BIOGRAPHY
ABOUT ME
Height: 5"11' | Eyes: Brown | Hair: Real
I started my early life as an entertainer. I found the theater in high school, then started as a wedding DJ back in 1986. Being a DJ took me to the high seas where I spent ten years working on cruise ships and eventually worked my way up to Cruise Director for Royal Caribbean International. I ran the entertainment department and was host and entertainer for over a million people over the decade I was at sea aboard the largest cruise ships in the world. I was lucky enough to work with entertainment legends like Norm Crosby, Jerry Lewis, Phyllis Diller, The Fifth Dimension, Bowser, David Brenner, Jerry VanDyke, Fred Travalena, and Sweet Louie & the Checkmates, to name just a few. I've sailed to Alaska, Panama Canal, Italy, Spain, Morocco, Mexican Baja, Mexican Riviera, Acapulco, Jamaica, US Virgin Islands, Bahamas, The Cayman Islands, Key West, and many smaller islands in the Caribbean like St. John, St Thomas, St. Lucia, and Mazatlán. I spent a lot of time in the Bermuda Triangle and the only bizarre thing I ever saw was people drinking too much!
After the cruise ships I moved to Las Vegas where several friends from the ships had landed. My roommate was a topless showgirl at Bally's Casino. Brandy was on billboards all over town and rode a Harley to work! I worked at the local FM talk radio station, HOT TALK 105.1 and eventually hosted my own weekend show broaching such critical topics as why parents lie about Santa Claus! Radio in Vegas also allowed me to meet and talk with celebrities like Gladys Knight, Rick Springfield, Cameron Diaz, Richard Dreyfuss, and more while I worked at 97.1 FM, THE POINT, and Talk America, a small national network. It's very hard not to become star struck by these people.
On weekends I dusted off my DJ skills and worked as a wedding DJ for the top company in Las Vegas. It allowed me to work at nearly every hotel on the strip at that time. I figure I've DJ'd for about 130,000 wedding guests between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. For extra income I had some crappy jobs like loading trucks with sound and lighting equipment, moving the symphony around, and as the group coordinator at a water park on the strip. For a while I had a job filling orders for sex toys from a website! I was at an airport location working a job doing morning traffic broadcasts when 9/11 took place. It was a very scary day to work at the airport. I left Vegas and some good friends behind to take a shot at TV.
My writing partner and I had a buddy who had become a well placed producer in Hollywood. He hired us as punch-up writers for a show called "Hidden Hills" on NBC. We were also hired to help save the "Tom Green Show", but when we showed up on Monday morning the show had been cancelled and the cast locked out! Once we left a bowling ball with our phone number scrolled on it instead of a business card to get the attention of an NBC executive... we got the meeting with her! We eventually worked on the pilot for "Rodney", a sitcom on CBS featuring comedian Rodney Carrington. I'd say we were responsible for 60% of the jokes in that first episode. On that show I got to meet Mac Davis who played the grandfather of the shows family. He told us stories about working with Elvis that made all of the crap in L.A. seem worthwhile. My writing partner and I chose separate addictions which led to the end of our partnership and my work on the show. I guess that's a pretty typical Hollywood story.
After sobering up I left L.A. and started Legacy Productions in Seattle where my focus turned to non-profit work, since my father had been a fundraising consultant as well as a philanthropist. Ten years later I wrote a book teaching others how to create fundraising videos that really work! "Secrets to Big Money Using Video" is available on Amazon. Together, my father and I have helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for non-profit organizations all over the country. It's a legacy we will always share. I was embedded for a month at a camp for kids with cancer, spent the night on the street with homeless teens in Seattle, had heart to-heart-talks with women rescued from prostitution, and braved the wilds of Georgia to tell the story of a kid who helps veterans. What I've learned is everyone carries trauma, gets kicked by life, and needs a hand up now and then. My hope is that the work I have done with my father will help to bolster the social safety net that our nation's nonprofit organizations provide. You never know when it will be YOU who needs their help.
As a side business I created Wedding Story Films, which was a high-concept wedding video company. It involved interviewing the bride and groom prior to the wedding in order to tell their love story, including recreations of their story, and infusing that into the various stages of the wedding ceremony to create a complete story of their love that is cinematic and easy to watch year after year. Unfortunately I was only able to create 3 of them due to the 2008 meltdown erasing the market for high-end wedding videos, so I had to change direction.
After the financial crisis of 2008, I designed and built a photobooth (3 of them) with my family members to earn income. ePod Talking Photobooth was the only photobooth that talked back to you based on the face you made in the last photo. I used cart software from my radio days and a hidden webcam to make it seem like the booth was responding autonomously using clips from movies and TV shows. The company lasted for 7 years and was eventually sold.
A few years ago I was producer of a TV show about people helping people; heroes of the nonprofit world. Before we could get it to air, our CEO died suddenly and the project fell apart. I had a near miss with a golf show that got squashed by the pandemic that had Peter Jacobson as the host.
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Through it all I have been recording and producing music, both my own as well as that of other artists like JoyaSoul and Cosmananda. One of my great joys has been deepening my friendships with these artists by encouraging their talents and helping to realize their musical visions. Their influence has helped unlock my own creative potential in recent years. As a result I began to explore more creative productions including music videos to accompany the tracks we created, all of which stretched my skills as a creator and allowed me to discover a greater range of artistic expression. I have become a more intuitive producer and all of my production work has benefited as a result.
I am co-developing a building/lifestyle series called Build It Betties with an amazing woman with a big personality whose intention is to encourage more women to get into construction, to empower women generally to believe they can do anything, and to share lifestyle and cultural influences from her life emphasizing healthy food, good music, and the value of community. We are hoping HGTV will get behind this project while we begin by producing a corresponding YouTube series.
I am also developing a limited anthology series called Decoding Assholes with my creative partner. It's a 3-season, 9-episode limited anthology that explores human predatory behavior using three different genre formats. We’re in a golden age of manipulation—from deepfakes to disinformation, toxic workplaces to culty influencers. Decoding Assholes doesn’t just explain what’s happening—it gives viewers tools to defend themselves, hold others accountable, and question the systems that enable sociopathy. It’s part education, part entertainment, part social survival manual.
Cruise Ship Life
The Love Boat
