SANTA CRUZ HOTEL KITCHEN STAFF, 1948. This photo has to bring back memories for their friends and relatives who worked in this hotel. The hotel has gone through as many changes as the City itself has. Let me know if you recognize anyone in the photo. The hotel at the corner of Cedar and Locust was built in 1877. It was owned by R.K. Whidden, and once upon a time it had a cupola and a flagpole. NEW! Bob Castagnola sent in a very detailed letter about the crew in this photo that we ran a while ago, March of '04 to be precise. What a memory. Bob says from left to right it's long time chef Rico Malatesta who was the uncle of Al and Bob Castagnola, next to Rico is an unknown waitress, then it's long time waitress Edith Seeler who was Ray Seelar's step-mother. Ray was president of County Bank. Standing sixth from left is Pete, then squatting on the right is the kitchen dishwasher and the assistant chef to Malatesta. Bob continues on to tell us that The Santa Cruz Hotel restaurant's subsequent owners were Stella Pera, John Righetti, Louis Facellie, and Don Stefani. Later it was purchased by Al Castagnola and friend Arevalo, there's more to Bob's story and we'll get to it asap. Thanks Bob these bits of gossip are good fun and I appreciate being able to pass them on. photo credit: Covello & Covello Historical photo collection, click for bigger version. Additional information always welcome: email photo@brattononline.com

DIY PARADE. The second annual Do It Yourselves New Years eve parade went off near perfectly. It was a genuine Santa Cruz event. That means the people wanted to parade and the City and City Council tried their damndest to make it as difficult as possible. Hundreds of folks, all ages, all political angles marched and it was great. Santa Cruz loves parades and hats off to the DIY non planners for giving us this hunk of community pride.

MADRIGAL NOT AND MONNING MAYBE. A column or two ago I wrote that Tony Madrigal was running, but made it read like he was running for State Assembly, and I didn't mean to. He's running hard for re-election to the City Council. He sent me three emails stating he's not running for Assembly. He said he's got unfinished work as a councilmember and his beloved community etc, etc. After that I got an email stating "After speaking with Bill Monning, it is clear that he is in the early stages of a discernment process regarding the Assembly seat that is scheduled to open up in 2008. He has not decided whether to run or not, but he is evaluating the situation. In closing, I think it would be helpful to update your readers about this matter." That was from Chris Jennings so now we know...but what?

WESTSIDE PHARMACY MOVING. The last I heard was that Westside Pharmacy presently located out next to the Omei Restaurant, was moving to the old Mr. Z's Liquor store site out on Mission. Westside Pharmacy used to be Palm Pharmacy where Blockbuster is now.

BERNICE BELTON BULLETIN. Stalwart Bernice Belton is now in a skilled nursing facility and is doing just fine. She is completely without medical treatment and is recovering from surgery for her lung cancer. Everything is stabilized and she's rebuilding her strength. She should be home in a week or two. Then she faces a surgery for colon cancer so wish her extra good wishes. Phone calls are impossible right now due to her lung operation. She's just as concerned, amused and mad as all of us are about the incredible hoopla and fuss about Gerald Ford and she says a lot of good things about Kaiser Health Care. Call Nora Hochman at 479-1019 to see what's new.

CAPITOLA BOOK CAFE SOLD!! Developers George Ow and Geoffrey Dunn succeeded in selling The Capitola Book Café from the four women employees who were the owners to other store employees. The new owners are going to redo the cafe part and spruce up the rest of the store. Business is great and the author appearances are drawing standing room only.

PAUL ELERICK'S INPUT. Paul says goodbye to Paul Sanford and talks about 2007 and Iraq. He goes on to tell about Community TV and how to find their schedules and when the Trains and Trails Symposium will be on view.

UCSC TEMP CHANCELLOR MEETS SCRP. SCRP (Santa Cruzans for Responsible Planning) member Bill Malone asked a pithy question of Acting UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal at the last SCRP meeting. He asked is it true that UCSC wants to have 4500 new students to the campus but can't or won't try to make campus living and easier? It was a very clear way of stating the problem. Celia Scott asked him why UCSC doesn't now and never has had a goal of being GREEN in new building or in their daily operations, as some other campi are doing... I don't remember what the Chancellor replied.

PROGRESO WEEKLY. Read about the US legislators visit to Havanna and other late news from Cuba.

GARY PATTON'S PROGRAM. You can read two weeks (Dec 29 - Jan. 5) of Gary's KUSP radio program here. Gary waxes philosophical, profound, and deep regarding how to plan our newest year. He talks about General Plans, about San José's Coyote Valley and about the Tri-County Economic Conference that's coming up.

TIM EAGAN'S EFFULGENCE. Check out Tim's pre-caps of 2007. Pre caps? Yes pre-caps...scroll down to bottom of the column.

CHRISTINA WATERS ONLINE. Christina continues her critique of restaurant language abuse, suggests a hot art exhibition at Sesnon Gallery opening this week and raves about a chic trattoria in of all places Oakland! (Somebody has to go to Oakland!!) She's got news about Oswald founding chef Charlie Deal, and much more. All at http://christinawaters.com

CONVERGENCE CONCERT. Get tickets quickly for The New Music Works first concert of their 28th season. It's titled Convergence and features music by John Cage, Alvin Curran and Lou Harrison. It also features performances by Alvin Curran, Joan Jeanrenaud (from Kronos) William Winant, Linda Burman-Hall and Timb Harris. Get tickets now at the UCSC box Office 459-2159 or maybe at the door. The concert is Saturday, January 20 at 8 p.m. at the UCSC Music Center Recital Hall.

BEST FILM LISTS. Read your favorite critics favorite list, if you don't agree on best pics figure out why. This is the only time of the year when you can do that. What we are all going for is to determine which film will stand the test of time. Will any film released this year be talked about in 1 year? 5 years? 100 years? Can you remember which films won awards just last year?

LOCAL CRITICS TOP TEN. Over 100 folks gathered at the Nickelodeon last Saturday to hear our top ten films and tell us about their film likes and dislikes. Here are the lists with each of our top ten films starting at #1 Wallace Baine. United 93, The Queen, An Inconvenient Truth, The Departed, Little Children, Look Both Ways, Little Miss Sunshine, Thank You For Smoking, Water/House of Sand, Volver.

Lisa Jensen. The New World, The Illusionist, Look Both Ways, United 93, The Last King Of Scotland, Water, Babel, Joyeux Noel, An Inconvenient Truth, Scoop, Us VS John Lennon.

Morton Marcus. House Of Sand, Look Both Ways, Flags of Our Fathers, Apocalypto, Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles, The Queen, Mountain Patrol, Little Miss Sunshine, Borat, Twin Towers, Water.

Bruce Bratton. The Queen, Babel, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Little Children, Look Both Ways, Notes on a Scandal, Bubble, House Of Sand, Volver, An Inconvenient Truth.

To save you the trouble...you can see that only Look Both Ways was on all four of our lists. An Inconvenient Truth, Water, House of Sand and The Queen made it to three of our lists. Lisa Jensen had a stunning six films in her list that no one else mentioned. This definitely proves something.

DREAMGIRLS. This is a genuine film musical with singing dialogue and lots of dancing. Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy and Jamie Foxx do fine jobs of acting and singing, but if you don't like the Berry Gordy school of 1960's Detroit rock hokum like the Supremes, and The Jackson 5 and showbiz like that, don't go. I didn't like it very much.

LITTLE CHILDREN. Kate Winslett and Jennifer Connelly head the stars. It's middle class America. In Maine this time, and it deals with pedophilia, murder, and the daily lives of young families trying to figure out how it all works. An intelligent film, don't miss it.

GOOD SHEPHERD. This is a quiet, a very quiet film. I don't mean hush hush, as in spy films, I mean it's just hard to hear all the dialogue. Robert De Niro directed it.. Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, William Hurt all make this a low key 2 ½ hour saga of how the CIA was created work like it's supposed to. It's slow moving, rarely exciting and makes you fell like part of the conspiracy...go see it.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM. You probably saw the inane and tired spanking the monkey joke in the previews of this dull film. Well that monkey joke took five minutes to set up and it wasn't that funny neither was Robin Williams or Ben Stiller.. The idea for this lame comedy had great potential but you can make up scenes faster and funnier than they did. Rent it only if necessary.

ROCKY BALBOA TURNS 61. I have no intention of ruining your day...or your week but you should prepare for the fact that Sylvester Stallone is now filming Rambo 4 which will be out sometime in 2008! Stallone will turn 61 this year. None of that has anything to do with the current Rocky Balboa film. The current Rocky Balboa film is better than any of the other Balboa films, maybe even the first one. Stallone wrote and directed this film, it has a naïve charm and it's nearly believable all the way through.

CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER. If you've been seeing the previews of this magnificent film, forget them. The film is much better. There is very little martial arts, not much flying through the air or walking on tree tips kind of thing. It's a classical Chinese court drama more like Shakespeare or Grand Opera then Crouching Tiger or Hero it is one of the biggest most spectacular films I've ever seen. It won't open here for a few weeks, but get ready to see it, you'll love it and Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat have never been lovelier.

MISS POTTER. Renee Zellweger screws her little face into a prune and pretends she's Beatrix Potter who wrote all the Peter Rabbit books. Emily Watson plays her best friend and for some odd reason looks about a foot taller that she ever has in any other film. Ewan McGregor plays her publisher and he's nice too. Everybody is nice in this nice film. The nice bunnies and cute ducks jump off the pages. It's treacle, cutesy, and unnecessary. In truth Potter fought anti-women prejudice all her life and spent much of her fortune preserving land from developers. Go see it.

UNIVERSITY GRAPEVINE. Ted Benhari is the current president of The Rural Bonny Doon Association he and I will talk about recent issues facing Bonny Doon such as UCSC, changes in the fire department and what Davenport's CEMEX plant is up to. The second half hour Don Young will discuss William Shakespeare and the Shakespeare Club which meets this Saturday Jan.6, at 10am in the Aptos library. I host University Grapevine every Thursday on KZSC 88.1 FM from 4-5 p.m. You can also stream it live by going to www.kzsc.org .

QUOTES. "Two things in the play should have been cut. The second act and that youngster's throat." -Noel Coward. "Asking a writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it thinks about dogs." -John Osborne. "I go to the theatre to be entertained. I don't want to see rape, sodomy, incest, and drug addiction. I can get all of that at home" -Peter Cook.

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Bruce critiques films every Friday on KZSC-FM (88.1) on The Bushwhacker Breakfast Club at 8am.