I'm a busking accordionist with a penchant for gypsy and klezmer waltzes. Recently, I've also been exploring video documentary and video storytelling as a way to create conversations about social problems in public spaces.

Here's some recordings of my music (click on a song title to hear it):

All of my art is aimed at engaging people in personal ways within Commons/Town Square environments. I believe that relationships built in the streets are one of the most authentic ways to talk about social problems and to build community, and I use street carnivals and video storytelling as my tools to do this.

I run a video blog called Castro in the Streets to explore personal stories about identity, safety, poverty, and historical reference in the Castro, San Francisco's gay neighborhood.

Castro in the Streets

February 16, 2008

In early 2007, I helped to found the Guerrilla Carnival Troupe. We are periodically known to hijack street corners and alleyways for hours of renegade circus revelry with all the usual suspects: accordions, hula hoops, puppets, juggling, acrobalancing, fire dancing, unicycles etc. Here's a video from our first performance.

Guerrilla Carnival: Castro Takeover

January 20, 2007

I hail from Knoxville, Tennessee, where I organized with the street theater collective Ninjas With Agendas, hosted a pirate radio show on Knoxville First Amendment Radio (KFAR), and was a founding member of the traveling veggie-bus Eastern European busking troupe Albania Mania.

In my other life, I work for DemocracyInAction to help nonprofit activist organizations across California use technology and the Internet to organize for social, racial, and economic justice. Before that, I worked for a year as the Online Organizer for the national office of the League of Young Voters.

I'm a proud uncle, and I recently made a video called "Squirrel and Monkey" to show my niece and nephew back in Tennessee what it's like to live at the Million Fishes. Here it is, broken into two parts.

Squirrel and Monkey