Thursday, January 26
Killer Movie
Killer Movie
If we took our cues about the world strictly from movies, we’d be forced to believe that no line of work produced more conflicted souls than that of a hit man. From Jean Reno in ...
Public Citizen for Jan 26, 2006
Thursday 1|26 NIP Sidewalk Cracks in the Bud MONTEREY—Funding for sidewalk and curb repair, as well as new traffic signals and parks, may not sound glamorous. But it’s the stuff of good neighborhoods, and is ...
Generosity and Good Taste
Generosity and Good Taste
STILL A GRATEFUL NEW YEAR… I don’t think most folks realize just how much wear and tear a restaurant endures, especially a busy one. Age of the building and equipment, and natural deterioration add hidden ...
Pretty Possibilities
The lovely Ling Chow flirts, teases and occasionally delivers fine, inventive pan-Asian cuisine.
Ling Chow inhabits a beautiful space, a spare confluence of cool tones, urbane black and horizontal lines. A sleek bar at the entrance marks the curve into a large room overlooking Carmel’s Barnyard shopping center ...
Language Explosion
The 10,000 Poems Project calls on the poet inside everyone.
|A&E| » LIT Celebrated poet Lawson Inada has a fittingly poetic vision of the 10,000 Poems Project. “Whenever I’m in the Salinas Valley, I’ve always noticed the lettuce-harvesting machines,” Inada says. “We’re kind of the ...
Not Lost
PG Native Josh Randall finds another prime time home.
Knowing local viewers lept to the edge of their seats when Monterey High-product Josh Randall made an appearance on the award-winning drama Lost late last year—Randall had made it big. But when his character was ...
Squidfry
Squidfry
SQUID’S ETHICS COMMITTEE…It’s happened. Election season has finally kicked into high gear. Dennis Donohue, president of European Vegetable Specialties Farms in Salinas, announced late last week his candidacy for Salinas mayor, following Salinas City Councilwoman ...
Squeezed at the Pump
Shell sues Marina gas station operator over anti-gouging signs.
It’s been two months since Shell Oil installed brand-new pumps at the Marina Shell gas station on Reservation Road, which Mehdi Shahbazi has leased and operated since 1982. But to date, the pumps are locked ...
All Over the Map
Houston Jones gets its Americana from a variety of sources.
|A&E| » MUSIC Somewhere there’s a crossroads where country and rock, gospel and bluegrass, and blues and pop all converge. Loitering around that dusty intersection you’ll find Houston Jones. The high-energy Americana band has been ...
Final Act
The White Countess, the last film made by famed filmmaking team Merchant Ivory, sputters to life during its last minutes.
Politics shackle the characters in The White Countess. The movie, which will be forever famous as the final Merchant Ivory collaboration, opens in 1936 Shanghai, where a family of Russian royals has settled after escaping ...
Fighting Words
Jim Hightower pulls no punches while defending America’s progressive values.
Jim Hightower is sharp, combative, witty and unabashedly liberal. Yet what makes the prolific author and pundit vital to today’s national progressive movements is his contagious optimism. After the Democrats’ crushing defeat of 2004, Hightower, ...
Letters
Grand Jury Report: Shame on the Messenger Shame on you for the cheap shot at Alana Knaster [“County Planning Blasted—Grand Jury calls Planning Department ‘dysfunctional,’ ‘ineffective’ and ‘inefficient.’” Jan. 12-18]. Fill your space with facts ...
DiscSpace
DiscSpace
BABYSHAMBLES | Down In Albion |Rough Trade If all you know about Peter Doherty is that you have seen him in tabloids as the drugged-up boyfriend of model Kate Moss, then you are only getting ...
Our New Look: The Weekly has changed. Change is good.
Last week at the video store, a woman in line behind me said something that caught my attention. “Change is inevitable,” she said, “but progress is optional.” She may have been talking about some new ...
::Street Talk::
Asked at Acme Coffee in Seaside
Q: IF YOU COULD REDESIGN ANYTHING, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Follow-up: WHAT IS PERFECT JUST THE WAY IT IS? DAVID SANTANA | Architectural Draftsman | Seaside A: Our railroad system. It’s ironic that Japan and ...
Gambling With the Past
Mortimer’s Card Room’s barely-hidden history tells of rowdier days in Marina.
Walking into Mortimer’s Lounge is like wandering into a movie theater after a day in the sun: it takes a while for one’s eyes to adjust to the dark. But as the darkness slowly melts ...
US Coast Guard may off-load some of its local property to city of Monterey.
The US Coast Guard may sell some of its valuable real estate to the city of Monterey. According to City and Coast Guard officials, one option on the table is an unprecedented transaction that would ...
Farms to Slugs
Local organic farmers land contract with UC-Santa Cruz.
At first glance, the goals of the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) sound idealistic. They include, for example, teaching farmworkers with limited means, fresh off the big ag fields, how to build an organic ...
ArtListings
ArtListings
Links to galleries within this section: Artistas Unidos | Back Porch Fabrics | Breakthrough | Carmel Art Association | Carmel Foundation | Center for Photographic Art | Chapman Gallery | Coast Gallery | Concepts Carmel ...
Romantic Getaway
Wife of a convicted child molester investigated for helping husband evade arrest.
Local prosecutors have been investigating Renee Daly, wife of convicted child molester James Daly, in an effort to uncover the extent of her role in aiding her fugitive husband since his sudden flight last April. ...
Global Spin
DJ Christopher Lawrence makes dance music with a West Coast flavor.
Christopher Lawrence lives two lives. During the week, he lives in an area of Los Angeles called the Miracle Mile with his wife and two children. But on weekends, the world-famous trance DJ is playing ...
Blues and Then Some
The Colin John Band takes classic sounds in new directions.
The only ingredients needed for a blues album are some great guitar licks and emotional vocals about some songwriter’s woes. Akron, Ohio bluesman Colin John takes this formula one step further by adding creative elements ...
Thursday, January 19
Music for the Taste Buds
Bistro Giovanni offers a refined aesthetic experience.
In a comfortable corner of the impeccable Bistro Giovanni, Lionel Ritchie quietly sums up my appreciation for the Dijon Salmon ($19.95) nicely, singing, “Do it to me one more time…” With a homemade five-spice crust ...
New lending study shows minority homebuyers in Salinas pay more than their white counterparts.
Most everyone wants a piece of it: the American Dream. That house with the big yard and the white picket fence. But few have the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to buy a home ...
A Dirty Job
It’s not easy finding a place for the garbage produced by a quarter-million people.
Steve Johnson knows a few universal truths about trash. “Everybody wants to get rid of the trash, but they don’t want it near them,” he says. “They don’t want to pay too much and they ...
Power Point
With Match Point, Woody Allen returns to form.
Maybe all Woody Allen needed was a change of scenery. Actually, except for the accents, the London of his Match Point is a lot like his typical Manhattan milieu, a playground for the rich and ...
The Long Stretch
The ancient path of yoga is still the next big thing.
Although yoga has been around for thousands of years, it has boomed in the last few, and continues to grow—no doubt because of its undeniable benefits. Yoga famously calms the mind, and it has been ...
Stripping for fitness, and for other reasons.
There’s more than a little bit of guilty pleasure out of going to a workout class where there are appetizers and free-flowing wine and champagne. But this is no ordinary class, and the 12 of ...
Fast Train to Torino
California Olympian Julia Mancuso never stops on her way to the podium.
Traditionally, trainers don’t pull hair. But apparently it can work wonders: It helped mold 21-year-old California native Julia Mancuso into one of the most exciting American Olympic skiers on the snow. “My older sister was ...
Party to celebrate Bill Ray’s life planned in Carmel Valley.
On Monday, Jan. 9, Carmel Valley resident Bill Ray passed away unexpectedly in Southern California. Ray operated Rancho Productions, an agency that booked great bands like The Gourds, The Greencards and Sarah Lee Guthrie and ...
Honky Superstars
The Hackensaw Boys play real, fast bluegrass to a new generation.
On Aug. 10, 2002, rock fans were spread all over UC Berkeley’s Greek Theatre waiting for the next act to take the stage. Across the Bay, in the distance, the tall buildings of San Francisco ...
Foodchain
The Home of Excellence
Took a weekend run down to Santa Barbara last week. Beautiful town. I love the way it always looks so pretty everywhere, something about that backdrop of mountains, the ocean, the Channel Islands peering through ...
Pretty Vacant
Laborious The New World is nice to look at but lacks depth.
When great American directors are an endangered species, die-hard cineastes tend to desperately cling to the auteurs in their midst. Like Martin Scorsese or Robert Altman, Terrence Malick is one of a dwindling supply of ...
Creatures of Habit: Asked at Longs Drugs in New Monterey
Q: What are your healthiest and least healthy habits? Follow-up: What’s the worst tasting food that’s good for you? Wayland KoppTruck Broker | Pacific Grove A: My best habit is waking up in the morning; ...
Letters
Butterfly Flap in (Where Else?) PG Yee gads! Cancel the Butterfly Parade or the Feast of Lanterns? Yes indeedy, there was a mild hysteria in Pacific Grove over Ryan Masters’ article “Pinching Pennies” [Jan. 12-18]. ...
Power Grab
Environmentalists hope Duke Energy sale and permit expiration will make for a more Slough-friendly plant.
It’s too soon to tell how Duke Energy’s plans to sell its Moss Landing power plant may affect the proposed desalination project. But local environmentalists hope that the sale—coupled with the impending renewal of the ...
Fit Beats Fat
Winter fun requires winter training—and there’s help available.
Winter is invariably when a lot of people regretfully pack on the blubber and let their bodies whither. Sure, blame it on mom’s turkey and all that holiday candy. Or on post-Christmas Stress Syndrome (whatever ...
Smoke-Free Beaches
Smoke-Free Beaches Just because it’s sand doesn’t make it an ashtray. In an ongoing effort to make local beaches tobacco-free, Michelle House, tobacco control coordination for the County’s Health Department, will give an informal presentation ...
Homepage
A Perfect Arrangement
When the three partners of the design company It’s a Beautiful Thing descend on a home, it feels sort of like three fairies in a Disney movie working some magic. With three pairs of experienced ...
Mellow Folk Trip
Quiet Quiet Ocean Spell debuts at Fernwood this weekend.
The man who calls himself Nabob Shineywater feels that it is hard to have moments of revelation inside city limits. There, amongst traffic lights and buildings that obscure the sun, he says, almost every endeavor ...
Hard Winter Nights
New Actors Collective stages an important, brief production of The Lion.
If you’ve never been involved in a theater production then it might be difficult to truly appreciate what Nina Capriola, Jeff Heyer and the Actors Collective are doing at the Circle Theatre this week. They ...
Squidfry
SPIRITUAL TENDENCIES…Squid has become a believer in reincarnation. It’s the only way Squid’s ever going to have enough time to do everything Squid plans to do. In the next round, Squid would like to be ...
TheaterListings
| theater opening | The Lion in Winter Opens 8pm Tue; continues 8pm Wed. On Christmas Eve of 1183, aging King Henry II summons his rival the French King, together with the members of his ...
ArtListings
ArtListings
Links to galleries within this section: Artistas Unidos | Back Porch Fabrics | Breakthrough | Carmel Art Association | Carmel Foundation | Center for Photographic Art | Chapman Gallery | Coast Gallery | Concepts Carmel ...
Thursday, January 12
Who’s Afraid of MSG?
Umami is the best thing since mommy.
Until recently, the consensus among chefs, scientists and food theorists has been that the human tongue can distinguish four basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Flavor results from the combination of these primary tastes ...
Seaside: Where developers go to play.
After nine years of operating Bayonet and Black Horse Golf Course in Seaside, BSL Golf Corp. last month packed up its clubs and left town. But the company didn’t leave empty handed. Neither did it ...
Pure Funny
Celebrated local dramatist Rob Foster unleashes a clever piece of fluff.
So far, 2006 is agreeing with Rob Foster. In addition to this weekend’s world premiere opening of his fifth play, a romantic comedy called Just Lovely, the local actor, playwright and artist is still basking ...
Home Made Art
Young artist transforms her bedroom into an intimate self-portrait.
Upon entering Jaymee Martin’s Monterey residence, it becomes immediately apparent that a creative mind is at work. In the small living room, there is a Christmas tree adorned with a necktie, a few crumpled pieces ...
Schwarzenegger issues massive bond and fatter budget with nice-guy election-year State of the State.
Just days after announcing his plan for the state’s largest public building program since the 1960s—a plan that would issue $68 billion in new infractructure bonds—Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Jan. 10 announced his $125.6 billion ...
The Painfully Funny Truth
To Carlos Mencia, nothing is funnier than real life.
It sounds like Carlos Mencia is taking a leak during the phone interview. “Are you taking a leak?” comes the question. “No, I’m pouring something. But I would.” It’s not hard to believe him. These ...
How a new silver laptop can change a guy’s life.
I spent all day Sunday exploring the features on my new silver PowerBook G4 laptop. It has gigabytes, like a million of them, and I needed those gigabytes because I was going to be doing ...
Faster Than Life
Former MHS Toreador and co-creator of Fox sensation
When Fox’s juggernaut drama 24 plunges into its two-day, four-hour season premiere this Sunday and Monday, it will do so with some of the most celebrated tricks and characters of any show on TV: its ...
SquidFry
SquidFry
FUNNY MAN… Squid and County Supervisor BUTCH LINDLEY don’t see eye to eye on much. (Duh! Lindley’s got a good five feet on Squid! But then again, Squid’s got six arms on the Supe…) Anyway, ...
TheaterListings
| theater opening | Just Lovely Opens 8pm Fri; continues 8pm Sat; 2pm Sun. (Reviewed this page.) $18/general admission; $15/students and seniors. Carl Cherry Center for the Arts, 4th and Guadalupe, Carmel. 649-0259 or www.unicorntheatreinc.org. ...
Cozy City Charmer
Cozy City Charmer
In the favored Monterey neighborhood known as Peters’ Gate is an unexpected surprise. An old Victorian home sits behind a white picket fence on a mature property filled with oaks, redwoods, and apple trees. Wisteria ...
When It Is Time
STREET TALK: Asked in the Carmel Crossroads Shopping Village
Q: When would you want to die and how? Follow-up: What’s the one thing you want to accomplish before then? Fred Miller | Marketing Executive | New York City A: When my mission in this ...
Parlor Piece
A fine ensemble cast saves
Lasse Hallström’s latest is fine but unambitious, content with what it is—an arthouse trifle for the masses, with tri-corner hats, corsets, and powdered wigs, a charming re-creation of 1750s Venice, musings on horseback about true ...
Letters
SHORT SHORT STORIES: TOO SAD Next year, a few months before the contest [“Fast Reads,” Jan 5], could you put your 101 word short story judges on Prozac? Thanks. —Anne Jones | Pacific Grove HOW ...
Popular state assemblyman to run for County seat.
Monterey County’s political climate changed dramatically early this week, with state Assemblyman Simón Salinas filing papers to once again run for a seat on the County Board of Supervisors. Salinas served on the Board from ...
The Last of the Delta Bluesmen
“Honeyboy” Edwards is going strong at 90.
David “Honeyboy” Edwards was born in the Mississippi Delta town of Shaw back in 1915. He grew up in farming country, where cotton polka-dotted the land. Most folks didn’t have radios. Music was something people ...
County Planning Blasted
Grand Jury calls Planning and Building Inspection Department ‘dysfunctional,’ ‘ineffective’ and ‘inefficient.’
The 2005 Grand Jury report, released last week, delivers a blistering indictment of the Monterey County Planning and Building Inspection Department. The Grand Jury, which is appointed by the Superior Court and mandated to watchdog ...
ArtListings
ArtListings
Links to galleries within this section: Artistas Unidos | Back Porch Fabrics | Breakthrough | Carmel Art Association | Carmel Foundation | Center for Photographic Art | Chapman Gallery | Coast Gallery | Concepts Carmel ...
NewsBriefs
Veterans Cemetery Meeting Activists, military veterans and elected officials have for years been trying to have a military cemetery built on the former Fort Ord. But nothing has ever come of it. At least not ...
This Will Be Our Year
LET’S GET GOING… Whoooaaa…When I submit this piece to the editorial conglomerate at the Weekly, I type in the date of the issue it is appearing in. I just typed in Jan. 12, 2006 and ...
PG City Council mulls making organizers pay thousands for annual events.
Pacific Grove officials have sent local business owners into a panic by considering a move that could “doom” the city’s traditional festivals, including Good Old Days, the Feast of Lanterns and the Parade of Lights. ...
An Able Fable
Hoodwinked retells the story of Little Red Riding Hood.
On first look, this animated revamping of the Little Red Riding Hood story seems to farm the same well-tilled soil as the plethora of big studio animated features. Yet there’s much more of a rich ...
Thursday, January 5
Letters
Top 10 Things You Will Not Miss About Monterey 10. Trails. Believe it or not, the rest of the country has many more miles of excellent, unused trails. Mostly miles and miles away from any ...
News Briefs
The Race Is On Election season has begun. Late last week, five Monterey County elected officials took out papers needed to run for re-election this year. On Dec. 30, Supervisors Lou Calcagno and Butch Lindley, ...
ArtListings
ArtListings
Links to galleries within this section: Artistas Unidos | Back Porch Fabrics | Breakthrough | Carmel Art Association | Carmel Foundation | Center for Photographic Art | Chapman Gallery | Coast Gallery | Concepts Carmel ...
DiscSpace
DiscSpace
PETE GONG AND SARAH MAIN | Pure Pacha 2005 | Om Records Here’s a nice souvenir brought back from Om Record’s summer foray into the Ibiza club circuit: a two-disc set endorsed by Pacha, Ibiza’s ...
Urbane Renewal
Urbane Renewal
Near the Del Monte Shopping Center in Monterey, a quick turn off Munras onto Soledad Avenue leads the way to a lightly forested neighborhood of gently sloping streets, many with ocean views and names appropriately ...
The Year on Stage
Theater companies countywide roll out big seasons.
Monterey County’s theater companies hit the boards in 2006 with a varied slate of fresh new productions and old favorites. From Annie and Buddy! to Urinetown and A Clockwork Orange, this year’s fare has something ...
Fast Reads
Hearts and souls, tears and laughter, in 101 words (or less).
Apparently, this thing is unique. It’s its own art form. And it’s our very own thing. We believe the Weekly’s annual 101 Word Short Story Contest results in the best, shortest fiction being written anywhere. ...
Breakfast Buffet
Director Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto serves up bits and pieces of his other films.
Although based on the Patrick McCabe novel (he also co-wrote the screenplay), Breakfast on Pluto serves up ingredients from almost every other Neil Jordan film. Start with the theme of hopeless love common to them ...
Salt of the Sea
Planned desal plant allows Cannery Row hotel project to inch forward.
Desalination is complicated, but the actual process of creating drinking water from the sea may be child’s play compared to the bureaucratic machinations required for a private developer to get permission to do it. In ...
Kids Catch a Break
A public-private partnership drives Silver Star program for at-risk youth.
831[TALES FROM THE AREA CODE] Rancho Cielo is a 100-acre spread with a wooden entrance sign on the its perimeter—just like you might see in a Western movie. In 2004, the Silver Star Youth Program ...
The Seeds of Fat
Warm thoughts to begin a cold new year.
Short cold days, long colder nights…it’s easy to understand why so many cultures choose this time of year to stage major celebrations—many of which involve light, food, and camaraderie. To rage against the dying of ...
Upside Downside specializes in original-sounding covers.
Upside Downside plays everything from CCR to B.B. King. But John Mueller, lead singer and guitarist of the local blues-rock trio, says his outfit excels at covering the band Cream. “There’s a lot of feeling ...
Hometown Hangout
East Salinas teen center will be run by high school and college students.
The after-school program room at the Firehouse Community Center, run by La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), looks like, well, a classroom for an after-school program. A row of computer monitors lines one wall. A ...
Looking Forward
Looking Forward
Happy New Year again, everybody. How many of you are still on your new year’s resolutions bandwagon? Come on, it’s OK, mostly everyone has fallen off already…especially the one about losing weight, starting the exercise ...
Squidfry
Squidfry
HAT’S OFF…No reporter likes to “get beat.” (That’s what a news nerd calls it when a local rival publishes an important story before he gets around to it.) And no reporter likes to “walk in ...
TheaterListings
Links to theater/stage organizations within this section: | CET & Indoor Forest Theater | MPC Drama Dept. | MoCo Theatre Alliance | Pacfic Rep | Unicorn Theatre | theater ongoing | The Roots of Rock ...
Street Talk
Story Time: Asked at the Seaside Library
Q: What is the story of your life in 40 words or less?Follow-up: What would the title be?Kerry Hartjen Entertainer | Pacific GroveA: I set out to explore the world in a creative and artistic ...
Young Talent
Only 19, Holly Brook is already a veteran singer-songwriter.
When Linkin Park decided to sign their first act to their new label, Machine Shop Recordings, the commercial rap-rock group known for megahits like “One Step Closer” went in an unexpected direction. Instead of offering ...
