the town dandy / By Hank Sims

Beaten and Bloodied

But the thing has really blown up this week, as we’ve offered live performances from the Humboldt Folklife Festival. Depending on which day you get this paper, you still have time to catch two or three more shows online, assuming you won’t be there in person. We’ll be streaming Wednesday and Thursday night and all day Saturday. Plug the machine into your stereo and listen while you do the housework. This is hot, hot folk.

And now for the big announcement: Saturday night at 8 p.m., we’ll be streaming the latest smash-up bout from those fearsome babes of Humboldt Roller Derby. Yes! It’s “The Tree Sluggers” v. “The Bad Axes,” and though tickets were still available for the show at Redwood Acres at the time of this writing, they’ll be sold out soon. If you’re one of the unlucky ones, grab a case of Schaefer and huddle ’round the computer. It’ll be just like those Saturday afternoon broadcasts from Kezar Stadium, way back in the Golden Age of the derby.

And now a plug: If you’re a club owner or band or what-have-you that might like to get your event streaming online, you might be shocked to discover how stupidly simple it is. You want to contact my man John-Henry Dale at The Venue Project — jefe@thevenueproject.com. He’ll set you up.

The Venue Project is going to blow up big. Humboldt County is its test market. What we’re up to is something we’re going to call “hoodcasting.” Picture it: A whole full-menu television network — news, entertainment, roller derby — broadcast from your ’hood and to your ’hood. It is awesome, and very soon it’s going to be awesomer yet.

With this issue we say goodbye to Japhet and Yulia Weeks, who have graced our pages for the last year or so. We were a bit amazed when Japhet and Yulia moved from Shanghai to Humboldt County, sight unseen, so that Japhet could work for us. We were even more amazed when we discovered how competent they both were, and how young — still in their early- to mid-20s, they each speak five languages near-perfectly and already had enough experience to fill several lifetimes.

Like all miracles, it was doomed to end. They’re off to the Bay Area now — Japhet to take a dual masters’ degree in journalism and Asian studies from U.C. Berkeley, Yulia to continue to develop her stunningly beautiful photography. After Japhet’s graduation, they plan to establish themselves as a one-family journalistic enterprise, covering Russia, China and that general area of the world. You’ll hear more from them in the future.

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