Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Mike Howard talking ....
Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Episode 45:Rueben Case-Gabbard, From a Soquel Childhood to Santa Cruz's Unique Spirit: A Story of Freedom and Empathy From The View On The Corner
What if the essence of a town could be captured in the stories of its people? Join us as we journey through the heart of Santa Cruz, California, with Rueben Case-Gabbard, the insightful manager of Verutti's Liquor Store. Born at the now-closed Community Hospital in 1982, Ruben takes us back to his childhood in Soquel, where his family lovingly restored a Victorian house. Through Ruben's vivid recollections, we explore the transformation of the area, from orchards to condos, and the ever-evolving community spirit that defines Santa Cruz.
Growing up under the guidance of "old hippie" parents, Ruben experienced a unique sense of freedom that shaped his outlook on life. This episode captures the eclectic atmosphere of Santa Cruz, where diverse lifestyles coexist and independence flourishes. Ruben shares tales from his high school years, living with his grandfather, and navigating the changing landscape as the influence of the university and an influx of students from Orange County began to reshape the town. We take a closer look at how these cultural shifts have maintained the distinctive character of Santa Cruz, despite economic and social changes.
Empathy and genuine human connections take center stage as we discuss the importance of understanding marginalized individuals in our community. Through personal anecdotes, Ruben highlights the need to rehumanize our interactions and create welcoming spaces where people can express themselves freely. The episode wraps up with a lighthearted moment of technical difficulty, reminding us of the supportive nature of friendships and the vibrant tapestry of relationships that make Santa Cruz a truly special place.
Ugh.
Speaker 2:This followed me all my life.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Unpacked and Naked podcast. This is Michael Howard. This podcast is brought to you by Santa Cruz Vibes Magazine. We are sponsored in part by them and also by Pointside Beach Shack. Today I have got the wonderful privilege of sitting with Ruben. Now the funny part is is that I don of sitting with Ruben. Now the funny part is is that I don't even know Ruben's last name. I'm that kind of a dick and we've known each other for a long time, in passing though, in 30 second increments, one minute increments. But Ruben is the manager at Verudy's Liquor Store, my uh place of choice deep in my rabbit hole, and I still come and get my zins and periodic things that that I get from you. But, ruben, you're here, here you are, and and you actually have a last name, which I asked you right before I turned the microphone. So so, ruben, why don't you, why don't you tell us your full?
Speaker 2:name. So my full name is Ruben Case Gabbard. It's a hyphenated last name.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:First part Case my mother's maiden name. Okay, second part Gabbard, my father's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so did they do that on purpose? They did, yeah, that's great, that's great.
Speaker 2:It followed me all my life, my life. They'll have to explain.
Speaker 1:Every time I go to do a form or to an official location it's hyphenated. The first part is yes, so you've had to live with a hyphenated name your whole life, and it's complicated because every teacher is like why the hyphen? Yeah, You're going back to junior high.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's hilarious.
Speaker 1:So where are you from? Originally From.
Speaker 2:Santa Cruz Born at Community Hospital.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Frederick Street.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Grew up in Soquel for the first few years of my life.
Speaker 1:So Community Hospital. So that makes you younger than me 82. 82. Okay, so yeah, you were the last of the babies born at Community Hospital. Yes, but back in the so this highly socialist communist region of Santa Cruz, california, used to have only one hospital from the county, really, and that was community hospital. They closed that down in 1984. So just in case you wondered how socialist a spot it's not that, not that much. So yeah, yeah, anyways, go on I grew up socal.
Speaker 2:For a few years of my life, uh, socal village, went to socal elementary school. Okay, um lived in a big victorian house there as you go into town. Um, which, as you're, coming down the hill there into socal village there's a victorian house on the right side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, socal village. Uh coming from main street, or or like which coming from like 41st coming from. Oh, okay, that one, the big one yeah, the big one.
Speaker 2:My uh parents bought that in the. It must have been the early 70s okay, yeah and um got a grant from the Historical Society, rebuilt it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember that getting rebuilt, so that was, I don't know. You may remember that was my dad, my uncle.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And my mom probably building that. Yeah, that's great they had before I was born. They operated a little bookstore Okay In the bottom floor and the top store is where they lived.
Speaker 1:Yeah and those memories are light, but now I'm picturing it being a fellow person that is from here. The different maciations of Santa Cruz and Soquel.
Speaker 1:I was working in Soquel briefly in the early aughts and it was going through a renaissance moment back then. You know where they were doing more. They built the condos that were. You know, once you pass on Soquel Drive and then you get past Main Street, there was a new little condo complex which, again for anybody listening, is not from santa cruz. That sounds weird to talk about. But we don't get new complexes you know, and it's a marker.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, uh, I remember when I was growing up there were orchards back there yeah um, no, longer, yeah, no.
Speaker 1:Longer there, yeah, so so do you have some memory of santa cruz's farming past that even lived on Soquel Drive?
Speaker 2:Yep, I do. I don't really recall 41st getting built up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you weren't really that age. I mean I was. I mean you're old enough that you would have caught second phase. You know, right, right, the mall going up. Well, well, well, well. The mall went up. Then it got bigger. I think that that was probably the big premier moment Did. How about the 2121 building? I don't know. The 2121 building is the one next to Burger King. Oh yeah, do you remember that going up?
Speaker 1:No, those are hazy memories that was like 85, 86. So you'd have been pretty young, but that was kind of when things really changed. They had the brick building with the liquor store there, and so there were these spots, right, but 41st wasn't full and when I was young, the 2121 building was the last place there were cows. Okay, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you've really seen the different areas, yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's just say this wonderful little spot that we're in right now was not a wonderful spot back then. We didn't go to this end of 41st. This was a different region. It's a different, yeah, different from now. Yeah, so went to SoCal Elementary.
Speaker 2:School SoCal Elementary School Went from there and we moved. At that point my mom thought SoCal Drive was getting too big.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's when they expanded it to four lanes.
Speaker 1:It was. It didn't like the exhaust, didn't like the cars.
Speaker 2:We moved to Ben Lomond, okay, which I loved, but it was far away from everything I knew.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I still went to. How old were you then? I was beginning seventh grade, I think yeah, that's pretty pivotal time yeah and um. I ended up wanting to be back with people I knew, so I went to uh brant's afforded okay okay, so you're of that lot the midtown boys. Yes, it's all a thing. People, it's all. It's all a thing. People, it's all a thing.
Speaker 1:It is definitely a thing, and so you're a mountain kid in Midtown too on top of it, I'm a mountain kid commuting into the Midtown staying there yeah.
Speaker 2:But at the end of the day getting back up to the mountains.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so for our listeners who are not from here, don't understand the layout of the town, there are the coastal kids, you know. There's there's the south siders and aptos. There's capitol rats, which is when I'm one of. There's the pleasure point guys.
Speaker 1:There's midtown, which is the harbor to seabright, then there's the west side, like it's all a thing you know everything's a thing and you know where the boundaries are, yeah and, and you got to slide in in a spot to grow up, you know, because there's a crew You're with the Branson 40 crew Midtown you know a lot of. You know that crew is friends of mine. You know all the Midtown guys, even though I was an East Sider, are all friends and it's strange to think that there's these little cliques in such a small region, but they all have their own personalities.
Speaker 2:Definitely cliques in such a small region, but they all have their own personalities.
Speaker 1:definitely, uh, definitely, and it's you know, yeah, within all, within what? Seven miles? Yeah, yeah, it's nuts, I, I you know, yeah, I guess the north shore of hawaii, maybe you know it's the seven mile miracle too. But like it's different here, a lot more bodies, a lot more going on and growing. But but so you know, you move from elementary school and just so you know, soquel, soquel, elementary school, just to give some context, even on my end, that's where my dad went to school when he moved here, when he was I don't know 11 or 12, before he went to Mission Hill junior high, which was the only junior high at the time, and he drove there. He built his first car and drove there. And you know right where the oil place is on SoCal, once you get Rodeo Gulch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:You know that lot that's across from the oil place, the empty one underneath the bridge there, yeah, yeah, that's my family.
Speaker 2:Oh, really.
Speaker 1:And I've never met them, so I don't think his growing up here was the same as mine.
Speaker 2:I had really close family friends who live on Rodeo Gulch and I always kind of looked down there and was like what's going on down there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, my dad didn't tell me, I think, until like two decades ago. He's like, oh yeah, that's where I grew up. It's right there. I'm like, you made that lot with all that shit. He's like, yeah, I mean, I think it finally cleaned up here about 15 years. I don't know if they're around, I never met them anyway. Interesting place to find your… yeah, yes, Sitting in plain sight the whole time. And when he's 70, he's like oh yeah, that was where I Okay, so he drove from Michenal Junior High on Soquel Drive all the way to. I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, after you built a car out of that lot of cars.
Speaker 2:Now, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's a strange planet Anyway. So what was it like living in Ben Lomond?
Speaker 2:You know, because it's I mean a little isolated for me because I, like I said I I didn't really have any friends that lived up there. I stayed down in town. Uh, maybe I was a little I don't know shy. I didn't want to. I was happy with the people I knew. Um, my younger sister thrived up there. Um, he was like four years younger than me.
Speaker 2:Um, but I, uh, I had my scene down in midtown and I went in. The only thing about that was that you know, go and hang out and do whatever we're doing yeah, but at the end of the day I had to get home and there wasn't a question of like staying down yeah um there in the day and dad would pick me up oh, so you had to make you take the shame train oh, a few times, yeah, yeah, that definitely happened.
Speaker 1:The circus of trying to take the bus back to scott's.
Speaker 2:That is a circus, yes, uh, yeah, no, I definitely did that a few times. Uh, but no, could. I'd catch my dad on the way home from work. At that point they were running another used bookstore over on West Sides at Almar.
Speaker 1:Shopping Center there.
Speaker 2:So he'd get off work small business so he'd be staying late. Whenever he was coming home I'd catch right with him. That's great. It was really good. Like I said, a little isolating, um, because at one point I had to be like all right guys, I gotta go yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So so let let's kind of get through that a little bit. So the santa cruz of your youth, you know like, like I've interviewed, you had a lot of freedom. Yeah, yeah, you know that it was a place where you could just go and be and, and did you feel known? I guess this is what's weird, or did you feel like a dog off a leash?
Speaker 2:Not, yet I didn't feel like a dog off a leash, yeah no I. I just had my own habits. I'd kind of I didn't feel pressured into doing anything, but I had my friends.
Speaker 1:We'd go to the beach or just hang out. Did you play any sports at all? I didn't.
Speaker 2:Okay, I liked to swim. I did lap swimming and stuff like that. There was a place up in the center of the valley but I had never joined any teams.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was just not something that your parents Well, clearly they didn't force you to do any of that. No, they didn't force me to do anything and I wasn't?
Speaker 2:I mean, as a little kid I did soccer and stuff like that. And I didn't really like the team thing you know being the go go, go thing wasn't for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so junior high B40.
Speaker 2:B40, Harbor High. Harbor High okay, and then by that time my grandfather had moved to the Midtown, okay, from San Francisco. He was at that point point, I think, in his 90s, um, and I would stay with him, uh, kind of take care of him. Um, that would be my base, kind of my base right, right.
Speaker 1:So so that was during high school that there was a later.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, he was there during high school. But the later years when I started to kind of push out and get more freedom.
Speaker 1:Okay, gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 2:I found myself there a lot Junior senior year, junior senior year, and then after that I ended up moving into there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that spun to his garage in the back, yeah okay, I lived there for some years and you know, just for the audience to know, I mean, there are a number of reasons why I asked Ruben to come, but he's an expression in many ways of what this town represents, that there's a lot of things that happened for us, happened to us and just living here, and it's not that things like this don't happen everywhere else, but it was a unique experience. I mean, I don't know if you had friends in other places, like other regions, but the way that we lived was very different than those other regions, even with parents who were really tamped down, you know, who were very controlling you know it was a controlling parent here still didn't have the tether that they thought that they did.
Speaker 2:No, and they would never. I don't think they ever would want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:My parents were very they're old hippies. They were very much. You know. Be yourself and have freedom, and you know if that's what the kid wants to explore. That's what the kid wants to explore. Yeah, so I wasn't going out and getting in trouble.
Speaker 1:Yeah or anything. Yeah, not at that age. Yeah, not yet. Not that trouble wasn't around.
Speaker 2:The trouble was around. You just weren't interested. It was certainly around, I'd go and I'd see I have friends doing this and doing that. I always kind of stayed on the outside of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What motivated you to stay outside of it. I don't know it wasn't something I was really interested in. I never, um, never uh, felt the need to to get into trouble or whatever people were doing Like then. Uh, I'm certainly around it a lot, but it didn't really ever seem like something I had to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I want to be careful with how I say this. Look, every small town has its own little vibe and there's trouble to be had, trouble to avoided, all that kind of stuff. But as I hear, and have heard for 55 years, other people's stories about how they grew up, this place is just unique and you know to your point. You know you had hippie parents. I had really conservative parents. You know that this place has always attracted the extremes in a strange way, but the extremes that all happened to get along even though they might have hated each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think there were many hate lifestyles, but you know, it's kind of all in the mix yeah, uh definitely in this, in this area yeah, it's just, it's just got this strange cool vibe, but, um, again, you're steeped in it and it's probably going to take a little bit to tap into you here, to to to have descriptors for your experience here. You know, like you know in in your youngest form, when you know your brain was finally settling into what it is, you're seeing, what are the, what are the first views that you had of this town and how it was and how it might be different. You know, compared to again, I'm sure you had some experience of people not being from here or going other places and kind of getting that different vibe somewhere else. Yeah, you know, um, like, did your parents travel a lot or?
Speaker 2:we traveled as as as kids uh, mostly just camping trips. Um, I I didn't really have an experience where I saw other places and thought, well, we're weird down here, or anything, you just knew you were weird. I just knew we were weird down here. Well, you know, I experienced. You know you'd go somewhere and be like oh, now this feels like home to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Coming back, you know, but you'd go other places. I spent some time in San Francisco because my grandpa lived there. Okay, as a young kid. That didn't seem all that different either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the city, especially then, you know, if you were younger so that would have you know, like, even if you're 18, 20, it still is living in that Renaissance moment. You know the Castro is still strong, the other name, but the hate, you know, was still this just wealth of of San Francisco behavior. You know, just just hippies. You know the, the, the, the rave vibe was going strong and kind of adopted back then. You know, but just this eccentricity that the Bay area represents was still alive in San Francisco at the time.
Speaker 1:So you were probably there at that time you know, before tech really moved in and kind of kind of took the personality out of the city.
Speaker 2:Yeah, precisely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So so what has it been like? You know, as you know, being a young person here, to who you are now growing up and seeing again. I think you've seen about three iterations of Santa Cruz in your lifetime that you could comprehend. You know where money starts moving in, the personality of it changes. You know, as we're kind of going into now, which, which is tremendous amount of of zeros attached to any house that sells and it's you can.
Speaker 2:You can um, just, uh, traveling around town. You see the differences through the eras, um, to me this is going to sound strange. It seems more dry, it seems kind of sucked, like some moisture has been sucked out of the air somehow. I don't mean literally from when I was a kid to being a young adult, teenager, young adult, um, and, and that's when I really started to explore, um to now. Um and I can't tell you exactly when that changed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, it's been kind of the toad in the pot thing. You know it's like I'm just old enough to kind of experience the thing that everybody fantasizes about. You know that that Santa Cruz was this great little hippie Mecca of whatever you know where, nobody was here.
Speaker 1:And then tech, you know, starts generating over the eighties. You know I'm 13 when that really starts to grab hold, where people are actually working in the valley, commuting back here, and the money starts to change a little bit. You know, houses go up a whole five thousand dollars and that was a lot of money back then. Yeah, you know that put a lot of pressure on on local communities on how to, you know, get to the next step, back when real estate wasn't absurd. But you're old enough. You experienced that first iteration where it got super absurd in 95, and then you have 2000s to 2008,. Everything drops. And then you have this new iteration which has just been scaling right on a very, very high note right for a long time and it's at a digit, it's not at a, at a, you know not 10 000 bucks, it's it's, or 100 000 bucks, it's, it's more like a million bucks right and um that.
Speaker 2:That in itself is a thing. My parents, of course, I've my whole family has moved away Um all of them, one by one, um ended up in Portland, oregon. Okay, like many, I think people from here. Yeah, um, first my uncle, uh, then my mother and father, my sister's up there now too.
Speaker 1:So you've had? Is that your whole family? That's moved. Yeah, it was a small family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's my whole family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's your family. So what has that been like to watch your family walk away from something that you understand?
Speaker 2:Well, I think at first. Well, my sister went off to school Up there. My uncle was up there too. When my mother and father left, my grandfather passed away. I think I felt left behind. Yeah, I kind of felt a little feral at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so before we go into like what might be more subject matter left behind, you know the experience of people fleeing a place that they understood because they don't understand it anymore, like that emotion. You know how old are you when they decided to depart.
Speaker 2:Well, that would be early twenties, early twenties.
Speaker 1:So you know you're just starting to cut your teeth. You cut my teeth. I had frontal lobes developing a little bit.
Speaker 2:I had been to school. Uh, I went to UCSC, okay, okay, in between there. Okay, and you know, at Rudy's, that was my part-time job, okay, while I went to school. So I'm going to school on the hill there, I'm working down on the coast here and my parents have moved away, my grandfather's passed away and I was just kind of like this is two worlds. Yeah, they're definitely two different worlds.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I never felt like they were, that there's nothing that contradicts each one, but it was definitely. Well, let me put that a different way. I was studying history, liberal arts, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to dig in here.
Speaker 2:And so at one point I was really into ancient history, medieval history, and I was studying Latin and German and all these languages and I never felt that the subject matter that I was reading about in the library up there was that much far from what. I'm experiencing down here on the point Now, the university is a completely different world than down here. You know, academic versus whatever, but I never felt like those worlds really contradicted each other. In fact, it's almost like a another school.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Learning.
Speaker 1:So, so what would you describe it like? There's the life you're living, and then on the hill is the intellectual process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with an idea of what Santa Cruz is. It's structured, they put it in that way, but I was still a kid from From there. I was from down here.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess what I'm trying to communicate is that you know, as someone who grew up with the university and the trauma of it from the people that called this place home, you know what it was doing to town and and what anybody who's listening wouldn't know is that you know the friction that the university puts on the actual city itself is very, very high.
Speaker 1:It drove rents exponentially. You know, particularly at the time that you're going in, which is probably around 2000, is where there was this wave of two really good things in a way that you know you had the university actually getting traction. You know their, their biology department, that you know all the, all these departments that you know UCS, it was always just hippie. You know super left-leaning school, but who was showing up all of a sudden was a lot of Orange County, lots of money, very conservative. The thing changed, you know, and and you had, you know, in essence, the kids that I know that came up here from orange County who thought they were hippies but weren't. You know, they were actually very conservative people that were just wanting to have beards and you know, look at it the way you know.
Speaker 1:But you know it stood out like a sore thumb to all of us who are from here. It's like wait, wait, wait a minute. That's not the real version. You know you're putting on this persona of what you think this town is and that's not what town is. But all of a sudden it seemed like Santa Cruz could get packaged and I would describe UCSC as this package of here's a perception of what we think we're about Almost literally. They have the brochure, yeah, yeah, and it is like a city on a hill itself. You know it is beautiful up there and it is it's its own city, you know it's its own thing. That kind of sits above.
Speaker 2:With a population of how many thousands? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, like I think the impact is, whether that 40 or 50,000, not including professors and all that kind of stuff, so it is its own thing and bigger than any one spot here if you're going by population, and so it's influenced with them being able to vote and all that kind of stuff. It just really changed the dynamic of the core group of people that were here and you were there at the apex moment. You know which, which. That was a lot of words to you know. Get to you know. Maybe another variation of asking this question, that contradiction.
Speaker 2:That is a contradiction.
Speaker 1:You know, but it didn't seem contradictive to you.
Speaker 2:No, no. What I mean is the subject matter didn't seem contradictory Just studying human life yeah um, what it is to be, you know, human, um, but yeah, it was two different worlds. Uh, you know, I have my friends down here, uh, very few room before going to college, and I'd, you know, take the bus up there. Um, different, different milieu. Come back down and there was the town again.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So what was that like?
Speaker 1:for you I enjoyed it actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it wasn't stressful. You know I'd get some shit from my friends, but no one ever like like stomped on me, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know like oh yeah, no, that's just what he does. That's what he's doing, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And uh, yeah, I was, you know, out there and, and you know, doing studying, learning, learning mental structures. I guess, and back down here and kind of applying it to the way I see things.
Speaker 1:I guess Kind of vague, but no, no, that actually totally makes sense. The audience will understand what you're saying. Yeah, and you know, as, as you can tell, ruben's a fairly quiet guy. You know, periodically we have our little conversations about things and we know what each other is saying, because we're throwing nuances at each other.
Speaker 1:But I want to give a clear descriptor of who Ruben is in my life. And you know Ruben watched me go through my malaise of of alcoholic behavior for quite some time and it was the regular liquor store that I went to, you know going trying to meter myself in some strange way. You know not not buying too much at any one point and and and it you know again because I had never lived that way. It was a very strange experience to be with you, not in a bad way, but I always knew you were watching all of us.
Speaker 2:Not just because you have to no judgments, though.
Speaker 1:No, not just because you have to, but you were actually watching and I knew you cared about me and that's really why I went there. And that's the strange experience, through what I went through in my dark hole. You know you are a light in my life in the strangest of ways that there's always been, a kind spirit waiting for me, you know, sitting at Verudy's Liquor Store, which which, again, thousands of people go to every day.
Speaker 2:You know it's, it's funny and I never thought I would have happened to it. I've now worked and we inhabited that corner of more than any house I've ever lived in, more than you know any any one space, um, for now half my life, wow, um, which is uh. I sometimes wonder if that's kind of colored in my experience and my uh, but like you said it, it you felt like it was a strange experience. That corner is a strange experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, like I said, it's half my life. But I can't speak for other spaces, but it can be a strange space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I want to be very careful because I think you carry a lot of hearts in town. You know that I, I I want to live in the generosity that was given to me during my bad moments, you know, and as I was sorting through some things. But there are just certain realities that you know. You're the manager of a liquor store, so you're not always seeing people at their best and you're seeing, at least on this side of town, most everybody at some point because it is the go-to liquor store.
Speaker 1:It is a crossroads yeah I see everyone yeah well, not everyone, but you see a lot of people.
Speaker 2:For people from loaded yeah, and from the not, maybe not their best, but but the worst too, their happiest moments sometimes too.
Speaker 1:So what's that like? This is my curiosity and really why I wanted. It's not that I don't want to hear, I love that we could sit down and do this. So I don't want to put more into it to draw something out to you.
Speaker 2:But living in that space of watching folks for various reasons coming to either celebrate or yeah, I want to be careful too, because I yeah, it's not like it's uh, like like there and it's, it's horror after horror no, it's not like that yeah, um, but there is a certain amount of the weight of humanity that gets dropped in that place and what's it like? I just, I do try to care, yeah, I try to care a lot actually. Yeah, there can be moments or people come into that space that are less than empathetic.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I don't really understand that. Um, I guess I understand it, but I I try very hard to stay away from that Um. I think empathy is a very um. I think it's the best way to actually approach it. You kind of go crazy if you don't have that empathy and that understanding that people are going through whatever they're going through, that people are coming to you and they're talking they do a lot of talking, yeah, yeah Again are coming to you and they're talking they're just.
Speaker 1:They do a lot of talking. Yeah, yeah, Again listen as someone, as someone who deals with people, and I do, you know, thousands of people. The frequency of the thousands is one of the things that I've watched you balance through the years of just.
Speaker 1:I think there's a natural curiosity that lives with you, that lives in that empathy of wanting to know people as best as you can. In that quick transaction Like it's it you know may happen every day, but it's fast it is and how you're collecting data is like over long time subsets. You were right about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's long-time subsets, you were right about that. Yeah, it's over long-time subsets and it's, like I said, a cross-section, what I see a lot. But I do try to understand, yeah, and understand what it all means. I guess I don't know if I have any conclusions yet, but I'm looking for them. Well, if you come to one, I'll let you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well it's. I mean, if you're not getting this yet, ruben's a very introspective person, you know. This is one thing that is resonant, you know, as a fellow introspect, but it's a little bit more, has a few more words than Ruben does to explain introspection or whatever else. I don't want to slide past what you described as empathy, because what you're experiencing in the podcast is empathy. It's at its core. I want people to be able to see people for who they are and just live in this allowance space of of you know, trying attempting to understand and, as much as I might beat a drum, of you know towns changing it's going to require empathy to embrace the change. But but you have a version of empathy and I'm really curious what empathy means to you and it's I want to. I think we might have a little bit of a back and forth of something I'm learning, also that we can learn from each other.
Speaker 2:So I guess what I mean is is you know it's very easy to shut your eyes and to push you know whether it's a homeless person, to put them in a category, dehumanize people and just stay on this kind of you know, this straight and narrow path and not looking from side to side. It's when you stop to pay attention that I think you actually go through a process of understanding something. So I've tried to do that not to shut my eyes, not to look away, but to kind of dive into that.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I'm going to ask you a weird question why? Why for you?
Speaker 2:I guess it. I suppose it's just kind of a an extension of that, that drive for understanding the world okay. I'd like to you know a project I think that I've been working on for years would be, to understand the world and my place in it, and that's taken years to gather that position, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're speaking to all my sobriety issues right now.
Speaker 2:What I'm really getting sober from which wasn't booze right now, what I'm really getting sober from which wasn't booze. Yeah, let's find a place that I am standing and be able to see the geography of the world around me, and I think part of that is is is brody liggers.
Speaker 1:That's a big part of that.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's okay if we stay in this scene yeah, okay, so so let's go there because, because this is, these are really the kinds of conversations that I was hoping, hoping to get to, and again, I don't want to push you any one direction, but I think it's important for people to hear really my true position on you. Okay, because, dude, I love you Like you're a good man. You know, I've watched your iterations too, as people who watch each other through these eyes of empathy, like I really want to understand, and I want people to understand also what they're seeing, so that they can live peacefully and not try to push away with this image that they want of things. You know, I want it to be this way, so I'm only going to see these things, you know, like not really truly operating in empathy and so so I want to kind of frame this up a little bit.
Speaker 1:There's a character you'll know who I'm talking about um, on a bike, and anybody who saw this person would believe that they're a danger to the community and they can be at times.
Speaker 1:But this guy is just that guy and you're one of the spots that he stops at. I don't know if he's a morning and afternoon visitor, whether he's a frequent flyer all day, trying to level himself off of what else he's going through that day and there's a pattern to every day and and you encounter him in different spots in the day, because he's got this pattern due to another addiction. You know where he's tempering himself with booze. You know, those are just the realities and I'm hoping that you listeners can gather the amount of hearts that Ruben holds on a daily basis, because here's a guy who is respected by the community, is probably isn't the right way for it, but he has a place in our community and he is this guy that can, like he can, be a real danger to himself and others at times, but but for the most part he's a guy trying to sort himself out and has been for years. And this is a heart that you're referring to, that you hold. It lives in this particular embodiment, because we both know who we're talking about.
Speaker 2:But this is kind of an iteration of, or kind of a manifestation of, what Santa Cruz used to be like.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I try to track up those conversations. I'm interested in what certain people think you have to say yeah, and yeah, a certain individual, um talk to him every day and I see him go through his um. You know patterns, like you said. Like you said um and and uh, but you know, uh, I talked to him through all of them and uh, I don't know if it's empathy, but you get to know people too. When I say empathy, I don't want to put myself above anybody.
Speaker 1:No, no, we're not getting that. I'm not getting that from you. To me, it's empathy in its purest form. It's like I'm putting myself in that person's shoes to understand them. It's not like, so I have an agenda with them or yeah, or to take down any walls.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so you can manipulate them or whatever else. You know which is what the market does. You know it's. It's hard to use terms like this because they're so manipulated. You know they're utilized in different ways uh, to get people to do things. And that's not really what you're doing. I mean, you're just supplying a particular item for particular people's needs, depending on what that need is yeah, and that's an interesting thing in itself.
Speaker 2:Um, because I've often wondered if I feel guilty about that. Yeah, um which which I don't. I don't think, but it is a certain thing that I do. Yeah, and you know, for the people I've seen come and go and pass away and have their struggles, it's real, yeah, so I guess I was kind of glib when I said I don't, but I think it's something I think about um, well, I, I listen, I I'm not trying to justify anything but at the same time living with reality of acceptance.
Speaker 1:Right, there are things you can control. There are things you can't control. Your love for them does not change whether they're going to have the behaviors that they have. So if it's not you, it will be somebody else. And this is the strange paradigm, because it's not like I've walked into other liquor stores or I've never done that right, like you go to the other ones, but there's the one you go to and there's a connection point. You know and you watch the exchange. You know. Like you know I get my zens other places. Now you know I'll go pop in somewhere if I run out on socal drive or somewhere and pop into another store and you know, I see the same people having a similar experience somewhere else that's closer to them doing their thing and and they have that relationship. But the coldness from the clerk is always a measuring stick for me a little bit, but that could be because of the region, because it's dangerous at those times.
Speaker 2:There's a balance to all this stuff. 41st Avenue is not Ocean Street or Tenderloin, san Francisco, or something like that. Yeah, it's. It's a different space than that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't. You don't have to have a bundle of weapons sitting under.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly, it's just, it's just, you know, thank God.
Speaker 1:Thank God, really, I mean, cause it, it, it, you know, yeah, I couldn't imagine having to be in that space and having to live with that reality of of people not being in the right mind.
Speaker 2:And I mean and that does cross my mind, and I have encountered situations. I usually find, though, that if you just talk to someone you know, calmly or, and then usually disarms any situation that I found myself in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I've been there a couple couple times when you've had these moments where you have someone who's not in their right mind, they're on the precipice of being violent because they don't have the money or whatever else. There's just a or they're mad you don't have something.
Speaker 1:Whatever else, and you're like you know you're sitting there watching someone lose their shit and it's not a kind of situation. And I mean you know you're sitting there watching someone lose their shit and it's not a kind of situation and I mean it's one of the reasons why I respect you is that you know it's like you handle those guys too and you treat them with respect.
Speaker 2:It's a very strange so not how I would handle it.
Speaker 1:Baseball bat would have been out.
Speaker 2:You know that's. That only takes it to a different level I don't want to go to. Usually, I mean, the baseball bat is there, but I've never found that. I've always found that if you approach someone in a straightforward manner and you know, not yelling, not escalating things to a different level, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, once you escalate, it takes a lot to bring it back down. Yeah, so it's kind of my mantra yeah, yeah, yes, so we're talking about temperance here and then, like so, are there moments in your life where you look back where de-escalation was wasn't, wasn't the form that you operated in that maybe escalation was, was a space you wanted to be in? Uh, no, I mean, yeah, I mean I'm sure, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Uh, but uh, I've never um been that person. Yeah, that jumps to it. Um, I mean uh, been in in in a lot of situations, been in a few fights.
Speaker 1:Not really.
Speaker 2:I mean not knock down, drag out fights.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Thumb punch or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But nothing that was serious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just more guys just being dumb and punch punch. Yeah, yeah, it's. You know you can hear us all kind of it's not struggling with it, but but what we're trying to do is remain sensitive to, to the realities of you know, these are customers, these are friends and and there's a thing you know that that lives in there that I certainly want to respect it. You know that people don't need to have their lives be used as an example so other people can tell stories about them. You know that there's an ugliness to that, even though it might tickle your ears for a second, but you just heard someone's demise with that story.
Speaker 2:that made you feel better about you and that's not cool no, there's a lot of uh, you know thereby, but by the grace of god, go I. Yeah, that's involved, you know yeah, I'm, you know I could be one trip off a cliff away from whatever I'm looking at. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, as we expressed a little bit, you know about this person. You know the nature of our town. I think just a couple months ago he was on a bad one and one of his other haunts, you know, in his pathways, you know, these are the kind of things that I look at Santa Cruz and my heart breaks a little bit about it. There's a group of guys that are not your age, not his age, who were. He was just in a bad way and they were speaking with him. He was pretty, you know, blown up, and you know I went to the guys. I'm like hey is, is, is he doing okay, like, like, if you guys are buddies with him right now, you need to take care of him and the all he's all good. I'm like he's not all good. You know that this, this lack of what I would perceive like they're okay with being cool with him but not taking care of him. Yes, you know, like, like, like the the understandings of the realities.
Speaker 2:know, turning someone into an opposite of not human, or enjoyment or or, um, I don't know what, if I'm getting it right, um, but not caring or not, not not stopping to be like this is, are you okay? And to recognize the person, that might not okay. It's not a cartoon. Yeah, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it makes total sense to me.
Speaker 2:There's a certain tendency to deal with people such as this guy as almost a cartoon or a….
Speaker 1:Yeah, just this caricature.
Speaker 2:Caricature is the word, yeah but this, you know to stop and say, hey, are you okay, are you doing?
Speaker 1:alright, it's to break down that and, to you know, rehumanize the person so let me go on about more I love about you because it is a real thing the girlfriends you know, like the old ladies who, like you're their one thing you know, and how you so kindly sit through conversations that I know last five or 10 minutes there's a line going on in the back that there's this personality in this guy that's sitting across from me that I really, really enjoy because of how you give people time, even though it might not create the best flow, to how business goes, but somehow that's how the business works. And so you know, as I'm talking to this guy who doesn't have a lot of words but yet I see you use who you are as a person to create a space for people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's a lot of listening. Yeah, you know, and just taking the time to listen, I suppose I listen more than I talk. I wish you hadn't gathered already.
Speaker 1:Yes, you have talked to me, so that's a unique moment.
Speaker 2:But most of the time people want to speak for whatever reason they need to. Maybe I'm the only person they see in the day, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and, and. So there's a hum. There's a humbleness in your posture, ruben, that that I really want to express, that the humility it takes to sit and listen to what oftentimes you're listening to, and it's not, it's not, it's not born of some arrogance. It's just like you actually are so genuine when you're sitting and listening, knowing that this is probably the only conversation this person's going to have this day, and there's a genuineness to it, in your listening, that, like I said, I wanted to have you on because it's so unique.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's that might be their only conversation all day.
Speaker 2:And they just won't do something. They have to get out, right. But what I was going to say is that that's what makes that that corner where I've spent half my life, kind of a unique. I don't know if it's unique, but it's a different spot because it's where people go and they don't say things and do things that maybe they wouldn't do at another place. Um, or another space, something I actually have to to explain to some of the other guys when they, when they get hired, or what I'm talking to some of the other guys, what there's listen, this is, this is a different space. It's you don't, you wouldn't go into, I don't know Home Depot or Safeway and and say the things, or come up, come out with the things you will, you do for some reason at that, that corner where I am and, um, I, I, I don't know what it is, uh, but it's that, it's that corner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um. Well, it's interesting cause, cause, you know, I always come in and box a little bit, right, you know, with the boys and, and would you do that at? Um, oh heavens, no, well, actually here's the. I actually do do that everywhere, so that makes me kind of a dick to some people, but it's kind of my way of feeling around. Give you a couple of tap jabs just to see the temperature.
Speaker 1:No, not always the same way, but in the getting to know process we're amongst young men who are trying to cut their teeth.
Speaker 2:And you have different attitudes that run through the store. It is a, it is a mode of conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah and and. So there's just reality. Let's pick on Aiden just for a little bit, Cause he's so fun to pick on. But, but but that's great, you know.
Speaker 2:but he's just this great guy, you know, he's super jovial, you super kind, he's also thoughtful I see that, yeah, yeah, and he's, he's also watching and I think a way that I maybe you recognize me, but I, I see I don't see everyone doing no, that this is my point of bringing him up is is that you know, you know, obviously I view him as someone kind of my kid's age.
Speaker 1:You know he lives in this, this age space lexicon that I I can kind of I know how to jab at him a little bit, just because I'm familiar with the language that, that that is used in that age group and and how, how to open guys up.
Speaker 1:and you know getting aiden to open up because he's also very quiet and you know and so so it's fun to pick on him a little bit because he's got a lot going on in him and he's he's also very quiet. So it's fun to pick on him a little bit because he's got a lot going on in him and he's always had the best jabs coming back.
Speaker 1:You know Good, I'm glad to hear that he saves them oh yeah, he's always got good jabs back, but there's again a kindness in his soul because he's sitting there watching people again in this space on the corner in a transition spot with various motivations.
Speaker 2:In a transition spot in that crossroads and he will come to me sometimes and ask me questions about what he sees, yeah, which, like I said, not everyone does that. Not everyone is conscientious or watchful. I'm observing things the way Aidan does, in a very, I guess, conscientious way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He wants to understand how to approach certain situations like that.
Speaker 1:Well, I have a five-star report for your staff.
Speaker 2:Oh, good so we can do it in front of everybody. I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 1:It was interesting. I was there the other day when you weren't there and some of the new guys were sitting there watching the camera and watching girls, you know, trying to shoulder tap. The empathy coming out from your staff was like it was really good to see it. They weren't cynical, they were just please, no, just really good to see it. They weren't cynical, they were just please, no, just please, don't do this to yourself, please. You know, like they just didn't want the harm for any of the people, like it was. It's interesting to watch the pattern of who you are begin to be demonstrated by the staff, like the person that you are allowed a space where these guys aren't being grumpy, they're not being dicks, they're. They're like just sitting with it, like oh, no, no, honey, you don't want to do this Like this. This is not going to end well, and that's a.
Speaker 2:that's a situation that can be approached in several different ways, and I hope they.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, no, no, it's, it's, it was. It was just, uh, no, they, they, they were like she felt the vibe, you know, when she walked in, kind of casing what she wanted and like like whatever, whatever, both the kindness and the no was she left right away and it, it was it, and it was weird to watch because it happened so fast. I saw her as I was walking in. I'm Mr no Eye Contact guy, so she didn't have a thing for me.
Speaker 1:There's the boom going by, but the awareness from such young minds is a culture that you've created, which is the point I wanted to make to you is that, whoever you are, it's working.
Speaker 2:Well, that's interesting. Here I go wondering about the effect that the space has had on me, and here I've had an effect on the space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, something I hadn't considered. Yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, watching the kids, you know, in essence, be able to emote differently than we might have, calling someone stupid for trying, or any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Like I said, there's a lot of different ways you can approach a lot of the situations that you find Um, and most of them aren't very productive or can, or can escalate to a certain situation you don't want to go to.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what drives you to get up in the morning? Because I can't imagine that moving liquor bottles around and shelves and talking to kids in their 20s to how to not be assholes to your customers and all that kind of stuff. It is not the most uh enlightening uh space for a brain like yours, I don't know, uh, that's, that was.
Speaker 2:uh, that's, that's a good question. Um, I don't know, I think I find it pretty enlightening. Um, you know, uh, there's still a lot to be learned. Um, I don't know if it's a driving force to get up and move the liquor boxes and and and and and count the change, but but, but that the change but that, um, yeah, the weekly pennies uh, you know that, but that's I'm I suppose it's attending, it's like a care thing, it's like I'm tending, almost like a plant growing.
Speaker 2:You know, I have to stop in every morning and make sure everything's in, all the cogs are spinning right, and uh, I guess that's what it is for me. Yeah, I get up and make sure, you know, trim the branches and and uh then you can let it go. Yeah, mow the lawn, it's thursday.
Speaker 1:You did this morning. It's only monday. What's going on?
Speaker 2:I knew it would be in the back of my head if it was yeah, yeah, so so it will let you in on a little joke.
Speaker 1:My joke was always Thursday's coming Ruben, when you finally have to work, even though he's there 24 seven. You know it's a it's a mean joke, but Ruben got it right away.
Speaker 1:Thursday is lawn mowing day, thursday's lawn mowing day, but he got it done on Monday because it's raining Wednesday, yep. So I'm trying to think of how, how to kind of sum this conversation up for for our audience. But again, I I I believe you all are hearing, as I am hearing, a little bit about what goes on between the silence behind behind the eyes that that are fairly compassionate when you walk into Verudis and let let's make it a little bit personal. You know, because we can always talk about me. Okay, right, you know it's it's. You know, now that you listen to my early podcasts, now that you really have some insight as to what it was that you were observing there for years. You watched that, you watched me go down, you watched me stay down and then you've watched me crawl out. We don't know each other well, although we saw each other every day, every day.
Speaker 1:Sometimes twice, saw each other every day, sometimes twice, and you saw me go through something. And because we can make it personal about me, what did you see?
Speaker 2:Oh, Like through your eyes. You don't have to add any layer to it. You know I I didn't make any assumptions. Um, what I will say is that when you told me about the podcast, I was immediately cause I recognized that there was, was you were thinking about things um the whole time. Um, you're, you're a thoughtful person as well. I could always tell that, um, you dropped a little bit of this and that here and there about yourself and about your thoughts, but never laid it on me or anything like that. Like that. I was immediately like I've got this, I've got to delve into this, because this person I've seen through these years, this is what's inside that I've I've seen little bits of come out and I know you thought, you know you're thinking about things and then you have interesting and introspective thoughts.
Speaker 1:So that was immediately intrigued to see your world and the way you see the world.
Speaker 1:Watch me post walking away from my ordination, deciding to step into the liquor store and have a new God. You know that just numbs my brain from all the things that I was thinking to to a more sober minded person that's living in front of you, and what I mean by sobriety? I want to be clear, because sobriety in its purest form is a willingness to see things for what they are and understand your place in it, and maybe you're not as impactful and really living in acceptance that there are a lot of things that I can't change. So my need to change things maybe is misspent. So I can change what I can change.
Speaker 2:I think that acceptance is is what I've been trying to describe and that not what I'm going to say. Not turning away from, from certain ugliness that may exist in the world there's, of course, beauty in the world too but just accepting that, that this is part of the world and you can accept that, I think as you say is. Was it clarity?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, Ruben, we've gone an hour. I know it seemed like five minutes. I told you it'd be a little weird after 15 minutes. No, it was great.
Speaker 2:It was great, Michael. Thank you yeah.
Speaker 1:So, hey, you know, thank you for taking the risk of sitting with me. You know, I know that words are not your thing, and I appreciate the fact that you've really come here and taken the time to spend some time with me. I appreciate the fact that you've really come here and taken the time to spend some time with me and I just want you to know from the bottom of my heart, thank you for taking care of me during those times, of course, and just not judging me. You know like it means the world to me. You know that in the process of being on the other side of that, you know that you have not treated me any different than when I showed up. You know all the maciations of the person that I was, that was in a dark hole, and just the kindness that that you've always brought to the situation. Even though mostly I'm just sitting here winding myself up now, that that you, you are actually still a bright spot in my day I can buy a packet of these for a dollar cheaper down the street.
Speaker 1:but you're my guy still. I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2:That's very kind From the bottom of my heart too. Thank you All right, my friend.
Speaker 1:I'm going to cue the music here. My face ID thing, this friend. All right, I'm going to cue the music here. You know my face ID thing. This thing never works right. You know, I'm supposed to have cued music and all that kind of stuff to make it all sound good. I'm not going to judge you about it yeah. Thank you for not judging me, ruan. I appreciate you All. Right, everybody. Hope you have a good rest of your day. Take care, thank.