At the University of Pennsylvania I became interested in grandiose questions such as “What is the meaning of life?” and “Why do people do the shit that they do and think the shit that they think?” Upon graduation in 1988, I realized how ignorant I was and checked into the University of Connecticut, only to emerge a year later with a Master of Arts degree in philosophy.
I then worked for two years in New York City in Paul Simon’s office, at Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, and producing Russell Donnellon’s “Ursa Minor” CD. In 1991 I moved to Paris to work with Luc Besson on the screenplays for “The Professional” and “The Fifth Element,” Chantal Akerman on the screenplay for “A Couch in New York,” and with other French writers and directors, as well as with Mylène Farmer on her hit song “My Soul is Slashed.” On the one hand I can honestly say that I watched a film that I wrote in a theater at the Cannes Film Festival; on the other hand, it would not be inaccurate to say that I failed out of the film business.
While exploring Thailand I became fascinated by Buddhism, yoga, and meditation, which led me first to study parapsychology at the Rhine Research Institute at Duke University and eventually take a second graduate degree in religious studies (Buddhism, Hinduism and Kabbalah) from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
In March of 2007 I received my 3rd graduate degree, this one from Antioch University in clinical psychology where I focused on positive psychology, attachment theory, CBT, and the works of Jacques Lacan, Alice Miller, Carl Jung, D.W. Winnicott, Melanie Klein and others.
Besides the numerous occasions I have sat with His Holiness The Dalai Lama, I have been privileged to study at Spirit Rock with Jack Kornfield, Rick Hanson, Fred Luskin, James Baraz, Phillip Moffitt, and David Richo.
My primary means of transportation is a Honda 110 Elite Scooter, also known as a Fake Vespa.
My favorite films include (in no particular order) “Better Man,” “Poor Things,” “Hell or High Water,” “I, Tonya,” “Birdman,” “Very Bad Things,” “Naked” by Mike Leigh, “Exotica” by Atom Egoyan, “Man Bites Dog,” “A Simple Plan,” “The Contender,” “Being There,” “In The Loop,” “My Name is Joe,” “Withnail and I,” “Carnal Knowledge,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf,” “The King of Comedy,” “Day for Night,” “Pierrot le fou,” “The Lords of Discipline,” “Dead Man,” and “Three Days of the Condor.”
Studying Lacan reintroduced me to Freud’s “Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious” and in my workshops I often use comedy to display the foibles of human consciousness. (I sometimes refer to what I do at Esalen as “Stand-up Buddhism.”). Netflix has so many great stand-up comedians but the ones that I have watched more than once include Dave Chappelle, Taylor Tomlinson, John Mulaney, Pete Holmes, Bill Burr, Iliza Schlesinger, Nikki Glaser, Mike Birbiglia, Ryan Hamilton, Ronny Chieng, and Demetri Martin.
