Monday, October 31, 2016

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 62, November 1 2016

 
Interview with Deb Cardy of Ocean Time

Deb Cardy is running an Airbnb rental from her home just outside the Yachats city limits.

TYG: So how did you get into this business?
Deb:
I got into vacation management about 45 years ago. I’m 60 now, so that gives you a pretty good idea of how long I’ve been involved with it.

TYG: Wow, since you were a kid!
Deb:
Since I was a kid. I started out in Colorado, and I started out in a ski area called Breckenridge. It took me a little bit of time to build it up, but when I left my business, there were 150 properties, all in the Colorado Rockies. So that’s where I got this start! Then I got ill and moved to Oregon, and I was led to Yachats—I don’t know how else to put it. I knew I was moving, but I didn’t know where to. I was staying at a motel up the road, and there’s a deep cove there, and two gray whales came in with their babies. They flipped up on their sides, and they were nursing their babies. And I didn’t think anybody got to see that very often, and I thought that was just a clear sign that Yachats was really for me.

TYG: Cool!
Deb:
So that’s how I ended up here. Now I’ve been here for 12 years, 13 years May 4th—that’s when I arrived in 2004. I’ve been lucky and blessed to live in the house this time. This May, I decided that I wanted to open my life a little bit more, and it really didn’t have so much to do with wanting to be back in the service industry, it had to do more with I wanted to have impact with more people. I wanted to have people impact me. I wanted to share this experience that we have here in Yachats, because it truly is one of the most magnificent places on the planet.

TYG: I have to say, certainly the places I’ve seen... Big Sur is amazing, but aside from that I haven’t really seen anything except maybe the Grand Canyon. But the views around here are just like, “Wow!”
Deb:
Have you been to Colorado yet?

TYG: No, I have not been to Colorado. I haven’t been to that many places, actually. I have been across the United States, but we took the southern route.
Deb:
Right! Well, I have to tell you, it was very different to be landlocked most of my life. My first exposure to the ocean really was here in Yachats. So going to the beach, having it green year around...

TYG: That was probably also huge!
Deb: [laughs]
Oh boy! When I was here it was in March, and it was below zero in Colorado, and I had the sliding glass doors of the motel room open all night long, because to me it was a heat wave! [laughs] So it was a beautiful experience, a beautiful welcome into Yachats. I moved here six weeks after that trip, and I gave my business to my staff so that it wasn’t a closed business. I came out here and I didn’t know anybody, didn’t have a family, and I thought, “Boy, I need to find a way to get by out here!” I’ve been really blessed. Having you as a neighbor, having the neighbors here in the area, it’s more than anybody could ask for. The support of the town... it’s a beautiful feeling to know that the community is in support of most everybody here! So I love it. And in March, March is when I made the actual decision to open up the Airbnb. You probably watched as the transformation began outside.

TYG: Yes—the house got slowly renovated.
Deb:
Exactly. I’ve taken out the carpeting, I’ve done all kinds of improvements to the house—I’ve made it easier for people to just come in and out of the house. So it started with that, and looking for a really comfortable bed, bedding, a warm color in the room, thinking about the room. The room is laid out sort of in feng shui. Do you know what that is?

TYG: Not really.
Deb:
Well, it’s the placement of items that energize a particular area. So in my guest bedroom I have four white corners, and that’s to signify healing and tranquility and peace. The other color of the room is warmth and coziness.

TYG: Yes, it’s almost peachy?
Deb:
Yes, it is—it’s a wonderful color. And then I wanted the guests to feel really special, so I got the fluffiest, biggest towels I could find, and the nicest, most thread-count [linens] that I could find, because I wanted to the guests to be spoiled. When people go on vacation, they save up for it. Some people only get to take one vacation a year, and if they choose Yachats, and they choose my place to stay, I want them to feel like they’ve been to heaven and back.

TYG: That’s always a good thing to do, particularly for a bed and breakfast place. If it’s like a big hotel or something, I don’t think it’s that important because you’ve got a lot of other stuff coming in. But if it’s just a little Airbnb place like this, the importance of one guest is everything.
Deb:
Yes! The guests who were here last night were from Western Australia, on a seven-week trip to the United States, and this was their first visit. They started out in San Francisco and were going up to Vancouver, BC, then over to Victoria, on Vancouver Island. They’ve been staying at all Airbnb places. One of the things they said was, because I asked them if there was anything I could do to improve their stay, what they liked about staying here was they had a personal contact, they had somebody to tell them the cool places they’re not going to find on the map, the wisdom of going to the beach, even though they live at the beach in Western Australia...

TYG: Very different beach!
Deb: [laughs]
Very different beach! But they really enjoyed themselves, and just left this morning. Hopefully they’ll come back again. But what people tell me is that they sleep here better than they ever have. I don’t think that’s because of the house—I think that’s because of the location. We have the ocean, we have the mountains right here: you couldn’t ask for more.

TYG: That’s right, you couldn’t. It feels very safe, very secure; you have things on all sides, but not in a cramping way. There’s space around you, but you feel protected.
Deb:
And that kind of goes with the community—it’s a great place. Having comfort, making sure that I can meet all the needs that I can possibly meet for my guests... If that means making a meal for them, making it a little easier if they’ve had a day out hiking and on the beach—they may not feel like going out. I’m going to cook meals for myself anyway. So I’ll offer them to have dinner with me, and about 50 per cent take me up on the offer. So that’s kind of fun, keeps my cooking skills up to par! [laughs] And they get to choose kind of what they’d like to eat, too. Pamper, love, connect, be there—I tell the guests, “I can be your handmaiden, or I can disappear and you can just have the run of the house.” Most of them want to have the personal interconnection, they want to have that connection with somebody.

TYG: We didn’t have that at [when we stayed at an Airbnb in Bend recently.]
Deb:
Well, let me see... This summer, we had a young girl come in off of the Pacific Crest Trail. It starts in Mexico and ends up in Vancouver. She got down to Florence, and she needed a break: she needed a bed and a bath. She’d been on the road for three months. So we met her at the farmer’s market, and we asked her if she’d like to chill out for a couple of days and relax. We had her here for three days: we did her laundry, she slept in a bed, she took a bath, she was able to reconnect with people. That was a real satisfying experience, to be able to give somebody just that much, and then just send them on their way. In fact, I took her back up north so she could begin her next trek. The day before yesterday when the guests came in, I knew they’d already been on the road for a couple of weeks, and I was pretty sure they probably had some laundry. I didn’t want to interfere with their day, so I just had them leave their laundry with me—I just did their laundry! It’s not that hard to do, it doesn’t take any time, didn’t charge them for it.

TYG: If you’ve got a washing machine, it’s not the hardest thing to do.
Deb:
Not at all! And the guests are free to be able to use the laundry. I open up my cupboards to them, and they can eat whatever they want to, because one or two people are not going to empty my cupboards in a couple of days if they’re going to be here. My longest staying people have been for one week. They generally want to stay a little bit longer, but I think that’s because they’re really into the moment. But I really get to know them—they become more like family. And the people who stay for one or two nights, they’re special too, because they all leave a little piece of themselves.

TYG: Everyone has their own story.
Deb:
Everybody has their own story, their own energy, and it’s great. I love the connection with stories from all over the world. We had a country-western entertainer here, which you’ll probably be able to see at the Grammy Awards this next year. He and his wife were here for a week, and it was lovely! We had some people who had just retired from Kabul, in Afghanistan—they’d been there for twenty years.

TYG: They were ex-military or something?
Deb:
They were ex-private contractors. The wife actually ran the distribution of US liquor through Afghanistan. That was one of her jobs. I’ve also had an Apache helicopter pilot, that was a woman. Being exposed to all these different people from every walk of life is just a blessing to me. I don’t know if the guests understand how big that is, but truly, I am blessed by every guest that walks in the door. I have never had a bad experience—I’m sure there are horror stories out there, but [knocks on the table] I have never had that problem. [laughs] We do let guests bring their pets—I think we’ve had three dogs here that were guest pets. They were okay, I didn’t mind having them here. The fenced yard is an asset to people who want to bring their pets.

I try to encourage every one of the restaurants locally, all the shops; I have a menu of all the restaurants in the room, so that they can see what the menus are for each location and pick what they want to go and do. I’m trying to meet all of the needs, and think ahead. Being in the industry for so long, I took a little break, so I’m coming back into it with all the different changes. Internet, Netflix, all these things are new since I was last in the industry. There’s a computer the guests are able to use, Windows 10, so that’s up to date. The guests appreciate having it right there, because they can check in at home and send e-mails or anything else that they’d like to do. They are internet-connected throughout the house, so they don’t have to come in here and use it. I’m really having a good time. I’m trying to become one of those Gold Star hosts. 

TYG: By the reviews, you’ve already managed it!
Deb: [laughing]
Imagine that, Allen, out of this little house!

TYG: No! Honestly, now that I see it—I didn’t realize how much you’d done to the place. It’s beautiful in here!
Deb:
Thank you—I call it cozy. Everywhere you look I try to make a little statement visually, so your eyes can find something to land on. [...] So yeah, this is a safe place to come to. We’ve had honeymooners here, couples who have just gotten engaged. When that happens, I find out whether they’d love to have the room covered in flowers.

TYG: Awww. That’s really sweet of you.
Deb: [laughs]
This summer, I spent a lot of time cutting and harvesting all the flowers around the house so that they could have fresh flowers all the time. I didn’t realize that people from other parts of the country don’t know what it is that we grow here. They haven’t got a clue what some of the greenery and plants and shrubs are!

TYG: Escalonia, I imagine, is a particularly confusing one!
Deb:
Some people have never seen a fuchsia! Or a hydrangea! Or a holly tree! So you stop, and you think how common they are for us—but for others, these are first-time experiences. I kind of forget that from time to time, but when I lived in Colorado, I’d never seen blue flowers before. Columbines, maybe. But you could go to Walmart and see all kinds of flowers.

TYG: But those aren’t real, often.
Deb:
Correct! But it turned out that they really are real. I’ve been through the displacement of 12,500 feet to 63 feet above sea level. But I love this place, and I would love for other people to come in and enjoy it too. A little over a year ago, I did a recording on the [answering] machine, that says, “I’m living on Ocean Time. So leave a message.” So when it came time to name the bed and breakfast, “Ocean Time” seemed to be the most appropriate. Because we are all on ocean time. We used to call it “resort time” up in the mountains, you know... and it’s kind of slowed down, when people come here, they slow down a bit. And we really want them to enjoy themselves, and take in the ocean time that they get. So that’s how it got named.

I’m going to be adding things this next year; I’m hoping to be able to put in some raised gardens, with guest seating inside of the raised gardens with a propane fireplace, so they can have a fire all summer long without having to worry about starting a forest fire. Looking at doing some of those major changes this next year, so that when our guests come next summer, they can have a little bit of a different look outside. Those are just a couple of the new changes that are going to take place next year. And new furniture! We’re going to get new furniture! 

TYG-Editorial Assistant: Can we talk about Maya?
Deb: [laughs]
Maya is a female, two year old Arctic wolf/Husky mix. She gets along with everybody. She’s a real social dog. So when people come they shouldn’t be afraid of her—she’s my companion dog. When people can bring their dog, I figure they pretty much know that I have animals here. I have three cats, and I have a bird. I try to keep cats separate from the rest of the house.

TYG: So who is the bird?
Deb:
The bird is Toby. I call him Toby Wan Kenobi.

TYG: [laughs] Nice.
Deb:
Toby is about 14 now, and he was a gift. [...] I do keep the cats separate from the living quarters, because not everybody likes cats. [...] But I’m looking forward to next year—next year should be a lot of fun.

TYG-EA: Are you taking time off, or are you going to do it year-round?
Deb:
I am going to go year-round, because I think that in the summer months I might just have a guest or two every month.

TYG: So how does it affect your life?
Deb:
Well, when a guest is here, you’re on stage. When they’re in the house, your temperament—whether you’re emotional, upset, whatever’s going on, you have to put that on the shelf. Doing this, you have to live in the moment all the time. I never know when I’m going to get a guest, because I don’t block out any days or anything like that. I could get a guest coming in tonight. So I have to be ready at a moment’s notice to have somebody calling us for lodging. There’s no such thing as letting things go for a couple of days.

TYG: Thank you so much! This was a wonderful interview, and I thank you so much!
Deb:
Absolutely—thank you!

Interview with Jim D’Ville, Ukulele Educator

Jim D’Ville is a world-known itinerant musician who spends a lot of time in Yachats—and he has instruction openings for adult students.

TYG: How did you get first involved with music?
Jim:
In the early 1990’s, my wife and I were moving from Yachats to New Orleans, Louisiana, for a cultural experiment in living in a different place. And right before we left, someone gifted me a five-string banjo. I had no previous musical background. That was at the age of 35, I believe. So I had a book and some picks, and I started to learn to play bluegrass music, because that’s what the instrument was designed for. And then I spent ten years studying all facets of five-string banjo playing. At the end of that ten years, I found that I had simply memorized a lot of pieces of paper, and it did not turn me into a musician. Period.

TYG: I play piano myself, so I know that you sort of have to feel it. If you don’t feel the instrument, it’s sort of like just a bunch of notes with no feeling behind them.
Jim:
That’s a very good observation. As a matter of fact, it dovetails right into your next question, which was, “How did the ukulele come into your life?”

TYG: How?
Jim:
In the year 2000, after studying the banjo for over ten years, my wife’s grandmother, inexplicably, gave me a 1920’s Columbia, Hawaiʻian ukulele, that she’d had in her closet for 50 years. She was a piano player herself, and she said to me: “Jim, if anybody in this family is going to play this ukulele, it’s going to be you.” “But, I said, Grandma! I’m a banjo player! I don’t want a ukulele!” But, I took it. That was about the time we were moving back to Yachats—I believe, for the sixth time, in 2000, and I had a little ukulele with me, and I sat over by the ice cream store where my wife was working in one of those gift shops, and I would practice on her lunch hour while I was relieving her, and I had a book there and was practicing out of the book. Then I finally realized, Allen, I finally realized that if I was going to become a musician it would not be through memorizing songs from a book, it would be internalizing the chords that make up the songs.

Also at this time, I was a docent at the Little Log Church, and so, as you well know, the winters are long here. During my docency, if that’s indeed a word, at the Little Log Church, I would practice there, in the silence of the winter. And when the summer would come, I would sit outside the Little Log Church and practice my chord progressions. After about three or four years of that, I realized that I could start to hear what was going on with the ukulele and with the music. And that’s about the time I said, “Maybe I should go to Portland, Oregon, and expand my horizons into teaching the instrument.”

TYG: So what was for you in Portland?
Jim:
People. People that wanted to learn to play the instrument. So I got a job at Artichoke Music, teaching the ukulele. I eventually became the manager at Artichoke Music, and everything started to dovetail together. I got in a band with three other guys, and started teaching.

TYG-Graphic Design: What was the band name?
Jim:
Caravan Gogh. If you Google that, we have a couple of records out.

TYG-GD: [laughs] Right. Are you still playing with them?
Jim:
Occasionally, as a trio, when I go to Portland. Cello, ukulele, and mandolin, now. When we started it was cello, ukulele, mandolin, and bass. So that’s how I began the journey on the instrument.

TYG-GD: So, let me get this straight: you just practiced and practiced and practiced, and then you went straight to teaching?
Jim:
Correct.

TYG-GD: That’s a different way of getting into teaching than I’m normally familiar with.
Jim:
Well, also during my time of studying the banjo, I spent a lot of time learning music theory, self-taught music theory and the circle of fifths. So that, combined with my knowledge now of chord progressions, and how they fit on the fingerboard of the instrument, the ukulele—that combination wasn’t really being taught, that I saw, in the materials that were available. So I felt like I had a unique perspective on teaching, especially adult beginners that wanted to start, and not have the difficulty of starting on guitar.

TYG-GD: So, what kind of music comes out of your style of teaching?
Jim:
Every imaginable type of music! You can play classical. You can play jazz. You can play ragtime. 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, pop, rock, reggae! Blues! You name it, all the notes can be found on this instrument. That’s what makes it so exciting and so accessible, because you’re not trapped into a genre, like [when] somebody hands you a five-string banjo, the genre is probably bluegrass or old time music.

TYG: Or a violin, and then it’s probably going to be classical.
TYG-GD: But those notes are there anyway...
Jim:
Correct, but it’s the make-up of the instrument that really dictates what you can do with it.

TYG: So what lends it to being so variable and so across the board?
Jim:
Across the board? Well, it wasn’t like that in its first incarnation. This is actually not a Hawaiʻian instrument: this is a Portuguese instrument, based off a couple of [other] instruments, the rajão and the machete.  It was from the island of Madeira, a Portuguese island. Portuguese laborers that were going to Hawaiʻi in the 1870’s to work in the sugar cane fields brought those dance instruments—primarily [Jim starts strumming] ...

TYG-GD: Flamenco?
Jim:
Yes, dance music, where they would strum and play those type of things. So that was its first incarnation. And then when the Hawaiʻians saw the Portuguese play this they said, “Oh, lookit, the fingers are like jumping fleas, uku lele.” Since the only wood on the island was koa, that’s why they started making ukuleles out of koa. And the string is different now. The four strings are tuned in a way where the top string [plucks] is higher than the next string [plucks]. Normally, strings go in an ascending pitch [demonstrates], but this is called “reentrant tuning,” because you’re going high, then low. So people, when they hear that tuning, they say [sings] “My dog has fleas.” [laughter] So that’s how you remember how the ukulele is tuned. And it’s tuned to an open C6 chord—a C-major chord, and a sixth. That’s what makes it such a happy instrument. So after it became an ukulele, and they started building them in Hawaiʻi in the 1880’s, 1890’s, the turn of the century, it caught on. And in the teens, haole, hapa haole music became popular—Hawaiʻian music written by white people. Like jazz age, Tin Pan Alley kind of stuff—[starts playing] they were using these Tin Pan Alley chord changes, but putting Hawaiʻian vocals in [demonstrates with funny, spur-of-the-moment lyrics]. At the turn of the century, also though, before that music came along, there were Hawaiʻans who were actually writing melody-based songs that were really quite beautiful; stuff like the Spanish fandango. So that’s where the music started, and then when in got into the 20’s, Charleston and Five Foot Two and all those. So it went through the ragtime, and the jazz age—that was its most popular. In fact, this is a Martin, a pre-1935 Martin [shows us his instrument], style “O”, which means it’s the least fancy—entry-level uke. Now about $700 for this, but back then it would be like five bucks. But a 5K style, with koa, is about $12,000 to $15,000, if it’s in pristine condition. [TYG exclamations] Martin is known for guitars, but actually in the 20’s, the ukulele saved the Martin guitar company from bankruptcy, because so many of them were sold because so many wanted to sing. It’s easy to carry around. That’s what it went through in the 20’s, then died out in the 30’s and 40’s, came back in the 50’s when Arthur Godfrey was selling the plastic ones on TV. This is just your basic history that you can find anywhere on the net, but about in the 90’s, it started coming back and now it’s probably the most popular stringed instrument in the world with clubs everywhere. So that was fortunate for me, because since I started teaching in 2005, 2006, it was starting to spike in popularity. Fortunately, I knew how to play it, and I had a unique perspective on the chords.

TYG: You hit in the rise—always a good thing to do.
Jim:
Yep! I bought low, and now it’s high!

TYG-GD: When you talk about clubs, what do you intend by that?
Jim:
Almost every little town, medium-sized town, and big city now has a ukulele club all over the world. It’s pretty amazing. In fact, the last time I lived here, about 2009, 2010, I started one in Newport, the Newport Ukulele Tune Strummers (NUTS), and they still meet on the second Wednesday of every month at the Red Lotus music store. Also one of the best camps in the world is outside of Lincoln City, called “Tunes in the Dunes.” It’s a three day camp every September out at Westwind, which is one of the most beautiful retreats on the Oregon Coast. So there are camps and retreats year-round.

TYG-GD: With various classes and stuff? And performances?
Jim:
Performances, and workshops.

TYG: So how did you come to Yachats originally?
Jim:
In a vehicle! [TYG muffled groan] My wife and I were escaping from San Francisco in spring of 1987. We bought a 1970 Ford Econoline van; we started driving north with all our stuff in it; we got to Yachats and thought, “Oh, that’s a nice little town” but we kept going, and we got to Newport and we said, “Oh my god! Wax museum! Ripley’s Believe It or Not! They have that in San Francisco! Turn around! Let’s go back to that other little town!” [laughter] Which we did. And that started a 30-year love affair with Yachats. We’ve moved away seven times, and moved back eight. And we spent a good part of that time—probably 20 years—here. And we’ll be spending this winter here also.

TYG: So I’m assuming you sing with your performances?
Jim:
Although I do play and sing, my primary mission in life is to get adult players to sing and play the instrument without looking at a book. Because that’s one of the downfalls of playing music. At clubs, adult beginners that come to this instrument, they’ll want to immediately learn to play and sing. And that’s pretty easy, because the chords are easy—you learn two chords, and you can play a billion songs. But the problem is that when you’re looking in a book, it ends up coming out very...

TYG: Regimented.
Jim:
Regimented. [plonks woodenly on his instrument] Up down, up down, up down.

TYG: No feeling.
Jim:
No feeling, because have you ever tried to read a book and watch a movie at the same time? You know how they say the book was better than the movie? Have you ever tried to read the book and watch the movie at the same time?

TYG: Not at the same time.
Jim:
See? It doesn’t work because you’re doing opposite things! And that’s like trying to play music while you’re reading a book. It doesn’t work. If you’re thinking about the song, and letting it come through that way, the emotion of the song can come out this little hole here, in the instrument. That’s where it’s supposed to come out. The emotion is supposed to come out of this little hole.

TYG: That’s interesting. The piano is a bit different. When you’re first learning you need to go through a book, because if it’s not coming out of your head, you basically need to read it on paper at first. But then once it comes out, I have the paper open long after I technically need it, but I keep it open to just look up in case I need a reminder about something, but most of the time I’m looking down at the keys.
Jim:
Well, there’s a little technique that I use that’s called looping, where you put the sound in your head over and over again, and then move on. [...] So see, this is my approach to getting people up and running quickly: listening to what’s happening and then playing, as opposed to getting their nose stuck in a book. 

TYG: This is just me, but one of the things I like to do to make things more lively is adding just a little bit of swing. Even if it’s totally classical.
Jim:
You better watch it, buddy. You’re pushing the beat, huh? [laughter] Friends don’t let friends clap on the one and the three—because the beat is usually on the two and the four. Right? [demonstrates the difference and ends with a flourish] I want to add one other thing: Over the next six months, while I’m living here, I want to maybe do some experimenting with getting together a small group of like-minded adults who might want to organize into some small ensemble; people interested in learning to play the ukulele, interested in playing in a small ensemble, arranging some tunes. Because that’s when it sounds really nice, is when you can get a few people together to play. It doesn’t take much to get up to speed—a few chords, and you can play the instrument. If anybody is interested, they can contact me.

TYG-GD: Did you also say you can give lessons?
Jim:
I also give lessons too.

TYG: It’s really and different from the piano. With the piano, if you don’t know how to do a whole range of stuff, often you can’t play a song. By range, I don’t mean just a few base chords and how to press a key. Piano is more of a slow burner, I think.
TYG-GD: Although I remember when Mrs. Treon was teaching you that she would let you kind of riff on only the black keys, or only the white keys [while she played]. And that was a nice way, as a beginner, to actually participate in a song. I thought that was a pretty cool technique there.
Jim:
Yes, she’s great. When I was first getting started, I was playing some of that “Five Foot Two,” “Ain’t She Sweet,” and those kind of tunes. And we actually did a little recital up in the PAC [Performing Arts Center, Newport OR], during the teachers’ thing—she backed me up on piano and I played ukulele, and it was a lot of fun. But it was sort of like the first validation that somebody would let the ukulele into the Performing Arts Center and play some tunes. She’s a good teacher.

TYG-GD: Do you know Dick Takei? Did you guys ever play together or hang out?
Jim:
No—I was only here about a year when we were living near them, on the south side of the river. I’ve known him, but he’s pretty much locked in to that Hawaiʻian genre, and he plays with another guy. And I travel a lot, too. I’m gone a lot. The last four years, my wife and I have been travelling in the United States and Canada in an Airstream trailer, because I was always gone.

TYG-GD: Why did you need to travel?
Jim:
Because I teach workshops all over the world.

TYG-GD: Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Jim:
Sure! In 2009, 2010, I started teaching at ukulele workshops and festivals, which were just starting to really come into their own. Now, it’s crazy how many there are, all over the world. I’ve been to Melbourne, Australia three times, teaching at the Melbourne Ukulele Festival. I just got invited to the Ukulele Festival of Scotland next year, to teach there. I’ve been to Canada a number of times, and all over the United States. Because of my traveling schedule, and missing my wife and cat, we decided to buy an Airstream trailer about four years ago, and we’ve been dragging that all around the country—from here to Southern California, to Nova Scotia, to the Florida Keys, and back—logging probably, I don’t know, 100,000 miles.

TYG-GD: What happens to your cat when you go to Melbourne?
Jim:
We put her with our in-laws. But yes, it’s that popular, and I have a whole series of DVD lessons called “Play Ukulele by Ear.”

TYG: Yes, I saw that on your website.
Jim:
I’m really the only one doing that in the field, so when they have people [at workshops] there will be an expert at 20’s and 30’s style strumming, and whatever. But my specialty is chord progressions, music theory, and learning to play by ear without a book. So I get a lot of work all over the place, and I’ve been making a living at it for six years.

TYG: Nice! What did you do before, in terms of jobs?
Jim:
Well, in the 90’s, when I was learning to play the banjo, I was a weed-puller here in Yachats and I also worked at some of the bed and breakfasts, like Sea Quest, and I did a lot of driftwood sculpture—benches and sidewalks, driftwood stuff. In fact, I built an arbor at Sea Quest in the 90’s, and a picture of it was featured in Sunset Magazine! Pretty exciting! That and a dollar got me a cup of coffee... [laughs] But when we came back in 2000—you know, you have to do whatever you can to live here. My wife worked at La Serre as a server, and I was a bartender there, and I also did landscaping and things like that for about five years while I was practicing. That was the good thing: I made enough money to practice and get to the point where I could do it full-time. [...]

TYG: Going back to the instrument: the ukulele is such a happy instrument. My style is more sort of deep, dark, sort of sad. Very minor.
Jim: [starts playing minor notes]


TYG: See, you can’t really get sad.
Jim:
Oh yeah, you can. [starts strumming and singing: “My baby left me... up the Yachats River Road...”] [laughter] B. B. King made his living doing that! But yeah, you can do anything with this, you really can. That’s why I love it. I’m learning some minstrel, banjo stuff from the 1850’s—original slave melodies that were brought over from Africa, just rhythmic stuff. [plays a sample]

TYG-GD: Where did you get that music from? How was it written down, and transmitted?
Jim:
That tune, “The Circus Jig,” is from the first five-string banjo instruction book from 1853, “The Briggs’ Banjo Instructor.” Briggs, the guy that put it together, lived in the South. A lot of those melodies were right from the Africans. That’s what I like about the ukulele, is that you can put anything you want onto it. You can make it happy, sad, any mood that you’re in.

TYG: One thing that I’ve observed is that you can’t go very low on it.
Jim:
No. [plucks] That’s as low as you can go: middle C. [...] That’s why you find other people to play with, like a cello or bass player. I have to go to the key of F to go below the root [demonstrates]—but it’s still middle C. I’m limited!

TYG: Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about?
Jim:
[...] I think the main point is that if people are interested in just learning about the instrument, I’ll be around for six months. And I would like to get something going, if anybody has even a passing interest in the instrument. [...] In my job, it’s not simply to just get up in front of a roomful of people and [play]. It’s to also empower them. The way to do that is to knock down their defenses with humor. Once you can do that, then the information gets in. But if they’re sitting there in fear, and fear is dominating: “I’m not good enough to do this.” “I can’t play the ukulele.” “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.” I can list hundreds of things that people could say to themselves on why they can’t do things. But you know, “Can’t” lives on “Won’t” Street. So empowering people to get rid of their fear, and just even listen... When you have fear, fear blocks your ears, then you can’t hear.

TYG-GD: Do you have a part-time job lined up, or are you just going to work on workshops, or what?
Jim:
Being self-employed is a full-time job. I set my own schedule, but I have a website to maintain. I do a lot of interviews with people when I go to festivals. I get to hang around with the best ukulele players in the world, so I take advantage of that by doing exactly what you’re doing, which is interviewing them—so I have over 150 interviews on my website with famous ukulele players and luthiers. I know how to use a camera, and I was a newsman for a while, so I have those interviewing skills. I’m very proud of what you’re doing too—I was over there at the library, and I went through the [TYG] archives. I’m very impressed!

TYG: Thank you so much!
Jim:
Oh, my pleasure. I really enjoyed it.

Jim D'Ville was very gracious and shared a clip with us of his ukulele playing: Spanish Fandango.

http://www.playukulelebyear.com



Tickets are now on sale for the 16th annual
Yachats Celtic Music Festival
Nov. 11 – 13 


Online tickets are available at
www.Brownpapertickets.com.

More than a dozen musical acts, a variety of workshops and presentations, Ceili and Morris dancing,  jam sessions, beer and whiskey tastings, plus a Celtic themed Mystery Game. Going to be a whale of a time!

Nov. 11-13 Yachats, Oregon
www.Yachatscelticmusicfestival.org

Facebook:  Yachats Celtic Music Festival

Tickets will be available locally at Yachats Mercantile  541-547-3060

Some of the performers at the 2016 festival are Chessboxer, The Fire, Biddy on the Bench, and Toad in the Hole. The entire roster and schedule are on the festival’s website at www.YachatsCelticMusicFestival.org, and on Facebook at Yachats Celtic Music
Festival

YCMF 2016 Ticket Options

$95.00 All Events Pass

Admittance to ALL Events during the festival. PLUS, the first 72 purchased include option to choose reserved seats for Friday and Saturday night shows. Must be same seats each evening. Does not reserve seats for Saturday daytime events.

Friday: $35.00 Friday Night Concerts

7:00 PM Yachats Commons Chessboxer, The Fire,  Biddy on the Bench

Saturday: $35.00 All Day Events 9 AM – 6 PM 

Events held at Little Log Church, Commons, or 501 Bldg. Concerts and workshops

$15.00 Saturday Single Day Event 

Entry to any individual daytime concert or workshop.

$35.00 Saturday Night Concerts

7:00 PM Chessboxer, Connla’s Well, Doodad Shanty Boys, Terry Trenholm

All Sunday Events FREE
All Festival Jams FREE 
No single act night concerts ticket option

Saturday, October 1, 2016

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 61, October 1 2016

 Click here to download a printable copy of Issue 61


Interview with W. John Moore


W. John Moore
TYG: So, how long have you lived in Yachats?
WJM:
We’ve been vacationing here for over ten years on a regular basis. We finally found a home early last year that we felt met our needs quite to a T, purchased it in June, and moved up in July. Love it up here.

TYG: Nice! So, what is your background professionally, and in government and organizational management?
WJM:
I’ve worked my entire life in the private sector; I sold real estate for a little while, then went into banking and residential lending. I did that for 15 years or so, plus or minus, then left that to set up my own company—a mortgage company with a specialized FHA product, and did that for about ten years until retirement. But it’s all been finance related. I haven’t been involved with any government agencies per se, but I’ve been involved with numerous non-profits. I’ve been president of several non-profits and other service organizations over the years.

TYG: What’s FHA?
WJM:
The Federal Housing Administration—a division of HUD, Housing and Urban Development. They’re federal agencies.

TYG: Alright, I just wasn’t sure. So, why do you want to be mayor?
WJM:
I get asked that a lot. You know, when we moved up to Yachats, I wanted to stay active and connected to the city. There are various ways to do that, but after looking around for six months, I started looking at the various city commissions and committees, and had some discussions with members of the Council. They suggested Parks and Commons, because so much that happens around Yachats goes through that commission. So they did approve me for membership on both Parks and Commons, and the Finance Committee. I’ve been involved in both capacities for most of this last year. Recently, several people have sat me down and said, “You know, we really think you need to run for office.” We didn’t have a lot of candidates at the time; there was one candidate for mayor, and it was unknown at that point how many candidates we were going to have for City Council. I looked closely at the two positions, and I thought, with my background, that the position of Mayor was a better fit for me than a member of the Council. I’ve chaired enough meetings, Lord knows. [laughs]

TYG: So what do you think are the most important local issues?
WJM:
Well, what I hear the most about is workforce housing. We have an awful lot of people who work part-time and full-time in Yachats, year ‘round, who live outside the city because there’s no place for them to find, either affordable or non-affordable, even. We have some people who are paid pretty well who can’t find any housing in the City of Yachats. That’s probably not an issue for the City to solve per se; I think that has to be done by local property owners. I have some ideas on that, and there are several business and property owners that I want to have a conversation with in the next month or two about that, picking their brain and seeing what thoughts they have. But I think the City can certainly be involved to the extent, where if zoning needs to be amended, if fees need to be looked at as an incentive to do that and create affordable housing here, then I think that’s appropriate to look at.

TYG: Do you support the bond measure for the new fire station?
WJM:
I do! It’s totally separate from the Council of course; it’s a separate fire district, but yes, I absolutely support that. You know, those are folks—fire and ambulance—if we need them, I want them there.

TYG: Do you support the proposed tax on recreational marijuana sales?
WJM:
I do! The way it was presented to the City Council was that it was their understanding that the State was going to tax it ... 20%? I may be wrong on the percentage. If the City wanted a share of that, up to 3%, they were entitled to do that as long as it was approved by the voters. It just makes sense to do that—I mean, why not.

Can I digress, and add more to an earlier answer?

TYG: Of course!
WJM:
Back to when you were asking me about governmental experience: The only thing I might add to that is, while I didn’t have any direct governmental experience, my father served 49 years in elected, non-partisan office. So there’s a little bit of that that got rubbed off. He spent 37 years as Humboldt County Clerk, and 12 years as mayor of Eureka, on the coast.

TYG: So what are your views about the downtown sidewalks issue?
WJM:
I would answer that the same way I’ve answered that with a lot of people: It’s been ingrained in me years ago that a prudent philosophy in business, in everything you do, is [to] start from where you are. Don’t go back and try and beat a dead horse, don’t do a what-if game; start with where you are. And where we are right now is starting the 101 Project, and it’s nothing I have any control over. I think a lot of that project is going to be very beneficial to people in Yachats, but I know it’s a hot button for a lot of people for various reasons, and I respect that. But we have it, it’s here—we just have to pay for it now.

TYG: What are your views about affordable housing and vacation rentals?
WJM:
Let’s take them one at a time! The Fisterra project was a darn good project for the City of Yachats. The Council has been approached by a non-profit organization on that topic. There is a proposed addition to Fisterra that’s going to address that in large measure. The bigger concern, I think, because it hasn’t been addressed, is work-force housing.

And the second part of that was vacation rentals. A huge portion of this city’s budget comes from our friendly tourists. They’re important to us economically. The combination of transient occupancy tax at our hotels, at the vacation rentals, and the Food and Beverage tax is a huge part of this city’s income. There are neighborhoods where vacation rentals receive more criticism than others, and aren’t maybe appropriate. The Council has heard a number of arguments along the lines, and I suspect we’re going to have more discussion in the coming couple of years about that. I don’t have a two word answer for you!

TYG: What do you think about the plan for a new health clinic in Yachats?
WJM:
I think it’s a darned good idea! I hope they can make it work. One of our concerns when we moved up here is a doctor! We got very, very lucky—we do have a doctor up in Waldport, and we’re grateful for that. But there are a lot of people in Yachats still on the waiting list, either in Florence, or Newport, or wherever. If a clinic can come in and make a go of it, and stay long-term: Hooray!

TYG: What do you think about the possible purchase of watershed property along the Yachats River?
WJM:
Well, protection of the watershed is an incredibly important issue, there’s no question about that. Final answer on whether we should do that or not may very well depend on affordability at the time, and I think that’s probably my bottom line on that. If we can afford it, I think it’s probably a good thing to do to protect the watershed, because that’s critical to all of us.

TYG: How do you think matters of the state and national politics will affect Yachats?
WJM:
Probably won’t.

TYG: What other changes or accomplishments would you like to pursue as Mayor? What is your vision of the future for Yachats?
WJM:
You know, I came into this without an agenda. There’s nothing, no burning issue in particular that’s driving me to do this. I want to be involved in the City, help in any way I can, and a lot of people—and I agree with them—think that I would be a good Mayor and good for the city in that regard. Take the projects as they come!

TYG: So, is there anything else you’d like to talk about?
WJM:
Just to say we love it up here! Not a day goes by that my wife and I don’t realize how grateful we are for finally moving up to Yachats. It’s a wonderful place to live.

TYG: Thank you so much for your time.
WJM:
Thank you, Allen.


Interview with Gerald Stanley

Gerald Stanley

TYG: So how long have you lived in Yachats?
GS:
I’ve lived in Yachats 12 years—12 years this last August.

TYG: So, what is your background professionally, and in government or organizational management?
GS:
In management? Well, my background is as pastor at two churches, both with a membership of around 4,000 people. I presently am the President of the Lincoln Community Health Center, which is the group that manages, oversees, 95% of the county’s health programs. In the interim, I also have experience as a shop steward in a union—I was elected shop steward. Not a lot of management there, but there were times, especially in presenting agreements to management. I’m missing something—I said I had five careers in my life... Well, I was Dean of a college, so that involved management too! I was coordinator of the hospital chaplains in downtown Seattle—all Christian denominations—so that was management there. I think that covers it.

TYG: Why do you want to be mayor?
GS:
Well, it was an idea that came up on me—I’m trying to think what happened first. I was reading an AARP magazine, which said, “How do you cope when you get older in life?” Actually, when I came here to Yachats, I was pushing 70 years old, and I was not well. I thought that I would not get out of the 70’s, so I made the decision to volunteer. My main interest is mental health, so that was the first thing. Through that, I got involved in other social services, outreach in the county. As it became clear that my health was getting totally better, I thought well, this might be an interesting thing to do. After checking with the Mayor and all the council members that none of them were going to run (we have a problem in this county, as elsewhere, in that people don’t run for things), I thought: “Well, why not?” Because I have lots of energy, and I have a background in facilitation of issues, and I have a great deal of satisfaction that comes from doing that kind of thing. I thought it sounded like an interesting thing to do, so I did it!

TYG: So what do you think are the most important, current, local issues?
GS:
I’m going to say two things—I’ve thought about this question before, because I knew it had to come. Let me say first of all—and this is in my experience, although it’s backed up in sociology—that any group that has a single leadership for a significant period of time (for instance, I was a pastor for nine years at one church), it is inevitable, right or wrong, when that period of time is over, that there are those who feel that they have been on the inside, and those who feel they were on the outside. It happened in my experience; it happens in any experience. So we’ve had a single city government here for eight years. That’s neither good nor bad, but it’s inevitable that there are people who feel they want to get back on board, or we hope they get back on board. I’m a good facilitator, and so number one is to facilitate and renew the energies of the town in a way that brings as many people back on board as possible. To do that, I have no political opinions about anything in the town, because it doesn’t fit the role of the facilitator. I used to, I do, but they’re not in the picture here. What’s in the picture on one issue is affordable housing and homelessness. I think the situation economically is so critical in the country, and so critical in Lincoln County and in Yachats to a certain extent, that I’m going to advocate for that. I hope, in the course, if I get elected Mayor, we’ll have some kind of a town summit here. We have wonderful leadership in profit people, non-profit people, and city people, that I think we could accomplish a great deal. Yachats already leads the county in what we’ve done for affordable housing. Not in homelessness yet, but in affordable housing.

TYG: Is it? I’m surprised!
GS:
In the George Bush’s tenure program to solve the issues of housing and homelessness, Yachats was the first town in Lincoln County to provide any new housing, and we have now built 40 new units, Fisterra and Aqua Vista, and there are plans afoot to build 40 more, which I hope will take root. So yes, we’ve really led the way in the county.

TYG: Interesting! So, do you support the new bond measure for the fire station?
GS:
Oh, I do very much. There would be no reason I wouldn’t. I think they know very much what they’re doing. There are some worries in the fact that they are so helpful in the town in so many different ways, that without them there, we’re going to feel a little lost. In the Visitor’s Center, where I volunteer, I have on a few occasions called on them when I’ve seen things like fights in front of the grocery store or around. I think we’re going to miss their presence in town. But I think their needs are very, very necessary to what they’re doing, and I fully support them.

TYG: I would think that even in their new location, you could call on them and they’d come down...
GS:
Well, you can call on them, but you can’t walk around the corner!

TYG: [laughs] Well, that’s true.
GS:
I have no doubt that their coverage will remain the same, and it won’t be hurt by [the move]. But we’ll miss them in downtown.

TYG: Do you support the proposed tax for recreational marijuana sales?
GS:
I do. I see no reason for not having the State give us 3%. Whether anybody ever opens a marijuana store in Yachats—I don’t know if that will happen. But certainly I support the 3%.

TYG: What are your views about the downtown sidewalks issue?
GS:
Well, you know, right now—and you go back to the earlier question—I’m now a person who wants to be a facilitator. So I have no position on that question.

TYG: What are your views about affordable housing and vacation rentals?
GS:
Oh, I think that’s a very important [issue]. When my statement in the county booklet comes out, I make quite clear that the highest priorities here are the ability to have our town [continue to] having a sense of being a town where neighbors have neighbors, and that we will continue to have young families with young children that began coming to us, in my judgment, after the housing crisis fell in 2008. Yachats has been transformed by its young families, and a good number of them are not of great wealth. Those are the two big things. I applaud—not that I’m part of this, but it’s just absolutely wonderful that folks buy houses here in order to retire in ten, twenty years, and they rent them while they’re here. I would hope that maybe some would rent them as long-term rental rather than vacation rental, because I’m a long-term renter, and I feel I contribute to the town. So I think that those are the high priorities. If a problem can be solved by checks and balances and by people working with each other, then I don’t see the need for the City to have a City answer to it. But all along the coast, in all the towns, they’re all struggling with the same issue—except for Depoe Bay, I guess. As far as I understand that it forbids all vacation rentals. I think that if we can work it all out, without having anybody put under any kind of forbidding activities, I think it’ll be great. But we really have to keep the low-income families and kids’ families here. It’s been noted that one of the biggest problems with vacation rentals is keeping track of who’s actually operating them and who’s stopped operating them. The opinion has been suggested that if you ever got all the information, you’d maybe find that Yachats hasn’t gained in vacation rentals in the last three or four years.

TYG: What do you think about the plan for a new health clinic in Yachats?
GS:
Oh! Being the president of the Lincoln Community Health Council, which is the one that manages the clinics and health centers, I’m very for it, of course. The original planning of the whole federally-qualified health centers, which came to its full size in 2006, from the very beginning realized that there was going to be need in south county. Staff, money, etc. At that time, by the way, the Yachats Health Clinic was still running. But it’s clearly a goal to have the Community Health Centers reach out to south county. With the coordinated care organization’s structure, health care in the state of Oregon, which we have here, it’s simply the fact that Samaritan and the county work totally together. We are helping one another and we’re both striving to reach out in every possible way. I consider the Waldport Samaritan clinic to cover all of south county, and I hope that our clinic will also, in its own way. 

TYG: What do you think about the possible purchase of watershed property along the Yachats River?
GS:
Oh, gee, I am not really financially adept at that level, although I’ve managed budgets. That’s a very complicated question, and worthy of a conversation with lots of people, because there are a lot of factors. There’s the factor of money, the factor of whether or not that property would help us in our water control, and I think there’s a lot there. I know we have experts to solve those issues.

TYG: Good, OK. So, how do you think current state and national politics will affect Yachats?
GS:
Well, let me start with what I said originally: the main issue is the economic crisis. So I just hope, without giving any names or anything, I just hope that we find ways to transform and repair our economic system, because we are just heading off the deep cliff right now. One story: I talked with a woman in the Visitor’s Center, very recently. She came from Canada. She sold her home, and now she’s homeless because she thought she’d find a cheaper home in the Vancouver area, and she’s homeless. I just think it’s the issue.

TYG: What other changes or accomplishments would you like to pursue as Mayor? What is your vision of the future of Yachats?
GS:
Well, that’s a great question, because as I’ve gone through this process of being interviewed, etc. etc., I’ve developed phrases that now become part of, if you will, the campaign. And the one is: Assessing the present, and planning the future. I hope that many, many, many citizens of Yachats—and when I say citizens, I don’t just mean people who can vote in Yachats; that’s important, in its own right. I mean people as far south as Ten Mile, people up the river, people who have lived here long before we even became a city, whose families have helped to develop and make this place what it is, all of us. I want people to get together and do that planning, listen to each other. It may take a long time, but it may be very, very productive.

TYG: So what is your vision for Yachats?
GS:
Well, that’s in the mind of the citizens! First of all, the City Council has to do all sorts of work, which is required and is needed, and you can’t have public meetings about those things. But I foresee, in the course of the future, as we develop a future plan, modeled and related to the City’s present mission statement, using that concept and developing, I think we can come up with general views of the future which would really cause a great deal of energy and vision. I see myself as doing my part in two short years of beginning to see that take place.

TYG: Alright! So, is there anything else you’d like to talk about?
GS:
Well you’ve had great questions! I think you’ve clarified my own mind in ways that are wonderful. I think that every time these things happen, my mind is clarified. No, I think you’ve asked the questions that, when the folks read this, I don’t know what more I will say when we have the public presentations between John Moore and me. In my mind, there are no competitors involved here. We’re two good people that the citizens of Yachats can choose from. To have a choice is wonderful because that will make the citizens more engaged in the decisions that they make.

TYG: Thank you so much for your time!
GS:
You are wonderful! This is fabulous! I think I can go away for a month! [laughter]