I first read "1984" when I was 14. That was the beginning of the beginning.

I went to journalism school because I heard Hemingway and Faulkner did, and realized I had no desire whatsoever to write cat-up-a-tree stories for the next decade while my ship wasn't coming in.

I became a music critic, which led to being in a band, and that worked out pretty well, but being a rock star wasn't what I really wanted. A literary friend of mine asked if i wanted to help run a quiz night, and that felt a little closer to it, but not close enough. So here we are.

Influences? Joyce, Cortazar, Lester Bangs, Mark Leyner, Wallace (both Stegner and David Foster), Scriabin, redheaded women who are smarter than me, Marshall Crenshaw, the voiceover guy on the New York City MTA who tells us when the doors are closing, Plymouth Navy Blend Gin, construction workers singing "Jolene" at karaoke nights, Stephen Fry, the Toronto Maple Leafs, Kung Pow: Enter The Fist, caffeine in all its forms, Toddlers & Tiaras, Salman Rushdie, Carlos Fuentes, Chaka Khan singing "Tell Me Something Good,"  Anais Nin, Don Delillo, John Dos Passos, Paul Weller, Jacques Tati, 70's fusion era Miles Davis, Neil Hamburger, and hipsters who don't quite realize they've become right wingers in spite of themselves yet.