Osprey fall 2013

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Humboldt State University’s Student Magazine

The

Fall 2013

XBOX One vs.

PS4: Which One Are You?

Humboldt Kinksters: Experimenting With Taboo

For The Love of

LARP Osprey Fall 2013

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Staff

Editor-In-Chief Layout Editor Photo Editor

Editor’s Note

For this issue, we took inspiration from magazines like Smithsonian, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and tried to emulate that in both story choice and design. A magazine is a collaborative effort; there’s no single person responsible for its success or failure. With such a small staff this semester, every person had a part and a voice in creating this issue.

Kaliegh Brady Editor-in-Chief

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1 Harpst Street, Arcata, California 95521 editor@ospreymagazine.com www.ospreymagazine.com www.issuu.com/ospreymagazine

Misha Burke Sabina Gallier

Photographers

Gilbert Upton Jessica Congdon Jessica Renae Jessica Snow Karin Marr Misha Burke Sabina Gallier

Writers

Gilbert Upton Jessica Congdon Jessica Renae Jessica Snow Kaliegh Brady Karin Marr Melanie Leyva Misha Burke Ronele Herd Sabina Gallier

I’m not a naturally outspoken person, which is why I was initially drawn to writing when I was young. Written word communicates ideas and images in a singularly unique way, stitching together a complete thought in a carefully constructed manner. Words can move mountains; they can start wars and end them.

In Drifting Off, the poignant reality of a brain injury comes to life, and Homegrown for the Beer Lovers is the story of a man whose passion affects everything he does. In 1977, NASA sent out Voyager 1 and the Golden Record with recorded greetings in 55 languages. Words are about connecting.

Words are about people.

Kaliegh Brady

Copy Editors

Jessica Renae Jessica Snow

Assistant Copy Editor

Karin Marr

Advertising Manager

Jessica Congdon Melanie Leyva

Graphic Designers

Kaliegh Brady Ronele Herd Misha Burke

Distribution Manager

Gilbert Upton

Web Editor

Kaliegh Brady

Faculty Advisor

Victoria Sama

*cover illustration by Ronele Herd

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What’s Inside

Osprey Staff: (From Left to Right) Moose, Jessica Congdon, Gilbert Upton, Misha Burke, Melanie Leyva, Jessica Snow, Kaliegh Brady, Karin Marr, Ronele Herd, Jessica Renae, Vicky Sama and Sabina Gallier.

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Letter From the Editor

Living With Pets

Homegrown for the Beer Lovers

Living Food

For the Love of Larp

Xbox 1 vs. PS4 and Top 10 of 2013

MMA

28 30 34 36 44 52 60

6 NFLPlayers That Like to Puff, Puff, Pass Traversing the Universe

Webseries: Brittani Taylor

Drifting Off

Buddy Reed Destressing in Humboldt

Humboldt Kinksters

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Living With Pets

Finding Pet-Friendly Housing In Arcata Photos and Story by Jessica Snow

S

ean Byrne lifted a large stick over his head and threw it across his backyard.

Roxy, his Labrador retriever, pit bull mix went bounding after it, unable to pick it up, but content with chewing on it.

Byrne moved to Humboldt County from the Bay Area in January to attend College of the Redwoods.

He adopted Roxy in June, when his girlfriend answered a Craigslist ad and brought her home as a surprise.

He considers himself lucky that his landlord allows pets in the house, so adding a dog was not a problem.

Other students do not encounter the same ease with finding pet friendly housing. Kathy Jiang and Shelby Giusto, both Humboldt State students, struggled to find housing that allowed Lucy, Jiang’s miniature schnauzer and Gemma, Giusto’s Chihuahua.While living in Southern California, Jiang and her parents adopted Lucy. When her parents could no longer care for the dog, Jiang brought her to Humboldt when she moved to Arcata for school.

Jiang and Giusto searched for two months before finally finding a house in McKinleyville.

Jiang felt that that property managers in the Arcata area were not very pet friendly, despite having listings for houses that allowed dogs.

“Many of the houses said they allowed dogs and there would be so many applicants and they would end up choosing someone without a dog,” Jiang said.

After failing to find a house from a property management company, Jiang and Giusto turned to Craigslist and found a house through a private owner.

Julie Vaissade-Elcock, owner of Arcata Property Management, manages almost 60 units in Humboldt County, only three of which allow dogs.

“The reason why is that dogs do damage, especially when in the house,” Vaissade-Elcock said. “The various smells get under the carpet and into the pad, they scratch hardwood floors and doors and dig in the backyards. They bark and the neighbors complain. We love dogs, don’t get me wrong. But when you mostly rent to students like I do, they just can’t pay a high enough deposit to fix everything.”

Michelle Donahue owns three houses, two in Arcata and one in McKinleyville, and chose to manage the renting of them herself. All three houses are pet-friendly.

“Frankly, it never occurred to me not to rent to people with pets,” Donahue said. “We do ask how long the dog would be home alone and what they do during

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Pictured: Sean Byrne and his dog, Roxy.

those times, and they sign a special pet agreement.”

Donahue charges an extra deposit for pets, usually around $250, but has rarely had to use it.

“Animal damage only comes when pets are not taken care of or when they are not given the attention and support they need,” she explained. “A pup locked up all day may chew, scratch, dig or go to the bathroom in the house.

Screening pets is 90 percent about screening their owners.”

Byrne agrees that the majority of the problem lies with the owner, not the dog.

“I can understand why property managements don’t allow dogs,” Byrne said.

“There’s a lot of owners out there that neglect their dogs.”

Vaissade-Elcock implied that owning a dog may not be in the best interest of students.

“I suggest that the student either keep their pet at home with their parents or wait until they’re settled in their own place before becoming a pet owner,” Vaissade-Elcock said.

Donahue had a similar sentiment.

“If you are a student or are otherwise not settled and secure, don’t get a pet,” Donahue said. “Pets require a lot of attention and care and are expensive. You will have plenty of time in your life to bring an animal into your family, be patient and don’t jump the gun. Volunteer at a shelter if you need some furry love, but leave pet ownership until the days when you can be a responsible pet owner.”

Jiang recognizes that owning a dog can be a big responsibility.

“I love my dog and she is the best companion that I can ask for, but I do agree with what the landlords said about college students not understanding the efforts and commitment that they made by having a dog,” Jiang said. “Dogs are living creatures that have feelings just like humans. They want to feel belonged and loved and they need company and care.

The amount of money and time that dog owners need to put into their dogs are not easy to afford for college students.”

Jiang ultimately recommended that students searching for pet-friendly housing should turn to private landlords. Most, like Donahue, more readily welcome many types of furry and feathered companions.

“We have had dogs, cats, hamsters and more,” Donahue said. “We even had a chicken and a duck. The students had a kiddy pool and raised them for fresh eggs. We have big backyards that would go to waste otherwise.”

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Pictured: Sean Byrne’s dog Roxy bites a log at Moonstone Beach on Oct. 19.

Pet Policies Professional Property Management

Hooven Property Management

Pets must be immunized, spayed/neutered.

Dogs must be licensed and owner must have liability insurance.

Strombeck Property Management

Wright Management

Dogs and cats considered.

Humboldt Property Management

Dogs and cats considered.

Arcata Property Management

Dogs and cats considered.

Dogs and cats considered.

No dogs or cats allowed.

American Property Management Dogs must be insured.

California Lifestyles Realty

No dogs or cats allowed.

Danco Property Managament

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Ineligible dog breeds: Rottweiler, Chows, Pit Bulls, Doberman, Akita, English Bull Terriers, Wolf Hybrids, American Mastiff, Presa Canario, Siberian Husky and Malamute, or any variation thereof.

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Homegrown for the Beer Lovers:

A Beer Maker’s Story

Photos and story by Misha Burke

U

nder the camo hat, Jacob Pressey’s face and gleaming smile emerges as he raises hands full of barley. He begins to rub them in between his palms. Dry bits of straw stalks fly in all directions, sticking to his face, shirt and pants. The seeds drop through the chicken wire into the shiny plastic bin below.

Pressey, 31, of McKinleyville, is the owner of Humboldt County’s newest brewery, Humboldt Regeneration, a Sustainable Farmhouse Brewery. This brewery is unique in that it is the first licensed brewery in Humboldt County to grow all of its own ingredients, according to the local six breweries.

“I have the benefit of knowing where I am growing the ingredients, how I tend to them and when I am brewing,” Pressey explains while stirring the barley into a steaming hot steel barrel. “I have better leverage on how much and what goes into my beer.”

Pressey leases a 3-acre farm out in Alton, four miles south of Fortuna. He spends two days on the farm, Monday and Tuesday, in which he and some friends camp out. He

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grows three acres of barley and 10 feet of hops. Depending upon the time of the year, he mostly uses Magnum Hops.

Humboldt Regeneration is community supported, so the public can buy a share: one-month for $66, three-months for $180 or six months for $300. Currently, Pressey has 70 members and has only been open to the public for a year.

Scott McNeil of McKinleyville has a six month share.

“It’s a good deal when I calculated how much beer I actually drink a month,” McNeil said.

McNeil met Pressey a year ago and now volunteers on the farm and at the brewhouse. In exchange, he gets to drink free beer.

McNeil, also grows his own food.

“I have respect for Jacob because, being a farmer, I know that we put our sweat and blood into making organic food,” McNeil explained.

Derek Vanderhorst, who creates quality made glass and lighting fixtures, is also a community member and owner of a six month share with Pressey’s brewery.

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Left: Jacob Pressey pedals the Beer Powered Metal Thrasher on his farm in Alton.

Right: Jacob Pressey smiles as he rubs the barley together.

Below: Pressey’s father feeds the barley into the machine.

Bottom: Gaylan Reid seperates the barley from the straw.

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Pressey’s father said that his son has always had a thing for farms and building things.

“He was always tearing apart bikes and making small improvements on them,” Pressey’s father remembers.

The “Beer Powered Pedal Thrasher” is one of the many machines Pressey made, with the help of McNeil. It is made of wood, wheels and parts of a bike. One person sits down in a chair, with a beer in hand of course, and pedals the machine. On the other side of the thrasher, two people feed the barley into the machine, which separates the straw and barley. At the bottom of the thrasher, the worker will pull out the excess barley and rub it into a chickenwired box connected to another plastic box. The worker then takes the barley and straw that are still attached and rubs them together in the wind. This takes away most of the straw, leaving Pressey with a box full of barley seeds.

Above: Jacob Pressey empties the leftover scraps of barley into the chicken wired box.

“What Jacob is doing is impressive,” Vanderhorst said.

“What he does fits in with so many things that are important to me and are becoming important to others these days: slow food, locally produced ingredients, organic, regional self-sufficiency, artisan products, etc.”

“I see some similarities between what I do and what Jacob is doing in that the quickest, easiest method does not always produce the best result,” Vanderhorst said. “If you want to make something unique and individual, it requires a little extra time and effort.”

Pressey grew up in Napa and worked at a winery before moving up to Humboldt. He made beer at Eel River Brewing Company in Fortuna for seven years until he finally decided to start his own brewery.

“Everything started to get way too technological,” Pressey explained of his time at Eel River. “I wasn’t able to control how much went into the barrels and make small test batches.

It was all touch screen. I wanted to get back to the basics.”

When Pressey graduated from Humboldt State University he was preparing a business plan for the brewery and farm and then he found out that his father got throat cancer.

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Another thing Pressey has that the other breweries don’t have is a pressurized growler filler. Growlers are 64 oz. bottles that people can buy and fill at any brewery. The way that other breweries, like Lost Coast Brewery, fill the growlers is directly through the taps at the bar. But within a couple days, the beer loses carbonation and the customer is left with flat beer. Pressey’s pressurized growler filler uses a CO2 tank attached to a keg with an intricate contraption and fills the growler by hand. He is able to control how much oxygen gets into the bottle, leaving the growler full of beer with the correct amount of carbonation. It won’t start losing carbonation for up to two weeks. Not everyone wants to guzzle down a 64 oz. bottle of beer in two days.

The benefits of buying a growler are that the beer comes straight from the tap, it can be reused and one can avoid canned beers, which have plastic liners.

Pressey doesn’t have the same beer all the time. Every week, he is making new beer, whether it be a Belgian Wheat, India Pale Ale or Stout. Over the course of a year, Pressey has made approximately 60 different styles of beers.

“I like the fact that he switches up the tastes,” said McNeil.

“He always has six other brews to choose from even though there’s sometimes a miss.”

Pressey’s brewhouse is a mini warehouse in McKinleyville.

A bright yellow sign reading “BEER TO GO” draws visitors from the main road, Central Avenue. Driving all the way to the back for the first time can be awkward but once the parking lot comes into focus, the smells of hops and barley brewing in the barrels lingers heavily in the air.

Pressey and his father, as well as the community members of the brewery all welcome newcomers. Smiles are exchanged and beer drinking is commenced.

As the sun starts to set on the horizon, Pressey and his volunteers wind down and start to pack up. Equipment is covered. The barley is safely under the tarp. Everyone gets a chance to take in the scenery before hopping in their trucks and driving home. Another day is finished at the farm.

“It was a couple years ago and I was living in McKinleyville part time,” Pressey said. “I helped out and gave him rides.”

Pressey’s father Jim, head covered with a beige hat adorned with black and white feathers, feeds the straw colored barley into the man made machine called the “Beer Powered Pedal Thrasher.” Pressey’s father started helping out at the brewery after he recovered from cancer.

“I get to hangout with my son, help and drink beer,” Pressey’s father said.

Pressey’s grandfather, 73, is pure Irish. His grandfather goes to Ireland once a year for something that Pressey described as a “clan gathering” which in other words is sort of like an extended family reunion. His grandfather stays with a guy everyone calls “Cousin Larry,” who is a rancher and plays the banjo at local pubs in Ireland.

Pressey’s grandfather lives in Napa currently and works digging tunnels, clearing land and working on diesel mechanics.

“He gives me pointers,” Pressey said. “I did buy him a homebrew kit for Christmas and taught him how to brew beer.”

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Living Food A Photos and Story by Jessica Renae

Pictured: Outside of It’s Alive Kombucha

couple strolled into a plain yet polished empty bar on Old Arcata Road that is It’s Alive Kombucha.

“Is it kombucha on tap? Is that really what that is?” the man asked, gesturing towards the two spouts on the countertop.

“We are going to have six flavors on tap. We’re not open right now, but Nov. 19 will be our opening day.” The woman behind the bar said, her arms and chest covered in tattoos. “We’ll have a bunch of kimchi in the fridge and all kinds of goodies for you to enjoy.”

“We really wanted to put a nice, healthy alternative into your general, you know going out and partying, that you have a choice.”

Kombucha is an ancient elixir made from fermented tea and sugar. The drink is fermented by using a culture of bacteria and yeast usually referred to as a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast) or mother.

Vigil is the crafter and owner of It’s Alive Kombucha, the first-ever kombucha bar in Humboldt County.

Lauryn Axelrod, Holistic Health and Nutrition Counselor for Arise Natural Health, Arcata Holistic Health Center and HealthSport said that adding fermented foods is important for maintaining a healthy digestive tract because fermented foods protect the lining of your digestive tract.

Axelrod added that beneficial bacteria, like that found in kombucha, also help to restore healthier gut flora, the colony of microorganisms that live in our digestive system responsible for supporting the immune system and the processes of assimilation of nutrients and elimination of waste.

“I want to spread health through the community, and I want to get as much probiotics and good, live beverages out there to the world,” she said.

“Kombucha became popular about 2-3 years ago and stayed extremely popular,” Ron Sharp, merchandising manager of the North-Coast Co-Op, said.

Vigil, who started the idea with her partner, points out the lack of healthy alternatives in the bar scene.

The Co-Op offers several different Kombucha products: GTMillinium, Revive, Kevita and Reed’s that cost between $3-4.

The tattooed woman, Jeri Vigil, finished with a smile to the prospective customers, who intrigued and delighted, left in awe over the new kombucha bar.

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“I would like to have something when I go to a show that’s making me feel alive and good,” she said.

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Pictured: Inside of It’s Alive Kombucha

Elliot Ziegler brews his own kombucha at home.

kombucha lovers can still quench their thirst at the bar.

“I would not recommend paying $4 for something that is just tea and sugar,” Ziegler said, who recommends brewing your own kombucha at home instead.

Vigil incorporates her philosophy of “waste not, want not” into the the bar by making sure her business is highly sustainable. She composts everything, recycles, burns all trash and because kombucha is probiotics, all the waste from the kombucha that enters Arcata’s water system is beneficial bacteria that breaks down the harmful bacteria in the system. Vigil is also looking into joining food waste programs that can convert her food waste into energy. It’s Alive Kombucha uses ingredients that are organic, locally sourced, fair-trade and GMO-free as they possibly can.

While Ziegler is against the marketing of kombucha, he is interested in checking out a kombucha bar. Ziegler says he sees more of a benefit for the community in a kombucha bar than overpriced bottles sold at the Co-Op because a bar provides a social atmosphere and local business to thrive.

Back at the bar, Vigil pours bubbly, pale yellow liquid into a mason jar.

“We have decided not to use paper cups, so we want people to bring in their glass jars, bring in growlers. We have growlers and mason jars for sale,” she said, placing a glass of It’s Alive Kombucha’s signature flavor, Lemon Mate, onto the counter.

The drink fizzed in my mouth, its tangy flavor awakened my senses and the vinegary smell lingered in my nose. In addition to the Lemon Mate, Vigil is working on a coffee kombucha and one another consistent flavor that Vigil wanted to keep secret until the bar opened. Vigil created a local pomegranate flavor for the bar opening, but described her creation of kombucha flavors as unending.

Vigil’s idea of getting more probiotics into the community does not stop at the bar.

“One thing we want to implement is people starting to order kegs and making home-systems in their own home, so they have some on tap at home,” she said.

It’s Alive Kombucha will also be available on tap at the Wildberries’juice bar inArcata and at Siren SongTavern in Eureka.

“I see a need for kombucha everywhere,” Vigil said. “I think that it should be a worldwide thing, it should be readily available for people to have.”

Besides providing kombucha on tap, It’s Alive Kombucha also has hard cider on tap. So even people who are not

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For the

Love of

LARP Pictured: A LARP player ready to fight. Photo by Sabina Gallier at the MedievalOsprey Festival of Fall Courage.

2013

18

Written by Jessica Congdon

D

ressed in a red robe down to his feet and a homemade foam sword in hand, John Smart jumps out of his grandmother’s Toyota Forerunner onto the muddy pavement. Rain is pouring down, and no one in sight.

“They must not be here yet,” Smart said as he leans against a redwood.

Suddenly, from behind the tree jumps a shaggy-haired blue-eyed boy swinging a weapon with a mischievous smirk. “Let’s fight!” exclaims Ian Hansbearry, as he whacks Smart on the back of the head with his weapon. Smart quickly spins around, flailing his arms in Hansbearry’s direction. Hansbearry freezes and Smart’s magical powers rule once again.

Every Friday night, Hansbearry, 14, and Smart, 17, meet other Live Action Role Players, otherwise known as LARPers, at Arcata’s Redwood Park where they fight for several hours.

LARPing is a combat-based sport where players dress in costumes and battle with homemade weapons made of foam, cardboard, PVC pipe and other scraps. Players fight both one on one and in groups in a game that is more fantasy than real-life.

Smart and Hansbearry are inseparable since meeting at LARP practice back in April. Hansbearry previously pursued computer video games, but once he started LARPing, he couldn’t stop.

“It looked really fun, so I thought I’d give it a try,”

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In the spring, the LARP community holds its biggest annual fight, The Crown Event, at an Elk River campground near Eureka. It’s a three-part competition where players LARP into the wee hours of the night, thrashing through redwood trees, while battling other players until one LARPer is left. The event can last up to 72 hours. If a LARPer wins two out of the three back-to-back competitions, they are crowned the Crown Champion. The reigning champion controls the LARP community for the next year making rules that players must abide by until a new champion is crowned.

LARPing requires participation and willingness.

Sometimes breaking out of the normal routine, putting oneself in an uncomfortable situation and letting loose is key to self-discovery. Don’t be shy, grab a foam weapon, throw on an old Halloween costume from 1991 and let that alter ego play.

Find Humboldt County LARPers on Facebook at Emerald Empire LARP.

Right: LARPers suit up for battle. Photo by Sabina Gallier taken at the Medieval Festival of Courage.

Above: LARP players begin the fight. Photo by Sabina Gallier taken at the Medieval Festival of Courage in Blue Lake.

Hansbearry said. “And to be honest, it’s quite addicting.

It’s a totally different experience than sitting with a controller, hiding behind a screen.”

LARP is not necessarily about winning. It’s about having fun while maintaining honesty, integrity and willingness to adhere to the rules.

LARPers have the freedom of creating their own character and may wear any creative armor known as garb, including masks, costumes, and face paint. To make a scene more authentic, some LARPers even prefer speaking in Old English or Scottish accents.

Shaelawn Jensen-Morrow, 20, enjoys LARPing. She also spends her free time making costumes, props and weapons.

“People give me free fabric and I’ll make different cloaks,” Jensen-Morrow said. “I donate them to the garb box, so anyone who needs costumes can dress up for free.”

The key to making a good event is the suspension of disbelief. For some, the idea of beating the crap out of someone with a foam weapon may be a bit intimidating.

For others, it’s liberating.

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Jhames LeMiex is an advanced 10-year LARP veteran and event coordinator. He has been making weapons or “boffers” for a year and a half.

Bottom: Emerald Empire LARP Offical Rulebook. Photo by Jessica Congdon.

Bottom: (From left to right) Evin Skidmore, Jhames LeMieux, Tim Sweeney, and Bryan Berkey. Photo by Jessica Congdon.

“Our goal isn’t to hurt people, so we make everything with soft tips, using pool noodles and duct tape,” he said.

Like LeMiex, Lance Lorenzen, 29, has been LARPing for the last 10 years. The two helped start Humboldt County’s original LARP group. Lorenzen created an adult version for the older, more aggressive LARPers, called the Boffers.

“I got shot in the eye! I was looking the wrong way, someone let the bow and arrow loose from about 10 feet away, and now my eye looks like this,” Lorenzen explains, glaring with his permanently crossed-eye and big smile.

Lorenzen and his fellow Boffers have injuries that required hospitalization and caused permanent damage.

“It’s way more physical and people get scared off,” Lorenzen said. “In Boffer we’ve had dislocated shoulders, broken bones, and chipped teeth.”

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XBOX One vs.

PS4

Story by Gilbert Upton Illustrations by Kaliegh Brady

It’s been 8 years since the last console war between Microsoft and Sony. In 2005 Microsoft wowed fans with the Xbox 360, a new console that was leaps ahead of its predecessor in all ways. It was the first of a new generation of consoles looking to dominate the living room and took a huge lead in the market with its release being a year ahead of Sony’s PlayStation 3. When the PS3 came out in 2006 it struggled to play catch-up out the gate with its high price and lack of ability to meet demand.

Nowadays there is no clear winner or dominant console, Sony has done a great job of catching up and making its system more accessible and both consoles have seen similar high’s and low’s in sales with both almost evening out after 8 years.

Now the console wars are upon on us again with the release of the highly anticipated Xbox One and the PS4.

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) this last June, both Microsoft and Sony presented their new consoles

Top 10 Songs

and the features that would accompany them. This is when Microsoft announced that Xbox One was looking to take over the living room, as an all entertainment system featuring live television, online apps like Skype and Facebook, and much more. At E3, Microsoft also announced that Xbox One owners would need to have their system check in online once a day or they could not play their games. In addition to this they would not be able to sell back or trade games they purchased as the game would be linked to their account only. It was these announcements that causes uproar amongst Xbox One fans that buy used games or wanted to trade with a friend.

The 24/7 online policies also upset fans, as there are many people who do not have constant Internet access.

It was these comments at E3 that dropped the ball for Microsoft. Right after their presentation Sony showcased the PS4 as gaming console rather than an all entertainment system. Sony also announced that they would not bar PS4 owners from selling their games back used or trading them amongst friends. In addition to this they announced that PS4 owners did not need to check in online daily and would always be able to play their games offline. To top it off Sony announced their system would a hundred dollars cheaper.

After Sony announced they would be taking the opposite approach of Microsoft in terms of used games, online requirements and price. They gained a ton of momentum and support from previous Xbox fans due to their less stringent restraints and focus on the gamer. In light of the uproar Microsoft has made statements saying it retracted the online requirements and that Xbox One owners would be able to sell used games and also trade amongst friends.

To date both console sport almost identical features in terms of power, memory and capabilities.

Release & Price: The PS4 will cost consumers $399 and was released Nov. 15, 2013 while the Xbox One will cost $499 and was released a week later on Nov. 22, 2013. Both consoles had different games released at the launch and include bundles that contain a game, camera and controller for an additional $100.

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1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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Royals by Lorde Roar by Katy Perry Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus Wake Me Up by Avicii Counting Stars by OneRepublic The Monster by Eminem featuring Rihanna 7. Let Her Go by Passenger 8. Hold On We’re Going Home by Drake 9. Story of my Life by One Direction 10. Applause by Lady Gaga

Top 10 of

2013

(Aggregated using iTunes, Spotify, top10songs.com, Billboard and Youtube)

Top 10 Movies

1. Monsters University 2. Iron Man 3 3. Man of Steel 4. Despicable Me 5. Star Trek: Edge of Darkness 6. Fast and Furious 6 7. World War Z 8. The Heat 9. The Internship 10. Pacific Rim

(Aggregated using Amazon, iTunes, Google, Box Office Results and IMDb)

Top 10 TV Shows

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Big Bang Theory Grey’s Anatomy How I Met Your Mother Sons of Anarchy The Walking Dead Scandal The Mentalist Arrow Modern Family

(Aggregated using Amazon, iTunes, deadline.com and tv.com)

Written by Jessica Snow

Top 10 Books

1. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini 2. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 3. Life after Life by Kate Atkinson 4. The Tenth of December by George Saunderson 5. Dark Witch by Nora Roberts 6. The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith 7. Sycamore Row by John Grisham 8. The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert 9. Doctor Sleep by Stephen King 10. Ender’s Game by Orsen Scott Card

(Aggregated using Amazon, Barnes and Noble, New York Times and Google)

These lists were assembled by assigning a numerical value to each title based on their position on a published list, then combining and averaging the points to create this final, all encompassing list.

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Humboldt Amateur MMA An Ancient Sport That’s More Than Just Fighting

Pictured: Sean Hardwood and Josh Gay do some light sparring and hand drills.

Taken at the Eureka’s Redwood Fitness Gym.

Photographed and Written

by Gilbert Upton

B

y day, 25-year-old Jay Pulliam fixes teeth as a dental assistant.

By night, he is breaking them.

Pulliam is training in mixed martial arts (MMA) with the Humboldt Strike Team. He has an amateur record of four wins and no losses.

“MMA is like a drug,” Pulliam said. “Once you get a little bit, you want more and more. The higher you get, the more you want.”

Pulliam and other members of the Humboldt Strike Team train at Redwood Fitness Gym, a gym cluttered with punching bags, trophies, gloves, jump ropes, tires and most importantly, a cage. The center is owned

by Nick Kukuruza and contains all the equipment needed for local amateur fighters to train in mixed martial arts. Kukuruza is a fight promoter, trainer, and coach, making him active in the local MMA scene.

The cage is in the shape of an octagon and dominates the center of the packed room. Inside the cage, Pulliam touches gloves with 28-year-old Josh Gay. They begin to trade punches while circling each other. Pulliam slips a punch and tackles Gay to the ground. Pulliam attempts to punch Gay but ends up getting pushed over, forcing both fighters to stand back up. They begin trading punches again until the bell rings. Then they smile and talk about the previous match until the bell rings again and touching hands, they resume fighting.

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The Ultimate Fighter is a show where 16 contestants compete in MMA until one winner remains and is rewarded with a contract with UFC. With the opportunity now there, many young women are now training with aspirations of becoming a female World MMA Champion.

Redwood Fitness Gym boasts having one such fighter, Samantha “Quinn” Hester, Humboldt County’s only ranked amateur female fighter in the strawweight division.

“I still haven’t experienced what I’m searching for in a cage fight,” Hester said. “I want something tough and scary and to really test what kind of fortitude I have.”

As martial arts has grown and spread, so has the competition. Mixed-style competition forced opponents of different backgrounds to realize that they could not rely on a single style of martial arts. These competitions have grown over time into a worldwide sport with immense popularity especially in Japan through Pride, and the U.S through Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

Quinn plans to fight in Tuff-N-Uff, an all female MMA event in Las Vegas, Nevada next spring. She has a record of 6-1 and hopes to turn pro this January.

“MMA is like the wind to me,” she said. “It started off as something I like to do and then it developed into a hobby and almost like a ritual or I don’t feel right if I don’t train and I don’t feel good if I don’t fight. Its kind of developed into something I need in my life.”

Pictured: Samantha ‘Quinn’ Hester practices different punching combinations.

This is an ordinary night for the fighters on the Humboldt Strike Team. The Jackson 5 blares loudly while a man switches from jumping on a tire to throwing punches on one of four different types of punching bags.

Kukuruza yells out encouragement and advice to fighters to keep them motivated. His motto for selfdefense is described by what he calls the law of the fang – when you’re down, if you stay down, you’re dead. People training to fight range from ages 16 to 30 and consist of both men and women. Anyone can be on the Humboldt Strike team, but you have to fight.

“You never know what’s going to happen, and then when the uncertainty happens you can feel it even from outside the ring,” Pulliam said. “It’s good to watch because you can experience the passion but when you fight it’s a different type of passion, it’s so intense.”

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Gay has been training MMA for one year.

“I just think that this guy wants to hurt me and I’m going to hurt him first, that’s the mental attitude I have about it, I’m not scared of anybody,” he said. “I don’t fear my opponent but I respect him. He can hurt me so I try to hurt him first.”

MMA can be traced back to the Olympics of ancient Greece. The idea of two people fighting for sport began as hand-to-hand combat in an Olympic game called pankration, from the Greek words pan and kratos meaning “all powers.” The contestants had only two rules: no eye gouging or biting. Those who won became legends.

Over time, pankration spread through India and other parts of Asia, where the sport changed to more notorious martial arts like karate, judo and kung fu.

Eventually Helio rose to be the biggest sports celebrity in Brazil at the time. He challenged other fighters, with

different martial art styles, to fights to prove his new jiu-jitsu was more dominant. Helio and his sons went on to create the original Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). This was the first ever-televised fight competition that directly promoted different martial arts fighting against one another to see which style was ultimately most effective in a real fight. The original UFC was promoted as a “no rules” fight and had no weight classes. Fights were only finished by knockout, submission, or throwing in the towel.

Through this tournament Helio entered his son Royce who defeated all other styles and won the competition gaining his fathers Jiu-Jitsu worldwide respect and recognition.

Although it has primarily been men who have fought for sport, women’s fighting competitions have been documented since the 1990s. Currently, women’s MMA is on the rise and the Ultimate Fighting Championship is airing its 18th season of The Ultimate Fighter, the first season to feature women coaches and participants.

Pictured: Sean Hardwood works on his kicking technique.

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6 NFL Players That Like Some of our favorite NFL players enjoy rolling up the sticky icky and taking a few bong rips to the dome. You mean football players actually smoke pot? Yes, football players actually smoke pot. And even though it’s banned by the NFL, some players just can’t seem to say no to ganja.

Marijuana is a major industry in Humboldt County. In the last decade the desire for pot has increased around the U.S. According to a 2013 Gallup poll, 58 percent of Americans say that pot should be legalized, an increase of 10% since the previous year. Pot is legal in Colorado and Washington state. In California, medical marijuana is readily available at dispensaries.

Special Delivery According to USA Today, former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Jerome Simpson (now playing for the Minnesota Vikings), had 2 ½ pounds of marijuana packaged and shipped from Eureka to his home in Kentucky. Narcotics officers tracked the suspicious package to Simpson’s residence where Simpson’s girlfriend accepted the package. Authorities also found additional marijuana inside the home. The wide receiver, known for his outrageous flips in the end zone, pled guilty and received 15 days in jail and three year’s probation.

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Third Time’s a Charm Josh Gordon, wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns, faces a one-year suspension from the NFL if he violates the substance abuse policy again. Gordon was suspended two games this year, as well as two games at the beginning of last season for failing the mandated drug test. Gordon also has a history of marijuana mishaps. According to NBC Sports, Gordon failed three drug tests during his time at Baylor University. But hey, if he’s a stoner, he’s a really productive one. Gordon has 626 yards on the season as well as three touchdowns.

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree Mikel LeShoure, running back for the Detroit Lions, is facing some heat after he was arrested on March 12 and charged with possession of marijuana. According to the Detroit Press, when officers approached the vehicle, LeShoure tried to eat the marijuana. He pled guilty and paid a $575 fine. At least he didn’t have to go to prison, although it wouldn’t be the first time he was there. LeShoure was born in an Illinois State prison, where his mother was serving a drug sentence back in 1990.

The NFL prohibits the use of marijuana. Players caught typically face minor consequences such as suspension for a few games and also docked pay. according to The Huffington Post. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says he will not back down on his stance even if players need marijuana for medical purposes. Sounds like Goodell may be overdue for a special package from Jerome Simpson.

Just saying.

License to Carry Mike Goodson, former running back for the Oakland Raiders (now playing for the New York Jets) is facing some scrutiny after his wild arrest in New Jersey on May 17. According to ESPNNewYork.com, Goodson was arrested and charged with possession of less than 50 grams of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia. He was also riding around with a loaded handgun and a few hollow-point bullets. The NFL suspended Goodson without pay for the first four games of the season.

Written by Jessica Congdon

Pass Me the Bleezy We can only imagine what San Francisco 49er Aldon Smith was saying just before he crashed into a tree in San Jose on one cold September morning. According to the San Jose Mercury News, the linebacker was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and possession of marijuana. The NFL punished Smith by placing him on reserve while he attends a month-long rehab program. Get well soon Aldon, but not too soon! The 49ers have been on a five game winning streak since your absence.

Live and Learn Retired Dallas Cowboy guard Nate Newton was caught in Louisiana with 213 pounds of marijuana in 2011. According to the Associated Press, while out on bail, Newton was arrested five weeks later with another 175 pounds of pot.

Newton spent 32 months in a Louisiana State Prison.

After his release in 2005, he told the Associated Press, “I got on my knees and said, ‘God, I want to make a deal. You protect me in here, and when I come out, I’ll do everything in my power to make it right.’”

To Puff, Puff, Pass

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Traversing The Universe

Written by Kaliegh Brady

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here are drawings of DNA, sound bytes of Mozart and photos of schoolchildren aboard a spacecraft that is billions of miles away from the Earth, and still going further. Voyager 1 is currently the farthest man-made object from our planet and it is a record that does not appear to be changing anytime soon.

In the event of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life, Voyager 1 carries a very special message from all of us here on Earth: a series of photos, music clips and voice recordings that will hopefully offer a small glimpse into life on the Blue Planet.

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The last-minute project was led by Carl Sagan, who, with the help of his team, began the immense task of narrowing down images worthy of interstellar space. eA painter and lecturer, Lomberg had been contracted

by NASA to help select photographs and draw diagrams for the Golden Record. Among the 116-image Voyager 1 inventory, 11 of them were created by him.

It was an enormous task to complete in six weeks.

“You could never have enough time. I still tend to evaluate photos on the Voyager-record-worthiness scale.” Lomberg said. “But, I think if we had had more time it would, in fact, have been more difficult. We had no time to reflect too much. We had to make decisions quickly, and that might have been the best way to do it.”

One landmark discovery made by Voyager 1 was the level of volcanic activity on Io, one of Jupiter’s moons.

Loki Patera remains the most active supervolcano known to humankind, emitting more heat in one eruption than all of Earth’s volcanoes combined.

Campbell is excited about the potential research Voyager 1 could do.

They wanted to give as complete a picture of Earth as they could, with one exception. The team agreed that no images of “war, disease, crime or poverty” would be included.

“The Sun protects us from a lot of cosmic rays, and if we could get out of it’s influence we could study things like galactic wind,” he said.

“Their logic was you put your best foot forward when you meet other people.” Lombard said, “By the time the Record is found, humanity will be long gone, so why not let us be remembered for the best things rather than for our failings?”

Currently, Voyager 1 is in what’s known as Interstellar Medium (ISM). By studying differing levels of hydrogen particles, Campbell thinks that Voyager 1 could provide insight into how new stars are formed.

Ruth Haag got her degree in Natural Resources from the University of Michigan. She cultivated a love for astronomy that eventually led to her becoming the director of the planetarium at University of Michigan Exhibit Museum of Natural History. “I spent hours and hours inside the planetarium studying the stars,” she said. “I had to be able to recite all of the space flights and the astronauts, and it got me thinking about what else was out there.”

“It would also tell us a lot about how the galaxy evolves,” he said. “Voyager 1 accomplished its original mission in 1980, and they decided to just send it out and see what else it could find.”

Everyone knows that diseases brought by Columbus’s expedition decimated the native inhabitants of the Caribbean, and Haag worries that there might be a similar effect should we find life elsewhere in the universe.

“Historically, when you look at an explorer arriving in a new world, there are often unintended consequences,” she said. “I’ve always been concerned about that.

If we put a man on Mars, could it start the whole Columbus thing over again? We just don’t know” Voyager 1’s original mission was to observe Jupiter and do a flyby of Saturn and its moon, Titan. During a period between 1979 and 1980, Voyager 1 sent back images of the planets that scientists had never seen before.

Ryan Campbell is a lecturer in the Humboldt State University physics department.

“At that time, the planets were in a unique alignment that made it easy for Voyager to get a gravity boost from each planet it passed,” he said. “It was a rare opportunity and it was perfect because that’s when human space exploration was starting to really get going.”

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Both Voyager 1 and its sister craft Voyager 2 made use of the planetary alignment, which occurs once every 175 years.

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Now, billions of miles from Earth, Voyager 1 has indeed been sent out. It has traveled farther than any spacecraft has, and worked longer than anyone expected it to. Even so, NASA has disabled many of the on-board instruments in an effort to preserve energy.

Though Voyager 1 has been traveling strong for 36 years, the spacecraft is powered by a radioactive plutonium fuel source that is nearing the end of its life. So how much farther can it go? In 2011, Voyager 1’s power was roughly 50 percent of the power it originally had when it was launched in 1977. NASA predicts that by 2025 it will no longer have enough power to operate. The spacecraft will either run out of fuel or be intentionally powered down. After that, it will float forever among the stars.

Above: The Golden Record, a copper-encased disc that contains pictures and sound bytes meant to give intelligent extraterrestrial life a small picture of Earth. Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Below: Overlaid with a system of measurement devised by Carl Sagan and his team, this image shows Egypt, the Nile River and the Sinai Peninsula. Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Lomberg recalls the elation, obsession and pinch-yourselfto-see-if-it-is-real sensations that he felt when Voyager 1 launched in 1977. “[There was] surreal contemplation of the time and distance scales involved,” he said.

Haag had similar feelings. “At the same time the war in Vietnam was going on, the draft, demonstrations, race riots, assassinations… somehow the space program was our one shining light,” she later wrote in an email. “We believed that we were going to find something great out there. We still might.”

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Photo provided by Brittani LouiseTaylor.

Osprey: Do you purchase the prizes you give out to your fans?

Taylor: Yes. I purchase the prizes myself with my own money,

Brittani

Finding Your Own Voice As An Online Entrepreneuer As technology advances, more young people are getting into making their own webisodes, original short dramatic-like shows fit for television. Only now, anyone can produce their own mini-drama and upload it to Youtube. The Osprey talked with Brittani Louise Taylor about her experience making webonly shows from the ground up.

Written by Melanie Leyva

Louise Taylor

from all sorts of places, and I usually just buy what I like. I have repeated giveaways, I kind of have a Beats by Dr Dre obsession.

Osprey: What is the most unusual item that your fans have sent you?

Taylor: A crocodile shoe. Just one shoe.

Osprey: Have you worked with any celebrities?

B

rittani Louise Taylor, acts, writes and produces online parodies and video blogs and uploads two to six times a week over three channels on YouTube. With a following of over one million subscribers, she is also the voice of Granny Smithin from the Annoying Orange series.

Osprey: How involved are you in the making of each parody?

Taylor: Very involved. I write, direct, act in, produce

and edit. My friend Jason makes the track and helps me to record and mix vocals. If it is a parody, I write original funny lyrics. Then I cast it, find locations, get props if needed, hire my friend James to film, sometimes have a couple of production assistants, edit in final cut, and upload.

Osprey: How long can an episode take to create?

Taylor: Yes! Interviewed a bunch, fun fun. The most fun interview was probably Will Forte for Macgruber! He is such a sweetheart and hilarious! If I could interview any celebrity, it would probably be Kate Winslet. I want to get inside her head and see how she ticks, because she is a brilliant actress!

Osprey: When you first started uploading videos regularly did you encounter any pitfalls that may have made things difficult?

Taylor: Lack of income. I used to eat the same thing every day from Traders Joes so I could save money to buy a wig, or whatever I needed.

Osprey: Are you interested in moving away from creating online shows and moving on to broadcast television?

Taylor: I honestly love Youtube and the online community, even if I transitioned to TV I would never stop making videos. I think Youtube, Hulu, Netflix are the future. Movies aren’t going anywhere, but if I had to predict I would say online shows or distributing tv shows online is going to dominate.

Osprey: Do you have advice for people wanting to produce online entertainment?

Taylor: Work hard! There is no short cut. Commit, be con-

sistent, and find your voice online. If you are happy with your video, that is all that matters. Not everyone is going to get you, or love what you do. You have to get a thick skin and know that the haters are a good sign that you are doing something right!

Taylor: Anywhere from a day, if I don’t sleep, to a whole week.

Osprey: Have you considered a career solely in singing, or acting?

Taylor: I don’t really want to be a singer. It is just

for fun. Acting is my passion. My first real experience with acting was when I was in fourth grade. I auditioned for the Wizard Of Oz and got the role of Dorothy.

Changed my life. I am just so blessed to get to do what I do!

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Pictured: Angie Lasinski rides her bicycle near her Eureka home on Nov. 10.

Drifting Off

Written by Jessica Renae Photos by Sabina Gallier

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ixteen-year-old Angie Lasinski drives her blue Datsun south on Highway 101 back home to Garberville from Bayside.

Her father just signed her emancipation papers, granting her independence. She is a straight A student graduating high school next month, two years early.

She works as a part-time cook at Calico’s Café and plans to go to college to fulfill her dream of becoming a big-time lawyer in San Francisco. Everything is coming together.

Lasinski looks over at her younger brother, Robby, sleeping in the passenger seat. They are a year apart and are best friends now. They were not always so close.

“We got on like normal kids, we had fights, you know, but he always won, ‘cause he’d grow his fingernails out and he’d scratch me and I’d bawl and run off,” she says. “But that was nothing. I deserved a lot more than that from him.”

As she drives down the darkened stretch of Salmon Creek Road, Lasinksi’s tired eyes close. Her car hits a curve and swerves into the other lane, smashing into a Safeway truck

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head on and ripping through the truck’s passenger side.

The car was completely flattened except for the driver’s side. Lasinski survived, but was left in a coma. Robby died instantly.

“It was my fault,” she says. “I fell asleep.”

About four weeks after the accident Lasinski wakes up from her coma to hazy daylight streaming into an immaculate gray and white hospital room. As her awareness sets in, she realizes her limp body is hooked up to machines, wires and bags of liquid hanging about her. There is a chill above her head. She brushes her scalp with a hand, touching nothing but shaved skin underneath her fingertips, where her brown hair used to be. She grunts to speak, to vocalize her thoughts, yet nothing but muffled groans croak from her throat.

She places her mind back in Garberville, counting off, “Grandma, Grandpa, Peter, Bobby, Jeanie, Terry, no not Terry, at that house further out by Twin Creeks, there’s Terry, my mom, Jeanie, oh Rosemary, lives up there, and oh my Aunt Bernie ‘cause she lives way out there…Me. I-I know me. But something’s wrong. My body ain’t moving as much,” she thought.

Lasinski’s father, Ross Radcliffe, walks in and out of the hospital room, staying for moments at a time to watch his daughter lie in bed. Once in a while, he will leave for a cup of coffee, and as he comes back into the room, Lasinski will shout at him in her muffled tones.

“Where have you been?” she said.

The memory of him sitting beside her several minutes ago vanishes.

About two months after Lasinski wakes up from her coma, her father sits next to her bed. No one in the hospital talks to her; the nurses ignore her, just scribbling notes on pads of paper when they are around. Her father tells her, because no one else could, that Lasinski sustained a traumatic brain injury because of her car accident.

She cannot move to pound at the walls or break something; she cannot even speak or scream.

“Robby, I need to see Robby” Lasinski blurts out at him in her stifled voice. “Where’s Robby?”

“OK, Angie,” Radcliffe tries to answer her, but leaves the room instead.When Radcliffe finally returns, he says,“Angie, I have to tell you, I was going to wait until you got better but, your brother was in your accident and he didn’t make it.”

Lasinski burst into tears.

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Twenty-one years later, now at 37 years old, Lasinski hobbles through her cluttered studio apartment. She moves from the stove to the coffee pot to the refrigerator to the bathroom and back to the stove. The giant fridge and large entertainment set barricade enough space that the living room turns into a corridor. The only chair is a maroon lounge chair piled with papers. An ice cube tray lies near the toilet and slippers sit on the windowsill. The microwave is in the entertainment set and Lasinski changes the TV channels from a remote switch in her bedroom. There is not enough room in this tiny place to accommodate everything reasonably.

Lasinski steps her left foot forward, carrying the right leg behind, thumping the right foot hard onto the ground.

She moves her feet passed a line of newspapers where bird droppings stick from her green cheeked conure parrot, Curious, who bows his head from up above, his talons clutching the outside of his cage. The raw stench fills the Monday morning air as Lasinski sips Rocket Java coffee from a steel mug replying “yes” and “no” to the Social Security office’s automated phone machine. She is tense, shaking her head as she repeatedly dials her phone.

In the afternoon sun Lasinski leans the left side of her body onto the wall of her house, balancing herself on the front porch stairs. She is dressed in her usual loose attire, baggy shorts and a large t-shirt. Her left arm presses up against the railing, her right arm curls into her body, the right fist clenching a white cone placed around her knuckles. Her long, mousy brown hair is pulled into a ponytail, the frizzy, gray split-ends sticking out. When she reaches the bottom of the staircase, Lasinski looks up at me, thin lips pursed into a frown, thin eyebrows perched over her large, brown eyes, unevenly set into her face, the right eye drooping down to her cheekbone. “Hi,” she mumbles and we get into my car.

Lasinski lost her purse on Saturday. She placed her fanny pack on top of her groceries on the back of her bicycle’s cart. When she arrived home from Winco, the purse was gone, along with her driver’s license, social security card, bank card, Medi-Cal card and Medicaid card. This is not the first time Lasinski has lost something. She has a habit of misplacing things.

The glare of the bright morning sun mirrors off the windshield onto the tip of Lasinski’s chin, streaking the side of her arched jawline in pale light.

Ten years ago, she bought a bicycle to shed off the pounds. Running is too difficult because of her physical limitations. Lasinski’s traumatic brain injury affected the right side of her body, leaving her hand and foot stiff and inflexible. Without an ankle brace, Lasinski’s right leg cannot extend vertically on its own. Without her white hand cone, a piece of plastic strapped around her knuckles, her right hand curls into a fist. Lasinski takes her right hand in her left, extending the hand flat, gripping her palm with her left fingers, the fingertips shakily touching.

I watch as all the fingers struggle to stretch out.

A calendar hangs above Lasinski’s coffee pot. “I’ll write DAR for Dial-A-Ride. But [later] I’ll be like DAR? What’s DAR?” Lasinski has the same trouble with phone numbers as she does with abbreviations on her calendar. On the phone, Lasinski writes down the number an agent recites to her.

Ten minutes later, she dials this number, forgetting who she is calling.

Lasinski’s former case manager, Carolyn Doering, points out that this loss of memory is due to the impact of injury to the brain. Doering adds that Lasinski’s elevated frustration is a result of impaired memory and limited abilities to do things that used to be easy for Lasinski. Doering describes traumatic brain injury as a blow or jolt to the head usually resulting in long-term to permanent damage to the brain.

“Most people experience short-term memory loss for almost, it seems like, the rest of their lives,” Doering said.

“A lot of people who experience brain injury have balance challenges later on too, which may require crutches, a wheelchair, some braces...not everyone but there’s quite a bit.” She added that it depends on where the impact of the injury is on the brain as to what kind of effect, such as balance problems or memory loss, an individual experiences.

Lasinski is a tall woman, with a narrow frame. She hunches over, in the passenger seat, her bony shoulders curving forward. Her head barely grazing the roof of my car. She was once 260 pounds, handing me an old photo of her that is almost unrecognizable. Her face is so pudgy that her eyes get lost in the thick folds of skin. She gained weight after being in a wheelchair for about two years and after her pregnancy.Her pregnancy gave her the impression that every day was like a carnival. “I just ate and ate and ate,” she says.

pavement, her hips awkwardly shift as she limps herself forward, the left foot dragging the right foot on. Bicycling is easier for Lasinski. The involuntary curl of her hand allows her to the grip the handle with ease. She can’t walk.

She can’t run. But she will bicycle everywhere, everyday.

“It’s my wheelchair, it’s my everything, I should marry it,” she says laughing.

A few weeks ago, Lasinski rode her three-wheeled red bicycle to Winco. As she parked her bike, something distracted her in the parking lot, someone possibly yelling. She recalls the homeless living in the lot eyeing her, as she entered the store, helmet still buckled onto her head. As she walked out of Winco, arms filled with plastic bags, she stood bewildered in the spot where her bike was parked, taking a few moments to register in her mind that her bike was now gone.

“I don’t want to admit it, but I think I forgot to put the lock on,” she says.

We enter the Department of Rehabilitation, an organization that provides resources and tools for disabled individuals to become employed.

Lasinski and I are directed by her vocational counselor to an open room with various swinging chairs unpartnered to the three large desks in the room. The man pulls out Lasinski’s file, charting down notes as he discusses her career wishes.

“Robby, I need to see Robby.

Where’s Robby?” said Lasinski.

Lasinski’s brain suffered from atrophy, a loss of tissue localized deep in the left hemisphere of her brain. Since the left side of the brain controls the right side of the brain, damage done to the left affects processes and functioning in the right. Her injury tore up pathways between her spinal cord and brain, decreasing their connection. The major consequence of this torn pathway is Lasinski’s spasticity, the tightness, stiffness and rigidity of her muscles.

I park my car in front of the Department of Rehabilitation.

Lasinski forcefully pushes the door open with her left hand and pulls her body up. Her sneakers crawl across the

I linger back in my rolling chair, drifting away from the conversation between the two. Lasinski recalls her accident to him, shock and sympathy in his expression understandable. She describes her experience taking care of two children, raising her daughter and her younger sister. He inquires if she had any help. She smirks, replying she was married but was the only one doing all the work.

Lasinski slouches in her chair. Her face always seemingly in a permanent scowl, her lips folding into her mouth, the corners of her lips turning down to her chin. Randomly, she jerks up and twists her body quickly from side to side, looking at the walls with alertness and confusion. Her eyes draw the most attention to her face. Plastic surgery moved her right eye up to make the eye more level with her left.

Yet it still sags low into her face, casting a long expression.

The vocational counselor asks Lasinski and I how long we have been working together. Lasinski looks at me.

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Pictured: Lasinski at her Eureka home on Nov. 10.

I reply that I was assigned to Lasinski’s case in June as her developmental trainer through the Making Headway Center for Brain Injury Recovery, the nonprofit organization that provides support services to individuals living with a brain injury. At the time, Lasisnki lost her Section 8 housing voucher, a federal program that provided her with rental assistance. Lasinski was prescribed medical marijuana for depression and anxiety.

Because Section 8 is part of a federal program, medical marijuana is not allowed under any circumstance. A pipe was found in her bedroom and marijuana stems were found in her daughter’s bedroom. Lasinski and I worked all summer long to find her affordable housing.

get all sympathetic and cry and make things worse and problems but feelings, people’s communication, relation of loss and whatever et cetera...but it’s passed. In a minute or two minutes, whatever, it’s already happened.

No use to think about it, focus on it, just to deal with it.”

In the middle of the summer, she broke under the stress of losing her home. Hanging up the phone with her daughter, she let out a terrifying shriek. Shaking her head, waving her fists, a grimacing expression grew on her face, tightening her mouth. She collapsed onto the chair, held her head in her hands as tears released from her eyes. Since her accident, she has trouble crying. She is usually indifferent and neutral, unable to experience emotion now. But her daughter threatened to run away if her beloved cat would not be allowed in their new apartment. Lasinski’s barrier to emotion crumbled as she describes losing her home as tearing her family apart.

“Hopefully it went to a good use,”

At the end of the summer, Lasinski moved from her two bedroom apartment in Arcata to a back alley studio in Eureka, the only place she considered affordable on her government-supported income.

The counselor finishes the intake interview by asking Lasinski what she wants to do with her life. With nothing stopping her, what would be her ultimate career. She immediately responds, “I’d like to wake up kids who had a brain injury and say ‘hey, I’ve been there.”

She repeats the same statement at her support group for traumatic brain injury survivors. The rays of sunlight bouncing off her glasses in the warm living room. The air is stuffy as everyone clusters together in a circle, sipping hot coffee and discussing their week, the hardships of their lives and daily struggles they endure.

“We’re all going through different struggles....but that for me is like...I lost my purse, I could freak out, oh, this happened before, but why? I can’t make it go no faster, I can’t do anything about it, just the steps I’m taking.”

“And remember last week you lost your wallet for a while, and that was kind of stressful too.”

“Mmmhhhmmm.”

“Angie, when you mention about you losing your purse, that’s a good experience about when you...when you lose something, it’s gone, nothing I can do about it. I can

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“In your own way...”

“Yeah, deal with it in your own way.”

“All I’m saying is whoever found it...I had a lot of money in it so I just hope they were happy, had a good evening. Hm.” Lasinski chuckles to herself.

“Like a mocha? That’s what I was saving it for.”

Everyone laughs. A swift breeze rolls in through the open window filtering out the sticky, congested air. The group disperses for break, several smoke cigarettes outside, cooling themselves in the shade.

Others wash out their mugs or refill their coffee cups, chattering in the kitchen. The group slowly reconvenes in the living room, to begin the last half of group.

“I feel like I progressed about fifth grade with my abilities to get through math and stuff like that and like a teenager emotionally.”

“Yeah, well, I use the word, the spirit. My natural spirit attitude is very young, low level. You want to go with levels...or level, my speech, obviously. And just handling, dealing with, and contributions of activity and health and help make use of it, for the heart, for the purpose of living, and that’s a great gift.”

“See that’s where it’s kind of like...that, where how I only use one hand and I use both legs but say one the right way...I feel my body is 16 and then every year after that until now is doubled.”

“And you’re out there, getting out there riding and doing things, and it’s good spirit.”

“Thirty...seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven...wow. Well, you know what I mean. This side of me I’m 37, and this side of me is 16 double the rest from then on. Does that make sense? I’ve used this arm twice as much. So instead of it being 37 it’s...how many years from 16 to 37?”

Looking around the room at her friends, these familiar faces she sees every week, they know who Lasinski is, they understand and can relate to her struggles, but they won’t ever understand who she was before the accident.

Lasinski can barely even grasp who she was then, what made her happy or sad, how she felt and what she thought is now gone. “Angie was taken out and somebody else

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put in...I don’t feel like the same old Angie.” Old Angie was driven and determined to move away from her family who was more concerned with getting high than taking care of their daughter. “Old Angie used to be very independent. I had my life so together...now I’m disabled.”

The night of the crash, Lasinski’s father woke up to the telephone ringing. His nursing school friend, who worked as a paramedic, was calling from the hospital in Garberville.

“I’m not sure if these are your kids or not,” she said, after describing the car accident she attended to.

“Can you tell me what your son was wearing?”

“A 49ers jacket,” Radcliffe replied.

“Oh, God, this is your kid. Your son didn’t make it, and Angie is....”

Posturing, her body stiffening, with her arms at her sides and her hands pointed out. It is the nervous system’s way of saying the brain is shutting down. Radcliffe stunned and speechless, hung up the phone and jumped into his car. His whole life was his children. Barely alive, Lasinski was flown from Garberville to Redding Hospital and spent 11 hours in surgery.

on some level, I just didn’t know it consciously.” he said.

Yet it went right out of her mind. Radcliffe repeated over and over to Lasinski that her brother died and watched her fall apart over and over again. He would step outside, drop to the ground and sob, falling apart on the floor, yelling and screaming and cussing at God. He let himself weep for 10 minutes and then shook it off, picking himself up and going back inside to run around the hospital, disillusioned to reality.

Lasinski spent one month in the Redding rehab, trying to regain her walking and speech. Radcliffe brought in beautiful bangles of hers and the therapists dangled them in front of her. Excited by the sparkle, she reached out with her hand to touch the bracelets.

The therapists used Lasinski’s excitement as a way to get her to talk, to say the words, “bracelet”or “jewelry”. Lasinski slowly began saying words again.

“It added to my optimism,” Radcliffe recalls. “We’re going to get her well. She’s going to recover as far as possible.”

Lasinski left Redding three months after her accident to live with her father and continue her recovery in outpatient rehab in Eureka. After about six months, she moved into a private home for recovering individuals with disabilities.

In the year after her accident, Lasinski transitioned from using a wheelchair to walking with a cane.

“The people that make fun of you, don’t know the shit you’ve been through...,” said Lasinski’s group members.

“She was as close to death if not going there and coming back as you can possibly get. About a month she was in a coma, and then when she started to come out, she was basically sent to the other floor but was severely compromised. Her head was shaved because she had an intracranial monitor in the top of her head.

She had been on all kinds of life support, thought she was going to be hospitalized, in total care for the rest of her life,” her father said.

“We got her into rehab at Redding and after a period of time she started being able to connect that I was her dad, saying her first few words, she was like a baby starting over.

I walk in and talk to her and 10 minutes later she wouldn’t even know I was there. It was just like a total blackout of short term memory. I talked with staff and I said this is going to have to be dealt with delicately about her brother. If we tell her now, she’s going to break down, be traumatized and forget it. I told the rehab staff that if I wasn’t there when she asked about her brother to call me because I want to be the one who tells her. That is what happened. I went in and told her and she fell apart, she broke down and it’s a horrible thing, but she told me, yeah I think I knew

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“She had everything going for her, and here this thing happened, and she’s beautiful inside and out, she’s a gorgeous girl,” Radcliffe said. “She wanted to get a law degree and be an attorney and to work with the less fortunate. She was a really, really good person. So, you know, it was really unfair it should happen to somebody like that.”

The seasons are changing now, the weather was once so intensely warm and sticky in this living room. Now, the sky is gray and the wind leaves behind this icy chill that prickles your skin, severely reminding us winter is fast approaching. Lasinski is bundled up in a large hoodie and long sweatpants, resting her elbow on her knee and her hand on her mouth, leaning her body forward to listen to the group members speaking. She gazes intently, her eyes sincere as one woman relays her difficulty with her family.

“When people make fun of you, or any of you, I don’t

know, I get made fun of, how does that, does it happen in your homes too?”

“When I do stuff like that, I go and sit down because I’m just too frustrated,”

“The people who make fun of you, don’t know the shit you’ve been through, so that’s them. If they knew the shit you went through, they wouldn’t be making fun of you, they’d be worshipping you.”

“Well that’s what I thought, okay one thing at a time, pick up the bag. Then I thought, it’s silly, but do each little thing, then in a way, not in a big way, be proud of yourself for doing it, instead of seeing the oh no, just think step by step...I mean it’s not something that I would go and say ‘hey, I cleaned up my porch, I deserve an award’. No, you wouldn’t tell anybody that but you would feel good inside.”

“Well, it just makes me want to stay isolated...I’ve invited them to come to the barbecues...they’re not interested.”

“If they’re not wanting to get to know you, well then that should be fine with you.”

“That’s kind of what I went through when I left Garberville.

I left my family, and I haven’t seen them almost since the day of my accident, 20 years ago, they haven’t called to see am I doing okay or nothing. Nothing, not my mom or no one. But I thought I could either be back in their world, but I know what they don’t know how hard of a struggle life I’ve had and I’m actually kind of proud now for everything I’ve gone through and they will never know that.”

“That’s too bad though, I mean you know ‘cause we kind of depend on our family for moral support or stuff, they’re people who know us, you know, so it kind of messes with my mind. I don’t know if it messes with yours,” “It used to bad but I had a choice either get really depressed over this or I could go on, maybe help others.”

Lasinski rocks back in her chair. She now facilitates this support group and hopes to eventually facilitate her own life skills class at Making Headway. The class would be centered around survivors writing about their own experience with brain injury, possibly combining these survivor stories into a book.

Lasinski focuses on positivity in her group, shifting the discussion away from problems regarding brain injury and towards solutions from stress and frustration that brain injury sometimes brings.

“I don’t know whatever is going to stop me from spilling things because it’s just like my brain just stops when that happens.”

“Are you one, that when you spill it, how do you react?”

“I’m just like shit. Then I just go okay, no. I used to get really frustrated,” “You know how I deal with it? I’d like to share how I deal with it. We’re different, yeah, but our...what do you call it... disabilities are different, but I spilled a bag of my garbage I was taking out on my steps, and I was like Oh no, my coffee grinds, oh no,”

Before I ever began working with people who have brain injuries, before I ever really knew their struggles, I fell in love with a man, who years before, split his skull open from a car crash. He was in a coma and his life was teetering with death. He did wake up and recovered, so much so that he is completely functional today. On the phone with him, years ago, I remember him questioning why he was alive, why his life even mattered. Why others die, and he, who was so close to death, is still here. I gave no response to him then. I could not relate. But years later, that conversation still resonates in my mind, why?

Lasinski finally gave the answer, responding to a man in her group who blames himself for his injury. Like Lasinski, he was the one driving the car and sees it as his fault. “ My brother died, that’s my fault. I felt very bad about that for years. But you know, I’m getting through it because there’s a reason that it happened. Religious or whatever, but it was meant to happen. And I’m honored I was chosen to be the one to have it happen. I wouldn’t have went through what I went through if I had a choice, you know my brother died...I’d take it all back if I could. But I’ve learned to see the good, well he chose me to send him off. I mean that’s part of it, that’s all religion and stuff. But oh, I feel him.”

Lasinski believes her life has a purpose, that there is some deeper meaning to why she is still here. Her accident changed her, in the sense that she cannot be the lawyer she wanted to be. But her vision of compassion is still embedded inside her, as she describes how she wants to help people, as she takes the steps with her support group in becoming a voice for brain injury.

“She is now more of who she was in her heart all along,” her father said. “She is my hero, turning the greatest adversity into good, by choosing to have a positive perspective. She is such a beautiful and amazing person.”

Jessica Renae works as a developmental trainer at Making Headway Center for Brain Injury Recovery, where she works with Lasinski and other clients to help maximize their full potential after experiencing a brain injury. The main focus of her job is community reintegration and developing life skills.

She has been working for this agency since February 2012.

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Buddy Reed Photographed and Written by Sabina Gallier

Pictured: Buddy Reed and his guitar.

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U

pon first glance, local musician Buddy Reed looks like your average 66-year-old man walking through life like the rest of us. However, behind his rectangle-frame glasses, you find the bright, energetic blue eyes of a man on a mission for music and beneath his polo shirt, a tattoo on his chest preaching the one thing he has always had in his heart: the Blues.

Born Ivan Elmo Reed on June 18, 1947 and nicknamed Buddy by his sister, Reed was born in Bakersfield, Calif. after his family migrated from Oklahoma in the 1930s.

Now located in Arcata, Reed is the guitarist and lead vocals of local Blues band, Buddy Reed and the Rip It Ups. Music has always been in his family and his blood. His grandfather introduced him to the guitar while he was growing up in Rialto, Calif. but that was not the first instrument he was interested in playing.

“My grandad taught me a little guitar piece called Spanish Fandango on the guitar, but I didn’t stick with it, I was only six years old… it hurt my wimpy little fingers, you know so I had the guitar but I didn’t pick it up anymore,” he said. “The first instrument that I was curious about trying to play was the 5-string banjo and I love the Bluegrass style, the three-fingered Bluegrass style of Earl Scruggs.”

Reed’s pursuit of the banjo ended when he realized that the Bluegrass scene in Rialto was almost nonexistent. He then gravitated back to guitar playing.

While attending Eisenhower High School, he found the beginnings of a band in his group of friends.

“There was a little handful of us in high school, junior year and senior year in high school, that’s when we started getting serious about trying to play,” he said. “I was inspired by my partners in school that they wanted to play too.”

Reed taught himself the Blues on guitar but the band came together with a friend with a drum set, another guitar player and a lead vocalist.

“We started around home and then we started getting hired by these college fraternities ‘cause I guess they didn’t care what we sounded like as long as we were loud, so that’s how we got started,” Reed said.

He was sure the band’s name would get them noticed.

“The Exits.We figured our name would be in every theatre!”

During high school Reed studied engineering and worked

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for as a draftman for the Otis elevator company from 1966 to 1967. He got bored and quit.

His family supported and inspired his preference towards a career in music.

“My dad was a little frustrated ‘cuz, I mean, mathematics and stuff like that was like, a breeze to him,” he said. “I can’t add two and two. But once he’d seen where I was going with it, he went with it.”

Reed’s grandfather taught him how to play the guitar and his older sister introduced him to Rhythm and Blues and Rock and Roll from the 1950s and 1960s.

When Reed left high school he was intent on making it big and found inspiration in the bands of that time.

“A lot of the blues based English bands were just breaking in, mainly the Rolling Stones. They were playing all R&B style, all Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, and so that’s what we were trying to emulate,” he said.

Reed and his bandmates listened to the AM disc jockeys in Riverside, Calif. and heard promotions for dances and events that required bands. Soon The Exits were performing a town over. Reed met fellow lovers of the blues including Rod Piazza.

“Me and him hit it off and we started playing,” Reed said. “We had our two different bands but we were friends and we’d, you know, talk on the phone all the time and get together and drink and listen to stuff and talk about what we were gonna do.”

In 1967, Reed and Piazza met George “Harmonica” Smith from Chicago. Smith was billing himself as the well-known and deceased Blues harmonica player Little Walter at shows in Los Angeles. After meeting Smith, Piazza and Reed were taken under his wing and given a little insight into the Blues. Along with Reed’s friend, “Shakey” Jake Harris, they formed The George “Harmonica” Smith Blues Band.

“We started playing with George Smith down in his neighborhood bar in Watts, Calif. on 53rd and Avalon and what a time, what a time that was,” Reed said.

“George had been on the road with all these major blues artists and a lot of the great recording artists had moved to LA from Chicago by way of Mississippi.”

One of those artists happened to be singer/songwriter Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton who Smith knew because he was her harmonica player. From then on The George “Harmonica” Smith Blues Band became her touring band.

Reed toured for 10 years, coming across big names and playing with the likes of Johnny Otis and Little Richard.

However something was not sitting right in his heart.

“I had been touring and had been playing guitar behind the harmonica for years, and I loved it and I still do but I was sick to death of it,” Reed said. “I wanted to kind of be an artist in my own right and when Little Richard came along and offered me a job in his band, I took it.

So that’s when I stepped out of the LA blues scene.

People weren’t real happy with me. ‘Aw Reed’s not a blues guy anymore, he’s a rock ‘n’ roll guy now.’ I didn’t care.”

Reed started playing with Little Richard in 1976 and continued to meet big names in the world of Blues.

He even had the pleasure of sitting down with Muddy Waters and learning the tuning scale of a very popular song. Reminiscing while looking at a photograph of the event, Reed recounted Water’s sense of humor.

“He’s teaching me how to play the eight slide right there,” he said. “I go ‘Muddy what tunin’ did you use on Walkin’ Blues?’ and he goes ‘Oh just don’t tell my tuning to everybody!’ My wife was standin’ right outside the frame of the picture, he kinda winked at her and goes ’ok’ goes and grabs a guitar and he showed me how to tune it. I’ve been playin’ ‘Walkin’ Blues’ ever since.”

Reed has had his share of helpful but tough characters in his day. In 1981 a friend living in San Diego invited him to check out a tattoo parlor he was working. Reed later began work as a tattoo artist and there met Hells Angel member Kenny Baker. This was the beginning of a firm friendship as Baker took an interest in Reed’s talents and even bestowed a couple of gifts upon him.

“I didn’t know at the time but he was prospecting for the Hells Angels and those were Hells Angels that were sitting in that shop,” Reed said. “So when he became a Hells Angel I got pulled right along and I ended up living at the Hells Angels clubhouse in San Bernardino and associated with ‘em for decades and that’s how I got my motorcycles.”

Baker gave Reed two motorcycles: the club bike-- a 1973 Harley Davidson Sportster and a 1976 Shovelhead, which Reed called the bike of his dreams. However his dream of riding this bike ended while he was working for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in Trinidad. A bump in the road broke the frame of the bike and it now lies in milkcrates at a friend’s house in Fontana.

Single with a daughter and two grandchildren, Reed has called Arcata home for 11 years. Before then, his time in places like Arizona and Southern California were wearing him down.

“Well I was living in Phoenix,” he said. “The walls were kind of closing in on me there, you know, the music scene was really back-biting and shitty. Great people, not all bad by any means but I was getting sick of it. I had lived in Rialto since I was a kid, but I had lived around Inland Empire and all different places, and one of the places I lived was called Forest Falls.”

Forest Falls is located above Redlands and it was there that Reed got in contact with a friend from his touring days, Don Hall. Hall moved up to Weaverville while another of Reed’s friends moved to Orick. Hall invited him up and Reed found himself in Weaverville for nine months, during which he explored the city of Arcata.

“I don’t know how I found it, but there was a little coffee house here in Arcata called Muddy Waters Coffee house,” Reed said.

He was surprised to see a picture of Muddy Waters on the side and immediately inquired about live performances in the now closed establishment.

“I thought, man I’m in the right place” he said. “So I got a gig there and my other friend that was living in Orick heard my name on the radio or something and he showed up at the gig and he goes ‘man you need a place to stay?’”

“I got it locked in. These cats are the baddest,” Reed said.

Reed moved from Weaverville to Orick, later to Eureka and finally planted his feet in Arcata.

Reed loves the convenience of the mountains and the beach in Humboldt County as well as the clean environment and the people.

“So many beautiful women here and everybody’s so nice y’know, but it’s great it’s really inspiring,” he said. “To write the music that I write and sing the blues, it’s all man-woman stuff, that’s all blues is.”

Reed is the frontman of Buddy Reed and the Rip It Ups, a local four-piece blues band where he sings and plays guitar. Part of the band name comes from a Little Richard song. The band has been through multiple member changes since its inception 13 years ago when it was originally called Buddy Reed and the Rock-Its. However, Reed has confidence in his bandmates now.

“I got it locked in. These cats are the baddest,” he said. “I couldn’t ask for a better band than the one I got. They’re in there solid with me man, they love it, and they’re all in a good spot, a good place in our lives to be able to do it.”

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Pictured: Buddy Reed jams with his band at The Speakeasy in Eureka on Oct. 5.

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Drummer Rick Rino has known Reed since the 1960s when they used to play in different bands at similar venues in Riverside. When Rino moved to Humboldt County over two years ago his son took him to Mosgo’s Coffee in Arcata to watch a drummer he knew of. Rino inquired about the type of music the band played and the drummer responded with “Buddy Reed Blues” Rino recognized the name and was told that Reed was sitting right behind him.

After a few more encounters and finding out that he still played the drums,Reed asked Rino for his number. Initially Rino did not give him his number, thinking that he would not call him back. His wife made him turn around and give him his information. Rino heard back from Reed a week later.

Rino said that Reed has the Blues in his veins and that aside from his musical talent, he is a good-hearted individual.

“He is a true Blues man, he is the real thing,” Rino said. “He has lived it, breathed it and played it all his life. I’m a straight guy but I’ve actually fallen in love with him because he’s just a wonderful, wonderful man. It’s not all about him, it’s all about the music and what we as a group can put out together.”

Rino added that there is always a special moment for the band when they all come together and Reed’s love of the music is almost tangible.

“When we get to that one moment, and it happens every time we play, sometimes it takes a little while to get there, and then sometimes it kind of goes away, but when you get in that one spot where it’s just pouring out of him and we’re backing him up, it’s awesome,” he said.

Bass player David Bethuy met Reed over a year and a half ago while he was working at Redwood Curtain Brewery.

Bethuy worked every Monday which was fortunately when Reed came in to play his “Blue Mondays” set with Rino.

“Often times the music he put down is what got me through the week,” Bethuy said. “I have had music in my family all my life. My parents played music five to six nights a week as the main source of income for our family. I have always had this strange connection to the original American Blues.”

He and Reed started getting acquainted outside of Redwood Curtain and his first gig with the band was when he stood in for the drummer at one of his friend’s weddings. Impressed with his performance, Reed called Bethuy up a few weeks later and he’s been playing bass with the ban ever since.

“I would describe Buddy, at this point in time, for the relatively short time I have known him as someone who genuinely cares for the craft and loves his community and music,” Bethuy said. “Someone who performs with the kind of 110 percent delivery

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Above: Reed’s tattoo.

that captures the desperation of the music and can do so because of the real life path he has traveled.”

Andy Fihn is the harmonica player for the band and met Reed in May.

“Buddy has worked with the best of the best, all over the world, so the fact that he’s happy to be playing with us no-names up here in in this little town is a testament to how much he loves this music,” Fihn said.

“He has told me time and time again that if he had the chance he would do it again a thousand times over.”

The band plays together on Saturday nights at The Speakeasy in Eureka. Reed and Fihn perform as a duo at Crush and Libation in Arcata. The band is looking for more shows to play locally but Reed hasn’t hung up his touring belt just yet. He would like to get into a studio and record an album with the band as well as perform in Europe.

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Reed said there isn’t much of a Blues scene in Arcata and he would like to work very hard to change that.

“I would love to find somebody, especially here in Arcata would be really cool, if somebody got the money and wanted to open a club, we could have a blues society, we could put on shows,” he said. “A lot of the major touring acts are right out of the Bay Area and we’d put shows on here. They do that here somewhat but not much and that’s what I’d like to see happen.”

Three years ago, Reed underwent surgery for a severely compressed spinal cord in order to keep him from being paralyzed. The surgery resulted in Reed’s neck being fused so his movement is limited. There is a more pressing side effect that he is worried about.

“The worst thing is the numbness in my hands,” he said. “They feel about twice their size and I have very little feeling on the outside surface of my fingers, with intense tingling. “It’s fucked!” awhile.”

Reed admits that he misses a lot of notes and added that if he had known that numbness was a possibility, he might have reconsidered the surgery. He currently works out on his own and has plans to speak to a specialist about remedying the effects of the surgery.

“I haven›t given up hope that I might get some feeling back,” he said. “Nerves take a long time...especially with an old geezer like me.”

Reed believes in music’s healing power.

“Everybody is lonely at one time in their life, everybody’s drunk, everybody’s pissed off and when you come to hear somebody sing about those things, it’s an exorcism of all that,” he said. “That’s what it is; it’s a healing force.”

With his 1936 Sears & Roebuck Silvertone guitar by his side, an instrument he wouldn’t trade for ten Les Pauls, Reed vows to play the blues for the rest of his life.

“It’s the most pure, spiritual, physical, sexual heart music there is,” he said.

Panache Hair Salon

708 9th St, Arcata Open Tues-Sat 10am-6pm 707.825.7729

Hair Services Manicures & Pedicure Waxing Custom Cuts Custom Colors Hair Extensions Osprey Fall 2013

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Destressing In Humboldt Written by Karin Marr

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College can be stressful. With midterms, final exams and difficult classes, it’s hard to get out of the end-of-the-semester funk. But don’t worry because we’ve found a few ways you can relax within easy distance of Humboldt State University.

Pictured: Kim Chamberlain floats a client during a Watsu session in her 95 degree Osprey Fall therapy pool. (photo by Mike2013 Chamberlain)

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Photo by Karin Marr.

Photo by Mike Chamberlain.

Massage/Watsu

Hot Tub/Sauna

Manicure/Pedicure

One excellent strategy to de-stress is with a traditional table massage or a Watsu, a warm-salt-water floating massage in a 95-degree therapy pool. Better yet, try both.

Watsu can be found at Akasha Bodysmith in Fortuna. A spiritual adventure to nirvana, the experience will loosen muscles, and generally leave you feeling fabulous. Owner, Kim Chamberlain has more than 16 years of experience doing massage. She can travel with a portable table for traditional massage for an extra cost.

In 1982, Stan and Barbara Henderson built Cafe Mokka and Finnish Country Sauna & Tubs in Arcata. It’s only a few short blocks from the Plaza. Check in at the counter and then stroll through the serene pond garden to your private hot tub or sauna. While soaking in the hot tub you can enjoy your favorite coffee, cappuccino or juice.

Reservations are strongly recommended once the weather gets chilly.

Manicures and pedicures have long been a popular way to pamper ourselves. Manicures Plus by Margie in Eureka, delivers an old fashioned manicure and pedicure complete with hand and foot massage. Sit back and settle in for a chat while enjoying the peace and quiet of a salon experience without the mall traffic. Owner Margie Omstead also paints nails in original designs.

“People should take an active interest in their well-being,” Chamberlain said. “Massage helps to facilitate body awareness and normalize body function through increased circulation which helps with muscle relaxation.”

Prices: $65/hour in house for Massage or Watsu Akasha Bodysmith 1751 Newburg Rd. Fortuna, CA. 95540 (707) 725-8867

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Photo by Karin Marr.

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Ray Masterson is an HSU alumni and an employee at the cafe.

“The hot tubs are unique in that no one is allowed to build hot tubs like these anymore,” he said. “To comply with California’s standards you have to have non-porous surfaces, which means either cement, plastics or fiberglass. They’re one of the last wooden hot tub operations left.”

“Anyone can polish their own nails,” she said. “Studies have shown we go to salons to be pampered. Most of us feel safe telling our life story to a manicurist.”

Prices: Manicure $20, Pedicure $30.

Manicures Plus by Margie 8 Wabash Avenue Eureka, CA. 95501 (707) 442-4383

Photo by Karin Marr.

Drive down the Avenue of the Giants The entrance to the old Highway 101 is about 41 miles south of Arcata. The 31-mile stretch is part of the Humboldt Redwoods State Park and most commonly known as the “Avenue of the Giants.” Encompassing more than 50,000 acres, the drive along the Avenue parallels the Eel River, offering several places to stop and walk along the shore, or weather permitting, take a swim. In Founders’ Grove, stroll the half-mile trail gazing at the magnificence of the old-growth redwood forest. One of the attractions of this grove is the Dyerville Giant. Before it fell, in 1991, it stood more than 362 feet and its circumference was 52 feet. It is not difficult to be awestruck when faced with a tree that stood for more than 2000 years. The only cost for the cruise down the Avenue is that of gas.

Prices: $9.50/ ½ hr., per person, $18/hr., per person. (6 person limit per tub) Café Mokka & Finnish Country Sauna & Tubs Corner of 5th & J Streets Arcata, CA. 95521 (707) 822-2228

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Photo by Sabina Gallier.

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Photo by John Reveruzzi.

Sunset on the beach

Explore Fern Canyon

Watching the sunset at Trinidad Beach has been a Humboldt State student favorite for many years. There are a number of different places to explore in Trinidad, beyond the beach. Take a brief hike through the forest and across the bluffs, then a stroll past the wildflowers to the beach.

Or stay on the high bluffs above the beach in the meadow bordered by alders. A short 16 miles north of Arcata, this activity, too, only costs the gas to get there. Perhaps bring some friends and some firewood, have a bonfire and enjoy the beauty of the sun setting over the Pacific.

Fern Canyon is situated in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park and is about 45 miles north of Arcata. Some of the ferns growing in this canyon date back three million years old, making the majesty of the Redwoods seem to be in its infancy. Home Creek, the stream that has carved out the canyon, follows the hiking trail. The walls of the canyon can reach 80 ft. There are a number of trees that have fallen across the creek offering opportunities to explore a bit beyond the mile long trail. You’ll want to wear waterproof boots on this hike as many people have laughingly ended up standing in the creek rather than on the trees. As with the Avenue of the Giants, the cost is minimal. The price of the gas and the $8 State Park dayuse fee make it easily affordable.

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Photo by Misha Burke.

Photo by Sabina Gallier.

Puddle Stomping

Puppy Therapy

The weather in Humboldt being what it is, playing and dancing in the rain are definitely options for being silly in the fall.

Miranda’s Rescue in Fortuna is a rescue sanctuary for animals of just about any type. They work to find loving homes for all of their rescues and are one of the increasing number of “no-kill” rescues around the country.

Reeham Mohammed, is a 21-year-old, former HSU international student from Cairo who majored in mass communications and journalism.

You might wonder what an animal rescue operation has to do with relaxation, but Miranda’s Rescue loves to have people come and play with the animals.

“Sometimes I’d go out in the rain, sing loudly and do some dance movements,” Mohammed said, laughing. “It looks crazy but I really enjoyed it.”

Ricky Wright is Miranda’s volunteer coordinator for the dogs and cats.

Most of us can remember stomping through puddles when were kids. As adults, the practice can serve to take us back to an easier time in our lives, when our biggest worry was getting home in time for supper.

“They’re thrilled when people come to play,” she said “They just need to sign a waiver for liability purposes.”

Can you imagine an easier way to have fun than rolling around on the ground with a bunch of puppies? When Miranda’s has enough volunteers they bring pet therapy to St. Luke’s Nursing Home in Fortuna weekly.

Miranda’s Rescue 1603 Sandy Prairie Rd Fortuna, CA. 95540 (707) 725-4449

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Photo by Karin Marr.

Paintball Revolution Paintball in Samoa is an entertaining way to spend a weekend. Brought to Humboldt County by Steve Nally in October 2011, they have tournaments every other weekend, weather permitting. The $10 entry fee gets you access for the entire day. A $25 rental package gets you 200 paintball rounds, a mask, and a weapon to shoot your friends with and cover them in a variety of pretty colors. Go as a team with a group of friends or join a team when you get there.

Alex Bateman, 23, is the owner of Revolution Paintball.

“It’s the most bonding and team building sport there is,” he said.

“Because every match there’s a chance to get out and the whole point is to keep everybody in the game. You want to keep your brothers around you as much as you can. So you’re really working on communicating and it’s very bonding. You’re taking care of each other. It’s really just a lot of fun.”

Revolution Paintball Samoa Soccer Field Samoa, CA. 95503 Alex Bateman (707) 845-5591

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Humboldt Kinksters Written by Ronele Herd

Photographed by Christina DeGiovanni

N

icole McCollum’s nimble fingers move back and forth along the mouse pad, scrolling up and down. Thumbnail-sized pictures flicker across the screen. The images of naked bodies are so small you can barely see them.

“Here’s where you can look up whatever you’re into, and you can really pick your poison,” McCollum explains. Her fascination is apparent as she describes how to navigate her profile page.

“Oh, here, you can search by region. Alaska has gotta have some kinksters... hmmm 8,446 people registered.”

McCollum, 21, is sharing her profile on FetLife, a social media website designed to connect individuals who have “kinky” or unconventional sexual preferences. According to McCollum this website is the primary social forum that Arcata kinksters use to mingle and set up other social gatherings in the Humboldt area.

“Kink” is a broad term used to describe mild-to-wild sexu-

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al preferences. Sexual practices involving knife play, Japanese style shibari rope bondage, and furry “fox hunts” are without a doubt kinkier than the typical college threesome.

Kinky individuals are sometimes judged and misunderstood, so it can be difficult to find other people who share their unique interests. McCollum says that bondage, discipline and sadomasochism is an uncomfortable concept for a lot of people.

“BDSM, for example, is entirely based around consent,” McCollum says. “So, taking home some 6-foot 2-inch guy who’s drunk after a party to have him hit you with a cattle prod before you cum, it can get kind of awkward.”

Macroura is a 23-year-old senior at Humboldt State University. This is his alias: his real name is being withheld to protect his privacy. He says it’s important to wait to have kinky experiences with new partners.

“It’s something you kind of leave for the third date,” he says.

FetLife is the Facebook for kinksters. In October, it showed 668 registered kinksters in Arcata. But there are sure to be closet kinksters in Humboldt--those who want to remain secret. FetLife is a launch pad; it is de-

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and the process of joining and integrating in to any one of these community groups may seem intimidating and uncomfortable.

“I remember being anxious, chain smoking outside before walking into the Munch,” Macroura says, recalling his first kink-social. “I had my judgments at first. I naively thought the community was a bunch of swingers, but I was happy for to find more variety.”

Top: Multiple dildos for both men and women’s use.

Bottom: Claw rings for every finger, purchased at a convention in the Bay Area.

Macroura and McCollum say that the Eureka Munch and other kink socials were welcoming. After the initial awkward introductions at these events, the sense of acceptance was overwhelming.

“I noticed how nice everybody’s shoes were,” McCollum says about her first play party experience. “I couldn’t look anyone in the eye at first!”

Newbies can get involved simply by emailing the group organizers. Questionnaires are typically used to verify that individuals are seriously interested in joining the kink community and not just getting laid.

As vets in the practice of kink, MasterM and Kelly understand the importance of safety when “playing” with sex partners.

“It’s important to have some sort of bullshit meter to sense who knows what they are talking about,” says MasterM. “Get educated before you jump in.”

Above: MasterM and Kelly’s kink gear in their bedroom.

signed to help kinksters find one another and create an environment in which to interact, both online and offline.

“I started off with Craigslist, which isn’t very safe,” McCollum says. “It’s not a community there, just deviant people. But the Munch, for example, is a safe environment where people can eat and talk about their interests.”

The Eureka Munch is a local social group for individuals interested in BDSM practices. The group hosts a monthly “munch,” short for “burger munch,” an event where kinksters can meet, eat and chill out in a public place, usually a restaurant, the location of which is disclosed only to group members.

Good Relations Lovers Boutique in downtown Eureka, has flyers posted in their dressing rooms with more information about the Munch. In fact, this is how McCollum learned about the Humboldt kink community. Other social groups include a bondage workshop called Redwood Ropes, Queer Humboldt and the HSU annual Kink on Campus workshops, all of which are searchable on Google.

Macroura remembers being a freshman in the dorms when he first heard about the Impropriety Society, a for-

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mer sex-positive group.

“He was a DJ at one of their events,” Macroura says.

“I was too young to go at the time, but a few years later I read this Vice article that reignited my interest.”

“If You Build It They Will Cum” was an enlightening investigative piece published in Vice Magazine back in 2012 about the underground kink community in Humboldt County.

For such a raunchy article, it received lots of local praise.

The Impropriety Society was a Humboldt-based kink group that orchestrated numerous community events in the area. They were primarily known for hosting elaborate “play parties” where members could mingle and, if they so chose, engage in responsible BDSM practices, sexual exhibitionism, polyamory and much more.

These parties had rules and regulations as well as a strict behavioral etiquette which promoted sex-positive concepts such as respect, consent and the release of inhibitions. The Impropriety Society no longer exists because the core organizers dispersed. Remaining community members host play parties of their own, but they are no where near as frequent.

MasterM, 59, and Kelly, 53, (aliases for their real names) are a husband and wife in a master-slave relationship, a form of BDSM, and until recent years they used to organize the Eureka Munch together. They have since passed on the responsibility to other community members and these days they enjoy their newfound free time, entertaining friends at small, kinky get-togethers in the comfort of their home.

“It was nice to have that support, to know that you’re not the only one” Kelly says.

It can be fun and enjoyable to have kinky sexual encounters, but it is important to know when to exercise caution.

“If you you aren’t taking steps to be safe, then you’re being an irresponsible partner,” Macroura says.

The HSU Kink on Campus is an annual discussion held on campus each fall. The group talks about safety precautions and all things kink by offering workshops and other activities to HSU students and the Humboldt community. Kink on Campus and other local kink groups also discuss STIs, domestic violence and couples counseling.

While the Humboldt community’s desire to help kinksters find one another remains a steadfast objective, Kelly says “the community itself is in a constant state of flux.”

The kinkster community in Humboldt may be small and decentralized right now, but it is supportive and vibrant.

Community involvement is key in the function of these social spheres and apparently the position of leadership has alternated numerous times over the years.

“There’s nothing like this in my hometown,” Macroura, who springs from El Centro, Calif. says. “These kind of lifestyles are some of the most rewarding you can have.”

The active local kink community groups are comprised of couples and singles with a wide variety of kinky interests and sexual identities. The average age range is between 25 to 35 years old.

When things are getting kinky, MasterM has one bit of advice: “Think with your big head. Take your time,” he said.

Shyness is a common affliction for kinkster newcomers,

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