An Interview with Content Producer Marin David

Hello and welcome to the third of several articles highlighting interviews with some the AC Content Producers whom I find most intriguing. You'll hear from writers whom many of you already know well, like MarinDavid and Jorge M. Rivas, as they talk about their lives and their writing. You'll also hear from writers who may still be unknown to you, like Plantpolice and Jason Bauer, as they tell about their achievements and why they write for AC.

All in all, I think you'll find an engaging mix of seven very interesting AC CPs who have very good things to share about life and writing. Read on!!

Introduction to an Interview with MarinDavid

MarinDavid is, in his own words, "highly opinioned" and at age 60 has been "involved in a lot of things." For instance, one day on the campus of University of California, Berkeley "ZAP!" he was ordained as a minister in the Universal Life Church.

Hear MarinDavid tell about his most eventful personal journey from English and drama in Wisconsin to mental health in California. Hang on to your seat because you might get dizzy following along on this journey! [Links take you to some of MarinDavid's articles.]

MarinDavid Reminisces

Codie: 1) What is your background and experience, including your previous association with writing?

MarinDavid: I am a survivor of the inner city (Boston in the 50s and 60's), moved to California in 1968 and never regretted it - stopping along the way to pick up a degree in English and Theater in Wisconsin.

I acted and performed in coffee houses for a while, then, after teaching English (and writing) in a High School in central Wisconsin for a year, married and came to the West Coast where, after a few years of working with very disturbed teens, I attended graduate school at Berkeley and have been a Licensed Clinical Social Worker since the mid 70's.

I have ALWAYS been a writer - began while in High School with poetry, did some journalism in college along with a handful of short stories and MANY poems.

I write a lot of run-on sentences: but, not being an English teacher any longer, I allow myself MANY non-traditional options with our language! I feel this creative outlet, which has expanded into song writing, has helped me in my work of understanding and helping others.

Codie: 2) Will you tell us more about your songwriting?

MarinDavid: I have 'always' written songs - since college. Most often, songs for people as gifts on special occasions. I was poor and often had no money to buy people gifts - so what I had to give, I had to create. I have probably written hundreds of songs as gifts - for birthdays and other special personal occasions.

Today, I do not claim to be 'poor,' but I continue to write songs - still mainly (but no longer exclusively) as gifts - for my own grandchildren and their birthdays, for weddings, birthdays of friends and other special moments where I want my gift to be truly personal and entirely one-of-a-kind. I also write songs for pure expression and fun, including a Country Western favorite of mine entitled, "The Women I've Had Have Been The Ones Who'd Have Me." To me, a song is a poem set to music - a nice combination of creative energies!

I never wrote a review before coming across Epinion.com 4 to 5 years ago during a search for consumer reviews of something I was thinking about buying. I thought - "I could do that!"

Codie: 2) With your credentials, you obviously don't financially need to write for AC. Why do you choose to write for AC, particularly in light of your motivations, goals and inspirations?

MarinDavid: I am highly opinioned and love to write. No, it isn't about the money - though I left Epinion.com for AC because I DID think it was worth 'something.' I also confess to having an ego and to enjoying seeing my own work published...Recently, one of my pieces was the AC Spotlighted piece (on commuting) and I grinned from ear to ear (inside) all day and have enjoyed the many comments other CPs have posted to me about it.

Codie: 3) What benefit or reward, either personal or professional, do you derive from writing for AC?

MarinDavid: A few extra bucks toward vacation (or another guitar - I only have four of them right now!) and the satisfaction of knowing that my comments may actually be of some interest - possibly even on occasion, some help, to others. That's the 'why' in a nutshell.

As I read over what I sent you, I realized that I had left out a lot.... I am not promoting a comprehensive biography of myself - it's just that at 60, I have actually been involved in a lot of things:

- growing up in the inner city of Boston, going to a local JCC as an alternative to being drafted into the Army during Viet Nam,

- college in Wisconsin, teaching High School in the boonies of the Midwest for a bit and later becoming a 'real' Conscientious Objector;

- the peace movement in the 60s and a founder and President of an international peace activist organization (but teaching my daughter how to use firearms when she attended the Police Academy some 25 years later),

- a radio host for a bit, an amateur film maker, a High School English and Drama teacher and recovered 'recreational' substance user.

- I have played stringed instruments, mostly guitar, for 40 years;

- helped couples create individualized ceremonies and officiated at their weddings as a non-denominational minister for the past 35 years,

- have two young grandchildren who light up my life,

- have a musical history (pre-guitar) with the accordion and voice, a couple of serious motorcycle accidents, several cross country drives,

- missing Woodstock in 1969 but arriving in California just in time for its dark antithesis, Altamont.

- married to the same woman for over 40 years. Living ,

- working and attending Graduate School in Berkeley in the 70's.

- a Clinical Social Worker and Psychotherapist, by trade, sine 1974. I am leaving out a LOT and remain, honestly, unclear about which things really matter more and which less in my evolution as a person.

- after chasing my ambition for over 25 years, I 'retired' from management clinical work about seven years ago and returned to my initial and truest calling - helping people directly as a line-level therapist. I also coordinate an intern training program for Social Work and MFT trainees. I miss management - well, not at all!

Follow-up Question

Codie: Your life has been one of non-traditional options, which has a lovely parallel metaphor in your statement pertaining to your writing: "I allow myself MANY non-traditional options with our language." Please tell us a little more about your option to start an international peace activist organization.

MarinDavid: While in Jr and Sr High School, I was active in the Civil Air Patrol and my primary ambition was to attend the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs to be trained to fly fighter jets (and to be commissioned in the US Air Force). That aspiration--and a seminal aspect of my belief system--underwent a great change in 1965 when my best friend--who had joined the Army immediately after High School, learned to fly helicopters, been commissioned as a Warrant Officer, and been immediately sent to Viet Nam--came home (only several weeks later) in a box.

It got me thinking about war in general - about 'the' war in particular and about life in ways I never had before. By the time I was in my third year of college, in Wisconsin, I had become a dedicated peace activist. I counseled other young men in how to object to and avoid the Draft as a member of the Wisconsin Draft Resistors Union and, the following year, went on with a small group of friends to found an organization called Students for the Advancement of Peace Through Understanding (SAPTU).

I was its first President and represented the anti-war point of view--often by quoting the thinking of the political and social philosopher Hans Morgenthau--during the next year or two in debates with local war proponents and supporters, who included the local ROTC leadership, on local radio programs in Superior Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota . I argued against the war on political, economic and moral grounds and actively assisted men in obtaining Conscientious Objector (CO) status or otherwise avoiding active service. A year or two later, while teaching English (and eligible for continuing draft deferments as a teacher) I elected to turn down the deferment and applied for CO status myself. It was granted and I worked in a mental health setting for disturbed teenagers as my Alternative Service for two years, finding my first exposure to the work that became my career: mental health work.

Were my application for a CO to be declined, my wife and I had made backup plans to leave this country and move to Canada (Toronto) as Landed Immigrants. Fortunately, this move did not turn out to be necessary... Suffice it to say that the related flow of life experiences beginning with the sudden and untimely death of my best friend set off a chain of events that proved to be genuinely and permanently life-altering for me.

In Conclusion

MarinDavid: All of the aforementioned is part of who I was, am, and may well become. Reading, writing, singing, relating, healing .... loving--and being more than a tad ADD (though the diagnosis did not exist when I was a kid, so the teachers simply told my parents that I had "ants in my pants"). Life, like the process of aging, is sometimes imperfect but, generally speaking is preferable to the alternative.

I don't claim to have created that idea - but I do believe in it. It's about today; a special time that we acknowledge by referring to it as the 'present.' I have also learned that, in this life, if one wants something to be different, one needs to do something differently.