Why Wine to Water? Part V

Why Wine to Water?  Put simply:  Wine to Water is a great charity because it seeks a marriage between two positive impulses:  Fun and generosity.  Whether's it gathering for one of Doc's cocktail hours or listening to some good old rock n'roll like we'll be doing Saturday night in Greensboro, Wine to Water channels our desire to have fun together with our desire to help one another, merging the buzz with the buzz-kill, pleasure as a way of bringing relief to someone else's pain.  So come on out and join us this Saturday and help raise money for Wine to Water.  Brother Esau will hit the stage around 8:00 p.m. at the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, 501 South Mendenhall Street, Greensboro, NC 27403.

Why Wine to Water? Part IV

I recently told a friend about the Brother Esau/Wine to Water charity concert.  He wondered out lout what Doc Hendley would think about the Grateful Dead's music being connected to his cause.  He (my friend), is apparently a follower of Hendley's on Facebook.  He claims he often sees Hendley engaged in "conservative" activities, like going to NASCAR races.  I suppose, more than anything, it's this way of thinking--this constant pitting of left versus right, liberal versus conservative, this knee-jerk division--that I seek to escape/transcend--and perhaps Hendley and others feel the same way.  A good charity shows so many of our political/ideological differences to be trivial, easy to cast aside.

There was a great article in The New York Times this morning about Sean Penn's charity work in Haiti.  The writer begins the piece by giving you a million reasons to be skeptical of Penn, most of them having to do with his political opinions and his personal life.  But who can deny what Penn's accomplished in Haiti, working closely through his aid group (Jenkins/Penn Haitian Relief Organization) with one of his favorite enemies, the American military?  When you're dealing with extreme poverty, all issues of celebrity, taste, ideology, your opinion on the war in iraq--they go out the window.  As Penn himself says:  "You can have a barter system, you can have advanced capitalism, you can read Ayn Rand or Joseph Stiglitz.  I don't care, because I don't understand it anyway.  What I do understand is that if your neighbor is screwed, you've got to help him."

Sean Penn and Doc Hendley in Haiti:

Why Wine to Water? Part III

I've always wanted to be the sort of man who practices what he preaches.  As a teacher, it's easy to get caught up in lofty talk about the world, and then go home and do nothing but veg out in front of netflix.  Of course, it's tempting to say that the teaching itself is the "good" that the teacher gives, but deep down most of us who teach and preach know that we need to fully live our ideas if we're to articulate them convincingly.  There's nothing more castrating to an argument than to find out that the arguer actually lives in a way diametrically opposed to his argument.  Take, for example, John Edwards and Newt Gingrich, the two hundred dollar haircut and the man who cheated on his wife while she was dying of cancer.  Their acts sorta undercut their arguments about poverty and family values, right?

Who is a teacher in his talk about changing the world when he's just filling the world up with more talk about changing the world?

So, one day, in my classroom, while watching a student presentation on Doc Hendley and Wine to Water, I heard a student say this of Doc:

"He looks like you, Mr. Armstrong."

Mirror moment right there.  Here's a thirtysomething white guy with a shaved head who used to play around in the North Carolina music scene, but found himself looking for something MORE.  He used to spend a lot of his time in bars, but he wanted MORE, something more fulfilling.

And he found it.  He went after it.  And by doing so showed the path to others.

So come out and join us on this path.  Come have a good time with Brother Esau on April 30th, and by doing so lend a hand to those less fortunate.

Here's a look at our band:

Why Wine to Water? Part II

I have an uncle who used to work in the heart of corporate America, was the CEO of a major telecommunications firm.  When he retired, I wondered how he would keep busy, what would become of that competitive spirit.  

As it turns out, my uncle has been transformed--has transformed himself.  He now devotes a good portion of his time to a water charity in Guatemala, and we're not talking about a man who just sends a check.  My uncle, along with my father (a physician), visits the country yearly, supervising projects similar to those initiated by Wine to Water.  When I talked to my uncle and my father about their work in Guatemala, I was a bit jealous.  I wanted to change MY life.  Which is to say:  I wanted to start changing other people's lives in a more profound, significant way.  To those whom much is given, much is required.  For those who have been given little, little is often required to make a change.  

                                                            Take a look at this video:

  

Why Wine to Water?

Brother Esau is not loaded with cash, but we want to do what we can, and there's no better charity, in our opinion, than Wine to Water.  Wine to Water is a local, North Carolina non-profit, and W2W goes to the poorest places in the world and provides the poorest people with the most fundamental service:  Clean water.

Brother Esau want to make a difference and we want to inspire others to do the same.  For a small donation you can change the life of not just one person, but an entire village.  A $35 donation to Haiti will provide a family of ten with clean water for five years!  A donation of $100 will provide Ugandan hospitals and schools with bio-sand filters that will serve clean water for up to ten years!

So come out on April 30th to support Brother Esau and Wine to Water.  Or donate now:

http://winetowater.org/donate

Grateful Dead and Technology

I started this blog as both a musician and a teacher.  At North Carolina A&T I teach a course called Technology and Society.  The idea for the assignment is that everybody in the class (teacher included) uses their blog to write about a technology that's transforming the world.

The Grateful Dead couldn't have happened without cutting edge tech.  Without LSD, the entire psychedelic artistic movement would've been impossible, or, rather, inconceivable.  Without the evolution of handheld recorders (and the band's willingness to allow recording in shows), there wouldn't have been the bootlegger subculture that spawned the Dead's massive popularity--and the viral spread of their music.  According to Barry Barnes, the Grateful Dead was a business model well ahead of its time, using technology and social networking to give its fans something for nothing (free music), just as so many bands and corporations do now through the free intellectual content offered all over the web.  Here's Barry's article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/management-secrets-of-the-grateful-dead/7918/

But if you really want to see the Grateful Dead's relationship with technology, look no further than:

http://www.archive.org

Here, my students, you may listen for free, to nearly every Grateful Dead concert ever performed...or to other emerging bands who have followed their lead...

The Grateful Dead and Charity

Brother Esau is a Grateful Dead tribute band, so perhaps it's important to say a word or two about why we believe the band worthy of a tribute.  The Grateful Dead was a band that was often caricatured as a sloppy, drug-fueled exercise in hippie nostalgia.  At their worst, the caricature was appropriate.  At their best, however, the Dead was an entire culture on wheels and a musical experience unlike any other ("Like Rolling Thunder").  They were also a powerful business committed to high ideals.

One of those ideals was generosity, charity.  Founders of the Rex Foundation and contributors to numbers of other good works, The Grateful Dead reluctantly waded into the world of philanthropy.  In 1988, in response to the band's contributions to a foundation set up to preserve the rain forests, Jerry Garcia expressed exasperation over how little the rest of the world was doing about this tremendously important issue:  "Somebody has to do something," he said.  But added:  "It seems pathetic that it has to be us."

So it is with most of us who see trouble in the world.  Who are we to think we can change it?  Perhaps here it's appropriate to drop one final quote from Margaret Meade:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Here's Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders, "Blues for the Rainforest:"

The Water Crisis

Darfur.  Haiti.  Ethiopia.  Peru.  Sudan.  Cambodia.

Everywhere you look, there are people who lack the fundamental element of civilization:  Clean water.

I see water as the issue of our century.  Whether it's our own depleting riparian resources, the Israelis and the Palestinians haggling over the dwindling gifts of the Jordan River, or the droughts of Africa, this is a problem that won't go away without innovation.

When it comes to the Colorado River and the Jordan River, we have some serious engineering problems, not to speak at all of the political and the humanitarian sides of the dilemma.  But when it comes to Darfur and many of Wine to Water's target countries, the innovations already exist:  Ceramic filters.  Wells.  Latrines.  Bringing the most basic plumbing and filtration systems to these countries can change everything.  There is a deep relationship between health and wealth.  When people are well, they can work.

Here's another video about Doc Hendley and Wine to Water, showing the recognition this organization has received on the international level:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNWvhCqTrcU

Brother Esau: Wine to Water Benefit Concert, April 30th, 2011

On April 30th, at 8 pm, Brother Esau, a Grateful Dead tribute band, will be holding a benefit concert at The Church of the Covenant in Greensboro, North Carolina.  The charity we hope to raise money for is Wine to Water, an organization that seeks to bring clean water to people all across the developing world.  For a brief introduction to this North Carolina based charity, see the following video of its founder, Greensboro's own Doc Hendley, at Asheville's TED conference in 2009:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-IW1gankbM

I got the inspiration to put on this concert from a writing class that I teach at North Carolina A&T State University. Last fall, in her final presentation on a figure that was transforming the world through a new technology, Lolita Jackson introduced our class to Doc Hendley and his water project.  Although some of Hendley's tech is rather primitive (carbon filters, wells), his approach to promotion is certainly a testament to the technologies of the 21st century.  Just as social networking is transforming the Mid-East as we speak, so is it connecting the world to this beautiful organization, Wine to Water.

Thank you, Lolita, and thank you, Doc!

More later...