CURRENT MISSION

To walk the earth.

ABOUT ME

I want to burn brightly and shed light on the darkness of mutual ignorance. I believe in the promise and potential of the road. Shall we evoke Charles Baudelaire?

I joined Couchsurfing in 2009, while I was teaching English and traveling around China. Though it's a rather different community these days, I still hope to keep its original egalitarian spirit alive. In addition to China, I have lived in Canada (where I foolishly resisted learning French), the U.S. (where I investigated car accidents and seemed to be the only non-actor in Hollywood) , Turkey (where I taught history), and now Mexico City, which is closest place to what I could call my home. There's something delightfully zany about this city.

"...pack your leaving trunk, you know we got to leave today
Just exactly where we going I can not say
But we might even leave the U.S.A.
'Cause it's a brand new game, and I want to play."

-Alan Wilson

PHILOSOPHY

"But let the mind beware, that though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious."-Jack Kerouac

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I attend meetups occasionally. I used to host with some frequency when I lived in China. If you visit Mexico City and want to find an excellent non-Michelin-starred restaurant, I can be of assistance. I'm also interested in interviewing travelers about their adventures. One of my articles, about a couchsurfer who hitchhiked from Serbia to Beijing, can be read here:

http://matadornetwork.com/notebook/on-hitchhiking-across-asia-and-couchsurfing-with-the-taliban/

Interests

Flaneuring, meeting observant people, daytripping, contemplating, visiting museums and historic sites, reading historical accounts, munching on apples in bucolic environments.

• arts
• street art
• concerts
• reading
• traveling
• journalism
• hitchhiking
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

60s and 70s counter-culture classics

(Blow Up, Easy Rider, Putney Swope).

Thought provoking science fiction
(2001, Bladerunner, Moon, The Man From Earth).

Film with dream-like thoughtscapes
(Eternal Sunshine, Vanilla Sky, Being John Malkovich).

Charming/ridiculous indie comedies
(The Big Lebowski, anything by Wes Anderson, Ghost World,
Punch Drunk Love, Submarine).

War films that are more than war films
(Apocalypse Now, The Thin Red Line, Paths of Glory).

Stylish violence and satire (Tarantino, American Psycho).

Artsy romance films in which the protagonists fail to truly connect (Chungking Express, 3 Iron, 500 Days of Summer).

Unintentionally awful films (The Room, Manos The Hands of Fate).

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

How about three?

-Couchsurfed with a lascivious monk in Myanmar.
-Hitchhiked from Beijing to Shanghai.
-Taught British business English despite never having been to the U.K.

What I Can Share with Hosts

They say a picture says a thousand words. I say a thousand stories give a picture.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Cuba, Georgia, Guatemala, India, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Thailand, Turkey, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, China, Mexico, Turkey, United States

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