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Whose Bones? | Who Is Bones?

 

 

Whose Bones? | Who is Bones?
 

I thought it would be clever and somewhat beneficial to think of who I am in terms of the different people, groups and things that I belong to or am somewhat beholden to. Hence I wrote "Whose Bones?" to indicate whom I serve and "Who is Bones?" to indicate what individual and unique human I am among the more than six billion of us sharing Earth at the moment.

 

 

Jobs - Adventures - Education - My SuperHero Suit - My Family

Some may be CEOs; others are politicians; there are religious leaders; and a few are crime bosses. And you can go to school, of one kind or another, for any one of those things. But I didn't.

The purpose in going to school is to learn about the people of your own type (not just your own tribe) because studying how other people did things is considered to be somewhat useful.

For me, the people of my type are language artists. The same as every great painter today studied Picasso, I studied Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss, and Baudelaire. I also studied Ngugi, Rushdie, Basho, and on and on.

It's not that language artists, poets, writers, storytellers, and wordsmiths of any type have to study their predecessors of type, but some of us do and try to put to use what we know.

 

Jobs

Currently I am a professor in the English/ESL Department at Los Angeles City College. Previously I taught English as a foreign language in Japan.

I used to work in Hollywood, both the place where they make movies (which is all over Los Angeles) and in the actual city of Hollywood (which is a small part of Los Angeles).

In the movie business I worked for some writer/producer/directors and also in sales and distribution. The best line I ever heard from one of my bosses is that "it's all writing". Technically speaking, it's all writing and the distribution of that writing in whatever form it ends up taking.

In the city of Hollywood, I worked as a bartender and barback at what was then a happening nightclub. Visitors to our club included Hugh Hefner, Shaquille O'Neill, Leonardo Di Caprio, Reese Witherspoon, etc. Bands that played there: Jane's Addiction, Sugar Ray, Ozomatli, etc. Without a doubt, this was my most favorite job.

Now that I'm a professor, I probably won't be able to bounce from job to job so much, but that's okay...really all I want to do is write.

 

Adventures

I was raised with the idea that it's good to travel. Some parents want to keep their kids close to home, but not mine.

There's that line "anywhere but here" and it and I got along like family. So I never had a problem leaving. That made coming back a reward, too.

To date, I have been to twenty-four countries on four continents. Not an extreme amount compared to many, but a lot compared to most.

Mostly, what's noteworthy about my travels are the extended trips I made, teaching English in Japan, crossing the Sahara, a homestay in Durango, Mexico, many months in Europe...

 

 

Education

It is easy for me to write about the importance of getting an education, but I was never the best of students. Nonetheless, I persisted in school and now I'm a professor.

I have an MFA in Writing from California Institute of the Arts and a BA in English from the University of California, Los Angeles. I also attended UC Santa Cruz.

 

 

My Superhero Suit

A tutor who used to work in the Writing Center I directed told me he was building a superhero suit. I liked the idea. I'm not ambitious in the same way as he, for he really was trying to build one.

I just took it as a metaphor and realized that I already have a superhero suit. The world's strongest lover has to.

Mine is:

  • a Toshiba Portege M700 - Tablet PC 
  • Sidux Operating System (Debian-based GNU-Linux)sidux logoand sometimes PuppyLinux
     
  • HTC Apache htc apache phone
  • a straight-razor, Filarmonica Doble Temple straight razor
  • a Swiss Army pocketknife swiss army knife
  • a Leatherman tool leatherman tool

     

  • a fire starter (these days a cheap Bic Lighter, previously a mighty fine Zippo)
     
  • various USB drives and memory cards (can you say "Information Age"?)

None of these things are ever far from my side and most get used near daily.

I suppose there are other things, too, that help make me a superhero, but we don't always want to reveal all of our secrets.

 

 

My Family

Well, many of the poems in the book are about Mikka, so I won't go into detail here. We have two children and we share a house with Mikka's parents. It's multi-cultural America, as you might imagine!