August 28, 2008

Progressive Forum at Seattle Center

On Saturday, August 16th 2008, 1500 or so Seattlites, myself included, turned out to attend the progressive talk radio KPTK am1090's speakers forum featuring many of the show hosts from around the country. Seattle's own Ron Reagan acted as moderator for Stephanie Miller from California, Thom Hartman from Portland Oregon, Rachel Maddow from New York, Sam Sedar also from New York, Randi Rhodes who broadcasts from Florida and Mike Malloy out of Georgia.
It was a very hot day so I was initially glad they had moved from the previous years' location at Seattle Town Hall to the air conditioned Exhibition Center at Seattle Center. I have mixed reviews for the new venue however. It was hard to see or hear anything. Still, it was fun to see many of my favorite radio hosts in person. Here are a couple of pictures from the event...

(still pictures available at 1090 Photo Album )

New Statue in Fremont. Are you a Patches Pal?

Late For The Interurban

Last week a statue was unveiled in Fremont to commemorate one of the longest-running shows in television history starring Chris Wedes aka "Julius Pierpont Patches".

A few more pictures of the J.P. Patches Statue...

A few other statues in the Fremont area...

Puget Sound Guitar Workshop

I just got back from Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. This is a three session, one week per session workshop which takes place in mid-summer. Teachers come in from all over the United States. There is not one among them who is not a professional level player. Students choose which classes they want to take and for a week we all learn new, cool stuff on the guitar, from Blues to Swing, Bluegrass and Flaminco it is all music, all the time. And all acoustic.
There are several cabins where the teachers and students sleep. Also many campers pitch tents in one of the meadows. "Tent City" it's called. That is where I stayed. There were at least 20 tents in Tent City, along with two or three jamming "Gazebos" and Scott "Tanqueray" Katz's "Happy Hour" Hut.
This is my third time at this camp, although not consecutively, and as always I met many great people and had hours of interesting conversation and music. My classes were amazing. I took Flip Breskins Guitar Bedrock class and Steve Baughman's right hand class. I have several months of new material to work on. Additionally, I have been recruited by the banjo players and the first thing I did after arriving home was to go to Stu's music store, The Folkstore over on Roosevelt and buy a banjo.
After spending most of the past three years in voluntary seclusion, for me this marked the official end of my reclusive period and the begining of my re-entry into society. It was a great week, it could not have been a better beginning to my re-entry into the world.

Below is a slideshow of the student concert. I was in the darkened audience, near the back trying to adjust for stage lighting, so the picture quality is not super, but it does the job.

Also pictured (above) is the sunset from the ferry back to Seattle.

NOTE: If you click on the screen below as it's playing it will take you to the YouTube page and you can click on "WATCH IN HIGH QUALITY" which improves the resolution.