Phase 1 Phase 2 40 min. work in progress

My 3 year old son and I go to a baseball game to find our manhood and get more than we bargained for.

I describe one of my favorite synchronicities involving a gate, a symbol, the equinox and a nerdy idea.

I resort to cat videos, sound effects and animal mayhem to present my case for meditating.

Inspired by Dr. Joe Dispenza's "Changing Your Beliefs and Perceptions," this guided meditation is designed to bring you into an energetic state of change by becoming present, releasing limiting beliefs, emotionally experiencing what you want, and turning it over to a higher intelligence. It's a heart-centered, 40 minute love song - from you to you. May you experience the unexpected grace of a loving universe, and take that into the rest of your life.I welcome your comments and feedback.  [...]

from my journal: February 11, 2013 It's a late Sunday night in February, and I've returned from another Hollywood Industry Awards show. Tonight, I heard dull remarks and passionless accolades. I recoiled at film clips that were filled with explosive, heartless, gun pointing violence. One of the few conversations I had was with a preeminent camera operator (he's done the last dozen Spielberg movies) who told me he's leaving next week to go to Canada for three [...]

Halloween brings us a perfect excuse to look at fear, and how fear might be keeping us from living fully into our potential. We are talking about psychological fear, not instinctual, "get me out of here before that tiger has me for lunch" fear. There are two instances when psychological fear shows up in most of us: 1. When things suddenly change: The end of a relationship, getting fired from a job, and moving are 3 biggies. 2. [...]

We've all been victimized and suffered the pain of it. There comes a point at which we must move on. Victimhood does not excuse living the rest of our life in a position of weakness. The Victim's lament is "Poor me!" The Victim feels oppressed, helpless, hopeless,powerless, ashamed, and seems unable to make decisions, solve problems, take pleasure in life, or achieve insight. Colin C. Tipping in his book, Radical Forgiveness: Making Room for the Miracle writes, “Victim Consciousness is defined as [...]

In the late 60's, Stephen Karpman, M.D. came up with a way to graphically display destructive interaction that can occur between people in conflict. The Karpman Drama Triangle describes the kind of crazy-making dynamics that we often see taking place in the workplace and in family relationships. It starts when two people enter into conflict. Two people going at it usually take on the role of Persecutor or Victim without even realizing it. In dysfunctional relationships, people assume [...]

My son, Elliot, had just turned three. (to hear my reading of this, click here) And I began to consider my fatherly duty to teach him how to be a man. Actually, his mother said, "Hey, it's your fatherly duty to teach him how to be a man!" I had only a vague notion of what being a man meant, much less how to teach it. Guys watching sports together was a bonding ritual I'd seen, maybe we'd [...]

A month later, the production coordinator from Long Gone called me to work on another HBO film, The Man Who Broke 1000 Chains, featuring Val Kilmer in one of his first starring roles. Kilmer was very aloof on set. I don't know whether it was part of his process as an actor, or a symptom of something else, but he remained very  much in his own world. I don't believe he ever looked me directly in the eyes. An odd [...]

All of us, every day - are triggered. You're triggered whenever you have an emotional reaction to a person, event or circumstance. Most people know when they're upset, but fewer look at it in terms of being triggered. Instead, they blame the person, event or circumstance for "making me feel this way," when in reality their upsetting feeling is coming from inside; it's been there for a long time and is now coming into awareness. So I'm here [...]

It’s the day before Thanksgiving, 1998. I’m the “A” camera operator on the movie Runaway Bride starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. During the lunch break, the crew stages their own Thanksgiving Day Parade. Per the director’s wishes, each department on the crew has been given the assignment to create a float. The most memorable float is assembled by the onset special effects department. Their centerpiece: a nicely broiled, whole chicken stuffed with small explosives, which they detonate as their float [...]

The good news was: I was a newly minted camera operator in IATSE local 600. The less-than good news was: I had achieved this by working for seven months on Anything for Money, a videotape show. Unless I was careful, I risked becoming known as a video operator. There was a huge gulf between camera operators known for their video skills and operators of film cameras. The prestige went to the film camera operators; they got to work on [...]

If you've worked on a film set, you've seen that magical things can happen when creative people come together under the right leadership. And no one has more influence than the director. Whether they realize it or not, cast and crew are continually taking their cues from the director. Questions like, "Why are we here?" and "How safe is it for me to be myself?" are answered by the director based on her demeanor: a nod, a smile, [...]

My goal coming out of film school was to be a director of photography. The traditional route to becoming a director photography was to work as an assistant.  A camera assistant's job involves knowing the nuts, bolts and electronics of a variety of cameras, lenses, filters and accessories that work with the cameras.On set, when a piece of camera equipment stops working, all eyes turn to the camera assistant whose job is to fix it or [...]