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Michael

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams" -W.W.

About Me

"One bright morning when my work is over I'll fly away home." ..LOVE IS ALL THERE IS

My Interests

"let the beauty we love be what we do" ~Rumi
living what i love i work to be a vessel for the great Artist and a teacher of that art. travelling: soaking up culture and squeezing it onto a canvas, into a dank vegan dish, or putting it in a poem or spreading it across a drum skin. finding Mother Nature where no one has ever been. travelling within: yoga meditation and the timeless texts of all the saints and sages. playing: capoeira and beating the drum of resistance, West African drum and dance, old americana strings and sweet singing, and the fusion that sound and emotion brings.
i water seeds and watch them grow, nourish the roots, smile and soak in the sun, sit quietly and listen to the river, always remember i'm on a living planet spinning around a star in a spiral galaxy which is a speck in an infinite universe, beautiful!

I'd like to meet:

my Self

Music:

my friends: katie gray, nine grey clouds, peace of mind orchestra, bob & pricilla, alma afrobeat ensemble, the blue hit, green mountain grass, zmick, super famicom, bloodshot pyramid, corn desert ramblers, mhondoro...
roots americana: robert johnson, leadbelly, woodie guthrie, bill monroe, doc watson, david grisman, tony rice, the carter family, johnny cash, the giving tree band...
classics: jimi hendrix, the grateful dead, bob dylan, pink floyd, led zepplin, the doors, cream/eric clapton, the allman brothers, james brown, neil young, the beatles, janis joplin...
saturday morning (on vinyl): bob marley, paul simon, van morrison, james taylor, stevie wonder, aretha franklin, motown & stax recordings...
jams: string cheese incident, phish, widespread panic, sound tribe, particle, xavier rudd, keller...
rocks: radiohead, the pixies, nirvana, rage against the machine, tool, primus/les claypool, nofx...
world: amadou & mariam, ali farka toure, bombay dub orchestra, fela kuti, gipsy kings, rodrigo y gabriela, manu chao, ojos de brujo, oliver mtukudzi, ravi shankar, seu jorge, shakti, toots & the maytals, jimmy smith, zap mama...
dj's & electronica: lemon jelly, thievery corporation, aphex twin, fat boy slim, squarepusher, dj shadow, dj smash, daft punk...
hip-hop: aesop rock, atmosphere, beastie boys, blackalicious, black star (mos def & talib kwali), common, M.I.A., saul williams, J5, tribe called quest, dead prez...
jazz: django reinhardt and stephane grappelli, charlie parker, john coltrane, miles davis, charles mingus, thelonius monk, medeski martin & wood, john scofield, john mclaughlin, hugh masakela, art blakey...
other: ween, tin hat, talking heads, tom waits, animal collective, deer hoof, eliot smith, old weezer, curtis mayfield, bjork, nick drake, the shins, iron & wine, otis redding, marvin gaye, al green, bill withers, chuck berry, franz ferdinand, regina spektor, beck, tub ring, leonard cohen, frank zappa... who am i forgetting?

Movies:

the big lebowski, clerks, harold & maude, i heart huckabees, baraka, waking life, what the bleep do we know, documentaries about nature, the cosmos, and those that expose the corruption and injustices in the world... old school stuff: indiana jones and the temple of doom, beatlejuice, the ewoks, willow...

Television:

Turn your TV into an aquarium

Books:

poetry: rumi, tagore, kabir, hafiz, ginsberg, blake, t.s. eliot, saul williams, whitman...
fiction: jack kerouak, herman hesse, aldous huxley, daniel quinn, kurt vonnegut, charles bukowski, hunter s. thompson, paulo coelho, kahlil gibran...
non-fiction: eckhart tolle, deepak chopra, don miguel ruiz, osho, ken wilber, shrii shrii anandamurti, krishnamurti, paramahansa yogananda, rudolf steiner...

Heroes:

My folks, grandfolks, bob marley, all the music makers, dancers, dreamers, artists, philosophers, teachers... everyone who puts others before themselves to try and make the world a better place.

My Blog

"let the beauty we love be what we do"

about a year ago i asked myself, "who am i?" and "what am i here for?" i realized i can only define myself by my actions, so i asked, "what do i love to do?"music (percussion), art, nature & spiri...
Posted by Michael on Mon, 05 May 2008 08:18:00 PST

dead fuzzy little animals

Ok, I think some of the new pictures I posted deserve some explanation... specifically the ones of dead fuzzy little animals. First of all I want to say that I am a vegetarian and a firm believer in a...
Posted by Michael on Tue, 13 Feb 2007 02:44:00 PST

beat the donkey!

I'd like to preface this blog by saying, DA BEARS! OK, that said, I feel the need to relate a recent day to you that shall go down in my halls of percussive history. I've beat on, danced to, and ...
Posted by Michael on Fri, 24 Nov 2006 07:07:00 PST