January News

From Gene Burnett

Well, the Winter weather is really coming on strong this year…at least strong for Southern Oregon. Temps have been consistently lower than in recent years and there’s a big snowstorm coming as of this writing. I’ve been teaching outdoors all year round for many years so I’m no stranger to strong weather. I layer up, get out the glove and sock liners, and keep moving. I figure if the worst you can say about your day is that your fingers and toes got cold, you’re doing pretty well. I might have a few “All Weather T’ai-Chi” videos next month.

I guess this bears repeating: My new album “Love & Heartache” is finally up on my site. It is also available at CD Baby and will be available at other e-retailers of music soon, if it isn’t already. Here’s a link to the album page at my site: L & H If you click on this link, you’ll get a player that will play the album for you. If you’d like to download any of the songs free, there’s a link to do that on the page as well. There’s also a digital tip jar.

I posted a bunch of new videos this month: 19 Music videos! (18 sky videos for all of the songs on “Love & Heartache” plus one from our local Winter Solstice Interfaith Ceremony), 3 Rogue Poetry Slam videos, and one T’ai-Chi video. See links below in the Videos section of this post.

So here we go…I’m going to start with local shows in case you’re in the Rogue Valley and then proceed with the usual information about where to find my music, videos, and pictures, including information about new projects.

There is so much to listen to and watch on the net these days…I’m amazed anyone even gets this far in the newsletter let alone watches or listens to anything I’m doing. I’m sincerely grateful for every view, every listen, and every nice comment I receive. I’m happy if anything I post truly reaches even one person. I’m offering all this stuff in a “just in case you’re interested” spirit.

Upcoming Shows:

Monday January 2^nd, I'll be playing at one of my favorite Ashland venues, Liquid Assets. A relaxed living room vibe with great service, excellent food and wine, and a really nice place to listen to music. I play from 7-9pm

Wednesday January 4^th, I'll be hosting my regular Themed Open Mike at The Wild Goose Café & Bar. Usually this happens on the First Wednesday of every month. This month's theme will be“Dreams & Wishes”,  so musicians and spoken word artists will be doing songs and poems, covers or originals, that are about or mention dreams or wishes in any way. We're never too strict or narrow about the themes for this event. The main idea is to focus our attention a little to hopefully inspire and motivate us creatively. These are always fun community events. No Cover at the friendliest bar in Ashland. Sign-up is 7:30pm. Show starts at 8:00pm.
*A heads up for next month: Wednesday, February 1^st, 2017: “6^th Annual~Love Songs”

Tuesday, January 17^th, I'll be competing with many other poets at the Rogue Poetry Slam which happens at Caldera Tap House in Ashland. Sign-up is at 7:30pm and the show starts at 8. $5 cover, all of which goes to the winning poets. If you've never been to or competed in a Poetry Slam, I highly recommend this one. Come to watch, compete, or be one of the judges. Some people think of slams as hardcore hip-hop events or places where people are mean and talk trash, but nothing could be further from the truth. All kinds of poetry are welcome and people are very supportive. And it's so nice to participate in an event that is all about the words, or in my case, lyrics. For me it's really not about winning or losing, but just the fun of sharing my words with people and seeing what happens.

Saturday, January 21^st, from 10am-Noon, my good friend Jesse Biesanz and I are hosting a Hacky Sack session at the Band Shell in Lithia Park. This will happen on the third Saturday of every month. We both miss the fun and camaraderie of a good friendly Hack Circle and…more importantly, we miss the practice! It’s fun, aerobic, cooperative, demands balance, coordination, quick thinking and accuracy…So whether you’re new to the game, or an experienced player who wants to brush up your skills, or an expert who just wants to meet some new players, come on by. Hacky Sack basically involves keeping a small footbag in the air, usually leather and fairly soft, using only your feet. When there are more than two players, it’s usually played in a circle. If the circle gets too big, it is split into smaller circles.

The only rules of this Hack Circle:

1. You’ve got to use your feet to keep the sack in the air and off the ground. No hands! (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

2. If you miss or otherwise screw up, you can’t say, “I’m Sorry.” (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

3. No serving to yourself. (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

4. No hotdogging. Meaning this is not about how many tricks you can do before the sack hits the ground, and it’s not about working obsessively on tricks. Tricks are fine but in general, we want to keep the hack going as a friendly group and keep everyone involved.

See you at the bandshell, rain or shine. The shell provides shelter from the rain and once a circle gets going, you’ll be plenty warm.

Monday, January 23^rd, I'll be playing at The Wild Goose Café & Bar. Just me solo from 8-11pm. Friendliest bar in Ashland. Never a cover at The Goose.

For more info about these and all of my shows, and to confirm that there have been no cancellations, click here: Calendar  

Since I'm putting this newsletter out once a month, it's possible there may be a cancellation of a given show by the time it happens. Please double check with my web calendar if possible to be sure the gig is still happening. I'd hate to have you come out for nothing. Also another gig or two might be added or times or locations might change, so do check the calendar for the latest info.  

Recorded Music

All of my over 30 albums are available for downloading free or with a donation at my website: www.GeneBurnett.com

Videos In General

Overall Mission: I post a lot of videos on youtube, over 1000 so far! I'm not trying to build a fan base...In fact, I'm not trying to build anything. I'm not expecting you or anyone else to follow what I'm doing or watch all of these videos. Posting videos is just part of my overall plan to make my music (and my T’ai-Chi and Nature videos too) as freely available as possible and see what freely comes back. I think of each video as sort of like a message in a bottle...and more I toss out there the more likely one of them will land on a friendly shore and something good will come back to me. So here are some video links in case you're interested:

How to Find My Videos: First of all, I've set up a "Videos" page on my website (www.GeneBurnett.com) with a menu similar to what you see below as well as a digital tip jar in case any of you want to contribute to my cottage industry. Every little bit helps and not just financially. 

I've also set up some blogs that make navigating and viewing my various videos much easier. You can go to any of these blogs and see thumbnails for all of the videos posted there. Scroll across the thumbnails and you will see the titles of each video. Click on it and a page will open that will let you watch the video right there without going to youtube. My latest videos are always in the upper left hand corner.

To see all of my Music videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Videos

To see all of my T'ai-Chi videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Movement

To see all of my Nature videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Nature

For a quick and easy way to sort through, listen to, or download all of my albums free or with a donation, click here: The Unforced Music

To see my regular blog “The Unforced Life”, click here: The Unforced Life

To visit my youtube channel and possibly subscribe, click here: My Youtube Channel

To see all of my youtube playlists click here: My Youtube Playlists 




New Videos

20 new Music videos:

"Love & Heartache" Youtube Playlist With All 18 Songs

Bodies Of Water (Interfaith Solstice Ceremony) 

Christmas Apartment Tour (Bridge Over Troubled Water) 

One new T’ai-Chi video:

Energetic Reset 4: T'ai-Chi Palm Balls

Three New Rogue Poetry Slam Videos:

Holy Fuckin' Shit It's Chrismas (Rogue Poerty Slam Version)

Let's Put The Ass Back In Christmas (Rogue Poerty Slam Version)
Rescue Dog (Rogue Poerty Slam Version)

Pictures


I've stopped posting as many pictures on facebook, (for many reasons), and started posting them instead on Flickr, which I like much better.

Here's a link to my "home page" at Flicker: Photostream.

I have many photo galleries there but a few of my favorites are:

Small Miracles (mostly Nature related stuff)

The Dish Whisperer (I started posting a daily picture of my dish stacking work over a year ago. I recently crossed the 1800 straight days mark. I have no idea how long I’ll keep doing this. I’m so used to it, it hardly takes any effort at all to continue. I made a video for my song “I'll Do The Dishes Tonight” that featured a slideshow of the first year. I made it through my second year recently, and hope to create another video slideshow set to another of my songs. Stay tuned…)

"Head" and "Boot" (devoted to our two gerbils)

"Humor" 

"Me Playing Music"

Bathroom Pond Mural

Weird Book Covers

Trippy Clouds


Website

I continue to offer all of my albums for downloading, free or with a donation at my website: www.GeneBurnett.com I started doing this about 8 or 9 years ago and considered it a 5 year creative experiment. Well the 5 years passed and I decided to start calling it my "ongoing creative experiment" as I have no plans to stop. Since I returned to my folk roots and stopped climbing, or trying to climb, the industry ladder, I've been enjoying music in my life more than ever before. And enjoyment, rather than achievement or worldly success has always been dearest to my heart anyway. So now I focus totally on what I love most: writing, recording, performing and sharing what I create. If other people like it, so much the better, but getting other people to like me or what I do is no longer my goal or focus. I'm out to please myself first. I want to do my music exactly the way I want to do it and see who likes it that way, not figure out what people will like and try to do it that way. I put it out there freely and see what comes freely back. So far so good. I've never had more success and appreciation than I have since I started doing it this. Go figure. 

Thanks, as usual, for your support and well wishes even if you don't make to any shows.

GB

www.GeneBurnett.com

My 2016

Looking back…

When I look back on 2016, I think of it as a pretty difficult and stressful year, with some real highs and lows on the emotional home front as well as in the political world…but I did manage to do the following things:

1. I quit caffeine completely…love it…never going back

2. I changed my diet…more veggies…much less grains…much less salty and sugary fatty foods

3. I lost 10-15 pounds…from the 175-180 range to a steady 165 or less

4. I significantly increased my strength without injuring myself or sacrificing form, looseness or flexibility. This was because I took it slowly and carefully and never pushed or strained myself too hard. Got up to 5 smooth and complete pull-ups

5. I consolidated switching my sleep pattern from 3-4 hours at night and 3-4 hours during the day back to getting most of my sleep at night

6. In the late summer I started riding my bike on a 20+ minute mostly uphill ride several times a week on my way home from teaching in the park and did it over 70 times before the year was through

7. I created a Freestyle T’ai-Chi workout and incorporated it into my regular practice

8. I wrote and recorded 18 new songs for a new album called “Love & Heartache”, the 33^rd album posted on my site

9. I hosted 12 successful Themed Open Mikes at The Wild Goose Café & Bar and went to over 40 Sunday Night Open Mikes there

10. I co-hosted 12 Hacky Sack circles in the park and woke up my feet

*11. I took a few days off and explored Mt. Shasta and the PCT with my wife Samarra

*12. I went on a road trip with my buddy Neil to Reno to see one of my favorite comedians, Bill Burr

*13. I went on another road trip with Neil to Redding to see and our friend Betty LaDuke’s art show and explore the Turtle Bay Exploration Park

*14.  I taught and took classes at my teacher Andy Dale’s annual T’ai-Chi Retreat at Bandon on the Oregon coast and got some great practice and beach walking in with Neil and my good friend Joel Hartshorne

*As a guy who rarely travels…leaving the county several times was a distinct change and for me, a bit of an accomplishment

15. I finished 5 straight years of doing the dishes and taking pictures of them. I know…this one’s kinda nuts…

16. I taught over 600 T’ai-Chi lessons

17. I created and posted over 160 videos on youtube…mostly Music, T’ai-Chi, and Nature stuff

18. I manned the home fort and kept it all afloat during Samarra’s several months of studying and working in Seattle

19. We navigated some tricky mid-life crisis waters in our marriage…and while it’s not a sure thing going forward…we are still married

20. We got rid of lots of extraneous stuff around our apartment…many many bags of stuff to the Goodwill or in the trash or recycling

21. I played a lot of shows including: a really nice concert with a great listening audience in Grants Pass as part of “The Storytellers Series” at the Barnstormers Theater…two “Hearth” events…one about race and one after the election…both well attended and appreciative…Two Interfaith events…both well attended and appreciative…a nice season of music out at the Lithia Artisans Market…one of my favorite places to play…and 11 shows at Liquid Assets Wine Bar…another favorite place to play

22. I competed in 9 Rogue Poetry Slams…came in 4^th place twice and 3^rd place twice and always enjoyed myself

23. I turned 59

December News

From Gene Burnett

My new album “Love & Heartache” is finally up on my site. It is also available at CD Baby and will be available at other e-retailers of music soon, if it isn’t already. Here’s a link to the album page at my site: L & H

If you click on this link, you’ll get a player that will play the album for you. If you’d like to download any of the songs free, there’s a link to do that on the page as well. There’s also a digital tip jar. 

I posted a bunch of new videos this month: 8 Music videos, 2 Rogue Poetry Slam videos, 3 T’ai-Chi videos, and 2 Nature videos. See links below in the Video section of this post.

So here we go…I’m going to start with local shows in case you’re in the Rogue Valley and then proceed with the usual information about where to find my music, videos, and pictures, including information about new projects.

There is so much to listen to and watch on the net these days…I’m amazed anyone even gets this far in the newsletter let alone watches or listens to anything I’m doing. I’m sincerely grateful for every view, every listen, and every nice comment I receive. I’m happy if anything I post truly reaches even one person. I’m offering all this stuff in a “just in case you’re interested” spirit. 

Upcoming Shows:

Saturday December 3^rd, I'll be at OSF Great Hall in Ashland, playing from 10am-Noon. This is part of the annual Oregon Shakespeare Festival Holiday Art and Gift Sale. The sale will be happening all weekend and there will be music throughout. Come support local art and music. I’ll have copies of my CD’s and books with me. 

Monday December 5^th, I'll be playing at one of my favorite Ashland venues, Liquid Assets. A relaxed living room vibe with great service, excellent food and wine, and a really nice place to listen to music. I play from 7-9pm

Wednesday December 7^th, I'll be hosting my regular Themed Open Mike at The Wild Goose Café & Bar. Usually this happens on the First Wednesday of every month. This month's theme will be our “6^thAnnual Holiday/Winter Songs”, so musicians and spoken word artists will be doing songs and poems, covers or originals, that are about or mention Winter and/or the Winter Holidays in any way. We're never too strict or narrow about the themes for this event. The main idea is to focus our attention a little to hopefully inspire and motivate us creatively. These are always fun community events. No Cover at the friendliest bar in Ashland. Sign-up is 7:30pm. Show starts at 8:00pm.
*A heads up for next month: Wednesday, December 4^th, 2017: “Dreams & Wishes”

Saturday, December 17^th, from 10am-Noon, my good friend Jesse Biesanz and I are hosting a Hacky Sack session at the Band Shell in Lithia Park. This will happen on the third Saturday of every month. We both miss the fun and camaraderie of a good friendly Hack Circle and…more importantly, we miss the practice! It’s fun, aerobic, cooperative, demands balance, coordination, quick thinking and accuracy…So whether you’re new to the game, or an experienced player who wants to brush up your skills, or an expert who just wants to meet some new players, come on by. Hacky Sack basically involves keeping a small footbag in the air, usually leather and fairly soft, using only your feet. When there are more than two players, it’s usually played in a circle. If the circle gets too big, it is split into smaller circles.

The only rules of this Hack Circle:

1. You’ve got to use your feet to keep the sack in the air and off the ground. No hands! (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

2. If you miss or otherwise screw up, you can’t say, “I’m Sorry.” (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

3. No serving to yourself. (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

4. No hotdogging. Meaning this is not about how many tricks you can do before the sack hits the ground, and it’s not about working obsessively on tricks. Tricks are fine but in general, we want to keep the hack going as a friendly group and keep everyone involved.

See you at the bandshell, rain or shine. The shell provides shelter from the rain and once a circle gets going, you’ll be plenty warm.

Tuesday, December 20^th, I'll be competing with many other poets at the Rogue Poetry Slam which happens at Caldera Tap House in Ashland. Sign-up is at 7:30pm and the show starts at 8. $5 cover, all of which goes to the winning poets. If you've never been to or competed in a Poetry Slam, I highly recommend this one. Come to watch, compete, or be one of the judges. Some people think of slams as hardcore hip-hop events or places where people are mean and talk trash, but nothing could be further from the truth. All kinds of poetry are welcome and people are very supportive. And it's so nice to participate in an event that is all about the words, or in my case, lyrics. For me it's really not about winning or losing, but just the fun of sharing my words with people and seeing what happens.

For more info about these and all of my shows, and to confirm that there have been no cancellations, click here: Calendar  

Since I'm putting this newsletter out once a month, it's possible there may be a cancellation of a given show by the time it happens. Please double check with my web calendar if possible to be sure the gig is still happening. I'd hate to have you come out for nothing. Also another gig or two might be added or times or locations might change, so do check the calendar for the latest info.  

Recorded Music

All of my over 30 albums are available for downloading free or with a donation at my website: www.GeneBurnett.com

Videos In General

Overall Mission: I post a lot of videos on youtube, over 1000 so far! I'm not trying to build a fan base...In fact, I'm not trying to build anything. I'm not expecting you or anyone else to follow what I'm doing or watch all of these videos. Posting videos is just part of my overall plan to make my music (and my T’ai-Chi and Nature videos too) as freely available as possible and see what freely comes back. I think of each video as sort of like a message in a bottle...and more I toss out there the more likely one of them will land on a friendly shore and something good will come back to me. So here are some video links in case you're interested:

How to Find My Videos: First of all, I've set up a "Videos" page on my website (www.GeneBurnett.com) with a menu similar to what you see below as well as a digital tip jar in case any of you want to contribute to my cottage industry. Every little bit helps and not just financially. 

I've also set up some blogs that make navigating and viewing my various videos much easier. You can go to any of these blogs and see thumbnails for all of the videos posted there. Scroll across the thumbnails and you will see the titles of each video. Click on it and a page will open that will let you watch the video right there without going to youtube. My latest videos are always in the upper left hand corner.

To see all of my Music videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Videos

To see all of my T'ai-Chi videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Movement

To see all of my Nature videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Nature

For a quick and easy way to sort through, listen to, or download all of my albums free or with a donation, click here: The Unforced Music

To see my regular blog “The Unforced Life”, click here: The Unforced Life

To visit my youtube channel and possibly subscribe, click here: My Youtube Channel

To see all of my youtube playlists click here: My Youtube Playlists 




New Videos

Three new T’ai-Chi videos: 

All Weather T’ai-ChiPractice

All Right My Friends, Back To Work
Energetic Reset 3: BaGua Free Play w/Weighted Balls  

Two New Rogue Poetry Slam Videos: 

Proud Of My Work

Ready To Be Ruined

Eight new Music videos: 

Lotta Love (Neil YoungCover)

First Annual Neil Young Birthday Bash
Anthem (Spoken Word Leonard Cohen Cover)
Anthem (Leonard Cohen Cover)
This Old Man (Cover by Jennifer Lawson)
Bountiful Harvest (Art by Betty LaDuke/Music by me)
Thanksgiving Interfaith 2016~Heal Our Hearts
Thanksgiving Interfaith 2016~Put A Little Love In Your Heart   

Two new Nature videos: 

Shasta and the Moon 

Ashland Wind Chimes

Pictures


I've stopped posting as many pictures on facebook, (for many reasons), and started posting them instead on Flickr, which I like much better.

Here's a link to my "home page" at Flicker: Photostream. 

I have many photo galleries there but a few of my favorites are:

Small Miracles (mostly Nature related stuff)

The Dish Whisperer (I started posting a daily picture of my dish stacking work over a year ago. I recently crossed the 1400 straight days mark. I have no idea how long I’ll keep doing this. I’m so used to it, it hardly takes any effort at all to continue. I made a video for my song “I'll Do The Dishes Tonight” that featured a slideshow of the first year. I made it through my second year recently, and hope to create another video slideshow set to another of my songs. Stay tuned…)

"Head" and "Boot" (devoted to our two gerbils)

"Humor" 

"Me Playing Music"

Bathroom Pond Mural
Weird Book Covers

Trippy Clouds


Website

I continue to offer all of my albums for downloading, free or with a donation at my website: www.GeneBurnett.com I started doing this about 8 or 9 years ago and considered it a 5 year creative experiment. Well the 5 years passed and I decided to start calling it my "ongoing creative experiment" as I have no plans to stop. Since I returned to my folk roots and stopped climbing, or trying to climb, the industry ladder, I've been enjoying music in my life more than ever before. And enjoyment, rather than achievement or worldly success has always been dearest to my heart anyway. So now I focus totally on what I love most: writing, recording, performing and sharing what I create. If other people like it, so much the better, but getting other people to like me or what I do is no longer my goal or focus. I'm out to please myself first. I want to do my music exactly the way I want to do it and see who likes it that way, not figure out what people will like and try to do it that way. I put it out there freely and see what comes freely back. So far so good. I've never had more success and appreciation than I have since I started doing it this. Go figure. 

Thanks, as usual, for your support and well wishes even if you don't make to any shows.

GB

www.GeneBurnett.com