Bill Burman - Dangerous Neighbors theater troupe re 'Deflating Fascism'_2025-08-08_on KZSC's Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club

Q; Can Richard "hear a song & know whether the guitar is a Santa Cruz Guitar?" A: "You can pick your own kid out of a choir!" Succession planning? Richard is fiercly loyal to the team, with Brenda, and David Osdoll calling shots...working on some kind of employee ownership (Taylor Guitars did this) and "focusing on transitioning to a low resolution form of management" ;) Ahead of the upcoming 50th Anniversary Concert - "A Night of Legacy & Music", there will be a free block party. Q: "When & how do you take a guitar that you've made for an artist, & turn it into a signature model?" "Great question!" Santa Cruz Guitars does not pay to have them played - it's a mutual benefit arrangement, & it's usually pretty obvious if there's a signature there, with the artist and Santa Cruz Guitars sharing & amplifying values; guitar making is a vehicle; Q: "What's the strangest request you've had?" A: double neck guitar or questionable inlay motif (ref: Brenda's inlay gallery); "The Money Question" (e.g.: "Have you been able to make a living with your art, &, if so, how?" A: yes, through "A Rubic's Cube of Overlapping Miracles", using a low ball bid for a Lockheed dehumidifier as big as a Volkswagen bus for $700 after the market crashed in 1983; Brenda's primary hat is Sales Director, but she also wears Office Manager, Exotic Wood Procurement, and Richard's right-hand person; all of their wood is sustainably harvested or reclaimed. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

California's Prop. 54, passed in 2016, requires any legislative bill to be published online for 72 hours before it can be voted upon - this resulted in the last bill in the legislature being voted on a 3:46 AM last Tuesday morning, Sept. 1st, even though the constitution requires all bills to be out of the legislature by midnight, Aug. 31st - bills that pass a 2/3 vote for urgency can also go past midnight; one of those last bills was the Dolly Parton bill; normally, the governor has 12 days to sign or veto a bill, but with the sprint to the finish line, those bills have 30 days - if it's not signed or vetoed, at that pointi it becomes law anyway; Senator Laird submitted 36 bills over the last 2 years, with 26 passed into law so far - in baseball, that would be a 0.722 batting average!! Hall of fame material!! Senator Laird has 5 more bills on the Governor's desk, 6 including the Dolly Parton bill; deep dive into the budget, with lots of items for Senator Laird's district; did he get an average amount for his district, or more, because he's Chairman of the Budget Committee? "I got a little more." Deep dive into "Gut-and-Amend", starting with the California bill that would ban electric shock gloves, a "last minute bill"...yes, this was a "Gut-and-Amend", then pivot to SB931, a bill establishing Sept. 25 (9-2-5) as Dolly Parton Day in California; SB931 was an unused bill of Senator Laird sitting on the Assemblly floor, so Senator Laird & his office wrote a bill for Dolly Parton Day, renamed it, and gave it to Senator Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) as a "Gut-and-Amend" - she loved it, & Senator Laird was able to use it to rub in to a colleague who had complained about "Gut-and-Amend" that "(a foolish) Consistency is the hobgoblin (of little minds)" [Ralph Waldo Emerson]; run down of bills that have been signed, or are on the Governor's desk, including expanding opportunities for California wineries to sell wine and offer tastings at Farmer's Markets; that gifts willed to beneficiaries, including non-profits, reach who they're intended for; and one that addresses the growing financial impact of childhood sexual abuse claims on public institutions ("2 years of rip roaring pain!"). An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Kim grew up in Monterey County, Salinas Valley, & went to Humboldt State, then on to St. Louis for grad school; she went to Washington DC to work in Health & Human Services' Dept. of Aging; after she got married, she wanted to be closer to her mom, & moved to Aptos in Santa Cruz County, where she's lived for 30 years; worked as a Clinical Social Worker in many areas hospitals (Dominican, Sutter, Salinas Valley); "What lead her to be interested in being a County Supervisor?" Her mom worked for Barbara Shipnuck, the 1st woman elected to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, & later Sam Farr in Congress - Kim grew up in campaigns, stuffing envelopes...' when her kids were in school, Kim spent her nights writing grants - when one of the trustees stepped down, Kim was tapped be a Trustee of the Pajaro Vally Unified School District (PVUSD), which extends from Aptos to Watsonville; HR1 ("The Big Beautiful Bill") will be a castrophe, eroding the safety net for the most vulnerable, who will still show up at the ER, with the county required to cover their expenses; to offset the loss of revenue, there's a half-cent sales tax on the ballot - the tax would be "temporary"; Kim's colleague Manu Koenig has an excellent regular email newsletter update & Monica Martinez holds town halls...how does Kim communicate with her constituents? "That's a great question!" "Manu & Monica's newsletters are great!"; Kim's district does not have a city (unlike the other 4), so Kim is "Mayor of District 2", with monthly newsletters & a few town halls; the County gets 13.4% of property taxes; of the 4634 units in unincorporated Santa Cruz County that are in the current housing element, still 300 built (same as 6 months ago), with 690 permitted - the remainder require re-zoning, with the majority of this done; there's one proposed project in District 2 on the old par 3 golf course; how is the County preparing for El Niño? there's a website on winter preparations, & road crews are out clearing culverts & ditches - if the public sees something, call in or email...sand bags will be availabe at local fire stations in October...equipment is pre-staged in low-lying areas, with sewers cleared. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Bill hitchiked from Ann Arbor, Michigan to the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, where Bob Dylan debuted "Mr. Tambourine Man" (he was lured their by Bob Dylan & Mississippi John Hurt playing); he returned in 1965 when Dylan played electric; Bill was playing in his high school talent show, & wanted to play "Subterranean Homesick Blues", but the organizer insisted on a Jug Band "The Who Knows Pickers" - one of the other bands at that talent show was Jim Osterberg's - who became Iggy Pop - band; came to California in 1966, then hopped freight trains back to Ann Arbor to form a folk-rock band named "The Seventh Seal", playing covers; through that he met John Tichy & George Frayne (who became the Commander) & they formed the core of what would become "Commander Cody & his Lost Planet Airmen" in 1967 - 1968; Bill co-wrote some Commander Cody songs; Bill came out to California, & talked the band into coming out to California in late 1968, touring & playing ballrooms, the Fillmore...by 1969 (Bill turned 21) Commander Cody was up-and-running, touring, playing with the Grateful Dead...the 1974 live album, "Live from Deep in the Heart of Texas" is one of the 100 greatest albums of all time, according to Rolling Stone; Commander Cody was much more skilled playing live then they were playing studio albums, where their rambunctousness ran counter to the discipline that you need in the studio; Bill is "Titan of the Telecaster", according to Guitar Player magazine; Nina Gerber, who has spent a career as a side-person to folk icons, is part of the Bill Kirchen quartet, and when she plugs in brings tremendous depth...fiery!; Austin music scene & the Armadillo World Headquarters; musings on 60 years in the music industry; so much change, but still optimistic, "Music is going to win!"; the "Money Question", "Have you been able to make a living playing music, & if so, how?" "Yes. You have to be light on your feet. You can count on me. Workin' hard. I love my job. I'm not hiding."; "they singing voice in your brain comes from a different place than the talking voice." Bills' advice to the next generation, "Do what you love!"; the other 2 in the quartet are Rick Richards on drums, & Jack Saunders on bass; the Hot Rock Lincoln guitar riff? "Born out of incompetence! Take it where you find it!"; "You've got some hearfelt questions, Dan. You made me sit back...& dig deep! So thank you for pumping the show!" An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

calling in from The Madonna Inn, where he's staying in The Misty Room (it's the only union hotel in San Luis Obispo) - he's delaying his keynote presentation at an organized labor meeting to call in; Progressive Democrats have been elected in New York City Congressional races, and now the Michigan Senate primary..."what the hell is going on in the country in general?" = people are thinking that government is not responsive, not listening; the polls are way off in terms of what actually happens; now the Michigan Senate seat election will be nationalized, with all Dems supportive, with the exception of AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee), which is a lightning rod; the national Democratic party is in a shambles, and need something better than "we're not Republicans" (which is not a good enough reason to vote for them) - food & gas prices are soaring, & tariffs are hitting; AB1720 - when Senator Laird's spouse gets a mailer to call his Senator, something's up! It's confusing. It would prohibit resale markets from selling tickets for more than 10% more than than their sale price - this would push many resellers out of the market, with only Ticketmaser remaining? Matt Haney is the author - his dad, Craig, is a UCSC professor who participated in the Stanford Prison Experiment - & the bill is headed for the Senate Appropriations Committee, with an August 31 deadline for all bills; there will be 16 working days between now & then; "Perils of Pauline" deep dive (with Dangerous Dan not lacking in education, just younger than Senator Laird); Watsonville Hospital Deep Dive on funding status, with guarded optimism that they'll have enough once federal funds come through (this month? after QAF, Quality Assurance Funding comes through); Watsonville hospital and proposed battery storage containerized system; legislative recess was over last Monday; there's a governor briefing today; Diablo Canyon extension...cap n' trade...800+ bills to be acted upon by Aug. 31. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

The Downtown Association of Santa Cruz is owned by the Downtown Business Owners, made up of 300 public-facing business, mostly ground floor (retail, restaurant, services) but also upper floor business; with all of the development going on in downtown Santa Cruz, does the Downtown Association have a seat at the table? No, but they're invited to public input sessions - there is an open solicitation by the city for input on design guidelines that anyone can chime in upon; Jorian came to Santa Cruz as a kid, first to surf, but later lured by her mom....her husband grew up in New Hampshire, & they settled in Colorado to split the difference...but when they visited her mom in Santa Cruz when they were expecting their 3rd child, & her husband found out that his best friend lived downstairs from her mom, they made the move to Santa Cruz & have now been here 17 years; with all the development downtown, they are welcoming a lot of new families; during COVID, 33+ business closed, but a year and a half later, with the re-opening, there was a strong come back; "Downtown" extends from Laurel St. to the Clock Tower, & from Front St. to Cedar St.; discussion about the Farmer's Market & where they could move to; the Downtown Association is a "Business Improvement District", so businesses in the district arr required to contribute (at $600/year); development moving along, with many affordable & market-rate apartments already built & occupied; the Downtown Association *can* advocate for businesses (e.g.: Abbott Square); they have a Downtown Ambassador Team of 6 people who keep downtown clean, safe & welcoming; our downtown stores provide a 3rd space for people, with tons of new businesses, including Switch Bakery & Bistro & Alley Oop. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Greg has been in Santa Cruz based jug bands for 10 years, playing the 1st Thursday of every month at Pono, and monthly wiht the Trolly Brass band at Abbott Square; there are Jug Bands, & Jug Band-adjacent bands; this weekend is the 2nd Annual Santa Cruz Jug Band Festival. What's a jug band? A: around the turn of the 1900s, musicians would use a jug for the bass line (it was portable), & the style got picked up by well-known musicians (Jimmy Rogers, Sarah Martin)...in the 20s & 30s musicians in Louisville, KY & Memphis, TN, laid the foundation, later picked up in the 1960s by Dan Hicks during the Folk Scare / Jug Band Revival, where David Grisman, Jim Kweskin, & Jerry Garcia's first band played Jug Band music; Greg is curating a slide show tonight about the "Wild & Wacky History of Jug Band Music", showcasing an unheralded history where a lot of very talented professional musicans have left their mark on a uniquely American music style in origin, but now with a worldwide following (the biggest jug band festival in the world is in Yokohama, Japan, over 4 days with 60 bands!); Jug Band songs can be Hoakum style, with single entendre (no disguise), popularized by the Hoosier Hotshots in the 1940s; Greg came to Santa Cruzin the early 80s to attend UCSC, spending the last 40 years in and out of town - at UCSC he played bluegrass, Appalachian mountain music, playing guitar & mandolin - he got into the history of the music early on; Jug Band music is an American Amalgam, bringing together New Orleans, riverboat, & early rag time; the "Money Question"? "We're all gigging invarious eays!" Greg was a Cal State Monterey Bay Environmental Studies & Outdoor Education teacher, & now retired - most of the people in the band are retired; Deep Dive into instruments played in Jug Bands, including kazoo, canzoo, and canjoe (which is a blend of Europe & Africa, starting with a gourd instead of a can). An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

with a long & celebrated career as a folk guitarist Nina is "going over to the dark side" to play dueling telecasters wtih Bill Kirchen, the "Titan of the Telecaster" as part of his quartet; what she we refer to Nina as? Accompanist? Is "sideman" gender neutral? Let's change that to "Side Person"; Nina never wanted to be in the spotlight! She barely wanted to be noticed at all! She fell in love with Kate Wolf & her music, & wanted to be Kate's side person...wanted to be in Kate's band; she took mandolin lessons with Kate's husband, Don Coffin, learning his parts - when they got divorced it was the happiest day in Nina's life! Nina was 16 or 17, & Kate saw her potential, & took NIna under her wing; Nina played with Kate for 8 years, was fired a couple of times, & re-hired - their relationship was complicated, with Kate as Mentor, Hero & Boss; "The Money Question" "Were you able to make a living playing music after Kate died?" A: "Keep your overhead low!!" She got a job at a music store in Sebastapol where she was basically an indentured servent - she picked out an electric guitar & an amp, realized "I can't afford that! So can I have a job?" She also teaches a bit. Freelancing started in the Kate era, with local folks. People started calling. Greg Brown, at the Strawberry Music Festival, asked her to join him for a few songs, & she played the entire set; she's been super lucky; Kate wrote "Just Another Picker in the Band", but never recorded it - Nina wanted to include songs for her heroes on her CD; when Nina is plugged in with an electric guitar, she's still "a folky at heart." Nina got an electric guitar to play wiht Kate, later was in a country band in Sonoma County, & got her first Telecaster in the early 80's; she met Bill Kirchen at Sarah Elizabeth Campbell's memorial, then again a few years ago at one of his gigs - a friend suggested they play a gig as a duo, & it was a blast; Nina's style is Nina's style, playing to the singer & the song; on a tour, the songs are the same every night, but she plays differently every night because she "doesn't know what I'm doing"; with Bill, she fits into his style, "& still be me" - maybe as her alter ego, a little louder playing "dieselbilly". An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

played Folsom (hotel) last night, calling in from Willits; they played a Johnny Cash song last night; the 1st time they played Folsom Dallas' guitar player went to the prison to take a photo, only to learn that it's still a working prison & photos aren't allowed; touring as a 4-piece band, with a driver who sometime sits in; learned music as a kid from his grandmother, then his dad taught him "House of the Rising Son" on guitar...Dallas started writing songs when he was 12...he won his Junior High School talent show with "Sweet Home Alabama"; he grew up in New Braunfels, Texas, where Brian Duckworth (Robert Earl Keen's fiddle player) had a fiddle shop, & Brian encouraged Dallas to play music; Dallas landed his 1st record deal when he was 17, with his 20s pretty wild, until he started following a Shaman, & played with Dr. John in New Orleans; in his 20s he met Bob Dylan in L.A., who gave him some tips about the music business; Dallas started writing in earnest after that, had a son, & moved to Nashville where Sierra Ferrell sang on his album "Southern Wind"; Dallas wrote a song that Charlie Crockett covered about gambling, "The Only Game in Town", & recently Dallas wrote a follow-up song that he performs with Ray Wylie Hubbard, "Read 'Em & Weep"; how does a tour come together? "It comes down to festival anchor dates, & you fill in around that, playing where you know you have a following, or want to build a following." Dallas got to Santa Cruz the "old school" way, a legendary musician, Robert Earl Keen (or Brian Duckworth) got him in touch with a "legendary promoter", Sleepy John Sandidge & Snazzy Productions, & he sold out the Ugly Mug last year; "Music is a lot of odd jobs." The Money Question? (Are you able to make money with your music, & if so, how?): A: Yes! "Very, very carefully...working very hard...but save some time & energy for your own family." Advice for the younger folks? "If you get into music, do it because you love it. Avoid being corrupted." An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

With Anita re-joining, they are back to the original trio after a 2 year hiatus; they first hatched the idea for The Musers in 2017; Anita (Sandwina) & Megan (McLaughlin) are the 2 songwriters (Tom (Kuhn) 'just ;) plays bass); The Money Question (have you been able to make a living playing music, & if so, how) - Megan was a kindergarten & 1st grade teacher for 28 years, and is now retired - Anita taught art for 29 years, and is now retired; - Tom worked for Luther Burbank Housing, and is now retired; they have a new CD, & are sorting it out - deep dive into what that means, putting the parts together, what instruments, etc.; song "Mistakes" came to Megan when she heard Anita's book on tape when she was listening before falling asleep, and had to write down the chorus then & there: "You are not your mistakes" (with the added irony that Dangerous Dan had listened to the CDs, then refiled them in the wrong case, so they listened to the Muser's song about "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood (Squirrel Hill)" before correcting the mistake. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Lacy J. lives up in the mountains above Reno; after she turned 21, she (then Jill) ran off with a rock n' roll guitar player to a commune in Capitola; she me, & lived wiht, her 1st & 2nd husbands in the Santa Cruz Mountains; she changed her name when she was 33 years old when she got a record deal, but they said, "You gotta change your name!"...her producer, Billy Sherill (a producer to many stars), said she had to...she tried "Lacy Walker, taking "Lacy B." from her first partner's ex-wife...Billy said there were "too many Walkers", so Lacy took the last name of a half-Cherokee teacher she'd had, who had taught Bob Dylan how to play guitar; her manager said, "you have to have an initial", so she used her given name, Jill, to become "Lacy J. Dalton" - now it's official; her song, "Girls from Santa Cruz" is a (sort of) true story, about stealing a horse; the "Money Question" (are you able to make a living with your art and, if so, how?): A- "it was easier with a record label", with albums, movie parts (playing David Alan Coe's wife), but she's been independent for 25 years & it's much more difficult, especially when she's not computer savvy (she's barely able to use her phone); she lost her long-time manager last December, & is now like a molting baby owl; on her own (without a record label) nobody censors her, everything is on her, & she's the happiest she's been; she co-founded a non-profit, LetEmRun.org, that supports mom n' pops who provide sanctuary to & support for recovering wild horses; a hand-painted vest made for her, & presented to her by the wife of a Doobie Brother last year had "to remain in Santa Cruz", & so it was auctioned off to support Friends of Watsonville Animals (FoWAs), a local non-profit that provides low cost spay & neuter services. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) & "Momento Maury" (Maury Burnett-Cavoto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Sleepy John & Richard were 2 of 4 (the others being Ben Rice & Laurence Bedford) hiking the northern California coast when they came upon a big building with part of the underlying earth washed out, allowing them to stand underneath it, and pose as pillars holding it up - the the name "The Pillars"; they are hiking the northern California coast from Santa Cruz to San Francisco for the 4th time, hiking 4-5 mile increments weekly...more "lollygagging" than hiking, with easy walks you could do in flip flops, along the bluffs; John came to Santa Cruz in 1977, running from the law, and yes, he did sell those ubiquitous yellow smiley face buttons that may have said, "Have a Nice Day!"; Richard came in 1968 to attend UCSC in its 3rd year (1st year for Merrill College) - he remembers Dr. Timothy Leary sitting on the college steps, saying that "If you don't make your life an experiment, it'll be a life wasted!" - the one thing he learned at college; Richard became a full time comedian in 1986, touring as a headliner; his answer to "The Money Question": "Great question! Yes! It was "the" time in Comedy, where every venue hosted comedy nights, and the "A-Clubs paid big bucks!"; more recently writing for the Good Times (which does not pay Big Bucks); Sleepy John's answer: "Sort of. 33 years at KPIG, starting at $6/hr in the 1980s increasing to $15/hr in 2023"; Sleepy John has been fired by KPIG (twice), KZSC (3 times), & quit KSCO (he's also DJ on KAZU & KKUP) - he was also voted Best DJ in the Good Times Santa Cruz Best Of poll...14 times!!! What it's like to hike with Sleepy John, where everyone recognizes...his voice! On the current hike they are at Waddell Creek, hiking generally 3-5 miles each week, but not always a straight line (they hike every Tuesday, meeting at 8:30 at Alta Coffee); on their hike they have one rule: walk as close to the beach as you can! An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) & "Momento Maury" (Maury Burnett-Cavoto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

In 2019 Bill sponsored SB347, the Sugar-Seetened Beverage (aka SSB) Warning label act - it made it out of the health committee & appropriations (the latter because it was "de minimis"), but died on the Senate Floor due to machinations of "Big Soda"; "Big Soda" & "Big Food" got an initiative on the ballot in 2018 to raise the approval level for city & county taxes on food & beferages to 2/3 - the legislature negotiated with them to remove the initiative in exchange for passing a low (the "Keep Groceriees Affordable Act of 2018") to ban local taxes on food & beverages (digression into SEIU & the "Billionaire Tax" initiative on this year's ballot - a one-time tax in California only to fund health care); deep dive into "Big Food" vs. The People in Santa Cruz Local; in 2024 Santa Cruz City passed a 2 cent tax on SSB, and "Big Soda" sued (public health vs. maximizing profit); was Senator Monning's SB347 inspired by Mexico? Yes! Mexico has a national tax that funds public health; in Santa Cruz, City Councimember (& former mayor) Martine Watkins joined with a non-profit, & won in courts, & won on the ballot, & recently won in Superior Court in Sacramento, which held that a Charter City could tax SSB & not run afould of the "Keep Groceries Affordable Act" (there are 121 Charter Cities in California); "Big Soda" is expected to appeal the Santa Cruz ruling to the State Court of Appeals for the 3rd District; Federal Medicare cuts impacting Medical recipients, SNAP (food stamps) as wel, by putting up roadblocks to disqualify recipients; there's a full court press against children, especially poor kids, in counties. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Michael was born & raised, & still lives in, Watsonville (mom from there, too); new venue in mid-county at SeaScape Golf Course on Club House Drive; monthly trivia nights there, plus Trivia Nights at El Vaquero Winery & Bargetto; Michael playing SeaScape tonight for happyp hour as a duo; opening a week from tomorrow for Lacy J. Dalton as a quartet - sans drums - at El Vaquero; Michael views himself as a catalyst for other artists, not a promoter; but he writes press releases as well as articles about musicians coming to town for Look Out Santa Cruz, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, & Good Times; "The Money Question": he's semi-retired, with 4 part time jobs (music, 2 articles a month for the Sentinel; DJing in KPIG [at the other end of the dial & the other end of the County from KZSC], & hosting Trivia Nights); but in his previous life he was corporate, commuting on Highway 17; one of his new tunes "Tens of Dollars", was inspired by a comment by Sleepy John Sandidge, & Michael will write John a check when the streaming royalities exceed a penny; "Siri and Alexa" is about those digital assistants that evesdrop on everything; he gets ideas for Trivia Night Themes & Qs from friends, some web searches, but some spontaneous (e.g.: a recent them night on "Calvin & Hobbes; & Philosophers"). An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Scott's band "Rosebud" started just before Covid as a project with piano player Laclan Kane (where "Rosebud" is featured prominently at the end of "Citizen Kane"); Scott played an original, which he classififed as a "Jerry Garcia yacht rock song", "You Never Need to Say"; songs take a while, sometimes years, & Scott has a "napkin stash" of lyric lines he's accumulated over the years. Scott came to Santa Cruz in 1986, studying art & psychology, graduating in psych. He was a drummer in the blues world, the house drummer for a weekly blues jam, and Johnny Shines hired his band to back him up on his West Coast Tour. Music has always been his main source of revenue (?), but it's been a varied career: working in a record store, he was at KSCO when the 1989 Earthquake hit, then 10 years at KUSP, a music writer at the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper, edtor for online content, a freelance journalist; worked at a luthier shop as a guitar builder; & books musical acts at Sam's Chowder House in Half Moon Bay. How'd he get to be a Grateful Dead cover band journeyman? He was the bass player for Gary Gates, and after a friend bought Henfling's Tavern in the San Lorenzo Valley he asked her if Gary Gates could play there. She said yes, but Gary said no. Scott threw together some musician friends and played Grateful Dead covers, and has been a Grateful Dead cover band journeyman ever since - for the last 19 years!! "Rosebud" was the name of Jerry's last guitar. For Grateful Dead tribute bands, as Matt Hardle says, "There's only one band, and everyone's in it - but the line-up changes every night!" Scott's local Grateful Dead Cover Band, the China Cats, plays monthly at the Vet's Hall. What's the ratio of annual revenue of Grateful Dead Journeyman playing to all of his other gigs? "3:1". The "Money Question", "Are you able to make a living playing music, & if so, how?" "Yes. It's complicated. But it's playing a lot of gigs!" An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "Momento Maury" (Maury Burnett-Cavoto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Tricia is both County Clerk & Registrar of Voters; she came to Santa Cruz in 1997, having followed a boy from college - she's from Santa Ynez, near Solvang (the Danish capital of the USA), & was at Fresno State, working for the Curry Company in Yosemite Valley, but when the park closed due to flooding, her boyfriend at the time suggested she move with him to Santa Cruz - he's now her husband. How did she get into County clerk job? Her mother-in-law had been helping with the elections department for a long time, and said, "Why don't you help with elections?" It was 1997, & she hired on to help with the 1998 election; she went to full timein 2006, first in Clerk Services, later with elections, and, in 2020, became Assistant County Clerk to now Assemblymember Gail Pellerin; Tricia's mom moved to Santa Cruz in the 1960s and was one of the first employees at Cabrillo College. The Registrar of Voters is the chief elections person in the county for local, state & federal elections - yesterday was the deadline for state ballot initiatives (& the "billionaire tax" initiative is still on the ballot). The County Clerk is the chief commissioner of marraiges, with the authority to conduct marriage ceremonies, deputize others to conduct them; plus handles notaries, passports, and fictitious business names. There are 14 employees in the office, including her, with 50 hired as extra help at election time, plus 300-350 volunteers (what we used to call poll workers). Mail-in ballots are required by law to be sent to everyone, and 90% vote this way, although people can vote in person 29 days before election day at 3 places, and progressively more places as the election gets closer. <1% of ballots are flagged as concerning, usually because someone's signature has changed - if something is different about it or it's missing, challenged & addressed; if not, then referrred to D.A. (District Attorney) to investigate - which has happened precisely once in 28 years!! Voter trust has not changed, as everything is open & transparent. Any change in vollunteers / extra help in 28 years? She's seeing more attrition that she used to (because people are more transient), but they need fewer volunteers now (300-350 vs. 1100-1200 previously). Starting in 2017/2018, "more days, more ways" to vote, which came to Santa Cruz County in 2020, fully adopted in 2022. In state constitutional offices "Top 2" go to run-off; non-partisan offices, with the exception of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, if any candidate gets 50% + 1 vote, they won; there are only a few ballots still to "cure" - not enough to change any outcomes; the Santa Cruz Mayor's race will go to a run-off; District 3 County Supervisor was unopposed, but District 4 has one candidate with 50.9% - they manually tallied all of the District 4 ballots to be sure, with 15 different audits! "Most suprising thing you've seen?" "Really good question!" - never truly understood elections, and in one of the first elections she worked, a Santa Cruz City Councilmember won by 4 votes! Every vote counts! An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "Momento Maury" (Maury Burnett-Cavoto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Richard is star struck, having listened to Bushwhacker's since way back when he used to get up really early to come in to work before musicians would wake up; he grew up in the San Joaquin Vally & moved to Santa Cruz when he was 14-15-16 taking a page out of Jack Kerouac; he needed to be close enough to an urban area, but didn't want to live in one, so he & his art director wife settled in Santa Cruz, starting Santa Cruz Guitar Company (SCGC) in 1976; Brenda came here in 2010 to attend U.C. Santa Cruz; the name Santa Cruz evokes unconditional love & spirit - the logo used a floral design, with the initials sylisticly (Richard cut 4,000 out by hand!); they've sold 20,000 guitars; the first guitar had a lot of innovations, as Richard came from a violin tradition, and was a response to the Dreadnought guitar everyone was playing at that time; wood? Richard was part of a 3 person partnership, & they operated by consensus; Richard loved mahogany, but they landed on Koa; they made the Tony Rice signature model thanks to an introduction by Darrel Anger; SCGC is known for innovation, but they are also sustainable & responsible; as a teen, Richard played guitar to impress girls (it worked), &, while waiting for a girl, he realized, "Somebody makes these!"; he took a guitar apart; his mom, a "rock star reference librarian" looked for books on how to build a guitar & couldn't find any on 6-string guitars, but there were lots of boooks on violins; violins are built for serious sound, & Richard brought this sensibility to guitars; what truly makes Richard happy is making others happy; all SCGC guitars are custom built - it takes 4-6 months to build a guitar, with teamwork amont the 17 builders; they build 400+ guitars a year; co-founders & partners are Will Davis & Bruce Ross; big names play a Santa Cruz Guitar (Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, David Crosby) but Richard shouts out to Jose Rojas, who has 400,000 followers, and inspires in the clean water & nutrition space, and prominently features his Santa Cruz Guitar. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

The constitutional deadline to pass a budget out of the legislature was last Monday at midnight, & required a 3-part agreement to avoid delays (Assembly, Senate, Governor); 4 budget sub-committees but 64 hearings; health subcommittee dealing with crisis in California, which rejects cuts - HR1 impacts many, many people in District 28; SB125 passed with a MCO (Managed Care Organization) tax with revenue to offset MediCare / MediCal cuts; negotiations are ongoing over ballot measures & whether they can be voluntarily withdrawn via a letter to the Secretary of State - the deadline is June 25, next Thursday - the leaders of both houses & the governor negotiate with the main proponents of a measure (e.g.: SEIU - UHW behind "billionaire tax"), with elected officials using legislation that advances the proponent's goal(s) in order to convince them to volunteer to withdraw - even if they have raised enough signatures to place a measure on the ballot; this type of negotiation is more common than it used to be; Q: re: battery storage facility near Watsonville; need to make it safe, manage impact on water & infrastructure & minimize fire risk - but recognize that the state needs storage to meet "30 by 30" goal & advance clean energy; July 2 deadline to policy committees to meet and move a bill out either to the floor or, if it has $$ in it, the appropriations committee to again be placed in the Suspense File in the new house; deep dive into A.I. - Gail is on it! Might be in 3 committees - Gail is on Privacy & Consumer Affairs; many bills dealing with A.I. moving through legislative process, plus Select Committees & the "Tech Caucus"...the difficulty is that A.I. is advancing so quickly; Assembly Resolution passed honoring Santa Cruz Guitar Company, who are celebrating 50 years with an exhibit at the Museum of Art & History (the MAH). An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

calling in from Seattle, where "we" played last night; "we" = she & Jaymee Harris, who opens & performs with her - Nashville is home; Mary had her on label, "On the Black", & people are buying vinyl now - sitting & listening to the record intentionally; streaming is useful when she's out walking, but there's no revenue: "the Tech Bros won!" when you Barbara Higbie (interviewed earlier) gets $23 for a million streams...but in those million, some of them are going to buy tickets & come to a Barbara Higbie show; pressing records? "Got to get on the schedule!", she wrote the title track to "Mercy Now" during the Bush years, when wars in Afghanistan & Iraq showed that we hadn't learned a damned thing from Vietnam - and now it's relevant again! (proving that we didn't learn from "The Princess Bride" to "Never get involved in a land war in Asia!") - songs usually come slowly to her, but this one came quickly when she was in a *very* small town in eastern Canada for the Stan Rogers Folk Festival; pivoting to Pride Month and her song, "Drag Queens & Limousines", that song came to her from something somebody said when they were in a diner in Times Square in New York City; the "Money Question" ("Have you been / are you able to make a living with your music, & if so, how?" A:"Oh, yeah!!", for 30 years or so...keep expenses low!...nobody on commission on gross, because no incentive for higher net..be a Troubadour, go town to town; "But not always! You stole your mom's car & drove to New Orleans, where you opened a restaurant!" "Yeah...2 of the hardest ways to make a living!" An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

When did Lis (pronounced "Lee") DuBois (pronounced "do-BWAH") move to our area & what brought her here? ("Great question!"): she moved here in 2012/2013 when she & her husband were living in San Jose - Lis missed the ocean, haviing grown up in Orange County...after they moved here, her husband asked, "Why didn't we do this sooner?" - they now have 2 young kids who are Santa Cruz natives; Lis' background is in non-profits, and she was working at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (the MAH) when COVID hit, & she saw how the Boys & Girls Club came up with COVID-safe ways for kids to gather - she later hired on as Executive Director (ED); Q: "What does the Boys & Girls Club do?" A: provides a 3rd space for kids in addition to home & school - they are open every day after school, & all day during the summer; they are in week 2 of summer camp at the 3 Santa Cruz County Boys & Girls Club locations (Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz, Live Oak); founded in 1967 by the John & Ruth Mallery, opened in 1969; they serve 1500 young people a year, including providing healthy meals, DEAR (Drop Everything And Read!), & academic support; they were the 3rd highest non-profit in last year's Santa Cruz Gives ($76.4k!!) which showcases our community's generosity; annual budget = $2.4 - 2.5 MM, with only $15-40k coming from national (which also provides best practices) - all the fundraising is local, with ~$1.2 MM from foundations & individuals, $900k from the modest fees they charge for camps & activities, and $400k from the Mallery endowment; can kids join camp even if week 3 is coming up? they always say yes if there's space; Q: "How 'young' is young?" ("Great Question" #2): A: 5 - 18, but majority are in elementary & middle school; Q: with the construction, where's the Santa Cruz location? ("Great Question" #3); A: temporary location at a nearby school; their "Guitars not Guns" is an example program, where if kids sign up & stay for 8 lessons, they get a free guitar!! they have 60 employees, 1/3 full time, and 1/2 - 2/3 part time (including a lot of UCSC students because it's awesome & flexible); they see shy kids all the time - they might try coming with a buddy; although the national situation is uncertain financially for non-profits, they are relative stable - Santa Cruz is wealthy, but it's expensive to live here! they have started a food pantry in partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank; Q: "How many volunteers are there?" ("Great Question" #4!!!); A: lots, bringing different skill sets, washing windows, parents helping out, businesses doing a service day; "after school" = as soon as the last bell rings! (2:30, except on early release days, when it's 12:30); the Boys & Girls Clubs are the "white filler in an oreo cookie", & they provide staff to get kids from most nearby schools to the Clubs, whether by walking bus or vans. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "Momento Maury" (Maury Burnett-Cavoto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Barbara & Teresa met at the Reno Gay Rodeo, where Barbara was a fiddler in a band & Teresa a singer/songwriter; when they played at the Great America music hall in San Francisco (when Barbara sat in as Teresa's piano player), they got a standing ovation after their first song; they became a duo, and were the Indigo Girls before there were the Indigo Girls; Teresa was one of the first artists on Olivia Records, & their first lesbian artist, & big in the LGBTQ community, recording Out music when it wasn't common; Barbara hasn't identified as LGBTQ, but goes with the flow; Barbara came to California to attend Mills College; Teresa is a high level horse trainer, now based in New Zealand; "Why Wait" is an ode to forgiving & forgetting; the duo have put out a lot of albums; music today is like journalism, in that it's difficult to get compensated - her next door neighbor was the bass player in the Dead Kennedys: they use to get sizeable royalty checks, now, with a million streams, she might get a check for $23 (not enough to buy a pizza!); they perform on Olympia Records cruises; the "Money Question" ("Have you been / are you able to make a living with your music, & if so, how?" "Yes, and always have!!" - made enough money on royalties from Wyndham Hill records that she was able to buy a house in the Bay Area, plus lots of gigs, troubadour, also playing back up for billionaires; Barbara & Teresa's Greatest Hits CD will come out next Tuesday, the day before the gig, and is only available at gigs. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "Momento Maury" (Maury Burnett-Cavotto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Last Tuesday's primary was the most unusual Gubinatorial election in California history, with many (most?) Democrat voters holding their ballots to the bitter end in case there was another Eric Swalwell; late votes are skewing Democrat, impacting a San Luis Obispo Supervisor race & a Sacramento-area state Senate race; the question is whether Steyer has enough runway to catch up to Bacerra; with 60 (!!!!) candidates in the primary, all you needed was a filing fee & a relatively small number of signatures; the "Top 2" advancing had unintended consequences - it was designed to get elected officials closer to the political middle, but resulted in some political moderates not making it to the top 2; if 2 Democrats make it, it would be tough for a progressive to be elected; Q: When will the late votes be counted? A: people are watching the # of remaining votes, so that the election will be called when those could no longer change the outcome; San Juan Bautista Board of Supervisors polarized, with 3-2: 2 Dems elected, with the recall going from 38 behinc to 5 in support to 28 in support as late ballots are counted; watch to see if Ryan Coonerty stays above 50% in Santa Cruz City Mayoral election, & whether Nunez can climb above 50% (now 49.88%) over Hernandez (now 33 %) in the south county County Supervisor's race; Laird worked hard to secure state bridge funding for the Watsonville Community Hospital (although it's still a bit of a "Perils of Pauline" situation, with needing rescue after rescue from constant problems); State Budget in progress, with Constitutional requirement for a budget to pass out of the legislature by June 15: Laird currently negotiating with the Assembly (& will continue doing so over Zoom on drive today to San Luis Obispo); riffing on pride monthy & Laird quoting Barney Frank in our April interview ("You have a right to privacy, but not to hypocrysy"), Barney Frank passed away a few weeks ago: when re-districting took out openly gay neighboring Representative Elaine Nobel, she deferred to him; Frank openly addressed a gathering of gay elected officials but did not publicly come out until a few years later (1987); Laird felt that he was openly gay when he was first elected to the Santa Cruz City Council in 1981, but it made a big splash when he was elected as mayor in 1983; "Today we're seeing pushback like never before." An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) & "Momento Maury" (Maury Burnett-Cavoto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Snazzy does a tribute every year, and this year's, in honor of Tom Lehrer, is a benefit for music in the schools of Santa Cruz County; Lehrer was a Harvard grad student, contributor to "That Was The Week That Was" (TW3) who later put out an album of songs he created for TS3; when "The Foremen" opened for the Austin Lounge Lizards in Santa Cruz Tom Lehrer and family came to the show; deep dive into UCSC math department in the early years, and how UCSC would follwo a European-Style learning model of mixing disciplines, and how Lehrer fir that model. The YouTube video of complete Snazzy Tom Lehrer Tribute can be found at https://youtu.be/eqJvtrwzdfY An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2024 is Bushwhacker's 35th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

(Michael) Schoolcraft & (Mike) Murray met 20 years ago in LA when both were taking acting classes (Mike Murray was working delivering food), and, when they realized they both loved improv and played guitar, decided to join forces; with their senses of humor, wrote first song, "My Baby Loves the Flat Tax"; realized their niche is "Groove - Wit - Harmony", like the song "You Got Away"; putting singles on Spotify, might assemble them onto a CD; "Every Day is Just Another Yesterday" (deep, philosophical); loving the moment as they try to make music more of a full time gig. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Wrangle" (Chris Jong) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2024 is Bushwhacker's 35th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Gerard & Carolyn got the idea for "Poi Rogers" during the pandemic lockdown, which Gerard took as an opportunity to learn Hawaiian-style steel guitar, and they learned how to play as a duo, and Carolyn learned how to play stand-up bass; working on an album; Carolyn as a story-teller in songwriting; Q: "Do you change the way you think about music whey you approach the microphone (when you have 2 very different musical identities)?" Great question! Yes, because how you interact with the music varies considerably between being in a 5 piece band vs. a duo, where "There's more sonic terrain to cover." An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2024 is Bushwhacker's 35th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Laurie tours the country in an RV performing as a singer/songwriter duo with Dana Keller; started Main St. Cafe in Homestead, FL as a venue "for musicians by musicians"; Laurie has always been a performer, starting in theater in New York City; hurricanes, politics impacted the Main St. Cafe, & they closed it in 2006; Laurie & Dana were in a band together, & found a beat up old motor home, & formed a duo to tour in the RV; Dana is a dobro & pedal steel guitar player (what's a dobro?); Laurie was inthe National Shakespeare Repertory Theater - and recited one of Viola's monologues from 'Twelfth Night'; The "Money Question?" ("Are you able to make a living with your art, &, if so, how?") - A: "No!" - they get help, with a lot of side jobs...Dana does studio work, & they have a studio in the RV,Laurie teaches basic music at a Montessori school; Santa Fe RV park they discovered during Covid after fleeking the CZU Fire complex, which is now their 2nd home, where they "Play to Stay!" An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) & "Maury-the-Mentee" (Maury Burnett-Cavotto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Yesterday was a hard day, with both "Suspense File Day" & the Governor's "May Revise"; andy bill that makes it out of a policy committee that has a cost "of significance" goes into the "Suspense File" - "of significance" =is = or > $50,000; there were 637 bills in the Assembly's "suspense file": 137 are in suspense, and 468 passed; it'sa quick vote process, with bills in the "A Roll Call" already agreed to by Republicans & Democrats, "B Roll Call" agreed to by the Majority Party (in this case, Democrats), "Held in Committee' = still in suspense, & effectively dead; and a few in "limbo" = oh hold because of ongoing budget negotiations; pivoting to the budget, & yesterday's Governor's "May Revise": the Governor submits a "draft budget" in January, with the legislature then going through it line-by-lin, and possibly taking some early action, then, after the April 15 tax deadline leads to clarity on state revenue, the Governor issues his "May revise" - the legislature is required by state constitution to pass a balanced budget by June 15; the Assembly & the Senatte have until May 29 to pass a bill out of the "House of Origin" (where the bill was initally submitted) to the other house; discussion of Assemblymember Pellerin's bills that are still "Held in Suspense", where it's possible they can be passed out to the floor (aka "Jailbreak"), but most likely dead; California has a 6 week supply of gasoline, with prices going up; California's energy is overseen by a number of state agencies (e.g.: Calif. Energy Commission, the CARB; Calif. Dept. of Tax); back in the district - in Morgan Hill today, and Branciforte Libbrary tonigh to inspire youth to civic action (with free pizza!). This interview qualifies for an exemption from "Equal Time" because an appearance by a candidate on a Bona fide interview is an exemption of "use" as per FCC rules and policies, and an exempt "use" has no requirement for "equal time"* *FCC on “Exemptions from “Use” rules by a candidate, (See page 6 of 110 in the FCC Primer on Political Broadcasting. Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended; also FCC-78-523A1 [“New Primer on Political Broadcasting and Cablecasting”, FCC 78-523]) An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) & "Momento Maury" (Maury Burnett-Cavotto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Arrived in Santa Cruz in 1978 after graduating college in New York & hitch hiking acros sthe country; worked at The Independent, which later became the Metro; & the Good Times (which was across form the Cooper House, & Brad was their 1st music reviewer); went to UC Berkeley School of Journalism, interned at the New York Times, then got a job in Florida as a police report [he broke the story about the sheriff running a prostitution ring], later Kansas City Star, the Gilroy Dispatch, and Santa Cruz Patch; Brad owns "Growing Up In Santa Cruz", a local monthly paper - it's a struggle, but it's beloved; his other 2 jobs are teaching at Cabrillo College, and editing the Good Times; plus he plays in "Jam & the Butterred Biscuits", a local band that plays all originals, and who are opening the mid-town summer music festival season; celebrating his 3rd anniversary at the Good Times after being hired on Memorial Day Weekend when the previous editor published an anonymous Anti-Drag Queen letter (in Santa Cruz?!!?!?), when the owner asked him if he'd fill in for "a couple of months"; this week's AI cover story generated hate mail even before it hit the news stand, with haters lashing out at a local restaurant "The Salty Otter", whose owner - a graphic designer - worked with AI to improve her logo (or so she thought) - artist supervised AI - the AI controversy is if it will replace artists, but AI *must* be supervised; Good Times has a circulation of [30,000, & gets more ad revenue from print than digital - people cherish hard copy; Karen Crocceti and AI assisting in giant mural planning; Good Times shifted to news during the pandemic - the owner owns 17 northern California papers & is working to keep a free (& independent!) press alive!! An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) & "Momento Maury" (Maury Burnett-Cavotto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Luigi's family arrived in Santa Cruz in the 1930s (!!!), & his grandfather bought a house in 1937 (!!!)....for $12,000!!! (his grandfather packed meat, & sold ice); Luigi opened up his shop in 2011; "The Money Question" (are you able to make a living doing what you do?) "Yes!!! ...because I live in the house my grandfather bought! Otherwise, it'd be really tough." Luigi discovered when he wa a boyt that he could speak to computers, & understand them...he read a DOS manual, and later, when his dad's computer broke a 2nd time, he fixed it - at age 12!! Later, he would dumpster dive in the East Bay, and soon had a bedroom filled wiht desk top computers that he fixed; when the company he was working for after college took his anti-roll technology from car safety to missile control systems, he quit, and started his own computer repair shop; A.I. has added more work for him because it's often wrong; AI is a tool, and we are in the "spaghetti phase", where we throw it up against the wall to see what sticks'; Momento Maury & Gemini team to describe Luigi ("Pretty good!! Would I get the same thing if I asked?"); Right-to-Repair; Western Digital announced at the beginning of the year that...they had already sold all of the hard drives they would make this year! Data centers lead to price increases, shortages; the next 15 years? You will be more locked out of your data / files, and you won't have a laptop (everything will be in Data Centers, and all you'll have is a terminal ["The more things change, the more they stay the same!!" *]); Warner Herzog reading AI - "Where's Prunedale?!?!?!". * the famous French aphorism coined by journalist and novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in 1849 ("plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"). [ironically provided by AI Gemini] An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) & "Momento Maury" (Maury Burnett-Cavotto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

This Sunday will be the Third Annual Mariachi Festival at Cabrillo College, & will feature 6 mariachi bands, 4 of which are youth bands, as well as one class & Adam's band, Mariachi Libertad; youth bands include UC Santa Cruz; Adam has been in the area 8 years, with a day job dealing with environmental issues...he's a professional violinist, playing with the Santa Cruz Symphony as well as Chamber Music; along the way he fell in love with mariachi music; Adam's mother is Mexican, from Oaxaca, & his dad is Danish...his grandfather came here as part of the Bracero program; with his day job & musical pursuits, why is he teaching? People asked him to, and there's a resurgence in mariachi music...plus, students are enthusiastic & want to learn - making it rewarding; the mariachi class started 2 1/2 years ago, & Adam is the 2nd teacher; their fall concert sold out; Jalisco is the birthplace of mariachi; the song "Solamente Una Vez" (If Only One Time) is a beautiful ballad (Javier Vargas on vocal) performed by Mariachi Libertad de Watsonville at the 1st Cabrillo College Mariachi Festival 2024. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "DJ Spark Plug", "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) & Maury-the-Mentee (Maury Burnett-Cavotto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button. Thanks!

The MAH is now in its 30th year, and recently celebrated with their Red Ball Gala, which raised over $130,000 for the MAH (although it was pouring, so they had to pivot & move 200 people indoors, where DJ Spooky from New York entertained them)! the MAH oversees 3 sites, the main museum in downtown Santa Cruz, the Evergreen Cemetary (in Harvey West Park), & the Davenport Jail, where a resident artist, Joshua Moreno, is doing a year-long study in light (you can visit the 2nd Saturday of every month); the origin story is that back in the 90s there was a history museum in town, & an art museum, but that funding became harder after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, so that funding was the impetus to merge...with successful crowd source funding (20 years before GoFundMe?) they succeeded!! the annual budget is $1.5 million, with 7 full time employees, and 7 part-time; Ginger spends 95% of her time fundraising from individual donors, grants, (no more federal funding), donor-advised funds, Community Foundation of Santa Cruz, the Hewlitt Foundation & the Packard Foundation; the main MAH museum has 3 floors & a combination of exhibits from the permanent collection as well as rotating exhibts, a sculpture garden, and galleries; there's a new installation of light that will be there a year - come some night to see it; "Who picks the exhibits?" "Great question!!" - the MAH is unique in that exhibits are co-created with community input; on the last Sunday of every month there's a poetry workshop at the Everygreen Cemetary 1-3pm; Ginger came to Santa Cruz year and a half ago, lured by the job. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "DJ Spark Plug", "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) & Maury-the-Mentee (Maury Burnett-Cavotto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button. Thanks!

Grey Bears recently secured a larger location, acquiring a warehouse (& 2.5 acres) that was previously owned by Palace Arts. which was sold to a Bay Area company (Triple A), but with the local store being managed by a son of the original owner; Grey Bears was built around seniors & healthy food, started in 1973 by UCSC student Kristina Maillard and her boyfriend, Gary Denny; they saw a need to nourish seniors, & food left to rot in local farm fields - they decided to gather their friends, gather the food, & host the first harvest festival; Grey Bears grew to have 3 pillars: 1) healthy food either picked up by, or delivered to, 4,000 seniors, 2) free food available to be picked out & taken from the Grey Bears on site market, and 3) free meals where seinors can gather & socialize with the Monday-Friday Grey Bears lunch; have any other towns in ag country imitated Grey Bears? "Great question!" - the answer is no, but with California law SB 1383 encouraging grocers & farms to share what would otherwise go to waste, maybe we'll see more Grey Bears like activities; their current capital campaign is 81% there, raising money to outfit the new warehouse & create a more dignified shopping experience; the budget is just under $4 million, with 34 employees (24 full time) & 836 volunteers - they have so many volunteers they have a weekly orientation! They still do recycling at their Chanticleer Ave. location, but the county took back the recycling centers at the landfill sites in December; the majority of their budget comes from thrift store sales, plus recycling (the "waste not, want not" mantra is baked into the Grey Bears DNA!); their website is GreyBears.org; Santa Cruz County has the fastest growing senior population in California! An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "DJ Spark Plug", "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) & Maury-the-Mentee (Maury Burnett-Cavotto) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button. Thanks!

Penny Rimbaud: a poet / musician / philosopher and the co-founder in 1977 of UK anarchist punk band CRASS "Sentience is in and of all things, all matter. Now is an eternity. There is no escape. We are the never of forever. In the nanoseconds between an event and our perception of it, anything could happen." - from "Beneath the Mask" by Penny Rimbaud, January 2025 (Foreword for "Punk Spirit! - An Oral History of Punk Rock, Spirituality, and Liberation" by John Malkin)

Audio interview with Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon from Israel about their new book The Future is Peace on "Transformation Highway" with host John Malkin on KZSC 88.1 FM / kzsc. org. Their local book event is at Temple Beth El in Aptos on Monday, April 20, 7:00PM. The book event is co-sponsored by Bookshop Santa Cruz and the Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz and will feature a Q&A moderated by Douglas Abrams. Tickets: bookshopsantacruz.com/future-is-peace Aziz’s older brother, Tayseer, died in 1990 at the age of 19 after sustaining internal injuries due to torture in an Israeli prison, where he was held on suspicion of throwing rocks. Maoz’s parents were killed by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023. Aziz and Maoz are co-CEO's of InterAct International, a nonprofit dedicated to Middle East peace. An edited version of the interview is available online and in print in the April 16, 2026 issue of the Santa Cruz Good Times.

Calling in from Capitola, but hittting the road in an hour to tour in support of new album, "Whirligig", a 6 song EP & 10" vinyl project coming out May 1st (officially), but advance copies available for purchase at shows - Santa Cruz show coming 2 weeks from tomorrow; songs on "Whirligig" include tunes about Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay, plus a song, "Gil Carter" about the longest home run ever hit in baseball (Carolyn is a big fan of baseball history) hit on August 11, 1959, in a farm league game in Carlsbad, New Mexico, where the home run knocked a peach out of a tree that someone witnessed, so they know the home run was either 650', or 733'!!! Bushwhacker's mention Chuck Brodsky, who has at least 2 CDs with all baseball songs that are in rotation at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York; the new CD was recorded in Portald, Oregon by Eric Skye; "Telephone Tune" with references that our grandchildren might not get (land line telephone with rotary dial & a chord; letters in the mail); Carolyn, "Are you my mommy or are you A.I.?"'; the Money Question ("are you able to support yourself with your music, & if so, how?"): "Yes!! Wea re very fortunate to have a guitar repair shop in Soquel, The House of Twang, which they can shutter temporarily when they tour; "Dollars Medley" is a set of 3 songs inspired by the Clint Eastwood triology directed by Sergio Leone with Ennio Morricone's iconic scores - "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", "For a Few Dollars More", & "A Fistful of Dollars" - that Gerard Egan (the other half of Poi Rogers) wrote into a whistle-infused song on their first album. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

Started in 2015 with a grant to improve the scientific literacty of lay people about our watershed & its issues, inspired by former Santa Cruz city water director Rosemary Menard - & they've held the State of the San Lorenzo River Symposium almost every year since; our California State Senator John Laird will deliver the keynote; the Symposium is open to the public; Laura is Executive Director of the Coastal Watershed Council, a local non-profit with a mission to preserve & protect watersheds - their budget is $600,000 - 700,000 per year, with 6 full time employees & 1 part-time...they get their funding from local & state as well as community support; deep dive into the agenda, with diversions to invasive species (esp. the shothole borer, which was first seen in Zayante Cree a year ago); "RCIS" = Regional Conservation Investment Strategy", which is used by the "RTC" = Regional Transportation Commission to guide investment & action in the watershed; "anadromous" = spawn in fresh water, & adult in ocean (e.g.: Steelhead, Coho Salmon), "HCP" = Habitat Conservation Plan = city permit to for handling water in the midst of endangered species, signed last year by the City Manager (after 25 years of work!); the San Lorenzo River habitat is the best it's been in 100 years, &, with regional planning, cities & communities are supporting each other better (but the challenge is that the Santa Cruz Mountains has the highest density of septic tanks west of the Mississippi!); the Symposium is a community conservation where, as Laura put it, "It's amazing how many people are working on issues, & with a community conversation about conservation." An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

Quoting Bushwhacker's interviewee Izzi (now Dio) aka "Azure iivy", whom "Dangerous Dan" & "Kaos" interviewed 3 years ago, "Trans is who you are. Drag is what you do!" Tomorrow the Santa Cruz Burlesque & Drag Show celebrates 15 years, & Cyanide Cyn started it & has run it the entire time; Cyn had just moved here and loved the art & entertainment scene, but there wasn't as much live entertainment as wished for, & there weren't any burlesque or drag shows; the Santa Cruz Derby Girls asked Cyn to put together a Burlesque & Drag show, and the first one at the 1000-person main room at The Catalyst was packed; they moved to monthly shows in the Catalyst Atrium, & later moved to the Kuumbwa, now bi-monthly; Cyn is re-purposing a costume from 13 years ago, adding even more rhinestones, but it's not done yet; their sound person, Tommy Powell-Demeuth, has been with them since the beginning (with a little break for serious medical issues) - "Solid!" There are 8 Sin Sisters - Cyn books 7 Drag Queens per show, and each does 2 acts, 1 in each set - Cyn also books from out of town, & always books who they want on stage; when you come to a Burlesque & Drag show, "Prepare to be amazed! And be a little scared!" An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

Hailing from Aromas, on the other side of the Pajaro River in far north Monterey County; Chris was born & raised in Aromas - Richard was born & raised in Watsonville; Richard retired as a farm advisor, having gone to school at U.C. Davis in ag...now U.C. Santa Cruz has an Ag & Natural Resources Department! Both are songwriters, but separate, with different styles; played together in a 5-piece band for 5 years; the song "Fireworks Stand" is for his wife, Michelle, whom he met at Chico State after sitting next to her at a Freshman gathering, rifling through her purse, and seeing a picture of a girl he knew, so she must not have been from far from where he went to high school - Michelle later worked at a Fireworks stand in San Juan Batista, & when Chris asked how her day was, she said, "It was hot!" - Chris replied, without skipping a beat, that it must've been with her in the stand! Richard song, "All That I Need". The "Money Question"? A: Absolutely not! Chris' day job is a home inspector; San Juan Batista, where Dayan Kai, who Chris went to junior high school with, hails from. Song: "Down Like That". No website, no CDs....yet. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Currently on Spring Break and in the district; as one of the first openly gay elected officials to city & state office, what's his take on Governor Newsom's homophobic slurs of conservative influencers & politicos? Quoting Barney Frank, Senator Laird said, "You have a right to privacy, but no right to hypocrasy!" Is this to help tailor his image ahead of a run for national office, or to raise attention to his own issues? Yes to both. Watsonville hospital - there's interest by Sutter to take it over in a public-private partnership, but not until later in the year - still need a bridge...the governor's office is focusing on hospitals that have 2 days of cash on hand, not 7 or 8 days; Senator Laird saved the hospital ove4 4 years ago via a "Gut and Amend" bill that created a hospital district; unfortunately cuts & delays in federal funding (DSH; QAF) have reduced revenue so that it's no longer sustainable; Watsonville is one of 2 1/2 hospitals in County (Dominican, also Sutter Maternity); Cesar Chavez day name changed for this year only to Farmworkers Day in record time by unanamous vote via Gut and Amend legislative action, including the "72 hour rule"; re-read Miriam Pawel's biography of Cesar Chavez, specifically the "Monday Night Massacre" when Chavez fired many aides...include a young Bill Monning, future California State Senator & John Laird's immediate predecessor; what happens next week? "All hell breaks loose!" - there's 6 weeks to get bills out of the House of Origin, with committee meetings every day, plus 7 - 8 bills of his that are in other committees...PLUS budget hearing; working on a resolution against offshore Oil & Gas drilling, with Dan Haifley, ex Executive Director of Save Our Shores, and Santa Cruz City staff, spoke...."Dangerous Dan", as a geologist / geophysicist working both sides of the military - industrial complex, including offshore oil & gas and offshore wind, assures Senator Laird that he can sleep well at night knowing that the oil industry will never drill offshore California north of Santa Barbara, because the many faults (including the San Gregorio - Hosgri Fault that cuts across Monterey Bay) butcher the potential reservoirs so that an "elephant" (1 billion barrels recoverable) cannot exist; Senator Laird: "You're remarkably rational. This administration is not. Plus, we need to send a signal." An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Walnut Ave Family & Women's Center is celebrating 90 years in Santa Cruz!!! Started in 1933 as the local chapter of the YWCA; focus is on children, youth, women, family support, advocacy & prevention - children & youth = focus on the next generation, particularly life skills, including how to be in a relationship; added more focus on domestic violence in the 1990s, adding certified training to be an advocate for survivors of domestic violence (they have 2 hotlines, plus walk-in hours in downtown Santa Cruz); new program = "A Place for Change" - an alternative to the legal system for domestic violence; child care is a necessity...most parents in Santa Cruz work 2 jobs to get by...Santa Cruz subsidized child care is meeting only 14% of the need!! ...haven't been able to open infant / toddler child care because they can't pay enough for someone to live in Santa Cruz; Q: can we generate money to keep professionals? 75% funding from state and federal level, 10% local...local foundations are generous and more flexible (thanks!); shifted from YWCA to WAFWC when they saw the need for domestic violence services, and could not access federal funding as a religious organization; end on a note of hope & positivity: Julie enjoys working with people doing the hard work! An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, "Kalamity Kyle" Weller, & "Kaos" (Katrina Clugston), airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

House concert tonight features 2 sisters from Ukraine, the Bezhenar sisters, who have been collaborating with Nina on her new CD; Nina was playing with her brother Scott when she heard Kate Wolf through her records - she learned the songs, and became Kate's accompanying guitarist; Chris hales from Davis, California; song: "Candybars and Freedom", written by Chris, and a discussion of songwriting; the "money question": "Do you make a living playing music?" Answer = yes, thanks to various incarnations / groups and performing: it's no longer possible to make a living selling music CDs, but you can make a living through live performances. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "Kaos", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Today's luncheon will honor the 14 Women of the Year in Assemblymember Pellerin's District; this is the 3rd annual, & will be held in Santa Cruz at the Seymour Center (the 1st was in San Jose, and the 2nd was in Morgan Hill); discuss each of the 14 women in alphabetical order; one successfully worked on Measure A, a temporary tax in San Jose to fill the gap in health care due to cuts; AAUW is the American Association of University Women; Monte Sereno, population 3500, is the smallest city in the Assemblymember's district - & has no businesses!; the Briggs Initiative was a California proposition to ban LGBTQ+ people from teaching in schools - one of this year's winners helped defeat this in 1978 58.4% to 41.6%; a "candy striper" was a young woman who wore outfits like striped candy who would go to facilities (elder care, hospitals) to brighten people's days; "Africcianado" is a combination of Africa & afficianado; Damian's Ladder is a non-profit that supports senior citizens with odds & ends and projects. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Brenda is a UCSC professor, filmmaker, and board member of the Watsonville Film Festival (WFF); the WFF is in its 14th year, having been founded by Consuela Alva when she found there wasn't an outlet for her films in the area; the WFF grew organically over time, & focuses on Latino & Indigenous Stories, with screenings now in Watsonville, Salinas, and Santa Cruz; one of the WFF's short films won an award at DocNYC in New York City!; Brenda's film got an extended standing ovation, and will screen next at the Philadelphia Film Festival; Brenda teaches social documentation & storytelling at UCSC. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Senator Laird is the chair of the budget committee, with a lot going on, but first a look at his legislative package for this year's session; a lot more resolutions, but bills include helping out local wineries (who are sufferring) by letting them sell at Farmer's Markets...Pajaro Valley...Restore PG&E tax regarding Diablo Canyon...allow swimming in the lake that's at the headwaters of the Salinas River...and a new law prohibiting watering of artificial lawns (!!!! Yes, requires a law to give water districts the authority to prohibit this - a violation would be a misdemeanor with a fine!!!); discussion of arcane US Senate rules vs. California Senate; Watsonville Hospital in trouble AGAIN ??!?!? the root problem is that MediCal reimbursements are less than the cost of health care - they were on track to bin the black this year (or close), but the Federal government eliminated one reimbursement and delayed another, so now, with 8 to 10 days of cash on hand, they are trying to figure out how to save the hospital, starting with a bridge to next July; discussing "Private-Public Partnerships" with Sutter (Kaiser until recently) where the private entity would take on management and debt (1!1)...that works if the Watsonville Hospital fits with their regional perspective; deep dive into the Housing Element, where Senator Laird's constituents are all over this - Santa Cruz City is on track, but the County is not...specific projects & the "builder's remedy"...huge housing bond to the voters that would help out first time home buyers; as Budget Chair, Senator Laird is hellaciously busy after a day and a half budget retreat, followed by a 2 day policy retreat; the budget committee & 5 sub-committees have to go through every line item in the Governor's budget; there's a projection that California's revenue will be $6 Billion more than anticipated in December!!; Senator Laird authored a bill to help offset the Fed's $330 million cut to Planned Parenthood. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Ronnie has been in area for 45 years, coming here out of high school because she loved the mountains...and buying a house for $122k (!!!); she is giving a series of 3 presentations on Ben Lomond history - next Thursday is talk #2, "Mountain Outpost to Thriving Town", which will cover ~1910 or 1915 to 1950; the 1st talk covered 1820 to 1887, the "Formation of Ben Lomond" - logging was part of it, but it was the railroad which allowed wealthy tourists to come to big hotels that were instrumental in the development of the town; Part 2 is all about resorts & vacation homes, with the big hotels declining as vehicles supplanted the railroad (after the railroad was removed in 1934), and mom & pop resorts of 10-15 cottages each taking their place; after the mill closed, leaving manhy workers cottages along the river, the town decided to re-develop, with the owners of the land with the workers cottages all agreeing to move the cottages to the other side of the river - on lots half their original size - to create a park!!! The talk series is a benefit for the Ben Lomond Alliance, who are raising money for sprinklers for Park Hall; the 3rd talk in the series will include the Korean & Vietnam wars & the Peace Movements, the Hippy Movement, and lots & lots of music; Ronnie's passion for history grew out of her love of maps, and Santa Cruz not haveing many older than the 1920s & 1930s road maps - Ronnie discovered post cards, which had their golden age before WWI, as the most beautiful cards were made in Germany - before 1907, post cards did not have a divided back with space for the address on half of it; reprise the "Great Migration" in 1911 when everyone agree to give up their lots for a half-sized lot on the other side...all for a community park, where the firemen built a dam to make a pool for everyone to enjoy! An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Bill Raney, Zach's dad, passed away exactly 1 month ago; Zach was adopted in 1968 from the Monterey Bay Children's Home Society, and lived with Bill & Joanne Walker Raney in the house attached to the Nickelodeon Theater ("Nick 1"); that house was later jacked up & moved down the street so that the Nick could expand ("Nick 2, 3, & 4"; "Great Question #1"); What possessed Bill & Joanne Walker Raney to start an arthouse cinema in Santa Cruz? ("Great Question #2): they had met in North Beach, where Bill was a self-described beatnik (and the subject of his first book) & Joanne owned an arthouse theater - when they saw a movie theater for sale in Santa Cruz she sold that one, & they bought it & moved down (wehn was the Nick founded ["Great Question #3]: A - in 1967); Joanned died soon after, leaving Zach at age 1, and his adopted brother Zirky (short for Zirxses) 3; Zirky passed away the next year; Bill traveled the world with Zirky (back when this was not easy to do), & wrote about it in his book "Letters to Zerky: A Father's Legacy to a Lost Son...and a Road Trip Around the World"; Bill remarried (Nancy), giving him a 2nd chance - Zach gained 2 step siblings; Nancy passed away in 2016; Zach went to Happy Valley School, where he was friends with "Sleepy John's" son, Ernie; Branciforte Junior High, then Harbor High & Santa Cruz High; SF State, where he played baseball (Division 2, or "D-2"), later playing baseball in Niceragua, and for the Atlanta Braves farm team; How'd he land at Gateway School? ("Great Question #4); Zach was teaching in San Diego, where he had met & married Athena, and had kids...when Kathy Sandidge, Ernie's wife, told him about a job at Gateway, the family, around the dinner table, was unanimous that he apply - and he got the job (his students were listening to the interview); how did Bill & first Joanne, then Nancy, find movies? Bill spent a lot of time traveling, and would bring back movies in giant metal boxes of reels; the Sash Mill, which Bill also started, was showing a Beatles movie on the day John Lennon died; Bill screened the Rocky Horror Picture Show for years; when did the Sash Mill close ("Great Question #5) - not sure, but there was a restaurant out front; "The Money Question?" the Nick was an Institution! With the Sash Mill, very successful - Bill hosted the Ramones, who Zach got to meet backstage when he was in High School; Jim Swinderlee, Bill's business partner, bought the Nick & the Del Mar - he sold both to Landmark Pictures, who closed them during Covid (Grrrrr...); about Bill Raney: he contracted dementia, which was debilitating...he was a great father...kind...loving...always an open door...welcome everybody with open arms;; Where was Zergy adopted from? "Great Question #6!" - Zach didn't know, & wished he'd asked his dad. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Chris & Jon started playing music together when they wree 11; Jon went to UCSC, & Chris would visit, as they were best friends; the Jett part of their name came from Chris honoring a grandfather, Rawlin Jett, that he never knew - Curtis Jett gained infamy by murdering a lawyer on the courthouse steps - the Wolf part of their name came from Chris' mom, who told him to stop wolfing down his food; Chris grew up in Georgia, and wrote the song "Straight Back Home to You" as a Road Trip song; album / CD release party a week from tomorrow in Felton; Jon's house, with their studio, burned down in the CZU fire - recently re-built; songwriting - it takes work!; the "Money Question" - got to hustle! Also lumberjacking. and a past in Big Pharma; song "Don't Give Up On Me Now" came to him, and includes a ripping guitar solo by Benjamin Andrews that already has 350,000 views on Instagram - with no revenue for him or the band! People buying merchandise is the only way they make money to keep going. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Bobby came to Santa Cruz in 1964, when he was still in high school, following a musician he played with in a band; he started the iconic Santa Cruz band, "Snail", in 1968, & Ken Kraft Joined later that year; Snail toured all over...Southern California, Santa Barbara, Bakersfield; Snail landed a record deal in 1978 with Cream Records (David Crook), who had moved down to Hollywood; Snail got air play, & got big in places like Idaho's college towns; they recorded their 2nd album in Bayshore, Florida, where they recorded by day, and the Eagles would record evenings / nights their album, "The Long Run" - some fun stories came out of that, especially Joe Walsh, who was a character; they shortened the name "The Hen-Pecked Messiahs" to "The Messiahs" when they expanded from a duo ("The Shell Boys") to a trio, adding Craig Owens on bass & vocals to make a drumless trio; The Money Question? Bobby - no...after Snail stopped touring he became a house painter (but he picks the songs that fit the group - the drumless incarnation); Ken? Yes! He's done a lot of studio work & production; Craig? Yes! He's been fortunate, making enough as musician to "pretty much" make it...he spent 10 years on the road as Lacy J. Dalton's bass player, before working for Emu (aka "Eµ") in the 1980s (Emu, starting in a Silicon Valley apartment before moving to a house in Santa Cruz, helped drive the sampling revolution through their modular synthesizers and (later) samplers as well as drum machines; Emu for "Emulator") An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Kim has now been a supervisor for just over a year, having previously learned governance being on the Pajara Valley Unified School Board; a previous interview on Bushwhacker's in late 2024 / early 2025 got derailed when she attended "Supervisor Boot Camp" in Palm Springs - they had booked it for both Kim & her opponent, Kristin Brown, before the election; District 2 includes 30% of all the roads in the county, some 526 miles of roads - & roads are one of the top 3 issues she & her staff deal with, the other 2 being connectivity & PG&E, and the Planning Department; Prop. 1, when it passed, looked great - build out facilities for mental health & substance abuse, where the county is the primary supporter of health & mental health - instead, 30% of the behavioral health budget was removed...diverted...offsetting the gains from Prop. 1 - this is called "re-allignment", & is robbing Peter to pay Paul!; only 13.4% of property taxes stay in the county; the county is also being hit by online e-commerce, where the sales taxes go to the locales where the distribution centers are, which are in counties other than Santa Cruz, which is losing ~$10MM / year; with the federal budget cuts, 40,000 people in the county will lose their insurance, with the burden falling to the county; re: Watsonville hospital - medicare / mediCal reimbursements are not great, and the hospital needs a mix of payors to be viable; to survive, the hospital needs to cut $25MM out of their budget; a bill has been introduced in Sacramento to "Save Rural Hospitals', but its $300MM barely scratches the surface; Kim as 2 staff, a chief-of-staff, Maureen McCarty, who previously worked in Assemblymember Mark Stone's & Gail Pellerin's office (& who was interviewed on Bushwhacker's in December, 2024), & a super-analyst, Gigi Kelbert; Housing Element? There are 3 "builder's remedy" projects currently under construction...of the 4,634 units that are required to be built before 2031, 300 have been built!!!! other projects are in the pre-permitting stage; discussion about unpaid Federal Disaster funds, and that the county borrowed $80MM to cover the shortfall...$53MM has come in to pay down that debt; the county 2025-2026 budget is $1.35 B (yes, that's Billion!!) An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Wrangle" (Chris Jong), airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Zoë is coming to town tonight with 3 people in her Transylvania String Band - they played San Francisco last night; Zoë discovered Klezmer music in high school, and when she moved to New York, she started hanging out with her Klezmer Peeps; a Klezmer pal exposed her to Transylvanian string music, & her reaction was "Huh?!?! What's THAT??!!?", so in 2018, after having won a Fulbright, she traveled to Transylvania, where she met her bandmates; the Fulbright was very, very helpful; discussion of bandmates and the instruments they play, which probably are unfamiliar to everyone; discussion of different music types, including a doina (improvisational). An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Wrangle" (Chris Jong), airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.