Life: What Happens to You While You’re Making Other Plans

Situation: Six Feet Tall and Short on Angst

Belief: Golden Rule

Advice: Don’t Trust Anyone Whose Cause Is Not Her/His Own

My natural state: happily working. Photo by Jan Sonnenmair

What’s Happened to Me So Far:

Journalism/Advertising-Marketing

After college, I spent 10 years as a journalist — first as a hard news reporter on the East Coast, then bureau chief, film critic/feature writer (covering Hollywood, on-location movies and film festivals) and foreign correspondent (Paris).

Feeling I had “done” journalism (or it was done with me), I moved back to the States and was one of the first real movie experts for the Blockbuster Video Corporation for about six or eight months. Realizing corporate life was about as interesting as breakfast at McDonald’s I took ol’ Horace Greeley at his word and moved to the West Coast. I did a stint (a year) as the press officer for an initiative to close a nuclear plant, then got into adverting — where I have enjoyed working with many excellent co-workers, supportive clients, and won numerous industry awards (something you have to do when you’re in advertising).

Books/Plays/Film/Music

My beautiful Mother, Verna, holding me: just a few months old. Photo by Daddio.

Having wanted to always “write books” (like 75 percent of the rest of he world’s literate population), I finally started doing just that in 1997. I have written about half a dozen books, five produced plays, have a song publishing company and a little garage band (without the garage), and have made (and written) some documentary films, drawn and written comics, and otherwise tried to keep my nose clean. You can see various bits of my work throughout this site. That’s about it, Mom. I’ll call you Saturday morning to see how the cat’s doing.