Thursday, November 26
When you're a kid and your family is homeless, it's a terrible secret to hide.
When 16-year-old Tabitha* gets out of class at Carmel High, she doesn''t go home. That''s because she doesn''t have a home. She, her 15-year-old sister and her mother, Sarah*, live in a camper, their "home" ...
Carmel artist Paxton Mobley has created an entire theology for his otherworldly art.
Not too many artists bother to write manifestos to support their artwork. That''s very early 20th-century behavior: Surrealists, Constructivists, Futurists, Socialist Realists, all viewed their art--both the process of creation and the final product--as intimately ...
M.o.s.t Van Reaches Out To The Most Desperately Needy
By 8am, Lee Hulquist has parked the white M.O.S.T (Mobile Outreach Services Team) van near the downtown Monterey transit station, has set up her traveling clothes rack, and is hanging up the day's selection of ...
Thanksgiving Thoughts--Homeless for the Holidays
Amidst the natural of beauty and affluence of Monterey County, addressing the problem of homelessness often rates as a low priority. It''s easy to overlook the unpleasant issue, but the folks of Monterey County really ...
Might Makes Right?
Frusetta "The Fist" Minnesota''s got nothing on Monterey: They have Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura and we have Assemblymember Peter "The Fist" Frusetta. In The Fist''s latest "Cowboy in the Capitol" column, he gloats over ...
Bijan's
On a clear day, you can see past Capitola to Santa Cruz. To the east, the Santa Lucias. And in the immediate foreground, the flurry of sightseers up and down Cannery Row and Fisherman's Wharf ...
Kid Picks
saturday 5&12 Tots/Tweens Santa Time! He knows if you've been naughty, he knows if you're awake, he knows if you've been good or bad...and for a limited time only, you can deliver all that information ...
Can a county organic certification program measure up?
Eric Lauritzen, Monterey County''s newly appointed agriculture commissioner, has what some may consider a radical idea. Lauritzen would like Monterey County''s ag commissioner''s office to be the first in the state to try its hand ...
Jazz 'n' Jazz--Jerry Shanahan's quartet releases CD; Richie Cole and Giacomo Gates at Jazz Store.
Jerry Shanahan is not a name often heard around the Monterey area even though the guitarist and his band have been playing at Schooners, the Monterey Plaza Hotel''s lounge, for the last two years and ...
The studios' rush to capitalize on the spending season means a wealth of movies for fans.
If this holiday season were a song, it might be sung to the following refrain: "Have yourself a bloody little Christmas." Oh, there''s plenty of the regular old drama standards and entertainment for the kids ...
Letters
Whole Foods Supports Organic Growing Over the past 10 years, the farming business I work for has started to farm organically on what was previously conventional ground. One of the biggest problems we have encountered ...
By yourself for T-Day? Try mooching off friends, serving at a community dinner, or fixing faux peas (green M&Ms).
Mom, in her apron, appears smiling in the dining room doorway--a golden brown turkey steams on a platter. Grandma follows cheerfully behind with a bowl full of yams. Dad sits with fork and carving knife ...
MoCo's new CAO Sally Reed may have the right stuff to get the county on track.
The buzz is that she''s smart, tough, levelheaded, decisive and effective--and that Monterey County is lucky to get her. But as Sally Reed prepares to step into the county''s top administrative position on Dec. 7, ...
Holiday Blues Busters--The Blasters, Tab Benoit, Erik Berglund and The Quirks will take your mind off the impending season.
It''s official: The holiday season is now in full swing. The refrigerator''s filled with leftover turkey and slowly moldering pumpkin pie that nobody wanted to eat when it was fresh, the Christmas tree lots are ...
Priest of Mozart--Pianist Robert Levin reveals different faces of Amadeus.
Just when you thought it was safe to suspend worship of the deity known as Mozart, along comes another high priest of his church. Robert Levin, forensic Mozart scholar and keyboard showoff extraordinaire, arrived in ...
For Those Minding the Store--This one's for you.
Having just recently (September 1997) become associated with Whole Foods Market, and at that, only here in Northern California, and mostly in the Monterey store, I do not purport to speak authoritatively for, or about, ...
Turkey Trivia
You may already be aware that Benjamin Franklin considered the turkey a ''fine, true and original native.'' One of our more axiomatic forefathers, he claimed that the eagle suffered from ''bad moral character.'' And if ...
Families, youth volunteer opportunities teach some important lessons.
Emma Healy is a junior at Carmel High, and a volunteer at the emergency room of Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP). She started volunteering four years ago. When asked about her most memorable ...
Thursday, November 19
Letters
Just One Thing Although I am generally pleased with both of the articles about Whole Foods Market (Nov. 12), I would like to comment on one quote of mine that was taken out of context, ...
Funky on the Row Unknown Jeromes at Doc's, Mark Murphy scats in Carmel, Juice at CSUMB.
When the Unknown Jeromes first came on the scene in Monterey a couple years ago, they gigged a few times at Whitey''s Place and a couple other clubs, and then disappeared. Their show stressed funk ...
MoCo law enforcement officers have discharged their firearms at people 25 times in the past decade.
The story of Charles Vaughn''s death is now well-known in Monterey County. In May, armed with only a corkscrew, he was shot and killed by Seaside police who were assisting mental health workers take him ...
Don't Stand For It--Join us in demanding an end to human rights abuses in Burma.
I fast the first Friday of each month. I do this because it gives me opportunities to tell people why: I wish to call attention to an atrocity being perpetrated upon the people of Burma. ...
Conservation Concerns--Are we doing enough?
Visitors and residents alike are drawn to Monterey County for its environmental beauty, but are we doing enough to preserve what we have? We asked visitors from around the globe. Here''s what they said: Diana ...
Local school districts hope change in political tide will help do away with the two-thirds bond requirement.
For California schools, 66.67 is the magic number. Under California law, that''s the percentage of voters that must approve a local bond measure before a school district can build new or improve existing school facilities. ...
Hill O' Beans
It is well known among culinarians that important events must be marked by important food. It often seems to be the case that feast-day dishes are more easily recalled than the whole reason for the ...
Pivotal coastal environmentalist Margaret Wentworth Owings writes a book detailing the early victories of the local environmental movement
Saving Carmel Beach A group of so-called "little people" band together to preserve a time-honored stretch of sand. It was in 1952, when we were living in the Carmel Highlands and I drove past the ...
Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt shine in a love-and-death romance.
A loose retelling of 1934''s Death Takes a Holiday, this updated version adapts a fuller, firmer attitude toward otherworldly romance as well as a near-three-hour running time. With Anthony Hopkins onscreen for much of it, ...
Dance Your Butt Off--A corner of Cannery Row will be shaking, rattling and rolling all weekend.
If you''re looking to get sweaty this weekend, you''re in luck. Down there at the junction of Prescott Avenue and Cannery Row, there''s a whole lot of good, butt-shakin'' music going down. Between Doc''s Nightclub, ...
Wild & Crazy
Cash Or Crash? "A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner." --John Steinbeck Seven dollars seems a reasonable price for visiting the National Steinbeck Center, but apparently it was a little steep for William Gary ...
Paradigm Shift--The Monterey Symphony's second conductor contender
On the Monterey Symphony podium Sunday in Carmel, Kate Tamarkin eclipsed any memory left by her first competitor for the music directorship, Dmitri Yablonsky. Her performance at Sunset Theater polished off any tarnish that had ...
Friend of the sea otter, the sea, and the shore.
"Voice from the Sea. It was a long time deciding on that name, but that one seemed to be the most natural" says Big Sur environmentalist Margaret Wentworth Owings of the title of her forthcoming ...
Colorful, whimsical new gallery opens in The Barnyard.
Amidst hummingbirds dancing through The Barnyard''s gardens, Jill "Spill" sips her coffee and talks about wanting to come home to Carmel to sell her art. She lived in Carmel in the ''80s, during high school, ...
Yangtse's Taste Of Thai
Just a few months on the scene in Oldtown Salinas, something different this way comes with Yangste's Taste of Thai. Set behind a foreground of white tablecloths and antique brick walls, an undulating oak bar ...
New funding makes possible local participation in the conversion of Fort Ord.
The closure of Fort Ord in 1993 devastated many local businesses. The creation of a new Cal State University Monterey Bay in 1994 was viewed as critical to the economic recovery of the area and ...
Monterey's Meridien Institute of Integrated Chinese Medicine is poised for a harmonious revolution.
Twenty years ago, you''d be hard pressed to find someone who went regularly to chiropractors, was using Chinese herbal remedies, or would allow accupuncture needles near their body. Today, these "alternative" medicines are fast becoming ...
Thursday, November 12
An action movie with a message is still an action movie.
Could someone please turn down Denzel Washington''s Righteousness Meter? It''s set too high. The king of earnest masculinity is about due for a comedy >(The Pelican Brief doesn''t count), but this isn''t it. Edward Zwick, ...
Straight, Not Narrow Minded--Why I don't celebrate Halloween.
In the October 29 issue of Coast Weekly, public forum author Denise Sallee, professing to being a practicing witch, expressed her anger about the loss of Halloween to "the Christian Fundamentalist right, who in the ...
Whole Foods critics expect the whole world out of the alternative grocer.
Sheila Payne stands outside a Whole Foods Market in Durham, N.C. She hasn''t come to shop--she and three other activists are informing customers that the nation''s largest chain of natural food groceries has refused to ...
Same Old Song?--Monterey Opera's Barber rises above ongoing weaknesses.
In a contest for the inconsistent, the Monterey Opera takes first prize. In 10 years of trying to figure out what opera is, MO remains bewildered. Like a pilgrim in search of the truth, its ...
Message On a Bottle
Everybody probably knows somebody whose something-or-other is so darn delicious, they oughta put it on the market and make a killing. The reality of it is that even if every member of Uncle Theo''s International ...
Pigs to Cowboys--The Forbidden Pigs, Chuck Brodsky and Mike Beck make for an interesting roots weekend.
Lookin'' for a party? Check out Doc''s Nightclub on Friday where Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs are playing. We''re talking revved-up roots rock with a high-powered stage show. The last Forbidden Pig album I ...
Local photographers embrace the digital revolution.
As the birthplace of the so-called "West Coast School" of photography, large format, black-and-white landscapes constitute what is traditionally associated with the work of photographers here on the Monterey Peninsula. Through the artistry and advocacy ...
Letters
Attacking the Source Upon re-reading the "witch" article ("Public Forum," Oct. 29), I must say that I feel you are doing a great disservice to your readers and yourself. First, Ms. Sallee is incorrect in ...
Brazilian Jazz--Eliane Elias comes to the Jazz Store and Kuumbwa.
The exquisitely beautiful songs of one of the 20th century''s greatest composers from any country, Antonio Carlos Jobim, are covered with lan and sensuous grace by the equally beautiful pianist and singer-come-lately Eliane Elias on ...
Monarch Cafe
For almost a quarter century, the Monarch Cafe has been pouring hot coffee for early-risers of Butterfly Town. Not far outside the shadow of the Holman Building, this particular block of Pacific Grove commerce has ...
Who's in Charge Here?
Brown Out? Imagine, if you will, the tension-filled scene at Seaside City Hall this week: A special meeting of the city council--called at the 11th hour. The group is tucked away behind closed doors discussing--according ...
More or Less?--Do we want more from alternative stores?
Do we expect more out of alternative-style stores and businesses than we expect out of the mainstream? Do we care if employees are unionized, if boycotts are honored? Our intrepid reporters went to find out. ...
ALRB decision, pending suit, fuel allegations of grower influence in labor issues.
This week the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board ruled invalid the election of the Coastal Berry Farmworkers Committee as the union of choice for workers at Watsonville''s Coastal Berry Co. The committee and the United ...
How well is Whole Foods embracing its multiple missions in Monterey?
Whole Foods Market, the nation''s largest natural food retail chain, presents itself as a new kind of food retailer, the grocery store for the ''90s. Brandishing the motto "whole foods, whole people, whole planet," the ...
Statewide report links birth defects with pesticide application.
Monterey County abounds with agriculture. The fertile land is home to 1.4 million arable acres that brought $2.26 billion into Monterey County coffers last year. No one is surprised that local agriculture is big business. ...
Thursday, November 5
Chef Profile
Maloney's Harbor Inn Less than half an hour north of Monterey, Moss Landing is an enclave that is part bustling marina and fishing village, with another part that's a little like a step back in ...
Baktun-12 brings a fresh kind of hip-hop, agit-prop theater to Salinas, in Spanish and English.
"Breathe," intones Luis Juarez, 25, as he shuts his eyes, hands held loosely at his side. He breathes in and out, slowly, in time with the five other twenty-something homeboys standing outside Frank Sanchez''s garage ...
Musicians who are also teachers make music their night and day job.
Do what you love and the money will follow, right? Well, maybe not. Especially for musicians who want to live their passion. Life in the world of performing arts has never been easy. But for ...
Seasonal Urges
As we scratch our heads in confused wonderment, collectively attempting to figure out what happened to the year 1998--as in where the heck did it go??--enter the season of another strange phenomenon. It begins right ...
With one big exception, local voters stay the course.
With one notable exception, local voters opted for business as usual, choosing to elect incumbents over challengers in almost every contested race in the county. The sole exception to that trend was the city of ...
Bands, Bars&Clubs--introduction
It's been a year of change for the club scene in Monterey County. New clubs have opened, old clubs have attracted new owners and old owners have toyed with new formats to keep customers coming ...
Season of Truth--This season may mark Ensemble Monterey's coming of age.
In launching its new season, Ensemble Monterey has shifted into a higher gear. They''ve raised the ante, artistically and financially. While this is a risky step for a still-young endeavor, it''s a necessary one. In ...
Director Todd Solondz finds happiness has a disturbing heart of darkness.
Let it be said that there is no mistaking Todd Solondz''s movies for anyone else''s. This follow-up to Welcome to the Dollhouse, his 1996 Sundance grand prize winner that used a geeky junior high-schooler''s painful ...
We Pray With Tobacco, a new documentary, offers insights into the use of tobacco by indigenous cultures.
On the heels of an election in which voters were bombarded by issues surrounding both Native Americans (Prop. 5) and tobacco (Prop. 10), a new video documentary making a connection between the two has its ...
The Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies headline Friday show at Doc's.
Okay. This is it, what you''ve been waiting for. Music from a national touring act on a weekend night, just down the street from your house. Gather up your group of friends, get primed, and ...
Letters
Letters You've Got To Be Kidding!! Proposition 6 makes it a "felony" (second offense) to sell horse meat for human consumption. Do we really want to lock up people for this? It makes it a ...
Cigarettes go up in smoke
It''s been about a year since the state imposed a ban on cigarette smoking in bars. How well is the ban working? Does anyone really care? A. Giammanco Resides: Monterey Occupation: Construction Age: 31 Do ...
MoCo Hope?--There are signs that the MoCo music scene may finish healthier than it started.
If you''re one of the people who''s been keeping your finger on the pulse of the MoCo music scene this year, trying to find some signs of life, there''s reason to be optimistic. I don''t ...
You want music? You got music comin' at you from nearly 120 bands and musicians.
Maybe you''re looking for a band to play at your office or Christmas party. Or maybe you''ve seen a listing for a band that''s playing around town and you want to know more about them. ...
Head of the Class--A view of CSUMB from the president.
In a Sept. 24 cover story in Coast Weekly ("Making the Grade," by Richard Pitnick), CSUMB''s innovative educational structure was reviewed. Discounting a few inevitable inaccuracies, the use of some dubious "confidential sources," and the ...
You want music? You got music comin' at you from nearly 120 bands and musicians.
Maybe you''re looking for a band to play at your office or Christmas party. Or maybe you''ve seen a listing for a band that''s playing around town and you want to know more about them. ...
Its, Ands, and Buts
It''s Getting Deep Apparently, the gang over at Morgan''s Coffee and Tea are having to deal with a lot of Republican crap lately, in more ways than one. Throughout election season, according to Morgan''s owner ...
Like it or not, smokers and bar owners find ways to cope with smoking prohibition.
Enjoying a cocktail with a cigarette in hand is a time-honored custom as ingrained in the club culture as tipping the barkeep. For some reason (probably a Freudian fixation), the two habits are impossibly inseparable. ...
Monterey County's club scene has been through a lot of changes in '98.
Some club owners blamed the weather, others blamed the anti-smoking initiative and some said it was a combination of the two. Whatever the real reason, 1998 has been a year of change on the local ...
Whether it's microbrews, billiards or an extra olive in your martini that you crave, local bars provide a little something for everyone.
After Dark, 214 Lighthouse Ave., Monterey. 373-7828. This very alternative club has been described as a gay club but it''s also a place for anyone to feel comfortable with who they are or who they ...
Whether it's microbrews, billiards or an extra olive in your martini that you crave, local bars provide a little something for everyone.
After Dark, 214 Lighthouse Ave., Monterey. 373-7828. This very alternative club has been described as a gay club but it''s also a place for anyone to feel comfortable with who they are or who they ...
Kid Picks
7saturday Tots, Tweens Cheap Thrills! One of the (heretofore) best-kept secrets of last holiday season was the Kids Holiday Flea Market held at the Hilltop Park Center in Monterey. There, early birds of all ages ...
The endangered birds come home.
Something spectacular is happening in the skies over Monterey County. On Wednesday, six young California condors will join two older birds already in the Ventana Wilderness Sanctuary, to begin preparation for their January 1999 release ...
Bands, Bars & Clubs--introduction
It's been a year of change for the club scene in Monterey County. New clubs have opened, old clubs have attracted new owners and old owners have toyed with new formats to keep customers coming ...
Like it or not, smokers and bar owners find ways to cope with smoking prohibition.
Enjoying a cocktail with a cigarette in hand is a time-honored custom as ingrained in the club culture as tipping the barkeep. For some reason (probably a Freudian fixation), the two habits are impossibly inseparable. ...
