To Jesse Hughes, California is the ideal place to grow hemp. Not only is the state the top producer of cannabis generally, but particularly in Sonoma County and surrounding areas, “we have the land,” Hughes says. “And the climate is perfect, as proven by our agriculture industry.”
But California lags other states, such as Colorado and Kentucky. Hughes, a hemp and CBD entrepreneur who runs the Hemp General Store in Petaluma, says one historical reason for this is that during the decades when both hemp and marijuana were illegal, it was much more lucrative to grow marijuana—which is loaded with THC, the stuff that gets you high. Local restrictions on hemp growing, even after pot was legalized, also played a role.
But now there are new problems. After hemp was legalized federally under the 2018 Farm Bill, growers flocked to the market, and now there’s a glut. Until the market evens out, it’s unlikely that much more land will be given over to hemp growing. “About 18 months ago, I was brokering hemp at $7,000 to $10,000 a kilo,” Hughes says. After the price “plummeted” late last year, the wholesale cost stabilized at about 10% of what it was then.
“There’s no incentive to grow that material, and there’s no incentive to process it,” Hughes says. “Think about it: If you grow tomatoes or corn and you have a warehouse full of hemp, what do you do with the hemp? You give it away to make room for other crops.” As it is, he says: “If I had a truckload of CBD in 2018, I’d be a millionaire now.”
The government doesn’t keep statistics on hemp, but experts say the amount of farmland devoted to hemp over the past few years has increased by about tenfold. Estimates vary widely, but Hughes thinks about 250,000 acres of farmland is taken up by hemp plants in the United States.
To the casual observer, it might seem strange that there’s a glut of hemp, given the CBD craze that was underway even before the Farm Bill was passed. CBD is a component of the cannabis plant that doesn’t get you high, but carries many potential health benefits, from relieving pain to preventing seizures to relieving insomnia, among many others (the proof for medical claims varies widely from ailment to ailment). Though it has only trace amounts of THC (less than 0.3%), hemp is rich in CBD cannabinoids, and CBD extracted from hemp is legal under federal law.
Consumers are still hungry for CBD, but the industry is hamstrung by the federal government. The Food And Drug Administration disallows the use of the substance in food and beverages, and marketers are not allowed to make any kind of health claims for the tinctures and salves that are allowed. Most observers, including Hughes, believe that such restrictions will be eased, but until then, a market that everybody thought would be going gangbusters by now has instead been stymied.
But Hughes, who runs a small operation selling hemp products and also works as a broker and marketer for the Colorado-based Hemp Depot, is optimistic. “Twenty-eight states say it’s OK to use CBD in food,” he notes. (In California, CBD-containing food and beverages may be sold only in licensed cannabis dispensaries, and those products must be made with CBD derived from pot, not from hemp). Big companies like Walgreen’s and CVS have expressed strong interest in selling CBD products, and there is room for expansion into food and beverages if a big brand like Coca-Cola gets on board.
“I think the situation would have changed already, but Covid has put a damper on all things,” Hughes says. “But now I expect serious movement by the FDA by September of 2021.”
It was with an expected boom in mind that Santa Rosa Junior College launched its Hemp Agriculture program last year, devoting about a third of an acre of its 365-acre Shone Farm to growing the plant. At the time, Benjamin Goldstein, dean of the college’s agriculture department, said he thought hemp had potential to move even some wine growers into growing hemp on their land, since the price of hemp at the time commanded prices that were “dramatically higher” per acre than wine. The fact that the market has collapsed hasn’t diminished student interest, he says. Mainly, that’s because the skills they’re learning are essentially the same ones needed to grow pot for the medical and adult-use markets. “The techniques are very similar,” Goldstein says. “We don’t control what students do after they graduate, and if they want to go and grow pot plants, more power to them.”
Still, the situation has stymied the school’s plans to market its hemp and recover some of the costs of the program. “We’re still looking for local partners to do the extraction and marketing,” he says. “The economies of scale just don’t exist right now for big extractors.” There are several big cannabis processors in Sonoma and around the North Bay, but they are severely limited when it comes to hemp. “They’re not allowed to run hemp through their extraction machines, and the processes must be kept separate,” he says. “That would be a huge cost.” But it might prove to be worth it if prices rebound in the next few years.
Meanwhile, selling to out-of-state processors to extract the CBD from the plant means “we lose the local connection to agriculture.”
Another big loss is the marketing opportunity afforded by location. “Sonoma County is a brand,” Hughes says. “People buy wine because it’s from here. We’re purveyors of really cool shit. Why not add hemp to that?”
Scott Michael Schuhe was already reeling after evacuating with his family and five pets from their Bonny Doon home. The second blow came when he heard how much the two Santa Cruz motel rooms he’d booked eight hours earlier would cost for another night.
The price had almost doubled at the Motel Santa Cruz, from $325 for one room with a single bed and a second with a queen bed, to $299 a night for one room. “We’re all in shock,” Schuhe said. “We were so tired we couldn’t even think.”
Schuhe—along with his son Michael, daughter Heather and soon-to-be son-in-law Drew Mount—drove 12 miles to the one-star motel after their phones lit up at 2:35am Wednesday ordering them to leave. As the fire encroached on the town of barely 2,700 people, they complied, though some of their neighbors stayed behind.
The fire, known as the CZU Lightning Complex, was born of a slew of lightning strikes and dry wind that pushed 77,000 people to evacuate from Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties so far.
While Schuhe knew he couldn’t go home, he also wouldn’t pay $600 to stay another night. The family spent the afternoon looking for a place to stay with their pets—three dogs and two cats—for less.
“Pretty much all of them had jacked up their prices, and the availability was just about nothing,” Michael Schuhe said.
On Saturday night, the tired family sat outside of the downtown San Jose Marriott thanks to a tip from Schuhe’s boss that the hotel had a $99-per-night deal for evacuees, pets and all. Marriott is one of 14 hotels in San Jose with discounted rooms—most $99 a night or less—for people escaping the blazes burning on both the east and west sides of the 10th largest city in the country.
Mayor Sam Liccardo on Friday announced the initiative, called San Jose Cares.
“We know that hotels in other towns or cities may be raising their rates right now, sadly, given the increased demand for a room,” he said. “But we’re going to take the high road here, we’re going to reduce our rates, and make rooms available for a lot of families that need them.”
The initiative, the mayor said, was organized by Team San Jose, which promotes tourism in the city, but was the brainchild of Christopher Thompson, head of the San Jose Knight Foundation. Like the Schuhe family, Thompson evacuated Wednesday from his Ben Lomond home with his partner and two cats, but struggled to find a place to go. Hotels were full, many not prepared for the sudden influx of customers.
“We were going to park at the Scotts Valley Transit Center and sleep there overnight, but the lights were too bright, and we were told you can’t park overnight in the parking lot,” Thompson said. He ended up on the couch in his downtown San Jose condo, which he leases to a gracious tenant who occasionally lets him crash there, per a prearranged agreement.
The fires come during a coronavirus pandemic which has left much of downtown bereft of visitors since mid-March. Hotels and restaurants are limping along, scarcely staffed and partially shut down as they wait for the county to lift business restrictions and for customers to return.
Suddenly, the city is seeing an unexpected economic upshot as evacuees arrive.
Employees at hotels across the downtown said bookings were up significantly Friday. The Marriott, which is connected to the city’s convention center, re-opened floors that had been quiet for months as demand for rooms grew by five times overnight.
The hotel brought back about 50 employees that hadn’t worked since the pandemic started to help with the influx of visitors, according to General Manager John Southwell.
“No industry, other than maybe airlines and cruise ships, have been hit as hard as hotels, because nobody’s traveling,” he said. “It’s great to have people band together like this and for folks to come back to work … after they’ve been off for five months and and say, ‘I want to work to take care of these people.’”
The Marriott was one of the first hotels to jump on board with the discounted rates, after employees asked hotel management to help the evacuees that were showing up in big numbers, Southwell said.
“You looked at the people checking in, all of whom have been displaced, which is tragic, and everybody had their pets,” he said. “It kind of looked like Noah’s Ark …. everybody was just in a bad state from so many places.”
Team San Jose rallied the other 13 hoteliers. Normally, the nonprofit economic development group is busy promoting conventions, plays, concerts and other money-making events for the city. In 2018, that work helped generate $61.7 million in revenue, and nearly $17 million in profit for San Jose.
Those economy-boosting businesses are shuttered for now, but aligning the hotels to work with evacuees was something the group could help with, Frances Wong, Team San Jose’s director of marketing said.
“With these evacuees coming to San Jose in a time of need, I think they’ll remember that San Jose was there for them,” Wong said.
The group got a heads-up mid-week about the growing hotel need from Visit Santa Cruz County, which similarly advances tourism in the region. Its Santa Cruz counterpart was already grappling with the booming hotel room need as the county’s own 4,400 hotel rooms filled up.
“We issued a travel advisory asking that visitors who are in the market to please leave to free up hotel rooms for evacuees and for first responders,” Christina Glynn, communications director Visit Santa Cruz County said. “That, to my knowledge, is unprecedented.”
The hotels in Santa Cruz haven’t uniformly agreed to offer a discounted rate for evacuees. Those details, Glynn said, are up to the individual hotels and motels. Visit Santa Cruz County created a webpage of resources for residents and people fleeing the blaze.
And as many of those families land in San Jose, the temporary tenants’ presence has been felt unevenly among restaurateurs, allowed only to serve customers outdoors or for delivery and takeout orders, per county health department orders amid the pandemic.
As smoke billowed into the city from the surrounding fires Saturday, restaurants felt the push and pull of the downtown filling up more than it has in months versus the air-quality indicators warning people to stay inside for the sake of their lungs.
Diners sat at tables that spilled into the street outside of San Pedro Square Market while a line formed outside of Chacho’s along San Fernando Street. But around the corner, along First Street, many of the city’s smaller eateries felt no uptick at all, managers and owners estimated. If anything, business might have been slower due to the haze, some said.
Scott’s Seafood, which opened in its new location at 200 S. First St. in May, was an exception that felt a boost from the city’s new visitors, according to Sammy Reyes, the restaurant’s general manager.
“Especially the last two nights, I know I met with a few people that were staying at the Marriott, some were staying at the Fairmont,” he said. “It’s been dead, literally there is nothing in downtown … but I think it is going to help a lot having more people down here.”
Some people may stay even longer than a few days or weeks.
As of Monday, Thompson’s home was still intact, but security cameras around the house show ash inches deep all around, so he doesn’t expect it’ll be in a livable condition anytime soon. He’s planning to move into a downtown apartment for now.
Others, like the Schuhe family, are watching their old neighborhood through status updates from those that stayed behind. Heather Schuhe checked a private facebook group for Bonny Doon residents while sitting along Market Street in San Jose Saturday night.
Some of their neighbors have put out fires and helped save pets that were left behind. But the Schuhe family isn’t confident their home was spared over the weekend.
“According to the fire maps it has [been burned], but according to our neighbors, it might not be,” Heather Schuhe said. The family will stay at the Marriott for the foreseeable future and hope for the best when they’re allowed to return home.
“We’re survivors,” Scott Michael Schuhe said. “But when they say ‘Get lost,’ then get lost. We didn’t even think twice.”
“I guess I should start by describing the picture on the front,” says winemaker Keegan Mayo of the label on his Pinot Gris 2019.
A swirl of seaweed seems like an unusual choice, but the label goals of Assiduous, says Mayo, are always to encompass the vineyard, region or style. “For a Santa Cruz Pinot Gris,” he adds, “seaweed seems to do just that.”
Three of us shared the contents of this vivacious Pinot Gris at a recent lunch at Vinocruz. We also enjoyed plates of chicken sandwiches on ciabatta bread, house-marinated olives, an appetizing toasted nut mix with rosemary and sea salt, and delicious tomato-braised octopus with lemon confit, fennel and herb oil. The cuisine at Vinocruz is always top-notch—with the full menu available for dine-in or takeout. And the exotic flourless chocolate torte with fresh berries and fruit coulis is a perfect match with Mayo’s chilled Pinot Gris!
Pinot Gris (called Pinot Grigio in Italy) is a versatile white wine that pairs well with a broad array of foods. Mayo’s Pinot Gris ($18) is bursting with minerality and crisp pear-apple-peach qualities. Mayo says that extreme Monterey Bay influence and clay loam soils (the grapes are from Regan Vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains) have led to a wine with vibrant acidity and tension.
Graduating from UC Davis in 2008 with a degree in viticulture and enology, then gaining experience making wine in New Zealand and at Testarossa Winery in Los Gatos, Mayo is now assistant winemaker at Bargetto Winery in Soquel. After gaining a wealth of experience over the years, it makes sense that he has now branched out with his own label. As well as Pinot Gris, Mayo also makes Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot, and Pinot Noir—each varietal with its own specially designed label.
Vinocruz carries Assiduous Cab and Pinot, along with a wide range of other local wines – by the glass or by the bottle. There is always a markup at restaurants and wine bars, of course.For more info and to buy wine online, visit assiduouswines.com or call 831-251-6930.
Because many in-person events across Santa Cruz County have been canceled or postponed during the pandemic, Good Times is compiling a weekly list of virtual events hosted by local nonprofits, artists, fitness instructors and businesses. To submit your virtual event, send an email to ca******@go*******.sc.
CLASSES
65-HOUR TRAINING Community members may participate in a Monarch Services virtual training to become California state-certified peer counselors for survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and human trafficking. The training will be held Aug. 24-Oct. 14 during these times: Mondays 1pm-3:30pm, Wednesdays 1pm-3:30pm, Thursdays 1pm-3:30pm. Register by emailing al********@mo********.org.
NAMI FAMILY-TO-FAMILY CLASS NAMI’s Family-to-Family class is an eight-week educational program for family and friends of adults with mental health challenges. Learn about how to support your loved one, gain valuable communication and coping skills, and become educated on the latest mental health research. Class is led by two trained volunteers with lived experience caring for someone with mental health conditions. Sign up online and learn more at namiscc.org/family-to-family.html. Mondays and Wednesdays at 6pm.
COMMUNITY RESILIENCE PROJECT: FAMILIES AND DISTANCE LEARNING Please join us for the third program in the Community Resiliency Project for a discussion about school and family resiliency with Dr. Faris Sabbah, superintendent of schools at the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, psychologist Suzanne Nicholas, and Lauren Fein, LMFT with Santa Cruz County Behavioral Health, focusing on Children. Register online at santacruzpl.libcal.com/event/6912518. Friday, Aug. 28, 1pm.
CHILDBIRTH EDUCATION WEEKEND EXPRESS CLASS This Saturday and Sunday virtual class is intended for expectant mothers and their labor support team. Focus will be on the birth process, including the stages of labor and when to go to the hospital. Non-pharmaceutical coping techniques for pain, including breath work, mindfulness practices, supportive touch and positions for labor and birth, along with standard hospital procedures, pain medication options, medical interventions, cesarean birth, postpartum recovery, newborn procedures and breastfeeding basics. In this class, we will actively practice positions and coping techniques for pain, so please be dressed for movement. Please register for the PEP class session. Only after you have completed this process, the Zoom meeting information will be provided to you via email prior to your class. Classes run 1-5:30pm on these days: Sept. 26-27, Oct, 24-25, Nov. 14-15, Dec. 19-20.
SALSA SUELTA IN PLACE: Free weekly online session in Cuban-style Salsa Suelta for experienced beginners and up. Contact to get a Zoom link. Thursdays at 7pm. salsagente.com.
COMMUNITY
THE BORGEN PROJECT INFO AND RECRUITMENT WEBINAR The Borgen Project is a nonprofit organization that focuses on ending global poverty. We accomplish this goal through lobbying and pressuring Congress to cosponsor and vote for poverty reduction legislation. From 2017 to 2019, The Borgen Project played a key role in getting 10 anti-poverty bills such as the Global Fragility Act and the End Neglected Tropical Diseases Act passed! We are currently recruiting people for fully remote volunteer positions and internship roles (unpaid) in fields such as PR/marketing, writing, political affairs, journalism, HR, and nonprofit leadership! If interested, this event is meant to help you get a sense of what The Borgen Project is, what we do, and what your specific duties would be for each of these positions. Feel free to bring any questions you have as well! Zoom ID 724 736 4377, password: 92748. Saturday, Aug. 29, 1-1:30pm. borgenproject.org.
VIRTUAL WALK-A-MILE Our annual Walk-a-Mile fundraiser is going virtual this year! The walk will take place on Saturday, Oct. 3, to coincide with the first weekend of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Between now and event day, participants can sign up online individually or as a team, create a personalized web page and outreach to their networks to fund their walk. Through our event site, social media networks and teams, we will raise awareness and build support for the movement to end violence in our community. All funds raised through this year’s Walk-a-Mile event will go towards meeting the immediate needs of survivors (housing support, food, transportation, etc.), violence prevention programming for youth and teens, as well as outreach to those most at-risk of violence during this time. Learn more at monarchwam.funraise.org.
LUMA BOOK CLUB This is a time of seismic shift, and yet also one of opportunity. Luma Yoga is a community center operating on principles of inclusion, compassion, and, yes, reflection, but make no mistake—also of action. The first step in effective action is gaining knowledge. To this end, Luma is hosting a book club on the topic of racism and social justice issues. The reading groups will be held remotely (for now) over Zoom Thursday nights 7-8:15pm. The purpose of the groups is to learn the endless shapes oppression can take in the world, to recognize our own biases within ourselves, and to move from discomfort to action in support of Black and non-white POC. The groups will be facilitated by Steven Macramalla, a professor of psychology at SJSU. The Club will work on a 3- to 4-week cycle, reading one book per cycle, with several chapters covered each week. For more info visit lumayoga.com. Thursdays at 7pm.
TALES TO TAILS GOES VIRTUAL Beginning Aug. 10, SCPL’s early childhood literacy program, Virtual Tales to Tails, is moving to a new time slot: Mondays, 3:30-4:30pm. At the end of your school day, hop online and have fun reading at your own pace to an audience of therapy dogs, cats and other guest animals. Have math homework? Good news! Your furry audience would also love to learn how to count, add and subtract. Register online. Registrants receive reminders, links to the live program, and fun (educational) activities to complete and have showcased on future sessions Learn more at santacruzpl.libcal.com/event/6764938.
GROUPS
VIRTUAL YOUNG ADULT (18-30) TRANSGENDER SUPPORT GROUP A weekly peer support group for young adults aged 18-25 who identify as transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, agender, or any other non-cisgender identity. This is a social group where we meet and chat among ourselves, sharing our experiences and thoughts in a warm, welcoming setting. Our meetings will be held on Discord during the shelter-in-place order. For more info, contact Ezra Bowen at tr***@di*************.org.
LGBTQNBI+ SUPPORT GROUP FOR CORONAVIRUS STRESS This weekly LGBTQNBI+ support group is being offered to help us all deal with stress during the shelter-in-place situation that we are experiencing from the coronavirus. Feel free to bring your lunch and chat together to get support. This group is offered at no cost and will be facilitated by licensed therapists Shane Hill, Ph.D., and Melissa Bernstein, LMFT #52524. Learn how to join the Zoom support group at diversitycenter.org/community-calendar.
OUTDOOR
THE ROCK SHOW Castle Rock meets Classic Rock! Learn a little about the park’s geology the fun way—with plenty of rock puns and musical tributes to some of the legends of rock and roll! Like our Facebook page to receive a notification when this pre-recorded program premiers Friday, Aug. 28, at 7pm: facebook.com/castlerockstatepark. Viewers will be able to post questions and comments during the premiere for a state park interpreter to answer. The program will also be available for later viewing. Free event. Local California State Parks in Santa Cruz County are offering virtual campfire programs during the Covid-19 pandemic. These free, family-friendly programs are scheduled on Friday or Saturday at 7pm every other week in August.
SKULLS TELL IT ALL Predator or prey? Herbivore or carnivore? Skulls give us clues to how an animal survives. This interactive program will be broadcast as a Zoom webinar. Registration is required. To register, visit tinyurl.com/SantaCruzJuniorRangers. Free event. Friday, Aug. 28, 10am. Local California State Parks in Santa Cruz County are offering virtual junior ranger programs for children ages 7-12 during the Covid-19 pandemic. These fun, free Zoom webinars are scheduled Friday through Monday at 10am each week in August. Children receive a digital stamp for each program they attend; after receiving a certain number of stamps, they can earn prizes!
TO INFINITY AND BEYOND From the tallest trees on Earth to the most distant planets, join us for a walk through the solar system to compare size on a cosmic scale. Like our Facebook page to receive a notification when this pre-recorded program premiers Saturday, Aug. 29, at 7pm: facebook.com/BigBasinRedwoodsSP. Viewers will be able to post questions and comments during the premiere for a state park interpreter to answer. The program will also be available for later viewing. Free event. Local California State Parks in Santa Cruz County are offering virtual campfire programs during the Covid-19 pandemic. These free, family-friendly programs are scheduled on Friday or Saturday at 7pm every other week in August.
BEARY RARE Grizzly bears dominated life in the Santa Cruz Mountains less than 200 years ago. Now the grizzlies are gone and black bear sightings are rarer than Bigfoot. Why are bears so elusive these days, and what can we learn about their disappearance? This interactive program will be broadcast as a Zoom webinar. Registration is required. To register, visit tinyurl.com/SantaCruzJuniorRangers. Free event. Saturday, Aug. 29, 10am. Local California State Parks in Santa Cruz County are offering virtual junior ranger programs for children ages 7-12 during the Covid-19 pandemic. These fun, free Zoom webinars are scheduled Friday through Monday at 10am each week in August. Children receive a digital stamp for each program they attend; after receiving a certain number of stamps, they can earn prizes!
STORIES OF PORTOLA Travel back in time with us as we learn the unique history of Portola and all the communities which have shaped this weird and wonderful place. This interactive program will be broadcast as a Zoom webinar. Registration is required. To register, visit tinyurl.com/SantaCruzJuniorRangers. Free event. Sunday, Aug. 30, 10am.
“This is the worst-case scenario,” says an evacuee of the CZU Lightning Complex fire in a story this week by Jacob Pierce. I honestly can’t think of a better way to sum up what we’re all feeling right now. Covid-19 has had Santa Cruz County on the ropes for months, but the last week and a half since that freak lightning storm touched off massive fires in the Santa Cruz Mountains and around the state has made the on-and-off quarantines and bizarre toilet paper hoarding of the spring seem like “the good old days.” You know, back when our neighborhoods weren’t burning down. When our evacuees didn’t have to add a new coronavirus risk to their list of worries by congregating in the Santa Cruz Civic and other shelter points. When we could go outside.
There will be so much loss to take stock of when these fires are over, both for our community and the individuals who have lost priceless parts of their lives. Just read the story this week by Aaron Carnes about Dan Frechette, who recorded an album in his Bonny Doon studio the night before it burned in the fire. He still doesn’t know if his home was lost, as well. Or the stories of the evacuees who are facing decisions about if and when they can rebuild, or if they even want to try. It’s a heartbreaking time.
There are also amazing stories about the work that firefighters, law enforcement and other community members are doing, and we’ll continue to tell those, as well. We’re constantly updating our coverage of the fire at goodtimes.sc; look there for the latest news and for resources. It seems like we’ve been saying “we’ll get through this together” all year, but it’s never meant as much as right now.
Since the fires began, readers have been posting about them on goodtimes.sc; some addressing our coverage, others simply wanting to send a message to the community. Here are a few of them:
Thank you for your excellent coverage. I keep combing the web to see if there’s any news about a place cherished by hundreds of thousands of Baha’is across the U.S., and even in other countries: the Bosch Baha’i School on Comstock Lane, near Bonny Doon, but closer to the northern double back curve of Pine Flat Road. I believe it has been used as a staging area for previous fires, but none have been as horrendous as the network of fires started by the lightning that we’re reading about. If you know the fate of “Bosch” (as we call it), kindly let us know. Many thanks! And stay safe.
— Gwyn Magaditsch
My heart aches for all my loved ones, their homes, their farms, and the wildlife in Santa Cruz County. I have lived in Felton, Davenport, and Boulder Creek. I hope with all my heart that the weather aids the first responders in containing these fires. Stay safe everyone.
— Michele Maxwell
My heart hurts for my hometown of Boulder Creek. Stay safe my loves.
— Cori
Our prayers are with you all.
— Mario
Awesome reporting! Best news I’ve read so far on fires. Peace to all!
— Karen P.
My wife and I are in Tahoe after evacuating Scotts Valley Thursday evening. Thanks to all the firefighters, and prayers for all to get through Covid-19 and fire.
— Fred Tomlinson
My father built our family cabin on Kings Highway in Boulder Creek in 1931. There have been no fires since it was built and none for some time before it was constructed. So it is closer to 100 years since there was a fire and that’s made for one thick forest bed. The fire could easily hide in the loam for some time after the main conflagration has passed. Add a little wind, and we do it all again.
— Bruce Springer
Awesome reporting. Great journalism. Thank you for such thorough information.
— Angela White
Our prayers are with you.
— Faten Mansour
Prayers for all.
— Sandra Jordan
Renaming Cabrillo
Lately there have been concerns about renaming Cabrillo College. Whether I agree or not is not a concern. If you refer to a map of our local area, you’ll see that Cabrillo College is directly east of New Brighton State Beach. I would like to be the first to recommend the new name to be New Brighton Beach College, or simply New Brighton College.
George Zadravec | Aptos
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
(10256272)
Grab the kids and unleash your inner artist at the Original Paint Nite. You’ll all go from a blank canvas to a masterpiece of your own, with plenty of laughs along the way.
You’ll be guided by a talented and entertaining artist, who will:
bring all the supplies and set you and your group up with canvases, paints, and brushes
lead you through step-by-step process to paint “Milky way at the Pines”
entertain and delight your group and make it a memorable experience!
You and the kids will love what your create, and how much fun you have doing it. No experience needed. Come early and grab some snacks!
Please Note:
This event is for children ages 6 and up
Each child must be accompanied by an adult
Every attendee(child and adult) need a ticket
Looking for something besides Plant? At Yaymaker, we do a lot more than Plant Nite and Family Events. Check out some of our other experiences like Paint Nite and Candle Making. For all of our events check out: www.yaymaker.com
Submit to ph****@go*******.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
HERE TO HELP
Many families and individuals impacted by the California wildfires qualify for CalFresh, which helps families and individuals purchase food. Evacuees may see if they qualify for CalFresh food assistance by applying online on a mobile device or computer at getcalfresh.org or mybenefitscalwin.org. They also may apply by phone at 1-888-421-8080, between 8am– 5pm, Monday through Friday. Paper applications may also be picked up and submitted at 18 W. Beach St., Watsonville, 1020 Emeline Ave., Santa Cruz, or via fax to 831-786- 7100.
GOOD WORK
GET USED TO IT
University of California campuses will start phasing-out single-use plastics, paving the way for campuses free of non-essential plastics by 2030, the UC Office of the President and CALPIRG Students announced jointly Monday. The new policy will transition UC away from plastic bags in retail and dining locations and eventually eliminate single-use plastic food service items and plastic bottles, helping to reduce plastic pollution in California and prevent microplastics from contaminating waterways. The Plastic-Free Seas Campaign collected more than 12,000 student signatures over the past year.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“It is known that wildfires behave unpredictably—this is fundamental—but it is my experience that humans in the presence of wildfire are also likely to behave in aberrant and unpredictable ways.”
A fire that has burned more than 78,000 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains has some locals scrambling to try and protect their homes and those of their neighbors.
Their decision has created tension amid the CZU Lightning Complex fire. Cal Fire officials have repeatedly said that residents who’ve stayed behind should leave before they get in the way or get hurt, at the same time that they’ve garnered praise from their neighbors and others on social media.
“It’s really upset me that Cal Fire’s saying they’re all renegades. And somebody had better start recognizing they’re heroes, selfless volunteers—they’re the militia that are willing to go out and save their neighbor and protect our county,” says Howard Liebenberg, 68, who initially evacuated but recently returned to his Brookdale home.
Liebenberg, who has more than five decades of experience fighting and preventing fires, won’t say how he got past the fire barricades designed to keep civilians out. Nor will he say whether he’s joined any of the efforts to put out fires over the past week. “We can’t talk about it,” he says.
Being in an evacuation zone is technically a misdemeanor in the state of California, and deputies have been issuing citations, Santa Cruz County Chief Deputy Chris Clark warned Monday evening.
On the other side of the ridgeline of Ben Lomond Mountain, Mike Zucker stayed behind in Bonny Doon, where residents say they’ve been using bulldozers to build fire breaks and pumping water onto trucks, which they’ve used to fight fires and save homes. But he’s quick to add that not everyone has neighbors like his who are up to the challenge and have the proper training. “If you’re not of this caliber, don’t try this at home,” Zucker says.
Sheriff Jim Hart and various Cal Fire officials have criticized those who stayed in their homes.
They argue that such residents have the potential to get in the way of back-burns, aerial drops of fire retardant or other firefighting operations. They may not be able to stay in close contact with Cal Fire personnel to keep themselves safe, they say. At least five residents who stayed behind have needed to be rescued, diverting resources from other efforts.
Cal Fire has confirmed that one Santa Cruz Mountains resident has died; 73-year-old Last Chance Road resident Tad Jones was likely trying to flee the area when he died, CBS News reported. Other people have been reported missing.
On the other hand, Cal Fire has repeatedly stressed that they haven’t had adequate crew sizes to keep up with battling a blaze of this size and threat; the locals say they are there to help.
Santa Cruz-San Mateo County Cal Fire Chief Ian Larkin says he can’t confirm whether these residents have helped the firefighting effort, even if the circumstantial evidence appears strong. “I know there’s a few homeowners that stayed behind and their homes are still standing and the fire did burn around that,” he tells GT.
Nonetheless, he says that the mountain residents may not have the proper training to understand what to do and how to get to safety if conditions change suddenly.
“The property can be replaced. The life can’t,” Larkin says. “And that’s our main concern—the safety of the citizen.”
FIRE POWER
The CZU Lightning Complex fire, which was sparked by an atypical lightning storm Aug. 16, is now 17% contained, having destroyed 330 structures, 319 of them in Santa Cruz County, local Cal Fire Chief Jonathan Cox told reporters Tuesday morning. After starting out as several separate burns, the fires merged into one large blaze, which is currently threatening an additional 24,000 structures. Some 77,000 residents have evacuated.
Cal Fire has 1,611 personnel fighting the fire. Six helicopters dropped 200,000 gallons of water on it Monday, Cal Fire Operations Section Chief Mark Brunton told reporters. The most challenging part of the fire response right now is the western slope along the Highway 9 corridor, which has a steep topography and a number of homes and businesses.
Meanwhile, 33 law enforcement officers, including sheriff’s deputies, were patrolling the San Lorenzo Valley Monday. Officers conducted 11 welfare checks, made two arrests and issued two citations, Chief Deputy Clark said.
Deputies arrested five looters Friday, and more information came out Monday about the suspect who stole a Cal Fire commander’s wallet over the weekend. The thief drained the victim’s bank account, Clark said. The sheriff’s office released security camera stills of the suspect shopping at a Shell gas station in Santa Cruz. He also visited the Safeway on 41st Avenue, Clark said.
STATEWIDE PROBLEM
Fires are burning across California at a historic rate, particularly along the Central Coast and in Northern California.
In a one-week period, an area the size of Rhode Island burned in California. Regional Cal Fire chiefs begged state leadership for more resources, but crews were focused on fires in Southern California. As containment of those fires improved, Gov. Gavin Newsom began shifting crews to Northern California and to the Central Coast, where the fires have been much worse.
The second- and third-biggest fire events in California history are currently burning across various counties in the Bay Area.
The SCU Lightning Complex fire in the counties of Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus is 15% contained, having burned more than 363,000 acres. The LNU Lightning Complex in the counties of Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo and Solano is 27% contained, having burned more than 352,000 acres.
The River Fire in Monterey County has burned more than 48,000 acres and is 33% contained.
On Thursday, Aug. 20, Newsom was in Watsonville, where he gave his address for the Democratic National Convention in front of a redwood tree. The next day, he was in Napa, where he said he was leaning into the state’s mutual-aid firefighting system. He thanked states that provided mutual firefighting and equipment, including Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, and Texas.
Newsom mentioned that, on a trip through Santa Clara County Thursday evening, he saw San Jose firefighters as they made a pit stop. He said they looked wiped out when they told him, “We need more support.”
“They were simply overwhelmed by what they saw,” Newsom said. “They were on a quick stop. They were getting some gas and getting some drinks. And they said, ‘We’re just going to the hotel down the block. We’re taking a shower, and we’re told we have to get right back on the line.’”
By Friday, Aug. 21, there were more than 500 fires burning across the state, Newsom said.
FOREWARNED
A National Weather Service Red Flag warning went into effect Sunday with the potential for more dry lightning and wind—the same conditions that created the widespread fires one week prior, but the warning was cancelled Monday morning when conditions weakened.
In Santa Cruz County, action is underway to help those in need during the fire, while heavy smoke has blanketed the region. Santa Cruz County is distributing N-95 respirator masks to Pajaro Valley agriculture workers to protect them from smoke inhalation.
A donation center on 114 Walker St. in Watsonville is accepting non-perishable food items, family-sized tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, blankets, pillows, tarps, and ice chests/coolers. People may also donate hand sanitizer, personal hygiene products, toiletries, large plastic storage bins, coloring books and crayons.
The donation center and temporary shelters are looking for volunteers, as well. Visit scvolunteercenter.org for more information.
Additional reporting by Tony Nuñez, Johanna Miller and Todd Guild.
When, way back in the mid-1970s, pop star Billy Joel was compelled to write a song about the approaching collapse of the American empire, he began his lurid tale of ruin and destruction with a nod to theater. To strike a suitably apocalyptic tone, he chose as the song’s first line: “I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway.”
The song was called “Miami 2017,” and it turns out Joel undershot the moment by only a few years. On March 12, 2020, by government order, the lights did in fact go out on Broadway. And, in late June, it was announced that Broadway would remain dark for the rest of the year.
A year ago, such an image was the stuff of nightmares, for both those who love theater and those who produce it. Today, it’s a stark reality. And, as goes Broadway, so go hundreds of theater and performing arts companies around the country.
Five months after a sudden and crippling shutdown of live performance that still has no end in sight, the theater industry is in the midst of a painful existential crisis. It has presented a series of daunting challenges, from keeping staff employed to retaining the attention of audiences to embracing new substitutes for live performance to facing fundamental questions of purpose and meaning.
In the rich and diverse world of Bay Area theater, many companies have been kept afloat to this point by the largesse of their donors and loyal audiences (“You could basically yell into a hole asking for a donation and people would give it to you,” says one insider). But artistic directors in the region—from the mighty powerhouses such as American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) in San Francisco and California Shakespeare Theater (Cal Shakes) in Berkeley, to smaller neighborhood companies ringing the Bay Area—know that they can’t depend on generosity as a long-term strategy. With a potent mix of fatalism and hope, theaters in the region struggle with a dramatic adapt-or-die moment. And many are responding by pushing their creativity and ingenuity to its limits.
“The pandemic is likely the biggest catalyst to creativity that any of us will see in our lifetimes in the theater world,” says Ron Evans, a longtime consultant to theater and performing arts companies in the Bay Area and elsewhere. “It’s forced us to basically start from scratch in moving people emotionally.”
Theater companies are adapting by taking the long view of their plight within the history of theater.
“The theaters were all closed in London during the plague years when Shakespeare was writing,” says Mike Ryan, the artistic director of Santa Cruz Shakespeare, which postponed its 2020 season to 2021. “So Shakespeare dealt with two or three different closures of the theater in his lifetime. The same way that I am so dismayed and astonished that I’m leading a theater group that can’t gather, Shakespeare might have felt that as well.”
Even if the new year dawns with a newly released Covid-19 vaccine, a new president and a new national resolve to revive American commerce, there is emerging in the theater world a consensus that there is no turning back to the pre-Covid sense of normalcy. Even under the most ideal circumstances, theater companies are likely to emerge in 2021 as different creatures than they were 2019. Whether those creatures are diminished and broken, or stronger and better positioned to meet the future, is now being determined.
The Room Where It Happened
March is commonly a time in live theater when new productions are launched. That was the case with many companies at the moment that the Covid-19 menace moved suddenly from a troubling specter on the far horizon to an immediate shutdown threat.
At ACT, the new production Toni Stone, a true-to-life play about the first woman to play professional baseball, closed on opening night. At City Lights in San Jose, artistic director Lisa Mallette had to pull the plug on a new show called Coded by Kirsten Brandt about female game coders that was a commissioned world premiere.
“It closed before it opened,” Mallette says. “All the rehearsals had happened. Everyone had been paid. There had been many hours of work put into it: rehearsals for weeks and weeks. We previewed the show that week, and then that was it. That one closed right after its preview performance. It was surreal.”
At TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, a show that had been developed from the company’s new playwright festival two years before was shut down after a single weekend. Tim Bond had just been named as the successor to the company’s founding artistic director Robert Kelley when the shutdown came. He was still in a training period at the time.
“To have to suddenly just stop, with no warning, and no sense to the actors or technicians that the performance you had just done was your last, you just feel like the rug had been pulled out from under you,” Bond says.
TheatreWorks’ Tim Bond had just taken over as artistic director when the pandemic forced a shutdown of a major new play developed by the company.
The 3Below venue in downtown San Jose was just about to open the U.S. premiere of Tom McEnery’s A Statue for Ballybunion on St. Patrick’s Day—a day after the first shelter-in-place order, which means it never made it past dress rehearsal. Only one of the eight productions in 3Below’s season could be presented. Producing Artistic Director Scott Guggenheim says the company is exploring outdoor performance options but that indoor is unlikely to happen before year’s end. “How do you do musical theater where actors cannot stand next to one another and sing together?” he asks. “We’re hoping 2021 will be a regular season.”
Actor and director Jonathan Rhys Williams, who had just been hired as the new artistic director at Tabard Theatre Company in San Jose, not only shut down Tabard’s new production, but watched helplessly as his two roles in other upcoming productions, including Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello, as well as a directing gig at Silicon Valley Shakespeare, all evaporated in short order.
When the ground underneath their feet finally stopped shaking, theater companies were left facing a painful morning after. “What now?” reverberated across the industry. In the Bay Area, artistic directors started talking to each other in a way they had not done before. They also had to address their donors and audiences, and keeping themselves in their audience’s thoughts became a preoccupation. Suddenly, the online space became a defining feature of theater companies. They tried podcasts, actor/director talks, archival recordings and play readings via Zoom and other conferencing platforms.
History Has Its Eyes on You
When nationwide protests erupted after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, theater companies generally felt an urge to respond in some way that conformed with their mission. Cal Shakes went one further. Instead of focusing on programming, artistic director Eric Ting launched into an acceleration of the kind of soul searching that had been going on since he’d taken the reins at the company four years prior. Covid-19 caused him to question the mission of Cal Shakes, with the aim of forging a new way based on the values of EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion).
“We’ve been wrestling for a while now with what it means to be a theater when you can’t do theater,” says Ting, one of the few people of color in the country running Shakespeare companies. “When the thing that was at the core of our identity as an organization was removed, there was a giant void at the center. That was a clarifying moment for us. Without (performances), we had all this creative energy to focus on something else specifically.
“And the movement toward racial justice was an opportunity for us as an organization to truly embrace the values that we have been practicing and modeling for years now. What would it be like if we actually thought of ourselves, at least for this period of time, less as an arts organization and more as a civic institution in service to the betterment of our community?”
Such conversations inevitably are leading Ting and his staff to even challenge the cultural hegemony of his company’s namesake.
“Not a day goes by,” he says, “when I don’t have a conversation with somebody within the circle of Cal Shakes who says, ‘So, why are we doing Shakespeare?’”
The police protests and the new civil rights movement it has sparked also compelled Bay Area theater companies to come together in response. PlayGround in San Francisco had been developing a production of Vincent Terrell Durham’s Polar Bears, Black Boys and Prairie Fringed Orchids, a contemporary play that dramatizes many of the issues behind the Black Lives Matter movement.
“It starts as a cocktail party,” says PlayGround’s co-founder and artistic director Jim Kleinmann about the play. “Then it goes into this Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf thing, and by the time it’s done, everyone is shredded and no one gets out alive.”
Shortly after the Floyd incident, PlayGround actor/producer Aldo Billingslea moved quickly to convert Polar Bears into a Zoom-based online production to be presented on Juneteenth with the co-sponsorship of theater companies from around the Bay Area. In the end, 43 Bay Area-based theaters and performing arts companies signed on as sponsors to underwrite the production’s royalty and fees costs. The production is still available for free through Sept. 1.
“We were able to have a conversation, shock people awake and energize around the idea of Black voices and Black theater,” Kleinmann says.
Leaning In
Some companies conform with what Covid-19 demands of them, and push ahead anyway, including Opera San Jose (OSJ).
Covid-19, says OSJ general director Khori Dastoor, is “kryptonite for opera.” Indeed, by its nature, opera is particularly vulnerable to a virus that is a bigger threat to older people (opera’s majority audience), flourishes in enclosed spaces with lots of people (like opera halls) and may be most effectively spread through aerosol droplets by forceful singing (like every aria ever).
After many sleepless nights, Dastoor and her team decided to lean into the crisis. For years, OSJ has had an apartment building in San Jose that it uses to host its resident artists (Dastoor herself lived there in 2007 as a guest soprano; it’s where she met the man who became her husband). For its latest production, OSJ used the apartment building to its advantage, quarantining its cast of performers for the incubation period of two weeks, testing the cast often and isolating them as a kind of “family unit” so they could perform in close proximity without masks. One apartment was left empty as an “isolation suite” in case anyone tested positive.
On top of that, the opera company invested heavily in video technology with an emphasis on high-end audio recording equipment, and partnered with a professional video company to produce the best product they could. The result is an online virtual concert called Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love), now available for streaming.
“It would be my advice to a lot of folks not to try to fight the tide on this one,” Dastoor says. “It’s bigger than all of us. How do you turn to the population in two years, or however long it’s going to take to come back, and say, ‘Hey, we’re essential!’ Well, are you? We’ve already lived without you for two years and done fine.
“I really think staying present in people’s minds is an essential part of not just entertainment but good health. We’re all reading Stoic philosophy under the covers to keep from going into a deep depression. This is a time when we’re relying on art to pull us through. I want OSJ to be serving that need for people.”
ACT in San Francisco, one of the most high-profile theater companies on the West Coast, is not only a premiere performance theater, but also a highly regarded academy for aspiring actors and directors. It has been able to make the transition to online programming much easier on the educational side than on the performance side.
“There’s a lot of sorrow,” says ACT’s artistic director Pam MacKinnon. “It’s a worldwide shutdown of our craft, so it’s devastating.”
ACT’s own audience surveys indicate that only about 35% of the theater’s audience will ever return. In the face of such troubling numbers, MacKinnon says her company must focus on three areas of investment: developing new works for the stage, investing in state-of-the-art digital technology, and investing in the company’s already strong education and community programs. “We’re just going to be a smaller theater for a while,” she says. “And, maybe by 2023, we’ll be back to some bigger numbers.”
Pam MacKinnon, artistic director of American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, is planning a three-pronged new model in the face of internal surveys that say about 35% of the company’s audience will ever return.
It’s not just the big players that are suffering, of course. Shoestring theater companies are also fighting to survive. Elly Lichtenstein has been with Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater for 45 years, the last 20-plus as its artistic director. Cinnabar has jumped into survival mode by investing in high-end digital video technology and producing new material much like a television or film studio would do.
“I had to be dragged into this idea,” Lichtenstein says, “because it is so antithetical to what live theater really does and what sets us apart from television and movie production.”
Evolution as a Value
Cinnabar’s experimentation is emblematic of another soul-searching arena in theater circles. What exactly is the “secret sauce” that distinguishes stage theater from the vast sea of entertainment options offered by Netflix and their competitors? If it’s the in-person experience, that’s off the table for now.
Jonathan Rhys Williams of Tabard Theatre believes the magic is in the live experience, even if separated from the in-person part of it. This month, Tabard is livestreaming a fully staged one-person play called Looking Over the President’s Shoulder for 11 performances, through Aug. 9. In this case, live means live—no on-demand viewing, no pausing the action for a bathroom break, no editing out the flubs.
“It’ll be a three-camera shoot switched live,” Williams says. “It won’t be that single camera in the back of the house. There will be tight close-ups, body mics, high sound quality, all of it. Not losing the live element is very important to us.”
Other than the technological and marketing challenges, streaming—whether it’s live or recorded material—presents big issues on the legal front, with theater companies compelled to work with licensing firms and actors/technicians unions on new contracts. Plus, livestreaming represents a challenge on the audience side, reintroducing what used to be called “appointment television” habits in an age when almost everyone is used to on-demand time shifting.
“From the artistic side,” Williams says, “my mind just really starts to fly. What might be able to happen by integrating this new technology? What could we do? We’ve already put people on body mics. What if we put them on body cameras too? It could be a new way of creating theater.”
For still others, the secret sauce in theater is remaining closer to street level, to present theatrical arts that are too immediate or too raw or too provocative to float into the ether of big-budget mass entertainment. Shotgun Players performed in more than 40 different venues in Berkeley before finding a home at the former church at Ashby Stage in 2004. Artistic director Patrick Dooley says the twin catastrophes of Covid-19 and the police protests revitalized Shotgun.
“Evolution is one of our values,” Dooley says. “We’ve always been asking ourselves, ‘How are we able to evolve in the moment?’ But we’re trying to do a little better about looking before we jump. A lot of our success over the years has been: we’re going to jump and we’ll figure out how to build the parachute on the way down. That’s part of the thrill ride for our audience.
“This is going to be a crazy ride. But that can be really stressful for some folks. So, we’re trying to figure out a way to keep that daredevil spirit, while realizing the process is not healthy.”
Shotgun’s response to the Covid-19 summer is The Niceties, a livestreamed, two-person play about a white college professor and an African-American student facing off over the legacy of slavery. The play was presented on Zoom. Dooley is a true believer in a new kind of theater aesthetic emerging from all the on-line experimentation.
“There’s a time in every Zoom performance I’m watching that I just kind of disappear into the moment,” he says, “and I feel I’m right there with them. At first, it’s alienating with the screen and that blue tint. But every time I’ve done one of these, I find that the membrane breaks and I drop in and I buy into the convention.”
The Third Act
What the future holds for local theater is far from certain.
“My hope,” says Ryan, artistic director of Santa Cruz Shakespeare, “is that when we come out the other side of this, there will be a hunger for live work because it has been so long denied to us.”
Consultant Ron Evans says there will be a lot of terrible online theater before the good stuff emerges. But the good stuff is coming: “There will be a flavor of theater that will be digested online and loved. And that style is in the very early phases of finding its voice right now.”
The traumas of 2020 may also inspire new theatrical art, plays only now, or even not yet, being written. One-person plays that don’t require masks or social distancing may be experiencing a renaissance.
On the other end, many theater companies may not survive. Elly Lichtenstein of Cinnabar says she’s 99% certain that her company “will have to build itself back up, start again from scratch. I can see that as something good, if we have to hand this over to younger people who can start at the bottom like we did 48 years ago.”
“Now that we’ve slammed on the brakes,” says Patrick Dooley, “we have a chance to look at ourselves and take inventory. How are we doing? Is this working for me? Is this sustainable? Is this healthy, or just? It’s giving us some time to do a deep evaluation of the underpinnings of our culture and start to design a different architecture. And that’s radical.”
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries author Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes, “Some stuff can be fixed, some stuff can’t be. Deciding which is which is part of maturing.” I offer this meditation as your assignment in the coming weeks, Aries. You are in a phase when you’ll be wise to make various corrections and adjustments. But you should keep in mind that you don’t have unlimited time and energy to do so. And that’s OK, because some glitches can’t be repaired and others aren’t fully worthy of your passionate intensity. You really should choose to focus on the few specific acts of mending and healing that will serve you best in the long run.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice,” wrote author F. Scott Fitzgerald. This is true even between the same two people in an intimate alliance with each other. The love that you and your spouse or friend or close relative or collaborator exchanged a month ago isn’t the same as it is now. It can’t be identical, because then it wouldn’t be vibrant, robust love, which needs to ceaselessly transform in order to be vibrant and robust. This is always true, of course, but will be an especially potent meditation for you during the next four weeks.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): As a professional writer, novelist Thomas Wolfe trained himself to have keen perceptions that enabled him to penetrate below surface appearances. And yet he wrote, “I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once.” In other words, it was hard even for him, a highly trained observer, to get a deep and accurate read of what was going on. It required a long time and many attempts—and rarely occurred for him on the first look. Even if you’re not a writer, Gemini, I recommend his approach for you in the coming weeks. You will attune yourself to current cosmic rhythms—and thus be more likely to receive their full help and blessings—if you deepen and refine the way you use your senses.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): It’s sometimes tempting for you to seek stability and safety by remaining just the way you are. When life pushes you to jump in and enjoy its wild ride, you may imagine it’s wise to refrain—to retreat to your sanctuary and cultivate the strength that comes from being staunch and steadfast and solid. Sometimes that approach does indeed work for you. I’m not implying it’s wrong or bad. But in the coming weeks, I think your strategy should be different. The advice I’ll offer you comes from Cancerian author and aviator Anne Morrow Lindbergh: “Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.”
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work,” says author Sister Mary Lauretta. Have you been making progress in accomplishing that goal, Leo? According to my astrological analysis, fate has been offering and will continue to offer you the chance to either find work that you’ll love better than the work you’re doing, or else discover how to feel more love and excitement for your existing work. Why not intensify your efforts to cooperate with fate?
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Self-love is also remembering to let others love you. Come out of hiding.” Poet Irisa Yardenah wrote that advice, and now I’m passing it on to you, just in time for a phase when you will benefit from it most. I mean, it’s always good counsel for you Virgos to heed. But it will be especially crucial in the coming weeks, when you’ll have extra potential to bloom in response to love. And one of the best ways to ensure this extra potential is fulfilled is to make yourself thoroughly available to be appreciated, understood and cared for.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libran poet Wallace Stevens wrote that if you want to be original, you must “have the courage to be an amateur.” I agree! And that’s an important theme for you right now, since you’re entering a phase when your original ideas will be crucial to your growth. So listen up, Libra: If you want to stimulate your creativity to the max, adopt the fresh-eyed attitude of a rookie or a novice. Forget what you think you know about everything. Make yourself as innocently curious and eager as possible. Your imaginative insights and innovations will flow in abundance to the degree that you free yourself from the obligation to be serious and sober and professional. And keep in mind that Stevens said you need courage to act this way.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “As idiotic as optimism can sometimes seem, it has a weird habit of paying off,” writes author Michael Lewis. According to my analysis, the coming weeks will provide you with ample evidence that proves his hypothesis—on one condition, that is: You will have to cultivate and express a thoughtful kind of optimism. Is that possible? Do you have the audacity to maintain intelligent buoyancy and discerning positivity, even in the face of those who might try to gaslight you into feeling stupid for being buoyant and positive? I think you do.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Author Rebecca Solnit writes, “The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation.” Her statement is especially apropos for you right now. The experiences you’re yearning for will indeed change you significantly if you get them—even though those changes will be different from what your conscious mind thinks they’ll be. But don’t worry. Your higher self—the eternal part of you that knows just what you need—is fully aware of the beneficial transformations that will come your way when you get what you yearn for.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): At age 22, future pioneer of science Isaac Newton got his college degree just as the Great Plague peaked in 1665. As a safety precaution, he proceeded to quarantine himself for many months. During that time of being sealed away, he made spectacular discoveries about optics, gravity, and calculus—in dramatic contrast to his years as a student, when his work had been relatively undistinguished. I’m not predicting that your experience of the 2020 pandemic will prove to be as fruitful as those of your fellow Capricorn, Isaac Newton. But of all the signs in the zodiac, I do think your output could be most Newton-like. And the coming weeks will be a good time for you to redouble your efforts to generate redemption amidst the chaos.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The rapper named Viper has released over 1,000 albums. In 2014 alone, he created 347. His most popular work is You’ll Cowards Don’t Even Smoke Crack, which has received over three million views on YouTube. According to The Chicago Reader, one of Viper’s most appealing features is his ‘blatant disregard for grammar.’ I should also mention that he regards himself as the second Christ, and uses the nickname “Black Jesus.” So what does any of this have to do with you? Well, I’m recommending that you be as prolific, in your own field, as he is in his. I’m also inviting you to experiment with having a fun-loving disregard for grammar and other non-critical rules. And I would love to see you temporarily adopt some of his over-the-top braggadocio.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “If you don’t ask the right question, every answer seems wrong,” says singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco. I suspect you may have experienced a version of that predicament in recent weeks, Pisces. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I expect you will finally formulate the right questions very soon. They will most likely be quite different from the wrong and irrelevant questions you’ve been posing. In fact, the best way to find the revelatory questions will be to renounce and dismiss all the questions you have been asking up until now.
Homework: What could you actually change about your life that would give you a great sense of accomplishment? freewillastrology.com.
As outdoor dining expands, nature continues to run the show. Kudos to the brave, including winemakers and restaurateurs gambling their mortgage payments that the public will come back to enjoy outdoor menus. Ditto the pandemic workers and firefighters.
Kinch Notes
Culinary innovator David Kinch, with three Michelin-starred restaurantManresa and the new Mentone in Aptos, announced that he was removing his name from James Beard Foundation award contention. Given the difficult times the food industry is experiencing right now, Kinch decided to step away from the Outstanding Chef category.
“This is purely a personal decision,” Kinch wrote on Instagram, “not a reflection on anyone else who will be rightly recognized by the Foundation this year.”
This just isn’t the time to celebrate restaurant achievements, believes the much-honored chef.
By email Kinch explained: “I am not saying restaurants should dramatically rethink their mission. The mission is simple, offering a pleasurable meal, of value, with conviviality. All I wanted to say was, since we are essentially at the bottom, isn’t it a good time to think about how we want to change for the better, individually and collectively, in how we treat ourselves and our teams? Isn’t this that opportunity, the reset?”
It is hard to argue with that, with so many restaurants taking a hard look at their operations. Business as usual for restaurants is no longer sustainable.
The longstanding European model of service charges built into the cost of dining is one Kinch believes needs wide adoption. Tipping doesn’t cover the costs of those in the kitchen, and while patrons are used to the tipping-for-service model, it doesn’t begin to stretch to meet the needs of pay equity.
Kinch thinks now is the right time to ask patrons to help cover what he calls “the true cost of dining out. Not what they feel it should cost, but what it actually costs to support the livelihood of the industry and reflect the value of restaurants in building community.”
Kinch is suggesting a paradigm shift during an already fragile economic moment, yet he has a point. Now might be the perfect time to turn catastrophe into vision. That seems to be the theme of these times, if politics and the street are any index.
Kinch insists that while these are hard times for “white tablecloth” restaurants, “there will always be a market for Fine Dining. The death of Fine Dining has been reported on for the past 40 years. It is a niche part of this industry but there will always be a market for it.”
Avanti Kudos
We took home one of our best meals of the pandemic (humor never hurts) from Avantilast week. Beautifully seasoned and accessorized small plates, one of grilled calamari with heirloom tomatoes, lemon zest and fennel ($15) and another of lamb meatballs with grilled polenta and outstanding sweet red peppers ($16) started us off. They moved easily from the takeout container onto our own dinner plates, as did a shared entree of duck confit ($21). Avanti’s duck confit has always been a big hit with me, the richness of the poultry and the seasonal garnishes. This iteration was distinguished by a glaze of black pepper reduction, lots of capers and more of the multi-colored sweet peppers at their exact moment of ripeness.
All dishes were beautiful, absolutely delicious, and generous in portion. FYI: The patio dining seating at Avanti was filled to socially distanced capacity when I picked up our order. Happy diners. Great food.
On Aug. 22, Dan Frechette released his album By The Time It’s Over amid a lot of uncertainty.
For the past five years, the singer-songwriter has called Bonny Doon home and recorded 33 albums in his shed (By The Time It’s Over is the 33rd—and his 72nd album overall). He recorded this latest one in the evening on Tuesday, Aug. 18, less than 24 hours before the CZU Lightning Complex fires ravaged the area, taking with it the shed and possibly his house. As of this writing, he’s not sure if anything is still standing.
“I was jamming on my classical [guitar] around the house and figured I’d go up there and cut some 20-25-year-old tunes I’d been thinking of doing,” Frechette says. “Now, looking back, the song selection for some of the songs come off like a premonition.”
The songs were mostly written between 1993 and 1995, and some had allusions to fires. These are passionate but gentle folk-rock songs that yearn to be felt deeply and contemplated thoughtfully. On the final line of the final song he says plainly: “I’ve got the same soul, waiting on a feeling, ready for the fire, ready for rekindling.”
Currently he is in wait-and-see mode as to whether he’ll continue to live in Bonny Doon. It’s a bleak moment, but he can’t help but take the time to contemplate the huge body of work he’s recorded at the shed in the past five years.
With the pandemic ending live shows, he’d been particularly busy recording material. He released his prior album, Rhythm’s In The Soul, only 10 days before By The Time It’s Over. It’s a completely different sounding record, pulling heavily from the blues and evoking angst and frustration that anyone who has been in lockdown the past several months can relate to. It contains songs all over his catalog, including the first song he ever wrote back in 1990. In contrast, By The Time It’s Over sounds like a bittersweet departure.
“It just still blows my mind that there’s songs I’ve written that are 30 years old that I still like playing,” Frechette says.
Originally from rural Canadian town Pinawa, which is located in the Manitoba province, Frechette developed an audience for his music at a young age. He signed a publishing deal with EMI in 1994, landing him songs in movies (“Goodbye Monday” in Universal Soldier: Brothers in Arms Part 2), with others being covered by bands from all over the world: Dervish (Ireland), the Ploughboys (Australia), the Duhks (Canada), and Mary Z Cox (U.S.). When EMI signed him, he moved to Toronto, but didn’t like living there.
After the deal with EMI ended, he moved back to Pinawa shortly, then relocated to Winnipeg. He’d always been a prolific songwriter but carefully considered what material to release. That changed in 2012 when he noticed that fans were requesting songs in specific genres—Frechette writes in every genre.
“People like a genre. They’re like, ‘Oh I love bluegrass, I’ll just buy the record,’” Frechette says. “That got me through 2012 and 2013 really well. I recorded 10 albums in 2012. Ever since then, I’ve been recording as much as I can.”
On a 2013 tour, he met Santa Cruz local Laurel Thomsen and fell in love. When they married a year later, he decided to move to the Santa Cruz Mountains to be with her. They perform as “Dan Frechette and Laurel Thomsen” even as he continues to write and record his solo material.
“If you listen to the last 40-50 albums I made, it’s all very much me. I’m going to go on my deathbed and lay there dying, knowing I made the music that was true to myself. I wasn’t being told to be a pop star. I had a great time,” Frechette says.
Though much remains unknown for Frechette, it is clear that the shed is no more. That likely means it will be a while until he can record another album. And with the pandemic still raging, he’ll also wait to hit the road again. For now, he tries to keep his head up about what the future may have in store.
“I just want to play for people when we’re all healthy, all happy. When we’re all free. I’ll just wait until then,” Frechette says. “It’ll happen again. It’ll be a wonderful time when that happens. It’ll be just heaven when we can all get together again.”
