Decorate a chair and support classical music in Santa Cruz. The plan is simple: for a $25 donation, you get to decorate a chair that will then be auctioned off at the "Rare Chair Affair" Gala. This is to raise money to support the Santa Cruz County Symphony and the Youth and Family programs that introduce over 4,000 young people to classical music each year. They aren't too picky on how you decorate it, they only ask that the chair is decorated in good taste and that it isn't too heavy to move around.

I was told when I first started college that I will end up drinking large amounts of coffee. The first year I didn't need the caffeine, I was able to handle the work that my professors were giving me. I also didn't touch coffee because I didn't like it, it was too strong. Plus there seems to be a ritual that goes along with making coffee, a certain amount of sugar and milk that one has to put in it. I didn't know how I liked my coffee.

My second year at college I was introduced to tea through my girlfriend. I got a cold during the rainy season and I needed something to get through the day since the world doesn't stop for a sick college student. She suggested drinking black tea with honey and lemon. Not only would it help with my cold, it would get me through the day no problem. I tried it one morning and it changed my life.
Black and green tea contains 10 times more antioxidants than fruits and vegetables.  For me, tea seemed more natural than coffee. It went down much smoother, though I know some would disagree with me. Tea is good and healthy for you, though one cup of black tea has half the caffeine as one cup of coffee. For me it's perfect.

Over the summer I've visited the restaurant Burger on Mission Street three times.  Every time I'm there I always end up loving the place a little bit more. The two big burger places I've been told about recently are Betty Burger, which is located in many places throughout Santa Cruz, and Burger.

For me, what places Burger aside from Betty's or any other place I know of is its environment. Once you walk in, you're confronted with one of the most creative menus around. All their entrees are named after popular celebrities or characters. I've ordered "The Dude," a burger with jack cheese, avocado, and bacon, the  "Johnny Marzetti" which is a burger with macaroni piled on, and the "Phatty" a burger with grilled cheese sandwiches for buns.

I had a lot of high expectations in tow when I attended the Tipper Sound Experience show at the Cocoanut Grove on Saturday, July 2. For one, it was put on by Raindance Presents—and with longtime local party thrower DJ Little John at the helm, Raindance gatherings are always guaranteed to be a good time.

I don't think New Yorkers visit the Statue of Liberty very often. That's probably the reason I had for never going to Roaring Camp as a kid, and until recently. Roaring Camp sits nestled in the Santa Cruz mountains and hidden away from the center of town.

I was there to ride the train up into the Redwood Forests that surround the park and to at last say that I had been to Roaring Camp. The people there really try to stick to the theme of post-civil war train stations. The employees all dress like train engineers and my mom asked the man at the front desk about the tickets she ordered online and he cracked a joke about there being no computers in the 1880s.

Bluegrass string quartet, MilkDrive, pluck their way to Santa Cruz
In the distant past, under the red-hot Idaho summer sun, three burgeoning boys unknowingly awaited their destiny. Following an afternoon garage jam session, guitarist Noah Jeffries, mandolin player Dennis Ludiker and fiddler Brian Beken stood on a dusty street corner, just down the road from a dairy. The only shade from the unrelenting rays was a lowly street sign, aptly titled: Milk Drive.

Young guns, The Congress, refine a classic southern sound
When you think of the word Congress, what often comes to mind, is a collection of politicians meeting a few times a year to pass legislation that no one can agree upon. Instead, imagine a group of musicians, each influenced by their own political agendas, but agreeing on one thing all the time: rock ‘n’ roll. Meet The Congress, a fresh foursome from Denver, Colo. with a southern twang.

In the early days, the guitar duo—formed by long-time friends Scott Lane and vocalist Jonathan Meadows of Richmond, Va.—were "running an open mic and writing together. And that's kinda how it all started,” remembers Lane. Eventually they got into the studios, "took the tunes we had written and the people that were around us at the time, and just had fun with it."

We all curse in one way or another. You stub your toe? Curse. Guy cuts you off on the street? Curse. Maybe there's a good reason why our brain begins to curse right away. Studies reveal that cursing is an emotional response, it's not language based. So cursing can be compared to crying or screaming, which is why it actually may be good for you. Because a different part of the brain is used for cursing, it actually is able to lessen pain.

As an English major, I love books, love to read books, love to touch books, even sometimes smell books. So whenever I walk into Logos on Pacific Avenue, I always tend to walk away with something in my hands. I never go in looking for anything specific, I just go in to look, which is probably why I always end up with something. Logos sells used books and like any English major will tell you, old books are the best. They have history and character, or so we think.  Today I went to Logos to give readers insight into my experience there. At first I scanned the Literature section, I found a 1960s copy of “Light in August” by William Faulkner for three dollars. I bought it because I also have 1960s copy of “The Sound and the Fury” by Faulkner. I walked downstairs and found myself in the Architecture section, picked up a copy of “From Bauhaus to Our House” by Tom Wolfe for $5 because I wanted to read something on modern architecture of the ’50 and ’60s. Then in the poetry section I picked up “How Much Earth: The Fresno Poets” for $4 because I’m thinking of doing my honor thesis on contemporary Chicano poetry and this would be a great start.   Coming in with nothing, I walked out with three books that for the time being will be sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. It’s an addiction really, a horrible one. My discovery of Logos has created a pile of books in my closet that I have to get through. I can’t be all that mad. Really, I do love that old musty smell they have

Will Bernard Trio explores new soul-jazz territory this week at Kuumbwa
After a long trek around Europe, Will Bernard is looking forward to moving back to California for a while and stopping by one of his favorite venues, Kuumbwa Jazz, on  Thursday. It seems the group he’ll be playing with, which he describes as a “classic trio format,” is one of his favorites, too—heck, he named the band after it. “You can get a lot of sound out of a three-piece organ trio,” he says.

When asked to define the Will Bernard Trio’s genre, he guessed, “People tell me we’re mostly soul-jazz.” But of course, he’s not ready to pigeonhole his sound. “It’s not like classic soul-jazz, we kinda stretch the boundaries a lot … Simon Lott is [our] drummer from New Orleans who plays a lot of different styles, free jazz and electronica. So he’s always bringing in some more music.”

To further break the mold of conventional soul-jazz, Bernard says he likes “to use more sound effects on [his] guitar.” Sometimes, that means he just wants to get in your face with effects. His secret? “Octave fuzz, like Jimi Hendrix used to use.” An unusual choice for the typical jazz guitarist, but it works none the less. “You can get a lot of different tones out of it,” he says.