caption 1. Discretion Brewing brews their beer with 100 percent organic ingredients. 2. They are partnered with the Kitchen, an in-house restaurant headed by Chef Santos Majano (previously of Soif) that serves up creative reinventions of traditional pub fare, all made with seasonal, locally sourced ingredients. 3. Since opening three years ago, their brews have been awarded 18 medals in national craft beer competitions, including seven golds. 4. Discretion is the first solar-powered brewery in Santa Cruz County. Their installation supplants 70 percent of the brewery’s electrical needs with clean, non-polluting energy. 5. Every Monday is “Love Monday” at Discretion, with 20 percent of beer sales going to a local nonprofit. LS
Best Live Music
Moe’s Alley
caption 1. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Moe’s Alley.
2. The venue has a brand new Meyer sound system and new LED lighting. 3. Moe’s Alley hosts more than 250 shows per year. 4. The styles presented at Moe’s range from blues to rock to funk to bluegrass to reggae, and much more. 5. Moe’s has welcomed numerous actor-musicians to the stage, including Kiefer Sutherland and John C. Reilly. CJ
Best Local Band
Extra Large
caption 1. With at least a dozen Best Local Band awards over the years, Extra Large may well be the winningest band in Good Times history. 2. Extra Large is focused on expanding its reach beyond Santa Cruz. This summer they’re playing a number of festivals and concert series around the Bay Area and beyond. 3. Twice a year, Extra Large tours in Mexico where they have a growing base of enthusiastic fans. 4. Most of the lyrics to Extra Large songs are very positive and happy. “We exude a zest for life,” says percussionist and vocalist Valerie Leal. 5. The band has three albums’ worth of original material, but when performing, they play plenty of cover songs, as well. CJ
Best Margaritas
El Palomar
caption 1. El Palomar changes up its drink menu every few months, and its drink specials change weekly. 2. Its twists on the classic margarita (fresh lime, agave nectar, tequila) include mango, strawberry, pomegranate, pineapple, cucumber jalapeno, guava, and others. They also offer versions with mezcal instead of tequila, and others with their homemade hibiscus syrup. 3. Cantina happy hour is from 3-6 p.m. on Monday through Friday, and the taco bar happy hour runs from 5-9 p.m. Monday through Thursday. 4. The El Palomar building was built as a hotel and completed in 1933. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, it was supposed to be demolished, but was retrofitted instead. During that time the El Palomar restaurant was displaced for four years. 5. One tequila, two tequila, three tequila … floor. AMH
Bar
Red Room
1003 Cedar St., Santa Cruz, 426-2994
RUNNERS-UP Crow’s Nest, Shadowbrook
Bartender
Ben Caruso @ Oswald
RUNNERS-UP Dana Meek @ Rosie McCann’s, Mark Urban @ Hindquarter, Raina Thomasson @ Blue Lagoon
Craft Brewer (local)
Discretion Brewing
2703 41st Ave, Soquel, CA
discretionbrewing.com
RUNNERS-UP Corralitos Brewing, Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing
Dance Club
Motiv
1209 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz, 429-8070, motivsc.com
Best Arts & Crafts: Palace Arts & Office Supply
1. Palace Arts is family-owned, and has been open in Santa Cruz for 67 years 2. There are two locations, in Capitola and downtown Santa Cruz.
3. At the Capitola location, there are classes and demos for oil painting and acrylic painting.
4. With the popularity of the adult coloring trend, they’ve seen adult coloring books become some of their best-selling items; they have the largest selection on the Central Coast.
5. On Wednesdays, the Capitola location holds “drop-in coloring” for all ages from 3-6 p.m. AE
Best Barbershop
Montgomery’s Barbershop
Best Barbershop: Montgomery’s Barbershop
1. With its checkered floor and red walls, the vibe at Montgomery’s Barbershop is retro with flair.
2. On weekdays, they are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Saturdays 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 3. Most people think of “barbershop” as a guy thing, but Montgomery’s caters to both men and women of all ages.
4. Always popular at Montegomery’s: the “fade” haircut.
5. Can’t imagine what it’d be like to get your haircut at Montgomery’s? Their Facebook site features videos of customers getting their hair done. AE
Best Computer Repair
Clickaway
Best Computer Repair: Clickaway 1. Clickaway’s computer repair services do not require an appointment, and they provide same-day on-site service. 2. Store manager Vince Hargraves is proud of the “friendly atmosphere” in the store. 3. In addition to computer repair, Clickaway provides services for Verizon Wireless and Comcast. 4. They also carry laptops and desktops from Dell, Lenovo, HP, Apple. 5. The team at Clickaway is fluent in both Spanish and English. AE
Best Green Business
T Paul Sek Eco-Friendly Painting
Best Green Business: T Paul Sek Eco-Friendly Painting 1. T Paul Sek Eco-Friendly Painting has been dedicated to eco-friendly practices since 2003, out of concern both for consumer health and minimizing environmental impact. 2. It is a family-run business, established by Theodore Sek and wife Debbie Sek. 3. The “T” in “T Paul Sek” comes from the first letter of Paul Sek’s given first name, Theodore. His wife, Debbie, says the name just stuck. 4. They do both indoor and outdoor projects. 5. One of the couple’s all-time favorite jobs was painting a three-bedroom townhouse in Los Gatos 22 colors, with accent walls in each closet. AE
Best Musical Instruments
Sylvan Music
Best Musical Instruments: Sylvan Music 1. The folks at Sylvan Music have dedicated themselves to what they call the “wide world of killer stringed instruments” for 32 years. 2. Some instruments they carry are made locally, others come from all over the U.S., Europe and the Pacific Rim. 3. Sylvan holds lessons for all stringed instruments; guitar lessons are the most popular. 4. Ukulele lessons are on the rise. 5. Their website, sylvanmusic.com, features video demos created by employees. AE
Adult Store
Camouflage
1329 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz, 423-7613, shopcamouflage.com
7775 Soquel Drive, Aptos, 662-6000 819 Bay Ave., Capitola, 464-5300 720 Front St., Santa Cruz, 457-5000 4604 Scotts Valley Drive, # 10, Scotts Valley, 461-5000
When professor Jim Funaro introduced a class to Cabrillo in 1979 that used both science and science fiction to teach anthropology, he had no idea it would lead him to building whole new worlds. But that’s just what he was doing four years later, when he organized the first Contact conference in Santa Cruz. An academic gathering that brought together some of the best minds in science, science fiction writing, and art to imagine possibilities for humanity’s future, it was centered around a main event Funaro called “COTI: Cultures of the Imagination,” a simulation that had conference participants designing human colonies and alien civilizations. Larry Niven, the iconic science fiction author whose career stretches over five decades and includes 1970’s groundbreaking Ringworld, was at that first Contact in 1983, and remembers that not everything went smoothly with that first world-building experiment. “We made mistakes,” Niven tells GT. “We broke up participants into two groups who would design alien worlds. On Sunday afternoon they would meet. We didn’t consider that humanities people would be hopeless at creating worlds. At later gatherings, we hard science writers would build the worlds first, and let the humanities play there.” Niven, who returned to Contact as keynote speaker in 1995, is back at this year’s conference—which will be held at the Domain Hotel in Sunnyvale April 1-3—to return to the matter of world-building with a presentation on “The Legacy of Heorot,” explaining the backstory of a series he co-authored with consultation from Dr. Jack Cohen, one of the foremost researchers in fertility among all life forms. This year’s conference will also feature author Kim Stanley Robinson speaking about the “eccentric orbit” of science and science fiction, Funaro himself discussing “The Evolution of Star Trek as an American Mythos,” and more than two dozen other talks from science-fiction writers and NASA scientists, with titles like “Alien Civilizations: What Lies Beyond Our Imagination?” “What Will Commercial Spaceflight Cost in the Future?” and “Mars: Science and Science Fiction on the Red Planet.” The Contact conference will be held April 1-3 at the Domain Hotel in Sunnyvale. For more information and to register, go to contact-conference.org.
Easter, the Resurrection Festival for Humanity Wednesday is the Aries Solar Festival (and full moon). It is also a lunar eclipse. Something in form and matter in our lives disappears, no longer needed, having fulfilled its destiny. The New Group of World Servers everywhere is celebrating this Festival, which recognizes the Love of God and the work of the Hierarchy—inner world government. We recite the Great Invocation today, Wednesday, and all week long during this Passion Week. Thursday is Purim (Hebrew festival of Lights). In Christian churches it is Holy Thursday—the evening of the Last Supper with Christ (Pisces and Aquarius World Teacher) and his “students” (disciples). On this night Christ instituted the priesthood and Holy Eucharist, the new dispensation (Law for the Pisces Age). “No more blood sacrifice,” the Christ said, substituting the grape (signifying blood) and wheat to make bread (form and matter, the body). Good Friday was (is) the Crucifixion, the fourth initiation, the Great Renunciation. Christ Jesus, at the moment of death, “rent the veil” (opened the closed door) that kept humanity from returning home again (Spirit). Holy Saturday, all candles are extinguished in the church, there is no light. The Christ is in the “tomb of matter,” the underworld, releasing the earth spirits from their imprisonment (Involutionary path into form and matter). Humanity is released also. Sunday is Easter (always after the full moon), the Festival of Resurrection for humanity, a festival of Love and of new “resurrected” life. All of nature knows this. This week’s events depict the initiations (tests and trials) that Christ underwent. They are humanity’s initiations also. After each “initiation” we are resurrected into greater and greater light and understanding. This is the inner esoteric explanation of Easter.
ARIES: Past abilities and gifts emerge in your daily life. There are many and they are good. Wounds go into hiding, secreting away for awhile. Tend with mindfulness on all daily tasks, especially if traveling. Responsibilities increase as the month unfolds. Love increases too. Find Taurus people. Sit and talk with them. They comfort you. Careful with money. Be prudent with money while also constantly tithing and sharing. TAURUS: In these present times, when a reorientation is occurring, when our world as we know it may one day slow to a halt and how we’ve lived isn’t available anymore, you are very aware of how to prepare for life on the edge, life without comforts, and still maintain the Art of Living. Continue with research on what makes life livable. It’s time to gather the materials for a greenhouse. Old wood framed glass windows will do. GEMINI: Home and work simultaneously call to you. And in both places you must do your very focused best. Two directions imply a here and an “over-there-ness,” an opposition. At first, this creates much resistance, then, later, acceptance and a blending of the two. How can this occur? The astrology shows that your intuition (Pallas Athena in Aquarius) is very active and willing to bring forth synthesis. Ask more, wait for subtle quiet answers. Take time off. CANCER: If you are experiencing inflammation and pain, know that turmeric is an anti-inflammatory. Preparing and eating East Indian (or Ayurvedic) foods are best for healing and digestion. Indian spices have health benefits: cayenne for warmth; coriander, also for inflammation, contains magnesium; cumin aids in digestion; chiles have vitamin C. Dry roast spices first then sizzle them in ghee (clarified butter). These are nurturing North Node in Virgo, Mars in Sag health tips. LEO: Tending to self is your Easter season task. How is your relationship with family? Is there contact, communication and emotional support? It seems that many things from the past remain behind the scenes, somewhat hidden away. You can no longer stay hidden. You are Vesta now, the light of life for others. Vesta is the found object of self. I suggest this yearly to different signs. Create a Vesta treasure box. It becomes your art form. VIRGO: Focus on serving others and not on anything else. Sometimes it’s hard to do our work with concentration and dedication. However, if we have an intention to do something in a certain way, like focusing on our intention to serve, then it becomes easier. What you will receive by doing this is a clear and grounded sense of self. That wound that’s hurting will step aside. And clarity of vision and purpose emerge. You need all of these. LIBRA: In your daily life you’ve become prudent, disciplined, focused, reliable, industrious, serious, reserved, patient, and persevering. You’ve taken on more and more responsibilities and some Librans are assuming a healing role. Perhaps you are the one in need of healing? Do not allow any type of insecurity or inhibitions to limit you. Think these through. Be only with those who care for and support you, where everyone sees you as perfect. Mother always said you were (perfect). SCORPIO: There’s a brilliant new state of creativity flowing through you. Music, very important at this time, must be in your environment at all times. Travel, study, things cultural, sculpting, hiking, horse tending and/or riding, seeking your next out-of-body experience, are past gifts you can again cultivate. Tend to mundane tasks carefully and bless the details. Blessings create new and deeper awareness. SAGITTARIUS: Home, for so long in a state of here and not here, now assumes a more defined reality. Bring in bright colors, plants, bowls of fish, art, lights, and a flash of neon. They create the style you seek. Home is your sangha (refuge), sanctuary and retreat. Try not be at odds with anyone and do tend to all tasks with constancy and care. You now expand your new identity, growth and development. CAPRICORN: The tension and pressure you’re feeling can be used creatively. Know that a self-transformation is slowly coming your way. Cooperation is available from everyone. Teaching others to cooperate nurtures them and you. Everyone sees you as someone of great value, providing you with the courage needed that transforms all situations. You answer to needs. You are the harmony after the conflict. AQUARIUS: It’s important to secure your money and not use it indiscriminately. It’s also important to share it with those in need. Your money should be used to safeguard your future, work and family. Invest with others in land, consider building an agrarian community. Assess the world situation and be the first to communicate what you see. A new world is coming. You will play a major part in its establishment. PISCES: Is your daily life feeling somewhat shrouded in a mist? Can you assess your present daily needs and priorities? You want to be practical while initiating new goals. Relationships are expanding. How will this affect your life? Do you think about serving others? Serving is a Virgo task, your hidden sign. The Tibetan says, “Out of duty, perfectly performed, will emerge those larger duties which we call world work.” Always the world calls to you.
I’m willing to cut filmmaker Terrence Malick some slack. I was never particularly drawn to the early art house films for which he is best known (Days Of Heaven; Badlands), but I thought his 2005 epic, The New World, was the best movie of the first decade of this century. An impressionistic and completely immersive plunge into the first interactions between American natives and European colonists ca. 1600, it dispensed with dialogue and narrative in ways that made total sense in a story about two cultures without language or any sort of cultural reference in common. The strangeness and unease of their struggles to comprehend each other created the drama. Since then, Malick has delivered three more films, each one less burdened by either dialogue or narrative than the last, and none of them with an iota of the power of The New World. Case in point: Malick’s latest, Knight of Cups. Revolving around its protagonist (literally, with plenty of hand-held camera work), a disaffected Hollywood screenwriter searching for the meaning of life, it’s full of light, color, expressionistic images, snippets of disconnected voice-over observations, flashes of hedonistic excess, and swelling orchestral music. But for all the visual movement, Malick’s storytelling is inert. The techniques that worked so well in The New World don’t translate to a modern setting; the characters speak the same language, but there’s almost no verbal communication between them onscreen. And without the traditional clues of dialogue or the accumulation of narrative details, the viewer can’t work up any sense of emotional engagement with the characters. We have no idea who these people are, and we’re given no reason to care. At the center of it all is screenwriter Rick (Christian Bale), who might be in emotional free fall, if there was any evidence at all that he had emotions. He occupies a cold, spare glass apartment overlooking the beach, and while he never seems to actually work, he takes meetings at the studio—meaning he’s shown wandering dazedly around the back lot while other guys in suits talk over and around him. He has father issues (all of Malick’s male characters have father issues), and an extant father (Brian Dennehy) who pops up in the margins now and then, and a brother (Wes Bentley). But as for Rick himself, there’s no there there: he’s the ultimate empty vessel. The only time he seems to perk up is at the orgiastic Hollywood parties he regularly attends, where he laughs and smiles and crawls around drunkenly on all fours. He pairs up with a succession of women—a pink-haired free spirit (Imogen Poots), a sultry model (Freida Pinto), an exuberant pole-dancer (Teresa Palmer), and a woman who may be the love of his life (Natalie Portman), except that she’s married to someone else. Most of them end up dancing along the beach at the water’s edge in filmy, diaphanous gowns. In the absence of narrative, Malick attempts to use the symbolism of Tarot cards to create story. (The suit of Cups, like Hearts, suggests love and pleasure; the Knight of each suit is a young man.) These are used as “chapter” headings: the “Judgment” card cues the appearance of his disapproving ex-wife (Cate Blanchett); the “Death” card retains its symbolism as the signal of rebirth. Meanwhile, voices on the soundtrack read from Pilgrim’s Progress, and drone on about knights and pilgrims and quests. Fragments of stunning music from the likes of Debussy, Beethoven, Gorecki, and Pärt are seeded in to create an atmosphere of profundity that the movie does not earn. Understanding the story in symbolic terms is not enough; we need to feel invested in somebody—anybody—onscreen. Otherwise, what’s the point? Rick’s search for self-discovery is uninvolving; Bale is encouraged to wander through shots at such a zombie-like remove, we doubt there’s any self to discover. And he seems to be searching for meaning in all the wrong places—orgies, strip clubs, Hollywood mansions, Las Vegas. It’s not that Malick’s themes of emptiness and disconnect are too obscure. He just doesn’t make them interesting.
KNIGHT OF CUPS * (out of four) With Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Brian Dennehy, and Freida Pinto. Written and directed by Terrence Malick. A Broad Green release. Rated R. 118 minutes.
On a winter night on the back patio of Bocci’s Cellar, wrestling aficionados huddle together, cheering and jeering as grown men and women in colorful tights with names like Perry Von Vicious, Levi Shapiro, Samara, and the Santa Cruz Kid throw each other around a square rented ring. The air reeks of sweat, weed and the raging hormones of the mostly male audience. This is the world of indie wrestling, courtesy of local wrestling promotion company Chronic Combat. Professional wrestling is a billion-dollar industry, and gets more mainstream media coverage than ever, especially when there’s an irresistible hook like last weekend’s news about a jury awarding disgraced wrestling legend Hulk Hogan $115 million in his invasion of privacy lawsuit against Gawker Media. Indie wrestling is sort of the punk-rock, underground version of pro wrestling, and it took quite a while to find its way into Santa Cruz. One of the first wrestling crews here was the short-lived Grand Prix Wrestling, owned by Lawrence Adams and operated by Sparkey Ballard, which started in 2009 but was overhauled and repackaged into Rival Forge Wrestling. Rival Forge Wrestling commanded the Cocoanut Grove at the Boardwalk in 2010, and then continued at the Louden-Nelson Community Center in 2011 before it folded. Picking up the reins, Chronic Combat is looking to go monthly, gathering a new legion of fans whose penchant for men in tights doing signature moves is on the uptick. Everybody knows professional wrestling is fake, but does that matter? Like Joseph Campbell’s archetypal figures, wrestlers play upon our deepest fantasies. Heroes like Reno Scum and villains like the Classic Connection act out our inner aggressions as they rise and fall. It’s epic, it’s garish, it’s entertaining. Take, for example, the case of Jesse Hett, a Bay Area comedian who once got caught alone in his bedroom watching Summerslam ’89 by his roommate. Pinned by questions of why a grown man would watch something so obviously fake, Hett is indignant. “Fake? Hardly!” blustered Hett. “It’s staged and it’s scripted, but that’s not the same thing as ‘fake.’ Would you go to see a play and say, ‘Oh this is fake. I don’t think those swords are even sharp! And I bet that’s not real poison in any of those cups. And wait a second, that’s not Hamlet, that’s Jeff! He works at the grocery store! He’s not the prince of Denmark at all! This is fake, let’s get out of here!’”
Welcome to the Freak Show
Like the rest of show biz, pro wrestling has a hierarchy. World Wrestling Federation guys like Hogan, Kalisto and the New Day are at the top of the wrestling pyramid. At the bottom is backyard wrestling, where neighborhood friends gather in hand-stitched tights and smash each other with metal folding chairs. One step up from teenagers throwing mattresses on the ground is indie wrestling. It’s a dubious venture often plagued by shady business practices and fly-by-night operations, and its bloodline can be traced to the back tents of traveling carnivals.
“Fake? Hardly!” blustered Hett. “It’s staged and it’s scripted, but that’s not the same thing as ‘fake.’ Would you go to see a play and say, ‘Oh this is fake. I don’t think those swords are even sharp!
“Back in the carny days, you would have strongman shows,” says Nick Robinson, a sought-after regional pro wrestler who goes by the name Levi Shapiro. “Audience members would be invited into the ring to wrestle the strongman, who could never be beat. But if it looked like the rube was going to win, there was a giant white sheet covering one corner of the ring, and the strongman would wrestle the guy to the corner and maneuver his head to the sheet where another carny behind the sheet would hit him in the head with a blackjack, to make sure he lost. Then afterwards they would either invite him to join them on the road, or pull up stakes and get the hell out of town.” The word from most wrestlers is that the independent circuit is still pretty carny. There are promoters who work with wrestlers who haven’t been properly trained. Rivalries between competing organizations often erupt into flame wars and trash talk. Unscrupulous business practices cause organizations to change names or just fold up. Unfortunately for the fans, a lot of the tradition is being lost to janky bookers who are looking to make more money by paying less to untrained amateurs. But there are still plenty of vibrant, competent and compelling independent wrestlers like Perry Von Vicious.
Performance Artists
A wrestler’s persona in the ring is a fictionalized stereotype whose narrative should be easy to follow. Perry Von Vicious is a 1 percenter, a heel and a despicable person. Offstage, Von Vicious, aka Dave Grimes II, is humble and thoughtful, a world away from his braggart ring persona. But like Clark Kent changing into Superman, once the wrestler hits the ring, all shreds of their “real life” are left behind, hidden behind the persona.
One step up from teenagers throwing mattresses on the ground is indie wrestling.
At 6 feet 2 inches and 300 pounds, Grimes was the biggest kid doing high-school theater growing up on the East Coast. “I looked weird acting next to my smaller classmates, so my roles were limited,” says Grimes. “I heard that pro wrestling was kind of like theater for giant gorillas.” At the end of college, Grimes started lifting weights and decided that he would give wrestling a shot. “I went to a local show, and during intermission I talked to the ring announcer because he seemed approachable and not intimidating.” Grimes got the name of Kevin Landry, who ran a wrestling school in Palmer, Massachusetts, and trained for six months before he had his first match. Doing shows every weekend, Grimes was taken under the wing of senior wrestlers who would call the promoters and say, “Hey, I’ve got this rookie who will drive me out if you put him on the show.” A decade later, fans from Hawaii to Japan know the name Perry Von Vicious. His appearances in Santa Cruz are always notable, as he struts the ring looking down his nose at the “losers” in the audience.
Pin My Heart
One thing that every wrestler in this story has is a deep passionate love affair with wrestling that started at a very young age. “My parents would go out on Fridays and leave me with a babysitter,” says Nick Robinson, part of the “bad guy” duo known as the Classic Connection with Buddy Royal. “We would go to the VHS store, and I would get a video game and a VHS tape of wrestling. I’d play the video game all night and wake up in the morning and watch the wrestling. I would watch anything except the Undertaker—I was deathly afraid of him. Back in the day, it was hard to get into the business, but now there are schools everywhere. You had to find your way to find the one smart person to teach you wrestling.” Originally, Robinson wanted to go to what he deemed the best wrestling academy on the West Coast, the All Pro Wrestling School in Hayward, which was at the time run by the late Roland Alexander. Unable to come up with the $6,000 required to train, Robinson did backyard wrestling until promoter Sparkey Ballard came to watch. Seabass (aka the Santa Cruz Kid) feels the pain of a Greco-Roman knuckle lock. PHOTO: ADAM FREIDIN “He thought I had some talent,” says the side-burned Robinson. A short while later, Robinson trained at the Devil Mountain Wrestling Academy in Pacheco, alongside some of his favorite wrestlers, like Hellfire and Alexis Darevko. His alter ego Levi Shapiro is now a for-hire independent wrestler who is very much in demand. Santa Cruz musician Nick Carroll became wrestler Nick Savage when he began training with Pro Wrestling Revolution in San Jose in January of 2015. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he says. Training several times a week and planning to make his debut in a few months, Carroll was also bitten by the wrestling bug early on. “There was never a time I didn’t watch wrestling,” says Carroll. “I was 2 or 3 years old and I remember they captured my attention because they were like lifelike cartoons. I would sit in front of the USA channel until it came on. It was my first love. I only recently thought I had the chance to be a wrestler.” Unlike Grimes, Carroll didn’t have the advantage of size to give him an edge. “I’m 5 foot 7 and I’ve been out of shape for years,” says Carroll. “I started pushing 30 and I told myself that I didn’t want to have any regrets if I didn’t try wrestling and pursue my dream. I decided to go for it, and I haven’t quit. So many people quit. Typically I train two to three times a week.”
Mundi is a badass in the ring, and like her childhood heroine Xena, she is a warrior.
Carroll also plays with the Santa Cruz band the Randy Savages, a homage to the professional wrestler known as the Macho Man. “Of course, down the road I look forward to the day my band the Randy Savages are playing a Chronic Combat show and I get called out and go into the ring,” says Carroll.
Women in the Ring
There’s a stereotype that you have to be huge to be a wrestler, but even more diminutive in stature is Inder Mundi, aka Samara. Mundi is a badass in the ring, and like her childhood heroine Xena, she is a warrior. “I think everyone in the indie scene got hooked into it as kids,” says Mundi. “I’ve always watched it, and it’s always been a part of my life. I didn’t understand how to make it tangible. How do you become an indie wrestler and where do you go? It took time for me to figure out the indie scene in the Bay Area and that I could go to one of these schools.” Mundi started at Big Time Wrestling in Fremont because of Jason Styles, who trained NXT Women’s Champion, Bayley. “He now has his own school and promotion, so I left Big Time,” says Mundi. The fiery wrestler, who is recovering from a broken ankle, feels there is a stigma that follows women who wrestle—people never expect them to have as good a match as the men. According to Mundi, “Even if you had a great match, people will always say, ‘It was all right for a women’s match.’ It’s never up to par with men’s wrestling, but it is what it is. You can only do your best. People are always surprised that I wrestle, I guess because I’m small.”
Combat Leader
The indisputable leader of Chronic Combat is Mikey Gordon, a mustachioed, red-haired, burly man whose penchant for courting controversy is well known. In the ring at Bocci’s, he called himself the Santa Cruz Kid. “Now I’m Seabass,” says Gordon. “I’m 32 and not from here, so it was a stretch.” Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Gordon vividly remembers going to the park and coming home and watching WrestleMania III live on TV. At the time, it was the biggest indoor attendance for any sort of sporting event. Title match: Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant. Gordon was almost 4 years old, and immediately hooked. “My mom was a low-level pro wrestler known as Sue Savage,” says the hype-man extraordinaire. “I never got to see her wrestle. That was before I was born, but she was always a huge fan. It was more a big event back then, people would dress up. Some people wore tuxedos.” Samara takes flight with a top rope plancha dive. As a teenager, Gordon heard on the radio that there were wrestling shows at a local YMCA. More than 500 people would show up and watch old WWF wrestlers like Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka and Pete Madden, the Human Wrecking Ball. Gordon’s mother was a dental hygienist who cleaned the teeth of the cameraman who videoed the matches, so Gordon got taken to events and would also be given videos to watch where he could study the moves. “There was no Internet to find anything out,” says Gordon. “Wrestling at that point in the late 1980s was underground tape trading. VHS tapes of wrestling from Japan and luchadores from Mexico who practice lucha libre [which translates to “free fighting”]. It’s the Mexican equivalent to pro wrestling American-style. Different regions of the world have different styles. It made me realize that there was way more than WWF. There were so many different specialized promotions and styles to get into.” Then, like now, Gordon got his friends involved. At Chronic Combat shows you see Gordon’s crew setting up the ring (that Gordon has finally bought), putting out the chairs, announcing the shows, working the sound system and selling the merchandise. Sixteen years ago, Gordon helped combine three Midwest neighborhood wrestling groups into an organization called World Wrestling Rampage. “We would draw 20 people by ourselves, but when we joined up, we drew 100 people,” he says. Now, the impresario in flesh-fitting tights finds himself in the same position, leading the charge to bring Santa Cruz out for wrestling shows. Perhaps he is motivated by glory, fame and a paycheck, but Gordon takes his fair share of punishment in the ring, often pummeled to the ground for the love of the craft. It’s been tough for Chronic Combat (formerly BeachSlam) to find a permanent venue for this underground battle of titans. Bocci’s Cellar, the Pacific Cultural Center and a few places in Watsonville didn’t totally pan out. But it looks like outdoors at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall might finally be a landing pad for dropkicks, piledrivers and moonsaults. Don’t expect a dressed-up tuxedoed affair at Chronic Combat events, but do expect to be wowed. “I truly believe it’s the best form of entertainment—you have acting, you have stunt work, you have to be able to improvise and you have to go in front of a live audience and convince them it’s real,” Gordon says with his trademark enthusiasm. Chronic Combat may be selling Santa Cruz snake oil, but it’s snake oil with a bite. Chronic Combat will hold matches on April 9, April 30, May 20 and June 5 at the VFW Hall located at 2259 7th Ave., Santa Cruz. Tickets are $10 general admission, $20 front row; go to brownpapertickets.com. Admission to matches is 21 and over.
Putting the “bun” in “Easter Bunny,” the aromatic hot cross bun has been a fixture of Easter since the mid-18th century.
In the Old World, hot cross buns were sold on the streets on Good Friday. “Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns.” That’s what Charles Dickens would have heard the street vendors crying as they sold fresh-from-the-oven pastries to hungry, pious crowds. Many believe these little holiday cakes to be the descendants of pastries baked for the pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre. It’s a culinary myth that I like, almost as much as I like the delicious little sweet loaves themselves. There’s still time to indulge in this fragrant Easter season’s sweet spiced bread. We have always loved the indescribable deliciousness of these cuboid buns, risen (in honor of the occasion, one suspects) with yeast, studded with candied orange peel and raisins, with a frosting cross on top. Having eaten my way through more HCBs than was prudent, all in the interest of research, I can announce that my personal favorite this year is the tender, toothsome example from Gayle’s Bakery. All the spice flavors are in balance. These are, simply put—classic. Get some fast. After Easter you’ll have to wait for a whole year ($2 each).
Farm to Table: For the 1 Percent?
Somebody’s got to say it. Since controversy seems to have grabbed our world by the throat, I might as well wade on in. I was recently sent the 2016 schedule of al fresco dinners created by the folks at Outstanding in the Field. I’ve been to several of these lengthy, atmospheric events in the past. Some were astonishingly wonderful. (I recall pork belly made by David Kinch of Manresa Restaurant served in a Happy Valley apple orchard, seated next to Ridge winemaker Paul Draper, for example.) Others were, well, memorable if one thinks like a laid-back left-coast hipster. As I surveyed this year’s listing of dinners that will spread the linen tables in fields, beaches and orchards all over the country, my mouth began watering. A ranch in Petaluma in May. A Sea Cove near Half Moon Bay. Roger that. But before I could continue my gastronomic reveries, my eye snagged on something I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around: The price. The price for one of these California field dinners showcasing local foods, fine chefs, and fine winemakers is now $245 per person. So, by my reckoning, that means that dinner for two will run you $500. If you want to feast in a field near Tokyo, it’ll run you $320 per person (excluding airfare). The ones on Whidbey Island in Washington are only $225, and in the Midwest, dinners run $215 per person. I was hyperventilating by the time I finished reading. But, if you have something special to celebrate, visit outstandinginthefield.com.
Annieglass Alert!
The wines of Nicole Walsh’sSer Winery will be highlighted at this Saturday’s Annieglass winetasting, March 26 from 1-3:30 p.m. This is a great time to hang out at the tasting bar tucked between the showroom and fabrication studio of Annieglass’ Watsonville headquarters, and taste a flight of Walsh’s outstanding wines. Sip, shop and take a free studio tour that starts at 1:30 p.m. The showroom in Watsonville is located at 310 Harvest Drive. annieglass.com
Manresa and Love Apple Farm Split
About this severance from his long-time exclusive kitchen grower, three-Star Michelin chef David Kinch of Manresa told me last week, “I will be using a series of small farmers and going back to the farmers markets. Our food is always evolving and dynamic. That said, I don’t expect major changes,” he added. Stay tuned.
Music & Nightlife
Best Craft Brewer
Discretion Brewing
1. Discretion Brewing brews their beer with 100 percent organic ingredients.
2. They are partnered with the Kitchen, an in-house restaurant headed by Chef Santos Majano (previously of Soif) that serves up creative reinventions of traditional pub fare, all made with seasonal, locally sourced ingredients.
3. Since opening three years ago, their brews have been awarded...
Shopping & Services
Best Arts & Crafts
Palace Arts
1. Palace Arts is family-owned, and has been open in Santa Cruz for 67 years
2. There are two locations, in Capitola and downtown Santa Cruz.
3. At the Capitola location, there are classes and demos for oil painting and acrylic painting.
4. With the popularity of the adult coloring trend, they’ve seen adult coloring books...
Bernie all the way. Daniel Boyer, Santa Cruz, Business Development Manager It's kind of a circus, but I think that the public is going to elect someone that we can get behind. Not a clown. Micha Hogan, Santa Cruz, Dance Instructor Whether you like...
Plus Letters To the Editor The last couple of weeks, I’ve had a kind of fever. I might just chalk it up to the effects of putting out what, as far as anybody can remember, is the biggest issue in Good Times’ 41-year-history. I can’t really blame that, though, because I get this particular delirium every...
Bernie all the way.
Plus Letters To the Editor
