Best of Humboldt 2011
Reader and Staff Picks
Cover Stories
Best Weed Strain
Obviously, social acceptance of marijuana is tenuous, even in our dank corner of the Emerald Triangle. While the Best Beer and Best Bar categories earned mostly sincere and respectful nominations, the notion of rating Humboldt County’s No. 1 cash crop led many voters to chastise us for our immaturity, stupidity and/or hippie sympathies. A couple…
Best High School
Instead of pretending that we remember what being in high school was like, we’re gonna turn it over to senior Kaylee Savage-Wright to shed some light on why Arcata High may have garnered the most spirited voter response. Take it away, Kaylee: Love, heartbreak, panic attacks, tears, fights, expulsion — it’s all part of the…
STAFF PICKS – Best Native Plant for Landscaping
What’s not to like about an upright, graceful, blue-gray rush that requires little or no maintenance? Juncus patens, the spreading rush, thrives in boggy, poorly drained areas, but also tolerates drought, and can grow in shady or sunny parts of your yard. Native to coastal riparian areas, bogs and drainage ditches from Tijuana to Tacoma,…
Best Grocery Store
For some reason this category drew more votes than any other. The member-owned consumer cooperative known as the North Coast Co-op garnered almost as many votes as its two closest competitors — Wildberries and Eureka Natural Foods — combined. You’d have to factor in the fact the Co-op has stores in Arcata and Eureka, but…
Best Town Less than 10,000
Head east on Highway 299 on most any summer day, when afternoon is sliding down toward evening, and something splendid happens. Maybe it begins at the Essex exit, or maybe farther along at Glendale, where views open to pastureland and the graveled bed of the Mad River. Sun! Not a pallid ghost behind the fog,…
STAFF PICKS – Best Refreshing, Healthful Festival Food
Brad Thompson bought an ice shaving machine basically because his kids love snow-cones, the cold, sweet treat we all remember from childhood trips to one fair or another. But when he went to make his first batch of syrup, he had second thoughts. He realized that there was an awful lot of sugar involved, and…
Best Thrift/Vintage Store
Angels of Hope, located in the 5,000-square-foot warehouse on 10th Street in Arcata, was the runaway winner in this category. (“Angles of Hope” did pretty well, too.) Founded in 2006 by Rose Baker and Lisa Callahan, the store not only offers mountains of gently used clothing at bargain prices, it also serves as a job-training…
Best Town Greater Than 10,000
It is, actually, all about the plaza. The addictive goodness — and weirdness — of our winning best big town, Arcata, starts there and radiates out. Begins like a big throbbing heart fed by hot dogs, tofu, noodles and beer, then massaged back to life by the hands of rope-haired travelers, their guardian cops, proud…
Best Elected Official
This popularity cage-match brought a wide variety of public-servant contenders into the ring, all hungry for the coveted title. And ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls … when you step inside the NCJ battle dome, your jurisdictional boundaries don’t mean shit. Nowhere but here can District Attorney Paul “Lego” Gallegos go head-to-head with Sheriff Mike…
Best Big Box
There are only two possibilities: Journal staff members have lost either their minds or their souls. Why else would we include this stupid category? (See also: Best Fast Food Chain, Best Corporate Citizen.) I mean, seriously. In a survey highlighting the best of this unique wonderland called “Humboldt,” why would we celebrate an effin’ big…
Best Corporate Person
OK, now you have to go tell Congress. And the U.S. Supreme Court. Humboldt resoundingly and unequivocally rejects the very idea of corporate personhood. Us minions here at the * Journal* are actually with you on that. We asked this question just to see what kind of fun you’d have with the idea. At least,…
Best Band
It was neck-and-neck between country gospel band Huckleberry Flint, gypsy jamgrass vets Absynth Quintet and newcomers The Trouble. Then there was a repeat of something that happened in our Best Of contest in 2009: St. John Hunt, lead guitarist and founder of St. John and The Sinners, showed up at the Journal office and hand…
Best Park
About five seconds after the first European ooo’ed and awww’ed at the first redwood, the next European just sawed. A few generations of that, and parks seemed like a pretty good idea for keeping some redwoods standing. Those parks, though, have a certain similarity of name. A very big tree with reddish bark recurs. And…
Best Solo Musical Artist
Foiled again! It would appear that the statistical gods have reaped vengeance upon us for daring to ask readers to pit the pure souls of musicians competitively against each other and declare a “best.” Thus, we have a tie. In this corner, Chris Parreira: “It’s funny, this is the one year I haven’t been doing…
Best Beach
First, let us reassure the faithful: Your favorites, “the naked beach” (College Cove, in this case, although there were mentions of Baker) and Luffenholtz (the prettier sister) were contenders. Really. It’s just that so many more voted for their far more accessible next-door neighbor: Moonstone Beach. What’s not to adore? There’s room by the ceremonial…
2011 North Coast Journal Best Of Humboldt
It was a perfect day in Humboldt County. Out in Bridgeville, they were warming up their alien spacecraft. In Garberville, the Getti Up baristas were casting fresh good-brew spells around their espresso hut. On the Lost Coast, everyone happily resumed searching. In Fortuna, when the sun burst forth and announced he’d stick around, all the…
Best Music Venue
It looks more like a classic movie theater than a music venue from the outside. And the Arcata Theater was just that for seven decades, until 2009 when Lara and Brian Cox were finished gutting and refurbishing it and reopened it as the Arcata Theatre Lounge. The old theater seats are gone, replaced by a…
Best Hike
We really can’t say anything that tops that wall of fronds, green and textured and towering, closing in as you step deeper and deeper into Fern Canyon. Go walk it. (Drive north on Highway 101 a few miles past Orick, then turn west on Davidson Road. Bump along the dirt road long enough (past the…
Best Beer
We love our beer. We love it light and frothy and even fruity. And we love it with a passion that sometimes runs dark in our souls, erupting in snarls of disgust at that drivel someone else calls beer. This is The Land of Beer, the land of five breweries and countless home brewers, the…
Best Club DJ
It was almost a tie. Dancefloor filler Dub Cowboy, aka MXMSTR KRSHN2N, had the exact same number of votes as DJ Itchie Fingaz (with DJ Mantease and Gabe Pressure also in the running). Then there were the votes for BossLevelz, Itchie’s DJ partnership with Masta Shredda (currently laying down hip hop, glitch hop and dubstep…
Best Bike Ride
When it comes to mounting the steel pony and then choosing where to propel it — right, left, right, left, o’ pretty arc of blur-foot — some folks like to specialize. They don’t just ride their bike to school or work or for fun. They require specific scenery with that jaunt: “cow fields,” insists one…
Best Cup of Coffee
Maybe it’s all about how you ask the question. For the last two years, Old Town Coffee and Chocolate — the beating heart of daytime Old Town — captured our “Best Coffeehouse” title. But this year we tweaked our inquiry slightly and we’re guessing that our focus on cup content may have been the difference-maker…
Best Dancefloor
Man, this place has got FLOOR. Ever since Humbrews’ last remodel, completed in November 2009, and the addition of the humongous, 3,000-square-foot music (and events) hall next door to the original pub, its shiny, golden oak planks have been deluged with happy feet. This space was designed for music, for dancing, for feeling like you’ve…
Best Place to Ride a Horse
To the darling person who answered, “Save a horse, ride a cowboy! What what?” — does your cowboy know you think he’s a meanie? You might want to share your little, uh, bias with him before he gets too serious about riding with you “into the sunset” (another reader answer). And as for you scaredycats…
Best Asian Restaurant
Best Asian Restaurant Let’s start with the name, Pho Thein Long. The first word in the name of the Vietnamese restaurant across from the Eureka Theater is pronounced “fuh,” not “foe.” Pho is a classic Vietnamese soup, broth with rice noodles and meat, typically beef, and the menu here has 17 different beef combinations (as…
Best Theatre Company
In a community rich with live theater companies, none can match the geographic reach and artistic ambitions of Dell’Arte. Founded in Berkeley 30 years ago with an eye toward bringing European styles of physical comedy, mime and, of course, the Italian tradition of commedia dell’arte stateside, the theater troupe soon relocated to Humboldt County. In…
Best Place To Take a Dog
Beaches. Five of the top six answers were beaches, and that’s not counting the 13 people who simply voted for “the beach.” While we couldn’t figure out how to poll the dogs directly, we suspect they’d agree. Something about the sea air (perhaps the seagull carcasses?) brings out the slobbering, giddy dork that lives inside…
Best Mexican Restaurant
Rita’s has got fillings. Lots and lots of fillings. You can have your taco stuffed with grilled veggies or chorizo tofu or a spicy chicken tinga. And Rita’s has got margaritas, probably lots of them, too. Somewhere between all that choice and all that booze, Journal readers named Rita’s Margaritas and Mexican Grill their runaway…
Best Art Gallery
Step into this cozy-airy space near the waterfront, and you’re drawn almost immediately to the airiest installation of all: Sondra Schwetman’s “Southern Vortices,” a dangling clump of lovely cylindrical banners made of silk and organza, steel and bronze hanging from the ceiling like virga, or suspended, evaporating rain. Indeed, her artist’s statements speaks of “[s]omething…
Best Radio Station/Best Radio DJ
We caught up with Best Radio Station winner KHUM’s Best Radio DJ winner Mike Dronkers via text message mid-voyage to Alaska, where he was scheduled to run a marathon: AG: Dude, I just found out you’re in Alaska. You won best DJ in the Best Of poll. I was hoping for a reaction. But if…
Best Pizza
This one’s tricky. First of all, pizza’s such a subjective edible. One person’s cardboard crust is another person’s heavenly cracker. Some pizza eaters will eat any pie and say yum. Others will belly up to a fancy flat delicacy at a fancy non-pizza-specific joint (Folie Douce, Hurricane Kate’s, Brick and Fire), or to a tasty…
Best Visual Artist
Ahhhh, if only they took notes, all those people who wander the galleries at Arts Alive! and Arts! Arcata and all our other perpetually excited! evenings of art. There’s amazing stuff there. Dazzling, glorious, wonderful paintings and more, by wonderful visual artists. People are looking. Are they just forgetting the artists’ names? Or when it…
Best Blog
This is a bittersweet honor to bestow. Only six months after launching, the Lost Coast Outpost — the online news octopus of Ferndale’s Lost Coast Communications — has already won enough converts to obliterate all comers in our Best Blog category. The man behind the curtain? Former Journal editor — sigh, we miss the dude…
Best Food on Wheels
We used to think the name “Naan of the Above” was just another glib pun. Then we had the garlic naan — buttery and piquant and longer than an elephant’s ear — and we got it. This food must be made somewhere above the Earth, in some higher, more spiritual plane, where newborn babies exhale…
Best Tattoo Artist
It’s hard to think of a consumer decision with more lasting impacts than the choice of a tattoo artist. (Obstetrician perhaps?) As your Navy-vet uncle’s smudgy forearms can attest, these things are permanent. And as your high school buddy’s barbed wire bicep can attest, regrets might hurt more than the tat itself. If you haven’t…
Best Newspaper
Thanks! — Andrew Goff The Breakdown: *North Coast Journal 57.3%, Arcata Eye 12.9%, Times Standard 10.3%, Savage Henry Independent Times 4.8%, McKinleyville Press 1.6%, Voter Turnout: 18th. *
Best Fast Food
Talk about your all time backfires! We thought we were soooo clever by creating a category that would require Journal readers to choose their least-deadly poison. A good portion of your answers seemed to convey that you thought that asking “What’s the best fast food?” was like asking for “best cancer” or “Name the skinniest…
Best Annual Event
The mollusks take it, as the Arcata Oyster Festival beats out the Kinetic Sculpture Race, last weekend’s North Country Fair and the beer fest Hops in Humboldt as Best Annual Event. The celebration of our local aquaculture (70 percent of all fresh oysters consumed in California are grown in our bay) features dozen of local…
Coda
Oh dear, sweet mother of slugs and pelicans: Humboldt, your people love you so much! As do perfect strangers: “I don’t live in Humboldt,” wrote Anonymous on the ballot, “but my son does. Visited him in July 2011 and finally got a taste of the Humboldt culture. Love, love loved it there! Trying to figure…
Best Overall Restaurant
For the second year running the unpretentious little joint hidden behind the Arcata Co-op, 3 Foods Café, is the readers’ pick as “Best Restaurant.” Why do we love it so? Start with the whimsical, adventurous, eclectic menu, drawing on foods and cooking methods from many cultures, everything from Korean bulgogi (“Hurts So Good”) to an…
Best Nonprofit
The top orgs in this category show the range of what Humboldt folks find important in their nonprofits: The enviro group Humboldt Baykeeper came in fifth; the elbow-flinging good-time gals of Humboldt Roller Derby fourth; Planned Parenthood’s reproductive rights advocacy and services third; The Ink People, who provide umbrella non-profit status for all sorts of…
STAFF PICKS – Best Petty Theft Museum
The Stop and Shop Market, on the corner of Wabash and B in Eureka, is known colloquially as “The Stop ‘n’ Rob.” If you’re wondering why, you need only step inside and take a gander at the refrigerated section. Taped to the wall (in a chain that extends from the floor to top-shelf height, then…
Best Bar
This year’s victory makes it back-to-back wins for The Shanty, Eureka’s most lovable dive bar. Whether you like the mixed-grill tacos offered free in the back patio on the Fourth of July, a steaming mug of hot buttered rum come wintertime, or just a frosty beer and some ping-pong with your pals, The Shanty is…
Best Church
Come Christian. Come Jew. Come Atheist. Come Pagan. Come Humanist. Come You. Come All Of You. “We, as a Fellowship,” say the Humboldt Unitarian Universalists, “affirm our covenant to explore and embrace openly the fundamental mysteries of existence, to nurture a sense of family, and to enhance the quality of life for ourselves, our children,…
STAFF PICKS – Best Free Ride
No matter how water-loving you are — fully immersed or just Bay-curious — Humboldt Baykeeper will tempt you to embrace the aquatic. For free! The environmental group offers a little-known, free boat ride on Saturday and Sunday mornings from early April through mid- to late October. The theory is that once you see Humboldt Bay…
Harbor District Names Interim CEO
Less than two weeks after unceremoniously (and unanimously) ousting 15-year CEO David Hull, the Harbor District Board has named a temporary replacement. Last night, during a special board meeting, the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District Board of Commissioners unanimously appointed Patricia Tyson as interim CEO. Tyson has served as the district’s director of administrative…
Arrests In Arcata Playground Arson
You may recall the fire set at an Arcata playground earlier this month by dastardly miscreants. Response was swift: an award for information was offered and the Arcata City Council voted to shell out $62,444 to restore all of the playground equipment destroyed; the Rotary Club of Arcata offered to match donations up to $4,000…
Eureka’s Insurer May Appeal Cotton Verdict
It likely will never be known exactly which blow to the head killed Martin Frederick Cotton II on Aug. 9, 2007, but a federal jury has now ruled that on the night the 26-year-old died, he was subjected to excessive force by officers with the Eureka Police Department. As the Times-Standard reported Saturday, the jury found…
Frantic Over Franti? Relax.
Bummin’ because you spaced on getting Spearhead tickets and the show sold out? Don’t worry, be happy. This just in from the folks at Blue Lake Casino re: the previously “sold out” evening with Michael Franti & Spearhead next Friday, Oct. 7: 1,000 more tickets are being released today through the Players Club. They also advise: …
Dollars for Docs
Editor: My compliments to journalist Carrie Peyton Dahlberg for her insightful and up-to-the-moment coverage of the previously secret pharmaceutical company payments to health care professionals (“Dollars for Docs,” Sept. 15). As a pharmaceutical industry professional, I can assure the public that the dangerous practice of staging dinners and speaking engagements to access local drug prescribers may seem innocent but can…
Rogue Cyclists
Editor: Jennifer Savage missed one of the most important things in her article, “More Better Biking” (Sept. 15). By law, bicyclists must abide by all the same traffic rules and laws as car drivers. How often does one see a bicyclist stop at a stop sign? I think the last time I saw one was…
Time for Peace
Editor: I just finished reading Tom Hayden’s article (“9/11 Blind,” Sept. 8). Obama just gave a moving speech on jobs and MoveOn.Org has jobs as its focus. Please don’t get me wrong when I say there is only one job we have to be concerned about. It is the job of ending these seemingly endless wars that…
Relax, Disc Golfers
Editor: Jeffrey Bird did a nice job of promoting the emerging sport of Disc Golf (“Disc Golf,” Sept 8). It is a sport for kids, families, loggers, hippies and pot growers, and the start-up costs/playing costs are among the lowest of most sporting activities. “Par Eternity” Past-President Jim McIntosh (Mailbox, Sept. 15) takes Jeffrey to task…
Correction
Last week’s printed Seven-O-Heaven incorrectly indicated “Ctrl-P” as the “paste” keyboard shortcut. The correct way to steal the Times-Standard’s online content is use “Ctrl-V.” The Journal is mega-bummed about the error.
Best of Typestyle
Best of Typestyle
Fat Pig Falters
Life is riddled with awkward moments and seemingly unavoidable, uncomfortable situations. We’ve all experienced instances when we can’t make eye contact, or worse, can’t look away. Modern entertainment has latched onto this aspect of human interaction, and has made it a mainstay for every genre in every medium. Audiences want drama and comedy to echo…
Hillbillies in SoHum
They call it the Humboldt Hills Hoedown. The folks at the Mateel who put on the annual mini-fest used to use a sub-title, “bluegrass and beyond,” that helped explain the range of music you’ll hear. Most of it draws inspiration from the stringbands of the Appalachian Mountains whose oeuvre was once tagged with the somewhat…
Staying Sisterly
Editor: Aw, come on, Dixon Sommers (Mailbox, “No, Sister!” Sept. 15). It shouldn’t be that hard to smile! I’m an old hetero feminist, have been rabidly so at times, and I find the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence wonderful. We are fortunate there is a group in our community. I attended the Bat N’ Rouge ball game this year –…
Shine Thine Armor!
Knights, wizards, wannabe dragon slayers, wee lads and lasses, hear ye, hear ye! In ye olde Humboldt, thar be one thing thou can beest sureth of. On the occasion wheneth the days be becoming evermore curt, thine should knoweth that the season of yore hath returneth. Lo these countless fortnights … uh … Sorry. You…
Hellbilly Holler
His first visit to Humboldt is the stuff of legend. An off-the-radar show deep in the outlaw hills, by invite only, although anyone who showed up at the end of the long dirt road was welcome to the party. With huge hunks of meat roasting over open fires, beer, whiskey and other intoxicants circulating, none…
Calendar Questions
Did the year once start on March 1? Yes. Four thousand years ago, Mesopotamians celebrated the beginning of the year at the spring equinox, approximately March 21 by our calendar. Later, the early 10-month Roman calendar designated the first day of martius, March, as New Year’s Day. This is still reflected in our apparently…
Distinctive Drive
REVIEWS DRIVE. Director Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest is a masterpiece of crime-grime moviemaking, offering a pointed reminder of how good (and relatively inexpensive) movies can be. Refn’s ultra-keen eye for composition and subtlety of movement combine with a churning retro-synth soundtrack, impeccable production design and dead-right crazy performances, making for one of the year’s most…
