It was a beautiful grey day at Ocean Beach last Thursday, when I participated in a beach cleanup with the Metallica crew and some folks from the S.F. Giants, sponsored by the Surfrider Foundation. Kirk and Robert of Metallica were there, as was Giants pitcher Jeff Samardzija. Met the CEO of the Surfrider Foundation, Chad Nelson, who had flown up from SoCal for the celebrity-studded janitorial opportunity. The Surfrider Foundation does great work – check them out.
Zen Jam
We recently launched a new web site for San Francisco-based singer-songwriter Mary Kelley, officially titled "Mary Kelley Music." We have been working together for a few years now, producing recordings, arranging tunes, playing instruments and even co-writing some songs with her. The Tumblr-based web site finally gives Mary an anchor for her material, a place for her to show what she can do and for people interested in her work to find out more…
I had one of those moments this morning that your public radio station likes to tout when they are fundraising: I pulled into the parking lot at my studio, and just as I was about to shut the car off this story begins on my old clarinet teacher from junior high, Gabe Baltazar. I left the car running and listened to the whole story. Mr. Baltazar taught reeds at Punahou School in Honolulu in 1969-1970, when I was…
I found an article the other day on street art in the Polish town of Łódź, while doing a bit of work on my mother's upcoming book about our family's geneology. She's been able to track one branch of the family, The Halborn's, back to 18th Century Poland, and one of the towns they settled in was Łódź, a town that is still on the map. A random Google search uncovered this article, with photos of some of the street art…
Just finished doing two pro bono newspaper ads for some friends of mine back in Hawaii. The ads were taken out by a number of concerned citizens in response to the United States Government's use of drones to do targeted killings in Pakistan and elsewhere. As I sympathize with their position on the issue I was happy to help. They were placed in two local newspapers on the Big Island, the Hawaii Tribune Herald and Ke Kalahea, the…
The Noonan Building is a three-story wood-frame warehouse building, dating from World War II, located on Pier 70 in San Francisco. The building has been used as artist studios for at least the last 40 years, and I happen to be one of the current tenants. We have a good group of people here, mostly painters, some photographers, mixed-media artists, architects and designers. Pier 70 has been scheduled for redevelopment…
The new and improved Zen Jam web site is now live! Redesigned and content-managed, the site will now be much easier to keep up-to-date, and it includes a blog which, if I've set up my options correctly, will echo posts or links to posts to my Linked-in and Facebook pages. I will try to post to the blog every month or two, and I'll check in to LI and FB a lot more often than I have in the past. Please accept my invitation to check the site out and if you have any feedback…