Rock-n-roll, bodyboards and geography - Features

Growing up around the South Bay, I knew a guy who would pay me $20 to clean his CD collection. He was a part-time doctor and a full-time rocker; every so often he would set up his keyboard next to an open glass door overlooking Hermosa Beach and play the blues with some local buddies. He seemed to have known everything, done everything, been everywhere, and still managed a carefree persona.

Here at CSUN, tucked away in the geography department's windowless corridor of faculty offices, sits one of the brightest personalities on the campus, James Craine: part-time professor, full-time rocker. Walking to a table outside Jerome Richfield Hall, Craine appears out of place with his leisurely blue jeans, grey Moog music T-shirt, and ear piercing. In the couple of years that he has been here, though, Craine has earned the respect of his colleagues while providing his students with a learning experience that incorporates the philosophies that he has developed from living life to its fullest potential.

At age 53, Craine shows no signs of stopping. He has gone from a seemingly ubiquitous professional music career to teaching in Northridge on the weekdays while body boarding in Santa Barbara on the weekends. Academia is only his latest profession.

He spent the last nine years earning a master's from CSUN and a Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara, and his current career as a cultural geography professor at CSUN began in 2002.

Craine said he always wanted to get a Ph.D., but that could not happen until the music-making was out of his system.

"I always wanted to be a famous musician, and when that was over I went back to school," Craine said. He also said his schooling set the course for his career. "If you go on to get a Ph.

D., you've kind of made the choice to be a part of academia." According to one of his colleagues, Steve Graves, Craine's decision to become a professor was not made for lack of a better idea.

Graves said that he and others in the department were afraid that Craine would be lost to a better and more prestigious school.

Yes.

No one should ever use that word. No. People should be free to say whatever they want.

No one except African-Americans should be allowed to use that word.