Every year toward the end of the Do-It-Ourselves Festival, Jeff Wilson picks up a banjo, a guitar and a Dobro and heads over to the amphitheater to play. “I just let it all out there. I just show up in the morning and treat it like a gospel-y sort of thing,” explains Wilson. Two years ago, the festival’s stage on Sunday morning was still wet from an overnight rain and the tarp over a tent above Wilson sagged with a puddle of water. Suddenly, the puddle spilled out from the top of the tent, nearly splashing Wilson, as he tuned up. “I knew you were gonna do that,” he growled at the tent without looking up, as the small audience chuckled. Wilson’s curmudgeonly persona is part shtick and part Sunday morning fatigue. The hard-working festival organizer was up late the night before, after all, listening to ska band Dan P. and the Bricks perform a set featuring sing-alongs, happy dances, and even an epic stage dive from frontman Dan Potthast. Wilson had hijacked the mic for a few minutes to grumble about how happy he was and how much he loved everybody. “I’m always stoked,” Wilson, who sometimes goes by the stage name Birdman, says of his Sunday morning festival routine. “It’s a therapeutic thing for me on Sundays to space out and feel the morning vibes and feel that the festival’s ending.” This weekend marks the fourth annual DIO Fest at Camp Krem in Boulder Creek. The festival, which runs April 29 through May 1, has announced more sponsors than ever, including Mountain Feed & Farm Supply, and Lagunitas Brewing Company, which is supplying the festival with several kegs of Northern California beer. “Not that it’s a cornerstone of the festival, but we all appreciate beer, and it’s a part of festival culture,” Wilson says. “Financially, it’s going to help us out a lot.” Wilson, who handles the festival booking, is also bringing in San Diego funk group Sure Fire Soul Ensemble, and Golden Void, a ’70s-style rock outfit, as well as Rushad Eggleston, an eccentric cello player who performed last year. Eggleston, a Carmel resident, is known as much for his virtuosity as he is for his wacky outfits, funny hats and standing up while playing and holding his cello, as if it were a guitar. “We’re really honored to have him there again. He’s by far the weirdest but also the most prolific and amazing artist that will be at DIO this year,” Wilson says.
LAUNCHING PAD
When the first DIO Fest kicked off three years ago, many Santa Cruz songwriters who have since blossomed into successful touring acts were still so green that they hadn’t even developed local followings yet. Marty O’Reilly and his Old Soul Orchestra, for instance, had only been together six months. “We were still developing and figuring this out, and we had just recorded our first album,” O’Reilly says. “It was a new festival, and we were very much a new product. We’ve seen each part grow.” “It’s kind of like a family reunion,” he says of the festival now. “You get to see what everyone has done in the past year and what everyone’s worked on.” O’Reilly lives at the Tannery Arts Center, although he tours year round. His band released a new EP in December, and their next two-month tour begins in May in Indiana, followed by New York City, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Singer-songwriter and Aptos native Kendra McKinley, who, like O’Reilly, played the festival in 2013, says she wouldn’t miss the event because she says she can’t imagine anything better than camping with friends and making music. “The first year was just nice,” she remembers. “Not one of us could believe that it happened on Sunday. We were all just blissed out and hungover. But we were like, ‘Yep, we’ve been through a music festival, and tomorrow’s Monday.’” McKinley moved to San Francisco two years ago, and has been playing big shows at venues like the Fillmore. McKinley, whose sound is somewhere between bossa nova and 1960s rock, is releasing a full-length album called Treat this summer, and following it up with a tour. O’Reilly finds himself constantly telling people about DIO Fest and convincing friends they can’t skip it. The only festival he ever encountered that rivaled it in atmosphere was the Stendhal Festival of Art in Northern Ireland last August, when “it was just pissing rain for two weeks,” he says. “Everyone is just covered in mud by the end of it because it’s pouring rain, and I didn’t go to bed until 11 in the morning because I was hanging out with all these amazing kids from England and Northern Ireland,” he says. “When festivals get too big, it’s hard to meet people that easily.”
The Do-It-Ourselves Festival starts at 1:50 p.m. on April 29 and runs through May 1. A three-day pass to the festival is $125. A one-day pass is $45. For more information, visit doitourselvespresents.com.
Two dozen rented rowboats floated all Saturday on Loch Lomond, captained by weekend fishermen hoping to surprise some largemouth bass. For three years, nobody fished the Felton reservoir, due to closure from drought, until it reopened in March, following a stormy El Niño winter. The creeks are flowing again and the reservoir—an important water source for Santa Cruz—is brimming. Santa Cruz’s water department has lifted its mandatory rationing, and many locals, who have grown accustomed to leaving lawns unwatered and toilets unflushed, are sighing with relief, believing that El Niño has ended the unprecedented drought. But what many don’t realize is that a danger lurks underground, and Santa Cruz County’s water problem is bigger than the four-year drought. A favorite analogy local water experts use to describe the county’s water problem is that of an “overdrafted bank account.” The county’s main water source is underground basins, water-bearing rock and soil from which wells draw. In the winter, rains deposit water back into the basin by seeping through layers of soil, rock and clay to reach the water table below. For decades, starting in the 1950s and accelerating with population booms in the 1980s, the county has drawn from its underground basins faster than the rains can replenish them. In January, two of the county’s three main basins were designated by the state as “critically overdrafted,” the most dire classification. As of mid-April, the El Niño winter brought 31.8 inches of rain to the county, 110 percent of normal for the season to date, according to the National Weather Service. That was enough to get rivers and streams flowing again, but nowhere close to refilling the basins. Unlike the rest of the county, Santa Cruz has quickly recovered, since it relies almost entirely on rivers, streams and its main reservoir, Loch Lomond. Only five percent of the city’s water comes from underground sources.
“We don’t have a supply problem,” says Menard. “We have a storage problem. What that means is there’s plenty of water in the system in the winter. We just don’t have a place to put it. So if we solve the storage problem, we won’t have a supply problem.”
That means that when rains stop, Santa Cruz is the first to feel the effects, and when rains return, it is the first to recover. In 2014, the City of Santa Cruz Water Department was one of the first districts in the state to begin rationing, says Rosemary Menard, the department’s director. Now Loch Lomond is full for the first time in three years, and the San Lorenzo River, another main source for Santa Cruz’s water, is gushing. Earlier this month, Santa Cruz’s water department announced that it will not restrict customer water use this year. For the last two years, Santa Cruz had the strictest rationing mandates in the county. Of the few local districts with mandatory rationing, Santa Cruz’s is the first to lift restrictions.
Long-Term Drought Look
The state water board has the final say on whether the state’s drought is officially over, a decision it will make by the end of the month. The state’s drought outlook is more complex this year, since El Niño rains hit the state unevenly. Parts of Northern California are no longer considered in drought, whereas Southern California has seen almost no change. As of April 13, Santa Cruz County was classified as “abnormally dry,” the lowest of five levels of drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly map of drought conditions produced in part by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). That’s a significant improvement from three months ago, when most of the county was in “extreme drought,” the second-highest level. Heavy rains in January and March have improved the local drought outlook for the meantime, but researchers predict greater weather extremes for California—hotter, drier and longer droughts, punctuated by colossal storms. LOCH STOCK While Felton’s Loch Lomond Resevoir is full for the first time in three years, it’s the county’s underground water supplies that are the hardest to retain. A Stanford University study published this month predicts a “feast or famine” weather pattern for California, a warmer future with large swings between huge storms and severe droughts, similar to the current unprecedented drought. Also, on April 14, NOAA reported an increasing likelihood of a La Niña season this November. La Niña is the atmospheric counterpart to El Niño—meaning a drier winter is likely ahead, especially in Southern California. So for Santa Cruz, that means this winter’s rains are just a temporary fix. “We don’t have a supply problem,” says Menard. “We have a storage problem. What that means is there’s plenty of water in the system in the winter. We just don’t have a place to put it. So if we solve the storage problem, we won’t have a supply problem.” “But until we solve this storage problem … we are extremely vulnerable to shortages in years that we don’t have adequate precipitation.”
‘An Almost Insignificant Dent’
By the end of the month, the state may also set water use reduction goals for each district, like it did last year. Menard said she is confident that Santa Cruz will meet any goals set by the state, even without mandatory rationing, since many customers now have drought-friendly landscaping and low-flow appliances. However, the rest of the county, which accounts for 80 percent of the county’s water use, has a more dismal outlook. Soquel Creek Water District, which serves 38,000 residents between Soquel and La Selva Beach, has one of the county’s two critically overdrafted basins. The Soquel Valley basin is the district’s sole water source. The El Niño rains had “an almost insignificant dent” on recharging the basin, says Ron Duncan, the district’s manager. Rains take years to penetrate the ground and refill the aquifers, the water-bearing parts of the basin. Even several heavy rain seasons in a row wouldn’t solve the district’s problems, he says. “One way we could fill the aquifers back up is to stop pumping for eight years,” Duncan says. “We can’t do that, but that tells you the magnitude of the problem.” Complicating the issue is saltwater intrusion, which happens when the coastal basins are drawn below sea level and pressure sucks seawater inland into the underground basin. Once seawater creeps inland, it’s tough to stop. Further south, in Monterey County, seawater has nearly reached Salinas, roughly 10 miles inland, according to 2013 data. When saltwater reaches a well, the well is contaminated. So far, in Soquel Creek’s district, saltwater has been detected underground along the coast at Pleasure Point and near Seascape, the southern third of its district. “Seawater intrusion is coming our way, as we speak,” Duncan says. “If current conditions persist, it’s just a matter of time before it hits our production wells.”
The Scary Map
The county’s other critically overdrafted basin belongs to the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency, which serves mostly agricultural customers, as well as Watsonville residents. The Pajaro basin supplies the region with 98 percent of its water. In the Pajaro Valley, seawater has already crept 3 miles inland in some places, according to Mary Bannister, the agency’s manager. She refers to a map of where the basin’s water is below sea level, year by year. Like a tumor’s growth, it shows the area of depleted aquifers stretching outward each year. “The ‘scary map’ is what I call it,” she says. “In red, it shows that groundwater levels, all the way back to the San Andreas Fault, were below sea level [in 2013].” IN THE RED Dubbed the ‘scary map’ by Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency manager Mary Bannister, the map shows the expanding areas where the groundwater is below sea level, which invites seawater intrusion. “That’s terrifying to us. Seawater is more dense than freshwater. Not only do we need groundwater levels to be at sea level, we need it to be above sea level by 10 or 20 feet,” says Bannister. “If we’ve got groundwater levels at or below sea level all the way back to the fault [10 miles inland], we’re inviting that seawater front to move inland.” Agriculture uses 85 percent of Pajaro Valley’s water. Over the past few decades, farmers have shifted from apples to more water-intensive crops such as berries and lettuce—which is part of the reason the valley’s basin is overdrawn, Bannister says. She adds that while growers use most of the water, they also drive a $616 million local crop industry, which helps pay for big-ticket water conservation and water supply projects. For example, a $48 million Watsonville recycled water facility built in 2009 produces 4,000 acre-feet of water each year, paid largely by state and federal grants but also by fees from growers. One acre-foot of water is 326,000 gallons, enough to supply two families of four in the Pajaro Valley for a year. “We’re searching for every drop of water we can get our hands on to try to solve the problem here,” Bannister says.
Saving the Basins
In 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which requires the formation of local groundwater agencies to draft and enact plans to save their basins within 20 years. In March, the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency was formed, which includes elected officials, water district staff and private well owners. A plan has yet to be made. However, districts have already started collaborating and creative solutions are being tested. Soquel Creek Water District recently completed a feasibility study for a recycled water facility that would purify wastewater otherwise destined for the ocean. The purified water would be injected underground, to restore the basin. Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley’s water districts are also considering building recycled water facilities. Last month, Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency’s board approved a project with the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County that would pay landowners to build recharge basins on their property. The project is modeled after solar panel systems that pay owners who return electricity to the grid. Landowners would be rewarded based on how much rainwater they can return underground. Another possible project: Santa Cruz’s water district is considering sharing the water it pulls from the San Lorenzo River with the Soquel Creek Water District. That would allow Soquel Creek customers to let their basin rest and recharge a bit when the river is running strong. Santa Cruz County already has among the lowest per capita water use in the state. “We feel the public’s done their part, and we’re really trying to do our part now,” says Duncan, who is also part of the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency’s staff. “We have to have supplemental [water] supplies. We can’t solve this problem through conservation. I think we all understand that now.”
Pam Randall is wheeling a cart of 350 books into Live Oak’s newly opened Boys & Girls Club. It’s Wednesday, April 13, a milestone day for Randall, a board member for local nonprofit Free Books For Kids, which is about to hand out book number 25,000. “I’ve got classics. I’ve got Hardy Boys. I’ve got the Little House on Prairie series. For our 25,000th book, I chose this one,” she says holding up a copy of Beezus and Ramona. “Beverly Cleary just turned 100 years old. She’s still alive. She wrote this book when I was a little girl, and she lives near Monterey.” The tradition of passing out books began in 2009 when Malcolm Kushner, a former teacher, started a group called Free Books for Teachers, which eventually distributed about 20,000 books throughout the county. The effort paved the way for Free Books for Kids, the all-volunteer group that started in 2014. Randall, a retired principal for Del Mar Elementary School, estimates that she has 1,000 more books scattered around her garage. “They’re along the back wall. They’re on the washer and dryer. They’re on [my husband’s] workbench,” Randall says, as children scurry around her, thumbing through novels. “We can still get the car and motorcycle in, but all the way around are books. I have to be diligent about distributing our books so that we can still park our vehicles in there.” Randall goes to the Bargain Barn, Goodwill’s Harvey West outlet, to buy books by the bag, with each bag coming out to $6. “You want to get as many books as you can in there, so it’s like a little game of Tetris to get all the books in the bag,” Randall says. Meanwhile, Kushner, who now lives in Sacramento, buys books by the palette from a Salvation Army in Northern California, where he has expanded distribution, and drives extra books down to Santa Cruz. The group spends almost all the money they raise on books, which come out to 4 cents a pop, on average, Randall says. They donate the books to kids at after-school programs via the Beach Flats Community Center and through groups representing farm workers. Jennifer Sherry, the unit director for the Live Oak Boys & Girls Club, says she loves when the club gets several copies of the same book, and they’re able to launch a book club. “They can each read, they can each interpret, and they can discuss,” Sherry says, sitting across the table from Randall. “Without her, we wouldn’t be able to do that.”
For more information on Free Books For Kids, including how to donate, visit freebooksforkids.org or check out the group’s Facebook page.
Six years ago, Mikey Maramag didn’t know anything about making electronic music. Nor did he have any professional gear. Yet music blogs like Pitchfork started raving about the dreamy lo-fi electro-pop tunes they found on his MySpace page, which he initially created under the moniker Bye Bye Blackbird, then later Blackbird Blackbird. Part of what made Maramag’s music so compelling was the vocals, which were mixed low and treated like an additional synthesizer, adding another spacey layer of chill vibes. It’s reminiscent of other bands circa 2010, like Washed Out and Beach House. But far from attempting to start a movement, Maramag’s sound was more a product of his technical limitations than anything else. “I didn’t have any cool equipment. I was literally trying to pay rent. I didn’t have the means to get a nice microphone,” he explains. “I was just singing into a MacBook microphone, and put AutoTune on that shit, and then sampled it and put it in the background. It turned out cool. I want to go back to it, but not really.” That initial batch of tunes were made in Santa Cruz while Maramag was a student at UCSC. He currently resides in L.A., but at the time he lived on River Street, and stayed up all night making music on his computer. “You can see the house from the highway. It’s literally about to crumble apart. People might die there, so someone should probably get them out of the house,” he says. As Blackbird Blackbird gained more attention, Maramag was able to finally get some better gear. His more recent music doesn’t have the same laptop-chillwave feel; instead, he’s evolved into blending live and analog instruments with computer sounds and samples. He incorporates guitar and drums (instruments he’s been playing longer than he’s been programming electronic music), which results in a thicker, more genre-bending sound. He’s also stopped mixing the vocals so low. But the dreamy vibe present in his early work is still all over his newer records, like 2014’s brilliant Tangerine Sky. The songs strike a balance between moody indie-rock and laid-back synth-pop. “I’ve always really loved pop music. A lot of my first stuff was really experimental. I was just figuring out what I was doing. Now I’m taking more of an arrangement-based approach when I write music,” Maramag says. “I definitely keep pop music in mind when I make music. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily pop music. I definitely kept the catchiness in mind.” Maramag hasn’t gone in one single direction. Some of his music is more in the realm of pop, while some of it is more experimental. He’s generally attempting to mix ingredients of electronic and live instrumentation to create something new and exciting, but sometimes tunes will be exclusively electronic or only include live instruments. “All in all, it doesn’t matter which one you use, as long as you know how to get what you’re going for. It doesn’t matter if it’s analog or digital, as long as you can create a sound that you want. It shouldn’t matter. That’s just how I see it. Back then I was like, ‘I want to get sick analog sounds and get really good warmth with synths and stuff,’” Maramag says. Currently Blackbird Blackbird is touring as a solo act. At his shows, Maramag plays guitar and sings while the synths and beats play as backing tracks. But he’s considering ways to tweak his live performance, like adding other people. “Depending on what I’m writing next, I could be needing some help from other musicians. Preferably a multi-instrumentalist like myself, someone that can play guitar, drums, bass, keyboards—do everything I do, like a clone of me,” Maramag says. “I might just clone myself.”
INFO: 8:30 p.m., Friday, April 22. Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Av.e, Santa Cruz, $12/Adv, $15/Door. 429-4135.
Peggy Orenstein has followed the lives of girls through three books: Cinderella Ate My Daughter, about the “princess culture” marketed to young girls; Schoolgirls, about how girls’ self-esteem plummets as they enter adolescence; and her new book, Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape, which seems pretty self-explanatory, except it’s not. In talking with Orenstein about the complexity of girls’ emerging sexuality, I was schooled in the contradictions involved. Girls are coming of age in a world where female empowerment doesn’t seem to apply to sexual health and satisfaction. Why is that? The girls I talked to were ambitious, smart and political. In the public realm, they have support to lean on, yet in the private realm, there’s silence around their sexuality. One girl told me she came from generations of strong women. She and her sister felt free to be loud and powerful. Then she detailed a series of soulless, disconnected, deferential hookups, which were the entire substance of her sexual encounters. When I pointed out how this conflicted with her image as a strong woman, she said, “No one told me that the strong woman image ought to apply to sex, too.” Why haven’t we talked with girls about being strong in the context of sexuality? Because of our own squeamishness and unexamined fears. That applies to all of us—progressives and conservatives, even parents who thought they had talked to their daughters about sex, including myself. Until I went through the process of reporting, I thought, “I’ve talked to my daughter about contraception, disease protection, gay sex.” Really modern, right? But that’s just the minefield, not the whole picture. The Dutch have much better outcomes with their girls. Their emphasis in sex education is about balancing responsibility and joy. How do girls navigate a hookup culture where oral sex is viewed as currency, but slut-shaming is common? It’s tough. There’s a premium placed on girls presenting as sexy or hot. It’s commercialized, narrowly defined, and reinforced by a social media culture steeped in pornography. It’s about selling female sexiness while maintaining silence about female sexuality and pleasure—how it works and what it is. What do you think about how “hotness” has been packaged as empowerment? Girls today would say, “If you’re in control of it, then why isn’t it powerful?” They see it as a form of self-confidence. And I would, too, if I thought it was translating into more ability to shape their own experiences in the bedroom. But research shows the opposite. The more a person self-sexualizes—the more conscious they are of their body—the less sexual control, agency or pleasure they experience. How does that affect the idea of consent? We’ve been having this umbrella conversation about consent in the culture for a while now. I wanted to look at what happens after consent, because consent is a really low bar to set for a satisfying sexual experience. What is it after consent that feeds into these ideas of sexuality being mainly for male pleasure? It’s a social justice issue. Girls who come out as gay seem to fare better. It’s true. Once they get away from the script of how things are supposed to go, they feel freer to create a sexual experience that satisfies both partners. How does the imbalance affect boys? Sexual experiences with girls and the way sex is presented to them in pornography shape what they expect from women and themselves. That can be painful and damaging to young men. Helping them understand that girls’ limits are not merely challenges to get past is really important. Challenging the idea of pitting sexual partners against each other is, too. Who’s the opposing team? Do girls want to talk to their parents about sex? What struck me is how many girls told me their parents had no idea what they were up to. Even though it’s uncomfortable for them too, girls want us to talk to them—not just about the act, but about our values around it, about relationships, reciprocity and pleasure, about all the things that are part of a full and healthy sexuality.
Peggy Orenstein will read from and discuss her new book at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 26, atBookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. Free.
In almost 50 years of working together, Andy and Cynthia Lenz have put their personal touch on every inch of their Lenz Arts business. Of their recent Lifetime Achievement award at the International Art Materials Trade Association convention in Houston, Texas Cynthia Lenz is fairly pragmatic. “Well, it’s a big deal in the little art world,” she says with a grin. The international award went to Andy and Cynthia Lenz for the dedication and arts expertise that helped build Lenz Arts into a beacon for Central Coast artists, educators and designers. “There wasn’t a real art store at all in this area, none that carried a variety of products from multiple product lines,” Andy recalls. “You would have to go to many stores to find what you needed.” So the couple filled in the gap. It all began with Andy doing outside sales. “We had a number of ad agencies and architectural firms as clients who would need drafting supplies. I’d take orders in the morning, drive to San Mateo, and make deliveries in the afternoon,” he says, beaming.
“I wanted the store to be like my ideal studio. It had to have everything I would want for any art project,” she says. Andy, armed with a deep background in no fewer than five artistic genres, also realized that “you either teach, or do an art store. Well, teaching didn’t suit me.”
Born in Minnesota, Andy Lenz was raised in Idaho and Northern California. “Since the age of 12, I was always an artist,” he nods. After San Francisco Art Institute he took courses at Chico State. “There was a young woman in my ceramics class who looked like Lauren Bacall. I just had to meet her,” he says. A rendezvous in the school’s dining hall led to a date, then marriage shortly before graduation. Deciding against MFA enrollment in UC Davis’ art program, the couple pursued graduate studies at San Jose State. “I was into art history and I wanted to teach,” Cynthia recalls. “But we couldn’t find a decent place to live in San Jose,” Andy adds. So they settled in Santa Cruz, which Cynthia’s deeply rooted Santa Cruz family—the Pennimans—called home. Frustrated by the lack of materials for his master’s degree artworks, Andy went home and told his wife, “This town needs an art store.” Founded in 1968, the Lenz’ first commercial storefront was across the street from Zoccoli’s on Pacific Avenue. Son Andrew, now the store’s manager and vice president, recalls his parents “borrowing against gas credit cards to get enough money together to buy their first batch of materials for sale,” he says. “It was a true leap of faith.” In 1972 they bought the property formerly occupied by El Dorado Meat Company at the corner of North Pacific Avenue and River Street. “We did a lot of scraping the walls, cleaning and painting,” Cynthia says, rolling her eyes. The store’s thick walls and irregular doorways are evidence of the frozen meat lockers of yore. As the buyer for Lenz Arts, Cynthia had a vision. “I wanted the store to be like my ideal studio. It had to have everything I would want for any art project,” she says. Andy, armed with a deep background in no fewer than five artistic genres, also realized that “you either teach, or do an art store. Well, teaching didn’t suit me,” he confesses, “and we needed money.” Cynthia—a specialist in paper—did the buying, kept the books, and Andy did sales. “I’m a good salesperson. I sold popcorn in the fourth grade,” he grins. “We learned early on to listen to our customers. We wanted to fulfill their needs.” The Internet? “They’re just another competitor to us,” he says. “Before that, it was catalog sales.” The couple’s art-school background inspired their inventory. “When we first opened we showed people how to use everything.” The full-service art store even offered fine-art framing. “Professionals, amateurs, students, people come here from as far away as Ashland. And Monterey. And Texas,” Andy says. “We have survived fire, earthquakes, embezzlements, and roadwork,” they both chime in. They also survived a few experiments in expanding the business to other markets. “We’ve seen plenty of changes. Letraset went out. Layout materials went out when computers came in. We were pushed to diversify.” But the location wasn’t ideal, they note, laughing. Lots of bars, no retail trade, a big PG&E tower. “But we own the building, and even more importantly we own the parking lot. People can just zip in and zip out with what they need.” The couple’s son Andrew—the eldest of five children—has managed Lenz for many years now, working with graphic artist Louise Leong as assistant manager and Lily Bromberg as buyer. “Andrew’s great—he’s a people person and used his UCSC degree in computer science to bring us into the computer era,” says Andy, who officially retired in January, just in time to go to the Houston conference. “I’m thrilled about the award,” says Andrew. “They’ve worked really hard to create this thing known as ‘Lenz Arts’ to meet the needs and desires of local artists.” I ask Andy what he thinks the best part of his work is, and, without hesitation, he looks at his wife and says, “Cynthia!” In his spare time, Andy gives pop-up art demos in the shop, paints and draws in his home studio, and bakes legendary mixed-grain muffins. Cynthia enjoys her many grandchildren. Freed of six-days-a-week retail obligations, the founders are still hardwired into the Lenz Arts business. “It’s our baby,” they say. lenzarts.com.
To sit down with Gayle Ortiz is to sit down with a chapter in Capitola history. Born in San Jose, Ortiz and her family would vacation on the sandy shores of Capitola every year when she was young. In 1978, Ortiz opened Gayle’s Bakery—which has since become a mid-county staple—and moved to the city two years later, never looking back. In 2000 she was elected to the Capitola City Council, where she became vice mayor and moved into the mayor’s seat the following year. “To this day, I can go out in the foggy morning and smell the ocean, but I also smell hash browns cooking in the village,” Ortiz says. “And that combination of scents brings me right back to when I was 7 years old.” This month Ortiz, along with a handful of Capitola-loving residents, is taking her appreciation for her community one step further with a grassroots group she’s calling Vision Capitola. For two consecutive Wednesdays this month, beginning April 20, residents are invited to the Jade Street Community Center to voice where they would like to see Capitola in five to 15 years. She encourages residents to speak their minds, whether it’s about a pothole fix in the village, a noise ordinance in their neighborhood, or feedback for the Capitola police. Participants can sign up to speak on the day of, or send in their ideas via mail or email. The group of organizers has already printed and passed out more than 5,000 fliers throughout the various city sections, hand-delivering them in a neighborly gesture.
For two consecutive Wednesdays this month, beginning April 20, residents are invited to the Jade Street Community Center to voice where they would like to see Capitola in five to 15 years.
“Communities don’t really get a chance to be with their neighbors and talk about their values,” explains Ortiz, who also serves on the Capitola Planning Commission. “Having it be a grassroots movement, and not part of the city government, will hopefully draw more people.” Capitola is only about two square miles, with a population of roughly 10,000, and yet it is split between three economically disparate areas: 41st Avenue, Capitola Village, and the Bay and Capitola avenues area. For the last several years, Ortiz says, residents and city officials have tried to figure out a way for these three areas to work in a more symbiotic fashion. Some areas have received harsher criticism than others, like the Capitola Mall, which has been the focus of complaints that range from it being antiquated to it being an eyesore, although the mall was just sold to a new group. Capitola residents and leaders are optimistic about its future. “They are all extremely unique sections and I want to make sure we focus on that,” says Ortiz, “because that’s what makes Capitola strong financially.” Economic development aside, Ortiz, whose husband Joe Ortiz is a well-known local musician, artist and playwright, hopes to hear people voice their concerns for the architectural preservation of their distinct region. “I feel very strongly about historic preservation, and very much want to make sure our architectural history stays intact,” she says. “My other major goal is to make sure we get our new library.” The idea for Vision Capitola originally came to Ortiz last year when she attended a meeting for Capitola’s recently ratified general plan that got her inspired. This next step will allow organizers to crowdsource specific suggestions for the city. “The General Plan is a broad document,” says Capitola City Mayor Ed Bottorff. “I think Vision Capitola is trying to be more specific.” Originally adopted in 1989, the Capitola General Plan, in its own words, “establishes goals, policies and actions that will guide conservation, growth and enhancement in Capitola over the next 20 to 30 years.” The plan expresses policy decisions in land use, zoning, business permitting and more while considering noise pollution, mobility use and the character of neighborhoods and residents. In 2014 the City Council decided to renew the General Plan and adopted the latest version last year. That library is the first goal in the general plan’s grand scheme. Projected to break ground in June 2018, the new library looks to at least double the current space—from 4,320 square feet to at least 7,000, if not 10,000, square feet. “The new library will be huge compared to what it is now,” Ortiz says. So far, Capitola has saved $2.7 million toward the new project and hopes to secure an additional $8 million through the Library Property Tax Initiative, which Ortiz supports, up for a county-wide vote in June. “Educating people with what’s happening in our General Plan is very important,” says Ortiz, “because they’ll see where their values fit into this long-range plan for the city.” Anyone who chooses to participate in the workshops is free to share any concern, idea for the future, or quality that they love about the city. After the first meeting, Vision Capitola volunteers will personally count and categorize every response, in all their various mediums, as a comprehensive list. At the second meeting, this list will be presented to the public, and residents are invited to listen and amend. Organizers will present the final version to the City Council in May. “A lot of people keep asking, ‘What will come of this? What will happen?’” Ortiz says. “I hope it will spark people to be more involved in the city, run for office and build more community. In a city of 10,000 people, we can achieve a lot.” Bottorff says the community’s input won’t go unnoticed. “Whether people come to a council meeting and voice their opinion, or they get together in a grassroots effort like this, the Capitola City Council is always open to hearing from people about their city,” Bottorff says. “It’s actually their city, we just monitor it for them.”
Vision Capitola will be at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 20 and April 27 at the Jade Community Center, 4400 Jade St., Capitola. Visit visioncapitola.com for more information.
Waldo Dave has just settled into a corner table at Mill Valley’s Depot Bookstore & Café, his back to the windows that separate the indoor tables from the outdoor patio, when a loud thud behind his left shoulder startles him. He whips around to see Waldo Steve’s face smooshed up against the glass. The two men—in their early 60s and friends for more than 45 years—laugh as Waldo Steve peels his face away and heads inside, leaving behind a contorted imprint over the drizzly April morning. He grabs a chair, sits down and pats an envelope that contains 167 pages of officially embossed United States Coast Guard records.“This was the ultimate goal,” he says of the highly anticipated mail that arrived three weeks ago, but took years of searching to obtain. “This is what slams the door shut on everyone who says that our story is a bunch of bull,” Waldo Dave says. As the story goes, in the fall of 1971, five wise-cracking friends—Steve, Dave, Mark, Larry and Jeff, who called themselves “the Waldos” after a wall they hung out at between classes at Marin County’s San Rafael High School—were given a hand-drawn map to a secret patch of cannabis in Point Reyes. The crop had been planted—and the map leading to it drawn—by a U.S. coastguardsman named Gary Newman. Newman, brother-in-law of Bill McNulty, a friend of the Waldos who gave them the map, was said to have been paranoid about getting busted for planting the cannabis on federal property. The Waldos were determined to find the patch. Week after week, they planned to meet at 4:20 p.m. at a campus statue of Louis Pasteur. They’d get high, jump in Waldo Steve’s 1966 Chevy Impala, listen to its “killer” eight-track stereo and head to the Point Reyes coast in search of the treasure. “It was always like cub scout field trips,” Waldo Steve says of the group’s Waldo Safaris. “Except we were stoned.”
As the story goes, in the fall of 1971, five wise-cracking friends were given a hand-drawn map to a secret patch of cannabis in Point Reyes. The Waldos were determined to find the patch. Week after week, they planned to meet at 4:20 p.m. at a campus statue of Louis Pasteur.
The Waldos never found the patch. But “420 Louis,” and later, simply “420,” became their secret code for pot. Today, the Waldos’ three-digit code has become mainstream universal slang for all things cannabis: 420 (April 20) festivals, 420 races, 420 Olympics, 420 college campus “smokeouts,” 420 publications, “420-friendly” real estate ads, even California Senate Bill No. 420. The Waldos, who describe their high-school selves as intelligent, fit guys who were “seekers” rather than “stupid, slacker stoners,” live throughout Marin and Sonoma and work in fields ranging from financial services to independent filmmaking to the wine industry. Waldo Steve and Waldo Dave, the “talking heads” of the group, have agreed to meet me prior to the April 20 worldwide pot holiday to share their story. It’s a busy time of year for them. “By the way, the Huffington Post just called,” Waldo Steve tells Waldo Dave as he flips through a heavy-duty blue binder that contains hundreds of references to 420 culture in newspaper and magazine articles from the New York Times, the L.A. Times, National Geographic, Time, Esquire, and dozens more; records of dissertations on the sociological aspects of 420 and documented proof of conversations; handwritten eyewitness accounts; references to the marijuana map and copies of letters from the early ’70s—all supporting the Waldos’ claims that they were the very first people to use the term 420. “Actually, we’re the centerfold in this one,” Waldo Dave jokes, pointing to a cover of Playboy. The two men enthusiastically exchange inside jokes, noises, secret words, one-liners, and impersonations. Their banter is a glimpse into the wild, adventurous world of the Waldos—intertwined with the beauty and the freewheeling counterculture of Marin in the ’70s. A golden era, they call it. The Waldos don’t know what became of the map that revealed the Point Reyes cannabis patch. But “everything else,” they say, is preserved in a high-security bank safety deposit vault in San Francisco’s Financial District. “It was an original little joke that turned into a worldwide phenomenon,” Waldo Dave says.
Cannabis Culture
“In about 1995 or so we started seeing ‘420’ carved into benches and spray painted on signs, and we said, ‘Hey, what’s happening here?,’” Dave says. “This is starting to evolve. We’ve gotta start looking into this thing, you know?” Waldo Steve remembers Waldo Larry telling him that he was seeing more and more 420 paraphernalia— “more hats, more T-shirts, more everything.” “I better get the story straight,” he said to himself. A late ’90s phone call to High Times magazine resulted in the publication’s editor immediately flying to California to meet the Waldos and verify their claims. Following the original 1998 article in High Times, the story of the origin of 420 spread to other publications, one by one. “I think after the Internet became big around 2000, then it started snowballing,” Waldo Dave says. Ever since, the Waldos have fiercely defended their story, agreeing to meet journalists at their vault, get on camera and trek out to Point Reyes. When asked how many hours they’ve devoted to documenting their story, Waldo Steve answers quickly and assuredly: “Thousands.” “People keep trying to twist the story,” Waldo Steve says, noting the naysayers “come out of the woodwork” each year to attack and discredit the Waldos’ story, or claim to have coined the term themselves. “There’s so many of ’em you can’t keep track of ’em,” Waldo Dave says. “It’s pretty hilarious. We’ve created a whole generation of 420 claimers now.” “It’s such a fabled thing,” Waldo Steve adds. “People want to be part of a fable.” “We’ve had people saying they thought our story was a fairy tale,” Waldo Dave says, noting their latest search for the Point Reyes coastguardsman. “So we said, ‘Hey—we’ll go find this guy. We may not be able to find him, but we’re gonna try.’”
The Missing Link
The search for Gary Newman, the planter of the elusive crop that started it all, began six years ago. It was never easy. There were false starts, dead-ends, unanswered phone calls, unanswered letters and “no-show” meetings in San Jose, where the Waldos had leads that the coastguardsman could be living. “I was getting worried,” Waldo Steve says. “I was thinking, ‘God, this guy could die, and I’ll never get his side of the story.” Months later, Waldo Steve was traveling in a Texas “ghost town” near Big Bend National Park. “Big thunderstorms,” he says. “Cracks of lightning.” He and his brother Norm were the only people in a little emptied-out Mexican restaurant and saloon. “And between cracks of thunder, I get a phone call,” says Waldo Steve. Who could be calling me in the middle of nowhere, he thought to himself. “This is Carol, I’m Gary’s caretaker,” the woman on the line said. “And I could hear Gary goin’, ‘I can remember everything about the Coast Guard!’” Waldo Steve says. “It was like, ‘Whoahh!’” “Major breakthrough,” Waldo Dave says. “He’s aliiive!” What seemed to be a hot trail led to months of more unreturned phone calls, unanswered letters and no-show meetings. And then, suddenly, everything changed. There was a date, a meeting spot and a time. Gary showed up. “Gary, we’ve been looking for you for so long!” Waldo Dave yelled when he first saw him. As it turned out, the coastguardsman who had played such a large role in the Waldos’ past, and in what developed in following years, was homeless and living on the streets of San Jose. The Waldos paid for their new friend to stay in a San Jose hotel during the Super Bowl so that he could watch the game. There, they interviewed him to make sure that all records and accounts matched up. “Gary had no idea what he started,” Waldo Steve says, referring to 420. “I thought it’d be better for him to show us everything.” He rounded up the Waldos, Gary, Carol, Jackson, Patrick McNulty (brother of the late Bill McNulty), and headed out to the Point Reyes Lighthouse, where Gary had been stationed. In a short video made by Waldo Dave, Gary talks passionately about his time there. The official Coast Guard records that the Waldos sent away for and received three weeks before we meet in Mill Valley, describe a decorated, life-saving coastguardsman. Finally meeting him after 45 years, the Waldos say, was like a reunion with a relative they never knew. And through the kindness of someone who Waldo Dave describes as “having a heart of gold” who heard of Gary’s 420 connection and offered him a place to live on his property, Gary is no longer homeless. “And now we’re like some big, happy family,” Waldo Steve says. Waldo Steve says that with Gary Newman’s official Coast Guard records in hand, and an eyewitness account of his time at Point Reyes, the 420 naysayers of the Internet will hopefully be silenced. “I don’t think it’ll be finished,” Waldo Dave says. “There’ll still be people saying, ‘Oh, that’s not true.’ But you know, they’re entitled to their own opinions; we have the facts.”
More than a century ago, naturalist John Muir once wrote in his journal, “Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods …. Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill. Of all the upness accessible to mortals, there is no upness comparable to the mountains.” The same sentiment forms the heart of shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, a practice recognized in Japan’s health care system for more than 30 years. Though its name evokes images of hot tubs under redwood canopies, a forest bath is simply a leisurely walk amongst the trees. In other words, the stroll shouldn’t take a toll, and studies have shown that even 20-30 minute forest baths are enough to reap health benefits. Over the past decade, the practice has begun to take root in the U.S. with techies and professionals from the likes of Microsoft and Amazon.com unplugging and shedding their devices to sit beneath the trees outside Seattle.
Forest bathers, in refreshing contrast, are encouraged to be present and languid throughout the experience, pausing often, perhaps to dip one’s toes into a babbling brook, observe a passing banana slug, or find a sunny clearing and sit there in the quiet, taking in the great outdoors.
Although the concept of forest bathing may sound like it was conceived by a hippie on an acid trip, the scientific evidence supporting its health benefits is quite strong. Many studies, including one published in Environmental Health and Preventative Medicine in 2010, have shown that forest bathing leads to not only lower blood pressure and heart rate, but also lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. As American adults—who are among the most overworked and under-rested of the developed nations—we are conditioned to be results-oriented, destination-driven machines. Forest bathers, in refreshing contrast, are encouraged to be present and languid throughout the experience, pausing often, perhaps to dip one’s toes into a babbling brook, observe a passing banana slug, or find a sunny clearing and sit there in the quiet, taking in the great outdoors. Many of shinrin-yoku’s benefits actually come from the forest air that “bathers” breathe in. Trees give off phytoncides, such as alpha-pinene and d-limonene, which are volatile organic compounds, or aerosols. These compounds protect the trees and plants from insects and disease, but they can also benefit humans: A 2009 study published in the International Journal of Immunopathology and Pharmacology identified a direct link between inhaling phytoncides and an increase in the body’s natural killer, or NK cells. NK cells are a major force in our immune systems, helping to identify and destroy infected, damaged, or otherwise harmful cells, and are thought to be particularly important in the pathology of cancer. A 2007 study published in the International Journal of Immunopathology and Pharmacology was one of several studies that found that soaking in the forest significantly increased the activity of NK cells by an average of about 50 percent. From a color theory perspective, the benefits of forest bathing may have much to do with the color green. A 2004 study at the University of Georgia published in the College Student Journal found that green elicited more positive responses from participants than any other color. “The majority of emotional responses for the color green indicated the feelings of relaxation and calmness, followed by happiness, comfort, peace, hope, and excitement,” said the study’s authors. “Green was associated with nature and trees, and thus creating feelings of comfort and soothing emotions.” One reason the color is thought to impart these feelings may be that green environments signaled to our ancestors the presence of three essential aspects of survival: food, shelter, and water. Today, many cities are finding ways to “re-wild” and incorporate green space into the metropolitan landscape, like New York City’s 2011 construction of the High Line, a nature walk on an abandoned rail line, and campaigns to plant 1 million trees in the cities of Los Angeles, Miami and Denver. Green has also long been thought to promote creativity, a notion that is supported by a 2012 study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. The study’s participants were asked to come up with as many uses for a tin can as they could, and results showed that those who viewed the color green before beginning the task came up with more creative answers. That green-filled natural environments promote benefits for both the body and mind makes sense considering that only in the last hundred or so years (an evolutionary blink of the eye) have humans predominantly lived in densely populated urban settings made mostly of lifeless concrete, metal, lumber, and plastic. But for the vast majority of human history, we lived in, with, and among nature and were much more intimately connected with it.
How very San Francisco, we thought as we slid into a banquette seat at the chic new East End Gastropub. Busy adding luster to the otherwise predictable ambience of the spacious shopping complex on 41st Avenue, the not-so-twin sister of West End Tap & Kitchen has already found its audience. Multi-generational diners and a bar filled with craft beer lovers were busy enjoying chef Geoffrey Hargrave’s inventive menu when we arrived for an early dinner. From the retro wall sconces to open kitchen energy, East End looks terrific. It was impossible not to be impressed with the large-scale vertical plantings placed out front and on the entry wall—the eye-catching work of Rebecca Paiss’ Sweet Lime container gardens. After a sample of the current sour ale—a complex creation of sour cherries and barrel aging from Hermitage Brewing—we settled on a pint of West End Gold blonde ale ($5.50) and an elegant Pinot Noir from Windy Oaks ($15). We split two gorgeously presented starters. The petite marinated lamb chops striding a pool of roasted bell pepper coulis, with spicy green harissa and a few infant beet greens on top, were intensely flavorful ($12). A splendid appetizer—perfect with beer— I would order it again in a heartbeat. The very plump beet arancini ($10) were a bit overwhelming. Adorned with a delicious salad of lemony arugula and sitting on an herb pistou, the deliciously chewy rice and cheese balls overplayed their hand. We’re thinking that perhaps, in their case, less would be more; smaller beet balls may be more approachable. Our other starter, Chef Hargrave’s honey-cured pork belly concept worked brilliantly. Two substantial wedges of crispy, succulent pork belly—designer bacon—arrived topped with a luscious fried farm egg whose unctuous yolk oozed onto the bed of farro and crisp sauteed brussel sprouts ($19). I could have eaten this dish all day long. “Bacon and eggs for dinner,” quipped my dinner partner. For my money, this is a destination dish, although the tables on either side of us were busy with orders of the obviously popular roast heritage chicken with green beans and grilled buttermilk biscuit. OK, I’ll try that on my next visit. Another entree might need re-thinking: the handmade rye pappardelle—who could resist the idea?—proved both soft and indistinct in flavor ($17). The large ricotta and green garlic pesto topping didn’t quite amp up the interest, although the lemon zest and toasted hazelnuts were delicious. Throughout our meal, East End filled up with a lively group of patrons. We admired the outstanding wait staff—helpful, attentive, never hovering—and the generous portions. Serious value for one’s dollar in every dish. We couldn’t resist sampling a dessert of Meyer lemon panna cotta. Our spoons descended through a thick band of berry sauce that covered the creamy pudding ($8). Bits of spiced polenta lay waiting unexpectedly at the bottom of the pudding. Great flavor combinations, though we found the abundant blueberry sauce quite sweet. All in all, less than a month old, East End Gastropub already sports lots of polish and some enticing dishes. Looking forward to my next visit! East End Gastropub is at 1501 41st Ave., next to Palace Arts in Capitola. Open daily from 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m, except for Tuesday and Wednesday, 5 p.m.-10 p.m.
Westside Expansion
A new space-sharing adventure is starting up between cozy neighbors, Companion Bakeshop and Odonata Wine Tasting Room. Shared patio seating and more space for the busy Bakeshop ovens are being planned for the expansion that will occur over the next few months. Bread in the morning and wine at night. Heaven.
Pam Randall is wheeling a cart of 350 books into Live Oak’s newly opened Boys & Girls Club. It’s Wednesday, April 13, a milestone day for Randall, a board member for local nonprofit Free Books For Kids, which is about to hand out book number 25,000.
“I’ve got classics. I’ve got Hardy Boys. I’ve got the Little House on Prairie...
