Saturday December 24th, 2005
Beginning Of Blog
Morning of Christmas Eve Day
To Sleep 3:00AM Awoke 8:45AM

This blog is more like a book. All blogs I know of, start with the latest entry first, then you read the previous entry. My blog is the opposite. This blog should be read from the beginning first entry (this one), then read the next days entry, then the next days, etc... or the characters and stories will not make sense. I explain every person, place and thing I meet before or when I introduce you to that person, place or thing.

This may even be the beginning of an actual book. I don't know how long I can keep it up in the detail it deserves. I may need to hire a person to follow me around all the time and keep my blog updated.

Again, in order for this blog to make any sense, I recommend that you read chronologically from here for at least until as far as you can. Not necessarily all at one time. Then I guess it's OK if you just read the latest posts to keep updated. For now, you should click the Next Entry link at the end of each day's entry.

All feedback is appreciated. Let me know how far you got, how long it took you to get to that point, what you liked / disliked, any feedback.

I haven't done a blog since 1999. A lot has happened since then. This is my 1st entry since. I will try to fill in highpoints of the missing years later. It was a photoblog way before the word blog was even coined. Actually just went to wikipedia Blog was coined in 1999, 1st mention of what were then called Weblogs., it took awhile before the name caught on. It is at www.coastalpost.com/fox/log.

I should at least give you a quick overview of me. I was born and raised in Manchester, Connecticut, just East of Hartford. Hitchhiked to Oakland, California when I was 18 in 1973. Did stained glass and painted murals. Worked and lived in a stained glass studio with world famous glass guy Dan Fenton. By the time I was 22 (1977) I was designing and programming computers, writing some of the 1st software for PC's, 4 years before IBM came out with their PC. I co-authored the largest selling program in the world at the time, WordStar believe we (MicroPro) was larger than MicroSoft at the time. In 1980 I met with Bill Gates and I was hired by him to port WordStar to run on a board MicroSoft was marketing that turned and Apple 2E into a DOS (actually CP/M) machine. I did much programming, games, what ever I could find. Kept pretty busy, but I always worked on my own projects. I moved to Marin County (very affluent) in 1978 and still live here now in a real beautiful town called Mill Valley http://www.millvalley.com/ . I am living in Cascade Canyon, surrounded by redwood trees, streams, waterfalls, hiking/biking trails, the ocean is near by.

Back to my own projects. In about 1990 I started playing with LEDS and sewing them into clothes and making toys. I am an inventor with over 60 ideas, most are real good, crazy light-up toys, games, some ideas I have can change the world. It takes money to money, especially if you when you get into mass production of an item. I got most of my projects into functional prototypes stage. I did get lotz of press (NY Times, Playboy, SF Chronicle (front page), etc... and still get some now. I have a site that hasn't been updated in 8 years, it was real cool site back then, and still cool today today www.coastalpost.com/fox my resume is at www.coastalpost.com/fox/resume.txt

I am now just getting over a bout of semi-chronic homelessness and lucky to have a computer, a real nice place to live in one of the wealthiest, yuppiest towns in the world. Though it is only a couch, a computer, a desk, some clothes, a ukulele and a penguin costume, I do have a warm place, roof over my head, kitchen, shower, computer & WiFi internet.. But I don't have any of my light toys.

Lately I have been a street performer/musician, more by necessity then because I want to, but it is lotz of fun. Money is not good, not many hours you can actually play to where there are people and they will listen and make donations, but I can make usually $10 - $30 an hour. It started about Feb 2005. I was sleeping in some bushes on a hill above a 7/11 just outside of Fairfax CA, a nice town that is still living in the 70's. I was sleeping outside, no tent, just sleeping bag, weather was nice, no rain. It was actually nice. Lots of birds singing and a skunk that would come visit me every morning exactly 4AM. His name was Skunky. I'd leave him some food if I had it. I miss him.

I was broke, needed money . I wrote this song called "The Homeless Blues". I would ask people on the streets if I could "sing them a song for a quarter?", this was a take off on a old Captain Beefheart song, a Frank Zappa spin off. His song was called "I'll Sing You A Song For A Dime" So I would sing just me singing acapella. People if they wanted to hear the Homeless Blues would always pay you at least a quarter, usually a dollar. Then after seeing a group called The Mother Truckers play in late May in San Rafael, they have a real cute singer/ukulele player, Dana, I bought for $30 a ukulele and had been writing more songs, The Marin County Blues, etc... Then after seeing the movie March Of The Penguins I wrote a couple of songs about penguins including The Kids Penguin Song & The Penguin Blues. Now I had a new audience, kids. So recently I was able for a Christmas gift from my mother, I got a giant penguin costume that is real cool (www.rastaimposta.com) and I have worn it about 5 times in public and performed on stage open mike wearing it last Monday. I have been to Union Square in SF 3 times in the past week performing as a singing / dancing / ukulele playing giant Penguin. I am not out of place with the human robots and other people in costume.

CLICK HERE to can read the lyrics to my songs, see photos and a SF Chronicle writeup about a turkey and me, being a street performer, playing ukulele in Mill Valley.

Wow the sun just came out for the 1st time in weeks. It now is the morning of Christmas Eve (11:30). Just got off the phone with my mother in CT Lovely lady cooking cabbage. I am just so glad to be able to write my blog, on the Internet, with a computer in a nice place to live.

How did I go from a high falooking computer programmer (my last decent contract in 2002 was $250 an hour, but only a month) to a ukulele playing penguin living in the bushes. There are many factors involved and the Internet taking off is the biggest reason for it. I would always have work. My skills are a little rusty, not a C++ expert or JAVA expert or network guru with the required 5 years experience as each, combined, is what you need now a days. But I can write in assembly language, C, a little Internet programming, Java, PHP SQL, etc... but there has been no work. in my specialty. I am always emailing resumes from www.Craigslist.org and the other job boards and get about one interview a year. I am almost twice the age of most people that interview me. Things may change very soon. I hope in a week or so to have some toy design work.

How my situation happened was because the Internet took off. They needed programmers and paying good money. I tried to start my dotcom but didn't get any of the projects to take off. Now everyone and their brother was learning computer programming in college and they all had the latest skills. Then the Internet bubble burst and now there is a glut of unemployed computer programmers with a more updated skill set then me. I still study new technologies, computer languages, etc... but don't have much work experience in these. Then to top it off, "outsourcing offshore". Programmers in India work for a couple of dollars and hour and they are great and speak English fluent and have fiber optic Internet connections to the US. I no longer have my lab for building my fashions & toys that I can actually sell. Being homeless makes it much harder. Things stored at peoples houses get thrown away (my computer with 10 years of not backed up data), things get stolen, 2 laptops ($2,500), 3 ukuleles, 2 backpacks in a month.

I am now going to walk the 2 blocks into downtown Mill Valley, at the square, weather is nice, dress up like a penguin and hopefully make $50 quick, then hopefully play my Santa Claus Blues song with the Christmas Jug Band featuring Dan Hicks at the Sweetwater Saloon www.sweetwatersaloon.com , they just added a show for today between 4:00 & 6:00 PM since the last 2 sold out. If they let me sit in, I will be playing ukulele, dancing and singing lyrics at: www.coastalpost.com/songs/SanntaClausBlues.html Wish me luck. I am also starting to write yesterday's blog.

No such luck in playing. I got there at 3:30 (gig at 4:00). I was as penguin, as I was there the night before. This is while they are setting up. I spoke with Tim, the head of the group, and he said after conferring with the group, they did not want a penguin singing the Santa Claus Blues. The manager seemed upset and asked me to leave immediately, which I did. For the better anyway. Dan Hicks did not show up, there was a small crowd The show was at a weird time 4:00 - 6:00 performance on Christmas Eve day. I ended up doing OK on the streets of Mill Valley $35 in 3 hours. As always, I had lotz of fun. This boy kid about 7, comes up to me and says "Penguin Alert". That was funny. I got some great pictures of kids dancing "The Penguin" also known as "The Dance Of The Penguins", sequel to The March. Their parents took the photos.

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