HEY, FRANK! I’m adding this note to you ’cause I’m imagining you might give it a glance on Monday (January 31, 2011). You might want to only (briefly) review Education, Select Teaching and Working Experience and Great Influences in My Life, if anything at all. So much of everything else here is so very dated, so embarrassing in some instances.

UPDATED NOTE (7/23/10): Each entry here was written for a specific audience, a particular purpose. Without proper context pieces can be puzzling, off-putting. Ideally, readers should avoid anything not recommended to them directly. Much of what’s below is from another world, other lifetimes. At present, to take the family’s next steps… we look forward to connecting with Paola Igliori and others in Europe and North Africa… where — in spite of the many downsides there — there exists some possibility of dealing with the Paving Over of Paradise Syndrome which Joni sang about so long ago. Some small temporary shot at a sense of community, sanity and beauty in daily heartbeats. That said, we linger in the U.S. trying to encourage others to awake and sing, to DO something about — for want of a better expression — our horrid momentum… from which none of us will escape otherwise. On 8/22/10 my family will host a local gathering to address the threat of PG&E’s “Smart Meters.” But as the entry at http://oxtogrind.org/archive/719 indicates, the agenda must be… more ambitious.

Ricardo Bueyhombre playing for change….
1713 Jennifer Drive
in the Vienna Woods of Aptos, CA 95003
You can call at any hour 831-688-8038
aptosnews@gmail.com, tosca.2010@yahoo.com and impelus@gmail.com [If you don't hear back from me within 24 hours, something's amiss. Try again.]

I will give out additional personal information upon request, but the best short introduction to what my family is all about is in the next paragraph… coupled with www.sosylvie.typepad.com and the archived sites for our former overseas businesses (which you will come across in my bio below). Daughter Noelle (39) and son Aja (26) contribute singular dimensions, coloring.

Our “Marcello” (10) provides, I believe, a great family introduction at www.marcelsgeo.blogspot.com. His http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM-Hdn7h7tU#GU5U2spHI_4 shows one of his home schooling segments at Stanford University, preparing for the arrival of Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate in Literature, Wole Soyinka… when he was only six-years-old! Shortly after the footage was taken, Marcel (www.marcelsgeo.blogspot.com) and I were escorted off of the campus… for speaking out against Bechtel’s privatization of Bolivian water in front of the Bechtel International Center of Stanford. So much for so-called higher education. [There is a much more powerful, uncut version available upon request.] Many such experiences have moved me and the family to support the spirit of http://anti-politics.net/school/.

Latest personal important questions: Did electromagnetic pollution contribute to my partner Sylvie’s breast cancer, to http://www.flickr.com/photos/sosylvie/2681555312/in/set-72057594141716 872/ ? If you’re merely glancing at my bio, I want you to know that my greatest interest at present is to engage in focused dialogue with concerned citizens about such matters… as they relate to larger societal issues*.

*The range of means employed covers the spectrum from what’s being attempted with TOSCA (an effort to create a watershed in history vis-a-vis alternative gubernatorial politics) to submitting my (activist) theatre piece, Millay Song Against the Day (based on my experience with the great activist/poet). Oh yes, and through talk with every stranger I meet. I’m very into contributing to a sense of community, solidarity and daily spontaneous joy.

Education:

1960/61 Founded Patrice Lumumba Justice Club under the auspices of members of the Mouvement National Congolais, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Private study with Felix Pollak, poet.

1962 Creative Writing study with Wendell Berry, New York City

1963 Private instruction with Bernard Grebanier, Brooklyn College, NYC, studying
Shakespeare and Playwriting.

1964 B.A. in Dramatic Art and Speech, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey

1965 M.A. in Speech and Theatre, Teachers College, Columbia University, NYC.

60s-70s Doctoral work in Educational Theatre+ at Columbia University and New
York University. All course work completed for Ed.D., including individual
study with Shakespearean scholar John McCabe (Shakespeare, Laurel and
Hardy, and biography)

1989 Royal Society of the Arts/Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults equivalent training, St. Giles College, San Francisco/UK+.

Select Teaching & Work Experience:

1989-2009 Director of businesses whose primary purpose has been to help others to self-educate overseas+. See archived sites: http://www.nativeitaly.org//about-us.html, www.cancerfreeitaly.com, www.parisgraves.com, www.frenchpaintbox.com*, www.useutravel.blogspot.com, and www.ctravelc.blogspot.com. Our latest project www.nativeitaly.org is unlikely to be fully active (the site is not currently completed) until we can definitively identify toxic hot spots on the Italian peninsula. All of this has included ESL work, and writing articles (500+) on current events/cultural topics worldwide. Playwriting instruction the last five years, all levels, virtually all ages. Involved in Campaign to Free Leonard Peltier in late 2000.

*An example of a lucrative business which we put an end to, in part, because of environmental concerns related to encouraging regular air travel overseas.

Early 90s Director of Wyland Art Galleries, Maui, Hawaii. Record sales for twenty-six galleries which still stands. Theatre Arts Director for Hawaii Players (separate children and adult groups).

1988-1990 St. Giles College/John Adams Community College, San Francisco, CA.
I prepared immigrants for the TOEFL SAT and GRE exams. In addition, my responsibilities included the placement of students in host homes.

1986-88 TESOL Director for International Education Research and Analysis Corporation in Osaka, Japan. Also, I directed plays for cultural outreach programs throughout Japan, and taught playwriting.

1984-86 Investigative Journalist for The Russian River News and The Paper of West Sonoma County in Guerneville/Forestville, California. Worked with Stephen Pizzo around the time he researched for his Inside Job: The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans, which was nominated for a Pulitzer.

Early 80s Fundraiser for Massachusetts Fair Share. Community Organizer.

70s/80s Taxi Driving, NYC, encounters with Adrienne Rich, Ridley Scott, et. al. Met Peter Brook while raising funds for Teatro Campesino transition/productions. McGraw-Hill Publishing, Newsletters. Bookie for sporting events.

Late 70s Research Project in the Caribbean on the British Slave Trade+. Witnessed
widespread protests against repression of Haiti’s press, and severe violence.

February 25, 1967: Memorial Service in Princeton for J. Robert Oppenheimer with Francis Fergusson.

1964-74 Professor of Theatre, Cinema History, and Comparative Literature Rutgers - The State University of New Jersey, Bronx Community College, Long Island University, Seton Hall University, and New York Institute of Technology, among others. I also taught Creative Writing, and was involved in educational outreach in connection with The Parkway Playhouse (Burnsville, North Carolina) and The Paper Mill Playhouse (NJ). Special studies under the auspices of Dario Fo and Franca Rame in Italy attempted; failed, but much learned in the process overseas. McGraw-Hill Pulblishing stint. Boxing articles for Ring Magazine’s Nat Fleischer in NYC. Construction work on Long Island.

Late 50s Hitchhiked, as teenager, from NJ to CA (RT), and from NJ to GA (RT). Day laborer during travels on farms and in railroad yards. Illegal postal worker.

1950s Co-writer/performer with L.Russell Brown, Fury Records+, Harlem, NY.

1952 Worked during long stay at Kid Gavilan’s training camp in Pennsylvania. Witnessed first bout between white and black man in segregated Miami, Florida.

Great Influences/Moments in My Life:

http://oxtogrind.org/archive/402 will explain a lot. Most of the seeds planted by my relatives — via their contacts — did not blossom until very late, but I smell the flowers now 24×8.

1942 The “R” which begins my name is selected for Richard… Richard Brinsley Sheridan (whose radical politics my parents never stopped talking about)… and the mysterious “Uncle Raphael” (”who died from overstudy“). Uncle Max translates parts of two new works by Camus for the family, arguably the biggest influence on us all for a long time.

1945-46 My mom “introduces” me to David Dellinger during her work time at Direct Action, WRL, IWW and the Collier Printing Company… when I am only three-years-old. The vibes resonate… and stick.

September, 1949 Experience of Paul Robeson concert/riots Peekskill, NY. Uncle Max reads the text of a talk delivered by Linus Pauling (at the Western Continental Congress for Peace in Mexico City) to the whole family. It is discussed for almost a month.

September, 1950 Private Meeting with Edna St. Vincent Millay Austerlitz, NY
Contact with Robert Fitzgerald and Flannery O’Connor Redding, CT

1955 Meeting with Raphael Lemkin at Rutgers University-Newark Law School (“Don’t ever give up!”).

1957 Recorded with L. Russell Brown/Fury Records Harlem, NY

Summer, 1961 Visits with Flannery O’ Connor Milledgeville, GA

1961-67 Mentored by George Weber, Lester Moore and members of The Royal Shakespeare Co. Contact with Alan Schneider and Samuel Beckett on set of Film; viewed Buster Keaton films with them at Museum of Modern Art, NYC. Interaction with members of La Mama, Theatre Genesis, and the in-crowd at Small’s Paradise, including James Baldwin. William Golding lecture on Lord of the Flies at Johns Hopkins University. Patricia Highsmith… Philip Larkin in Hull. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead opening (NYC).

July 12-17, 1967 Survived destruction of my birthplace Newark, NJ. Witnessed Whites I grew up with (who had become police officers) killing Blacks… as tanks rolled through the city.

60s/70s Encounters with Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, I.F. Stone, Robert Bolt and Paul Scofield et. al. at the ANTA opening of A Man for All Seasons, 1st Chomsky read! CA+/UK. Altamont!

Late 60s/early 70s Mentor contact with Tennessee Williams. I learn the full truth about Fred Hampton’s death. Unmentionable involvement in campus anti-war protests.

January, 1976, attending Paul Robeson’s funeral at Mother AME Zion Church introduces me to many important people in my life (Low-profile people who have a greater influence on me than most of the famous individuals mentioned here.). May, witness to repression/riots+ in Hispaniola.

1986 Moviemaking/Interview with Francis Ford Coppola, California

1988 Time with Andy Goldsworthy Boston, MA/Japan

July, 1988 Companion to Emil White* Big Sur, CA

*Emil was a longtime intimate friend of Henry Miller’s

1990s Observation of/Aftermath of Gulf War Iraq+
Fund raising for Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigeria

2002 Rendezvous with Morroco’s Landscape Gardener Eric Ossart at Cordes-sur-Ciel, France.

2003-2004 Produced One Dance: The People’s Summit Santa Cruz, CA
See http://www.counterpunch.org/mickey02102004.html This Ralph Nader-inspired event, organized for over a full year at a 24×8 pace, was arguably the biggest cultural/political happening in the history of Santa Cruz, California (well-known for such gatherings), and was accomplished with virtually no experience and… less of a budget. Mickey Z, our MC, dedicated his The Seven Deadly Spins: Exposing the Lies Behind War Propaganda to me and Sylvie. Met Iris Chang, San Jose, CA/ Began reading Derrick Jensen and Ward Churchill. Mitch Hedberg rendezvous.

2007-2008 Interior Design/Vintage Furnishings business Los Gatos, CA. Life-changing encounters with people from Nord-Kivu and Tshopo, Congo.

2009- Work 24×8 on TOSCA with the imprimaturs of high profile figures worldwide listed at http://oxtogrind.org/archive/556.

2010 - Highly disappointing encounters with United Farm Workers, professionals (’cross the board) in Salinas, California, protesters on the University of California campuses, members of Black Barbershops, and citizens on hundreds of other fronts… in an effort to move in solidarity following a new paradigm. On the positive side, there is always another lead to follow up on. Another communal seed to plant in this atomized environment. Perhaps something grottoesque. UPDATE: The Grotto in San Francisco, along with — it seems — a hundred other organizations/individuals in April, led… worse than nowhere. But I won’t give up any more than Raphael Lemkin did. For an overview of the frustration, the depth of the challenge… see the P.S. at the bottom of http://oxtogrind.org/archive/598. Contact today (5/15/10) with Cindy Sage has given me great hope, for if I can hook up with her respecting EMF issues many other large societal issues can be addressed simultaneously. I eagerly await her response to my email. I am also considering joining hands with a sweet local soul, Ed Frey, in his bid to shock the state with an impossible victory over horrid Congressman Sam Farr… who suffers from George W. Obama Syndrome. [Pause.] Lots of lost water under the activist bridge since 5/15; it’s now 6/26… and the current runs very thin. There is a trickle with potential, but that may be enough. I now wait for a number of responses, the most promising of which I imagine is the Radical Women-L.A. group (and their Bay Area sisters), associated with the Freedom Socialist Party. 7/9/10 Update: So so much water under the bridge now. The trial judging Oscar Grant’s killer as something less than a killer yesterday… what can I say? I wrote http://oxtogrind.org/archive/673, and immediately kicked into hyper gear. Now I wait again… to hear from Wanda Grant or Jim Brown (and his Amer-i-can Program) or any one of the oh so many people I’ve attempted contact with who could help me transform our collective horror. [Pause.] To rest for the moment, I must hit the rocks.

When all the fun and games and debate end… we are left with one thing only: ONE LOVE.