Cover Story
‘A Normal Saturday’
“Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” is a country music song written by Ed Bruce and his wife Patsy Bruce and first recorded by Ed in 1975. But if they do grow up to be cowboys or cowgirls — or bull fighters — they likely were in the Friendly City of…
Music Today: Saturday, July 29
The Mattole Grange in Petrolia is hosting the 30-plus annual Roll on the Mattole festival starting at high noon today. This fundraiser for the Honeydew Volunteer Fire Department is full of local talent, including Makenu, Alex Kent, Horse Mountain Band, Checkered Past, SoHum Girls and Elderberry Rust String Band. Entrance is free for kids 12…
Music Tonight: Friday, July 28
Locate S,1 is the dance pop project of glammy chanteuse and songwriter Christina Schneider, whose work has been augmented by producer Kevin Barnes from campy supergroup Of Montreal. Her second album, Personalia, has delivered her and her musical cohorts to the Miniplex tonight at 9 p.m. This is the first of two fairly clutch shows…
Music Tonight: Thursday, July 27
Humboldt Folklife continues in the fair town of Blue Lake and better people than myself have reported on the details. I’m here to suggest a free after-show at the Logger Bar at 9 p.m., where local carved burl sound dealers Strix Vega and Oaktop will be auctioning the jams for those lucky enough to have…
Leon Warmuth Remembered: ‘To Know Him Was to Love Him’
Leon Warmuth, who in 1952 boarded a bus to Eureka with just $50 in hand and all his belongings packed into a cardboard suitcase and went on to build a thriving business and become the Eureka Chamber of Commerce’s president, died July 20, surrounded by friends and family. He was 90. The city of Eureka…
Councilmember, Firefighter, Volunteer Mel Berti dies at 84
Mel Berti, a born and raised Fortunan who dedicated much of his life to the betterment of the Friendly City, compiling a decades-long record of public service in the process, died July 22. He was 84. Known equally as the longtime and beloved butcher at Hoby’s Market in Scotia, the 28-year Fortuna council member, the…
Music Tonight: Wednesday, July 26
There’s an early noise night going down at the Miniplex tonight at 6 p.m., with Seattle’s very tight, no wave improv act CSTMR joining forces with local drum and synth duo MIDI KITI. Also on the bill is rarely-seen-live, one-man-band Makeshift Kink, whose YouTube and Bandcamp album I reviewed earlier this month. A $5-$10 sliding…
Cal Poly Humboldt Scales Back Hotel Housing Plans as School Year Approaches
Both excitement and concern about a potential explosion in Cal Poly Humboldt’s enrollment due to its new status as the state’s third polytechnic university seem to have been premature. While the university excitedly announced in November that freshman applications were up 86 percent over the prior year, then set a wave of panic across campus…
Comedy Tonight: Tuesday, July 25
Savage Henry Comedy Club is hosting Show Up, Go Up night, which means that when the doors open at 9 p.m., the first eight comedians to show up and sign-up are the night’s featured performers, allotted 10 minutes apiece to share their wares. For the rest of you, $5 helps keep the lights on, which…
Willow Creek Pharmacy Closes
The Willow Creek Pharmacy has closed its doors, leaving scores of area residents worried they could be facing two hours of driving to fill their prescriptions, and that’s when the roads are open. The pharmacy closed July 14, reportedly with little notice, according to some patients and employees. Attempts to contact the pharmacy’s owners by…
NCJ Preview: Rodeo, a Teacher Pays it Forward and a Food Truck Heads North
We’re talking about local photographer Mark Larson’s rodeo pictures, hunger in Humboldt, a teacher’s quest to give back and the Pineapple Express food truck’s improbable and delicious journey. Hit subscribe for weekly updates on Humboldt stories.
Music Tonight: Monday, July 24
Speaking of the Siren’s Song Tavern and shows whose start time promises a bit of evening sunshine over the nearby water, 8 p.m. is a good time to return to port to check out a very cool gig to help inaugurate your work week. Portland sextet Abronia plays longform, psychedelically- tinged soundtrack tunes fit for…
David Robert Rocha: 1954-2023
David Robert Rocha passed away on July 5, 2023, in Maricopa, Arizona, after a year-long battle with cancer. He was born on Oct. 22, 1954 in Seattle, Washington, to parents Elerd Rocha and Margaret (Abbott) Rocha. Dave was the oldest of six children, and spent his very early years in various locations due to his…
Gwenn Lynnore Cloepfil: 1931-2023
Gwenn Lynnore Cloepfil passed away on May 21, 2023, at Timber Ridge in Eureka where she spent the last nine years due to multiple medical issues. She was a cherished woman who was always pleasant and caring to all people that crossed her path for her entire life. Her family will miss her dearly. She…
Music Tonight: Sunday, July 23
The Siren’s Song Tavern is hosting a fun retro pop and surf rock show, with The Snares and The California Poppies providing the former, while The Starhoppers dip into the latter genre. The sun will still be out for this 7 p.m. show and $10 at the door leaves you with some beer money if…
Humboldt Folklife Festival Kicks off on Sunday
Ah, the blue, blue grass of home — how we love it! July in Blue Lake is extra sunshiny with the Humboldt Folklife Festival sweetening our days and nights. Taking place this year from July 23-29, the festival features plenty of locally grown bluegrass, folk, country music and more. New this year is the Humboldt Folk School,…
Music Tonight: Saturday, July 22
The students may be gone, but university-adjacent venue Blondies is still running a hot summer schedule. Portland’s new-new wave dance band Rad Max is joining forces with local garage duo Clean Girl and the Dirty Dishes and Think Tank for a night of (mostly) dancefloor fun. There’s a $5-$10 sliding scale door price and a tentative…
Music Tonight: Friday, July 21
St. Croix reggae singer Dezarie is more than two decades into a recording and touring career that has gained her a considerable following among the global roots and reggae community. Tonight at Humbrews, she returns to the area to share her music with her Humboldt fandom, who will likely remember her from the good old…
Fortuna AutoXpo Rolls Into Town
Rodeo’s packed its saddle and moseyed on, making room for Fortuna’s next round of horsepower, the Fortuna Redwood AutoXpo, taking place July 21-23. The super souped-up event features a massive judged car show, show and shine, pit barbecue dinner, burn out, artisans faire, tractor pull, movie night, dance and more. Get your motor running and…
Pineapple Express Goes North
Codi Nishimoto could not cook — and not in the “I can’t get the perfect crust on my scallops” way. When she left Oahu to study forestry at Humboldt State University in 2007, she got work as a restaurant server but didn’t venture into the kitchen. “I couldn’t even cook box mac and cheese at…
‘Hiking Humboldt Kids’
Now that the first flush of summer vacation is past and the kids are getting antsy, you may be wondering where to go for a child-friendly walk in Humboldt County. Check out the recently published Hiking Humboldt Kids, a new guidebook by hiking enthusiast and local author Rees Hughes. The well-designed guidebook (written in English…
Anglers Await Steelhead on the Lower Klamath
Steelhead have been trickling into the lower Klamath, and the fishing so far has been on the slow side. That’s the tough news. The good news is the river is in great shape. The water temps are slightly cooler than previous years, and the water is clear and free from moss. These excellent conditions, however,…
Making it Possible
What I couldn’t have articulated then, and perhaps cannot now, was director Brian De Palma’s critical role as both arbiter and synthesist of cinema cool, even as his career was approaching an inevitable cooling-off point and he his 60th birthday. De Palma wouldn’t become a touchstone for me until years later, incapable as I was…
Priorities
Editor: Thanks for all the great info! I’m often thrilled with the breadth of topics covered. I don’t usually complain but I was especially upset to read that Humboldt has decided to allocate funds to repair the horse racing grandstand with moneys set aside for general maintenance in Humboldt (“Supes Pony Up $1 Million in…
‘Good Job’
Editor: I was amazed that 60 percent of California State University undergraduates pay no tuition (Mailbox, July 13), that the Schneider house will be torn down (“PlanCo Approves Permits to Tear Down Schneider ‘Dream Home,'” July 13). (Can’t something positive be made from it — a native cultural center, a medical clinic, or perhaps just…
‘Bravissimo Kudos’
Editor: Right now, when our collective cuckoo clocks seem turned back half a century regarding civil rights, tolerance, and basic human decency, it is so refreshing to finally witness first hand an American tradition take a progressively firm stance in favor of all our LGBTQ+ fellow-Americans. Of course I refer to American rodeos and specifically…
Aliens vs. Alien Life
Aliens: Intelligent creatures from a distant star who have traveled to Earth. Alien Life: A necessary precursor to those aliens, simple self-replicating molecules, such as cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). Earth is one of eight planets with an assortment of smaller bodies in thrall to our star, the Sun. The Sun is one of about a third…
Language Lesson
The language I teach you won’t obliterate wordless thought but leave space for silence and sensation. It counts, categorizes, but also wonders at wild, uncountable, unnamable things. We’ll send each other messages ripe with meaning, gradually growing a shared comprehension, and all talk stops when we encounter the incomprehensible. Let’s not fill in the blanks;…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Your deep psyche will soon well up with extra creativity and fertility. I hope you will eagerly tap into these gifts. You should assume that you will be more imaginative and ingenious than usual. You will have an enhanced ability to solve problems with vigor and flair. In what areas of…
Hunger in Humboldt
When Woodsie Hunsucker wants to buy groceries, the 25-year-old gets in his truck and drives over 46 miles — 6 of them on a dirt road — from his home along the Klamath River on the Yurok Reservation to the Walmart in Crescent City. The drive alone takes him about three hours; with shopping, the…
You Only Live Twice
It’s midsummer, which means I have been engaging in my regular seasonal habits when I am not working. These more or less boil down to going to the river, looking at my bank account and thinking about traveling, reading in my backyard and going to the river again. However, there is something that I do…
