A READER ASKED, “Are you sad the print ava is over?” More resigned and nostalgic than sad when I think of the crucial people who truly got it done every week all these years, which excludes me. I fired off a few hundred often ill-chosen, unnecessarily combative words every week, and I could be trusted to deliver the paper the length of the Anderson Valley every Thursday morning. And I also served as front man and flak catcher, but it was Mark Scaramella, Renee Lee and my martyred wife, the former Esther Mowe of East Malaysia, who did the unending work-work of production. Without them the Boonville weekly would have faded years ago.
REGRETS? I never believe old people who say they have none. I have lots, not that I'm going to share them because I don't want to give my many enemies any additional ammo, but there have been instances, provocations, quite a few of them, I wish I would have ignored, and people I wish I'd never met. But overall, the ava has, I think, accurately reflected the times and place it appeared in for forty years. Check that: Early on I produced an issue that I thought was so bad, so dumb, so utterly without interest that I promised myself I'd quit if I couldn't do better. There have been some weak AVAs since but I can't remember any but that one that was as utterly hopeless, as cringe-inducing.
LEGACY? Who cares? I think people who think (and worry) about future opinions of them are laughable. I'd be reluctant to go if I thought opinions weren't a true mix of seething hatred for me personally and my newspaper, and grudging respect for simply staying at it for so many years. But, but, but..... but don't you want to be remembered and loved? Only by my heirs and assignees. Beyond them, indifference, much as I am fond of many of you.
WHEN I bought the Boonville weekly 40 years ago, I published the promise below on the front page of my first issue. Bold as it reads, bold is not how I felt. I didn't know if I could make a go of it, by which I meant sell enough papers to at least pay the print bill. Almost all the advertisers fled the first month, and the local authorities had to be hounded to send me legal ads rightfully belonging to Anderson Valley’s “newspaper of record.” The first of many ensuing libel threats appeared. Our downtown office was vandalized. My vehicles were destroyed. But the paper grew, and if it has never exactly prospered, it has survived for four decades. Why? Because right from the start, really good writers sent us really good writing, as lively a weekly collection as any publication in the country, and within a year or two the Boonville weekly was perhaps the best known small town paper in all the USofA, not that that specious fame brought in much hard currency, but it did bring in even more good writers. As all of you know, print has been swallowed by telephones, and lively prose of the type appearing here is less valued, and we're old and unable to continue the hard slog of weekly print production. I thank all of you who made this adventure the wild ride it has been, and I hope you'll stay with us in our cyber-form.
SCARAMELLA REMINDS ME: “I think we should give some recognition to the named and nameless individuals, many of them in local government, over the years who took the opportunity presented by the AVA to speak to us on or ‘off the record’ about scandals and insider deals without whom we would not have been able to produce some of our best stories.”
CERTAINLY TRUE. If it weren't for people alerting us to events that would otherwise remain unrevealed, our paper would have been majorly deficient. I can also say we never, ever revealed a source who requested anonymity.
PS. Scaramella calculated last week that the AVA cranked out 2,100 editions of the paper-paper in the 40-years plus since we bought the paper. That includes our two special editions on the Bear Lincoln case and the Zapatista papers in the 1990s.
* * *
Intents and Purposes (AVA, January 4, 1984 Vol. 32, Issue #1)
This newspaper stands against wealth, privilege and all branches of local, state and federal government. These positions are subject to change should the management of the Advertiser become either wealthy or privileged. Since there isn't any wealth to speak of around here, and less privilege, government, especially local government, will be the focus of much attention.
We will print the stories that go untold in Mendocino County because of the timidity and allegiances of the existing press.
We are neither liberal nor conservative, believing that ideology is for idiots and dictators. We are enemies of dogma and rigidity for which we will roll out the big guns.
We will attempt to publish articles and features of interest to all segments of our diverse community, something for everyone.
We will present lengthy features on such subjects as the likely impact of the Roederer Corporation on Anderson Valley; what it is like to be an illegal Mexican worker in Mendocino County; items of historical interest; the economics and problems of: sheep ranching; licensed children’s homes; the Mendocino County Schools operations in Anderson Valley; the local schools: interviews with local movers and shakers; and lots of gossip, the life's blood of the small community.
lf there are stories you'd like to see, let us know: If we become shrill, boring or humorless, let us know. When we’re dumb or dishonest, let us know. Better yet, sue us.
But make no mistake about it, we fully intend to do as we please, mollifying no one, least of all our advertisers and subscribers.
Bruce Anderson, Editor
As some one whose home was burned down in 2017 in redwood valley sure would like to to know what the BOS did with the 22 million PGE gave them. It’s about 40 thousand per structure. Have not seen any accounting. This was for potter and redwood valleys losses. Sure would appreciate it if you looked into it. Thanks for the years of great reporting
Thank you Bruce Anderson and Co. for decades of stalwart journalism. You really were America’s last news- “paper”.
Ah, there you ARE… America’s un-paper-paper…”no trees ‘njured getting us da news”
AVA HAS BEEN REAL, SAUCY, HONEST, TRUE, GRAND AND it should be honored in all it’s decades (40) in print.
Edward Mycue
I HEAR IN THE WIND
I hear in the wind long-gone voices
that knew the language of flowers
tasted the bitter root, hoped,
placed stone upon stone, built
an order, blessed the wild beauty
of this place.
Can you hear
in the wind whispers, crusts
of soul-insulted soul, scattered
ages, decided, gone yellow, thin?
I hear in the wind those old sorrows
in new voices, undefeated desires,
and the muffled advent of something I can only define
as bright, new angels.
Can you hear in the wind independent people
who never depart,
have no time for friends,
who want to go and want
to stay and never decide in time?
I hear in the wind old phantoms
and the swirl of the released mustardstar
and the cry of innocence.
It has now become December/
© Copyright Edward Mycue
Vinnie Treez, I Must Speak with you please. It’s about T. J.
& 2270. Please Text Me @ 228) 304-9551. New Owners from (909) Are Cooperative & willing to Help. I have all their information. I can tell you what I know. I wish to know what your Mom Knew. I think the Fat Slob that was in Charge of the Search is Dishonest. (Sgt. Johnny Pipe).
Read this Book: “The King of Round Valley”. By:
Everett Powers. Text me only, No Joke, Let’s Brain Storm.
“Old Well” found. & Has a New Well. Cistern still in Hiding.
Septic Tank Searched? Thank you, Let’s do this. I’ve been working on this since 2017. I’m dialed in. Sorry for your loss.
Goodbye AVA
This is the end, the paper edition of the Mighty AVA is going down, and with a thousand subscribers and casual buyers of the paper here and there, a whole lot of people might have read my essays and stories here over the years. (What really got me going was when I begged the Editor to put me on the masthead in 2020, which then compelled me to send in one a week for about a year, my dream gig.)
The first one was in 2003 called “Butterfly Bombs at Reggae,” for which I received a check for $25, the photocopy of which is still pinned to my wall proving I am a professional writer. (Although the publication of that story here in Southern Humboldt’s environmental hotbed pretty much ensured I’d never get laid in this town again.)
I could say thank you readers, you could also say thank you Paul, though I’m pretty sure my actual impact on your life was zero. Who are you people? (I have a subpoena wending its way through the courts attempting to get your names and addresses from the AVA so I can thank you personally, but Bruce sent Mark to fight it as once again the Major does the dirty work.)
Locally a few friends and neighbors gave me the thumbs up over the years, including JD, a naturalist with flying squirrels gliding around his parking lot, who misses Jerry Philbrick’s rants most of all. (He distinguished himself by inviting me to dinner one night to meet an amazing goddess with big issues, disproving my theory that people will give you anything, except their home-canned goods or a woman. Thanks again JD, and I’m still waiting for round two, buddy.)
Proud, remembered for his exuberant and joyous smile while dancing at the hippie boogies back in the day, is another local subscriber who told me he liked a story once, as well as Richard Geinger, the resolute environmentalist known as a “hard core hippie” in the seventies for refusing to receive any government assistance, not even food stamps.
And then there is Rod, another avid reader of the AVA, who saw my SSI advice column and started to apply and I hope he’s getting his well-deserved alternative retirement pay by now. (I guess I won’t see Dave as much, proprietor at Redway Liquors with that skeptical grin, where I picked up three extras whenever I got a story in, and have collated a hundred into a couple copies of a homemade book.)
I did get a few reactions on the website over the years: there was one semi-embarrassing comment from a woman, who I had mentioned meeting at “The Farm” in Tennessee in 1977, in one of my favorite stories called “The Hundred Dollar Car.” (I had referred to her as “slightly obnoxious,” and her daughter Persephone, still living in Mendo, spotted the reference and notified Mama Rita, who called me out on that callous comment.)
Soon after that an ex-lover from Texas, circa 1993, found me at theava.com, made a few poignant comments, and then disappeared. (Bonnie was my genius girlfriend who had looked at me in annoyance whenever I tried to offer my non-genius suggestions about how to construct the straw bale house we were planning to build on her hundred acres of scrublands outside Lockhart. That rundown town, her house had holes in the floor, as well as others in Central Texas have since been invaded and gentrified by young refugees who can’t afford nearby Austin anymore.)
So the paper edition of the AVA is leaving us, as well as the beloved eighty-four year old SoHum icon Ed Denson, who died with his boots on at home last week in Alderpoint.
On the plus side it was actually some work to get through the whole thing before the next issue arrived the following week, especially when already engrossed by a good book, which was most of the time so the pressure’s off now. (If there’s a long story I want to read on the website I’ll do what I already do with interesting-looking online articles: print it off and read it at my leisure.)
The AVA will finally catch up with the 21st century, go completely online, and leave us old-timers behind. Well, I still have a sub till the end of the year, the AVA will keep chugging along, but if Major Mark Scaramella ever stops covering Mendocino government does that mean it’s no longer dysfunctional?
I’m waiting for the tears, what, not even one? (And I was in what I called “The Crying Cult,” for a while back in ‘73 when I was nineteen and that was a story: I had met Pam in Cambridge, we hitchhiked to “The Center For The Living Force” in upstate New York, when we got there a game of naked volleyball was going on in the front yard, and we joined right in.)
Congratulations Editor Bruce Anderson: I just read your mission statement from the first issue forty years ago and, by God, you kept to it all the way. (Maybe something interesting and unexpected will happen.)
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