Category: Far North

Asbury Park, New Jersey, is considered a working class, garage rock mecca, despite over a half a century of time passing since The E Street Band and all of its satellite musicians and bands formed into concrete reality and moved on up into the land of rock ‘n’ roll mythology. However, the town still seems to be minting new musicians, including rising jam band Dogs In A Pile, who will be gracing the stage at the Arcata Theatre Lounge at 8 p.m. Tickets are going for $25, which suggests that the group has an audience but has plenty of room for a few more folks…

More than 200 people joined the People’s March in Eureka at the Humboldt County courthouse on Saturday morning in the nationwide day of protest ahead of Trump’s second inauguration today. Eight years ago, more than 8,000 people appeared for the local Women’s March (now renamed as the People’s March) in Eureka, protesting Trump’s first inauguration in 2017. “We’re here today thanking and acknowledging all the people who have been protesting for generations,” said local event organizer Cheryl Furman, of Kneeland. “We’re here also because we need to recruit new people to protest because it looks like we’re going to need to do it for a long time to come.” Furman said no permit was needed as the city police just wanted an advance heads up on the planned route and asked that everyone stay on the sidewalk. The march began after a welcome by Furman and local nonprofit Centro del Pueblo, as well as songs by the Raging Grannies. Participants walked a loop from the courthouse on Fifth Street to  F Street, taking a right, and returning to the courthouse via Second Street. The marchers

If you missed yesterday’s performance at the Calvary Lutheran Church in Eureka, fear not, you need only head over to the Arcata Lutheran Church to enjoy a 3 p.m. matinee performance of chamber music courtesy of the Borromeo String Quartet. Expect a casual atmosphere for this gig, as the music of Finland’s national composer Jean Sibelius will be punctuated by opportunities for open-air chit chat between the players and the listeners, which sounds just lovely for a Sunday afternoon in midwinter ($20, $5 students). …

The Arcata vintage shop Redwood Retro is an interesting up and coming venue, filling a much-needed spot on the scene with an emphasis on the DIY, casual nature of a town whose offbeat charm and mushy beauty seems on the verge of evaporating in the face of high rents, poor management and lowering imaginations. The best things in life are free, or at least very close to it, and tonight’s show at 7 p.m. is a prime example. $3 (and NOTAFLOF as well) is the dictum of the door, for the opportunity to hear some fine and loud electric stringed sounds and beating drums courtesy of the mighty Black Plate, The Breakfast Collection and Monkey Business. This one’s all-ages, too, which is just right…

Editor: While I appreciate the care Kimberly Wear took to represent both sides of the “conflict” between the spotted owl and the barred owl, the article failed to recognize human actions as the source of the trophic cascade in the ecosystem (“Combating the Barred Owl Invasion,” Oct. 10). Nature doesn’t invade. This is a human construct based on human behavior. Nature adapts and, currently, the main thing nature is adapting to are the consequences of disturbances caused by human activities such as logging old growth forests and spraying of herbicides to eradicate “invasive” plant species, which has a detrimental impact on egg and owlet viability. The spotted owl depends on the habitat provided within an old growth forest. If we truly cared about the spotted owl, we wouldn’t have logged the old growth forest of the Pacific Northwest. Without the forest, there will be no spotted owls, regardless of how many barred owls are killed. We cannot yet understand the complex adaptations that ecosystems are making, and should move with respect and caution as animal and plant populations migrate and change. There are many more factors at play

The Basement is the place to be tonight for a sultry ride on the jazz train from downtown to the up-tempo neighborhood with stops all along Funk Street. Swizlo’s Mystery Lounge is the name of this joint, which will be helmed by the eponymous key-master from Object Heavy and beyond. Also on tap will be some special members of our own Humboldt Hip Hop community, including one of my favorite doods, the talented Mr. Flo J. Simpson himself. It’s at 8:30 p.m. ($10).

On this week’s episode of the NCJ Preview , we are getting healthy, as arts and features editor Jennifer Fumiko Cahill highlights the Journal’s Field Notes  writer Barry Evans and his battle with cancer. News editor Thadeus Greenson talks about Kimberly Wear’s cover story on how a local nonprofit has grown to open its arms to Native youth. Then, we wrap up with Jennifer and her Dry January Mocktails recipes.  Read all this and more in this week’s issue of the North Coast Journal. Read full stories here: Big Family Cancer and Me

Greensky Bluegrass is a quintet from Kalamazoo, Michigan who have, for the last quarter century, been building a large following through constant touring and high-profile appearances on the festival and jam band circuit. As the name suggests, the group uses a bluegrass format from which it deviates into the light show theatrics and noodling passages more familiar to fans of Phish and the Grateful Dead. Tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Blue Lake Casino, you can dabble in this world of precision pickin’ and jamberoo-ing for $50, $40 if you get your tickets in advance. To drive the jam band point home, local Dead celebration act The Magnificent Sanctuary Band will be playing the afterparty in the Wave Lounge starting around 9 p.m…

Editor: Thadeus Greenson chose propaganda over accurate information in his attempt to explain the background for the (silly) class action lawsuit (“Group Brings Class Action Suit Against Huffman,” Dec. 26). Space limitations will not allow me to address the U.N. Commission’s allegations as well as the ICC “investigation” which are not what they seem, but I will address the absurd 45,000 number. Figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health and the Government Media Office — both Hamas-run institutions — have provided a focus for global horror, providing metrics that have been relied on almost universally by international media and NGOs, reporting them as verified facts without any disclaimers that a party to the conflict provided them. Nor have they acknowledged the near impossibility of providing precise real-time fatality counts under wartime conditions. I refer Greeson and readers to the following organizations as examples demonstrating proof of the falsity of these claims. “Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza” by the Henry Jackson Society finds “distortion of statistics, misreporting of natural deaths, deaths from before the war started and a high likelihood of combatant deaths being included on

How a local nonprofit has grown to open its arms to Native youth, one day at a time Trinity Mace was at a crossroads a few years back when she was first introduced to a counselor with Two Feathers Native American Family Services at her school in Hoopa. Facing an unstable family situation and struggling with social anxiety and substance use, Mace says becoming involved in the nonprofit’s programs proved to be a turning point in her young life, providing her with a sense of stability and a safety net of dependable people she could trust. “I feel like everyone at Two Feathers makes you feel comfortable,” Mace says. “I feel like you can go to them for anything.” Now a senior at Captain John High School with her sights on a career in counseling, herself, Mace credits that counselor’s unwavering support and consistency with enabling her to open up about what she was going through at a time when she really didn’t trust anyone. “That,” she says, “was the start of it all for me.” This past year, Mace was one of several Native

“Congratulations!” “Er, thanks — what for?” “For beating cancer!” Congratulations are certainly due but not to me. I was just the patient; all I had to do was be on time for my many medical appointments, follow my oncologist’s instructions and avoid crowds following my chemo infusions while my immune system was recovering. The real heroes are the pioneers who, some 30 years ago, figured out which cancers respond best to which treatments involving IV infusions. (“Not poisons,” I was gently reminded on my first visit to the chemo ward, “We don’t use that word here.”) I lucked out big time. What originally was thought to be an infected mouth ulcer turned out to be large B-cell lymphoma. That was found in the biopsy recommended by another hero, a physician’s assistant at Open Door Community Health Center who was suspicious of my original diagnosis. A PET scan followed, confirming lymphoma both in my jaw and trachea. Three chemo treatments and several months later, a follow-up PET scan recently gave me a clean bill of health. While the literature is full of militaristic terms when it

Haphazard wind lurches through old-growth forest. Green canopy churns. Broadside trunks groan. Duff flies upriver like weightless condor feathers. Soggy soil slips grasp of tendril fingers underground. Twisted roots, black as grizzly claws, rend and rupture, disconnecting life force from its center. Totem topples, limbs crack rapid-fire, crescendo in a landslide roar that reverberates through the watershed. Spine recoils off understory of huckleberries, redwood bark explodes in a rain of spongy fiber, backstrap shreds into spikes, as sharp as any porcupine’s. Thousand-ton trunk gains speed downhill, slams through a dam of debris in the stream, spraying a nimbus high as humpback spume. Salmon-flesh heartwood lies exposed, tattooed with faint, charcoal chin stripes, as delicate as capillaries. Mary Lentz…

Editor: The discussion of the policing problems at the Bear River Reservation outline poor leadership from the tribe and its administration, and the failure of our politicians in Sacramento to actually solve problems (“The Battle Over Bear River,” Jan. 9). It also ignored Balkanization, the process of dividing areas into multiple smaller units with the inherent increasing complexity. The simple fact is there isn’t enough money at the local, state or federal level to allow every reservation, rancheria or housing development to hire, support and supervise a police department. Nor is there enough money for all the services that cities and counties provide to their citizens by taxing them. The money problem is exacerbated by the maddingly complex desire to classify Americans into “Native” and “non-Native” for the purposes of policing. Do you detain and wait for the appropriate racial law enforcement to respond or arrest and charge within your department? That requires another expense of a prosecuting office with investigators and lawyers. Another expense that cannot be afforded by government. The logical solution is for all Americans to be treated the same under the

Nestled along the Lost Coast, Shelter Cove is gearing up for its first-ever Wellness Weekend from Jan. 24 through Jan. 26. Organized by the nonprofit Visit Shelter Cove, the event is designed to draw visitors to the remote town during the tourism off-season with activities promised to rejuvenate the mind, body and spirit, while showcasing the area’s natural beauty. “Wellness Weekend is about more than just attracting visitors; it’s about supporting our local businesses and helping Shelter Cove thrive year-round,” said Amy Lundstrom, vice president of Visit Shelter Cove and a partner in Arts at Heart, an artists collective. “The winter months can be tough for many businesses here, but events like this give us a chance to share what makes Shelter Cove so unique.” Many locals and business owners say Shelter Cove’s “solitude and quiet” and “natural assets” — including its panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean framed by rocky, forest-topped cliffs — make it an ideal destination for a wellness-themed event. The hope is that a host of wellness activities and offerings, as well as some package deals, will draw tourists to the

Editor: History tells us that the vast majority of humans follow whoever leads them without thinking, much less rebelling (Mailbox, Jan. 9). Genocide in Germany for instance, written about by Hannah Arendt, shows that not only did the average German not object, but also most Jews did not rebel on their way to the camps. Today, we see another instance in Gaza. The Palestinians knew that they were being used as human shields by Hamas, yet they did nothing. Then when the war began why didn’t they ask the U.N. for a “Dunkirk” type evacuation so the belligerents could work it out. Let’s face it: We are lemmings. We see it here, too, in the recent presidential election. We all know the winner is a convict and inveterate liar who cares about no one but himself. Listen to Hannah; “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” (Hanna Arendt

Not much going on tonight, so I’ll take a brief moment to point out two changes to your regular Wednesday night options. Big Mood, the weekly queer dance party at the Miniplex, is no longer happening on hump day but will return on Jan. 24, where it will take up residency on the fourth Friday of every month. Secondly, every Wednesday this month at the Logger Bar, you can enjoy the one-two fun blast of Jazz Bros at 4 p.m., followed up by karaoke at 8 p.m. Get it? Got it. Good…

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors got a preview this morning of the findings of Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo’s listening tour on healthcare provider recruitment and retention, which will be the focus of a community forum later this month. Arroyo, who said she undertook the effort because healthcare delivery is a top constituent concern and something she’s passionate about personally, said she’s spoken to nearly four dozen healthcare professionals, from doctors, nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants to local CEOs, administrators and experts. The findings of her research will help inform the panel discussion and forum she is hosting Jan. 27 in Eureka with eight subject matter experts. Walking the board through a slide presentation summarizing what she learned, Arroyo said the picture she emerged with of the challenges facing local healthcare delivery is complex. Arroyo said she spoke to some new providers and others who have been here for a long time. “The level of conviction was very high for everyone,” she said, quickly noting she’d also heard a lot of different and sometimes conflicting things that people “felt very strongly were the truth.”

Black Flag is one of the few original wave of American punk acts who have everything needed to cement a worldwide icon status: a highly influential discography that covers everything from early hardcore to proto-sludge, grunge and alternative metal; an instantly recognizable sound throughout despite five decades of line-up changes, with guitarist Greg Ginn remaining the only constant; and a four-bar, stylized logo that is instantly recognizable everywhere. Like a lot of iconic bands from many different genres, the band has various eras — I happen to be mostly into the sludgy, creepy-crawl and jazz punk sounds of records like My War and The Process of Weeding Out — and as such has a deep well to draw from for setlist. The current line-up, fronted by pro-skateboarder Mike Vallely, is currently on tour playing The First Four Years compilation album released in 1983, featuring tracks the band recorded before Henry Rollins joined as vocalist to inaugurate the band’s most famous era. You can catch them tonight at the Arcata Theatre Lounge at 7:30 p.m. ($43)…

Carlton Yee, resident of Eagle, Idaho, died on Dec. 13, 2024, at the age of 83.  Born on May 25, 1941, in Morenci, Arizona, to Joe and Laura Yee, he was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from San Mateo High School in 1959.  He continued his collegiate education at Humboldt State University in (BS) forest management, Yale University in (MF) industrial forest administration, and Oregon State University for a Ph.D. in forest engineering and hydrology. Early in his varied career, he worked as a timber sales officer for the U.S. Forest Service and an intelligence analyst with the NRO.  He was a professor at various universities, including Humboldt State University (now Cal Poly Humboldt) for 30 years, doing research and instruction in forest operations and forest hydrology.  Besides a Ph.D., he had more than 30 years of research experience in forest operations, water quality, fishery habitat and soil erosion processes and mitigation. In addition, he was one of two technical advisors to the Best Management Practices Subcommittee of the Board of Forestry from 1978 to 1980, which resulted in the first

The kind and loving Mike Chamberlain passed away unexpectedly due to complications from a fall. His great spirit and kind smile will be missed by those who knew and loved him. He lived a free and adventurous life.  Born to Frank and Ruth Chamberlain, he and his brother, Larry, were raised in El Segundo, California. He attended the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Alaska and the University of Hawaii. Drafted into the Army, he worked as a tank technician in Texas. During his college years, Mike was an avid sportsman. In Alaska he joined the hockey team, having never ice skated in his life, so the coach had him practice with his skates unlaced. Earning a degree in marine biology and teaching, he spent a lot of time diving, spear fishing and beach-combing. Abalone became a common meal in the ’60s. While attending UH, he met and married Katherine Piltz. After their firstborn they moved from Hawaii back to SoCal, where their daughter was born. While teaching at Airport Junior High, Mike camped with a group of students and his small

Pam Giacomini, 66, of Hat Creek, California, died Dec. 29, 2024 at home.  Pamela Ann Thompson was born Oct. 21, 1958, in Redding to her parents, Robert and Lois Opdyke Thompson. She grew up with her older brother and sister on the family ranch originally settled by her great-grandparents in 1903. Pam was active in 4-H and FFA and showed livestock at the local, regional and state levels. She graduated from Fall River High School in 1976.  In the summer of 1975, while attending a statewide Regional FFA Officer Leadership Conference, Pam first kindled a relationship with Henry Giacomini from Ferndale, who at that time was state FFA president. They dated for three years while never living near each other. Pam attended Chico State from 1976-1978. She and Henry were married on Aug. 12, 1978 at the ranch in Hat Creek and celebrated their 46th anniversary this year. Their devotion to each other has always been apparent to everyone who has known them. Following their graduation from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, in 1980, she with a degree in agricultural journalism, Pam and Henry moved