[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ryan Barton stormed onstage at a bitcoin meetup in Sunnyvale last month to tell roughly 200 people about his Save Bitcoin Rally. What does bitcoin need to be saved from, exactly? Well, apparently, something called BitLicense, which only allows companies approved by the State of New York to traffic in cryptocurrency, a crushing blow to the libertarian ideals of the earliest adopters.
Barton wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of the Silk Road, an online black market where bitcoin first gained traction as a currency, thanks to its untraceable and pseudo-anonymous nature. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have seen a meteoric rise, culminating with one bitcoin exchanging for nearly $20,000 in December—pretty amazing for a currency created practically out of thin air by Satoshi Nakamoto, a person (or perhaps group of people operating under a collective name) who no one knows anything about.
Since then, the price of bitcoin has tumbled, down to $13,500 by mid-January, the last time GT covered the trend (“Bit of Wealth,” 1/17), at which time we thought it had “stabilized.” But in early February, it dipped down below $7,000. The price currently sits at $9,055, and it’s doubtful that number will be current by the time you pick up this paper.
For its believers, bitcoin represents the first sparks of a global revolution to democratize wealth, the internet and maybe even society as a whole. In theory, the underlying technology that bitcoin uses to store its data—the blockchain—has the power to decentralize all online information, storing it in cryptic jumbles across the hard drives of millions of computer users, freeing us from the tightening grip of greedy banks, monopolizing tech giants and overeager governments.
Will bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies reach their full utopian potential? Probably not, but that’s not a question to be answered for many years. The equation on the minds of the folks at the Sunnyvale meeting on Feb. 13 was: will this make me rich?
After what I saw that night, I wouldn’t bet on it.
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The bitcoin Meetup took place at the Plug and Play Tech Center, a startup accelerator, where organizers have reserved parking spaces for “venture capital investors” 20 feet away from a massive brass statue of Siddhartha. It doesn’t seem there’s any irony intended.
The hallway walls feature the signatures of big money tech investors. And within these walls, there’s a sea of cubicles dedicated to the creation of startups—doing what, I honestly have no idea.
Upstairs are about 20 boxes of pizza and five icy metal bins of free beer and soft drinks, all of which were consumed during the two-hour event.
Over a slice of pizza, Fernando Serrano says he bought his first cryptocoin in October of 2017—in time for the big rise, but also the subsequent fall. I ask how the experience has been. “It sucks,” he acknowledges, but he thinks it should be “good” again by the end of the year.
“Why?” I ask.
Serrano compares cryptocurrency and the blockchain to the early internet, which also had its skeptics, but ultimately made trillions for its adopters. He also thinks cryptocurrency will gain holds in India and China and that one coin, Ripple (a BitLicense holder), is going to be worth a lot. I nod while drinking beer.
At the event, some of the day’s speakers make promises that seem to veer into the shadowy realm of get-rich-quick schemes. Honestly, when it comes to cryptocurrency, transparency can often be in short supply.
Ed Zitron, the founder of EZPR, owns several cryptocurrency mining rigs—the loud, expensive supercomputers that pull coins from the digital ether by doing math problems. Zitron recently started a satiricale-newsletter where he lobs hot crypto takes as a fictional pundit who is both deeply in debt and fiercely devoted to cryptocurrency. Despite his foray into mining, Zitron thinks bitcoin—and, frankly, America’s whole investment system—is a bit of a crapshoot.
“There’s nothing to know with bitcoin,” he says. “There has never been. And let’s be honest, does any stock really follow much logic? It follows more logic than bitcoin. But it doesn’t follow much. Being able to read the tea leaves is pretty unlikely.”
Zitron got into mining by leveraging some bitcoin he purchased at a low price years ago. And as opposed to just buying the coins on internet exchanges, mining provides him some security because he consistently gets more coins, even if their values fluctuate. But he’s only put in money that he says he can afford to lose. He feels for those people who just want to make a quick buck during tough times.
Zitron thinks of buying cryptocurrencies as little more than glorified gambling. Like at a craps table, you place your bets and roll the dice, hoping that your gut prediction is rewarded. He compares it also to the Gold Rush—wherein a bunch of prospectors went broke looking for the gold that mostly ended up in the hands of larger conglomerates. He says now that the cost of getting into and staying in the game has gotten so high, it’s mostly a way for the rich to get richer.
Dr. Enrique Pumar, the sociology department chair at Santa Clara University, notes a variety of factors that could push people to engage in riskier investment behavior. In the current economic climate, only 39 percent of Americans report having $1,000 in savings, according to a report by Bankrate.
Pumar offers a few factors that may have contributed to that situation: mounting debt, scaled-back retirement plans, slow wage growth, and the rising costs of college and housing, as well as a lack of knowledge about investing—all this while public trust in major institutions flirts with all-time lows.
Although there’s not much quantitative data, Pumar thinks that all may lead to more risk-taking, especially since Americans are expecting to work much longer than prior generations. They may feel like they have time to save money for retirement.
“People say, ‘wait a minute, I’m not going to retire until 40 years from now. I can be entrepreneurial, and, if I have a little bit of money, I can play around with it. Because if it works out, I lucked out. If it doesn’t work out, I have plenty of time to make up the difference,’” he says.
So with all this financial uncertainty, some Americans have tossed their money at something they think promises to make them rich quickly, and cryptocurrencies can be a tremendous opportunity to make money. In January of 2017, this was an industry valued at more than $830 billion. Ten days later, that number dropped by more than $360 billion, and nobody knows why. But no one knows why the stock market does what it does, either. Wall Street’s last crash erased $19.2 trillion in household wealth from 2007 to 2009, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
After the Meetup ended, I wandered the nearly empty facility, staring at hundreds of cubicles underneath dozens of signs bearing the logos of startups. There’s no guarantee they’ll make it—just like most of us have no guarantee we’ll get a raise, a promotion or even a job that will pay us as long as we need money. So with most of America facing a steep uphill climb to financial security, it’s hard to blame folks for investigating a shortcut.
“They just wanted a chance at a better life,” Zitron says. “On one hand, you could say it’s risky. And it absolutely was. It definitely was a stupid decision to invest in funny money. But what more human thing is there, than [thinking] ‘this is going to work’ and taking a chance? It’s not smart. But it’s human.”
The anxiety wakes me up before the alarm does. “Be there at 6:30 a.m. sharp,” Tom Hogye had told me. It’ll take nine minutes to get dressed, seven to make toast and coffee, and 22 minutes to get there. That leaves me with an extra 22 minutes to spare, just in case. As the alarm goes off, I leap out of bed and trip over the boots I’d set out the night before. I’m not off to a great start.
“It’ll be cold,” Hogye had said. I put on my long sleeve thermal, down jacket, borrowed ski pants, extra thick socks, hiking boots, and fleece hat. I burn my toast and forget my coffee, but I’m on the road at 5:52 a.m.
I peer down at the temperature—34 degrees. “I won’t even see any fish,” I think, turning onto Highway 9. “They’ll all be frozen.”
Hogye is a Santa Cruz local and longtime angler who is graciously allowing me to tag along on his Sunday fishing outing on the San Lorenzo River. I’m skeptical that there are fish in the river, and my friends and coworkers don’t believe it, either. Sure, there used to be fish in the San Lorenzo, but given that the water level outside of the Good Times office never looks higher than a few inches, it seems impossible that there are fish bigger than my thumb in there.
Hogye has agreed to let me join him on this Sunday—March 4—even though I’m infringing on one of the final days of the steelhead fishing season, which runs from Dec. 1 to March 7 and restricts fishing to Wednesdays, weekends and holidays. I’ve also admitted to him that I know little to nothing about fishing, despite having grown up and lived on a boat for the majority of my life. I’m not exactly the ideal fishing candidate, since I’m embarrassingly uncoordinated, always cold, and fish make me squeamish.
The crack of dawn is apparently the best time to fish for steelhead trout. I assume they want breakfast just as much as I do, but I’ll later be told that spawning fish in the river aren’t actually hungry, they are just territorial. I turn the heater dial up, glancing at my navigation. That’s weird, I think, Hogye said it was a few miles up from downtown, but my phone says it’s another 10 miles away. I decide to just keep driving.
I didn’t want to go into this expedition knowing nothing, so I had talked with local fisherman Barry Burt about the little-known but tight-knit culture of San Lorenzo River fishermen a few days before. Burt has been fishing the San Lorenzo for 55 years—somewhat of a “fly fishing god,” Hogye says. I was hoping Burt might take me fishing with him, too, but I wasn’t surprised when he politely declined. He had bigger ambitions than dragging a novice along, and even bigger fish to catch.
“The San Lorenzo does not give up her fish easily,” Burt said. “I’m on the river almost every legal day and I have a network of what we call the San Lorenzo Mafia. We are a group of dedicated steelheaders.”
Burt told me that the San Lorenzo River used to be the crème de la crème of steelhead fishing spots in Northern California. Anglers from all over the country would descend on the river to fish for migrating steelhead trout and coho salmon, and runs would number in the tens of thousands. He said before the levees were built in the late 1950s, Santa Cruz High School would let out early during the steelhead run—“it was a social gathering.”
Burt also told me he likes to fish the estuary part of the San Lorenzo River—the block that extends from the Beach Boardwalk river mouth to the Santa Cruz Courthouse. He says it’s one of the best places for practicing fly fishing technique without any overhead obstacles and tree crowding. “It is really a unique place,” he said. “Where else can you go in an urban situation and sit on the river and catch chrome-bright, 10-pound steelhead?”
Suddenly my phone beeps “arrived,” but the only thing I’ve arrived at is a random curve just before Boulder Creek. All of my fears have come true. I’m definitely lost, and I’m going to be late.
6:30 a.m.
I call Hogye, trying to hide my panic. Straight to voicemail—he doesn’t have reception. I’ve definitely gone too far north, so I turn around.
BIG FISH, SMALL POND Longtime San Lorenzo fisherman Barry Burt knows all of the best spots to catch the biggest steelhead trout, though he tries to keep them secret.
I have plenty of time on this drive to go over in my head what I’ve learned so far about fishing in the river. Steelhead trout migrate from the ocean upriver to spawn in the winter and spring months, and run up the estuary to get to higher freshwater breeding grounds, then return to the ocean. Steelhead are a threatened species in the Bay Area; you likely won’t see one unless you know where to look. Even less often will you see a coho salmon in the river—maybe never, as they are endangered and die after spawning. The average San Lorenzo steelhead ranges from six to 10 pounds, though Burt said he’s seen and caught fish well over that. He caught one that was 16 pounds, about the size of a small Dachshund.
Because of their threatened status, all wild steelhead trout and coho salmon in the San Lorenzo are catch and release, meaning that you must return the fish to the river after catching them. Hatchery steelhead, which come from the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project’s Big Creek Restoration Hatchery in Davenport, are the only fish that can be kept. Still, Hogye says most fisherman don’t keep anything they catch, since it’s more about the sport and most want to preserve any and all fish in the river.
The hatchery fish have a clipped fin, which distinguishes them from their wild counterparts. If we’re going to hook a fish today, there’s a good chance it’ll be from the hatchery, since it has released 2 million coho salmon and steelhead to date.
7 a.m.
When I finally find Hoyge’s spot, I’m relieved to discover he’s still there. He gets out of his car and says he figured I got lost and was about to go find me. This is the most embarrassed I’ve been in quite a while, but he’s delightfully accommodating and kind, despite the fact that it’s well past dawn and I have probably just lessened our chances of catching anything.
Hogye is a fly fisherman, meaning he doesn’t use bait and instead relies on flies—little feathery lures with hooks—to snag fish. He ties his own flies—they’re expensive to buy, especially if you lose them a lot. He has hundreds of steelhead-specific flies, including a bead head, wooly bugger, winter’s hope, and green butt skunk in his fly-box. He says he doesn’t use all of them, and just collected them over the years. He picks out the egg-sucking leech, his favorite—which looks, by the way, just as interesting as its name makes you think it would—and ties it on.
“I don’t know if leeches actually suck fish eggs, but it sounds good to me,” he says, thumbing the line and beginning his descent into the river. I wait at the bank, thinking about leeches; actually getting me into waders was likely a Sunday chore Hogye wasn’t quite ready for.
There are people fishing upstream and downstream, and we settle into a nook in the middle where the river is flowing into a large pool or “hole” where fish like to hang out. Flies and fishing hardware glitter in the trees overhead like Christmas ornaments, and as Hogye begins casting, I instantly understand how they got stuck there—his line sails high above the low treeline, and I can tell it’s easy to get snagged on a branch.
“The guy upstream is doing the San Lorenzo swing,” Hogye says. “But we call this technique I’m doing the duck n’ chuck.”
It’s a graceful side-to-side swing that covers an impressive distance. Unlike overcasting, he’s working directly in front of him rather than casting from behind his body—lucky for me, since I’m sitting just 10 feet behind him. This also prevents him from snagging a tree and adding to the ornament collection. Still, each time he chucks, I duck.
Hogye keeps casting, and I decide to walk upstream a bit to get out of the line of fire and wake up my legs. Despite all of my preparation, and the ski pants, I’m cold. Moments later, Hogye exclaims “whoa!” I look up and he is looking right at me.
“Did you see that hen roll?” he asks, excitedly. “I hooked it, then it got off. It was beautiful, and pretty decent-sized.”
He begins casting again with renewed purpose. Moments later, our upstream neighbor catches a silvery blue steelhead. The silver fish come straight from the ocean, Hogye says, whereas the red and green ones have been in the river longer and change color to camouflage themselves.
“I know you’re here somewhere,” Hogye says, wading a bit deeper.
8:30 a.m.
Our river neighbors have moved on to other spots, and Hogye decides it might be time for us to move along, too. We don’t see any other fish, though Hogye doesn’t seem too disappointed. I think he’s just excited he hooked one.
We hike up the hill toward the highway, and Hogye explains the state of the fish population in the river. There aren’t many compared to how it used to be, he says, and that’s mainly because of the river’s low water levels and habitat degradation.
This sounds familiar. Burt, too, cited drought in the 1970s and continual rain shortages as a reason for the decline in steelhead and coho populations. When the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project was founded in 1976, he said, the drought had already taken a major toll on the San Lorenzo fish population.
“When the project started, the number of steelhead had dropped to 500 and coho salmon were virtually extinct,” Burt recalls. “Now there are more fish, but still 90 percent of them are caught by 10 percent of the fisherman.”
BUCKEYE HOLE In the ’50s, hundreds of fishermen would fish the estuary next to Riverside Avenue. Named after the Buckeye tree, the hole was and still is a destination for fly fishers. PHOTO: COURTESY OF TOM HOGYE
I want to know how many fish are in the river, but it turns out that’s not an easy answer, even for the experts.
I talked to George Neillands, Senior Environmental Scientist Supervisor for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, who said it’s difficult to get an exact estimate of how many steelhead and coho salmon are returning to the San Lorenzo River annually, partially because the watershed is large and private landowner access has been difficult to obtain. Neillands said the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s crude estimates of the steelhead population over the last seven years vary wildly from 600 to 2,000 annually. Though they aren’t able to get estimates of the coho salmon population, Neillands said there are anywhere from zero to six coho salmon observed every year within the San Lorenzo River.
Compared to 30 years ago, the populations of coho and steelhead have been on the decline, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicator at the Scott Creek Life Cycle Station. This is largely because of climate change, habitat degradation, water withdrawals and urbanization, Neillands told me: “Climate has changed, we aren’t getting consistent rain, it is more variable, with droughts occurring more frequently and the rains are more concentrated from December to March. However, the critical time period for rearing juvenile salmon and steelhead occurs during the dry season when impacts to streamflow and habitat are most felt.”
Since October 2017, the San Lorenzo Valley has gotten 18 inches of rain, according to the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center. Compare this to a whopping 72 inches from the same time last year, and you’ll understand why the levels are comparatively low. But flooding isn’t necessarily a good thing for fish, either, since urbanization of the watershed leads to habitat degradation in the San Lorenzo, and causes the holes and cracks that fish like to live in to fill with sediment. When there’s a lot of rain, fish can get washed out into the ocean before they are ready, because there are fewer features in the river for them to hide in.
Lack of rain isn’t the only reason for the low levels in the river. Around 47 percent of the drinking water for the City of Santa Cruz comes directly from the San Lorenzo River, with around 6 to 6.5 million gallons of water used every day. As water levels go down, usage stays the same—and, Hogye points out, will go up as the population increases.
As Hogye and I return to our cars, I ask if we can go to the estuary so that I can get a better sense of what fishing there looks like. Hogye isn’t thrilled about going, because it’s late in the season and there likely won’t be many fish. But he agrees to join me, despite the fact that he may look silly to other experienced steelheaders.
“I’m only doing this for your story,” he says.
9:30 a.m.
I may not know my way around Highway 9, but I do know how to get to the skate park. Hogye and I dip down into the “Buckeye Hole” across from the Kaiser Permanente Arena. It’s desolate, aside from a few people wandering and bikers going in and out. There is certainly no one else with waders and a fishing pole
The lower part of the river near the rivermouth is a bit different than our previous locale—saltier, murkier, and visibly dirtier. Lighters, razors, food wrappers and clothes litter the banks. Hogye says sometimes fish will hang out to get acclimatized to fresh water, but overall they are moving quickly through the river to get upstream. It is low tide, and the water is stagnant—if I were a fish, I’d want to get upstream as quickly as possible, too.
Hogye gets to overcast this time, since I’m not behind him and there are no trees in his way. This is the type of fly fishing technique you see in the movies, and in some ways it’s more impressive than the duck ’n’ chuck.
“Fish come in with the tides, and they sit by the bridge or around here,” Hogye says, gesturing over to the Boardwalk area between casts. “There are holes underneath the bridge at the Boardwalk and there is a deep bank there along the edge of the tracks. You can see the fish when they are coming in; there will be anywhere from 30-100 fish there.”
Hogye points to the piles of leaves and debris, explaining that it should have all been washed out to sea already, but the river is just too low—despite the fact that it rained heavily just a few days before.
“There are too many people trying to share the same glass of water,” Hogye says. “We ruined the river in the last 50 years by taking the water out of it, and now it’s a fight to get it back.”
10 a.m.
We head back up the bank, having neither seen nor caught any fish—just like we thought. Hogye explains that we are nearing the lowest time for the river; levels usually dip even more in the summer months, which is when the young fish are just growing up and acclimatizing. The less water there is, the less their chance of survival.
“The fish are like a canary in the coal mine,” Hogye says. “If the fish don’t live, nothing lives.”
Hogye doesn’t believe that California is necessarily in a drought, rather that people are just using too much water during a low-water period. The increased use of concrete and pavement is part of the problem, too, he says, since pavement and concrete trap heat and prevent water absorption, and runoff isn’t conserved for other uses.
“Our rivers are not just water supplies,” Hogye says. “We have endangered the rivers through our own selfish excess. The fish and wildlife thrived for many centuries before we humans practically ruined their habitat in less than a hundred years.”
After we part ways, Hogye spends the rest of the day fishing and not catching anything. Neither would Barry Burt on closing day, despite hooking three.
That actually makes me feel a little better—if the fly fishing god didn’t catch anything, it’s OK that we didn’t. There are fish in the river, no doubt, but they are few and far between even if you do hook them. The fish are smart, and the odds are against you.
“It’s a very humbling experience to fish for steelhead because they don’t come easy,” Burt says. “Like I said, the San Lorenzo does not give up her fish easily, that’s for sure.”
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ntonio Villaraigosa has a sharp memory.
When the gubernatorial candidate called me up last week, he detailed to me what he liked about a blog post I’dwritten about him four months earlier—as well as what he didn’t. He opined that I hadn’t provided the full context for one of his quotes, which was probably a fair point. And he remembered the exact part of the quote I had left out.
In a field with six major candidates for governor, Villaraigosa, who once served as the state assembly speaker, is locked in a dead heatwith Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to the most recent polls. Villaraigosa spoke to GT about immigration, healthcare and balancing budgets.
If you were governor right now, how would you respond to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ lawsuit against California over its immigration policies?
ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA: I’d do what Gov. Brown did. I’d say that you’re not welcome in our state when you misrepresent what we’ve done in California. There’s nothing in the California Values Act that says if people commit violent crimes, they won’t go to jail. They will go to jail. They are going to jail.
The biggest reason [Sessions] came to California is for almost a year now he has been under almost a weekly assault from Donald Trump, criticizing how he’s carried out his duties as an attorney general. He’s struggling, fighting to keep his job, so he came here to California to curry favor with his boss.
You’ve advocated for creating a public option for healthcare. How is that better than trying to build a single-payer system from scratch?
First of all, I supported universal healthcare my entire life. SB 562 is legislation that essentially articulates the goals of a state-paid-for healthcare system that would end Medicare and Medical as we know it; eliminate all insurance-based healthcare plans, including Kaiser; require a federal waiver from Donald Trump, who wants to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid; and cost at least $200 million, assuming you could suspend Prop 98. And you’d have to suspend it each year, and you’d have to pay back to community colleges the money that would have gone to them. So it’s really a $400 million price tag. So I’ve asked Gavin Newsom, who’s tripled down on SB 562, to debate me on this issue.
The number one issue for the next government is to protect the ACA. In California, we need to do the following: One, restore the individual mandate at a state level. Two, we need to focus on prevention to a much greater degree. Three, we need to look at best practices here and around the country—Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser—where we can adopt cost-containment measures, to drive down the spiraling cost of healthcare. It’s not just a public option. It’s a public option, along with the exchange, along with what we currently have right now.
You paid fines in 2011 for ethics violations for accepting free tickets to high-profile events during your time as mayor. How can you convince voters that you have the ethical standards to be governor?
Before I was mayor, everybody on the powerful commissions—the airport commission, the port commission, the planning commission, community redevelopment—mayors used to put people in those positions that raised money for them. I signed an executive directive my first day in office prohibiting my appointees on any commission, including those powerful ones, from being able to raise money or contribute to the mayor.
What I was fined over was an issue that, prior to me, no one had ever been fined for, and I’ll tell you why. In my case, if I went to a game, a concert, and they gave me tickets, I would have to report them, and I always did. I was speaking at all these events. At every one of these events, I was speaking. Only once in a great while did I actually stay at those events.
The city of Santa Cruz is facing a budget shortfall and has announced a quarter-cent sales tax to support its general fund. One growing cost is its pensions. How did you cut pension costs as mayor?
We were facing a recession that was the worst since the 1930s. Many people said we were on the verge of bankruptcy. I said, “Not on my watch.” I was going to have to lay off thousands of employees. I worked with our unions. They wanted me instead to do an early retirement. We didn’t have the money for it, so we worked together and got current employees up from six percent to 11 percent. We did it working with our unions. We almost doubled the size of their pension contributions, but I did it working with them.
[dropcap]M[/dropcap]useum researchers at the Louvre found that people look at the Mona Lisa for an average of 15 seconds. Considering that it is the most celebrated painting in history, you have to wonder how much face time less famous works of art are granted. Chances are, it’s a matter of a few seconds—perhaps barely more than a quick scan before moving on.
Cabrillo Gallery Program Instructor Beverly Rayner is determined to change that. The Cabrillo Gallery’s newest exhibit “Cyphers” features work with encrypted messages and ambiguous concepts intended to get people to slow down and consider a deeper meaning behind the work. It’s an exhibit full of questions and not many answers, which is inspiring, intellectually stimulating and incredibly frustrating all at the same time. You’ll have to spend more than 15 seconds in front of each piece to really unpack them, and that’s the point.
“It nudges and challenges your mind,” Rayner says. “You look at it and make some associations, but you have to keep going back.”
The exhibit is an artistic playhouse that embraces the logical interplay between arts and analytics. It’s a bridge between left-brained and right-brained thinking that melds them into a unique, enigmatic installation more like a sudoku puzzle than a simple illustration.
One piece plops a confessional right in the middle of Euler’s Formula—a mishmosh of sines and cosines on a chalkboard. The formula is known for its particular aesthetic beauty, though it’s gibberish to the untrained eye. Like the rest of the work, there is no exact meaning behind it. Rather, it’s all about individual interpretation, not necessarily a specific idea that artist Laura Forman intended.
The work only gets more bizarre and fascinating from there. Lucy Gaylord-Lindholm’s work is inspired by fragile but resilient artifacts that have somewhat withstood the test of time—a Russian typewriter, a broken Amati violin, old letters. There are Gina Pearlin’s un-interpreted dreams, and Steve Gompf’s surreal animations playing on antique televisions in the middle of the room. Gompf’s video is a must-see; snag a pair of 3D glasses and maybe a chair for the weirdest visuals you’ve seen in a while.
The exhibit is an artistic playhouse that embraces the logical interplay between arts and analytics. It’s a bridge between left-brained and right-brained thinking that melds them into a unique, enigmatic installation more like a sudoku puzzle than a simple illustration.
While many have been holding their breath for the exhibit’s opening, its completion comes as a relief to Rayner and program coordinator Victoria May, since they are the founders and hosts of the “Spoken/Unspoken” series. Over a year ago, the gallery was awarded a $10,000 grant from the Rydell Visual Arts Fund to bring together an 11-venue exhibit. After much discussion, the galleries decided on the “Spoken/Unspoken” theme because it was open to interpretation and seemed fitting at the time. Keep in mind, this was before the Donald Trump presidential inauguration, and Rayner admits that as the idea aged it became more timely than anyone could have imagined.
“Part of the whole idea is to create a sense of community and grow the sense of awareness of the locations you can experience art at across the county,” Rayner says. “If people go to one show, they know about the other places, too. Then, all of these connections happen.”
For the last few months, their job has been to make brochures, promote, advertise, and support other galleries. But now it’s their turn to be in the spotlight. For Rayner and May, “Cyphers” really is the cherry on top of a long few months of organization and preparation. The final shows at the Pajaro Valley Arts, Santa Cruz Mountains Art Center and Santa Cruz Public Library run through the spring and early summer.
“It shows the strength and vibrance of the art scene in Santa Cruz,” Rayner says. “And it reminds us that art is important, especially now.”
“Cyphers” runs through April 13, and will be closed from March 26-30. For a complete list of past and upcoming shows, visit spokenunspokenart.com.
[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ydia Night, lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the L.A. garage-pop band the Regrettes, has discovered that their song “A Living Human Girl” has touched fans in a very profound way.
“We’ve gotten everything from someone saying that it helped them with their depression or their eating disorder to it just gives them confidence,” Night says. “They start their day with that song. It all revolves around the self-love aspect.”
It would be hard not to feel good about yourself after listening to the song. The song celebrates the physical “flaws” that we all have (“I’ve got pimples on my face and grease in my hair”) while simultaneously emphasizing the importance of things besides physical beauty. In other words, in today’s physical-appearance-obsessed culture, it’s revolutionary.
“When you’re constantly being fed photos of models and people with unrealistic body types, it’s really damaging,” Night says. “It skews the way you feel and what your values might be—valuing the way you look over the way you think or how smart you are.”
The song comes off of last year’s Feel Your Feelings Fool, which has some heavy songs like “A Living Human Girl,” but also has some simple, light-hearted ones like “Hey Now,” which is about a crush.
“I don’t think every little feeling has to be some super specific metaphorical thing with a lot of layers to it,” Night says. “‘Hey Now’ is a very simple song, and it’s simple for a reason because it’s a simple feeling. And it’s something that everyone goes through.”
The band says they decided on the album’s title not only as a theme that runs through each song, but also as a call to action of sorts.
“It’s all over the place feeling-wise,” Night says of Feel Your Feelings, Fool. “Expressing emotions in general is something that’s so tricky. It’s so hard for everyone. No one wants to admit how they’re really feeling a lot of the time. I think it’s about us learning about that process and learning how to be more vulnerable with our feelings and taking it to wanting to help other people experience that and get through that stuff.”
Night, who’s still in her teens, has an extraordinary knack for vocalizing a wide range of emotions. She says that her music is like a diary entry of her life.
“I’m an open book,” Night says. “I’m very open with that stuff, but it’s kind of strange when I really do think about the fact that, wow, my life is kind of out there for everyone to see.”
She’s in a unique position, too, because she’s closer to the age of her fans than a lot of the performers out there that are writing the music teens are consuming.
“I draw from a super personal place in all of my music,” Night says. “It’s all the shit that I’m going through at the age that I’m going through it. I’m not pretending to be a different age or pretending to be someone that I’m not.”
The group got signed by Warner Bros. back when Night was still in high school. The band had also only recently formed.
She was never opposed to working with big labels—she wants her music to reach as many people as possible. But it was a surprise that she was taken out of class on a Wednesday to have a meeting with a label exec.
“It moves at a fast pace, like every night we’re somewhere different, and I’m so involved in it that I don’t really see how crazy it is,” Night says. “When I’m home, I’ll kind of look at it and I’m like, ‘oh shit, my life is not a normal teenager’s life. It’s just not. It’s not normal.”
The group just released an EP, Attention Seeker, to tide fans over as they wait for the follow-up to Feel Your Feelings Fool. They hope to go into the studio soon to start recording tracks for their second album.
The Regrettes plays at 9 p.m. on Saturday, March 17, at the Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $12. 429-6994.
Update 03/14/2018 12:39 p.m.: A previous version of this story included the wrong venue. The Regrettes are performing at the Crepe Place.
[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ome happy hours are better than others. That’s just a scientific fact. Take the happy hour hosted by Bittersweet Bistro. On a chilly evening, the lively lounge with its dark wood bar offers aid and comfort to a wide range of thirsty and hungry Aptos neighbors. When I met Melinda last week, LeBron was just finishing up his 39-point game on one of several strategically placed screens. While bar seating gets you up close and personal with the NBA action, Mel and I chose a corner booth under the windows. Adults of all ages, many of them old enough to know all of the lyrics to Beatles tunes, were in full swing as we took advantage of the appealing Happy Hour prices to order a classic Manhattan ($6) and a Bittersweet 75 ($8). Well-made cocktails. Great start to our happy hour.
The house that Tom and Elizabeth Vinolus have built and tended for three decades is going strong. The straight-ahead and generous comfort food on this menu is a huge part of the Bittersweet appeal. So is the Mediterranean patio in warm weather. So is the huge, yet somehow cozy dining room. But we like the California pub ambience of the bar. The “quesadilla of the moment” ($8) happened to be carne asada. We said “yes” to that, plus Angus beef carpaccio ($10). We were comparing notes about hotels in Manhattan for an upcoming trip when our quesadillas arrived, a platter with four large gleaming wedges of flour tortilla packed with beef and cheese. On the side came a trio of salsas, and I immediately fell for the fiery sour cream version. Let me be clear about these happy hour portions: They are not tiny. This is serious food, so serious that we had two of the four large quesadillas packed for home. As an abundant plate of carpaccio arrived we were sipping away, Melinda on her Manhattan (I’m not a fan of drinks containing cherries) and I on my cocktail of Hendrick’s gin, lemon juice and a float of bubbly. I asked for my drink to be made without a sugar rim and very little simple syrup. The bartender obliged and the cocktail was refreshingly un-sweet so that the gin could peek out and make itself known. Thank you! On the carpaccio front, paper-thin beef was draped across a large round plate, ringed with rosettes of Dijon mustard. In the center sat a jungle of baby arugula embellished with shaves of Parmigiano-Reggiano (I would have liked a bit more cheese), lavish quantities of capers, and a micro-dice of purple onion. This was a life-sustaining appetizer by any stretch, and for $10 it was the deal of the decade. Not sure why but the bite of gin and lemon made flavor romance with the sweet earthiness of the beef. Classic appetizers are treated with respect and gusto here at the Bittersweet happy hour—and worth the challenging rush hour drive from the Westside. The NBA, a proper cocktail, and affordable apps. Lots to like.
Bittersweet Bistro happy hour is 3:30-6 p.m. on Wednesday-Friday, and Sunday.
Windy Oaks at Soif
If you’re swift you might be able to score one of the last remaining places at tonight’s Winemaker Dinner at Soif ($125/person). Join one of the golden couples of the Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir scene, Jim and Judy Schultze, as they pour top Windy Oaks Estate wines—including a horizontal of Library pinots—in tune to some excitingly matched courses by Soif chef Marshall Bishop. Quick! RSVP to Soif, 423-2020.
Many years back we did a cover story at Metro Santa Cruz about the supposed “Curse of Santa Cruz,” which local legend says was placed on this area by Native Americans who suffered under the truly unwoke, not-at-all-understanding-the-principles-of-their-own-religion Franciscan priests who established the mission here. I remember thinking the oddest thing about this urban legend is that it never really specified what the curse was supposed to do, or who it was supposed to affect.
However, I have a theory. I think whatever bad juju has been circulating around this place over the years disproportionately falls on Santa Cruz musicians, because man it is tough to make it here. I’ve seen so many great bands build up to a critical mass of popularity here in the bubble of the Santa Cruz scene, and then be completely unable to turn that into any kind of meaningful success beyond the city limits. Of course there are exceptions (looking at you, Good Riddance and Devil Makes Three), but it’s happened so many times now I’m not even surprised anymore when a Santa Cruz act that seems primed for bigger success calls it quits in frustration or just kind of fades away.
So if local musicians with big dreams get the chance, they should get out while they can, right? Not necessarily. Many extremely talented musicians have been faced with this choice and decided to stay here and make it work however they can.
This is the dilemma that AJ Lee is up against right now, as Aaron Carnes describes in his cover story this week. She dreamt of moving to Nashville to pursue music-industry success, but then her roots band Blue Summit got big fast on the local scene. The remarkable way that she and the other members of the band have navigated these issues speaks, I think, to a larger point about how truly supportive friendships and artistic collaborations are the real stuff of big dreams.
In 2017, the Cabrillo College ballot approved an obligatory fee of $40 per semester, enabling students to have a bus pass whether or not students planned to use the bus. Collectively, the fee accumulates to around $300,000 per year. The objective of the fee is to support the 71 and 91 bus routes for students to access Cabrillo from their home communities. Many students of Cabrillo College are asking for one early 71 bus and one early 91 bus to leave from Santa Cruz toward Watsonville by 6:30 a.m. Though there are several buses leaving Watsonville for Santa Cruz as early as 5:34 a.m., the earliest bus leaving Santa Cruz is at 6:45 a.m. This is an excellent example of services offered to the Watsonville community that could also be offered to help communities of Santa Cruz who regularly use the public transportation system.
Many students of Cabrillo are parents who work and need to be able to bring their families to school before their classes or work begin. Most parents use the Soquel corridor to drop their children in the morning at school or to bring them to doctors’ appointments at the hospital. We are asking please for your empathy, compassion, and to consider how a simple decision can be made to prevent disenfranchisement of student rights, student money, and to ensure that the vote of each student be counted. Please make a wise decision and remember that this decision is in your head, in your hands, in your heart, in your name, and in my name too. Please, we don’t want Proposition 69 [on the state ballot in June], a transfer of the fees paid to the general funds of METRO, because it could hurt our rights.
Ofelia Gomez | Santa Cruz
Unleash!
Re: “Puppy Love” (GT, 2/7): Santa Cruz County is a great place to share life with a dog. You can shop with your dog in Downtown Santa Cruz and Capitola Village; there are more than 50 dog-friendly restaurants, plenty of on-leash beaches and trails, plus our animal rescue organizations are the best. We have some of the most spectacular areas to take our furry friends. Have you been to Byrne-Milliron Forest in Corralitos? It’s off-leash with amazing views.
Being off-leash and socialized has been proven to make dogs better canine citizens. I agree we need more off-leash opportunities throughout the county. Almost half the county households have at least one dog. By the numbers: there are 12 off-leash dog areas throughout the county and around 55,000 dogs (based on 2007 Census). That is 4,584 dogs per dog park! That doesn’t count the “tourist dogs” (37 percent of visitors travel with their pooch).
When we lost off-leash at Its Beach, the City of Santa Cruz stepped up and created little “pocket dog parks” throughout the city, including some permanent agility equipment (check out the “dog walk” in Bethany Curve Park). It would be nice if City Parks would make Mitchell’s Cove off-leash sunrise to sunset. At this point, it is time for the county to step up and provide more off-leash opportunities. So, Eva Rider (Letters, 2/14), if you want to make a difference, go talk to County Parks and the Board of Supervisors about creating more opportunities.
To those who don’t like off-leash dogs: you aren’t getting enough oxytocin! You need a dog!
Whitney Wilde | Santa Cruz
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GOOD IDEA
THIS IS A DRILL
With a proposal on the table to open up the California coast for offshore oil drilling, Save Our Shores is making a final push to get ocean lovers to comment on the plan from U.S. Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke, an appointee of President Donald Trump. A call to action from Santa Cruz’s environmental nonprofit reminds people that they have until Friday, March 9, to express their views on the idea. Visit regulations.gov to comment, or visit saveourshores.org for more information.
GOOD WORK
BOOK SELVES
The all-volunteer group Free Books for Kids gave away 1,302 books by Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, which fell on Friday, March 2. Malcolm Kushner, a retired teacher who created the group in 2014, says the books went to five elementary schools from Santa Cruz to Watsonville, in addition to the Live Oak Health Center and Santa Cruz Reading Association. The group has now given out more than 88,000 books.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Everyone has learned how to monetize music except the music industry.”
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t seems like the perfect match between performer and role. Transgender actress Daniela Vega makes a triumphant debut in A Fantastic Woman, playing the role of a transgender woman fighting for respect in modern-day Chile. But this is way more than a one-issue movie. Nominated for a foreign language Oscar this year, Sebastián Lelio’s engrossing film is a resonant and stylishly told story about the basic human right to live with dignity and carve out one’s identity in the world.
Chilean filmmaker Lelio (along with his co-screenwriter, Gonzalo Maza) made the zesty woman-over-50 movie Gloria a few years back. They continue to delve into the psyche of interesting females in A Fantastic Woman with protagonist Marina Vidal (Vega), a cafe waitress by day who croons sultry ballads in a bar at night. She shares an apartment in Santiago with her partner of several years, frisky, tender Orlando (Francisco Reyes), a divorced businessman a few decades older than she is.
But one night, Orlando becomes disoriented in bed, stumbling down a short flight of stairs before Marina can bundle him into the car and rush him to the hospital—where, soon after, he dies. And the devastating shock of her loss is just the beginning of her troubles. She has to produce and explain her male ID card (her procedure isn’t quite complete yet) to the cops at the hospital‚ and suffer their insinuating questions about how Orlando died. A policewoman with the Sexual Assault unit, looking to explain Orlando’s bruises as self-defense, orders Marina to strip for nude photos to search for signs of abuse.
Meanwhile, Orlando’s disapproving family closes ranks against her. Only his brother is friendly to her, but Orlando’s ex calls Marina a “perversion,” while his wayward son shows up at the apartment to intimidate her. Not only do they expect her to vacate the apartment and turn over the couple’s car, they refuse to even tell her where the funeral will be held, so she won’t show up and embarrass the family.
That not all of these issues are gender identity-based broadens the film’s scope; Marina’s plight as an outsider forbidden the rights of the legal kinship group is universal. And in Vega’s fearless performance, we get a heroine to root for. Strong-willed, but not “tough” in any clichéd way, she’s determined to hold onto her dignity and her poise as she stoically battles for her rights.
Reyes is charming as Orlando, who continues to pop up throughout the story as a kind of ghost-memory, cheering on Marina. A thread of mystery also runs through the plot, leading to a satisfying surprise, and a terrific, self-empowering finale. (And yes, that is the opera-trained Vega herself singing at the end!)
Lelio makes adroit use of visual metaphor as the emotional story draws us in. As the slights and obstacles pile up in her personal life, Marina is pictured walking down the street at an increasingly rigid angle into what becomes a ferocious headwind—hers is an uphill battle all the way. When she’s alone in her room, Lelio shoots a haunting image of Marina’s face reflected in a small mirror propped up between her legs—inviting us to ponder if this is the only place that defines her identity as a person.
Early on, when Lelio was first turning over the idea of a movie with a transgender protagonist, he was introduced to performer and trans activist Vega. She became his consultant on the film, and his mentor, introducing the filmmaker to contemporary trans culture. But it wasn’t until the very end of the process, when the script was completed and the cameras were ready to roll, that it occurred to Lelio that Vega would be perfect to play Marina.
So the role was not exactly written for Vega, but thank heavens for serendipity—her performance is outstanding.
A FANTASTIC WOMAN (La Mujer Fantastica)
***1/2 (out of four)
With Daniela Vega and Francisco Reyes. Written by Gonzalo Maza and Sebastián Lelio. Directed by Sebastián Lelio. A Sony Classics release. (R) 105 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Ten of us went to Alfaro Family Vineyards recently to taste their wonderful wines. On this particularly warm winter’s day, Alfaro was packed with folks having a good time. Mingling with fellow tasters over winemaker Richard Alfaro’s wines is an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. Richard’s wife, Mary Kay Alfaro (a certified sommelier), greets customers on weekend wine tastings and helps run the business. The winery is a lovely place to visit and share a glass or two with friends, and you are welcome to bring a picnic, too, and take in views of the vineyards from the deck.
I always appreciate Alfaro’s well-made wines. The Heirloom Clones Estate Pinot Noir ($40) is no exception. Deep ruby in color, its appealing mélange of flavors includes cedar box, black olive, cranberry and anise—with an interesting nose of licorice. Its well-balanced tannins and bright acidity round out this bold and hearty wine. Grapes for this Pinot are harvested from four different estate sites—Lindsay Paige and Ryan Spencer vineyards (named after Richard and Mary Kay’s children) and Alfaro Family and Mary Katherine vineyards.
Alfaro’s wines can be found all over—supermarkets, liquor stores, restaurants, and places like 1440 Multiversity in Scotts Valley.
Touted as “the nation’s newest learning destination,” 1440 Multiversity in Scotts Valley is a 75-acre campus situated in beautiful California redwoods. Built as a retreat center, it hosts a wide array of classes and speakers. The restaurant, called Kitchen Table, serves fresh and healthy organic food – all local. I was glad to see when I had dinner there that some local wines are carried, too, such as Alfaro, Martella, Cinnabar, and Morgan. Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing also has its beers there. 1440 (named for the number of minutes in a day) is all about inspired culinary creations—and all deliciously healthy.
