Count Your Blessings
Rob Brezsny on God, media and why we’re better off than you think.
Rob Brezsny looks to the stars. “There’s big sky here,” he says, his all-black Converse high-tops planted on the second-story deck of his Marin County home, his wavy gray hair falling further down the back ...
On Something
Rob Brezsny doesn’t do drugs, but advocates all sorts of mind-expanding activities for others.
On Authenticity I studied acting with Mamet way back before he got huge. He was a method actor. He would say, to be a good actor, how important it is not get lost in your ...
Issues / 2010 / Jan 07
Don't Waste Food
First apartment composting program comes to Salinas
In what will be the first apartment composting program in the Salinas Valley, kitchen scraps at Sherwood Village Senior Apartments in Salinas will soon be converted to compost, according to affordable home builder CHISPA. CHISPA, ...
Local cities score D's and F's on American Lung Association's 2009 report card.
The American Lung Association may have to call Monterey County's parents. ALA's 2009 State of Tobacco Control report card, released Jan. 12, gives F's to every city in Monterey County except Salinas, which along with ...
Candidate Jason Burnett kicks off drive to unseat a City Council incumbent.
The 33-year old Burnett is so far the only challenger to City Council incumbents Paula Hazdovac and Gerard Rose, who have served 15 and nine years respectively. Burnett is a former EPA deputy administrator who ...
Dam Deal
The San Clemente Dam removal plan is almost cemented.
The plan to remove San Clemente Dam is flowing again. On Jan. 11, officials including federal and state agency representatives, U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel) and state Assemblyman Bill Monning (D-Carmel) signed an agreement with ...
Conan O'Brien says hell no, he won't go to a later slot on NBC.
In the latest development in a pop culture week that has also seen Simon Cowell's announcement that he will (gasp) be leaving "American Idol,'' Conan O'Brien roundly rejected NBC's proposal that he move "The Tonight ...
RIP Dogman McBill
The Carmel character and two-time mayoral candidate known as Dogman McBill is dead at 63.
Dogman's real name was William Clement Winfield II. Just weeks before he died he said he'd make a "third time's the charm" mayoral run, referring to his two previous contests against incumbent Carmel Mayor Sue ...
Don't Ask, Don't Watch
Supreme Court bars broadcast of the Prop. 8 trial.
The gay marriage revolution will not be televised. Or put on YouTube. On Monday, Jan. 11, just hours before the start of a federal trial considering the legality of California's voter-approved ban on gay marriage, ...
Retired Seaside police chief returns to the post.
The chief is out, the interim chief is out, and now the retired chief is in. That's the head-turning sequence of events at Seaside Police Department, where ongoing personnel issues have rearranged the power structure ...
Dinner and a Movie
Saturday, Jan. 9, Cannery Row IMAX hosted the NO-GMO Film Festival, revolving around genetically modified food.
The four documentary films--The Future of Food, Food, Inc., The Power of Community and The World According to Monsanto--ran back to back from 11am to 6pm, drawing about 300 attendees throughout the day, said Event ...
Fort Ord's first civilian gas station to break ground
A new Shell gas station next to the Ord Market will break ground on Monday. The Shell station will be the first civilian gas pumps to open on the former military, building upon another "first" ...
California cities to Sacramento: Hey, that's our money!
A statewide coalition wants California legislators to stop borrowing from local cities, counties, and transit agencies to balance the state budget. On Thursday, Jan. 7, Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue, along with other Central Coast elected ...
Human potential leader and Esalen Institute scholar George Leonard dies
George Leonard, a clairvoyant human potential icon and co-founder of the Esalen Institute's research arm, died yesterday at the age of 86 in his Mill Valley home, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. "He was a ...
Police unsure what killed P.G. woman, found dead on shoreline.
A woman's dead body was found on the shoreline at Ocean View Avenue and Fifth Street on the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 6, according to a Pacific Grove Police Department press release. The woman was ...
The Buzz
New News on Old News
Steppin' Up…Locally hatched eco-home certification program StepUp2Green is gaining momentum: CHISPA may adopt SU2G as a base standard for its projects, according to program mastermind Michael Waxer. The first 10 homeowners to contact Carmel design ...
No Hummer, Baby
A new, post-dysfunctional day is dawning in Del Rey Oaks politics.
Del Rey Oaks has ditched its mayoral perks, traded in the police chief’s Hummer, and tempered a staff revolt – all in a matter of months. The turnaround, which stands in sharp contrast to the ...
Raw Deal
Fishing for sustainable sushi and un-engineered eats.
Drums can help heal the heart, drive the dance floor and, now – at the flip-floppin’ new Yama Sushi (646-9262) – prep the palate. A welcoming percussive thumper stands by the door of the Del ...
Youth in Revolt
Revolting Rendition: Teen flick reinforces gender clichés without redeeming wit or intelligence.
Oh, someone deliver us from boys and their self-entitlement, boys and their cluelessness, boys and their rage when male privilege fails to extend itself toward them in a manner they deem proper. If boys don’t ...
¡Ask A Mexican! for Jan 07, 2010
One man's take on his culture's stereotypes
SPECIAL BEST-OF EDITION Dear Readers: The Mexican is still trying to shake off the Herradura from the previous year, so I’m reprinting this week a favorite column of mine from el pásado. To make up ...
Tough to Swallow
NO-GMO Film Festival rolls out documentaries that dive into food production’s dark places.
Do you know what’s in your food? Do you know how it was raised? Processed? And by whom? Those are some of the questions the four documentaries of the NO-GMO Film Festival, playing Saturday, Jan. ...
Another Dimension
A CSUMB boot camp channels the increasing power of 3-D.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology,” Arthur C. Clarke said, “is indistinguishable from magic.” James Cameron’s groundbreaking sci-fi epic, Avatar, makes a compelling case on Clarke’s behalf. The fact that its setting, Pandora, a faraway planet covered ...
Sustainable Stay
Proposed Fort Ord hostel has green ambitions for a long-abandoned property.
The property has an eerie feel. But the paint-chipped buildings, shattered windows and sun-parched shrubs belie a vision for new life in Fort Ord. The plan is to turn three asbestos-ridden structures and the surrounding ...
Letters to the Editor for Jan 07, 2010
POTSHOTS I think Tom Dominy (“Letters,” Dec. 30-Jan. 6) is very naive to suggest mail order distribution would be viable “when pot is legalized.” Tom, if pot is ever legalized, the enormous tobacco industry will ...
What hopes, fears or predictions do you have for the next decade?
Asked at Papa Chano’s Taqueria in Sand City.
Follow-up: What are you sure won’t change? BRANDON CEGELSKE | Student | Marina A: I hope to see hover cars because they have been promised to us so many times and we never get them. ...
A New Day
Fast-rising regional stars of Forrest Day join Battlehooch at Fernwood on the eve of debut CD.
Forrest Day’s songs are tailor-made for the stage. The seven-piece San Francisco band’s “Secret,” for example, features chanted vocals, two horns that underscore the stomp of the track and a beat that hits as hard ...
Last Blast
Local promoter Tobin Peregrina closes his Jose’s chapter with an aptly raucous indie-rock show.
A sexy, French punk rock girl air-humps on top of the bar; a Danish metal band ventures from the stage to drink audience members’ beer (while continuing to play); shock rockers, dressed like warthogs, drench ...
Brezsny's Astrology
Free Will Astrology
Aries (March 21-April 19): According to my reading of the astrological omens, it’ll be a hair-on-fire kind of week for you – and yet also a heart-in-repose kind of week. In other words, you have ...
Food for Thought
Seaside Farmers Market postponed; chamber director steps down.
It was so close we could taste it. But less than two weeks before its planned Jan. 15 launch, the TGIF farmers market has been pushed back to sometime in March. Seaside-Sand City Chamber of ...
Carmel Valley Coffee Roasting Company
Coffee, Reconsidered: A homegrown Carmel company takes its java game in interesting directions.
Numbers offer a rich whiff of Carmel Valley Coffee Roasting Company’s success. On average, 1,500 customers visit one of CVCRC’s four locations daily. Director of Coffee and Tea Tina Muia roasts about 1.75 tons of ...
Get Involved
Public Citizen
FRIDAY 1|8 ORD REDEVELOPMENT | MARINA—The Fort Ord Reuse Authority meets. 3:30pm. FORA Conference Facility, 201 13th St., Marina. 883-3672. www.fora.org. MONDAY 1|11 ISRAEL-PALESTINE MEDIA COVERAGE | MONTEREY—The Monterey Peace and Justice Center presents Peace, ...
Real Estate
By The Numbers
$330,000 Recent Sale 45090 Merritt St., King City Built: 1980 Size: 2,134 square feet Features: 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2-car garage, 1 acre Amenities: Deck and hot tub in back, fireplace, wood floors, vaulted ceilings ...
Reforms are needed to protect the California dream.
As Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his budget proposal for the coming fiscal year this week, California continues to confront a state of dire emergency. The governor is expected to ask for billions of dollars in ...
NPS grad cites gender bias, other problems in latest airline security flap.
Deirdre Walker was thinking hard about airport security long before the Christmas Day bombing attempt that could have brought down a Northwest Airlines jet traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit. “I was deeply troubled and angry,” ...
Squid Fry for Jan 07, 2010
Squid Fry for Jan 07, 2010
MONARCHS GO SOUTH… Squid was enjoying a little Central Coast vacation, trailing tentacles in the Pismo State Beach sand, when Squid stumbled upon the town’s Monarch Butterfly Grove. Tens of thousands of orange-and-black beauties clustered ...
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Parnassus Heights: Terry Gilliam’s imagination is in full flight in film with inspired performances by Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp and Lily Cole.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a patented Terry Gilliam special, a remedial children’s bedtime tale for anxious grown-ups. Gilliam, particularly when he’s collaborating with writer Charles McKeown (Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), loves ...
Art Listing for Jan 07, 2010
Art Listing for Jan 07, 2010
HAPPENING THIS WEEK interim, inc. in Downtown Monterey Breakthrough H’Art: On Dec. 22, Interim Inc., a nonprofit that provides support services and housing for people with mental disabilities and illness, moved into a previously empty ...
SSPD Shrinks
Seaside’s interim police chief is latest to go as political infighting continues.
The Seaside Police Chief’s badge has become a hot potato in recent months. Only a few days after former Seaside Police Chief Steve Cercone officially relinquished his post, City Manager Ray Corpuz gave his temporary ...
