He's a patriot. Anyone who stands up for the rights that we stand for as a country, that is real democracy. That would be in my book—somebody who is a patriot.
Leah Weiss
Santa Cruz | Therapist
GT Columns
Editors Note
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From The Editor
Plus Letters To the Editor
A recent visit back to Chicago proved to be enlightening. In making homemade pierogi with my Polish mother and my 86-year-old aunt, I have decided that the secret to life can be found in kneading dough. Really. (I may write “If You Knead Dough, The Money Will Follow” at some point, but let’s not get sidetracked.)
In any case, few things trump slowing down and actually having conversations—face to face—with family members. So, while I had my Polish hands in the mixing bowl of flour, butter milk, vegetable oil and water, I asked my mother: “Don’t you measure your ingredients?” She looked at me and shrugged. “No. I go by how it feels!” To which I thought: “How very Zen of her!” (And Chicagoans think they’re all about planning!) That said, my clan and I may have more similarities than differences.
Local Talk
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What’s your secret to avoiding the summer swarms?
Probably, for me, I would go mountain biking back in Soquel Demonstration Forest or Wilder [Ranch] to get away from the crowds.
Andrew Westerman
Live Oak | Electrician
Astrology
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Flag Day, Father’s Day and Chiron
Another week of complex planetary energies falling to Earth. Mars interacts with Pluto (inconjunct), Uranus (sextile) and Chiron (square, challenge, ouch!). We won’t know how to comprise, we’ll want to be friends but our hurts will challenge that desire.
Editors Note
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From The Editor
Plus Letters To the Editor
It’s good to be 39! This week Good Times officially steps deeper into middle-age as it celebrates its 38th birthday. Founded by Jay Shore back in 1975, GT, like hair styles over the years, has boasted many looks, but it always has the community’s best interest at heart, shining the spotlight on the most interesting news that the area and its locals have to offer.
Local Talk
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What activities would you suggest to friends and family visiting Santa Cruz?
I would suggest spending time in less touristy neighborhoods, such as Seabright. Catch a live show at The Rio Theatre and then head next door to Oyunna's restaurant for some amazing Mongolian food. When downtown I'd suggest Bookshop Santa Cruz and the Museum of Art & History.
Krystal Racca
Santa Cruz | Mom
Astrology
We are moving toward Summer solstice. Friday is complex with multiple interactions and interchanges between the moon and planets Mercury, Venus, Saturn and Neptune.
Saturday is the last new moon (18 degrees Gemini) before summer. “Let instability do its work” is the Gemini personality-building keynote explaining the unpredictable changes, constant vicissitudes, lack of stability, structure, cohesion and unity among humanity, countries and nations. Instability has purpose, creating awareness that harmony is needed. Understanding Gemini’s personality keynote is important when encountering instability, conflict and chaos.
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Let Instability Do Its Work
We are moving toward Summer solstice. Friday is complex with multiple interactions and interchanges between the moon and planets Mercury, Venus, Saturn and Neptune. Saturday is the last new moon (18 degrees Gemini) before summer. “Let instability do its work” is the Gemini personality-building keynote explaining the unpredictable changes, constant vicissitudes, lack of stability, structure, cohesion and unity among humanity, countries and nations. Instability has purpose, creating awareness that harmony is needed. Understanding Gemini’s personality keynote is important when encountering instability, conflict and chaos.
Editors Note
Read more...
From The Editor
Plus Letters To the Editor
It’s a full week here at Good Times as we unveil our annual GT Active publication, which spotlights some of the best the area has to offer in the realm of fitness, health and the great outdoors. You can find the publication at many spots where GT is already available. But take note: Some of the highlights in this year’s issue shed new light on a number of captivating topics—from the popular CrossFit regime, spinal network analysis and eating disorders to cycling, skydiving and helicopter tours. You may also be intrigued with the special centerfold poster from Santa Cruz Waves, which features the top pictures of the year from the popular, local online portal. Enjoy.
Local Talk
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What do you think our community could do to promote renewable energy solutions?
My knee-jerk response would be a lot more solar. I know some people here who have really pushed the envelope on solar, and I'm just amazed that in a climate like this it hasn’t been adopted more.
Kirby Scudder
Santa Cruz | Writer/Gallery Director
Astrology
The days, weeks and months of 2013 have slipped by. Time has accelerated. We’re moving into a new world where time and space are experienced differently. They’re collapsed. The particle has become the wave. And so, here we are in Gemini, the sign that reveals the concept of duality.
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The Task of Gemini—Revealing Duality
The days, weeks and months of 2013 have slipped by. Time has accelerated. We’re moving into a new world where time and space are experienced differently. They’re collapsed. The particle has become the wave. And so, here we are in Gemini, the sign that reveals the concept of duality.
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- Community Studies 2.0
- Paying it Forward
- North Pacific String Band
- Is Edward Snowden a patriot or a traitor?
- Peace in the Middle East
- The Price of Safety
- Town Hall with Assemblymember Mark Stone
- Santa Cruz Calendar
- Muscle-Bound
- Inconvenient Truthers
- Santa Cruz Movie Times
- CYNDI
- Dancing Creek Winery
- From The Editor
- Field to Vase
- Stranger than Fiction
CYNDI
On the eve of Cyndi Lauper’s Mountain Winery gig, we dissect the woman, the icon, the creative beast. Plus: Her thoughts on the music industry, equal rights and those sparkling ‘Kinky Boots’ Few performers possess the kind of fierce, she-bopping tenacity Cyndi Lauper has become famous for. Equal parts free spirit, civil rights activist and Grammy-winner, Lauper is one of the few creative artists able to successfully marry her cutting-edge verve with a heart-of-gold panache. It certainly has helped fuel the remarkable career resurgence she has been experiencing lately.
Field to Vase
Open house provides opportunity for residents to meet their local flower growers Valentine’s Day is a high point of the year for those in the cut flower business. So when, one year in the late ’90s, the bouquet-riddled holiday failed to deliver for Kitayama Brothers Farms, the family behind the decades-old rose-growing business knew something was wrong. “It was the writing on the wall,” recalls Stuart Kitayama, operations manager for the Watsonville-based company. “Those of us who had been hoping things would just get better finally said ‘it’s time to change.’”
The Price of Safety
The city's proposed budget addresses public safety needs The City of Santa Cruz’s pocketbook has come a long way since 2009, when an $8 million shortfall loomed. According to City Manager Martin Bernal, the proposed general fund budget for 2013-2014 is healthier than it has been since the beginning of The Great Recession in 2008. Armed with this returning stability, the proposal puts one of the community's top concerns—public safety—front and center.
Community Studies 2.0
After a controversial suspension, a new incarnation of the unique UC Santa Cruz major is reinstated The UC Santa Cruz community studies lounge is a great place to have a conversation. Housed on the second floor of a faculty building in Oakes College, just down the hall from a whiteboard that reads “COMMUNITY STUDIES LIVES,” the room has a big round table, couches and chairs, and shelves stacked with past senior “capstone projects.”
North Pacific String Band
Jeff Wilson, who plays banjo for North Pacific String Band, loves being part of original music experiences. “What I like about the music we play is that it’s fairly unique and kind of hard to put your finger on,” Wilson says. “We’re not just trying to do bluegrass or country or folk. It’s a mixture of those things and we try to add in a lot of musicality to all of that.” Originality and musicality aren’t ideas which are limited to the band’s exploits either.
Peace in the Middle East
New dance-concert explores Palestinian-Israeli conflict Inspired by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, local choreographer Karl Schaffer’s “Mosaic” is a dance-concert featuring Jewish Diaspora and Arab music from the women’s choral group Zambra, singer Fattah Abbou and a troupe of local dancers. In between rehearsals for the show, which runs June 21-22 at Motion Pacific, Schaffer shared the story behind its creation.
Muscle-Bound
Valiant cast battles loud, ugly action for the soul of 'Man of Steel' Early in Man of Steel, fourth-grader Clark, the boy who will be Superman, is cowering in a broom closet at school, eyes screwed shut, hands clapped over his ears. He can't control his super powers: his X-ray vision shows him the skulls and skeletons under everyone's flesh; unfiltered noise—dogs, traffic, heartbeats—assault him from all sides. Rushing to school, his mom kneels outside the door and asks what's wrong.
The Plug Bug & Corbin Dunn
Mechanic, programmer, acrobat, builder, tinkerer. Corbin Dunn's 1969 Volkswagen Beetle is a fully electric vehicle. It has an electric motor powered by 48 stacked squares of Lithium-ion battery cells under the hood in place of the 50 horsepower gas engine that it was built with. He calls it, affectionately, “the Plug Bug.” Dunn, who was born in Hawaii, raised in Corralitos, and now lives in a large, old A-frame house near the summit in the Santa Cruz Mountains, is a 35-year-old programmer for Apple in Cupertino, where he helped develop the iPhone and works on the framework for the Macintosh operating system. But his aptitude for intricate technical work is not limited to computers. Dunn is a tinkerer.
Making the Grade
The quest to identify sources of high levels of bacteria at Cowell Beach continues With straight As on Heal the Bay’s annual “beach report card” for 10 out of 13 Santa Cruz County beaches—Main Beach, Seabright, and even Cowell Beach at the Stairs, to name a few—it would seem that Santa Cruz boasts a high coastal GPA. But in recent years, one Santa Cruz beach just can’t seem to pass: Cowell Beach west of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf.
Flag Day, Father’s Day and Chiron
Another week of complex planetary energies falling to Earth. Mars interacts with Pluto (inconjunct), Uranus (sextile) and Chiron (square, challenge, ouch!). We won’t know how to comprise, we’ll want to be friends but our hurts will challenge that desire.
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Good Morning Maui
Goodness, righteousness, virtuousness and fairness are some of the four-score English words that attempt to describe the Hawaiian essence of pono, whose use in the state motto translates to “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.”
The Power of Conversation
Local author Cecile Andrews emphasizes importance of community engagement in newest book Cecile Andrews, author of the new book “Living Room Revolution: A Handbook for Conversation, Community and the Common Good,” probably wouldn’t get along too well with Larry David’s character from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, known for hiding his face and avoiding communication with anyone he runs into on the street. Andrews is a longstanding part-time Santa Cruz (part-time Seattle) resident who says something that’s struck her about this town over the years is people's willingness to participate in a practice she’s dubbed the “Stop and Chat”—which is exactly what it sounds like.
Is Edward Snowden a patriot or a traitor?
He's a patriot. Anyone who stands up for the rights that we stand for as a country, that is real democracy. That would be in my book—somebody who is a patriot. Leah WeissSanta Cruz | Therapist
Best of Santa Cruz County
The 2013 Santa Cruz County Readers' Poll and Critics’ Picks It’s our biggest issue of the year, and in it, your votes—more than 6,500 of them—determined the winners of The Best of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll. New to the long list of local restaurants, shops and other notables that captured your interest: Best Beer Selection, Best Locally Owned Business, Best Customer Service and Best Marijuana Dispensary. In the meantime, many readers were ever so chatty online about potential new categories. Some of the suggestions that stood out: Best Teen Program and Best Web Design/Designer. But what about: Dog Park, Church, Hotel, Local Farm, Therapist (I second that!) or Sports Bar—not to be confused with Bra. Our favorite suggestion: Best Act of Kindness—one reader noted Café Gratitude and the free meals it offered to the Santa Cruz Police Department in the aftermath of recent crimes. Perhaps some of these can be woven into next year’s ballot, so stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the following pages and take note of our Critics’ Picks, too, beginning on page 91. A big thanks for voting—and for reading—and an even bigger congratulations to all of the winners. Enjoy. -Greg Archer, EditorBest of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll INDEX | Shops | Food & Drink | Arts & Entertainment | Health & Fitness | Professionals | The Rest |
Dancing Creek Winery
At the Pinot Paradise event back in March, I tasted some very good Pinots from the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Dancing Creek Winery’s 2009 Pinot ($27) was one of them. This plummy dark brew, made from grapes grown in Corralitos, has delicious flavors of pomegranate, prosciutto, dried cherries, and mint julep.
Paying it Forward
Pianist Benny Green wants jazz’s past to continue to inform its future I can honestly say I’m still learning.” Hearing such an admirable, humble statement from someone like Benny Green—a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and band leader whose 30-plus year career includes performances and recordings with jazz luminaries like Oscar Peterson, Art Blakey and Betty Carter—might be surprising at first. But Green’s insatiable desire to keep learning has served him well. That desire—and his deep love of jazz—is something he wants today’s younger musicians to feel, too.
A Very Fine House
Adjacent to the front door, the long, clean wooden bar is surrounded by pumpkin-colored stools. At the entrance to the dining rooms, there is a new low-slung cafe door hung in the wood-covered arch. Where there once was a stage, stocky wooden tables are neatly arranged perpendicularly on a new tile floor, each set with square white plates and burnt orange cloth napkins.
Exposed
David Cay Johnston’s new book explains how big companies rob us blind In his late teens David Cay Johnston started to ask questions. “Why do we have these guys in uniforms with guns driving around in cars all day?” “Why is the Santa Cruz County Courthouse being built in such an unusual shape?” He wrote an article, while still living in his hometown of Santa Cruz, proving that the off-kilter courthouse building, which officials had promised would save money, actually cost more than a conventional building.