Bakersfield Real Estate, Web Design, Computer Graphics, Music, Cinema, Current Events, Art, Poetry, Literature, and Drama.
Musica
See Heroes below, as many of the people in there are musicians. I like Madeleine Peyroux and Norah Jones. They are part of a trend I am noticing that combines jazz, country, folk, and blues. Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and I even like Kelly Clarkson, in spite of the fact that she was on American Idol.
Lennie Tristano is a piano player that is not that well known, but I feel like he was really onto something, and I am trying to follow the path that he laid out. On the trumpet I am using Chet Baker as a role model, trying to emulate his beautiful tone, but after spending time on him I may move on to Miles Davis, Arturo Sandoval, Bix Beiderbecke, or Dizzy Gillespie--though I refuse to puff my cheeks like a bull frog.
Brad Mehldau is a young pianist who can play straight ahead jazz, like the old Rodgers and Hart standard "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" beautifully, but he will then play a Beatles tune, or maybe something by Radiohead. He has tattoos, is on MySpace, and is like the people of his generation, yet he has an uncanny ability to absorb and reflect the music of the past, making it fresh and new. I was really blown out by his latest project, a collaboration with opera diva soprano extraordinaire Renee Fleming called Love Sublime, with Renee singing the poetry of Rainer Marie Rilke and others of that ilk or persuasion.
Film
V for Vendetta was the last movie I saw that really impressed me. I thought it was fabulous and fantastic from start to finish. I am anxious to see A Scanner Darkly, but it seems like it has already come and gone without being shown in Bakersfield. I was hoping that a Philip K. Dick book would finally be made into a movie that did it justice, and that we would see some of the multi-levels and depths of his novels on the screen--not that Bladerunner wasn't a good film, it just wasn't the film that was in the book.
I go to see the Flics film series, every other Friday evening at the Fox Theater. They show mostly foreign films, or other independent films that might not otherwise be shown in Bakersfield. Films I like are of course, Citizen Kane, Clockwork Orange, The Matrix, Streetcar Named Desire, Bladerunner, Blue Velvet, The Red Shoes, Crash, 8 Mile,, and if I want to see something so bad it's good, there's always Pink Flamingoes, Trash, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Mulholland Drive, Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill, Kill!!! or the spectacularly bad but nevertheless entertaining classic: Showgirls.
Televisione
I just saw Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I was really impressed that it spoke the truth about the sad state of television currently. I abhor much of what passes for entertainment these days--reality television and the stupid contests, Jerry Springer, Dr. Phil, Maury--"You are the father,"--oh, I could go on.
I really was a fan of a lot of the classic comedys, such as The Dick Van Dyke Show, Sargeant Bilko, Amos & Andy, Mr. Ed, Dobie Gillis, Leave it To Beaver, I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, Car 54, Where Are You, Cheers, and feel that television comedy reached its zenith with Seinfeld, which paid homage to all that had gone before, while at the same time deconstructing and mocking it.
Again, I have great hopes for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and also liked some of Aaron Sorkin's other, previous work, such as West Wing and Allie McBeal.
I think it is a lot like West Wing, in that there is a parallel universe where we have a flawed but nobel Democratic President. In the new series we have a parallel universe where SNL is actually funny and relevant. Dream on! Not gonna happen. But Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is mildly entertaining and a pleasant fantasy to indulge for an hour per week.
Grey's Anatomy is a guilty pleasure. I like the characters, and really like Sandra Oh in anything she does (Sideways, Dancing at The Blue Iguana, The Diary of Evelyn Lau, Under The Tuscan Sun) but the plots are so preposterous. I mean, what are the chances of having a patient with a bomb in his chest next to another requiring delicate brain surgery, who is the boyfriend of one of the other surgeons, who is pregnant?
I guess I got hooked on that because it came .. Desperate Housewives, which I didn't feel that guilty about watching, because it was fresh and entertaining, but I might start feeling guilty about DHW if the writing declines any further.
Like Twin Peaks, that show was great at first, but then the writing just fell apart, almost like David Lynch was bored and wanted to destroy it so he could escape the burden it had become.
I have been told that there are some great things on Cable, but I refuse to pay for television. The Sopranos, Sex in the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Libri
As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
The Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
Be Not Content, by William J. Craddock
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Middlemarch, by George Elliot
On The Road, by Jack Kerouac
Journey to the End of the Night, by Celine
The Man In The High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
Last Exit to Brooklyn, by Hubert Selby Jr.
Crime and Punishment, by Dovstoyevski
Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, and Ullyses, by James Joyce.
Eroi
If I could travel in time, or if people remain on some ethereal plane where I could visit them, I would like to meet Thomas Edison, John Coltrane, Lennie Tristano, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Townes Van Zandt, Dexter Gordon, William Shakespeare, Bill Evans, Jim Morrison, Lester Young, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Albert Einstein, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Jimmie Rodgers, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Pablo Picasso, Egon Schille, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Frank Lloyd Wright, William Faulkner, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA
Diplomato: 1984
Stato studente: Ex alunno
Diploma: High School Diploma
Major: Creative Writing
Materia secondaria: Poetry
Associazioni: Dean's List, SF PC Users Group, Bulletin Board
1981 per 1984
West Valley College
Saratoga, CA
Diplomato: 1979
Stato studente: Ex alunno
Diploma: Associate's Degree
Major: Music
Materia secondaria: Jazz
Associazioni: Advanced Big Band on Baritone Sax, Big Band on Tenor, Sax Quartet on Alto, Small Jazz Combo on Alto Sax
1977 per 1979
Willow Glen High
San Jose, CA
Diplomato: 1976
Stato studente: Ex alunno
Diploma: High School Diploma
Associazioni: Cross Country
Chi sono: I am a Real Estate agent in Bakersfield, and in my spare time I like to play a little jazz, or sing country songs. Maybe mix a little jazz, blues, a little country, and combine it with the spaces between the sounds (which are as crucial to the effect as the sounds themselves).
I'm trying to get at this almost indescribable, ineffable kind of poetry. You see it in Picasso’s work; you hear it in Miles Davis’ playing. Connoisseurs of eloquent, understated delivery will hear it in my music, if they care to listen.
I play guitar, saxophone (Tenor, Alto, & Baritone), piano, and I am learning trumpet. My trumpet teacher is Steve Eisen, and he is running the Bakersfield Jazz Workshop, which is happening every Tuesday Night from 7 to 9 PM at the Nile Theater in beautiful downtown Bakersfield.
Jazzmania, his 10-Piece Big Band played Tuesday, September 19th, 2006, for the Workshop's debut. It was a smashing success, and finished off with an open jam on Tenor Madness, a blues in Bb.
Mi piacerebbe conoscere: Interesting people involved in creative pursuits.
I am single and would like to meet available women who share my joy in life and the possibilities life presents.
I would really like to meet Merle Haggard, George Jones, Hank Williams III, Dwight Yoakam, Willie Nelson, Toby Keith, and Steve Earle, to name a few country singers I admire who are still alive.
I have met Chris Botti, but would like to have a deeper converstion with him, and I would really like to meet Brad Mehldau, an excellent young jazz pianist, David Bowie, Keith Richards, and both Becks--Jeff and Beck Hanson.
