My First Note to the Obama Team

Today I received an e-mail (along with thousands of others) from the Obama Transition team asking to watch a video of a meeting that took place with his team for Energy and Environment. It also asked the reader to send a message to the team (which you can do here.). My message went something like this (thought it was a bit shorter, I think):

Before attempting to make renewables a large portion of our answer to energy dependence, we must encourage all Americans to do their part. Asking--or requiring--Americans to make small energy efficiency changes to their homes, or even larger renovations to make the home better insulated, will be the most effective way to increase the "net effect" of renewable energy. By decreasing dependence on energy producers we will be able to make renewables go much farther.

In order to make renewables the most effective we will need to improve infrastructure--transport lines for this new kind of energy--and also change the rules for homeowners. Incentives for solar (PV) power are a good start, but we must mandate "net metering" so investments in solar panels will allow a homeowner, if creating excess energy, to inject that energy into the grid and receive payment for that energy. This payment should be EQUAL to what utilities charge their customers--a 1 for 1 trade that will make entrepreneurs out of homeowners...increasing their homes energy efficiency, purchasing solar panels to create enough energy for the home, and even creating more energy to make money back on their investment.

The transportation of energy will need to be improved to meet the needs of a new energy future, but the transportation of people will be a required investment in order to change the way that people live, move and interact. We need to be able to look towards the larger cities--the New York City's, London's, Paris'--cities that are changing the game by offering public transit, dense, mixed-use urban environments and even free bicycles. No, most American cities are not going to be these cities, or can find logic in mimicking the development of these large cityscapes. But, we can take these ideas and adapt them to the local environment. It's not just about making cars more fuel efficient. It is about reducing the amount of cars on the roads, decreasing the number of trips taken solo in a car and making the need for a car unnecessary.

We have to re-think the way that we create energy, use energy and get outside of the box as to what the future holds. The future is here, it is time to start developing new ways to sustainably live in this challenging world.

For more on this check out this article:
Energy at a Tipping Point Part 1: A Conversation with Worldwatch's Chris Flavin

Obama Wins!

It is an amazing time in our country's history. The political landscape is changing, and a record number of Americans participated in this change. We must work together to achieve greatness--no longer can we battle for only "our" side...because we are all on the same side.

Trevor Garrod Plays "I've Got a Truck" 3/24/07

This project has been on a shelf for a while, but is finally seeing light. Bronson Lamb shot and edited the video, while I did some light direction. Fitting, because "I've Got a Truck" is a track on TLG's new album "Raise Up the Tent" which can be previewed and purchased here.

The Problem With Corn

A fairly recent article called "Grains Gone Wild" by Paul Krugman in the NY Times Opinion section briefly outlines the problems facing the world's food supplies; and, as no shock it has a lot to do with oil prices, the shortcomings of corn-based ethanol and the effect of global warming across the globe.

Whether or not you agree, the idea of gas prices raging as more and more catastrophic weather events rage and financial distress from the top to the bottom in the U.S. feels like a perfect "storm" that will not pass for some time. The US dollar continues to lose value while Americans are forced to pay $4 for a gallon of gasoline--caused by our dependence on personal vehicles, a lack of infrastructure to support mass-transit and the "American Dream" requiring one to live in a box in the suburbs.

It is time to take a good long look at what we are requiring from our leadership, what they are promising to deliver and if they have the competence to actually deliver. No longer should politicians be able to make headline-grabbing statements with little to back them up-a la corn-based ethanol's ability to fill American's gas tanks.

My Year in Music (2007)

It's been a pretty good year for music, though I have not gotten out to see live music as much as I have in past years. Here's to hitting the road more in 2008, and learning about new music as readily as I have in '07.

Favorite Albums of 2007:
1. Wilco-Sky Blue Sky
Glad that they went back to the more alt-country side of things, though I DO like the noise jam/spacey stuff as well.

2. Radiohead- In Rainbows (for the music and the marketing)
Just genius from conception. I remember when their guitarist, Jonny Greenwood announced "We're finished recording the album, now we have to figure out what to do with it." They had no label at the time, and I thought-"Wow, what a position to be in (if you are Radiohead)." What a marketing move, and what an album to back it up. Arguably their best, but can't really beat out OK Computer, for me, due to nostalgia.

3. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss- Raising Sand
Some really smooth, soothing stuff. Plant in a relaxed setting along with one of the most beautiful voices around. A great pairing.

4. Feist- The Reminder
Solid album, sharp voice, interesting sounds.

5. Editors- The Back Room (released in 2005, but found it this year.)
These guys really bring it on this album. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to it this year-one of those "from beginning to end" albums.

Favorite Shows of 2007:
1. Tea Leaf Green | 8/17/07 | Malibu Inn | Malibu, CA
Last show w/ Ben. Ben's custom mike stand. Invasion>POGL (for the last time w/ Ben for me) & the Reservoir I called for. My whole family was there as well, and they had a great time (as they always do, but this was all of their first FULL TLG show!)

2. Rose Hill Drive | 4/19/07 | Smith's Old Bar | Atlanta, GA
Rock 'n' fucking Roll. These guys put on a hell of a show.

3. Dave Matthews Band/Allman Brothers | 9/8/07 | Piedmont Park | Atlanta, GA
Say what you want about DMB, but the Allman Bros. w/ Warren and good friends & girlfriend in the Park for some beers and good times! DMB put on a great show as well I thought.

4. The Trainwreks | 8/3/07 | Rafters | St. Simon's Island, GA
size=9]Was in town for a wedding, and we all went out after the rehearsal dinner. Great band, lap steel guitar, good times.

5. Tea Leaf Green | 1/13/07 | The Social | Orlando, FL
This was a one set opening gig for a reggae band that was booked last minute after the Galactic cancellation. The boys played one of the most high-energy sets I had seen in a while and really got the unexpecting crowd into it.

Some Favorite Songs in 2007:
Band of Horses-Is There a Ghost?
Amy Winehouse- You Know I'm No Good
Spoon-Cherry Bomb (Alternate Version)
Ray LaMontagne- How Come
Radiohead- 15 Steps
Wilco- Impossible Germany
Editors- Lights
Tea Leaf Green- Forgiven, Doin' It Over and Over Again, Slept Through Sunday
Trevor Garrod- Where the Forest Was

Tampa Ranked Last in Study of Walkable Cities

Picture a place where you can step out of your home and walk to work, the movies or a restaurant. Just don't picture Tampa. A new survey ranks the city dead last for walkability among 30 major metro areas. The top three: Washington, D.C., Boston and San Francisco. Miami ranked eighth, and Atlanta 14th. It's not the first time Tampa has been rapped for its mean streets. A 2004 survey determined pedestrians in the Tampa Bay area take their lives in their hands more than in any other metro area in the country except Orlando.

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With places like Ybor City, Channelside, and other historic neighborhoods in Tampa, what is keeping the city from bringing the densities needed to harness important walkable places?

Make It Right-Pitt's Call for Action in NoLa

In 2006 Brad Pitt announced a partnership with Global Green USA, a non-profit focused on stemming climate change through sustainable green buildings and cities, eliminating WMDs, and securing safe drinking water for all people, with an architectural competition for firms to bring green designs to the ravaged Big Easy. This week, in a more drastic move in the right direction, Pitt announced his "Make It Right" Initiative, and it's Pink Project:

"While filming a movie in New Orleans, Brad Pitt noticed a pink fabric house that was being used as part of the set. He perceived the visual potency of pink houses as a metaphor. Working together with GRAFT, the idea was born to merge film and architecture into an installation that would bring immediate global attention to a pervasive local issue."


The project hopes to promises to bring innovative, affordable, homes designed (passively and actively) to reduce the structure's impact on the environment-and surely the inhabitants operational costs.

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Originally, I couldn't help but think of the loss of historic architectural features on the Lower 9th Ward after these 150 homes are built (so long as the money is donated). I soon realized, after looking at the designs accepted by the chosen architectural firms, that the home styles all incorporate a "shotgun" style, but offer contemporary, artistic, and, yes, innovative, design elements that bring color, life, and thought back to a place that needs all of those things.



One of the more envelope pushing designs by the Dutch firm MVRDV followed by my favorite by Billes Architecture:

Standardization, Modeling, and Tract Housing as it relates to a Sense of Place

After spending the weekend in Orlando, FL (land of Mickey Mouse and other destination Theme Parks) next to Lake Eola and Thornton Park in downtown I grew a greater appreciation for neighborhoods near urban cores. While decrying Orlando's sprawl, tourist attractions, and overall lack of identity (well, other than tourist trap), for years I experienced first hand the success of a city that is dedicated to green spaces, and, as I found this weekend, a sense of place.

The area of Thornton Park was found from an older Washington Post article calling it, in the article's title, "anything but mousy." I read on. What I found, on "paper," was a place with some walkable characterstics; it's restaurants, coffee shops, local hang outs, shopping, and other neighborhood hair dressers, laundromats, and B&B's. I wanted to discover more, and with a semi-planned trip to "meet in the middle"(she in Jacksonville and I in Tampa) with my girlfriend it seemed like a perfect place to meet. I must say that it lived up to the article in the Post.

What didn't live up to it's hype is Sembler's The Grove at Winter Garden Village. While the development is a great exercise in the new outdoor mall it really adds little to the community other than more cars, less connectivity, and a lack a sense of "place." Sembler focuses on big-box anchored developments (Lowe's, Best Buy, Target in this case) with "mixed-use" elements to give it a better cover.

My problem with this project has less to do with the actual project itself, and more to do with the tract housing and sprawl that surrounds it. Orlando is a booming city, no doubt, but what surrounds this attempt at creating a "city center" (city being Winter Garden-just outside of Orlando) where all that surrounds is the same thing regurgitated 3 different ways for at least a mile all the way around. Our lives are being made standard, where each family lives in a suburb with a similar sized and looking home, drives the same type of car, wears the same clothes, and watches the same television night in and night out. Why not put these people in the same neutral colored box and force them to deal with this new open air mall that they can only drive to (there was no connectivity from each pocket neighborhood to "The Grove")?

We need to encourage diversity, creativity, and our differences. We need to create places that inspire people to take part in their community, try new things, think outside of the box, and take ownership for their surroundings.

REAL building Press

St. Petersburg Times Neighborhood Times From 11/14/07:

By Paul Swider
As his environmentally sustainable home nears completion, Darren Brinkley is considering growing business for REAL Building, the consulting company he created to help people go green.

"It'll start to snowball once people start to become aware," he said of requests for environmental products and services. "People will almost start demanding it."

Brinkley came to the concept in just that way. The graphic designer moved to the area five years ago from London and wanted to build his own home. The more he learned about how to build the home he wanted, the more he realized that the home would be healthy, energy efficient and environmentally sound. So he decided instead of merely being a consumer in the green marketplace, he'd be a provider.

Standing in the nearly completed kitchen of a home he built with business partner Taylor Ralph at 216 84th Ave. NE, Brinkley said: "I wanted something different."

Different it is. The nearly 2,000-square-foot home sits over the remnants of a 700-square-foot block home that was on the lot when Brinkley bought it a year ago.

Brinkley didn't want to tear down the old house and add to a landfill when the old building was still viable. Instead, he turned the original home into a garage and supported the new above it from 24 wooden pillars. It gets greener from there.

The new home is built from insulated panels but is a sealed unit with no leaks, Ralph said. It is designed with windows to capture winter sun yet overhangs to fend off summer heat. Large doors open onto front and rear decks to create a breeze when temperatures allow.

"A lot of green building goes back to basics," Brinkley said. "You start thinking efficiency and you start building the way houses used to be."

The home also has a rainwater collection system with a 1,000-gallon cistern attached to an irrigation system. Toilets are dual-flush and low-flow, with a stated goal of using 30 percent less water.

Features do get high-tech. Ceiling fans are of a special design from the Florida Solar Energy Center. And the heating-cooling system comes from the ground up through a geothermal heat pump that uses 1,200 feet of buried piping to regulate indoor temperature and also produce hot water.

"Our initial estimates are that utility costs will be about $100 a month," Ralph said, "which is pretty crazy for a house this size."

The house has three bedrooms and two baths, but there's a large loft above the kitchen that could become a master suite. Brinkley plans to use that as REAL's office while he lives in the model home.

There are nonenergy green features, too, like the obligatory bamboo floors, but also a birch ceiling sliced from logs rotisserie style to prevent wasted wood. All finishes, from paints to stains, are soy-based and give off no volatile compounds.

"The health aspect is more important than the energy efficiency," Brinkley said.

The green flows freely in spending, though. After paying $155,000 for the original home, Brinkley said, the new one has cost about $150 per square foot. Add 25 percent to that to account for the labor he and Ralph put into it.

"Being green doesn't have to cost any more," he said. "There are thousands of things you can do to improve the health and efficiency of your house, and not all of them cost thousands of dollars."

Those suggestions are the real aim of the business, not building homes, he said. While REAL is bidding on a Tampa townhome project and talking to contractors and developers about others, Brinkley really wants to be a consultant to those who want to be green but don't know how. There is a demand also, he said, for guidance away from faux-green products.

The two men say in the eight months they've been building the home, they've fielded questions from passers-by. Most are impressed with the normalcy of the home.

"There's a preconception about green buildings that they have clay walls and grass roofs," said Brinkley, who designed the model. "It doesn't have to be like that. It can look like any other house on the street."

Blog Updates

I have been using this as a tool for other online activity; posting pictures, adding links and video, etc. My plan is to start writing an entry every 2 weeks. If I write more great, but bi-monthly will be the goal!

Where the Forest Was

Where the Forest Was
by Trevor Garrod

Let it be known, I've seen her in the rock face.
Let it be known, I've seen her in the sky.
I wanna show you by the liberated light of the moon,
How love dies.

Let it be known, I'm crooked as a creek bed.
I'm slower than a midwest summer cloud.
The summer's drying out drier than a desert at noon.
I'll be dead by the end of June.

Chorus:
But, my last breath is rushing like a river.
My last thought is working like the mill.
But, my legs have been chopped down like lumber,
and, where the forest was, the desert sand blows in.
Where the forest was the desert sand blows in.

Blessed are the birds that taught us singing.
Blessed are the fishes of the deep,
and all of the love that we will never get the chance to share.
Oh, my love, beware.

repeat chorus x2

The Drive

Upon realizing that life was sometimes too stressful, and even just too short, to be spending an hour a day commuting to work I began to think more about the effect that sitting in traffic, alone, in a car has on one's life.

In a city that almost promotes a suburban life, or in order to live in a bigger house for less money (does this really save you money in the long run?), we sacrifice that hour in the car alone for what seems to be a better life. With no significant options to alter your commuting habits people believe that driving in a car alone is the only way-buses do not market to the middle to upper-class citizens, many cities think light rail is too expensive and not feasible, and the "any real traffic problem can be fixed by widening the road" mentality-these are all contributing factors.

What people need most is interaction; interaction with other people, places, and things. What we don't need, and what is, in my opinion, affecting many Americans lives, the main contributing factor to our unhappy, monotonous, unfulfilled lives, is the repetitive interaction with the SAME things-car, house, family. Citizens that live close enough to walk to the places that they live, work, and play have interactions that are not everyday/monotonous/unfulfilling. There are other ways of living, and living near the places that you frequent is important to peace of mind.

You just have to frequent places other than your couch.

Get out on the streets, create places that are walkable, bring the scale back down the the human level, and stop depending on a car that guzzles gas, money, and lives.

Irving Plaza in March '07/NYC shows this weekend

Tea Leaf Green will be playing the Blender Theater at Gramercy this weekend, Thursday Sept. 6th, Friday Sept. 7th, and Saturday Sept. 8th. Tom Marshall's Amphibian will open the first two shows, while TLG's acoustic alter-ego "Coffee Bean Brown" will open the final night-Saturday.

Here are some pics from the band's last performance in Manhattan:

Rock Show in NYC

Josh Clark's Guitarmageddon

Trevor Garrod in the Big Apple

Check Trevor Garrod, lead singer of Tea Leaf Green in NYC.

Ray La Montagne sings 'Jolene'

"Jolene" from "Live from Abbey Road" on the Sundance Channel.

Music: Ray LaMontagne

"I guess, what's happening in other parts of the world has to come to your part of the world before you start to wake up."

Then I grabbed my computer to introduce Ray LaMontagne to you (if you don't know of him), and myself.

My introduction to this interesting musician came from the show on Sundance Channel's Live from Abbey Road. I usually listen to the musicians to see what they're about, but fast-forward through much of it because it does not catch my ear (but might catch yours!). His deep, hoarse, strained, full, and soulful voice is unmistakable and hit me immediately.

The words and feeling that is transpiring while watching him perform in this historical recording studio has left me in awe, and now in search for more about this "artist."

From his website:
'The cycle ends with the title song, which decries the absence of myth in the U.S. today. "Our culture is so naked," LaMontagne says, "I feel like we don't have events to fall back on. So many times, I fall into things, and I feel like I wish I had somebody—or a story—to fall back on that would get me through this, that would explain this. I wonder what we will leave behind. It's just the blink of an eye and we're gone. What will people dig up? Works of art? Or Styrofoam cups ?"'

It looks like this music that he is performing beautifully is pouring, no, seeping, out of him.

Thought

Improving those around you, the things around you, the ecosystem (if you will) that you come in contact with, regularly or not, ultimately improves YOU. By ensuring the success and prosperity of these detached things will also improve your life.

Sure, you want to take care of yourself, but it is just as important to improve these "things" around you.

Where this came from: Ted Talks

Choices

I believe that people, when give the choice, would live healthier, more sustainable lives. When given the opportunity people would choose to live near (not necessarily next door, but close enough to) the places that they work and socialize. They would also choose to use other forms of transportation (walking, biking, riding mass-transit)to get to these places of work and socialization.

And, not only would they change their place of living, and how they commute, people would choose to live a healthier life if given a legitimate choice. Legitimate means reasonably priced, regularly and readily available lifestyle choices.

It is up to all stakeholders; employers, businesses, industry, government, and, of course, people, to work towards a more sustainable and responsible way of life. We have to choose to live in areas that adhere to these principles even though it may mean facing adversity. No one is going to provide progressive (and, by saying progressive I really mean smart and sustainable) choices unless it is demanded.

Unfortunately, the status quo has taken over. People commute long distances, bring themselves out of their neighborhood, eat food prepared in an unhealthy way, work in buildings that affect their health, and do not interact with human beings outside of the work environment (and sometimes they don't interact at work).

It is time to wake up, demand change, take action, progress, and make responsible and sustainable choices for our lives.