Geo-Tag
How a guy who knows a guy gave a high-tech, graffiti-fighting tool to the masses.
A Friday close to midnight in January, one of those nights when the mist hangs low over Salinas and the city feels so damn quiet and clean and full of possibility, I’m walking down the ...
A Game of Tag
People clash over what they see as an opportunity for escape, pride or redemption.
The Guardian Security may be his day job, but scrubbing the paint off other people’s property has become a calling. “It’s hard enough to have a business as it is,” Tony Vincent says. “There are ...
Issues / 2012 / Feb 23
Antiques, Reimagined
Milestones, a still-young store filled with eccentric finds, sets up shop.
The billiard balls on the retro-deco carpet and spooky anatomic model in the storefront are the first clues Milestones ain’t your grandma’s antique shop. “We don’t do tea cups,” says co-owner Cam Wilde. “We do ...
Brezsny's Astrology Feb 23-29, 2012
Brezsny's Astrology Feb 23-29, 2012
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I invite you to identify all the things in your life that you really don’t need any more: gadgets that have become outdated, clothes that no longer feel like you, once-exciting ...
By The Numbers 2-23-12
Real Estate
$649,000 Recent Sale 407 18th St., Pacific Grove Built: 1996 Size: 1,311 square feet Features: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2-car garage Amenities: Fireplace, deck, patio, breakfast bar, hardwood floors Seller: Agbenbow LLC and Anthony and ...
C Believing
The C Restaurant seduces by way of fly seafood and wine barrels, 1833 earns a James Beard biggie.
The tastiest music masters a balance between predictable and tumultuous. It comforts listeners with familiar chords, but buries the possibility of boring with surprising surges and shifts – keeping brains eager for the next note ...
Taste of Vietnam
Sporting Chance: Taste of Vietnam banks on authentic tastes and a feel uncommon for Southeast eatery.
Seaside’s Taste of Vietnam, which opened last September in the Fremont Boulevard spot formerly occupied by China Chili, is making a play at a new type of fusion: an authentic Vietnamese restaurant that doubles as ...
Ultimate Oscars
Categories need not apply with this best-of-the-best assessment of the Academy Awards.
When the first Academy Awards were handed out in 1929, there weren’t fixed categories. Warner Bros. received an Oscar for producing the first talking motion picture, The Jazz Singer, and Charlie Chaplin scored honors for ...
Letters To The Editor 2.23.12
Stamping Out Hunger Your cover story highlighted the barriers faced by those who struggle with food insecurity (“Hunger Games,” Feb. 16-22). However, other than outlining the economic benefits of food stamps, there seemed too indirect ...
The Secret World of Arrietty
Famed Tokyo animation house takes on a classic story in The Secret World of Arrietty.
Meshing Japanese animation styles with Mary Morton’s beloved 1952 children’s novel The Borrowers, animator-cum-director Hiromasa Yonebayashi and co-director Gary Rydstrom create a delightful adaptation. Tokyo’s famed animation production house Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away) provides ample ...
Thin Ice
Greg Kinnear skates on Thin Ice as a schemer who takes a turn toward the violently criminal.
It’s not easy being a criminal. It’s hard enough just being a regular ol’ devious and dishonest guy peddling overpriced insurance. That’s who Mickey Prohaska (Greg Kinnear) is in Thin Ice. He runs a racket, ...
Strange Genius
Jolie Holland brings an unconventionally infectious brand of musical tricks to Seaside.
Singer-songwriter Jolie Holland has been collecting ghost stories for 15 years. She is currently working on publishing a graphic novel to incorporate the tales. But music has been a part of Holland’s life for much, ...
Wild and West
Don’t Fence Me In rides into town loaded with American West entertainment.
Musicians love to invoke their roots, in sound and style, covers and collaborations, as the “sincerest form of flattery.” But it can be tricky to discern an imitation or homage from the true bloodlines of ...
Up With Downs
Seaside moves forward with the next phase of a controversial Fort Ord development.
Seaside’s officials are looking for ways to breathe new life into the city. But it’s a resting place for the dead that’s turning a proposed development into an emotionally charged debate. At the Feb. 16 ...
Bright Lights, Little City
Residents complain new energy-saving lights are a pain in the eye.
New streetlights installed in the city of Monterey are meant to save money and energy, but some people are complaining the lights are too bright. Hans Uslar, assistant director of the Plans and Public Works ...
Off the Job
State audit finds fault in county’s job placement program.
While economists have called the country’s slow economic rebound a jobless recovery, Monterey County has been putting people back to work. But some of the county’s most effective programs to train dislocated workers are now ...
State cries foul over six-figure payout as former WIB director departs.
The former executive director of the county Workforce Investment Board faced his own career limbo as the Great Recession took hold. Joseph Werner spent 11 months on paid administrative leave beginning in June 2009, exceeding ...
Budget Blowback
Seaside Fire Department reorganization could eliminate the chief.
On Feb. 16, the Seaside City Council suffered a major burn. That’s when councilmen learned the state-mandated dissolution of the Seaside Redevelopment Agency will force $880,000 in spending cuts by the end of June. “My ...
Some sage advice from an old sage of journalism on how not to screw up the next water project.
So you got yourself elected to the podunk water district and, all of a sudden, your district is now the center of a fancy new proposal. This is a huge thing, a water cure the ...
Get Involved
Public Citizen 2.23.12
ONGOING BIKES NOT GUNS | SALINAS – Monterey County Youth Center is seeking volunteers to teach boys aged 14-17 how to repair and maintain bicycles as part of the “Getting on the Right Path” program ...
Alleged victim in Diocese sex case says he forgives.
In 2005, a 15-year-old boy toting a heavy childhood walked through the doors of Madonna del Sasso church in North Salinas looking for a place to belong. He had lived for more than 10 years ...
Street Talk 01.26.12 (asked @ Paris Bakery in Monterey.)
If I gave you a blank check and said “go for it,” what would you do?
Follow-up: What if the check was for $50? DAWN MCCULLEY | Counter clerk | Monterey A: I’d open more centers in Monterey County for the developmentally disabled. Mom Love: I’d give it to my son ...
Squid Speaks
DOWNS UNDER… Squid is still waiting for Google to develop an “unsend” button for email, because Squid seriously did not intend for that photo of Squid’s ink sac to go out to the masses. While ...
Scott Guard
Standout local jazz players rally for one of their own, Scotty Wright.
Last June, while jazz pianist/singer Scotty Wright was performing in Tokyo, he suffered a stroke that left the entire left side of his body and face paralyzed. After spending nearly four months in various hospitals, ...
