I am 32 years old, and I live in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. I grew up near Oakland and San Francisco in California, and also lived in Seattle for about seven years after high school. I am a musician, a writer, an urban history obsessive (any city! Big or small, anywhere), and a major "people person" - my relationships with my girlfriend, friends, family and fellow travelers are my life's delight and I love meeting new people, a new friendship is always rewarding

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I think that sharing through personal interaction, fun, discussion, adventure and so forth is the greatest tool we have for learning about the world that we live in. I love exploring new places! For a "people person" like me, a visit to a new place is not complete without hearing personal perspectives from the people who live there. I have had the good fortune to travel and meet good people all over the USA as well as a small but growing list of other countries

Interests

Music and cities are my biggest interests! Aside from that, I love doing stuff outside, riding my bike, looking at interesting maps, wandering around new places and cool neighborhoods on foot or on wheels, making new friends and learning from them, reading, and writing

• arts
• culture
• writing
• books
• architecture
• dancing
• reading
• traveling
• music
• jazz
• rock music
• cycling
• geography
• history
• mountains
• nature
• film
• cities
• water
• maps
• r&b
• urban history

Music, Movies, and Books

For music, my favorites with one example each are jazz (Miles Davis), rock (The Ramones), and RnB (Stevie Wonder). I really love all genres! Hip-hop, country, blues, classical, electronic, folk musics of the world, even stuff I don't like I always like learning about and hearing what moves people. Every musical story is interesting to me

I used to read tons of novels - lots of 20th century modern stuff like William Faulkner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, things like that. I still love those authors but these days I (regrettably) do not read much fiction, I mostly read history! As you can probably guess I read a lot of books about music, culture, and cities. I like all kinds of history though

As a movie fan, I am particularly fond of old classics from the 50s-80s. I watch movies from all eras though - my favorite recent movie is "Lovers Rock"

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I played in a punk rock band that toured for six weeks a year, with shows every night, from 2016-2018. Our shows here in New Orleans were always packed and we were lucky to have so much fun traveling around the USA - East Coast, West Coast, Southwest, Southeast, Midwest, Mountains and Great Plains, the works! This experience was a whole lot of work and often stressful but it always paid off in incredible nights of music. We also got to couchsurf with tons and tons of our fellow musicians and music fans which would almost always be a highlight of each stop. We were never trying to hit the big time or anything, but it was truly special watching so many audiences come to life while we played. We broke up in 2019 but have been playing some reunion shows lately which has been great. Our band is called Casual Burn, you can check it out for free online if you like https://casualburn.bandcamp.com/

What I Can Share with Hosts

Aside from being a generally laid back, respectful guest, I have tons of cool stories - I know a million people and would love to tell you about them. I know a lot about music, music history, and city history. I am always looking to share knowledge on these topics, or perhaps we can learn some new things about your city together. I am a sort of amateur anthropologist, let's share notes!

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Turkey