At age 56 I have already lead an interesting life.  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 while I was at sea.  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.  

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After the cruise ships I moved to Las Vegas.  I had one of the most beautiful, topless Bally's showgirls sharing my house while I worked at the local FM talk radio station, HOT TALK 105.1.  I eventually hosted my own weekend talk 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 Dryfuss, and more while I worked at 97.1 FM, THE POINT, and Talk America, a small national network.  OK I'm name dropping a little, but it was exciting and fun rubbing elbows with these people!  It's very hard not to become star struck.  

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On weekends I dusted off my DJ skills and became the top wedding DJ for the leading 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, and  as the group coordinator at a water park on the strip.  Later 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.

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My high school friend and I had a buddy who we knew from our theatre days that had become a big shot in Hollywood. We moved to L.A. to work with him as punch up writers on a show called Hidden Hills on NBC.  We were also hired as new writers 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 together on the pilot for Rodney, a sitcom on CBS featuring comedian Rodney Carrington.  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 LA seem worthwhile.  My writing partner and I chose separate addictions to ease the stress.  That lead to the end of our partnership and my work on the show.  I guess that's a pretty typical Hollywood story.

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After sobering up I left LA and started Legacy Productions in Seattle.  While in L.A. I had started to teach myself video editing and once I had moved north my focus turned to non-profit work, since my father had been a fundraising consultant as well as a philanthropist.  Ten years later I was ready to write a book teaching others how to create fundraising videos that really work!  It's been a wonderful way to honor my father's legacy of raising hundreds of millions of dollars for non-profit organizations all over the country. 

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In the course of my work as a producer 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 suffers, everyone gets kicked by life, and everyone 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. 

 

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.  As for my most recent adventure, I have published a book cowritten with my father and my closest friend Andrew called HUMAN PREDATORS - How To Recognize, Avoid and Defend Yourself Against Liars, Cheaters, Manipulators and Abusers.  The book is for sale now on Amazon.  We are currently using the book to aid in the sale of an 8 episode series based on the book. 

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And the adventure continues...