Santa Cruz

5 California Summer Session Beers to Drink Now

Beers built for long, hot desert summers like those we experience in Los Angeles must be moderately low in alcohol (or you'll drop before round two) and incredibly easy drinking. They must be thirst-quenching and so smooth you don't know how you reached the bottom of your glass or bottle in such sho ... More >>

WonderCon's Hip-Hop and Comics Event Might Be the Best Convention Panel We've Ever Seen

In Nineteen Eighty Five, the comic book series by James Reitano, a group of teens come of age as hip-hop hits Santa Cruz. Their lives are shaped by the a then-budding youth culture revolving around DJs, MCs, street artists and break dancers. Technically, the story is fiction, but it's inspired by Re ... More >>

Baristas Prepare for This Weekend's Southwest Regional Barista Competition

Starting today and going through the weekend, over 30 baristas -- including a good number from Los Angeles -- will be in Santa Cruz to compete in the Specialty Coffee Association of America's Southwest Regional Barista Competition. This would be one of six such regional competitions; the top 6 from ... More >>

Elisa Lam: Video Of Missing 21-Year-Old Released By LAPD

The LAPD this week released video of missing, 21-year-old Canadian Elisa Lam, hoping the imagery will help someone recognize her and call authorities. Cops say her disappearance is "suspicions;" they believe "foul play" might have played a role. The tourist was supposed to be en route to Santa Cru ... More >>

Elisa Lam: 21-Year-Old Missing From Downtown L.A. Possible Victim Of Foul Play

Cops were searching for a missing 21-year-old, Elisa Lam, who came to Los Angeles from Vancouver as a tourist. Unfortunately, investigators believe that her case is "suspicious" and might involve "foul play," according to an LAPD statement. She ended up in a sketchy part of downtown and stayed in a ... More >>

Fidlar Tour Diary Part II: Psychedelics, Germs and Pranks

[Editor's note: Highland Park four-piece Fidlar made a name for themselves last year for their explosive skate pop-punk. As we wrote in March, they were either on the brink of getting huge or flaming out; looks like it was the former. On the eve of their just-released self-titled debut album -- and ... More >>

Affirmative Action

Shark Attack Map of California Will Give You Chills in This Heat Wave

You will never be attacked by a shark. We guarantee it. The odds are 1 in 11.5 million. In 2010, in fact, you were 16 more times likely to have been killed by a dog than by a shark. And you haven't been killed by a dog lately, have you? And still, as we bake in summer heat, the allure of the Pacif ... More >>

Ecstasy Use Kills Memory; Even 10 Pills in a Year Will Have You Scratching Your Head

Ever talk to a graying raver about that great party in nineteen-ninety ... oh, what year was that again? Yeah. Unfortunately, this is bad news here in the rave capital of America: Yet another study has found that ecstasy can lead to memory loss. Not only that, but it apparently doesn't take much:

Google's Los Angeles Map Gets 3D, 'Flyover' Imagery For Smartphones: VIDEO

Google just unveiled 3D maps that let you virtually fly over Los Angeles and Long Beach. The cool visuals, however, aren't available for iPhone and iPad users yet; they're only good for Google's own Android system for now. According to the company, L.A. and Long Beach are among 15 American cities ... More >>

Little Red Lung: Slightly Gothic, Slightly Victorian, Slightly Cabaret

Months ago, the members of Little Red Lung made the long drive from L.A. to the woods of Felton, north of Santa Cruz. They met with photographer Sarah Sitkin in the middle of the night in a little cabin hidden deep in the woods, using their cellphones as makeshift flashlights, to shoot photos for wh ... More >>

Alfonso Ribeiro's 'Carlton Dance' Flash Mob Attempts Record (For Dorkiest Moves): VIDEO

Updated at the bottom with crowd estimates. First posted at 5:30 a.m. Alfonso Ribeiro of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air might do the nerdiest, preppiest dance of all time. But that didn't stop hundreds if not thousands of followers from joining him yesterday at Universal CityWalk and other locales in ... More >>

Katie Carguilo Wins U.S. Barista Championship; Intelligentsia's Charles Babinski Places Second

Over the weekend, Katie Carguilo took the champion title at the annual U.S.B.C. event -- that would be the United States Barista Championship and not the United States Bowling Congress (though that too apparently had everyone on pins and needles this weekend). Hosted by the Specialty Coffee Associa ... More >>

The Barista Who Compared a Coffee to Her Ex-Boyfriends Other Winners at the South West Regional Barista Competition

While some of us were reaching for copious amounts of coffee yesterday to cope with the loss of the hour, the city of Santa Cruz had its fill of caffeine. Over the weekend, more than 40 baristas from California, Hawaii, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado converged onto the beachside tow ... More >>

Cookbook Of The Week: Asian Tofu By Andrea Nguyen Is A Keeper Her Cashew Cardamom Fudge Recipe

Our cookbook this week is the just-released Asian Tofu: Discover the Best, Make Your Own, and Cook It at Home. Because if anyone can convince us to make tofu at home, it is Andrea Nguyen, the sort of tightly focused, thoughtful food writer who inspires you to explore a new subject (Vietnamese cuisin ... More >>

Smart Meter Resistance Spreads to SoCal: Are New Wireless Meters Spying on You, Making You Sick?

Burbank ACTION​Over 100 worried residents packed into the disco-themed ballroom of Moose Lodge in Glendale last night -- summoned by a growing base of health, privacy and consumer advocates lashing out against California's sketchy new method of measuring household energy use. The new wireless ... More >>

Free Giovanni Ramirez? After Being Wrongly Fingered in Bryan Stow Beating, He Wants Out of Prison

Free Giovanni?​Giovanni Ramirez, the reputed gang member wrongly fingered in the open-day beating of San Francisco Giants' fan Bryan Stow at Dodgers opening day, released a statement from behind bars this week in which he says the ordeal has him "upset," mainly because it affected his family. ... More >>

Illegal Immigrant Suspects Land on Santa Cruz Island, Call 911 in Bid to Return Home

Santa Cruz Island: Es un mirage.​Gosh. Imagine the disappointment. America! We made it. Wait, no. It's just a deserted island. No Lindsay Lohan. Not even a car wash. That was the case over the weekend when 15 suspected illegals landed on Santa Cruz Island, one of the famed Channel Islands o ... More >>

Skateboarder Plows Into 83-Year-Old Woman, Killing Her

Naoki Tomeno​A teen skateboarder who allegedly raced through a California stop sign broadsided an old lady in a crosswalk, leading to her death, authorities say. The 17-year-old from nearby Santa Cruz, who was not ID'd, wasn't arrested. The 83-year-old pedestrian, identified as Maryann Slette ... More >>

Bryan Stow, Dodgers Assault Victim, Still in Critical Condition: Here's How to Help

Stow with his kids​Today, the L.A. Dodgers play the San Francisco Giants again in NorCal. But what should have been an exciting rematch will be clouded by the critical condition of Bryan Stow. Stow, a Santa Cruz paramedic and San Francisco Giants fan, was attacked on Opening Day by two Dodger ... More >>

Dodgers Fans Who Beat Up S.F. Giants Fan Bryan Stow -- Still in Coma -- Get Sketched, Tagged With $10,000 Reward

LAPD​Outrage is mounting, both in San Francisco and Los Angeles, over Friday's very unsportsmanlike (to say the least) Opening Day beatdown in the Dodger Stadium parking lot. Assault victim Bryan Stow, a 40-year-old Santa Cruz paramedic with two small children who had travelled south to cheer ... More >>

SoCal Tsunami Watchers, Surfers Let Down By Anticlimactic Size of Waves

Venice311"Massive crowd at pier. Surfers and boats in water. LAPD copter telling people to move to no avail."​Hordes of curious rubberneckers rushed the Southern California coast this morning after 8 a.m. to witness their very own close-to-home aftermath of the 8.9 Japan catastrophe. (And what ... More >>

Bye Bye, California Sea Otter? Absurdly Cute Sea Mammal Is on the Outs, Say Scientists

Oh no you did not​Say it isn't so! The California sea otter, our No. 1 draw to water zoos and aquariums for as long as we can remember, has flippered its adorable little way to the environmental danger zone in a recent California Department of Fish and Game count. There's only 2,711 left in e ... More >>

Pete Licata Wins 2011 Southwest Regional Barista Championship

[For the record, an earlier version of this post incorrectly named Chris Baca as a the barista champ. In fact, Pete Licata is the barista champ and Baca, the winner of the Brewer's Cup. This is what happens when we try to write before having our morning coffee.] Intelligentsia Coffee produced tw ... More >>

Marijuana Soda Introduced by California Entrepreneur Clay Butler: Look for Refreshing Canna Cola in California This Spring

Canna ColaDon't spark it, sip it.​Marijuana is a little like sex. Its fans can't get enough of it -- any which way. There are pipes, bongs, joints, pills, vaporizers, candy, brownies and now ... Canna Cola. That's right. It was only a matter of time before a Californian said it's time to have ... More >>

Best of Artisanal LA: Cold Brewed Cola

I'd sworn off the soda/coffee combo after an unfortunate sip of Coke Black. (Really, all sips of Coca-Cola's noxious attempt to merge coffee and Coke were unfortunate.) The Cold Brewed Cola at the Cheese Cave booth, however, convinced me to try again.

Pot Shop Sells Marijuana Ice Cream: Cheech & Chong Movie Comes True (Sort Of)

​If you think L.A.'s medical marijuana dispensaries are brazen -- with some reopening after being closed down and others simply turning to delivery in the face of being outlawed -- they don't have anything on the pot shops up north, where at least one outlet is a stone-cold chiller. A new sto ... More >>

Coffee-Making: a Frothy Contest

Last Big Sardine Cannery Closes How to Become a Sardinista

Monterey Public Library, California History Room1943 storm hitting Monterey Harbor, pushing the sardine fleet onto shore​ Today the last big sardine cannery in America is closing its doors. The Stinson Seafood plant, located in Prospect Harbor, Maine, is closing after a century of operation, ... More >>

San Francisco's Little Fire Engines That Couldn't

Joe Eskenazi of our Bay Area sister publication, S.F. Weekly, writes that that city's fire department refuses to honor a state request to send a five-truck strike team to help Southern California battle its fires -- even as other northern cities have generously responded to the call from the State O ... More >>

Anti-Drought Rebates Dry Up

Isn't it like the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, when faced with a 100-year drought, to stop giving rebates to customers who purchase water-saving toilets and appliances? The official reason is that the rebate program was so popular among conservation-minded citizens served by t ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Catalina Boaters Missing The Coast Guard is searching for two men who set sail on a 27-foot boat Friday from Santa Catalina Island to Santa Cruz. Associated PressThe Cardinal Makes an Offer Cardinal Roger Mahony will announce today that the L.A. Archdiocese will invite LAUSD Students to participate ... More >>

Sweet Smell of Secession: Another Move to Split California

To hear Bill Maze tell it, L.A. County takes all the money generated by the rest of hard-working California and squanders it on stuff like "public services and education." Not only that, says the termed-out Assemblyman, but you've got places up north like San Francisco and Marin County that always v ... More >>

Five for the Road: The California Touring Project

Five dance troupes from around the state join together

Five for the Road

The California Touring Project draws together troupes from around the state

Letters: Buk, Booth and the Burbs

Our readers write

Weekends With Jerry

Elf-ing cute!

Elf cafe, located at 2315 Sunset Blvd. in Echo Park on the same block as American Apparel and next to the abandoned movie theater, has no phone or website, but since this teeny vegetarian bistro is owned by the members of the band Viva K., they do have a myspace page. Elf, just so you know, is 18 y ... More >>

Little Sister the Sky is Falling

Stories from a California girl FICTION

Mush Is Good Music

Mysto Laurel Canyon indie label scores again with Tree Colored See

New Stuff We Like

Crossed Wires

Hi Hi, Birdies

The Hobohemians

On the rails with the new freedom riders

The Face of Pirate Cat Radio

Screwing the Airwaves Since 1997

The Robert Downey Jr. Celebrity Crime Blotter

The Contender

Beverly Hills’ Chadwick

While You Were Sleeping

Mapping the dreamscape of dream research

The Grapes of L.A.

Winemaking can once again be local

Streetwalkin' Times Woman