Dear wife slowed down from her tree trimming teaching, job site visits, landscape planning, tea ceremony, band practice etc. etc. to sneak away to our favorite place for a couple hours for lunch and a visit.
Every time stop by Rural Caprine Farm, make sure to snap a picture of my haiku post box.
There may be more “prestigious“ museums in the world but no where I’d rather be exhibited and remembered then my pal’s goat farm.
Thank you for being my friend and supporting my art Mac Kobayashi san.
PS wearing Bali united shirt in support of my friends in Indonesia
Of course farmer Mac Kobayashi has the new Jerry Garcia box set that was released, like I don’t know… tomorrow or something. Good news is, I was fortunate to see several shows on the same 1991 tour.
Bonus: sandwich / pretty much everything in this is housemade including the focaccia, goat cheese and Porchetta
Warm welcome by these hosts (still not doing yoga, or on the roof)
A few new 7 inches in his collection as well. Including Neil Young’s “Wonderin’” from the over-looked (& lawsuit provoking) Shocking Pinks album.
Just when think have all the ephemera i ever need, a certain magician sends an envelope containing a dozen rabbit holes to head down.
2020 was a big year as I was turning 50 (halfway there!) and becoming a father. Of course, my priority was taking wonderful care of my darling wife, especially when the “popular virus noted around the world” showed up raising concerns and adding logistical complications. Mostly meant from a practical standpoint, i couldn’t go to the various parenting workshops and medical appointments and so on.
Then came gloriously busy weeks with getting Mama and Baby home, doing his name registration in the city office, more medical check-ins, Grandma’s passing and the rituals and routines which follow.
Before all that, realized once the baby arrives, my creative time would be limited, so i continued on my usual tradition (if that’s what you call it) of doing some big creative project each year around my birthday. Note: a middle of August birthday means most people are “otherwise distracted” with the fun of summer, on vacation, off-line or otherwise tuned out as appropriate, as a kid this meant kind of lousy birthday parties (which I made up in later years with UW40 and UW42) and for my little creative projects, they sort of fall flat but that’s not really the point.
#daveo50 personal archeology project (of course) grew out of hand and/but was very fulfilling
So, before the baby came, I put together a #DaveO50 “Personal archaeology” project in which I documented photos dated to each year of my life and related projects, ephemera, artifacts, museums… The project kind of got out of hand (like they usually do) but all posts were pre-scheduled and ready to go before the baby came aside from the family photo we took on “day of” as a final piece.
my family on Aug 16, 2020
All this blah blah blah led up to August 16, 50th birthday. Of course, my present had already arrived on June 23 in the form of a remarkable lil dude. But still…
I was recently a guest on (my occasional co-conspirator) Bob Mackin’s excellent PC/Pacific Rim/Cascadia news podcast called “The Breaker” talking about the postponed/cancelled Tokyo 2020 Olympics as well as riffing about personal archiving project, life lessons at 50, and birth of Ichiro Stanley Thorvald Olson.
In this 6-ish min. trimmed excerpt, i offer a few audio annotations about what i learned about myself, life as we know it etc whilst curating #daveo50, i.e.: how we really are who we are at a young age (in my case anyway), the importance of being kind, fostering and nurturing long-term relationships, that hobbies are the real thing, and the Internet is for communication not just a business construct.
Hippie gent takes a photo with smart phone while unwittingly being photographed by a sardine can Lomo, Santa Clara, CA
In Summer 2015, the “core four” of legendary rock ‘n’ roll band “The Grateful Dead” did a series of five concerts (two in Santa Clara, California, three in Chicago, Illinois) to close the book on their storied career. With brother Dan, we fantastically scored tickets and made the journey to all five shows, travelling by road in various vehicles and staying a various hotels, campgrounds, crash pads.
Brother Dan in the stadium at Santa Clara, California
And, I had a notion to roll like it was still 1990 and that I kept a massive scrapbook of ephemera and eschewed technology (aside from a few logistical purposes) and took a little cork “sardine can” Lomo camera with expired film to capture a few hazy images.
The results are very pleasing because well, they are not crisp and clear in any sense, rather fuzzy and weird like me at the time… I was coming out of the long hard stretch, well I didn’t realize how far I still had to go but that’s neither here they are there. #rough
Me in front of a wall holding up a ticketA nice lady at the “rock the vote” booth in a sort of vendor’s row place (can’t remember the exact thing they called it)
This assortment contains selected snaps of people in-and-around the shows and on the road trip. Worth noting that with our gaggle of pals, we also stopped at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado on the way back from Neil Young and “The Promise of the Real” at this legendary venue in some cold bewildering rain. Again, neither here nor there.
Dave and Dan, taking in the sceneMaking friends with some pranksters and their red nosesTwo nice young fellas who purchased some tie-dyes and kept in touch throughout the tourImpromptu tie-dye “store”Our little squadron / same as it ever was…
Note: there’s another collection of an “prairie time lapse” meaning a photo snapped every 15 minutes for driving across the US prairies capturing the redundancy and consistency of the landscape.
Daughter Sage and Papa Willis in ChicagoYour correspondent enjoying the vibes in ChicagoTechnology and tie-dyes collide with a radio simulcast show in ChicagoSo many mini museum artefact exhibits scattered around the grounds in Chicago… I was only able to see a small amount but hey, do what you canFolks were bringing out all sorts of artefacts to sell to pay for their trip, or in some cases, just to show off their culture… This really felt like the last gathering of this culture… I suppose it wasn’t but you know, think of it as a celebration and “show and tell”Wonderful 18-year-old Sage who made the trip from Utah to ChicagoJust me and my uncle weed 42 tie dye T-shirt and leather “Dave” visor and hemp satchel… Yes I did choose my outfits strategicallybonus: The aftermath of the Chicago stadium…Me and co-conspirator Brad Crabtree of IdahoBrad’s rig which took us from Utah to Chicago and backA stop at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado to see Neil Young in the rain / I was completely drained at this point
Another collection may follow with shots almost psychedelic in glorious hazy sloppiness from inside the concert venues – eventually, maybe.
Summary: Woke up to the news, quit my job, went to a candlelight vigil, passed one around, talked to some geeks from Pacific Daily News newspaper, learned about the Internet, signed up for class the next day, started making websites about hemp in Japan, got a new job, quit, went to Palau and Yap, went to Olympia, met some Internet hippies… somehow its today.
Where were you?
Media: Jerry Garcia death / PDN, Guam, Aug. 18 1995, part 1Media: Jerry Garcia death / PDN, Guam, Aug. 18 1995, part 2Media: Jerry Garcia death / PDN, Guam, Aug. 18 1995, part 3 (detail)
In 1989 (iirc), my beloved VW bus criss-crossed states at a frenetic pace with long drives to Kansas City for Drum Corps, California for punk concerts, over the Rockies to Denver for The Who, a Vancouver trip or two in there, couple of Moab and then was wrangled into the epic trip starting in Utah to the US Northeast and swinging back down through the Midsouth stopping by universities and colleges of all times so a fellow named Kaimi could pitch his idea of selling flag T-shirts to various bookstores.
The deal was: he would pay the bills, do much of the driving and other logistics and I was just along for the ride and providing the wheels.
USA roadtrip, 1989, Kaimi at wheel, Dave shotgun in 1974 VW Bus “Earthship”
Resulted in many harrowing nights in places like New Haven, Cambridge, New York City (where we weren’t allowed through Lincoln tunnel because of onboard propane and required a complicated turn around in the midst of traffic), a break down in Connecticut – replacing fuel pump with a random mechanic in his driveway. I remember driving on a graceful parkway then seeing a horrific accident unfold in the pouring rain storm. Sneaking into all sorts of university dorms for clandestine hi-jink, being mysterious “aliens” from the west marauding in this renegade van. Seeing a wonderful girl I knew from Utah working as a nanny in Connecticut (rip Janel H.), making friends with the father of the house (he let us sleep in the basement because I was reading Jack Kerouac), buying beer with fake IDs and never a second glance, (racks of it drinking back while crossing midwest and through Penn), stops at Wrigley Field in Chicago (no game :(!), Sun Studios in Memphis (met a fine lady there), watching Kaimi spin spin spin with endless energy. Oh, staying with his family around Washington DC and going like a “show and tell” item to his younger brother’s high school class (to much acclaim :)). The van getting broken into and ransacked while parked in Washington DC to see the Smithsonian. Must’ve been a couple of other significant roadside attractions along the way.
USA roadtrip, 1989, with Spanky in front of Sun Studios, Memphis (obviously)
Pal Jerrod aka Spanky was also on board (as kinda Kaimi’s svengali) and brought his guitar so, along with my bongos, we did some busking here and there ++ saw Fugazi play at All Soul’s Church, DC and REM play at Merriweather Post, Maryland, just missed secret Rolling Stones at a frog-something-named-bar by Yale. Rambled campuses and saw how the system of private patronage in the East works – they ain’t no smarter, just better connected / mostly. Skullz and Bonez.
USA roadtrip, 1989, Spanky and Kaimi (grumpy) out back Sun Studios, Memphis
I had no schedule nor expectations except to just go go go and so we did. And, behold I have evidence.
USA roadtrip, 1989, in front of Wrigley Field (we were told there was a game but nope, White Sox were playing across town)
Preamble: I shared stories about growing Hootsuite on a grassroots level and break down tools and tactics in this “Conversations with Community Managers” audio pod interview from May 27, 2010.
Note: this transcription was performed by Jimmy M. in Kenya with best efforts. Any feedback + errors or omissions are welcome. Also, i do not work for Hootsuite as of Sept 2017 and views are not the company’s etc.
Welcome to conversations with Community Managers, a podcast series with actual Community Managers from a variety of Industries. On this podcast, we peel back the hype and get into ‘how to’ discussions that uncover community and social media management best practices. Conversations with Community Managers is a co-production of Voce Communications and the Community Roundtable.
Doug Haslam: This is Doug Haslam from Voce Communications.
Jim Storer: And Jim Storer from the Community Roundtable.
Doug: And with us is Dave Olson, the Marketing Director for Hootsuite joining us from Vancouver…North Vancouver I guess, right?
Dave: Well the office is in right here in downtown Vancouver but I live up in the hills of North Vancouver right on the side of the mountain so I get to sort of descend from the upper reaches into the city each day.
Jim: Beautiful.
Doug: About your title, so Marketing Director which is pretty traditional and old school but you say you like to call yourself Community Wrangler. Can you explain what that means?
Dave: Oh really underneath what I do at marketing and it really includes everything from the messaging and the PR and the public relations, media relations as well as support, all those things tie back into telling our story and building a community culture around all that. So I prefer Community Wrangler just because it sounds a little less corporate but really things like support is the new marketing and community building is the new marketing. So a lot of the things that traditionally would be done by a marketing director, I do them clearly differently, to say the least. Continue reading Sharing Social Marketing Stories for Communities – Community Roundtable, 2010 – Transcription→
Many of you likely noticed the campaign to help the venerable San Francisco institution City Lights bookstore “keep the lights on” and hooray, they rocketed past the $300,000 goal thanks to many small donations from around the world. Now, there’s a few other neighbours in the North Beach area to shine a light on, specifically “the Beat Museum” – an eclectic grassroots archive of artifacts from Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and well… dozens of other luminaries who have influenced counter-culture, literature and music.
To pitch in, you can buy a membership – especially handy if you live in the San Francisco area as it offers unlimited admission – those of us *anywhere else* can dig discounts on purchases (including mail order), exclusive content/interviews/events, and a membership card – I’m a sucker for membership cards!
Did you see a big North Beach neighbourhood round-up diary post I shared recently? Included a photo essay of many items on display including Allen Ginsberg’s typewriter (along with many other typewriters), Jack Kerouac’s jacket, Gary Snyder’s bits and pieces from Japan and so much more.
+ Their bookstore has a variety of rare additions, one-offs, special treats (I picked up a first edition of Allen Ginsberg’s Indian Journal on my visit).
So to recap, do one or several of the following:
* Go check out their website to see their mission and the big hearted folks running the show
* Purchase a membership (various levels/prices)
* Maybe buy yourself a little something nice, or a gift for someone else
* Kick them down some extra cash
* Sign up for their newsletter for campaigns & updates
* Spread the word to keep the goodness rolling
You got any questions or thoughts? Let me know.
And of course if you’re seeking unique Beat literature related content, I have dozens of podcasts, various essays, scrapbooks, maps, and so on for you to peruse.
Fondly, dave
PS shared respectfully knowing lots of folks are in tough financial situations and there’s lots of requests rolling around for various dire situations – in spirit of solidarity, safety, and abundance.
mixed-media art library, global diary, project dossier and whole life documentation
