This website, or whatever you want to call it, is what I turn to whenever I am unable to drive a car to the Pacific Ocean, where I would otherwise walk around and feel weird and stare mindlessly at the waves and maybe scream. Actually, you might say this website is the online equivalent of staring at and screaming at the Pacific Ocean. Maybe that sounds harsh—screaming at a thing that has done you no harm. But you must remember that the ocean is not your friend. It is not your enemy either, but it is certainly not your friend. (Shit would eat you and feel zero remorse, because it feels nothing at all.)

I have a real last name, I think, but I like Starsailor better. It just means “astronaut”. From the Greek: ἄστρον (ástron, “star”) and ναύτης (naútēs, “sailor”). Was it pretentious of me to write out the Greek like that? I didn’t intend for it to be. I just thought it was neat to look at. And now you know something new, maybe, assuming you knew nothing about Greek (I sure don’t).

I live in Oakland, California in a large house called Castle DOOMSDAY. Outside there are fruit trees and herbs and vegetables and nine chickens and a bonfire pit. Two days a week I leave this place to work for someone else so I don’t starve. I spend the other five days in or around my house working on projects that make me absolutely no money at all, mostly because I’m not sure what else I should be doing.

Here are a few sentences beginning with “if”:

• If you would like to send me a friendly email, you should definitely do that! I love getting email from strangers and I will happily write you back. Send it on over: octonaut@gmail.com.
• If you would like to hire me to write copy for . . . whatever you’ve got going on, you can do that as well. If it isn’t aggressively soulless and/or damaging to human beings, I’ll probably do it! Shoot me an email at the above address because I feel dumb writing it out again.
• If you’re ever in the Bay Area and find yourself lonely/friendless/hungry/thirsty (or all four!), feel free to get in touch with me. Assuming you’re not planning to dump my body in the San Francisco Bay, I’d be happy to take you to some bars that resemble the Cantina where Obi Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker hired Han Solo and Chewbacca to fly them to Alderaan. I also know of a place that serves pretty good vegetarian Chinese food, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Though it is linked at the top of every page, here, again, is my account on that 140-character website people love so much (I think it’s pretty cool): @octonaut.

I guess I run a thing called VIII NOTHING with my cousin. There is some pretty decent stuff over there! I have liked a good amount of it. Some of my stories are hosted there, and if you really hate yourself you could read a few of them.

The photo at the top, where I look like Spock, was taken on New Year’s Eve 2012 in Boston by my friend Tom Wolff. (He doesn’t have a website, so here’s his Flickr account.) I was on my way to a Deer Tick show and Tom was feeling a little lonely, so we walked around the city together and scoffed at rich people. Hours later I would be soaked in champagne and other people’s sweat and Tom Wolff would be off somewhere else wishing he was too.

(Before I go, a disclaimer: Anything written on this godforsaken website between February and June 2013 was definitely written under the influence of either cheap Texas beer or various psychotropic substances. I may have mixed the two on a handful of occasions. So forgive the pseudo-philosophical rambling and Søren Kierkegaard quotes—I was just bummed out more than usual back then.)

Um. I think that’s it. Good-bye, universe.