Santa Cruz Good Times

Wednesday
Jun 19th
Text size
  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size

From the Editor

Tuesday, 14 June 2011 15:48 Greg Archer Columns - Editors Note
 E-mail

greg_archerPlus Letters to the Editor


Just how prepared is Santa Cruz for climate change, anyway? It’s a great question and this week, GT’s News Editor Elizabeth Limbach looks into the matter. With climate change comes ocean changes, something that will no doubt affect our area—as the recent tsunami debacle proved. In a revealing testimony from Ecology Action’s Chuck Tremper, we discover that we may not be making huge environmental strides at all. Are we being the great environmental stewards we can be? Learn more and become part of the conversation taking place around this vital matter. Keep sending your thoughts to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .  Also in news, writer Caitlin Sullivan takes a different look at local water issues.

In the meantime, if you’re psyched up for the summer months ahead, then you may appreciate this week’s cover story, written by Sven Davis. Our local humorist, who’s known for offering a clever spin on any number of topics, tackles the inner workings of ... backpacking. And camping, too. It’s a refreshing read and just in time for the summer fun ahead. Dive in. (Send us your quirky outdoor experiences to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)

Blog hungry? Good. This week, we’re here for you. Log onto goodtimessantacruz.com and experience a gaggle of new—and downright interesting—blogs and other online features. Take note of Culture Beat and Mind & Body. Look for more in the coming weeks, including some new outings from our GTv crew. Speaking of ...? Have a great short video/film idea? Be on the lookout for GT’s short film contest, emerging later this summer. Winners of the contest will be treated like the rock stars they are!  There’s more. Stay tuned ...

Have an amazing week ...

 

Greg Archer | Editor-in-Chief

Letters to the Editor

Hail The Students

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the piece by the Santa Cruz High student Akosua Busia, “Anthing But Pedestrian”

(GT 6/9). The writing was wonderful and am almost certain this student did not come up in our country's schools. Her writing is reminescent of English writing with much description and creativity. As a former teacher I would give this student an A+. Would you please pass on to the student how much I loved this piece?

Marged McNeely

Watsonville


Buzz About Backstage

Thought I'd drop a line about the nice article on the Backstage Lounge by Evelyn Shafer (GT 6/9). I see nothing but good things coming for Santa Cruz with Laurence Bedford's newest venture, and encourage all to check out the great food of Lenny Calandrino and the awesome performance space available there. One correction in the article though.  I have some art hanging there and hope to have more soon, but if anyone's art is "lining the walls" there, it is the beautiful woodcut work of Bridget Henry. Her work is as good a reason to drop by there as any. And while you are there looking it over, you will indeed find a piece or two of mine there also that Laurence has been kind enough to make room for. Thanks again.

Dag Weiser

Santa Cruz

Best Online Comments

On “Not That Weird” by Kim Luke:

As a global snob that has chosen to live here after inhabiting world class creative hubs like Barcelona, Shanghai and San Francisco. I pride myself as a newbie here. I embrace the culture of Santa Cruz because it is so selfishly authentic. The jaded and tragically hip should do a little yoga at the beach. The whole enchilada that is the Santa Cruz experience was summed up with an authentic voice by Ms.Luke. Brava, yet again. She shoots, she scores. Thank you for yet another great piece of local journalism. (Excuse me whilst I decorate my bike.)

Christine


Weird=Damaged. I've had therapists that I've met at confabs visit me here in Santa Cruz. They know that they can say anything to me. After I've shown them around we settle down for a quiet dinner and talk. I invariably ask them, "Well, what do you think of Santa Cruz?"

"It's a town of walking wounded." "There are many damaged people here." "Why is there this anger and resentment lying just underneath?"

To the newly placed people, I ask the same.

"People don't say what they mean or mean what they say here." "No sense of humor." "Take themselves too seriously. Everything is an issue." "Elitist attitude with no concept of what people actually have to suffer through." "All talk without the walk."

Micky


Santa Cruz is weird because it celebrates the “free spirit.” That's fine. But, too often this becomes that just because you're doing something different, it means that you expect the public to take you seriously. It's fine to experiment, but don't expect to be the next Karamazov Brothers or [The Great] Morgani and expect your tip till to spill over. Too often have I seen people with one song and three cords serenade us on the mall and get hostile because no one's listening to them or are asked to move on. Too often does this “free spirit” celebration involve drug use, violent protests, a dissipated lifestyle, anarchist take-overs, and a sense of entitlement that whatever spills forth from you is gold and a reward is in order. "This is Santa Cruz, man. Everything is cool here." Wrong.

Thank you Neal Coonerty for a publicity stunt gone wrong. Thanks for opening up a can of worms that cannot be closed down unless with a lot of effort and many people looking like the bad guys, especially our safety personnel. Thanks for creating our asylum reputation.

Don

Comments (1)Add Comment
Unfortunately...
written by Don, June 17, 2011
Unfortunately, they forgot the header on my comment, "Weird=Smug Mediocrity", which explains it even better!

Write comment
smaller | bigger

busy
< Prev   Next >
 

Share this on your social networks

Bookmark and Share

Share this

Bookmark and Share

 

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.
GTemail_tileTomorow's GTW Today.
Sign up for Tomorrow's Good Times Today
Upcoming arts & events

Latest Comments

 

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.

 

What’s your secret to avoiding the summer swarms?