Scott Franco
Hello, My name is Scott Franco and I love to teach people about peace through music, blogging and activism.
Tell me about your history? How did you get where you are now?
Check out my website: scottfranco.com... Other than that...
My name is Scott Franco, though many of you know me as the musician, Scotter. I am a self-employed musician who lives in New York. I make rock guitar music and techno house music. I used to run a radio advertising company called RadioLinQ which Comedy Central made fun of with their cartoon series, "Drawn Together".
I have produced such hits as, "Friday Afternoon," "Interracial Love Song," "Most Beautiful," and Wireless Electricity". (All of which hit number one on their respective charts.) But enough about music, let's talk about my past.
In high school, I was a tap dance choreographer at Amber Perkins School of the Arts in Norwich, NY. I won the Young Choreographer of the Year in 2000 and Dancer of the Year Award in 1998 and 2000. I went to nationals of Rhee Gold in Las Vegas, NV and placed within the top 5 dancers nationally in 2000. At Brown University I danced in a West African dance company with Michelle Bach Coulibally, the Tap Dance Company (aka What's On Tap), and frequented meetings of the Break Dance Club. I have taken Ballroom Dance classes and continue to tap and break dance even though I've gained some weight.
I was also a Constitutional Orator for the American Legion in High School, which is why I was rather angry at some of the unconstitutional bullcrap that Bush did from 2001 to 2009. I am a peace activist and involved with MoveOn.org and several other peaceful organizations. I hope Bush goes to jail.
Right now the media is trying to make me appear as some kind of racist nazi because of my article on this page called, "What's Wrong with Cable News." Read it, know it, LOVE IT.
PS- I love people of all ethnicities. I'm not going to claim that I've never THOUGHT a racist word, but I don't discriminate based on race or religion. Racial Unity is what "Interracial Love Song" is all about.
Religiously, I was raised Catholic and Methodist, (Yes, I had to go to church twice on Sundays.) My birth father (I am adopted.) was Jewish so when I was at Brown, I considered myself a Jew and joined AEPi. So for 4 or 5 years I was Jewish, then I made good friends with my Muslim friend, Dean, and I thought I'd give Islam a shot. After 2 years, I decided that it was too hard to be a Muslim in the USA, so I became a Unitarian. I am also very into Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Wicca and Zoroastrianism.
Right now I am putting together a rock band called Influence. We will have a few singles out in a few months. Keep looking for us.
This summer I am going to Tanzania, Africa to work with children with AIDS and HIV to teach them music in their classrooms and continue testing a holistic treatment (drug free) for this disease.
Other than that, I recommend reading my blog from bottom to top starting with older posts and don't forget to click on my profile page.
PS- I email people back, unlike other professional musicians so feel free to write me at scottfranco@live.com
Have you performed live in front of an audience? Any special memories?
I do play live, but not in a while.
Your musical influences
Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews, Jason Mraz, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, R.E.M., Madonna, Shakira, Jewel, etc.
What equipment do you use?
None of your business.
Anything else?
How to Teach Kindness
The world is obsessed with the idea of supremacy and delinquency. It is the goal of this blog entry to attempt to establish a ;link between the propogation of the idea of supremacy (whether racial, ethnic, class, gender or any other concievable dividing line between humans...) and the creation of delinquency.
In other words, the more you teach (whether by word or deed) that there is a pecking order, the more people will end up on the bottom of somebody's pecking order list until we are all at the bottom.
Delinquency is used as a means of getting attention as well as a way to vent anger and frustration. This is especially true if the reason for the pecking order is flawed, biased or unfair. Often these people are just like everyone else only they have low self-esteem and need someone to reach out to them and help.
So how can we teach kindness without creating a pecking order? It is not a simple task. Teaching kindness to children is difficult, but teaching kindness to adults who never learned to be kind as children is downright impossible.
Kindness in humans, needs to have a solid base in self-esteem. However, there is constructive and destructive high self-esteem.
Constructive high self-esteem says to a person, "You could be the equal of anyone else in history." While destructive self-esteem says to a person, "You already are the equal of anyone else in history and superior to many."
That's the problem is that many people tear down other people's self-esteem to boost their own. This is unhealthy.
ALSO, it is important to teach diversity along with kindness. I am quite aware that in certain school districts there is a lack of diversity, making it difficult to teach in an applied way, but that does not mean that diversity cannot be taught at all.
Kindness can be broken down into 3 constitutent parts; compassion, mercy and gratitude.
To read more, go to scottfranco.com
