portrait of the artist as a young boy

MY STORY

It all started in 1977, when
i had my first art show.
I was five years old.

My girlfriend Colleen,
who lived next door,
was my assistant.

I had another art show the following year.
It made the local paper:

In 1979, i had my third backyard art show.
This time, the reporter brought his camera:

I carried around
a little bank, for when i sold a
piece, and gave tours of my collection:

In September 1980, i was 8.
I put on a magic show...

Lisa Marie, my friend who
lived down the street, was my assistant.
She was very tall and i was very short.
Friends Jody and John also helped.

And for the grand finale...

I climbed into a box and disappeared!!
Pay no attention to the big blue curtain blocking off
the adjacent room i "disappeared" into.
It's MAGIC!!!

I didn't like magic.
It felt too much like lying.

I was rather shocked when some of the kids
seemed to actually believe i disappeared,
then reappeared when Lisa Marie
said a magic spell.

Needless to say, it was
my only magic show.

The very last art show of my youth was July 19, 1981.
This time, the newspaper sent a reporter ahead
of time, to do a promotional piece:

Notice the addition of "rock" in the caption above.
Other than a brief dalliance with piano, i didn't play music yet,
(this was a few years before i got my first guitar). No, it was
an "art and rock" show because i had - ahem - collected
a bunch of rocks during walks in the woods.

I was running out of art.

My aunt and mentor, Debra Pearlman, moved
away to college and an art career of her own.

It would be nearly 20 years
before i staged another art show.

I turned instead towards other creative disciplines.

My family moved to Riverside,
California in 1986, when i was 14.

I focused on Journalism
and Theater in high school, playing Sonny in "Grease" &
Humphrey Bogart in a theatrical adaption of "Play It Again Sam",
promoting the play's opening day dressed in full "Bogie" regalia during
regular classes. Someone said i looked like Inspector Gadget,
which completely ruined the whole tough guy effect.

In my senior year, i won the first "Best Director" award
in Arlington High Theater history, when Phil Homer bravely
let a few seniors have a go at directing for the stage.

My 35mm camera was an omnipresent
force on campus, always by my side.

I was Photo & Features Editor of
AHS's "The Mane Thing", and went on to be
Editor-In-Chief of Riverside Community College's "Viewpoints"
newspaper in 1992, covering the Rodney King riots in person,
a photojournalist in an urban war zone:

1993-1997 was spent under the hedonistic,
heavenly halo of San Diego State University's
Telecommunications & Film program, where i wrote, directed and
starred in numerous short films under the guise of academia: