Have you ever walked down the street and suddenly had a hankering for French fries? You look around for the nearest McDonald’s, but there isn’t one in sight. What’s going on?
News
We’re the Best (for Surfing at Least)
The Times of London has named Santa Cruz the world’s top surfing destination, beating such strong contenders as Australia’s Gold Coast, Bali and the North Shore of Oahu.
Chanteuse Emily Jane White Returns to Santa Cruz
There’s a unique confidence to Emily Jane White’s songwriting: it’s at once sympathetic and tough-minded, reflective and unsentimental. Her work has been described as folk, which is reductive, considering how orchestrated her full-band arrangements are. While the music creates a contemplative space reminiscent of folk music, White’s subject matter and musical touchstones transcend the woman-with-acoustic-guitar label that is inevitably applied to women with acoustic guitars, whether or not it fits.
Saying Goodbye to The Capitola Theater
It’s been a while since the Capitola Theater held its last show. Still, the wrecking ball came as a shock to fans of the 61-year-old venue, considered a landmark in Capitola Village.
Bernal Replaces Wilson as New City Manager
Assistant city manager Martin Bernal will be taking the reins from City Manager Dick Wilson after a unanimous vote by Santa Cruz city council to appoint him to the new position. Bernal served as Assistant City Manager for 13 years, and was a popular choice among City councilmembers, department heads and community leaders.
Gangmembers Go After Tourists
The problem with gangs in Santa Cruz is getting more severe by the day. According to a recent report, tourists in Santa Cruz were beaten up by gang members on April 5. Their crime? One of the tourists was wearing a red 49ers jersey. Though the group denied any affiliation to a gang, their attackers saw it as affront and proceeded to beat them up anyway. By the time the police arrived, the four tourists, from Sonoma County, needed stitches because of their injuries.
Santa Cruz’s Yuppie Intifada
Have you ever seen the blog stuffwhitepeoplelike.com? It explains why white liberals like things such as awareness, diversity, the Prius and yoga. Perhaps this is beyond its purview, but stuffwhitepeoplelike.com doesn’t tell the whole story, so I added a few items it neglects to name: maximum police protection, no questions asked; political homogeneity; self-aggrandizing hand-wringing in the name of the wretched of the earth and as little contact with them as possible. This month, UCSC and the Resource Center for Non-Violence (RCNV) hosted a talk by shylock-hustler buster and avowed Hizbollah supporter Norman Finkelstein. What could possibly be more important for Santa Cruzans than doing our part to soothe tensions in the Holy Land by speaking “truth” to Israeli power?
Congratulations, Santa Cruz, It’s MGMT
For a young band with superstar status and a hot first album there’s no less enviable task than recording a second one. Fans want another catchy blockbuster they can sing in the shower, critics want a challenging new effort that shows artistic progression. What they get is sometimes a little of both, but mostly a lot of neither. Hence: the “sophomore slump.”
Watsonville Fifth Graders Make Eco Film
All hail the fifth grade class of Mount Madonna Elementary School. A DVD they wrote and produced about how to reduce the impact of garbage on the ocean took first place in the Siemens Change the World Challenge, winning the school a $5,000 grant, and the students a chance to show off their acting ability and ecological acumen.
FBI Investigating Possible Sabotage at UCSC
The FBI has been called to UCSC to investigate the possible sabotage of a professor’s SUV outside his home. According to police, the vehicle’s brake lines were cut sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning near the professor’s home. FBI agents are canvassing the area, looking for possible witnesses.
