Brett Martin

Listen, it happens.

You go out for a night with your friends and you wind up drunk, in your underwear, soaking wet, covered with blood, and shipwrecked on a desert island, all within sight of the Empire State Building.

These things happen, or at least they did happen, to Alec Jaroff.

Alex is 17 years old.

He moved to the US from a small town in the Ukraine when he was nine.

He's skinny and wears tie-dyed t-shirts, an unmanageable spray of frizzy blonde hair, and a valiant, if not altogether successful, starter mustache.

And, well, he can probably introduce himself better than I can.

Here's how he responds when I ask him to state his name for the record.

Here are a few other things about Alex.

He lives with his cute older girlfriend and his exceptionally patient parents in a small apartment in the midwood section of Brooklyn.

Instead of going to high school, he's enrolled in an internet homeschooling program.

He's at work on a science fiction novel and has logged several hundred in-flight hours as a student pilot.

But most of Alex's time is spent as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter for his band, E Buffalo.

When I went to see them play at a two-day Russian rock festival last fall, I learned several things.

First, there are many, many ex-Soviet immigrants living in Brooklyn.

Second, they all very earnestly want to rock.

And third, Alex Zharov, whether he's writhing on his back on stage or reclining in the dressing room with a beer and a cigarette, is kind of a superstar.

Before we get to our story, the other key person you'll need to meet is someone who entered Alex's life at a crucial moment years ago, when Alex first came to the States.

Alex had an awkward adjustment.

He fought in school and was kind of depressed.