It’s NOT the urban setting of a bohemian cityscape, but the Tri-Cities has a creative class that influences naturally. Many of these people are friends and they make my our mountain home even more vibrant with their talents and extraordinary character.
This morning, I had a cup of coffee with Nancy Shilling. She’s a lifelong friend that entered my life during marriage counseling back in the 80s. (oh so many years ago). We so enjoy talking with each other that every so often we still get together and talk about life adventures and all the things that it make it so special. She would still like to see me balanced in a relationship, but that’s not on the horizon…now.
We talked about her recent trip to Washington, DC where she attended a Noetic Sciences convention, several seminars and a session with one of her favorite teachers, Dee Pak Chopra.
After that, I decided to take my time and stop by my favorite Johnson City locations for a easy-going Saturday morning adventure.
The new server is running now at Woodoak so I needed a surge protector and a couple of USB chords. On the way home, I stopped by Best Buy and ran into a young man who noticed my amusement over the new color printers. I was gabbing about how prices have gone down (“I remember when”) and I’m thinking of clearing out all my old Mac SCSI scanners and printers and moving completely to USB devices.
Randy West is a photographer for Marquee Magazine and works with Tom Raymond at Fresh Air Studios in Johnson City. He also works at Best Buy on the weekends selling printers.
As far as I’m concerned, Raymond’s staff shoot some of the best photography in the region. I remembered Randy from a press conference several years ago when Pal’s Sudden Service won the prestigious Malcom Baldridge Award.
Randy is a great photographer and he showed me some of the new photos he took for Virginia Ground. He took them at the train station in Bristol and the guys looked better than ever. John McGlocklin has lost a lot of pounds and the other guys looked better than ever. They really are a unique musical act for the Tri-Cities and it will be very interesting to continue and watch them grow in popularlity.
We talked tech talk for a long time in front of the printers and hopefully will meet again. His stories about Copenhagen and a Nikon 5700 training trip were interesting and he seems to love his work. Take one look at Marquee and you’ll see Randy’s work. Impressive Stuff!
Thank goodness, I didn’t buy a printer. I wanted one and he made it look like the ultimate device for my home office, but I stayed focused on the cords.
I stopped at Chik-Fila before heading back to the house. Their chicken sandwiches are the perfect mid-day snack and I was eager to get back into Godin’s Book ‘All Marketers Are Liars.’ While standing in line, I recognized Jose Castillo.
Jose is a creative resident of Johnson City who comes from a great Mexican heritage. His mother (from Philly) was accepted at Quillen Dishner School of Medicine and graduated from med-school. Tragically, she was to die only six months later. Jose was obviously proud of his mother and inspired by her ambition. He describes his paternal side of the family as a group of creative artisans, painters and authors and it’s easy to see how this combination forged another talented soul like Jose.
Jose is working with Ntara now and traveling around the country selling media projects to Fortune 500 companies. He recognized the Seth Godin book and we we began to talk about the bald-headed marketing guru that inspired us both. That conversation led to lots of other great stories about business and our region.
We talked about music too. Castillo is a talented conga player that sits in with the Bill Perkins group from time to time. He was drum major at Science Hill High School and you can tell he loves his music. It shows when he plays too. He’s got lots of soul and brings to the music a pulse and rhythm that few drummers ever attain playing a regular kit.
I hope to see Castillo again. Better yet, it would be great to play some music with him someday. What intrigued me though as I drove back to my little Tennessee abode is the realization that there are number of creative and inspiring artisans and thinkers in the area. Perhaps we don’t publicize it as a vogue bohemian culture, but there is truly a base of thinkers that influence life in many ways here in the mountains and that’s another reason why I like to call it home.