Q; Can Richard "hear a song & know whether the guitar is a Santa Cruz Guitar?" A: "You can pick your own kid out of a choir!" Succession planning? Richard is fiercly loyal to the team, with Brenda, and David Osdoll calling shots...working on some kind of employee ownership (Taylor Guitars did this) and "focusing on transitioning to a low resolution form of management" ;) Ahead of the upcoming 50th Anniversary Concert - "A Night of Legacy & Music", there will be a free block party. Q: "When & how do you take a guitar that you've made for an artist, & turn it into a signature model?" "Great question!" Santa Cruz Guitars does not pay to have them played - it's a mutual benefit arrangement, & it's usually pretty obvious if there's a signature there, with the artist and Santa Cruz Guitars sharing & amplifying values; guitar making is a vehicle; Q: "What's the strangest request you've had?" A: double neck guitar or questionable inlay motif (ref: Brenda's inlay gallery); "The Money Question" (e.g.: "Have you been able to make a living with your art, &, if so, how?" A: yes, through "A Rubic's Cube of Overlapping Miracles", using a low ball bid for a Lockheed dehumidifier as big as a Volkswagen bus for $700 after the market crashed in 1983; Brenda's primary hat is Sales Director, but she also wears Office Manager, Exotic Wood Procurement, and Richard's right-hand person; all of their wood is sustainably harvested or reclaimed.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

California's Prop. 54, passed in 2016, requires any legislative bill to be published online for 72 hours before it can be voted upon - this resulted in the last bill in the legislature being voted on a 3:46 AM last Tuesday morning, Sept. 1st, even though the constitution requires all bills to be out of the legislature by midnight, Aug. 31st - bills that pass a 2/3 vote for urgency can also go past midnight; one of those last bills was the Dolly Parton bill; normally, the governor has 12 days to sign or veto a bill, but with the sprint to the finish line, those bills have 30 days - if it's not signed or vetoed, at that pointi it becomes law anyway; Senator Laird submitted 36 bills over the last 2 years, with 26 passed into law so far - in baseball, that would be a 0.722 batting average!! Hall of fame material!! Senator Laird has 5 more bills on the Governor's desk, 6 including the Dolly Parton bill; deep dive into the budget, with lots of items for Senator Laird's district; did he get an average amount for his district, or more, because he's Chairman of the Budget Committee? "I got a little more." Deep dive into "Gut-and-Amend", starting with the California bill that would ban electric shock gloves, a "last minute bill"...yes, this was a "Gut-and-Amend", then pivot to SB931, a bill establishing Sept. 25 (9-2-5) as Dolly Parton Day in California; SB931 was an unused bill of Senator Laird sitting on the Assemblly floor, so Senator Laird & his office wrote a bill for Dolly Parton Day, renamed it, and gave it to Senator Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) as a "Gut-and-Amend" - she loved it, & Senator Laird was able to use it to rub in to a colleague who had complained about "Gut-and-Amend" that "(a foolish) Consistency is the hobgoblin (of little minds)" [Ralph Waldo Emerson]; run down of bills that have been signed, or are on the Governor's desk, including expanding opportunities for California wineries to sell wine and offer tastings at Farmer's Markets; that gifts willed to beneficiaries, including non-profits, reach who they're intended for; and one that addresses the growing financial impact of childhood sexual abuse claims on public institutions ("2 years of rip roaring pain!").

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Kim grew up in Monterey County, Salinas Valley, & went to Humboldt State, then on to St. Louis for grad school; she went to Washington DC to work in Health & Human Services' Dept. of Aging; after she got married, she wanted to be closer to her mom, & moved to Aptos in Santa Cruz County, where she's lived for 30 years; worked as a Clinical Social Worker in many areas hospitals (Dominican, Sutter, Salinas Valley); "What lead her to be interested in being a County Supervisor?" Her mom worked for Barbara Shipnuck, the 1st woman elected to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, & later Sam Farr in Congress - Kim grew up in campaigns, stuffing envelopes...' when her kids were in school, Kim spent her nights writing grants - when one of the trustees stepped down, Kim was tapped be a Trustee of the Pajaro Vally Unified School District (PVUSD), which extends from Aptos to Watsonville; HR1 ("The Big Beautiful Bill") will be a castrophe, eroding the safety net for the most vulnerable, who will still show up at the ER, with the county required to cover their expenses; to offset the loss of revenue, there's a half-cent sales tax on the ballot - the tax would be "temporary"; Kim's colleague Manu Koenig has an excellent regular email newsletter update & Monica Martinez holds town halls...how does Kim communicate with her constituents? "That's a great question!" "Manu & Monica's newsletters are great!"; Kim's district does not have a city (unlike the other 4), so Kim is "Mayor of District 2", with monthly newsletters & a few town halls; the County gets 13.4% of property taxes; of the 4634 units in unincorporated Santa Cruz County that are in the current housing element, still 300 built (same as 6 months ago), with 690 permitted - the remainder require re-zoning, with the majority of this done; there's one proposed project in District 2 on the old par 3 golf course; how is the County preparing for El Niño? there's a website on winter preparations, & road crews are out clearing culverts & ditches - if the public sees something, call in or email...sand bags will be availabe at local fire stations in October...equipment is pre-staged in low-lying areas, with sewers cleared.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!