Got a rack full of Santa Barbara County wines? Walk over to it, yank out a bottle, and inspect the label. Odds are that in your hands is a wine whose grapes came from Bien Nacido Vineyards, the 800-plus acre spread along the northeastern flank of the Santa Maria Valley. Nope? Well, then double-or-nothing that your bottle passed through the Central Coast Wine Services (CCWS) somewhere along the line from the vineyard to your cellar. Don’t believe me?
The tenure of President George W. Bush has not been funny. Unprovoked war, unanswered hurricanes, tortured prisoners, richer rich, poorer poor, and top-level corruption do not make for not good punch lines.
Itwas, for me, love at first sight with the Black and Tan, a visually stimulating and tongue-tantalizing blend of Bass Ale on the bottom and Guinness Draught on top.
An artist/activist since the late 1960s, singer/songwriter Holly Near continues to inspire peacemongers and give musical power to social causes all over the world. Tonight, Thursday, March 8 at 8 p.m., Near is celebrating International Women’s Day by playing a benefit concert for the Fund for Santa Barbara at SOhO with John Bucchino.
When Roger Durling was named director of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival a little more than four years ago, the collective response was, “Who the hell is he?” But now, after four straight great years of SBIFF, the collective question tends to be, “How long until someone steals him?” Well, he hasn’t quite been stolen, but last week the Cannes Film Festival selected Durling to be the programming director of its American Pavilion.
If American states walked around to theme music, California would cruise its urban alleys and rural byways with Los Lobos in tow. Since 1973, this East L.A. band of proud Chicanos has been playing a uniquely Californian blend of rock, blues, and traditional Mexican music.
I saw it coming, and couldn’t stop it: My parents were going to buy me Crocs for Christmas, and I was going to have to take them like a man.
On Monday, February 26, former News-Press assistant city editor Bob Guiliano sent an email to Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum explaining how the mayor is connected to the firings of both Guiliano and reporter Anna Davison. If what Guiliano’s email describes is true, then it’s clear that the bias is still very much in the News-Press building and that owner Wendy McCaw really has no understanding of the ethical standards that are supposed to be respected in the professional news business. We present Guiliano’s letter here.
Last week, the News-Press‘ attorney Barry Cappello (pictured) sent a letter to Barney Brantingham, the daily newspaper’s longtime columnist who began writing for The Independent last summer after he quit his job in the first wave of resignations. 
Last week, the News-Press‘ attorney Barry Cappello (pictured) sent a letter to Barney Brantingham, the daily newspaper’s longtime columnist who began writing for The Independent last summer after he quit his job in the first wave of resignations. Cappello asked for a correction and then called into question the integrity of The Indy‘s coverage of the matter, specifically the allegedly hypocritical stance of senior editor Matt Kettmann. Kettmann responded with a long letter, and that’s what we’ve posted for your reading pleasure here. Cappello is yet to res In that letter, Cappello asked Brantingham to correct an online posting that’s headline suggested Cappello was being sued. (We changed that headline accordingly.)
We Santa Barbarans just love dogging our Angeleno neighbors to the south. But as much as we disdain their traffic, scold their smog, and try to hold their sprawling ways at bay, there comes a time when a weekend trip to Los Angeles beckons. Whether to indulge in big city music, art, and dining or just to experience a more electric, metropolitan vibe, we Santa Barbarans often find ourselves traveling south for a City of Angels escape.
