Bennie and the Jets

I rarely post anything on the blog anymore since Facebook is around, but Facebook posts get lost after a while, so I figured this event was blog worthy. Last October, Dave Graham came trick or treating with his sons, Robert and Alex, and when he saw our piano, he busted out with one of my all time favorite songs, Bennie and the Jets. I made the deal with him then and there to sing it for the talent show. I knew we needed outfits that would be worthy of Elton, so I bought a couple of pairs of rhinestone encrusted glasses, a couple of cans of silver spray paint, and got busy. Here is the result. Check it out.

Andrew's Front Side Slashers

Oregon 2011

We spent twenty-five days camping this summer, mostly up in Oregon. The boys and I skated at about a dozen or more parks, and I am compiling videos. Here is one that I put some music to. The song is called Go Skate! and I wrote it for the Bad Goods. I play all the instruments on it except the piano and the congas, which Dave Qualls played. Dave also engineered the recording in his awesome garage/studio.

Talent Show 2011

My principal, the school secretary, the after school teacher and I played this year. Here it is for your pleasure...

Steely Dan

Bell Bottom Blues

Here is one of the songs I sang for the ballads at the Haggin Museum.This is not the whole song, but the whole song is on Facebook.

Sleigh Ride!

Fresh Paint, New Tricks

Worship Skatan

Spring Break Skating 2010

Some Footage from our Oregon Skate/Camping Trip

First Day Back to School!

The sweet life of summer vacation lasted for a brief time, and now we are back to the old chalkboards. Seth attends El Portal Middle School in Escalon. His bus ride from my school leaves at 7:30, which means we have to leave home by 7:00 every morning. He doesn't arrive back at my school until 4:30! That is a long day. At least I'll get a lot of grading done hopefully. Saul is in my class, fourth grade. He said he had an "awesome" day, but he is really tired right now, and so am I. The air conditioner in our classroom was not working this afternoon, and it was 95 degrees hot, so I joked that we were doing Bikram math! I was sweating, for real. So we are off on the good foot. Bye bye relaxing summer! We'll miss you!

Old Man Army Fingerboarder Extraordinaire!

Shredding the driveway quarterpipe

Charlotte's Web Deck

I got a new skate board and gripped it up custom! Check it out.

Seth's School Band Concert

Seth and I went to Frank Faria's ranch in Escalon to skate and watch the new video by the Bacon Skateboard team, Unheard. Seth dropped in to the bowl with the pros! I was too intimidated. He even got some board slaps from Cody Lockwood for his frontside ollie. What a cool place to hang out!

New Addition to the Driveway Skatepark

I built a new little 2 foot tall quarter pipe to learn tricks on. It is more of an Old Man ramp, but fun nonetheless...

School Pictures!

Ray Manzarek

Kelly called me yesterday and asked me if I'd like to participate in a poetry and music workshop at University of the Pacific with Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist from The Doors, so I agreed that it sounded like something we both should do. We arrived at five after three, after having locked ourselves out of Kelly's car; his key doesn't work, so he leaves it unlocked all the time, which I didn't know when I locked it. He said, "Oh no, I can't go in now! This is going to take me three hours to get fixed, you go ahead." I said, "No, I have triple A, let's go." The irony of having almost been foiled by a car door when we were about to go hear one of The Doors lecture was not missed by us as we hurried to find the theater which we imagined would be full of people already listening to Ray's words of wisdom. We had to call Pete Hackett to ask where the theater was, and were surprised to be two of about six or seven other people in the room. We sat in the empty front row with Lisa and Pete. One of the people there was Rob North. He and his dad were sitting behind us, and they came up to join us. At about ten minutes after three, Ray and his wife Dorothy and the poet Michael Ford walk in and say, "Hey everybody, we're here." They took the stage and found that the sound system was "fucked." Kelly volunteered Pete's equipment, and Pete and Lisa drove to the Allan Short Center to fetch the PA and keyboard. I called Jim Ricks and told him to get his ass to the theater pronto, and he brought a keyboard amp. Meanwhile, one of the UOP students in the audience suggested going to a rehearsal hall where there was an acoustic piano Ray could play until the equipment showed up. The handful of us still there followed her there, and Ray played for about fifteen minutes. I recorded all of it on the Edirol, and it sounded really good. Finally, we went back to the theater and got the poetry and music workshop, complete with Q and A after. Kelly asked a few good questions and so did Pete, and the music student requested the piano solo from The Crystal Ship. There were several times when I felt overcome with emotion, but when he was playing that one I was almost in tears. Anyway, I ended up hanging out with Ray Manzarek of The Doors for a couple of hours today, got my LA Woman record autographed, and got a bootleg cd of the whole experience, which I think is pretty blog worthy. I'll post some pictures soon.