Despite observing my habit of (relative) temperance during New Year’s Eve at home, I managed to catch that nasty flu going around, the forces of which I am still reeling from. This has been my most stricken-with-disease experience in years and the reason I was absent from last week’s issue and still writing sparingly. This microscopic super-creep has embedded in me and, unlike its predecessors, is negatively affecting me both psychologically and physically. The news cycle certainly didn’t help. From the local to the national and international, things are really terrible. Usually, I can weather a lot and maintain my watch on the slimy fortress walls of the shitpost of vigilance as an angry observer of the buffeting spray of septic calamity that we call contemporary American life, but not lately. My crap-helmet has been compromised along with the rest of my protective gear, and the heat and gasses have driven me backwards into a damp and nauseated stupor. I’m infected with more than the flu’s viral load, I have been poisoned with the decanted spirits of evil dipshits and demonic, ignoble rot. We are all downwind of the exclusion zone from one of the worst testing sites in the history of human politics. I have plenty to write about all of that, eventually, but I don’t feel like rubbing it in right now. Everyone I know is in some kind of panic and hurting. Desperately hurting. And knowing that is the worst feeling of all. I am so sorry it has come to this, most of us really don’t deserve any of it. And those who do seem to be avoiding the righteous vengeance that must have grown into a continent-sized shitstorm to match a punishment worthy of their crimes.
Hold the line. I’ll do what I can to come crawling back, inch by inch.
Meanwhile, here’s most of a week of fun for those with a stronger nose and chin than mine.
Thursday
There’s a mini-fest of sorts happening through Sunday and starting at the Eureka Theater tonight at 7 p.m. It’s the 18th anniversary of filmmaker Jon Olson’s Zombies of Eureka, including a behind the scenes piece with Olson. Some of the bands in this film are in Jensen Rufe’s Rural Rock & Roll flick, whose 20th anniversary will be celebrated with live performances by those groups on the days ahead, so read on ($5).
Friday
The Rural Rock & Roll fun continues at Savage Henry Comedy Club tonight at 8 p.m. with sets by Humboldt rockers Buffy Swayze and Clean Girl and the Dirty Dishes. The show will be all watched over by the loving grace of MC JPG. Get in the door with $10.
Saturday
Back over to the Eureka Theater for a showing of Rural Rock & Roll along with sets by local OG titans The Hitch and The Smashed Glass. Get there at 8 p.m. with $10 in hand for all the fun.
Sunday
Day four of the festivities wrap everything up in a pretty little package tonight at the Miniplex at 6 p.m., where The Ian Fays and The Lowlights team up to take the stage surrounded by the celluloid dreams brought to screen in the form of short films by Jensen Rufe ($10). Two decades down, hopefully more to come as this crazy ball keeps spinning like the disco mirror in the ceiling.
Monday
There’s a heavy punk presence at Savage Henry Comedy Club tonight at 7 p.m., where some concerned locals are throwing a “Safety Meeting” to address the best way to keep bigotry out of our local music scene as the rest of the country is being filled with the putrid stench of weaponized institutional racism in a tempo that is probably a bit of a novelty for most young folk. Join Brain Dead Rejects, Racket, Radical Ape, Executive Order and Rohirrim for this free, all-ages event
Tuesday
The fine minds from the Creative Sanctuary are putting on a free marsh walk at the 569 G St. entrance to the Arcata Marsh this evening at 6 p.m. Come join musicians Katie Belknap and James Zeller, aka The Ponies of Harmony, as they embark on this lamplit journey. Oh, and bring a headlamp or flashlight if you can.
Wednesday
It’s mid-January, and nothing has broken from the gravity of that hush to find orbit on this page. Apologies if I missed a treasured satellite — you can always email me at music@northcoastjournal.com at least 10 days in advance if you want to bring my attention to a future launch. Grazie.
Collin Yeo (he/him) is sick and tired.
This article appears in Health and Wellness 2026.