I am currently working late on Friday and Saturday nights so hosting those nights is out until further notice.

I was born in Los Angeles in 1951. I started playing music very young. I played music throughout school and in a youth symphony. When I was 13, I bought a bass guitar and started my first rock band.

I left high school in 1968 and hitchhiked to Northern California where I spent time on Haight Street and at Morningstar Commune north of San Francisco. Eventually I returned to Southern California and became bass player in a somewhat successful rock band called The Diehard Trippers. When the band stopped playing I started to practice a form of Japanese Buddhism founded by a 13th-Century monk named Nichiren. Then I enrolled at LA Valley Collage, then matriculated to UCLA, and then to law school.

I married and practiced law in Los Angeles. My wife and I moved to Charlottesville, Virginia in 1989 with our two boys. In 1990 our daughter was born. In 2000 I opened a small recording studio in downtown Charlottesville. After two years, I moved it to my home. From 2002 through 2005, I was Executive Director of the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

In 2005 my wife and I separated and I moved with my two younger children to a former hippie commune in southern Middle Tennessee called "the Farm." I lived there for 10 years, working for several Farm businesses and volunteer teaching at the Farm School. I also operated the community FM radio station and played music in several bands on the Farm and in Nashville.

I remarried in June 2011. By the end of 2015 the marriage was not working out and I moved to Kansas City to be nearer to my newborn granddaughter. I bought a house in KC's historic Northeast District, which is where I live now.

I niw play string bass in a band called Gerald Trimble and Jambaroque, which plays a fusion of Celtic, baroque, Middle Eastern and modern improvisational music.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I have stayed with couchsurfing hosts on three trips.

My first trip was from Tennessee to Boulder, Colorado in 2008. I stayed 10 nights with 3 different hosts. All of them were students who lived with roommates. Everyone I met was very gracious and kind. This includes the hosts and their friends. It was a great opportunity to spend time with folks who are a lot younger than me, playing music and discussing important issues that concern us all.

My second trip was in August 2015. I made most of the trip by bus and camped out along the way. I called my trip "The Gerrard Winstanley Memorial Tour" and gave impromptu performances and talks along the way. When I got to Spokane, Washington a couchsurfing host picked me up and let me stay at her house. She and her husband organized a salon in their home and invited several friends to hear me talk about "The Diggers" and sing songs from the 1960's.

I just completed my third couchsurfing trip. I spent 20 nights in France. I had CS hosts for 5 of those nights. They were all very nice. I will write more about the trip later.

I hosted a couchsurfer ar my cabin when I lived on the Farm. I have also hosted a couple of couchsufers in KC. I am hoping to do it more often.

Interests

Around 2014, I started reading books about the connection between the "radical puritans" who launched the Puritan Revolution in England in the middle of the 17th Century and the movement known as "Flower Power," which took place in California in the late 1960's. Some of these books focused on a group called "Diggers." A group of Diggers occupied a plot on "the commons" on St. George's Hill near London in the spring of 1649. They were poor people who had been displaced by a series of violent civil wars, plus plague and famine. They believed they had the right to use commons and wasteland to grow food so they would not starve. The first group of diggers was led by a man named Gerrard Winstanley. He described a vision of people working together for the common good. He wrote a number of petitions to Oliver Cromwell, explaining why society needed to adopt different attitudes about property and consumption of resources. In many ways Winstanley anticipated some of the common movements of our own times, including the Environmental movement, the Occupy movement, the Peace movement and the many movements for Equal Rights. He argued that all people, men and women alike, were created equal and that no person has the right to rule over any other person. His writings are still popular among some political theorists. When I was a teenager I lived with people who considered themselves modern day diggers. Their teachings have had a great influence on me.

• music
• history
• travel

Music, Movies, and Books

I love many kinds of music, including Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, the Beatles, the Band, the Grateful Dead, swing and jazz, salsa, Indian and classical music. I have been a semi-professional string bass and bass guitar player most of my life. I also sing, play guitar and a little piano. My two favorite authors are novelist Hiruki Murakami and historian Christopher Hill. Other favorites include William Gibson and Terry Pratchett. I also like the book "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economy" by Kevin Kelly. This book is available for free online and it has influenced my thinking in many ways.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I have looked at the ocean and seen and heard it living and breathing as though it was one living being. And sparkles of moonllight reflected off its surface like the eyes of the millions of creatures that live in it. For one moment I was able to comprehend how the one and the many can exist together in the same space and time. Years later this vision still causes me to belive that all people form one greater entity that is the macrocosm of human life and experience; that human beings are capable of exhibiting emergent intelligence that can result as a form of synergy from freely sharing mental energy with each other (without allowing that energy to be obstructed by perceived differences that act as walls to block the flow of energy). I also believe it is possible to live together in a peaceful, thriving community but to do so requires people to concentrate the power of their intent to accomplish this objective.

Teach, Learn, Share

I enjoy meeting people and sharing my experiences. I like to share stories about being indoctrinated into the hippie/flower power/digger movement in the late 1960's. I try to help young people see that there are an infinite number of ways that each of us may consciously define our own lives if we learn to concentrate our intent on specific objectives. I want to convince people that we should all join in a peaceful revolution intent on reversing the causes of global warming and finding ways to remediate its effects.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I have experienced a lot of history first hand. In the 60's I participated in the anti-war movement and lived in a famous digger community north of San Francisco. From 2005 to 2015, I lived at the Farm, another intentional community that was inspired by the Diggers. I have been personally acquainted with the founders of both these communities and can share some of their ideas. I play music and write songs. My repertoire includes many songs by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and my own compositions. I believe in pitching in and helping, although, to be completely honest, I do enjoy playing music more than doing dishes.

Countries I’ve Visited

Bolivia, Canada, England, France, India, Japan, Mexico, Virgin Islands, British

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States