On June 18, the Santa Cruz Symphony (SCS) will present Life: A Journey Through Time, a multimedia performance that first premiered at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in 2006.
Featuring music by acclaimed composer Philip Glass, with imagery from Santa Cruz’s Frans Lanting, the show combines performing arts and science, telling the history of life on Earth—from its earliest beginnings up to the present.
Lanting is a world-renowned and award-winning wildlife photographer whose work has appeared in books, magazines and exhibitions across the globe. His assignments have taken him from the Amazon Basin to the subantarctic.
Life was produced for the Cabrillo Festival with music director Marin Alsop, who worked with Glass, editor Chirstine Eckstrom, arranger Michael Riesman, visual designer Alexander V. Nichols and Lanting, who acted as creative director. Since its premiere, it has been performed around the world, from New York City and London to Rome and Amsterdam.
Lanting says it feels great to bring it back to Santa Cruz, and praises Glass’ contributions.
“It feels like closing a circle to be doing it again in Santa Cruz,” he says. “Philip Glass’ music has always inspired me. It has this pulsing, organic quality that is reminiscent of how patterns in nature evolved.”
The performance will be led by SCS Maestro Daniel Stewart. Prior to the show, a panel of leading UC Santa Cruz researchers will be held, featuring astrobiologist Natalie Batahla, paleoecologist Paul Koch, genetics scientist David Haussler and geologist Gary Griggs. Lanting will join them, explaining the ideas behind Life.
Lanting says that the show has evolved since its premiere, and will include new imagery.
“Life is an immersive experience that affirms the unity and the diversity of all life on earth,” he says. “In these tumultuous times, it is important to be reminded of the fundamental connections we share with other forms of life.”
‘Life: A Journey Through Time’ will be presented at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Saturday, June 18 at 7:30pm. The science panel will start at 6:30pm. Ticket prices range from $47-$121. bit.ly/3mI2C6i.
Re: “Santa Cruz and Racism” (Letters, 6/8): My daughter and son-in-law, both elementary school teachers, will be returning to the U.S. after eight years teaching abroad in Singapore. With another school shooting in Texas, I am loath to think that my two young grandchildren, both born abroad, will not have a life free from the threat of violence, even in their elementary school. I remember having “earthquake drills,” getting under desks and holding our heads while in my earliest school days in San Francisco. Now children need to be taught how to be “still and silent” when there is an active shooter in their school! How horrifying is that?
They are thinking about moving to Canada for the sake of my grandbabies. I am heartbroken and way-too-sad to think about the state of the politics in this country that does nothing about this senseless violence. We need to stand for gun reform, non-violence, anti-racist, human services, social justice and love for our fellows. Otherwise, we are lost.
Linda Sutherland
Santa Cruz
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In 2020, there were 147 organic farms in the county on 8,000 acres, generating $135 million. We need to convince and incentivize even more growers to transition to healthy-soils-based organic farming. Only 15% of county farm owners/renters are Hispanic, but the numbers are growing. If a larger percentage of the 64,000 acres (100 square miles) of agricultural and ranch land in the county sequestered just a few tons of carbon per acre per year, we could vastly accelerate our progress toward zero greenhouse gas emissions.
The USDA has allocated $2.3 billion to “help farmers adopt and maintain conservation systems that protect water and air quality, reduce soil erosion, protect and enhance wildlife habitat and wetlands, conserve water and sequester carbon.” California’s $10 million Healthy Soils Program has similar goals.
Lakeside Organics in the Pajaro Valley is the largest family-owned organic grower/shipper in the country, with 3,000 acres producing 45 varieties of fruits and vegetables. Let’s build on this to make our county a model of farm-to-fork organic, healthy-soils agriculture for the benefit of future generations. Let’s make quality food affordable and available to all families—including the farmworkers who produce it—while addressing climate change by putting carbon back in the soil.
Woody Rehanek
Watsonville
These letters do not necessarily reflect the views of Good Times.To submit a letter to the editor of Good Times: Letters should be originals—not copies of letters sent to other publications. Please include your name and email address to help us verify your submission (email address will not be published). Please be brief. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and to correct factual inaccuracies known to us. Send letters to le*****@go*******.sc
Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore are two of my favorite people to interview. I’ve been writing about both of them since the ’90s, and if you’d asked me back then if I thought they’d ever play together, I would have said, “No, they’re way too different.” But in my cover story this week, you can read about how they found they had way more in common than even they realized.
One thing I have always found is true about both of them is that I tend to get lost in a series of unexpected, highly entertaining tangents when I talk to them. For instance, in our interview this time, Alvin and I somehow got on the topic of Daniel Johnston.
“I met Daniel Johnson,” he told me. “He bummed cigarettes off me.”
“Oh yeah?” I said. “What was he like?”
“A cigarette stealer, man!” Alvin exclaimed. “He promised me he’d get me some cigarettes, and he didn’t. He never paid me back.”
Later on, Alvin told me about meeting Richard Berry, and being too intimidated to ask him about “Louie Louie.” Meanwhile, Gilmore told me about being friends with Brownie McGhee and Lightnin’ Hopkins. This is the kind of stuff I wish I had room to include in this week’s story; someday I swear I’m going to do a story that’s just all the best outtakes from these interviews. But I think you’ll find what I did get to include every bit as interesting—and nowhere near as random. These two will be at Moe’s Alley on Tuesday, and I can’t wait to see them play together. I hope they tell some very cool, very random stories.
STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ONLINE COMMENTS
Re: Railbanking
The fact of the matter is that when the Sun Tan Special was re-routed south of San Jose through Gilroy and Watsonville to Santa Cruz in 1940, it was fifteen minutes slower than the old SP line that ran through the Santa Cruz Mountains into Santa Cruz, part of which is used for the Beach Train by Roaring Camp. So, it really isn’t necessary to rebuild that RR line. Pajaro Junction is bound to be a key hub of either Capitol Corridor’s or Cal Train’s extension to Salinas, and the same with Castroville, where there also will be a rail stop.
The Tig-M demo in October of 2021 was proof that a light-rail vehicle that does not rely on overhead wires or a third rail could work well in not just Santa Cruz County, but on the old Monterey Branch line if and when the tracks are restored in Seaside and Monterey to their old train depot near the wharf. There could then be a Santa Cruz/Salinas/Monterey rail connection. That’s a great way to get people out of their cars and off Highway One. The sooner it will happen, the better, and now that Measure D/Greenway has been defeated, it can happen sooner.
— Lawrence Denis Freitas
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
BEE HERE NOW Some pollination action goes down on Goss Street in Santa Cruz. Photograph by Craig Ferguson.
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GOOD IDEA
SIGNING OFF
The primaries are over and done, and we can all get back to our normal lives—for now. But as you yank your political yard signs from the grass, think again before you toss them triumphantly—or woefully—into the recycling can. They can’t be recycled via the standard bins, but the City of Santa Cruz has a list of proper places to do so, and also some creative upcycling ideas, at cityofsantacruz.com.
GOOD WORK
CELEBRATE PARKS
Join in on State Parks Week, where you can celebrate our local parks through events like hiking, tours and other outdoor activities. Each day has a special theme, ranging from learning how state parks work with local tribes to volunteering at campgrounds and helping steward our beautiful parks. Santa Cruz locals can find a list of the local events at castateparksweek.org.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.”
Woody Guthrie’s song “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” is not about the town in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. But you’d be forgiven for thinking that it is, because in the 74 years since Guthrie wrote it, the song has become even more relevant to this—and every other—region of California, a state where 1 in 3 workers are immigrants.
On January 29, 1948, Guthrie read about a plane that had crashed the day before in Los Gatos Canyon, near Coalinga in Central California’s San Joaquin Valley. Among the 32 passengers killed were 28 migrant farm workers being deported to Mexico. Guthrie, who lived in New York at the time, was angered that while the names of the flight crew were printed, the national press did not extend that dignity to the farm workers who died—instead, they were referred to simply as “deportees.”
In response, Guthrie wrote the lyrics to “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” which was really more of a poem until it was set to music in the ’50s by a schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman.
Guthrie’s lyrics showed a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of what immigrant laborers from Mexico faced under the Bracero program that began with the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement in 1942, and lasted until 1964—limited protections for officially processed workers (who were, among other things, given physical examinations and sprayed with DDT at “reception centers”), and increasingly harsh penalties for those in the country illegally: “Some of us are illegal, and others not wanted/Our work contract’s out, and we have to move on/Six hundred miles to the Mexican border/They chase us like rustlers, like outlaws, like thieves/Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita/Adiós mi amigo, Jesus y Maria/You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane/And all they will call you will be ‘deportee.’”
It’s a powerful statement from a folk songwriter who by that point—at age 35—was an American legend, but whose incredibly prolific output in the 1940s was already coming to an end. For a long time after his death in 1967, some considered “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” to be Guthrie’s last great song, although the release of the Mermaid Avenue albums by Billy Bragg and Wilco in the late ’90s and early 2000s proved that Guthrie had continued to write remarkable lyrics through the rest of his life.
Like the Mermaid Avenue songs, “Deportee” wasn’t popularized by Guthrie himself. It was when Pete Seeger began playing it in the 1950s that it caught on; since then, it has been covered by dozens of artists, from Judy Collins to the Byrds to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez to Bruce Springsteen, Concrete Blonde and Dan Bern.
In fact, no one knows the sheer number of artists who’ve covered the song quite like Dave Alvin, who decided he needed to hear how every single one of them had interpreted it before he and Jimmie Dale Gilmore could cover it themselves on their 2018 collaborative album Downey to Lubbock.
Alvin working on the ‘Downey to Lubbock’ album. As producer, he wanted to bring out sides of his friend’s talent that no one had heard before. PHOTO: JOE MURRAY
“That was a difficult one. Jimmie really wanted to do it, and I was game to do it,” says Alvin. “But the night before we went into the studio to cut it, I was up all night watching 150 versions of ‘Plane Wreck at Los Gatos’ on YouTube. Because, well, I didn’t want it to sound like all the others. There are some great versions, you know? And because it’s one of those things that had been done so many times, it’s like, ‘OK, how do I navigate this minefield?’”
The way Alvin discovered what he wanted their version to sound like was by first figuring out what he didn’t want it to sound like.
“I’ve used accordions on a lot of my records, I’ve used mandolins and things like that,” he says. “But with this, it was ‘no accordion, no mandolins,’ because that’s the first thing you hear in recordings of ‘Plane Wreck at Los Gatos.’ So it was like, ‘Okay, let’s try to make it ambient.’”
The result is a haunting, aching version that sounds like it’s sweeping over the very landscape once worked by the tragic figures Guthrie memorialized.
“Jimmie brings a lot of the heartbreak to it,” Alvin says. “Other people bring the politics to it. They’re both valid. But with this it was like, ‘Okay, what do we do musically around his voice?’ Because when he sings it, he means every goddamn word.”
“That song has always just touched me so deeply,” Gilmore says. “Because, you know, living in Texas, we have a little house down on the border, down in Terlingua. Butch Hancock [one of Gilmore’s bandmates in the Flatlanders] lives there full-time, and now we spend as much time as we can there. So we’re real connected with people that are affected by all the insanity of the border and the wall and all that stuff—all the stupidity. And I realized that Woody Guthrie, in this really subtle kind of way, had spoken to the ages about that. That’s why I started doing the song again.”
QUICK TO CLICK
To Gilmore—the Texas native who got his start in the early ’70s with legendary Lubbock alt-country band the Flatlanders, before finding solo success in the Americana radio wave of the ’90s that local stations KFAT and KPIG pioneered—the process that produced “Deportee” is an example not only of Alvin’s skill as a producer, but also of how much the duo complement each other.
“By the time we were making the record, Dave and I had already discovered that we were a very good team,” he says. “Dave fills in the gaps of expertise in the studio that I don’t have. I just don’t think in that way. I think purely in songs.”
It’s also an example of the dizzying organic quality of their musical partnership, which despite their 30-year friendship didn’t come about until Gilmore’s booking agent suggested it out of the blue in 2017. Both of them jumped on it.
“When Dave and I were on the road, we would just pull something out of a hat, because we didn’t rehearse or anything,” says Gilmore. “[‘Deportee’] was one of the ones that popped up, and after that Dave would request it.”
Guthrie’s song wasn’t the only tune they both knew, as they quickly discovered.
“We figured it was going to be a song swap thing. We knew that we got along well with each other, so we knew that would be fun. It was like an experiment, you know, like, a funny experiment,” says Gilmore. “But playing acoustically, both of us started doing the kinds of things we did before we were in bands. So, the stuff that you’re doing when you’re learning how to play. And both of us were blues fanatics. I don’t think we even had a rehearsal, we just jumped into the first gig, and almost immediately I’d start doing a song and he would just jump right in on it. He would already know it completely, or know it well enough that he could learn it within the first verse. And his playing—he’s such a much better guitarist than I am, that just really added something, it was really exciting to me. Then we started getting into harmonies and stuff. And then, really quickly on that tour, Dave said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to make a record together.’”
BACK TO THE BLUES
Alvin, of course, had gotten his start in the Blasters, which he and his brother started in 1979 in their southeast-L.A. hometown of Downey. Though it was a roots-rock band influenced by everything from rockabilly to blues to country, the Blasters were hugely popular within the L.A. punk scene, which had a bit of an Americana streak to it all through the ’80s. (Alvin also joined X for a while, and played in X’s country side project the Knitters.) Alvin’s love of the blues came out again on his first solo record, 1986’s Romeo’s Escape, and subsequent records.
His passion for the genre is no surprise considering that he spent his formative early-teen years hanging out at L.A.’s iconic Ash Grove club, which lasted from 1958 to 1973 and drew blues greats like Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Mississippi John Hurt, and Muddy Waters. What Alvin didn’t know until he started performing with Gilmore is that during a short, pre-Flatlanders period in which Gilmore had lived in L.A., he’d also hung out at the Ash Grove, and had even gotten to be friends with Lightnin’ Hopkins, one of Alvin’s musical idols.
The Ash Grove gets a mention in the album’s title track, a burning blues-rocker that cleverly lets both musicians testify to their musical histories, while at the same time imagining what would happen if Alvin—whose most popular album is King of California, and is so Cali to the core that he wrote a song about Highway 99—transplanted himself from Downey to Lubbock, and Gilmore did the opposite.
On their first tour together, Alvin and Gilmore discovered they had begun their careers playing a lot of the same songs. PHOTO: DANIEL JACKSON
“I’m a wild blues blaster/From a sunburnt California town/And I got a loud Stratocaster/That can blow any roadhouse down,” sings Alvin, while Gilmore replies in the next verse, “Well, I’m an old flatlander/From the great high plains/Like wanderlust and wonder/West Texas wind blows through my veins.”
The funny thing is that neither move would be such a stretch. After all, one of Alvin’s best songs is “Abilene,” about the Texas city (and a girl named after it), and Gilmore did dip his toes in the California hippie-cowboy life.
“You know, there’s not that much difference, really, between Downey and Lubbock,” says Alvin. “They’re both flat.”
Once he understood the depth to which Gilmore shared his passion for the blues, Alvin sought to bring that out on record for the first time.
“The thing about Jimmie Dale is he’s an incredibly unique songwriter with an equally unique voice,” says Alvin. “His records, some of them captured him perfectly, and others, maybe not quite so much. But, you know, you can say the same about me. But one thing that kind of got overlooked or pushed aside was Jimmie Dale’s a hell of a blues singer. And when we started doing the gigs together, the more blues stuff I played, the more blues stuff Jimmie Dale would pull out. And I was like, ‘Man, you should make a record of that.’ So when we went to make the record, I was kind of leaning towards the two things Jimmie Dale’s never done—he’s never made a bluesy kind of record, and he’s never been in a rock ’n’ roll band. I mean, a flat-out rockin’ band, you know? It was great on the tours that we did together to watch him rockin’ out sometimes, like he was leading his high school band. I saw that in him, and he always, I think, saw that in himself, as well. I think that that’s one of the reasons we worked very well together.”
SECOND CHANCE
The pandemic, of course, derailed plans for more touring, but it wasn’t just that. In May of 2020, Alvin was diagnosed with prostate cancer, the beginning of a two-year battle that included months of chemotherapy and radiation. He kept his health struggles private, but Gilmore says the band knew something was very wrong while they were touring in 2019.
“On the last tour, Dave was showing some signs,” he says. “It never impacted his performance, and he didn’t talk about any health issue or anything, but you’re traveling in a van together, you know? I mean, it was subtle, because Dave would not complain, ever, about anything. And when it really got serious, he didn’t want to talk about it.”
The cover art for the ‘Downey to Lubbock’ album is a painting by another Americana legend, Jon Langford of the Mekons.
Eventually, though, Alvin did open up about it to his close friends, and Gilmore and his wife went and spent a week with him after his surgery. The rest of the world, however, still didn’t know.
“He didn’t want us to talk to the press about it,” says Gilmore, “until he got to a place where he felt like he had kind of conquered it. Which happened, he did get to that place. But it was … it was frightening.”
In April, Alvin announced he was cancer-free. Explaining his health situation now, he says, “It’s good as of this moment, which with the cancer monster is the best that you can hope for. It can come back at any moment. So I am knocking on wood that it doesn’t, and proceeding as if it won’t.”
For a musician who in Gilmore’s estimation of his friend “wants to be playing his music for real people live every night,” their new tour together, which comes to Moe’s Alley on Tuesday, June 21, is everything Alvin could want. Although he’s pretty damn happy about life in general right now.
“To be alive, to be out of a hospital, is a great feeling. It’s the greatest feeling ever,” he says. “I gotta admit, there’s times where I’m not this cosmic about it, but overall, the way I view things now is I had a pretty good life. That was a nice chunk of cake. And now what I’ve got, you know, is the frosting part. These upcoming gigs just mean the world to me. I’m living for them. Because it’s like even the bad notes will be frosting. And I predict there will be some bad notes. But what the hell? They’re frosting notes.”
JIMMIE DALE GILMORE AND DAVE ALVIN play at 8pm on Tuesday, June 21 at Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way in Santa Cruz. $30/$35. moesalley.com.
“It’s like the nonprofit Hunger Games,” says Ray Cancino, the Chief Executive Officer of Community Bridges.
Cancino is referring to the latest funding recommendations for local community organizations that the county announced last week. Nonprofit leaders were in disbelief as they looked at their awards for the next three-year cycle: some larger organizations had funding for their programs cut in half compared to the previous funding rounds, jeopardizing the future for vital programs that county residents rely on. Some smaller programs weren’t funded at all, leaving leaders scrambling to find new funding sources ahead of the new fiscal year in three weeks.
Overall, 128 organizations applied for awards, requesting a total of $16 million. 35 organizations were recommended for an award, splitting up the $6 million the county and City of Santa Cruz dished out for the nonprofits.
Cancino says these recommendations will lead to drastic changes in the resources available to county and city residents. His warning was echoed by the dozens of people who showed up at the Board of Supervisors meeting last Tuesday, many of whom shared how these potentially defunded programs have changed their lives.
Community Bridges—a nonprofit that serves families, children and seniors from low-income backgrounds—will likely see an $800,000 cut in funding from the county. It may even be forced to end programs like its Santa Cruz County Early Education Child Care—or at least reduce its open slots and resources.
The reason for the unexpected changes is a shift in the funding process. In 2015, the county and the City of Santa Cruz worked together to create CORE, an application process intended to give newer organizations a shot at money that the county and city allocate for local community organizations. Multiple county supervisors say the old way of handing out county dollars was uncompetitive, and limited pathways for new organizations to get money.
“There are a number of service providers who have not had access to this money for 35, 40 years,” Human Services Director Randy Morris said at the Board of Supervisors meeting. “To create a level playing field, we put in place a technical assistance program to help make sure all service providers had an opportunity to apply for these funds.”
But nonprofit leaders across sectors question whether a level playing field is what was ultimately achieved, and why a more abstract sense of “fairness” is being prioritized over the practical services these programs provide.
“We all as nonprofits trusted the county, and the Human Services Department specifically, to redesign the CORE program to really do two things,” Cancino says. “To find equity in our social services and to provide better return on investment for our community. Now we hear [Human Services Department] says its goal is to get new programs funding and new services, irregardless of the impacts of existing service.”
As nonprofits search for revenues to cut—a difficult task within the financially restricted, already strained nonprofit sector—the new CORE process is becoming a battle for survival.
“If you’re going to ask for more money,” County Supervisor Ryan Coonerty said at Tuesday’s meeting, “you’re going to need to tell us which organization we should take that money from, and why we should give it to you instead.”
The Core of CORE
When Sandy Davie opened her email to see that the Toddler Center was not recommended to receive funding from the county, her heart dropped.
“It felt like a bomb hitting my chest,” says Davie, the organization’s director. Her voice is tight, and she asks if we can take a break from speaking. “I’m sorry, I’m not usually like this. But the county and the city are saying childcare doesn’t matter.”
The CORE funding makes up around 20% of the Toddler Center’s budget. That money is set aside to provide a sliding scale of services for lower-income families. Without that money? Well, you can do the math, says Davie.
“Basically, we’ll only be able to provide childcare to the upper middle class,” she says. “But this is bigger than just us.”
Davie thinks the entire childcare sector is at risk of seeing major cuts. The county only funded one childcare program, Walnut Avenue Family & Women’s Center. Community Bridges’ Family Resource Centers are expected to be defunded, with programs similarly gearing up to discontinue subsidized child care services.
Davie says data shows low-income families in Santa Cruz County have limited access to childcare services, and that this limited access negatively affects low-income households. She was asked to prove the importance of childcare, so she used this data in her CORE application. So she wonders on what basis applications were evaluated, and if there was an effort to look at the impacts defunding these programs will have on a sector comprehensively.
“I’m using all of the data you gave me and I’m proving to you childcare is important. And for the decision to come out, basically, childcare is not important?” says Davie. “There’s a tension between the data and the results.”
CORE used a grading system for the work that organizations are doing around the county. Programs were split up into small, medium and large tiers, and graded based on the corresponding rubrics for each tier. Answers to the questions were graded by a diverse and trained group of 58 panelists, and a program’s final grades were then used to determine funding.
But the questions, and how answers were weighted, seem arbitrary, some leaders say. Cancino points to a question that asks organizations what kind of impact their program will make in the community. That question is only worth 5% of the total points, despite being one of the most consequential determinants of a program’s value, says Cancino.
The county, for its part, defends its process, saying there were multiple stakeholder meetings held for organizations to have input on the different elements of the application, and that the resulting process is one that all organizations gave feedback on.
“There were 12 opportunities for the current service providers to share their perspective about how to prioritize a particular population, or a particular region, or for a particular provider to say why they felt they deserved more money,” says Morris. “There were also 64 training sessions provided before the applications that ended up supporting 298 participants. The rankings are fair.”
Davie says she went to these training sessions. She says she was often one of the few Directors there: many other larger organizations sent grant writers, because the process was tedious and required significant research and writing. Davie wonders if this limited smaller organizations’ shots at funding.
Davie also disagrees with how the county is portraying the previous award system as not competitive or friendly to new programs—and as a teacher at Cabrillo in History, she’s one for historical accuracy.
“I had a person working for the county that was dedicated to going and visiting the places to see what was happening, in addition to rigorous reporters,” Davie says. “There was a lot of oversight and interaction between the county and the nonprofits that were being funded.”
Ultimately, what leaders across organizations repeated was that although the CORE process might be flawed, there’s only so much that can be done with the $6 million budget—especially in the context of $16 million of requested funding.
“Ultimately, the process isn’t going to matter very much,” says Cancino. “Because these budget policy conditions are unsuited to the reality of where we are at right now.”
Where’s the Money?
The county’s budget is estimated to reach the billion mark for this year—an increase of 27% compared to the last fiscal year. With that influx of cash, nonprofit leaders wonder where all that money is going, as they fight over the $6 million that was divided up between 36 programs.
The top two categories that the county’s funds go to are employee salaries (46%), and services and supplies that include things like office expenses and building maintenance (33%). When looking at the breakdown of which departments get the most money, the departments receive as follows: Health and Human Services (38%); Land Use and Community Service (18%), and Public Safety (16%).
The Health and Human Services Department (HSD) receives the largest chunk of money out of the all county departments: nearly 400 million. Yet the CORE funding program, which falls within the HSD, only sees around 9% of that money.
Part of the reason, says Supervisor Ryan Coonerty, is because the HSD has separate awards and contracts that it hands out to nonprofits. The other part is that the county is providing homeless services and mental health services.
“To the extent that people want us to reallocate other general fund dollars,” says Coonerty, “that means cuts to parks, roads and public safety. There’s no pot of money out there that’s left unspent.”
Coonerty also promises that the county has plans in the works to soften the blow for some of the programs that were left with no funding this cycle, and to provide supplemental services in the areas needed.
“I and other board members have heard that these funding allocations have some very real impacts on important community programs,” says Coonerty. “So we’re looking at how we reduce some of those impacts.”
In the next few weeks, organizations dissatisfied with their funding allocations will be working on their appeal case, which they will present at the county’s next meeting on June 28. That’s when the final awards will be announced.
Still, Coonerty emphasizes that the sum of money will be the same—it will just be sliced differently.
“I don’t think it’s good for organizations to be pitted against each other,” says Coonerty. “But if what you’re doing is standing up and asking us to fund your organization, you’re implicitly saying that we need to cut somebody else. So whether you want to say it or just want the board to do it and not take responsibility for that, the reality is the same.”
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “The whole point for me is to change as much as possible,” says Aries actor Keira Knightley. What?! Is she serious? Her number one aspiration is to keep transforming and transforming and transforming? I guess I believe her. It’s not an entirely unexpected manifesto coming from an Aries person. But I must say: Her extra bold approach to life requires maximum resilience and resourcefulness. If you think that such an attitude might be fun to try, the coming weeks will be one of the best times ever to experiment.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus poet May Sarton relished “the sacramentalization of the ordinary.” What a wonderfully Taurean attitude! There is no sign of the zodiac better able than you Bulls to find holiness in mundane events and to evoke divine joy from simple pleasures. I predict this specialty of yours will bloom in its full magnificence during the coming weeks. You will be even more skillful than usual in expressing it, and the people you encounter will derive exceptional benefits from your superpower.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Here’s a message I hope you will deliver to the Universe sometime soon: “Dear Life: I declare myself open and ready to receive miracles, uplifting news, fun breakthroughs, smart love and unexpected blessings. I hope to be able to give my special gifts in new and imaginative ways. I am also eager for useful tips on how to express my dark side with beauty and grace. One more perk I hope you will provide, dear Life: Teach me how to be buoyantly creative and sensitively aggressive in asking for exactly what I need.”
CANCER (June 21-July 22): In August 2021, a Canadian man named Jerry Knott bought a ticket for a lottery. He stuffed it in his wallet and lost track of it. Two months later, he found it again and checked to see its status. Surprise! It was a winner. His prize was $20 million. I propose we make him your role model for now, my fellow Crabs. Let’s all be alert for assets we may have forgotten and neglected. Let’s be on the lookout for potentially valuable resources that are ripe for our attention. More info on Knott: tinyurl.com/RememberToCheck
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Hundreds of years ago, people in parts of Old Europe felt anxiety about the Summer Solstice. The sun reached its highest point in the sky at that time, and from then on would descend, bringing shorter and shorter days with less and less light. Apprehensive souls staged an antidote: the festival of Midsummer. They burned great bonfires all through the night. They stayed awake till morning, partying and dancing and having sex. Author Jeanette Winterson expresses appreciation for this holiday. “Call it a wild perversity or a wild optimism,” she writes, “but our ancestors were right to celebrate what they feared.” Winterson fantasizes about creating a comparable ceremony for her fears: “a ritual burning of what is coward in me, what is lost in me. Let the light in before it is too late.” I invite you to do something like this yourself, Leo.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo author Elizabeth McCracken says, “I don’t dream of someone who understands me immediately, who seems to have known me my entire life.” What’s more meaningful to her is an ally who is curious, who has “a willingness for research.” She continues, “I want someone keen to learn my own strange organization, amazed at what’s revealed; someone who asks, ‘and then what, and then what?'” I hope you will enjoy at least one connection like that in the coming months, Virgo. I expect and predict it. Make it your specialty!
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libran author Stig Dagerman said that when he was sad as a child, his mother kissed him until his mood lightened. When he was older and sad, his mama said, “Sit down at your desk and write a letter to yourself. A long and beautiful letter.” This would be a good task for you right now, Libra. Whatever mood you are in, I invite you to write a long and beautiful letter to yourself. I further recommend that you carry out the same ritual once every six weeks for the next nine months. This will be a phase of your life when it’s extra crucial that you express soulful tenderness toward your deep self on a regular basis. You may be amazed at how inspirational and transformative these communications will be.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Sometimes, the arrival of a peculiar event in your life is a good sign. It may mean that Fate has sent an intervention to disrupt a boring phase of inertia or a habit-bound grind. An unexpected twist in the plot may signal a divine refreshment. It could be a favorable omen announcing a helpful prod that’s different from what you imagined you needed. I suspect that an experience or two fitting this description will soon materialize in your life story. Be alert for them. Promise yourself you’ll be receptive to their unexpected directives.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarius author Edna O’Brien long ago shed the strict Catholic faith in which she was raised. But she still harbors spiritual feelings colored by her tradition. She says, “Ideally, I’d like to spend two evenings a week talking to [novelist] Marcel Proust and another conversing with the Holy Ghost.” I suspect a similar balance of influences will be healthy for you in the days ahead, Sagittarius. My advice is to connect with an inspiration you drew sustenance from while growing up. Spend equal time consorting with deep-feeling smart people who will stimulate you to rearrange the contents of your rational mind.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I’ve composed a message for you to deliver to your best allies. It will help you be clear about the nature of your energy exchanges. Say something like this: “I promise to act primarily out of love in my dealings with you, and I ask you to do the same with me. Please don’t help me or give me things unless they are offered with deep affection. Let’s phase out favors that are bestowed out of obligation or with the expectation of a favor in return. Let’s purge manipulativeness from our dynamic. Let’s agree to provide each other with unconditional support.”
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Author Lauren Collins tells us, “Bilinguals overwhelmingly report that they feel like different people in different languages. It is often assumed that the mother tongue is the language of the true self. But if first languages are reservoirs of emotion, second languages can be rivers undammed, freeing their speakers to ride different currents.” I bring these thoughts to your attention, Aquarius, because the next 12 months will be an excellent time for you to begin becoming bilingual or else to deepen your fluency in a second language. And if you’re not ready to do that, I encourage you to enhance your language skills in other ways. Build your vocabulary, for instance. Practice speaking more precisely. Say what you mean and mean what you say 95 percent of the time. Life will bring you good fortune if you boost your respect for the way you use language.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean-born Robert Evans has been an amateur astronomer since he was 18. Though he has never been paid for his work and has mostly used modest telescopes, he holds the world record for discovering supernovas—42. These days, at age 85, he’s still scanning the skies with a 12-inch telescope on his back porch. Let’s make him your role model for the coming months. I have faith you can achieve meaningful success even if you are a layperson without massive funding. PS: Keep in mind that “amateur” comes from the Latin word for “lover.” Here’s the dictionary’s main definition: “a person who engages in a study, sport or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons.”
Homework: What is still worth waiting for? What is no longer worth waiting for? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com.
I love a fine Malbec—and Martin Ranch makes a great one. Under their Thèrése Vineyards label (Martin Ranch makes wine under three different labels), the 2017 Santa Clara Valley Dos Niñas Vineyard Malbec ($42) is a cut above many imported Malbecs. This one has all the nuances of a true Malbec due greatly to some fine fruit from Dos Niñas Vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains—it was my favorite at a recent tasting event featuring many Martin Ranch wines. With its deep ruby-colored core and lip-smacking ripe fruit flavors, this impressive Malbec was awarded a silver medal in the 2021 Sunset International Wine Competition and given 90 points by the September 2021 Wine Enthusiast. “Blackberry, boysenberry and vanilla coat the palate, while luscious plum tannins finish off this beautiful wine,” winemakers Dan and Thèrése Martin say. “It’s perfect with boeuf bourguignon.” They suggest you enjoy it now and for the next several years.
Martin Ranch Winery, 6675 Redwood Retreat Road, Gilroy. 408-842-9197; martinranchwinery.com.
Father’s Day Ribs and Reds at Burrell School Vineyards
Spoil your dad and bring the whole family to a wonderful ribs and reds event. Chef Kyle Davis will be cooking up his “world-famous” Santa Maria ribs with country-style sides and plenty of Burrell School wines to enjoy, including some cellar wines and new releases.
1-4pm. $55. Email ky**@bu***********.com for more info. Burrell School Vineyards and Winery, 24060 Summit Road, Los Gatos.
Safe Catch Salmon
My husband and I did a two-week road trip to New Mexico last month, visiting friends and national parks along the way and back. Among the snacks and picnic fare, we took little pouches of Wild Pacific Pink Salmon with us. Produced by Sausalito-based Safe Catch, every salmon is sustainably caught, and mercury tested. Skinless and boneless, these pouches are ideal for a quick sandwich or a light meal. Flavors include Plain, Rosemary Dijon, Italian Herb and Citrus Dill. safecatch.com.
Before attending culinary school in San Francisco and then moving to Santa Cruz, Steve Elb cooked on tanker and freighter merchant marine ships. In Santa Cruz, Elb spent several years as head chef at the wharfside Sea Cloud Restaurant before taking it over two decades ago. Although French-trained and influenced, the Olitas Cantina and Grille owner and chef went in a different direction, which he dubs “Cali-Mex”—California’s Tex-Mex.
Olitas’ second-story ocean view pairs perfectly with a menu featuring fusion favorites like the lobster quesadilla loaded with Maine lobster and a bursting-with-flavor sauce made from its shells. The tacos, enchiladas and seasonal farmers market specials are equally good. Olita’s is open every day except Mondays from noon-9pm (opens 4pm on Wednesdays). Elb recently spoke about his love for Mexican food and what it was like cooking on the open seas.
What inspires you about Mexican food?
STEVE ELB: Robust flavors and just the simplicity of the ingredients. It’s peasant food, just like the Italian food I grew up eating. I rarely cook food that I don’t personally enjoy, and I’ve always loved Mexican food. And cooking is cooking; once you understand proper technique, it’s easy to switch gears and get creative. Passion is important too, and Mexican food really excites and inspires me. Whereas with French food, one spends a lot of time manipulating ingredients and the flavors are more subtle, Mexican food is more straight up, and the flavors jump off the plate.
What was it like to cook on a boat?
It’s homestyle cooking for about 30-40 people, breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. I was a young knucklehead in my 20s, enjoying traveling and making money. We called it a “floating jail,” it was all men and no women, and we couldn’t go anywhere. I enjoyed it, though, because it was foot-loose and fancy-free. But it’s tough and rough out there, and I knew that as long as no one complained about my food and threw me overboard, I was doing a good job.
Olitas Cantina and Grille, 49B Municipal Wharf, Santa Cruz, 831-458-9393; olitassantacruz.com.
Supposedly, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I mean, it’s right there in the name—it is literally breaking the fast that you have been (theoretically) engaging in since last night’s dinner. A good breakfast sets the table for a successful day like no other meal can, and I had long been hearing such good things about Zachary’s morning offerings that I decided to try them for myself.
Now, by morning, I mean almost afternoon. Like 11am, at the earliest. This is the time a night owl like me considers ideal for breakfast. Luckily, they serve it all day, from 7am-2:30pm Tuesday-Sunday. I walked in recently and was greeted immediately and offered not only a table, but also coffee right away—a nice service touch. Once seated, my prompt, friendly and efficient server came by and offered to help with the menu. But I already knew what I wanted: the ham and egg breakfast and the famous sourdough pancakes that have been made using the same starter since the 1989 earthquake. Waiting for my food, I basked in the ambiance. Rich hardwood floors are complemented by industrial accents in a space bigger than it looks from the street, with a mostly open concept and an airy and roomy feel thanks to high ceilings. The whole place had classic local-favorite diner feels. The food showed up in short order, and as I looked at my table, now full of all the good breakfast things, my only question was where to begin?
I decided to start with the ultimate foundational breakfast item: eggs. I got them scrambled, which are easy to do, but not so easy to do well. Good scramblers take constant attention and love, and mine got plenty of both. They came out light and fluffy with just a little chew, and had no browned spots, burnt edges or crispy skin-like parts. The ham was impressive, too. I got thick cut slabs, resembling two gigantic Trivial Pursuit pie pieces made of pork that tasted like they had just been carved off a homemade holiday roast. Lightly seared, lean and meaty, they had just a touch of smokey flavor. Even for a cured product, it had a fresh taste—no lunch meat vibes here.
From there, it was time to try their signature home-fried potatoes. I was given a local’s hack to order them extra crispy, and I was more than glad that I did. Not only were they some of the best home fries I had ever had, the portion was generously hearty to say the least. There were onions mixed throughout, and the savory seasoning blend was on-point and present, yet not too bold for breakfast. My texture-fiend palette was wooed by the crispy chunks and edges throughout, and the extra cooking also imparted subtly bitter notes that rounded out the flavors of the entire meal.
It was then time to try the homemade toast. Even many fine dinner houses do not bake their own bread, and the fact that Zachary’s does is impressive. Options include sourdough and oatmeal molasses, but I opted for the dark rye. I got two thick, lightly toasted slices that definitely had that homemade thing going on: dense and bready with good chew, juxtaposed with a yeasty light and fresh flavor. And I found it to be a milder rye, with just enough of that uniquely spiced and nutty signature taste.
The sourdough pancakes were a strong finish. The real maple syrup with predominant notes of caramel was a perfect complement, and the pancakes themselves certainly lived up to the hype. They were light, thin and restrained with regards to sweetness. They weren’t dense or heavy at all like many other pancakes can be, and the flavor was delightfully delicate with just a kiss of sourdough tang for levity and complexity. The entire meal was simply delicious and a great value, too—I feel like I damn near had half the menu on my table and my bill was only $20. I can’t believe it took me so long to get here, and I’ll be back.
Zachary’s, 819 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz, 831-427-0646; zacharyssantacruz.com.
