Humboldt Hip Hop
Maturing and enduring — a state-of-the-scene report
Cover Story
Humboldt Hip Hop
The Father They used to call Garth Culti-Vader "The Humboldt Father" because of his supply of ganja clones. Standing tall with his 14-month-old son Taurean between his legs, he grins and says, "Now it definitely has a different meaning." It’s obvious that Garth is a dedicated dad: At this summer’s Reggae Rising, in front of…
One Big Show
It was a powerful, wildly successful show, with unprecedented sales and community support, yet Jim McVicker described his recent exhibit at the Cody-Pettit Gallery as a roller coaster of emotion. "The response to the show was completely amazing, but the whole week was a blur," he said. "Nothing felt real because Terry wasn’t there." Jim…
Gypsies, Cowboys and Prodigies
Previews I’m expecting Jodie Foster to bring a lot more class to the revenge vigilante film than Kevin Bacon did recently. In The Brave One , opening Friday, Sept. 14, Foster is in her element as a woman bent on revenge after suffering a brutal attack, in a film directed by Neil Jordan. Terrence Howard…
Go Gazpacho! Get back to roots with the peasant’s soup
An early vernacular Spanish source for gazpacho — probably 14th century — says, "Gazpacho is a dish of rustic shepherds, or those who have nothing else to eat, because it is made up of garlic, vinegar, bread and water." Well, gazpacho has come a long way from that. In fact, it’s come a long way…
Elemental
For whatever reason, probably because I write about music, people tend to assume I am a musician. I’m not. Well, I did play in the marching band when I was younger, but gave that up when forced to parade in a Sgt. Pepper outfit during half-time at high school football games. For years people having…
Tower glower
It started with the cement trucks, trundling day and night up Fickle Hill Road and, five or so miles in, turning onto a dirt road. Or maybe it actually started earlier than the cement trucks — maybe the first real indication, if anyone could have guessed it, that a new cellular communications tower was going…
What do banana slugs know about reproduction?
Q: What do banana slugs know about reproduction? A: Our familiar banana slug, Ariolimax californicus, denizen of moist forest floors, has solved one of the major paradoxes of life — sexual reproduction. As practiced by the great majority of animals, sex carries many costs, one being that only females produce offspring while the males simply…
Cliché
When the axe slipped this morning I went…
Blacktail On
California blacktail deer rifle season opened on Aug. 25 in zone "B4" (all lands west of the Eel River), but most of the land in that zone is privately owned. Now, many sportsmen and women are gearing up for the season opening of zone "B1" — lands that lie east of the Eel River –…
$92 million question
Money is often on the minds of the Yurok Indians, but that’s usually because there isn’t enough of it to go around. In addition to being California’s largest tribe, it is also one of the state’s poorest. And with the tribe’s natural resources, once abundant, now facing an uncertain future, the Yurok can’t just wait…
Bye Bye Barstow?
Prospects were bleak for the Big Lagoon Rancheria on Tuesday afternoon, over there in Sacramento, where the state legislature was wading through 200-some bills on presumably the last day of its 2007 regular session and nary a one of the bills contained anything whatsoever to do with a Barstow casino. Who knows, maybe some last-ditch…
The Push
It appears that there are lots of people who don’t want to believe it, but they’ve yet to settle on a preferred version of events. Some say it never happened, that it’s just a "publicity stunt." Others say it’s being blown all out of proportion — just an everyday pissing match, and a pox on…
At My Age
Pop’s renaissance man, Nick "the Basher" Lowe, is a notable singer/songwriter who has penned songs performed by Johnny Cash ("The Beast in Me") and Elvis Costello "(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding," among others. He’s an established producer, who produced most of the early Elvis Costello & the Attractions releases. He’s a co-bandleader…
Spook Country
William Gibson is best known for a series of sci-fi novels he wrote in the ’80s, beginning with the seminal cyberpunk work, Neuromancer , a labyrinthine examination of a future where hackers cruise through virtual towers of data ruled over by shadowy megacorporations. In many ways, the future he envisioned has come to pass. Maybe…
The Boys and Girls Guide To Getting Down: A Real Life Guide to Sex, Drugs, and Bad Behavior
Attention NorCal party people, or any partiers for that matter: Prepare yourself for an all-nighter. Put on your spiffiest gear, get your recreational substances lined up and call in your wing-people to get schooled on the carnal arts of getting wild. Set in Hollywood, the film follows various scenesters through their escapades on Cahuenga (a…
