Awaken to Your Amazing Angels and More…

It sounds like a lovely thought. I know that I have amazing angels all around me, and usually I awaken to their spirit every morning. I feel that. But this particular day (still dark, so very early middle-of-the-night/morning), I am awakened once every 1.5 hours or thereabouts due to the disturbances of an angel who lives above me. It sounds as though he’s re-arranging his apartment directly above my head. In fact, this has been going on for a couple of nights in a row. Only, his nights and my nights are VERY different. Mine begin around 5p, especially now that it’s nightfall at that point and my subliminal Russian Scorpio kicks into low buzz. But his seems to begin somewhere around 11:30 p, exactly when I’m starting to drift off into slumber land.

This later evening activity had not been a spot of bother until tonight when it began with my attempt to listen to episode number one of the much- lauded podcast “Serial“.

I was tucking myself in around 9:30 p with my Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones on to get lost in a story. But after about 15-minutes in, I kept hearing banging interrupt the narration, heavy footsteps plodding across the landscape of my imagination bringing me back to reality. I didn’t want to turn it up because it was already as loud as I like it, and it wasn’t soft by any means. So, I pushed on into the story and found myself drifting off, only to once again be wrangled back through the space time continuum to my apartment and back out of the story. Two hours of this on again, off again, and I finally called it bedtime.

Somewhere deep in my dream state, I felt a tsunami rip though my hearing as the electric garage door directly beneath my bed shook the room and my senses. A car started, exited, and the door closed. In a haze, I looked up at the clock: 12:38 a. I tossed and turned to find another comfortable sleep position, grumbling, and fell back asleep.

Fully ensconced in the recesses of my mind, another jolt struck me awake. Again, by a car, the garage door opening/closing, then car doors slamming, banging around through the garage. Now the angel ascended the stairs with what sounded like a wrought-iron gate clanging into the walls around the circular stairwell. It was 2:16 a. More banging overhead ensued while I got up and paced a bit. “Should I make a cup of coffee and start my morning?” I went to lay down again as I heard the angel leave his apartment. For at least 10-minutes, it was quiet again. Back asleep one last time…

At 3:20a, it all began again, heavy feet, dragging furniture, and now loud talking on the telephone where I heard one side of a muffled conversation. OK, that was it. I had hit my limit. I turned on all of the lights, headed for the kitchen and started putting my dishes away very loudly, banging cabinets and drawers shut. I then turned on my JBL LSR28Ps and blasted the gorgeous harmonies of South Africa’s Mahotella Queens to calm me down. I was furious, and it took seconds to take me from the volcanic eruption to slow-thyself-down inner calm. Only I heard louder banging upstairs as if a war between the floor/ceiling had ensued. Really? Is this what I deserve after a long afternoon of serving the college one day before Xmas?

OK, Angel: here comes Aretha Franklin blasting through my 5.1 surround sound system. I’m gonna get choosy about the songs: first a little “Respect ” at 3/4 loudness (about 75dB is my guess. Then I played “Think”, “Chain of Fools”, and finally “Say A Little Prayer”. By this point, I decided it was time to frame one of my Audrey Hepburn pictures since I had been staring at that project for a few days while grading final exams. The calm resumed, the volume gradually became lower, I dimmed the lights after completing the framing, and here I sit.

Angel has left to fly far away for ten days. I wish Angel peace as I will certainly bask in mine.

Living and Breathing a Coastline

It’s been awhile since I lived a hop from the ocean and I’m about to head back in a week. Though I’ve never actually LEFT the coast of California, I’ve had a few extra bits of miles between my home and the sand, waves, shore birds, little crabs, and fresh wind unhampered by the additional additives in the air.

It’s been a long while that I’ve looked forward to coming home every day from an extensive number of hours of work. I’ve made some choices that have left my quotidian return each night everything but what I exactly want it to be: peaceful, drama-free, and just me.

There are times in one’s life when you work so much that all you can do is just be with you when you come home and not have to be a part of a “we” in any way whether it be another human or your pet. I’m at one of those places in my life now and really need to connect with my inner self. I’ve been that kitty cat on the home page buried under papers and my laptop for ever so long. A walk on the beach each day will be a welcome respite from that. Yes! A walk on the edge of a continent!

A life lived in Seattle til age 3, then Los Angeles through 4th grade, on to Anaheim for a brief stint – 5th/6th grade, then to San Diego for Jr. High and High School. I looped back up to NorCal by way of Berkeley when I was 17 and I’ve never left. I’ve lived in the Bay far longer than anywhere else and this is home. I’ve had numerous dwellings here and I was once out in the Sunset district many moons ago with a love and my two nephews living with us who I thought I may be the surrogate parent to for the rest of their growing up. Thankfully, that lasted 1.5 years when my brother cleaned up, so it wasn’t the “Oh my Lord, what have I agreed to?” when I became their Legal Guardian as I thought it might be.

I’m spending my last Saturday night living in San Francisco’s now infamous Mission District. This is the place where young programmer-types have taken over in droves as if the movie Logan’s Run has become a reality. They travel in packs, unwavering in their plowing through the streets en route from one bar or restaurant to another, not moving at all when a fellow citizen approaches from the opposite direction. You must move aside and let the posse pass. This has become showdown at the OK Corral. None of them are mean-spirited, mind you, they just don’t see anyone but themselves and have absolutely no ability to connect with anyone outside of their force field. Whatevs. I never thought that the chill Sunset would be where I “can’t wait to be”, but it has come to that. When I visit there, I feel the calm of the negative ions of the ocean air and see a LOT OF SKY! Most buildings are 2-story there. None of the towers of SF are even in view…it’s all WEST – open ocean and a sunset now and again when the fog lifts. OH, and the sandy beach – YES!

Cochlear Rest

If you sit still long enough and stop the tapping on your keyboard, you can hear a tiny world around you pushing up against your cochlea which sends signals to your brain for identification. Directly from the Wiki hyperlinked above: “The cochlea receives sound in the form of vibrations, which cause the stereocilia to move. The stereocilia then convert these vibrations into nerve impulses which are taken up to the brain to be interpreted.”

Now think about that for a minute. What are you doing to your cochlea right now as you read this? Are you stimulating it with the quiet of whatever sounds are around you in their most quiet form? Is your ear canal jammed up with little speaker buds blasting some type of music into your ear to negate the loud din of your commute? Or is it absolutely silent where you are? No sound at all…

If you answered the latter, then you are far away somewhere on a trip all of us should be on. Silence is something of a spa day for our cochlea and it would be a lovely and restorative trip to help your two cochleas (yes, you have two ears, right?) take a vacay together and travel AWAY from all sound. Even if your brain is busy buzzing away as mine is most day and night, it gets a rest when your cochlea isn’t trying to send NEW information in for interpretation. When the mind can just think on its own rather than run the duality of thinking and pondering while also interpreting, you are giving it a much needed break. For those with children, I hear you laughing now. “Right, take a break from the noise!” But teach your children this and you’ll be raising little Buddhas rather than little “Ruddhas”. (Loud people take up a LOT of everyone’s space.)

Won’t you give your cochleas a rest sometime today?

Bound to Create

Focal Press hosted a wonderful writing contest asking for submissions on how this amazing leader in media technology publishing has helped us create. I posted this today for the contest:

12/31/13

So many amazing Focal Press books, so little time. This publisher has changed my creative life in myriad ways as well as those of my audio and video media students. Beginning in the early 1980’s, I made a career shift in college from the pursuit of law and politics to one that focuses on media creation. After two decades of building a solid foundation as an audio engineer and video producer, this came to fruition when I was asked to teach audio production courses in the Broadcast Electronic Media Arts department at the venerable City College of San Francisco in 2001. A colleague of mine introduced me to two Focal Press media technology books in 2003 and I have been hooked (booked) ever since.

As an educator of media technology, I must keep current in the constant changes and upgrades of media production tools. I turn to Focal Press and their voluminous knowledge on the subject. This is one publisher that maintains up-to-date releases of new material in a rapidly shifting industry.

My students have gained an amazing wealth of knowledge from material authored by talented creators who have a passion for the work they do which shows in their texts. From “Modern Recording Techniques”, “Mastering Audio – The Art and the Science”, “The Foley Grail” – The Art of Performing Sound for Film, Games, and Animation” and “Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio”, to “write to tv – Out of your Head and onto the Screen” each book beckons the reader into the world of creative works, seamlessly blending the deeper technological aspects in the utilization of the tools to produce media to the anecdotal asides of what can happen when one does this or that. And though I consider myself an expert in my field, I never tire of reading a new text that sheds light on a concept I already understand. This has made me a much better educator over the past decade and has enlightened many a lecture I have given.

Beyond my teaching in hands-on media production courses, I steal away moments here and there to continue work on my own creations as music producer and screenwriter. I have learned new ways to build upon my own designs by the words and the accompaniment of ancillary files and links provided by many authors of Focal Press books. I thank Antony Q. Artis, Bob Katz, Martie Cook, Vanessa Theme Ament, David Miles Huber, Robert E. Runstein, and Mike Senior and many more writers in the Focal Press family for their passionate authorship and for Focal Press bringing their words to the public. Sound, words, and teaching are my passions and I am so lucky and grateful to call them my life work.

I am not only Bound To Create, but bound to assist others in becoming the media creators they hope to be. I can’t imagine doing this without the assistance of Focal Press books.

And here’s a video of our amazing Broadcast Electronic Media Arts department at City College of San Franciso: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIIoUAB-VB4

Happy 2014, everyone. Envision, Focus, Create

Step Outside of the Media Noise

I have to credit this blog post title to a student of mine, Rima Miles, who introduced me to some great works by the collaborative art collective, dignidad rebelde. Their art productions promote justice and peace in community living. They also have a monthly blog that dates back to 2007.

It’s hard to escape the sound of the media as it is pumped to us in all of its minutiae multiple times per day. We hear it on the radio, via RSS feeds, on television, as quick posts to our Twitter and on Facebook. It seems that in just a decade our minds have become so much more adept at multiple feeds of input. Our poor lobes gorge on the data we feed it until it hurts. Some of us lull it after 5p through our doses of various sorts of medication to stem the flood and give peace. Some practice yoga or run or bike to push the noise aside to breathe more deeply.

One way I have found to “step out” is to record the sound of nature all around me wherever I am. There is nothing more profound than the sound of the wind, the birds, animals and bugs scurrying and flying about, leaves rustling. Ah, yes…the leaves are coming as we see the turn to Autumn. Being born in the 11th month of the year makes the Fall my favorite and Thanksgiving my favorite holiday. (Food, wine, family, and friends – who could want for more?)

Every time I step out and listen to the old recordings of playing in the snow, romping about in the waves, hearing the morning doves and the geese flying south, I am taken far away to the place outside of the media noise. What a joy it brings. Noise graphic borrowed from Shane Gibson blog

The Sound of Summer

And no, it’s not a Beach Boys hit nor anything like that but rather a hail to the end of a Summer break for me and the first ever I’ve had since I was in high school. School breaks as a kid usually don’t pan out for an adult even those in the field of education.

Yes, there are those that think educators have it so easy since they have that “Summer break”, but most of us truly do not get a real break from things. There is always much ado about something during that time.

For me, I spent this Summer recording and creating sound, glorious sounds. Sounds of voices, sounds of environments, sound effects, and sounds in my head. I pulled out some cash and picked up the Focusrite Sapphire Liquid 56 just to listen to the mic preamp emulations and try them out on voices. I played with Logic 10 and found it QUITE to my liking after being a Pro Tools user since it’s early 1990’s Sound Tools days, this was quite a discovery: all of the great plug-ins and software instruments along with the DAW for just $199. Good job, Apple. This version is the ONE!

And now again, the sounds of students footsteps in the hallways, mouths flapping, chairs being dragged on floors while one seats her/himself. And the sound of my voice with the intention to thrill them all with the wonders of music and sound recording. I love teaching others about the miracle of sound and technology. Onward with the Fall semester!

The amazing book I use in my advanced sound recording class.

Cree Ate a mind at work

What happens when you’re on your first long break from nearly 24/7 work for the first time in 30-years?

Do you:

Lay in a hammock?
Go to the beach?
Ride a bike?
Read a book?
any one of the above together?
create, Cree Ate, Cre8

If you’re Dana Jae, you do some of the former and mostly the latter. I can’t stop the spinning mind. It won’t settle down no matter how hard I try. And I’m not trying very hard because I’m happiest in the spin.

(thanks to Adam Sicinski who created this nifty lil’ graphic in 2008)

Midway – A Film by Chris Jordan

Midway – a film by Chris Jordan
A masterfully beautiful documentary trailer for his forthcoming release in late 2013. I always halt my pace to wonder at the beauty and grace of a bird flying before me. Ocean birds in flight are my favorite. Watching this trailer brings deep contemplation. I want to find answers for their salvation.

Welcome to you on this beautiful June 2

We are nearly at the middle of 2013.

This year filled with dust and a touch of sheen needs some life in a growing green.

Now it’s time to pick up — AKA: Spring clean

Pull ourselves into the “WE”.

May be the best month

I’ve spent a couple of days up in the Gold Country which are some of the best areas California has to offer. Had two meals outdoors in Auburn and had a great time visiting my cousins in “the country”. If you live near the coast as I do, it’s a fantastic change of scenery, pace, and sounds to go out to the country for a few days.

Birds – yes, plenty of them with more even more songs, but the addition of crickets chirping and frogs croaking definitely thickens the sonic palate. LOVE IT! Crickets are called “Spring peepers”. Love that. Wanna hear it?

THIS is the way to begin Spring and prepare for my Summer of ME.