The sweep of an encampment at San Lorenzo Park—per an executive order by City Manager Martin Bernal, and intentionally coincided with the city council holiday break to prevent city council from overriding the order—goes against CDC guidelines, and also goes against Governor Newsom’s shelter-in-place order.
The park is home to over 200 people, many of whom have come to the park after being pushed out of other encampments by the police and told they could relocate to the park. There are not enough shelter spaces for those being displaced, plus shelters are not preferred to isolation placements due to the pandemic, according to Governor Newsom’s March 18 press release. Hotel vouchers are scarce, with priority given to disabled and elderly people, and even for those demographics approval takes months, and their stay is temporary. The encampment is being swept in increments due to its size, and the excuses are that the park is being shut off to the public for cleaning and lawn restoration and that the encampment is a public nuisance. The park is clean, people pick up after themselves or help their neighbors by picking up their trash, and it has a real sense of community. Community members and organizations like Food Not Bombs came out on Monday to stop the police from entering the park to no avail, and the people in the portion of the park the police said they would sweep on Monday were kicked out of their homes and displaced. I am writing to expose the inhumanity of the action to the public, encourage people to pressure the city council to call an emergency meeting, and help bring more people to the park to end the sweep.
Katayun Salehi | Santa Cruz
This letter does not necessarily reflect the views of Good Times.
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Longtime readers know that our annual Year in Review issue is traditionally the time that we let the snark fly. It’s when we look back at all the news that made us facepalm or freak out or just shake our head in stunned resignation. It is, needless to say, usually dripping with irony.
But you know what? Snark and irony just did not feel right this year. I don’t know how we’re all going to even recalibrate our sarcasm meters after what we’ve all been through in 2020. There’s a lot of reason for hope going into this new year—hope that a lot of us haven’t felt in a long time. That got us thinking about the things that bridged the gap from the before times to this moment full of possibility. Especially when things got way grimdark, we needed the people, places and things in this week’s cover story more than we even imagined we could. Coming up with a list of 50 for this salute to Santa Cruz County’s hope-bearers was surprisingly easy—it was whittling down the list that was hard. So please enjoy our heartfelt, snark-free salute to the things that got us through this year.
And one more personal thank-you to our readers as we wrap up 2020. Santa Cruz Gives’ total is now at more than $625,000—far beyond even our stretch goal and almost a quarter-million dollars more than we raised in total last year for Santa Cruz County nonprofits. The crazy thing is that Dec. 31 is traditionally our biggest day of the campaign for donations. If you gave this year, thank you so much, and if you haven’t yet, I encourage you to go to santacruzgives.org before midnight on New Year’s Eve and do it!
Finally, voting is in full swing for our Best of Santa Cruz County awards at goodtimes.sc. Like our nonprofits, our businesses need your support! Have a great and safe New Year’s, and we’ll see you in 2021!
Years ago after learning of his total devotion to the Sasquatch People, I felt a need to pick up the phone, taking a chance that Mike whom I had just learned about might be at the museum. And I was more than excited (and to be honest a little surprised) to find someone of such unbelievable kindness and patience on the other end. Viewing the Big Guys from a similar perspective to him I had some in depth questions to which he gave me his full attention, never once making me feel I was an imposition upon his knowledge nor time. Such a wonderful quality anytime but especially
nowadays! But as I discovered, when it comes to Mike, you will not find a more devoted–to his fellow humans and Big Brothers alike–anywhere. ANY donation, I’m sure, will be SO greatly appreciated. Thanks for this wonderful article which I plan to share with my various Bigfoot groups on Facebook since such knowledge should not be lost. EVER.
— Laurian Dawkins
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
A perfect metaphor for the end of 2020, taken at Moran Lake Beach. Photograph by Bill Brigham.
Submit to ph****@*******es.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
BIRD’S THE WORD
This week, we tip our caps to the white wagtail, a rare winged visitor that recently landed in Santa Cruz County. These small birds typically breed in Alaska and Asia, including Eastern Russia, but one was somehow blown off course or else found themselves on an exploratory mission to our county, including the San Lorenzo River mouth at Main Beach in Santa Cruz. The black and white bird is slightly smaller than a robin.
GOOD WORK
FAVORABLE RETURN
The Return the Favor campaign, sponsored by Santa Cruz Community Credit Union (SCCCU), ended Dec. 7, bringing $49,000 to local nonprofit organizations along the way. Now, the credit union is extending particular thanks to three generous businesses: UR 1 Stop Auto Sales, Cardinale Oldsmobile GMC and BTW Industries, Inc. Between donations from SCCCU, contributions from members, grant support and annual donations, the institution put $174,000 into the community this year.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Gratitude celebrates life with a joyful ‘yes’ at every knot of the great network in which everything is connected to everything.”
Yes, we all know 2020 sucked. Here are the amazing people, places and things in Santa Cruz County that got us through.
1 Let’s start with this: Where would we have been without firefighters this year? And yes, we definitely mean the volunteer brigades, too.
2 The surfer statue always seems to reflect what Santa Cruz is going through, and this year was no different. First of all, he did a better job of consistently wearing a mask than the entire state of Florida. And the firefighter tribute was a great look, too. But he didn’t forget his greatest hits, like the seasonal jack-o-lantern and Santa hat.
3 Young Black activists stepped up in a huge way in Santa Cruz, showing how the Black Lives Matter movement could bring attention to important issues of race, racism and community locally. Nowhere, perhaps, was that more evident than the Juneteenth march that was both celebratory and unyielding in its participants’ demand for an end to police brutality and racial profiling.
4 When local schools feared students with no internet access would be completely shut out of online learning during the pandemic, Cruzio stepped up in a huge way with its Equal Access Santa Cruz program, working with the County Office of Education and the Pajaro Valley School District to bridge the digital divide by bringing free or subsidized high-speed internet to low-income families.
5 So many health care professionals, grocery staffers, and other essential workers literally put their lives on the line so the rest of us could shelter-in-place. Perhaps the most overlooked of these were farmworkers, making the work of the Watsonville Campesino Appreciation Caravan so important. Not only did the group deliver lunches, Covid-19 safety resources, children’s books, census info and more to local farmworkers, but the caravan raised more than $30,000 through a GoFundMe to keep the appreciation effort going.
Watsonville Campesino Appreciation Caravan, which has provided hundreds of farmworkers in the Pajaro Valley with supplies and information during the Covid-19 pandemic, was one of 20 awardees of Santa Cruz County CARES Act funding. PHOTO: Tony Nuñez
6 It was a big year for diversity in representation. There was the term of Mayor Justin Cummings as Santa Cruz’s first Black male mayor; the election of Mayor Donna Meyers, the town’s first lesbian mayor; and the election of Jimmy Dutra, Watsonville’s first LGBTQ mayor.
7 There were a lot of boring Zoom meetings we had to watch this year to keep up on Covid-19 developments. None of these featured UCSC professor and local infectious-disease go-to guy A. Marm Kilpatrick. Throughout the pandemic, this guy has been a compelling, tireless advocate for a common-sense approach to combating Covid-19 and keeping not just our community but the entire country as safe as possible.
8 A new archway now offers a permanent reminder and way to honor the role of the former Chinatown in Santa Cruz’s legacy.
9 The meaning behind the City Council-approved “Black Lives Matter” mural in front of Santa Cruz City Hall goes without saying—as does its significance.
More than 500 people volunteered to paint the city’s permanent Black Lives Matter mural on Center Street that the Santa Cruz City Council unanimously approved in June. PHOTO: MAT WEIR
10 Reflecting an important national conversation, locals started dialogues about complicated figures like George Washington and how, or even whether, to remember them in public spaces.
11 Our local nonprofit community absolutely outdid themselves this year, first scrambling to adjust to Covid-19, and then throwing themselves into the CZU fire evacuation and recovery effort. Whether it was the Animal Shelter pet-sitting in the burn zone, the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County staffing evacuation sites, or Hope Services providing activities for the developmentally disabled over Zoom, seemingly every nonprofit had to relearn how to best serve our community this year.
12 In gratitude, it seems, donors made this Santa Cruz Gives’ biggest year ever—by press time, our holiday giving drive had already raised more than even its stretch goal of $600,000 for 40 of the county’s hardest-working nonprofits.
13 Not only did the “Love You Madly: Artists for Santa Cruz Fire Relief” campaign (both the weekly video drops and the fantastic livestream event that will be rebroadcast on Jan. 15—go to santacruzfirerelief.org for details) help raise a lot of money for fire victims, but, damn, it really hit us in the feels. Louie Pérez talking about how much Santa Cruz means to Los Lobos? John Doe of X singing us “Don’t Forget How Much I Love You?” We’re not crying, you’re crying!
14 That Love You Madly campaign was created to encourage donations to Community Foundation Santa Cruz County’s Fire Response Fund—which has been the center of our community’s attempt to aid fire victims as we attempt to wrap our minds around the scope of this disaster—and only begin to understand just how long the recovery will take. It’s one of so many ways the Community Foundation has lived up to its name this year, when we needed it most.
15 As the smoke from the CZU Lightning Complex fire cleared, a debate flared both on Twitter—and at GT—over which Hollywood star Cal Fire Deputy Chief Jonathan Cox most resembles. Nominees included Roy Scheider, Topher Grace, the guy from Twin Peaks and the guy from Santa Clarita Diet.
16 Santa Cruz resident Dave Andrade, a singer in the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, won big on Wheel of Fortune. We assume drinks are on him when the bars reopen.
17 In August, glow-in-the-dark bioluminescent plankton filled up the ocean waves for a beautiful display.
18 Recent Santa Cruz Warrior Kendrick Nunn played for the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals in September. He did well, and we felt proud.
20 Hands and mouths aren’t normally associated with cleanliness. But a charming “Clean Hands Save Lives” rebrand of the local Screaming Hand logo artwork did a great job reminding everyone to be safe.
21 Young activists hung a sign reading “OUR PLANET IS ON FIRE CLIMATE ACTION NOW” on the River Street sign—both powerfully true and an improvement for that sign.
Climate activists hung a sign calling for climate action early on Dec. 11, 2020. PHOTO: TARMO HANNULA
22 The Santa Cruz Works-sponsored Ride Out the Wave effort supported businesses with tens of thousands of dollars in local gift card sales.
23 Led by the Tannery World Dance and Cultural Center’s Cat Willis, the innovative Black Health Matters program showed how an arts program could work to further both social justice and public health, bringing Covid-safe TWDCC “click and mortar” classes, cultural programs and health resources to county parks. The goal: bringing people and organizations (including the local NAACP, Blended Bridges, the SCC Black Coalition for Racial Justice and Equity and United Way of SC County) together to address how Covid-19 is disproportionately affecting the Black community, and promote healthy outdoor activities.
24 Watsonville reckoned with the anti-Filipino race riots of its past, issuing an official apology for the discrimination of the 1930s.
25 Just when we thought we’d have to watch one of those Adam Sandler Netflix movies, the Rio Theatre stepped in with its Virtual Cinema program to fill the gap left by the shutdown of movie theaters. Meanwhile, the venue’s hilarious marquee messages filled that Rio-sized hole in our hearts.
26 Working with city councilmembers, Santa Cruz beekeeper Donna Gardner hammered out reforms to the city code to eliminate permitting requirements for hive owners. The buzz is this will be good for local pollinators.
27 KSQD’s radio program “Cruz News and Views” launched, with host Nada Milijkovic and weekly contributions (every Wednesday at 3pm!) from reporters and editors at GT, the Pajaronian, and other Santa Cruz County media outlets. Now when we’re done writing local stories, we go on the radio and talk about the local news we just wrote. It’s kind of meta!
28 Local musicians—from singer-songwriters to rappers to the Santa Cruz Symphony—highlighted their creativity and adaptability by making the most of “quaranstreaming,” using the internet to share their music with the world when live music was a no-go. Dan Bern alone did, like, more than one a day there for a while! (And they were awesome.)
Lindsey Wall and Anthony Arya performing for a ‘Save Our Music’ quaranstream on May 16. PHOTO: JAKE J. THOMAS
29 Art and museum organizations across Santa Cruz County took their exhibits virtual, ensuring we can all still safely learn about local history and peruse art.
30 In February, a Twitter thread of journalists who had Santa Cruz ties picked up momentum. Ezra Klein, Jesse Thorn, Stephanie Foo and Sean Rameswaram all chimed in, waxing about Good Times and about how much they love Santa Cruz.
31 Leave it to Santa Cruzans to design masks with creative slogans, and even some f-bombs, to remind people to keep their distance and help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
32 Three years ago, Bill Simpkins imagined a multimillion-dollar sports complex in Live Oak where local kids could play soccer, run and picnic with their families. In May, that vision was realized when the artificial-turf field with surrounding running track and picnic area opened at Shoreline Middle School. Decades after bringing us the Simpkins Swim Center, the guy still knows how to get things done.
33 The designer/artists behind Pivot, Tina Brown and Rose Sellery, had plenty of obstacles to hurdle if they wanted to keep Santa Cruz’s premiere fashion event alive during the pandemic. So what did they do? They doubled down by not only making the runway show into a film, but then turning it back into a live event by showing the film as a drive-in screening at the Boardwalk. And a spectacular show it was, one of Pivot’s best ever.
Part of ‘Pivot in the Pandemic,’ the film version of the annual art show presented by Santa Cruz-based fashion presenter Pivot: The Art of Fashion. Design: Peter Esparza. Photo: Victoria Medina
34 Speaking of drive-ins, did we mention drive-ins came back in every possible way? Whether it was DNA’s drive-in comedy shows, the Boardwalk’s drive-in movie series, or even Mira Goto’s pickup concerts (which were kind of a reverse drive-in, since she did the driving), we were lucky to have all of them bringing movies, music and comedy back into our lives in the most live way the pandemic allowed.
35 Mountain musicians collaborated virtually on a moving cover of Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train” in May to spark solidarity amid the pandemic.
36 Victory gardens made a comeback as people decided to dig in and make the most of having more time at home.
37 The young volunteers of the Teen Kitchen Project increased their production by 100% over three months to meet the need for fresh-cooked and delivered meals for people in need.
38 There were many NBA things to be happy with—the NBA season restart in the Orlando bubble, the NBA strike for social justice reasons and the NBA restart restarting.
39 Before stay-at-home orders began, GTNews Editor Jacob Pierce performed comedy at DNA’s Comedy Lab on March 4—the venue’s last in-person Friday night show before it became the first local business to close due to the pandemic. We love the virtual shows, and hope the Lab can one day reopen somewhere, somehow (see DNA’s perspective here).
Santa Cruz comedian DNA had a little fun with the marquee in the front of his business. PHOTO: JACOB PIERCE
40 State Senator Bill Monning bestowed a certificate of recognition on Good Times in November, “in appreciation for your commitment to journalistic integrity, community building, and the promotion of local arts and culture.” Monning praised GT for coverage that has “served to keep readers informed” and been “always inclusionary of all sectors of our diverse communities.”
41 Santa Cruz’s own Oliver Tree delivered the late-night-TV performance of the year on TheLate Show with Stephen Colbert in October, doing “Life Goes On.” Dude did a vertical flip on a scooter! And then rode another, gigantic scooter? And flew the American flag upside down! If you didn’t understand why we’ll watch anything this guy does before, you probably do now.
42 With Event Santa Cruz, Matthew Swinnerton has made a career out of bringing people together and keeping the vibe of Santa Cruz alive. We’re not able to gather in person, but events can happen online. And so a year marked by wildfires, an international pandemic and social isolation have made Swinnerton’s virtual efforts more impactful than ever.
44 The Carolyn Sills Combo’s “Ghost Reindeer in the Sky” video. Don’t even ask, just go watch it right now. We’ll wait.
45 There were a lot of great causes to support this year, but for some reason it was particularly heartwarming when the community showed up to save Oswald Restaurant. It wasn’t an event, or even an organized campaign, really—just owner Damani Thomas laying out the reality that the dining-scene fixture couldn’t survive without some financial help. He set a GoFundMe goal of $10,000—and got more than double that in 24 hours, ultimately raising more than $40,000. The comments were filled with fans remembering all of the times that Thomas had donated his own money, time and talent to local causes—not to mention all the great meals they’ve had at Oswald, and the ones they look forward to in the future.
46 Stay-at-home orders dealt devastating blows to many businesses, bookstores included. The good news is that lately many of us have had more time to buy books from Bookshop Santa Cruz and actually read them.
47 The New York Jets signed and drafted Santa Cruz High School grad Ashtyn Davis. Go Ashtyn!
48 The CA Notify app allowed Californians to find out if they may have been exposed to the novel coronavirus, just by adjusting their phone settings.
49 In-person art carried on safely with outdoor events like the “Color Our Street! Chalk Art Event” on Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz.
Dennis Scott of Santa Cruz draws a giraffe on Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz. PHOTO: TARMO HANNULA
50 You know who really got us through 2020? Our readers! For continuing to pick us up every week and checking out our daily stories online, for offering feedback on what we’re doing well and can do better, and for donating and subscribing to help keep us in business through the toughest year of our existence, we say a heartfelt “thank you.” We couldn’t have done it without you, and we look forward to great things in 2021!
I’ve spent more one-on-one time with my wife (and dog) in the last nine months than I had in the last 17 years.
And like everyone in Santa Cruz, America and the world, because of Covid-19, I’ve had to redefine my relationship to my job, my family, my hopes, my dreams and my community. Whether you are living with your grandparents, parents, extended family, friends, enemies, lovers or others, or are making it through this strange time alone, quarantine has called into question, blown apart and mutated all our notions about relationships. How are you getting through? Are you OK? What does the future look like? Who or what do you turn to for inspiration?
No time for dancing, or lovey-dovey
I ain’t got time for that now
Give me some dystopic end-of-the world movies and I will have a perfect night. I consider The Day After Tomorrow and 12 Monkeys to be classics. After watching John Cusack drive a limo through a disintegrating Los Angeles in 2012, I feel empowered. I feel like I’ve upgraded my skill set and honed my affinity for dealing with apocalyptic, shit-is-going-down scenarios. After every viewing of The Road, I feel like I just took a master class on how to survive in a grim, treacherous future. But in reality, before this summer, I have only had to deal with a blockbuster catastrophe, one time.
Lived in a brownstone, lived in a ghetto
I’ve lived all over this town
In March 2011, there was 9.0 earthquake in Japan. This caused a tsunami that threatened the coastline of Santa Cruz. At the time I was living in La Bahia, that Spanish-Italian building with the bell tower on Beach Street, whose wrought iron gate and, surprisingly, my old apartment still stand, though the other 40 apartments have been bulldozed. But in the early part of the 21st Century, La Bahia was a vibrant structure filled with international students during the summer and bohemians and weirdos in the off season. It was spring, it was morning, I waked and baked, as it was 8am and that was my routine. I heard a knock on my door. I opened it up, it was a cop. He said, “Tsunami warning, mandatory evacuation.” I said, “When?” He said, looking at his wristwatch, “Five minutes.” It was then that I said something that I never had said to a cop before, I said, “Are you high, because I am and that sounds like something I would say.” He said, “Did you say you’re high?” I slammed the door. I only had four minutes to evacuate the premises, and I had no time to argue about semantics.
The tsunami ended up terrorizing a bunch of boats and yachts, but it was certainly nothing I couldn’t handle. I felt like my decades of watching The Poseidon Adventure had paid off. I’m not going to end up like Shelley Winters. I’m a survivor and I’m ready for any situation.
And then came the pandemic of 2020.
I got three passports, a couple of visas
You don’t even know my real name
Before quarantine, I worked an easy 70 hours a week at my fledgling comedy club in downtown Santa Cruz, DNA’s Comedy Lab. I’m not special in doing that. Many people were working at their self-owned business at the beginning of this year. The Lab was about to celebrate its one-year anniversary when the week of lockdowns began. We had just hired a new chef and were ready to launch our updated menu. We had just come off the busiest weekend we had all year, and I remember thinking that we had turned the corner, we could finally have a month where we broke even. The hard work was about to pay off.
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance
I’m getting used to it now
I had been reading the headlines about a virus that was devastating China and Italy. It sounded very serious. I knew something wicked this way comes. How did I know? Did I mention Contagion? I had already vicariously lived through a worldwide pandemic and watched in horror as Gwyneth Paltrow died. I was self-taught on recognizing a plague. I told my business partners that we needed to close, and like a slow-motion version of the train crash in Super 8, they agreed. We closed and, according to the governor of California, it is still illegal for us to reopen.
By the end of this year it is estimated the rate of business bankruptcies will be up 158% from 2019 levels, according to one estimate. Will we ever be allowed to open again? What’s the baseline for reacting to all this? Calm terror?
A place where nobody knows
Remember back in January 2018 at 8:07am, when the citizens of Hawaii got an alert on their phone that said a nuclear bomb was heading their way and its arrival was imminent? It was an islandwide Defcon One. Nuclear war is an absolutely terrible way to start your morning, worse than having a cop knocking on your door. So how did people respond? Well, some people panicked. One man put his kids in a manhole. I remember one couple took one last selfie and tweeted, “Worst honeymoon ever.”
With the Covid-19 pandemic we never all received a singular text. We learned about it and it’s seriousness at different times. The news of Covid-19 was in the headlines for months before most realized what it meant.
Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons
There’s no escaping seeing downtown Santa Cruz change its character and nature. It is evolving and transforming in the face of lockdowns and new protocols. The very essence of downtown, the vibrant stores and staff that made Santa Cruz unique, is vanishing before our eyes. Like in the movie The Neverending Story, the Nothing is slowly eroding and erasing the very things we loved about our town. Compound this with summer’s CZU fire and the extremist Boogaloo who murdered Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, as well as the swelling number of people without homes who have inundated San Lorenzo Park, and it can be quite overwhelming. In fact, it’s shocking.
Hope for an answer some day
Shock. Where were you when you first realized that Covid-19 was going to change everything? Do you recall the second you knew things were not going to be the same? How could we not be in shock? I dare say that if you never recognized you were in shock, you might well still be in it.
Look at the Great Toilet Paper Rush of March 2020. You might think those people had gone mad, reacting to the news of a pandemic by crazily buying hordes of toilet paper. But they were just the canaries in the emotional coal mine of our national psyche. They were an indicator species that showed that our nation was undergoing an imbalance.
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the night time
Like all small businesses going through this crisis, April was particularly brutal as the reality set in. We were getting daily phone calls and emails at the Lab from renters who wanted to cancel their events and get refunded their deposits. What seemed like a short-term crisis began to have long-term ramifications. Would we be able to open our business legally in spring, summer or winter? The shifting landscape made it impossible to plan ahead. By the time Easter rolled around, we had cancelled 100 upcoming events.
I didn’t sleep a lot. I was up every night, mostly deadening my brain, but also researching grants, loans and trying to find an emergency exit. Would live events, comedy, music, theatre ever bounce back? It would have to, right?
I might not ever get home
Depression is where I find almost all my family and friends and myself. Most put on a good face (on Zoom). But in private, everyone is floundering on some level.
The mental health consequences of disasters have been written about, but we’ve never been in a worldwide pandemic of this magnitude in recent history. One study out of Boston University concluded that depression is three times higher than it was before Covid-19. In my comedy world, I have friends that were so close to “making it” and just on the edge of a career. Now, an entire generation is on pause. It is life interrupted on a grand scale, and nine months isn’t a long time to adjust. Heroically, I know a lot of friends and family doing their best, digging deep into their personal reservoir of strength and boldly plowing forward. And yet, no matter how busy we keep ourselves, depression seeps in like rainwater.
Packed up and ready to go
No epic story ends happily, and this story is no different. The weight of running a small business when it’s illegal to be open has become crushing and impossible to maintain. We are leaving the Riverfront Twin space we had called home. DNA’s Comedy Lab will survive with our weekly online shows and an outdoor comedy series starting in the spring. And when it’s safe, after the alien invasion has been thwarted, and coming together to laugh indoors seems sane, we will reopen in a new location. As Bill Pullman said at the end of Independence Day, “We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!”
Lyrics: “Life During Wartime” by Talking Heads.
Watch Blind Tiger Open Mic on Wednesdays and Sloth Storytelling on Thursdays at 8pm at DNA’s Comedy Lab on Facebook. For the Spring Comedy Series and specialty shows, join the mailing list at dnascomedylab.com.
After more than three decades of teaching in California state prisons, Claire Braz-Valentine has had her share of surprises. A prison arts Betty Friedan or sorts, Braz-Valentine has helped thousands of prisoners find their literary voices in her writing classes.
“Once there was a new guy in the class, and one of the other guys whispered to him, ‘She’s a feminist, but you are going to grow to love her the way we do,’” Braz-Valentine recalls.
And they did. She’s gotten a marriage proposal and rose bouquets made of toothpaste to prove it.
Now, longtime Santa Cruz local Braz-Valentine is ready for some well-earned downtime. Yet the surprises just keep coming. In October, Senior Arts mentor and longtime colleague Jack Bowers called Braz-Valentine to tell her that she is the recipient of the very first William James Association (WJA) Lifetime Achievement Award.
“I thought, “Oh my god, he is going to ask me to teach someplace, and I can’t say no,” Braz-Valentine recalls. “I felt so terrible. He was calling to tell me about the award.”
The Lifetime Achievement Award was created after Braz-Valentine decided to retire in July. She received a diorama of images and words representing her work in the prison system, complete with a symbolic prison key.
“It’s a fake key—it only unlocks hearts and minds,” Bowers says.
The award will be given again next year, and the nonprofit already has a couple of potential recipients in mind.
“There is a cadre of people who have spent the better part of their lives working in California prison arts since the ’80s who’ve been through the ups and downs and made the program the success it is,” Bowers says. “We want to honor them and their work, as well as people from outside who have made significant contributions.”
With support from the California Arts Council and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the WJA has provided Prison Arts Project classes in California prisons for more than 40 years. The classes are taught by professional artists like Braz-Valentine and include writing, music, visual and performing arts. The idea is that through the arts, prisoners can listen and be heard, develop skills that they may not have known before, and have a space to express themselves.
Braz-Valentine initially met with two groups of writers each week in Soledad Prison in the ’80s and ’90s, and went on to teach men, women, and youth prisoners at nearly every California prison. As she became part of the Soledad community, she welcomed the prisoners with open arms—many of whom had not experienced that kind of kindness in a long time, if ever.
“You feel the suffering when walking into a prison. It’s there and it’s heavy. It’s such a blessing to walk into the classroom knowing that you can bring them joy and laughter and art,” Braz-Valentine says. “It’s little miracles like that that help the places that hurt, and what a blessing it’s been to help do that.”
Braz-Valentine co-wrote the play “Women Behind Walls” with her students from the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, and it has been performed for audiences throughout California and internationally. On a local level, Braz-Valentine has led writing workshops at Santa Cruz Juvenile Hall and worked at Watsonville’s Lakeview Middle School as a playwright in residence for four years, while simultaneously teaching at Soledad.
Braz-Valentine received the WJA Lifetime Achievement Award via Zoom in November with several friends and former students present. Among the attendees was James Wood, a former Solano Prison prisoner and one of Braz-Valentine’s very first students.
“Arts and corrections gave us a venue in which we could be more ourselves; we could be vulnerable,” Wood said at the ceremony. “When you’re in prison, you have to walk around with this persona like you’re a real tough guy and nothing bothers you. But in Arts and Corrections, you become vulnerable, because you have to listen to other people critiquing your work. That vulnerability helped me to become more emotionally mature.”
Braz-Valentine says that the fewer rules you abide by, the better your writing often is. When she began working in the prisons, she didn’t know what a sonnet was—and she didn’t need to. But it was the sense of community and sense of generosity within the prisons that she came to value above all.
The riot at Solano is particularly memorable for Braz-Valentine since she was holding a workshop when it began and her students immediately wanted to make sure she was safe.
“The guys stood there and made a human barricade around me,” she recalls. “I felt like I had nothing to worry about, no one was going to get through that circle. That was one of the most moving things that happened to me. I felt so loved and so respected, and you don’t find that easily behind the walls of a level-four prison.”
Outside of her work, Braz-Valentine has had her own obstacles. As a single mom of three, she says she often pinched pennies to make ends meet, and has lost her family home twice in her life: once when she was in her twenties, and again during the 2018 Camp Fire when she lived in Paradise, California. She lost all of her original works, including many plays and poems that she wrote while leading the prison workshops. But once she set foot in the prison, she says she would leave her outside life at the door and request that the prisoners do the same when they came into the classroom.
“When a guy with a life sentence stands up to read a poem and starts crying, he has hit his own truth,” Braz-Valentine says. “For me to do that for someone, to open the door for them to come through, that is my truth.”
Braz-Valentine wants to set an example for young women and all women that age is not a weakness. Though she is no longer teaching in prisons, she will continue to write with her writing group and write poetry.
“Working on the inside has brought me closer to my own truth than anything else in my life,” she says. “In those workshops, the men and women get closer to their own truth as they write their way out of their darkness. I help them find themselves, and that’s the greatest gift of all.”
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Author Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) carried on a long love affair with books. He read thousands of them, wrote more than 20 of them, and further postulated the existence of numerous imaginary books that were never actually written. Of all the writers who roused his adoration, a certain Russian novelist was among the most beloved. Borges wrote, “Like the discovery of love, like the discovery of the sea, the discovery of Fyodor Dostoevsky marks an important date in one’s life.” I’m wondering if you will experience one of these pivotal discoveries in 2021. I strongly suspect so. It may not be the work of Dostoevsky, but I bet it will have an impact close to those of your original discoveries of love and the sea.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Vietnamese-American novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen has won numerous awards for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize. Here are his views about the nature of accomplishment: “We don’t succeed or fail because of fortune or luck. We succeed because we understand the way the world works and what we have to do. We fail because others understand this better than we do.” I bring these thoughts to your attention, Taurus, because I think that in 2021 you will have an extraordinary potential to enhance your understanding of how the world works and what you must do to take advantage of that. This could be the year you become both smarter and wiser.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Modern civilization has not spread to every corner of the planet. There are at least 100 tribes that inhabit their own private realms, isolated from the invasive sprawl of our manic, frantic influence. Among these enclaves, many are in the Amazon rainforests, West Papua and the Andaman Islands. I have a theory that many of us civilized people would love to nurture inner qualities akin to those expressed by indigenous people: hidden away from the mad world; content to be free of the noise and frenzy; and living in attunement with natural rhythms. In 2021, I hope you will give special care and attention to cultivating this part of you.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Hurricane Maria struck the Caribbean island of Dominica in 2016. Scientists studied two local species of anole lizards both before and after the natural disaster. They were amazed to find that the lizards after the hurricane had super-strong grips compared to their predecessors. The creatures were better able to hold on to rocks and perches so as to avoid being swept away by high winds. The researchers’ conclusion? It’s an example of one of the most rapid rates of evolutionary change ever recorded. I bring this to your attention, Cancerian, because I suspect that you, too, will have the power to evolve and transform at an expedited pace in 2021—in response to positive events as much as to challenging events.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I hope that in 2021 you will spend a lot of time meditating on your strongest longings. Are they in harmony with your highest ideals, or not? Do they energize you or drain you? Are they healthy and holy, or are they unhealthy or unholy—or somewhere in between those two extremes? You’ll be wise to reevaluate all your burning, churning yearnings, Leo—and decide which ones are in most righteous service to your life goals. And as for those that are in fact noble and liberating and invigorating: Nurture them with all your tender ingenuity!
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “You can’t move mountains by whispering at them,” says singer-songwriter Pink. Strictly speaking, you can’t move mountains by shouting at them, either. But in a metaphorical sense, Pink is exactly right. Mild-mannered, low-key requests are not likely to precipitate movement in obstacles that resemble solid rock. And that’s my oracle for you in the coming months, Virgo. As you carry out the project of relocating or crumbling a certain mountain, be robust and spirited—and, if necessary, very loud.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In his masterpiece the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci applied 30 layers of paint that were no thicker than a single human hair. Can you imagine the patience and concentration that required? I’m going to propose that you be inspired by his approach as you carry out your big projects in the coming year. I think you will have the potential to create at least one labor of love that’s monumentally subtle and soulful.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Climate change is proceeding with such speed in central Mexico that entire forests are in danger of perishing. In the hills near Ejido La Mesa, for instance, the weather is getting too hot for the fir trees that shelter millions of monarch butterflies every fall. In response, local people have joined with scientists to physically move the fir forest to a higher, cooler elevation. What might be your personal equivalent, Scorpio: an ambitious plan to carry out an idealistic yet practical project? According to my analysis of your astrological potentials, you’ll have a lot of energy to work on such a scheme in 2021.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Author Gérard de Nerval (1808–1855) made the following observation: “I do not ask of God that he should change anything in events themselves, but that he should change me in regard to things, so that I might have the power to create my own universe, to govern my dreams, instead of enduring them.” If you have a relationship with the Divine Wow, that will be a perfect prayer for you to say on a regular basis in 2021. If you don’t have a connection to the Supreme Intelligence, I suggest you address the same prayer to your Higher Self or Future Beauty or whatever source of sublime inspiration you hold most dear.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The mathematically oriented website waitbutwhy.com says that the odds of winning a mega lottery can be compared to this scenario: You know that a certain hedgehog will sneeze just one time in the next six years, and you place a big bet that this sneeze will take place at exactly the 36th second of 12:05 pm next January 20. In other words, waitbutwhy.com declares, your chances of winning that lottery are very small. But while their analysis is true in general, it may not be completely applicable to you in 2021. The likelihood of you choosing the precise moment for the hedgehog’s sneeze will be higher than usual. More realistically and importantly, your chances for generating positive financial luck through hard work and foresight will be much higher than usual.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Author Anais Nin was supremely adaptable, eager to keep growing, and receptive when life nudged her to leave the past behind and expand her understanding. At the same time, she was clear about what she wanted and determined to get what she wanted. Her complex attitude is summed up in the following quote: “If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.” I hope you will heed her counsel throughout 2021. (Here’s another quote from Nin: “Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s.”)
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In 2013, workers at a clothing manufacturing plant in Gazipur, Bangladesh staged a mass protest. Did they demand a pay raise or better health benefits? Were they lobbying for air conditioning or longer lunch breaks? None of the above. In fact, they had just one urgent stipulation: to dispel the ghost that was haunting the factory. I’ve got a similar entreaty for you in 2021, Pisces. I request that you exorcise any and all ghosts that have been preventing you from fully welcoming in and embracing the future. These ghosts may be purely metaphorical in nature, but you still need to be forceful in banishing them.
Homework: Has anything in your life changed for the better during the pandemic? What? freewillastrology.com.
In 2014, local guitarist Kevin Ray was hanging out on Pacific Avenue, hoping to stumble on some inspiration for a tune. As he often did, he went into Bookshop Santa Cruz and flipped through the poetry books.
He grabbed local poet Gary Young’s Even So and read an untitled poem on page 153. It resonated with him, so he asked each member of his band Eat The Sun to read it and write their own motif—without hearing each other’s creations. He assembled all of the parts to create the instrumental 23:20 minute song, “The Eclipse Suite.”
The song’s sunny vibes mixed with chaotic, jazzy jams very much evokes the sound of Santa Cruz.
“I immediately envision Steamer Lane,” Ray says. “I’ve been surfing all my life. And that coastline has always been a huge influence for my music. That song makes me think of that whole stretch of West Cliff right there.”
Eat The Sun formed in 2007 when Ray met drummer Zack Feigenbaum. They’d jam and listen to jazz, but they believed all of the music they created needed to be rooted in the experience of living deeply, and what creativity that inspired. Eat The Sun played its first show in 2011. A year later, friend and bassist Kai Kopecky joined the group.
Daydreams // Memories, the 2015 record that had “The Eclipse Suite” on it, was their final recording as a three-piece band. After that, Feigenbaum moved out of state to be with his now-wife, who was going to school at the Rhode Island School of Design. A few years later, Ray recorded Field of Dahlias by himself under the name Eat The Sun, then moved to Ventura. He took a break from music, but started back up again when the beaches were closed during the 2020 lockdowns. Recording music was necessary for his mental health.
The process of recording his new album Always // All Ways felt like one of his most profound creative endeavors. He processed his personal growth since leaving Santa Cruz and starting a new life in Southern California.
“I sat down and started recording one day, and it just snowballed into an album. It still took me quite a few months to get through it because I was also working crazy hours at a restaurant in Ventura,” Ray says. “This album is about growing, being better, being a more complete person, loving deeply, and letting go of past traumas. Making a piece of art again.”
The music on the record is eclectic, pulling from jazz, jam music, Americana, and rock. But this time, with just Ray working on it—and with nothing but time during the lockdown—it’s an even more nuanced and meticulous product, as he slowly added layers to each song over time.
“I don’t think too much about stylistic elements,” Ray says. “I have a wide variety of music that I enjoy. It tends to come out naturally in that eclectic feel. I like to combine everything I’m listening to and excited about.”
Like all Eat The Sun releases, this album is entirely instrumental. It’s the way that Ray feels comfortable communicating. Many of the melodies he plays have “secret lyrics” which are usually woven into the song titles.
“They’re like little poems. They have words associated with them. I’ve never been that great of a singer to want to put those words into a melody into the song,” Ray says. “I used to want to convey a certain feeling, to inspire words in people. But on this one, I let go of that. Everyone brings their own life to the table when they listen to something. Conveying feeling without words is more about not being in the way of someone’s experience and letting them have a moment.”
Given the circumstances, recording the album was very isolating and personal. Ray would be humming the songs even when he wasn’t working on them. He dug deep, and his feeling filled every moment of the songs.
“It was the first time where I felt the album had its own life outside of what I wanted,” Ray says. “I feel like this album was a huge benchmark in my life about being more the person I want to be in a grand esoteric sort of way.”
Twas the year that gave new meaning to the whole idea of dining out. Yet there were wonderful dishes and good memories shared in this year of dining in.
Starting with the most vivid—a dinner consumed in the rambling Victorian of our friends Tom and Rita. Not only did we endure the insults of Covid-19 quarantine, but wildfire evacuation as well. Under these conditions there was nonetheless a remarkable dinner picked up from La Posta, of brined pork chop with braised napa cabbage and a complex peach and nectarine mostarda. Freshly-baked sourdough bread, little gem salad, and amaretti cookies for dessert.
Paired with the Birichino Grenache, which had evacuated along with us, it was both comforting and expert. Me and Jack in the dining room, Rita and Tom in the kitchen, thereby assuring social distance with a big dose of camaraderie.
From India Joze came the first of many outstanding meals ordered, picked up, and then inhaled at our own dining table. A sensational Persian chicken filled with mushrooms and pomegranate was kept company by outrageous sumac-dusted potatoes with a side of soy and jalapeño ketchup.
From Gabriella Cafe came a sumptuous curbside delivery of rack of lamb in chimichurri sauce with astonishing smashed potatoes—the ultimate comfort food—and sauteed market veggies. An order of never-better house focaccia and a treasured vintage of Le Cigare Volant made it a festive occasion.
One of the sexiest dinners I had all year was carryout from Steamer Lane Supply. All the ingredients for killer carnitas tacos were there, from cabbage, cilantro, tortillas and two salsas to a slab of slow-cooked pork with instructions for whipping it up in my own cast iron frying pan. Ab fab!
Laili came through with a kaleidoscope of chutneys and sensuous baba ghanoush to accompany grilled lamb on a bed of aromatic saffron basmati rice. All the dishes from Laili were robust but the lamb kebabs especially.
Avanti wowed me with an appetizer of grilled calamari followed by another starter of intensely flavored lamb meatballs on polenta draped with red bell peppers.
A twilight meal at Venus Spirits Kitchen provided a terrific plate of cornbread topped with jalapeño honey butter and bourbon bacon jam. The double Venus Burger gooey with melting cheese, aioli and smoked onion was positively sinful as was the lemon, basil and Venus Gin No.1-intensive cocktail “Beach, Don’t Kill My Vibe.” The pleasure of seeing my great friend Melody across the table was the best dessert.
In the top tier of meals this year was Barceloneta’s fantastic carryout involving succulent short ribs and the amazing Ibiza Hippie salad of shredded kale with preserved lemons, spiced yams, and a vinaigrette of carrots and ginger. Authentic flavor excitement.
From Bad Animal came cauliflower a la Polonaise involving micro cubes of cauliflower, romanesco, egg, infant croutons, and yellowfoot mushrooms in a pool of brown butter.
Dungeness crab and avocado from Oswald, oh my.
The Buttery came through this year, over and over with bracingly good coffee to match its zucchini muffins (ultimate comfort food) and decadent chocolate croissants.
An order of Julia Child-worthy tiramisu from Vim soothed our souls. Dreamy, elegant, and filled with mascarpone, tea-soaked cake and unsweetened cocoa powder.
The dumplings from Sawasdee knocked me out with garlic, ginger, pork and shrimp in a sweet and spicy mystery sauce. Compelling and earthy.
Our local food makers, chefs, flavor artisans, and winemakers were true heroes during this terrible year. I wish them, and us all, a far better New Year! Here’s to 2021.
The Santa Cruz Police Department has been clearing out an unsanctioned encampment at San Lorenzo Park as part of an organized homeless sweep. But officers pumped the brakes on the second phase of the sweep Monday—after meeting resistance.
Santa Cruz City Manager Martín Bernal issued an executive order Dec. 17 explaining that the city would clear out the camp by Jan. 6.
Activist Brent Adams says Bernal’s order troubled him, given the lack of available shelter beds and the Covid-19 pandemic, which is surging in California.
Santa Cruz city spokesperson Elizabeth Smith says the first phase of evictions began Dec. 21, with sweeps in the southern end of San Lorenzo Park and the adjacent Benchlands. The initial evacuation area stretched from Branciforte Creek to the path that connects the Chinatown Bridge over the San Lorenzo River to Dakota Avenue.
Monday marked the start of the second phase, when officers were set to start clearing out the area around the park’s duck pond. But protesters showed up with signs bearing written messages like “Stop the Sweep,” as they argued with officers.
Smith says via email that police chose to postpone the second phase of the park sweeps, “given the number of protesters who were there this morning and the aggressive nature of their conflict with staff.”
Adams, who was at the park this morning, says he saw protesters surround officers from both sides and pin them near the park stage. He credits Santa Cruz Police for not taking out their batons and starting a fight. Instead, they walked to the street and left. He expects them to come back in larger numbers next time.
Adams says he understands that San Lorenzo Park is not in an ideal location for a camp, given its proximity to Hotel Paradox, downtown shops, retirement communities and a playground. Adams has been helping campers relocate to a Harvey West area he calls an “agreement camp,” as it isn’t near any homes, retail or playgrounds. He also hopes that—if the city does not like the blighted look of an unmanaged encampment—that it will support the creation of more managed transitional encampments run by nonprofits.
According to the city of Santa Cruz’s website, phase three of the evictions is scheduled to begin around the lawn bowling green on Jan. 4, and the closure period will end on Jan. 31, unless extended.
Bernal’s executive order cited fire and public safety reasons for clearing out the San Lorenzo Park camp. It also added that residents of the camp hadn’t been following social distancing rules in accordance with best practices meant to curb the Covid-19 pandemic. But ever since the state and county health leaders laid out shelter-in-place orders in March, officials made clear that the regulations did not apply to the homeless population.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) went so far over the summer as to advise against breaking up encampments.
“Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers,” the CDC’s website states. “This increases the potential for infectious disease spread.”
A little more than a year ago, Perla Pineda said she had a thought in the back of her mind that would not let her get a good night’s rest.
“I felt like something else was calling me,” she said.
She remembers waking up in the middle of the night and telling her fiance, Sergio Ferreira, that they needed to start selling food.
That was the start of a passion project that set its roots through social media and blossomed into Miches and Ceviches, a mobile food operation that has become a much sought after Watsonville dining experience.
Inspired by their families’ culinary traditions, Pineda and Ferreira’s food trailer, as the name would suggest, prides itself on its various Mexican seafood dishes and unique michelada mix—a michelada is a drink made with beer, lime juice, assorted sauces, spices, tomato juice and chile peppers.
Pineda says that people from all over the Central Coast visit Miches and Ceviches at their location on the 1400 block of Freedom Boulevard and that the word about their operation continues to spread.
“The response has been insane,” she said.
Pineda’s biggest sellers, she says, are their ceviches and aguachiles. They also make tacos and empanadas. She says she took her family’s recipes and put her own twist on them, making them fresher, spicier or sweeter—whatever was needed to make them to Pineda’s liking.
“It’s all the same concept but I changed it up a bit to make it my own,” she said.
Miches and Ceviches officially opened its physical location in November, but Pineda and Ferreira say the idea began with a social media account dubbed Meals in Heels, in which the former would share photos and recipes over Instagram. The account grew to just more than 700 followers over the course of six years.
But late last year, Pineda held her first online sale through Instagram, offering ceviche, aguachile and michelada mix. The response, she says, was overwhelmingly positive. A few weeks later, Miches and Ceviche was born.
“And it blew up,” Ferreira said.
They sold 10 plates of food for their first online sale, but the whiz-bang world of social media helped spread the word about the small start up. They more than doubled their orders the second time around, and their third sale, around New Year’s Day, created a snaking line out the door of their apartment. The business has continued to grow since then, Pineda says.
“Social media, it’s crazy,” Pineda said. “The word spread so fast.”
Despite that success, the couple says it was reluctant to make Miches and Ceviches its top priority and primary source of income, as both had full-time jobs. It wasn’t until Pineda was laid off from Girls Inc. at the beginning of the pandemic that she finally decided to make the leap.
“Initially, I wanted to juggle both things but I’m really thankful that I got laid off,” she said. “It was a blessing in disguise.”
It took an arduous 10 months to receive all the approvals they needed from the County Health Department and finally get their trailer on the road, Pineda says, but that process taught her the ins and outs of becoming a business owner, such as how to balance overhead costs and hire employees.
“It was a lot of late nights but we’ve had a lot of help from family and friends,” Pineda said. “We’ve been very blessed to have a great support system.”
Included in that support system, Pineda and Ferreira say, are their parents, who inspired the food they serve today. Pineda’s brothers helped design the business’ logo and the colorful yellow and red strikers on the outside of the trailer, which feature images of tacos, shrimps, pineapples and the late Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
Also depicted on the trailer: Pineda’s grandfather and Ferreira’s father, the patriarchs of their family.
“I love what food does,” Pineda said. “It brings people together, whether it’s at home with your family or festivities. It’s just a time when people can gather and laugh and enjoy life.”
