Extraordinary Aliens: A guide to living in America as a foreign artist

I had 18 minutes instead of 15 because of tenacity, the will of the cockroach.
— Henry Rollins in an interview with The Onion

So I’m here: bright lights, big city — like everyone else I’ve come to New York from overseas to start again, to make something of myself. To work as a writer, to work in the theatre.

For all of America’s political failings, braggadocio, and cultural frothiness, the fresh desire to start a new life, embodied by the City Upon the Hill speech of 1630 before the Puritans alighted in the New World (a desire which when skewed slightly ends in genocide, fanaticism, and cultural imperialism) was originally a desire for something good. And I’m here like every other schmuck to get me some of that zesty fresh make-myself goodness. To make art.