FREE ACUPUNCTURE TOMORROW and WATCH OUR INFOMERCIAL

For those who don't know already, we're hosting an evening of free treatments at ERCA!
No appointments necessary -- just walk in.

Free treatments begin at 3:00 p.m tomorrow, November 17.
We'll accept our last walk-in at 6:30 p.m.
Eagle Rock Community Acupuncture
2042 Colorado Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA. 90041
323-255-2700

Oh, and while you're here, check out our infomercial:

Hello's and Goodbye's

First the Hello's:
We are swinging our doors open even wider. More hours, more acupuncturists, more volunteers, more blankets (it's getting chilly here!).

Our expanded hours are as follows:
Tuesday 11am - 7pm, Thursday 2 - 8pm, Saturday 10am - 2pm
Be on the lookout for 2 more shifts coming after the new year

Alas, KCAL finally came and did a news piece/story on ERCA. It was pretty fun, actually. I got to stage a scene where I walked briskly into the clinic with patient files piled atop a clipboard...oh, and a pencil behind my ear. Rest assured, patients, your files never leave the confines of ERCA. I got to do one of those Fred Astaire leaps, too. Lucky for me, the bloopers will not be released. I did bring up the outrageous cost of bananas during the interview. I was trying to make an analogy to the staggering cost of health care. Let's hope that bombshell of an anchor lady can turn it all around.

Also, our infomercial is nearly complete. It will soon be posted to the website for all of you to enjoy. It was produced by my buddies at Angel City Multimedia. Thanks to everyone who shared their testimonials. Y'all bring tears to my eyes every time!

Hello to our 2 new acupunks, Christine and Dawna. I searched long and hard to find the most skillful needlers for my clientele. Please come in and introduce yourselves sometime before the holidays take hold of us all. By the way, we are closed on Thanksgiving Day. You'll have to zone out in someone else's recliner that day. Remember to go easy on the lever.

And, now for the goodbye -- K.d., one of the greatest needlers this side of the Great Wall, has resigned from ERCA. If it weren't for K.d., I could have never gotten this place started. I will miss K.d. tremendously, as I'm sure those of you who received treatments from her will. We wish her lots of luck wherever she lands.

So, stay tuned for KCAL's story on us. I will let you know when it's going to air via Facebook (are you not yet a Facebook fan of Eagle Rock Community Acupuncture?) I will post the link to the news story on this blog, my website, my forehead and anywhere else that allows.

Daily Candy Notices ERCA

Yes, we do love getting noticed.
Standing barely 5'0'' tall makes it so.
Opening a new business where a $1000 permit must be obtained in order to have a sign on Colorado Boulevard makes it so.

Offering a unique opportunity for people to get well without breaking the bank makes it so.
Thanks to DailyCandy and the great article they published today, ERCA got its props.

Have a look: http://www.dailycandy.com/los_angeles/article/71901/On+Pins+and+Needles

Independence Day

June saw some good days and, most recently, a wet day. Bad plumbing can hold out only for so long. The old toilet which always ran finally had its chance to become Niagara Falls (for 48 hours). I walked into the office on Tuesday wishing I had worn rain boots.
An emergency call to the landlord's wife, a snake down the pipe,
pro rug cleaners, 2 industrial fans, and 3 days later -- we're back to the ERCA you all know and love. Maybe this will be the end of the new carpet smell that gets pointed out to me every so often. By the way, I am aware that my clinic smells like new paint and carpet!
We've got great new volunteers who help keep me sane when the going gets tough, and we have more on the way!

Now it's time for a little ERCA history:


Most of you have never seen the logo that almost was our logo.
Joey, my graphically artistic friend, and I slaved over finding the right image to capture who we are. On your left you'll see the first runner up. The main issue was that we are eagles, rather than doves. Is it just me, or does that eagle remind you of UNICEF? Then, K.D. alerted me to the fact that red-orange comes from the lower chakra and signifies fear. Another strike against this logo.






My original idea had a kind of Flintstones aesthetic: a "pre-historic" recliner petroglyph. Joey began sketching. On and on it went until, at last, we arrived at our current logo which includes a real eagle, a recliner, the sun and the letters E-R-C-A -- all encircled by 2 acupuncture needles (you might not have caught that).

Anyway, it's thanks to all of the people who believe in what we are doing at ERCA that great things happen: logos are made, vacuum cleaners are donated, volunteers arrive, eager to help. Grateful patients show up with bags of peaches from their trees. In fact, when asked by several customers yesterday, "Don't you wish that you didn't have to work today?" though it was July 4th, I answered that I was so happy to finally have this place and a job where I am doing everything on my own terms. Happy Independence Day (a day late).

Events, Plans and Noodles

Another month, another notch in our belt. May was great at ERCA.
Some exciting changes and events to let you know about:

• Beginning in June, our Thursday hours will extend until 8:00pm (based on the results of our customer surveys, evening/night hours were the most in-demand)
• Also, we are hosting a very cool event which will begin on Tuesday, June 2nd - a group hypnotherapy session led Melissa Skirboll. It's a 4 Part Series aimed at re-training your mind and habits for successful Weight Loss. Know anyone who wants to lose weight? The sessions will begin at 7:00pm and end at 9:00pm. Get out your calendar and circle these 4 Tuesdays: 6/2, 6/9, 6/16, 6/23. You can sign up at ERCA or with Melissa. Her contact info is on her site: http://hypnotherapytoday.com/
  

K.d. and I want to get those reclining chairs lots of gigs. If this hypnotherapy thing goes well, I may rent the room out for a Superbowl 2010 party. Anyone wanna donate a plasma screen TV?

So, let's see: new extended hours, hypnotherapy, we survived another month....what else?
Oh, I finally received my copy Acupuncture Is Like Noodles: The Little Red (Cook)Book of Working Class Acupuncture. Here is a passage which I'd like to end on...



Acupuncture is like food. Providing acupuncture is like cooking and receiving acupuncture is like eating. The ingredients are all contained within the body itself; the acupuncture treatment is a way of arranging them so that the body can use them better. Once the acupuncturist arranges the needles in the right combinations, the patient's job is to sit quietly long enough to "digest" the treatment.

There ya have it. Eat plenty of our noodles, and then come to the weight loss hypnotherapy sessions starting this Tuesday.

Got $20?

We have surpassed our financial goals for April. New patients appear every day that we are open, excited to be able to pursue a course of treatments. ERCA, along with all of the other community acupuncture clinics out there, is changing reality for so many people. In our 10 weeks of being open, we are treating out-of-work teachers, out-of-work screen writers, and people who just quit their health insurance (not by choice). It's not to say that I've never treated people who've been down on their luck....it's just that they could never afford to keep coming. I remember back in Atlanta giving a patient who had a factory job a "special price." She came in for a number of months, got great results and then I never heard from her again. I couldn't understand why. At that time, I was pretty far removed from her situation. Now that I have significantly less money and "security" than I had a few years ago, I can understand the mentality of wanting something that you can't afford. It's not that you want a hand-out or charity -- those make you feel icky, to say the least. You just want to be able to afford what you need.
Another perk of "recliner-style"/ community acupuncture is being able to see groups of complete strangers enter other states of consciousness together. I do enjoy breezing through the treatment room and seeing them on their respective recliners all snoozing away. Each one on their own journey with a look of serenity that keeps me from even asking, "Is everything okay?"
We are forming relationships with other businesses on our street. I am drinking a heck of a lot of coffee (there are coffee shops on both street corners). We are making more trips to the bank (with lots of $20 bills).
We are transforming people's health. We are soaring in a falling economy.

Grand Opening--Recliner Test-drive

I should be asleep after my long day. Instead, I am posting photos to Facebook and munching on leftover tortilla chips from the ERCA Grand Opening. Lots of people to thank: let's start with the predictable ones: K.D. and Michele. They chopped vegetables, made cookies, watched my son, hustled donations, and generally kicked ass.
Then there are the neighboring businesses in Eagle Rock who were so supportive of us and agreed to donate free food, floral arrangements, balloons, coffee, etc.. Special thanks to Swork, Pollen, José the florist (don't know the name of his shop), Trader Joe (himself), Lemongrass, and the lady with the little balloon studio in the back of the karate place.


Around 2 PM, the new age jams were switched off. The food arrived, and folks trickled in. Yes, I did grab people from off of the street who were innocently looking through the big storefront windows. Earlier in the day, I was interviewed for a podcast (internet radio program) about happenings in Eagle Rock. I'll post that link, once it's up. One balloon popped, and a little guacamole found its way on the new carpet. I took it all in stride. I tweak qi for a living, remember?
As with any wild party celebrating "group-acupuncture," the high-light was the last hour when everyone took a recliner, got needled by me and K.D., and snoozed amidst helium balloons and the scent of orchids and lilys. An auspicious beginning which certainly gives a new perspective on what it means to party.

The Eagle Has Landed (Almost)

At last, we have a website. Please go to: www.ercaclinic.com, and let me know what you think.
It's been an exciting 2 weeks. Once the remodel began drawing to a close last weekend, it became evident that we would be able to open on February 17. So, we've been doing things which are sometimes difficult, often zany, and always expensive. We've subsisted on an incredible assortment of bite-sized sample LaraBars which KD scored at an Acupuncturists Without Borders event. My electrician, I learned, is off to Brazil. He mentioned that he'll need to buy enough Nicorette to get him through the 24 hour flight....I digress.

Like I said, it's been exciting, difficult, zany, and expensive. Special thanks to K.D, Michele, and Brent who did all of the stuff that scares me, like putting together IKEA furniture. I guess this means that now I actually have to open the place for business and do acupuncture.
Please come by, if you're in the area.

January Update

Happy New Year to everyone who is interested in my new clinic. I have a smile from ear to ear these days. I get to set up phone accounts with lovely companies like AT&T, shop for olefin carpeting, scan Craigslist periodically throughout the day, and tell myself that this will be my last month without an income. Happy 2009!
I'm reflecting on the very quick and direct journey which led me to community acupuncture.
After all, I had been successful doing things with the more common business model which is referred to by the Community Acupuncture coven as "boutique acupuncture." Back in Atlanta, I was treating each patient in their own treatment room and giving them way more time and attention than they received from their MD's and, for most of them, even their own spouses. Looking back, it certainly blurred a lot of lines: the line between friend and doctor, the line between salesperson and healer. I enjoyed my work, but I also complained a lot. Maintaining my large client base was no easy task. Imagine trying to juggle the four balls: friend, doctor, salesperson, healer. Oh, and bill-collector, too. Make that 5 balls.
The "Community Acupuncture community" is a pretty wild bunch. I had the pleasure to meet a bus-load of them in Portland back in October of last year. I don't say bus-load like people use the word "boat-load." I was actually on a bus with them touring the Community Acupuncture clinics in Portland. The clinics that we toured were very different from the clinics that I had run or worked in. First of all, the clinics were very reflective of the owners' personalities, all of which were welcoming and unpretentious. One clinic owner had a theme of spiky objects throughout her brightly colored clinic. She displayed several potted cactus, porcupine and hedgehog figurines. Another CA owner had a modest clinic with old linoleum floors and florescent lights where you pay by slipping your money into a cardboard box. No money for a receptionist yet. Bartering for the much needed repairs. She had wisely decided to not get bogged down in making the place beautiful and just started treating patients as soon as possible. The common thread throughout these clinics was the hodgepodge of used recliners, the mellow vibe, and the feeling that the space really belonged to the patients (many of whom supplied the clinics with their magazines, plants, donated chairs, and artwork).
So, as I go over color swatches and carpet samples and try to figure out if it all jives with my logo (will post soon), I try to imagine whose butts will sit and fall blissfully asleep in these recliners.
Will they care if the walls are high-gloss? Or will they hate looking up at a drop ceiling? Will they mind that I won't have the time to shmooze? That's my baggage, actually.
Anyway, lots of transitions this month. So, please stay tuned.