bio
I grew up in Northern California. Attended (and graduated from) Reed College in Portland, Oregon and the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK. That was complete by 1988. I spent a summer in Alaska around many dead fish and a few living humans and ravens, roamed around the Pacific Northwest, lived in the mountains in Southern Oregon and on a farm near Eugene. Lived in Portland, working for window cleaners, a Thai restaurant, and then a group home for seriously traumatized and distressed youth. Went to Asia for the better part of a year (Japan, then mostly Thailand, with forays into Malaysia and Indonesia), where I did dwell in monasteries and aspired to become a Buddha, which worked as well as it does. I flew into Los Angeles the day the verdict was announced in the trial of four police officers, who were acquitted on all counts of brutally beating a man named Rodney King. (Meanwhile, Thai military and police officers massacred three hundred students and protesters in Bangkok, and then the king told them to stop. More or less. That worked for a while, as well as it does.)
I spent a couple of years in Boulder, Colorado, where I did a lot of writing, among other things, and ended up with an MFA from Naropa — some fine teachers and fellow crafty souls there. Came to San Francisco, lived there for a couple of years, playing music, among other things, and cavorting with kindred spirits. Worked as a writer for an audiotape producer/archivist/distributor who had thousands of hours of recorded talks from Esalen Institute. Lived in Berkeley, worked for Ulysses Press as an editor and production artist/designer, started building guitars, joined a fellow luthier in a guitar workshop for a couple of years. That was around 1996–98/99.
Moved to San Rafael (Marin Co.). Got married, went to India for a couple of months, came to Sonoma, California, bought a house we could afford (it needed a lot of work, including a new foundation). Worked on the house (including the foundation), became interested in ecologically attentive architecture, earned a Master's from the San Francisco Institute of Architecture, worked for a couple of architects until 2008 when the industry sort of collapsed. Continued working as a designer/builder as well as freelance editor and graphic designer. Went to work for a small business publisher in Petaluma, where I developed and edited a vast, excellent and useful compendium of world music (it would fill three fat volumes in print) that the publisher buried in a subscription-based online encyclopedia, and I went back to various freelance endeavors. Until my son was born in 2011 and I decided I was ready to become a teacher. Of history. And art. So I did.
Along the way I have written three or four novels as well as some nonfiction works. I like gardening. And cooking. Making things. Playing trumpet and guitars and various other instruments. Cavorting with sweet and friendly fellow travelers. I find meditation exquisitely useful. I try to avoid despair, even if it requires resorting to silly things. Enough said.
teaching
I have been teaching Visual Art, Photography, and Graphic Design in public high schools in Sonoma County, CA, since 2015, as well as History and English. I have also been facilitating musical instrument building workshops for elementary through high school aged children for a number of years, and occasional writing workshops and coaching since 1994.
music
I've been playing trumpet since I was ten and guitar since fifteen. Since the mid-1990s I've been building stringed instruments—guitars, mandolins, mandolas (mostly fretless), zithers—and playing them. I mostly play jazz, blues, some Afro-Caribbean. Mediterranean-influenced acoustic musics. Pidgin raga. I studied North Indian Classical music with Ustad Ali Akbar Khansahib for a couple of years. I recently spent half a day with a couple of master musicians from Tuva, trying to learn throatsinging. I lean (heavily) toward modal and improvisational forms.
One of these days I'll post some links to recordings.