MY STORY

It all started back in 1987!

All It took was a Kodak Disc camera back in 1987. A then 7 year old kid picked up a camera for the first time. How i acquired the camera was a thing of legends. Well, not so much legends but through a “Worlds finest Chocolate” fundraiser that my elementary school was holding.

To a 7 year old kid, it was like what is this junk? I honestly thought it was junk. I wanted something like a Nintendo video game or maybe a few Ninja Turtles or something along those lines. What was I going to do with a camera? Well i “won” it for coming in 3rd place. So i am stuck with it now. Ebay didn’t even exist then so i couldn’t sell it on the non existent internet.

So here I was, stuck with a camera I was never going to use. It sat in my closet for almost a year until the then “WWF” (World Wrestling Federation. Now WWE) came to the area. It was then, i decided, why not take the camera with me. I remember begging my parents to get me the NOT CHEAP disc film. I think it was around $8 for. a 12 or 24 exposure. or something along those lines. It was also my first time using a camera so you can imagine how this turned out. The bright side i didn’t have to deal with ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speeds. It was just point and Shoot . Even I could understand that. However I had to be specific on what I shot because i only had the one disc. I think, if i remember correctly, I only had 5 or 6 keepers. However they were good enough for the local paper to buy them from me. I didn’t really make anything on them but the paper did cover the cost of film and developing. Which pretty much was the catalyst for things to come.

The love for the camera didn’t last long. A few months later my ever wandering mind went to other things. Video games, a love for horror movies, music. So the Camera kinda went back into the closet. I took it out a few times when i went to autograph signings like seeing Slash (from Guns N Roses, when he was doing the whole Slash’s Snakepit thing after GNR kinda disappeared but not the drama. Also those WWF superstars such as a 6’8 Giant named Diesel (Better known as Kevin Nash),, Lex Luger and the most interesting characters. The Bushwhackers (and NO Gen X i did NOT let them lick my head. IYKYK!). But that was pretty much the extent of the camera use. Everyone needs to remember, I was very much under the age of 16 at this point. I couldn’t afford to buy film. I couldn’t afford to develop film. That was money i needed for everything else. BUT heres the thing. The camera did awaken the creative side i just couldn’t use the camera to get creative at the point. So i started to write. Which I did up to college.

So when I finished High school, I decided to take a year off before going to College. My father, more than my mother wanted me to go to college, because lets face it they were pushing a college education on TV and the newspapers ect. I wasn’t too keen on it. Because I tend to be analytical. I don’t like debt. I mean i REALLY don’t like debt and the idea of paying on college well into adult hit i had no interest in. However, because of the nagging, i gave in. But being i had a while to decide on a major i had to really think it out. First, I wanted to be the next Howard Stern (don’t judge! i actually had my reasons) so i ended up doing an internship and a local radio station that had a format similar to his (minus the breaking boundaries). the guy actually TALKED ME OUT getting into Radio. He hit me with a reality check as well saying the chances of making it that huge are 1 in a million. Plus the paycheck wouldn’t even be close to his if i didn’t make it that big. Looking back, i think, it was the right advice. EVEN if i stayed on the local level. Radio isn’t what it used to be and everybody is doing podcasts, So if everyone has a voice, I am sure nobody wants to hear mine

I will admit, Money WAS a driving factor. So i’m like, ok. Radio is out. If i don’t get the big checks. I decided to major in Criminal Justice…Like i said, it was more about the money than if i enjoyed it. I still was writing but that wasn’t getting anywheres. Not because i didn’t have the imagination but because i had an issue putting my ideas into words. That didn’t come to a realization until the end of my college career. I am creative as all hell, but you ask me to put into words, I have a hard time to do it….I also realized (after spending 3 years at school) i absolutely hated talking. Here i am, who first wanted to get into talk radio. Who wanted to do the lawyer thing. Didn’t like to talk. Kind of ironic on that. We can see where this was goiing. And No, i didn’t finish college. I was terrible at math and science and no amount of help was going to help me.