An Introduction and a New Era of Activism
Hi Everyone,
This blog was started a couple months ago as statues began to topple. The symbolism of a conquest, I became alarmed about the well-funded, highly organized--the violence and lawlessness gripping my home of some twenty-years, Portland, and where I currently live, San Francisco--was becoming.
Unfortunately....
There was an error in the Domain Name/URL. As time past and I kept blogging, I wanted my attitudes and reflections of what was transpiring captured in real-time; for this reason, I will leave the original blog up for now, but am chalking-up the whole charade as a lesson in keeping things simple.
Accordingly, the new address is much more concise and sums-up my positioning or branding of the blog as an exercise in objectivity. My hope is bringing-to-bear critical thinking arriving at a reasoned populist analysis of the grave danger we face and how we can find our way forward--reaching a consensus--to bring the fighting to an end.
...hopefully!
Without Further Ado: Post #1
Link to Identical/Unchanged Post June 25, 2020
Welcome to my latest multimedia undertaking.
Welcome to my latest multimedia undertaking.
...where to start (?)
First, a link to my companion blog from the three-semester streaming show once heard on SF State's KSFS Radio:
Click on it later or select it now for a quick overview of the summary, if you please. Simpler Times had an amazingly successful run.
Old school at-its-core, interest in the show spread via business card or occasionally, within a text or email. The homepage/playlist alone has been visited close to 4,000 times; total post views, reached-over 9,000 as visitors shared the link on social media--the occasional social media influencer lending a hand!
...I will be building this newest site with pictures, links and the profile later; however, I need to get this initial introductory post and following blog post up and running, so let us begin, shall we?
Laying the Groundwork for My Next Career
After years of hanging-on after my Portland, Oregon based contracting business was mortally wounded by the Mortgage Crisis and resulting 2008 Great Recession, things finally began starting to pick-up in 2012/2013.
...that was until the double whammy:
Just as the spring pressure washing and deck-staining season got going, mom had a stroke, and I was needed for a few months in Roseville, California; unfortunately, less than a year later and with clients lined-up, at the beginning of Spring 2013, again, now my partner suffered a stroke.
...result?
A near three-month coma that she did survive, we remain close, talking every week--but really?
Her income lost, forced the home-based shop, two vans, truck, and all that equipment into liquidation, narrowly avoiding bankruptcy. Soon after, the rented 2400 sq. ft. house located in the timber country's eastern-slope of the Coastal Range, Gaston, Oregon, above the Willamette Valley was next to go--I was shortly thereafter to become homeless.
Rolling the dice, I went to the heart of the Upper-Midwest Oil Patch. After working for fifth months--temperatures plunged to -12 F in early December; consequently, living in a cab-over camper mounted=on a 1986 Ford Truck with a blown engine--stuck-in-ice--for $ 450.00 per-month [Boomtown] was becoming a death warrant.
The camper, meant for Yosemite in spring or early fall within a cattle farm turned Bakken Oilfield Man Camp [sic]--it was time to retreat or freeze-to-death in Williston, North Dakota.
Rolling the dice, I went to the heart of the Upper-Midwest Oil Patch. After working for fifth months--temperatures plunged to -12 F in early December; consequently, living in a cab-over camper mounted=on a 1986 Ford Truck with a blown engine--stuck-in-ice--for $ 450.00 per-month [Boomtown] was becoming a death warrant.
The camper, meant for Yosemite in spring or early fall within a cattle farm turned Bakken Oilfield Man Camp [sic]--it was time to retreat or freeze-to-death in Williston, North Dakota.
A Year of Reset
Broke and returning to my ancestral homeland, Cali-uni-cornia, resulted in a year's stay at a veteran’s shelter some 46 miles SE of Sacramento, Victory Village, in Jackson, CA; at the half-year point, I enrolled for a nine unit semester online. Upon completion, I moved further uphill, and continued to attended Columbia College in Sonora, CA, full-time, for two more years, earning my AA degree in Literary Arts--Emphasis in English--before being offered acceptance at San Francisco State University.
Take that off the bucket-list:
I always wanted to live in The Sierra. Experiencing occupancy in a dorm room meant for four people, this Two-bedroom/one bath built in 1980 and now sleeping in a single bed?
..SWEET!
I always wanted to live in The Sierra. Experiencing occupancy in a dorm room meant for four people, this Two-bedroom/one bath built in 1980 and now sleeping in a single bed?
..SWEET!
Alright, we have dispensed with that, and you may already be saying, "Okay Dude, 'Life happens' so, what does that have to do with anything?"
Everything!
Following completion of the coveted Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts degree at San Francisco State [BECA Fall Semester 2018,] I enrolled in-pursuit of a just now finished Introductory to Acting certificate program at Community College of San Francisco [CCSF] to further facilitate my decades-ago voice-over and commercial production roles' as a radio personality in both Sacramento and the Portland [PDX] Market.
At the same time, upon graduating from SF State, I moved to the epicenter and debauchery of The City's infamous--growing homeless encampment tents and numbers of the down-and-out daily--Tenderloin Neighborhood.
As I really am freaked-out--as are you--by everything that is unraveling with Covid and the riots, I think I made the right choice after spending almost two years living in a 5X10 storage unit mere blocks from SFSU.
I wanted to give back by working with the homeless:
Hence, part-time enrollment at CCSF and working only 24 Hrs per week, provided the opportunity to reach-out to community leaders, clergy. building relationships with Glide Church, more time to serve with the Tenderloin's Community Volunteer Team [CVT,] and weekly at the SF Rescue Mission's City Impact Food Bank. Moreover, I spent most of that last year following graduation feeding the homeless four nights a week with 14-20 Lbs. of food from working in a kitchen and/or busing tables for SF Towers, my gig job--all of it gourmet cuisine, otherwise headed to the trash.
As a result, many in the neighborhood dubbing me, The Oysters Rockefeller Guy!
...in other words:
That kitchen, located at Van Ness & Pine in The City, is known as the twelve-story, San Francisco Towers; unquestionably, the palatial retirement home provided for former captains-of-industry, entertainers you would recognize, and the early to invest-in tech-gurus or other Wall Street Titans an elegant pathway on their way-out from the madness of the outside world; insulated with a brand new hospital practically next-door, dinners arrive, clutching a colorful bag with a bottle of fine wine, perhaps some special chocolates or other accouterments--coat required, tie highly suggested--chandeliers the size of the room I am writing-in, right now.
...you know they call this virtue-signalling, Davis?
Lets move-on:
My chest-thumping over lending a hand to my brothers and sisters on the street is not completely selfless--branding is of the utmost importance as a SFSU BECA Alumnus; nevertheless, I have always considered myself the epitome of a blue-collar worker after an almost twenty-year career as a maintenance supervisor at large apartment complexes and/or working in the construction trades. Later, going on to own and operate Drake's Surface Clean & Stain [DSCS] a pressure washing and deck staining firm throughout the first decade of the 2000s or aughts.
My chest-thumping over lending a hand to my brothers and sisters on the street is not completely selfless--branding is of the utmost importance as a SFSU BECA Alumnus; nevertheless, I have always considered myself the epitome of a blue-collar worker after an almost twenty-year career as a maintenance supervisor at large apartment complexes and/or working in the construction trades. Later, going on to own and operate Drake's Surface Clean & Stain [DSCS] a pressure washing and deck staining firm throughout the first decade of the 2000s or aughts.
That said, I guess I have gone both ways!
Huh?
Well, I had a parallel white-collar professional career--on-and-off--as an air-personality from 1979-1996 at various music and news-talk stations in both Sacramento and Portland; moreover, I spent my spare time as a political activist--largely protesting and signature gathering for ballot initiatives focused on ending police brutality and violations of the 4th amendment at the height of the Drug War--both in Portland and SW Washington for almost two decades.
Subsequently, my activism culminated into a nomination and run as the Libertarian Party Nominee for a US House Seat in 2006.
Subsequently, my activism culminated into a nomination and run as the Libertarian Party Nominee for a US House Seat in 2006.
Yeah, I ran for congress [1st District, Oregon, earning 4,384 votes] running on a platform to "Restore the Bill of Rights," and if I ever run for anything again, the campaign slogan will be:
2%…it is not just for milk anymore!
Funny, I had planned to meld my political and broadcasting past into a new career within Bay Area media yet had no idea what it would look like.
What a Freak-in' Mess!
Would you...or why don't you consider joining us in what will become the monumental task of rooting out the domestic enemies trying to subjugate The Bill of Rights and/or helping us decide what shall replace it--if too broken and beyond repair?
Unfortunately, this seems to be the path--intended or unintended--we are on. We stand divided, voicing disgust, standing our ground, and looking for answers.
From Jefferson's Declaration of Independence:
"...But when a long train of abuses and usurpation pursuing invariably the same object evince a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
I hope it does not come to that.
I hope it does not come to that.
[(September 5, 2020) The very real possibility of our being taken-over by some foreign military as we fight among ourselves is quite plausible. Hence, the blog title reflects us being Juxtaposed and dug-in with our political/philosophical stances; however, the time for reconciliation will come to fruition at some point.]
Lastly, future posts will spend considerable time looking into who is funding the mob, their enablers in the MSM, and what can be done to end this madness.
Thank you,
Drake M. Davis
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