netheryonder

Top 10 Reasons I Love Walking in San Francisco

I walked to my audition today. Canadian Beer Commercial Casting (ooh, i hope i get it!). I had enough time to either catch the bus, drive, or walk. I did my googling of time and discovered:

Driving, 9 minutes in heavy traffic + 20 minutes allotted to find a perfect parking spot downtown, making use the Secret (Oh, thank you! I’m so thankful for my perfect parking spot x ???). Gas money+meter money.

F-train along the Embarcadero, 23 minutes + 8 minutes waiting time + 2 minutes walking. $2

Walking. 1.7 miles, 33 minutes. $0

It is a nice day today in the Bay, and I thought, dang, I’ll walk it. Same time budget, maybe a little more physical energy spent, but walking in San Francisco on a sunny day has it’s way of reminding you why you love walking in San Francisco. Here’s my top 10 for today.

10. It’s free. Unlike the ‘free’ library, where one can check out 40 books for free but just make a tiny little 2 week mistake and forget to renew said 40 books that one has overzealously checked out and one ends up owing the library $80+ , walking is truly free. It costs nothing but calories. And for someone using their Friday to go to an audition and then put the finishing touches on getting a theatre show ready to tech tonight, balling on a budget is no joke. Variety Show Deathmatch Tickets on sale here. Because a little friendly competition never hurt anybody, right? Which brings me to…

9. Racing the 30 bus down Columbus. I live near Fisherman’s Wharf, and the 30 bus is one of the most reliable buses in the City, especially during the day, BUT even if I only have a 3 minute head start (the bus stop near my house lets me know when I can expect the next MUNI), I can usually make it 8 or 10 blocks before it catches up to me. And if I make it 8 or 10 blocks, I’m usually halfway there already and choose to save my solid 2 singles. Which brings me to…

8. DIFFERENT PLACES!! Like Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls, San Francisco is from so many different places. The strict dichotomy between Little Italy and Chinatown, which splits around Columbus and Broadway (coincidentally the main hub of strip clubs in the city), reminds me that I live in a truly international city. And as the Duck tour guides constantly remind me as their ad nauseam tourist cargo quacks away, San Francisco houses (one of) the largest Chinatowns in North America. Which brings me to…

7. Tai Chi. All along Columbus, and especially in Washington Square Park, there are groups of people dance-meditating/tai chi-ing/arms swinging/faces alert, doing a dance they all know by heart. Witnessing the groups of usually older folks engaging in this practice is fun and informative. My favorite today was a man going solo at a bus stop while tourists tried not to gawk. Which brings me to…

8. Old Money Italian Dudes in Little Italy. I don’t know how they made their money, but they are spending it looking like they’ve got all they need in coffee shop psuedo-mobster meetings in Little Italy. My favorite sight today was two gray-haired gentlemen, each of whom looked like they would’ve killed it in The Godfather, putting their mafia plans on hold for a moment to crane their necks as a girl dressed to the nines strutted down the crowded street, the two men eventually breaking their hard-won gaze and nodding in agreement that “this is the life” before resuming their plot of how to teach of Jimmy the Foot a lesson he’ll never forget. Which brings me to…

6. Layering. Never forget to layer in San Francisco. The weather can be unpredictable depending on which neighborhood you are in, and even on a sunny day, some areas can be cold and windy and/or foggy. There is something refreshing about knowing exactly what the weather will be like, in that, you need to wear layers 350 days of the year regardless of the weather. If you are going more than 15 minutes away from home and don’t want to get stuck in a newly rolled-in fog wearing a thin tank top and shorts and then curse yourself for not packing a hoodie, it’s a good idea to layer. I’ve grown accustomed to the fact that about 10 minutes into any walk that gets me farther away from the Bay breeze, I will get to shed my outermost shell. Which brings me to…

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4. Fitness. This is a friggin fit city, and walking transport is a solid reminder that there are many ways to enjoy a sunny afternoon, including but not limited to: running, jogging, skateboarding, bicycling, utilizing the cities new free fitness stops (pictured above), and even rollerblading for folks who don’t mind rollerblading jokes. Outside exists, is significantly freer than joining a gym (see # 10), and people seem to be happy doing it, especially on a sunny day. Which brings me to…

3. Sweating. Just good-old fashioned sweating. Getting that blood moving and the body awake and alive. This is not just a San Francisco thing, but I do love being able to work up a good walk-sweat by keeping a quick pace (I did the 1.7 miles in just under 22 minutes, so while I wasn’t trucking it, I have worked up quite the tolerance for hills since moving here nearly 4 years ago. Which brings me to…

2. Tourists. I know locals love to hate tourists. They are annoying, they are in the way, they are really freaked out by hills, they stop in the middle of the road to take photographs, they think waiting in line for 2+ hours and paying $6 for a one-way trolley ride is an ideal way to spend the afternoon etc etc etc. BUT they are yet another reminder that I live in an international destination city, not to mention my daily encounters with some of the most jaw-dropping urban views offered anywhere on our fine planet. Which brings me to…

1. San Francisco. The city itself carries such a rich history, and people walking down the street seem to breathe it in and out. Passing City Lights Book Store, the Beat Museum and Vesuvio Bar in North Beach and imagining Kerouac or Ginsberg grabbing a pint and fleshing out the mojo for their next big story, San Francisco’s vibrant source of inspiration calls out to the next generation of life enthusiasts. The cool breeze of the Bay brings fresh news from the sea, blows through the alleyways, and invigorates the population. It’s a place I’m happy to walk through, and proud to call home.

Math Out of Schools Today!

There was a woman who every time she tried to learn math would scream and shout. But she sure did love art class. So she started a campaign and some people liked it and some people didn’t but the news said hey look, we’re the news and we want you to be on it like a talk show or something and we have math teachers who don’t like you very much and they want to say it on live television. And she said she liked herself and that included them too.

1+1=1

prayer

the mighty without virtue are not

the public breathes dissent

they is an incomprehensible beast

grass grows swiftly through cracks in the sidewalk

technology is no earth

What the heck is the Netheryonder?

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I am an actor who also identifies as a husband, brother, son, poet, visual artist, comedian, teacher, producer, amateur chef and musician, amongst other hobbies & trades. I am currently crafting a Pope hat for an upcoming show I am producing, Variety Show Death Match.

The word autodidact really hits home. To teach one’s self to fish, as it were. I’ve managed my greatest growth in my freest circumstances, and though it may be a longer road with more distractions, my focus and willpower have benefitted from the opportunity to allow myself to find myself.

I taught my brother in high school. We had a pretty good time together, and we both credit a great deal of our mental freedom to that year we spent together.

I once had to bat clean up with a group of close friends, boys in a band, all about 8 years old, who were trying to ‘muscle’ out one of their members. Their teacher informed me they had been having issues with one another trying to work out group dynamics, but it began to really manifest itself in a rehearsal in which one of the boys punched another in the arm. I was approached by their teacher and asked to sit and talk it out with them. I let each one of them speak and encouraged them to express themselves clearly, acknowledging how they felt while refraining from placing blame, and then spoke myself. The challenges they were facing were very real, of concentration, practicing outside of rehearsal time, and general goofing around vs. taking it seriously. It really came down to them admitting they truly wanted to learn, which was a powerful experience to witness. I shared my own experience of watching the group grow and told them how proud I was of them for being open and honest with each other. It was so important to them, but they hadn’t known exactly how to say it, knew it wasn’t manifesting itself appropriately and needed to be worked out. Before everyone talked, we sat in silence together, just thinking about what brought us into the room. Though the boys wanted to keep their mean and tough masks on, we waited until the silence broke them in and each of us made eye contact around the room. My job was already done because they were forced to acknowledge their own feelings, we sat until their ‘fronts’ melted away. I will remember this as one of the strongest moments where I allowed myself to simultaneously teach and be taught. Both by the boys and the moment itself.

What the heck is the Netheryonder?

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Philosophy Upon Waking

Philosophy, the word seeps out like

water dripping from a cracked pipe,

leaking slowly but surely until what

was once in side is now out. Open &

opener, revealing truth on one side &

argument on the other, the pipe bursting

with opinions and opinions made fact,

glistening like hot sauce, liquid in the

sun light. but it’s not this hot sauce,

it’s philosophy. Of abandonment and

gratitude, of creaking doors opening,

being greased, becoming and becoming,

you could be the one we’ve been

discussing, or we could be discussing

philosophy. Of abandonment, of

structured, thoughtful abandonment, dripping

pieces away one by one until what

remains but a subtle shuttle, journeying

into space on the remains of fuel

from earth. All encompassing escape

leaving loneliness behind and drifting,

sweetly, towards the replacement: solitude.

Something ancient and profound in the silence

of new space, drifting, vacuum, I

take in the non-air & recognize it

is a separate fuel, more or less sustainable,

if I can only train my body

to use the oxygen of the stars,

the atmosphere has been shed,

the hunger loosed among 1,000

distant beasts, that first daring

gasp, eclipse, that filling up

with the void, philosophy, that

great and unencumbered prowling night.

Creation Celebration

As I think back on the beginnings of christening myself a songwriter, I remember getting rare glimpses into the process of a song being born. The year was 2007, and I had just been introduced to a group of artists and musicians at a party I attended when I was back home teaching my brother high school, the year after I graduated college. A high school classmate of my own, Richard Gamble, had invited me to come out and meet him at a party in Midtown Memphis.

I remember walking outside the house, seeing a huge group of people I didn’t know, and they were so cool looking. Artsy. And then I’m in the kitchen and this chick passes by me, and she is sort of tip-toe walking through this very white and turquoise kitchen. She probably has some sort of fancy make up on. Not fancy like department store, but fancy like artsy. She could’ve also been plain faced, she wore herself like that more than often, but the trick is I just remember the blur of her face. It was her back that stunned me. She was wearing a feminine sportcoat, completely upstanding in the front, and as she passed me I read the words “You’re in a Space Time Breakfast” spray painted in white stencil against the brown polyester. I sipped my drink and realized I was not in Kansas anymore.

“I knew you’d meet your people,” my dad said when I excitedly recounted the encounter, “the weird ones.”

Outside during the party, I got asked if I’d like to join a circle, quickly declared everyone in said circle my new best friends, asked for a phone number of the guy standing to my right, who said I could come over any time I wanted. He introduced himself as Alex. His last name was “and judith” whom he shared a phone and an apartment with at that time, the girl with the “You’re in a Space Time Breakfast” Jacket. I was like, “you guys are so cool, I like you’re jacket, I’ll stop by soon.”

The next day I called and got directions to their house, also in Midtown Memphis, and said I would stop by on Monday. I tried calling after my workday and their phone was disconnected. I had the directions, so I headed over to “the third house on the right, the one with the monkey statue in the yard.” When I arrived, Judith was there alone and fairly surprised to see me. I had the sense that I was interrupting something, and we sat in mostly awkward silence as we waited for Alex to come home. I am not sure if I had changed out of my teacher clothes (I wore a shirt and tie every day to try to widen the age gap between myself and my students), but in any case I most likely gave off a very conservative impression to her paint-covered lifestyle. Alex arrived home and we all ended up drawing for a while. They played some music. And I witnessed something I hadn’t before: the creation of a song. I remember thinking what a joy it was to be a party to the moment of creation, of group energy so vibrant at the moment of birth.

I went back as often as possible, becoming quickly addicted to their creative culture. Art and music, art and music and art and music. I’d hear Alex describe them as his right and left hands. I would sit witness to so many of their friends come and go freely, become my friends, all of us witness the house itself build itself up as an epicenter for creation and listening and creation, and, surrounded by other artists, I quietly began drawing on a regular basis and keeping a sketchbook.

Years have passed and I am writing songs myself now, sharing that joy of creation and collaboration with as many musicians as I can get my hands on. One of them is the joyous and talented Derricka Smith. We’ve been working together as a team since the beginning of the year; I wrote a couple of songs for her to sing, opening myself up as a songwriter and collaborator in ways I hadn’t tried before. We have been working towards writing collaboratively, the desire has been to find the point where we can’t decipher who has written what, just that the song came together with both of us. This process showed glimpses of itself during our rehearsal tonight for our upcoming show this Friday, after we got through our performance-ready tunes and had gone over a new song, I kept fiddling on a guitar, a variation of the first chord progression I ever learned, all the same “E” shape moved around the neck. The song from the chord progression was was “Light the Fire” a worship song I learned at church as a teen. I’ve always fancied those chords, the way they sounded together, they are inherently tied to my first moments making sound with an instrument, and I fiddle around on them a lot, but have never really written a song with them. Derricka asks, “Is this a new jam?” and I fake around like, “sure” and start repeating the same progression. She says the words are “brand new man,” and we go from there. I bar the bottom two chords and try a different rhythm, then another, then one that makes us laugh and dance and stick with that. I often record these creation sessions on my iPhone for listening and refining ideas. I recorded an early run through tonight where we try out a new bridge and make mistakes and laugh and dance around the room. As I was listening to it on my drive home, it made me recall that moment of witnessing creation and I thought, there is something about receiving that energy that made me want to be creative, I’d like to share that story with others, that energy of creation. I thusly present Birth-Mode “Brand New Man.” More from Birth-Mode (working title) later.

PS – I eventually made a short film about The Warble, to learn more about what it was like to hand out with these creative crazies, press play

PPS – If you’re still hungry, here’s a one-take video we did for their song “Pineapple and Friends” – Another look at creation in action, we were laughing about making a music video of them eating a pineapple and singing this song, I went to the kitchen and opened a can of crushed pineapples, told them to stand against the wall, and hit record on the camera and play on the song. None of this was planned, but thus can be the nature of creativity. If you watch Judith at the beginning, she is asking “what are we supposed to do? Look at the camera?” milliseconds before popping into full-on show mode.

Postcard Digital Drafts

Working on a series of greeting cards and postcards to sell online and at shops around SF with SF collective Cloudship Creative. Ariel is way ahead of me and already has hers up on the Cloudship Etsy. I’ll be doing one-color prints on top of watercolor backgrounds so they will all have a unique, hand-made feel. For now, single-color digital dust…

Postcard or a Birthday card or just leave it blank inside.General Happiness Card and also the truth.

SF Postcard that will have colorful background and colorfuller vibe bubbles.

Top 5 Photos of the Week

Howdy Everyone and their Mothers,

A quick read on my week. I also realize there are 6 in my top 5. So you can decide which one doesn’t count. Maybe leave a comment with your explanation of why it doesn’t count?

1) UFOs!!! Holy Cow, but seriously, there have been a lot of these military helicopters flying around SF lately. Ariel is convinced they were there because a race was happening. I am convinced this counts as Spies are Real instance # 222. What’s your thought? Leave a comment and let me know.

2) Rehearsal for Pianofight’s Variety Show Death Match with the Netheryonder String Quartet. There are only two of us, but if you dig string theory, then it’s mathematically correct. If you disagree, we could argue back and forth on the comment board. I am pretty weird to argue with though cause sometimes facts aren’t important to me. Thanks Cigdem! But seriously, try telling me I’m not made of vibrating little strings and I will tell you I’ll be made of light instead.

3) Ariel got into Mills College for Book Arts and Creative Writing. She chose Poetry as her writing emphasis. Hooray Ariel! Photo is from sharing time with faculty last night, where we met a ton of interesting people and I was in the same room with the most writers as I ever have been. That sentence sounds wrong. Don’t you judge me, writers who i was have been in the same room with being. Or do, and leave a comment with how that can be made English.3) Dave Mihaly’s Shimmering Leaves Orchestra at the Revolution Cafe in the Mission last night. Dave Mihaly is a genius and friend. Press play & music will play. Leave a comment and I’ll share it with Dave.

4) Sketch from dinner at Mills College. Was thinking of making a sign like this for when I got hungry again. The napkin is all crinkled up now but if you want to buy it, lmk. Price is totally negotiable. If you think it sounds crazy to buy a napkin drawing from me, don’t worry, I’m just kidding. If you are contemplating buying it, I am seriously thinking it could be a solid investment… just sayin. One of One! Original!!! Excitement! Humor!

5) Had a play date with aforementioned Mr. Dave Mihaly Friday morning. We went to the De Young Museum and had coffee and drew on a chalkboard they had on display, then enjoyed making some music and talking together back at his place over scrambled eggs and kale and water colors he made while on a trip through Asia. We just looked at the watercolors, but ate the kale and eggs. He also gave me a copy of the I Ching, which I know nothing about, but am about to find out about by reading some of the I Ching. Maybe I’ll share something about it later. As long as my famous shoulder doesn’t get in the way.

That Which Was Once One

Is still one and only.

Still, beating heart.

Still dining in silence.

Still stillness surrounding.

Why? Where?

Questions abound through the slick wet evening and made up answers traipse about. The cleaning up after, the waking point, where does it go like water running towards the patient drain. A missing waltz, overheard at midnight, you scoundrel, you scalawag, you day at the beach, I love you. The struggle, professor wanted to miss out on the struggle, but he’s already got it. The push and pull and panoptic eye exciting moments on repeat. Recorded and played back immediately, added to and looped into. Like leavened bread. Like kneading.

Needing.

That which was once one is still one and only.

It feels like it. Feels like blendingtogether inside a house of madness, when all I could wish for was a little silence or some static to keep out the cleverness. The mild interruptions here or there, the misinformed guru spilling out words refining the finer points.

In love with language, overheard.

So much so, yes, the answer keeps coming back, the very sounds spelling themselves together. That which was once one. Still is. Remains the same. Similar, even, even new. Frying out different rhythms.

The short stack hitting the barge witnessing the afterglow and light and love and shining capacities, feeling, but there is this want.

You heard of it? You heard of something greater? Leant in towards it and whispered inside its little ear. It is little ear, dancing bear, tiny lifted bones vibrating unto tongues. Back and forth.

The back and forth, wading like yesterday’s news come two days too late. It had already known and flown the coup. The mystery, unfolded and lambasted. I’m no drunk. I’m not drunk.

I’m drunk with love and there’s the cr-cr-crux of it, at a crossroads like like like like never stop and turn around, never see it to it’s end, just listen, little ear, to the tiny bones, the tiny bones know.

The duality saying yes, the duality hearing silent treatment on a Thursday. Give me a safe environment to speak and I’ll give you some safe speech.

I’ll give it to you wholesale, whole cheap. The whole point is to pick it up as you go along,

there is no other way. There is no desire.

Desire Desire Desire.

That which was once won is still one, still won, still twill be always the selfsame selfsame selfsame one. Times itself, into itself, folded up a thousand deaths and buried underground. Revved and loosened, theatrical and buzzard, lips and teeth and tongue made red with tannens and rich perfumes, drunk in the nose and mouth, drunk in the eyes, drunk in the spirit. Sober sober sober faced into the sign.

Wheels, wheel wheeling. Face, face facing. Sleep, sleep sleeping.

It Could Have Been an American Dream

But I had a 10 o clock. I was weary from the night before and no shamans were around to get me my medicine.

A Better View but I can’t say I’ve seen one lately. Not from the City at least. Not with the view of the soon to be lights on that Bay Bridge. Not with the man who invented the Bay Bridge lights. Or whatever. I mean the food, I took it around and tried to smile at people, more trying to get through. It could have been a thought from the past entering, but it was a future staring. How do we get there? How do we get home from here?