Cover Story
Dead of Night
How the fuck am I going to get home?” It’s about 12:15 a.m. on a Friday morning, and Matthew Page just walked out of the Humboldt County jail. “What am I supposed to do?” the 41-year-old self-described artist and musician asks. “I don’t even know Eureka. It’s 12:15, and I live in McKinleyville.” Temperatures are…
She’s back…
Remember that huge Navy ship that docked in Eureka for a bit last week? She’s back. The U.S.S. Independence, a 420-foot helicopter carrier and combat ship, returned to Humboldt Bay on Tuesday night and pulled back up to the Schneider Dock, where it refueled and picked up a spare part to fix one of its…
Bonus Track: Tender Grit with The Wood Brothers Tonight
Due to distribution schedules, Wednesday night shows are a tricky one for the print version of the Journal. Luckily, we live in the future, enabling us to tell you today about a fine, fine show happening tonight at Humboldt Brews: The Wood Brothers. Check out the heart-wrenching “Luckiest Man”: Tickest are $15, show is 21-and-over.…
Caltrans and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Caltrans recently had what amounted to a very bad day. Specifically, Jan. 30, when Caltrans lost a major appellate court ruling on perhaps its highest profile North Coast project and was the subject of a scathing state report. First, the California Court of Appeals overturned a trial court decision and ruled that Caltrans must re-evaluate…
From the Hum: A Good Night for Some Moonshine
Direct from Portland, The Moonshine drops into the Jambalaya for a rootsy evening offering everything from a modernist take on a Carter Family song from the 1920s to an old-timey anti-GMO tune. Think of it as post-Americana. Enjoy a preview of the night to come with this intoxicating video from PDX’s “The Backyard Sessions”: Joyous,…
Humboldt’s ‘Swingin’ Senior’ Mecca
Single Eureka elders rejoice, your city has been named one of the nation’s 13 best for swingin’ seniors! Estately, an online real estate search site, released its list Monday, including Eureka as one of its prime destinations for retirees for whom “school districts no longer matter,” and who want somewhere to live that’s “fun and exciting, while…
UPDATE(S): Deal Struck in Crabs Manager Marijuana Case
SECOND UPDATE: A press release on the Crabs website says Nutter had been considering leaving the team for two years, and made the decision now to be with his family. From the release: Nutter explained that after a discussion with his family, he decided after 23 years with the Crabs organization that this was a…
From the Hum: 4 Reasons to Attend International Guitar Night
I am no musician. I tell you this because the following show exceeds my ability to translate the brilliance, so I’m going to quote the press release. Here we go: “Four exceptional and diverse acoustic guitarists from Italy, England, Argentina and the U.S. perform at the Arcata Playhouse for International Guitar Night starting at 8…
Beat It
You’ve probably seen footage of Japanese drummers — the headbands, the barrel-wide wooden drums and the synchronized movements. But taiko has to be seen and felt. Tao: The Art of Taiko! comes to the Van Duzer Theatre on Thursday, Feb. 6 at 8 p.m. ($45, $25 kids, $10 HSU students). The men and women of…
From the Hum: Peace In, You Knew Me When
The big gig tonight is, of course, Increase the Peace. Yours truly is emceeing the late night portion at either the Jam or Hum Brews, so do please say hey when you come out. If you happen to be looking for something in addition, let’s talk latest crush: After uprooting from their Nashville home and…
Done Fishing
While you’re out at Arts Alive in Eureka tonight, look up. Turns out those Escher-esque fish on the side of Scrapper’s Edge weren’t all there before. Kati Texas, Director of the Rural Burl Mural Bureau (like a mouthful of marshmallows) and her team of teen artists have completed the “Fishstellation” on the side of Scrapper’s…
Coming soon: Eureka’s next city manager
The city of Eureka is zeroing in on its next city manager. The City Council will meet in special session at 8:30 a.m. Monday to interview six candidates, according to Mayor Frank Jager, with the hopes of naming a finalist or two by the end of the day. While the city isn’t releasing it’s list…
From the Hum: Zion I’s heavy hip hop, Morning Ritual’s haunting hooks
Hip hop act Zion I celebrates the group’s latest effort, Shadowboxing, with a stop at the Arcata Theatre Lounge as part of the Masters Of Ceremony winter tour. The new album contains the anticipated heavy beats as Zion I’s past collections — all critically acclaimed — but delivers them in a grittier style, making this…
Pedestrian Killed by Car IDed
80-year-old Eureka resident Robert Mitchell died Tuesday afternoon after being struck by a truck while trying to cross Broadway on foot. Coroner Dave Parris said it appears that Mitchell was at fault in the accident, and was crossing outside of a crosswalk, though the crash is still under investigation. EPD Traffic Officer Gary Whitmer said…
Taking on Meth
In the dark days following the brutal New Year’s morning slaying of St. Bernard’s Pastor Eric Freed, in Eureka, rumor circulated that the alleged murderer might have been meth-crazed. And membership in a new Facebook group, the Humboldt Meth Abuse Awareness Project, exploded. The night shift emergency room nurse who started the project, Beth Weissbart,…
Give Peace a Chance
If you only go to one gig this week, make it the one that matters most: Saturday’s Increase the Peace fundraiser. Sparked by the spate of violence that accompanied the new year, Increase the Peace quickly grew from idea to reality as artists, poets, musicians and others sought a way to infuse healing into the…
International Obligations
Could the U.S. be breaking United Nations conventions as pot becomes more and more legal? That’s a question raised in a December report by the RAND Corporation’s Drug Policy Research Center. The nonpartisan group wrote that the U.N.’s International Narcotics Control Board has been critical of both the U.S. and Uruguay for slackening marijuana laws…
Thanks, Doc
Editor: Thank you for sharing the information about the advancement of quality cancer care in Humboldt County (“The Cancer Collaboration,” Jan. 23). Reading about docs gathering around dinner tables to discuss what is possible gives us a vivid peek into the caliber of these folks, and illustrates how trust and quality collaboration happens. The entire…
Don’t Defend Him
Editor: I’m trying to figure out how a journalist, Marcy Burstiner, in her piece “Defending Singleton” (Media Maven, Jan. 23) could so miss the point of this important community issue. From my perspective, virtually everyone that I know (myself included) who has an opinion about Jason Singleton’s methods would agree with nearly everything Ms. Burstiner…
That’s Not Sustainable
Editor: Your article greenwashes the timber industry! (“Red Gold and Greenwashing,” Jan. 16.) The subject was not thoroughly researched. The issue has to do not with jobs but with environmental pollution, the continual silting of the Elk River and the slicing off of pieces of Gaia’s lungs. How many seedlings does it take to replace…
Hum Plate
A brown bag lunch is a great idea. Very healthy, economical — but life is short. When you need to treat yourself (just once in a while, OK?), don’t go halfway. Break free from the tyranny of turkey on wheat and think outside the bag a little. Brunch for Lunch T’s Café has taken over…
A Home in a Redwood
Maybe you’re feeling low, a little too close to the ground. You want a place of retreat to elevate, inspire and get you floating again. For Humboldt County resident Crystal Miller, a longtime lover of great trees, that meant a treehouse in a redwood in her backyard. Miller and her fiancé Arif Malik bought their…
Multiplicity in a Post-singularity World
Some artists work in fastidious repetition, creating works that rarely deviate from whatever prescribed formula they’ve set for themselves. Ananda Oliveri is not one of those artists. He freely admits that his work is all over the place, recklessly mixing materials and wrestling with different formats. It’s no surprise then that his new show, “The…
First Saturday Night Arts Alive!
Presented by the Humboldt Arts Council and Eureka Main Street. Opening receptions for artists, exhibits and/or performances are held the first Saturday of each month. Phone (707) 442-9054 or go to www.eurekamainstreet.org for more information or to have an exhibit or performance included. 2. HUMBOLDT ARTS COUNCIL at the Morris Graves Museum of Art 636…
Those Elusive Winter Blooms
There’s plenty to look at in the winter garden if you attune your eyes to the subtle beauty of peeling bark, colored stems, tufty beige ornamental grasses and upright brown seed heads left over from summer. However, nothing brightens up the garden like a few flowers, and carefully placing some winter-blooming plants around the garden…
Men (and Women) are from Mars … Maybe
Suppose, just suppose, we found life on Mars: microscopic critters happily wiggling and metabolizing under the polar ice, or swimming around in an underground pool of water on the warm flanks of Olympus Mons. What would we find when we examined them close up? In particular, how would they reproduce? Would they be like life…
All the Stage’s A World
In ancient Greece, Athenians of all classes and in great number attended the tragedies and comedies of the spring festival. Much of what we know today as theater began there, including a profound purpose. Through the vision and artistry of one playwright combined with the performances of skilled actors, society could examine itself: its rational…
Franken-fail
Reviews I, FRANKENSTEIN. It would be a deliciously nasty irony if this movie were as horrendous, as cobbled together a monstrosity as its famous protagonist. But alas, it isn’t even bad enough to be enjoyable. Instead, it’s bad in a cold, dully familiar, unremarkable way: the white noise of crappy graphic novel adaptations. This extrapolation…
For Joeinne
at the frog hotel small amphibians climb about wandering wondering swift green river? warm gray rocks? they have tadpole memory of warm safe water, close to the shore they grow larger (hopefully fat) named and unnamed hundreds of small frogs escaping small garter snakes, red striped and gray like basalt and jasper, scattered on the…
What We Talk About When We Talk About Meth
Where did you get that laminated, oversized piece of paper with the words “Tweeker Hunting Permit,” on it, the one taking up most of the back window of your car? Did you order it online? Or did you make it yourself? If you made it yourself, tell us about that trip to the copy shop.…
Increase the Peace
Unless you are made of stone, the news of late has gotten you down. Now would be a good time to get together with your neighbors and get down the right way. Increase the Peace is happening on Saturday, Feb. 1 both at the Jambalaya and Humboldt Brews (donations accepted). The anti-violence fundraiser is a…
