Okay, admit it. You’ve always dreamed of the day a beer truck crashes, releasing its contents on a parched public. It makes the whole “100 Bottle of Beer on the Wall” song seem like kid’s stuff. “If one fell, I’ll do well, 99 bottles of beer on the wall.” Even better if it has more than just the ubiquitous Bud Light.
News
Santa Cruz Hires Rent-A-Cops to Patrol Downtown
Starting this weekend, three private security guards with the First Alarm service will be patrolling downtown Santa Cruz in the morning and early afternoon. The decision to employ the private security guards was made by the Downtown Business Association, the SCPD, local residents, and others who have a stake in the wellbeing of the downtown area.
Residents Debate Proposed Pogonip Trail
Just about no one is happy with Pogonip Park these days. The 640-acre park, the largest in the city, is a magnet for criminal activity, and one area, “Heroin Hill,” recently had to be closed off to limit crime there. Inevitably, fewer people are visiting the site, but that just makes it more amenable to criminal elements, so the city has decided to promote visits by building a new multipurpose trail there, for pedestrians, dog walkers, and cyclists.
Hail to the (Interim) Chief
After seven years, Santa Cruz bid farewell to Police Chief Howard Skerry and welcomed his replacement, Interim Chief Kevin Vogel. Vogel, a 23-year veteran of the SCPD is assuming the position in difficult times, a fact not lost on him during the ceremony.
Santa Cruz’s Rental Inspection Law Raises Ire
The doors are still boarded shut at the powder blue house on Lee Street. Below a red “Do Not Enter – Do Not Occupy” sign, a laminated letter from the Santa Cruz Planning Department dated July 28 tells the landlords when they can clean out whatever is left. Besides the menacing signs and boarded entryways, the building itself is bizarre. The driveway bridge lists to the right, the garage door is not a door but a tarp, and in the back, doors on the second story open into an abyss while several nail-studded wood beams poke north by northwest into the summer air, evidence of someone’s intention to build a deck.
George Hitchcock, Jorge-of-all-trades
When I was an undergraduate and aspiring poet at school in upstate New York in the mid-1960s I started reading the small-circulation independent literary journals known as little magazines. It was a volatile historical moment when cultural life was starting to erupt in all sorts of unpredictable forms, and one of those forms was this suddenly dynamic proliferation of creative periodicals run by eccentric individuals with a taste for poetry and some esthetic agenda or political viewpoint to promulgate, and read by a self-selected bohemian elite. One such journal was the San Francisco quarterly kayak, a remarkably lively magazine launched in 1964 and publishing some of the best poets, both famed and unknown, then writing in the United States. The editor and publisher of kayak was someone named George Hitchcock.
Michael Been: 1950-2010
There are cult bands, and then there are cult bands. Fans of the Ramones or the Misfits, for example, may treat them like cult bands, quick to point out that they were so far ahead of their time that the mainstream simply didn’t know what to do with them until long after they were gone, when they were vindicated by a rise to legendary status.
Watsonville Gang Leader Arrested in Sweep
Armand “Bandit” Valle, 36, was among the dozens of people arrested in a sweep of Norteno gang members on Tuesday across Central California.
“Secret Summer” Campaign to Promote Tourism
Anyone who lives in Santa Cruz knows that there’s plenty to do here in the autumn months. Now news about Santa Cruz activities is going to reach a much larger audience, thanks to a new promotional campaign geared specifically for the autumn months.The campaign is the brainchild of the Tourism Marketing District, launched this July. Apart from great beaches and stunning mountain scenery, it will highlight 12 different festivals and events.
The Essential Jake Gandolfo
The finalist on the Fox cooking show MasterChef and the force of nature behind the new catering company Custom Culinary Concepts answers a few of our questions.
