Cover Story
The Foilies 2024
We’re taught in school about checks and balances between the various branches of government, but those lessons tend to leave out the role that civilians play in holding officials accountable. We’re not just talking about the ballot box, but the everyday power we all have to demand government agencies make their records and data available…
Music Tonight: Thursday, March 28
Summer Like The Season is the solo project of Detroit multi-instrumentalist and electronic composer Summer Krinsky. Tonight at 7 p.m. at the Outer Space, she is headlining a show where her techno sound-ships will crash on the shores of live instrumentation. Also on the bill are two touring bands from Los Angeles, gamer-core act LottoRPG…
Music Tonight: Wednesday, March 27
Derek Monypeny from Joshua Tree plays music that fills the horizon, in a manner of speaking. His tightly articulated and mildly treated guitar billows out shimmers of sounds like a heat mirage, and, much like a heat mirage, will take the observer to places that do not exist with the spectral promise of hallucinatory fumes.…
Huffman, Haaland to Visit Humboldt Bay Amid Growing Tribal Offshore Wind Opposition
Amid an upwelling of Native opposition to plans to build offshore wind farms, including one off the coast of Eureka, United States Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and North Coast Congressmember Jared Huffman will be visiting Humboldt Bay later this week, in part to meet with local tribes and hear their concerns. Reached this morning to…
Music Tonight: Tuesday, March 26
Monsoon is an art rock act from Athens, Georgia, that has tasted a little bit of commercial success (literally, their music has been in a Toyota commercial) without giving up an inch of ground with their experimental bona fides. Tonight at 7 p.m. the duo-plus will be landing at the Outer Space in the midst…
Music Tonight: Monday, March 25
The Sanctuary, tonight at 7 p.m., will be popping off with a promising gig of experimental and outré musique. Portland jazz-punk outfit Halfbird will share the space with local sound collective Medicine Baul and one-fella sound drilla Idyll. It’s $5-$20 sliding scale, so spare a thought and some dough for the touring act at least.
Transparency, Newspapers and Sushi
A little Sunshine Week in the paper this week with the Foilies, the annual awards for government transparency losers. We’ve also got a local transparency fail regarding the Jacobs property transaction with Eureka City Schools. Also, the Humboldt Historical Society is sharing its Times-Standard archive, and Sushi Blue has a new chef, Hmong American Pangnou…
Music Tonight: Saturday, March 23
The Mateel Community Center is hosting a free showing of the cult film Ganjasaurus Rex at 6 p.m. Afterward, the event becomes a ticketed affair, with general admission running at $25 and VIP perks — including table service and seats near the action — going for $60. The action in question consists of two burlesque…
Music Tonight: Friday, March 22
There are two mini-fest gigs tonight, so choose wisely. At 7 p.m. at the Bodyworks Alpha Annex in Eureka there is a battle of the bands in the style of local metal, featuring Image Pit, Something Wicked, Malicious Algorithm, Psyop Victim, Grug! and Death Doula, along with raffles, live boxing matches (!) and refreshments. Tickets…
UPDATE: Humboldt Community Services District Lifts Boil Advisory
UPDATE: The Humboldt Community Services District has lifted the boil advisory issued yesterday in several local areas due to a burst main. “The Humboldt Community Services District Public Water System in conjunction with the State Water Resources Control Board has determined that, through abatement of the health hazard and comprehensive testing of the water, your…
Correction
The story headlined “After A” in the March 14, 2024, edition of the North Coast Journal included inaccurate information about Assembly Bill 1111, which would allow direct cannabis sales at special events. If the bill passes, cannabis farmers would still need to work with a licensed distributor at the events, just not a retailer. The…
Raccoon Life
Editor: Thanks to Jennifer Fumiko Cahill for putting this grumpy old man in touch with his inner “raccoon self.” (“Wishful Weed for 2024,” March 14.) I always enjoy her writing, but this time she spoke to me directly. I wonder how many of us there are out there? Robert Argenbright, McKinleyville Related Stories
The Other ‘Overwhelming’
Editor: According to the NCJ’s feature coverage, (“After A,” March 14): “Humboldt County voters overwhelmingly rejected Measure A … [with] … just 27 percent … in support.” In fact, as of March 14, the overwhelming voice among Humboldt County’s estimated 110,903 voting age population was the 82 percent that abstained. The final post-election report will…
Lingerings
We all leave our marks In the canopies of life, Breathlessly branching. Kirk Gothier
Extra, Extra!
The Humboldt County Historical Society will be displaying two decades’ worth of editions of the Times-Standard at the Timber Heritage Association’s shops in Samoa on each of the next three Saturdays, hoping for the public’s help curating them into an exhibition and giving away duplicate copies. Steve Lazar, past president of the Humboldt County Historical…
Coastal Commission to Take Up Schneider Permit Violations, Potential Penalties
A local developer’s well-publicized permit woes — as well as the path to resolving them — now officially rest in the jurisdiction of the California Coastal Commission. After hearing a staff report that spanned less than 3 minutes, the commission upheld staff’s recommendation to find the appeal of the Humboldt County Planning Commission’s permit modifications…
He Was a Friend of Mine
The Ides of March came last Friday, some 2060-plus years since mighty Caesar got smoked, and we lost our little king. I am talking about my partner and I putting down our sweet, little, old dog man, when the forces of time and congestive heart failure brought on a fast catastrophe. I had put some…
Chef Pangnou Vang Behind the Counter at Sushi Blue
Pangnou Vang’s face is mostly hidden under the bill of her ballcap as she works, angling the blade of her long, wooden handled knife horizontally along a block of salmon belly. The fingers of her other hand rest lightly on top of the fish, following the shape of the knife like a peaking wave as…
Making Change: Attention
Let’s talk about how we want to show up in — and for — the world. Welcome to part one of Making Change, a six-week series on the hows and whys of personal, social and political change. Oh sure, people have struggled to pay attention for centuries. Each distracting advance in technology has provoked commentary…
The Sawdust Flies at the Conclave
A far corner of Redwood Acres Fairground in Eureka turned into a logging-sports performance field for 175 talented student-athletes from 10 campuses across the western U.S. from Wednesday to Friday, March 13-15. For the first time in nearly a decade, the Cal Poly Humboldt Logging Sports Team hosted the Collegiate Logging Sports Competition as part…
Love Lies Bleeding‘s Genre Breakthrough
LOVE LIES BLEEDING. One might not have suspected there was room to develop new sub-genres within film noir, much less imagined that hyper-stylized, ultra-violent, Southwestern lesbian romance bodybuilding revenge noir could prove such a fertile and vibrant one. This lack of vision is forgivable, both because almost nobody could have foreseen this development and because…
Eureka City Schools and the Muppet Man
About a week after the Eureka City Schools board blindsided the public by approving an unusual land exchange agreement to offload its old Jacobs Middle School campus in a $6 million deal, the details of which were disclosed just an hour or so before the vote, it issued a press release pledging that it is…
