WELCOME TO OUR PROGRAM, ALREADY IN PROGRESS...
Hi there -- I'm a bestselling novelist and screenwriter as well as a musician. Originally self-taught on guitar, I got into the Berklee College of Music at the age of 19 with no formal musical education, a six-song self-produced demo, and a lot of cajones. I completed the four year program in three years and graduated with honors. In my final semester, I came up with an idea about a punk vampire in the subways of Manhattan; I finished school and moved to NYC, where I spent two years as a roller-skating street messenger: combat-skating midtown Manhattan by day, writing the book and playing in rock bands by night. With no agent and no experience, I ultimately delivered the book to the publisher disguised as a messenger run. It worked. The book, THE LIGHT AT THE END, became a NY Times bestseller. From there I went on to write more books, with millions of copies in print and reprints in nine languages... and then went on to Los Angeles to become a screenwriter for feature film and television. Like you do. Not to get all Beetlejuice about it, but life is strange and unusual sometimes.
That was many moons ago. I had some success but never got rich, but I always lived my life on my own terms, and I did the work I felt it important to do. I think I've lived an interesting life.
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On June 4, 2016, at the age of 57, I had emergency spinal surgery to remove what I had thought was a pinched nerve in my back, but turned out to be a tumor on my T7 vertebrae. The tumor had bored through the bone and reached my spinal cord; when it constricted the nerves by a factor of 50% my legs gave out and stopped "legging" -- I couldn't walk or stand or even crawl. On Memorial Day, I woke up, stood up, and fell over.
An ambulance ride, eleven hours in ER and then a transfer to Sentara Norfolk General, left me spending twelve days in the Trauma Ward. It was there that I learned that the reason why I had the tumor was that I had Stage Four Prostate Cancer, metastisized to my bones. No early symptoms, no warning signs, just boom. By the time I found out, Stages 1-3 had passed in stealthy silence, or were mistaken for something less life threatening, more mundane... and I realized that the fight of my life had just kicked off, and the dark dance it portends will last the rest of my days.
So now I know. And I fight.
The surgery was successful. I had faced the very real possibility of never walking again; as it is, it will be years before I am back to anything like normal. The treatment is ongoing: radiation, hormone therapy, chemo. The medical bills are comically huge, astronomical. I set up a gofundme page to help in that part of the fight, if you're into that kind of thing.
Now, some two years year, the experience gave rise to THE ART OF NOT DYING: Tales of Recovery on the Resurrection Road. A mixed media meta project in really real time. It's still a relaltively new endeavor, evolving from real life into something one might call, art? But it exists, for entirely its own reasons... maybe because art imitates life imitating art; maybe because silence is death and some things just need to be said; maybe just because, why the hell not?
To date the project has yielded two indie albums: RESURRECTION ROAD (2017), and OUTPOSTS (2018); I am releasing the next album KICKING CANS, in 2019... and I'll keep doing them as long as I'm around. These are old school album-style solo projects, writ in indie rock style: just a boy and his iMac and garageband, and some guitars, keys, and loops. I write, perform, record and produce all of it. It keeps me busy.
But THE ART OF NOT DYING is about more than one man's struggle against a sneak attack from an insidious foe. It's about living: finding and creating the things, situations, and relationships that sustain you, doing the things that make your life meaningful.
None of us know how long we have. We all die. But we're not there yet, so live. Appreciate every moment. Be who you really are. Make your dreams a reality. Take care of yourself, take of your people, try to leave everything a little bit better than you found it. Love intensely and fiercely. Exercise radical kindness. Take no shit, and give none, either. Fight against evil in the world, starting first and foremost within yourself. Create light in the endless darkness. Find the art in every single thing. Elevate everything you do to an art form. Live courageously, unapologetically. And remember that so much of what we do seems thankless, because we forget to say thanks.
And when the cynical say to you, how can you have hope when the world is so fucked? Tell them, because if I don't the world will still be fucked, but there will be no hope.
So fight, like your life depended on it. Because it does.
Welcome to my Resurrection Road.
