The press release warned there would be a bouncer at the door. “If you’re not on that list, you’re not getting in!” it said. For an open mic night—a ukulele-only open mic night with a $10 cover—it sounded like wishful thinking.
News
The Uke Store
It’s hard to say when Pat Baron “got bit” by the ukulele. He picked up a $12 dollar “object” ukulele, meant only for looks, about 10 years ago and has been playing ever since.
The Jumping Flea Blues
It’s been the brunt of countless jokes and chuckled at as an oddity. Tiny and portable, it’s been played by top musicians as well as buskers and novices. Yet with its measly four strings and miniature body, this diminutive instrument packs a powerful wallop, begging any listener not to smile and sing along. Of course, we’re talking about the mighty ukulele, the 150-year old member of the lute family that has had a startling comeback in recent years, plucking at the heartstrings of young and old.
The King of The Uke
The simplest way to prove to the world that an instrument rocks is to play an actual rock song on it. This is not rocket science. It worked for the banjo a decade ago when the Gourds famously covered Snoop’s “Gin and Juice” (hip-hop, sure, but boasting just as much street cred). It would work for the cowbell if somebody cool would put out Clangin’ to the Hits.
Beach Pollution Prevention Efforts Paying Off
Save Our Shores volunteers prevented 1,657 pounds of cigarette butts, firework remains and assorted beach party leftovers from becoming a stinky supper stew in the stomachs of seabirds and marine wildlife on July 5. More than 250 volunteers swarmed 10 beaches in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties at 8am on the “morning after” cleanup in the aftermath of righteous, if environmentally damaging, Independence Day celebrations.
Sweet-Natured Cartoonists Take Out New York
Aptos dweller Jory John and his literary collaborator Avery Monson, who draw the cartoon “Open Letters” (which appears in Santa Cruz Weekly ), have published their third book, I Feel Relatively Neutral About New York, the followup to their hit All My Friends Are Dead.
Alan Cheuse at Capitola Book Cafe
In Song of Slaves in the Desert, the new novel by Alan Cheuse, NPR’s “voice of books,” one narrative immerses us in the story of a slave family in 16th-century Timbuktu; the other unfolds in the American South before the Civil War.
Ten Questions: Monica Martinez
The director of the Homeless Services Center has the endurance to train for an Ironman, but no patience for auto-correct.
Westside Farmers Market
Four girls perched in a row on the pickup tailgate behind the blueberries are a sight for old eyes on a Saturday morning, their dangling legs keeping time to the bluegrass band serenading the shoppers and the farmers and the faux flâneurs out for a stroll in a parking lot turned country fair for a day. The pasta man offering bargains under his baseball cap, the Happy Boys and Dirty Girls coolly flaunting their greens, the gourmet olive oil entrepreneurs with their tempting bits of bread for dipping in little golden bowls, fruit purveyors with their sweet bright hills all take me home to a farm I’ve never known except in old poems by aging drunks nostalgic for imagined Edens remembered precisely and harvested in language alone.
Breaking Down Bike Safety
After the death last week of cyclist Noel Hamilton—the second fatal hit-and-run accident involving a bicyclist in June—a memorial sprouted up at the scene on Old San Jose Road.
