CURRENT MISSION

To listen completely and, if even for only an instant, without judgement.

ABOUT ME

This past December, after taking some time off from my jobs at a public access television station and theater, I finished and sent off to the U.S. Copyright Office my first novel - a work which I am printing myself, constructing by-hand, hoping that the book (both in its content and way in which I share it) can provide an alternative to what I see as an increasingly (both on the new release bookstore shelves and online platforms) de-personalized and mass-distributed market for literature. The fact that there is a market, almost makes me never want to write again. And so therefore I am making copies slowly, leaving them on park benches for strangers, my mind warped enough by public radio so that I believe people will (they haven't yet, but it's still early...) send me checks in amounts they deem fit and manageable, to my P.O. Box - the only way I list, on the pages, to contact me. My work you will find nothing about online, no self-promotion website, no blog listing my publishing history or current financial despair/success - all in the hopes that I can talk to people, individually; share with people, minutely; cultivate some sort of community existing outside the realm of convenience, tradition, what you will.

And if you host me, along my way to the deserts of this country, I would love to leave with you a copy.

PHILOSOPHY

Nontraditional approaches to the age-old problems appeal to me immensely; I think: what point be there in supporting the same old temporary solutions, ideas I can imagine full well and too easily? I desire what I cannot yet think of, what I am not currently considering. Equations that perhaps do not conventionally balance, have maybe as yet unknown algebraic signs littering the series of numbers; in unusual and unpracticed thought, I find optimism.

Also, you can call me Tom.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

From the Preface to LEAVES OF GRASS, 1855 edition:

"Who troubles himself about his ornaments or fluency is lost. This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful undeducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body..."
-Walt Whitman

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Unexpectedly, during the 2007 San Diego wildfires, not through CS.

Interests

This is what I am now interested in:

Moving bit by bit southwest from New England, wishing to stay with you along the way, wanting tremendously to know and meet not just you, but your town, your community - across the America I have the urge to dissolve its abstract homogeneity in my mind, cherishing the differences in geography and individual psyche, celebrating you as a shifting and constantly evolving piece of the nation, the nation itself; in you the entire America, with all its partitioned history and dreams.

Pragmatically, this means desiring to stay with you between 3-5 days before moving on, really giving you and your region and myself the time to have a conversation with each other. I am quite independent (i.e. not troubling in terms of needing to be entertained; I will be working half of each day as I travel, freelancing, as it is), and wish to mix solitary walks amongst your town's streets and forests, with in-depth conversations with you, meeting you genuinely and so thankful at your table, listening, responding, furthering, acknowledging, mythologizing, etc.

• animals
• books
• literature
• theater
• folklore
• traveling
• blogging
• outdoor activities
• boxing
• freelancing
• geography
• history

Music, Movies, and Books

Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence
The Revised English Bible
Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass
The I Ching (Book of Changes)
The Dictionary
Hard Times, Charles Dickens

Quartet for the End of Time, Messiaen
Debussy's Preludes
Einstein on the Beach, Phillip Glass
polyrhythms in general

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

When I was young I, equipped with goggles, explored the tiny holes on the bottom of an outdoor hot tub, at some campground in the country. In my exploration, for one reason or another I decided to press my mouth against some of the minute cavities spitting bubbles up from the surface of the jacuzzi. I found that, with my lips pursed tight, at the right holes there was enough of an oxygen supply being forced out by the jets, so that I could breathe, underwater, indefinitely. I held my hand about above the liquid line to show the stunned onlookers how nonchalantly I could stay submerged, for seven minutes or so.

Teach, Learn, Share

Interested in everything uninteresting, limitations, linear habits, thoughts seemingly mechanical but at the base something beautifully organic - in general: I am enthralled by what is non-shocking.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada

Countries I’ve Lived In

Ireland, United States

•