Volume 4, Issue 19 // September 14, 2017 - September 27, 2017 TheArchitecture House ThatBoom in TheGrapes Wine Country Built Food Pg 5 Smoked Salmon Pg 26 Festival! Say Letters No More. Sports You-All Say Some Pg 23 The One-Two on Crazy Sheet! Local Boxing 2 / WWW.ROGUEVALLEYMESSENGER.COM SUMMER EXHIBITIONS Tofer Chin: 8 Amir H. Fallah: Unknown Voyage Ryan Schneider: Mojave Masks Liz Shepherd: East-West: Two Streams Merging Wednesday, June 14 through Saturday, September 9, 2017 The Summer exhibitions are funded in part by a generous donation from Judy Shih and Joel Axelrod. MUSEUM EVENTS Tuesday Tours: IMAGES (LEFT TO RIGHT, TOP TO BOTTOM, DETAILS): Tofer Chin, Overlap No. 3, 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 34” Free Docent-led Tours of the Exhibitions Amir H. Fallah, Unknown Voyage, 2015, Acrylic, colored pencil and collage on paper mounted on canvas, 48 x 36” Ryan Schneider, Many Headed Owl, 2016, Oil on canvas, 60 x 48” Liz Shepherd, Mount Shasta at Dawn, 2012, Watercolor on riches paper, 19.5 x 27.5” Tuesdays at 12:30 pm MUSEUM HOURS: MONDAY – SATURDAY, 10 AM TO 4 PM • FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC mailing: 1250 Siskiyou Boulevard • gps: 555 Indiana Street Ashland, Oregon 97520 541-552-6245 • email: [email protected] web: sma.sou.edu • social: @schneidermoa PARKING: From Indiana Street, turn left into the metered lot between Frances Lane and Indiana St. There is also limited parking behind the Museum. SEPTEMBER 14 – SEPTEMBER 27, 2017 / THE ROGUE VALLEY MESSENGER / 3 The Rogue Valley Messenger CONTENTS PO Box 8069 | Medford, OR 97501 541-708-5688 page page roguevalleymessenger.com SOUND BIKING [email protected] Redshift Pilots’ The Applegate Valley THE BUSINESS END OF THINGS complex meanderings Wine Trail is the perfect 26 20 BUSINESS MANAGER Blake Helmken move between soft guide to enjoy wine and SALES REPS Coleman Antonucci and Sydnie Gilinsky and loud, ambient a long bike ride through WEB MASTER Tammy Wilder and raging, mathy the most beautiful OUR FINANANCIAL WIZARD Sara Louton, Advanced Books polyrhythms and basic parts of Southern DISTRIBUTION Olivia Doty four-counts is rock and Oregon. Our writer OUR WORDSMITHS post-rock, pop but not Jordan Marie Martinez pop, and deep in the points you towards PUBLISHER & EDITOR Phil Busse ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sara Jane Wiltermood weeds outside of the a few wineries easily MUSIC EDITOR Josh Gross radio format. Music accessible from each PRODUCTION MANAGER Katie Ball Editor Josh Gross tries other by biking. CALENDAR EDITOR Jordon Lindsey to pin them down. ART CRITIC Jordan Marie Martinez page pagepage OUTDOOR EXPERTS Jeanine Moy, Mike Dickenson WINE WELLNESS COLUMNISTS Rob Brezsny, Shannon Wheeler, Dr. Deborah Deborah Gordon, Dan Smith Our resident drink FREELANCERS reviewer visits Agate 23 Gordon weighs 28 Tyrell Trimble, Tuula Rebhahn, x Melissa Haskin, Julie Gillis, Charles Fischman, Anna Ridge and reports the virtues of Diem, Josh Davis, Christopher Lucas, Jacob Scheppler back that the vineyard wine versus weed. and Catherine Kelley A comparative GET IN TOUCH seems poised at an overall precarious diagnosis for two EMAIL [email protected] moment, pinched different intoxicants MUSIC [email protected] between integrity and for your aliments. EVENTS [email protected] selling out. Which way ADVERTISE [email protected] will the grapes turn? SALES DEADLINE: 5 pm Thurs EDITORIAL DEADLINE: 5 pm Thurs CALENDAR DEADLINE: 12 pm Thurs Food & Drink 23 CLASSIFIED DEADLINE: 4 pm Thurs Don’t Shoot the Messenger 4 Deadlines may shift for special/holiday issues. Letters 5Culture 24 News 7 Sports & Outdoors 26 ON THE COVER: Feature 9Screen 27 Photograph:Schmidt Family Our Picks 13 Wellness 28 Vineyards in Grants Pass Live Music and Nightlife 14 Free Will Astrology 29 Weed Garden 30 Photo Credit: Schmidt Family Vineyards Events 17 Rec Room 31 Sound 20 Residential & Commercial Solar Made Easy ANNIVERSARY PARTY Saturday, September 30 12PM — 4PM Call us today for a free consultation Umpqua Bank Parking Lot 800.947.1187 | truesouthsolar.net 250 N Pioneer St., Ashland Live Music • Craft Beer • Delicious Food Kids Games • Free Cake Over $1,500 in Prizes & More! Sincere apologies to those who are unable to attend due to the observance of Yom Kippur. 4 / WWW.ROGUEVALLEYMESSENGER.COM DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER Spark Up Funding For Fires! The 2017 Third Oregon Climate Assessment Report concludes: “Oregon is warming and the consequences are, and will be, notable.” No shit. This summer, nearly two dozen forest fires are still burning in Oregon, and some 400,000 acres in the state, from the Columbia Gorge to the California border, have been consumed by forest fires. It is not the type of record that we want to celebrate. And Oregon isn’t alone. Across the western states, more than seven million acres have burned. California, no stranger to fires already, has witnessed nearly 700,000 acres being consumed—more than twice the amount as last year, ac- cording to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. What’s even more concerning, according to a 2013 Forest Service study, is that wildfires in the western states are expected to double by 2050. And here’s where we blame Donald Trump. Why? Because of his ignorance about science combined with an inability to sensibly fund preventive measures. Here’s some background that has led us to what is an increasingly vulnerable and dangerous time: For the past several years, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, (D-Ore., chair- man of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee), along with Sen. Mike Crapo, (R-Idaho) have been trying to swashbuckle forward bills that would dramatically improve funding for wildland fire fighting by shifting the funding source to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the agency that manages other natural disasters—like hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes and floods—and does so with much fewer restrictions and with access to deeper federal pockets. And, most keenly, would do so without pulling fire fighting funds from fire prevention funds. (During that time, forest fires only have intensified in numbers and frequencies, as fire season is adding roughly one week on either end each year.) Bear Creek Although seemingly simple and sensible, lawmakers from the Pacific Northwest and California—the ones most eagerly interested in more stable funding to fight forest fires—have noted resistance to moving the funding source to FEMA from states in Salmon Festival flood, tornado and hurricane regions, like Texas and Florida, which currently receive FEMA support for their natural disasters. And with the recent hurricanes, which tend to threaten urban areas like Houston and Miami (as opposed to small towns adjacent to large national forests) and whose Saturday immediate drama receive more attention than chronic problems like forest fires which rage over weeks and months rather than hours and days (even take, for example, how October 7 quickly media attention left Houston, which will struggle for years with its cleanup.), it is unlikely that now is a good time to tap into FEMA for funding for forest fires. 11 am - 4 pm It is unfortunate that forest fires have become a political hot potato. And it is even more frustrating because it clearly has bipartisan support. North Mountain Park Yet, neither President Trump, top officials at the Forest Service or FEMA, or elected 620 N Mountain St, Ashland officials from southern states are yielding to support ideas to both fight and prevent 541.488.6606 forest fires, even proposing more cuts to forest fire prevention and fighting. Perhaps stated best, Senator Maria Cantwell (Wash.) stated a recent budgetary hear- ing: “I can’t imagine a universe where anyone thinks that the status quo at the Forest Service is acceptable, particularly in regards to the fires that we’ve been facing,” she “Communities Connected by Water” said. “This budget, which goes in the opposite direction and proposes cutting another $300 million from fire suppression, is not the direction we need to go.” • Interactive Educational Exhibits But there is a silver lining: Regional elected officials are putting aside differences • Kids Activities & Crafts in other issues for a unified front on this issue. Last week, the governors of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and California all declared states of emergency from • Native American Demonstrations wildfires, and all five congressional representatives from Oregon—DeFazio, Blume- • Live Music All Day nauer, Walden, Bonamici, Schrader—sent a letter to House leaders requesting that emergency funding for wildland fire suppression be included in the Hurricane Harvey • Salmon Spiral Labyrinth emergency supplemental appropriations bill. And again, last week, Sen. Wyden pushed the Trump administration to include wildfire funding fix in any request to • Food Concession by Sultan’s Delight Congress for disaster aid. Ultimately, what is needed is not reactionary funding, but long-term solutions, and ones that don’t force western states to beg for disaster relief or to gut the U.S. Forest BearCreekSalmonFestival.net Service budget for fighting fires. This seems like a no-brainer. SEPTEMBER 14 – SEPTEMBER 27, 2017 / THE ROGUE VALLEY MESSENGER / 5 LETTERS HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY? Send your thoughts to: [email protected] Letters must be received by noon Friday before next print date for inclusion in the following week’s paper. Please limit letters to 250 words. Submission does not guarantee publication. RE: RESPONSE TO NAZEL PICKENS LETTER (ANTIFA) Just know, this so called grandfathering in of LUCS is for a small number of indi- In the last issue of the Messenger, Nazel Pickens wrote a letter regarding his inter- viduals who already have them or just applied, and that is a tiny percent of farmers. action with folks at Johnny B’s about a band named The Mentors. Straying from the The vast majority will be shut down next year.