February 18, 2004
Planet Rabbit Hole, California, USA7:09pm. It's been a great day--very productive and positive.
#1. Letter to Karen Dalton, a director at Twin Towers prison who I need permission from to do a show there.
Karen... My name is Cory Richardson and I'm an art and adventure therapist from the east coast of Canada... currently touring Southern California with a slide show that promotes personal goal setting and environmental awareness.
This show has a huge impact on inmates, because I've lived a life very different from what most of them have experienced. At the age of 17 I choose to paddle a kayak from Vancouver, Canada to my home on the east Coast-- via Nicaragua, although I'd never been in a kayak before. I've reached central Mexico by kayak thus far, where I was given a football field size plot of land to create an art and adventure school. I'm currently in LA working out a TV deal for the rest of my kayak journey.
My calling is to project light into dark places. I offer inmates another reality-- one of beauty, peace and hope, showing that they have many options and that life is what we make it.
Please check out my website: www.solomax.com and the page that tells about my show: http://www.solomax.com/slideshow.html
I'm only going to be in LA until march 1st, so I'd appreciate a response soon as possible. I know that is not a lot of time, but making this show happen is easy. I have everything to do the show, so all I need is a time, place and people. I have a background check from the RCMP already if you need it and you are welcome to search my name in US police records.
I get paid $200 a show when I do schools or other events, but I'm open to whatever you can offer. This is my life's work--it is in my heart to share these shows, so I'm not doing it for the money, but that is what allows me to continue doing this project.
I also teach a workshop that I'm keen to do in the prison system. I've been doing it with "at-risk" youth and have had great success. If you can connect me with youth homes or youth corrections for this workshop or slide show... that would be great! Info about the workshop is on this page: http://www.solomax.com/dflys.html
I look forward to hearing from you.
Have fun!
-Cory Richardson
#2. Spoke with Bo Mountain at Weller Grossman Productions to set up a meeting. Weller Grossman Productions has created over 4000 TV programs for channels like Discovery and HGTV. Bo said he'd take my vision to the head of development and get back to me.
#3. Got an answer back from YQUE screen printers. (If you have a little money to invest in two great t-shirt ideas, let me know):
Hey, My boss wasn't interested. Sorry. We have been focusing less and less on word shirts lately. If you want to do a custom run of your ideas I can print them for you. Let me know. Thanks for your submission.
Mike
P.S. You have some beautiful pictures on your website. It makes me want to travel.
#4. At noon, driving south on highway 101 in slippery conditions, oily from fresh rain, I cringed looking toward where I was headed-- the mountainous steel and glass metropolis of Los Angeles, shrouded in dense smog compressed by the low cloud ceiling.
Moriah loaded me ten bucks; six of which went toward purified dinosaur blood and tissue to feed the Dragonfly which carried me to these towers of Babylon, and two to the old man in the lot where I left the spaceship, although five was the sign price. I said I had little money and the man was nice. I won't get the check from my last show at UCSB for another week. That reminds me-- my Top Ramen is ready.
My mission in the heart of LA's business district was to find locations and hosts for lunch hour slide shows. I started with California Plaza, one of the tallest. Security was tight and I couldn't go up the elevator unless someone invited me. A touch screen listed all the companies within the building and I noted a few that might fit with my interests. I called Imaging Presentation Partners from a pay phone and was at the boardroom table with Mark and Charles on the 22 floor five minutes later. They sell equipment such as large screens to do presentations... so it was a perfect fit. They were not sure about where I could do the show, and suggested I talk to Deloitte and Touche Consulting who rent the most amount of floors and have their name on top of the building. The Deloitte receptionist said Maria, the person I needed to see was not around, and so I wrote a note on a show poster to be passed on to Maria.
On the ground floor, following a security guard's suggestion, I found the office of a non-profit events promotion company that brings acts to play at California Plaza. A sweet woman who just got back from a trip scouting the East Coast Music Awards in St. John's, Newfoundland gave me a cup of tea and a bran muffin (that I found very considerate and yummy, it being such a cold, drizzly day) and we had a nice casual conversation in her office for a half hour about east coast music acts, and her eating cod tongue and seal flipper.
It is now past midnight and I need sleep. To make a long story short, I made fantastic connections in three of the tallest buildings and I'm stoked. I may not have time to do shows in any of these buildings before heading to Tucson on March 2nd to meet up with my family, but at least I've taken steps toward manifesting a powerful vision. I'm keen to get corporate folk interested in The FAR OUT School, and doing these shows will be a great way to make that reality.
#5. The cherry on top of this wonderful rainy day was reading this sweet profile story Christie McDonald wrote and published Feb 14/04 in a Telegraph Journal newspaper supplement:
Cory Richardson is enjoying a little celebrity. His story about kayaking through mudflats in Washington State has ended up in the latest Chicken Soup book, "Chicken Soup to Inspire the Body and Soul." There's a certain irony to it actually, since Richardson is less about self-promotion and more about self-discovery.
His journey started at a young age. Influenced by his father, George, and grandfather, Allison, Richardson is quick to point out how important they have been in his life. "They were both teachers who took students on trips, and they had a huge influence on me. Grampy was the principal of a one room school house at age 17, and I'm told he took 8th grade students on bike trips to Bar Harbor, Maine, and other students bike touring over-seas, ferrying across on freighter ships,'" says Richardson. "My dad lead 30 boys ages 12 to 18 on week-long wilderness canoe trips every summer for 25 years. Those days shooting white water on the Miramichi, St. Croix and Tobique were the best times of my life growing up, and other men in Saint John have approached me saying the same."
So, it's no wonder that at age 17 Richardson had an epiphany. "It was a beautiful day and I was stuck in chemistry class on the top floor of Saint John High School, watching the sun glisten on the bay, with no desire to learn formulas for equations I would never use,' says Richardson. "When the bell rang I went down to the library and planned out my life to age 35 in a half-hour. This was my plan for the ultimate life, what I'd do if I couldn't fail. I've been living out that dream ever since."
And so, after a few months of nomadic living (including stops in Texas, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico) Richardson currently lives in Los Angeles. "I'm with a friend in Pasadena, near Los Angeles, seeking support to film and broadcast the rest of my kayak trip in the form of a TV and web reality show," explains Richardson. "I have two shows next week at a school district in Santa Barbara. After that, it's an open road."
But despite the fact that Richardson is a free spirit, he's not without plans.
"My greatest desire is to create a non-profit organization that provides art and adventure opportunities for the people of Saint John, especially those in trouble with the law, experiencing drug addiction, or not enjoying the current public education system," says Richardson. "When people get into trouble it's mainly because they lack a passion, a sense of direction, a sense of place-- something to focus their energy on and care about. I've made it my purpose to help others find their purpose. Adventure travel, living in wilderness, using imagination and being creative are very therapeutic and make education fun, showing us that we have many more options and are far more powerful than we realize."
Richardson hopes to raise $1000 to get his project off the ground. "I'm focused on making an art and adventure school between New Brunswick and Mexico, creating cultural exchanges for school groups, families, corporate folks and travelers. When it is freezing up north, go to summer camp in Mexico. When it is too hot in Mexico, have summer camp in New Brunswick," explains Richardson. "All this past year I've been exploring communities to find out what works, and building my teaching skills. I'm ready to make a move on creating a non-profit organization. I've been putting it off as long as possible, enjoying the freedom, but this work I'm doing is more than a job, it's an obsession."
And although he's been away from home for a while, Richardson has learned one of life's little truths: it's not until you've traveled the world do you really know and appreciate home.
To learn more about Richardson's travels and the Far-Out School visit his web site at http://www.solomax.com/
Beautiful person reading my journal... I need your help!
Please adopt a dragonfly!
I've worked thousands of hours to create this web site and it is yours free to enjoy. That wasn't a profitable thing for me to do, but it was my calling and it has been very successful at providing inspiration and information to many people all over the world.
If you'd like to see this project continue, I need your help right now. I'm working hard to set up shows in the LA prison system and get a TV deal, but at this time I'm a starving artist.
Dragonfly adoption is $30 plus shipping. Send me an email and we'll work it out. Get one for a friend or lover. I'll send it special delivery. Put it on a hat or house plant-- it is attractive anywhere.
If you'd like to give birth to your own dragonfly, I've made a web page to show you how. They are a simple and relaxing meditation tool, that take approximately two hours.
If you just want to show your support for this project with a few bucks, click this, I'll be stoked!
I'm open to any ideas or suggestions... so talk to me: MAX@solomax.com
