Arts Devo

2017 to-do list Arts DEVO is a devoted list-maker, and in the first week of a new year, I break out what has become my most useful and important list of all: “Goals for the year.” I started compiling the annual list a few years ago, not so much to wrangle a bunch of New Year’s resolutions (although there are often some general life-change goals that would qualify—sleep better, call my mom more, etc.), but more like an organizational tool for the projects and personal goals on which I’m currently focused. It helps me better plan my time, and is something to refer to throughout the year to remind me of what’s next. And it’s proven to be a very effective approach for staying on top of and completing personal and professional projects and realizing dreams—from building a shelving unit in the garage and recording an album with my band, to listening to more reggae music and starting a new fitness regimen. I highly recommend it.

I’m still fine-tuning this year’s list, but here’s a look at a rough sampling of the possibilities:

• Get down with the punks: As much as I gush in these pages over the good work the Chico Area Punks and the Jefferson Hardcore crews do putting on shows in Chico and Redding for punk and metal bands, I have a dismal track record as of late for actually getting out to punk and metal gigs. In 2017, I will pummel my eardrums more often. First chances in 2017: Jan. 20: metal/punk/noise night at Monstros with Chico’s Amarok, West By Swan and The Primers and Redding’s Arcane; and Jan. 26: hardcore night at Monstros with two visitors, Drain (Santa Cruz) and Seance (San Diego); and two locals, Criminal Wave and Redding’s Dying for It.

• Put on a kick-ass Keep Chico Weird Talent Show. It’s coming up, Jan. 28, at the El Rey Theatre (with the KCW Art Show going down at 1078 Gallery, Jan. 26-28), and rehearsals are underway for Arts DEVO’s opening skit: I call it “A Very Mariah New Year’s Eve.”

• Finally memorize Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes’ rap in the middle of “Waterfalls.” Been chipping away for a minute and it’s damn time I killed it.

• Breathe European air: Mrs. DEVO and I will celebrate a momentous occasion with a trip overseas, and if anyone asks, we’re Canadian.

• Make noise: I will do as much as an arts editor can to speak truth to power during the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump. And my bandmates and I will do our best impression of throwing bricks through the windows of the house of regressive policies that Trump and the Republican majority promise to construct by pushing the distortion and feedback to their face-melting limits.

• Update my fading stash of black rock T-shirts. Something from Die Antwoord, something local and, if I ever find it in my size, the elusive Andrew W.K. “Evolution of Partying.”

• Have an after-work beer with you as many Fridays as possible. Meet me at the Winchester Goose; first one’s on me.

Anita’s vision: Sight: The Story of Vision, the final project of Chico filmmaker Anita Ingrao, debuts today on local PBS station KIXE. The local documentary producer and Chico Observatory caretaker died of breast cancer in 2014, and the production Ingrao was working on—a one-hour documentary (narrated by Elton John) that tells the story about “how our eyes and our brains work to create the images of the world in our head”—was completed by her co-producer and partner, Kris Koenig, and his son Nils. See it today at 3, 6 or 11 p.m., as well as multiple times on Jan. 7 and 9, on the KIXE World channel, and on the main KIXE channel Jan. 22 and 28. Visit www.kixe.org for details.