The Northwest Voice

Joseph Damiano is a  single Italian 100% Disabled Veteran, Honorably Discharged - Persian Gulf. I have RSD- Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. I am a small business owner and my business is still in development . It is called Bakersfield Website Hosting. I specialize in Internet Marketing. I am also working on a local directory for Bakersfield businesses, artists, musicians, and very small businesses with affordable advertising called Here In Bakersfield. I am always looking for interns. I need one now!

My grandparents came from the Naples region of Italy into Ellis Island. I am 50% Italian. I lived in Wayne, New Jersey, and graduated from Wayne Valley High School, just miles away from Manhattan. My family lived in Paterson, NJ for a few years before moving to the suburbs of Wayne, NJ. I watched Wayne, NJ grow from a small town into a modern town. I moved around and lived in several cities including Saddlebrook, NJ, and Manhattan, NY, Dover, NC, Charleston, SC, Memphis, TN and San Deigo, CA. My main interests were riding dirt bikes and playing music. I have been  playing drums since I was 5. My mother passed away December 15, 2000 and it still hurts. My father & sister still live in New Jersey, and I also have family in South Carolina.

      Since 1976, I tried to make a successful musical career. I played in many bands and got tied up in friendships too often. I let friendships get in the way of advancing to the next level of success. I was in an original band called the New Seeds from Brooklyn, NY. I stopped playing professionally after a violent kidnapping after playing at a small club in the Village called SNAFU. I ran my own business in NJ for about 7 years. Then I left NJ to move to North Carolina and change careers by enlisting into the US Navy and afterwards go to college. That was a goal that was going to be altered by more diversity.
    

I joined the Navy as an Aviation Electricians Mate in 1994 at the young age of 34 & 11 months. I received many commendations and was the top of my classes. I made E5/ AE2 in 3 years. I was honored to serve in Operation Southern Watch on the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier. My unit traveled to far away locations including Australia! I served aboard the USN Abraham Lincoln for a short period. After several injuries, & operations while on duty, I was medically discharged because of c-spine & shoulder problems among other injuries & conditions after serving three years, 11 months, and 21 days. It was just 35 days away from serving a full four years. My girl fiend soon to be my wife & I moved moved to Bakersfield after the discharge and married.

I married a Bakersfield woman and have two children: a boy & girl. We live in Rosedale. We lived on Real Road & Stockdale Hwy in an apartment before we moved to Rosedale. We love it here. I love the Rosedale/Northwest area. I attend Valley Baptist but was attending Stine Road Baptists where I played the drums. I live in constant acute pain due to Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, but try to work and live normally. My wife survived a coma while delivering our son in Bakersfield. Our life together became a challenge as she became disabled. Everything was and is a fight, a challenge, and nothing comes easy to either of us. Life is hard when your both disabled.

     In April of 2007, unfortunately and much to my dismay, with a broken heart I say that my wife and I are divorcing due to irreconcilable differences.

I love writing, designing, graphic arts & Flash, programming. I love music & love to play the drums. Playing the drums causes bad pain although I do it because I love to play. The RSD interferes with anything that involves upper arm & neck movement.  I love motorcycles, especially dirt bikes & motocross. I can still ride but it causes excruciating pain. I still do it when I can because I love it so much. It is the only form of exercise I really enjoy. I also love traveling, camping & anything you can do as a family. I love being with my family. I cannot wait to meet someone new that wants to share in family activities.

I maintain several blogs. When they have more posts, I will list them. I am easily found on the Internet as I am an Internet Marketing professional. I have read extensively about cyberjournalism and am a big fan of what the Bakersfield Californian did to make the Northwest Voice so successful. It truly is ahead of its time. I study the Internet movement: search engine methodologies, ontology & the W3C.org, Internet trends, and new programming languages that interact with the Internet.

Being an artist in more than one area creates a dilemma for me. I want to be able to integrate different types of art while my personal disabilities, finances, floor space and time prohibit merging several fields of art. These issues prohibit full experimentation. I believe that art comes form the soul and it should be nourished and developed.

Some of my community based goals and issues are:

I want to be involved with the protection of OHV (Off Highway Vehicle) issues and believe Dick Taylor is doing an awesome job with representing the majority of us with the Kern Off Highway Vehicle Association.

It is important to teach our children, the next generation about land stewardship. We all must learn how to share the open spaces and keep them open for all who access them including Off Highway Vehicles (OHV), hikers, bicyclists, bmx riders, and horse riders. Though you make think that selection of groups would cause arguments, I suspect that all these groups want to share the land. Bakersfield, & Kern County has an incredible amount of open spaces for all of us to share...

I want to be involved in protecting homeowner rights, and spark or engage interest in urban planning & city development. One issue that is important to me is specifically the right for homeowners to live as they want and not be affected, intimidated, "handled" and forced to accept new rules imposed by either the city of Bakersfield, or the Kern County Planning commission. It saddens me to see small farms leave, horse owners & ranchers being phased-out so that more developers can exploit the city & communities with development of more large cookie-cutter developments.

     Wouldn't you want to be able to have a cross section area in your backyard to have a horse or two, get your kids involved in 4H, have chickens, or pigs to teach the children a bit of responsibility and animal stewardship. Even if you do not like your neighbor to have several animals in their backyard, isn't it important to protect the right of the individual? There are many communities in Bakersfield that have rules prohibiting large animal ownership. Those that do not like the horses in the neighbors backyard should look elsewhere for home ownership.I believe that homeowners should have more voting power at the city & county planning meetings.

I also am a musician, and the noise regulations cause undue hardships not only for musician but for homeowners in general. There should never be any issue with a band rehearsing in a garage, or in a building in the daytime or up to 10 PM. It is horrible and shows you what type of neighbors you have when the police are called on you for practicing in the daytime. Many of my neighbors work on race engines or loud automobile audio systems deep into the late evening (11:00 PM or later), but I do not call the police on them.

Being a good neighbor, being tolerant of others and their interests, and seeking only to provide safety and a nourishing open environment for all my children and their friends is vital to my missions of being a great parent, home owner, artist,  businessman & a good neighbor. It embodies the essence of the "Golden Rule".

User Name:damiano
Real Name:Joseph Damiano
Work Phone:(661)589-1792
Gender:male
Member Since:November 18, 2004
Last Signed In:July 24, 2008
Profile Views:2048
Blog Views:4374