When I want to sound cool and mysterious, I say I was raised in the desert. When I want to explain why I’m loud, stubborn, cynical, opinionated, dramatic, charming (in an overbearing sort of way), and obsessed with protecting my territory and feeding everybody hummus, I say I was raised in Israel. And when I’m listening to Californians whine like babies about the weather, I say I was raised in Albany. (Not to mention how I was shaped by all the crazy years spent on the New York theatre scene trying to “make it there” and, ipso facto, “anywhere”  during which time I worked as an Elf at Macy’s, cleaned up vomit at comedy clubs for stage time and tips and gave out sandwiches and fruit on the subway in the South Bronx for $50 a day + “donations” – but I’ll save all these tales of struggle for my motivational seminars: “Reach for the Stars — Fall on your Ass — Get a Real Fucking Job with Some Health Insurance” and “Artists Starve – Arts Administrators Get Fat, So Come to the Break Room of Life Like I Did and Grab Your Piece of the Pie (actually day-old birthday cake)”. Anyhow, the desert. The characters in Hari Kunzru’s Gods Without Men spend an awful lot of time schlepping around the desert looking for aliens. I spent my fair share of time schlepping around the Israeli desert as a young teenager, but I was just looking for snakes, lizards and scorpions to sell to the creepy American zoologist who lived in town. He said he was buying these critters for research, but I think he REALLY didn’t like falafel and hummus, if you catch my drift (He ate them. Fuck subtlety- I’m Israeli!). Anyhow,...