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Once upon a time I found this unknown band in Tempe, Arizona called The Gin Blossoms.  Yes, people around town knew them, but that was about it.  I was instantly smitten.  I stuck around Tempe a few days to get to know them better and to see if maybe we might work together.  There was another band from Tucson that had signed to an independent label in NY who were also trying to help them a bit…no longer remember their name.  They had a little local EP at the time and my name was added as their management contact when they produced the next round of those EPs.  And I got to work.  Read the rest of this entry →

It’s May 15, 2009.  My things have finally arrived from Panama.  I thought they would arrive in December 2007.

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I used to have to write, went a bit crazy if I didn’t.  I’ve had a diary from the time I was 8 years old.   Somewhere, I still have that journal.  I wrote about my babysitter, twirling baton, sceances in my friend’s attic, the preacher’s daughter.  I wrote about the price of stamps going up and hearing the word ‘shit’ on the radio.  I wrote poetry throughout my teen years, some songs in Nashville and then back to my first love, journaling.  So it’s quite sad that I’ve abandoned it in the past couple of years.  At first, that was stress and then, it was just being too damned busy living and working to write about any of it. I like people, I really do.  But I rarely like being around people.  I have become such a hermit.  I love my son, my dog, Lorraine, working and once again, diving.  Read the rest of this entry →

Let’s be honest…while I thought it had been about 5 years since I had been diving, when I started really thinking back, it had been a shocking 13 years since my last dive!  And what a miserable dive that was which no doubt contributed to the lengthy absence.  My last dive involved total equipment failure because I neglected to test the equipment first.  And climbing out of the sea, I shred my hand on a rock that I have the scar from to this day.  Catalina Island off the coast of California.  Kelp forests, bad visibility and not much marine life.  But let’s not dwell on that. Read the rest of this entry →

One thing I do miss a lot about Panama was spending New Year’s Eve in Portobelo at the home of my friend, Sandra Eleta .  Being the great lady that she is, it was always fascinating and since I spent a one night with her when I was in Panama a couple of months ago, missing it was felt all the more.  Her Portobelo compound was always filled with the most interesting people no matter when you visited, but New Year’s Eve was special.  It instilled in me an appreciation for new spiritual traditions.  The custom of burning a muneco (doll in English, but almost a life-sized scarecrow-like rendition in real life or as most foreigners here call them: effigies.) of someone you dislike was something I adored in Panama, so I was very glad to see it’s just as much of a custom here in Ecuador.  In Panama, they’re called munecos.  In Ecuador, they’re called ‘Ano Viejos’.   Read the rest of this entry →

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