Train Wreck

TRAIN WRECK… After staring at Squid’s computer screen for far too long, Squid decided to get some fresh air and take an amble down the Monterey Rec Trail with Squid’s trusty canine companion, Rosco P. Coltrane. While oozing along, Squid noticed that the iconic red caboose on Cannery Row was still resting at its longtime home, despite news in May about its sale and inevitable removal.

The caboose’s owner for nearly a decade, Ed Ciliberti, had put the historic vehicle up for sale in May for $75,000 after the City of Monterey terminated his lease and ordered him to move it. A buyer had offered to purchase the caboose, but the deal apparently fell through, according to Ciliberti, who posted on social media about the failed sale.

Ciliberti followed up to report that the caboose had been sold again, this time to Ciliberti’s friend Richard “Pepe” Pepe, the Carmel restaurateur of Little Napoli and Vesuvio fame. The plan is for Pepe to rest the caboose on one of his properties rent-free. Ciliberti gives his heartfelt thanks to restaurateur and urges fans to patronize his businesses. Even if Squid cannot ride the caboose, it prompted Squid to ooze down to Carmel Bakery to see if they took Squid’s suggestion to bake up some shrimp-flavored scones.

FIGHTING WORDS… It seems that every election season, human conflicts get as heated as they do undersea in Squid’s lair, where the apex predators always seem to win. But this season feels even more tense, especially in Salinas.

A video posted on social media shows District 2 City Council candidate Jose Guerra encountering a worker with a leaf blower in an Alisal Street veterinary office parking lot, where Guerra confronts him in Spanish about his choice of tool. The worker, behind the camera, expresses outrage that he’s getting yelled at by a fellow-Latino for doing his job. Guerra retorts, also in Spanish: “No, we are not the same, because you don’t understand.” Yikes.

Guerra – still heated – yells at the worker to pick up a broom to sweep instead. (By email, Guerra says, “My reason for calling them lazy was that they were blowing the debris into another parking lot instead of gathering it into piles and picking it up… We were waiting with sick animals in our vehicles, and the landscaping crew did not care.”)

Meanwhile, another video, this one posted by citizen journalist Chris Cerney, shows mayoral candidate Daniel Muñoz melting down at a business owner for removing one of Muñoz’s signs from his business. “Move then – move back where you’re from,” Muñoz says.

More yikes – especially in times like these, with deportations soaring, those are threatening words.

Muñoz later apologized in another video, but the temperature does’nt seem to have gotten any cooler.