KZSC Santa Cruz

They are calling from the road, after Ian & "the boys" loaded their 2013 Toyota Sienna "Tetris-style" in Oregon; Ian's boys are 15 & 9, but "the boys" in the van are Ethan Boardman on drums, & Grazer Bazer Phelps on electric bass; this trio, Ian George & the Knee Pockets, is more of a rocker, with Ian plugging in & "shredding" the electric guitar; Ian hails from Bob Dylan's hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota (the bluest state in the mid-continent! "Hell, yeah! We take care of our own!"); when Ian writes songs, does he have a vision of where they'll end up, acoustic or electric, & what style? "That's a really good question!"...it's a function of the structure of the song...the riff...some songs come in 3 minutes (like "Gone"), some take longer (like "Grassy Knoll"); they've got a new CD coming out, "Milk of the Moonlit Sun", which is a line from one of the new songs; their Oregonians now (Grazer Bazer is from southern Oregon; Ethan originally Portland, Maine); "The Money Question?" (Are you able to make a living with music full time, & if so, how?") A: "That's subjective." Ian does odd jobs to fill in gaps, but music is the priority; one of the other guys is in school, and the other works at a sick bar; Ian is on the verge of completing a score for an independent film which will come out next year; Spotify? Maybe he makes enough money to buy a 20 oz. latte every 6 months! Q: "How do the economics work with an album, where other artists are choosing not to put out physical media?" A: "We'll put out both a vinyl album & a CD. People are re-introducing themselves to how cool physical media is." Albums are curated, with an intentional order; this album is in the can, songs aligned, album art done...it's ready to go, working on pressing soon, plus visuals to go with singles that they will post. Show is tomorrow night at The Crêpe Place, with Dead Nettle opening.

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!

Nina's band, "Duo Quartet" playing tonight; How did Nina meet Pam Delgado & Jeri Jones? "A happy accident!" - they were all playing a memorial show for Sarah Elizabeth Campbell, and Pam & Jeri were there as part of the band "Blame Sally"...later, they called Nina about doing a double bill at the Freight & Salvage; how did Nina end up playing with Kate Wolf? Nina and her brother were in a high school bluegrass band in Sebastopol, and her brother suggested they see Kate...she was playing at West of the Laguna, and Nina was blown away & moved with the music, the connection among the band...and said to herself, "This is what I want to do", deciding that night she wanted to become a professional musician and play in Kate's band; took mandolin lessons with Kate's husband, Don Coffin; sat in on some songs with Kate, then stood in when Don couldn't be there, asked to play more and more..."became part of Kate's band through a luck, being passionate, and tenacity; played with Kate for 8 years before she passed away, which was devastating; played with others because she was known for playing with Kate; was playing Strawberry with Sarah Elizabeth and Greg Brown approached her about joining him for some sons - she ended up playing the entire set; Nina has been able to make a living with music her entire life; her advice? Keep your expenses down! Keep your overhead low and work hard (needed to earn to support her habit of buying instruments!); Nina's goal was to be a side person - unusual in an industry where most seek the spotlight! Ken's line in the Barbie movie, "I want to play my guitar at you!" makes Nina want to see the movie; Nina's advice to aspiring side persons.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, "Kalamity Kyle" Weller, and "Kaos" (Katrina Clugston) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2023 is Bushwhacker's 34th 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!

Gail is just getting back after her daughter's wedding in Oregon last weekend; we're in a limnal period where all the bills that made it out of the legislature are out, and have either been signed, or are on the Governor's desk to be signed, vetoed, or become law if he does neither (with the deadline at the end of the month); rapid run down of the bills that have been passed (4) and those that are awaiting action (9); September is Suicide Prevention Month, & Assemblymember Pellerin has 15 Heroes in the district; correction on AB1919 regarding the Santa Cruz metro tax being given to the voters as a clear process because state law was not clear. Deep dive into "Objective Standards", California's approach to address the housing affordability crisis, with Santa Cruz & Santa Clara County, both in her district, as the most expensive. It's complicated, given impacts on traffic, water, etc. Q: has it gone too far? A: possibly, as it opens the door to the "builder's remedy"; deep dive into developments in the Seabright neighborhood - is there anything the city can do about it? And parking! 221 parking spaces for 560 units, because the state does not require developments to have parking if they are within a half mile of a bus stop! A: "That's the reality." Community members need to be involved, & there's a virtual meeting coming up next week. A record number of listeners engaged with the DJs via TextGroove during the interview, providing additional questions & comments.

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!

Jenny completed her Ph.D. at Stanford in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department, so how did she settle on studying the impact of climate change on water in Santa Cruz? Great Question! (#1): she's now working for a water department in the East Bay, but she worked [MORE HERE DAN] on Santa Cruz because they were collaborative, and made for an interesting case study on the impact of climate change on water affordability; why water affordability? Great Question! (#2): because there are a lot of open questions - there's a lot of attention on the impact of climate change on energy, but California voted that there's a Human Right to Water, with less of a focus on affordability; but Jenny is an engineer! How does affordability fit into that? Good Question! (#1): Jenny focuses on affordability as an engineer, with interdisciplinary modeling; Q: What do you most want a public water agency like Santa Cruz to take away from this research, and what would you not want them to conclude from it? Good Question! (#2): the take-away is less exact #s, & more climate change $$ impact; Q: The research seems to highlight a tension between affordability and reliability. How should a utility think about that tradeoff when delaying investments may reduce near-term rates but increase long-term reliability risks and potentially future costs? Good Question! (#3): there ARE trade-offs, & Jenny's modeling provides a quantitative framework; How much of the affordability challenge identified in the study is attributable to climate change itself versus the underlying need to replace aging infrastructure and maintain an existing water system? Another Good Question! (#4): Jenny's modeling explicitly addresses climate change, and does NOT address infrastructure or maintenance; Q: What funding mechanisms do you think have the greatest potential to pay for this? Good Question! (#5): Jenny is not an expert, but discusses tax-funded approaches, State & Federal programs (a model could be LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program); Why Santa Cruz? Close by? Collaborative? Fun to visit & surf? Closed system hydrologicallly (every drop of water that falls in the county is either used or flows to the ocean through habitat that it sustains)? (Almost) all of the above (she doesn't surf - yet!); Q: does her model account for the strongest El Niño ever that's forecast? Good Question! (#6): her modeling does not focus on his, but the "Whiplash" with increasing swings between wet years & dry needs to be addressed; Aquifer storage? Yes, addressed in her models, but not the amount of storage - she does address reliability - desal(ination) is most expensive, but has the largest potential impact - aquifer re-charge might require additional water; there are follow-up papers that will come out of Jenny's lab, with at least one more from her Ph.D.

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!

Heidi is Director of the Santa Cruz City Water Department - which has 120 employees, but that includes a lot of temp workers in the summer (who work at Loch Lomond Reservoir & Recreation Area; the Water Department's budget is $45-50 million (!!); Heidi is a 1st generation Santa Cruzan, having moved here in the late 1990s - she was interested in engineering, & got a job with the Santa Cruz Water Department (her background is Civil Engineering, specifically soils) - as such, she started "ahead of the mast", & "came up through the hawse hole" (or "hawse pipe", taking a phrase out of Dangerous Dan's nautical day job); Santa Cruz (both city & county) is reliant on water that falls on this side of "the hill" (the crest of the Santa Cruz Mountains), with that water being used for people, habitat and protected species such as Anadromous Salmonids; to check out the Story Map, type "Explore Santa Cruz Water System" into your favorite browser, click on the Water Department link, scroll down to "Explore the Storymap" & click on it; the Water Commission, an advisory commission to the Water Department, took on the task of developing this; listener Q re: bottled water - A: water agencies are scrutinized, & Santa Cruz water is definitely safe to drink! Santa Cruz City Water by the #s; Heidi is associated with many organizations in an "Alphabet Soup", with MGA = "Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency", which was created by the California Sustainable Groundwater Resources Act because the city has groundwater wells & uses the Santa Margarita Aquifer; the City has relatively recent wastewater injection wells where twice-treated wastewater is injected into wells in the mid-county basin (3 injection wells); IRWM = the Santa Cruz (County) "Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM)" which serves as the nexus for water-oriented agencies to meet; following the 2014 drought, Santa Cruz County became "rock stars" with conservation, quoting Melanie Mow Schumacher of the Soquel Creek Water District; with climate change, during every drought we see a demand decline, which hardens - it doesn't rebound; Santa Cruz was projected to need 6 billion gallons of water per year, but is using 2.4 billion (!!!); most years, we're fine, but with climate change we experience "weather whiplash", with deeper droughts that last longer; with the projected biggest El Niño ever coming this winter, the city is rolling out ASW = "Aquifer Storage & Recovery", drilling 4 new wells to replenish groundwater with excess runoff (4 wells over 4 years, with 1 well ready by this winter); re: Skerker et al., 2026 paper in Nature Sustainability, & how Heidi's / SC Water's focus is different from academic deep dives, & how to translate that into day-to-day implementation? "We appreciate the collaboration & the science supports Santa Cruz, who live it in real time. Academics provide data points. Affordability is real, with our need for funds for maintenance & growth. With climate change & weather whiplash, we will pursue other funding sources."

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!

Boulder, like Santa Cruz, is a college town filled with artists & creativity, surrounded by green space; he's loving his Santa Cruz Guitar, and it's great to be a a part of their celebration. Nick graduated high school (in the Hudson Valley of New York) when he was 16 years old - young! - & not ready for college...interested in working on instruments, having worked on mother-of-pearl inlays in guitars...he fell in love dulcimer and harpsichord, and tracked down Jean Ritchie, who he opened for...he hitchhiked to Ohio, Arkansas...back in Colorado he needed to fix his mandolin - when the repair guy said he could repair it, Nick said he could, too, but he didn't have his tools; the repair guy said if he could repair instruments, he'd hire him on the spot; Nick ended up working at the Denver Folklore Center, Charles Sawtelle was already working - the Folklore Center had a 100 seat concert hall, repair shop, bead shop (for the partners to shop in), a record store with less-common records, & a music school; in 1976, he met Pete Wernick, aka "Dr. Banjo", who turned out to bew a tenacious booking agent with calling, taking notes, and they put together Hot Rize soon after with Tim O'Brien (mandolin, lead vocals) & Charles Sawtelle (from the Denver Folklore Center). By the time he was 22 (in 1978), they got a gig playing the Ramada Inn for 5 nights for a weight loss convention...2 weeks later they were on Prarie Home Cabin (because Tim O'Brien was from Minneappolis), and a month later they played the Telluride Bluegrass Festival...their 1st record followed soon after (on Flying Fish Records), then their 1st tour of Europe, then the Grand Ol' Opry. Their agent, Keith Case, also represented John Hartford, New Grass Revival, Norman & Nancy Blake, Guy Clarke, & Townes van Zandt - when he would get a gig for one at a festival, he'd work on getting gigs for the others; there weren't that many bluegrass bands then; early on, they said yes to everything, playing clubs and bars from 9pm to 1am, where they would have to play requests for Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzel & others. In 1978, soon after KGNU started in Boulder, they got a weekly 1 hour radio show where they played western swing as well as classic country - this was how their alter ego, "Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers", composed of Red Knuckles, Wendell Mercantile, Waldo Otto, and Slade, was born; Hot Rize would have about half originals on their albums, with most of the songs written by Pete and/or Tim - they put out about a dozen albums between the 2 incarnations; in 1989 RCA knocked on Tim's door wanting to make him a country star - Hot Rize had to find another mandolin playing lead singer or call it quits, so Nick joined Tim's new band, the O'Boys, with Mark Schatz, Scott Nygaard & Jerry Douglas; in 1990, right before Hot Rize hung up their spurs, Dick van Kleck from the US State Department hired them to play Eastern Europe - it was in Sophia, Bulgaria, with it's former-Soviet bloc polluted air, bad economy, but now post-communist mecca where people came to shows & celebrated around music, that Nick got the idea for eTown - which would combine the power of live music but with environmental awareness; that was May, 1990, and eTown had their 1st show in April, 1991; with Garrison Keiler's "Prarie Home Companion", it's all about him, & that wasn't what Nick's about - he wanted to be host, in the house band, and music director, while learning about the state of the planet - based in Boulder they are surrounded by great research organizations; eTown brings up challenges, but also solutions...they have an Achievments show; to start eTown, Nick started by going to a bank, knowing that he wanted to form a non-profit; they said, "Get a lawyer!", then Articles of Incorporation; Nick was naïve, but soon met Helen, his future wife, who wanted to help. They launched on NPR, then went off the air when they ran out of money. They overcame that, and it's now 35 years of eTown. They have 8 full-time equivalent employees, and 40 volunteers, with an annual budget of $2.5 million; it's syndicated, and FREE!

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!

Nick is coming to town to MC the 50th Anniversary Concert in honor of Santa Cruz Guitar Company, (co)-founded by Richard Hoover, who has created incredible sounding musical instruments using sustainably harvested woods; shout out to the Strawberry Music Festival, which Nick, with Hot Rize, started playing in the early 80s, & is where they crossed paths with Tony Rice & his Santa Cruz Guitar...later Ed Littlefield, with Marley's Ghost, also a Strawberry regular, let Nick play his; in that era Hot Rize was on similar circuit to New Grass Revival, John Hartford, & The Tony Rice Unit; Hot Rize started in 1978 in Boulder, Colorado...Nick started eTown 35 years ago, which is now an internationally syndicated environmental and musical radio program which has purchased their own building, the eTown Theater, where the show is produced; the "Money Question" (e.g.: "Have you been able to make a living with your art, &, if so, how?"), referencing checks in the mail & how little the streaming services pay: "The Record Business has always been terrible for musicans. The record company would pay to make an album, promote it, and pay for the band to tour - with the money paid back with usurous interest rates. It's been terrible for musicans since the 20s (that's the 1920s!)...in the 1980s, Hot Rize made 3 times what they were paid to play in merch(andise) sales at Strawberry...Nick has been a lucky guy, with a successful band, and now a non-profit (eTown) which sustains his team via interviews - their mission is similar to Santa Cruz Guitars, combining entertainment (& inspiration) through music & social responsibility; referencing an earlier Bushwhacker's conversation with Richard Hoover about succession, Nick is in discussions with his Board of Directors on this, but he's made it hard on them given how many hats he wears, including as the MC and prolific fundraiser; deep dive into the similarities between Boulder & Santa Cruz, where protecting the natural wonder had unintended consequences on affordability; will Nick take a Santa Cruz guitar home with him? Yes! A Tony Rice signature model? No! It's a "Custom OM", after the largest Martin guitar ever, an "Orchestra Model", with a cedar top

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!

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!

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!

n 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!

The water district owns 4000 acres, including the Loch Lomond reservoir; the water department is asking the City of Santa Cruz to vote on a new direction on 11/29 that will "climate-proof" the water system; demand-based pricing incentivizes rationing; "Wetter wets and Drier Drys", and planning for back-to-back dry years; Santa Cruz has done so well with reducing consumption through conservation that we can't ask people to tighten their belts further; resolution will codify reliability and supply options (4); discussion of aquifer storage and recovery, recycled water, de-salinization (no new dam / reservoir on the table); implementation in progress: up-front and transparent; "Pure Water Soquel" project - Santa Cruz supports (treated water re-injected to keep salt water intrusion at bay [n.b.: pun intended].

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, "Golden Voice Gene" Fintz, and DJ "Tamarindo" Tamara Caselin Avila airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2022 is Bushwhacker's 3rd 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.

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.

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.

Kristin Paley is the Executive Director of Horse Sense Education & Advocacy, a relatively new (3 years) local non-profit that runs a range of programs that heal horses & help humans; they are having a Wine & Whinnies weekend to support the adoption of MyDunn, a horse that has been in the Hearts & Hooves program; they also have a Children's Reading Program (Horse Tales) the 1st Saturday of every month February to November, & a Diamond Program for building confidence; What posessed her to start a non-profit? So thankful you asked! Horses are non-judgemental, & stick with people...they can help with trauma recovery...horses inspire 1) community, 2) grounding [as they uniquely mirror humans], 3) love of nature [and our mountains], and 4) can teach children; Venus, one of their horses, is an artist! [horses love smells & colors]; horse life expectancy 20-27, some 30, few 40, oldest ever is 43; Horse Sense Education & Advocacy has volunteers [& values them!], who they teach how to work with horses, clean stalls, look out for their health, & grooming; Wine & Whinnies weekend starts tonight at Kissed by an Angel tasting room in Scotts Valley with Jacks & Dogs.

(during the interview you can hear the Jacks & Dogs original song, "Flying on the Wind"

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Pre-recorded interview with Singer/Songwriter Ian George. This interview covers their currenrt tour, making a living as a muscian, and creative processes.

Elected in March, 2024, installed in December, 2024 - City Council Member for District 5, which includes most of U.C. Santa Cruz; background is Civil Engineering - Water Resources - on Water Supply Advisory Committee, and Public Safety Task Force; if you divide the salary ($20k) by the # of hours per week put in to the job, do you make at least the Santa Cruz County Minimum Wage ($16.50/hour)? "Not a chance!!"; review of Councilmember O'Hara's week, from Housing Matters (elimination of day services) to Public Safety to Radius Gallery to FLOC cameras! She arrived in Santa Cruz in 2006 (her husband is an academic), and has worked for the City Manager and the Water Resources Department; deep dive into "Affordable Housing", and what "local preference" is; Pure Water Soquel project, transfering tertiary treated water from the Regional Wastewater Treatment plan to Soquel Ave Treatment plant for injection into an aquifer to combat salt water intrusion (we're all "One Water"); Murray Street Bridge challenges, and reaching out to businesses; Councilmember O'Hara called "Super Freshman" by Mayor Fred Keeley because she knows how the city runs, what you should step in, and what you shouldn't step in!

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", "DJ Spark Plug" & "DJ Wrangle", airing Friday mornings on KZSC 88.1 FM Santa Cruz, California.

Golden Voice Gene started out with solo shows...later, Alia joined in harmonies, then bass & sax, and Wade showed up with electric guitar and also vocals; "The Fintztones" formed in 2010; Golden Voice Gene put out a CD, and later the "Fintztones" put one out, "Make It Right"; The Money Question? Golden Voice Gene: "day job" with the DMV (which meant all of his friends could end up wtih a drivers license photo they didn't cringe at everytime they saw it) gave him the means to pursue music on his time; Alia has a remote day job that is totally supportive, and she has several musical outlets (shout out to "Lady Kiah", trumpet / flugelhorn player in last night's show, who is making a go of it as a full time musician); Wade-O no longer has a day job, and enjoys playing music & performing; the 3 of them are scatterred, but bring it together for gigs; songwriting discussion, with both Alia & Gene writing tunes; friendly ribbing over ratio of originals to covers at gigs; Golden Voice Gene never makes a set list; does he know the first song for tonight's gig? "I'm not telling!"

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC 88.1 FM Santa Cruz, California.

Live in the Studio interview with members of Karen with a K. The interview covered thier beginnings as band, how they write their music, and some live performances!

Laura February Strange, who lives in Corralitos (South Santa Cruz County), wrote the "Musical Temper Tantrum" exploring, & poking fun at, the "Karen"-meme. As they describe themselves, it's a "A garage-rock musical, social satire. Titular character Karen (with a K) is a woman stumbling through a very bad day. Wearing her self-serving flaws like a gaudy, costume tiara, her current ordeals are conceived in a dozen or so songs written by Laura February Strange and performed by Strange Bedfellows.

Strange Bedfellows are group made up of veteran musicians Laura February Strange, Scott Kail, Jojo Fox, Jack Hanson and Orbrad Darbro plus vocalists Stephanie Madrigal, Bonny June and Judy Appleby." (source: karenwithak.net/about-the-show, accessed 10/31/2025)

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC 88.1 FM Santa Cruz, California.

Jimmy's been a pro since he was 12, grew up in LA, then Chicago, the Sausalito since 1970; Jimmy saw Jimi Hendrix & B.B. King in the same week! Impacted him! Jimmy was Clarence Clemmons' musical director for 10 years; writes songs, but more instrumentals these days; the "Money Question" - Jimmy has managed to support himself with music through a diverse set of revenue streams: teaching, recording, touring, jingles, stage shows; he ran "Blue Star", a non-profit kids program, for 15 years; his National Steel guitar is named "Stacy", & was signed by John Lee Hooker; the song "Diamond Girl" is for his wife, Kelly; lead Clarence Clemons' band for years (which is how he got to play the White House!); lived in Maui for 6 years, but moved back into his wife's grandfather's house in mid-town Santa Cruz; Jimmy played with Lauren Rowan in the 1970's, in a band called "The Edge" - they are getting together for a reunion show later this year, and have Keith Greeninger & Dayan Kai opening up to expose his north Bay audience to these Santa Cruz known musicians; he has benefitted from a partnership with Jason Moffett, who has helped Jimmy with digital marketing.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC 88.1FM Santa Cruz, California.

Gail Pellerin is California's 28th District Assemblymember.

AB 679 re: Sempervirens finally passed, & signed by the Governor! Assemblymember Pellerin introduced this bill in 2023 as one of her first bills as a Freshman Assemblymember, which, given the fires & VIP visits, meant it got a lot of visibility; at its first stop in the Water, Parks & Wildlife Committee they wanted to know why wasn't it state side, so Gail amended it but it failed because the cost was too high; in 2024 the concern was still about cost; Gail got public input, and this year put in a pair of bills, one limited to Sempervirens, and a companion bill for statewide; this year Assemblymember Pellerin sent 10 bills to the Governor & all of them were signed, including one authorizing nurse practitioners to sign off on death certificates (avoiding lengthy delays if the doctor is unavailable); ACR (= "Assembly Concurrent Resolution" on Suicide Prevention & Awareness; deep dive into upcoming special election and Proposition 50, an ACA (= "Assembly Constitutional Amendment") for a mid-decade redistricting; voters should be engaged!; ballot box drop-off for casting ballot; select committee on wine no longer exists! we are nearing the end of the first year of a 2 year legislative calendar, with "held over" bills = "2-year bills" still in play.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", "DJ Spark Plug" & "Golden Voice Gene", airing Friday mornings on KZSC 88.1 FM Santa Cruz, California.

California Senator Laird's district extends from San Luis Obispo county to Santa Cruz to southern Silicon Valley; last week staff retreat (n = 26!) - Laird has 3 offices: SLO, Monterey (with a satellite office in Salinas) & Santa Cruz - one of Senator Laird's staff is the longest serving staff member in the legislature: Tim Shelly; there's little going on in Sacramento now other than the Governor signing or vetoing bills - the legislative session ended a month ago....it was supposed to end at midnight, but went until 3am, at which point they put it on hold and came back Saturday - that day was Senator Laird's anniversary, & as the speeches went on & on, Senator Laird put his head down on his desk, which went completely viral; Measures B & C are Santa Cruz City, and are competing measures to provide money for affordable housing; we need this because affordable housing "does not pencil out"; the governor has until Sunday or Monday to sign or veto bills - for a bill to go into effect without a signature paperwork has to be filed by that deadline; anti-semitism in schools bill; Governor historically vetoes ~11% of the bills - the legislature has not overridden a veto since Jerry Brown was governor!...there are 700-800 bills on the Governor's desk..the governor issues a "legislative update" with 80-100 bills signed, and 20 vetoes; many bills are waiting until the last day, including a whole host on AI; Senator Laird has 1 that hasn't been acted upon, and it's a bill to override the state's limit on Sales Tax % for a city (or cities) in SLO county for a transportation tax - the governor has signaled opposition, not by smoke signals, but via his legislative staff - deep dive into working with staff, pre-submitting bills to avoid "veto bait".

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC 88.1FM Santa Cruz, California.

Call in interview with California State Assembly District 28 Assemblymember Gail Pellerin reguarding the legislative session formally ended on September 12, but it ended up going over onto Saturday, September 13th. Assemblymember Pellerin provided a report on the session's final days, including what passed, what didn't, the reasons for the extension, and what we are now waiting for the governor to sign or veto.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on 88.1 FM KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

arrived in Santa Cruz in 1976 for undergrad, after growing up as a foreign kid (Scotland) in New York...who didn't wear jeans; psychology & art therapy major; later, used art to help found and run the Gorilla Drive-In, with free outdoor movies...screened 178 movies over 12 years; how to maintain activism / optimisim without getting exhausted: use creative approach, allowing vision, and find other creative types; deep dive into large puppets and the "Art & Revolution" group in Santa Cruz; discussion of taking art and activism to digital channels. Pronounces his first name as "GRRRRRrrrrant!!"

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on 88.1FM KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Overturned gasoline tanker truck yesterday on Highway 17, & discussion of things we'll have to explain to our grandchildren; One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) & Watsonville Community Hospital - do we need to worry? Yes! OBBBA guts federal support for rural health care; 70-80% of Watsonville's patients have their care paid for: if you cut federal support, cuts the federal $$ that would've supported the hospital; ironic, as 2025 is the first year in 6 years that they've broken even; "Gut & Amend", with OBBBA, most changes start on Jan. 1, but the cuts to Planned Parenthood kick in immediately; how to increase state support in the next few weeks? A special session? Gut & Amend (possible, as "there's a ton of budget bills that are empty shells"; Sept. 19 is the last day of the legislative session - the Senate dealt with 180 bills this week, with 300-400 remaining; the "Suspense File" is for all bills with a > $50,000 fiscal impact...300 bills...30% cut (weed them out); Suspense File cleared last Friday; John Laird's Pain & Sufferring bill to not end with death, but settle with heirs, has a sunset approaching; it's being held hostage until hard negotiations with the former speaker Fabian Nunez (& current speaker, Robert Rivas?), who said, "You thought this was the ransom call!?" (...& it was).

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Dmitri (accorion) & Matthew (fiddle) are part of a 5-piece Klezmer band, Baymele, that also includes 2 more fiddle powerhouses, Zoe & Rebecca, and Misha on cello - they met & started playing together 10 years ago; all live in the Bay Area, so the band name is both Yiddish (for sapling) and a play on the Bay Area; all have backgrounds in classical music, + a passion for Eastern European music, espeically Klezmer (Jewish) music; klezmer didn't always have titles, and the song we played they dug up in the Kiev, Ukraine, archives; "The Money Question" Not good, but there's interest, and they can make it work. "Most of us make most of our money through music.", with 3 of the 5 full time, most of the band members having their own CDs, & most involved in other music projects; they play a mix of originals & covers (including hidden gems); violins are essential to klezmer music: "You can tell how many people live ina house by the # of fiddles hanging on the wall!"; plug for KlezCalifornia festival coming up in Berkeley (CA) Sept. 12-14, 2025.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

This podcast includes 2 Bushwhacker's interviews with Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley in August, 2025 - On August 1st, with "Dangerous Dan", and on August 29th with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug".

August 1, 2025 description: Fred is the first directly elected Santa Cruz mayor - before him, the top vote-getter in a City Council election would be in line to be mayor, with the 2nd-most votes in line after that; with the City moving to district elections 2 years ago, the district system is working out for constituents (wiht one city council member for approximately every 10,000 residents); the mayor is stronger, serving for a 4 year term. Impact of chaos in Washington on Santa Cruz? disaster relief from FEMA (West Cliff, Wharf) going fairly well, but not sure if it will be problematic going forward; more problematic is that Santa Cruz declared itself a Sanctuary City, renewing this earlier this year; being careful: the federal government cannot dictacte what local police do - Santa Cruz won't obstruct, but wonn't assist; out of a $500M city budget, $95M = federal funds. Is ICE acdtive in Santa Cruz? Yes - they advise when they are coming in; the city has a good representative in Congress with Jimmy Panetta; Fed mpact via the state? It's complicated - with Governor Newsom and President Trump both strong personalities, where neither one will back off.

August 29, 2025 description: Recent Federal District Court ruling that the federal government cannot withhold funding from 30 Sanctuary Cities, including Santa Cruz; Santa Cruz is committed to being a Sanctuary City, where the federal government cannot federalize our police; building & construction downtown; background: California had not built enough housing over decades, so a new state law was passed where cities & counties were given a # of units to build, and it's not debatable (if not, "builder's mandate" would remove city from being able to deny permits; smart cities grow their downtowns, & grow up, up, up; but 15-17 stories was too tall for populace, 12 stories too tall, so settled on 8 stories, the height of the Palomar; 20% of the units will be "affordable" (shorthand for designation defined by the state / fed with r estimated income levels given local cost of living); cannot grow to affordability; Downtown Expansion plan completed 3 months ago; South of Laurel will take 3 more years; Murray St. bridge project? "It's a mess. Not the planning department's finest hour." - tthe city has responded to business complaints with the largest package ever of aid to local business, but it will take 2 1/2 years...replacing a bridge over a yacht harbor over the ocean is hard (& we're not at war, so the SeaBees can't knock it out in a week); UCSC admitting 2,000 more students this fall than ever - the University of California is (one of) the greatest public institutions of higher education in the country / world but, as Keeley learned when he was Speaker Pro Tem in the Assembly, whenever U.C. would arrive, they would announce, "We are constitutionally independent!" UC: "Some day we'll get there in terms of housing", but never happens; Mayor met with the Board of Regents, sued UC, won, and they've appealed - U.C. does have money to build the needed housing.

Interviews on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

This year celebrates 100 years of Clifton Chenier, "The King of Zydeco"! Clifton Chenier's start in the 1950s as part of Rhythm & Blues Road Shows, with early albums on Elko, Celebrity & Chess Records; in the 1960s, with no recording congract, Clifton was playing dive bars; Chris Stracgwutz (of Arhoolie Records) was in Houston with LIghtning Hopkins when Lightning said, "Let's go see my cousin", and took Chris to a seriously dive bar where Clifton was playing as a duo, and Chris was struck by his blues; they agreed that night to record, with a single the next day (?) and an album the following week (?) at God Star Studios; Arhoolie relieased 13 albums of Clifton; in 2022 John realized that, had he lived, Clifton's 100th birthday was approaching; a zydeco DJ at KRVS suggested a tribute album, and John Leopold (former Santa Cruz County Supervisor & Former Managing Director, Arhoolie Foundation) reached out to Folkways, and Arhoolie, but no one bit; at a New Year's Eve (2022-2023) show in Santa Cruz, John was talking about the project backstage wtih Los Lobos, and Steve Berlin, the sax and keyboard player in the band, said "We love Clifton! We're IN!!!"; John reached out to Joel ('Joe-El") Savoy at Valcour Recrods and the project was on! John is Executive Producer, lining up money and helping pick tunes; Clifton invented the modern washboard (over-the-shoulders single piece of metal) instrument after drawing it in the sand for a machnest - Clifton's brother, Cleveland, would play it with church key bottle openers; Valcour has released a record on vinyl & CD, wtth all proceeds going to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's Roots Music program, specifically Zydeco accordion.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Djangatos is a Gypsy jazz trio honoring the style of Django Reinhart; Djangatos is a combination of Django and Los Gatos, where all three work in music store; Robert had an earlier band, Martini Max & the Swing Cats, and the trio came together during Covid, when they played for neighbors & friends on the driveway; new CD = Roulette will be released digitally after the album release party a week from Saturday, with the physical CD available now; the Money Question: are you able to make a living in music and, if so, how? Yes! Robert performs, manages the music store, & gives guitar lessons; bassist Sadie Hallinan just graduated San Jose State, and rhythm guitarist Ron La France was retired, but came out of retirement to "take one for the team" as a luthier at the music store; all the songs are originals written by Robert; a video of "In the Kitchen" is in the plans; dare to dress to impress at the record release party!

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Moved to Santa Cruz to escape the Santa Clara Valley; met Brad Hecht with the band "Cool Jerks", who were an R&B corporate band = members of the Chamber of Commerce, and band members got insurance (!); Burnin Vernon played with them for 9 years as lead vocalist, and was able to make a living; went to school with Chris Cain, but decided he would venture beyond the blues; turned down a chance to audition with Brick as their guitarist, and landed a job as house guitarist at Fantasy Records in Berkeley, where a producer, Harvey Fuqua, was Etta James' boyfriend & introduced him; Burnin' Vernon's ultimate guitar hero is Joe Walsh; when Vernon went to a music store in the Bay Area to buy a 1952 Gibson Les Paul, he met Freddy King, who was at the store with a pair of Gibson corporate types; Burnin Vernon plays songs from "A to Z", from Al Green to Led Zeppelin, & he has a vocal range that allows him to hit some of Prince's notes on "Kiss"; Santa Cruzan Ken Brady saw Burnin Vernon at Abbott Square, and introduced Dan to his music, thus the interview ahead of a show at The Crow's Nest; "Stormy Monday", played live, in the studio, with Dangerous Dan shouting out to the longtime KZSC Monday night blues collective; Burnin' Vernon has been able to make a living as a musician, but it's been a struggle.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Assemblymember Gail Pellerin Represents the 28th California Assembly District.

Overview of district highlights from state budget: 5 Branches, with acupuncture still covered under MediCal, library infrastructure, the 415 project, healthy school pathway program, 2nd harvest food bank and continued support for the food & diaper bank, IHSS (ImHome Support Services), MediCal asset cap remains as previous, without draconian cut; regrets? It's a pretty dire picture give HR1, the "Big Brutal Bill"; The Care Fare will be Sept. 20 at the County Government Center, and will honor 12 Mental Health Heroes; recess is not a month off! Assemblymember Pellerin has been in the district, and attended the National Commission of State Legislatures (NCSL) meeting in Boston, where re-districting between census updates is under discussion; ACES (Adverse Child Experiences Initiative) was able to get funding; deep dive into Semper Virens (SB 679) & why this time "thir time is (hopefully) the charm!" - the bill is in the Senate Appropriations Committee, and would expedite land tansfer from entities such as Semper Virens (Redwoods) non-profit to State Parks, avoiding a lengthy and onerous public works board process...with a pair of bills, Gail's that is District Specific, and Senator Allen's that is statewide; deadline for legislation is Sept. 12, likely midnight.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

John Laird is California State Senator - 17th District

Senator Laird's Q for "Sassy Cassy": "What's the biggest challenge ou're facing that Policy might be able to address?" A: Literacy & (mis)information; Senator Laird: "Your father & I grew up with fact checkers and trusted sources. Now it's so crazy" ...with everything available everywhere all the time with few (if any) fact checkers or trusted sources; deep dive into Pain & Suffering bill which, when introduced, resulted in Senator Laird being "ambushed" with disinformation-fueled backlash; Senator Laird spoke with every member of the committee and got it passed, & then spoke with every Democrat in the Senate (30) to get it passed out of its House of Origin; recent British Colombia recycling information-gathering trip, learning about "extended producer responsibility", including carpets and lithium recovery; Senator Laird's interest in recycling is, in part, related to his postion on the Natural Resources Committee, but also historic as, when he was on the Santa Cruz City Council with Mayor Jane Weed, they got the city's first curbside recycling program approved (the Santa Cruz landfill, Dimeo Lane, had a projected 20 year life back then, and now has a 30 year projected life; California's Redemption Value (bottle bill) is a mess (after Dangerous Dan's pitch for bottle redemption wherever you pay a deposit); legislature back in session a week from Monday, with California Redistricting on the table due to an existential threat - possible initiative for a November special election for a re-districting out of the commission's hands that would be in effect to 2030 only.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "Sassie Cassie", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

The "Dangerous Neighbors" theater troupe have been performing in Santa Cruz & the Bay Area since the early 1990s; this show was put on in June as a fundraiser for Santa Cruz Indivisible; political satire, and did it die (as Tom Lehrer famously said) when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize? The "Deflating Fascism" show is 1/2 political satire, and 1/2 random sketch comedy; the cast includes Gail Rich winner Suzanne Shrag, and Bob Vickers, who also leads the band; all of the pieces were written by Bob; in past Dangerous Neighbors shows they've skewered American Gun Culture; Bob monologue from the point of view of a convicted January 6 criminal; digital availability includes short films on location, available on the Dangerous Neighbors website.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "Sassie Cassie", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Anna & Joel joined Steve Poltz onstage at the recent Redwood Ramble for his song "Can of Pop", and then, on his urging, joined him in the mosh pit for his encore, "Ripple", with Joel on Tuba and Anna on vocals (& holding Steve's mic); Anna & Joel met at a band party in college (in Arkansas)...people had told Anna about Joel, and he walked in, guitar in hand - Anna introduced herself but Joel said, "Sing something!", and Anna began to scat; as Joel says, "Let autism be your super power!!"; they were touring in a bus 8 years ago, with a solar powered PA, when they got into a serious accident on Highway 49 in the Sierras; Joel ended up in a hospital in Nevada City (Grass Valley) for months while he recovered, so, now completely healed, Nevada City has a soft spot in their hearts; they played a sold out gig there last night; Joel got a song out of the accident, and it's now his "pity song", which he rolls out when he needs to reel the audience back in (see thier website for the Bus-king Documentary); Origin of the band name? They were in a 7 piece rock and roll band in college, "Don't Stop, Please" when they arrived at a gig and none of the rest of the band showed up; Anna & Joel played a stripped down, tender set, and called it "Handmade Moments" music; Anna plays guitar, uke, octave mandolin, upright & electric bass, sax, & bass clarinet (her favorite? Clarinet!); Joel plays tuba (his 1st instrument), guitar, bass, and mandolin; deep dive into incredible Mexican ballads Joel sang at Dan's camp at the Redwood Ramble - Joel loves Mexico and Mexican music (especially folk & traditional), and they were exposed to incredible songs by a flutist, Francisco, in Colombia, where Joel 1st heard "Sabor a mi"; Joel did a deep dive into who wrote it, and found Alvaro Carillo who, metaphorically, taught Joel (Alvaro has passed away); for shows, Handmade Moments just "goes with it", playing what they feel in the moment; song "Gravy" is about falling in love.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "Sassie Cassie", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

oe Weed is a musician, composer, fiddler, and documentary filmmaker; playing music since 7 years old; as a fiddler, remembers and passes along who you learned a song from, and who it's by..."Mystery of the Ookpit" is a film about a fiddle tune that was mistakenly assumed to be derived from Native American music, but instead was written in 1965 by a Canadian; it gained prominence when someone played it at the Weiser, Idaho, National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest, where it was declared the winner - at this festival, at the next year, everyone plays the previous year's winner; Joe had made a previous documentary (2011) on the Westphalia Waltz, which turned out to be a massive project; with the Ookpit Waltz, he set out to make a short film, but it grew & grew; Vals Buena Vista is a song about an intersection he found when bicylcing in south Santa Cruz County; Joe also plays fiddle for Contra Dances; how Joe came to California (post-WWII baby boomer migration), where the schools had extensive music programs; met his wife, Marty, in the mid-70's, and she was already living off Summit in the Santa Cruz Mountains; The Money Question? Yes, in all its forms (performing, producing, composing, filmmaking), but in part because his wife, a professor, had health care & retirement - he couldn't have done it without her.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

UCSC undergrad in the early 90's majoring in psychology with a minor in journalism (there was not an option to major in journalism), where she was a reporter, and then the editor, of the campus City On A Hill newspaper; she wanted a career in journalism, but first worked in finance, and accounts receivable at a law firm; her break, and her first paying journalism gig, was writing for a monthly motorcycle magazine (she rode for 27 years); she moved back to Santa Cruz, eventually working for a PR firm for a great boss; she interviewed at The Carmel Pine Cone and they made a note that she "will write anything", and started out with the local police logs (hand written, and faxed in); when their sportswriter quit and she got laid off, she asked the owner / publisher if they had a full time slot, which she started in March, 1999; The Money Question: is she able to make a living as a report / journalist, and if so, how? YES! Even though she lives in an expensive town (Carmel), she has a small house, a landlord who keeps rent reasonable, and a publisher who pays well & covers a significant portion of her benefits! For story ideas she keeps an eye on meeting agendas, and people come up to her pass ideas along - her beats are Carmel law enforcement, meetings, local issues (& motor sports!); there are 3 other reporters! Plus 3 on the sales team, office staff, and 5 on the production team; the owner (also editor & publilsher) bought the paper in 1997, and brought ideas on how to make it work; The Carmel Pine Cone has been around since 1915, one year older than Carmel itself, is a free weekly, and now has a circulation of 20,000 (delivered in Pacific Grove, else picked up), and an email subscription list of 23,000; local journalism can not only survive, but thrive! Huzzah!!

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Megan, and the other members of "The Musers", hails from Sonoma County; "The Musers" was an acoustic band project started by Megan and Anita Sandwina about 8 years ago...Anita is on vocal rest for another month, so the trio will play The Ugly Mug tomorrow night, with Tom Kuhn on upright bass, and Leslie Jackson on mandolin (plus fiddle, banjo, reso guitar, and harmonica) - all 3 sing; Anita & Megan and the songwriters, but they also do some covers, including some John Reischman tunes, plus Led Zeppelin; Megan had a career as a teacher, which allowed her to tour in the summers - but songwriting all the time; when she was a teacher, she put out 3 solo CDs; Megan leads a songwriters group in Oakland (and recommends this approach for aspiring songwriters); Tom plays his bass sometimes "Arco"-style, a German style of playing the bass with a bow; "The Musers", like many bands these days, relies on shows for income, with most of their music sold from the stage.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

1 week from today is the deadline for bills to pass out of the policy committee in the other house (not the house of origin); this last Monday broke the record for the # of emails Senator Laird received in a day, which blew up over a bill on anti-semitism - an interesting & emotional twisting & turning, with an elevated # of instances across the state, especially in schools; the original bill, SB715, was bare bones, and was amended in the Senate to specify the boundaries on discussing the topic in schools, and whether this should be included in the ethnic studies curriculum; usually, bills need to be visible for 30 days for "sunshine" before there are hearings, with this amended bill, there would only be 4 days, and "all hell broke loose", and it was painful beyond belief (Senator Laird's new staffer in charge of email had his first day Monday, the day that broke the record for # of emails received, John to new staffer, "please come back Tuesday" {he did}); there is a move to hold the bill, with a commitment to address it before the last day of September; but isn't the deadline a week from today? Yes, but that deadline can be put on hold with a waiver from the Rules Committee,or a 2/3 vote of the members; Senator Laird is on the rules committee, and will support a waiver if there is a negotiated bill that all parties can coalesce around; who leads this effort? the leadership of both houses; after next week's deadline, Senate will be on receses, and back in August for a 5 week sprint; over recess, Senator Laird is going to British Colombia to learn about how they handle recycling.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

The Salmonid Restoration Foundation's (SRF) 42nd Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference will be in Santa Cruz at the end of April; Dana has been Executive Director for 20 years; the conference is the largest Salmonid / watershed conference in the northwest; 550 people are registered, but it's a challenging time: starting last year, there was a freeze on state employees traveling, and now Federal; Santa Cruz will host the conference at a number of venues; the Klamath Dam removal is the largest dam removal in history - it took decades! The secret? You have to have a big team, and find common ground; after the dam's removal, it took days (!!) for salmon to start to return, and in months, more than 10,000 returned; what does Santa Cruz get out of hosting the conference? Economic impact, plus networking, learning, and history; lessons learned? Regional issues, and urban creek restoration and homelessness; definition of "anadromous" fish; SRF was created to hold the conference, but has expanded to do more.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" & "DJ Spark Plug", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.

Gail Pellerin is California's 28th Distict Assemblymember.

The legislature met their constitutional obligation to pass a budget by June 15, and they sent it to the governor - it's *very* different from what he sent over; there is significant uncertainty due to the federal government budget cuts and next year's budget, compounded by uncertainty over state tax income with LA having an extension; the legislature pushed back on the governor's budget - an example is the asset cap required to qualify for Medi-Cal: the governor wanted to revert to $2,000 (so if you own a car, you don't qualify), but the legislature stuck with current $130,000 for individual, $190,000 for couples; also pushed back on funding ($500 million) for women's health and family planning; also advocated to preserve ACEs Aware (Adverse Childhood Experiences Awareness Initiative); Governor has come around & is now working with legislature to address the PBM (Pharmacy Benefit Manager) "fox guarding the henhouse" problem; bills out of House of Origin include Semper Virens AB679 ("Third time's the charm?!!?"); Mike Rotkin passed away - a pillar of our community, former mayor, longtime city councilmember, Community Studies teacher; Alzheimer's webinar next Friday; deep dive into Gut & Amend, and need to get concurrence from all parties to utilize.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.