100% Humboldt
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing Northcoast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt
Learn More at https://100humboldt.com/
100% Humboldt
#96. Michael Fields: A Life In Art, A Home In Blue Lake, And Why The Best Work Still Lies Ahead
A fight that ends in a handshake. A rural theater that sells out in Los Angeles. A historic bar that becomes a stage. Michael Fields joins us to trace a life built on place, grit, and the belief that the best stories come from the people right in front of you.
We start with his leap from Jesuit classrooms and Vietnam-era protests to the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the early days of Del Arte. Michael walks us through the big experiment: a rural training center paired with a professional touring company that took original work from Blue Lake to the Bay and on to LA. The turning point arrives with a piece on the Fish Wars that rockets them onto critics’ lists, packs houses for months, and proves that bold, locally rooted storytelling can travel. Along the way, we get the road lore: the car that fills with smoke from the inside, the Boston bar where every backstage crew eats, and the Greek restaurant that quietly keeps a company alive.
Then we come home to Humboldt. Michael explains how an Irish playwright inspired him to turn the Logger Bar—Humboldt County’s oldest continuously serving bar—into a creative venue where you can sip a pint while the band kicks up a live, local show. Logger Legends celebrates the talkers, the lookers, and the lovable liars who give a town its voice. We celebrate Eric Hollenbeck and the Blue Ox through Radio Man, a production that left hard-bitten men wiping their eyes. And we look forward: the riverfront, the levee, new gathering spots, and a call for leadership that favors distinctive local spaces over bland, copy-paste development.
If you care about community theater, rural arts, Blue Lake history, or how a bar becomes a civic living room, you’ll find a lot to love here. Hit play, share it with someone who loves Humboldt culture, and leave us a review so more neighbors can find these stories.
About 100% Humboldt with Scott Hammond
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing North Coast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends and neighbors, Scott Hammond on the 100% Humboldt podcast. I don't know why I'm looking around like it's some sort of I'm lost, with my new best friend, Michael Fields. Nice. Thank you. Welcome, Michael. Thank you for having me. Good. I like my new question that I open with. Hey, what's your deal? What's my deal? Michael, what's your deal?
SPEAKER_02:I have so many deals right now.
SPEAKER_01:You are the l owner of the lager bar in Blue Lake, California. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yep.
SPEAKER_02:I am. And I uh for 45 years I was part of Del RT, starting in 75. I came up here to Humboldt in 75 to work at Del Arte. I was 21 and got in a fight in the first five minutes I was in Blue Lake. Sure you did. In Waltz-friendly tavern. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. Was it the Med River Rose? Trevor Burrus, Jr. No, the Rose was there, but uh and I was afraid to go in the lager at 21 because I was long-haired from San Francisco, and that wasn't going to fly. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, they would just get your ass kicked.
SPEAKER_02:It was a funny story. The fight was funny because we he asked me to dance with his wife, and I said no. And we got what I'll call a good old boy fight where you grab each other and hit each other on the back. Nobody gets hurt. Right. You break a lot of stuff. They push you in the street. And and then he stuck out his hand and he said, Friends for life. And I said, okay. And then 30 years later, I was working in the theater at Del Arche and I heard the Humboldt Pipe Band start. And I love the pipe band. They're one of my favorites. And so I said, Let's take a break. I want to go to the bar and hear, hear him play one. I walked over and I'm standing next to the guy I got in a fight with thirty years before. And he says, Hey, what happened to your hair? It used to be dark, of course. Sure. I said, I don't know. What happened to your teeth? We're too old to go back there. That's a fair question. Right. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:That's funny. Yeah. My kids go, what happened? I go, well, you and drugs and exactly.
SPEAKER_02:And all the things.
SPEAKER_01:Look what you did to me, children. So uh t tell us the the arc of the story then. So you you were uh Bay Area guy?
SPEAKER_02:No, I I grew up in uh Kirkland, where Costco was born. Sure. Uh outside of Seattle and uh was a working-class town when I came up. But my dad came out of the Navy in World War II on the GI Bill, first of his family to go to college, went to Seattle University, which is Jesuit. Sure. And that's where he met my mom. But he wanted to put all of his kids through Jesuit schools. Nice. I was the oldest, so I went to Seattle Prep, which is sounds fancy. It was all boys, it wasn't that fancy.
SPEAKER_00:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02:But uh number one football team in the state of Washington, I was an all-state middle linebacker. Nice. Uh I love football, had no interest in theater. Absolutely none. Trevor Burrus, Jr. We're gonna play ball. Right. I was wanted to I wanted to play for, I don't know, you duh. I was too slow, basically. I wasn't fast enough. But uh the you know, you were well, you're a child of that era. Uh yeah you were drafted, there was the height of Vietnam when you were 18, and then you w were in went in when you were 19, at least that's the way it was for me. So when I turned 18, they pulled a lottery. They had a lottery, they pulled my number, which was number five. Oh, wow. So I got reclassified the next day and uh had a year before I went in. Uh-huh. And the day I pulled the draft number, I uh uh my girlfriend at the time said, Let's go see a play. I said, Are you kidding me? Last thing. What's a play I want to do? We went to the University of Washington, which is right across the road from Prep and uh saw the San Francisco Mime Troop do Dragon Lady's Revenge, which was all about the Vietnam War. Wow. And I walked up to them afterwards and I said, Can I join your theater company? And they said no. Wow because I didn't know any of it. I said, Well, what can I do? And they said, You can join a gorilla theater company. And I didn't know what that meant. I mean, I th it could have been like dressing up like a gorilla, you know. And uh it was to sit in front of a met no offense to Methodist police, a Methodist church on a Sunday morning with a sign that said stop the war. They came out of church and kicked the crap out of me. I mean and and I was a big boy then. I mean, I had muscles all over the place, and thank God. But uh it was a little epiphany. So I went to San Francisco, which was and got into the theater scene from there.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell A good Jesuit boy protesting in the Methodist church. Right, exactly. Today that would probably play really well. It would probably play really well.
SPEAKER_02:Trevor Burrus, Methodist would love you. Trevor Burrus, Jr. I mean I didn't think much about it, but and then I went to the University of San Francisco, which is Jesuit too. And uh I I got a really good education. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Jesuits are cool. They're very cool. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Definitely the the cool the cooler of the Catholics. Trevor Burrus They say they teach you not what to think but how to think. Yeah. And I think that's in my experience has been true. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:I have a guest coming up. She's uh educated Jesuit school in Bur in Bakersville. Okay. Yeah. And I under She told me a little bit about it. I go. Some of those fathers were really progressive. Trevor Burrus, they're very dudes. Yeah. Made you think. Yeah. They really made me think. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Let's talk about Jesus for a while. Yeah. Let's not. Yeah. We don't even know each other. Yeah. So you so you lived in the Bay Area and went to East C.
SPEAKER_02:And then Carlo Mazzone Clemente and his wife Jane Hill, who founded Del Arte, were running a festival called the Grand Comedy Festival at Kuala Lu at uh College of the Redwoods. And my mentor at the time in San Francisco, a guy named John Collins, who's passed on, he uh he arranged me to meet I was doing Hamlet at 21 way before I have no idea. I don't have memories of it, you know. But uh he uh introduced me to them, they saw the show, and they said, Well, would you like to come up here first? It was like a summer stock, like a season. At CR All Summer? At CR All Summer, and I said, sure, why not? I you know, they paid, which is unlike most things you could eat. So I came up here and uh really fell in love with the place. And they had an really interesting idea. Carla was a bit of a maniac, as most people will attest. Uh but they had and Jane is still alive and doing, you know, she's an amazing woman. Uh but they had their idea was based in a very old French Jacques Capot, which is to do a rural training center and a professional touring company. Wow. And they did that. And that was absolutely what Delarte became here in the U.S. And uh it was quite exciting at the beginning. We had no money at the beginning. Sure. But we still did a lot of good stuff. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. So did they leave the CR and then go buy the building in Blue Lake and basically the same time they bought the building in Blue Lake for twenty five thousand dollars in 1974. Trevor Burrus What was it? Was it an oddfellows hall? Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. It was an old Oddfellow Hall.
SPEAKER_02:Trevor Burrus, Jr. Then over the years it had become a movie theater and a there was a barber shop. It was there were all kinds of things, you know, over the years. But and when Delarte bought it, they I mean there was horror in the town because no one understood what who these people are and what the hell is going on. But it was it was pretty great to be there in the early days.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Is this a working-class town still? There was a l there was a logging town, right? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. It's total. The mills were running.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I own the lager now. We're we open at three and we close at midnight. In those days, the bar at 6 a.m. if you drove by the lager, they'd be full because they're getting off their shifts up in Corbell and Trevor Burrus. Gotta go have some therapy. Yeah, exactly. And he would cash checks for them. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Is that right? Yeah. So it was it it I I love the history of the now that I own it, I just love the history of it. It's the oldest continually serving bar in the county. Is that right? And the reason for that is that during the prohibition, they opened a shoe store in the front and sold pints of moonshine out. So they c I it they found a way, you know. I l I love it.
SPEAKER_01:I got it. I gotta go get my shoes done.
SPEAKER_02:I'm gonna be back. I'll be back in four hours. Yeah, exactly. See you tonight pretty late. But it's uh Yeah, it was it was quite an adjustment for the town for everybody. But you know, one of the things which I really love about Blue Lake and about this place in particular is we live there. We had kids, we we were just eventually just people like everybody else. Just fit it right in. You fit and you become part of the community. You know, we fished, we did our, you know, we liked that stuff too.
SPEAKER_01:Went to the school, went to the schools exactly.
SPEAKER_02:ATA meetings. Exactly. All that stuff. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's what a great community. Yeah, it is. Yeah, Joni and I live in McKinleyville up on Dows Prairie, and that was our first date night to go to Mad River Brewery. All right. And we were lucky to get an hour and a half off and to go out there and and have a beer in the sunshine because it was brewery is still going strong.
SPEAKER_02:It's such a beautiful place. You know, there's a lot of there's a there's a lot of good stuff happening.
SPEAKER_01:Those days it was fun, the Bob Dylan birthday party. Yeah, I don't remember that. That's what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00:I bet you don't.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So so you you came from so did you live at in Eureka when you were at the CR thing and then move out to Blue Lake? We actually lived.
SPEAKER_02:They housed us in Arcata. Uh-huh. Um, and then we transported down to CR and did a a summer stock as you do three or four shows in repertory. And they had good audiences. CR had a nice theater. Um Theater is nice. They so is it the same one they have now, or did they rebuild? They rebuilt, I think. They built a new one. But they did two years of that. And then we got a a grant, I think, from the National Endowment for the Arts to do a play that combined Native American mythological characters and comedic characters and tour it. So we toured it here and then we took it to the Bay Area, and then the Mime Troop, uh, which eventually I worked with a lot of those people, they went to Europe. We did their park season in San Francisco.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_02:And then the iconic thing happened when Joan Shirley, God rest her soul, uh she played a character card Scar Tissue, which is a rural detective. We did a piece on uh the Fish Wars, which were in the early 70s or not early, late 70s, up on the Klamath, and uh went to LA and the LA Times ran a review. I was sleeping on a floor. We this was not fancy touring. I was young. It sounds really Beverly Hills? Yeah, it's no way out somewhere in Hollywood. Uh but the person said uh who was I was staying with, she said, hey, let's look at this, uh look at the LA Times. And the review said, you gotta see the something like that, the headline. Sold out uh three months in six hours, eight shows a week.
SPEAKER_01:Far out.
SPEAKER_02:And then we're on the map in home at home. That's what put us on the map back here in Humboldt. What year was that? 1981 or two, I think. Remember that? Yes. Big deal. Big deal. So did it sell out up here? Oh, yeah. Once then everything. Then we started getting that's a lot of sellouts. That's a lot of sellouts. So Where did you perform it? At the Odyssey Theater in Santa Monica, which isn't big, but I'd look out and I'd see people like Johnny Carson. I mean, and they're gonna steal your material, that's what they're looking for. Sure. But that's all right. They were in the audience, you know. So Carson.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So we had a lot of comedians come and see it. Yeah. And that was it was great.
SPEAKER_01:It was actually Who was coming up then that you remember that would come out? Oh, geez. Pre-Seinfeld, I think. Pre-Seinfeld.
SPEAKER_02:So it was really the old ones. Joey Bishop. Joey Bishop, Milton Burrell. You know, I mean, those are the oldies would be Steve Martin? Steve Martin? Yeah. We I just look out through the curtains and see if I could see anybody that I knew. You know, but it was it was quite the experience. And then we started touring. And then when you start touring, then you get to be, you know. That's a whole different life.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Right, right. The rock and roll roadshow.
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Powell Yeah. Well it's yeah, it can be pretty hard.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I was gonna write a memoir. I started it, but energy and time, you know. Uh it's called uh The Car Was on Fire from the Inside. And it's a true story of touring up the I-5 corridor. And the literally the touring car caught on fire from the inside.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Is that right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And the smoke filled the car from the inside. From the inside. Yeah. It was crazy. It was a crazy day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So what would you tour at?
SPEAKER_02:Would you go up like through Bakersfield and then Fresno or We would go uh normally we'd write a piece that we do here and then we would take it to San Francisco first because we had an audience there, a loyal following there. And we'd do SF and then Berkeley. We'd do Julia Morgan in Berkeley. And uh then we'd go to LA direct, because those you get the reviews, and you need that to get the grant support and uh all those other things. And then we could do s we started doing San Diego on a regular basis. Aaron Powell, what theater? Uh San Diego Rep.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_02:And uh we did a couple of co-productions with them. Uh big shows in their new space down at the that shopping place. I forget the name of it, but it was right downtown. And did a those were great times in San Diego. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:The gas lamp district? Yes. The gas lamp district. Trevor Burrus That would have been brand new when you guys were down there. Yeah. Yeah. It was relatively new all along. Growing up that was all uh just boarded up, trashed up, old downtown beat up rail yards, all the the Hyatt and all that was all just muddy rail yards with just crap in the Trevor Burrus. Horton Plaza. Correct.
SPEAKER_02:That was the name of the place where the rep was they had two theaters. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Horton was famous. Trevor Burrus, Jr. It was pretty dicey, dude. Yeah. It was interesting. It's a beautiful place. And I went lovely now. About a about four or five years ago for a conference and stayed across the street. It's all they're even doing it again. It's transformed again.
SPEAKER_01:Trevor Burrus It's it's lovely. As a kid, we we lived in Nashville City just to the south, and I get on a bus at 10, 11, 12 years old. And you could take the bus for fifty cents and play downtown for Ferris Bueller's day off. Wow. Jack of the Box and the Spreckles Theater, and they had pinball and arcades, and you'd go buy the white white album for seven bucks. And it was just a get up on top of the parking structure and throw pennies and spit and spit. Trevor Burrus It's a dreamy, dreamy fun day.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. I uh remember a Greek restaurant we went to in out outside of Horton Plaza, and the woman loved us, loved the show. You you sometimes find that on tour, you find a restaurant or a bar that people you keep going back to. Trevor Burrus, Jr. They know who you are. They know who you are, and it becomes ideal. In Boston, of course, we were at a restaurant bar with a cook named Tiny, 400 pounds, and uh and all of the theater workers in Boston go to this bar. And you just it's great. You just find your people, you know.
SPEAKER_01:That's cool. I like that the the road story. So maybe the memoirs are standard.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it'll happen at at some point. It's just you know there's a lot going on because I'm doing a lot of theater in the bar, which is I got I come from an Irish family.
SPEAKER_01:In your bar in your bar currently, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, cool. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. So my yeah, right. Like next two weeks from now we'll be doing one. Uh but my family had some Irish roots and uh I went back to Ireland in eighty-one, I think it was, to I came from Catholic from the North. So that was hard times. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah. Londonderry is where I went and was arrested by the British Army for looking like a terrorist, which okay, I kind of do in the right light. But you know, you sure do. I was detained. Yeah. But uh it was uh That was in the day though where it was the troubles and uh The Troubles. Yeah and it but it's it it I saw a bunch of shows in Dublin in the South, and uh one of them was by a playwright named J.B. Keane, and he just inspired the heck out of me. He was dead already then, but he owned a pub in Cork in the South. Been there, yeah. And uh he s he said uh I mean he basically wrote about whatever he saw in his pub. And then he they said he was never gonna make anything of himself because it was too provincial. And he said, uh we'll see. He became the most popular playwright in Ireland. In all of Ireland. In all of Ireland. But he said some of his patrons said to him, You have the best job ever. You listen to what we say, you write it down, and you charge us to hear it. And I think that's exactly the bar the bar plays. We're doing one called Lager Legends in two weeks. Are really funny, very musical, but based on local people in conversation.
SPEAKER_01:Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Who would be the backup with you on that?
SPEAKER_02:Would there be other a band or oh the band is our it's it's my favorite four people around Marla Joy, Jeff Kelly, Tim Randles, and Mike Labole are the four-piece band, and we put them in the back. We seat 60 people. You can drink during the show.
SPEAKER_01:How about that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. How about that? That's a feature. Yeah. And it's not free. No, it's not f none of it's free. But we sell out because it's fun. Sounds like a great time. And it's a great time, you know. So that's coming up, and then there's one after that. I mean, so there's a lot of stuff. What's it going to be called again? Lager legends, liars, and lookers. Nice. And lookers was my dad's phrase for men and didn't gender didn't matter. He's a looker. She's a looker. Yeah. There's a looker. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I know what that is. So uh uh if you're just joining me, it's my friend Michael Fields from the Lager Bar and Del Horte and other places on earth. And um uh what a pleasure. So tell tell me more about um if one wanted tickets for that. So this is a little shout-out moment. Is there a website?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It's a weird name, but I'll spell it for you. It's long shatter, L-A-L-O-N-G-S-H-A-D-R. Shatter. Shatter. And it was because that was the sign on my driveway when I bought my house. Because I live on a side of a hill with a cut. So we get those in the wintertime, long shatters. A long shatter. Yeah, you get those shadows that you you don't get that afternoon sun like you you do in some places. Right. So that's why it's named that. But it was also about letting in the light. We started it during COVID and you know everybody was kind of shut in, and so how we do that. And uh but there's a website you can go to dot com. You get tickets, you get information you get everything.
SPEAKER_01:Long shatter s-h a d-e-r dot com. Yeah. Nice. So you can pick up tickets there. Or can you buy them at the bar?
SPEAKER_02:You can buy them for me, anybody at the bar. But you come I bartend one day a week Wednesdays, three to six. Three to six. I was bartending more, but it was starting to slowly kill me. So I thought, no, let's do one day a week. It's fun. I love I want to know all the systems in the bar. I want to know the locals, and they're great locals. Sure. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, so go salt of the earth, man. Yeah. So we started dating there and going to you know, after 40 years of marriage. Wow. Maybe we were 35 at that point. Just really falling in love with the town and the people and the the the uh the cro the old crows and Lolas and and the bands that, you know, were playing there.
SPEAKER_02:And um The old crows have s saved my life on a couple of big occasions.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, let's let's define old crows for the donda. So it's uh it's a men's club? Yeah, kind of. They wear bowling shirts.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It's not a fancy club. And they basically do good works. I mean, that's where they're gooders, right? They're do-gooders. And uh so I do a St. Patrick's Day deal. It uh Kate, who owned the bar before me, had started it, uh, but I make about 80 pounds of corned beef at the grange behind it. And we bring cover the pool table, we bring it over with the cabbage and the potatoes and the bread and lay out a thing. And somebody said, Oh, they'll just, you know, it's a donation. They'll rip it off. I said, They didn't. Everybody's so great. You you know, you we pay for it all by donations and uh but the crows do it. They cook. They're the they're the same. They're they're they're the heavy lifters for this event. And then the pipe band plays and the vanishing pints play, and the you can't move in the bar.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:You it's packed. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:And the Guinness is flowing in that. And the Guinness is flowing, yes. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. Somebody told me let's say Guinness Zero is is delicious.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Never tried it. I have only tried it once. Um we carry Guinness in the can now, but I would love to get it back on tap. People love Guinness as a dark beer option.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Uh and we have a lot of beers, so my God, we have a lot of beers. But uh famous for the beers. Famous for the beer. A beer and a shot if you're gonna come when I'm bartend. Okay. Don't ask me for a grasshopper. Yeah. Yeah, it's not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01:They um Yeah, uh we we uh we're in Ireland, so my iron Ireland story is that we were in Cove, uh-huh. Um which is outside of Cork. It's the it's so we were on a ship. So we came into we did um um we were north of there. We we came into cove and we went down to um the little village of I'll think of it in a minute. Anyway, we came back, we're having a Guinness at you know, f as a meal at one o'clock. Right. And here comes a stumbling game. Hey Sean, what are you doing here? Sean falls into the bar and sh and Sean suffers with what they call the affliction. Yes. Hey Shawnee, can we can we get you to get going now? Come we'll come back later or something. And it was just an amazing cultural, iconic experience. And the guy that owned the bar had won it. Um in a he was a he was a Guinness uh something. He had something to do with Guinness, but he had won the bar in a lottery. It was kind of an interesting story, and um as uh as Irish it was fun, man.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I I love it. My daughter's my daughter is well now she's in her thirties. And she's in Kabul, Afghanistan, working for the UN. Scares the crap out of me. But she's she has red hair, born redhead. And uh when she was like seven, I'm guess seven or eight, I took her and her brother, who's a little older, to Dublin. I had I was directing a show in Copenhagen, had a week off, took them, their mom's Danish, and uh she was holding my hand. We're gonna take the tour at Trinity College in Dublin just because I like to get the history from seeing it, you know, instead of so we're we were about to start. She looks around and everybody has red hair and she goes, I want to I'll come here to college. Wow. And I said, Okay. You know, she did. And she did it. She went to Trinity, she met an Irish guy, she's been with him for seven years. He's a Dubliner. So I've had reason to go back. Re lots of reason to go back.
SPEAKER_01:Love that story. Yeah. So uh hey, let's do the uh quiz show now. All right. So uh we have a sponsor here. They're uh you might be familiar with the uh the folks at Dick Taylor Chocolate. Oh yeah. Dick Taylor Chocolate, located in Eureka, California, the winners of something recently that was huge, and they just keep winning. So um this is a Baileys Toledo, 72% dark chocolate. And don't grab for this too quick because you have not earned it yet.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I I probably won't earn it, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:You you got a shot.
SPEAKER_02:You're right.
SPEAKER_01:So so here we go. Are you ready? Yep, sure. There you go. Question number one. What's your best day? It's my best day. What was your best day if you can remember the day?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, probably the day that I just I mean, I'm been with my current wife for 22 years. The day we got married was a really great day.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. That's a good one.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It was great. We got married to the law and order theme. That's pretty funny. It's pretty fun. It was what really a blast, though. Was that at Del Arte? No, it was at CalArts on the what they call the Lido deck at night. Where's that? CalArts is in Valencia, just north of LA. Yeah. So it was beautiful. Weather was great. Weather was hot.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was nice. LA. It's great. We're going down in another week or so. Yeah. We're uh gonna go out to Ohio. You ever been out there? Just once. Yeah. Ohio Valley's pretty cool. I hear that. It's uh my wife's from there and she's gonna give us the tour, and good. We stay at the Blue Iguana. I have to go. Don't tell anybody. I want. Next question. Yes. For all the marble all some of the marbles. Uh Michael, what was your worst day in your life?
SPEAKER_02:Uh, the worst day. That's a uh I I haven't had very many what I would call really bad days. That's cool.
SPEAKER_01:I like that.
SPEAKER_02:Um, no, nothing comes to mind in the sense of having a terrible day. Yeah. We all get we all get a bad day, but not as not the worst day. I haven't had that yet. Maybe that's a good thing. It's it's hanging out there waiting for me. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Um so what question number three. Yes. We fund your whole day to go have fun. It's money's not an object. It's in Humboldt. 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. What's your ideal day that you'd go out and have fun here in Beautiful Humboldt?
SPEAKER_02:Beautiful Humboldt County. I would go to the beach to start. Um I don't go to the beach enough. And and it's so close.
SPEAKER_01:It's so close.
SPEAKER_02:And honestly, I love the walk around Trinidad Head. Yeah. And uh to do that and then to come back and have breakfast at the Seascape. Sure. And uh and then as a good start, right? I like Six Rivers Brewery for a little lunch, you know, and then Redwood Forest for another good walk. Uh Arcata. Arcata. I love the minor theater. Yeah. Um and then uh I took my bar staff on a a pub crawl for Christmas a couple years ago, and we ended up at one of the bars is the shanty in Eureka, which is a dive. Oh, that we went only to dives.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But dive bar crawl. Dive barcrow. But the shanty is one of my favorite dives. That's the one right down by the Eagle House, down on First. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's right down there.
SPEAKER_01:They do live music too, right?
SPEAKER_02:They just started again. Yeah. Used to be when I got here, it was a strip club. I never went in because it scared me too much. Right. But the I guess they've opened up one of the bartenders there, Nick, is uh a patron at the logger, and he told me they opened up that old room again for live music. They have a wonderful outdoor area.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they have a big outdoor, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And it's you know it's it's it's a great dive.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So what other what other bars did you crawl? We went to uh uh what's the one in Ferndale, the Palace? Sure. Ernie's Ernie's is definitely divey. I love Ernie's small. Yeah. So I thought I'm not a it's funny when you own a bar or I this for me. I stu I don't drink as much as I used to. I mean, I wasn't all you know, I just don't. And it's nothing I can't point to anything to say this change it could be getting older too, you know. But so I thought, what should I drink on this bar? Because I don't want to get stuck on a pub crawl with my you know, you know. So You're the boss. Yeah. I thought I'll have a Manhattan, which I have to make sometimes, and I can. But I I want to taste how other people do it. So I went to you know what the worst, I'm sorry to say I shouldn't say the worst. I'll say the best. The best was Ernie's and the cheapest was Ernie's okay others got way more expensive, and one didn't even I don't know, it was Des Moines, Iowa. It wasn't a Manhattan house. I don't know what they put in there, but it wasn't what goes in a Manhattan house. Watch a buster up from Iowa. Right. So Sioux City. So uh anyway, it was yeah. It was it was it was wonderful. But I do love the shanty and I love the food in Eureka and Old Town. I like Old Town, period. Old town's cool. You know, to be uh to close out a day in Humboldt County to be because you can you can walk to everything too, you know. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Oh it's all right there. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Were you around for the Old Town Bar and Grill back in the day?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. The shows and went to Lazio, Deborah Lazio. Deborah Deborah Lazio. Yeah. They used to go to a lot of stuff in in Old Town and Fourth of July celebration, you when you could take the train all the way from Blue Lake to Arcada, Arcada to the R. Yeah. And that was wonderful.
SPEAKER_01:No driving. And you're going to get a train.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's the whole thing.
SPEAKER_02:It ends at the lager. That's a good place to have it end. It actually does. Yeah. It stops at the lager.
SPEAKER_01:So last question that I want to tell you about Mad River Rose stories. Remember Rolls Rock? The band? Yes. Yeah, they were they were some. Hey, last question. Yeah. Who are you? And what do you what do you want? What's your deal?
SPEAKER_02:Uh I'm uh I'm a theater maker at heart. Um and it's what has driven me and I've been so lucky. Donald Forrest, who was my partner and passed away almost exactly uh a year ago, you two years ago. Uh Donald and I came up together. Our sons are nearly the same age. They're best friends still.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know. Is he a blue laker?
SPEAKER_02:He was because we were in the company together for such a long time, but we always talked about two things that we aren't done. That we might be older, but we aren't done making stuff. And two, how grateful and lucky we were to make a life in this work rather than be you know, have to work for the man or the system or we made our own choices. We made our own lives. Yeah, there were consequences to some of those choices. But we we did it. And I we were very grateful about that. We had a lot of great talks at the end. Beautiful. And uh but that that's so yeah, we're not done.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I'm not done making stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Oh, I think you're just getting started.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Next level, dude. Come on. Let's go, baby. You're just getting roll it here. That's my theory. I think there's a lot of uh next levels.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, and that's if we choose them. If we choose it, the best work, your best work's in front of you, I think. And it's not about work or labor. It's about for me, it's about the creative work is in front of me.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Speaking of AI and what AI has to say about you. Yes. This is a new feature of the the show.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I'm sure AI has a lot to say about it.
SPEAKER_01:Nick, let's see if this tracks. Uh blue leg's a small town known for its vibrant art scene and cluster community. I love that, Annie. Merry Days. Yeah, it is. Uh you guys just had that Hoptoberfest thing and stuff in Paragot Park.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I worked in Paragot Park for a summer. I was a recreation aide back in 100 years ago. Rec Major Humboldt State. There you go. Not Cal Poly Humboldt State. Uh graduate of Del Arte International School of Physical Theater. Um I liked what it said here that you're about um community resilience and demonstrating uh dedication to theater as a medium for meaningful dialogue. I I love that. And it calls you a community guy and um arts as a means of connection and healing. Blue Lake is see if this is a quote you made. We'll see we'll see if he claims this one. Blue Lake is more than just a place to live, it's a home for creativity and collaboration. Probably could have said that. Yeah, I could have said that. That's a nice quote. I I think that's fair.
SPEAKER_02:It is. And uh it is an extraordinary community.
SPEAKER_01:It really it really is. And you know, Joni and I could afford to live there. We'd probably sell our house and decent house in McKillyville, but we um I guess that's what makes it a treat. It's 32 in McKillyville, and then it's eighty-two out in Blue Lake, and we're gonna come out in our trunks. Except we're swimming.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it was interesting. When I was teaching at the school, the students, a lot of international students, and those students would come and knock on my door at all hours, and I thought I couldn't live. I didn't have kids then, but so I moved out to Warren Creek because it's halfway in between ten minutes to the lake, ten minutes to Arcata. Oh, yeah. And I could afford it then. Actually, it seemed like a lot then.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, and now it's a door it's a bargain. It's a bargain. Yeah. I spent like a lot of money on our house. Right. It's$2.50 to build a house on a on an acre. Yeah. Man, dad, I get ripped off. Yeah. Wait a second. Maybe we did okay. I think you did great. Yeah, we did great. Nine kids later. And um, I I love as a comment to what you said, I love the you know, not quite I did it my way, but I was able to forge away in a county that's tough to survive in, much less thrive in. And you and you did it with an art, an artful pizzazz and pinoche and to do, to create and to do all that. That's uh kudos, man, right on. Uh and the kudos is you, my friend. Winner winner, chicken dinner. Henny's coming home with the chocolate bar.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Thank you so much, Scott. Courtesy of Dick Taylor chocolates. I love Dick Taylor.
SPEAKER_01:Oh man, they're they're amazing. Great guys. Yeah. Terrific. You ever heard Huckleberry Flint play? Yes. Oh, I guess they do. They played it, they they play. They play out there pretty much. Well, not regularly, but that folk life every year. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Uh we used to never see them, now we don't miss them. Yeah. They're really good. There's another folk life festival. That's Patrick bases a lot of the shows out there, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Powell Yes. Yeah. At the amphitheater at Tell Arte was where we moved it when it used to be at the ranch above Arcada and then it moved to Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Perfect venue, outdoors.
unknown:Summer.
SPEAKER_02:People love it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh. They eat it up, man. I love going there. We missed it this year. We were traveling, but um every summer we try to make a show couple.
SPEAKER_02:Trevor Burrus That's great.
SPEAKER_01:Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So some more of the festivals then. So you have uh Annie and Mary Days, you got it.
SPEAKER_02:But what they now call the Mad River Festival the Badawat, which is the weather name for the river. And uh the lager, along with Hounds of Humboldt, which takes care of dogs, does the block parties. Like we just did one on Hal or a week ago where they we close off the street and there's vendors and still of downtown.
SPEAKER_00:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02:And uh there's another one at May Day, a May Day Fest. But we do that along with other people in the community.
SPEAKER_01:So you know Marvin Samuels. Oh, sure.
SPEAKER_02:He's now writing a column for the uh Mad River Union. Yeah, I read that pretty regularly. So yeah, I see Marvin a lot.
SPEAKER_01:They call him Scoop Samuels.
SPEAKER_02:It's up, Scoop. No, he does a lot. Uh you know, he used to run the chamber too for a while in Blue.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, he's he's a great guy. And then Rick, his friend, uh Cadillac Ranch. Cadillac Ranch. Tell me Rick's last name. I should know it. Rick Levin. Levin, great guy.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:All those guys, man. And um uh Joel, they just lost Joel, one of the crows. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I went to his memorial thing. Sweet, sweet guy. He used to come in the lager dressed in an impeccable suit, which is just rare to see. It nobody blinked an eye, but he looked amazing. And he wore the drink cayenne scotch, which I loved. So, you know, he was I love Joel. He was a wonder. I was on the Blue Oxboard for maybe 20 years, and Joel was on it for a short time. Was that right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:With Eric Hollenbeck. With Eric, Eric Hallenbeck. Saw him on a TV show. It was a YouTube video, testifying before the state of Oregon in Portland, 1994 or five.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:He had dark hair and peddleton. And there's Al Gore and Hilton. Oh, yeah. And he's telling the logger story, the story of I don't know what they were testifying about, but it's like, oh, this dude's the real deal.
SPEAKER_02:Well, we I did uh Radio Man, the play that was came out of us episodes of his life. Aaron Ross Powell Did you write that? No. Jim McManus was a playwright from Back East, came out, but he spent a lot of time here, and then I directed it with the cast, and we did it at Delarte. And it was a powerful, powerful piece of work. It was really really powerful to look in the audience of 150 people and have people, men in their 60s weeping. Aaron Ross Powell Beautiful. I mean, I think that is a testament to Eric's stories and everything else, but it's it's a it's a lot of powerful stories. And the ox is a very special place.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell And then Eric went and did the uh uh The Craftsman, right? Yeah, on Discovery. The Craftsman series on Discovery. DIY network, whatever the year.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Part of Discovery Trevor Burrus Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The Magnolia Net I forget what it was, but it was something. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. What a sweet guy.
SPEAKER_02:He's a very sweet guy.
SPEAKER_01:He sat here and Drake Scotch. First guy. First the last guy ever had Drake on the set here. No, he had a great No, he all the stories.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, all the stories.
SPEAKER_01:In fact, uh of the hundred almost hundred uh podcasts, his is probably the the most viewed. Yeah, I'm sure it is.
SPEAKER_02:I'm sure it is He's living history. And sweetheart. Did he he tell you the story about getting dropped off after his dad died, so they shipped him home to Humboldt. And they dropped him in Oakland in the middle of the night. He'd never been to Oakland.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:He'd never been out of Humboldt except to go to Vietnam. And uh he hitchhiked the wrong way, ended up in San Jose. Oops. And somebody picked him up, a guy he thought may not have been real, because the guy drove him all the way to Eureka and dropped him at the angel. Yeah, he got an angel to take him all the way home. I love it. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think he did mention that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:He took me all the way to the door. Yeah. Something like that. He was just like, what?
SPEAKER_02:And I never went to Vietnam because Nixon canceled the draft a week before my induction. Wow. It was just on the edge. It was nothing I had a lot of my family not a lot. A few of my family members died over there. And my daughters taught English over there for a while. So I went over to see her. Excuse to go to Vietnam. And uh what an amazing country. Everybody's under 30. Yeah. It's incredible. I loved it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Great experience.
SPEAKER_01:The um yeah, what a what a guest. Hey, if you're just joining us and you're pretty late. Uh by the way. Uh my my new best friend Michael Fields from Blue Lake and Del Arte and uh the lager bar. And um what what do you see for the future for Blue Lake? What what what would you like to see and what do you do?
SPEAKER_02:Interesting, interesting question, Scott. It's there's been a little bit of community kerfluffle, as I'm sure you've read in the news and stuff around. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:Well, there was something going on in Blue Lake.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. Let's recall our entire government. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And it's uh exactly Well, it's there's the state housing mandate, and I don't pretend to understand it, but there's there's a lot of land down by the river that people are considering how to develop and what to do with. And how that gets washed in the long term is going to determine a lot about the future. There's not a lot of stuff to do in Blue Lake without well, they just built a skate park, which is wonderful. Right. They got the bicep track. And they got the BMX track down there, which is wonderful. Is that opened? Are they running on it? Yeah, I think so. We get a lot of bikers. I mean, not pedal bikers, not we got all the mountain bikers that go up to the uh uh the fishery, right? Right. Trevor Burrus, Jr. They come up there too. So we get stuff. I see a lot of bikers in the bar. And uh but it's going to be determined by uh there's the rest that needs a restaurant, it needs a it's I mean the the Murphy's Murphy's We have Murphy's in Glendale, but it's account. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah. It's that needs something. And uh and I think if they can figure out not to worry that people moving in aren't going to be the end of the world because I don't think they will be. They never nor do they want a dollar general. Trevor Burrus, Jr. No, they don't want any of that stuff. And uh it you know, the the town used to have such remarkable, unique things like Stardos, the cafe. That was a fantastic little place. And uh more of that kind of stuff. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Did she shut that down? Oh, he got killed. It was terrible. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Uh I think I know that story a little bit. Aaron Ross Powell, yeah. So but it's always that cafe when I got here was a Mexican cafe. And then it became the cozy corner where she would yell at you to put your own money in the till because she was too busy. Make your own tea. And we we could put all of the critics circle awards still, our take out. We put them on the Coke machine at the cozy corner to you know it's but it was a center. The logger's like that. It's a living room. But you need more of that. There needs to be more of that in town. And that's my hope for the future. Yeah. And uh it's a lot of younger people now, there's more kids, but you can't get too nimble, not in my backyard, kind of otherwise nothing changes, you know. Right. It'll st it'll stagnate if you're not sure. It'll stagnate, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and it's gotta be something more than the casino and the gas station.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's gotta be something that, you know, that's something for the community. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We're going out to the casino tomorrow for uh Mary Keene's uh We Are Up. Oh, yeah. That's a fun project. Trevor Burrus, Jr. She's great, and that's a great program. Yeah. The ranch is gonna be beautiful. Oh, good. Wonderful. So when you say river waterfront, are you talking about down by the levee?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. The levee where the old uh ultrapower plant used to be. Right, right, right. That whole area begs For development. For development of some sort that is and there's been all kinds of ideas and plans and people make drawings about stuff, but they they you know it's it's beg something fun and creative and not just you know two-story housing.
SPEAKER_01:Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Let's get a leader. Let's get somebody to lead this thing. Right. Exactly. Get it on a committee, because the committee will go on for another decade. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Decade, exactly. Or decades.
SPEAKER_02:Decades, I agree. It's gotta have something, some momentum. Uh because it it there's it's great land down there.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's beautiful. Beautiful walk. Yes. Yeah. Frequently do that before we go sit and relax. Um, I I'm really really envious. What a great what a great place. Um Hey, any parting shots? Anything you'd like to add to um an already nice time together?
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Ross Powell Not particularly. I mean I thank you for have for doing this. This is important. Um and I think that one of the things that this program, you know, the theater that is not just the remake of something done a hundred times, uh you tell the story. There's a lot of stories. Eric Hallenbeck, those are the stories we need to tell. People need to be able to get those out into the bloodstream because they're they're powerful and they come from here. And and that that is important that it come from place, I think, not just from uh the media that we see on our televisions. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And this will go on it'll be on YouTube for a couple of years. My friend Peter Starr says you're an archivist of people. Yeah. Well, that's thank you. I think that's good. It's very good. It's something I think that's very important that that that be done. Yeah. So uh how do you want to be remembered? What's your what would be your legacy or um when we go to your celebration of life? What would you like on your tombstone? That question.
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Ross Powell I haven't thought about a tombstone legacy, but I have already written my O-Bit.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's about I just wanted to make it funny, uh you know. Uh and I and I I end it with a joke that I probably shouldn't tell in the air. It's not a dirty joke. There's no bad words, there's no but it is uh actually I'll tell it and you can cut it, can't you? You probably shouldn't tell it, but go for it. Okay. It's not a bad joke. It's this is how my OBIT ends. It's uh the there is a walrus and he's driving over the Santa Monica Hills to the ocean, and it's very hot. And his car starts to miss, you know, its engine's missing. So he pulls into a little garage and it's very hot and he says, Can you take a look at the car? And the guy says, I can take a look. I don't know if I can fix it today. But the walrus goes and gets a soft ice cream cone because it's hot. But he's a walrus, so he can't really hold it very well, so it's melting all over him in his face. And he goes back uh to to the uh garage and he asks the mechanic, What is it? And he said, the mechanic turns and looks at him. He says, Looks like you blew a seal.
SPEAKER_01:Nice.
SPEAKER_02:There's your joke. But up gum. That's your joke.
SPEAKER_01:It's hard to get that on a tombstone.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it is. You can't put it on a tombstone, but uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That has some nuance to it. You got to think about it. Yeah. Wait a minute. I know the Santa Monica Hills.
SPEAKER_02:Like what was the uh Canyon, Laurel Canyon? Laurel Canyon. That drive is amazing. Yeah. But I uh I just wrote a no-bit, if you have a second, and I don't mean to push you. Sure, you're fine. For a guy named Brad. We don't even know his last name for sure. He was a regular at the bar. We called him Three Finger Brad because he had literally three fingers left on his right hand. And uh they he told so many different stories about how he lost his fingers. Nobody knew that. Nobody really knew. And he passed away, but I c he didn't have anybody. There was no family, there was nothing. So one of our other patrons, that's the great thing about patrons in a bar, they take care of each other and they really do care. Took him to the hospital. My wife went and saw him off. Um I wrote an OBIT and I got it in the North Coast Journal. Even though Hank called me and he said, you write a lot of funny stuff. You is this real? And I said, it's about as real. Hank's with the loco. Oh, loco, right. That's fine. The loco and who's on North Coast Journal? Somebody asked if it was legit.
SPEAKER_01:Could have been any one of their editors.
SPEAKER_02:Trevor Burrus, Jr. Any one of their editors came and talked anyway. It was Did you publish it? Yeah. It got published and we had to pull a picture from Pinterest because we had no photo of him. So it is not his photo. And it got published. It's on the wall in the bar, but it's like How long ago was that?
SPEAKER_01:Uh about six months, I would say. What was his name? Brad Thornton. Thornton. I'll look it up. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02:Because it's a hysterical obit. Because I write it's all fiction, and it all talks about his time with Dick Cheney in the CIA and his playing note for Notre Dame's number one football team. Forrest Gump. He never did any of this stuff. Um how he lost his finger.
SPEAKER_01:How did you write of the loss of the digital?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, it was a bet with a friend over who would lose their fingers first. Yeah. They chopped it off. And uh but flash forward mundane, I'm at the some store get buying a leash for my dog and because she's a hundred pounds in brokers. And uh I uh ran into a guy I knew and he said, uh hey, nice obit for Brad. He said, but you missed the part about him being a champion surfer. And I said, he is not a champion surfer. But that was I think you do homage to people being though as I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, in that way. A tribute. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, thanks for being here. Thank you, Scott. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. I'll see you in Blue Lake. You will. Yep. And thanks for listening. If you just uh joined us, yeah, you're really late to the show. And uh but you can still like us and love us, subscribe to us, exactly. Send send money and and pictures and and and good wishes and prayers. So uh uh we are heading toward number one hundred really soon, so that'll be cool. And uh thanks to my main man, Nick. And yeah, uh uh please like us and and see us on YouTube and uh all the all the podcast platforms. And uh 100% humble. Scott Hammond, make it a great day. And thank you, Michael. Thank you, Scott. Appreciate it.
