Elliot Washor's TGIF 05.30.2025

“Are You With Me Now” – A.J. Ryder

Who I Know

Thus far, my trip to Long Beach and Los Angeles has been great for the Harbor Freight Fellows Initiative and way more. During the past few days I’ve learned a lot about how we can fit into the work at the Port of Long Beach and the housing crisis in Los Angeles. My first day was a long one. I drove up from San Diego to meet with Bonnie Lowenthal, the president of the Board of the Port of Long Beach and her staff. Andrea met me there to discuss how we can credit Fellows at the port using the Credential. We listened to a presentation about all they were doing with youth and it was quite impressive for in-school programming. The problem was they were hardly getting students out on quality internships or on real-world learning experiences but hopefully that is now about to change. After the meeting, Dennis showed up in the lobby to meet Andrea and I for lunch. He was visiting his sister and as we both already knew Bonnie, the Port President was a good friend of ‘Denny’ and his family so, later on in the day Bonnie showed up at Denny’s sister’s house and we talked for another two hours. There are loads of connections here and lots of follow-up.

Next, I went to a meeting with Charlie to an amazing manufacturing plant in Watts called Model Z Housing. I’ve been there once before on the invitation of David Abel. David was also my first connection to Bonnie where he put me on a panel, she was facilitating at the VerdeXchange. It was there that she turned to me and said, “What you are saying sounds so much like my friend Denny Littky.” At Model Z we received a tour and briefing of their plant but to my surprise we also met with their CEO - Martin Muoto, “the largest private developer of affordable and workforce housing in California. SoLa’s social impact mission and proven track record have allowed it to deploy over $1 billion in low-income communities across Southern California. SoLa Impact was ranked as the 7th fastest-growing minority-led private company on Inc. Magazine’s Inc 500 list and was also recognized by Forbes Magazine as the leading urban Opportunity Zone fund. In 2023, Martin and Gray Lusk founded Model/Z Modular as the most innovative and scalable way to address the homelessness and affordable housing crisis in the US.”

Martin has that ‘Je ne sais quoi’ about him. It is a testament to him that he gave us so much of his time. That said, I believe it will pay off for youth in some very big ways as manufacturers and assemblers who will change the landscape of low-income communities in and around LA and the nation. With everything including real estate purchase and hookups, Model Z housing units are priced at $275,000. They can be put on lots where small homeowners and churches have space for them. In other words they can generate income for vacant land of small landowners and by doing so they keep the integrity of the community without having massive tract housing that sends its own message. This is brilliant stuff but not only that their factory in Watts hires people from the community to build the housing and believe me this is one giant factory. Our work is in their vocational school where we contribute Harbor Freight Fellows. There is so much more to linking this work to other aspects of Big Picture in our future conversations.

A Sunburst Les Paul from 1959—

A Secret Trove of Rare Guitars Heads to the Met by Nick Paumgarten is a story how the guitar considered a lowbrow instrument by the elite and at the same time the instrument of American music will potentially become the most popular exhibit ever at The Met.  I wish it were our Met but this time it is the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. So many of the stories in this article lead us away from AI and toward what matters to us to be human. Here we see people make, fix, repair and collect guitars both as art and an object that produces art. That’s an earful and an eyeful. In their search for vintage guitars starting in the mid-sixties Perry Margouleff and Dirk Ziff amass a treasure trove of guitars and stories worth a fortune. Here’s a few.

When first starting out Ziff went around the country driving without a license because he wasn’t old enough to have one buying old Fenders and Les Pauls. He rarely went to school but one time when he returned his English teacher said, “You have to stay in school,” Then, when he told her he was clearing as much as $1,000 a week, she said, “Drop out of school.” At that time, teachers were making $4,000 a year.

One scholar studied the many “Mexican American women who built Fender guitars during the golden age. They were winding the pickup coils, because they had the skills from being seamstresses to do this handwork.” Today guitarists can tell the difference in the sound of each women’s pickups. That’s handcrafted and not industrialized, mechanized, homogenized instruments designed by accounts that are crap. The bean counters ruined guitar making and AI will do the same with lots of other things if, we let them.

The moral here is that in the future given the world we are fast coming to with AI the fear is that no one is going to have a job, but I can guarantee you that everyone who knows how to craft something by hand or fix something that has meaning to a customer or friend albeit shoes, hair, clothing, wood, metal, ceramics, paint or guitars is going to have a job. If you sell or repair something of value and meaning to a person, you fix the person, not just the object.

Tomorrow, we will have our first Harbor Freight Fellows Summit in Los Angeles. Lots of work went into this event. One of the best parts for me is once again working with former advisor and principal at The Met Wayne Woods.

Plenty, plenty, bye, bye! Be good to one another.