Success through story and song...

"MJC helped me take my distractions and channel them through school. You have to learn the discipline before you can focus on what you are really interested in."

John has always been a good student. However, he found himself easily distracted from his studies by his love of music, spending time as a drummer for the band "Hetch Hetchy" while attending Grace Davis High School. He enrolled at MJC in spring of 2004, leaving to spend a year in Portland attending another community college, before returning here to complete his Associate degree in transfer studies.

MJC provided John with a way to direct his natural curiosity and blend his passion for poetry, mythology and music. This challenge continues to provide a rewarding journey for him. He is now working on his baccalaureate degree in literature at University of California, Santa Cruz, with a creative writing concentration, and is considering schools for graduate studies.

A guitar player and poet, it is intriguing to find that two of John's favorite classes at MJC were argumentation with Speech Professor Allan McKissick and astronomy with Dr. Bill Luebke. "Religious texts coincide with the stars, so I find astronomy fascinating, and what I liked about argumentation was the obligation of supporting an idea with sound logic." He also found that Dr. Theron Westrope's literature courses helped him approach reading in a more critical way and enhanced his perspectives.

John, a fan of mythology, likes to explore the similarities between storytelling and songwriting. He grew up around the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell and listening to solo folk revival musicians like Sufjan Stevens. So it is no surprise that John has done some storytelling of his own through the songs he wrote and recorded on his album Staying the Night in Clearwater. "I had a friend who passed away suddenly in 2004, and this project was therapeutic. Reassurance is delivered from the unknown when we take the time to turn human experience into something tangible."
While attending MJC, John performed in Shakespeare Night and at the Prospect Theatre in Hard Traveling about the life of Woody Guthrie. He also played at MJC's Hurricane Katrina Benefit Concert and for a concert for a fellow musician suffering from a terminal illness, and admits that the experience of performing for a good cause before an appreciative audience is hard to beat.

Besides guitar playing and folk singing, John's pastimes include reading, writing poetry, and running. He also attends concerts, his most memorable ones being John Fogerty, Bob Dylan, and Green Day, and more recently enjoying concerts by Bad Religion, Jackie Greene and Michael Franti, and at the Strawberry Music Festival, the Warped Tour, and Power to the Peaceful Festival in San Francisco.

Seeking inspiration, John once wrote to activist and musician Pete Seeger. "He wrote back saying, ‘Don't stop writing. Travel around, but then plant yourself somewhere and grow'." In addition to this piece of advice, John says he has also learned the importance of sometimes postponing pleasure in order to get things accomplished, or at least practice the art of balancing the two. "I'm a meditative person and like spending time in reflection, but after the ecstasy there is always the laundry."