Preparing for winter

Playing shows and touring is a great way to catch up with friends & family as more often than not that's where you're staying after the shows. Such was the case this sunny fall weekend, playing in San Luis Obispo & Santa Cruz. At the former, I caught up with college friends who are avid gardeners (and newbie beekeepers) who sent us home with a bag of newly harvested potatoes and onions. In Santa Cruz, I caught up with my brother.
"What did you do this weekend?" I asked, wondering what game or movie I'd missed due to driving.
Living in the city, the question usually gets answers such as went to this movie or that parade but not there.
"I prepared for winter," he answered me, and told me of digging ditches and clearing tree limbs and stocking the woodpile in preparation for what the storms ahead can wreak in the country.
Back in the city yesterday, I saw the urban equivalent of winter prep: bike commuters were buying new fenders and rain jackets and the grocery was overflowing with the season's recently arrived winter squash. With no actual ditches to clear, I made soup.

Speaking of preparing for winter. A couple of months ago, on the way South to play the California Music Fest, we stopped at the old earthquake damaged Mission San Miguel which was closed due to retrofitting. Well the Mission has been restored! We stopped and checked it out. I hadn't realized during the last pit-stop that its full of murals that were designed by Esteban Munras and painted by Native Americans during the early 1800s.

Gibbous Moon: David Brower, No Impact, No Name & Indie Artists

It's a foggy Monday in SF after a warm, sunny busy gibbous moon over the bay weekend. Friday and Saturday were taken up with the Expo for the Independent Artist & symposium, paired events that served to connect up a bunch of us like minds who are rolling around the city making songs and events and 'zines and films. I think there might be a full list of participants at the Arts & Expo site. Notable for me on Friday was the setting of the Symposium, the Brower Center in Berkley. I was educated early on David Brower's many contributions to the environmental movement as we know it. While the Earth Island Institute founder passed in 2000 his spirit lives on at his namesake green, sustainable and committed to social causes center just a half a block from the Downtown Berkeley BART. If you get a chance, go by. They've a nice gallery space as well as meeting rooms and a bunch of great resident nonprofits working hard for the betterment of our fragile world.
Before heading back across the bay for a fine potluck with some of my favorite yogis and then crossing another bridge to hear Art Khu play & Cecilia sit in at the No Name Bar's weekly jazz jam, I somehow managed to catch the film version of No Impact Man, a story, I trust, to which Brower would have related. Notable for documenting one man & his family's effort to reduce, recycle & reuse in the heart of NYC, I enjoyed the simple realness of the Colin Beavan & his wife as they strived to reach their ideals and keep it (& their relationship) together. Sure I'm already a City Carsharing, bike commuting, vegetarian, but darn, there's a whole lot I gotta do to really have no impact. I've said it before, I'll say it again, go see it or read it.

Pedaling to Play

Bike to Work Day got me on my bike again this week to my renewed joy. I let PTSD from last summer's bike-taxi accident get me for the past several months, to the point of almost selling my beloved near-vintage Bontrager again. However, the part of me that remembers how much I love cycling, even slow and cautious rather than my one-time racers self knew better. Great weather in SF and the annual celebration of the joys of 'alternative' transportation made for an easy week of pedaling from home to town and all around.
So I was even happier to hear that tomorrows Bay to Breaker's gig with Ben Bernstein & Friends along the race route is going to be a pedal-powered event! Due to some ingenuity, we'll be powering the PA via bicycle. How cool is that? Proves there are sooooooooo many ways to cut energy consumption and have fun at the same time. Come say hi. BB & Pals is @ Marx Meadows from 8-11:30. I'll be playing around 10:30 (pedaling prior!) :)

groovin'

I had forgotten Ashkenaz existed until getting Wendy's b-day party invite. Last night, a bunch of the SF Songwriting Collective joined Wendy and more of her pals to celebrate at Picante for clean Mexican grub before shaking our booties to the Nigerian Brothers and the Groove Connexion at the East Bay world music and dancing institution. In the converging worlds department: After raving about his show to Alex and Lisa on the drive over the bridge, I ran into Etienne De Rocher on the sidewalk outside the restaurant so I got to give him his kudos in person...Inside, I happened to sit by someone I didn't know previously, Michele McGeoy, CEO of Sun Run Cars--I'm no solar pro, but I'd spent Friday researching solar companies for a work project. Another late night has made me late for just about everything on my plate today, including Steven's party. Energetic limits are rearing their head.

finding the green

Green business, green design and sustainability are buzz words these days. SF is even hosting The Green Festival this weekend to showcase all the ways you can lesson your carbon footprint, go organic and eat healthy for the planet, etc. I was planning to go to the Green Festival—Deepak Chopra is talking and a lot of the YogiTimes crew will be in attendance—and then I saw the news. All the talk in the world can't make the oil spill in the Bay any better...major bummer. I felt the way I did in my environmental studies classes at UCSC back in the day--where to start when things are so dire?
I was overwhelmed looking at the photos of oiled birds this a.m. but I know, with concerted effort, progress can be made. I live in a now-hip neighborhood that was a pile of rubble after the 1989 earthquake; in college, I spent summers helping the Predatory Bird Research group with falcon releases, eventually helping get peregrines off the endangered species list (there's another reason this blog is called Bird in the Tree). So this weekend, pre-show and maybe instead of the Green Festival, I'm looking into what help the Bay clean up crew needs- maybe I can help de-oil a scoter or two.
"I've seen people try to change/and I know it isn't easy" sings Norah Jones on a recent release...a line I know and understand very well. But just because change ain't easy don't mean it ain't possible!
Above and beyond ER triage for Bay cleanup, I hope those who use cars to question their transportation options today, and everyday forward. Oil barrels are moving toward the $100 mark, Gore won the Peace Prize for his pretty darn alarming environmental doc, and a lot of the sky is falling-so what else does it take to wake up?
Bike. Walk. Use Biodiesel. Take the bus. Carpool. And check out these organizations.
Save the Bay
Marine Mammal Center
San Francisco Bike Coalition
and
Ecotality
Baykeeper