In Memoriam
Sylvia M. Rocha
January 11, 1948 - November 25, 2005

Who is Sylvia? What is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.

Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness,
And being helped, inhabits there.

Then to Sylvia let us sing,
That Sylvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

"Who is Sylvia?" from "Two Gentlemen of Verona" by William Shakespeare

Occasionally, I take my cornet into the street to play music. Sometimes I busk. One afternoon, while playing underground at the San Francisco Powell Street BART station, I noticed out of the the corner of my eye, someone standing nearby. I turned, and a fellow introduced himself as Gabe Sheen. Mr. Sheen told me he was a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, and was interested in photographing me for his thesis project. Since I had already purchased a ticket for one of the films at the 4th Annual San Francisco International Animation Festival screening early that evening, we agreed to meet afterward. Check out Gabe's website .

Attended the San Francisco Jazz Festival this evening - a performance of the Ornette Coleman Quartet at Davies Symphony Hall.

The quartet was quite unorthodox, featuring dual bassists (Albert McDowell on acoustic upright, and Anthony Falanga on electric), drums (Ornette's son Denardo Coleman), and Ornette on alto saxophone, trumpet and violin.

Attendance was near capacity for music that has probably seldom (if ever) been performed on American radio or television.

The music was well received, with exuberant audience applause that garnered three encores.
This evening's performance was the 50-year-anniversary of Ornette's original quartet's premiere at New York City's Village Vanguard in 1959.

So the little prince, in spite of all the good will that was inseparable from his love, had soon come to doubt her. He had taken seriously words that were without importance, and it had made him unhappy.

"I ought not to have listened to her," he confided to me one day. "One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should only look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace. This tale of claws, which disturbed me so much, should only have filled my heart with tenderness and pity".

And he continued his confidence:

"The fact is that I didn't know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her . . . I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was so young to know how to love her . . . "

Excerpted (w/o permission) from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (translated by Katherine Woods)

THIS evening I attended the Derrick Hall and Company CD Release Party at the Southbay Community Church in Fremont, CA. The "company" included singers, dancers, horn section, wailing lead guitar, violin and an opera singer! Passionate, rocking, spiritual music (HALLELUYER!!! and PRAISE JESUS!!!). One of the best live music concerts I have ever had the pleasure and privilege to witness. All the music was composed and arranged by Mr. Hall, who also sang and played beautifully on the piano.

Much thanks to Angelo Luster for the complimentary ticket.

w/trumpet/flugelhorn player Producer, Mr. Roussell White

At the 2009 San Francisco Gay Parade

With Vernel.

Getting into the groove during the after party!

"...I was so young around that time. I was like eight, eight or nine. I just remember the environment, what it was like, all the music I was hearing. My father played guitar. My uncle played guitar. Everyday they would come over, and you know they would play great music. And we would start to perform to the music. I remember seeing marching bands go down the street. I would remember the rhythm of the band and the beats of the drum. And every sound around me seem to record in my head and start making rhythms and dancing. I use to dance to the rhythm of the washing machine. My mother went to the corner store to wash the clothes. I would dance to the rhythm and people would crowd around. I remember those kind of stories. They would crowd around pretty much and watch me. Those kind of little things. They are reflections really.
You know what, I never studied dancing before. It always became natural for me. Whenever I was little, any music would start, they couldn’t sit me down. They couldn’t tie me down actually. Even to this day, if anyone played a beat, I’ll start kicking in and making counter rhythms to the beat that I’m hearing. It’s just a natural instinct. I never studied. And Fred Astaire who was a good friend of mine, and Gene Kelly, they used to always marvel at my ability for dance. When I was a little kid, Fred Astaire used to always tell me how that he knew in his heart that I would be a special star. I used to just look at him thinking what are you talking about?

The moonwalk is a dance. I would love to take credit for but I can’t because I have to be completely honest here. These black children in the ghettos are, they have the most phenomenal rhythm of anybody on the Earth. I’m not joking. I learned, I get a lot of ideas from watching these black children. They have perfect rhythm. From just riding through Harlem, I remember in the early, you know, late 70’s early 80’s, I would see these kids dancing on the street and I would see these kids doing these, uh sliding backwards kinda like an illusion dancing I call it. I took a mental picture of it. A mental movie of it. I went into my room upstairs in Encino, and I would just start doing the dance, and create and perfect it. But, it definitely started within the black culture. No doubt. That’s where it comes from.
What gave rise to ‘Thriller’ was that the time, was pretty much disappointed and hurt – I lived in an area called Encino, and I used to see signs of graffiti saying “Disco Sucks” and “Disco is this” and “Disco is that” and disco was just a happy medium of making people dance at the time, but it was so popular, that the society was turning against it. I said, I’m just going to do a great album, because I love the album Tchaikovsky did, The Nutcracker Suite, it’s an album where every song is like a great song. I said I wanted to do an album where every song is like a hit record, and that’s what pretty much the hit, ‘Thriller’ spawned from that… And I did that album and it made, all time history, the Guinness Book of World Records proclaimed that it was the largest selling album of all time and it’s still to this day and ... I would say that it was a pinnacle, that was a – I’d reached a certain zenith point, I would think, but I still wasn’t er, pleased after that – I was always wanting to do more, wanting to do more.
Well, like - like I always say, I’m - I’m a person of the arts. I love the arts very, very, very much. And ah, I’m a musician, I’m a director, I’m a writer, I’m a composer, I’m a producer, and I love the medium. I love film very, very much. I think it’s the most expressive of all of the art mediums. The sculptor can sculpt, the painter can paint, but they capture a moment, ah, they freeze time with the moment. In film, you live the moment. You live, you have the, audiences for two hours. You have their brain, their mind – you can take them any place you want to take them. You know, and that idea is mesmerizing to me – that you can have the power to do people, to move people to change their lives and that’s where you marry the music [and the] individual together. And that’s what excites me so much about film and the future. Because I love motion pictures very, very much.
Because, I know who I am inside and outside and I know what I want to do. And I will always – er – you know, go with my dreams and my ideals in life. And I’m a very courageous person and I believe in perseverance, determination, and-and, you know, and all those wonderful things, and those ideals are very important for a person who is goal-orientated, you know?
Because...in my heart, deepest of heart, I really love Africa and I love the people of Africa. That’s why, whenever I get the chance, the children and I, we jump on the plane and fly to Africa and we vacation there. I spend more of my vacation in Africa than in any other country. And ah, we love the people and we love the environment. Topographically, one of the most beautiful places on the surface of the Earth. They never show the sandy white sugar beaches, and it’s there! And they never show the beautiful, you know the landscaping, never show the buildings, the metropolis and urban – Johannesburg, Cape Town, Kenya, you know the Ivory Coast, you know, Rwanda, how beautiful the place is! And it’s really stunningly beautiful! And I want to heighten that awareness with what I’m doing and it’s been my dream for many, many years. And everybody around me knows that, because I go there very much.

I just wanna say: fans in every corner of the Earth, every nationality, every race, every language, I love you from the bottom of my heart. You know, thank you for your love and support."

Michael's words - source: Jesse Jackson Interviews Michael Jackson, Sunday, March 27, 2005

AT Lake Anza in Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley, CA. One of my earliest memories is of my dad bringing us to Tilden when I was probably 3 or 4 years of age. Perhaps it was late spring. I vividly remember it was morning, and the shore of Lake Anza was covered with thousands (at least in my memory it seems there were thousands) of jumping, crawling, dusky baby frogs (or where they toads?). Perhaps this explains my lifelong fascination with Anuras, and other amphibians.

PLAYING cornet with the Pittsburg Adult Education Center Concert band (directed by Diane Klaczynski) for the PAEC Class of 2009 graduation ceremonies at East County Boys & Girls Club in Pittsburg, CA.

Mekanism founder Tommy Means

DID a job today for a "production studio, housing film, animation and interactive content creator" in San Francisco called mekanism .

With DJ and aspiring screenwriter Joe Richardson, drove to IKEA and Office Depot to pick up new tables and office chairs. Had to make duplicate trips in both instances. I initially picked up brown chairs, when the order was for black. After returning from IKEA and opening the tabletop boxes, it was discovered they were the wrong dimensions (too small) (not my fault). So we had to repack 'em and return'em.

Ah, the life of the professional PA!

Finally, after everything was correctly purchased and returned to the office, assembly was succesful, and with not too much difficulty.

Friday just so happened to be "free lunch day" in their office, so we were treated to a generous assortment of delicious pizza, tossed salad and beverages.

(l-r) Drama Princess and Queen, Neffie & Frankie

ONE of the interesting aspects of the Production Assistant business is, you never know when you're going to get a call for a job, what the location will be, nor the nature of the project. Got a call from writer, producer, and director Mr. Avery O. Williams, requesting my assistance on a reality television shoot.
Today wrapped five days of my participation, driving production and camera crews around Oakland, Lafayette and Sacramento shooting for the upcoming BET reality TV show "Frankie & Neffie".

In case you haven't heard, Frankie and Neffie are the mother and sister of singer and reality TV superstar Keyshia Cole. The show is tentatively scheduled to air sometime in late summer, or early fall. The very best in contemporary, Emmy award winning all-American cable edutainment, and a show you most definitely don't wanna miss!

DID a PA job March 27th for Autofuss Studios. Took us four guys about 10- hours to unload, prep and adequately apply white paint to two huge yellow industrial robotic arms (similar to the one pictured above). The arms were planned to be used in a Louis Vuitton promotion featuring imminent NASA astronauts. An additional robot (painted the previous day), had mounted to it the cutting-edge state-of-the-art Red Camera.

With my buddy Abdou at the California Bears vs. Washington State Cougars basketball game in Haas Pavilion, Saturday evening, February 6th. Cal won the close and exciting game, 71- 63.

When we were kids, my dad would frequently tell us that "money don't grow on trees", so I was glad when my cell quietly chirped the morning of Wednesday the 19th (Happy 41st to Dee!). Mr. Westerman was calling to ask if I was working that day, and did I want to make $200. About 90 minutes later, I was driving to Montara State Beach to work as a Production Assistant on a single day video shoot for some pharmaceutical company. That's yours truly in the background of the photo in red, sweeping sand along with Westerman. Beautiful beach. But boy was it cold (brrrrr!!!). Those stepping stones don't look so formidable in the photo, but they were heavy. After completion of the shoot, we had to drag them across the sand, six-at-a-time, atop a furny (moving blanket), then about seven of us daisy-chained them up some very steep stairs, before they were put back into the moving van.

Muchos gracias a Jihyun for sending me the pic.

Friday, November 14, 2008
With Mutabaruka at the San Francisco Green Festival.

Election Day 2008!

my mom and i casting our votes in Pittsburg, California.

PA's, grips, camera crew and director setting up a shot.

Yours truly with the insuperable Mr. Michael Westerman.

Art Director, Dylan Kahn

On October 17, 18 & 20, I worked on a shoot for a Honda car commercial at Lafayette Square Park in downtown Oakland.

The job was fun (and hard work!). We laid a lot of sod (Saturday turned out to be "Sod Day"), and hung too many Christmas lights in that big tree in the photograph. Turned out none of the lights showed up in the shoot, and the ones that did, particularly those we painstakingly wrapped around the trunk of the tree, did show, but apparently so much so, that the lady from the agency requested we take'em down!

Had the pleasure to work with a great group of Los Angeles fellas, especially our very cool and funny Art Director, Mr. Dylan Kahn (pictured above), who apparently was diggin' the scene to such an extent he had to git down wit one-ah dose Oaktown tees.

Muchas gracias a Tina Tamale for taking and forwarding the photo with Michael. If you happen to find yourself in downtown Oakland with a grumbling tummy, be sure to check out La Borinqueña Mex-icatessen & Specialty Shop.

And that's a wrap!

The PA Squad (l-r) Hiawatha, Yasmine, David, and Joshua.

On Saturday, September 20th, I had the opportunity to work in Corte Madera as a production assistant for Tom Donald Films. We were shooting a promotion I am not at liberty to divulge after signing an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). Arrived at an empty house at 6:45am, and by about 9am, the place was jam packed with people and equipment. It was a lot of fun. A great group of folk. I learned how to install floorboard, and that the term "C47" is production-speak for "clothespin". I was also able to participate in the shoot as the slate handler (and let me tell you, actors work hard. The two actresses did about 50 takes, as well as a lot of sitting and waiting). The house we shot in was beautiful. Gorgeous weather. And the catered food (breakfast and lunch!) was sumptuous.