Cover Stories
7:07 A Moment in Humboldt Winners
“Evening Kickflip in Old Town.” By Rose Lily Levy. “He Jumped.” By Hannah Larkin. “I really have the most wonderful boyfriend. As I’m trying to think of things to take pictures of for this contest, he jumped into the water at exactly 7:07 just so I could snap the most amazing photo. It was a…
Morning
Just a few steps, and the views are endless. Past the guy probing the edge of the parking lot with a metal detector. Past the two forms huddled green and blue in sleeping bags, deep in a dune swale. Past the sand flecked with charcoal and old fireworks. They were 6:45 a.m. This is 7:07.…
Evening
Cats tiptoe along broken sidewalks, two men tinker under the hood of a Chevy pickup, the scent of grease and dishwater mingles with the gray, still air, and on E and F and G streets people walk, in twos and threes and whole families, down to the center. The tsunami zone. Where the hands on…
Dave Chappelle Drinks “Regular Coffee and Cream” in Fortuna (UPDATED)
Where is Dave Chappelle? Would you believe Fortuna? The reclusive stand up comedy legend repped a black, stoner-font-emblazoned “Humboldt” sweatshirt when he was spotted by a few local residents in Fortuna’s Starbucks on Wednesday evening. The one time “Chappelle’s Show” star and a friend were taking a break from their motorcycle trip up Highway 101…
VIDEO: Inside the Pelican Rescue
As a supplement to his story on the ongoing brown pelican crisis, Scottie Lee Meyers, the Journal’s brand-spankin’-new intern, shot and edited the YouTube video below, in which Lucinda Adamson, an intern for Bird Ally X, offers a tour of the emergency response efforts underway at the Humboldt Wildlife Care Center. Hooray for interns! Also, if…
Bipartisan Bill Would Protect Medical Marijuana Patients From Feds
What do Lynne Woolsey, Ron Paul and Barney Frank have in common? Okay, yes, they’re all U.S. Congress members (for a few more months, anyway). But more to the point, they’re part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers co-sponsoring a bill that would give valid medical marijuana patients extra cover from federal prosecution. [Update 4:35 p.m.: As if…
Bust O’ The Day: 609 Plants Seized in Occupant-less Benbow House
Release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office: On 07-16-2012, at approximately 11:30 a.m., the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Community Response Unit (C.R.U.) served a search warrant on a residence in the 6100 block of Benbow Drive, Benbow, after receiving information there was a marijuana grow in the residence. When deputies served the Humboldt County Superior…
Sorry, Wee Marty
Wildlife biologist Ric Schlexer, with the U.S. Forest Service office in Arcata, called today to correct an outlandish mistake we propagated in a previous post about the wee Humboldt marten. In the post, “Bite You in the Face” — about the Center for Biological Diversity’s Endangered Species Act-related lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife…
Fastest Route Between Eureka and Arcata Finally Determined!
Are you sitting down? Because we just put the squash on an age-old Humboldt County debate: What is the fastest way to get to Arcata from Eureka? The safety corridor takes it. No contest. Samoa Boulevard is slower. Though at times Highway 101’s 50 miles-per-hour speed limit can feel constricting (my station wagon putters…
Rodeo x2
Bulls. Blood. Dust. Mud. Garth was on to something. And because we interpret Mr. Brooks’ words as gospel truth, we predict that the Sunday crowds will be roaring as Humboldt’s more cowboy-ish tendencies are indulged over the next couple weeks. Why? ‘Cuz it’s rodeo season, y’all! This weekend: Orick Rodeo serves up the ropes and…
Summoned
When Jim Scott saw a red, white and blue slip in his mailbox, summoning him to jury duty, he felt sick. “I just got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach,” he said. “I thought, ‘Oh God, here we go again.'” He’d been expecting the summons. It had been exactly 90 days since…
Caught in the Web
Reviews THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. I think Sam Raimi is a fine director, and I’d re-watch a number of his movies any day of the week. However, I don’t feel any real connection to his Spiderman trilogy. The movies were fun, if unremarkable, entertainment. They were also released pretty recently, so I was mildly surprised (not…
Take a Card
The sound of a young saxophonist struggling through “American Patrol” wafts from a practice room at Mantova’s Two Street Music while a rock trio called The 51 Cards sets up on a stage in the main back room, preparing for a rehearsal. Guitarist JR Perez kicks off an upbeat tune, “Undertow,” and drummer Adam Summers…
Devious Birds
Editor: Thank you very much for the article (“Bright Birds,” June 28) by Heidi Walters in the North Coast Journal. I found it informative and inspiring. I want to disagree however with one of the article’s minor conclusions, that Steller’s jays only “stumble upon” bird eggs. I feel certain that they do stumble on some.…
Skios
On the stage, farce is about running in and out of doors, concealment and revelation, expectation and illusion, pretence and persuasion, need and want. Michael Frayn, who wrote what many regard as the best stage farce of the age (Noises Off) wondered if he could write farce as a novel, and this book is the…
Rail Fumbles
Editor: A pox on both your houses! Let’s be honest, Ms. Hodgson (“We Have a Plan,” June 28), you don’t really pretend that, when gasoline goes up to $10 a gallon (as it inevitably will), that all of you pro-trail/anti-rail voices will sit quietly by and watch your newly won trainless trail be taken away…
Flight of the Nez Perce
On our part, the [Nez Perce] war was in its origin and motive nothing short of a gigantic blunder and a crime. 1877 New York Times editorial The fighting retreat of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce in the summer of 1877 through present-day Idaho and Montana is one of the most shameful episodes of…
Correction
Last week’s cover article “Gasoline Kings,” relying in part on an incomplete state list of station ownership, misidentified the ownership of several branded gas stations. The Shell and Chevron stations in Arcata, Dave’s 76 in Fortuna Earp’s 76 in Garberville are independently owned. The Journal regrets the error.
Stop the Madness!
Let us review the brief and troubled history of the Modern Cocktail. It began in the early ’90s, when youngsters realized that a Martini was a nice thing to order in a bar. A few variations on the Martini followed, most notably the godawful “dirty Martini” made with excessive amounts of olive brine, and the…
Un-easement
Un-easement
No one has imagined
Hands holding hands holding hands across the Bowery,…
Fortuna Rodeo 2012
Fortuna Rodeo 2012
Eclectic Artisans
Love it or loathe it, everyone has to agree that the Arcata Plaza is an eclectic place: from the people to the shops and restaurants, the Plaza runs the gamut. On the Plaza’s west side, there is a shop that embodies the spirit of its location. Arcata Artisans has been displaying and selling the work…
Show and Tell
In Show People, the contemporary comedy now on stage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka, the middle-aged acting couple of Marnie and Jerry (played by Bonnie Halverson and Ron Halverson) begin their latest performance. But it’s not on stage, where they haven’t worked in a decade: it’s at a posh vacation home with an ocean view.…
Crabs Heckle Tips
Goin’ to a Humboldt Crabs game? Know how to correctly be a jerk!
Dune-gooders
The coastal dunes along Humboldt Bay have lots and lots of friends, enough to put your Facebook count to shame. We’re talking more than 250 different species — species! — of birds; more than 200 kinds of plants; and more than 40 varieties of bees. (Seriously? Wow.) Plus the Wiyot people, who have hunted and…
Gasoline Gouge
Editor: In his study of local gasoline prices (“Gasoline Kings,” July 5), Ryan Burns skipped lightly over the main answer to his lead question, “Why the heck are Humboldt County’s fuel prices so high?” That answer is that Chevron has a near monopoly on the fuel supply to Humboldt County, and consequently it can charge…
Got Folk?
It’s that time of year again, time to live the folk life with the Humboldt Folklife Society. It may not seem possible, but Folklife’s annual summer music marathon has grown even larger with 10 events spread over nine days. It all starts on that lucky day, Friday the 13th, with the first of two barn…
