Start saving your eggshells, because it’s almost time to plant tomatoes. Love Apple Farm’s annual heirloom seedling sale is under way at a new venue; Ivy’s Porch in Scotts Valley.
Ivy’s porch is a one-acre collective, on Scotts Valley Drive just south of Victor Square, specializing in home decor, antiques, and collectibles. Beautiful gardens feature topiaries and statuary. The Farm has planted a garden which showcases attractive combinations of ornamental and edible plants.
La Belle Petite Poulette Grenache Rosé 2010 
12th annual Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival presents mixed bag of thought-provoking cinema
There are few locations in the world where you can find Muslim freedom fighters, a high jumper, a Holocaust survivor, a Catholic priest, a human rights lawyer, and a music producer, all in one place—aside from a “walks into a bar” joke, that is. But all of the aforementioned characters have a chance to shine at the 12th annual Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival, which kicks off on March 24 and runs through April 5.
There’s a comedy boom happening around the country that hasn’t been seen since the 1980s when stand-up comedy was in its heyday. New venues are popping up like wild mushrooms, comedy clubs like Rooster T. Feathers in Sunnyvale are surviving the economic downturn, three-minute comedy sketches go viral every day, and political pundits are peppering their analyses with jokes and buffoonery.
One of the epicenters of this century’s comedic earthquake is The Comedy Studio in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass. Starring breakout comics like Russian-born Eugene Mirman (FOX’s Bob’s Burgers) and Myq Kaplan (Comedy Central), this is a room where laughter originates and emanates from. One of the latest sensations to shake the studio’s walls is Erin Judge (Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham).
You might remember when Judge and Santa Cruz native Ailin Conant tore up the Broadway Playhouse back in 2009 with their two-woman show, “The Meaning of Wife.” “Ailin and I had always wanted to work together and we had both just recently been married—me to a man, her to a woman,” Judge says, from her home in New York City. “So we came up with a concept that explored the role of wife and the meaning of wife—exploring how we felt about our new social roles. It was an ‘out there’ comedic piece with a lot of monologues and scenes from our lives and really absurd stuff.”
On March 30-31, Judge will make a triumphant return to Santa Cruz, thanks to San Francisco entrepreneurs Rooftop Comedy, who have asked her to record a live comedy album for their label. When asked where she wanted to record it, Judge chose the Broadway Playhouse.
“I am excited to bring my act to Santa Cruz,” she says. “Santa Cruz audiences are smart, informed, interested in politics and social issues, and ready to laugh along with my point of view … It’s fun to get to bring a full hour of comedy to a new audience and to record it for release.”
With a stuffed suitcase of well-ironed material that focuses on the absurdities of life, relationships, and the cosmic dance of love, the young comedienne is ready for what could be a huge break in the business.
Judge started doing stand-up 10 years ago at The Comedy Studio, where she eventually became the host on Sunday nights. Over time, she had the opportunity to run her own show, which she did successfully for two and a half years.
It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that she moved to New York City. “I now produce a show in New York City called ‘The Afterlife’ every Tuesday night. New York is a great place to be and there are amazing comics there, but it’s such an expensive place to live—and if you’re on the road a lot it’s difficult to figure out how to maintain and make it work financially,” says Judge.
From performing as many sets as she can get, to recording podcasts, to constantly writing new material, Judge wants to be as multifaceted as she can. “Comedy is my full-time thing,” she explains. “I cobble together what I can to make money—but, I travel for comedy constantly and make the majority of money playing at colleges.”
Conant—a Santa Cruz High School alumna who now works in Kigali, Rwanda—believes it’s easy for Judge to win over audiences because of the relatable nature of her humor. “Erin is hilarious because the world is hilarious,” explains Conant. “She is a fiercely intelligent and a down-to-earth observer. She articulates the jokes that have been hovering like groupies on the edge of our consciousness, so there’s an ‘Oh wow, totally!’ moment at the peak of each punchline.”
Joining Judge at her upcoming Broadway Playhouse gig will be Bay Area boy wonder Chris Garcia, whom she met at the Bridgetown Comedy Festival in Portland, Ore. last year. He says he’s looking forward to sharing the stage with Judge. “It boggles my mind when a comic with such a distinct point of view doesn’t isolate an audience,” says Garcia. “Erin pulls it off because she’s genuine, smart, and funny as hell.”
Erin Judge will record her first live comedy album at 8 p.m. Friday, March 30 and Saturday, March 31, at The Broadway Playhouse, 526 Broadway St., Santa Cruz. Tickets are $20/general, $15/students. Chris Garcia and Dave Thomason open the show.
Litigants say DA’s office is withholding documents in animal cruelty lawsuit
The video footage taken inside of local Cal-Cruz Hatcheries, Inc. in 2009 shows the mutilated bodies of dead or dying chicks and ducklings that lay trapped beneath processing machinery, newly hatched chicks with open bloody wounds, exposed organs, and mutilated feet and legs gasping for air in bins, and workers tossing baby birds into a bucket of liquid waste where they struggle to escape before drowning. The footage also depicts workers dumping unwanted hatchlings by the bucket-load into an eggshell disposal chute and forced, alive, down a clogged drain with a pole and high-powered hose.
If and when local cities plan to follow in the county’s footsteps
Many local shoppers are accustomed to no longer hearing the once common question of “paper or plastic?” as they check out at the market. This is because of grocery stores like New Leaf Community Markets, which offer only paper bags and encourage shoppers to bring in reusable, multi-use bags. Across California, reusable shopping bags have become a staple of environmentalism and consumer responsibility in many counties.
What is currently being done at the state level to address the foreclosure crisis?
Several weeks ago, California and 48 other states agreed to a $25 billion legal settlement with the nation’s five largest banks based on their illegal practice of robo-signing foreclosure documents. As a result of this settlement, five pieces of legislation known as the California Homeowner Bill of Rights have been introduced in the legislature to enact aspects of the agreement.
Youth smoking rates have not declined since 2004
Classy, cool, badass, sophisticated—nobody thinks of smoking in these terms anymore. Or so we thought. The recent release of the Surgeon General’s first report on youth smoking since 1994 unearthed some surprising realities, such as that, although the percentage of youth smokers under 18 years old had been steadily declining since 1997, progress rates stalled in 2004 and have not decreased since then.
The trend of stalled progress rings true here in Santa Cruz County, where youth smoking has also not declined since 2004. According to the Santa Cruz County Tobacco Education Coalition, 40 percent of middle school and high school students report having tried cigarettes. “Smoking sort of goes with the town’s chill, beachy vibe,” local student Stephanie, who gave only her first name, opines.
SLUG REPORT > Pew grant awarded to Santa Cruz’s Stephan Munch
This year, the Pew Environment Group awarded the 2012 PEW Fellowship grant to six marine science specialists working in the field of environmental research. Stephan Munch, Ph.D, one of the six recipients of the award, is a faculty researcher at UC Santa Cruz and a fisheries ecologist at the National Marine Fisheries Agency, which is located near Natural Bridges.
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