Cover Story
Meet Dan Johnson
It’s not about the speech. That’s what Dan Johnson and his wife Kendra have come to believe after nearly four months of criticism. This scandal is clearly about them — who they are and what they represent: success, money and development in a town whose politics run in the other direction. Yes, fine, he used…
Eureka Councilman Lance Madsen Stepping Down
Fifth Ward Councilman Lance Madsen confirmed this morning he plans to step down from the council after years of health problems. Answering his phone from Stanford, where he was awaiting a medical procedure, Madsen said, “I have to keep coming down here — it’s getting to the point where I’m missing committee meetings and council…
Soul Night: What You Missed and Get Your Tickets Now
DJ Matt Jackson Many years ago, pitching the idea that Arcatans would come out to a dance party would have sparked incredulity at best, derision at worst. Somehow, though, the guys from Missing Link – and Hum Brews’ management – saw an opportunity and pounced. For over two years, DJs Matt and Adam and friends…
Stone Lagoon Revival
There used to be a sweet little campground at Stone Lagoon that you could boat to — the only one of its kind in Humboldt County, with six hideaway boat-in campsites across the water from the highway. Alas, in March 2011, the cash-strapped state park system closed it. Now a private tour operator, Kayak Zak’s,…
Jared Huffman Will Call You Tonight
That’s right — the North Coast Congressman is fielding questions about the government shutdown tonight in a “telephone town hall” meeting. Sign up here to get on the list, and Huffman will call you into the party line to discuss the party line at 7 p.m.
Cooler
You will never be as cool as Reggie Watts. Sorry — hard truth. Your best bet is to bask in the glow of his reflected cool by seeing him do his stand-up/hip-hop improv/performance art thing at the Van Duzer next Thursday, Oct. 17, at 8 p.m. ($45, $15 HSU students). Watts could have become a…
Update: 5.0 Quake West of Eureka! Downgraded
Update: The USGS map now lists the quake as a 4.9 — hardly worth getting up off the couch for. Blame the error on the furloughs. Previously: Shake, rattle, roll. The USGS site (over which hangs a disclaimer about possible inaccuracies from the government shutdown) reports a 5.0 quake struck 52 km west/northwest of Eureka.…
Update: Solved! Eureka’s City Manager Mystery
UPDATE: Eureka Mayor Frank Jager says Panos has indeed left the building, and the items on next week’s agenda are strictly procedural. Jager says he put the items on the agenda per Councilmember Mike Newman’s request. The first item sounds like it stemmed from concerns Newman had over city council members going directly to the…
Psyche-out at the Shanty
Visionary psyche music pioneer Nik Turner, from the British bands Hawkwind and Space Gypsy, played for a tightly packed house Wednesday at the Shanty. His psychedelic krautrock backup band Hedersleben added layers of sonic madness. The crowd responded. Opening the show: the wild new noise band CV, and local neo-psyche masters White Manna, just returned from…
Ten-foot Inflatable Puppy Coming to Old Town
Who’s a provocative anti-cruelty demonstrator? You are! Yes, you are! Mercy for Animals is bringing this cuddly weenie to F and Second streets on Monday at 11 a.m. It’s part of the group’s “Why Love One but Eat the Other” campaign. Look, here he is at the Alamo! He comes with organizers, vegetarian literature and…
NCRA Director Gives Agency a Withering Indictment on his Way Out the Door
Anyone who even casually follows the exploits of the North Coast Railroad Authority has seen a particularly absurd example of government folly — a state agency led by a cabal of evangelical cargo cultists with an unfunded mandate to resurrect an insolvent rail line. In recent years, two members of the agency’s board of directors…
Huffman on the Shutdown
What’s Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) doing to end the government shutdown? Well, he wants to tell you. Tomorrow. By Twitter and Facebook. Just thought we’d pass it along. Also, you can read his Oct. 1 statement to the House of Reps here. The news release: Huffman to Hold Twitter and Facebook Q&A Sessions, Discuss…
Show us yer growler!
Any growler will do, at any brewery — Lost Coast, Six Rivers, Redwood Curtain, you name it — come Jan. 1. That’s when Assemblymember Wes Chesbro’s growler bill goes into effect. A growler (shh, Kiwi!) is a glass beer vessel about 4-pints-hearty, in which beer connoisseurs and picky drunks enjoy refills of fresh-crafted local brews straight from…
Let Them Eat Cake
Tired of people getting handouts? Feel like the Co-op has gone corporate? Shut your cake hole. With cake. Free cake. At the Co-op. It’s celebrating its 40th birthday on Friday by handing out cake from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m at both the Eureka and Arcata shops. Tough to stick to your political principles in…
Roll Big
You love sushi, right? And yet, now and then when everybody wants to go for rolls, you slump a little. What is that? It’s hunger. You are starving, and as much as you’d love a delicate sprinkling of tobiko over a pristine cube of tuna, you just don’t have the bank account to fill your…
Our Town Meets Frankenstein!
A year after Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, Thornton Wilder won it for Our Town. You Can’t Take It With You ends its run at North Coast Rep this weekend, while Our Town opens at Ferndale Repertory Theatre. Thornton Wilder was a classically educated teacher…
Oh SCRAP!
As we speak in the September sunlight behind the Marsh Commons, Tibora Girczyc-Blum is still catching her breath from dancing in the Samba parade at the North Country Fair. Her whole group stitched together its outfits from reused materials. At our table built from used railroad ties, the sun glints off of her shimmery gold…
Lust for Life
Prologue Dear Readers, I write this under the influence of a fever and, I fear, some sort of stomach flu. If my prose lapses into dream-speak or otherwise diverges from the linear, forgive me. Love, Jennifer Chapter One They smile at each other, slap knees, and pass the pipe as talk of those days flutters…
Autumn Booze
It’s always sad to see summer go, when everything turns from green to brown, shorts are replaced with jeans and the word “iced” is removed from coffee orders. Rather than dwell in the funk of another summer lost, it’s better to look at the perks of autumn: Those corduroys are practical again, mowing your lawn…
One Version of The Story
Land Owners push severed limbs into the ground, anchored in boluses of concrete. one person buying another. one person grades into the breast of a hill. downstream, cataracts of silt: a kind of preventable blindness. There are all sorts of responses to being held captive: death. sense less ness. rebellion. The forehead of the fire…
Pot Thoughts
Editor: The county and state are worried about marijuana farmers using rodenticides indiscriminately and affecting wildlife (“Blog Jammin’,” Sept. 5). I’m not a pot farmer, but I am a victim of government’s continuing policies to maintain the marijuana monopoly’s artificially high prices. It is typical lawyer-politician noise to presume illegal growers will allow a pre-site…
Worst Facebook Share Ever?
Hey McGuinty! My 26-year-old son is handsome, brilliant, funny and soon to be a doctoral in clinical psychology. He has a great relationship with his ex, who is Cuban. They dog sit for each other, have lots of common friends, and when he’s sick she drops off Sprite and chicken soup. His current girlfriend says…
Masochist, Meet ‘Peak Fun’
I met my husband on the Deschutes River, where we guided a group of (at-risk/delinquent) teens through rapids for a week. We measured the next four years of our courtship in miles of whitewater rafting, hiking and rock climbing. Initially it seemed so romantic, falling in love against a wilderness backdrop. But eventually, the unfortunate…
Heavenly Bodies
Skeletons decorated with jewels in their eye sockets, crowns of golden leaves on their fissured skulls and pearl-encrusted filigree on their ribs pose in glass cases. These are skeletons that the Catholic Church sent out in the 1500s to replenish the relics destroyed by Protestants, as well as to bolster faith in the German-speaking regions…
All Under Heaven
Seems we’ve always believed in an afterlife of some sort, usually (but not always) pleasant. Archeologists regularly find richly stocked graves, both human and Neanderthal, dating back tens of thousands of years. Food and drink, weapons and armor, jewelry and ornaments — all the essentials to ensure a safe passage from this realm to the…
Voices from The Edge
“This is definitely going to be one of those ‘you don’t look homeless’ days.” The woman making this comment is about 50. With her thick dark hair in a bob, her blue windbreaker and wire-rimmed glasses, she could be a mom on her way to pick up her teenager from soccer practice. But she lives…
Hot Enough For Ya?
Behold salsa: fresh, piquant and colorful, savior of bland dishes, the lone healthy food on the game-day buffet. And salsa contains multitudes — spicy, fruity; just think where an adventurous chef and a curious child might go with it. Better yet, find out. At noon on Saturday, follow the sound of crunching chips and veggies…
Disputed Principles
When it comes to the much-debated guiding principles in Humboldt County’s General Plan Update process, it looks like the spirit of compromise was just a one-evening anomaly. Two weeks ago on Sept. 23 the Board of Supervisors held a rare evening session to tinker yet again with the language of the guiding principles, a list…
Land of Oz
It’s marijuana harvesting season in Humboldt County, which means, among other things, that would-be trimmers are loitering in Garberville, sticky bills are flowing into local cash registers and law enforcement is making ginormous drug busts every day or two. A couple weeks ago, for example, local sheriff’s deputies and the DEA-funded Cannabis Eradication and Reclamation…
Second Friday Arts! Arcata
Arts! Arcata is Arcata Main Street’s monthly celebration of visual and performing arts, held at more than 30 participating locations in Arcata. Visit www.artsarcata.com for even more information about the event or call (707) 822-4500. ARCATA ARTISANS COOPERATIVE 883 H St. Susan Bornstein, paintings. Joyce Radtke, mixed media art. Natalie DiCostanzo, ceramics. Wine will be…
Lost in Space
Reviews GRAVITY. Critics have complained that Alfonso Cuaron and director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki tried too hard with the cinematography in Children of Men, and that their meticulously designed tracking shots, little visual masterpieces, take us out of the story rather than drawing us in. But Cuaron’s reverence for story and character is well-served and…
