42-year-old native of North Carolina; I've lived in Charlotte, Boone, Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Alongside varied sporadic Wikipedia contributions, I've contributed to a handful of other publications and several online sites, with cultural studies, music, film and literature as key areas of focus.
Jobs held have inculded writing film & music reviews, purchasing for a music distribution company, varied levels of retail, editing for publication, multi-tasking in a food co-op, and touring bassist for a rock/punk band. I began playing bass guitar when I was 17. I am listed as a contributor to the Senses Of Cinema film journal; varied bits of my writing appear on several not-especially prestigious websites.
French, Italian, Iranian, Bengali, Chinese, Hong Kong, Japanese
Music
punk, post-punk, jazz, early fusion, 20th century classical, new wave, old-time, bluegrass, garage/psych, krautrock, classic rock, rock en Espanol, international garage, gamelan...On certain days I think Talking Heads and The Clash were perhaps, interchangeably, the greatest rock bands ever.
Literature & Art
primarily, but not limited to Latin-American (20th century) literature, Chinese (classical) literature, Japanese (20th century) literature, Russian, the history and evolution of certain literary and arts movements (surrealism, the Harlem renaissance, beat literature, magic realism, dada, pop art)
Meteorology
I'm a weather geek. A long-term project is collecting and documenting the history of severe weather events (hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, ice storms) in the eastern U.S.
Botany
Citrus, solanaceae, annonaceae are a few particulars. I have container-cultivated lemon, guava, strawberry guava, red guava, yuzu, calamondin, pacay, and a few other things lurking about the apartment.
African-American history and civil rights, LGBT rights and issues, the 1960s, the 1970s social change & sociology, maps (I collect vintage street maps of American cities), Asian history, Buddhism, politics, nature and anthropology are but a few of many interests.
My extended family is to be found in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Wisconsin, and California; various extended family members have lived - at some point - in Jamaica, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, The Philippines, South Korea, and a handful of other notable spots. I love to travel though it doesn't happen nearly as often as I would like.
Thus far, I've visited 17 states in the U.S., 86 of the 100 counties in North Carolina, and 4 other countries. There are many, many places in the world I would love to see.
In 1998, the PBS series P.O.V. aired the documentary Family Name (directed by New York-based filmmaker Macky Alston), which investigated in depth the family history and genealogy of both the black and white sides of my paternal family lineage. I am a distant cousin to artists Romare Bearden and Charles Alston. I was once a neighbor to an individual who played a key role in the American Civil rights movement.
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