America isn’t a country, it’s an anthology. A great gaggle of stories that desperately needs editing, but the writer-editor ratio is heavily skewed against. The reader is forced to pick out subtle changes from a lot of droning repetition and find frequencies of information salting the curdles of difference that grow in pockets in the […]
Music
Coverage of the music scene in Humboldt County with upcoming shows from locals and out-of-town acts, reviews, interviews and more.
Posted inMusic
The Vanishing Hitchhiker
I’ve got rambling on the mind, and not the verbal or written sort in which I usually engage. I’m thinking about traveling because I’m going to be doing some of that in a short while. I won’t say where and I won’t say when, but I will be doing the rare move of breaking containment […]
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The Pavilion of Dreams
Thousands of nights have elapsed since I was a little boy, but I still have traces of that era, the intensity of my brain experiencing the sensations of the world for the first time, and meanwhile learning to communicate with itself, my body and spirit in the process. Much of what unfolds in our early […]
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Long May You Roll
I’m going to make an unhappy announcement about current events and follow with a couple suggestions. On July 31, Derek Russell, the owner of AMPT skate shop died suddenly and unexpectedly. Please bear in mind I am writing this on Monday, and this paper will be in your hands no sooner than Thursday, which is […]
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After Forever
Wild men have run around the firelight of our imaginations and mythology since the dawn of humanity. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, we are introduced to Enkidu, an Akkadian beast man who through his own brazen disregard for the customs of human deference to the gods, is banished from life into a netherworld exile. Native […]
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Storytellers
I’ve been all over the place in these pages lately, writing about everything from the excellent Eureka Symphony, the Spanish Civil War, the architectural history of our own rapidly expanding police state and the incumbent circumstantial depression that comes with it, to some of the music from years past which I have overlooked or had […]
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The Rubáiyát of Ishmael Reed
I have a cut-up style I use when I want to get into a certain way of thinking. I’ve arranged my room around this practice: Pacing between my bookshelves and wardrobe, music blasting out of a speaker somewhere in a low corner behind me, cats lounging in various windows. I use the clutter of books […]
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The Sisters of Mercy
I’ve been working a lot lately, which is good for distracting an unquiet mind and (eventually) doesn’t hurt the wallet too much either, but it hasn’t been enough to hold off some of the feelings I suspect more than a few of you out there are also feeling. I don’t want to get into specifics […]
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That Summer Feeling
We live in a culture where apology, a change of temperament or evolving ideological alignment are considered signs of weakness. This seems like an intractable, complex problem, but it’s simple to sidestep when you remember everyone who runs things here is stupid as hell and arrogant to boot, and that you don’t have to be […]
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Computer World
A.I. sucks. From the name outward, it’s completely false. It isn’t and will never be an artificial intelligence, but it does operate as a plagiarism-fueled pyramid scheme for some of the worst people on the planet, while further destroying any concept of consensus reality and vetted information, making an already post-literate population far more stupid. […]
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The Battle for Los Angeles
I don’t watch much TV, certainly not the news. This isn’t a pretentious flex, but more of a generational effect: The TV I grew up with either doesn’t exist anymore or I have grown out of it, as on-the-ground social media reporting and alternative news sources are far more reliable than what the cable companies […]