Rowley's Word

LA Tech Versus SF Tech

melissajunrowley — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:45:03 +0000

There is a saying about three different magnificent cities I have lived in twice. “If you are smart, you move to San Francisco. If you are ambitious, you move to LA. If you are smart and ambitious, you move to New York.”

My time in New York was a good nine lives ago, but my adventures in both Los Angeles and San Francisco are fresh and ripe for dissecting. So when Sean Percival, the prince of all things juicy in online fodder, asked me to write a LA Tech versus SF Tech themed article, who was I to say no?

Read full lalawag article here…

Photo by Brian Solis

The Entertainment for Our Last Night at Rancho La Puerta

melissajunrowley — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:10:36 +0000

This is Yuchi. He kicked off festivities my last night at the legendary spa Rancho La Puer ta, where I had a most epic meeting of the minds with 17 fierce female bloggers from all across North America. Latin music, the song “Tequila,” and flowing wine followed. You can imagine what happened next.

How Non-profits and Activists can Leverage Location Based Services

melissajunrowley — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:59:03 +0000

What started as a highly addictive pastime for early adopters to alert their friends of their whereabouts and compete for virtual mayorship of their corner coffee shop, is steadily evolving into a global vehicle for individuals and businesses to garner social capital. With tech evangelists and small businesses exploring the potential power of Foursquare and other location enabled services, it was only a matter of time before change makers in the non-profit and social enterprise ecosystem “checked-in” and began finding innovative methods to rally support for their causes.

See my full Mashable article here...

4 Social Good Trends of 2009

melissajunrowley — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:42:48 +0000

A look back on 2009 may not be so rosy. A global economic crisis, an increasingly polarized healthcare debate, a handful of iconic celebrity deaths, a plethora of real-time non-news noise (e.g., balloon boy), and of course, Kanye West.

Well, I’ma let you finish the list, but first I’d like to highlight some positive happenings of 2009, made possible by social media. In a world where technology and innovation is driven almost exclusively by profit, web 2.0 users have brought the spirit of giving to the fore. Here are some great examples of 2009’s social good trends.

See my full Mashable article here…

Angels and Warriors: L.A. Love Affair Take 2

melissajunrowley — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:42:36 +0000

We’ve come a long way LA,
from the body of water on the West side that brought my beneficiaries to shore,

to the lake in the East lit with Silver that I’ll bathe in until my hair no longer weaves through the rugged hands of your hard time.

LA,

I surfed your unicorn-rippled waves, and I sank in your velvet smog.

It’s true, I tried to leave you.

But we both knew I’d be back, my joie de vivre, because no one in this world wants to love and fight me like you do.

You – offroading my dangerous curves with the arms and wheels of a soldier and the eyes of an innocent young man.

You knew I ran with wild horses when I was the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.

A Los Feliz dance of second chances…

Pulp Fiction eyes painted on the wall….

As a child I knew I’d come to you, and you’d be waiting for me to make mountains fall.

LA,

I know at times you grow weary because they’ll never stop running to you for gold and a glimmer of candy-appled fruition.

LA,

in spite of a demoralized market, you’re still the place for dreamers and magicians.

LA,

you may just be a cowboy with poetry and a majesty for all the lost boys, and when I hike through the canyon, I summon the Duende with your sweat,

your wings,

your noise.

LA,

you may do your best to drink me under the table, where I vibrate naked, asleep and dreaming, but if you recall, you painted love on my arms - red-lettered, rhapsodized and seething.

(Rendering a warrior for all the wild at heart)

We’ve come a long way LA,

from facing the mugger of Miracle Mile, who yanked me to the ground by my hair, to throwing fire at the paparazzi, to singing with sex-waxed jazz and savoirfaire.

We’ve come a long way LA,

from the healing hands of Venice that opened my third eye to serendipity and November sand, to another soldier, cowboy, and lost angel, who may risk breaking open again.

-Melissa Jun Rowley

Dave Navarro Shares His Love for Music and His Views on Marriage (sort of)

melissajunrowley — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:23:34 +0000

SLASH on Los Angeles Youth Network (LAYN)

melissajunrowley — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:29:24 +0000

On November 22, 2009, the rock gods answered my prayers and delivered a star-studded Hollywood concert benefitting the Los Angeles Youth Network. Led by the true blue tattooed axe man himself, SLASH, the band made up of Dave Navarro, Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Idol, Tom Morello, and special guests played their hearts out to raise money for programs designed to get young people off the streets of LA. Here’s a few words from my favorite sweet soft-spoken shredder.

Why Social Media is Vital to Corporate Social Responsibility

melissajunrowley — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:53:44 +0000

A cultural and corporate shift is taking place in the world. The result of things like the current economic climate and recognition of global climate change, society is starting to push past awareness and into action. As this transition takes hold, companies are evolving from their reactive states, and moving toward more pro-active approaches. Social media has begun to play a key role in how companies shape their corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and present themselves as good corporate citizens.

Read my full Mashable article…

L.A. Love Affair

melissajunrowley — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:36:06 +0000

“L.A. Love Affair”

At the end of the day L.A…
You’re still the basin of all my aspirations,
the stream of consciousness that keeps the wine
in my blood flowing,
the waterfall that cascades
“This May be Love” so says Jimi “like one of those daydreaming fools.”

Deep in the Valley where all your hopes surfaced
born of beauty,
born of pain,
living in a
transitory semblance of real life
you revealed yourself to me.

L.A…
elusive, magical and bruised, you’re the line that runs down my center,
keeping me close to the edge of surrender,
pulling me to the other half of me that soon the world will see.
Any bars I have stood behind I built on my own.
All highways I traveled alone
until I landed inside your melodic heart.
And when I leave you at times
I know I have not lost you
at the end of the day,
after twilight
when some stars begin to gleam over the Pacific
as I drive up the 1,
feeling the Malibu sky.

At the end of the day when the music plays,
your blues notes don’t lie any more
than the child who in your eye
goes searching for me when I look for another escape,
another moon in the desert,
a home in the hills,
a vessal on the Ocean that would keep us sailing in circles
together until all our triangles washed ashore.

L.A….
I’m yours until we break off into the sea,
and even then you’ll surround me in the water…
where nothing we love is ever lost at the end of the day.

-Melissa Jun Rowley

When Bad Girls Go Good (sort of)

melissajunrowley — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 02:57:57 +0000

You could say I went though a bit of a bad-girl phase growing up. Far from being the girl next door, I was the girl at the Dead End.

I was 12 years old when I smoked my first Marlboro Red and chased my first pint of Jack Daniels with Mountain Dew. I began practicing these habits regularly with my friends, who were all three to five years older than me, at a place down the street from my house called the Dead End. It was called the Dead End because that’s exactly what it was, literally and metaphorically. The spot was essentially the stone pillar remains of a train bridge that ran across the river in my hometown. After the bridge was torn down, the remote space left behind made for fantastic stomping grounds, in which to make noise, avoid doing homework, and hang out with boyfriends. During my time at the Dead End, my era of ripening adolescence, I learned what it is to be self-destructive, and why being bad feels so good.

I am sure there are several sophisticated psychological theories as to why I shoplifted, hitch-hiked, and snuck out of the house late at night to go to heavy metal concerts, where I would sit on the shoulders of strange men twice my age, and wave my cigarette lighter in the air to the latest and greatest ‘90s power ballads. Some say boredom was the culprit. Others say this bittersweet rebellion was born of pain. I don’t dismiss either charge as a possibility. However, I believe the core of my angst mainly stemmed from an insatiable longing to feel free. Aside from love, freedom is the most exhilarating force one can have the pleasure of embracing.

Many years have passed since my Dead End days, and I have long outgrown the penchant for Marlboro Reds and Jack Daniels/Mountain Dew. But I don’t think it’s coincidental that several of my most memorable tastes of freedom have come laced with drops of danger. I don’t believe the seemingly random attraction I had for men with lethal addictions during my 20s was random at all. I associated love with freedom (and still do), and up until recently, I associated love with darkness (and barely any light).

One day I woke up and decided that I wanted to change. I wanted to become a magical sorceress of light, who could bestow nothing but good tidings on all the earth and unto myself. What I didn’t take into account is that there is no light without dark, and that any kind of positive transition like the one I was initiating takes time, more time than I wanted to allow. Patience is not my strong suit, especially when it comes to my own self-evolution.

Not long ago, I promised someone who showed me what it is to bask in freedom without darkness or danger that I would always be his lighthouse on the Bay. I failed. Miserably. He sailed far out to sea, where I loved to hear the fog horns calling for him. A storm rolled in on his way back to shore, and instead of shining brighter, I let a torrential downpour distinguish my flame. The air filled with a June gloom so heavy that there was no way he could have made his way back to me. The old black rituals I practiced back when I stood face to face with danger came into play, and my someone nearly drowned. Forgiveness over time is not unimaginable, but the damage done is irrevocable.

My first great mistake in this journey to finding and maintaining a healthy balance of light and dark, and knowing the difference between danger and freedom, was promising to be HIS anything. We do not need to be anyone’s light or anyone’s rock or anyone’s peace. This cannot be the sole purpose for wanting to evolve. We must strive to be all those elements for ourselves, and let all the beautiful horizons that will present themselves as a result do so naturally.

My second error was projecting the past onto an innocent bystander. My third is dwelling on the first and second. So now…I focus on the lesson learned from expecting too much too fast, and I try to turn wrong to right.

If I have learned anything over the years it is that the pendulum swings both ways, and if you do not learn how to slow it down it knocks you on your ass. I’ve also come to accept that I will always have a dark side. I will never be the girl next door. And I may not be anyone’s lighthouse on the Bay, but I will undoubtedly forever be that girl waving her cigarette lighter in the air, carrying a little dark, a little light, and a whole lotta love.