Owner Salvador Diaz on Capitola Chaos and more Taqueria Agave is gone from Capitola—there’s still one in Santa Cruz, so don’t fret—and in its place is Avenue Café, which opened on Jan. 1 this year. It’s a charming, home-y café, and they serve all the standard diner breakfast fair (pancakes, eggs, bacon) and lunch foods (sandwiches,...

Comedian George Lopez is best known for his starring role in the sitcom George Lopez, which ran from 2002-2007, but his resume also includes author, stand-up comedian, producer, and talk show host. Named one of the 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America by Time magazine, Lopez takes on issues of race, immigration, and life in America...

Grampa’s Chili is certainly an odd name for a band, and the members of said local psychedelic jam outfit have multiple explanations for it. The actual story behind it: The group, which started in the early ’90s, was originally known as Soup, but needed a new name because there was another band with the same name....

Lompico Water District’s fate to be determined by bond vote After decades of mismanagement, the Lompico Water District is faced with thousands of dollars in debt, a leaderless board of directors, and an aging infrastructure that is in desperate need of care. Without the maintenance that the pipes and tanks have needed over the years, the...

Dancers literally build the new show ‘Economies of Effort’ Cid Pearlman’s newest dance show, “Economies of Effort,” is all about pulling back the curtain to reveal the pre-performance process—something most audiences of a classical ballet or repertory don’t get to see. For the show, which opens at Motion Pacific on Friday, Feb. 20, Pearlman’s performers build...

41st Avenue’s favorite hot dog stand, and a Cremer House check-in There I was at Home Depot on 41st Avenue, foraging for plumbing supplies for my latest DIY project when the sudden, irresistible craving hit me for a genuine, bona fide hand-held hot dog. I was in luck. My assistant and I were face to face...

After her 1991 testimony in the Clarence Thomas hearings, Anita Hill became a symbol of the battle against sexual harassment. But in anticipation of her appearance in Santa Cruz, Hill talks to GT about the personal toll of sparking a political movement Before Anita Hill, there was no national conversation about sexual harassment. And the way...

Kawehi’s obsession with automation bleeds from her sound into her lyrical concepts Kawehi’s fascination with robots makes sense. In fact, the Hawaiian singer-songwriter’s artistic method must feel a bit like collaborating with a robot. It’s all right there on the viral video she uploaded last year to YouTube, a cover of Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box.” She...

The Sentinel in flux with cuts, staff departures and its parent company up for sale Steve Kettmann, a former staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, thinks he knows a good newspaper when he sees it. So, when he wrote a story last month for The Huffington Post calling the Santa Cruz Sentinel a “smallish paper...

Plus Letters To the Editor For more than two decades, Anita Hill has had other people trying to define her experience. In her interview with me in this week’s cover story, she talks about what it was like to be under the cultural microscope in 1991, when her testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about having...