A man was shot while riding in a car just before 2pm in Santa Cruz at the heavily traveled intersection of Ocean Street and San Lorenzo Boulevard.
As Santa Cruz Police raced to the scene, the victim was rushed to Dominican Hospital in a private vehicle.
The suspect is still at large, and considered armed and dangerous.
This article will be updated.
SYLVIE WTH CAREER WOMAN Ben Schwab juggles multiple projects simultaneously: In the duo Golden Daze, he and bandmate Jacob Loeb evoke flower-scented folk harmonies akin to Fleet Foxes. In Michael Collins’ L.A. outfit, Drugdealer, Schwab helps meld psych-pop yacht-rock. Sylvie, meanwhile, is Schwab’s baby. Working out of his garage studio, he’s in complete control as a songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and engineer. Schwab’s heart-on-the-sleeve ballad “Falls On Me” delves into a breakup and, subsequently, a period of personal growth. An ensemble of piano, bass, drums and slide guitar yields a soft-rock vibe of Seals & Croft and a tempo resembling a dimly lit grand ballroom. 17-year-old Los Angeles singer-songwriter Melody Caudill’s project, Career Woman, has been in the works since she learned how to play piano at 4. Caudill picked up the ukulele at 13, then the guitar. With inspirations from artists like Priscilla Ahn, Phoebe Bridgers, and Elliott Smith, the prodigy pens tunes laced with writes with juxtaposition buoyancy and vulnerability. $18/$22 plus fees. Wednesday, April 12, 8pm. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. folkyeah.com
JESSE DANIEL WITH TWO RUNNER “Make the kind of music you want to make, and do what’s true to yourself, and the right people will find it, and they will be into it,” Jesse Daniel told me about a year ago before he performed The Catalyst. That sold-out show turned out to be the Santa Cruz County native’s recently released My Kind Of Country Live at The Catalyst—fun fact: It’s the first album recorded at The Catalyst since Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s Touch The Night – Santa Cruz 1984. Don’t be fooled by Daniel’s aw-shucks sensibility; his sound, informed by various influences from Merle Haggard to X’s John Doe to traditional Texas two-step, adds up to high-energy live performances without a moment to breathe. Throughout the years, Daniel and his band have toured and shared stages with Tyler Childers, Sierra Ferrell, Charley Crockett, American Aquarium, Turnpike Troubadours and many others. In 2022, he clocked over 50,000 miles. He aims to surpass that in 2023. “The Catalyst was kind of as big as it gets in my world,” Daniel says. “To headline the main stage, let alone sell it out and make a record there, is a huge accomplishment for me, and I’m forever grateful to my Santa Cruz County friends, fans and family for supporting what we do.” $24/$27 plus fees. Friday, April 14, 8pm. The Catalyst, 1101 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. catalystclub.com
AJ LEE AND BLUE SUMMIT WITH WOLF JETT While AJ Lee grew up immersed in the bluegrass world, by the time she assembled AJ Lee and Blue Summit in 2015—based out of Santa Cruz at the time—she had expanded her influences to include folk-rock, soul, blues and even jazz. The evidence runs throughout their 2019 debut, Like I Used To. Two years later, I’ll Come Back jumps even further from traditional bluegrass, focusing more on the connection between the bandmembers. This connection might even be likened to what the Grateful Dead achieved. Lee is already considered a veteran of the bluegrass scene—she’s a nine-time winner of the Northern California Bluegrass Awards for best female vocalist. Her musical wisdom surpasses her 25 years on the planet. “Put Your Head Down,” one of Blue Summit’s newer tunes, is a testament to Lee’s songwriting talent. The band’s carefully crafted instrumentation, which conjures a frenzy of franticness, is described by the band’s violinist Jan Purat as “chill and fiery.” $15/$20 plus fees. Friday, April 14, 8pm. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. moesalley.com
OBJECT COLLECTION: HOUSECONCERT – ‘PARANORMAL-DOMESTIC ACTIONS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER’ Written and directed by Kara Feely, composed by Travis Just, performed by Catrin Lloyd-Bollard, Kara Feely, Travis Just, Daniel Allen Nelson, Nicolás Noreña, James Oldham and Timothy Scott, Object Collection’s history is intimately connected with house concerts. The ghosts of Jack Smith, Sam Rivers and all those who blended their art with their homes will be summoned, igniting the most basic form of a community: “A performance at the end of time, the last house concert of them all. Or the first, before everything. Casual, using whatever is at hand. After everything has been done, we do this anyway because this is what we do with our guests in our house. Getting amongst it.” $22/$16.50; $11/students. Friday, April 14 and Saturday. April 15, 8:30pm. Indexical, 1050 River St., #119, Santa Cruz. indexical.org
SMOKE CHASER The Bay Area sextet peddles madly catchy tunes fueled by towering vocals, spellbinding rhythms and psychedelic excursions. Malinda DeRouen, the Suborbitals’ Ryan Masters and members of a spectral East Bay digital collective, Smoke Chaser, erupted onto the scene in 2022 and are planning to release their full-length debut, Alazapul, this summer. The group’s first single, “Highway One,” is described as “a celebration of sex, Big Sur and Henry Miller,” and it’s already scored radio play in the Monterey Bay area. With lyrical moments like, “Henry Miller says he’s gonna live again if only to have a lot more sex,” it’s hard not to listen. Free. Saturday, April 15, 7pm. Brookdale Lodge, 11570 Hwy 9, Brookdale. brookdalelodge.com
DREAMING OF YOU: SELENA TRIBUTE 2023 “With a positive attitude, you can be anything you want to be,” the late great singer Selena said. It’s a perfect mantra to inspire the community and come together to pay tribute to the legend. DJ Moi will spin tunes spanning the iconic songstress’s career. Additionally, there will be live performances from local bands, a lookalike and lip-sync contest, various art activities for the kiddos and food and drink from over a dozen food trucks and vendors. Bring the whole family and celebrate Selena and the community—Courtesy of Arte del Corazon. Free (donations appreciated). Saturday, April 15, noon-5pm. Romo Park, 335 Main St., Watsonville. artedelcorazon.com
THE RESIDENTS Since the mid-1960s, Bob, Carlos, Randy, Chuck and Hardy Fox, aka the Residents, have released so many records no one is quite sure of the exact count—or, maybe, they simply stopped counting after 50. Anyway, the experimental avant-garde rockers, known for sporting large eyeball masks—or other unsettling disguises—during performances to shield their identities, take unsaid pride in creating some of the oddest music ever to claim to be pop. “The whole idea of identity when you’re dealing with the Residents is not quite normal,” Homer Flynn, a representative of the Cryptic Corporation and the band’s official spokesman, told The Brooklyn Rail. “There’s personal identity, and there’s personal identity. The Residents know who they are, and they’re comfortable with that.” Fair enough! $30/$45 plus fees. Saturday, April 15, 8pm. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. folkyeah.com
VIVE OAXACA GUELAGUETZA Guelaguetza—a Zapotec word that means “a commitment of sharing and cooperation”—is a celebration that “honors the gods for sufficient rainfall and a bountiful harvest.” Senderos’ festival returns with a packed lineup of entertainment dedicated to showcasing the culture of Oaxaca. This year’s celebration features special guests from Mexico’s largest state. The roaster includes Danzantes from La Villa De Zaachila, Bailarines from Huajuapan de León y Tlaxiaco, Banda de Centro de Integración Social No. 8 and Banda Filarmónica Infantil Juvenil “Macedonio Alcalá.” $10; Free/kids 5 and under. Sunday, April 16, 10am-4pm. Branciforte Small Schools, 840 N. Branciforte Ave., Santa Cruz. scsenderos.org/events
WHISPERS FROM OTHER WORLDS Retired Director of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, Thomas Zurbuchen, and science journalist Nadia Drake will discuss life beyond Earth. The lecture will first frame the discussion of looking for extraterrestrial life in the context of the famed 1961 Drake equation, a framework that connects physical, chemical and biological processes with the development of detectable civilizations within our galaxy. The speakers will then cover three ways in which NASA’s science program focuses on identifying signatures of life elsewhere in the universe. A moderated discussion and Q&A will follow the presentation. Free. Monday, April 17, 6:30pm. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. astrobiology.science.ucsc.edu
REUNION! TRIO: BRUCE FORMAN, JOHN CLAYTON AND JEFF HAMILTON “I have been able to bring their instruments together again,” renowned guitarist Bruce Forman says. “And I’m doubly gratified that all of us involved—John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, myself—have played together in myriad situations.” Forman elaborates: “I recently became caretaker of Barney Kessel’s guitar. Besides being a music icon, Kessel was my mentor and friend. Since his death, I’ve played the guitar when visiting his widow and did so until she was compelled to put it up for auction. Due to a recent occurrence—more like a paranormal intervention—I’ve gotten it back. Forman has long since dreamed of reuniting instruments played by Barney, Ray Brown and Shelly Manne (the Poll Winners) with their protégés. Besides being jazz giants, they were also studio stalwarts who played music on movies, TV and popular hits” by everyone from Elvis to the Beach Boys. $42/$47.25; $23.50/students. Monday, April 17, 7pm. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. kuumbwajazz.org
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Lyndsey Jordan has lived a lot of life in her 23 years. Since picking up the guitar at the precocious age of five, the indie rocker—who performs as Snail Mail—wrote her acclaimed debut album, Lush, while in high school. She then spent time in a rehab facility for what her record label calls “a young life colliding with sudden fame and success.” Thankfully, that wasn’t the end of her story, as her latest release, Valentine, finds the young artist expanding her sound with synths, strings and polish.
Jordan says she is unsure why she gravitated toward music at such a young age. She admits that her parents weren’t musical people.
“I think I just wanted something to do and was really drawn to music from a young age and thought guitars were cool,” she says from her home state of Maryland while getting an oil change.
Raised outside of Baltimore, Maryland, Jordan built upon her early passion for music by taking guitar lessons from indie rock legend Mary Timony (Helium, Wild Flag, Ex Hex) as a teenager.
“She taught me a good amount of technical stuff and gave me a good amount of advice stuff,” Jordan says of Timony.
Jordan notes that she only took lessons from Timony for less than a year but that the wise musician’s influence can be heard throughout Lush. “I’ve definitely stolen Helium tunings,” she says. “‘Speaking Terms’ is in a Helium tuning.”
Lush was written mainly by Jordan when she was 15 and had free time after high school. Standout songs on the impressive debut include “Pristine,” which recalls ’90s indie guitar rock, and “Heat Wave,” a dreamy tune featuring well-placed electric guitar eruptions.
“Pristine” and “Heat Wave” are approachable but unique, without traditional song elements like a noticeable chorus. Jordan admits that she was unbounded by convention when writing her first album. “I didn’t know what people thought about Snail Mail,” she says. “I don’t know if people had expectations, so I feel like it was a pure place of creativity. It was kind of untainted.”
Jordan was working on the follow-up to Lush when she checked into an Arizona recovery facility for 45 days. It was challenging to keep moving forward with the new songs; she couldn’t have any musical instruments, recording equipment or a phone.
“I had seven songs already and was just trying to develop them intentionally away from instruments and what lyrics sound good in my head,” she says of writing in rehab. “But it was hard. I was like, ‘What key is this in again?’ ‘What chord does it start on?’ I couldn’t even think of the melodies sometimes.”
After leaving Arizona, Jordan traveled to Durham, North Carolina, to work with Brad Cook, a Grammy-nominated producer who has made albums with Waxahatchee, Hiss Golden Messenger, Hurray for the Riff Raff and others. 2021’s Valentine veers from the funky synth sound of “Ben Franklin” to the serene “Light Blue” to “Forever (Sailing),” which boasts a chorus that nods to ’80s pop-rock.
Jordan says that the new sounds on Valentine were a result of curiosity and resources. “Getting label money to make it sound however I want kind of opens the door,” she says. “Sometimes it feels like there are too many possibilities; it feels like it is exciting to dive into things that I don’t know how to do.”
The album’s lyrics don’t shy away from addressing what was happening in her life then. On “Ben Franklin,” Jordan sings: “Post-rehab, I’ve been feeling so small.” The title track finds her asking, “So why’d you wanna erase me? Darling, Valentine.”
“The record is based on a time in my life and a relationship in my life,” Jordan explains.
Valentine was released almost a year and a half ago. Jordan says she has been writing new songs but will not give details about a possible next album.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss,” she says. “It’s probably a long way off, honestly.”
While she is hesitant to talk about what she is working on, Jordan is excited to tout the other bands that she is touring with—the Brooklyn experimental pop duo Water From Your Eyes and Dazy, a Richmond, Virginia-based band that recalls the classic alt-rock of groups like Weezer, Jesus & the Mary Chain and Oasis. The former’s new song “Barley” is a somewhat jarring bit of dance music with crunchy guitar, proclaimed “Best New Music” by the hipster website Pitchfork.
“I have been a fan of that band forever,” Jordan says of Water From Your Eyes. “Dazy, I just found out about, but I really like the songs. It’s really important to me that we are able to pick our openers because there’s just so much sludge out there, you know?”
Rob Brezsny’s “Free Will Astrology” columns, reflections and meditations fill thousands and thousands of pages.
His forthcoming opus, Astrology Is Real: Revelations from My Life as a Horoscope Columnist, covers 598 pages; his subsequent novel Lucky Storms adds enough (752 pages) that it will be split in two.
With this issue of Good Times, where the column first appeared back when Jimmy Carter was president, his horoscopes will be published for the 2,357th consecutive week.
Given the density and divinity woven into his insights, 70,000 words in columns alone every year delivers a lot.
But the soul of all that can be distilled down to one word: love.
Brezsny-style love.
Delirious, absurd, passionate, irrational, observational, strategic and sustainable love. Love for the finch at his birdfeeder, the eelgrass by the shore, the guy who stole his bike.
He describes it as “a chronic form of ecstatic awareness.”
Not long after introducing me to the phrase, he shared a piece he wrote in 2022 to help illustrate the habit, adding that the notes “are kinda beyond the parameters we’re working with, but you may enjoy it for your own purposes.”
Sign me up. And for Brezsny’s long-running newsletter.
Here appears that passage, in part:
In order to understand anyone or anything, you have to love it. I don’t mean romantic passion from it, or express any version of love that is tinged with expectation or sentimentality …
To open yourself up with love to an iris or redwood tree or hermit crab is to assert that you find it worthy enough to bestow blessings upon; and furthermore, that you find it worthy of communicating with …
You’re proving you’re receptive to its specific intelligence speaking through its special language—not your own intelligence and language.
This gives the living thing—iris, redwood or crab—a great gift.
I’m not being metaphorical or poetic here. I’m not using fairy tale logic. My meaning is literal…
The gift you receive is double: You’re able to get out of yourself, able to transcend your narrow interests and intelligence sufficiently, to learn how to understand the iris or redwood or crab in its native tongue.
Conversations with Brezsny for this piece traversed all sorts of places—readers of his column, which appears in 90-plus publications in North America and Italy, France, Japan and the Netherlands—know the far-flung flight pattern. I was most interested in unlocking that awareness.
But first, his tale had to travel to Santa Cruz.
His arrival on these shores came partly inspired by a scribble on a bathroom stall at a Roy Rogers restaurant in North Carolina: “I got Santa Cruzified and Californicated and it felt like paradise,” it read. “You know you’ll never become the artist you were meant to be until you come live in Santa Cruz.”
The would-be oracle listened. By 1978, he was rotating between a sleeping bag in San Lorenzo Park and a room with a shared bathroom in the original St. George Hotel. To supplement his food stamp diet, he would sit through an hour of service and sermon at a local church to enjoy lentil soup and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
The theft of his bicycle—which he views as a blessing—sent him to the pages of Good Times. There, amid other classified ads, he saw the newspaper was looking for a new astrologer.
His first column appeared on Jan. 26, 1978, and has returned every week since. The related tale occupies a chapter called “Accidental Bonanza” in Astrology Is Real.
“I considered newspaper horoscopes to be an abomination,” he offers. “Without exception, they were poorly written and dull. They encourage people to be superstitious and often made the spurious implication that astrology preaches predetermination and annuls free will.”
Along the way, Brezsny studied poetry at UCSC with William Everson; he worked as a restaurant janitor; wrote “Dark Ages,” a song recorded by Jefferson Starship; he anchored three popular rock bands (Kamikaze Angel Slander, Tao Chemical and World Entertainment War) and ran for Santa Cruz City Council.
As part of his council campaign, he published a Little Yellow Book, a wink to Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s Little Red Book.
“Thomas Jefferson and I constitute a DREAM TICKET because we are an extraordinarily balanced team,” he writes in Little Yellow Book. “He’s from the south, I’m from the west. He’s an Aries, I’m a Moon Child. He’s an aristocratic populist, I’m a poor artist. He’s a law-abiding, law-creating agnostic, I’m an outlaw saint. He’s a celebrity spirit, I’m a little known human. He’s had five children by a woman he kept as a slave, I’ve had no children by women who are fully my equal.”
His magic thinking clicked with locals. His campaign was so successful he took out an ad in the Santa Cruz Sun asking residents to reconsider voting for him (i.e., Please don’t!) because his platform was performance, not politics.
Meanwhile, though he was born in Borger, Texas, spent his childhood in Michigan and Ohio, lived as a teenager in New Jersey and has called Marin marshlands home for three decades, Brezsny came to understand how he’s constructed on a molecular level.
“I’m made of Santa Cruz,” he says. “I’m Santa Cruz taken to the world at large.”
Like “Free Will Astrology” and Brezsny himself, Astrology is Real checks many thought boxes while answering its underlying question: “Yes! Astrology is real—though not in the same sense that the Golden Gate Bridge is real; astrology is real in the way that an Emily Dickinson poem is real.”
“It’s a blend of a memoir, oracles for readers and essays about the art of astrology and mythopoetic intelligence,” Brezsny explains. “The eclectic tone ranges from pop to literary; from lyrical to philosophical; from searing critiques of hyper-rational, machine-style thinking to a celebration of the scientific method and soulful thinking.”
Like his previous book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, it doesn’t require linear learning. Jumping in at p. 105 for an avalanche of inspiring quotes (“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul”) or p. 483 for sign-specific reflections (“SCORPIO: What was the pain or suffering that healed you the most?“) is not only doable but encouraged.
Brezsny describes his books as workshops for his chronic-ecstatic awareness. The “chronic” part synergizes with the prolific pace he writes: This awareness he keeps is a practice, not an accomplishment; a verb, not a noun; an ongoing trip rather than a destination.
And he’s inviting everyone along for a ride on the zodiac.
Way back when, last time I visited you in Marin—on a blue moon right before the end of the ’00s—you told me the next project would be a book on mastering a “chronic form of ecstatic awareness.” Does that hold?
ROB BREZSNY: In some ways, all my books are about that. The books serve as my laboratory to cultivate, refine and deepen that awareness, to make it work in new and ever-fresh ways.
For me to live in ecstatic awareness, for the prayer to work, I have to keep reinventing it. That’s the paradox, the great uproarious up-flow of creative power.
You mention “altered states” as key.
The key to chronic ecstatic awareness is to continually cultivate altered states. I don’t think we need psychedelics for that, though I’m all in favor of that technology for those who find it helpful.
For me, the playful work of getting into altered states is not just an either-or thing. It’s not a matter of either being in routine, mundane consciousness or else tripping one’s brains out. There are a trillion in-between altered states.
We can create altered states from moment to moment with our beginner’s mind unfurled—being willing to play with and love whatever’s in front of us. The fun trick is to be in a state of full-body readiness in which we are surpriseable and receptive to the possibility of being delighted, influenced, educated.
Pure perception is our ever-available entry into altered states. If we open our eyes, open our ears and become fully welcoming to what’s in front of us, we’re going to be changed. Every moment brings something we’ve never experienced before.
An example right now would be how your question germinated in me a stream of revelations and ideas.
[Meditation practitioner and molecular biologist] Jon Kabat-Zinn said, “Mindfulness is wise and affectionate attention.”
Borrowing from the Hindu school of Lila, I’m very much immersed in the understanding that life is the divine play of God and Goddess. We are participants in a sublime, mysterious art project.
At the core of the action is relationship and interplay. The intimate back-and-forth constantly reinvents and reinvigorates and reveals. As we improvise and transform, responding to each other’s improvisations, we have the blissful power to be each other’s muses.
Elizabeth Gilbert said, “You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate.”
I choose to be inclined toward coalescing altered states of awareness that override and outwit my habit mind.
And that receptivity is important, as you point out in a chapter from Pronoia, even when you encounter, say, white supremacists.
My habit mind tends toward progressive political ideas. That’s fine. If my habit mind happens to be conditioned by something noble and beautiful, I approve.
But I remind myself not to be continually enraged about the toxic culture that evangelical Christians create and its danger to human life. I can’t live with grace if I’m pumped up with overwhelming indignation, for one thing.
And though the wrath might motivate me to take action on behalf of social justice, which is a good thing, too much anger can be draining and demoralizing.
Talking with my therapist, I came to a useful realization: The right-wing bigots and haters are acting out of primal terror. They are scared to death of the beautiful new world that’s coming. I saw and felt this in a visceral way because I was willing to momentarily set aside my fury, my habit mind, so as to behold their naked depths.
This realization doesn’t make me any less fervent about neutralizing the bigots’ toxic effects. But it enables me to relax into a more visionary and strategic understanding of what I’m up against.
I admire the Buddhist practice of adopting detachment from turmoil and angst. It’s healthy for me to cultivate a serene, poised center of gravity in the midst of chaos.
But the objectivity I strive for in my detachment is very warm and wet. It’s imbued with love and empathy. That’s the only way I can truly understand anyone or anything.
One of my favorite thoughts from you goes like this: “True meaningfulness doesn’t exist unless it’s in relationship to someone or something,” which you echo later (“My happiness is meaningless unless I’m working on the happiness of others.”) Can you expand on that?
The planet Uranus in our charts indicates where our greatest gifts overlap with our greatest genius. [More on p. 275 in the book.]
[From Astrology Is Real: “I believe [Uranus] signifies the talents and superpowers we harbor that would be most beneficial to others. If we fully develop these potentials, they will express our unique genius and be useful to our fellow humans.”]
As theologian Frederick Buechner writes: “God calls you to the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
Another of my favorite thoughts of yours: “I believe the imagination is the most important asset we all possess.” Please riff.
Imagination can be an energy drain, a fear-inducing curse if used lazily.
But if used well, it’s how we create everything beautiful in our lives. It’s the origin of all manifest.
See my piece on p. 139 in Astrology Is Real, titled “You Are a Prophet.”
[“It’s downright self-destructive to keep infecting our imaginations with pictures of loss and failure, doom and gloom, fear and loathing. The far more sensible and practical approach is to expect blessings.”]
You often return to the importance of dream work.
One of the great places to go exploring the depths is dreams.
They are full of puns, unexpected events and playful twists and jokes.
They surprise.
That’s a good statement about the nature of playing in the depths: You have to be improvisatory, ready for anything …
Stars are still there in the sky when the sun is up; we just can’t see them because the sun is so bright and loud.
Likewise, stories just keep flowing ever-on from our depths, though they may be less visible when daytime awareness comes, and our ego awareness is so bright.
Some of those endless stories are dull, shaggy dog stories or the activities of our habit minds processing nonsense. But some are evocative and interesting and potentially useful or inspirational.
Just as dreams come in all genres, our ever-flowing stories are of all genres. Our stories offer us a nonstop array of altered states.
What did you say in the ad discouraging people from voting for you for Santa Cruz City Council?
I was honest. I wanted to disabuse potential voters of the notion that I was a straightforward, no-nonsense candidate.
I assured them poetry and performance art would be a key part of my repertoire as a City Councilmember—just as they had been during the campaign.
I told them I would consult my dreams and use astrology and divination as I pondered what positions I should take.
In other words, I would act like myself.
As the waters begin to recede from the recent floods that ravaged South Santa Cruz and North Monterey County, residents have been returning to their homes and starting to clear the debris that overtook their dwellings.
In Watsonville, homeowners are getting help from members of the community that know displacement well: the unhoused.
On a sunny Wednesday morning last week, volunteers from various local organizations converged on the Drew Lake neighborhood in Interlaken. The crew of about 15 people included volunteers from Trash Talkers, Watsonville Wetlands Watch and Watsonville Works.
The devastation to the area was extreme. In the weeks prior, the county brought pumps to drain about 20 million gallons of water out of the inundated homes and roads.
From early morning until noon, volunteers filled up giant metal containers with mud, carpets and other household items that were destroyed by the overflowing waters of Drew Lake in mid-March. Donning neon yellow vests, the volunteers from Watsonville Works hustled in and out of homes, pushing wheelbarrows full of refuse or carrying debris by hand.
Watsonville Works is run by the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County (CAB) and provides job readiness to unhoused individuals in South County. It also assists them with acquiring a permanent residence as they transition out of homelessness.
In South County, many of the unhoused have roots in the community and have been making themselves available to assist—it’s an opportunity to show personal growth. Community-based programs like Watsonville Works are a crucial bridge toward stability for them.
Manuel Jimenez was on his second day back with the Watsonville Works clean-up crew after a three-month stint with the program last year. A 30-year resident of Watsonville and former construction worker, Jimenez is currently unhoused and is staying at the Salvation Army shelter downtown.
Jimenez feels a sense of purpose, assisting residents as they begin the recovery process.
“I’m proud that I can help because they are people whose homes were flooded,” Jimenez says. “This is the reality. We have to help.”
Watsonville Works started in 2019 as a transitional work experience program for the unhoused in a collaboration between CAB and the City of Watsonville’s Public Works and Utilities Department. Since then, it has partnered with state employment programs and expanded into projects like clearing homeless encampments and syringe pick-up.
Felipe Ponce, the crew leader, and case manager for Watsonville Works, has been with the program for the last three years. As a truck hauls a packed dumpster from the clean-up site, Ponce says this work gratifies his team.
“They feel great,” he says. “They love it. It’s some hard work, but in the end, [that work] comes out to be the best.”
Michael Rodriguez has been a Watsonville Works crew volunteer for three years. He moved to the Watsonville area from Phoenix 20 years ago and, in recent years, has battled alcoholism and drug addiction. He says that organizations like CAB and the Watsonville Works program can help other people like him as they try to recover.
After getting clean, Rodriguez gives back to the community and tries to help others. He has worked with Victory Outreach Church of Santa Cruz as a director for Recovery Home, a sober living program. As a staff member for Watsonville Works, he is determined to help his needy neighbors.
“I’m here to support Watsonville, my city,” Rodriguez says. “We’re here in the mud, but it doesn’t matter; we’re here to help the people.”
Robert Kostreba’s home sits at the end of the road on the edge of Drew Lake. It was completely flooded, and he returned recently to assess the damage. The 76-year-old was staying at a motel and was overwhelmed by the recovery task ahead.
“All these folks showed up with a dumpster,” Kostreba says. “I was desperate because I couldn’t find anybody [to help]. Thank God for all these people.”
The crew is helping Kostreba clear his garage by shoveling mud and hauling debris. A jacuzzi lays on its side in the yard behind the building, ready to be dismantled and removed.
When asked what he would like the community to know about the efforts that day, Kostreba was overcome with emotion.
“I just want it known that all these people came together,” he says.
As this year’s winter storms battered the area, the South County community grew increasingly frustrated with the lack of urgency by state and federal officials to assist the region. After the devastation of the Pajaro flood in Monterey County, the state reluctantly requested federal assistance as local officials urged them to do so. On April 3, more than three weeks after the Pajaro flood, President Biden signed a disaster declaration for Monterey County.
In South Santa Cruz County, the community has learned to rely on each other and to take a proactive approach. Before the first storms hit in December 2022, residents were already preparing for the worst. Felipe Ponce’s Watsonville Works crew and other community volunteers filled sandbags on the frontline.
“We had about 17 people [volunteering],” Ponce says. “We did it; we were out there, rain or shine. We’re here to give back to the community.”
According to Paz Padilla, the director of Programs and Impact for CAB, about 80,000 pounds of sand was bagged and distributed in three days in early January at locations in Watsonville. She says that the Covid-19 pandemic taught the CAB staff the importance of adaptability, and those lessons were crucial in pivoting their services towards storm response.
The glacial pace of state and federal response is not new. Santa Cruz County Supervisor Felipe Hernandez, whose district includes most of Pajaro and Watsonville, has seen the community come together in the face of natural disasters. The winter floods are the most recent example, but he remembers a similar community effort after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
“The state response, the federal response was not there,” Hernandez says. “This is a community that comes together in times of crisis, and I think it’s always going to be that way here in the Pajaro Valley.”
Hernandez says that the collaboration between nonprofits like CAB and local government is a model that should be replicated in other counties and municipalities. He is proud of the individuals transitioning from homelessness, playing a crucial role in such times.
“Putting the houseless back to work instills a sense of community and a sense of work ethic back into folks,” Hernandez says.
The first gender-neutral restroom I saw was in Santa Cruz in the early ’90s at the Saturn Cafe. Painted in bright, psychedelic letters on the two bathroom doors was one word: “Humans.”
Walking into the bathroom, I felt like Alice going through the looking glass into the wonderland that awaits when one starts questioning social constructs. For the first time, I paused to consider a broader definition of gender beyond the binary of woman and man. The revelation, like Saturn’s tomato soup, blew my teenage mind. I didn’t know any people openly identifying as transgender—yet. At that moment, I couldn’t envision the reality of gender-neutral restrooms in my school.
Nearly 30 years after my first encounter with a nonbinary bathroom, teens are working to bring all-gender restrooms to every K-12 school in the state.
A group of students, educators and lawmakers—The Safe Bathrooms Ad Hoc Committee—collaborated to create SB 760, a bill that would direct all public schools to provide gender-neutral restrooms by 2025. Under existing law, schools must provide fully functional bathrooms during school hours, and students have the right to use the restroom corresponding to their gender identification.
The committee and bill were “initiated by students’ voices,” says Ben Kennedy, a trans UCSD graduate student and participant. Kennedy, a Ph.D. student in education policy, says, “Senate Bill 760 is the first bill in California to be fully researched and written by students.”
In October 2021, State Superintendent of Education Tony Thurmond held a forum for LGBTQ+ History Month. Multiple students shared feeling unsafe at school, which included the lack of access to inclusive restrooms. Students told stories of bullying and harassment when trying to use gendered restrooms, saying they often avoided using the bathroom, sometimes all day.
After listening to LGBTQ+ students at the forum, the Department of Education assembled the Ad Hoc Committee, giving the care to select students from diverse backgrounds, says committee participant Josh Dineros, a BA candidate in politics at SFU and former intern in Thurmond’s office.
Participating students, ranging from high school to higher-ed, shared lived experiences, identified student needs and worked through logistics, says Dineros.
Kennedy and Dineros expressed that this bill is about inclusivity, with every student equally safe to access the facilities in their schools.
“You don’t need to understand the nuance of a person’s social identity to recognize that they deserve equal access, respect and safety,” Kennedy says.
Dineros says that as an LGBTQ+-identified person, his teenage self would have benefitted from this option. People don’t realize “how being able to use the restroom isn’t just about the time in the restroom. This positively affects [the rest of their day] as they won’t be preoccupied with ‘I have to pee.’”
Co-sponsors of the bill point to data that indicates LGBTQ+ and non-binary students actively avoid using gender-segregated restrooms because they feel unsafe or uncomfortable doing so. This can lead to emotional stress and medical issues like dehydration and urinary tract infections, leading to more absences and truancy when the student misses school to deal with health concerns.
Ron Indra, director of the Safe Schools Project of Santa Cruz County, hadn’t heard of SB 760, but he leads the forces helping area schools achieve the same ends here in Santa Cruz.
Gender-neutral restrooms are necessary, says Indra, because not all gender-nonconforming or questioning students are out. When a transgender or nonbinary student needs to ask someone or go into staff areas to access a safe restroom, “they are outing themselves.”
Indra, a former teacher and current LGBTQ+ student liaison for the County Office of Education, developed a program for the Safe Schools Project, itself a part of the Queer Youth Task Force of Santa Cruz County, to help schools create gender-neutral restrooms. As far as he knows, the program is the only one of its kind in the state and includes in-service training explaining the needs of transgender students.
“Teachers want to do the right thing,” he says, “but often don’t know how.”
He says Santa Cruz is “miles ahead” of the State curve in providing all-gender restrooms in schools, thanks to partnerships between The Safe Schools Project, receptive districts, the County Office Of Education and the Superintendent of Schools.
Over half, if not three-quarters, of public schools in the county, have already implemented gender-neutral restrooms, Indra says. UCSC provides a list of over twenty all-gender bathrooms all over campus.
While private schools would not be obligated to follow the law if it passes, Indra has already assisted several that have approached him.
Often, creating compliant restrooms is a matter of changing use in existing facilities.
Implementation might only be a matter of changing signage and educating students. Allowing schools to repurpose existing restrooms will make this legislation cost-effective, says Newman, anticipating that opposition will use costliness as an argument against the bill.
“The measure intends to direct school districts to provide bathrooms that are easily accessible, that doesn’t require a key, that doesn’t require someone to identify themselves as in need of a non-gender specific bathroom,” says Newman.
The hope, Newman says, is that implementation will not entail significant expense to cash-strapped districts and can be easily integrated into the current system. Individual schools are free to convert single- or multiple-stall restrooms, as the bill doesn’t mandate new construction of bathrooms.
The bill, facing its first review hearing this upcoming week, hasn’t faced much opposition, Newman says. He is aware of detractors “invested in the culture wars” who are part of a broader movement, but he insists that this is about access.
Some opponents, says Indra, change their thinking with education. While some have the knee-jerk reaction that “straight guys are going into the bathroom to see girls,” he points out that Los Angeles has been implementing all-gender restrooms for a decade. Most often, the faculty, staff and students are on board to make these changes, and parents or people in the community object.
Not only gender nonconforming students would benefit from one-stall, gender-neutral restrooms, Indra also points out. Students with disabilities, medical issues and after-school jobs with uniforms all need privacy.
Unlike my teenage self, my own kids and their friends see gender-neutral restrooms as usual.
Two teens in my unscientific sample, attending two different high schools in two districts within San Jose, say their schools already have one or more all-gender restrooms. Both high schools have repurposed multi-stall rooms. My elementary-age child’s school only has one in the nurse’s office.
Don Lane, an original owner of the Saturn Cafe, doesn’t know if the restaurant was the first public space in Santa Cruz to have all-gender restrooms. The restaurant had fun painting different names on the doors, including “Yes” and “No,” or “Us” and “Them.” Because of their “feminist ethos” and primarily female staff, many interpreted “Us” to mean “Women” and “Them” to mean men, even though that wasn’t the case, laughs Lane.
According to Lane, Saturn, a queer-friendly place, continued the tradition under new ownership, including at their next location on Laurel and Pacific, which featured all-gender, multi-stall restrooms. Lane, who went on to a long career in local politics, thinks SB 760 is good policy.
“My grandchild is non-binary, so they don’t particularly identify as male or female,” Lane says. “Having a neutral choice gives them an easier, clearer option.”
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I hope that in the coming weeks, you will keep your mind bubbling with zesty mysteries. I hope you’ll exult in the thrill of riddles that are beyond your current power to solve. If you cultivate an appreciation of uncanny uncertainties, life will soon begin bringing you uncanny certainties. Do you understand the connection between open-hearted curiosity and fertile rewards? Don’t merely tolerate the enigmas you are immersed in—love them!
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): An old sadness is ripening into practical wisdom. A confusing loss is about to yield a clear revelation you can use to improve your life. In mysterious ways, a broken heart you suffered in the past may become a wild card that inspires you to deepen and expand your love. Wow and hallelujah, Taurus! I’m amazed at the turnarounds that are in the works for you. Sometime in the coming weeks, what wounded you once upon a time will lead to a vibrant healing. Wonderful surprise!
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): What is the true and proper symbol for your sign, Gemini? Twins standing shoulder to shoulder as they gaze out on the world with curiosity? Or two lovers embracing each other with mischievous adoration in their eyes? Both scenarios can accurately represent your energy, depending on your mood and the phase you’re in. In the coming weeks, I advise you to draw on the potency of both. You will be wise to coordinate the different sides of your personality in pursuit of a goal that interests them all. And you will also place yourself in harmonious alignment with cosmic rhythms as you harness your passionate urge to merge in a good cause.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Some scientists speculate that more people suffer from allergies than ever before because civilization has over-sanitized the world. The fetish for scouring away germs and dirt means that our immune systems don’t get enough practice in fending off interlopers. In a sense, they are “bored” because they have too little to do. That’s why they fight stuff that’s not a threat, like tree pollens and animal dander. Hence, we develop allergies to harmless substances. I hope you will apply this lesson as a metaphor in the coming weeks, fellow Cancerian. Be sure the psychological component of your immune system isn’t warding off the wrong people and things. It’s healthy for you to be protective, but not hyper-over-protective in ways that shut out useful influences.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): One night in 1989, Leo evolutionary biologist Margie Profet went to sleep and had a dream that revealed to her new information about the nature of menstruation. The dream scene was a cartoon of a woman’s reproductive system. It showed little triangles being carried away by the shed menstrual blood. Eureka! As Profet lay in bed in the dark, she intuited a theory that no scientist had ever guessed: that the sloughed-off uterine lining had the key function of eliminating pathogens, represented by the triangles. In subsequent years, she did research to test her idea, supported by studies with electron microscopes. Now her theory is regarded as fact. I predict that many of you Leos will soon receive comparable benefits. Practical guidance will be available in your dreams and twilight awareness and altered states. Pay close attention!
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): You don’t know what is invisible to you. The truths that are out of your reach may as well be hiding. The secret agendas you are not aware of are indeed secret. That’s the not-so-good news, Virgo. The excellent news is that you now have the power to uncover the rest of the story, at least some of it. You will be able to penetrate below the surface and find buried riches. You will dig up missing information whose absence has prevented you from understanding what has been transpiring. There may be a surprise or two ahead, but they will ultimately be agents of healing.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Visionary philosopher Buckminster Fuller referred to pollution as a potential resource we have not yet figured out how to harvest. A company called Algae Systems does exactly that. It uses wastewater to grow algae that scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and yield carbon-negative biofuels. Can we invoke this approach as a metaphor that’s useful to you? Let’s dream up examples. Suppose you’re a creative artist. You could be inspired by your difficult emotions to compose a great song, story, painting or dance. Or if you’re a lover who is in pain, you could harness your suffering to free yourself of a bad old habit or ensure that an unpleasant history doesn’t repeat itself. Your homework, Libra, is to figure out how to take advantage of a “pollutant” or two in your world.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Soon you will graduate from your bumpy lessons and enter a smoother, silkier phase. You will find refuge from the naysayers as you create a liberated new power spot for yourself. In anticipation of this welcome transition, I offer this motivational exhortation from poet Gwendolyn Brooks: “Say to them, say to the down-keepers, the sun-slappers, the self-soilers, the harmony-hushers, ‘Even if you are not ready for day, it cannot always be night.'” I believe you are finished with your worthwhile but ponderous struggles, Scorpio. Get ready for an excursion toward luminous grace.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I periodically seek the counsel of a Sagittarian psychic. She’s half-feral and sometimes speaks in riddles. She tells me she occasionally converses by phone with a person she calls “the ex-Prime Minister of Narnia.” I confided in her that lately it has been a challenge for me to keep up with you Sagittarians because you have been expanding beyond the reach of my concepts. She gave me a pronouncement that felt vaguely helpful, though it was also a bit over my head: “The Archer may be quite luxuriously curious and furiously hilarious; studiously lascivious and victoriously delirious; salubriously industrious but never lugubriously laborious.” Here’s how I interpret that: Right now, pretty much anything is possible if you embrace unpredictability.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “I’m not insane,” says Capricorn actor Jared Leto. “I’m voluntarily indifferent to conventional rationality.” That attitude might serve you well in the coming weeks. You could wield it to break open opportunities that were previously closed due to excess caution. I suspect you’re beginning a fun phase of self-discovery when you will learn a lot about yourself. As you do, I hope you will experiment with being at least somewhat indifferent to conventional rationality. Be willing to be surprised. Be receptive to changing your mind about yourself.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): People of all genders feel urges to embellish their native beauty with cosmetic enhancements. I myself haven’t done so, but I cheer on those who use their flesh for artistic experiments. At the same time, I am also a big fan of us loving ourselves exactly as we are. And I’m hoping that in the coming weeks, you will emphasize the latter over the former. I urge you to indulge in an intense period of maximum self-appreciation. Tell yourself daily how gorgeous and brilliant you are. Tell others, too! Cultivate a glowing pride in the gifts you offer the world. If anyone complains, tell them you’re doing the homework your astrologer gave you.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I encourage you to amplify the message you have been trying to deliver. If there has been any shyness or timidity in your demeanor, purge it. If you have been less than forthright in speaking the whole truth and nothing but the truth, boost your clarity and frankness. Is there anything you could do to help your audience be more receptive? Any tenderness you could express to stimulate their willingness and ability to see you truly?
Homework: What’s your favorite lie or deception? newsletter.freewillastrology.com
Picture this: A local legend extracts poetic verse from chicken entrails. Meanwhile, another local legend eats poetry.
The man dissecting the bird—and delivering the accompanying oracular divination—was Jozseph Schultz of the late and great Front Street institution India Joze, which lives on through special events.
The individual digesting refrains written on rice paper is cover-story protagonist Rob Brezsny (see story, and his Free Will Astrology column).
The endeavor was called “Poetry Eating and Poultry Reading.” Even for Santa Cruz in the late ’70s, the “food event” was out there.
The pairing, meanwhile, was organic: Schultz, like Brezsny, is a creative force and a theatrical performer. And they knew each other well because—pre-astrology stardom—Brezsny worked as a janitor at Schultz’s restaurant.
Like he has at every stop on his intergalactic arc, Brezsny extracted tasty crumbs for his writings, in this case, his memoir-ish 2000 novel The Televisionary Oracle. This passage comes at 1:30am on his third night on the job.
“I’m living the dream of any egomaniac who has ever loved the Buddha: to be as empty as the moment between the ticks of the clock….”
“Tonight I wept with unironic joy as I scraped away years-old gunk with a putty knife from a corner behind the bread table….”
“[F]or once in my life I was wildly free of all lust for results. I had lived, if only for an instant, outside of karma.”
I can identify. The most Zen job I’ve enjoyed on this plane was washing dishes at the restaurant of a haunted hotel.
Maybe I was channeling Anthony Bourdain. He once told The Splendid Kitchen: “Had I not become a dishwasher and then a cook, to be perfectly honest, I’m sure I would have slipped into a life of petty criminality, imprisonment and death. Dishwashing saved my life. It was the first time that I went home respecting myself, respecting others, with anything to feel proud of.”
Brezsny observes how emotionally intuitive his fellow Cancerian (Bourdain) proved in connecting with sources and readers through food—often humble, thoughtful and international—much like the pan-Asian fare at India Joze.
“Bourdain was so present, providing a global perspective from local voices,” Brezsny says, “being right here, right now.”
Perhaps this type of talk doesn’t feed your soul as much as India Joze’s “dragon chicken” with its Vietnamese bamboo-shoot-shiitake-mint glaze.
For the more calorically inclined, my three favorite island/fusion/East-leaning local institutions in Santa Cruz, all of which deliver solid values, are below.
AKIRA SUSHI: Here, the creativity—and a robust happy hour—help transcend classic Japanese via items like the deep-fried and sushi-stuffed avocado named Gem of Akira. akirasantacruz.com, akiraaptos.com
CHARLIE HONG KONG: CHK seduces by way of smart salads, rice dishes and noodle bowls like Spicy Dan’s Peanut Delight, Gado Gado and Charlie’s Chow Mein for less than $10. charliehongkong.com
HULA’S ISLAND GRILL: A guaranteed path to order envy. Give me all the seared ahi wontons, abalone-style calamari, blackened wasabi barramundi and spicy tofu tacos. Oh My Goddess, it’s good. hulastiki.com
Gewurztraminer is an anytime kind of wine. And it goes with a variety of foods.
I made a Greek dish of stuffed eggplant and a Greek salad with feta cheese and olives for dinner with friends. Balletto Vineyards’ 2021 Russian River Valley Gewurztraminer pairs perfectly with olive oil-rich food. And this often-overlooked crisp white wine makes such a nice change.
Grown, produced and bottled by Balletto Vineyards in Santa Rosa, the Gewurztraminer ($24) is perfumed with the classic aromas of lychee nut and ripe pear. “Under the fresh fruit,” the Balletto family says, “is an intoxicating splash of spice and lightly nutty aromas that add complexity and interest.”
Balletto Vineyards’ large property has a regulation-sized baseball field. John Balletto was asked by his staff to sponsor their league baseball team, so he set aside four acres and donated all the materials for a field to be built.
Owners of Martin Ranch Winery, Dan and Thérèse Martin, are doing a Soulmate dinner at their beautiful winery in Gilroy—highlighting their Soulmate wines. A reception will be held outdoors, followed by five courses in the barrel room.
John Bargetto, director of winemaking for both Bargetto Winery and Regan Vineyards, invites you to taste the extraordinary wines of Regan Vineyards every Sunday from May 7 through Nov. 5.
Buzzo—pronounced boot-zo—is Italian slang for “big belly.” A fitting name for the new Soquel pizza joint. Owner and Santa Cruz native Indy Todd moved back to the area to run Carpo’s—a longtime eatery owned by him and his father—after attending culinary school in San Francisco. But their dream has always been to open a wood-fired pizza spot next to Carpo’s.
The full-service restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating with a heated patio has a modern industrial vibe, defined by exposed ducts and anchored by an open kitchen.
Apps include salads like arugula and radicchio Caesar and meatballs with ricotta and parmesan cheese. Favorite pizzas include wild mushrooms; cream and chives; sweet Italian sausage and oven-roasted onions; and pancetta pie with leeks and red onions. Housemade gelato is offered for dessert—they also serve refreshing Meyer lemon sorbet.
Buzzo is open every other day from 5-9pm (closed Mondays) with plans to extend the hours and menu. GT asked Indy how Buzzo came to be and what sets their pizzas apart.
What inspired Buzzo?
INDY TODD: A friend of my dad would host parties that I would cater using a wood-burning pizza oven. The guests would always rave about the pizzas and tell us we should open our own spot and sell them. We knew that if we ever found a good location, we would do it.
What makes your pizza different?
For one, we cook them in a wood-fired oven, which isn’t uncommon around here. And we’re not so strict about the pizzas—they don’t need to fit into a traditional Italian style. If we want to put curry on a pizza or use Asian-inspired ingredients, we can do it. It’s nice because I can go to the farmers market and have the freedom to put whatever is tasty and fresh on our pizzas.
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