Shane Mauss Brings Psychedelic Stand-Up Act to Santa Cruz

Brian Bellinkoff remembers when he found out Shane Mauss had lost his mind.

In 2017, the director had been working on a documentary for several months with Mauss, using Mauss’ comedy show about psychedelics, “A Good Trip,” as a jumping off point. As with the drug-themed stand-up show—which Mauss had just taken on a successful 111-city tour—there was a deeper point beyond the jokes and stories about wild experiences with pretty much every psychedelic under the sun.

Using interviews with top scientists and thinkers in the field, the film aimed to show how breakthroughs in psychedelic research are poised to change the way we think about healing, biology, psychiatry, and psychology. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that Mauss’ groundbreaking tour was sponsored by Santa Cruz’s Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), or that MAPS Founder and Executive Director Rick Doblin was interviewed extensively for the film.

But Mauss took the idea further—a lot further. Fancying himself a “psychonaut”—which would eventually give the documentary its title, Psychonautics: A Comic’s Exploration of Psychedelics—he wanted to do as many of the drugs discussed in the movie as possible on camera. Bellinkoff had already filmed him going out with a mushroom hunter and chowing down on psilocybin, as well as tripping on ketamine in a clinical therapy setting. Next up was supposed to be a date with the extremely potent shaman’s brew ayahuasca, which was also to be filmed.

Except that Mauss had suddenly disappeared, leaving Bellinkoff baffled. What neither he nor the film’s producer Matt Schuler knew was that Mauss had already done the ayahuasca without them—way too much of it, in fact.

STAND UP SCIENCE Mauss also has a podcast named after his psychadelics-themed comedy act, "Stand Up Science."
STAND UP SCIENCE Mauss also has a podcast named after his psychedelics comedy act, “Stand Up Science.”

“We didn’t hear from him for a while,” says Bellinkoff. “And we were like, ‘This is strange.’ Then one day Matt calls me and says, ‘Hey, I just got off the phone with Shane, and if he calls you, unless you’ve got 30 minutes to blow, don’t pick up the phone, because he’s just going to talk a bunch of nonsense. Sure enough, my phone rings 10 minutes later, and I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to let this one go to voicemail’—not knowing that he was having this crazy manic episode.”

Mauss was overwhelmed by paranoia and delusions, eventually getting himself committed to a psych ward about a month after his trip.

Rather than trying to gloss over it, the filmmakers turned Mauss’ episode into the compelling climax of Psychonautics, in which Mauss recalls what he went through in narration over a stunning animation sequence. It serves as a sobering counterpoint to the movie’s bright optimism about the future of psychedelics; while they may be tools for positive change in the proper context and setting, they are still psychoactive agents that must be respected for their still-unquantified power.

“There’s a built-in disclaimer throughout the documentary, because I did lose my mind in the course of doing it. I eventually got it back, but I had to be hospitalized for a little while,” says Mauss. “I wanted to find the edge of where the human mind could go, and I found it. And in hindsight, I’m not sure why that was a goal of mine in the first place.”

Big Time vs. Big Ideas

When I talk to Mauss by phone in April, it’s been nearly two years since drug-fueled moviemaking briefly drove him crazy—and he’s just fine, thank you. I tell him that I first discovered his comedy several years ago on Sirius XM’s Comedy Central Radio, which would play bits from his 2010 debut album Jokes to Make My Parents Proud. I liked his rapid-fire absurdist takes on everything from common sayings to time travel to electric blankets. They were funny bits, but the structure already hinted at something more ambitious—for instance, the way a joke about the stupidity of macho truck ads led to a story about how hard it was to get the censor to let him do that same joke on late-night TV, which led to an even better bit about the ridiculousness of FCC regulations.

His act started to evolve quickly after his Comedy Central Presents showcase in 2010. His 2013 Netflix special Mating Season had already begun to move away from traditional stand-up subjects, as he worked his thoughts on things like evolutionary biology and negative bias into his comedy.

GUIDED TRIP Mauss took ketamine as part of a therapy session for his new documentary ‘Psychonautics.’
GUIDED TRIP Mauss took ketamine as part of a therapy session for his new documentary ‘Psychonautics.’

By 2014, he was doing a weekly science podcast called Here We Are, for which he has now released more than 200 episodes. In 2015, he did a whole album called My Big Break centered around how he broke both his feet at the same time, which he calls the absolute worst way to break them. (“If this is something you really have your heart set on, what you want to do is break one foot first, let that sucker heal, see how you liked it, and then—if you’re really committed to this—go ahead and break your other foot,” he jokes on the album.) In October of 2016, he started the “Good Trip” tour, which stretched into the summer of 2017. Since then, he’s also developed his “Stand Up Science” comedy show, which draws on his love of non-drug-related science topics.

It is, I point out during our conversation, pretty much the weirdest path a successful comic can take.

“Tell me about it,” says Mauss, his unmistakable, Midwestern-accented voice accompanied by an implied sigh as it floats through the speaker. He grew up in La Crosse, Wisconsin, the kind of city that wins a lot of “Best Small City for Doing Business”-type awards, but was also named the 15th-coldest city in the nation and the sixth-drunkest city in America by 247wallst.com. I always kind of assumed the 38-year-old Mauss’ stories on his early albums about getting blackout drunk and doing lots of drugs were exaggerated for effect. Not so much, it turns out.

“I was probably understating it,” he says.

Still, his comedy about his working-class background—he did time in a furniture-manufacturing plant for years before pursuing comedy—and left-field observations quickly got him attention when he moved to Boston and started performing regularly in the comedy scene there.

“I think I got kind of a false sense of confidence early on in my career, when everything went really well for me in a hurry,” he says. “I was doing the traditional comedy stuff like late-night TV and all that, and I just wanted to challenge myself more, do something that was really just following my natural curiosities.”

A New Path

On Saturday, those pursuits will lead Mauss to Santa Cruz, where he’ll perform two entirely different shows at 7:30 and 10 p.m.—first, “Stand Up Science,” and then, for the late show, “A Good Trip.”

Obviously, Santa Cruz is a no-brainer for his psychedelic show, especially with his connection to MAPS.

“I interact with the MAPS organization all the time. I’m friends with everyone over there,” he says. “I imagine they’ll be at my show. I’ll probably have one of them come up and say a few words in the middle of it.”

Still, he was surprised at the reception “A Good Trip” has gotten in cities that most people probably wouldn’t expect. And that was even before some of the more recent milestones in psychedelics research, like MDMA getting a “breakthrough therapy” designation from the FDA for treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and MAPS’ plan to make MDMA-assisted psychotherapy a legal prescription treatment by 2021—for which it just went into Phase 3 clinical trials.

“I had no idea,” says Mauss. “Throughout the country I would do small towns like Minot, North Dakota, and hundreds of people would come out. People were just really excited that someone was talking about this stuff. We’ll see how popular it is now, because a lot’s changed in the couple of years since I stopped doing the show. And psychedelics have been that much more normalized; it seems like people are pretty excited. You know, Michael Pollan’s book that came out last year is still in the front of bookstores. It’s a subject that’s seemingly still taking off quite a bit.”

He admits his personal connection to the psychedelic community makes him biased, but attending conferences and talking to researchers over the last several years has led Mauss to believe that something unprecedented is on the horizon in the field.

“It does feel like we are entering another potential psychedelic revolution,” he says. “I think this one is a lot more toned-down and responsible than it was in the ’60s, and that’s probably for the best. This is a lot more therapy-driven and clinical and taking the science of it and trying to legitimize these things.”

Blast Off

That, of course, is what Mauss and Bellinkoff are also trying to do with their Psychonautics documentary, which was released last month on Amazon Prime, iTunes and Google Play.

The project started when producer Schuler heard Mauss talking about his “Good Trip” tour on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, and suggested to Bellinkoff that they approach him about making some kind of special based on it.

“Then Shane was going to be in L.A. performing at the Largo, so Matt said, ‘Brian, just bring the camera and record the show,’ because he wanted to pitch it to Showtime or something,” remembers Belinkoff. “And that Largo show is actually the main stand up that you see in the film. I didn’t even know Shane at the time. I was interested in psychedelics because I’d dabbled in mushrooms and MDMA, but nowhere close to Shane’s level.”

Mauss was initially skeptical, and says he never really had a clear vision for what the movie was going to be. But Bellinkoff won him over.

“In the beginning, he definitely wasn’t quite sure if this was a good idea for his career, and didn’t know if he could trust me,” says Bellinkoff. “But along the way, we became friends. The guy is awesome. He’s got no ego, and he’s super humble. He didn’t even want his face on the poster at first.”

BUDDY TRIP Mauss worked with director Brian Bellinkoff on the documentary 'Psychonautics: A Comic’s Exploration of Psychedelics.'
BUDDY TRIP Mauss worked with director Brian Bellinkoff on the documentary ‘Psychonautics: A Comic’s Exploration of Psychedelics.’

When MAPS did its conference on psychedelic research (which is held every four years) in Oakland in the spring of 2017, the filmmakers realized they could interview many of the leading names in the field in one place. They also found a mushroom hunter, Eric Osborne, who offered to lead them around a municipal park (!) in Kentucky to find psilocybin.

Again, Mauss was initially skeptical. “Eric came to one of my ‘Good Trip’ shows. I met him after the show and he was wearing this mushroom hat, it was just a big hat that looked like a mushroom, and I was like, ‘Who’s this weirdo?’”

However, the mushroom hunt sequence turned out to be one of the funniest in the film, and Mauss has gone on to perform at some of the psilocybin retreats that Osborne leads in Jamaica, where the drug is legal.

Bellinkoff quickly discovered that Mauss had the remarkable ability to actually describe pretty coherently what he was experiencing while tripping on camera.

“I think part of that is that Shane does it professionally,” he says. “His whole last tour was trying to describe these experiences on stage; he is just innately able to do it. These are substances that make most people completely incoherent, but he has this strange superpower.”

Mauss is a lot more critical of his own tripping talk.

“Yeah, it just looks like me drooling in a chair or whatever. It doesn’t necessarily represent the experience that well. You’re having this really profound inner experience, but how you look on the outside is just ‘Uhhhhhhhhhhh,’” he says. “I have never liked seeing myself on television, or hearing my voice. It’s just something that I’ve never liked and never gotten used to, and it was hard. It was really hard. Especially once I became manic and paranoid. I really couldn’t watch myself at that point.”

That was also the point where the shooting basically ground to a halt.

“We would have recorded a lot more stuff. There were several more psychedelics I planned on doing for the film,” says Mauss. Although he felt bad that Bellinkoff was left to turn what they had done into a narrative, he says it’s probably for the best that they stopped when they did.

“As I was getting more and more manic throughout the filming, I was having more and more grandiose ideas about what I wanted the film to be. Next thing I knew, I was trying to make, like, the Christopher Nolan Inception of psychedelics,” he says. “It was a bunch of loose footage to me, and I had no idea how to put it all together. But, man, what Brian did with it was incredible. Ultimately, I’m really happy with what he was able to do with the limited amount of time and footage that we actually got.”

Bellinkoff acknowledges it was a dicey situation, but he says all the craziness ultimately worked for the finished Psychonautics.

“In the end, it actually made the movie much better, because it had a full character arc,” he says. “In the beginning, I was like, ‘Are we just going to go talk about these different drugs, and then sort of wrap it up at the end?’ But because he had this episode, it really rounds out the whole movie, because I didn’t want to necessarily just glorify these drugs either, and say, ‘Oh yeah, they’re all totally safe.’ It’s exciting, but you also have to be cautious.”

Mauss continues to find a natural high by pushing himself out of his comfort zone in his comedy career. He’s done his “Stand Up Science” show around 40 times now, and its success in creating a heady mix of comedy and accessible science talk makes him think he’ll be doing it for quite some time.

When I listen back to Mauss’ albums, it seems obvious that he’s been pushing the boundaries of what comedy can be from Mating Season onward. It’s almost possible to chart how he’s moved away from the most basic—and safest—comedy beats to something a little deeper.

“There is nothing more terrifying, I think, than really intentionally almost seeing how long I can go before delivering a punchline—building up a premise and setting the stage for really big ideas,” he says. “Because then when you get to the punchline, it does have to pay off more, because of how long it took to set up. The stakes are just higher. And, man, I love it.”

Shane Mauss performs on Saturday, April 27, at DNA’s Comedy Lab, 155 River St. South, Santa Cruz. The 7:30 p.m. is “Stand Up Science,” and at 10 p.m. he will perform his psychedelics-themed comedy show “A Good Trip.” Tickets for each show are $20 in advance, $25 at the door. dnascomedylab.com.

Long Road Ahead For Family of Highway 9 Traffic Victim

Caltrans is launching an immediate study of a 1-mile stretch of Highway 9, including the shoulder where 22-year-old Josh Howard was struck and killed by a motorist earlier this year.

On the evening of Feb. 21, driver Jeremy Shreves drifted over a solid white line into the narrow shoulder where Howard was walking, according to a report released last week by the California Highway Patrol (CHP).

The pending analysis from Caltrans will look at possible safety improvements, including narrowing the highway’s lanes and pushing back retaining walls to create more space for pedestrians and bicyclists, according to Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) Senior Transportation Planner Rachel Moriconi.

Officials ordered the analysis at an April 18 meeting attended by Assemblymember Mark Stone and 5th District Supervisor Bruce McPherson, along with representatives from the RTC, Caltrans, the San Lorenzo Valley School District, the California Highway Patrol, and Santa Cruz County Department of Public Works.

Congressmember Anna Eshoo and Congressmember Jimmy Panetta also briefly attended the meeting before having to step out.

“The elected officials made it clear Thursday they strongly believe the community deserves an immediate response to the threats posed by the corridor, and they expect tangible responses as soon as possible,” says J.M. Brown, an analyst in McPherson’s office.

Though it may be a step forward, the announcement has rankled members of the San Lorenzo Valley community, many of whom have demanded safety improvements along the Highway 9 corridor for more than a decade.

When 22-year-old Josh was struck and killed walking along the southbound shoulder of Highway 9 during rush hour in Felton, community members launched an online petition, reigniting a long-simmering, emotional issue among residents of Felton and the greater San Lorenzo Valley.

The petition, which has garnered nearly 1,500 signatures and 400 comments, notes that community members surveyed for the RTC’s Draft Highway 9/San Lorenzo Valley Complete Streets Corridor Plan overwhelmingly identified pedestrian and cyclist safety between the San Lorenzo Valley school campuses and downtown Felton as a top priority.

At the April 18 meeting, Assemblymember Stone and Supervisor McPherson echoed their constituents’ concerns, according to those with knowledge of the discussion, and they demanded Caltrans immediately identify and implement temporary steps to improve the one-mile stretch of highway where Josh died.

Josh’s mom, Kelley Howard, 41, of Felton, is gratified to see some progress toward making Highway 9 safer. But promises of an analysis or temporary fix ring hollow in the wake of her son’s death.

“I think that’s a start. Not to sound unappreciative, but actions speak louder than words. The community has been demanding safety along the Highway 9 corridor for 11 years,” Kelley says.

Obstacles Ahead

There are significant obstacles to any plan, large or small, Moriconi says. Narrowing the highway’s lanes will negatively affect the ability of larger vehicles, such as fire engines and logging trucks that use the road on a daily basis, to maneuver. In addition, moving retaining walls is expensive. Even seemingly easy fixes, like additional signage, can be problematic, as more signs sometimes mean more distracted drivers.

“Caltrans knows this is a community priority and are looking at all the data, but they don’t want to do anything that has unintended consequences. If there was a quick fix, this would have been done decades ago,” Moriconi says.

Money, of course, is an issue. Although partially funded by Measure D, which voters approved in 2016, the project would rely on the state’s Active Transportation Program, which is supported by gas taxes. That fund is not as strong as it once was, despite a recent gas tax increase.

“It’s now up to Caltrans, the RTC, and the county to work together, leverage appropriate funding and ensure the safety of this corridor,” says Assemblymember Stone in a statement.

While Caltrans’ analysis may result in a temporary fix to the segment of highway used by students, significant safety improvements to the entire 18-mile San Lorenzo Valley corridor are still years away.

In an April 16 letter addressed to RTC Executive Director Guy Preston, Caltrans Deputy District Director Aileen Loe said Caltrans will begin work on a scoping document for pavement preservation along the San Lorenzo Valley corridor this summer. Improvements, she wrote, would be funded in the 2022 State Highway Operations and Preservation Program.

As a result of this timetable, Kelley fears that another San Lorenzo Valley mother may have to live through the pain of losing a child before planners ensure the corridor’s safety.

“There are a lot of bad spots along Highway 9. Kids are in danger daily. I still see kids taking the path where my son was killed. I’m grateful that no one else has been hurt or killed, but I’m also surprised,” Kelley says.

Kelley is also concerned that Jeremy Shreves, 47, of Boulder Creek, remains free and behind the wheel after killing her son with his 2000 Toyota 4-Runner.

Josh, a hard-working, happy-go-lucky young man on the milder end of the autism spectrum, attended classes at Cabrillo College and held down jobs at two pizza parlors and Castelli’s Deli. He was walking home from an eight-hour shift at the latter when he was killed.

Like Josh, Shreves had just finished a long day of work. He was headed to Safeway in Felton when the accident occurred, according to the CHP incident report.

At the time, Shreves contended he was only traveling 20 mph when he hit Josh. However, his passenger, Bean Bourn, told investigators that Shreves had been traveling 30 to 35 mph.

According to Bourn’s comments, Shreves inexplicably drifted over the solid white line to where Josh was walking along a roughly three-foot shoulder abutted by a sheer concrete retaining wall.

As Bourn yelled, “Whoa, Whoa!”, the Toyota strayed 1-to-2 feet over the solid white line and struck Josh from behind.

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office has recommended a misdemeanor charge of gross vehicular manslaughter to the District Attorney’s Office, which has yet to assign a specific attorney to the case.

“From what I understand, they’re not considering it as gross negligence, which would be a felony. I don’t really understand that. He has a long criminal history. He admitted to drinking and smoking pot on the day the accident occurred,” Kelley says. “It boggles the mind.”

Shreves’ criminal history in Santa Cruz County dates back to 1995. It includes a six-month jail sentence for felony burglary and multiple vandalism and drug charges. At the time of the accident, he admitted to the investigating officer that he had drank a beer earlier in the day and smoked marijuana at lunch. However, a field sobriety test indicated he was sober when he struck Josh.

Shreves, who did not respond to an interview request, submitted to a blood test at a hospital after the incident. Results from that test have not been released.

While she waits for the D.A. to address the case, Kelley hopes tangible changes address the stretch of road where her son lost his life. At the very least, she suggests redirecting students through Clearview Place, which is closed to traffic, to avoid the dangerous stretch of highway.

But no amount of highway safety improvements will truly console the grieving mother.

“In the end, nothing will be enough, of course,” Kelley says. “Nothing will bring my baby home.”


Update 4/23/2019 11:20 a.m.: A previous version of this story misreported Kelley Howard’s age.

NUZ: Bike Month’s Exciting Twist

Ecology Action has put together a new program for the month of May, and anyone who rides to work five times next month will have a shot at a $7,500 prize.

Bike riders will have to download the third-party app Strava to track their rides. Cyclists who ride on Bike-to-Work Day, Thursday, May 9, will get an additional entry—plus a shot at winning a new e-bike. Bike-to-Work Day will have breakfast sites all the way from Watsonville to Scotts Valley. Visit ecoact.org/biketowork for more information.

Watsonville is also gearing up for an Open Streets event Sunday, June 2, when organizers will close off downtown blocks in celebration of cyclists and pedestrians. Last year, after a scary rash of pedestrian deaths, the city of Watsonville became the first city in the county to sign onto Vision Zero, a campaign to eliminate traffic fatalities, while increasing healthy and safe transportation options for everyone.

SUER SYSTEM

Activism and the court system have a lot in common.

They both incentivize players to throw as much as they can against the wall to see what sticks.

The basis of local homeless activists’ suit against the city of Santa Cruz—over chatter about closing down the Gateway homeless encampment behind the Ross department store—is simple enough. The city doesn’t have enough shelter beds, so there aren’t enough places for the homeless to go, the complaint alleges. (As of press time, the city was conducting a camp clean-up, while the council weighed the possibility of closing the camp permanently, amid a potentially delicate legal situation.)

But the suit pulls in a surprisingly long list of defendants, including city administrators Tina Shull and Susie O’Hara, who’ve both been taking direction from the City Council under the guidance of City Manager Martín Bernal, and appear to be working crazy-long hours as the electeds switch course on homelessness every two weeks.

The suit additionally names the public safety group Take Back Santa Cruz, arguing that the group is tied to SCPD Chief Andy Mills, and because the collective is allegedly spreading “anti-homeless hate.”  

We’re not here to defend xenophobic remarks in online forums, but let’s be honest: Some of this legal junk is a lot like Robert Norse’s eloquent bi-weekly rambling during public comment at City Hall—it sounds interesting, it wastes time, and it means absolutely nothing.

International Jazz Day Takes Over Santa Cruz Wharf

Between the Kuumbwa Jazz Center, the jazz program at Cabrillo College and the music programs at some of the area’s schools, there may be no better place in America outside New York or New Orleans to grow up with jazz than in Santa Cruz County.

It makes sense, then, that Santa Cruz County is fully committed to International Jazz Day, a worldwide celebration of jazz sponsored by UNESCO, the Smithsonian Institute and the Herbie Hancock Jazz Institute. In fact, it’s known locally as International Jazz Week, thanks largely to the efforts of Santa Cruz jazz percussionist Prince Lawsha.

This year, Lawsha has been busy bringing a group of accomplished jazz musicians to several of the county’s schools for performances and workshops, all of which culminate in a free outdoor concert on Sunday at the bandstand at the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, featuring legendary percussionist Pete Escovedo.

Sunday is the official observance of International Jazz Day, and from noon-5 p.m., Lawsha and his impromptu band of jazz all-stars will open the performance at the Wharf, followed by Escovedo and his orchestra, which features his sons Juan Escovedo and Peter Michael Escovedo.

But even before the first note is struck in Sunday’s concert, many of the county’s school children will have already been exposed up close to high-quality jazz performance.

Six years ago, Lawsha—the son of a celebrated saxophonist also known as Prince Lawsha, a veteran touring musician and recording artist in his own right—approached former county school superintendent Michael Watkins with an idea to bring professional jazz players into the county’s classrooms.

“I figured that if I’m going to bring artists from outside the country here [for International Jazz Day], I could do better having them here a whole week with students, rather than just one day at the Wharf,” says Lawsha.

The result was the birth of a local tradition, as Lawsha led a jazz band into one local school every day of the school week. This year, he has assembled a group of musicians from his friends and colleagues in jazz, who he’s met performing around the world. They include Philadelphia bass player Tyrone Brown, French sax man Jean-Jacques Taib and a few California players, including guitarist Cameron Smith, pianist Martan Mann and coronet player Lewis Kaiser.

Lawsha and the band are in the midst of a tour of the county’s schools, which this year includes Harbor High, Soquel Elementary, Pajaro Valley Middle School, Sequoia School in Freedom, and Cesar Chavez Middle School in Watsonville. The aim of the tour, says Lawsha, is to instill a love of jazz in the younger generation, and to allow young aspiring musicians to see models of professionalism in the business. “What we want to do is make sure that these kids will keep these instruments in their hands all their life,” he says.

Audrey Sirota is the arts coordinator for the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, and her job is to act as the liaison between the musicians and the schools. She says the benefits of the jazz musicians coming into schools extend beyond aspiring musicians.

“Seeing how you can make a living as a musician and how you can make a career of it has a profound influence on a lot of the students, even if they never become professional musicians,” she says.

A couple of years ago, Sirota was witness to the process of how jazz musicians inspire the very young when she attended a performance at Mountain Elementary School outside Soquel. “The musicians ended up doing some nursery rhymes and songs that the kids were familiar with—taking ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,’ for example, and turning it into a jazz improv.” This year, Lawsha and his band are planning a similar approach with Spanish-language nursery rhymes.

Also, in keeping with the international flavor of International Jazz Day, Lawsha is intent on bringing to town musicians from other places as a way to underline the power of American jazz around the world.

“I do try to bring in people from outside the country so that kids can get inspired seeing people from other countries playing our music with such love,” he says.

The International Jazz Day program, featuring Pete Escovedo and the Escovedo Orchestra, along with Prince Lawsha and the Jazz Day All-Stars, will be presented Sunday, April 28, noon-5 p.m, at the bandstand at the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf. The concert is free and open to the public. jazzday.com.

Illuminations of Each Day: Risa’s Stars April 24-30

Aries is always the first sign of the new spiritual year. It is the seed pushing forth the first two leaves (they look like rams’ horns, the Aries sign) emerging from the Earth during spring.

Aries (sign, person, time), the first sign of the zodiac, holds the force of creation. However, Aries realizes that it is only with patience and time that the creative force can come into practical focus and substance. Aries’ fire is unable to complete tasks and projects. Completion is not the task of Aries; that is the task of Taurus. Aries hands the initiating fiery ideas from the Mind of God to Taurus for anchoring, application and completion. And so here we are in Taurus for a month.

Taurus is the sign of desire. It is also the sign of aspiration. Taurus lives within slow time. Taurus ponders things deeply before coming to any final decisions. During Taurus, it’s good to understand the planetary frequencies available and influencing us each day.

Sunday: the sun guiding us, illuminating our mind to look toward the week ahead. Monday’s moon helps us nurture daily home life. Tuesday: Mars helps to ensure that our actions and power are expressed with kindness, wisdom and in a rhythmic regulatory way, creating Goodwill. Mercury, the messenger, rules Wednesday, providing us with discernment and discrimination as to what is right and what is not right. Thursday is Jupiter’s day, offering the qualities of generosity, expansion, love, and joy. Friday, Venus guides us into experiences of beauty and Right Relations. Venus unifies all separations. Saturday is Saturn’s day, helping us learn more, clarify all matters, complete our past week and create new structure for the days and weeks ahead.

ARIES: Past abilities and gifts emerge in your daily life. There are many, and they are good. Wounds go into hiding for a while. Tend with mindfulness to all daily tasks, especially if traveling. Responsibilities increase; love increases, too. Find Taurus people and communicate with them. They comfort you. Be prudent with money while also tithing and sharing.

TAURUS: In these times, as the reorientation of humanity and our economy continues, you tell us why and how and what to prepare for life on the edge, life without comforts, and how to still maintain the art of living. It’s time to gather materials for a greenhouse. Old wood-framed glass doors and windows will do.

GEMINI: So many responsibilities call you. And whatever does, no matter when, you must do your very focused best to tend with care and mindfulness. Two directions imply an opposition, which creates much resistance at first. Later, acceptance comes, and a blending of the many. Your intuition is active, wanting to bring forth synthesis. Ask for more information and ask for all that you need. Then wait for the subtle quiet answers in response.

CANCER: Many of us are experiencing inflammation and pain, especially in the knees (Saturn, south node, Pluto in Capricorn). Turmeric is an anti-inflammatory. Preparing East Indian (or ayurvedic) foods are best for healing and digestion. Indian spices have health benefits—turmeric is anti-inflammatory, as is coriander (it also contains magnesium); cayenne and black pepper for warmth; cumin aids in digestion; chilis have Vitamin C. Dry roast the spices, then add ghee (clarified butter). These are nurturing Capricorn/Saturn health tips. Capricorn is your opposite sign.

LEO: Tending to self is your Easter season task. Is there contact, communication and emotional support with and from family? Are many things from the past remaining behind the scenes and hidden away? You can no longer stay hidden. Leo is the light of life for others. Leo is to discover their creative loving self, like a found object of self. We are to discover that we are each an art form. Leo is to discover this first.

VIRGO: Focus on serving others and not on anything else. Sometimes it’s hard to do our work with concentration and dedication. However, if we have an intention to do something in a certain way, like focusing on our intention to serve, then it becomes easier. What you receive by doing this is a clear and grounded sense of self. The wound that’s always hurting will slowly dissolve. Clarity of vision and purpose then emerge. You need all of these.

LIBRA: In daily life, you’ve become prudent, disciplined, focused, reliable, industrious, serious, reserved, patient, and persevering. You’ve assumed more and more responsibilities. Some Librans have stepped into a healing role. Are you, however, the one in need of healing? Do not allow any type of insecurity or inhibitions to limit you. Think these through. Be only with those who care for, love, support, and see you as perfect. 

SCORPIO: There’s a new state of creativity flowing through you. Music, very important at this time, must be in your environments at all times. Travel, study, culture, sculpting, hiking, archery, horse tending and/or riding are past abilities, talents and gifts you can again cultivate. Tend to mundane tasks carefully and honor the details. Blessings create new and deeper awareness and responses.

SAGITTARIUS: Home, for so long in a state of here and not here, now assumes a more defined reality. Bring in bright colors—plants, vines, cactus, aquariums, Tibetan art, lights, and a flash of neon. They create the style you seek. Home is your sangha (refuge), sanctuary and retreat. Try not to be at odds with anyone. Tend to all tasks with constancy and loving care. You are to expand into a new identity, growth and development.

CAPRICORN: The tension and pressure you’re feeling can be used creatively. Know that a self-transformation is slowly coming your way. Cooperation is available from everyone. Teaching others to cooperate nurtures them and you. Everyone sees you as someone of great value, providing you with the courage needed that transforms all situations. You answer to needs. You are the harmony after the conflict. All that you do is good.

AQUARIUS: It’s important to secure your money and not use it indiscriminately. It’s also important to share it with those in need. Your money should be used to safeguard your future, work and family. Invest with others in land, consider what it would take to build an agrarian community. Assess the world situation, and be the first to communicate what you see. A new world is coming. You will play a major part in its establishment.

PISCES: Is your daily life feeling somewhat shrouded in a mist? Can you assess your present daily needs and priorities? You want to be practical while initiating new goals. Relationships are expanding. How will this affect your life? Do you think about serving others? Serving is a Virgo task, your hidden sign. Always the world calls to you. Always you respond with grace.

Santa Cruz Family Film Traces Baja’s Long Road

The allure of Baja California has always been tied to its separateness. Separated from Alta California—that is, the state of California—by a contentious international border, and from the rest of Mexico by the Sea of Cortez, Baja has developed a distinct identity that you can only feel if you escape the centrifugal force of its polar party cities, Tijuana and Cabo San Lucas.

The Bruce family of Santa Cruz do not need to be sold on the magic of Baja. They’ve been going there regularly for decades, and their abiding love of the place is the guiding spirit that animates the new documentary The Devil’s Road: A Baja Adventure, which makes its world premiere at the Rio Theatre on April 27.

The Devil’s Road is an adventure story that takes the viewer along for the ride down nearly 800 miles of the Baja peninsula. Filmmaker J.T. Bruce and his dad Todd Bruce (the film’s producer) made the trip on a couple of rented motorcycles. Their mission was to follow a 1905 expedition by American naturalists Edward Nelson and Edward Goldman, who covered Baja top to bottom to catalogue the peninsula’s unique flora and fauna. To tie it all into one nice thematic bow, the Bruces learned that they were in fact related to one of the naturalists.

Drawing on both what Nelson and Goldman learned, and the Bruces’ own travels, the film delivers about as complete a portrait of Baja as you could expect in an under-two-hour documentary. The Devil’s Road wraps its arms around the history, ecology, economy and culture of Baja, visits with many of its people, and chronicles alarmingly rapid changes brought about by population growth and climate change. If you’ve ever wanted to get to know Baja California better, this film is a full meal.

“Baja has pretty much formed me,” said Bri Bruce, sister of J.T. and daughter of Todd, and the film’s associate producer. Bri joined the expedition as it traveled south, and at one point participated in a horseback outing tracing the very path that naturalists Nelson and Goldman took more than a century ago. “It was really an incredible experience,” she says. “I kept asking myself, ‘Am I in 1905?’”

With an eye toward the work of Nelson and Goldman—the latter of whom the Bruces knew as an ancestor in an old family photo before they learned he was a celebrated naturalist—The Devil’s Road strikes a mournful tone when it contemplates the rapid changes that have consumed the Baja peninsula. Working in the immediate post-Darwin world of natural science, Nelson and Goldman catalogued and identified scores of species of plants and animals, some of which bear their names in their present-day scientific nomenclature.

The world that the naturalists discovered in Baja a century ago is disappearing, thanks to pressures brought on mostly by development and climate change.

“Baja has boomed over the course of the last century,” says Bri. “A hundred years really doesn’t seem like all that long ago. Things can change so quickly on a year-by-year basis. When that whole region is seeing these intense boom-and-bust cycles, you’d be surprised how much can change in just a few years.”

In that sense, The Devil’s Road emerges as a snapshot of a Baja utterly changed since Nelson and Goldman, yet still in the throes of that change. The broad transformation taking place in Baja convinced the Bruces that their film had to have a wider scope of vision than their own relationship with the region. “I don’t think initially we set out to get that big complete portrait,” says Bri. “But we realized that we couldn’t just follow one string of the narrative without telling the rest of it. It was so intertwined.”

Still, the film is a family story. The Bruces trace their lineage back in Santa Cruz several generations, but their connections to the Baja peninsula are no less profound. J.T. and Todd Bruce covered more than 5,000 miles on their motorcycles going up and down the peninsula, and while much of it was fueled by a sense of discovery, there was a deep familiarity at play as well. Bri Bruce says she has been traveling to Baja regularly with her family since she was a baby. “The saltwater from the Sea of Cortez runs in my veins a little bit.”

‘The Devil’s Road: A Baja Adventure,’ directed by J.T. Bruce, plays Saturday, April 27, at 5:30 p.m. at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $15. devilsroadfilm.com.

Rob Brezsny’s Astrology April 24-30

Free will astrology for the week of April 24, 2019

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the U.S., the day after Thanksgiving typically features a spectacular shopping orgy. On “Black Friday,” stores sell their products at steep discounts and consumers spend their money extravagantly. But the creators of the game Cards Against Humanity have consistently satirized the tradition. In 2013, for example, they staged a Black Friday “anti-sale,” for which they raised their prices. The coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to try something similar. Is it possible you’re undercharging for your products and services and skills? If so, consider asking for more. Reassess your true worth and seek appropriate rewards.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Whether or not you believe in magic, magic believes in you right now. Will you take advantage of the fancy gifts it has to offer? I guess it’s possible that you’re not interested in seeing deeper into the secret hearts of those you care for. Maybe you’ll go “ho-hum” when shown how to recognize a half-hidden opportunity that could bring vitalizing changes. And you may think it’s not very practical to romance the fire and the water at the same time. But if you’re interested, all that good stuff will be available for you. P.S. To maximize the effects of the magic, believe in it.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In 1815, the most ferocious volcanic eruption in human history exploded from Mount Tambora in what’s now known as Indonesia. It flung gas and ash all over the planet, causing weird weather for three years. Sunlight dimmed, temperatures plummeted, skies were tumultuous, and intense storms proliferated. Yet these conditions ignited the imagination of author Mary Shelley, inspiring her to write what was to become her most notable work, Frankenstein. I suspect that you, too, will ultimately generate at least one productive marvel in response to the unusual events of the coming weeks.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): For over 40 years, Cancerian musician Carlos Santana has made music that blends rock and roll with Latin and African rhythms. In the early years, his creations sold well, but by the mid-1980s his commercial success declined. For a decade, he floundered. His fortunes began to improve after a spectacular meditation session. Santana says he was contacted by the archangel Metatron, who told him how to generate material for a new album. The result was Supernatural, which sold 30 million copies and won nine Grammy Awards. I mention this, Cancerian, because I suspect that you could soon experience a more modest but still rousing variation of Santana’s visitation. Are you interested? If so, the next seven weeks will be a good time to seek it out—and be very receptive to its possibility

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Expergefactor” is an old English word that has fallen out of use. In its original sense, it meant something that wakes you up, like an alarm clock or thunderstorm or your partner’s snoring. But I want to revive “expergefactor” and expand its meaning. In its new version, it will refer to an exciting possibility or beloved goal that consistently motivates you to spring out of bed in the morning and get your day started. Your expergefactor could be an adventure you’re planning or a masterpiece you’re working on or a relationship that fills you with curiosity and enchantment. In my astrological opinion, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to identify and fine-tune an expergefactor that will serve you well for a long time.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): We live in a cultural moment when satire, sarcasm, cynicism, and irony are prized as supreme emblems of intelligence. If you say that you value sincerity and earnestness, you risk being considered naive and unsophisticated. Nevertheless, the current astrological omens suggest that you will generate good fortune for yourself in the coming weeks by making liberal use of sincerity and earnestness. So please try not to fall into the easy trap of relying on satire, sarcasm, cynicism, and irony to express yourself. As much as is practical, be kindly frank and compassionately truthful and empathetically genuine. (P.S. It’s a strategy that will serve your selfish aims quite well.)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “Most people don’t find their creativity,” mourned Libran author Truman Capote. “There are more unsung geniuses that don’t even know they have great talent.” If that describes you even a little bit, I’m happy to let you know that you’re close to stumbling upon events and insights that could change that. If you respond to the prompts of these unexpected openings, you will rouse a partially dormant aspect of your genius, as well as a half-inert stash of creativity and a semi-latent cache of imaginativity.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Do you know the word “sfumato?” Its literal meaning in Italian is “smoked.” When used to describe a painting, it refers to blurred borders between objects or fuzzy transitions between areas of different colors. All the forms are soft and hazy. I bring this to your attention because I suspect the coming weeks will be a sfumato-like time for you. You may find it a challenge to make precise distinctions. Future and past may overlap, as well as beginnings and endings. That doesn’t have to be a problem as long as you’re willing to go with the amorphous flow. In fact, it could even be pleasurable and useful. You might be able to connect with influences from which you’ve previously been shut off. You could blend your energies together better with people who’ve been unavailable.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “You have a right to experiment with your life,” declared author Anaïs Nin. I agree. You don’t necessarily have to be what you started out to be. You can change your mind about goals that you may at one time have thought were permanent. I suspect you could be at one of these pivot points right now, Sagittarius. Are there any experiments you’d like to try? If so, keep in mind this further counsel from Nin. It’s possible that “you will make mistakes. And they are right, too.”

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You have one main task to accomplish in the coming weeks, Capricorn. It’ll be simple and natural if you devote yourself to it wholeheartedly. The only way it could possibly become complicated and challenging is if you allow your focus to be diffused by less important matters. Ready for your assignment? It’s articulated in this poem by Rupi Kaur: “bloom beautifully / dangerously / loudly / bloom softly / however you need / just bloom.”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): When the forces of the Roman empire occupied the British Isles from the years 43-410 A.D., they built 2,000 miles of roads. Their methods were sophisticated. That’s why few new roads were built in England until the 18th century, and many of the same paths are still visible and available today. In this spirit, and in accordance with astrological omens, I recommend that you make good use of an old system or network in the coming weeks. This is one time when the past has blessings to offer the future.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “I’m not enigmatic and intriguing enough,” writes a Piscean blogger named RiddleMaster. “I really must work harder. Maybe I’ll start wearing ankle-length black leather coats, billowing silk scarves imprinted with alchemical symbols, and wide-brimmed hats. I’ll listen to Cambodian folk songs and read rare books in ancient Sanskrit. When someone dares to speak to me, I’ll utter cryptic declarations like, ‘The prophecies will be fulfilled soon enough.’” I understand RiddleMaster’s feelings. You Pisceans need mystery almost as much as you need food. But I believe you should set aside that drive for a few weeks. The time has come for you to show the world who you are with crisp candor.

Homework: Compose an exciting prayer in which you ask for something you’re not “supposed” to. freewillastrology.com.

Alderwood Elevates New American

So urban-hip, yet very Santa Cruz, the new Alderwood is already more than the sum of its parts. I can’t remember the last time I went to a New American steakhouse and came away impressed by the bravura treatment of seasonal vegetables. And the dessert!

Outfitted in Beto-O’Rourke-style Western gear, the kinetic waitstaff are everywhere at once, joining a large team of mixologists and chefs who keep the high-energy operation moving. Surrounded by a gleaming bar, exhibition kitchen and booths that line the restaurant’s perimeter, the central seating area offers the attractive and comfortable appointments that distinguish this dinner house. Good-looking table settings—from tasteful glassware to sophisticated serving pieces—reinforce the guiding concept: food, drink and people are the main attractions.

The Alderwood cheeseburger, especially when joined by the signature onion rings, has already achieved epic status. The comprehensive oyster offerings deserve an article unto themselves.

But we were here for dinner, and we were rewarded by bold flavors and presentation. From our cozy booth (the term “cozy” requires some latitude, given the noise level) we could watch a long table of extended family members celebrating a birthday, real housewives of Aptos celebrating their cocktails, and a cross-section of entrepreneurs occupying the bar. Alderwood looks to be a great place for people-watching and business deals. Romantic trysts? Not so much.

Generous pours of Cantos de Valpiedra Tempranillo ($12) and an excellent Thomas Fogarty Pinot Noir ($15)—both served at exactly the right, slightly cool temperature—started us off. Our food arrived in stages, which began, rather abruptly, with a plate of sliced, 8-ounce Heart of Ribeye ($38). Joined by a bowl of thick, green peppercorn sauce Bordelaise ($7), the aged midwestern beef proved delicious and juicy, if not life-changing.

Soon arrived the sides (these were my main dishes) of grilled asparagus ($15), beet tartare ($15) and remarkable potatoes glazed with parsley pesto, bits of bacon and mustard ($15). In a moment of culinary drama, I was next presented with a single grilled scallop ($15), nestled in the central thumbprint niche of a large rectangular plate. The scallop sat on a cushion of cauliflower puree, topped with balsamic and a ribbon of smoked hog jowl. Pretty damn spectacular and yes, worth its price tag. Only the dice of smoked beets, onions and pickled mustard seeds proved underwhelming. The rest of these lavish sides were addictive, especially the enormous bowl of potatoes, from which four people might have feasted with abandon. Plump spears of asparagus arrived dotted with micro-squares of Asian pear (great crunch!), and garlanded by ribbons of fried shallot. With the spring asparagus came a large bowl of green curry—excellent and very spicy green curry. Great, but unnecessary.

Along with fresh drip preparation of decaf coffee ($7) served in sleek porcelain cups, we shared one of the house desserts, a strawberry and white chocolate macaron ($10). This spectacular dish turned out to be the highlight of our meal, and I say this as an avowed fan of cheese at the end of a meal. Truly gorgeous, the substantial macaron—a pillow of white chocolate diplomat pastry cream studded with strawberries inside the tender almond meringue sandwich—was joined on the plate by an oval of salted strawberry ice cream, crumbles of white chocolate and fresh strawberries. Our two forks worked swiftly until nothing remained of this creation. Simply a knockout! A destination dessert.

Noise level be damned, writing this makes me want to go back to Alderwood right now! The service continues to fine-tune, which is a good thing. But the food already justifies the hype.

Open Sunday-Thursday 4-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday until 11 p.m. Closed Monday. Alderwood, 155 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz. 588-3238, alderwoodsantacruz.com.

Music Preview: Gurf Morlix Melds Mortality, Americana Optimism

Americana singer-songwriter Gurf Morlix has been thinking a lot about his own mortality lately. It’s just kind of a part of his reality now as a 67-year-old man.

“Friends of mine have been dying and that’s not going to stop anytime soon,” Morlix tells me. “When you get to be 67, you’re thinking about these things.”

So it should be no surprise that his latest album, Impossible Blue, deals with death—a lot. It’s an intimate album that sounds as though his worn voice is gently singing in the same room as you. Even with a full band backing him, it has the same quiet emotional quality that you might get on a solo acoustic album.

Morlix is an experienced producer who’s worked with Lucinda Williams, Mary Gauthier and Slaid Cleaves, so he knows how to find the sound he wants. For this record, he set out to create a lot of space on the album and not fill in every gap with an instrument.

“I play small venues. I play to a hundred seats or less. So I am going for that intimacy,” Morlix says. “I’m not going to be playing an enormo-dome, so why would I want Bruce Springsteen drum echo in my music?”

One of the deaths that influenced Impossible Blue more than any other happened a decade ago, when a close friend took his own life. Morlix tried to write a song about it four different times, and it finally clicked, emerging as the album’s closing song, “The Backbeat of the Dispossessed.”

He knew the song was finished when he found himself able to memorialize his friend in a loving, tender and sympathetic way. That was a process.

“First, you’re sad, then you become angry. Then you kind of get over that and it turns into this really tragic thing that happened,” Morlix says.

A poignant line in that song, “I can’t imagine the impossible blue running deep inside of you,” inspired the album’s title. The “impossible blue,” he tells me, is the feeling of deep, deep sorrow that he can only imagine his friend felt and led him to take his own life.

“This guy had a teenage son when he checked out. I was thinking, ‘How sad can a human being be? How deep is that chasm?’ I can’t relate,” Morlix says. “I felt really bad in my life sometimes, but nothing close to that. I was just trying to imagine it.”

In spite of how hopeless the title sounds, the record is actually filled with hope and joy.

“The body count has been pretty high on some of my albums, and I don’t really have much say in that matter,” Morlix says. “You can’t just be dismal. No one wants or needs that. You got to offer something. You have to have hope somehow.”

Morlix recently suffered a heart attack, but he’s fully recovered and back on his feet. Now he feels like he’s living on borrowed time. You can hear the optimism on Impossible Blue, even as he talks about grim moments in his life.

“That was a monumental event. When you’re faced with mortality, you start embracing love a little bit more,” Morlix says. “Every day is really special to me. They put a stent in, and I’m good to go. I’m clear to eat all the triple baconators now, and I feel good.”

As a lifelong sideman, player and producer, he’s finally at a place where he’s writing and recording his own tunes—and people are actually excited to hear him play them.

“Some people peak early on, and they can’t seem to write a relevant song after that point,” Morlix says. “I feel like I’m still ramping it up here. It’s good to keep growing and improving.”

Gurf Morlix performs at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 25, at Michael’s On Main, 2591 Main St., Soquel. $15. 479-9777.

A Prodigal Son of Santa Cruz Lit Returns

In the early 1970s, Robert Lundquist was both a rising star in, and the enfant terrible of, the Santa Cruz literary Renaissance that included the likes of Raymond Carver, George Hitchcock, William Everson, James D. Houston, Anne Steinhart (who was also a brilliant musician), Stephen Kessler, and Morton Marcus—with occasional appearances by one of Lundquist’s mentors, Charles Bukowski—in what was largely a male-dominated (and often sexist) milieu.

By his early 20s, the Los Angeles born-and-bred Lundquist had been published in the Nation, the Paris Review and designated by Rolling Stone as one of the “Best 100 American Poets.” In only a few years, Lundquist was a broken figure, lost in the bottle, and I presume, a variety of drugs and despair. His once-bright literary star had burned out.

I later came across a dark, poignant poem entitled “A Street,” in the highly respected UCSC literary journal Quarry West, that had been written by Lundquist. It was a knockout-brilliant poem chronicling Lundquist’s noir downtown L.A. childhood. But only the first segment of the poem appeared. I waited years to read the other half. It never came.

Cut to four decades later. Last fall, I learned that Lundquist was having his first full-length collection of poetry published, After Mozart (Heroin on 5th Street), by New River Press of London. I could hardly wait to get my hands on it. My anticipation was fully rewarded. In my mind, the collection (which includes the denouement of “A Street”) is one of the great works of American poetry to emerge in the last quarter century.

Lundquist, now sober and a practicing psychoanalyst in his beloved downtown Los Angeles, is coming to Bookshop Santa Cruz, this Thursday, April 25, at 7 p.m. Given European reviews of his book and various reports of his readings in London and Paris (and they have been exuberantly praiseworthy), it promises to be a literary celebration for the ages.

Robert Lundquist will read from ‘After Mozart (Heroin on 5th Street),’ at Bookshop Santa Cruz on Thursday, April 25, at 7 p.m.

Shane Mauss Brings Psychedelic Stand-Up Act to Santa Cruz

Shane Mauss psychedelics
After pushing the limits of consciousness to the edge in new documentary ‘Psychonautics,’ comedian Shane Mauss brings his science-and-psychedelics-themed shows to Santa Cruz

Long Road Ahead For Family of Highway 9 Traffic Victim

Josh and Kelley Howard Highway 9 traffic death
With charges pending in 22-year-old Josh Howard’s death, Highway 9 improvements could be years off

NUZ: Bike Month’s Exciting Twist

Nuz
Plus the weird thing about the suit over closing the homeless camp

International Jazz Day Takes Over Santa Cruz Wharf

International Jazz Day Pete Escovedo
Local jazz percussionist Prince Lawsha brings together free all-star show

Illuminations of Each Day: Risa’s Stars April 24-30

risa's stars
Esoteric Astrology as news for the week of April 24, 2019

Santa Cruz Family Film Traces Baja’s Long Road

Devil's Road baja
‘The Devil’s Road: A Baja Adventure’ premiers April 27 at the Rio Theatre

Rob Brezsny’s Astrology April 24-30

Astrology, Horoscope, Stars, Zodiac Signs
Free will astrology for the week of April 24, 2019

Alderwood Elevates New American

Alderwood
A steakhouse that doesn't skimp on dessert—or vegetables

Music Preview: Gurf Morlix Melds Mortality, Americana Optimism

Gurf Morlix
Gurf Morlix plays Michael’s on Main on Thursday, April 25

A Prodigal Son of Santa Cruz Lit Returns

Robert Lundquist
Poet Robert Lundquist comes to Bookshop Santa Cruz on April 25
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