BLACK OUT… Eddie Edwards, longtime DJ, party-thrower, club owner and agitator, is done at his landmark brick club on North Fremont. Say what you want about the shoot-from-the-hip, at-times-loveable, at-times-plain-ornery personality, but he is also a charismatic vet with a great sense of history and pride who recalls the good old soulful days of Seaside and the lively times when Fort Ord was in full swing.

He told Squid his being out of business – the landlady is taking back the building, he says – means there is only one black business owner left in Monterey. Squid doesn’t believe that (or maybe Squid doesn’t want to believe it). And Squid knows it’s wise to take Eddie’s at-times overly suspicious assertions with a grain of salt. But an unscientific survey of businesses certainly suggests there isn’t a surplus. Either way, Squid will miss Eddie. And his whiskey.

TREADING NOT SO LIGHTLY… The way Squid sees it, there aren’t many things cooler than the Sea Otter Classic: Tens of thousands of mo’ fo’s skidding, jumping and stunting all over a sunny lake bed all to celebrate a beautiful zero-emission thing called the bike. But here’s one that would be cooler: In honor of Earth Day, an SOC that rides a little closer to the green ethic it espouses. Squid rode Squid’s trike 45 minutes to see the superb spectacle, and must’ve been passed by about 100 cars, but only saw four other riders.

Meanwhile, car-free Bay Area folks were furious that there was no mass transit link to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca: the closest they could get was Seaside or Del Rey Oaks. Monterey-Salinas Transit says SOC hasn’t spoken with them in years (perhaps because its buses bike racks are limited). Some folks staying at Monterey Youth Hostel had to take cabs. Others took shuttles that dropped them off. That leaves Squid’s white walls feeling a little flat.

BIG STINK… Just how foul are cow farts? That’s the debate on the Aquarium’s Facebook page, where irate beef and dairy farmers take umbrage over the inclusion of a flatulent, gas-mask-wearing cow model in the new Hot Pink Flamingos exhibit.

“If an exhibit like the one is presented to the consumer, they will think about the exhibit when they are buying steaks or a jug of milk,” Facebooker Lane Giess writes.

Squid doesn’t know what’s so bad about that. Even if cow farts are causing only 4 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that in turn cause ocean acidification, at least the Aquarium got people thinking critically about the connection between beefs and reefs.