UKIAH, Calif. – Be part of a live filming of Ailura Fate's new music video at Ukiah Brewing Company this coming Friday, Feb. 7.

Ailura Fate is a Lake County band, consisting of vocalist Kayla Bell, guitarist Lindy Day, and bassist/keyboardist Kevin Village-Stone.

The group won the Rock 2 Category at Rising Stars Music Competition in 2013 and recently signed with international management through KaseQTR Productions joining an organization of world-class performers.

“To show our thanks to our awesome fans, we have door prizes and giveaways all night long” says Lindy Day. “Everyone who shows up will receive a free raffle ticket at the door. You could win an iTunes gift card, Ukiah Brewing Company merchandise, official Ailura Fate merchandise, CDs, or other gifts. We're also giving away glow sticks and other party favors. It's going to be a rocking party. And everyone gets a special gift just for attending.”

“This looks like a show to attend for music fans, these local folks won big at the 2013 Rising Stars Music Competition and have signed with an international booking agent. Chances are they won't be around here much longer. Awesome for bragging rights like 'I saw em when' type stuff,” said John Jensen of Konocti Broadcasting Co., who will be filming the event with his crew.

Ukiah Brewing Co. has the distinction of being the first certified organic brew pub and the second certified organic restaurant in the United States. All meals are prepared from scratch with organic and non-GMO ingredients.

Come enjoy drinks and dinner at Ukiah Brewing Co. on Feb. 7 and then be a part of Ailura Fate's performance from 9:30 p.m. to midnight. You must be 21 or over to attend.

A $5 cover supports the band and filming costs.

For more information on Ailura Fate visit www.ailurafate.com .

For more information on Ukiah Brewing Co. visit www.ukiahbrewing.com .

This year’s brutal winter surely calls for a poem such as today’s selection, a peek at the inner workings of spring. Susan Kelly-DeWitt lives and teaches in Sacramento.

Apple Blossoms

One evening in winter
when nothing has been enough,
when the days are too short,

the nights too long
and cheerless, the secret
and docile buds of the apple

blossoms begin their quick
ascent to light. Night
after interminable night

the sugars pucker and swell
into green slips, green
silks. And just as you find

yourself at the end
of winter’s long, cold
rope, the blossoms open

like pink thimbles
and that black dollop
of shine called

bumblebee stumbles in.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2001 by Susan Kelly-DeWitt, whose most recent book of poems is The Fortunate Islands, Marick Press, 2008. Poem reprinted from To a Small Moth, Poet’s Corner Press, 2001, by permission of Susan Kelly-DeWitt and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The Live Oak Grill will host a fundraiser for KPFZ 88.1 FM community radio on Friday, Feb. 7.

The event will take place from 7 to 10 p.m. in the newly transformed banquet room of the restaurant, located at 5576 Live Oak Drive.

The Jim Leonardis Quartet will perform Jazz for dancing. The band features Jim Leonardis on tenor sax and clarinet, keyboardist Paul Kemp, bassist David Ferrario, and drummer Lynn Clark. A Spanish tapas seven course dinner will be served.

Call 707-245-7532 or 707-994-4373 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to reserve tickets.

Only 50 tickets are available at $20 for KPFZ members, $25 for non-members. Membership forms will be available at the door.

Another jazz club event is in the works for March.

Contact Suzanne at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-994-4373 if you are interested in performing.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – This Friday, Feb. 7, the Main Street Gallery is hosting its “First Friday Fling.”

The event will take place from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the gallery, 325 N. Main St. in Lakeport.

There will be finger food, wine served by Lavender Blue wines, and music, complements of Hilarie & Moe.

During the month of February the gallery is featuring paintings depicting "Winter Scenes in Lake County.”

There are 17 entries in all – watercolors, mixed media, oils, acrylics and alkyd. Many favorite loca artists have entered this theme show.

The gallery also is hosting a “People's Choice Award.”

Please stop by during the month of February if you are unable to attend the First Friday Fling and vote for your favorite winter scene.

It may seem like a stretch, and it probably is, to find a common thread between FOX’s new comedy/drama series “Rake” and the Starz cable channel’s pirate adventure “Black Sails.”

Of course, the legal profession, when it is being subverted or even twisted into something illogical, just might not be too far indistinguishable from the amoral compass that guides the lawbreakers on the high seas.

What might really bind “Rake,” the story of a criminal defense lawyer with dubious judgment, and “Black Sails,” centered on a feared pirate captain of his day, is simply interesting character-driven entertainment.

Then again, the mutual bond of these two new series is rooted in the launching of fresh, original television programming after the holidays when the entertainment alternative of excellent new movies is almost as rare as a snow day in Hollywood.

“Rake” may not be as original as it appears, owing to the fact that it is an American adaptation of an Australian television series of the same name, both of which are created by Peter Duncan.

I am no more familiar with Australian television than the next guy, and so to me, “Rake” is wholly original, even if in some quarters the show invites comparisons to “House,” though the oddly loveable star Greg Kinnear won’t be mistaken anytime soon for the cranky Hugh Laurie.

Greg Kinnear has just the right amount of wacky charisma to play defense lawyer Keegan Deane, a person deemed “unreliable” by his ex-wife Maddy (Miranda Otto) and an “outrage to the legal system” by most judges and prosecutors.

Keegan is also deemed “unreliable” by tough guy creditor Roy (Omar J. Dorsey), to whom Keegan owes an incredible sum due to gambling debts incurred by a series of really bad decisions.

Life for the defense attorney is complicated. His ex-wife is a therapist who still provides him free counseling sessions. But his girlfriend (Bojana Novakovic), a prostitute, doesn’t give him a free pass.

Divorced and homeless, Keegan crashes on the couch of his best friend, Ben Leon (John Ortiz), a fellow lawyer, whose wife Scarlet (Necar Zadegan) is an Assistant District Attorney and frequent courtroom adversary for Keegan.

Oh, and there’s even more. His underpaid assistant Leanne (Tara Summers) may be deported for overstaying her visa. Another predicament looms with the government breathing down his neck, as David Harbour’s IRS tax attorney David Potter pokes into his business affairs.

It’s not uncommon for TV series to focus on the antihero type, but in the case of “Rake” the character played by Greg Kinnear is unorthodox in a more pleasing fashion, and it’s almost a guilty pleasure to see how he may escape his recurring tight spots.

The pirate adventure “Black Sails” also focuses on debatable characters, ones from a bygone era when fierce and violent criminals roamed the high seas in search of bounty to plunder.

Like “Rake,” there is character-driven development in the tale of Captain Flint (Toby Stephens), the most brilliant and feared pirate captain of his day, and the fast-talking young addition to his crew who goes by the name of John Silver (Luke Arnold).

The interesting thing to keep in mind about “Black Sails” is the piracy takes place twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island.” As a result, there is insight into the formative years of the pirate to become Long John Silver.

For the most part, one would objectively have to say that “Black Sails” is what one would expect from a Michael Bay production, the producer and director famous for splashy action pictures like “Pearl Harbor” and the “Transformers” franchise.

The opening scene of the first episode involves an epic battle at sea when Captain Flint’s band of marauders takes control of another ship in a pitched battle. The visual appeal of ensuing pirate violence is rooted in realism and excellent production values.

The pirate bands face ongoing threats, seeking refuge in the scenic New Providence Island, the most notorious criminal haven of its day – a debauched paradise teeming with pirates, prostitutes, thieves and fortune seekers.

To be sure, there are plenty of fights of all kinds, with fists flying, swords flailing and guns firing. On the other hand, “Black Sails” requires a degree of patience to discover the motivations of the central characters. This is not a series given to quick and easy resolutions.

Nevertheless, fitting for a cable series that dwells on sex and violence, similar in certain ways to “Spartacus” or “Game of Thrones,” nudity and sex scenes are not in short supply.

Speaking of sex and nudity, one criminal is informed that he will be meeting with a famous pirate, and what happens next gives new meaning to the name of Blackbeard. Viewers expecting titillation may find “Black Sails” on par with other period pieces in the same vein.

As expected in most pirate adventures, the female characters here are not just wenches and prostitutes. For one, Hannah New brings tough-minded skills to the role of savvy businesswoman Eleanor Guthrie, who underwrites many pirate excursions.

“Black Sails,” with an initial run of eight episodes, is worth a look while shows of a similar genre in the action department remain on hiatus or waiting in the wings.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

So much of what we learn about life comes from exchanging stories, and this poem by a Californian, Peter Everwine, portrays that kind of teaching. I love the moment where he says he doesn’t know if the story is true but it ought to be.

A Story Can Change Your Life

On the morning she became a young widow,
my grandmother, startled by a sudden shadow,
looked up from her work to see a hawk turn
her prized rooster into a cloud of feathers.
That same moment, halfway around the world
in a Minnesota mine, her husband died,
buried under a ton of rockfall.
She told me this story sixty years ago.
I don’t know if it’s true but it ought to be.
She was a hard old woman, and though she knelt
on Sundays when the acolyte’s silver bell
announced the moment of Christ’s miracle,
it was the darker mysteries she lived by:
shiver-cry of an owl, black dog by the roadside,
a tapping at the door and nobody there.
The moral of the story was plain enough:
miracles become a burden and require a priest
to explain them. With signs, you only need
to keep your wits about you and place your trust
in a shadow world that lets you know hard luck
and grief are coming your way. And for that
—so the story goes—any day will do.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2012 by Peter Everwine, whose most recent book of poems is Listening Long and Late, University of Pittsburg Press, 2013. Poem reprinted from Ploughshares, Winter 2012-13, Vol. 38, No. 4, by permission of Peter Everwine and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.