The size-obsessed are still squawking about who’s growing the biggest colorful conifer (spoiler: Mendocino County now has the tallest lighted living Christmas tree, see page 28) but here at the Journal, we focus on quality. Humboldt’s forest of dick moves continues to flourish, making it all the more challenging to choose the pettiest, most self-serving, etiquette-breaking, vibe-killing acts of the year. Here they are, with blinking lights on.
10. Thadeus Greenson. The Vegas odds on the Journal‘s own news editor ever making the list were low, given his usually stellar manners. But as our staff gathered to present our beloved bookkeeper the retirement card we’d all signed and the presents our publisher picked out on behalf of the company, what was on the conference table? A separate card and nicely wrapped book of French short stories just from Greenson. Thoughtful, personal and dicky. Comme une bite. (It’s French, Greenson — look it up.) Flexing on a group card and gifts with your own is a dick move with a bow on top.
9. Tyrel Bramwell. Granted, most of this attention-thirsting Ferndale pastor’s stunts come off like a warm-up lap for a hate crime. But what gets him in the wiener’s circle this year isn’t his same old bigoted rhetoric or flagrant disregard for tax law the election commentary on his church’s sign shows. It was the creepy, fetus-forward float St. Mark’s Lutheran Church rolled through the Ferndale Lighted Tractor Parade. It was absolutely not the vibe. And he made no attempt to make it festive! No little Santa hat on the sonogram? Tiny antlers? Would a snow globe filter have killed you? Next time, read the room and keep dick moves like this under the cassock.
8. Butterfly poachers. Poaching — elk, redwood burl — is always for cazzos (*makes rude Italian gesture), and now North Coast residents can add the illegal catching and selling of rare and struggling species of butterflies to our local varieties. While conservationists are working to revive the Behren’s silverspot in the face of pesticides and environmental damage, greedy net-wielders and pupa pluckers are snatching them from their homes and dooming them to pins. Way to go, Dickus poacherus.
7. Tip tyrants. When Sushi Spot tested out a service charge in lieu of tipping, it not only raised discussion about the custom, but lured the cheap and the power-obsessed into the comments. We saw the staunch non-tippers coming, but the unmitigated wankerage of those customers who enjoy tipping as a means of exerting power over servers and staff was louder than expected. This isn’t the Coliseum and you’re not Caesar. Also, your whole table is embarrassed; nobody likes to dine with a dick.
6. Lead ammo hunters. There are so many dick moves and yet this group shoves its way into the rankings again. Do you want lead-poisoned condors? Because lead ammunition in carcasses is how we get lead-poisoned condors. We’ve only got 18 of these rare creatures up here, and you’re leaving them toxic treats. Nearly half their deaths in the wild are due to lead poisoning dickery. Knock it off, Elmer Pud.
5. Joe Mazzotti. Sadly, restaurants go under all the time, but seldom do their owners reward the patience of strapped employees who’ve hung on through lean times and late checks with this level of vitriol. When the second-generation owner of the popular family Italian spot blamed workers for continuing to show up, and then went online to make personal attacks and brag about his lavish lifestyle, it left a bad taste in the mouths of employees and customers — some of whom purchased gift certificates to help out during COVID-19 closure. Like a dropped plate of parmigiana, it was a hot mess. It was also a dick move.
4. Tom Jackson Jr. Choosing escalation and justifying it with revisionist history is a strategy right out of the dick moves playbook. Footage of the April 22 response to campus protests over the attacks on Gaza show then Cal Poly Humboldt President Jackson and then Chief of Staff Mark Johnson (hey, that’s his name) cried some serious wolf regarding safety and vandalism when they brought cops in riot gear from around the county. The call dicked pretty much everyone over — cops, students, community members, university staff — in terms of safety, expense and reputation.
3. Tom Jackson Jr. … again. Jackson was no stranger to this club, but this year he took it graduate level. Amid the fallout from his protest response, he resigned his post as president and retreated to a high-paying faculty post, per his contract. That was mere weeks after a cadre of supporters lent their names to an ad in this paper backing up his narrative and saying he was “doing a great job!” A heads up about the retreat would have been nice; maybe they could have pooled their money for something more useful, like half a CPH parking pass. (Among the signees was Dick Moves alum Rex Bohn, who has made the unprecedented move into the realm of the dicked over. Poignant, really.) Congratulations to Jackson for a double entry and earning a PhDick.
2. Robin P. Arkley II. In the run-up to Election Day, the Arkley-funded Measure F had more D in it than expected. If we had a dollar for every dicktastic moment in the campaign Arkley pumped a record-breaking $1.2 million into, we’d have $1.2 million to spend on actually making life better for people in Eureka. Aside from the misleading aspects of the measure that landed the anti-housing “Housing for All” initiative its Dick Move award last year, there were the endless fliers, the manufactured claims of cheating and vandalism, and the use of out-of-context quotes from locals who didn’t even support the measure — it was like a tumescent tornado tearing through town.
1. St. Joseph Hospital. Once again, the dicks come marching in at St. Joe’s. This top ranking, like providing necessary care for women in need, is a no-brainer. But here we are with two separate lawsuits in which women allege the Catholic hospital refused to abort their nonviable pregnancies as the women were losing blood and in grave physical danger, sending them to another hospital with a bucket and towels in one case and enduring stillbirth in a hospital bathroom after 19 hours of labor in another. That’s the legal end of things. Putting these women through such physical ordeals at the worst moment of their lives, with grief and fear, is pointlessly cruel and a dick move to make even the Devil jealous.
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Instagram @JFumikoCahill and on Bluesky @jfumikocahill.bsky.social.
This article appears in Top 10 Stories of 2024.
Wow, judgmental much? What a lovely journalistic tradition, pointing out what’s wrong with others. I love you my friends at the Journal, but I’m afraid you’ll have to add yourselves to this list for continuing to publish such a mean spirited column.
It’s not always the beauty of the new year that help us learn and grow as a community…thank you for this article it’s emboldened spirit and pros!
This article’s author does not sound too different from those he seems to be critiquing. Guess it takes one to know one.