There are two ways to make it in the music business: try your hand at filling stadiums and hope you don’t end up booking appearances on Celebrity Fit Club to stay relevant; or clock some serious hours on the road and slowly build a long-term career. The second course requires patience and dedication, but it’s the surer bet. Robert Earl Keen is a textbook example of this last approach, having organically built an audience for his idiosyncratic mix of booze-soaked barroom rockers and literate country ballads. The approach hasn’t won him many fans in Nashville boardrooms, but in towns like Santa Cruz, fans welcome his live appearances like he’s a returning guitar-wielding warrior-king.
Sustainable Animal Husbandry In The Spotlight
When FDA investigators visited a hatchery in Iowa last August they found the source of the massive Salmonella outbreak that forced the recall of 500 million eggs and left more than 1,600 people sick: hens caged in manure pits overrun by rodents, swarmed by thick clouds of flies and containing maggots “too numerous to count.”
SmartMeter Report Released
A report released last week that dismisses some of the potential dangers of PG&E’s new SmartMeters hasn’t fully alleviated the concerns of some government officials who worry that the wireless household energy gauges could cause long-term health problems.
City Marks MLK Day with Volunteering
“His speeches were about people trying to make a better place for all of us,” says Darrell Musick, a local consultant. He and hundreds of other people like him attempted to emulate Martin Luther King, Jr. by turning the day dedicated to his legacy into an opportunity to volunteer for the community. People across the city cleaned up bike paths and parks, created a compost heap, worked to protect endangered species and scrubbed graffiti away.
UCSC Bracing for Trouble
It will be a tense day at UCSC as students and faculty return to class after the long weekend. They are concerned about a threat of violence, posted anonymously in a bathroom in the Social Sciences building in December. Though there was no indication of what form the violence would take, many students have announced their intention to stay home today. The Student Union Assembly cancelled a meeting and a small number of professors have cancelled classes.
Little Basin Park A Big Deal
The California State Parks Department struck a deal on Jan. 14 to acquire Little Basin, a 535-acre Santa Cruz Mountain property adjacent to the Big Basin Redwoods State Park once used as an employee retreat by Hewlett-Packard. The state purchased the land, appraised at $13 million in 2007, for $6.5 million dollars from the Sempervirens Fund of Los Altos and the Peninsula Open Space Trust, based in Palo Alto.
What to Do About Aptos Creek
Having a home with a view comes with a cost. That’s what the residents of homes on a bluff overlooking Rio del Mar Beach are beginning to realize, and the cost is more than just hefty mortgages. They are worried about Aptos Creek, which runs beneath the bluff. If the creeks swells in another storm, it could cause the bluff to crumble and send their homes tumbling down.
Frankenfish Labeling Bill Introduced
Whether or not the federal Food and Drug Administration approves a genetically engineered salmon for sale in U.S. markets and restaurants is one question now pending. Whether the public will know they’re eating the fish if the feds approve it is another.
UCSC Warned of Violence
Graffiti scrawled in the men’s restroom of the UCSC Social Science building warned that Tuesday, Jan. 18 will be a violent day on campus. Authorities do not know who left the message or what type of violence it means, but they are taking it seriously. Jan. 18 is the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the violence could be related to his legacy.
You Guys Are Life Savers
California was faced with a dilemma when it ran out of sodium pentathol, the drug commonly used in lethal injections. The state’s supply expired on October 1 last year, and the Department of Corrections spent two months searching for a remedy. They finally found one in the State of Arizona, which agreed to lend us 12 grams of the coveted drug.
