Salinas Underground

This is a hybrid episode of the podcast that was recorded in two different locations. The first half was recorded in the studio and the second half was recorded on location at Steinbeck's Home Brew Fest.  In the studio, Kim Lawson, current President of the Salinas Steinbeck Rotary Club, and Cary Swensen, Home Brew Committee Executive, are here to talk to us all about the event. This was the fifth edition of the festival and it was the largest ever with 1,200 people in attendance. They are already planning for next year. 

For this episode, we packed up some of the equipment in the studio and headed over to the Monterey County Fairgrounds for the Ink at the Bay Festival. The event is back as big as ever after a two-year hiatus because of a global pandemic, and the event is back as big as ever! Listen as we talk to tattoo machine manufacturers, Ms. Ink at the Bay, Oldies Monterey Bay Chapter founder, and others! If you missed this year's event, mark your calendar for next year.

After a two-year break for a worldwide pandemic, Ink at the Bay is back at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. Paulina sits down in the studio to tell us how an idea her brother had one day has morphed into a three-day festival featuring some of the best tattoo artists in the world. It's an inspirational story, and there is still more left to write!

Paper Tacos is the hottest greeting card company in Salinas and most of us have never even heard of it. In this episode, Jesus Ruvalcaba talks to us about his humble beginnings in a labor camp in Castroville to becoming an art director at one of the oldest companies in the Silicon Valley. He fell in love with art as a child but he got his formal education at Hartnell. From there he moved on to CSUMB for his bachelor's degree before jumping into the professional realm. Paper Tacos started in 2017 as a way to make greetings cards for an audience that was being ignored by the major companies. To shop for cards, calendars, pencils, and more check out PaperTacos.com Instagram: @Paper_Tacos

Samantha from 831 Comadres joins us this week to talk about a show that was planned at the end of last year. In December, the city of Salinas and the Big Sur Land Trust announced that they had received millions of dollars from the state to put into two park projects in Salinas. One is the complete revitalization of Closter Park on Towt St. The other is the next step in turning the Carr Lakebed into a beautiful park in the middle of Salinas. We also discussed a couple of programs voted on by the city council that Oz, as usual, has some issues with. He uses Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham Jail as a reference, so of course, he thinks he once again figured out the city's problems in one episode.

Leticia Hernandez has been running a community garden at Natividad Creek Park for five years. Over that time with her group Local Urban Gardeners, she helped turn a neglected section of the park into a beautiful oasis in the middle of the city, a meeting point for many environmental-related activities. Listen as she tells us stories of the effort it took to get where they are, including having to wait a year for a fence to be built! She also talks about transparency in our waste production cycle and how you can be a part of the community garden team.

The plan to turn Carr Lake from agriculture into a huge city park keeps moving forward. But what exactly is Carr Lake, and why is it sitting there in the middle of town? This question leads Oz down an 8-million-year-old rabbit hole that includes the Colorado River and a canyon as vast as the Grand Canyon underwater in Monterey Bay. The guys also talk about even more new bars and restaurants that will soon open in Oldtown Salinas. Also, will a local taco institution on Alisal be replaced by Starbucks?

The church of Rock & Roll comes to the podcast with one of Oz's childhood friends. Steve O talks about what it has been like to watch the Salinas music scene evolve over three decades and how it will continue to move forward. We talk about the Rocky Horror Show currently going on at the Paper Wing Theatre in Monterey. If you plan on going, be sure to know how to misbehave properly. If you don't know what that means, listen to the episode, and we will tell you all about it.

Once again, Salinas was in the national news for reasons that had nothing to do with agriculture or Steinbeck. Instead of adding more fuel to an already hot fire, we see this as an opportunity to look within our community and work on healing ourselves. We also talk about the unexpected recall election before finishing it up on a lighter note. In the next city council meeting, there will be a vote for more food trucks and the next step towards a beautiful new park in the middle of the city.

In this episode, we have a conversation with local writer Xago Juarez about his art and what it was like for him growing up in Salinas. We talk about his childhood and walking to Alisal High through the Old Lane and what it was like to live with some of the last Dust Bowl migrants in the Alisal. This one goes deep and drops a lot of knowledge, so you may want to grab a pen and paper to take notes.

Oz's soapbox was getting a little dusty, and he thought it was time to bring it back out. This week he and Electro discuss the mayor's fascination with big red trucks and another police shooting that ended with a teenager dead. The police shootings not only erode trust with the community, but if you go back over the last decade, you see that the city is also paying out millions of dollars in settlement money.

Some people are born and raised in Salinas. And some end up getting called here while sitting in a medidative bath. Samirah the Sapphic Siren (@siren.samirah) is the second kind of person and she decided to start her journey in Salinas in the middle of a global pandemic. She is a poet who transformed her poetry into a set of beautiful Tarot cards. She talks to us about how this set of cards came to be and why they are so personal to her. They are available to buy at Etsy.com/TarotTeaPoetry or if you can follow and view the cards on her Instagram @TarotTeaPoetry

If your family traces it's roots in the Salinas Valley back to your great-grandparents you are sure to have some local tales. David Hernandez has been a DJ in Salinas for the last couple of decades and is witnessing the nightlife shift over from Monterey to Oldtown Salinas. We talk about his company Monterey DJ and how Salinas can prevent itself from becoming the town from Footloose.

Nacho Ornelas was born in Tequila country in Mexico but he grew up in Salinas and now spends some of his time doing reasearch at Stanford University. He runs the Bracero Legacy project which aims to give a broader understanding of the Bracero program and it's cultural impact on the country. We also touch on a current hot-button isssue, Ethnic Studies, and discuss some common misconceptions. Another project Dr. Ornelas is working on is changing the name of an athletic field at El Sausal Middle School in honor of Joe Garcia Kapp a local sports legend that Sports Illustrated once called the "Toughest Chicano"

The Salad Bytes Media network that produces this show is constantly working on new and innovative podcasts when thousands of new shows are coming out every week. The latest show is Stay Low Podcast, a show covering all the major sports across the country. To introduce the podcast, we talk to Anthony and Rueben, two of the three hosts that will guide you through the ever-changing sports landscape. Listen as they break down some of the current NBA playoff action and talk about their plans for the show. Stay tuned for the first episodes of the Stay Low Podcast coming out at the end of June!!

This year's city budget is the most talked about in the eight years that we have been doing this podcast. We decided to take a deep dive into the 500-page document to answer some questions people may be wondering about. Where does the money for the budget come from? How big is the budget and where does all that money go? How much money is being hidden away in a secret fund to pay for trips to Bermuda? We do our best to answer all these without putting all of you to sleep.

With the recent news that Alvarado Street Brewery will open a restaurant and bar in what most of us know as the Rabobank Building, we decided to look into the history of this Salinas landmark. This leads us to a journey following the history of beer brewing in Salinas, which goes back much farther than we realized. In 1874 a couple of German immigrants started a brewery that lasted until the Second World War and shipped beer all over California.

The pandemic is still keeping us from going back to our regular lives but that doesn't mean that the growth of Salinas also stopped. In the next several years hundreds of new people are going to move into projects that are the advanced planning stages. Oz went through the permit centers reports to see what some of these projects may look like. One of the more interesting projects is a group of houses that is going to be built around a creek in Laurel Heights. Also the famous arch is finally up and it has Oldtown absolutely bombilating.

Eric and Ness are two-thirds of the team behind The Beerded Bean in Oldtown, which is going on its third year of serving up coffee, beer, and music. They tell us how a potty training moment at a pizza place in Pacific Grove led to their partnership and how a local restaurateur that rented out his kitchen helped them perfect the art of the Canela cold brew. This is an inspiring conversation and a great example of the potential future of businesses in Salinas.

February was Black History Month, and Oz promised you an episode on Black history in Monterey County. His guest hosts for this journey are Samantha and Frenchy from our sister podcast 831 Comadres. They start the show by talking about the Brown Berets and how some of their work crossed over with the Black Panthers' work. The last half is full of some of the most amazing stories we have uncovered while researching these local history segments!   If you don't yet subscribe to 831 Comadres head over and give them a follow!!