Not raised by wolves. Not shaken by parents. Raised in New York but not in the city. I was and still am a bit of a hellion. I survived off the land on my own at the age of six returning home only once for a pan to cook fish in. I said a first sentence instead of a first word even if the content was objectable to some. My brother is my best friend and has been since he came into my life at the age of 2. I hate yogurt and have as long as I can remember. I enjoyed kinder garden. I disliked middle school and I hated high school but loved the social outing it provided me with daily.

I sent myself to work at the age of ten putting the New York Times together, as it was delivered in sections, for the small convenience store down the road from my house. I loved that job and it has remained my favorite job that I have ever held; I have held many. I saved my money when I was young like someone was going to tear it out of my hands. I learned about spending money later in life. Finding a happy balance with the two is an ongoing juggle of fire in which I rarely burn myself and yet still accomplish putting on a good show.

Music has always been a very large component of my existence. My father is an accomplished musician and my brother and I both have dabbled in music in a few varied forms ourselves. Realizing that I was probably better off listening to music rather than making it, I set out early to discover as much as I could about the wonderful arrangements of sound that are in the world. I need music to paint, clean my house, drive, ring my phone for me and basically fill my environment at almost all times with beauty. When I paint music has such a large control over my style and attitude that I at times wonder what I would do without it and if I could continue to paint at all.

I graduated high school starving for change. I needed out of the town I grew up in not because I hated it but because I knew that the world was large and I was not going to see all of it but I could at least see some of it and it was not going to happen staying home. I hopped in with a dear friend driving west in our own little manifest destiny. After a prolonged adventure I arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area and after saying my good-byes to Mother Goose I realized that for the first time I had a duffel bag in my hand, a pack on my back and the world in front of me and I was a petrified and excited like never before.

I stayed with friends and started school and got a degree in electronics and an apartment and a roommate then a house and roommates. I started working on my invention and thought I would make myself rich and show the world. Ignorance is bliss. Luckily learning was an even greater source of enjoyment though. I thank my mother for that among more than humanly possible to list. I got a career and I had a blast and I went back for more school and I had a blast. My girlfriend of many years was living with me then and life was good. Time passed as it always does and I parted ways with the girl and the roomies and houses and decided to make a change. I didn’t know what I was doing when I wanted to move. In hindsight I suppose that I was estranged with life as I have been occasionally during times in the past. Those periods of estrangement have always fueled creative leaps for me so I attempt to never resist there coming and running with blind abandonment.

I moved to Tahoe in search of the thing I always felt was missing and in the process I lost myself, but only long enough to make sure I missed me.

I was searching for something that I knew I wanted but could not put my finger on all those years. I wanted to paint full time and when I realized that painting was my missing link, my golden lamb of happiness I leapt upon it like a ravenous pack of wolves upon a carcass. I painted in my new environment like a man possessed. I missed nights of sleep. I missed work, sex, meals, deals and trips to places I will probably never see. I missed many of the things I had thought were important but found out were not even close. I had found my love or half of my love. I search now only for the woman to complete my life. Dali had his Gala and I too shall have mine, in time. Sadly, for all the good in one’s life many times bad seems to follow because sometimes the good overshadows the bad until it’s too late. I never addressed my environmetal dissarray and mental decay until I was painting and my space heater caught my studio on fire. I lost everything. I lost about sixty pieces of art, the prototype of my invention I had spent years building, mountains of hope and boxes of dreams meticulously crafted in the portrait of my existence over the years.

I lost more than a part of my soul forever in that fire. I ended up not reacting well. I ended up taking an extended breather for months afterwards. I ended up reflecting how I got there. I ended up finding the part of me that I had never allowed me to address or acknowledge was in the background sabotaging my success. That part of me is dead now. I slayed the blackness within myself, that took away my dreams; my chance at love for too long.

I sit now, effortlessly in my new abode, still painting, still finding myself, still looking for the next adventure, still hoping that the girls who inspire me will one day give me the smile that says strong work cowboy. I still wonder why some things in life are the way they are. I still wonder why I have more hair on one side of my body than the other. I still can’t reread this bio and be happy with it but I can wake up knowing that life is like art and art is like life; never perfect, always changing, many times crappy with true beauty sprinkled in where it matters most.