Crush world

The word captures it all but doesn't really capture the experience.  I was the middle child of a family of nine.  My father was a neurosurgeon and my mother was a sculpture - so we were very fortunate. But we always had to work: paper route, raking leaves, shoveling snow - our parents instilled a strong work ethic. Sneaking my Dad's Jag out at midnight was not part of their ethics - but it was fun. 

My wife is an early childhood specialist from Brazil.  Together we have four kids, the oldest is in graduate school, the youngest is in the Boy Scouts.  Primary emotion: love.

I've been known to live for vacations.  I've also lived in London, San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York.  I was born in a small foreign country...New Jersey.

It's obvious that I've had no formal training.  I guess you could say I've been developing my own style since I was a teenager.  Influences: Dali, Peter Max, Cezanne. 

I started writing plays in 1972.  I founded The Play Works Company in 1984 in Philadelphia, an arts service organization to help playwrights develop their new plays.  

I also founded Try Arts, a theater-gallery on South Street until they ran me out of town!

After I graduated from Columbia, I attended a job fair at NYU and I heard these two guys talking about "forensic social work" -- not blood and bones but hearts and minds.  It's like a puzzle: why people do what they do up until the moment they get arrested.  I landed on Rikers Island and Bedford Hill Correctional (Women's) Facility eventually - fortunately I got to go home at night.  I met some serious characters at these places.

What started out as a side gig, I was crisis counseling for FEMA after 9/11 and again after Sandy.  It's always amazed me how people put their feet on the ground every morning to do it again.