Susie Bright’s Journal

Susie Bright’s Journal

Beauty and the Break

Summer Comes to Santa Cruz. It’s Dark and It’s Gnarly.

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Susie Bright
Jun 01, 2023
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Every town has its noir-ville. It’s easy to find in Santa Cruz.


We live in what’s called “paradise,” where you can wake up in a pool of blood with the first pink rays of the sun- rise peeking out over our mountain range. The dewy mist lifts from the bay.

© Keana Parker for Good Times

Don’t hate us because we’re beautiful—we were made that way, like Venus rising off the foam with a brick in her hand. We can’t help it if you fall for it every time.

We live in a place where the screaming never stops. No, not the publicly psychotic. Our crown jewel, the reason a million-plus pleasure-seekers visit every year, is the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, a roller coaster–screamin’, cotton-candy amusement park.

Our most famous ride, the Giant Dipper, will plunge you seventy feet down its wooden tracks at fifty-five miles per hour. We hear your cries all the way down the river- front. Hell yes, you had a good time!

My friend Willow Pennell, is second-generation Santa Cruz. She reminded me that the 1980s S…

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