Tales of my demise are vastly overblown

[dropcap2 variation=”teal”]F[/dropcap2]rom the lack of posting on both of my blogs, one could be led to believe that something grave had happened to me. And, gentle reader, it did. But not in the way you think.

As some of you know, I moved to Santa Cruz late last year. Since the move, I’ve given birth twice. Once, in February, to a beautiful baby girl (the aforementioned Z-Baby) and then again this month to a bouncing baby web magazine.

How did that happen? What was I thinking? What am I doing?

Well, I got struck upside the head with that fatal thing known as inspiration. I swear, all I did was take a drive with my husband. We weren’t even going that fast! And then, out of the blue, there it was in all its glory, the idea and plan for Weekend Santa Cruz.

It’s a hard time in American journalism. Print media is being squeezed by its online counterpart. Online media struggles with navigation issues, identity and, lets face it, a need for editing. And I think the people who lose out are all of us.

To a certain extent I think that’s what I found happening in Santa Cruz when it came to my speciality, arts and features journalism. The local newspaper, suffering from obvious cutbacks, had decimated its features staff and all but killed its online presence for arts. The local weeklies have a wonderful presence as print media, but fail with outdated templates and navigations to make it easy and intuitive to the reader to find what they want.

It’s hubris to think that I could turn that around with a site dedicated to arts and entertainment features and listings in this town. But, for the past four weeks, Weekend Santa Cruz. has gone to bed each Monday morning with a fresh homepage and listings.

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With what staff, you ask? Well, you’re reading her. All of the content is generated by me. And there’s not a press release in the bunch. I have gone out looking for all of these stories. The fabulous thing is what amazing stories there are in this town I now live in.

There’s the steampunk Wizard of Oz at Cabrillo Stage, Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s new season, Chef Chris Avila at Soif, the bartenders at Blue Lagoon and the Poet and the Patriot, the many amazing acts (and the fabulous Chef Cheryl Simons) at Kuumbwa Jazz Center — and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. The listings kill me each week, since there always seems to be more and more to write up. For such a small town, we have a lot going on here!

And yes, I still have that five-month-old baby. I also have a wonderful amazing husband who makes time for me to do this thing I love. And I pull an all-nighter every Sunday after the baby goes to bed. Hey, one thing I’ve learned as a new mom is who needs sleep! Actually, I learned that as a new journalist in the ’90s, when I used to work a 2 a.m.-4 p.m. every week putting the Key West Citizen’s arts and entertainment tabloid to bed.

I don’t know if I will ever make Weekend Santa Cruz pay any bills. Someday, in the near to mid-near future, I will need to actually work to sell an ad or two. But before that happens, I want to honestly have the traffic to say that buying an ad on Weekend Santa Cruz means something.

I won’t do reviews on the site. It’s not so much about personal opinions (though sometimes, like with Mads Tolling or Eric Hutchinson, I can’t help my enthusiasm), as it is about learning more about the artist. And just learning what’s going on. I take the tagline “hey, what are you doing this weekend?” seriously. I want to help people figure out what’s out there. And support the arts, whether they’re local or touring in from out of town.

Is this the new paradigm for journalism? I have no idea. All I know is that I’m trying to get the word out about the arts in this town, one Monday at a time. It’s what I know how to do. It’s what I’m good at. I love it. And hey, working as my own boss, no one cares if my work day is scheduled around my daughter’s teething or my cat getting sick. As long as the online magazine gets out.

So that’s where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing. Hopefully, I’ll find a moment to post my next recipe on Twist soon. But if not, you can catch my writing every week, rain or shine, at Weekend Santa Cruz. Drop by sometime.