Monterey County Weekly back issues from June 2005:
Franken Foods on Film
Jun 02, 2005; ... During the past 10 years, genetically engineered crops have quietly infected America's food supply, according to a documentary, The Future of Food. They're now in an estimated 60 percent of all processed foods. Learn more about GMOs at a screening on June 8 in the Community Room of the ...
Promise Keepers; Dems vow to raise taxes on richest Californians to pay for education.
Jun 02, 2005; ... When Democratic lawmakers announced their alternative to Gov. Schwarzenegger's spending plan earlier this week, they stressed that it contained a promise to fully fund education. Speaker Fabian Núñez and Budget Committee Chair John Laird, who represents the Monterey Bay area, unveiled ...
Bohemian Paint; Henry Miller's daughter plans to sell her father's most personal art.
Jun 02, 2005; ... Days before the 25th anniversary of her famous father's death, Valentine Miller will launch a Web site to sell literary giant Henry Miller's personal collection of watercolor and oil paintings. The Web site, www.henrymiller.info, is scheduled to be up and running by June 3. "I've ...
PETER SMITH'S PARADOX; THE OUTGOING PRESIDENT OF CSUMB-A BEACON OF DIVERSITY AND STUDENT EMPOWERMENT-LEAVES A MIXED LEGACY
Jun 02, 2005; ... It's the day before CSU Monterey Bay's ninth graduation, and Peter Smith comes quickly out of his smallish office, on his way to view graduating students' senior projects, known as Capstones. Tomorrow, Saturday, will be the last commencement Smith presides over before leaving for his new ...
London Underground; Layer Cake is a slice of the dangerous life.
Jun 02, 2005; ... The first 10 minutes of Matthew Vaughn's sleek gangland thriller Layer Cake convince you that the biggest high comes not from doing drugs, but dealing them. Daniel Craig, playing the film's unnamed antihero--billed only as XXXX--narrates a Goodfellas-esque prologue that lays out the ...
Connected by Strings; Darol Anger and Rushad Eggleston bring their Republic to Carmel Valley.
Jun 02, 2005; ... Five years ago, violinist Darol Anger met cellist Rushad Eggleston under unusual circumstances. The two were at a Montreal music festival where Eggleston was playing with a jazz quartet that happened to be covering some of the material Anger had written and recorded with his former band, the ...
Breathing Music; Virginia Mayhew brings her fine quartet to the Jazz & Blues Co. Saturday.
Jun 02, 2005; ... Saxophonist Virginia Mayhew knows that the essence of jazz is group interplay, which is why she's been so successful at assembling a series of thrilling bands over the past decade. That's not to imply that Mayhew is any kind of a slouch on the horn. She's attained a beautiful, brawny ...
DJ SNEAK; House of Om; Om Records
Jun 02, 2005; ... Just in time for those long hot nights of the summer season, Om Records is celebrating the addition of Carlos Sosa aka DJ Sneak to their extended family with a new series, House of Om. Forget chill or downtempo, winter and spring--this first volume is perfect thing to whet your appetite for ...
Classic Imprint; Writers Series brings old movie prints and top screenwriters to Monterey.
Jun 02, 2005; ... It's long been argued that movies would be nothing if it weren't for their writers. At a two-week film series in Monterey's newly restored Golden State Theatre, four writers will make their case and back it up with screenings of classic cinema. Matt Malloy, the State Theatre's manager, ...
Motivational High Life
Jun 02, 2005; ... LONG BUILDUP TO SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION ... I'm writing this thing, and believe me, this thing sometimes feels like The Thing, that frozen behemoth from the movie of the same name, as it backs me into the corner of my secluded outpost in the wilderness of my own mind--I'm writing this thing two ...
'Graffiti Busters'; Armed with paint and rollers, Salinas volunteers clean up city walls.
Jun 02, 2005; ... The 10-foot-high, slump-stone wall on Las Casitas Street in North Salinas is mostly a muted mustard color. In a few spots, however, it's shades lighter. Still, it's quite an improvement over what the wall used to look like. Like lots of buildings and walls in and around Salinas, the Las ...
'Villages' Moves Forward
Jun 02, 2005; ... The Marina City Council was slated to consider the University Villages project at its May 31 meeting. The 420-acre project on the former Fort Ord would include 1,237 homes, retail, offices, parks and a village center. At press time, the council had yet to vote on the ...
Bomb Scares Shake Carmel; Fifth incident in two years a false alarm, say cops.
Jun 02, 2005; ... A series of bomb scares and arson attempts, going back almost two years, have police and other officials practicing extreme vigilance. Last month, an unattended briefcase at a Carmel Charles Schwab brokerage prompted Monterey County Bomb Squad officers to shut down Carmel Rancho ...
forum; Goodbye To Intelligence; A former CIA man takes a hard look at John Bolton.
Jun 02, 2005; ... Few have more at stake in the expected Senate approval of John Bolton to be US representative at the UN than the remnant group of demoralized intelligence analysts trained and still willing to speak truth to power. What would be the point in continuing, they ask, when--like so many other ...
Hard Rock Performance; Stone mason Baldo Vultaggio sculpts a special market.
Jun 02, 2005; ... Maybe it's his many years of experience that allow him to spot just the right stone to turn walls, fountains and fireplaces into a special kind of rock show. Or perhaps it's in his blood; his father worked at the craft for years to support his family. Whatever the reason, stone mason Baldo ...
Working Man; Ron Howard's Cinderella Man is not an example of flashy filmmaking, but it does the job.
Jun 02, 2005; ... It's easy to be a fan of Mozart, because it's easy to embrace universally accepted brilliance. But nobody is going to claim that the works of Salieri will make your baby smarter. And the odds of Cahiers du Cinema publishing a retrospective on les films du Ron Howard is only slightly better. Yet ...
Twin Gypsies; Django's spiritual sons converge for preview show at Monterey Live.
Jun 02, 2005; ... Guitar aficionados are in for a treat this week. British-born Robin Nolan, one of the top Gypsy jazz guitarists in the world, opens the Peninsula's latest venue, Monterey Live, in two shows with his Amsterdam-based trio and special guest guitarist Howard Alden. Nolan's profile in the US ...
DJ SPINNA; Compositions 3; Female Fun Records
Jun 02, 2005; ... The third in a series of six-track instrumental EPs by the Brooklyn based DJ Spinna (formerly of the Jigmastas), Compositions 3 is primarily meant for a DJ's 12" vinyl crate, but it's also available on CD for the non-turntable-inclined. In Spinna's typically chilled out style, these joints work ...
SCREAMING TREES; Ocean of Confusion; Epic/Legacy
Jun 02, 2005; ... Punk rock never happened, or so one would think were one in Seattle in the late '80s and early '90s. For all of the foofarah about "the year punk broke" being attributed to Nirvana, every other major group from the Pacific Northwest at the time was mining the lode of slightly amped-up Brit ...
The Second Act; Having wowed 'em in PG, Zocalo brings its good vibes and traditional flavors to Monterey.
Jun 02, 2005; ... Well, I guess this means my investigation into Zocalo is over. I managed to draw it out seven weeks, visiting five times if you include the pork tamale at the farmer's market that started the whole thing. I might have continued my research forever had the editor not wised up and demanded ...
Fire Road to Stay Open
Jun 09, 2005; ... Swayed by a vocal Big Sur community, California State Parks officials have decided to develop a plan to keep the Tin House Creek Fire Road open to emergency vehicles. Located south of Pfeiffer State Park, the Tin House Creek Fire Road has experienced severe erosion, prompting the State ...
Paddling Preachers; TeamOCEAN volunteers act as Sanctuary missionaries in kayaks.
Jun 09, 2005; ... TeamOCEAN (Ocean Conservation Education Action Network), a grassroots, seasonal field program that puts knowledgeable naturalists out on the water in kayaks to greet and interact with fellow day kayakers, turns five years old this summer. Dressed in life jackets and paddling bright ...
Global Cities Unite; Mayors from around the world meet in San Francisco for UN World Environment Day.
Jun 09, 2005; ... Last Saturday afternoon in a second-floor auditorium at San Francisco's Metreon, the feel-good moments just kept on coming. The audience burst into spontaneous applause when the formidable Bianca Jagger declared that the Bush administration is part and parcel of the "military-petroleum complex," ...
The World in a Wineglass; Biodynamics helps vintners find the spirit of their land.
Jun 09, 2005; ... At 4:30am on May 6, Bonny Doon Vineyard Manager Nadine Lew crawled out of bed, got in her Nissan pickup and drove to the winery's Ca' del Solo vineyard northeast of Soledad. Working by headlights in the cool pre-dawn air, she ran water into two 60-gallon copper kettles attached to a big twin ...
Euro Horror; Director Alexandre Aja's High Tension recalls the classic slasher films from the '70s.
Jun 09, 2005; ... Gory European gothic horror doesn't come any grittier and weirder than it does when a couple of would-be lesbian college girlfriends retreat to a weekend at the secluded farmhouse of one of their parents to study for their final exams. A local deranged psychokiller pays a nocturnal visit to the ...
Making a Scene; Monterey Live launches ambitious performing arts calendar.
Jun 09, 2005; ... With the smell of fresh paint in the air, Vince La Rocca climbed onstage last Thursday to introduce a crowd to Monterey's newest music venue. While waitresses served mixed drinks in hand grenade-shaped cocktail glasses to a seated, almost-full house and T-shirt-wearing contractors walked into ...
Movie Man's Music; Steve Tyrell brings a lifetime in the arts to the standards.
Jun 09, 2005; ... It may sound strange, but the 1991 film Father of the Bride was the mother of Steve Tyrell's singing career. With a voice as gravelly as Dr. John's and a laid-back approach that mines Ray Charles' soul motherlode, Tyrell has recorded three popular albums for Columbia interpreting standards like ...
A Museum Moves; Neo Mod shows Monterey Museum of Art heading in a new direction.
Jun 09, 2005; ... On the evening of Friday, May 27, nattily attired ladies and gentleman of a certain age, along with a smattering of artsy young hipsters, showed up for a member reception at the Monterey Museum of Art. After sipping Chardonnay and inhaling sushi and polenta bites soaked in olive oil, a group ...
Birth of a Legend
Jun 09, 2005; ... MEMEMEMEME ... I sit here three days before our beer festival. I have taken to awakening after about three hours, regardless of when I go to sleep--I rarely sleep more than five hours a night anyway. Jeff Moses, my partner in this stuff, and I are acting pretty calm so far--this is, after all, ...
New Land Use Agency Sets Up Shop
Jun 09, 2005; ... Monterey County land use departments will soon be housed under one roof. The new department, called the "Resource Management Agency," will include the Planning and Building Inspection and Public Works departments, the Redevelopment Agency and the County Administrative Office's Capital ...
Coast Guard Charged
Jun 16, 2005; ... A female Monterey Coast Guard member faces court-martial, and three male guardsmen have been discharged for alleged possession of marijuana and methamphetamine, according to commanding officer Lt. Marc Warren. Warren made the announcement at a press conference at the Monterey station on June ...
Boom Town; Marina officials plan to build a city high school.
Jun 16, 2005; ... Nearly two weeks into summer vacation, school is likely the last thing on the minds of Marina students. But that's not the case for many city staffers and some school district officials. The Peninsula city doesn't have its own high school. Today, 573 of Marina's 900 high school students ...
SPRINGTIME ON THE BORDER; A GRASSROOTS CITIZENS' GROUP TAKES ITS FIGHT AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION DIRECTLY TO THE BORDER.
Jun 16, 2005; ... The warm, breezy summit of Coronado Peak, in Southeast Arizona's Huachuca Mountains, offers a fine view of the seemingly endless arid grassland below, a high desert plain of brown earth accented by a fertile strip of green willow and ringed by gentle mountain ranges. A faint dirt road slicing ...
In Balance; Hospice worker Ginger Kane makes sure to take care of herself, too.
Jun 16, 2005; ... Ginger Kane's early morning routine gets her into a zone she carries throughout her often emotionally taxing work days. Kane, 48, is an administrator for Heartland Hospice Services in Monterey, which provides rest and comfort to terminally ill people and their families. Kane, a ...
Fathers and Sons; Tell Them Who You Are examines a legendary cinematographer from a unique angle.
Jun 16, 2005; ... Haskell Wexler is the perfect subject for a documentary. Primarily known for his work as a cinematographer, the two-time Academy Award winner has worked on a wide range of pictures from 1966's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to Richard Pryor's 1982 concert film Live on the Sunset Strip. Also a ...
The Contender; Paul Thorn-a former boxer and furniture maker-finally finds his calling.
Jun 16, 2005; ... Growing up the son of a Pentecostal preacher, Paul Thorn was forbidden to engage in a number of activities. He was not allowed to swim with girls. Or dance. Or go to concerts. Matter of fact, Thorn says, the first concert he ever attended was when he opened for Sting at Nashville's ...
THE AVETT BROTHERS; Live, Volume 2; Ramseur Records
Jun 16, 2005; ... Recently, my brother, who lives in North Carolina, called late at night to tell me his life had changed. Though there was considerable slurring on the other end of the line, I was able to determine that he had not undergone a religious conversion. Instead, he had just seen a performance by a ...
PRINCE PAUL; Itstrumental; Female Fun Records
Jun 16, 2005; ... Itstrumental is purportedly Prince Paul's first true go at creating an instrumental album, but it goes without saying this ain't just your average compilation of beats. Any idea of the Prince is probably too conceptual to be confined to just samples and loops, so it's no surprise that mouths ...
Murderous Fun; TWS's Arsenic and Old Lace is exactly as killingly humorous as it is supposed to be.
Jun 16, 2005; ... A theater company performing a play like Arsenic and Old Lace is the equivalent of a bar band playing "Free Bird." It's one of the most-produced plays in the American theatrical canon, so if you're a self-respecting company, you have to not just do it well, you have to do it flawlessly. Once ...
Get Back Up and Go
Jun 16, 2005; ... THANKS TO ALL ... Still nursing a sore back after our Monterey Beer Festival last Saturday. No matter how many times we do this, it is always comforting for me to align all the tables the day before so we can get a real look at how the event sets up. Those things are heavy. Thank heavens for my ...
Waiting for the Man; Monterey County's Gang Task Force fights crime and waits for promised federal funds.
Jun 16, 2005; ... It's a late Sunday afternoon when Monterey County Gang Task Force Sgt. Rich Rodriguez pulls his department-issued, unmarked SUV into the mayor's parking spot at the Seaside Police Department. His passenger, Task Force Lt. Dino Bardoni, jumps out to talk to Seaside officers inside. Rodriguez ...
Chautauqua Years
Jun 16, 2005; ... The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History celebrates the heritage of America's Last Hometown with a new exhibit, Chautauqua Years (1879-1926). Featuring a weekly lecture series and the Tuttle Collection of historic photos and other artifacts, Chautauqua Years examines the formative ...
CALIFORNIA'S 'LA MIGRA'; State Republicans propose new immigration police force.
Jun 16, 2005; ... Ray Haynes, an assemblyman from Murrieta, says the feds aren't doing enough to keep immigrants from illegally crossing the US-Mexico border. He says it's time for California to create its own border police to keep people out. And come June 2006, he's hoping the majority of California voters will ...
A Public Public Utility? Move to buy out Peninsula's water system faces board vote Monday.
Jun 16, 2005; ... Water board member Alvin Edwards says local residents should own the Peninsula's water system. "I don't think we should be out there trying to help Cal Am, a private company, make money off of a public resource," he says. He's pushing for an advisory measure on the November ballot to ...
Undersea Sounds; Charlap and Muldaur headline a brilliant program at this year's Jazz at the Aquarium.
Jun 16, 2005; ... Every year some journalist raises a hue and cry about the impending demise of jazz. But when jazz mingles with the fishes in Monterey, it's a sign of the music's enduring vitality. Indeed, the annual Jazz at the Aquarium fundraiser, which takes place at the Monterey Bay Aquarium on ...
Nuts and Bats; Christopher Nolan digs into a superhero's psyche in the dark, risky Batman Begins.
Jun 16, 2005; ... For the overwhelming majority of its running time, this reinvention of the moribund Batman franchise aims squarely at grown-ups. Catching up with a comic book industry that has found ways to tell mature stories in a genre long-assumed to be for youngsters, director Christopher Nolan (Memento) ...
Acoustic Trip; The Waybacks don't need amplifiers.
Jun 16, 2005; ... Stevie Coyle has one hell of a résumé. Before becoming the guitarist and singer for the Bay Area acoustic group The Waybacks, Coyle developed his chops while touring around the country as a member of the Royal Lichtenstein Circus. "It was the world's smallest complete circus," he says by ...
OASIS; Don't Believe the Truth; Epic Records
Jun 16, 2005; ... Allegedly the byproduct of some 66 written tracks, this is easily their best in maybe 10 years or so, maybe because Noel Gallagher doesn't have to shoulder the entire writing load himself (bassist Andy Bell and rhythm guitarist Gem Archer collaborated on more than one track). Using oddball ...
Henrypalooza! Big Sur's Miller Library inspires day-long musical event.
Jun 16, 2005; ... The Henry Miller Library in Big Sur is not a typical library; it is a treasure chest of history documenting a great artist whose work challenged the cultural standards and moral outlooks of America. Magnus Torren, the executive director of the library, says he feels it's important to ...
The Old Spice; Roy's Swiss Sausage Factory follows the family recipe.
Jun 16, 2005; ... When a fellow foodie clued me in that there was a sausage factory a mere seven miles south of my Soledad home, I promptly assembled my grilling accessories. Although it's only two turns off of the Walnut Avenue exit in Greenfield, Roy's Swiss Sausage Factory isn't easy to find. In fact, ...
Boundary to Progress; Why won't Del Rey Oaks officials open South Boundary Road?
Jun 09, 2005; ... Del Rey Oaks' population is just under 2,000. Its land area measures about a half square mile. But in the upcoming months, Del Rey Oaks' political power may be big. With construction on Highway 68 slated for this summer, the tiny city holds the key to alleviating a traffic nightmare. And ...
Pounding Pavement; Oldtown business owners push for private security patrols.
Jun 09, 2005; ... Sometime between 8:30pm and 9:30pm on June 5, a burglar broke into Rollick's Specialty Coffee House and Internet Café in Oldtown Salinas. The perpetrator first tried to get in the back way. After damaging the rear door, the burglar went around to the front glass door and threw a rock through the ...
forum; From Jail Cells to Solar Cells; Environmental justice takes the world stage.
Jun 09, 2005; ... Breast cancer rates are skyrocketing in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunter's Point neighborhood. Asthma inhalers are more common than schoolbooks in West Oakland's schools. Toxic factories are poisoning the skies of Oakland's Chinatown. In the Bay Area alone, communities of color have paid ...
Big Man on Campus; Powerlifter and college football player Rob Carbo isn't slowing down.
Jun 09, 2005; ... Perhaps it's his massive 19-inch arms or his collection of California State Championships. Maybe it's his recent college football career or his ambitious, high-energy attitude. Or just maybe it's the fact that he could bench press a family of four. Seaside's Rob Carbo doesn't look or act like an ...
Trading Places; The Danish film Brothers shows the effects of war on one member of a family.
Jun 09, 2005; ... Like her previous film, Open Hearts, Brothers is a psychological drama minus the psychology, and is based on a story idea by Danish director Susanne Bier and a screenplay by Anders Thomas Jensen. Both films set forth dramatic storylines that lead their characters into events that cause continual ...
Going Big; Dennis Murphy channels Sinatra for CD release party.
Jun 09, 2005; ... In his role as regional director for JazzMasters, a nonprofit that brings music education to underprivileged youth, Dennis Murphy, local musician and showman extraordinaire, occasionally encounters timid young players. He says he has a way of coaxing out their courage. "I tell my kids, ...
Save the Dinosaur; Merge Records reissues Dinosaur Jr.'s early catalogue-Dinosaur, You're Living All Over Me and Bug.
Jun 09, 2005; ... At my high school--this was before hip-hop and rap exploded in popularity--people listened to one of two types of music: classic rock and college rock. The classic rock crowd, which was most of the school, wore tie-dyes and listened to acts like The Grateful Dead, The Band and Led Zeppelin. The ...
Sailing the Seas of Cheese; Early summer goat cheese is divine.
Jun 09, 2005; ... I'm fascinated by cheese. How can the secretions of bovine and ungulate mammary glands transform into so many textures, flavors, and colors? Standing in the cheese section of the grocery store can be an overwhelming experience, and I wonder helplessly where to begin. The store's cheese ...
Women Against War
Jun 23, 2005; ... Eight powerful women, including Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley, pull out the heavy artillery, at 7pm on June 27 to voice their opposition to the war. Smiley, a longtime Carmel Valley resident who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 for her novel A Thousand Acres, ...
Dead in the Water; White shark, intended to be the Aquarium's newest visitor, dies in open ocean holding pen.
Jun 23, 2005; ... The Monterey Bay Aquarium's lauded white shark project took a tragic turn when a female juvenile shark died in captivity last Friday. The roughly five foot long, 60-pound shark, which had been captured by a gill-net fisherman on June 13, was found dead in the project's open ocean holding ...
Fish on the Farm; Rep. Sam Farr and local environmentalists push Congress to regulate aquaculture.
Jun 23, 2005; ... Some call it "fish in a toilet"--farmed seafood raised in pens, where food, waste and fish mingle in unnatural concentrations. But in a world with a burgeoning population and a growing appetite for protein from the oceans, aquaculture has become one of the answers to the question of how to feed ...
Batter Up; Life's lessons learned on the T-Ball field.
Jun 23, 2005; ... In childhood, there are many key milestones. Like cutting a first tooth, rolling over, smiling, talking, going to kindergarten and getting in the first fist fight, landing a spot on a sports team gets its own page in the virtual scrapbook. This spring, my just turned 5-year-old son was to do the ...
Head of the Class; Rock School examines rocker turned teacher Paul Green.
Jun 23, 2005; ... If one were looking to open a rock school of one's own, there would be very little practical or instructive information in this film to guide one's efforts. For this is not just any rock school that director and cameraman Don Argott captures: This is the Paul Green School of Rock in ...
Singing Smart; Julie Kelly delivers lessons in beauty at the microphone.
Jun 23, 2005; ... Jazz vocalist Julie Kelly comes to the Peninsula this week to teach at the Monterey Jazz Festival Jazz Camp, but for a real master class in the art of improvisation, the place to be is at her Saturday performance at the Jazz & Blues Company. In a career spanning three decades, the ...
COMMON; Be; Geffen
Jun 23, 2005; ... "Hip-hop is changing; y'all expect me to stay the same," bellowed Common just three years ago on his rap-noise experiment, Electric Circus. That's funny--listening to his new album, it doesn't sound like things have changed much at all since Resurrection. From the first notes of Be, it's safe to ...