Monday, July 30
Griping Gabachos and Bad Publicity
Dear Mexican: I'm a Mexican-American high school student, and just as patriotic as the Joneses who live next to me. In my neighborhood, a gabacho got mad when someone hung a Mexican flag and ended ...
Thursday, July 26
Fade to White
Blue-collar comedy bad-boy Ron White totes scotch and surprising sensitivity to Salinas.
Those who know comic Ron White only by his irreverent venting, incredulous cussing and insistent scotch and cigar smoke might be surprised to discover his sensitive side. “I have feelings too,” he tweeted the other ...
Smoked Out
State relies on Salinas study to revise flame retardant regs despite powerful industry lobby.
Not all bureaucrats spend all day behind a desk. At the California Department of Consumer Affairs’ burn lab in Sacramento, they take torches to furniture or electronics and count how many seconds pass before the ...
Revised plans for a less-fancy beach restroom head to City Council.
The concept for a new public restroom at Carmel Beach didn’t go over too well with the residents near Scenic Road and Santa Lucia Avenue. The preliminary plans show a stone building set into the ...
Dollar Drain
State shorts Monterey County school repairs by $19 million, Alisal Union appeals.
The California Department of Education owes $3.9 million for a new HVAC system at Seaside High School that the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District will probably never see. That funding is part of the state’s ...
P.G. Monarchy
How the city’s role in butterfly philanthropy inspired a maverick activist to run for council.
An aneurysm of the heart on Tax Day nearly took Helen Johnson to the other side. But she was conscious enough to consider one question, and her answer concerned butterflies. “When they asked me if ...
Step Up Revolution
Mob Action: Awesome dance sequences meet snoozer story in rote Step Up Revolution.
After four cracks at it, the Step Up franchise remains incapable of a telling a story that doesn’t make you angry at its stupidity. Apparently it’s too much to ask professional filmmakers to remember that ...
A Man’s Heart
Dick Burns revisits his privileged Mad Men advertising career that he says led to a stroke.
Last week, AMC’s hit show Mad Men scored 17 Emmy nominations. The drama about ad men in 1960s Manhattan is familiar to Carmel’s Dick Burns, now 80. He lived in that world and it almost ...
Letters To The Editor 7.26.12
Fish Food This author’s premise of “conservation efforts that put a stop to heavy pumping” is short-sighted and ignores what an increasing number of scientists and fish agencies are reporting (“California’s booming salmon season belies ...
Seconds Please
Coastal Luxury Management schemes and dreams up Los Angeles Food & Wine 2.0.
It’s midnight in the city of angels. Much of the metropolis sleeps. But Carmel’s Rob Weakley lopes over the urban asphalt of Los Angeles’ downtown and into Tuesday morning, a Monterey County hospitality tastemaker doing ...
Moto GP 2012
Quiet Pacific Grove Gets a Roaring Motorcycle Showcase
“Show ‘em, don’t stow ‘em.” So goes the mantra Neil Jameson will anchor his new - and extensive - motorcycle collection museum in downtown Pacific Grove. Riding the tailpipe of the Red Bull U.S. Grand ...
Dual Engines
Carmel Valley’s Nick and Todd Grice work and play together on the race track.
Nick and Todd Grice wanted to ride motorcycles so badly that as kids they would make engine noises while cruising around on bicycles. “We just always have been fascinated by them,” Todd says. The brothers, ...
Ups and Downs
A look at the major pluses and minuses for four top Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix contenders.
Casey Stoner + Has the ability to be victorious on nearly any bike. He won the world championship on separate bikes (Ducati in 2007 and Honda in 2011) and both years he won the U.S. ...
Quick Nick
Former MotoGP World Champion Nicky Hayden might be the last and best American motorbike hero.
Nicky Hayden tucks into a 350-pound Honda RC211V motorcycle so tightly it’s hard to tell where the machine stops and the man begins. With the finger dexterity of a orchestral violinist‚ he squeezes his brakes ...
By The Numbers 7-26-12
Real Estate
$1,130,000 Recent Sale 3059 Aztec Rd., Pebble Beach Built: 1978 Size: 3,050 square feet Features: 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 2-car garage Amenities: Ocean views, fireplace, deck with barbecue area, large yard, country kitchen Seller: Harron ...
Brezsny's Astrology July 26-August 1, 2012
Brezsny's Astrology July 26-August 1, 2012
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In your personal chart, the planet Uranus symbolizes those special talents you have that are especially useful to other people. Which aspects of your soulful beauty are potentially of greatest service ...
The Culture Sponge
Car-less Chris Essert is a diligent patron of all things cultural (and cheap) in Monterey County.
If you’ve been to any local art openings, film screenings, lectures, art walks or concerts in the last, oh, couple decades, you’ve probably seen Chris Essert. Though he volunteers and takes classes – and travels ...
History has taught us nothing, and that’s why Aurora will happen again.
We are uncomfortable in confronting randomness in our lives. When something terrible happens we search for “explanations” in the same way that primitive people did when puzzled by the complexity of the universe. Why does ...
Have Kaya
The 17th Annual Monterey Bay Reggaefest pays tribute to a beloved genre of music, featuring a Marley disciple.
There are theories out there that attempt to locate where the term reggae came from and what it means. The 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English lists it as a word that can ...
Street Talk 07.26.12 (asked @ Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.)
What marine animal would you Be? what would you say to humans?
Follow-up: What marine animal would you have as a pet? DIANE WYSE | MBARI Intern | Marina A: I would be a parrot fish, because you can hear them eating underwater. And I would tell ...
Shooting Starrs
A fresh Singer-Songwriter Acoustic Showcase at Carbone’s features six musicians on the last Tuesday of every month.
There aren’t many hidden gems lurking uncovered in New Monterey’s music scene. But there’s one goodie that’s been hiding out right under the area’s collective nose for the past several months: Chicago native Cowboy Starr’s ...
Hable, Calamar
DA BOSS… Squid oozed behind the lettuce curtain the other day to see who (since Cuddly Hero of the Masses Dennis Donohue seems determined to step out of the public eye) is gunning for the ...
Schooners Coastal Kitchen & Bar
Hook, Line, Sinker: Schooners Coastal Kitchen & Bar chefs fun and fresh seafood on par with the scenic setting.
By the second bite of the soup, everything else disappears: Delectably tender wild shrimp harmonize with a creamy, spicy, coconut-laced ambrosia. The flavors waltz across the palate with lingering, graceful steps. When I pull back ...
Colorado shooting should inspire stronger gun control.
A topic of discussion around the newsroom is this: What are the sure-fire ways to tick people off in print? The answer inevitably comes down to two subjects: criticize a powerful religion, or criticize the ...
Get Involved
Public Citizen 7.26.12
ONGOING DOCUMENTING WILDERNESS | COUNTYWIDE – Los Padres ForestWatch invites photographers to enter its photo contest, with a focus on local backcountry and wilderness. Submissions due Sept. 15. (805) 617-4610 x4, www.lospadreswild.org/photo. THURSDAY 7 | ...
The Intouchables
Buddy System: An unlikely friendship blossoms with dignity in award-winner from France, The Intouchables.
Nominated for nine César Awards in its native France, it’s telling that The Intouchable’s only win went to its Senegelese co-star, Omar Sy. In between its mix of comedy and a very French strain of ...
Monday, July 23
Being illegal south of the border and serpents in the cilantro
Dear Mexican: I know I might sound like a gabacho borracho, but I’m really just a gringo trying to make progress towards getting work legally in Mexico, a side of the immigration debate we rarely ...
Thursday, July 19
Monk-y Meal
A retreat to the Tassajara Zen Center kitchen yields few culinary tips beyond the best one: Cooking is fun.
For someone happy to subsist on mostly brown rice and steamed broccoli, Dale Kent is surprisingly eager to coax as many combinations as possible out of a four-foot shelf of spices and seasonings. Now an ...
Forward March
A new documentary – and an exchange with now-legendary enviroactivist Bill McKibben – illuminate how we go about
In the sustainable-business documentary Fixing the Future, which just got its simulcast debut in Monterey Wednesday, host David Brancaccio is asked a heavy question: “Do people exist to serve the economy, or should the economy ...
Letters To The Editor 7.19.12
Unhappy Trails If the trails had not been continually used for the past two decades they would have been overgrown by now (“EPA tells FORA to man the fort, threatens to close off public access,” ...
The Dark Knight Rises
Darkest Knight: With the most anticipated release of the summer, Christopher Nolan reveals there are no heroes in Gotham.
This may be the darkest, the grimmest, the most depressing summer popcorn movie ever. It is not summery. It is not popcorny. There is no adventure here. There is no escapism. There is only grinding ...
In the House
Country star Alan Jackson brings his sell-out show to the Salinas Rodeo.
Alan Jackson has more Country Music Association awards than Lil Wayne has gold teeth. The country music star apparently also had more square footage in his house – 18,600 square feet to be exact. Jackson ...
Wide Awake
Asleep at the Wheel has pushed through hardships to remain one of the most well respected Texas swing groups in the game.
Towering 6’7” Ray Benson doesn’t really know why his band Asleep at the Wheel has lasted more than 40 years. “We’ve had about a hundred folks come in and out of this band over the ...
Trashing Waste
County wants out of Salinas Valley Solid Waste Authority, despite vision to end landfills.
Trash will be obsolete within a few decades if the Salinas Valley Solid Waste Authority has its way. “Our approach is to get out of the landfill business,” says Assistant General Manager Jose Gamboa. “We ...
Civil Duties
Monterey County Jail reduces costs by hiring non-sworn officers.
In order to put more deputies on the streets and cut costs, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office is partially staffing the jail with civilians to watch over inmates. The position for what’s called a Custody ...
Delta Deception
California’s booming salmon season belies the species’ precarious future
As Monterey County’s own water troubles persist, the Bay Delta’s water battle also rages on – with a species and a local industry that depends on it hanging in the balance. California is currently experiencing ...
As the American economy reels, Romney still reaping millions from Bain’s vulture capitalism.
Poor Mitt Romney. Well, not that poor. The wealthiest man ever to secure a major party nomination for the presidency is crying foul because President Barack Obama’s campaign has dared to explain how Romney made ...
An unapproved trip into the belly of Monterey Downs.
I am standing in the middle of what, in a few years, might be the parking lot of the low-income housing that Brian Boudreau and his partners have planned as part of the equestrian-themed development ...
Speak Out, Squid
BOOTS ON… In summer, a young Squid’s fancy turns to thoughts of bronc busting and bull riding, and while Squid has been refused entry as a contestant to the California Rodeo Salinas (“All those tentacles ...
Street Talk 07.19.12 (asked @ Seaside City Center.)
What’s the most daredevil thing you’ve done?
Follow-up: What’s the most daredevil thing you’ve done? STEVE HUNTER | Repair Man | Santa Cruz A: Riding horses bareback in the rodeo. I would want to experience all the adrenaline and excitement. Fast Wheels: ...
Words Have Power
Academy award-winning Dustin Lance Black returns to support the local premiere of his artistic activism with 8.
Four years ago, the most heated contest in the November elections in California – after Obama-Biden v. McCain-Palin – was over these 14 words: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or ...
Constructing the Perfect Cowboy*
The 102nd California Rodeo Salinas inspires an attempt to corral all ideal cowboy qualities in one place.
*Cowgirls aren’t nearly as feasible to understand and equip. While barrel racers deserve their own diagram – and epic cowboy poem – they’d be far too complex for the burro-brains at the Weekly. We are ...
Take the Reins
A peek at the weekend’s rodeo schedule
Mamas, you may not want to let your babies grow up to be cowboys. But you gotta let them play the part for a week because – between the petting zoo and the rope tricks, ...
Take This Waltz
Unfaithfully Yours: Take This Waltz serves up some great performances but not much else.
Actress/writer/director Sarah Polley – the Canadian indie darling who garnered an Oscar nod for Best Adapted Screenplay last year for her big-screen directorial debut Away From Her – continues to question marriage in her sophomore ...
Just a Number
Songwriting only gets easier for local favorite Tom Faia.
Age doesn’t seem to slow down luminaries like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits and Neil Young. Tom Faia appears similarly unphased by life beyond 50. “Sometimes writers lose their creative spark with age,” says the singer, ...
Parsing Waters
Peninsula mayors consider staff, budget for new JPA water; Burnett cozies up to PUC.
Dip your toe in the waters of desalination, and you’d best hire an attorney. That’s the message from Monterey City Attorney Christine Davi to City Manager Fred Meurer in a July 5 memo regarding the ...
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Public Citizen 7.19.12
ONGOING PAINT THE TOWN | MONTEREY—Art in the Adobes is looking for artists to participate in the plein air art festival. Spend a day painting your favorite site, then display and sell art the following ...
For Wheels
Amtrak’s Route 21 bus transports locals to San Francisco smoothly and speedily.
Our private driver has us flying up the 280 North, the very Junipero Serra Freeway understandably described by its signage as the World’s Most Beautiful Freeway. Even with a stop to pick up some friends, ...
Brezsny's Astrology July 19-25, 2012
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Acro-Yoga is a relatively new physical discipline. According to a description I read on a flier in Santa Cruz, it “blends the spiritual wisdom of yoga, the loving kindness of massage, ...
By The Numbers 7-19-12
Real Estate
$315,500 Recent Sale 1165 Rousch Ave., Seaside Built: 1961 Size: 1,244 square feet Features: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2-car garage Amenities: Fireplace, large yard, RV/boat parking, ceiling fans Seller: Deutsche Bank Buyer: Earl Kennel Broker: ...
‘Fast Foodies’
Stunning developments in the world of Burger King and Taco Bell are a call to arms/forks.
The first hint something surreal was coming was the sign on the chain link fence in front of the Burger King in Seaside. “Closed for remodel” it read. Behind it, the building wasn’t exactly getting ...
Thursday, July 12
Carmel Bach Festival 2012
Dramaturge in Action
David Gordon, who lives in Carmel Valley, is the Carmel Bach Festival dramaturge and lecturer. He’s been with the festival for 24 seasons – “which is sobering,” he jokes – singing tenor in 80 of ...
How the Republican push for voter ID laws could profoundly change November’s elections.
It’s actually good, from a Republican point of view, that party powers like Rupert Murdoch, his Wall Street Journal and Bill Kristol are piling on Mitt Romney as a lousy candidate right now, in July. ...
Bach In Action
music education in the schools still lacks. here’s how the Carmel Bach Festival plans to help – and keep its tradition fresh and relevant for years to come
The opening Saturday performance of last year’s Bach Festival, inside the acoustic chapel ribcage of the Sunset Center, served as introduction to the festival’s new music director and conductor, Paul Goodwin, and his concertmaster, Peter ...
By The Numbers 7-12-12
Real Estate
$735,000 Recent Sale 619 Hillcrest Ave., Pacific Grove Built: 1929 Size: 1,369 square feet Features: 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1-car garage Amenities: 2 fireplaces, skylights, vaulted ceilings, fenced yard, patio Seller: Philip and Mary Breuleux ...
Get Involved
Public Citizen 7.12.12
ONGOING VETS HELPING VETS | COUNTYWIDE – Veterans who find themselves feeling down in the middle of the night can tune into a weekly video made by veterans who have hit bottom and rebounded. 2am ...
Brezsny's Astrology July 12-18, 2012
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): During an author tour a few years ago, I was a guest on San Francisco radio station KFOG. For a while, the host interviewed me about my book and astrology column. ...
Facts won’t do what Joe Heston wants them to.
A few months ago, veteran Chicago Tribune reporter and sometimes-columnist Rex Huppke got a bit of well-deserved national recognition for an obituary he wrote titled “Facts, 360 B.C-A.D. 2012.” Huppke wrote that while Facts’ health ...
Surprising Heights
A local doctor takes on Mount Everest during its second deadliest season ever.
On the way up Mount Everest, 29,029 feet into the remote reaches of human survivability, s*** happens. Life-and-death dramas ranging from avalanche to embolism become companions – and famously so in a year like 2012, ...
Squid Doth Speaketh
RUNNING IN PLACE… Squid’s own ADHD tendencies make Squid a strong admirer of focus. So Squid’s beak drops open watching protestors at La Playa in Carmel. Of 113 workers who lost their jobs when former ...
Drilling Deeper
Seismic testing in Aromas could be a precursor to oil exploration and fracking.
When earth-shaking trucks pulled out of Aromas last week, it marked the end of a two-year exploration of potential oil and gas deposits. Watsonville-based Freedom Resources formed in February 2010 to research the geology of ...
Street Talk 07.05.12 (asked @ Stone Creek Village in Monterey.)
What musician deserves more love?
MARY GODFREY | Retired | Monterey A: Earth, Wind and Fire were able reach all these different genres with their music and attract a wide audience. Give Me Shelter: The Rolling Stones. Some of their ...
Euro Chic
CSUMB alum Ryan Bisio returns from Denmark armed with a new album and fresh outlook.
For some, change means a new hairstyle or rearranging living room furniture. But for local singer-songwriter Ryan Bisio, it meant packing up, moving to Copenhagen, Denmark and taking a job coaching basketball. “I needed a ...
Unjust Cuts
Monterey County’s courts brace for another year of budget reductions.
Delayed restraining orders, reduced public service hours, civil suits in limbo: These are some of the tolls of four straight years of cuts, totaling $693 million, to California’s judicial branch. The 2012-13 fiscal year doesn’t ...
Letters To The Editor 7.12.12
Fort Ordnance The EPA says it’s “paperwork” that keeps the Keep Out signs up (“Vets snub Fort Ord rules with new sign honoring soldiers,” July 5-11). I wonder how fast the paperwork will shuffle calling ...
Scuba Insecurity
Liability issue causes temporary closure of Pacific Grove’s hyperbaric chamber.
A narrow room in Pacific Grove’s Fire Station #4 contains what looks like a tiny orange submarine. This is the city’s hyperbaric chamber, which supplies pure oxygen at higher-than-atmospheric pressures. For divers with decompression sickness ...
Big Sur Coast Gallery & Cafe
Artistic Tastes: Big Sur Coast Gallery & Cafe provides vibrant and fresh flavors overlooking the Pacific.
About four minutes’ drive south of Nepenthe, Big Sur’s most talked-about eatery, a neighbor is developing its own destination identity and summoning the buzz that comes with it. Big Sur Coast Gallery’s Cafe inhabits a ...
Heady Metal
Granted Earth builds on a ripping local thrash legacy at Jose’s Underground.Granted Earth builds on a ripping local thrash legacy at Jose’s Underground.
Black Flag utilized an abandoned Baptist house of worship dubbed “The Church” as a rehearsal space. Phish practices in a rustic Vermont spot they call “The Barn.” The Monterey trio Granted Earth – made up ...
Ice Age: Continental Drift
Frozen in Time: Ice Age drips blandly and inoffensively with old shtick.
It’s movies like this one that make me despair. Because it is going to make a bazillion bucks at the box office around the world – the three previous flicks in the series have grossed ...
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Peppy Puppy: Beasts of the Southern Wild merely manages to nail the meaning of life.
Not since Victor Erice’s 1973 film The Spirit of the Beehive has there been such a dreamily accurate depiction of what it must be like to be a child caught fast in events of tremendous ...
Pinot Power
The ever-evolving Carmel Valley Wine Trail gets a new star in Cima Collina.
The two plotlines were already storybook enough on their own. Number one: A start-up wife-and-husband-run winery with a by-the-bootstraps backstory and powerhouse small-batch Pinots seeks a bigger tasting room closer to its idyllic Carmel Valley ...
Lovin’ the Life
Caroline Aiken warms up Monterey County’s newest live music venue, Wow at the Windmill.
Caroline Aiken is a musician’s musician: In addition to touring for more than four decades, the Georgian constantly appears at songwriting workshops and clinics where she focuses on helping young artists realize they don’t have ...
Computer Love
Carmel Valley nonprofit incubates a tech-heavy dream for education reform.
It’s not uncommon to hear about a 2-year-old who can use an iPad before a toilet. But when she steps into a classroom, her precocious web proficiency might be suppressed in favor of textbooks and ...
Thursday, July 5
Rep. Sam Farr says Republican-led “war on the oceans” has local impacts.
Politicians often declare battles that have nothing to do with bombs or troops, like the “war on women” or the “war on poverty.” Now, Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel) is coining a defensive political fight the ...
Factory farming uses a vast majority of U.S. antibiotics, so why is there so much resistant bacteria in the meat supply?
America’s cheap meat habit is costing more than we bargained for. The factory farming of cows, pigs, poultry and fish sucks up 29 million pounds – 80 percent – of antibiotics sold in the United ...
Monkeywrench Unit
Vets snub Fort Ord rules with new sign honoring soldiers
Local activists have taken a cue from Edward Abbey in their mission to preserve the former Fort Ord for public use. On Sunday, June 24, a small group of veterans and conservationists marched into an ...
Get Involved
Public Citizen 7.05.12
ONGOING MUSEUMS FOR MILITARY | MONTEREY – The National Endowment of the Arts has designated the Monterey Museum of Art, along with dozens of others across the country, as “Blue Star Museums” offering free admission ...
Ugly events can be manageable with informed compassion.
Two columns for the price of one, on the theme of life or death, and how to do both with dignity. One: I frequently receive email from a regular reader, a smart man with definite ...
Squid Fry 7.05.12
Speak Out, Squid
SPOILER ALERT… Squid was in the mood for a flick last week, perhaps a rom-com to confirm that somewhere – other than in the Weekly’s online comments, where a pair of Steve Collins fans calling ...
Street Talk 07.05.12 (asked @ Valnizza’s Deli in Monterey.)
What makes you feel most independent?
Follow-up: What military training would you want? AARON MONTGOMERY | Field Tech | Salinas A: My job, because I’m able to support myself and my family, and just the freedom of living in America in ...
Seaside Sequel
Rubio and Bachofner head to a rematch
The number 21 dogs Ralph Rubio, a Carpenters Union organizer who was Seaside’s mayor from 2004-2010. His last challenger, Felix Bachofner, beat him at the polls by a mere 21 votes. “I wasn’t going to ...
Out of the Shadows
Monterey Museum of Art’s new Rodin exhibit defies convention to enlightening effect.
Last week Ted Wells – the guest curator of MMA’s new exhibition Auguste Rodin: Light and Shadow – led some local children on a pre-opening tour of the show. Along the way he found himself ...
History for Sale
Trader Joe’s developer looks to historic Cooper Molera adobe as future project site.
Developer Doug Wiele uses the Cooper Molera adobe’s garden as an office, spreading out on benches when he’s in town working on one of several Monterey projects. Wiele and his company, Foothill Partners, are eying ...
Affiliation Action
SVMH mulls merger with Natividad after all other suitors back away.
While CNN editors were scrambling to rewrite their June 28 headlines on the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, Natividad Medical Center CEO Harry Weis was crunching numbers. Only 17 percent of ...
Electrifying Stuff
Electronic music-pioneering Tropo comes to Pacific Grove.
With names like Deadmau5 and Skrillex drawing massive crowds and raking in up to $100,000 for a single performance, electronic dance music has officially arrived. For Tyson Leonard, a classically trained violinist at the Berklee ...
Two Times Two
Shee Haw’s pair of hard-traveling ladies brings infectious country to Monterey County for back-to-back shows.
It kind of sounds like the beginning of an alternate version of Thelma & Louise… but without a tragic ending: Texan Bridget Moser and Wisconsin native Mandy Lee first met eight years ago at a ...
Back to Basics
The Lightfighters get a boost from a sultry new lead singer.
Craigslist isn’t always the best venue to bring musicians with like tastes together. But Savannah Keen was eager to find a home for her powerful voice and decided to give it a shot anyway. Multi-instrumentalist ...
To Rome With Love
Spaghetti Told Western: Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love roams aimlessly through the ancient city.
The original, more euphonious title for Woody Allen’s 42nd feature film was The Bop Decameron, but Allen changed course, he told an interviewer, when he realized the illiterate masses (I paraphrase) didn’t have a clue ...
The Amazing Spider-Man
Eight-Legged Freak: A reboot of the epic franchise offers no reason for the retelling.
The Amazing Spider-Man? That’s a stretch. More like the Half-hearted Spider-Man. The Just-Sorta-There Spider-Man. The Familiar Spider-Man. Spider-Man 3 may be the least satisfying of Sam Raimi’s Peter Parker trilogy, but it’s still livelier than ...
Letters To The Editor 7.05.12
Team Margot I’ve known Margot for 40 years and she has always been a sweetheart to me (“If you must invade Monterey County’s singular company town, follow the rules,” June 28-July 4). She gave Spreckels ...
Pica Fresh Mex
Meat Me There: Pica Fresh Mex does tasty flavor in Oldtown Salinas.
Given that salsa is Spanish for “sauce” – and even mole and guacamole are considered salsas – it would seem wise for every Mexican and Tex-Mex joint to make it a centerpiece, to craft it ...
Tastebuds Talking
Mundaka Carmel Chef Brandon Miller’s yelp for help in the battle against mediocrity.
Chef Brandon Miller’s new-and-going-fast “fuerte” burger ($11.50) is a juicy triumph, a saliva symphony that starts with a kick-in of pig butt. “Gotta have some pork fat in burgers,” he says. Pork butt makes up ...
Military Anonymous
A local ex-Army officer teams up with a psychologist to create an online healing space for vets.
The urgency some vets feel to escape a world incompatible with the one they knew in combat is the focus of veteran Jon Elber and psychologist Randy Berlin. They’re trying to address, and reverse, the ...
Soldiering On
Monterey County vets struggle with civilian life, but new projects promise help and hope.
Three grizzled Vietnam vets sit in a dimly lit room next to the bar at Seaside’s American Legion building. All African American, all moving well past middle age, they fall silent when asked where all ...
By The Numbers 7-05-12
By The Numbers 7-05-12
$2,050,000 Recent Sale Fifth Avenue, 2 NW of Santa Rita, Carmel Built: 2002 Size: 1,690 square feet Features: 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, 1-car garage Amenities: 2 fireplaces, elevator, vaulted ceilings, patio, deck, steam shower, air ...
Brezsny's Astrology July 5-11, 2012
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Members of the Nevada Republican Party have concocted a bizarre version of family values. A large majority of them are opposed to gay marriage and yet are all in favor of ...
On the Gaydar
Pacific Grove native Chip Hall founds first ever LGBQ student club of its kind – in the military.
In a job that demands as much togetherness as any – serving in the country’s armed forces – Chip Hall felt coldly alone. Until the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in September 2011, federal ...
