Brown Bag online literary is out today including two of my contributions and many more. This issue, which they’ve titled Jackson, takes readers on a journey through the solar and lunar system in words and sounds; it highlights the individual story – and music in that story – with the complicated tangle in the biggest of big pictures. It is dedicated to Jackson Rose, described as an artist and open soul. Links to click in and listen to “Voices from The Woodland,” which Brown Bag has linked to Mercury, and “Whale Song from the Corners of Eternity,” linked to Neptune.
Arizona Water Greed, Shortages, and Predictions of Violence
Arizona has a severe water crisis and we are headed for big problems. Desert water is precious, especially in the midst of a 26 year dry spell now called a “mega-drought.” Remember fist-fights taking place over masks? That will look like child play when water rationing starts.
When we are finally forced to ration water, Americans will react badly and I can see fist fights on lawns over sprinklers. Violence is likely when we can’t wash our cars, when we are required to curtail their daily showers, when we can’t water our golf courses and sports fields, and when we can’t do what we want.
If you think doing whatever you want is freedom, you’ll likely have an enlarged sense of self-importance and entitlement. But that’s not freedom, its the indulgence of pre-adolescence and displays that level of maturity.
Lake Mead, the reservoir which feeds the Colorado River, providing 39 percent of Arizona’s water, is at its lowest level since it was first built and filled in the 1930’s. READ THAT AGAIN. And the Upper Colorado Basin Snowpack fell below normal for the second year in a row according to NOAA snowpack winter data. Spring snowpack levles are 11 inches below normal, which contributes to low spring water levels.
We have a serious water crisis, but rather than meeting this with information, strategy, or communication about how citizens could help, Arizona politicians and officials stay silent and pretend nothing is wrong. It amounts to burying their heads in the sand.
Parts of New Mexico are observing a Stage I Water Shortage Emergency.
Story of Yoga for Bikers – OM Yoga Magazine, May, 2021
WE STILL STAND
“We still stand.” An Agnostis/Ormson collaboration dedicated to ongoing and growing movement for change driven, in part, by the activism of #MMIWRiders and #mmiwg #rideformmiw #NoMoreStolenSisters keyboard, composition, photos and video randy anagnostis. lyric, background sounds, and vocal gregory ormson Original song, “Indigenous Souls.”… read more...
Motorcycling, Free Diving, and Chess – all improved by yoga
Talking Story and Riding the Medicine Wheel #rideformmiw
Truer than ever before, much of the world was asleep in their screens during 2020. Television, cell phones, and computers offered connections during the worst of the world-wide pandemic, but connections sans touch.
Such connections seem void of what I’d call true encounter. An incarnated connection is more real for it’s in the flesh and is sustained over time by meeting, greeting, touching or holding intimate space for one another.
Emerging from the last year of sleep and screens, 2021 is sparking a new consciousness. We are realizing something critical to the survival of Earth and the human species. We need to talk with one another.
I’m discovering that as we sit down together and engage we learn how to listen again. Listening teaches how build and sustain by giving, taking, and willingly offering disclosure and feedback. This happens when we “talk story,” a phrase and practice I learned from the Hawaiians. Talking story is no small thing. It’s the way movements start, and the way the medicine wheel ride started.
Talking story, the indigenous women spoke about the missing and murdered sisters, mothers, aunts, cousins, daughters, and grandmothers they knew – from all nations – they realized the tragedy was three-fold. First, that it happens at all. Second that it happens at an alarming rate among indigenous peoples than anywhere else; and third, that nobody was talking about it.
These crimes continue to break and destroy the bonds of family and community everywhere but especially on indigenous lands.
The Medicine Wheel Ride was formed for awareness, disclosure, feedback, justice, and change.… read more...
Lightning Bolts and Scars
Music spoken word by Gregory Ormson, Russell Thorburn, Darrell Syria.
Lightning Bolts and Scars – New Plains Student Publishing (newplainsreview.com)… read more...
Thank you OM Yoga Magazine (UK) for publishing “Yoga as a life-altering gift.”
Inspired by the breath training and yoga practice of Magnus Carlsen, eight time world Grand Chessmaster (a story from The Best American Sports writing of 2020), I found connections between Carlsen’s practices training for chess matches – that can take up to a week – and my experiences with freediving, motorcycling, and yoga.
While teaching motorcycle riding, I saw how people tightened up and held their breath when the riding range was wet, when they were evaluated, and when they were asked to do ‘figure eight’ moves in a tight space. If yoga classes could help people with stress and challenges during yoga, I thought asana poses targeted specifically to bikers’ needs could help bikers in many ways.
Yoga for bikers targets poses for: hips, back, neck, shoulders, arms, wrists and hands. Preparing to teach an unusual yoga group, I searched and discovered many stories of yoga’s effects on performance in unusual places; the most unexpected were the worlds of freediving and competitive chess.
Freediving and yoga
In Hawaii, one of the first things my freediving instructor asked me was: “Do you practice yoga?” He said yoga people do better in freediving because they’ve learned how to breathe and relax when in stress.… read more...
Spoken Word collaboration with music, video, photo, word.
I’m pleased with this music, video, and word piece edited and created by Randy Anagnostis; with collaboration from Gabriel Thorburn’s photo of mountain sheep and lyrics from the poem, “Many Names Have Never Been Spoken Here,” written by Russell Thorburn during their father-son Mohave Preserve National Parks Residency in 2013. Vocal interpretation of Thorburn’s poem by Gregory Ormson. It’s always fun to work with creative artists. Thanks Randy, Russell, and Gabe. #randyanagnostis #artistscollaboration #russellthorburn #gabethorburn #GRSound #spokenword #musicvideo #mojavenationalpreserve
… read more...
3 Days to St Patricks Day
Written by American folk singer Steve Earle, well known for his song “Copperhead Road,” “Galway Girl” has become the 8th all-time song on Irelands top singles list.
It’s one of the songs you’ll hear on St Paddy’s Day (Wednesday, March 17), at Starbucks in Apache Junction. Details below:
Irish music takes you into its culture hook, line, and sinker. It’s more than just music, known for telling powerful stories of resistance and sacrifice, land and liberty, love and loss; it cants of a thirst for the grog and flare for the poetic. Irish music is memorable for its strong rhythm and structure linked to true stories.
WHERE? Apache Junction Starbucks
Delaware and Apache Tr.
WHEN? St. Patrick’s Day
March 17 4:00 pm
*Bring a can food donation for our local shelter
*** WIN THE LIMERICK CONTEST & GET A STARBUCKS GIFT CARD ***
Irish Music 4:00 pm at the AJ Starbucks (Apache Trail and Delaware)
Four days till St. Patrick’s
IRISH MUSIC — is there really such a thing?
Yes, and Irish music takes you into its culture hook, line, and sinker. It’s more than just music, known for telling powerful stories of resistance and sacrifice, land and liberty, love and loss; it cants of a thirst for the grog and flare for the poetic. Irish music is memorable for its strong rhythm and structure linked to true stories.
Here for St. Patrick’s Day, Gregory Ormson, formerly of The MAGEES and FROM BIG IRISH
WHERE? Apache Junction Starbucks
Delaware and Apache Tr.
WHEN? St. Patrick’s Day March 17 4:00 pm
*Bring a can food donation for our local shelter WIN THE LIMERICK CONTEST & GET A STARBUCKS GIFT CARD. “Cead mile failte” a hundred thousand welcomes.
IRISH music on St. Patrick’s Day at the Apache Junction Starbucks (including a limerick contest to win a Starbucks gift card)
Seven days to St. Paddy’s Day
IRISH MUSIC — is there really such a thing? Yes, and Irish music takes you into its culture hook, line, and sinker. It’s known for telling powerful stories of resistance and sacrifice, land and liberty, love and loss; it cants of a thirst for the grog and flare for the poetic. Irish music is memorable for its strong rhythm and structure linked to true stories.
Come out to Starbucks on Apache Trail and Deleware from 4:00 – 5:00 pm on the south facing deck where I’m playing Irish songs on St. Patrick’s Day.
Roddy McCorley from THE MAGEES back in the days.
Sickness Givers and the Shape of Hope: a three part spoken word and music series on life and human existence during the pandemic by Randy Anagnostis and Gregory Ormson
Sickness Givers and the Shape of Hope part I. 2:22 (Navajo)
Sickness Givers and the Shape of Hope part II. 3:01 (India)
Sickness Givers and the Shape of Hope part III. 7:01 (Earth)
Shapeshifters & Sickness Givers: an evolving saga
The 2020 Pandemic has morphed into ‘the sickness’ of 2021. Hear my story of shapeshifters in India and Dine’ country with ominous keyboard by Mr. Randy Anagnostis in my take on the shape shifting pandemic.
A Parable Redux . . .
On November 3, 2016, five days before the last election, The Good Men Project ran “We Must Talk About Losing: a parable about men and the pursuit of success, with and without mindfulness and The Golden Rule,” an article I wrote. Part of that piece is below; a link to the full article is included at the end.
. . . Mythology names the overindulged juvenile with an ego problem the purer; with no boundaries or appreciation for others. Purer doesn’t understand the laws guiding action and consequence, he can’t fathom the seeds of sacrifice or courage.
Purer sees everything as competition and does not examine his need to win. Once, someone taught him to steal, and then he learned to lie and cheat. His tool box featured abuse and control; fear and intimidation are the hammer and saw. Acting with impunity, greedy spirits ruled this man and he became “successful.”
He lived in one world and his spirit developed a shadow, casting coldness on his appetites and desires. His public identity left him insecure and defensive. He never had enough. He lashed out at others, ending each day in bitterness and frustration. He felt empty and wanted more. Evermore.
Senex is the wise elder, sharing and understanding him/herself as part of a community and family. His/her village raised a large garden and offered food to neighbors and the poor. They didn’t begrudge the poor, but gave thanks for their work. When a community member needed help on a roof, money to assist through hard times, or assistance feeding an ill child, he was there.… read more...
Steering Our Way in Troubled Waters (video)
Steer Your Way – From You Want it Darker, Leonard Cohen
Resist the temptation to run away, put God on it, seek to justify or find salvation. It’s our mess and we deserve it. A Pandemic killing millions worldwide; Armed insurrection at US Capitol; a President calling to overturn a Democratic election; Giant problems rolling out vaccine; Economy for average Americans failing; A crumbling infrastructure (dams, bridges, highways, small towns), across the country; Planetary overconsumption and stressed resources (water, food, land); Unfettered Earth degradation = mining and pollution (air); Climate collapse and waste/plastics/Nano plastics – even in our bodies; Injurious chemicals in our food and on plants; Overpopulation; Hunger and Homelessness; Obscene disparities in wealth; Foreign policy disasters and breakdown of international cooperation; White supremacy and hate groups; Gun violence; Attacks on education and humanities; Machiavellian leadership. . . should I go on?
The myth of a free republic for all seems to be a fairy tale falling under the weight of a hubris-fired dream married to corrupt ambition. This myth is fueled by a rabble chanting – USA USA USA – a prideful slog morphing into destructive action.
Diversity, nature’s fail-safe, is rejected by the fearful. The mob thinks they are losing something, but they can’t describe what it is. And how will the rise and fall of a once-great country work?
It will work like humanity and the planet, all three evolving on the same arc where the end is written in the means. And the means of our present say something sinister and deadly about the ends of our personal, corporate, and planetary journey.… read more...
The Crumbling Temple and Rotting Mall is US
And what is the state of the state? For starters, a Pandemic killing millions worldwide; Armed insurrection at US Capitol; President calling to overturn Democratic election; Giant problems rolling out vaccine; Economy for average Americans failing; A crumbling infrastructure (dams, bridges, highways, small towns), across the country; Planetary overconsumption and stressed resources (water, food, land); Unfettered Earth degradation = mining and pollution (air); Climate change and waste/plastics/Nano plastics – even in our bodies; Injurious chemicals in our food and on plants; Overpopulation; Foreign policy disasters and breakdown of international cooperation; White supremacy and hate groups; Gun violence; Attacks on education and humanities; Machiavellian leadership. . . should I go on? Do not skip to denial or optimism; rather, understand the grave trouble we and the world are in. This is no conspiracy bullshit, it’s just the truth. Don’t run away or put God on it. It’s our mess.
The myth of a free republic for all seems to be a fairy tale falling under the weight of a hubris-fired dream married to corrupt ambition. This myth is fueled by a rabble chanting – USA USA USA – a prideful slog morphing into destructive action.
Diversity, nature’s fail-safe, is rejected by the fearful. The mob thinks they are losing something, but they can’t describe what it is. And how will the rise and fall of a once-great country work?
It will work like humanity and the planet, all three evolving on the same arc where the end is written in the means. And the means of our present say something sinister and deadly about the ends of our personal, corporate, and planetary journey.… read more...
2020 We Can’t Go On. 2021 We Must Go On
Artists’ respond, aiming to align wonder, word, and music. They lean into imagining what the tree sees in relationships, in children, and in backyard dreams. Thorburn’s tree is a witness to life in the yard, the house, in the sky above, and the buckling sidewalk below; the whole tree-is-us in our tangled roots and bent branches, our rancors and revelries, and our brittle bark tattooed by the scars of our days.
We are like every tree and its intangible roots beneath the sidewalk, reaching from yard and house to neighborhood and back again. Enmeshed below ground, trees know things and their hidden network chronicles the backyard’s rich saga: kids climbing and laughing in the branches, people in houses looking back at the tree from behind windows, and the green sky of aurora borealis above.
In our winter of pandemic and discontent, the tree is abandoned by yellowing leaves born away by freezing winds, shivering branches, and dropped to their winter-burial grounds “Everything I know I’ve learned from trees,” a friend from Michigan wrote to me the week before Christmas. I love trees too, but not everyone does; and his note reminded me of the politician who said, “When you’ve seen one redwood you’ve seen ’em all.”
I pity those who see every tree the same. It’s a different kind of poverty from the ‘poverty of spirit,’ which the Gospels praise. Bereft of wonder, one is left with a forlorn poverty of being. Such a fool, unable to appreciate music, art, poetry, or trees, may have a heart pumping lifeblood through his/her veins and arteries, but they are dull in their feeling function, incapable of beholding a Christmas tree or any tree in wonder and awe.… read more...
From The Twin Bill
And The Diamond Speaks in Runes
In this essay, @GAOrmson writes about his lifelong journey with baseball and connecting with his family. https://t.co/75dFVyToD2
— The Twin Bill (@thetwinbill) December 15, 2020
Dear Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Company,
It’s good to see your leadership taking steps to become inclusive. I applaud it, and think it’s long overdue. My mentor taught me the power of inclusion in 1975 and this has, in part, driven my life decisions including my failures, successes, and priorities. Harley Davidson, you’ve been kind-of-a-closed club to a lot of people in the past, and you have catching up to do, but you are on the right road to foster change and diversity.
It can’t be news to leadership that few traditional Harley Davidson riders listen to Tupak Shakur. Most would probably categorically dismiss him and his music, and not many would recognize a Tupak rap. So when the December issue of The Enthusiast arrived – I was shocked to read several lines from Tupak printed on the full p.5. (right). Looking back at The Enthusiast covers from 1916 up to 2003, the lack of diversity in that magazine – compared to your emerging priorities – is striking.
Starting with HOG editor Matt King’s welcoming letter for issue 48, in 2019, I saw a new emphasis and read that Harley Davidson’s goal was to “grow ridership by as much as 2 million new riders by (in 10-years) 2029.” It signaled a change in your publications and a new outreach to diverse audiences by including: young people, women, and non-white riders not only in photographs but also in stories.
One large subtitle in the article, “Coming to America,” a diversity feature story, quoted Freddie Franklin, a Milwaukee rider: “Harley Davidson has brought all ethnicities, races, genders, and cultures together, and it’s just been an incredible experience.”… read more...
Babba, Gaia, Prana
Recorded with Audacity, Gregory Ormson lyrics and Washburn D-Series DADGAD guitar, played through Boss Acoustic Singer Pro Amp; keyboard by Randy Anagnostis on Yamaha PB125 with Focus Scarlet Gen 3 Audio Interface. One of several Anagnostis/Ormson original song collaborative pieces.
VIDEO link https://youtu.be/NfClYOCX3xA… read more...
Holding to Hope
My daughter returned from a study trip to Nicaragua several years ago and gave me this small painting from a local artist. Today, sunlight fell on it from behind so it appeared as if lights were on inside.
In the moment, it reminded me of Lighten our Darkness: Toward an Indigenous Theology of the Cross, by Douglas John Hall (January, 1980), a book I read in systematic theology that expanded my apprehension of the human condition and informed my interpretations for many years.
In these years, when my developmental task is to steer a way between generativity and despair, the reminder from Hall from many years ago is to lighten the darkness in the midst of darkness.
A breakthrough by the light – no matter how insignificant it seems – moves my hands to caress the wheel of generativity and hold to hope. A simple painting and sunlight; reminders to lighten our darkness within and without.… read more...
Music and videography of Randy Anagnostis forms the background for my lyric narrative on Hatha and Hawaii.
“Earth Teach” from a Ute Prayer
Video of wild Mustang grazing in the Arizona desert, filmed by Randy Anagnostis and accompanied by his original music and keyboard playing. We collaborated on a project which asked for a reading of Earth Teach fitted to a natural scene.… read more...
NATIONAL POETRY MONTH: a poetry/song series the last 8 days of April. Poem/song number, 1 “Whale Song.”
Russell Thorburn and Gregory Ormson have worked together for over a decade writing original poems, prose, and music. Much of it happens in spite of distance and isolation. The eight songs/poems posted over the next 8 days of April will close out NATIONAL POETRY MONTH for 2020.
Russell Thorburn plays “Chelsea Hotel,” a composition he wrote to celebrate Dylan Thomas. The hotel is similar to a whale swimming through the Atlantic humpbacked Ocean of New York City, and lives are certainly made of vibrations, artists and poets who swam through the hallways and never reached shore. In the song Dylan opens the door to Death wearing a Fifth Avenue gown and black gloves; he is there at his typewriter to finish the last pages of Under Milk Wood.
Substitute Thomas for Ormson’s memoir and corners of eternity, and don’t answer the door. “Chelsea Hotel” was performed at the Beaumier Folk Series Concert in 2014, Northern Michigan University. I was on piano and mumbling the lyrics. Here is the basic piano track in another gummersound recording. R. Thorburn
Free diving in Hawaii opened me to a whale song’s sonic jangling my synapses and brain cells. It came to me from deep down and far out. Sounds swam through the water and past my cochlea until my inner ear caught humpback aria as it rearranged maps in my head.
Under the waves, I heard the ecstatic; it was accompanied by sweeter-still unheard melodies of which John Keats wrote. Years later, I’m still trying to make sense of it all, like the yellow-robed priests: Mayan, Incan, or Egyptian, who crumbled into the dust at such otherworldly ditties. … read more...
YOGATECTURE: building your house of truth
OM Yoga Magazine has just released their March issue including the 85th of my #yogainspirationals. Thank you OM Yoga Mag.In the Phoenix east valley, this magazine arrives two weeks after publication in the UK. In each issue you'll find yoga insights in these areas: OM Body, OM For Men, OM Fashion, OM Mind, OM Spirit, OM Living, OM Family, OM Actions, OM Teacher Zone, OM Travel. Check it out.… read more...
YOGA FOR BIKERS AT SUPERSTITION HARLEY DAVIDSON JAN. 2020
Piano, photography, and videography by the talented Randy Anagnosis. He’s been an east coast marketer, recording artist, and now photographer for Superstition Harley Davidson. Anagnosis’ first CD was “Dreams,” c 1996, sold in hundreds of yoga studios. A second piano-driven album was “Full Moon Rising.” He also did a jazz album, “Thunder and Light.”
Video courtesy of Anagnosis, and Superstition Harley Davidson. Thanks to all the bike and yoga folks that showed up too. #motorcyclingyogiG
BENDING: a reflection on sitar
“There was something about the way he played his Stratocaster that made it seem otherwordly.” –Eric Clapton on Jimi Hendrix
My sitar flows in 19 bands of light: their names are baaj, chikari, and tarab. Its journey to my hand is a mystery, but its music-medicine came to my doorstep from an old land, gripped me from the eons, and pulled my soul into its orbit. It’s a path unlike any other, bending more than notes. A musician friend and professor said, “Its all angles.”
Saraswati dances, sitar bends, and because I’ve heard its music and felt it in my chest I participate in its step. This step is toward the depths and from them rises a watery siren-song of the fathoms.
Sitar music is a never-ending river, shepherding me to a place close and yet far away. My teacher speaks in common tones and offers up clusters of daring: “Consistency, consistency, consistency,” she says. Her words; the kernel of all learning, teaching, and the core of every guru’s curriculum.
I’ve seen the rivers of India, but I can’t put myself and my sitar on their banks; but once at dusk, on a hot July night, I made my way with this rosewood, gourd, string & steel riddle to the banks of the Salt River in east Phoenix to listen. There, I realized sitar will not accompany me without shepherding along a river of souls.
Looking to the Salt, I could almost see a funeral pyre float past; a desert inspired mirage bobbing with the current, like a lazy raft ablaze in flames, scented smoke and grief trailing behind.… read more...
Final tracks in late January for “Mescalero Territory,” by Russell Thorburn and Gregory Ormson
Hear “When I Get Back to Marquette,” and “Mescalero Territory.”
Russell Thorburn, NEA recipient, is the author of four books of poems. His last book, Somewhere We’ll Leave the World, was published by Wayne State University Press. Currently he is producing and directing his one-act play Bomb Shelter for Black Box Theater at Northern Michigan University, where he teaches composition. It will premiere March, 2020, and includes original music for the end of the world that never happened in the sixties. www.russthorburn.com
Gregory Ormson, writer and musician living in Arizona, has collaborated with Thorburn over the last decade on word and poem projects. He writes on music, yoga, motorcycling, and landscape.
“Mescalero Territory” Lyric and voice, Russell Thorburn. Sitar, Gregory Ormson, engineered at Gummersound Studio, Marquette, Michigan. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7CJeFLGYOO8YVB0NjFQSUFhR0dJV09kSjlVZ2daTk5uYU9Z/view?usp=sharing
“When I Get Back to Marquette” Russell Thorburn, Marquette, Michigan lyric; Gregory Ormson, Mesa, Arizona, music, guitar, vocal, and lyric adaptation; Mike Bjella, clarinet, Montreal, Quebec; Peter Gummerson, Marquette, Michigan, sound engineering. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CiqMkl6W9OOuS82qWe-LASo3ytH_FNLw/view?usp=sharing
MEN: Yoga’s Outliers
Check out my 83rd published yoga article, “Yoga’s Outliers,” in the January, 2020, Om Yoga and Lifestyle magazine. Better yet, get the mag.
“Men are still the minority when it comes to yoga in the West. They are yoga’s outliers,” says Gregory Ormson.
Read MORE below …
“Yoga’s Outliers” is a featured story along with an interview of London based international yoga teacher Sarah Highfield (#yogagise), Ibiza detox retreats on the Balearic islands off the Spanish east coast, and special coverage of vegan recipes and much more for the learning yogi. Thank you #OmYogaMagazine #yogainspirationals 83.
December Yoga for Bikers at Superstition Harley Davidson – ARIZONA
Thanks Superstition Harley Davidson for this 80 second video. See how yoga is similar to, but has one important difference from other movement oriented activities like motorcycling, judo, and ballet.
… read more...PUT YOUR BODY AT EASE TO TREAT STRESS
Schedule change for November YOGA & LEATHER.
Thank you to AZ Rider Motorcycle News (now in the 21st year) for your summary on YOGA & LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers in your October issue https://tinyurl.com/y6g5ak66
See it here: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/
With appreciation for your summary of YOGA & LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers (Starting Oct. 9th)
” . . . to improve the health and wellbeing of motorcyclists.” Yep, that’s it!
If ANY OF YOU have interest in Yoga for Bikers, a program at Superstition Harley Davidson now in its third year, here is a reminder of October’s yoga and bike events:
Wednesday October 9, 4:30 pm in the Eagle’s Nest
Wednesday October 23, 4:30 pm in the Eagle’s Nest
Sunday October 27, 10:30 am starting in the West Parking lot at SHD
Each year there are slight changes. This year, we’ll focus on a breath-centric class and slow movements in ease.
The “STRETCH RIDE” will take place the LAST Sunday of every month, starting at 10:30. We’ll ride a short distance to a green or desert space and there spend 15-20 minutes in breath awareness and quiet. Then we use the bikes for a few “stretch poses.” Motorcycles are perfect for this, they are stable props but also transfer us from place to place. The “stretches” are portable too.
What you do in Yoga for Bikers:
This beginner level class is offered to riders to stretch the areas where we feel tightness: hips, shoulders, back, and neck.
The purpose is to keep riders in the saddle longer by working gently toward flexibility and balance. This means longer at a time, but more importantly, longer for life.
The side benefit of all yoga is learning to be at ease in the midst of stress.… read more...
The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, 2019, Phoenix (the ride for men’s health)
I took part in the world’s largest charitable motorcycle event for owners of classic and vintage styled bikes on Sunday September 29th, 2019. This event, called the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, brings together over 113,000 well dressed riders on sweet, small bikes raising 5 million dollars in 700+ cities for men’s health across 110+ countries.
The goal for the once a year DGR is to raise awareness and funds for prostate cancer research – and men’s mental health – on behalf of charity partner the Movember Foundation. Next year, I’ll see if anyone wants to join me for this worthy cause and fun ride through Phoenix. A few photos tell the story of this event, which started at Four Till Four Coffee in Scottsdale with 218 registered bikes. It ended at Sazerac in downtown Phoenix.
REASONS to ride, or to donate:
It feels good to contribute to a good cause.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, taking 307,000 every year.
75 percent of all suicides are men too, taking one every minute (510,000) each year, most of them in the 20-39 age range.
Why don’t you get your CAFE RACER out of the barn and join me and over 200 others next year as Distinguished Gentlemen and Gentlewomen ride for a cause! AND . . . if you don’t have a cafe racer or vintage bike . . . rent a scooter 🙂
