Sure, Hanukkah (all done), Christmas (this week!) and Kwanzaa (takin’ us into the new year) are all great, but one of the best presents we get at the GT office in December is the chance to roast everything about this year that bummed us out, killed our buzz, harshed our mellow, pissed us off, made us laugh, made us cry or made us laugh-cry. If you didn’t hear about some of the local news stories we not-so-fondly reminisce about in this week’s cover story, take a moment to cherish these last precious seconds of blissful ignorance, ’cause you’re about to experience just how ridiculous Santa Cruz can be. But there was some weird and good stuff, too, and we didn’t leave that out. (I won’t spoil who comes out the winner of deer vs. shark.) It’s all part of a “year in review” tradition that’s always cathartic—and, OK, pretty fun—for us. Hopefully it is for you, too.
Also, I really hope you’ll take a look at Hugh McCormick’s story this week on the Conflict Resolution Center, one of the groups you can donate to through Santa Cruz Gives. I think it’s a great example how many Santa Cruz Gives participants are doing things that are truly “outside the box” of what we typically expect from local nonprofits. They’re doing great work, and you can help by going to santacruzgives.org and donating.
Lastly, just a quick reminder that the ballot for the 2019 Best of Santa Cruz Awards is up. Go to goodtimes.sc now to pick your favorites!
This letter is to thank and congratulate the Watsonville City Council for their public support for the Unified Corridor Study’s “Scenario B,” the rail and trail option with some adjustments to address Watsonville’s specific interests. It was a long and late council meeting that went from Tuesday into Wednesday. Council members surfaced reasonable and diverse questions and points of view. But in the end, they all came together—Hurst, Hernandez, Gonzalez, Dutra, Garcia, Coffman-Gomez, and Bilicich—to vote unanimously in support of rail and trail.
The Council-supported adjustments included allowing freight service on the rail line, reallocating funding from certain Mission Street improvements to areas with greater need and, adding HOV lanes to sections of Highway 1.
While the Watsonville City Council doesn’t make the final decision, they’ve taken an admirable step to weigh in on what will be best for their constituents. Thank you, Watsonville!
David van Brink
Santa Cruz
Cultural Dark Side
I would like to respond to the letter from “Gary” (Letters, Nov. 28) that incorrectly described the reason Santa Cruz attracts homeless people more than other local cities. What he cited is incorrect. I corrected him when he posted in the Facebook group “The Santa Cruz Community,” and I will correct him again so people know facts from fiction.
Many homeless folks who come from other areas don’t come for services, because they are a non-existent myth. They come to Santa Cruz for the easy score of drugs that you can get on almost every corner. This why we attract certain tourists as well: drugs, prostitution, sex trafficking, swinger sex rings, etc. Santa Cruz after dark, especially around downtown bars like Red Room, goes unchecked by SCPD. The horrendous drug/surf culture (dealing, using) that is destroying Santa Cruz is neither an unhoused or housed problem. It crosses all classes, races and social standing. We have many rich citizens who live double lives. Why do you think the Google executive died in the Santa Cruz Harbor? Until Santa Cruz leaders/police attack the real crime problems plaguing the city, SC will continue to spiral into a deeper cesspool attracting unsavory characters. Demand the police stop protecting and making confidential informants out of the criminal white majority.
Pat Colby
Santa Cruz
Re: Jonathan Franzen
Why are his peers only men? “…his literary peers such as George Saunders, Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers and the late David Foster Wallace.” Just noticing…
— Shannon
Re: CEQA
As a local design and land-use professional, congratulations on a very well-written article. A dispute like this, CEQA lawsuit and all, is not easy to understand or understand. Your article is one of the best I’ve read at explaining this process for regular folks.
— Wm. C. Casey
Re: RTC’s Gary Preston
I’m very hopeful that Mr. Preston will not stake our future on antiquated rail technology. As he said, “Have the routes going to where the trips are going to be generated.” A 19th-century abandoned rail line does not go to education, government or employment centers in Santa Cruz County. Put the transportation solution right in the line of sight of the congestion, and that is with Bus Rapid Transit/bus on shoulder. Commuters will be able to easily see the busses passing them, and they are easy to adjust based on where people want to go. Rail simply cannot do that, and will be a huge mistake for Santa Cruz.
— Jack Brown
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
Submit to ph****@*******es.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
The Third Annual Christmas at the MAH will serve a delicious free meal at the Museum of Art and History on Dec. 25 from 12-3 p.m. Organizers are looking for volunteers for the 8:30 a.m. food prep shift at India Joze. Interested volunteers may email ch***************@***il.com. To donate, visit gofundme.com and type in “Christmas at the MAH.” The United Nations Store, located at 903 Pacific Ave., is accepting donations of winter clothing donations to distribute. Call Steve Pleich at 831-466-6078 to arrange a drop-off time.
GOOD WORK
Efforts to protect the area’s ocean waters now have yet another defender. The Monterey Bay chapter of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation has announced its first-ever executive director, who will help lead the way forward on ocean conservation issues. The group’s hire is Ginaia Kelly, who has years of nonprofit administrative experience—at Save Our Shores, Save the Waves, American Red Cross and Goodwill. Our local federally protected marine sanctuary stretches from Marin County to Big Sur. For more information, visit montereybayfoundation.org.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Bad news isn’t wine. It doesn’t improve with age.”
When John Troutner (aka “Harpin Jonny”) and Peter Clark get up on stage, people expect blues songs. But in reality, the duo Harpin and Clark plays many different styles of music.
For instance, they have a song in their repertoire that’s a medley of Dave Brubeck’s jazz classic “Take Five” and The Sound of Music’s “My Favorite Things.” It works surprisingly well.
“People are not used to hearing that. I think it’s ear candy for them,” says Troutner. “We both have been musicians a long time, and we like to mix it up. So we don’t get bored, basically.”
But the duo isn’t a jazz band either. You’ll also hear country, blues, Django-Reinhardt-style tunes, bluegrass and a lot more.
“We both just like the duo aspect of guitar and harmonica, and the versatility we can do in terms of just a big, wide range of music,” says Troutner.
The project, which is roughly five years old, gives the longtime local musicians a new experience with music. Both have been friends for a long time, and have even collaborated from time to time, but with this downtempo project, they get to focus less on getting people up on the dance floor.
“As I get older, I prefer to not play at the Crow’s Nest ’til 1 in the morning, and have to be leading a rock band on my feet all night,” says Troutner. “This is a different kind of energy. We can both play back and forth to each other. The venues are more like wineries or happy hours or private parties. People listen more. I tend to sell more CDs.”
The duo is currently working on their first CD together, which they hope to release next summer. It should have originals and some unique renditions of songs they like to cover.
INFO: 5 p.m. Friday, Dec. 21. Michael’s on Main, 2591 Main St., Soquel. Free. 479-9777.
Criminals! Sea creatures! Criminal sea creatures! And all of the other things that made this year so bizarre in Santa Cruz County.
JANUARY
HEY, THAT REALLY WARMED THE PLACE UP! SAME TIME TOMORROW?
“Love’s what I got/ Don’t start a riot/ You’ll feel it when the dance gets hot.” Those Sublime lyrics were certainly not playing when 26 prisoners charged county sheriff’s deputies at Santa Cruz Main Jail. After complaining that their unit was too cold, the inmates pulled out all the stops booby-trapping the joint. They tied trip lines from ripped sheets, covered their arms with socks, hid their faces with makeshift masks and armed themselves with soap, a radio, a mop and books.They covered the floor with soap and water, and blocked stairwells and walkways with mattresses as they tried to pelt the guards with books and soap. Officers quelled the uprising with rubber pellets and beanbag rounds, and despite all the suds, no one made a clean getaway.
WE WERE TOLD THERE WOULD BE NO MATH
Train A is departing for UCSC with 9,000 new students. Train B is departing for the same destination carrying a buttload of angry Santa Cruz townspeople waving pitchforks. If Train A is scheduled to arrive by 2040, and Train B is scheduled to arrive any day now, how soon must Chancellor George Blumenthal retire to avoid getting the ass-poking of his life? For full credit, correlate the 80 percent of city voters who said “yes” to a meaningless measure in favor of limiting university expansion. Bonus points: Calculate the integer X that represents how much the UC Regents care that no one in Santa Cruz likes their plan, if X is less than zero.
FEBRUARY
OR ROUGHLY THE COST OF A THREE-BEDROOM ON OPAL CLIFF DRIVE
The 175-acre Coastside Ranch went on the market for $35 million. The property sits between Wilder Ranch and Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument. This prized ranch land includes the Red, White and Blue Beach, which was home to a nudist colony until 2006. OK, the price is right, but does it still smell like hippies?
SANTA CRUZ: PUTTING THE ‘GIVE’ IN ‘WE GIVE UP’
Tired of haphazardly managing a burgeoning transient population with nowhere to live, go to the bathroom, or even just hang out, the city of Santa Cruz started letting the homeless kick it at San Lorenzo Park. Everyone brought their tents to the benchlands for the months-long camp-out, until the city grew tired of hearing locals—many of them nearby county employees—complain about the impacts of the camp, and city parks employees got fed up with picking syringes out of the grass. Next, Santa Cruz opened up a smaller, more controlled camp on River Street. Most were happy with the new permanent camp. Well, it wasn’t permanent-permanent, but more temporary-permanent. Theoretically, there was a plan here. A city analyst swore to GT—as unrealistic as it sounded at the time—that it would be hasta luego for that camp by the end of June, and that the campers would move to a bigger facility. But actually, the camp closed in November, with no long-term solution in sight. Sigh.
MARCH
WON’T YOU COME HOME, JAMES DURBIN? WON’T YOU COME ON HOME?
Back in 2011, it was madness. The electrifying performances on national TV. The packed bars and restaurants every week to watch them. The wild homecoming concert that drew 30,000 people to the Beach Boardwalk. It was Santa Cruz’s own mini-Beatlemania moment, and it was all thanks to the supernaturally talented singer James Durbin and his unlikely run on Fox’s American Idol. But in 2018, Durbinsanity was officially consigned to history when Durbin and his family left their Santa Cruz home for a new adventure in Nashville. Durbin was much more than a local phenom—he was a genuine national curiosity, the kid who struggled with the double diagnosis of Asperger’s and Tourette’s, but was nonetheless possessed of a rock singer’s wail that would make Robert Plant cry. Durbin represented Santa Cruz with distinction when he decided to champion ballsy hard rock on a show much more inclined to leather-lunged divas. Good luck, amigo. And thanks for the reflected glory.
SAXOPHONE GUY IS PROBABLY NOT LOOKING SO HOT ANYMORE, EITHER
There she is, sparkling like a child’s toy in the unforgettable hawk’s-eye-view opening shot of the Beach Boardwalk at night in The Lost Boys. The centerpiece of countless tourist photos and home movies, the Boardwalk’s majestic old Ferris wheel met its demise this year. First erected in 1959, the wheel was retired and dismantled in March. The Facebook explanation from the Boardwalk sounds like something you’d say to your 5-year-old when it’s time to take the dying family dog for one last trip to the vet: “Every ride is unique, and each has a lifespan. Sometimes it’s just time to let them go.” The decision removed a major courtship go-to move for generations of locals, leaving thousands of singles to wonder where they were supposed to go on a second date. It was also one of the few attractions at the Boardwalk not designed with drooling toddlers or insane adrenaline junkies in mind. Now, Santa Cruz speaks with one voice: Please, please leave the Sky Glider alone!
APRIL
HER ENEMIES SLEEP WITH THE FISHES
Did you know that there’s a lady orca mob boss calling the shots on who lives and who dies in the Monterey Bay? There is, and her name is Emma. The matriarch of an orca pod that returns to the bay each spring to hunt is easy to spot because of her own Scarface-esque calling card: distinctive E-shaped notches in her dorsal fin that helped marine biologists like Nancy Black of the Monterey Bay Whale Watch link Emma’s pod with 12 local attacks on gray whales last year alone. In a refreshingly vivid reminder of our collective descent into unfettered social Darwinism, this year’s killer whale season started with a bang on April 5, when a group of unsuspecting whale watchers witnessed a crew of 17 orcas give a gray whale calf the business.
LEGAL, THAT’S A FUNNY WORD. IT SOUNDS KIND OF LIKE ‘EAGLE.’ AND ‘SCHMEGOL.’ DUDE, THAT LORD OF THE RINGS DUDE! HE WAS ALL, ‘THE PRECIOUS! PEW PEW!’ OH HAI MR. PO-PO MAN…
In Santa Cruz, the first 4/20 after legalization should have been a stoner slam-dunk. And it might have been, if UCSC’s campus police hadn’t decided to make their play for the Buzzkill Hall of Fame. As students and other bud enthusiasts gathered at Porter Meadows for the annual day of rest and nonsensical reflection, an estimated 100 officers from multiple UC police departments, plus a videographer working for the campus cops, were reportedly on hand to unfurl a giant wet blanket over the festivities. People’s Champion and art student Marco Cota, for one, tried to make peace with the officers directing revelers to stop smoking in public. “The policeman declined his offer to share the doobie,” the San Jose Mercury News reported.
MAY
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SOMEBODY JUMP IN THERE AND GET HER!
Santa Cruz native Shell Eisenberg set a new U.S. women’s national record in May by freediving to a depth of 85 meters (278.87 feet). To put that in perspective, it’s more than twice the maximum limit for recreational diving (40 meters) and far beyond even what is considered a “deep dive” for technical divers (60m). Santa Cruz’s Kirby School, of which Eisenberg is an alumna, proudly trumpeted her accomplishment on their web page. However, they inadvertently put an unsettling twist on the story with a graphic of the Washington Monument that showed her dive was roughly equivalent to half-way down the stone structure. “This is the depth she dove to,” it was captioned. “Now she has to swim back to the surface.” Wait, she’s still down there?
A DOE, A DEER, A BADASS DEER
In its venerable history, the shark has faced legendary battles with many foes. Crocodile. Octopus. Mechashark. So the 9-foot-long great white off the Aptos shore on May 9 probably thought it was in for some easy pickings when it began circling a deer swimming near the cement ship. OK, first it probably thought it had taken some bad mushrooms, because why the hell was it seeing a deer swimming near the cement ship? But hey, lunch is lunch, right? Alas, venison would not be on the menu that day, because this deer was a hell of a swimmer, and beat the Vegas deer vs. shark odds by making it to the shore in one piece. As to why it was ever out in the ocean to begin with, Santa Cruz shark researcher Sean R. van Sommeran of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation—who witnessed the whole thing, and posted a YouTube video of it after doing his best to help the deer get to land—told KSBW he thought it might have been “spooked” by park and beach visitors while walking along the road.
JUNE
DOING THEIR CIVIC DUTY
It’s no secret that walking into the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium is like walking in to a 1950s time warp. The wooden seats and overly steep metal stairs are reminiscent of a high school spirit rally in an old-timey gymnasium—okay for the retro-cool Derby Girls, but not exactly ideal when it comes to Santa Cruz symphony concerts. With the complaints about practicality, handicap accommodations and air conditioning in mind, Santa Cruz Mayor David Terraza and Ellen Primack, executive director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, announced plans for a $20 million Civic Auditorium makeover to be potentially funded by a future ballot measure.
WE LITERALLY CANNOT STOP WRITING ABOUT SHARKS #SORRYNOTSORRY
Everyone knows shark populations in the Monterey Bay have gone up in recent years, which researchers attribute to food availability. Though shark attacks are super rare, beachgoers were still on the edge of their uncomfortable chairs when a Capitola kayaker reported that he saw two dozen sharks about the same size as his kayak while paddling off of New Brighton State Beach. A young, 8-foot male great white weighing in at 500 pounds washed up in Aptos a few days later. It had several cuts and scrapes, which prompted criminal investigators to push their way through the crowd of Instagrammers for a closer look.
JULY
I AM THE KEYMASTER. ARE YOU THE GATEKEEPER?
The California Coastal Commission had an ultimatum for the Opal Cliffs Recreation District: Open your freakin’ beach to the public, or else. The district’s response: How about no? Some Mid-County surfers and neighbors have long preferred keeping the gated Privates Beach under lock and key (membership costs $100 a year), arguing that it keeps the area pristine. So when the Coastal Commission provided a July 31 deadline to respond, the county let the date come and go, opening up a controversy over coastal access. The standoff has cooled off in the months since, after neighbors indicated they would be open to keeping the gate open to the public for at least a few hours a day. Assuming it all works out, we hope that the Coastal Commission’s next ruling has to do with a name change for Privates Beach. Whoever named that is bad at naming beaches and should feel bad.
THE ONLY THING LANDLORDS HATE MORE THAN RENT CONTROL IS A CHANCE TO EXPLAIN WHY THEY HATE RENT CONTROL
Landlords and other opponents of the Measure M rent control initiative somehow missed the deadline to file an argument against the local measure that they were so angry about. Supporters, meanwhile, turned their piece in on time. Santa Cruz city employees said that they were to blame for all the confusion, and the City Council granted opponents more time to file their argument. That reminds us, we’re actually gonna be a few weeks late on rent this month … so we’ll just beg the City Council to let us turn it in when we get around to it. Is that how it works?
AUGUST
DO YOU PROMISE TO BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER, IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH?
Anyone who’s seen Keanu Reeves’ most recent film, Destination Wedding, probably has a good idea of what he’s like in real life—handsome, sort of funny and mildly awkward, perhaps a tad dickish. But his name does mean “cool breeze over the mountains” in Hawaiian, so we could be wrong. One couple who got married at the Dream Inn got an unexpected little Hawaiian breeze of their own when Reeves showed up out of the blue at their wedding. Guests reported seeing a phone booth nearby, which seems kind of weird in this day and age, especially because it had Alex Winters in it.
GARY GRIGGS IS COMING FOR YOU, DUDE
Easy way to get to be Santa Cruz’s most hated person of the day? Spill 200 gallons of diesel into one of the world’s most renowned marine sanctuaries. That’s what happened when a man ran a 56-foot commercial fishing boat aground on Aug. 13 near UCSC’s Seymour Marine Discovery Center. He and his dog were able to hop off and walk away—too bad the otters and dolphins couldn’t do the same.
September
LET’S HOPE WE DIDN’T GET CAST AS THE SUNKEN PLACE
Physics majors will tell you that it’s technically impossible to be hot and cool at the same time. But that doesn’t apply to director/writer/actor Jordan Peele, who landed an Oscar nom and scored major hipster cred with his directorial debut Get Out last year. In September, Peele (formerly of the Key & Peele comedy duo) came to the Seabright neighborhood of Santa Cruz with his production crew to shoot some exteriors and stunt scenes for his new film titled Us, to be released in March. There is apparently a Mueller-esque level of security against leaking details of the new movie. What we do know is that, as with Get Out, Peele will be working from his own script, and he’ll be tackling the subject of race in, we can hope, the same funny-scary-angry tone that made his debut film such a standout. The movie will star Lupita Nyong’o, Elisabeth Moss and at least one or two breathtaking establishing shots of the local landscape.
BECAUSE OUR NAVEL IS JUST THAT GAZE-WORTHY
It was a big year for literary self-examination in Santa Cruz. Right on the heels of the collection Santa Cruz Noir, a second anthology of Santa Cruz-inspired literature, Santa Cruz Weird, was released in September. Weird featured 18 short stories, each an attempt to capture the uniquely eccentric essence of Santa Cruz and the various weirdos it attracts. The earlier book, Santa Cruz Noir, featured an entirely different cast of local writers, all turning their gaze to the sleazy dark underbelly of life in Surf City. Taken together, the two collections might present a fairly comprehensive, if somewhat lurid portrait of Santa Cruz. But we’ll wait for the third, still-unpublished volume to complete the picture: Santa Cruz Expensive and Crowded.
OCTOBER
THOSE KPIG GUYS ARE ALWAYS GRANDSTANDING
Santa Cruz’s own John Sandidge—known for hosting KPIG’s live show Please Stand By, among a zillion other radio gigs over the last few decades—represented our Americana-loving citizens at the epicenter of country music when he was invited to emcee at the Grand Ole Opry on Oct. 20. He fittingly introduced the cosmic cowboy group Riders in the Sky, who he built a following for in Santa Cruz through his Snazzy Productions shows. They also sent him home with a commemorative “I Hosted the Grand Ole Opry” poster. In other news, commemorative “I Hosted the Grand Ole Opry” posters exist.
OH, THE IRONY OF THAT SEXY CORRECTIONAL OFFICER COSTUME
Santa Cruz used to be the kind of place where you could walk along Pacific Avenue on Halloween night and feel like you had stumbled into some kind of Mad Max: Fury Road post-apocalyptic wasteland. But an ongoing police crackdown has taken most of the terrifying mayhem out of the city’s favorite night of debauchery, and this year the cops promised to bring the hammer down hard again, with fines for public nuisance tripled. As 6,000 people flooded downtown, the SCPD delivered, handing out 57 citations and making 17 arrests. The creepiest case—and not in a fun way—was an intoxicated 34-year-old man who was arrested with a Hi-Point .380 caliber pistol in his backpack. Police reported that the gun was loaded, with a bullet in the chamber and the serial numbers scratched off.
NOVEMBER
AND IN PAIGE CONCANNON ELECTION NEWS: PAIGE CONCANNON
In the Nov. 6 election, charming District 4 Supervisor Greg Caput firmly held off his challenger, promising four more years of his affably incoherent brand of local politics on the county Board of Supervisors. The affordable housing bond went down in flames, gaining a clear majority but still falling 11 points short of the two-thirds vote needed to pass. Rent control got spanked at the polls, failing to get even 40 percent voter support. Justin Cummings, Donna Meyers and Drew Glover won spots on the City Council. Greg Larson missed out, coming in fourth, despite going more than $10,000 over the voluntary campaign-spending limit. But the real winner of the council race, at least in our hearts, may have been public safety candidate Paige Concannon, certainly not in terms of votes—the Seabright Republican finished ninth in the field of 10—but her name is super catchy and just really fun to say. Paige Concannon! Paige Concannon!
STATE OF EMERGENCY
The Santa Cruz Mountains saw a handful of small fires this past fall, all of them within a couple weeks of each other—from the area around Pogonip and Paradise Park to Scotts Valley and Boulder Creek. The smoke mixed in with that from disastrous fires raging around the state of California. Although the haze was not nearly as bad in Santa Cruz as it was in the Central Valley, the air quality here was still bad enough to warrant warnings about the risk of exposure. Some smart people even started wearing protective masks, but most of us acted like we were still in college hanging out at smoky dorms and dive bars. NBD!
DECEMBER
O LITTLE TOWN OF POP-UP SALES
Are you in the market for some locally woven macrame? What about dainty, hand-forged jewelry? Beard wax from a local purveyor, rather than some asshat in Brooklyn? Good news: There’s not just one holiday pop-up for your local shopping needs, but whatseems like at least one a day this year in Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Felton and beyond. Yes, the Portlandia overtones can be strong, but there’s good reason for slapping a maker hashtag on your Instagram bio and setting up shop at a local pop-up. As food truck restaurateurs have also made clear in recent years, Santa Cruz County is increasingly cost-prohibitive for creative small businesses.
SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD WE GROW
On Dec. 11, the Santa Cruz City Council gave the green light to a newsix-story, 205-unit downtown apartment complex. On the same day, the County Board of Supervisors accepted aproposal to severely limit growth in the Pleasure Point neighborhood and reduce Portola Drive from four lanes of traffic to two. The mixed messages on building for a bigger population are nothing new—see also: CEQA environmental lawsuits that canadd years to local construction projects—but the pressure is magnified with anxiety about rising costs. If the neighborhood-level politics aren’t enough, keep an eye in the year ahead on investigations and lawsuits swirling around the Rail Trail corridor, from a legal challenge to a proposed rail service agreement to pending campaign finance violations against the Greenway Capitola anti-rail advocacy group.
[This is part two of a three-part series on recycling and waste reduction. Read part one here. Read part three here. – Editor]
Until about four months ago, Peter Truman and his employees would fill 12 recycling bins a week full of glossy paper scraps.
Each blue bin weighed about 350 pounds, estimates Truman, who owns the MPress Digital Printing shop on Potrero Street in Santa Cruz. The company prints books, brochures, postcards, and catalogs five days a week, all while the shop’s press operator blasts classic rock CDs.
One day this past summer, Truman says that a Santa Cruz resource recovery supervisor told him that the city was having issues hauling Mpress’ glossy trimmings, and that it was going to stop accepting them in its recycling collection.
Bob Nelson, superintendent of resource recovery, tells GT that all those tiny paper strands make a stringy mess that spreads all over the city’s facility. Nelson says Santa Cruz had a special route that only picked up print scraps, but as clients dwindled, the operation stopped penciling out.
Truman’s paper scraps now had to start going into the landfill.
He says that the garbage bill more than quadrupled. Truman used to pay about $85 for garbage, and have all his paper hauled away for recycling. He’s now paying $260 a month to fill a giant metal dumpster, but even that isn’t always enough to get him and his employees through the week. Trash day for the print shop is Tuesday. When I meet Truman at the business, it’s a Thursday, and the dumpster is nearly full with what he estimates is close to a couple thousand pounds of once-recyclable paper. That means he’s going to have to pay for an extra trash pick-up on Friday.
At Truman’s other local print shop, which is in Aptos, he says he’s still able to put scraps in his blue bins. There’s a different hauler in Aptos and the rest of Santa Cruz County’s unincorporated area. The county has a contract with GreenWaste, which also hauls garbage, recycling and yard waste for Capitola and Scotts Valley.
What happened next may have been a miscommunication, but nonetheless, the breakdown epitomizes much of the confusion around recycling policy. It was also the part of the whole saga that made Truman most upset. A few months ago, Truman looked into having a third-party recycler come and pick up the paper scraps. But he says a city employee informed him that he couldn’t even let outside recyclers—some of whom Truman says would actually pay him for his scraps—come in to haul his recycling away.
“And the fact that it’s going into our landfill, when it should be recycled paper. Here we are a certified green business, and we can’t recycle our paper,” Truman says.
Nelson says that Truman actually is allowed to have his recycling hauled away by third parties, although he isn’t sure how many would be willing to do it. The rule, he explains, is that Truman isn’t allowed to pay anyone else to take it away. Truman tells GT he wishes he had learned that sooner.
Bewilderment and miscommunications can both be common in the world of recycling.
When Santa Cruz County published a recycling guide in January, the brochure included instructions for a few items, like the Christmas lights and types of glass that many county residents were allowed to put in their blue bins.
The problem was that much of the guide did not line up with the city of Santa Cruz’s policy. That prompted many confused phone calls from residents and ultimately led Santa Cruz to launch an outreach campaign of its own, explaining how city residents are supposed to dispose of everything.
WASTED ENERGY
For all of recycling’s overwhelming environmental benefits, one trade-off is that a huge portion of America’s recyclable material gets shipped overseas on industrial cargo ships.
Until a couple of years ago, two-thirds of those exports went to China, which has since closed its doors to recycling from other countries. That change let other recycling-importing countries get pickier about which goods they’re willing to accept, and made it harder for recycling facility managers to get rid of their plastic and paper. For much of the year, the city of Santa Cruz was asking residents to cut back on their paper usage, while baled paper piled up for months on end at the city’s own material recycling facility—known as a MRF for short (and often pronounced murph in the waste management industry).
Santa Cruz did finally manage to sell off all 1,800 of its bales in the fall to buyers in South Korea and Indonesia.
The city’s MRF is next to its landfill, just off Highway 1. There, workers stand alongside a conveyor belt pulling off trash, bags and cardboard as fast as they can manage before a giant V-shaped, mouth-like machine shakes out the bottles and cans, blowing the paper upward.
On a tour of the city’s MRF, Waste Disposal Superintendent Craig Pearson tells me that he’s skeptical that GreenWaste, which is based in San Jose, is actually finding markets for all the materials it accepts in its blue bins, but he won’t say what he thinks is happening to it.
Tim Goncharoff, the county’s resource planner, notes that the county has done audits following the recycling that GreenWaste takes in from its MRF in San Jose to the recyclers it works with. He says that the company has the advantage of scale, since its operation is several times bigger than the city’s.
City and county leaders both take a lot of pride in their own respective recycling programs, but they do share elements in common. The collection rates for the two are comparable to one another, althoughthe county’s rates are slightly cheaper than the city’s.
Neither the city nor the county use general fund dollars to subsidize their waste management programs.
SHELL GAME
GreenWaste’s MRF in San Jose is not unlike the city’s, but it is more elaborate. It looks like a sorting operation built by Willy Wonka.
A long conveyor belt winds up, whizzes around, zigging and zagging as magnets and bursts of air speed up the sorting process. A small army of a few dozen GreenWaste workers yanks off plastics, cardboard, DVDs, CDs, trash, and other products, including those the machines will miss. As one employee pulls items off, he separates them into nine buckets.
“I wouldn’t want to play cornhole with these guys,” Emily Hanson, the business development and communications director for GreenWaste, tells me after one of the workers tosses a bottle behind his back into a round bin.
After sorting the materials, it’s a different employee’s job to find a buyer. Sometimes that’s easier than others.
The bane of many MRF operators these days are the so-called plastic “clamshells.” Those are the hinged boxes that stores often pack produce into—berries, for example. The logos on the bottoms of many of these containers indicate that they’re recyclable, but most MRFs are having a hell of a time getting rid of the flimsy plastic that the clamshells are made of.
The city has made it clear in recent brochures that it no longer accepts them.
GreenWaste, on the other hand, hasn’t gotten the word out, even though it doesn’t have a market for clamshells right now, either. Hanson is optimistic that the company might find a way to get rid of them, and she doesn’t want to tell anyone not to put something in the recycling, since GreenWaste may be able to recycle them in the future.
Pearson, the waste disposal superintendent, wants people to stop buying plastic clamshells altogether. Standing at the load-in for the city’s MRF, he picks up a cardboard strawberry box and a plastic clamshell.
“And if you see berries in that one or this one,” he says dropping the clamshell and shaking the cardboard box for emphasis, “buy it in this one.
War took 13-year-old Lejla Bratovic and her family by surprise.
The atrocities that befell their formerly peaceful home country of Bosnia and Herzegovina would become the worst act of genocide since World War II. While their beloved hometown of Sarajevo smoldered, the Bratovic family tried to escape. The Bosnian Serb Army started an ethnic cleansing, and incidents of mass rape shook the country.
Bratovic’s parents pushed their daughter onto a plane bound for the West, one of the last aircrafts to leave the country. Alone and on a plane for the first time in her life, Bratovic felt shocked as she stared out the window of the 747, replaying scenes of her family’s flight and the conflict raging in her homeland. In the U.S., she found herself lost in a labyrinth of awkward interrogations, paperwork and a nearly impossible language barrier, recalls Bratovic, who is now the executive director of the nonprofit Conflict Resolution Center (CRC) of Santa Cruz.
Bratovic applied for a tourist visa and was denied multiple times before earning political asylum in America. Bratovic moved in with a host family in Kansas, joining more than 120,000 Bosnian refugees resettled in America. She began working diligently to learn English, piecing words and phrases together from popular songs and television shows. She wondered if she would ever see her family again.
The experience strengthened Bratovic, giving her the tools to find her true calling: mediating and resolving contested matters. In a life largely defined by conflict, the job came naturally to her. “The work chose me. Actually, I don’t even consider it work. It’s really just a path in life,” says Bratovic, 40, who finally reunited with her family after several long years, once her parents received visas as part of a U.S. program.
Reconnecting Community
Bratovic—brown-haired, with piercing blue eyes—says that conflict resolution work is based on empathy. Her unique personal history, she says, gives her the ability to remove herself “from a conflict, and see all sides, always having empathy for people who are suffering.”
At the CRC, Bratovic manages a staff of four, plus an army of 45-50 volunteers who offer a variety of services to county residents. Programs are either inexpensive or totally free and include community mediation, victim-offender dialogues, restorative justice dialogues, parent-teen mediation, workplace mediation, and law enforcement-community dialogues.
The center, which is participating in this year’s Santa Cruz Gives holiday campaign, has helped thousands of clients, partners, organizations and businesses find solutions to difficult problems in their homes, neighborhoods, court settings, and workplaces. Bratovic says the staff and volunteers like to say that they “get people unstuck.”
Bratovic says funds from this year’s holiday giving campaign will cover conflict resolution trainings, as well as the development of a youth violence prevention program. The CRC, which has been around for four decades, will embark on a community-wide engagement campaign in 2019 to promote the use of peaceful dialogue through facilitation, mediation and education.
The CRC holds monthly community events to bring people together and have difficult conversations. Bratovic says the center, which has a modest annual operating budget of $140,000, hopes to hire more staff soon to create more visibility and exposure for the organization.
Programs address conflict at all stages, including prevention and early intervention. They also provide alternatives to hostility, violence, and litigation. “Conflict will always be here,” says Bratovic. “We need to offer alternative ways to going to court, having violence and living in hate and animosity.”
A modest stipend gets each visitor a three-hour mediation session with two CRC employees who facilitate a restorative and healing dialogue. “Any more and you’ll burn out,” admits Bratovic. Most parties only need one session to resolve their conflicts and move on amicably, she says.
Bratovic says that she is happy to have found a home with the CRC in Santa Cruz, where she feels the community here is so active and caring.
“They’re always giving back and taking a stand,” she says. “The group at the CRC—staff, board and volunteers—are all committed to creating a more peaceful community and giving back. We are resolving conflicts. That is what I love.”
To donate to the Conflict Resolution Center and nearly three dozen other local nonprofits, go to santacruzgives.org through Dec. 31.
The world is waking up to the genius that is Thundercat. Fans of prog-rock, funk, R&B and smooth pop have always had overlapping tastes, but few modern musicians have blurred these lines quite as well as he has.
So he isn’t new to collaborating with high-level artists, but it was a shock for everyone—including him—when he got to work with yacht-rock legends Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, the hitmakers behind “What a Fool Believes” and “Danger Zone.” He somehow managed to rope them into contributing vocals to “Show You the Way” on his excellent third album Drunk, released in 2017.
This collaboration sprang up after a radio interview in which Thundercat was asked who he would take if he was stuck at sea, and he said Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald. Loggins heard the comment—his son had turned him onto Thundercat—but thought it was a joke. After all, who doesn’t treat ’70s soft rock as a joke?
But for Thundercat, it was a very earnest moment, and his collaboration with them, “Show You the Way,” ended up being one of the best tracks on an already brilliant cosmic, adult-contemporary-infused R&B record.
In fact, many of the best moments in Thundercat’s career have come out of the work he’s done with and for other artists. Here are five of them.
Mac Miller’s NPR ‘Tiny Desk’ session
A month before Mac Miller passed away from a drug overdose at the age of 26, he left us with one of his best, most emotive performances via NPR’s Tiny Desk series. His backing band is phenomenal, with low-key, jazzy-funk grooves, but it’s Thundercat—who plays bass and sings on the song “What’s the Use?”—who really stands out. He offsets Miller’s melancholy with some funky bass lines. Just listen to those dreamy fills and deep, punchy grooves.
Kendrick Lamar’s “These Walls”
For many people, the first time Thundercat popped up on their radar was with Kendrick Lamar’s landmark hip-hop album To Pimp a Butterfly. Thundercat took home a Grammy in 2016 for his work on the sexy, surreal track “These Walls.” But he deserves credit for much of the album’s vibe as a whole. He had a huge hand in shaping its sound, by giving Lamar a seminar-level education in jazz as he worked, guiding the artist toward sonic brilliance.
Flying Lotus’ ‘You’re Dead’
If it was Kendrick that launched Thundercat into the mainstream, it was Flying Lotus that made him the cult musician everyone wanted to work with. Flying Lotus released all of Thundercat’s solo records on his Brainfeeder label. He also invited Thundercat to play bass on his Cosmogramma album in 2010. Thundercat plays a major role on Flying Lotus’ 2014 album You’re Dead as bassist and guest vocalist. It’s a whirlwind of tripped-out electro-jazz, and Thundercat enhances it significantly.
Erykah Badu’s ‘New Amerykah Pt. 1’
As Badu reached for a more hip-hop sound in 2008 with New Amerykah Pt. 1, she enlisted Thundercat to play bass. He killed it with some of his funkiest, yet simplest, bass lines. She mentored him on how to be an artist, not just a sideman in a band. After this record, Thundercat embraced a much more experimental approach to music. His grooves on this record are about as solid as they come.
Eric Andre’s “Tron Song” video
Along with a lot of amazing music, Thundercat also has a weird sense of humor. For his own “Tron Song,” he got comedian Eric Andre of Tim and Eric, Awesome Show, Great Job! to direct the video for the $5K Video Series (where comedians make a video for an artist using a $5,000 budget). This video is Tim-and-Eric humor at its most disgusting. A tribute to Thundercat’s cat, the video—which appears to be shot on an old VHS tape—includes Thundercat blowing his brains out, performing autoerotic asphyxiation in a litter box and getting into a bloody fight with Andre. It’s a really odd juxtaposition to the easy-breezy groove of “Tron Song,”
Thundercat performs Friday, Dec. 21 at 9 p.m. at the Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $25/adv, $28/door. 423-1338.
Winter solstice. Return of the light. Return of the sun. End of darkness. Our hearts, our inner sun, vivifying, coming alive again. Solstice (Yule) is Friday, a complex day when sun enters Capricorn and a three-day pause begins. The sun is quiet and still (sol, “sun”; stice, “still”) for three days. And then at midnight, Christmas morning, the midnight sun begins to move northward. And the new light, the holy child (the soul) within our hearts and minds and in that little stable in Bethlehem … the holy child is born. We are anointed with light—the soul’s light.
So many events this week. Such a complex day is the solstice—Capricorn sun, Gemini moon, Venus/Neptune, Mercury/Jupiter (an auspicious time). And Saturday morning, a full moon—the last of the year—the Capricorn solar festival at 0.49 degrees. Monday is Christmas Eve, with Leo moon (sign of the gift of each of us). Tuesday is Christmas day.
The Christmas narrative is familiar. We all know the story. Mother and father, innocent child, shepherds, a bright star (Sirius), and animals all around. No room at the inn, the stable, the manger with hay, angels singing. At this solstice Christmas new light time, let us restore Christmas to its spiritual purpose and its distant origins, to its beauty, light and magic, with sacred rituals, prayers and invocations. And let’s join the angels saying “Merry Christmas, everyone. Peace on Earth, goodwill to all.” Love, Risa
ARIES: It’s important to maintain moment-to-moment awareness of all experiences each day, and of all who come into your sphere of life. If aware, you will see their gifts (talents and abilities) and they will reflect your talents, too This is a great revelation. Allow yourself no expectations. Remain poised in observation of all that is around you. In this silence, new values, new perspectives and the new realities you’ve been searching for appear.
TAURUS: Know that plans will change; feelings and emotions, too. Memories will be part of the holidays this year, and you have many of them. You will sense and feel the special people who are no longer with us. Know they still love you, always remaining close by. You will have new revelations about your work in the world. Perhaps a book, a painting, a work of creativity. Follow the signs, intuitions and impressions given.
GEMINI: If not traveling, then soon you should be. Travel offers prospects and plans that change the course of your life, advancing you into the future. When retrogrades occur, all our focus turns inward. But we are out of the long retrogrades. So thoughts, ideas and plans become practical. You seek new ways to make contact and communicate. Plan to study compassionate (non-violent) communication with friends and partners. You will never be the same after.
CANCER: New insights come forth about the people in your life. Before, you had global ideas, but now you have a deeper, more personal understanding of how others live their lives. Communicate your insights to those who care for you. Become interested in what others think. Ask for their insights. This creates deeper connections. And then love is released. You are surprised.
LEO: Tend to your health. A health issue from the past may reoccur. If seeing a doctor, seek a functional doctor (M.D.) in your area or close by. Functional doctors diagnose, test and look at health differently. It’s important to have a new approach to all things, from health to work to animals to plants to co-workers. The full moon offers illuminations and revelations. Listen in silence and solitude. Information comes on little cats’ feet.
VIRGO: Notice your creative expressions increasing. Happiness, enthusiasm and playfulness come into the mix, and you recognize these are natural gifts within each of us. And then something spontaneous occurs, and you understand your life experiences from birth to the present—and then you understand everyone else’s, too. And everything transforms daily in front of your eyes. And then there is joy.
LIBRA: The past returns for review. Nothing can stop this. Gradually, a new perspective appears concerning childhood home, parents, siblings, family interactions. Childhood impressions change like a kaleidoscope of colors. With revelations, your understanding increases and you step unexpectedly into a state of compassion. To anchor this unexpected shift, you reorder everything in your home. And a state of wonder follows you everywhere.
SCORPIO: So many thoughts occurring during this time. You attempt to find a pattern to a puzzle of life. You realize there are things you want to say (and not say) to family and friends. You notice all around is the light of insight and a new way of doing things, and you review old knowledge and see how it forms the foundation for a new philosophy of life. Soon, quietly, new skills appear, and new perspectives about your life as a server. You are the phoenix arising out of the fire.
SAGITTARIUS: Life and its gifts have you assessing many things—values, resources, what you have and don’t yet have, what you want and don’t want. You look too at what you considered lost (returning later in different forms). New and innovative ideas appear about your future work in the world. They take into consideration all your desires and aspirations, later to anchor creatively in your life. A new land calls. You answer.
CAPRICORN: It’s good to create an “I am …” journal. With Pluto in your sign, all Capricorns are transforming and becoming their greater selves. Seek to see yourself in new ways, with new information being given about who you are. Write in your journal sentences beginning with “I am …” Write every day. See how you begin to unfold and express yourself differently. A new self-coordination, identity, harmony, courage and creativity emerges as you write about yourself and who you are and will become.
AQUARIUS: Perhaps you feel many endings or closings, or maybe you’re approaching a curve in the road. There may be sadness or sorrow concerning something (someone) that is no longer. This will ease over time. New perceptions occur in the coming months, offering an understanding of the past. Look back, then look forward. Cherish everything. Remembering is a gift. Soon, you will be stepping forward onto another path.
PISCES: So many things change for Pisces during this time concerning affiliated groups. You review when and why you joined certain groups and your purpose with them. They hold a different importance in your life now, and you gradually make changes in terms of your interactions. A new world service is calling; new relationships and a new form of group interaction take place. You step more fully into inner worlds, while remaining very practical in the outer worlds. There is no confusion. They are one.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Consumer Reports says that between 1975 and 2008, the average number of products for sale in a supermarket rose from about 9,000 to nearly 47,000. The glut is holding steady. Years ago, you selected from among three or four brands of soup and shampoo. Nowadays, you may be faced with 20 varieties of each. I suspect that 2019 will bring a comparable expansion in some of your life choices, Aries—especially when you’re deciding what to do with your future and who your allies should be. This could be both a problem and a blessing. For best results, opt for choices that have all three of these qualities: fun, usefulness and meaningfulness.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): People have been trying to convert ordinary metals into gold since at least 300 A.D. At that time, an Egyptian alchemist named Zosimos of Panopolis unsuccessfully mixed sulfur and mercury in the hope of performing such magic. Fourteen centuries later, seminal scientist Isaac Newton also failed in his efforts to produce gold from cheap metal. But now let’s fast forward to 20th-century chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, a distinguished researcher who won a share of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1951. He and his team did an experiment with bismuth, an element that’s immediately adjacent to lead on the periodic table. By using a particle accelerator, they literally transmuted a small quantity of bismuth into gold. I propose that we make this your teaching story for 2019. May it inspire you to seek transformations that have never before been possible.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): U.S. President Donald Trump wants to build a concrete and fence wall between Mexico and America, hoping to slow down the flow of immigrants across the border. Meanwhile, 12 North African countries are collaborating to build a 4,750-mile-long wall of drought-resistant trees at the border of the Sahara, hoping to stop the desert from swallowing up farmland. During the coming year, I’ll be rooting for you to draw inspiration from the latter, not the former. Erecting new boundaries will be healthy for you—if it’s done out of love and for the sake of your health, not out of fear and divisiveness.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau advised artists to notice the aspects of their work that critics didn’t like—and then cultivate those precise aspects. He regarded the disparaged or misconstrued elements as being key to an artist’s uniqueness and originality, even if they were as-yet immature. I’m expanding his suggestion and applying it to all of you crabs during the next 10 months, even if you’re not strictly an artist. Watch carefully what your community seems to misunderstand about the new trends you’re pursuing, and work hard to ripen them.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In 1891, a 29-year-old British mother named Constance Garnett decided she would study the Russian language and become a translator. She learned fast. During the next 40 years, she produced English translations of 71 Russian literary books, including works by Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, and Chekhov. Many had never before been rendered in English. I see 2019 as a Constance Garnett-type year for you, Leo. Any late-blooming potential you might possess could enter a period of rapid maturation. Awash in enthusiasm and ambition, you’ll have the power to launch a new phase of development that could animate and motivate you for a long time.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I’ll be bold and predict that 2019 will be a nurturing chapter in your story; a time when you will feel loved and supported to a greater degree than usual; a phase when you will be more at home in your body and more at peace with your fate than you have in a long time. I have chosen an appropriate blessing to bestow upon you, written by the poet Claire Wahmanholm. Speak her words as if they were your own. “On Earth I am held, honeysuckled not just by honeysuckle but by everything—marigolds, bog after bog of small sundews, the cold smell of spruce.”
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out.” This advice is sometimes attributed to 16th-century politician and cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Now I’m offering it to you as one of your important themes in 2019. Here’s how you can best take it to heart. First, be extremely discerning about what ideas, theories and opinions you allow to flow into your imagination. Make sure they’re based on objective facts, and make sure they’re good for you. Second, be aggressive about purging old ideas, theories and opinions from your head, especially if they’re outmoded, unfounded or toxic.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Memorize this quote by author Peter Newton and keep it close to your awareness during the coming months: “No remorse. No if-onlys. Just the alertness of being.” Here’s another useful maxim, this one from author Mignon McLaughlin: “Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference.” Shall we make it a lucky three mottos to live by in 2019? This one’s by author A. A. Milne: “You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Until 1920, most American women didn’t have the right to vote. For that matter, few had ever been candidates for public office. There were exceptions. In 1866, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the first to seek a seat in Congress. In 1875, Victoria Woodhull ran for president. Susanna Salter became the first woman mayor in 1887. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Sagittarius, 2019 will be a Stanton-Woodhull-Salter type of year for you. You’re likely to be ahead of your time and primed to innovate. You’ll have the courage and resourcefulness necessary to try seemingly unlikely and unprecedented feats, and you’ll have a knack for ushering the future into the present.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Studies show that the best possible solution to the problem of homelessness is to provide cheap or free living spaces for the homeless. Not only is it the most effective way of helping the people involved; in the long run, it’s also the least expensive. Is there a comparable problem in your personal life? A chronic difficulty that you keep putting Band-Aids on, but that never gets much better? I’m happy to inform you that 2019 will be a favorable time to dig down to find deeper, more fundamental solutions; to finally fix a troublesome issue rather than just addressing its symptoms.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Many people in Iceland write poems, but only a few publish them. There’s even a term for those who put their creations away in a drawer rather than seeking an audience: skúffuskáld, literally translated as “drawer-poet.” Is there a comparable phenomenon in your life, Aquarius? Do you produce some good thing but never share it? Is there a part of you that you’re proud of but keep secret? Is there an aspect of your ongoing adventures that’s meaningful but mostly private? If so, 2019 will be the year you might want to change your mind about it.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Scientists at Goldsmiths, University of London, did a study to determine the catchiest pop song ever recorded. After extensive research in which they evaluated an array of factors, they decided that Queen’s “We Are the Champions” is the song that more people love to sing than any other. This triumphant tune happens to be your theme song in 2019. I suggest you learn the lyrics and melody, and sing it once every day. It should help you build on the natural confidence-building influences that will be streaming into your life.
Homework: Write a parable or fairy tale that captures what your life has been like in 2018. Testify at Freewillastrology.com.
Too bad the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t keep “poets per capita” stats, because Santa Cruz would probably be a national leader in that arena.
If you’re looking for a leading indicator on the richness of Santa Cruz’s poetry culture, take the high turnover in county’s poet laureate program. A new poet laureate comes along every two years, which is more often than some people buy new sneakers.
“What happens in some places is that they have the same poet laureate for a long time,” says poet and teacher Danusha Laméris. “That’s because they don’t necessarily have a wide pool of poets to choose from. Here we can turn it over every two years exactly because we have so many people who are seriously pursuing their writing.”
Laméris is now experiencing that phenomenon first-hand. She was recently named Santa Cruz County’s new poet laureate, taking the baton from the incumbent Robert Sward, who himself followed a string of luminaries in the position, including Ellen Bass, Gary Young and David Swanger.
It’s a sudden boost in credibility and visibility for the author of the 2014 volume The Moons of August,who has also published in the New York Times, Ploughshares, Best American Poetry and several other journals and anthologies.
A decade ago, Laméris was part of the effort to establish the program as a board member for the local group Poetry Santa Cruz. This time, her friends in the organization approached her with what they called an “invitation.”
“They said, ‘We have an invitation for you,’ and I said, ‘Is it a party?’ They were like, ‘Well, it’s a two-year party.’”
Each poet laureate comes into office with a specific mission. Laméris’s mission is to initiate what she calls “poetry pop-ups,” to bring poetry events to venues and settings where you probably would not encounter poetry otherwise. The first example will take place on Feb. 9 at the downtown yoga studio Nourish. It’s a pre-Valentine’s Day event called One Breath. “It’ll be an event for Valentine’s that’s not necessarily for couples, but for everybody,” she says.
Laméris came to poetry from an unusual parallel path. When she first came to Santa Cruz as an undergrad at UCSC, she studied painting. But poetry had been a central theme of her upbringing. One of the drivers of the carpool she belonged to as a kid growing up in Berkeley was U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. In high school, she met acclaimed poet Tony Hoagland (“He just happened to be dating my Spanish teacher,” she says).
But most fundamentally of all, her grandfather was a poet who published a collection of poems about life in his native Barbados.
“I remember going (to Barbados) when I was 9 or 10,” she says, “and being with my granddad talking with his friends who were all poets. Years later, I read their work in anthologies. And the conversations they were having were so fascinating to me, these men in their West Indian accents, quoting verse and debating it. It was very pivotal for me.”
Still, Laméris didn’t turn to poetry until after graduation, when she saw a flyer for a workshop with poet Ellen Bass. Since then, it has not only been her artistic playground and an avenue to meet mentors and other inspiring people; it has helped her survive considerable family tragedy, specifically the death of her son and the suicide of her twin brother.
“I feel that as artists, we all have some kind of irritant that we work on over a lifetime,” she says. “You know, that whole grain-of-sand-in-an-oyster thing. For me, that irritant has been grief.”
Today, Laméris is not only writing—she’s just completed a new manuscript of what she hopes will become her second book of poetry—but also leading workshops for other aspiring poets. As poet laureate, she’ll be part of the Hive Collective, which will broadcast a poetry show on Santa Cruz’s new non-commercial radio station KSQD in the new year.
She’ll also become the public face of a thriving culture of poetry that goes back generations in Santa Cruz, which has produced high-profile poets and poetry events and created an environment where poetry can continue to pop up in unexpected places.
“I’m just looking forward to creating more poetry communities and pollinating poetry in the community,” she says. “That’s my passion and dedication.”
Live music highlights for the week of Dec. 19, 2018
WEDNESDAY 12/19
ROCK
MIKE RENWICK’S HOLIDAY DELUXE
The holidays are back, and that means one man has been preparing all year for one night. Not Santa—we’re talking about Boulder Creek musician Mike Renwick. He’s back with his Holiday Deluxe show. For 364 days, Renwick plans, practices and works with Bay Area musicians to create a holiday experience so amazing you’ll forget about all of the coal Santa left in your stocking. Dashing through the show is a mix of rock, blues and funk jams, with Renwick breaking out the acoustic guitar from time to time. MAT WEIR
Things have gotten more laid back since jazz guitarist Josh Collins joined Proxima Parada a few years back. Having once described their music as “porch-stompin,” this slower, smoother, more soulful version of the band could’ve been met with eye rolls and resistance. Instead, fans embraced the more mature R&B sound, even contributing to a Kickstarter to fund their last album, Big Seven. All in all, redirecting creative efforts into jazzier, smokier and tighter arrangements (and gaining Josh Collins, of course) have evolved Proxima Parada into the best version of itself so far. AMY BEE
Back in the bronze age, when record labels could build global empires on the strength of a concept, Windham Hill became an international force with a stable of startlingly accomplished musicians versed in an array of acoustic musical traditions. Among the label’s best-selling releases was a series of seasonal anthologies, and none did better than 1986’s A Winter’s Solstice. The album birthed a perennially popular tour. Marking the 30th anniversary of that undertaking, three of the original artists are back on the road together: Windham Hill founder Will Ackerman, Grammy-nominated Alex de Grassi and the extraordinary Barbara Higbie. ANDREW GILBERT
INFO: 7:30 p.m. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $36.75/adv, $45/door. 423-8209.
ELECTRO-FUNK
PLANET BOOTY
These electro-funk, retro visionaries juxtapose ’80s workout hotties, with frontman Dylan Germick pouring wet foods on dry foods and singing catchy, silly-sexy lyrics about getting naked all day. I came away kinda … well, hungry. But maybe Planet Booty are purposefully pointing out the cosmic connection between food, sex and exercise? How dance is the fruit of life, and booty is the fruition of a life well-lived, like that cigarette butt commercial where all the butts rap about the beauty of their differences? In that case, I (and everyone else) am the perfect fan base. AB
The lighthearted, breezy reggae-pop songs of Anuhea are staples in Hawaii, the land where she hails from. Her second album, 2011’s For Love, really seems to have struck a pop chord with the people there, finding the middle ground between reggae and island music. After releasing some EPs and a live record, she’s back with a new album, Follow Me. It’s a bit more intense than the simple smiling-girl-walking-around-the-island-with-her ukulele that defined her early years. It’s still got those elements, but it’s blended with a modernized, drum-machine-y R&B flair. AARON CARNES
Is it more important to sound like the Grateful Dead, or embody the spirit of the band? Here at GT, we don’t think anyone should have to sacrifice either when trying to get their twirl on in the pit. Thankfully, neither do Los Angeles’ Grateful Shred. Since 2016, they have kept the laissez-faire, controlled-chaos philosophy of the Dead while replicating the songs and sounds of one of the Bay Area’s monumental groups. MW
Is there a band name more Watsonville than the Apple City Slough Band? No, there is not. This six-piece of Apple City rockers proudly wears their Watsonville pride on their sleeves as they bring a large heaping of breezy, jam-band rock ‘n’ roll with a distinctly Americana rootsy twist. It’s good, down-home music without pretense, like a low-key, lo-fi Eagles. It’s like they sing: “We’re not musicians. We just like to rock ’n’ roll.” Their record Live at Costanoa will make you feel extra groovy. AC
INFO: 8:30 p.m. Michael’s on Main, 2591 Main St., Soquel. $10. 479-9777.
SATURDAY 12/22
ROCK
THE ROCK COLLECTION
Santa Cruz, it’s time to light up a J. A nice sticky J—one that slows things down and gets your heart rate up. The kind that gets you hearing new things in music. You know what J I’m talking about: jam. When it comes to this big J, you’d be hard pressed to find a more accomplished group of musicians than the Rock Collection. Featuring Melvin Seals of the Jerry Garcia Band, Stu Allen of Phil Lesh and Friends, and Greg Anton of blues-fusion beast Zero, the Rock Collective rolls up and pass around gobs of the sticky, icky stuff. MIKE HUGUENOR
When you say the word “funk,” everyone thinks of the same thing: sweaters. This Saturday, Michael’s On Main brings us the Funky Sweater Xmess Get Down, a Christmas sweater funk fest wherein the funkiest sweater wins. Laying down the beat for this funky (and insulated) holiday bacchanal is Chico’s Smokey the Groove, a jazz-funk ensemble with a full horn section that promises each show will be (no joke) “a journey through time, space and the beyond.” Be sure to bring a sweater that can handle at least four funky dimensions. MH
INFO: 8:30 p.m. Michael’s On Main, 2591 Main St., Soquel. $10. 479-9777.
