He grew up in Westport, Connecticut; attended a boarding school in St. Louis, Missouri, went to five colleges in three states; backpacked Mt. Harvard in Colorado; and worked in construction on a small island outside of Seattle, with a waterbed wholesaler in Denver, in the restaurant business in three states, as a production assistant in Hollywood; ran a production catering company in Los Angeles where he worked with Smoky Robinson, Bob Seeger, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stevie Wonder, Rick James, Robert Englund, Vanna White, U2, and more; joined a Swiss relief convoy taking medication to war-torn Romania, sailed the Greek isles and the Long Island Sound, swam in the Danube, got drunk on the Eiffel Tower, walked a 100 miles in New York City, got arrested in Pasadena, received a Masters in English from Cal State Northridge in California, and taught writing, literature and film at Antelope Valley College as a tenured professor. He has been married to an amazing woman for 29 years, and has two equally amazing children in their 20’s, plus a large German Shepherd mixed breed (the model for DumDum).