For months, Penny Huntsinger has been inviting the homeless to stay in her house at 126 Chrystal Terrace in exchange for doing small chores. She is trying to help, she explains, because the city’s shelters are all full, and these people have nowhere else to go. Her neighbors have opinions about all this.
He’s Got Another Round Comin’
Just as predicted, local rock star James Durbin was a huge hit on American Idol last night. His performance of the Judas Priest classic “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” even managed to bring out the inner heavy metal chick in Jennifer Lopez, and kept the f-bomb patrol on their toes as Steve Tyler commented, “You’re just crazy good, man.” Nor was it lost on the judges that Durbin debuted Judas Priest on a show better known for endless trite renditions of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and the Broadway musical Showgirls’ “And I Am Telling You.” Personally, I can’t wait to see him take on the late Joe Strummer.
UCSC Students Buck (Naked) The Trend
Whenever there are budget cuts, higher education is inevitably one of the first victims. UCSC alone is expected to face $31 million in budget cuts during the 2011-2012 academic year, and tuition is slated to go up again, for a total increase of 40 percent since 2009-2010. This is posing an increasing burden on the students, and some end up leaving school with debts running into six figures. That’s even before they start having a job, a family, a mortgage, and kids, who will inevitably want to go to college too.
Santa Cruz Poets, Santa Cruz Inspiration: Bill Minor
From the Monterey Bay poet and jazz musician, a love letter to Santa Cruz.
Ten Questions for Susan Culligan
The owner of Tom Teifer Santa Cruz on great new fabrics, her favorite New York street and her ever-expanding list of favorite Hollywood actors.
PLATED: The Brew Mistress
The blatantly retro Red Restaurant and Lounge has always championed distinctive beers such as Chimay Cinq Cents and Boont Black IPA. And if all goes well next month, it will have its own cicerone, or certified beer expert. UCSC graduate Miriam Victor already has almost three years of learning the food and beverage biz at Red under her belt. “Artfully crafted beer is a big movement,” she notes, handing me a snifter of deep chocolate-hued India Pale Ale (yes, IPAs can be dark) loaded with toastiness and creamy depths.
The Spring-Summer Fashion Cheat Sheet
Women wear the pants this season. OK, so they also wear flirty lace dresses and bold, Aztec warrior princess necklaces. But first: pants, big pants. From full, fluid trousers to high-waist flare jeans, the spring/summer 2011 silhouette is long and loose. It has a powerful, in-control attitude, helped by its natural pairing with tall wedge platforms, which add height and length. Stovepipes and jeggings, begone!
UCSC Grad Hunts ’60s Treasure For ‘Mad Men’
AMC’s Mad Men is all about image. Don Draper, played by a rakish Jon Hamm, is an advertising executive whose specialty is convincing the rest of the world to buy whatever he is selling—even the identity he’s taken pains to craft, leaving out less desirable details of his past. Form follows function: the show’s creators have been heaped with praise, and more than a few awards, for the pitch-perfect slice of the 1960s they create and serve up to fans each week.
Peggy Orenstein Battles The Pink Robot
Peggy Orenstein admits that her behavior on the subject of princess culture has been “hypocritical, inconsistent, even reactionary.” But she didn’t take it kindly when her expensive pediatric dentist asked her 3-year-old daughter to “sit in my special princess throne so I can sparkle your teeth.”
Bill Pops Soda’s Bubble
To make a point to the assembled crowd at Marina’s Monterey Bay Science, Education and Technology Center last Friday, Assemblymember Bill Monning recalled a commercial that reached 111 million viewers on Super Bowl Sunday. The ad showed a Latina woman holding a liter of soda, asserting herself in bold defiance of forces that would try to tell her what she could or could not drink. PepsiCo paid $3 million for the 30-second spot; Monning invoked its as an example of the aggressive campaign soda manufacturers are waging for a particular demographic. “They are targeting minority communities because that’s where we have the more abundant consumption,” he told the crowd.
