Career Opportunities

Take a look at this photo.

Looks like the trunk of a bank robber or jewel thief doesn't it?

Well, it's actually a prop bag that my boys have put together.

They've been dorkin' around with a Flip camera for a few years now.

The latest result is ANONYMOUS.

My 12-year-year old pretty much directed and then edited this whole YouTube clip.

Maybe there's a career opportunity down the road for him...

Moving Forward, Moving Faster

I'm just over a month away from moving out of this shit hole apartment complex.

I had hoped this living situation would be temporary. I had hope that I would have moved forward in life. I never expected to be stuck in some sort of twisted limbo.

I've lost the urge to write many times over the years but the last few really hit me hard. I returned to a full-time day job after almost eight years as a stay-at-home dad, changing diapers but not changing the world like I had hoped I would twenty years ago before kids entered the picture.

My marriage crumbled and fell apart.

Yet I continued to make stabs at memoir(s), cobbling together a few treatments for TVs shows and movies based on my life experiences, doing some freelance music reviews for a now-defunct web site called Shockhound and of course minimal blogging.

I like to write about the mundane, about the things I see from day-to-day but when the day-to-day became to be too much... I stopped.

I truly love writing about my two boys but up until now I never felt comfortable writing about post-marriage life, about the trials & tribulations of co-parenting, about what it is like to lose your sense of yourself, to be stripped of your identity (dad). I want a house and a backyard. I did not grow up in or around apartment complexes so living in one (unjustly so maybe) makes me feel like a failure. How does one deal with failure?

I wrote songs and settled back into being in a working band.

I felt like things were staring to move forward, although moving faster. There were shows, some steady freelance writing and a busy days at the office. Lots of busy days.

But then Shockhound died and with it every review I ever wrote. Then I got robbed. And with it I lost poems, short stories and just about everything and anything I put to paper or typed up over almost 20 years. And yes, lots and lots of photos.

Deadwater as they say.

But as I pack for a move, I have been rediscovering photos and writing and books and records and movies; rediscovering all the things over the years that have inspired me.

And I also have spent the last five days of spring break with my two boys: every day, all day doing stuff that we do best - creating, laughing, joking, eating, sleeping.

Battery is recharging as they say. You'll see more of me here. And in other places along the way...

Catering - Behind The Scenes

I have been catering on and off for the better part of fifteen years.

I've seen and heard a lot of things during that time.

This past week I worked a party for Duke's Student Affairs. It was a Brazilian-themed party for 1,500 guests.

Yes. 1,500 guests.

Even in all my years of doing this, that is still a number I rarely see.





One of the things being served was pastel - pastry wrapped tasty morsel. This was filled with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and oregano and then deep fried.

Essentially a pizza roll.

This is what a catering kitchen looks like just an hour before the party started. An "all hands on deck!" scenario where even the waitstaff had to jump in and help make pastels.

I don't think the expected 1,500 showed up. I'm going to guess 500 at best.

Which is a good thing because that meant guests were able to gorge on these things. I mean if a guest only had two a piece we would have had to make 3,000 of them (which I don't believe was done even with the help of the waitstaff). Some other Brazilian food served? Pao de queijo, brigadeiro and pe de moleque.