Good Times, please correct the record of your coverage of the proposed Empty Home Tax last week (GT, 7/6). First, it’s not about “second empty vacation rentals,” as your writer stated. 3.38.040 of the proposed law on the November ballot explicitly exempts property registered under the Santa Cruz short-term rental ordinance.
Another mistake was this statement “Those hefty expenses include a budget of $65,000 to build a web portal for landlords.” Read the proposed law. It affects every homeowner in the city. Every homeowner will have to provide documentation to prove they were home enough, every year. Describing this as a law primarily affecting landlords is incorrect.
If the empty homes tax passes in November, the city will be monitoring every homeowner, every year, to make sure they are home enough. The effort to identify a handful of second homeowners will require every homeowner in the city to comply with a law that imposes civil and criminal penalties for missing documentation. It’s not a “landlord portal,” it requires every homeowner to submit personal documentation, every year, subject to random audits.
Lynn Renshaw
Santa Cruz Together
Aiyana Moya responds: The tax would not apply to 291 units registered under the Santa Cruz short-term rentals ordinance, for which taxes and fees are already being paid to the city, but will apply to Airbnbs that are unoccupied for 120 days per year. The web portal would require homeowners to submit an affidavit form answering yes or no to the question: “Has your property been in use for at least 120 days the previous calendar year?” No further documentation will be required.
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Growing up in the ’80s, NorCal bands opened my tiny teenage brain to sounds I’d never imagined. From Camper Van Beethoven and Spot 1019 in Santa Cruz to Dead Kennedys and Flipper in San Francisco to Negativland in Concord, I dove headfirst into some pretty out-there stuff. But El Sobrante, just a few miles away from Negativland’s hometown in Contra Costa County, produced one band I was not prepared for: Primus. By the time I was at UCSC in the early ’90s, their posters were pinned up in dorm rooms across campus, but I just could not wrap my head around their music. And Les Claypool, the mad bassist at the center of the band, seemed like an absolute maniac.
When I got a little older and made my way through the Parliament-Funkadelic catalogue, Primus started to make a lot more sense. I also began to understand just how talented Claypool really is—this is a man who was turned down after auditioning for the bassist gig in Metallica because he was too good.
As you’ll discover when you read Adam Joseph’s cover story this week, Claypool is a maniac, but mainly about music. The guy has such a passion for what he does that one band alone can’t contain it, which is why he’s had so many side projects over the years. (The latest of these, Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz, comes to the Rio on July 31.) So sail the sea of cheese with us this week, and thanks for reading!
STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ONLINE COMMENTS
Re: Sanctuary Anniversary
Many people do not know that the MBNMS boundary is the “mean high tide line” of the beaches of Santa Cruz County. Therefore, shorebirds resting and feeding along the shore are also protected by Sanctuary policies. Unfortunately, dog owners allow their dogs to run off lease and chase feeding birds, which stresses the birds, many migrating, who need rest and continual feeding for their long journeys. I hope readers of your excellent article, who have dogs, will allow Sanctuary birds the ability to feed and rest along the shore by keeping their dogs leashed.
— Jean Brocklebank
Re: Empty Home Tax
As a renter and fifth-generation Central Coast resident who would like to continue to live and work in the area, I definitely like the idea of a tax that’s high enough to make having a second home unfashionable. But I worry it wouldn’t, in which case, Santa Cruz still doesn’t have a lot of land for new buildings except for ADUs in people’s backyards. Let’s definitely make that easy and fashionable! I also wonder how such a tax would apply to people who don’t live in their homes but buy them for Airbnbs; companies like Pacaso, which some neighboring counties are fighting, trying to swoop in and create a market for new second home owners with homes essentially bought as timeshares; as well as people like the lovely lady who’s trying to move a violent sexual predator into her huge Bonny Doon second home (next door to a bunch of teenage girls) because California is willing to pay the exorbitant $6.5K monthly rent she’s asking. Would there be loopholes which these types of people and companies could use to still screw over local renters?
— Laurel
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
WEED LIKE TO SIT HERE Near the Visitors Center at Elkhorn Slough. Photograph by Ali Eppy.
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GOOD IDEA
OAXACAN DELIGHT
This Thursday, enjoy some of the “Traditional Foods of Oaxaca” at an event of the same name featuring chef Doña Lorenza, who will give a cooking demonstration and tasting at the Midtown Parking Lot at Cayuga Street and Soquel Avenue, 6-7:30pm. Mole and tejate, two staples of Oaxacan cuisine, are on the menu. For those who don’t know, mole is a spicy, smokey and earthy-sweet sauce, and tejate is a delicious corn and cacao beverage. The event is put on by local nonprofit Senderos, which aims to foster Latino culture in our community. scsenderos.org.
GOOD WORK
SPRAY WATCH
Watsonville’s residents can now sign up to receive alerts when dangerous agricultural chemicals will be sprayed in fields nearby. Santa Cruz is one of four counties taking part in this pilot notification program that gives locals the option to sign up for notifications of planned pesticide spraying. The notification system is part of the state’s long-term goal of alerting communities before pesticide applications occur, which California plans on rolling out in 2024, state officials say. agdept.com.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?”
“Is Primus a weird band?” is one of the top questions regularly asked about the longtime alt-rock trio, according to Google.
Who’s to say what “weird” means these days? Primus founder Les Claypool could be considered the ultimate wizard of weird—he looks like a gangly lifelong film school student raised in a commune of rednecks, but he’s also arguably one of the greatest slap bass players ever. He’s on Rolling Stone’s “50 Greatest Bassists of All Time” list, and his variation of thrash-funk playing has been hailed for his innovative treatment of the bass as a lead instrument.
“One of the big things I decided to do when I was starting out was to play with three fingers,” Claypool tells me. “A lot of guys play with two fingers, so I figured if I played with three, I could be faster.”
If you need direct evidence of his talent, check out his manic opening on Primus’ “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver” (Claypool taps the main melody on fretless six-string bass) or his Mach 3-strumming throughout “Pudding Time.”
In addition to his superhuman bass ability, Claypool’s music—a madcap mashup of Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and Parliament Funkadelic swimming in a river of LSD laced with mescaline—is otherworldly, freak-flag-flying experimental funk-rock. The videos Claypool makes are even freakier. “Mr. Krinkle” features the Primus frontman sporting an ominous pig mask as he plays double bass in an abandoned warehouse while a creepy carnival unfolds behind him. The trio dresses like plastic toy cowboys who call themselves “Buck Naked and the Bare Bottom Boys” in “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver.” That’s just the beginning of a lot of strange material.
Whatever twisted psychedelic hillbilly dimension he guides listeners—and viewers—into, one thing that’s remained consistent throughout the last four decades: Claypool is in perpetual motion. He is one of the most prolific artists on the planet. In addition to Primus, Claypool’s short and long-lived list of side projects, including jam band supergroups like Oysterhead (with Phish frontman Trey Anastasio), Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains (featuring guitarist extraordinaire Buckethead) and the Phil Zone (with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh), continues to grow.
In 2021, Primus kicked off a 46-date tour performing Rush’s seminal A Farewell to Kings in its entirety. Claypool even garnered approval from the members of Rush—including bassist Geddy Lee, who also appears on the “Top 50 Bassist” list.
“I really got off on watching how [Claypool] approached the instrument,” Lee told Rolling Stone. “He used to say to me, ‘You’re a big influence on me,’ but he’s got his own style. He has a sense of rhythm that I [find] very appealing.”
This year is gearing up to be a Claypool whirlwind of project after project. Primus released a new EP, Conspiranoid, centered around an 11-minute tune. He put together another supergroup to record one song to raise money for the people of Ukraine a day after Russia invaded the country. Primus is performing the South Park (Claypool penned the show’s opening theme song) 25th Anniversary Concert at Red Rocks with Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Ween. In addition to more “Primus: A Tribute to Kings 2022” shows, Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz, yet another Claypool supergroup, set off on a special tour that begins this week and goes through the first week of August—including a show July 31 at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz.
The guy is so goddamn busy that our interview had to be rescheduled five times. After reading, you will concur: It was well worth the effort.
Since 1986, Les Claypool (left) has released more than 30 albums between Primus and his various side projects. He brings Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz to the Rio on Sunday, July 31.
Where are you right now?
LES CLAYPOOL: Saskatoon, Canada.
Let’s start with wieners—specifically, Whamola Wieners, now sold at Claypool Cellars [also known as Pachyderm Station], your winery in Sebastopol, California. What inspired you to begin serving gourmet hot dogs?
During Covid, you couldn’t have a tasting room open in Sonoma County unless you had food service. I started looking at taco carts, food trucks and whatnot, and I stumbled across this 20-foot fiberglass hotdog trailer. I got on Craigslist and found one in San Diego, so I bought it; we started serving the gourmet franks at our tasting room for special events. It’s sort of evolved into a pretty cool thing. My daughter was running it at first, but it’s just grown into this wonderful little sideshow at our tasting room.
It’s only natural that we move from wieners to balls. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, you released the single, “Zelensky: The Man with the Iron Balls”—all proceeds of the track benefit Nova Ukraine, a nonprofit that provides humanitarian relief to the people of Ukraine. You collaborated with Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hütz and Sergey Ryabtsev, the Police’s Stewart Copeland, Sean Lennon and Billy Strings. How did the project come together?
I was in the middle of four different recording projects. I had zero time, energy or inclination to do any of this. I was hanging out with some friends from Poland on February 24, the night of the invasion—two of them were actually in the U.S. on vacation with their family and were getting ready to head back to their home in Poland, which is like 50 miles from Ukraine—and they were flipping out. We started commiserating, drinking some vodka, and I ended up texting with Eugene [Hütz] to get his perspective on things; he’s got family [in Ukraine]—he’s been coordinating getting food and lodging and whatnot for all his people. We just got to talking, and we were very impressed by the fortitude of Mr. Zelensky. It led to this notion of “he’s got balls of steel,” which led to “The Man with the Iron Balls.” Then I put the word out. We didn’t have much time, so we did it quickly. Sean Lennon is a buddy of mine, and we have [the Claypool Lennon Delirium] project together, so he jumped on board, and Stewart Copeland got on board. Of course, Eugene and Sergey [Ryabtsev] jumped on board, and Billy [Strings] and I have been working on a recording project, so he jumped on board. It all just fell together. [The song] is not a condemnation of anybody; it’s more about pointing out the fortitude, bravery and quality of this leadership I haven’t seen in my tenure on the planet. I would assume [Zelensky] is gonna go down in history as a Patrick Henry-type picture. As opposed to hopping on a helicopter and flying to some golf course to wait out the hostilities, he hunkered down and said, ‘I need weapons, not a ride!’ That’s an amazing thing. I have all these friends that are directly affected by what’s going on over there. [The song] was something that needed to be done.
Primus’ tribute to Rush’s ‘A Farewell to Kings’ has taken on a life of its own. Rush’s bandmembers have even given you props. What inspired you to take on that project?
Rush was my world when I was first starting to play when I was a teenager. They got me into doing what I do. So obviously, as you move through life, you acquire other influences and whatnot. But as far as what got me started [as a musician], it was definitely Rush. I could speak for the other two guys [Larry LaLonde and Tim Alexander] in the band, as well. We’ve always joked, “Hey, we should go out and do Rush’s Hemispheres in its entirety.” We’ve done these conceptual projects on tour before—I did Pink Floyd’s Animals years ago with [the Les Claypool Frog Brigade]. Then we thought, “Well, maybe we should do something like Hemispheres”—this was a few years ago when Neil [Peart] was still on the planet. We thought, “We can’t do Hemispheres or 2112 because they’re too obvious. And Moving Pictures would also be too obvious. So, we said, “Let’s do A Farewell to Kings.”
We’re in Canada right now playing the Rush album, and people are flipping out. We even got to play A Farewell to Kings for [Rush’s] Geddy [Lee] and Alex [Lifeson] in Toronto a couple of weeks ago.
It’s been an amazing thing, and it’s been great for the band because we actually had to rehearse. We’re lazy bastards [in Primus]; we very rarely rehearse. But we had to buckle down and learn this stuff—you can’t fake Rush. You gotta do it right. It was a good bonding experience for the three of us, and it also led to these new compositions on the [EP] that we just released. Learning A Farewell to Kings for the [tour] was therapeutic for us, and it continues to be.
Since Rush is a Canadian band, has the show been received differently by audiences in Canada compared to the U.S.?
I think Rush fans are just Rush fans. They’re like Trekkies. They’re very devoted, very knowledgeable and very scrutinizing. When we toured with [Rush in 1992], they were amazing to us. Once, I talked Geddy and Alex into bringing the Melvins out to open for them on one of their tours, and it just shocked the shit out of all the Rush fans. I remember being at the Cow Palace and watching the Melvins melt all these people. The [fans] were all very polite about it, but you could tell it was not the band of choice for them to be experiencing.
You said that Primus rehearsals are very loose, so how did you and the other band members switch gears while prepping for ‘A Farewell to Kings?’
I’ve rehearsed many things a lot. When I do an Oysterhead project with [Phish’s Trey Anastasio], we have to rehearse. When we do the [Lennon Claypool] Delirium with Sean [Lennon], Sean likes to rehearse. When “rehearsing” Primus material, we tend not to [rehearse]. It’s always been a very rare thing for us. But obviously, when I did [Pink Floyd’s] Animals in its entirety years ago with the Frog Brigade, we had to rehearse our asses off, so I don’t object or deter from rehearsing. When Primus gets together, we jam it out a little bit—play some of the old tunes, but we just get it. The songs are ingrained in us. We’ve played them for so long that it’s almost a muscle memory. When we took on the Rush thing, we had to really hunker down because that shit is hard.
Primus has been on tour this year covering Rush’s “A Tribute to Kings” album. The vinyl version of their latest EP, “Conspiranoid,” comes out Aug. 5. PHOTO: Randy Johnson
I read that sometimes you use your son Cage as a sounding board, and he offered you advice about the Rush tunes that you struggled with as far as recreating Geddy’s extremely challenging vocal range.
Geddy Lee is way up in the ultra-stratosphere with his vocals. It’s all difficult. But yeah, [Cage] basically just said, “It sounds great, but you should sing [the Rush songs] the way you would sing them. Don’t try to sing like Geddy, because it’s up there.” But some Primus songs are up there too. At the end of [Rush’s] “Cygnus,” there’s a really high part, and I just put on my “Sgt. Baker” voice, which is a Primus song that has vocals that are kind of up there—I just go into that character. It’s a good combination of my approach and paying homage to Geddy’s [approach]. But even Geddy says he can’t believe how high he sang this stuff back in the day. He can’t do it anymore.
Your son is working on a Primus documentary, correct?
Yes. He’s a fledgling filmmaker. He’s directing the Primus documentary; he’s gone through something like 760 video cassettes of old footage. He’s made a couple of little short films, and he’s done a lot of visuals for us and a lot of visuals for the Rush material and [Primus’] “Conspiranoia” video. He’s working on a “Follow the Fool” video right now.
Your latest project, Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz, features an incredible lineup of musicians. From the live performances on YouTube, it’s evident that the four of you gel incredibly. How did the group initially materialize?
Mike [Dillon] and I were in Frog Brigade for years, and I’ve known Stanton [Moore] for a long time, though we haven’t ever done a project together. I initially did Bastard Jazz for the comedy festival up in San Francisco [Clusterfest]. They asked me to put together a project, and I said, “I want to do an all-improv thing. I’m just going to call it ‘Bastard Jazz.’ I’m just going to get a bunch of guys together, and we’re going to walk on stage not knowing anything about what we’re going to do—no rehearsals, no nothing—and just start jamming.” And we did. It’s pretty much the same lineup. I just have Stanton Moore on drums now. We just go on stage and start having a musical conversation without any preconceived notions.
Everyone also has a great time performing, translating to the audience’s energy.
I love playing with guys of this caliber who can just freeform, and dance on the edge of disaster. I feel like I have an amazing safety net. I mean, my amps can completely blow up, or I could fall off the stage or have a stroke or whatever the hell it is, and the show could go on, and it would still be amazing. These guys are all monsters. They’re virtuosos. It’s a very comfortable shoe.
Will there be a Bastard Jazz album sometime in the future?
I don’t know. We have been recording shows. We’ll look into it when we’re done [touring]. Right now, it’s a very casual thing. There is no preconceived anything. Even with the tour, I asked our manager to book a few shows, and suddenly we had a full-on tour. I was like, “What the hell happened?”
Meanwhile, Primus has recently released new material, including the 11-plus minute suite, “Conspiranoia,” featured on the Conspiranoid EP. How did it come together?
We initially wanted to do a 20-minute song, but we fell short. We ended up with 11-and-a-half minutes. I knew we were going back out on tour, and we’ve been playing so much and rehearsing so much; we were just this finely honed machine. We thought, “Well, let’s come up with some new material.” But we didn’t want to do a whole album. I said, “Let’s do a 20-minute song.” I had this idea for “Conspiranoia,” and I laid out an arrangement and had the vocals. Then we all fleshed out our parts, and we had this 11-and-a-half-minute song, so we needed two B-sides—it turns out that you need two B-sides to fit for vinyl; otherwise, you have this big empty space. So, we did two B-sides, which technically makes it an EP.
Is there something creatively that you haven’t done but have always wanted to do?
I’ve always yearned to be a filmmaker. I’ve written a bunch of screenplays, and I have directed a lot of videos—I also did a little mockumentary—but I’m kind of running out of energy for that. My son is taking up those reigns. We’ve been working on some projects, and we’ve been trying to breathe life back into some older stuff. The Pumphouse project, which is the screenplay that I’ve written, is now a novel in its seventh or eighth printing, I believe. It’s very relevant, and it’s very caustic. I’d like to get something like that going at some point, but you never know. I keep meeting amazing musicians like Billy [Strings] that I want to work with. So that’s what I do.
Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz performs Sunday, July 31 at 8pm. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $40/$50 plus fees. folkyeah.com.
If you or someone in your life needs an ego check, pick up a grain of sand and hold it up to the sky at arm’s length. That grain of sand covers about the same amount of sky as the James Webb Space Telescope’s First Deep Field image. In just this tiny speck of space, Webb revealed thousands of galaxies—each containing millions to billions of stars.
NASA unveiled the first images from JWST last week, showing the universe in a new light.
At 2,000 light-years away, the Southern Ring Nebula comes into focus. Webb’s image shows the dust and gas spit out from a dying star.
In the “cosmic cliffs” of the Carina Nebula 7,500 light-years away, gas and dust form new stars.
Moving deeper into the universe, an image of Stephans Quintet shows the merging of four galaxies 300 million light-years away, and a closer galaxy in the foreground. (Closer but not close. The foreground, in this case, is still 40 million light-years away.)
The First Deep Field shows distant galaxies and light that traveled for more than 13 billion years before reaching JWST.
The stunning images are the first results of more than three decades of planning, $10 billion and thousands of engineers and scientists from NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency.
Each new ultra-detailed image creates a frenzy of scientific activity, and UCSC researchers are at the forefront.
Heavenly Launch
“It is truly remarkable that it has come together so well. Everything is working better than we required, and in many cases better than expected,” says UCSC distinguished emeritus professor Garth Illingworth.
Illingworth started working on the project in the 1980s when it was still called the Next Generation Space Telescope. He spoke to Good Times from Baltimore, where he had just come from a meeting in the same auditorium that he attended the first science and engineering meeting for the project in 33 years ago.
Illingworth works as the U.S. lead for the Public Release Imaging for Extragalactic Research (PRIMER). He and colleagues will use Webb to peer back in time and study the formation of some of the earliest galaxies in the universe.
“We’re one of billions of stars in the Milky Way, and that’s one of billions of galaxies,” says Illingworth. “These telescopes are ways for exploring and learning about our origins, about how our planet, our Earth came about, and how the stars are formed.”
JWST captures images in the infrared, outside the range of light our eyes can see. Young galaxies often appear bluish, but as light travels through space and the universe expands, the wavelengths stretch and become redder.
By the time the light from the earliest galaxies has traveled for billions of years and reaches our solar system, it can appear infrared.
To photograph the universe in this range of light, Webb flew to a stable gravitational point a million miles from Earth and delicately unfolded a sunshield the size of a tennis court to block nearby light and keep its sensitive instruments a frigid -370 degrees F.
“It was a stunningly flawless, great launch,” says Illingworth.
The rocket, launched by the European Space Agency, placed the telescope on the exact path at almost exactly the right velocity and used very little fuel.
“So, in fact, the mission life, instead of being the really minimal five years or even the goal of 10 years, is now more than 20 years,” says Illingworth. “Other things may go wrong in that time, but we’re not going to have a problem with running out of fuel unless something weird happens with the propulsion system.”
After a successful launch, the telescope meticulously unfolded over the course of one, nail-biting month.
“Every one of those really scary deployments—particularly the sunshield—worked absolutely beautifully,” says Illingworth.
Now, after six months of calibrations, Webb is sending back its first images of the universe, and they’re like nothing astronomers have seen before.
Seeing Stars
Some of the images can be placed next to those from the Hubble Space Telescope, but it’s difficult to accurately compare the two. Hubble captures images in the range of visible and ultraviolet light from an orbit about 340 miles above the Earth. This makes Hubble data different—and complementary—to Webb’s infrared images from a million miles away.
“When we’ve done back-of-the-envelope calculations, we typically come up with that it’s around 100 times better,” says Illingworth of Webb.
Add to that the fact that JWST is even more sensitive than planned, and you have a lot of data to parse.
The largest of the five public images shows Stephan’s Quintet. Nearly 1,000 images combined to create this mosaic of over 150 million pixels.
“I’ve downloaded hundreds of gigabytes of data already to a local data server,” says UCSC Astrophysicist Brant Robertson.
But the data isn’t just large in quantity. It’s also unique in quality.
“It’s a new set of detectors,” says Robertson. “The cameras are different than we’ve ever had before, so we’re learning anew how to deal with some of the features of the data.”
Robertson works on the steering committee for the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) and the management committee for the COSMOS-Webb survey.
“One of the main points of interest for me is to try to find the most distant galaxies in the universe,” he says. “And JWST newly enables us to do that, because it’s such a sensitive telescope.”
The telescope also uses a technique called gravitational lensing to magnify distant objects. The First Deep Field image has a massive galaxy cluster 4.6 billion light years away at its center. The gravity of the enormous cluster bends space and light around it, working like a magnifying glass.
Distant galaxies behind the cluster appear warped and sometimes doubled in the image.
It took about 12.5 hours for the onboard Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to take the image. The comparable deep field image from Hubble took 500 hours.
Planets Aligning
Webb’s sensitivity allows astronomers like Robertson and Illingworth to cut through the cosmic dust and look back more than 13 billion years at galaxy formations. But it also provides a clearer picture of closer objects.
Natalie Batalha, director of the Astrobiology Initiative at UCSC, will use the data from Webb to study exoplanets. Our galaxy is full of planets orbiting other stars, and Batalha worked on NASA’s Kepler mission to find thousands of them.
Now, she will use JWST to study the diversity of the Milky Way.
Batalha leads the Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Program, which observes planets as they pass in front of stars.
“When the planet is in front of the star, some of the starlight is filtering through the planet’s atmosphere, imparting a chemical fingerprint that we can see,” says Batalha.
Scientists measure the total light of the star before, during and after a planet transits in front of it, and they break the light down into a spectrum that can reveal information about the planet’s atmosphere.
In the first example released last week, JWST captured the signature of water in an exoplanet 1,150 light-years away.
Researchers will look for different molecules in the atmospheres of exoplanets and calculate ratios of atoms.
“Those ratios tell us something really interesting about how the planets formed, how they evolved, what kind of dynamic processes they underwent when they were young,” says Batalha.
The thousands of exoplanets that scientists have identified within our galaxy come in an incredible array of sizes and types.
“We’re starting to understand what drives that diversity, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” says Batalha. “We really want to look at the whole iceberg and understand those processes, because they will impact our understanding of planetary habitability and the propensity for life.”
Batalha says Webb likely won’t be able to detect evidence of life, but it will provide a starting point.
“We will be able to say, ‘Yes, this planet has an atmosphere,’ or ‘No, it likely does not,’” she says.
A New View
Batalha started working in exoplanet research when it first became a field, and the team she collaborates with is enormous.
“The whole week has been a flurry,” she says between pings from a 300-person Slack channel.
“When you all of a sudden gain access to a new marvel of technology that’s going to open up a bottleneck in scientific exploration, there’s usually this frenzy of activity that goes along with it, and sometimes that can be very competitive,” says Batalha.
But so far, Batalha says the environment is one of support.
“There’s something about the teamwork and camaraderie, the intensity of working with other people collaboratively that is unparalleled in our day-to-day lives,” she says. “It makes you see the best of humanity, and it’s uplifting. It makes me hopeful.”
Batalha has one particularly special collaborator: her daughter, Natasha, who researches exoplanets at NASA.
“To be able to share this with her—have her understand exactly what I’m experiencing, and to be able to resonate with it and celebrate it together without having to say anything because it’s a shared experience—that’s really special,” says Batalha.
Whether working on the data or simply stargazing, Batalha and fellow astronomers say people should keep one thing in mind.
“Relish the beauty,” says Batalha. “That’s most important. We live in an amazingly beautiful universe.”
Americans consume an average of 142 billion gallons of gasoline each year, and spend an average of 5.46% of their annual income on gas. With the national average cost of gasoline recently skyrocketing a whopping 55%—roughly over $1.50 a gallon—you’d think gas station owners must be raking in the dough, right?
Not so fast.
In fact, the past few years have been brutal for gas station owners/operators, and the current statewide average of $5.82 a gallon—a seven-year high for the Golden State—has only made things worse.
Shami Naderi, 66, owns the Valero on South Main Street in sleepy downtown Soquel. He has had to deal with the uncertainties and erratic gas-consumption patterns during Covid-19, and the rising price of gasoline, which surprisingly is not a good thing for gas stations.
“Definitely lower prices are better. People buy more gas, and buy more often. There’s more traffic in the store. When you sell more, you make more,” he says. “Business dropped really hard during Covid. Everyone was staying home. We stopped making money. We had the same expenses, but income was a loss.”
Turns out running a gas station, and being able to turn a profit while doing so, involves a lot of moving parts—and takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
Naderi immigrated to the United States with his wife in 1995. The Iranian, who has a Master’s degree in agricultural and forest engineering in his homeland, scrambled to find a way to support his family after arriving in Pasadena. The only job he could find was at a gas station—where he made a paltry $5 an hour.
“When you’re an immigrant from another country, you have to start from scratch. I started working for next to nothing. It was always a dream to own my own station,” says Naderi.
Over the years he saved, scrimped and scraped enough money together to buy his own gas station. But his business was heavily impacted by the pandemic. Naderi had to close his station early—at 7pm instead of 11pm—and as the hours were cut, the margins fell and he lost a ton of money. To save cash, Naderi oversees the daily operation of the station himself. He’s a steady presence at his Valero shop morning, afternoon and night—servicing, ringing up and assisting customers.
“It’s the manner of business they call ‘broken bone,’” he says. “You have to be here all the time.”
According to the NACS 2017 Retail Fuels Report, 59% of American gas stations are one-owner-operated. They own a single store, and in many cases tend to the store themselves; in essence, they are “buying a job.”
Naderi’s gasoline prices are around 40 cents higher than the Doubletime station less than a mile away. He explains that because he’s a branded Valero affiliate, he has to pay more for the fuel he receives on a weekly basis. It rips into his margin, and he has to charge more.
In fact, he doesn’t even set his station’s prices himself. Every day he receives a text or email from a ‘jobber’—a person they buy the gas from—telling him the gas price he must list.
“We have to add a bit of a margin to the price so we can make some money off of each gallon,” he says. “Around 2 cents a gallon.”
For most gas stations, the markup (or margin) on a gallon of gas hovers around 15 cents a gallon. This is the gross profit, before a mountain of expenses. After paying rent, station upkeep, labor, credit card fees and transportation costs, the average retailer is left with about 2 cents of actual income. On 2,000 gallons of fuel pumped each day, that’s only a profit of $50.
So if not gas station owners like Naderi, who exactly is getting rich off of $6 a gallon of gasoline? Through taxes, the federal government takes around 40 cents per gallon right off the top. And the state of California pockets another 81.45 cents. Transportation costs of shipping gas from refineries to service stations (via pipelines or trucks) munches up another 26 cents a gallon. And refiners like Valero, Sunoco and Frontier—who turn crude oil into gas—take around 24 cents a gallon of gas. And then there’s crude oil itself—by far the most expensive part of a gallon of gas. Crude producers like BP and Chevron take in a massive amount of money—over $2.07 per gallon.
The gas game in California is harsh for a lot of folks—especially consumers. Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers announced a tax rebate program that would provide up to $1,050 to millions of Californians to help offset rising gas prices and inflation. But the state legislature stopped short of suspending the gas tax, a move several lawmakers—both republicans and democrats—had asked for. In fact, California followed through on an annual gas tax increase, upping its tax on fuel by 3 cents per gallon.
Similar to 123,000 of the nation’s 150,000 gas stations, the Soquel Valero is also a convenience store. Drivers can pump gas, buy coffee and a donut, soda, chips, toilet paper and batteries. The convenience store/gas station combo sells more than 80% of all fuel sold in the United States. Somewhat shockingly, gas comprises 68% of the average station’s sales, but only 27% of its income. In other words, service stations can no longer survive just by pumping gas.
The real money for many gasoline retailers isn’t made at the pump—it’s in the refrigerator case. Cigarettes have always been the most popular items at gas station mini-marts, but bottled water and soda are by far the biggest generators of cash. Station owners can make up to 60% on a bottle of H2O.
“It’s a little bit here and a little bit there,” says Naderi. “This is a convenience store, too. And I operate a U-Haul dealership here, as well, getting paid a small percentage from the company. Every bit helps.”
People experiencing mental health-related distress can now call 988, the new three-digit dialing code, to access the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
On July 16, the 988 dialing code began routing people in crisis to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline services. The shortened number may make the hotline more accessible for people experiencing mental health crises, compared to the previous longer number (1-800-273-8255), experts hope.
The move to implement a faster number came after advocates pushed to shorten the 1-800 number to help with the worsening mental health crisis. Then-President Trump signed legislation into law in 2020 that created the new code, with advocates hoping the shortened number will be easier to remember. Experts also hope the new number will encourage more people who are experiencing a mental health crisis to seek help from the hotline instead of calling 911, which often results in police intervention rather than clinical care.
Every year, millions of 911 calls involve a person experiencing an emergency related to a mental health or substance use disorder, according to the Pew Research Center. Mental health advocates see this as an equity issue, especially when it comes to Black and Brown communities, who face greater risks of violence with police intervention.
“One of the unfortunate after-effects of the social isolation that came from the Covid-19 pandemic are individuals who have been suffering alone with depression and not connected to treatment or crisis services,” says Erik Riera, the director of County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency.
The new number will connect people to the existing local mental health centers that are staffed 24/7. The three-digit code is a direct line for people experiencing mental health distress to seek help from trained counselors.
Anyone who is experiencing mental health distress, or is in need of support, can call or text the number to seek help. They do not need to be in danger of suicide to reach out to the lifeline, and even concerned loved ones seeking professional support can use the hotline.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): You are entering the Season of Love’s Renewal. To celebrate, I offer you a poem by eighth-century Tamil poet Andal. Whatever gender you may be, I invite you to visualize yourself as the “Snakewaist woman” she addresses. Here’s Andal, bringing a fiery splash of exclamation points: “Arouse, Snakewaist woman! Strut your enchantment! Swoop your mirth and leap your spiral reverence! As wild peacocks shimmer and ramble and entice the lightning-nerved air! Summon thunderheads of your love! Command the sentient wind! Resurrect the flavor of eternal birth!”
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Tips to get the most out of the next three weeks: 1. Work harder, last longer and finish with more grace than everyone else. 2. Be in love with beauty. Crave it, surround yourself with it and create it. Be especially enamored of beautiful things that are also useful. 3. Taste the mist, smell the clouds, kiss the music, praise the earth and listen to the moon in the daytime sky. 4. Never stop building! Keep building and building and building: your joy, your security, your love, your beauty, your stamina, your sense of wonder.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini astrologer Astrolocherry says that while Geminis “can appear naive and air-headed to onlookers, their minds usually operate at light speed. They naturally absorb every surrounding particle of intellectual stimuli. They constantly observe their interactions for opportunities to grow their knowledge.” I believe these qualities will function at peak intensity during the next four weeks, Gemini—maybe even beyond peak intensity. Please try to enjoy the hell out of this phase without becoming manic or overwrought. If all goes well, you could learn more in the next four weeks than most people learn in four months.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Naeem Callaway founded Get Out The Box, an organization that mentors at-risk youth in low-income and rural communities. Here’s one of his central teachings: “Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tiptoe if you must, but take the step.” Even if you don’t fit the profile of the people Callaway serves, his advice is perfect for you right now. For the time being, I urge you to shelve any plans you might have for grandiose actions. Focus on just one of the many possible tasks you could pursue and carry it out with determined focus.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): A Leo astrologer I’ve known for years told me, “Here’s a secret about us Lions. No matter what happens, despite any pitfalls and pratfalls, my ego will stay intact. It ain’t gonna crack. You can hurl five lightning bolts’ worth of insults at my skull, and I will walk away without even a hint of a concussion. I believe in myself and worship myself, but even more importantly: I trust my own self-coherence like I trust the sun to shine.” Wow! That’s quite a testimony. I’m not sure I fully buy it, though. I have known a few Leos whose confidence wavered in the wake of a minor misstep. But here’s the point of my horoscope: I encourage you to allow a slight ego deflation in the coming days. If you do, I believe it will generate a major blossoming of your ego by August. And that would be a very good thing.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo poet Claude de Burine described how one night when she was three years old, she sneaked out of the house with her parents’ champagne bucket so she could fill it up with moonlight. I think activities like this will be a worthy pursuit for you in the coming days. You’re entering a favorable phase to go in quest of lyrical, fanciful experiences. I hope you will make yourself available for marvels and curiosities and fun surprises.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): There is a distinction between being nice and being kind. Being nice is often motivated by mechanical politeness, by a habit-bound drive to appear pleasant. It may be rooted more in a desire to be liked than in an authentic urge to bestow blessings. On the other hand, being kind is a sincere expression of care and concern for another. It fosters genuine intimacy. I bring these thoughts to your attention because I think that one of Libra’s life-long tasks is to master the art of being kind rather than merely nice. And right now is an especially favorable phase for you to refine your practice.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You sometimes feel you have to tone down your smoldering intensity, avert your dark-star gazes, conceal your sultry charisma, dumb down your persuasive speech, pretend you don’t have so much stamina, disguise your awareness of supernatural connections, act less like a saint and martyr in your zealous devotions and refrain from revealing your skill at reading between the lines. But none of that avoidance stuff usually works very well. The Real You leaks out into view. In the coming weeks, I hope you won’t engage in any of the hiding behavior I described. It’s a favorable time to freely pour forth your Scorpionic blessings.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): There could be interesting and important events happening while you sleep in the coming nights. If a butterfly lands on you in a dream, it may mean you’re prepping for a spiritual transformation in waking life. It could be a sign you’re receptive to a breakthrough insight you weren’t previously open to. If you dream of a baby animal, it might signify you’re ready to welcome a rebirth of a part of you that has been dormant or sluggish or unavailable. Dreams in which you’re flying suggest you may soon escape a sense of heaviness or inertia.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): How to be the best Capricorn you can be in the coming weeks and months: 1. Develop a disciplined, well-planned strategy to achieve more freedom. 2. Keep clambering upwards even if you have no competitors and there’s no one else at the top. 3. Loosen your firm grasp and steely resolve just enough so you can allow the world to enjoy you. 4. Don’t let the people you love ever think you take them for granted. 5. Be younger today than you were yesterday.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In the next seven to eight weeks, I’d love for you to embody an attitude about intimacy articulated by author Hélène Cixous. Here’s her aspiration: “I want to love a person freely, including all her secrets. I want to love in this person someone she doesn’t know. I want to love without judgment, without fault. Without false, without true. I want to meet her between the words, beneath language.” And yes, dear Aquarius, I know this is a monumental undertaking. If it appeals to you at all, just do the best you can to incorporate it. Perfection isn’t required.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I periodically consult a doctor of Chinese Medicine who tells me that one of the best things I can do for my health is to walk barefoot—EVERYWHERE! On the sidewalk, through buildings, and especially in the woods and natural areas. He says that being in direct contact with our beloved earth can provide me with energetic nourishment not possible any other way. I have resisted the doc’s advice so far. It would take the soles of my feet a while to get accustomed to the wear and tear of barefoot walking. I bring this up, Pisces, because the coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to try what I haven’t yet. In fact, anything you do to deepen your connection with the earth will be extra healing. I invite you to lie in the sand, hug trees, converse with birds, shout prayers to mountains and bathe in rivers or lakes.
Who makes wine from the rare Counoise varietal, you may ask. Megan Bell of Margins Wine, that’s who. With her entrepreneurial business acumen and go-for-it spirit, Bell is a rising star in the world of adventurous winemaking.
As I mentioned in a previous column on Margins, Bell is a no-holds-barred winemaker producing low-intervention wines using grapes from underrepresented regions, vineyards and varietals. And she loves to showcase the vineyards where the grapes came from—in this case, Sattler’s Vineyard in the Santa Clara Valley.
With its spicy character and flavors of anise, strawberries and blueberries, Counoise is an intriguing wine that is not so familiar. Hailing from the Rhône Valley in France, this dark-skinned wine grape is also grown in California, New Jersey and Washington.
Bell’s Counoise ($30) might be sold out on her website, but the good news is that Deer Park Wine & Spirits in Aptos carries it, along with other Margins Wines. Deer Park has an excellent selection of other local wines, imported wines and spirits from all over.
Bell also makes other lesser-known wines, such as Assyrtiko. The last time I had Assyrtiko was on the Greek island of Santorini, where the grape originates. It’s a crisp white wine with thyme, honey and flint flavors. Bell made only a small batch this time, and it quickly sold out, but here’s to her next release! Explore the nearly 20 various wines she makes at marginswine.com.
Deer Park Wine & Spirits, 783 Rio Del Mar Blvd., #27, Aptos, 831-688-1228; deerparkwines.com.
Rooibos Rocks Tea
As a native Brit, I drink a lot of tea, but not all of it with caffeine. I found a delicious caffeine-free tea online called Rooibos Rocks. This natural red tea from South Africa—the only place Rooibos is grown—is 100% organic with no colorants or additives. Hailing from Yorkshire, I also love Yorkshire Tea. Their decaf tea tastes like a regular strong cuppa. rooibosrocks.com and yorkshiretea.com.
Maximilian Masluk, born in New Orleans and raised in Napa, started working at the Dolphin nine years ago, after getting the job through a friend. He was promoted to assistant manager four years ago, and says he loves working there for myriad reasons: the wharf location with great views, being outside near the beach, the highly social culture and getting to know and connect with so many people.
Masluk says the Dolphin has the most epic under-the-radar breakfast menu in town, with great eggs benedict—including an option with in-house smoked beef brisket and avocado. The lunch/dinner menu is all about seafood classics, from clam chowder in a bread bowl to calamari steak sautéed in white wine and butter, to salmon dijonnaise in a light creamy mustard sauce. They also feature a decadent smoked oysters rockefeller appetizer, complete with bacon, onion, pesto and homemade chardonnay hollandaise. Hours are 8am-9pm every day. GT asked Masluk recently about his music background and how the universe nudged him to stay in Santa Cruz after college.
Tell me about your musical prowess.
MAXIMILIAN MASLUK: Both my parents were music majors at UCLA, so they encouraged me to take voice lessons in classic Italian and German opera. I’m also the singer in a reggae band called Pacific Roots that plays locally and around the country, and sometimes on slow days here at the restaurant I will bust out my ukulele and sing some island reggae or Italian opera for our guests. It gives them a special experience and a treat they’re not expecting. I love having a job that allows me to express my artistic side.
Tell me about the random moment that kept you in Santa Cruz.
After graduating from UCSC, I wanted to stay in Santa Cruz. But after a few years of working locally in some dead-end jobs in food service, I was thinking of moving away and making a life change. But then one day, a skimboard showed up at my door by mistaken delivery. I went out and tried it and instantly fell in love. After falling on my butt for three months, I eventually got good at it and that one package showing up on my doorstep completely changed my life trajectory. It kept me in Santa Cruz, and, soon after, I got the job here. I am so happy I stayed.
Last Saturday I stopped by the Westside Farmers Market to inhale the sights, tastes and aromas of high summer harvests. Under the awnings in the parking lot across from the Old Wrigley Building, producers of incredibly fresh items had already spread their wares. I invariably head over to the Companion Bakeshop stand for an infusion of some intriguing gluten-free pastry for my resident non-glutenite. I scooped up a couple of intensely flavorful muffins filled with almonds and cranberries, and then began to stroll. Strawberries are major right now. And the cherry tomatoes in every possible shade of red, orange and yellow are displayed across wide tables. Plums, deep purple Santa Rosas and pale greengages are having a moment. Lots of pretty padron peppers everywhere. I cannot resist potatoes still lightly dusted with the soil from which they’ve been dug. Many of the farm stands now boast brilliant green bouquets of mizunas, kales and chards alongside bundles of cilantro, mint and dill. It’s all gorgeous to look at, so fragrant, and inspires ideas for the next big pot of bean stew I’ll be cooking. I bought a pretty mixed flower bouquet, and ended up with a supersized almond twist from Adorable French Bakery before heading back to my car. It’s the start of high season, with so many farmers markets. How lucky we are.
Sustain Supper Returns
Once again, this Saturday in the oceanview fields at Natural Bridges Farm, the tables will be set for a multi-course vegetarian meal featuring produce grown by the Homeless Garden Project programs. Chef Gema Cruz from Gabriella Cafe will join Anna Bartolini of La Balena in Carmel and Jessica Yarr of Chicken Foot in preparing a memorable meal. Join your friends and eco-colleagues at this al fresco gathering that begins with wine and passed appetizers at 4pm, and moves on to a farm tour, dinner and keynote speaker James Beard Award winning chef and author Bryant Terry. Hurry—this event sells out! Saturday July 23, 4-7:30pm. Shaffer Road and Delaware Avenue, Santa Cruz. $175. homelessgardenproject.org.
Noshing in the Grove
This season up at the Santa Cruz Shakespeare Grove performances you’ll be able to enjoy pre-show picnic dinners thanks to the Grille at DeLaveaga Golf Course. Pre-order your meal, Wednesday-Sunday (at least 72 hours before the show you’re attending) and pick up your order at the concessions window behind the Box Office. Charcuterie for two; a DeLa Salad with crostini, dressing and cookie; turkey Sandwich with chips, and more. santacruzshakespeare.org.
Pasta of the Week
The always-luscious Seafood Linguine Puttanesca from Avanti on the Westside is lavish with big prawns, little shrimp, slender tubes of calamari, bits of fish of the day, fat tomatoes, olives and lots of capers ($28). A welcome kick of red pepper in the background, and of course plenty of garlic! The tangle of long succulent noodles offers more comfort than should be legal (and plenty for lunch the next day). A terrific dish when you feel like treating yourself to super-charged Italian flavors.
New at Abbott Square
Vamanos Comida Mexicana is a brand-new dining experience owned by Belly Goat Burgers chefs Anthony Kresge and Brooke Johnson. Kresge also owns Reef Dog Deli in Capitola. Vamanos specializes in various tacos, quesadillas, chile rellenos and enchiladas. Just opened! Go check it out at the always welcoming Abbott Square Market, which is one of my favorite places to rendezvous with friends for coffee or some major lunch, like a quesadilla from Vamanos.
