Steve Reynolds
Exile
(429 Records; January 2006)
Drums & Tuba
Battles Ole
(Righteous Babe Records; 2005)
The Robocop Kraus
They Think They Are the Robocop Kraus
(Epitaph Records; February 2006)
The Flaming Lips
At War with the Mystics
(Warner Bros.; April 2006)
World Cup fever has reached rheumatic proportions: at noon last Saturday, I found myself not at the beach, working on my tan; nor at Anthropologie, casing the sale racks, but waiting outside the Press Room, Santa Barbara’s pretty-much official World Cup headquarters, along with a handful of other sweaty suckers, hoping for a dose of luck that might allow us entry.
The case of America v. MacGregor Eddy concluded last week with the local peace activist being fined $2,500 and put on two years’ probation by a federal judge at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Barbara. Found guilty earlier this year of trespassing at Vandenberg Air Force Base during an anti-war rally last October, the Salinas resident and nurse who has a prior incident of trespass at the base staunchly defended her actions until the very end as being a “necessary” protest of an illegal war.
Slow-burning plans to build a bridge at the often washed-out Gaviota State Park creek crossing near Hollister Ranch were dealt yet another blow last week when the Coastal Commission decided to hold off a ruling on the matter until a public hearing later this summer.
Lois Capps, Santa Barbara’s Democratic congressmember, dismissed as “a disgrace” the first debate allowed by the Republican-controlled House majority since the war in Iraq started three years ago. Capps voted against a Republican resolution rejecting a set timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, echoing charges leveled by many Democrats that the maneuver was an election year ploy hatched by Republicans to force Democrats into one of two black-or-white positions rather than engage in actual debate and discussion.
Former secretary of defense William Perry (pictured) and international corporate force Fred Gluck together urged UCSB science graduates during commencement speeches last Saturday not to leave their consciences behind when they enter the workforce. “At the end of the career that you’ll be starting,” said Perry, speaking to graduates of the School of Science and Engineering, “let it be said that there never came an end to the good that you have done.”
Tickets are on sale now for UCSB Arts & Lectures’ 2006-07 season and the schedule is, as expected, even stronger than ever. Highlights include Madeleine Peyroux’s return on Oct. 4, rocker Steve Earle on Oct. 11, sax man Sonny Rollins on Oct. 22, comic Garry Trudeau on Oct. 26, a rare appearance by Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed on Nov. 3, Musica Antiqua Kln on Nov. 5, the Cuban rhythms of Pink Martini on Nov. 13, the Market Theatre of Johannesburg on Jan. 31, Harry Shearer on Mar. 4, and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens on Apr. 9, among dozens of others. Tickets can be purchased per show, as part of a discount package series, or per your design in the create-your-own-series option. See www.artsandlectures.ucsb.edu or call 893-3535.
One of the more impressive beach huts in recent local memory met its demise last week when the massive Hammonds Beach driftwood structure was mysteriously knocked down and flung into the sea. Though no local agencies are taking credit for the removal, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Department commented that such monoliths of beach culture are often taken apart by authorities because they are illegal, unsafe, and “a magnet for criminal activity.”
Santa Barbara police reported a 17-year-old gang member was stabbed in the torso near the MTD bus depot on Chapala Street shortly after noon on Tuesday; he was reportedly in stable condition. Police were alerted when a deputy prosecutor saw the youth walk past wearing a bloody shirt.
The California Coastal Commission unanimously rejected an appeal filed by four Santa Maria residents against a plan to dispose of two million tons of contaminated sands from Unocal’s former oil fields near the Guadalupe dunes in San Luis Obispo County to the Santa Maria landfill, located about 100 yards from the Santa Maria River. The appellants complained that they’d never been given a chance to comment on the Environmental Impact Report prepared for the shipment of sand – 100 to 150 dump truck trips per day for as many as four years – past their homes.
