Page 663 – Good Times

Would the Rail Trail Bring Denser Housing to Santa Cruz?

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January 8, 2019

Would the Rail Trail Bring Denser Housing to Santa Cruz?

[This is part one of a two-part series on transportation ahead of a Jan. 17 Regional Transportation Commission vote on the Unified Corridor Study. Part two runs next week. — Editor]

If commuter trains come rolling through the county’s coastal rail corridor 30 years from now, it’s anyone’s guess how exactly those trains will look, or where they will stop. But whatever the details, there’s a decent chance that some of the buildings near those stops will be four times taller than many of them are today.

While the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) prepares to vote on the county’s transportation future later this month, there’s a growing effort to zone for taller, denser housing projects near major transit stops. Here in Santa Cruz, the RTC is getting ready to vote on accepting a Unified Corridor Study on Thursday, Jan. 17. The study outlines a scenario which includes some highway improvements, a commuter train and new bike trails. Some activists are still pushing for a wider trail with no train, given concerns about low potential ridership and high costs.

The word “density” has been known to set off alarm bells in certain circles of neighborhood activists, and the city’s corridor zoning update for taller buildings on major streets is currently on life support for that reason. The RTC will not be not be voting on building heights or any zoning issues—even as it considers future rail transit this month. It isn’t even clear if, or how, the commission would fund all of the items on whatever laundry list of ideas it ends up approving. Specific land-use decisions would be up to local governments, like the Board of Supervisors, in the years to come.

But California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) recently told GT that increased housing density—or “up-zoning,” as it’s known in housing policy circles—should “absolutely” be part of the discussion when it comes to new transportation projects. Urban planners typically view the approach of zoning for taller apartment complexes next to public transportation as a way to build affordable housing in the most environmentally friendly way possible. It’s this kind of housing, after all, that makes it easy for everyday people to get around without owning a car.

The backdrop here is that the statewide affordable housing crisis is now several years old, and governments around California, including in Santa Cruz County, aren’t meeting their mandated housing production goals. As a possible solution, Wiener introduced Senate Bill 827 last year to up-zone for high density in the blocks surrounding major transit stops. That original bill would have allowed developers to build as high as 85 feet. Wiener then toned down SB 827, which earned both widespread criticism and enthusiastic praise nationwide, but the bill died a quick death in its committee. This year, Wiener is back with a revised version, SB 50, which would allow buildings of up to 45 or 55 feet, depending on how close they are to a major transit hub, and the new bill has more buy-in. Each new building under the legislation would include some affordable housing.

Shortly after he finished delivering the keynote at a Monterey Bay Economic Development conference, I asked Wiener about the state of housing and transportation. He mentioned that he recently helped kill an extension of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system to Livermore, because the train stops would not have had the housing density to support robust ridership. “Let’s focus on the system where people are actually living and riding,” Wiener told me. “If you’re gonna make a big public investment in major transit infrastructure, you should make sure that there is housing right around the station, so that more people can use it and walk and not have to drive everywhere.”

Cars aside, there’s also an affordable housing element here. Without major changes in housing policy, it’s possible that most everyday workers would be unable to afford a place to rent near a major transit hub.

According to new research out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, communities that approve big transportation projects typically see an increase in rents and real estate values in the area as urban professionals flock to the suburbs and then commute to work by train. Hypothetically, if leaders allow for more housing, with affordable units built in, they could help ease that pain and maybe even foster a more diverse ridership pool. The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa has reported that the new Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) caters mostly to the “white and well-off.”

With a big transportation vote around the corner at the RTC, maybe now is the right moment for an honest conversation about what we’re really discussing when we talk about the future of the rail corridor, and the planning considerations that should go along with it. But Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley) suggests that may be “putting the cart before the horse.”

Stone, a former RTC commissioner, says that the land-use decisions will come when the time is right. Although wary of Wiener’s housing bills, he says it’s a given that communities around the county and state need to plan for denser housing as part of addressing the housing crisis. But he says that each area should do it in the way that’s best for them, given their own constraints and resources. That approach, he suggests, would be the best defense against legislation from lawmakers like Wiener, who want to introduce new statewide mandates.

Locally, some train supporters are nonetheless bullish on the idea of up-zoning. Barry Scott, a board member for Friends of the Rail and Trail, says that increased density next to commuter train stops would bolster ridership.

“It’s nothing new. If you go back and look at the communities and cities from 100 years ago, you had taller, denser buildings,” says Scott, who coordinates environmental education programs around the state. “You had the cobbler on the ground floor, and you lived above it. You might have had transit in the area.”

Scott, pulling up a map on his computer, sees plenty of room to build up the areas near the rail line, including in the industrial area of Santa Cruz’s Westside, as well as in parts of Live Oak and Pleasure Point.

“Yeah, that’s where we need to build,” he says.

Monterey Bay Whale Researchers Ready For New Year

Lauren Hepler

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January 8, 2019

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Monterey Bay Whale Researchers Ready For New Year

Peggy Stap was ready when the call came in on a Sunday in October. A humpback whale was caught in what appeared to be a Dungeness crab line, likely dragged from Oregon to the Central Coast.

With the volunteer Whale Entanglement Team she oversees at research nonprofit Marine Life Studies, Stap drove north with her 40-foot boat Current’Sea, along with a wing boat recently acquired to help rescuers get closer to entangled whales. It was just before sunset when the team located the entangled humpback south of Half Moon Bay. They attached a satellite buoy to keep tabs on the animal’s location, and Stap stayed overnight to babysit the boat. The next day, the team was back in the water to cut the whale lose.

“The whale kept going south, and we ended up doing the rescue west of Santa Cruz,” says Stap, a Michigan transplant who has slowly grown Marine Life Studies and the entanglement team over the past 12 years. “Now we’re kind of like a whale ambulance.”

Stap’s nonprofit rescue team attempts to plug one humpback-sized hole in how state environmental agencies and ocean-focused advocacy groups respond to shifting biological and commercial dynamics in the Monterey Bay ecosystem. Increasingly, variable water temperatures, acid levels and food patterns have contributed to unanticipated interactions between wildlife and the region’s famous fishing industry, according to researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

Groups like Stap’s have also increased vigilance to spot incoming issues, like whales that may have been injured elsewhere but then traveled to local waters. In addition, multiple state working groups have formed to respond to fast-evolving ecological issues including whale entanglement, which surged in 2015 and 2016 to more than 20 entangled whales spotted in the Monterey Bay alone, up from a small handful in years prior.

In the fall, the California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group, formed in 2015, released a new round of recommendations for the year ahead, from better mapping of ocean feed patterns to better identification of fishing lines. While Stap says the local crabbing industry in particular has been active in finding potential solutions to entanglement, options like quick-release lines or advanced materials often remain prohibitively expensive.

“If you look at the bigger picture, [with] two-thirds of the entanglements, we don’t even know what fishery they’re from,” Stap says. Difficult-to-assemble data on the wide world of marine habitats also add to the challenge. “Every year is different. We haven’t gotten all the numbers for 2018.”

Stap’s quest to buy the Whale Entanglement Team’s new rescue boat, which GT covered last summer, also illustrates a rethinking of how resources are deployed by local ocean-focused nonprofits and businesses. This month, ocean wildlife will be a focal point of Cal State Monterey Bay’s second-annual Sustainable Hospitality Summit from Jan. 10-12, plus the ninth-annual Whalefest at Monterey’s Old Fisherman’s Wharf on Jan. 26-27 (where Stap will speak).

After naming whale entanglement one of its top three priority issues last year, the nascent Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation also hired its first full-time executive director in the fall. A year-old local branch of marine sanctuary foundations located near federally protected waters across the country, the Monterey Bay chapter hired longtime local surfer and former world longboard championship competitor Ginaia Kelly to lead the group.

“It was a very, very natural fit,” says Kelly, whose board at the foundation includes former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former Santa Cruz Mayor Hilary Bryant, interim O’Neill Sea Odyssey Executive Director Dan Haifley and other prominent figures in government and conservation causes. “While I have boots to the ground here locally, our connection to the national foundation can help us gain greater visibility.”

The federal government shutdown at the start of 2019 has furloughed much of the local staff for the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary, but Kelly says her group also plans to focus on water quality monitoring, naturalist training and education programs. A resident of Davenport, Kelly headed Save Our Shares and other organizations before accepting the role with the Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

Meanwhile, Stap says Marine Life Studies continues to host volunteer trainings and raise funds for specialized response equipment after welcoming a new federally trained level-four whale entanglement responder last year. The group is also in need of licensed drone operators to help with whale monitoring and assessment.

“We are one of the busiest sanctuaries,” Stap says, though she knows demand for her services will always come down to nature. “It just depends where the fish are, where the krill are, where the anchovies are.”

INFO: whaleentanglementteam.org, montereybayfoundation.org

The Legacy of ‘On the Road’s Al Hinkle

Geoffrey Dunn

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January 8, 2019

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He was probably the least-likely person on earth to be taken for a seminal figure in the annals of the Beat literary movement, but lanky, easy-going, sweet-smiling Al Hinkle was certainly a critical lynchpin in that history.

Raised in pool-hall Denver with his childhood pal, the iconic Beat figure (and writer) Neal Cassady, it was the recently married Hinkle (along with his bride, the former Helen Argee) who jumped in Cassady’s brand new, maroon-and-silver Hudson sedan for a crisscross continental journey that eventually included an unpublished writer named Jack Kerouac; one of Cassady’s many girlfriends, Luanne Henderson; and an assortment of other hitchhikers and hangers-on who were all immortalized in Kerouac’s seminal Beat novel, On the Road (1957).

It was Hinkle who headed west to California, finally settling in the Santa Clara Valley, where he took a job on the Southern Pacific Railroad initially out of Watsonville. Cassady, down and out in Denver with a pile of romantic woes bearing down on him, along with both Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg, the poet laureate of the Beat movement, joined the rag-tag assemblage of novelists and poets on the West Coast. Both Cassady and Kerouac (briefly) also worked with Hinkle on the railroad.

As a result, Hinkle was the steady gravitational anchor (with a home and regular paycheck) who augured the San Francisco literary Renaissance before its 1955 apotheosis with the reading of Ginsberg’s epic poem Howl—in which Cassady was acknowledged as the “secret hero” of Ginsberg’s work.

While Kerouac and Cassady flamed out early—Cassady at the age of 43 in 1968; and Kerouac, at 47, the following year—Hinkle, who died two weeks ago from heart failure at the age of 92, held steady, and outlived his two more famous pals by a full half-century. A few years ago, he put together a booklet (based on an interview with Stephen D. Edington and some other writings) entitled Last Man Standing, in which he consolidated some of his groundbreaking memories.

Born in Florida in 1926 (his father was playing minor league baseball), Hinkle and his family returned to his father’s hometown of Denver when he was two. Hinkle’s mother died when he was 8, leaving him free to roam the Depression-era streets with his buddies and siblings. It was in the late 1930s that he first met Neal Cassady at a YMCA recreation hall.

Five years later, Hinkle, by then a lanky 6-foot-6, joined the Merchant Marines and headed off to the Pacific. He served two years before returning to Denver at the end of World War II. It was then that he re-connected with Cassady—six months his junior—in the pool halls and beer joints of Denver.

One night in the early 1990s, Al, Helen and I stayed up until nearly dawn, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and recounting stories of their earlier days when Kerouac, Cassady and Ginsberg were part of their daily social milieu. Both Al and Helen felt it was important to normalize much of that history. Indeed, Helen acknowledged that she hadn’t read On the Road, in which she and her husband were featured as Galatea and Big Ed Dunkel, until the 1980s.

It was in March of 1947 that another Denver chum of Hinkle’s named Bill Tomson introduced the irrepressible Cassady to a beautiful Bennington graduate named Carolyn Robinson, then pursuing a master’s degree in theater arts at Denver University. After more than a few false starts, they eventually married.

Both the Hinkles and Cassadys would eventually settle into new tract homes in the burgeoning Santa Clara Valley, with Al and Neal holding down steady jobs with Southern Pacific. The Hinkles had two children—Mark and Dawn—while the Cassadys had three—Cathy, Jami and John Allen (the latter named after Kerouac and Ginsberg). “They were like family,” Al’s daughter Dawn Davis recently told me. “We were always very close.”

A NEW BEAT

I visited with Hinkle last winter, and although not as physically spry as he once was, his mind was still sharp. He was also willing to go a little farther with some of his stories than he had a quarter-century earlier. He was always very fond of Kerouac, and, when we first met, spoke in only glowing terms about the famous novelist. At our final meeting, he acknowledged to me that Jack’s alcohol problem posed some real difficulties for their friendship and that Kerouac was “a mean drunk.” That was one of the first times I ever heard him be critical of anyone.

Hinkle received a degree from San Francisco State and studied for his master’s degree at Stanford (which he never quite finished). He ran unsuccessfully for Congress on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980, and then retired in 1987 from Southern Pacific—with more than 40 years on the job.

After Helen died in 1994, Hinkle remarried briefly, and kept up a daily routine as friend, father and grandfather. He enjoyed cards and engaging in long conversations.

According to his daughter Dawn, there will be no memorial service for Hinkle, at his request. “Dad didn’t want anyone to fuss over him,” she said. “That’s just who he was.”

Rob Brezny’s Astrology Jan. 9-15

Rob Brezsny

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January 8, 2019

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Free will astrology for the week of Jan. 9, 2019

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Computer-generated special effects used in the 1993 film Jurassic Park may seem modest to us now. But at the time, they were revolutionary. Inspired by the new possibilities revealed, filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas and Peter Jackson launched new projects they had previously thought to be beyond their ability to create. In 2019, I urge you to go in quest of your personal equivalent of Jurassic Park’s pioneering breakthroughs. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you may be able to find help and resources that enable you to get more serious about seemingly unfeasible or impractical dreams.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I’m a big proponent of authenticity. I almost always advise you to be yourself with bold candor and unapologetic panache. Speak the truth about your deepest values and clearest perceptions. Be an expert about what really moves you, and devote yourself passionately to your relationships with what really moves you. But there is one exception to this approach. Sometimes it’s wise to employ the “fake it until you make it” strategy—to pretend you are what you want to be with such conviction that you ultimately become what you want to be. I suspect now is one of those times for you.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The student dining hall at Michigan State University serves gobs of mayonnaise. But in late 2016, a problem arose when 1,250 gallons of the stuff became rancid. Rather than simply throw it away, the school’s sustainability pfficer came up with a brilliant solution: load it into a machine called an anaerobic digester, which turns biodegradable waste into energy. Problem solved! The transformed rot provided electricity for parts of the campus. I recommend you regard this story as a metaphor for your own use. Is there anything in your life that has begun to decay or lose its usefulness? If so, can you convert it into a source of power?

CANCER (June 21-July 22): If you grow vegetables, fruits, and grains on an acre of land, you can feed twelve people. If you use that acre to raise meat-producing animals, you’ll feed at most four people. But to produce the meat, you’ll need at least four times more water and twenty times more electric power than you would if you grew the plants. I offer this as a useful metaphor for you to consider in the coming months. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you should prioritize efficiency and value. What will provide you with the most bang for your bucks? What’s the wisest use of your resources?

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Modern kids don’t spend much time playing outside. They have fun in natural environments only half as often as their parents did while growing up. In fact, the average child spends less time in the open air than prison inmates. And today’s unjailed adults get even less exposure to the elements. But I hope you will avoid that fate in 2019. According to my astrological estimates, you need to allocate more than the usual amount of time to feeling the sun and wind and sky. Not just because it’s key to your physical health, but also because many of your best ideas and decisions are likely to emerge while you’re outdoors.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): NASA landed its robotic explorer Opportunity on Mars in January of 2004. The craft’s mission, which was supposed to last for 92 days, began by taking photos and collecting soil samples. More than 14 years later, the hardy machine was still in operation, continuing to send data back to Earth. It far outlived its designed lifespan. I foresee you being able to generate a comparable marvel in 2019, Virgo: a stalwart resource or influence or situation that will have more staying power than you could imagine. What could it be?

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In 1557, Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde invented the equals sign: =. Historical records don’t tell us when he was born, so we don’t know his astrological sign. But I’m guessing he was a Libra. Is there any tribe more skillful at finding correlations, establishing equivalencies, and creating reciprocity? In all the zodiac, who is best at crafting righteous proportions and uniting apparent opposites? Who is the genius of balance? In the coming months, my friend, I suspect you will be even more adept at these fine arts than you usually are.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): There’s a modest, one-story office building at 1209 North Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware. More than 285,000 businesses from all over the U.S. claim it as their address. Why? Because the state of Delaware has advantageous tax laws that enable those businesses to save massive amounts of money. Other buildings in Delaware house thousands of additional corporations. It’s all legal. No one gets in trouble for it. I bring this to your attention in the hope of inspiring you to hunt for comparable situations: ethical loopholes and workarounds that will provide you with extra benefits and advantages.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): People in the Solomon Islands buy many goods and services with regular currency, but also use other symbols of worth to pay for important cultural events like staging weddings and settling disputes and expressing apologies. These alternate forms of currency include the teeth of flying foxes, which are the local species of bat. In that spirit, and in accordance with current astrological omens, I’d love to see you expand your sense of what constitutes your wealth. In addition to material possessions and funds in the bank, what else makes you valuable? In what other ways do you measure your potency, your vitality, your merit? It’s a favorable time to take inventory.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1984, singer-songwriter John Fogerty released a new album whose lead single was “The Old Man Down the Road.” It sold well. But trouble arose soon afterward. when Fogerty’s former record company sued him in court, claiming he stole the idea for “The Old Man Down the Road” from “Run Through the Jungle.” That was a tune Fogerty himself had written and recorded in 1970 while playing with the band Creedence Clearwater Revival. The legal process took a while, but he was ultimately vindicated. No, the courts declared, he didn’t plagiarize himself, even though there were some similarities between the two songs. In this spirit, I authorize you to borrow from a good thing you did in the past as you create a new good thing in the future. There’ll be no hell to pay if you engage in a bit of self-plagiarism.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is a collection of fables that take place in India. Three movies have been made based on it. All of them portray the giant talking snake named Kaa as an adversary to the hero Mowgli. But in Kipling’s original stories, Kaa is a benevolent ally and teacher. I bring this to your attention to provide context for a certain situation in your life. Is there an influence with a metaphorical resemblance to Kaa—misinterpreted by some people, but actually quite supportive and nourishing to you? If so, I suggest you intensify your appreciation for it.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Virginia Woolf thought that her Piscean lover Vita Sackville-West was a decent writer, but a bit too fluid and effortless. Self-expression was so natural to Sackville-West that she didn’t work hard enough to hone her craft and discipline her flow. In a letter, Woolf wrote, “I think there are odder, deeper, more angular thoughts in your mind than you have yet let come out.” I invite you to meditate on the possibility that Woolf’s advice might be useful in 2019. Is there anything in your skill set that comes so easily that you haven’t fully ripened? If so, develop it with more focused intention.

Homework: I’ve gathered all of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you: https://bit.ly/YourGloriousStory2019

Capricorn—Lost in Light Supernal: Risa’s Stars Jan. 9-15

Risa D’Angeles

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January 8, 2019

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Capricorn—Lost in Light Supernal: Risa’s Stars Jan. 9-15

Capricorn, our 10th sign and 10th Labor of Hercules, continues. We (all of humanity) are Hercules. Capricorn is the sign of the goat climbing the mountain, becoming a unicorn on the mountaintop. The preceding Nine Labors (signs) were concerned with how to liberate ourselves from the thralldom of matter (materialism). But when we, disciples, (soul-directed personalities), come to Capricorn, the situation changes. Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces—these three signs are not concerned with personal liberation. We are concerned with humanity’s liberation.

Once we reach Capricorn, we are free to serve. We become an initiate. On the mountaintop, standing under the rising sun, we become transfigured. Our essential divinity is revealed to ourselves, and each other. Having passed round and round the zodiac many lifetimes, learning all there is to know in each of the signs (7×7 and more), experiencing all the lessons of each sign, we finally climb the mountain of initiation (Capricorn). All of our lifetimes prepared us to see and then remember our divine origins—our divine essential selves. We become free.

We then realize that with all of our training and experience, and with our developed will, love, wisdom, compassion, and intelligence, we are prepared to help a world in suffering (like Prometheus). And like Hercules, who frees Prometheus, we begin to free humanity through our recognized and cultivated gifts (Leo). While we are in Capricorn, after the long sojourn from Aries to Capricorn, we pause and rest. Before returning to the valleys of Earth once again. “Lost are we in light supernal, yet on this light we will turn our backs.”

ARIES: What are you thinking and feeling concerning your work in the world? How is your professional work coming along, and are you considering expansion, a new job, new work, or an entirely different field of endeavor? You’re climbing the Capricorn ladder. Remember to take others with you, assisting those below to rise up, too. Remember the true warrior is a spiritual disciple. Practice ahimsa.

TAURUS: You may be invited to travel. You may (most likely) say “No, too many responsibilities at home.” However, you must expand your mind, body, emotions, and spirit. Like studying esoteric texts, preparing to teach, understanding our justice system (blind still), visiting libraries, building an online college (with another), buying a car, cow or horse, donkey to ride over the plains toward a mountaintop where the light shines. You will travel.

GEMINI: Are you looking at resources held in common with another (or others) trying to create order and organization in daily living? Are you concerned about money and finances? You’re interested more and more in wisdom teachings, community, freeing the self from past inhibited thinking, and traveling somewhere for learning. You’ll wonder who will accompany you for you need a companion on the road. A loving one.

CANCER: It’s important to ask yourself, “Who are the important people in my life, and how am I interacting with them? Am I ignoring them, caring for them, resenting them, angry with them, or simply not interested anymore?” It is important to remember St. Paul’s words, “When I was a child, I thought as a child. When an adult, I put aside the things of the child.” Do not get lost. The dweller is near. Love is never lost, but must be re-activated. Has something appropriated it?

LEO: Things you have created that are now ritual and/or habitual have begun to break down into bits and pieces. You may feel disrupted, and this will continue for several months, for everyone. The new revolution is organizing, and it needs leaders, so look up and out, gather loved ones (all kingdoms) and begin to realize that your gifts, talents and abilities, many and varied, can be used to create a new order in the world. There are outer leaders and inner ones. Both are needed.

VIRGO: Where in your life do you feel shadows, veils, things hidden in the dark? Where in your life does light need to be radiated? Where is there a need for freedom, a creativity that liberates your spirit? In what way do you wish those parts of yourself, shy and quiet, could come forth? Everything will be changing in the coming year. You will be one of those changes as the lights come on.

LIBRA: It’s time to review garden catalogues, planning for summer. Soon, seeds must be planted. Do you have a greenhouse? If not, consider one, small at first. Notice your concern with home, food and nurturing things. Realize in coming times, we’ll need to grow much of our food. You could (are, were, will) be an excellent gardener, especially with edible flowers and herbs. Your foundations are shifting, past emotions falling away. A healing occurs in the garden.

SCORPIO: It’s important at times of new beginnings to consider your communication with others. Is it kind? Do you interact enough with others, and they with you? Are you easily out and about in the community? Do people understand you, or must you remain hidden? Perhaps you felt restricted the last several years? How do you feel about the present community/town/village/city you live in? Do people know you? Do they understand you?

SAGITTARIUS: It’s possible you feel like staying home forever, never to emerge. Perhaps you wonder who your friends are, for something about friendship is hidden. You feel able to chat, but after a few moments, fall into silence and quietude. You have energy, then you don’t. Do you sense you’re descending the ladder and not ascending? You’re in a boat. There’s no shore. You are not the captain. Yet you are. The stars glide by.

CAPRICORN: So many things appear veiled, and even your communication seems to have gone into hiding. Don’t fret. It will re-emerge soon enough. It’s best to stay home (or in the heart), chat with Sag (joyful) people, and read food, art and architecture magazines. Make a quilt. Think of yourself as a hermit in a forest, foraging in the wild. Tell yourself you’re preparing for the future that no one really comprehends. A friend in a group or living far away comes calling.

AQUARIUS: Are there people, friends, a person, a group you need to speak with? Are you preparing for the future in practical ways, which includes wondering where to live? Do you sense a great change, while not knowing what that change will be? There are deep desires and emotions rumbling about as your sense of self continues to shift. Stay poised as the changes continue. Be not afraid. Home is where the heart is.

PISCES: You have more internal energy, can stand on your feet longer and accomplish more tasks. There is a new strength, a dramatic change of energy. You see only the moment; what is in front and around you. The past/future no longer holds you. Progressing step by step, task to task, a new direction comes subtly forward. You wonder if you should travel. Someone needs you. You respond with care.

Coercion Reunites Santa Cruz Punk Heroes

Steve Palopoli

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January 8, 2019

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Coercion Reunites Santa Cruz Punk Heroes

There have been plenty of great bands before and after, but underground music in Santa Cruz may have had its most fertile period in the mid-to-late ’90s.

Punk music here certainly peaked at that time—and from Good Riddance to Fury 66 to Riff Raff to the Muggs, those are the bands that are best remembered—but the scene was actually remarkably diverse stylistically. There was room for everyone, it seemed, and there was probably more camaraderie across genres than there had ever been. But what people tend to forget is that the influx of great bands also made the scene pretty competitive. New groups quickly learned to bring their A-game at every show, because failure to do so meant running the risk of being blown off the stage by the other bands on the bill.

“I loved that,” says Jake Desrochers of moving his punky, hark-rocking band Lonely Kings from Grass Valley to Santa Cruz in 1995. “There were so many good shows. I went to shows every weekend. The first show Lonely Kings played was with Riff Raff and Ten Foot Pole at the Vet’s Hall. We got thrown on this amazing bill, when before that we’d been living in Grass Valley playing these little shithole bars and parties. The scene was so alive in Santa Cruz, and we didn’t know we were doing anything unique or cool, but we kept plugging away.”

That’s not to say he learned every lesson quite fast enough. When he got a chance to move into a house with members of a couple of his favorite bands in 1996, he discovered Good Riddance drummer Sean Sellers and guitarist Luke Pabich were starting a new project with Fury bassist Tom Kennedy. They were practicing in the garage, where Derek Plourde—best known as the drummer on Lagwagon and the Ataris’ early albums, who died in 2005—had built a studio. Desrochers talked his way into their rehearsals, where he threw together some lyrics that impressed the others. Coercion was born, and they even recorded some songs with Andy Ernst, whose Oakland studio Art of Ears produced AFI and Green Day’s early work, among other landmark NorCal releases.

“I hadn’t even really prepared that much, and was improv-ing some, and kind of sketching down lyrics on napkins and coffee filters and whatever I could find,” he remembers.

But his laissez-faire nature turned out to be his downfall, as his bandmates took their music with the ambitious intensity that had permeated the local scene.

“That’s how I learned just how hard Luke works at Good Riddance and how methodical he is about recording. I didn’t quite have my ass handed to me, but I definitely wished that I had applied myself a little bit more,” he says. “We did the recording, and then we played one party at the Riff Raff House that was there on Soquel, and then that was it. Then they actually kicked me out of the band because I wouldn’t come to practice prepared.”

Desrochers laughs about it now, but he certainly didn’t then.

“I was really hurt by that whole thing, but it really fueled me to work harder on Lonely Kings, because that’s when I put everything into that and that’s when we started making moves,” he says.

It paid off, as Lonely Kings became one of Santa Cruz’s top bands, signing to Fearless Records—then known for At the Drive In and Aquabats records, but about to blow up when Plain White T’s hit it big—for their 1999 What If… and 2001 Crowning Glory albums. Their shows went from drawing 50-100 fans to 500-1,000, and though their sound was a bit of an outlier in the Santa Cruz scene—Desrochers considers them a “grandfather of emo, before the screaming came into it”—they were selling out the Catalyst.

Meanwhile, he patched things up with Pabich, who came on to produce Crowning Glory. “That’s when I really learned about recording,” says Desrochers. “He was having us practice to a metronome five days a week and stuff. So I got a lot of work ethic from him, and still do. Now I don’t walk into the studio without everything laid out.”

Desrochers would eventually move to Sacramento, where he lives now, and has kept Lonely Kings going to this day. He kept in touch with his former Coercion bandmates, but he was still surprised in 2016 when, 20 years after the band had briefly been together, he started getting Facebook messages from them suggesting they restart the band. He was skeptical, but when Kennedy sent him mp3s of the songs—which he hadn’t heard in years—he was convinced. With Jim Miner of Death By Stereo joining on guitar and Ghost Parade’s Anthony Garay now drumming, the band finally released a debut album, Veritas, last month. Darker and more metal-edged than Lonely Kings, Desrochers is enjoying the new outlet Coercion is giving him.

“I used to tell stories in Lonely Kings, Coercion’s just right to the heart of the matter,” he says. “Coercion is just so hard-rocking that I feel like the lyrical content needs to be strong, needs to be up front, and needs to ring true to the music. It’s a little more brutally honest.”

Coercion plays with 88 Fingers Louie and Decent Criminal at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 16, at the Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. 16 and over. Tickets are $13 in advance, $15 at the door. catalystclub.com.

Primal Santa Cruz Serves Up Hearty, Healthy Food

Christina Waters

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January 8, 2019

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Primal Santa Cruz Serves Up Hearty, Healthy Food

Want to know what the future tastes like? Head over to the impressive new Primal Santa Cruz, at the corner of Laurel and Mission, and find out.

This is smart dining that bursts with intelligent design. Whether or not you care about “ancestrally inspired” foods, you probably do care about organic, nutrient-dense, gluten-free dishes made with locally sourced ingredients.

At a Primal lunch last week, we were blown away by the sleek, industrial-chic interior loaded with botanicals and polished wood. Cloth napkins and gorgeous dishes help soothe patrons who might at first pause over the 21st-century trend of placing orders at the counter and paying up front. But think about it—there’s no waiting for staff to come around and take your order, and when you’re finished, you can leave anytime. Streamlined to the max, Primal has its template down.

And it’s delicious. We loved our huge mugs of green pomegranate tea sweetened with coconut sugar, not processed sugar. Entree orders were inventive, created with an eye for beauty and generously portioned. My sweetie loved his blackened fish tacos, two GF tortillas (very tasty) topped with albacore, shaved mango-lime slaw, cilantro and watermelon radish tossed into a pretty mound ($17). Super delicious and sparkling fresh, this is a destination dish, no question about it.

My order of one of the house signature salad bowls, the Cali ($15), was a lavish affair of chopped Russian kale, arugula and fennel tossed in an outstanding sweet tangy dressing. Lots of citrus, avocado and pistachios adorned the entire dish, which is large enough to share. Only the requested “Primal Protein” addition of grilled skirt steak ($8) disappointed. Very chewy and surprisingly unseasoned—odd, considering how deliciously our other items had been spiced—the beef needs some re-working. Perhaps a flavor-intensive marinade, then quick searing and chopping against the grain before adding to the salad bowl?

Ah, but that can easily be tweaked. The energy here at Primal is bold, with a bit of masculine spin. Large portions of the highest-quality ingredients. Add chicken breast or spicy turkey chorizo or braised pork to your salad. Or not. This menu is very flexible, and vegetarian friendly. Breakfast dishes look inventive, rather than cliché. The Primal entrepreneurs have thought things through.

We all know that top ingredients don’t come cheap—$50 is the new $30 (just ask Apple.) If you only want to get full, you know your options. Primal is seriously committed to great ingredients, what you would gladly pay for and use in your own home cooking. Can’t wait to try dinner here, along with something from the beer and wine list. Kudos to the Primal Santa Cruz team. So far, so good!

Primal Santa Cruz, 1203 Mission St, Santa Cruz. 7 a.m.-9 p.m. daily. primalsantacruz.com.

Open and Shut

Alderwood is open. Aquarius is closed—but not for long. Sometime in mid-February the gorgeous dining room and bar at the Dream Inn will re-open its newly renovated Jack O’Neill Restaurant and Lounge. Can’t wait.

New Year Musings

Is the craft beer craze winding down? Will mixologists run out of ways to make botanical bitters? Can we expect robot servers? Self-serve fine dining? The answers are still being formed, but we can offer a word to restaurateurs in general.

One of the things you’ve got that Amazon doesn’t is direct personal contact with your customers. So being polite, organized and helpful is something your staff can offer that patrons will remember. Treating patrons with respect builds repeat business, not to mention customer loyalty.

But reverse that picture for a minute. If the first contact patrons have with your establishment or your product is a bored, disengaged, unhelpful staffer, you’ll likely suffer some negative consequences. Just a thought.

Film Review: ‘Roma’

Lisa Jensen

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January 8, 2019

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Don’t go to Roma expecting an action movie. The story builds slowly, its effects a gradual process of accumulated details. Events that might be huge crescendos in a more traditional narrative—birth, death, violence, heroism, heartbreak—roll in and out of this movie with the same steady rhythm as the wash water that ebbs and flows across a tiled hallway floor in the film’s lengthy opening shot. Victories are small. Tragedies are muted. Life goes on.

It’s another intriguing departure in tone and style for Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, a chameleon of a storyteller well-known for the diversity of his films. After the raucous Y Tu Mamá También, he went on to direct one of the best Harry Potter movies (The Prisoner of Azkaban), the sci-fi thriller Children of Men, and the nifty Hollywood space epic Gravity.

But in Roma, Cuarón returns from space, fantasy and the future to explore his own roots in the suburban district of Mexico City where he grew up. Shot in pristine, almost sculptural black-and-white, and beautifully composed in terms of both visuals and sound, it’s a cinematic dose of deep yoga breathing, slowing down the heart rate while inviting us to observe and appreciate the small details that make up a life.

The woman wielding the water bucket in that opening shot is our heroine, Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a live-in maid in an upscale household who is also de facto nanny to her employers’ young children. Cleo is unassuming and efficient at her job; she’s always pleasant and polite to her employers, and the kids adore her.

The household includes Señor Antonio (Fernando Grediaga), a harried professional, his chic wife, Señora Sofia (Marina de Tavira), her mother, and the couples’ four children, along with a second housemaid. But the comfortable in-home dynamic starts to change when the father runs off with his mistress.

Other events occur, but this movie isn’t about plot; it prefers to reveal complex relationships in telling little epiphanies. It’s almost shockingly subservient when Cleo kneels at the end of the sofa where the family is gathered to watch TV, until we see the affection with which one of the kids instantly drapes his arm around her. Both Sofia and her husband are prone to snap at the maid when aggravated by something else (say, the dog, or the kids), but when Cleo needs help, Sofia supports her unflinchingly. And yet, Sofia’s flustered mother doesn’t know enough details about the longtime family servant to fill out a form when Cleo is admitted to the hospital.

Meanwhile, Cuarón’s curious camera eye feasts on everything: the graphic pattern of the iron staircase railing inside the family home; the corrugated tin walls of a shanty house; the geometric shape of a skylight dancing on a sheen of moving water. When Cleo is scrubbing laundry in a cement tub on the roof, joking with one of the kids, the camera pans backward to reveal a pattern of wash-scrubbing housemaids on the roofs of adjoining houses.

Sound, too, almost becomes a character in the movie. Cleo quietly sings along with the radio on her daily rounds around the house. But outside, when she’s searching for an address in an unfamiliar neighborhood, the clamor of noise—vendor cart bells, barking dogs, shrieking children, shouted conversations, prowling cars, the brass horns of a distant band—grows to a sinister cacophony, like a physical threat. When she wades into the water after the kids at the beach, we feel each propulsive, bone-shaking pound of the surf.

Roma builds to a celebration of simple virtues that are so undervalued in the current socio-political climate—affection, compassion and co-operation, the dignity of work, and the right of all individuals (including women and people of color) to try to build a stable, decent life. And Cuarón observes these values in practice, with artistry and perception.

ROMA

***1/2

With Yalitza Aparicio and Maria de Tavira. Written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón. A Netflix release. Rated R. 135 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.

5 Things To Do In Santa Cruz: January 2-8

GT Staff

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January 2, 2019

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5 Things To Do In Santa Cruz: January 2-8

A weekly guide to what’s happening.

Green Fix

45th Annual Fungus Fair

Santa Cruz might just be the fungi-est place on the Central Coast, and some wait all year for this shroomy event. The annual Santa Cruz Fungus Fair boasts speakers and specialists, cooking workshops and of course hundreds of prime fungus specimens. Don’t go eating any old side-of-the-road mushroom—the fair’s taxonomy panel will help you classify different types of fungi and pick the prime specimens. This year’s theme is “mushrooms and medicine,” and the event list includes lectures about psilocybin mushrooms, the medicinal properties of ancient and exotic fungi, and how hallucinogens can make the world a better place.

INFO: 1-5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 11 and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 13. Louden Nelson Community Center, 301 Center St., Santa Cruz. ffsc.us. $10 general/$5 students or seniors.

Art Seen

‘8 Tens @ 8’ Short Play Festival

The 24th annual “8 Tens @ 8” Festival is one of the most popular and highly anticipated theater events of the year. With a selection of 16 Actors’ Theatre award-winning scripts, the 10-minute plays spotlight some of the best local actors and directors around. The plays are separated into A and B series nights, with eight 10-minute plays at—you guessed it—8 p.m. A lot can happen in just 10 minutes. Short attention spans are welcome, in fact they are encouraged.

INFO: Runs Friday, Jan. 4-Sunday, Feb. 3. 3 and 8 p.m. shows. Actors’ Theatre. 1001 Center St., Santa Cruz. sccat.org. Single night $32 general/$39 student or senior. Both nights $58 general/$54 student or senior.

Wednesday 1/2- Sunday 3/31

Elephant Seal Walks

Elephant seals are back on the beach. Keep a distance, they can be cranky—but who wouldn’t be after migrating 13,000 miles and having a nose that looks like a muppet? After a hard journey, they like to relax at the beach and make farting noises to impress the ladies. Guided walks are around 3 miles and take about 2.5 hours with frequent stops.

INFO: Walks begin daily at 8:45 a.m. Available weekends and some holidays through Saturday, March 31. Año Nuevo State Park, 1 New Years Creek Rd., Pescadero. 650-879-2025. reservecalifornia.com. $7 admission/$10 vehicle fee. Reservations also available for $3.99 fee.

Sunday 1/6

Watsonville Mural Unveiling

Muralist and central coast local Augie W.K. has been working on a 62-foot-tall mural for four months. The mural, called “Sabor,” meaning flavor in Spanish, is inspired by colorful fruity candy. W.K. painted the mural on Don Rafa’s Market and says he was inspired by the rich, vibrant culture of Watsonville. Since W.K. also works a full-time job, he’s only been able to paint on his two days off each week since late August. The project hasn’t been easy, but thanks to the Arts Council and community support, it is finally finished. The event will feature food, music and a grand unveiling of the final piece.

INFO: Noon. 50 W Riverside Drive, Watsonville. Free.

The Conservas Trend Comes to Front & Cooper

Lily Stoicheff

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January 2, 2019

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The Conservas Trend Comes to Front & Cooper

At a dinner party a couple of years ago, the hosts, looking to stave off hunger and tipsy-ness while the chicken tinga finished cooking, opened up a can of smoked oysters.

I wasn’t exactly a stranger to canned fish—I’d eaten my share of tuna salad and even snacked on tinned sardines once or twice—but my boyfriend and I emphatically turned up our noses. I believe one of us uttered the phrase, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

My friend, whose culinary tastes have never led me astray, insisted and held out a small, oily bivalve balanced on a sourdough cracker. Putting the whole thing in my mouth at once and chewing cautiously, I was delighted to discover the delicious umami of smoke and sea. Between four people, we devoured four more cans before dinner was ready.

Thus I became a tinned fish convert, just in time for me to tap into one of the hottest national food trends. American chefs are rediscovering how preserving seafood in cans with oil and spices enhances and transforms flavors, and they’re showing up in specialty shops, on charcuterie boards and tossed into pastas.

Some of the best are imported from Portugal, Spain and Basque country, where they are frequently enjoyed in tapas bars as a snack, often accompanied by an adult beverage. These conservas—doesn’t that already sound better than canned fish?—are as far a cry from the dry, grey chunks of tuna that scarred many of us in our childhood as you can get.

Inspired by this practice, Front & Cooper now offers half a dozen different conservas imported from all over the world on their new bar snack menu. Guests can choose from sardines, cockles, octopus and clams, as well as salmon rillettes and pork pate de champagne ($12 each), served with a bowl of potato chips or crackers.

These protein-packed treats pair equally well with a glass of cava or beer as a craft cocktail, and allow you to linger over a few drinks with friends without feeling fuzzy. If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to be more adventurous, perhaps these humble-yet-tasty snacks might be a good place to start.

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A NEW BEAT

Open and Shut

New Year Musings

ROMA

Green Fix

45th Annual Fungus Fair

Art Seen

‘8 Tens @ 8’ Short Play Festival

Wednesday 1/2- Sunday 3/31

Elephant Seal Walks

Sunday 1/6

Watsonville Mural Unveiling