This is a now page (shoutout to Derek Sivers), and if you have your own site, you should make one too.
Updated May 3rd, 2026, from beautiful downtown San Pablo, where a cut-off low is lowering our temperatures, partly clouding our skies and boosting chances of showers over the next day or so.
LISTENING
Yesterday, it was songs from Joshua Bote‘s Gazetteer disco book reading playlist, as well as DJ Dmitri from Paris’ remixes of Philadelphia International Records from Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes and Teddy Pendergrass, as well as some random Metalheadz and Nia Archives drum-and-bass tracks. Today and the next several days look like it might be a run through The Meters’ “The Complete Albums, 1969-1977” box set.
READING
During some downtime late last month, I bought Imani Perry’s “Black in Blue” and borrowed Henry Hoke’s “Open Throat,” Shelby Van Pelt’s “Remarkably Bright Creatures” and Arundhati Roy’s “Mother Mary Comes To Me.” Earlier this spring, I’d finished a hardback of Ryan Collett’s “George Falls Through Time” and a paperback of Cebo Campbell’s “Sky Full of Elephants” scored at West Portal Bookshop.
PET
Begum is cranky and raspy with her meows, finicky about her wet food but voracious about kibble, friendly and curious with her question-mark tail pose, and enjoying sunlight onto the cubbyhole platform “tree” through her special quarter-circle bedroom window.
WORK
Later this month I’ll mark three full years at The San Francisco Standard, where they call me a senior news reporter, usually covering breaking news and sometimes public safety. Here’s my Authory archive, which includes my prior work at the East Bay Times up through May 2023.
DRINK
Usually water and coffee, some zero-sugar sodas, Heineken or Guinness non-alcoholic beers. There’d been some regular beers and canned cocktails once in a while, but starting this month I’m taking a few weeks off from all that.
LANGUAGE
The last few weeks, I’ve been working on German in Duolingo (after dabbling over the last couple of years in Spanish, French, Arabic, Irish, Hindi, Latin, Scottish Gaelic, Yiddish and Portuguese).
SONGWRITING
When not buying Bandcamp releases, I’m still using Last.fm to track streaming songs. You can usually find my most recent songs on my own SoundCloud. After some curating, a few of those end up on my own site and Bandcamp). And I promised a friend we’d turn some songs we’ve written over the last decade or so into a streamable project: let’s see if it happens …