New Photos: Julian Bluegrass Fest, Adam’s Avenue Street Fair, SD Music Awards
Current mood: accomplished
Category: Art and Photography

Been a busy couple weeks and I have posted some new photos. Plenty more to come. Check out the photos from the San Diego Music Awards, Julian Bluegrass Festival, and the Adam's Avenue Street Fair.


Feel free to leave comments.
Don't forget to vote! For President and your favorite local acoustic musicians at www. sandiegohatawards. com

Currently reading : Me Talk Pretty One Day By David Sedaris

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San Diego HAT Awards 2008 open for nominations
Current mood: hopeful
Category: Music

The 2008 San Diego HAT Awards are open for nominations.
The categories this year are:

Best Acoustic Band
Criteria:
We've all seen our fair share of singer-songwriters – the HAT Awards has honored a few! But, the candidates for this category must represent a band composed, primarily, of acoustic instruments. Unplugged or plugged in, pick the band that moves you.

 
Best Alt. Country
Criteria:
Country music's come a long way since the Carter Family. Traditions have become contemporary and country music has grown. Candidates for this category draw from country music traditions and move beyond the prevailing trends into pop, folk and rock.

 
Best Americana
Criteria:
Americana music is defined by the context of the cultural setting of America in the 19th and 20th centuries that gave birth to styles ranging from folk and blues to country and rock. Candidates for this award adhere to these traditions in their music.

 
Best Audio/Visual
Criteria:
These days many local solo artists and bands are making videos, doing photo shoots and developing websites. Candidates for this award help capture the spirit of our local artists and present them in a larger-than-life way that makes us all take notice.

 
Best Backup Musician
Criteria:
There's only so much that one person can accomplish on stage. Where would we be without the kick-ass guitar solo, the foot tapping drum beat or the backing vocals? Candidates for this category must perform, primarily, as support for lead performers.

 
Best Instrumentalist
Criteria:
Some musicians have skills on their instrument that go beyond the cowboy chords we all learned in our Mel Bay text books! Candidates for this category showcase both musicality and technical skill. We're looking for a roster of our finest players.

 
Best New Acoustic Artist
Criteria:
In San Diego, we all know the "big" names. But, the new crop of startup-artists who hit the open mics each year really keep the wheels turning. Candidates for this award got their start in 2006 or 2007 and exemplify passion and innovation.

 
Best Open Mic
Criteria:
Acoustic music often finds its audience at a most sacred event – the open mic. San Diego has had its share of great open mics. The candidates for this award cultivate community and provide an environment for artists to develop and grow.

 
Best Performer
Criteria:
Some say the song is all that counts. But, we all know that the packaging counts for something! Candidates for Best Performer bring the goods in the packaging department. They must have great stage presence and a show that makes the audiences groove!

 
Best Songwriter
Criteria:
Occasionally someone writes a song with a very precise and powerful balance between melody, structure and lyrical message. Candidates for this category have perfected the art of painting with all of the colors in the palette to create the perfect song.

 
Best Support & Promotion
Criteria:
Local radio, publications, blogs, venues and booking agents all help musicians do what they do. Candidates for this award succeed in connecting and supporting local musicians while developing new opportunities and ideas within our local scene.

 
Best Vocalist
Criteria:
There are 2 parts to every singer-songwriter. This award honors the unique singing talents of our local musicians. Candidates are not required to write their own songs or play their own instruments. Here we honor the voice and that is all that matters.

Now I'm not begging but if you happen to like my photography and feel I deserve a nomination in the Best Audio/Visual category I wouldn't mind. There are so many great people in that and all the categories it is going to be tough competition for everyone.

http://www.sandiegohatawards.com/

p.s.  I take bribes if you want to be nominated.

Currently listening : Million Stories Release date: 2007-08-07

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Get to know Sarah Palin (Thanks Heather)
Current mood: annoyed
Category: News and Politics

Reposted from The Nation.com

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/354444/the_word_from_wasilla


Everyone is trying to get the measure of Sarah Palin, the woman who was rocketed from small-state obscurity to the national stage when John McCain selected her as his running-mate on the 2008 Republican ticket.

Republican senators and governors are admitting interviews, as former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, did with me a few minutes ago that: "Most of us don't really know her personally."

Well, Anne Kilkenny does know Sarah Palin.

Kilkenny's a good citizen of Wasilla, Alaska, the city where Palin got her political state as a city council member and then mayor. She's a self-described "housewife" who volunteers as a voter registrar, has been active in the PTA and regularly attends local government meetings.

She is, as well, someone who has clashed with Palin. More than a decade ago, when Palin was campaigning to ban books, Kilkenny says, "I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship."
What's Kilkenney's take?

Here's a letter she has circulated...


I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.
She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.
She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.
During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative." During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later -- to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State's top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.
When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.
Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State's lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

Currently listening : Propeller Release date: 2008-04-29

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Support National MS Society
Current mood: sympathetic
Category: Life

On September 5-7, 2008, I will participate in the 50- mile three day Challenge Walk to raise money for the National MS Society. This year's walk goal is to raise $1.2 million. I have made a personal commitment to raise $2,500 to participate, and hope to surpass this amount. I need your help to do it!

Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support The National MS Society

I am not walking the entire course, I am supporting the walk by offering my services as a photographer. I did this last year and had so much fun and was so inspired by all the walkers. You can see many of the photos I took throughout the MS Challenge website or you can go to www.johnhancockphotos.com. I probably ended up walking about 10-15 miles over the course of the weekend, so I do some walking.

Please consider supporting me with a tax-deductible donation to help me reach my fundraising goal. I'm very grateful for whatever you can give. Please visit www.myMSchallenge.com to donate online or mail your donation by July 1 to the below address. Please make sure to include my name in the memo section of your check.

Thank you so much for your support. I'm very excited to be part of this year's Challenge, and it gives me reassurance to know I have the support of caring friends and family to help me reach my goal.

John

National MS Society
Pacific South Coast Chapter
ATTN: Walker Headquarters
5950 La Place Court, Suite 200
Carlsbad, CA 92008
1-800-486-6762
TAX ID NUMBER: 95-2633200

Currently listening : Million Stories Release date: 2007-08-07

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Anything for the Shot II July 5th
Current mood: excited
Category: Art and Photography

I have the honor in participating as one of the featured photographers for Anything for the Shot II. This is an all day event of music and music photography. Also exhibiting photos are Tim Flack, Steve Covault, Dan Chusid, and David Matt Green.


Musical performers include Brenda Xu, Lindsey Yung, The Ordeal, Barbara Nesbitt, Anna Troy, Allied Gardens and many more. More details are coming soon but I hope to see many of you there.


I will also have 5 photos displayed at Tecolote Guitar works for the next few months. The opening of that show is June 14th. More details to follow. There will be live music and lots of great photography to check out.

Currently reading : The Greatest Generation By Tom Brokaw Release date: 2001-05-01

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10 Things About Barack
Current mood: optimistic
Category: News and Politics

1). OPPOSED THE IRAQ WAR. (Actually I believe he still opposes it )

San Diego Indie Music Fest IV Photos
Current mood: imaginative
Category: Art and Photography

Hi all,


I was busy this weekend but still managed to post some more photos from the San Diego Indie Fest IV held in North Park. You can see the photos here.



http://www. pbase. com/jjaloha/sdimfiv

Also stay tuned for some photos of Dawn Mitschele at Lestat’s West and The Blonde Brothers, Cathryn Beeks, Podunk Nowhere, and Barbara Nesbitt at Tower Two.

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In the Valley of Elah
Current mood: angry
Category: Life

If you have any doubt what war does to our young people you must watch In the Valley of Elah. If this movie does not make you angry as hell then you need to run, not walk, to your nearest recruiter and sign up to go straight to Iraq!
And I am speaking as a retired US Army soldier so don't send me nasty emails about not supporting our troops. I totally support them. It is the current administration and any future pro-war administration I can't deal with.
How can one be so Pro-Life and yet so Pro-War at the same time? Doesn't make sense to me.

Watch In the Valley of Elah and vote Democrat!!!!

Currently watching : In the Valley of Elah Release date: 19 February, 2008

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MSWalk looking for photographers and musicians in OC and San Diego County
Category: Life

The annual MS Walk held in April in Irvine, Carlsbad, (Legoland), and San Diego (NTC Pt. Loma) is looking for a few photographers to volunteer a few hours and photograph the event. They need 2-3 photographers to walk around and photograph participants, signage, booths etc. I did tis last year and had a lot of fun. It is also a way to make a little extra money by selling pictures to the participants. I made close to $200 from website sales of mostly 4x6 photos at $1.00 each.

They also need musicians to perform along the walk route. They are primarily looking for 1-3 person bands.
Here is the info as far as times and locations. Please let me know if you are interested so I can get you in touch with the proper contact at the MS Society.

Walk MS at UC Irvine, Saturday, April 12

7am: Opening Ceremonies & Check-in
8am: Walk Start
8am–11:30am: Walk Festivities
Route: Approximately 2.0 miles

San Diego County Credit Union Walk MS at LEGOLAND® California, Saturday, April 19

7am: Opening Ceremonies & Check-in
8am: Walk Start
8am–11:30am: Walk Festivities
Route: Approximately 1.5 miles


San Diego County Credit Union Walk MS at NTC Park, Saturday, April 26

7am: Opening Ceremonies & Check-in
8:30am: Walk Start
8:30am–12pm: Walk Festivities
Route: Approximately 3.0 miles

This is really a great event for a great cause.

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Photos at Hot Java in Carmel Mountain
Current mood: pleased
Category: Art and Photography

Its official. I have some photos on display at Hot Java Cafe in Carmel Mountain. If you get a chance please stop by and enjoy a delicious mocha, some great music and my photos. They have some pretty good sandwiches and salads as well. My pictures will be on display through February and I will be stopping in periodically to enjoy some of that great live music they have every weekend. If you see me please say hello. Hope to see some of you there.

Currently listening : Spoke Too Loud By Sheila Sondergard Release date: 22 January, 2008

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