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Jun 18th
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From the Editor

greg_archerPlus Letters to the Editor

Face it, your face was perfectly designed so that you can laugh. Try this at home—totally safe. In the meantime, it never hurts to laugh at others. (Relax, I mean, in a the good way.) GT writer Kim Luke explores that and much more in this week’s cover story, in which she asks: “What’s So Funny?” Like ... really? What is? Where’s the “funny” in Santa Cruz? Is there any? Or do we, as a collective, take things far too seriously? (Snap out it.) Experience Luke’s journey beginning.
As for me, I’ve been amused by several things lately. My mood swings notwithstanding—I am a walking miracle having taken no prescription meds in my entire life, although this may be the season to start—I found myself dropping off some mail to somebody the other day. The man that answered the door looked like he goes to the gym seven times a week. “Huh—you look like you go to the gym seven times a week,” I joked. He shot me a look. “I do,” he said, with all seriousness and invited me in to exchange our swapped mail. I took one look inside the man’s home and was taken aback. Gym man was a hoarder. Everything was unkempt. Clothes everywhere, boxes stacked to the ceilings. Old newspapers and a Windex bottle here—I’m sure it wasn’t touched in three years—a bunch of dirty laundry there. Old magazines strewn about. How, I wondered, could a person who is so exact and particular about their own body, somebody who goes to great lengths to keep it in order, be so disordly, so sloppy in his home? All this to say, psychologically, I found it funny. I find us—that’s right, we humans—to be funny. Funniest of all? Look in the mirror. If you can’t laugh at yourself, well, the time has come.
Don’t freak out. Just get over yourself.
In the meantime, find yourself some “funny” this week ...

Greg Archer | Editor-in-Chief
Letters to the Editor

You Say Potato ...
Regarding the mountain biking story, while I rode in those hills as a kid, we used to ride up from Santa Cruz through UCSC and then down the hill. This was back when bikes were heavier than now so that is not an issue. What we have now are truckloads (just drive Hwy 9 and check out the parking lots) rallying up Glengarry (where my family lives) like it's a free "bike lift." Some neighbors think that there’s an underground taxi truck scenario happening, but it doesn't matter. What does matter is the amount of destruction that is happening to private and state land. The other excuse, "there are no signs" is moot because everybody knows that it's illegal to ride up there. Ripping signs out and playing stupid is vandalism and perpetuates the problem.
Many of us in the neighborhood didn't even know there was a meeting about this problem, and if we did there would have been more land owners that would have described an abuse that needs to stop. This is not Squaw Valley, this is San Lorenzo Valley - respect the locals and the environment.
John Hardy
Santa Cruz


Best Online Comments

On Kyer Wiltshire/’Nice Shot, Man’ by J.D. Ramey
Thanks for this interesting article. Wiltshire’s book makes me smile every time I pick it up. What is his secret? The answer perhaps lies in this quote I came across a while ago: "I think the best pictures are often on the edges of any situation, I don't find photographing the situation nearly as interesting as photographing the edges. ~William Albert Allard, "The Photographic Essay”
Kyer, keep up the good work!
Peter Cornelius

Boobie fetish yes, art no. Shame on you Good Times. What’s next—Thomas Kinkade? This is not good photography and his web site is lots of just tits or just an ass in a thong. No face or body. Art erects the mind, porn erects the d*ck.
John Cunningham

On ‘Migration Destinations’ by Amy Coombs
Wow what wonderful research you’re doing to protect our marine mammals. We understand that knowledge is power. And we need power to conserve and protect our ocean life that depends on sciencetists to educate the public and big businesses.
How many endangered and extinct species have been saved by researchers and marine biologists?
Keep up the great work and thanks for educating the public on your findings. It's because of knowledge like this, we can make new policies that protect our oceans and keep them clean and healthy.
Sabrina and Paris

Why don't you guys just leave these poor creatures alone and don’t put any stuff on them to try to know where they are. What if somebody put a thing on you so they know where you are at all times—wouldn't you hate that? because I now I would. Thank you for listening and hopefully you listen to my advise.
Sam Kim

On ‘Wines, Vines and Our Economic Times’ by Jessi Hamel
I started taking Sue's wine classes (at Cabrillo) in 2006, and haven't stopped. I really did get sucked in. They were awesome! And hard. As a result, I sold my business in 2009 and changed careers. Now I work full time at MJA Vineyards doing all the PR, marketing, events and wine club management. There's no way I'd have this job without taking the wine classes. The business relationships and friends I have now are all because of my love for wine.
I'm in a winemaking group that started as a result of the winemaking class that Sue helped create. We started making our own wines during the 2009 vintage and have increased our production each year. We'll enter our wines into the County Fair this year in the amateur category.
To say that wine classes is frivolous is ridiculous. Ask any of us.
Go to Facebook: "Save Wine Education at Cabrillo" to post comments and help support the wine classes.
Cathy Bentley-Smith
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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.

 

Mark Twang

Mark Twang plays a little bit of everything—rock, roots, jazz and bluegrass for starters—but so far they haven’t played much in public as evidenced by the fact that their upcoming show at Don Quixote’s will only be their second gig. But there’s a reason why the band isn’t performing a lot right now. “We have plans [to make an album],” says drummer Jeff Wilson. “We’re trying to do some things differently though and not just come out full-steam ahead and start playing all these shows.

 

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.

 

To Arm or Disarm?

While gun sales soar nationally, a group of musicians fundraise for a local gun buy-back In the wake of high-profile incidents of gun violence—from the Sandy Hook school shooting last December to the fatal shooting of two Santa Cruz police officers three months ago—the debate over gun ownership in America centers on one question as it rages on: Do guns make us safer or do they make our lives more dangerous?
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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.

 

Stranger than Fiction

Memphis singer-songwriter, Amy LaVere, finds joy and humor in painful situations Producer Craig Silvey likely saved singer-songwriter Amy LaVere’s life a few years back. Before recording 2011’s Stranger Me, LaVere had endured a breakup with her longtime boyfriend and was in the midst of one of those I-need-to-find-out-who-I-am phases. She knew the content for the album was going to be incredibly dark and moody, but Silvey did something which changed the course of the recording sessions entirely.

 

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?