I'm a professional musician with an intellectual bent and wide range of interests. Educated in science and engineering, I worked in the corporate world as a development scientist and engineer before I finally decided to get out, follow my heart and pursue music. Now I perform regularly across the country and also curate a world music series. I keep an iron in the technical fire though, by teaching chemistry and language part-time.

I enjoy travel and have been to Europe several times. My musical career fits in well with this, since it takes me on tour in the US and overseas. I'm a voracious reader on many subjects.
I'm passionate about politics (well left of center!), interested in languages, linguistics, film, philosophy, history,science, cooking - you name it. I'm also very in touch with my East-European roots.
I enjoy going to concerts, theater, films (and occasional movies), browsing flea markets and jamming with other musicians. I like to entertain and usually do it in East European style: food, music and lots of toasts on into the night. I enjoy the outdoors and like hiking and camping, though I rarely get to do this lately. I also love to experience other cultures.
I enjoy going out, but I think the greatest pleasure in life is hanging out with friends and conversation. My friends describe me as loyal, warm, creative, adventurous, romantic and funny.

Money is not a great motivator for me, if it were I'd still be in the corporate world. I'm a guy and behave like one, with a lot of the fratboy streak still in me.

In my friends, I value loyalty, warmth, wit and creativity. I'm still quite close to friends that I made many years ago, though many of them live far away.

If it means anything to you, I scored as an ENTP. Just took it again and I scored as an ENFP, so I guess I'm an ENXP.

Playing music professionally, teaching, and curating a world music concert series.

playing music, decoding languages, polymer science, cooking, teaching, taking tests, talking ... a lot of things.

I'm 6'4"

(A)Guns Germs and Steel (and other Jared Diamond), Noam Chomsky, Brideshead Revisited, Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris, Dhalgren, A History of God, The Bridge on the Drina, C. P. Cavafy, 2024 by Ted Rall, Nickel and Dimed, Molvania:A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry, Running with Scissors, Shikasta, Life of Pi, Black Lamb and Gray Falcon, Lies My Teacher Told Me, Joseph Campbell, Why Come to Slaka, Postmodern Pooh, Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them, The Mountain People, Amphigorey, What's the Matter with Kansas?, Dictionary of the Khazars, On Food and Cooking, My War with Brian, Tobacco Road, Don't Get Too Comfortable, anything by David Rakoff, A Home at the End of the World, The Seven Daughters of Eve, The Botany of Desire, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories, Nemesis by Chalmers Johnson,Silk Road to Ruin, The Grapes of Wrath, The Geography of Nowhere, Riddley Walker.

(B) Movies: Underground, Window to Paris, Akumulator I, Donnie Darko, Les Triplettes de Belleville, Time of the Gypsies, My Own Private Idaho, Leningrad Cowboys Go America, Stranger than Paradise, The 12 Chairs, Bowling for Columbine, Black Cat White Cat, The Third Man, Mysterious Skin, Farenheit 9/11, Night on Earth, tampopo An Inconvenient Truth, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Goodbye Lenin, Fox and his Friends, memento, anything by Emir Kusturica, Pan's Labyrinth, Wallace and Grommit, rat, The Melon Route, Grbavica, Bad Boy Bubby, anything by Goran Markovic. I like films a lot and usually get a 10 day fix at the Cleveland International Film Festival each year.

(B.1) There's no category for radio, but I listen to NPR a lot; I'm a big fan of Ira Glass and This American Life.

(C) Music: All kinds of stuff - World Music, Balkan music, East European Music, Elephant Ensemble of Thailand, The Magnetic Fields, The Klezmatics, Leon Redbone, Brave Old World, Esma Redzepova, Tom Waits, Slavic Soul Party, Russian, Tango, Sevdalinke, Gypsy Music, Turkish folk, Georgian vocal music, Fado, Lakatos, Boban Markovic, Goran Bregovic, Marlene Dietrich, Maria Tanasa, Ethiopiques, Ferus Mustafov, Belle and Sebastian, Bright Eyes, The Doors, Velvet Underground

(D) Favorite foods: Vietnamese, Hungarian,Indian, Chinese,Thai, Mexican, Ethiopian, Greek, Lebanese, Moroccan, Turkish, Persian, Russian, Creole and lots more! Anything with ginger is always a favorite: ginger preserves, candied ginger, ginger pickle, gingerbread - you get the picture. Oh yeah, it's not really food - well, I guess it is food for the soul - sljivovica aka slivovitz or palinka.

friends, music, books, music, ... hm ... well, food, water and my civil rights. (I'm not really into shiny things.)

Language, science, politics, dilemas, life, the universe and everything.

Playing a gig.

I wear size 14 shoes.

Feel free to message me if any of this sounds interesting, if you have something to say, or are looking for someone to hang out with, talk to, or date. I tend to prefer guys younger than myself, but anything is possible.