Miscellany

I grew up in the mid '70s exploring the rocky outcropping in the west San Fernando Valley known as Stoney Point. Back then, a talented climber by the name of John Bachar was already turning heads and inspiring awe there. Although I knew him only from a distance, he quickly became a role model for me and a generation of young climbers who were finding our way into adulthood as much as we were finding our way up rocks. On the surface, John was impressive from the beginning. On the rock, he had a style like no other and physical strength that often seemed super-human. On more than one occasion, I found myself scratching my head after watching him scale some absolutely blank boulder, trying to work out how he so effortlessly achieved what I'd just witnessed.

Today, a friend of mine sent me this commencement address. It was delivered May 3rd, 2009 at the University of Portland by Paul Hawken. Upon reading it, I was compelled to share it with others. Enjoy.

University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." Boy, no pressure there.

But let's begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation - but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement.

Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

What better endeavor on a fine Southern California Labor Day weekend than an acoustic jam with old bandmates? What indeed! It was an acoustic cast of characters, including a few members of the now-defunct Sauce. Here are a couple of clips memorializing the event. The first is a rendition of Sauce's "Moo":

And what happens when you cross the Kinks' "Hot Potatoes" and "Ordinary People"? Let's find out:

This week, Barack delivered an address at the Brandenburg Gate. Recalling the legacy of the historic airlift of 60 years ago, he inspired and challenged all the people of the world to live up to that legacy, much as he's inspired and challenged us here in America to reach again towards the ideals on which this country was founded. Calling upon familiar themes of his own personal history, his vision of hope, inclusion and cooperation amongst all people, I believe he's rapidly establishing himself as an inspiring world leader for the twenty-first century. I urge you to experience the video yourself.

A few weeks ago, my son, Kieran, and I happened to hear a fresh new sound on KCRW that really grabbed our attention. It was a quirky, up-tempo tune that had us tapping our toes instantly. Turns out, it was a song titled "A-Punk" from a NY band by the name of Vampire Weekend. As often happens when we listen to Anne Litt's "The A Track" show, we'd found another gem that demanded further exploration!

In response to a solicitation from the campaign for words to woo super-delegates, I posted the following today to the Obama website:

I'm a technology professional who's lived most of my life in So. Cal. I've been a registered Republican for my entire adult life - until very recently. Over the years, I've become increasingly disenchanted by the direction of the Republican Party. I'm a fiscal conservative (believing in small government, low taxes, individual responsibility) but a social moderate (believing in abortion rights, gay rights). I've never voted strict party lines, always looking for character in our public servants rather than specific positions on issues.

On the eve of Super Tuesday, I'm hoping for a tidal wave. I'm secretly praying for a seismic event of national proportions - a political upheaval across America. And when we wake up the day after Super Tuesday and look around, I'm hoping we see Barack Obama at the epicenter. This country desperately needs that kind of day tomorrow.

I do not often critique music. However, KCRW's recent release, Sounds Eclectic: The Covers Project, is so delightful, I'm motivated to share my impressions. KCRW has a long tradition of recording artists appearing on its flagship music program, Morning Becomes Eclectic (MBE), and releasing compilations of these recordings as membership premiums. Over the years, I've collected several of them, yet none have evoked emotion, nor sustained my interest like this latest offering.

So my good friend Tom Chatt has "tagged" me to reveal five little-known facts about myself. Since this sounds like a fun challenge (and since I'm woefully overdue for a post here), I'll give it a try. Here goes:

1. I have only two joints in my index fingers. Where the tip joint would normally be, I've just got solid bone. Now, before you get too grossed-out, let me add it's really no big deal - useful as fodder for exercises such as this one, but otherwise completely unimportant. It's a quirk of genetics that I inherited from my mother, who had a number of subtle oddities in the morphology of her hands. Evidently, my grandmother was furious with my grandfather when, upon the birth of their daughter, she realized that the deformities in his hands were not (as he had told her) the result of some accident, but rather a genetic trait which had obviously been passed to my mother. Luckily, this hiccup in my maternal gene pool is slight, causing no noticeable impediment in the use of either my or my mother's hands. Except for her wedding ring, she never wore hand jewelry, so as to avoid drawing attention to them. It seems this trait may be recessive, as in the past two generations, it's manifested itself in gradually less-evident ways. In fact, much like my sister, my son has perfectly normal hands. Now, if I could only get rid of that hump on my left shoulder...