THE FUTURE IS PEACE: Interview with Palestinian and Israeli Peacemakers Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon | Transformation Highway, KZSC Santa Cruz
Release Date: 04/18/2026
KZSC Santa Cruz
Lacy J. lives up in the mountains above Reno; after she turned 21, she (then Jill) ran off with a rock n' roll guitar player to a commune in Capitola; she me, & lived wiht, her 1st & 2nd husbands in the Santa Cruz Mountains; she changed her name when she was 33 years old when she got a record deal, but they said, "You gotta change your name!"...her producer, Billy Sherill (a producer to many stars), said she had to...she tried "Lacy Walker, taking "Lacy B." from her first partner's ex-wife...Billy said there were "too many Walkers", so Lacy took the last name of a half-Cherokee...
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Sleepy John & Richard were 2 of 4 (the others being Ben Rice & Laurence Bedford) hiking the northern California coast when they came upon a big building with part of the underlying earth washed out, allowing them to stand underneath it, and pose as pillars holding it up - the the name "The Pillars"; they are hiking the northern California coast from Santa Cruz to San Francisco for the 4th time, hiking 4-5 mile increments weekly...more "lollygagging" than hiking, with easy walks you could do in flip flops, along the bluffs; John came to Santa Cruz in 1977, running from the law, and yes,...
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n 2019 Bill sponsored SB347, the Sugar-Seetened Beverage (aka SSB) Warning label act - it made it out of the health committee & appropriations (the latter because it was "de minimis"), but died on the Senate Floor due to machinations of "Big Soda"; "Big Soda" & "Big Food" got an initiative on the ballot in 2018 to raise the approval level for city & county taxes on food & beferages to 2/3 - the legislature negotiated with them to remove the initiative in exchange for passing a low (the "Keep Groceriees Affordable Act of 2018") to ban local taxes on food & beverages...
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Michael was born & raised, & still lives in, Watsonville (mom from there, too); new venue in mid-county at SeaScape Golf Course on Club House Drive; monthly trivia nights there, plus Trivia Nights at El Vaquero Winery & Bargetto; Michael playing SeaScape tonight for happyp hour as a duo; opening a week from tomorrow for Lacy J. Dalton as a quartet - sans drums - at El Vaquero; Michael views himself as a catalyst for other artists, not a promoter; but he writes press releases as well as articles about musicians coming to town for Look Out Santa Cruz, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, &...
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The water district owns 4000 acres, including the Loch Lomond reservoir; the water department is asking the City of Santa Cruz to vote on a new direction on 11/29 that will "climate-proof" the water system; demand-based pricing incentivizes rationing; "Wetter wets and Drier Drys", and planning for back-to-back dry years; Santa Cruz has done so well with reducing consumption through conservation that we can't ask people to tighten their belts further; resolution will codify reliability and supply options (4); discussion of aquifer storage and recovery, recycled water, de-salinization (no new...
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Scott's band "Rosebud" started just before Covid as a project with piano player Laclan Kane (where "Rosebud" is featured prominently at the end of "Citizen Kane"); Scott played an original, which he classififed as a "Jerry Garcia yacht rock song", "You Never Need to Say"; songs take a while, sometimes years, & Scott has a "napkin stash" of lyric lines he's accumulated over the years. Scott came to Santa Cruz in 1986, studying art & psychology, graduating in psych. He was a drummer in the blues world, the house drummer for a weekly blues jam, and Johnny Shines hired his band to back him...
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Tricia is both County Clerk & Registrar of Voters; she came to Santa Cruz in 1997, having followed a boy from college - she's from Santa Ynez, near Solvang (the Danish capital of the USA), & was at Fresno State, working for the Curry Company in Yosemite Valley, but when the park closed due to flooding, her boyfriend at the time suggested she move with him to Santa Cruz - he's now her husband. How did she get into County clerk job? Her mother-in-law had been helping with the elections department for a long time, and said, "Why don't you help with elections?" It was 1997, & she hired...
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Richard is star struck, having listened to Bushwhacker's since way back when he used to get up really early to come in to work before musicians would wake up; he grew up in the San Joaquin Vally & moved to Santa Cruz when he was 14-15-16 taking a page out of Jack Kerouac; he needed to be close enough to an urban area, but didn't want to live in one, so he & his art director wife settled in Santa Cruz, starting Santa Cruz Guitar Company (SCGC) in 1976; Brenda came here in 2010 to attend U.C. Santa Cruz; the name Santa Cruz evokes unconditional love & spirit - the logo used a floral...
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The constitutional deadline to pass a budget out of the legislature was last Monday at midnight, & required a 3-part agreement to avoid delays (Assembly, Senate, Governor); 4 budget sub-committees but 64 hearings; health subcommittee dealing with crisis in California, which rejects cuts - HR1 impacts many, many people in District 28; SB125 passed with a MCO (Managed Care Organization) tax with revenue to offset MediCare / MediCal cuts; negotiations are ongoing over ballot measures & whether they can be voluntarily withdrawn via a letter to the Secretary of State - the deadline is June...
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calling in from Seattle, where "we" played last night; "we" = she & Jaymee Harris, who opens & performs with her - Nashville is home; Mary had her on label, "On the Black", & people are buying vinyl now - sitting & listening to the record intentionally; streaming is useful when she's out walking, but there's no revenue: "the Tech Bros won!" when you Barbara Higbie (interviewed earlier) gets $23 for a million streams...but in those million, some of them are going to buy tickets & come to a Barbara Higbie show; pressing records? "Got to get on the schedule!", she wrote the...
info_outlineAudio interview with Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon from Israel about their new book The Future is Peace on "Transformation Highway" with host John Malkin on KZSC 88.1 FM / kzsc. org. Their local book event is at Temple Beth El in Aptos on Monday, April 20, 7:00PM. The book event is co-sponsored by Bookshop Santa Cruz and the Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz and will feature a Q&A moderated by Douglas Abrams.
Tickets: bookshopsantacruz.com/future-is-peace
Aziz’s older brother, Tayseer, died in 1990 at the age of 19 after sustaining internal injuries due to torture in an Israeli prison, where he was held on suspicion of throwing rocks. Maoz’s parents were killed by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023. Aziz and Maoz are co-CEO's of InterAct International, a nonprofit dedicated to Middle East peace.
An edited version of the interview is available online and in print in the April 16, 2026 issue of the Santa Cruz Good Times.