with miemies at Trina's, 2008
If you're looking for something I've written or done recently, click my c.v. page here.
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Two of my grandparents were born in America; my own parents were not. The word "Mailander" is German for "one from Milan."
I was born soon after my parents established themselves in Southern California, on February 4, 1957, in Hawthorne, California, although my parents lived in Redondo Beach at the time of my birth.
As a youngster, I was often kept out of school but also extended much free time, and I cultivated the intertwined habits of reading and writing very early in my life.
We moved around the South Bay of Los Angeles quite a bit in my early years, ultimately settling on the city of Hawthorne for my adolescence. Hawthorne at that time was the home of the Beach Boys, and through my life I have been quite enamored of beaches myself.
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At Hawthorne High School, I was most captivated by liberal arts, English, and journalism classes. And even then, I wanted to write: I wanted to write fiction and poetry, and I wanted to write cultural criticism and occasional opinion pieces. (All these years later, this is still what I most like to do). I also played tennis and basketball. Three notable teachers who helped me with writing there were William Goodfellow, a humanities instructor, Ray Garza, a Latin instructor, and my journalism advisor Konnie Krislock.
After graduating from high schooll, I attended Columbia in the late seventies, but graduated from UCLA in the mid-eighties. I took my time matriculating. That remains true-to-form: I do things very slowly today.
At Columbia, I was sports editor of the Columbia Spectator in 1977; traveling with the teams commenced a lifelong affinity for New England and Quebec. I had Fred Friendly and George McGovern as professors, as well as a good classics scholar named Morton Smith and a great Pound scholar named Wallace Gray. My favorite prof, however, was a man named Larry Lapidus, who taught humanities and literature.
At UCLA, I edited and published an economics publication, The Southern California Journal, in 1982 and 1983. I graduated from UCLA with a BA in Art History and a special emphasis in American Art. The Art History department there was filled with great names and good teachers, including David Kunzle, Ioli Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, Carlo Maria Pedretti, Susan Downey, Otto Karl Werckmeister, and Michael Quick as a visitor. I also took memorable courses from Cyril Vyronis in Byzantine History, Barisa Krekic in Balkan History, and Frank Gatell and Joyce Appleby in American History.
After graduation, my interest in Winslow Homer et al. took me on many trips to New England, especially Maine but also Quebec, in the late eighties and early nineties.
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Both my parents died in 1991, ninety-four days apart. In caring for them, I did not do things perfectly, but I was fully engaged in their care for the final six years of their lives. I attempted to repay them what they had invested in me. I worked only sporadically, devoting far more and more time to their medical care and home care, until they died. And I also traveled a lot around the country through these years, taking healthy breaks as often as practical, sometimes for as long as a month away.
When you're young, you think your life is going to be defined by its achievements; as you grow older, you learn it is defined by your losses. There are really two and only two segments of my life: the time before my parents died, and the time after. They died when I was 34, nearly at the traditional middle of the journey myself.
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I have neither siblings nor children. I have no immediate relatives. I am not married; I live with a long-time partner, Lynn, and have for well over a decade.
I've written lots of fiction and poetry. Much of my poetry of late appears in the Madrid-based zine Yareah. I've written a book's worth of short stories. I've written lots of opinion pieces and lots of cultural criticism. I've written much online journalism and cultural criticism: my first site, joyrides without maps was much like this place, dwelling on the personal, but also incorporated some politics. These days, I write mostly poems here at mainbrace. I am also an editor of the LA-based culture site LA Opus.I've also had many spells of traditional and non-traditional employment until mid-2001, when I was able to devote myself more exclusively to writing. I've been a vice president at a commercial bank (Union Bank of California), a litigation paralegal at a large law firm (Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher), a technical illustrator, a teacher, a library clerk, an arts manager for the City of Los Angeles, and I've worked in quietly demanding media capacities in two presidential campaigns, including Sen. Kerry's in 2004.
I was raised culturally but not religiously Catholic; I am not at all good at following rules. I am more likely to turn to French authors, especially Deleuze and Barthes, and to the antique Greek and Roman world for guidance than I am to the holy books of the Levant. Transformational to my own life have been the lives and biographies of some writers I especially admire, such as Lawrence Durrell, Henry Miller, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gore Vidal, Roger Angell, and VS Pritchett.
I lived in New York City in my earliest college years. But otherwise, I have called Southern California home all my life. In the five years of time between graduating from college and the approach of my parents' deaths, I lived anywhere I could in the Southland, including Summerland, Santa Barbara, West Hollywood, Westwood, the Oaks, the South Bay, and I even spent one summer in Aldous Huxley's old house on Mulholland Terrace, while Laura was away. But I have been a resident of Los Feliz since late 1990, excepting a few months in West Adams and also Silver Lake in 1996.
last update: October 3, 2009
