Update 11/8/18: The elections department announced that ballots from a few precincts were mistakenly left out of the initial counts. When officers added them in yesterday, it amounted to an additional 3,528 votes. Santa Cruz City Council candidate Drew Glover is still in fifth place. The gap has widened slightly, though, between Glover and Greg Larson and Richelle Noroyan, who are third and fourth, respectively, in the race for three seats. County Supervisor Greg Caput has extended the lead in his re-election bid over Watsonville City Councilmember Jimmy Dutra.
It’s still early, but anyone expecting a major change in local housing policy via Santa Cruz County ballots may be poised for a significant disappointment.
Measure H, the county’s affordable housing bond, is, at this point, well short of the two-thirds majority it needs to pass. The initiative saw a small jump between the initial results, released just after 8 p.m. tonight, and the third round, which were released at 10:30 p.m. The measure is now up to 52.3 percent, up from being below 50 percent in the first round.
Another measure that’s still trailing badly is Measure M, the city of Santa Cruz’s rent control initiative, which is garnering just 33.9 percent of voter support so far.
In the Santa Cruz City Council race, environmental consultant Donna Meyers is currently in first place. Trailing her is environmental educator Justin Cummings, who’s followed by management consultant Greg Larson, Councilmember Richelle Noroyan, community organizer Drew Glover, and psychotherapist Cynthia Hawthorne.
With 10 candidates vying for three City Council seats, it’s far too early to say what will happen. Cummings and Glover are both rising as more results come in. In general, voters who cast their ballots later in the process often lean farther to the left.
Transient occupancy taxes in Capitola, Scotts Valley and Watsonville all look poised to pass, as does Measure G, Santa Cruz County’s sales tax measure. Measure L, Greenway Capitola’s measure, is ahead.
County Supervisor Greg Caput is leading in his race against challenger Jimmy Dutra, a Watsonville city councilmember. Caput is comfortably ahead with 54.2 percent to Dutra’s 44.9 percent.
Rebecca Garcia looks poised to coast to re-election to the Watsonville City Council, and Ari Parker looks poised to win there as well. Francisco Estrada is ahead of Jenny Sarmiento, and Watsonville Mayor Lowell Hurst ran unopposed.
Scotts Valley Mayor Jim Reed and real estate agent Derek Timm are leading in their quest for two seats on the Scotts Valley City Council, ahead of Councilmember Stephany Aguilar.
In the race for three seats on the Capitola City Council, education officer Yvette Brooks, former Mayor Sam Storey and Councilmember Jacques Bertrand are pretty comfortably ahead of ironworker Jack Digby.
Congressmember Jimmy Panetta (D-Carmel) and state Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley) are both winning by wide margins, as expected. San Benito County Supervisor Robert Rivas, who’s also running for the Assembly’s 30th District, which includes Watsonville, is also doing well.
Statewide, Gavin Newsom is projected to win the governorship, while U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein is projected to win re-election.
Nationally, Democrats are expected to take control of the House of Representatives, while losing seats in the Senate.
For Santa Cruz County’s full election results, visit:votescount.com.
Jeff Peters grew up going to raves in the early ’90s.
A few short years later, some friends told him about Burning Man, which was where a lot of the raver kids were congregating to. He really dug it. A friend of his built an EDM-blasting art car for the desert festival, which he called the “bounce car.”
“That sparked the love for the whole DJing aspect of music. I went full head-on from there,” says Peters, who DJs under the name Mr. Bounce Man. “We started with a pretty janky version. Every year we upgraded.”
The Bounce Car is still very much a thing, with multiple DJs (including him) continuing to create a massive desert party at Burning Man every year. They also play other gigs, like at Decompression in San Francisco recently, to thousands of EDM fans. Gigs in Santa Cruz are less frequent, but they do happen—they performed at the Santa Cruz Music Festival last year and will likely play next year.
“I’m trying to keep the music and vibe kind of bouncy. It’s creating an energy for people to follow,” Peters says.
When he’s not getting a massive dance party going on the bounce car, Mr. Bounce Man is doing solo gigs in more intimate spaces. The vibe is basically the same. It’s all about getting people bouncing. The music is fun, high energy and usually revolves around house, hip-hop, trap and whatever else the crowd is digging on.
“I’m a person that’s been dancing since 15 or 16,” Peters says. “It’s always been a thing for me. It’s kind of like full circle to be able to make people move constantly and enjoy life in that way.”
Charles Harder fell in love with UCSC the first time he visited in the fall of 1986.
He remembers the wispy clouds, bright blue sky and wet-glistening dew of the forest around him. The scene reminded him of the camping trips that his best friend’s mom would take him and his buddy on to National Parks like Yosemite. “I was over the moon, I just loved it,” Harder remembers. “It was like we were simpatico.”
The following year, Harder moved from the San Fernando Valley to Santa Cruz, where he began his freshman year at UCSC as a biology major, but soon switched to politics. He embedded himself in the local Democratic scene, leading the UCSC College Democrats. “No one else wanted to do it,” he says. He interned with then-Assemblymember Sam Farr and served on liberal county Supervisor Gary Patton’s staff. He remembers winning awards from Farr, Dianne Feinstein, Leon Panetta and Henry Mello. Harder served for one quarter as managing editor of the Santa Cruz Independent, a campus newspaper at the time. He took theater arts classes and sang as a tenor in the elite UCSC Chamber Singers choir. Thirsty for adventure, he biked across the country on a summer vacation in 1989, at age 19.
Those who knew Harder, a 1991 graduate of the university’s Merrill College, and have followed his post-college career have been surprised to see where it has led him. Now an attorney, he’s defending Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, as his personal lawyer.
“If you told any of us back in 1990 that he’d be working for Trump, we’d say you’re fucking crazy, because he was a liberal guy,” says a former high-ranking staffer at the Independent, who asked to remain anonymous.
Harder remembers starting the College Democrats club, and says he served as president for about three years. These days, no one at the organization has records going back that far, nor does anyone from the Student Organization Advising and Resources Department.
If the town leaned liberal in Harder’s college days, Santa Cruz’s Democratic Party has solidified its local presence in the years since. Only 9 percent of Santa Cruz city voters supported Trumpin the 2016 election, one-fifth of the popular vote percentage that the current president earned nationwide.
The Washington Post reported that Harder donated $500 to Barack Obama in 2008 and voted in the 2016 Democratic primary, but that, in December 2016, after Trump’s election, he changed his party affiliation to nonpartisan. He won’t say how he voted in 2016, but stresses that he’s long written checks to candidates of both parties, expressing an affinity for politicians like former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“It’s nice that we have a secret ballot,” Harder says. “I don’t think I’ve ever disclosed who I’ve voted for, at least not to a reporter.”
Hush with Fame
Harder has been working for Trump on a few cases, including the lawsuit brought by porn star Stormy Daniels over a dispute about hush money stemming from an alleged affair she had with the president. Harder’s also defending him against former aide and fellow reality television star Omarosa Manigault.
Trump may be one of the most polarizing presidents in American history, but Harder says representing him has nothing to do with politics.
“The things where I’ve represented the president—they really have nothing to do with public policy,” Harder says, his shoes kicked off in his Beverly Hills office, revealing socks with a pattern of dancing hula girls. “I’m not representing him on immigration, or the environment, or the economy, or foreign policy. I have nothing to do with any of that. So people should not look to me as if I have any role to play on that, because I don’t.”
He says he doesn’t have a “litmus test” for potential clients. Rather he takes on cases that he likes and that he thinks have merit, and that he turns about two-thirds of potential cases away.
Harder is also representing the Trump campaign and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. He represented Melania Trump in a defamation suit against the Daily Mail that settled for $2.9 million. Last year, he wrote the New York Times a letter on behalf of Harvey Weinstein, threatening to sue if the paper published its months-long investigative report into sexual assault allegations against the movie mogul. Harder resigned from Weinstein’s legal team a few days after the story, which would later win a Pulitzer Prize, was published.
Disgraced Hollywood Producer Harvey Weinstein is among Harder’s previous clients.
Harder’s big break was representing Hulk Hogan against Gawker Media in a case that earned a $140 million judgment. Of course, he wasn’t exactly a small-time attorney at the time, having already represented Hollywood celebrities like Schwarzenegger,Clint Eastwood, George Clooney, Sigourney Weaver, Bradley Cooper, Sandra Bullock, Cameron Diaz, Reese Witherspoon and Lena Dunham.
Harder’s earlier Hollywood work often focused on celebrity images, like when a furniture company was using Eastwood’s name and image to sell chairs without his permission.
Harder, whose two sons attend middle school in Santa Monica, has clear turquoise eyes, and were it not for his silvering brown hair, would look a decade younger than his 48 years. Sitting in the sunlit communal “living room” area of the law office, he asks me not to record—an uncommon request from sources in news interviews. He says it’s always been his policy with reporters.
Politically, Harder says he strongly supports the environment and civil rights, but also believes that government spending and taxes are out of control. He has a vision that government should work more like a smartphone app, like Uber. Disillusioned by the news media, he sees CNN and the New York Times as being as far to the left as Fox News is to the right. His views, he says, have evolved slowly over time.
Sam Farr, a Democrat who represented the Monterey Bay in the House of Representatives for 20 years, has vague memories of Harder, even though he had probably about 100 other interns after Harder’s tenure. Farr remembers him as very likeable and “a real go-getter.” Although Farr wasn’t familiar with Harder’s career, he isn’t surprised to hear that his former intern found success as an attorney. Farr thinks Harder’s success shows how valuable an internship can be, as it shows how government processes work. He hopes the experience has made Harder a better citizen and a better lawyer.
Farr is a little disappointed, though, to hear about some of the shifts in Harder’s politics.
“It seems like his desire to be big lawyer has stepped on the good learning he got at UC Santa Cruz,” Farr says, before adding something his Democrat father, who had been raised conservative before attending UC Berkeley, told him: “People with good educations don’t end up as Republicans.”
“Sure, some do,” Harder responds, when asked about Farr’s quip. “But I’m not a Republican, so no comment on that one.”
Client Privileged
Sitting across from Harder in early October, I got a clear sense of what it would take my fellow left-leaning friends in Santa Cruz a couple more weeks to learn: Trump could prevail in his legal battles against Daniels.
Say what you want about Harder—you might find his politics confusing or perhaps believe that he’s protecting a president who shows dangerously authoritarian tendencies. In conversation, though, even a total novice could plainly see that Harder is a serious lawyer. I knew, even in the midst of my discussion with him, that this was a bizarre revelation to come to. Considering that he is an attorney involved in one of the news cycle’s highest-profile lawsuits, it should go without saying. But I only had to follow the antics of prosecuting attorney Michael Avenatti, who seems to be using the legal system to run for the Democratic nomination for president—and whose skill for trolling the American public nearly matches that of the sitting president himself—to know that Daniels, sympathetic as many Americans might find her, might not have an easy day in court.
President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and White House Adviser Jared Kushner have all appeared on Harder’s client roster.
“Lawyers run the gamut,” Harder says. “You could have a lawyer that barely passed the bar and is unethical. You could have lawyers that are super geniuses, but they’re evil geniuses. You could have lawyers who are super by-the-book. The approach that I take is that I have fun, but I’m very serious.”
The October ruling was not central to the Daniels-Trump hush money feud itself—that remains to be decided—but rather concerned a tweet that the president had sent about Daniels, which she claimed was defamatory. In throwing out the case, the judge ordered Daniels’ team to pay Trump’s legal fees. Avenatti immediately appealed the decision. In the days after, Avenatti suffered two other legal setbacks—an eviction notice for his law firm and an order to pay a former associate $4.85 million.
Hulk Smash
Before the Daniels affair, Harder’s most controversial case came in 2016, when his team won $140 million for his client, the wrestler Hulk Hogan, against Gawker after the online news gossip site posted a video of Hogan having sex with his best friend’s wife.
The Netflixdocumentary Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press painted the lawsuit as a frightening moment for American journalists, many of whom are open to attack by a president who has called them “the enemy of the people” and threatened to expand the reach of libel laws.
The Gawker suit was funded, to the tune of a reported $10 million, by Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist who had a vendetta against Gawker, at least in part, because the site outed him as gay. (Theil, coincidentally, later served as an advisor to Trump, most notably on his transition team to the presidency.) Free press advocates have raised concerns that other billionaires might use the courts to take down news outlets they don’t like.
Harder says he was surprised by the dollar amount, which was $40 million above what they had asked for, and which he believes would have been reduced on an appeal. Gawker ultimately went bankrupt.
He’s also adamant that Gawker’s blatant refusal to take down the video amounted to a “horrific privacy violation”—arguing that, were it not for outside help, Hogan would have never been able to afford the legal fees.
“The man was in a home. The doors were closed. He had no idea he was being recording. Everything was consensual. The public’s not allowed. The jury 100 percent agreed,” Harder says.
When he reads and watches the news, Harder feels that it’s very often too one-sided. He believes the news should be straight-ahead, showing two sides of an issue. He argues that the New York Times shoots itself in the foot for printing negative coverage, like its months-long investigation into the Trump family’s inheritance, arguing that it will turn many readers away, although he also predicts the story will win a Pulitzer Prize.
“It’s way too partisan. It’s dangerous, and I think the American people are not happy about that, either,” says Harder, suggesting that former President Obama would probably agree. “We’ve gotten a lot more polarized as a people. The tone of what people are saying is getting more and more chilling, and I don’t think that’s productive. It used to be that we would disagree with each other, but now we’re arguing more.”
Harder has spoken favorably about changing libel laws, though certainly with less bravado and more nuance than Trump does. In particular, Harder argues that the burden on plaintiffs is far too high to prove that a given reporter had “actual malice” and “reckless disregard for the truth,” making the current framework unfair.
Harder represented ex-wrestler Hulk Hogan in a case that ultimately bankrupted Gawker media.
In addition to the Daily Mail and Gawker, Harder has taken on other media organizations. He hasn’t always prevailed, but the legal news website Above the Law wrote, “If you’re looking for a lawyer to bring a publication to its knees, Harder’s the leader in the clubhouse.”
Conn Hallinan, a longtime journalist who served as UCSC’s print media adviser and remembers the Independent, paints Harder’s media work as a “dangerous” piece in a changing landscape of threats to news organizations.
“If someone sues you, you may be able to win the case, but the average decision for one of those suits is $45,000. If small publications get charged with defamation, it may put them out of business. Anything that encourages these cases is very dangerous to the press,” says Hallinan.
Harder insists that he isn’t against a free press, just bad actors.
He stresses also that he doesn’t only represent celebrities and political figures. He’s been working on two cases that he has petitioned to the U.S. Supreme Court—one on behalf of a woman he says was defamed on Yelp.com, and another for an alleged rape victim of comedian Bill Cosby.
Amy Everitt, who worked with Harder at the Independent, first met Harder during their freshman year and shared politics classes with him. An ardent defender of freedom of the press, she believes journalists should be able to pursue any news story they want to. She says that many times, however, media outlets like Gawker cross the line, delving into personal issues with no news value, and should face the consequences.
Everitt, now the state director of NARAL Pro-Choice California, hasn’t kept in touch with Harder, but, like many who remember his college days, she has no issue with his business decisions.
“Charles is doing his job. He’s got a client, and lawyers defend their clients,” Everitt says. “He’s an enormously thoughtful person, and he has an enormous respect for the rule of law. When he gets up in the morning, I think he does the best job he can for his clients.”
Gardner enlisted Harder to draw the biggest turnout possible to the Great Meadow for the rally. When Gardner checked in with the student leader, he learned that Harder had printed out two flyers, a serious-looking blue one and a seperate teal one that read “Governor Moonbeam”—a nickname that, unbeknownst to Harder, Brown hated. The thought of Brown catching sight of one of those signs worried Gardner, and the night before the event, Harder went through campus, ripping down each Moonbeam sign one by one. Gardner heard that Brown would be going to visit the chancellor, and once he learned Brown’s route, he double-checked to make sure the flyers had all come down along the way. The ordeal served as a reminder that, for all his ambition, Harder was just 20 years old.
“He was a very bright young man,” Gardner says with a laugh. “And he had a great spirit, but he was a kid.”
The event had a huge turnout. In retrospect, Gardner concedes that the flyer was awfully creative.
Harder says, for a while, he considered running for Santa Cruz City Council, and he can’t remember why he ended up moving back to Southern California.
Harder with now-Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 1991.
Sitting in his Rodeo Drive law office last month, Harder tells me that he likes the area, although he’s not crazy about the glitz of his address. He wonders if the sight of the words “Beverly Hills” might cause some jurors—and even some judges—to roll their eyes before proceedings get under way.
Harder says he tries to keep his workload manageable. It’s not uncommon for him to show up at 9:30 a.m. and leave around 3:30 or 4 p.m., but he often works in the early morning or late at night from home, trying to make himself available 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. “I don’t work that hard, to be honest with you,” Harder says. “I’ve got people in the office that do the vast majority of the work.”
Almost three decades after graduating, Harder says that Santa Cruz is still one of his favorite places in the world, and he often pictures himself moving back one day. He wonders aloud if the town would be welcoming.
“I just love Santa Cruz. I would love to teach at UCSC someday,” he says. “I hope that Santa Cruz has an open enough mind that they could allow somebody in their city and on their campus that may not agree with all their views and perspectives.”
Sam Farr, who retired from Congress in 2016, says it’s an idea that the university should be open to. “They want people who can encourage thinking. It certainly would depend on how good of a teacher he is,” Farr says. “They wouldn’t want some goofy right-wing guy.”
UCSC spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason tells GT, via email, that “someone’s viewpoint would not preclude them from working at UC Santa Cruz.” Typically, he adds, when the school hires someone to teach, it’s a lecturing appointment, where the university picks lecturers via an open hiring process from jobs that are posted on its website. Those “jobs are defined based on curricular need,” explains Hernandez-Jason, and college deans consider all qualified applicants, regardless of political affiliation.
When I follow-up with Harder via email, to ask about his experience and teaching style, he says that he’s given many talks, usually to attorneys on topics like defamation, privacy law, and the First Amendment. Harder thinks he would be “a spectacular teacher” and says that teaching at UCSC would be a “dream come true.” When on stage, he says, he tries to engage the audience, channeling Mark Twain, who in addition to being a novelist and a humorist, would pack concert halls with fans eager to hear him speak.
“My two sons are applying to high school right now in L.A. Perhaps when they are in college, especially if one of them gets accepted to UCSC and attends, then I will definitely apply for a teaching job there,” Harder says. “My father is convinced that the best job in the world for me is chancellor of UCSC. He’s probably right, but I’m sure there are several steps in the process, including teaching classes for several years, becoming a leader in the UCSC Academic Senate, etc. It would be unreal.”
Update: 11/7/18 10 a.m.: A previous version of this story misreported some details about the Hulk Hogan sex tape.
Local geologist Gary Griggs has lived in Santa Cruz through some of the biggest natural disasters of the last 100 years, but his view of them sometimes defies convention. Despite his extensive experience studying quakes and tsunamis, flooding and landslides, he doesn’t advocate for earthquake insurance (since he says the deductibles are high) or even a huge amount of earthquake preparedness.
“Generally, earthquakes don’t kill people, falling things do,” Griggs says. “Your odds of dying are really, really low. I mean, there are simple things to secure and proof your house for an earthquake, but I don’t have a bunch of stuff ready to go.”
If the status quo is often wrong, it’s probably because of the general lack of knowledge beyond our superficial understanding of natural disasters. In his 50 years of studying and lecturing on local geology, Griggs has seen many people, particularly realtors, who don’t know the history of this region’s disasters. Newcomers buy homes in flood zones or right along fault lines without knowing it, and are shocked when there’s a huge crack in their kitchen floor or their backyard is underwater.
Griggs can’t land-survey everyone’s house before they buy, so instead he wrote a book that details patterns of disasters around the Monterey Bay. Between Paradise and Peril recounts this area’s lengthy history of natural disasters from earthquakes to major flooding. Griggs says he’s wanted to put together a book like this for some time now, but finally got inspired after his “Perils in Paradise” lecture at the Rio Theatre last year.
Griggs thought the event would draw only friends and family to the front row, where they would be sitting surrounded by a bunch of empty seats. “Well, they sold it out—like 600 people showed up,” he says. “That was really gratifying. I got some really great responses from people. That got me going, and I thought I could finally do this in a book. It was time.”
That was in January of 2017, around the same time Griggs was writing two other books, Coasts in Crisis: A Global Challenge and The Edge: The Pressured Past and Precarious Future of California’s Coast. This is all along with his regular column in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
“It’s not about making money or selling tons of copies,” Griggs says. “It’s more to give people a perspective that we live in this wonderful place that looks like paradise, but really if you look at the environmental hazards around here, there are tons of places that aren’t safe to live at all.”
Climate Conundrums
The book’s eight chapters include nearly 200 years of earthquakes, flooding, droughts and tsunamis, topped off with a final chapter on climate change. If readers take away one or two things from the book, he hopes it’s the chapters on climate change and flooding. “We have an impact on climate change. We can consciously affect the outcome and do something about it,” Griggs says. “We have some control over flooding, too. It has affected more areas in the county more frequently than any other hazard.”
As a geologist, Griggs says it’s important to know the history of natural disasters in order to predict their future impacts and occurrence. Just two weeks before the Loma Prieta earthquake, Griggs predicted that Watsonville and downtown Santa Cruz would be subject to liquefaction if a big enough earthquake hit. He wasn’t wrong.
“Lots of people ask me when the big one is coming,” Griggs says. “The point of this book is there isn’t going to be one—there’s going to be lots of big ones because of where we live. The 1989 earthquake was probably the biggest we are going to see in most of our lifetimes, but there will be more.”
Griggs lives on the lower Westside of Santa Cruz, just inland enough to not have to worry about immediate sea level rise or flooding. It must be reassuring to be his neighbor. But most people can’t afford to live next to Gary Griggs, realistically, and one problem is that those who can’t afford to live in town often end up looking to buy in Love Creek or Felton Grove, which experience much more frequent flooding.
“Homebuyers rely on the realtors, but the realtors don’t know. They aren’t scientists,” he says. “I give this talk to the realtors every year about coastal geology and natural disasters. They have really responded, because I show a lot of pictures and they think, ‘Huh, maybe I should reevaluate that house I just sold on the cliff.’ They get pretty shook up.
The Monterey Bay Region is known for its picturesque views, prime surf spots and redwood forests. When surrounded by such beauty, Griggs points out that it’s easy to forget the extensive history of disasters. The point of Between Paradise and Peril is to educate the community, particularly those that just moved to the Monterey Bay area, about the extensive history of natural disasters in this area and what to expect in the future.
Griggs points out that although we live in a natural disaster hotspot, the number of deaths from natural disasters is extraordinarily low compared to the fear and hype around them. In fact, he says, people are more likely to die from a dog bite or bee sting than an earthquake or tsunami.
“People in my classes are afraid of sharks, mountain lions and tsunamis,” Griggs says. “There’s never been a shark death in Monterey Bay, I don’t think there’s been a mountain lion death, and one person died from a tsunami. Opiod deaths and drive-by shootings are much higher and more common here.”
Griggs says he’s always been an optimistic, motivated person. “People say their glass is half full or half empty. Mine is overflowing,” he says. But he’s the first to admit that when it comes to climate change, things are not fine. There have been many setbacks in the last couple of years, including reinvestment in the coal industry, but he says there are still things that can be done to combat climate change in particular, and that hope is essential.
“I always tell people the most important thing they can do is vote, and I hope that in the long run there are enough people that are smart enough to make good decisions. The trouble right now isn’t Trump, it’s the number of people who believe in him and back him,” Griggs says. “We talk about tipping points and points of no return, and I think that’s a little bit misleading because I don’t think we necessarily have a tipping point where everything goes off the edge. It’s more of an incremental increase. It’s good in that it takes a while, but it’s bad because people aren’t as likely to respond to it.”
On a local level, he notes that Santa Cruz is unique because the majority of people are not climate deniers—they fall on the same side of the political spectrum, but disagree over specifics.
“What’s interesting is in Santa Cruz we have environmentalists fighting environmentalists over issues,” Griggs says, noting that two of the biggest arguments lately have been over the rail trail and rent control, which appeared on Nov. 6 ballots. “It has everyone riled up, and it’s probably not going to end anyone’s life. There’s some perspective in that.”
Gary Griggs will be discussing his new book at two upcoming events:
7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8. Bookshop Santa Cruz. 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. 423-0900. bookshopsantacruz.com. Free.
As the Artistic Director of UCSC’s Rainbow Theatre, Don Williams isn’t sleeping much. Fall season is here, and a laundry list of details is keeping him up late.
Five shows will unfold over the coming weeks, each one focusing on cultural awareness and identity. When he’s not overseeing productions, juggling schedules, or teaching classes, Williams is hauling a stadium seating unit out of the storage bin to be transported to the performance space.
This is Rainbow Theatre’s 25th season, and Don Williams has been there every step of the way. “Our main direction and focus is pursuing cultures of color,” he says. “It’s not just that we do an Asian, African American, or Latin American play, but that we do them all in one season. These students work together as a cohort. They do these shows as a team.”
This year’s selected A and B program Rainbow Theatre shows include the Asian-American show Stop Kiss, African-American show The Coloured Museum, and Latinx/Chicanx show Real Women Have Curves. Each show explores themes related to each respective culture, identity and experience.
The seeds are planted in the spring, during a cultural studies class called Rainbow II. There, students review 10-15 scripts that tell stories of diversity. Plays may come from India, Cuba, the Philippines, or Compton, and students are welcome to add their suggestions to the mix.
“We tell them, ‘If you see a show that moves your spirit, submit it,’” says Williams. After much discussion, the class chooses the best in each category. “This is student-run,” he notes with pride. “As a mentor, I sit on the same side of the table as them.”
There are student actors, designers, directors, and even students on the board of directors who serve as cultural ambassadors for the program. The process and language are inclusive, involving them in everything from production to finance.
“We learn who has follow through and communication skills,” Williams says. “Can they say what they need, what they want? Then we can pursue it.”
One of the surprising aspects of Rainbow Theatre is that many students who participate aren’t theater arts majors. “They may be biochemists,” says Williams, “or studying to be doctors. But they love the arts, and when they have an opportunity to engage, they’re often impressive. Some of the best actors I’ve ever directed have become doctors.”
Out of the Shadows
When asked how theater shapes our conversations about race and identity, Williams puts it plainly. “It cuts to the chase,” he says. “To do a play, you have to know the characters. You analyze their every move. When you lock in a character’s motive and moment, that’s what tells the story.”
Williams points out that for too long, art created by people of color has been on the back burner. “It’s due to many things, including financial aspects, but also the fact that people of color are not in the limelight to actually present it,” he says. “As a society, we should be empowering that to happen more, because for us to really understand each other, we have to have stories we can see and hear, things we can view. They bring a commonality we can all embrace.”
This season, Rainbow Theatre will present a poetry reading and four plays, but equally compelling are the real stories that come out of the program. “I had a student who wanted to study law,” says Williams. “She worked on the tech crew because she was fearful of acting. But she watched and learned and wrote a play. We ended up producing it and the next year she wrote another one. We produced that, too. End of story, she went to Yale to become a playwright. Now her plays are produced professionally.”
Rainbow Theatre helps students of color feel like they belong. Williams empathizes with the black student who may be coming to UCSC from Oakland or L.A.
“They come into the dorm to find one or two students who even look like them, let alone talk like them. They’re trying to find a place for themselves,” he says. This is the gift that Rainbow Theatre offers to its participants and its audience, a compelling reminder that if we are all in this together, then every story counts.
Rainbow Theatre’s A and B programs run through Sunday, Nov. 11. Program C runs Friday, Nov. 16-Sunday, Nov. 18. Check online for complete details of show programs. 6:30 p.m. programs A and B, 2:30 p.m. program C. Stevenson Event Center. 1156 High St., Santa Cruz. 459-1861. cadrc.org. Free for UCSC students, $15 general.
Scorpio is a most interesting sign, it is also the most mysterious. Before we enter Capricorn, Scorpio offers us points of crisis and moments of reorientation, two deeply important functions of Scorpio and of great value for us to understand (concerning ourselves as Scorpio, friends and family who may be Scorpio).
Our lives on Earth are our chosen Spiritual Adventure. There comes a time in one or more lifetimes when we find that we have divine curiosity, we want to understand the underlying motives of livingness (our lives), and we are eager to progress forward sanely and with serenity.
When we are thinking this way, we can know we are stepping upon the Path of Return. We want to be practical, to understand what is of value to us (Venus retrograde), and we want to pass all of the Nine Scorpio Tests. It is only through understanding of these things and the nature of the tests that true insight may be cultivated. We then feel optimism and understand what it means to be a World Disciple.
Scorpio is the sign of the World Disciple. The Nine Tests (nine-headed Hydra, which Hercules must confront) are divided into three major tests for the three levels of the personality (physical, emotional, lower mental). Each disciple must pass into Scorpio for testing nine times. Scorpio carries the tests down into the physical plane where the tests are faced and must be handled.
All of the tests and difficulties must be “carried up into heaven,” which means all problems must be solved through the use of the reasoning, illumined mind. Lifting all difficulties up to the Light of the Soul. We visualize this. (More on the Three Tests next week. And note, in Scorpio, the battle is on.)
ARIES: You may struggle to maintain equilibrium between desires for things to occur and what is actually possible. It’s good to study the subject of sacrifice (coming from the heart)—the First Law of the Soul. At the center of sacrifice is Love—a paradox. Love and sacrifice are the same. We’re on Earth because we chose and sacrificed to be here. You may feel that you’ve become the warrior. You have. Spiritual warriors are always triumphant.
TAURUS: You assess all relationships in terms of value. Something you always do, but more so now. Simultaneously, it’s most important to assess the values you offer others and if there is more you can give of Right Relations through intentions for Goodwill. You offer the goodness of yourself in relationships. Goodness is a purity and inner quality. What is your goodness and what do you offer others? Include all relationships. Remember true love isn’t a feeling.
GEMINI: Tend to all things great, small and necessary in daily life with the deepest attention. Observe all habits, agendas, and how you serve yourself, your work, your environments and all others in your worlds. We evolve step-by-step, beginning with tending to our physical, emotional and mental bodies. Then we progress to the Soul. Each day brood upon the service for the coming day. Do this as the Soul. Emotions are then calmed.
CANCER: You reassess aspirations and goals the next two months. The Earth (soil, trees, plants) is very important to your well-being. Make sure you’re out and about daily in the Sun and in nature—the most balanced kingdom. Its radiations strengthen your heart and mind, refocus your enthusiasm (“filled with God”), allowing calm practicality to emerge. You live the life of ideals. It’s time for those potentials to enter form and matter. Where is your garden and who are your companions?
LEO: Ponder upon how you want to be seen, known and recognized in the world and in the context of helping to build the new culture and civilization—your work now. You are to nurture the new era at its foundational stages because you are a leader. Begin your garden soon, have a worm bin, create biodynamic soil, save seeds. Then teach everyone your discoveries. Leo’s nurturance needs to move from self to the community called humanity.
VIRGO: Past friends, relationships, values, siblings, family and past resources should be renewed and contacted. They are valuable for reasons revealed in the future. Memories from the past hold great value to you. They hold out great mental possibilities and a way to understand the life stream of humanity through study and understanding of the mysteries. You should be studying your transits/astrology.
LIBRA: In the next month consider how valuable your life is and the life of all those around you. Make many lists (write by hand) of all your talents, gifts, abilities, your kindnesses, good associations, good deeds, thoughts, ideas and plans. Here you will find your value. Place these lists on your walls, reading and reviewing them daily. This is the beginning of your self-identity as a server for humanity—the great tasks for all in the Aquarian Age.
SCORPIO: Things go into hiding, especially you. Or you find someone else in hiding asking for assistance. There’s someone in your life who is very valuable to you. Be in contact with them. They’re knowledgeable and have the skills needed for your next creative stages. All of your creativity is important for humanity’s future. Money, too, may be hidden at this time. It’s available but you must call it forth and use it to help others.
SAGITTARIUS: Life becomes subtler, slightly different, deep feelings of compassion awaken. Tend to debts and then give (tithe) to charity. Some examples of giving to those in need: St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital; Catholic Charities; Doctors Without Borders, the Heifer Project. These are difficult financial times for many. The spiritual law is what we give is returned tenfold. When we serve others, our life is spiritually cared for. Be of service. The Third Law of the Soul is service.
CAPRICORN: Things seem crazy at times, moving toward out-of-control. Eliminate all things not absolutely necessary. A complete new identity is making itself apparent. This new identity is yourself. Allow the necessary changes to occur. Stand up for yourself in all ways. You are strong and confident. You don’t want the river of life to carry you downstream without a lifeboat. You’re to help create the new culture and civilization. What interests you about this? Ponder on these things.
AQUARIUS: You’re neither sentimental or emotional. You see the need for nourishment of self and others, realizing one source of nourishment is financial security. Let’s discuss how security looks in terms of a home and land? Visualize a home that you own. Draw each room, see those you love living close by, include a workspace for yourself, for the arts and for preparing pure foods. Work daily on this. Should there be pain in your body make golden milk each night before sleep.
PISCES: A return to a previous, perhaps put-aside creative work allows you to redefine, reassess and reaffirm its importance to your life’s work. There’s a renewed fire in the mind, calling you to two things. Amusement and a sense of play, much missed in your life for a long while. And direct creative work that reflects who you are now, today, and who you will become. All parts of you sing within a close spiritual unity. Om.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In 1994, Aries pop diva Mariah Carey collaborated with an associate to write the song “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” It took them 15 minutes to finish it. Since then it has generated $60 million in royalties. I wish I could unconditionally predict that you, too, will efficiently spawn a valuable creation sometime soon. Current planetary alignments do indeed suggest that such a development is more possible than usual. But because I tend to be conservative in my prophecies, I won’t guarantee anything close to the $60-million figure. In fact, your reward may be more spiritual in nature than financial.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): An interactive post at Reddit.com asked readers to write about “the most underrated feeling of all time.” One person said, “When you change the sheets on your bed.” Another extolled “the feeling that comes when you pay all your bills and you’ve still got money in the bank.” Others said, “dancing under the rain,” “physical contact like a pat on the back when you’re really touch starved,” and “listening to a song for the first time and it’s so good you just can’t stop smiling.” I bring this to your attention, Taurus, because I suspect that the next two weeks will bring you a flood of these pleasurable underrated feelings.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer,” wrote Gemini author Henry Lawson. Do you have any methods for making yourself feel like you’ve drunk a few beers that don’t involve drinking a few beers? If not, I highly recommend that you find at least one. It will be especially important in the coming weeks for you to have a way to alter, expand, or purify your consciousness without relying on literal intoxicants or drugs. The goal: to leave your groove before it devolves into a rut.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Study the following five failed predictions. 1. “There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.” —Robert Millikan, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1923. 2. “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” —Western Union internal memo, 1876. 3. “Rail travel at high speeds is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” –Dionysius Lardner, scientist, 1830. 4. “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” —Ken Olson, president of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977. 5. “Most Cancerians will never overcome their tendencies toward hypersensitivity, procrastination, and fear of success.” —Lanira Kentsler, astrologer, 2018. (P.S. What you do in the next 12 months could go a long way toward permanently refuting the last prediction.)
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): German scientists have created cochlear implants for gerbils that have been genetically modified, enabling the creatures to “listen” to light. The researchers’ work is ultimately dedicated to finding ways to improve the lives of people with hearing impairments. What might be the equivalent of you gaining the power to “hear light”? I understand that you might resist thinking this way. “That makes no sense,” you may protest, or “There’s no practical value in fantasizing about such an impossibility.” But I hope you’ll make the effort anyway. In my view, stretching your imagination past its limits is the healing you need most right now. I also think that doing so will turn out to be unexpectedly practical.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Here’s useful wisdom from the poet Rumi. “Our defects are the ways that glory gets manifested,” he said. “Keep looking at the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.” Playwright Harrison David Rivers interprets Rumi’s words to mean, “Don’t look away from your pain, don’t disengage from it, because that pain is the source of your power.” I think these perspectives are just what you need to meditate on, Virgo. To promote even more healing in you, I’ll add a further clue from poet Anna Kamienska: “Where your pain is, there your heart lies also.” (P.S. Rumi is translated by Coleman Barks; Kamienska by Clare Cavanagh.)
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Artist David Hockney is proud of how undemanding he is toward his friends and associates. “People tell me they open my e-mails first,” he says, “because they aren’t demands and you don’t need to reply. They’re simply for pleasure.” He also enjoys giving regular small gifts. “I draw flowers every day and send them to my friends so they get fresh blooms.” Hockney seems to share the perspective expressed by author Gail Godwin, who writes, “How easy it was to make people happy, when you didn’t want or need anything from them.” In accordance with astrological omens, Libra, I suggest you have fun employing these approaches in the coming weeks.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I am not currently a wanderer or voyager or entrepreneur or swashbuckler. But at other times in my life, I have had extensive experience with those roles. So I know secrets about how and why to be a wanderer and voyager and entrepreneur and swashbuckler. And it’s clear to me that in the coming weeks you could benefit in unforeseen ways from researching and embodying the roles of curious wanderer and brave voyager and savvy entrepreneur and prudent swashbuckler.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “The best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.” That brilliant formulation came from poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Does it seem so obvious as to not need mentioning? Bear with me while I draw further meaning from it, and suggest you use it as an inspiring metaphor in the coming weeks. When it rains, Sagittarius, let it rain; don’t waste time and emotional energy complaining about the rain. Don’t indulge in fruitless fantasizing about how you might stop the rain and how you’d love to stop the rain. In fact, please refrain from defining the rain as a negative event, because after all, it is perfectly natural, and is in fact crucial for making the crops grow and replenishing our water supply. (P.S. Your metaphorical “rain” will be equally useful.)
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation,” writes activist and author Elif Shafak. “If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.” I bring this to your attention because you’re in a phase when your close alliances should be activating healing changes in your life. If for some reason your alliances are not yet awash in the exciting emotions of redemption and reinvention, get started on instigating experimental acts of intimacy.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I suspect you will be an especially arousing influence in the coming weeks. You may also be inspiring and disorienting, with unpredictable results. How many transformations will you unleash? How many expectations will you dismantle? How many creative disruptions will you induce in the midst of the daily grind? I hesitate to underestimate the messy beauty you’ll stir up or the rambunctious gossip you’ll provoke. In any case, I plan to be richly amused by your exploits, and I hope everyone else will be, as well. For best results, I will pray to the Goddess of Productive Fun, begging Her to ensure that the commotions and uproars you catalyze will be in service to love and kindness.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson wasn’t always a wild and crazy writer. Early in his career he made an effort to compose respectable, measured prose. When he finally gave up on that project and decided he could “get away with” a more uninhibited style, he described it as being “like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids.” I foresee a metaphorically comparable development in your future, Pisces.
Homework: When they say “Be yourself,” which self do they mean? Testify at FreeWillAstrology.com.
Live music highlights for the week of Nov. 7, 2018.
WEDNESDAY 11/7
HIP-HOP/FUNK
TNERTLE
Enzo the turtle must burn down the sun in order to save his planet. That’s the storyline of Tnertle’s new album, Burning Down the Sun, released this week. Full of cosmic vibes and aural exploration, the band’s blend of electro-funk and hip-hop is stronger than ever. They believe in the redemptive power of a live show, and it’s the riveting horn section that absorbs the dynamic energy of electronic music and transforms it into a living thing, giving it a buoyancy and vitality often missing in purely digital sounds. Which is exactly what Enzo will need to save his world. AMY BEE
Todd Rundgren’s resume reads something like a Jackson Pollock painting. He was in the influential psychedelic band Nazz in the ’60s, then went on to make an “interactive” album of hundreds of one-second clips (including Rundgren rapping). His ’70s hits “Hello It’s Me” and “We Gotta Get You a Woman” are classics of a cozy sort of piano-and-organ rock subgenre, while in the ’80s he composed for Pee Wee’s Playhouse. His appearance at the Rio Theatre is billed as “An Unpredictable Evening,” so he may even pull a few songs from his 1985 album composed entirely of vocal samples. MIKE HUGUENOR
INFO: 8 p.m. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $39. 423-8209.
PSYCH-ROCK
SUPERNAUT
Any Santa Cruzan with even a slight finger on the pulse of the scene knows the power of local psych supergroup Supernaut. For the rest of you living in your caves, this trio burst onto the scene in 2014, and throughout the years has bewitched audiences with tales of madness, magic and mayhem—culminating in their debut self-titled album, released last year. They’ll be joined at Flynn’s Cabaret by Los Gatos funk and blues ensemble the Summit Boys. MAT WEIR
Forget about Pusha T’s public beef with Drake for a moment. His latest album Daytona is his best to date, and definitely a contender for hip-hop album of the year. It’s a tightly wound Kanye-produced record that shirks Pusha’s recent flirtation with pop hooks and goes back to hip-hop fundamentals. Pusha has a knack for conversational bite, which fits comfortably on top of Kanye’s oddball avant-rap beats. The seven songs are a direct, emotive expression of his world: hustling, selling drugs and buying expensive things. It’s a short cutting-edge record that exists on its own island. AARON CARNES
You may know Melvin Seals as the Hammond-organ-player extraordinaire, or maybe as the heir to the Jerry Garcia Band. Either way, he’s an onstage force for lovers of groove-heavy jam band tunes. He started playing with Garcia in 1980 and stayed in the band until the guitarist’s death in 1995. Seals immediately started up JGB as a way to keep the fire lit. Nowadays, he plays under the moniker Melvin Seals and JGB—and he’s earned it. AC
Caitlin Jemma has had plenty of time to consider the expanse of night sky, its panoply of stars and hazy configurations of cosmic dust. In a live video, she describes a youth of celebrating solstices and holding family talent shows on the days most visibly affected by the Earth’s place in the universe. The folk-by-way-of-soul singer’s voice has mountainous twang, and winds its way around some heartbreaking melodies in her songs of wanderers, drifters and migrants. MH
INFO: 8 p.m. The Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave, Santa Cruz. $10. 429-6994.
METAL
DECREPIT BIRTH
When local technical death rockers Decrepit Birth played the Glass House in Pomona in mid-October, lead singer Bill Robinson broke his leg in a stage dive gone wrong. But it came as no surprise to their fans when they announced that they’d continue “even if we have to wheel Bill out in a wheelchair.” Decrepit Birth showed the world how tough Santa Cruz really is, and at this show they’ll play with eight other heavy-hitting bands for a full day of headbanging fun. MW
Slide guitar master and eight-time Grammy-nominated producer Roy Rogers is no stranger to unusual collaborations. He brought out the best in elemental bluesman John Lee Hooker and spent almost a decade touring and recording with ex-Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek on the Translucent Blues project. But Rogers has never tackled anything quite like StringShot, an ensemble that melds three singular voices into a protean pan-American supergroup. Featuring Paraguayan-born violinist/harpist Carlos Reyes, and Brazilian guitar goddess and vocalist Badi Assad, StringShot is in the process of translating tunes created in the studio for StringShot—Blues & Latin into vehicles for live exploration. They’ll be joined by Steve Campitelli, the percussionist best known for his work with Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. ANDREW GILBERT
INFO: 7 p.m. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $36.75/adv, $42/door. 427-2227.
TUESDAY 11/13
INDIE-POP
SURE SURE
Indie-pop sweethearts Sure Sure have no tricks up their sleeves. Instead, they play straightforward, sometimes breezy, but always catchy tunes which rely on good songwriting rather than dramatics. Sure Sure is willing to occasionally throw in a tiny jam or two to emphasize the mood or enhance their underdog sexiness, but ultimately it’s the bright, addictive hooks and fetching lyrics which propels them into the indie-star stratosphere. Basically, if this were the early ’90’s everyone’s check-this-shit-out mixtape would have one of their songs on it. AB
Have you ever flown to a foreign country and wanted to listen to that country’s music as you were zipping through the skies?
That was kind of the idea behind the “curated playlists” that Houston, Texas trio Khruangbin set up last summer on their website, calling it “Air Khruang.” You can generate a Spotify playlist of their recommendation based on your city of departure and your destination.
These playlists tell you everything you need to know about the band. The mostly instrumental laid-back trio mixes surf, funk, soul and psych-rock with diverse global elements, so it’s kind of a creative way for them to share cool, obscure music of the world while also pointing a big shiny finger at their influences.
The idea came up because the band got a lot of press when they released their debut album The Universe Smiles Upon You in 2015. They cited ’60s Thai music as an influence, earning them the label of “Thai funk” from music journalists. Last summer, they had some time off from touring and thought it would be fun to curate some global music playlists.
“I wanted to find a way to connect with our audience in a period where we weren’t out connecting with them physically,” says bassist Laura Lee. “They’d ask us, ‘How do we find Thai music and music from all around the world?’ We decided to use this.”
Not only do most people in the U.S. not know what “Thai funk” sounds like, but the group also wasn’t really playing Thai music, per say. It just happened that they were listening to a lot of vintage Thai music when they formed, and it seeped into their songs. You’d have to understand the nuances of the rhythms and note choices of Thai music to even understand that influence.
“It’s kind of weird for people to keep calling us that,” says guitarist Mark Speer. “It’s like, ‘Dude, you should probably go listen to some actual Thai music, because although we are influenced by it, we aren’t Thai. We are from Houston, Texas. We like playing music that we like.”
For their second record, Con Todo El Mundo, released earlier this year, the influences broadened. The band members were digging a lot of Middle Eastern funk, soul and garage rock. Those elements come into play on this new record, but it’s not a major shift.
“Mark is always researching to find new music,” Lee says. “I think because I knew the effect of listening to a certain type of music and what it has on your subconscious, we were listening to a particular playlist a lot before we went into recording.”
The band’s music is difficult to define, and as more and more people listen to global music on Spotify, it’s going to be more challenging to use the traditional genre labels to categorize musicians.
“Streaming is based on moods,” says drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson. “You go to whatever streaming platform you’re on and you can basically select the mood based on however you’re feeling. Moving into this next phase of how people consume music, that’s only going to become more prevalent.”
Thinking about the vibe the music creates leads to a more clear through-line of Khruangbin’s sound. The band’s songs drift in soft grooves with spacious atmosphere and paints surreal desert landscape images with its tender textures. Speer’s guitar lines are used as de facto vocals.
“A lot of times with the things he’s playing, he’s trying to sound like singers in a foreign language, and the particular inflections that they have melodically on their vocals,” Johnson says.
Khruangbin plays at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 13 at the Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $25. 423-1338.
Akae Beka was born in 2015. At the time, the prolific reggae artist Vaughn Benjamin was trying to figure out what to do after his band Midnite—one of the biggest reggae groups to come out of the Virgin Islands in the ’90s—had dissolved.
His new project carries with it his highly spiritual, plain-spoken political and incredibly emotional take on ’70s-style roots reggae. He’s a true master, who keeps his vocals low-key but potent.
And he plays with purpose now. The first show he ever played as Akae Beka just happened to land on Nelson Mandela Day. Fitting.
