Oceans & flamenco

Juanito warming up at AvantSpace, San Rafael

Friday evening found us at AvantSpace, a gorgeous new co-working space in San Rafael, for a benefit concert on behalf of Ocean Conservation Research, which studies the impact of human-generated noise on marine life. The entertainment was provided by our good friend Juanito Pascual, an extraordinary flamenco guitarist.  

We met Juanito in Maine more than a decade ago through a theater connection, and he and his wife have been stopping by our house in Maine every summer since. He's moved from Boston to California to Minnesota (I may have missed a few places) but we have stayed in touch. He's one of those people. We went to Cuba with him and a large group of his friends this past January to attend the Havana Jazz Festival and mingle with all the musicians - a life-changing experience.

Juanito, Michael Stocker, Kate, Mike

How extraordinary that our musician friend from Maine, who lives in Minnesota, should show up in San Rafael on behalf of this marine conservation organization that we were hoping to connect with! Turns out that Juanito is also friends with Michael Stocker, OCR's executive director. As I said, Juanito is one of those people.

Brian Baird, Mike

Mike connected with old friends from the Bay Area, too. As soon as we walked in the door, a friendly fellow walked up and said, "You're Mike Herz and you look exactly the same as 30 years ago!" Which is true. This turned out to be Brian Baird, who has held a number of key positions in ocean policy at the state and national level. He later sent along a TV clip of the two of them, back in 1989, being interviewed by KQED on the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Unfortunately it's too large to upload here.

Anyway, here's Brian and Mike. Mike is thinking of getting a haircut one of these days but I've counseled him not to do anything rash, now that he's a boat person again.