CURRENT MISSION

To meet interesting people and exciting ideas

ABOUT ME

I like to help people. I can talk to and have an interesting conversation with almost anyone. I have a wide variety of interests and a lot of energy. Although I love to meet new people and engage in conversation, I'm pretty easy-going, not too hard to please and not too hard to get along with. I've moved around quite a bit for the past ten years- teaching English, working with the mentally disabled, working as a sailor on ships of various sizes and purposes and most recently on small organic farms. I love being outside and interacting with the natural world. Aside from living at sea I've also enjoyed living in some of the world's largest cities and in the remote countryside, also spent an edifying year in a house of anarchists and two years in a school bus that I refitted as a designer living space- although don't let that give you the opinion that I'm that much of a hippie (not that there's anything wrong with that, it just doesn't happen to be my ethos.)

PHILOSOPHY

"Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself." -Henry Miller. I read this ten years ago or so and it has served me without fail since. Also- that everyone wants to be appreciated- this is universal, significant and maybe not reflected on often enough.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Surf and host.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Lived in a large apartment in Prague that hosted couch surfers from all over the world every night- most were amazing experiences and never a clinker out of the whole bunch.

Interests

I love art and literature, music, travelling and adventure, farming and gardening, cooking great meals, philosophy, conversation, biking, hiking, sailing, dancing, brewing beer, baking bread. I read quite a bit.

• arts
• literature
• design
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• beer
• baking
• gardening
• boating
• politics
• movies
• chess
• traveling
• homebrewing
• painting
• drawing
• music
• cycling
• hiking
• sailing
• history

Music, Movies, and Books

Steinbeck- East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath, Sometimes a Great Notion (underestimated, I believe), Faulkner, David Foster Wallace, Louis Ferdinand-Celine, Julia Kristeva, Jane Austen, T.C. Boyle, Robert Creeley, Hesse, Hafiz, Krishnamurti, Henry Miller, Walt Whitman, James Tate, Cormac McCarthy, Donna Tartt, Susan Sontag, John Fante, Neruda, Pedro-Juan Gutierrez, Borges, Spike Lee, Almodovar,Kubrick, many foreign films French, German, Spanish etc, Nina Simone, The Mountain Goats, Lucinda Williams, Gogol Bordello, Coltrane, Miles Davis, Django, Dead Prez, Bob Dylan, Blackalicious, Cat Power, Bonnie Prince Billy, Reggae and Rock Steady, Jazz, Blues, Folk and American roots music, Buena Vista Social club, Erykah Badu, Beirut, Belle and Sebastian, Arcade Fire, Bluegrass,

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Car broke down in a really seedy and scary part of Memphis and left with the car fixed 12 hours later and having gotten more help from the most genuine caring strangers than I could have ever imagined. Sailing on a ship through a storm in the Gulf stream off Cape Hatteras in February and being submersed in powerful waves full of bioluminescense. Arriving in Seoul for the first time and getting off the subway and onto the most densely packed street I'd ever seen to see everyone wearing masks except for me- having seen a fair amount of apocalyptic films, I was terrified and suspected the worse- later to find out that it was mostly overprecaution against yellow dust froom China.

Teach, Learn, Share

Things I can do well: ride a unicycle, fix and/or rebuild an internal combustion engine, discuss history/ philosophy/ literature/ politics, tell an interesting story, listen, empathize, be humorous, be sincere, be flippant and ironic, ride a motorcycle, identify and appreciate great art, build or construct things.
Things I can do moderately well: cook, grow food, sail a boat, be a decent chess opponent.
Things I can't do very well: identify musical notes, draw or paint, write legibly.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Austria, Bahamas, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru

Countries I’ve Lived In

Czech Republic, South Korea, United States