When it came to growing up in a great spot, at a terrific time - I think I was standing at the head of the line! I was born Richard Allen Hart, in the fabulous town of Tacoma, Washington, and I was very fortunate to have had two parents that loved me from the day I first appeared. I was also blessed to have had the privilege of growing up in a family that was proud of it's ethnic heritage. Si Siamo degli Italiani ! (Oh yeah... we are Italian!).

Both my parents were 1st generation Americans of Italian descent , and my Mother was born in Canada to boot (but that's a long story!). My Father's people... well they had some color too (and that's a longer story!). 

Basically, good hard working, and honest people. They all loved music. My Mother played "Boogie -  Woogie" piano, was a registered nurse, and was a wicked good dancer. 
My Father had two left feet,  but was crazy about my Mother. He also loved electronics, and that plays a big part of my life too.

As I reflect on my parent's interests; it strikes me that my Father read "Scientific American" and my Mother read "Psychology Today". I think they both knew who they were, and what they believed.  They also knew what they wanted from life.  My own life has always been intertwined with these  two realities: One from my Father - "Do you know how that works?" and one from my Mother - "Do you know why you care how that works?". Well, that's me in a nut shell...   

So I went through school like most kids. I have a few great friends (and heroes) who have stuck with me through thick and thin. Not all are pictured here, but Mark Ceccarelli is because he is L'amico migliore alla fine (Best friend to the end). 
He has been there for so many "firsts" in my life - I am embarrassed to write the details. Suffice it to say this;
we have each other's back.
 
I went to the best High School in America -
Stadium High School, Tacoma, Washington. That's not brag - just fact.

I went to Taiwan in 1974 to study Mandarin Chinese with my Chinese language class - because hey... didn't all High School Asian foreign language programs go to China?  We did... well we made it happen. It was my first experience with setting goals and creating an outcome. It was also an amazing eye-opener about the dimensionality of the world - and the distance between us all as human beings.

Stadium High School held a few other surprises for me too. We had a great Concert Band and a funky Jazz ensemble. It was the kind of experience that you look back  on and say - "you know... that was fun". The music was fun. The people I went through school with were fun. Even the teachers were fun.! Stadium High School lit a fire in me to write music on my own. I have  - and you can hear it in the Music section of my site. But that was just the beginning of the learning for me. So in 1975, I graduated along with the rest of the crew.

The summer of 1975 was by all measure a great summer. For the first time in my life however, I seemed unable to avoid attempting to answer some questions about who I was; why was I here, and what really was the point of living a life? All life lead to death.
For lack of a better way to express it; I was going to die eventually regardless, so why not live it up? Hedonism and an attraction to narcissism  all made sense in my world view. As rationale points of living however, they seemed to rub against the grain of what I sensed and perceived was (or could  be) true.

I have had a perception as long as I could remember, that there was in fact a "Moral Law" intrinsic in the wiring of the universe. I could not reconcile my sense of "self" (It's all about me) with the conviction that the world as I saw it - must have a Creator  (God) or Author.  And if it had an Author, it may have a Script  - or at least a bit part in it for me. Thus, a reason for living - or "Purpose".

But in that summer, God seemed very far away. Too removed to be real. If God were really God, why did He not reveal himself to me - and answer some of my questions? My reasoning took this form: If I was God - and I was good, I would come down from heaven and talk to people. Try to answer their questions. Give some explanations that help people realize that they are not alone. That they were precious - at least to Me. I would never leave them alone in a world that can be so dark and frightening. I would tell them about the way I made the universe reflect my desires and then, I would tell them what happens when they die. 

Well, God did not materialize in the summer of 1975 - at least directly. He did, I believe, plant a "seed" in my brain to start asking pointed questions, and (for me) to begin reading the Bible and start looking for some answers.

To make a long story short; God began to reveal to me that He had in fact done the very things (and answered the very questions) I was requesting of Him already. He did it, in the form and person of Jesus Christ. And even more remarkably, He was still doing it!

As I studied the person and claims of Jesus Christ in the Bible,  I arrived at some conclusions about what He was saying about Himself:

1)   He was either a liar - or
2)   He was a lunatic - or
3)   He was in fact the embodiment of the very things He claimed.... which is phenomenal!

Make no mistake about it, Jesus (we are on a first name basis) claimed to be the
"Son of God". And He claimed that ""I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." ( John 14:6-7) ".
 A mighty boast if ever there was one.

It still rankles me that people can infer Jesus was a "good man" and a "fine teacher of noble human characteristics"  - but are willing to discard the rest of His claims and assertions.
This is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order in my view.

As the summer progressed, I had one last question that required an answer too:
Did Jesus rise from the dead on the third day -as He stated repeatedly He would do?
The answer is well documented, and a matter of historical note in many different forms.
My interpretation and response is "He did"  - and I have accepted His invitation to be His friend, and to spend eternity in His presence. There is more information available here in
the Faith section of my web site

Did I mention I went to a high faluting University? In the fall of 1975, I moved to Seattle and enrolled at the University of Washington (UW). I could not decide about a Major. Would it be... Chinese Language? Music? ... Maybe Business? Start up with my Dad in the family business? It was not clear.

I did have the distinct benefit of being in the company now with the One who designed the universe. I would on occasion remember to ask questions about my path, and the choices I should make. If I had asked more often, I am sure I could have helped avoid making many painful mistakes. But young men are.... young men, so it seems. Thankfully, God's grace abounds.

Also, I had God's people looking out for me. I lived in the Terry / Lander complex on the west side of the UW. To be specific, my dormitory  was infested with radicals. These radicals were of the most dangerous extraction too. Christians! In fact, they were part of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship ( IVCF.org ) - and their outreach was comprehensive and compelling.
I joined, learned a ton, and made some life long friends.

I also forged some new thoughts about why people respond both positively and negatively to Christians. (It's the Love thing) . My predilection about Christians and Christianity was quite ill-founded and simply ignorant. How are your predilections fairing?

Well I did declare a major. I applied and was accepted into the School of Business at the UW.
This decision did not come easily. I was lobbying heavily to transfer to the
Berklee College of Music, and my parents encouraged me to consider the financial consequences of a career in music. Their logic took the form: Get your business degree and go from there. Their logic prevailed. I was also able to join the UW Jazz lab as the keyboard jockey, and I met and interacted with several really fine musicians through that class and experience. Joe Brazil headed up the program at the UW, and Joe was a really fine Sax man himself. He had a young protégé student at that time by the name of Kenny Gorelick, who would play with us periodically. Kenny had some very interesting ideas about music, and was toying with the idea of forming a band (G-Force). Later in his career, he dropped the "G-Force" band concept, and changed his professional name to "Kenny G" - and made more money than General Electric. Ok, I am a name dropper.

At that time in my parents lives, they had decided they wanted to expand their business interests, and so they opened a new outlet for our family business (PSI) Puget Sound Instrument Company, Inc. (now psicompany.com) in Seattle, Washington. This was a stretch for my parents to have two kids in college, and a new business venture in another city, but they gave it a go. It also provided me a place to work when I was not deep in my studies. I started learning about electronics in earnest, and why people buy things from one person and not another. This study has continued to fascinate me to this day.

As if that wasn't enough, I also decided to move in with my Sister to a rental house in Ballard (A suburb in Seattle) which left me closer to work, and allowed me to start acquiring electronic instruments (Fender Rhodes, Moog and Arp Synthesizers, Amplifiers, Audio Distribution etc.)
My assumption was, that if I could acquire enough instruments, learn to make enough musical sounds simultaneously, I could be my own band. A one-man deal. I could play my own music, sing my own songs, and (in Frank Sinatra's words) - "do it my way". The further along I got, and even with the progress I was making, it became evident that there was too many elements missing in a live performance context. I needed something to help me "sequence"
the disparate musical elements of the compositions I wanted play. I was out on the "bleeding edge" of the technology that had not quite been invented yet.

So to put the final piece in place, I decided along with school, work, a budding social life, and involvement with IVCF - that what I needed to do was join a band. I joined the working ensemble of the UW Jazz lab remnant that been incorporated with a local funk band. We were called "PerFunkquity". I may have a misspelling here, but the phonetic pronunciation is correct. We were a working band! It seemed we were at a Seattle High School every Friday night for a year or so. We did Commodores, Tower of Power, Graham Central Station, Rufus, Ohio Players, Rick James, and Sly Stone tunes. We also played clubs, weddings, bowling socials, and bar mitzvahs. We worked! The money was good (at least I thought so). We had seven people eating out of one pot (including management) - and we were making enough money to start buying more equipment as a band. It all came to a crashing halt one fated night in West Seattle. We were playing the "Embers" for the umpteenth time, and our lead singer (a beautiful lady)  - had a boy friend who was jealous of something, mad at somebody, and stupid about everything. Well, he decided to pull a gun on the Manager of the "Embers". The police came, the club emptied, we got fired, and we did not get paid. That was enough. I decided it would be studio music work for me for a while - and that was the direction my music has followed until after Y2K.

I then poured my attentions into my other job at (PSI). I was learning to sell marine electronics to commercial fishermen, and it was one of those odd junctures in time when you could do no wrong. Alaskan commercial fishermen were making good money. They were building new boats in every backyard in Ballard, and if you pushed hard - you could make money fast. Very fast. I did. It started to consume my days, my nights, and my weekends too.

Finishing my studies got to be a distraction in those days, and I was lucky I had chosen a Major that was associated with what was becoming a consuming force in my life. I also used this time to get to know my Dad as a man. We became partners in the business. I made the money - and he spent it. We started investing in commercial real estate and we purchased and renovated sites in Tacoma, Seattle, and Dutch Harbor, Alaska. We also opened businesses in Petersburg and Sitka, Alaska. We joked - if we could keep developing commercial properties - we could afford to stay in the electronics business!

More later...

Home | Bio | Music | What's Next | Videos | Photo Gallery | Reading | Friends | News | Taxes
  Faith | Funny | Business | Contact Me | In General | Site Map | MySpace | Christian.com