Unpacked In Santa Cruz

A relaxed coastal town can still be filled with competition, loneliness, and people craving connection, and that tension runs through our talk with Bonnie Carver. Bonnie is 81, a longtime teacher and watercolor artist, and someone I’ve watched choose presence for decades. We start with what Santa Cruz means as you age, how Watsonville feels different, and why “home” is sometimes less about the add...

Santa Cruz can change you, but not always in the glossy way people imagine. We sit with Mitch Riley, a gentle giant with a long memory, to talk about what it really takes to start over, build community, and stay upright when life is expensive, fast, and relentless. Mitch walks us through leaving Columbus, Ohio, finding a new life in Atlanta, tasting the intensity of Los Angeles, and eventually lan...

Capitalism gets treated like a political label, but it’s more useful to see it as a machine, not a piece of morality. A man made principle acknowledging surplus not made by humans-but a piece of the fabric of the world we share with everyone that is only as moral as the humans governing it. One that can build real prosperity and still trap people in confusion. Michael is taking a risk and laying o...

Santa Cruz is one of those places that can feel like vacation and crisis at the same time. We sit down with John Barrs owner of Ideal Homes, to talk about what it’s really like to live, commute, raise kids, and run a local business in a county where Highway 1 is jammed, new buildings rise fast, and “affordable housing” can still mean $5,500 rent for a two-bedroom. We get personal first, from surf...

Santa Cruz can feel like paradise and a pressure cooker at the same time, and that tension is where this conversation starts. I sit down with David McIntosh to unpack what “change” really looks like on the ground: a working class beach town shaped by Silicon Valley gravity, rising costs, and the quiet fear of being pushed out, alongside real opportunity for the people ready to adapt. David’s path...

Santa Cruz can make a world champion feel like “just another guy in the lineup”. That’s exactly where this conversation starts.  I sit down with Mark Allen, the GOAT and six-time Ironman World Champion, and lifelong surfer, to get under the surface of what makes this place a haven for talent and why it also has an edge that forms you over time. We talk about the strange Santa Cruz magic where titl...

Santa Cruz loves to call itself creative, but what happens when creativity becomes a commodity and everyone feels forced to hustle? I’m sitting down with local artist and designer Hannah Selden to unpack the push and pull of making art in Santa Cruz after COVID. Hannah talks about growing up here, studying print design, and building a Santa Cruz apparel brand before stepping back to reclaim creati...

Santa Cruz can feel like paradise, a trap, and a time capsule all at once and that tension runs through our conversation with graphic designer and storyteller James Reitano. He grew up with Santa Cruz roots, found his way into the high-pressure world of Santa Cruz Skateboards (NHS), and learned early that making “cool” work isn’t the same as making work that survives a market shift. We talk candid...

Santa Cruz can feel like paradise until you look closer and realize how much pressure hides under the flip-flops. We sit down with longtime Santa Cruz realtor Brian Di Diego to talk about what it’s like to build a life in a small town where everybody knows everybody, prices keep climbing, and real estate decisions are never just “business.” The conversation starts with home: kids leaving, houses g...

A GED, a 0.0 college moment, and a kid obsessed with a Commodore 64 somehow add up to a career that lands at Borland, rides the Netscape wave, and still ends with one clear conclusion: Santa Cruz feels like home. We trace the real path, not the cleaned-up résumé version, from rural Pennsylvania winters to California fog, from bulletin boards and shareware checks to high-stakes interviews with the...

A pro surfer from Rio de Janeiro moves to Santa Cruz, builds a family, all knowing that the hardest opponent was never another person. Andre joins me for a raw, wide-ranging talk about ego, identity, and what it means to stop chasing trophies while still chasing growth. We start with Santa Cruz as home, then follow the real story underneath: crowded lineups, culture shock, and the quiet work of be...

Santa Cruz can feel like a spell. One minute it’s sunshine and greetings on a neighborhood street, the next it’s elbows up in a surf lineup that treats every set wave like property. We sit down with Jefferson De Paula, born and raised on the east side of São Paulo, Brazil, to name that contradiction and to figure out how a person stays soft without getting pushed out. Jefferson came to Santa Cruz...

A clear morning over Highway 17 can change a life. That’s how Dan Hammer first saw Santa Cruz—blue water, a small-town vibe, and the feeling of finally arriving. He left to study computer science, built a career as a bridge between engineers and executives, and returned years later with a sharper lesson: titles fade, but a life built on principles holds. We dive into the real cost of calling a coa...

Paradise looks peaceful from the cliff, but step onto a towboat in Monterey Bay and the picture changes fast. We sit down with captain and small business owner Anthony Capriccio to explore why he chose Santa Cruz over everywhere else, how he built a life around boats, and what really happens when the ocean stops cooperating. From routine jumpstarts to midnight salvage, from towing grounded hulls t...

Santa Cruz looks like a postcard, but it feels like a pit: fast, loud, and full of heart. We crack into that contradiction with Guerin Myall, a surf-skate-punk lifer whose lens has chased barrels, stage dives, and the kind of moments that never make the brochure. From junior lifeguard summers and the boardwalk’s myth to downtown’s new skyline and the angsty undercurrent that keeps the town honest,...

The city is changing fast, and so are we. From rising rents and a shifting skyline to the quieter work of neighbors feeding neighbors, we unpack how hope can take root right in the middle of pressure—no slogans, just people doing the next right thing. I sit down with Brian Upton, the mind behind Santa Cruz Vibes, to trace his path from hometown kid to media founder and to examine a different way t...

A town can shape you before you notice. That’s the tension we explore as a longtime local sits with Jay Brown, who moved to Santa Cruz to be near his daughter and got pulled into its undertow of beauty, scarcity, and stubborn pride. We start with raw honesty—fear of influence, years of civic fatigue, and the ache of watching good ideas fall apart—and open into a bigger frame: what if surf culture...

A single dirt road outside Harare changed everything. What began as a UCSC field study became a three-decade commitment to an orphan school in Zimbabwe: ten classrooms raised brick by brick, a lifesaving well drilled through granite at 2 a.m., and a partnership powered by small donations and relentless trust. Alongside that story of patient progress, we open up about Santa Cruz—why we love it, why...

What if the lost years of your career became the blueprint for a better way to lead, parent, and live? We sit down with Michael Dunn, a veteran of Apple, Netscape, and Joby, to unpack the IPO-era rush, the “sleep at the office” mythology, and the long tail of burnout that followed. This candid conversation about buying the wrong house in Texas, chasing stock spikes, and missing family dinners—beca...

The postcard says mellow. The rent, the staffing headaches, and the quiet arms race to stay here say otherwise. We sit down with Chris Buich to examine how Santa Cruz looks from the inside: a surf town where “chill” coexists with relentless drive, where class myths flatten real stories, and where small businesses survive on grit, not vibes. Chris traces his path from Carmel Valley’s rancher era to...

A cold Santa Cruz morning sets the stage for a warm, unguarded conversation with Alvin Medina—a Watsonville native, former college defensive lineman, college coach, and jiu-jitsu devote. We talk about what happens when the adrenaline fades, and the anxiety shows up.  He takes us from scout-team hits and weight-room grit to recruiting rooms where NFL vets drop by to recruit your JUCO talent, showin...

The coastline can look calm from the cliff, but the people who watch it know better. We sit down with Nathan Tall, a 22-year-old state lifeguard raised in Aptos to trace a path from junior guards to first responder, and the story that emerges is bigger than waves: it’s about character, community, and the courage to keep showing up when the job stops being glamorous. We start with home—how Santa Cr...

A quiet kid from Soquel loses his friend group at 14 and finds an unlikely ally in the aftermath: endurance. Collin Brown joins me to unpack how betrayal became a strange mercy, why pain can be a presence without being a prison, and how hope turns from a heckler to a compass when faith gives it a bridge.  We follow that thread into his life today—five kids, custom learning at home, and a coder&apo...

A short hiatus turned into a clear-eyed look at what this show stands for: celebrating the normal, telling honest stories, and making love a verb. I open up about rescheduling interviews, moving house, and why I’m choosing to weave my own perspective into the conversations you hear—so you know the “why” behind every question I ask. That takes us straight into the question people keep sending: are...

The story starts with following Chris Balthasar from a Swiss-American childhood in Philadelphia and winds through Hollywood backlots, a B-movie alligator, and a surreal day in a Sonic the Hedgehog suit getting heckled by Tony Danza all day-then pivots into law, environmental advocacy, and a move to Santa Cruz that finally felt like home. Chris takes us on a  winding road with uncommon honesty, con...