An aspiring songsmith who somehow ended up in San Francisco through a preposterous odyssey of mystical hijinx.

After a year of flophouse yarns, bum steers, false prophets, forced starts and the harsh lessons of unrequited illusion, I forge ahead in the embrace of a new challenge: to tame an overabundant romanticism with the practicality, focus and discipline required for the next phase of the journey.

For now, I live in the flickering red neon glow of a biblically named dive bar on Mission Street. I craft my wares by gaslight with Wearever fountain pens, on a rusted Underwood typewriter or shiny Fender resonator.

Otherwise, I may be glimpsed haunting the periphery of the scene: perhaps scribbling a verse or recording a truth at a cafe corner table; smoking a pipe in the shadow of a street lamp; or silently taking it all in from a stool at the darkest end of the bar - all the while I wait for the final pieces to fall, and gently nudge each into place in the order they land.