A photo of me while on a trout fishing trip to Allegheny National Forest in 1993.
Channeling my inner sea captain phase I guess? All I can really tell you is that it was my first year after art school. I'd been working a variety of jobs and had recently begun full time at a set construction shop, which we created for television, movies, stage and trade-shows. I'd just bought my first Jeep and my girlfriend was overseas, teaching in Japan for the year. The personal theme song for the year was The Ramblin' Rover, Andy M. Stewart & Silly Wizard. Everything was an adventure! "If you're bent wi' arth-i-ritis Your bowels have got colitis You've gallopin' with bollockitis And you're thinkin' it's time you died If you been a man of action Though you're lying there in traction You will get some satisfaction Thinkin', "Jesus, at least I tried!"
It was a surprise to find the negative of this photo of me when I was 20 years old. It was early in 1988 that this was taken. It's in the tiny apartment I shared with five other young, broke students from various trade schools. We all shared this two bedroom, one bath as well as all being perpetually broke. Our downstairs neighbor was a prostitute with seven small children. She'd sleep all day, and the kids would run wild. Whenever I'd get locked out I'd ask them to break in since I knew they played in our place while we went to school They never took anything. At night, if we didn't secure the garbage bag the rodents would drag them all over the place. There were so many cockroaches just recalling it is making me shudder. Aside from my art supplies, everything you see in this shot was what I owned. A few decorations, a pallet to sleep on. At my lightest weight I was around 145# (67kg). It truly motivated me to focus on getting past "just surviving."
