I sometimes think the key moment that shaped my life took place on my eighth birthday, when I got my first radio. Lying in bed that night, I heard a remarkable sound - The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
Unfortunately, my career goal of becoming the fifth Beatle never quite worked out - nor did secret agent, mad scientist, wealthy entrepreneur or famous underground comic book artist/filmmaker.
However, I did co-front what was arguably Central Florida's first punk band, Backseat Baby. We had already been causing riots in high-tone joints like the Apopka Youth Center and the West Orange Community Center in Bithlo by the time The Ramones started honing their chops at CBGB.
For some weird reason, I also got an MBA from Rollins College, spent several years peddling office supplies, and traveled to Taiwan to put on real estate seminars. As the economy collapsed toward the end of the Bush Daddy administration, however, I returned to my senses and went back into a more creative field, theater.
I became Central Florida's most notorious playwright - by virtue of a for-hire piece I did at the behest of a civil rights attorney, I have the distinction of being one of the few writers in America to be declared an "artist" by a circuit court judge.
But I digress. Old guys like me do that sometimes.
While "journalist" was never high on my list of things to become, I did have a longtime fascination with publishing. It began when I was a kid and bought a miniature printing press at a garage sale, with which I cranked out 4-inch by 6-inch newspapers in my bedroom.
I lived in Lubbock, Texas at the time. During the Vietnam era, Lubbock was one of the most boring places imaginable. However, I discovered "The Catalyst," an underground newspaper published by Texas Tech students, and fell in love with it. I used to sometimes spend my allowance on small bundles of the paper and sell them to friends at school. I got out of the business after the principal confiscated my entire inventory one week, leaving me penniless until the next allowance day.
I developed hypergraphia as a reaction to the end of my entrepreneurial career. Rather than seek treatment, however, I decided to parlay it into a series of plays, technical writing gigs and stories for underground publications and near-mainstream alternative papers like the Orlando Weekly. Eventually, a News-Journal editor noticed me and offered me a weekly arts and entertainment advance for the West Volusia edition.
Today, I live in DeLand with my wife, Michelle, who patiently indulges my eccentricities and quixotic projects, and our cats Cleopatra and Nefertiti and dogs Faust and Lola, and work in the News-Journal's special publications department where I write features like recounts of my adventures (and I use that term liberally and with tongue-firmly-in-cheek) in the local great and not-so-great outdoors.
When I'm not writing, I teach tai chi, lead a Buddhist meditation group and spend time in the gym and on my bike trying to convince myself I'm not old yet (I will celebrate my 25th annual 29th birthday next year). I also fight the urge to wear matching white shoes and belt, pull my pants up to my armpits, and grow my eyebrows long enough to braid.
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