SLO LIFE Magazine Oct/Nov 2014

Q&A

Of course, when we met with Linnaea Phillips we did it over a cup of coffee. And what did she have to say for herself? It was absolutely insightful.

On The Rise

Seventeen-year-old Ruby Callahan impressed us with her compassion for others and hankering for debate.

Business

Consultant Jim Rizzi discusses the difficulties in hiring new employees and dishes out some failproof strategies for getting the job done.

Out and About

In search of some classic family fun, Jeanette Trompeter is bowled over when she heads to Pismo Beach.

Dwelling

We dropped in with architect Laura Joines to get a glimpe of her self-designed digs.

Real Estate

Check out the year-to-date statistics of home sales for the city and county of San Luis Obispo.

What’s Hot Now

Get on trend and step it up with these stand out styles and discover where to get yours now.

Inspiration

Living legend Dr. Lou Tedone shares his secret to staying healthy, maintaining “famiglia prima,” and perspectives on a life well-lived.

Voter Guide

Take a look at the candidates running for San Luis Obispo city council and mayor, as well as Measures D, G, and L and get out to vote.

Explore

Looking for a creative night out, Paden Hughes stops into a climbing gym and discovers new heights in dating.

Health

Looking to get fit? Check out these ten kettlebell exercises guaranteed to flex your muscles.

Kitchen

Always local and always in season, chef Jessie Rivas shares his favorite abalone dish.

Arts

The key to this successful show? Collaboration. As they prepare for their production of Aida, we checked in with leaders for Opera San Luis Obispo, Civic Ballet, Central Coast Children’s Choir, Ballet Theatre San Luis Obispo, CORE dance company, Deyo Dances, and Studio@Ryan’s American Dance.

Now Hear This

Alternative county band Dead Volts rocks the Central Coast music scene with their gritty, raw, live shows.

Local Playlist

We took a listen to new albums by local musicians Derek Senn, Doug Groshart, Joe Koenig and Próxima Parada.

Happenings

Looking to fill your calendar with fun? Browse through the best events the Central Coast has to offer.

The Last Word

See how one neighborhood is taking a stand and building a community among its college student population.

The Neti Pot

It seems that every couple of months San Luis Obispo is named to another “Best of” list. What those magazines fail to tell you, however, is that while it may be the “Happiest Place on Earth,” it is also the “Allergy-est Place,” too.

For whatever reason, my allergies have been raging this year. Maybe the drought is causing something weird to bloom, or perhaps, as a friend of mine suspects, it’s the wine grapes, which seem to be the only thing getting any water these days. As I have bellyached about my headaches quite a bit to just about anyone who is willing to listen, I often hear back, “Try a Neti Pot—I swear by mine.”

So, I decided to give it a whirl. For a quick tutorial, I went to YouTube and typed in “Neti Pot instruction.” While I had expected to see a whole bunch of crunchy, granola-types demonstrating the technique, I actually found a lot of normal, everyday-looking people who were making comments during their tutorial such as, “This has changed my life.” I was sitting at the edge of my seat, while forcing myself to ignore the suggested video clips filed under “Epic Neti Pot Fails.”

Still I was determined to hedge my bets and hold off spending the $15 on an authentic Neti Pot until I knew it would work. So I went into our kitchen in search of a miniature teapot, which is what those things are anyway. Rummaging through the cupboard I found one. As I attempted to stuff the spout into my left nostril, I realized that this was most definitely not going to work. So, I headed out to buy one and the helpful clerk, who also “swears by” hers, gave me a dry run demonstration. Full of confidence, I returned home to prepare the warm salt water for its unfortunate journey through the caverns in my face.

As I stood in front of the mirror at the bathroom sink, I considered the idea that I may have hit rock bottom in my war on Central Coast allergens. I lifted the pot to my nose, stuck it in my right nostril and tilted my head to the left. The sensation as the warm salt water flowed through my sinuses was nothing short of nasal nirvana. As I was watching the stream coming out of my opposite nostril—I was told that there would be all sorts of cleansing going on and not to be surprised at what might come out—I was secretly hoping to see the Pete Rose rookie baseball card I had lost many years ago magically reappear. As I pondered the thought, the bathroom door swung open and I saw my three kids looking at me in horrified astonishment. One of my boys yelled out, “Dad! Dad! The water is going in one nose and coming out your other nose!”

I explained to him, mid-pour, that it was not “another nose,” but a “nostril.” For whatever reason, to a five-year-old kid, especially in the nasally way I pronounced it, the word “nostril” is hilarious. We all burst into laughter, which led to my near drowning as the saline went down the “wrong tube.” I gasped and chocked and laughed some more. And tears streamed down my face, as I realized how ridiculous I looked.

The next morning when I woke up, something was different. It was not a 100% black and white difference, but I felt better, lighter, and, for once during a stretch of months, my allergy symptoms had eased. I couldn’t believe it—that little teapot really worked! I have since continued the practice—my kids love to watch—with similar results. While I have yet to find Pete Rose up there, I will say that it has made the “Allergy-est Place on Earth” a little less, um, “Allergy-er.”

I would like to take this opportunity to say “thank you” to everyone who had a hand in producing this issue of SLO LIFE Magazine and, most of all, to our advertisers and subscribers—we couldn’t do it without you.

Live the SLO Life!

Tom Franciskovich tom@slolifemagazine.com

A SNEAK PEEK

BEHIND the scenes

BY CHRIS BERSBACH

AAbout halfway through our first roll of film, Eric asked if I’d like to include a book of his in the images. “Of course,” I told him; props are always an option for portraiture, especially when the sitter has selected an object that’s meaningful to them. When Eric brought the book out, I thought the choice was a bit odd, considering the boldly selfeffacing—perhaps even self-deprecating—title. He said that he found the cover amusing. Actually, he told me that’s why he bought the book in the first place, and that the title reminded him of the recent “normcore” (“normal” + “hardcore”) fashion trend, which he explained to me is essentially an embrace of bland, anti-fashion attire to intentionally avoid distinguishing yourself as a result of your clothing.

The full Meet Your Neighbor piece wasn’t drafted until after the cover shoot, but when I was able to read the article, it finally occurred to me that “Dare to be Dull” makes perfect sense for Eric, who created Simple Shoes, as well as several other sports clothing and footwear brands, and then stepped away from a life that was outwardly successful, but rather complicated, and not personally fulfilling for him. It’s always interesting to me the “tells” that come about in these shoots—and Eric picking up that particular book says a lot about him and what he’s all about.

Elder Placements guides you through the difficult decision making process.

After our evaluation, we take you to tour the appropriate facility that will give your parent the care and quality of life they deserve.

Whether it’s Assisted Living, Alzheimer Dementia Care or Independent Living, we do the legwork for you at NO COST.

We Want to Hear from You!

Have some comments or feedback about something you’ve read here? Or, do you have something on your mind that you think everyone should know about? Let us know! To have your letter to the editor considered for publication in the “In Box” section, please email it to info@slolifemagazine.com. Be sure to include your full name and city. And, it’s best to keep it to 250 words or less.

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Our advertisers get great results and we would like to tell you about it, but first we want to know about you and the objectives of your business. Call us at (805) 543-8600 to talk with our publisher, Tom, about different advertising programs—we have something for every sized budget. Or, you can log on to slolifemagazine.com/advertise and we can send you a complete media kit and loads of testimonials from happy advertisers.

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PUBLISHER

Tom Franciskovich

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Sheryl Disher

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Jeanette Trompeter

Paden Hughes

Dawn Janke

Jessie Rivas

Jim Rizzi

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Chris Bersbach

James A. Crawford

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NOTE

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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Letters chosen for publication may be edited for clarity and space limitations.

You said it...

BY TOM FRANCISKOVICH

thought-out and perhaps even home run for the university and the city. But, the message will likely be drowned-out by all the background noise coming from the lingering questions and uncertainty remaining over the size of the growing student population and lack of oncampus housing. The steady drumbeat is bound to become louder until we arrive at our “Help me, help you” moment. And there are signs that we may be heading in that direction.

election. The guy had some great ideas and was absolutely dead-on about climate change and the environment, but he lost out to someone who was simply better at connecting. In the polling question, “Who would you rather have a beer with?” George W. Bush won hands down. As Armstrong shares the specifications of the hotel project in an unmistakable Arkansas drawl—a 150 to 200 room facility with a 1,000 person conference center—I cannot help but think that Cal Poly has a similar problem; because their idea for hotel and conference center, much like Gore’s prescience on global warming, appears well

“In the next six-to-twelve months, we are going to be engaging in an open discussion looking into the appropriate size of Cal Poly with respect to the constraints we face within the city, especially off-campus housing,” Armstrong begins in conciliatory tone. “We know that there are things we need to work on, and become better at, and we expect that in late September, early October we can start to have those sorts of conversations with the community.” Although he did not explain precisely what shape those talks may take, it is clear that Armstrong would much rather be thinking big ideas and moving the university forward than picking fight with the neighbors. Yet, it is ASLON and the rest of the residents of San Luis Obispo, people referred to as “stakeholders” in the parlance of academic conferences, who are likely to determine the level of noise and distraction that will exist going forward. Or, maybe it is the building frustration that will finally allow for breakthrough. As the almond brittle maker, Hall, reasons in an unhurried explanation: “That’s why it’s best to move forward with litigation, because it gives everyone a chance to pause and figure out what’s best for the campus and the community.” In other words, what may look like fightin’ may actually mean

Thank you for your special feature article HELP ME, HELP YOU

You do a great job covering the concerns of ASLON, long-term residents of Alta Vista neighborhood, and the concerns of city council members.

For the record, I am currently a member of the Alta Vista neighborhood association--one of those who wear my purple t-shirt to voice my opinion on the location of Cal Poly’s proposed dorm, and ASLON. I completely agree with Rusty Hall’s assessment that litigation about the insufficiency of Cal Poly’s EIR viz CEQA in relation to the proposed dorm location might actually facilitate “talkin’ instead of fightin’.”

I am totally opposed to the Hotel Poly concept. It is a commercialization of “learn by doing”--a sell-out of Cal Poly to “big growth and big development” values. However, I could accept a much-scaled down model of the idea: a Faculty/Welcome Center that includes conference rooms and a FEW rooms to rent to visiting faculty when they come to interview, maybe to visiting sports teams, and the like. And, THAT COULD GO ON THE CORNER OF GRAND AND SLACK where the proposed dorm is planned to go.

Bottom line: Cal Poly’s administration and planners seem to be trying to accomplish big ideas in a piecemeal fashion, which is riling everybody up. Why don’t they do this the right way and update their master plan so everybody can see the big picture all at once?

MEET STEPHANIEBURCHIEL INSPIRED, SPONTANEOUS

My thoughts are that the hotel business is amply covered by the community college system [HELP ME, HELP YOU]. City College of San Francisco runs a program of this nature. Is this a university or a junior college? Is the study of hospitality a subject worthy of university scholarship? Additionally, this seems like just a plan to further aggrandize the status of Cal Poly as a more unique and impressive campus in the state.

—NAOMI HOFFMAN

Once again you have hit the mark in your reporting of the Cal Poly Dorm situation in HELP ME, HELP YOU. You present this issue very clearly and succinctly; you represent the concerns of ASLON fairly. Thank you for your attention to this important city-wide issue.

—LINDA WHITE

One of my first reactions to the article HELP ME, HELP YOU regarding a possible hotel/arena etc. was total horror. I also began to wonder about the new dorms and Cal Poly’s adamant refusal to build them anywhere but on Grand Avenue. Just like Jeff Eidelman, I became suspicious of the whole thing. Interesting timing, eh?

I am a Cal Poly grad and my father was a professor there, so I have many positive feelings about the school. However, it is now TOO BIG and too intrusive. I live in a nice residential area, but all one has to do is walk down the street and it’s immediately apparent where the students live. Streets, which were once nice and wide, have become narrower due to the fact that many students must park on the street - just two irritations.

Cal Poly does not need to get any bigger. Besides, does one really need a college degree in “hospitality?” And remember, all this is being funded, ultimately, by YOU and ME.

& ORGANIC LIVING

I was impressed by Tom Franciskovich’s essay HELP ME, HELP YOU on the dilemma of Cal Poly’s future growth. Clearly, President Armstrong has a master plan that could turn out to be very beneficial to both the school and the community. However, there are many issues of growth, plus the personalities of both sides of the issues, and I think Tom’s essay was very factual and sensitive to the major questions.

This is a hot topic, and to summarize as well as he did is a major achievement. Congratulations on elucidating the players, the positions and the controversies ahead.

—JACK HARRIS

I read your HELP ME, HELP YOU editorial about Cal Poly and the SLO community. This is an important issue and needs a balanced discussion of ideas. Please do better fact checking - Dr. Armstrong is from Kentucky, not Arkansas. Even simple mistakes like this take away from the serious nature of this discussion.

—SANDY CHERTOK

You are absolutely right, Sandy. This mistake is particularly embarrassing for us, as we had interviewed Jeffrey Armstrong in the Q&A feature of the Apr/May 2012 issue where much of the conversation focused on his upbringing in Lyon County, which is in Southwestern Kentucky—just upriver on the Mississippi from Arkansas.

I just read your article PECHO COAST about the Point San Luis Lighthouse. Wow, you did a wonderful job! Lance’s [Kinney] photographs looked beautiful - as usual. Kristi’s [Balzer] quotes were outstanding and your writing was top-notch.

Without a doubt, a lot of folks who have never heard of or have never been to the Light Station will want to visit.

—JOHN LINDSEY

Your recent article PECHO COAST was very interesting. I would like to make a correction regarding the Portuguese explorer, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. His name is spelled in Spanish. In the Portuguese language it is spelled João Rodrigues Cabrilho. I hope that any future articles on this Portuguese explorer will be spelled correctly.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LANCE KINNEY

MOROCCO

This is a photo of Kyle Griffith. She is wrapping up a read of SLO LIFE MAGAZINE before heading off to camp out in the Sahara. No joke. Camel ride out to an overnight camp! I took her photo and can vouch for all of it... even the sand storm that happened that night. I was sleeping (or trying to) on the mat next to her. Photo taken 29 Aug 2014.

All the best, FRANCIS VILLABLANCA, Professor Cal Poly State University

We were headed to the beach and I grabbed the mail, and was stoked to have SLO LIFE MAGAZINE waiting for me;). Now I’m sitting on the beach with a glass of wine enjoying the view and the magazine!!;)

KIDS LOVE SLO LIFE

@stellatheprettyfrenchie @mariasoles

—CHRISTINE KIMBALL

CHAPEL HILL

It was around this time of the year, two years ago, that San Luis Obispo-based photographer James A. Crawford navigated uneven footing to find the perfect spot to anchor his tripod. With his Canon 5D Mark III equipped with a 70 – 200mm lens, Crawford took this shot against a “really bland sky,” which got him thinking about dinner the night before. Actually it was his wife’s stoneware that had created the inspiration. Using a technique that combines

several different photos, Crawford believed that the texture of the well-worn cook plate would make the ideal backdrop when combined with black paint drops splatted onto a sheet of white paper. So, the image you see here is actually an amalgamation of all three: the chapel, the stoneware, and the black paint. When it was combined with a careful use of the opacity tools in his computer software, Crawford was able to create this dramatic scene.

About 24 years earlier, near the same spot where Crawford was snapping away, the drama was real as William P. Clark’s mangled body was being pulled from the wreckage of what was left of his airplane by his long-time ranch manager, Jesus Muñoz. Clark, formerly the Secretary of the Interior under President Reagan, was so grateful to have been spared after the crash that he decided to erect a chapel on his sprawling Shandon ranch. As a longtime friend and

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES A. CRAWFORD

confidant to Ronald Reagan, the two California ranchers had much in common. According to the biography Dutch, written by Edmund Morris, Clark would walk into the Oval Office unannounced—the practice was unheard of, even for senior officials—to plainly speak his mind. It is an understatement to say that Clark had Reagan’s ear, and his trust, and he is credited widely by historians for convincing the president that the Soviet Union could be pushed to the

brink of collapse. After serving in Washington, Clark returned home where he pursued a variety of law and business interests. Last year, at the age of 81, he passed away from complications related to Parkinson’s disease.

Today, this hidden gem of the Central Coast known as Chapel Hill remains open to the public. Resting peacefully on the parched hillside, just 18 miles east of Paso Robles,

astute locals can capture a fleeting glimpse of the majestic structure by craning their necks at just the right moment while speeding by on Highway 46. And according to Crawford, who has shot the structure often over the years, “You have to go back many times to the same subject. It’s not really a good idea to go just once because things change; the weather, the lighting. And you always see it differently. You have to keep going back.”

Five Cal Poly football players were arrested following a botched attempt to rob a fraternity house by gunpoint. The investigation revealed that they were in search of drugs, specifically the anti-anxiety medication known as Xanax, which then led to the arrest of the fraternity’s former president. Many commonalities were found to the November 2013 shooting of a former Cal Poly football player and a student assistant coach over a drug deal, again for Xanax, gone wrong.

The County Board of Supervisors passed new guidelines for outdoor watering, which may be done only on Mondays and Thursdays, in Cayucos, Shandon, Santa Margarita, and Avila Valley. With no rain in sight and wells gurgling their last few drops, officials estimate that Cambria will run out of water before the end of this year. The draught rages on while predictions for an El Niño winter continue to fade.

Cal Poly became embroiled in the Al Moriarty bankruptcy case after the trustee sued to recover the ill-gotten gains used to finance an athletic sponsorship. As it scrambled to remove the convicted felon’s name from its football scoreboard prior to its first home game of the season, the university refused to refund the $650,000 purchase, which would have been divided up between Moriarty’s victims, among others.

Diablo Canyon became national news when it was revealed that Michael Peck, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) officer, who had overseen operations at the facility for five years, called for its closing citing earthquake safety concerns. PG&E, owner of the power plant, responded by issuing reports of its own showing that it can hold up under seismic forces from nearby fault lines which were discovered after it was built.

For several weeks many humpback whales were spotted in shallow waters around the Central Coast. Through a complex meteorological phenomenon called “upwelling,” high northwesterly winds causes cold, nutrient-rich water to move toward the surface which facilitates the growth of phytoplankton and fish, becoming food for the whales. The majestic 50-ton creatures thrilled locals and visitors alike as piers became packed with frenzied onlookers.

The bizarre saga of the Forever Never Land event finally comes to an end as the music festival closes quietly at the Avila Bay Golf Resort. Valerie Wang, the 27-year-old Marina del Ray-based event founder, did not even bother to show up for the weekend production. Attendees, some of whom paid as much as $500 per ticket, were outraged as they found none of the activities advertised and many of the music acts canceled. Wang, who had previously lobbied the county for a 10,000-person event license, issued a statement blaming “last minute financial binds” and the drought for the disaster. Avila residents, who wrote “Leave Wang” with rocks on the hill above the event, hope she will never, ever come back.

The Arroyo Grande Police Officers Association voted unanimously that it had no confidence in the city’s mayor, Tony Ferrara, or its city manager, Steve Adams, following their failure to “clean house” after a scandal. Over the summer when Arroyo Grande’s community development director Teresa McClish failed to return home after an event, her husband called the police who responded by first checking city hall where they found their boss in “an uncomfortable situation” with his subordinate, McClish. The revelation sparked outrage from many citizens who have called for Adams to resign.

It was a rough week for District 4 Supervisor candidate Lynn Compton, who received a sternly written warning letter from the Fair Political Practices Commission for her failure to report a campaign donation. But that paled in comparison to local outcry over Compton’s plan to host a “hobo” themed fundraiser in Oceano where attendees were encouraged to wear “hobo attire” and dine on “hobo stew.” In light of the intractable homelessness problem in San Luis Obispo County the idea, billed as a “fun event” by the campaign, ignited controversy among voters.

Finally bringing an end to the intense squabble to determine how to allocate the water in the fast-dwindling Paso Robles water basin, Governor Jerry Brown signs Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian’s bill 2453, which allows for the creation of a groundwater management district. The board will contain a mixture of residents and property owners and is designed so that the interests of the burgeoning wine industry, as well as citizens, have a say in how to manage the precious resource.

Caught in the Moment

We check in with Linnaea Phillips, a longtime San Luis Obispo resident, who sold her Garden Street coffee shop six years ago, to find out what she has been up to lately. Our conversation covered books, gardening, entrepreneurship, as well tips for st aying out of trouble with the city.

Is it true that you used to drive a bookmobile?

I grew up in Washington State, Tacoma, and went to the College of Puget Sound, then the University of Washington for my library degree. I got a job driving the bookmobile as a traveling librarian. I was able to go to Mount Ranier and eat blackberry pie on my route. It was a great time. I got married to my first husband and we had one son there. Four years later we moved to Santa Barbara so that he could go to Brooks Institute. I began to work with the art community there. We were very poor. So, here we are struggling to get by and I became pregnant, with twins. We heard about a local doctor who was looking for someone to take photographs of his research. So my husband said, “Well, maybe we can trade his doctoring for my photographs?” He agreed to it. And what was the experiment? He was taking rats, and cutting body parts from other rats and attaching them to the first rat. It was a high price to pay.

How did you start Linnaea’s Cafe? I started in a bookstore in 1983. I went in as a “pop up.” We didn’t have that expression then, but that’s what we did. I said to Tom Norwood at his Norwood Bookshop on Chorro Street, “Could I come here and take down the books on a couple of the tables and put tablecloths on them and we’ll have a café.” So that’s what I did for six months until the city decided, rightly so, that there was no washing facility for cups and no bathroom and there was no kitchen. [laughter] So, I had to close. But, it’s that mentality, “Let’s try it,” that I think is very exciting. I was very ignorant. I had no business in business; but I had a desire. And that desire was to bring people into an environment where they can feel comfortable, and where you can add to their existence with music and art and lectures.

And, when did it find its home on Garden Street? My son was a teenager out wandering around and found a little alleyway and climbed up and looked over the wall and told me, “Mom, I found a spot for a garden.” It was just a trash heap behind a wig store on Garden Street. The place was really struggling. Wigs were kind of out and she had very little business. It had pink walls and branches from trees that were painted gold with wigs scattered all over them. And there was a magenta toilet. So I contacted the landlord and learned that the space was coming available. All my friends said, “You’re not going to make any money at this. You can’t sell coffee and make money. So, what else are you going to sell?” I told them, “I’m going to make the scones that I’ve always made, and the muffins.” I started baking at home, which was illegal; and I got caught by the city, again. [laughter] After that, about a year into it, I had to rent a commercial kitchen and staff it. Those were big expenses back when a cup of coffee was just a dollar.

What other sorts of challenges did you face? In the 80’s the Goths adopted Linnaea’s as their home because we were a liberal kind of café, and there weren’t many options for kids to hang out, especially if you had a little bit of a different sort of look. We accepted them. I wanted Linnaea’s to be a place where people of the same genre could be together and not be marked, not be labeled. These were a bunch of very bright high school and college kids, but they were driving other people away, so we had a big downturn especially since they weren’t drinking much coffee or buying many pastries. We really struggled with the question, “Do we get rid of the kids in order to save the business?” So we invited them to come in and talk to us about it. We got all the kids—there must have been 50 of them—and all the staff together to discuss the problem we were having. We said, “This is how it looks to the world. How do you think it looks to the world?” They were sprawled everywhere with their chains and their piercings. It was quite an experience, an experience of joining people who wanted to be un-joined from society. They said, “We appreciate what you are doing and we’re going to try to be self-managing.” And they were. We got through six months, maybe a year with them deciding that they had put so many rules on themselves that maybe they should go somewhere else, which they did.

What have you been up to lately? A lot of walking. All the hills, the trails. Terrace Hill is my favorite place. I like composing poetry in my head while I walk. I don’t put it on paper anymore. I try to really live every day, and do the best that I can. It used to be very bothersome to not have a product at the end of the day. Now I say, “Leave it alone. Do what feels good. Pursue what you can, if you can. Give it up, a little bit. Just see where you are right now. We need to be together. And we need to catch up with new people.” So, I’m trying to do a bit of that. I’m renewing old friendships that I have sort of neglected. Writing a few letters, not just doing email. My days seem very full, but I also feel somewhat frustrated that they aren’t fuller; that I haven’t accomplished more. And what do I want to accomplish? New plants, new pots. I’m an avid gardener, so I spend quite a bit of time gardening. And now I garden for other people, as well. I’ve got a couple of places around town where I do random acts of kindness. Picking up trash and getting their yards in order even though they don’t really know it. I read a lot. I’m not a big television watcher. I have a group that has been meeting for twenty years in my house. I live in a little, tiny apartment. We gather once a week to chat about our experiences. Each person has a unique quality and they wouldn’t miss that meeting for the world.

SLO LIFE

Keeping it Simple

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS BERSBACH

As a skater growing up in Morro Bay, ERIC MEYER had an eye for fashion. Coming of age during the excess of the 80’s, he struggled with his own desire for a simpler existence. It turns out that he was not alone, and his shoe company, Simple, struck a chord with others who were looking for the same thing. Yet, the massively successful brand eventually led to more of what he was trying to escape. So, he sold his company and spent time remodeling homes. A few years later, Meyer began serving as a planning commissioner at the city and then the county. He lives in downtown San Luis Obispo with his wife, Cynthia, an oil painter, and enjoys a backyard connected to the properties of several family members. Today, he is focused on supporting the effort to create a “massive network of interconnected off-highway bike paths,” making it a primary tourist destination for the county. In his spare time he can be found tinkering in his garage fixing up old bicycles, mentoring young entrepreneurs at Cal Poly’s Center for Entrepreneurship, or in his study researching the latest fashion and societal trends. Here is his story…

Tell us, Eric, what was it like for you growing up? I’m from Morro Bay. There were only 300 people in the county when my oldest relative came here in the 1850’s. I went to high school there, then to Cuesta College and studied art; and, then to Cal Poly to study graphic design. I was pretty heavily into skateboarding; everyday skating super hard. I started making my own clothing in the 80’s during the beginning of the New Wave scene. Remember the New Wave scene? For skaters, the only thing you had available to wear was sort of “surfy” stuff, like Gotcha; Quicksilver was still small, but Stüssy was around. All really colorful and bright and happy and fluffy and flowery. And skaters were not that way. Skaters were much more street, a little more “agro” for lack of a better word. Barbed wire and graffiti was kind of the imagery rather than flowers and happy surfing stuff. So, I would die things black and go to the thrift store and buy old pants and cut them off into long shorts. Not really making clothes from scratch, but redesigning things that already existed.

When did you get your start?

When I graduated from Cal Poly I got a job working for a print shop in Morro Bay called A-1 Printing. That wasn’t going to go anywhere; it was just a mom and pop print shop. I was writing letters to a skateboard company down in Orange County called Vision. They were making shorts called Mad Rats, which were

basically shorts with pads in them, which no skaters would wear. But, they were really the only skateboard company making clothing. So I wrote letters to them bagging on their Mad Rats idea. I said, “You need to stop doing the surf colors.” I suggested doing it more negative imagery, skulls and graffiti. I didn’t have any money, but I quit my job and got in my VW bus and drove down to Orange County, pulled into a motel in Santa Ana, the cheapest one I could find. I would go down to the Orange County Register just as the paper was coming off the press at 4 o’clock in the morning so that I could get the newspaper just as they were being handed to the paperboys. They would give me the first hot, inky paper as the big web presses were roaring away in the background. I would open up to the want ads, but there was never a graphic design job; just never. Finally there was one job listed, it was very vague, looking for an artist/designer. I didn’t really understand what they were talking about, and it was obvious that the guy that wrote the ad had no idea what he was talking about.

So, what did you do?

I drove straight over to the business at about 6:45 that morning. I’m in my stupid bus with waves painted on the side and I pulled up and parked in the first space right in front of the building. I didn’t realize that the space said something like, “Reserved for Bob So-and-so.” Around 7:30 or 7:45, Bob So-and-so shows up

Simple, the anti-brand, poked fun at itself with ads such as this one shown here. Production was stopped two years ago, after Meyer sold the business in 1996.

in this big four-door Mercedes and parks next to me and rolls down his window and says, “Hey, what are you doing here?” I said, “I’m here about the job.” He says, “What job?” I said, “The job for the artist.” He said, “I just wrote that job last night. I’m not ready to interview you yet, and by the way you’re parked in my space. Come back at 11 and we’ll talk.” So, I went back to the motel and got my typewriter and typed up all the questions he should ask called “How to Interview an Artist.” It had only been about an hour when I went back to drop it off for him. I got to the secretary and gave her the questions knowing that he would have time to read them before I came back for my interview. His door was open as I was talking to his secretary and he yelled out, “What are you doing here?! I told you to come back at 11!” I said, “I could tell that you really didn’t know what you were talking about from the way your wrote the ad, so I typed up some questions for you to ask me.” He looked at me for a minute; then he said, “Come here!” He sat me down in his office and looked up and down the questions when he says, “You got the job.” I said, “I don’t even know what the job is!” It was a Korean vacuum cleaner company and this guy owned the distribution rights for the U.S. He hired me to be his industrial designer and graphic designer. I was six months out of college and had no idea what I was doing.

How did it go?

I was there for about four months when the guy from the skateboard company called me at the office and said, “Okay, I’m ready to do it.” And I said, “But, I already got a job.” This was in 1984 and I was making like $32,000, which was decent money for that time. He asked me what kind of work I was doing. I said, “Well, I’m designing for this vacuum cleaner company.” He started laughing on the other end of the

line. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was actually the owner of the company, Vision. He said, “I want to do this. The time is right, we’ve got to do this skateboard clothing company.” He says, “What are you making?” I said, “Like, $45,000.” [laughter] He said, “I’ll give you fifty grand a year. Let’s go!” I said, “Okay.” So, I jumped ship and became the creative director at the new company called Vision Street Wear. We started making clothing and shoes for the skateboard industry just as it was taking off. By 1990 we were a $100 million company. We became much too big and ended up selling at Nordstrom and all these big department stores so we lost credibility with the hardcore skaters, our primary market. The term “selling out” had not yet reached the public vernacular, but we were one of the first companies to do just that. It was an interesting lesson to learn.

So, when did you start your own business?

By that time I just knew that I wanted to do something on my own, so my wife and I started a shoe company called Simple. The 80’s were all about yuppies and BMW’s and ego, and me, me, me, mine; everything was big. That was getting kind of old. So, what is not all of those things? Simple. People were saying, “I want a respite from all this crap. I want something where I’m walking down the street in my shoes and people have no idea what I’m about. It’s just a shoe. It doesn’t say this; it doesn’t say that.” So, we built shoes that had the components of an athletic shoe with high-end, comfortable materials. We made a lot of little moves that added up to a much more durable and much more comfortable shoe. The idea behind the brand was basically to create a non-brand, that’s why it was called Simple. It was a reaction against the excess of the 80’s, and a reaction against ego. We did tons of magazine advertising and our message was pretty snide and self-

depreciating. We were riffing off the Volkswagen 60’s-era advertising campaign. We did ads like, “Sell everything you own. None of it’s going to make you happy. All you need are the clothes on your back, and, well, some shoes, of course.” And, one in Rolling Stone Magazine that said, “This is not a subliminal ad,” in large type above a picture of the shoe.

When did Simple take off?

I was in a factory in China and there was this guy wandering around the conveyer belts looking at my product. It was very rare to see another American in China at that time, twenty years ago. And so I asked, “Who’s this jerk looking at my stuff?” The factory was supposed to keep your product secret. They told me, “That’s Peter from Deckers.” They are a shoe company out of Santa Barbara that sells Teva sandals and Ugg boots among other brands now. So, I started talking with him and he told me how they were getting ready to go public. He asked me if I would be wiling to join up with him. He offered to buy half of Simple for $100,000, but with the caveat that I got all the distribution, because they had massive distribution. They took care of all of the back office, everything. So, I was able to get rid of 99% of my work by joining with them and it allowed us to grow exponentially. They also gave me an unlimited line of credit. I remember the week after I joined up with Deckers, I became one of the signers on their $100 million credit line. I rode my skateboard to the B of A in San Luis because I needed to transfer $800,000 to China for a purchase order. It was a complicated wire transfer and this young girl at the bank was helping me. She had never done one before, so she called over the manager to help her. I’m there with my skateboard, in my shorts and a stupid t-shirt, and she says, “$800,000?” And her eyes sort of lit up. They asked me for the account number and looked me up. There was $35 million in the account at that time. The first words out of her mouth, with her manager standing next to her, were, “Are you married?” [laughter] Having access to that kind of cash really helped us grow because otherwise, I would have had to beg borrow and steal to do it. The first couple of years by myself it was really hard to buy inventory. Otherwise borrowing money would have been impossible because I was just a skateboarder with no history and a house with maybe $5,000 in equity. Until that time the banks would just look at me and say, “What?! How long have you been in business? Thirteen months? Have a nice day!” I essentially gave away half my company when it was tiny, but our growth would have never happened without doing that deal with Deckers.

aren’t you still making shoes?

At some point when you have a brand that is all about being humble and simple, yet it keeps growing and growing, the two cross hairs meet and you realize this isn’t so simple anymore. My life became something other than what we were professing. One year I figured that I spent 33 days in the air. I’m not talking about the airport, but actual time flying. I was away from home, away from my wife for months and months at a time. I was constantly somewhere else. What I was talking about in my ads—selling everything you owned and living simply—is what I wanted. In 1996, I was able to sell the >>

Why

At some point when you have a brand that is all about being humble and simple, yet it keeps growing and growing, the two cross hairs meet and you realize this isn’t so simple anymore.

business and finally live that simple life in a small house in a little town and caring for people. I just believe in the city and I believe in helping people make their neighborhoods feel better, happier. Often, the life you live, you can really enjoy it if you make some minor

decision and move forward. But, for me, it has been a great learning experience, which is also why I wanted to do it. I wanted to know what it meant to work in a bureaucracy. What does it mean to get all of these different opinions to come together and decide to do something? And, most importantly, how do you make a place better? All my life I said, “I know what I’m doing, I know where I’m going.” But now as a planning commissioner, my job is to listen and not have an opinion but manage what does this county want? Not what I want, but what do the majority of the residents want? That’s a hard thing to do, especially when it clashes with your own personal, subjective opinion. Nobody is right. There is no right answer. Everyone just thinks they’re right. There is nothing quite like a heart-felt opinion of someone testifying in front of you—completely opposite of your personal beliefs—to make you rethink how egotistical you are in your belief systems. That surprised me as a commissioner.

How do you answer life’s big questions? You mean religion or philosophy? My mom was a very religious lady and I grew up in a household where she was searching, and looking at all different kinds of religions, not one in particular. From Hinduism to Buddhism to Catholicism to Protestant, we researched all of that. They’re all just different lanes on the same highway. They’re all asking, “What’s the planet all about” questions. I think more in terms of positive and negative energy rather than a religious aspect. If you meet somebody, like today for example, I don’t know you from a hole in the ground, but I want to impart something to you that allows you to contemplate where you are going in your life. I want you to leave the conversation better than when you found it. If we all did that with every interaction we had with everybody, that would just change the world. I

call it “spinning up.” A lot of times you go into a conversation and people are complaining about something, and if you can twist that conversation to spin it positively somehow, I think you make peoples’ lives just a little tiny bit fractionally better, microscopically better.

adjustments to how you live it. Depending on where you live, and the quality of your neighborhood, can have a huge impact on how you view the world. If it’s good, you’re happy and if it’s not, you’re unhappy. Super basic. Working in government is quite a bit different than being an entrepreneur. You have to build relationships and find ways to get disparate groups to believe in the same thing. In this county there are a wide variety of viewpoints, and none of them are really wrong. At the extreme edges they think they’re right and everyone else is wrong. As an entrepreneur, you just do it. You make a

But, that evolves; it spreads like fire. And I see that. When you meet someone that is negative, it’s kind of like a sponge that sucks a little energy off you. But if you can help someone—“help” sounds so cheese ball—but if you can just give them a little energy somehow, either through showing some enthusiasm or giving just the gentlest little nudge, then you have made the world a better place. There are times when things are negative, but you can’t dwell on it. It’s about how you get beyond the negativity; how you move forward.

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Ruby Callahan

With a passion for helping others, there is no debating that Ruby Callahan, a seventeen-year-old San Luis Obispo High School senior and big sister to little brothers, Noah and Jude, has a bright future ahead of her.

What sort of extra-curricular activities are you involved in? I participate in Mock Trial, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and I volunteer with the Get-on-the-Bus program, which serves children visiting incarcerated parents. My family and I have raised money to purchase multiple water filters for the non-profit Seeds of Hope, bringing clean water to families in Africa. Since my sophomore year of high school I’ve been able to travel to Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, and Mexico where I have been able to work in two different orphanages—life changing!

What recognition have you received? I find this question embarrassing as there are so many kids I know accomplishing amazing things and being recognized for it. That being said, currently I am the SLO High Girls State Representative. I was awarded a scholarship by the local American Legion Auxiliary to represent my school at this summer’s Girls State at Claremont McKenna. I have also been the co-leader of the SLO High Mock Trial Team this past year and this upcoming year, and won an honorable mention at the county level for my role as a defense attorney.

What is your favorite memory of all time? My entire life, we’ve gone to Catalina with my aunts and uncles and cousins for a week each summer. Eating corn dogs on the pier, snorkeling, sharing a bathroom with 12 people and playing mini-golf are some of the best memories for me. Maybe not the bathroom part!

What career do you see yourself in someday? One of the few things I could perhaps see myself doing in the future is being an adoption attorney. I would really love to be able to bring families together in the same way my family was brought together.

What has influenced you the most? First and foremost my faith and my family. I have learned through them the importance of living life with a heart full of love and concern for others.

What do you dislike the most? I find it outrageous that there are more than 27 million human slaves in the world today. On a trivial and more personal level, I really hate picking up dog poop.

What do you want people to know about you? I laugh a lot, usually at my own mistakes. I think a sense of humor will be invaluable when facing difficult times. I value authenticity and honesty in friendships and try to match that as best I can.

What schools are you considering for college? I’m casting the net pretty wide, I would love to stay in California, but if a great out of state opportunity arises hmm… I’d probably take it.

SLO LIFE

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BIG DECISIONS for Small Companies

I had a client who joked about how he would hire a perfectly normal person and as soon as they began working for his company, they transformed into an alien no one recognized that was clearly not the competent, well-adjusted individual he met in the interview.

BY JIM RIZZI

inding and hiring good people—more specifically, the right person for the position—is one of the most important challenges for small businesses. Making the wrong hiring decision is expensive. According to the website HR.com, one bad hire can cost as much as 30% of that person’s annual compensation.

One of the mistakes many companies make is hiring a person based more on their personality than on their ability to successfully perform the job. Their personality and fitting into the culture of

the company are important factors for sure, but cannot be the sole qualification for the position. Most companies here on the Central Coast are not large enough to have an HR department to properly find, interview and assess each applicant. Therefore, the person doing the

hiring is the manager, or perhaps the owner of the company, which may often be the same person depending on the size of the business.

The effort to bring on a new employee always begins with the best intentions, but let’s face it, everyone working at a small business is busy, really busy. And hiring, while important, cannot possibly compete with the laundry list of daily urgent issues every small businessperson faces. Hiring and interviewing often happens only after the fires are put out, or when the need for more help becomes a fire itself. Not given the proper time and attention, we fail to cast a wide enough net to attract a broad spectrum of qualified candidates, the interview process gets rushed, applicants are not properly assessed, and we end up hiring the person whose personality best fits our own. Sound familiar?

The good news is that there are a few simple techniques you can use to dramatically improve your results while not taking up too much of your time.

Let’s begin by acknowledging the inherent subjectivity of the hiring process due to our biases. We all have biases including the manager, the owner of the company, and whoever is doing the hiring. Sometimes our biases are a good thing. Biases based on successful experiences can enhance the hiring process. But, other times they prevent us from

recognizing a qualified applicant because that person is outside the norm based on our experience. So acknowledge your biases, and make a conscious evaluation as to whether they are helping or hindering the process on a case-by-case basis.

Next, let’s identify the three to five most important competencies needed to successfully perform the position. Spend some time on this. Brainstorm a much larger list, then whittle it down to just those three to five skills, attitudes and behaviors necessary for success at this position. If there are other staff members that directly interact with the position, bring them into this process. Involving others will help reduce your biases and broaden the perspective on what is critical to be successful.

Once you have those competencies, you will need to develop interview questions that will tell you if the applicant has the necessary qualifications. A good format for this question is to ask the applicant to site a specific example from their past demonstrating the skill. For example, if the competency is “being detail oriented,” the question might be, “Give me an example of something in your past that would demonstrate your ability to manage and track details.” This method of questioning prevents the applicant from simply telling you they have the skill, and instead forces them to recall a demonstration of it.

Finally, your interview process should have a structure and every interview should follow exactly the same steps. Your questions should be written out, and should be asked in exactly the same fashion for each applicant. Resist the temptation to “bond” with the interviewee. Keep it businesslike and focused. If time is limited, consider doing a portion of the interview over the phone. Phone interviews take much less time and can be arranged and managed more efficiently; plus you may be able to narrow down the field to just the best of the bunch before meeting face-to-face.

While these tips are certainly not a hiring cure-all, hopefully they give you some tools to help you find your next great employee.

JIM RIZZI is the owner of KickStart Solutions Group, a San Luis Obispo-based business coaching and consulting firm.

FAMILY FRIENDLY

Classic Beach Town Fun

There’s a lot about Pismo Beach that makes it a classic beach town, and Pismo Bowl, with its Coney Island appeal and California style, is definitely part of the picture.

BY JEANETTE TROMPETER

Offering eight lanes of old school entertainment, Pismo Bowl harkens back to the lazy days when school and schedules weren’t so hectic. Families and friends looking to spend quality time together, can find it here at this Central Coast throwback.

It’s been around and operating continuously since 1939. Christine Goldie and her family are the fourth owners of the place. They’ve had it for the last fourteen years. Most of the family works here, and kind of feel like they’re guardians of history by keeping the place going. And they are.

You can see it on the walls, in the treasures and trophies scattered about the place, and on the smiles of the people you find here. “It really hasn’t changed that much since I was a kid. My parents used to bring me here. They have some new equipment, but otherwise everything else is pretty much the same,” says Doug Alevezos. He came here with his parents when he was a kid, and now he brings his kids here. And even though it’s tough to text or tweet between strikes, spares or gutter balls, they don’t think it’s hokey at all. “No, it’s the same and it’s just comfortable and nice to come back to,” says one of his daughters, Kirstin. “When everything changes around, and things get rebuilt, this is still the same.”

A family of four can play for less than thirty bucks. It’s $4.10 a game and $2.95 for shoe rentals. You can also grab a burger, beer or cappuccino.

If you’re like me, you don’t bowl very often, but it doesn’t matter because every time you play, it’s just as much fun as the very first

time when you were a kid. “I just feel like bowling is such a traditional sport, that I would just hate to loose it for the next generation,” says Goldie.

You can rediscover the thrill of what it feels like to line ‘em up and let ‘er fly... and wait for the laughs or claps from the crowd behind you. Pismo Bowl is open seven days a week. “Well, we do close for Christmas!” Goldie chuckles.

There is also an arcade as well as pool tables, and you can grab anything from breakfast to hot wings at the little diner. And if you really want a deal, head down at the start of the workweek for Monday Madness from six to nine at night, $15 gets you all the bowling and pizza you can handle. Pismo Bowl is at the corner of Dolliver and Pomeroy. It’s a Central Coast classic. And it’s definitely a place to stop when you’re Out and About.

JEANETTE TROMPETER, KSBY News anchor and reporter, hosts the “Out and About with JT” series every Tuesday evening at 6pm.

MUSIC SCENE

Living Dead

BY DAWN JANKE

If you ask local musician Patrick Hayes, he will tell you that all music fans should add some twangy rock to their diets. He and his bandmates Pete Robbins, Mark Folkrod and Keith Kurczewski have just the thing for your daily intake: Dead Volts.

In a number of combinations, Dead Volts have been sharing music with locals since 2011, but even before that, Hayes, Robbins, Folkrod, and Kurczewski rocked out as members of other local bands. Lead vocalist Hayes used to be in the alternative country act Pennyjar and recalls, “I used to watch Kurczewski play in Bottle back in the day; Folkrod was in a plethora of bands and currently also fronts the Ghosts of Guadalupe and sits on the drum throne for our blood-brother band American Dirt; and Robbins was in a punk outfit, the 1st Line, before joining Dead Volts.”

While these guys have had a presence in the Central Coast music scene for years, together as Dead Volts they ignite a spark, and their upcoming album We Are Already Dead promises sounds that are anything but a flat line. The album, slated for release in late November, moves toward what Hayes describes as a little bit country pop and a whole lot dissonant with songs that, in the words of former KOTR DJ and local musician Kevin Myers, sound like country Sonic Youth.

The band is excited about the album, especially because it has been years in the making. Frontman Hayes, bassist Robbins, and drummer Folkrod actually began working on it while playing with former lead guitarist Mike Cross. After the departure of Cross last September, they began recording as a three-piece and invited a variety of local guitarists to fill the role of Cross during live shows. When guitarist Kurczewski, who also currently plays in local

band the Booker Tease, joined in, their lineup solidified. Robbins says, “Somehow this thing we created seemed to pull some great players into our circle; and we were fortunate to have Kurczewski step into the lead guitar spot.”

According to Folkrod, We Are Already Dead gets the band much closer to its live vibe than previous recordings. And just what kind of vibe is that, you might wonder. Robbins explains, “We recorded the album

ourselves and were able to create a serious rock record that is as gritty, raw, and sweaty as our live shows.” When asked what song on the new album most represents the Dead Volts’ sound, the resounding reply is “Ain’t Dead Yet.” Folkrod says the song’s punchy, crowd-pleasing hooks will surely invite listeners to take a journey with the band, through cowpunk aggressive tracks like “Don’t Wait Up” and into others like the cantina guitar line of “California.”

Not all the Dead Volts are native Californians, but they’ve been living the SLO Life for quite some time, and they have lots to say about the local music scene. Kurczewski, originally from Syracuse, New York, says that living on the Central Coast has definitely influenced his creativity. “Watching the really great musicians and songwriters perform live around here is very inspirational and pushes me to new levels,” he says. Hayes adds, “If you love music, you have to either create it or support it; and I think SLO has a great infrastructure for both.” His only request? It “wouldn’t hurt if more people came out” to support local musicians.

Hayes does his part to encourage participation in the scene: he owns a media/marketing company with clients including McCarthy’s and Frog ‘n Peach and is also the founder of Twang N Bang records, a San Luis Obispo label that supports local bands such as American Dirt, the Cross Brothers, and Red Eye Junction among others. Twang N Bang also hosts an annual all-day music fest in downtown SLO; the most recent, Twang N Bang IX this past August, boasted over 20 bands.

Anyone involved with Twang N Bang records will agree: it’s a family with near and distant relatives that get together whenever they can to share music. Folkrod says that Twang N Bang is “the framework that their community of like-minded artists and bands is built upon… At the end of the day, it all boils down to bringing friends together to scream, sweat, crank up guitars, and enjoy life as much as possible.”

Hayes concludes, “None of us suffer from the delusion that we are going to ‘make it’ in any traditional sense, so for us it’s all about making music that we know we will like.” Dead Volts music is easy to like; I know I like it, and I bet you will too. If music recharges your batteries, you should check out a Dead Volts live show and stay tuned for the release of their upcoming album We Are Already Dead. For more information visit thedeadvolts.com.

DAWN JANKE directs the Writing & Rhetoric Center at Cal Poly and keeps her pulse on the Central Coast music scene.

BY DAWN JANKE

Local singer songwriter Derek Senn released The Technological Breakthrough to rave reviews: Tim Merricks, writer for americana-uk.com concluded, “...songs which capture the imagination with a dynamism which matches Senn’s enthusiasm for his art.” Saddled with beautifully crafted liner notes, a dying addition to albums in the times of music downloads, it’s refreshing to sit down with an IPA and take in Senn’s voice both on the page and through the speakers. Pick up The Technological Breakthrough at Boo Boo Records or order it from dereksenn.com and take in a live performance during Art after Dark on October 3 at Haven Properties Gallery Location.

You may recognize Doug Groshart as the keyboardist and lead vocalist for local band The JD Project, which with their blend of rock, blues, soul and country always leave crowds energized and entertained. Groshart’s solo album, Hold the River Back, offers fans another side of the singer songwriter: mellow and melodic tunes like the lead track, “Wasted on the Young.” You can check out Hold the River Back on iTunes and Spotify and catch Groshart performing with The JD Project at Pomar Junction Winery on October 17, at Ancient Peaks Winery on October 18, and at Talley Vineyards on November 9. He also has a solo show at the Peloton Cellars Winemaker’s Dinner on November 15.

The second album by Cayucos resident Joe Koenig brings us more of his Texas soul sounds. While his music is certainly impressive, equally moving is Koenig’s involvement in the work of other local musicians: he designed the cover art for two new releases featured here, Senn’s and Groshart’s. Koenig is a powerful presence in the Central Coast music scene, and Bleed Like You Bleed secures his position as a vital member of the community. The album left me exactly like Koenig hoped it would, “with a smile on my face and a tear in my eye.” You can listen to Bleed Like You Bleed at joekoenig.bandcamp.com and watch him perform live at SLO Brew on November 21, when he opens up for The Mother Hips.

Readers might recall local band Próxima Parada featured in the June/July issue of SLO LIFE. Supported exclusively by an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign, they have since released their debut album, Songs of Music. Emerging with 12 songs that cite influences by Ray Charles, the Beatles, Bill Withers, and The Band, Songs of Music is sure to capture any and all open ears. This album features no auto-tune and no artificial additives, just ardent music in their unique California folk and soul style. You can check out Songs of Music on iTunes and Spotify and learn more about the band at proximaparadamusic.com. Stop by the Fremont Theatre on October 23 to hear the boys perform live.

Modern Musing DESIGN

Last year Laura Joines resigned as an architecture professor to take “learn by doing” to a whole new level by designing and building her family’s San Luis Obispo home. Millions of viewers were able to watch the project unfold on A&E’s reality show Extreme Builds, but they may have missed the real story...

After spending 23 years teaching architecture at Cal Poly, Laura Joines figured it was time for her to apply her vast knowledge of the subject by setting out to build her home. She retired from her position last fall and “learn by doing,” as the motto goes, soon became a very practical matter on a little sliver of hillside dirt above the adult school in San Luis Obispo.

“I remember thinking, ‘This is crazy, we can’t afford this,’” recalls Joines as she embarked upon the project. “But, what am going to say when I’m 99 years old? I don’t want to have regrets; I don’t want to say, ‘I really wish I would have built something rather than just talked about it for all those years in the classroom.’” Around the time she was wrapping things up at Cal Poly, she received an email from a television producer. The cryptic message explained that they were looking to film a custom home building project from start to finish. Curious, Joines dialed the number listed in the email and learned that the production company was interested in profiling families who were building homes using interesting architecture. “The working title for the show was something like ‘Innovative Architecture’ or something along those lines, I cannot remember,” Joines explains. It turns out that she and her family would be featured in A&E’s fast-paced reality show called Extreme Builds.

Although she now counts it as an “interesting experience,” she expresses disappointment that the show focused on drama rather than architecture. At times the job site would be filled with a camera crew who often prompted the family on what to say and how to react. “It turns out that the whole reality t.v. thing is hardly reality,” she laughs. And it may be that A&E missed the real story of the Bowden Ranch house, a story that is subtle yet based on hundreds of years of history and mathematics and science—a story that takes direction from the mysteries of nature and the trajectories of planets. The story of this house is the story of the education of Laura Joines.

After spending her childhood in the sultry climate of North Carolina, and then off to college at Vassar in New York, Joines was ready for a change of scenery. “I decided

Athat I wanted to live in a Mediterranean climate,” she remembers. As she began researching areas to relocate, she identified regions of Europe, Northern Africa, Southwestern Australia, Central Chile, and the Western Cape of South Africa. But, there was one she was not aware of: California’s Central Coast. “I came out here after I graduated and loved it, and knew this is where I wanted to be,” she remembers. Then, on the day she learned that she landed her job, she decided to head to the beach to celebrate. Donning a new bikini, she headed out to Cayucos where the beach was sopped in by summer fog. Undeterred and assuming that the Mediterranean climate of some exotic Greek island surrounded by perfect bathwater-like ocean would be the same in her newly adopted home, she plunged into the freezing, icecold Pacific. Shivering violently on her way back to her towel—the only one on the beach—she thought about her research and the fact that she had overlooked the water temperature, “How did I miss that?” she questioned.

Today, citing the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, Joines considers herself lucky that it did not occur to her to look into the ocean’s warmth, or lack thereof. “Had I done that I would have missed this incredible opportunity to live here; I think that sometimes the best decisions are the ones you just make based on good information, yes, but also with your gut, too,” she observes. And it appears that this philosophy has been carried through with the construction of her Lizzie Street home. Although each detail has been exquisitely conceived and executed, it is clear that many of the design decisions were made with the environment in mind; that is to say the environment from both a conservation standpoint and also how the home sits on the lot. For example, the entire footprint of the structure, including the location of the windows, takes advantage of the sun’s path across the sky as it changes through the seasons. During the winter, the sun tracks along the windows and skylights where it provides maximum light which floods the house and is soaked in by the concrete floors. Those floors, which serve as a virtual “heat sponge” soak in the energy and then slowly release it over the course of many hours and often through the night. During the

summer months, just the opposite occurs as the sun follows a path that mostly misses the windows and is also blocked by the seasonal, kite-like shades.

While Joines, who now works as an architect and sells an array of home products through her firm Domu Design, pushed for not having any central heating—instead using only passive solar—the building code dictated that she must include it in her plans; so she ended up installing radiant floor heating. And as the hot water tubes, weaving a pattern underfoot are out of site, much of the rest of the house is designed in the same way. The baseboards, if they can be called that, are recessed by a few inches to give the perception of negative space as if the walls are floating. The glass doors leading outside unexpectedly fold accordion-like, which opens the walls completely to fresh air, bringing the outside in. And much of the proportions of the home design follow Fibonacci’s sequence, also known as the “Golden Ratio,” which take their lead from Mother Nature. Indeed, the 1,950 squarefoot home feels much larger than it is due to its liberal use of exceptionally high ceilings.

While the former architecture professor becomes animated when discussing the rationale for the various angles and degrees and proportions found throughout her family’s four-bedroom, three-bath home, it is when the discussion turns to the practical design elements that her passion comes forth. “I took my inspiration from the Medieval town square.” She explains that a highlight for her was taking students on a trip to Prague where they learned about European architecture through the ages. “The idea is to create an inviting public space where people would want to congregate.” This concept manifests itself with the expansive and continuous kitchen and dining room, which are joined by the living room to create an open and airy feel when connected with the front and back patios on either side—a sort of miniature town square within the home. “The kids all tend to hang out here, which is the idea. Their rooms are very small,” Joines reveals. “I didn’t want everyone to hole up away from everyone else; this design was very intentional, and done in a way to bring us all together.” >>

1. High ceilings are found throughout the home, making small spaces feel much larger than they really are.

2. Not only do the exposed beams provide interesting added texture, they also allow for greater spans between walls creating more openness.

3. A type of internal awning is used to reflect natural light which has the effect of reducing reliance on artificial lighting and climate controls.

4. Open shelving reduces bulk and increases the airiness of the room, again creating the perception of a larger footprint.

5. Oversized windows are positioned to maximize exposure to the sun during the winter months and minimize it during the summer.

6. Sleek, modern appliances, selected based on maximum energy efficiency, are designed to be out of sight and out of mind.

7. The classic solid wood table serves as the room’s focal point; it’s where the family gathers for meals and the kids do their homework.

8. Cement slab floors act as a heat sponge when it is cold outside and if that is not enough, the hot water radiant heat tubes beneath the surface, do the rest.

ABOVE - Each window was placed to take advantage of the sun’s trajectory through the sky during the year, as well as to help the breeze flow efficiently throughout the home. The kite-like shades are moved depending on the season to enhance this effect.

LEFT - Joines made many sketches while conceptualizing the home’s design, which helped her solidify a consistent plan. The drawing you see here is an early depiction of the master bathroom on the second floor.

the numbers

laguna lake

Total Homes Sold Average Asking Price Average Selling Price Sales Price as a % of Asking Price Average # of Days on the Market

tank farm

Total Homes Sold Average Asking Price Average Selling Price Sales Price as a % of Asking Price Average # of Days on the Market

cal poly area

Total Homes Sold Average Asking Price Average Selling Price Sales Price as a % of Asking Price Average # of Days on the Market

2013 47 551,635 541,853 98.28 58

2014 44 601,807 590,104 98.29 44

+/-6.38% 9.10% 8.90% 0.01% -24.14%

2013 22 675,614 677,245 100.24 14

2014 18 755,092 743,855 98.61 42

+/-18.18% 11.76% 9.84% -1.63% 200.00%

2013 24 565,958 555,625 98.46 27

Total Homes Sold Average Asking Price Average Selling Price Sales Price as a % of Asking Price Average # of Days on the Market

2013 14 892,607 878,714 98.52 78

2014 20 634,938 622,816 98.32 36

+/-16.67% 12.19% 12.09% -0.14% 33.33%

2014 12 1,012,750 981,131 96.92 72

+/-14.29% 13.46% 11.66% -1.60% -7.69%

Total Homes Sold Average Asking Price Average Selling Price Sales Price as a % of Asking Price Average # of Days on the Market

2013 31 589,482 581,690 97.06 48

Total Homes Sold Average Asking Price Average Selling Price Sales Price as a % of Asking Price Average # of Days on the Market

2013 35 660,540 649,557 98.21 40

2014 33 755,236 740,321 98.51 40

+/6.45% 28.12% 27.27% 1.45% -16.67%

2014 48 681,727 662,163 98.10 37

+/37.14% 3.21% 1.94% -0.11% -7.50%

2013 35 605,226 602,726 98.96 23

2014 19 688,853 668,202 97.12 65 johnson ave *Comparing 1/1/13 - 9/18/13 to 1/1/14 - 9/18/14

+/-45.71% 13.82% 10.86% -1.84% 182.61%

SOURCE: San Luis Obispo Association of REALTORS®

FEATURING

• CORK COUTURE •

The San Luis Obispo Collection held its 2nd annual Cork Couture luau-style on Saturday, September 13th, infusing the Court Street Terrace with an ambience of the Hawaiian islands. Our whole community—friends, family, cohorts and cronies—raised their glasses, savored nibbles and swayed to the music of local favorites Fialta. Walking the bamboo carpet while eager paparazzi snapped photos, the ladies wore flowers in their hair, and the gents rocked fedoras and aloha-print shirts. The terrace glittered under swags of fairy lights and bright swaths of sailcloth. Best of all, the event raised awareness and funds in support of one of SLO Collection’s favorite causes, Big Brothers Big Sisters of SLO County. Hope to see you at next year’s fête!

ISSUE: World-class office space in the heart of downtown San Luis Obispo

ALSO IN THIS

SLO OFFICE

Known for its best-in-class shopping and dining, the San Luis Obispo Collection also features top-shelf office space.

805 COLLECTIVE AND THE CANA FAMILY

How a few college friends set their sights on creating their dream office space in downtown San Luis Obispo

Ten years ago a few college buddies got together and dreamed of finding a way to continue living in San Luis Obispo while they grew their creative enterprises. They rented out a warehouse on South Higuera and got busy creating art: Graphic Design, Video Production, Painting, Photography, Coding, Woodworking, Music, and Web Design. As their businesses—805 Collective and The Cana Family—grew, the friends set their sights on a studio more centrally located in the city they loved. Soon enough, they found the perfect downtown space, and they tricked it out with art sourced from local artists and unique design elements, like desks repurposed from old upright pianos. 805 Collective focuses primarily on Web Development and Design and works with all kinds of commercial clients, from Fortune 500 corporations to local companies. The Cana Family keeps a busy international schedule with both commercial and lifestyle filmmaking. They also compose and record all the soundtracks to their films. Both firms embody the easy-going spirit of San Luis Obispo, focusing on the important things. (The Cana Family currently holds claim to ‘best facial hair in the office.’) Their unofficial slogan is ‘Every hour is happy hour.’ They invite you to drop by their new office and verify this!

The San Luis Obispo Collection brings together world class shopping, the city’s finest restaurants, upscale retail, museums and theater. San Luis Obispo, named the Happiest City in America, is the cultural hub of the Central Coast, which embodies the California lifestyle and offers locals and visitors alike historic architecture, sweeping vineyards, pristine beaches, charming beach towns and mountain ranges, and is home to Cal Poly University. In this issue of SLO Merchant, we highlight two groups of entrepreneurs who are both bringing their unique flavor and style to the SLO community.

INTRODUCING JAMIE BARLETT AND POLYPAY

Woman-owned and San Luis Obispo-based, PolyPay—the brainchild of entrepreneur Jamie Barlett—recently relocated to Court Street.

Michigan to Saint Louis to Boston to Los Angeles to San Francisco and finally— San Luis Obispo. Ultimately, Jamie Barlett found the best, like so many other business owners here.

Jamie is the President and CEO of PolyPay, a merchant processing business that began late last year and established its official roots at 999 Monterey Street in the spring of this year. PolyPay is an Independent Sales Organization (ISO), wholly owned by Jamie and is one of only a handful of women-owned ISOs in the United States. As an ISO, PolyPay can provide competitive pricing, merchant support and customized payment processing solutions.

The Merchant Processing business was a natural fit for Jamie as she has a credit card services heritage in her background. Her previous fifteen years of business experience with a major consulting firm, plus high tech companies both in Silicon Valley and Southern California pointed her toward serving merchants in a hands-on manner with service at its core. Jamie has always enjoyed working with data and data analysis and along with the inherent knowledge of the credit card industry, PolyPay has emerged both as a service and a passion. Merchants can be assured that their businesses receive handson attention with representatives of PolyPay dedicated to their success: solving issues, answering queries and keeping merchants updated with the latest technology—a true imperative in 2014.

Jamie’s family had moved to San Luis Obispo in 1999 and her visits after her undergraduate

years continued to draw her back to the area. When she felt she was totally equipped to offer the services of a company centered on serving merchants with every possible tool for their success, San Luis Obispo was the perfect location.

All PolyPay employees are Cal Poly graduates and each is trained, as was Jamie’s goal when she started PolyPay, to dedicate personal attention and service to their clients. PolyPay has also made a commitment to support community services here and continues to seek out ways to make PolyPay serviceoriented to customers and citizens.

Abercrombie & Fitch abercrombie.com

The Apple Store apple.com

Bali’s Yogurt 805-594-1172

Banana Republic bananarepublic.com

Barnes and Noble barnesandnoble.com

Bull’s Tavern facebook.com/bullstavernslo

California Pizza Kitchen cpk.com

Cal Poly Downtown calpoly.edu

Chico’s chicos.com

Chinos Rock & Tacos chinorocks.com

Express express.com

GAP gap.com

Ian Saude Gallery iansaude.com

Jamba Juice jambajuice.com

Moondoggies Surf Shop moondoggies.com

The Movie Experience themovieexperience.com

Open Air Flowers openairflowersslo.com

Palazzo Giuseppe palazzogiuseppe.com

Papyrus papyrusonline.com

Pizza Solo pizzasolo.com

Pottery Barn potterybarn.com

Powell’s Sweet Shoppe powellsss.com

Salon Lux-Aveda salonlux.com

Sal’s Paradise slosals.com

Sephora sephora.com

SloCo Pasty Co. slocopastyco.com

Solstice Sunglass Boutique solsticesunglasses.com

Starbucks starbucks.com

Splash Cafe Seafood & Grill splashcafe.com

Sunglass Hut sunglasshut.com

Urban Outfitters urbanoutfitters.com

Victoria’s Secret victoriassecret.com

White House Black Market whitehouseblackmarket.com

LEASING INFORMATION:

Therese Cron Therese@copelandproperties.com 805.785.0511

Vimmia’s Chalet down vest is the must have piece for fall with style, quality, fit and performance, so you can look and feel your best no matter where life takes you.

$195 // Assets // 853 Monterey Street, San Luis Obispo (805) 781-0119 // sloassets.com

The best mens gift ever—Mova World globes silently and calmly turn to reflect the steady motion of Earth using only the energy of the light in a room and the force of the earths magnetic field. Perfect for the man who has everything.

$142 // Hands Gallery 777 Higuera Street, San Luis Obispo (805) 543-1921 // handsgallery.com

She Sold Seashells by the Sea Shore. Made from sand turned into gleaming glass sculptures of sea shore life. Sizes approximately five to eight inches. No two are alike, and colors vary. Made by the pros at Seattle Glassblowing Studio.

$145 - $275 // Fiona Bleu Gallery 900 Embarcadero, Morro Bay (805) 772-0541 // fionableugallery.com

Turn To

now carries

$16 — $140 // Turn To Nature 786 Higuera Street, San Luis Obispo (805) 540-3395 // turntonature.com

Farm’s beautiful

wood kitchen and tableware pieces. Each item is sculpted and sanded to enhance the fantastic grain and sealed with olive oil to preserve the natural beauty. Robbin’s Family Farm olive oils, vinegars and now the new olive wood collection all make wonderful gifts.

Nature

Robbin’s Family

olive

LIVING LEGEND

Lucky Louie

With deep roots in the community, Dr. Louis Tedone inspires with his story of strength, integrity, and humility.

BY TOM FRANCISKOVICH

It’s 4:53 a.m. and Dr. Louis Tedone is pulling into his favorite parking spot at Club 24 in San Luis Obispo. Behind him the crickets are sounding off in the shrubs lining Foothill Boulevard. At 91 years old, Tedone recently decided to cut back his workouts from five times per week to four. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, “Lucky Louie” as he refers to himself, personifies the American Dream. His parents immigrated to New York and started a “momma and poppa” Italian grocery store where they sold fresh mozzarella each day. Tedone, who has an endearing habit of resting his hands on your shoulders when he speaks, insists that “mozzarella should be eaten on the day it is made.” And he should know, because he has been hand-making the stuff daily for his daughter and son-in-law’s market, DePalo & Sons in Shell Beach every day for the last 24 years.

Tedone perfected his craft while he was in medical school when he would rise at 6am and spend a couple of hours making cheese before heading off to class. His father had recently passed away and the responsibilities of the family store had fallen on his sons. Since World War II was raging, Tedone’s brothers were called overseas. Uncle Sam needed doctors and told Lucky Louie to stay in school. After his brothers returned home, one of them went on to become a lawyer and the other took over the store. But, it was another store called DePalo & Son, a friendly competitor ten miles away in the Borough Park area of Brooklyn, that was about to alter the course of Lucky Louie’s life.

The Tedones and the DePalos were tight. The mothers and the fathers of both families all came from the same Italian city known as Bari. Tedone reaches down and points to an area above his heel at the base of his Achilles tendon to show where it is located in the old country. “DePalo had one son and my father was his godfather, which is a very big deal to Italians. That shows you how close we were,” explains Tedone. It was toward the end of his time in medical school, which he completed six weeks before his 24th birthday, that he realized he was lingering a little longer to talk to his longtime family friend, Grace DePalo. While in medical school he mustered the courage to ask

her out on a date and the two were inseparable practically from that day forward.

During the Korean War, Dr. Tedone’s services were required at Camp Roberts. “It was the first time I had left New York,” he remembers. So, the young couple made their way west for a two-year stint caring for enlisted men as they awaited deployment orders. In 1953 the Tedones purchased a small home in the Alta Vista neighborhood near the intersection of Slack and Grand Avenues. At the time, the population of San Luis Obispo was 14,750 and Tedone became the only pediatrician in town. As the couple expanded their family—they had nine kids in all—their house grew along with them. Today, Tedone, who still lives in the now 3,800 square foot home, explains, “It was a lot less expensive to keep adding on instead of moving around.” Reminders of family can be found on nearly every surface of the home. The refrigerator is covered with the smiling faces of his 22 grandchildren, and old black and whites are plentiful, as are mementoes from the past— including the Olympic torch he was chosen to carry in 2002. But, it is a poem that hangs on the kitchen wall that occupies Tedone’s attention. Titled “Full of Grace,” one of his grandson’s—a big football player, he points out—who was born a year after his wife had passed away 20 years ago, wrote the poem as a 17-year-old student at San Luis Obispo High School. According to Tedone, “Everyone that comes here has to read it. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read it myself, but I get choked up every time I do.”

As he thinks back to an exceptionally busy family life—the Tedones, both bilingual, used to speak to one another in Italian when they needed to communicate without the kids knowing what was being said—things do not appear to have slowed down much. When Lucky Louie was in his late forties, he thought about his father who died of a heart attack at 50 (his grandfather also succumbed to heart disease in his fifties), and he decided that he needed to be around for his family, so he resolved himself to get into top shape. He was a little overweight and could afford to lose a few pounds, so he began going on twomile runs followed by push-ups and sit-ups—he

now does 40 to 45 continuous push-ups and 60 to 70 sit-ups at home four to five days a week to supplement his gym workouts, where he rotates through 14 upper body machines followed by ten minutes “as fast as I can go” on the treadmill. Despite, the rigorous workouts, he claims that the mozzarella-making, a physically demanding activity itself, is what keeps him going.

When Tedone’s daughter and son-and-law purchased Spyglass Liquor & Deli in Shell Beach, they had a vision for a neighborhood Italian market by the sea, similar to the old family stores back in Brooklyn. To honor Tedon’s wife, Grace, the couple changed the name to DePalo & Sons (unlike the original store in New York, DePalo & Son, the couple has four boys so the word “Son” became plural). In addition to Tedone’s daily cheese, which he insists must be eaten at room temperature, DePalo & Sons sells a variety of other familyinspired foods. The pasta sauce, called “Grace’s Marinara,” is particularly popular, and Tedone proudly tells the story of local running phenom, Jordan Hasay, who feasted on the sauce in an effort to “carb load” before a race. “They would ship three cases of the sauce at a time to her.”

But Tedone’s pride shows most when he talks about his family. Lucky Louie, who in his distinctive Brooklyn accent explains that he gave himself the name because he had been lucky in love, says “I had a fantastic wife who raised nine kids successfully without complaining. She was a gifted, wonderful person.” He cites the fact that all nine of his kids are now happily married as evidence of Grace’s excellent example. And, in the Italian spirit of “famiglia prima” or “family first,” he points to the fact that six of his nine children and their families live in the City of San Luis Obispo (the other three families are in Templeton, Northern California, and Orange County—“less than three hours away” he is quick to point out). The family gets together often to celebrate their good fortune. “I’ve always told the kids,” placing his hands on my shoulders for emphasis, “You can be happy with what you have, or miserable with what you don’t have.” SLO LIFE

of Grace

By Matthew Teel

What I would give

To spend a day with her

To be in her presence

To share a laugh

A warm hug

I can only imagine the true elegance

Behind her character

Her ability to light up the darkest of rooms

Her compassion towards others

Her support of four daughters

Her patience with five sons

Her authentic Italian cooking

Her optimism

Even through her cancer

A testament to a positive and fulfilling life

I was not able to meet her

I can only dream

Before my birth

She held me in her arms Above the clouds Living life with a certain grace

French Hospital Gala

left to right Kevin M. Rice, Dr. Louis Tedone, Jim Copeland, Alan Iftiniuk, Pierre Rademaker

The Louis Tedone, M.D. Humanitarian Award

In 1953, Louis Tedone sat down with Edison French to discuss leaving Brooklyn behind to work at the newly created French Hospital. Tedone could not imagine staying in San Luis Obispo, but as he recalls, “It was a very generous offer that allowed me to build my practice in the first year.” That fateful meeting was the beginning of a magical 61-year journey, and allowed the pediatrician to touch many lives locally. To recognize and honor the legacy of the doctor, French Hospital developed the annual Louis Tedone, M.D. Humanitarian Award, of which Tedone was awarded the first one. Today, the award goes to “someone who contributed to the community,” and this year at the French Hospital Gala it was awarded to Jim Copeland.

Full

Candidates Forum

We asked the candidates for San Luis Obispo City Mayor just two questions: What are the most pressing issues facing the city today? And, what do you intend to do about those issues?

DONALD HEDRICK 67, Community Activist, Artisan

MAYOR

to favor these international based programs such as identified in the UN’s Agenda 21 that express the goal of the dismantling of our country’s industry and our rights. We need to have our city government cease the rubber stamping of these subversive doctrines that are coming down the line and come up with local solutions.

The first thing would be to appoint myself to the APCD and bring the issue of the international fouling of our skies with the geo-engineering that is genocide against the people of the world. Our protest of the poisoning of our land, water, crops, and lungs with the patented processes that the corporate elite are using to poison the land, water, crops, and the air we breathe. We need to resist the lure of the grants that promote the objectives of the UN’s Agenda 21 which are working their way down to the cities. We need to speak out against such seditious programs and their grants with strings attached that are designed to take away our citizen rights. We as a city need to take back control of our governments and get rid of the criminals that want to replace our democracy with the new world order.

JAN MARX 69, Retired Lawyer (incumbent)

MAYOR

1. How can the City best respond to climate change that will protect our residents and our natural resources, support a sustainable economy, adapt to drought and fire conditions and develop resiliency for the future in the face of climate change? I will implement the Climate Action Plan and advocate collaborative regional adaptation strategies. 2. How can the City implement the Land Use and Circulation Element Update and plan for more housing in the annexation areas? I will vote in favor of over ruling the Airport Land Use Commission and implementing Cal Trans Handbook standards, so future housing can be built, while protecting the viability and safety of the Airport. 3. How to heal the Cal Poly/City relationship without sacrificing residents’ quality of life, in light of the university’s plan to build the freshman dorm project at Slack and Grand and increase student enrollment by 5,000 students? I will urge the University to build on campus housing to accommodate any future enrollment increase, maintain an adequate buffer between the neighborhoods and the elementary school, and give faculty and staff incentives to move near the university. 4. How to deal with the growing unfunded pension liabilities from CalPERS? I will vote in favor of setting aside funds for future unpredictable pension costs, pension cost sharing and paying down side funds when feasible. 5. Where to cut the budget if Measure G does not pass and the City loses 12% of its revenue? I will preserve residents’ priorities whenever possible, if cuts are necessary. 6. How to best deal with the homeless situation and protect all members of the community? I will continue to advocate a multi-faceted approach, support the new homeless services center at 40 Prado, supportive housing, and a county detox facility.

50, Antique Shop Owner

MAYOR

How can the City best respond to Homelessness? Homelessness is always a major issue. Every Citizen of the nation is an American Citizen and deserves to be treated fairly and equally. The very fact that this has become a major issue during the last several years should be examined first, before we can move forward with a realistic goal for the future that coincides with our Constitution. As far as the Employee Retirement Pensions are concerned, a complete overhaul needs to be accomplished. Accountability comes first. Fiduciary responsibility should meet the criterion of reality, so that we can ensure continuing benefits in the future, without creating deficit.

How can the City best respond to the City Employee Retirement Pensions? We need to create a base infrastructure that accommodates growth and expansion. Affordable housing is key to population influx. Instead of blaming the homeless, we should acknowledge the realities of undocumented immigration for over 30 years, and a slow economy with an ever more slowly moving recovery. The loosening of bureaucratic constraints on new development projects that are intended to accommodate the population, not only in housing, but also within the business community, would benefit not only the City of San Luis Obispo, but the entire county, within the long term. As far as the Employee Retirement Pensions are concerned, we could take out a low interest loan, pay off the contracts immediately, and renegotiate a new and more realistic employee retirement benefit plan. We could then implement a way to rehabilitate our City’s debt problem, for which the current program is at least partly responsible.

JEFFREY SPECHT

Candidates Forum

(cont.)

We asked the candidates for San Luis Obispo City Council just two questions: What are the most pressing issues facing the city today? And, what do you intend to do about those issues?

DANIEL CANO 42, Executive Director of LINK

COUNCIL

Economic Development, Real Estate Development, and Homelessness are the three most pressing issues San Luis Obispo faces today. All three of these issues have a direct impact on our city’s financial health and security. As we see an improving economy, there will be opportunities for business growth that creates quality jobs; and the City Council can have either a positive or a negative impact on these opportunities. Likewise we are already seeing large scale real estate development proposals for housing and commercial uses. Without strong leadership and vision, our City Council could approve projects that don’t properly reflect our values and projected needs in 10 or 20 years. Lastly, homelessness has grown significantly in our City, and it is most visible in our downtown business district. If this issue isn’t addressed productively, our downtown will see a growing negative impact. As we see an improved economy, we need to first support our existing local businesses by staying true to policies that maintain the environment that inspired them to open their businesses in the first place. This doesn’t always happen. Secondly I would be a proactive ambassador to reach out to high tech companies to find ways to attract those businesses that can offer high paying jobs, career pathways, and services to support businesses and residents. On Development, my focus would be on supporting the development of “affordable by design” housing that reflects our need to provide starter homes for our workforce that reduces the need to commute. I would also work to ensure that we have supportive senior housing in the pipeline to support our aging parents and grandparents. On homelessness, I currently manage County homeless programs, and I would leverage my experience to develop mental health and subsidized employment opportunities that have been proven successful.

GORDON MULLIN 68, Financial Advisor

COUNCIL

Neighborhoods and Cal Poly dorms are the most pressing issues facing the city today. When my family came to SLO in the 50’s, roughly two-thirds of the homes were owner occupied with one-third rentals. Now that’s reversed.

The city should collaborate with Poly as to the timing and placement of dorms as a means to safeguard our neighborhoods. Other cities in similar circumstances have come to such an agreement yet this council, on three occasions, has refused to even discuss the issue.

Today, in California, the percentage of its population that is between the ages of 18 to 24 is 10 percent.

In San Luis Obispo, it’s 37 percent. Is that what we want?

To correct this imbalance, I intend to do all in my power to get the council and Cal Poly to sit down and make a joint decision, one that both agree to with regard to both the timing and placement of dorms.

More students must be housed on campus in locations that do not impact our neighborhoods.

Three times this issue has come to the attention of council and three times it voted to not even agendize the topic for discussion. This council has shown its continued indifference to the welfare of its neighborhoods when it comes to this vital policy and I promise to make this my top priority if I get elected to council.

There are two pressing issues facing San Luis Obispo in the immediate future. First, the City’s financial health is fundamental, and this includes getting our long-term debt under control. Updated data from CalPERS will be coming out early next year, and that could substantially alter our current and future financial planning and allocation of funds.

The second, but no less important issue deals with the proposed – but not yet adopted or implemented – changes in the update to the Land Use and Circulation Elements of the City’s General Plan. They have grown from the “focused updates” the City Council initially directed into aggressive overhauls. It will take considerable time for residents and businesses alike to digest it all, and there are likely going to be some unintended consequences that will need to be addressed. We must get a handle on our financial situation no matter what CalPERS determines our unfunded liabilities to be.

While the City has made a start at reigning in costs, the Council must focus on spending as carefully as we do in our private lives. My goal is to ensure that our financial house is in order, and I will diligently address the potential threats to our financial well-being. We must get to the point that we know precisely what it costs to deliver essential city services and budget accordingly.

The Land Use and Circulation Element updates require careful reading and analysis. My goal is to work with other council members to ensure that potential problems are identified and corrected before significant adverse impacts become imbedded in these critical long-term planning documents.

COUNCIL

Candidates Forum

We asked the candidates for San Luis Obispo City Council just two questions: What are the most pressing issues facing the city today? And, what do you intend to do about those issues?

CARLYN CHRISTIANSON

60, Medical Practice Admin. (incumbent)

COUNCIL

The most pressing issues are those which require finite resolution, such as the 2015-2017 budget and the compensation contract negotiations with city employees. A number of issues which are absolutely crucial to SLO’s future are also pressing, but they will need ongoing attention and investment of resources as well as ongoing community and regional dialogue. These include vital concerns such as housing, transportation, open space maintenance, climate change and energy use, neighborhood wellness concerns, infrastructure financing, homelessness, water, pension liabilities and more. These issues are obviously interrelated in many cases and very complex, but we need to tackle them and move towards the future. To preserve San Luis Obispo’s fundamental values of environmental protection, historical and cultural richness, economic vitality and sensible government, we must address these challenges, but as in the past, opportunities come from challenges and I know San Luis Obispo will meet them with energy and imagination.

I intend to continue to listen to the community and then make my decisions based on the best interests of the community as a whole. With the updated Land Use and Circulation elements in place, and given recent major city goals, plus depending on whether Measure G (formerly Measure Y) passes, I imagine our residents would like to focus resources especially on housing, open space maintenance, neighborhood wellness and civility issues, and addressing climate change partly with bike paths and public transit investments. Doing this as part of the budget process will help to ensure real attention to these issues. In that spirit, I encourage residents to take part in the budgeting process starting in January, including a public workshop on January 13. Using the public budgeting process to set goals and fund key initiatives will set the stage for action with a realistic fiscal foundation and discussion.

DAN RIVOIRE 29, Exec. Director of the SLO County Bicycle Coalition COUNCIL

San Luis Obispo residents have high expectations of the City. I am proud to be one of those demanding residents. In the next four years the most pressing issues facing our City will be: 1. Focusing revenue on actions that address residents’ needs, such as acting to protect neighborhood safety and health, building necessary transportation improvements, addressing homelessness, and maintaining current infrastructure. 2. Preserving fiscal health by managing debt and expenses while encouraging economic growth that will increase future revenue. 3. Engaging citizens in the civic process and increasing participation to better represent City demographics.

Each of these elements are essential to proving to residents that City government exists to serve their needs and the long term prosperity of our community.

I believe an even better SLO is possible.

I absolutely love this community and am motivated by constructive, practical, focus on completing city goals. Addressing residents’ needs is the most important issue. For neighborhood quality of life, this means encouraging block parties, welcome to the neighborhood traditions, and utilizing social media to build lines of communication between neighbors. For circulation, we must direct resources toward building key roadway connections while re-striping streets around our schools to make biking and walking an easy transportation option. To increase workforce housing, we need to allow development that will increase the percentage of owner occupied homes, respect growth limits approved by prior councils, add head of household jobs, and address traffic impacts. Preserving our fiscal health success means paying down components of our debt that accrue interest while fostering economic development to increase revenue.

Bond Measures

In our representative form of democracy, we customarily elect the politicians who then make choices on our behalf. Occasionally, such as with these bond measures, we are asked to decide the matter, as voters, directly. The fate of these three initiatives will have a dramatic impact on the futures of the City of San Luis Obispo, San Luis Coastal Unified School District, and Cuesta College. All three bond measures will likely set you back a few bucks, but the value received in terms of the benefits to the community may be far greater, and that’s for you to decide...

MEASURE D

San Luis Coastal Unified School District construction and renovation

With its aging school facilities in need of repair and upgrade, San Luis Coastal Unified School District, which serves 7,500 kindergarten through high school students residing in San Luis Obispo, Los Osos, Morro Bay, Avila Beach and other unincorporated areas, is asking voters to approve a $177 million bond. The cost to local property owners will be approximately $49.00 per $100,000 of assessed, not market, value. Funds will be used for capital projects only, such as improving buildings, with some of its oldest dating back to 1936. None of the funds will be used on salaries. And, like the other bond measures, if passed, it will require a citizen’s oversight committee and annual audits.

MEASURE G

Extend San Luis Obispo’s one-half percent sales tax

Back in 2006, 65% of the voters agreed to increase the sales tax rate from 7.5% to 8.0% by voting “Yes” on Measure Y. Now, the city is asking for an eight year extension. Failure to pass the measure will result in an approximately 12% reduction—about $6.5 million per year—in tax revenues which will trigger across the board cuts in a variety of city programs. If passed, the measure will come with provisions for citizen oversight and annual audits. The estimated cost to each resident is about $4.00 per month, with nearly three-quarters of the tax paid by tourists and non-residents.

MEASURE L

Cuesta College campus repair and program offering expansion

Cuesta College is asking voters for a $275 million bond, which will be paid for by a property tax increase equal to $19.45 per year per $100,000 of assessed value, again not market value. The proceeds will be used for upgrading, maintaining, and expanding facilities, programs and educational offerings. Should the measure be approved, funds will be audited annually and will require citizen oversight. None of the monies will be used to fund administrator salaries or pensions.

DATE NIGHT

Every successfully married couple I know says you still have to date your spouse and surprise them. Worried our dinner and movie nights were far beyond cliché, I decided it was time to take date night to a new level.

BY PADEN HUGHES

Climbing to New Heights

RRoutes marked in colored strips of duct tape, chalky palms, soft landings and plenty of advice from encouraging onlookers… what’s not to love about climbing gyms? You may not know it, but San Luis Obispo is home to one of the best rock climbing gyms in the country. Notable for its non-profit status and creative client crowdsourcing, SLO Op is a cultural magnet for hippies, hipsters and everyone in between.

I used to climb a lot. Climbing is one of my favorite activities. In fact, when I first started getting to know my husband, I invited him to my climbing gym to see if he could hang. Four years later, we were in need of a return.

SLO Op climbing gym holds a special place in my life. I was a dedicated climber there for a few years in college and watched this small company grow from a little storage unit to a beautiful creative hub of activity. Now with around 500 members, SLO Op is cranking!

SLO Op is a bouldering gym, meaning that you do not need to tie in and that you won’t be climbing more than about 15

to 20 feet high. Every wall is littered with colorful holds of all shapes and sizes and the routes are marked with different colored tape so you can easily follow the lines up the walls. Ranked from beginner to advanced, you can ask any crew member where to start out. Even beginners get a huge sense of accomplishment when they top out on a route and conquer it.

“Graham is extremely professional and provided an amazing amount of information on each property we toured. His paperwork was impeccable and he was able to refer high quality vendors, which was a huge plus since we are new to the area. Our purchase would not have been possible without him and I would recommend him to anyone who is interested in

The drop-in rate is $12 per person. That includes shoes and access to the facilities with no time limit.

SLO Op is located in the very last set of commercial warehouses at 289 Prado Road.

SLO

PADEN HUGHES is co-owner of Gymnazo and enjoys exploring the Central Coast.

Get-Fit Kettlebell Exercises

1SWING

This exercise is all the kettlebell rage. Stand up straight with feet a bit wider than hip-distance apart. Grab hold of the handle with one or both hands, keeping the palms face down and arms in front of the body. If using one arm, alternate hands when the kettlebell is behind the legs. Maintain a slight bend to the knee and drive the hips back, lowering the body—but not too low, this isn’t a squat. Then, in a fluid motion, explosively drive the hips forward while swinging the kettlebell, keeping the glutes and core engaged. Remember: The motion should come from the hips (not the arms) as the body returns to standing. Lower the weight back down between the legs while lowering again, and keep this swinging motion going for the duration of the reps.

Resembling a mini bowling ball with a handle, kettlebells are great for cardio, strength, and flexibility training. We recommend finding an experienced trainer to get started.

2CLEAN

Start with the kettlebell between the feet. Begin to swing upwards: Shrug the shoulders, pulling the body and ‘bell up to the shoulder. The ‘bell should end resting on the forearm, which is tucked close to the body, with the fist at your chest. Bring the weight back down to the floor and repeat for 10 to 15 reps.

GOBLET SQUAT

What’s a squat without a kettlebell in hand? Stand up straight, holding the kettlebell in front of the chest with both hands, keeping the elbows close to the body. Start squatting by driving the heels into the ground and pushing the hips back until the thighs are parallel to the ground or just below. Return to standing, and repeat for 15-20 reps. Just remember: quality over quantity.

4WINDMILL

Hold the kettlebell in the right hand and angle the feet 45 degrees away from the right arm. Raise the kettlebell overhead, lock the arm, and keep your eyes on the weight (which will help keep the shoulders aligned). Shift your weight onto the right leg and begin bending forward at the waist. Keep the right arm extended overhead as the body bends forward and the left arm is pointed toward the ground. (For all you yogis out there, this should feel similar to triangle pose.) Lift back up slowly, staying in control. Repeat for 6 to 8 reps on each side.

5SUMO HIGH-PULL

We promise no wrestling is involved. Start with the kettlebell between the feet set a bit wider than hipdistance apart. Grab onto the handle with both hands with the knees bent and hips back. Then, pull the kettlebell to the shoulders while the knees straighten and elbows rise. Remember, the force is coming mostly from the hips, with the arms pulling at the very end. Keeping the core engaged the whole time, move the weight back down to the ground and repeat for 12-15 reps.

RUSSIAN TWIST

6Forget crunches. Sit with the legs bent and feet flat on the floor, about hip-distance apart. Hold the kettlebell with both hands at the chest, and then lean back to a 45 degree angle. Here’s the fun part: rotate the torso from left to right by twisting at the waist and swinging the kettlebell across the body. See how many you can do with perfect form, of course.

7SINGLE-ARM SNATCH

Start with a kettlebell between the feet with the knees bent. Then, explode up onto your toes, pulling the kettlebell until it reaches the chest with the elbow tucked in. From there, bring the weight overhead (hold on tight). Then bring it back down close to the ground—that’s one rep; try for 6 to 8.

PUSH-UP

8This move is simply a push-up, but with kettlebells included. Grab hold of each handle in the usual start position, then lower the body before pushing back up. It will definitely feel challenging with those hands on handles rather than on the floor. Shoot for 10-15 reps.

PUSH-UP WITH ROW

Let’s take this push-up up a notch. Begin in a push-up position with the right arm holding the kettlebell. Perform a push-up and, at the top, lift the right elbow by squeezing the shoulder blades together with the elbow about six inches behind the body. Then return back to the starting push-up position, pushin’ for 5 to 8 reps with each arm.

SINGLE-ARM FLOOR PRESS

Lie on the ground with your legs straight. (No, yoga masters, it’s not time for savasana!) Grab a kettlebell by your side and, with the palm facing in, press the weight straight up while rotating the wrist (so the palms face the feet). Bring the kettlebell back down to the starting position, and repeat for 6 to 8 reps. SLO LIFE

SAVORY SEAFOOD

ABALONE TARTLET

A longtime staple of the ancient Chumash and Salinan natives living on the Central Coast, these delightfully iridescent mollusks can be found growing at The Abalone Farm on the ocean bluffs north of Cayucos. The California Red Abalone are delicious as well as nutritious and do equally well as an appetizer or main course.

JESSIE’S TIP:

You will want to be very careful to not overcook the abalone—no more than a minute and a half or two per side. And tenderizing it prior to cooking is key.

ABALONE TARTLET

serves 4

TARTLET

1 sheet of puff pastry (it’s ok to use frozen) cut into 4 equal parts

4 abalone fillets

2 oz almond dust

½ oz flour

1 lb mixed variety of heirloom tomatoes herb mix—a few sprigs each of thyme, sage and oregano

2 cups olive oil

SAUCE

1 Tbs olive oil

1 Tbs all purpose flour

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup white wine

½ lemon

2 Tbs capers

3 Tbs butter GARNISH

1. Prepare the tomatoes by coring. Mix them with olive oil and herbs then slow cook in oven at 300° for one hour. Remove from oven and let cool and rough chop.

2. For the tartlet dough, cut four equal squares from the sheet. Keep it cool for better handling.

3. Dock center of portioned pieces of dough to keep center from rising. Keep about ½ inch from edge untouched to allow the edge to rise.

4. Par-bake tartlet dough in a 350° oven for 10 minutes or until edges have risen and dough is light brown. Remove from oven and cool.

5. For the abalone, mix the almond dust and flour with a pinch of salt and pepper. Dredge the abalone in mixture and refrigerate until ready to cook.

6. Add rough chopped heirloom tomatoes to the cooled tartlet shells and set on a sheet pan. Cook at 350° for 10-15 minutes.

1 Tbs parsley or microgreens SLO LIFE

7. While tartlets are in the oven, heat sauté pan to very hot. Add olive oil and let heat. Add abalone fillet straight from the refrigerator to pan and sear on both sides for 1-2 minutes each side, until light brown. Remove from the pan and set aside.

8. Meanwhile, make the sauce. In a hot pan, on high, quickly sauté minced garlic, add wine and lemon juice and reduce to half. Add butter and capers and season to taste with salt and pepper.

9. Pull tartlets from oven and add the abalone to the top. Finish by drizzling sauce over the top and garnish with parsley or microgreens.

JESSIE RIVAS is the owner and chef of The Pairing Knife food truck which serves the Central Coast.

The Curious Mathematics of Collaboration

Even in the best of times funding for the arts generally falls short. But in the throes of the Great Recession, Opera San Luis Obispo was struggling mightily to fill seats at its annual show. In 2010 its La Bohème production filled about half the seats at the Performing Arts Center, and the following year, Barber of Seville, yielded similar results. The organization had cut its costs down to the bone and the conversation centered on how to cut still more in order to survive. But, there is a danger in those many small sacrifices as organizations who have met a “death by a thousand cuts” can attest.

Ironically, it can be spending rather than saving that may pull an organization back from the brink. Opera San Luis Obispo decided it was time to do some soul searching and elected not to put on its large annual production in 2012. For the opera, founded in 1985 by Dr. Jill Anderson and the late Jean Cook, this was a bitter pill to swallow. Under the direction of its new artistic director, Brian Asher Alhadeff, the organization put on a series of more informal, low-cost shows he referred to as “friendraisers.” According to Alhadeff, “The idea wasn’t so much about just raising money—although that was very important, too— but we wanted to reach out to this community, which is so tight-nit and very supportive of the arts.” At the same time that he was reaching out to prospective donors and expanding the organization’s audience, he was also initiating conversations with other arts organizations locally.

When Alhadeff sat down to talk with his artistic peers, he outlined a formula he had developed over the past fifteen years—most notably as the artistic director and founder of the International Summer Opera Festival in the Czech Republic—that allowed one plus one to equal three. What Alhadeff discovered, as he was bouncing around Europe to drum up support for his upstart festival, was that relationships really do matter. “There were all of these little performing groups that had very loyal followings, people who were intensely interested in what they were doing and would go to every show,” he observed. So, he began selectively inviting various local groups to join in performing at the festival. As this collaboration grew to include other organizations, the festival expanded. Not just incrementally, but exponentially. Now, Alhadeff is applying the same math, right here on the Central Coast.

The concept is rather simple on the surface. Each group included in the citywide collaboration, as it has come to be known, is asked to reach out to its supporters. These efforts are supplemented by an email marketing campaign where each organization’s contacts are combined and sent out as a series of massive appeals to everyone who may be interested in the production. Following the show, Opera San Luis Obispo pays the collaborating organization a fee for their participation. Using this tactic for the first time last year for its production of Carmen, Opera San Luis Obispo was able to fill 91% of the seats at the PAC—nearly doubling attendance. The best part, however, according to Alhadeff, is “that it is so exciting to see everyone come together.”

This year, Opera San Luis Obispo looks to build upon its success with Carmen by upping the ante with its production of Aida by increasing its investment in set design and props, along with an expanded collaboration with Civic Ballet, Central Coast Children’s Choir, Ballet Theatre San Luis Obispo, CORE dance company, Deyo Dances, and Studio@Ryan’s American Dance. Aida, an enthralling story of an Egyptian princess that spans love and politics, will be conducted by Adelheff, directed by Daniel J. Witzke, and choreographed by Drew Silvaggio. The opera by Giuseppe Verdi, is known as a “grand opera,” which as the name implies is larger and more elaborate than other productions—a fitting description considering the impressive results that have come from the dedicated efforts of so many.

Tickets are available for Aida, which will show during the weekend of October 11 and 12, by logging onto pacslo.org or calling (805) 756-4849.

2013 Carmen Dress Rehearsal

Brian Asher Alhadeff photo courtesy Kathy Miller

Show Boat Production topcenterclockwise Erik Austin, Allison Generux, Roger Phillips, Eli Zabala, Tom McPhereson, Stephanie Roberson, Drew Silvaggio, Brian Asher Alhadeff, and Sharon Dobson

OCTOBER

PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE

This long running Off-Broadway absurdist comedy places Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso in a Parisian cafe in 1904, just before the renowned scientist transformed physics with his theory of relativity and the celebrated painter set the art world afire with cubism.

October 10 – 26 // slolittletheatre.org

AIDA

Enjoy this amazing citywide arts collaboration. Witness the return of the pharoah, armies of soldiers, slaves, priests and priestesses all set to the beauty of Giuseppe Verdi’s lush score. Aida is the ultimate grand opera experience featuring full orchestra, choruses, ballets, soaring arias, and an internationally acclaimed cast of opera singers.

October 11-12 // operaslo.org

VINTAGE CAMPER RALLY

See beautiful vintage campers (free) and enjoy wine and food tastings ($30). Planning to camp? The cost is $250 per couple for campers which includes camping fees, cocktail hour, Friday tour, three breakfasts, two lunches, and wine tasting.

October 16 – 18 ccspa.info/events/stranded.html

WHY AM I TELLING YOU THIS?

British humorist, and local No Shame Theatre favorite, Maddy Sinclair presents her outrageous slant on how to be yourself in a world that expects you to be someone else. This production is intended for mature audiences.

October 17 – 26 // slolittletheatre.org

October 25 – 31 // sanluislighthouse.org

NOVEMBER

SING-A-LONG SOUND OF MUSIC

This worldwide phenomenon celebrates the Julie Andrews classic film musical on the PAC big screen—in all of its glorious full-screen Technicolor—for a family-fun experience complete with hand props and subtitles so the whole audience can sing along. Start working on your lederhosen and nun habits now for the big costume competition.

November 2 // pacslo.org

Canzona Women’s Ensemble will join forces with the Concert Choir of the Central Coast Children’s Choir for their fall concert held at Cuesta College. November 9 // canzonawomen.org

HARVEST ON THE COAST

Enjoy the annual harvest celebration, a rambunctious extravaganza of local food and wine. The main event is an outdoor grand tasting and auction on Saturday at Avila Beach Golf Resort, featuring wine tasting, artisan foods, live music and ocean views. The auction features a broad selection of rare wines, culinary treats and SLO Wine Country destination experiences. The festivities unfold throughout the weekend with winemaker dinners on Friday evening and winery open houses on Sunday. November 7 – 9 // slowine.com

KING LEAR

With its tempestuous poetry, touches of humor and moments of simplicity, Shakespeare’s ultimately tragic King Lear is one of the deepest artistic explorations of the human condition. This riveting evening is performed by one of England’s premier theatre companies on a traveling Elizabethan stage.

November 18 // pacslo.org

CANZONA FALL CONCERT

OPINION

Taking Back the Neigborhood

Welcome to the neighborhood! We wanted to take a minute to introduce ourselves… we are your neighbors – yay!

Here’s a few things you can count on us for:

• If you ever need your trash cans taken in or out because you’re headed out of town, let us know. Any of us would be happy to help.

• If you’re headed home for the holidays, let us know so we can keep an eye on your place for you.

• If you’re in the middle of cooking a meal and need an egg/cup of milk/lemon/etc., come on by. I’m sure one of us will have the missing ingredient.

Here’s a few things we do as neighbors - and since you live here, you’re one of us now – congratulations!

• When we see a neighbor: We smile! We wave! We say “Hi!” Sometimes we even ask, “How are you?” And if we don’t know each other, we introduce ourselves. It’s really great, because then we know each other. And people who know each other are nice to each other. And help each other. And then they become friends. It’s the most awesome part of living in a neighborhood! Especially on a little street where we see each other All The Time. Everyday. And you want to know the people you see everyday. Or it just gets awkward. And that’s weird.

• When we’re outside, we use our “kid appropriate” language. Because six-year-olds do not need to know how to use the F-bomb. And ladies don’t like to hear that language. And because it’s just not very creative. Or smart. And it kind of makes you sound uneducated. And stupid - to be honest. Try this one, “Mother Earth!” Say that the next time you’re mad. People will be like, “Whoa, that dude is super smart and creative to use a play on words like that. AND, I still know what he means.”

• When we drive into the neighborhood, if we see kids, we slow down.

• When we drive into the neighborhood, and we do not see kids, we still slow down – because they will totally come flying out of the bushes on their bike/scooter/skateboard and ride right in front of your car (seriously, this happened yesterday). Yeah, we talk to them about pulling over to the sidewalk and putting one foot down so we know they’re not moving - but they don’t always (hardly ever) remember this rule.

• When we back out of the driveway - we do it slowly - because of the whole “flying out of the bushes” thing.

• When we drive into the neighborhood at night we turn down our headlights – because, seriously everyone’s bedroom window faces the street – and nothing is worse than being woken up by someone’s high beams shining through your window. Especially when you are six years old. Or when you’re 60. Really, it doesn’t matter how old you are. It just sucks to

Tired of the constant sound of bass rattling their homes, hearing swarms of college students coming and going at all hours of the night, and seeing them urinate on front lawns, one neighborhood off of Ramona Drive got together and drafted this letter and—along with a box of donuts—delivered it to the doorsteps of the college rental homes on their street “to remind the college kids to think about the neighborhoods that they grew up in. Because these are our homes, and this is our neighborhood.”

be woken up. Especially when you’re trying to sleep. And friends don’t wake friends up with high beams. And we’re friends.

• When it’s a beautiful day – like it Always is – we feel stoked. And we know that everyone else is stoked. And they’re enjoying the day. And the sounds of the wind rustling the leaves. And the birds chirping in the distance. And we understand that they do not want to hear our music. Or our bass. And we know that bass travels. Far. And it shakes homes. And rings in ears. And we’re so smart that we can wrap our heads around the concept that even though our music may not seem loud – the bass is still loud. And annoying. And we’re friends. So we don’t want to annoy each other. So when we want to thump it - we plug in our ear buds. And enjoy it without making anyone else suffer through the thump thump thumping. Because some of our neighbors work from home. And others are retired. So they’re at home. And it makes people sad to hear bass when they’re working. And when they’re relaxing. And then it makes them mad. And then it makes them want call the cops. And then we won’t be friends anymore. And we’re neighbors. So we can’t have that. We have to be friends. And be nice. And respectful.

• When we have non-neighborhood-friends with us and they come home late at night - we tell them that little kids live in this neighborhood and they should use their library voices. So they don’t wake the little kids. Who will wake the parents. Which is just as bad as high beams. Actually, worse. Because now people are crying.

• When we get the urge to have a serious techno rave, we drive our cars to San Francisco. Where people have serious techno raves. If we don’t have time to drive to the city, we plug our earbuds in and dance like crazy in our living room – with our earbuds – so the bass doesn’t shake the foundation of the homes of our neighborhood. Because our neighborhood homes are awesome. And so are the people who live in them. And we want to be awesome neighbors. Not mean neighbors. Who aren’t friendly. And act like they don’t care about one another. Because remember, we’re friends. Who wave. And say “Hi!” And sometimes ask, “How are you? Can I borrow some butter?”

• When we want to party all night, we go downtown. Where people do that. Then we take Uber so that we don’t hurt ourselves or anyone else when we come home to our awesome neighborhood. And we ask our driver to turn down his headlights so that no one cries because of high beams. And we use our library voices when we get out of the car and walk to the door. And try to find our keys. So we can get into our awesome house in the awesome neighborhood. And then we go to bed. Because we realize everyone else on the tiny awesome street is asleep. And it would be rude to wake them up. Because we’re all friends. And friends don’t do mean things to each other – like wake each other up in the middle of the night. Welcome to the neighborhood! We know you’ll be awesome! Because you’re one of us now! Neighbors!

If you would like to have THE LAST WORD email us your 1,000 word opinion to info@slolifemagazine.com