Salinas Underground

In this episode, Oz goes drinking at Whole Foods and walks through a fight in downtown San Jose and now won't shut up about it.

This week, we hit the road and head up to the Bay Area to record. The travel was worth it as we talked with Jesus Beltran and Sammy Martinez the guys behind Desmadre.com. Their weekly "El Mundo" video is a hilarious and informative look at the crazy world around us. Delivered in Spanish by the ever entertaining Juan Hierbas this is the show you want to be following to impress your friends with your knowledge.

The National Park Service is celebrating 100 years and the newest park in the system is here in Monterey County. Pinnacles National Park is part of an ancient volcano that blew up more than 190 miles south of where it sits today. Oz went out to check it all out and won't shut up about it.

Road Trip keeps feeding your mind this week with part 2 of their election special. This time Rob sits down with Josh Verwolf to talk more in depth about the local and state measures on Tuesday's election. Click and learn y'all!!

In this episode, we are back at the Press Club in Seaside for their monthly open mic night. For the last year, people have been gathering on Fremont Blvd to read poetry, sing, and play all kinds of instruments. They are back at it this Friday so if you are in the area come over for a drink and good times.

This episode of Road Trip has food for your brain instead of your belly. Rob sits down to talk about the upcoming election and how you can make sure your vote gets counted. If you have questions about voting in Monterey County, this is your episode.

This week our guest is Bridgette Spicer from Squid Row Comics. She is a Salinas-based artist and the creator of Squid Row, a comic that traces its roots back to 2002. Squid Row follows Randie as she tries to deal with life as a struggling artist in a cold seaside town. Several local landmarks are featured in the strip that is released every Saturday at SquidRowComics.com. 

This is our Ciclovia wrap-up episode. For the third year in a row, Alisal Street was shut down to vehicle traffic from Sanborn to Oldtown and opened up for pedestrians and bike riders. We took advantage of the sunny day to walk around the street and head over to the swap meet for some diablitos. We also talk about our upcoming guest schedule which has some exciting names on it.

This week, Oz and Cujo review Cujo's birthday week which started on a warm Tuesday night at BJs Brewhouse. The week went on to include Pasadena rockers The Letters Home on Thursday and ended on Saturday night at XL Public House.

In this episode of Road Trip, Rob and Edwin head out to Monterey to try out Randy's Sandwich Shop. If you have never heard one of our Road Trip episodes, they are different than our regular episodes and are focused on checking out food spots in Monterey County. Today the tiny, but popular Randy's in Monterey get its turn.

In this episode, Oz has a solution to all of Salinas' problems. Yeah, it's one of those episodes. Fitting for the day after the first presidential debate.

This week, our guest is Susan Shillinglaw, Director of the National Steinbeck Center. Throughout the rest of September and October, the National Steinbeck Center will be hosting several workshops and talks about Steinbeck and his love for Mexico. Susan is a world renown expert on Steinbeck and she tells us some great stories and insight into Salinas's most famous son. 

This week our guests are some of the volunteers for the Yes on Z campaign. While we never endorse any political candidates or causes we felt this campaign is so important to Monterey County that we had to have them on. Measure Z aims to ban fracking in Monterey County and is the first time such a measure is going to ballot in a major oil producing county. A lof of good information in this episode!

This episode was recorded at the Caminos Del Arte Art Festival and Car Show. Natividad Creek Park was transformed into a giant festival grounds featuring five stages of music and a car show. We set up at the skatepark stage and talk about Salinas under the beautiful California sun.

This week we have no guest so we talk about the topics that have been bouncing around in our heads for a couple of weeks. So we get into, Diablitos at the swap-meet, questions about a Salinas councilmember at the Earthquakes game and Oz getting some content stolen from his Twitter account and bananas.

This week we welcome back our local cannabis regulation expert Joey Espinoza. With only a couple of months left until the elections, we decided it was time to bring him back to explain what can possibly change in November. Oz was particularly curious about the possible taxes which sound astronomical to him. Listen to this episode if you have any questions and reach out to us if you need any more answered.

This episode our guests are Salinas-based Metal band Propheta. These dudes have been jamming together in one way or another for the past six years and they are working harder than ever. We talk about the history of the band and the plans for the future. This is a fun interview that includes some interesting Salinas trivia.

In this episode, we welcome our friend, and listener, Walter. We discuss the Dim Sum Inn on the Northside of Salinas and why everyone should try it as soon as possible. We also talk about which style of Chinese food we prefer, Mandarin or Cantonese. Oz also comes up with a plan to get back some of our tax money from the city using a strategy that the city is sure to disagree with.

This episode was recorded at the Green Library on the campus of Stanford. It is the oldest library on campus and houses most of the special collections of rare books that belong to the university. Our guests are Dr. Roberto Trujillo, director of special collections, and Ignacio Ornelas, a PhD candidate at UC Santa Cruz and Salinas native. We talk about the role Mexican immigrants have played in the history of the US and how the historical study of Mexican-Americans is still in its infancy. This was recorded in a room with some books over 500 years old. 500-year-old books!!

This week we welcome a new member into our podcast family. We now have a person to help us with various tasks on the show. If you want to be a guest on the show you will most likely be dealing with her. Click play on this episode and learn about Stefania.