Not suggesting that Reality IS Non-Profit, just that I’ve been doing a little of both lately. I collaborated on two videos for charities, the first with Full Circle Learning for an orphanage and educational NGO they run in the mountainous African kingdom of Lesotho, called the Louis Gregory Centre. Will post link when viddie is on line. Full Circle occupy the office next to me here in Topanga. The second collaboration is above, a video for the Sri K Pattahbi Jois Charitable Trust which I worked on with the good peeps at Change For Balance Productions. The Trust funds philanthropic activities in the Southern Indian town of Mysore which happens to be where I met my wife back in 2001. We are both students of Pattabhi Jois and the Trust is designed to bridge the gap between Western yoga students, like us, and the local community. It has been very successful. Sadly though, Pattabhi Jois’ health is currently faltering. He is in his early 90’s. He is an incredible teacher and we send him all our love, our gratitude, and our support! [IMPORTANT UPDATE BELOW]**

Also on the non-profit side, I slaved on another edition of our Topanga Children’s Festival to support the Topanga Coop Preschool. I dearly love this over 45-year-old 501(3)K institution, and have been President of the board for TWO YEARS. The mysterious world of the Co-Op is fascinating and transformative - turns out to be very challenging for a bunch of adults with our cultural conditioning to cooperate on an honor system without money or payment as a guiding factor! Even though I deeply believe that figuring out how to do this stuff spells the future of the planet … IT SURE IS TIME CONSUMING!!!

Luckily, on the Reality TV side, I produced on a fantastic invention called Sprint Business Fantasy Camp. See episodes at this location. There are actually very valuable business lessons in here, valuable information as we all find ways to cope with a very sluggish economy …

Speaking of which, how ’bout some Twitter!? Check out my feed here, or back on the Lucky 8 homepage. I dig this service and, have to admit, have been focussing some of my “update energy” there lately. But will post more news here soon. Stuff’s a-brewin’ - how much of it is FOR PROFIT remains to be seen …

** UPDATE
Sri K Pattabhi Jois passed away on May 18th at the age of 94, a few days after this original post. Our lives were deeply transformed by this teacher and we feel both very sad about his physical departure, and immensely grateful to have spent time with him while he was here. This is a very good obituary from the LA Times; and, for those interested, here is a wonderful Flash tribute made by fellow student Barry Silver.