I grew up with a mother who loved opera, and was taken by her in utero in San Francisco to experience Puccini’s Turandot. As a teenager, I volunteered at that same SF Opera, handing out cookies and coffee to the minor extended cast in exchange for the experience of lurking in the back of the lower decks in a standing-room-only area to hear the magnificence of Wagner’s entire Ring Cycle. It was no Beyreuth, but it was good enough for me at the time. Probably still is, as I have stayed in the same low social class since those days of skinny, naive wonder. I saw Madame Butterfly at the Met in New York, wrapping the pants of my borrowed suit into cheap snow boots because my date and I rode the subway rather than pulling up front in vehicular luxury. I saw Don Giovanni in New Orleans from a great vantage point and after the intermission I argued with a priest who had tried to steal my seat, getting heated enough in the process to wonder if one of us was ultimately as hell-bound as the protagonist. Well, fuck it; it was my seat, after all, with ticket proof despite my long hair and Salvation Army clothes, and I knew enough by then that being a man of the cloth was no guaranteed exemption from being a jerk.
Why am I talking about opera? I am reaffirming a central position of my political and cultural alignment, one which is all the more important to flag in this brutally stupid era. I want to live in a world with unfettered, reactionary and transgressive art, with artists loitering and prowling around like menacing animals through popular culture, while socialist politics run an economic show that allows that sort of filthy brilliance to thrive without the restrictions of commerce. And, like a great many essential novels and films, opera has a very reactionary, sometimes fascistic streak. All good to me because I hope that “one fine day” we’ll live to see our stories once again built on complex and morally ambiguous themes, rather than Marvel-film superhero onanism and other streaming, pandering pap, either in public theaters or from the comfort of our own secure homes, with our lives buttressed by an economy that works for the masses, universal medical care and publicly owned utilities. The scientist and essayist Stephen Jay Gould once expressed concern about the unknown numbers of people with the same talents as Einstein who lived and died in sweatshops and cotton fields. I feel that is the extinction bell we are all hearing in a society where a corporate Fourth Reich has been running the government for years, while culture is hamstrung by dull liberal fantasies of representative diversity that usually dead-ends in a cul-de sac of boring simplicity. This is so backward and, whether we deserve it or not, I want things to be better. Meanwhile, have a blast and rip it up as much as you can.
Thursday
Under the Canopy is an indie and folk-rock duo of the sensitive and confessional variety who hail from the 503 area code — Yuba City, as far as I can tell. There’s a sweet earnestness to their tunes and nothing lost is the cover charge over at the Logger Bar tonight at 8 p.m., if you feel like hearing some whispered and howled sweetness.
Friday
Offered various choices in my research for tonight, I ended up landing on a flyer for a free show at the Kaptain’s Quarters at 8 p.m. for a band called Battle Mountain Gold Co.Blame it on the Mardi Gras-adjacent colors, or the grinning skeleton brandishing a trumpet, or the promise of “Let’s get weird,” and “Play hippy music,” but I am intrigued. And what’s really lost anyway by taking a shot at enjoying something with no door cover?
Saturday
It seems as though the struggling Siren’s Song Tavern is keeping the doors open for now, and so I will do my part and spread the word about what’s going down on the glass and sidewalk stage while I still can. Tonight’s offering is a free 8 p.m. show featuring Good Time Charlies, Redwood Revolution and the always splendid Widdershins. Come through to support some fine local bands and help keep the lights on at an important venue.
Sunday
New York City native and alto sax master, bandleader, world-class session ace and live hired gun Lakecia Benjamin brings her group Phoenix to Fulkerson Hall tonight at 7 p.m. to show us how it’s really done. And by “it,” I mean the ever-expanding universe of jazz, funk, R&B and yet unnamed permutations of the new. She really has the chops and, in my view, $50 is more than worth the experience of hearing her go at it.
Monday
As more and more OG members of the Grateful Dead slip off into the cosmos and out of this dirtball living on Earth, we are faced with the next generation of noodle-smiths married to the craft of playing the odd notes at the right time in between more conventional song structures and tunes. One of the older and more established acts in this wake of the flood is the Dark Star Orchestra, whose mission statement as a musical act leans more on pure replication rather than mutation. Either way, it’s a fun time for those who like this sort of thing and it can be had for $55 ($45 in advance) over at the Blue Lake Casino at 7:30 p.m. tonight. As is often tradition with these types of gigs, there’s a free afterparty at 9 p.m. in the Wave Lounge with the Grateful Getdown.
Tuesday
As an elder millennial, I have to be careful with my endorsements of podcasts, as it seems to be the medium which neither the kids or the fogies enjoy as much, and will probably become extinct as soon as my generational cohort collectively figures out that walking into the sea is a better end than waiting for the government to destroy social security and put those of us who could never afford a $500,000 starter home in camps run by whatever Blackwater is calling itself in five years. However, I have always enjoyed The Dollop, a comedic history podcast unafraid to tell the real truth about the world at large, which generally ends up with the listener blinking outside of the cave of bullshit, blinded by the light of unfiltered history. The younger half of the show’s duo Gareth Reynolds also happens to be an incredible comedian who will be doing two stand-up sets tonight at Savage Henry Comedy Club at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. ($25, $20 advance).
Wednesday
It’s the day before the day before Valentine’s Day, so it’s probably appropriate to head over to the Arcata Theater Lounge and check out The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film about, if nothing else, how love’s labors can never quite be lost. The doors are at 6 p.m., and the price is $6, $10 with a poster.
But I never really liked that movie much so, if you’re in my camp, I’d recommend kicking back at home with some entertainment of your choice. My thing lately has been history books about our more deadly and government-funded American mafia, the CIA. It’s also a full moon, aka The Snow Moon, and we might even have some of the white stuff powdering the landscape, so who knows what we can get into.
Collin Yeo (he/him) lives in Arcata.
This article appears in The Humboldt County Fair is at a Crossroads.