Hello! My name is Philo Hagen (figh-lo hah-gen). I’m originally from rainy Seattle, Washington, which in part explains the dark green moss you find growing beneath my California sunshine, then I spent many years in foggy San Francisco which helps explain my love big fat Mission style burritos. For more than a decade now I’ve been living in Los Angeles and I love how this megacity supports all of my oddball interests.
Perhaps you already know me in person or from one of my previous and now defunct web projects – like East Coast / West Coast, the original bi-coastal best friend blog where Choire Sicha (NYC) and I (SF at the time) shared way too much personal info online and even won a Bloggy for it, queerday.com – a top LGBTQ+ news blog several years running, or hooping.org – the world’s #1 hoop dance / hula hoop site with 2 million+ visitors annually for more than a decade. Whether you already know me or not though, welcome to my personal website.
Over the years I’ve worn a variety of hats including non-profit management do gooder at places like Marin AIDS Project and The West Hollywood Recovery Center. I’ve done freelance writing for a variety of print and online publications including the San Francisco Chronicle. I became a well known modern hoop dance performer on stages across the US and Canada, sometimes referred to as the godfather of modern hooping. Then I’m also that psychic medium guy from San Francisco Paranormal that’s been clueing folks in on the unseen forces in their homes, lives and businesses. Probably my biggest claim to some kind of fame, however, would have to be my short film Gotta Hoop. It won numerous awards and was featured by The New York Times, the Huffington Post and many other publications. Typically, however, you would find me up to a variety of things all at once and I still prefer it that way.
These days I manage the Los Angeles office for a global non-profit organization, but I’m not supposed to talk about that. I still do a lot of psychic medium work though it’s mostly all paranormal related now. In my spare time you might find me working on that book I hope to someday finish, updating my nocturnal music blog, tinkering on some music of my own, wondering if Kate & I will ever get back to our trauma recovery podcast, roller skating long distances with my best friend Laura, staying on top of the Dodgers or scoring some tasty al pastor street tacos. Maybe I’m somewhere exploring deep in the Mojave desert, or maybe I’m home watching something on Discovery+ with a big bowl of popcorn.
To learn more about my psychic paranormal work go here. You can find the history behind my hooping life here, and everything else – including repostings of years of previously lost content – will hopefully be showing up on the blog. Feel free to reach out about anything really at philohagen@gmail.com and you can also find me on BeReal daily, Instagram occasionally, Facebook rarely – and trying out Bluesky. Thank you for stopping by.