Mainstay Unraveled
lawsuits and accusations linger after the Blue Lake Rancheria quietly closed its staffing company
Cover Story
Mainstay Unraveled
One morning in April, nine employees of Mainstay Business Solutions arrived at the company’s corporate headquarters, a modern, glassy building not far from Kikkoman Foods Inc.’s soy sauce factory in Folsom, Calif. The doors were locked, and their keys no longer worked. There was no sign on the door. They waited outside for a couple…
Eureka Wal-Mart Confirmed
The North Coast Journal is confirming in this week’s edition that the new mystery tenant in the old Gottschalks building in the Bayshore Mall is indeed the largest grocery-apparel-pharmacy retailer in the world. “What Wal-Mart was denied in 1999 — a foothold in Humboldt County, where land for big box retailers is surprisingly…
Sweet Soul
It had been an especially warm and joyful Thanksgiving at his parents’ house. In between eating good food and laughing, Bryan and his younger brother, Jason, had spent most of the weekend playing guitars and drumming in the living room, with Bryan’s little nephew joining in on the ukulele. Just 7 years old, Victor had…
Keep Humboldt Weird
Assuming the skies are clear — a pretty big freakin’ “if” in Humboldt, for sure — this Saturday at 4:45 a.m. a red shadow will begin to slowly creep across the face of the moon before reaching full pepperoni status at 6:05 a.m. Is this latest lunar eclipse — visible in much of the western…
Sparkling Sheen
Reviews THE WAY. Within the Sheen/Estevez dynasty, younger, louder brother Charlie has been taking his share of the spotlight lately. Meanwhile, elder Emilio has been quietly building a career as a writer and director, starting in 1986 with Wisdom and carrying through to The Way, now playing at the Minor. I’m a big fan…
Songs for Bryan
Monday night’s memorial for gone-too-soon musician Bryan Osper was at once heart-wrenching and life affirming, with hundreds of his bandmates, friends and family gathering to tell tales of his life, make music in his honor and share tears, laughter and hugs. The musical tributes started with a tune strummed and picked on a ukulele by…
Fix Education
Editor: My wife and I were deeply moved by the perceptive article “What’s it all? about?” that appeared in the Nov. 24 issue of the Journal. It touched? my heart in more ways than one.?The phrase: “The system is broken” has been part of the ongoing? conversation in our house ever since Obama started showing…
And So It Goes – Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
Kurt Vonnegut became famous in the 1960s and 1970s for novels such as Cat’s Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and especially Slaughterhouse Five. A countercultural hero, in later years he was a popular speaker and a much-banned author in schools across the country. He was a gallows humorist who took a cosmic view, a…
Herb Buyer Beware
Editor: Regarding your “Drugs in Disguise” article (Nov. 10), and letters defending “hands off” regulation of herbs and supplements: When administered under protections like those in Europe, herbs and supplements have a role in public health. But that’s not happening in the U.S., so here’s where we’re at: — Relying on herbal/supplement manufacturers and sellers…
Have Yourself a Boozy Little Christmas
Several years ago, at a family Christmas gathering in Sacramento, my brother-in-law served the pie and asked if anybody would like a drink to go with it. There was a pot of decaf going in the kitchen, so I asked him for a coffee with Bailey’s. He gave me an odd look. “Are you sure?”…
Wabash Willie in Go Local
Wabash Willie in Go Local
An Exaltation of Atoms (Part 1)
The story of how science came to understand what we’re made of really began with “the Father of Chemistry,” French nobleman Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier. Before he lost his head to the guillotine during the French Revolution, Lavoisier recognized that stuff came in two varieties: that which could be broken down into simpler stuff (compounds) and that…
Owning It
Suk Choo Kim smiles like a happy baby. At 62, his hair is wispy and silver, but his broad face is still smooth and rosy like the persimmons heaped on the granite counter at which we sit. I open one of his folios, a black 8 x 10 archival paper envelope with a dozen or…
Devin the Dude
I’m not a patient person. Even with the amazingly unceasing distraction of smart phones, I’m still horrible at waiting. I fidget, I pace, I habitually recheck the time on my phone. The longer I have to wait, the grumpier I get, until eventually I reach a point of no return. My night at Nocturnum, to…
Yule Tales
What’s behind the coincidences of Christmas shows? There are perennial themes such as family and Christmas itself, as exemplified this year by A Christmas Story at Ferndale Rep, and Eugene Stickland’s Some Assembly Required at HSU, which could be considered a slightly askew sequel. (I wonder if audiences anywhere else in North America have the…
Entering the Fray
Lila Nelson has always been sophisticated, witty and urbane. Since leaving Humboldt for Oakland a couple of years ago (has it been that long?) she’s become a bit more urban. She returns this weekend with The Fret and The Fray, an album full of new songs and a new band, The Job. The album title…
The Fiddler
Catgut string The rosin of the bow Drawn…
Disgusted
Editor: Friends, Romans, Barbarians: Lend me your ears (“Fight,” Dec. 1). So this is what we’ve come to in these “modern” times: legalized assault in a cage (they call it “MMA cage fighting”), one of the participants still a child at age 16, sanctioned by the California Gaming Commission — all to satisfy the blood…
Paper Cut
In retrospect, Humboldt Beacon Editor Franklin Stover says there were plenty of warning signs for the 110-year-old newspaper. Even back in 2006, when he was hired as a reporter for the Eel River Valley weekly, he thought the subscription numbers (roughly 1,700 at the time) seemed troublingly low. And they’ve been falling ever since. This…
