Who’s Your City?
“But then we would notice that the Arcata folks took this seriously, and unfortunately it’s not much of a joke anymore,” says Colland. “We’d be baiting them, then they’d usually take the bait, and then they’d say, ‘Well, screw you!”
Colland laughs. He breathes mockery. “It’s all a fucking joke.” But then he slips, says sincerely, “I think there’s this underlying love, though.”
Still, he prefers living in Eureka. “It’s ‘more real,’” he says, self-mockingly.
Or is it?
“I moved here from the Bay Area as soon as I turned 18,” says Colland. “My friends said, ‘Dude, this place is like a David Lynch film. It’s funny, it’s scary and it’s weird. Come up and check out this place. You would not believe it — it’s a downtrodden cultural mecca of weirdness.’”
In the middle. Meanwhile, in Eureka, artist Michael Woods — who lately has been setting up his easel in Old Town, and was painting a scene of the F Street Plaza fountain last Friday — lives in one but prefers the other. “Definitely Arcata,” he says. “I have lived in both for many years. There’s fear in Eureka, and there’s no fear in Arcata. Arcata is a high self-esteem city, and Eureka is a low self-esteem city. Arcata’s a college town, so there’s more of an openness. When people have information and knowledge, there’s a confidence. In Eureka, you get too far away from that. Here you can get that feeling of prolonged hopelessness. I feel Eureka needs me. It needs good people. It needs some happiness.”
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