Jason “J.J.” Park
About Jason "J.J." Park
Jason Park was born in Lawrence, Kansas, and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received his AB cum laude in philosophy from Harvard University in 1997. His senior honors thesis was entitled, “Kant and Nietzsche on Virtue and the Passions: Thoughts on their Conceptions of Freedom.” Jason received his PhD in strategic management from the University of Pittsburgh in 2010. His two-essay dissertation was entitled, “Riding the Wave: Distributional Properties and Process Explanations of Mergers and Acquisitions Waves.”
Having performed twice at New York’s Carnegie Hall on solo piano, Dr. Park has a keen interest in the keyboard suite in English, French, Spanish and German baroque music, a harmonious call to action for a “United Europe.” As a disc jockey for WHRB-95.3 FM, a commercial radio station broadcasting throughout metropolitan Boston, he cultivated his taste in American jazz saxophonists like Ben Webster, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Stanley Turrentine. While running amok in Boston as a teenager and twenty-something, he jumped into the mid-1990’s rave music scene, with a passion for house, techno, breakbeat, and jungle.
He continues to dabble in Pittsburgh professional sports: MLB Pirates (Ji-hwan Bae & Ji-man Choi), NHL Penguins (Mario Lemieux-Jim Paak), and NFL Steelers (Ben Roethlisberger-Hines Ward), even though he has called Los Angeles his home since 1997. In high school and college, Jason played lacrosse, “America’s first sport.” As a speedy left-handed midfielder, he enjoyed playing offense and defense, back and forth, side to side. And he relished the opportunity to slap check, poke check, and cross-check opponents who unwisely dared to enter into his sphere of influence. Jason is a member of the Harvard Varsity Club, a campus organization that honors college athletes who have distinguished themselves in their respective sports.
Jason’s nickname “J.J.” was honorably bestowed upon him by his two darling nieces, while Magik is his furry feline sidekick and fellow partner-in-crime. The stars were aligned when these two star-crossed lovers met. J.J. was destined for a lonely life marred by mental illness, and Magik was on track for a horrifically painless, peaceful end. Few gave them a chance. But as Fate would have it, they rescued each other from the jaws of death when they met at the local pound, where Magik whispered into J.J.’s ear, “GET ME OUTTA HERE!” Once situated at home, this dynamic duo wasted no time in founding “J.J. Magik Publishing,” a modern-day printing press dedicated to “getting the word out.” They are on a mission to prove all the naysayers wrong, show the value in never giving up, point out that true love never dies, and establish J.J. and Magik as Masters of the Universe!
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J.J. and Magik
About Jason’s Publications
Jason Park is the author of two memoirs, a number of short stories and personal essays, a scientific research note, an academic book chapter, PhD dissertation, undergraduate honors thesis, and over twenty op-eds. His writings typically revolve around the hero’s quest, or more generally speaking, a significance-laden journey. In it, Jason’s characters find themselves under constant adversity, weakness and danger, but they can still summon the will for self-sacrifice (hence, heroism), for the sake of humanity.
His more recent projects have redirected from purely literary to public policy. For example, one topic is how “dual diagnosis” otherwise known as “co-occurring disorder” – mental illness and substance abuse combined – leads to homelessness and incarceration. Jason also weighs in on how the state of California’s mental health system can be improved upon – an issue touching close to home for him.
Address mental illness, Drug Addiction in tandem
https://jasonjjpark.com/2023/09/20/address-mental-illness-drug-addiction-in-tandem/
A recently emergent theme for Jason is what roles untreated mental illness, easy access to guns, and absent law enforcement have in mass shootings and school shootings. In that vein, Jason attempts to understand the “gun rights vs. gun control” debate less as hopelessly acrimonious and more as positively conciliatory, which could ally conservatives, liberals and moderates around effective gun policy.
Lessons from Apalachee High School — gun rights, gun control, gun violence
Jason is a member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. His latest participation in that organization is with the Crisis Intervention Team/Sharing Your Story with Law Enforcement. In these presentations to law enforcement officers, Jason reflects on his initial contact with them more than twenty-five years ago, at the beginning of his decades-long recovery, when the men and women in uniform saved his life. He finds it personally self-fulfilling to reach out to audience members who are sworn to “protect and serve” by reinvigorating that motto with a renewed sense of purpose and meaning.
NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) / SYSLE (Sharing Your Story with Law Enforcement)
Other Publications
When two colorful characters in a cigar bar start arguing about the capital of Australia, there’s sure to be fireworks.
When the author hears a dull thudding late at night from outside his LA apartment, he knows no good can come of it.
How could an inanimate object such as a musical instrument bring more to a relationship than a human being?
On a night of a full moon, a friendly match of chess in a cigar store between an Old World Romanian and a New World American.
Sweet Words From Readers
