How can you regulate your health with what you eat? Beth Love’s Taste Like Love is a collection of principle, culinary classes, programs, services and books that focus on the energy of taste. Tastes Like Love encourages conscious food preparation and will introduce their 30-Day Health Challenge with a whole food, plant-based meal food party. This is a free event, but registration is required and location will be provided upon registration.
There are 60,000 youth in California’s foster care system. Unfortunately, the risk of homelessness, prison and social stigma is far greater for youth that have gone through the system, which is why the Museum of Art and History is hosting “Lost Childhoods: Voices of Santa Cruz County Foster Youth & Foster Youth Museum.” Through personal belongings, photographs, and artwork, more than 100 current and former foster youths, artists, and advocates from across the county will share their stories. The exhibition also features photography by Ray Bussolari and four different installations that foster youth, created with artists Bridget Henry, Melody Overstreet, Elliott Taylor, and Nada Miljkovic.
In her writing, Joyce Oroz covers the things she loves, like animals, California, relationships, adventure, painting, and mystery. Oroz’s books feature amateur sleuth Josephine Stuart, who happens to be painting one of her Santa Cruz murals when a crime takes place. The story is set in local neighborhoods and the Santa Cruz Mountains backcountry as Josephine plans her artwork, colors, and figuring out who-dunnit. This Saturday, July 8, Oroz will talk about her life as muralist-turned-writer and what it’s been like to live with dyslexia.
Info: 2 p.m. Scotts Valley Branch Library, 251 Kings Village Road, Scotts Valley. Free.
I meet Joe Jordan at his Westside home a little after sunrise for an hour-long journey up into the redwoods, through what he calls “the land that time forgot” to the off-the-grid community of Last Chance.
As we set off in Jordan’s electric vehicle, a Chevy Spark named “Sparky” that has remarkable pick up (which he loves to demonstrate for his unsuspecting riders), he says, “We’re off on the greatest adventure of our lives.” It’s a saying he got from UCSC Natural History professor Ken Norris, and one that Jordan fully embraces.
Jordan is an astronomer and a proponent of what he once called in a TED Talk “sky power”—his favorite designation for renewable energy that originates in nature, like solar, water and wind power.
“They are all clean, limitless, homegrown and democratically distributed energy sources. What’s not to like about that?” he asks.
We’re there to visit Don Harris, a self-taught tinkerer who isn’t afraid to experiment with electricity, and invented a micro hydroelectric system that he managed to manufacture for distribution entirely off-grid back in 1979. He was also the first person in Santa Cruz to install solar panels.
After Harris, Jordan will go on to introduce me, over the course of the next couple of weeks, to Bob Stayton and Chris Bley. Not only does the expertise of this small network encompass a range of elements in Jordan’s sky power—solar, wind, hydro, biomass and geothermal—it’s made up of four individuals who represent a local nucleus of alternative-energy activism. Jordan, Harris, Stayton and Bley have spent decades innovating, educating and pushing for Earth-friendly solutions to our energy needs, and they are seeing the movement pick up. They feel now is the time for a sky power revolution.
“Enough hand-wringing already,” says Jordan. “It’s time for ass kicking!”
Joe Jordan: The Renewable Glue
As we drive to Last Chance, Jordan fills my ears with non-stop information that includes a crash course on how electricity is generated by wires and magnetism through the processes of burning and turning. In my few hours with him, I learn way more than I did sitting through years of science classes, but in particular I’m drawn to his love of nature and unending wonder at the magnificence of the universe. His nickname, which he earned on a Big Sur trip with Norris and his students, is “Cosmic Joe.”
THE WIND PICKS UP A wind farm near Tahachapi, California, where the first 80-mete wind turbine was constructed.
Jordan has been leading “true tall tales of the universe” astronomy and stargazing hikes around the area for decades. He points out Sparky’s window as we near Swanton Road. “It’s what I call ‘Rapture in the Pasture,’ he says. “It’s my Rapture in the Pasture hike.”
Jordan is also the co-host of a weekly radio show on KSCO called Planet Watch. Together, he and Rachel Anne Goodman, a journalism professor and radio producer who earned a Peabody award for her work as managing editor for NPR’s DNA Files radio series, provide an entertaining balance of reality and theoretical solutions.
After we stop to take a look at Big Creek, near the starting point of his popular group hikes up to a 100-foot waterfall, Jordan returns to his favorite topic: energy solutions.
“In the U.S., it’s strictly policy-lagging, on purpose,” he says of how long it’s taking alternative energy to catch on in this country. “I mean, the fossil fuel industry is behind it, no question about it. It’s now been proven that they knew back in the ’60’s what a horrendous mess burning carbon was creating. Exxon knew. There’s a whole thing, ‘#Exxonknew.’ They knew this stuff and they kept it secret, just like the tobacco industry. It’s the exact analogy.”
Jordan’s “sobering sense of reality,” as he calls it, anchors his genuine enthusiasm for the potential of a new way of looking at energy. In Jordan’s view, if we were able to make renewable energy a focus, we could solve a lot of the world’s problems, both social and environmental.
“If we were enlightened, and knowledge actually ruled, along with truth and virtue, the whole world would be solar-powered now,” he says. “We would have done the research and development that’s going to get done, because it’s just in the cards of nature. Whatever nature has for us, we can find it if we try. But we need the money to try.”
That’s where political organizations like the Monterey Bay Regional Climate Action Compact and Citizens’ Climate Lobby come in, he says.
“If it’s really expensive to do the bad things, and cheaper to do the good things, that will get a whole bunch of people to do the good things without a dictator,” he says. “Somebody has to set that price on carbon, and that’s what the Citizens’ Climate Lobby looks into. They’re really savvy about how Congress works, and doesn’t.”
Jordan, who recently attended both the Climate March and the Science March in Washington D.C., has his eye on the lobby. “They’re building up this thing called Climate Solutions Caucus in Congress, which is growing two by two. Every Republican that comes in has to bring a Democrat. Every Democrat brings a Republican. They’ve got 1,000 people in Washington D.C. right now. They are lobbying more than any other organization in history, even the NRA,” Jordan says.
After spending decades doing atmospheric and space research at NASA/Ames and the SETI Institute in Mountain View—studying what he describes as the two largely unrelated problems of stratospheric ozone depletion and tropospheric climate change—Jordan turned his attention to his Santa Cruz community. He served on the Board of Directors of Ecology Action of Santa Cruz, where he helped to implement the first solar PV installations on public facilities in Santa Cruz—at the City Hall annex building and Mission Hill Junior High School. Jordan worked alongside many of the solar gurus of the area, including Roger DeNault, Doug Brown, Geoff Shuey, Jack Schultz, Dave Burton, and Dave Woodworth during the years that Cabrillo College had what Jordan calls “one of the first and very best solar programs in the whole U.S.A.”
Jordan pushed Santa Cruz schools to go solar in 2000, helping to install solar panels at all of the Santa Cruz high schools. He hoped doing so would provide educational opportunities for teachers and students.
In 2014, Jordan was the keynote speaker at a conference held by the Committee for Sustainable Monterey County. The goal was to convince local governments to go solar through collaborative procurement, a system that reduces financing prices for mass buys of solar. This effort is being led by Monterey Bay Community Power and the international solar consulting firm Optony.
For Jordan, sharing ideas and stories over the radio waves has been a longtime means of educating the public. During his undergrad years at Oberlin in Ohio, he started his first radio show, Output. “It was a crazy show about science and nature and all kinds of stories,” he tells me. “At one point, I made the analogy of economic growth. Way back in the ’70s, I said all this devotion to economic growth, it could be a cancer. And I’m afraid that’s what we’ve got going on. That really needs to be examined,” he says.
When it comes to opinions on climate change, Goodman describes the Planet Watch audience as including skeptics on both ends of the spectrum. “We launched this show, not coincidentally, after the election,” she says. “Both of us individually were thinking, ‘I’ve gotta do something. Even if it’s one hour a week, at least I’m doing something.’ It’s become sort of a banner of resistance just to hold up facts to people and have them deal with it.”
Don Harris: Water Powered
We coast down a dirt road that leads to Harris’s off-grid hydropowered home. It is tucked in a lush land of redwoods, fresh water springs, and a stream that provides him with enough energy to power his home, and at one time, an entire factory of hydroelectric systems.
Harris is standing there to greet us with his friend, Bliss, who made the wax castings for his hydropower hub. Harris shows us the first house on the property, which he built without any prior construction experience. He learned from his mistakes on that project, later building the home he lives in now.
Before joining the Peace Corps, Harris was a drag car racer—“we all have our polarities,” he says—but his father, who was a physicist, fueled his intellectual curiosity. He felt drawn to the back-to-the-land movement building in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
“It was exciting, the first time I stepped outside of a conventional matrix, and I loved it. Renewables were just beginning to pop in. It was the time for that to happen,” Harris says about his 20 acres that he bought for $600 an acre in 1976.
“There was a time when people didn’t even want to use metal tools to cook with. I mean, there was a real revulsion against societal norms at that time,” he says. Over time, environmental activists have kept the better practices and let a few of the more impractical ones go, he says. But the motivation for those like Harris to live simply and in tune with nature has outlasted the challenges they’ve faced in doing so.
After years devoted to developing micro-hydropower, Harris has turned his hopes toward the rapidly growing solar power movement, because it has less of a potential for interfering with natural life, he says. But he still sees the potential for using hydropower as a means of energy storage, one of the challenges for the solar industry. As we walk down to his stream, where the system that powers his home is hidden under a five-gallon paint bucket, Harris tells me, “Solar is so benign, I don’t see any downsides to it at all. It’s made out of sand. Solar panels are essentially made out of sand, silicon. It’s not a scarce commodity.”
Harris then walks us up to the workshop where he built thousands of hydroelectric systems. He shows us the magnetic alternator he developed as he tells the story of how it came to him through an unexpected insight. He was traveling near Area 51 on his way to Utah, and he had what he calls “an experience.”
“It was like boom,” he says. “The whole picture of this rotor popped into my head all at once. Not only did that happen, but my understanding of magnetism went up in magnitude. I didn’t really understand how flux lines flow and everything, and all of a sudden it got real clear at that time.”
This was no small feat, according to Jordan and others.
“This guy is widely respected throughout the world as a genius with electronics,” Jordan says. “He invented the system for a permanent magnet rotor, which had been an elusive goal.”
Bob Stayton: Solar Shifter
A few days later, Jordan arranges a field trip up to Bob Stayton’s off-grid, solar-powered home on Branciforte Drive. Stayton—a professor of physics, energy, and solar energy at Cabrillo College, and the author of Power Shift: From Fossil Energy to Dynamic Solar Power—has invited his students to his home for years, and he was ready for the group that Jordan had assembled, which included both Harris (a longtime mutual friend), and Chris Bley, whose passion for wind energy has led him to develop a renewable energy inspection startup.
We pull up in Harris’ Prius to Stayton’s home, which sits high up on a sunny, south-facing ridge, and Jordan reveals that he helped install the first solar panels on the garage roof 20 years ago.
Stayton explains that when he and his wife, Mary, first started planning for the passive solar house on the property they had purchased, the recently deregulated PG&E offered only 30 feet of service, which wasn’t enough to cover the steep, wooded 700 feet of distance between the road and the site. Installing power would have involved cutting a large swath of trees and installation of poles for a price tag of $15,000 to $20,000—“just for the privilege of getting a PG&E bill,” Stayton says with a laugh.
Having taught courses on solar at Cabrillo College, Stayton assessed the option and decided he could do it. Remarkably, he says, they only needed to provide two pieces of information to the county: Assurance that all of the equipment was UL listed, and that it would be installed by a licensed electrician. “And they were cool with it, they just signed off on the plans, no problem,” he says.
The City of Santa Cruz still has one of the lowest solar photovoltaic (PV) permit fees in California, averaging around $140, as well as a quick turnaround process for the permitting, which solar contractors usually handle. Santa Cruz is home to several competitive solar companies, so Stayton recommends getting at least three bids before deciding on one. The City of Santa Cruz recommends checking installation references and the Better Business Bureau. Contractors should have a C-10 (electrical contractor) or C-46 (solar contractor) license. Three different manufacturers have provided the solar panels for Stayton’s home, and while each are a little different, he says they all require very little maintenance.
As Stayton shows us his panels, he tells us that the best thing about solar PV is that it’s completely modular. You can always add to it. Every five years, the Staytons have added a row of panels. “It got so cheap,” he says. “We have a plug-in Prius, which is our half-electric car, so we needed more power for that.”
Most recently, they have added a heated swim spa to their backyard, defying the belief that solar living means missing out on luxuries.
Stayton, however, discourages the typical homeowner from going off grid, as it involves storing energy for nighttime use in lead acid batteries—a hazardous material. And with the advent of net metering, which allows solar users to sell excess energy back to the grid, it makes more sense to remain connected, he says. “They just need to keep that going. It is under threat around the country,” Stayton says of net metering. “Hawaii cut it back, and the result in Hawaii is that people started putting in batteries to store their excess energy, stimulating the battery industry,” he says.
Storage is one of the primary challenges of solar energy. Harris has one possible solution, though, and it involves his specialty: hydropower as pump storage. He explains, “When you have surplus water, you pump it up into a higher reservoir, and when you need the power, you run it back down as power. Any place you have two reservoirs of water, one above the other and not too far apart below, you’ve done the work. You’ve got the infrastructure. All you need is a pipe and a turbine and some wires to hook it to the grid. So there’s an easy way to make solar not just daytime power, which is what it is now, but make it baseline power.”
Stayton applauds communities who have turned toward increased renewable energy, whether it’s wind or solar. He says there’s an important connection to be made by seeing where your energy is coming from. “As a human, you put those two together,” he says, “and you feel good about driving your electric car, or you feel good about your dishwasher working, all that stuff, but you have to have that connection.”
Chris Bley: Gale Force
“This is not just idle hope. It’s hope based on reality. Hope and heroics,” Jordan says, about the leaders in the renewable energy industry, like Chris Bley.
Bley first got involved in wind energy 18 years ago, after graduating from UCSC with a biology degree, when his rock climbing interests led him to East Germany. He and his friends were interested in the field of rope access, where workers use their rope skills to access difficult-to-reach locations. They found that Germany’s tall wind turbines were a lucrative playground, and thus their company, Rope Partner, was born.
When he got started in the field of wind energy, the first 80-meter wind turbine was being installed in Tehachapi, California. “Now,” he says, “you can stand in many points in Texas, and look 360 degrees around, and it looks like trees.”
Although wind energy may have started here, California is quickly being surpassed by windier states including Texas, Iowa and Oklahoma. Kansas, Illinois and North Dakota are catching up quickly in the Midwest.
“The communities are really making out,” says Bley, who travels widely on his large- and small-scale wind and solar inspection trips, “because they get tax money that goes back to the schools. All these stats are there, but they get lost in the noise.”
Bley, whose company InspecTools maps wind and solar systems to monitor them, says one of the best ways to see how widely distributed wind turbines are is to look at them on a map. “It’s almost like chicken pox,” he says. “It’s a movement.”
According to a recent report by the Energy Information Administration, for the first time in March, energy from wind and solar accounted for 10 percent of U.S. electricity.
The American Wind Energy Association reported that wind energy is now the number one source of renewable energy capacity in the U.S. Last year, the U.S. produced 8,183 megawatts of wind power, enough to power 24 million homes. The first General Electric manufactured wind turbines can now be seen along Highway 101 near Gonzales and the City of Soledad.
For Jordan, wind, sun and water are all part of the larger sky power vision. Despite his frustrations with the power and influence of the “oil boy network,” he’s enthusiastic about the future of renewable energy.
“There are glimmers of hope that people are getting the message that there is a better way. And it’s exciting that there is enough work to go around for everyone to get involved,” he says. “The people can take charge with solutions and let a thousand flowers bloom. The sky’s the limit.”
James Alamillo, of the nonprofit Heal the Bay, says that no matter how poor the water is under the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, swimmers and surfers in that area should be OK—so long as they pick their spots carefully.
Alamillo, who graduated from UCSC in 1992, has fond memories of his days living near Water Street and Branciforte Avenue, and, to this day, he cringes to think of the once-beloved Elf Land, in Upper Campus, getting clear-cut to make room for colleges 9 and 10.
Still, this year’spress release announcing the report card—which came out last month, a couple weeks late this year—plainly states that Cowell Beach is the third-worst beach in the state, an improvement over previous years. The release makes no mention of the wharf.
“In that case, that is on us,” he says, “so I apologize for that.”
To be fair, the report card’sbrief online summary does specify that the troubled site is “west of the wharf,” but still doesn’t explain what that really means. Nor does it say just how tiny the problematic region is. Buried in the full75-page report card, though, the listings mention 13 coastal testing spots, including two nearby—known as “Cowell Beach, Lifeguard Tower” and “Santa Cruz Main Beach at the Boardwalk.” Both of those passed, as they usually do, with flying colors. And both are within a couple hundred feet of the wharf.
Confused about the safety of the water, Cowell Surf Shop Owner Kathy Pappas hopes environmental nonprofits and government officials can get on the same page and be more publicly straightforward about the limited scope of the problems. She wishes the public-health warnings that are oftenposted at the beach would make that more specific.
“That would be so much more clear, because people come in here and they say we heard the beach is polluted, and it gives us a bad reputation,” says Pappas, who sometimes isn’t sure what to believe herself.
The results do fluctuate.
Parks employeeshave been stapling chicken wire under the wharf to deter pooping pigeons, who like to roost under the pier and may be the biggest contributor to the water quality issues. As of Thursday, even the water by the wharf had good results, prompting the health advisory signs warning against water contact and ingestion to come down, at least for now.
This year’s report card also gave slightly better grades for coliform levels to Cowell than to a site at Capitola Beach, west of the jetty. And yet Cowell beach came in ranked fourspots higher—or dirtier—than Capitola. There is more to that than numbers, though.
“There is a certain amount of subjectivity, looking at the Beach Bummer list,” Alamillo admits. “And the some of that stems from where do you put the grade’s weight? Do you put it on the summer season? Or on the year-round season? I would put more weight on the summer season and a beach having more visitors.”
He adds that Heal the Bay took the beach’s recent history of failed results into account, as well.
(Thinking aloud, Alamillo suggests Heal the Bay might want to start studying beaches near piers to see if they always perform worse, because other bad beaches appear to be near such structures, too.)
Water Resources Division DirectorJohn Ricker oversees the part of the county health departmentresponsible for water testing. He says that although they’re working to improve the quality, someone would probably have to swim under the pier and start drinking a bunch of ocean water in order to get sick. And even then, the salt would probably upset their stomach before the bacteria did. State regulators developed the testing standards for human sewage, and trace amounts of animal waste are far less dangerous.
Akin Babatola, laboratory and environmental compliance manager for the city, told GT in May that the county’s Colilert tests are “flawed” and therefore the rankings are too. The tests, he says, can show an alarmingly high number of coliforms, and it’s impossible to tell if those organisms are the bad ones, like E. coli, or good ones, found in a thriving ecosystem.
Alamillo is skeptical. He argues that everyone has always known the Colilert tests have problems, but agencies signed off on them years ago, because they were cheap and easy. Differing levels of coliforms at different beaches amounts to nothing more than a statistical variance, he says, that should even out over time.
“How do I put this correctly? Everyone’s right—how about that? What I mean by that, he’s nitpicking on something that was known ever since Colilert was implemented,” he says.
Ricker concurs that alternative tests are more expensive, adding that no tests are 100-percent accurate.
But Babatola contends that the tests aren’t more expensive. When he worked for the city of San Jose 23 years ago, one of his employees wrote a dissertation proving that the more precise microfiltration method is actually no more expensive, he says. The only perceived cost difference is that a microbiologist with a degree must administer such a test, which he says is standard practice for water quality testing, anyway. He adds that the city has been doing microfiltration, collaborating with the Cowell Working Group, which formed a couple years ago to clean up water quality. Those results show that the total coliforms are very high, compared with the amounts of E. coli near the wharf—a trend he doesn’t see at other city beaches, he says.
Reached for follow-up, Alamillo says that, if microfiltration is so superior, maybe local officials should start using it for all of their official reporting on local beaches.
“All we’re doing is using their data to then give to the public in a unified method that they can understand,” he says. “We’re all for it.”
Just over a month ago, UCSC undergrads voted to pass a $38.50 quarterly fee to support athletics for the next 25 years. The effort was a long, two-year process, especially given the mixed feedback that student campaigners say they got from skeptics who believe OPERS, the school’s athletic department, mismanages its funding.
The fee will generate about $1.1 million for OPERS each year, while Chancellor George Blumenthal pledged an additional $500,000 annually.
Coaches and athletes tabled and petitioned, encouraging students to vote for Measure 68. Now they feel betrayed after learning that all seven of the NCAA assistant coaches and two head coaches have been laid off and another pressured into retiring.
“I feel sorry for the students that worked hard on the referendum and were deceived about what was going to happen,” says head swim coach Kim Musch, whose position as aquatics director was terminated on June 23, prompting him to step down as coach. “[The administration] knew during the referendum that this was the plan, because you don’t develop a management plan in two weeks and then do this.”
After a nearly 20-year career, Musch was offered a position for less than 40 percent of his previous salary as solely the head coach of swimming and diving, a move that would have jeopardized his retirement.
The coaches were given a week’s notice at most—some only two days—and told to clear out their desks by Friday, June 30. “I don’t care if it follows every policy, there are things that are morally wrong to do to people,” Musch says.
Nine other head coaches were offered three-year contracts that refine their roles to only the scope of their respective teams, specifying that each position may be terminated at any time, with or without cause. To sign, the coaches must waive all of their procedural rights.
“When you are running a department on fear, and everybody is at-will, you can’t be trusting and honest with management at that point,” says Musch. “I am worried about the coaches remaining because they will be working in an atmosphere of fear.”
UCSC also laid off women’s soccer coach Emily Scheese, as well as Jamey Harris, the cross-country and track and field coach. Those decisions came after “a thorough and deliberate review of all the NCAA team programs,” according to an email sent to the school’s sports community from OPERS Executive Director Andrea Willer, who referred GT to UCSC spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason for comment.
Scheese and Harris had both previously received coach-of-the-year honors and were respected and loved by athletes, student sources say. Musch and other coaches say there was never any review process.
But going forward, Hernandez-Jason says that, by having coaches focus more directly on their respective teams, the university can allocate tasks to other staffers.
Since 2013, there have been nearly 40 people in OPERS that have left or been laid off. Of these positions, at least 18 have not been filled.
“These decisions were made during the summer without us there,” says third-year soccer player and Student Athlete Advisory Committee Co-chair Kayla McCord. “These decisions were made on the heels of a victory that was greatly impacted by each of the coaches involved.”
With fall sports practices scheduled to start within two months, the soccer, swimming and cross-country seasons are quickly approaching, and their athletes will need new coaches.
In Alfred Hitchcock’s films, Northern California was a downright terrifying landscape, full of rooftop chases, murderous relatives and berserk birds. But in real life, nothing could have been further from the truth.
“When he had the house in Scotts Valley, this is where he came to get away,” says Hitchcock’s granddaughter, Tere Carrubba, who lives in Aptos. “There wasn’t paparazzi. It was peaceful, and he could relax.”
Carrubba will be part of Hitchcock Week, which runs July 7-13 and is meant to both celebrate the legendary director’s connection to this area, and kick off Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s first production of their 2017 season, an adaptation by Patrick Barlow of Hitchcock’s film The 39 Steps. On Saturday, July 8, Carrubba will be at the play’s opening night at the Grove, and she’ll also introduce the screening of Psycho at the Nickelodeon on Wednesday, July 12.
Other screenings during Hitchcock Week include Spellbound at 515 Kitchen and Cocktails on Sunday, July 9; an outdoor viewing of The Birds on Monday, July 10 at Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing; and Vertigo at the Crepe Place on Thursday, July 13. On Tuesday, July 11, there will be a discussion of both the film and play The 39 Steps with GT film critic Lisa Jensen and Santa Cruz Shakespeare scholar Maria Frangos at the downtown Santa Cruz library.
Carrubba says Hitchcock loved the Bay Area in general, but he discovered Santa Cruz through actress Joan Fontaine, who was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Hitchcock’s first American film, 1940’s Rebecca. Fontaine was raised in Saratoga, attending Los Gatos High School, and lived in the Carmel Highlands for years before her death in 2013 at age 96. Alfred and his wife Alma Hitchcock purchased their 200-acre Scotts Valley home, not coincidentally, the same year Rebecca was released.
It was definitely a retreat for the Hitchcocks, and they tended to avoid social functions when they came to Santa Cruz, Carrubba says.
“They just wanted to be up there by themselves,” she says.
Still, it’s clear that they did a fair amount of scouting around the Bay Area, as Santa Rosa became the shooting location for 1948’s Shadow of a Doubt, San Francisco for 1958’s Vertigo, and Bodega Bay for 1963’s The Birds.
Oddly, Hitchcock’s attraction to Northern California went mostly unnoticed by the general public for decades. Perhaps it was because he used so many locations over the years—including some notably exotic international ones—but it’s all the more strange because he didn’t change the names of any of these cities in the film. While it’s been a point of pride locally for decades, the director’s fondness for the Bay Area didn’t get proper attention from the world at large until the 2002 book Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock’s San Francisco.
“I still don’t think it’s gotten its due,” says Paul Mullins, director of Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s The 39 Steps. “I didn’t even know until we started talking about this play that he had this connection to Scotts Valley.”
Mullins had to get into Hitchcock’s head a little bit to direct the adaptation, but there were also times he actually had to put the film entirely out of his mind when staging The 39 Steps, because he knew there was no way he could recreate what Hitchcock had done in the film.
While the play is in many ways true to the film (much more so than the book of the same name on which Hitchcock based it), there is what Mullins calls a “madcap” comic vibe to the adaptation that both pays homage to and sends up certain elements of the original, Mullins says. But he was very surprised when he went back to watch Hitchcock’s film after not having seen it for years to discover that the sharply funny edge is much more prevalent in Hitchcock’s version than he remembered.
Fans of Hitchcock—in other words, everybody—will discover quite a few Easter eggs of interest in the play. “There are references all through it to other Hitchcock films,” he says.
Given Santa Cruz’s unshakeable streak of Hitchcock pride, The 39 Steps seems like a natural for this area. But sometimes we do go overboard. Like that long-standing rumor that the Psycho house was modeled on the Hotel McCray, which used to stand on Beach Hill? Hitchcock did once say that the family home of Norman Bates was modeled on a style he called “California Gothic.” But he certainly never placed his inspiration for it in Santa Cruz, despite what you might read on the internet. And Carrubba says that as far as she knows, it’s not true.
“It’s more of an urban legend,” she says.
‘The 39 Steps’ runs July 5-Sept. 3 at the Grove, 501 Upper Park Road, Santa Cruz. For more details about this season of Santa Cruz Shakespeare or about Hitchcock Week, go to santacruzshakespeare.org.
“We’re still in the Wild, Wild West, but there’s room for everybody, especially in the category we’ve created,” says Gladys*, as she spreads some cannabis-infused padrón pepper jam on her linguiça sausage. “The world is our oyster right now.”
In business since February, Toasted Jam Co. has already garnered attention from outlets like EdiblesMagazine.com and 420FoodieClub.com. Started by Gladys and her business partner Mitch*, the company features two types of jams, Blackberry Kush OG and Toasted Padrón. Both are made from organic materials, including locally sourced padrón peppers and local cannabis, too. The blackberry jam features the Blackberry Kush, an indica strain from Marti’s Garden in Felton, and the pepper concoction features Sour Diesel, a sativa strain from Tres Arboles Farms.
They send batches of each to SC Labs for testing of cannabinoids like THC and CBD, a non-psychoactive chemical compound found to have anti-inflammatory properties. Unlike many companies, Toasted Jam uses unprocessed kief, a part of the plant from the flower’s crystallized pollen, or trichomes. Kief is faster-acting than other parts of the plant—allowing a consumer to try a little bit, wait 20 minutes or so and then see if they want more.
Shane Santucci developed his own cannabis balm and says he gets emails from patients all the time about how much it helps.
“This means the consumer has the power to ‘turn up the volume.’ They can pair it with a grilled cheese sandwich, [put it] on their buttered toast or on carnitas,” says Gladys, who’s also a culinary school graduate and a sommelier. “People have more control because we’ve all had that bad edible moment of overconsumption.”
Gladys and Mitch periodically update the Toasted Jam Instagram account with sweet and savory recipes for amateur chefs that would impress even the most skeptical of food critics.
After 56 percent of voters approved Proposition 64 last year, cannabis has been legal in California. A framework to actually buy and sell the drug legally without a medical card, however, won’t be official until the beginning of 2018, at the earliest. And there are many unanswered policy questions from the federal all the way to the local level, especially after the county’s cannabis licensing official resigned last month.
But the Santa Cruz industry has seen a bloom of interest with new edible cannabis manufacturers, CBD oils and phone apps popping up.
“There’s a giant opportunity to have a new kind of progressive development in town,” says Pat Malo, executive director of Green Trade, which aims to be a chamber-of-commerce type organization for those in cannabis. “The tax revenue—along with job creation—can help with some of the city’s major issues.”
If the gourmet market of specialty jams isn’t for everyone, there are plenty of options for those seeking a more classic cookie, like ones sold by Big Pete’s Treats. Although the founder, “Big” Pete Feurtado, has been making medicated cookies since 1979, his company didn’t start until 2009.
“When I was cultivating [cannabis] we had all this extra product,” Feurtado remembers. “So I thought, ‘Shoot, why don’t we make cookies?’”
Eight years later, Big Pete’s Treats is one of California’s leaders in medicated cookie products. Located off 17th Avenue, the company’s high-quality delectables can be found in dispensaries from Shasta to San Diego, featuring 12 different flavors, with gluten- and sugar-free options available.
Like Toasted Jam, Big Pete’s cannabis comes from local farms, and Feurtado doesn’t miss the days of relying on Humboldt for supply.
Their cookies, which are also SC Labs certified, have earned a reputation—having won multiple awards, like the 2015 Santa Cruz Cup for “Best Cannabis Edible,” and two first-place awards at the 2014 San Francisco Hempcon.
Other local entrepreneurs have found similar success lately. Cosmo D’s Outrageous Edibles, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains, took home the “Best Edible” and “Best Dessert” awards at the most recent Hempcon, after being in business for only a few months.
As marijuana emerges from the black market, experts have done more studies on the healing properties of the plant. Shane Santucci, a Santa Cruz resident, has been extracting cannabidiol from cannabis to manufacture a number of products, including a healing cream he calls Grateful Dude Balm, which boasts a list of all-organic ingredients.
“There’s a whole list of herbs for healing,” Santucci says, “like the marjoram in it is really good for women experiencing cramps.”
The dreadlocked Sacramento native started Grateful Dude in 2015, when a friend showed him a different ointment, and he felt inspired. An experienced chef from the realm of edibles, Santucci realized the potential for such a powerful cream and created his own version the next day. Initially just made for friends, Santucci knew he had something special when he tested out Grateful Dude at Burning Man that year.
“That’s when I first started believing in it,” he remembers. “Now I’m waking up everyday to emails from paraplegics and cancer patients saying it’s the only thing that makes [them] feel good.”
Santucci makes batches of 10 to 37 pounds, keeping his operation relatively small for quality control, and also has his products tested at SC Labs. The balm is available in one-, four- and eight-ounce jars, through his website, thedudebalm.com, and at some dispensaries throughout the county and state.
“I love Santa Cruz because everyone is open to [cannabis] as a healing agent,” says Santucci. “If I wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be making this.”
The tech industry, too, may be finding a seat at the table, and the newly launched, iheartjane.com, hopes to lead the way.
Socrates Rosenfeld, who’s originally from Santa Cruz, created the website, working with local dispensaries to inform customers which products they have on shelves and how much of it.
“People go online because it’s convenient but the same product you bought from Amazon could be down the street,” says Rosenfeld. “But those small businesses don’t have the capability to showcase their product in real time.”
Rosenfeld—a West Point and MIT graduate with Silicon Valley experience—along with his business partners and his two co-founders have already expanded their market to Colorado, and they’re looking to open up in San Jose and San Francisco soon.
“This is Santa Cruz,” Rosenfeld says. “In just this little town there are so many cool, small businesses … We’re trying to make connections with all of them.”
*Name has been changed to protect source’s anonymity.
When local mother, wife, businesswoman and author Kaia Roman experienced the premature fizzling of her epigenetics start-up company in October of 2014, things got bad. As in, she went into a “tailspin” of depression and anxiety, and took refuge in her bed for long hours. But in the space that had once been filled with 14-hour days of screen time and molar-grinding busy-ness, a new plan hatched for her own salvation.
The seed was planted by a friend, who shared an eye-roll-inducing idea that committing to one’s own joy for 30 days could yield life-changing results. With nothing left to lose, Roman immersed herself in the challenge of seeking joy in every day. She started blogging about the mental shifts she’d begun to notice, and plunged herself into researching the science behind gratitude, mindfulness, meditation, the law of attraction, and many other concepts common to the Facebook meme. The blog eventually became a book, The Joy Plan: How I Took 30 Days to Stop Worrying, Quit Complaining, and Find Ridiculous Happiness, published by Sourcebooks, and already available at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
“I wrote The Joy Plan because it was an idea that would not leave me alone. I couldn’t stop my hands from writing it,” says Roman.
Needless to say, being the lab rat in one’s own joy-pursuing experiment worked in her favor, and she didn’t stop at 30 days. Her methods for a more joyous life are outlined in detail in the book, which reads more like an honest journey of self-discovery than a preachy prescription. It’s a personal approach that keeps the storyline just juicy enough to wash down a substantial dose of scientific research. And, despite its packaging as a self-help book, a genre some people might hide behind a New Yorker magazine at the public pool, it’s an engrossing read with one foot planted firmly in the rich soil of science.
“I’ve read a lot of self-help books and blogs that told me what to do. They told me to ‘relax,’ ‘think positive,’ ‘stay calm,’ ‘meditate,’ ‘don’t worry, be happy’—and it all sounded good in theory. But I still didn’t know how. So in The Joy Plan, I address the how,” she says.
As a preview to her upcoming book launch at the MAH on July 14, we picked Roman’s brain for some insights into the science of our blessed birthright—joy.
You distinguish between happiness and joy. How does joy differ from happiness—and why is it a healthier emotion to seek?
KAIA ROMAN: Happiness is a cognitive experience based in the brain’s cortex. It’s a state of mind, which comes and goes easily. Happiness activates the sympathetic nervous system, which activates the brain’s fight or flight response—it feels exciting and stimulating to the body. Joy is a subconscious experience, an emotion based in the brain’s limbic system. Joy activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls rest and relaxation—it feels calming and soothing to the body.
Seeking joy in every moment seems like it could lead pretty quickly to overindulgence—but you define joy as being closer to the Greek concept of eudaemonia, or “human flourishing,” than to hedonism.
While the main purpose of The Joy Plan is to feel good, it isn’t just about being hedonistic. It’s about learning how to use our feelings as a feedback system. I wanted to create lasting joy, not a temporary feeling of satiety. And I didn’t want to cloud my awareness with alcohol, drugs, or other indulgences, even if they could give me a temporary high, because I wanted to be fully present to notice the signs, opportunities, and changes I was looking for.
In scientific studies, subjects who rated high on the scale for eudaemonia (which is basically a fancy Greek word for joy) also showed higher immunity and lower inflammation in their blood samples. While subjects who rated high for hedonism, on the other hand, showed the opposite.
Do you think that the desire for money and material possessions was a counterproductive mechanism to your joy?
I think that a fixation on any outcome (money, fame, possessions, or even helping people or solving the world’s problems) to the point that you no longer take pleasure in the process is counterproductive to joy. Because all that ever really exists is this present moment, anyway.
The Law of Attraction is known by many to be an “envision-it-and-it-will-come” idea, and therefore often gets dismissed as New Age nonsense. But you uncovered intriguing brain science behind the concept.
Our world responds to our thoughts and feelings. This isn’t just some woo woo spiritual idea; this is physics. In classical physics, it was believed there was a distinct difference between energy waves and energy particles. But experiments beginning in the early 1900s determined that energy changes shape depending on who is observing it—it can take the form of either a particle or a wave. Further experiments in the 1920s into this phenomenon marked the birth of quantum physics, and it has been replicated many times since, with more elaborate equipment and testing parameters. They’ve measured the smallest units of energy they can, the energy that makes up atoms, as well as larger atoms and electrons—always with the same result. We get what we expect. Other research, from the HeartMath Institute (in Boulder Creek), shows that human emotions can affect DNA, even at a distance. So if our perceptions alter physical reality, our emotions change our DNA, and our DNA morphs the particles around it—we really do have way more power to change our world than we may realize.
You identify sex as a key ingredient in your Joy Plan. How and why does sex lead to more joy?
Orgasms are amazing. They flood our brains with endorphins, reduce our cortisol levels, and induce a feeling of relaxation. Studies have shown that regular orgasms can regulate the menstrual cycle, due to a balancing effect on female hormones. Orgasms increase dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) hormone levels in the body, improving memory, brain function and even the appearance of skin. Orgasm, as well as the skin-to-skin contact in sex, increases oxytocin – often called the “love” hormone, which is actually a neuropeptide that regulates heart function, reduces cell death and inflammation, and increases feelings of love, trust, peace, and well-being. While we can experience some of these physiological benefits through exercise or cuddles with loved ones or solo sex, it’s pretty fun to share it with a partner.
Of course key ingredients for joy must vary from person to person, but can you list any others that may be universal?
I think gratitude is the fastest, easiest ticket to joy. Thoughts of gratitude release dopamine in the brain, which feels good and lowers stress. The more frequently you train your brain to focus on what you’re grateful for, the more easily your thoughts will gravitate toward optimism—thanks to the phenomenon known as neuroplasticity, in which our brains form new neural connections during repeated thoughts and experiences. And since your thoughts inform your words and actions, and your actions contribute to your experience of life, gratitude can quickly change your reality. Our brains have an inbuilt cognitive bias which predisposes us to remember negative information more readily than positive. This creates the perfect storm for fear and hopelessness. It’s easy to slip into feeling like the world is a dark and scary place, and nothing is safe or sacred anymore. But we don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are. A shift in perspective can sometimes change everything. Gratitude is a powerful antidote to negativity and fear.
We’ve all been bludgeoned with the dangers of too much stress. But you came across the concept of eustress, which can actually be beneficial. How do we tell the difference?
Eustress (eu means “good” in Greek) was a term coined by endocrinologist Hans Selye to describe the kind of stress that activates your body to work toward a tangible goal. Eustress is a type of stress that feels more like excitement or anticipation that you can thrive on. Instead of causing your body and mind to shut down or go into fight-or-flight mode, eustress actually motivates you to get what you want.
I know that when I face a challenging event, like a disagreement with a loved one, there are two roads to go down: I can either approach the situation as a problem, or as an opportunity for growth. This distinction can mean the difference between distress and eustress.
The book reveals so much about yourself, including things like the notes you’ve taped to your mirror—things that many people would be mortified to have anyone else see. Did you have trepidation about sharing so freely?
Actually, since I never intended to write a book in the first place, and was mostly keeping track of the experience for myself, I still don’t really think about anyone else reading it.
Although I’m the furthest thing from a self-help guru, I believe in the power of words and stories to transform. And yes, I read my own book. And it really helps. The Joy Plan sits on my nightstand and is a daily practice for me. As Toni Morrison said, “If there’s a book you’re longing to read and you haven’t found it yet, then you must write it.” That’s why I wrote The Joy Plan—because I needed to read it.
Info: Kaia Roman launches ‘The Joy Plan’ at 7 p.m., on July 14 at the MAH. Free. More info at thejoyplan.com.
When Froth first formed in 2011, it was a joke between vocalist Joo-Joo Ashworth and omnichordist Jeff Fribourg. They even had the idea of releasing a 20-minute record without any sound. Six years later, the indie rockers have three records under their belt—all with recorded music on them—with two of them on the massively popular Burger Records. Their latest album, Outside (Briefly), was released earlier this year on the U.K. label Wichita. But fear not: Froth might have changed labels, but the band’s music remains catchy and innocent. Opening up is local act Manorlady, a perfect pairing for fans of psychedelic, surf and indie rock. MAT WEIR
On the eve of celebratory concert tour marking the 45th anniversary of Keystone Korner, the owner and guiding spirit of the iconic North Beach jazz club, Todd Barkan, was named a 2018 NEA Jazz Master, the nation’s highest jazz honor. The lineup includes bassist Ray Drummond and percussionist Kenneth Nash, who played the club’s opening tour in 1972, joined by sax great Charles McPherson, who played the last Keystone gig in 1983, which is the same year the IRS shuttered the venue. Saxophonist Azar Lawrence and bassist Juini Booth (who played on McCoy Tyner’s classic 1975 album Atlantis, recorded at Keystone), altoist Gary Bartz, and others join in. ANDREW GILBERT
INFO: 7 p.m. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $30/adv, $35/door. 427-2227.
FRIDAY 7/7
HIP-HOP
ZION I
Two years ago, hip-hop fans questioned the future of Zion I when Baba Zumbi announced that his long-time producer and collaborator, Amp Live, was quitting the group. The duo had been writing music together since the ’90s, and many fans were skeptical about an Amp Live-less Zion I. Yet, one year later, Zumbi dropped Zion I’s 10th album, The Labyrinth, and all skepticism was thrown out the door. The recording is easily one of Zion I’s best in years, driven by heavy bass and flowing melodies, with a modern, electronic sound that showcases Zumbi’s ever-evolving ideas on what music should be. MW
A folk-rock duo out of San Francisco, Clearwings focuses on creating intimate and engaging live performances that showcase its melding of classic folk sounds and new styles. Comprising Raven Adams on vocals and Mark Phillips on guitar and vocals, Clearwings, which takes its name from a moth that is frequently mistaken for a bird, has an authenticity and depth that elevates the outfit above the crowded folk music scene. Keep your eyes and ears on this rising Bay Area standout. CJ
What do you get when you combine four bearded Portland dudes with thrift-store shirts and an array of acoustic stringed instruments? Proof that quality bluegrass will find a home in every city in the U.S., and (more importantly) that it will adapt to its surrounding culture. The foursome call themselves Left Coast Country, because they inhabit the Pacific Northwest. The sounds they crank out bring to mind classic bluegrass, steeped in a laid-back indie-inspired Portlandia-appropriate vibe. AARON CARNES
Way back in 2003, promoter Tom Miller brought world guitar group Incendio to Henfling’s for a performance. The audience liked what it heard, and the gig was the first of many—ultimately leading to a visit to KPIG and a spot at the Strawberry Music Festival. All these years later, Incendio is widely renowned for its guitar-driven fusion of Latin, Middle Eastern, and Celtic styles. Hailing from L.A. and comprising Jim Stubblefield on guitar, JP Durand on guitar and guitar synth, Liza Carbe on bass and guitar and Tim Curle on drums, Incendio fills the space where world fusion, fingerstyle and improvisation collide. CJ
A legendary artist who’s credited with influencing rock and roll icon Jimi Hendrix, blues powerhouse Buddy Guy and many more, the Texas-born, Florida-raised Guitar Shorty has a fiery vocal style and raw, show-stopping guitar chops that send other guitarists heading for the door. Don’t sleep on this opportunity to see a living legend. CJ
At a certain point, young indie artists realized that ’70s soft rock bands like Steely Dan and Chicago were actually pretty cool. You can hear these groups’ breezy sounds all over new underground bands. L.A.’s Mild High Club doesn’t just regurgitate ’70s AM radio with tongue firmly planted in cheek; they warp it into something alien. Imagine any of the cool, jazzy ’70s yacht rock bands going psychedelic, landing somewhere between the Eagles, the Doobie Brothers and aliens taking over Earth. AC
Hip-hop magazine XXL released their freshman class list a few weeks ago, and on it is Atlanta emcee Playboi Carti. With just a handful of singles and a mixtape, Carti has already amassed a noticeable following. The rapper knows how to craft an earworm. While his songs are never overly complex lyrically or rhythmically, he has utmost confidence and charisma that is infectious. His single “Magnolia” is catchier that any rap song has a right to be. AC
Two Gentlemen of Verona is the first Shakespeare play in which a woman crossdresses—a theme that the Bard would explore throughout his future works. The play takes on infidelity, the conflict between friendship and love, and what it means to be a gentleman. A standout character in the play is Launce, the clown servant of aspiring gentleman Proteus, along with his scene-stealing dog, Crab. Santa Cruz Shakespeare brings what the local production company describes as the “sexy and surreal comedy” to the Grove at DeLaveaga Park Aug. 1 through Sept. 3.
INFO: Grove at DeLaveaga Park, 501 Upper Park Road, Santa Cruz. $25-$55. 460-6396. WANT TO GO? Go to santacruz.com/giveaways before 11 a.m. on Friday, July 28 to find out how you could win a pair of tickets to the play.
Local Americana singer-songwriter Bonny June is excited to release her new album, Men Are For Kissin’, which should come out sometime later this year. As it’s been in the works for a year and half, she’s already got another one ready to go—and another after that is partially written. This is particularly fascinating because, while June has been singing her entire life, it wasn’t until 2012—when she released a debut album under the name Bonny Getz—that she wrote music. Then she wrote a lot.
“I have never considered myself to be a songwriter. I’d always written personal little birthday songs for my friends. Then really serious songs started coming in, and I never went back,” June says.
Prior to her first album, she was a contestant on the MARS Studio Songwriter Showcase, put on by guitarist Ken Kraft. Kraft was so taken by her songwriting skills he offered to help her with arrangements, and to put a band together.
That Bonny Getz debut is a lush six-piece big-band/country album, full of ballads. After the release, she, Kraft and bassist Craig Owens continued the process as a trio.
“That album was a catharsis for me—very personal, a lot of things that had happened in my life,” June says.
Since writing that record, she’s reinvented herself as Bonny June. Her sad, personal songs are balanced with upbeat, funny ones. Giant Amazon women, were-women, and a serial killer alligator hunting down a frog appear in her set.
“People really enjoy that side of it. Now I feel like we have enough material to keep people interested,” June says.
INFO: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 12. Crow’s Nest, E Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz. $3. 476-4560.
There are 60,000 youth in California’s foster care system. Unfortunately, the risk of homelessness, prison and social stigma is far greater for youth that have gone through the system, which is why the Museum of Art and History is hosting “Lost Childhoods: Voices of Santa Cruz County Foster Youth & Foster Youth Museum.” Through personal belongings, photographs, and artwork, more than 100 current and former foster youths, artists, and advocates from across the county will share their stories. The exhibition also features photography by Ray Bussolari and four different installations that foster youth, created with artists Bridget Henry, Melody Overstreet, Elliott Taylor, and Nada Miljkovic.
