One of my favorite live-music memories is a Rev. Billy C. Wirtz show at the Kuumbwa that I took my little sister to in the mid-’90s. Jessica was in high school at the time, and Wirtz was at the height of his “Hillbilly Love God” fever dream, riding a boogie-woogie piano from hell through albums like A Turn for the Wirtz, Pianist Envy and Songs of Faith and Inflammation. At 6-foot-5, his heavily tattooed body towered over the Kuumbwa stage—even when he was sitting at his piano, somehow. After a set of songs like “Grandma vs. the Crusher” (Wirtz spent a while in the pro wrestling world, as well), “Right Wing Roundup” and covers of vintage blues songs so raunchy you would never guess in a million years they were from the 1930s, Wirtz closed with a thunderous call-and-response segment that went completely bananas when he had audience members turn to each other and yell things like “Eat shit and die!” My sister and I were laughing so hard by this point we had slipped out of our seats and onto the floor.
“I had never seen anything like that,” Jessica says now. Truth be told, I hadn’t either.
Years later, though, Wirtz is a different guy. Though his KPIG show (Sundays, 9-10pm) is still called “Reverend Billy’s Rhythm Revival,” he’s ditched the over-the-top alter ego. He’s still a riot, but his humor is less aggressive and in your face—it’s drier and more nuanced, which I know is a crazy thing to say about a guy who sings a song called “What I Used to Do All Night Now Takes Me All Night to Do,” but it’s true. So what changed?
“I’m not taking as many drugs,” says the 67-year-old Wirtz, who was born in South Carolina, but has lived in Florida since the ’90s. It sounds like a joke, and kinda is, but it’s also true. Remembering the era of that outrageous Kuumbwa show, he says “there was a period of time that I had really bad opiate issues, but I also was taking Adderall, which is kind of the last thing a guy like me needs. I went through a lot of chemical stuff.” He tried a lot of things to beat them, but in the end it was medical marijuana that sealed the deal. In a twist that will surprise no one in Santa Cruz, it was “Sleepy” John Sandidge, the local promoter who has been bringing Wirtz here for decades, who showed him the light.
But that wasn’t the only thing that changed.
“I have grown older, I have gotten more comfortable with myself,” he says. “Also, basically what happened was there was a couple of years there that I was just too sick. I was trying to get through the drugs. I was hurting. And I just stayed out of the business for about a year, year and a half. And so when I came back, I was kind of like, ‘I don’t know about all the hallelujah shtick and the preacher bit.’ And a friend of mine said, ‘Well, you’ve done enough weird stuff. And you’ve had enough interesting life experiences. You don’t need to do a character. Just stand up there and tell people about yourself. So I began to do a lot more backstories and that kind of thing between the songs themselves, talking about how the song got written, and then I also ended up talking about the history of the music.”
Even though I’ll always have great memories of his wildest days, I’m so happy for this new Wirtz. There are few people who have as interesting a life story or such an encyclopedic knowledge of music as he does. (For instance, I’ll always be indebted to him for making me realize the Cramps’ line “Stick out your can, ’cause I’m the garbageman” is actually a reference to Milton Brown’s 1934 single “Garbage Man Blues,” which he covers.) And now he finally feels comfortable sharing that—as himself. The redneck reverend act was funny, but it was just an act. Wirtz’s true genius has always been in his sharp comedic writing and timing, a fact which used to sometimes get lost in the manic craziness.
“I’m a wordsmith,” he admits, as he talks about doing more songwriting in the pandemic. “I’m doing that. And having a clear head, I’m able to do it much better.”
The Rev. Billy C. Wirtz plays the Kuumbwa on Saturday, Feb. 19 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $25 general admission, $40 gold circle, go to snazzyproductions.com or call 831-479-9241.
I am both mystified and disappointed that rail advocates have not yet joined the compromise solution for immediate use of the dormant county rail line. Certainly, they understand that modern passenger rail code requires the old, existing rails be removed and upgraded. Certainly, they understand that federal “railbanking” allows temporary use of the line for a “Greenway” until such time rail becomes more effective and affordable. Certainly, they understand that Greenway can happen from north to south with existing funds and without the need to tax yet again our already over-taxed citizens. Certainly, they understand that rather than waiting 20-30 years for a $1.5 billion passenger rail, an affordable, scenic, and highly functional Greenway can happen within just a few years.
Certainly, literally, the opponents to the Greenway trail have declared transportation options to be limited to “Our way … or just the highway!”
Julie Scurfield
Freedom
This letter does 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*****@*******es.sc.
Santa Cruz does not currently have the money to study train options, let alone build one! Railbanking gives us the opportunity to pave an interim trail in two years, and build a train in the future if/when the money becomes available.
This is the compromise that everyone can agree on, and it will be coming to a countywide vote next year with the Yes-Greenway Ballot Initiative!
Friends of the Rail Trail sought to block this vote, and do nothing with the corridor for the foreseeable future, out of genuine concern that an interim trail would be so massively popular that no one would ever go for their train.
They might be right!
David Date
Santa Cruz
This letter does 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*****@*******es.sc.
Your story “Tracks of the Trade” (GT, 2/2) was a good summary of the latest controversy to embroil Greenway and its former director and ongoing figurehead, Manu Koenig.
I was bemused by Koenig’s claim to be a supporter of rail transit because “he previously worked for Germany’s national railway Deutsche Bahn AG.” From the sound of it, you’d think he supports railroads and rail workers.
In truth, during his six-month student internship at Deutsche Bahn in 2007, one of his main projects was a PR campaign attacking striking union rail workers. Past is prologue: he’s continuing his PR work against rail and rail workers today in Santa Cruz County.
Sara Knutsson
Live Oak
This letter does 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*****@*******es.sc.
We’ve had some sweet cover stories in our Valentine’s Day issues. We’ve had some bittersweet ones, too (oh my god, the Divorce Dress, so sad), some sexy ones … and some that are simply bonkers. This year’s story from Adam Joseph falls decidedly into that last category.
Why do we like to read about the pitfalls of internet romance? Why do we like to read about bad dates? I’ll tell you something, it’s not because we want people to be miserable. It’s not just about the visceral thrill of cringing while laughing, either, though fellow fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm will agree it’s a little bit about that.
Really, though, it’s about empathy, which is something we could all use a little more of right now. Even if we’ve never downloaded a dating app, never had to swipe left or right on various possible romantic futures—or in this case, never had to reckon with the unexpected appearance of a fanny pack on a first date—we can feel how it feels. We might even be able to imagine how it feels to be both the fannypackee and the fannypacker.
It’s also about hope. If the author can get through a night like that and go on to see the humor in it—well, that bodes pretty well for the rest of us, and our own low points, romantic or otherwise.
This is all assuming, of course, that the writer is skilled enough to really pull us into this reality. I think you’ll find Adam’s story does exactly that. Enjoy, and may your Valentine’s Day be so much better than this.
STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
ONLINE COMMENTS
RE: STUFFED ANIMALS
This is a great article that is artfully written. I just loved this line: ”Akin to a Jackson Pollock painting, stuffed pets allow us to tap into our inner selves, and to paint with our instincts and emotions.” Bravo to the author for addressing a common experience that is mostly underground! Over the years, I too have had a number of adult clients who have been comforted and supported by their stuffed animals!
— Debra Sloss
This is an excellent article. The writer and Ms. Wentworth have given us a much better understanding of people’s need for companionship and intimacy, regardless of their life situations. In the late stage of Alzheimer’s, my late mother took great comfort in her stuffed Snoopy dog, which was always with her. Thank you for sharing!
— Barbara Rossetter
Wow. So interesting. Missing my teddy bear collection! Jennifer is a strong, confident woman. So sad she went through that trauma. Thank you for shining a light on this wonderful coping option.
Anyone who went to UCSC knows about crossing campus—and maybe Oakes Bridge—on kinda spooky, kinda magical foggy nights. Photograph by Celeste Cannon. Insta: @teratoma.gallery
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GOOD IDEA
SAY IT, THEN SPRAY IT
Santa Cruz County will be one of four pilot counties across the state to launch a pesticide notification system for residents. The county partnered with the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) to develop a notification system that will alert the Senior Village Community in Watsonville and surrounding homes ahead of certain pesticide sprays. Input from residents and growers will be used to help DPR create a statewide notification system. Learn more about the program, which is expected to launch in July, at www.agdept.com.
GOOD WORK
SELF CARE
On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 418 into law, approving the immediate creation of Pajaro Valley Healthcare District. The new healthcare district is a nonprofit that will purchase the Watsonville Community Hospital, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, and would have otherwise been closed or sold by March of this year. The nonprofit was created by the County of Santa Cruz, the City of Watsonville, the Community Health Trust of Pajaro Valley and Salud Para La Gente.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Maybe the most that you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is to come out of it with a few good songs.”
I never thought I’d be looking for romance on my phone at 40 years old. I thought I had already found the love of my life 10 years earlier, with whom I had an extraordinary child and exchanged wedding vows.
I was looking for that love I had lost, but I could be picky. And my daughter was part of the equation. Anyone I matched with also had to be someone I could imagine bonding with my five-year-old. I’d watched dozens of “how-to” YouTube videos on French braiding hair, which was a skill constantly demanded of me, in addition to painting tiny fingernails—most polish usually ended up on her cuticles and fingertips, but she didn’t mind. I looked away from my phone screen, down at the Barbies strewn across my living room floor along with the remnants of my daughter’s blueberry muffin breakfast. My little girl was the one ray of light in my life that always shined brightly.
As I approached hour number two on the dating app, my eyes began to glaze over. Before tossing in my towel for the day, I noticed a small heart icon on my phone screen, which indicated activity. Not one, not two, but three women had selected my profile as a “match.” The first two women were quick passes, but my thumb froze before tagging out the third woman, Mindy. She appeared attractive—shoulder-length amber hair—and more importantly, I didn’t spot any red flags on her profile; she kept it simple: a 35-year-old elementary school librarian who lived in Santa Clara. The “children” category was left unanswered on her profile, but other than that, I thought, “Why not?”
As soon as I accepted Mindy’s “match,” my phone pinged, alerting me that I had a personal message.
“The photo of you and your daughter is so adorable,” Mindy wrote.
Mindy had met my initial prerequisites, and she had already shown interest in me with a personal message that even acknowledged my daughter. Score! I felt something I hadn’t thought about for a long time; the feeling of possibility.
The process moved quickly from there. Mindy seemed well-versed in this mysterious world of online dating that I had just dipped my toe into. She suggested we exchange phone numbers. She then proposed we send each other real-time selfies to verify we were the same people displayed in our profiles.
Before I was able to take a selfie, I received Mindy’s. It did indeed match her profile photo. 30 seconds after I sent my photo, my phone rang.
“Hi?” Mindy said. She spoke in a way that made everything she said sound like it needed to be punctuated with a question mark, but her tone was merry. I imagined her smiling on the other end of the phone. She was also giggly. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her enthusiasm. We’d never met, yet she sounded like a schoolgirl with a crush. I equated it to nerves.
“Are you free tonight?” She didn’t waste any time, which was fine with me.
“I am,” I replied.
And just like that, a few hours after my inaugural foray into online dating, I had my first first date in 10 years with a woman I knew next to nothing about. The plan: dinner in Santa Clara—a city I knew very little about.
I dusted off my bottle of Cool Water, which hadn’t been used since my wedding day, and lightly trimmed my beard.
Why should I trust this person? Why does she trust me? Was it faith or desperation? It may have been a little of both. I’d always been a romantic. I was the kind of guy who fell in love with the idea of love. It was a blessing and a curse.
I was about 15 miles away from Mindy’s house when my phone rang, according to my navigation. It was Mindy.
“Where are you?” Her matter-of-fact demeanor sounded like we had known each other for years.
“I’m about 15 minutes away.”
“Okay, I’ll see you soon?”
Before I had the chance to agree, she hung up. A few minutes later, my phone rang again. It was Mindy. Again.
“You almost here?” She sounded like a bored kid bugging her parents during a road trip.
I tried to answer politely, without sounding like I was beginning to get irritated, as I navigated through Silicon Valley rush hour while following directions to somewhere I had never been.
“I’ll be there soon,” I said. “I need to pay attention, so I don’t miss your exit.”
“Okay. Bye.” Click.
When I pulled up in front of Mindy’s house, I saw her standing in the driveway drinking a beer, pretending that she wasn’t aware of me. She wore blue jeans and a black tank top, exposing a collage of tattoos coloring most of the space on her shoulders and upper arms. Her wavy, amber hair had more of an orangey tint in person. She had prominent bangs and piercings that lined the entire perimeter of both of her ears. I didn’t mind the tats or the piercings, but I didn’t know how I felt about the well-worn, sky-blue fanny pack she sported. It sagged slightly towards the left side of her hip.
“Mindy?” I said as I shut my car door.
“My neighbor gave me a beer,” she said. “I don’t even want it. You want some?”
“I’m good,” I said.
I had stopped for flowers—a bouquet of purple tulips—on the way and picked up a decent bottle of South Monterey County Merlot. It was a good move.
“Nobody’s brought me flowers before,” she giggled.
Mindy then told me that she had two daughters who lived with her full-time; a 13-year-old who recently came out, and a 10-year-old. They were inside the house, which explained why she met me outside. Understandably, she didn’t want her daughters to meet a guy she hadn’t even met yet. The small-framed woman put the beer down in the middle of the driveway.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. “I’m going to put the flowers in water.”
She hurried back with a pair of wine glasses.
“We can drink wine at the cemetery?” Mindy suggested. “It’s not very far, so we can just walk.”
I didn’t feel like drinking wine at a cemetery; it reminded me of something I may have been game for in high school. I deflected the cemetery suggestion by offering a counter-proposal.
“How about we save the wine for later and get some dinner?”
Mindy nodded.
I grabbed the wine and glasses and tried to look Mindy over without being too obvious.
That goddamned fanny pack! It was like the disfigured eye in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart.” Before she sat down in my car, she shifted the sky-blue pack from her hip to her lap and unzipped it. She dug around in there while looking straight ahead, and pulled out a white, oval-shaped pill, popped it into her mouth and gulped the last of the beer. It was too early to tell, but I worried that I might be on a date with a train wreck. What the hell did I get myself into?
“Sorry if I’m a little loopy,” she said. “I’m taking Vicodin because I reinjured my ankle yesterday.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“I took one of those steps when your ankle just gives out and bends the wrong way, you know?”
Unfamiliar with Santa Clara, I asked her for a dinner suggestion. I hoped for an off-the-beaten-path spot where we could get to know each other. Mindy wanted the opposite.
“How about California Pizza Kitchen?” she said. “It’s at Valley Fair, near Santana Row.”
California Pizza Kitchen at a ginormous mall during peak dining time on a Friday night?
“Okay,” I said, trying to hide any cringing.
“I fucking love their chicken piccata,” Mindy balanced the empty beer bottle between her knees and took another plunge into that fanny pack. She pulled out a weed vape. I had figured out the fanny pack’s purpose: a carry-on pharmacy.
“You mind if I take a hit?” Mindy had already released a plume of smoke before I had a chance to answer.
I tried to keep up with Mindy as she slithered through the sea of people who packed CPK. She yelled back to the hostess that we were going to the bar. The smell of overcooked garlic intertwined with loud chatter in a smorgasbord of languages was sensory overload. So much for a quality conversation.
Mindy wedged herself into a spot with two stools, and we ordered drinks. She opted for an inexpensive Chardonnay, and I went with a margarita. I noticed that Mindy began eyeballing every tabletop in the joint, zeroing in on the bread baskets and saucers of olive oil with herbs for dipping.
“Excuse me?” She blurted out in the direction of several servers zooming by, balancing hot plates for other tables.
“One moment,” a faceless voice responded in the distance.
Mindy looked annoyed, as if she felt like there had been a plot devised against her by the entire CPK franchise. She turned her anger toward another busy server rushing by.
“Sir! Um, why didn’t we get any bread?” Mindy asked.
“One moment,” the server said.
Mindy went on about the bread and the olive oil for dipping.
“How could they?” She exclaimed.
I wondered if the cocktail of substances she ingested had anything to do with her odd behavior or if this was how she always was. A server returned with our drinks, and yes, a basket of complimentary bread with the olive oil for dipping.
Mindy went to town on that bread as if she had been living in a refugee camp.
“Want some?” she asked between chews.
“I’m okay, thanks.”
“I love this shit,” she said before diving in for more.
Mindy sipped her wine after reducing the basket of bread to a few crumbs. She looked up to a group of waiters speeding off in opposite directions.
“Excuse me!” She shouted.
I inhaled my margarita, hoping it would take the edge off. The pizza ovens were directly in front of us, delivering a constant flow of hot air, which added to my discomfort.
“Excuse me!” Mindy repeated, holding her empty glass up as another cluster of busy servers whizzed by.
She eventually flagged down the guy working the pizza oven.
“Sir! Can you help us? We’re out of bread, and I need a wine refill!”
The guy didn’t respond. He just stared back at her blankly with the look of someone who didn’t understand a word she said. Mindy held the empty bread basket and her empty glass about an inch away from the poor guy’s bewildered face.
“I get your waiter,” he said in broken English.
“I can’t believe this!” Mindy turned to me. “You’re embarrassed, aren’t you? I’m just starving!”
I forced a smile. I wanted a magic remote control so I could fast forward to the end of the night, but Apple hasn’t invented that yet.
Maybe this is what dating is like nowadays, I thought. Or perhaps I just should have swiped left on Mindy.
Either way, I had to tough it out.
One man’s first online dating experience reveals what happens when it’s too late to swipe left.
When a waitress came over to take our orders, Mindy had a lot to get off her chest, mainly centering on the breadbasket. The waiter didn’t pretend to care or even listen; she visibly rolled her eyes as Mindy went on and on. That seemed to really set my date off.
“Just get me the manager!” Mindy demanded.
She turned to me and placed her hand on my forearm. “Sorry to do this on our first date.” A Latino man wearing a black chef’s uniform and a ubiquitous food-stained apron walked out from the back kitchen area. Beads of sweat covered his forehead, and he had a pencil behind his ear.
“How can I help you?” he asked, staring directly at me. I tried to discreetly pantomime a motion, trying to move the guy’s attention towards Mindy. I didn’t want to be associated with the headache, but Mindy ended up taking care of that for me.
She slid off of her barstool, moved her fanny pack to the left side of her hip, and walked to the end of the bar, where she was able to have a one-on-one conversation with the guy, who probably had no time for this. I tried to ignore the conversation, but overheard most of it. Mindy carried on about being ignored and the lack of bread and the waitress who rolled her eyes at her. It was an exhausting diatribe. She also provided unnecessary information about being on a first date—when she pointed me out, I slinked down on my stool as low as possible, trying to appear uninvolved. The manager knew he wasn’t dealing with someone rational, but remained calm, never interrupting Mindy or making excuses for his staff. He just crossed his arms and said nothing as she continued to speak in one perpetual run-on sentence.
“I’m sorry you are having such a negative experience, miss,” he said. “I’ll make sure you get more bread right away, and your waitress will bring your orders out as soon as they’re ready. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
Mindy returned, looking somewhat satisfied, and the manager retreated to the back area of the kitchen.
“They’re going to give us one of our meals for free,” Mindy said.
That was a part of the conversation I hadn’t overheard. Now I had to worry about the possibility of eating food covered in mystery, off-menu bodily fluids kindly provided by our waitress. She most likely had been made aware of Mindy’s not-so-glowing feedback. But, for the remainder of the meal, our basket of bread was full. And Mindy’s glass of Chardonnay was bottomless.
After many years away from the dating scene, I knew that I might have been rusty in the getting-to-know-you-chitchat department, but I didn’t expect that my date would talk more to the restaurant staff than me. I don’t remember what I had for dinner, but I remember Mindy licked her chicken piccata plate clean. She didn’t seem worried about the potential of foreign substances added to her food by the eye-rolling waitress. Mindy asked to have the remaining bread bagged up and the olive oil for dipping. I paid the check, grabbed the baggie and maneuvered through the bustling space like Barry Sanders zigzagging towards the end zone. Mindy grabbed onto my arm with both of her hands so she wouldn’t lose me.
“You hate me, don’t you?” Mindy asked. “I’m usually not like this. I think it’s the Vicodin?”
“It’s okay,” I said.
I took a lesson from the California Pizza Kitchen manager’s playbook and spoke as little as possible, responding to Mindy’s questions using one-word answers or nods. While I was eager to call it a night, Mindy’s petite hands wrapped partially around my forearm gave me a buzz, reminding me just how much I craved a woman’s touch. Once we had escaped the confines of the crowded restaurant and were outside, her grip on my arm remained firm. She pulled me closer and brushed her hip against my leg as we walked to the car. When I looked down at her, she stared back with large brown eyes. I also forgot how it felt to have a woman look at me like that. I relished that feeling, but I still wanted to get this woman home and close the book on Mindy forever.
It wouldn’t be that easy, though. When I opened the car door for her, Mindy’s empty beer bottle fell to the ground. Luckily, it didn’t break.
“Oops,” Mindy giggled, squatting down to pick it up.She looked around for a trash can before deciding that her only option, rather than taking the bottle with us and throwing it away when she got home, was placing it on the hood of the truck parked next to us. The kicker: She was unaware—I was too, at first—of the behemoth of a guy sitting inside the truck. On top of that, his window was down. The guy was either hard of hearing or very stoned because he had no idea that a beer bottle had been placed on the hood of his vehicle.
“Oh shit!” Mindy covered her mouth when she also realized the truck wasn’t vacant. I thought about grabbing the bottle, but decided to let it be and hope for a clean getaway. The guy looked like the type who wouldn’t have the patience to hear an explanation. There really wasn’t an explanation anyway. So, I left the bottle sitting undisturbed on the truck’s polished hood. I shut Mindy’s door gingerly, sprinted around to the other side of the car, jumped in and drove away without incident. Mindy let out a nervous giggle as she fished out a Vicodin and her vape from her sky-blue fanny pack. I glanced in my rearview at the bottle, sitting undetected on the truck’s hood. I also noticed a CPK bag near the truck’s door on the ground.
“Shit! I think I left the bread and olive oil,” Mindy said after hitting her vape. I didn’t say anything. I just made my way towards her house.
The following day, I deleted my account from the dating app, but I signed up again about a month later. It’s been a couple years since the “Mindy” experience, but it has stuck with me like a painful ingrown hair. Also, I’m still single. I have tried a few other apps—there are so many now, who knows which might hold the key to my match?
It’s become exponentially more difficult with the added variable of a global pandemic. However, my search has continued. There have been dozens of first dates and second and third dates. There have been month-long mini relationships and the occasional bizarre encounter. One prospective date told me during our introductory Facetime that she feared I might “kidnap her because I’m a bad man” with a lengthy arrest record. Before realizing the woman was into BDSM, I Googled myself in a panic, wondering where she found this damaging false information about me. There have been potential leads that turned out to be prostitutes, and others who were part of scams. The list goes on.
The whole process has been discouraging, expensive and exhausting. But I won’t settle for anything less than a true teammate, a soulmate, someone who will be on my side through the good, the bad and the ugly. Sometimes, I wonder, “Is it me? Am I too picky? Am I destined to be alone for the rest of my life?” In the end, I don’t think so. Decades before dating apps, Marvin Gaye was interviewed about finding love. His response: “Finding your soulmate takes a lot of looking.” That keeps me going.
As Pepe Nunez looks around at his eclectic collection of prints, paintings, sculptures and religious antiques that wrap around the walls of his tattoo shop on Freedom Boulevard, I ask him what his parents think about his profession. Nunez, a homegrown Watsonville tattoo artist, says he was raised by a single “traditional Mexican mother,” and was the middle child among his siblings. So while his brothers and sister were smothered in tough love or pampered with gifts and praise, he was left on his own to find his place in the world.
“I was more like the invisible kid,” says Nunez (no relation to this writer). “[My mother] wasn’t too strict with me.”
And yet, when he decided to pursue tattooing, he says she had several concerns about the path he had chosen. Had he started using drugs? Was he in a gang? Was he worshiping Satan?
“At first she was worried—as all parents are,” says Nunez. “But after she’s seen what I can do, now she likes it, or she can at least respect the fact that this is something that I’m really serious about and something I love to do.”
After spending more than a decade as a tattoo artist in Silicon Valley, Nunez has returned home. His shop, Classic Calavera Tattoo, is set to open sometime this week in a location near the intersection of Freedom Boulevard and Green Valley Road that previously housed a bike shop. Even though business was booming at Black Lagoon Tattoo in San Jose, Nunez says he always knew he wanted to return to his hometown to inspire the next generation of local artists and help Watsonville folks tell their stories through his art.
“This was always my goal: to give back to this community,” he says. “There’s so much life, a lot of hardworking people, a lot of struggle. There’s a lot of people here that need someone that can help them get across the person they are … everything I’ve gained from other places, I’ve brought back [to Watsonville].”
But his return has been anything but easy. It was more than a year ago that he first started looking into what it would take to set up a tattoo shop inside city limits. What he found was a slew of restrictions on the profession written into Watsonville’s municipal code by former politicians. For years, he wondered why there were no tattoo shops in Watsonville—why so many promising artists left the area and never came back. Now, it all makes sense.
“Going through all of this,” he says, “it feels like the restrictions are keeping [tattoo] businesses out.”
OVERDRAWN LAWS
In today’s climate, opening up a tattoo shop no longer carries the middle-finger-to-the-establishment connotation that it once did. The painful and expensive artistry is part of the zeitgeist of a current generation that values freedom of expression and individualism. But in Watsonville, that’s not the case.
Written into the municipal code as Body Art Facilities, tattoo shops face many of the same restrictions as liquor stores and cannabis dispensaries. They have to be 500 feet away from parks and schools, 750 feet away from another tattoo shop and 300 feet away from a liquor store, bar or restaurant with a bar. They also have to undergo an annual inspection from Watsonville Police Department, and no more than 25% of any window can be covered “with material that obscures the view into the Body Art Facility from the outside”—with no consideration for people who might be getting ink in a private area.
If that wasn’t overbearing enough, shops must go before the Watsonville Planning Commission for an annual review, where they could have their special use permit—which costs $6,000—revoked. Oh, and they have to reapply for the pricey permit every five years.
“The ordinance takes a very tough stance on tattoo shops,” says Suzi Merriam, the city’s Community Development Department director.
Merriam says that this was an intentional move by a largely conservative city council that was forced to update its rules around tattoo shops when a prospective business owner wanted to establish a location within city limits nearly two decades ago.
At the time, Watsonville had a de facto ban on tattoos that dated back to the 1960s, a time when, according to Pajaronian and city records, thousands of troops stationed at Fort Ord that were coming in and out of the Central Coast during the Vietnam War often visited South Main Street in Watsonville, an area of the city known at the time as a red-light district for its bars and nightlife. The fear then was the proliferation of blood-borne pathogens through prostitution, and dirty needles used for tattoos and drugs.
In 2007, however, concerns were much different. Geoff Wells and his mother—and lawyer—Kate Wells were threatening litigation against the city because of the de facto ban. They claimed, as plaintiffs in other cities successfully have, that it was unconstitutional because tattoos are a protected form of free speech. The Watsonville City Council struggled to quickly compromise on the restrictions that tattoo shops should face as it wrestled with fears that the businesses would promote gangs. As a result, the Wells family sued the city twice over the course of a two-year battle.
Geoff Wells says that about a year into the fight, he was ready to call it quits. But after speaking at a city council meeting, he received some motivation from then-Watsonville City Councilman Greg Caput, now the 4th District County Supervisor.
“Caput said, ‘You are a second class citizen and we don’t want second-class businesses in our city,’” Wells claims. “I was going to walk away. I was going to give up and go somewhere else. But after I heard that, I said, ‘Fuck that.’ I was going to fight it until we won.”
They did.
Freedom Tattoo opened in 2008 just a couple of doors down from where Nunez set up Classic Calavera Tattoo on Freedom Boulevard.
Freedom has since moved from its Watsonville location to a spot off Soquel Drive in Aptos. Setting up in the unincorporated area of the county, Wells says, was “super easy.” Other than being subject to the typical inspections from the County Health Department as part of state law, he faced few restrictions while making the move.
“We don’t need any special licenses, any of the bullshit that Watsonville has,” Wells says. “And that’s how it should be. Tattoo businesses are just that. They’re businesses like any other place.”
The City of Santa Cruz in 1984 repealed its prohibition on tattoos and lumped them in with other personal care businesses such as nail salons and hairdressers. The city also updated its Downtown Specific Plan in 2020 to allow tattoo shops in certain areas in the corridor, following a dispute with a business owner the year prior.
Scotts Valley and the county also treat tattoo shops no differently than other personal care businesses. But Capitola, like Watsonville before its current ordinance, has a de facto ban on tattoo shops in place that dates back to the ’60s. Their ordinance says that tattoos can only be done under a doctor’s supervision.
Larry Laurent, the assistant to Capitola City Manager Jamie Goldstein, says that Capitola has seen no pushback to the decades-old ordinance in recent years.
If there is, he says, the city would then look at what is mandated by the state.
Although Wells considers his fight against Watsonville a success, he argues that the current ordinance is yet another de facto prohibition on tattoo shops. If he had not pulled out of Watsonville, he wonders where exactly Nunez would have put his shop. It took him several months to find a location that fit within the restrictions, and he believes it would be even tougher to do so now with additional schools, bars, restaurants and, now, Nunez’s shop.
“And the sad thing is that no one [on the city council] is going to change the zoning for tattoo shops until someone sues the city again,” Wells says.
CULTURE SHOCK
Thinking back to the conversations the Watsonville City Council had while it developed the current body art ordinance, then-mayor Manuel Bersamin says that “the Watsonville of that period of time is not the Watsonville of today.” Specifically, he says that gang violence and crime spiked during the Great Recession, which coincided with the tattoo issue and fueled their fears that a tattoo shop would empower local gangs. He also says that the city council was in the midst of becoming more progressive and Latino, and that even the council members who supported this were worried about the impact a tattoo shop would have on the area’s youth.
“Watsonville was changing,” Bersamin says. “Watsonville is still changing, and we can’t forget that.”
Still, he says that the false connection the city council made between tattoo shops and gang proliferation—one that the city’s own police force shot down at the time—is difficult to look back on. It was tough then, he says, to separate the Watsonville that he grew up with, a city that struggled with violence and alcoholism because of its large collection of “cantinas” in South Main Street, from the community that Watsonville was becoming.
“I think we were trying so hard to break that stigma that Watsonville had for years that we couldn’t see tattoo shops for what they were,” says Bersamin, 69, who after he left the city council got a tattoo of his mother. “We didn’t know that they’d become something so acceptable in the way they are today, especially in Watsonville.”
Current Watsonville City Councilman Francisco “Paco” Estrada agrees with Bersamin. The child of Mexican immigrants, Estrada, 39, says that the worries the council voiced back in 2007 were the exact conversations he had with his parents when he was younger. For his parents, having a tattoo meant, among other things, that you were in a gang.
“Even though I heard that growing up over and over again, I didn’t believe any of it,” Estrada says with a chuckle. “As I got older, I learned about the reasons why people get tattoos. They tell a story of who these people are—they’re a part of their identity.”
Estrada respected his parents’ wishes and waited until he no longer lived under their household to get a tattoo. Now, he has three, including a sleeve on his left arm that Nunez did for him. He says that his mother was initially sad that he got a tattoo, but “her view on it changed just like her view on a lot of things have changed.”
“My parents aren’t the same sort of traditional Mexican parents that they once were,” he says, adding that their views on things such as LGBTQ+ rights have changed as well.
When Nunez was younger, he also associated tattoos with gangs and drugs. It wasn’t until he was out of high school that he saw the attention to detail and artistic prowess that went into the profession. A gifted artist as a kid, Nunez said that he gravitated toward the craft soon after.
“I saw it for what it was, a fine craft,” he says.
He hopes his art can do the same for others. He highlights the fact that he is bilingual—speaking fluently in Spanish and English—and wants to be a resource for Spanish speakers who are interested in getting a tattoo, but have been intimidated because of the language barrier. That roadblock, Nunez says, has only contributed to the misconceptions around tattoos in Latino-heavy communities like Watsonville.
“It’s all about making people feel safe, welcomed and taken care of,” he says. “I think that’s stopped some of the older people from getting tattoos, not being able to communicate what they want. That’s one thing I wanted to bring here, too: quality work for the common working man, all the Mexicanos and all the people that are not bilingual to have somewhere they can go where people can understand them. I want to take care of people here.”
For years, KUSP was Santa Cruz’s non-university-affliated public radio station, offering local news and extensive music and talk programming, and acting as a regional affiliate for National Public Radio.
The station went dark in 2016, but it wasn’t long before a group of citizens with a passion for public radio banded together to fill the gap. Volunteers spent two years raising over $300,000 to purchase a license and equipment to start KSQD 90.7 FM.
The station debuted on February 15, 2019, and continues to grow as it reaches its third anniversary.
“We hit the ground running,” says Program Director Howard Feldstein. “Before we went on air, we’d already decided on programming. At that point, it was a matter of bringing it all together. Since then, it’s been a matter of keeping everyone happy—and keeping something good on the air 24/7.”
Now affectionately known as “The Squid,” KSQD is operated by two part-time staff, including Feldstein, and over 100 volunteers who curate a constant stream of music and original talk shows, along with national and regional programs. Music includes jazz, folk, bluegrass, world, classical, gospel, blues and more. Talk shows include “Ask Dr. Dawn,” “Be Bold America,” “In The Garden,” “The Dream Journal,” “Cruz News and Views” and “The Computer Man Show.”
The station also hosts “The Kitchen Sisters,” a show by award-winning producers Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva. The show chronicles the lives, rituals, triumphs and tribulations of people from all walks of life in America. Recently, 7,000 hours of audio, photos, journals, and more from the show were acquired by the Library of Congress, and will soon be enshrined at the Smithsonian.
“It’s absolutely amazing,” Feldstein says. “They have a national, even international reputation. And they’re based right here in Santa Cruz.”
KSQD has also been instrumental in reporting information during natural disasters and the ongoing pandemic.
“I’m proud of our moments during the many crises this region has been through,” says Rachel Goodman, one of the station’s main founders and the chair of its Board of Directors. “We were on the air immediately during the CZU fires, giving out updates. We were there during Covid—we’re still here during Covid. It’s been both a challenge and an opportunity. I think our crisis program is really the kind of thing we were made for.”
Radio’s ability to communicate in real-time is one of the medium’s biggest strengths, Goodman says.
“Even if your power is out, you can get in your car and listen,” she says. “Also, it’s a very intimate medium. When you have someone talking to you, they feel like a friend—and they are! We have people working here who have listeners who have stuck with them through five stations. There’s an emotional connection. A lot of people feel very attached.”
Feldstein says it feels “gratifying” that the station has found such a loyal audience.
“We don’t have billions of listeners—we’re not KQED or even KSCO. But those who do listen really, really appreciate us,” he says. “When we started three years ago, there was no guarantee that people would listen. And being financially viable requires community support. Would people voluntarily support us, find value in what we do? The answer has been, ‘Yes!’ We had a niche to fill, and I think we’ve filled it really well.”
KSQD recently added three new members to its nonprofit board of directors: former Santa Cruz city councilmember and university lecturer Tim Fitzmaurice, educator and former mayor Jane Weed Pomerantz and former KLRB program director and Monterey County Film Commission board member David Bean.
Goodman calls the board “very hands on.”
“A lot of boards are more like figureheads,” she says. “But most of us volunteer at roles that would normally be staff positions. The hours of volunteer time being given to the community, they are giving lots of time, and most importantly, passion and care. I think people feel that. It’s all a labor of love.”
The station’s broadcast license is held by Natural Bridges Media, an organization formed in December 2017. For its entire run the station’s sole means of financial support has been donations from listeners, educational grants and underwriting. It currently operates with an annual budget of $110,000.
“I can’t tell you how grateful we are to the people who believed in this vision,” Goodman says. “We had a few naysayers, but a lot of people were like, ‘Absolutely, I totally understand why you want to do this, here’s some money.’ I want to thank the donors who made this possible.”
Feldstein calls the station’s volunteers “not only motivated, but extremely talented, too.”
“Somebody who does something well, it almost doesn’t matter what you’re doing—it will speak to something universal,” he says. You might not like reggae music, but if you heard Terry Gross interviewing Bob Marley 30 years ago, you’d stay tuned. Because she’s a good interviewer, and he’s a good subject. That’s our highest mission: To uplift, inspire and educate as well as entertain. It’s magic when all those things come together.”
Due to Covid, KSQD will celebrate its anniversary on air, with special programs between Feb. 11-20. Daily 3pm broadcasts will feature shout-outs, including from local musicians Dale Ockerman and Anthony Arya, and national artists like Janis Ian and Karl Denson.
“We’ve come a long way in just three years, and we’re really happy about where we are,” Goodman says. “We’re looking forward to expanding even further.”
For information and to listen online, visit ksqd.org. The station invites listeners to submit recorded birthday wishes and commentary. Send them directly by email to op********@**qd.org.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Real love is a pilgrimage,” declared author Anita Brookner. “It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists.” That’s the bad news, Aries. The good news is that you have more potential than ever before to free your love of strategic maneuvering and manipulation. For the foreseeable future, I invite you to drop all romantic agendas and simply make yourself extra receptive to love’s teachings. Are you ready to learn what you don’t even realize you need to know?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the near future, I’ll be pleased if you dole out lavish praise to allies who enchant you. I will celebrate if you deliver loving inspirations and lush invitations to those who help you fulfill your reasons for being here on the planet. To get you in the mood, here are some suggested provocations. 1. “Your body makes mine into a shrine; holy, divine, godtouched.” —Ramona Meisel. 2. “Your luster opens glories on my glowing face.” —Federico García Lorca. 3. “All night long if you want. We’ll tell our secrets to the dark.” —Gayle Forman. 4. “I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.” —Bob Dylan. 5. “We are each other’s harvest. We are each other’s business. We are each other’s magnitude and bond.” —Gwendolyn Brooks.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In Gemini author Orhan Pamuk’s novel Snow, the main character Ka asks a woman named Ipek, “What is the thing you want most from me? What can I do to make you love me?” Ipek’s answer: “Be yourself.” In the coming days, Gemini, I would love you to engage in similar exchanges with those you care for. According to my understanding of the astrological omens, now is a favorable time for you and your best allies to shed all fakery and pretense so that you may be soulfully authentic with each other—and encourage each other to express what’s most raw and genuine.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Are you in the mood to make extravagant gestures in behalf of love? Are you feeling an urge to move beyond your habitual approaches to intimate togetherness as you dare to engage in fun experiments? Now is a good time for such behavior with allies you trust. To spur your imagination, immerse yourself in the spirit of this poem by Nizar Qabbani: “I abandon my dictionaries to the flames, / And ordain you my language. / I fling my passport beneath the waves, / And christen you my country.” Your homework: Dream up and carry out a playful and audacious venture that will energize one of your close relationships.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I’ve created a list of splashy titles for stories or poems or songs or artworks or dances that you could compose for beloved allies or people you want to be beloved allies. I hope my list inspires you to get gushy and lyrical. I hope you’ll be creative and marvelous as you express your passionate appreciation. Here are the titles: 1. Glistening Passion. 2. Incandescent Rapture. 3. Succulent Dazzle. 4. Molten Luminosity. 5. Splashy Fire Bliss. 6. Shimmering Joy Beams. 7. Opulent Delirium. 8. Wild Soul Synergy. 9. Sublime Friction. 10. Fluidic Gleam Blessings. 11. Throbbing Reverence. 12. Sacred Heart Salvation.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Author Eve Ensler tells us, “You have to give to the world the thing that you want the most, in order to fix the broken parts inside you.” This is perfect counsel for you to carry out in the coming weeks, Virgo. Life will conspire to help you heal yourself, in dramatic and even semi-miraculous ways, as you offer the people and animals you care for the same blessings that you crave to receive. I foresee an influx of restorative karma flowing in your direction. I predict the fixing of at least some of your broken parts.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In Michael Chabon’s novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, the character named Arthur says to the character named Cleveland, “Love is like falconry. Don’t you think that’s true?” Cleveland replies, “Never say love is like anything. It isn’t.” I propose we make that your meditation during this Valentine season, Libra. In accordance with astrological omens, you will be wise to purge all your preconceptions about love. Use your ingenuity to revive your innocence about the subject. Cultivate a sense of wonder as you let your imagination run wild and free in its fantasies about love and sex and intimacy.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I’ll love it if sometime soon you create a situation in which you tell an ally words similar to what author Jamaica Kincaid spoke to her lover: “To behold the startling truths of your naked body frees me to remember the song I was born from.” Do you think you can make that happen, Scorpio? The astrological indicators at play in your life suggest that it would be right and sacred for you to do so. And if there is no such ally, then I hope you will deliver the same message to your naked self. And by the way, what is the song you were born from? (PS: There has never been a better time than now to learn treasured truths about yourself through your connections with others.)
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I’m afraid I must be downright practical and mundane in my oracle for you. Don’t hate me! I’m only reporting what the planetary omens are telling me. They say that now is a favorable time for you to practice, practice and practice some more the fine arts hinted at by author Ivan Goncharov: “A close, daily intimacy between two people has to be paid for: It requires a great deal of experience of life, logic and warmth of heart on both sides to enjoy each other’s good qualities without being irritated by each other’s shortcomings and blaming each other for them.” Be diligently positive, Sagittarius, as you work through the demanding daily trials of togetherness.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I’ll offer you a radical idea about love from author Hélène Cixous. Although it’s not always true for everyone, it will have special meaning for you in the coming months. She wrote, “It is easy to love and sing one’s love. That is something I am extremely good at doing. But to be loved, that is true greatness. Being loved, letting oneself be loved, entering the magic and dreadful circle of generosity, receiving gifts, finding the right thank-you’s, that is love’s real work.” How about it, Capricorn? Are you up for the challenge? Are you willing to expand your capacity to welcome the care and benevolence and inspiration coming your way from others?
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Actor Leelee Sobieski was mourning her romantic adventures—or rather the lack of romantic adventures. She said, “If only I could find a guy who wasn’t in his 70s to talk to me about white cranes, I’d be madly in love.” The good news is that Sobieski knows precisely what she wants, and it’s not all that complicated. The bad news is that there are few men near her own age (38) who enjoy discussing the fine points of the endangered bird species known as the white crane. I bring her predicament to your attention, Aquarius, in the hope that you’ll be inspired to be as exact and lucid as she is in identifying what you want—even as you cheat just a bit in the direction of wanting what is actually available.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I’ve never offered you the wisdom of actor Natalie Portman, but her idealistic attitude about relationships is exactly what I think you should aspire to in the coming months. She said, “I always ask myself, would I want someone to do something that wasn’t comfortable for them to do just to please me? And the answer is no.” What do you think, Pisces? Do you suspect it might be interesting to apply that principle to your closest alliances? I hope so. If you do, the planetary energies will conspire to deepen your intimate bonds.
What love goal would you like to accomplish between now and February 2023? Write it down, stating it as an intention and vow. Share? Freewillastrology.com
Santa Cruz Public Libraries (SCPL), with the help of its nonprofit partner Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries (Friends), has surpassed a fundraising goal of $1 million.
The funds will aid SCPL in completing its ongoing refurbishments and rebuilds of libraries across the county. From La Selva Beach to Boulder Creek, all branches in the SCPL system are being modernized, expanded and redesigned.
A bulk of the fundraising was met back in 2016, when local voters supported Measure S, a $67 million bond measure for library facility improvements. But rising construction costs left a large gap in funding just last year.
“When the architects got back to us, the gap was a million dollars,” says Janis O’Driscoll, president of Friends. “We gulped because that is a big number, and we are in the middle of a pandemic. But we said, OK, that’s our goal.’”
Friends spent the rest of 2021 raising funds through its Realizing the Promise Campaign, reaching the million-dollar mark on Christmas Eve. More than 500 donors contributed to the cause. Some $68,000 of that amount was raised through Santa Cruz Gives, the GT holiday fundraising campaign that doubled in size in 2021.
“In spite of the pandemic, in spite of that large number, it happened,” O’Driscoll says. “We did it. I want everyone to know how much we thank them for their support. How much these facilities are going to do for this community. Thank you and we know it’s going to make a difference to all kinds of people.”
Realizing the Promise donations will first go to helping complete the Aptos, Branciforte and Garfield Park branch renovations. Later phases of the campaign will support other projects including a brand new Downtown Santa Cruz branch, which will incorporate a low-income housing project.
For information, visit santacruzpl.org and fscpl.org.
