My Blog

I used to have a love hate relationship with Oakland. You see my formative years (birth through elementary) were all in Oakland. All the family I know, even if they weren’t from there I met in Oakland. We didnt’ move around too much and like alot of other kids who didn’t live in the best neighborhoods I spent alot of time and Grandmoms so I could go to a better school. While I experienced death early in my childhood it wasn’t because of gun shots and it had nothing to do with drugs. I never say anything too bad during my childhood and the worst thing to ever happen to me was having my bike stolen on Christmas Day.
See the video and keep reading after the jump…
Once I moved away to Stockton, where I would stay until after high school I found out what other people thought of Oakland. It always seemed like people were describing a different place then the one that taught me so much as a kid. As an adult and seeing what the city did do to my siblings who didn’t get out of the city at a young age or at all, I learned what some of the streets of Oakland can do.

Over time though, I’ve also learned what Oakland was and I’m able to contrast that with what it’s becoming and having been able to live there as an adult, how that city along with most of the bay area will always be home for me. This is but a piece of my story and I share it with others in the hope that Oakland does not continue to conjure up feelings of fear for others, but love as it does for me.

If you don’t know me that well but know I have a magazine you’d just assume I am a writer by trade. You might imagine that I’ve written for tons of other publications and that’s what steered me into having my own magazine.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth. I had never worked at a publication or written much at all after college. I mean I still remember getting praise in my freshmen English class in high school and being told I wrote one of the best papers ever in my English 1B class in college but since my focus was never on being a writer I paid it NO attention.

No I went to school for advertising and music and I have been in marketing or sales jobs my entire life. I done everything from being a Redbull promo team member to being a Marketing Director at a high end Spa, Boutique, Hotel. While writing is something everyone has to do, non of these jobs required much of it and when I started the magazine I wrote because, i was the only writer on staff.

Thing is that people have been implying to me that I’m not much of a writer for a long time. People close to me and those who aren’t but NEVER someone that was a reader (very telling). Those who said what they said was mostly because of my typos and grammer issues. When I’m in a rush or feeling lazy it’s hard to even get through a sentence let alone a whole piece. However, over time I’ve learned this is the case for lots of writers and is the very reason Editors have a job.

What really struck me today was that another writer whom I admire said I had a strong writing style and would love it if I was a contributor to his magazine. This blew me away as most of what I’ve heard has been criticism and not praise (or is it most of what I’ve held on to). So I decided go back and read one of the pieces I had sent him myself and guess what…I was really impressed!

I read a piece that was insightful, dug deeper then most other writers who have interviewed the same person, and was actually a good read. What this day has taught me is summed up best by thinking about rules that apply to one of my other trades, marketing.

Remember your audience, some people may think my writing is awesome while others my hate it. The most important audience is me!

Something I’m really passionate about is making wine more accessible to people. Alot of people are intimadated by wine, wine events, pairing with food ect. Whether it’s because I feel furtunate to have been introduced the way I was or because I just love wine alot I’ve never been able to tell. What I do know is pairing together wine with music that I know people actually listen to is something I want to continue. This is the first installment of many more to come. Stay tuned.

Ok so I’ve been slackin’ on my mackin’ in regards to posting music and that’s especially true with my favorites FE so here you go, a little catchup!

‘CITY LIGHTS VOL. 2: SHIBUYA’ SAMPLER
[right click and save to download MP3 file]
The sampler includes snippets of the following tracks::
01 Shibuya Station
02 Crossing
03 Omotesando
04 Meiji Shrine
05 Shadow Dancing
06 Bullet Train
07 Saturday Night feat. Carlitta Durand

The Foreign Exchange feat. Muhsinah – “House Of Cards” from The Foreign Exchange on Vimeo.

IKEA Heights from DaveAOK on Vimeo.

IKEA Heights from DaveAOK on Vimeo.