When the ancient Polynesians invented surfing, they often used a paddle to help them navigate. Fast-forward a few millennia, and Stand-Up Paddleboarding, or SUP, finds itself trendy again. Part of its increasing popularity is that standing upright allows surfers to spot waves more easily and thus catch more of them, multiplying the fun factor. Paddling back to the wave becomes less of a strain as well. The ability to cruise along on flat inland water, surveying the sights, is another advantage. Finally, it’s a good core workout. If you’re sold on the idea, schedule an intro SUP lesson, free with board and paddle rental, and you may find yourself riding the waves like a Polynesian king.More
Many of us remember coming home from our elementary schools with freshly glazed pinchpots, cups, or whatever else our young imaginations could conjure up. Saturday mornings at the Randall Museum can bring that memory back, or create a new one for the youngsters. Ceramics make great gifts — especially on Mothers' and Fathers' Day. Hop on board for the Randall's once-weekly class, and for $6 and two weeks to have your work fired and glazed, you'll have all the materials you need.More
December is almost over - the New Year is coming up and everyone is busy drying off from the rain or holiday shopping. Let's take a look at what's happened this month.
So you went out last Saturday night and wore those new dark-wash, skinny leg jeans that you just bought despite the fact that it's the end of the month and you should be saving that money for your rent check.
PostedByBob Calhoun
on Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 11:36 AM
Randy Heinitz/Flickr
John Bly and Scott Bunting, both 17, were out for a Sunday afternoon motorcycle ride through a hilly stretch of road in Santa Rosa on March 6, 1972. They stopped to take a break in a spot overlooking a creek. One of them spotted what he thought was a mannequin in the creek bed below. When the boys realized they were actually looking at the dead body of a naked young woman, they hightailed it to the sheriff.
The murdered woman was Kim Wendy Allen, a 19-year-old Santa Rosa Junior College student. Sonoma County Coroner Andrew Johansen determined that Allen died from asphyxiation by being slowly strangled by a cord or rope around her neck. Allen was killed and dumped down the embankment about 24 hours before Bly and Bunting found her. There was also evidence Allen had been raped.
Allen was the first victim discovered in what’s now known as the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders, but she wasn’t the first victim. Yvonne Weber, 13, and Maureen Sterling, 12, were the first girls to disappear. One of the girls’ mothers dropped them off at the Redwood Empire Ice Arena at 7:30 p.m. on February 4, 1972. When the mom returned to pick them up at 11 p.m., the girls were gone.
PostedByBob Calhoun
on Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 9:52 AM
Randy Heinitz/Flickr
Arlis Perry was just 19 years old when her body was found under a pew, spread-eagled and naked from the waist down, in Stanford University’s Memorial Chapel on Sunday, Oct. 13, 1974.
Described by UPI as “the pretty blonde wife of a Stanford sophomore,” Perry had been raped with a white, three-foot-long ceremonial candle, inserted with such force that it snapped in two. Another candle was “shoved between her breasts with enough energy to break both bra straps,” according to a 1991 San Jose Mercury News article. Investigators also found a semen-stained kneeling pillow close to the body.
Deep bruises and a broken bone in her neck indicated that she had been strangled, but the cause of death wasn’t determined until coroners found a narrow icepick lodged deep in the young woman’s skull. The handle of the weapon was broken off and never found.
Rev. Robert Hamerton-Kelly, then dean of the church, described the murder as “ritualistic and satanic” sparking off decades of speculation that Perry murder was part of a Satanist conspiracy. Homicide investigators at the time, however, didn’t go for the cult angle.
PostedByBob Calhoun
on Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 9:53 AM
Randy Heinitz/Flickr
Editor's Note: This is the second installment in a two-part series exploring the brutal murder of Robert Salem in San Francisco in 1970. Click here to read part one.
SFPD homicide inspectors weren't quite sure if the April 1970 murder of lamp designer Robert Salem was the work of the Zodiac Killer or a twisted copycat. However, the arrest of two hippie Satanic cultists in a hit-and run gave police a suspect in the Salem murder — and another more heinous crime.
The hippies plowed the yellow Opel sports car they'd stolen into a truck off of Highway 1 just outside Big Sur on Monday, July 13, 1970. The Detroit tourist who was driving the truck wanted to get the hippies' insurance info. The hippies fled into the woods on foot. They didn't get far before Highway Patrolman Randy Newton caught up with them.
The hippies were Stanley Dean Baker, 22, and Harry Allen Stroup, 20, both from Wyoming. After being arrested, Baker was found with a recipe for LSD, a copy of Anton LaVey's Satanic Bible, and a human finger bone that had been gnawed on.
"I have a problem," Baker confessed to Newton. "I'm a cannibal."
PostedByBob Calhoun
on Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 9:53 AM
Randy Heinitz/Flickr
There were trails of blood throughout what the San Francisco Chronicle called “an expensively-decorated hippie-style pad,” according to the paper's cover story on Monday, April 20, 1970.
The apartment at 745 Stevenson Street in San Francisco belonged to Robert Salem, 40, a notable designer of hurricane lamps. Salem was "a graying man who wore his hair long and apparently had an interest in gurus and health foods" according to the Chronicle. Friends of Salem broke into his live-work space on Sunday, April 19, 1970, when they hadn't seen him in several days.
They found him dead on one of his couches. Salem had been stabbed seven times with a very sharp knife. His head was nearly severed from his body. When decapitation proved too difficult, the killer cut off Salem’s ear. Investigators never found the ear.
PostedByBob Calhoun
on Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 9:53 AM
Randy Heinitz/Flickr
NFL teams are modern day medieval fiefdoms where ruthless barons, such as Mark Davis and Dan Snyder, preside over helmeted armies culled from the underclass. No team was more of a game of thrones than the Seattle Seahawks in 1989, when a dispute between co-owners led to an assassination using a weapon favored by the men who guarded Richard the Lionheart.
Mike Blatt was a Stockton-based real estate developer who ruled over vast lands, including apartment complexes in California, Arizona, and Nevada. His Blatt Development Co. oversaw $120 million worth of construction in its first 10 years. He also ran a successful sports agency, but all that wasn't enough.
PostedByBob Calhoun
on Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 10:33 AM
Randy Heinitz/Flickr
Today, Menlo Park is known as the home of Facebook and tech workers who can't quite afford Atherton, but in 1944 this tree-lined suburb was the site of one of the most bizarre crimes in Bay Area history.
Dolores Sifuentes of Redwood City was just 21 when she died from tuberculosis at the Canyon Sanatorium on Thursday, April 6, 1944. She was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Menlo Park on the following Saturday. Strangely, this was only the beginning of the young woman's ordeal.
PostedByBob Calhoun
on Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 10:58 AM
Randy Heinitz/Flickr
The 55-gallon metal drums looked out of place. They were left in Golden Gate Park near a narrow jogging path about a mile from the ocean. Answering reports from concerned residents, mounted patrolman Bruno Pezzulich was the first to inspect the drums on May 3, 1983. He noticed that one of them was marked "Toxic Chemicals," and called the fire department.
When one of the firefighters moved one of the concrete-sealed barrels, blood began to ooze out.
PostedByBob Calhoun
on Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 9:47 AM
Randy Heinitz/Flickr
“Wild-eyed” Leon Heskett was the self-proclaimed Bay Area “carpet king” in the 1960's and 70's. He ruled his discount empire from his bright yellow Carpet Coliseum store in Oakland, which was once described as “the most horrible thing I have ever seen” by an unnamed speaker during a Burlingame Planning Commission meeting in 1973. Heskett’s newspaper ads boasted “the West’s largest carpet inventory” over a publicity photo of Heskett standing proudly next to towering shelves filled with rolls of rugs.
While business appeared to be boom through the 70's, it all went up in smoke (literally) on Feb. 17, 1982, when a six-alarm fire gutted Heskett’s flagship Oakland store. According to UPI, it took 85 Oakland firefighters to combat a blaze that was even visible from San Francisco.
“What the hell can you say?” Heskett told UPI. “When you work for 30 years to build a business, and it's gone in 30 minutes.”
PostedByBob Calhoun
on Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 2:15 PM
Randy Heinitz/Flickr
Editor's Note: This is the third installment in a multi-part series exploring post-Jonestown life for former Peoples Temple members in the Bay Area. You can read parts one, two, and three here.
Joseph Mazor was like a character out of film noir. He was a con man who’d served time for passing bad checks before somehow getting a private investigator's license and opening his own San Francisco detective agency. He sometimes wore an eye patch and was prone to fits of violence.
However, this grizzled anti-hero spent nearly two years working to free children from Reverend Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple Agricultural Project in Guyana before the mass murder/suicide there on Nov. 18, 1978.
Although he failed to rescue many children before the deadly Kool-Aid knockoff was served, Mazor’s life took an even more tragic turn after Guyana.
PostedByBob Calhoun
on Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 10:22 AM
Randy Heinitz/Flickr
Editor's Note: This is the third installment in a multi-part series exploring post-Jonestown life for former Peoples Temple members in the Bay Area. You can read parts one and two here.
Tyrone Mitchell was a member of Peoples Temple in 1978, but he didn't make it to Guyana. His fiancée, Marylou Hill, had problems with her passport, and Mitchell stayed behind with her. His entire family had already joined Rev. Jim Jones at his Jonestown Agricultural Project, carved out of an unforgiving tract of South American jungle.
Mitchell's parents, his four sisters, and a brother all died at Jonestown on Nov. 18, 1978. They were among the mass of bodies captured in aerial shots on network news and in Time Magazine.
Mitchell was already a disturbed man before the Jonestown Massacre. He became even more so after it.
Sub Pop recording artists 'clipping.' brought their brand of noise-driven experimental hip hop to the closing night of 2016's San Francisco Electronic Music Fest this past Sunday. The packed Brava Theater hosted an initially seated crowd that ended the night jumping and dancing against the front of the stage. The trio performed a set focused on their recently released Sci-Fi Horror concept album, 'Splendor & Misery', then delved into their dancier and more aggressive back catalogue, and recent single 'Wriggle'.
Opening performances included local experimental electronic duo 'Tujurikkuja' and computer music artist 'Madalyn Merkey.'"
