Independence Day Santa Cruz - Freedom's Free-For-All
By Zach Feigenbaum, Special to SantaCruzWire.com
SANTA CRUZ (August 2010) - I come from the Mecca of all that is not Santa Cruz—Orange County, in particular Irvine, or “the bubble” as we affectionately call it. Irvine was designed from the ground up as a model planned city. It was sectioned off into villages, each with its own aesthetic. Mine, for example, known as the jewel of Irvine, was designed after a New England coastal town, complete with its own fake lakes. So what has the switch to quirky Santa Cruz been like for me?
Well, unlike many from my area, I am the child of a hippie. My dad went to Woodstock and even played sax with Bruce Springsteen for awhile. Like a fish in a desert, my father moved to southern California to raise my brother and me in a safe environment.
Once the Irvine bubble is popped, there is no going back. Although I had thought it had burst before, it wasn’t until I moved here that I realized that Santa Cruz is just another, albeit stranger, bubble. Nothing affirmed this more than my Fourth of July experience.
As a preface, let me engage the subject of hobos. There are no hobos in Irvine. Ever. Rumors have it that they are removed by the police and taken to the nearby dumping ground that is Santa Ana. Living in the Costco area in Santa Cruz next to the homeless shelter has allowed me to interact with these interesting folk on a daily basis. The first thing I learned was that not all hobos were the same.
On the sliding scale of desperation I would have to say that the junkie hobos are the worst. These people live in poverty because an addiction has bankrupted them and their souls.
A clear example of this type is a man I came across on the celebration of our nation’s independence. I was in CVS buying alcohol, and waiting in line. The man in front of me was wearing a dark trench coat that looked like it had been buried for a decade. His frail hand was searching his every pocket for change. He was buying a candy bar and a CO2 duster. How much different was his holiday going to be from mine?
It all was so pathetic and sad that I almost laughed. How can the cashier pretend that this mangy-haired man was going to do anything but sniff away his life? Oh well, the Supreme Court has ruled that as long as something has significant legal uses then it cannot be illegal. Dust away my friend, dust away.
I quickly abandoned these thoughts and jumped into a covered pickup with five other Slugs and jaunted across town to catch the fireworks at Seabright. I had heard that Santa Cruz had strict firework laws, but I never realized why until that night. On our way there, explosions of color lit up the sky in every direction. We sneaked into a spot behind the brewery and chugged some beers. In Irvine I would not be surprised to be castrated for such behavior.
We slumped ourselves to the beach and came upon the police blockade. Searching for alcohol. A couple bulges in our pants later and we were in. People were strewn everywhere across the beach: nice families huddled in fear, gangsters shouting, and us hip college kids trying to look cool. I was expecting some sort of organized show to be presented to us. I mean there were dozens of boats out in the water; they had to be waiting for something. Waiting for us to kill ourselves, quite possibly.
The fireworks “show” was pure Santa Cruz—do-it-yourself, underhanded, guerrilla, dangerous, and fun. People unearthed buried fireworks and let them loose, sometimes they went up, sometimes they didn’t. Justified angry shouting would accompany the latter, as well as more fleeing families. All I could do was laugh in a sort of schadenfreude way. As the night drug on we found our climax when I offered to wrestle a tattooed shirtless guy while my friend was avoiding getting punched in the face by a thick lesbian gangster. Exciting, to say the least.
Contrast this with what every July fourth had been for me in my hometown. I would usually go to one of the 27 pools in my New-England-coastal-town-designed community of Woodbridge during the day, and barbecue some hot dogs or hamburgers. At nightfall I would head out, on foot or by bike, with a crew, to check out the official ceremony. We would lay on the groomed grass next to one of our lakes filled with imported fish and watch an always surprisingly exuberant display. Oh how I enjoyed the grand finale when they launched the explosives in quick succession, their collective booms always gave me quite a buzz.
Afterwards, the families would pick up their ice chests and sparklers and leave, and us adult-kids would go off somewhere to conduct our own bombings. Nothing ever got out of hand, no one feared for their life, and nothing reminded me of an actual war.
“The bombs bursting in air” I now realize is not a time to ooh and aah at the spectacle, but a chance to feel threatened and have your life affirmed by it. Thanks Santa Cruz.
Zack Feigenbaum is a senior philosophy student at UCSC, drums in the local band “Of Melting Moons,” and is attempting to not waste another one of his youthful summers.
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