Quick Take
The stand-up comic known as DNA is leaving Santa Cruz County after almost 20 years of tirelessly building a comedy subculture there. He worked hard to plant those seeds in a town that didn't always appreciate his efforts.
My buddy, the stand-up comic DNA, will soon be departing Santa Cruz County. And that’s bad news for anyone who cares about Santa Cruz’s proudly offbeat cultural character. For anyone still clinging to the bumper-sticker manifesto “Keep Santa Cruz Weird,” well, the “Weird” is packing up and having his mail forwarded.
DNA is not only a comedian. He’s also an organizer, promoter, fixer, emcee and mother hen, as well as anchor and architect of whatever comedy subculture exists in this town. On Dec. 10, DNA’s friends (and apparently enemies) will gather at the Blue Lagoon for a “Roast of DNA,” which will serve as a farewell to the man who gave us the Santa Cruz Comedy Festival, the short-lived DNA’s Comedy Lab and countless other shows and events over the course of nearly 20 years.
Why is he moving away? Where is he going? And when did he stop loving us?
The answer to that first question is complicated, he said. (The answers to the others are simple: He still loves us, but in a rueful, here’s-looking-at-you-kid kind of way … and Chico.)
Like so many others, DNA, 62, is feeling squeezed by the demands of making a living and maintaining a life in this part of the world. But it’s more than that. He’s reading the room. It feels like his time has come to move on and pan for gold in some other river.
The pandemic shut down his dream spot, DNA’s Comedy Lab, a legit comedy club in the old hollowed-out movie theater where The 418 Project is now. But he bounced back after that, helming comedy shows in what he called “two magical years” at the now-closed Greater Purpose brewpub in Live Oak.
“But over the last year,” he said, “after Greater Purpose closed, I tried so many different venues, and nothing really worked. And so, I’m like, I might have run my course here.”
It would be nice at this point to simply raise a tankard of ale in DNA’s direction, say a few huzzahs for all the cool things he’s brought to Santa Cruz, and wish him well going forward. (And I certainly do wish him nothing short of legendary greatness.) But I’m a bit more unsettled by the news of his leaving.
Creative cultures in cities come about in one of two ways — organically and uncontrolled like mold in the bathroom, or by dint of hard work and vision. The former needs giant population centers, and cheap housing for artist flophouses and rock-band rehearsal spaces. Santa Cruz doesn’t fit that bill.
The latter, however, is dependent on the strong back and indomitable will of individuals like DNA. For years, I’ve watched this guy push the rock up the hill to build a viable comedy subculture here, encouraging young homegrown comics, importing all kinds of club comics, bringing stand-up into spaces where no one expects to find performances of attempted humor. The bigger, the more audacious the idea was, the more DNA went after it. At the height of the Santa Cruz Comedy Festival, he brought a sense of chaos and surprise to the nights his festival colonized downtown, performing in bars, record stores, pool halls, shoe stores, churches. Stand-up comedy is durable like that; you can do it anywhere. And DNA was like the mad scientist trying to disprove the theory.
DNA’s Comedy Lab opened in 2019, and we all know what happened just a year later. If the pandemic had never happened, maybe we’re telling a different story in this space today. In the year-and-change it was open, the club hosted more than 280 shows. And hearing DNA talk about it today, you can hear a painful wistfulness in his voice.
“The 280 shows we did there were magic,” he said. “And we were becoming a genuine community center, where you’d see cops there in the morning, students from high schools and colleges, old folks, whoever. I’ll never feel bad about what we did there.”
But COVID did happen, and even then, with the world shut down and his dream business on the brink — the club had on its marquee at one point, “We won’t open until Patton Oswalt says its safe,” which Oswalt himself retweeted — DNA was out there hustling.
I’ll never forget the sheer surrealism of a comedy show he produced in a parking lot in the days before the vaccine. Picture a stand-up comic standing on a box in front of a sea of parked cars, like the general manager at a drive-in movie theater introducing the double-feature. And we in the audience, sitting in our cars, with the windows rolled up, tuning in through low-range FM radio, and “applauding” by flicking on and off our high beams. You and I, perhaps, wouldn’t bother staging such a thing, but DNA is a different cat, driven by different demons. For him, the joke’s gotta get out, somewhere, somehow.
A big part of the reason for DNA’s lifestyle reset is his standing as a stand-up. For too long, he’s been focusing mainly on producing others and helping others find an audience. It’s time for him to get back to his own career as a performer.
“I’ve been hiding behind everyone else for 40 years,” he told me. “I need to be not just DNA the producer who puts on festivals, but DNA the comedian. There’s this unspoken agreement with comics — there’s producers and there’re comedians, you’re either one or the other, and until you stop producing, you’re never really seen as a comic.”
In that light, at least, he’s had a personal breakthrough. He recently signed a contract with a small recording label in the Bay Area, and he’ll be returning to town, this time as a visitor, in March to record a live performance at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center. In the meantime, he’s relocating to Chico, his longtime hometown before moving to Santa Cruz. There he’ll enjoy old friends and family before deciding where to launch next (“I’m scouting Portland,” he said. “I have a strong intuition that Portland is where I need to be.”).
That’s all wonderful for him, but it’s sad, and a little disconcerting, for those of us left behind. By his count, he’s hosted or otherwise brought about 2,000 shows in the area over the course of 18 years. He lost money on a ton of those shows, but he can only hope he planted seeds for a culture to grow without him. This dude has worked hard and long, and it feels like Santa Cruz has taken all that hard work for granted. With him goes the energy and commitment to build a viable culture in a town that once prided itself on being “weird.” But despite the efforts of DNA and a precious few other culture honey bees in town, the weirdness is flattening out in Santa Cruz.
I hope DNA thrives in his new path, and I’m sure he will. But Santa Cruz is losing something of its character and its personality with his departure just as it is drawn into a dicey and uncertain future of unpredictable change. We might just need a laugh or two in the coming months and years. We might need the affirmation to see ourselves reflected on stage, but DNA won’t be there to make sure it happens.
And that’s not funny.
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.