Bio

Short Version:

(2008) Rocky addresses the San Diego Democratic Club

Rocky Neptun is unique in several ways. A hard-working landscaper for many years, he says he will never retire because the work keeps him not only physically fit but mentally as well. The vision of thinking globally and acting locally is an everyday reality as he lives bi-nationally, since his partner is a Mexican national without a passport. He lives week-ends at their home near Rosarito Beach.

The rest of the week, in addition to his work, he is the volunteer director of the San Diego Renters Union. He is a former elected member of the City Heights Planning Board and served on the City of San Diego’s Needle Exchange Task Force.

Rocky is also a free-lance journalist for the international website MediaLeft and writes for local publications including the San Diego Reader, the former San Diego Gay and Lesbian Times, The San Diego Progresso Newspaper, La Prensa San Diego, and Zenger’s Newsmagazine. He is a member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association as well as an active member of the National Writers Union.

He is a founding member of the San Diego Affordable Housing Coalition and the San Diego Peace and Justice Coalition. A member of the San Diego Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), he also assists with the American Friends Service Committee’s Border Project.

Rocky serves on the Board of Directors for the Casa de los Olvidados, a refuge for street kids with HIV-AIDS in Tijuana and is former member of the Grant Making Committee of the San Diego Foundation for Change. He is a member of the Ocean Beach People's Co-op and a member of the San Diego Sierra Club.

(2006) Rocky speaks to a crowd in front of the Sempra building downtown in opposition to the expensive and un-needed Sunrise Power line, as he calls for the public ownership of San Diego Gas & Electric Company

Long Version:

Rocky Neptun was born in Los Angeles, California in 1947. He was born on October 11 which, appropriately, is International Coming Out Day. Even though he was born in the City of Angels, in the Queen of Angels Hospital – he insists he is neither an angel nor a queen.

Graduated:  Eisenhower High School, Rialto, California in 1965.

Attended: San Bernardino Valley College, 1965-67 [staff writer, college newspaper; moderated television program, KVCR, worked with Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in Delano]

VISTA Volunteer, 1967-69 [trained in community organizing in Chicago by Hull House and Jesse Jackson’s Operation Bread Basket; worked in the hollows of the Appalachian Mountains with poor people].

Newspaper Reporter, Fontana Herald-News, a daily newspaper, 1969-70 [traveled on Ronald Reagan's campaign bus as journalist]

Attended: Friends World College, Lloyd Harbor, New York, 1970-74 [studied in England 6 months and Portugal 6 months – was imprisoned by the dictator Salazar for his work against the Fascists]

Married: Janie Finwald, Bloomington, California in 1970. Divorced in 1976.

Studied: at the Center for Inter-cultural Documentation in Cuernavaca, Mexico in 1971 with Paul Goodman, Ivan illich and Paulo Freire.

B.A.: The University of Redlands, Redlands, California 1975

Assistant to the Publisher: Drummer Magazine, Los Angeles, California 1976-77

Model, Escort and Personal Assistant to various Actors: Hollywood, California 1978-80 [lover, Tom Hagen, aka Kip Knoll]

Owned: Creek Side Farms Market, Ontario, California 1980-89

Married: Cathy Luther, 1982 [one son – Robert] Divorced 1989.

Worked: Training Manager, ARCO Corporation, 1989-95. Fired for refusing to terminate half a store’s employees because too many had health insurance.

Self-employed landscaper in San Diego: 1995 to the present. [Lover –Luis Ruiz for 9 years]