Bigfoot and the Trolls
How a bookseller in Willow Creek caused the biggest Bigfoot forum on the web to be shut down. Or did he?
Cover Story
Bigfoot and the Trolls
He’d been here many times before: He knew it as well in the darkness of this balmy late-May night, with midnight just minutes away, as in the bright disclosure of day. He could hear the low shhhhh of the river nearby. A slight breeze moved from tree to tree in the screen of oaks and…
R.I.P. Rick Springer: Anti-Nuke Activist, Reagan Assaulter, Former Humboldter
Rick Springer protests at an anti-nuclear demonstration near the Nevada Test Site in 1992. Photo from Flickr user Mark Bult. Rick Springer, a former Humboldt County anti-nuclear activist who briefly became famous when he stormed a Ronald Reagan award speech in 1992, died Sunday earlier this week at his ranch in Gerlach, Nevada. He was…
Samoa Pulp Mill Officially Dead
Freshwater Tissue owner Bob Simpson made the announcement in a press release this morning. The last remaining pulp mill on the Samoa peninsula — a feature of the Humboldt County skyline for the last 50 years, for better and worse — will be parted out. MEDIA ADVISORY FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 28, 2010 – Samoa…
Strix Vega At The Alibi, Sept. 25, 2010
I’ve been watching Strix Vega and listening to them grow for more than five years at this point. What started as an unmistakeable nod to the folky sounds of Neil Young, has grown into a psychadelic mix that touches on influences like The Doors and Pink Floyd. Saturday night, Strix Vega played two full sets…
Creepiest Mug Shot of the Year
Hands down. This dude was arrested Friday morning after allegedly hitting a man in the head with a handgun, then barricading himself in his garage. (Shudder.)
Ukesperience At North Country Fair
By the time Sunday rolled around last weekend, it seemed like most folks had had enough of being soaked to the bone on the Arcata Plaza, but the ones who stuck out the weather were in for a slightly overcast treat, late in the afternoon. Ukesperience played on the Garden Gate stage at 9th and…
Ponche!
Humboldt’s favorite AfroCuban salsa band plays one last song at the caliente Farmers’ Market today on the Arcata Plaza. They’re playing again tonight at the Jambalaya.
Batt Daffleck FTW
Previews WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS. Sequel to the 1987 film, again directed by Oliver Stone. Michael Douglas is back as Gordon “Greed is Good” Gekko, just out of jail and trying to avert the Wall Street crash of 2008 while mending the relationship with his daughter (Carey Mulligan) and mentoring her trader boyfriend (Shia…
Our San Bruno?
Coiling alongside curvy Highway 36 down the valley cut by the Van Duzen River is a 12-inch pipeline that goes by the unimaginative name of 177A. Year round, pound after pound of natural gas takes a trip through 177A before dispersing through a jungle of pipes, eventually trickling into tens of thousands of stoves, water…
Bold Language
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. — Goethe The quote on Josephine Johnson’s Facebook page seems especially appropriate right now. After living in Humboldt for six years and dedicating this last year to a bold plan to make a…
Crumbling Foundation
A group of about 50 people — Humboldt State University administrators, faculty and staffers on various projects — congregated last Thursday in one of the stadium-seating classrooms in the Natural Resources building. The topic: The possible end of the Sponsored Programs Foundation, a quasi-independent body that administers funds donated to university projects. In the face…
It’s like we’re all adopted
It’s like we’re all adopted (even the dogs,…
Troops Downtown
Editor: Right after Obama took office I wrote a letter (with pictures) requesting that the Downtowner be converted into a space for disabled veterans returning from wars in Iraq and Afganistan. It would have been wonderful for those vets with brain trauma and no place to go but a VA facility. At least they could…
Grinderman 2
I must admit that I was led astray in initially dismissing Grinderman as a vehicle for Nick Cave to somehow recapture and upgrade the barrage of cacophony he created with his first band, The Birthday Party. It was more than that, I discovered. Rather than simply a side project, Grinderman has become an extension of…
Smut for Shocks
Editor: I read the Journal weekly. My initial response to the front cover of last week’s paper was to pass it by (“Hooked,” Sept. 9). I then decided that I should at least be open-minded enough to read the story. It was disappointing. Is this really relevant to our broader community? One person’s thrill for…
Weathercraft / Wilson
Weathercraft – By Jim Woodring – Fantagraphics Books Wilson – By Dan Clowes – Drawn and Quarterly Dan Clowes and Jim Woodring are both idiosyncratic graphic artists and storytellers, although I bet they wouldn’t mind too much if you called them cartoonists. They both have roots in much earlier forms of comics, and don’t…
Just as Gross
Editor: The comic strip by Mielke from your Sept. 16 issue is perfect. How innocently the two scenarios are juxtaposed … just like in real life! Every time I have a cynical thought about the inherent denials in so many of our beliefs — how about abortion foes who set mouse traps? — I realize…
High Holy Eats
A very special season is upon Jews as it is upon Humboldt County. Just when the cycle that completes the Jewish calendar marks the onset of the High Holy Days, we are dab smack in the middle of our glorious Northern California harvest. The Farmers’ Markets burst with colorful fruits and vegetables, grains and herbs,…
100-Year Old Color Photographs
In the spring of 1909, Russian photography pioneer Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky got the break of his life when he was invited to show his latest images to Tsar Nicholas II and family. What had caught the tsar’s eye was a color photograph of aging novelist Leo Tolstoy taken by Prokudin-Gorsky the previous year. For Prokudin-Gorsky,…
Wedded Fits
Bachelor Bobby’s 35th birthday is celebrated by his married friends at the beginning of Company, the Steven Sondheim musical now playing at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka. That makes Bobby five years younger than this musical, which had its premiere Tony Award-winning run on Broadway in 1970. Though the NCRT show seems based on…
Not a Household Name
My instructions were to call comedienne Paula Poundstone at her SoCal home at 8 a.m. She answered with a bright and cheery “How are ya?” I had to admit I was not totally awake, in part due to a restless cat. “I hear ya,” said Paula. “We have a lot of cats and they do…
Atmospheric
Thirty-odd years after “Rapper’s Delight” first introduced American ears to hip hop, the art form has come a long way from freestyling over the end sections of long disco records. This week, Humboldtians have another opportunity to witness one of the genre’s more exciting incarnations — the marriage of hip hop and live instrumentation –…
Smashing World Hunger
Somewhere in the world, this very second, someone is suffering the indignity of not having food to eat. Even now, in 20-freakin’-10, with the benefit of once unimaginable agricultural, technological and political advances, people are still going hungry. In other news, Thomas Malthus’s favorite comedian, Gallagher is coming to the Eureka Theater on Sept. 24…
Tricks, Tips & Scams
If you bank at Chase, you’ve been hit hard with solicitations encouraging you to sign up for overdraft protection. Hopefully you’ve stayed strong and smart and haven’t caved in to the pressure. To recap from previous columns: Fees and charges in the guise of “service” translate into many millions of dollars for the bankers and…
A Matter of Principle
A month or so ago I went to my mailbox in Fieldbrook and pulled out Time magazine. Gross! Here was a beautiful Afghan woman with a hole in the middle of her face right where her nose should be. It was over-the-top sensational. It made me queasy. The editors were trying a little too hard…
