[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ast September, laid-back local folk-rock singer-songwriter Austin Shaw released his debut album to a packed house at the Kuumbwa. That same year, he did some touring with Americana legend David Bromberg, as well as ’90s alt-rockers Dada.
“It was a busy 2017,” he says.
Only a few years earlier, Shaw was living in New York, working at an investment bank firm. Music was barely a part of his life.
“It’s the antithesis of what I’m doing now,” he says of his not-so-long-ago old life. “I was working endless hours and wasn’t inspired or enjoying my job. I was doing it to make money. I was doing it because that’s what you do. You graduate from college, and you go and get a job, and get on that treadmill.”
He visited his sister in San Francisco, and enjoyed the break from the rat race so much that he decided to call his boss and quit right there. After flying back to get his stuff, he first lived in San Francisco, then Santa Cruz, lured by the surfing and easy beach life.
Since then, he’s become quite a prolific songwriter. In the past, he’d mostly played covers. But he also wrote stories, and after his sister made a comment about how much they were like songs, he pursued the craft.
“I’ve always been a big fan of storytellers, the James Taylors and the Paul Simons of the world, [up] to new guys like Mason Jennings. There was always something that I connected with. I was actually an English literature major in college,” Shaw says. “Once the floodgates were open, it started to flow.”
INFO: 8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 1. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $9/adv, $12/door. 479-1854.
Event highlights for the week of February 28, 2018.
Green Fix
Community Art Fundraiser
The U.S. is facing the largest removal of protected lands ever, and the Monumental Action organization, a Felton-based grassroots organization, believes that the key to protecting our land is through art and creativity. The president recently shrunk Bears Ears National Monument and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and there are at least 10 more monuments on the chopping block, and many others at risk. Monumental Action will host its first community art fundraiser on First Friday to continue their mission in bringing awareness and visibility around the importance of the environment and public lands.
‘Imagining Safe Space: A Contemporary Fiber Arts Show’
At this show, “make the most with what you have” is an understatement. Professional textile artist Marilou Moschetti and emerging artist Laurie McCann collaborated on an exhibit to encompass what safe spaces mean and why they matter, using mostly recycled and repurposed materials. McCann says she was heartbroken by the lack of spaces for both animals and people, and wanted to create a show around the importance of safe spaces. Both fiber artists showcase 3D objects like cocoons, nests, caves and other forms made from sustainable cloth, twine and paper.
INFO: Show opens Friday, March 2. Reception 6-9 p.m. Resource Center for Nonviolence. 612 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. 423-1626. rcnv.org. Free.
Sunday 3/4
Gregg Levoy Workshop
Lecturer and best-selling author Gregg Levoy is a human potential expert. A former behavioral specialist at USA Today, Levoy has led self-empowerment talks and workshops at Microsoft, American Express, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Smithsonian Institution, just to name a few. Levoy will be coming to Santa Cruz to lead a psychological, spiritual and practical exploration workshop to help others respond to their life callings. Before quitting your job to become an entrepreneur, go to this workshop to better understand what a calling is, and how you can ensure success before you make the leap.
INFO:10:30 a.m. Free talk and music, 12:30 p.m. workshop begins. The Center for Spiritual Living, 1818 Felt St., Santa Cruz. 462-9383. $30.
Friday 3/2-Sunday 3/11
‘A Raisin in the Sun’
UCSC Theater Arts and Cultural Arts and Diversity presents A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. The 1959 Broadway hit tells the story of a lower class African-American family’s experiences and struggle to gain middle-class acceptance in the face of racism and poverty. Renowned Hollywood actress and UCSC alum Adilah Barnes will play the lead role; you may know her as Anne Marie on ABC’s Roseanne. The title is a nod to Langston Hughes’s poem, “A Dream Deferred,” and the play centers around institutionalized racism and injustices still present today. A Raisin in the Sun is an opportunity for more discourse around racism and economic inequality, because Black history and experiences don’t end in the month of February.
INFO: UCSC Second Stage Theater Arts Center. 1156 High St., Santa Cruz. ucsctickets.com. General admission $18, student/senior $10. Free to UCSC undergraduates with identification, other UCSC affiliates $8.
Friday 3/2
Paul Richmond ‘The Naked Eye’ Opening Reception
Monterey-based Artist Paul Richmond has felt at odds with traditional notions of masculinity his entire life. To him, the concept of masculinity is flexible, nebulous and complex. With this in mind, Richmond painted a series of all-male portraits to explore masculinity in a variety of ways and expressions. From pigment application to color exploration, he invites others to reach beyond the immediate surface to better understand the complexity of what it means to be masculine. Show runs through Saturday, June 30.
INFO: Opening reception 5-9 p.m. Faust, 110 Cooper St. Ste 100F, Santa Cruz. paulrichmondstudio.com. 420-0701. Free.
Saturday 3/3
Diversity Mural Celebration
If you’ve driven past the Louden Nelson Community Center on Laurel Street recently, you may have seen members of the Diversity Center Youth Program hard at work on Santa Cruz’s newest mural. The LGBTQ+ youth inspired mural is called “Unify, Decolonize, Thrive” and represents the past, present and future of marginalized people through history. After nearly two years of collaboration, the mural is complete. There will be a ceremonial reception and guest speakers to celebrate the completion.
INFO: 1-3 p.m. Louden Nelson Community Center, 301 Center St., Santa Cruz. 425-5422. Free.
[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ighway 17 has a long and winding history of requiring grit and skill from those who traverse it. Of all of the unique characters to routinely travel “Killer 17,” one of the most legendary is Charley Parkhurst, a stagecoach driver who made his way West from New Hampshire during the gold rush in 1849.
Parkhurst, known as One-Eyed Charley for the black eye patch he wore after he lost his eye to the kick of a horse, held a reputation for being one of the toughest drivers to guide a six-horse stagecoach for the Pioneer Line between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz. He carried gold, mail and passengers over the summit, persevering over robbers (killing one named Sugarfoot), wild pig crossings, dangerous winter weather, and an unsteady mountain—the types of conditions that are easier for commuters to imagine after last year’s unrelenting storms. Only after Parkhurst’s death did the truth come out: he was, biologically at least, female.
The lesson, perhaps, is that Highway 17 has always been full of surprises. But as commuters look back on the year that rivaled the conditions over which Parkhurst triumphed, they are hoping for far fewer of them on the main artery between Santa Cruz and Silicon Valley this year.
“It was so treacherous,” remembers Judy Jackson, a marriage and family therapist who lives in Santa Cruz and holds her practice in Los Gatos. “It felt like a video game: dodging debris, trees falling around you, and muddy water covering the road.” Jackson has been making the commute for 15 years, and says she has never seen anything like last year’s storms.
They came in with a bang in early January and didn’t let up. During the early morning hours of Monday, Jan. 9, 2017, the first mudslide slammed a KGO-TV news van. That slide’s effects lasted days, leaving the road with only one lane of traffic, and drivers deciding between waiting five to seven hours in their cars to get back to Santa Cruz or finding accommodations over the hill, where most hotels were fully booked. For riders who chose to wait it out, the Los Gatos Pizza My Heart delivered on bikes to people stranded in their cars.
The rain poured on throughout the month, and on Feb. 7, the mountain came down again in the same spot when an estimated 300-foot section of hillside slid onto the highway, blocking traffic in both directions near Jarvis and Vine Hill roads. Commuters were left to extend their commute by at least two hours by taking Highway 1 to Half Moon Bay or take 101 via 156 in Watsonville, hoping for the best on those roads as well.
Erin Buchla is a twin specialist nanny whose clients for the last 18 years have been in San Jose, where she says there is better money to be made. She remembers one day in 2017 that every route into Santa Cruz was closed, leaving her unable to get home. “I realized we are sort of an island when it comes to these roads. We need to take care of them,” she says.
Crews worked through last weekend just below the summit on the Santa Cruz side. PHOTO: KEANA PARKER
Many commuters found camaraderie through the Facebook group Highway 17 Commuters and its more colorful sister group, Santa Cruz Commuters Rants and Raves, which reminds members to “try not to be an asshole all the time.” A favorite topic on the site, second to “boulders” moving slowly in the fast lane, is the “wet spot,” at Big Moody Curve near Redwood Estates in the southbound lanes. Accidents regularly happen there, and the term EFD, for “Every Fucking Day,” has become a sort of motto for regular commuters. Buchla’s son is even making a clothing line that reps the EFD acronym.
It was on the Rants and Raves page that Buchla first floated the idea of hosting an appreciation event for the workers on 17. “There was just so much complaining, and I felt like instead of complaining we could turn around and appreciate these people for what they’re doing, and not play the blame game because this is Mother Nature we’re working against,” she says. There was a positive reaction to the idea, and soon her inbox was flooded with offers to contribute food, entertainment and services.
Two days after the second Jarvis slide, a contractor for Granite Construction, Robert “Bobby” Gill and his coworker were struck by a truck that had just emptied debris and was backing up. Both were trapped under the vehicle, and Gill was killed. After word of the tragedy got around, the commuter community rallied, and Buchla’s Go Fund Me page raised $4,200.
By the end of February, when a tree came down crossing all four lanes, commuters and mountain residents had taken matters into their own hands, with one person supplying a chainsaw to cut the tree before emergency crews could get there.
Rainfall totals in January were 11.13 inches, up from the previous year’s 8.31 inches, and February didn’t let up either with almost 10 inches of rain, a dramatic increase from .72 inches the previous year. “Nobody expected we’d get out of a drought in one season and our mountains would fall down on our roads,” Buchla says.
Road (and Reputation) Repair
CalTrans bore the brunt of criticism for not moving fast enough on repairs last winter, but a year after the storms, Third District Supervisor for Santa Cruz County Ryan Coonerty says he’s happy with how quickly they responded to the crisis.
Santa Cruz County CalTrans spokesperson Susana Cruz says the improvements have been focused on three areas:
Sugarloaf and Glenwood, where the viaducts have had drainage improvements and paving;
The Wedding Chapel, where construction is ongoing after a slide went under the roadway and did some damage to water tanks. It required improvements through a paving and a barrier slab. They also did a soldier pile wall, drainage and slope reconstruction. The remaining work will take three or four more weeks with the total project costing 3.5 million;
Jarvis Road, where work is continuing after the slides. Cruz says there is an ongoing effort to repair the road from storm damage and maintenance from Scotts Valley to the county line at the summit. There are water percolation issues, so they are putting in a mattress drain system. This cost of this project is 1.5 million.
On the Santa Clara County side of the road, CalTrans is attending to sinkholes. Near mile marker 3.0 (measuring from the County Line at Patchen Pass), crews detected a sinkhole that appeared on the embankment as a result of the heavy winter storms. Further investigation showed that the culvert became separated, causing more erosion, which extended below the northbound number two (slow) lane. They discovered a second drainage system problem at post mile 3.1, where an invert was completely rotted away and washing out material under the pavement.
Also in April, a sinkhole began to manifest itself south of Idylwild Road at mile 1.6, close to the Redwood Estates exit that also leads to Holy City, once a religious community with a famously lurid history. The department’s geotechnical staff determined that higher groundwater levels due to the heavy winter storms were causing the sinkholes. If allowed to continue unabated, they warned, the sinkholes would expand further, with the resulting pavement damage causing closure.
Meg Brown, an artist and educator who is now retired, remembers when it was common for cars to overheat going over the summit. Her favorite improvement on Highway 17 is the raising of the berm by four inches to help block oncoming headlights, but she also appreciates the attention to detail that has gone into the recent repairs, including the faux rock walls on the exterior of the barrier walls.
“It’s a beautiful hill, and they stayed with the beauty of the hill just by that little detail, besides all of the engineering that went into it to make sure the hill doesn’t slide in and block people from being able to get to work,” Cruz says.
How Safe?
The high volume of commuters poses the biggest challenge to road repairs, says Cruz. There are currently 63,000 people commuting over the hill to work each day.
Some, like Jackson, have grown to love their commutes over 17. She’s noticed that the scanning of the road seems to mimic the healing that happens in EMDR therapy used for trauma. She says it helps her to process the traumatic experiences of her clients as well as her own grief she experienced when her mom passed away. “Where I used to dread my commute, I now see it as sort of meditation and therapy and appreciate the calm it brings,” she says. “Well, when the road isn’t being washed away in a storm.”
Even with an increasing number of commuters, Cruz says the Safe on 17 Task Force that was developed 10 years ago has had an impact on reducing collisions by 40 percent in the last decade by focusing on increased enforcement and visibility by the California Highway Patrol, changeable message signs indicating speed or warnings, closed circuit TV cameras and traffic monitoring stations.
That trend has reversed in the last two years, though. In an email, Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission’s transportation planner Ginger Dykaar tells GT that “over the last three years, the number of injuries and fatal collisions on Highway 17 have increased substantially, with the increase in 2016 being the greatest since the Safe on 17 program began.” Complete 2017 collision data will be revealed at the Safe on 17 meeting next month.
“It felt like a video game: dodging debris, trees falling around you, and muddy water covering the road.” – Judy Jackson
Of the 989 collisions in 2016, 266 were injury accidents, and two of those were fatal. That number of fatal injuries may seem shockingly low to commuters who see semingly physics-threatening accidents regularly, but most years, the fatalities are either one or zero—a huge improvement from 36 in 1967, and 8 in 1990. Throughout the years, speeding has consistently been listed as the primary factor for collisions.
While there is not a lot that can be done to widen the road because of the geographical limitations, the Highway 17 Access Management Plan, a multi-agency effort, hopes to reduce “contact points” by studying the congestion patterns. They believe that reducing the entrances and exits through driveway consolidation will help keep traffic moving more smoothly. “You’re not widening the roadway, you’re trying to make that roadway as productive and as least congested as possible,” Cruz says.
“It’s always a balance, because people rely on those entrances or exits to get to their homes,” Coonerty says, “so it’s looking at changes on a micro level to understand what can be done and how it would impact people.”
Stephen Brown, who began commuting on Highway 17 in 1980 and made the trip “only a couple thousand times” before he was able to work as a technical writer from home in Santa Cruz, appreciates these minor adjustments. He recalls the slight widening of curves and the addition of a shoulder to the second curve after the Glenwood Cutoff where there used to be regular accidents. “They did a fairly minor change. All it meant is there was a little shoulder there, it was a little wider, and it made it hugely easier to drive, in ways that most people don’t pay attention to,” he says.
Brown has paid a lot of attention to Highway 17, though, making the highway a fictional character in a book he wrote after he served on a jury involving a road-rage shooting death of a man in 1991. The incident apparently started near Lexington Reservoir, continued over the 26-mile stretch of the mountain, and ended near 41st Avenue, where paramedics found the victim’s body and initially thought it was a hit and run incident. In his glove box, authorities found the licence plate of the alleged shooter, one of many clues that didn’t add up to a conviction for the hung jury.
The Metering Effect
The idea of keeping Santa Cruz small and sacred goes back as long as the road has been in existence, to the Ohlone who lived here for 10,000 years before the Spanish arrived. Father Lasuén, founder of nine of the 21 California missions, made the journey over the hill, according to historians, on Aug. 28, 1791. In his 1791 report written at the San Carlos Mission, he expresses excitement about building a trade route between the Santa Clara and Santa Cruz missions, and although it was a rough road, he would have it repaired “by means of the Indians of the mission”—i.e., slave labor.
More than 200 years later, one-third of Santa Cruz County relies on the economic connection to the South Bay, according to Coonerty.
Just as long-standing is residents’ resistance to the commute. Controversies about making the road more direct began in the 1950s, according to Richard Beal’s 1991 book Highway 17: The Road to Santa Cruz. At the time of the debate over whether to designate 17 as a freeway in the 1960s (which would have eliminated entrances and exits), then-Santa Cruz County Supervisor Henry Mello introduced a resolution to make Highway 17 a one-way road northbound from Santa Cruz. It failed by a 3-2 vote.
This idea appeared again in 1984 when Gary Patton, then a Santa Cruz County Supervisor, said, “A decision to widen Highway 17 will fundamentally alter the future of the [Santa Cruz] community. If we add more lanes to the highway, they will be used to capacity and it will destroy the independence and uniqueness of this community. The only thing that gives us any chance of maintaining our quality of life here is that mountain.”
Coonerty’s idea of quality of life for Santa Cruzans has evolved since Patton spoke those words. He’d like to see our local economy supporting Santa Cruz residents. “Every hour you’re sitting in your car trying to get to and from work is an hour you’re not spending with family or volunteering in the community or coming to a city council meeting,” he says.
He points to the growing tech companies Looker, Productops, Buoy, and Amazon. “Amazon’s growing here is a product of their engineers not wanting to commute over the hill. I think companies are recognizing they can have access to a talent pool and lower real estate costs here and happier employees if they set up satellite offices or they let them work remotely in co-working spaces or at home. I’m hopeful that the future economy, by allowing that flexibility, can be a little more humane for our residents,” he says.
Matthew Swinnerton, programs director of Santa Cruz Works, whose mission supports the development and growth of tech and science companies here in Santa Cruz, says it’s already happening. “They’re already here. If you go to Amazon’s career page, they have 32 open positions. Looker has 25 positions. Plantronics has 26. Those are just the published positions, and I know Amazon and Looker are going to increase that significantly,” he says.
Buchla, who has two side jobs as an Uber driver and caterer, ended up throwing the appreciation party that her Go Fund Me page had funded for Highway 17 workers, police and firefighters on June 17 of last year. It included a host of raffle prizes—including four box seat tickets to the Giants and Sharks games and five-star hotel stays—food from Corralitos Meat Market, beer from New Bohemia Brewing, and ice cream from Marianne’s, as well as music by local musicians.
Like so many, Buchla dreams of ending her daily Highway 17 drive even under the best conditions. She may not be able to find high paying nanny jobs here, but she has her sight set on opening a café in Capitola Village.
We have many festivals again this week, all occurring on Thursday. Chinese New Year, Full Moon, Purim, Holi. Chinese New Year always ends at full moon with the hanging and releasing of lighted lanterns. It is a Festival of Lanterns and Light.
The festival of Purim celebrates the freedom of the Hebrew people from the cruel Haman (a magistrate) seeking to destroy them. Esther, the Queen of Persia, who was secretly Jewish, saved her people from death. It’s a joyful festival and one bakes the sweet cookie, Hamantaschen (Haman’s pockets), to celebrate this festival.
Holi is the Hindu Spring Festival of Colors. Bonfires are lit the night before warding off evil. Holi is the most colorful festival in the world. It is also a Festival of Love – of Radha for Krishna (the blue-colored God). It is a Spring festival with singing, dancing, carnivals, food and drink (Bhang, a drink made of cannabis leaves). Holi signifies good over evil, ridding oneself of past errors, ending conflicts through rapprochement (returning to each other). It is a day of forgiveness, including debts. Holi also marks the beginning of New Year.
Thursday is the Pisces solar festival (11.23 degrees) under a full moon. The Soul’s meditative seed thought for Pisces, recited with the Great Invocation, is “I leave the Father’s house and turning back, I save.” In Pisces under Soul direction, we are here to help “… close the door to evil and restore the Plan on Earth.”
ARIES: In the next days, weeks and months it’s important to see yourself as resourceful and valuable. Perhaps this is difficult. Make lists of all your gifts, abilities, talents, good deeds, thoughts, ideas and plans. And then all your blessings. In these your value appears. Place these lists on doors, walls and mirrors. Read and review daily. These offer you a new self identity as server for humanity—the task for all Aries in the Aquarian Age.
TAURUS: Things hide away, especially you. Or you find someone else in hiding and join them. Someone close is quite mysterious and valuable to you. They’re knowledgeable and have the skills needed for your next creative endeavor for humanity’s future. Resources are hidden away too, though still available. Call these resources forth in prayers and mantras and sacred words, while tending to practical daily tasks. Eliminate (give away) as much as possible.
GEMINI: Past friends, experiences, events, relationships, and resources are contacted, re-discovered and renewed. All of these are valuable for reasons later revealed in your future. A certain group, also from the past, holds great Love/Wisdom (Ray 2, Gemini’s ray). They hold out to you a way to enter the life stream of humanity through study and understanding of the mysteries. You should renew your study of astrology and your transits.
CANCER: Ponder upon how you want to be seen, known and recognized in the world and how you want to help build the new culture and civilization. You are to nurture the new era at its foundational stages. Begin your garden soon, have a worm bin, create biodynamic soil, use organic seeds. Parsley and cilantro are most important for you this year. Teach everyone what you learn. Cancer needs to move from feeding the world to helping the world feed itself.
LEO: The Earth (soil, trees, plants growing) is very important for your well-being. Make sure you’re out and about in the Sun at dawn and dusk, out with the devas and in nature—the most balanced kingdom. The Sun’s radiations strengthen your heart and mind, refocuses your enthusiasm (“filled with God”), rebalances your entire system. When we are balanced and in rhythm, practical health emerges. Where is your garden and who are your companions?
VIRGO: You may struggle mentally to maintain equilibrium between what you desire and what is actually possible. It’s good to study the subject of sacrifice—the First Law of the Soul. At the center of sacrifice is Love. Love and sacrifice are the same. We are on Earth because we sacrificed (chose) to be here. You may feel you’ve become the warrior. Spiritual warriors are practical, poised and always triumphant.
LIBRA: You will assess your relationships in terms of their value. Not value as in money but virtues. Simultaneously, assess the values (virtues) you offer others. Is there more Goodwill you can offer others? Goodwill creates Right Relations. Allow only the goodness of yourself to be radiated outward. Goodness is an inner purity. What goodness do you offer others? Remember true love isn’t a feeling. It’s a choice.
SCORPIO: Tend daily to all things small and necessary, offering your deepest attention. Observe habits, agendas, how you work in all environments. Observe how others work, too. Care and tend to yourself. Evolution occurs step by step. We begin with tending to our physical, emotional and mental bodies. Then we progress to things spiritual. Each day “brood” upon the service needed for the coming day. Ask for Soul direction. The personality then becomes calmed.
SAGITTARIUS: A long held creative dream seems to be all around you. You’re redefining, reassessing and reaffirming the importance of your life’s work. In the meantime, balance yourself with amusement and play, much needed and much missed recently. Acknowledge that your creative work reflects who you are now, and part of who you will become later. All parts of you are aligning in a close spiritual unity. You are building a Temple of the Soul.
CAPRICORN: You see the need for nourishment of the self and of others. One source of nourishment is financial security. Another is the beauty, design and organization of your home and gardens and outdoor rooms. Make sure as you tend to your home that you create a practical and private workspace for yourself. Your imagination, vision and creativeness are most important for your well-being, your home and family at this time. Create over time, the garden of your dreams.
AQUARIUS: Times seems to have sped up. At times, we can feel that life is a bit wild and out of control. We are entering the Aquarian Age, ruled by Uranus, god of Lightning. New things, in coming times, will appear. A new balance is attempting to come forth in the world. Know that you are a returned “angel” come to help humanity steer itself downstream in a new Noah’s Ark. You are to identify, work with and bring in the new culture and civilization. What part do you want to play? Think deeply on this.
PISCES: Life becomes more accelerated, yet more-subtle, at times feeling a bit out of focus and very different. In these difficult financial times, it’s good to tithe (give) to those in need—St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital; Catholic Charities; Doctors Without Borders; UNESCO. These are difficult financial times. The spiritual law is that what we give is returned 10-fold so we can give and give again. When we serve others, our life is spiritually cared for—the third Law of the Soul is Service. Hang lanterns everywhere. Then leave them there.
Free will astrology for the week of February 28, 2018.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): On Sept. 1, 1666, a London baker named Thomas Farriner didn’t take proper precautions to douse the fire in his oven before he went to sleep. Consequences were serious. The conflagration that ignited in his little shop burned down large parts of the city. Three hundred and twenty years later, a group of bakers gathered at the original site to offer a ritual atonement. “It’s never too late to apologize,” said one official, acknowledging the tardiness of the gesture. In that spirit, Aries, I invite you to finally dissolve a clump of guilt you’ve been carrying . . . or express gratitude that you should have delivered long ago . . . or resolve a messy ending that still bothers you . . . or transform your relationship with an old wound . . . or all of the above.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The Committee to Fanatically Promote Taurus’s Success is pleased to see that you’re not waiting politely for your next turn. You have come to the brilliant realization that what used to be your fair share is no longer sufficient. You intuitively sense that you have a cosmic mandate to skip a few steps—to ask for more and better and faster results. As a reward for this outbreak of shrewd and well-deserved self-love, and in recognition of the blessings that are currently showering down on your astrological House of Noble Greed, you are hereby granted three weeks’ worth of extra service, free bonuses, special treatment, and abundant slack.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): No one can be somewhat pregnant. You either are or you’re not. But from a metaphorical perspective, your current state is a close approximation to that impossible condition. Are you or are you not going to commit yourself to birthing a new creation? Decide soon, please. Opt for one or the other resolution; don’t remain in the gray area. And there’s more to consider. You are indulging in excessive in-betweenness in other areas of your life, as well. You’re almost brave and sort of free and semi-faithful. My advice about these halfway states is the same: Either go all the way or else stop pretending you might.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): The Appalachian Trail is a 2,200-mile path that runs through the Eastern United States. Hikers can wind their way through forests and wilderness areas from Mount Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia. Along the way they may encounter black bears, bobcats, porcupines, and wild boars. These natural wonders may seem to be at a remote distance from civilization, but they are in fact conveniently accessible from America’s biggest metropolis. For $8.75, you can take a train from Grand Central Station in New York City to an entry point of the Appalachian Trail. This scenario is an apt metaphor for you right now, Cancerian. With relative ease, you can escape from your routines and habits. I hope you take advantage!
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Is 2018 turning out to be as I expected it would be for you? Have you become more accepting of yourself and further at peace with your mysterious destiny? Are you benefiting from greater stability and security? Do you feel more at home in the world and better nurtured by your close allies? If for some reason these developments are not yet in bloom, withdraw from every lesser concern and turn your focus to them. Make sure you make full use of the gifts that life is conspiring to provide for you.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “You can’t find intimacy—you can’t find home—when you’re always hiding behind masks,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Junot Díaz. “Intimacy requires a certain level of vulnerability. It requires a certain level of you exposing your fragmented, contradictory self to someone else. You running the risk of having your core self rejected and hurt and misunderstood.” I can’t imagine any better advice to offer you as you navigate your way through the next seven weeks, Virgo. You will have a wildly fertile opportunity to find and create more intimacy. But in order to take full advantage, you’ll have to be brave and candid and unshielded.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the coming weeks, you could reach several odd personal bests. For instance, your ability to distinguish between flowery bullshit and inventive truth-telling will be at a peak. Your “imperfections” will be more interesting and forgivable than usual, and might even work to your advantage, as well. I suspect you’ll also have an adorable inclination to accomplish the half-right thing when it’s impossible to do the perfectly right thing. Finally, all the astrological omens suggest that you will have a tricky power to capitalize on lucky lapses.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): French philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “If you do not love too much, you do not love enough.” American author Henry David Thoreau declared, “There is no remedy for love but to love more.” I would hesitate to offer these two formulations in the horoscope of any other sign but yours, Scorpio. And I would even hesitate to offer them to you at any other time besides right now. But I feel that you currently have the strength of character and fertile willpower necessary to make righteous use of such stringently medicinal magic. So please proceed with my agenda for you, which is to become the Smartest, Feistiest, Most Resourceful Lover Who Has Ever Lived.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The state of Kansas has more than 6,000 ghost towns—places where people once lived, but then abandoned. Daniel C. Fitzgerald has written six books documenting these places. He’s an expert on researching what remains of the past and drawing conclusions based on the old evidence. In accordance with current astrological omens, I suggest you consider doing comparable research into your own lost and half-forgotten history. You can generate vigorous psychic energy by communing with origins and memories. Remembering who you used to be will clarify your future.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): It’s not quite a revolution that’s in the works. But it is a sprightly evolution. Accelerating developments may test your ability to adjust gracefully. Quickly-shifting story lines will ask you to be resilient and flexible. But the unruly flow won’t throw you into a stressful tizzy as long as you treat it as an interesting challenge instead of an inconvenient imposition. My advice is not to stiffen your mood or narrow your range of expression, but rather to be like an actor in an improvisation class. Fluidity is your word of power.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): It’s the Productive Paradox Phase of your cycle. You can generate good luck and unexpected help by romancing the contradictions. For example: 1. You’ll enhance your freedom by risking deeper commitment. 2. You’ll gain greater control over wild influences by loosening your grip and providing more spaciousness. 3. If you are willing to appear naive, empty, or foolish, you’ll set the stage for getting smarter. 4. A blessing you didn’t realize you needed will come your way after you relinquish a burdensome “asset.” 5. Greater power will flow your way if you expand your capacity for receptivity.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): As you make appointments in the coming months, you could reuse calendars from 2007 and 2001. During those years, all the dates fell on the same days of the week as they do in 2018. On the other hand, Pisces, please don’t try to learn the same lessons you learned in 2007 and 2001. Don’t get snagged in identical traps or sucked into similar riddles or obsessed with comparable illusions. On the other other hand, it might help for you to recall the detours you had to take back then, since you may thereby figure out how to avoid having to repeat boring old experiences that you don’t need to repeat.
Homework: What good old thing could you give up in order to attract a great new thing into your life? Testify at Freewillastrology.com.
[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ohn Coltrane wasn’t the first jazz musician to seek the ineffable spirit of God via his music. But with the release of his spiritually charged masterpiece A Love Supreme in January 1965, just weeks after the saxophonist recorded the four-part suite with his epochal quartet, Trane permanently sundered the dualistic notion that jazz, a style born to accompany dancing, partying and other profane pursuits, should never deign to approach the sacred.
Recognized as a landmark upon its release, A Love Supreme has continued to expand its reach over the past 50-odd years. Certainly, no extended instrumental composition from the second half of the 20th century has inspired a more vast and varied array of artists (though many musicians who’ve interpreted A Love Supreme don’t tackle all four movements). Guitarists John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana recorded their 1973 summit Love Devotion Surrender as a tribute and response to the album, focusing only on the opening “Acknowledgement,” with its iconic mantra-like four-note bass line.
“The funny thing about A Love Supreme is that it means so much across different genres, not just to crazy experimental guitarists,” says Henry Kaiser, the crazy experimental guitarist. “It means a lot to a surf guitarist like Jim Thomas. It inspires this passion in people. They love it and feel like it changed their lives.”
Outside of San Francisco’s Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church, which has used A Love Supreme as a musical liturgy since opening for worship a few years after the 40-year-old saxophonist’s death from cancer in 1967, no one in the region has done more to make the full suite an active part of the repertoire than Santa Cruz drummer John Hanrahan. He’s been performing the suite around the country in recent years, including a memorable set at the 2014 Monterey Jazz Festival, but the band he brings to Michael’s On Main on Saturday approaches A Love Supreme from an entirely different angle.
Rather than interpreting the suite with an acoustic quartet echoing Trane’s classic ensemble with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones, Hanrahan is plugging in with the divergent electric guitar tandem of Kaiser and Jim Thomas (of the Mermen), electric bass virtuoso Michael Manring, powerhouse tenor saxophonist Tim Lin, and keyboardist Bob Bralove, who brought next-generation digital technology to the Grateful Dead.
It was an encounter with Elvin Jones at Kuumbwa two decades ago that led Hanrahan to A Love Supreme. After a show, he had a chance to talk to the drum legend about the album, and when he purchased a copy, he realized that it was recorded on his birthday (Dec. 9). Reading Coltrane’s liner notes, a passionate prayer (“Let us sing all songs to God”) “just hit home so hard for me,” Hanrahan says. “It really helped me at a time I was going through a difficult period.”
He introduced his Love Supreme tribute in Chicago in 2003, and has been playing it ever since, but it wasn’t until a show in Mill Valley four weeks ago that he expanded the instrumentation. Hanrahan credits veteran booker Tom Miller with suggesting he collaborate with Kaiser, a creative force in free improvisation for four decades.
“Henry doesn’t play guitar, he plays airplane,” Hanrahan says. “He creates this crazy amazing sound. From day one, this piece keeps. It’s so much bigger than all of us. It’s just been unbelievable. We sold out at Sweetwater. The whole Dead community is involved. I’m so excited to bring this to Santa Cruz.”
Like at Sweetwater, the band follows Love Supreme with a second set dedicated to Meditations, the spiritual sequel that Coltrane recorded a year later. More protean than ever, Trane’s music had become more tonally and rhythmically untethered, and the addition of tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders provided an ecstatic foil for the inveterate searcher.
“Most recorded covers take a really different attitude than Coltrane would have liked,” Kaiser says. “I think it’s a door to go through, and you get different things every time you go through it. A lot of people interpret it as a tribute to this specific recording, but we’ve made it electric Love Supreme, more like what ROVA did with Electric Ascension,” a live album and DVD by the great Bay Area saxophone quartet and a stellar cast of musicians exploring Coltrane’s late-career free jazz communion.
Kaiser is onto something. Always in progress, Coltrane didn’t intend the Dec. 9 Love Supreme session as a final statement. According to Ashley Kahn, who wrote the 2003 book A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album, the suite was always intended for a larger ensemble.
“Purely on a musical level, it’s a suite that opens itself up to interpretation,” Kahn told me before a concert marking the 50th anniversary of A Love Supreme’s release. “Coltrane’s original structural plan was to augment the quartet with two more horns and three Latin percussionists. You could see that Coltrane looked at the music as a fluid thing.”
In the hands of Kaiser, Manring, and Hanrahan, et al, you can expect that liquid to be molten.
8 p.m. Saturday, March 3, Michael’s On Main, 2591 Main St., Santa Cruz, $20, 479-9777, michaelsonmainmusic.com.
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n 1993, James “Jimbo” Mathus, a transplant from Mississippi to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, co-formed the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Comprising what Mathus describes as “starving artists working different menial jobs,” the band became a sensation and found itself near the forefront of the late-1990s swing revival.
“We were washing dishes, doing carpentry, just rehearsing and grooving on weird old American music and arts and entertainment,” says Mathus, explaining that the members were “digging on” calypso music from Trinidad, German cabaret records and whatever else they could find. “That’s what was going on for us. We didn’t have TVs, we just played music and worked. We were just juiced on what we were doing, uncovering the old weird roots.”
Early Squirrel Nut Zippers albums are high-energy and hard-swinging. The group’s live performances were spectacular throwbacks to the classic big band era. The Zippers released seven albums over the next seven years, including the platinum-certified Hot, then went their separate ways. The band reformed briefly and released a live album in 2007, but has been quiet since.
The break was due, in large part, to Mathus getting “swept up” recording and touring with blues legend Buddy Guy, including playing guitar on Guy’s Grammy-winning 2003 album Blues Singer. The experience sent Mathus down a different path and he had to put the Squirrel Nut Zippers behind him.
Since then, Mathus has been active as a producer, has been writing songs and engineering, released 15 solo albums, and has toured 225 days a year in a van.
In 2016, he reenergized the Squirrel Nut Zippers and the band has been “touring hard” for a year. With a new album, Beasts of Burgundy, set for release on March 23, the band has new life, a fresh outlook, and new tunes.
“I gave no thought to writing Squirrel Nut Zippers material for the past 17 years because I was writing other stuff,” says Mathus. “When we started getting back together, pretty quickly I realized I needed to start writing again. I was inspired through the energy of the new cast and the characters that lie therein.”
Born and raised in Mississippi, Mathus grew up in a “real musical Southern family.” He was part of a family band and grew up singing and playing all kinds of music, including folk songs from the area. He was introduced to big band music, Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong through Looney Tunes cartoons.
Mathus’ appreciation of swing, big band and Southern roots traditions is at the heart of the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ sound that blends jazz, cabaret, folk, punk, rock and roots. As one of the driving swing revival bands, the Zippers stood out from the pack of throwback swing bands because they brought something new to the genre while building on a solid foundation and understanding of it.
“It comes back to the songs we write,” says Mathus. “They’re kind of enduring. Our songs separate us from any type of throwback thing right off the bat … They’re well composed, interesting songs.”
Now Mathus has a bigger band, some “fresh talent,” and an opportunity to “reevaluate the material and make it even stronger than it was.” Once again, the Zippers push at genre confines. Beasts of Burgundy is dark and mysterious, a celebration of the old, weird New Orleans and a story of characters who accidentally miss Mardi Gras. The 12-song album has a carnival feel, an elaborate cast, and is a glimpse into the fantastic mind of Mathus. Inspired by New Orleans, as well as the poet Ron Cuccia, Beasts of Burgundy is the Zippers reinvigorated.
“I didn’t want to just recreate what we had done before,” says Mathus. “I wanted to revive the music, pull it off the shelf, give it a new life, give it new songs, give it a new beginning.”
Mathus’ longtime mantra is, “Let the music lead.” This revitalization of the Squirrel Nut Zippers is the latest journey led by the music—and Mathus says he couldn’t be happier.
“I just kind of rolled the dice and said, ‘Let’s give it a shot,’” he says. “Now it’s to the point where, after a good year on the road under our belt and a new record that’s fantastic, I’m just looking forward to the next decade.” Then he adds with a laugh. “Or so.”
Squirrel Nut Zippers will perform at 8 p.m. on Monday, March 5 at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $35. 423-8209.
Walking into the Eastside’s compact Cat & Cloud, the energy hits immediately. Fronting Portola Drive, its back door facing the ocean, the coffeehouse exudes the sort of buzz that comes not just from caffeine but from big-shouldered hospitality, as well. The brainchild of former Verve pioneers Jared Truby and Chris Baca, Cat & Cloud holds down its Pleasure Point territory with easy charm and killer coffee. I was welcomed the minute I walked in, surveyed the landscape of Companion Bakeshop pastries, and ordered the house medium roast ($2.75), served up in a huge logo mug. From my seat at the laminated faux surfboard counter I could watch Truby finesse breakfast toasts, some slathered with avocado, others with cream cheese and infant sprouts.
“I do it all,” he jokes. “Morning to evening.” But of course he is exaggerating, since his partners were also working the espresso machines without stopping. The atmosphere is physical, the appearance of this clean well-lighted space is filled with air and sunshine. A steady stream of neighbors arrive as I watched the action. It’s hard to resist the outrageous flavor (butter and caramelized sugar) and texture (chewy interior topped with a featherlight embrace of paper-thin, crispness) of the mighty Companion Bakeshop Kouign Amann ($4.50). I, for one, do not resist it, but cave every time I’m within reach of this dense pastry gem.
As the population in Santa Cruz has thickened, so has the traffic—thus creating little neighborhood mini-towns, from the Westside to the Eastside. And each of these little regions keeps its residents well stocked in coffee shops, cafes and cocktails. The resourceful Cat & Cloud amplifies its clientele by partnering its excellent fresh-roasted coffees with the signature pastries from Companion Bakeshop (this alliance also powers C&C’s downtown station in the Abbott Square Market). As Verve multiplied its appeal by stocking Manresa’s outstanding scones, cakes and croissants, so Cat & Cloud offers the addictive morning treats from a top bakery. A value-added inspiration! Music is spot-on, bouncy pop-rock that pleases without getting in the way. The vibe was perfect, neither too hipster-hip, nor too understated. A bright, clean space seemingly free of “attitude” (i.e., no one feels excluded or not hip enough to enter). Even though the parking situation is a bit of a challenge—there’s a small lot tucked behind the store, otherwise you’re on your own on the locals-only beach community backstreets—I was assured that the parking issue is “being worked on.”
How was the coffee? In a word, full-bodied and delicious. Robust with a bittersweet center of Earth and a caramel finish, thanks for asking. Cat & Cloud’s close neighbors include other Pleasure Point coffee emporia that are busy redefining the surfing quartier—Verve, Chill Out, Coffeetopia, for example. But there are enough coffee lovers to go around, and clearly this vivacious pitstop for coffee and pastries has found its clientele. Open 6 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. 3600 Portola Drive, Santa Cruz.
Appetizer of the Week
The brilliant little Pork Belly “Snack” ($8) at Bantam, in which a feisty square of pork belly (imagine a piece of meaty bacon expanded in four dimensions!) is joined by a small pillow of pureed sweet potato and a colorful side of pickled carrots, cauliflower and other crunchy items. No, seriously, this fork-tender flavor delivery system held up throughout one of the house designer martinis ($9)! Get there early—like when it opens at 5 p.m.—while bar seating is available and the noise level not excessive.
Open 5-9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and until 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Bantam 1010 Fair Ave., Santa Cruz.
Liz Bean says she still remembers one night in a hot tub in 1988 at the home of Oscar Rios, then a union organizer in Watsonville.
Rios’ girlfriend was also there, and when she stepped into the house, Rios began scooting close to Bean, as the two of them made small talk, she says. Suddenly, Rios reached over to her, Bean says, and put his fingers into her vagina.
“I froze. I could not believe this was happening,” says Bean, who now lives in Canada. “It happened really fast, and so I was just in a state of shock. Did I do something? Did I say something? Of course, I didn’t say or do anything that invited this. It felt so shameful to me that I couldn’t tell anybody.”
Just hours after allegations of sexual impropriety came to light on Monday, Rios announced in a statement that he was resigning from his seat on the Watsonville City Council.
“Many years ago, I engaged in behavior that, upon reflection, was inappropriate,” he wrote, addressing allegations from Bean and one other woman—neither of whom say they’re interested in compensation. “I am deeply sorry to hear that my conduct has caused pain and anger to demonstrably good people. It saddens me to know they bear scars from those encounters.”
Rios, a five-time Watsonville mayor, also wrote that he had read the alleged victims’ statements, which had been emailed to local media and Watsonville officials. Rios, long seen as a champion of South County’s progressive politics, claimed that he did not remember some of the encounters, and that he recalled others differently.
While Bean says she would have preferred to hear an apology and full admission, she feels Rios’ resignation is an important step.
“It’s justice. The shame has lifted,” says Bean, who felt the time was right to speak out after the #MeToo movement created a space for women who have experienced sexual assault to come forward.
Shiree Teng, who worked with Rios to organize Watsonville’s cannery workers in the 1980s, says she remembers driving out of town with Rios more than 20 times, sometimes to Los Angeles or Stockton or Modesto.
On every drive, she tells GT, Rios would put his hands on her.
She says that he would often slide one hand down her pants, in spite of her repeated protests, and then would repeatedly demand she return the favor, and if she refused, he would grab her hand himself and place it on his penis. Other times, they would get out of the car in the pitch black of night to stretch their legs, and he would demand oral sex.
“The feeling is reduction, being reduced to nothing. What I wanted and what I felt didn’t matter,” she says. “I was there to comply to the whims and wants of men who are dominant and believe patriarchy in their hearts, even if they say the don’t.”
Teng was 28 and married when she moved to Watsonville in 1985 to begin organizing cannery workers, and Rios, who had already established himself as a charismatic leader in California’s union network, was 40. Although she says she repeatedly told Rios “no” and pushed him away, she stayed at her job because she felt the work was important, and she constantly felt optimistic that Rios’ behavior would somehow come to a halt. On the few occasions that she brought up Rios’ conduct with people she knew, she says they would downplay it. The pain has stayed with her in the 30 years since, and over time festered into a sense of anger.
“I told myself, ‘I am here because of the bigger picture of what we’re doing. That’s bigger than the harassment and the abuse and molestation that are happening,’” she says. “I thought these things were normal.”
Teng, who now lives in Oakland, adds that she had already been sexually harassed and groped several times as a teenager and a young adult, prior to moving to Santa Cruz County.
Teng also remembers lying on a public beach in Watsonville in the 1980s with Rios, when he took out his penis, started masturbating and then ejaculated on her. When she felt disgusted and embarrassed, she says Rios laughed. Teng says there were “countless” other incidents like this.
“I’m speaking up now. I was weak,” she says. “I didn’t speak up. I wish I did. And I’m doing it now.”
In the years ahead, Teng says she’s optimistic that her three sons and three grandsons will be part of a better future, and says that she has prioritized the issue of consent with them—making sure each boy understands that “No means no.”
Back in the 1980s, Teng tried talking about Rios with two of her best friends at the time, but neither provided much guidance on moving forward.
She says that one friend, Steven Morozumi, told her “I never looked at you as a victim,” which she says rattled her, making her wonder if she should just stick it out. Morozumi—who says now that he was deeply disturbed by the incidents—was one of three people who corroborated the allegations Bean and Teng made on Monday.
Another was Linn Lee, who’s close with both Teng and Bean. She was the first person to realize that two of her best friends had eerily similar claims about Rios, a man who each of them had felt unable to discuss for so long. Once Lee discovered the connection in late December, she immediately started a conversation between the both of them.
Lee says that Teng sacrificed her own well-being for a cause that she believed in, as Watsonville cannery workers were fighting for better conditions.
“She’s a really strong woman,” Lee says. “But then when she talks about Oscar, she breaks down like she’s a little girl in a way that I’ve never seen before. She’s clearly experienced some trauma with this, because every time she talks about it, she starts to cry.”
Labor historian Peter Shapiro says Teng told him about Rios abusing her when he interviewed her for his 2016 book Song of the Stubborn One Thousand: The Watsonville Canning Strike, 1985-87.
Shapiro, who once considered Rios a friend, says the whole situation is “all too sad for words.”
“I have a feeling that once this stuff gets out, more women will come forward,” he says. “Generally, politicians who do these kinds of things do them as long as they can get away with it, but the women are the ones we should feel sorry for here.”
Update 02/27/18 10:01 a.m.: This story was updated with additional information, including statements from Linn Lee and Peter Shapiro.
Last September, laid-back local folk-rock singer-songwriter Austin Shaw released his debut album to a packed house at the Kuumbwa. That same year, he did some touring with Americana legend David Bromberg, as well as ’90s alt-rockers Dada.
“It was a busy 2017,” he says.
Only a few years earlier, Shaw was living in New York, working at an investment bank firm....
Event highlights for the week of February 28, 2018.
Green Fix
Community Art Fundraiser
The U.S. is facing the largest removal of protected lands ever, and the Monumental Action organization, a Felton-based grassroots organization, believes that the key to protecting our land is through art and creativity. The president recently shrunk Bears Ears National Monument and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument,...
The U.S. is facing the largest removal of protected lands ever, and the Monumental Action organization, a Felton-based grassroots organization, believes that the key to protecting our land is through art and creativity. The president recently shrunk Bears Ears National Monument and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and there are at least 10 more monuments on the chopping block, and many others at risk. Monumental Action will host its first community art fundraiser on First Friday to continue their mission in bringing awareness and visibility around the importance of the environment and public lands. 
At this show, “make the most with what you have” is an understatement. Professional textile artist Marilou Moschetti and emerging artist Laurie McCann collaborated on an exhibit to encompass what safe spaces mean and why they matter, using mostly recycled and repurposed materials. McCann says she was heartbroken by the lack of spaces for both animals and people, and wanted to create a show around the importance of safe spaces. Both fiber artists showcase 3D objects like cocoons, nests, caves and other forms made from sustainable cloth, twine and paper. 
Lecturer and best-selling author Gregg Levoy is a human potential expert. A former behavioral specialist at 
UCSC Theater Arts and Cultural Arts and Diversity presents 
Monterey-based Artist Paul Richmond has felt at odds with traditional notions of masculinity his entire life. To him, the concept of masculinity is flexible, nebulous and complex. With this in mind, Richmond painted a series of all-male portraits to explore masculinity in a variety of ways and expressions. From pigment application to color exploration, he invites others to reach beyond the immediate surface to better understand the complexity of what it means to be masculine. Show runs through Saturday, June 30. 
