Hooray for Us!

May 15, 2008 – 5:32 pm by Gretchen

The finalists for the annual awards for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies were announced last night and, once again, I’m way beyond all modesty in announcing that the Bohemian has two big reasons to be very proud. (None, of course, are quite as big as Sean Connery’s honorary phallus!)

Our Arcadia issue is a finalist in the “Special Issues” category, with outstanding photos taken by the inimitable Sara Sanger. Genius-girl freelance contributor Carey Sweet is listed in the “Food Writing” category for her profile on Taverna Santi and reviews of the Sky Lounge and Carneros Bistro.

This will be the third year in a row that we’ve placed in the Food Writing category and the second time in a row that we’ve won in the Special Issue category. (Many of the bigger papers have editors who only handle the special issues, which would be like being a professional at dandling rubies.)

Awards and placement will be announced at the June 7 convention in Philadelphia. We are guaranteed a win; now, it’s just up to which spot.

AAN is our professional association, composed of some 177 papers nationwide and including Canada. Our circulation puts us in the under 55k category which is far more populated than the over 55k; there are a lot more “little” papers like ours than there are mega-papers like the LA Weekly.

Including this year’s goodness, that totals seven national awards claimed by the Boho in the last five years. Being of a small and petty nature, I will probably find the time to research whether there’s another paper in our circulation category that can make that claim; I doubt that there is.
For context, the only other papers of our size in California to get the nods are Santa Barbara (3), San Luis Obispo (2) and Monterey County Weekly (1).

Ahem: We rock.

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Media Moments: The P.D. and the KRSH

May 9, 2008 – 6:32 pm by Gretchen

It’s just one of those days when tidbits fall from the sky into one’s lazy lap. And so it was that a man called our offices this morning, wanting to talk about the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. A former staffer since laid off by the PD, our chap is a smart fellow with an interesting story to tell about how our own particular slice of modern day mass media is committing suicide by accident.

Outsourcing ad production and editorial layout to India (as seen above), anyone?

Later this afternoon, an email came in from the KRSH 95.9-FM, where I spend about 10 minutes every Wednesday morning nattering needlessly on about ahrt and the Bohemian. Seems top management at the KRSH are concerned that the morning “talent” talk too much. Ziggy Eschliman is on for 30 minutes on Wednesdays; Frank Hayhurst for an hour on Fridays. Theater, film and the occasional other round the week out. Now each of us will have three entire minutes. While I’m just as glad to have to either focus my words or quit the gig, I suspect that Ziggy and Frank might feel otherwise.

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Cinco de Mayo in Roseland

May 6, 2008 – 5:16 pm by Gabe

Roseland pretty much goes off every year for Cinco de Mayo, but last night carried an intense communal electricity missing from the previous couple years. Maybe it was better music; maybe it was the teeming crowds. Organizers predicted that a Monday night would diminish attendance, but it was actually crowded as fuck and at times impossible to make one’s way around the parking lot. Was it packed? Hell yes. Was it worth it? Always.

Community leaders have made a big deal out of the family-friendly aspect of Roseland’s Cinco de Mayo festival, ignoring hella cool shit like people cruising lowriders in the streets, half-naked teenagers sucking face behind the dumpsters, and moms in aqua blue pantsuits carrying around toddlers with mohawks. Something about the unpredictable atmosphere recalls my junior high dances at Comstock. It ain’t all peaches and cream, guys beef with each other, and yeah, people sneak flasks of cognac in. Whatcha gonna do?

Food budget for the night topped out at $9.75 for three tacos, one tamale and a slice of cherry pie with ice cream. And although I’m a huge champion of pupusas, why are there always, like, 45 people waiting in line for pupusas as if there’s only one time a year to ever get ‘em? (Here’s the tip: go to Pupuseria Salvadorena on Maple Ave., across from the fairgrounds. I was down with Hot Tamales on Santa Rosa Avenue when it was the only game in town, but Salvadorena kicks their ass.)

As usual, the action was over on the second stage, where last year’s returning breakdance champion Lil’ Tony was dethroned by a younger kid with crazier moves and who was hotter with the ladies—despite Lil’ Tony’s pretty ripping run-through of “Billie Jean,” complete with cartwheels. What can we say, Tones? After you hit 12 years old, it’s pretty much all downhill.

Other second stage highlights: E-40’s “U and Dat” rockin’ the crowd uncensored; a killer group rap about Cinco de Mayo which blew the speakers out; Mayor Bob Blanchard busting a move; CD giveaways galore; and after the not-really-reggaeton “reggaeton” sounds of a certain group from Oakland, Santa Rosa’s own Latin Hyper storming the stage and shouting, “Now it’s time for some real reggaeton! Manos en el aire!” Jeans + black shirts + Sean Johns + shades + pounding dancehall rhythms = killing it.

Tattoo of the night: “Dogg Pound -4- Life,” obviously homemade. Arrest of the night: the guy so drunk he couldn’t stand on his own two feet while two girls led him out of the crowd. He was swiftly intercepted by Sheriffs who wrestled him down, kneeled hard on his head and married his face to the pavement—see photo below. Ouch. Speech of the night, after a couple more flareups: “Walk home peacefully! Be proud of being Mexicano! We don’t need you in Juvenile Hall! We don’t need you in jail tonight! It’s not every day we get to do this!”

Police were out in force, but really, what’s with hundreds of kids running down the street at breakneck speed towards a fight while groups of cops just sort of mosey along towards the action at a snails’ pace? I witnessed it a few times; kinda weird.

All in all, it was a hell of a celebration, and I can with all honesty say that the music this year was way better than ever. Among the performers, my favorites had to be the aforementioned Latin Hyper; Quinto Sol, five energetic kids from Santa Rosa’s sister city of Los Mochis; and Pilar del Rocío, who sang so goddamn beautifully it was as if her blood were slowly dripping away from her soul. Don’t believe me? Hear for yourself:

 
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More photos after the jump.

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Ben Saari’s Arrest

May 2, 2008 – 5:26 pm by Gretchen

We do find it more than curious that the only person arrested at yesterday’s May Day march in downtown Santa Rosa (other than seven gang members who violated parole by hanging out outside the mall) was CopWatch activist Ben Saari. Indeed, Saari—cofounder of Free Mind Media—was probably only one of a handful of people out of the estimated crowd of 2,500 who exactly knows how to interact with officers without violating his or their rights. Yet he was nonetheless hit with a misdemeanor charge of interfering with an officer and had to post $2,500 bail. We called him up this morning as he shook the jail experience out of his head. Here is his side of the story.

photo of May Day march 2007 by Brett Ascarelli

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Public Art, LSD, and the Red Sox

May 1, 2008 – 12:55 am by Gabe

“When I think of public art,” Boback Emad keenly observed during an interview earlier this year, “I think of a bunch of children holding hands around a globe.”

It was no surprise, then, that when Emad’s wife finally succeeded in convincing him to enter Santa Rosa’s call for artists to decorate the triangular intersection of College, Healdsburg, and Mendocino Avenues, he discovered that one of the other finalists had submitted, yes—a sculpture of a bunch of children holding hands around a globe.

Emad’s design won, and we can all be grateful. You can read about it in the profile I wrote on Emad and his sculpture in the the Bohemian; additionally, what you’re seeing here is a computerized image of what the intersection will look like once his sculpture is installed. Nothing arouses the ire of citizens quite like public art, but in the context of some truly terrible public art in Santa Rosa, I’d say it’s a virtual godsend.

On or around June 28, in the middle of the night, the sculpture will make its way slowly down the middle of College Avenue, clearing the Highway 101 overpass by just a couple feet (anyone ever see X’s film The Unheard Music, where they film a house being carted through Los Angeles in the dead of night?). I’m planning on watching it, and if anyone else wants to check it out too, lemme know and I’ll keep you updated on the exact date.

In other public art news, does anyone out there have a name yet for The Fish installed earlier this week at Prince Gateway Park? Somehow I find it fitting that the inventor of LSD died the same day that this multi-colored delight appeared in a hallucinogenic reincarnation. That said, we could dub the fish sculpture “Albert”—or, since the park’s very inviting, downhill entrance reminds me so much of Gate D at Fenway Park, how about “Ortiz”?

And, since I can’t mention Santa Rosa Creek without mentioning the complete atrocity of the creek being forced into three blocks of concrete tunnels in the late 1960s, I’ll say it again: the creek is looking better than ever, but please, don’t let’s abandon the idea of pulling it out of its underground cell one of these days. Yes, it’ll be expensive, but an open creek, running through downtown: can you imagine it?

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Broken-Down and Beautiful

April 23, 2008 – 5:42 pm by Gabe

While researching locations for my Wine Country Confidential feature—known around the Bohemian office, endearingly, as “the ‘Dilapidated Shit’ piece”—I discovered that unfortunate few photos, if any, existed of these beautiful old buildings.

Sure, Skaggs Island has a site with a comprehensive gallery and message board (and this great Flickr photoset), and historic buildings like Sunset Line & Twine and Preston are documented here and there, but for the most part, there’s not a lot of images of these buildings out there.

So in the furthering interest of satisfying people’s curiosity about buildings they may have always wondered about, here’s a photo tour of the North Bay’s finest abandoned sites—the dilapidated b-sides, if you will, that couldn’t fit in the paper.

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I Lost Me To Meth Because I’m Gay

April 20, 2008 – 11:28 am by Gabe

I’ve seen this commercial four or five times now, and it still bothers me. Since when did meth become a “gay drug”? Since when did it become okay for PSAs to single out one group and align it and it alone with a drug that has, for years, been widely abused by everyone from all walks of life?

I first saw it on Bravo, which has been airing the totally awesome gay Levi’s commercials. But then I saw it over and over again on NBC, and unlike the Levi’s commercials, there’s no straight counterpart. It’s just for those self-destructive gays, apparently, who all go out and snort mountains of speed and lose their boyfriends and get HIV.

I know there’s good intentions here, but imagine it in the context of ads for Bud Lite and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and it just plain sucks.

 
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