Author: Matt Kettmann

Union Activists Disloyal, News-Press Lawyer Claims
News By Martha Sadler | Thu Sep 13, 2007 | 6:00am

Union Activists Disloyal, News-Press Lawyer Claims

In the fourth week of the trial of the Santa Barbara News-Press on charges of unfair labor practices, lawyers for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) continued to call former News-Press writers and editors to the witness stand to testify that Ampersand Publishing, the paper’s parent company, retaliated against legally protected union activities. Barry Cappello, defending Ampersand, insisted that the NLRB had it exactly backward: Union activists tried to interfere with legitimate management prerogatives; in so doing, they were the ones who violated the rules of engagement.

89 portraits of Vietnam Zippos
Arts & Entertainment By | Thu Sep 13, 2007 | 6:00am

89 portraits of Vietnam Zippos

During the Vietnam War, American soldiers used more than 200,000 Zippo lighters. But they weren’t just for lighting smokes. As soldiers began etching designs and words on their Zippos, the shiny silver lighters became canvases for self-expression and very personal symbols of identity in a situation where individualism and creativity were discouraged.

Rap Pioneers Sugarhill Gang Come to Santa Barbara
Arts & Entertainment By | Thu Sep 13, 2007 | 6:00am

Rap Pioneers Sugarhill Gang Come to Santa Barbara

“A hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip hip hop you don’t stop.” Who knew that those goofy lyrics-the opening verse to the 1979 hit song “Rapper’s Delight”-would turn out to be so prophetic? In the 28 years since Sugarhill Gang dropped one of the first rap songs, the hip-hop movement has, as the song predicted, not stopped. Since then, the song has brought in billions of dollars a year and shaped popular culture from Tokyo to Tehran.

Urinetown, the Musical presented by PCPA.
Theater By | Thu Sep 06, 2007 | 6:00am

Urinetown, the Musical presented by PCPA.

Food, water, and shelter might be the top triumvirate of human needs, but it’s the urge to relieve oneself that requires the most immediate attention every morning, noon, and night. So when the right to pee gets privatized and priced-as is the premise of this happily wacky, intelligently humorous, and satirically self-referential musical-people get pissed, and revolution isn’t far away.

Matt Straka’s Notable Rejects
Arts & Entertainment By | Thu Sep 06, 2007 | 6:00am

Matt Straka’s Notable Rejects

A chunky, undressed Elvis impersonator in a man-bra and lady’s britches. That’s the symbolic soul of a month-long exhibit of “new and used” photographs by Santa Barbara native Matt Straka at Samy’s Camera on Chapala Street ’til October.

The Fog Rolls Over El Encanto
Travel By | Thu Aug 30, 2007 | 6:00am

The Fog Rolls Over El Encanto

It’s a late summer tradition at El Encanto: watching the afternoon fog rolling in, enveloping the waterfront, and draping the Mesa in wet lace on its misty, streetlight-blurring crawl through Santa Barbara toward the spires of St. Anthony’s. For the past 90 or so years, that’s been the highlight of many a day for both tourists, who’d stay at the charming Riviera resort, and locals, who’d frequent the popular bar and restaurant for drinks and dining.

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