KZSC Santa Cruz

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. 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 Trull 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 Gubernatorial 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 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! From https://tomlehrersongs.com/  (Nov. 26, 2022):  "I, Tom Lehrer, individually and as trustee of the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following permissions: All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. All of my songs that have never been copyrighted, having been available for free for so long, are now also in the public domain. In other words, I have abandoned, surrendered and disclaimed all right, title and interest in and to my work and have injected any and all copyrights into the public domain. The permission granted includes all lyrics which I have written to music by others, although the music to such parodies, if copyrighted by their composers, are of course not included without permission of their copyright owners. The translated songs on this website may be found on YouTube in their original languages. Performing and recording rights to all of my songs are included in this permission. Translation rights are also included. In particular, permission is hereby granted to anyone to set any of these lyrics to their own music, or to set any of this music to their own lyrics, and to publish or perform their parodies or distortions of these songs without payment or fear of legal action. Some recording, movie, and television rights to songs written by me are merely licensed non-exclusively by me to recording, movie, or TV companies. All such rights are now released herewith and therefore do not require any permission from me or from Maelstrom Music, which is merely me in another hat, nor from the recording, movie, or TV companies involved. In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs. So help yourselves, and don't send me any money."

(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-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!  

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) & "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!

Brad 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!

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'!!! Bushwhackers 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; Laurie 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 Laurie 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.

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.

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.

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 (when was the Nick founded ["Great Question #3]: A - in 1967); Joanned died soon after, leaving Zach at age 1, and his adopted brother Zerky (short for Zirxses) 3; Zirky passed away the next year; Bill traveled the world with Zeirky (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" (with JoAnne Walker Raney as co-author); 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 Zerky 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.

John is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor who, after losing re-election went on to be Managing Director of the Arhoolie Foundation, which was founded by Chris Strachwitz; Chris founded Arhoolie Records, a roots label founded in 1960 in the Bay Area; 40 years ago, John found Chris through his radio show in KPFA; Chris founded the Arhoolie Foundation in the 1990s; John cold called Chris, & asked if he could write grants for them - Chris was skeptical, saying, "We don't have any money."; John started writing grants anyway, & ultimately brought in $1M; Chris asked John to join the Arhoolie Board of Directors in 2000 &, after he lost re-election, asked him to be Managing Director of the Foundation; on New Year's Eve 2022 Los Lobos played the Rio Theater; 2023 would begin the 50th year for the band, so they threw a celebration / party before the gig; after the gig, John was talking backstage with Steve Berlin & David Hidalgo, who asked John what he was working on; when he told them, "A Clifton Chenier archival box" to celebrate Clifton's Centenial; they said, "If you're doing a tribute album, we're in!"; John asked, "How do you make an album?" Steve had been a producer for 40 years and said, "First, you get a record label!"; John approached Jo-el Savoy, of Valcour Recrods, whose parents were friends of Clifton's; both Jo-el Savoy & Steve Berlin had won Grammys, so John wasn't sure how it would go when he introduced them at a Crawfish Boil in May, 2023, but they were totally sympatico; they released the record on June 27, 2025 (June 25 would've been Clifton's 100th birthday); how do you get a Grammy nomination? Pay $75 & nominate! Who votes? members of the Recording Academy (people who pay their dues & work full time in the music industry); there are 92 or 96 categories - only 10 are on TV; the awards ceremony, including the pre-telecast portion with the other 82 or 86, was on Sunday, February 1st, & "A Tribute to the King of Zydeco", on Valcour Records with John Leopold as Executive Producer, won the Grammy for Best Regional Roots Music Album!!! If John had won re-election as County Supervisor, cannot tell what would've been: John loves music....saw an opportunity...took advantage of that opportunity (John is proud of his 20 years as an elected official); what's next? John is working with Steve Riley & Christine Balfa (Dewey Balfa's daughter) on a project celebrating Dewey's life, music, & impact, planning for release in 2027 when Dewey would've been 100. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Wrangle" (Chris Jong), airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Patti was building masts for racing boats, and looked into getting into coffee, because "that's the last thing people would give up" - during Covid, they learned that this was indeed true, as they were declared an "essential business"; Patti started Alta in Newport Beach in 1984, & moved to Santa Cruz in 1998; Patti, when she was "Sleepy John's" girlfriend, went to Costa Rica where they went to a finca (farm) which had the best coffee they had ever tasted; Patti looked into different kids of roasters, & decided on an air roaster, when there were hardly any small roasting companies, just the enormous ones putting out industrial coffee; Lilly, Patti's granddaughter, was born in 1999, and was "born into Alta Coffee"; Melia, Lilly's aunt (the family tree would take a half hour to explain!), was a Newport kid, and, after graduating UCSC, managed Alta in Santa Cruz; their roaster is big enough to climb into, & roasts 33 pounds at a time, roasting before the shop opens at 8am; they have a few single origin coffees, but are known for their house blends, like their Wild Women Blend; Alta was organic before it was a thing, & it's important to support restaurants that support organic, & organic in general; Q: How were they able to pass along a working business to the younger generation? A: "Nepotism!"; one nigiht over dinner Lilly asked Patti if she would sell the business to her, & Patti was releaved, as she was considering retirement but had not come up with a way for Alta to continue; what's their favorite Alta coffee? Mehlia: espresso blend, because the Ethiopean beans are sun-dried, resulting in a European-style coffee; Lilly: Etheopean wash single origin, because of the chocolate flavor; Patty: mountain blend (which combines Sumatra, Guatemala, Mexico...); all from Arabica beans, as they are high grown (Robusta beans are for more mass-produced coffee); "Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Industrial Coffee!!"; The Money Question: Patti: "Yes, it sustains me, & is thriving"; Lilly: "Yes, but we have different dreams & visions, but will continue with authentic hearts"; Melia: "Yes...it's only been a couple of months since taking over, but they are now in Patti's rich life shoes; Alta has 6 employees, & a shout out to them on Santa Cruz's Westside! (find them at AltaOrganicCoffee.com) An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", "Goldenv Voice Gene" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

"2-year bills" had a January deadline to pass out of their House of Origin - Assemblymember Pellerin's bill on Janus Services passed out of the Assembly, & is now in the Senate (it would allow a campus like Janus to have an umbrella license, simplifying inspections & administration); Assemblymember Pellerin reviewed the bills she has submitted or will submit today as this year's bill package - it includes AB1548, the Monterey Bay Area Stewardship Authority, or MBASA, for creative funding solutions that support conservation & stewardship; AB1668, on Open Space Property Tax Exemption; AB1736 on Deceptive Lobbying; AB1988, the "Pause Act" (using 988 because that's the mental health hotline #), which would require chatbots to pause for 20 minutes & a real human to come on the line if there's a risk of suicide; once a bill is submitted, there's a "30 days in print" rule before any hearings can happen; once a bill is assigned to a policy committee by the Rules Committee, the Assemblymember & her team advocate on behalf of their bills, & negotatiate; discussion of last night's town hall with 1st District County Supervisor Manu Koenig - both gave 5-15 minutes of prepared comments before Q&A; questions about 3 housing projects being built with the "builder's remedy"; one local landlord said that he has vacancies for the first time in a long time, so that there's a view toward rent stabilization, & maybe even decreasing rents; Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas has initiated a review of a handful of bills that were passed, to see what worked (& what hasn't) - Assemblymember Pellerin has one, AB2496, which was passed as a Band-Aid for 10,000 foster kids who were to be removed from their homes due to foster agencies getting hit by claims - it was to allow kids to stay whiel working on a longer term solution, but the Assembly never got a report, so they will now hold hearings in the Policy Committee that heard the bill initially, as they have the expertise; that bill sunsets in 2027, & may need to be renewed (with a new bill?) if there hasn't been enough progress. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan","Golden Voice Gene" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Sonia didn't decide to play banjo originally...she was a cello player, but one of her oldest friends played the banjo, and Sonia wanted to find out if she could play as well (or better); was accepted to grad school when she decided to join a band instead - Sidesaddle (which had formed in 1979, but Sonia was asked to join in 1984)...Sonia played & toured with Sidesaddle for 9 years, until she quit to have kids, but later returned to the band; 90% of bluegrass is written from a man's point of view, and Sonia enjoys modifying the pronouns so that a song would be from a woman's point of view - the problem is, if the song is under copyright, she could get sued...but songs in the public domain are far game!!! (such as "I'm My Own Grandpa", which Sonia changed to be "I'm My Own Grandma") - 40 years ago she just sang it, but this last week, revisiting the lyrics (because Dangerous Dan requested it), she sees how the family structure evolves (Dan would like to diagram it sometime! :) // Sonia writes, but all of her songs are still in notebooks - but she has a plan to bring them out to work on a project with them; the bluegrass tradition has a large canon to draw from; Sonia was in The Goat Hill Girls, and later, Harmony Grits, who would play weekend afternoons at the San Gregorio Store, which was perfect for bringing her kids because she could park them on the lawn with coloring books while she played bluegrass banjo; The Money Question? A: You can make a living as a musician, but for Sonia, that involved part time "day jobs", such as music therapy for seniors, or teaching music lessons; Sonia wrote an instrumental inspired by My Fair Lady's 'I Could've Danced All Night"; Sonia still plays, & teaches, cello. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Ashwin lived in India until he was 12, where he played drums with his mother, before moving to England; dad was a vocalist by profession, but played sitar - he plays sitar in the Beatles movie, "Help!"; Ashwin lived in England until he was 21, & he learned sitar from his dad; at 21, he started at Cabrillo, and his family had a restaurant where Ashwin played sitar every night; the tablas are 2 separate drums, pitched, tuned to a "tonic" (middle C) - the doluk is a 2 headed drum made out of a hollowed log; Bollywood is completely different - more like Indian pop music; but his dad was from Lahore pre-Parition, which at the time was called "Lollywood" - after Partition, the movie industry moved to Bombay, thus "Bollywood"; Ashwin's dad started the first musician's union; Ashwin teaches 4 different classes at U.C. Santa Cruz, including tabla, singing, and raga jazz; Keshav recently completed his Ph.D. in music, playing what he calls "Indo Jazz" melody and rhythms, "Alap"-style - unmetered; the Money Question? "Luckily, yes. Father studied poultry farming, and they had chickens everywhere. If you can steadfastly make a good product, & be omnipresent. Ravi Shankar says you never say 'no.' Always have a back-up...Ashwin's is accounting; Ashwin coined the term "World Beat", which Shenachie Records took on as a label; tomorrow night's show will include bassist, keyboards, and Ashwin's sister singing. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

starting in 1980 the "Continental Drifters", followed later in the 1980s with "Harmony Grits" - "Continental Drifters" started as bluegrass, but evolved into country rock - "Harmony Grits" was bluegrass; first heard Todd Snider at The Fat Fry,a KPIG / KUSP music festival at Aptos Village Park; Jim later joined a Leftover Salmon (Vince Hermon) spin off band "Great American Taxi", touring with them for 5 years - Todd Snider was in a similar orbit, and Great American Taxi occassionally opened for Todd, & then would play wiht Todd; Todd helped produce GAT CDs, as well as Jim Lewin's CDs; Jim played on Todd's "Live (The Storyteller)" album; JIm never got into any trouble playing some of Todd's more in-your-face songs, but Todd managed to get into trouble; "The Money Question" - yes!!! through a lot of day jobs...taught a lot of guitar...rent out part of his house... and playing in *many* bands both locally (duo with Diane Z; Tiger's Tails; backing 2 local women banjo players, Sonia Shell & Alison Steele) and touring nationally (Edge of the West; Great American Taxi); Todd Snider passed away unexpectedly last fall, and left an increidble catalog of heartfelt, sometimes quirky, songs (e.g.: "Alright Guy", ""Conservative Christian, Right Wing, Republican, Straight, White, American Males") An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

City manager for 4 years, having moved to the area for the job; previously, Nevada County government (Grass Valley, Nevada City & Truckeet): from the forest & snow to Scotts Valley; bachelor's degree in political science, with a masters in public administration; there are various paths into city government, hers was analyst, but there's also finance & police; the Scotts Valley Citizens Academy does not have a hard requirement to be a Scotts Valley resident, but they'll prioritiae that, as well as people who want to get involved in local government; they have a mix of ages - and they provide dinner; it'll be in person, in the city council chambers, but with tours most weeks, including the police department (& not for being bad), wastewater treatment, & Scott House - it'll be a deep dive into how the city works; Scotts Valley just launched an ADU guide, with many affordable housing projects in progress - it'll be a 25% increase in units in 8 years!, including the Town Center project; Q: What is "affordable"? A: state sets, but there are needs at all ends of the spectrum (last year, a teacher did not qualify because of a 401(k) plan!!! Heartbreaking; ....need *diversity* of housing, not all single family detached homes; deadline to apply for Citizens Academy, with 20 applicants so far; no part of income taxes stay local!; Scotts Valley has 65 employees, with 28 of them police, who are 24/7; the annual budget is $20M (+ $10M for capital projects); citizens academy is government 101. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Why did you join Pacific Voices? Krista - it was the dead middle of the pandemic, & her other singing group was not able to meet; upcoming concert theme, "Wisdom of the Ages"; Q: where is the best place to listen to a choir, outside, or in a building? A: a capella means "in the style of the chapel," referring to music performed in a church without musical accompaniment, so a church is the best place to hear a choir - but this weekend's concert is in a hall built for spoken word; Mitch joined Pacific Voices because he was raising 4 kids, & needed to re-connect with *his* passion; how do they visually spice up their music? Not so much, but they have a surprise for the upcoming show; impact of Pacific Voices on their lives? Tommy: connected to community; Camilla: Family (after arriving in 2023 & knowing no one); Most enjoyable aspect of Pacific Voices? Tommy: creativity. The "+ 1" is Bonnie Holmer-Orange (tenor), currently chair of the Pacific Voices Choir Council. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

When we spoke in 2023, we discussed how bad things had gotten...& now we pine for those days!! "What's transpired in the last year, and even the last 2 weeks, is an administration that is off the rails!!" California is facing a deficit, with cuts to medical / medicare where state funding is interleved with federal funds....& the cuts are being felt, & will be felt; the insults & assaults are adding up, pushing independents away from the administration; how frame Democrats? "One size does not fit all." - candidates need to fit their district, & address what the issues are at the local level; Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's speech at Davos 2 days ago, that "Middle countries cannot acquiesce to bullying." Listener Q: "Why can't Dems vote together?" A: it's a Big Tent, with Diverse Voices - so it's a tightrope walk, built on relationships; The Grateful Dead Archive in Monning's Senate District (U.C. Santa Cruz McHenry Library); Bobby Weir's passing - the youngest in the group - leaves behind a legacy of music; the cultural front can be a wedge to face Goliath / monolith, & address the collective mental health crisis; Qs for the next generation? What sparked DJ Spark Plug's interest in joining KZSC? A: building community. Mood on campus? A: Pessimism, with opportunities disappearing, but organizing; Government CAN work, as evidenced by Monning's youth in Pasadena marred by smog alerts & unable to play / practice outside - government got the lead out of gas, and mandated catalytic converters to reduce smog. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Joe got the nickname "Rooster" back in the Way Out West trio days; Larry is dreaming up a Bob Weir tribute for tomorrow night's show; Larry has written a ton of songs since the Sweet Rain CD 3 years ago, and this Monday they will be in the studio recording a song with lyrics written by Bobby Peterson, who wrote the lyrics to Unbroken Chain & Pride of Cucamonga; CD sales? Physical media sales suffering due to the financial devaluation of recorded music in the era of streaming - CDs become a promotional tool, a "business card" - this puts a premium on live music, especially for jam-oriented bands; have to raise prices for live music (tomorrow night's double bill, with Broken Compass Bluegrass, is $30); "Music is religion...and requires feeding / watering / nurturing and a culture of support." - Joe Craven; The Money Question: Joe - everything requirs feeding & watering...wind up making a go of it if you have enough eggs in the basket; Larry - "if you rehearse, it's not new!" Joe - David Lindley never rehearsed, "rehearsal is for cowards!"; but vocals need rehearsal, and new things need rehearsals; sometimes there are train wrrecks, which are OK, "as long as you get it back on the rails!", the Grateful Dead would have train wrecks, and you could hear the crowd voice their appreciation when they got it back on the rails. Painted Mandolin is Joe (percussion, stringed instruments, vocals) and Larry (guitar, vocals), plus Matt Hardle (guitar, vocals) and Dan Robbins (bass). An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Back in the district; last night, presented an award at the Santa Cruz Warriors arena to the Harlem Globetrotters celebration 100 years; just starting the 2nd year of a 2 year legislative session; "2 year bills" that were held over have been heard in policy committee - the deadline for new bill submittals is Feb. 20; Assemblymemember Pellerin's bill package is not finalized - working on public safety, mental health, consumer protection, AI...one bill that has received a number is AB-1548, the Monterey Bay Area Stewardship Authority - now that it has a #, it's in a "30 day introduction hold" when the rules committee will assign it to a policy committee; last year, Assemblymember Pellerin advanced 10 bills, and all 10 were signed by the governor; 2 year bill: Janus (Roman god of new beginnings & doorways) single license, also clean up AI in elections bill; Governor's "State of the State" address - in person - first time since 2020: California as a leader, highlighting 9% reduction in homelessness, but also laying out a need for a federal aid package for LA after last year's fires; California budget: the governor released his "first draft" budget on 1/10 - it fills in gaps left by slashed federal funding, but it's cautious - the governor projects a $3 Billion deficit, vs. the GAO's $18 B projection in November (does the governor look out of "rose colored glasses"?) - looking ahead to a "May Revise", and a state constitutional requirement to have a budget out of the legislature by June 15; looking at the horrific murder of Maddy Middleton with the County DA, & how to balance juvenile perpetrator hearings for early release against the victim's family having to re-live the tragedy every 2 years...also traumatizing testimony & pictures triggering jurors, and how to offer mental health services after jury duty; proposed "billionaire tax" ballot measure - the need is real, but how to address it. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

"The Overextended" is a band that, with longtime collaborator (and keyboardist extraordinaire) Ben Jacobs' encouragement, was born before COVID, with songs released in the lead up to the 2020 election; Russ' day job is in musical production as part of the Bay Area union; upcoming festival gigs, including Rogue River 'Fest; "We're Alright" was written in 2018 in the lead up to the 2020 election to both highlight political things going on and to inspire hope (and action) - it's relevant again today! deep dive into tropical diseases and malaria, which Russ got not once, not twice, but three times in Tanzania, with the 3rd time serious enough that he got medi-vac''d to London; truly making lemonade out of lemons, Russ wrote a song about it (with a chorus that includes 4 different anti-malarial medications - a musical first!); "World Keeps Spinning" is a song to daughter Eliana about being her father, particularly during the teen years.   An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 

woke up in Denver, and headed to Estes Park; new CD is all about family, including Jackson's 4-year-old daughter, and parenting, and Jackson has nicknamed it the "Tired Dad Album"; Jackson's been a touring musican for years, and that life has shifts & stresses; "Home Improvement" is about fixing up the house - a DIY lament; Jackson uploads songs through Distro Kid, and Spinitron picks it up, also a new service called the "Mechanical Licensing Collective"; The Money Question: are you able to make a living playing music, and if so, how? A: It's highly variable...royalties are not good...but being on the road selling workshops, & "experiences" help - but the biggest help is coming to a show & purchasing merch / CDs directly; if not buying at a show, CDs/music are best purchased through Band Camp, where the artist may set a minimum price, but it's up to the purchaser to put their price down ("Band Camp is a little shop that allows someone who likes their music to support that musician directly through, at times, a generous purchase price." Dangerous Dan has some bad news for Jackson re: the new song, "Dinosaur Bones": there is no Nobel Prize in Geology, Paleontology or Earth Sciences! Discussion of Jackson's role as a promoter - hosting shows, but not making money from them. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

The day is off to a busy start, with Darwin (her dog) off to Doggy Day Camp, & a pot of pea soup on the stove! Deep dive into Prop. 50 re-districting initiative passed, and Texas' re-districting struck down for "racial gerrymandering" by the District Court - language in Prop. 50 that it would kick in only if Texas re-districted was removed from the initiative...3 or 4 days before the legislature voted on it! Prop. 50 includes a sunset (2032) - Assemblymember Pellerin says that what we need is a nationwide system of independent re-districting committees; 2025 election hindsight? It's "affordability"!, + what's happening on the streets & withholding food from seniors & children; California fighting back against Washington's swipes ($80MM for food banks, health care affordability, keeping hospitals open, fighting back against assault on the planet); preview of 2026 bill themes and discussion of "2-year bills" submitted in 2025 but not passed or vetoed; the last day to move bills that involve $$ is 1/16, the bill deadline for house-of-origin in 1/23; touring new La Bahia today, tomorrow is the unveiling of the sign designating part of Highway 9 after Sgt. Guswailer - it's also "International Survivors of Suicide Loss Dan", soon after (11/19) the anniversary of Assemblymember Pellerin's husband's suicide; eBike bills needed! The Harbor Bridge closure & how to get some functionality before the 3 year completion timeframe. An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Phone interview with Comdedian/Writer Richard Stockton reguarding his upcoming preformances and life as a comdian. Includes his suggestions for the "Mount Rushmore of Comedians" :) An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.