I was born in New York. I grew up in San Francisco, Long Beach, and Los Angeles.
When I grew up as a kid, a part of my life - I grew up in Boston near Revere Beach, at my grandma's, and she would take me to the beach.
I was always writing about the connection between man and nature. I grew up in a neighborhood that was right on the beach, but the beach was not like a beach you would imagine - there was a lot of pollution. And the most magical thing to me as a kid was sea glass, so I wrote about that a lot.
Ever since I was a little kid, I always dreamed of being a Big City kid, because I grew up in a very small town up north in Canada. I have to say I just love the city lights at night.
I've been around the surf culture since I was a kid. I grew up in a beach town in Rhode Island. Then eventually I lived in Dana Point, Calif., a real surf hotbed.
I'm a black kid from the ghetto of Coney Island, Brooklyn, who only ever dreamed of playing in the NBA. So to have that dream come true but then go on this second journey in China... it's so far beyond anything that kid could have imagined.
Ever since I was a kid, I might have been eleven or twelve. I'd be telling anyone who would listen that when I grew up, I wanted to be an artist.
I love eating in San Francisco, Chiang Dao, China, Tokyo, Hanoi.
You see 6,000 times more tech companies in San Francisco than you see in Seattle. All the money is in San Francisco when you look at the venture fund maps. The PR is in San Francisco. The centricity of the industry is in San Francisco.
When I was a kid, I really wanted to be a writer and an artist when I grew up. So in college, I was an English major, and then I became a fine artist. But when I arrived in San Francisco in 1995, I figured I could leverage my artistic skills by becoming a Web designer and programmer.
But it's not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time - it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco.
He was an Italian kid traveling in China, and I'm of Italian decent with a fascination for China. So, I always felt this connection to him and lived vicariously through the travels of Marco Polo.
Ever since I was a kid, I've always been interested in the poetry of melancholy, if you like.
Of course I have the license to make up things, but I think a lot of what's written about China is misleading, and most Americans don't know much about China, in-depth, even though China is such a crucial business partner, rival, whatever.
I was kind of an unhappy kid. I always felt like a cynical New Yorker trapped in a little kid's body. I started to get some pretty bad anxiety disorders around puberty, which totally did not work with growing up a mile away from the beach. I started cutting my own hair.
You American people worry too much about the China economy. Every time you think China is a problem, we get better, but when you have a high expectation for China, China is always a problem.