Perspective Everyone has a story, some way more tragic than others but the story that keeps repeating itself is how amazing the community response has been to the fires. Our humanness always wins. We are more similar than different and when tragedy strikes, labels go away. The [...]
“You want two SONOMAWOOD signs this year? Sure, no problem” I’m sitting in the pre-pre Sonoma International Film Festival 2018 project meeting when Chey Woerz explains that they would like a second sign in the grass behind SIFF Village, “As a backdrop and photo opportunity.” He explains. I [...]
The Zuck had to retire his Facebook motto of, “move fast and break things” in 2014 but the ethic is still alive and well and encouraged in the tech world. Thinking independently works well unless you develop “moral disengagement” (rationalizing behavior at odds with your own principles, often resulting [...]
We’re Not Gonna Take It! We need more Dee Snider moments if the revolution is going to happen. Record temperatures, 500-year storms happening twice a year, Koyaanisqatsi is here, life is out of balance. The super group Secret Stash had been well, not exceptionally super, aside from some blistering guitar [...]
“I’m going to give you a little advice. There’s a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball.” –Ty Webb My golfing pedigree is 30% interest in the sport, [...]
Dear President Trump, I am supposed to be preparing for another year of teaching my high school classes but I can’t shake the fear of the end of times long enough to concentrate on, well, anything. I blame you for this Mr. Trump, for this constant anxiety that sits [...]
Julian might have upset the really nice elderly docent in the gift shop. And it just might have been my fault. These things happen, we are teaching much more than art skills here this week, camp is life, and life is camp. It’s day four at the greatest camp [...]
Bikrim heaven Somewhere in the first Sabastna, I find South America in the ceiling. Sabastna is my favorite pose in the hour and a half Birkrim experience. It signals the transition from standing poses to floor poses but to me it means I just might not die. Not to [...]
Dear Chuck, Welcome! Can I call you Chuck? I hope so, Mr. Young is so formal and in 25 years of educating in Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Rosa and Sonoma I always strive to be on a first name basis with administrators and superintendents because it’s much easier to [...]
I’m killing it in Russia. Apparently, some of the drug words used in this blog-Finasteride, Ketamine, Viagra, Fentanyl, Sour Diesel (Yes, pot is a drug you stoner) trigger Russian vice sites which led to 300 comments in a language I know very little about. Either that or I [...]
Walt Williams is in it for the money, that and the prestige that goes with 22 years of teaching in California high schools (he’s not the smartest tool in the shed). He firmly believes in more standardized testing and that fitting all students into the same box is really the answer. He strongly supports fracking and that climate change is a fantasy made up by hippie liberals, also that the military needs more funding and that schools should just stop whining.
Walt brings a lifetime of experience and energy to this new endeavor. He was the principal of the Arts and Ethics Academy in Santa Rosa for two years, and has spent the last 15 years engaging students in finding their paths at Creekside High School. He is the father of two and the husband of one and lives in Sonoma, California.
Walt is a skier; fly fisherman, wine tour bus driver, tennis player, and sometimes writer. He likes to dress up in front of lots of people and display large works of art around the community. His mantra is to work hard, create and love. Complex life, simple message.
