In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii. While many escaped after a series of earthquakes, a small number of people stuck around. They were incinerated by pyroclastic flows; clouds of hot gas, ash, and debris, twice as hot as a…

-In summer of 2007, my friend Keith Blackwell and I put on a ukulele festival. With help from the best team of volunteers ever, Uketoberfest was born. In 2013 we handed the keys over to our team who ran…

Over the years, I have owned several pickup trucks. The most recent had a camper shell. This was very convenient for traveling. I could find any quiet place off the main road and get some sleep. Recently, I helped a…

El Borko began as a way to play surf and related music styles. Like other genre based groups I have formed, just learning the style is not enough. In the case of El Borko, I wanted to follow the example…

we lived in the philippines in the early 70s, in a neighborhood of foreigners and rich filipinos. our next door neighbors were these italian guys, epilonio, romily and colombo. colombo had a monkey that lived in a tree, across from…

I got up early this morning and edited three videos. I use an app called “Open Shot Video Editor”. Like most open-source software, you can send the makers some money. I try to do this once a year for the…

When we don't get what we want, we often blame the source. We want to know why that person, institution, or process failed us. Even on the rare occasions when we examine our own role in this failure, it's unusual…

I was a kid in the 60s. I remember the music from radio, tv, movies, jukeboxes. I was lucky to hear such a wide variety of music; folk, country, classical, pop, I like 'em all. By the mid-seventies I was…

Got away for two weeks in June. Back to my native southwest. Here's a few pics.

Big Trees State Park, CA

Lembert Dome, Yosemite

Well… duh

Desert View Watchtower, Grand Canyon

We are surrounded by tacos, and I love tacos. Whether they be from food trucks, fast food, or bourgeois restaurants. I categorize tacos as authentic, hybrid, and fusion. Let's talk tacos.

Authentic tacos are something you would find in Mexico…

If you have lived with other people (and you have), then you know the room-mate problem. As the number of room-mates increases, so does the pressure to be responsible, share, and get along with others. A big household may be…

Languages are more than just words. They express a world view. Some are loose and ambiguous, others technical and precise. Our languages reflect our environmental and social origins.

Behavior is a form of language. We say a lot through our…

Soul food, O' flood us. Nourishing mask.

Block & Blade. Cork & Cask.

Starbuck, chipotle, cinnamon sass. 

Donut Quixote, classical gas.

Sometimes our reach exceeds our grasp. We run for that train but it's already gone, we jump the ditch but fall in the water. When this happens to me, I beat myself up about it. I think that's both good…

The maple out front is leafing out. The bamboo shoots are exploding. The Photinia is crimson with new sprouts. And so likewise is El Borko ¡Surf! We played last weekend at Deadwood Community center and it was a blast. I…

Sometimes, you gotta sit still. Last year was a relentless flow of performances. I loved it, but by December I felt exhausted and burned out. In addition, El Borko's drummer Cam is in New Orleans until April so No surf…

Do you write for yourself or for others? Does it matter? As a kid, before I could play an instrument, I would make up songs. There was "That House Is Haunted" which sounded a lot like "These Boots Are Made…

I started learning B♭ clarinet in fifth grade. I hated it. I wanted a trumpet, but my folks had a problem with the volume. Anyway, it's hard to learn music when you dislike the sounds you're making, so I gave…

An encounter with "Artificial Stupidity". I posted on an event for a gig today and facebook took the post down calling it "hate speech". What?! I gave the dates and band names and put up a drawing. Did the algorithm…

I attended high-school back in the Pleistocene Era and played electric guitar in a garage band. After graduation, I left the city and moved to a small town to attend college. Alas, there was no real rock there, just a…

It's here! The new album is finally done!

El Borko ¡Surf! is the first album with Cameron Wick on drums and James P. Daley on bass. I've been around the Pacific Northwest with these guys, they're fun to hang out…

Most people who have recorded an album know how much work it is. You have to write the songs, then play the songs, then record the songs. Then you gotta mix the songs, master the songs, make an album cover…

It's fun to break down a genre into sub-genres and see what they bring to the whole. Here are four possible sub-genres for surf music; cinematic drama, barefoot beach party, hotrod hoodlum, and sensuous jungle tiki.

Cinematic drama is the…

Ask someone for an example of surf music, then get ready for many different answers. Some will say "Beach Boys", some will say "Dick Dale", some will talk about the Ventures or Duane Eddy. They are all correct.  

Surf music…

Like Indiana Jones sinking into quicksand, civilization seems to be struggling to keep afloat. Along with the woes of the world, we have our own private problems to solve. Sometimes it's hard to keep from being overwhelmed.  

Sometimes just knowing…