25 Random things you need not know or care to know about me.

A modified FB list from 2009

1. I have ALWAYS lived in NYC. I was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn, moved to Bayside, Queens when quite young and moved back to Brooklyn after my marriage to my first wife in 1984. She was pregnant at the time. In 2016 Sheryll and I moved to the Bronx to take on managing a social justice project. It is an 8500 sq ft yard with over 2500 sq ft of growing space. We were able to transform it into a full fledged program serving community in the South Bronx. A website will be coming in a few months that will tell more details

2. I am primarily an artist and have been drawing since I was very little, like most kids. My older brother also drew a lot and this helped to egg me on. When in High School, the introduction to hallucinogenic drugs caused a creative and spiritual explosion in my already philosophically bent brain which sent me on a life long quest to delve into the inner self. It was also during that phase where I would have rabid arguments with Jesus Freaks who wanted me to get on their bus. I wanted to know what our indigenous ancestors knew.

3. I love to play guitar. This started when I was about 13 when I discovered my sister's neglected instrument with only 5 playable strings. Unlike other musicians who aspired to be like Clapton, Hendrix or Page, I simply was enamored with the sound of the plucked string. Later, after hearing Steve Hackett of Genesis, my uncle, a flamenco guitarist gave me "The Carcassi Method" where I taught myself to read music and fingerpick in the classical sense. I have been ruined ever since, although this freed me to explore my own sound. (My uncle recently passed away at the age of 91. I am grateful for his influence.)

4. I have 2 daughters, who I am very proud of. They are both turning into very bright and talented human beings. I am not sure how much I had to do with that, but blood is blood. I now have a granddaughter as well. Since this was 11 years ago that both are young women now making their way through the world.

5. I have worn every hat there is in the business of graphic design. I started in packaging, went into advertising, worked in corporate and in health care. I have been an illustrator, designer, letterer, retoucher and a consultant depending on what day of the week it is. I left all that behind in 2016. That is a young man’s game and I am more interested in focusing on my own work.

6. I had a published comic strip in the mid 90's called "The Stranger" which ran in one paper locally and another in St Louis. It featured a zen like nebbish (yiddish for nobody) who went about his less than ordinary life. The comic was all pictures and the goal was to tell a simple vignette without words. I secretly wanted to do a short film about it with my friend Matt Mitler. In the title role, I wanted to cast my recently deceased friend Ralph Scholl. I eventually gave up the strip as one publisher was under indictment and the other kept bouncing me from my slot to make space for ads.

7. I know it is no big deal but I am married to a black women (2nd wife, the best - 22 years). My first wife always remarked that I had this weakness for women of the dark persuasion. I do not know where this came from, but my first crush on a black girl was in the 4th grade. Rhonda Dolphin where are you. Probably eating chips on a couch somewhere in Florida.

8. I began my spiritual quest in earnest at age 19 when I met Christopher Freemantle, a man who represented what I would want to be be in old age. Since everything that followed this meeting is on a need to know basis, I will say no more. Cannot be objective if this has come true as I am now closer in age to Christoper now. The story is not finished yet.

9. Besides guitar I also used to play various Indian whistles, recorder, bamboo flute, cavacinho and dumbek. I have also studied the Tar, a persian string instrument and I studied the Oud briefly. I developed a thing for World music when I accidentally stumbled across an album by the late Hamsa al Din. I went to see him sometime in the early 80's and felt a strong connection to him and his unique style. I have since been considered kind of a novice on world music although in recent years, my fervor for music instrument collecting has diminished greatly. I leave that to my friend Jeff Greene.

10. In my 20's I had a lot of conflict about what I wanted to do in life. I was working as a commercial artist, was becoming adept as a musician, wrote poetry and stories and even fancied myself a potential dancer. I had quite an active life at the time which was pre marital. I rode my bike about 100 miles a week, did Tai Chi twice a day. Painted, danced, meditated and masturbated and had the renaissance life of a NY Jewish 20 something artist. I studied mime and theater lighting back then as well.

11. After my first marriage, and the birth of my children, most of my creative aspirations went out the window. Probably helped out the window by my first wife, I soon settled down as a middle class drone with short hair and I wore ties to meetings. In reviewing photos of myself from that period, I look most unhappy. This sums up my 30's.

12. As I approached my 40th birthday, I began to grow my hair long and move back toward my creative aspirations. This created a slow rift with my then wife which led her to have an affair and me to walk out the door (the short version). This was a turbulent transition, but she and I both benefited greatly. In a sense, we both got what we wanted.

13 Though I have always lived in NYC, I have traveled a bit. Not that much by most standards. I have been to Spain (2X), France several times, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Iceland, Denmark, Brazil and Jamaica. Much of this has been facilitated by both wives and the fact that my older children grew up in Switzerland. The only place I actually went to on my own volition was Canada, which I did when I was 21 alone.

14. I live to be creative. Every thing I do in life revolves around this basic fact about me. It has made me a pariah as well as a hero. I have been tapped for my special insights and accused of severe ignorance. Every morning is a gift as I get to get up and try again. What more is there? And to make a living at it is a bonus. I am not deep in material acquisitions, but I am rich in living the kind of life I want to live. I have a loving wife, and cool son, great daughters and clients who actually appreciate me. Good friends and a direction in life, which at times is clear at other times blurry. But I keep on. And taking care of my health helps a great deal in this.

15. My wife Sheryll may be one of the brightest people I know. Half the crap coming out of my mouth regarding politics or religion has been invoked by her much better educated mind. I do add my own twist to things, but she is my fact finder. I write with passion and she straightens out my copy and lets me know when I am going over the line.

16. My mother was an expert at knowing which actor on TV was Jewish. We do not know how she knew this because there was no evidence of where she got her facts from. Was there a "Who is the Jew" section in TV Guide? Or was there a secret CIA network of moms across America code named: YENTA. And she did this during a time when there was no internet.

17. I had truly interesting siblings. My brother who I already mentioned would tell me dirty kid jokes as we went to bed at night. He also inspired my love of SciFi and other-worldly stuff. My sister the singer, was always encouraging my creative streak showing me pamphlets of career possibilities as an artist. When I began to ask questions about sex, my parents were mum on the subject. My sister explained to me how babies were born using support material from Life Magazine. I was introduced to classical music when as a teenager, while coming down from an LSD trip, I entered her bedroom where where was playing Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody.

18. I have evolved into a lay expert on stories and storytelling. When my girls were young, Reading them stories at night became a way to read through volumes of collected folktales. During my 30's, 4 out of every 5 books I read were either some classic epic, books on mythology or collected folk tales. I have covered almost every culture in this research including some amazonian tales. My favorite collection is Masters of Mahamudra: Songs and Histories of the Eighty-Four Buddhist Siddhas.

19. The best meal I ever had was in Paris. I can still taste it 10 years later. We were in Barcelona in December 2019 before all this COVID nonsense. The food there was fabulous as well. We found a Lebanese owned Tapis restaurant that we could not get enough of.

20. I am really not a big fan of the beach. I love being near water though, just not in it much. I prefer dry land. There I can only drown in my own thoughts.

21. I do not watch TV so do not ask me about the latest episode of Lost or American Idol. This was a long pondered decision, and I finally have a wife who agrees. We had made this decision around mid 2001. Our TV was unplugged, when we heard that a plane had hit one of the towers on 9-11, so we plugged it back in. About 3 months later we finally donated it after watching the towers fall repeatedly about 80,000 times. We could not take the vacuous news any longer. In a time like COVID, TV is a fear machine. Better for your health if you keep it turned off. There is plenty to stream on the internet.

22. I do not watch ANY sports. I find it a mass destraction of our culture and I just think if only we would put this energy into bettering our world. I know this is not a popular feature of mine, but the hell with you and your beloved Yankees-Giants-Rangers. Though, I do have fond memories of seeing the Mets as a kid. They lost all time and Casey Stengal would argue with an umpire at least once a game. Now thats entertainment! I hated Little League even though I felt the pier pressure to play in it. Loved PLAYING hockey. A good game for expressing teenage angst. I have recently been sneaking an occasional viewing of MMA videos. Don’t know why, but I am interested in how they move.

23. With the exception of LSD, I regret most of my drug use during my High School years. I kind of wish I had my mind from that time back and was challenged more to learn more about my own path. I have done this anyhow, and I know that, that time molded me, but many of my personal issues may have been averted. Oh I'm just rambling now.

24. I regret the deaths of two of our aquatic frogs. I feel responsible. You see, for about a month, I was using the living room to meditate. The fish tank's filter was very noisy so I would unplug it. I had some of the deepest meditations during that time, but then I would forget replug the filter and only discover the fauxpa at the end of the day. I did this a number of times. The albino frog got a horrible disease from bacteria, bloated and died. His death was horrible and disgusting. I saluted him as I flushed him down the toilet. This was in 2009, but it is funny so I left it in. We now have adopted the garden cat who we call Meanie (because he is) He lives outdoors and has kept other cats from pooping in the garden.

25. I am an early bird, but I also get creative late at night. I always got up early and sleeping to 8 am feels late for me. My wife and son are snoring away as I cap off this list. You see, I cannot just list stuff, I need to tell you a little story behind each thing. Maybe I will write a book called "2000 Things You Need Not Know or Care to Know About Me-But Were Afraid to Ask" Then you can all buy it and Sheryll and I will retire to our Caribbean hide-away where we can eat mango and banana and I can play guitar and draw pictures into the tropical moonlight.