Origins: Willie Nelson

Yes, that’s me and Willie Nelson. It was the late 1980’s at a venue somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area. I had graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute and managed to establish myself as one of the “go to” Production Assistants in the region. The legendary Haskell Wexler was helming this commercial shoot […]

Origins: Brazil

Patrick & I fishing in the Amazon River during a trip to Brazil where we spent a dreamy and adventurous 6 weeks traveling for the pure joy of it. We met so many beautiful people and a marvelous guide who took us down the Amazon River to fish for lunch and later to see the […]

Origins: The Streets of San Francisco

Two PAs (Production Assistants), me, and one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet Adam Moes on the streets of San Francisco working on one film production or another. I can’t remember which one. Could be “Crazy Like a Fox” or “Starman” or maybe a commercial. PAs would often arrive at dawn and leave well […]

Origins: Santa Fé, New Mexico

Do you believe in destiny? Whether or not you do, what we believe shapes our life. Here I am in Santa Fe, New Mexico with an artist I had just met. I’d graduated from high school and had pieced together a wild trip across the United States to celebrate. I was staying with Robert Love, […]

Origins: Elko, Nevada

I was still living in San Francisco when my friend Christopher Coppola called me to see if I would script supervise his first feature film, a period western about cowboy legend Hop-along Cassidy. He planned to shoot in Elko, Nevada at a huge ranch where I would have to stay as a lodger for several […]

Origins: Professor Sergey Ponomorev

I was a student at Cornell at the time. This is by far the most glamorous I have ever looked in a photo although I’m wearing a $10 sweatshirt I bought on sale in the campus store. Around this time, I was studying acting and my community was made up of truly lovely individuals like […]

Origins: Apricot Part Two

Patrick had already made his way halfway across the arts quad by the time I caught up with him. I invited him for dinner at my dorm’s cafeteria where I could bring guests for free because I had a part-time job in the kitchen. Patrick declined. He explained that he was recovering from a painful […]

Origins: Apricot Part One

It was day one of my sophomore year at Cornell University. The day my life was to be forever altered, blessed beyond my wildest dreams. It was the first day of Eva Marie Johnson’s acting class. The day I met Patrick.   About nine of us students piled into the small open space classroom on […]

Origins: Cornell University

This photo was taken during my first year at Cornell University. I had wanted to go to a college that had a strong performing arts program, especially in Dance because I loved modern dance and had a penchant for choreography, but my mother insisted that I go to an Ivy League if I wanted my […]

Origins: Zen Buddhism

Another blast from the past. A time jump from my last post about my childhood. I will go back, but for now, here I am with my sister Crystie soon after we arrived in New York City. By this point, I had lived on three continents, seven cities, and attended eight different schools. I actually […]