0816| Aug 16

DiscSpace

RYAN ADAMS | Easy Tiger | Lost HighwayRyan Adams’ country-music influences move to the background or foreground, depending on the project. Easy Tiger is an effort to seamlessly blend rock, country, folk and blues à ...

From Back East

Fragment brings bluegrass from Prague.

Bluegrass music in Czechoslovakia became part of the Eastern European country’s counterculture during its years under communist rule. It is said that some Czechs discovered the traditional American acoustic art form on a radio station ...

Local talent shows up strong for ‘Central Coast Idol’ competition.

In front of the Golden State Theatre and spilling down Alvarado to Franklin Street, scores of wannabe American Idols were waiting for their chance. There were celebrities-in-the-making that wore stylish sunglasses as large as welding ...

Deft Chef

The cozy Bistro Moulin is a perfect stage for Didier Dutertre’s delicious skill.

Colleen Manni and French-born Didier Dutertre, the chef at Casanova in Carmel for 25 years, recently opened Bistro Moulin just up the hill from the Aquarium on Wave Street. It’s a nice place with only ...

ArtListings for Aug 16, 2007

PublicCitizen

ONGOINGSEAL WATCH | COUNTYWIDE—Have you seen a harbor seal with a funny-looking tag? The Marine Mammal Center asks members of the public to report sightings of tagged seals along the California Coast for the Harbor ...

The Mayor’s House

>>REALESTATEFormer Monterey Mayor Dan Albert knows a lot about the Oak Grove house bequeathed him and his three brothers in 1996. Their parents once owned several lots in the neighborhood near the family home where ...

Death at a Funeral

Director Frank Oz returns with a comedy set at a funeral.

Frank Oz (also known as the voice of Yoda, Miss Piggy, and Fozzy Bear) began his directing career with the not-really-for-kids kids’ classic The Dark Crystal and over the years has successfully turned out bizarre ...

Motor Running

THE ART OF THE AUTO...Car week is here again. Time to polish up that little two-seater in the garage and cruise the main drags and soak up adoration. Each year I am progressively amazed at ...

Home Wrecker

Marina mobile home park residents call for citywide rent control.

Cindy Virtue sorts through a pile of bills and loan statements inside her spacious, white-carpeted house in Lazy Wheel Mobile Home Park and fishes out a petition. It’s a call for a citywide rent stabilization ...

Salinas’ Cleanup Campaign

Councilman envisions more family-friendly neighborhoods.

Standing before a mural of a fruit cyclone swirling over a blender, Councilman Tony Barrera touched on the little things he’s doing his east Salinas district. Barrera wants to make Closter Park—now a hangout for ...

Heavy New Beat

Plaster premieres new lineup.

When drummer Matt Brown moved to Nebraska this past spring, his colleagues in the local metal band Plaster wondered if they were going to continue on without him. Last month ago, they jammed with drummer ...

General Failure

A crisis in civil-military relations threatens America’s future.

>>FORUMLargely unrecognized by the American public, unacknowledged by those in power, and denied by professionals in uniform, the United States suffers today from an enduring crisis in civil-military relations. The tacit social contract of mutual ...

Under the Hood

Car week in Monterey County cranks up the RPMs.

>>CARWEEK2007They travel from distant parts to share their stories: tales of racing across continents before seatbelts; of Brits touring to find fashion when London had none; of separating movie stars, iconoclasts and car-buying barons from ...

Spin Zone

Contradance brings different people together by design.

The irresistible lilt of fiddle, guitar and banjo pours from every orifice of the historic building that is the Monterey Peninsula “Y.” Inside, dancers whirl around each other in long lines of synchronized groups. From ...

Mad Ambition

Macbeth begins the Carmel Shake-speare Festival with a nightmare in the round.

No question that the audience has been barraged by daily images of strife, noise and peril, embittered by governance that clasps to its chest every possible vestige of power, dulled by daytime television enactments of ...

Squid Fry for Aug 16, 2007

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JERRY… Squid’s not exactly the bashful type, and not really one to hope that Squid’s friends and coworkers forget Squid’s Big Day. Quite the opposite, in fact: Squid starts announcing Squid’s birthday at ...

Cliff Hanger

Locals squabble with the state over the Big Sur Coastal Trail planning process.

Several wads of toilet paper litter a shady cypress grove overlooking the Pacific in Garrapata State Park. My trail guide, Lee Otter of the Coastal Commission, jokingly identifies them as “Kleenex flowers.” Continuing along the ...

Monterey Leaders Eye Plastic Bag Ban

Councilwoman says she’ll push the issue on Aug. 21

California’s retailers hand out an estimated 19 billion plastic bags per year, fewer than 5 percent of which are recycled. The impacts are seen in the mounds of plastic film swelling landfills, littering highways and ...

Letters to the Editor for Aug 16, 2007

DON’T FORGET HISTORYThank you for Kera Abraham’s article “History Burns” [July 26-Aug. 1], which outlines the history of discrimination against the Chinese in the Monterey area, and also mentions the Chinese Exclusion Act, which many ...

Superbad

Adolescent humor hits highs and lows in Superbad.

Here’s what I find fascinating about groin-level humor: If you’re an adolescent, it works no matter what. But even if your emotional and mental age has advanced beyond the teens, it can still work if ...

You’re In Charge

This land is your land—if you want it.

>>THELOCALSPIN There was a story in the Herald about a guy who bought a house in Pebble Beach a few years ago for $23 million. Turns out he’s now in trouble with the law for ...

Asked at Cypress Coast Ford in Seaside.

It’s Car Week. What's Your Fantasy Classic Ride?

Follow-up: What is the crappiest vehicle you’ve ever owned?KYLE BOYD | Sales manager | WatsonvilleA: My dream classic car would have to be a charcoal grey 1967 Shelby Mustang with a white stripe.Old Faithful: My ...