Give a Damn
My friend and favorite songwriter, Monica Pasqual, gave me permission to post this song here. Please listen to “Give A Damn” either before or after you read and close your eyes and take in what it means to “Give A Damn”.
I finally have a moment to let my mind roam free for a few thoughts amidst sips of the dark brew. Ahhh, java. I love the morning in a cup of kava. Holy hell in a handbasket.
My colleagues and I are enwrapped in a cloak of reform AKA “the education reform lunacy movement”. Political back room deals forced down our throats derailing public education. The worst of it? Ripping away the ticket to a better life for a lot of low-to-no income people. My best and favorite students are those who come from a tattered past looking for a lift in life. They know they have to work hard and they dig in to their education and learn wholeheartedly. Dina Ciraulo who teaches in the Cinema department wrote an eloquent piece about our students. Please check it out.
The “education reform lunacy movement” is one that both parties of the U.S. government align themselves with at every level. Truly it is nothing more than the insidious desire to imprison all students to massive debt to the very corporations that are behind the “reformation”. Interesting how the student loan industry shareholders have inserted their talons so deep that they are the administrators and the accrediting overseers, snarling at the educators who work day and night to keep the classroom alive and adventurous.
City College of San Francisco, in my view, is ground zero for the public, post-secondary, affordable education war. A huge fight lay ahead of us. Some of my colleagues want to lay low and not make waves and by doing so, I believe, they enable the powerful elite. But there is also a great number of us that will not let injustice prevail here. So, taking a deep breath and another sip, I realize that I’ve got my work cut out for me. But I’m healthy and strong. Indeed, the plan for my 50’s was to spend my days teaching and producing my creative works. I hadn’t intended on conjuring up my inner Mario Savio…
Thanks for thinking of me and checking in. How’s it going with you?
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About danaj33
I have been teaching in the Broadcast Electronic Media Art department at City College of San Francisco since 2001. I started teaching full-time in 2009 and am tenured.
My career as an audio engineer spans 32-years since the first day I began to record and mix songs on my Tascam PortaStudio (cassette 4-track) in the early 80's while attending college at UC Berkeley. I formed a couple of bands and sang lead (sometimes playing rhythm guitar) until 1988 when I discovered that the "behind-the-scenes" tech realm was much more to my liking. I love how an audio engineer controls the ENTIRE sound mix, and not just one's own instrument. I then began a career as a live sound engineer in earnest and have toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe as front-of-house sound engineer for a multitude of bands on various record labels (most notably "Medicine" on American Recordings) and have been a staff engineer at the venerable Bottom of the Hill nightclub since their inception in 1991 leaving a regular shift there in 2010 due to the teaching schedule. The club and its staff are like family.
I owned and operated a live sound production company since 1989 (ending officially in 2017) called dcj Productions that has provided sound to the Bay Area community (mostly in the non-profit sector) in both large outdoor sound events as well as nightclubs and music halls.
In 1991, I started recording bands on an 8-track Tascam TSR-8 analog tape recorder and moved into the digital realm in 1993 to 16-tracks of Alesis ADAT connected to a Soundcraft Ghost console in my home studio.
In 1995, I advanced to Pro Tools and have been recording exclusively digital ever since, combining audio skills in sound for film as a location recordist as well as an engineer in post-production sound design and mixing. I remained "strictly analog" in my live sound mixing until just this past year (2012). Now that one can obtain a decent, live sound digital mixer at an affordable price, it was high time to check out digital for live. I now have a Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2 to work on with my students to give them much needed hands-on experience with a digital console.
I co-owned and ran APG Records & APG Studios, an SF record label and recording studio, from 1999 - 2004 which had a distribution deal through EMI. The company folded in 2004. I continue to record music and engineer live performances at many Bay Area venues in addition to full-time teaching at CCSF.
In 2001, I was hired to the part-time faculty at City College of San Francisco in the Broadcast Electronics Media Arts department where I have taught many of the classes including Digital Media Skills (BCST119), Basic Audio Production (BCST120), Digital Audio Production (BCST124), Sound Recording Studio (BCST125), Sound For Visual Media (BCST126), Advanced Sound Recording (BCST127), Sound Reinforcement (BCST128), Audio for the Web (BCST135), Video for the Web (BCST136), and Field Video Production (BCST141). I have also taught classes in sound design, audio for animation and games, music video, and computer applications at Art Institute of California-San Francisco, Globe Recording Institute, and Laney College in Oakland, CA.
Outside Affiliations:
- Co-Director of SoundGirls
- current member of Audio Engineering Society and on the SF Chapter Planning
Committee
- past Vice President and Interim President Board of Directors -
Bay Area Girls Rock Camp
- past volunteer/contributor to Women's Audio Mission
- past member Bay Area Women in Media and Film
- past Board of Directors for Camp Reel Stories
