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Critics' Picks
Most Persistent Busker
The Pacific Garden Mall has its regulars: Annoying Ventriloquist Clown, Thinks-She's-Joni-Mitchell Girl, Actually Talented Steel-Guitar Guy, Booming Baritone Man and Tuneless Flute Dude, among others. These people earn distinction partly because of their undeniable presence of character, but also because of their persistence. And that's where the hero of this story comes in--the Violinist of Gibraltar. This small, wizened man has been performing on the streets of downtown Santa Cruz since the mid-1980s. When he first started, he sounded like a cross between a whale in heat and a car with no brake pads. But after playing almost every day for nearly 20 years, our hero has improved. Itzak Perlman may have the one-up on talent, but the Violinist gets a medal for, if nothing else, sheer determination. (Barbara McKenna)
Best Symbolic Interpretations
Signs say a lot about a town. On a recent excursion to our southside Monterey Bay neighbor, Carmel, I couldn't help but notice all the KEEP OUT, NO TRESPASSING and PRIVATE PROPERTY signs. In downtown Los Angeles, signs are in Chinese, Spanish and English. Then there's Santa Cruz--fragile refugee camp for American Progressives (formerly known as "liberals"), tourist beach escape for drab Silicon Valley types, party central college town--surf's up bra! All these factors, from the touchy-feely sensitive tree-hugger to the dedicated surfer, seem to play a role in the type of signs you find in town. Take the red stop sign at the Metro Bus station that reads WHOA instead of STOP. Or my personal favorite, on Gault Street just off of Frederick Street in the Seabright area, where the yellow diamond displays the silhouette not of a family of ducks, or a man crossing the street--but a squirrel. So what does this say about SC? One word comes to mind: playful. (David Espinoza)
Best Nectar of the Gods
The atmosphere of Santa Cruz already makes me feel like a goddess, so having fresh nectar available every week only seems appropriate. I don't even care that I don't have manservants to bring it to me in a goblet. All I have to do is finesse my way through the bohemian throngs at the downtown Farmers Market to Tri-Weber Farm's treasure chest/cooler stocked with the magic elixir. Usually I can't resist opening the carton's fuchsia-plastic seal right away for a sip. As soon as I imbibe that ruby liquid, I feel as if every cell in my body perks up and cheers YES! (Rebecca Patt)
Best Seafood Visuals
Once a haunt for patchouli refugees and aromatherapy dropouts, Staff of Life now bustles with must-have, fresh, organic and hard-to-find products. Although it's tough to tear oneself away from the eye-candy of the fresh sushi bento boxes, it is well worth making it on over to the natural meats and seafood section. Here your eyes can feast on fish as fantasy sculpture. Huge halibuts and striped bass lie like odalisques on beds of crushed ice piled high into huge baskets and wooden chests at the foot of the opulent fish section. Acres of crimson salmon and brilliant tombo tuna fill the case, next to stacks of fresh-off-the-boat Dungeness crabs and gorgeous silvery tangles of calamari. This display is frankly irresistible, from the mosaics of oysters to the coves of cod. And it grills up just as good as it looks. (Christina Waters)
Best Radio Show for a Midnight Dance Freakout
There's something unheard-of happening on the airwaves. Just when the bedbugs begin to bite, Hostess Miss Jennifah Chard is ready to get to work. The Zombie Jamboree is a cornucopia of funky weirdness. This is independent radio at its finest--eclectic mixes, great tunes and spoken word seldom heard on public airwaves. Miss 'Fah will give you a little bit of everything. She is the segue queen--she will find THE perfect way to mix up a Jim Neighbors cryfest with Japanese hip-hop and she collects rare covers. Where else can one enjoy six completely different versions of the Night Rider theme that one can actually dance to? Ouch, I just careened into my entertainment center dancing to B52's at 1am. The Zombies are sucking on my brain. Thanks for staying up late and making nightlife just a little bit funkier, 'Fah. (Claudia Buchsbaum)
Best All-American Diner
Like a mother's womb, the Wooden Nickel is a primal comfort zone. Tucked in the busy intersection of Freedom and Green Valley in Watsonville since 1979, its inconspicuous, fortresslike facade conceals a wooden interior featuring a Budweiser/large game animal/football motif, a jukebox, cheerful waitresses and a line of regular patrons sitting at the long bar, some scratching at the Lotto tickets sold there. The varied menu includes the Nickel Special--a colossal avocado-bacon-mushroom cheeseburger (served rare, just like I requested) on a loaf of French bread, accompanied by fresh, creamy coleslaw and home-cut fries. The pièce de résistance is that every lunch plate comes with a frosted square of cake that tastes just like the Duncan Hines recipe Mom used to make. (Rebecca Patt)
Best Mover and Shaker
Santa Cruz County's darling doyenne of dance, Sara Wilbourne, has made movement her mission. From her days as a student at the University of Montana and the University of Utah, Wilbourne has evinced an unshakable belief in the significance of dance. She's been a member of Tandy Beal and Company, collaborated with artists like poet Morton Marcus and performance artist Bruce Lee and won accolades ranging from a Gail Rich award to an Outstanding Alumni award from the University of Montana. Wilbourne's vision is cross-pollinated with boundless imagination. Both came in handy when establishing Santa Cruz 's National Dance Week. An articulate schemer who moves with intelligent grace, this gal's got charisma in spades. (Julia Chiapella)
Best New Mall Gig
I don't know their names--all I know is THEY ROCK! Tired of all the classic rock covers that are being masticated on Pacific Avenue every weekend, I was excited to hear this hilarious duo. One guy plays guitar and the other plays this "amplified" kazoo--meaning he attaches some kind of funnel to make the kazoo louder and then wraps the whole thang in foil. The songs are original, and they're funny in a Tenacious D-kinda way (without the lyrics). I wish I knew who they are. I want their tape. Check these guys out soon and put some change in their kazoo-case--they deserve it. (Claudia Buchsbaum)
Best Place to Green a Thumb
Meditation, reciting Shakespeare and making out aren't officially sanctioned at San Lorenzo's Garden Center, but the atmosphere is ideal for all three. The walkways of this super-Eden wind through bubbling fountains, groves of young trees, flowering plants, stone benches and religious statuary. A background symphony of dozens of chimes and water fountains sounds like some New Age CD recording for stress relief. It doesn't cost a dime to venture into this labyrinth of chlorophyll, but it's impossible to leave without spending at least a few bucks on a bonsai starter, a laughing stone Buddha or a bottle of bat guano. (Christa Fraser)
Best Hot Chocolate This Side of Paris
For the richest, darkest, most sinful cup of cocoa, it's going to take a Concorde, le Metro and many, many hours to get to the world-famous Cafe Angélina, located kitty-corner from the Louvre Museum. Instead, save a few days and a couple grand and belly up to Chocolate on Pacific Avenue for a XXX-rated cup of hot chocolate. Chef-about-town David Jackman's latest restaurant installment, a paean to the world's most beloved bean, features a vast array of chocolate goodies. But Jackman has outdone himself on the liquid front, offering six kinds of hot cocoa representing the outer reaches of the culinary world. On a chilly night--even on a balmy night, for that matter--nothing tops a steaming mug of traditional Italian hot chocolate, ladled out from a vat behind the counter. Nothing, that is, except the pastry-quality whipping cream carefully squeezed around the rim. (Kelly Luker)
Best Place to Achieve Enlightenment
You must begin at 4pm from somewhere up on the West Side. This is crucial, since the agonizing slow build-up of tension, frustration and utter amazement at just how much $^&*(%@! traffic there is in Santa Cruz helps set up the satori effect to come. By the time you've oozed down High Street and managed to enter the Highway 1 flow, you should be in a state of sensory overload, high blood pressure and extreme bladder distress. This is good. Now as you consider switching lanes, you'll begin to experience erratic brain waves, as tail lights flicker off and on, putting you into a mild but noticeable hypnotic trance. Go with the flow here. Just at the point where cars entering from the Highway 17 fishhook appear to be headed directly for your vehicle, notice how every other car lets one and only one car from the other lane fit in ahead of them. This awareness of mutual acceptance could never occur at speeds in excess of 30 mph. Only in this gridlock situation does the sixth chakra open completely and invite you to feel the synergy surging from the top of your head--the portal to the Eternal Now. And you thought this was just weekend rush hour. Ha! This is Satori, Santa Cruz Style-and it's absolutely free. (Christina Waters)
Cleanest Sweeps
Wearing electric-orange vests and tossing high-decibel banter across the streets, the eight members of the Downtown Litter Abatement Crew have been bringing multiple types of sparkle to Pacific Avenue since last September. All eight crew members come to their jobs through the Skills Center, qualifying for positions because they have been diagnosed with either developmental disabilities or traumatic brain injuries. As they wend their way down the mall five days a week--gathering up debris and scattering positive vibrations--the members of this industrious crew stand out in sharp contrast to the disaffected urban-punk wannabes and smug natty-haired hipsters whose cigarette butts and used napkins they clean up. (Barbara McKenna)
Best View of the Bay
Top of the World certainly isn't the peak of anything--it isn't even the highest point in Santa Cruz. Though Monterey and Big Sur are visible on a clear day, the view is modest to the uninitiated. Thus, those new to its charms must never be driven to the sacred spot. They must run or mountain bike the several miles of narrow and vertigo-inducing single-track trails from Market Street, or be forced to play a woodsy round of disk golf or traditional golf. Only then, with a swig of a favorite beverage passed between friends, can they truly appreciate the view from the Top. (Christa Fraser)
Best-Dressed Toilet
One of God's cruel jokes was giving women bladders the size of cashew nuts. For those with the double-X chromosome, life is what happens in between a never-ending search for clean, well-lit bathrooms. Imagine our pleasure then, on stumbling into the WC at Beverly Fabrics and being greeted by a vision of frothy gingham and chintz beauty. Stenciled ivy leaves border the walls, the tiny sink nestles in a lovely skirt and each corner is appointed in a veritable Versailles of silk flowers. It's as if St. Martha herself dropped in and decorated the joint. It helps that this craft store is training ground for some of the deadliest glue-gun-slingers in the West. Their best advertisement is a spot most women will visit, sooner or later. Probably sooner. (Kelly Luker)
Best Place to Ponder Energy Conservation
My friend Josie once asserted that people who go to the gym have no soul. Her comment stung a bit (I was a devoted member of 24-Hour Fitness). But she was making a good point about the pointless effort of us gymboes. Why can't our energy be used to run us around the neighborhood where we might see a hummingbird or a great blue heron? Or better yet, why can't our energy be harnessed? Conan the Barbarian spent his childhood pushing a big wheel in a circle like a mule and got buff while powering the village microwave or something. Engineers? Can't we find a way to turn our blood, sweat and tears back into energy? (Mike Connor)
Best Higher-Power Pellet
Like a Scooby Snack for that dope-smoking dog or a Power Pellet for Pac-Man, a gardenburger at Jack's hits the spot every time. Somewhere between the gardenburger patty and the special sauce, someplace to the East of the french fries and sometime before the creation of the heavenly whole-wheat bun, someone wanted to tell us something. It's a message encoded in the international language of the taste buds. By the grace of Jack's, we can experience the wrapped-in-a-wax-paper-sheath goodness of the gardenburger basket, an edible ode to the One Eternal Syllable: YUMMMMMMM. (Mike Connor)
Best Chain-Store Artisan Bread
Once politically incorrect, loving chain-store stuff is chic again. We fearlessly flaunt our Mossimo labels from Target and raise a mighty toast with our Starbucks mugs to all things good and right with megacorporations. The sad truth is that cheap stuff will always outsell outrageously priced stuff, as long as the quality's about the same. Or better. Take Nob Hill's Old World Bread, for instance. Baked throughout the day in Nob Hill's on-site bakery, these soft, chewy loaves can usually be found still warm to the touch. The fragrant yeastiness of Roasted Garlic, Rustic French, Calamata-Olive and Potato-Rosemary invade that corner of the grocery store, momentarily transporting the weary shopper to the Old World. The best part? They're $2.49 to $2.99 a loaf; even less than the Evil Empire's caramel macchiato. (Kelly Luker)
Best Booty Shaker
She isn't the first dance teacher to inspire students, but she is one of the best. Her African-inspired dance classes offer participants way more than choreography, although there's fancy footwork aplenty. Debbie's all-inclusive manner make you feel welcome from the minute you arrive. And live drummers help you whoop it up each week with their rhythmic muscle power. Suddenly you're part of an intimate village, shaking your booty and wiggling your hips to the rhythms of the African subcontinent. Gyrate to the snake dance, cradle the moon, fly like a bird and let your feet follow Debbie and her drummers until you collapse into a sweaty but delighted heap. (Sarah Phelan)
Best Street Salon
This is a world of hooded sweatshirts, knapsacks, dogs on ropes and year-long beards. "Vision of a Hamburger," says one particularly rakish hand-printed cardboard sign. From where the bearer sits, surrounded by an equally soiled and stained entourage, he can hear the sounds of manic flute music, performed by a colleague in the alcove of the next-door theater. Good echoes in that alcove. The salon morphs throughout the morning, depending on who comes and goes through the doors of Peet's and Noah's. Raconteurs who feel the need to meet the public sit with their signs proclaiming religious sincerity, "God bless!" and former military service. Mostly these are folks who refuse to let a work schedule interfere with their personal freedom. The request for a handout is only the excuse to stay firmly nailed to their little chunk of the asphalt jungle, and schmooze. (Christina Waters)
Best Sommelier
At first glance you might think he's Harry Potter's big brother, but don't let Hugh's boyish bespectacled face and tousled brown hair fool you. When you pull up a stool to the bar at Ristorante Avanti, you're in the hands of a Dionysian pro. Choose your meal and let him divine the perfect wine to suit your fickle palate. Not hungry? Take a wine flight and chat about esters and legs with Hugh, a man whose knowledge of the vine is matched only by the dryness of his wit. (Mike Connor)
Best Place to Get High
Anyone who's flown from Los Angeles to San Francisco knows it costs only the price of a short-hop airline ticket to get as high as you can possibly get in Santa Cruz County. Along a coastal California highway-in-the-sky, airplanes begin the long, slow decent to San Francisco International Airport on the Big Sur Two Arrival, a high-speed and high-altitude route into the Bay Area's complex and congested airspace. Once jets cross the Monterey Bay, they fly directly over Santa Cruz, marking their position in the sky according to a pair of navigational fixes, called "intersections," that have uniquely Santa Cruz names. Typically, air traffic control directs planes to descend to 12,000 feet before crossing the SKUNK intersection, located in the hills near UCSC--presumably where striped stinkers roam and pernicious, illicit weeds grow. From there, air traffic control steps airline traffic down to 10,000 feet before crossing the BOLDR intersection, located high in the pure mountain air over Boulder Creek. (Rob Pratt)
Best Precognition of Your Order
Perhaps you've experienced it too. You order your burrito and then, as you turn around to get your salsa and before you've even gotten a chance to spoon your salsa into the little salsa cup, a voice calls out, "Vente y cuatro? Twenty-four?" You're dumbfounded, because you're number 24, and you feel ashamed because you're standing there with a spoon the size of your head and a cup the size of your toe which you couldn't fill in the same amount of time it took them to make a burrito the size of your arm. Clearly, some sort of psychic activity is happening here. I know what you're going to say. I could have scooped the salsa faster if I'd only had a bigger container, or a smaller spoon. Yeah, OK, but your burrito is made to order, and have you mastered the origamilike folding technique that enables a burrito to retain its vital juices while standing upright? I didn't think so. (Mike Connor)
Most History You Can Buy
Patricia Wilder, caretaker of the Golden Gate Villa since 1967, is ready to sell Beach Hill's 22-room yellow and purple mansion to the right person for the right price. Built in 1891 by Major McLaughlin, the Villa displays over $1 million in stained glass, including a huge jewel-encrusted Agnes McLaughlin containing strands of her tresses to achieve a "true-to-life" hair color. Major McLaughlin killed his stepdaughter Agnes in the house and poisoned himself. Witness to tragedy and frivolity alike, the McLaughlin s entertained Thomas Edison and Teddy Roosevelt. As if the history and mystery were not enough, the entryway motto promises that "He who enters here leaves all cares behind." A bargain at any price. (Lydia Graecyn)
Best Seasonal Affliction
The first twinges of delirium seem harmless--the cherry blossoms luring me from my desk, the sun lingering in the afternoon inducing me to get out and stretch my legs. And wait ... is that jasmine I sniff? Then spring fever strikes as the first iris blossom, conceived from a homely bulb I planted five months ago, emerges like a rock-star bride from a wedding cake. As if I were the one being reborn, sprouting up green and tender through cool earth to be kissed by sunlight, as if the goat god Pan had taken up street performing, leaping around bellowing orgiastic flute symphonies on Pacific Avenue, I am good for little but frolicking like a puppy on the beach. (Rebecca Patt)
Best Place to Throw Punches
I've never punched anyone in my life, probably never will. But I have begun to take fantasy swings at whatever is currently bugging me about my life, as I jab with my left, all while dancing the boxer's fleet-footed dance during Michael's kick-butt kickboe class. What better way to offload stress and psych myself up for the Next Big Thang, while trying to perfect uppercuts, all against a backdrop of pulsating techno music. Imagining myself as one of Brad Pitt's spikey groupies in Snatch (I'll be lucky), I watch myself throw a right hook, as the delightfully inked and muscled Michael good-naturedly puts us through our paces, with nary a word about my utterly grrrlie punch and push-up technique. It all happens within the pleasantly airy workout room in Toadal Fitness, within a stone's throw of the town's best watering holes. Getting fit has never been such furious fun. (Sarah Phelan)
Most Nostalgia-Inducing Nightclub
Up until fall 2001, Palookaville provided a second large nightclub for downtown, bringing more variety to live music lovers, another venue for acts touring California and more competition for other area nightclubs. This joint had it all: great acoustics; beautiful concert posters; friendly, dedicated management; and a dance floor where scores of Santa Cruzans have stellar memories of getting their groove on. Kismet Café made a home there, serving up fine vegetarian munchies and coffee drinks. Now the one-time hot spot breathing life, art and music into downtown is nothing but a vacant building that temporarily housed a bargain store of Asian knickknacks during the holiday shopping season. What a bummer. (Rebecca Patt)
Best Place to Drown in Debt
If you had to choose one place to max out the credit cards and suck the savings account dry before being run out of town, what better place than Santa Cruz? Lay back and admire the banana slug sliming past your face as you awake in your "rustic" toolshed--the only hovel you can afford to rent in this overpriced town. Observe the fog drifting through the redwoods as you bike to work--a commuting choice you were forced to make when your car died the same week you got laid off from your job. Contemplate the blue heron spearing fresh salmon, while you eat day-old muffins on the San Lorenzo River levee during your lunch break from your newest--and lowest-ever paying--job. Gawk at the surfers, the sea lions and the sunset as you peddle past Steamers Lane on your way to your second job, which pays even less than your first. And howl at the moon with Coyote when you arrive home after midnight, only to find an eviction notice stuck on your door. (Sarah Phelan)
Best Dog to Chase and Catch At It's Beach
Dog lovers are often fiercely loyal to particular breeds, remorselessly withholding their affection from other, cuter dogs. Enter the pug, trotting rakishly amongst the canines at It's beach. With its smashed-in face and chubby little wrinkles, it is followed, sniffed, trounced or simply ignored and run over by bigger dogs. Pugs often get lost in the shuffle so it takes a keen eye to spot one from afar. Catching a pug is a difficult yet worthwhile effort, like catching a leprechaun. But instead of a pot of gold, the lucky captor gets the softest, cutest, snuggliest little snortasaurus on the planet. I highly recommend it. (Mike Connor)
Best Place to Get Leg Cramps
"Should we cycle that ridiculously painful trail that heads straight up or the masochistic trail that climbs and climbs?" Such are the decisions awaiting mountain bikers at the base of Wilder Ranch. The joke is that to access the sweet single tracks that drop into the redwoods and over logs and exposed roots, like Old Cabin or Enchanted Loop, a mountain biker must first accumulate massive stores of lactic acid buildup by pedaling ever upward. But upon reaching the top of the ride and noshing on a yummy bag of gelatinous power gel, a Spandex warrior can reap the rewards of the grind: the descent. (Christa Fraser)
Best Place to Flirt With Death (And Geese)
Thrill-seekers, strap on your helmets and point your bikes toward downtown, from Seabright via Murray. Pass the stop sign at the East Cliff intersection, take a deep breath and start praying. As you round the bend, speeding tons of vehicular steel will brush within inches of you, completely unaware of your presence. Hope they don't hit you. Gather speed as you head downhill toward Hiawatha, but beware of cars anxious to merge, creeping, creeping out in front of you. Continue gathering speed until the bend at the bottom of the hill, then signal your intention to turn left and hope the cars hurtling down the hill behind you oblige. Eye the bike path on the other side of the road longingly as you wait for an opportunity to cross. If you succeed, feel free to flirt with the geese by the river--you've earned it. (Mike Connor)
Best Place to Show Out-of-Towners Something They Can't See at Home
Take them up to the beginner's loop. Force them out of the car and lead them into the heart of the primeval forest. Don't say anything, just let it all sink in. Let them get close to 275-foot-high redwoods more than 2,000 years old, so tall and monumentally huge that sunlight falls in shafts thinner than Calista Flockhart. Let them walk into hollows created by lightning strikes centuries ago. Encourage them to touch the bark and soak up some of that ancient energy. Watch their mouths hang open, and their necks stretch just to see the tops of these majestic botanical creatures. The walk takes a half hour, but it leads back into the dawn of history in this hemisphere. Whatever they might say about the Boardwalk, the beach or even our hippie population--there's nothing like this back in New Jersey. (Christina Waters)
Most Material Girls
On par with a psychedelic religious experience, Hart's Fabrics is a spacious, multitextured, rainbow world where the possibilities are endless: you can be anything you want to be. Thousands of fabrics fill the store floor-to-ceiling, sold from fat rolls by the yard, plus a huge collection of embellishments, patterns and notions. From velvet, corduroy, sheer, silk and fake fur to prints--featuring everything from frosted doughnuts to the best-selling Virgin of Guadalupe motif--each fabric inspires a different mood. A strategy center, supply point and textile petting zoo for some of Santa Cruz's most creative and crafty minds, Hart's has a friendly, knowledgeable staff that lavishes shoppers with personal attention to help turn their visions into reality. (Rebecca Patt)
Best Place to Ski
So it's raining in Santa Cruz and you have neither the time nor the money to go to Tahoe. No problem. Just grab your spare change and head for the Boardwalk's video arcade, where you'll find cyber ski runs that'll get your pulse racing without breaking the bank. Feed your machine four tokens and next minute you'll be racing with the best of them, but without having to endure frostbite or lengthy lineups. Even better, you can bash into mountainsides, plough through pine trees and do back flips without landing in the local ER. A more recent machine features anime cyberskiers who elbow fellow skiers out of their way and throw tantrums when they lose. The best part of the experience is the backdrop--all those mysteriously glooping and dinging machines grouped together in what feels like a subterranean time warp, where young boys, grown men and the occasional woman warrior stand transfixed as they play Pac-Man, Rampage and other video arcade classics. (Sarah Phelan)
Best Cookie
Walking down Pacific Avenue, sensory stimuli is already tickling me, from the street musicians to the neon pulse of the Del Mar marquee, to the sidewalk selection of $4.99 CDs at Discount Records. Then suddenly the scent of butter, sugar and chocolate grabs me like a vaudevillian performer on a stage. I am pulled into the stark interior of the Pacific Cookie Company, producer of the best cookies I've ever had, specifically the Almond Joe: an exquisite blend of melted globs of chocolate chips, almond specks and rich coconut. Back on the street, set back a mere 80 cents, I nibble my cookie's delectable outside crispiness and center chewiness and walk on air for two blocks. (Rebecca Patt)
Readers' Choice:
It's a Sign! Readers speak out on the not-so-beloved River Street landmark.
Beat the Stuffers: Our amateur forensic analysts keep the voting honest.
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