Category: Video

The Initiative of Texas Slim and his Beef with Big Industry

Texas Slim is a guy from Texas named Slim, not to be confused with the recording artist. He is on a tear against the establishment from the angle of beef, and he calls his crusade The Beef Initiative.

Our conversation swirls around the cow as she connects to all areas of industry and agriculture. While I do not share his enthusiasm for a meat-based diet, I do not have an issue with it because I am a meat eater, and I agree that we can steward animals in a way that is good for everyone involved.

We are domesticated ourselves. We abuse ourselves. In general, there is a lot of heart missing from our systems.

At the same time, I own a vegan fashion brand, I’m a traditional liberal from Portland, and so I absorb vegan arguments routinely, and I’m broadly familiar with the arguments surrounding industrial farming, so I was pretty enthusiastic throughout this talk.

Raising animals in the humane way can be sustainable and produce nutritious, bountiful, clean food. Getting away from mono cropping and more toward smaller farms with varieties of foods, that is the path forward, unless we want to go totally down the road of synthetic foods and centralized distribution systems, forever.

This is the main thing that vegans and farmers, libertarians and democrats should be getting behind. Of course, our social environment is set to reduce this kind of harmonious discourse.

Myself an historically left wing person now aligning more toward libertarian while continuing to have a social life with progressives and socialists has becoming quite an interesting thing for me.

I try to be the example every day of what it means to tolerate and love everyone. Not everyone sees it that way and I have to let them go.

This was a great talk and I enjoyed meeting him. Hope to do it again. We didn’t even get into Bitcoin, and that is a big part of his inititative.

August 24, 2022
Intro to Held Gear

This video was kind of an accident. The producer of a fashion show that I participated in called “Red Carpet on Broad Street” came over to shoot a promo. She wanted to make promo video of every designer. I offered my camera and editing. Scheduling and timing just didn’t click, so I took what we had to make this.

It’s basically an intro to Held Gear, as it is now. As time passes, the narrative about myself taking it over will be less and less relevant. It still feels weird.

This is a brand I’ve worn for 12 years, I’ve wanted to be involved with it but never expected to be passed a hot potato.

The work is challenging and never ending. It’s like always being behind, until you realize that you’re the boss and nobody is expecting what you are. It’s just step by step. One day at a time.

There is so much going on in the background of doing this project. For one thing, I am new in town. I am a socially awkward rather introverted person. I have a way of performing for the camera, for the audience, but I can also choke that when the introversion kicks in. It’s a tight rope always.

Philadelphia is a place that doesn’t just embrace newcomers and people with bullshit on their sleeve. It has to be your heart. So I’ve learned.

The journey is only beginning, and there will be many more videos for Held to come. Thanks to Forest for kickstarting me back into photography and video editing. It’s wonderful, I love it.

August 23, 2022
2013 Jazz Festival Interview with Oregon Music News

Interview with OMN about CPJazz Festival 2013.

Sitting down with Oregon Music News man Tom D’Antoni to discuss the forthcoming and imminent 33rd annual Cathedral Park Jazz Festival. The year is 2013, and we are sitting in KMHD studios.

I am here 30 years old, but I haven’t aged a bit. Neither has that shirt, which I still wear.

This interview is me settling into my role as a leader. I started to feel comfortable with that, less and less imitating and more being direct.

Yet, this was the last year I would run the festival. I succumbed to burnout. Maybe I should have, maybe not. It definitely feels like a mistake in retrospect. Only you can conquer time, but only in the present, so that’s that.

This was a great festival. I still haven’t written a memoire on the jazz years, but it’s in the bucket list.

August 22, 2022
Quiet Spirituality with Steve Simeone

Steve Simeone is a religious man, and quiet about it. He doesn’t announce it and perhaps my show was a rare break from pure comedy, I don’t know. All I know is that he’s got that positive energy that I’ve never really had and it is something to behold.

We start with the fact that he’s from Delaware County, which is so close to Philly and so similar, we got to bond over that. I saw him do his Wawa bit in Royersford, PA, and it crushed. It is totally relatable and there is something about that place that puts everyone on their best behavior. It represents who we all should aspire to be.

Getting to talk with him was a big deal, he’s the most successful comic I’ve had on the show, broadly famous and well connected to my favorite comics. I tried to make this the most professional presentation of the Not-a-Podcast Show yet.

Audio bit me in the butt.

Even after setting everything up, I moved the laptop downstairs and there was an auto-switch to the internal mic of the laptop and I couldn’t hear it because these systems don’t give you direct monitoring of the output signal. As an engineer that drives me nuts.

So my good mic was not even the source, it became a prop. Ugh. Thankfully, I produce from a soundproof room, well padded, and the ambient noise is reduced to my creaking chair.

Not just that, but the background audio feature on the streaming platform cut off randomly just as I was about to do a fade in.

This blog is where I admit everything that went wrong and give a little personal side to things. Don’t take it as complaining.

However, it did step a notch up for this show and my process is working. I appreciate Steve for joining me. He’s the best.

August 16, 2022
A Hot Flow with Madison

Madison is a new yoga instructor based in Orlando, Florida. Her practice has become a core aspect of her life and she will very likely make it a larger aspect of her livelihood. We met through an online community.

Over the last seven months, we’ve developed a long distance friendship, and she is truly an honest person, logical and compassionate at once. She prefers not to discuss topics or expose more details about her personal life than what I’ve given, at this point. Maybe another time.

I ain’t gonna lie. This was a tough session. I turned off my AC because on a summer evening it converts into a hot yoga room in no time, but actually because I was afraid of the noise in the background.

I was correct. And I needed to mix my mic down, but not turn it off. To hear the breath of the student is a good thing, if they are breathing well. I am pretty good. The big problem I had was mic quality. It was atrocious.

I apologize for the audio on this video.

However, if you can get used to it and follow Madison’s lead, then we have provided a valuable document. You can come back to this and master the lesson. I haven’t yet, but I plan on it. Of course, I learned from it, and she offered pointers after the session.

Again, it is a tough session. I am an intermediate yogi and I fell apart on the last pose. Part of that is trying to do this with bad perspective to the computer and her camera I guess was mirrored, but really, she brings a complex series of poses together with a lot of double work.

She said that I wanted a power workout but I never actually said that. This is my blog and I’m going to say my side. I told her what I have learned and stressed that she do what she does, no more. When she rehearsed this flow, she told me it went fast and easy. So that’s a lesson as a teacher.

I love to learn and I am willing to air my mistakes. This blog is all about that.

I hope you enjoy it.

August 5, 2022