’ roll–making music, running virtual Kirtan music camps and performing virtual concerts over Zoom.
Finally, Marin-based singer-songwriter Tim Bluhm paid tribute to Merle Haggard with his fourth solo record, Hag Heaven, released in late November.
By Eli Walsh, Bay City News Service
The state of California extended income tax deadlines for some small businesses and will issue some $500 million in relief grants to help small businesses stay afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday.
The state will extend the income tax deadline by three months for small businesses that are filing less than $1 million in sales tax, according to Newsom.
Companies filing up to $5 million will have access to existing interest and penalty-free payment agreements while larger businesses can access interest-free payment options.
According to Newsom, the deadline extension and penalty-free payment options will save small businesses billions during the pandemic.
“We have to lead with health to reopen our economy safely and sustainably while doing all we can to keep our small businesses afloat,” Newsom said.
Small business owners will also have access to grants of up to $25,000 to help prevent them from closing, according to Newsom. The COVID Relief Grant program, totaling $500 million, will distribute funds to eligible small businesses by early next year.
Some 4.1 million small businesses operate in California, employing 7.2 million workers, nearly half of the state’s workforce, according to Newsom.
“By providing potentially billions in immediate relief and support, our small businesses can weather the next month as we continue partnering with the legislature to secure additional funding and investments in small businesses in the new year,” he said.
For nearly 25 years, San Rafael’s Art Works Downtown has given Marin’s artistic community a place to work in the county’s largest city, and provided the public a place to experience local art with its multiple gallery spaces, year-round exhibits, and creative and educational programs.
When Covid-19 shut everything down in March of this year, Art Works Downtown’s staff quickly realized it needed to change its ways to ensure its own survival and to help the community get through the difficult shelter-at-home ordeal.
“We rose to the occasion,” Art Works Downtown Executive Director Elisabeth Setten says. “We understood that communities need to stay connected through art, and to serve that need, we pivoted quickly to providing online programs.”
Those online programs include virtual art receptions—such as the Second Friday Virtual Art Walk and artist symposium happening online Friday, Dec. 11—that have replaced in-person receptions.
“Through this pivot, we’ve been able to stimulate artists to keep showcasing their work, and also give the public the opportunity to experience art at a time when emotional, mental and spiritual health is so vital,” Setten says. “Right now, it seems like more than ever we need sources of inspiration to fortify and nurture our souls.”
In addition to its own showcases, Art Works Downtown maintains its community collaborations with San Rafael groups such as Youth in Arts and Marin Society of Artists. Those organizations are also hosting online events during the Second Friday Virtual Art Walk on Dec. 11.
Setten also credits San Rafael’s Business Improvement District with keeping the community connected during the pandemic through programs like this past summer’s “Dining Under the Lights” outdoor events.
Recently, Art Works Downtown received the green light to re-open its main 1337 Gallery for limited weekend hours, and the gallery is now offering its annual “Small Works Exhibition” for in-person viewing with strict Covid-19 safety protocols and social-distancing rules in place.
San Francisco gallery owner Jack Fisher curated this year’s “Small Works Exhibition,” which showcases affordable art pieces by more than 30 local artists this holiday season.
When visitors return to Art Works Downtown, they will also see a new and vibrantly colorful outdoor mural, “Art is Work,” by Joey Rose and Alexandra Underwood, which depicts two species native to San Rafael; the California Flannel Bush and the Valley Carpenter Bee.
The “Small Works Exhibition” is also open for viewing online in Art Works Downtown’s virtual gallery, and the art is available to purchase in the virtual gallery’s store.
“Our mission is to provide an environment where art thrives for the wellbeing of our community,” Setten says. “Whether that be online in a digital universe or in the gallery—which we hope will be open more in the future—we are excited to be able to offer that.”
Community members in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood announced a boycott of an upcoming meeting with the Marin County sheriff and board of supervisors due to the sheriff’s continued cooperation with federal immigration officials and the supervisors’ lack of meaningful action on the same issue over the past two years.
Latinos Unidos de Marin (LUMA), a grassroots organization of Canal neighborhood residents, and ICE Out of Marin, a coalition of social justice and immigration reform activists, said they will not promote or support the Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds (TRUTH) Act Forum in Marin on Tuesday, Dec. 1.
The TRUTH Act, state Assembly Bill 2792, requires a county to hold a community forum to receive and consider public comment if local law enforcement has provided U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to an individual in the past year. Marin County Sheriff Robert T. Doyle granted ICE access to many people during the last 12 months and continues to provide ICE with information about immigrants booked into the jail, whether or not they’ve been convicted of a crime.
The sheriff and board of supervisors received numerous public comments from Latinx residents, many of them undocumented immigrants, at the previous two forums; however, the sheriff and board have not seriously considered the community’s perspectives, according to LUMA and ICE Out of Marin.
“The community asked the supervisors to direct the sheriff to stop communication with ICE,” said community organizer Maite Duran, who works with LUMA. “The community’s voices were not heard. This forum will be another performative listening session and not much will happen afterwards.”
Supervisor Damon Connolly disagrees. The supervisors passed a resolution in mid-September which Connolly says made clear that the board does not want the sheriff “interacting or cooperating with ICE.”
Passage of the resolution has become a thorn in the side of LUMA and ICE Out of Marin, who claim it is an ineffective response. Indeed, the non-binding resolution which the supervisors passed in September “urges” the sheriff to take certain actions, but does not order him to do anything.
“We’ve been clear with our demands for a couple of years,” said Lisa Bennett, co-chair of ICE Out of Marin. “We want a sanctuary ordinance. Instead, the supervisors passed a sanctuary resolution, which has no teeth.”
When asked about the disagreement, Connolly said that “there is no difference between an ordinance and a resolution,” adding that the September resolution was “intended to reinforce values the supervisors have toward the immigrant community.”
“We can’t dictate the sheriff’s actions,” Connolly said. “The sheriff has independent ability to act in these instances based on constitutional authority.”
Not so, according to LUMA and ICE Out of Marin. The groups believe the supervisors can and should determine the sheriff’s interactions with ICE. Both cite a new state law, Assembly Bill 1185, passed in September, which authorizes the “county to establish a sheriff oversight board to assist the board of supervisors with those duties as they relate to the sheriff, either by action of the board of supervisors or through a vote of county residents.”
Even without the establishment of the oversight board, the Sheriff’s Office has reduced its cooperation with ICE and modified its policies since the 2017 passage of the California Values Act, Senate Bill 54, which prevents state and local resources from being used to assist federal immigration enforcement.
Sheriff staff no longer inquire about immigration status when carrying out their duties. The sheriff stopped responding to ICE requests regarding release dates for low-level offenders, though the same information is still readily available on the Marin County Sheriff’s website. In addition, the sheriff no longer allows ICE in jail booking areas to make arrests.
“ICE still gets reliable information from the Sheriff’s Office,” said Kevin Morrison, ICE Out of Marin spokesperson. “The Sheriff is very smart, very savvy, very political. He says, ‘we don’t offer anything to ICE that isn’t available to the public,’ but when they call, he gives them full cooperation.”
The Sheriff’s Office released some statistics in advance of Tuesday’s meeting. ICE arrested 27 Marin County inmates in 2019, which is 16 percent of the 171 detainer requests made by ICE. This year, ICE arrested nine inmates, 18 percent of ICE detainer requests, although the number may indeed be higher, as the Sheriff stopped tracking the arrests in mid-August.
Historically, the Sheriff’s Office allowed ICE to arrest individuals in the jail’s booking area. Beginning on Aug. 15, the Sheriff stopped allowing ICE officials inside the jail. These days, ICE arrests individuals outside of the jail and the Sheriff no longer keeps count.
Community groups fear the lack of tracking of ICE arrests may hide trends in the statistics, since the Sheriff does respond to some requests from the federal agency. It is within Doyle’s power to stop all cooperation, yet he chooses to continue to assist ICE. San Francisco County and Sonoma County, like many others in California, are both sanctuary counties and do not honor ICE detainers unless they are supported by judicial determination of probable cause or a judicial arrest warrant.
“The law allows the sheriff to use discretion when charges [as opposed to convictions] are being made,” Bennett said. “He’s the judge, jury and executioner of someone in jail on charges alone. The jail is the most prevalent source of deportation in the county.”
Connolly agrees that charges should not be used as a catalyst to share information with ICE and says the supervisors continue to push the issue with the sheriff. In addition, supervisors want to change access to the jail’s public booking online database by requiring the affirmative act of typing in an inmate’s name to access information. This will provide more protection to people who are booked into jail.
“These are tweaks the supervisors are making,” Duran said. “They are used to playing nice with the sheriff and aren’t willing to exercise their authority.”
Another controversy between the community groups and the supervisors occurred recently. Supervisor President Katie Rice and Supervisor Dennis Rodoni scheduled an online planning meeting for the forum with LUMA and other community members on Tuesday, Nov. 17; however, the supervisors failed to show up. Neglecting the preparatory meeting is indicative of the lack of respect with which the community is treated by supervisors, they say.
While the community groups appear to be at an impasse with the supervisors on the issue of ICE in Marin, Connolly hopes they will show up at the forum and continue to make their case.
“We have made progress with the sheriff through the past Truth Act Forums,” Connolly said Monday.
Unfortunately, the “limp” initiatives are not enough, according to Duran. LUMA wants the supervisors to see them as vital members of the community. They are in the workforce as indispensable workers and are the ones who got sick with Covid-19, she points out.
“The immigrant is being tossed away and not valued,” Duran said. “One person being deported sends a shock wave throughout the community. People think ‘I could be next.’ We want zero cooperation with ICE. The supervisors need to follow through.”
By Bay City News Service
Commercial Dungeness crab season is delayed until at least mid-December, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced.
The original opening date of Dec. 1 is delayed to Dec. 16 due to various factors including whale presence and low-quality crab meat.
In the CDFW’s central management area, from Point Arena to the Mexico border, whales remain in the crab fishing area resulting in a potential for entanglement. In early December, the department will reassess entanglement risk and whale presence.
In addition to whale presence, meat quality testing in crabs in the CDFW’s northern management area has shown that the crabs will not be ready to be fished until mid-December.
“Our hope is both quality testing and additional marine life survey data will support a unified statewide opener on Dec. 16, just in time to have crab for the holidays and New Year.” CDFW director Charlton Bonham said.
More information on Dungeness crab can be found online at www.wildlife.ca.gov/crab.
QUESTIONS:
1 Scenes from what 1997 film starring Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman were filmed at the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael?
2 What fruit is named for the city in Morocco from which it was originally exported?
3 What company in 2006 purchased the new, increasingly popular video-sharing platform called “YouTube” for an eye-popping (at that time) $1.65 billion?
4 Can you name four popular sports whose names begin with “W”?
5 True or False: Africa is so large that China, Europe and the U.S.A. could all fit within it.
6 Which one of these people never won the Nobel Peace Prize: Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King or Yassir Arafat?
7 Robert Redford won the Academy Award for the first feature film he ever directed. What 1980 family drama was this? Identify the three stars shown here.
8 A person 2 kilometers out at sea rows a boat northward towards the shore at 5 km per hour, then after one minute of arrival, takes a waiting taxi 5 km east at 20 km per hour. How many minutes will this trip take?
9 Identify three Spanish-speaking nations beginning with “P.”
10 Dead auto batteries are often thrown in junk piles, where scavengers take them, looking to reuse what material?
BONUS QUESTION: Add one letter to the name of the most popular music group of all time (without rearranging letters), and you get what adjective that no pop music group would ever want to be?
TAGLINE: Have a great question? Send it in with your name and hometown, and if we use it, we’ll give you credit. Contact ho*****@tr********.com
ANSWERS:
1 Gattaca
2 Tangerine, exported from Tangiers
3 Google. (Today YouTube is worth over $300 billion.)
4 Wrestling, Waterpolo, Windsurfing, Weightlifting … what else?
5 True
6 Gandhi
7 Ordinary People, starring Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton and Donald Sutherland
8 Time = distance divided by rate. So 2/5 of an hour + 5/20 of an hour = 24 min + 15 min + 1 min taxi = 40 minutes
9 Panama, Paraguay, Peru
10 The lead. It’s valuable but poisonous.
BONUS ANSWER: Beatles >> Beatless
When you buy marijuana on the licit or illicit market, do you know what you’re really getting?
Even if the product has been sold by a dispensary and there’s a label with THC and CBD percentages, the information might be inaccurate. Someone along the line might have concealed the facts.
That’s why the American expression, “Let the buyer beware,” applies to cannabis as well as to all kinds of products, from olive oil to snake oil. When the seller knows more than the buyer about goods and services, it’s known as “information asymmetry.” Sadly, the cannabiz is awash with it.
Part of the problem is that much of the illicit weed on the market isn’t tested. The grower’s and the dealer’s word are all that the buyer has to go on. Also, some testing services fudge results and report higher levels of THC in flower than is actually there.
Not every grower is dishonest and not every testing service is sketchy. Many are transparent. Sometimes, the most truthful fellows are the outlaws, not the law-abiding folks. As Bob Dylan once said, “To live outside the law you must be honest.”
Samantha Miller, a trained scientist who owns and operates Pure Analytics, has tested marijuana from all over California for a decade. She and her team at the Santa Rosa lab adhere to the data and the facts.
“For years, the industry focus has mostly been on potency,” Miller tells me. “But I’ve recently heard that some buyers want unique terpenes.” She adds, “That’s a good sign.”
What’s not a good sign, Miller tells me, is that there’s been a dramatic uptick in the amount of THC (between 35 percent and 40 percent) that labs post online after they test cannabis flowers.
“That didn’t seem plausible,” Miller says. She talked to folks in the cannabiz and found that many of them shrugged their shoulders when she mentioned the uptick. “That’s the market,” was the standard reply.
Miller asked questions, dug deeply and put the pieces together.
Consumers often want THC-rich weed, she explains. Growers get $2,500 a pound for weed with high levels of THC, maybe a thousand dollars less for weed with 20 percent THC.
The third group of players in the mix are the labs that generate the high numbers. The dollar, not science, drives the data.
It’s called “pumping the numbers.”
Miller doesn’t point fingers or call names. But she has sound advice.
“Consumers ought to rely less on numbers and more on their own senses, especially smell,” she says. “Often, the stronger the bouquet, the more effective the product. Pay for what’s real and get the most for your money.”
Jonah Raskin is the author of “Marijuanaland: Dispatches from an American War.”
The Frankenstein monster, that crude assemblage of body parts stitched into an ill-fated attempt to recreate life, has at least one counterpart in our nation’s kitchens—the “turducken.”
More than mere portmanteau, the legendary dish comprises a whole turkey, stuffed with a whole duck, which, in turn, is stuffed with a whole chicken, all in a manner that recalls Russian nesting dolls. It is, in a word, “fowl.”
The turducken has at least two potential fathers. Cajun-Creole fusion chef Paul Prudhomme proffered turducken as early as 1983 in Duvall, Washington, and none other than venerable journalist Calvin Trillin attributes the origin of the beast(s) to Herbert’s Specialty Meats of Maurice, Louisiana, which likewise has produced commercial turduckens since the mid-’80s.
No matter what caché being the father of the turducken may confer upon these pioneers of gastronomy, neither has come anywhere near the nested-bird-extravaganza known as the Rôti Sans Pareil, or “Roast without equal,” which transpired in France during the early 19th century. All tolled, 17 birds were stuffed, one within the other, in a gustatory orgy that has yet to be repeated on civilized plates. A bustard was stuffed with a turkey, stuffed with a goose, stuffed with a pheasant, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a guinea fowl, stuffed with a teal, stuffed with a woodcock, stuffed with a partridge, stuffed with a plover, stuffed with a lapwing, stuffed with a quail, stuffed with a thrush, stuffed with a lark, stuffed with an Ortolan Bunting, stuffed with (finally) a garden warbler. The warbler is so petite it could only be stuffed with a single olive. Whether or not that olive had a pimento lodged in it is lost to history (where it belongs).
A related, if less taxidermic, trend is the annual carving up of what are known as “heritage” turkeys. Like the “heritage” trend in everything from tomatoes to radishes, the turkeys are likewise rarer, weirder-looking and more expensive. They also look like dinosaurs. The Dinobuzz page at the University of California Museum of Paleontology elucidates:
“Ask your average paleontologist who is familiar with the phylogeny of vertebrates and they will probably tell you that yes, birds are dinosaurs… and (strange as it may sound) birds are technically considered reptiles,” it reads. “In fact, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of birds being the descendants of a maniraptoran dinosaur, probably something similar (but not identical) to a small dromaeosaur.”
Yum. Kind of makes one’s appetite go the way of the dino, or dodo, or whatever? Pass the Tofurky.
Daedalus Howell is thankful to give it all away at DaedalusHowell.com.
By Eris Weaver
I have to admit, it’s been a bit harder this year to muster up feelings of gratitude and appreciation.
But just like a challenging uphill workout leaves me tired, invigorated, proud of myself and ultimately stronger, so too does an emotional and psychological workout!
I have been anxious about the pandemic … but grateful that I am healthy, and that those friends and family members who have been infected experienced mild cases.
I have been depressed about having to stay close to home, missing seeing loved ones and going places I love … but grateful that I have a nice home.
I was antsy when the fire-related air quality prevented me from riding … but grateful that I was not in an evacuation zone and that the County had no fatalities.
These emotional juxtapositions have been our reality for the last several months. But what motivates and inspires me more than anything is the way the cycling community has come together and taken care of each other during these challenging times. I feel so fortunate and proud to live here!
I am so grateful for, and proud of, my staff at Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition. They show up every day with passion, grace and humor, and regularly go above and beyond the call of duty. With schools closed and events cancelled, while juggling their kids and spouses as all work from home, they have learned new technologies and retooled our programs to operate in our new, virtual world.
I am grateful for our recent wins in the courtroom, on the roads, and at the ballot box.
I am grateful that many people are riding who haven’t ridden in years. Our group rides, workshops, and events have had a long hiatus, but bike sales are through the roof as more people are getting back in the saddle, experiencing anew the joy of two wheels!
I am grateful for all of you who step up in our mission to make cycling safer and more joyful.
What are you grateful for?
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