Mendocino County Today: Friday, Sep. 21, 2018

• Billy McKenzie
• Candidate Forum
• County Taxes
• Ladder Fall
• Carley Case
• Little Dog
• BHAB Meeting
• Philo Produce
• Foodshed Events
• Fire Recovery
• Pinches Sign
• Investigative Journalists
• Ed Notes
• Kelley House
• Retirement Gone
• Complexity
• Mendocino College
• Yesterday's Catch
• Titanic Questions
• Pancake Breakfast
• Promiscuity
• School Failed
• Prison Costs
• Zekebot
• Disappearing Top
• Tinasky Affair

BILLY MCKENZIE

William ‘Billy’ Darrell McKenzie died Friday, September 14, 2018, at his home in Potter Valley, CA. His passing was sudden and unexpected.

Billy is survived by his wife and sweetheart of 32 years, Lisa McKenzie (Bloyd), his son Benjamin Darrell McKenzie and wife Bee McKenzie and a soon-to-be grandchild, his son Dustin Michael McKenzie and daughter Summer Ann McKenzie, his mother Patricia E. Walker, his great aunt Linda Hulbert, his sisters Christine Browning-Kelley and Lupe Jimenez, his brothers David Mann and Mario Walker, and nieces and nephew Erica Mendoza, Christopher Mendoza, Mia Strickland and Leila Strickland. He is preceded in death by his grandparents and by his father, Larry McKenzie.

Billy was born September 28th, 1966 and was raised in Anderson Valley where his family roots go back to the late 1800s. His childhood was filled with outdoor adventures camping, hunting, and fishing. At the age of 18 he went to work as a logger and operated equipment for many years. He later went on to achieve great successes as an entrepreneur for most of his adult life, taking him all over California. He loved to thrill his children and other young relatives with his wild stories and adventures from his youth — he was an excellent storyteller!

Billy began his life with Lisa at the age of 20. Their boys were born in 1988 and 1991 and Billy and Lisa married in 1991 in Ukiah. Billy pursued his dream of living in Southern California and moved to Simi Valley with Lisa and the boys. As was his nature, Billy thrived in this new setting and although he did not become a Hollywood star, he got to rub elbows with many, including an intensive round of laser tag with Gary Coleman. His time in Southern California was a nonstop adventure, and the family eventually returned home to be closer to relatives. Daughter Summer was born in 2004, renewing his adventure in fatherhood. Billy, Lisa, and Summer have lived in Potter Valley for the last 3 years.

Billy was an avid reader, knowledgeable about a breadth of subjects from health to world politics, and was dedicated to self-improvement. Billy achieved many things in his life, but above all he would be most proud that he was a great husband, father and soon-to-be grandfather, and that he lived his life with honor and integrity. His sage advice and steadfast approach to living a fulfilling life were an invaluable asset to all of us. Billy will live on forever in the hearts of all who knew him. Ironically, Billy would want this to end with a corny, tension-cutting joke, but what can be said — we have lost the funniest, smartest, strongest, and most handsome man that any of us will ever know!

There will be a celebration of life on Billy’s birthday Friday, September 28, 2018, at his great aunt Linda Crispin Hulbert’s home at the end of N. Ruddock Rd. (#5750), Philo. 1:00 to 4:00 PM. Please bring a potluck dish and a joyful memory of Billy to share with others to celebrate his mark in time. Please direct any questions to <wdmcelebration@gmail.com>.

CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE FORUM THIS FRIDAY

There will be a League of Women Voters Fort Bragg City Council candidate forum this coming Friday Sept 21 at 6 PM at Town Hall in Fort Bragg.

INTERESTING POST ON WHO PAYS WHAT IN COUNTY TAXES...

(Via Kathy Wylie)

BOONVILLE AMBULANCE CALL FOR VINEYARD WORKER WHO FELL FROM LADDER

The scanner said 3:20 pm this afternoon (Thursday) the Anderson Valley Fire Department, ambulance & CalFire were dispatched to the report of a “32-year-old male unconscious from a ladder fall in a vineyard across from the Anderson Valley Elementary School.” Responding units were advised to access the patient from Road 150B.

(Via MSP)

THE AMANDA CARLEY CASE (Why isn’t this just settled?)

Supes Agenda for September 25, 2018. Consent Calendar Item 4f: County Counsel. — “Approval of Second Amendment to Board of Supervisors Agreement No. 18-025 with Liebert Cassidy Whitmore to Provide Legal/Conflict Counsel Services in the Amanda Carley v. County of Mendocino Lawsuit in the Amount of $125,000, Extending the Termination Date From November 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019.”

* * *

Amanda Carley is a former Mendo Probation Officer who filed suit in federal court against Mendo about two years ago. The suit was filed at about the same time as the big Probation Department scandal which saw then Chief Probation Officer Pam Markham put on paid admin leave for several long months while her workplace sexual dalliances were investigated. After months of expensive legal dithering involving very expensive outside legal counsel, Ms. Markham was finally replaced and some discussion was undertaken about changing the organizational structure of the Probation Office so that the judges have less control over the management of the department. Of course, nothing has come of that. We attempted to find out what Ms. Carley is suing over but there are no court documents available on line about the case. According to the background letter we received (linked below) in 2016 the Probation Department was ordered to not discuss Ms. Carley’s case and so far it looks like they have obeyed. The case is obviously far from over and it’s likely Mendo will end up paying Ms. Carley some big bucks when and if the dust settles. So we can add at least $125k more to the hundreds of thousands of dollars Ms. Markham has cost the County.

Background: Scandal Of The Week

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Like any other dawg, I've made some mistakes with the ladies, and the very first one cost me my nuts, and that was the end of that part of my life. I carried on like a good little dog and the rest is history.”

JAMES MARMON REPORTS:

Dear Mendocino County Board of Supervisors:

Yesterday I attended the Behavioral Health Advisory Board meeting where Camille Schraeder shared a written response on the Kemper Report. She claims that her Wellness Center providers are actually providing day treatment and that Lee Kemper's report was wrong, claiming there were none. Unfortunately, neither Manzanita House, Hospitality Center or any of the resource centers have been certified to provide Medi-Cal approved day treatment services. If they were, they would be billing for them.

Contracts between mental health plans (MHPs) and the Department of Mental Health (DMH) require that MHPs ensure that medically necessary day treatment intensive and day rehabilitation are provided in programs that meet specific standards. Day treatment is not part of Mendocino County's DMH/MHP contract therefore it doesn't exist.

Camille Schraeder is just attempting to change the narrative to make you, Carmel Angelo, and herself look good and take focus off your failed privatized ASO system. When are you guys going to cut the crap?

James Marmon MSW

* * *

PS. I attended the Behavioral Health Advisory Board (BHAB) meeting yesterday, very interesting. Camille Schraeder presented a written response to Lee Kemper’s report and basically called him a “big fat liar.” She claims that day treatment services are being provided at Manzanita House, Hospitality Center, and some of the Resource Centers throughout the County.

Fake news folks.

No where in Mendocino County’s Mental Health Plan (MHP) are day treatment services mentioned. A MHP responsibilities for ensuring that providers meet Medi-Cal requirements for day treatment intensive and day rehabilitation, including certifying organizational providers through an on-site review, have to be described in the DMH/MHP contract.

According to our DMH/MHP contract, Manzanita House, Hospitality House, nor any of the Resource centers have been certified to provide day treatment services. Nor do any of them list on their websites that they are Medi-Cal approved day treatment services providers.

The standards for on-site review of organizational providers and the requirement to review written program descriptions for individual and group providers are meant to ensure that specialty mental health services, including day treatment intensive and day rehabilitation, are provided in environments that meet specified health and safety requirements and by providers who have policies and procedures guiding the operation of their programs, have adequate staff to provide services and maintain staffing ratios that meet the requirements to allow the provider to claim Medi-Cal reimbursement.

So if anyone is a “big fat liar” it’s Camille Schraeder. What she is calling day treatment isn’t really day treatment by Medi-Cal standards. That’s what Lee Kemper is reporting.

Where’s the money Camille?

THIS WEEK AT BLUE MEADOW FARM

• Heirloom, Early Girl, Roma & Cherry Tomatoes
• Corno di Toro, Gypsy, Bell, Pimiento Sweet Peppers
• Padrons, Poblanos, Jalapenos, Anaheim Chilis
• Italian & Asian Eggplant, Zucchini & Patty Pan Squash
• Kale, Cucumbers, Plums, Garlic, Basil, Purslane
• Sunflowers & Zinnias
• Nancy Mayer’s Mammoth Broccoli Starts
• Case Discounts On Roma Tomatoes

 

Blue Meadow Farm,
3301 Holmes Ranch Rd, Philo 95466
707-895-2071

FOODSHED EVENTS

Fundraiser For Anderson Valley Land Trust: Please join us for a special farm tour and food presentation at beautiful Filigreen Farm. Please click here to buy your tickets.

* * *

Save the Date!
First Friday Evening Market October 5th!
Boonville Hotel Parking Lot
4:00-7:00ish

As part of C’mon Home to Eat this October, the AV Foodshed is organizing a First Friday Night Farmers’ Market on Friday October 5, from 4:00-7:00ish. The Boonville Hotel has graciously offered the use of their parking lot for this one-time market event.

Mark your calendars, and be sure to come buy fresh produce, processed foods, and crafts from our local farmers and artisans, while enjoying live music and a delicious meal provided by local food vendors. To make for an even more festive evening, some downtown businesses plan to stay open later.

We will have the Apple Press at the market as well for anyone wanting to bring fruit for pressing (please be sure to bring your own jars for the juice, and a container for the refuse).

More details to come!

JOIN POST FIRE RECOVERY VOLUNTEER DAY AT UC HOPLAND RESEARCH AND EXTENSION CENTER

Over two-thirds of the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC) was burned on July 27 and 28 as the River Fire moved through the 5,358 acre ranch. All homes and structures were saved alongside the ranch animals thanks to the efforts of staff, neighbors, CALFIRE and the Hopland Fire Protection District. Now, the site and it’s team are working towards recovery and aim to learn as much as possible from the wildfire.

On Tuesday, September 25 HREC will welcome volunteers to support post-fire recovery and data collection. “We really appreciate the time and support of volunteers as we work to clean up some of the damaged areas left behind by the fires and to begin to collect important data on how our landscape is recovering from the fire. This data can be useful to help others manage and prepare for wildfire.” commented Hannah Bird, Community Educator at HREC.

Volunteers are asked to sign up before 2pm, Monday, September 24 by following this link http://bit.ly/PostFireVolunteer. Tasks will range from monitoring kestrel nesting boxes to supporting cleanup of burned research equipment and collecting acorns for replanting in burned areas. Volunteers are asked to come prepared for hiking and working in the field.

“We appreciate that not everyone can make it on a week day and hope to have another weekend volunteer effort soon. For those who would like to help, but do not have the time to volunteer, we also appreciate donations to support our recovery at http://bit.ly/SupportHREC” concluded Bird.

Due to the nature of the research with sheep and a commitment to using guard dogs as part of a predator control program, no dogs are allowed at HREC. For more information contact Hannah Bird (707) 744 1424 ext. 105 or e-mail hbird@ucanr.edu.

* * *

More on the University of California Hopland Research and Extension Center:

The Hopland Research and Extension Center is a multi-disciplinary research and education facility run by the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources Division. As stewards of more than 5,300 acres of oak woodland, grassland, chaparral, and riparian environments their mission is to find better ways to manage our natural resources and conduct sustainable agricultural practices, through science, for the benefit of California’s citizens.

Fall Winter 2018 events

BRUCE McEWEN WRITES: I get this aspersion spat at me all the time: “So, you call yourself an investigative journalist? – Hah!” I don’t, actually. Never have. I call myself a courthouse hack, a crime reporter. To my knowledge, there’s only been a handful of investigative journalists in my entire lifetime, Patrick Cockburn and Robert Fisk are still working for the Independent in Great Britain, but in the United States, Seymour Hersh and Bob Woodward have retired to become book authors, and the other one, Robert Perry died recently. The people who accost me with this erroneous charge, of being a wannbe investigative reporter, generally get the idea from movies, television, and suspense novels, this idea that there are investigative journalists out there, and that that’s what newspaper reporters do, but outside of fiction, newspaper publishers take the expense account and salary necessary to finance an investigative journalists, and give it to a favorite niece or sweetheart, to go out to exotic places and write travel stories, which will generate advertising revenues from pricy vacation hot-spots. So much for the myth of the Investigative Journalist, about as common as Sasquatch, Yeti, The Abominable Snowman and Bigfoot.

ED NOTES

CARBON IDEOLOGIES is a two-volume job by the prolific, William Vollman. I find the guy unreadable myself, but I enjoyed a review of Vollman's latest project in the current Atlantic, a magazine containing exactly one other article of interest this month — an account by an Alabama woman, Elaina Plott, raised in the state's rural gun culture who got shot herself by some random lunatic, the bullet so deep in her arm she now lives with it. Anyway, Vollman takes what you might call an holistic look at our global prospects, concluding that we're doomed, an opinion widely shared judging from comment lines, and an opinion I, and me a happy kinda dude on a daily basis, happeeeeeee, I tell you goddamit! Vollman concludes that given the accumulated, unaddressed catastrophes out there, not even mentioning that Americans, individually, are largely apeshit, there's nothing to be done. We're over.

OF COURSE despairing conclusions seem to vanish the higher up the economic ladder we climb as, for instance, the dentist I saw Thursday. While he peered at what's left of my teeth I read a series of infuriating bromides on an overhead screen placed to instruct patients, I guess, in the art of the platitude. Or at least distract them. "In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you." I felt a sudden urge to scream. I asked molar man if he'd ever considered upgrading the quality of his uplift. He seemed startled. "You're the first patient I've ever had who asked about them. You don't like 'em." Even an implication of intellectual dysfunction can be very insulting, and I didn't want to insult the guy, so I did the old oblique weenie: "I've never had the experience, doctor. They're, ah, interesting. Thought provoking," I said, dying a little for such a terrible lie. I wanted to suggest passages from Vollman, but in the dentist's income bracket I doubt he despairs much, although there is a high incidence of mental illness among the profession, right up there with harpists.

* * *

IN OTHER RECENT misunderstandings, I was shuffling inattentively through a food line at a Senior event when an elderly woman serving up some kind of pasta asked, "Would you like some nookie?" I beg your pardon? "Nooshkey," she said. The sexual curse having lifted from me some years ago, and this event being what it was, and she clearly respectable, and my hearing being what it is, I knew I'd misunderstood the old girl. "Can you spell that for me?" G-n-o-c-c-i, she said with special ed clarity.

* * *

THE KAVANAUGH APPOINTMENT. The mere accusation of a 38-year-old crime has inspired an electronic lynch mob who assume the accusation is true without hearing from the alleged vic, or the opportunity to evaluate her credibility. And the attempted rape accusations come from people synonymous with political scumbaggery — the Democrats, the slightly more tolerant wing of those celebratory scumbags, the Republicans. Then, on one of the news shows, I saw the judge joking to a room full of his old high school chums as he reminisced about their depraved adventures, and paraphrasing here, "What happened there, stays there," he said, chuckling, and everyone hearing that, at least everyone with basic class consciousness, knew, and knows, that bad things happen at the debauches of the privileged, especially otherwise suppressed degenerates like rich Catholics. Preliminarily, I assume his honor is a weasel-lipped creep given his support, but even creeps deserve a fair hearing.

RETIREMENT CRISIS REPORT

Diane Oakley, who authored the report, stated: “The facts and data are clear. Retirement is in peril for most working-class Americans. When all working individuals are considered — not just the minority with retirement accounts — the typical working American has zero, zilch, nothing saved for retirement.” She continued, "What this report means is that the American dream of a modest retirement after a lifetime of work now is a middle-class nightmare.

zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-17/retirement-crisis-typical-working-american-has-nothing-saved-retirement

CYBER-TRAPS, A READER WRITES:

“I've been thinking about all this complexity we are standing on, and how it surely cannot sustain. The internet used to be a fairly simple, stable construct, built to survive atomic disaster. Now it's this crazy quilt with layers and layers of complexity and horseshit. All my life I've chosen simplicity over complexity because it always seemed like the wisest path to travel. I still expect a great leveling to take place one of these days and knock all this stuff down to size. Like the stock market, another puffed up fantasy bubble, completely disconnected from reality, which could pop at any moment. (Probably at the same moment The Donald's toupee decides to take flight.) Contrasted to all that nonsense, there is still much beauty and poetry in this world. Yesterday, while working in the woods, I heard the sound of geese flying overhead, heading south for the winter. It's a wild, arresting sound, something rare and special, which brings up all sorts of feelings, thoughts, and impressions. In the simplest terms, it means autumn and all that season signifies. It certainly beats facebook.”

MENDO COLLEGE DISCONTENT

A READER WRITES: The attached Full Time Faculty Climate Survey is a good indicator of the status quo at Mendocino College.

Please share it with any people you respect in our community that may be interested in making a difference at our community's college.

We need new Board members! 4 positions of 7 can be replaced this year. This Board is powerful and can make changes.

MCSurveyVerbatim CommentsFinal Sorted

MCUnfilteredResponses

CATCH OF THE DAY, September 20, 2018

JOSE AYALA-MARTINEZ, Redwood Valley. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

MICHAELA CAMPBELL, Ukiah. DUI.

MELESIO GAONA-BRAN, Fort Bragg. DUI, failure to appear, probation revocation.

GENE HOLDER, Fort Bragg. DUI.

MOLLY KATZEFF, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear, resisting, probation revocation.

ALISSANDRA MILLER, Hopland. DUI, willful cruelty to child, paraphernalia, evasion, controlled substance.

HEATHER MULLINS, Covelo. Domestic battery.

DERRICK RIDENOUR, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

CRISTOBEL RUIZ, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JOHN SHIPMAN, Fort Bragg. Shoplifting, parole violation.

SHELBY SLOAN, Pittsburg/Ukiah. DUI.

YVONNE SMITH, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I think a lot of what I see here is equivalent to arguing on the deck of the Titanic as to whether the captain should have turned left or right (political reference intended) to miss that iceberg. In the meantime of course, the ship is going down. We are wasting our time on things that I don’t think will matter that much in the future. Dealing with overpopulation and the resultant problems that come from it, mass immigration, weather disasters, collapse of government, internal violence, etc., should probably be what we concentrate on to insure survival. Who is sitting on the Supreme Court may be the least of our problems when dealing with the immediacy of violence in the streets. I don’t pretend to have the answers, but I see the problems that are coming. At this point, the only thing I have any control over at all, is what goes on in my house. I never meant to become a doom & gloomer, but the things I read don’t really give me much choice, and I’m talking about mainstream sources, nothing radical. I have avoided most of the problems of the last 30 years by being careful with my finances and being just a little bit paranoid. Staying informed has worked well for me so far, and I intend to keep right on. The only people I count on are my family & a few others. I’d like to be wrong with my assumptions, but I don’t think so. Time will tell whether I’m right or wrong. Right, left, or straight ahead? What’s it gonna be?

PANCAKE B'FAST WHITESBORO GRANGE SUNDAY

A traditional pancake breakfast will be served at the WHITESBORO GRANGE on Sunday, September 23rd .Breakfast includes orange juice, pancakes with maple and homemade berry syrups, ham, eggs your way, and coffee, tea or hot cocoa. The public and visitors are invited to join neighbors and community for a hearty pancake breakfast. Adults $8, ages 6-12 half price, children under 6 eat FREE. Breakfast is served from 8 to 11:30 a.m. Whitesboro Grange is located 1.5 miles east on Navarro Ridge Road. Watch for signs south of the Albion Bridge. Watch for signs south of the Albion Bridge.

THE EVILS OF PROMISCUITY ARE EXAGGERATED. Somebody said it at least had the advantage of making you take more baths… Of course you pay for it with something — perhaps a cumulative distrust of what is called “real love.”

— Tennessee Williams

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

“Throw the key away” and who will pay for their incarceration? TAXPAYERS!! It already costs taxpayers an average of $67,000 to keep the sentenced for one year. Not to mention the costs for more prisons. At the rate judges sentence the guilty by 2025 California will need five more prisons. The State has already sent state prisoners to local jails because of the overcrowding at State prisons. Where is that money coming from? Increased gas tax by one dollar per gallon. Low lead gas would be over $5+ per gallon. Have a diesel vehicle, over $6 a gallon. Cuts in education. Cuts to Cal Fire. No sense putting out fires they only come back the next year. Cuts in Caltrans. Slides on 101 and 299. Leave them and we can all sue highway 36. Strike down Proposition 13 and raise property taxes. That would also raise rental properties and raise product prices at stores. We could double the cost of vehicle registrations. Pay $200 for your big truck registration. Now your bill is $300! If you have a boat triple the cost. Start taxing ALL foods. Triple the tax on beer and wine. Do away with unemployment Insurance and give that money to the prison system. And the list goes on. You want to send the tattooed guys to prison and throw away the key? Won’t happen until you (taxpayers) pay up.

ZEKE'S DAYS ARE NUMBERED

Subject: Harassment etc

Recently it was brought to my attention that this Zeke Krahlin bot, virus, character or whatever he, she it is was still infecting my posts and others posts on our local MCN list serve. I don't get any of those dehumanizing emails because they are automatically deleted. I have since changed my email settings and all of the list serve communications from this entity are put in a special folder that an attorney friend has indicated to me will be useful when I bring this information to our local DA and request that their office pursue the matter. If you have saved any of these insults and or belittling emails and would like to forward the information, I am compiling them, which there are thousands, and will add them to the collection for next month’s meeting with the DA's office.

Bruce Broderick <bbroderick@beingwater.com>

LOVE ALONG THE DELTA CROSS CHANNEL

by Harvey Reading

The Delta Cross Channel is part of the Central Valley Project, a massive federal welfare program for delivering water from the Sacramento and Trinity rivers to agricultural users in the Central Valley. The channel was dug to connect the Sacramento River to the Delta to transport more of its water, and fish, to massive pumps in the south Delta that send it south to agricultural contractors in the San Joaquin Valley. The pumping plants were referred to by fishery biologists as the black hole of death for fish, an apt description, backed up by numbers.

What brought Cal Johnson and Sally Murphy to the Cross Channel in early July 1981 was related to moving yet more water from the north state to the south. Cal was a private consultant under contract to the state to determine the effects on young fish of planned water diversion facilities associated with the proposed Peripheral Canal. To do that required fish, little fish, specifically American shad, and lots of them. To get those fish, Cal had hired a crew of twelve. Sally was one of the crew, and had been for two years. Since one of the crew had called in sick, and since more fish were needed for testing the next day, Cal and Sally found themselves operating a beach seine just before sunset at the southeast end of the channel.

Now, a beach seine is nothing complicated or fancy. It is a length of fine-meshed plastic netting tied at each end to a wooden pole. The nets Cal's crew used were about 75 feet long and four feet wide. There are various techniques for using the nets. The technique in use on the evening described involved one person standing close to shore, holding the pole upright in shallow water while the other walked out to where the water was about four feet deep, then walking in a wide arc, keeping the net tight, until the moving net operator reached the stationary operator near the shore. The operators switched positions with every other sweep. On this day, Cal made the first sweep. The uniform of the day was shorts or cutoffs, old tennis shoes and pullover tops, often tee shirts.

After the operators met, they carefully drew in the net, placing rocks on its bottom strands to lessen the number of fish that escaped. As the net grew smaller and smaller, the small fish were netted with small hand nets and any baby shad were placed in ice chests filled with water (aerated if the distance from the testing facility was more than a few miles). Other fish were released back into the channel. Once a sufficient number of shad were captured, the crew of two would return to test facility, located on the bank of the Sacramento River, and transfer them into stainless steel tanks, through which river water flowed constantly, in the "fish building", three military surplus portable storage units joined together on top of the levee at the test facility. It was not exciting work but not boring either. One simply put out of mind the fact that all those fish were doomed, even if they survived the testing. Cal rationalized it as giving (not willingly if fish have wills) their lives to save others. Whatever works for a person, he figured. And, after all, American shad weren't native to California.

Cal got lucky on that first sweep. The net held almost all the fish the facility would need for the next three or four days. If Sally's sweep produced half as many shad, he and Sally would have captured enough shad to last for a week, which is about as long as Cal preferred to hold shad at the facility prior to testing.

Sally's sweep did not go smoothly at first. As she was entering the deeper water, she stumbled slightly, lost her balance, and got soaked to her neck. She laughed and continued on, beginning her arc. Cal watched her casually as she began her sweep back to shore, then something unusual caught his attention. As Sally turned her body toward the sun, her pullover top seemed to disappear. Cal couldn't believe his eyes at first. It was as though her top was missing, or at least the front portion from her shoulders to her hips. He noted immediately that she was not wearing a bra, which did not surprise him, since it was hot.

Cal did his best not to stare, but it was hard, since Sally was easy to look at even fully clothed. She was slender and tall. He had never seen such perfect legs either, long, slender, and shaped just right. In short he had fallen for her immediately. The only trouble was that on the few occasions when they had been alone, usually seining trips, she had talked on and on about things she and her boyfriend had been doing. That made her off limits for Cal. As she drew closer, he debated with himself whether to mention her wardrobe idiosyncrasy. When she finally arrived, the sun had set lower in the sky and the top was again opaque. Cal concluded that the material from which the top was made was one of those that lost its opacity when wet and the light hit it from a certain direction. He'd heard of such materials in the late 70s either on TV or in some news story.

After the shad were safely in ice chests and in the back of the truck, Cal made up his mind.

"Sal, there's something I need to tell you."

"What? Is something wrong?"

"Well, not really wrong but more along the lines of something amiss. I want to tell you in case you didn't know so you won't get embarrassed or caught off guard."

"Come on, Cal, tell me. You're driving me crazy."

"All right. Your top was transparent while you were walking back. It's OK now, but while you were walking back, it was like ... well, like you were topless. And I don't mean to embarrass you, but that's what happened."

"You mean you could see my breasts?"

"Yes, you looked naked down to the top of your shorts. I'm not complaining, but I wanted to be sure you were aware of that."

By then Sally's face and neck were red. In Cal's experience that could mean that she was embarrassed, or angry as hell. He waited, saying nothing.

"Cal, we need to talk. Of course I knew about the blouse. I didn't know when I bought it. I just thought it looked good. Then a few weeks ago, I wore it while seining with Maria. She told me, and I just about fainted. I mean, my god, what if I had been out with Tony and he saw me half naked? He'd have told the whole crew that I was a whore. I felt like throwing it away but then decided to keep it. In my car. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I just had a feeling that I might want to wear it again sometime. And when I knew that you were going to be my seining partner today, I decided, 'Fuck it,' and put it on – for you! And another thing, Cal, I want to you to know how pissed I was when you got together with Meg. You let that bitch throw herself at you, and she was nothing but trash, with boyfriends from one end of town to the other. You fell for her, when you could have had me. Do you remember that day when you walked out of the fish building and I was sitting on the big water intake pipe from the pump on the river?"

"Of course I remember that Sally. It was like you were posing. You looked gorgeous, like a movie star, with those short shorts and those long bare legs crossed just so, and looking cool as could be. You didn't even say hello."

"No, I didn't say hello, or anything else. I just wanted you to see what you were missing. I've never been so angry in my life as I was then. I'm glad you didn't say anything because I would probably have blown up and lost my job. You're the only man I've ever really cared for, and you fell for a slut like Meg. It really pissed me off."

"Now then, Sally slow down a minute. Every time I was alone with you, all you talked about was your boyfriend. Remember that?"

"I know. I was afraid, and it made me feel safe."

"Well, then ..."

"Well then, Cal, from what I've heard, Meg is up north working at a permanent hatchery job with Fish and Game. Are you going to trail after her? Like a good and loyal dog? I tell you that slut will bring you nothing but pain. She'll sleep with anything in pants and then come crying back to you every time. Is that what you want? I'll admit I was stupid to invent a boyfriend, and I regret doing it, but you following after her will be something you'll regret for a lifetime. I'm 26 and have never had a boyfriend. Most men make me sick with their patriarchal, bossy bullshit, their copping feels, their leering and slobbering, their general misogyny and I won't have it! I'd rather go through life a single old maid than give myself to some self-entitled pig! I don't think you're that way, hell I know you're not. I've been around you with other people enough to know that I like you. I love you and want to be with you, permanently, and if that scares you, well I'm sorry but that's how I feel. I'm not incredibly sophisticated, but I'm smart and I know what I want, and, like or not, that's YOU."

"Well, Sally, I can't give you kids. I had a vasectomy shortly after Meg and I got together and don't want to get it reversed. I also want you to know that Meg and I are finished. Your assessment was sound."

"Good! That means I won't need birth control and we can have sex whenever we want to, all we want to. And, Cal, I'm gonna want that a lot. As I said I'm 26 and still a virgin and have a lot of catching up to do. I want to do that with you, and no one else. And I don't want kids either. The fucking planet is overpopulated as it is. I just want a man I can love and depend on and trust. I consider those reasonable expectations."

"Agreed. Now, may I kiss you?"

"Of course. I'm yours."

There followed the first of many long and loving kisses shared by Cal and Sally. They spent that night and all those following together. They shared Cal's rental in Stockton for the first two years, then bought property in Amador County and built a house. By the time it was completed, Sally had established an environmental law practice and Cal's consulting business was booming thanks to jerks like Deukmejian and Wilson, who were trying to shrink government by contracting out work that could be done more cheaply by state employees. Guys like Cal were the only ones who benefitted. At 40 Cal got fed up and retired with enough for both to live on comfortably for the rest of their lives. Sally continued her active law practice for five more years, until she was 40, and retired a multimillionaire, too.

They are both proud to say that they have never spent a night apart since they got together. From what I have been told neither has been romantically involved with anyone but the other. When Cal turned 50 and Sally 45, they moved to the Rocky Mountain region. He still does a little consulting for nonprofits and she takes on immigration and environmental cases essentially pro bono. Each hates Trump, along with "both" political parties, with a passion.

They both still laugh over an incident that occurred in Sacramento's K Street Mall shortly after they were married. They were kissing in public and a cop tried to arrest Cal for assault on a minor. The cop was shocked when Sally produced her ID proving that she was 27. And she still looks good at 63. And I should know. My name is Cal.

The Wanda Tinasky Affair | thinkinthemorning.com

(David Herstle Jones)

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee

—Robert W. Service, The Cremation of Sam McGee

The world has its share of oddballs and Mendocino is no exception.   Back in the 70s and 80s when I owned the Sea Gull, I had occasion to meet many eclectic folks, some colorful, some dark, some funny, some reclusive, some show-offs, some just plain nuts.  One, Wanda Tinasky, caused quite a stir among the literati inhabiting the Gull, more heartburn even than Herb Caen who enraged the local foodies by calling the Mendocino Coast “a culinary wasteland.”  Boys will be boys.

And, that’s the rub.  Was Wanda Tinasky male or female or hermaphroditic?  And, who REALLY wrote all those letters?  An even wilder thought: was Wanda Tinasky a comical chimera composed out of the spare parts of several local writers and poets strictly for the amusement of the local cognoscenti and not easy to understand by anyone on the outside?

One of those on the outside who took a stab at the Wanda Tinasky mystery was Donald Wayne Foster, professor of English at Vassar College, literary sleuth, and known especially for the unmasking of Joe Klein as ANONYMOUS, the writer of that famous book on the Clinton campaign of 1992, Primary Colors (a book once again fashionable given the current campaign of HRC against DJT).

What possessed Mr. Foster to write Chapter 5: Wanda, The Fort Bragg Bag Lady in the book that highlights his sleuthing activities (Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous)?

Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr.

You know, that famous author who wrote Gravity’s Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49, Mason & Dixon, and among other somewhat less successful books, Vineland.  Vineland, because it is situated in Mendocino and Humboldt counties and because it was researched and written around the time of Wanda’s letters, led to speculation by some of the local Pynchon aficionados hoping for their Warhol-prophesized fifteen minutes of fame that Wanda Tinasky WAS Thomas Pynchon or the other way around.

Another reason Foster took on the Wanda Tinasky affair was a chapter (Is Thomas Pynchon “Wanda Tinasky”?) from  Ron Rosenbaum’s book The Secret Parts of Fortune: Three Decades of Intense Investigations and Edgy Enthusiasms.  Rosenbaum outlined the Wanda story and presented convincing circumstantial evidence that Pynchon was Wanda Tinasky.  Much of this evidence was parroted from The Letters of Wanda Tinasky by TR Factor.  Foster decided then that it was worth looking into the matter.

This entire affair is of interest to me because many of the signature events occurred at The Sea Gull Cellar Bar and Restaurant not to mention that some of those who figure into the story were Sea Gull employees at one time or another.  So here I go on my own search for fifteen minutes of fame.

I’ll let Don Foster set the scene.

From 1983 to 1988, if you were someone who hung out Wednesdays at the Sea Gull Bar, you could tell when a new Wanda letter had appeared in the AVA. Some Albion Ridge or Ten Mile River bard would shuffle into the Sea Gull with a rolled-up AVA tucked under his arm. With hand in pocket, fingering an imaginary Smith & Wesson, the dejected poet would ask his fellow artistes one by one, “Are you Wanda Tinasky?” (“ Not I.” “Don’t look at me!” “Ain’t me.” “Nope.”). The latest victim of Wanda’s serial criticism would then take a seat beside his colleagues at the Gull— many of them fellow victims of Wanda Tinasky’s ridicule— and drown his sorrow in Boont Amber Ale or Belk’s Extra Special Bitter (local brews), or a horn of zeese. (The Anderson Valley, home of the AVA, has its own dialect, called “Boontling,” with a homegrown loggers’ vocabulary that goes back to the days of the vertical redwoods. A “horn of zeese” is a cup of coffee. A few Mendoland bards have written whole poems in the Boontling tongue, with never a word of praise or encouragement from the likes of Wanda
 Tinasky.) Wanda was tough on artistic morale in Mendocino County. In “I Remember Wanda,” Karin Faulkner recalls her colleagues at the Sea Gull plotting a futile revenge on Wanda Tinasky, and on Bruce Anderson, too, for giving column space to that bilious witch. Some wrote anonymous replies to Wanda, or even forged Wanda letters of their own for publication in the AVA, just to get her goat. (Wanda hated that!) Karin never forged one herself, though she knew she “could imitate the style. Any good writer with an imagination could. Letters to the Editor are so short. And print is such an easy place to conceal identity.”

Foster, Don (2014-02-04). Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous (pp. 210-211). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition.

Don Foster’s Chapter 5 is fascinating reading and with some amazing good luck he demonstrates that (1) Thomas Pynchon is not Wanda Tinasky and (2) a local man named Thomas Hawkins wrote some of the letters.

The story revolves around a complicated circular argument in which one Thomas Donald “Tiger Tim” Hawkins comes to believe that “jack green” (publisher of an underground Manhattan newspaper called “newspaper”) was ACTUALLY the novelist William Gaddis who himself was ACTUALLY the novelist Thomas Pynchon who many including Bruce Anderson of the Anderson Valley Advertiser (a small newspaper in Booneville, California) and his one time employee TR Factor (Diane Kearny) come to BELIEVE is the illusive Wanda Tinasky who is ACTUALLY Thomas Donald “Tiger Tim” Hawkins himself in drag.  If this confuses you, you are not alone.  But it does make for a good story.

Foster’s work was enough to cause one of the significant Pynchon-is-Wanda crowd, Bruce Anderson, owner/editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser (AVA), to write in his book The Mendocino Papers:

My faithful correspondent, Wanda Tinasky, a literary bag lady who lived on the Mendocino Coast, turned out to be an old San Francisco beatnik named Tom Hawkins.  One couldn’t have known from Hawkins’ Wanda’s always funny, always optimistic letters that Hawkins would murder his wife torch his Fort Bragg house and drive himself over the bluffs into the sea.  Some people still think the letters were the work of Thomas Pynchon, the famously reclusive author.

Yes, that was the horror story Foster uncovered—Hawkins killed his wife, burned her decomposing corpse by burning down their house, and then killed himself by driving his wife’s car over the cliffs into the ocean.

There are those who remain unconvinced by Foster, who maintain that some, if not all, the letters of Wanda Tinasky were penned by Thomas Pynchon.  Most notably this includes TR Factor whose book The Letters of Wanda Tinasky catalogues, illustrates, and documents most of the Tinasky correspondence.

Here is Foster’s story:

When he first learned from Fred Gardner (then from TR Factor, then from major news organizations) of The Letters of Wanda Tinasky, Thomas Pynchon speculated, not implausibly, that Wanda was really Bruce Anderson and that the Pynchon attribution was a hoax designed to gain attention for the AVA. He was mistaken about that. TR Factor and Bruce Anderson believed that Wanda really was Pynchon. They, too, were mistaken.  Hawkins, who never intended for Wanda to be misidentified, believed that Thomas Pynchon was really William Gaddis, who was really jack green. Hawkins was only two-thirds mistaken. Gaddis is Gaddis, and Pynchon is Pynchon, but jack green was not really jack green. The publisher of newspaper was actually John Carlisle, the son of Helen Grace Carlisle, author of The Merry, Merry Maidens (1937). Carlisle adopted the “jack green” nom de plume in 1957 after he quit his job as an actuarial clerk for Metropolitan Life Insurance, grew a beard, and founded newspaper.

A few years ago, selections from jack green’s newspaper were republished under the title Fire the Bastards! (1992), edited by Steven Moore. This is the same Steven Moore who wrote the definitive Reader’s Guide to William Gaddis’s The Recognitions (1982), and this is the same Steven Moore who (twist upon twist) wrote the foreword to TR Factor’s edition of The Letters of Wanda Tinasky. When publishing his scholarly work on jack green and William Gaddis, and when contributing to the Tinasky volume, Professor Moore (who really is Steven Moore) never knew or suspected that Wanda was a fellow admirer of jack green. For Moore’s money, Wanda was Pynchon. (“ Well, if it ain’t Pynchon,” wrote Moore, “it’s someone who has him down cold: his inimitable literary style, his deep but lightly worn erudition, his countercultural roots, his leftist/ populist politics, his brand of wit and humor, his encyclopedic range of reference, his street smarts and raffish charm, his immersion in pop culture and sports, and his hatred of all agents of repression.”) 43 The inimitable Tom Hawkins would doubtless have been pleased with the epitaph. He was not Pynchon and never pretended to be, but the Wanda Tinasky story was his best laugh ever, and as Pynchonesque as any story not by Thomas Pynchon will ever get.

Foster, Don (2014-02-04).  Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous (p. 220). Henry Holt and Co., Kindle Edition.

So, we appear to have PART of the story as told by Rosenbaum-Foster-TR Factor et al.  But, is it ALL of the story?

No doubt the conspiracy theories surrounding the Tinasky-Pynchon connection are reinforced by the reclusive nature of Thomas Pynchon himself who remains a mystery to nearly everyone even today.  He eschews the press like other reclusive authors such as J. D. Salinger.  When Time magazine sent a photographer to Mexico City, where Pynchon was living at the time, he supposedly hopped a bus and headed into the mountains.  An overgrown mustache he was wearing fanned the legend that the locals took to calling him “Pancho Villa.”  Pynchon himself and his wife and literary agent steadfastly maintain that he is not Wanda Tinasky and did not write any of the letters.  But, this does not convince the true believers.

There is something irresistible about hoaxes and unsolvable mysteries that peaks the fascination.  Consider The Hoax by Clifford Irving where he tells the story of his faked Autobiography of Howard Hughes.  I posted a blog about this HERE.

Another intriguing mystery is the author B. Traven who wrote several novels set in Mexico.  I’m drawn to Traven not just because of the mystery he represents but also because of my love for Mexico.  Wanda mentions Traven in one of her letters:

I knew it wasn’t true when they told me B. Traven was dead.

Wanda speaks about President Ronald Reagan in several of her letters:

January 9, 1985 … to the AVA

EATING GARBAGE

TV shows us inspiring things, such as the fact that the President of the United States is a liar … e.g. Ronzo claims he doesn’t wear makeup on TV—the likeliest story since Linda Lovelace claimed she thought she was getting a tonsillectomy.  On TV, our President looks at times as if he’s either coming out of the closet or going into the ground.  Well, Ronzo has a lot on his mind these days trying to get Nancy wrung out for the inaugural ball.  But I think you and AVA should give him something else to chew on before 1985 gets much older, Mr. Anderson, and I will try to help out and keep in touch.

Wanda Tinasky

Under-the-Bridge

Mendocino County

This brings up a connection I have with Wanda through my great uncle Lewis Foster.  He directed several Ronald Reagan movies (for example, The Last Outpost, Crosswinds, Tropic Zone among others).

Apart from many local writers, several authors of note visited the Sea Gull Restaurant and Cellar Bar while I was there.  One that preceded me was Chester Anderson who wrote The Butterfly Kid.  The book was nominated for a Hugo Award as best novel in 1968.  An author I wrote about in a previous blog was Richard Brautigan who stayed at the Sea Gull on a trip to Mendocino for some R&R.

Truman Capote wandered into the dining room one afternoon for a bowl of soup.  No one bothered him but he was recognized.  The trip is documented in: Truman Capote: Conversations by Truman Capote and M. Thomas Inge, where he recalls the visit to Mendocino:

Q:  Do you have a “motto?

A:  Sort of.  I jotted it down in a schoolboy diary: I aspire.  I don’t know why I chose those particular words; they’re odd, and I like the ambiguity—do I aspire to heaven or hell?  Whatever the case, they have an undeniably noble ring.  Last winter I was wandering in a seacoast cemetery near Mendocino—a New England village in far Northern California, a rough place where the water is too cold to swim and where the whales go piping past.  It was a lovely little cemetery, and the dates on the sea-grey-green tombstones were mostly nineteenth century; almost all had an inscription of some sort, something that revealed the tenant’s philosophy.  One read:  NO COMMENT.

No comment indeed! That would be an appropriate inscription for Wanda Tinasky’s grave if she has one.

Mendocino is known as a great place to write and to read, to create art and music, and to live.  Writers of all types visit, live, and work in the area. Most of them at one time or another walked into the Sea Gull during its heyday.  The previous owner tells me that Leonard Cohen ate in the Coffee Shop and left a poem for the “very attractive girl” who waited on him.

One of my favorite Wanda letters from the TR Factor book reads as follows:

June 7, 1984 … to the commentary:

Judy Brown:

I honestly do think poetry is important to people, in much the same way that clean air and food and water are important to people. I do not have my head up my ass; I know that people are being murdered so that I can have bananas three pounds for a dollar. I know that most of the human race goes to sleep and wakes up hungry. I know that most of the wealth of the earth comes to my country and turns to atomic waste. I know that every hour species of my fellow beings born with Adam will become extinct. I know this planet is being poisoned to death because of vanity and fear and hate, and I know these things are mine. I believe that poetry is an immediate answer and an ultimate answer to these things; I believe that poetry is the language of the Muse, Who exists in a far different way from cute conceit. I don’t think there are such things as “good poetry” and “bad poetry”; I think there is a part of language that’s the language of the Muse. Who is a goddess, and God help us all!

Best wishes to Tinaskys everywhere.

Wanda Tinasky

Tinaskys everywhere.  An innocent statement that Wanda feels at one with many others or an admission that there are several Wandas?

Wanda was often political in her letters.  It’s no surprise that she mentioned Supervisor Norman deVall in her letters (see below).  The Sea Gull sponsored a fundraising event for Norman deVall when he ran for Supervisor. I’ve documented this even in three posts on the blog HERE, HERE, and HERE.  That’s another connection I have with Wanda.

… And anyone who wants to unseat Chormin’ Norman before he moves up to Sacramento will either have to act more decent than he does or do a better imitation of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Wanda Tinasky

Highway One

Fort Bragg

For the record, my great uncle Lewis Foster (who directed Ronald Reagan) wrote Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He won an academy award for it.  These odd connections I have with Wanda keep cropping up.  Here we go again.

Wanda wrote about the eclectic economist Thorsten Veblen (Theory of the Leisure Class) who taught at Stanford, my alma mater.

October 15, 1986 … to the AVA

… filler quote from Veblen: “The ostensible serious occupation of the upper class is that of government, which, in point of origin and developmental content, is also a predatory occupation” … do you imagine, Mr. Anderson, that the distinguished Palo Altoan would have made that cogent observation if he had not known that the Chinese have the same word for “to govern” & “to eat”?

In fact, there are so many allusions to people I know, to the restaurant I owned at the time (I sold it in the middle of the Tinasky affair), to other events in my life before Mendocino that one might conclude … HORRORS ! … that I wrote the letters myself … OR … at least some of them.

My good friend, Gordon Black, whom I consulted while writing this post, told me:

“ … the question is not, Who is Wanda Tinasky, but rather, which of the letters were written by whom? That’s the real literary sleuth job. The sleuth has to do the work and prove it, not just get admissions from publicity seekers. The Real Wanda is not going to confess anything.”

No, she’s not. But if you want some incite into the mental atmosphere of the Mendocino Coast in the 80s, Wanda is as good a place to start as any.

I refuse to say more on this subject on the grounds it may incriminate me.