Holiday gift giving is all about good feelings, but this just might be the most feel-good edition of the GT Holiday Gift Guide ever.
I’m serious, it’s like a John Cougar Mellencamp anthem kind of feel-good. It’s like a Tandy Beal Nutcracker kind of feel-good. There are so many gifts in here that support something meaningful, or help people improve themselves, or bring comfort to others in some way. Is there even one truly silly gift in here—and do not even say the Justin Trudeau Scented Candle, because for some of us, that’s very, very spiritual. OK, yeah, there are quite a few fun gifts, too, as there should be—a surprising number of people mention to me that they use the Holiday Gift Guide to help with their shopping list, and for some reason they most often mention the weirdest gifts we’ve featured. But I can’t help but think there’s something in the air right now about giving in a deeper way, and being a part of that in some way is the gift I hope we can give this year.
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ilma Marcus Chandler remembers what put the Santa Cruz theater scene on the map for the first time. In 1982, Chandler, Donna Gorman, Diane Grunes and Donna Zavada produced a National Festival of Women’s Theater that drew 80 theater companies to Santa Cruz from around the world.
“We had companies from Israel and France and London, and all over America,” says Chandler. “They came and they did their work, and they did workshops, and it was amazing. It took place in Actors’ Theatre, it took place at Louden Nelson, it took place on the streets. It was a Fringe Festival kind of thing, and it was really exciting. And I think that’s what kind of got Santa Cruz a little bit known internationally for theater.”
Of course, Santa Cruz had a flair for drama long before that. The seminal local theater group was probably the Santa Cruz Community Players in the 1950s; after that dissolved came companies as varied as Pasatiempo Productions in the ’60s, Bear Republic Theater and the Cabrillo Players in the ’70s, and Pacific Coast Productions and Shakespeare Santa Cruz in the ’80s.
“It started fomenting, and it’s been going ever since,” says Chandler.
One of the most important moments in the history of the local scene, though, came in 1985 when Barbara Zollinger, Abbey Goss and Rod Wilkerson founded Santa Cruz Actors’ Theatre at the now-famous “Center Stage” at 1001 Center Street.
The company made its mark in the ’80s producing contemporary plays, and drawing from a thriving community of local playwrights. Actors’ Theatre pulled together some of the most talented directors, actors and crew in the history of Santa Cruz theater, including Chandler. In the ’90s, it hit new heights when its annual 8 Tens @ 8 10-minute-play festivals became known as a fixture of West Coast theater.
But by 2011, the struggling Actors’ Theatre had turned over the Center Stage Theater to Julie James’ Jewel Theatre Company, which became the only local theater group producing plays year-round for several years. It seemed like it might be the end of the Actors’ Theatre story—but it wasn’t, thanks to Bonnie Ronzio, who had been a central part of the group since starting out as a stage manager in its early days.
“I was called back to be on the board just before we gave the theater up in 2011,” says Ronzio. “At that time, we were all really burned out. But there was something about it—I said, ‘I can’t let the 8 Tens go. I gotta keep it going.’ So I decided to keep the company going, and I ran it out of my house. We did 8 Tens for a few years, and then, thank god, Wilma came back.”
Together, Ronzio and Chandler devised a plan to resurrect Actors’ Theatre as a year-round theater company—a plan that has come to fruition with a full season of productions for 2018 that includes not only 8 Tens @ 8 (recently expanded to 16 10-minute plays as 8 Tens @ 8 x2) but also stagings of Will Eno’s The Realistic Joneses and John Logan’s Red. Under an agreement with James—whose Jewel Theatre now operates mainly in the Colligan Theater at the Tannery Arts Center, but who still runs the Center Stage Theater—they will produce the entire season back at 1001 Center Street.
Why bring Actors’ Theatre back now? For Chandler, it’s very simple.
“I feel like a theater company has to produce theater, and this town is hungry for it,” she says. “Julie can’t do it all, and our choices are different. We do new work or cutting-edge contemporary theater. We have a certain reputation, and we need to keep that going.”
Turning Theater Around
Michelle Binsch played Amelia Earhart in Actors’ Theatre ‘s 1993 production of ‘Blue Skies Forever,’ written by local playwright Claire Braz-Valentine and directed by Clifford Henderson. PHOTO: SUSAN HELGESON
Actors’ Theatre’s iconic reputation came from humble beginnings. Goss and Wilkerson, who married in the mid-’70s and are still together today, ran a company called West Abbey Theatre into the early ’80s, in the Soquel building originally known as the Osocales Theatre when it opened in 1948 (it became the Soquel Cinema in 1951, and is now a church).
“At that time, Santa Cruz was cooking. There were 15 theater companies,” says Goss. “Through the years, they’ve come and gone.”
In 1985, Zollinger approached them about starting a new company.
“Barbara said she was thinking about funding a theater project, and asked if we would help her,” says Wilkerson. “She was the major donor, the angel of the project. Abbey was the executive director and artistic director. I was kind of the original volunteer.”
What most people don’t know—even those who have spent many hours seeing drama, comedy, improv or any other art form at 1001 Center Street—is that the Actors’ Theatre founders designed it to be that intimate and versatile.
“Abbey is the one who designed the theater,” says Patricia Grube, a local playwright and author whose plays were produced at Actors’ Theatre in the ’80s and ’90s. “The stage used to be at the other end. She turned the room completely around. Before that, there was a stage and kind of a flat area. When Abbey took over the place, she redesigned the whole thing. She designed the stage at the Art League, too. She was wonderful.”
The reorientation allowed the group to put in a dressing room and some of the other touches that made it such a utilitarian theater. “We looked at it, and it just made sense,” says Wilkerson.
“I love the space,” says Ronzio, who now serves as president of Actors’ Theatre, with Chandler as vice president. “I have worked every venue in town, and it is my favorite place. I like the intimacy, the size; it’s got everything. I’m just crazy about it. We’ve tried to elevate our shows year after year—every year we think ‘how can we take it to the next level?’ And the space has always allowed us to do that.”
Ronzio’s father was an actor, and she was reading lines with him by age 10. But she never got the theater bug—that is, until Goss hired her on as stage manager for one of Actors’ Theatre’s early productions, Herb Gardner’s A Thousand Clowns.
“Everything kind of came back to me. The smells—the lumber, the paint. I was flooded with memories of my childhood and I was like, ‘Why didn’t I get into this before? Where have I been?’” Ronzio remembers. “Abbey said, ‘Oh, you’re fantastic,’ and she started using me as stage manager for everything that came through.”
That was a key of part of Goss’ vision as the artistic director of Actors’ Theatre. A longtime educator, she wanted to bring people into local theater who didn’t even know they could do it.
“I love theater. I love talent,” says Goss. “I wanted people who thought, ‘Oh, I can’t do that. I can’t get up on stage.’ We had really good people, and it was a great space.”
Chandler believes the Center Street stage also made an ideal center for the local theater community. Despite her family’s background running the box offices of Broadway theaters while she was growing up, Chandler had been focused exclusively on dance—teaching at UCSC and Cabrillo, among other schools—until she got a speaking part in a production of Fiddler on the Roof at Staircase Theatre, a Soquel venue that made its mark locally from 1972 to 1979.
Bitten by the theater bug, she got a master’s in drama from San Jose State University and a job in Cabrillo’s Theater Arts Department. As a director, she felt Actors’ Theatre allowed her to draw from all of the county’s talent hotspots.
“Working there, I was able to bring Cabrillo people, UCSC people, community people, Watsonville people into that one cohesive area where we could bring everybody together,” she says. “I don’t like calling it ‘community theater,’ because I think it branches beyond that to university theater, college theater, El Teatro Campesino. I call it regional theater, and I just love how it became a central magnet for so many people.”
Production Values
Early on, Actors’ Theatre was known for producing many works by local playwrights, including not only Grube, but also Philip Slater—the late playwright and UCSC sociologist who authored the bestselling 1970 book The Pursuit of Loneliness, and was one of the first Americans to take LSD—as well as Audrey Stanley, Jim Bierman and Claire Braz-Valentine.
Indeed, there was a tight-knit group of talented local playwrights in Santa Cruz at the time, which Actors’ Theatre was able to tap into like no local company before or since.
“The thing I really liked in the beginning was we had a group of playwrights, and we were trying to think how to get our plays produced, so once a month we would have a reading of a new play,” says Grube. “It would be two nights, and after the reading they were allowed six rehearsals. It was a good way to get everyone their first reading of a play. That went on for quite a long time. We had a lot of readings, but most of us did also have plays produced, too.”
The first time Grube ever saw her work produced on stage was a play Actors’ Theatre regular Clifford Henderson directed called Grandpa’s Breakfast, which Grube had written about her grandfather.
“Clifford directed it, and I learned so much,” she says. “I realized then that when you write something, you have something in mind, and when someone takes it to produce it, they bring out things in it that you didn’t realize were there. That was my first real wonderful feeling about having something directed.”
There are several productions that stick out in Henderson’s mind as highlights.
“We were doing really edgy stuff. It wasn’t just local playwrights, at all—that was a big focus, but we were doing [Athol] Fugard, and all these really lovely plays,” she says. “I was acting at that time, and I remember Phil Slater’s play Bug, that I believe Bonnie directed. That was pretty darn edgy; it had never been produced before, and we got good houses for it.”
In Bug, Henderson played Maddy, a woman who unexpectedly becomes the leader of an ecological movement after her predecessor is killed. Unable to handle the pressure, she runs away to live with her sister, Rita, and Rita’s troubled, cynical son, Bug.
“His characters were quirky and wonderful, and his dialogue was always really good,” Henderson says of Slater’s work. “It just had that Santa Cruz flair. Phil was such a Santa Cruzan to the bone, you know? And it resonated here.”
Another of her favorite Actors’ Theatre productions has a more personal subtext: it’s where she met her partner, Dixie Cox.
“This was probably my most favorite thing ever: we produced Carolyn Gage’s Amazon All-Stars, which was a lesbian musical that was a huge success. It was a sell-out every night,” says Henderson. “It was a musical about a lesbian softball team, with lots of song and dance. That’s where I met Dixie.”
Together, Henderson and Cox would go on to produce the Santa Cruz Improvathon, a fundraiser that started at Actors’ Theatre and kicked off the local comedy improv mania of the ’90s.
“It was kind of how the whole crazy improv thing started in Santa Cruz,” she says. “It’s still huge. Dixie and I moved over to the Broadway Playhouse [as the Fun Institute], but we are still teaching that Saturday morning improv, to huge classes. That’s where that started.”
Abridged to Success
But if there’s one thing Actors’ Theatre—and possibly Santa Cruz theater in general—is most known for, it’s 8 Tens @ 8. Oddly, the long-running 10-minute play festival came about 22 years ago in part because of a scheduling quirk.
“We used to have a company that would come down from San Francisco and rent the January spot. I was working in the office at that time,” says Grube. “They backed out, and we just had an empty January. Nobody seemed to want to go to the theater in January.”
The Actors’ Theatre crew knew that a theater group in Louisville, Kentucky was having success with a 10-minute play festival, even publishing collections of the best scripts.
“There was nothing like that on the West Coast,” says Chandler. “So I wrote to them and said ‘Can we be your sister city?’ And they didn’t care. So we started the West Coast version, and we were the first ones. The first year, we did only Monterey Bay area writers. The second year, we did California writers. Third year, we did West Coast writers. And then we went all over the country, and now it’s international.”
Since producing the first 8 Tens @ 8 in 1995, they’ve juried more than 3,000 plays, and produced several hundred. The festival is regularly written up in regional and national publications like American Theater Magazine. The short format allows both writers and directors room to experiment, without risking the success or failure of a full-length endeavor. And a 10-minute play can have its own special resonance.
“I think my all-time favorite play was from Dale Addius, who used to work at Cabrillo,” says Chandler. “Dale wrote a play called The Perm, which takes place in a beauty shop, and it’s a two-person play about a woman whose husband accidentally hit a child on the road. It starts out as a comedy, and ends up as a very serious piece. I just thought it really exemplified the power of a 10-minute play, how it can move from what you think you’re going to get to something much larger. I think a lot of them are like that.”
“What I always find exciting about it is within those 10 minutes, the character development is so deep and so strong,” says Ronzio. “The interpretation that each director gives a piece, working with the playwright and developing the characters, is just amazing.
This year, the company’s six-member board read through 180 plays to pick the final 16 that will be produced in January. One of them, Dragon Skin by Steve “Spike” Wong, is being directed by Patricia Grube’s son, Don Grube. Another, M and the Water Man by Hannah Vaughn, will be directed by Gerry Gerringer, who is also directing this season’s production of The Realistic Joneses.
“This season is going to be incredible,” says Chandler. “The Realistic Joneses, and then I’m directing Red in the fall, which is about Mark Rothko’s life, the painter. And we’re actually going to paint a Rothko onstage. They’re both beautiful plays.”
“Wilma has been the driving force behind this,” says Ronzio of the company’s year-round rebirth. “I was happy doing the 8 Tens, and building our little nest egg. When the nest egg got healthy enough, we wanted to do more theater. We added some more people to the board, and decided we would do The Mountaintop last year, and we had God of Carnage the year before. So we had the 8 Tens and the one down, and we felt pretty solid about it. We decided we needed at least three plays a year—and we went for it. Julie has been great about giving us time slots.”
In a way, this is exactly why Julie James kept the Center Stage Theater when JTC moved to the larger Colligan Theater two years ago.
“I knew if we didn’t keep it as a theater, the landlord might not be able to,” says James. If there wasn’t a small theater company that could afford a year-long lease, what would happen?”
James sees Actors’ Theatre as a group that has navigated the ups and downs of the theater world the right way.
“The great thing about Actors’ Theatre is they’ve always had a following, and they’ve kept their 8 Tens @ 8 every year to keep that following there with them. And now they’ve come to a point where they can expand, and use the space more again. It’s just really cool and wonderful that they’re having this re-blossoming,” she says. “All of us in theater—I have business relationships with Santa Cruz Shakespeare, and Mountain Community Theater—we all want to support each other. Because the more of us there are, the better it is for all of us. I think we all feel that way.”
Chandler agrees that those relationships sustain the often-precarious theater scene.
“Jewel has really emerged, and god bless ’em, they’re doing really professional work,” she says. “Mountain Community Theater’s been around for a long time, and has really become polished over the years. They have a very dedicated board and dedicated constituency who have really worked to make that rise. They’re doing great work up there. Others come and go. There are a number of small companies now that are still trying hard to finance. A lot of it is money. There are no theater spaces, there are high rents, and scheduling is a nightmare.”
Both Chandler and James characterize the vitality of the theater scene as “ebbs and flows.”
“But we all are doing interesting stuff in different ways, and there are enough people, it feels like to me,” says James. “Because here we are, we’ve been growing, and Actors’ Theatre is growing, and Santa Cruz Shakespeare is growing, and has been able to get out of the UC and maintain an audience. I think the only way for us to all do it is to work together. Our ultimate goal is to keep theater alive, and keep theater in front of people, and in their hearts.”
For founding Artistic Director Abbey Goss, the knowledge that Actors’ Theatre will live on is both astonishing and emotional. “Yesterday I had a good cry when I found a whole box of scripts we had used,” she says. “I thought, ‘It was so wonderful to be involved with.’ When you’re not doing it, you sometimes wonder if you really did it. I’m thrilled it’s going to go again.”
Actors’ Theatre’s 2018 season opens with the ‘8 Tens @ 8,’ Festival, Jan. 5-Feb. 4 at Center Street Theater, 1001 Center St. in Santa Cruz. For more information about this season, and for tickets and subscriptions, go to sccat.org.
As Liz Camarie walked out of the Regal 9 movie theater one late afternoon, she realized that she was being watched. A man was surveilling people in the window reflection across the street. It was around Christmas 15 years ago, and she had been shopping that day, carrying a bag and quite a bit of cash.
“I crossed the street and I glanced back, and he started to follow me,” she says.
If it had been 20 years earlier, she would have run. But she had taken and taught dozens of self-defense classes, so she turned around and confronted him.
“He just turned around and walked away,” she remembers. “I have no doubt that if I wasn’t aware of what was going on, I would have walked over to the parking lot and he would have attacked me.”
Camarie says she has been followed other times, too, and has learned to always do the same thing. She attributes her confidence in these situations to the Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation women’s self-defense classes, which the Commission for Prevention of Violence Against Women (CPVAW) has been offering for more than 35 years.
Recently, however, the CPVAW decided to cut back the number of classes from 15-20 annually to only five in 2018, all of which will be offered in May. The change comes as high-profile allegations of sexual assault and harassment have dominated national headlines—and show no signs of slowing. Since early October, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, Dustin Hoffman, Sylvester Stallone, Ben Affleck, Sen. Al Franken (D-Michigan), former President George H.W. Bush, Charlie Rose, and Louis C.K. have all been accused of sexual assault or misconduct. The trending #metoo movement—a social media campaign to illuminate how many people have experienced such violence—quantified the magnitude of the problem.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women is raped at some point in their lives, and one in four girls will be sexually abused before they are 18. The Santa Cruz Police Department (SCPD) responds to an average of 28 monthly domestic violence calls—with a total of nearly 250 calls as of September of this year, the last month with data available. Rape reports were also up compared to the same point last year—52 to last year’s 38.
“With the growing dialogue around sexual assault and harassment, it seems like an important time to actually be promoting these classes and standing up for our values as a city,” says class instructor Leonie Sherman, who has contributed to GT.
CPVAW chair Brooke Newman points to dwindling class sizes as the reason for the cuts. The self-defense classes—which are free, and will remain so—were once packed, and Camarie recalls waiting months to get a spot. But now the city cancels around 50 percent of them because of low enrollment.
“Rather than spend money to pay someone for classes that aren’t occurring and not serving the community the way we want to, we will cut the classes back and be more robust in how we are serving our community,” says Newman.
She says the commission will pivot to better educate men as a means of preventing rape. Critics of that strategy blame the declining enrollment on the city’s lack of marketing and outreach efforts, and say the classes should not be cut.
CPVAW cofounder Gillian Greensite helped create the commission in 1981, aiming to end domestic violence and sexual assault while working with the police department to address issues of sexual and domestic violence. She says fluctuations in class sizes are nothing new, and enrollment has dipped before. The past commission coordinator, Kathy Agnone, would do public outreach and promotion, like submitting calendar listings and public service announcements to local media, making classroom announcements in elementary schools and working with transitional housing and women’s crisis support groups to boost class enrollment.
“It’s not as though we have a very complex issue here,” Greensite says. “The staff should be doing a lot of publicity, that’s how you build the numbers up. It’s not rocket science.”
Holding classes in May will allow time to improve publicity and outreach for the classes during April, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Newman says. The community class currently costs about $10,000,a fifth of the commission’s total budget, to fund Sherman’s instructor position. Forty classes were offered when Sherman was hired in 2005. Less than half that is offered now, and the budget is $8,000 higher than it was 12 years ago.
When asked what else the department budget covers, city analyst Susie O’Hara said via email that other expenditures include classes at local schools, as well as $30,000 for “supplies (for outreach, tabling, etc).” Cutting back the classes won’t save the commission money, because its fiscal year plan is already set and extra funds will have to go to other efforts benefiting violence prevention on behalf of women. It isn’t clear yet how the commission will reallocate those funds during the fiscal year, which runs through June. Newman says she hopes the commission will have a clearer funding plan following a Dec. 20 budgetary meeting.
Sherman has been the classes’ only instructor for years, and has taught self-defense classes for women and girls in Santa Cruz Main Jail and the Rebele Family Shelter. She says that in recent years, commissioners haven’t served as long as they used to, and she suggests there may have been a “shift” in the commission’s values.
“There is something that is not working, but I am not sure that cutting the classes so drastically is the best solution for our community,” she says.
Whereas Agnone used to work 20 hours a week, much of it on marketing, the commission’s duties have now fallen to O’Hara, an analyst who works for city manager Martín Bernal’s office on City Council issues and the Neighborhood Safety Team. O’Hara says she hasn’t had time to do any marketing, though Newman says publicity has been adequate because the commission has developed a newsletter that advertises the classes, and also tabled at events.
Newman says the CPVAW’s mission hasn’t changed, but admits that recent staff turnover and reduced allocated staff time for the commission has made its goals more of a challenge. The commission has had three coordinators in the last two years, and Newman says the process of commissioner appointments—which come from the City Council—as well as the amount of time needed to catch up new appointees, makes transitions difficult.
The seven-member commission meets six times a year to set goals, manage its budget and respond to sexual violence issues in the community. Newman says experts’ understanding of rape prevention have changed in the last four decades, and that the commission should focus onprograms like affirmative consent policy development and implementation, and programs for high school athletics departmentswhich are “more proactive” in preventing rape and sexual violence.
“Being aware and having the tools to help protect yourself from dangerous and violent situations is important, [but] only the rapist can prevent rape. That’s part of what we are interested in, things like coaching boys into men to educate boys at a young age that women are not objects, because not raping prevents rape,” says Newman.
Camarie, who took and taught self-defense classes years ago, sees that goal as unrealistic and believes in teaching women to protect themselves.
“It seems like the commission is aiming more toward helping men get better, get over their problems and such,” Camarie says. “I will tell anybody: I don’t believe that’s possible, it’s a sham. The commission needs to make things better for women and children in Santa Cruz. They aren’t going to change the world.”
The City Council does not have a say in the budgetary choices of the CPVAW, but if there is leftover funding from the commission, the city may withdraw it. When the classes are cut back, Newman says, the commission needs to funnel excess money into a different program so that it does not lose the funds.
Critics say that even as the CPVAW explores new approaches, it should not forget the importance of the city’s free self-defense classes.
“Classes can change things for individuals, my life was changed by these classes in really important fundamental ways,” Camarie says. “I spent at least a decade walking around scared every moment that I was out of my house. But now I don’t feel unsafe anymore.”
Tandy Beal says that she has a new word to go with her new show, Joy!: Wow.
The idea is that the “wow” will incite the joy. Beal, Santa Cruz’s renowned choreographer and the creator of the popular annual Nutcracker update Nutz RE-Mixed, is taking a brief hiatus from her Nutcracker-inspired performances to introduce Joy!, which is a reunion of Cirque du Soleil soloists Jeff Raz and Diane Wasnak (aka Pino and Razz).
The show promises to be as dynamic and colorful as Beal is. As she shifts around in her chair, visibly thrilled about her friends’ reunion, she says that the combination of elegant dance and clown comedy will create community through laughter.
“They are world-class in their ability to make you laugh, oh my god,” she says—and then pauses, her voice lowering to a simmer. “When somebody laughs, our troubles are gone away for a moment and we feel open, and that might inspire a moment’s more kindness.”
Having starred in both the Pickle Family Circus and on Broadway, the multi-talented Raz and Wasnak are likely the best “clowns” you will ever see. The show will also feature familiar faces like Natasha Kaluza (a.k.a the Super Duper Hula Hooper) and her 50 hoops, as well as new talent—two Mongolian contortionists and an Ethiopian foot juggler.
Santa Cruz has been without a Tandy Beal & Company production for over a year now, since last year’s Nutz RE-Mixed was only performed in San Jose. Beal is a long time Santa Cruzan, and the debut of Joy! is an overdue homecoming. Unlike her past contemporary Nutcracker performances, it won’t follow a storyline. It’s a series of short acts set to live a cappella “Candy Land” inspired tunes from Oakland’s SoVoSó in what Beal calls a “platter of beautiful hors d’oeuvres” to amuse all entertainment palates.
“Oh that’s great, look at the color on that one. Oh, that one is sour. Where did that salty lemony thing come from?” she says, gesturing to an invisible array of snacks. “It’s to amuse your mouth,” she says, smacking her lips.
But don’t say goodbye to the Sugar Plum Fairy just yet. Beal has been doing alternative Nutcracker performances for more than 30 years, and she certainly hasn’t given them up. Nutz RE-Mixed will return next year, she says. In the meantime, Beal promises to pay homage to Nutz RE-Mixed in Joy!, just so you won’t lose your taste for the classics.
“The older I get, the more I realize that laughter is a divine gift,” Beal says as she floats out of the room. “Wonder is something that adults lose, and that’s a terrible loss.”
To bring a bit more curiosity and wonder, Tandy Beal & Company is incorporating a children’s program and raffle in partnership with Santa Cruz public schools, encouraging children to write what brings them joy. They are also co-hosting a coloring contest with the Downtown Association. The children’s artwork and writing will be on display at the show.
“Joy is a great word because we really need it. Laughter can lift up our hearts, and that’s my point,” Beal says. “When you laugh with somebody else, you are a community.”
‘Joy!’ begins Nov. 24-26 at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, 307 Church St., Santa Cruz. $12.25-$55.50, and Dec. 1-3 in at the San Jose Hammer Theatre Center, 101 Paseo De San Antonio, San Jose. $17-$47. For tickets or more information, visit tandybeal.com/joy.
Shredding may not be trendy for arena rock bands these days, but there’s still an enthusiastic audience for it, as proven by the Guitar Collective Tour, which comes to Santa Cruz this week. Three prog-metal acts with shredding galore will take the stage: openers Andy James and Andy Vivaldi are both technically proficient metal players, while headliners Scale the Summit aren’t quite as brutal—more of a prog-rock band.
Scale the Summit guitarist and leader Chris Letchford does his best to allow any element into the music that works.
“I have never pushed in a certain direction on purpose. Whatever is written and recorded is what we sound like at the time,” says Letchford. “I hear others call us a metal band. To me, a metal band would have a screamer as a front man. I think our music is just jazz with distortion.”
As the headliners for the Guitar Showcase Tour, many Scale the Summit fans assumed that they were the ones to come up with the idea. But this tour was the brainchild of Vivaldi for a one-off event at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show last year.
The accompanying master classes at each show on this tour—there are 15 slots per event, allowing fans to take a lesson from the GCT guitarists—was also an intuitive decision, as Vivaldi already teaches and mentors young musicians.
“It just made sense to give people the chance to have all three of us in the room at the same time,” he says.
Scale the Summit’s style brings to mind the theatrics of older progressive bands like Dream Theater, with a modern twist. There’s also a deeply emotional component to the music that doesn’t get lost in the hardcore riffing and impressive showmanship.
The group is also instrumental. And rather than be a nonstop show of Letchford’s lightning fast shredding, he shows that he can use his guitar to sing and express himself.
“Instrumental music defies genres, and can reach a broader audience, opening more opportunities for us to play all around the world with all sorts of different bands,” Letchford says. “We have played shows with death metal bands, indie rock, pop, rap, soul and R&B. We were told early on that we would be limited, and it was semi-true at the start, but instrumental is becoming more of a trend now.”
Last year, Letchford parted ways with the rest of the band’s former members, and this year’s release In a World of Fear is Scale the Summit’s first album since the lineup shakeup. Not only is it a little looser, but for the first time, he’s brought on a bunch of guest players to contribute to the music. Unlike previous records, where everything was perfectly rehearsed and done in a professional studio, he took a different approach and recorded it himself, which allowed for a more relaxed process.
“It was the most fun record I have ever done,” Letchford says. “Being in control of tracking the guitars myself at my home in the mountains, there was no pressure, no rushing, and I got to do unlimited revisions of the songs—trying new things, experimenting with tones. It was awesome.”
This attitude has spilled over into the Scale the Summit live experience too, which he is undertaking with what he calls “the sickest players I have ever played with.” Previously, the group was known for replicating their albums note for note, flawlessly. Now there’s an element of improv to the music.
“It helps to keep things fresh for us, and fresh for the audience. We still play everything you hear on the record, but add in new stuff that you only hear that night. It’s a lot of fun,” Letchford says.
The Guitar Collective Tour performs at 8:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 27, at the Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $17/adv, $20/door. 429-4135.
It was called Wishful Thinking, the deep golden cocktail devised with alchemical flair by Zane Griffin, the man behind the bar at Assembly. Amontillado sherry, dry vermouth, plus a few exciting details, such as Ancho Reyes (chili liqueur), orange bitters, and mezcal. How could these ingredients combine into something so mellow and memorable? Dunno. But they did. Full disclosure: I am not a fan of sherry nor of vermouth, yet this cocktail was utterly convincing. The warming tones of the mezcal and chili gave sex appeal to the main ingredients. The hint of bitters added punch to the submissive flavor notes of the sherry and vermouth. While I pondered the backstory of the cocktail’s name, my companion Anya went for a glass of Nebbiolo Rosé from Ser Winery—crisp with hints of tannins and berries.
Griffin, the restaurant’s beverage director and his sous-mixologist graciously provided some annotated answers to our questions about Assembly’s bar menu. It is mesmerizing watching the pouring and mixing. Why not simply have dinner right there at the bar? No reason not to.
I ordered the braised chicken leg from 38 North Poultry, which arrived bronzed into confit status, and surrounded by what amounted to an enlightened cassoulet of cannellini beans with caramelized leeks, Route 1 kale, earthy chorizo, and herbed bread crumbs all over the whole thing ($25). The crunch of tasty breadcrumbs and chopped kale was a texture ally with the succulent poultry and soft, addictive beans. Autumn in every bite, this spectacular dish was romanced nicely by the unusual cocktail Griffin had created. And Assembly chef Jessica Yarr has a way with robust ingredients.
My companion’s New York strip steak ($29) was an equally gorgeous entrée, served—like my substantial chicken leg—in a deep, wide bowl. The slices of rare beef were sided by a braise of baby spinach, caramelized red onion, and pancetta, and a purée of kabocha squash. The bottom of the plate shimmered with a balsamic and red grape pan sauce. And to think that I usually stick to the burgers at Assembly. As we ate we watched the mixologists whipping up stunning house cocktails—the Tennyson West was particularly intriguing with Venus gin, wild elderflower liqueur, chartreuse, and extract of roses. The house also runs a full dance card of classic and contemporary cocktails to please those who crave Negronis, daiquiris, margaritas, and mojitos. Yes, I know. The burgers!
Stagnaro Bros. Celebrates 80!
As a kid I remember sitting at the end of the wharf watching the seals and sea gulls, and swilling those crab louies and clam chowder with little oyster crackers. Stagnaro Bros. was the place to have a special meal of fresh fish amid the colorful waterfront vibes. Well not only the nautical vibes but the actual prices from long ago will be in place on Nov. 29, as the coastal landmark celebrates its 80th birthday by “rolling back prices with a set menu of favorite items from the original opening of the restaurant, all day long,” says co-owner Rob McPherson, who, along with his siblings, helps to run both the restaurant and the wholesale fish market. McPherson promises that his 99-year-old grandmother and 93-year-old aunt will both be there next week to greet their many fans and admirers. Join them! (Yes, there are various other wonderful places in Santa Cruz with the name “Stagnaro” on them—after all, our region was graced by the presence of more than one member of the immigrant Italian food, market, and fishing dynasty starting more than 100 years ago. Celebrating its 80th is Stagnaro’s at the end of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf. Open daily 11 a.m.-9 p.m.)
Free Will astrology for the week of November 22, 2017
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In alignment with the current astrological omens, I have prepared your horoscope using five hand-plucked aphorisms by Aries poet Charles Bernstein. 1. “You never know what invention will look like or else it wouldn’t be invention.” 2. “So much depends on what you are expecting.” 3. “What’s missing from the bird’s eye view is plain to see on the ground.” 4. “The questioning of the beautiful is always at least as important as the establishment of the beautiful.” 5. “Show me a man with two feet planted firmly on the ground and I’ll show you a man who can’t get his pants on.”
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): It may seem absurd for a dreamy oracle like me to give economic advice to Tauruses, who are renowned as being among the zodiac’s top cash attractors. Is there anything I can reveal to you that you don’t already know? Well, maybe you’re not aware that the next four weeks will be prime time to revise and refine your long-term financial plans. It’s possible you haven’t guessed the time is right to plant seeds that will produce lucrative yields by 2019. And maybe you don’t realize that you can now lay the foundation for bringing more wealth into your life by raising your generosity levels.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I used to have a girlfriend whose mother hated Christmas. The poor woman had been raised in a fanatical fundamentalist Christian sect, and she drew profound solace and pleasure from rebelling against that religion’s main holiday. One of her annual traditions was to buy a small Christmas tree and hang it upside-down from the ceiling. She decorated it with ornamental dildos she had made out of clay. While I understood her drive for revenge and appreciated the entertaining way she did it, I felt pity for the enduring ferocity of her rage. Rather than mocking the old ways, wouldn’t her energy have been much better spent inventing new ways? If there is any comparable situation in your own life, Gemini, now would be a perfect time to heed my tip. Give up your attachment to the negative emotions that arose in response to past frustrations and failures. Focus on the future.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): So begins the “I Love To Worry” season for you Cancerians. Even now, bewildering self-doubts are working their way up toward your conscious awareness from your unconscious depths. You may already be overreacting in anticipation of the anxiety-provoking fantasies that are coalescing. But wait! It doesn’t have to be that way. I’m here to tell you that the bewildering self-doubts and anxiety-provoking fantasies are at most 10 percent accurate. They’re not even close to being half-true! Here’s my advice: Do not go with the flow, because the flow will drag you down into ignominious habit. Resist all tendencies towards superstition, moodiness, and melodramatic descents into hell. One thing you can do to help accomplish this brave uprising is to sing beloved songs with maximum feeling.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Your lucky numbers are 55 and 88. By tapping into the uncanny powers of 55 and 88, you can escape the temptation of a hexed fiction and break the spell of a mediocre addiction. These catalytic codes could wake you up to a useful secret you’ve been blind to. They might help you catch the attention of familiar strangers or shrink one of your dangerous angers. When you call on 55 or 88 for inspiration, you may be motivated to seek a more dynamic accomplishment beyond your comfortable success. You could reactivate an important desire that has been dormant.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): What exactly is the epic, overarching goal that you live for? What is the higher purpose that lies beneath every one of your daily activities? What is the heroic identity you were born to create but have not yet fully embodied? You may not be close to knowing the answers to those questions right now, Virgo. In fact, I’m guessing your fear of meaninglessness might be at a peak. Luckily, a big bolt of meaningfulness is right around the corner. Be alert for it. In a metaphorical sense, it will arrive from the depths. It will strengthen your center of gravity as it reveals lucid answers to the questions I posed in the beginning of this horoscope.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): We all need teachers. We all need guides and instructors and sources of inspiration from the day we’re born until the day we die. In a perfect world, each of us would always have a personal mentor who’d help us fill the gaps in our learning and keep us focused on the potentials that are crying out to be nurtured in us. But since most of us don’t have that personal mentor, we have to fend for ourselves. We’ve got to be proactive as we push on to the next educational frontier. The next four weeks will be an excellent time for you to do just that, Libra.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): This is your last warning! If you don’t stop fending off the happiness and freedom that are trying to worm their way into your life, I’m going to lose my cool. Damn it! Why can’t you just accept good luck and sweet strokes of fate at face value?! Why do you have to be so suspicious and mistrustful?! Listen to me: The abundance that’s lurking in your vicinity is not the set-up for a cruel cosmic joke. It’s not some wicked game designed to raise your expectations and then dash them to pieces. Please, Scorpio, give in and let the good times wash over you.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Journalist James A. Fussell defined “thrashing” as “the act of tapping helter-skelter over a computer keyboard in an attempt to find “hidden” keys that trigger previously undiscovered actions in a computer program.” I suggest we use this as a metaphor for your life in the next two weeks. Without becoming rude or irresponsible, thrash around to see what interesting surprises you can drum up. Play with various possibilities in a lighthearted effort to stimulate options you have not been able to discover through logic and reason.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Let’s observe a moment of silence for the illusion that is in the process of disintegrating. It has been a pretty illusion, hasn’t it? Filled with hope and gusto, it has fueled you with motivation. But then again—on second thought—its prettiness was more the result of clever packaging than inner beauty. The hope was somewhat misleading, the gusto contained more than a little bluster, and the fuel was an inefficient source of motivation. Still, let’s observe a moment of silence anyway. Even dysfunctional mirages deserve to be mourned. Besides, its demise will fertilize a truer and healthier and prettier dream that will contain a far smaller portion of illusion.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Judging from the astrological omens, I conclude that the upcoming weeks will be a favorable time for you to engage in experiments befitting a mad scientist. You can achieve interesting results as you commune with powerful forces that are usually beyond your ability to command. You could have fun and maybe also attract good luck as you dream and scheme to override the rules. What pleasures have you considered to be beyond your capacity to enjoy? It wouldn’t be crazy for you to flirt with them. You have license to be saucy, sassy, and extra sly.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A snail can slowly crawl over the edge of a razor blade without hurting itself. A few highly trained experts, specialists in the art of mind over matter, are able to walk barefoot over beds of hot coals without getting burned. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Pisces, you now have the metaphorical equivalent of powers like these. To ensure they’ll operate at peak efficiency, you must believe in yourself more than you ever have before. Luckily, life is now conspiring to help you do just that.
Homework: What’s the most important question you’d like to find an answer for in the next five years? Tell all: Freewillastrology.com
On Tuesday this week, the Sun moved from Scorpio to Sag—a shift from Scorpio’s deep waters to the meadows, valley’s and plains of Sagittarius. We shifted from the eagle to the horse; from the depths to seeking the heights; from the star Antares to the Galactic Center; from the opal to the topaz; from Mars to Jupiter; from Orion to Chiron; from Tuesday (Mars’s day) to Thursday (Jupiter’s day); from the sign of death and regeneration to the sign of the adventurer, riding the white horse, bow and arrow in hand, seeking the mountain tops of Capricorn. Both Scorpio and Sag are signs of discipleship.
Jupiter is the personality-building ruler of Sag, aiming its bow and arrow to a goal far away, in the clouds somewhere above the peaks of Capricorn. It is Neptune who lives where Jupiter wants to go, where the arrow is pointed. Neptune is the ethers. Neptune has no external aim or direction. It simply expands, dissolving boundaries, barriers and obstacles to the spiritual world. Jupiter is religion, Neptune spirituality. Jupiter is faith, Neptune compassion. Jupiter is knowledge, Neptune intuition. The Raincloud of Knowable Things.
Jupiter and Neptune are rulers of Pisces, sign of the world savior, sign of saving the world—the esoteric task of the United States. In Sagittarius, we prepare for the dawn of the new year, in Capricorn, Winter Solstice. When the Temple door opens.
Thursday is Thanksgiving. Under Sag Sun we eat well together. Under Jupiter we give thanks and are grateful. We have joyfulness. Gratitude and Joy also open the Temple Doors. That’s a secret. Alert! Mercury retrograde begins next week!
ARIES: Relationship interactions will call you to tell the truth, to ask for what you want and need, to reflect and figure out what you’re willing to give in return. Allowing nothing to happen, not providing information, not exploring and explaining desires and aspirations in relationships keeps everyone in the dark. True love is communication. Communication creates true love. Nothing else matters.
TAURUS: It’s important to plan, create rhythms, agendas and schedules that structure daily living. It’s important that a routine be established, priorities stated, goals set and details worked out so you can achieve greater efficiency. Allow nothing and no one to hinder you from creating the essential discipline of preparing for the future. You actually know what that future will be.
GEMINI: For months, there have been hints of a new creative process emerging. However, the time was not right, the season hadn’t arrived. There is a time and season for everything and Geminis are smart enough to know and follow them. It’s time to list the projects and visions you think about, choosing several to follow up on. Conflict turns into peace and harmony, confidence into well-being.
CANCER: Certain situations have erupted placing you between two different realities which you are attempting to balance. However, each day this becomes more difficult, leading to exhaustion. What’s at stake are values, and you’re asking what your values are. Home has become a place where change must take place. You need sleep, rest, comfort, quiet and solitude.
LEO: Perhaps it’s been difficult the past two months for others to understand your hopes, wishes, needs. Have you been lonely and felt misunderstood? Perhaps you longed for clarity, thinking it would never arrive. It has now. It’s just begun. You will no longer have to enter into silent retreat because of communication difficulties. Discernment was the purpose for the last several months.
VIRGO: Have you been tending to finances, figuring out resources for a true perspective of your assets? Is something occurring at home, perhaps a state of anger or dissatisfaction, a sense of restriction leading to a restructuring of your surroundings? Are you wanting to run away from home and wondering if you have adequate resources? Take a bit more time to reflect on your choices. More answers emerge soon.
LIBRA: In the past several months a new vision of self has begun to emerge. You want to look a certain way that enhances your self-esteem, benefits your earning power, and creates a balance between who you are and how you’re perceived. It has been important in the last years for your desires, wishes and longings to manifest. Now that you have much of what you hoped for, whom will you share it with? Will you share?
SCORPIO: That nebulous feeling of not knowing anything, even the time of day, the month or year, is slowly dissolving, and with it comes a sense of knowing, once again, your true needs and wants, desires and aspirations. For so long you’ve heard yourself saying “I don’t know, I don’t know.” Allow surrounding circumstances to present themselves slowly and gently. Watch, look and listen, observe. And then be grateful.
SAGITTARIUS: In these days of gratitude, it’s good to assess your true friends and acquaintances. It’s important to know whom to turn to for care, warmth and respect. So much has been in flux and change. You are beginning to understand where real support comes from and what you can accept. Reach out and touch all that you care about. Surround it all with love and appreciation. The planets are entering Sagittarius and your joy increases.
CAPRICORN: Everyone who comes in contact with you realizes you are a teacher, someone to be reckoned with. They realize that although you can be the life of the party, it’s best not to cross, take advantage of, ignore, or treat you unkindly. They realize you have values and principles concerning Right Relations and Goodwill. It’s good to list your likes and dislikes, needs and wants. Sharing them with friends and family, creating a true dialogue.
AQUARIUS: Many changes have occurred in the past months and many uncertainties emerged and visions you held seemed to melt away due to so many unusual tasks and responsibilities. Now there is fresh air and time to choose and eliminate and you can take a stand on the direction of your life and figure out what’s a dream and what is reality. Things, people, information far away seem vital and significant. Contact them.
PISCES: Observe with interest and care what you do each day. Observe your thoughts, timing, focus, goals and intentions. Do you know what you want and need? Make a list. Begin with what you don’t want and need. Paradoxes abound in your life. To be efficient and balanced you must stand in the middle, betwixt and between. Focus on small daily details. Complete tasks step by step. When larger life events appear, you will be prepared.
From deep within the bowels of Richmond, Virginia, the heavy metal space aliens Gwar have surfaced and they are showing no mercy. On Nov. 17, they return to the Catalyst—for the first time in five years—promising another night of chaos drenched in the blood of their prey. Only this time, they demand more than a sacrifice.
“I look forward to leaving Santa Cruz with a briefcase full of money and drugs,” says guitar player Pustulus Maximus. “It doesn’t even have to be a specific amount of money, the briefcase just needs to be full of it. And drugs.”
Just don’t try to pull a fast one on the Scumdogs of the Universe.
“No coins, it needs to be all paper,” he warns. “It can even be the Canadian funny money, that’s fine.”
For the last three decades, this grotesque group of renegade alien warriors has toured the world slaughtering ear drums with their merciless music and brutal stage show. At each show, Maximus, the Berserker Blothar (vocals), Balsac the Jaws ‘O Death (guitar), Jizmak Da Gusha (drums) and Beefcake the Mighty (bass) drenching their loyal fans—also known as bohabs—in gallons of blood. Literally. Bohabs specifically wear white for the occasion, often keeping each tour shirt as a token souvenir from their gods.
But who are these mysterious creatures and how did they come to wreak havoc on our planet?
The Gwar mythos is deep and often mysterious. They were intergalactic warriors serving a supreme being called the Master, and sent throughout the universe to kill his enemies. The only problem was that they were a little too enthusiastic about their work and each member “earned a reputation for being an intergalactic fuck-up.” They were banished to a dirt planet called—you guessed it—Earth, where they changed the natural order by mating with apes, creating all human life. They found their way to Antarctica, where the Master trapped them for centuries, only to thaw in 1984 and return to the slaughter. They even managed to escape the planet for a tour in space, but quickly returned because, well, space doesn’t have crack for them to smoke.
But don’t take our word for it—it’s all explained on their latest album, The Blood of Gods.
“It definitely tells the tales of our struggles, trials and tribulations over the last years,” Maximus admits. “Especially the last few years, which have been an extensive grieving process and rebirth.’
The band has had a cast of characters come and go over the years—from their cave troll slave Bonesnapper to their greasy manager, Sleazy P. Martini. However, tragedy struck when their longtime guitarist, Flattus Maximus, stole a spaceship and returned to his birthplace of Planet Home.That’s when Pustulus stepped up to the plate, defending the honor of the Maximus clan.
“The last time we played [Santa Cruz] in 2012 was actually my first tour with the band,” he remembers.
The second tragedy came in 2014, when founding member and long-time singer Oderus Urungus, became trapped between dimensions, unable to return to the band, and is now confirmed deceased.
But as Maximus noted, with destruction comes rebirth. From the portals of time, Gwar pulled Blothar through history and into our realm. The Blood of Gods might be his first album with the Scumdogs, but he was able to quickly carve his own warm hole in the group.
“We are the gods [in the title],” he says. “It’s been shown over the past decade that Gwar can bleed and suffer mortal blows.”
“He speaks for all of us in the band through these lyrics,” Maximus states. “And I think he did a fucking great job at expressing what we needed to get out there. If you want to know what’s going on with us, it’s all there.”
From the opening track, “War on Gwar,” to tracks like “Crushed By the Cross,” Gods is a brutal onslaught of heavy metal. It was a massive undertaking that the cretins didn’t take lightly, knowing how heavily they would be watched along the way. And as sales have shown, they nailed it.
“It was an accomplishment to make a record without Oderus Urungus, which was the elephant in the room,” acknowledges Maximus. “Every listener is going to judge us in that respect, so we decided, ‘Fuck it, we’re going to do what we’re going to do.’ It was a very organic process.
Blothar agrees.
“We wanted to do a Gwar record, and I’m very glad for that,” he says. “Gwar has changed over the years, but there was a cohesion to the way things were put together.”
While it is definitely a Gwar record, what makes it stand out from their most recent albums is the decidedly rock ’n’ roll turn they chose to take. Songs like “Phantom Limb” and “El Presidente”—in which bohabs will hear a horn section, something that hasn’t appeared on a Gwar album in years—bring a distinct 1970s hard rock flavor to the music. They even do a gruesome cover of AC/DC’s “If You Want Blood.”
“Oderus had wanted to cover that for years,” Blothar remembers.
“The biggest reason why this is such a diverse record is because we didn’t want to be limited by any one style,” he says. “And Gwar shouldn’t be, considering we invented all of them.”
This new rebirth has led the band on a wave of destruction with Oakland-based Ghoul and Richmond group U.S. Bastards, on a tour that Maximus describes as “long and hard, much like a pecker.” But it’s a tour that is needed, because it seems not even space aliens can escape the IRS.
“We don’t get any medical benefits, but they still take a shitload of taxes. How’s that for America?” he growls. “I’m not even allowed to vote, since I’m not a natural-born citizen. Not like there’s anyone to vote for anyway.”
INFO: 6:30pm. The Catalyst Club. 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $25adv/$29door. 429-4135.
Maybe it sounds weird to say this, but getting to be part of Santa Cruz Gives has become one of the things I most look forward to for the holidays. I’ve said before that I don’t think there’s anything more important that we do all year, and with each annual edition of our holiday giving drive, that seems more and more true. Nothing else combines community outreach, philanthropy and our hyper-local philosophy of news coverage like this. Beyond the thousands of dollars raised for worthy local causes, nothing else provides our readers with a window into what people throughout the county are doing to help the people in their communities. I learn so much, too, because it’s the one time every year that I get to sit in a room with people from almost three dozen of the county’s top local nonprofits and talk with them about what they’re doing and how we can help them do it.
I particularly like this Santa Cruz Gives kick-off issue, because you get to read about exactly what they’re doing, in their own words. I guarantee that if you read the cover story, you’ll find at least one group you want to support. In fact, what we’ve found over the last two years is that when people go to santacruzgives.org, they often end up supporting more organizations than just the ones they initially planned to give to. I get into some of the numbers in the introduction to the cover story, but I could ramble on and on about all the results that have wowed me.
Please do, said no one ever!
OK, fair enough, but before I let you get to it, I want to thank our partners in this project, the Volunteer Center, Santa Cruz County Bank, Oswald and Wynn Capital Management.
Oh, wait, and one more thing: the analytic numbers for Santa Cruz Gives were up immensely year-to-year for every category we could think to parse them in: number of donors, individual donations, challenge grants, largest donation, average donation, multi-gift donations, and so on. That’s not because of us, that’s because of the incredible generosity of our readers. I urge you to read about the nonprofits selected for this year’s program, and then go to santacruzgives.org and be a part of it. Because this thing is just getting started.
Re: “Grave Situation” (GT, Oct. 25): Brava to Maria Grusauskas on her coverage of greener options for end of life. There is a large network of people who are working on natural deathcare in the Santa Cruz community, including the creation of a green burial conservation woodlands. I hope Maria can dig up more on the topic.
Julie Esterly | Santa Cruz
Rents Don’t Raise Themselves
In poetry, inanimate objects and ideas can do things by themselves. Rents can go up by themselves, “the market” can set its rate. But in real life, such things have to be done by people. The owner of the Logos building says, “because I’m trying to retire, I need to get at least a reasonable market rate for the space.” Why? “So he can spend more time playing music and golf,” according to the Good Times of July 18. And the owner of the building where Pergolesi was wants his tenant to maintain the building he owns, according to the GT of Oct. 11.
So before we wring our hands about this seemingly out-of-control situation of high rents, let’s remember clearly that each individual landlord in this town is deciding how much to charge, and in fact is demanding it. Renters and landlords understand, even if no one says it out loud, “If you don’t like the rent, you can move out. I have 100 more people behind you glad to pay it.” The Old Testament term for this—and I think it is an apt one—is “greed.”
We hear about victimless crimes. This is a useful term. I believe that “rents” and “the market” are not the things causing people to go homeless, and making the rest of us suffer. Yes, “suffer”: from overwork, or having to leave our home town of decades for some other unknown place, or to live like “refugees in place,” or even just watch helplessly as a beautiful town that wants to stay weird turns into another Carmel. Does anyone really believe this happens by itself? But everyone talks about it as if it were a perpetrator-less crime.
How can we bring rents down in this town? Easy! All the landlords get together and say, “Hey, this is bad! Let’s cut rents in half.” It’s simple. Why won’t they? I’m asking you this honestly. Give it a think.
So before we build more buildings, destroy habitat, fill our town with construction noise, we need to ask this question: if somehow five hundred units of studio apartments at $800 a month were to magically appear tomorrow, does anyone really believe that besides those 500 people, the rents will go down for anyone else? Because if not, maybe we have to consider the likelihood that besides retroactive rent control—actually legally binding reduction—there is no way that more construction will change “the market.”
Human consciousness—a change in it—is the only thing that will make that happen.
Andy Couturier | Santa Cruz
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GOOD IDEA
TAPPING IN
Santa Cruz Ayurvedic practitioner Talya Lutzker is spearheading a fundraising effort to get clean drinking water to remote areas of Puerto Rico, where fresh water is virtually nonexistent, after Hurricane Maria decimated the U.S. territory this past September. Clean Water for Puerto Rico has raised $22,000 toward its goal of $85,000, with a deadline of Nov. 19. All donations go to the Greatness Foundation to fund state-of-the-art portable water filtration systems. For more info or to donate, visit thegreatnessfoundation.com/puertorico.
GOOD WORK
SCOTT FREE
Scott Collins—until very recently, Santa Cruz’s deputy city manager—has started a new job. Last week Collins began working as the city manager for Morro Bay. Before he left, Santa Cruz threw him a proper send-off, with a tongue-in-cheek grilling at Santa Cruz City Hall. Sources tell GT that Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Rick Martinez, former Mayor Hilary Bryant and County Supervisor Zach Friend each stepped up to the mic to roast the ever-grinning, easy-going Collins to a face-palming, head-shaking crisp.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.”
Holiday gift giving is all about good feelings, but this just might be the most feel-good edition of the GT Holiday Gift Guide ever. 
