Long Time No Taco

"Gimme a second I swear, I will say about my rap career", go the lyrics of a Jay Z song. This month I was published in Chopsticks NY Magazine. This time however, my small article on Japanese shamisen included a legitimate byline. While it did not amount to a fraction of enough to pay the bills, I still love being paid to write, and I hope to make it a habit. Best of all, my references to subway platform buskers, and a favorite George Harrison song survived my editor's backspace key. Despite the first-hand account of my own experience, those two things were what made the article itself much more personal. Incidentally, the same Jay Z song starts with the lyrics: They say "they never really miss you til you dead or you gone." So on that note, I'm leaving after this song. Fitting, since the my NYC work was published in absentia, now that I have moved to Los Angeles! The timing has prompted some very kind emails and phone calls from friends who onl...

Hello from Koreatown, Los Angeles. I live here now. It wasn't easy, but my sister put Michelle and I up, along with our TWO cats(!), while we searched for a place. Many other beautiful friends helped us get settled here, too. We're almost two weeks in, still a couple days from getting internet in the apartment, but we have food. appliances. and a smattering of furniture! Last night I had a crazy dream, but unlike the crappy stories we've all heard that start with that phrase, I immediately woke up and wrote down every detail! It reads like a person describing a movie as he watches it, and I also watch a film in the dream... so don't get confused! Here goes: Greg goes to see a black&white film set in an apocalyptic future, starring Bill Murray and Whoopi Goldberg - who does the voice for a mythical bulldog with an alligator head. Deciding they need a better home, she takes him to the last stop of an underground train line, which is guarded by only one man. S...