The Town Downer
How long must Eureka suffer this eyesore?
Cover Story
The Town Downer
When he was preparing to move to France, the artist Robert Crumb filled his sketchbooks with drawings of steel telephone poles and industrial streetlamps, the webs of wire that crisscross over our heads wherever we walk. No one ever notices this visual noise, he said in the documentary Crumb, even though it surrounds us everywhere.…
I Can’t Smoke 55
The California Highway Patrol pulled in a pretty good haul up in McKinleyville last night — $120,000 and 55 pounds of weed. The suspect is from Jamul, Calif. — apparently a real place. The CHP press release is below. (Reminder: Follow our @HumboldtCHP feed for other real-time dispatches from the local CHiPs.) On 09/21/2010, at…
The Mad As Hell Doctors Are Coming
When TV newscaster Howard Beale stands up in the 1976 film Network and yells, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” it propels him into the role of a proselytizing demagogue — a half-mad sage who dares to speak the truth about a hypocritical and irrational world. His manic…
Tribute Band Weekend
As Bob Doran mentioned in The Hum this week, this was a big weekend for tribute bands. Friday night, Journey Unauthorized was out in Blue Lake for the casino’s motorcycle run, and at HumBrews, Full Moon Fever and the Solitary Men came together for a night of classic rock (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) and…
Samba Time at the North Country Fair
A couple of samba dance troupes combined, a bunch of drummers led by Jesse Jonathan, a North Country Fair tradition. The rain held off for most of the time as they circled the Arcata Plaza.
County Takes Measures to Reduce Airport Woes
A month after a long-planned airport construction project began — a project that has inconvenienced countless local travelers whose flights have been delayed, redirected or canceled outright — backup measures have finally been provided. County Supervisor Mark Lovelace yesterday evening sent an e-mail to concerned community members updating them on measures being taken by county…
King of Power Pop!
Rooted in a mixture of 1960s bubblegum, garage and UK Mersey Beat, power pop’s influence casts an eccentric wide net, from The Ramones (Johnny Ramone used to describe his band’s music as “sick bubblegum”) to Wilco. However, by and large, the musical genre doesn’t sustain longevity for a band’s identity. Even The Beatles, who refined…
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The Insufferable Gaucho
The posthumous aspect of Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño’s oeuvre casts a shadow over his work, which has garnered a cult following in the years since his death in 2003. The bulk of the English translations of his novels and poems appeared after his demise, and it’s hard not to read his final books as some…
McKinleyville Arts Night
Join us for our community’s celebration of local art and artists for music, food and fun. You can find more information about the artists and venues and see additional images online at www.mckinleyvilleartsnight.com. 1) Pathways Trading Company, 1183 Central Ave. Dale Corbridge, paintings, drawings & glass.2) Knitter’s Lane, 1225 Central Avenue, Suite #14. Toby A…
Large Male Child
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein… or maybe Rita Mae Brown… or Benjamin Franklin (the Internet disagrees.) If you’re a moron like me, last week you spent way too many hours watching the VH1 100 Greatest Artists of All Time countdown. If you missed…
War on Tara
Moonlight and Magnolias, now on stage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka, is a play about a movie. In playwright Ron Hutchinson’s fanciful retelling, the epic 1939 film Gone With the Wind emerged from a marathon five day session of invention, fueled only by bananas and peanuts, with producer David O. Selznick acting out scenes with…
Earthdance or North Country Fair?
Got into a conversation late Friday night on Arcata’s bar row. After partying hard, my friend was leaving the next day for S.F. to see Michael Franti at the Fillmore, a show that followed his big Power to the Peaceful Fest in Golden Gate Park. She’s a serious Spearhead fan and it didn’t matter that…
Reiner’s Minors
Previews THE TOWN. Ben Affleck wrote, directed and stars in this adaptation of Chuck Hogan’s novel Prince of Thieves. Affleck plays Doug MacRay, leader of a band of Boston bank robbers. Complicating matters is a relentless FBI agent (Jon Hamm from Mad Men) and Doug’s relationship with a beautiful bank manager (Rebecca Hall). 123m.…
Stimulus Lost
Late last month, U.S. Census enumerator Pamela Ward was driving down a seldom-used dirt road looking to get a head count at one of the many residences in Garberville that would prefer not to be bothered by government workers. As she made her way in her black 4×4 Jeep Wrangler, “this guy and his kid…
International Love
It started 10 years ago with a short-term collaboration between Allison Russell from Fear of Drinking and Trish Klein of The Be Good Tanyas. That eventually spawned the Canadian “urban roots” combo Po’ Girl. Trish has since moved on, leaving Allison to work with a series of like-minded musicians, currently including Awna Teixeira and Benny…
God’s Lamentation
Dino Cardelli, senior pastor and founder of the Calvary Chapel of Arcata, stood in the pulpit, hands clasped, a wire microphone curling from behind his left ear, and began a sermon he’d titled “God’s Lamentation.” On the wall behind him was the outline of a large white dove diving earthward, the symbol of Calvary churches…
Offsides!
Once again — see this week’s “Mailbox” — my neighbor Neal Latt upbraids the Journal for ideological impurity when it comes to matters Arklish. Here’s where it stands, in case you’re keeping score. I wrote a column positing that the great mass of Eureka voters were, are and forever will be indifferent to his tribe’s…
Hang Your Head
Editor: NCJ has crossed the line (“Hooked,” Sept. 9). Freedom of speech is our public right, but common-sense censorship is also. My children are 5 and 7 years old and the NCJ is at eye level to them as we walk past the newspaper rack on the way to Kids Corner at Healthsport in Arcata,…
Our Constant Companions
Editor: History professor Lawrence Wittner’s estimate of 23,000 nuclear weapons worldwide in Heidi Walters’ elegiac tribute to the Golden Rule anti-nuclear demonstration ketch omits key facts (“Broken Arrow,” Sept. 9). Nearly 8,200 are estimated to be operational — usable — and some 2,200 U.S and Russian nuclear warheads remain on high alert. “High alert” means…
Uncompanioned
As dusk muses inside the park, a rotting…
Finger-Pointers
Editor: Hank, your skills as a political analyst of all things Humboldt are sometimes spot-on … but not this time (“Town Dandy,” Sept. 9). In your zeal to tie this package up with a neat, glib little bow, I’d say you overlooked quite a bit of the obvious. Here’s the real reason people don’t seem…
Sept. 16-30, 2010
Sept. 16: The roasted heart of the agave tastes like an artichoke that has been interbred with beef jerky: stringy, smoky and strangely dark. Mezcal, the spirit fermented from the agave, owes its murky lineage to the violent but nonetheless creative clash between Spaniards and Mexican natives. In honor of Mexico’s Independence Day, pour a…
Here’s the Beef
Editor: I’m sure the meat dept at the Sunnybrae Murphy’s is a helpful and friendly place — possibly even deserved of the title bestowed upon them (“Best Purveyor of Rattlesnake” — “Best of Humboldt, Staff Picks,” Sept. 2). One inaccuracy I felt compelled to correct, however: Mr. Byrd suggested this was the only place in…
Model Power
Pablo Picasso, the story goes, was traveling by train in Spain when a fellow passenger recognized him. “Why don’t you paint people as they actually are?” Picasso asked him what he meant. “Well, people are nothing like how you show them. For instance” — the man pulled a small photo from his wallet — “this…
