The members of the Cinematic Syndicate get it all on film
Their equipment arsenal is small but expanding, their team works in constant collaboration, and their plan of attack is specially crafted for each job. They are the Cinematic Syndicate, a local video and production collective, fresh out of college, working to capture and expose unique characters, business ventures, artists and miscellaneous niches of the Santa Cruz area.
The ultimate mission of the Cinematic Syndicate is to evoke the spread of transformative ideas through video, audio, and web media.

Editor’s note: The poems of Lisa Ortiz have appeared in “Zyzzyva,” “Comstock Review,” “The Dirty Napkin,” “Pedestal,” and “Crab Creek Review.” She was a recipient of a 2007 and 2008 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize, and her work has been featured on “Verse Daily.”

For all those fortunate people attending the release party of Bargetto Winery’s La Vita 2006 in May, it was a perfect day of wine, food and ambiance.

In the winery’s beautiful Creek Side Courtyard overlooking Soquel Creek, hors d’oeuvres are passed, luscious wines are tasted, music is played—and a buzz of excitement is in the air before the unveiling of La Vita 2006.

This is no ordinary wine. It’s produced from a unique blend of northern Italian varietals grown in Bargetto’s estate vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Made up of 58 percent Dolcetto, 24 percent Refosco and 18 percent Nebbiolo, this handcrafted wine is aged for two and a half years in oak barrels, and then aged for an additional 18 months in the bottle.

At Costanoa’s Cascade Bar and Grille, KOA melds magnificently with sustainable haute cuisine
I had been looking forward to our anniversary get-away weekend. In addition to the obvious, it held the opportunity to experience a trio of recommended restaurants. Driving north on Highway 1 on a Saturday morning, with bucolic farms on one side and flocks of parasurfers hovering over whitecaps on the other, cares quickly vanished.

Just two miles north of Año Nuevo State Reserve, we turned right onto tree-lined Rossi Road towards our first stop, Costanoa. We checked into our Douglas fir cabin and reviewed the day’s extensive activity list. Sandwiched between face painting and burger BBQs was wine tasting at Cascade Bar and Grille.

With June 12 rapidly approaching, I decided to prepare for National Peanut Butter Cookie Day. These snacks formed the basis of my first cooking lesson; placing balls of dough on a cookie sheet and smashing them with the tines of a fork to form the characteristic matrix on top. My mom only allowed cookies that we made from scratch, so needless to say I was frequenting the kitchen by the time of my seventh birthday.

Chuck Prophet found songs and swine flu in Mexico
Outside the domain of ethnocentrism, and beyond the lull of patriotic fervor, lives Bay Area singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet. His songs present an America that is full of fatherless sons, wayward youth and love just around the next corner. With a baritone voice that is overly compared to Tom Petty, Prophet inhabits a unique California sound that is one part Woody Guthrie and the rest rock ’n’ roll.

On nearly any given day of the week you can find DJ Tom LG (Lakos-Galleguillos) dressed to the nines, spinning big band swing and jazz (Sides Speakeasy Monday nights at the 515), early R&B (The Red Light Night, Fridays  at The Red), and ragtime and rockabilly (Atom & Eve at Motiv every other Wednesday); plus a plethora of added gigs all as unique, original and classy as the vintage attire that people wear to dance to his sets. All of this makes him one of the hardest working DJs on the scene.

I think the pros are more jobs in Santa Cruz, people working on the plant, etc. The cons would be if the plant itself creates a lot of pollution or makes a lot of noise in a residential neighborhood, or if it requires an increase in taxes.

Evin Murphy
Bonny Doon | Land Surveyor

If you haven’t already heard of local Danny Keith (and his innovative youth-helping-youth approach to curbing hunger), you must be living under a rock. But that doesn’t have to stop you from helping him become People Magazine’s “All-Stars Among Us” 2010 winner. He is one of three nominees in the running for the San Francisco Bay Area, gaining the nod because of the success his charity Grind Out Hunger, in conjuncture with Second Harvest Food Bank, has seen in Santa Cruz (they’ve collected more than 500,000 pounds of food for children!). To vote for Keith, visit mlb.com/peopleallstarsamongus and click on San Francisco Giants. Voting ends June 20. 

Local company looks to reinvent electric vehicle technology, boost green industry
For many, the word “motorcycle” conjures up the sounds and smells of roaring engines and the kind of mechanical monsters known for startling unsuspecting pedestrians with a mere flick of the wrist. But Zero Motorcycles, a local developer and manufacturer of 100 percent electric motorcycles, is hoping to change that perception—one green bike at a time.