Long Time No Taco

One night, as I fell asleep, I had a great idea for a phone app. Then I spent the majority of my dream-time trying to convince Billy Eichner ( Billy on the Street, Difficult People ) why that same idea was actually terrible! The idea, a sort of "Phone a Friend" for celebrities, would let you scroll through a database (probably Twitter) choosing verified (i.e. Famous) people, that you would love to hear from. You then register your own personal areas of expertise. Then when one of these famous people wanted to know something, like "how to decanter wine properly", or "when the best time to go to Thailand" is, they scroll through a list of their fans who could give them advice, and choose one to call. In my dream Billy was at a home, recording two TV shows for some "A List" star, and texting them synopses of what they missed, while they were otherwise engaged. "It's the easiest thing in the world!" he declared in his classic, supe...

"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...

Goodbye New York.  I knew before I arrived, this was not meant to be my permanent home. Still, four and a half years later, I am sad to leave. I lived here almost as long as my beloved Hiroshima. The people - dear friends - especially in Astoria, but also through work, the JET Alumni Assoc., and chance encounters at Crescent & Vine, make my parting truly morose.  From my travels, I leave with the confidence that physical distance will not dampen the meaningful bonds I have forged here.  Everyone asks, "Are you excited?"  I am.  But my excitement is not for the destination. I am excited to turn a page. Diving into the unknown, there are new adventures to be had. Old, beloved characters will certainly resurface to help guide me. Departures and reunions, challenges to triumph over, and achievements as yet unimagined; these excite me.  You were a part of that, or will be, or both. The loyal, the fair weather, and the downright, difficult basta...

This weekend I walked down Steinway, in Astoria. The area has a large Muslim community and I thought about this great interview of Millennial Muslims I had seen on the CBS Evening News . I often ponder the merits of religion. Without reviewing all the obvious pros and cons, the aspect I want to discuss here is the deceptively dangerous positive: a sense of belonging. This feeling of community that religion provides, can come from other sources as well, such as nationalism. For a few more weeks, before I move to California, I remain an Astorian, along with those Muslims on Steinway. I enjoy the pride that comes from belonging to this community of amazing people. There are myriad other ways to group people, but that same action of combining-together has an opposite, divisive effect. I am "proud to be an American", and I love my home state, Arizona. That does not mean I love what my government does all the time, or the type of questionable bills and laws my state has become ...

Against the Grain's "Massage a Mystic", Wood variety My days of drinking until I puke ended when my passion for craft beer began. I still get drunk occasionally, but now it happens after drinking a few different, usually new, beers with higher alcohol content than what your sports bar has on tap. Honestly, I cannot remember the last time I drank more than two of the same thing. Ten years ago, as my college days of binge drinking were getting started, a new phenomena was also born: Binge-watching television shows! I am just as guilty of this today, and Karl Marx could never have predicted, Netflix, Amazon, and the rest of the great pushers of this new opiate of the people. Currently I caught up to the still-airing CW series "The Flash", and I am pacing myself to try and make Netflix' "Jessica Jones" last a little longer, but I only have two episodes left. As much as I loath marketing, I must also confess how much I love this clever commercial...

Here is an update on my hard-cider brewing! If you read about my trip to Dutchess County , you may recall I mentioned doing some weird measurement taking. That was using a hydrometer to take the apple-pear cider's "Original Gravity" - indicating how much sugar (and other "dissolved solids") are in my cider to be fermented. That number was 1.047. That number, on its own tells me very little, except that the maximum potential  alcohol content is almost 6.2%.  Two weeks have passed, and yesterday I bottled that cider. I'll describe that step in a second, but wrapping up the heavy, gravity talk (hey, you should know by now: I love my puns), I took another reading to find the new specific gravity was 1.002, meaning almost all of the dissolved solids had been turned to alcohol. This tells me two things: My apple-pear cider will have a 5.88% ABV, and with almost no sugars left unfermented, it will taste extremely dry! As I type this, I am drinking a "...