Profile
Or how the hell did I end up like this?
BIRTH: Honolulu, Hawai´i, Showa 47.04.25
RESIDENCE: Seattle, WA
SIZE: Tall (H) Not thin enough (W)
BLOOD TYPE: red
FAVORITE ARTISTS: NUMBER GIRL, 椎名林檎, Cocco, Duran Duran, Kronos Quartet, Wayne Horvitz
So. I guess this is where I get to summarize my life up to this point.
I wrote one such self-biography back in the early days of the web, and damn did I take myself way too seriously back then. (And to think that was about five years ago as of this writing!)
I'm going to pillage from the text and answer the question -- how the hell did I end up like this?
First, where am I from? Honolulu Hawai´i. Sounds exotic, but trust me -- the disparity between reality and Convention and Visitor Bureau marketing is wide. I was raised Catholic, and I've been recovering ever since. My dad is an electrician, my mom a nurse, and they both come from the Philippines. Which means I'm first generation.
I started early when it came to amassing a huge record collection -- second grade, in fact -- but my interest in music didn't really skyrocket till I took piano lessons in seventh grade. (Or was it when I developed a crush on Roger Taylor of Duran Duran?) I was a lousy piano student -- mainly because I ended up using my piano lessons as songwriting lessons instead.
I did the high school band thing and hated every minute of it. I only stayed in because I knew I had the Best Musician Award locked at the end of the year. My band instructor even had to custom-make a final exam in my senior year -- I had to figure out the flute solo of a song and perform it on the keyboards at a grade school graduation. Everyone else got off by playing a B-flat major scale.
I've always been into computers, but my parents were incredibly wise not to buy me one. They knew I'd spend all my time in front of it -- like I do now. (Cough, cough). I was fascinated by the Classic Video Games of the early 80s, but after the Karate Champ paradigm took over, I couldn't channel them.
Now -- how the heck did I end up in journalism? I should have probably seen the writing on the wall when I won the journalism and music medals at my high school graduation. I tried to concentrate on my music studies in my first few semesters of college, but I wrote for the Hunter College paper while I was studying in New York back in 1992. And I liked it. I joined the staff of Ka Leo O Hawai´i when I returned to Honolulu, and that's when my soul was sold to the liberal media, lock, stock and the proverbial barrell.
As for my sexual orientation -- I should have seen that one when I developed a crush on Sting, Huey Lewis and various members of Duran Duran when I was a kid. Coming out wasn't easy, and I probably have to say I'm not as open as I probably ought to be. I fell in love with my best friend in high school, and he couldn't return my feelings. Ah! Heartbreak! Took me f--king five years to get over him, dammit.
I came out when I decided to cover National Coming Out Day for a class assignment. I wanted to see if I could stay in the closet after I finished writing the article. Hah. One of my sources was a guy I had a crush on, and who I didn't really expect to be gay. He was my incentive, so to speak.
I moved to Austin, Texas in 1997 to work for Austin360.com. I stayed with the site for three years, even though two of them weren't all that much fun. I had a huge crush on my co-worker, and we had a falling out when he was snatched up by one of those fancy-schmancy dot-coms.
That's not to say the entire experience sucked -- I got to cover SXSW for two years, and I saw a whole slew of Japanese bands. Unfortunately, I discovered my favorite artist, Cocco, after she performed. Argh. (I did, however, catch both NUMBER GIRL appearances.)
Even though my dating life has been a total wash, Austin is really a good place to hear music. Duran Duran never played once in Honolulu, but I got to see them multiple times after I moved to Texas, twice in Austin itself (the other times in Dallas.)
Knowing I didn't have the corporate mentality to work my way up the Cox Interactive Media food chain, I took a class in PERL, started programming my personal sites, and found a development job with Supportkids, Inc. This job started me on a career in software engineering which I've pursued till this day.
Of course, like most dot-com jobs, mine was eliminated. I spent most of my unemployed time watching Law and Order re-runs and playing Sinistar on MAME. I half-heartedly went to some web-related job interviews, but as the unemployment checks started to run out, I applied for some retail jobs.
Right around SXSW 2002, I was asked to interview with Waterloo Records, hands-down the best record store in Austin. I was hired, and I stayed with the store for a year. Paying bills on my hourly wage was depressing, and I downright despise garage rock as a result of my time there. But I felt alive while I worked, and hell -- I lost a few pounds, too.
I gained them all back when I went to work for National Instruments, where I stayed for 7 years. It was a definite safe harbor when the economy tanked in 2008, but while the company is listed as one of the best places to work in Fortune magazine, I'll be honest and say NATI got my services for dirt cheap. It was probably the lousiest financial decision I made, and in 2010, I rectified the situation by going to work for a small consulting company called Epicom.
Epicom whipped me into shape. When I started, I discovered I didn't really know as much as I thought I did, but in the 18 months I worked there, I got to learn new skills and work outside of my comfort zone. It was an intense experience that probably did more for my career than my entire tenure at National Instruments.
In late 2011, I applied for a job in Seattle, and I landed it. At the start of 2012, I moved from Austin.
That's it so far. I end this self-written bio with a poll I took many years ago.
Jaa mata.
» What do you want to be when you grow up:
A crime fiction writer. A composer. Or the founder of an e-commerce site specializing in selling Japanese music to non-Japanese audiences.
» Scary chemical combinations:
Perrier 151 and Wild Turkey, a.k.a Gorilla's Fart
» What's in the stars (Western/Chinese):
Taurus. Rat. Respectively
» Things that make you drool:
Mike Doyle.
» What stinks:
Garage rock
» Haunts:
TBD
» Secret societies:
Former member of Cookie Time Sushi Club.
» Alternate career:
Music store clerk.
» Secret skills:
I keep few secrets.