CURRENT MISSION

Transplanting my Brain (and the rest of me) to San Francisco

ABOUT ME

I wish I had talent enough to be original by beginning this section with anything other than "I am terrible at writing these things". By Meyers-Briggs typing, I am an ENTP, for what it's worth. I live by a strong code of ethics and (sub-)cultural politics matter a great deal to me. If Bush II was just right of Reagan, I am just left of Trotsky, but not crazy, glib or stinted about it. I value social justice, personal and social liberty, rationality, language (a value unto itself in my mind), knowledge, respect and responsibility most. When at home, I am usually working on some programming or artistic project, often writing. I sing a great deal and used to for the opera.

I am a rad queer and try to live in a way that I see as productive to the evolution of those of us living on the bottom side of sexual and gender hegemonies, and for all of those experiencing endemic oppression in our lives as best I can.

Bartending comes naturally to me because I grew-up in a pub, and I live up to being an Irishman to a tee in many ways. I have learned not to drag my knuckles when I walk, but I love football, can dance well, have an alcohol tolerance that could warm Margaret Thatcher, and was raised to be a man of words (even if I am not actually as clever as I often fancy myself after a few drinks). Oscar Wilde is a hero of mine.

The Pacific Northwest has made me an outdoorsy guy. Let's face it, Portland is in a temperate rainforest and we regularly have cougars parading through the metro area. I love backpacking, kayaking and swimming. I have been skydiving and would like to explore that more. I snowboard incredibly poorly, but enjoy face-planting anyhow.

Music is a big part of my life. I was conceived at a concert, a couple years after my parents met at Ratt show, was pulled out of school when Freddy Mercury died, and have a slight embarrassingly passionate love of Bauhaus, David Bowie and Siouxsie Sioux. Portland's music is amazing and I have been spoiled by living here. Everywhere else's bookstores pale in comparison of size to Powell's City of Books, but I love discovering bookshops of all kinds and finding new takes on crabby print merchants. At the time I wrote this, I was reading Square Dancing in the Ice Age by Abbie Hoffman, Leviathan and the Air Pump by Schapin and Schaeffer, and some H.P. Lovecraft stories; can you say "bibliophile"? I might be one. Maybe. And never sarcastic, either.

Communication is big for me, and finding ways to better do it and understand are a big part of my perspective and motivations in life. I am very direct, and appreciate others who are, too. I mean passive aggression is fine, if that's what --you-- want to do, but is hardly productive or helpful. I speak my mind and am honest to a dead fault, mostly because I am too lazy to remember which lie I told to whom.

Affable and very social, I love to dance, drink, and explore. I am very active and run at full-boar all the time. When at home, I cook and entertain. I am the conscientious and clean housekeep, who doesn't mind having people over to help make a short lived mess for the sake of good times. Movie nights, dinner parties, theme parties, and game nights are regular goings-on at my house. When staying with others, I like to pitch-in and am happy to cook, entertain, clean, be handy with a screw gun, work in the garden or carouse. I can be quiet as a church mouse while reading or knitting, or found in the group having the most fun and making no effort to hide it. I am a fan of all the fun sins if applied with finesse and good judgment; all things in moderation, including moderation itself. I live well, and enjoy myself while doing it in every sense I can.

Human beings fascinate me.

I returned from Tokyo in late 2009, to find the U.S. economy in a meltdown that robbed me of my continued postgrad funding and left the job market in Portland an abysmal mess. I have been floundering here trying to get comfortably established, but my field is saturated and it seems I have outgrown Portland a bit, as much as I love, I don't see a future for me here. So, time to leave and find somewhere new that has things to offer that are more compatible with my goals in life.

Right now, I am looking to be someone's respectful couchsurfer for some period of time after I arrive in San Francisco at the end of June. I will clean, cook and step dance , if desired. I would ideally like to find people who can introduce me to the city as a resident and help me get acclimated or show me some nifty things I didn't know. If not, I'll take a couch with a roof over my head while I job and apartment hunt. I will be traveling with a couple of suitcases for luggage and belongings, but nothing space-intensive. If I can, I would love to bring my adorable, incredibly friendly and amazingly well-behaved familiar, Aki (a grey cat with a white hipster moustache). If not, I will make arrangements for him to stay up here while I get settled. Intentionality and community are really important to me, so I love discovering nerw people with whom I can connect. Ideally, I'd like to meet some rad people who can help me discover the Bay and get settled in my move. It is time to explore a new city, and make a new home.

I cook wicked Thai and Japanese and Irish food.

I cycle like mad; I enjoy putting the fun between my legs, and am totally in-touch with my inner ten-year-old, frequently screaming "wheeeeeee" as I roll down a hill.

PHILOSOPHY

Context and perspective dictate everything we understand. The fact of one person and another being able to place their hands upon and object and call it "table" in agreement, is thanks not to our having direct access to that table itself, but our symbolic systems for that "table". Everything is relative and subjective; to claim otherwise is to moot your own point by interest int the discussion itself. Logic is the only means by which we arrive at a clear distinction between concepts and can have a way of hashing them out in a fashion by which all understandings can be evenly compared. Logic is also far from perfect, but its the best we have and a formal set of rules everyone should know. Delusions, shattered jarringly by new information should bend.

Social justice is how humans will evolve. By working to better ourselves as societies and do better by those worst off, we improve ourselves and develop the social technologies that we need to move forward. We also stand presciently on the edge of devolution.

My morals are dictated by these basic ideas: knowledge, language and culture in general are the only human things. One should not harm others, except to defend the self or others who cannot defend themselves. One should respect the wishes of those that do not wish to be defended. One should treat others in a fashion such as they would like to be treated, with consideration to how they ought be treated exhibiting the behaviour said others are. One should live in a way that grants others as much freedom to live as they like as possible, insofar as that personal liberty does not infringe on the ability of others to express theirs. Considerations of context can mitigate otherwise moral judgments, but this is inversely proportional to the social privilege of the subject considered; a poor man stealing a loaf of bread to feed himself or his family is no crime, but a rich man doing it is.

Removing self-imposed emotional investment (to the degree possible) in something and being motivated by causes other than one's self can greatly reduce the impact of one's interest in a topic; calm down a think before you act when you can. Observe before judging if you can. Removing self-imposed limitations in general can liberate you and no one owes anything to tradition simply for their existence.

"When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled "made in Germany"; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, 'Americanism'". -Halford E. Luccock

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

At the moment, our house hosts people, but as I am moving to SF soon, I will be hosting there once I am set-up in my own place.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We have hosted several surfers from Europe, North America and Australia at our house. I have known lots of houses that have participated and am just starting my own profile because I plan on moving soon.

See my friend Katy O'Brien's profile for details about surfing on our couch.

Interests

books, learning, people, music, film, art, criticism, politics, social justice, activism, making things difficult for the status quo, making things easier for the working class, tea, grilling, making clothes, changing the world, writing, computer programming, open source software, killing Microsoft, sex politics, dancing, singing, making noise, knitting, cooking, making bad art, traveling, trying something new for the sake of it, hiking routes, meeting interesting people, meeting fun people, statistics, research, qualitative sociology, epistemology and human consciousness, networking (not of the variety involving business cards and smarm, but the variety involving the series of tubes), cycling, coffee, herbalism, yoga, martial arts, organizing, wit and witicism, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera

• cats
• arts
• culture
• writing
• books
• singing
• folklore
• fashion
• concerts
• dancing
• causes
• ethics
• dining
• cooking
• coffee
• yoga
• running
• partying
• drinking
• pub crawls
• gardening
• clothing
• politics
• reading
• traveling
• knitting
• coding
• music
• opera
• cycling
• hiking
• backpacking
• kayaking
• surfing
• skydiving
• snowboarding
• martial arts
• soccer
• swimming
• business
• teaching
• logic
• sociology
• software
• statistics

Music, Movies, and Books

David Bowie, Siouxsie Sioux, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Ladytron, Jannelle DuMonet, Queen, Radiohead, Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground, LCD Soundsystem, Cut/Copy, The Killers, The Streets, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, The Misfits, Suzanne Vega, Joni Mitchell, Ani Difranco, Blondie, Annie Lennox, The Eurhytmics, Talking Heads, The Clash, Chicks On Speed, Dr. Demento, The Pharcyde, Blackalicious, Michael Jackson, Coldplay, The Beatles, Dolly Parton, Janis Joplin, The Indigo Girls, Jay Brannan, Pink Martini, Pink Floyd, Rhythm Droid, Juha, The Portland Cello Project, Fiona Apple, Siouxsie And The Banshees, ABBA, Translation Brass, The Knife, Leonard Bernstein, The Decemberists, Holcombe Waller, Sun City Girls, New York Dolls, Garfunkel and Oates, Galen Green, Susan Boyle, Unwound, The Marvans, Lady Gaga, Bob Dylan, The Smiths, Stevie Wonder, Darren Hayes, Patricia Lee Smith, Daft Punk, Björk, Willie Nelson, Alec Empire, Semi Precious Weapons, Scissor Sisters, Simon and Garfunkel, Little Richard, Placebo, Black Flag, Crass, Thievery Corporation, µ-ziq, The Gore Gore Girls, Sleater-Kinney Bikini Kill, Billy Idol, Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel, Bauhaus, Peter Murphey, Joy Division, Eliott Smith, The Pogues, Rancid, Chumbawumba, The Regurgamuthafuckintations, Das Racist, Florence and the Machine, Adele, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Sarah Vaughn, Bessie Smith, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Twisted Sister, Judas Priest, Patsy Cline, Tammmy Wynette, Diamanda Galas, Billie Holiday, Liz Phair, Le Tigre, Faker, Metric, Doc Watson, Bronski Beat, The Communards, M.I.A., Pansy Division, Santigold, and so much gods-damned more... I run a media server and web radio station from home.

We won't begin to get into my massive library too deeply. I currently have a lot of 18th century French social thinkers on my desk, beside a stack of C.J. Cherryh. I love Kurt Vonnegut, Chuck Pallanhiuk, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Rechy, the list goes on and on. I read a lot of Murakami, and have a fairly healthy interest in comics and manga. The graphic novel format is my favourite, by far. If it tells you anything, I feel uplifted and get the tiniest bit choked-up reading V for Vendetta. Barefoot Gen should be required reading for all Americans. Queer pulp novels and Angela Davis have also been going in and out of my bag a lot for train rides, lately. The Little Prince is a guiding book in my life and I first became a sustainability-driven malcontent thanks to Dr. Seuss's The Lorax.

My favourite director of film is Almodovar. I loved del Torro's "Mar Aldentro", Lars von Trier is a sexist ass (but I like most of his work for most of its other elements, and hanging Bjork was both sad and hilarious in retrospect). I think britcoms are hilarious. The pythons crack me up. Meryl Streep is solid gold ad I love watching her and Glenn Close duke it out for the Oscars. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" was beautiful. I geeked-out over "Transformers". I want James Cameron to die in a fire because everything after "The Abyss" has been crap. At ten-years-old I stood up, applauded and left when DiCaprio drowned in "Titanic", and I hated "Avatar" (otherwise known as "Fern Gulley for Adults Without the Amusing Bat Character"). Born a Trekkie, I was never much into Star Wars and am convinced that when hey started filming Episode I, that George Lucas was replaced by a wet sack of cement, some semi-intelligent gelatinous goo and a gray wig. J Horror and some K Horror rocks my socks, and I love a good bizzaro Japanese film.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I taught social justice and creative writing at an alternative high school for addicted youth. I saw students of incredibly divergent backgrounds come together and articulate about their differences in the world in a most inspiring way. They made art and thought about how the world had put them in different positions in life because of various factors, culminating in a journal of their art and writing that I keep very close to my heart.

I also got lit on fire while teaching a class.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach all sorts of computing knowledge and can introduce people to Japanese conversation. I can fix household shit fairly well and love gardening. I also cook very well in many styles and am happy to show someone a new process or dish.

I am a teacher by training and love showing people new things. I also love absorbing new information and praxis, which I soak-up like a dessicated sponge.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Morocco, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, United States, Uruguay

Countries I’ve Lived In

Ireland, Japan