Writer, Creative Director, Musician, & Illustrator
San Francisco, California
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Foolish marketers create their own “BalloonGate” in San Francisco
March 3, 2011 @ 10:44 am
“A publicity stunt for a new warfare-based video game sent local environmentalists to arms when a mass of balloons carrying advertisements for the game cascaded into San Francisco Bay.”
You don’t have to be an environmentalist to read about this in today’s SF Chron and, well, see red. Marketers concocting these misguided “viral” stunts are out of touch. It’s not just eco-warriors that see a balloon release as so much trash-generation and littering—it’s the majority of Americans who are living in a day and age of an unprecedented assault on their environment, food, air and water.
Music-related happenings in 2011
January 1, 2011 @ 3:47 pm
Hi friends,
The holidays are here, and keeping with that theme of renewal and change, I wanted to collate recent announcements about some cool new stuff happening on the music and Indie Rock 101 front. New single, blogging for Focal Press’s blog, updated Amazon author page with new articles and content. Read on for details…
I'm blogging for Focal Press's blog for the audio community, Audio Undone
November 21, 2010 @ 6:41 pm
I’m honored and excited to announce my first post for my Indie Rock 101 publisher’s blog for the audio community, ‘Audio Undone.’ If you’re into audio production, it’s a great forum for new tips and info. I’ll be submitting new columns as time allows, so please subscribe for my latest musings on all things indie rock.
I’m now a blogger for AudioUndone.com, my publisher’s (Focal Press) blog for the audio community
My most recent entry is an interview with San Francisco mastering engineer and AES (Audio Engineering Society) 2010 Convention committee member and co-chair of the workshop track, Mike Wells. You can scroll down on the same page to see recent my première post, “3 Killer iPhone Apps for Guitar Gods on the go.”
I will be posting the same entries at the website for my book, Indie Rock 101, so subscribe to the RSS feed there for my posts about the book, my music, audio production and running, recording and promoting your music.
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Advertising hall of shame
September 23, 2010 @ 10:03 pm
Sometimes I see advertising that’s so bad it actually upsets me. This week, IBM has been running full-page, full-color ads on the back of the Business section in the San Francisco Chronicle that are such a waste of money I have to wonder who at that company authorized it. I also have to wonder what ad agency spent the company’s so irresponsibly.
Tune in online to my Boston radio interview this Saturday!
August 31, 2010 @ 10:54 pm
Tune in to my interview on Boston ’s WMWM this Saturday (9/4) at 4 p.m. EST for my book, “Indie Rock 101.” I’ll be talking about the book with DJ Cosmic Amanda and sharing some of my recorded songs. Listen online at www.wmwmonline.com. Should be fun!
Shark conservation panel discussion at the Blue Ocean Film Festival
August 29, 2010 @ 5:59 pm
Yesterday was an amazing day of meeting fellow shark conservationists at the Blue Ocean Film Festival in Monterey, CA.
At 10:30, I attended a panel discussion, “New Strategies In Shark Conservation,” of shark conservation experts moderated by wildlife cinematographer Richard Theiss. The panel guests brought a wide range of perspectives, disciplines and approaches to their discussion around the problems sharks are facing today.
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On Spearfishing, Swimming with a School of Orange Stripe Surgeonfish & Veganism
August 18, 2010 @ 10:27 pm
orange striped surgeonfish
I’ll never forget the recent privilege of scuba diving about 85 feet underwater in Kauai and coming across a large school of beautiful orange stripe surgeonfish. They were cautious but not frightened as I approached and followed from close behind, and for a few wondrous moments they allowed me to swim amongst them before I had to return to my dive team. I also saw a few octopi, eels, starfish, crabs, dozens of sea turtles and whitetip reef sharks sleeping and cruising near the bottom.
An animal rights activist’s guide to staying sane: Words of wisdom from PETA’s Alex B.
June 20, 2010 @ 6:20 pm
Any number of terrible things happen to all kinds of animals every day. 10 billion a year are eaten for food a year, for one thing. But the recent Mercy for Animals undercover footage of cows and calves being brutally abused at the Conklin dairy farm was hard for me to watch, and hard to recover from. Sadly, animal abuse is not an isolated case in the dairy industry, or the factory farm industry, for that matter; it’s the norm. The best way to prevent this sort of atrocity is to give up dairy altogether and go vegan.
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Just say NO to offshore drilling
April 30, 2010 @ 5:55 pm
[If you want to bypass my short rant and get right to petitions and articles, scroll down to get right to the links at the end of this article]
Only a few days after getting upset about Obama’s reversed stance to allow offshore drilling on the East Coast, I read the headlines about what will likely become the biggest and most disastrous oil spill ever.
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On the laughable hypocrisy of 'The Office' (via General Electric) telling you what’s best for your health and the environment
April 20, 2010 @ 10:38 pm
From today’s Wall Street Journal:
What Your TV Is Telling You to Do: NBC Universal’s Shows Are Sending Viewers Signals to Recycle, Exercise and Eat Right. Why?
That’s a question I asked myself a few months ago when I was watching one of my favorite shows, “The Office.” I remember getting a funny feeling watching a scene in which office manager Michael Scott asks the employees for ideas on how they might be better citizens via volunteerism. Then a few weeks later, Dwight harangues fellow employees to recycle as a recycling-obsessed mascot called “Recyclops.” As someone who’s watched “The Office” since the first episode, I also noticed that there sure seem to be a lot of episodes in which people get wasted and it’s depicted as a good time had by all (…except once, when white-trash Meredith, the office alcoholic, lights her own hair on fire at a party. Even so, Meredith’s punchlines revolve more around her twisted sexual misadventures more than they do alcohol-related bummers like loss of a job, DUIs or psoriasis of the liver.)
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