Daddy, Complex
Money and fame didn’t do it for Anthony Swofford – making peace with his past to reinvent his future did.
Anthony Swofford is a writer of painful and painfully powerful prose, stories about long stretches of boredom meeting lightning bursts of terror while a U.S. Marine during the ’90 Persian Gulf prequel, tales of suicidal ...
A Peek At The Past’s
Problems
Best-selling author Anthony Swofford talks about hitting bottom – and inspiration for the hellish R.V. trips with his dad that brought him back up.
There are days I still fantasize about combat, long nights when I wish I had rejoined the Marines as an infantry officer after September 11 and gone back over and got some war to score ...
Choose Your Words
The choices are sort of limitless, but here are the Weekly’s picks for smart summer reading.
CANADA by Richard Ford His parents rob a bank in Montana and teenage narrator Dell Parsons finds his life forever changed when he is driven across the border and sent to live with family acquaintances. ...
Shining On
Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Shawn Colvin bares it all in a revealing new memoir.
There’s a story behind all of Shawn Colvin’s stories, but the one about the shirt in a publicity photo sent out in advance of the release of her memoir, Diamond in the Rough, may tell ...
Fifty Shades of Mediocrity
Readers go wild for poorly written romance, proving just how repressed we really are.
If only the epithet “mommy porn” that’s been flung at Fifty Shades of Grey actually applied: There’s not nearly enough sex for the book to qualify as porn, or even erotica. It’s a formula romance ...
Issues / 2012 / June 07
Speaking Minds
Native speakers and local missionaries work to save an indigenous Mexican language.
Gloria Moreno walks with a slight limp under the weight of the black messenger bag slung over her shoulder. It holds something of a botanical encyclopedia, petals and leaves gathered from the streets of Greenfield, ...
Brezsny's Astrology June 7-13, 2012
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): If your destiny has gotten tweaked by bias or injustice, it’s a good time to rebel. If you are being manipulated by people who care for you – even if it’s ...
By The Numbers 6-7-12
Real Estate
$2,753,500 Recent Sale Lincoln, 4 SE of 13th, Carmel Built: 1931 Size: 1,940 square feet Features: 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, detached 2-car garage with guest quarters Amenities: Interior courtyard with gardens, fireplace, vaulted ceilings, wood ...
Food of Life
Unparalleled oysters at Sardine Factory and Breakfast Club love for a server who’s sick.
Friday night. Sardine Factory (373-3775). Oysters. That would be enough contextual evidence to indicate the work week’s residue is about to slide away with a sea-salty slurp. But it gets better than that. The only ...
Tacos El Jalisciense
Holy Cow Guts: Tacos El Jalisciense gives old Seaside taco spot new owner, new flavor, Jalisco-style.
The Spanish-channel telenovela Amorcito Corazon (or “Lovey Heart”) drips heartbreak on a lineup of beautiful Latinos on the flatscreen in the corner of the little restaurant. In the jukebox, four songs are $1, and Equiel ...
Letters To The Editor 6.07.12
Field Maneuvers To Maria Catalan, thank you for sharing a little about your farming techniques – I would like to learn more (“A farm worker turned farm owner urges a phase-out of all fumigants,” May ...
Prometheus
Game Over: Prometheus looks great, but fails to deliver on anything approaching the best of Ridley Scott.
Prometheus! It’s the Alien prequel we’ve all been waiting for all these many months. Just don’t go into it expecting facehuggers and chestbursters or pretty much any sort of sci-fi horror and humor and tension ...
Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted
Animal Style: Madagascar 3 is sweet enough for kids, amusing enough for parents and visually engaging enough for everyone.
Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted is an unexpected, lovely and cheerful delight that features notably spectacular 3-D animation, which is no small feat given that every animated movie is released in 3-D. The colors pop, ...
Relentless Rocking
Cumbia Tokeson’s take on traditional music is an explosion of energy.
When a Cumbia Tokeson show ends it doesn’t necessarily mean the music is over. The seven-piece cumbia-reggae-funk mash-up often goes mobile and serenades its audience outside the venue. Ozomatli, a longtime influence and recent touring ...
Rollin’ Solo
China Cats frontman Scott Cooper’s full plate just got a little fuller.
There aren’t enough hours in the day for Scott Cooper: In addition to raising his 8-year-old son on his own, working as a sales rep for Drumskull Drums in Santa Cruz and fronting the popular ...
Funky Monks
The Mystical Arts of Tibet brings messages of peace and awareness through hypnotic song.
Since Adam Yauch’s death on May 4, the Buddhist monks of Drepung Loseling Monastery – whose Mystical Arts of Tibet show visits Sunset Center on Saturday – have included him each night in their prayers. ...
Vote for Oaks
Jane Parker sweeps District 4 re-election on the tide of Whispering Oaks reversal.
With popcorn and toy vending machines glowing behind her, Jane Parker Chief of Staff Kristi Markey called about 50 supporters to attention with a mighty whistle. Standing on a chair at Me-N-Ed’s pizza in Seaside, ...
Central Coast Stays Blue
First open primary doesn’t change the liberal composition of Monterey County reps.
State and national candidates saw no major upsets in the state’s first open primary. As of Wednesday morning, June 6, the Democrats representing Monterey County in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., saw little reason to sweat. ...
Candid Candidate
With the primaries settled, look for the gloves to come off in supes’ races.
And then there were two. Twice. The primaries are over, and voters have sent Pacific Grove Mayor Carmelita Garcia packing in the District 5 county supervisor race, and did the same for Salinas City Councilman ...
After the Bubble Burst
Foreclosed homeowners face spate of lawsuits, fight back with class action.
When Evaristo Aguirre filed for personal bankruptcy in 2010, he asked permission to keep his assets – a $5 radio, $55 worth of furniture and linens – instead of the feds auctioning them off to ...
Fee critical to meet state requirements for new water sources and to avoid rationing.
Funk and Wagnalls Dictionary defines a pyrrhic victory as one gained at a ruinous cost. The opposition to the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District (MPWMD) user fee by the Monterey County Association of Realtors looks ...
Get Involved
Public Citizen 6.07.12
THURSDAY 6 | 7 HOSPITAL TOWN HALL | SALINAS – Salinas Valley Memorial invites the public to discuss the system’s future, with this evening exploring what it would take to stay independent. 6:30pm. SVMH Cislini ...
Just when you thought it was over, meet Heritage Pacific.
While this week has been (mostly) all about the elections at the Weekly, the investigative journalism group California Watch, founded by the Berkeley-based Center for Investigative Reporting, sent us back to the future, with an ...
Squid Doth Speaketh
SUMMER READING… While Squid’s colleagues were putting the finishing touches on the Weekly’s summer reading guide, it set Squid to wondering: What are local race-runners reading this week? Byrl Smith’s campaign manager Rick Taylor (who ...
Street Talk 01.26.12 (asked @ Book Haven in Monterey.)
What’s the craziest chapter in your book of life?
Follow-up: What’s the title of your story? Who plays you in the movie? OLIVIA COUNTRYMAN | Letter carrier | Salinas A: Meeting the Dalai Lama was mind-blowing. I felt enlightened listening to him talk, like ...
Fight Within a Fight
PacRep gives Yasmina Reza’s layered God of Carnage the depth it deserves.
French playwright Yasmina Reza has built an awesome career out of class struggle. The former actress-turned-playwright/author has won or been nominated for Moliere awards (the French Tonys), Laurence Olivier awards (the British Tonys) and actual ...
