Twenty-five years ago, Gary’s life unfolded in such a way that he wound up becoming a writer. Before that, he spent a decade in college, resulting in two pieces of paper: a B.A. in Music with concentration in composition and electro-acoustics; and an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies, a combo of music theory, new media art, and creative writing. At San Jose State University (SJSU), he studied with a triumvirate of troublemakers: Allen Strange, Joel Slayton and Rudy Rucker.

During those years, he explored every creative discipline he could find: Music, visual art, theater, computer graphics, Dada performance and free noise instrumentalism. He also worked and traveled for The International Computer Music Association, which was then based at SJSU.

All of those activities collectively imploded at the end of 1999, so he rose from the ashes, gradually realizing that a natural way to utilize the zonked bouillabaisse of his life-experiences would be to write about it all. In short, writing/journalism chose Gary, not the other way around.

As a result, Gary is now an award-winning travel journalist with a music degree who publishes poetry, paints and exhibits photographs. As a scribe, his byline has now appeared over 1500 times on travel essays, art and music criticism, profiles, features, business journalism, lifestyle articles, poetry, short fiction and more. Since April of 2005, he's written the Silicon Alleys column for Metro Silicon Valley, San Jose's alt-weekly newspaper, offering his own bent perspective on the local human condition. He is the author of three books, including an anthology of his Metro columns, published in 2020.